On the morning of the third day the funeral took place. Franzelius, who had undertaken to attend to all the sorrowful details, insisted that this last duty should be performed at six o'clock. "Perhaps then the preacher will oversleep himself," said he. Edwin had assented. The clergyman belonging to their ward, who as professor of theology had met Edwin at college, came the day after the event to condole with him and ask for some notes for the funeral address. "You would do me a favor," Edwin replied, "if you would merely say what is absolutely necessary, what your formula prescribes. Eulogies from a person who knew nothing of the dead, have always been repulsive to me; and besides, as my brother shared my opinions, many a word would be uttered over his open grave, against which he would protest if he could hear it." The clergyman probably thought that the softened soul of a mourner would be good soil in which to sow the seed of religion, but Edwin cut short all farther conversation, and his colleague, in by no means the best of humors, left him.
Franzelius had still another reason for choosing the dark morning hour. A society of workmen, of which he was a member, wished to sing a hymn in the churchyard and could not assemble later. But he did not tell his friend a word of this.
He had kept his promise, no stranger's hand had been allowed to touch the dead body. Even the most painful task, he performed himself, screwing down with his own hands the coffin lid. Then, as the bearers wound slowly down the crooked stairs with their burden, he took Edwin's arm and supported him on the last sorrowful pilgrimage.
The street was only lighted by a faint reflection from the snow, and few persons were standing around the door. Edwin bowed sorrowfully to his acquaintances and then entered the first of the four mourning coaches, which instantly moved forward. He was accompanied by Mohr, Marquard, and Franzelius. The second carriage was occupied by Herr Feyertag and the old gentleman on the second floor, who despite the wintry cold, would not be dissuaded from showing his fellow-lodger this token of sympathy. The third carriage belonged to the little artist. He had come by himself and intended to follow the coffin alone, when he perceived the head journeyman, who with a large weed on his hat and a band of crape on his left arm, was preparing to accompany the procession on foot. Herr König instantly ordered his driver to stop, opened the door, and compelled the worthy man to take the seat beside him, which the modest fellow after long hesitation, at last consented to do.
The fourth and last carriage contained a young Pole and the president of a society, which numbered among its members many foreigners and formed the largest portion of the audience to Edwin's lectures. They followed the body solely from regard for their teacher, as they had never known Balder, and instantly drew down the curtains in order to beguile the long ride by discussing theatrical matters, the latest news, and smoking paper cigarettes.
From an upper window, a weeping girl wrapped in a thick shawl, gazed after the slowly moving carriages. It was Reginchen, who for two days had not made her appearance and steadily refused even to see her lover.
The procession moved through the Oranienburg Gate and traversed the suburbs for some distance, ere it reached the cemetery. The air was mild, as if a thaw were about to set in, and the snow over which they walked to the grave, yielded noiselessly under their feet. Beside the fresh mound of earth stood the clergyman, and behind him a throng of dark figures, the workmen to whom the printer had said that he had lost his dearest friend. The clergyman, whom Edwin only greeted with a formal wave of the hand, now read aloud the prayer for the burial of the dead and then approached the edge of the grave, into which the coffin was already lowered.
He began: "'In the midst of life we are in death.' But they who turn from the light of eternal truth, bear the gloom of death within their souls. They live as if they thought never to die, and die as though they were never to live again. What grief and terror will overwhelm them on the day when the graves open and the dead come forth to receive the crown of glory or the sentence of eternal condemnation. How the words of the Judge will thunder in their ears: 'I offered you salvation and ye rejected it with scorn and turned a deaf ear unto my message.' In your vain self-righteousness you chose to be your own deliverers, and have pronounced your own doom. Then will your pride bow before the throne of the Highest, and defiance be crushed before the majesty of the Son of Man. Then lips will sue for mercy, which on earth overflowed with blasphemy, denying with Peter and saying: 'I know not this man.' But we, who stand around this sad grave, will unite in silent prayer to God, and implore him not to enter into judgment with this our brother, to suffer a ray of his eternal mercy to transfigure and cleanse from sin the frail erring life, which too early reached its end!"
