“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,Weicht der Zauber und der HundWird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,Weicht der Zauber und der HundWird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,Weicht der Zauber und der HundWird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,
Weicht der Zauber und der Hund
Wird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
Some walked hurriedly, as if belated, others strolled in pairs, leisurely, exchanging a few words of week day interest, but peace, almost unearthly peace, everywhere. The long Judengasse was quiet, with an air of restful melancholy about it, the melancholy and rest of a plaintive song sung in a minor key. Not a horse stirred, not the creak of a wheel; the voice of traffic was hushed. Nothing but footsteps of those wending their way to prayers. Here and there one caught a glimpse of a table in a courtyard, its legs upward like a horse on its back, and other articles of household furniture, cleansed and scoured and left to dry and air until the morning before the holiday, when everything must be clean and free from every crumb of leavened bread.
Albert had never seen such a large house of prayer. It was hundreds of years old, and within its lofty walls many a tear had been shed—nay, rivulets had flowed from Israel’s eyes—and sometimes not unmixed with blood. For this synagogue had housed those who fled from massacres, from flames, from swords. Barricaded behind the tall doors, maidens sought shelter from ravishers, children from untimely death, old women from slaughter. Thrice this House of God had been defiled by Preachers of Brotherly Love; thrice the torch of fanaticism had scorched its portals. Like a man bent in sorrow, this edifice betrayed the scars of persecution. The Old Synagogue of Frankfort looked solemn, sad, awe-inspiring.
Albert felt the solemnity and the sadness of the old house of worship. It was vast and lofty. Many brass chandeliers with scores of wax candles were suspended from the high arched ceiling, snapping and flickering every time the great door swung open. Rows of high desks, made specially for repose of the prayer books, filled the front part, while the rear was devoid of all obstruction and reserved as standing room for the poor who held no pews. The nearer the row to the wall facing East the higher the rank of its occupants. For the Judengasse was never democratic. Its spirit was aristocratic. All had their ranks, and one could classify them according to the rows of the pews. In the very rear were the humblest—the water-carriers, the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the tailors—then came the small traders, and gradually the guilds rose higher and higher until they reached the row against the Wall facing East, where the dignitaries sat, the learned and the rich.
Zorn and his son were the guests of the dignitary whose pew was next to that of the Rabbi, a zealot, the descendant of a long line of rabbis.
Albert looked around with unconcealed bewilderment. For although he had scoffed at, and mimicked, the gestures of the zealots and mocked at their dogma and forms, he was now conscious of reverence. Even the Rabbi’s curly locks, dangling over his ears, his untrimmed beard, his long silk gabardine, his knickerbockers and white stockings, the mitre-like black fur cap on his head, his broad white linen collar—none of these provoked mockery in the youth. The figure before him conjured a Velasquez he had once seen in Prince Joachim’s gallery in his native town. He only saw in the visage before him the pure white skin shining through the scanty youthful beard, spirituality in the large pupils of his grayish blue eyes. While the prayers had not yet begun, the Rabbi, his face turned to the wall, was lost in devotion, swaying his body rapturously—sighing and praying and snapping his fingers in divine forgetfulness.
A resounding blow upon the altar was a signal for silence. All murmurs hushed. An irrepressible cough here and there accentuated the sudden stillness.
“Lecho Daudi likras Kallo,” the cantor in his lyric tenor trolled the first verse of a symbolic hymn composed by Salomo Alkabiz many centuries ago. After the manner of the Song of Songs, the Sabbath is compared to a Princess, with whom Israel is enamoured and whom he is wooing.
The rabbi, his face still turned to the wall, breathed every syllable as if he were in a trance, rolled his eyes heavenward in sublime ecstasy, spread his arms as if opening them for his beloved, a new light shining upon his countenance, glowing with the ardor of a lover, as he softly murmured,
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo.”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo.”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo.”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,
Pnei Shabbos Nekablo.”
Friday evening is the hour of betrothal of the Princess Sabbath to her lover Israel, but the Judengasse sighed even as it chanted this ditty.
Now the whole assemblage swayed like a forest in a storm—one could hear the soughing of the trees—responding with renewed ecstasy—
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;”
“Lecho daudi likras Kallo,
Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;”
and the sweet tenor picked up the refrain in the next quatrain and melted with song.
Albert did not join in the services, though his father held the prayer book before him. His eyes wandered. The flickering cathedral candles in front of the singing cantor cast a strange glamor over his bearded face and over his blue-black and white-striped robe; the dazzling gold and silver threads in the brocade curtain over the ark shimmered in the scintillating light of theNer-Tomid.
Albert soon found himself in the midst of the great stream leaving the synagogue. The stream moved exceedingly slow. When one leaves the House of God one must not make God feel that he runs away from Him, just as one must hurry on the way to the synagogue in order to show anxiety to get to His presence. The ancient worshippers of Jehovah knew every whim and caprice of their Lord. They knew His appetite for the fat of lamb and veal and His relish for oil and frankincense—the rising smoke of all offerings was perfume to His nostrils. So, eager to please their Maker, they sauntered through the Judengasse with deliberate ease—there was pronounced luxurious relaxation in their movements—in pairs, in threes, in small groups, preceded by their children, moving shadows on the moon-lit ground. Albert walked along musing. There was mockery and reverence in his heart; the reverence and mockery were blended, as he caught snatches of conversation from the throng.
For a brief period Albert was blind to all else save the romantic beauty of his environment. He did not even brood over the humiliation of being segregated. All Frankfort was then composed of segregated groups—hostile camps—towns within towns, fortresses within fortresses, every period of the distant past, clear back to the feudal days, indelibly stamped upon the inhabitants. His imagination was aglow with romance. Indeed the theme for a poem, a heroic poem—a poem to vie with the Odyssey—was born in his fantastic brain. In this epic he would tell the glorious story of Israel in the same manner as Virgil had told of Augustus and of the Romans. His hero was to be a descendant of Don Abarbanel, from the branch of David, and a fugitive from the Spanish Inquisition. Yes, he visualised his hero—he was a young man with greenish blue eyes and light brown hair, with poetic aspirations, and the heroine—
But with the beginning of his apprenticeship the subject lost all glamor for him. He found the banking business disappointing and the Judengasse disheartening. He had imagined a bank was—well, he did not clearly know what a bank was like except that money flowed from it like milk and honey in the promised land, and with money one could buy so many beautiful things. For aside from thought and feeling Albert was still childishly unpractical.
Rindskopf’s bank was a sombre room with a dingy little chamber in the rear, in which stood a large iron box and was fastened with three locks.
