While the small company in Frau von Berkow's rooms in the second story had been so suddenly and so terribly startled, there was a young lady sitting quietly in a room a story higher, who had only arrived at the house a few hours before with her husband (at least they took the young man who had accompanied her to be her husband). As the luggage was marked "Paris," and the gentleman had spoken French to the lady, the people of the house took it for granted that they were French, especially as the hotel was always full of French travellers. Mrs. Captain Black, the owner of the hotel, had herself shown the strangers to their rooms, and as the young lady seemed to be tired and suffering, she had asked her very kindly if she could do anything for madame? The young man (the young lady did not open her lips) had asked her to send up some tea, but declined all other assistance. Soon afterwards the young man had left the house.
He had not been gone five minutes when a cab, which had been waiting at a little distance up the street ever since the strangers had arrived, drove up to the house. A young man stepped out and asked the porter if a gentleman and a lady who had arrived from Paris perhaps a quarter of an hour ago were at home? When the porter replied that the gentleman had just left, remarking he would be back in an hour, but that madame was, as far as he knew, in her rooms. The young man asked him to show him up at once. The porter--a man of great experience--saw that the young man, who evidently belonged to the higher classes of society, was in a state of great excitement; and as nine o'clock at night did not seem to him the most suitable hour for visiting a lady who, besides, was alone in her room, he replied that he did not think the lady could be seen now. Would not the gentleman be pleased to call again to-morrow morning?
"I am in a great hurry," said the young man; "I--I must see the young lady--on family business. Will you be good enough to inquire if she receives company, and carry this--this card?" he added, after some reflection.
With these words he took a small card-case from his pocket and gave the porter a card. It had on it the name of Adolphus Baron Breesen.
The young man's hand trembled so violently as he gave him the card, and his face looked so pale and disturbed, that the porter was more convinced than ever that all was not right, and that the interview of the newcomer with the French lady was probably possible only at the expense of the gentleman who had gone out.
"Why, I forgot," he said; "there is the key! They are both out."
The young man still held the case in his hand.
"I am sure," he said, drawing a gold-piece from a side pocket and slipping it into the porter's hand, "that the lady is at home, and that she will receive me when she sees the card."
The porter was an honest man, but he had a large family, and to-morrow the school-money for his two eldest children was due.
"Third story, second door in the passage, on the left," he said, grumbling.
The young man did not wait for more. He ran up, taking three steps at once, and knocked at the door.
"Entrez!" answered a low voice.
When her companion had left her, to take a stroll through the streets, the young lady had remained seated where she was, immoveable, her head supported in one of her hands, and the other hanging listlessly by her side. The light of the two wax candles on the table fell bright upon her face. The face was evidently a lovely one when it beamed with joy and exuberant spirits, as it was wont to do; but now it was pale, and disfigured by much weeping. The large gray eyes stared fixedly at the ground, the beautifully arched brows were painfully contracted, and the lips closed firmly. Mechanically she said "Entrez!" when the waiter knocked to bring tea; she did not even look up while he set the things upon the table; and he had to ask twice if she had any more orders before she answered a short "No!" She had totally forgotten that he had been there as soon as the door closed behind him, and when another knock came she said, quite as mechanically as before, "Entrez!"
"Emily!"
The young lady started up with a cry, and stared with wide-open eyes at the young man who stood before her, as if she had been suddenly roused from a deep sleep and did not know whether she were still in a dream or saw what was real before her.
"Emily!" the young man said once more, and opened his arms.
"Adolphus!" she cried, and threw herself on his breast.
The two held each other embraced as they had done in the days of their childhood when the brother came home during vacations, and the sister had gone to meet him at the park gate.
But the days of childhood's innocence were long past. Emily tore herself from her brother's arms, and cried, stretching out her hands as if to keep him away from her,
"Where do you come from? What do you want here?"
"Can you ask that, Emily?" he replied, sadly; "What I want here? You! Where I come from? From Paris; where I have searched for you months and months; where I found a trace of you at last, just as you were leaving town, and from whence I have followed you from town to town, from hotel to hotel, without ever succeeding in finding you alone. Not that I am afraid of him!" said the young man, unconsciously drawing himself up proudly to his full height, "but I wanted to speak to you kindly and gently, and I knew I should not be able to do that in his presence."
Adolphus approached his sister to seize her hand. She stepped back.
"What do you want of me?" she murmured.
"Emily!" he said, sadly; "is that your old love? Emily! child! come to yourself! What else can I want of you than to free you of these chains, which must have long since become intolerable to you! Oh, do not say no! I see it in your eyes, I see it in your dear, pale face, that you are very unhappy! Emily, sister! darling sister! come with me! By our old father, who is dying for grief and sorrow; by the memory of our sainted mother; by all you hold sacred, I beseech you, come with me!"
Emily had thrown herself into a corner of the sofa, sobbing and hiding her face in her hands. Adolphus knelt down before her. He took both of her hands in his own; he kissed her brow and hair and eyes; he spoke to her with that eloquence which even the simplest of men find when their heart is full of true love. He told her that he did not mean to carry her back to her husband, whom he could not respect, and whom she had married against his wishes; that she should not even return home if she did not wish it; that he would take her to Italy--anywhere. He tried every chord in her soul which he thought would vibrate under his touch, but for a long time it was all in vain.
"I cannot leave him!" she repeated over and over again, amid tears and sobs.
"But, for Heaven's sake, Emily!" cried the young man, "is it possible that such a folly can last so long? Is it possible that you still love this man?"
"Yes; yes! I love him; love him better than I ever did before!"
Adolphus started up and paced the room for some time. Then he came once more to Emily and said,
"I must believe it, since you say so; but Emily, upon your honor--for it is your honor now which is at stake--answer me this question: Are you as sure of his love?"
Emily's only answer was more violent sobs; and crying bitterly, she shook her head.
"Oh God!" said Adolphus bitterly; "have you fallen so low that you follow a man who no longer loves you? to whom you are a burden? who would give much to get rid of you again? Is this my proud sister? Well, well! I shall have to break my coat of arms, and to cast down my eyes before every wretched creature in the streets, and take it in silence if anybody calls me a coward!"
The young man beat his forehead with his hand, and tears of wrath and shame filled his eyes.
Emily started up from the sofa.
"Come!" she said hurriedly. "Come! You are right! I am a burden to him. He will be glad to get rid of me. Come!"
"God be thanked!" said Adolphus.
"Let us go this instant!" cried Emily, following up her resolve of the moment in her usual passionate manner. "I do not wish to see him again. I will write to him----"
"Yes, yes!" said Adolphus. "Here is a leaf from my pocket-book; pen and ink are here. Write to him, but just a few words."
Emily sat down at the table; but she had only written a few words when she broke out once more in violent weeping.
"Oh God! Oh God!" she said, dropping her pen; "I cannot do it."
"Let me do it," said Adolphus, taking the pen; "I will do it. In the meantime get your cloak; I shall be done in a moment."
