While such scenes were taking place, Under the Lindens and the inhabitants of the adjoining streets felt a feverish excitement, so that the crowd scattered at the mere sight of an approaching force, merely however to reassemble at another temporarily safe point, and arrests were made in large numbers. The inhabitants of distant parts of the city dwelt in profound peace, utterly ignorant of what was going on elsewhere, and enjoying the calm monotony of an idyllic country village.
In a small one-story house in one of these quiet streets, which derived, from a garden before the door and a slight iron railing between the garden and the gate, somewhat of the appearance of a villa, there sat just before sunset two persons in eager conversation. A little aquarium with gold-fish stood near the window, a bright cage with a canary bird hung between the curtains, and flowers were seen all about in pots and in vases, so that everything bespoke the presence of a lady, although the inevitable work-stand was not to be seen. The man was not exactly young, although even the bald places at the temples would hardly have justified any one in calling him old; the lady was much younger. They conversed eagerly, like two good friends who have not seen each other for months, while in the interval events have happened of the greatest importance for both, which indeed may be said to have inaugurated a new epoch in their lives.
"And Franz is perfectly satisfied with his position here?"
"Perfectly! How pa would have been delighted, if he----"
The young lady did not end the sentence, but turned towards the window and busied herself with the flowers. The gentleman looked at her kindly through the glasses he wore, and after a while he laid his hand lightly on her arm and said:
"You must not only appear firm, my dear friend; you must be so;--you, the daughter of such a father!"
"You are right, Bemperly; I will try to be as firm and as reasonable as I look. But now let us speak of something else. What does Marguerite say to our new plan?"
"She is delighted--orcharmée, as she says. But I think it is less because our position will be better--although, quiteentre nous, a married student is a very remarkably amphibious creature--as because she will be able to be near you again. You do riot know what an impression you have made onma petite femme."
"She is so kind-hearted! And I have done so little for her; been able to do so little for her! I have, properly speaking, done nothing but tease her. Even that last evening--you recollect Bemperlein, when you appeared as author--when you kissed each other in the bay-window, when we drank the old hock, and pa afterwards gave his grand speech, the last I ever heard from his lips. Now only I know what it was that moved him so deeply. He took leave of us, not only for the moment, but forever."
Sophie tried to master the emotion which threatened to overcome her, and then she continued:
"I have done so little for Marguerite, and she has done so much for me! Do you know, Bemperlein, that I was weak enough to become quite jealous of the little one when I saw, in papa's letters, how very fond he was of her, and how he disliked the idea of your getting married even more than our own marriage?"
"And yet it was only by his assistance that we were able to marry; at least Marguerite is indebted to him alone for her trousseau and the furnishing of our house, both of which would otherwise have been almost out of the question. You know, I am sure, what I mean!"
"The Timm affair! Marguerite wrote me about it. What amazed me most was, that Timm should have returned the money so promptly."
"We were all astonished; no one more so than I, who knew best how overwhelmed he was with debts--a fact which led me to dissuade your father earnestly from making a useless effort. The whole affair has caused me,entre nous, a good deal of heart-ache; and little reason as I have to like Mr. Timm, I have still been quite sorry when I heard soon afterwards of his being sent to jail. He was unable, it seems, to pay a note long since due, and perhaps only because he had paid us. For all I know, he is a prisoner still."
"What!" said Sophie, "has my old admirer really come to that at last?"
"Your old admirer?"
"Yes; don't you know it? I went to the same dancing master as Timm; and I can well say that I liked him best of all with whom I talked or danced. He is an extremely clever man, and can be most agreeable when he chooses to be so. I am sincerely sorry that he should manage his great talents so very badly. He resembles in that respect----"
"Oswald Stein, you mean. Well, say on. I have fortunately mastered the feeling of bitterness which used to overcome me in Grunwald every time I heard the name mentioned. He does not exist any longer, as far as I am concerned, especially after his last adventures."
"That is hardly right, Bemperly. You know I never liked Stein particularly; but since you all rise in arms against him, and since even Franz, who used to excuse him so long, begins to chime in, I have a great inclination to take his part."
"Of course," said Bemperlein, with a slight touch of bitterness; "that is the old story. Women like a man the better, the worse he is. Even my Marguerite, who generally cannot bear him, breathed the other day apauvre hommein her softest notes!Pauvre homme!I should like to know what sensible man would think so of him. If a man rushes madly through life, acting not upon principle but upon impulse; if he must needs gratify all his caprices, and if he meets with difficulties breaks out in furious anger; if, instead of loving his neighbor like himself, he runs away by night with his neighbor's wife--they say of him, with tears of sympathy in their fair eyes:Pauvre homme!"
"Bravo, Bemperly," cried Sophie, almost with her old cheerfulness; "bravo! You could not preach better if you were yourself the happy neighbor! But tell me, has no one heard anything yet of the reckless couple?"
"As far as I know, no one? The earth seems to have swallowed them up."
"But how does the unlucky husband bear his misfortune?"