He had soon become dreadfully lonesome and homesick for Gunsdorf—the Gunsdorf he had been so glad to leave only a few weeks before. He longed for Schmallgasse, for the Marktplatz, for the Hofgarten, for Father Rhine, for Hedwiga. He had never known how much he loved his native town. How had he ever wished to depart from it, he asked himself again and again in his loneliness. He had already seen the house where Goethe was born, had again visited the Roemer and the Zeil and Sachsenhausen, and found nothing new any longer.
All his thoughts again turned to Hedwiga. He had despatched two letters of glowing passion and tenderness but had received no answer. So he stayed up late at night, writing heart-rending verses about a maiden with golden hair, who chanted as she sewed a shroud for her lover . . .
The banker had put Albert to copying letters and filling in draft blanks and the youth found the task irksome. At the end of the second week his work was done so mechanically and with such eloquent distaste that his employer, seated at his writing desk a short distance away shook his head and murmured, “Der Junge hat kein Talent zum Geschaeft.”
No, the young man had no talent for business. Adolf Rindskopf would have sent him away but David Zorn was his friend and he must endure his friend’s son a little longer. Besides, Albert wrote a very neat hand, with a flourish which Adolf secretly envied. When he wrote to Berlin—die Kaiserstadt—he was anxious to make an impression on his correspondent. Yes, Albert’s penmanship was beautiful.
But one day while Albert was seated at the long table copying a letter and thinking of other things, the postman came in. Albert looked up eagerly. Although he had already given up hope of hearing from Hedwiga, the postman revived his anxiety. But no letter for him. So he watched Rindskopf from the corner of his eye. He loved to watch Rindskopf open his mail. Rindskopf approached this task as a gourmand attacks a palatable dish. His eyes dilated, his bulky stolid body stirred restlessly in his chair, his lips twitched, avidity in every gesture. Then he took the large ivory paper-cutter in one hand, and with the other tapped the edge of the envelope against his desk and, raising it on a level with his eyes, screwed one eye almost tight as he fixed the other at the upper end, which he held against the light, and ripped it open with the utmost care for fear of touching the contents.
“Tausend Donner Sakrament!” Adolf suddenly exclaimed and jumped up from the chair, with the enclosure of the envelope in his hand.
Albert poised his pen, an amused smile on his boyish countenance.
Rindskopf’s face was flushed, his mustache twitched, his paw-like hands trembled.
“Ach, du lieber Gott!” he called upon the Almighty to witness his distress, and rushed up to Albert.
“You’ll bring ruination on me—what? Where is your head—what do you—”
He was so enraged that coherent speech would not come.
Albert’s face changed color. He paled a trifle and was terrified.
“This is a fine piece of business,” Rindskopf soon regained his voice—“What did you do with that bill of exchange?”
This strange demand puzzled poor Albert. He stared fretfully at his employer.
“What did you do with that bill of exchange I gave you the other day to forward to Berlin?” Rindskopf repeated, panting.
“—I—I enclosed it in the letter—as you told me—” Albert stammered.
Adolf’s eyes were dancing over the letter in his hand. Presently he was reading its contents aloud. “ ‘My dear Herr Rindskopf:
“ ‘In Frankfort, the birthplace of Goethe, love-songs may be called bills of exchange, but in our prosaic city of Berlin we mean precisely what we say. We have tried to cash the enclosed but without success; perhaps you can do better with it in your home town—’ ”
Rindskopf had caught the facetious tone of the letter and burst out in enraged laughter.
“Fine business I call this!” he cried as he continued reading the ironic reply, accentuating every syllable, contempt in his voice: “ ‘We are therefore returning your amorous ditty, much as we appreciate your romantic sentiments, and beg to send us instead a plain, matter-of-fact bill of exchange.’ ”
Adolf was beside himself. He called Albert a good-for-nothing, cursed the day he had let the boy enter the bank, swore that his wife had warned him against taking Zorn’s son into his house.
He then raised the returned enclosure to his eyes and began to read—
The money-changer was shaking with scornful laughter as he read on.
Albert was quivering, tears rushed to his eyes. It was not the mistake that vexed him but Rindskopf’s mocking voice. These verses were intended for the envelope addressed to Hedwiga!
Albert leaped forward and snatched the verses from Adolf’s hand.
“Where is my bill of exchange?” shouted Adolf.
Albert was not interested in the bill of exchange. His heavenly lyrics had been defiled! Their recital by Rindskopf was a piercing dagger in his heart.
“You are nothing but an ignorant boor!” Albert shouted back, striking a pose of sublime impudence. “What is your miserable bill of exchange compared with my poem—huh! YourThalers! You ought to feel honored that you, an ignoramus, have a poet in your employ!”
Rindskopf shrank back, stunned. Such insolence from his apprentice!
Before Adolf recovered his wits Albert had put on his hat and with a look of unspeakable contempt strutted out of the place.
Albert’s conduct was a severe blow to his parents. Rindskopf had written to the elder Zorn and described the disgraceful scene to its minutest detail. “I could see from the very first day,” wrote Rindskopf, “that your son has no bent for business, but on your account I had endured him as long as I possibly could.”
The father made a hurried trip to Frankfort and tried to reason with Albert. He told him of the deplorable state of his finances and that further schooling was out of the question; and there was nothing for him to do at home.
The father had another friend in Frankfort, Veitel Scheps, who was a wholesale grocer and an importer of fruits from Italy. Veitel was willing to give the young man a chance to learn his trade.
Veitel was a little man, nothing but skin and bones, with a grizzly little beard, the end of which he was in the habit of chewing wistfully. Veitel seemed always absent-minded. There was a strange light in his big brown eyes. He was nearly sixty, but there was the fire of youth in his eyes. He received his friend’s son kindly and assigned to him the easiest work in his warehouse. He also housed him in his own home, and his wife, being childless, bestowed on Albert maternal tenderness.
For a short time everything went well. Albert liked Veitel and his place of business. The warehouse was sunless, filled with bales of dried fruits, casks of wine, boxes of oranges and lemons and dates, permeated with the pleasant odors of figs and raisins and the delicacies of the Italian soil. Albert’s task was to take down the numbers of the shipments and the quantities that came in and went out.
He loved to lose himself in the rear of the large storehouse, where there were narrow passages stacked with boxes and sacks and crates of wafting fragrance. The scents were inspiring. He had just read Goethe’s “Briefe aus Italien” and visualized the graphic descriptions of the great master. At times he would move listlessly through those darkened passages, conjuring visions of the land “wo die Citronen blühen.”
