"Good evening, most honored friends and betrothed," said he, as he entered the room; "do I disturb your devotions?"
"Good evening, Bemperlein," replied Sophie, loosening Franz's hold and cordially offering her hand to the little man, who came with careful steps to her side; "you are just in time to protect me against this arch-scorner."
"Good evening, Bemperlein," said Franz; "you are just in time to help me in my efforts to convince this obstinate sinner."
"Before I can do the one, and not the other," replied Mr. Bemperlein, drawing off his gloves and folding them up carefully, "I beg leave to inquire, as in duty bound, after the privy councillor's health."
"He is much better," replied Franz.
"I hoped so from your joyous disposition," said Bemperlein; "well, I am delighted. Then we can at least take our supper to-night without feeling as if every morsel would stick in our throats from sheer melancholy and mourning, as has been the case for the last fortnight.Ad vocemsupper; is it ready. Miss Sophie? I--who am not lucky enough to be able to satisfy my hunger with the ambrosia of confidential talk, and to quench my thirst with the nectar of love--I feel an unmistakable longing after earthly food and drink."
"I believe supper has been on the table for half an hour," said Sophie; "I had forgotten all about it."
"Then let us lose no more time," said Bemperlein, offering Sophie his arm, and leading her the familiar way into the adjoining room, where supper was regularly laid out.
Miss Sophie and Mr. Bemperlein were great friends. The excellent man had at every epoch of his life found somebody to whom he could offer his devotion and his love. When he had come over to settle in Grunwald, he had felt for a few days unspeakably lonely and wretched. Unable to live in solitude, and full of childlike trust, he had no sooner been introduced into the house of Privy Councillor Roban than he had poured out his complaints into the willing ear of Miss Sophie; whose large blue eyes encouraged him wonderfully. Sophie had not only listened to the little, lively man, who opened his whole heart to her with Homericnaïveté, as if he could not help doing so; but after following him with great attention to his last words; "that is all over now! over, and forever!" she had given him her hand with most cordial kindness, saying: "You must come and see us very often, Mr. Bemperlein. Papa is very fond of you and so am I. We'll try if we cannot make some amends to you for the loss of Berkow."
It was a strange friendship that bound the two to each other. Sophie, although twelve years younger than Bemperlein, was the admonishing, reproving, directing Mentor, and he the obedient, attentive, and docile Telemachus. She had aided him in arranging the modest lodgings which he had rented at some little distance from the privy councillor's house, and she made with him, and sometimes without him, the necessary purchases. Her attention went even beyond that. She trained him, after a fashion, for his entrance into society, for there was much to be done. She made him aware that it was not exactly the thing to hold gentlemen with whom he conversed continually by a coat-button, or to turn his back persistently upon ladies by whose side he had found his seat at table, however tedious they might appear in his eyes. "You must not do this, Bemperlein! You must stop doing that, Bemperlein!" the young lady continually said to him, and the good-natured man obeyed her implicitly, and was but too happy and proud if she said another time, "Bemperlein, that was well done! You played quite the cavalier to-night, Bemperlein!"
Bemperlein was soon even fonder of Miss Roban than he had been of Frau von Berkow. The latter remained, with all her kindness and goodness, after all, the great lady, the benefactress, the mistress; and the impression she had made upon him when he, a poor, bashful, awkward candidate for the ministry, had arrived one summer afternoon at Berkow, and been presented by old Baumann to the great lady, had never been wholly effaced in the seven long years which he had spent at her house. But Sophie was not grand; she laughed as heartily as any one of them; she looked at him so trustingly with her big, blue eyes; she made no pretensions; you could speak to her as to an equal, you could love her like a brother, without being all the time filled with awe and reverence.
And such paternal love Bemperlein felt for the hearty girl. Even if she had not been already engaged, it would never have occurred to him to fall in love with her. But to sympathize with all that interested her; to declare that her betrothed, whose acquaintance he made soon afterwards, was the most amiable and excellent of men; to render her any service which he could read in her eyes, and, when the privy councillor was ill, to watch with her till Franz should come back, day and night, with womanly patience and tenderness, by the bedside of the sufferer; and now, when he heard that the latter was better, to rejoice like a child to whom a father is restored, and to conceal this joy under a hundred innocent tricks and teasings--that was in the power of the ex-candidate of divinity and actual student of philosophy, Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein.
* * * * *
"I fear the potatoes are cold," said Sophie, raising the cover off the dish.
"Then they have exactly the temperature of this fish," said Franz, presenting her his dish.
"Or of this sauce," said Bemperlein, handing her the sauce-dish from the other side.
Sophie shrugged her shoulders.
"Nothing is eaten quite as warm as it is cooked, gentlemen. I must know that best, as future housewife!"
"For we are to be married in four weeks from to-day, Bemperlein," said Franz; "that is to say, if your dress-coat, which you have intended to order ever since you first came to Grunwald, can be ready by that time, Bemperlein, otherwise it cannot be."
"The coat shall be ready! The coat shall be ready!" cried Mr. Bemperlein; "even if I have myself to cut it out, to sew it, and to press it."
"That would make a nice coat, Bemperlein."
"Not so bad, perhaps, as you think. At all events it would not be the first dress-coat I have made with my own hands."
"Impossible, Bemperlein!" cried Franz, with amazement.
"As I tell you. It is a long time since, to be sure--perhaps fifteen years; and I was, during that Robinson Crusoe period of my life, much more inventive and industrious than I am now; but still I do not think I should find it impossible even now."
"But how did you come to make such a funny experiment?"
