An overpowering pain seized on Edward during this speech; he felt on the point of fainting. With a look of utter despondency he threw himself into a chair, hid his face with his hands, and bent it down upon the table, till at length a flood of tears that streamed from his burning eyes, and a loud fit of convulsive sobbing a little relieved his heart, which seemed about to break.
The old man was astonisht to see so great and unlookt for an effect produced by a speech which he had uttered with perfect calmness, and even with kindliness. He endeavoured to comfort and pacify his young friend, lifted up his head, and wiped the tears from his face, which still stared at him with an expression of the deepest grief and despair. He embraced him, he sought after words to heal the wound he had inflicted, to lull the storm he had called up.
"O my heavens!" he at length cried, when he saw that all his efforts were in vain, "what shall I do? Edward! I did not really mean any ill. I only think of others what I believe of myself. I love thee in truth, young man, above anybody I have ever known; thou art to me as a son: hence my perverse supineness under my unjust suspicions: thou must forgive me all, all, dearest Edward. I will do everything, everything you ask of me."
When Edward at length was somewhat recovered, he said with a broken voice, which was often checkt by violent sobs: "No, no, noblest, most upright of mankind, never, never could you have sunk down into a miserable thief! No want, not even hunger and nakedness, no opportunity however tempting, could have degraded your lofty mind so low. You only say it to quiet me. O heavens! this man, who treated me with the warmest affection and with unbounded confidence, who placed large sums in my hands, without ever inquiring about them, that I might become the dispenser of his bounty in feeding the hungry and taking care of the sick, this same friend could at the very same time deem me capable of such infamous wickedness. Observe now, observe what a dangerous thing it is, to admit such dark spirits and phantoms into ones soul, from which in time they utterly drive out all truth and love, and strength and faith. O thou bright pure form of Truth! O thou spotless beauty of Virtue! How changed does this man seem to me since that calamitous word, how changed am I myself! how fearfully, how dismally has the relation between us changed! It seems to me as though the very belief in the possibility of anything like what this man has believed possible of me, had cast a shade of vice and depravity over my whole life: for this noble being has hitherto been the mirror of my own worth, by looking at which I became conscious of my own well-meaning and integrity. Can everything, everything in our heart be thus transformed in a single moment? Yes, my dear, my fatherly friend, I shall evermore honour and love you; I admire you while I mourn over you; but even without any further cause this conversation would have parted us; this alone, without regard to my happiness or unhappiness, must drive me from you into the wide world."
"So then we are now finally severed," said the old man very sorrowfully, "by destiny, not by my fault. One may master everything, except ones own innermost self. Suspicion in me is not that bad thing into which your overstrained sense of honour, such as I never saw in any man before, converts it by the meaning you assign to it. But, my dearest friend, without whom my life will long be a mere blank, you will stay at least a few days, until you can take away the papers that will secure your fortune to you. For this compensation you must accept from me as from a father, unless you would quite overwhelm me with shame."
They embraced, and the old man gave Edward an unlimited permission to take whatever steps he thought proper for the sake of detecting and punishing the thief. Edward had regained his self-possession; and the old man was all kindness and gentleness. They talkt about other affairs; and Edward took some accountbooks under his arm to look over and correct.
"Embrace me once more with all your heart," said the old man, "and forgive me too with all your heart."
Edward turned back, and after embracing him said: "My dearest friend, what have I to forgive you for, thinking as you do? It is not the right word. What I have just endured I can never forget; and this shock will thrill through me to the latest day of my life. The human heart and soul, man and God, seem to have become totally different in my eyes since that terrific flash of lightning. Thinking as you do too, you cannot be angry with me, if I now say half in jest, that, had you not allowed me to take my measures, I might have fancied after I was gone that you had been thus ingeniously and cunningly robbing yourself, who knows with what subtle views, perchance for the very sake of throwing suspicion on some one or other."
"You are not altogether in the wrong," said Balthasar. Edward was again standing at the door. "Wait another moment, young man!" cried his master. Edward once more turned back. But when he drew nearer to the old man, he was astonisht to find how totally his countenance and the expression of his eyes were changed. A quick firy glance was sparkling restlessly upon him.
"You are fully convinced, I well know," the old man began, "of the truths of the Christian religion; you read your bible diligently and devoutly. You also believe in the historical parts of it, and regard the whole as an actual revelation: the rational, and allegorical, and learned philological interpretations do not satisfy your mind. Is it not so? you are a true Christian with all your heart and soul."
"Certainly," answered Edward.
"The story," continued the old man, "how the Saviour was tempted in the wilderness by the Evil One, is not in your opinion a parable, or an allegory, or mythical legend, without any substance? but you believe that this event actually befell Jesus Christ, the Son of God, along with the various circumstances and questions and answers recorded?"
"What are you aiming at?" askt Edward hesitatingly after a pause. "Yes, I believe this story like a sincere and orthodox Christian."
"Well!" the old man went on, while his pale closed lips wrinkled into a strange smile: "I have a double aim, though I should hardly need to say more, if you had ever thought deeply about this incident. In the first place, if our Saviour himself had to bear such things, if it was possible for him to be suspected though but by the Evil One, surely you might forgive me with all your heart, if with half or a quarter of mine I have now and then half misdoubted you. Meseems, this mysterious, marvellous story with its fathomless, untold meanings does not downrightly condemn my views of human nature. They are not mere spectres that have taken possession of my soul, unless indeed they belong to one and the same family with spirits. In the second place, do your eyes see much meaning in this wondrous story, if the success of the temptation was totally and absolutely impossible?—Now then what say you? appalling are the feelings that seize on one of us, and you too cannot escape them, when all this is brought home to the heart and mind.—There is still a third remark that I would close with:—what would have become of the world and of mankind, of heaven and earth, if the tempter had won the day? if love had faltered and been beguiled?—O young man, the doors are not closed in every place where we see them put to. You fancy you have made out everything, when you have hardly counted up to five.—I too believed, I too inquired, was absorbed in love and devotion, beheld love in my own soul and in the souls of my brethren, and this is the very delusion the breaking up of which snap my heart and life asunder, never, never to revive and reunite. Cast away your pride in your feelings, think not to soar on the wings of your imagination; but crawl along the ground like worms, and eat dust; for that is what befits you."
The old man squeezed Edward's hand, and then with a bitter smile, and a sudden laugh that scared him, tore himself away. For a while Edward continued fixt in a stupour, and when at length he lifted up his eyes, Balthasar was again immerst in deep thought, and standing at his writing table with the gloomy suffering look which he usually wore. Edward felt as if he was leaving a dying man when he went away, and shut the heavy oaken door slowly and carefully after him.
Edward had taken his measures with no less secrecy than judgement. None of the servants, foremen, or even of the overseers knew that he was doing anything out in the warehouse. Every interruption had been guarded against. He was quite alone, nor did anybody even know of his having left the house, when he made his arrangements; and it was dark before he came back. He could not tell whether a fresh robbery might not be committed on that very night, or not till a future one. All the watchmen had been removed from the warehouse in such a manner as not to excite suspicion.
And now amid the solitude of the night he sat down to the account books, for the sake of bringing all his thoughts to bear on a single point, and thereby recovering from the agitation he had lately undergone. It was of importance to have these matters perfectly arranged before he went away. At length he succeeded in banishing what had happened from his thoughts for the time; and he became so much engaged in his employment, he forgot that these very hours might be unravelling that unpleasant affair, which had given them so much annoyance for years.
When he had finisht and was turning over the leaves of an old book that he had taken up along with the rest, some written papers fell out of it: they were in Balthasar's hand, and had evidently been written many years. He read the following fragments.
Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel destiny afterward severed from me.For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us; and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse, suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.But laughter! This earthquake which invisible powers heave up out of the knotty entanglement of our dark enigmatical being! which in boisterous senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically regular mask!How men long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one moment our intelligent, and higher faculties, as they call them, get the upper hand; the next they are beaten down and trod upon by something base and profligate: and thus veering to and fro, now toying now scolding, laughter clatters down the steps of idiocy, which crumble with the decay of our bodily strength … and man grins, and is happy.Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life! when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!—when the band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all. Now that which is firm, stedfast, enduring, has concentrated itself in the depths of its own being, and has put on the unvarying aspect of solid meditation. Stones, rocks, metals, bid defiance to decay with their cold looks, and would make believe that they know not of change. Drops of water dancing like tiny elves along them, the sightless legions of the air, wherever they spread, are eating into the limbs of the rigid haughty giant; the dwarf, man, digs into his bones, and, if his strength were equal to his fury, would reduce him to fleeting sand. May it not peradventure be the same with the eternal stars? A little acid, and the monster sneezes sillily, and roars, and yawns, and for the moment remembers its spiritual nature.And thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment, thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you, fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the flint and steel … gone is the red bubbling up of the spark … and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay … the great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild … and neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to his blushing maiden.
Yes in truth weeping is a wonder, and, as they say, a gift sent from heaven. A bliss spreads through our soul, as soon as our flowing tears come, like the waters of a river, sweeping away black sorrow, and disquietude, and trembling doubts. Ye are all given back to me, ye spirits that once were mine, and that a cruel destiny afterward severed from me.
For the sake of this, people will woo tears, and try to lure them with coaxing when they will not come. Our day's work is over, and now, as the rich man and the glutton will wind up his multifarious meal with sweetmeats, so after our toil, after closing our accounts, we court devotional thoughts and pathetical emotions, we meditate on the dead, in order to entice this lifes-wine of tears into our voluptuous eyes and our luxurious brain. Now a sentimental melancholy inhaloes every ordinary object around us; and amid the meek abasht feelings of a pining anguish and remorse, suddenly starts up nauseous arrogance, vaunting the grandeur of a spoilt capricious heart. O what poor wretches our fellow creatures now seem to us in their commonplaceness, who yet all, as the patient children and drudges of mother earth, are better than we.
But laughter! This earthquake which invisible powers heave up out of the knotty entanglement of our dark enigmatical being! which in boisterous senseless noises announces that within, in the unseen world, the soul neither recks of nor knows truth or falsehood, and has just been murdering the innocent herald who was bringing these phantasms before it! These rude unmeaning sounds which will for a long time distort even the best face, the most mechanically regular mask!
How men long after this loathsome convulsion! While tears lie and cheat by aping heavenly feelings, laughter is awkwardly trying to let the craziness of evil demons skulk behind it, hides itself from vulgarity for the sake of being seen, feigns terrour when our unsubdued struggling feelings are detected, and saunters about in the midst of whatever is disgusting and impure, perpetually clapperclawing with some outcast among the rabble or other: one moment our intelligent, and higher faculties, as they call them, get the upper hand; the next they are beaten down and trod upon by something base and profligate: and thus veering to and fro, now toying now scolding, laughter clatters down the steps of idiocy, which crumble with the decay of our bodily strength … and man grins, and is happy.
Blessed time, when there was a real existence, a life in life! when the vast whole of eternity, being sufficient to itself, had not splintered itself out into time! when the spirit did not need a succession, measured out by the atoms of time and space, to become conscious of its power and of its being! What a portentous event was it, when eternity and life parted fellowship!—when the band by which spirits were bound in one, burst, and that strange creature, Death, rusht in through the chasm to domineer over all. Now that which is firm, stedfast, enduring, has concentrated itself in the depths of its own being, and has put on the unvarying aspect of solid meditation. Stones, rocks, metals, bid defiance to decay with their cold looks, and would make believe that they know not of change. Drops of water dancing like tiny elves along them, the sightless legions of the air, wherever they spread, are eating into the limbs of the rigid haughty giant; the dwarf, man, digs into his bones, and, if his strength were equal to his fury, would reduce him to fleeting sand. May it not peradventure be the same with the eternal stars? A little acid, and the monster sneezes sillily, and roars, and yawns, and for the moment remembers its spiritual nature.
And thou with thy butterfly wings in thy light summer garment, thou that hoverest aloft, and flittest over the mountains, and sweepest along the earth! from the airy changeling of the caterpillar, up or down to the lion and to man, ye all of you, fostering a brief momentary spark in you, like the glance from the flint and steel … gone is the red bubbling up of the spark … and again a mere slough is lying before us, after its short dream of life and love, dust upon dust, rottenness upon decay … the great-grandfather beside his mouldering great-grandchild … and neither knows the other, neither has ever heard of the other.
The plants around you prick up their ears at you in a thousand forms; the flowers smile roguishly and sadly, in the midst of the masquerade; and dream mingles with dream, when the lover plucks the rose, and blushing himself holds out the blushing blossom to his blushing maiden.
The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being. One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect myself the next.—And death….Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music? Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos of stones and mould.In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear, any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors, then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last glittering pinnacle of our joyous transport. For after that brief pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation, in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches lose both life and death.
The beating of the pulse is not only a sign of life, it is life itself. No feeling, no thought, no sight or hearing, no taste or sensation flows along with a rushing stream, but all comes skipping, wave upon wave, drop upon drop, and this is its being. One thought is cast out by another; our feelings are only felt as they shift between life and death: the kiss only thrills on our lips when a chill void has already spread over them; our delight in a picture, in music, merely gushes through us; one moment it entrances us, the next it has vanisht. Thus the sea breathes in its ebb and flow, time in its days and nights, its winters and summers. If I do not forget myself this moment, I cannot recollect myself the next.—And death….
Is this revulsion of the pulse, this alteration of strain, this change of tune a prelude, a transition to a new piece of music? Every living creature exists to be devoured by another; man alone has apparently eluded these barrack-regulations, this military duty, and fattens himself up for the earth, that shattered chaos of stones and mould.
In love, in misfortune, in joy, in despondency, in labour and rest, death has always been my uppermost, I might rather say my only thought. Suicide in me would have been of all human actions the most natural. I have never felt that any indescribable fear, any overpowering shudder draws us back, and flings the knife from our hands. If poor naked Joy, that is so meanly clad, she is ashamed to walk about the earth, were once to enter our doors, then the stab of the bright dagger would only be the last glittering pinnacle of our joyous transport. For after that brief pulsation is over, how bald is the earth, how black is life! It is because I know not whither I am going, or whether I am going, or whether there be a whither, that the act is so alluring. Only men will not confess this, but give the name of cowardice and of courage to what is neither the one nor the other. In dissipation, in thoughtlessness, in indifference, the poor wretches lose both life and death.
A strange dream, that is to say, a dream, has visited me. The commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit blunts our sense.I was dead. I knew it distinctly; and yet I lived on in my consciousness. All my forlorn doubts, my stiff-neckedness that would not bow to the yoke, my hard heart that closed itself so early against love, had shut me out, so my conscience told me, from the place to which the good hope to go. The state in which I found myself, and numberless others along with me, was one the common ordinariness, the dull triviality of which was quite appalling. I was utterly unable to recollect my friends and those whom I had loved, however intensely I strained my memory and put it to the rack. A longing, like that of one pining with thirst after a stream of fresh clear water, tormented me, to call up the forms and the ideas of those beloved beings in my imagination; I felt a yearning after them like a heavy weight that was crushing me in the hidden places of my heart. Just as little could I bring back those actions which during my life I might have called good. Every thing in this region of my thoughts was like a bare parcht waste. But everything evil rolled in whirling circles wearyingly and dizzyingly before my inward eye. My vices and errours, all the faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the realms of the future! how they took root and grew up riotously in after-generations! nothing but looks of anguish, of reproach, of pain, of bitter despair was turned upon me from thence. In like manner I easily called to mind all the persons who had ever been objects of my hatred or dislike; every tedious hour, the recollection of which tortured me afresh; all the folly and absurdity that I had ever uttered myself, or heard from others.In the numerous vast halls countless swarms of men were sitting, standing, or walking about, all in the same state of deplorable woe. And no variety, no division of time, no hour, no sun or night disturbed or changed this melancholy monotonousness. One solitary amusement was there. Now and then some one reminded us of our former faith, how during our lives we had feared and worshipt a God. Then a loud burst of laughter, as at a most portentous absurdity, pealed through the hall. Afterward they all grew grave, and I strove with all my faculties to call back the reverence, the sanctity of my human feelings, but in vain.
