CHRIST BEFORE PILATEFrom the Painting by Michael von MunkacsyPERMISSION CH. SEDELMEYER, PARIS
CHRIST BEFORE PILATEFrom the Painting by Michael von MunkacsyPERMISSION CH. SEDELMEYER, PARIS
They understood him instantly.—The four old, hollow willows, right there on the edge—they were to set fire tothem! The village would be in danger, to be sure, if it could be done; but none thought of that. They hurried to the nearest houses, they brought back pieces of oakum and resinous wood by the armful and stuffed it all into the hollow trunks, which fortunately were turned toward the west. A few fruitless attempts—and then it flamed up—sparkling, flashing—now flaring and again subsiding—casting strange, shifting lights upon the hundreds of pale faces which were all directed toward the man with the line around his breast, struggling against the stream.—Would he hold out?
More than one pair of callous hands were clasped in prayer; women were on their knees, sobbing, moaning, pressing their nails into the flesh, tearing their hair, screaming as if mad, when another dreadful wave rolled up and on over him, and he vanished in the swell.—But there he was again! It had cast him back half the distance he had traversed; but a minute later he had retrieved the lost ground. He had been driven quite a distance down stream, but had chosen well his starting point; the terrace was still far below him. It seemed a miracle that he came through the stream!
And now he was in the middle of it! It was the worst place—they knew it from their previous experience! He seemed not to advance, but, instead, gradually to lose headway.—But the terrace was still below him; if he overcame the middle of the current, he could, he must succeed!—And now he was gaining ground perceptibly—nearer and nearer, foot by foot—in a diagonal curved line toward the terrace!—
Rough, quarrelsome fellows who had been enemies all their lives, had clasped hands; women fell sighing into each other's arms. A gentleman with short gray hair and heavy gray mustache, who had just run up from the village, taking his stand close by the burning willows, almost enveloped by their flames, had followed the swimmer with steady gaze and with fervent prayers and promises—that everything,everything, should be forgiven and forgotten, if only he should have him back again, his dear, heroic son!—He now cried out aloud—a terrible cry which the storm carried away and hurled down upon the shore where the men were standing who held the line, shouting to them to pull back—back—back!—It was too late!
Then down came the mighty fir-tree, at the foot of which the swimmer had sat an hour before—torn loose by the storm, hurled into the flood, rolling on in the whirlpool of the stream, like a giant emerging from the deep, now turning up its mighty roots which still held the rock in their grasp, and now the top; now rising erect as it had once stood in the light of the sun, and in the next moment crashing down upon the swimmer—then plunging with its top into the foaming currents and turning its roots upward as it hurried out of the light into the darker night.
They drew him back, as, strangely enough, the thin line had not broken—a dead man, at whose side, as he lay stretched out upon the shore (he had only a wide, gaping wound above his brow, like one who had died an honorable cavalryman's death) the old man with the gray mustache knelt down, kissed him upon the beautiful, pale lips, and then rose up.—"Now give me the line! It was my son! And over there is my daughter!"
It seemed madness! The young man—they had seen how he struggled!—But the old man!—Though he was old, he was nevertheless a large man, with broad high chest. He threw off his coat and vest.
"If you find, General, that you cannot hold out, give us the sign at the right time," said the Burgess.
And now something like a miracle appeared to those who, in this short hour, had passed through such strange, horrible, fearful experiences!
The willow torches, which were all blazing at once from the roots to the spreading branches, cast a brightness almost like that of day upon the shore, upon the multitude, the stream, the terrace beyond—far into the flooded park,up to the castle, the windows of which here and there flashed red in the reflection of the fire.
In this light, along the narrow stream upon the bottom of which the village children had formerly played, rolling like balls from the edge of the slope to the bottom—along this foaming water-course down which the spreading fir-tree was still tossing like a monster of the sea; seizing its prey with a hundred arms, sped a slender beautiful boat, which had disembarked a strange cargo at the rear landing-place of the castle, as at a dock. There they had heard how matters stood, and the man at the helm had said: "Children, it is my betrothed!" And the six with him had cried: "Hurrah for the Commander!" and "Hurrah for his betrothed!" So they now shot past with lowered mast, while the six seamen held the oars in place as in a flag-boat which brings an admiral to shore. And the flag fluttered behind the man at the helm, as with the gentle pressure of his strong hand he steered the obedient craft through the mighty swells to the point which his clear unfailing eyes kept in view, as an eagle does his prey, although his courageous heart was beating furiously in his breast.
And they shot past—on, past the multitude, which gazed breathlessly at the miracle, on, by the terrace—but only a short distance; for the man at the helm brought the boat about like an eagle in its flight, and the six seamen dipped their oars all at one stroke—and then—Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!—the oars shot up again, and the boat lay alongside the terrace, over which and the boat a gigantic wave rolled its foaming comb toward the shore, and there, subsiding, dashed the foam into the burning trees, enveloping the breathless observers on the shore in a cloud of spray; and, as the cloud dissipated, they saw, in the dim light of the extinguished fire, no longer the terrace—and the boat only as it were a shadow, which disappeared to the right in the darkness.
Then they breathed freely again, as from a single troubled soul, relieved from its anxiety; and "Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!" was heard as from a single throat, so that it sounded above the howling storm. The boat might vanish in the dark! But they knew that the man at the helm understood his business, and the six at the oars understood their business, too; it would come back again, bringing with it those rescued from the storm and flood!