"Ah," said Bemperlein, almost angrily, "it is not worth while to sympathize with that class of people. They deserve nothing better, and reap what they sow. Just think, Miss Sophie--I meant to sayMrs.Sophie--this man, this Cloten, who, when Stein had run away with his wife, behaved himself as if he never cared to see the sun shine any more, not only found comfort in a very short time, but has inflicted the same injury on his neighbor's house that he himself suffered. Baron Barnewitz, Frau von Berkow's cousin--the one with the red beard, you know, and the broad shoulders. Oh, you must have seen him. No? Well, it does not matter--Eh bien!Baron Barnewitz comes home the other day at an unseasonable hour and finds--so gossip has it--the door to his wife's room locked, suspects mischief, breaks a window, pulls out the whole sash, rushes into the room and catches Baron Cloten, whom his wife is just pushing out at another door! Then follows an explanation; and the result is that Hortense has gone to Italy, and Baron Cloten, after keeping his bed for a week, has retired to his estates without taking leave of anybody."
"What a treasure trove that must have been for the good gossips of Grunwald!"
"You may believe it; almost as great as when Helen Grenwitz became engaged to Prince Waldenberg."
"How is that?"
"As far as I know, the solemn betrothal--I mean the official ceremony--is to be celebrated here in the city in a few days. Anna Maria told me recently that Helen would be here at the beginning of March."
"Then you are still keeping up your relations with the family?"
"I could not well find an excuse for giving up the lessons. Anna Maria honored me all the time with her special favor; and, besides, I have recently become better reconciled with her ways. I believe we have wronged her in many points. She has her very objectionable sides, no doubt; but, if we wish to be just, we must acknowledge also that her position is a very peculiar one. If she procures Helen a rich husband, she does after all only what every mother in her position would do likewise. And her circumstances are by no means as brilliant as they think. Since her husband's death she has nothing but a comparatively small annuity and the income from what she may have saved, but the whole amounts to very little in comparison with her former revenue. And if Malte should follow his cousin Felix's example, and die of consumption, she would lose even that--and the poor fellow looks shocking; he is nothing but skin and bones."
"Ah," said Sophie; "why, then Helen's marriage is almost a kind of necessity in the meaning of these people, although I am convinced it must be a very sad necessity for Helen."
"Why?"
"I will tell you in confidence. I think she had given her heart to somebody else when she accepted the prince. Would to God she had been less reserved towards me, perhaps it would all have come differently."
"Don't believe that! The girl has a kind of obstinate pride that no man can bend, perhaps not even fate. She will allow no one an absolute control over her decisions."
"Tell me, Bemperly, what is the truth of this report, that your Frau von Berkow and Baron Oldenburg are living on very intimate terms with each other?" asked Sophie, after a short pause.
"Nothing; nothing at all!" said Bemperlein, very earnestly. "I should like to know what people have to do with that. There is an old friendship between them, which dates back to the years when they were children. That is all. Then they are neighbors, and must needs see each other frequently--is not that perfectly natural? Why could not they marry each other if they liked it? Instead of that the baron goes to Paris, and leaves her, amid snow and ice, quite alone at Berkow. Does not that show as clear as daylight that there is no question of love between them?--or it must be a strange kind of love."
At that moment Sophie started with joy. She had caught a glimpse of a tall, elegant man with a black beard, who was hastily passing the window.
"There is Franz!" cried the young wife, her large blue eyes brightening up and her cheeks blushing a deep red. "Hide yourself, Bemperly!"
"But where?" said Mr. Bemperlein, looking around in the room.
"There, behind the curtain! Hold it together in the middle, so that it cannot open--thus!"
The bell was rung. Immediately afterwards the door of the room opened, and Franz entered with rapid steps.
"Has not Bemperlein come?"
"Do you see him anywhere?"
Franz, it is true, did not see Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein, but upon a chair a gentleman's hat; and, besides, the folds of the heavy curtain arranged in a manner which very clearly betrayed the efforts of a hand to hold them together.
So he said:
"That man Bemperlein is, after all, an utterly unreliable, frivolous, unconscionable whipper-snapper; a man without faith, without principle; a quack, whom I have regretted over and over again to have recommended to Mr. Planke as director of his chemical manufactory, so that he has actually engaged him with a salary of a thousand a year and five per cent, of the clear receipts. He is a perfect Don Giovanni of a Bemperlein, who has secret interviews with the wives of his friends, hides himself when they return behind curtains, and is stupid enough to leave his hat in the middle of the room. A harlequin of a Bemperlein----"
"Stop!" said that gentleman, opening the curtain "I am found out!"
The two friends embraced with great cordiality.
"Do you know whom I have just seen?" asked Franz after the most important questions had been fully answered.
"Well?" cried Bemperlein and Sophie.
"Baron Oldenburg and Frau von Berkow."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Bemperlein, casting an embarrassed look at Sophie, and receiving in return a triumphant smile.
