'When this Imperial TroyAnd Priam's race and Priam's royal selfShall in one common ruin be o'erthrown.'"
'When this Imperial Troy
And Priam's race and Priam's royal selfShall in one common ruin be o'erthrown.'"
Kuhl was soon introduced to Professor Baute and the seven girls. The upholder of polygamy was naturally not in the least degree confused by this female Pleiades. He took advantage of the knowledge which he had already gained as to how the land lay, for very adroit manœuvres by which to win the seven ladies' good-will.
He spoke of the Caucasian beauties' plaits interwoven with pearls with Euphrasia, with Ophelia of the gentle rustle of the weeping birches in the hollow way in the evening's crimson light, with Emma of the worthlessness of the Neukuhren laundresses, especially with respect to shirt fronts; in a short time he was even so successful as to cause Albertina to interrupt her inflexible silence by some silliness, which fully explained her taciturnity; Lori, with great tact, made an allusion to both the Fräuleins Dornau, acknowledged by Doctor Kuhl with a slight bow; Gretchen to say she would learn French, and Marie catch butterflies with him; in short, when the Doctor took leave, all seven voices were unanimous in declaring that he was a most charming man, and Doctor Reising was sadly placed in the shade by him.
The latter perceived this himself, but when he was becoming irritable about it, Kuhl consoled him with saying he should work for his friend in future, so soon as he had discovered the right girl, and established himself firmly in her favour.
Kuhl had hardly risen from table when Blanden, with his friend von Wegen, in a beaming, rosy, wine-flushed mood, went towards him and invited him to come to his Ordensburg in three days' time. Kuhl accepted, and Blanden promised then to recount his adventures in Warnicken, for which place he should set out that night on foot.
Thereupon the Herculean Doctor refreshed himself with a second glass of grog, sprang boldly over several tables that stood in his way, and had soon plunged into the salt waves, which he clove with a powerful arm, while Reising dejectedly bore the costs of the entertainment with the seven possible brides, and, left alone in his glory, played a by no means triumphant part.
Blanden had taken up his pilgrim's staff, when the sun was already bending to its decline, and the heat of the day was over; but his own feelings were quite fresh as dawn. Those dreams of first love, which breathed such a wondrous softness over life, had been revived in him once more; he buried himself completely in those reveries.
His thoughts went back to the time when, as a scholar in the upper school, he had been in love with the daughter of a Burgomaster in some country town. He reverted to the emotions which he then felt, as the rattling post-chaise approached the little town at an early morning hour, first rolling over the pavement between the barns of the suburb, then through the empty, sleeping streets, by the lifeless houses, part closed shutters, until he reached the market-place, where stood the house belonging to the town's functionary, which, with its faded pink colouring, blushed more joyously in the morning sunlight.
There, too, an invisible hand pushed the curtain aside, and a little visible, curly head, around one unfinished side of which curl-papers still rustled, looked out, smiling so pleasantly, and nodded its greeting--and the postillion blew a stirring tune, as he stopped before the Black Eagle of the Post-house.
How happy, how blissful was the schoolboy's heart! That moment in which the angel's head nodded to him out of its concealment, caused him greater ecstacies than any happiness of a later extravagant love, and never had the heart's throbs of expectant longing been more vivid than in the post-chaise at that time!
Now it seemed to him as if he were capable of similar emotions, as if, after internal regeneration, the youth's singleness of heart were returning again for a short period.
The longing for his campanula lent wings to his steps, he saw her picture vividly before him; the flying shadows of the clouds did not bear it away with them; the Samland "Palven"[1]which extended on the left side of the road, that dead heath with its solitary bushes, that chilling sterility and barrenness of nature did not subdue his spirits, and the resounding thunder of the surf, sometimes near, sometimes more distant, stirred the wanderer's heart and steps to move at a merry pace.
Evening's crimson light sparkled in the valley's ravines and brooks, which flow on towards the sea; upon the tops of the oaks and beeches, above the steep, jagged cliffs; in the luxuriant vallies; upon the bare heights and above the glimpses of the swelling ocean which the eye discovers either between groups of trees towering up on nigh, or away over the sand-hills.
This melancholy light, which encourages the mind's return to the past, to half-forgotten scenes, did not harmonise with the wanderer's mood; a fresh, sparkling, dewy morning, with a cool breeze from the coast of the enterprise-loving Scandinavians, or the islands of the old Vikings, would have satisfied it better.