The setting sun was just above the hills. In its magic light gleamed the surface of the water which covered the great semicircle between Golmberg and Wissow Hook. The slanting golden rays sent their blinding light into the eyes of Reinhold, who was just steering his boat from the sea into the bay, close past the White Dune, upon the steep side of which the long in-rolling wave was curling, while the boat swept past by its broad crest, and the points of the uniformly rising and falling oars almost touched the edge. The glances of the men who plied the oars were directed toward the Dune as they glided on, and the scene of rescue on the night of the storm was surely in the minds of all; but not one of them said a word.
Not because it was against discipline. They knew that the Commander allowed a modest word at the right time, even when he was, as today, in full uniform, and wore the iron cross on his breast; but he had drawn the three-cornered hat far down over his face, and, if he lifted his eyes quickly once more to examine the course, they did not look threatening today; they had not yet seen threats in his eyes, any more than they had heard harsh words from his lips—but lips serious and sad. They did not wish to disturb the Commander in his thoughts—more serious and sad than the brave men might entertain or could comprehend. What were the two people to them whom they had rescued from the peril of death on this Dune, with unspeakable effort and hundredfold mortal peril to each one of them—what were the few people to them whom they had rescued because it was their duty, or the others whomthey had already rescued during the day! How the Count and the noble lady got there, what relation the two sustained to each other—why should they ask about that?
But he!
What a shudder went through him when he found the brilliant Carla von Wallbach, whom he had seen dancing and coquetting a few days before, under the light of the candelabra, through the reception room at Warnow—now a picture of extreme misery, her clothes drenched with water, her delicate limbs trembling from the icy cold, with half dazed senses, curled up in a heap scarcely like a human form, and bore her to the boat; with horror he recalled the moment when he laid her down in the boat—how she, awaking from her stupor and recognizing him, had cried out as if mad, "Save me from him, from him!"—and held him, the strange man, anxiously in her grasp, as a child its mother, so that he had to release himself by force! And when the Count, who was in a scarcely less lamentable condition, having been carried by two pilots into the boat and placed near Carla, suddenly staggered up again at the risk of falling overboard, tottered to the bow of the boat and there sat brooding in sullen disdain, disregarding everything that went on about him, until they worked their way to the Pölitz premises and made ready to bring the wretched people through the window of the garret to which they had fled, into the boat—then he sprang up and shrieked like a madman that he did not wish to be packed in with those people, that he would not have it so!—And he belabored those about him until he was deterred by the threat that they would bind him if he did not obey the orders of the Commander—at which he covered his face with his hands, and sullenly swallowed his wrath.
There was the garret, and there was the window opening—they had torn out the window and knocked out a piece of the wall to make room—and Reinhold remembered that he himself had succeeded in rescuing wretched people from this dreadful desolation, that he had been able to carryfrail human forms through the storm and blackness into the safe port of the castle, where all danger was over.
The passage from the inundated court to the castle lasted only a few minutes—the storm had hurled the boat before it like a snowflake—but those had been the only moments when his own heart trembled, not with fear, but with tender solicitude. His eyes grew moist as he now recalled it all—the mother who lay in the boat with her little one at her breast, her head upon the knees of her husband, while poor Marie, full of compassion, held the fainting Carla in her arms. How must the wretched man in the bow of the boat have felt at this sight if he once raised his eyes! The raging haste with which he jumped out and rushed away when they touched the landing of the castle to conceal himself somewhere in the darkness—it was Cain fleeing from the dead body of his slain brother.
And Reinhold's thoughts grew still more sad. He had succeeded in the greatest effort of all; he had been permitted to rescue his betrothed from certain death—and with her the unfortunate woman who loved them both, as if they had been her children and whom both loved and honored as a mother. It was indeed such a supreme joy—and yet, yet——?
How dearly this joy had been bought! Was there other joy which must be bought just as dearly? Was there everywhere happiness, with unhappiness so near at hand in its pitiless form, like the blue-black shadows yonder between the turrets and the battlements of the castle, bordered on the brightly illuminated surface? Did not even the apparently firmest ground shake, as here the wave undulates above the fields through which the ploughman formerly drove his plough, over the pasture upon which the shepherd formerly drove his flocks? Did they have to die so young, so beautiful, so richly endowed with the most splendid gifts and talents? And if they had to die because they could no longer live, no longer wished to live, death was for them only a release from inevitable destruction. What a questionable good did life appear to be, when with it is born the possibility of such a horrible fate? How could the two fathers bear it?—With fortitude no doubt—and yet, and yet——?
They had rowed around the castle in the park, and approached the shore where the willows had burned that night, the charred ends of which still rose from the sands. Several larger as well as smaller boats already lay there, which had come from Ahlbeck, and even from the distant villages along the coast. From every direction—from miles around—they had come, for in every quarter the tragic story of the youth and maiden who loved each other, who both had fled from home and found neither happiness nor a happy star, and now had died and were to be buried today, had passed from mouth to mouth.