"As I tell you. I met them arm in arm near the palace. Frau von Berkow has given me her address and asked me to call on her. There! Broad street. No. 54. She has furnished lodgings. This, and the circumstance that she has her children with her, make me believe that she has come here for some time. I told her we were expecting Bemperlein to-day, and she seemed to be very glad to hear it. Baron Oldenburg also sends his best regards, and wants you to know that he has returned only yesterday from Paris, in company with Professor Berger. You know, I suppose, that the two met in Paris and witnessed the whole revolution? They are staying at the Hotel de Russie Unter den Linden. I have advised Frau von Berkow, if she has not very pressing business here, to leave the city, because we shall in all probability have very troublesome times soon. Albert street is full of people, swarming to and fro like an ant-hill in uproar. Aids and orderlies are galloping through the streets at full speed. At the corner of Albert and Bear streets they had actually guns in position. Under the Lindens, they say, there has actually been a collision, and an officer of the guards is said to have been brutally ill-treated by the mob. Some said it was Prince Waldenberg. The excitement was so great that the people left the grand opera, although they were giving a new ballet, soon after the beginning of the performance. In Fisher street the mob has attacked a gun-shop, and an acquaintance of mine saw in Gold street the beginning of a barricade. In one word, the city is in a state of feverish excitement, and therefore, little wife, you had better bring out your tea, instead of standing there with your mouth wide open and swallowing the horrible news."
Sophie fell upon her husband's neck, pressed a kiss on his lips, and went out to order supper. The two friends sat down on the sofa and discussed their own and public affairs with that seriousness and thoroughness which becomes wise men.
The "Dismal Hole" was one of those suspicious places to which respectable people never resort, even after a long and dusty walk, when some refreshment seems to be needed. Young men, perhaps, who have less virtue than desire to enjoy life, and whom the spirit of mischief has led far from their accustomed haunts, occasionally drift into its sombre halls, and find next morning their heads aching furiously, and their minds filled with confused but by no means pleasant reminiscences of the night. Nevertheless the "Dismal Hole" was found in a by-street of a very fashionable quarter of the city, and very modest in the day. It shone forth at night by means of a blood-red lamp, which looked up and down the street invitingly until the sun came and extinguished it. During all these hours it seemed to be irresistibly attractive to many people; at least it was almost always crowded with customers. Thus it was on this evening also. There was scarcely a vacant chair in the four or five large rooms which formed the "Dismal Hole." Eliza, Bertha, and Pauline, the three pretty waiters, had their hands full in bringing the beer to each thirsty guest, and in giving him time to pinch their cheeks, or at least to say a civil word. These confidential interviews, short as they were, no doubt interfered somewhat with business, but what could be done? Thirsty gentlemen, belonging to a certain class of society, insist upon holding the pretty hand that brings them the mug of beer, though it may be slightly moistened with foam, a little while in their own; and in this case such a desire was all the more justifiable, as the three girls were really very pretty, and did all honor to the good taste of the landlady of the "Dismal Hole."
Mrs. Rosalie Pape was a lady of fifty or more, who struck you at first sight by her enormous size. It was only after more careful examination that you noticed the coarseness of the features, which were half hid in fat, and the short and square fingers of the plump white hands; and only the experienced observer could discover that the brown hair which adorned abundantly the head of the matron could not possibly be her own, and that the small, bright blue eyes, in spite of the apparent kindliness of the broad mouth, had a sharp and at times even a downright wicked and dangerous expression.
The guests at the "Dismal Hole," however, were not the men to make such observations. In their eyes Rosalie was a charming, splendid woman, under whose management the fame of the place was spreading far and near, and they were delighted when the good lady left her place behind the bar and made a tour through the whole basement. Here she would familiarly clap an acquaintance on the shoulder, or welcome a newcomer; there she would graciously accept the praise of her beer, or try to disarm a critic by putting his glass to her own lips and taking a pull of which a sergeant need not have been ashamed.
Thus she had just now approached two men who were sitting alone in a corner, and putting their heads close together whispered so eagerly that it was evident the topic of their conversation must have been of the greatest importance.
"Well, little Schmenckel, how do?" said Mrs. Rosalie, putting her fat hand upon the broad shoulders of the strong gentleman in the velvet coat; "it seems to me you look rather warm. Do not drink too much, or you will not be able to show off well afterwards. You have a large audience to-night."
"I fear I wont be able to do much to-night," said the director, with stammering tongue, his face flushed and almost painfully.
"But, Schmenckel, you promised!" replied Mrs. Rose, and her eyes did not look very kindly at him. "One good turn deserves another, you know."
"My friend Schmenckel will consider it," said the other gentleman, a man with light hair, and wearing spectacles over his sharp blue eyes; "he happens just now to be somewhat excited by an encounter he had an hour ago Under the Lindens. However, I am particularly delighted, madame, to have found out your new address through Mr. Schmenckel. I had been looking for you all over town for two days, and all in vain."
Mrs. Rose Pape cast a glance at the speaker. There was something in his whole appearance, and in his way of speaking, which attracted her.
"With whom have I the honor?" she said.
"All on my side! Will you favor us with your company for a few moments?" said the young man, offering Mrs. Rosalie the third yet vacant chair near the little table. "My name is Albert Timm, from Grunwald. I have a letter of introduction to you from an old friend, who sends his kindest regards. May I be permitted to place the document in those beautiful hands?" And Mr. Timm handed the lady an unsealed letter, which he had drawn from a very shabby pocket-book.
Mrs. Rosalie seemed to be a little embarrassed by this communication. She cast one more searching glance at the stranger, looked all around the room to see that she was unobserved, opened the note, turned ralf-round to get the benefit of the gas-light, and read:
"Dear Rose: The bearer is a very good friend of mine, whom you can trustunconditionally. He will tell you something about that matter at Grenwitz that will make you open your eyes wide. If you and Jeremiah will help him, we can, I am sure, help a certain gentleman to his inheritance, and make a prodigious profit out of it ourselves. Good-by! I hope you are well; and I hope the same of your still warmly attached T. G."
"You know the hand-writing?" asked Mr. Timm of the good lady, who, after reading the letter twice, and folding it up carefully to put it in her pocket, had been looking at him for some time with suspicious glances.
"It seems to me the hand-writing is familiar," she said.
"Well, for the present that is the main point. As for the rest, I will tell you more at the proper time. I hope you will grant me, to-night, the favor and the honor of a confidential talk. I am sure we shall be the best friends in the world by to-morrow."
There was a confidence and self-assurance in the manner of the young man which decidedly imposed on Mrs. Rosalie, however nicer people might have been shocked by the air of vulgar impertinence with which it was flavored. She returned the familiar pressure of Timm's hand and rose, as just at that moment one of the three Hebes came to say that she was wanted at the bar.
Mr. Timm turned once more to Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, who was so drunk or so absorbed in his thoughts that he had paid little or no attention to the conversation between his friend and Mrs. Rosalie, and then he said:
"I don't see how you can be doubtful a moment. I tell you, as you were thus facing each other I was struck by the likeness, although I had little leisure at that time to make observations. I grant the accident is marvellous which has brought you together once more after so many years, at an hour and at a place where you perhaps least expected ever to meet. But what does that amount to? I have a great respect for Master Accident, for he has helped me over and over again out of many a predicament when all cleverness and wisdom were at fault. And this accident is too famous not to be something more than a mere accident. And what is the great wonder, after all? You court, twenty-two years ago, a frivolous lady, and you succeed. When the husband returns, and finds you under suspicious circumstances, you pitch him out of the window. The lady never has had but one child, and the age of that child agrees to the day. You were in St. Petersburg, you tell me, in September, eighteen hundred and twenty-five, and the prince was born in May, twenty-six ----"
"How do you know all that?" asked Mr. Schmenckel, and shook his head incredulously.
"I tell you, my man, I know it! That is enough for you. And suppose the fellow is not your son, then----"
"But why shouldn't he be my son?" cried Mr. Schmenckel, striking the table with his gigantic hand "Do I look as if I was not up to having children?"
Mr. Timm took off his spectacles, wiped the glasses carefully, put them on again, looked laughingly at Director Caspar Schmenckel's flushed face, and said good-naturedly:
"Look here, old man, you are a funny old creature. First, I talk till I lose my breath to prove to you that you are the father of this hopeful youth; and then, when I merely assume it might not be so, you become disagreeable, and look as if you were going to beat me. I only meant to say this: Suppose the man is not your son, then, that also does not matter much. We can only try. We can ask if the princess remembers a certain evening at St. Petersburg, and so forth, and so forth. I'll wager my head against an empty pumpkin we frighten her out of her wits, and the roubles come tumbling down into our lap."
"But wont they hand us over to the police?" asked Mr. Schmenckel, shaking his head thoughtfully.
"Pshaw! They will be glad if no one else hears of it. There is no better ally for people like us than a bad conscience. I tell you I have some experience in that department."
Mr. Schmenckel reflected so deeply on the grave matter that, what with the mental effort, and perhaps also with too much beer, his head began to glow. Suddenly a thought occurred to him which might throw some light, if not upon the matter itself, at least upon the character of his new friend.
"But," he said, "what, after all, is the whole story to you?"
"Fie, director," replied Timm, with great indignation "I should not have expected such a question from you. Did you not save me from the paws of the soldiers! Does not one hand wash the other? Is there no such thing in the world as gratitude? If you insist absolutely upon being a poor devil for the rest of your life instead of living in your own house with an annuity of a few thousand roubles, and of driving your own carriage, I have nothing to say to it! I beg your pardon for having troubled you with all these things. Come, let us talk of something else!"
"Now, come, don't fly off at such a pace!" cried Mr. Schmenckel, anxiously. "I don't dream of taking anything amiss, especially if you want to make me the father of a live prince. But that I should have such a grand son, and that I should have whipped him so unmercifully the very first time I ever set eyes on him, that is surely amazing enough. If Caspar Schmenckel were to tell anybody else so he would not be believed."
"I do not see," said Timm, "why that is any more amazing than that I must be the only one of the thousands in the park to run right into the arms of the prince; that I alone happen to know him from former times; that I remember his name, mention it to you, and thus call up in your mind a remembrance which helps us to make this important discovery. I can assure you I was at first quite as much amazed as you are; but such things, thank God, do not last long with me."
Mr. Timm threw himself back in his chair and picked his teeth. Mr. Schmenckel looked with infinite astonishment, not unmixed with fear, at the man whom even such an extraordinary event could not move from habitual coolness. Mr. Schmenckel was not the man to reflect deeply on the relations in which he stood to this man; but still, he had an indistinct feeling about it. As he was looking at him thus, he felt a decided inclination to give the young man a hearty drubbing, or to punish him in some other way for his superiority, as an elephant sometimes may dream of the pleasure he would enjoy if he could hurl his Carnac on the ground and trample upon him with his feet for a few minutes.
It was a few hours later. Only a few guests had remained in the "Dismal Hole," where they had had very lively times--the excitement was intense everywhere; beer was drunk by the cask, and speeches were made without number and without end. They sat scattered about, in groups of three and four persons, mostly people of rather peculiar appearance, such as are only seen in large cities, and there also rarely or never in the day-time and on the streets. Men in shabby, often fantastic costumes, with dissipated and yet attractive features, and with eyes which now blazed up in wild passion, and now gloated stolidly on vacancy--strange figures, who tell the knowing eye without opening their lips long stories of proud plans and childish deeds, of great talents and still greater recklessness, of lofty pride and low disgrace, of senseless dissipation and gnawing hunger, of incredible efforts condemned to end like the labors of Sisyphus, and of an ambition leading only to the sufferings of Tantalus, until efforts and ambition and every virtue, nay, every good instinct, is drowned in the morass of apathetic indifference.
But these groups also gradually disappeared; one light after another was put out by the poor girls, who had for the last hour been nodding here and there in the corners, their pretty faces buried in their round arms; and at last there was nobody left but Mr. Schmenckel, who was asleep, drunk, on one of the sofas, and two other gentlemen who were sitting with the landlady around one of the small tables over a bottle of champagne. One of these men was Albert Timm, from Grunwald; the other was a man of middle age, who had only come about an hour ago, and whom Mrs. Rose had introduced to Mr. Timm as the brother of his landlord in Grunwald, Mr. Jeremiah Goodheart. From his clothes and his whole general appearance he might have been taken for a modest citizen in tolerably good circumstances; a grocer, perhaps, or a tobacco dealer; but in his small eyes, overshadowed by heavy eyebrows, there was something that seemed to indicate that the occupation of the man was not quite so harmless, or at least had not always been quite so harmless.
The three persons had been conversing very eagerly, and Mr. Timm now summed up what had been said.
"Then there are two questions," he said. "First we must get a peep at the baptismal register at St. Mary's; or, better still, obtain a certified copy of the entry; and, secondly, we must find the principal personage in this comedy--I mean Mr. Oswald Stein."
"But how do you know he is to be here?" asked the man with the odd eyes.
"I do not know it; I only presume so. He wrote me a week ago from Paris that he could not support himself any longer there, and that he must try to reach home before his money was at an end. It seems to me, beyond all doubt, that he must have come here, where he had had literary engagements when he was a student here, and where he has therefore the best prospect of finding some means of support for himself and his sweet one. Only I think he will not appear under his true name, so as not to expose himself to disagreeable encounters with the relations of the Baroness Cloten, who, I know, are still after him, and would very soon find him out here. This might therefore be the more difficult task of the two, unless accident, my faithful old ally, should again come to my assistance."
"That item you may quietly leave in the hands of my friend here," said Mrs. Rosalie, familiarly placing her hand on the head of the man with the odd eyes; "and now, gentlemen, I believe it is time we should part. Tomorrow is another day. Yes; but what shall we do with the big fellow there on the sofa, who has been drinking for twelve to-day?"
"We shall have to carry him home, if you, fair lady, have not perhaps a snug little place for him somewhere," replied Mr. Timm, with a look full of meaning.
"You scamp!" said the lady, pinching Mr. Timm's cheeks. "I will have to stop you."
"I hope so--with a kiss."
"You scamp, you!" said the lady, evidently not unwilling to try the experiment.
Mr. Timm seemed to be afraid of it, for he suddenly turned to Mr. Schmenckel and began to shake him, first gently, then more vigorously, and at last as hard as he could.
"Uff!" groaned the giant, half asleep yet; "let me go, I'll manage the boy."
"What will he do?" asked the man with the odd eyes.
"Oh, he is talking in his sleep," said Mr. Timm, "give me a glass of water, Lizzie; I believe that will wake him up."
At last the colossus stood upright, but not without swaying to and fro like a beacon in a storm. Still he could stand on his feet now, and, as Mr. Goodheart happened to know where he lived, the task of carrying him home seemed feasible. Mr. Timm seized him by one arm, the man with the odd eyes by the other, and thus they managed to lift him up to the cellar door and into the street.
The night was as dark as a night can be when there are no stars visible. The wind was sweeping mournfully through the deserted streets and threatened to extinguish the few gas-lights that were still burning. Mr. Schmenckel recovered in the fresh air somewhat, and embraced his companions tenderly; then he vowed them eternal friendship, and promised each of them a hundred thousand roubles as soon as it should be fully established that Prince Waldenberg, whom he had whipped that day under the Lindens, was really his own son. Thus they reached the street, then the house, and at last even the little bed-room in which Director Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, was residing for the present. Mr. Schmenckel sank down upon his modest couch, and his two companions left him, but not until Mr. Jeremiah had pulled out a dark-lantern from his pocket and gone about, to Mr. Timm's great astonishment, examining every corner of the room. What he found was not much: iron balls, brass balls, sticks and staves of all kinds, drums and trumpets, odds and ends, all in fearful disorder.
"Now you must fill the measure of your kindness," said Timm, when they were in the street again, "and tell me my way home. I live----"
"White Horse, Falcon street, No. 43, back room," interrupted Mr. Jeremiah Goodheart, closing his lantern and putting it back into his pocket.
"Are you the devil?" cried Mr. Timm, nervously retreating a step. "How can you know where I live; I have told nobody."
"Do you think so eloquent a speaker at the great meeting at the Booths can long remain unknown to us?" said Mr. Goodheart.
"To us? To whom?" asked Timm.
"Never mind that. Anyhow, I would advise you to deliver your speaking exercises rather within the four walls of your house, especially for the sake of our little affair, which might be sadly interfered with if, for instance, you should go to jail."
"Pshaw!" said Timm; "do you think I covet the glory of a political martyr? I have given the good people a speech because I like to talk; and secondly, because I was angry at the fools."
"All the better," said the other, dryly.
As they were passing under a gas-light Timm cast a glance at his companion, and all of a sudden he understood the enigmatical appearance of the man, and the "us" which he had used.
"Excuse me, Mr. Goodheart," he said. "I think I have heard your brother say that you are a highly-valued member of the Secret Police. Is that so?"
The man with the odd eyes smiled.
"You are a cunning fox," he said, "and have a keen scent. My brother, to be sure, did not tell you any such thing, for he knows nothing about it; nor did Rosalie tell you, for she knows it, but she has her reasons not to speak of it; consequently----"
"The evil one must have told me," interrupted Timm, quite restored to his former sense of security by this proof of his ingenuity. "I think I might have made a good detective."
"That might depend on yourself alone."
"How so?"
The man with the odd eyes did not answer his question, but said, as they had reached a corner of the street:
"That is your way. I shall call at eleven o'clock. Then we will talk the matter over more fully."
The two men parted. Their footsteps were heard for a while down the lonely streets, while the gray twilight was slowly rising over the house-tops.
In a fine room of a large private hotel in Broad street there sat, a few days later, Melitta and Baron Oldenburg. A lamp was burning on the table; lighted wax-candles were standing on the mantel-piece and on the consoles. Frau von Berkow expected other visitors that night, and Oldenburg had only availed himself of the privilege of an old friend to come before the appointed time.
"It seems to me you are very silent to-night, Adalbert," said Melitta, putting her work on the table and turning with a kindly smile to Oldenburg. "I talk to you of the children, how hearty the boy has grown, and how pretty Czika looks in her fashionable dresses, and you look--well, how do you look?"
"Like the knight of the rueful countenance, most probably; at least I feel so, from head to foot;" replied Oldenburg, rising and walking up and down in the room.
"Not exactly!" said Melitta. "I thought, on the contrary, you looked very well in your brown paletot."
"Jesting apart, Melitta, I am quite sad to-night."
"That is a pretty compliment for me, who have made the long trip from my home-nest to this tedious city only for your sake--you hear, sir, only in order to give you what I thought would be a pleasant surprise to you; bringing you the children too. For your sake, I say; so that we might see and talk unobserved. For this reason only I have taken rooms here at a private hotel, like a farmer's wife; and now, in return for all this apparently wasted goodness and love, I am told: 'You might as well have remained at home!'"
"Do you believe it, Melitta? That thought has occurred to me really more than once, yesterday and today!"
"That is hard!" said Melitta, and her face showed that she did not exactly know whether she ought to take Oldenburg's words as a jest or in earnest.
The baron did not leave her long in uncertainty. He sat down again by her, seized her hand, and said:
"My dear Melitta, my words may sound hard, but I ask you yourself, if I, as a man, must not think and feel so. I need not assure you, I hope, that I am heartily grateful to you for your kindness, for you know that; or, at least, you ought to know it. Even that you do not mind evil tongues for my sake I do not count for so much, since I know how little the judgment of the world is worth; I have despised it all my life. There is something else which prevents my enjoying your presence here heartily, and I will tell you what that is. Look, Melitta: it is natural to man to wish to work and to care for her whom he loves; more than that, he likes to see the beloved one in a certain way dependent on him; I mean on his strength, his courage, his wisdom. Many a warm affection has died out simply because it was impossible to arrange matters in this way, and many an affection is even now fading away for the same reason. Thus it is with my love for you. As matters stand I can only live for you, care and work for you, in trifles; but not at every hour, every minute, as I must do, if I am to be happy. In the country, where we, as neighbors, could often spend half of a day together, without being observed and watched, it was easier; and yet, even there, the feeling of my uselessness was so painful to me that I was grateful for the political storm which drove me to Paris, where I could at least imagine that nothing parted us but distance. But here, in a large city, the painful feeling overcomes me; it looks to me as if the moment at which we meet had been expressly chosen to show that the relations between us are unnatural and false. We are standing here on a volcano, which may break out every moment. The soil is trembling under our feet, and before many days are passed we shall have seen unheard-of things. I am not afraid of the end; on the contrary, I desire a decision, for it is necessary and will do us good. But in order to stand firm in days when our people are going to be in trouble and in danger, in order to be a man in the full sense of the word, I must have peace within me and that I cannot have as long as we stand thus. I shall have no peace, Melitta, till you are mine, till we are one; till I know that I speak and act and fight, and, if it must be, die for wife and child! Melitta! in your own name, in my name, in all our names, I ask you: Will you be at last my wife, after I have served you for more years than Jacob served for Rachel?"
The baron's voice trembled, although he evidently made a great effort to speak as calmly and as convincingly as he could. He had bent over Melitta, who held her beautiful head bowed low; when he paused she looked up, and showed Oldenburg her pale, tear-flooded face. She said in a low voice:
"Would to God, Adalbert--for your sake, for my sake, for all our sakes--I could answer you Yes!"
"Why can you not do it?"
"You know!"
"But, Melitta, is the memory of the man whom you cannot possibly love any longer, and of whom you say yourself that you do not love him any longer, to part us forever? Have you not paid the penalty of your wrong--if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart--with a thousand tears? Are you not now to me what you have always been? And, if there must be a reckoning between us, have you not to forgive and forget far more in me than I in you? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the wife to a rigorous moral law, which the husband does not consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I; nor you. Why then should you and I obey it? I tell you, the day of freedom, which is now dawning, will blow all such self-imposed laws to the four winds, and with them all the ordinances devised by a dark monkish prejudice to fetter nature and to torment our hearts."
"Whenever that day comes--and when it comes for me," replied Melitta, "I will greet it with joy. If it is a mere notion which prevents me from falling into your arms and from saying: Take me; I am yours, now and forever!--have pity on me, it makes me suffer as much as yourself. But Adalbert, I am a woman; and a woman can wait and hope for the day of release, but she cannot fight for it. And until that day comes, until I feel as free as I must be in order to be yours in honor, things must remain as they are now."
Melitta had said this with a low and sad but yet firm voice, and Oldenburg felt that it would be cruel to press her further. He took her hand, kissed it, and said,
"Never mind, Melitta! I am patient. I know that you do not make me suffer from obstinacy. That is enough for me. And then the day of release which you wait for, and which we fight for, must come sooner or later."
At that moment old Baumann knocked and entered to announce the expected visitors. Melitta passed her handkerchief over her face, while Oldenburg advanced to greet Sophie, who entered with her husband and Bemperlein by her side.
Melitta and Sophie met to-night for the first time, but the meeting was free from all ceremonious formality. The two ladies had heard so much of each other (especially Sophie of Melitta) that they knew each other down to the smallest details of their outward appearance, and then it was natural to both of them to lay aside all restraint when they felt a sympathetic attraction. Nevertheless they looked at each other with much interest as they shook hands and exchanged the first words. Sophie noticed that Melitta appeared much milder and gentler than she had expected from the great lady; and Melitta observed, on the other hand, that Sophie did not look half as serious and thoughtful as Bemperlein had made her believe of the clever and highly educated daughter of the privy councillor. Sophie saw also Baron Oldenburg for the first time, and she cast from her seat on the sofa many a trying glance at the tall man in black, who stood in the centre of the room talking to the two gentlemen. He also had never seen her before, and, on his part, observed carefully the two ladies. It struck him that both had an abundance of soft, curling hair, and in that feature, as well as in the cut of their large, expressive eyes, a certain resemblance like two roses, of which one, the darker and fuller, has entirely opened its calyx, while the other lighter one is but just unfolding the delicately-colored leaves to the light of day.
As a matter of course, Sophie was especially curious to see how Oldenburg and Melitta would behave towards each other, for, in spite of Bemperlein's assurances she had persisted in believing that there were close relations between them. But Melitta was too much of a lady of the great world, and Oldenburg had too much self-control, to show anything more than a tone of perfect politeness and mutual esteem.
There was no lack of topics for conversation in those days of great excitement, when feverish restlessness had seized on all minds, because all felt, more or less, the shadow of the coming events. Franz was not a politician, properly speaking. His fondness for the Fine Arts, which at first threatened to divide his strength, and then the study of his great science which gave him finally peace and satisfaction, had left him little time for politics. But he was liberal in all respects, and besides, his profession had given him frequent opportunities to become acquainted with the wants of the people themselves, and an insight which had convinced him of the necessity of an entire change of social relations. He was not quite as clear about the doctrine that this could not be done without first changing the political forms of the state, especially because his eye was more busy with details than with the whole. "I am at heart a Republican," he was wont to say, "but I have no desire to hear a Republic proclaimed, because I do not believe that that would help us essentially as long as the evil is not taken hold of at the root. But I see the root of the evil in the dark superstitions which reverse nature and change men from free citizens of this earth into helots of a supernatural world."
Franz expressed himself in this sense to-night also to Oldenburg, but he found him a decided adversary.
"I believe, doctor," said the latter, "that you attach too little importance to the results obtained by a well-ordered commonwealth--res publica, ladies, the Romans used to call it--and to the difference between a sensible and an unwise form of government. I wish you could have heard the discussions I have had with Professor Berger, speaking of the sad character of a time which produces hardly anything else but problematic characters."
"Where is the professor?" asked Bemperlein. "I had half promised Mrs. Braun that she should meet her father's old friend."
"I cannot tell you," said Melitta; "do you know, Oldenburg?"
"No; I lost him at the meeting at the Booths from my arm, and could not find him again in the crowd. I am quite sure, however, that he will yet come."
"Problematic characters!" repeated Franz, who had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not heard the last words. "Do you know, baron, that when I heard that expression of Goethe's the first time it was in connection with your name, and from the lips of a man who was once very dear to me, and in whom you also, as far as I know, once took a very lively interest? You need not beat the devil's tattoo on the table, Bemperlein; I know that you, who are generally as gentle as a lamb, have talked yourself into a most unchristian hatred against Oswald Stein, and I only mention our former friend because he, as well as his teacher, Berger, appeared to me always as a type of such problematic characters."
As Franz had not the least suspicion of Oswald's former relations to Melitta, to Oldenburg, and to Bemperlein, he did not notice the blush which suddenly spread over Melitta's cheeks so that she bent low over her work in order to conceal it; and the vehemence with which Bemperlein exclaimed: "I should think, Franz, that man does not deserve being mentioned here," only excited his opposition.
"Do you too think so, baron?" he said, turning to Oldenburg; "would you relentlessly condemn a man whose greatest misfortune it probably was to have been born in these days?"
"No," said Oldenburg, calmly and solemnly; "I have not yet forgotten the old word, that we must not judge if we do not wish to be judged. I have always sincerely admired the brilliant talents which nature has lavished upon that man, and I have as sincerely regretted that a mind so richly endowed should, like a luxuriant tree, bear only sterile blossoms, which can produce no fruit whatever."
While Oldenburg spoke thus his eyes had been steadily fixed on Melitta, who had raised her face once more and now looked as eagerly up to him as if she wished to read him to the bottom of his soul. Franz was still too warmly interested in Oswald to be really satisfied by Oldenburg's words. He replied, therefore, in his earnest, hearty manner:
"I was sure you would judge Stein fairly. I have heard Stein himself quote you too often not to know how fully you understood the peculiar condition of his mind, and your intimacy with Berger was a guaranty for me that you are a physician for the sick, and not for the healthy, who, Bemperlein, need no physician. Berger and Stein are two characters strikingly alike in talents and temper. How else could they have formed so close a friendship, with their great difference in age?--a friendship which, I fear, has contributed more than anything else to develop in Oswald those eccentricities which sooner or later must lead him to insanity or suicide."
"But don't you see, Franz," said Bemperlein, who was always particularly tenacious in matters connected with Oswald, "that Berger has successfully rid himself of the alp of his disease, which was evidently more bodily than mental, and has thus shown that there is a very different energy in him from Stein?"
"Do not praise the day before the evening comes!" replied Franz. "I desire, of course, as anxiously as either of you, the complete recovery of Professor Berger; but I am bound to say, as a medical man, that I do not consider a relapse yet out of question. And if I am not mistaken, Bemperlein, you mentioned only last night that my father-in-law had expressed himself in the same manner?"
"But would not that be fearful?" said Melitta.
"I do not say, madame, that it will be so; I only say it may be so."
"Have you lately noticed anything peculiar in Berger?" asked Melitta, turning to Oldenburg.
"Yes!" said the latter, after some hesitation. "I cannot deny that his manner has seemed to me lately much more excited than before. Since the revolution in February, in which, you know, he took an active part, he seems to be undermined by a kind of feverish impatience, which often reminds me of the restlessness of a lion who walks growling up and down behind the bars of his cage. Minutes seem to grow into hours to him, and hours into days. I have told him in vain that the history of great ideas counts only by thousands of years. 'I have no time,' is his invariable answer. 'If you had, like myself, wandered forty years through the desert, you would comprehend the longing of the weary pilgrim to breathe at last the air of the promised land. This delaying and deferring, this hesitating and halting, will cause me to despair.' But, gentlemen, what is that?"
All listened. From afar off there came a low but steady sound, louder than the rattling of carriages.
"That is the beating to arms!" said Oldenburg, and his cheeks flushed up. "I know the sound; I heard it just so on the evening of the twenty-third of February, along theBoulevard des Capucins."
Oldenburg had hardly said these words, and they were all rising to go to the window, when the door was hastily opened, and a man rushed in, whom they found it difficult to recognize as Berger. His long gray hair hung in matted locks around his head; his face and beard were covered with blood, which seemed to come from a wound in his forehead; his coat was torn to pieces, as if sharp instruments had cut and pierced it in different places. His eyes were glowing, his breath came with an effort, as he stepped close up to the table and, gazing at the company, said, in a hoarse voice,
"Up! up! You sit and talk, while without your brothers and your sisters are murdered! Up! up! With these our bare hands we will turn aside their bayonets and strangle these executioners."
"He is fainting," cried Franz, seizing Berger, who had already while he was yet speaking begun to sway to and fro, and now broke down completely.
The men ran up and carried their fainting friend to a sofa.
"Some cologne, madame," said Franz; "thank you. Do not be afraid; it amounts to nothing this time, but I fear for the future."
They all stood around the patient, whose breathing became more quiet in proportion as the beating of the drums became more subdued in the streets.