With Melitta the good genius seemed to have left the company, and given it up to the agency of demons. The violins sounded louder and louder, the glances of the men became bolder, their words freer, and the motions of the dancers more passionate and more energetic. And still champagne was flowing in streams. New candles had been put into chandeliers and candelabras throughout the house; It looked as if there was to be no end to the enjoyment. The elderly people had returned to their card-tables, and from a smaller room adjoining, to which five or six gentlemen had retired some time ago, the rolling of gold-pieces could be heard, and the hoarse cry: "Faites votre Jeu, messieurs!"
Oswald had at the beginning of the second ball, as they called it, looked all around for Baron and Baroness Grenwitz, for he had not noticed, and was told only now, that they had both left the house before the company went to table, and that the carriage would be sent back for him. He had thought to find Melitta, who had not reappeared in the ball-room, in one of the other apartments. A servant, who passed him with a waiter full of wine-glasses, answered his question if he had seen Frau von Berkow: "The lady has just left. Lemonade or champagne?" Oswald took a glass of wine and drained it at once. "Gone away without farewell! Excellent!" He went back to the ball-room and the darkness increased in his soul. Now he was no longer angry with himself for having insulted her whom he loved, and for having let her go with that feeling in her heart, but he was angry with her, that she had left without giving him an opportunity to ask her pardon. He felt as a soul may feel that has gone to hell for its sins, because it disdained to receive the priest's absolution, and which now rages against itself and against the priest. Mad thoughts floated in his excited brain--he would have been delighted if one of these young noblemen had taken offence at his haughtiness and insulted him mortally. He actually tried to provoke a collision; he scoffed and scorned in the most reckless manner; but either the half-drunk young men did not comprehend him, or they had sense enough left to remember that a duel with a man whose ball never misses was not an agreeable amusement. He tried to persuade himself that among the other young ladies more than one was as beautiful and lovely as Melitta--that it was folly to grieve for one, where there were so many ready to give him comfort. Why should he not fall in love with Emily von Breesen? Why not? She was a lady who in a day might unfold into a magnificent rose. Why should he not watch the transition and enjoy the first balmy fragrance as the full-blown flower opened to new-born love? And was she not tall and lithe like a deer? And were her rosy lips not half opened as if for a kiss? And did she not look up to him with her dark-gray, half-shy, half-bold eyes, full of curiosity, and yet so full also of intelligence, as he bent over the back of her chair and chatted with her?
"You must call on us, Mr. Stein! I shall invite Lisbeth, and then we can ride out together."
"You can leave Miss Lisbeth at home. I prefer duos to trios, decidedly."
"Is that really so? But my cousin is very pretty. Don't you think so?"
"Miss Lisbeth is a charming creature, who has but one defect--that you are her cousin, and who makes but one mistake--to stand too frequently by your side."
"Come, come! I shall tell her."
"You would expose me to her hatred, and then you would owe me a compensation."
"And can I afford you any compensation?"
"Yes; I see it in your eyes."
"Oh, you wicked man! Come, it is our turn now."
Oswald had sauntered about after his dance for some time. When he came back to the ball-room he saw Emily nowhere. Partly looking for her, and partly without any plan or purpose, he wandered through a suite of rooms which connected with the ball-room on the other side of the house, and in which he had not yet been. Here only a few lights were still burning in a chandelier or before a pier-table, and showed him, as in a bad dream, an old family portrait or his own pale face. The chairs stood all about in disorder. The windows were curtained. Through a crevice here and there the moon was shining in, and drew occasionally a bright line across the carpets. Oswald went to one of the windows to get a breath of fresh air. As he drew back the heavy, dark curtain, a white figure, which had been sitting on a low chair in the deep embrasure of the window, lost in thought, started up frightened and uttered a low cry of surprise. Oswald was just about to let the curtain drop again and to retire, when the form approached him and stretched out a hand toward him.... And two soft arms encircled him, and a swelling bosom rose passionately before him, and two burning lips pressed on his, and a low voice breathed: "Oswald, oh my God, Oswald!"
A boy who in playing with his little sister wounds her seriously, cannot be more thoroughly frightened at seeing her blood flow than Oswald was when he felt the tears of the girl on his cheeks. His mad intoxication of love and jealousy was gone in a moment. What had he done? He had played the wicked part of the bird-catcher; he had lured the poor little bird with flattering words and loving glances, until it came fluttering up to him and sought peace on his bosom ...
"Miss Emily," he whispered, trying gently to raise the head of the girl, who was now bitterly sobbing on his bosom, "Emily, my dear child, for Heaven's sake, calm yourself. Consider, if anybody should see you here, or hear you----"
"What do I care for the others? I love you," whispered the girl.
"My dear Miss Emily, I beseech you, collect yourself and make me not wretched----"
"Then you do not love me?" said the passionate girl, raising herself suddenly, "then you do not love me? Well, I am going----"
She took a step towards the curtain, but the storm of passion had exhausted her strength. She uttered a loud sob, and would have fallen down if Oswald had not caught her in his arms. His situation was extremely painful. He feared every moment to hear voices in the room, to see the curtain drawn back,--and yet, to leave the poor child fainting there, especially as he could not well send anybody to her assistance,--it was out of the question. And yet he must tear himself away, for he felt that the fever in his senses, suppressed for a moment, was returning with tenfold strength the longer this trying situation continued ... Tender, affectionate, passionate words began to mingle, he did not himself know how, with his low beseeching prayers; an irresistible force made the youthful form cling closer to his arms, and, ere he well knew what was done, their lips met, the soft hair mingled with his ... But, more than any words could have done, the contact, these signs of the love of a passionate child, brought him back to his self-respect.
"Then you do love me, Oswald?" she whispered, clinging more closely than ever to him.
"Yes, yes, sweet one; who could be cruel enough not to love you dearly. But by your love I beseech you leave me now, before it is too late. I shall see you again in the ballroom."
The girl put her small head once more to his bosom, as if she felt that it was the first and the last time she should ever rest there, and raised her rosy and willing lips once more, as if she knew that such sweet stolen kisses would not be given to her again in this life ... The lithe white form had disappeared, and only the pale moonlight fell upon the dark red curtains which separated the window from the room. And now, as Oswald put his hand on the curtain, in order to return by some roundabout way to the ball-room, he heard the voices of two men, who were just then entering the room.
"Who on earth was that?" said one voice,--it was Baron Oldenburg,--"was not that the pretty Emily? What has the little angler been fishing for here in these troubled waters?--But now, Barnewitz, I ask with Hamlet: Whither do you lead me? Speak, I will go no further. Twice I have brought my baronial knees into unpleasant contact with coarse chair-legs, thanks to the abominableclair obscurwhich prevails in these rooms. Heaven be thanked! here is a causeuse:eh bien, mon ami; que me voulez-vous?"
"I pray you, Oldenburg, be serious for a moment," said Baron Barnewitz, and his voice sounded strangely subdued--"I really do not feel in the least like laughing."
"You are a strange creature! You and the like of you. You think an honest fellow cannot utter a serious word without making a face like a mute's. Humor is an unknown luxury here. Well then, my serious friend, what is the matter?"
"Listen, Oldenburg----"
"Hush! Are you quite safe here? It seemed to me I heard a cat behind the hangings."
"It was nothing."
"Eh bien; then announce to me your fatal tale in the fewest possible words."
The voices of the speakers became lower, but not so low that Oswald could not hear every word distinctly. He deplored his position, which compelled him to listen, but he saw no chance of escaping. As Oldenburg had recognized Emily von Breesen, he would have compromised her honor if he had shown himself now. He tried to open the window, in order to escape by a bold leap over the gooseberry bushes, which were right underneath, into the garden, and from there through the open door back again into the ball-room; but he abandoned the plan as too hazardous, and tried to reconcile himself as well as he could, though not without secretly cursing his evil star, to his half-ludicrous, half-painful situation.
"Oldenburg," said Barnewitz, "did Cloten ask you to let him sit by my wife, or was it a notion of your own?"
"Why do you ask that curious question?"
"Never mind. Just answer."
"Not before I know what you are aiming at."
"I want an answer and no subterfuge," said the furious nobleman.
"Your threats do not terrify me, Cassius," replied Oldenburg, in a tone, the royal dignity of which contrasted strongly with the hoarse, passionate voice of the other. "I tell you once more, Barnewitz, either you tell me what you mean by that question, or I refuse to answer."
"Well then, the thing is briefly this: Cloten is in love with Hortense!"
"Oh! andvice versâ: is your wife in love with this lovely youth?"
"I wish he were where the pepper grows!"
"A very charitable wish, in which I join you with all my heart. Since when has this comedy been played?"
"Since our return from Italy."
"And what evidences have you?"
"A thousand!"
"And what do you mean to do?"
"Great Heavens! Oldenburg. You ask me as if I had been playing whist! I want to kill the rascal; I want to drive him from my place here with the whip!"
"Bon!And will you mention one of the thousand proofs?"
"Well, I should think to-night had given proof enough. First, she lets him take her to table; then she coquets with him in the most impudent manner----"
"Stop! Who told you all that?"
"Young Grieben."
"Then tell young Grieben that he might employ his sparrow-brains for a better purpose than to invent such foolish stories, and to report them to you. I sat nearer than he, and I am sure I observe as well as he, and I tell you that your wife and Cloten have behaved just as well at table, as,--well, as you can expect from a nobleman and a lady. And then, please consider that the whole arrangement was only a notion, and, as I now see, a bad notion of mine."
"I can rely upon that, Oldenburg?"
"I generally mean what I say."
"But it is nevertheless true," screamed Barnewitz.
"My dear friend, I have no opinion about that, and you would oblige me very much indeed if you would leave me out of the matter entirely. But if you want my friendly advice, I am quite at your service."
"What ought I to do?"
"Hang your horsewhip on its hook and avoid in every way making a scandal, in which no one suffers more in the end than he at whose expense the whole spectacle is performed, I mean the husband. Then I advise you to remember that ourchronique scandaleuseis rich in such stories, and that, if every king among us should in each such case use his whip, there would soon not be saddlers enough in the country. Thirdly, I beg leave to advise you: abolish half of your kennel and all of your mistresses, if you have any. Let the hares eat their cabbages in peace, and the young fellows in the village kiss the pretty girls themselves; take some pains about Hortense, who, like all wives, asks for nothing better than to be beloved, and who is far too sensible not to appreciate your attractions at once, if she has any choice between yourself and Cloten; and finally, let us go again among men, for this philosophic controversy in this mystic twilight has nearly exhausted me, and I long heartily for a glass of champagne."
"Ha, ha, ha!" laughed the drunken host, who, as it generally happens to simple men, fell from one extreme into the other; "yes, you are right, I am a very different sort of a man from Cloten, a miserable whippersnapper, and Hortense knows that pretty well. Ha, ha, ha! you are right, I have lived rather fast of late. You see that journey to Italy has demoralized me. Those wonderful women with their bright black eyes--yes, andà proposof bright eyes, I always wanted to ask you, is it all over with yourself and the Berkow?"
"With me and Frau von Berkow? What a mad notion is that now! what is to be over between us?"
"Why, Oldenburg, you don't want to persuade an old fox like myself that you only looked at the sweet grapes from a distance?"
"Listen, my jewel," said Oldenburg, and his voice sounded like a two-edged sword; "you know I take a joke like anybody, but he who dares touch Melitta's honor, by the great God, he dies by my hand!"
"Well, now, you see how you flare up again!"
"I flare up! I am as cool as iced champagne.--Yes, as I told you, Barnewitz; promise me not to do anything in this matter to-day, nor to-morrow, nor at any time, till you have conferred with me; especially don't let your wife see anything--you hear, Barnewitz, not the least sign?"
"Well, your good advice comes too late," said Barnewitz. "I told Hortense in passing a few words; she turned pale like a sheet. The rascal."
"That was very wrong, and not very chivalrous, my good knight of the sorrowful countenance," said Oldenburg; "old women talk, but men act. Such scenes between a noisy husband and a weeping wife are beyond all measure plebeian and vulgar, and if we know that we are right and others are wrong, we should be doubly mild, delicate, and tolerant. To be wrong and to have to confess it is punishment enough."
"Ah, Oldenburg, that is too refined for me; and then you don't know the women, if you think they take such matters very much to heart. In at one ear and out at the other. Come, Oldenburg, and convince yourself, if you can see, that I told Hortense ten minutes ago I would break every bone in Cloten's body if the abominable story was not instantly brought to an end!"
"Yes, you are a genuine Othello! And I, in my stupid good-nature, must try to wash this brutal Moor into a civilized European!Quelle bêtise!"
When Oswald heard the voices of the two men no longer, and the music sounding across from the ball-room indicated that dancing had begun again, he came forth from his concealment. He expected that this suite of rooms ended in a long passage, which he had noticed in going up to the dining-room. He was not mistaken. There was a door into the passage in the next room; from there he slipped into the hall, and thence, unobserved, into the reception-room. Here and there they were still at whist, but most of the players had gone to the ball-room, where the German was to be danced. Oswald followed the crowd. His eyes sought and soon found Emily von Breesen. He hardly trusted his eyes, she looked so changed; the wild hoyden of just now had grown up into a young lady. She appeared taller and more dignified; her face, rosy before, was pale now, but her eyes shone with an unusual fire, and the jests of her partners elicited not even a smile. As soon as she saw Oswald, a smile flashed over her face. She turned towards him as he approached and said:
"One word, doctor,"--and then in a low voice, "I shall dance the German with you; I know you are not engaged. I have driven Count Grieben to such despair, he is gone off with the old people. He thought, no doubt, he would stun me--the fool! Pardon me, Baron Sylow, I am too tired yet. Dance with my cousin, she will be glad--Heaven be thanked! He is gone.--Oswald, you love me? love me really? I can hardly believe it. My head swims; I could scream for joy. Oh, please don't look at me so, or I must--I must fall on your neck and kiss you as just now. Are you angry, Oswald? It was bad in me, very bad, I know. But you see I could not help it. Why don't you talk, Oswald?"
"Because it is sweeter to listen to you."
"I am such a child, am I not? But why do you talk so formally?"
"Do you think we only love those we treat unceremoniously?"
"No, but we drop ceremony with those we love. Oh, I like that so much! Heaven be thanked, the polka is over. Come, let us try and find a good place; there by the window."
The gentlemen were busy obeying the ladies' orders and arranging the chairs; the circle was almost formed, when all of a sudden, high above the tuning of the obstinate instruments of the musicians and the clinking of glasses on waiters and of cups in the hands of thirsty people, voices were heard in an adjoining room which did not sound very festive. There were loud voices, hoarse with wine and rage--threats fell here and there--only a few words, but just enough to startle all who were in the ball-room, for a moment, out of their forgetfulness of the world. It was only for a moment, for a quarrel in coarse words was by no means a rarity in this refined society, and often lasted much longer than this time. Nor would this interruption have made any more impression than many others on similar occasions, if a second occurrence in the ball-room itself had not lent to the former a peculiar significance, which was quite clear to the cleverer part of the company. For hardly had the hoarse, threatening voices in the next room been silenced by a third voice, which seemed to exercise an undisputed authority over them, than Hortense, who was just about to dance the German, seized the arm of her partner and fell fainting on a chair, which the latter had just had time enough to draw up. The consternation was, of course, very great. Although a dozen smelling-bottles were at once ready, and cologne was poured on brow, eyes, and temples of the fainting beauty, it still lasted several minutes before she recovered enough to smile her thanks, with pallid lips, and to beg them, more by looks than by words, to take her back to the other room. This was done promptly, and those who remained behind looked at each other as if they did not know what to make of the event.
"I suppose the ball is over now?" asked Adolph von Breesen, who was to dance the German with Lisbeth, whom he adored, of Oswald, in an under tone.
"I am afraid so," replied the latter.
"Are we going to dance?" asked a third.
"Impossible," replied Langen; "I have ordered my horses."
"What was the meaning of that affair between Barnewitz and Cloten just now?" asked still another.
"Who knows? They had taken a glass too much. That is all," said Langen.
"I should be glad if that were all," said Breesen, "but I fear there is more behind it. They tell me Cloten left the house on the spot."
Baron Barnewitz appeared by Oldenburg's side in the ball-room. The face of the latter looked as calm as ever, but that of his host was purple with excitement, anger, and overmuch wine; his eyes were swimming, and his voice was unsteady, as he tried to persuade the gentlemen to go on dancing.
"Go home?--nonsense--can't let you go--Halloh! Champagne here--Home?--why? My wife faints at any time, for reasons and without reasons--why? I couldn't see anybody if that--Music! Hi! Go on, music!"
But in spite of these hospitable words, the effect of which was seriously impaired by the evident excitement of the speaker, and in spite of the first notes of the orchestra, which began with a truly fearful discord, very few only were disposed to continue the ball. All the others discovered suddenly that it was quite late, that they had been much longer at table than they imagined, and that it would be unwarrantable to continue festivities in which the hostess herself could take no part--and all the phrases of that kind with which people try to excuse their retreat when they have once determined to leave. One carriage after the other drove up to the door. Mothers looked for their daughters; these for their shawls and fans; everybody was making ready, saying good-by, dropping here a loud joke, there a malicious remark, and at times a stealthy word of love.--Oswald hardly saw anything else but the form of the pretty, impassioned child who had become so dear to him in a few moments.--Love is such a very strange thing that even the mere consciousness of having set loose the supernatural power in others suffices to awaken in us a sensation, which may not be love itself, but which resembles love most strikingly. Love itself is a mirror which reflects our image beautified, so that even the wisest and the most modest cannot help feeling gratified at the sight. Love makes gods of us, and we would not be men, would not be brothers of Phaëton and Ixion, if we did not all of us desire once upon a time to play the god, or at least to dine for once at the table of the gods. But what nectar can be as sweet as the kisses from the dewy lips of a young, lovely creature? as the glances from the eyes of a girl whose bosom swells, for the first time in her life, with loving longing?--as her words, confused and yet so intelligible, like the twittering of a young bird, who would like to break forth in full melodies and still cannot find the right notesas yet.
And Oswald had felt the touch of such lips; Oswald saw such young, beaming eyes rise to his full of bliss, and Oswald heard such low, love-breathing words. Was it a wonder that he spent the last few minutes of his interview with her in giving love for love; that he looked forward to the moment of parting with hardly less dread than she herself, who nearly broke out in tears when her carriage was announced? Emily had availed herself of the opportunity, when Oswald led her back to her aunt, to present him to this lady, who stood to her in her mother's place. A few clever and complimentary words had quickly won him the favor of the matron, who liked nothing better, thoroughly kind-hearted as she was, than to laugh a little at other people's expense. She also invited Oswald to come and see her very soon at Candelin (the estate of Emil's father, who was laid up with the gout, and could not go out).
"Yes, and then we'll have some pistol-shooting," said Adolphus, who came up to tell the ladies that the carriage was ready; "I shall invite a few other gentlemen, so that you won't be too badly bored at our house."
"I have only a very modest talent for being bored, and besides, I think the presence of these ladies, and your own, will be a better preventive against that malady than the company of a hundred persons," said Oswald, with a polite bow.
"You see, Adolphus," said the lively old lady, "Doctor Stein says exactly what I have told you a thousand times: only slow people are bored; you, for instance, and your sister, who are both dying a hundred times a day for sheerennui."
"I am never bored, dear aunt," said Miss Emily, eagerly.
"Child, you begin to talk wildly; it is high time you should get home. Thenau revoir, monsieur."
"I beg you will allow me to see you to your carriage," said Oswald, offering the old lady his arm.
"Vous êtes bien aimable, monsieur," she replied, accepting the offered arm; "are you quite sure, Mr. Stein, you are not of noble birth?"
"As sure as of my existence, madam. Why?"
"This: you have in your whole manner something chivalrous, that we do not often see nowadays, and then only in our young men of the best families. Adolphus has still much to learn in that direction. Do you hear, Adolphus?"
"I always hear what you say, dear aunt," replied the young man, who followed them with his sister, "even when I have heard your words once or twice before. Emily, child, where are your eyes? That carriage was on the point of driving over you."
The ladies had taken their seats; Adolphus gave the coachman on the box some instructions about the road he was to take. Oswald was standing by the still open door; the aunt had snugly ensconced herself in her corner, and Emily was bending forward a little. The light of the carriage lamps and those at the house door fell upon her face. Her eyes were fixed upon Oswald; but she hardly saw him, for they were veiled by tears; she dared not speak; her trembling lips were eloquent enough. Her brother jumped into the carriage, and drew the door to. "All right!" The horses pulled. A little hand in a white glove beckoned from the window. That was the last sign. The next moment another carriage was on the same spot.
Oswald returned into the house. The company was quite small now, and among the few who were still there, waiting for their carriages and wrapped up in cloaks and shawls, there was no one of those with whom Oswald had come in contact during the day. Langen had been the first to leave, after repeatedly asking his new friend to be sure and pay him soon a visit. Oswald had inquired of the servants if the Grenwitz carriage had come back for him, but they had seen nothing of it. The smaller the company grew, the more embarrassing became his situation. He saw himself already, in imagination, the very last of all the guests, and had resolved rather to return on foot than to have to claim the hospitality of Baron Barnewitz. Just then, however, Oldenburg came from an adjoining room, and seemed to look for somebody. As soon as he saw Oswald, he came up to him and said:
"What do you say, doctor, I think we had better go."
"I should have been gone long ago," replied Oswald, "but just now I am without horses and carriage; I suppose the baron's coachman, who was to come back for me, has fallen asleep on the way."
"I take special pleasure in offering you a seat in my carriage," said the baron. "For the littledétourwhich I shall have to make, in order to set you down at Grenwitz, I shall be amply compensated by the pleasure of your company."
"I accept your kind offer very thankfully."
"Eh bien, partons!"
In the hall they met their host, who was evidently scarcely able any longer to perform his duties as such. His eyes were bloodshot, his voice had become most unpleasantly rough and hoarse. He talked of all sorts of things incoherently, while he made an effort to dismiss every one of his guests with a civil little speech, as he saw them to their carriage. "Want to go already--well, stay at home well--John, your carriage for your mistress--My respects to your husband! Ah! Poggendorf! old boy! Had not seen you here at all! Don't let that wife of yours go home alone! Glass champagne? Eh?--Oldenburg, doctor, not already? Nonsense! Glad to make your acquaintance--shoot devilish well--all right that you put down that Cloten--all right--famous fellow, doctor (tender embrace)--you are my bosom friend (sobbing)--my best friend (another embrace)--you ought to have killed him--the blackguard."
"Come, Barnewitz, I have to tell you something," said Oldenburg, slapping his host vigorously on the shoulder, and leading him a few steps aside from the carriage; "Excuse me a moment, doctor; Charles! make room, so the other carriages can come up!"
The two men walked up and down for some time in eager conversation, now disappearing in the dark part of the courtyard, and now visible again in the illuminated semicircle before the door. Oswald could readily imagine the subject of their conversation. Several times Barnewitz raised his voice, but he lowered it instantly upon a 'St! or a Hush! as a wild beast in a menagerie breaks out in a howl or a growl, and is instantly hushed by the look or the whip of the keeper. "That man has a magic power over others," said Oswald to himself, as he watched the tall, grim form of the baron walking alongside of Barnewitz, who was a head shorter, like Conscience in person by the side of a poor sinner. "I feel something of his dominion myself. There is a demon in that man, a demon which one must either love or hate, or rather love and hate at once; for I feel disposed to hate that man and I cannot do it. And what is he to me after all? If he still loves Melitta, as I think he does, I am more of an enemy to him than he to me. But why did Melitta never tell me how she stands with regard to that long ghost there? I would not have offended her to-day. Poor Melitta! How she looked at me--and what would she say if she had witnessed the scene in the window? Oh, that sweet, charming girl! And her eyes, too, were full of tears, as she sat in the carriage and looked at me so fixedly! Oh! who can be cruel enough to refuse the love of such a heart? And yet
'All this blending of heart with heartBrings but pain to us from the start.'
'All this blending of heart with heartBrings but pain to us from the start.'
Ah, Goethe! Goethe! What have you not to answer for? You also did not disdain the lily because the rose was so fair, and that is why they surround your head so often with a wreath of lilies and roses. You too would have accepted Emily's great heart, and you would have smoothed her brown hair and kissed her tenderly on her tender eyes! Oh, ye everlasting stars, how lovely the child was at that moment! For, all in all, she is but a child, and to-morrow she will awake in her soft little bed and think she has dreamt the scene in the bay-window during her sleep."
Thus Oswald tried to silence the voice of his conscience--for the moment he was successful.
"Will you get in now, doctor?" the baron said, as he came up with his host. "You understand, Barnewitz?"
"Rely upon it, I'll do what I promised," said the latter, who seemed to be very much benefited by the conversation with his Mentor and the cool night air. "Rely upon it, I give you my word of honor, that I----"
"Hush! Are you comfortable, doctor? Good-by, Barnewitz! All right, Charles!"
The horses started; the light wagon rattled over the rough road across the court-yard. In an instant the château, with its still brilliantly lighted windows, the dark barns and stables, and the little cottages all lay behind them, and they were far off between waving grain-fields and mist-covered meadows. The short summer night was already waning. In the East a faint streak of light announced the new day; the early dawn covered the whole landscape as with a thin veil. From the North, however, came sheet lightning, and rent from time to time the thick fog. All was silent yet in the fields; even the lark, the herald of day, was still asleep. Oswald was leaning back in his corner and looked dreamily into the twilight; only at times, when the smoke from the baron's cigar floated by him, he looked at the latter, who seemed to be lost in thought as he sat there, with his hat pushed back a little, the collar of his coat drawn up, and his long legs stretched out to their full length. They might have been sitting thus for a quarter of an hour, when the baron suddenly said:
"You don't smoke?"
"No."
"May I offer you a cigar?"
"Thanks! I never smoke."
"That is strange."
"Why so?"
"Because I cannot understand it, how a man can endure this nineteenth century of ours without smoking tobacco or opium, without eating hasheesh, or trying in some other way to deaden the desperate disgust with which this age fills our hearts. And I understand this least of all in your case."
"Why just in my case?"
"Because, if I am not totally mistaken, you are affected with the poet's deadly disease--the longing after the Blue Flower--and will die one of these days of your unsatisfied longing. You recollect the beautiful story in Novalis' works? The Blue Flower, after which the great Minnesinger was longing? The Blue Flower! Do you know what that is? That is the flower which mortal eye has never yet seen, and the fragrance of which fills the whole world. Not every creature is delicately enough made to be able to perceive the perfume; but the nightingale is intoxicated with it when it sings and sobs and sighs in the moonlight or at early daybreak; and all foolish men have been and are drunk with it when they cry in prose and in poetry to heaven, pouring out their sorrow and their grief; and all the countless millions to whom the gift was denied to utter what they suffer, and who in their speechless sorrow look up to merciless Heaven. Ah! and there is no cure for that malady! No cure but death! He who has once breathed the perfume of the Blue Flower, has no more peace and quiet in this life. As if he were an accursed murderer, as if the angel with the flaming sword were after him, he is driven on and on, although his sore feet pain him and he yearns to lay down his weary head to rest. He asks, in his torments of thirst, for a drink at this or that cottage door, but he returns the emptied cup without thanks, for there was a fly in the water, or the cup was not quite clean, or--well, well, he was not refreshed by the drink. Refreshed! Where is the eye which satisfies us so that we would never like to look into another again, more brilliant, more fiery than the first? Where is the bosom on which we have once rested, which keeps us from desiring to listen to the beating of another heart, more ardent, more burning with love? Where? I ask you where?"
The baron paused: Oswald was strangely moved. What the eccentric man by his side had been saying, more to himself than to be heard, in an almost elegiac tone, which contrasted strikingly with his ordinarily sharp, strident voice--it was his own thoughts, which he had had often and often, from early boyhood up, so that he was almost frightened by the close resemblance of his Double. He had no answer for the baron's question, which he seemed to have propounded to himself.
"I have always been thinking about the necessity," continued the baron, "which forces men first to forget their own existence more or less, before they reach the condition which we call happiness, for want of a better word, and that they are the happier, the more fully they can forget it. 'The best of life is but intoxication,' says Byron. Yes indeed! The love of Romeo and Juliet, for which we face death as readily, as we go to a feast, is also but intoxication. 'To sleep is better than to be awake,' says the wisdom of the East; but the best of all is death."
"And yet comparatively few men kill themselves," said Oswald.
"Yes, and that is remarkable enough," replied the baron; "especially in our day, when most people are not afraid any more even of Hamlet-dreams that might trouble us in our eternal sleep."
"Might not that be a proof that, after all, the much talked of unhappiness of such people is not so very great?"
"Perhaps so; but perhaps, also, it only proves that man is very reluctant to abandon his last hope. Why does the wanderer who has lost his way drag himself forward through the deep snow? Why does the poor shipwrecked mariner strain his eyes for half a century gazing over the wild waste of waters? Why does the criminal condemned for life not dash his brains out against his prison walls? Why does the poor fellow who is to be hanged on the morrow not hang himself the night before? Before their unhappiness is not so very great? Pshaw! You do not believe that. Simply because a faint glimmer of hope still shines through the hell of their suffering, like the pale streak there in the east. If that faint gleam too should fade away, then, yes, then old Mother Night would have to take back her poor lost child, the mild, good, loving Night of Death."
After a short pause, during which the baron had been puffing great clouds of smoke from his cigar, he continued in a somewhat calmer tone:--
"I am several years older than you, and Fate has allowed me to see in a short time more of life than is commonly given to man. I have that, of which Goethe's friend in gray wished him the greatest possible amount: Experience. I might have learnt, and I ought to have learnt, therefore, that there is no hope in life for me and people like me; but, although I say: I have no more hope! I still go on hoping in secret that some happiness will come, as the consumptive ever hopes to be cured. Take for instance a party like that which we have just left. I know how hollow the joys of these people are; how many care-worn faces, how many guilty blushes are hid behind the smiling company-masks; I know that this pretty girl will be, ten years hence, an unhappy wife, if she is not an idiot; that this handsome fellow, who carries his head so high, and looks as if he could perform the twelve labors of Hercules in a single day, will be a coarse country bumpkin, who ill-treats his tenants and strikes his wife; I know that, and I know more than that, and I have seen it a thousand and ten thousand times in life, and yet I am not blasé for all that. This treacherous Fata Morgana has yet charms for me; every budding girl-flower awakens the hope in me, I might really for once love and be loved; every fine manly fellow makes me believe once more in friendship. Would you have believed me such a fool?"
"I should not have thought you could think and feel thus."
"And you were perfectly right," said the baron. "I only think and feel so when I am dead drunk, as now.--What was that?"
A loud cry came from a little distance through the silent morning--and once more, louder, desperate, as if a woman, for it was a woman's voice, sees the murderer's knife raised in his hand. Before them lay a piece of woodland; the road went around it; the cry must have come from the other side, which was hid from them by a few detached oak-trees and thick underwood.
"Go on, Charles, faster!" cried the baron.
The coachman whipped his horses. The noble creatures, as if amazed at such undeserved treatment, rushed headlong forward, so that the two men in the carriage began to tremble. In an instant they were at the corner. As soon as they could see the other side they beheld a strange sight--A strangely dressed, dark-complexioned woman, with a piece of red stuff twisted like a turban around her bluish-black hair, ran shrieking after three horsemen, who spurred their horses to make their best speed, and instantly disappeared behind another turn in the road. As the baron's carriage came thundering up, the woman jumped aside and cried, with screaming voice, lifting her hands as if in prayer: "My child--my child! they have robbed me of my child!"
The coachman found it hard to stop the horses. Oswald, who had at once recognized the Brown Countess in the woman, had jumped down from the carriage.
"Save my child, sir, save my child!" cried the gypsy, throwing herself down before him and embracing his knees.
The baron laughed.
"A very romantic situation, doctor," he said from the wagon. "Morning dawning, woods whispering, gypsy, the king's highway--really, quite a novel! In the mean time, while you console the bereft mother I will pursue the robbers, who are probably only sheep in wolf's clothing, a couple of empty-headed gentlemen of our neighborhood, who look upon the whole as capital fun."
"The one on the gray horse was Baron Nadelitz," said the coachman, who could hardly hold his horses, turning half around.
"Drive on!" said the baron. "We'll give them a lesson."
The carriage went off thundering.
The gypsy had raised herself again. She looked after the carriage, which flew with mad speed over the rough forest road and now disappeared behind some trees. A strange smile passed over her face as she stood there, listening in breathless excitement. Then, as her ear ceased to hear the rolling of the wheels, she crossed her bare arms on her full bosom, the restless heaving of which alone spoke of the violent storm which had just shaken her whole system, and stared rigidly before her. Suddenly she raised her head and said, fixing her glittering eyes on Oswald:
"Do you know the dark man who brings me my Czika back?"
"Yes, Isabel."
"Is he your friend?"
"No."
"But he will be?"
"Perhaps."
"Is he a good man?"
"I think so."
"Do you remember the evening on the edge of the water, sir?"
"Yes, Isabel."
"Could you find the place again?"
"I believe I could. Why?"
"Will you bring the dark man to that place when the full moon stands in the heavens as it does now? Oh say yes! I beseech you by your love to the beautiful, kind lady, by the bones of your mother, say yes!"
The gypsy was kneeling once more before Oswald, and looked, with folded hands, imploringly up to him.
"Get up, Isabel," said the young man, "I will do what you wish, if I can."
The gypsy seized his hands, as he stretched them out to help her get up, and kissed them with passionate gratitude. Then she started up, hastened across the road toward the forest, and had the next moment disappeared in the dense underwood, through which she sped with the strength and the swiftness of a deer.
Before Oswald could recover from the speechless astonishment which the conduct of the Brown Countess had caused him, he heard the rolling of the carriage, which returned as swiftly as it had left. But before the wagon had reached the trees, behind which it had before disappeared, it suddenly stopped, and the baron appeared, bareheaded, and carrying little Czika on his arm.
"We have hunted, we have caught," he called out from afar. "The cowardly wolves let the fair booty go as soon as they saw us in pursuit, and escaped in haste.--There, little Ganymede, now see if your feet will carry you again."
The baron let the child glide down. "But what has become of the mother, or whoever that brown woman was?" he asked, surprised to find Oswald alone.
Oswald told him, in a few words, what had happened during his absence.
"Well, that is not so bad," said the baron; "the thing becomes more and more romantic. Full moon, edge of lake, gypsy women, cunning of Egypt, and two simple German boys, who are cheated! What are we to do with little Czika, as you call the little princess?--for I am sure she is a king's daughter, stolen from the cradle----"
"If we do not wish to leave her on the high-road, we shall have to take her with us, I suppose."
"But will the child go with us? Listen, little Czika, will you go with me?"
"Yes, sir!" said the child, who had so far shown no sign of apprehension, fear, or anxiety.
"Hm!" said the baron, "here I have an adopted child without asking for it!"
He had become very serious of a sudden. He stroked Czika's bluish-black curls and her fine brow, and looked at her steadily.
"How beautiful the child is," he murmured, "how very beautiful! And how it has grown!--Come with me, little Czika, you shall be happy at my house, very happy; I will love you more than your mother, who has left you so basely, has ever loved you."
"Mother has not left Czika," said the child, quietly looking up at the baron; "mother is where Czika is; mother is everywhere."
Turning away from the two gentlemen, she put her little hands to her mouth, and sent a cry into the silent forest exactly like the call of a hungry young falcon.
The child inclined her head on one side and listened; the baron and Oswald instinctively held their breath.
There came from the forest, but evidently from a great distance, the answer; the clear, wild cry of the old falcon when he has spied out his quarry far down below him.
"You see, sir," said the child, "mother does not leave Czika; if you wish to take Czika with you, Czika will go with you."
"Well, then, come, young falcon," said the baron, taking the child by the hand. "Come, doctor! I believe Charles has mended the strap which broke just around the corner. There he is. All right again, Charles?"
"Yes, sir."
The gentlemen got in and took the child between them.
"Go on," said the baron. "Let them trot out."
They soon came upon the wide heath which extends from Fashwitz to Grenwitz, the same heath on which Oswald had met the old woman from the village. It wanted yet half an hour to sunrise. On the eastern sky a series of purple streaks rose one above the other. The air came cool from the sea across the damp moor.
The little Czika had come up close to the baron and was fast asleep.
"How thinly the child is dressed," said the latter; "it will take cold in the fresh morning air!"
He rose, pulled off his overcoat, wrapped it around the little one, took her in his lap, and rested her head on his bosom.
"So, so!" he said, kindly! and then to Oswald, who had been silent, meditating on the enigmatical character of the man by his side:
"I look to you a little crazy, doctor, eh?"
"No," said the other, looking up, "not in the least."
"That is because you suffer of the same disease as I do; what makes others speechless with amazement appears to us perfectly natural; and what the good people and bad musicians consider a matter of course, seems to us nothing less than fabulous. You will, for instance, readily believe that I have met this same child now for the third time in my life, and that I am superstitious enough to see in this threefold meeting much more than a mere accident. Besides, like Wallenstein, I believe in no accident."
"And where and when do you think you have seen Czika?"
"The first time, four years ago, in England. I was riding with a couple of English friends in a distant part of Hyde Park. As we turned round a corner at full speed, a child was standing before us--a brown child, with big black eyes, raising its tiny hands imploringly. I scarcely noticed it, being engaged in an animated conversation. After we had gone on perhaps a hundred yards, I felt suddenly as if spirits were drawing me back. I cannot describe the sensation. I felt, however, as if my riding past the sweet, helpless creature had been a crime, which made me perfectly wretched. I turned round; I raced back to the place like a madman. The child was gone. I called after her; I searched the shrubbery all around; my friends aided me, in spite of my madness, as they called it; but all in vain.
"The next time, I saw the child in Egypt. It is now two years. We--I mean a small caravan of Nile travellers, who had met by accident,--were riding on our little donkeys through the narrow winding streets of Asqut. By the side of an open door, through which we could look into the silent shady court of a mosque, stood, in a niche in the wall, a child, older than that in Hyde Park, and younger than that here in my arms, but the same brown child, with the bluish-black curls, and the bright gazelle eyes. Again she stretched out her little hands towards the passers-by, and called the cry you hear everywhere in Egypt: Bakshish! howadjee, bakshish! I saw the child, and yet I did not see it; for I was in those desperate fits of humor which occasionally overcome me, when eyes and ears are wide open, and yet neither see nor hear. As we turned round the next corner, I felt precisely the same sensation as in Hyde Park. I left my donkey; I ran back as fast as I could.--The niche was empty. The door leading to the mosque was open, as I said. The yard had on the other side a second door, which was also open, and which led upon one of the main streets, where, at this hour,--it was towards sunset,--men, camels, and donkeys were closely crowded together. The child was gone, and I returned to my companions with a heavy heart; as usual, they had explained my sudden disappearance by assuming a fit of madness.--Do you think it possible that this child, which I first saw amid English mists, and next under the bright sky of Egypt, should cross my path a third time in a German beechwood?"
"And even if it were not the same child,--and, to tell the truth, I consider it highly improbable that it is the same,"--replied Oswald, "it would be the same to you. I believe in an eternal, ever-changing, ever-constant world-spirit. I believe that that lark which there rises from the heath, and wings its way singing to the sky, is the same lark which I followed, enchanted, as a boy, until it was lost in the blue ether even to my sharp eyes. I believe that all heroes are brethren, and that every sufferer is that neighbor whom heart and reason alike command us to love like unto ourselves.--It matters little whether this child is the same which you have twice sought in vain, it matters only that the appeals of the poor forlorn creature every time pierced through the triple brass around your bosom into your very heart.... You will pardon, I am sure, such language in a man who is so far inferior in experience and intelligence, and who draws courage to speak them only from the regard he feels for you, almost instinctively. And allow me to add one word: if you could make up your mind to love this child, it would be a gift to you more precious than Aladdin's marvellous lamp. Love is everywhere except in hell, says a deep word of one of the Minnesingers; it means, where there is no love, there is hell. Love is the fragrance of that Blue Flower, which, as you said just now, fills the whole world, and you will find the Blue Flower, which you have sought in vain all your life long, in every being which you love with all your heart." A strange melancholy smile played around the baron's lips as Oswald spoke these words.
"You cannot solve the riddle," he said sadly, in a low voice; "for this very condition, that we must love with all our heart, if we wish to get rid of the torment which makes life a hell, is the impossible thing. Which of us can love with all his heart? We are all so driven, so weary, that we have no longer the strength nor the courage which true, real love requires. I mean that love which knows neither rest nor repose till it has made its own every thought of our mind, every sentiment of our heart, and every drop of our blood. If you are still young and ingenuous enough for such a love, I congratulate you! For my part, I can only repeat: I have given it up to find the Blue Flower, that wondrous flower which blooms only for the happy one who is still able to love with all his heart.--But here we are at the gates of Grenwitz, and must break off a conversation which I trust we shall very soon continue. Farewell, and come and inquire as soon as you can after the well-being of the little creature who is your protégée almost more than mine."
The carriage rolled off. Oswald followed it long with his eyes; then he crossed the bridge, bowing his head, and went up to the château. The sun had risen, and was flooding the gray walls with rosy lights; in the dewy garden the birds were singing their carols--but Oswald saw a dark gray veil drawn over the charming morning, for in his ear sounded yet the baron's words: Which of us is still able to love with all his heart? Which of us has yet a whole heart?