"Through the author of all inventions--necessity. You know, Miss Sophie, that I belong to those of God's children, or rather did belong, for now I have been promoted to another class, to whom the heavenly kingdom is promised, because they call nothing their own upon earth. This compelled me, when I left the Elysian fields of my native village and came to this town, to lead a life like a cicade, and to avoid all unnecessary expenses. Thus it occurred to me also, after long and painful meditation, that it might be feasible, even in this century of ink-consumption, to manufacture my own clothes, like Eumaeus of old, the god-like keeper of swine. No sooner thought than done. I had formed a great intimacy with a boy--his name was Christian Sweetmilk, the son of the old tailor Sweetmilk in Long street--who was to be a tailor and wished to be a doctor. We made a covenant that I should teach him every evening, when papa Sweetmilk's stentorian voice announced the closing of the shop, his Latin and Greek grammar; while he in return should instruct me in the use of the needle and the goose. Our studies were carried on with equal secrecy and industry, for I had good reason to fear the jibes of my school-mates, and he the never-missing yard-stick of his father and master. Oh! those were precious hours which we thus spent together, hours never to be forgotten again! I can see us still sitting by the light of a miserable train-oil lamp in our diminutive garret, on an autumn evening like this to-day, when the rain was pattering down upon the tiles right over our heads, and the gutter was overflowing, and the owls and rooks in the steeple of St. Nicholas were crowing and croaking. We were not cold however, although there was no fire burning in the little cast-iron stove, for the sacred flame of friendship warmed the blood in our veins with a gentle glow, and I was sewing till the thread smoked, and he was learning his grammar till his head smoked; and when I had finished a seam in masterly style, and he could tell histypto,typteiswithout a mistake, we fell into each other's arms and envied no king on his throne in all his splendor."
Mr. Bemperlein paused and looked deeply moved into his glass.
"Hurrah for old times!" said Franz.
"Hurrah for the new ones, too!" replied Bemperlein, touching glasses with the betrothed.
"But how about the dress-coat, Bemperlein?" asked Sophie. "I hope it was not the coat in which you were confirmed?"
"You have guessed it, fair lady; it was my confirmation coat. The time for the ceremony was drawing near. A merchant, to whose children I had given lessons in reading and writing, and at whose table I dined every Friday gratis, had presented me with the cloth for a dress-coat. The good man even told me to have it made at the tailor's at his expense. But I thought it would be abusing his goodness if I should avail myself of that offer too, and I asked his permission to have the coat made by my own tailor. Well, you may imagine who 'my own tailor' was. But alas! Papa Sweet milk had found out our 'abominable tricks,' as he called the sacred hours devoted to friendship and hard work, in his vulgar language. He had discovered the Greek grammar, which Christian used to throw quickly into 'hell,' the place of remnants and rags, when the Boeotian father suddenly entered, and the effect of this fatal discovery was, that he first used up his yard-stick on the shoulders of the attic youth, and then ordered him peremptorily to give up all intercourse with me hereafter, under penalty of being immediately and permanently banished from the paternal house, and of being disinherited besides. My faithful friend told me of the fearful sentence, weeping bitterly, as I met him the next day at the corner of the street. 'But I will not submit any longer to such tyranny,' he cried, flourishing a pair of trousers, which he was ordered to carry to one of his father's customers, with more energy than grace. 'This one more slavish service I will render (and he struck the dishevelled inexpressibles with his closed fist in wild fury) and then I will go into the wide, wide world. Will you go with me? 'It took me some time to quiet the boy. I knew that nothing pained him more than the thought that he would now be unable to help me with my dress-coat. I reminded him of the commandment, that we must honor father and mother, if we wish to live long in the land which the Lord our God has given us. I told him his father would probably give way after a while; and as for the dress-coat, I promised him that the pupil should do credit to his master. Christian shook his head sadly. 'You can't do it, Anastasius,' he said; 'you will not get it done, even if you had any idea how to cut it out.' 'What will you bet, Christian?' I cried. 'You shall see me to-day week at the confirmation in church, wearing the coat I have made without your assistance, and you shall have to confess that it fits me well. If I win, you shall give me your bird; if you win, I'll give you the Odyssey, Heyne's edition. What do you say?' 'Done!' said Christian, laughing, in spite of his troubles. 'I ought not to bet, because you are sure to lose, but since you will have it so, let it be so.'"
"Well, and who won the wager?" asked Sophie, full of interest.
"On the following Sunday, at St. Nicholas," said Mr. Bemperlein, and his voice trembled, and the glasses in his spectacles were dim, "on the following Sunday I was kneeling amid a number of youths before the altar, and the music of the organ was floating through the vast edifice, and the minister proclaimed God's blessing over us; but I heard nothing of all that. I only looked up to the gallery, to a boy with long, brown hair and brown eyes, who kissed his hand to me, and whose dear face was beaming with pride and joy that his friend should look so well, contrary to all his expectations. When my turn came that 'the Lord might bless me and preserve me and let His countenance shine upon me,' he folded his hands piously and prayed for me earnestly with bent head."
Bemperlein paused again. He had taken off his glasses, which had become dimmer and dimmer, and was now rubbing them bright again with his silk handkerchief.
"And what has become of Christian?" asked Franz.
"He is now professor of ancient languages in one of the best lyceums in Belgium; his grammar of the Doric poets is considered a most valuable work for philologists. I had a letter from him day before yesterday, sixteen pages long."
"And what has become of the dress-coat?" asked Sophie.
"It hangs still, as a valued memento of former days, in my wardrobe," replied Bemperlein, replacing his spectacles, and looking with a smile at Sophie; "and what is more than that, it still fits me so well that I can present myself in it at any time, if my gracious lady should entertain any doubts as to the truthfulness of this veracious story."
"Will you do me a favor, Bemperlein?" said Sophie, with unusual seriousness, offering him her hand.
"Anything!" said Bemperlein, enthusiastically, and seizing the girl's hand.
"Then don't order a new dress-coat for my wedding, but come in the old one, which has become very dear to me through your touching story."
"Are you in earnest?"
"Can you doubt it?"
"Well, then," said Mr. Bemperlein, kissing Sophie's hand reverently, "I will be at your wedding in the coat which I have made myself for my confirmation."