Blanden wished to break with his past, even drive away all the thoughts that reminded him of it; his Eva, whom he had found by the woodland stream, should be to him as the first woman of creation, whom he meets, to whom yields his undesecrated feelings.
This love should be to him as a draught from a fresh spring, refreshing, cooling, and at the same time metamorphosing him as if by mysterious magic.
Was it, then, love? It was in the first instance only a brief meeting; but it dropped the seed of love into his heart, and it was his will to nourish and cultivate that seed.
As he walked along, lost in such thoughts, the rays of the evening sun disappeared suddenly beneath heavy clouds, through which at first it peeped like a flaming triumphal arch, until the increasing shades of night enveloped the extinguished glow.
At the same time a storm arose, which burst in the wooded defiles with furious rapidity, so that the cracking of broken boughs under foot denoted his path, while the thunder of the sea became louder and more portentous, and the thousand crests of waves rose higher towards the heavy, lowering clouds.
Soon the thunder of the sky amalgamated with the thunder of the billows; lightning glided down the sharp, rugged hills along the coast, so that their singular profiles gleamed like demons' faces. The lonely "Palven" bushes shivered in the tempest, and the whole heath seemed to be in ghost-like motion.
Blanden felt himself refreshed by this magnificent spectacle of Nature; he thought of the proud grandeur and immutability of the universe.
Just so did the storm sweep over the verdure of the heath, waving to and fro, just so did the sea cast its foaming surf against the cliffs when the ancient Prussians still lived here, who in the grove of Romove, sacrificed to their god Perkunos; when the knights of orders, their cloaks above their armour, and the black cross upon their white mantles, rode upon their steeds along the coast, when the Holy Virgin and the old heathen deity stood opposed in irreconcilable conflict.
Then the din of battle raged above the Baltic shore, as to-day the din of the unfettered elements; yet, how everything had been changed!
What would the heathens say to the towns abounding with churches, which had driven out their sacred groves; what the knights of the orders to the disciplined regiments whose close columns belch forth fire, while flying batteries hasten to the heights to hurl death forth to a distance formerly undreamed of? Yet one visible, red thread never lost, extends through all changes of time. That which energetic and highly-gifted Masters of Orders had attempted for the cultivation of the land, when they made the wide plains arable, protected the marshes against the onslaught of the tide by means of dykes, appointed a secure bed for the streams, was a heritage to which the Hohenzollern princes succeeded, and made fruitful unto the present day.
The sudden breaking of the tempest even drew Blanden's mind momentarily from the immediate emotions which had possession of it, but as the clouds, too, opened their sluices, and thunder followed closely upon the lightning's footsteps as it leaped dazzlingly across the path, then the open air became intolerable, and the wanderer turned into the first tavern.
It was a fisherman's ale-house, whose exterior promised but little hospitable reception. Yet several carts stood in a half-open shed, and numerous baskets were piled up, denoting that there was no lack here of commercial traffic.
Despite the weather, the little windows in the large parlour stood open, and, in the pauses which the thunder made, a confused noise was emitted of men's quarrelling voices, between them the high pitched tones of a woman, who evidently sought to establish quiet in this uproar.
A rain-drenched trap stood unwatched before the door; the horse, with limply drooping mane, shied at the lightning without causing the heavy waggon to move from its position.
Two parties stood opposite one another in the small tavern parlour; gleaming pieces of amber, of the most beautiful pale-yellow shade, lay upon the table; on the right-hand, in the background of the room, several washtubs could be seen, in which the fishermen, with their brawny, naked arms, sought to cleanse the produce of the pits on the shore from the soil that clung to it.
But one of the men had just now left this occupation. With menacing gesture, with clenched fist, he stood erect, his face glowing with anger, and appeared to be repudiating some accusation that was hurled against him by a man with a remarkable countenance, who leaned upon the table containing the pieces of amber. The two other fishermen certainly continued to wash the primeval resin in their tubs, at the same time, however, taking part in the dispute with violent words.
The stranger who, with folded arms, opposed an iron determination to this fury of the Baltic Masanielli, was very uncommon looking. His dress was slightly Russian. His two companions who stood beside him, were clad entirely in national costume; but his features betokened a southern origin.
He had the fiery eye of an Italian; his whole figure might have led one to take him for one of thoseprincipe, who, at the feast ofCorpus Christi, ride on splendid horses behind the Pope, as hisguardia nobile. Only a wilder expression lay in his features, dark overhanging eye-brows, sharp lines about mouth and nose, told of abundant evil passionate experiences.
