Day had long since dawned over the great city, and the little house in the Dorotheen-strasse prided itself upon remaining no whit behind its more aristocratic neighbors in this respect. The occupants of the "tun" were usually no late sleepers, and Balder in particular never failed to hear the general alarm-clock of the house, the old pump-handle, which sang a well-meant but monotonous morning song, when at six o'clock in summer and seven in winter, Reginchen set it in motion to get her father his glass of water for breakfast. At the same time the windows in the workshop were opened, and the grumbling of the head journeyman, who took advantage of the half hour before the master appeared, to make the apprentices feel his importance, became audible. But as soon as the master of the house, in his loose jacket and slippers, crossed the courtyard, everything below was perfectly still. Indeed, though the brothers had been unable to procure a watch, they had no occasion to be at a loss to know the time, even during the day. Exactly one hour after the first music of the pump, Reginchen appeared in the "tun" with the well-beaten clothes and the breakfast. Punctually at nine o'clock a window was opened in the second story, a yellow old face in a night-cap, the once famous actress, stretched out a wrinkled little nose to find out which way the wind was blowing, as her husband, the tenor, though he no longer had occasion to spare his high C, could not give up the habit of staying in the house when there was an East wind. Precisely one hour after, the little man himself appeared at another window which opened upon the courtyard, not lighted by the sun, to shave with great deliberation and apply before the little mirror the necessary cosmetics, which an old celebrity of the stage considers an indispensable, nay, an incontestable proof of the dignity of his calling. When eleven o'clock struck, the piano in the room below, occupied by Fräulein Christiane, with whom we formed a passing acquaintance in the first chapter, was opened, and a practised hand struck a few notes by way of prelude to a singing-lesson, which, from consideration for Edwin had been deferred to this time, when he usually went to his lecture. Various pupils came to take lessons; of late, twice a week a merry soubrette, belonging to one of the theatres in the suburbs, appeared, who desired to practise her little parts in new operettas, and drove her grave teacher to despair by a number of blunders, musical and otherwise. As a loud conversation could be heard through the open windows, almost word for word, Balder often became an ear-witness to the most singular scenes, which afforded him a glimpse of an utterly unknown world. Punctually at twelve o'clock the dinner-bell rang, and was usually hailed by the pupil with a merrily whistled street song, as the grateful feeling of release could be expressed in no better way.
The household clock performed its duty to-day as well as ever, but the occupants of the upper story in the back building seemed deaf to its sounds. The pump's morning song died away unheard. No "come in" answered the low knock an hour later, and, after a short delay and a shake, of the head, the slender household sprite, hanging the clothes on the banister of the stairs, glided down again with the breakfast. Miezica, the white cat, which at the same time appeared at the window to be fed by Balder, remained on the broad sill that ran from gutter to gutter, staring into the room, where no living creature was yet stirring. Not until the yellow top of the acacia-tree was gilded by the rising sun--it must have been ten minutes past ten for the old tenor was just beginning to powder himself--did Balder open his eyes, astonished at the bright light that filled the room. He looked toward Edwin; the latter gave no sign that the sunlight was too dazzling for him to continue his dreams.
Softly the youth rose and limped to the turning-lathe in the corner, where he noiselessly arranged a variety of tools, bits of wood, and little bottles. He did not, however, begin to work, but taking a book, became for a time absorbed in its contents. Suddenly the thoughts which had kept him awake so long during the night, seemed to return. He laid the book aside, opened a window, and leaned out into the already heated air.
Ere long a low knock at the door roused him from his reverie. He glided on tip-toe past the sleeper, and slipped through the half-opened door into the dusky entry.
Reginchen stood without; her round face, whose eyes and mouth were ever ready to bubble over with mirth, was turned toward him with a sort of curious anxiety.
"Good morning, Reginchen," he whispered. "I can't let you in, he is still asleep. He did not go to rest until long after midnight; I am glad the sun does not wake him. You have already been to the door once--I overslept myself too, contrary to my custom--we talked so long last night. I am sorry we have made you so much trouble, Reginchen. Give me the waiter, I will carry the breakfast in."
"It is no trouble," replied the young girl, who when talking to the brothers always tried to correct her Berlin dialect as much as possible, but without precisely solving the mystery of the dative and accusative. "But you will be completely starved. Sha'n't I get you some coffee? Cold milk on an empty stomach--"
"Thank you, Reginchen. I am used to it. You are always so kind. Why have you dressed so early to-day, Reginchen?"
The young girl blushed as she smoothed her little black silk apron and the folds of a light muslin that had been freshly washed and ironed.
"This is my birthday, Herr Walter," (she could not accustom herself to the name of "Balder.") "My mother gave me the apron, and the old gentleman on the second floor, the garnet breastpin. I am going to visit my aunt at Schöneberg after dinner, and so I wanted to ask if I might bring your dinner up very early to-day. My brother will come for me punctually at one o'clock."