A strange dream, that is to say, a dream, has visited me. The commonest thing is quite as strange as the uncommonest, only habit blunts our sense.
I was dead. I knew it distinctly; and yet I lived on in my consciousness. All my forlorn doubts, my stiff-neckedness that would not bow to the yoke, my hard heart that closed itself so early against love, had shut me out, so my conscience told me, from the place to which the good hope to go. The state in which I found myself, and numberless others along with me, was one the common ordinariness, the dull triviality of which was quite appalling. I was utterly unable to recollect my friends and those whom I had loved, however intensely I strained my memory and put it to the rack. A longing, like that of one pining with thirst after a stream of fresh clear water, tormented me, to call up the forms and the ideas of those beloved beings in my imagination; I felt a yearning after them like a heavy weight that was crushing me in the hidden places of my heart. Just as little could I bring back those actions which during my life I might have called good. Every thing in this region of my thoughts was like a bare parcht waste. But everything evil rolled in whirling circles wearyingly and dizzyingly before my inward eye. My vices and errours, all the faults and misdeeds of my life, every wretched moment of my temporal existence gathered round me as it were with the cries and croaking of fierce hungry birds of prey. O these sins how hugely and gigantically they swelled out! How horrible it was to see their consequences unfolding themselves far, far away in the realms of the future! how they took root and grew up riotously in after-generations! nothing but looks of anguish, of reproach, of pain, of bitter despair was turned upon me from thence. In like manner I easily called to mind all the persons who had ever been objects of my hatred or dislike; every tedious hour, the recollection of which tortured me afresh; all the folly and absurdity that I had ever uttered myself, or heard from others.
In the numerous vast halls countless swarms of men were sitting, standing, or walking about, all in the same state of deplorable woe. And no variety, no division of time, no hour, no sun or night disturbed or changed this melancholy monotonousness. One solitary amusement was there. Now and then some one reminded us of our former faith, how during our lives we had feared and worshipt a God. Then a loud burst of laughter, as at a most portentous absurdity, pealed through the hall. Afterward they all grew grave, and I strove with all my faculties to call back the reverence, the sanctity of my human feelings, but in vain.
Edward had not observed that the morning was already dawning, so completely had he been wrapt up in these singular papers. Without doubt too he would have gone on reading much longer, unless he had now been interrupted by loud cries and a violent knocking at his door. He went to see what it was, and Conrad rusht into the room, heated, panting, and with a ferocious look.
"Now we have him!" cried the miner furiously: "did not I say long ago that this vagabond is wickedness itself? Only let him instantly be bound, master overseer, hand and foot in the heaviest chains you can get, and then have the dog flogged till he is cut to pieces, that his life and his infernal soul may crawl out of him by inches."
"What is the matter with you?" askt Edward. "I am afraid you must be in a fever, and are stark raving."
"Hurrah!" screamed Conrad; "now my cruel illness will soon be gone, now that the miscreant has been caught at his wicked tricks. He will never carry me down again now into their rubbishy straw."
"Whom are you talking of?" Edward again began: "surely not of the Hungarian miner?"
"The very person," answered Conrad: "the monster has been stealing, and is in league with a whole gang of thieves. Hark you, to cut the matter short, I could not sleep last night, and so roamed about the woods, in part to get myself some herbs to cure my ailing. It was just beginning to dawn, when I heard something like wheels down below, along the lonely lane in the thick of the wood, and at the same time there was a moaning and groaning; for at night one hears and makes out every thing much plainlier. Off I ran. Two fellows were drawing a cart in great tribulation and fear, and the pale rascal was walking alongside, and driving them on. 'Scoundrels!' I shouted in their faces! and the word was hardly out of my throat, when the two thieves had already scampered off; but the pale skinny mountebank I held fast; the cart with the stolen goods is standing in the wood. They will soon bring it after me however; for I met a couple of workmen whom I sent for it; and the Hungarian waivode I have dragged hither with my own hand."
Meanwhile the whole house was in an uprore. The stranger was sitting handcufft at the door; and miners, spinners, and weavers came crowding; others flockt from the mills; and all were shouting, all were staring with wonder at each other; everybody wanted to tell his story, and nobody seemed to know what it was that had happened; so that Edward and Conrad began with much perplexity and annoyance to question one after another, until the miner cried out with his thundering voice: "Hold your jaws all of you. Not a soul shall speak another word, except he whom your young master shall ask."
One-eyed Michael was standing near them, and, as Edward turned to him, he said: "It may have been about three in the morning when I set off from the forge to deliver a message betimes at the smelting house up in the mountains. I was walking along the path through the wood, thinking no harm, save that when I got pretty near to the warehouse all the nightly robberies came across me which have been going on this many a long day there. 'I'd give the world to catch the rogue,' I said to myself, when all at once a gun went off. A gun! what ho! that put me to my wits. 'There are never any sportsmen hereabout,' I said, and began marching and bustling on with a little more haste and speed. In a few moments I hear cries and yells and shouts, and a pothering and squabbling. All this methinks can never be right. I get to the top, and now I see the whole business. The warehouse is open, several barrows and men are before it, they are piling up the goods: a short figure that I could not make out in the dark, panting and whining, screaming and grumbling, is shuffling and tumbling about. I make up to the fellows with the stolen goods. Then some of them seized me fast and prest down my eyes. The noise lessens, I can't cry out, nor would it do me much good. When they let me loose again, there was nothing to be seen. Even the limper, in spite of all my search, had got off and was not to be found. When I came nearer the houses I awoke every body with my shouts, telling them to go and watch the warehouse, and scour after the rogues."
"And I," cried Conrad, "have lugged the commander in chief of the cutpurses by the throat, that sapient soothsayer that was playing off his pranks with his match the other day at your forge."
Then they all set off again telling their stories, shouting and screaming, just as noisily as before. Edward however gave orders what all were to do; the stranger was to be watcht, the stolen goods to be taken into the house, and everybody was to be quiet, not to disturb their old master's rest, should he be still asleep. He himself hastened with a few others to the warehouse, to arrange matters there, and, if possible, to find out more about the thieves.
Edward found marks of blood in the warehouse and on the ground without, and he and his companions followed them. Anon they lost sight of them, then discovered them again in a thicket on one side, and a little after in one of the bypaths. Edward walkt on with anxious feelings; a boding prest upon his heart; he was unwilling to confess his misgivings even to himself. Ere long however they turned to certainty; for the traces led to the house of Eleazar, which lay on a green slope. When they got up to it they found all the neighbours already in motion; people were coming from the town; the priest of the parish was just passing through the door. Within everything was in confusion, and a physician and surgeon were busy upstairs.
Edward left his companions without, and with a beating heart opened the chamber door. Eleazar was lying pale and with ghastly features in his bed. His wound had just been examined, and a bandage placed on it. Everybody in the room, the physician, surgeon, priest, and servants lookt frightened and distrest; for there was something in this accident so mysterious and terrible that no one could help being struck with awe by it.
The surgeon, whom Edward took aside, shook his head, and assured him that all assistance was in vain; the patient would hardly live through the day. Eleazar now raised himself out of his stupour, lookt round, and perceived Edward. "Aha!" he cried with a strained and faint voice, "You too are already there! Well! You have at last got the better of me. This is what you have been driving at this long time. I am now lying here, and all is over, all is found out; there are no more questions and answers, no more todays and tomorrows. How it will fare with you remains to be seen hereafter. Not well most undoubtedly. So don't triumph in your imaginary virtue."