The little company finished their cold supper and then went back to the cosy sitting-room, where Sophie made tea, while Franz went to inquire after the privy councillor. He returned with the welcome news that papa was, for the first time since the beginning of his sickness, lying in quiet, refreshing sleep, and that the servant who was watching by his bedside said "he had fallen asleep almost immediately after having murmured a few unintelligible words, with folded hands."
Franz assured them that the recovery would now progress with rapid strides, and that he felt very little doubt any more of a perfect restoration. Sophie embraced and kissed him as a reward for this good news, and Bemperlein vowed he would hereafter acknowledge a fifth most profane evangelist, besides the four in the Bible--namely, a St. Franciscus.
They were sitting around the fire-place. The steam of the tea-kettle and the smoke of the cigars which the gentlemen had lighted, rose in clouds up to the Olympic Zeus, who now became a comfortable Zeus Xenius. Franz was in a peculiarly elated humor, which Sophie placed on the ground of the favorable turn in her father's disease, but which had a very different reason. It was the nervous excitement which overcomes even the bravest before the beginning of a battle; for Franz felt and knew that to-day the battle of life had commenced for him in good earnest. He had assumed most serious obligations, which might have incalculable consequences for his own future and for Sophie's future. The very heaviest responsibility was henceforth resting on his shoulders. He saw of a sudden the ocean, on which the vessel which contained their joint fortunes was sailing, filled with most dangerous reefs, which it would require an always clear head, an always bold heart, and an always steady hand to clear successfully. Sophie did not suspect what her betrothed was then experiencing; she began, with Bemperlein's aid, to draw a picture of the future--a little paradise, full of peace and comfort, quiet and sunshine.
"You must get married too, Bemperlein," she cried.
"With the greatest pleasure," replied Mr. Bemperlein "if you will find the main thing."
"What is that?"
"A girl who is willing to love me, and whom I can love."
"I'll pick you out one, Bemperlein. I know your taste, and I know exactly what the future Mrs. Bemperlein must be like."
"I am rather curious to hear," aid Mr. Bemperlein, comfortably ensconcing himself in his chair.
"In the first place," said Sophie, "as regards the exterior--for you do attach some importance to appearances, Bemperlein, do you not?"
"Certainly," said Bemperlein, eagerly.
"Well, then, your future wife must not be tall."
"Why not?"
"Because you are not a giant yourself Bemperlein; and, you know, like and like ... I therefore submit that she ought to be delicate and well made, a nice little figure, with dark hair and dark eyes, clever, active, gay, and mobile. Are you content?"
"Hem!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "Not so bad! not so bad! Go on!"
"Then, as regards fortune; she must not be rich. You know why."
"Because I would not know what to do with the money."
"Exactly so. Am I right?"
"Perfectly. But now tell me why said lady must necessarily have brown hair and brown eyes?"
"As far as I recollect, I have only spoken of dark hair and dark eyes; but if you have a decided preference for brown, Bemperlein----"
"Preferences" said Bemperlein, almost anxiously "I have a preference! What do you mean?"
"Bemperlein, you blush! That is a very suspicious sign. Do not you think so too, Franz?"
"Very suspicious," replied Franz. "I propose that the accused be examined most rigorously, and persuaded by every available means to make an open and full confession."
"Yes, he must confess! he shall confess!" cried the overjoyous girl, clapping her hands; "he shall give an account of that treacherous redness on his cheeks. Accused! I ask you, upon your conscience, do you know a lady with brown hair and brown eyes?"
"But how can you ask me that, Miss Sophie?" replied Mr. Bemperlein, blushing deeper than before.
"Let your words be Yea, yea! or Nay, nay! accused, and nothing else!"
"Well then, I have!" said Bemperlein, laughing.
"And when you spoke of brown hair and brown eyes, did you think of this lady?"
"Yes!" replied Bemperlein, after some hesitation.
"Now we have him! He has thought of her! He has thought of her!" cried Miss Sophie, and laughed with delight.
"But who isshe?" asked Franz.
"We shall learn that presently. Accused! does she live in this city?"
"Yes."
"Franz, take that down: she lives in the city. Accused! do you see her frequently?"
"No."
"Then, have you seen her to-day?"
"But, Miss So----"
"No subterfuges! Have you seen her to-day?"
"Well, I see I shall fare better by confessing everything at once," said Mr. Bemperlein, who in spite of all his efforts to appear unconcerned had become more and more embarrassed. "Hear, then, oh severe judge, and you, grave assistant judge, with your diabolic smile, the strange story which has happened to me to-day, and which seems to be specially intended to lead me from one trouble to another."
"Tell us, Bemperlein; tell us!" cried Sophie. "The affair begins to look romantic."
"Well, then, you know, Miss Sophie, that the Grenwitz family has come to town to-day."
"We are aware of that. Go on, accused!"
"But you do not know that the baroness wrote to me immediately after her arrival, and asked me to call on her in the course of the day. She said she had to confer with me on a matter of the utmost importance."
"The affairs of the baroness are always of the utmost importance," said Franz.
"That I knew; and therefore I did not exactly hasten to pay my visit. Towards evening, however, just before I came here, I went to the house."
"Well, and what was the great trifle?"
"I never found it out, for I was not fortunate enough to be admitted. In the house-door I met Mr. Timm, who was in such a hurry that he nearly ran over me, and he had barely time to say to me 'What on earth are you doing here, Bemperlein?' In the ante-chamber to which the servant had shown me I found Mademoiselle Marguerite."
"Has she brown eyes, Bemperlein?"
"She has brown eyes. Miss Sophie; very fine brown eyes; which appeared to me at that moment all the brighter as they were filled with tears."
"Oh," said Miss Sophie, unconsciously dropping her gay tone; "why so?"
