When Marquard paid his usual visit to the "tun" the following morning, he found everything in the household exactly the same as usual. In spite of the late hour at which Reginchen returned from the country, she had been at the pump at six o'clock, and an hour after carried the brothers their blue milk and cleared up the room, but without talking much; for kindly as Edwin treated her, she felt a great awe of him and became terribly embarrassed at his most innocent jest.
The brothers also, according to old habit, had begun their day very silently. When the doctor entered, Balder was sitting at his turning lathe, making a set of ivory chess-men. Marquard talked to him for some time with apparent unconcern, asked about one thing and another and felt his pulse, but gave no prescription, except that he must drink the wine regularly.
But on the stairs, when Edwin was accompanying him down, he suddenly turned and said in a low tone: "You must not let the lad go on so. This stooping and keeping shut up in the house won't do, he will weaken his chest over that confounded turning lathe. If I were in your place, I should assert my authority."
"In my place," sighed Edwin, shrugging his shoulders. "My dear fellow, if you were in my place, that is, not a physician, but a philosopher, you would know that there is no authority which can transform a man's nature. Have I not tried every stratagem to get him out? When I attacked him on his weakest, or rather his strongest side, his brotherly love, and represented how dull it was for me to go out without him, you ought to have seen the efforts he made to be a gay companion, in order to cheer my walks and rides. But I know him too well. I saw how he suffered from the noise and bustle of the streets, and even when we once drove to Tegel, he was only comfortable while we were alone. When we arrived, we found a crowd of school girls playing graces, various mothers and aunts knitting, several pairs of lovers, in short the usual Berlin pleasure seekers. As soon as possible he urged me to return. You must know that it annoys him when people stare at him, and he is exposed to this more frequently than any one else; he attracts attention everywhere by his beauty and his lameness, and moreover because he has an expression in his eyes unlike any other mortal."
"I wish he were less peculiar; we should keep him longer."
Edwin stopped, seized Marquard's arm and whispered: "you fear--"
"Nothing--and everything. His texture is so delicate, a fly might tear it. But possibly it is more tenacious than we think," he added, as he felt Edwin's hand tremble on his arm.
"The wine you sent did him good," he said. "I thank you; it was a kind, philanthropic thought. I can not wish him different from what he is now. He would no longer be the same, if he had the nerves and muscles of a groom. And would he be happier? You don't know how happy he is, what a boundless capacity he has for transfiguring all the poverty around us by the wealth of his own soul, transmuting common dust into gold. IfIgave him no cause for anxiety, he would have scarcely anything to desire."
"I have a word to say to you about yourself too, Philosopher. I alluded to it a short time ago in your room, but Balder was present, who is just like a girl; there are certain things which cannot be mentioned before him. Listen man, this disorder of your nerves is entirely your own fault; it's a sin and shame for you to permit that sponge, the brain, to exhaust the best strength of the rest of your organization. How can there be any balance of power? I tell you your whole trouble is to be cured in one way."
"You may be right, Fritz," replied Edwin quietly, as they crossed the courtyard. "But you see it's the same with this medicine, as with the one you just prescribed for Balder. We have not the natures to take it, and if we should force ourselves to do so, the disease would attack a more vital spot."
"Nature, nature!" burst forth the doctor, looking almost fiercely at his friend through his gold spectacles. "I'll answer for it, my son, that your excellent nature, which you have tormented so long with your cursed abstract idealism, that it no longer ventures to grumble--would instantly recuperate and grow merry again, if you would only for once dismount from the high horse of speculation and rely upon your own good common sense. Deuce take it! A healthy fellow like you living on locusts and wild honey, like the hermits in the Theban deserts, and if a woman passes by your cave, exclaiming:Apage, Satanas!I had trouble with you even at the university. But now you seem to wish to continue this course, until nature, so shamefully abused for the sake of mere mind, is overstrained and fairly crazed with impatience."
"A very clever pathological lecture," replied Edwin smiling. "I will request the continuation in our next; there is always something to be learned. But for all that, Fritz, you wont get a kuppel'pelz[3]from me."
"Nonsense! Who's talking about any such thing? But ifI, with my constantly increasing practice, can find time for little romances, in which the mind has employment--"
"And also the heart, my boy."
"Well, the heart too, for aught I care, though that muscle is greatly overestimated, and with all your sentimentality, only fit for a dangerous hypertrophy. I'm now on the track of a little witch--"
"A fair Helen or Galatea?"
"Aristocratic, my son, and unfortunately very unapproachable--so far. But what am I thinking about? You must have already made her acquaintance."
"I?"
"Didn't you sit beside her in the box, day before yesterday? At least the doorkeeper told me she always took the same place."
Edwin turned pale.
"I have a faint recollection of it," he replied. "Didn't she sit very far front, and have brown hair, a very fair complexion, blue eyes--"
"Black or brown, my son. But we must mean the same person--and I, magnanimous mortal that I am, solemnly renounce all my claims in your favor."
"Then you must lend me your carriage, to continue this love affair properly," said Edwin, forcing a smile, "for one can hardly pay attention to this princess as a private tutor."
"You need have no anxiety on that score. To be sure I don't know the will-o'-the-wisp very well, she baffled all my conversational powers. But haughtily as she turns up her little nose--by the way it's a nose to rave over--there is evidently something wrong about her. Young ladies who go to the theatre alone, find their company home afterwards. But I will discover in whose cage this bird of paradise has its nest--yesterday I unfortunately came across an old Geheimrath, who wanted to consult me about his liver, just as I was going to follow the proud little nose. If it is as I suspect, you shall see, my son, what a base materialist is capable of doing for his friends."
