The town of Grunwald played, in days previous to those to which this story belongs, a far more important part than now. It had been an honored member of the great Hanse League, and rivalled Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck in wealth and power. Its ships sailed on all the northern seas, and the Grunwald flag was well known even in the ports of Genoa and Venice. The citizens were a broad-shouldered, hard-headed race, strong in their love and their hatred, and thorough in all their ways. They were justly proud of their liberties and their privileges, and trusted implicitly in their secure position, amid the ocean and bottomless swamps, and the high walls and ramparts of the city, but more fully yet in the sword by their side and the brave heart in their bosom. Even in the Thirty Years' War, Grunwald still proved its ancient reputation in fierce battle against the Imperialists, and the recollection of the glorious deeds of their forefathers survives to this day in the hearts of the present inhabitants.
They must unfortunately fall back upon past glory, for modern times have done little for them in this respect. The long and tortuous canals in the great bay on which the town is situated admit only of small vessels of light draught, and navigation nowadays cannot well get along with such ships; trade has, besides, sought other roads and found other markets, and Grunwald has slowly but steadily sunk from its proud eminence, till it has fallen at last to the level of a small provincial town of no account in the great world, as far as political influence and commercial importance are concerned.
The harbor is filled up now, the ramparts are razed, and the once enormous walls exist only in fragments, and yet there is a melancholy sheen of former greatness about the old Hanse town which attracts the thoughtful traveller, as the mouldy smell of an old parchment charms the book-worm. In spite of all the efforts made by the last generations to give the town a sober, trivial appearance, they have after all not been able to straighten all the crooked narrow streets, and to destroy all the poetry of many an old house, with its narrow, lofty, and richly-adorned gable-end. And above the labyrinth of streets, lanes, and courts, with their half-modern, half-mediæval character, there tower still the steeples of glorious churches, which are far too grand for the reduced proportions of Grunwald. But at night, when they cast their gigantic shadows far over the town which sleeps beneath them in the pale moonlight, or in the evening as you approach the harbor from the open sea, and gray mists rising from the water spread over the whole a mysterious veil, the illusion is yet strong, and the effect full of grandeur.
Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and surpassing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops, and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university, although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite residence of the surrounding nobility, which is particularly rich, and enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and barons and smaller noblemen also come to Grunwald. From the great island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors, and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the closed curtains, and the grass growing in idyllic happiness between the flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike.
It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick fogs cover the sea, the high shores of the island with their noble beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.
The sun has set for an hour, and the last blood-red streak, just above the edge of the sea, has turned pale in the shadow of the heavy, low-drifting clouds. The streets of the town have grown silent, and the lamplighter is lighting one after the other the oil lamps, whose dim light is useful only in making the mist still denser and the darkness still darker. He has just done with two unusually large and bright lamps before the entrance-gate to a huge, massive building in one of the streets that lead down to the harbor. It was the first time this year--a proof that the great family which has owned this house for many a generation, and which lives on its estates regularly in summer, and quite frequently in the winter also, has moved into town on that very day.
Nevertheless the windows of the mansion which look upon the street are still dark. They are, to be sure, rarely seen lighted up, only on solemn occasions, when the family gives one of those stiff evening parties, to which of course only the nobility and the very highest officials in the government service are ever invited.
Ordinarily these state apartments remain closed, exactly like the lofty halls and grand reception-rooms of the hereditary castle in the country, and the family are content to live in the less gorgeous rooms which look upon the rear. The modest, exceedingly unpretending taste of the mistress of the house prefers the latter, all the more as the front rooms can only be heated at great expense, and the woods of the Grenwitz estate, as far as entailed, are rented out at the ludicrously small sum of ten thousand dollars.
In one of these rooms, which was stately enough, sits the Baroness Grenwitz on a sofa before a round table, on which two wax-candles are burning brightly. She looks as if the last six weeks had added as many years to her age. Her forehead has become narrower and more angular, the dark hair shows here and there a silver thread, her eyes look larger and more fixed and meaning than ever. Her nephew, Felix, is lounging in a most comfortable position opposite her, in a large easy-chair, filled with soft cushions. The young man wears his right arm in a sling, and the sickly pallor of his face contrasts strangely with his hair, as carefully parted and curled as ever, and with the whole toilet, which is as perfect as usual. Between the two stands a table, covered with letters and papers, all of them written in the same handsome handwriting. The baroness and Felix seem just to have finished the perusal of these documents, and to be still too busy with the thoughts which have been suggested by them, to be able to speak. They are brooding in silence over the impression produced on each one, while the monotonous tic-tac of the pendulum of the rococo clock on the mantel-piece is the only noise heard in the room.
At last the young man breaks the silence.
"The thing looks more serious than either of us thought," he says, raising himself slightly in his easy-chair, and taking up once more the paper he had been reading last.
"I still do not believe a word of it," replied the baroness.
"That is saying a good deal,ma tante! although you have read the whole story in black and white."
"In Timm's handwriting! In Timm's handwriting! what must the scamp have invented and written up!"
"Certainly nothing but what is in the original documents."
"And why does he not send us the originals?"
"But, pardon me,ma tante, that is rather a naïve question. To surrender the originals--that is to say, the weapons which he means to use against us--would be an act of generosity or stupidity such as you cannot possibly expect from my good friend Timm, who is a very sly fox, I assure you. He evidently does not fear to be unmasked, but only to be deceived or over-reached by us, else he would not have made the offer to submit the original papers in the presence of a third party, an umpire, to our minute examination. No, no, dear aunt; do not give yourself up to idle hopes. These letters and papers are really in existence; you may take poison upon that."
"What do you say?"
"I mean, you may rely on that. I, for my part, am as fully convinced that this Monsieur Stein is related to the family of Grenwitz as of my own existence, and therefore I hate the man, as one is apt to hate such an interloper of a relative, especially if he happens to be a conceited, vain, puffed-up, impertinent, accursed blackguard, like this scamp of a good-for-nothing fellow."
This flood of names, little suitable to the place, would under other circumstances have infallibly brought down upon the ex-lieutenant a severe reprimand from his highly moral aunt. At this moment, however, the lady was too busy with other things.
"But nothing has as yet been proved," she said, with obstinate vehemence, "as long as the identity of that man with the child of that Marie Montbert has not been fully established by the clearest evidence. I grant the thing is probable--it may be plausible even; nevertheless we cannot afford to throw away hundreds of dollars for mere probabilities or plausibilities."
"Hundreds?" replied Felix, with a contemptuous smile. "You may say thousands! Timm will not let us slip out of his tight grip so cheaply."