"I counted the pieces accurately in the pit," he cried to the shouting fishermen, "I looked closely at them. One was large enough to make a pretty toilet casket, and that piece is missing; it has been suppressed in washing!"
The fishermen's muscular hands were raised again in denial of this accusation. The fisherman's wife, in red headkerchief and green woollen dress, interposed, saying that there should be no disturbance in her parlour; the piece had, perhaps, fallen from the waggon, and would be found after all.
"It is a disgrace to accuse honest people falsely!" cried the ring-leader of the amber-washers, whilst a gleam of yellow lightning flashed, and a quickly-following clap of thunder awoke the echo of the cliffs.
Blanden had listened to the dispute at the open door. Then he entered, and his sudden appearance caused the noise to cease.
"Landlady!" cried he, "a drink to refresh me! And you people, can you not agree quietly? Do not the heavens make commotion enough? Spirits and beer for these good people; for to-day they have carted sand, and washed amber enough--they need refreshment! Hang my coat before the kitchen stove, best of women! The old Samland gods have washed my skin!"
"Who are you, my Herr?" cried the amber merchant, "that you issue orders here, and withhold my washermen from their work?"
"Grant them a short rest," said Blanden, as he seated himself in his shirt sleeves at the table upon which gleamed the pale yellow gifts of the East Sea. "Perhaps we, too, may do some business, my good sir; I am just in the humour to-day to buy the Great Mogul's diamonds."
The Italian became more friendly; still, however, he regarded the interloper with a distrustful glance. His two companions, with their slit Calmuck eyes, permitted themselves to grin pleasantly. They looked meaningly at the fishermen, who were already refreshing themselves with the liquor which the hostess had given them.
Blanden understood how to acknowledge their friendliness, and recommended them also to the landlady's care.
Now a deep silence reigned. Blanden examined the pieces of amber; the dealer looked at him with a keen glance, and once started back as if startled, when Blanden's features were illumined by a sharp flash of lightning. It seemed as if some sudden recollection had dawned within him. The keen glances with which from henceforth he regarded the other, however, bore no tokens of amity about them.
"You come from Russia?" the nobleman began his enquiries, while he weighed a large piece of amber in his hands.
"From Wilna, my Herr."
"But you are no Russian?"
"I am an Italian."
"I took you for one. I love the Italians! They are a gifted people! What a pity that many years of oppression keeps their noble fire in subjection, so that it only finds vent for itself in petty, malicious outbreaks, like the flames of their Solfatara! An Italian--and how do you come to Russia?"
"Business connections. A merchant remains there where he has most prospect of gain."
"Then the amber trade between these coasts and Russia is probably flourishing?"
"It depends," said the stranger, with a cunning smile, "whether a man succeeds in bringing his wares cheaply across the frontier. Besides, the peasants, who have farmed their royalty from Government, are not exactly reasonable with their amber, let them dig it out of the earth with spades, or rescue it from the sea-weed, or obtain it with dragnets from the sea."
"What reflections might it not awake," said Blanden to himself, and hardly noticing the others. "The forests of other days have sunk beneath the earth, and still offer their treasures to the living race--but what becomes of our sunken hopes? They have nothing, nothing more to give us! Ah! if any one could dream so deeply, so utterly deeply, he might hear the rustling of the trees in the submarine forests, and see sitting there the amber nymph in magnificent jewels of the deep, in those pale-yellow halls, and singing a song of the old splendours of the never-penetrated forests, into which the complaints of men have never yet taken refuge."
And, as he looked more closely at the vision of the amber-nymph, it bore Eva's features, and he resolved to deck her worthily of his vision.
"But what shall I do with this rough, raw material?" said he, petulantly, to the dealer, "I cannot buy any of this from you; at the most, only the little piece which contains the imprisoned fly. Oh, happy he, who might sit so firmly in a woman's heart!"
They agreed about the not insignificant price of this rarity; the dealer then began--
"I see clearly that only the artistically formed produce of the ocean has any value for you. Yet I know first-rate masters in Wilna to whom I sell my wares, and who know how to lend every delicate form to them. Give me commissions! When I return I will certainly bring you everything that you can wish to your complete satisfaction."
"And when do you return?"
"In a few weeks."