An unbroken silence followed these words. The clergyman had folded his hands over his book and closed his eyes in prayer. Suddenly Franzelius' suppressed voice was heard amid the group of friends who were standing at the foot of the grave:
"Let me speak, for I cannot be silent, I should despise myself, I should be a miserable coward, if I could hear such words spoken over his grave, without uttering a protest in the name of those who have known and loved him. What is that I hear? 'let there be no scandal?' Say that to those, who have not hesitated to carry the strife of opinions into the stillness of the churchyard, where even the bitterest enemies lie in death quietly side by side. No, my friends," he continued in a loud voice, springing upon one of the snow covered mounds, "we at least have not assembled around this grave, to stammer an abject petition for a poor sinner who, unless justice be tempered by mercy, is forever lost. This dead man will never be lost to us, and as by the might of his love and intellect, he has indeed redeemed himself from the curse of frail mortality, the terrors of blind delusion and the bonds of selfishness, his memory will help us to free ourselves also and to become more worthy of the joy of having been loved by him. For yes, he has loved you too, my friends who never saw his face or heard his voice. His great heart beat for all his brothers, for all who were poor and miserable, for all the children of this world, who come they know not whence and go they know not whither, and yet are too honest to console themselves with fantastic tales and be lulled to rest by idle dreams. What can be called sacred, if his grave is not? For do you knowwhomwe are burying here? A laborer, my friends, who was ever sharing his last shilling with some poor man; a poet who never desecrated his genius for fame or gold; a hero, whose last act was a deed of sacrifice for those he loved. And is this life to be swallowed up in gloom? Should this grave be called a 'sad' one over which penitent sighs and pharasaical petitions for mercy must resound? Oh! my Balder, I know you would submit to even this error of a gloomy, intolerant formalist, with the quiet smile which was your only weapon against all assaults. But we, your friends, are not yet at peace, but in the midst of warfare. We must struggle for the weak who allow themselves to be intimidated by formulas preferring to leave their free souls in imprisonment than to shake themselves free from the hands of their tyrants, to learn to know and love this earth instead of despising its beauty in view of an imaginary world to come. Despise an earth, which has contained you, my Balder, a sky to which your noble eyes have been raised? no, a thousand times no! such a world is no vale of tears, and even in the bitterest woe beside your grave, we still have a feeling of triumph--we have possessed you, and all the calamities of life are richly compensated for, by the certainty that your great heart lives on in ours--Balder--my friend--my brother--"
His voice suddenly failed, he pressed his clenched hand to his eyes and turned away, but the next instant regained his composure and motioned to the singers, who stood in a dense mass behind him. Instantly a quartette choir, whose voices at first low and unsteady from agitation, became gradually clearer and more powerful, began a song, which Mohr had composed to the air ofInteger vitae:
Brother, ere in the dust thy form we lay,We'll to thy worth a loving tribute pay;Thy virtues rare, and kindly heart, which wereA comfort on life's way.Fearless thy earnest, noble soul did stand,Not mid the lofty masters of the land,But with thy brothers, 'mong their lowly huts,A member of their band.O! chosen one, for whom we proudly weep.Of whom thy friends a loved remembrance keep,How patiently thy weary lot was borneTill peaceful thou did'st sleep!Rejoice we at thy absence; gone beforeThy pleasures and thy pains on earth are o'er;Rest thou, while on through strife and woeWe heavenward soar.
Brother, ere in the dust thy form we lay,
We'll to thy worth a loving tribute pay;
Thy virtues rare, and kindly heart, which were
A comfort on life's way.
Fearless thy earnest, noble soul did stand,
Not mid the lofty masters of the land,
But with thy brothers, 'mong their lowly huts,
A member of their band.
O! chosen one, for whom we proudly weep.
Of whom thy friends a loved remembrance keep,
How patiently thy weary lot was borne
Till peaceful thou did'st sleep!
Rejoice we at thy absence; gone before
Thy pleasures and thy pains on earth are o'er;
Rest thou, while on through strife and woe
We heavenward soar.
The last solemn notes died away, but there was still no movement among the group who stood with bowed heads beside the open grave. When after a pause they raised their eyes they perceived that the clergyman had disappeared. The old sexton, unable to understand the strange scene, had also retired leaving his spade behind him. While Edwin, standing between Mohr and Marquard, gazed into the grave as tearlessly as a departed spirit, it was rapidly filled, each person stepping forward in turn to cast in a spadeful of earth.
Franzelius approached Edwin, and they clasped each other's hands in silence. The mourner's soul was still benumbed with grief, and the same dull stupor rested upon him as the party returned home. He took leave of his friends at the door of the house and went up to his desolate cell alone.
He found everything in the neatest order, nothing was left to recall the sorrowful events which, during the last few days, had occurred in the quiet room. A bright fire was burning in the stove, the breakfast stood on the table as usual, and the turning lathe was once more in its place beside the window, with the tools arranged upon it as before.
But on Balder's chair lay the little chisel with which Franzelius had screwed down the coffin lid. At this sight, the spell which had bound Edwin was suddenly broken; he threw himself into the chair and gave free course to the bitterest tears.
When Marquard visited Edwin the following morning, he found him at his desk, holding his pen in his right hand and resting his head on the left. A sheet of paper lay before him.
"Good morning, Fritz," said he. "You've come just at the right time. I must make a decision, and everything within me seems walled up. I need some one to unlock me. Perhaps you have the key." He looked at him with a weary, restless glance, and tried to smile. It was pitiful to see the effort he made to adopt a careless tone. His friend shook his head, "A decision?" he asked.
"Yes, indeed, and no less important one than to dip this pen into yonder inkstand and write: 'Honored Sir!' Will you believe that I've been working at this herculean task for two hours and have not yet stirred a finger?"
"You can do something more sensible."
"Gladly. If it doesn't require too much intelligence."
"Only as much as is needed to pack a trunk and go with it to the railway station. My fur boots are at your service, and also money to pay the traveling expenses. If you will only for once take the medicine, without reflecting upon the prescription, and pack up this very day."
"This very day?"