Laughing merrily, he sprang into his light carriage, took the reins from the coachman and drove rapidly away.
Edwin looked after him. He could not be angry; only yesterday he had himself weighed possibilities and struggled with impressions, which placed this mysterious creature in no more favorable light. But to hear these thoughts expressed by another, as a matter of course, gave him a feeling akin to physical pain.
He had taken two volumes of Göthe to carry to her. Now he thought it would be the wisest course to avoid her house, her presence, and any further intercourse with her. But her face rose before his memory for a moment, her voice sounded in his ear, and all hesitation was over. Suppose she was better than she seemed? And what would she think of the strange man, who had at first forced himself so eagerly upon her, and then never appeared again?
But at least he would not see her to-day, and therefore merely handed the books to the striped waistcoat, and in reply to the boy's question whether he would come in, answered dryly: "It was not necessary, he would bring the next volumes at the end of the week."
As he went down stairs, he praised himself for his resolution and determined not even to look up at her windows. But this was beyond his strength. He even remained standing on the shady side a moment, as if uncertain which way to go, and allowed his eyes to wander, apparently by chance, toward the windows with the palms and the bird cage. He fancied he saw something moving behind the drawn curtains. The thought that it might be a man's head shot through his heart like a burning-iron. He closed his eyes and walked on.
He had promised to commence his lessons at the little house in the lagune to-day. As he mechanically turned his steps in that direction, it seemed almost impossible to retain any connected thoughts. Besides, the interview with the little artist and his daughter appeared as far behind him as if months had intervened, and was a matter of as much indifference as the people who passed him. He resolved to merely go there, excuse himself for to-day, and shake off the whole engagement he had undertaken, as best he could.
But the reception he met with in the little house, baffled his designs.
The artist, clad in his thread-bare velvet coat, with a barette shaped cap set jauntily over his left ear, was standing in the door-way, and as soon as he saw Edwin approaching between the wood piles, turned back into the entry, calling: "He's coming, he's coming!" Then he hastily advanced to meet him, took his hand in both of his, and said: "So I've won my wager, and can exult over my wise child, who for once was not so clever as her old father."
"What was your wager?" asked Edwin.
"Whether you would come or not. Leah said you had only promised, in order to avoid telling us to our faces, that you did not wish to teach such an ignorant pupil. With all your kindness, you glanced around you in such an indifferent way--looked so absent, and in a certain sense weary--"
"My dear sir," interrupted Edwin, "your daughter deserved to win the wager for her penetration. Iamsomewhat weary and absent-minded, my head is revenging itself because I have racked my brains too often, and the injuries it received cannot be quickly healed. In fact, if it were not for you and your daughter, I should be wiser to defer our lessons till a more favorable time. But if you prefer--"
"Leah! Leah!" cried the little artist, darting forward into the house. "Where are you?"
The young girl was just coming out of the studio, in the same plain brown dress she had worn the day before. Her black eyes greeted Edwin with a quiet, almost wondering glance.
"I hear, Fräulein," he said in a jesting tone, "that you have lost a wager on my account. You thought I would not come again, and as people usually believe what they desire--"
She gazed at him with a look, that entreated him to spare her embarrassment.
"It's true," she said blushing, "and I'm very much frightened to think that I must confess to some onehowignorant and bewildered I am. I was so anxious last night, that I could scarcely sleep."
"Than we must relieve you as quickly as possible," he answered smiling. "I will make any wager that you will sleep admirably to-night."
"Do you also know what is the forfeit of our bet?" cried the artist merrily rubbing his hands: "the loser was to paint you something, you may rejoice that you will have a picture by Leah, instead of one of my wretched daubs. You see virtue is its own reward."
They had entered the studio, which to-day seemed far more neatly arranged. Instead of the desk with its painting apparatus, a table containing only writing materials and a portfolio, stood at Leah's window. But there was a fresh bouquet of flowers on the sill, tall dahlias and asters whose bright colors mingled as if they wished to conceal the dull grey of the bare wall outside.
"We thought you would be more undisturbed here, than in the sitting room on the other side of the entry. Well; and so the hedge-sparrow is turned out of his nest by his unfilial off-spring!" said the old man, gently stroking the young girl's cheek. "My dear Herr Doctor, believe me: one may fare badly with spoiled children, but the real tyrants are the good, well behaved ones. It's a worse slavery than that of the most henpecked husband. Well, adieu, child, and be industrious; meantime I will make some studies from the back of the house near the stable as I have long intended. It's just the right light."
He kissed her on the forehead and left the teacher alone with his pupil.
When at the end of an hour he returned, he heard Edwin's deep, musical voice, and would gladly have listened a moment to learn the subject under discussion, but such a course was repugnant to his delicacy, and besides he hoped to hear how the lesson had passed off from the young girl herself.
Edwin rose as the little man entered. "Have I remained too long?" he asked. "I hope Fräulein Leah will bear witness that I have not tired her."
Leah said nothing. She was standing before the little table like a person just roused from a dream. The portfolio was unopened, the pen had not been dipped into the ink.
Edwin asked whether he could not see the sketches. "No, no," replied the little artist, "they are only for myself. And to-day in particular I have worked with my eyes, rather than my hand. I will only tell you," he added, smiling mysteriously; "that I am attempting something which will probably exceed my powers. I have long been anxious to make a picture of our lagune. You cannot imagine what charms of coloring the old muddy, dirty canal often displays, of course in a favorable light. I have also been experimenting with a little foreground I shall need, nay which will form the principal part of the picture, for I shall not succeed very well with the water. A week ago one of the wood piles was removed, which has stood for years directly in my way, since it obstructed the best view of the wall and quay. And see, that has revealed a fence, before which the prettiest weeds grow so luxuriantly, that I shall have scarcely any alteration to make. If I succeed, it will be my best picture, and may perhaps mark a new era in my development."