While Emily was getting ready, Adolphus wrote rapidly a few lines. He was not generally very expert in such things, but now the words came, as it were, by themselves.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes!"
They went down. No one met them.
Adolphus gave the porter the keys to the rooms.
"Tell the gentleman, when he comes home, that the lady has gone out and will probably not come back again."
Adolphus had put Emily into a cab.
The cab drove up with unusual rapidity.
"Hem!" murmured the porter, as he hung the key to No. 36 again on its hook on the board; "I thought at once it would be so. Well, I cannot keep the people if they must needs run away."
In William street, the real Faubourg St. Germain of the great city, Prince Waldenberg's head steward had bought shortly before New Year one of the largest and finest town mansions, the owner of which had recently died. The prince himself, who came soon afterwards from Grunwald, had superintended the inner arrangements, and pushed them so rapidly, in spite of the magnificent style in which they were carried on, that he could move in with his numerous household before the end of January. He took one wing for himself; the other wing remained unoccupied, as he did not wish to anticipate the desires and the good taste of his betrothed, who was to leave Grunwald with her mother in the beginning of the month and to come to Berlin. The upper story, however, was full of workmen and upholsterers. Here his mother, the princess, was to stay and to receive company.
He was gratified to see this part of the house also fully furnished and ready for her reception when he left the town on the first of March for the harbor of Stettin, where the steamer from St. Petersburg was expected in a day or two. At the same time his steward had engaged a suite of rooms at the Hotel de Russie, Unter den Linden, for his father, Count Malikowsky, who was expected from Munich.
It was the same evening on which the above mentioned events had taken place in the furnished lodgings in Broad street.
In one of the magnificent rooms of the Hotel Waldenberg, in a well-padded easy-chair, which had been moved quite close up to the bright fire burning in the fire-place, the Princess Letbus was reclining. The prince stood by her, bending his tall form down to her, as if to spare his mother even the trouble of speaking loud. As the fire was blazing up brighter, so that brilliant flashes of light fell upon the two figures, the group with its background of tall mirrors and costly pictures would have formed a superb subject for the hand of a modern Rembrandt. It would not have been easy to find two more striking representatives of frail womanly beauty and overpowering male strength than the forms of mother and son. While the latter, with his broad shoulders and long muscular arms, looked as if he were made to perform the labors of Hercules, the lady, sitting bent and drooping, and wrapped up in costly furs in spite of the blazing fire, might have suggested that even the weight of a fly could have been troublesome to her. Nor was there any resemblance to be traced in the features. Although the lips were languid and the cheeks faded; and although the brow of the lady, who could hardly be over forty, looked narrow between the sunken temples and beneath the dark hair with its numerous silver threads, the connoisseur could still see that these lips and these cheeks must have once been of surpassing beauty, and that the hair once upon a time furnished a frame of glorious curls around a blooming face of marvellous perfection. The large black eyes were very beautiful still, when she raised her long silken eye-lashes, which she ordinarily held drooping, and a deeper emotion brought back for a moment the fire which had shone in them in days gone by, with too great lavishness, perhaps, and fatal danger. There could have been no stronger contrast with this soft melting beauty than the low forehead of the prince, half hid under thick, crisp curly hair, which stood in perfect harmony with the coarse though energetic lines of his face. And yet in spite of this thorough difference in their physical natures, mother and son felt for each other a tender affection, which in the former almost rose to enthusiasm, and in the latter formed almost the only sentiment which acted as a counterpoise to his boundless pride, and the prevailing passion of his energetic but unintelligent mind.
"Good-by, dear mamma," said the prince, bending still lower, and carrying his mother's feeble hand to his lips. "It is time for me to go, if I do not mean to be too late at the station; the train will be in."
"Adieu, my dear son," replied the princess. "Welcome your betrothed in my name. Tell her she will find a second mother here. Has the count consented to be present when the ladies come?"
"Yes, dear mamma."
"Well, then, my dear son, go with God; and may He bless your going out and coming in!"
She breathed a kiss on the brow of the prince, who then arose and noiselessly stepped on the thick carpet to the door.
The princess remained deeply imbedded in her easy-chair after her son had left her. There were evidently no pleasant thoughts passing through her mind at that moment, for her features became darker and darker, and the black eyes stared more fixedly than ever at the blaze in the fire-place, so that they shone like weird fires in the flickering light, and contrasted almost painfully with the pale face. At last a shudder seemed to pass over her and to rouse her; she rang the tiny silver bell that stood close by her on the little buhl table.
Immediately her first waiting-woman, Nadeska, entered the room.
Nadeska was a serf, who had grown up with the princess, and gradually made herself indispensable to her mistress by her pliant submission, and especially by her perfect skill in carrying on all kinds of intrigue. The princess had, in her somewhat stormy youth, required the assistance of such a person; and when she became afterwards a devotee, being sick in body and soul, she was not disposed to dismiss a servant who had always been near her person, and knew, therefore, all her secrets in their minutest detail. And, besides, Nadeska had always been faithful to her, and even made many a sacrifice for her. Only once, in one of the most serious difficulties to which the princess had been exposed by her evil inclinations, had she suspected her of having played false. But Nadeska had sworn by all the saints of the almanac; and as there was no evidence against her, her mistress had at last received her back again in her favor.
"What does your grace desire?" asked Nadeska, in a tone of voice which betrayed, through all its deep respectfulness, a certain familiarity.
"Have the candles lit in the rooms, Nadeska; and, you hear, let all the servants be called together to receive the ladies in the great hall. Whom will you give them for their personal attendants?"
"I thought Katinka, Mademoiselle Virginie; and, among the German girls, Mary and Louisa."
"Very well. You will receive the ladies yourself at the door, and show them to their rooms."
"Has your grace any other orders?"
"No, Nadeska."
The woman courtesied and went to the door. When she was quite near it, the princess called her back. She came again to her chair.
"Did you notice the count this morning, Nadeska?"
"Yes, your grace."
"Did you observe anything particular?"
"He looked more dandyish, and was rouged more than formerly."
"Nothing else?"
"No!"
"Nadeska, I am terribly afraid he is plotting against us."
"You have always feared so, your grace, every time the count has come to see you; and you are especially afraid now, because you were positive he would not accept the invitation of the prince."
"Well, does it not look like mockery that he is coming? What does he want here? But that is not all. He asked me yesterday again for an enormous sum of money."
"Which I hope you gave him."
"No, Nadeska; my patience is exhausted, as well as my exchequer. Michail tells me he cannot procure the money."
"He must get it. Consider how much is at stake!"
"But this tyranny is intolerable!" cried the princess, and her large black eyes shone in the reflex of the fire like burning coals.
Nadeska shrugged her shoulders.
"What can you do? You know the count hates you as much as the prince. If he does not indulge his hate, and if he does not utter the single word which would part mother and son forever, it is not from fear of the disgrace--when has the count ever minded disgrace?--but from fear of poverty, which he hates still more. Let him find out to-day that his silence is to be no longer profitable to him, and to-morrow he will speak!"
