Dinner was served in a cool, shady room which looked out upon a somewhat bald and very sunny garden, and the conversation soon became quite animated. Oswald's residence at Grunwald was an inexhaustible theme. His hostess was a native of that city, one of the many daughters of a higher church dignitary there, who had just lived long enough to procure for his son-in-law the best cure in the diocese. She was very proud of her Doctor of Divinity, for the minister had actually obtained that academic honor by a most erudite dissertation on the writings which an obscure father of the church, of whom literally nothing was known beyond the name, might possibly have left behind him. But Oswald could not help noticing that he had certainly not been caught by her personal attractions, and no longer wondered why the table was so small and the house so quiet. The good lady also knew Professor Berger, and some other families with whom Oswald had become acquainted. Thus they could enjoy a delightful dish of gossip with each other, and Oswald understood what devastation the double-edged sword of his hostess must, in her time, have caused in a small town like Grunwald.
In the mean time the dessert had been put upon the table, and the minister had opened a second bottle with a certain solemnity; the lady had left them, and ordered coffee to be served in a garden-house. The minister had lighted a cigar, unbuttoned his black satin waistcoat half-way, and seemed to be determined to indulge himself in the illusion that he had enjoyed a sybaritic feast. He summoned Oswald to drink with him to the health of that most illustrious family with whom he had the good fortune to reside, a compliment which Oswald returned by offering a toast to his amiable, learned, and yet modest hostess.
"Many thanks, many thanks, my dear young friend," said the flattered minister, pressing Oswald's hand over and over again. "Yes, you are right, a learned, modest woman. Have you noticed that she corresponds with more than one of our greatest literary men, and that she contributes under the name of Primula to some of our magazines?"
"Is it possible?" said Oswald
"I assure you it is so, my dear friend, and you may imagine what pleasure it gives me to read in the 'Correspondence' of the paper: 'Fashwitz, Primula Veris (that is Gustava's cipher), a thousand thanks for your amiable letter;' or, 'You have given us great pleasure by sending us your admirable poem; it will appear in the next number,' etc."
"I can well imagine," replied Oswald, in an absent manner. "But had we not better follow our charming hostess into the garden?"
"Festina lente," cried the minister, upon whom the wine began to tell a little. "We shall not meet again as young as we are now. A good glass of wine is a thing not to be treated lightly, and Gustava is too generous to shorten our enjoyment. But the Bible tells us, that of every good thing there are three; so let us have a third bottle." ...
"But, Jager, the coffee is getting cold," cried the piercing voice of Primula Veris from the garden through the open window.
"We are coming, we are coming," replied the obedient husband. "I give thanks for you and me, my dear young friend"--and with these words he embraced Oswald; "my dear friend"--another embrace--"and----"
"But we forget that coffee is waiting for us," said Oswald, barely escaping a third embrace and making his way to the garden, while the minister, before following his guest, quickly poured the last contents of the bottle into a glass and emptied it in a hurry, probably giving thanks only for himself this time.
The garden was not exactly the most pleasant place in the world at that hour of the day. The plantations were quite young yet; the small trees scarcely as high as a man, and the garden appeared, therefore, most prosaic and bare, affording no shadow anywhere. Oswald could not help comparing it to the theology of his reverend host, even with regard to the eminent place given here also to the practically useful. For the vegetables were flourishing, while flowers were few and far between; a few sun-flowers alone recalled the appearance of Primula Veris, and by their tendency to turn always towards the sun, in whatever part of the heavens it might stand, the practical philosophy of her illustrious husband.
Fortunately, the bower in which coffee was served was thickly overgrown with jessamine and afforded a welcome shelter against the sun, whose rays were burning fiercely. Here they found the minister's wife, with a work-basket by her side, in which Oswald discovered, with some anticipation of evil, a small volume amid a host of sewing materials.
"Woe is me," he said to himself, "if that be a collection of Primula's poems, taken from the magazines to which she contributes!"
He tried to interest the minister in his vegetables; he insisted upon examining himself the great improvements which his host had made in beehives; at last he spoke of the necessity which forced him to take his leave at once--in fine, he did all that a man in his critical situation can do, but all in vain!
"We could not think of letting you go in this heat," said Primula, letting her hand gently glide into the work-basket, a movement which did not escape Oswald. "We are not overshadowed here by the tall pine-tree or the white poplar, but at least we are in the shade, and you surely would not exchange that for the heat and dust of the highroad? Out of question! Another cup, my honored guest? This is not Falernian, as the great Roman calls it in the ode from which I quoted just now, but a beverage which has become somewhat classic in its turn, since our great Voss has sung 'its praises in his noble verses.' Tell me, dear sir, has not the sojourn under our lowly roof reminded you of certain parts of his lovely idyl? Have you not felt with me, that here, far from the turmoil of the markets of men, the voice of poetry is heard speaking to us distinctly?"
"Now the terrible event is approaching!" thought Oswald.
"I admire your gift," he said, "to bind so sweetly old and new things, reality and poetry, into a common wreath, full of fragrance. I myself have unfortunately of late come in contact with the prose of daily life alone; and, I confess it with reluctance, I have done the thing I formerly considered impossible, and reconciled myself with it, although of course I have had to pay a penalty by losing all taste for the charms of poetry."
"Oh, you must not think so," exclaimed Primula. "The well of poetry may at times pour forth less abundant waters, but it never dries up entirely. You accuse yourself of being no longer susceptible to the charms of poetry. That--here she put her hand openly upon the little volume in black and gold--that ought perhaps to deter me from my purpose to read to you a few of those poems which you may have noticed, under the pseudonym of Primula Veris, in several of our prominent magazines. But my faith in the power of poetry, and especially of the latent poetry of the heart, is too great to allow my being convinced of the contrary by your self-condemnation. May I venture the attempt to put the correctness of my views to the test?"
