"DEAR SIR! To succeed in all undertakings equally well is not given to any one, not even to the most favored knight. You will therefore, it is hoped, understand why a person, who has watched with much astonishment the process you have made in the favor of a certain lady, is anxious to become personally acquainted with the magic charm you possess, and therefore desires to see you. If you are disposed to afford him this pleasure, you are requested to take a walk this evening, at eleven o'clock, near the smaller Grenwitz gate. Under the old beech-tree on the road to Berkow you will, if you consent, find a carriage to convey you to the place of rendezvous. There you will find everything required to begin a more intimate acquaintance.
"It need hardly be mentioned, that, of course, an affair of so much delicacy has to be treated with the utmost secrecy. The coachman will ask you 'Qui vive,' and if you answer 'Moi,' he will know that you are the right person.Au revoir, monsieur!"
This was the text of a letter which the mail-carrier from the neighboring town handed Oswald on the evening of the next day.
He read the odd note several times before he could recover from his surprise. Who was the "person" who wished to make his personal acquaintance? What "lady" was meant? Had the mystery of the forest chapel fallen into indiscreet hands? Could Baron Cloten be the author of the challenge? The peculiar, cool manner of the young nobleman at their last meeting favored this presumption. Or was the meeting accidental, and the mysterious rider the real writer? Was he, perhaps, one of Cloten's spies? On the other hand, was not the conversation which Baron Barnewitz had had with Oldenburg, and which Oswald had heard as an unwilling listener, sufficient evidence that Cloten had quite enough to do with his own difficulties?
Oswald passed in his mind all the young nobles in review whose acquaintance he had made at the ball, and his suspicion was finally fixed upon young Count Grieben, that tall blonde youth who made such amusing efforts to be brilliant, and to win favor with the coquettish Emily--efforts in which he failed with equal success. He seemed to be most likely to be the author of some of the phrases in the letter.
What was he to do? Should he expose himself to the perhaps very ignoble vengeance of the young noblemen? Should he enter the lists without knowing anything of the weapons, the witnesses, the place, or even his adversaries? Could any fair-minded man blame him if he took no notice of the challenge of an anonymous writer?
But he probably had not to deal with fair-minded men. Had he not already found out, and seen it proved by his experience, that in these privileged circles the pleasure of the individual stood for right, and the most frivolous whim of the moment served as a motive for action? Had he not found this to be so even in the two characters which were so far above the common mass, in Melitta and Oldenburg?
And would they not charge him, if he declined the challenge, with want of that delicate sense of honor of which these nobles were so proudly boasting?
No, no; he must take up the gauntlet, however contemptible the hand might be that had thrown it down in the dark. He must show these young noblemen that he was not afraid to meet their revenge alone, friendless, and unarmed.
His blood was boiling. He walked up and down in his room in great excitement.
"Come on! Come on!" he hissed through his teeth. "I wish they would place themselves one by one opposite to me; my hatred would give me strength to overthrow them all. Quite right! Quite right! What have I to do here among these wolves? To be torn or to tear. I ought to have foreseen that."
Oswald felt how a new evil spirit rose from the deepest bottom of his soul, which his eye had never yet fathomed. A wild passion, a burning thirst for revenge, a mad desire to destroy seized upon him; it was the intense, frantic hatred of the nobility which he had felt as a boy, while he loaded the pistols for his father behind the city wall, when the latter shot at the ace of spades and each time aimed at the heart of a noble man; when he read at school, in Livy, of the haughty arrogance of the Tarquins, or in his room, of the tearful story of Emilia Galotti. And they were no fictions! Here, in this castle, perhaps in these same rooms which he now occupied, a victim of the cruelty of a nobleman had bled to death; here the poor, unhappy, and beautiful Marie had paid with a thousand burning tears for her folly in believing the word of a noble tempter.
She had been victimized because she was a frail woman, and because she had no weapons but tears--tears which found no pity. Those tears had never been atoned for. How if he should arise as her avenger--if he should avenge those tears of a low-born maid in the blood of a nobleman?
Such thoughts passed through Oswald's mind while he was making a few hasty preparations for the case of an unlucky event--little as he thought it likely to happen, for he saw himself only in the part of an avenger. He burnt a few letters which he did not wish to fall into strange hands; he arranged his other papers, and finally wrote a few lines to Professor Berger; but he soon tore them up again and threw them into the fire.
"Tant de bruit pour une omelette," he said, "the wretches do not deserve that I should give myself so much trouble for their sake."
He awaited the appointed hour with impatience.
At last the great clock struck ten. He heard the servants going to bed; even from Albert's room a light was shining down upon the dark garden. It struck half-past ten. Oswald dressed himself carefully, took a rose from a bouquet which he had gathered in the garden, and put it in his button-hole.
Then he slipped noiselessly down the narrow steps on which Marie, on that stormy night had escaped from the château into the garden, through the garden and out at the gate which led into the courtyard, and from which it was only a short distance to the little gate where he was told he would find the carriage.
The night sky was covered with clouds, through which a few scattered stars only pierced their way; it was so dark that Oswald had to walk very slowly, until his eye had become accustomed to the darkness, if he did not wish to risk falling into the ditch on either side of the road.
Suddenly a large dark object loomed up before him, and at the same moment a rough, deep voice cried out: "Qui vive?"
"Moi!" answered Oswald.
He saw the outlines of a tall form which opened the door of the carriage and let down the steps.
As soon as he had got in the door was closed after him, and the horses started; he could not see whether the person had jumped upon the box, or whether it was the coachman himself.
Coachman and horses must have known the road well, or be able to see as well at night as in open daylight, for the carriage drove with a swiftness to which even an impatient lover could have had no objection. The road was in good order, and although now and then a stone was lying in the track, the carriage was so well hung on excellent springs that one hardly perceived the jolt.