Reinhold turned from the shore and went to the village. The President had written him that he would arrive at Warnow at a certain hour, and wished to speak to him before he presented himself to the family. Reinhold was well aware of the punctual habits of the worthy man, and had scarcely reached the place in front of the inn, where a barricade of vehicles had already assembled, when an equipage rolled up from which the President descended, and, seeing him, at once came to meet him with outstretched hand. There was something almost paternal in the silent greeting, for the President was too much moved to venture speech until they had stepped aside a few paces. He then began, with a melancholy smile:
"Prophets to the right, and prophets to the left! Yes, yes, my dear young friend! What would we give, indeed, if we had all proved to be false prophets, and our storm floods had not come! But they have come; yours has subsided quickly enough, thank God; mine will yet long rage on, Heaven pity me! Would that such brave St. Georges might appear in this case, to charge so boldly at the body of the dragon, and wrest from him his victims! I am proud of you, dear friend; there are not many whocan truly rejoice in such splendid deeds as you have been permitted to perform with the help of a gracious God. To rescue so many lives, even if your betrothed had not been among them—how happy you must be! It will not add to your joy, I think; it will not increase the bliss which fills your heart; but it is right and proper that such noble, divinely inspired conduct find recognition also in the eyes of the world. Your treatise, which at the time aroused bad feelings, has not been forgotten; if your counsel had been followed the unfortunate military port would at least never have been begun, and millions and millions would have been saved for our country, not to speak further of the disgrace. Such minds should not celebrate, the Minister thinks; in answer to my report of events here, he has sent an order by telegraph to confer upon you a medal for bravery, with a ribbon, in the name of His Majesty, and to ask you, in his own name, whether you are inclined to enter his Ministry in some capacity to be agreed upon in a personal interview with him—as reporting member to the ministry, I suppose, or even the marine ministry—it appears that the two gentlemen are competing for you. I think I know what you will answer me—that you prefer to remain here for the present. I should not like to lose you just now; but keep your future open in any case; you owe it to the general weal, and you owe it to yourself. Am I right?"
"Certainly, Mr. President," replied Reinhold; "it is my ardent desire and my firm determination to serve my King and country by land and sea whenever and however I can. Every call which comes to me will find me ready, although I will not deny that I should leave here reluctantly, very reluctantly."
"I can easily imagine so," said the President. "A man like you puts his soul into everything, devotes himself to the fulfilment of his duty, be it great or small; and that one can perform great things in a comparatively small sphere you have shown. Nevertheless the matter has also a sentimental side which it would be false heroism to overlook. The high recognition which your services have received from the King will be a pleasing satisfaction for your so sorely tried father-in-law, and he would feel himself quite lonely in Berlin without the presence of his daughter."
"How kind you are!" said Reinhold, with emotion. "How you think of everything!"
"Isn't it so?" rejoined the President, returning the pressure of Reinhold's hand with a friendly grip. "It is admirable! Have I not the honor to be a friend of the family? And did you not recognize me in that capacity when you communicated everything privately to me in your official report of the events of the days of the storm flood? What concerned you and the family to whom you now belong? I feel myself honored by your confidence; I do not need to tell you that it is all buried in my breast. But you are right—in such complicated circumstances one must not depend upon himself, one must call to his aid experience, the wisdom of his friends. And who would be better able than I to offer assistance in this case? I have considered everything, I have made it all clear to myself, indeed have even laid some few first lines, and have found most ready response from every quarter. We will discuss that in detail when you come to Sundin in the next few days, as you will do, I hope. For today—I must go back to the funeral at once—only this much: I am sure that the estates of your aunt, the Baroness, are intact; inasmuch as both Golm and the Society are bankrupt and must be content with any condition, even if it be only moderately acceptable. I shall not make any that are favorable to the parties, you may be sure of that! These people who have brought such unspeakable disaster upon thousands deserve no pardon. To be sure, there will remain then, at the best, only fragments of the proud fortune, for the greater part of it, I fear, has forever disappeared with that horrible man, Giraldi. Or do you think not?"
"Most certainly, Mr. President," said Reinhold. "I assumed it from the beginning, and the report of the man who drove for him and with whom I afterward spoke in detail myself and cross-questioned, confirmed my assumption. The inundation between Wissow Hook and Fachwich came with such fearful violence that the first water must have been washed out more than once by that coming in from the bay, which was formed as from a bowl, together with everything in its current. Then the water which was forced out formed a monstrous stream, which surged between the continent and the island, westward into the open sea, and if the corpses are ever driven ashore after weeks, perhaps after months, anywhere——"
"Too bad, too bad!" sighed the President. "The proud, proud fortune—according to my estimation and accounts—which the dreadful man made in his last interview with the Baroness, a whole million! How much good could have been done with that! And in your hands, too! Nevertheless, on the other hand—it is a dreadful thought—such an inheritance, and now even the Baroness! Are you acquainted with the horrible details?"
"She knows that Antonio was the assassin of my poor cousin; she knows, also, that the two Italians were together in their flight, that they perished together. I hope the unspeakable horror which the man's report contains for us will ever remain a secret."
"She doesn't believe in the son?"
"Not at all! It is as if God in his mercy had blinded in this direction her otherwise clear vision. She considers the whole matter a fabrication, a downright lie of Giraldi's. You can imagine, Mr. President, that we uphold her in her belief, and are grateful to fate even for that reason which swallows up in its depths what should never have seen the light of day."
"Of course, of course!" said the President; "that is a consolation withal. The unhappy woman has really already suffered enough. Toward your poor uncle fate has been less gracious. It is dreadful to lose such a daughter, sofair and so highly endowed. But for a man such as your uncle must be, to judge from all I have heard of his generosity, his sense of honor, to be pursued by the ghost of a son who is followed wherever he goes by warrants and bailiffs—against that, I think, no magnanimity and no philosophy can avail—that is pitilessly horrible, without the slightest breath of atonement! Such suffering, even time, which is almighty in other things, cannot diminish; here death alone can bring relief—but the man will take good care not to die."