"How have I deserved such very great kindness?" murmured Oswald, leaning back in full resignation, and closing the eyes in a manner which fortunately is common to persons who are half asleep as well as to those who are in ecstasy.
"I have given the title of Cornflowers to my little work," said Primula, turning over the leaves in sweet bashfulness, "because most of my poems have bloomed forth while I was walking through waving wheatfields, and at all events amid rural surroundings."
"How clever!" breathed Oswald.
"Following the rules of the masters of our art, and imitating the example of the Greeks, who placed a tragedy before a comedy, or rather, who made the comedy always succeed the tragedy, I shall read you first a serious, then a comic, then again...."
"Certainly, certainly; that will much enhance the charm of each poem," said Oswald, frightened at the endless perspective.
"Would you not rather, dearest Gustava----" said the minister.
"Let me have my choice," replied the poetess, in a soft but decisive tone, and then, clearing her throat--
"On a Dead Mole."
"On what?" cried Oswald, starting up with amazement.
"Well, you see, dear friend," said Primula, "how the mere title already electrifies you."
"Yes, indeed!" murmured Oswald, sinking back in his corner.
"On a Dead Mole," repeated the poetess, "which I found by the wayside:--
"How do you lie so quiet thereWith black and shining skin!Your fate, alas! I cannot bear,Poor fellow, black as sin!They scornèd you, they scoffed at you,They said that you were blind!They surely were but people whoAre of the same blind kind.You do not show your face by day,Like those to whom the world is dear;Yet light shone on your honest way,And in your heart 'twas clear!And to the stars on God's own sky,High in the heaven's dome,You looked from your own hill on sly,You little learned gnome.You lived so quiet, harmless, still,In honor and in truth below!You did not steal, you did not kill,Alas! and now you're lying low!Now do you lie so quiet thereWith black and shining skin!Your fate, alas! I cannot bear,Poor fellow, black as sin!"
"How do you lie so quiet there
With black and shining skin!
Your fate, alas! I cannot bear,
Poor fellow, black as sin!
They scornèd you, they scoffed at you,
They said that you were blind!
They surely were but people who
Are of the same blind kind.
You do not show your face by day,
Like those to whom the world is dear;
Yet light shone on your honest way,
And in your heart 'twas clear!
And to the stars on God's own sky,
High in the heaven's dome,
You looked from your own hill on sly,
You little learned gnome.
You lived so quiet, harmless, still,
In honor and in truth below!
You did not steal, you did not kill,
Alas! and now you're lying low!
Now do you lie so quiet there
With black and shining skin!
Your fate, alas! I cannot bear,
Poor fellow, black as sin!"
"That is beautiful," said Oswald. "That is genuine lyric poetry, such as we find but rarely in our day. Not the hot-house poetry, which begins with reminiscences of Heine, strikes then a few of Lenau's accords, and ends with a blast after Freiligrath's manner. What deep genuine feeling there is in these stanzas! and yet such energy of language. A fellow dark as sin, that is simple but beautiful; that you have learnt from Goethe."
"You are really too kind, dear friend," said Primula, highly pleased. "Indeed you make me blush by your liberal praise. But, pray be candid, and tell me if you do not think that the whole is, after all, a little too idealistic for our modern taste?"
"Perhaps for our realists, who certainly go too far in their demands, and whose desire to make everything perfectly natural will probably lead them ere long, when Faust is played, to bring a real poodle on the stage, and to make him howl and yell by pinching his tail. But I am sure you could satisfy even those gentlemen if you wished to do so."
"What do you think of this poem?" asked the poetess, "On my Rooster?"
Oswald leant back in his corner.
"Like Richard Duke of NormandyMy hero fought most bravely,All trembled when they heard his crow:Cockadoodledoo!"
"Like Richard Duke of NormandyMy hero fought most bravely,All trembled when they heard his crow:
Cockadoodledoo!"
"That is naïve!" said Oswald.
"Is it not?" said Primula.
"He never stirred late at nightBut in the morning early brightThe cattle woke, when they heard his crow:Cockadoodledoo!"He spared no pains for his lady love,For her he scratched below, above,She heard with ecstasy his crow:Cockadoodledoo!"Of genius boasts my hero not,And poetry did not fall to his lot,Yet do I love indeed his crow:Cockadoodledoo!"
"He never stirred late at nightBut in the morning early brightThe cattle woke, when they heard his crow:
Cockadoodledoo!
"He spared no pains for his lady love,
For her he scratched below, above,
She heard with ecstasy his crow:
Cockadoodledoo!
"Of genius boasts my hero not,
And poetry did not fall to his lot,
Yet do I love indeed his crow:
Cockadoodledoo!"
"Well, what do you say, dear friend?"
"What can I say," replied Oswald, "except that you have fully accomplished your purpose. The hearer imagines he is in the poultry-yard. The notes you strike are the very notes of nature; they come from the heart of things. The poem is a little gem of the realistic school of our day. But now, gifted lady, one more request: However much it may enhance the value of a poem to hear it from the eloquent lips of the poetess herself--I should not like the impression which the last stanzas have produced to be effaced by another poem; whatever else there may be in store for me, this is your highest triumph."
"Only one more you must allow me to read. It forms, so to speak, a trilogy with the other two, a summary of all that I have learnt by close study of nature. May I begin?"
"I pray you will."
"To A Maybug lying on his Back.""Oh thou Bacchante of a merry night of May!Hast thou indulged in nectar of the flowers,Hast thou enjoyed the fragrance of the bowers,From evening until early break of day?Hast thou forgotten, ah! that life is short?That all below is destined for the silent grave,Where lies the beauty now and all the brave,The far renowned, the great of ev'ry sort?I read with awe thy sad and solemn mien,Where doubtful rhymes alone are written.Alas! thy life was but an idle, glist'ning sheen,By those thou lovedst thou art smitten,Thou bug of May, thou image of false love!"