The princess knew that her confidante was perfectly right, and she groaned like a tortured prisoner, pressing her thin hands upon each other.
"Oh, Nadeska! Nadeska!" she whined; "why did the count come home at that unlucky moment! Why did you leave your post at that very hour, which was the decisive hour? If I had only had five minutes' warning the count would have found me alone, and with all the suspicions he might have, there would have been no more evidence then than at any previous time."
Nadeska was standing by the side of her mistress and a little back of her. This enabled her to make a scornful face before she replied,
"Your grace will pardon me, butthistime there was evidence, even without the sudden coming of the count. It was certainly an ugly accident that the birth of the prince took place just nine months after a strange man had thrown his father out of the window of his own bedroom!"
The remembrance of this tragi-comic accident dispelled for a moment the melancholy of the princess. The half-ludicrous, half-horrible scenes of that mad night passed very clearly before her mind's eye, and the image of the hero of the night--the man of the people, whom she, the high-born princess, had honored so highly--reappeared to her as he had appeared then, the beau ideal of exuberant vigor and manhood.
"I wonder if he is still alive?" she asked, quite lost in her recollection.
"Who, your grace?" asked Nadeska, who knew perfectly well of whom her mistress was thinking.
The princess made no reply, and Nadeska began noiselessly to light the candles in all the rooms. Gradually a voluptuous twilight spread over the salon in which the princess was, which grew brighter and brighter without losing its soft characters, for all the lights were burning in rosy shades. This was the only light which the irritable nerves of the princess could endure; and even during the day, which generally only began for her in the afternoon, the windows were invariably darkened with rosy curtains. Scoffers maintained that the princess avoided a bright light merely because her faded features and injured complexion could not well be exposed to bright day-light.
Nadeska had just lighted the last candle when the maid on duty slipped into the room and whispered something into her ear, for no message was brought directly to the princess.
"What is it, Nadeska?" asked the latter.
"The count wishes to see you," replied her confidante.
The princess trembled.
"What can he want?" she said. "He ought to be at the railway station."
"He probably mistook the hour."
"Maybe! Let him come; but stay in the room."
Upon a nod from Nadeska the maid went out, after waiting humbly at the door. Immediately a gentleman entered rapidly.
He was a tall, slender man, dressed with exquisite taste, who looked at the first glance as if he might be twenty-five, and grew older and older the longer one looked at him, until at last one was disposed to think him sixty years old. This required, however, a very careful examination, as his mask was finished down to the minutest details. His black hair and brows, his curly beard, his snow-white teeth, his broad shoulders and full hips, were triumphs of art; and if his valet had been able to give a little lustre to his eyes, to calm the paralytic trembling of his hands, and to remove the bad, tiny wrinkles which lay like diminutive snakes around his eyes. Count Ladislaus Malikowsky might still have been a dangerous man for women, at least for a certain class. He had been irresistible when a young man; but now nothing was left him of his youth but an insatiate desire for enjoyment, and a reckless profligacy, which went hand in hand with the cool, calculating prudence of old age.
This disgusting caricature of youth approached the princess, kissed her hand courteously, and said, while sinking carefully into one of the arm-chairs before the fire:
"You wonder, Alexandrina, that I do not appear with the others----"
"Indeed I do."
"Do not think it a want of consideration for the betrothed of my son"--the count uttered the last word with a peculiar accent, and never without showing his false, white teeth--"on the contrary, it is the very interest I take in the welfare of the young couple which brings me here, I may say, out of breath. A discovery which I have made--but, Alexandrina, may I beg that that person may leave the room; my communication is strictly confidential," whispered the count, bending over towards the princess.
"Leave us alone, Nadeska; but stay in the ante-room," said the princess.
"Alexandrina," said the count, when Nadeska had gone into the adjoining room to place her ear to the key-hole, "you were not disposed yesterday to help me in my embarrassment. I have lost heavily at cards, and my exchequer is exhausted. Well I might have been offended by your refusal, especially considering the peculiar relations existing between us. But for my part I know how to do with little, and I should not like, for anything in the world, to be troublesome to you, or to my son [here the white teeth actually shone]. I am all the more sorry, therefore, to have to appeal once more to you, not for myself in this case, but for one who has stronger claims than I have."
"I am not so fortunate as to guess even the meaning of your words," replied the princess, sinking back into her chair with half-closed eyes.
"Perhaps," said the count, drawing from his coat-pocket a letter, which he opened slowly, as his hands were tightly encased in close-fitting kid-gloves--"perhaps this letter, which was handed me half an hour ago by a young man, may give you the desired explanation. Permit me to read it to you."
The count did not wait for an answer, but adjusted his gold eye-glasses on his nose, and read, glancing every now and then over the paper at the princess:
"Most noble count:--At a moment when his highness, Prince Waldenberg, is bringing home his fair betrothed, the Baroness Helen Grenwitz, to present her to his mother, the princess, it cannot be but desirable that all the members of the family should be united by that harmony without which even less important festivities are often very sadly interrupted. You yourself, most noble count, set an example, when you kindly dropped a veil over certain events which took place in the night, from the 21st to the 22d November, 1820, in the Letbus mansion in St. Petersburg. I should like to follow your example, if circumstances permitted. But I have no alternative, and see myself compelled to present my business personally to you, or to trouble certain persons with it, who have special reasons for keeping certain matters a secret from his highness the prince. I beg leave, therefore, to address myself to his excellency, Count Malikowsky, as the most suitable person for an arrangement, with the request that immediately fifty thousand roubles in silver be paid me by his bankers in town; if not, I shall see myself compelled to present my request in person to his highness the prince.
"In the meanwhile (which I beg to limit to eight days from to-day) I remain, etc., etc., etc.,
"Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna.
"P.S.--If you should prefer to negotiate directly with me, I may be found every evening after 7 o'clock in the 'Dismal Hole,' Gertrude street. No. 15. The same."
"Well, what do you say, Alexandrina?" snarled the count, letting his eye-glass drop, and putting the letter back in his pocket.
"That the whole thing is a poor invention of yours."
"Comment?" exclaimed the count, with an astonishment which was not affected in this case.
"Do you really think, sir," said the princess, trembling with rage and secret fear, "there is a particle of truth in the whole thing, and that I would be caught in such an ill-made snare? That I do not see what it all means? That you have only thought of this impudent invention because I am unwilling to waste the rest of my fortune upon your mad dissipation?"
"Really, Alexandrina. Hearing you speak so, one might actually believe your conscience was as clean as my gloves. Why, you are blinded by anger, my dearest! Please observe, this letter contains things of which I have no idea, nor can have an idea,e. g., the name of the good man in question. You know I have never been so happy as to hear yet whose blood flows in the veins of my son" (the count's teeth were glittering in a perfectly frightful manner); "and besides, you have an infallible means to ascertain the genuineness of this letter. Send for the writer! Twenty-one years will hardly have changed him so much that you should not recognize him."