"Do I know it? I had entered without knocking, as I did not expect there would be anybody inside. When I came in, the young lady, who had been sitting with her head on a table and sobbing, jumped up and did her best to hide her tears. When I asked if I could see the baroness, she replied that she would go and see. But she did not go, at least not beyond the nearest door, where she stopped and again broke out into tears. You may imagine how embarrassed I was. I cannot see anybody weep, much less so young, poor, and helpless a creature as Mademoiselle Marguerite. I went up to her, took her hand--upon my word I could not help it--and said--what else could I say?--'why do you cry, Mademoiselle?' Her tears flowed only the faster. I repeated my question again and again. 'Je suis si malheureuse!' was all she could utter amid her sobs. That was all I heard. I pitied the poor child, with all my heart. I asked if I could help her. She shook her head. I tried to comfort her, and said whatever can be said in such a state of things. Gradually she calmed down, dried her eyes, pressed my hand, and said, 'Oh, que vous êtes bon!' Then she stepped out at the door. I was as wise as before. After a few minutes there came, in her place, Baron Felix, to tell me that his aunt was exceedingly sorry not to be able to see me to-night. She was too much fatigued from the journey. I might call again in the morning. As Baron Felix also seemed to be in a great hurry, I took my leave very quickly. When I was in the door he called after me, 'Apropos, Mr. Bemperlein, do you happen to know when Doctor Stein will be back again?' 'I believe in a few days,' I replied, and left. There you have my romantic story."
"Which is full of suggestions," said Franz. "For instance, I should like to know myself when Oswald will be back. He ought to be here by this time."
At that moment a maid came in, to hand him a card.
"Is the gentleman still there?" asked Franz, rising quickly.
"No, sir. He asked if you were alone? I told him, 'No, Mr. Bemperlein was in the room.' Then he said he would call again, and left."
"Who was it?" asked Sophie.
"Oswald!" replied Franz. "What a pity! I should have liked to see him."
Oswald had reached Grunwald a few hours ago. The early autumn evening was coming on apace, as he approached the old town on the turnpike--for this part of the Prussian Vendée was then not yet in possession of a railway. The high towers rose dimly like Ossian's giant bodies in the floating gray mist; mists hung low upon the meadows between the causeway and the sea, and mists hovered over the wide waters between the island and the firm land.
Oswald wrapped himself, shivering, more closely in his cloak, and fell back in the corner of the coupé. What was he to do in Grunwald? What did he want in Grunwald? He did not know it himself. Even the low trees by the wayside, bent by the northeast storms, which slipped by in wearying monotony as he drove on, did not know it; the raw-boned stage horses, dripping with wet and trotting mechanically along with drooping heads, did not know it; even the old, bearded guard, who was pulling out the list of passengers for the hundredth time, from sheer weariness, and was conning it over once more, even he did not know it. Nobody knew it, unless it was the crow, which had delayed too long in the woods and was now flying lonely and sadly above the stage-coach towards town, and vanished in the mist. And the trees danced by, more like spectres than ever; and the horses shook more impatiently the heavy collars, and the mist rolled up in closer and darker masses, and through the close and dark mist a few lights become visible; and now the coach rolls across the drawbridge, through the narrow town-gate, into the narrow, ill-paved, tortuous street, and stops before the post-office. The sudden quiet after many hours' shaking, jolting, and rattling, is indescribably sweet for one who reaches the end of his journey, but indescribably painful for him whose journey has no end, or for whom the end is not the desired goal. He would rather the jolting, shaking, and rattling should begin once more and carry him further and further away from all men into eternal night.
But he is now in a civilized city among civilized men, who have no sympathy with eccentricities of any kind, and who hold to the opinion that a gentleman who arrives in Grunwald by the express stage-coach at the appointed hour, half-past seven o'clock, is bound to give the guard a fee, to ask him respectfully to pick out from the other boxes and trunks his own trunk and hat-box, marked in legible letters with a "Doctor Stein, passenger for Grunwald," and then to send these things by a porter to the Hotel St. Petersburg. Here Doctor Stein thought he would be kindly remembered from the time when he studied and passed his examination here under the auspices of Professor Berger, and used to drink many a bottle of wine at said hotel in company with the latter; but now nobody knew him, for the old landlord had died several months ago, and the new landlord had engaged new waiters.
This had the effect that the clerk looked upon him as a stranger in the fullest sense of the word, and treated him as such, presenting to him at once the large book in which he was to enter his name. "Mr. Drostein? Thank you!... Doctor O. Stein? Ah! I beg pardon; thought it was all one name. Are you going to honor us with your presence for any length of time, sir? No? Much life in town just now: theatre, horse-fair, student's ball.... Doctor Braun? Know him very well, practices in the house since the privy councillor has been paralyzed. Was here to-day.... Where he lives? Quite near here. Post street, second house on the right, close by the privy councillor's. Are you going to order supper, sir? No appetite? sorry to hear it! Very fine fresh oysters! Natives! Anything else? water to drink? Pitcher of water? Directly, sir, you shall have it at once!"
An uncomfortable-looking room; two lighted candles on the table before the sofa; a trunk on a low trestle; a hat-box on the chair close by; all around silence, when the step of the waiter is no longer heard in the long, narrow passage. Oswald did not think the situation calculated to cheer up a melancholy man. He made haste to leave the room and the house.
It had been his first intention to call on Franz, the only one in Grunwald from whom he could be sure of receiving a hearty welcome--a friend's reception; but he soon abandoned the plan and wandered aimless and purposeless through the streets. He had never felt at home in Grunwald; but yet he had not found the town looking so utterly strange to him, even in the first days of his former residence here. Was it only the effect of his melancholy humor? Was it the dark, misty evening? He did not recognize the streets--the squares through which he used to walk so often; and when he thought he recalled one or the other feature, it was only like something seen in a dream, where we confound the near and the far chaotically in some great unknown distance. At last he found himself in one of the streets leading down to the harbor. Here he was more at home, for the harbor with its crowd of boats and ships, its smell of the sea and of tar, its monotonous sailors' songs, and its ceaseless hammering and knocking and sawing, had ever been his favorite part of the town, and the almost daily end of his walks.