"Your birthday, Reginchen! And I have forgotten it! Are you angry with me? My brother's sickness has given me so much to think of lately. You know, Reginchen, I wish you all possible good fortune and happiness, though my congratulations are late; but you are used to seeing me limp."
"How can you talk so. Herr Walter?" she replied, quietly allowing the firm little hand he had so cordially grasped to rest in his. "It makes no difference whether a stupid thing like me, without education or culture, is seventeen or eighteen. Father says women remain great children all their lives; so whether they become older or not can be of little consequence."
"He is only joking, Reginchen. What would your father do without you, to say nothing of the rest of us in the house? So you are really eighteen years old to-day? I wish I knew of something that would give you pleasure; I should like to make you a birthday present."
"I don't want any present," she replied, hastily turning away and putting her foot on the upper stair. "I have already had so many gifts from you at Christmas and such times, and my mother always scolds and says I am too large to receive presents from strange gentlemen. Hark! she is calling me; I must go, Herr Walter."
She darted down the steep staircase, like an arrow, and Balder, who remained at the top, heard her singing a song in a clear, childish voice, as she skipped across the pavement of the courtyard in her little slippers. As he took the waiter from the low attic stairs where she had placed it, and limped softly back into the room, he involuntarily sighed.
Going up to his sleeping brother he gazed at him with affectionate anxiety. Edwin seemed to be slumbering quietly. His high, beautifully arched brow was unwrinkled, a smile played around his lips, and his delicate nostrils quivered slightly, as they always did when he made a witty speech. His shirt was open at the throat, and a small gold locket attached to a silk cord and containing a tress of his mother's golden hair, was plainly visible. Balder wore one like it.
He was about to retire to the window corner again, when a hasty step was heard on the stairs, and ere Balder could reach the door to stop the new comer, an eager knock announced a visitor who knew himself to be welcome at any hour.
"Come in!" said Edwin, as he slowly rose from his pillow, still half asleep. "That must be Marquard. Good heavens, it is broad daylight!"
"To be sure!" laughed the new arrival. "It requires the presence of a despicable empiric like myself, to make the Herr Philosopher aware that the sun is several hours high in the heavens. Well, how are you, patient? Has the prescription wrought its work? I am almost inclined to believe that the dose was too strong."
Nodding kindly to Balder, he hastily approached the bed and touched Edwin's brow and temples before feeling his pulse. The keen, light gray eyes gazed through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles at a heavy gold watch, and the youthfully round and regular, though somewhat pale face, which on entering the door had worn an expression of the gayest unconcern, now assumed a quiet, watchful air, while the elegant figure, which was of about the medium height, leaned lightly on a chair beside the bed.
"My dear Herr Medicinalrath," said Edwin, "your master work has been performed on me. Mother Nature, who may well fear you since you irreverently pry into her most sacred secrets and scan all her little weaknesses as through a microscope, seems, at your command, to have once more taken pity upon me, and granted me sleep. All else will follow as a matter of course; at least I already feel a truly wolfish appetite. If you'll allow me. Doctor, I'll only put on the most necessary articles of clothing, and go to breakfast at once, to relieve Balder, who I see has again waited for me."
"Probatum est," laughed the doctor, pocketing his watch. "I was perfectly well aware, that for brains like yours, there is no better narcotic than the mixture of folly, noise, and tights, we men of the world swallow to excite us. I find your symptoms to-day far more encouraging than yesterday, and, within a few days, I think I shall repeat the dose. Hunger is a good symptom. But I don't see the breakfast."
"It is standing on the table yonder," said Balder, quietly.
The doctor stepped to the little table, which, covered with a green cloth, stood in the middle of the room, and gazed, with an indescribable look of pity and horror, at the white pitcher, which stood between two stoneware cups, while a tin plate beside it contained two small rolls.
"Pardon me," said he, "my science does not extend so far as to enable me to determine, by its mere appearance, the name of the strong broth which awaits you here as your first meal."
"It is pure, unadulterated milk, in which we dip the flower of wheat," said Edwin, who, having in the meantime hastily clothed himself, now approached the table and filled both cups. "You are doubtless aware, my dear fellow, that milk contains all the elements of nourishment which--"
"Which a child in swaddling clothes needs till it cuts its teeth! Sacred Reason, what is the world coming to, when your ablest votaries, the philosophers, confess themselves addicted to the most preposterous habits and customs. Are you not startled, my lad, by the frightful contradiction involved by your endeavor, amidst our exhaustive, enervating civilization, which constitutes such a drain upon the blood and marrow, to sustain yourself on the nourishment of stupid pastoral tribes? In Berlin, too, where as you know, all the cows are infected with the pallor of the Hegel philosophy, and where the watery fluid they give is still further diluted at every pump. No, my dear fellow, either I give you up as incurable, or you must decide at once upon a radical change of habit, wash your face with this innocent fluid--an admirable preventive of premature wrinkles--and moisten your inner man at this time with a glass of port wine, to be followed by the consumption of half a pound of roast meat. I'll wager that in a short time there will be a change in your organism which will make itself perceptibly felt if you visit the Berlin ballet too frequently. What are you laughing at? I am perfectly serious."