"You cannot be in earnest?" said the baroness, raising her eyebrows, Juno-fashion. "That man will surely not carry his impudence so far as that!"
"Nous verrons!" replied the dandy, laconically, and fell back into his easy-chair.
There followed a pause in the conversation of the accomplices, which Felix improved to subject his fingernails to a minute examination, while the baroness busied herself in arranging the papers on the table according to their numbers (for they were all methodically numbered).
"The gentleman keeps us waiting," said the baroness.
"He pretends to be indifferent," replied Felix. "I know him from of old. Whenever he pretended to be tired, and to wish to go home, we could be sure that he was determined to break the bank!"
At that moment the servant announced: "Mr. Albert Timm desires to pay his respects."
"Show him in," said the baroness, raising herself upright, with her accustomed dignity; but her voice was not as firm as usual.
"For heaven's sake keep your temper, aunt!" said Felix in great haste, while the servant went to show in Timm. "If the rascal sees that our pulse goes faster, he'll pull the screws tighter, and----"
"I am perfectly calm," replied the baroness, although the unusual flush on her cheeks and the quick breathing announced just the contrary.
Half a minute's intense excitement on the part of the persons in the room and the door opened, admitting Mr. Timm, who walked in rapidly.
His appearance was, aside from a somewhat more carefully chosen costume of fashionable cut, precisely the same which lingered still in Anna Maria's recollection from last summer: the same white brow, the same smoothly-brushed light hair, the same fresh, rosy cheeks, and the same impertinent smile upon the smooth, handsome face. If the baroness looked at her favorite, in spite of his unchanged appearance, with very different eyes now, the fault was evidently her own. Mr. Timm was not disposed to allow the cold reception to have the slightest influence on his own warm greetings.
"Good evening, baroness! Good evening, baron!" said Mr. Timm, in his clear, fresh voice, kissing Anna Maria's right hand, which she granted him most reluctantly, and heartily shaking Felix's left hand (the other was in the sling). "Delighted, baroness, to see you look so remarkably well--so cheerful too; and as for you, baron,--well, I may say, considering the circumstances, not so bad! Permit me to follow your example----"
And Mr. Timm moved one of the heavy arm-chairs which were standing around the table, sat down, and looked at the two with eyes beaming with insolence and intense delight, as far as one could judge, through his glasses.
"Mighty comfortable!" he continued, stretching out his legs and patting the arms of the chair with his hands "And the baron stayed at home! Must be devilish uncomfortable in the big, damp, old box."
"The baron had to attend to some very important business," said the baroness, merely to say something.
"Business!" cried Mr. Timm. "How can anybody trouble himself about business when his business is, like the baron's, not to have any business at all! Incomprehensible!"
"You ought to be able to comprehend that very well, Timm," said Felix, with very perceptible irony; "otherwise I should not be able to guess why you have troubled yourself about a certain business."
"A lawsuit is no business," remarked Timm.
"But it may become one," said Felix.
"For instance, if one borrows money from the Jews, and sues them afterwards, when they want to be paid, for usury," replied Timm.
This recollection from the early life of Felix was so little to the taste of the ex-lieutenant that he turned over impatiently in his chair, and said in an audibly irritated tone:
"I think we had better come to the point."
"With pleasure," said Mr. Timm, drawing up his chair close to the table, with an expression which by no means belied his words.
"You have been kind enough," began Felix, while the baroness stared with furrowed brow and downcast eyes into her lap, "to send us, at our request, copies of certain letters, and so forth, which you say you have found among the papers of your deceased father."
"You mean, which you have found, baron!"
"Very well, then; which you have found. We can admit that without committing ourselves, for there is nothing in them all to show how this fabulous son of my uncle Harald can be helped by your aid--as you are good enough to state in your letter--to the inheritance he may claim."
"That depends entirely upon thepoint de vuefrom which you look at the matter," replied Mr. Timm.
"And may I beg you will inform us of your own?"
"Why not? It gives me special pleasure to do so. According to my view the thing is this: I have here a number of documents and papers, which not only shed a light on the relations once existing between Baron Harald and Mademoiselle Marie Montbert, but which would also, in the hands of an able, practical man (such as any good lawyer would represent), give a certain clue to the subsequent fate of the said Marie Montbert and of her child; that is to say, of the two persons who according to the last will of Baron Harald are alone entitled to the possession of the estates of Stantow and Baerwalde."
"What do you call a certain clue, Mr. Timm?" inquired the baroness.
"A clue that can be established upon evidence, madame. It can be established that the person to whom I have referred, and in whom I believe I have discovered by a fortunate combination of very remarkable and almost miraculous circumstances the heir in question, bears, in the first place, the same name which Monsieur d'Estein (pray look at letter No. 25) says he intends to assume after the elopement with Marie Montbert. In the second place, it can be established that a man called Stein, and accompanied by a young woman who passed for his wife, and by a child which passed for his son, settled shortly after Baron Harald's death in the town of W----."
"How do you know that?" asked Felix.
"I have been myself to W----, and have spoken with the old woman in whose house Mr. Stein lived from the first to the very last day of his residence in that town."
"Go on!"
"In the third place, it is established that this Mr. Stein is the same person who eloped with Marie Montbert from Grenwitz, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, who alone had a right to help the young lady, and who alone was obliged to do so."
"Why the same person?"
"Because the man who managed the elopement looked exactly like the man who a few months afterwards settled in W----."
"That might not be so easy to prove," cried Felix with a smile of incredulity.
"Easier than you think. I have (quite accidentally) discovered the man at whose house Monsieur d'Estein, then already under the name of Stein, stayed a fortnight in order to ascertain the opportunities at Grenwitz, and who afterwards drove in the night of the elopement the couple in his carriage from Grenwitz to that very ferry on which you crossed to-day. This man's name is Clas Wendorf; he lives in Fashwitz, and is well known to everybody (even to the Rev. Mr. Jager) as a perfectly trustworthy man. If this man were to be confronted with Mrs. Pahnke in W----, the identity of the man who eloped with Marie Montbert, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, with the French teacher Stein in W----, would be established beyond all doubt."
The baroness and Felix looked at each other, while Timm was making his statement, in a manner which betrayed but too clearly the consternation which the irresistible logic of their enemy produced in their minds.
"You have made good use of the last four weeks," said Felix.
"Perhaps so," said Timm, good-humoredly. "The days are getting to be short now. Besides, I had to be exceedingly cautious in making my inquiries, since I had promised you not to let anybody into the secret until I should have communicated the matter more fully to you, and I meant to keep my promise. Hereafter, when I can go to work without any such precautionary measures, and when I can avail myself of all the assistance which the law affords in such cases, I shall probably be able to do more in four days than I have now done in as many weeks."