"I don't know," said Reinhold. "He is from a family which does not fear death; however differently the unfortunate man may look at life, I can easily imagine that even to him the question comes in a form which he understands, and that he will then not hesitate a moment in forming his decision."
The fugitive ripple of an ironical smile played about the lips of the President; he was about to say, in a happy turn of phrase, that he could understand the pride of family, even when, as in this case, it overshot the mark; but a loud cry in a heavy voice in the immediate neighborhood prevented him. The one who shouted was von Strummin, who came down the short cross street leading from the main street of the village to the parsonage in such haste that Reinhold, who had already heard of the arrival of his friend in the early morning, had no time to tell the President of the relation of the two men. On the other hand, von Strummin shouted, before he extended his hand to the President—"I have the honor, Mr. President, to present to you my son-in-law, Mr. Justus Anders, renowned sculptor—the grand gold medal, Mr. President!—came this morning with my daughter from Berlin, accompanied by your aunt, Commander—he took the arrangements in hand at once, as your aunt wished it so—had the whole lower floor cleared out—looks now like the church in Strummin! Yes, my honored President! Such an artist! The rest of us must all stand with open mouths.—And now just think,Mr. President—the pastor cannot, or rather will not, preach the funeral sermon—declines at the last moment! We—my son-in-law and I—have just seen him—didn't even receive us—can't see any one—can't speak at all—beautifully hoarse. The parish of Golm, which the Count has promised him, still sticking in his throat!"
"Pardon, Strummin," said Reinhold, interrupting the zealous man, "I differ widely from the pastor in his belief, but here I must take his part. He is really ill, very ill, and his illness has a justifiable cause. I know it; for my men, and, as it happened, I myself—we have had the feeble old man with us everywhere as a volunteer wherever there was need of giving help or consolation, and you know that was the case on not a few occasions."
"Well, if you say so!" exclaimed von Strummin; "and it may be, too, that I have become suspicious, if I think I scent only a trail of our fine Count. But the Parish of Golm——"
"Dear von Strummin," whispered the President, "why all that so loud!—And you have heard——"
"Well, for all I care!" cried Strummin; "I am only saying that the Parish of Golm——"
The two friends could not hear what Strummin, now lowering his voice at the repeated request of the President, said further in support of his theory. They remained some distance behind, shaking hands repeatedly, while tears stood in their eyes.
"Yesterday at this time we buried Cilli," said Justus.—Ferdinande's Pietà, which I am finishing, will stand over her grave, and declare to the world what a treasure of goodness and love and mercy lies buried there; and to these two here I will erect a monument—I showed Mieting a plan of it on the way.—She says it will be great; but how gladly I would break stone, literally, for the rest of my life, as my father-in-law said, if I could thereby awake the good, noble, brave souls to life again!—The naval uniform is very becoming to you, Reinhold! I should have modeledyou that way; we must try it again—the big gold epaulettes are fine for modeling!—And who is going to preach the funeral sermon? The General and Uncle Ernst have directed that they shall both be buried in one grave. I find that beautiful and right, and the objection that they were not even publicly betrothed entirely without basis and genuinely philistine. And here it occurs to me—Uncle Ernst must speak at the grave; he speaks so well, and it will do him good to express his thoughts!—And the General, too; they both stand together, now, like brothers. A dispatch came a while ago for Uncle Ernst; I was present when he opened it, and saw how he winced; I am convinced that it is about poor Philip; they probably caught him; it is horrible that Uncle Ernst must bear that, too—on a day like this! But he didn't tell any one except the General. I saw how they went aside, and he showed the General the dispatch, and they conversed together for a long time, and then shook hands.—Uncle Ernst! who swore that the hand which he should extend to the General would shrivel up, and who asked me, half a dozen times today, whether I thought Ottomar's comrades, who had said they were coming, would really come; it was for that reason we set the funeral so late—it would be very painful for the General if they didn't come!—As if he had no sorrows of his own! He is a heroic soul!—But your Else, too, is admirable. How she loved this brother, and how quietly and calmly she orders everything now, and has a willing ear and a cheerful kindly word for every one! 'That's more than I could do, you know,' said Mieting; 'there's only one Else, you know.'—Of course I know that! But there's also only one Mieting! Am I not right?"
"My dear son-in-law!" said Strummin, turning away.
"He has called me that two hundred times today," said Justus with a sigh, lengthening and quickening his steps.
They had reached the upper end of the deep narrow cut, where they saw the castle directly before them. A strange sight for the President, who was very well acquainted withthe situation from former days, and whom Reinhold had led a few steps up to the now very steep slope. For the stream had washed away and carried off the slope to such an extent that here and there the edge projected, and Reinhold was enabled to find and show to the President the place where the fir-tree had stood, whose fall had been so disastrous to Ottomar. Below them, between the steep slope and the castle, a stream still surged—no longer in the foaming waves and roaring whirlpools of that night of terror, but in quiet, smooth eddies, which merged to form new ones and to splash up against the keels of five large boats across which the wide temporary bridge had been made from the mouth of the ravine to the ancient stone gate of the court.