"You think I am not going to do that? You are mistaken. I insist upon your bringing me this man of straw, with whom you wish to frighten me. Give me the letter."
"Avec le plus grand plaisir!" replied the count "There! But, Alexandrina, I hope the interview will take place in my presence, or I shall not be able to contain myself for jealousy."
"Devil!"
"Oh, my angel! Do you call the man so to whom you owe so much?"
"Owe so much? to you? I, who picked you up from the gutter?"
"But I have given you my good name."
"Good name! A name dragged through every mean vice, and every blackest sin----"
"And yet good enough for the friend and----"
"Have a care!"
"Why? The heavens are high, and the czar is afar off. But you are quite right in demanding that too much importance should not be attached to this connection. The whole world knows pretty well that, in some respects, no rank or position came amiss to you."
"That goes too far. I----"
"Keep quiet,ma chére! I hear a carriage coming. No doubt, our dear ones. We must give them an example of conjugal love."
* * * * *
It was perhaps two hours later. Helen was wandering restlessly up and down in her superb room. Nadeska had left her, and the baroness, fatigued by the journey, had retired to her chamber. Helen could not sleep. Her soul was oppressed by an indescribable anxiety, which was all the more painful because so vague. She felt in the midst of all the splendor by which she was surrounded like a child in an enchanted castle, where in every corner into which the light does not penetrate fully, and behind every silk curtain gently waving in a current of air, some unspeakable horror might be lurking. Was this the realization of her proudest hopes? She could not get rid of the impression made upon her by her reception in the salon of the princess. She still felt her icy-cold lips on her forehead; she still saw the repulsive, impudent smile of the count and the dark frown of the prince. It was an uncomfortable spirit that dwelt in this house. And she had surrendered herself to this spirit; she had sacrificed to it her freedom, her young girl's dreams, her future! And what was she to gain in return! High rank, great wealth--how little all that seemed to her at this moment! How willingly she would have given it all up for the mere shadow of the unspeakable happiness she had enjoyed last summer, when she stepped from her cool apartments into the golden morning light of the park, and slowly sauntered about between the bright flowers, expecting at every turn around a shrub or a bosquet to meet Oswald! How far, how irrecoverably far, this was lying behind her! As far as the paradise of her childish years, which no longing of ours, no return of spring, can bring back to us! She was quite surprised, herself, that all her thoughts were wandering back to-day to Grenwitz; that a thousand little scenes, which she thought she had long forgotten, came back to her now: a walk with Bruno and Oswald through the fields when the evening sun was hanging low, like a huge ball of fire, near the horizon, and bright lights were playing fitfully over the golden grain, while the larks were jubilant high above them in the deep blue of the heavens. And again, one hot afternoon, when she had fallen asleep on a bench in a shady avenue in the garden, tired by the monotonous humming and whizzing of insects, she awoke at the moment when somebody--it was Bruno--was placing a wreath of dark-red roses on her head, while a few steps from them, somebody else--it was Oswald--was peeping from behind a tree. And ever it was Bruno and Oswald who gave life to the idyllic picture--Elysian forms in Elysian fields. Oh, were not both dead? Helen had suffered indescribably when Oswald's elopement with Emily had become the common gossip of Grunwald; for only now, when a whole world parted him from her, she felt how dear this man had been to her. She tried, it is true, to master her passion and to be reconciled to her fate, which she had after all brought upon herself. But she caught herself only too frequently comparing her betrothed with Oswald, a comparison which invariably resulted in the conviction that the former lacked everything which had made Oswald so attractive: the graceful, elegant carriage, the bright and yet so tender eyes, the deep voice with its gentle music, the ever-changing and ever-interesting expression of his face. She had never felt as deeply as this evening how little her heart had to say to her betrothed. She recollected with a shudder that when the drums had beat in the streets, when the war of the excited multitude had been heard from afar, and the prince had started up to hasten to his post, she had felt only that this gave her a good opportunity to retire to her rooms.
And the poor girl's heart grew heavier and her eyes dimmer. She thought she was thoroughly wretched; she pitied herself that she was so alone and had no one to share her sorrow. But had she not prepared her isolation herself? Had she not repelled good people, who had come to her with open hearts, by her cool politeness? How she now wished for good old Miss Bear; for clever, cordial Sophie Roban! But was not Sophie in town? Might she not look up the friend whom she had so sadly neglected during the last days in Grunwald? Helen clung to this thought, while she hid her beautiful face in the silken cushions;--proud Helen! who looked as if she could go on her path, lonely, like a bright star, unconcerned about the doings of poor men far down in their humble huts!
The excitement in town grew daily. In vain were troops massed by whole brigades, and held ready day and night in their barracks; in vain every assembly was dispersed with the bayonet, and the loudest criers arrested. Every day brought new and more serious disturbances. The assemblages of the people, especially on the large public squares near the palace, became more formidable; the threatening cries and whistlings and cheers of the masses were heard more frequently; and the soldiers, maddened by their incessant duties, could less and less resist the terribly provoking irritation. Paving stones on one side, and drawn swords on the other, encountered each other daily and hourly. The number of more or less seriously wounded persons which were carried to the public hospitals had become considerable. The last evening had been especially fearful. A detachment of cuirassiers of the guards, galloping forward with loose reins and drawn swords, had driven a large crowd of people into one of the smaller streets that opened upon the square near the palace, and at the other end a picket of dragoons prevented escape. There ensued a scene of fearful confusion and consternation in the crowd, thus hemmed in on both sides, while the men were forcing their horses pitilessly into the thickest, striking right and left with their heavy swords. The howl of anguish of women and children, mingled with the cries of rage of the men, and the curses of the soldiers, while imprecations and threats came down from the windows of the houses, where peaceful men were frightened at their quiet work. The commotion quickly spread further and further, and even in remote parts of the city groups were formed in the streets, when the report came that the imperial city on the Danube, generally looked upon as thoughtless and frivolous, had had a complete revolution, and that the oldest master of diplomacy, the cunning ruler of a whole generation of men, had at last been driven from the scene of his triumphs. A thousand cheers arose when the good news was proclaimed, and the great results which a month before would have been looked upon as impossible, were made known in detail. They asked one another why they should submit any longer to misrule and ill-treatment by a privileged caste, if it required but a firm resolve to establish freedom and equality among them.
While thus even the most indifferent were gradually drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, one man sat in apathetic calmness in his room, unconcerned about what was going on around him.
When Oswald returned the night before, after wandering aimlessly through the crowded streets, and found his room empty and Emily's letter on the table, he had laughed out so loud that an old lady who had been living next door for twelve years was frightened out of her first slumbers. Then he had thrown himself on the sofa. He was too wearied and exhausted to be able to sleep. But after a while he started up with a cry. He had dreamt that he was walking with Emily arm in arm by the side of a precipice, whispering of love and caressing her hand, and suddenly she had fallen away from his side down into the deep, from rock to rock into fearful abysses, from which now cries for help and groans of anguish were rising up to him. Oswald tried in vain to shake off the horrible image; it had imprinted itself too deeply on his over-excited mind. He would have sought rest and oblivion in sleep, but he felt no longer tired. A thousand thoughts and images were chasing each other wildly through his head, and he found himself unable to lay the weird ghosts. He could only look on. Scenes of former days ran into events of recent date, and the fat gentleman who had been in their coupé from the last station suddenly changed into the public crier of his native town, whose big bell he had followed often as a boy.
Oswald made a violent effort to rouse himself. He rang the bell and ordered the fire to be rekindled. Then he sat down before the blaze and recalled the first evenings at Paris, as they were sitting in their modest lodgings in the fifth story of a house in the Quartier Latin before the fire-place, and congratulated each other that at last they were "at home." They had tried to make each other forget their troubles and anxieties by jesting and caressing, and forming a hundred bright plans for the future. But the golden, hopeful future had become a dark, comfortless present; the jests had ceased, and the caresses had become colder and colder. And then came evenings when Oswald came home out of sorts and out of temper, having in vain called upon publishers who "could not avail themselves of" his manuscripts; when he found Emily in tears, and had to tell himself that he and he only was responsible for these tears. Then came wretched scenes, when regret at their own folly sought concealment under reproaches and accusations of fickleness and heartlessness, and the tender little flower of love was ruthlessly trodden under foot in the fierce encounter. And yet it had always been Emily who, good-natured and light-hearted as she was, and full of tender love for Oswald, had offered her hand to make peace. "I do not reproach you," she had often said; "I should be perfectly happy if I could but see you happy. But to see you unhappy, and unhappy through my fault, that makes me wretched." Had she spoken the truth? Oswald had then doubted it; now an inner voice told him that it was so, and that she would never have left him if he had not driven her from him. He took the letter he had found on the table and stared at the "Dear, dear Oswald!" written by Emily's trembling hand, and then marked out by another hand, and the two stains on the paper--the trace of tears she had wept at parting with him. Oswald dropped the letter into the fire, and groaned aloud as he saw how eagerly it seized the paper and consumed it, and the hot draft carried away the black ashes. So there was an end of that also.
And as he sat staring into the smouldering embers, his head resting in his hand, the fever spirits began their mad dance once more. Faces of marvellous beauty looked at him with large, loving eyes, and then changed in a moment into grinning negro grimaces; Rector Clemens and Professor Snellius came walking solemnly in grave converse and broke it off abruptly to dance a wild Mazurka; Melitta, Helen, and Emily floated by on a rosy cloud which changed into dismal rain, and the three witches of Macbeth were shaking their snaky locks. Thus the whole wearisome night passed away. When twilight began to peep in at the windows the spirits grew paler and paler. Oswald opened a window and let the cool morning air play around his heated temples. This refreshed him somewhat. But as the streets began to become more lively he closed the window again and let down the curtains; he wanted to see and to hear nothing of life, for he hated life.
Emily's escape had hardly been noticed in the house. The only one who knew more about it, the porter, felt no disposition to speak about it, as he was not quite sure of his own share in the matter. It was thought, therefore, that the lady had not been the gentleman's wife, as was first believed, but his sister, and that the other gentleman who had come for her had been her husband. The times, moreover, were too eventful to leave much room for such small matters.
Such were Mrs. Captain Black's ideas when she called next day at noon on Oswald, after the custom of the house. For it was the lady's notion that she ought to inquire in person after the welfare and the wishes of those of her guests who seemed to propose staying there for some time. This was partly a matter of courtesy with her, and partly prompted by her good old heart. She had a twofold interest in Oswald. The young man's appearance, the expression of his eyes, and the tone of his voice, had struck her, and reminded her wonderfully of long by-gone days, and of a person whom she had loved tenderly and whose loss she had never yet been able to forget. Then the young man came direct from France, from where that unfortunate young friend had also come, and where she had probably died. It is true the poor girl had never given a sign of life, and it was highly improbable therefore that she was still alive, but that did not keep Mrs. Black from feeling glad whenever a Frenchman came to her house, as it looked like another chance to hear something of the poor girl.
The good old lady was, therefore, not a little astonished and grieved when she saw how pale and haggard Oswald looked this morning, a mere shadow of the stately young man of last night. He had had a bad night to be sure. It must have been a very bad night to pull down a young man so grievously. Should she send for the doctor? No? But a cup of strong beef tea with an egg stirred in?Qu'en dites-vous, Monsieur?The good old lady tripped away to attend to the beef tea herself, as no one else could make it as well. And while she was busy about it she shook her gray head again and again, because Monsieur Oswald--the stranger had given that name--spoke German so very well, and looked so very sick and unhappy, and yet had some resemblance to the lost one. Her eyes filled with tears and she decided to ask him about the cause of his grief at the risk of being considered indiscreet.
With this desire she entered Oswald's room once more and found the young man in the same position in which she had left him. He was sitting on the sofa, his arms crossed on his bosom, his eyes staring fixedly at an old French engraving, in which Andromeda was represented chained to the rock and guarded by a dragon, while Perseus was coming through the air to her rescue, with the gorgon's head in his hand. He had noticed the picture in the early twilight, and long tried to find out in the imperfect light what it could mean, till at last, as day broke, he found it out. The engraving was extravagant, as most pictures of that epoch. Andromeda was rather too small, a mere child in comparison with the very tall and slender hero, who was just putting one foot on the rock and preparing to strike a blow at the monster, which opened its huge mouth wide and stared at him with basilisk eyes. Still, it was not without merit in the conception, nor without delicacy in the execution. The spark of hope which appeared in the girl's eyes and the whole of her childish, beautiful features, and the heroic indignation in the face of the youth, were well rendered; while the landscape--a lonely rock in the boundless ocean, with the sun rising above the horizon and the first rays trembling on the waves up to the rock--showed something of Claude Lorraine's cheerful vigor and grandeur. Oswald had looked at the picture again and again with a feeling of painful sadness. The beautiful meaning of the ancient myth--that bold courage carries the happy possessor with god-like wings over land and sea, that the hero overcomes danger by a mere glance, and finally that for him alone there blooms the sweet flower of love and beauty on the rude rock in the vast inhospitable ocean of life--all this had reminded the dreamer painfully of what he also had already called his own of love and beauty; but only, alas! to lose it in a short time and forever, forever!
Even now--when Mrs. Black at his request took a seat on the sofa, and told him all she knew about the excitement in the city, the bloody scenes which had taken place last night quite near by, in Brother street, the large assemblies of people Unter den Linden, and the sad times in which everything seemed to be turned upside down--even now Oswald could not take his eyes from the picture. The old lady noticed it and said:
"Yes! It was just so twenty-five years ago! It used to belong to a countryman of yours, a dear old gentleman who has lived here many years, and whom I loved like a brother. The picture is here, but he----"
She sighed so grievously that Oswald, whom his own sorrow had not made insensible to the sorrows of others, asked her kindly:
"He died, the old gentleman, did he?"
"I do not know," replied the old lady. "He went into the wide world in order to save a girl whom I had brought up as my own child; a sweet, lovely creature; but he did not come back, and she did not come back, and I grieve over my loss, although it is now nearly twenty-five years old. Have you, monsieur--ah! it is foolish in me to ask, but after all nothing is impossible in this world--have you, monsieur, ever heard anything of a Mademoiselle Marie Montbert and a Monsieur d'Estein?"
The old lady had asked the question so often, and received so often nothing but a curt:Non madame!in reply, that she scarcely noticed Oswald's regretful shake of the head, and continued with animation:
"Ah, I knew it was so! No one ever heard of them. The world is so large, and there are so many people in it! And in this great world and this multitude of people how soon are two unhappy beings forgotten!"
The manner of the old lady was, with all her ingenuousness, so refined and dignified; the deep-sunk eyes, still full of expression, looked so gentle and kind; and her voice had such a true, good sound, that Oswald felt strangely moved, and begged her with cordial warmth to tell him something more about the two persons whose unhappy fate she deplored so painfully after so long a time. Mrs. Black smoothed her black-silk apron, and told him in simple words a simple, touching story.
Her husband, a brave but wild and reckless man, had compelled her for years before he lost his life on the battle-field of Waterloo to provide for her own support. She had taken lodgings in the rear part of the building which she now owned, and rented out the larger part of the rooms to single gentlemen. She had always tried to keep up pleasant relations with her "foster-children," but with none of them had she been on as friendly a footing as with a certain Monsieur d'Estein, a descendant of French refugees, who supported himself by giving lessons in the tongue of his ancestors. Monsieur d'Estein was an old bachelor of kind heart but very eccentric, who had fallen out with the whole world, and yet shared his last mouthful of bread with any one who asked him for it. He had his own ideas about everything, and brooded constantly over plans how to overthrow the whole world, while he led all the time a most simple, harmless life.
Monsieur d'Estein had been living with her several years and had become a warm friend of hers, who listened patiently to all her complaints about hard times and domestic troubles, when one fine day a Colonel Montbert, of the French army, came and called on his relation, Monsieur d'Estein. The colonel was under orders for Russia--it was in 1812--and he was accompanied by a little daughter of eight, a lovely child, whom the father loved tenderly, and perhaps all the more tenderly as she stood perfectly alone in the world, and had no one on earth to love and protect her except her father. Until now she had followed the colonel in all his campaigns, but the brave old soldier trembled at the idea of exposing his only treasure to the dangers of a winter campaign, the results of which he might even then have anticipated. As he had been in Berlin in 1807, and had then made Monsieur d'Estein's acquaintance, he came now once more to ask him to take care of Marie till he returned; and if he should not return, there were the family papers, and a large sum of money in gold and bills of exchange; and the friends looked at each other and shook hands. The colonel kissed his little girl, promised to bring her a sleigh with two reindeer from Russia, kissed her once more, cried:Adieu, ma chère! Adieu, ma petite!mounted his horse and was gone.
Colonel Montbert never fulfilled his promise about the sleigh and the reindeer. His little girl waited and waited for the sleigh and the father till she was a tall young lady, but sleigh and father never came.
Marie had grown up a tall, fair girl, so beautiful that the whole neighborhood called her, unanimously, pretty Marie. She was a good girl too, with a good heart, that could be merry with the joyous and weep with the sorrowful. Her only fault was an over-active imagination, a fondness of strange, extraordinary things--an inheritance from her father, the French colonel of cavalry, whose adventurous, fantastic disposition Monsieur d'Estein said approached very near to insanity.
This peculiarity of the girl caused much anxiety to Monsieur d'Estein and to Mrs. Black, but especially to the former, whose plain, straight-forward mind was utterly averse to everything irrational or fantastic. "The girl ought to have no time for dreams," he used to say; "she must learn to think and to act. She ought to have a counterpoise to her gay dream-world in the prosaic reality of life. No man ought to live in castles in the air." According to these views he sketched out a plan of education for little Marie, with which Mrs. Black never could fully agree, in spite of the unbounded respect she had for Monsieur d'Estein's intelligence and character. Marie was to dress in the simplest way, like the children of humble mechanics; she was to learn every kind of domestic labor: and when she was grown up Monsieur d'Estein carried his oddity so far that he sent her to a respectable milliner. "One could never know but that it might become useful to her in after life." Mrs. Black shook her head, but she could not be angry at the old gentleman's odd notions when she saw how well he meant it, and especially how successful he was. For the girl grew brighter and fairer every day, and looked, in her simple calico dress and her plain straw bonnet, as refined and as distinguished as the greatest lady in the land.
Mrs. Black was proud of the girl. She had never had any children of her own, but she felt as if she could never have loved one of her own better. And was she not the child's mother? Had she not watched over her in health, and nursed her in sickness? And was the girl not as fondly attached to her as a daughter could be to a mother? Mrs. Black was almost jealous of this love (she had had so little love in her life) and did not like it that Marie had not evidently more confidence in her than in her adopted father. But the latter was, for his part, not less jealous. Mrs. Black even sometimes suspected that monsieur was cherishing very different feelings for his beautiful niece, as he called her, from those of an uncle for his niece, and that his system of education which confined Marie very strictly to the house, might have been prompted by other than pedagogic considerations. Monsieur was at that time only forty years old. It was the mere shadow of a suspicion, but subsequent events gave it strength.
One evening--it was a Sunday--monsieur returned from his promenade with Marie very much out of temper. Marie also looked excited, and showed traces of tears in her beautiful eyes. She went to bed as soon as supper was over, and Mrs. Black begged monsieur to tell her what had happened, till he at last consented.
Marie and he had been walking up and down in the long avenues of the public park, chatting cozily with each other, and had then gone into one of the public gardens, there to order some refreshments for Marie and himself. They had just taken their seats at a table when two gentlemen, who had before been sitting at a distance, had come and taken seats near them. Monsieur, who turned his back to them, had not noticed them, and only became aware of their presence when he saw Marie, who was talking to him, cast half-curious, half-embarrassed glances at somebody behind him. He turned round to see what was the matter. At the same moment one of the gentlemen approached their table. He was a remarkably handsome man--monsieur could not deny that, in spite of his irritation--a lofty, noble figure, a superb head, a fine though somewhat exhausted face, large deep-blue eyes, with a haughty and yet kindly expression. He lifted his hat and in very good French--monsieur and Marie had as usual conversed in French--he asked leave for himself and his companion to join their company. Monsieur was the most courteous man in the world, but he said there had been something in the manner of the distinguished stranger which had filled him instantly with a violent aversion against him, and he had therefore replied dryly and curtly that he and mademoiselle preferred remaining alone. Thereupon a slight altercation between him and the stranger had taken place, which ended in his rising and leaving the garden with Marie, pursued by the scornful laugh of the two gentlemen. From that evening Marie showed a decided change in her whole manner. Formerly gay and cheerful, she now hung her head, turned pale and red by turns, was at one time immoderately merry and at another time wretchedly sad. Neither Mrs. Black nor monsieur knew what to make of it. Misfortune would have it that monsieur must be taken sick just then, so that Mrs. Black had to spend nearly her whole time in his room nursing him, and Marie consequently was left much to herself. Formerly monsieur had regularly gone for her to the place where she learnt her profession; now she had to come home alone. What happened to her during these days, into what snares she had fallen, Mrs. Black never found out. But one morning, when she came to wake the poor girl, she found the room empty, and a little note on the table, in which the unfortunate child stated that irresistible reasons, which she could not now explain, compelled her to leave town; that she begged her benefactors with tears in her eyes to forgive her if she rewarded them for their great love with apparent ingratitude, and that she hoped to God the day would come, and come soon, on which all this sorrow would be changed into joy.