And Mr. Timm rubbed his hands with delight.
"Then you really think of making this ridiculous affair public?" said Anna Maria, in a tone which she meant to be ironical.
"I do not understand you, madame!" replied Mr. Timm, with an air of ingenuous simplicity which, in a farce, would have earned him the applause of all the connoisseurs in the pit.
"I mean: do you really intend, contrary to our wishes and intentions, to expose to common gossip and the scoff and scorn of vulgar plebeians, an affair which concerns no one but our own family, and which, moreover, has been forgotten and buried these many years?"
The applause of the connoisseurs would have become louder and louder, as they watched the peculiar expression in Mr. Timm's face.
"Contrary to your wishes and intentions ... An affair which concerns no one but your family ... I really have not the advantage of knowing how I am to interpret the lady's words. I find it impossible to believe that a lady who is so universally known for her stern sense of justice as the Baroness Grenwitz should wish anything different from the last will of a dying man, when chance or providence brings it about, when, against all human expectations, that last will can after many years be fulfilled; I find it impossible to believe that. But what am I saying? You will laugh at me that I have taken a jest, by which you wished to ridicule my over-great desire to serve you, for a moment in good earnest. Do I not know better than anybody else that I have acted exactly according to your views by preserving all the documents, the sacred relics of departed friends, like a precious treasure, and by doing whatever I could do towards securing the property to the rightful owner? Do I not know that your hesitation, your incredulity, your mistrust even, are only the result of your apprehension to awaken in the heart of a fellow-being brilliant expectations, which may not be realized, for, however improbable, it is not absolutely impossible that we may be mistaken. Do I not know that all the parties concerned are of one and the same opinion, and that your husband, whom you have no doubt promptly informed of all the details, is overjoyous to pay off an old debt which fortunately is not yet extinguished by limitation?"
The position of a captured she bear, whom the increasing heat of the bars of her cage forces to rise on her hind legs and to dance as gracefully as she can, while she would like nothing better than to break out of her prison and to tear her adversary to pieces, resembles exactly that of the baroness as she was now sitting opposite to Mr. Timm. The cruel irony with which Mr. Timm appealed to that sense of justice and equity of which she had boasted all her life, and of which she after all had nothing but the outward appearance, seized her like a hot iron. Her cold, selfish heart boiled over with indignation. Rage and fury filled her soul. She would have liked to strangle Timm, who sat smiling before her--to stab him, poison him. And she could do nothing, nothing, but swallow her wrath, and to say with all the calmness she might command:
"Mr. Timm, you do not look upon the matter exactly as we do; and it is, of course, quite natural that you, who are standing outside, should also see nothing of it but the outside. Unfortunately I am too tired to-night to explain to you my own views of the affair. I have requested my nephew, Felix, to do it in my place, and I beg you, therefore, to look upon anything he may tell you as if it were coming from myself. I am fully persuaded that you will find no difficulty in choosing between the good will of the family of Grenwitz and the friendship of a nameless adventurer. Good-by, Mr. Timm!"
"Regret infinitely not to be able to have the pleasure of seeing you any longer, baroness," said Mr. Timm, accompanying the baroness to the door; "hope it is nothing but a passing indisposition, which will soon disappear after a good night's rest. Hope you will rest well, madame!"
And Mr. Timm closed the door after the baroness, came back, sat down in his easy-chair opposite to Felix, put his hands on his knees, and said, in a dry, short manner, which contrasted very strangely with the smooth kindness of his language so far:
"Eh bien!"
No answer came for some little time. The two men looked for a few seconds at each other with sharp, suspicious glances, like two combatants who try to find out their weak points--like two tricky gamesters, each one of whom knows how carefully he must watch the hand of the other, and who yet is not quite sure that he will not be duped. They both remembered, moreover, that there was an old account to settle between them, which dated back from the time when Ensign Baron Grenwitz had treacherously abandoned Ensign Albert Timm in order to save himself (it was a matter, of security on a bill), and Felix knew perfectly well that Albert was one of those men who, whenever they can get the law or the right of the stronger on their side, insist upon being paid by their debtors to the very last farthing.
He had therefore to summon all his skill and self-control, in order to overcome an unpleasant sensation which threatened to master him as he faced his adversary, who was armedcap-a-pieand utterly without pity. Still he succeeded in assuming a tone of good-natured frankness (which sat very awkwardly upon him) as he said:
"I think, Timm, we had better treat the whole matter without reservation or trick, like men who know the world and what they are about."
"If you know as well what you are about as I do, why, then, the whole thing is easily settled," replied Albert, dryly.
"Well, tell me then frankly, what do you ask?"
"I am the seller, you are the buyer; it is your duty first to say distinctly what you wish to buy."
"We want the originals of those papers on the table, and your word of honor that you will never inform any one, whosoever it be, by writing or by word of mouth, or in any other way, of the discovery which you have made."
"Bon!I understand what you want."
"And what do you ask on your side?"
Albert bent over a little, and said in a low but very distinct voice, with his eyes firmly fixed on his adversary:
"Twenty thousand dollars in Prussian current money, payable between now and eight days."
"The devil!" cried Felix, jumping up from his chair, in spite of his feebleness, and running around the room. "Twenty thousand dollars! why, that is a fortune."
Albert shrugged his shoulders.
"Two years' interest of the sum represented by the two estates of Stantow and Baerwalde. You must know best, of course, what the legacy is worth to you."
"But that is atrocious!" cried Felix, still running about in the room; "atrocious!"
"Don't hollow, Grenwitz; your people might hear you down in the kitchen. Sit down, if you please, and let us talk the matter over like men who know the world."
The unconquerable coolness and the cutting irony with which Albert uttered these words acted like a douche upon Felix's violent agitation. He sat down, and said, in a calmer tone:
"My aunt will never listen to such a demand."
"I should be sorry, for your sake, and for your aunt's sake, if you were not to accept my offer. I can only make you both responsible for the consequences."
"You speak as if it depended on no one but yourself who was to have the two estates!"
"And on whom else can it depend?" replied Albert, and his lips seemed to grow thinner, his nose more pointed, and his whole face sharper, as he spoke: "I tell you, I have made the net so close and so strong--leaving only a few meshes open on purpose till I should hear your decision--that I can draw it together at any moment, right over your head, and you may struggle as you may; it will not break, but you will die. You know, Grenwitz, that I have rather a good head for such things, and you know also that I have no cause to show you the shadow of generosity."
"Me! I have no personal interest whatever in the whole matter."
"Do you think I am a child, Grenwitz? Don't you want to marry Miss Helen? and are not the two estates to be the dower of the young lady?"
"I marry Helen! Who says so? I don't dream of it."
"Well, then, don't marry her; hand the young beauty over to the man whom you have more reason to hate than all other men--who is even now your favored rival--at least evil report has it so--and who will lose nothing, I am sure, in Miss Helen's eyes, if he can present himself a second time as her cousin, and the lawful heir of a very considerable fortune."
Felix had turned alternately white and red as his adversary was inexorably punishing him with these words. His vanity, deeply wounded by the allusion to his fatal encounter with Oswald, writhed like a worm on which somebody has trod. He could not but confess that for the moment Albert was by far the stronger of the two, and that he, who was so proud of his cleverness and adroitness, was utterly helpless in the power of an adversary whom he had in reality always despised.
"Lower your demands a little, Timm," he said, in a subdued voice. "I must confess it is a matter of the very greatest importance for me to bury the whole affair in silence, and if it depended on myself alone I might not be unwilling to pay you the sum which you demand. But you know my aunt, and you know that she would rather let matters go on to the last point than to make such an enormous sacrifice. I tell you, Timm, it can't be done; upon my word, it can't be done. And what do you want with so much money at once? You will lose it in a few unlucky nights at roulette, and then you are poorer than you ever were before. Come, now, I'll make you an offer. We will pay you for one year four hundred dollars a month, and at the end of the year six thousand dollars in a lump."
"Altogether ten thousand eight hundred dollars," replied Albert. "Won't do; and besides, what security can you give me that all the payments will be made?"
"The documents, which in the mean time you may retain in your possession and which you are not expected to hand over till the six thousand dollars are paid."
"Well!" said Albert, "it is not much; but among good friends we ought not to insist too strictly. I accept."
"Let us make it out in writing."
"Why? If we do not wish to keep our word, we'll break it, anyhow; and besides, a paper of that kind might, if it should fall into the hands of the wrong person, commit the family of Grenwitz more seriously than they would like, and would, after all, but put one more weapon in my hands. You see I am perfectly candid."
"Bon!" said Felix. "Do you want the first four hundred at once?"
"I should think so."
Felix rose, took one of the lights, and went to a bureau which was standing back in the room, opened a drawer, took a few packages of bank-notes from it and placed them on the table before Albert.
"Count them!"
"It is not necessary," said Albert, slipping the parcel into his pocket; "your aunt never makes a mistake in counting. Well, Grenwitz, that matter is nicely arranged; now let us have a bottle of wine upon it--I have talked so much I am quite thirsty. If you permit me I will ring the bell."
"Pray do so!"
Felix ordered the servant who came to bring a bottle of Hock and two glasses.
Felix was rather pleased to see that Albert was in better humor; he had another question to ask yet, which no one could answer as well as he could.
"You have seen, Timm," he said, filling the glasses, "that I have met you half way, as far as I could. One service is worth another. Will you do me a favor?"
"Let us hear."
"Then tell me, how is little Marguerite?"
"What interest have you in her?"
"Well, I do have an interest in her."
"And why do you think I know anything about her?"
"Because I have observed you both at Grenwitz, and besides--well, for divers other reasons."
"For instance?"
"I will be frank with you. From sheer ennui I had begun at Grenwitz already to pay her some attentions, and afterwards, during my sickness, I saw still more of the little thing, till it ended in my thinking the girl really very charming and prodigiously attractive. But she pretended to be so very reserved that I suspected at once she had a serious attachment. Now I cannot think of any one else who could have been in my way but yourself."
"Very complimentary," said Albert. "I am, indeed, as good as engaged to the young lady."
"But, Timm, are you going to run into your ruin with your eyes open? You and a wife! and worse than that, a poor wife!--what has become of your former principles? Upon my word, I should not have thought you could be so mad."
"Nor I, myself," replied Albert, emptying his glass and filling it again.
"Are you in love with the girl?"
"There you ask me more than I know myself."
"Look here, Timm, I will make you an offer. We are, it seems, in the way of speculating. Let me have the girl, and I assume the three hundred dollars which you have borrowed from the poor little thing."
"Who says so?" said Albert, furiously.
"Your fury just now, for one; besides that, however, little Louisa, Helen's maid, and my own man's lady love, who happened to see it, when Marguerite gave you the money in the park at Grenwitz."
"Nonsense!" said Albert, who could not repress his anger at this inconvenient exposure.
"Don't be angry!" said Felix; "rather be glad that you find somebody who is willing to relieve you of this troublesome burden. What do you say?"
"We will talk about that another time," said Albert, rising and taking his hat. "Farewell, Grenwitz."
"Good-by, Timm! Be reasonable, and come and see your old comrade as soon as you can."
The worthy pair shook hands, and Albert went away rapidly. His face was darker than when he came. Either the second part of the conversation had not been to his taste, or he thought it good policy to assume an air of being offended. Felix, who knew him pretty well from former days, was disposed to take the latter view.
About the same time, and while these transactions were going on in the Grenwitz mansion, a young man was impatiently walking up and down in front of a large house in one of the suburbs of Grunwald. His impatience looked very much like that of an honest lover who is waiting on a cool autumn evening in a dense fog for the lady of his heart, whom he has orders to call for "punctually at seven, but be sure to be punctual," to see her home from a little party, and whom he sees at half-past seven sitting near the brightly-lighted-up window, engaged in most lively conversation. It may be he sees really her whom he loves; it maybe the shadow belongs to a very different person.
The young man is Doctor Braun; the house before which he patrols, Leporello-fashion, is the famous boarding-school of Miss Bear; and the young lady for whom he is waiting is his betrothed Sophie, the only child of the privy councillor and professor, Doctor Roban, a physician of great renown in Grunwald, and a distinguished member of the university.
"What a vague idea of time even the cleverest of women have!" murmured Franz, pulling out his watch and looking at it by the faint light of a badly-burning cigar; "it is a psychological fact which I must treat of one of these days in a monograph."
He throws away the short end of his cigar, which threatened to singe his moustache, and looks up once more at the lighted window.
"Heaven be thanked, they are getting ready! Dark shadows are flitting to and fro near the curtains! Now for the cloak, and the bonnet--a kiss to say good-by then a little bit of a chat of ten minutes about the next place of meeting--then another farewell kiss. The window is looking darker; there is a light in the hall; now a final discussion on the steps--enfin!"
"Do you come at last,ma mignonne? said Doctor Braun, greeting the slight maidenly form which had come out of the house, and now hastened with light steps across the little garden which divided the house from the street, to the iron gate.
"Poor Franz! You have not been waiting for me," answers the girl, affectionately leaning on the arm of her betrothed.
"Oh, not at all! Nothing to speak of! Half an hour or so!"
"I really did not know it was so late. The time passed so quickly, although the whole party consisted only of two persons. Can you guess who they were?"
"Yourself, probably, for one."
"Very well--and the other?"
"Helen Grenwitz."
"Exactly! She sends you her best regards. Only think, she will probably stay with the Great Bear, although her friends are coming to town for the winter, If they have not already come to-day. That will be a fine subject for gossip. Poor Helen! I pity her with all my heart!"
"Why?"
"How can you ask? Is it not bad enough that the whole town will ask why a girl of sixteen--no, sixteen and a half--should be sent back to school when she has hardly been four weeks at home? And as long as the Grenwitz family was not living in town, there might have been some explanation; but now--oh, I think it is abominable. People must think of her--I don't know what; and it is not so much to be wondered at if they connect Helen in some way or other with the duel fought by her cousin and your amiable friend, Stein."
"And what says Miss Helen?"
"Nothing! You know how she is. She never speaks of family matters; at most she occasionally mentions her father, whom she seems to love most tenderly. She is quiet and serious; but not exactly sad."
"I believe she is much too proud ever to be really sad."
"How so?"
"Sadness is a passive disposition; the disposition of one who sees that he cannot struggle with fate, and therefore submits to endure it as well as he can. But there are characters which resist as long as it is possible, and when nothing more can be done, instead of laying down their arms, break them to pieces and throw them fiercely at the victor's feet."
Sophie came up closer to her betrothed and said, after a pause:
"I am not one of those characters, Franz. I am not too proud to be sad; I have been very often sad these last days. I was sad when you left us with Doctor Stein, although at that time I had no particular reason for being so. But since then, when papa was taken sick and I sat by his bedside, and my greatest anxiety--next to that about papa's life--was whether you had received my letter ... You might have travelled on and on, and my heart was all the time breaking with longing for you! You went to see him, I am sure, before you came to call for me at Miss Bear's."
"Of course! He is better. I begged him to lie down, but he insisted upon sitting up till we should come back."
"And I have wasted so much time! Let us go faster!"
"A few minutes, more or less, do not matter; and besides, I should like to speak with you definitely about our future. We must at last make an end to this provisional state, which is pleasant to no one--not to God--I mean Nature--nor to man--and is daily becoming more oppressive. An unmarried man is a fish; but an engaged man is neither fish nor flesh. When two people are in their own heart and conscience man and wife through their mutual love, they ought to be man and wife also in the world, before men, provided circumstances admit of their marrying. Now, that is the case with us. We have enough for our support, and for the present we need no more; whatever else may be necessary will come. In short, shall we have our wedding day four weeks from to-day?"
"But, Franz, I have not finished half of my trousseau!"
"Then we'll marry with half a trousseau."
"And what will papa say? You know how very hard it is for him to let me go from him; and shall I just now ask such a sacrifice from him, when he needs me more than ever? I have not the courage to propose it to him."
"But I have it; your father knows that I am not less anxious for your happiness than he is, and he is far too sensible not to see that my plan is the best. Come, my darling, don't hang your head. To-day four weeks we are man and wife."
"Ah, Franz! I wish it could be so. But I fear, I fear, Heaven does not mean it so well with us!"
"Why not? Heaven means it well with all who have the courage to determine upon their own happiness. For, how says the poet: 'In our bosom are the stars of our fate.'"
The haste with which Franz pressed her had a very good motive in the illness of her father. Franz, as a physician, knew best that the life of the excellent man was hanging on a very slender thread. He had rallied quickly enough from a stroke of apoplexy, which had attacked him a fortnight ago, but several bad symptoms announced that another attack was not improbable, and with his nervous, very delicately-organized system, this was likely to be fatal. But if the father died before his daughter had been married, the poor girl would have been placed in a very painful position, as her mother had been dead for many years, and she had neither brothers and sisters nor any near relations. The world with its prejudices would have hardly been willing to admit that under such circumstances her only home should be in the house of the man whom she loved, but would have been inconceivably shocked if the daughter had married "before the shoes were worn out in which she had followed her father's funeral." The whole city would have broken out in one cry of indignation against such a fearful crime against decency and propriety.
Sophie loved her father with a love which bordered upon enthusiasm, little as enthusiasm generally formed a part of her clear and sensible character, which shrank instinctively from all exaggeration. And the father was well worthy of such love.
The privy councillor, Roban, was a man of rare distinction in many respects. As a man of science he stood very high; he was considered the very first pathologist in Germany. But a remarkable versatility of mind enabled him to gather, outside of the studies which his profession required, information upon the most varied fields of knowledge, and to attain to a high degree of perfection in more than one of the arts. In the morning he would take his pupils, hour after hour, from bed to bed in the hospital, and open to them views into the innermost workings of nature. Then again he would wander for long hours from house to house, soothing here a sufferer's pains, comforting others, and exhorting them to patient endurance. And yet in the evening, when a circle of intimate friends were gathered under his hospitable roof, he would be ready to take an active part in an animated conversation about art, literature, or politics, or perhaps take his favorite instrument, the violoncello, between his knees, and delight even the best cultivated ears by his correct and yet deeply-felt playing in a quickly-improvised quartette.
Where there are lights there must be shadows, and where there are shadows there is never a lack of people who take pleasure in painting everything in the darkest and blackest of colors. Thus it was with the little foibles of the excellent man, which his rivals and enemies subjected to pitiless criticism. Some declared he was a charlatan, who understood his business tolerably well, but the necessary bragging and boasting about it still better; others declared his bon-mots were better than his prescriptions, and a good story more welcome to him than the most famous case in his practice. Still others said that the essence of his nature was a restless vanity, which induced him to try all the arts and to play the Mæcenas for all travelling artists and spoilt men of genius. Still others--so-called practical men, who laid no claim to any opinion in matters of art and science, but who demanded in return that everybody should comply with their standard of morality--shook their heads when people spoke of the councillor's hospitality, and said: "If everybody would sweep the dust before his own door, many things would be seen that are hidden now; and if certain folks would remember the old saying: 'Save in time and you'll have in need,' they would be better off than they were."
Of all these reproaches none really affected the distinguished professor, except the last. Money was to him what it is to Saladin in Lessing's great drama, Nathan: "the most trifling of trifles;" he looked upon it, as Saladin did, as "perfectly superfluous when he had it," much as he appreciated the necessity of being provided with it whenever he was reminded of it by his liberality, his generosity, and his intense antipathy against all bargaining and all haggling. If he had lived economically he might have become a very rich man, for his income was considerable; but Mammon would not stay in his hands, which were ever open to all who were poor and suffering. He never could force himself to accept money from the hard hand of a mechanic, even if the sum had been ever so small. "It is bad enough," he used to say, "that Nature has not wisdom enough to allow only such people to be sick as have leisure and money enough for it; but for the poor, sickness itself is a punishment severe enough, not to sentence them moreover into the payment of costs." Thus it happened to him very often that he poured the golden reward he had earned by his attention and his skill in the palace of rich Sinbad a few minutes later into the open hand of poor Hinbad, and reached home with a lighter purse than he had carried out.
His house also was an expensive one, although the whole family consisted but of himself and his daughter. A nature as richly endowed and as productive as his own was not made to be content with meagre fare and thin beer; he was fond of rich, savory dishes and fiery old wines; above all he loved to share the pleasures of his table with others who were as willing to be pleased as he himself with the good things of this world, and especially with one of the best among the good--a pleasant table-talk.
All this might have been accomplished without causing a deficit in the budget of the privy councillor, if a careful, sensible housewife had managed the whole, and spent what was coming in properly and economically. His wife, however, an exceedingly amiable, intelligent woman, died the second year after their marriage; and her husband, who had loved her above all things, could not summon resolution to fill the place in his heart which death, inexorable death, had made vacant, and to give a stepmother to his daughter, in whom he soon concentrated all his affections. He remembered too well the old saying,apud novercam queri! He had seen the fairy tale of Cinderella repeat itself in too many families. Thus he left his child in the hands of nurses and governesses whom he paid magnificently, and sent her, when she was old enough, to Miss Bear's boarding-school, in case anything should have been forgotten in her outward polish or her inner culture. In the meantime he kept a kind of bachelor's hall, which soon became a very costly life, owing to the thievishness of his servants and the incapacity of a housekeeper in whom he placed implicit confidence. He comforted himself, however, whenever Mrs. Bartsch had forced him into a very uncomfortable discussion about credit and debt, with the prospect of the time when his daughter could relieve him of all thismisère, and of the answer to the question: what shall we have for dinner, etc., which ought not to be allowed to trouble a good Christian's peace of mind.
The time came at last, but Miss Sophie's return to the paternal home did not exactly mend matters. Sophie was too young and too inexperienced to see the cause of the evil and to reform the abuses, which were deeply rooted after so many years' toleration. Mrs. Bartsch, who could not adapt herself at all to the new regime, was dismissed, it is true; but--as the doctor said, "the bad one is gone, the bad ones have stayed"--the servants stole just as before, and the privy councillor did not know yet "what in all the world could have become of the miserable money?" As it could not well be otherwise under such circumstances, the accounts agreed less and less every year, and instead of saying, "I must learn to be more economical hereafter," he only said, "I must work harder." He felt himself yet in the full vigor of his strength. He saw before him yet long years of energetic activity, during which he might make up what had been so long neglected.
But it was not to be so, and the beautiful fruit-bearing tree, in whose broad, hospitable shade so many who suffered from the burning heat of life sought shelter and refreshment, and found it too, was to be irreparably injured by a flash of lightning which fell from a clear sky. Like wildfire the news flew one morning all over town that Privy Councillor Roban had had a stroke of paralysis over night, and was now laid up without hope. People told it one to another with grave faces, and said it would be an irreparable loss to science, especially as far as the university was concerned, which had had in Roban its only really great man since Berger had become insane. But of all who suffered by the loss, the poor were most seriously threatened, since they lost in the privy councillor their generous friend and protector. For many and many a day one might have seen old women dragging themselves painfully along on crutches, men so old and feeble that they had to be led by a boy, young pale mothers with a baby in their bosom--all sitting on the steps of the house, bathed in tears, and asking every one who came out whether things were not going a little better with the privy councillor, or whether there was really no hope at all that the good old gentleman would recover?
In the meantime the patient was lying in that terrible state which is neither night nor day, but a painful twilight, when the sun is about to set, and the darkness is rising full of threatenings on all sides. For a long time it remained uncertain whether life or death would be the end, and when at last the cruel conflict was decided in favor of life, death only yielded after having marked his victim unmistakably forever. One might even have said, that he had taken all the reality away with it, and left only the shadow of existence.
To-day was the first time that the privy councillor had risen for a few hours; they had rolled him in his large easy-chair from his bed-chamber, before the fire-place in the sitting-room. He had insisted upon it that his daughter, who since the beginning of his sickness had scarcely left his bed, should go out to her little party; and he had dismissed his son-in-law, who had taken his practice provisionally in hand and came to see him every evening--for he wished to be alone. He felt the necessity of availing himself of the first hour in which the pressure on his brain was less overwhelming, for the purpose of thinking over his situation. As a physician, he would probably have warned his patient against such an injurious excitement; but now he was physician and patient at once, and made the experience in himself that the physician may very often demand certain things which the patient is unable to do with the best will in the world.
Poor, unfortunate man; doubly and trebly poor, because you have been doubly and trebly rich and happy before, in the fulness of your mental and physical strength, in the elasticity of your sanguine temper, nay even in the easy humor which bore you like a bird high over the greatest difficulties! Where is now your restless activity, which formerly made it impossible for you to sit still in one and the same place for any length of time, which induced you even at table frequently to change your place among your guests? Where is your sharp, penetrating mind, which used to solve the hardest problems as in play? Where your brilliant fancy, which threw even upon every-day occurrences a bewitching light? Where, above all, your Olympian cheerfulness, which made it so easy for you not to be angry or excited, but allowed you to fight at most with a humorous smile and satirical wit against the misery and wretchedness of life, against the stupidity and vulgarity of men? Where are the thousand arguments with which you often nearly overwhelmed the pessimist views of your friend Berger, when you tried to persuade him that this earth was by no means a vale of tears from the rising to the setting of the sun, but a wide, fair landscape, in which hill and dale, waste deserts and Elysian fields alternated very wisely, and that in most cases man was not only at liberty but even commanded to avoid the one and to enjoy the other? Have you all at once changed your views? Has a brutal blow of fate suddenly reduced you in the discussion to anabsurdum? Has the pressure which weighs on your brain and paralyzes the elasticity of your mind transformed you all of a sudden from an optimist into a pessimist, so that you see the world and your own situation in dark colors, as you are counting the beats of your pulse mechanically, and sit there, rolled in a ball in your easy-chair, glaring in dull thoughts at the dying embers of the fire-place?