He rubbed his hands contentedly and went up to his daughter. "I hope, child, you have not become such a learned woman, that you forgot to offer the Herr Doctor any refreshment. You really have forgotten? Then I will do so at once--we have a bottle of excellent port wine in the house--a present from our good friend, the professor's widow. By the way, dear Doctor, I wanted to ask you something: you must do me the favor to pay her a visit. We are so much indebted to her for Leah's education--she was really a little piqued because I engaged a teacher for the child without first introducing him to her. The best woman in the world, and in many respects, that is in church history and the positive divinity, exceptionally well educated. You will not regret taking the short walk--she lives in Louisenstrasse--if I accompany you--"
"With pleasure, dear Herr König," replied Edwin. "But let me make the acquaintance of the giver before I taste her gift. Fräulein Leah has learned to-day, that a Greek philosopher believed that the earth rose from the water, so for to-day I will take only a glass of water. Next time we will see whether there is truth in wine."
Leah brought the glass of water, but was so silent, that her father before going away, asked anxiously if she were ill. "I never felt better," she replied with a radiant glance from her beautiful, calm eyes.
Shaking his head, the little man went out, accompanied by Edwin, who took leave of his pupil with a cordial pressure of the hand.
"My dear Herr Doctor," said he when they were in the open air, "is it not strange that a father cannot understand his own child? Certainly every human being is a fresh marvel from the hand of God. This is not like our other experiences, which are only a copy of our own natures and enlighten us in regard to ourselves, our strength or weakness. Only the great masters can have a similar feeling, when from the breath of divine art something new appears, which resembles nothing in the world, and surprises the artist himself. I believe that Raphael, when his Sistine Madonna was completed, did not understand her much better than I do my daughter. Yes, yes, my dear friend, these are transcendent mysteries; we can only pray and thank God that we are considered worthy to experience them."
The Frau Professorin Valentin lived in a pretty new house, and occupied large neat rooms, which however, to an artistic eye, with all their tidiness had a somewhat gloomy, cheerless air. She received Edwin in the largest and plainest of all; the little artist had not accompanied him upstairs, he wanted to deliver a few engraved blocks to the person who had ordered them. The stately, fair-haired woman must have been remarkably pretty in by-gone years, and even now, though considerably over forty, her bright eyes and white teeth possessed a youthful charm, especially when she laughed. She was sitting with five or six seamtresses among mountains of calico and linen, from which she was cutting children's dresses and underclothes. She received her visitor like an expected guest, and ushered him into a smaller apartment, her real home, as she called it, which was fitted up with a writing table, book cases, a flower stand, and all sorts of pretty trifles. Over the sofa hung the portrait of a hypochondriacal rascal looking man with grey hair, from whose wrinkled brow and compressed lips it was easy to perceive that the care of his digestion had been the principal occupation of his life.
"My late husband," said the lady, as if introducing Edwin and the picture to each other. "I have been a widow ten years, but you will find everything here just as it was in his life time, this room (she opened a door to allow Edwin to look in) was his study, and contains his whole library, though as he was a mathematician, I can read none of his books. But they were his pets and his pride, and I think that picture would fall from the wall if one should ever get into a stranger's hands. If I had my way, the sooner I got the horrible things out of the house the better I should like it. They cost me tears enough when he could use them."
"Tears?"
"Yes, Herr Doctor, you're a learned man too, I hope you will do better some day and not say like my late husband: 'first my books, and then my wife.' And yet he married me for love and not mathematics. But after two or three years, although I had not grown exactly ugly, he found those horrid triangles and hexangles, and the queer plus and minus signs, far more attractive than the blue eyes and round cheeks of his young wife. Well, I do not complain, I had foreseen it and knew what I was doing."
"But aside from this jealousy, which you share with so many women, you must have enjoyed a great deal of happiness in these rooms, or you would not have so religiously kept them in the same condition."
The widow looked at him with a searching side glance, as if she wanted to ascertain whether he was not too young to be trusted with any confidential disclosures. His honest face, and frank, open bearing, untinged by any shade of intrusiveness, seemed to please her. He was quite different from the other young literati, whom she had seen with her husband. Her quick, womanly penetration enabled her to perceive at once, that she was in the presence of one of those rare men, who are really as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.
"You're still a young man, my dear Herr Doctor," she replied without the least sarcasm in her tone; "I don't know whether you have yet had the experience that certain natures are exceptions to the general rule, and donotpursue happiness, but become their own tormentors. Although very young when my dead husband offered me his hand, I was wise enough to know that I should not find what is called happiness with him. He who is to render another happy, must be capable of happiness himself. My poor Valentin was the most wretched self-tormentor that can be imagined, and without knowing it or wishing to do so, he tortured every one around him. I calculated upon this with mathematical certainty, as I now tell you. And yet I preferred him to all others, for he gave me a task, a constant, daily and hourly work to perform in myself, and taxed all my strength, which is very great and always longs to overcome every obstacle. Now nothing is more difficult than to conquer one's self; I was then a spoiled, petted creature, every one loved me, I coquetted with old and young, with my own heart, nay, God forgive me, with our Lord Himself. How it happened that my eyes were suddenly opened and I said to myself: 'You're a silly doll, you will ruin an immortal soul if this continues--' is too long a story. Enough, that as my heart had remained steadfast and honest, I resolved to try my fate with a very peevish or unhappy man. It will probably be no indiscretion, if I tell you that my dear old friend König was my suitor at the same time; we still joke about the fact that I was his first love. When you become better acquainted with this man, you will confess that it would be difficult to find a happier person or a more loving Christian. If I had become his wife, I should have lived in Paradise. But this was exactly what I did not desire. I felt that to be treasured all my life by such an excellent man, would finally have spoiled me. Well, with Valentin I often had more of the contrary than was agreeable; but I have never regretted it. And now sit down by me, Herr Doctor, and tell me a little about my foster child, Leah."