Oswald leaned back in the swelling cushions. The soft velvet seemed to exhale a perfume, which filled the narrow compartment like the boudoir of a pretty woman. Oswald even fancied it was the same perfume which Melitta ordinarily used. And suddenly he felt as if Melitta were sitting by his side--as if her soft warm hand were touching his--as if he felt her breath on his brow--as if her lips were lying lightly like a zephyr on his own.
And this delicious dream effaced the reality. Oswald forgot what was before him; he did not think of the future; he knew not where he was--and only she, she herself filled his soul. The memory of her sweet grace, her goodness, her intoxicating beauty overcame him like a spring-tide of bliss. The precious images of those happy hours which he had spent by her side, at her feet, rose before his mind's eyes with marvellous clearness; he saw them all, from his first meeting on the lawn behind the château at Grenwitz, to the moment when she turned from him, tears in her eyes, in that night of hapless memory, when the demon of jealousy struck its sharp claws into his wounded heart.
"Forgive me, Melitta! forgive me!" he groaned, burying his head in the cushions.
Suddenly the carriage stopped. The door opened, the tall man who had let down the steps before helped him get out, gave him his hand, led him a few steps up to a large glass door, where, through the red curtains, a faint light was bidding him welcome. The door opened, and Oswald found himself in the garden-room in Melitta's château, and Melitta wound her arms around his neck, and Melitta's voice whispered: "Forgive me, Oswald! Forgive me!"
"You cruel man," said Melitta, after the first wild storm of delight, with its showers of joyous tears, had passed away. "How could you shut up your heart for so many days when you knew I was standing outside knocking for admission? But I will not scold. You are here and all is right again."
She leaned her head on his breast and looked up at him smiling through her tears. "Is it not, darling? Is not all right again? Now Melitta is again what she was before to you, what she will ever be to you, in spite of all pretty girls of sixteen, be their name Emily or----"
"Melitta!"
"Or Melitta! For there is but one Melitta, if thousands bore that name, and that one am I! And how could you forget such a weighty matter! What trouble you have caused old Baumann! I will say nothing of myself, for joy follows grief and grief follows joy, and if two love each other honestly, a few tears more or less, a few sleepless nights, a few letters begun and torn to pieces again, matter, after all, very little--but poor Baumann! Just imagine! The first day I was very calm, for I thought: he will come soon enough, and fall down at your feet and ask your pardon! But when you did not come, nor on the second, nor on the third day, then my heart failed me, and I dare say I looked wretched enough, for as I was sitting here, resting my head in my hands, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I looked up, good old Baumann was standing before me, and said: Shall I go and see why he is staying away so long?--Ah do, dear Baumann, I said. Then the good soul went, without saying a word, and did not return till late at night. Did you see him?--Yes, ma'am! He is well and hearty; I have had a race with him."
"Then old Baumann was the mysterious horseman?"
"Of course, and he laughed in his quiet way when he told me that you had been after him, as if he meant to say: The children! They thought they could overtake me on Brownlock!"
"Then that was Brownlock, of whom Bruno has told me so much! Well, now I can explain it all."
"Can you? Then you will also explain it, I hope, why Baumann sat down and wrote that letter at my dictation. The old man refused, and said: A duel is no child's play, and that is carrying the joke too far. But I laughed and wept till he gave way; so he took Brownlock once more this morning and rode to town to mail the letter."
"And if I had not accepted the challenge?"
"Baumann asked me the same question, and I answered: Fie, are you not ashamed to say such a thing, Baumann?"
Oswald laughed. "Of course! we must always be ashamed when we say or do something that does not suit the world, as it exists in your little heads."
Melitta made no reply, and Oswald saw that a shadow flitted across her face. He knelt down before her and said, seizing her hand as it hung by her side:
"Have I offended you, Melitta?"
"No," she said, "but you would not have said so a week ago."
"How do you mean?"
"Come, get up! Let us go into the garden. It is hot in the house; I long to breathe the cool night air!"
They went down into the garden and walked up and down, arm in arm, till they came to the low terrace, where Oswald had found Melitta when he called upon her that Sunday afternoon. They sat down under the pine-tree, which spread its branches over them as if in protection. The night was marvellously silent. The trees stood quiet, not a leaf stirring, as if they were fast asleep; fragrant perfumes filled the warm, dry air, and glow-worms were wandering through the night like bright tiny stars.
"You did not answer my question, Melitta," said Oswald. "What is it the last eight days have changed in me? Am I not the same I was; only that the bitter regret at having hurt your feelings has made my love for you deeper and warmer?"
Melitta made no reply; suddenly she said, speaking low and quick:
"Have you seen much of him since that Sunday at Barnewitz?"
"Of whom, Melitta?"
"Well, of--of Baron Oldenburg. God be thanked, I have said it. It is so childish and foolish in me to have hesitated so long to speak of Oldenburg, and to tell you what our relations have been,--and yet I felt you had a right to know it, and I was bound to lift the veil from my past, wherever it might appear dark to you. This feeling grew so overwhelming in me, especially when I found that you had become intimate with the baron, that I wanted to see you at any price, and this suggested to me the foolish plan."
"I have no such right as you say," replied Oswald, "to be foolishly curious. I have to be grateful for the love which you grant me, and I am grateful for it, as for a sweet gift from on high. There was a time, I confess, when my love still knew what doubt was, but that was not yet true, genuine love. Now I cannot imagine that I could ever cease to love you, or that you could ever do so. I feel even as if this love was not only intended to be eternal, but had actually existed before, in all eternity. I do not know if you ever loved before; it may be, but I do not comprehend it, and would not comprehend it, even if you were to say so expressly."