"To A Maybug lying on his Back."
"Oh thou Bacchante of a merry night of May!Hast thou indulged in nectar of the flowers,Hast thou enjoyed the fragrance of the bowers,From evening until early break of day?Hast thou forgotten, ah! that life is short?That all below is destined for the silent grave,Where lies the beauty now and all the brave,The far renowned, the great of ev'ry sort?I read with awe thy sad and solemn mien,Where doubtful rhymes alone are written.Alas! thy life was but an idle, glist'ning sheen,By those thou lovedst thou art smitten,Thou bug of May, thou image of false love!"
The fair reader ended. Oswald appeared to be plunged in silent delight; Primula sat expectant, when suddenly the rolling of a carriage was heard, which soon after stopped at the house.
"Oh mistress, oh mistress!" cried the parlor-maid, in a tone of great anxiety.
Oswald felt relieved. Here was a visitor, and the reading, he hoped, was brought to an end. Perhaps this even gave him an opportunity to end his visit.
"It is the Pluggens family, dear Gustava," said the minister, who had reconnoitred the new arrival through the garden-hedge. "The lady herself, and her two daughters. Could you make a little haste." ...
"Excuse me, my dearest friend," said the poetess, hurriedly closing the book; "but you know: as often as we attempt to take a bolder flight----"
"Oh mistress, oh mistress!" cried the voice with increasing anxiety from the garden-gate.
"I am coming," replied the poetess, in great perturbation, and hastened on the sunny walk toward the house.
"Shall we not too----" suggested the minister.
"Excuse me, I pray, but I shall have to go," said Oswald, interrupting him.
"But why, my dear sir? The lady is a most excellent person, and the daughters, although not very beautiful----"
"And were they as fair as angels, I should have to deny myself the pleasure of seeing them. Good-by! Good-by! Pray make my excuses to Mrs. Jager. That gate there is open, is it not?Au revoir."
And so Oswald hurried towards the gate. The minister had far too good an opinion of himself and his Primula to ascribe the "dear friend's" precipitate flight to any other reason than his shyness and his reluctance to meet this high and noble family, to whom he was unknown. Oswald, in the mean time, made his way down the village street and out into the open fields, and did not relax his steps until he was safe under the fine old trees behind which, as he knew, was hid the estate of Melitta.
The forest path, on which Oswald was walking merrily, seemed to be little frequented by foot-passengers, and still less by vehicles. It must have been nearly impassable in winter; but now, in midsummer, it was all the brighter and really romantic. The ditches on either side were badly kept, and every now and then the grass and the broad plantain would creep all the way across from side to side, and in many places the tall beeches and old oak-trees formed a dense canopy overhead. The farther Oswald penetrated into this leafy wilderness the quieter the forest became, so quiet and almost lifeless that he stopped the song which he had begun in his joyous happiness, as if he feared to disturb the forest in its slumbers.
For in these hot afternoon hours the forest assuredly does slumber. The green ocean of leaves no longer moves in swelling waves; quiet and immovable it drinks in the heat of the sun. Scarcely a leaf rustles here and there in one of the trees. Perhaps the little noise awakens another sleeping neighbor, and they whisper and tell the disturber of their peace that this is not the hour for chatting, and then they fall to dreaming again. The birds are hid in the thickest foliage and await the cool of the evening. The tiny mothers doze on their nest over their half-fledged young, and papa sits near by on a branch, his little head snugly ensconced under his wing, and sleeps, tired as he is with his early rising, his indefatigable singing all day long, and his busy hunting after worms and midges. They know that now is the good time for them, and dance merrily in the red rays of the sun, which slip stealthily through the branches, or they creep and hurry, and hasten through the warm, soft moss. Deep silence! But suddenly there arises a hoarse peculiar cry, in short, rapidly uttered notes, which sound like the voice of anger. That is the hawk, the robber of the forest. He is a wicked fellow, whom his bad conscience rarely allows to sleep, and that is the reason why his cry is so sharp and hoarse, as he is drawing high up in the blue air, proudly and lonely, his wide mysterious circle above his realm, the peaceful sea of leaves.
A curly-headed boy, who was watching his geese near the edge of the forest, had told Oswald that the road to Berkow was only about half an hour long, and could not well be missed. Of course he had taken it for granted, in giving his information, that the traveller would mind his way and not go astray. But as Oswald had not attended to the road, but, as was his habit, rather to everything else, as he had preferred leaping the ditches on either side every now and then, and rushing into the sacred halls of the beautiful forest, with their mighty pillars and lofty domes, he had long since lost his way. He had, indeed, for some time followed a narrow footpath, which led nowhere in particular, and only tempted him to penetrate deeper and deeper into the forest.
Oswald stopped and listened; he thought he might hear the voice of a human being, or the blows of an axe; but he heard nothing but the cry of the hawk and the beating of his own heart. He called out merrily: "Which is the way to Berkow, O hawk?" and the echo answered as merrily: Hawk!
At last it became lighter between the trees. He fancied he saw the end of the forest. But instead of that he only stepped out upon a clearing, which was almost entirely occupied by a small lake, covered with reeds and rushes. Walking along the edge, he frightened a loving couple of summer ducks, who rose from the reeds and flew with wild haste across the morass towards the wood. Then again deep silence!
"Wait and watch," said Oswald, to himself. "In the mean time I will rest a little, for I begin to feel rather tired."
He hung his straw hat upon a branch, spread his handkerchief over a moss-covered root of a secular beech-tree, and stretched himself comfortably on the soft heather.