"That is just why I laughed," said Edwin, as, standing by the table, he quietly broke his roll into the thin blue milk. "You forget, my dear fellow, that I can only make use of prescriptions which are put up at the pharmacy 'for lucky beggars.' Or do you happen to have it in your pocket?"
"What?"
"My professorship, or Balder's diploma as turner to the court. With your practice in such circles, you can not fail, if you are in earnest, to help us to a brilliant career. But until then I deeply regret that I can give you no prospect of a change of diet."
Marquard looked around the room, and shook his head angrily, as he said: "But it is suicidal folly, absurd nonsense, to live as you do! Balder, too, will never fare any better, so long as you squat here like two old women, and fast till you are livid for lack of blood. Professorship? Nonsense! With your views, you'll never get one to the end of your days in our Christian German government. If you had only learned some commonplace thing, so that you might be made useful somewhere. However, you know something of arithmetic, don't you?"
"The first four formulæ, and the rule of three."
"No joking. You are a thorough mathematician. I will get you a position in a life insurance company, where they need some one for their estimates of probabilities. Five hundred thalers at first. You need say but one word."
"Ratherthree, my faithful Eckhart: Thank you, kindly. I can not endure the atmosphere of an office. But seriously, my dear preserver of mankind, don't give yourself any trouble about me. I am incorrigible. Every German must have a whim. Mine is to belong exclusively to myself, shake as many nuts from the tree of life as I like, and waste as much time as I can spare in cracking them and getting at the kernels. To make a career is an occupation that robs one of a great deal of time, and it is the same with the effort to become a millionaire in a respectable way. Both, therefore, I must renounce, and since I have for either as little talent as inclination, and can get along for a time in this way, why should I fly into a passion because the Berlin cows have deteriorated as much in the fabrication of milk as Prussian political philosophy has deteriorated since the days of Father Kant? Except on occasions when, by an Epicurean like yourself, unnatural desires are created in us, we want for nothing in our 'tun,' and, moreover, have something put aside for a rainy day; have we not, Balder?"
The doctor was about to make some reply, but controlled himself, and seized his hat. "Adieu!" he growled, and went toward the door, but paused on the threshold.
"You will allow me," he said harshly, "as I still have charge of you, to send you some medicine from my own pharmacy. I received a gift of some excellent Bordeaux from a wine-dealer, on whom I performed a very surprising cure, I will send you some on trial, and if you don't drink half a bottle every noon--Balder may content himself with a glass--I--"
"Will show me no farther friendship? Better not say that. It would be a pity: for your sake, because without our society you would sink completely into empiricism and gluttony; and for ours, because we should be compelled to deny ourselves the luxury of consulting a physician. No, old fellow, I thank you very kindly for your philanthropic design, but it is wiser for us to continue to cut our coats according to our cloth."
"And these people wish to be elevated above ordinary prejudices!" exclaimed the doctor fiercely, putting on his hat. "If you really were so elevated, you would not be too proud to accept a few pitiful drops of wine from an old college friend! Go, you are perfect fools with your idealism!"
"And you are on the way to become as famous a doctor as old Heim. At least you already have the needful roughness!" laughed Edwin.
The doctor heard him no longer; he had slammed the door and was noisily descending the stairs. Balder looked at his brother.
"You ought not to have refused," said he. "He means kindly, and he is undoubtedly right: our diet is not fit for you."
"So you, too, are beginning to scold," said Edwin, drinking the remainder of his milk as if it were the most exquisite nectar. "But the trump of doom would not disturb the serenity of my soul to-day. I am in exactly the phlegmatic, abstract frame of mind, to which the most difficult problems seem like child's play. It is a pity I have nothing harder to elucidate than how it comes to pass that a crazy man can say such clever things in his dreams, and yet on awaking be just as mad as before."
"What do you mean?"
"I have been most dutifully dreaming of the acquaintance I made yesterday; you remember, child,la belle Chocoladière. I discovered, God knows how, that she was the daughter of a Polish countess and a Frenchvalet de chambre; a thoroughly ignorant, vain, and not over-virtuous creature. As she made merry over my defective French, I quietly began to explain how grateful she ought to be that a sensible man conversed with her at all. Then I talked long and very impressively about the dignity of man in general and philosophers in particular; something after the style of Wieland's sages, and she, after at first looking as if she were grieving over her weaknesses and sins, suddenly began to laugh loudly, danced around the room--in the style of the rope-dancers we saw yesterday--hummed French songs of by no means the most decorous nature, and altogether conducted herself in such a manner that I grew more and more angry, and at last told her to her face that I should consider myself the most contemptible fool and weakling on earth, if I allowed her little nose and black eyelashes to turn my head an instant longer. She now became very haughty, I still colder and more bitter, she more bacchanalian, and I was just in the act of jumping out of a low window into a beautiful and spacious garden, when she coaxingly passed her hands over my face, and tried to smooth the angry frown from my brow; then I awoke, and quickly perceived that notwithstanding all the wisdom I had possessed in my dream, I had not become one whit the wiser than I was when I went to bed.
"But don't take the matter so much to heart, child," he continued, as Balder remained silent. "I can assure you that a hopeless passion is no such terrible misfortune. I am perfectly positive that I shall never see her again, but how long it will be before I think of something else, I can't say. Yet it is one of the most delightful experiences--this gentle consuming fire, this sacred defencelessness, this introspection, joined to the consciousness of external impressions; it is the true, immanent, and transcendent contradiction, which is the veritable secret of all life, and of which man, with his accustomed eminently respectable but imperfect knowledge of our being, is seldom so keenly conscious. Some day, child, you too will experience it, and then for the first time you will fully understand what I mean. The head does not appear to work at all; the mill of ideas is stopped; it has no more grist to grind. Very different nerve-centres appear to have assumed control, and when I have overcome the first sense of strangeness, it will be a very interesting psychological task--"
Here the door was thrown open, and a new visitor interrupted our philosopher's attempt to make a virtue of necessity, and at least to render useful to the cause of science, the sorrows of his heart.
The new comer was a tall and very broad-shouldered young man, who carried a travelling-satchel and a shawl thrown over his shoulder; unceremoniously tossing a faded brown felt hat on Balder's bed, he nodded, and smiling called out a "good morning" to the brothers. The first impression made by the ash-colored face, furrowed by several scars, and the somewhat crooked mouth, was not particularly favorable. An expression of bitterness or malice dwelt about the strongly cut lips, and the teeth, which, in speaking, were fully revealed, increased the fierce, unamiable look. But when the countenance was in repose, the melancholy expression of the eyes predominated over the more ignoble features, and the brow beneath the short bristling hair seemed to have been developed by grave mental labor. His movements were restless and impetuous, and his whole attire was that of a man who thought little of his personal appearance, though his stately figure was well worthy to command attention, had but a little care been bestowed upon it.
"Why, Mohr! Heinrich Mohr! What wind has blown you to us again?" cried Edwin, advancing to meet him and cordially shaking hands.
"The same thoughtless whirlwind, I suppose, that tosses all the sweepings of humanity into confusion," replied the other. "It is only those individuals, who possess a certain specific weight, that do not change their places without special cause. You, for instance, I find in the same old house where I left you three years ago. And, if I must be honest, the only sensible reason I can give for venturing out of my dull little birthplace back to this huge, clever, mad Berlin, was the desire to see you again. After all, you have the most friendly faces, and that you really seem to feel a sort of pleasure in being troubled with me again, proves that you are still the same as of old."
"And you, too, seem to have altered little; less, perhaps, than would have been advisable," said Edwin, laughing.
Mohr's only answer was a shrug of the shoulders. He threw down his satchel and went to the turning-lathe, beside which Balder was leaning.
"Still as conscientious as ever; trying to kill himself," he muttered, taking up some of the little articles which were waiting for the last touches. "But I can't blame you, Balder. You at least accomplish something every day, and only hurt your chest by bending and stooping. Other people would be fairly beside themselves with impatience, if they had to sit doubled up all day long turning their stock in trade. Besides, it seems to me you have made considerable progress. You are an enviable fellow, Balder."
The youth looked at him with a smile.
"Would that you could only convince Edwin of it!" he said; "he is always trying to persuade me to give up my trade. He won't believe that to sit perfectly idle, and see everybody else work would kill me much sooner."
"Idle! As if you ever could be idle!" cried Edwin indignantly. "As if it were not the most insane obstinacy to refuse to accept from his own and only brother, that which even he has means sufficient to procure--a pitiful mouthful of bread! But we will let it pass, though it is the only real annoyance of my life, and this hard heart might so easily spare it me,--Basta! I willnotbe vexed to-day. So begin your confession, my friend! To-day, at least, you are secure from any moralizing on my part."
Mohr having seated himself in a chair beside the open window, had begun to twist a cigarette, the materials for which he took from a tin box.
"There is absolutely nothing new to tell," he replied with great apparent indifference. "The old apothegm that no one can add one inch to his stature, has been once more ratified, that's all. I left Berlin, as you will remember, because I thought that the noise and bustle alone prevented me from becoming a great man. 'Talent developes in a quiet life.' Well, I've lived quietly enough with my old mother, but nothing has developed. So, thinks I to myself, as no talent developes let us try character--'character is formed in the current of the world'--and so back I have come again, and have already selected a character to which I intend to adapt myself. A match, Edwin!"
He puffed huge clouds of very strong Turkish tobacco out of the window.
"So nothing came of the editing of the newspaper, from which you expected so much?"
"It was a miserable sheet, children, a commonplace, provincial, gossiping little paper, in which appeared, twice a week, bad novels, stolen from various quarters, or 'original contributions' by the bürgermeister's daughter or chief customhouse officer's son, and lastly charades and rebuses. However, all the citizens swore by it, and not a syllable was lost. The right kind of fellow might have made something of it, or at least in time have smuggled in something better, and, in so doing, might himself have found room to grow. But there is the point. After first turning up my nose at this narrowmindedness, I at last discovered that I really could not do much better myself. You know I always believed that if I could once form a correct appreciation of my own powers, a thing not to be accomplished in the intellectual ant-hill of Berlin, the world would be astonished. Well, I have really arrived at this just appreciation, and for a long time have been unable to endure myself! God be thanked, that my good taste yet remains to save me from that."
"Still the same old Mohr, whose favorite pastime it is to blacken his character instead of washing himself white."
"Let me go on, and don't suppose that I am making myself out bad in order that you may praise me the more. Besides, I don'twishto make myself out 'bad'; I am really quite a passable fellow, neither stupid nor tedious, with fair acquirements, and powers of judgment by no means ordinary,nota bene, for whatothersdo. If I were a rascal, I might by means of them, accomplish something, open a booth for criticism, for instance, and sell myself as dearly as possible. But the misfortune is that I have, or at least had, the ambition to accomplish something myself, and what is worse, desired to possess all sorts of talents. I have a most decided capacity for becoming a mediocre poet or musician, and in political articles, which appear to mean something and really say nothing, I have yet to find my superior. You will say there are many such wights. Certainly. But not many who have in addition such an honest, devout envy of the real men who can accomplish something genuine, such a loathing of all botching, such disgust when they have caught themselves at it. It was this that drove me away from you. I could not endure to see you all, each in his own field of labor, busy tilling and planting and at last reaping,--real grain, whether much or little--and stand by with my cockle-weed. I felt like spitting in my own face from chagrin at my mediocrity in everything that is worthy to be called work, achievement, getting on in the world, while in talking I was a very hero. Now, however, I have discoveredthat that is my destiny. A sorry creature, created by Nature through some malicious whim, and condemned always to stick halfway at everything. But I will spoil her jest; I will at least do something completely and well, and in one point, at all events, I will reach virtuosoship."
"I don't understand why this idea did not occur to you long ago," replied Edwin. "You were born for a critic, and as such can have as much influence on the world and society, as if you were a poet."
"I should be a fool!" exclaimed the other, tossing his cigarette into the courtyard, as he started up and clasped his hands behind his head. "Attempt to improve the world, tell it plain truths in black and white, which of course every one will apply to his worthy neighbor, try to educate artists who fancy that thinking paralyses the imagination, or tell truths to authors, who upon perusing them fail more signally to comprehend themselves than when they penned their thoughts,--no, my dear fellow,vestigia terrent. A certain Lessing tried all that a hundred years ago, and broke his teeth on the hard wood. All these philanthropic sacrifices make the world no happier, and only render the individual wretched. The only pure and noble calling left for such a superfluous mortal as myself to choose, ispure envy. In that I have hitherto made considerable progress, and, as I said before, I expect to attain in it a tolerable degree of eminence."
"Upon my word," laughed Edwin, "this is a novel way of attaining happiness."
"Don't laugh, wiseacre," sighed Mohr, impressively. "You see, my child, everybody in this miserable world, which all about us is so unfinished and incomplete, is endeavoring to the best of his ability, at least to perfect his own perishable self. The really gifted individuals have a surplus, from which they impart a portion to others, and thereby help them to patch up their poverty, and perhaps even scantily to complete themselves. I, for my part, can only obtain repose when I fervently envy every thing that is great, entire, exuberant. Through this envy I shall become, in a certain sense, allied to it; for if I appreciated, tasted, felt, and deserved to possess no portion, how could I envy it? Only those things that are somewhat homogenous attract each other. And when I have sat during an entire morning, thoroughly permeated with the sense of my own insignificance, sincerely envying a Shakespeare, a Goethe, or a Mozart, have I not fulfilled the purpose of my life better than if I had spent the same time in composing a poor tragedy, some wretched love-songs, or a mediocre sonata?"
He went to the window and gazed at the top of the acacia-tree.
"You are right," said Balder's clear voice. "Only you ought not to give the name of envy to what is really love, reverence, and the most beautiful and unselfish enthusiasm."
"Balder has hit the nail on the head, as usual," said Edwin.
Mohr turned. The brothers noticed that he was winking rapidly, as if desiring to make way with a suspicious moisture.
"It would be beautiful, if it were true," said he. "But this is only the bright side of my virtuosoship; it has its shadows too, and they grow broader than I like. I can see nothing that is complete and in harmony with itself, without envy; no self-satisfied stupidity, no broad-mouthed falsehood, no snobbish faces. And as if these worthies had really no right to be happy, the demon of envy induces me to say something cutting, merely to show them their own pitifulness. Thus in a short time I had all my worthy fellow-citizens about my ears, and wherever I went was decried, avoided, and warned off like a mad dog. It makes all the blood in my body boil, when I see how everywhere the scamps get on in the world, and how the honest fellows, who don't use their elbows, remain behind. You, for instance, if I had my way, should be driving in a handsome coach with servants at your command, as beseems the aristocracy of the human race. Instead of that, that insignificant fellow, Marquard, whom I met below, has his equipage, and graciously nods as he drives by, after reconnoitering me from top to toe through his gold spectacles. Death and perdition, who can see such things and not go wild--"
"Don't abuse our medical counsellor," said Edwin. "In spite of all you have said he is a good fellow, and his carriage would suit my trade and Balder's as little as my slow-stepping scientific methods would suit his empirical gallop. Besides--"
At this moment they heard from the windows below, the first bars of the overture to Glück's "Orpheus."
Mohr approached the window again, and listened attentively.
"Who is playing?" he asked after a time, in an undertone.
"One of the inmates of the house, a young lady of whom we know little more than that she gives music-lessons. Last night--I have not yet told you of it, Balder--I found her absorbed in Schopenhauer's Parerga. She spoke enthusiastically about the chapter on 'the sorrows of the world.'
"Her music bears witness that in those sorrows she had had experience," said Mohr. "Women only play as she does when their hearts have been once broken and then pieced together again. It is with them as it is with old violins, which must be shattered several times before they have the right resonance. But hush, it is growing still more beautiful."
He sat down on the window-sill, and, gazing without, became completely absorbed in listening. Balder worked noiselessly at his little boxes, while Edwin had taken a book though his gaze became fixed upon one page. It was so quiet in the room, that during the pauses in the music, they could hear the stealthy footsteps of the cat, which had just previously leaped into the chamber, and eaten the remnants of the breakfast.
About the same time that these things were occurring in the back building, the master of the house was in the shop talking with a customer, who had just brought to be mended a pair of embroidered slippers, carefully wrapped in an old newspaper.
It was somewhat unusual for the shoemaker to be absent from the workroom at this time of day. But it was also, as the reader will remember, an unusual occasion, Reginchin's birthday, and her mother, who generally attended to the management of everything in the shop, was obliged to give up the charge to her husband, in order to go into the kitchen and mix the dough herself, for the usual birthday cake. She would not relinquish this task, though there was a confectioner's shop at the very next corner. For ever since Reginchin was four years old, she had been very fond of a certain kind of home-made plumb-cake, and, though she could rarely do anything exactly to her mother's mind, and was continually subject to her criticism, the young girl was, as she very well knew, the apple of her mother's eye, and, for her the good woman would have gone through fire. So, hot as the day was, Madame Feyertag stood without a murmur beside the servant at the fire, allowing herself to be troubled but little by the principal anxiety which usually rendered her unwilling to have her husband in the shop: the jealous fear that some female customers might come in, and that the shoemaker might find other feet, whose measure he would be obliged to take, prettier than those adorned with the legitimate slippers of his wife.
To be sure the worthy man, though he might have been a sly fellow in his bachelor days, had given very little cause for such a suspicion during twenty-three years of extremely peaceful married life. But within a few months a change had taken place which attracted the attention of his clever wife; a change not much apparent in his actions and conduct, since he quietly continued his regular mode of life and did not even oppose the before-mentioned slippers, but noticeable in his language. She was already accustomed to hear him talk much of progress, and inveigh against all tyranny, especially domestic slavery, giving utterance to very forcible expressions, and this harmless amusement she willingly countenanced, since all affairs of state and family pursued, as before, their even course. But during the last three months his revolutionary table-talk had changed its tone, and had been steadily pointed against "women," of whom he repeated the most malicious things, usually in strange, outlandish words. Perhaps he had merely picked up these contemptuous epithets at the liberal trades-union, to which he owed all his progressive ideas; and if so, it was something to be thankful for. But except on certain festive occasions, women were excluded from these meetings, and at the entertainments a very decorous tone always prevailed, to say nothing of the obligatory toast to the fair sex. So, when all at once in speaking of "women," he used the word "females," and talked of the "sex" with a shade of contempt, for which Madame Feyertag's person and conduct did not give the slightest cause, nothing was more probable than that the shoemaker had obtained his new knowledge of feminine nature in other circles, and, perhaps led astray by some acquaintances formed in the shop, had approached nearer to the light-minded portion of the sex than could be at all desirable for the peace of the household. Since that time, Madame Feyertag had kept a sharp eye on the secret sinner, no longer permitting his presence in the shop, and had emphatically forbidden the utterance of his offensive remarks, at least in Reginchen's presence. For this restraint the worthy man indemnified himself by talking all the more freely to others, and on this very morning, when, contrary to his usual custom, we find him in the shop, he was in the act of giving vent to the pent-up emotions of his heart. Compelled to keep silence, his companion with some little surprise, patiently submitted to the torrent of his eloquence. He was a little old-fashioned gentleman, with a timid but lively manner, whose delicate regular features bore an expression of such winning kindness that the most casual observer could not fail to notice it; his was one of those faces, which, in consequence of the delicacy of the skin, become prematurely withered, and yet never grow old. A small grey moustache endeavored in vain to give a martial air to the innocent childish face, and the forehead, which, through baldness, seemed to reach to the crown of his head, failed just as signally to cast upon its owner the air of a deep thinker. Yet when any important subject was under discussion, the mild eyes could sparkle with a strange fire, and the whole face become transfigured with interest and excitement.
This little man wore a neatly brushed but rather threadbare coat, cut in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before, and a large white cravat, fastened with a pin containing a woman's picture. He had placed upon the counter an old-fashioned grey hat, with a piece of crape twisted around it, and, with both hands resting on his cane, he sat opposite the shoemaker, who had just examined the slippers, and said that they could be mended so as to look very well, only that a part of the embroidery would be lost.
"Spare as much of it as you can," pleaded the little gentleman. "They were my dead wife's last birthday gift; she worked them herself. I have worn them constantly for five years; but I step so lightly that I don't wear out many shoes. I suppose I am your worst customer," he added, with an apologetic smile.
"That is of no consequence, Herr König," replied the shoemaker; "it is always an honor as well as a pleasure to work for you and your family, not only on account of the high instep which you all have, but because you are an artist and have an eye for shape. As for the durableness of the shoes, that is not your fault, but the fault of the leather. But wait till your daughter goes to balls. Good work is of no avail then, Herr König; dancing shoes which are not as delicate and as easily broken as poppy-leaves, do the shoemaker no credit."
The little gentleman shook his head thoughtfully.
"My daughter, I fear, will give you little opportunity to earn money in that article," said he, "She has no desire for any of the seemly amusements which I would willingly grant her; her mind is filled with her work and her father; she can't be induced to attend to anything else."
"Well, well," said the shoemaker, drawing from his jacket a little silver snuff-box, which he offered the artist, "those things will come as a matter of course. Young ladies always have some peculiarities, you know; they do not forget the mother; but women are women, Herr König, and there is no virtue in youth. True, you yourself still wear crape around your hat; in your case constancy may be in the blood. But wait a while. The will, Herr König, is master; the perception weak; of how weak it is, we have sometimes little idea."
"You are mistaken," replied the other, fixing his eyes which wore a quiet, thoughtful expression upon the floor. "She has become perfectly cheerful again, and I also, though every day I still miss my dead wife. God does not like to see discontented faces, He has made the world too beautiful for that. The crape--yes, I have kept it on my hat. Why should I take it off, and when? It would seem very strange to me, to say to myself on a certain day: From this time things shall no longer be as they were yesterday; I will now remove this token of remembrance. Should I thereby blot out the memory too? But even if her mother were still alive, I do not think the child would be any different. She has a very peculiar character."
"Be kind enough to permit me to differ from you," said the shoemaker with great positiveness, despite the courteous language he studiously adopted. "Women--true women--have generally no character of their own, but one that belongs in common to all the sex. For the sole object for which they are in the world, is, to use Salvenia's words, only to continue the species, or, as we term it, for propagation. A woman who desires anything else, has something wrong about her; I say this without intending to cast any reflections upon your daughter."
The artist opened his little eyes to their widest extent. "My dear Feyertag, why do you say such strange things?" he said, naïvely. "Is not a woman as much a creature of the dear God as we ourselves? formed in his image, and endowed with soul and mind?"
The shoemaker laughed, as if fully conscious of his own superiority.
"Don't take it amiss, Herr König," he said, "but that is an exploded opinion. Have you never heard of the great philosopher, Schopenhauer? He will make you understand it thoroughly; he will prove as plainly as that twice two make four, of what account is the so-called emancipation of women."
"I don't have much time to read," replied the little artist. "But the little you have told me does not render me anxious to become familiar with an author who has thought so slightingly of the noblest and most lovable portion of humanity. I prefer to say with my beloved Schiller, 'Honor to women'!"
"'They spin and weave,'" replied, the shoemaker. "Yes, and they can do it very skillfully, and it is an extremely useful occupation. But in other things, in the employments of men--this low-statured, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex, as Herr Schopenhauer expresses it,--no, Herr König, men must not allow them to become too strong. Propagation, nothing more. Butpropaganda, you see, for the liberal and progressive, is our affair. For instance, there is my wife; the best woman in the world! But if I did not now and then show her that I am master, where should I be? I admit that during the last few years, out of pure indolence, I have allowed her to do and say more than was well. But Schopenhauer has brought me to myself. Now, when she mistakes her social position, and wants to emancipate herself too much, I say: 'Hush, Guste. You, too, were once an explosive effect of Nature; but now the noise has died away, and the effect remains.' Then she scolds about my worthless way of talking, as she calls it, but no longer ventures to say anything, because she has not the least suspicion what I really mean by it, and that it is in Schopenhauer. Ha! ha! ha!"
He chuckled with delight, and rubbed his broad hands.
"How did you chance upon this mischievous book?" asked the artist.
"Very naturally. In my back building lives a very learned gentleman, a philosopher by profession, and soon to become professor of philosophy. One day, when he was not at home, the bookbinder's boy came and left in my shop a whole package of freshly bound books, which I was to keep for the Herr Doctor. It was after dinner, when I usually take a little nap. So, half asleep, I aimlessly took the uppermost book in my hand, and began to read at the place where it opened. Zounds, how my eyes flew open! 'Upon females' was the heading of the chapter. I could not stop till I had read the last lines. I tell you, Herr König, old King Solomon, much as he knew about women, and propagation, and the conception of species, might have gone to school to him."
"Is Schopenhauer the author's name? And do you call him a philosopher, because he revives the old commonplaces about the other sex?"
The little artist's eyes flashed as he uttered these words, and he seized his hat as if he were in a hurry to leave the shop.
"He is a philosopher, for the Herr Doctor himself says so; but not merely because of what he has written about women; the Herr Doctor showed me another thick book. He said it treated of will and perception; however, it was too heavy for me. If you would like to read it, he will cheerfully lend it to you."
"Thank you, I have not the slightest desire to make the acquaintance of a gentleman who holds and desires to spread such opinions."
"The Herr Doctor? There you are very much mistaken, Herr König. He won't listen to a word about the essay on women, and says there is just as much falsehood as truth in it. He is a bachelor, Herr König, and what does a bachelor know about the conception of species? Besides, he never associates with women, but devotes himself entirely to his invalid brother. They might as well be in a monastery, Herr König; my wife often says that if we were to advertise in the newspapers and offer a reward of a hundred thalers, we could not find such another couple of well-behaved young men in all Berlin."
"Indeed? And learned too, you say?"
"Only the older one, the Herr Doctor. He has not much money, because he is at the university, and you are probably aware the minister of public worship and instruction wants to starve out the whole university, and then fill all the vacant places with pastors; there is but one opinion about it in the trades union. But our Herr Doctor gives private lessons, and his brother sells some of the little articles he turns; they live on the proceeds always paying punctually the rent, and the household bills for cooking and washing. Two young men, Herr König, to whom immorality is something utterly unknown."
The artist had laid down his hat again, and seemed to be struggling with some resolution.
"My dear Herr Feyertag," he said at last, "Do you know, I think I should like after all to make the acquaintance of your Herr Doctor. If what you say is true, he is the very man for whom I have been looking a long time. My daughter complains that she cannot continue her studies alone. What she knows she learned from her mother. But since the latter died, I have found her services indispensable at home, and I thought her so clever that she could get on by herself if I only bought her books. But it seems that she cannot dispense with regular instruction, and now she is too old and too sensible to content herself with the first instructor that offers, and recently, when she met a certain young lady, a teacher who has given lessons in very aristocratic families, she conversed with her so cleverly that the young woman declared she could teach her nothing. So if your Herr Doctor is really such a phoenix, and a true man besides--"
"If by 'phoenix' you mean insurance against fire, one can never be certain of that in young people, but I'll stake my life on his goodness; everything else you must find out for yourself in case you are really serious about giving your daughter--but that is none of my business. My Regine can read and write, and that is enough to enable her to get along with everything that does not concern propagation. However, everybody has a right to his own opinion. If that is yours, Herr König, you will probably find the Herr Doctor at home now. It is vacation, and most of his private pupils are traveling."
"I suppose," said the artist timidly, as he put on his hat and followed the shoemaker into the entry, "the price for the lessons will not be exorbitant."
"You need have no anxiety on that score," replied the shoemaker, shuttings the door of the shop. "If he were paid as he deserves, he wouldn't need to climb my old back stairs, but could buy the handsomest house on Unter der Linden. Turn to the left here, and then cross the courtyard, Herr König, if you please."