"What's the use of writing that you will come? You're going, and that's enough. I know all you want to say: that you don't feel like it, that you fear you'll not make a favorable impression just now. That's all nonsense. If you don't make haste at once, it's very doubtful whether you can ever present yourself in any place; you're far more likely to absent yourself--retire where we yesterday accompanied our own Balder. You've been moping about here for months. It's a bit too much, quite enough to break down a stronger man. Come now, make a dash, put on your dress-coat, visit your superiors and colleagues, set the cog-wheel of your career in motion, and let the grey substance in your brain rest, that it may make good its deficiencies. If this prescription is not carefully followed, I'll answer for nothing, or rather I will answer for the nothing into which your insignificant self will soon be resolved. Have you had any sleep?"
"I believe so," replied Edwin, with an absent nod. "I slept night before last from two to three."
"I thought so!" exclaimed his friend, dashing his hat violently upon the table. "And no one made his appearance yesterday, to perform a work of charity and bore you till you fell asleep. What's the use of friends who are poets in private and lecturers in public? Where was Mohr, with his famous comedy? And our dear Franzel? Holy--"
"Philosophy showed poetry the door in the afternoon," said Mohr, who had just entered and overheard Marquard's words, "but don't be disturbed. Doctor, I'm not at all offended. It's long been known that you materialists have not classical culture enough to distinguish between Orpheus and Morpheus. Good morning, Edwin. I'm only here to tell you that I'm not yet fit for anything. The salt in my nature has lost its savor, or else grown bitter. As Bitter-salt[6]it may perhaps be of some assistance as a purgative; (pardon the wretched pun, the times are too hard for good ones.) And then I wanted to tell you why the tribune of the people cannot appear to-day any more than yesterday. He's been imprisoned."
"Franzel?"
"Arrested and imprisoned. The police officers have extended their motherly arm toward him and taken the erring child. We needn't pity him. He's very well satisfied. My phenological science told me long ago that he hasla bosse du martyr.
"But the occasion, the pretext?"
"The disturbance of a public act of worship. Your reverend colleague, Edwin, drove straight from the churchyard to the police headquarters, to complain of the atheistical opposition he had encountered. Franzel was doubtless already prominent in their books among the powers hostile to repose and order, so they took advantage of the opportunity to keep him quiet for a time. They can't do much to him, and a few weeks imprisonment is a more merciful punishment for godless heretics, than the wood piles of former days. I'm only afraid it will make him still more obstinate."
"And he's right!" cried Edwin, as he started up and began to pace up and down the room in feverish haste. "They want an open battle, they challenge it themselves, and there will be no peace until it has been fairly fought. How often, in this very spot, I've agreed with Franzel that we ought not to discuss anything, except with those who hold similar views, for certainly the truth will not be spread by arousing superstition and folly against it. But we ought at least to retain our right to go our own way, and much as people prattle about liberty of conscience, when the matter becomes serious, the liberty is only for those who think they have rented the public conscience; and we, in the belief that the more sensible people have already yielded, are constantly stopping half way. We submit ourselves to listen to unmeaning formulas repeated at the most important epochs of our lives; when a child is given to us, a tie formed for life, a loved one restored to earth, a stranger whose every word we would fain oppose, utters that which wearies if it does not anger us. I've endured it like a thousand others, and said to myself: it's no worse than to sign yourself at the close of a letter 'with respect and esteem,' when you feel neither; it is a mere form which can only bind those who find in it a substance. But I now see whither this carelessness leads. Instead of declining all priestly gabble, I paid no more attention while this warder of Zion was slandering Balder's dust, than if the wind had been blowing through the leafless branches, and was only roused from my reverie by our faithful friend's eloquent defense. If he had remained silent, I verily believe I should have been stupid enough to let the zealot talk on, just as once, when I undertook to be godfather, I weakly said 'yes,' when asked if I would strengthen the child in the faith that Jesus Christ descended into hell and rose from the dead on the third day. And now our poor champion must atone for the cowardice and false shame we have all shown in not honestly and thoroughly renouncing ancient abuses. No, I'll go and tell these gentlemen--"
"You'll be kind enough not to attempt to escape from my care," said Marquard quietly, as he seized the agitated man by the arm. "As for our scapegoat, I hope to set him free immediately. I am blessed with various connections, and fondly as conservative circles cherish the deceptions of a high church patterned after the English, they can't wholly shake off a secret fear of the free-thinkers, and are the first to counsel half way measures and compromises as long as possible. But you, my son, will now take an hour's walk, accompanied by Mohr, in the course of which you'll converse on the most shallow and insignificant subjects--"
He was interrupted by the old maid-servant, who came in to deliver a letter. A deep flush crimsoned Edwin's pale face as he recognized the handwriting, "Excuse me," said he, "if I glance it over."
He went to the window, and they soon heard him laugh aloud. "Good news?" asked Mohr, who was absently playing with the leaves of the palms.
"Excellent! And it comes just at the right time. I'll set out on my journey this very day, for you're right, Fritz, the air of this city doesn't agree with me. I must beg you Heinrich, to take my farewell messages to the little house on the lagune and to Frau Valentin. I--whether I ever set foot in the tun again, or trouble one of you to send my movables after me--at any rate, I'll write as soon as I know how matters stand where I am going, and whether I shall remain. And now--perhaps you'll excuse me--the train leaves in two hours, and I still have all my arrangements to make."