"This place is made to sleep in," he said to himself, dreamily following with his eye the dragon-flies, who now shot like arrows across the dark waters and now stood as if spell-bound. "Who knows but this may be an enchanted wood, a fragment of forgotten romance, a little remnant of the grand old forests of which we read in legends and fairy tales; a portion perhaps of that forest in which the count lived, who, every time when his notes became due and he could not pay them, sold one of his daughters--a way of paying old debts which they say has not yet gone entirely out of fashion. And he who falls asleep in this forest, as I fancy I shall presently do myself, has to sleep on for a few hundred years, and when he wakes up once more his beard is snow-white and hanging down to the belt. Then he is justly astonished at himself, and asks the first peasant he meets with where the way to Berkow is!"--"Berkow," replies the man, politely; "never heard of such a place."--"I mean the château in the forest, where Melitta lives."--"Melitta? But, my dear sir, that's an old fairy tale."--"A fairy tale?"--"Why certainly! My old grandmamma has told it me I know not how often." Many, many hundred years ago there was a great forest standing in this country; and in the forest lived a fairy, and her name was Melitta. She had the most beautiful dark-brown eyes, such as the children of men are never known to have, and a voice sweet as honey, and that is why the people called her Melitta. She was the most beautiful and sweetest of fairies in the world; but she had one little weakness; from time to time she would allure a young man into this forest and make him lose his way amid the tall oaks and beeches, each one of which was exactly like the next one. Then she rejoiced. And when she wanted to set a poor fellow wandering in this way, she mounted her horse Bella--for this fairy had nothing but what was beautiful around her--and travelled far and wide, till she found a stupid man. For she liked stupid men the best. Then she charmed him with her beauty, with her soft, teasing, bewitching ways and her honey-sweet voice; and in order to make the enchantment lasting, she gave him something--perhaps a rose. If he was stupid enough to accept that, he had to wander the very next day into the forest, whether he would or not. Then, of course, he lost his way, and ran to and fro and round about, till at last he would lie down to sleep at the foot of an old beech-tree. And when he is lying there watching the dragon-flies as they try to catch each other, and looking at the water, and listening to the whispers in the rushes, and the low murmurs in the branches above, he hears low voices saying----"Melitta, are you never coming? Get down from Bella. Do you not see that I am chained to this place? Oh, you darling, you sweetest, you most lovely of women! Melitta, sweet one! a kiss, one single kiss! And you are going, going now--but what is that? Away, brown witch! No, no--you are not Melitta."
Oswald raised himself on his elbow and stared, drunk with sleep, into the brown face that was bending over him. "What do you want?"
"No harm done, my dear young gentleman! Saw the young gentleman lying there; did not know if dead or asleep. 'Tis dangerous to sleep in the forest so near the swamp, if one is not accustomed to it from childhood up."
Oswald, who had in the mean time recovered himself entirely, examined the woman more closely and recognized in her one of the many gypsy women who infest that country, telling fortunes, hawking trifles, playing on the jewsharp, begging, or more frequently stealing. Thus they go from fair to fair, and from village to village. This one might have been twenty-five or thirty years old, as far as one could judge from the fire of her black eyes, the round, half-naked arms, and the firm carriage of her tall, slender form; but wind and weather, hunger and sorrow, perhaps also evil passions, had made sad havoc with the once good-looking face. The features were too sharply marked, the eyes too deeply sunk, and even the abundant bluish-black hair showed already here and there many a silvery streak. And yet it was a pity she did not rather display the thick tresses in their graceful windings than the rags of red stuff, which she had wrapped, turban-fashion, around her well-shaped head. Her dress was poor and much patched, her feet quite bare. Oswald now also noticed that an oddly shaped instrument was hanging on one of the trees, and a variety of quaint tools were lying about. A donkey, adorned with a red feather and a bright-colored blanket, was wandering thoughtfully through the trees and enjoying now and then a mouthful of the rich, hard grass.
"Are you quite alone, my good woman?" asked Oswald.
"No; I have my boy here, the Cziko; he is gone into the wood to fetch water; this here is fit only for frogs and toads."
"And how did you get to this secluded spot?"
"Know the place for years. Always stop here when I come to this country. Cheaper lodgings here than in the tavern, my good gentleman."
"Then you can show me the way to Berkow, I suppose. Is it far from here?"
"Not far at all. The boy, the Cziko, shall show you."
The woman put her hands to her mouth and imitated the call of the wood-dove in the most perfect manner. At once the cry of the hawk came back from the forest, and soon afterwards a boy came running out, who, however, stopped short, with an air of distrust and apprehension, as soon as he saw the stranger. The mother uttered a few words in an unknown tongue, and he seemed to feel at once reassured. He came forward, offered Oswald fearlessly the tin cup which he was holding in his hand, and said: "Will you drink, sir?"
The cup was not particularly neat, but the boy far too strikingly handsome to be refused, even if Oswald had been less thirsty than he really was. Cziko was perhaps ten years old, but he also looked older. The damp fogs drifting over autumnal fields, and the snow-storms whistling through the hawthorn bushes had washed out the youthful freshness of the boy's face, and given an expression of sorrow and defiance to the dark gazelle eyes, so that one could not look at them without feeling saddened.
The woman saw at once, with the doubly sharp eye of the beggar and the mother, what a deep impression her boy had made upon the stranger.
"Yes, he is a fine boy, the Cziko," she said, "swift like a squirrel, and brave like a wild-cat, and he plays the cymbal like no other."
"Is that a cymbal hanging on the tree there?" asked Oswald, somewhat surprised that the instrument was really existing somewhere else but in Holy Writ and poetry.
"Go, Cziko, show the gentleman what you know," said the woman.