He beckoned and made the priest bring him a paper that was lying in the window. "Give this to the old man of the mountain," he then went on; "he will see from it how I loved him; for it is my will."
The priest now said a few words, begging to be left alone with the sick man. Edward was glad to leave the room and refresh himself in the open air. Here Conrad again ran up to him out of breath, and cried … "Confusion worse confounded! Only think what he has been doing, our virtuous Eleazar! his last loaf has already been baked for him. Look you, this fellow, this lord and master of the country, this son-in-law of the old man of the mountain, is a scurvy thief … Now I will forgive that white-faced Hungarian wretch for serving me as he did the other day; for what is all the reputation in the earth, all the honour in the world come to?"
The whole neighbourhood, town and country, was in consternation at this event. The most incredible thing in the world had taken place, a crime that could neither be denied nor concealed, committed by a man whom all had been forced to regard with respect, whom all had lookt upon as their future master and protector; and they could not recover from their astonishment, or fall back into their ordinary occupations; for their minds in this turmoil had for a while lost every standard by which a man measures himself.
The old man amid the general tumult had already learnt the whole story, in spite of the pains Edward had taken to prevent it. He had lockt himself up in his room and let nobody in.
Edward now interrogated the stranger. This man had for a long time had dealings with Eleazar; he lived in a town a good many miles off, and had often sent agents up the mountains and helpt in selling the stolen goods. A tradesman in another small town was also a party in the affair. The Hungarian had quarelled with Eleazar, and had come up into these parts with a view of going to old Balthasar, sounding him, and, if he found him inclined to pay well for it, disclosing the whole history of the abominable transaction. But as the old man had not shewn any mind to have recourse to superstitious devices, still less to give ear to his covert hints, so that the stranger might have brought his own neck into the noose if he had betrayed too much, he drew off and remained faithful to his confederate Eleazar, who had quieted him with a sum of money, along with large promises for the future.
The old man's great bell now rang, and Edward took up his papers and went to him. "You have lookt over and corrected all my accounts, my dear friend?" he began with outward calmness. Edward said yes, as he set down the books; but he hesitated and knew not whether to give in Eleazar's will along with them. The old man however took it himself out of his hand and cast his eyes over it.
"It is now three months," he began, "since he made me heir to all he has, in case he should die before me. He has drawn up a list of all his effects, and points out where each thing may be found. The chief article is a number of gold bars, which he says are of his own making. Read it."
Edward took the papers with some embarrassment. "Is it not true?" said the old man after some time, "does any thing but madness animate and rule the whole world? Can you understand this man and his character in any other way? To be sure this word itself does not help us to understand it. O young man, young man, do you not feel now how thoroughly right I was? I trusted this man unlimitedly, because he was not girt round with any delusive deceitful show; because nothing in my heart sallied forth to meet him, and I did not lie to myself in his behalf for the sake of pampering my own vanity. Ay, my friend, now everything is detected and noised abroad; he is going … and in this will he gives me back what the lawyers would call my property. His will! Now forsooth it must also be time to make mine, and a different one from what I intended. Now your nice feelings of honour will no doubt condescend to stay with me a little longer … and my child, my Rose! alas, how fearful it is that this darling of my heart is also a human being!"
"At such an hour as this," answered Edward, "which must needs strike you with horrour, I will not again declare the wishes of my heart to you; you yourself have toucht upon them, or I should have refrained even from these words. But undoubtedly I must now stay with you: destiny compells me to do so, and imposes it as a sacred duty upon me."
"Destiny with a vengeance!" said the old man with his bitter smile: "you take a fancy to Rose; you hear she is already engaged; this drives you away from me; but before you take leave, your honour must be cleared and furbisht up; and as a remembrance you shoot my most intimate friend, the man after my own soul, and tear him from my side. Now Rose is at liberty, you are your own master, your rival is got rid of; and destiny has managed the whole matter admirably. But whether this shot has not pierced through my heart, whether it has not rent and burst asunder the innermost sanctuary of my soul … these questions are never thought of. There is as it were a huge chasm yawning in my spirit … confidence, faith … everything … did not I say so? good is the only real evil … Edward! don't look so sad … methinks I am talking quite wildly."
He took the young man's hand. "Bring me the mayor this evening, and the priest and bailiff as witnesses. You are now my son, and this is the spirit I shall now make my will in. I feel it is high time; for it would be horrible if Helbach were to fling all my fortune to the dogs. O if I could but totally forget this shot and Eleazar! if such wild thoughts did not keep rushing about in my brain! Now you and Rose will stay with me."
Edward withdrew. He went to look for Rose in her room. She burst out a-crying, jumpt up from her chair, and threw herself into the young man's arms with an expression of the fondest affection. "Alas Edward!" she cried sobbing, and hid her face on his breast: "only look now at what I have to go through in my youth. This was never sung over me in my cradle, that I should lose my husband in so shocking a manner, and even before our wedding. And the last thing I should have thought of was that you were to shoot him dead, you, the dearest and kindest of all men.—Alas! poor, poor Eleazar! when he came from nature's hands, such an odious misshapen abortion of a man! And now into the bargain to steal, to lie, and to cheat! to rob my good father, who meant to give him everything! What will become of his poor soul now? Oh yes, he has perisht still more cruelly, he is much more unhappy than my cat with her kittens, that he shot so barbarously on the orange tree. Alas Edward! are you then in real truth such a good creature, as I have always believed you? or are you perchance very wicked too? You did not mean it, did you? that Eleazar should die so?"
Edward took pains to explain the nature of the whole affair to her. "Be composed," he continued; "the course of our lives here has suddenly undergone a violent change; we must all overcome this shock, to get back again into the path of our ordinary duty. A few days since you were sorry that I was going away; if it can give you any comfort, let me assure you that for the present at least I shall and must stay here. Do you still wish that I should?"
She gazed at him affectionately and seemed comforted. "So then that is settled now!" she exclaimed: "ah yes, I always thought you would stay; for I can't live without you; and my father can't live without you; and all our poor workmen and spinners, our good miners, for whom you are always saying and doing something, and who, when they come for their wages or for relief, look with their whole souls into your kind eyes, these above all can never live without you."
"This calamity," said Edward, "may hereafter make you, your father, me, and all of us happy. The discovery was inevitable; and perhaps, if it had not taken place now, it would have come at a time when it would have plunged us all in misery."
"If my father now," said Rose, "were to have no objection, I might perhaps in time accustom myself to look upon you as my future husband. If I could but feel a little more respect and awe for you! If you would behave very roughly to me now and then, not always so kindly, but angrily and savagely at times, I might by and by grow reconciled to it."
Edward went to his business. The uprore had ceast, and the whole house was now quiet and silent: it seemed as if people were afraid of even breathing: all walkt about softly and on tiptoe. News came that Eleazar was dead.
Toward evening Edward went with the mayor and witnesses into old Balthasar's room. He was surprised to find him in bed. On being spoken to by his visitors he lifted himself up, stared fixedly at them, and seemed to know no one. "Aha! reverend Sir," he cried out after a while, "you are come to fetch away a second poor sinner today. It is a busy time in your vocation. Is master Eleazar come with you?"
He beckoned to Edward. "Thou yellow blockhead!" he whispered to him; "what am I to do with thy gold bars that thou hast left me? don't thrust thy stupid cheat into men's eyes so … it is far too glaring. But beware of Edward, he is wise and good. If he should ever suspect thee, thou art lost."
He talkt to the others, but still quite at random, and was taken up with the phantoms of his own brain. The mayor and witnesses retired, and Edward went after the physician. The business of drawing up the will was put off, until the sick man should have recovered and be restored to his perfect consciousness.