"We yield to force," said Marquard dryly, "and I dispense with all the formalities of leave taking the more willingly, as I'm sure all this is mere bustle, and we shall not get rid of you so quickly."
He was not mistaken. Two hours after, Edwin still sat as unprepared for traveling as before, gazing at the letter which lay open before him, as if he expected to discover some other meaning in the lines, than that which the words conveyed. They ran as follows:
"My Dear Friend!
"The time has expired, the three days have passed without my seeing you again, I had scarcely hoped that the disclosure I made to you through your brother--give my kindest regards to him; I envy you the happiness of possessing such a relative--that any word from me could produce any impression upon you since I can retract nothing, cannot deceive you and myself.
"I have ceased to desire to exist and have exhausted my means to do so. You know that with me both amount to very much the same thing. I cannot understand how people can remain attached to a life, whose conditions are limited to simple existence. And yet--I must suffer more than I yet suffer, physical and spiritual hunger must gnaw still more sharply, ere I can bring myself to try the last resource. Meantime the pain is dull, and sometimes blended with the hope that it may not last forever. So I wish to try whether I shall be better amid entirely new surroundings. The old countess has invited me to spend some time at her castle; she came for me in person, and little as I like her, I have still less reason to be over fastidious. When you read these lines I shall be on the way.
"I can scarcely ask you to write to me. But if you do not prefer to utterly forget me, pity me more than you condemn. I shall never cease to remember you.
"Toinette."
At noon, when kind Madame Feyertag went to the tun to interrupt his solitude, and ask if he wanted anything, he seemed perfectly calm, spoke of his speedy departure, thanked her for the love she had shown Balder, and made all sorts of arrangements, in case he should enter upon his duties as professor at once. He even ate a portion of the food brought up to him, but could not made up his mind to go, and the trunk he had brought down from the attic remained unpacked. Old Lore saw him wandering about his room late at night; his lamp was not extinguished until after midnight.
When Marquard called the following morning, he was not at all surprised to hear that the Herr Doctor had not yet gone. "He has a disease of the nerves called absence of will," he said to the shoe maker, "it's hard to reach, but I think if we can once get him on the way--"
At the door of the room he started violently. He heard Edwin's voice talking in a very strange tone on all sorts of matters. When he entered, he found his friend sitting on the bed with dilated eyes, holding the little bottle of violet perfume and Leah's plate, and striking them together like a tambourine and a drum stick. He did not recognize the new comer, and continued his discordant music, which he accompanied with confused, delirious words, and verses of Italian poetry--apparently from Dante. On the little table beside him lay a small copy of the Divina Comedia, and beside it Toinette's letter. The back of this was covered with writing in Edwin's small hand, which had probably been done just before the fever set in, and his friend in amazement read a singular improvisation in the style of the Inferno, whose echo must have excited the sick man. Although Balder had said that his brother was a poet, he had not been caught in such sins for years, and in his days of health, certainly would not have fallen into this fever for versifying. But as it sometimes happens in dreams or a state of somnambulism, that we suddenly practise with wonderful skill an art whose rudiments we have scarcely mastered, these lines had been written without an erasure, as if dictated by some other, and as even the worst verses were far superior to what Edwin usually acknowledged, and the cynical, over-excited tone of the whole was utterly foreign to his nature, Marquard looked upon them as a record of words uttered by a man possessed with a devil, and forced to repeat what the demon suggests. The verses ran as follows:
Methought that all my tasks were duly learned,And I prepared to turn my back on school.Must I examined be, to show what rank I've earned?Then pray begin to ask your questions o'er,For I am almost tempted to displayBefore you all my wisdom's scanty store.Our life--whence comes it?--That we do not know.And whither does it tend?--From dusk to night.Its purpose?--Earth to teach us to forego.Say, 'What is God?--That, God alone doth know.And what is pleasure?--To be free from pain.And pain?--To lack all pleasure here below.Not always must we joy in self-denial.We are too far removed from actual life,And to the ground 'twixt two beliefs will fall.Well, in the first class I have learned this truth,Which in the sixth I dimly did suspect,Hollow's the nut we have to crack, forsooth.When scarcely from the nurse's arms escaped,We gnaw, till on it we have cracked our teeth.By earnest zeal reward from toil is reaped.To feel the pangs of hunger never stilled,Mocking us alway as dry husks we gnaw,In the delusion we are being filled.Then, though of course the palate, without question,Is thereby fooled, the stomach's soothed, and weOur nap can take fearing no indigestion.Naught save the carelessness that questions never,Goes satisfied away. It took the shellsFor kernels, and thought ignorance clever.It hopes, when shrinking from the pangs of death,That life's just opening, the best to come!When its last sun doth fade, and fails its breath.A brighter heavenly light will swiftly shine.Good dreamers! After school there is no doubtThat a pleasant vacation will be thine.Next to the university, the student,When once the school examinations o'er,Will go, and with the change be well content.From obscure toil and hours of study freeInto this world we go; only againQuiet and insignificant to be.No difference exists 'twixt old and young; norAny trace of cheerful intercourse,No longer rings the cry "Excelsior!"And say, are all these changing forms in questOf this? This lavish outlay too! Oh fools!Who in this world think "all is for the best."To me, from whom its joys have passed away,It seemeth like a dream of the great Pan,Sprung from his burning brain on some dog day.Dixi!Although thy brains thou'st often racked.The matter is not yet so plain and smooth.The aid of ripe experience thou hast lacked.Not yet? A little longer turn the pages dreary,Conning the self same lesson? Said I notOf sitting on the school bench I was weary?Loathsome the animal, whose monstrous jawsThe food long since digested idly grinds,And grinds again, nor ever makes a pause.No matter, still thou must remain to aidThy weaker schoolmates on the lower forms,Till themes are all prepared and lessons said.Why sullen looks and frowning brow display?The hours of leisure may be occupiedIn scribbling rhymes, while schoolboy pranks you playAnd on the school room bench your name enscribe.