That day had never come, but the poor lady had suffered more and more. Monsieur had nearly lost his senses when he heard of Marie's escape, and had sworn a fearful oath that he would not rest an hour till he had rescued Marie from her miserable seducer and personally avenged himself on the man. Monsieur was the man to keep his word. The little weakly body harbored an energetic soul. This became evident now, when a ruthless hand had cruelly destroyed the happiness of his life. For Mrs. Black could now no longer doubt that the strange man had loved the lost one with all that intense passionateness which is so often found in such reserved, eccentric characters. He carried on his search with restless activity. Success crowned his efforts. He found traces. Where they led him? He said nothing about it, but observed the strictest silence upon the whole affair, even to his friend, Mrs. Black. He packed his trunks as if for a long journey, tore himself from her, promising to send her news in a week--and now twenty-five years had passed, and Mrs. Black was still waiting for a fulfilment of that promise....
The old lady had so completely abandoned herself to her own recollections that she had forgotten her first intention to inquire after Oswald's troubles. She was only reminded of this when she noticed how pale the young stranger's face had become during her recital.
"But you are really worse than I thought, dear sir," she said. "Your hand is burning hot, and--pardon an old lady--your forehead also is hot. Let me send for my physician!"
"I beg you will not do it," said Oswald, making a violent effort. "I must tell you: I have not slept a moment all last night, probably from over-fatigue during my long journey."
"Then you ought at least to lie down for a few hours," begged the old lady. "I know very well young people cannot do without sleep like us old people."
"I mean to do it," replied Oswald, as Mrs. Black rose. "You'll see a few hours' sleep will set it all right again."
"God grant it!" said the old lady, cordially pressing Oswald's hand once more. "Pray, pray, no ceremony! I will inquire again a few hours hence."
What had he been told just now? At the very first words of the old lady he had no longer doubted that this was the continuation of the story which mother Claus had told him in Grenwitz that evening when he and Timm had sought shelter in her hut. All the details agreed. Just as the old lady had described the strange gentleman, the portrait of Baron Harald looked now, put of its broad gold frame; and had not the beautiful poor girl, whom he had so sadly ill-treated, borne the name of Marie d'Estein, like the adopted daughter of Monsieur d'Estein?
But that was not the reason why his blood froze in his veins and his limbs shook as in violent fever. It was another terrible fear, which rose with demoniac power from the lowest depths of his soul. Was it the work of fever spirits--was it incipient insanity--which changed in his inflamed imagination Monsieur d'Estein, the eccentric teacher of languages, into his father, the strange old man? and the beautiful daughter of the French colonel into the lovely young woman with the sweet eyes, around whose knees he once used to play during bright summer mornings in the cosy garden behind the town wall, while the white butterflies were fluttering about the blue larkspur?
And mad thoughts chased each other once more in wild haste. Old, long forgotten thoughts awoke and answered clearly from long ago; strange doubts, that had troubled him as a boy and as a youth, came again, and said: There is the solution! So much that he had never been able to explain in his life became of a sudden quite clear to him. It had not been pure fancy, then, which made Mother Claus see in his face continually the features of Baron Oscar, "who fell with Wodan;" nor mere humor, when Timm declared, "You have the very face of the Grenwitz barons!"
Oswald darted up and went to the mirror. A deadly pale face with strange, wild eyes stared at him there. "See there! The evil spirit not laid yet! It has not had victims enough yet! Must there be many more sacrifices? Can a vampire die of his own venomous glance? A bullet? Eh! a bullet, nicely driven in at the temples--that might make an end to the gruesome story! But what will bring death really--a death from which the soul can never awake again?"
Oswald uttered a fierce cry. A hand seized his arm, and over the shoulder of his image in the mirror he saw a distorted face grinning at him.
"Oho!" said Albert Timm. "Are you going on the stage, dottore, that you stand before the looking-glass and rehearse monologues which might frighten an honest man out of his wits? Let me look at you in the light? Upon my word, you have a strange look about you. Little Emily, eh? You ought to be glad she is gone, before she made you a mere shadow of your shadow! You see, I know everything; and I know a good deal more; and I am going to tell you something that will make you wish to live again, you melancholy Prince of Denmark! But before I tell you, send for a bottle of port wine or something; I am as dry as a salted cod this morning."
Mr. Timm, as usual, did not wait for Oswald's answer, but rang the bell and ordered port wine and caviare. "None in the house? Go to the Dismal Hole, just around the corner, my man, quite near by. Give Mr. Albert Timm's respects to Mrs. Rose Pape, and come back in a trice, curly-headed youth!"
Mr. Timm's statement, that he had taken nothing that morning, was evidently untrue. He diffused a remarkable smell of liquor around him; his face was very red, and his eyes less bright than usual. Possibly he might have sat up all night; his whole appearance made it probable. His linen was less tidy than ordinarily, and the brown overcoat had evidently made the acquaintance of numerous whitewashed walls and stained tables. Mr. Timm's circumstances had not improved since Oswald had seen him last.
He did not deny it; on the contrary he raised, unasked, the veil from the unattractive picture of the last months.
"Ill-luck has pursued me step by step," he said, throwing himself on the sofa and stretching his legs. "At the very time when I made the discovery which I am going to tell you as soon as the wine comes, you disappeared from Grunwald, leaving not a trace. The next day the police caught us at faro, and--I was banker--confiscated all I had--several hundred dollars--which I needed sorely, since on the following day a bill of mine became due. I could not pay it, of course. The horrid manichean, to whom I owed the money, had me put in prison, and there I have been till about a week ago. How I got out? My landlord, the old scamp, at last bethought himself of going to Moses and threatening him with certain stories--well, never mind that! Here I am, a free man once more, and here comes the wine and the oysters. Come, Oswald, fill your glass! Hurrah for the brave! Man! I tell you I am beside myself at having found you out so soon. I was prepared for a long hunt. And now I am going to tell you a story that will make you jump out of your skin. Yes, out of you skin! For you will have to lay aside the whole miserable creature you are now and put on an entirely new man, whom I have made ready for you, without any merit or claim of your own, but from pure friendship on my part. And now another glass and I'll begin!" Mr. Timm pushed the plate with the oyster-shells, which he had quickly piled up, from him, and swallowed a full glass; filled it again, drew a bundle of papers from his pocket, laid them on the table before him, leaned his head on both arms, and with a loud hearty laugh at Oswald, he said:
"What will you give me,mon cher, if I change you from a poor fellow into the son and heir of a great baron, with a rental of ten or twelve thousand a year? But I see you are already nearly overcome. I do not mean to harass you any longer. Listen!"