"I tell you, Madame? Nay, it would greatly interest me to learn fromyousomething about the childhood and early education of my pupil, who seems to be somewhat reserved."
A sorrowful smile flitted over the lady's pleasant, cheerful face. "If I could answer that question satisfactorily, you would hardly be sitting beside me now," she replied. "But excuse me a moment, I'm wanted in the other room."
One of the seamstresses had appeared in the doorway. Frau Valentin left Edwin, and he heard her in the next room giving orders and directions in her clear, positive manner. Then she returned.
"I always have my hands full," she began. "As I unfortunately no longer have any household cares, I willingly take as much of the work of the different clubs and societies to which I belong, as others wish to discard. Ah! Doctor, it affords a great deal of pleasure to have a crowd of deaf and dumb or neglected or orphaned children thank you for their warm, new clothes; yet a single child of one's own, who need not even be deaf and dumb or neglected, or even specially grateful, would bestow a very different kind of happiness. A substitute is never the thing itself. And that's the very reason why it makes me so sad, that the only child I could love almost as my own, avoids me so strangely; she's not cold or ungrateful, but I learn nothing about the best things that may be in her nature, and cannot impart the best of mine, since she does not know how to receive them."
"Are you speaking of my pupil?"
The Frau Professorin did not answer immediately; she sat in silence gazing into vacancy, with her pretty white hands folded in her lap.
"No one has ever caused me so much trouble," she continued, "and yet she has so much amiability, goodness, unselfishness, and independence. But that's just it, the one thing needful, the one thing lacking--you're a philosopher, my dear Doctor, but I hope not one of those whose knowledge has deprived them of faith. And this strange girl--it is not the pride of superior knowledge that makes her unbelieving; no one has a more modest opinion of her own acquirements. But it's in the blood. You ought to have known her mother, whose character she has inherited, trait for trait. Nothing has ever been more mysterious to me, than how my old friend, the artist, who has such a living need of God, could be so happy with this woman, who made no secret of her want of religion, and once when I asked her the direct question, frankly acknowledged: 'that she really did not know whether there was any God at all.' She would not have denied it; but I never disclosed it, I don't know whether she made such confessions to her husband, but I almost think he would not have been puzzled by them; he loved her very dearly. And to be sure, no one could help loving her; I was unable to do so myself, long after I had given up trying to lead her to the light which has guided me through all the depths and shallows of this world. To be sure the fact that she was a Jewess, rendered it difficult for her to obtain a knowledge of the truth. But if she had only been a devout Jewess! I respect all genuine convictions. But she, on the contrary, confessed to me with the calmest possible face, that she knew no more of all the mysteries of life in her thirtieth year than she did in her tenth; she did notunderstandeither this world or the next, and had no desire to fathom their secrets; her beautiful, bright, thoughtless present, with her husband and child, was all sufficient. I fairly started when this was first uttered so plainly. What is this miserable twilight of our earthly existence, if no ray from above warms and brightens it until we reach the full light? And besides, hers was no shallow, sensual nature; or how would she have been able to value so highly, love so fondly, her delicate high-minded husband? But perhaps it was precisely becauseheremained all his life as little understood by her, as she was by him, that they were so fondly attached to each other. Possibly she felt a secret longing for the peace of the children of God, and he, that desire to save which does not renounce the most darkened nature and ever seeks the lost! Besides, she was far from despising or jeering at anything others held sacred, and took it as a matter of course that her child should be educated in the religion of its father. As she herself had none, and probably sometimes felt a horror of this nothingness, she did not wish to sin against her daughter. But it was of no avail. Nature is too powerful. I fear if the daughter were asked to answer a plain question upon her conscience, she would be found to believe little more of her catechism than her mother did."
The bell, which rang in the entry outside, interrupted the conversation. "Unfortunately we shall be interrupted," said the lady, hastily drying her eyes, which were wet with tears. "I requested you to call upon me, because as I said before, I love the child almost as fondly as if she were my own flesh and blood. You must tell me, dear Herr Doctor, what you are going to do with her, that I may be satisfied you will not make the evil still worse."
"I shall give her no religious instruction," replied Edwin, rising. "I am not a theologian. But the philosophy to which I devote myself, has led as many to a personal God as away from Him. No knowledge can replace or destroy the needs of the soul, from which all religion springs. My psychology can quietly let alone what philosophers term predestination, and I am the last who would wish to divert any human mind from the path that leads to peace--though it certainly is not my office to dabble in the business of the missionaries."
Frau Valentin looked at him intently as he uttered these words. "I do not fully understand you," she said, holding out her hand. "But this I do know; you are a good, sincere, warm-hearted man. You will do the child no harm, for that only comes from the wicked."
Just at this moment a maid entered and announced: "Herr Candidat Lorinser."
"How fortunate!" exclaimed the Fran Professorin, and then turned to Edwin. "Now you must stay a little longer. You will make an acquaintance that will interest you more than an old woman who only hopes to be a good Christian like thousands of others."
"Don't be repelled by the first impression," she added in an undertone. "I too was obliged to conquer a slight prejudice, but all trees do not have the same bark. This man's good qualities lie in the depths of his nature."