The turrets of the gate, down to the great coat-of-arms of the Warnows above the opening, gleamed in the evening sheen, and so, too, glittered the round tower of the castle and the roofs above it down to the sharply defined line of the blue-gray shadows, which the hill cast over the lower land. And farther on to the right gleamed the tree-tops of the flooded park, and beyond castle and park the still waters that entirely filled the great inlet and seemed to merge into the open sea beyond. Before the slanting, shimmering sunbeams even Reinhold's sharp eyes could not distinguish the few tops of the dunes which still towered above the water; he could scarcely make out the roofs of the Pölitz premises, or here and there on the wide surface a clump of willows on the banks of the dikes.
The President stood absorbed in deep thought; he seemed to have forgotten even Reinhold's presence.—"Some time the daylight will come," Reinhold heard him mutter.
They walked over the pontoon bridge—the water gurgling and splashing against the sharp keels; out of the wide opening of the gate came a sullen murmur. Entering the gate they saw for the first time why the village had looked so deserted. The very large court, particularly thepart next to the castle, was filled with a multitude of perhaps a thousand people, who were huddled together in dense groups, and made room, with respectful greeting, for the gentlemen as they approached the portal. They curiously scanned the newcomers, making observations, in low tones, after they had passed. "The man who walked with the Commander was the President!" they who knew him remarked (and there were many) to the others.—"If the President—who is the chief official in the whole district, and, besides being a kind gentleman, is well disposed to every one—would come and be present at the funeral, then the Count might stay at home, Heaven willing!"—"And if the Count wants to play the rôle of gentleman among them—they would make him sorry for it."—"But Mr. Damberg says that is not to be thought of; the Count may be thankful if they spare his life, and, in any case, he would be ostracized."
The gentlemen entered the castle. A still larger and more brilliant group now appeared upon the bridge, and drew the attention of the throng thither. It was a group of officers in full dress uniform, followed at some distance by a larger number of subalterns—from the regiment of von Werben, said they who had served, and had seen Ottomar in the casket.—And the Colonel in the front was, of course, the commander of the regiment!—That he could command, those who had served in France could tell by his eyes and nose. And the Captain, who marched at his side, had been sent by the General Staff by Field-Marshal von Moltke himself; and the tall Lieutenant, also in the uniform of von Werben's regiment, was young von Wartenberg, of the von Wartenbergs of Bolswitz; and as for the old families of von Bolswitz—they had come over an hour before in their equipage, with an outrider, from their castle, three miles away. And the idea that a word of all that stupid talk about young von Werben could be true, that they didn't take him to Berlin because he couldn't have an honorable burial there, and that they came all the way from Berlin to help bury him!
Justus, who had undertaken the direction of the funeral ceremonies with the greatest willingness, and had seen the officers come across the courtyard, waited in the vestibule until he could receive them and conduct them into the room on the right, where the company was assembled. Then he beckoned to Reinhold to follow him, and led him to the door at the end of the hall, which he quietly opened and immediately closed behind him. No one else would be allowed to enter, he declared,—"What do you say, Reinhold?"
The high magnificent rooms, with windows all closed, were flooded with soft light from countless tapers, hung from the walls and ceiling; and among baskets of evergreen plants and young fir-trees which stood in a beautiful ellipse, opening toward the door, rested the two caskets upon an elevated platform, covered with tapestries and flowers. The walls were decorated with old arms which Justus had taken from the armory of the castle—beautiful casts of antiques, and even originals, which a former art-loving occupant of the castle had collected, and which Justus had brought from the halls and rooms, and groups of ornamental plants and evergreens—with lighted candles among them.
"Haven't I made it look beautiful!" he whispered; "and all in the few morning hours. They would both be delighted with it—he with the arms, and she with the sculptures. But they themselves are the most beautiful of all! I must now call the family, Reinhold, before we close the caskets; meanwhile, take your last look. You haven't had as much opportunity as the others."
Justus vanished through the door leading to the apartments. Reinhold ascended the steps and went between the caskets in which the two were sleeping their eternal sleep.
Yes, they were beautiful—more beautiful than they had been in life. Death appeared to have removed every traceof earth from them, so that noble Nature might reveal herself in all her splendor. How fair, how noble, the face of this girl, and how beautiful the face of the youth, as if their souls had been truly united in death, and each had fondly given to the other what was fairest in life! So, around their lips, once so proud, a sweet, blissful, meek smile rested, for, along with the restless shifting of the nervous eyes and the impatient trembling of the fine mouth, death had blotted out all that was incomplete, imperfect, from the young man's clear features, and had left nothing but the expression of heroic will with which he had gone to his death, and of which the broad red wound on his white brow was the awful seal.
There was a slight noise in the firs behind him; he turned and opened his arms to Else. She laid her head on his breast, weeping. "Only for a moment can I feel your dear heart beating, and know that you are still left me—you, my sweet solace, my unfailing treasure!"
She arose. "Farewell, farewell, for the last time, farewell, dear brother, farewell! Fair, proud sister, how I would have loved you!" She kissed the pale lips of the two corpses; Reinhold took her in his arms and led her from the platform, down to where he saw Justus and Mieting standing, hand in hand, at a respectful distance, among the shrubbery; while, following the General, Valerie and Sidonie, Uncle Ernst and Aunt Rikchen appeared upon the platform to take leave of the dead.
Solemn, yet nerve-racking moments, the details of which Reinhold's tearful eyes could not grasp nor retain! But to Justus' keen artist's eye, one touchingly beautiful picture followed another—but, none more touching or beautiful for him, who knew these persons and their relations so well, than the last—the General almost carrying the exhausted Valerie down the steps, her head shrouded in a heavy veil of lace—she had come down from her sick room only for this occasion; while Uncle Ernst's strong form, still standing there, bent over to kind little Aunt Rikchen, and, toquiet her, stroked with his strong hand her pale, troubled, tear-stained face.