Meandering through these fruit-smelling passages he often imagined himself under the blue skies of Italy. A spear of sunshine stealing in through the crack of a dust-covered window pane enhanced the illusion. That was the glorious light of Italian skies shining upon the sun-baked lanes of Capri. It was not the creaking of the ungreased wheels of Franz’s wheelbarrow—Franz was the peasant lad trundling heavy-laden boxes—that he heard but the twittering of birds in the green foliage of Sorrento. A horse was neighing outside. Albert’s breast heaved with sensuous joy. For to his ears it was the braying of a donkey clambering up the narrow cliff road to Salerno.
“Albert!—Albert!” someone was calling, but he only heard the distant echoes from his wonderland. Leaning against a column of casks he paused and wrote verses that had been running through his head for days—
“Albert—Albert Zorn!”
The voice became impatient, irritable, anger in the tone. It was the voice of Veitel.
“Franz is waiting for the numbers!” he cried.
Albert tried hard to remember on which errand he had been sent.
Presently the agitated Veitel was before him. The wagon was outside and had to be loaded for the boat sailing for Coblenz and Albert stood there, staring at him like an idiot!
Veitel took a step back. The young man must have lost his wits. His wife had told him the boy had been acting queerly, always as if in dreamland.
For a moment Veitel was baffled. Perhaps he ought to run back for help. One could not tell what a maniac might do! The wife of a friend of his had been stabbed by a maid servant under similar circumstances, he recalled. She, too, had acted queerly—the maid servant had been melancholy—and suddenly, while she was peeling potatoes, she stabbed her mistress with her paring knife!
“Are you not feeling well, Albert?” Veitel’s tone was now soft, sympathetic, cautious.
He was moving back step by step, coaxing the young maniac to follow him. As soon as he emerged into the open Veitel gained courage.
“Where is the list?” he pleaded.
Albert shuddered. He could not free his mind from the illusion. He was still under the blue skies of Italy.
“Where are the numbers?” Veitel demanded.
“The numbers—what numbers?” Albert’s voice was somnolent. “Just a moment!”
He had not finished writing the last two verses and was afraid they might escape his memory, so while Veitel scolded he put the sheet of paper against a box nearby and scribbled the end of his ballad. He then looked up with clearer vision in his eyes.
“Didn’t you take the numbers down for the Coblenz shipment? Franz is waiting for them.”
“O, yes, the numbers;” and he rushed back to execute the order, Veitel staring at large.
“No, the boy has no talent for business,” Veitel confirmed Rindskopf’s opinion, and wrote a lengthy letter to his friend David Zorn.
This time the father made no trip to Frankfort. Instead he sent Albert money for the homeward journey.
He returned home downhearted. He felt the cheerlessness of his home-coming. The very excessive tenderness of his mother, the over-affectionate embrace of his sister, accentuated his failure. He felt the kindliness accorded the afflicted, the solace given to people in trouble. And although there was defiance in his bearing he felt keenly the disappointment on the faces of his family.
Nobody spoke of his future. Even his father—always full of plans—only cleared his throat, passed his hand lightly over his fine beard, and murmured “We’ll see”, whenever his wife broached the subject.
So Albert drifted. In his present state of mental confusion he postponed calling on Hedwiga from day to day. He stayed at home and read, walked the streets and mused, lay stretched on the river bank and pondered all sorts of things. He also spent much time writing, chiefly verses, which he clandestinely sent to editors who would not have them.
He wandered about the streets, along the river bank, like a liberated prisoner. No, he was not thinking of the Judengasse, of its tragedy, of its quaint traditions; he would not sing of the glory, and the tragedy, of Israel. He was emancipated, a true son of the Rhineland. He would sing of the shattered ruins on the banks of the Rhine peopled with golden legends, of beautiful Hedwiga, of fair Katherine, of pretty Gertrude. No, no, he was no descendant of Miram and David, he was no compatriot of Isaiah and Yehudah H’Levi, no fellow-sufferer of the dwellers of the Ghetto. The cradle of his forefathers had stood in Greece, her Gods were his Gods, the great unconquered world his world. And it was summer again. The sun was cooling its burning rays in the liquid silver of the gently flowing Rhine, a thousand echoes shouted greetings from the vine-clad shores, the mossy boulders called and beckoned to him to lie down and dream of things eternal!
All his slumbering romantic sentiments reawakened and with them came his longing for Hedwiga, his Lorelei.
On the morning he went to see her the sun was blazing in the skies and the road was dusty. His heart was pounding with joy as he left the narrow little streets of the town and struck out in the road that led to the Free House. No serious thought intruded upon his mind at present; he was carefree. The image of the slender girl with the golden locks was dancing before his eyes. He strode along jauntily, joyously, expectantly. The hut loomed up in the distance. He first caught sight of the large elm tree, and there was a fluttering in his breast.
Hedwiga! He saw her clinging skirt, her great black eyes, her bare feet, her beautiful throat.
What was this? A cart at the door! The two little windows of the hut wide open, and likewise the door; people moving about inside—a hearse! It must be the Witch. There was a pang of sorrow in his heart, but then she was old, and the old must die.
He entered the hut. Only three old women and a man; the women with hanging heads stood round a wooden box and the man held a board in his hands.
Where was Hedwiga?
The man waved the board in the direction of the box.
The morning sun cast a strange pallor over the dead face in the coffin. Albert trembled from head to foot and a flood of tears rolled down his wan cheeks.
The man looked at the youth without sadness. The three women, too, glanced at him puzzled.
Yes, the Witch had died two weeks before and now her niece was dead. They did not know what the girl died of—how could anyone tell what a person died of! The soul left the body and all was ended. There was a grimacing smile on the face of the woman who answered Albert’s questions. Maybe it was the evil spirits—who could tell?
He bent over the coffin for some silent moments. He stared blankly at the white shroud, at the waxen face, at the closed eyes . . .
Then the man and the three women carried the coffin to the cart outside, and the cart started and moved away slowly, the wheels creaking, crunching the clods of the dry mud . . .
A NIGHTINGALE IN A CROW’S NEST.
“Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der ZweitenAls kaum sich der Busen der Ersten geküsst.”Goethe.
“Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der ZweitenAls kaum sich der Busen der Ersten geküsst.”Goethe.
“Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der Zweiten
Als kaum sich der Busen der Ersten geküsst.”
Goethe.