But to-night everything was deserted and death-like, even in this the only lively portion of the old Hanse town, every other part of which looked as if it had been fast asleep for centuries, and was at best murmuring in a half dream something about its past glory and power. Here and there a light was visible through a cabin window, now and then a dog barked on the deck of a vessel, or a sailor's hoarse call was heard; otherwise all was silence and darkness.
He walked upon the wharf that stretched far into the sea, and along which vessel lay by vessel, out to the uttermost point. Here he stood for some time, sunk in silent meditation, and looked with folded arms out into the darkness which rested on the waters, and listened to the low, monotonous splashing of the waves which were all the time kissing and caressing the massive blocks of the breakwater. Was this his dearly-beloved sea, on which his dreams and his hopes had so often taken wings in company with countless gulls? Was this the dark abyss, in which his hopes and dreams had been irretrievably swallowed up for all eternity, like the treasure of a shipwrecked vessel?
Beyond, on the other side of the black waste of waters, lay the island, so near and yet so far off, like the time which he had spent there--the short span of time that held all he had ever known of happiness and peace in this life. A ferry-boat, which came from the island across, sailed close by the outer end of the wharf on which he was standing. He heard the measured dip of the heavy oars as they struck the waters, and the peculiar low screeching which they cause as they rub against the gunwale; he heard the confused voices of the passengers; he could even, as they came nearer, distinguish single words; he thought he heard Helen's name. Perhaps it was only an illusion, or an echo in his own heart; but it struck him with peculiar force, and all of a sudden a desire overcame him to seek out the house where, as he knew, the fair maid was staying at the time.
He went back into the town; he crossed the market-place. He stopped before the house where Berger had lived. There was no light in the windows. He could see by the light of a street-lamp that the green blinds were closed, as in a house whose owner had died. From the steeple of St. Nicholas the solemn music of a choral was heard, in which, according to an ancient custom, Grunwald bids every evening at nine o'clock farewell to the day that has gone by. Ordinarily the organist only sends four men up to sing; but on days when a citizen of distinction has been gathered to his fathers, he sends half, or the whole of the choir, according to the desire of the survivors, who wish to give an expression to their grief in this extraordinary manner. To-day all the voices were fully represented--the deceased must have been a man of very uncommon importance.
Oswald listened till the last note had died away. He thought of death, and the Great Mystery which the grave does not solve, but makes only darker, and how happy the men are, after all, who find their trust in believing in a Saviour and a Redeemer.
The long-drawn summons of the sentinel before the main-guard awaked him from his dreams. The squeaking voice of a youthful hero gave the command: "Carry arms! Ground arms! Helmets off for prayer!" Piety by order--effusions of heart, according to the paragraph of the regulations! In a well ordered state everything must go by rule.
"Why," said Oswald to himself, while he was walking towards the town-gate, "why are you not a pedant among pedants, since fate does not permit you to be a Roman among Romans? Why do you kick against the pricks to which all the cattle patiently submit? You might be as well off as the others. After all, it may not be so bad a thing to sit, as Berger used to call it, in the easy-chair of an office; the night-cap of a sinecure may protect one against many an attack of rheumatism--the effect of a draught in this windy outside world; and he who has a virtuous wife lives twice as long; and when he is compelled to die, like everybody else, they play and sing from the steeple, that the whole town hears it and prays for the peace of his soul."
Above him it rustled in the tall trees with which the street was lined that led to the suburb and to Miss Bear's boarding-school. The evening breeze has torn the dense veil of fog, and the crescent of the increasing moon was dancing through the clouds in their spectral flight. A horseman galloped past him towards town. The horse snorted; sparks flew. A moment later, and the noise was scarcely audible, and soon ceased altogether. "Somebody, I dare say, who rides for the doctor; a husband, perhaps, whose wife is taken ill; a father, whose son is lying on his death-bed." Oswald thought of the night when Bruno died, and of his fearful ride across the heath from Grenwitz to Fashwitz. If Bruno had only lived! Oswald thought everything would have happened differently then. It seemed to him as if the death of the boy alone had made him so miserably poor--as if he could have challenged a world in arms, with him by his side. With him and good fortune! no sacrifice would have been too great for Bruno's sake; not even the sacrifice of his love for Helen. He would have willingly and cheerfully given the fair girl to Bruno--but to him alone, in the world. Given? What had he to give--he the beggar?
Now he was standing before the house he had come to see, and supported himself against the iron railing of the garden. There was not a window lighted up in the whole house. The inmates had probably all retired to rest. He thought of the summer nights when he had stood looking by the hour at the open window with the curtains lowered, from which the music of a piano was wafted to him through the soft, silent air; and hours afterwards, long after the light had vanished behind the red curtains and the music had ceased, and he had still wandered up and down between the flower-beds and under the tall beech-trees, sometimes till the first purple streak of morning-dawn appeared on the eastern horizon, and the birds in the thick bushes began dreamily to twitter above him.
A breath of wind rushed through the two tall poplar-trees on both sides of the lofty portal and whispered mysteriously in the dry leaves, a window-shutter flapped in the house, a dog in a neighboring house began to bark.
Oswald shivered as if he had a fever. The momentary excitement after his long journey in the stage-coach had passed away; he felt tired and sick. He buttoned up his overcoat and turned to go back into the city. A carriage came rapidly towards him. A horseman with a lantern in his hand galloped before it--probably the same who before had galloped madly through the dark night into town.
Could it be Doctor Braun, who was going away? The thought that he might possibly not find his friend at home, awakened in Oswald the desire to see him and to talk to him. In a few minutes--for the distances in Grunwald are not considerable--he stood before the house which the waiter had told him was Doctor Braun's house. The girl who opened the door said her master was at the privy councillor's, adding that he spent all his evenings there. Here Oswald was told that Bemperlein was in the sitting-room--Bemperlein, the only one, with the exception of old Baumann, who knew his relations to Frau von Berkow--the only one whom he feared to meet; whose reproachful glance, in case he should not yet have been informed of the most recent events, must be painful to him.