The boy took the instrument down, laid it carefully on the stump of a tree, and, seizing the two sticks, began a most wondrous music, striking first slowly and then quicker and quicker. His heart seemed to be overflowing with music; his hollow brown cheeks flushed up; his dark eyes, which he raised now and then dreamily to the tree-tops, shone brightly. Then he fell into another movement and another air, and after a few bars, the woman, who had in the mean time made a brisk fire under a kettle, began to sing, in a low, melodious voice, one of those Sclavonic national songs, whose plaintive air is apt to make the heart melancholy and the eyes tearful. Oswald sat there, leaning his head on his hand and listening as in a dream. He felt as if the sad notes, such as he had never heard before, were calling forth entirely new feelings in his bosom; as if they excited deep sympathy in him with his own life, and the life of all other beings, and made him long and yearn after an infinite, nameless happiness.
The song came to an end. Oswald started up. He looked at his watch. Three hours had passed away since he had entered the forest; if he wished to see Melitta to-day he must not lose another moment.
"Can Cziko show me the way to Berkow?" he said, going up to the woman and offering her a few pieces of money. The gypsy swept the money from his open hand, as if she only wanted to see the lines in it better, and holding it by the tips of the fingers, she seemed to study them eagerly.
"Well," said Oswald, "not much that is good there?"
"Much good, much evil," said the gypsy, shaking her head.
"That is the way of life," said Oswald, "and what is the good?"
"Much good, much evil," repeated the woman. "Every good line crossed by a bad line; cannot tell you the good without the evil."
"Well then, read it as it comes!" said Oswald
"Much happiness, and yet not happy," murmured the gypsy. "The enemy of men and the friend of women; quick to hate, quick to love; varied life, early death."
"Well," said Oswald, "I do not object to that. But how about the women? I am interested in that."
"Much good, much evil," repeated the woman, bending still lower over the hand, as if she did not wish the faintest line to escape her. "Much love, very much love, and yet so little happiness, ah! so little!"
"Am I in love now?"
"Yes."
"And with whom?"
"A very great lady, very beautiful and very rich."
"Hm! And does she love me?"
"More, far more, than you love her."
"And where is the evil?"
"Much evil, much evil! You cannot be faithful."
"How do you know that?"
The fortune-teller shrugged her shoulders. "Here stands another lady, and there still another--you love them all. That ought not to be. Brings you no good luck."
"But about the varied life and early death, is that quite sure? Well then, the harm cannot be so very great. Here, take this as a reward for your good news."
"Thanks. Take only for good luck, which I foretell, not for ill luck."
"Then I do not wonder that you are so poor, my good woman. Then take it for the trouble I am giving Cziko."
The gypsy took the money with real or feigned reluctance, and called the boy, who had, in the mean time, continued to improvise new melodies on his instrument. She whispered a few words in his ear, in her own language, and at once the boy started up and said to Oswald: "Will you follow me, sir?"
"Good-by, my good woman," said Oswald, looking with a feeling of interest into the dark, brilliant eyes of the gypsy woman. "When you come to Grenwitz, you must not forget to ask for Doctor Stein."
The woman crossed her arms over her swelling bosom and bowed low. Oswald picked up his hat and followed Cziko, who was already half concealed by the trees.
"Not so fast, Cziko," cried Oswald, loosening his coat from the thorns of a bush; "have a little consideration for my state of civilization."
The boy went more slowly, but always kept at a distance from the stranger. Oswald tried in vain to engage him in a conversation, whilst he was busy pushing the branches aside, through which the boy had just slipped before him like a wildcat. Thus they might have been walking on for a quarter of an hour when they found themselves suddenly in a small wood, which probably belonged already to the park of Berkow. The paths were carefully kept; here and there a well-chosen seat, or a weather-beaten Hermes pillar; everywhere traces of the hand of man. Then they came to a wider road, which was probably the continuation of that road on which Oswald had walked at first, and soon after to a pair of iron gates, which opened upon a fine court-yard. Cziko stopped suddenly; he pointed silently to the gates, bowed with crossed arms to Oswald, and ran back into the bushes, behind which he was almost instantly concealed.
"A mysterious beginning," said the young man to himself, as he walked slowly, almost hesitatingly, towards the gates. "I wonder if it is the after-effect of my strange encounter with those gypsies, or an anticipation of what is to befall me here which gives me such a strange feeling. Perhaps I had, after all, done better to accept the carriage which the old baron offered me yesterday. I might have escaped the minister and his Primula, and, at all events, I should not arrive here in a sadly neglected and disordered costume, after the manner of a vagabond, but in state, drawn by two magnificent bays. Well, well! A man is a man for a' that, and Melitta, if I am not grievously mistaken, prefers the kernel to the shell of the nut."
He opened the gates, which were not locked, and entered the court-yard. A huge Newfoundland dog who had been lying on the grass rose slowly when he heard the gates grating on their hinges, and came up to Oswald wagging his tail. "Well, here at least I meet with a kindly welcome," said the young man to himself, caressing the enormous animal. On the right hand he noticed a bright garden, separated by a low fence, in a line with the front of the mansion. It was a low house of two stories, very simple, but rather picturesque, thanks to a massive stone balcony over the front-door, and two superb linden-trees just in front. The three other sides of the large square were filled with offices and farm-buildings. A low fence and a row of dwarf fruit-trees formed a line of division between the court-yard and the lawn immediately before the house. As Oswald walked along the front of the house, he saw the high windows open; but there seemed to be nobody in the fine rooms beyond. The front-door was also open, and allowed him to look into a noble hall with a floor of colored marble. A large hall-clock alone broke the deep silence with its slow ticking. The court-yard even was buried in silence. The whole place looked deserted, and only the sparrows were twittering and making quite a noise in the linden-trees, and the swallows flitted low under the eaves to their young in the nests, and then as swiftly shot back again for more food.
"There is probably no one at home," thought Oswald. "You have made the long journey for nothing. Or can you perhaps tell me where your mistress is, my good dog? Shall we look in the garden?"
The dog looked as if he had understood Oswald's question, and trotted off towards a gate close by the house, which evidently led into the garden; there he stopped and looked round at the stranger.
"Then she is in the garden?"
Oswald opened the gate. The dog ran before him past a number of flower-beds into a narrow walk with hedges on either side, down to a flight of steps, which led through the hedge upon a kind of terrace. There he once more looked round at Oswald. Then he ran up the steps. Oswald followed.
The creature had disappeared in a group of tall, blooming shrubs. In the mean time the young man had advanced a few steps, and there a picture presented itself to his eyes which fixed him motionless to the spot. He looked upon a small open space which was framed in on two sides by the tall hedges that enclosed the whole terrace. In the centre a huge pine-tree with broad-spreading branches rose in full might like a lance. At the foot of the tree, and upon the carpet of brown leaves, stood a round garden-table and a few chairs. In one of these chairs Melitta was sitting, surrounded by the soft dreamy light of the summer afternoon, her head resting on one hand and the other mechanically caressing the dog, who was pressing closely to his mistress. She wore a white dress, which fell in graceful folds around her, and concealed her shoulders and her bosom but just enough to betray their charming outlines. On the table lay a glove, a broad-brimmed straw hat, and an open book.
She was sitting there so deep in thought that she did not hear Oswald's light step till he was standing before her. Then she threw up her head, and scarcely suppressed a cry of delighted surprise as she saw the man actually before her with whom her thoughts had been so busy just now. For a moment the blood stopped in her heart, and then, rushing forth with vigor, it poured out upon her cheeks a rich glow of purple.
"See there!" she said, quickly rising and offering Oswald her hand.
"I beg your pardon, madam," said the young man, reverently carrying the fair trembling hand, which lightly rested on his, to his lips, "if I come unannounced----"
"But not unexpected, to interrupt yourdolce far nienteand so forth, and so forth"--interrupted Melitta. "Come, come, no phrases, if you please. Leave that to our empty-headed young gentlemen. Sit down and be thankful that you find me at all. Bemperlein and Julius have given you up long ago, and are away to pay a visit in the neighborhood; so you must be content with myself. That is your just punishment."
"If the punishment is just, it is fortunately also very mild," replied Oswald, "and I submit to it with all the humility required of a penitent sinner."
"You do look like a penitent sinner! But, seriously speaking, why do you come so late, and----"
"In such a condition? Seriously speaking, I could not come sooner and could not come otherwise. Walking on foot and over utterly unknown roads----"
"But why did you undertake that?"
"I am fond of such undertakings."
"Then we are kindred spirits. Well, go on!"
"And meeting on the road an old woman, who delivers lectures on immortality, a country parson, who preaches on the same subject, and a literary lady, who tells in sweet verses what she has heard from the beasts of the field, and----"
"Oh, you poor man!" cried Melitta, clapping her hands.
"Losing my way afterwards in the forest, falling asleep on the edge of a swamp, dreaming there all kinds of sweet, foolish things, finding upon awaking a gypsy standing before me, who tells me my fortune, getting her boy to show me the right way, and finding upon arriving at your enchanted castle no one who could lead a stranger to the lady of the house, but an amiable dog, who listens as attentively as if he understood every word we say--do you not think that doing all this requires at least as much time as I have taken to tell it to you?"
The dog laid his head confidingly on the lap of his mistress and looked up at her. "Art my brave Boncœur," she said, caressing her pet, "doest honor to thy name. Thou watchest nicely over house and home, and knowest full well that nobody else does it but thou and Baumann. Do you know that you excite my deepest interest by your encounter with the nut-brown countess, I mean the gypsy woman, and with her daughter Czika--for it is a girl, as I must tell you, to the honor of your sagacity."
"A girl, the Czika?"
"The Czika is a girl, you may rely on it. Where did you meet the two?"
"About a quarter of an hour's walk from here, in the forest, near the same lake, on the banks of which I had fallen asleep."
"Then it was upon my own soil--I am glad of that."
"You seem really to be deeply interested in the fair mother and her still fairer daughter. I recollect now that the child was much too beautiful for a boy. How does the gypsy woman get the name of the nut-brown countess?"
"Ah," laughed Melitta. "That is a long story, and one of those foolish undertakings of mine, in which I sympathize with you. It is now about six years since Isabel came for the first time into this district. She was then about twenty years old--perhaps, for she herself does not know her age accurately. Her child, the Czika, was four years old, that she knew, for she was her own child and not a stolen princess."
"How do you know that?"
"From the striking likeness between mother and daughter, which must have struck you also. Both of them were at that time extremely beautiful; in fact, I have never seen anything like it. I do not think any one could have remained unmoved by the sight of this youthful mother with her magnificent child, which in the theatrical costume and the dark, abundant curls might pass as easily for a boy as for a girl. I have seen the like of it only in Murillo's paintings, with their sunny glow and fierce passion. It so happens that I fancy I know something of picturesque beauty, and try my hand occasionally at painting myself--so they set me drawing all day long, and I went to work on gypsy heads from morning till evening. I forgot to tell you that I kept the two gypsies for a few days here at Berkow. On one of these days I was obliged to give a large party. And--now comes the folly of the thing--in order to get a joke a tour absurd people here, I dressed Isabel up in the richest costume that I possessed, and handed the Czika over to my chambermaid, to deck her out, and then I introduced the two as the Countess of Kryvan, with her little daughter Czika, whose acquaintance I had made the year before at a watering-place, and who had just arrived from Hungary to pay me a visit."
"And what did the company say?"
"They were delighted. I had previously made it known that Isabella belonged to the old Magyar nobility, who had pledged themselves never to use any other language but the national tongue, and occasionally a little Latin."
"Did the people really believe that, and did the gentlemen try to keep up the conversation in Latin?"
"You can make our people believe anything you choose; and as for the gentlemen, Latin is Greek to them. Isabella, I can assure you, took her seat on the sofa with almost regal dignity, and our greatest people in the neighborhood overwhelmed the countess with attentions, regretting again and again their inability to speak Latin, and thus to enjoy the interesting and attractive conversation of the great lady. The little girl was taken from lap to lap, and almost smothered with titbits and with caresses. In fine, the comedy was played successfully to the very last scene, and for several days afterwards the whole neighborhood was full of the 'nut-brown countess,' as they took it into their heads to call the friend of Melitta von Berkow. Well, how do you like my story?"
"To be candid, only so-so. I enjoy the mystification of your high-mighty visitors with all my heart, but I confess I feel rather pained to see a poor helpless woman made the toy of the rich and the great simply because she is poor and helpless."
Melitta looked full at Oswald and replied, without the slightest trace of resentment:
"Now look, that is nice in you to think so, and I think it still nicer that you tell me so openly. But I told you beforehand it was a foolish thing I did; and afterwards I felt heartily sorry for it, and did all I could to make amends for the evil consequences which followed. Only listen, and see how the matter ended. I had, of course, presented the Brown Countess with all the things which she and the Czika had worn during the comedy. The poor woman, not knowing what to do with the plunder, tried to sell it in the next town. They thought she had stolen the things, and demanded that she should explain how she had come in possession of such a wardrobe. That she could not do, for she had forgotten my name and the name of my place, and besides, nobody could understand her jargon. The justices, therefore, in their wisdom, concluded to put the Brown Countess into jail as a vagabond and a thief, until the matter should be cleared up in some way or other. Unfortunately, I had myself left a few days before for a watering-place in the neighborhood, and whilst I was there enjoying the fresh sea air in full draughts, the poor woman had to suffer for weeks in a damp prison cell. Alas! and these people value freedom above all things! You see, I shall never forgive myself for all this! It was only after my return that I heard, by a mere accident, of what had happened. Of course, I did at once all that could be done. I drove myself into town and opened the prison-doors to my Brown Countess. But how I found her changed! Pale, emaciated, worn out, she looked as if every week of her imprisonment had cost her a year of her life. Little Czika looked, if possible, still worse. I took both of them back with me to Berkow; I nursed them and comforted them; I made them presents, and tried all I could to make amends. But repentance came here, as usually, too late. Little Czika had been grievously injured by the damp air of the jail. She fell, soon after her arrival here, in a raging fever, and I thank God to this day that she escaped with her life. What could I have done if she had died!"
Melitta was silent, and something like a tear glistened in her eyes. But the next moment she laughed again, and said:
"Well, after all, she did not die, but grew as fresh and bright as before, and played with my Julius till she recovered her red cheeks and bright eyes. The children had become exceedingly fond of each other, and I should have liked nothing better than to keep the little girl here and have her educated with Julius. The child showed remarkable talents; she was a perfect genius for music. The Brown Countess I should have kept as my waiting-maid, or anything she might have accepted. I offered to let her arrange her mode of life as she chose, if she would only consent to stay here. But it was the old story of the frog and the golden chair. For a few weeks she stood the quiet life, pretty well; and one fine morning she had disappeared--she and the Czika. Afterwards they have repeatedly come back to this country, but they have never visited me here. Isabel is either still angry with me, or she is jealous of me and afraid I might steal her little Czika. And yet she ought to see that I mean it well with her. The people in the village have my orders to do all she may desire; the keeper has been directed not to molest her in the forest, and I myself have abstained from seeking her out, because I do not wish to frighten her away altogether. That is my story of the Brown Countess. Are you still angry with me?"
"What right have I to be so?"
"Well, you frowned just now in a way which made me feel like a very wicked sinner."
"You are pleased to jest. What can my opinion matter to you?"
"More than you pretend to think, in your half-assumed modesty. A woman always thinks much of a man's opinion, because she feels instinctively that his head thinks more soberly and thoroughly, though not as quickly as her own. And for you learned gentlemen we have a special respect. You have all of you, about the eye and the corners of the mouth, something mystical, something unfathomable, something----"
Oswald could not help laughing.
"Yes, you may laugh as you choose. You may not think so, but we, we are afraid of your learning, even when we try to make fun of one or the other among you, who is good-natured enough to offer himself for our amusement There is my Bemperlein, my faithful, good Bemperlein. Well, he is most assuredly no genius, and knows as much of the world as I know of Greek, and yet I invariably succumb when we dispute. That vexes me, when I compare him with our country gentlemen! There are handsome, very handsome men among them, and they look remarkably well in their militia uniforms, with their light mustaches, their sunburnt faces, and bright blue eyes; but in evening costume they look stupid. They are as stupid and lifeless as the faces of horses and dogs. The only one among them who has been to college looks as if he belonged to another world."
"Who is this phœnix?"
"Baron Oldenburg."
A shadow passed over Melitta's animated face as when a cloud drifts rapidly over a sunlit landscape. She looked for a few moments straight before her, as if she had lost the thread of the conversation. Then, awaking from her dream, she said:
"Yes--as I said before--that is why I want Julius to go to school. But here I chatter and chatter and do not even ask you if you are hungry and thirsty, and yet you must be so after all your travels on highways and byways. Come, we will go in and see if we cannot hunt up somebody to bring us some refreshment. I want it as much as you do, for I just remember that I have not dined to-day. Have you never been in the house?"
"Yes, at least in the great hall; I asked a large old clock if I might present myself before the lady of Berkow, but it answered: Non-sense! Non-sense! so I went away again."
Melitta had risen and put on her straw hat, without troubling herself about the ribbons, of which one hung down on her bosom, and the other on her back; now she said, smiling, while Oswald had picked up the book and was looking at the title:
"I suppose you also read something in all you see?"
"Yes, generally. This book, for instance, tells me: My mistress would have done better not to read me, since there are so many better books that she might read."
"Alas! we poor creatures who live in the country, we must read what the circulating library or the bookseller sends us. But why do you dislike theseMystères?"
"In the first place, it annoys me to find them wherever I go. In Grunwald the book was lying on every table; I was not two days at Grenwitz before it followed me there, and here I must find it even in your house. I have never been able to read farther than the second volume, and here you are, to my amazement, already in the fourth. Howcanyou take an interest in this Chourineur, thismaître d'école, this Chouette and all the other rascally people? Surely, not half as readily as in the beasts of a menagerie, for these are at least God's own creations, whilst those men are nothing better than the misshapen children of the wanton imagination of a used-up poet's brains."
"You may be right," said Melitta, as they were coming down from the terrace. "It is perhaps a real misfortune that such books are written, and a greater one yet that we, and especially women, whose education and training are every way grievously neglected, find after all a kind of pleasure in them. For the rest, I accept all that Sue says of that canaille as gospel truth, as I do with the reports of travellers in distant lands and the marvels they have seen on shore and on board ship. I believe him perhaps all the more readily, as he paints that sphere of society in which I live, partly at least, with great truth, fulness, and accuracy."
"You do not really thinkRudolphe, grand duc régnant de Gerolstein, to be true to life?"
"That I do not know; but I do know that stories like that of the Marquis d'Harville and his wife occur almost daily in actual life."
Oswald made no reply; he recollected what he had heard about the relations between Melitta and her husband, and how the latter had now been for seven years the victim of incurable insanity. A faint suspicion of the painful scenes that must have preceded the actual crisis, the fearful catastrophe, overcame him; he regretted having touched unconsciously the curtain that hid so dark a family drama. But at the same time he was filled with deep, unspeakable sympathy for the charming woman who was condemned to lead a lonely, mournful life in this green wilderness, in spite of all her youth and beauty. What were to her youth and beauty and wealth without love! and did she obtain that love which she deserved so well, and for which she yearned so ardently, she whose gentle, longing eyes betrayed an unfathomable depth of tenderness and passion?
Sympathy is the first-born brother of the sweet sister Love. While Oswald was pitying the fate of the fair lady, he felt how a spring of painfully sweet feelings gushed forth warm from his heart and filled it to overflowing. And if old classic love was born in the foam of the waves, romantic modern love not unfrequently prefers the soft, perfumed air of a luxuriant garden full of sweet flowers and fragrant foliage. Voluptuous shadows dwelt in the cozy bowers; the afternoon sun lay dreamily upon the green lawns; the birds were singing joyously in the dense crowns of mighty trees, butterflies were dancing merrily above the sun-drunk forests of bright flowers.
Slowly the two tall companions sauntered through the green gardens, now stopping to admire a rose-bush, which outshone all its neighbors in its exuberant splendor, and now following with the eye a squirrel, as it merrily flew from branch to branch and from tree to tree. More and more Oswald began to feel as if he were walking in a glorious dream, as if he were only dreaming of all this sunshine, this fragrance of flowers, this singing of birds--as if he were only dreaming of Melitta's sweet voice and Melitta's love-speaking eyes--and Melitta also felt as if she were seeing to-day very differently with her eyes, and hearing very differently with her ears. The strange man, to whom she was showing her possessions, looked so familiar to her; she felt as if she had known him many many years, as if she had known him all her life. On the other hand, the things she had seen every day for long years, looked to her almost strange now. So true is it that, after all, man takes most interest in his fellow-man, and understands nothing else as well in the whole range of his surroundings. For the sake of a single human soul, which chimes in harmoniously with our own, we cheerfully throw overboard all the plunder which in idle hours, and when higher enjoyments are wanting, has to fill up our life. And if this is true for men, it is doubly so for women. They know but one kind of bliss upon earth: to love; and only one happiness: to be loved. Melitta's heart, which for years had been forced to content itself with superficial affections and empty flirtations, was yearning after a true, deep passion. When the young man now raised his half-reverent, half-defiant glances with sincere admiration and an almost caressing devotion to her face, and wove around her a magic net, whose meshes were constantly drawing more closely, she felt far too happy not to be heartily grateful towards him who afforded her such sweet enjoyment.
Thus she felt ineffably happy, and yet also more seriously inclined than she was accustomed. The storm of wild passion, which was gradually rising on the horizon of her soul, cast its dark shadows in advance on her sun-lit mind, and the first cold breath tore the veil which time had slowly woven over so many a bright picture of past days. While Oswald was sketching a plan of education for Julius, such as seemed to him best, he accidentally came to speak of his own life; allowing the beautiful woman to catch many a glimpse of the innermost recesses of his heart. She felt this as a sign of his love and his veneration for her, and was deeply moved by it. Many thoughts which the young man presented to her in his lively manner with pleasing eloquence, had been suggested to her once before, and in almost the same words, by a man who had been very dear to her, and whose uncommon character had attracted and enchained her active mind while his roughness had repelled and offended her gentle disposition. Here, now, she found once more the roses whose voluptuous fragrance had then intoxicated her, but without their thorns; here she found what she had so painfully missed in those days: beauty of form, grace of motion, and harmony of speech.