There are moments in our soul's life when the overwrought brain looks upon the most extraordinary, the most fantastic events, as ordinary and quite natural occurrences. Thus it was now with Oswald. That Timm brought him the confirmation of his suspicions, that he proved to him in black and white that he had not dreamt, that he transformed a wild fancy into a legal, well-authenticated document--all this appeared quite natural to Oswald. There were Marie Montbert's family papers. Her real name was that of her mother, Marie Herzog, who had found her way to Paris, there to meet Colonel Montbert. And Oswald knew that his mother's family name was Herzog. There was a copy of the church-register, obtained by Timm's indefatigable activity and mysterious connections, which proved the marriage performed at St. Mary's between M. d'EsteinaliasStein, and Marie Elizabeth Herzog. And then the baptismal certificate: On the 22 December, 1823, a son was born unto Amadeus Stein and his wedded wife, Marie Herzog, who in holy baptism received the name of Oswald. There were the letters which Baron Harald had written to Marie during his residence in town in the spring of 1823; there Marie's letters to the baron; a letter written by M. d'Estein to Marie during the summer of the same year, in which he tells her that he has at last discovered her hiding-place at Grenwitz, and beseeches her by the salvation of her soul, to follow him when all shall be prepared for her flight, etc.
"You see," said Timm, "it is all right and complete, and you can trace every thread of this curiously complicated affair from beginning to end. The identity of the persons can be established by documents and by witnesses alike, for the evidence of Rose Pape alone would upset every argument on the adversary's side. She knew your mother and was present at your birth and at your baptism. The woman, it is true, is not willing just now to appear in court and to testify to facts which make her appear in an unfavorable light; but money makes the devil dance, and Mrs. Rose will speak out if she is well paid. That is no trouble, therefore. My only fear is that you have not energy enough for such a thing. I must tell you frankly, I thought at first it might not be wise to tell you anything at all about it, you have such very absurd notions about many things, and so I dropped the old baroness a hint or two, but she did not receive them very graciously, and----"
"In a word," said Oswald, and he turned still paler than he had been before, "you wished to sell your discovery to the baroness, and she did not pay you the price you demanded."
"Hear! hear!" said Albert, with sincere admiration. "You develop there a talent for business which I did not expect. Well, take it for granted it was as you guess; that will not prevent you from making proper use of your claims. But, dearestpericulum in mora! if you wish to become not only the nephew of the baroness but also her son-in-law, you must make haste. Things have come about which I foretold you last winter. Helen is engaged to Prince Waldenberg, and the engagement is to be made public in a few days here in town. Anna Maria arrived last night, and stays at Prince Waldenberg's house with the Princess Letbus, the mother of his highness. Now I have already dug a superb mine underground, in order to create a useful confusion in the enemy's camp, and we can begin the attack. I am as sure as of my own life that Helen has no fancy for the prince, and that she would say No! even at the last moment, if she knew that you are her cousin, and that she can recover the fortune she loses by the discovery, by marrying you. But she will not believe anybody who would tell her of the whole affair, except one man, and that man is--yourself. Oswald, consider the stake! One single bold step, and the girl whom you love--don't deny it!--whom you love madly, is yours. A fortune such as you never dreamt of is yours. You will have at once all that others spend a lifetime to gain; all that they would unhesitatingly risk their very life for! Surprise works wonders! Drive to the prince's house in William street; ask to see the young baroness; tell her, if it must be, in her mother's presence, not that you want to marry her--for that will come as a matter of course--but that you have made this discovery under such and such peculiar circumstances; and I will eat my own head if the girl does not fall upon your neck and let the prince go when he chooses."
Albert was prepared to see Oswald at first reject this adventurous plan altogether; for, suitable as it was for a man of Timm's character, and capable as he was of carrying it out boldly, he knew Oswald's hesitating disposition. His most sanguine hope was to find it accepted after a long discussion. Great therefore was his joyful surprise when Oswald, who had not said a word during the whole long explanation, now rose and said:
"You are right. There is but one way. I must go myself, and at once."
"Brother!" cried Timm, jumping up and enthusiastically embracing Oswald; "that is the most sensible word you ever spoke in your life."
Oswald shook himself free, with a shudder which Timm did not notice in his great excitement.
"Leave me alone now!" he said. "You see how very much I am surprised and shocked by your revelation. I must collect myself for the interview."
"For Heaven's sake; only no new scruples!" cried Timm. "Fresh fish is good fish! I am afraid, if I leave you, you will discover a thousand Buts!"
"I promise you upon my word I will go to her within an hour. I suppose you can leave me the papers? They might be necessary if the baroness makes opposition."
Timm cast a malignant, suspicious glance at Oswald. He did not like to give up the papers. If Oswald should play false; if--but there was not time to consider long; and there was something in Oswald's manner which made him shrink from making objections, a decisive firmness in the firmly-closed pale lips, a dismal fire in his large eyes. Timm had never seen him thus. It was no longer the old, fickle Oswald Stein; it was Baron Harald's son who was standing before him.
"Well," he said, "do as you please. I see you are determined to go the whole length! But, Oswald, if the enterprise succeeds, and I cannot doubt now but it must succeed, do not forget the man who has furnished you the means."
"You may be sure," said Oswald, with a strange smile, "that, as far as material advantages are concerned, you shall not fare worse in the matter than myself."
This promise moved the generous Timm so deeply that he was much inclined to embrace Oswald once more. But the latter made a gesture which looked not unlike disgust, but which failed to have any effect upon Timm. He only laughed, and said: "Well, I see you are learning your part. I will not detain you any longer. Good-by, Oswald! Play your part well. It is three o'clock now. At four I will come again and inquire how you have succeeded. Adieu till then."
Oswald paced the room slowly after Timm had left him. Then he went up to the engraving, and looked at it long and anxiously. "It is too late!" he murmured. "I cannot save her; I cannot set her free from the rock to which fate has chained her. But I will see her once more, and clear my memory of the disgrace with which this blackguard, no doubt, has loaded me. She shall not believe that I could use such unfair means. Who knows how far this man has used my name in order to attain his end."
He stepped to the table and arranged and folded up the papers. Then he began to dress himself for the proposed interview. It took him some time. He felt as if he were benumbed in all his limbs, and had to sit down more than once to let an attack of vertigo pass off. At last he was ready. He put the papers in his pocket and left the room.