He only remembered, when he was in the street again, that his going away in such a manner must have appeared extraordinary, if not ridiculous. This disturbed him and made him feel worse than before. He would have liked best to hide himself in the lowest depth of the earth; to forget in sleep the misery of life. In sleep? Why not in wine, when sleep is not to be had? "The best of life is but intoxication," says Byron; and there where a solitary lamp shines dimly between two stone pillars, is the entrance to the cellars of the old city hall. Down the long, broad staircase with the low steps, down into the bowels of the earth, where nobody cares for sentiments that make the heart heavy, and for thoughts that confuse the head!
The city cellars of Grunwald cannot rival those of Bremen, but nevertheless they are very respectable cellars. The low, spacious vaults stretch far under the city hall, and extend even below the market-place, on which it is situated. There are rooms enough that have in former days served as drinking rooms of every size, and may even to-day be used for larger and smaller companies, but what is most needed is wanting--the guests. The good old times, when Grunwald was wealthy and powerful, are no longer. Those who built these vaults and filled them with ringing of cups, with songs of cheerful converse--the honorable sober-minded burgesses with their broad shoulders, their full, well-trimmed beards, and the broad-swords by their sides--they sleep, all of them, sound, good sleep in the old graveyards, or under the huge slabs of stone with which the churches are paved, if they were members of the council, or otherwise great men, and there "await a blissful resurrection." Their grandchildren crowd together in dark, narrow chambers, and drink stale brown beer, instead of fiery, golden wine; many a one, whose ancestor went down these steps day by day, whenever the rosy summer evening was lying on the high gable roofs, or the storms of winter were careering through the dark, narrow streets, hardly knows how it looks down there in the city cellars.
Nevertheless they do not seem to be entirely deserted by the good people of Grunwald. The dim little lamp at the entrance burns night after night--often far into the small hours, sometimes till daybreak--and the solemn citizen who has been belated at some Christening feast or other great festivity, and now walks home with wife and daughter in the silent night through the deserted streets, and past the city cellars, often sees a dim light shine through the unwashed windows, and hears perhaps low confused voices, which seem to rise from the bowels of the earth and make an uncanny impression at that hour and in that place.
But there are no gnomes carrying on their wicked doings below there, only gay companions, jovial, or at least not very pedantic fellows, who can fully appreciate the value of a good glass of wine, taken from a good cask, and enjoyed in good society. There are men who do not relish all of life so very heartily that they should not at times desire to wash the dusty, unpleasant taste down with a glass of wine; others who have neither chick nor child at home, and get tired at night among their silent books; still others who, wearied of the monotony of married life, want to have a merry night for once; and still others, who have quite accidentally found their way down the broad cellar-steps, and cannot very well get up again a few hours later, however broad the steps may be. There are young professional men, artists, actors--if there happen to be any in town--young literati, now and then a farmer from the neighborhood, or an official--these make the main ingredients of the public which is apt to assemble every evening in the great vault to the left of the entrance, and sometimes, when they wish to be still more exclusive, in a smaller room on the other side of the building.
Oswald knew the place very well from his former residence here, although he had never reached the dignity of an habitué. He had been occasionally at the cellars with Berger, without taking much notice of the rest of the company that might be there. Thus the damp, cool air, filled with the peculiar odor of marvellously-ancient walls, and the fragrance of last year's wine, greeted him pleasantly, and he found without much trouble the way to the low door which opened into the drinking-hall.
Except the waiter, there happened to be at that moment nobody in the long, vaulted, and badly-lighted room, but a single guest, who sat with his back to the door, and did not allow himself to be disturbed in the least by Oswald's entrance. He was pleasantly engaged in discussing fresh oysters, and Oswald, who had taken his seat not far from him at one of the small round tables, noticed with some astonishment what a mountain of shells the indefatigable worker had already accumulated. And yet he did not look tired. At least he leaned only now and then back in his chair, in order to sip with evident satisfaction a glass of wine, and then renewed his labors with a zeal which certainly spoke as eloquently for the good quality of the oysters as for the excellency of the digestive powers of the consumer.
The last shell was dropping from the mountain, and the last drops were flowing from the bottle into the glass.
"Sic transit gloria mundi," said the man; "nevertheless, we can easily renew thisgloria. Carole, bring another dozen of these excellent dwellers in the deep, and half a bottle of this most praiseworthy hock."
Oswald listened. The voice was familiar to him; it reminded him of by-gone, happy days. That fresh, clear voice had refreshed and encouraged him more than once, as the wind does the prisoner blowing in through the open windows of his prison; it did not fail to-day to have the usual effect on his darkened mind. Of all men this was the one whose company was by far the most welcome to-night.
He rose, therefore, approached him, and greeted him with unusual animation.
"Ah, dottore, dottore!" exclaimed the oyster-eater, rising at once and seizing the proffered hand. "You here? Well, that is a most sensible notion of our stupid friend's accident. Carole, a whole bottle instead of half a bottle, and several dozen oysters instead of one."
"Am I really at this moment apersona gratato you, Timm?" said Oswald, taking a seat by Albert's side.
"Persona grata!at this moment!" cried Albert Timm. "Don Oswaldo! Don Oswaldo! I have missed you sadly, upon my word, ever since we parted at Grenwitz, and I am as delighted as a snow-bird to see you here again. Where on earth have you been hiding all this time? I have inquired of everybody. Since when are you back?"
"Three hours ago."
"And, of course, you are hungry and thirsty, just as you were when you left the stage-coach; at least you look so. Carole, Carole! Why does the fellow not come? At last! Here, dottore, is food for a sound stomach, and drink for a sick heart! Here's your health! Welcome in Grunwald!"
And Mr. Timm's face smiled so kindly as he said these kind words that it would have looked like blackest ingratitude to doubt the sincerity of his sentiments.
Oswald at least was most pleasantly affected by this cordial reception of a man whose friendship he had never tried to win, whose amiable frankness he had often met with repulsive coldness, and he felt this all the more deeply as he had suffered a few moments before acutely from a sense of loneliness in the world.