The physician found the patient's state very alarming. Edward was called up in the night; but when he entered the room Herr Balthasar had already breathed his last.
The dismay, the sorrow was universal. The mayor sent to have everything sealed up. In the midst of this confusion, it seemed a matter of very little moment that the Hungarian had found means to escape from his prison.
In the town where the extravagant counsellor Helbach lived, there was a great feast at which all the epicures famous for their love of good eating and their knowledge of good dishes were assembled. The counsellor himself was the soul of such parties: his word was law in them; and he it was that had managed the present banquet.
The dinner was nearly over; some of the guests, who had business to call them away, were gone: the company had grown quieter; and it was only at the upper end of the table, where the counsellor and some of the scientific eaters were sitting, that the conversation was carried on with any spirit.
"Believe me, my friends," said the counsellor with great earnestness, "the art of eating, the skill men may attain in it, has its epochs, its classical ages, and its decline, corruption, and dark ages, just as much as every other art; and it seems to me that we are now again verging to a kind of barbarism in it. Luxury, profusion, rarities, new dishes, overpeppering, overspicing, all these, my good sirs, are the artifices now commonly made use of to obtain admiration for a dinner; and yet these are the very things from which a thinking eater will turn away with contemptuous slight. In the whole of this department indeed much still remains to be done; and the stories we read of the old gormandizer, Heliogabalus, and others who lived during the decrepitude of the Roman empire, stories at which many men stare with stupid astonishment, ought only to excite our pity."
"It must always be difficult no doubt," said one of the guests, "to frame any distinct conception of the dishes and the delicacies of a former age. If we dress them by such receits as remain, the result will always have something absurd in it, like the dinner which Smollett describes so humourously in hisPeregrine Pickle."
"That tact on which after all everything depends," answered the counsellor, "is sure to be wanting, that nice knowledge of the exact limit between too much and too little which nothing but instinct can bestow; and even this instinct must be cultivated by studying the properties of fire, the culinary powers of which can never be described, and which a cook can only make himself master of by long experience, judgement, and observation, nor even then unless he was born a cook. The main point however is, that our tongue and palate have been trained and fashioned from our childhood to particular tastes, likings, and antipathies; so that often the very best, most judicious, and admirable thing, if it come across us on a sudden as a novelty, as something we have never set tooth on, and thus give a shock to all our prepossessions, will be disregarded and abused; until at length in course of time on our becoming familiar with the stranger's merits, he is naturalized: and then the new knowledge we have acquired will often exercise the most salutary influence and throw much light on other dishes, both old and lately invented ones, so that our palate is as it were strung with a new chord, which sends forth a variety of delicious notes. Moreover the ages that are gone and the ideas that prevailed among our forefathers are still acting upon this _tastature_ of mankind, as a race made to relish, to discern, and to enjoy; and as in philosophy and science, in politics and government, so here too there is an unbroken chain; the accumulated experience of centuries moulded us to be just such as we are; and this state of our taste can and must only be modified by degrees; nor could anything be more ruinous than a sudden revolution which should throw everything topsy turvy. In every field of human action history is man's best master."
"You yourself," said the guest, "should write a history of the articles of food, the art of eating, and the progress of the human mind in it."
"When one is oneself a practical artist," answered the counsellor, "and so devoted a one as I am, so diligent in working at my art, and so ready to try every new experiment in it, one must leave such matters to people of an idler and more contemplative turn. If you aim at doing everything, you will never do anything well and thoroughly."
"Why," resumed the other, "do we hear this perpetual abuse of sensuality? why will men so seldom confess, and even then but reluctantly, the pleasure they take in eating and drinking?"
"Because," said counsellor Helbach, "they never know what they are really at. It has always struck me as very remarkable and singular that, in the little round box in which all our finer senses are ranged and stored up, and in the top of which moreover our thinking powers, and all the noblest intellectual products of our soul are deposited, we should find that red-lined drawer close beneath, with the delicate little bosses set like jewels over the tremulous vocal tongue and palate, garnisht in front with teeth that toil and cut, and closed by the graceful mouth. Eating is only another mode of thinking. Thus this box is a coppel in which the essences of all created things, the finest and the grossest, vapours and juices, the soft soothing oils, the bitternesses and tartnesses which at first seem grating, the flavour which evaporates in a momentary enjoyment, are put to the test. First the teeth begin chopping and grinding; the tongue, at other times so talkative, silently and busily rolls about and makes much of the morsels it receives, presses them affectionately and benevolently against the palate, to double its pleasure by sharing it; and when this tender dalliance has been sufficiently indulged in, at length pushes them back almost unwillingly to its friend that swallows them down, and that indeed has the real enjoyment of them, the highest of all, though but for a moment, and then with heroic self-sacrifice makes them over to another power. Straightway the same game is repeated a second, a third, a thousandth time. I never yet heard it said that any self-tormenting anchoret had courage enough altogether to forgo the pleasure of eating, even though he stinted himself to bread. Indeed kind Nature has taken such good care of her children, that it is next to impossible."
"A very just and profound remark!" exclaimed his neighbour.
"We see too," continued the dissertator, "what high importance nature has attacht to these processes of devouring, eating, chewing, and swallowing, and how in every sphere of existence they have been her main end and aim. What would become of all the animals upon the earth, of all the birds that roam through the air, and all the swarms of greater and lesser creatures that people the waters and the sea, unless every one of them had received a bill, payable at sight, upon his neighbour. What would they live on, if they did not live on one another? or where forsooth would they find room to live? Is not the world perpetually oscillating between the two great works of producing and of devouring? The king of the creation, man, stands at the summit, as the crown and the final object of all these multiform guests. Those his subalterns, who have an assignment either one upon the other, or upon the vegetable world, look up to him with reverential awe: for it is not merely one thing or another, not merely beasts or vegetables, not merely fishes or birds, no, almost everything without exception he turns into food, making all classes of his subjects the sources of his happiness. It is only from his own kind, and from a few which serve him as his immediate vassals, or the flesh of which, whether from prejudice or in reality, does not taste agreeably, that he abstains. By means of fire, that performs his bidding, out of strong essences, butter, oil, and spices, vegetables and flesh, all artfully mingled and chemically prepared, he concocts the most extraordinary combinations to please his palate. While the eye is weeping at top, and the brain above it is brooding over touching thoughts, or kindling itself and the heart with inspiring ones, while the nose inhaling hyacinthine odours awakens visions of sweet desire in the imagination, the mouth below is already lusting and licking its lips after the venison or the liver pasty that is carried by. The sentimental young lady feeds her pigeons with pathetical grace; and the very mouth which lisps the prettiest verses and most moving idyls to them, will swallow the same innocent creatures by and by with exquisite relish. Could animals make observations as we do, and were a poet some day to rise up amongst them, in what strange colours would he represent man!"
"Truly," said his friend, "such a jest, thus retorted upon mankind, would be extremely amusing."
"We are fond of boasting of our universality," counsellor Helbach went on, "and yet in the very art in which Nature herself has so manifestly intended us to be universal, I mean in that of eating, many people scorn to become so, and fancy it is more dignified to treat this whole branch of knowledge with contempt. And yet the flocks of birds of passage, the shoals of wandering fishes, come from distant regions, flying and swimming into our nets, for the mere pleasure of our palates; and the fruits of every climate, of every soil, of every quarter of the globe, blend into enjoyment within us. Who does not perceive in an oyster, if at least he is gifted with a true sense for it, the might and the freshness of the sea! O asparagus, he that has not the wit to enjoy thee, can know nothing of the mysteries which the dreaming world of plants reveals to us! Can one understand anything of the history of the world or of poetry, if one is a stranger to all these natural elementary feelings, and incapable of doing justice to the worth of a snipe, or even of a turbot?"
The other guests had already retired; the dinner was quite over; and only counsellor Helbach and his two nearest and most intimate friends were still sitting engaged in this and the like conversation.
"I am quite surprised," one of them began, "at the buoyant youthful spirit which you still retain, at your jovial animation, your lively poetical playfulness. All the rest of us have grown so old, and the weight of years presses so heavily upon us, while you are still jesting, and pleasure has lost none of its freshness or charms with you."
"We are all alone now," said the counsellor, "and I may therefore speak more from my heart to such old friends. It is true, this sensual enjoyment gives me pleasure, and will console me at times for the want of much: but I am not the frivolous person you take me for, perhaps never was so. Almost everybody has a mask; and this is mine. I move about in it lightly and with ease, and so most people take it for my real character. My youth was a very sad one: my parents displayed all their weaknesses, their extravagance and ostentation, so glaringly to me and to all the world, that I could not look upon them with esteem; and this to a young man is of all feelings the most terrible. Poverty and distress, privations of every kind may be borne much more easily: but a calamity like mine crushes the heart before it is yet grown up. I had to play the part of a rich man, to squander money, to give myself airs. When one puts on the semblance of anything for a time, it will soon become a portion of our nature. Imitate a stutterer for a while, and you will have to keep diligent watch over yourself not to stammer in earnest. I fell in love, and was on the point of changing into a totally different person; for my passion was sincere and ardent. But new distress. The noble being who soon became my wife, could never give me her heart. The strongest passion must die away when it finds no return; and in such a case a man has done enough, if this finest feeling of his nature do not turn into hatred and malice. For myself I was thrown back by this into my apparent frivolity: and not to make a show of my unhappiness, like my wife, who, though otherwise admirable, gave way too much to this weakness, I abandoned myself to riotous conviviality, turbulent pleasures, and unprofitable society. There is often a spirit of defiance in us, having something of nobleness in it, and not utterly condemnable, which withholds strong characters from reforming and improving, notwithstanding all the admonitions of conscience. The more unhappy I felt myself, the more I acted happiness. After my son was born, my wife began to shun me altogether, and would often wilfully misunderstand me. She devoted all her affection and care to her child, lived only for him, and brought him up to be so capricious and headstrong, that she herself was the greatest sufferer by his faults, and yet had not strength of mind enough to eradicate the fatal perverseness, which she herself had first fostered in him. My advice was not listened to: it had been taken for granted that I could no more love the child, than appreciate and esteem the mother. My heart bled; and yet I could not interfere authoritatively, unless I would consent to be regarded by her and by the whole world as a monster, being already called a tyrant, unfeeling, and frivolous, and having been so long wont to give up the point that I often lookt on myself as such. Thus my son was bred up as a stranger to me, with all his feelings purposely and studiously alienated from me: but his over-weak, too passionately fond mother was no gainer thereby; for she likewise lost his depraved heart, over which, when the boy was grown up, she had not the slightest influence. How reckless and unmanageable he has been, you well know; how wretched his mother has become, is notorious; but my life too, my friends, is a lost one."
A servant came hastily in, and told the counsellor he must go home immediately: for something of great importance had happened.
The wife of counsellor Helbach was sitting in her bedroom, which only let in a faint dim light from the court. Her tear-worn eyes were stedfastly fixt on an open gospel; she read devoutly, and prayed. Suddenly she heard a noise; her servant was pusht forcibly back by some one whom he was trying to keep away; the door was thrust open, and a young man threw himself impetuously at her feet, seized her hand in her fright and covered it with kisses, while a hot flood of tears gusht from his eyes. It was not till after a while that the mother recognized the son whom she had deemed lost. Her strong emotions overcame her: she askt: "Whence comest thou?… stand up … my unhappy child come to my arms…." More she could not say.
"You do not cast me off, you do not abhor me?" cried the youth in a trance of grief: "Oh God! have I deserved that a single spark of love for me should yet linger in this noble heart! Am I worthy of a single look from her!"
They continued long closely embraced, and quite unable to speak. "But mother," the young man said at length, "can you hold the monster in your arms, to your heart, who, when he last saw you—"
"No, my son, my beloved son, do not call back that horrible moment, which we must forget;" so the mother stammered out. "I too know now that I did you injustice then; the girl you loved is worthy of your love, as has been proved since. I myself had not taught you sufficiently to controul your passions. Let that hour vanish for ever like a painful dream from our lives. But whence comest thou? where hast thou been living all this time?"
They sat down; they both tried to regain their self-possession and calmness in this sudden change from sorrow to joy. The young man related—while from time to time he again embraced his beloved mother, or kist her hands—how after that fearful moment he had roamed about in despair without any plan or view; how, when he was destitute of all means of subsistence, finding himself near the mountains, he had made up his mind to apply to Herr Balthasar, in the chance of obtaining support from him. Hearing however of his singular peculiarities, and how difficult it was to gain admittance to him, he had altered his plan, formed an acquaintance with his overseer, Edward, under the assumed name of William Lorenz, and been taken into the house as secretary. To see his beloved, who was travelling in the neighbourhood, he had left his post, returned, and again gone away on being alarmed by hearing that his mother was coming to visit her kinsman.
"This very day," he concluded, "I met a traveller, a Hungarian, who was come in haste from the mountains, and who told me a very important piece of news. I was on my way hither to throw myself at your feet, whether you would forgive me or no, when I met him in the next town. Do not be too much shockt … Herr Balthasar is no more … he died suddenly in a fit, without having made a will, as the stranger said he knew for certain. The house, the little town, the whole neighbourhood are in the utmost confusion. O my mother, we may all be happy, we may all live affectionately together, if you will believe in my repentance and reformation, if we can persuade my father to assent to the plan I have to propose to him. I know you will now no longer refuse your consent to my marriage with Caroline: the objection that we were both of us so poor, is now done away: we are become too rich, far too much so, to trust ourselves with all this wealth."
When their spirits were grown calm, and every thing had been explained, a servant was sent after the counsellor, who came home in a more serious and susceptible mood than was his wont. How great was his astonishment at having to embrace his lost son, reformed and become a reasonable being! He was quite unprepared for so joyful a shock. His wife too received him with more confidence and affection: the death of the beloved of her youth had affected her deeply.
Thus for the first time this family was united and happy, and amid their sorrow felt a pure joy in the prospect of a comfortable and prosperous future. The old man, who resolved to amend after the example of his son, and to pass the remainder of his life more decorously, agreed, even without any persuasion, to make over the uncontrouled management of the property legally to his son, who was now of age. It was settled that the mother and son should go first to their new estate, to arrange every thing, and that Caroline should follow soon after, and become his bride: the counsellor himself preferred living still in his native town, and merely visiting his family occasionally in the summer.
"Thus," he concluded, "we may still restore a household that was almost lost, and raise it above what it ever was by mutual affection and unity. My annuity is more than enough to support me; and should it fall short, as I think can hardly happen, my son will assist me with a small contribution."
Up in the mountains everything was now quiet. Balthasar, as well as his treacherous old friend, was in his grave. William, as he had formerly been called, arrived there with his mother to take possession of the estate. The mayor and Edward gave everything up to him; and when the surrender was completed, and Edward was left alone with the mother and son, William thus interrupted their silent meditations: "Now we are all among friends, my dear Edward, and I may talk with perfect frankness to you, and shew my gratitude, if you choose so to call it, for your former kindness. One night, when I was here, and had been copying papers till very late, I was lockt into the anteroom; the door had been fastened on the outside, and I did not like to make a noise and call up the servants, more especially as Herr Balthasar used to be much annoyed and worried by any disturbance. During the night, while I kept perfectly still, I heard the unhappy old man walking to and fro in his room, sometimes sighing heavily, sometimes moaning and wailing as he talkt to himself. They were not merely broken sounds and exclamations; but it seemed to be his custom to talk over sundry events of his life, as if he was speaking to some invisible person. Thus I heard the story of his youth, of his intolerable woes, but at the same time of his love for Edward, and what part of his fortune he meant to leave him. The chief thing however, and what toucht me most, was to learn that Rose was not his adopted, but his real daughter. His self-reproaches, his lamentations over her deceast mother, his bursts of pity for Rose, were heart-rending. Now then, my beloved mother and my dear Edward, what remains for us to do? Our conscience, if we consult it honestly, declares that Rose is his true rightful heir, and ought to have the largest part of his fortune."
After this declaration his mother treated the lovely girl as a beloved daughter; and on the same day on which William celebrated his wedding, Edward had also the happiness of receiving Rose as his bride. The fortune was divided; Edward continued to manage all the most important affairs; and a happy joyful family inhabited and enlivened the old house, which lost its gloomy character, and often resounded with music, songs, and dancing, to the delight of all the inhabitants of the little town.
Emilius was sitting in deep thought at his table, awaiting his friend Roderick. A light was burning before him; the winter-evening was cold; and today he wisht for the presence of his fellow traveller, though at other times wont to avoid his society; for on this evening he purpost to disclose a secret to him and ask his advice. The timid, shy Emilius found so many difficulties, such insurmountable hinderances, in every affair he was engaged in, and in every event that befell him, that it almost seemed as if his destiny had been in an ironical mood when it threw him and Roderick together, Roderick being in all things the reverse of his friend. Fickle, flighty, always determined and fixt by the first impression, he attempted everything, had a plan for every emergency; no undertaking was too arduous for him, no obstacles could deter him. But in the midst of the pursuit he wearied and broke down just as suddenly as at first he had kindled and sprung forward: whatever then opposed him did not act as a spur to urge him more eagerly onward, but only made him abandon and despise what he had so hotly rusht into; and thus Roderick was evermore thoughtlessly beginning something new, and with no better reason relinquishing and carelessly forgetting what he had begun just before. Hence no day ever passed but the friends got into a quarrel, which threatened to be a death blow to their friendship: and yet what to all appearance thus divided them, was perhaps the very thing that bound them most closely together: each loved the other heartily; but each found passing satisfaction in being able to discharge the most justly deserved reproaches upon his friend.
Emilius, a rich young man of a sensitive and melancholy temperament, had become master of his fortune on his father's death, and had set out on his travels for the sake of cultivating his mind: he had already been spending several months however in a large town, to enjoy the pleasures of the carnival, about which he never gave himself the slightest trouble, and to make certain important arrangements concerning his fortune with some relations, whom he had scarcely yet visited. On his journey he had fallen in with the restless, ever-shifting and veering Roderick, who was living at variance with his guardians, and who, to get rid altogether of them and their troublesome admonitions, had caught eagerly at his new friend's offer to take him with him on his travels.
On their road they had already been often on the point of separating; but after every dispute both had only felt the more forcibly that neither could live without the other. Scarcely had they got out of their carriage in any town, when Roderick had already seen everything remarkable in it, to forget it all again on the morrow: while Emilius took a week to study thoroughly whatever was said in books about it, that he might not leave anything unnoticed; and after all out of indolence thought there was hardly anything worth going to look at. Roderick had immediately made a thousand acquaintances, and been to every public place of entertainment; and he would often bring his new-made friends to Emilius in his solitary chamber, where, as soon as he began to be tired of them, he left him alone with them. At other times he would confound the modest Emilius by heaping extravagant praises on his talents and acquirements in the presence of learned and intelligent men, and by telling them how much information they might derive from his friend with regard to languages, antiquities, or the fine arts, though he himself could never find leisure to listen to him on these subjects when the conversation happened to turn on them. But if Emilius ever chanced to be in a more active mood, he might almost make sure that his truant friend would have caught cold the night before at some ball or sledge-party, and be forced to keep his bed; so that, with the liveliest, most restless, and most communicative of men for his companion, Emilius lived in the greatest solitude.
On this day he confidently expected him, having made Roderick give him a solemn promise to spend the evening with him, in order to hear what it was that for several weeks had been depressing and agitating his pensive friend. Meanwhile Emilius wrote down the following lines:
'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,And every nightingale is steepingThe trees in his melodious weeping,Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;Fair are the breezes gambolingsAs with lime-odours on their wingsThey chase each other through the leaves.Bright is the glory of the rose,When Love's rich magic decks the earth,From countless roses Love peeps forth,Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.But sweeter, fairer, brighter farTo me that little lamp's pale gleaming,When, through the narrow casement streamingIt bids me hail my evening star;As from their braids she flings her tresses,Then twines them in a flowery band,While at each motion of her handThe light robe to her fair form presses;Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,And, as at morning's touch updarting,The notes beneath her fingers starting,Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.To stop their flight her voice she poursFull after them; they laugh, and fly,And to my heart for refuge hie:Her voice pursues them through its doors.Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!They bar themselves within, and say:Till this be broken here we stay,That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.
'Tis sweet when spring its choir assembles,And every nightingale is steepingThe trees in his melodious weeping,Till leaf and bloom with rapture trembles.
Fair is the net that moonlight weaves;Fair are the breezes gambolingsAs with lime-odours on their wingsThey chase each other through the leaves.
Bright is the glory of the rose,When Love's rich magic decks the earth,From countless roses Love peeps forth,Those stars wherewith Love's heaven glows.
But sweeter, fairer, brighter farTo me that little lamp's pale gleaming,When, through the narrow casement streamingIt bids me hail my evening star;
As from their braids she flings her tresses,Then twines them in a flowery band,While at each motion of her handThe light robe to her fair form presses;
Or when she wakes her lute's deep slumbers,And, as at morning's touch updarting,The notes beneath her fingers starting,Trip o'er the strings in playful numbers.
To stop their flight her voice she poursFull after them; they laugh, and fly,And to my heart for refuge hie:Her voice pursues them through its doors.
Leave me, ye mischiefs! hence remove!They bar themselves within, and say:Till this be broken here we stay,That thou mayst know what 'tis to love.
Emilius stood up fretfully. It grew darker, but no Roderick came; and he was wishing to tell him of his love for an unknown fair one, who dwelt in the opposite house, and who kept him at home all day long, and waking through many a night.
At length footsteps sounded on the stairs; the door opened without anybody knocking at it: and in came two gay masks with ugly visages, one of them a Turk, drest in red and blue silk, the other a Spaniard, in pale yellow and pink, with a plume of feathers waving on his hat. When Emilius was losing patience, Roderick took off his mask, shewed his well-known laughing countenance, and cried: "Heyday, my good friend, what a drowned puppy of a face! Is this the way to look in the carnival? I am come with my dear young officer here to carry you off: there is a grand ball tonight at the masquerade-rooms; and, as I know you have forsworn ever putting on any other suit than that which you always wear of the devil's own colour, come with us black as you are; for it is getting somewhat late."
Emilius felt angry, and said: "It seems that according to custom you have totally forgotten your engagement. I am extremely sorry," (he added, turning to the stranger) "that I cannot possibly be of your party: my friend has been overhasty in promising for me; indeed I cannot go out at all, having some matters of importance to talk over with him."
The stranger, who was well-bred and saw Emiliuses meaning, withdrew: but Roderick with the utmost indifference put on his mask again, took his stand before the glass, and exclaimed: "Verily, I am a most hideous figure, am I not? After all my pains it is a tasteless, disgusting device."
"That there can be no question about!" answered Emilius in vehement displeasure. "Making a caricature of yourself, and stupefying your senses, are among the pleasures you are the fondest of driving at."
"Because you don't like dancing," said the other, "and look upon it as a pernicious invention, not a soul in the world is to be merry. How tiresome it is when a man is made up of nothing but whims!"
"Doubtless!" replied his irritated friend; "and you afford me ample opportunity for finding that it is so. I fancied that after our agreement you would have given me this one evening; but—"
"But it is the carnival, you know," interposed the other; "and all my acquaintances, and divers fair ladies are expecting me at the grand ball tonight. Rely upon it, my dear friend, it is mere disease in you that makes you so unreasonably averse to all such amusements."
"Which of us has the fairest claim to be called diseased," said Emilius, "I will not examine. But I cannot think that your incomprehensible frivolousness, your hunger and thirst for dissipation, your restless chase after pleasures that leave the heart empty, are altogether the healthiest state of human nature. On certain points at all events you might make a little allowance for my weakness, if you are determined to call it so; and you know there is nothing in the world that so sets my whole soul on edge as a ball with its frightful music. Somebody has said, that to a deaf person who cannot hear the music a party of dancers must look like so many patients for a madhouse: but to my mind this detestable music itself, this twirling and whirling and pirouetting of half a dozen notes, each treading on its own heels, in those odious tunes, which ram themselves into our memory, nay, I might say, mix themselves up with our very blood, so that one cannot get rid of the taint for many a woful day after,—this to me is the very trance of madness: and if I could ever bring myself to think dancing endurable, it would be dancing to the tune of silence."
"Bravo, signor paradox-monger!" exclaimed the mask: "You are so far gone, that you choose to think the most natural, the most innocent, and the merriest thing in the world unnatural, ay, and shocking."
"I cannot change my feelings," said his grave friend. "From my very childhood these tunes have made me unhappy, and have often all but driven me out of my senses. They are to me the ghosts and spectres and furies in the world of sound, and they come and buz round my head, and grin at me with horrid laughter."
"Sheer nervousness!" returned the other; "just like your extravagant abhorrence of spiders and divers other harmless insects."
"Harmless you call them!" cried Emilius indignantly, "because you have no repugnance to such things. To him however that feels the same disgust and loathing, the same unutterable shuddering, as I feel, start up within him and shoot through his whole frame at the sight of them, these miscreate deformities, such as toads, beetles, or that most nauseous of all Nature's abortions, the bat, are not indifferent or insignificant: their very existence is a state of direct enmity and warfare against his. In good truth one might smile at the unbelievers whose imagination is too barren for ghosts and fearful goblins, and such births of night as we see in sickness, to grow up in it, or who stare and marvel at Dante's descriptions; when the commonest everyday life is perpetually paralysing our eyesight with some of these portentous distorted masterpieces among the works of horrour. Yet how can we have a real feeling and love for beauty, without detesting and recoiling from such monstrosities?"
"Why recoil from them?" askt Roderick: "why should we see nothing in the vast realm of water, in lakes, rivers, and seas, but those dismal objects which you have taught yourself to find there? why not rather look on such creatures as queer, amusing, and ludicrous mummers? so that the deep might be called a kind of large maskt ballroom. But your caprices go still further; for while you love roses with a sort of idolatry, there are other flowers for which you have a no less passionate hatred: yet what harm has the dear bright tulip ever done you? or all the other gay children of summer that you persecute? Thus again you have an antipathy to sundry colours, to sundry scents, and to a number of thoughts; and you never take any pains to strengthen yourself against these moods, but give way to them and sink down into them as into a luxurious feather bed; so that I often fear I shall lose you altogether some day, and find nothing but a patchwork of whims and prejudices sitting at that table instead of my Emilius."
Emilius was wroth to the bottom of his heart, and answered not a word. He had now given up all thought of making his intended confession; nor did the thoughtless Roderick shew the least wish to hear the secret which his melancholy companion had announced to him with such an air of solemnity. He was sitting carelessly in the armchair, playing with his mask, when on a sudden he cried: "Be so kind, Emilius, as to lend me your large cloak."
"What for?" askt the other.
"I hear music in the church over the way," answered Roderick; "and some how or other I have mist this hour every evening since we have been here. Today it comes just in the nick: I can cover my dress with your cloak, hiding my mask and turban under it; and so, when the music is over, I may go straight to the ball."
Emilius muttered between his teeth as he went for the cloak to his wardrobe, and then, forcing himself to put on an ironical smile, he gave it to Roderick who was already on his legs.
"There, I'll leave you my Turkish dagger that I bought yesterday," said the mask, as he wrapt himself up: "Take care of it for me; it is a bad habit, this carrying about toys of cold steel: one can never tell what ill use may not be made of them, should a quarrel arise, or any other knot that it is easier to cut than untie. We shall meet again tomorrow; good bye; a pleasant evening to you." He did not wait for an answer, but ran down stairs.
When Emilius was alone, he tried to forget his anger, and to look only at the laughable side of his friend's behaviour. His eyes rested on the shining, finely wrought dagger, and he said: "What must be the feelings of a man who could thrust this sharp iron into the breast of an enemy! but oh, what must be his who should hurt a beloved object with it!"
He lockt it up, then gently folded back the window shutters, and lookt across the narrow street. But no light was stirring; the opposite house was quite dark; the dear form that dwelt in it, and that was wont to appear there about this time engaged in divers household affairs, seemed to be absent. 'Perhaps she may be at the ball,' thought Emilius, little as it sorted with her retired way of life. Ere long however a light came in: the little girl whom his beloved unknown had about her, and with whom she used to pass a great part of the day and of the evening, carried a candle through the room and closed the shutters. A chink still let the light through, wide enough for Emilius, where he stood, to overlook a part of the little room: and there the happy youth would often stay till after midnight as if charmed to the spot, watching every motion of her hand, every look of her beloved face. It was a joy to see her teaching the child to read, or giving her lessons in sewing and knitting. On inquiry he had learnt that the little girl was a poor orphan, whom his fair maiden had charitably taken into the house, to educate her.
Emiliuses friends could not conceive why he lived in this narrow street, in this comfortless lodging, why he was so little to be seen in society, or how he employed himself. Without employment, in solitude, he was happy: only he felt out of humour with himself at his own bashfulness, which withheld him from trying to become nearer acquainted with this beauteous being, notwithstanding the friendliness with which she had several times greeted and thankt him. He knew not that she would often gaze over at him with eyes no less lovesick than his own: he guessed not what wishes were forming in her heart, of what an effort, what a sacrifice she felt herself capable, so she might but attain the possession of his love.
After walking a few times up and down the room, the light having gone away again with the child, he suddenly made up his mind, in spite of all his feelings and inclinations, to go to the ball; for it struck him that his unknown might have made an exception for once to her usual secluded habits, for the sake of enjoying the world and its gaieties.
The streets were brilliantly lighted up; the snow crackled under his feet; carriages rolled by him; and masks in every variety of dress whistled and twittered as they passed him. Many of the houses resounded with the dancing music which he so much abhorred; and he could not bring himself to take the nearest way to the ballroom, to which people from all quarters were streaming and flocking.
He walkt round the old church, gazed at its high tower rising majestically into the dark sky, and enjoyed the stillness and solitude of this deserted place. Within the recess of a large doorway, the varied sculptures of which he had often contemplated with pleasure, while calling up visions of the olden times and the arts that adorned them, he now again took his stand, to give himself up for a few moments to his musings.
He had not been there long, when his attention was attracted by a figure that was pacing restlessly to and fro, and seemed to be waiting for somebody. By the light of a lamp burning before an image of the Virgin, he distinctly made out the face, as well as the strange dress. It was an old woman of the uttermost hideousness, which struck the eye the more from her being grotesquely clad in a scarlet bodice embroidered with gold. Emilius fancied at first it must be some extravagant mask that had lost its way: but the bright light soon convinced him that the old brown wrinkled face was one of Nature's ploughing, and no mimic exaggeration.
In a few minutes two men made their appearance, wrapt up in cloaks, who seemed to approach the spot with cautious steps, often turning their heads aside to see whether anybody was following. The old woman went up to them.
"Have you got the candles?" she askt hastily and with a gruff voice.
"Here they are," said one of the men: "you know the price; let us settle the matter and have done with it."