The person thus announced now entered with a hasty bow, cast a quick, strangely penetrating glance at Edwin, and then with an awkward manner, like a boy aping a grown man for the first time, kissed Frau Valentin's hand. When she pronounced Edwin's name, he bowed with studied courtesy, but instantly threw himself on the sofa as if utterly exhausted, took no further notice of this new acquaintance, but with the most entire absence of constraint as if availing himself of his privileges in the house, tore off a black cravat knotted around his thick neck, and began to comfortably sip a glass of wine, which Frau Valentin poured out for him, at the same time relating in a low, harsh voice, the result of various errands and commissions, which despite the heat, he had executed for his hostess.
Edwin had plenty of leisure to observe him, and found the warning not to allow himself to be discouraged by the first impression, very necessary. If he had followed his own inclinations, he would not have breathed the same air with this singular saint a moment longer. Now he remained and determined to make a study of him.
He who looked more closely at the strongly marked forehead, broad nose, and large, ever moving lips, could not help thinking the face a striking one, and in its rare moments of repose even attractive. Bushy, unkempt hair hung over the rounded temples, but the beard was closely shaven and the cheeks thus acquired a bluish tint. What most repelled Edwin was that the Herr Candidat either kept his eyes fixed intently on the floor, or else let them wander aimlessly over the ceiling, without noticing the persons in the room except by a hasty side glance. Moreover a bitter smile constantly hovered around his lips, while he was silent, but instantly disappeared when he began to speak. Then an almost fanatical sternness lowered on his black brows, a firm decision and imperious implacability, although he expressed himself in the mildest and gentlest words.
There was nothing remarkable about his black clothes, which were cut in the usual style, but he wore shoes that enabled him to move almost noiselessly, and a brown straw hat with a black ribbon a hand's breadth wide.
After relating the result of his visits to the sick and poor and meantime drinking a second and third glass of wine, he looked at an unshapely silver watch he had drawn from the heart pocket of his black coat, and hastily rose, saying that his minutes to-day were numbered. In reply to Frau Valentin's jesting remark, that it was strange a person who, like him, always lived in eternity, never had any time, he did not even answer with his usual smile. On reaching the door, after not having addressed a single word to Edwin, he said suddenly: "I shall consider it an honor to accompany you, Herr Doctor, if you will wait until I have said a few words to our excellent friend alone. Business matters!" he added, looking quietly at his patroness. The latter seemed to have expected something of the kind, and without any sign of curiosity led the way into the late mathematician's study, whither Lorinser followed her.
Edwin's feeling of dislike had grown so strong, that he could scarcely control it sufficiently to wait for the Herr Candidat. He could not understand a word of what was being said in the next room, and only heard enough to gather that Frau Valentin grew angry, but Lorinser speedily soothed her; then a box was opened and money counted out on a table. Directly after both re-appeared in the sitting room, the professor's widow evidently out of humor and with deeply flushed cheeks, Lorinser following her in the calmest possible mood. He kissed his hostess' pretty hand and whispered something, that Edwin did not hear, but would not permit her to accompany him to the door.
The seamstresses were sitting quietly at work in the large room. The youngest was a slender brunette, with thick, shining hair, and beautiful black eyes. As Lorinser passed, Edwin thought he saw the girl blush and bend lower over her work, but the Herr Candidat seemed to take no more notice of her than the others.
When they had reached the street, and walked on side by side for some distance in silence, Lorinser suddenly stood still, removed his hat, and casting an absent glance at the clouds, said: "You must not misjudge me. This sort of practical religion, this busy attempt to earn heaven by making ourselves useful to our fellow mortals, is thoroughly repugnant to me, and if I allow myself to be used as a tool, it is only to have some kind of method in the madness. This course or conduct may be everything you please, warm-hearted, useful, a necessity to certain natures, but it is as different from truereligion, as all human worship is unlike the genuine service of God."
"I have only made Frau Valentin's acquaintance to-day," replied Edwin. "But she did not give me the impression that she was one of those persons who hope to engage a place in heaven by their good works. She cannot imagine any worship--and therefore certainly not the service of God--without active exertion."
"You express her views exactly," said the other, as he withdrew his eyes from the clouds and fixed them again on the earth. "To act is a temporal thing; to be, to behold, to commune with ourselves--only thus can we here, though imperfectly, attain a conception of the Infinite. It is possible that in a purer and more sensitive husk than the one we now have, organs may grow, by means of which we can take an active share in the inexpressible energy of the Deity, become in a certain sense co-workers with God. Here below the highest point we can reach, is: an ecstatic realization that we possess God. Everything that perplexes us, procures our powers room to develop, tempts us, so to speak, from resting in God to rely on ourselves, no matter how useful it may be in aworldlypoint of view, is a sin against the Holy Ghost, a crime against our own souls. I do not know how far your philosophy will enable you to follow me."
Lorinser suddenly stood still.
Lorinser suddenly stood still, removed his hat, and cast an absent glance at the clouds.
"To the most extreme consequences of your view of the world, which extend to the familiar mystical quietism," replied Edwin with a calm smile. "This is not the first time I have encountered such a mixed temperament--you are undoubtedly phlegmatic---choleric--and therefore my philosophy is not perplexed about the formula. The only thing new and not quite intelligible, is how any one with such views can become a clergyman, accept an office as the servant of religion, which calls itself the religion of love."
"You are perfectly right. And I also am too honest a man to consent to the pitiful compromises and casuistries, which most clergymen drag with them through life as galley-slaves do the chains which grow into their flesh. I wish to have nothing to do with the so-called established church, and abhor or pity the delusion that religion can be managed in bulk, like a joint stock company, on whose terms a deed of partnership is drawn up. There has never been a revelation, which has come from heaven to earth as of universal validity.At every momentthe fulness of God's mercy is revealed anew, the Son of Man dies again, sinful mortals are saved once more by the Saviour's blood. But no one knows or perceives anything of this, except those, who have not exchanged the gold of their love for God, for the base coin of the so-called love for one's neighbor, only to be beggars when God demands a sacrifice. We have only one neighbor, God himself. Our lives are nothing but an act of mercy on the part of the Creator, who by means of a temporary separation from him, arouses the wish, the desire, the passionate longing for a re-union, and thereby affords us the first conscious delight of sinking back into eternity. The souls who never attain to this, are, as it were, only the dark elements in the nature of God, and in the great crucible of time will be separated from the purer ore and cast aside like dross."
"Go on," said Edwin after a pause, as his companion relapsed into silence. "I make no reply, because I have perceived it is utterly useless to work against such a fantastic condition of the soul. But I am always interested in watching this singular state of profound thought, which does not rest until having reached the highest pitch, the overstrained powers suddenly relapse into a voluptuous repose."
Lorinser paused again and cast one of those side glances, which so strangely distorted his features, at his companion.
"I see you have a tolerably good theoretical knowledge of the matter," said he. "Perhaps you may also be nearer the experience than you suppose. The unsatisfactoriness of the usual sensible analysis of the problem of life, must have long since been evident to you, as well as every other honest thinker. But most men, when they come to the point where their world is nailed up with boards, are modest enough to see the bounds of all human knowledge here, and turn back again like good sheep, who hit their heads against the sides of their pen. My dear sir, the fence is not so high, that with proper headway it cannot be overleaped, and the bound is so far from being asalto mortale, that the true life only begins on the other side. God is transcendent. If we are to approach him, we mustspring upward."
"And do you believe that this leap depends solely upon our own inclinations?"
"Not entirely. Not every one, even if dissatisfaction gnaws at his soul, has obtained the power to lend his spirit wings. There are natures, like those of our good Frau Valentin, who lack the necessary elasticity. But where it does exist, it can, like any other power, be strengthened and steeled."
"I should be greatly obliged," said Edwin smiling, "if when occasion offers, you would give me farther instruction in these gymnastics. But I have now reached my home. I must not ask you to take the trouble to go in with me. The old staircase is dark and steep, and one is obliged to grope his way step by step, an easier operation for a dialectician of my stamp, than for him who without assistance soars through the seven heavens."
Lorinser did not seem to hear the jest. His eyes were intently fixed upon a female figure, which had approached the house from the other side a short time before them, and with a hasty bow to Edwin entered.
"Who is that lady?" he asked.
"One of the lodgers in our house, a very talented musician, who lives in great seclusion, so great that I can tell you no more about her."
"Will you allow me to look in upon you a moment?" replied Lorinser, stepping into the entry before Edwin.
Balder looked up from his book in surprise, when his brother entered with his singular companion. His soft, expressive eyes rested on the strange face for a short time, but soon seemed to have perceived all he thought worthy of notice, and remained persistently fixed on the sunlight that bathed the branches of the acacia tree.
The youth's appearance was evidently more attractive to Lorinser. He instantly directed the conversation back to his mystical experiences, revelations, and divine joys, as he termed them, and turning with unconcealed admiration toward Balder, declared that he seemed specially fitted by nature to penetrate the depths of these secrets. He would, if permitted, introduce him to other chosen spirits, by whom disclosures would be made that would render his present relations to life, shallow and profitless.
Edwin contented himself with now and then throwing in a sarcastic question, which Lorinser merely noticed by a shrug of the shoulders, but Balder, who met all his entreaties with unmoved composure, answered shortly, that he was not in the habit of going out and felt no longing for any other wonders than those revealed by his senses and quiet thoughts.
"You will think differently, when you are farther initiated," replied Lorinser. "I can boldly assert, that without suspecting it, you are in an unusual degree a child of God. The hour will come--"
Here he was interrupted by the entrance of Reginchen, who brought the brothers their dinner. Lorinser only vouchsafed her a passing glance, and the dishes she carried did not seem to him sufficiently choice to induce him to remain longer. He begged permission to come again at an early day, and withdrew smiling at Balder, who did not perceive it, as he was limping around the room helping Reginchen set the table.
"Dear me," said the fair haired girl, as the retreating footsteps glided over the stairs, "what a queer gentleman that is! I'd rather have mother scold me half a day, than listen to his husky voice and hear him creep about as if he had on felt slippers, for half an hour. It's fortunate he never looks any one straight in the eye, for if he did nobody could endure it, at least not I. Did you notice, Herr Walter: the whites of his eyes are like mother of pearl, or the quicksilver in our thermometer. He looks very ghostly, not like anything human."
"You foreboding angel!" cried Edwin laughing. "But don't be afraid of him, Reginchen. This godly fellow won't come again very soon; he saw that he had no power over our souls, and our flesh--I mean the excellent piece of meat your mother has sent up to us to-day--did not tempt his appetite."
"I hope you may be right," said Balder. "But I'm afraid we shall not get rid of this gloomy guest so quickly; he's only watching for a more favorable opportunity to steal in again, though I don't understand what he hopes to find here."
"We'll wait till he does, and if necessary use our right to close our doors. He has left us his card: 'Unter den Linden, No. 10.' Of course in the most fashionable locality. The children of God, who neither sow nor reap, since their Heavenly Father feeds them, can afford themselves every luxury, while we children of the world--but you're right, Reginchen, the dinner will get cold. Come, child, let me pour you out a glass of wine. I'll take water myself, to cool my indignation over the false prophet."
Meantime Lorinser had only crept down one flight of stairs and stopped before the door on the second story. He read the name on the small sign, listened a few minutes, and then gently pulled the bell.
Christiane opened the door and gazed in surprise at the stranger, whom she had just seen with Edwin. His penetrating gaze rested on her a moment, then he raised his eyes toward the ceiling of the entry, as if solely interested in the spiders' webs.
"Fräulein Christiane Falk?" said he.
She made an almost imperceptible bow. "What do you want, sir?"
"Will you allow me to come in a moment, the errand that brings me to you can hardly be discussed here--"
She drew back a step from the threshold to admit him. In an instant he had crossed the ante-room and entered the half sitting room half bedroom, to which we were introduced the night that this story opened. Its appearance in the broad daylight was not much more cheerful, than by the feeble rays of the little lamp. The walls were hung with faded tapestry, but destitute of pictures. The floor was uncarpeted, there were no flowers, none of the hundred trifles with which lonely women adorn their rooms and endeavor to supply the lack of human companionship; nothing but a quantity of books on the bureau, the volume of Schopenhauer on the table before the sofa, and numerous sheets of music scattered in disorder over the piano. The whole produced the impression that there were no bright eyes here, to whom life was pleasant for the sake of its charms.
The face of the occupant only too plainly confirmed the testimony of the mute objects around her.
The features were unlovely, harsh, and no longer youthful, the brows almost met over the light grey eyes, the hair, thick but not soft, hung over the pale brow like a heavy shadow. The only charm in this stern visage, the full mouth with its dazzlingly white teeth, had a decided approach to a mustache, and by its habitual expression of gloomy defiance seemed to contradict the idea that this face could ever wish to please. The same avoidance of all desire for comeliness was visible in the dress. But even the most clumsy folds could not wholly conceal the fact that the masculine head was placed on a most exquisite female figure.
She stood quietly by the table, opposite to Lorinser, who without waiting for her invitation, had thrown himself upon the little sofa and was scanning the apartment with his lightning like side glance. With a careless gesture of the hand he invited her to sit down beside him, but she remained standing motionless, with folded arms.
"Honored Fräulein," said he, "I have heard so much of your talent, my friend Doctor Edwin, your fellow lodger, has just confirmed it so warmly, that it seems to me like a direct interposition of Providence that I have now found my way to you. My business can be stated in two words. Some friends who were not satisfied with the public worship of the church, have for some time arranged a quiet service of their own, in which music occupies an important part. The lady who formerly played the harmonium, has gone away. There is no one among us who could take her place, so I undertook to provide a substitute. I thought of you, Fräulein. That you are no virtuoso of the common stamp, but a person to whom the mysterious nature of true, genuine music is revealed, I see by a single glance at that book, in which I read the names of Bach and Glück, and--allow me to speak frankly--one look into your eyes, which beam with a deeper radiance than those of ordinary women. Those eyes bear witness that your music is your religion. I will not conceal from you that this point of view does not yet seem to me the highest one. To me, music is only a stepping stone to divine happiness, though certainly one of the nearest to the throne of the Eternal. However, I am not here to preach to you. Besides, no one in our circle will annoy you by the supposition that you will share our devotions. But for what you give us, you will in every sense be richly rewarded. I only beg to tell you on what conditions--"
"And suppose I could not consent upon any condition?" she quietly interrupted.
He seized the book that lay on the table before him, turned the leaves without apparently taking any notice of their contents, and after a short pause replied:
"You will perhaps think differently, Fräulein, when I tell you that you need not attend these religious exercises in person. The instrument stands in a room, which is divided from the hall where we assemble by a tolerably large apartment. You will play as if to yourself, and not a whisper of what takes place in the little congregation outside, will reach your ears. In this way both you and we will be spared any mutual annoyance, and only share what is alike to all."
He looked at her with a keen, searching glance. She was gazing into vacancy, and seemed to be considering how far she should reveal her most secret feelings to this stranger. A bitter expression suddenly flitted over her lips, and her brows contracted.
"Pardon me," she said hastily, "if I must decline under any circumstances, to take part in what is called divine service. My reasons for so doing I may be permitted to keep to myself. I doubt whether they would be understood, far less appreciated by you, and I am not accustomed to be faithless to my convictions, even for the large fee you intimate I should receive."
"Your reasons?" he said smiling, as he rose and approached her. "Will you permit me to read these reasons, or rather this one motive from your brow?"
"Sir--"
She looked at him in astonishment and retreated a step, as if to protect her personal freedom. He stood still and again gazed steadily at the ceiling.
"The one reason that you will take no part in any religious service, is: that you have no God whom you desire to serve," he said in the frankest possible tone, as if he were speaking of something that was quite a matter of course.
She did not answer immediately. The man's amazing assurance seemed to intimidate her. She was forced to arm herself with her old defiance ere she could reply.
"Did you really read it from my brow, or only in the book on the table?"
"My dear Fräulein," he answered kindly, "if I had had the honor of a longer acquaintance with you, you would expect me to be able to solve so easy an enigma without such aid. The author of that book, believe me, with all his atheism, knew more of God than you do--at least at this time, for he knew that which alone leads to Him, and which so far as I see, has hitherto remained unknown to you, and therefore renders the natural estrangement from God you share with countless others, so harsh and apparently necessary:sin. You need not answer yes or no. I'm sure of it: whatever errors and weaknesses have entered your life, you have never known sin,thatsin which alone arouses in the wilful heart the need, the longing for redemption, the burning sense of our own weakness and baseness, which makes us thirst for God and is at last stilled by the dew of mercy. Do you smile, Fräulein? This language seems to exaggerated to express the naked truth. Some day you will remember it, and no longer smile.
"No," he continued as if in sudden agitation, pacing up and down the room with hasty strides. "I will not give you up. I have felt too strongly attracted toward you, from the first words that fell from your lips, to be able to go away now and say to myself: this strong, beautiful soul will never find the way to the holy of holies. Even such a powerful guide as music will only lead you to the threshold. Believe me, my dear Fräulein, I too have had similar experiences; I too once said like you: the God who has created heaven and earth and myself, is too great for my love, too distant for my longing, too silent for my confidence. And why should I have desired to approach him? What did I lack, so long as I hadmyself, my virtue, my worldly pleasure, my good works? Not until the day when I first became familiar with sin, when I had lostmyself, did I learn how near this far off being can come, how eloquently he can console, how lovingly he can draw you to himself. Since that time all the sorrows of the world, of which that bewildering book speaks, have seemed to me mere child's play in comparison to the misfortune of being sufficient to ourselves and attempting to fight our way through the unconquerable horrors of existence, by means of common place honesty, courage, and innocence, the trivial 'always practice truth and justice.'"
He remained standing before her and held out both hands, but she continued to keep her arms folded over her breast.
"I don't understand you," she replied, "and moreover do not know why I should take the trouble to understand you--above all, whyyoushould take the trouble to attempt to aid me in your own way. I do not feel at all sick, and what I need to make mehappyneither man nor God can give. If the sense of your sinfulness has made you long for a 'Saviour,' I do not envy you this happiness. I am a lonely woman; I have nothing but myself, my pride, my obstinacy, if you choose to call it so. If I must lose this, must become a worm and wallow in the mire--then to be sure I too might probably succeed in crawling to the cross. But I do not desire a God, who must draw me to himself through sin and disgrace! If he cannot clasp his honest, upright creatures to his heart, I prefer to remain a step child."
"Youprefer." said Lorinser in a low, but very impressive tone. "If you alwayscando so."
"Who is to prevent me from being faithful to myself?"
"One who is stronger than our wills: the devil."
"I am too old for nursery tales."
"Oh! my dear child," he replied, "there are nursery tales which we first experience, when our infant's socks are laid aside and we have discarded the nurse's milk for sound human reason. Have you never learned that some power is exerted over our wills by a sudden, as it were magical influence? Has no eye ever bewitched you, no voice ever set your blood on fire, no hand ever destroyed your defiant obstinacy by a single touch?"
A deep flush suddenly suffused Fräulein Falk's dark face.
"How do you presume to play the part of an inquisitor toward a lady whom you see for the first time?" she vehemently burst forth. "Be kind enough to leave me, sir, our conversation has taken a turn--"
She drew back as if to leave the way to the door open. He smilingly took his hat from the table, but remained standing in the middle of the room, waving it carelessly to and fro, with his eyes fixed upon the floor.
"You wrong me," said he. "I am not so indiscreet as to seek to force myself into your confidence. What I said was aimed at people in general. Inspired poets and sentimental children of the world talk of the magic of love. As if these things were not perfectly natural, so natural that the power exercised over the will has been very properly compared to chemical processes. The word magic can only be used when unnatural--supernatural things occur. If you follow the promptings of your inclinations, your blood, your nature, even were it along the worst paths, to the greatest injury of yourself and others--is there any witchcraft in it? Error, weakness, perversity--I repeat it--are very human evils, and do not lead to God. But to be urged on to what is most foreign, hostile to your nature, to be forced, in dread and horror, to do what you abhor, to be faithless to what is dearest--you see, Fräulein, that this only occurs under the influence of a powerful spell, the only one that still remains in this enlightened world, and whose consequences God scuds his pardoning mercy to destroy or efface:the magic of sin. I beg your pardon for having troubled you so long. Perhaps I shall frequently have the pleasure of conversing with you about these mysteries."
He bowed with the look and smile of a man, who has tamed a fierce lioness and can now venture to enter her cage alone. She stood speechless, and made no motion to accompany him to the door. Her arms hung loosely by her side, her chin drooped on her breast, her eyes were closed as if she had given herself up to gloomy thoughts.
Mohr and Franzelius were just going up the narrow stairs, as Lorinser closed Christiane's door behind him.
Coming from different directions, they had met at the outer door, and unwelcome as the encounter was to both--for Mohr, who had his play in his pocket, would also have liked to see the brothers alone--each was too awkward or too proud to avoid the other.
They had bowed in silence, and Mohr had allowed the printer to precede him. When they now met Lorinser on the stairs, Franzelius stepped aside like a person who unexpectedly treads upon a toad. The incident even made him forget his unfriendly relations with the eternal joker, and pausing on the landing he looked after the rapidly retreating figure, saying in a tone of the most intense abhorrence:
"Did you see that man, Mohr?"
"He came out of the young lady's room. Who is he? Where did you make his acquaintance, Gracchus?"
"He's the same malicious hypocrite who made that speech before our society. It's a pity the thought occurred to me too late, I might have thanked him for the information he gave the police."
"Or helped him down stairs a little faster; he seems to have scented thisesprit de l'escalier!" Mohr replied, essaying to jest, but instantly added with a gloomy brow, "What did the pale rascal want there? Couldn't she have shut the door on him, as well as better people?"
"A bed-bug makes its way everywhere."
"You're right, Franzel!" replied Mohr with an angry laugh. Then twisting his under lip awry, muttered: "Eternal Gods! I would not have believed that a man could fall low enough to envy a bed-bug!"