Whatyouth, what poetic youth, could not say this with equal truth if he would, had he the candor of the great bard of Weimar? Albert Zorn had more than candor; the public was his priest to whom he confessed more than he sinned. He never concealed the fact that to him woman was an antidote to woman. And love was such a wonderful inspiration for melodious verses! At times he could not tell which he loved most, the melodious verses or the woman who inspired them.
Had he already forgotten Hedwiga with that waxen face and white shroud? Indeed not; he sang of her in the most tragic refrains and dedicated to her memory a dream picture—ein Traumbild—and when he read it over and over, again and again, his heart almost broke and burning tears bedewed his flushed cheeks. But even as he wept for Hedwiga he yearned for some other pretty maiden to take her place in his heart.
He had changed considerably during this listless year. He had grown taller, his hair was longer and fell unevenly over his coat collar, and his sparkling eyes were even more narrowed, as if to hide from the people around him how much he could see; there was also something indefinable about the deep corners of his large mouth that seemed provoking. He carried a cane and brandished it dreamily as he strolled through the lime-tree lane in the Hofgarten, where there were always pretty girls in gay colors “like bright tulips planted along the flowery paths.”
The year seemed interminably long. Without school attendance, without any definite hours allotted to study or work, without any occupation, he was fancy free. He read whatever books suited his taste and gave expression to whatever ideas flitted through his brains. And after the ecstasy of composition would come despair, the despair that must come to the artist striving after perfection of expression, when he would regard his songs and dream-pictures as mere drivel. What would become of him! True, Christian was ever ready with his solace—the greatness of many had remained unrecognized for a time, he reminded Albert—but that did not console the young poet. Ah, he was a worthless fellow—what would become of him!
Then he would shut himself up in his room, without wishing to see any one. He would be weighed down by his grief, the grief of his conflicting emotions and thoughts. He would reveal himself to himself and hate himself. He had already passed his eighteenth year and nothing had happened. What would become of him?
But what was there for him to do? His father’s business was worthless; he did not care for his grandfather’s profession, though he had entertained it for a while since Schiller, too, had been a physician; and jurisprudence—well, he had no taste for that. Besides, a university career meant a great expenditure of money and he knew it was beyond his parents’ means.
At last the father wrote to his brother, Leopold, and asked for his advice. Leopold told him to send the young man to Hamburg. He would find a place for him.
Albert arrived in Hamburg on a warm day late in June. He was dusty, hungry, tired. Travel by chaise to Hamburg was very fatiguing. And to add to his discomfiture when he reached his uncle’s town he found the shutters closed and the doors boarded, the family having departed for their summer home. Why had not his uncle given him specific instructions how to get to him? He was vexed and stormed at the coachman. A neighbor finally furnished his uncle’s business address. Everybody knew the location of Leopold Zorn’s bank.
Albert’s irritation increased at finding Uncle Leopold away.
“Was I not expected?” he demanded.
The pompous man, whom he addressed, smiled—haughtily, Albert thought—and turned away from him as if he were a tailor’s apprentice delivering a garment.
“Aaron, Herr Zorn’s nephew is over there,” the pompous man called—“that boy with the valise at the door—”
“That boy with the valise at the door!” Albert felt wroth enough to turn around and go back home with the same chaise. Huh! that boy with the valise at the door.
Presently his anger turned to laughter. A short, broad, middle-aged man, with sunken cheeks which were rounded by a growth of a beard streaked with gray, approached him. He seemed to lurch forward, rubbed his right hand against his greenish coat, and extended the usual greetings to him. His was a short, fat little hand, moist and clinging.
“Yes, my child,” he addressed Albert patronizingly, though not unrespectfully, smacking his lips after every few words as if feeling the taste of his utterance—“Yes, my child, your esteemed uncle has given me instructions to look after your wants. Ah, that uncle of yours,—a heart of gold!—yes, my child, pure gold, sifted gold—gold, as the Bible says, that comes from Ophir. God grant that we have a few more the likes of him; yes, my child, pure gold without a speck of dross. ‘Aaron,’ says he to me—‘Aaron Hirsch,’ says he, ‘my nephew will drop in one of these days during my absence and I want you to take good care of him and find him respectable lodgings.’ ‘Herr Banquier,’ says I to him, ‘you need not worry on that score, Aaron Hirsch will take good care of his benefactor’s nephew.’ Indeed, my child, I have just the place for you—yes, sir, just the place—the very best place—in fact. The widow Rodbertus on the Grosse Bleichenstrasse has a room overlooking a garden with two large windows. No back-hall bedroom for the nephew of the great banker, says I to myself.” Aaron laughed unctuously. “And it is not far from here either. Just a step as we say in Hamburg. Let me have the valise—it’s too heavy for you. I can carry it with my little finger.”
Aaron’s speech grew in fluency as they proceeded on the way to Widow Rodbertus, though “his little finger” had soon grown tired and he was forced to rest his valise on the sidewalk now and then.
He plodded on, his speech uninterrupted in spite of the encumbrance.
“You see, I am a trusted clerk in your esteemed uncle’s bank,” he said when they had reached Grosse Bleichenstrasse and, lowering his voice, he added, “but as a side line I sell lottery tickets. S—sh! Your esteemed uncle warned me not to sell any tickets to anyone in his employ or to any of the bank’s customers.”
“There is honor among thieves—hey? Only one robbery at a time,” Albert struck in.
Aaron suddenly let the valise drop to the pavement, and, with his hands at his sides, burst into convulsive laughter.
“That’s a good one—I must tell it to your esteemed uncle.” Then reverting to a more serious tone he said cautiously, “I sold your father the very first lottery ticket he ever purchased—ask him if I tell you a lie. And he came within three numbers of the Grand Prize. Just think of it—within three numbers! If the man drawing the lottery had just moved his hand a tiny bit further down—just a wee, wee bit—your father would have been the recipient of two hundred thousand marks! And do you think I’d have asked your father for a singlepfennigfor having been his good angel—no, no, not apfennig, not agroschen, not even a thank-you! No, my child, not Aaron Hirsch! I wouldn’t have asked your good father for a pinch of snuff.”
But they were soon inside, Aaron introducing the young man to Widow Rodbertus as the nephew of the “great banker” and Madame Rodbertus to Albert as the kindest soul that ever drew breath.
When he found himself in his room free from Aaron’s chatter he grew sad again, the sadness of disappointment gripped him. Not a word of welcome from his uncle. And that fat pompous man in the bank—he had puffed and sputtered like a porpoise—that man called him a boy!—had not even introduced himself or said a friendly word to him! The thought burned in his brain; his heart was filled with bitterness. He was received like a poor relation—He! Albert Zorn, who was soon to make the world talk of him as they were now talking of Byron! Ah! that haughty man in the bank had looked at him as if he were an errand boy! He, Albert Zorn, with scores of lyrics in his valise and the first draft of a tragedy that would vie with Schiller’s “Wallenstein”, with “Childe Harold”! That red-faced, pompous man, proud of his purse—a mere money-bag! Huh! “That boy with the valise at the door”!
He paced up and down the room and finally paused before the window overlooking the garden. The garden of Aaron’s vision was a little courtyard with a pine tree in the center, encircled by meagre little shrubs. For a moment he stood gazing upon the lonely tree absently. Aside from the few stunted shrubs around it there was not a shade of green in sight. He soon felt a kinship with the tree. It was symbolical—like the fir tree before him he stood alone on the barren heights of the north, wrapt in a white coverlet of ice and snow, and dreaming of a palm tree in distant sunny lands . . .
His disappointment awakened in him crushing melancholy. Lonely and in silent sorrow on the scorching rock precipice! Tears trickled down his cheeks, though he was not conscious of them. Never had he felt so lonesome, so forsaken, the ground under him so barren and cold; and never had his heart so yearned for the warmth of the sun . . .
A door opened somewhere. It sounded loud in the quiet courtyard. The window before him was open and he leaned dreamily forward. He heard the voice of Frau Rodbertus on the threshold, escorting someone to the door. Another voice reached his ears—a silvery voice, the voice of a young girl, with the music of feminine sweetness in it. Sudden joy leaped into his heart. He did not feel so lonesome now. He felt as if a tender hand was soothing his irritated nerves; the sweet murmur of a brooklet was in his ears. He leaned a trifle forward. A young girl, with a green parasol in her hand, was taking a step at a time backwards, and talking to Frau Rodbertus. He found himself studying the girl’s face and figure, a strange tingling in his blood. A girl with soft brown eyes—that looked large and dark—black hair and a dainty yet vigorous little body. As she kept retreating he became conscious of the movement of her feet—there was something deliciously sweet, almost rhythmical, about her tripping movements, and about the swaying of her skirt.
“Au revoir!” The girl was taking leave of Frau Rodbertus in the soft accent of the French, not in that harsh voice of the German when interspersing French words in their conversation.
“Au revoir!”
The portal closed, the door downstairs was slammed. A feeling of delicious cheer in Albert’s being. The ground under his feet was no more barren and cold; he no longer thought of his uncle’s neglect, of that pompous man in the bank. He was dreaming of sunny lands . . . He again paced up and down the room but with throbbing joy in his heart.
He soon rushed to the little oak table at the window and sat down, as if something was propelling him to quick action. Volatile thoughts played hide and seek with his brain. He leaned back, his sensitive lips parted slightly, as of a person in a fever, his half-closed eyes as if in stupor. “Sweet eyes—blessedly sweet brown eyes,” he murmured. The tips of his delicate fingers moved slowly as if he were caressing a smooth cheek, his heart was pulsating in short, panting beats, and removing a sheet of paper from his breast pocket, as if in a dream, scribbled a line or two, murmured the words over and over, again and again, unearthly bliss stealing over his countenance . . .
Two days later his uncle returned from his summer home. Aaron Hirsch led him to the banker’s private office. Bowing and curtseying the unctuous Hirsch explained to his master how punctiliously he had carried out his orders and what wonderful lodgings he had procured for his nephew.
Leopold Zorn smiled benignly and was very solicitous in his inquiries about Albert’s father, his mother, and every one of the children.
The banker was of medium height but, seated, looked tall. He held his head erect, his high collar (cut low in front for the freedom of his longish smooth shaven chin) pressing against his closely cropped side-whiskers, which were once brown but now somewhat faded, with streaks of gray. There was a pleasant twinkle in his eyes, but it was the twinkle of the quick-tempered which can change to flashing fury upon the least provocation.
The uncle studied his nephew as he tried to draw him out in conversation, and felt disappointed. David had given him to understand that Albert was bright but he could detect no brightness in the young man. The boy was more like his father, a ne’er-do-well, passed through the banker’s mind; nothing of his mother. Furthermore, he was annoyed at the young man’s constant twirling of his walking stick. He felt that this conceited youth was not sufficiently impressed with his uncle’s importance. Callers at his private office did not sit with their legs crossed, twirling their canes. The banker’s annoyance was growing. He thought best to make the young man understand his place at the outset.
“I shall be glad to find employment for you here,” he said with a show of impressiveness and a knot appearing in his left eyebrow, “and if you show the proper spirit and industry you will have a chance to rise. But you must dismiss all nonsense from your mind (David had told him that Albert was fooling his time away on verses). You must give your undivided attention to business if you hope to make anything of yourself; and”—he cleared his throat and turned his eyes aside—“you must show the proper respect for your elders.”
Albert listened but was unable to concentrate on what his uncle was saying. Instead, his mind dwelt upon his uncle’s physiognomy. He liked the straight nose—rather broad at the bottom—and the well shaped mouth. He also liked his grayish hair parted on the side. The tone of his voice displeased him. There was a ring of haughtiness in it.
The next moment, however, his feeling warmed toward his uncle. Leopold mistook his nephew’s preoccupied silence for submission and instantly regretted his harshness. Leopold was quick-tempered but keenly conscious of his failing. Kind hearted to a fault it hurt him to think he was unduly severe with his brother’s son. He softened instantly and endeavored to make amends.
“I know you’ll like Hamburg. It is a city of great opportunities,” he said tenderly.
Albert’s face saddened. He realized the opportunities his uncle had in mind had a different meaning from those in his own.
“Don’t be so downhearted, Albert.” Uncle Leopold’s voice was now jovial, kindly, a pleasing smile in his eyes. He touched Albert’s knee as if to buoy him up. “Your work here won’t be hard. Are you short of money?”
He opened his wallet and handed him several bills.
Leopold touched the silver bell on his secretary and Hirsch appeared.
“Tell Herr Elfenbein to come in,” he ordered.
A stout red-faced man, with fleshy eyelids, a long gold watch chain resting on his spherical abdomen, like a sleeping snake on a sunny rock, presently appeared at the door. It was the pompous man Albert saw on the day of his arrival.
“Martin, this is my nephew—David’s son—this is Herr Elfenbein, Albert—”
Martin extended a lax hand.
“Albert has had a good education and writes a fine hand,” Uncle Leopold added, “and I’ll place him in your care. But don’t spare the rod.” The banker’s face was writhing in smiles as he said this and then laughed jovially. “I think Albert needs a little discipline—hey? What do you say, Albert?”
“Don’t worry, we won’t spare him,” returned Elfenbein, smiling.
And indeed Martin Elfenbein did not spare him. Martin was a hard taskmaster and gave orders in a surly voice, devoid of human warmth. Albert began where he had left off at Rindskopf’s—copying letters, filling in exchange blanks, and other uncongenial labors.
He grew morose and kept to himself. Even poetry had lost all interest for him. He picked up a volume by Goethe, by Lessing, by Schiller, but their song received no response from his soul. Was his imagination becoming barren? He tried to express his despair but even in this he failed. His mind was a blank. No new thoughts, no fresh sentiments, nothing but stagnation.
One morning his uncle invited him to his country home and at once his slumbering sentiments reawakened. The hope of meeting his cousin Hilda, whose memory he had cherished since she visited Gunsdorf two years ago, changed his depressing gloom to buoyant cheer. His muse had suddenly returned. He was full of song and merriment.
HILDA.
Thesight of Hilda seemed to Albert like a dream come true. Instead of the girl of his fancy, however, he was met by a young lady with the poise of one accustomed to drawing room manners. The girl of his memory was an unsophisticated young girl of fifteen. And while she was cordial, her cordiality lacked the intimacy he had hoped for.
His inner chafing made him regard everybody around him with misgiving. With the hypersensitiveness of the dreamer he divined disparagement in the glances of the smartly dressed people around him. He felt himself an outsider, a mere poor relative. He wished to flee, and would have fled but for the presence of his cousin.
But the more friendliness shown him the more restless he became. It was not friendliness he wanted. He craved affection, not merely the formal friendship of a host. And the people about him treated him as a guest, yet differently from the other guests who were visiting the banker at the time. The other guests were a lively group and indulged in dances, games, and amusing pastimes, none of which engaged his interest. His aunt encouraged him and gave him veiled hints about the amenities of society and etiquette, and this exasperated him still more.
So instead of joining the gay circle he would repair to the seashore, a short distance away, and spend hours watching the tide, with tumult in his brain and bitterness in his breast.
One day at sunset he found himself alone on the seashore, a creeping, soothing melancholy stealing over him. There were horizontal bars in the west resembling a rustic fence, one plank of which was jagged and broken, with tatters of gold and silver streaming from it, as if the sun in its flight had forced its way through this barrier, leaving behind fragments of its gorgeous raiment. For a while he sat and gazed with rapture in his heart. He sat crouched like a Japanese Buddha, his eyes screwed up, his elbows upon his knees, his head between his hands.
He yielded to the scene before him sensuously, his whole being immersed in it. He gave himself to the fight and sounds as a voluptuary gives himself to lust. He was scarcely conscious that he was thinking of Hilda instead of the sunset. He thought she had been paying no attention to him. And yet there was something about her that gave him hope . . .
Footsteps down the poplar lane. His heart beat fast. He knew they were her footsteps; and she was alone. Had she seen him? She turned quickly around and walked back. She walked rapidly with the unsteady gait of fright.
“She hates me,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps? There was again a flutter of hope. He had read a great number of romances and began to reason, as if reason ever helped a lover solve the great problem. But he reasoned both ways with equal conviction. She-loves-me and she-loves-me-not are reached by the same route. He found his place of vantage less enticing. The sunset and the restless sea lacked the romantic interest of a moment before. His mind drifted in other directions. He thought of his uncle, of his aunt, of the guests. Why did he find himself out of joint with people around him? What was there that made him rebellious in their midst? Why did he feel their faults so keenly, so glaringly? Why was he not in sympathy with them? He had felt out of place in Gunsdorf, in the Judengasse, and now he was feeling out of place at his uncle’s house. His thoughts, his tastes, his inclinations, his aspirations, were all Hellenic—there was not a vestige of the Hebraic in him, he concluded. He did not yet realize that these vagaries, this very world-weariness—theWeltschmerz—was Hebraic, that what he thought emanated from the Acropolis, came from Mount Carmel and from the plains of Sharon.
In the evening he found himself alone in his room, the silence of the summer night around him. He was thought-weary. He had blown out the candle and welcomed the darkness. A nightingale was singing somewhere in the grove. He pushed the window further open. He caught the distant sound of the waves breaking on the cliffs; it was the sweeping sound of contending forces. A fire-fly was flitting around—intermittent pin-pricks in the dark curtain before him. His fatiguing thoughts had fled. His brain was a blank. He was only a child of the senses. Peace gathered within him, the sweet peace of night and of silence. Emotions possessed him—no, not emotions which stir conflict but those that instill a conscious soothing, a slumbering sensuousness. He leaned back in his chair by the window, unseeing, unthinking.
Gradually—in faint outline—the image of Hilda was before him . . .
There had been dancing earlier in the evening and he now saw Hilda waltzing around the room, her firm little feet moving nimbly, a twinkle in her roguish eyes as she flitted by and glanced over her partner’s shoulder toward where he was seated. Confound it, why had he never learned to dance!
He recalled the last time he had made an effort to learn to dance and laughed at himself. He could now hear that little Frenchman countun, deux, trois—un, deux, trois. The Frenchman shook his head and told him he had no rhythm in his soul! If he had told him he had no rhythm in his feet he could have forgiven him. Albert was in a rage and the French dancing-master ran for his life, and later told everybody that Herr Zorn was quite mad, quite insane.
Yes, he ought to learn to dance. He must learn the amenities of the young, as Aunt Betty had hinted. In some ways he acted like a middle-aged man—this was what Aunt Betty had said smilingly. Perhaps this was the reason Hilda was acting so peculiarly in his presence, he said to himself; she treated him as if he were middle-aged. He was too agitated to sit still . . .
He jumped up from his seat and walked across the dark room. No, no, he could not be like the others—he could not—those shallow-brained parrots, repeating the same phrases, the same platitudes, the same inane compliments to ladies—he could not bear these smug Philistines! But Hilda——
A bird was singing. Yes, it was the melting notes of the nightingale. He was again seated by the window, thoughtless, a delicious sensuousness filling his whole being, his eyes resting on the shadow of the trees in the light of the stars, the tranquility of the night possessed him . . .
He arose quite happy the next morning, boyishly happy. He wrote a few verses and felt happier still. Then he read his lines over and the music of his own words made him jubilant. Dissatisfaction with his composition never came to him until the day after; on the same day he was always happy, always pleased with himself——
And his mood seemed contagious. Aunt Betty smiled upon him and Hilda, too, suddenly seemed attentive. She even suggested a walk with him, and on the way through the garden stooped to pluck a rose for him and then plucked another, the stem of which she held between her teeth, the red flower drooping over her chin. He found himself talking to her without timidity, without constraint, and she, too, laughed and recalled little pranks he played on her when she visited Gunsdorf. He reminded her that she had been a little girl then, her hair like a loose skein of silk hanging down her back and even remembered the color of her dress and the ribbon she had worn in her hair. His voice seemed to caress every garment of hers as he dwelt in detail upon her dress in those days and her attire now. She blushed as her eyes met his. She felt as if he had actually passed his hand over her dress as he contrasted her former short dresses with her present long skirt. He kept at a respectful distance from her but once or twice his sleeve came in contact with her sleeve and he consciously shrank back half a step, and she was strangely conscious of the momentary touch.
He talked freely, bubbling over. He was alone with her, just she and he. He felt for a moment that there was nobody else on earth but the two of them. And they were walking through the narrow paths, high hedges on either side, the sunlight sifting through like the finest silvery powder, birds twittering and chirping everywhere. At times she walked ahead of him—when the path was too narrow for them to walk side by side—the bit of neck between her coiled hair and the collar of her dress a delicious magnet, her elastic yet vigorous step music to his ears. He was deploring the fact that so few people in Hamburg were interested in poetry. She agreed with him and that irritated him without knowing why and he became cynical.
“The people in Hamburg care more for beer andsauerkrautthan for Lessing and Goethe,” he was saying. “They lack romance—” Then he tossed his head, with a spiteful smile on his lips, and added, “When Cupid darted his arrow at the Hamburg women he struck them in the stomach instead of the heart.”
Hilda walked on in silence. His witticism displeased her. He had made a few slurring remarks about Hamburgers before. They were walking side by side and he noticed the slight change in her face. She did not seem as friendly as before.
“I was not referring to all Hamburgers,” he said in a jesting tone emphasizing theall.
He wished to make some allusion to herself but could not. She suddenly seemed so distant. He thought he detected anger in her eyes. Then he attempted playfulness, but that seemed to annoy her still more. Women were a capricious lot, he concluded. He was beginning to understand women, he was persuading himself, without realizing that to understand them was the surest means of being disliked by them.
When they returned to the house they found the family on the veranda. Hilda rushed up to her mother as if she had lost her way and at last found it. He again felt awkward.
He went to his room and finished the poem that he had begun the day before and copied it in a neat hand and again went in search of Hilda. He found her seated on the ground under a tree with a book in her lap.
He approached her without timidity and at first stood by her chatting, then sat down beside her. Albert was a good talker when he had a definite subject but lacked the art of polite social conversation. He was at his best when attacking or praising someone or something. The book in her hand was a peg on which to hang conversation, and he made an attempt to look at it.
“Is the book so bad that you would not have anyone see it?” he teased her as she declined to show it to him.
“No, it’s a good book,”—still holding it behind her as if to prevent him from seizing it.
“By whom was it written?”
She shook her head negatively, a faint smile in her eyes.
“What’s the name?”
Her head again shook from side to side.
“What’s it about?”
“You are too young to know.” She laughed softly, her eyes contracting.
“Let’s talk of something more interesting—Rudolph, for instance.”
(Rudolph was one of the young men of whom Albert was jealous.)
She gave a short mischievous laugh.
He looked at her earnestly. He wondered why she was teasing him about Rudolph. Her mobile features underwent expressions he could not understand. Then he turned to her suddenly, with self-pity in his voice, and said, “Why do you dislike me so much, Hilda?”
And before she had a chance to reply he added petulantly, “Everybody here dislikes me—everybody!”
There was the peevishness of the vexed child in his voice, with a lump of emotion in his throat.
Although he had not clearly thought of this before, no sooner had the words escaped him than he believed them. He felt himself hated by all around him.
Her attitude toward him changed instantly. Leaning forward, with the book replaced in her lap so he could see it was “Herman and Dorothea”, she said, “Oh, Albert, you only imagine things. Mother is very fond of you, and so is father, only they don’t think you apply yourself to business assiduously enough.”
Her beautiful sea-green eyes rested on his face sympathetically. She looked at him as if to convince him she was not merely saying this to soothe him.
“I know, I know, they all think me an idler, a good-for-nothing, a worthless fellow.” His words came precipitately, passionately. “They can’t see any good in anyone unless he is immersed in business—nothing counts but business success. All I hear is money, money, money everywhere!” He raised his hands as if he meant to shut out the sight of money. “It rings in my ears from morning till night—it rings all over Hamburg. It’s deafening—money! Nothing else interests anybody. Neither literature nor music nor art of any sort. Money seems an end in itself. Ah! It’s maddening—maddening! I am made to feel every moment that God created all the beauty in the world—the green trees and the blooming flowers and the foamy waves—and women’s beautiful eyes and their luxuriant hair and their crimson lips (he was looking at her yearningly)—with only one end in the scheme of creation—money! Oh, I am disgusted with everything——.”
“You are morbid, Albert,” she said, looking straight at him and noting the despondency in his dreamy countenance. Then she smiled and added, “You are a Werther without a Charlotte.”
He felt the sting of her remark. To him her flippant retort was full of meaning.
“Even you hate me,” he burst out.
He turned his face away.
“What makes you say such things?” she demanded.
“I can see it. You don’t act toward me as you do toward—” he tossed his head without completing the sentence.
“As I do toward Rudolph,” she finished it for him with a light laugh. Then she gazed at him for a moment and, shaking her head, said, “You silly boy.”
“I don’t blame you—Rudolph is a shrewd business man and I am only a clerk in your father’s bank—”
“So you think I am in love with Rudolph—”
“I know you hate me—”
“Why should I hate you?”
Her sparring with him cheered him even though his face was still sad. He was happy to hear her contradict him. They soon drifted to “Herman and Dorothea” and he began to talk of Goethe. He wished to read her the poem he had just finished but he wondered if she would divine who had inspired it. He persuaded himself he did not want her to know this. And while he was battling with the idea his hand traveled to his pocket and he withdrew the neatly copied verses.
He watched her face eagerly as her eyes wandered over the sheet. She seemed to be reading every line over and over in order to grasp their meaning.
He had hoped she would make some allusion to the subject described. He had also hoped she might ask him for permission to keep the poem, but not a word. Her eyes only contracted a bit, a faint deepening of color on her cheeks, and she had suddenly again grown distant. He felt as if she had unexpectedly stretched out her arm and forbade him to come near her. He was conscious of the awkwardness of her silence. Her lips were closed tightly as she would not open them for fear a word might drop.
“You think poetry mere drivel, don’t you?” he said as he awkwardly replaced the poem into his pocket.
Her eyelashes rose, a silent look, but without a responsive syllable.
“At least you thinkmypoetry is drivel,” he soon added.
There was the faintest smile playing around her lips. Her silence and smile seemed to him a challenge. His dormant pride, his sublime confidence in his powers, suddenly made him boastful. There was fire in his eyes.
“You just wait and I’ll show you all that my poems are no drivel. I’ll make my songs ring throughout the land. Every man, woman, and child shall read them. You may all laugh at me now—and Rudolph may jest about me—but I’ll make them all listen to me some day—”
He looked at her face but could read nothing in it. The next moment he became conscious of his boasting and felt ashamed of his utterances.
“Oh, I am a fool,” he burst out as if talking to himself. “You think me a braggart, don’t you?” He touched her hand and looked beseechingly at her.
She looked at him intently for a bare second.
“I am very unhappy,—I’ve always been unhappy. I am a little child crying for the moon, and the moon is so far, far away and doesn’t even know that a poor child is crying for it.”
There were unshed tears in his eyes.
“Why do you make yourself so unhappy?” she asked and stirred, with a frown on her pretty face.
But he did not answer. He noticed the approach of Uncle Leopold and Aunt Betty.
“Why so serious?” Aunt Betty asked, smiling and at the same time studying Hilda’s face.
“We were discussing poetry,” she answered, rising.
Albert appeared at dinner and vanished immediately after that. He scarcely spoke a word during the meal. But this was not unusual. Dinner in this household was served with such elaborate ceremony—waiters and butlers and many courses—that the stiffness of it all robbed him of speech. Aunt Betty noticed his glance in Hilda’s direction once or twice but her daughter ignored her cousin entirely. The mother heaved a sigh of relief. She had been unduly alarmed.
What the watchful mother failed to observe was that as they rose from the table and were passing to the adjoining room Albert dashed across to Hilda and mumbled something in a panting voice and left abruptly. She paled but did not turn to see whither he had gone.
She joined her family but after a while chose a secluded place, apparently reading. She turned the pages of her book as if she were perusing them without seeing a word before her. She seemed vexed and perplexed and now and then jerked her head as if shaking off an intruding thought. Finally she walked up to her room and closed the door resolutely as if she had made a decision and given emphatic expression to it. She then threw herself on her bed and lay for a time, staring at the ceiling.
“Seven o’clock near Klopstock’s grave,” she murmured to herself.
Shortly after that she walked down stairs and remained standing in the doorway over the veranda and walked slowly, deliberately, down the broad stone steps, pausing and lingering a while on every step, like a playful child, and looking at her feet as she moved them. When she reached the pebbled path of the winding walk she played with the little stones with the tip of her dainty slipper as if there were not a single thought passing through her mind. Presently she was standing before the marble-walled well in the centre of the garden and looked curiously at the carved figures on the outside as if she had never seen them before. Dimly she remembered that Albert had spoken of them the other day—they were mythological figures and he had explained them to her. She recalled his face and the manner in which he looked at her as he spoke of the beautiful goddesses of Greece.
She was soon out of sight of the beautiful mansion on the hill, sauntering down the slope that led to the seashore. Along the Elbe was a cliff-walk that led to a promontory on which was the grave of him who sang of The Messiah.
The sun was going down but it was still long before sunset in this northern clime. There was a golden haze in the air, with hoards of mosquitoes and tiny insects in column formation flitting about like a dancing procession. Klopstock’s grave was west of the Zorn villa, where the sun was sliding down the curving horizon and making the many-branched linden tree over the tomb look like a burnished bush. There was tumult in her brain and her heart was beating irregularly. A number of limes she halted and half-turned, as if she were attempting to twist herself loose from the embrace of some invisible being, but soon again she proceeded on her way.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said as he came running toward her. His teeth were almost chattering, his voice was strained.
“I shouldn’t have come—I know I shouldn’t,” she was saying, scarcely glancing at him.
“Why do you despise me so?—”
He touched her hand which she withdrew quickly and put it back of her like an angered child.
“You don’t know how miserable I feel—Hilda—.” His voice was plaintive, pleading. “I know you detest me—You don’t even care for my poems, the echoes of my heart. Oh, Hilda—just a word—”
“You make me so unhappy,” she interrupted him. He thought he saw anger in her eyes.
“I am so sorry if my love makes you unhappy.” His voice was now penitent, humble, beseeching. “But I can’t help it, Hilda. We don’t will love—love wills us. I understand. I am not blaming you—you can’t help hating me as I can’t help loving you. I am not as dull as you think. I understand—Some girl might love me and I mightn’t care for her—”
Her eyes dilated; a pallor crept over her cheeks.
“Is that girl in Hamburg?” There was naiveté in her tone.
“There is no other girl. No one is in love with me. I was only explaining how nature works. One loves and the beloved loves another—”
“I am sure you have a girl in mind. Who is she?”
“I swear to you there is no one—”
“I am sure from the way you said it there is someone—anyhow, you wouldn’t tell me even if there were—”
“I would tell you the truth—I wouldn’t be ashamed to tell you if someone were in love with me. Oh, a long time ago—I was a youngster then.”
“Is she still in love with you?”
He waved his arms in despair.
“Oh, no, she is dead—But I am not thinking of anyone but you—”
“What did the other girl look like? Was she light or dark?”
“Oh, why speak of her—she is dead, I tell you—” he spoke impatiently.
“You must still be thinking of her or you wouldn’t remember her now. I am sure you are in love with her still—was she pretty?”
He was beside himself.
“I tell you she is dead—” There was exasperation in his tone.
“And you mean to tell me you never had a love affair since then?”
She was drawing an 8 on the ground with the tip of her slipper.
“Of course I have never loved anyone as I love you.”
“Then you did love her!”
“I might have had a boyish fancy—I wrote a poem about her—”
“And some day you’ll write a poem about me and all will be ended.”
“Hilda, why do you torture me so?—”
He clasped her hand and kissed it. She withdrew her hand and said he must not do this.
“I know I shouldn’t have come here—I know I shouldn’t—some one might have seen us—”
“And what if they did?”
“Oh, Albert, you don’t understand—”
He was about to seize her hand again but she ran down the path.