"One service deserves another, Timm," he said, while the latter was filling the glasses again. "I can tell you that I am heartily glad to have met you the very first night I spend again in this town. Let us have another glass! Here's our good friendship!"
"With pleasure!" cried Mr. Timm, heartily grasping Oswald's proffered hand. "We will hold together honestly. Heaven knows this wretched old-fogy place does not have an abundance of men with whom one can hold together, or like to do it. But this league of two noble souls ought to be celebrated in a nobler beverage. Carole! A bottle of champagne--Clicquot andfrappé--else, by the bones of my fathers, the lightning of my wrath falls upon your bald pate. And now come,dottore mio, tell us something of your wanderings; or, rather, tell us that some other time; and let me know, first of all, for that is most interesting to me, has Fame told us falsely in making a most wonderful mixture of great and small things of the last scenes of your farce, your drama, or your tragedy at Grenwitz?"
"Before I can answer that," said Oswald, whom the oysters, the wine, Timm's company, and the whole atmosphere, were gradually putting into better humor, "I must know what it is Fame has reported."
"Do you really wish to know?"
"Certainly."
"Well, there were two readings; but you must not blame me, Stein, if I touch a sore place in your heart without knowing."
"But, Timm, do you think I am a child?"
"In some respects all men are children, and remain children, dottore, and you are no exception to the rule. Whatever flatters our self-love, goes down as easily as a rich oyster; whatever hurts our vanity, tastes like wormwood and quinine.Eh bien!Some say you had favored an understanding between Bruno--what a pity, by the way, the poor boy had to bite the grass so young!--and Miss Helen; that Felix had come to you to hold you to an account about this in the name of the parents; that this had led to a difficulty between you, which had ended in a scuffle; that Felix had slipped, in his endeavor to turn you out of the house, and that he had broken his right--some say his left--arm, once; some say twice."
"The accursed rascal," murmured Oswald, between his teeth, hastily throwing an empty oyster-shell to the others.
"Did I not tell you I might annoy you, Oswald? Come, don't be a child, and wash your anger down in a glass of this famous wine. The other reading is not half so bitter."
"Let us hear!"
"According to this variation it was not the pupil, but the teacher, whom the young lady looked upon with favor; and the broken arm of the baron was not the effect of a fall, but of a pistol ball, which was applied to his aforesaid extremity in the presence of witnesses, and according to all the rules of art."
"Well, and which reading do you prefer?"
"Of course the latter, my brave Knight of La Mancha. Here, Oswald--nobody hears us in these halls, sacred to friendship and love--fill your glass and drink! Drink it to the last drop of silvery foam! Her health!--the health of the only one, the sweet, the fair, the beautiful one, with the blueish-black hair and the dark sea-deep eyes! Drink! I say, by the bones of the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne! Drink! How, noble Don, are you ashamed to confess the lady of your overflowing heart? and to deny her before me--me, the wise Merlin, who can hear the grass grow and the eyes sigh? Have I not heard the sighing of your beautiful eyes in those sunny days which are no more, when you and she, two children of a rare kind, played innocently under the rose-bushes and thought that no one saw you, not even the Creator of heaven and earth who gave you the warm breath with which you playfully whispered to each other the sweet mysteries of love? And did I not hear how serpents' tongues hissed around you? Did I not see with what intense hatred basilisk eyes glared at you? Oh, I have seen and heard all that, and I knew before that it would come thus, but I said nothing; for speech is silver, but silence is gold, and he who meddles with love affairs would do better to go and sit down in a bed of nettles."
"Tell me, Timm, have you--have you seen her since she has come to Grunwald?"
"I have seen her, my master!--not once, but many times, by the side of other fair beauties, among whom she looked like the rose of Sharon amid dandelions, gliding over the pavement of Grunwald, through dismal streets; and the paving-stones in the streets and the bricks in the houses received speech, and they spoke and sang: Blessed art thou among women!"
"She is at Miss Bear's house, is she not?" Oswald asked, who thought it would be folly to try and conceal his attachment from a man of such sharp observation as Albert.
"Yes, she is at the She Bear's--this pearl of an argus-eyed female. There she dwells, and sits at the window and sees the clouds drift over the tops of the poplars; and if you pass by there at noon, between twelve and one, you can see her sit there yourself, as I have seen her every time I have passed there at that hour. And always she raised her beautiful eyes, and always she looked at me inquiringly: Can you bring me no news of him--of him, the only man I love dearly? Why, Oswald, I--a prosy old fogy--I speak in verses whenever I think of the maid; and you, who are a poet, mean to deny that you love her with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind? Fie upon you; you do not deserve that I take so much trouble about you--that I have thought of you these last weeks more frequently than you have done during the whole time. But ingratitude is the reward of the world, and--Carole, another bottle!--I shall hereafter not trouble myself about you and your fate any further."
Timm rested his head in his hand, as Oswald had been doing these last ten minutes. A pause followed, while bald-headed Charles placed a new bottle of champagne into the wine-cooler, turned it round a few times in the ice, and then left them again as noiselessly as he had come.
This sudden transition from exuberant hilarity into such melancholy silence, in an elastic nature like Surveyor Timm's, was somewhat too sudden to be perfectly natural. Oswald, however, was too busy with his own thoughts to notice this. He thought Timm was sincere, and he was flattered by the lively interest which he had excited in a man whom he had heretofore looked upon as altogether frivolous and selfish. He filled his own glass and Albert's from the new bottle, and said,
"I am not ungrateful, Timm; I am really not so; and least of all in this case. And if I have heretofore not put full faith in your friendship, it was only because I felt how little I had deserved it. Let us have another glass together! You know you must not be exacting with a melancholy man like myself!"