And indeed there were reasons why it was hard for the privy councillor to drive away the gray shadowy form of care, as it pressed more and more closely upon him the darker the room grew. He who had himself observed so many similar cases, could least of all disguise from himself how precarious his physical condition was. He knew but too well that he was doomed to be henceforth a cripple in body and mind, that he was only a pensioner on life, and that death might come at any moment to collect the debt which was long since due. And yet, much as he was attached to life, this was his least sorrow. The physician did not struggle against omnipotent fate, which had never yet granted him one of its victims; the pupil of Epicure knew that joy and grief, delight and suffering, are inseparably interwoven in our life. But what made his heart particularly heavy, was the thought of his inability to arrange his circumstances, that he should have to leave life a bankrupt, and that after all he should have to rob his creditors of their rights by his death. Had he not always referred them to the future, and now the future refused to accept the draft; now the credulous man was to be denied credit at the very bank on whose credit he had so implicitly relied.
The unfortunate man sighed, hiding his deep-bowed head in his hands.
And his daughter, his darling daughter! Where was now the hope he had cherished to endow her with a fortune which was forever to free the spoilt, tender child from all the vulgar cares of life? which was to afford her the means always to enjoy a comfortable existence such as alone seemed to be suitable for the character of the young girl? Now he could not only leave her no fortune--no! but not even an honest, stainless name!
She had no idea of the painful pecuniary situation of her father. He never had the courage to trouble her childlike mind with cares which he tried to keep from himself as long as he could. She took it for granted that her father was, if not a rich man, at least well-to-do, and that she could enjoy the simple comforts by which she was surrounded with a clear conscience.
And was she the only one who labored under this illusion, and whom he had allowed to remain blind from fear of an explanation? Did not his friends think the same? Above all, the youngest and dearest of his friends, the man who had won his daughter's heart, and whom he himself loved with hearty, paternal love; who deserved such friendship, such love, by his upright, noble bearing, by his ability and his goodness; what would he say, what would he do, if he should learn what sooner or later he would have to learn--nay, what the father of his future wife was under such circumstances bound to tell him without further delay, if he did not mean to renounce all claims to be considered an honest man?
The privy councillor pressed his trembling hands upon his eyes and groaned loud, like one who is suffering cruel torture.
And suddenly he felt soft arms embracing him, and a girl's voice asked anxiously: "Papa, dearest papa, you are surely sick again;" and the kindly, firm voice of a man who had taken his hand to feel the pulse, and who now said: "You have stayed up too long! we must try and get you into bed again."
These voices, these words, fell like a mild, refreshing rain falling upon a sunburnt plant, upon the heart of the poor man, who was so sick in body and soul. He put his arms around the slender waist of his daughter and drew her to his heart in a long, silent embrace. He could have wept, but he was ashamed. Sophie asked again and again if he felt worse. Franz, who had ordered lights to be brought in, begged more and more urgently that he should not risk what had been so painfully gained by sitting up any longer. But the privy councillor would not hear of going to bed; he said he felt very comfortable in his arm-chair, and not in the least fatigued. Besides, he had to talk to Franz, and Sophie might in the meantime attend to the supper.
Franz, whose clear eye had well observed the restlessness, the excitement of his patient, considered it best to humor him in his wishes, and gave a nod to his betrothed to leave him alone with her father. Sophie went out with an anxious, inquiring glance at Franz, which the latter answered by a reassuring smile.
The door had hardly closed after the slender form of the young girl, when the privy councillor seized Franz's hand and said, in a voice which was in vain striving to be firm,
"I have something to tell you, Franz, which I cannot any longer conceal from you under the circumstances, and, since I may have to meet death any moment, without acting dishonorably."
"What is it, my dear sir?" asked Franz, moving a chair close to the privy councillor's seat and taking his hand into his with a gesture of great kindness.
"It is this!" said the privy councillor--and now he told Franz, that partly the want of prudent economy and partly the loaning of countless sums of money to poor and needy people, which were never returned, had gradually brought him seriously into debt; that he had hoped to work himself out by means of increased industry in the coming years, but that now all such hopes were futile, as he felt but too painfully.
The privy councillor paused here, partly because he was too much exhausted for the time, and partly because he expected an answer from Franz. But the young man sat there with cast-down eyes, remaining silent, and the patient continued with a lower and more trembling voice:
"Pardon me, my dear Franz, that my perhaps criminal selfishness, for which I hope you may find some excuse, has made me hesitate so long before making this communication to you. But it is a terrible task to have to afflict a man whom we love; to have to impoverish a man whom we would like to load with all the world can give."
He paused, and tried to draw his hands from those of the young man, as if the revelation he had just made had interrupted and ended their friendship. But Franz moved nearer to the sufferer and said, looking at him with his clear, truthful, bright eyes:
"I have let you finish, my dear sir; and now let me have my say. Suppose a man were to give the friend he loves best an unspeakably valuable treasure, a treasure which the other values so much that he could not live without it, and he were then to say to this friend, 'My dear, while I was guarding this treasure I had not the time, as you may readily imagine, to attend with proper care to the management and settlement of all my other affairs. There are a few creditors who wish to be paid, and who must be paid. Will you take that upon yourself? You are younger and stronger, and have no objection to business.' Suppose, I say, the giver should speak thus to him who receives, and the latter were to answer: 'The treasure which is to make me immeasurably rich for all time to come I am ready to take, but as to your other affairs you can see how you can manage them yourself. I will have nothing to do with them.' Would you not justly look upon a man who could give such an answer as a monster of heartlessness, as a horrible instance of ingratitude? Exactly such is the relation in which we stand to each other. You are the generous donor; I am the man who receives the costly gift--the immeasurably precious treasure itself is my own Sophie. Between us there can be no longer any question of mine and thine; what I have is yours, for you are to me all in all--my friend, my teacher, and my father. What I have amounts to about ten or eleven thousand dollars, left me by an aunt whom I have never seen in my life, and they are entirely at your disposal. I know that this sum will not suffice to free you from all responsibilities. But it will be a relief to you, a help; and I beg, I conjure you to make any use of it you may choose. No, my dear sir, don't shake your head! You can't help it. You owe it to me to Sophie, to yourself, not to refuse me. And then, I am not going to ask you to do this favor without asking one for myself in return. We have never yet agreed upon the day for our wedding. We were afraid to speak of it, because we feared you would refuse, or at least give your consent only with reluctance. Now I have become bold, and ask neither for Flanders nor for liberty to think, Oh, King Philip, but for your permission to make your daughter, Dona Sophie, my wife, this day four weeks. Look! there she is herself! Kneel down, darling, and thank your lord and father for his kindness. He consents to our marriage this day four weeks."
Sophie, who had entered the room during the last words spoken by Franz, hastened to her father.
"Good, dear papa! dearest darling of a papa!" she cried, embracing the privy councillor and kissing him tenderly on brow and lip. The privy councillor was deeply moved. His trembling lips tried in vain to utter a word; his tear-flooded eyes turned now towards his daughter, who was kneeling before him, and now towards the noble man, who stood by his side leaning over him and looking at him with tenderness. His mind, weakened by his sickness, could not at once overcome the chaos of conflicting thoughts, but in his heart he heard a voice assuring him that he could die now in peace.
Franz, who had his reasons for fearing that the violent emotion might change the condition of the patient for the worse, hastened to make an end to the scene. He rang the bell and asked the servant to help him carry his master to his room. The privy councillor suffered them to do as they chose. Franz and the servant rolled the chair to the door of the adjoining room, which had been opened by Sophie, lifted it over the sill, and closed the door behind them, while Sophie remained alone in the sitting-room.
After a few minutes Franz returned. He was moved as Sophie had never yet seen him; but she saw also that his emotion was not painful. His eyes shone brightly, his step was elastic like that of a conqueror, and his voice, generally rather sharp, sounded softer and fuller, as he said, folding his betrothed almost violently in his arms,
"Rejoice, my girl; all goes well, excellently well. I have won your father's consent by gentle means and harsh means. Did I not tell you we should be man and wife four weeks hence? Did I not tell you, 'In our heart are the stars of our fate?' Oh, I feel a whole heaven in my heart! dear, dear Sophie!"
"Dear, dear Franz!"
And the lovers held each other embraced in that bliss for which the ordinary language of earth-born men has no words.
Then, when the torrent of glorious feelings had sobered down to greater quiet, they walked up and down in the room, arm in arm, and their voices grew low like their steps on the carpet, and what they whispered to each other was sweet and cozy, like the dim rosy light of the lamp under its veil, and yet as hot and as glowing as the coals shining through the light covering of ashes in the fire-place.
It was a lovely pair, the two lovers; and Zeus of Otricoli, whose lordly face with the god-like brow beneath the ambrosiacal curls that shade Olympus, looked majestically down upon them from a niche in the wall, must have enjoyed the sight as they walked again and again past his bust, although neither the young man nor the girl could lay claim to a beauty exactly classic. Their tall forms were too lithe for that, wanting in the voluptuous fulness of the Grecian ideal; their faces, full of expression, were wanting in that architectural regularity, that indelible antique harmony, which knows no struggle, at least no struggle that excites the soul to its innermost depths.
Sophie Roban had, if you examined her strictly, nothing that could be called beauty, except a graceful, delicate figure, though connoisseurs would have objected to her arms as too thin, and a pair of large, soft, deep-blue eyes, of which connoisseur and ignoramus spoke with equal delight. Her mouth is rather large, and it is fortunate for her that her teeth, which are in consequence seen very frequently, are, if not literally "two rows of pearls," at least beautifully white and regular The cheeks are round and full, the nose belongs to no special category. The best feature of the whole is, probably, next to the large blue eyes, the abundance of chestnut-brown hair, which forms a frame of soft waves for the somewhat low but smooth and most intelligent brow, and is very artlessly but tastefully arranged. Sophie is so tall that Franz, who is above medium size, scarcely rises a head's length above her--a proof, as Sophie says, that she has some claims to be counted among Jean Paul's "lofty beings," an opinion which Franz is by no means disposed to accept. He says, on the contrary, that she falls short, if not in everything, yet in much of that great honor, especially in that exuberance in thought and sentiment which the author requires for "lofty beings," and of which Sophie has not a trace, unless it be when she plays on the piano, and the genius of Beethoven, her favorite composer, lends her soul the wings which are otherwise wanting. Franz mentions besides, in his diagnosis of his betrothed, a certain cool sobriety of views and judgment, a kind of shyness to go beyond her own self, and a mistrust of all who do not possess this shyness and are too ready to sing their own praises or their own complaints, without inquiring whether the gods have given them a talent for stating what they suffer or not. Sophie, on the contrary, is disposed to be very quiet in moments of great enjoyment or great sorrow, on which account Franz prefers classing her with Jean Paul's "silent children of heaven." Besides, he attributes to Sophie the following qualities and peculiarities, all of which are more or less incompatible with the character of "lofty beings." She is particularly fond, he says, of canary birds, dogs, tree-frogs, rabbits, horses, and even of donkeys, which evidently shows a predilection for Dutch pictures of still life; she betrays a highly improper indifference for literature, unworthy of the daughter of a man of science, and the betrothed of a man who may possibly yet become famous in the world; she will not condescend to use a dictionary, even in cases of necessity, when she reads French or English authors; and as to the productions of her mother tongue, her indifference is so great that she has actually dared to fall fast asleep when Franz has been reading to her aloud the most beautiful chapters from Goethe's Truth and Fiction or his Italian Journey. Then she has a decided fancy for putting on her hat on one side, and to catch her dress when walking out in all the thorn-bushes by the wayside, both of which habits indicate a dreamy, twilight life, utterly incompatible with the manner of "lofty beings." She is even suspected of clairvoyance, for she had actually once told her maid, when she was dressing her for a ball and wanted a pin, that there was one lying way back in the parlor under the fourth chair from the window.
The conversation of the two lovers had gradually approached this topic of the little weaknesses of his betrothed, which Franz was apt to play upon in countless variations. He had a talent to jest gracefully, and to conceal the sober face of a well-meaning preceptor under the smiling mask of a good-natured but ironical critic. Sophie, who was not fond of ample explanations, felt grateful to her lover for this mode of instructing her, and Franz adopted this method all the more readily as it gave him an opportunity to admire the cleverness and the wit with which Sophie knew how to defend herself against his insidious attacks, and to deny her faults, or even to pretend that they were in reality nothing but very lovable virtues.
They were so deeply engrossed in their conversation, now playful, now sober, occasionally interrupted by a half-suppressed laugh or a stolen kiss, that a person who was in the habit of coming every day at this hour to the privy councillor's house, and of entering unannounced, had to knock three times at the door before they answered with an unisonous "Come in!"