Methought that all my tasks were duly learned,And I prepared to turn my back on school.Must I examined be, to show what rank I've earned?
Then pray begin to ask your questions o'er,For I am almost tempted to displayBefore you all my wisdom's scanty store.
Our life--whence comes it?--That we do not know.And whither does it tend?--From dusk to night.Its purpose?--Earth to teach us to forego.
Say, 'What is God?--That, God alone doth know.And what is pleasure?--To be free from pain.And pain?--To lack all pleasure here below.
Not always must we joy in self-denial.We are too far removed from actual life,And to the ground 'twixt two beliefs will fall.
Well, in the first class I have learned this truth,Which in the sixth I dimly did suspect,Hollow's the nut we have to crack, forsooth.
When scarcely from the nurse's arms escaped,We gnaw, till on it we have cracked our teeth.By earnest zeal reward from toil is reaped.
To feel the pangs of hunger never stilled,Mocking us alway as dry husks we gnaw,In the delusion we are being filled.
Then, though of course the palate, without question,Is thereby fooled, the stomach's soothed, and weOur nap can take fearing no indigestion.
Naught save the carelessness that questions never,Goes satisfied away. It took the shellsFor kernels, and thought ignorance clever.
It hopes, when shrinking from the pangs of death,That life's just opening, the best to come!When its last sun doth fade, and fails its breath.
A brighter heavenly light will swiftly shine.Good dreamers! After school there is no doubtThat a pleasant vacation will be thine.
Next to the university, the student,When once the school examinations o'er,Will go, and with the change be well content.
From obscure toil and hours of study freeInto this world we go; only againQuiet and insignificant to be.
No difference exists 'twixt old and young; norAny trace of cheerful intercourse,No longer rings the cry "Excelsior!"
And say, are all these changing forms in questOf this? This lavish outlay too! Oh fools!Who in this world think "all is for the best."
To me, from whom its joys have passed away,It seemeth like a dream of the great Pan,Sprung from his burning brain on some dog day.
Dixi!Although thy brains thou'st often racked.The matter is not yet so plain and smooth.The aid of ripe experience thou hast lacked.
Not yet? A little longer turn the pages dreary,Conning the self same lesson? Said I notOf sitting on the school bench I was weary?
Loathsome the animal, whose monstrous jawsThe food long since digested idly grinds,And grinds again, nor ever makes a pause.
No matter, still thou must remain to aidThy weaker schoolmates on the lower forms,Till themes are all prepared and lessons said.
Why sullen looks and frowning brow display?The hours of leisure may be occupiedIn scribbling rhymes, while schoolboy pranks you playAnd on the school room bench your name enscribe.
Sensitive minds are in the habit of terming the union between body and spirit an unequal marriage, amèsalliance. And yet good and evil days might teach them a better term, show them that whatever may be thought in regard to the difference of origin, in the conscientious fulfillment of every duty the dust born portion certainly does not fall below the other, which is said to be its master. How could the soul enjoy the sensation of pleasure, if its faithful companion did not lend to it the aid of the senses, to say nothing of the joys which, even to the most transcendental, arise from the senses alone. And if, in the pure ether of spiritual enjoyment, we tremble at the thought of our resemblance to God, what tortures we should suffer in the knowledge of our likeness to the worms, if the body did not again befriend us, and as distress reached its climax, transfer the conflict to the domain of the senses, thus, as it were, retrieving the vantage point it has lost, until it has gained new strength and new armor to end the struggle in its own territory.
Thus the severe illness which attacked Edwin was a boon to his sorely wounded spirit. For weeks he lay senseless, a prey to a violent nervous fever. He recognized none of his nurses, neither Franzelius, who after having been released from his imprisonment with an impressive warning, spent his nights regularly in the tun, sleeping perhaps a short time on Balder's bed, when toward midnight the patient grew a little calmer, nor the faithful Mohr, who acted as sick nurse during the day, and who in the intervals when his constant attendance was not required, found his sole recreation in sitting at Balder's turning lathe and playing countless games of chess. At the commencement of the illness, Marquard had been inclined to send Edwin to the hospital, where he could have taken charge of him more easily. But the other two friends and Madame Feyertag would not listen to the proposal, and although the illness lasted for weeks and months, the kindhearted woman never for a moment regretted that she had kept the sick man under her roof. Her heart and her linen chest, her hands and those of her old maid-servant were always open and ready, whenever they were needed. "My worthy friend," said the zaunkönig to her husband--he came every day to inquire how the sick man had passed the night--"your explosive theory is brilliantly refuted, and the wisdom of Solomon proven:--'the price of a virtuous woman is far above rubies.'"
A calm smile rested on his lips and he looked at the crape on his white hat. The shoe-maker shrugged his shoulders. "The intention is good," said he, "but the idea is usually weak. For instance, there's my daughter Reginchen!--Well, I won't praise her, but Schopenhauer is right again in regard to her explosive effect. The Lord knows what ails her; her mother didn't make half so much fuss when she was young. But her imaginative power Herr König, is beyond any man's comprehension. You know she's betrothed to Herr Franzelius. Didn't she act at first as if she would die if she couldn't have him? Besides, he's a very respectable man and if he only gets rid of his radical nonsense, can make a good living; for it can't be denied that he has education and what's called character, and with the few groschen she'll bring him, he can settle in life and even start a printing office. Well, as I have only this one daughter--we're weak, Herr König, we men when we are fathers. But now, just think of this: ever since the young gentleman upstairs died, the silly thing has worn black as if he had been her brother, and all the betrothal gayety is over. When Herr Franzelius comes in the evening, they clasp each other's hands for ten minutes and hang their heads like a couple of weeping willows, and all the rest of the day she sits still and reads Schiller's poems, and if I ask how much of her wedding outfit is completed, she says: 'There's no hurry about that, father.' Yes, yes, Herr König, it's just as I say: the will is good, for she still means to marry him; but what notion she's taken into her head, to be suddenly absorbed in Schiller when she ought to be thinking of making up underclothes and bed-linen--if I've got the least idea, I'll never attempt to tell the difference between neat's leather and calf skin again. By the way, where's your daughter? It's an age since I've had the honor--"
The little artist, who had listened with evident sympathy, was so much disturbed by this question that his only answer was a heavy sigh. At last he said: "The dear God some times tries us very severely, Herr Feyertag. He has long showered blessings upon me, I was happy in my home and in my art, and really always strove hard to keep my mind humble that I might not be rendered arrogant by so many mercies. Since I've become a court-artist, especially, I've examined my heart and uprooted every fibre of pride, for after all there are many far more deserving and talented than I, who yet accomplish nothing, while my modest speciality--but now I've been chastised in what was dearest to me. My Leah's health is failing, no one knows what to do for her, even Dr. Marquard can say nothing except that it may improve when the weather is more favorable, when we can travel. But its now February, who knows how matters will be in April or May. Oh! my dear friend, all my life I've clung to the consolation that our heavenly father chastises us because he loves us, but if I should be compelled to endure--"
He paused suddenly and without, as usual, leaving his regards for Madame Feyertag, hastily quitted the shop.
At this time, Edwin had been out of danger for several weeks and even a relapse was no longer to be feared. His physical health was visibly improving; but his intellect seemed inexpressibly slow in regaining its clearness and strength. He could sit at the window for hours with a very cheerful face, without seeking any amusement or occupation. Not until the first days of early spring came and he could drive out in the noonday sun, did the mist which had settled on his mind gradually dissolve. His memory regained its power slowest of all. When the events which had occurred during the last few months before Balder's death were mentioned, it was with the greatest difficulty that he could re-unite the sundered threads.
Even after nursing was no longer necessary, Franzelius still continued to sleep in the tun. Edwin had begged him to do so, because he felt how much pleasure it afforded the faithful friend to thus fulfil what he had promised Balder. Moreover, after being alone all day--Mohr having sought solitude for some time, it was pleasant when evening came to see the honest face and to be lulled to sleep by quick conversation. True, there was no lack of other visitors. The little artist came and Frau Valentin, who again as far as Madame Feyertag's jealousy permitted, hastened convalescence by preserves, strengthening broths, and various delicate birds. But the more his strength returned, the more indifferent and content with his position the invalid seemed.
The news that another had obtained the professorship offered to him had come long before. Edwin had seen it in a newspaper and submitted to the disappointment with great indifference. What was his career to him now? He was happy in once more feeling strength to think of new books, and eagerly read the important works that had appeared during his sickness. Toinette's name never crossed his lips. He once asked whether Marquard had seen a letter which he had received just before his illness and which he was unable to find. "The maid-servant probably lighted the fire with it long ago," Marquard answered dryly; "was it anything of importance?" He did not want to return the fatal sheet which he had carefully laid aside, until there was no possible danger of a re-opening of the old wound.
But this danger seemed at last to have disappeared. One day, when Marquard was making a short call, Edwin with a perfectly calm face showed him a note he had received an hour before at the sight of which his friend could scarcely conceal his alarm.
"It has come true," said Edwin smiling, but with a slight flush. "I thought the lime twig would not release the bird again. Well, I hope her gilded cage will be large enough for her to fancy herself at liberty."
"May I read it?" asked Marquard.
"Certainly. Unfortunately I've never had any secrets in common with her, and you have long thought her what she seems here."
The note ran as follows:
"You discarded me so suddenly, dear friend, that if I were sensitive I should now keep silence in my turn. But as, from the beginning of our acquaintance, I was as sincere in my friendship as you in your unfortunate love, my feeling is more lasting, as well as more compassionate and considerate than yours, I should not like to have you learn through the newspapers, that your poor duchess has resolved to make a mésalliance and in a few days will be called countess. Why have I made this resolution? If your philosophy can find no answer to the question, will you expect a hopeless simpleton to furnish one? Why are we in the world at all? Perhaps a curiosity to learn whether any reason for existence would declare itself was the sole motive that induced me to take this step, at which you will doubtless feel some degree of indignation. Believe me, it is only a preparation for the last extreme measure, the step into nothingness. Besides, I have not been untrue to myself, I told him all, even that I do not love him. But as he is more easily satisfied than certain people, and asks nothing I cannot give, I think we shall get along with each other very well, as we generally end best with those with whom, we have never begun. With you--I feel it by this letter, which can find no close--I should never have been happy. But it is the same now. There are some absurd destinies, is it not so, dear friend?
"In spite of everything ever your own
"Toinette,
"P. S.--Little Jean sends his compliments to you. It was on his account that I decided to marry the count. He would have been miserable for life, if he had not been permitted to wear the count's livery, which is green embroidered with silver, and makes him look like a green-finch in a gala dress.
"Despite all this I still wish I were--"
The last line was erased, but the words were yet legible. Marquard silently laid the letter on the table.
"What do you say to it?" asked Edwin, as he slowly replaced the sheet in the envelope.
"Nothing. I've long since given up saying anything about the countless varieties of the great species, 'woman.' I hate unscientific talk and therefore only try to look at each individual case from the practical side. At present I should like to hear what you say to it. You've taken more than a theoretical interest in the case from the very beginning."
"I'll tell you, as soon as I have found the formula. Hitherto, it has only been boundless surprise."
"At her decision? Why, I should think--"
"No, at its effect on myself. Will you believe that I read this letter without any quicker pulsation of the heart than if it had contained the news that the Sistine Madonna had been removed from Dresden to Munich. It seems as if the enchantment had vanished with the old blood the fever consumed. Countess Toinette--I can say it as calmly as Reginchen Franzelius."
Marquard, with immovable composure, looked him steadily in the face. "Bravo!" said he. "You ought to have a red ticket: 'dismissed cured.' To-day you must take a little walk, then for dinner--but I'll consult with Madame Feyertag about that."
He pressed his hand, whose temperature did not seem to exactly please him, and left the room. On the stairs he met Mohr. "Be kind enough to watch Edwin to-day as closely as possible and not leave him alone long," he whispered hastily. "His old love has accepted her count. He says he's perfectly indifferent to it, but this idealist is not to be trusted. Tell Franzel to keep watch to-night. I'll look in again to-morrow."
But this time the clever physician was mistaken. When he returned the next morning, he found his patient looking much fresher and brighter and his pulse in a perfectly normal condition. He listened to the account of the expedition made the day before, which, favored by the brightest March sunlight, had for the first time restored Edwin's confidence in his strength. "To-day, with your permission, I propose to make a visit," said he. "I want to look in upon my little friend and patron in the Venetian palace. He's not made his appearance in the tun for a week. Did the child of God only have intercourse with the child of the world as a good samaritan!"
"You're very much mistaken," replied Marquard looking unusually grave. "Our zaunkönig is watching his nest, because his brood is looking very miserable."
"Leah? Sick? And how long has she been ill? Why do I first hear of it to-day?"
"Why should I gossip about one sick room in another! I only wish I were as successful there as here. But there are cases which remind us rather roughly of the limits of our powers."
"Can't you understand her sickness?"
"Her case requires a wiser man than I. I know that the seat of the difficulty is in the mind, and I would even venture to touch the sore spot with the point of a needle. But what will that avail, if the remedy, which I also know, is not to be bought at any apothecary's?"
"A disease of the mind?"
"No: a simple consuming fever with a perfectly clear intellect. In short:
"By angels 'tis called a heavenly bliss,By devils a woe of th' deepest abyss,While mortals exclaim 'it is love.'"
"By angels 'tis called a heavenly bliss,By devils a woe of th' deepest abyss,While mortals exclaim 'it is love.'"
"Love? Is the poor girl--"
"In love, and so deeply that her life is imperiled. Oh! my dear fellow, these still waters!"
"And who in the world--But to be sure, from what I know of her, she'd not confess it to you, or any other human being."
"A good family doctor needs no verbal confession in such cases. We've other means of examining a feverish little heart--quiet noiseless means. At first, its true, I was on the wrong track. I imagined--mind, this is entirely between ourselves--that I myself was the fortunate object and cause of this mysterious suffering. After all, it would not have shown any want of taste in her, and with the romantic occasion of our introduction--the night when we rescued Fräulein Christiane from drowning--who would have wondered if she had at first revered me as the saving angel, then admired, and at last learned to love. And I confess the bare thought cost me several sleepless nights--until about midnight. You know what I think of love and matrimony, but my most sacred prejudices were in danger of being vanquished, when I fancied that a girl like this zaunkönig's daughter could really want me for her lawful husband. There's something about her which must make it difficult, nay impossible for an honest man ever to be faithless to her. I'm as good a conductor of heat as an iron stove, and opportunity added fuel to the flames. Under the pretext of being obliged to watch her, I daily spent an hour in her society, almost always alone; and besides, just at that time, I'd had a quarrel with my little nightingale. Adeline had been a little too enthusiastic about a handsome Hungarian. So I took advantage of the holiday thus given my heart, to make studies beside the lagune, to ascertain whether I could change my sentiments and transform myself from an admirer of ladies in general, to the adorer of one."
"And in what did these studies consist?" asked Edwin forcing a smile.
"That'smysecret," replied Marquard pathetically. "Enough I gave up the game as I saw it was lost to me; but with the zeal of jealousy searched for the man who stood in the way. My old sympathetic method didn't leave me in the lurch this time."
"May one know--?"
"It's not my own invention. One of my colleagues in the dim past made use of the stratagem. You know the story of the sick prince, who was in love with his step-mother, and whose secret the physician discovered by feeling his pulse just as the queen was entering the room. Well, I couldn't introduce the man whom I suspected into Leah's sick chamber. There was an obstacle in the way. But his name, which I uttered apparently without design, while clasping the delicate round wrist of the little Jewish-Christian, produced precisely the same effect. A sudden quickening of the pulse to forty more throbs a minute.
"Of course the case is not particularly interesting to you," he continued, as Edwin made no reply but with averted face gazed steadily out of the window. "You've never had any different feeling for this pupil, than for any other student. At that time you'd been bitten by the serpent, and even if you had been offered the three graces attired in their authentic Olympic costume, you would have blindly pursued the ducal banner. Whether under these circumstances, however, it would be well for you to pay your visit to the Venetian palace today, you must decide yourself. True, we usually recommend rubbing chilblains with snow, but unfortunately a woman's heart is somewhat more delicately organized than the sturdy extremities. I thought it my duty to make this acknowledgement. Adieu!"
He patted his silent friend on the shoulder and left him alone.
It would be impossible to describe Edwin's state of mind in a few words; we can scarcely venture to say whether joy or perplexity predominated in his strange bewilderment. The first overwhelming surprise was succeeded by the sense of secret shame that this could have so amazed him, the burden of a fault, which pardonable on account of its total unconsciousness, was yet unable to wholly absolve itself from the charge of ingratitude. How selfishly unfeeling it now seemed, that he had not even repaid with friendly recognition her many unobtrusive tokens of the most humble affection! Even today, when he had determined to see her again, it was principally the father, toward whom he thought he had a duty to fulfil. And now he learned that the happiness and misery of this young girl's life depended upon his presence or absence.
He closed his eyes and recalled all the scenes in which she had played a part, from the first interview in the little house to the evening when she had stood beside Balder's catafalque and gazed at the still face with an expression of the deepest woe. He saw her so distinctly that he could have sketched her features line for line, the beautiful lines of the eye-lids, which had attracted his attention at their first meeting, because they moved very little, as if the eyes had more strength than those of others to bear the light without the quiver of an eyelash. Then the delicate, strongly marked brows, which contracted when she was in thought--her father often teased her about it; her forehead was like a white page containing some secret inscription, and the eyebrows arched beneath it like two large interrogation points--all these things appeared before him, and the quiet droop of the head when it was difficult for her to understand something he was explaining, and the sudden movement with which, when she had grasped the idea, she raised it as if exulting in her victory and demanding new and more difficult tasks.
This girl loved him, and for months he had not had the slightest suspicion of it!
He took the plate she had painted for him from his desk, where he kept all sorts of writing materials lying on it, and looked at it as if for the first time. Without thinking what he was doing, he breathed on the surface and polished it with his handkerchief. It seemed as if he thought some secret cipher was concealed among the flowers and ears of corn, which must now stand out and reveal what thoughts had passed through her mind while she painted.
Suddenly it occurred to him that he possessed something better than this. The volume written by her own hand, in which as her father said, she had copied his lessons--a deep flush crimsoned his face as he remembered that it still lay unopened in his desk. True, how could it have interested him to see whether his pupil had correctly understood all his words, since the instruction was to cease. But suddenly this pledge entrusted to his care became of the greatest value, as a fresh means--since she would disclose her feelings in it without reserve--of obtaining a thorough knowledge of her, and then: did he know what confessions she might have made between the lines, confessions which had so long remained mute and unanswered?
As if to repair the omission by the utmost haste, he now drew out the package and tore off the enclosure. A plain thick volume, like a diary, appeared, on whose blue cover was written the word "journal." A flourish had been drawn beneath with the pen, and as he turned the leaves he found many traces on the margins of the pages that the writer had dreamily drawn, intricately interwoven flowers and figures, before summoning up courage to commit her thoughts to paper.
It was anything but a simple exercise book. The records dated much farther back, to a period three or four years before her acquaintance with Edwin, and contained all the secrets of her young life, everything which since her girlish heart had awakened, had aroused grave doubts and questions.
There was scarcely a trace of external events; only from the reaction on her mind could it be inferred that even this most quiet, uniform life had experienced its trials and storms. But instead of merely describing the tone and contents of these pages, let us at this point, while Edwin for hours absorbs himself in reading, insert a short extract from oft-interrupted soliloquies of this earnest young soul, which will at least afford an idea of its principle characteristics.