"Do you know," whispered Mieting; "they now feel what we felt when we stood before the dead angel—that they must love each other, you know."
Half an hour later the funeral procession moved out of the castle gate, from one of whose turrets a large German flag, and from the other a black one, fluttered in the evening breeze; over the bridge of boats it passed, up the deep road, turning to the right along the gently sloping road to the cemetery which extended from the highest point to the chain of hills that formed the shore, a few hundred steps distant from the village—a long solemn procession!
The village children, strewing the way with evergreen, went on before the caskets—before the one decked with palms, where lay the maidenly form of the beautiful heroic girl, borne by strong pilots and fishermen who would not surrender the honor of carrying their Commander's kinswoman to her last resting place; before that of the man, decorated with emblems of war, for whom she had died, and whom a kindly fate had allowed to die as a brave man, worthy of the decorations which he had won in battle, and which the Sergeant-Major of the company bore on a silk cushion after him—worthy he, that the trim warriors who had seen him in the days of his glory should lift him now on their shoulders, so often touched by his friendly hand in the hot hour of battle, and by the flaming bivouac-fire on the wearisome march to the great rendezvous.
After the caskets, the two fathers; then Reinhold with Else, and Justus with Mieting—Sidonie and Aunt Rikchen remaining with Valerie; the President and Colonel von Bohl, Schönau and the brilliant company of the other officers, and neighboring noblemen with their ladies; von Strummin and his spouse, the Wartenbergs, the Griebens, the Boltenhagens, the Warnekows, and the rest, the descendants of the old hereditary families; the endless train of country folk and sea folk, with the heroic form of bravePölitz, and the stout figure of the chief pilot, Bonsack, at their head.
A long, silent procession it was, accompanied step by step by the monotonous cadences of the rising and falling waves along the steep shore, and now and then by the shrill cry of a sea-gull, which, soaring above the gleaming water, might have regarded the strange spectacle with wonder, or by a word whispered from neighbor to neighbor, which those immediately preceding and following did not hear. Thus were uttered the low words which the General spoke to Uncle Ernst as the head of the procession reached the cemetery—"Do you feel yourself equal to the task?" And Uncle Ernst's answer was—"Not until now have I felt myself equal to it." Even Reinhold and Else, who walked behind them, would not have understood it if they had heard, nor had Uncle Ernst shown to any one but the General the dispatch of which Justus had spoken. The dispatch of serious content in the dry, matter-of-fact style of the police: Philip Schmidt recognized tonight when about to embark on the steamerHansa, bound from Bremerhafen to Chile, shot himself with a revolver in his stateroom, leaving the embezzled money untouched; will be interred tomorrow evening at six o'clock.
There, under the broad hand which he slipped under his overcoat, lay the paper, and his great heart beat against it—beat again truly strong and truly proud, now that he could say to himself that his unfortunate son did not belong to the cowards to whom life is everything; that for him, too, there was a measure of disgrace which must not overflow, because in that moment he drained the beaker of life—a draught too insipid and loathsome even for his unhallowed lips.
The caskets were lowered into a common grave. At its head stood Uncle Ernst, bareheaded, and, before him in a wide semicircle, the throng, bareheaded, silent, looking up to the powerful man whose almost gigantic figure towered above the hills against the ruddy evening sky. Nowhe raised his piercing eyes, which seemed to take in at a glance the whole assemblage: and now his deep voice sounded, its clear tones making every word distinct, even to the outer edge of the circle.
"My friends, one and all—I may call you so, for in the presence of such a great misfortune, such a fearful catastrophe, all are friends who have human faces.
"My friends! This—it had to be! It had to be! It had to be, because we had so basely, so utterly forgotten love; because we had lived on so long through the hopeless years, in barren selfishness, drowning the longing cry of our hearts with the empty sound of our iron conceit, ceaselessly keeping up the vain struggle for mine and thine—the fierce, wild struggle—without a blush and without mercy, wishing no peace, giving no pardon, regarding no right but that of the victor, who scornfully treads the vanquished under foot.
"Yes, my friends: it had to be, it had to be, that we should learn again to love one another! It is this certainty—this, and this alone it is—which can soothe our sorrow for the dear ones whom we now commit to the sacred lap of Earth; the tender blossoms which the storm has broken.
"The storm! The fearful storm, which raged through German hearts and minds and through German lands, breaking so many hearts, darkening so many minds, covering so many fields of young green crops with the horrors of destruction, filling the air with poisonous mists, so that even the brave man might ask—Has the bright German sun set forever! But no! It shines upon us again! It sends us, as it sets, its last golden beams, promising a new, bright day, full of honest toil and true, golden harvest!
GOLGATHAFrom the Painting by Michael von MunkacsyPERMISSION CH. SEDELMEYER, PARIS
GOLGATHAFrom the Painting by Michael von MunkacsyPERMISSION CH. SEDELMEYER, PARIS
"Oh; thou, serene light of Heaven, and thou, Sacred Sea, and thou, life-giving Earth—I call you to witness the vow which we make at the graves of these who parted from us all too soon: To put from us, from now on, all that is small and common, to live in the future in the light of truth, to love one another with all our hearts! May the God of truthand love grant that to the honor of humanity, and to the glory of the German name!"
The voice of the speaker ceased. But the echo of his words quivered in the hearts of his hearers, as they silently stepped forward to show the last honors to the dead. The rays of the setting sun spread over the sky, lighting up the scene, and the sky lovingly reflected them back to earth.
FOOTNOTES:[1]Permission L. Staackmann, Leipzig.
[1]Permission L. Staackmann, Leipzig.
[1]Permission L. Staackmann, Leipzig.
By Ewald Eiserhardt, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of German, University of Rochester, N.Y.
HansTheodor Woldsen Storm was born on the fourteenth of September, 1817, in the little town of Husum on the west coast of Schleswig-Holstein. His paternal forefathers were Low Germans; his mother's family, named Woldsen, was of Friesian origin. For many generations the Storms had been hereditary tenants of the mill in Westermühlen near Husum; for centuries the Woldsens had belonged to the aristocracy of Husum, composed of prominent merchants from whose ranks the burgomasters and senators rose. Theodor Storm's father was an attorney in Husum and commanded universal respect on account of his unselfishness, punctilious sense of honor, and clear-sightedness in juristic matters. The poet's mother is described as a woman of graceful and attractive appearance, distinguished by an unaffected emotional nature and keen mental penetration. Eduard Mörike spoke of her personality as being "so clear, so luminous, so provocative of love."
The Storms were not rich, but their home was permeated with that sense of solid comfort, based on the consciousness of efficiency and pride of ancestry, so often found in the burgher circles of Germany. Of particular importance to the children was the presence in the family of their maternal grandmother. She was full of overflowing kindness toward her grandchildren, and hence to them the home possessed the magic of a spot where, as in fairy tales, all wishes might be fulfilled, a veritable refuge in all times of need. She succeeded, moreover, in awakening in them strong family feeling; for she loved to tell about her own youth, her parents and brothers and sisters whose portraits and silhouettes, in old-fashioned costumes and withquaint cues, hung on the walls. It was owing mainly to his mother's family that the poet, even in his early youth, was brought into somewhat close touch in his native place with all the different classes of people and many kinds of characters; for on the vessels, in the factories, and in the houses of the Woldsens and Feddersens—Storm's maternal grandmother was a Feddersen—numbers of the inhabitants of the little town had employment, and their relations with these families were not entirely of a business nature but were rooted in mutual confidence.
Of equal importance for his development were the scenes with which the boy became familiar through his father's family. His paternal relatives were settled on considerable estates in the neighborhood, the family mill in Westermühlen being managed by his father's eldest brother. There the boy found an Eldorado in the holidays. There, while wandering through the woods and over the heath, he first held converse with nature; there, where another spirit rested on house and garden than in the town, he first vaguely felt the atmosphere peculiar to certain places; there, where he saw men now favored, now threatened, by external powers and always dependent upon them, his eyes were first opened to the relations between man and nature in all their many-sidedness.
Compared with what his home and family offered him, all that school could give the future poet was of no significance. Until the autumn of 1835 he attended the preparatory school of the town and was then sent to the Gymnasium in Lübeck for a year and a half. After leaving there he devoted himself to the study of law, first in Kiel, which he left only to return after three terms spent in Berlin; and it was in the former place that he concluded his studies and passed his final juristic examination in the autumn of 1842.
At that time Storm had already made several efforts to express himself in lyric poetry. At the age of nine he had written his first poem, and it is characteristic that theoccasion of it was the death of a dearly loved sister. Later, during his school-days in Husum and Lübeck, he filled two small books with poems, and even made a vain attempt to reach the public with hisThe Building of St. Mary's at Lübeck. His poetical talent was most deeply stirred, however, while he was in Kiel for the second time, when he became intimate with the historian Theodor Mommsen and his brother Tycho. As a result of this inspiring friendship the three young men published, in 1843, theSongs by Three Friends. Our poet's contributions to it were chiefly in the sphere in which throughout his whole life he was to show himself a master—namely, in love lyrics; and even these early poems sound, in common with many of his later writings, the note of resignation. Doubtless this quality was largely innate in his nature, but it was also nursed and fed by an experience through which he passed in his youth. As a young student Storm loved a child, Berta von Buchau, and, while she was still a young girl, asked her hand in marriage, only, however, to meet with a refusal. The poems dedicated to this love are rich and varied in tone; they range from the ironic and humorous to the exuberant and graceful, make the lover find gratification in the service of his love, are prompted by doubt, raise lamentations and accusations, pray for the lost love's happiness and ask her to bear him in remembrance, and finally they die away in grief and sadness. The most artistically finished poem of this group and the one that gives deepest utterance to Storm's peculiar poetical talent isTwilight. It avoids all extremes in feeling, seeks to produce the single, deeply felt mood that created it, and gives in a few apparently chance touches a clear and definite situation.
In February, 1843, Storm established himself as an attorney in Husum, and with this step his happiest years began. He was once more in his home, away from which there had never been any real happiness for him; his parents were both still vigorous and he was surrounded by loving brothers and sisters. In the social life of the place, which seems to have centred in his father's house, he was a favorite, and his influence on the spirit of the little town was felt when he founded and conducted a musical society, which soon was able to appear successfully in public. His happiness reached its climax when, in the autumn of 1846, he married his cousin Konstanze Esmarch.
Konstanze was a really beautiful woman of fine and generous proportions, with large yet delicately modeled features and fresh youthful vigor. Storm himself is described as a man of scarcely medium height, slender and of a somewhat stooping carriage. His appearance can have been impressive only by reason of his bright blue eyes and the high forehead beneath his abundant blond hair. Less irritable than her husband, less passionate and eager in her desires, Konstanze met life more evenly, firmly, and clearly, and thus, though lacking talent of any kind, she exerted a far-reaching and beneficial influence on the poet's nature. "When she came into the room it always seemed to me as if it grew lighter," he once said of her.
For some years, during which three sons were born to them, they lived most happily in Husum until the shadow of political events fell across their house. After a vain struggle for freedom, the dukedoms of Schleswig and Holstein were subdued by Denmark; and as Storm, even after their subjection, continued openly to proclaim his German sentiments he finally found himself obliged, in 1853, to leave his home.
During the ten years spent in Husum Storm's lyric talent came to full and characteristic development. The influence of Heine'sBook of Songs, so apparent in the poems of his school and student days, is hardly seen any more. Eichendorff's poems and his novel,Poets and Their Disciples, do indeed still echo strongly, and we feel the influence of Mörike's lyrics in this period more clearly than before. But all this is insignificant in comparison with Storm's own creative power and the wealth that flowed to him out of hisown life. As he was particularly happy at that time, it is natural that qualities should appear in his work which are too often overlooked in forming an estimate of his character and which were more strongly developed in this period than in any other. It is true that we still hear sad tones, even complaints of lost love and of love's suffering and loneliness, but the majority and the best poems are written in a contented, confident, energetic, even jubilant key. It is his love for his wife, of whom he sang so much, that transfigures life to the poet. Beneath her hand pain is stilled, in her arms life and death are overcome, and her presence turns the alien place into home. Separated from the world and from the day nothing can surpass the moments when he receives from her love's last and highest gifts. To the sound of clear bells on moonlight nights peace on earth and good-will to men seem to descend upon the little family circle over which God himself keeps watch. It was in those days, too, that the poet succeeded in writing his song of "the gray town by the sea" which nature has treated so slightingly and yet so singularly, and to which his whole heart goes out; for it is, after all, his mother town. Indeed, he hails with rejoicing the world, the beautiful, imperishable world, and every true heart that does not allow itself to be subdued but enjoys the golden days and has learned to gild the gray ones. He is even full of hope as regards the fate of his home country. In spite of all defeats, in spite of all disgrace and distress, he prophesies a new spring for her and calls the poet blessed who may then win for her "the jewel of poetry." It is only when he actually has to leave his home and move away with his wife and children that he begins to doubt as to his own return; then his hope changes into the prayer that at least his sons may once be able to go back, for "no man thrives without a fatherland."
In 1853 Storm had entered the Prussian service, and for three years held the position of assistant judge in the circuit court in Potsdam. There he was not content, inspite of the cordiality with which he was received, especially by Berlin poets, artists, and lovers of art. If we understand him aright, he was oppressed by the feeling that in the society of Potsdam the worth of the individual was determined by the office he held and by his descent, and that the human being in that State was sacrificed to the citizen and the official, the man to the soldier. During those years Storm's poetical production faltered, and it was fortunate for him that in the autumn of 1856 he was transferred as a circuit judge to Heiligenstadt in Central Germany. This cozy little town in the mountains appealed exceedingly to his nature, and on the whole he was able to live there much as he had been accustomed to in Husum. In addition, the improvement in his financial condition and the lesser burden of his professional work undoubtedly contributed to the re-awakening in him of the poet.
He was not so productive in lyric poetry as during the years in Husum, but, as regards artistic value, the poems of this period certainly do not stand below those of the earlier one. He tries his hand at folk-poetry and succeeds in striking its key of heartiness, simplicity, and spontaneity. He clothes the popular theme of the enamoured miller's daughter in a garment of artistic form, and yet, by means of roguish humor and naïve frankness, manages to sound the note of the folk-song. He employs one of the most telling means for lyric effect by drawing parallels between the conditions in nature and those in men, and in doing this he awakens the most delicate harmonies by portraying both conditions without pointing out the relation between them, or by placing an individual in the midst of a somewhat minutely described landscape and leading us to imagine him in a state that corresponds with that of nature.
But in contrast to those just mentioned the greater number of his poems are of a subjective kind. Again the poet writes of his wife, from whom after all comes every joy that he experiences away from home, and he only draws her all the closer to his heart since the passing years haveimprinted the first signs of age on her gentle features. His love is mixed with yearning for the time when they were both young and—for his home. The yearning for home is at one time expressed in almost classically pure words, "nach drüben ist sein Auge stets gewandt" (his eye is ever roaming toward the other land); at another it merely underlies and glimmers through the devotion with which he paints a scene from home; at still another the poet's blood surges high and "fury and longing for home wrestle for his heart." At last he can no longer stifle his indignation; he calls upon the very dead to arise and to battle again, and in ringing words shouts to the world "die deutschen Gräber sind ein Spott der Feinde" (the German graves are mocked by enemies).
Even more strongly than in his political poems the specifically manly quality in Storm's poetry appears in what we may call his confessional lyrics. There he gives us his thoughts about immortality: that, in common with all creation, man too rebels against dissolution, and that the belief in immortality is only the final, refined, and spiritualized form of this rebellion. But the true man stands above his own fate and will not sacrifice reason even to the most seductive promises. The church stands opposed to such high development of the individual; Storm thinks poorly of it, and forbids the priest to attend at his grave.