"Well, I should think I knew that," said Timm, with his usual merry laugh, pushing back the long fair hair that had fallen down upon his forehead, and emptying his glass at a single draught. "And I have often wondered how a man like yourself, who has a right to enjoy life more than any one else, can look upon the world in a way which seems only fit for sick canary birds and like invalids. I should say nothing if you had never commenced to enjoy it from mere bashfulness, or if you had wasted your strength in enjoyment; but as neither the one nor the other is evidently the case with you--as you are not an enthusiastic saint nor a worn-out roué--as you suffer neither from an exuberance of strength nor from too great weakness, I really cannot tell what is the matter with you, except one thing."
"And what is that?"
Mr. Timm rested his elbows on the table, and the smooth face in his white hands, and smiled craftily at Oswald.
"And that is--what, Timm?"
"Ten thousand dollars annual income." Oswald laughed.
"A very prosaic remedy for contempt of the world."
"But a very radical one, and in your case infallible."
"Why exactly in my case?"
Timm filled the glasses once more, lighted a fresh cigar, and said:
"Heine, you know, divides men in two classes: fat Grecians and lean Nazarenes. I have found this distinction as acute as true. The former believe in Our Lady of Melos, the latter worship the Virgin Dolorosa. The former enjoy the good things of life in cheerful happiness; the latter prefer a grumbling resignation and meditative asceticism. In order that both classes should be right, that the Grecians should be able to live well and the Nazarenes pray well, the former must have an abundance of money, and the latter must be poor, very poor indeed."
"Before you go on with your exposition, Timm, tell me first to which of the two classes you belong yourself."
"To both, or to neither of the two, as you choose. I have the good digestion, the sound teeth, the fine perception--in a word, the desire and the capacity to enjoy which belongs to the Grecians; but I have also the tenacity and frugality necessary to the Nazarenes for the practice of their peculiar virtues. I have the invaluable talent of the camel to be able to thirst a long time without losing heart or appetite; on the contrary, abstinence only serves in my case to sharpen the appetite and to season the next drink more attractively. When I have travelled through the desert, and--as just now, for instance--the branches of mimosas and the fans of palm-trees wave over me, and the icy-cold well--as just now, for instance, from the bottle--I meant to say, from the rock--foams and purls--then I bend my long camel's neck and drink and drink and drink, and bless the dry, brown desert which has led me to such a delicious well."
And Mr. Timm poured down a full glass of champagne with the hasty eagerness of a traveller whose tongue is glued to the palate.
Oswald watched the exulting companion who sat opposite to him with a peculiar sense of pleasure, not unmixed with envy. How sharp and bold, and yet how fine and intelligent, were the features in this smooth, almost boyish face! How well that haughty superciliousness suited him, which played around his delicate nostrils and curved the sharply-accented red lips! How the words flew from these lips, swift as feathered arrows, each one of which hits the bull's-eye! What a sovereign contempt for mere phrases, for any kind of ornament, for all those rags with which hypocrites and fools try to cover their nakedness! How eloquent the whole bearing of the man, his head thrown boldly back, as he blew the smoke of his cigar from him, or as he took the bottle from the cooler, shook it, and filled again and again his empty glass to overflowing! How light the burden of life seemed to be to this man, light as to the lion who leaps with the colt in his teeth swiftly over hedges and ditches!
Oswald was not inclined at that moment to cast a glance into the bottomless abyss of selfishness which lay concealed under the surface of this humor, dancing about in merry waves. The time and the place were not favorable to such an analysis. He felt down here, in this deep, quiet cellar, with its dim, mysterious light of two small candles, as if he were thousands of miles away from the rest of the world. He had come here to drink himself into oblivion; he had succeeded in his wishes. His brow was all aglow, as he followed the example of his companion and poured down glass after glass. He had not felt so free and so happy for a long time as he did at that moment.
"As for you, now, noble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian, without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene, and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the nobles, you hate the rich, you hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a desire to be noble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of your moral humbug of the nobility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart, and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it, and were I to take them I know not where."
"I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm."
"Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act in such a case towards your old friend."
"I would do with the mammon, you may rest assured of that, as I did when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it with my friends."
Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream:
"I am a curious fellow, Oswald; as sceptical as a heathen, and yet as fond of all sorts of omens as an old woman. As I was sitting here alone eating my oysters, I said to myself: you happen to have a few dollars in your pocket and you would like to spend them with a friend. And then there occurred to me, as to Wallenstein, the question: who of all those whom I meet here evening after evening meant it best and most honestly? and that it should be the one who would first enter at the door. But, strange enough, contrary to all the customs of the place, not one of them came. Instead of that, you came--you, of whom I had not thought at all. Oswald, I do not know how you think about such matters, and it may be that my request will offend you, but I should like to drink with you to our future, our intimate friendship. What do you say?"
"With all my heart!" cried Oswald. "There is just one more glass for each of us in the bottle."
"And no one shall ever drink again out of this glass!" cried Albert, and threw the empty glass on the floor.
Oswald did the same; but the noise of the breaking glasses sounded shrill and painful to his ear, like the laughter of delighted demons.
Bald Charles, who had sat behind his counter at the other end of the hall, nodding, started up when he heard the noise, and came gliding up, drunk with sleep, thinking they had called him.
"How is it, Oswald," cried Timm; "I think we had better have another bottle. We shall not meet again as young as we are now."
"No," said Oswald; "let us be content. My head burns. And I have to call, to-morrow, on Tom, Dick, and Harry. What is to pay?"
"Stop!" cried Mr. Timm, holding Oswald's arm. "Mine is the helmet, and it belongs to me! Carole, if you accept a red cent from this gentleman, I break this empty bottle on your bald skull! Come! Make yourself paid out of this rag for to-night and for the last nights; and what remains over, why you can buy yourself on the way a wig with it, my Carole!"
With these words Timm had drawn a twenty-five dollar note from a bulky parcel which he took from his coat-pocket, and handed it to the waiter, who seemed to be not a little astonished at this sudden wealth in the hands of one of his very worst customers. At least he grinned in a very peculiar manner as he took the note, while Mr. Timm put back the package with an air of perfect indifference, and tilting his hat on his head, sang: