"The Boarding-School for Young Ladies," in the suburbs of Grunwald, was not exactly a house of correction for young girls who were incorrigible at home, as the students of Grunwald and other wicked people maintained; nor was the principal of the institution, Miss Amelia Bear--known as the She Bear--altogether the female dragon which malicious tongues represented her to be. It is true, no one could deny that during the day the curtains were almost invariably down in the windows looking upon the street, and that after nine o'clock in the evening no light was to be seen in the whole house. The boarders were never seen in public, except in solemn procession, walking two and two, and with a teacher at the head and a teacher at the end; no letter passed the threshold of the house, going out or coming in, which was not first subjected to a close scrutiny in Miss Bear's study, and stamped there, so to say, with the official seal; but these and similar regulations are either common to all "boarding-schools for young ladies," or there was, in certain cases, a special reason for them. The institution was intended for the "higher classes," whose female offspring was counted upon for its support; this meant almost exclusively the high nobility of the district, as the daughters of persons not noble rarely sought admission, and still more rarely found admission. Now it happens that young ladies of rank born and bred in the country, and enjoying the twofold privileges of country life and an exceptional social position, accustomed to manage from their twelfth year their ponies with the skill of circus-riders, and at thirteen often more familiar with the humbugs of society than other girls ever become--that such girls are not to be treated as leniently as other daughters of Eve. They are used to the society of busy idlers as their only male companions: young land-owners, officers on furlough, and other men of frequently very loose morals; and great is the danger, therefore, that this inborn and inbred sovereign haughtiness may bloom forth abundantly, and bear equivocal fruit, unless they are restrained in time and with method.
This was the excuse which Miss Bear's friends made for the draconic laws of her institution; she was the responsible keeper of this precious but fragile ware, and who could wonder at the stern glance of her once perhaps beautiful eyes, and the crowd of wrinkles on her brow, which seemed to deepen and to multiply every year? Like so many among us, she was what she was, not because she wished to be so, but because she was forced to be so. It was her vocation to look stern, and to frown, as it is the vocation of others to smile forever, and to wear as smooth a face as they can produce. But as the greatest psychologist of our day has taught us that one may smile and smile forever, and yet be a very great rascal, so it is also possible to look like a chief inquisitor, and yet to have a truly womanly, gentle, and kindly heart.
Miss Amelia Bear was the living proof of such a possibility. Miss Amelia Bear had had a very hard time of it all her life long. She was the poor daughter of a poor village minister, and began at fourteen her thorny career as a governess in noble country families. In those days she was very pretty, and therefore exposed to many temptations; but her prudence and her cleverness had helped her to escape from all dangers, till she was old enough to be left alone, and to procure for herself a kind of independence by establishing a school upon the savings of long years and the presents she had occasionally received. Her honorable character was known to everybody; and this, and the experience she had gained in the field of education, justified such an enterprise, while her numerous relations to noble families promised almost certain success. She preferred the nobility, because the nobility preferred her; and she hesitated to accept girls of other families, because she was sure to lose or not to receive for one such boarder, six from the nobility.
Nevertheless she gave up the principle whenever a special case seemed to require an exception from the rule. Thus it had been with Sophie Roban. The privy councillor was the physician of the institution, and Miss Bear was under great obligations to him. Even her noble patrons, therefore, understood perfectly why she could not well refuse the widowed privy councillor, when he asked her to take for a few years a mother's place to his orphaned child.
Her relation to Sophie Roban was the best proof of the exaggeration which had given rise to so many fables about the dragon nature of Miss Bear. She had become a real mother to the motherless girl; she had guarded and protected her against every bodily and mental danger, not in order to earn her compensation honestly, nor for the sake of the reputation of her school, but because she loved the girl with her whole heart, as if she had been her own. Malicious people went so far as to say that she had not only raised but also spoiled the girl, and it could not be denied that Sophie--little Sophie, as the She Bear said--could dare what no other boarder, not even Emily von Breesen, who was at the same time there, and who passed for absolutely untamable, would ever have ventured to do. Sophie could interrupt Miss Bear in the most violent philippic against any wrong-doer who had done something especially horrible,e. g., cutting round holes in the curtains for the purpose of peeping at the people who passed by the house, and could fall upon her neck and say: Miss Mal, Miss Mal, I would not be so very angry if I were you! Sophie could at all times freely enter her study--that mysterious adytum to which the young ladies came with fear and trembling, and where the dispatches to their parents were prepared, and all their letters, coming and going, were subjected to rigorous scrutiny! Sophie could do what she chose.
These relations between teacher and pupil had ripened into a friendship of a peculiar nature after Sophie had left the school and become the presiding officer of her father's house. Miss Bear appreciated Sophie's good judgment, and did not disdain to consult the lady, young as she was, in critical cases; and what is more, she almost always followed the advice which her young friend gave, more in play than in good earnest, but always with perfect simplicity and impartiality. Such a case had occurred a few weeks ago, when the Baroness Grenwitz had expressed a wish to send her daughter Helen back for some time to the institution to finish her studies, especially in the sciences. Now such a step was remarkable enough in itself, as Miss Helen was coming straight from a well-known, superior school, in which she had spent four years; but it became still more embarrassing by the circumstance that the instructions which Miss Bear received from the baroness on one side, and from the baron on the other, differed essentially as to the degree of freedom to be granted the young lady. If Miss Bear obeyed the written instructions of the baroness, Helen was to be kept as a state prisoner, under latch and key; if she followed the requests made orally by the baron, when he brought, himself, his daughter to Grunwald, the young lady was to be left in absolute liberty. As both methods of education were equally incompatible with the system adopted in the school. Miss Bear was in great embarrassment, and turned, in her dilemma, to her young friend, to receive from her advice in this mysterious affair.
Fortunately Sophie had heard much from her betrothed about the state of things at Grenwitz, and what he had not explained she readily divined by the talent peculiar to all women of delicate feelings.
"They tried to marry Helen to a man unworthy of her," said the young lady, as she met her motherly friend soon after Helen's arrival in the mysterious adytum of her study, in order to confer with her about the Grenwitz affair, "and Helen has very properly refused to consent. In return, they have banished her for a time from her paternal home. You will surely not increase the hardship by being unnecessarily severe against the poor girl? Surely, Miss Mal, that would not be like you. Do what the father says: treat Helen not as a pupil--for that, she is too old; treat her as a young girl who has taken refuge with you from a tyrannical mother who ill-treats her, and from a father who is too weak to protect her. For that is, as far as I can see, the truth of the case."
When Sophie said so, she did, of course, not suspect Oswald's love for Helen, and Helen's love for Oswald, which, if known to her, would probably have made her speak somewhat differently; and afterwards, when Franz's reports about the catastrophe at Grenwitz, and many a word spoken by Helen herself, made her see more clearly this all-important point, she still did not change her advice, because she looked upon it as treason against a friend to tell others a secret of which she herself was not yet fully convinced. Helen, moreover, had become her friend in the meantime; at least she was most devotedly attached to the pretty girl, although she had reasons to doubt whether Helen, in her haughty pride and reserve, returned her love. It was mainly their common enthusiastic love for music which had brought the two young ladies so closely together. They soon found, not only that they shared this enthusiasm, but that they complemented each other in their knowledge of music as well as in their powers of execution. Sophie was the more learned; the mysteries of Thorough Bass--for Helen, a book with seven seals--were open to her; but Helen felt and appreciated music more fully. In comparison with Sophie, Helen was, on the other hand, a mere scholar on the piano, but she had a rich alto voice, as extensive as well trained, while Sophie said of herself that she had not a note in her throat.
Thus the two young ladies could play and sing by the hour, either in Helen's room at the institute, or more frequently in Sophie's parlor, without ever getting tired. Helen insisted that nobody had ever accompanied her as well as Sophie; and Sophie, that nothing had ever afforded her a greater musical enjoyment than Helen's sweet, melodious voice, full of deep feeling.
But, strange enough, although their souls met in the realm of music as kindred souls, and gave each other a sister's kiss, their tongues became silent as soon as they attempted to approach each other in human speech. Their conversation stopped frequently, and they had to turn again to music in order to fill a pause which threatened to become painful. Sometimes Sophie thought Helen was making a violent effort to break the charm which bound her in silence, but she never went in such moments beyond the first stammered sounds of intimacy, and the very next moment saw the young girl longing for friendship changed into the haughty lady of the world, calm in her self-satisfied repose, and unapproachable.
"She is a marble statue," said Sophie to her father, "in spite of her black hair, and her dark, brilliant eyes. You cannot get near to her. I believe she is secretly an Undine."
The privy councillor laughed.
"You may not be altogether wrong," he said; "for if the two entirely different elements, air and water, harbor also entirely different creatures, which cannot have real communion with each other, it is perfectly logical that different moral atmospheres, like that in which the nobles live and that in which we live, must also produce morally different beings, who can never become real friends with heart and soul. Have you formed any friendship, during the time you spent at Miss Bear's school, which has lasted beyond those years?"
"Yes, papa, with Miss Bear herself," answered Sophie, laughing.
"There you see," said the privy councillor, with his satirical smile, "one can become good friends with she bears even, but not with Undines."
Sophie was too young yet to be able to share the suspicions suggested to her father by his long life and ample experience. She explained Helen's reserve by her innate or acquired reluctance to come out of herself, and forgave her this shyness all the more readily as she was not quite free from it herself. She was herself generally looked upon as stern and cold, and many people declared openly that "she was not at all like other girls." "She cannot help it," she would say to herself, "and we ought not to expect to gather figs from thistles. Helen would be just the same to you if the Robans had been barons at the time of Charlemagne."
This view did greater honor to Sophie's head than to her worldly prudence, and she would have perhaps become a convert to her father's views, "that Undines can at least be intimate with Undines," if she had been able to look over Helen's shoulder on the afternoon of the third day after Oswald's arrival in Grunwald. Helen was writing to her friend, Miss Mary Burton (an Undine beyond doubt, for she belonged to an old and noble English family), and the delicate gold pen was flying fast over the paper. Helen wrote:
"This is the first time for a long, long time, dearest Mary, that I have the heart to answer your letters--for there is quite a pile lying before me. But I could not get the courage to write to you, who have now entered the great world, and have been presented at court--who are engaged, and about to become the wife of an English peer, that I, Helen von Grenwitz, to whom you prophesied such a brilliant future, have been sent back to boarding-school! sent to boarding-school, like a naughty girl; sent to boarding-school, like a gosling from the country! You wonder; you smile incredulously; you lisp your 'It is impossible!' and when you find at last that you have to believe my repeated assurances, you seize me with both your hands and cry: 'but, for God's sake, what does it mean? what can it be?' and you force me to tell you the whole story from the beginning. Well, I see no possibility to escape from the punishment, but you will find it natural that I shorten the pain as much as I can.
"Therefore, in short, if not for good:
"The relations with my mother, which I wrote to you before were so satisfactory, became worse and worse in consequence of my decided refusal to accept Felix as my husband, until an open rupture, which I had long seen coming, was inevitable. I have borne myself in the whole affair as I thought I owed it to myself and to you. It was a fierce battle, I assure you. To oppose my mother requires courage, and my father supported me but feebly, for he is feeble. Well! the battle is over; the dead are buried, and the wounds begin to heal. Yes, Mary! the dead. My Bruno, my pride, my knight,sans peur et sans reproche, my brother, my friend, my darling Bruno, is no more! He died fighting for me, and has breathed the last of his young, heroic soul in a kiss upon my lips. The fierce grief about this loss--for I only knew what he had been to me when I had him no longer--made me dull and indifferent to everything and everybody around me. As this boy loved me, no one on earth ever can and will love me again. I was light and air to him; I was meat and drink to him; I was waking and sleeping--I was life itself to him. How often have I laughed at him when he told me so, with glowing cheeks and bright eyes and trembling lips! And I said, 'Come, Bruno, none of your extravagancies! none of your fables! you are a little fool!' Now I would give many a year of my life if I could but hear it once more from his proud lips. A suspicion, which I cannot shake off, tells me that I would have found in Bruno and with Bruno all the happiness that this earth can afford; and that in losing him I have lost every prospect of happiness here below. You smile; you think: a boy! but I tell you, you did not know Bruno.
"Do not ask me to repeat everything in detail. I cannot do it. My heart is too full. The remembrance of my lost pet does not leave me for a moment, and I should like nothing better than to lay down my pen and to cry to my heart's content. Tell me, Mary, is it really our fate, as we have so often told each other in sad hours, to go through life unsatisfied, without joy, without happiness, without the hope that the future at least may bring us the fulfilment of our wishes? Is fortune ever to appear to us only as afata morgana--charming in its beauty and treacherously fleeting? Or is it ever to present itself only in a shape which, however great the inner value may be, offends our delicacy--our prejudices, if you choose to call them so? Your lot, to be sure, it seems, is to be different. In the same circles to which you belong by birth and training, you have found the man who would have been dear to your heart even if your judgment should not have approved of the choice of your heart. A man, a hero, a lord! Happy, thrice happy you are to have found one to whom you have to look up, proud as you are! Smile with your aristocratic curve of the lip upon--your friend at the boarding-school!
"It is true, I am very comfortable at this boarding-school. They treat me, not as a pupil, but as a guest, and I am sincerely grateful to the principal, a Miss Bear, for her goodness, and the delicate consideration with which she treats me, as if she knew all. Perhaps she does know all. Such events, in families like ours, are not apt to remain unknown. Have I not myself learnt much about my own engagement only several weeks afterwards, and not from my father, with whom I have corresponded all the time, and who has even come to see me several times from Grenwitz (my mother, who I am told is here in Grunwald, has broken off all intercourse with me), but from a young lady, a Miss Sophie Roban, a former boarder here, whose acquaintance I have made, and with whom I have even formed a kind of friendship. She is engaged to our physician at Grenwitz, who has recently settled here, and thus her news seems to be reliable. She told me what had occurred after my departure from Grenwitz, and what papa had carefully kept from me; that the young man, of whom I wrote you already last summer, our tutor, Doctor Stein, has become my knight and my avenger, inasmuch, at least, as he has fought a duel with Felix, and given my great cousin a lesson which he will probably not forget very soon, as I learn from the same authority. I cannot tell you how strangely this news has affected me. At first--I may confess to you--my pride was offended that my name should be coupled in the world with the name of a man like Mr. Stein; that a stranger, a hireling, should have assumed responsibilities for me, as if he were a relative, and my equal in rank. But then I thought of the old saying, 'that if the people were silent the stones would speak;' I remembered that a brother could not have behaved more brotherly, nor a knight more chivalrously toward me than this man had done from the first moment. I recalled, above all, that this man was my Bruno's dearest friend, and I forgot my pride, and felt, not without wondering at myself, that I could be grateful to this man for his great kindness and affection without feeling, as I generally do, that this gratitude weighs upon me as a burden. Nay, even more, I felt the desire to see him, who was abroad, once more, in order to thank him in person, and when I saw him to-day, quite unexpectedly, pass by the window at which I was sitting, I felt--you will laugh at me, Mary--I felt that as I returned his bow the blood rushed into my face. When he had gone by I could not help following him with my eye, and then I leaned back in the window and wept bitter tears over the memory of Bruno, which the appearance of Stein had suddenly and powerfully revived in my mind. I wish I could speak to him undisturbed.
"But I must break off here. I hear Miss Roban, who comes to play with me, and Miss Bear, in the next room."
Helen rose to meet the two ladies, who had entered the room upon herentrez! Sophie Roban passed Miss Bear and embraced Helen, with an affectionate haste which contrasted somewhat with the calm and dignified carriage of the young aristocrat.
"I have really longed to see you, Helen! Why have you not come to see me since the other night, when you promised to call again? Miss Mal has not put her veto upon it?"
"Point du tout," replied Miss Bear, pushing her glasses on the top of her head, in order to look more freely at the large, friendly blue eyes of her favorite. "You know, little Sophie, that Helen is perfectly free to dispose of her time. But that was not what I came for, dear Helen! Here is a letter for you; one of your servants brought it; I suppose it is from your father?"
Helen took the letter with a slight acknowledgment, cast a glance at the direction, and said: "Yes, indeed; from my father!" and put it on her portefeuille, which she had closed when the two ladies entered.
"I will not interrupt you any longer," said Miss Bear. "Little Sophie comes to carry you home with her. Shall I send a servant for you?--and when?"
"You are surely coming, Helen?" said Sophie, who had taken a seat on the stool before the piano, and was looking at a collection of music. "I have received some beautiful new songs. A splendid one by Schumann; we must look at it together."
"With all my heart," replied Helen. "But I cannot well stay long, because I must finish a letter for England to-night, so that I can send it off to-morrow morning. I am much obliged to you. Miss Bear, for the servant; but I shall be back before dark."
"As you like it, dear Helen," said Miss Mal, kissing first Helen very lightly on the forehead, and then Sophie Roban very heartily; "adieu, mes enfants."
And Miss Bear slipped her spectacles down again upon her nose, wrinkled up her brow in imposing severity, and rustled back to her sanctum, from which Sophie had unearthed her a few minutes before.
"How is your father to-day?" asked Helen.
"Thanks," replied Sophie, still looking at the collection of music; "he is much better; he has stayed up to-day a couple of hours longer. But now read your letter, Helen, and then get ready. We must go."
"Directly," said Helen, opening her letter, while Sophie was reading the music. A few moments later she looked up and found Helen holding the letter in one hand, which hung down, while her head rested in the other, and she was evidently deep in thought. The long lashes concealed the bright eyes, and the dark eyebrows were contracted as if in indignation.
"What is the matter?" cried Sophie, hastily closing the book and putting it down on the piano. "Have you had bad news?"
"Oh no?" replied Helen, who had gathered herself up at the first sound of Sophie's voice, and tried to smile. "Oh no! Papa will be here to-morrow, that is all!"
"To stay?"
"Yes!"
"And you--Helen?"
"I was just thinking about that. My father leaves the choice to me, but----"
The young girl paused, and assumed the same half-thoughtful, half-wrathful expression of face. She seemed to have forgotten Sophie's presence. All of a sudden she asked, her eyes still cast down,
"Would you, if you had been insulted, be the first to offer the hand for reconciliation?"
Sophie was seriously embarrassed by this question, the meaning of which she could easily divine. Helen had never spoken to her about her affairs, not even in allusions. She was not to know anything of them, therefore, and yet it did not suit Helen's candor, and her friendship for Helen, to affect an ignorance and an indifference which were not real.
"That depends," she replied, after a short pause, "on what the offence was, and above all, who was the offending person!"
"How so?"
"There are offences, I think, which only become such by our own making, and offenders who can never be such--who ought never to be such--I mean persons who stand so near to us, with whom we are so closely united by nature, that it would be unnatural, if----"
"They hated us," interrupted Helen, quickly. "But if such a case did occur: if those hated each other for once, who ought to love each other; if they persecuted and warred against each other, who ought to support, help, and bear one another--how then?" Helen had risen; her face was all aglow; her eyes sparkled; her hands were firmly closed--the image of a person rejoicing in combat and prepared for victory or death, but never for surrender.
"I do not know," replied Sophie, affecting a calmness which she did not possess; "I only know that I for my part could never be placed in such a position. I could never hate brother or sister, much less father or mother who gave me life, happen what would. Are they not--myself? And how can one hate one's own self?"
"Are you quite so sure of that?" answered Helen. "How do you know it? You never had brother or sister; your mother died very early; your father has, as you told me yourself, always overwhelmed you with unbounded affection; but I--I have other----"
Helen probably felt that if she added another word she would not be able to keep up her reserve hereafter, and broke off with a suddenness which showed the remarkable control this young creature had already obtained over herself.
"But we are losing time," she said, with a totally changed air, tone, and carriage, "and about most unprofitable things. Come, we must hurry to get back to our music!"
It was not the first time that Helen had thus suddenly given a new turn to a conversation that threatened to become too intimate. Sophie had to submit to it, although she was pained by this want of confidence, and especially as she felt how Helen was entirely left alone, and what a blessing it would have been to her to be able to pour out her overburdened heart into the sympathizing bosom of a true friend. She did not feel offended, therefore, by Helen's haughty reserve; on the contrary, she was more than ever resolved rather to make her way slowly and stealthily into Helen's confidence, than to return pride for pride and reticence for reticence.
There was to be more than one occasion offered her to-day.
They had been playing and singing at Sophie's house, almost without interruption, until it began to grow dark in the large room, which was in the lower story. They paused because they could not see very well any longer, and were walking up and down in the room, arm in arm, while the effect of the music was still vibrating in their hearts, and even Helen's proud heart felt milder and softer. She had been forcibly reminded of the death of her favorite by one of Robert Schumann's beautiful songs, which filled her with sweet pain. The sad, mournful words, with the sad, plaintive melody, continued in her ear--
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,I saw it in my dreams quite near;It was so angel-like, so sweet,And yet with pain and grief replete.The lips alone, they are still red,But soon they also will be pale and dead."
"Thy face, alas! so fair and dear,I saw it in my dreams quite near;It was so angel-like, so sweet,And yet with pain and grief replete.The lips alone, they are still red,But soon they also will be pale and dead."
She thought of the night when Baron Oldenburg had led her from the midst of the dancers to Bruno's dying bed; she saw again how at her entrance the boy's eye flamed up in his deadly-pale face.
"The lips alone, they are still red,But soon they also will be pale and dead,"
"The lips alone, they are still red,But soon they also will be pale and dead,"
she murmured, as if she were speaking to herself.
"This song seems to have made as great an impression upon you as upon Doctor Stein," said Sophie.
"Upon whom?" cried Helen, suddenly aroused from her dreams.
"Upon Doctor Stein! your Doctor Stein!" replied Sophie, as indifferently as if she had never given a thought to the relations which might possibly exist between Oswald and Helen.
"When did you see him?" asked Helen again, in her ordinary calmly-grand manner.
"Last night, here; for the first time. He had been two days in town without having seen Franz. Yesterday Franz met him accidentally in the street, and brought him home with him. Otherwise we should probably have had to wait a long time for his visit."
"How so?"
"Well, it did not look as if the visit gave him particular pleasure. Still I can hardly judge of that fairly, as yesterday was the first time I ever saw him. But to tell the truth, he looked to me as if nothing in the world was likely to give him much pleasure. Franz says it is not so at all, but he admitted that Mr. Stein had changed remarkably in the short time during which they had not seen each other. How was he when you knew him?"
Sophie thought she felt that Helen's heart was beating higher, as she asked this very harmless question. Yet she did not show any excitement in her voice, as she answered:
"I have seldom seen Mr. Stein except in company and, you know, there we have very little opportunity to see men as they really are. He looked to me generally very grave, almost sad, reserved, and silent, especially during the last weeks. But the state of things in my family at that time was such as to produce very naturally such an effect. How was he yesterday?"
"That is difficult to say for one who is as little of a psychologist as I am," replied Sophie, determined to tell the truth, even if it should hurt Helen. "He looked to me gay, almost exuberant, but not cheerful; talkative, but not communicative; witty, but not entertaining; in one word, a combination of striking contrasts, which produced a very painful impression on me, because I love, above all, what is clear, easily intelligible and simple. I was especially shocked at the manner in which he spoke about his position here and his vocation in life. He seemed to look upon everything as mere play. He gave us a sketch of a party to which he had been invited at Mr. Clemens's house, and poured a perfect flood of irony and sarcasm on the poor people. He described his solemn installation at the college, which had taken place that morning, and represented the whole as a scene in a puppet-show. Franz tells me he has something of Doctor Faust in his nature; to me he looked rather like Mephistopheles. Nor did I think him so very handsome, as Franz had represented him. He looked pale and haggard, as if he were sick, or had not slept for several nights. His large eyes had an expression weird and ghost-like. I had all the time to think of the lines: 'It is written on his brow, that he can make no vow of faithful love'--or however the verse may be."
"Then he must indeed have changed very much," said Helen.
The tone in which the young girl said these words was so very sad, that Sophie regretted having been carried away by the secret antipathy she felt in her heart against Stein, and perhaps still more by a desire to provoke Helen by violent contradiction, and thus to punish her for her reserve.
"Still," she said, to soothe the wound; "still, this is not to be my final judgment about Doctor Stein; it is nothing but a first impression. I shall probably think differently about him when I see him more frequently. Franz is so very fond of him, and, you know, we girls when we are engaged are apt to be jealous. But I just remember, he may be here every moment!" she cried, interrupting herself.
"Who?" said Helen, "Oswald?"
"I had really quite forgotten it. Thoughtless girl that I am!"
"What is it?"
"Stein and Franz had agreed to hear a lecture by Professor Benseler together. And Franz went directly after dinner to see a patient of father's in the country. I was to have sent word to Stein. I wonder if it is time yet?"
"It is half-past five now," said Helen, stepping to the window to look at her watch. "It is almost dark and I must make haste to get home."
At that moment there came a knock at the door.
"There he is!" cried the two young ladiesunisono, trembling like a couple of deer when a shot is fired in the wood.
Another knock.
"What shall we do?" whispered Helen, who seemed to have lost all her self-control.
"Of course we must say: 'Walk in!' What else can we do?" replied Sophie, laughing involuntarily. "Walk in!"
The person who entered was probably unable to recognize the ladies in the half-dark room; he remained standing near the door, as if he hesitated.
"Come nearer, doctor," said Sophie, holding Helen's hands. "I must ask your pardon for receiving you in the dark; but we will have light directly."
Oswald had approached her as she said these words, and had bowed to the ladies. Evidently he had not yet recognized Helen, who stood aside, looking towards the window.
"I have to ask pardon," he said, "for I fear I have interrupted the ladies. But as I found nobody in the hall----"
Suddenly he stopped; the blood rushed to his heart. He shuddered all over. Was not the silent figure by Miss Roban, Helen? He approached a little nearer. There was no doubt; that head whose outline he had so often admired almost reverently, could belong to no one but Helen ... He hardly heard Sophie say "You do not recognize Fräulein von Grenwitz; I will go myself to order lights." He heard the door close behind Miss Roban; he only knew that he was alone with her. He knelt down before her and seized her hand to cover it with burning kisses.
The surprise and the darkness favored Oswald's boldness. Helen trembled so violently that she could not prevent him; she had barely strength enough to say:
"For God's sake, Oswald, get up! I pray you, get up!"
It was high time, for at that moment Sophie returned, followed by a servant who brought a lamp.
Oswald succeeded in checking his emotion. Helen turned to the window, under the pretext that the sudden light was dazzling her eyes, and looked down upon the street, while Sophie explained Franz's absence.
"Then I will not deprive the ladies for another moment of the enjoyment of a friendly chat," said Oswald, bowing to take leave.
"Why, Doctor," said Sophie, gayly, "are you such a foe to friendly chats that your presence must need make an end to them? You ought rather to sit down and do credit to Franz, who calls you the most entertaining companion he knows. Come, Helen, take a seat here by the fire-place. Miss Mal will not cry too bitterly if you stay a little longer."
Oswald had just been about to accept the offered seat; but when he heard that Helen possibly might not stay, he contented himself with a silent bow, to acknowledge Sophie's invitation.
"Thanks, dear Sophie," said Helen, turning round from the window, "but I must really go--another time."
She had apparently regained her usual calmness; only a very acute observer might have noticed in the deeper red of her cheeks the last trace of past emotion, and in her cast-down eyes the desire to conceal the latter from observation.
Oswald, who was looking around for the means to retain Helen a few moments longer, saw the piano open, and music lying upon the desk. He took up the first piece he found; it was Robert Schumann's composition.
"Oh pray, pray, Miss Helen," he said, "if you have a minute to spare, sing this song. It deserves to be sung by you!"
"We have just sung it over," said Sophie; "it is really very fine, and Fräulein von Grenwitz sings it beautifully. Will you sing it, dear Helen?"
If there was a question of music, no one was more eager than Sophie. Taking Helen's consent, therefore, for granted, she had placed the music on the stand, taken her seat on the edge of the piano-stool, as she liked to do, and was looking expectingly at Helen, while she played a few bars of a prelude.
Thus Helen saw herself forced to lay aside her hat, which she was already holding in her hand, and to step up to the piano, although she felt at that moment little disposed to sing, since her young, full heart was still trembling under the effect of the passionate scene which had just taken place.
Oswald stood a few steps off, leaning with folded arms against the mantelpiece, his eyes fixed immovably on the two slender forms. And, indeed, the sight was such as to arrest his attention; a more charming one could hardly have been found.
One might have doubted at that moment which of the two was--not the more beautiful, for Helen was indisputably the fairer--but the more interesting. The harmony of most lovely features, the velvety softness of a dark complexion, and the bluish blackness of her rich hair--all this spoke in favor of Helen, and seemed to raise her to inapproachable heights of beauty; but the expression in Sophie's face as she sat there, given up to her music, now bending over the keys, and coaxing out, as it were, the soft notes, and now looking up as if she was following the escaping sounds in the air, would have been ample compensation for him who finds the greatest beauty in the most spiritual expression. As a favorable glance of sunlight may often pour over a landscape, which has no charms of its own, a marvellous beauty, so the noble, art-loving soul of the girl lighted up and made brilliant her face, which was far from being really beautiful. There was something of Beethoven's nature in it--the meteoric light which the freed spirit of man casts through the vast night of sensuality into the unbounded regions of eternal brightness. And, strangely enough, in the same measure in which music heightened the expression in Sophie's face, it softened the harshness in Helen's energetic beauty, by giving her proud features a mildness which they never showed in ordinary life. The harmony of sweet notes awakened there the slumbering genius, and put here the demon of pride and ambition to sleep, so that the poetic excitement benefitted both, though in quite opposite ways.
So it seemed to Oswald, while his eyes rested on the charming picture of the two girls at the piano. Helen seemed to him almost a stranger; he had to become once more familiar with her beauty; and yet, it did not make the same overwhelming impression upon him as before. He ascribed this partly to the unaccustomed surroundings, partly to the attractive form of Sophie, which interrupted him in his devotion. He did not know that since he had seen Helen last, the mirror of his soul had become dim, and was no longer able to reflect a pure image purely. In vain he tried to catch a glance from Helen. If Sophie was so entirely given up to her music that she had really forgotten his presence, Helen seemed at least to be in the same state of mind. She did not raise her eyes from the music. Oswald rejoiced at it. He concluded from it that his stormy greeting was, if not forgiven, still also not yet forgotten.
They had drifted, as is apt to happen in such cases, from one song into a second, and from that into a third and fourth. But suddenly Helen declared she must go home now. Oswald, who thought that of course a servant from the institute was waiting outside, was just considering how he should manage to ask her permission to see her home, when Sophie's question: "but you cannot go home alone?" relieved him of his trouble. What was more natural than that he should make his bow and politely offer his arm to Fräulein von Grenwitz, and that Fräulein von Grenwitz should accept it with a haughty bend of her head!
Sophie was just buttoning the young lady's velvet cloak, and tying a white fichu around her neck, "that your voice may not come to harm, Helen!" and Oswald was standing, hat in hand, by her side, when the door opened, before any one had heard a knock, and in walked Mr. Bemperlein.
Oswald, who was standing with his back to the door, only became aware of Bemperlein's presence when he heard Sophie's greeting: "How do you do, Bemperly?" and turned round to see the new comer. At the same moment Bemperlein recognized Oswald.
They had not seen each other since that night in which Bemperlein had come to carry Melitta to Fichtenau and surprised the lovers in the park. They had then parted in cordial friendship; and now, after so many weeks, when they saw each other again, neither offered his hand to the other, neither greeted the other with a smile, nor with a hearty word of kindness. Their whole welcome consisted in a formal bow and a few indifferent phrases, so that Sophie, who had thought Oswald and Bemperlein were intimate friends, was not a little surprised and did not exactly know what she ought to do in such an unforeseen case. However, the embarrassing situation was not to last long; for Sophie had scarcely introduced Mr. Bemperlein to Fräulein von Grenwitz who either did not recollect the tutor, whom she yet had often enough seen at Berkow, or did not choose to acknowledge it in words--when Helen and Oswald left the room. Sophie went as far as the door with them, while Bemperlein remained standing near the fire-place, his hands on his back, and his eyes rigidly fixed upon the ground.
It was almost night when Helen and Oswald found themselves in the ill-lighted street.
"What way shall we go?" asked Oswald.
"I thought there was but one way?"
"Oh no! we might go the way by the ramparts. It is nearer and more pleasant walking there than on the rough pavement."
"As you like it!"
"Will you take my arm now?"
It was the first time Oswald had had an opportunity to take Helen's arm. He took pains not to shorten the pleasure of walking arm in arm with the girl he loved through the dark night. The way he had proposed was not only much longer, but also much darker. It led between the walls of the city and the ramparts of the fortress--a pleasant walk in summer and by day, but very unattractive on a dark autumn evening.
"It is darker than I thought," said Oswald, when they had left the damp gate in the city wall, where the last lamp was burning, and had reached the ramparts; "had we better turn back?"
"Not on my account; I like it quite well so."
"At least, please wrap yourself up well in your cloak; the wind is blowing very keen from the sea, and the air is damp and cold."
They went on for a few moments in silence. The dry leaves of the trees, with which the walk was covered, rustled under their feet; plaintive sounds were heard in the air; it sounded like the groaning and sighing of a shivering patient.
"How must it look now in the Grenwitz park?" asked Oswald.
"I was just thinking of it," replied Helen.
"I wish I could be there at this moment!"
"What would you do there?"
"I would saunter through the familiar walks, between the yew-hedges in the garden below, and under the beech-trees on the wall above, and talk with the slender crescent of the moon, as it dances in the clouds, and with the night-wind as it blows through the branches and around the castle, of the blissful hours that are no more, and can return no more."
"Then you like to think of Grenwitz."
"Why should I not? Have I not spent the happiest days of all my joyless life there? What do I care now for all the bitter drops that fell into the cup of intoxicating sweetness? I know nothing more of them. I feel as if I had lived then for the first and last time of my life, and as if I had since died together with the flowers in the garden and with the sunlight that was playing in the morning on the dewy branches and scattering strange shadows on the paths. Happy he whose life really came to an end with that precious summer."
"Happy indeed!" whispered Helen.
"Yes, happy! He enjoyed for an hour the sight of what was most beautiful, most glorious to him, and then he passed away like the rosy breath of morning in the rays of the much-beloved sun. He was relieved of the burden of the oppressive heat and the stifling dust of noon. He needed not cover himself shuddering against the sharp evening wind; he did not see the beautiful, gay world sink into weird darkness. Pardon me, I pray, Miss Helen; this is the second time to-night I am carried away by the recollection of my departed darling. But I cannot tell you how strangely the sight of you and your presence recalls to me his memory. The scarred wounds bleed afresh, and the dry eyes begin to weep once more."
"Is it not so with me too?" said Helen, and her voice trembled.
"Then you loved him too? But no, I did not mean to ask you that. How could you help loving him--fair and brave, good and marvellously lovely as he was, and when he loved you so! loved you inexpressibly! Oh, Miss Helen, do you really know how dearly he loved you? Do you know that he loved you unto death--that he loved you more than his own life?"
"I know it," said Helen, in a whisper.
"More than his life," continued Oswald, passionately; "beyond death. It was on his last day, a few hours before his death, that he showed me a medallion with a lock of your hair, which he wore in his bosom, and begged me to place it in his grave by his side. I was not able to fulfil his wish. You know that I left the castle the next morning, not knowing whether I should ever put my foot inside again, whether I should be allowed to watch over my departed darling till his last moment. I could not bear the terrible thought that the precious jewel might fall into profane hands; I took it therefore, with the intention to hand it to you, who alone have a legitimate claim to it. I still have it in my keeping. When do you desire me to send it to you?"
They had passed through the gate of the fortress, and were now walking down a street in the suburb, beneath tall, whispering poplar-trees. Oswald tried to read Helen's face by the uncertain light of the moon, which was just peeping out from behind drifting clouds. She looked pale and deeply moved. Her arm rested more firmly on his arm, when she replied, after a pause,
"Is the medallion very dear to you?"
"Can you ask me?"
"No, no! do not misunderstand me; I am not insensible; not ungrateful for love and friendship. Keep the medallion! Keep it in memory of your--of our darling!"
"Only in memory of him? It is your hair, Miss Helen; and only in memory of him?"
"And--of me!"
Oswald took the small hand which was resting on his arm and carried it to his lips.
"You make me very proud and happy," he said. "I have done nothing to deserve so great a favor; but then, on the other hand, would grace be grace if it could be deserved?"
"You are overwhelming me with your modesty. You wish me to thank you for all your kindness, as I ought to thank you, and yet am not able to do. You have always been very kind to me; you stood by me when even my nearest relatives rose against me, and at the very last----"
"I did nothing but what I would do again at the peril of my life. But here we are at Miss Bear's house. Is the gate locked?"
"No."
They went through the small garden up to the house-door. Oswald rang the bell.
"Shall I see you again?"
"I go often to Doctor Rohan's!"
The door was unlocked from within.
"Good-night!"
"Good-night!"
Oswald seized Helen's hand and pressed it passionately to his lips.
The door opened.
"Till next time!" whispered Oswald.
"Till next time!" replied Helen, in a still lower tone. Oswald thought she mentioned his name also. The next instant she had disappeared in the house.
Oswald went back into the town in a state of excitement which was by no means altogether joyous. Pure, chaste joy could no longer enter his heart--as little as we are able to play a correct air upon an instrument out of tune.
Thus he reached town. Where Market street opens upon the square all the windows were brilliantly lighted up in the corner house, carriage after carriage drove up to the door, dressed-up ladies and gentlemen stepped out and disappeared under the lofty portal. When Oswald, walking close to the house, had come immediately in front of me door, another carriage was driving up. The driver checked the fiery horses too violently, and the servant, who was just jumping down from the box, was thrown violently upon the ground. He gathered himself up immediately, but the pain was probably too great--he remained immovable, as if stunned. Oswald, who had seen that there was only a lady in the coupé, who had already risen, expecting the door to be opened, seized the bolt, opened the door, and offered his hand to the lady, who, placing her hand in the well-fitting white glove unsuspiciously upon his arm, came down in a cloud of tulle and laces.
At that moment the light from the interior of the house fell brightly upon the lady and Oswald, and the former uttered a cry, remaining motionless, and staring at Oswald with wide, open eyes.
A deep blush overspread her face, her eyes flamed up--was it love or was it hatred, who knows? Her lips trembled; evidently she had been overcome with surprise.
The poor servant, who came limping up, hat in hand, broke the charm.
"Pardon me, my lady----"
Oswald's face showed an ironical smile.
"I congratulate you,my lady," he said, offering his hand to escort her up the steps.
Oswald felt the slender fingers grasping his arm very firmly.
"Was it not your will?" she whispered. And now he knew that the great gray eyes had flamed up with love, and not with hatred. "Many thanks! Let me see you soon. I promise you Cloten will receive you well!"
They had reached the last step.
Oswald bowed.
"Then I shall see you again?"
"I will come!"
The young lady entered the house. Oswald went down the steps, past the lame servant, who was still rubbing his knees, and looked wonderingly at his improvised colleague.
Oswald laughed aloud as he went on: "Emily Breesen--Frau von Cloten! And merely because I would have it so! And if I should not wish it to be so any longer--what then?"