"And I assure you," said Melitta tenderly, coming closer to Oswald, "I have never loved till I saw you; for what I before called love was only unsatisfied longing after an ideal which I bore in my heart, which I could find nowhere, and which I had long despaired of ever finding."
"And you fancy that I am this personified ideal? Poor Melitta! How soon you will awake from this dream! Awake, Melitta! awake--it is time yet!"
"No, Oswald, it is too late. There is a love which is as strong as death, and there is no awaking from it. No! No awaking. I feel it. I know it. And if you were to turn your face from me, and if you were to push me from you--with you I know not what offended love, what insulted pride are--nothing but immeasurable, unfathomable, inexhaustible love. Till now I only knew that I could love; how much I could love, you first have taught me....
"And now also I can speak freely of the time when I did not yet know you--for then my life was only apparent life and all I felt and thought was only a vague dreaming without connection and sense. I know that now--now since I have opened my eyes in the sunlight of your love, and life lies clear and transparent before me, so that the deep night which surrounds us looks to me brighter than formerly the brightest day. Now I can speak of the Melitta of former days as of a strange person for whose doings and sayings I am no longer responsible; now I can and will tell you what that portrait in my album means--that detached leaf which frightened you so, darling.--Yes, I saw it all; you changed color, and you did not comprehend how I could ask your opinion of a man whom you could not but think my lover. And yet Oldenburg never was my lover, or there must be strange degrees in love, of which the lowest is as far from the highest as the earth is from heaven.
"I knew Oldenburg from my childhood. My father's estate adjoined Cona, where you were yesterday. My aunt, who undertook my education after my mother's death, and Oldenburg's mother were warm friends, and met almost daily. So did we children. Oldenburg was several years older than I, but as girls are always ahead of boys in their development, we did not feel the difference in age much; we played and worked together; we were good comrades--ordinarily, for not unfrequently we fell out, and then we had sharp words and quarrels and tears. I rarely gave cause for them, for I was not obstinate, and always ready to give way, but Adalbert was excessively sensitive, stubborn, and self-willed. The double nature of his character, which he afterwards tried to harmonize and to conceal from all but the most sharp-sighted, was then very evident. It was impossible not to become interested in him, but I doubt if anybody really loved him. This he felt, and this feeling, which he bore about with him like a concealed wound, made him early a hypochondriac and a misanthrope. It was of little use to him that everybody admired his eminent talents, and that no one doubted his courage, his love of the truth--his stubborn, self-willed ways repelled all and offended all. Even his tall, ungraceful figure and his awkward motions contributed to turn the hearts of men away from him. At least it was so with me. I had from childhood up felt irresistibly attracted towards all that was beautiful and graceful, and had a real horror of what was ugly and ill-shapen. I could not love Adalbert, although he was sincerely attached to me with great tenderness, which he carefully hid under an appearance of coldness and rudeness. When his passionate temper got the better of his attempted calmness, he would even reproach me bitterly on account of my heartlessness and my fickleness.
"Such were our relations till Adalbert, at sixteen, went to college, for he had persuaded his guardian--his mother had also died in the mean time--to let him go to the city. Now he came but rarely to Cona, and then only for a few days. Then I was for two years at boarding-school. Thus it came about that we met only in passing, till he went to the University at Heidelberg. When he returned from there, and from a long journey, I had been married two years.
"He did not come to Berkow till a considerable time afterwards. Our meeting was strange enough. He seemed to accept the changed state of things only as afait accompli, which we submit to because we cannot help ourselves. He did not trouble me with questions; he asked for no confidential communication, which the sole friend of my childhood and early youth might well have demanded. He did not reproach me; he did not tell me that he had loved me, that he had hoped to obtain my hand, although I afterwards learned that that had been so, and that the news of my marriage, which he received at Heidelberg, had nearly driven him mad, and laid him for weeks and months upon the sick-bed. He tried by silent observation to obtain a clear idea of my situation. I saw that nothing escaped him, that not a word I uttered, not a gesture I made remained unnoticed. This consciousness of being continually watched by such sharp eyes was by no means agreeable, especially as there was much that ought to have been very different from what it actually was. Soon we were as we had been in childhood; only there occurred no violent scenes, as our passions had subsided. As he then had brought me all the pretty shells, and stones, and flowers which he found on the beach, among the rocks, and in the garden, so he now told me all his indefatigably active mind could discover in the field of science: now a fine poem and now a deep thought--and he felt it not less deeply now, if I treated his treasures as carelessly as I had done with the flowers which I allowed to perish, and the stones and shells which I threw away. I knew I had no better friend than he, and he knew that in all I felt for him there was no love; all the more disinterested was his friendship, and all the more unwarrantable the fickleness with which I treated him.
"His friendship was soon to be proved. The melancholy into which Carlo had fallen, soon after Julius' birth, assumed a more and more dangerous form. Attacks of unexpected violence, the precursors of the last fearful catastrophe, became more frequent. He would now admit no one near him but Adalbert, although he, thebon-vivantof former days, had been in the habit of laughing ruthlessly at the baron, who was his junior, and yet thoughtful and melancholy himself. How often had he ridiculed him, how often called him contemptuously the Youth of Saïs! Now he accompanied him everywhere; now Oldenburg's voice was the only one which could drive away the dark demons that fought for his mind, at least for the moment. And the self-sacrificing spirit with which Oldenburg performed this service of love cannot be sufficiently praised, and I ought to thank him for it all my life long. Then came the catastrophe. Oldenburg stood faithfully by me in those dark days, or rather, he took all the burden and the responsibility upon himself, and managed all and everything with such energy and sagacity that I had only to consent.
"Carlo had been carried to an Asylum at the South, and I was left alone here at Berkow, devoting myself entirely to the education of my Julius, who was then five years old, and for whom I had secured Bemperlein as a teacher and a friend, thanks to Oldenburg's recommendation. The baron came less frequently than formerly, but still quite frequently, as I thought. It seemed to me that a tender note mingled at times with his friendship, and hardly had I noticed this than I thought it my duty to point out to him, as gently as I could, that his visits were probably too frequent. This was perhaps very ungrateful in me, but we women find it very difficult to be grateful to those whom we do not love.
"Next day Oldenburg had left the country. No one knew where he was. Somebody reported him, six months afterwards, in Paris; a year later he was seen in London. He was here, and there, and everywhere, carried about by his wild heart and his insatiable thirst for information.
"Thus four years had elapsed and little had changed in my position. I thought but rarely of Oldenburg; I had nearly forgotten him. I yielded then--now three years ago--to the persuasions of my cousin and his wife to accompany them on a trip to Italy. One evening as we were in the Coliseum Oldenburg suddenly stood before us. 'At last!' he said, pressing my hand. He pretended to have met us quite accidentally; but he confessed to me afterwards that he had heard in Paris, I know not from whom, of our proposed journey, that he had followed us from Munich and missed us everywhere, till at last he had overtaken us here. I must confess I was heartily glad to meet him, and was a little gratified to find that it was not quite accidental. Everything combined to give Oldenburg a good reception. We easily become attached even to strangers in travelling; how much more welcome is the friend of our youth whom we unexpectedly meet with abroad? Oldenburg had travelled all over Italy, and knew the painter of every altar-painting in every church and convent. His instructive conversation contrasted most markedly with the stupid talk of my relatives, and besides, Oldenburg had by this time polished off the rough edges of his character in the intercourse with good society. His manner was, in spite of his almost extreme abandon, as you now see it, thoroughly aristocratic. In a word, he now impressed me in a manner which I would have believed impossible before. It was not love that I felt for him, but it was more than the cool friendship which I had so far offered him alone. But, strange enough, the more I felt my secret antipathy, which I had cherished from early childhood, give way to an almost cordial attachment, the harsher and colder became his manner towards me. When we were all together, he addressed his conversation almost exclusively to my cousin, and treated me like a spoilt child, who is only indulged to keep it from crying. This offended my vanity; and this offended vanity, and the jealousy I began to feel of my cousin, made me try in good earnest to win Oldenburg's affection, which I feared I had lost by some unknown cause. This produced an entire revolution in Oldenburg's manner. He overwhelmed me with attentions; he seemed completely to forget Hortense, and whenever we were alone he exhibited a passion which first made me wonder and then frightened me. And yet he avoided any open declaration, and left me continually in doubt whether this was one of the mad freaks in which he still quite frequently indulged, or the expression of a deep-rooted attachment. It was impossible not to admire Oldenburg at that time. His genius unfolded its most brilliant powers. He was the soul of every society; they vied with each other who was to have him, and as he spoke French, English, Italian, and I know not how many languages, with fluency, every nation seemed to be willing to admit him as one of their own. And yet he made me the queen of every festivity, he compelled all to do homage to me; he displayed the treasures of his richly stored mind only to lay them at my feet;--what wonder that I could not long remain indifferent, and that I soon fancied I loved him? Without openly encouraging him, I let him go on, and permitted him, when we were alone, to treat me with the familiarity of our childish years; when we met in company, to show me all those attentions which we generally accept only from a declared lover."
"Hush, Melitta, I think I hear somebody in the garden."
"I heard nothing."
"Are we quite safe here?"
"Quite so. But let us go into the house; it seems to me the night dew is beginning to fall."
They rose and went arm in arm towards the steps which led from the terrace into the garden. As they came down the last step, a man suddenly stood before them. The meeting was so unexpected to Oswald and Melitta that they involuntarily started back. But it was impossible to escape it, and besides, Mr. Bemperlein--for it was he, and no one else--had already recognized them, as the stars had come out in full splendor, and the light from the window of the garden-room fell directly upon their faces.
"Great heavens, madam! what brings you here?" cried Mr. Bemperlein.
"And I ask that of you," said Melitta; and then to Oswald, whose arm she was still holding, in a low voice: "Be calm, darling, he will not betray us."
"Julius has not had an accident? Speak, Mr. Bemperlein, I have no secrets for--Oswald."
Mr. Bemperlein seized Oswald's hand and pressed it, as if he wished to say: Now I know all, you may rely on me.
"No," he said, "Julius is well and hearty. But I have received a letter from Doctor Birkenhain, who says that Baron Berkow's condition is such that they expect his end every day. It is not thought that he will recover his consciousness before he dies; but Doctor Birkenhain thought it his duty to let you know how matters stand. I presume at least that this is what the enclosure means. I brought it myself, so that you may dispose of me at once, if you should decide to go on. The carriage in which I came is still at the door; I cut across the garden."
The three had reached the garden-room by this time. Melitta had drawn her arm from Oswald's and gone up to the lamp to read the letter which Bemperlein had brought. Oswald saw her turn very pale, and her hand which held the letter tremble nervously. Bemperlein stood there, turning his eyes from Oswald to Melitta, and back again from Melitta to Oswald, like one who has been suddenly roused and cannot convince himself whether what he sees is reality or a dream.
Melitta had read the letter. "There, Oswald," she said, "read and tell me what I must do."
Oswald glanced at the letter, which summoned Melitta, as Bemperlein had presumed, to start immediately for Birkenhain if she wished to see her husband once more before his death.
"You must go, Melitta, beyond doubt," said Oswald, folding up the letter. "You would never forgive yourself if you neglected this duty."
Melitta threw herself passionately into his arms: "I meant from the beginning to go, but I wanted you to confirm my decision," she said. "I shall start to-night, instantly. Will you go with me, Mr. Bemperlein?"
"That is what I came for," said Bemperlein. "We have prepared the whole plan. If we start in an hour we shall reach the ferry by sunrise. On the other side we can take post-horses to B----, and thence go by railway. Thus we reach Birkenhain day after to-morrow, at the latest."
"You dear, good friend," said Melitta, taking both of Bemperlein's hands in her own and pressing them cordially.
"Pray, pray, madam," cried Mr. Bemperlein, "quite on the contrary--I mean--only my duty, nothing more."
"I will get ready at once," said Melitta, taking a candle. "You stay here, Oswald. If any one should see you here, you will have come with Bemperlein. But no one will see you."
Melitta had left the room. Soon the silent house awoke to the sound of hurried steps, of doors which were hastily opened and closed, and of low voices speaking anxiously one to another.
Of the two men, neither dared for a time to break the silence. Both felt the strange nature of the position in which they suddenly found themselves, especially Bemperlein, who had not yet been able to recover from his surprise. Melitta stood so unattainably high in his eyes that he found it absolutely impossible to comprehend how any mortal could attain so high; and yet he was so accustomed to look upon everything she did as undoubtedly right and good, that he dared not make an exception of this case.
"We meet quite strangely again, Mr. Bemperlein," Oswald said at last.
"Yes indeed, yes indeed!" replied Mr. Bemperlein. "My coming here was neither expected nor desired, I understand that perfectly. The poor lady! But what courage! What decision! I have always said she is not made of common clay. A real blessing that Doctor Birkenhain had the good idea not to write to her directly. Thus I can do something, little though it be, for her support."
"You happy man!" said Oswald "You can work for her and help her, while I can do nothing but wish her a pleasant journey, and then fold my hands idly in my lap."
"I really pity you with all my heart, really," said Mr. Bemperlein. "It is a hard task which you are expected to perform; but where there is much light there is also much shade. We will write diligently. You shall hear of every step we take. And then, I hope, our journey will not be long, and especially I trust we shall find Baron Berkow dead when we get there."
"You hope that? And yet you seem to think it important to go there?"
"Assuredly!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "There are certain sad duties which must be performed--not to please the world, which could, and might not, blame us if we left them unfulfilled, nor for the sake of others whom we could benefit by what we do, but because of the respect we owe to ourselves. But you know all that, of course, much better than I do. You have yourself advised this journey, although you lose most by it. It must be a terrible sensation to be thus suddenly torn from one's paradise! Strange, strange! The more I think of it, the more natural it seems to me. Yes, yes; that you should love this glorious woman is perfectly natural, is,--I might say, so logical that the contrary would be sheer nonsense. Everybody must love her, and the nobler the soul is that loves her the deeper the love. Your heart is a noble heart, your soul harmonizes with all that is beautiful, hence you cannot but love, love with all your heart and soul this best and most beautiful of all women. And on the other side: Is she not free? If not before men, certainly before the Judge who looks into the heart? Did she ever love her husband? Could she love him, sold as she was by her own father to a man who bought her with money, at a time when she was too young still, and too innocent even to suspect such villany? Oh! it makes my blood boil to think of it! I am so glad it has all come about in this way! I congratulate you most heartily. I am a plain, insignificant man, and would never have dared to lift up my eyes so high; but when I see another man boldly and bravely stand on that eminence my heart fills with admiration, which is perfectly free from envy, and once more I wish you joy and all blessings with my whole heart!"
Mr. Bemperlein seized both of Oswald's hands and pressed them warmly. His eyes filled with tears; he was deeply moved.
"And I thank you with all my heart," said Oswald, touched. "The good opinion of a man whom I esteem is worth a thousand times more to me than that of the whole stupid world. The world will condemn our love, but the world knows nothing of justice."
"No," said Mr. Bemperlein, "and yet it does judge us, and we have to submit to its sentence whether we choose or not. And this thought alone casts a deep shadow on the sunny pictures of such pure, disinterested love. But I will not make your head heavier at such a moment, when it is no doubt heavy enough. Fortune favors the brave and the strong. You are bold and strong; you are doubly so since you love, and faith is said to be able to move mountains. What faith can, love surely will not find impossible. But hush! there comes the baroness."
The door opened, and Melitta appeared in her travelling costume. Old Baumann stood by her.
"I am ready, dear Mr. Bemperlein," she said, and then throwing herself into Oswald's arms: "Farewell, darling, farewell!"
The Baroness Grenwitz had more than one good reason for not taking Oswald with them on their projected trip to Heligoland, and during the three days' visiting at all the neighbors, she had considered maturely how she might manage this without compromising her dignity. She was delighted therefore when Oswald, at her return,--the day after Melitta's departure,--eagerly seized upon her question: If he would not prefer using the time of their absence for his own recreation. She was still more delighted when he went so far as to express his intention not even to remain at the château, but to make an excursion, perhaps over the island, which he had not yet seen, or perhaps to Berlin, where he was expected by friends. Anna Maria was so enchanted with this unexpected result that she did not trouble herself about the motives that might have influenced Oswald, nor about his sombre, absent manner, and the indifference with which he witnessed the preparations for their journey, and with which he even took leave of Bruno on the day of their departure. Perhaps he was angry because they did not invite him; perhaps he did not know where he was to stay. At all events, he would not remain at the château, and perhaps he might actually have his knapsack on his back at one gate, while the family coach with the four heavy bays and the silent coachman was grandly rolling out at the great portal.
But Mr. Albert Timm was allowed to stay. He had no such absurd pretensions as the haughty Dr. Stein; he was easily satisfied; and then he could work so comfortably in the lonely house, and it was so important to have the plats completed promptly. Mademoiselle had been ordered to provide everything for Mr. Timm. Strangely enough, it had never occurred to the baroness that it might not be considered quite proper to leave a young girl of twenty and a young man of twenty-six in a lonely château with only a handful of servants, who were under the control of the young girl. The virtuous lady would have turned up her nose, she would have thought it unpardonable, if she had been told that young Count Grieben and Emily von Breesen had been left alone in a room for five minutes, but the surveyor, Albert Timm, and the housekeeper, Marguerite Hoger--good Heavens! what was the use troubling one's self about such people? that would have been asking too much! And Marguerite had not even a father or a mother to whom one might have been answerable--she had no relations whatever--how can one be expected to be responsible for a person who is standing quite alone in the world? They had, however, asked Mrs. Jager to see from time to time that the orders of the baroness were strictly carried out. Mrs. Jager was an excellent lady, consequently Marguerite was under excellent supervision.
Little Marguerite was under such excellent supervision that Albert could not sufficiently praise the wise foresight of the baroness.
"I wish they would never return," he said to the pretty Genevese as they promenaded in the garden arm in arm; "I wish they would capsize between Heligoland and the Downs, where it is deepest and we could live here, in clover, to the end of our lives. What do you think, little Margerite, would you like to be the wife of Albert Timm, Esquire, owner of Castle Grenwitz, etc.? Wouldn't it be famous? Then I would keep you a carriage and horses, and even a housekeeper, which you could plague as they plague you now."
"I am content with little if I can it share with you."
"Noble thought! But better is better, and--well, we'll see all that when we are married."
"And you will marry me, really? Ah, I can it believe scarcely! Why should a man,comme vous, to whom the whole world is open, marry a poor girl who not even is handsome?"
"That is my business. And besides, you are richer than I am. Three hundred dollars----"
"Three hundred twenty-five dollars," said Mademoiselle Marguerite.
"All the better--that is something to begin with. If I add my own fortune"--Mr. Timm felt in his pocket and produced a few coins--"we have three hundred and twenty-five dollars, seventeen silber-groschen and eightpence. That is quite a capital."
"We shall buy for it a little house."
"Of course."
"I shall give lessons in French."
"Of course."
"And you will be industrious and work."
"Comme un forçat--oh, it is going to be a charming life," and Mr. Timm seized the little Frenchwoman around the waist and waltzed her around in the bower in which they were chatting.
"I must go in now, to give the servants their supper," said Marguerite, withdrawing herself.
"Then run, you little monkey, and come back again as soon as you can," said Mr. Timm.
He looked after her as she ran away. "Stupid little woman," he said; "really thinks I am going to marry her. What a fool I should be--for three hundred dollars! Formerly I lost as much at play in a night. It is grand, what these girls fancy; and yet this one is not as stupid as she looks, and seems to have studied the great Goethe, in spite of her horrible jargon, to some advantage: 'Yield to no thief, but with the ring on your finger.' Hm, hm! I shall have to buy her a wedding-ring, after all! The three hundred dollars would not be so bad! These abominations of creditors! Not even here they leave me alone."
Mr. Timm felt in his breast pocket and drew from it several letters of suspicious appearance, which he carefully unfolded and perused, after having ensconced himself in the corner of the bench. His face, generally merry enough, grew darker and darker. "Upon my word," he growled, "these fellows are becoming insolent. If I could satisfy the roaring lions with a couple of hundreds they might be silent, at least for a while."
"Hm, hm! The three hundred dollars which little Marguerite has in the Savings Bank would be very convenient. It would, after all, be better for her to be poor. For, of course, every sensible man can see that I am not going to fulfil my promise to marry her unless I am forced to do so. If I am under moral obligations only, I fear I am not quite safe to her; but if I should be under pecuniary obligations to her, her chances are decidedly better. I can make her believe I will invest her money where she can obtain a better interest, or some such thing. When the stupid little things are in love they'll believe anything. And can she invest her money better than in the purchase of a handsome fellow for her husband, who would otherwise not think of marrying her?Me Herculem!I feel quite raised in my estimation by the thought, to become a benefactor of the poor little girl. I must see at once what I can do with her. If she refuses, I shall have to respect her for her wisdom, but I won't be able to love her any more."
Albert rose and slowly walked up to the château, his hands folded behind his back, as was his habit when his ingenious brain was busy with the solution of a problem. Marguerite was busy in the lower regions near the kitchen, and Albert went up to his room, in order to give a few more moments undisturbed to his great purpose.
He bent over the paper which was stretched out on his drawing-board, and on which he had done nothing since the departure of the family, that is, for a whole week.
"If that goes on so, Anna Maria will marvel at the progress I have made," he said; "it is really amazing what a superb talent for idleness I have, or, to express it more elegantly, for thedolce far niente. There are evidently in life enchanted lazzaroni, as there are enchanted princes, and I am unmistakably such an enchanted son of sunny Naples, who has been changed into a surveyor, compelled to eat his bread in the sweat of his face. But how did it come about, I wonder, that I have thus given way to my natural disposition for a whole week? Is little Marguerite alone to blame for it? Hardly! Oh yes! Now I remember! I want a map from the archive-room, and asked for the key a week ago. I must go and get that map, or, by my burning love for little Marguerite, this unfinished plat will remain a fragment for all eternity."
Albert went into the archive-room, a large apartment on the ground floor of the old castle. The walls were covered, from the ceiling to the floor, with receptacles full of old yellow documents and papers of every kind, many of which were extremely old and would have been of very great interest to the antiquarian. While he was looking among these archives for the old map, a small bundle of letters fell into his hand, which he would have hurled back, in all probability, into its ancient home, like so many others, if his curiosity had not been excited by the address on the outside: "For Baron Harald Grenwitz, at Grenwitz." As excessive discretion was by no means one of Mr. Timm's most prominent qualities, he broke unceremoniously the red tape with which the letters had been bound together, and began to read one after another--an occupation which proved so deeply interesting that he forgot everything else, and did not even hear a carriage, which stopped at the great portal, and caused no small sensation in the château.
Oswald had spent the week which had elapsed since the departure of the family in the solitude of a fisherman's village, not far from Berkow, where he had been entirely cut off from all intercourse with the world. How he had got there he hardly knew himself.
Since Melitta had been so suddenly snatched away from him, he had been seized with boundless indifference for everything that was not in some way connected with her. She filled his whole soul. In this apathy he had parted even with Bruno quite easily. He acceded to the wishes of the baroness all the more readily, as he longed for solitude in his present frame of mind. Thus he said yes to everything, and when he saw the carriage start with the family inside, he felt as if he had been relieved of a heavy burden. He hurriedly said good-by to Mr. Timm and Marguerite, who remained at home, and flinging a light knapsack, which dated still from his university years, upon his back, he wandered gayly out at the door, like the hero in a fairy tale, without knowing where he was going, or where he was to rest his weary head that night.
The sun was burning hot; Oswald remembered that it would be fresh and cool in the forest. He turned off the road, and soon the pine-trees were rustling overhead. The low whispering of the thousand green leaves lulled him into sweet reveries. Dreamily he wandered on till he suddenly came out upon the clearing where Melitta's chapel stood, under the shelter of a broad, branching beech-tree that counted many hundred years.
The door of the cottage was locked, the green blinds were closed, the steps and the veranda carefully swept, as directed by the strict regulations of old Baumann, who was now ruling supreme. He sat down outside, lost in thought and resting his head in his hand. In the branches of the beech-tree overhead, a little bird was twittering his monotonous song in ever-repeated melancholy.... How lonely he felt--how lonely and forsaken! Like a child which on its way back to beloved parents has lost its way on the great heath. Here, at this very place, he had been seated, the night before the party, with Melitta; she had rested her head on his shoulder and her lips had whispered the sweetest, most precious words of love. Now all was silent--so silent that he could hear the beating of his own heart. Longing thoughts of the absent one passed through his soul, as birds in their flight to the South pass through the blue ether.
A ray of the sun, which made its way, hot and piercing, through the foliage, admonished him that it was time to go on. He was not in a hurry, it is true. It was an early hour of the afternoon, and he was likely to find some place or other where he might stay over night. Thus he sauntered through the forest on a path which he had not trod before, and which led him, before he was aware of it, down to the beach. Now he followed the strand, sometimes high up on a bluff, if the sea washed the foot of the chalk cliffs so as to leave no path; at other times on the clean shingle of the narrow beach. Here and there a brook came rushing out from the interior of the island, breaking its way through the tall ramparts, and covering by its moisture the whole dell with an almost Southern vegetation. But, with the exception of these few green oases, the eye saw nothing but bare rocks, sterile sand, the monstrous blue ocean, and here and there a white summer-cloud immovable on the blue sky, while below a lonely sail would dot the wide expanse. And with this monotonous view harmonized the monotonous music of the breakers, interrupted at times by the cry of a gull or the melancholy piping of a sandpiper.
The monotony of these lines, these hues, these sounds, would have been intolerable for a heavy, fresh mind, but it suited Oswald's state of mind. There are hours when we welcome rainy weather or a dismal landscape as old friends, on whose faces we can read their sympathy with our sorrow; hours when sunshine and birds' songs and the merry purling of a lively brook appear to us like an insult. Oswald's melancholy mood harmonized with this sober mood of nature that seemed to ignore happiness and joy, but knew all the more of the sorrows and sufferings of life. Did not the sudden cry, the shrill piping of the seamen sound like plaintive notes? Did it not sound as if the sea was perpetually murmuring the confused riddle of life in half insane tones, as the waves were breaking unceasingly and in monotonous accents against the strand? And his own life appeared to him as aimless and hapless as his wandering about among the rocks on the shore. Was it any better than the mark he made on the hard sand which the next wave washed away forever? Why was he born? why did he cause so much grief and pain to himself and others, if it was all to end in nothing? And if fortune really for once seems to smile, it is but for a moment; it is but an illusion which a wicked fairy summons up from the inhospitable, restless sea, to sink us the next instant in its unfathomable depth, just as we fancy we are reaching the shore, with its waving palm-trees and gorgeous palaces.
A small village which lay before Oswald was hid in the innermost recesses of a little bay, surrounded on all sides by tall chalk cliffs, except only a small opening towards the sea. There the water was as smooth and silent as a pond in a garden. A few huts lay near the beach; others followed the banks of the brook, which here fell into the sea, after having washed its way through the deep and wide dell. Little gardens, adorned with bright shells, were before the doors; on the passages within, seen through the open entrance, and strewn with white sand, nets were hanging on long poles; a couple of red-cheeked boys were busy tarring a new boat, and before one of the larger cottages sat three women knitting nets.
Oswald went up to them, and as they looked up with curiosity when they heard his footstep, he asked them if he might be permitted to rest a little there, and if they could get him a glass of water and a piece of bread.
"Stine," said the oldest of the three women--a matron of stately proportions, and an exceedingly good-natured, sunburnt face--to one of the two young girls by her side, "get up and give the gentleman your seat. Don't you see he is tired and hungry? Go into the house and bring out what we have. Sit down, sir. You are, no doubt, a painter?"
"Why should I be a painter?" asked Oswald, taking the proffered seat.
"Well, no man in his senses would climb about in such a heat; it is only people who are not quite right there (pointing with her forefinger at her forehead) that do so. Well, never mind, Mr. Painter, I have had one of your companions to stay with me here, who stayed two weeks; and if you are as steady and orderly as he was, you may stay also with Mother Carsten; but you must not bedaub the walls, I tell you that at once."
Oswald could not help smiling as he saw himself thus unceremoniously transformed into a travelling landscape painter. How? Should he accept the harmless part which chance seemed to allot to him? He was perfectly indifferent as to the place where he might stay; all he wanted was solitude, and could he find deeper solitude than here in this secluded bay, among these simple-hearted, good-natured people, who would not mind it if he should spend half his days climbing about among the rocks? And then he was near Berkow, from which he did not wish to go far, since he had arranged it with Melitta, that if her absence should be unexpectedly protracted, old Baumann would take charge of their correspondence.
"Then you would let me stay here a few days?" he asked.
"Yes, but you must not bedaub the walls," said Mother Carsten.
"I promise I will not do that," said Oswald, smiling.
"Then you can stay as long as you choose. That is right, Stine, move the table closer up to the gentleman; and look here, get some of the old Cognac which Claus brought from England; pure water does no good in this unreasonable heat."
* * * * *
Oswald had been staying nearly a week in the village, and he had never repented for a moment his acceptance of Mother Carsten's invitation. He enjoyed her highest favor. He had not made a line on the white-washed walls of his little bedroom; he always had a kindly word for everybody, even for the immensely old and almost crazy father of Mother Carsten, who sat all day long in his easy-chair, staring at the sun and at the sea, if his weary old eyes did not close in sleep, as was generally the case. Mother Carsten said Oswald was as "orderly and staid" a man as his predecessor, but that he was still less "right here,"--and the forefinger went up to the forehead again,--than the other one. Mother Carsten was induced to make such a strange remark by the fact that Oswald not only did not cover the walls of his bedroom with charcoal sketches of ships under sail, with cliffs around which the gulls were fluttering, and with original faces of weather-beaten sailors, as his predecessor had done, but that he did not draw or paint at all, but simply ran about all day long on the strand, or pulled himself all alone in a small boat so far out into the offing that they could hardly make him out in the distance! How he could amuse himself all the time. Mother Carsten could not divine; she would have probably thought it as mysterious as ever if she had seen Oswald, as soon as he was alone, draw a letter from his pocket which an old, odd-looking man had handed to him several days before, and read it over and over again, as if he had not long since known every word and every letter by heart. The odd-looking old man, who rode one of those high-legged, long-necked horses that Claus had seen in England, was, of course, no one else but old Baumann on Brownlock. Oswald had sent him word, the day after his arrival at the village, that he intended for the present to stay there, and the same information had been sent to Grenwitz. The next day already had brought him a letter from his beloved. It contained only a few words, hastily written on the journey, just before retiring, in a small town of Central Germany--a few words, confused and sad, but sweet and precious, like kisses from beloved lips at the moment of wedding. He had sent his answer back by Baumann, and was now looking daily for another and a fuller letter with an impatience which was by no means altogether joyous.
All minds busy with ideals are apt to complain that nothing here below is perfectly pure, and that often as we strive to ascend into brighter and purer regions, a painful burden of earthy matter drags us soon down again to the eternal level.
Oswald also had frequently suffered from this difficulty; it had spoilt many of his pleasures, it had made him dislike many good people and bad musicians, it threatened even now to become fatal to his love. Not long ago he had made the terrible discovery in his own heart that treachery was lurking there when he thought it altogether filled with love. He had excused himself, it is true, as to the scene in the bay-window at Barnewitz, by saying: I was beside myself; I did not know what I was doing--but can jealousy ever be an excuse for faithlessness? And then: Was that jealousy at least perfectly dead now? Had it not blazed up again in bright flames when he found Melitta's image behind the curtain in the baron's room? Had he not listened to Melitta's recital with breathless apprehension, ever fearing lest now a fact might come out which would after all confirm his suspicions about that man--lest she might, after all, have loved this remarkable man, perhaps without knowing it herself? Had she not said: "I thought I loved him!" And at the very moment when her story had reached the catastrophe which was to explain everything, even her evident antipathy to Oldenburg at this time--just then a message is brought of such a strange and weird nature that it ends in upsetting Oswald's overwrought mind! It was not enough, that he had in Baron Oldenburg a rival facing him in bodily presence; he must now encounter, besides, a husband, or at least the ghost of a husband, who rises from a night of insanity that has lasted seven years, to beckon her to his dying bed--her, his beloved, his Melitta! Oswald felt as if his own mind would give way were he to follow out this thought. He had so completely forgotten that Melitta had ever been married, that she had ever lain in the arms of another man, it mattered little whether she had loved him or not--that she had ever accepted his caresses--he crushed her letter, he could have cried aloud with pain, he felt like dashing his head against the rocky cliffs. Why this poison in the cup of his love? Why must the pure garments of his angel be dragged through the mire of vulgar life? Why must a foul worm have been gnawing at the beautiful flower? And if she were only free now! But even when the night of insanity was to be swallowed up in the night of death, she would not be free yet. She is the mother of her child, of his child, and this consideration, forgotten for the moment, will resume its place in the foreground, and she will have to give me up! And yet, why should it not be so? Can I, the enthusiast for liberty, ever marry the aristocrat? Can I dream of intruding upon a class of men who will ever look at me askant? No! No! Rather live like these poor fishermen, who must earn their daily bread at the risk of their lives in their strife with the cruel ocean.
Thus Oswald's mind was wandering restlessly about in a labyrinth of painful doubts as he himself was wandering among the cliffs on the lonely shore, and who knows where this constant brooding on painful riddles might have led him in the end, if an event had not occurred which forced him unexpectedly, and very much against his will, to return to that society which he hated so bitterly.