Blanden considered for a moment, then he said--
"Well, then, you shall procure me an outfit for an amber princess; everything of pale-yellow, most precious material. Take out your pocket-book, and make notes. First, a tasteful toilet casket, fragrant as the Oriental beauties love it; then a splendid string of beads--the beads of our Northern Ocean shall shame the corals of the Southern Sea; a bracelet; a brooch with two winged doves, or a little Cupid with a dart. Can the master's art produce any other such perfections that are fitted for beauty's adornment, even if it does not hover before my own imagination, here am I, a ready purchaser."
"I should, of course, always find a sale for such goods," said the dealer, "yet may I ask your name?"
Blanden told his name and that of his castle. The Italian wrote both down; a triumphant expression lay in the slight smile around the corners of his mouth, in his piercing glances; he himself gave his card, upon which stood the name, Carlo Baluzzi, of Wilna.
Blanden's thoughts meanwhile lingered with his campanula: "A flower-fairy she appeared to me," thought he to himself; "the original child of Nature! For me she shall become an amber-nymph! All my past life shall remain deeply buried beneath the high, rising tide; but its tears shall be made into beads which shall adorn her."
In the meantime the storm without had passed away, but the darkness of the tempest's clouds had been succeeded by the darkness of the evening.
The fishermen returned to their work; the landlady lighted a few dripping tallow candles; Baluzzi's eye rested upon the tubs, that not a piece which he had bought so dearly might be lost to him.
Blanden took leave; notwithstanding the well-meaning coal-stove, his coat was wet through and through, but no choice remained to him.
"Farewell, Herr von Blanden," said the Italian, with sharp emphasis. "I am pleased to have renewed my acquaintance with you."
"Renewed?" asked Blanden, astonished.
"Yes, my Herr."
"And where have you seen me?"
"On Lago Maggiore, two years ago."
"I do not recollect--"
"Nor is it possible! The pleasure was entirely on my side! You lived then in such sunshine of bliss that you did not notice the two shadows in the background, which hastened quickly past you."
Blanden, while he walked shiveringly along through the chilly evening air, meditated vainly what connection there could have been between Baluzzi and himself during his stay by Lago Maggiore.
What did those peculiar looks signify, which he suddenly assumed? What should the remarkable emphasis mean which he gave to his words--yes, the enmity which gleamed in his features--in his whole demeanour?
After mature reflection, Blanden came to the conclusion that he must have been mistaken if he sought to ascribe any special importance to a chance meeting.
But when Blanden had left the room, the Italian rubbed his hands together with scornful satisfaction.
"Now I, too, shall learn," said he to himself, "what has become of her, and my old receipts will flow in once more."
A sparkling, dewy morning made Warnicken, that jewel of the Samland coast, glisten with double brilliancy.
Blanden stood beneath the oaks of the precipitous declivity of the Fuchs-spitze. Impatiently he followed the slowly rising course of the sun and the shadows gradually moving aside.
Slowly the tops of the trees stood out one after another in the sunny light, and the course of the heavenly orb could be measured beneath them in the green verdure, in which the quivering, leafy network spun its shadows ever farther over the campanulas, whose calix had just now glittered in the sunny illumination.
Every branch, every flower, became a hand of the sun's clock for the impatient tarrier, while its seconds and minutes moved haltingly forward.
Blanden's disquiet was not the consequence of that longing with which joyous, triumphant love goes to a reunion. A single meeting may make a deep impression on the heart, but yet it only yields an uncertain picture, more resembling a vision, than tangible reality, and how much still is left to the enquiring mind; how easily is a delusion possible, which lends a lasting value to a transitory mood!
Will the second meeting uphold that which the first one promised? Will it confirm the deep impression which Blanden had received of the campanula in the forest's gloom?
He hardly dared to doubt it; this doubt would have made him unhappy already; because he believed himself to have found that which would be able to give rest and peace to his life.
He hoped for a chance encounter, which might be looked for with certainty in the so little frequented Warnicken; he would not as yet introduce himself into the house, to the family; he dreaded lest its middle-class setting should rob his fancy's picture of its entrancing magic, nor did he feel justified at present in displaying his interest in the girl in so conspicuous a manner.
Morning's freshness, however, did not seem to be beloved by the Warnicken visitors. For a long time no living beings showed themselves.
At last Blanden saw the shimmer of a summer dress through the bushes; his heart beat, as if it must be Eva; but it was an old maid in a washed-out morning toilet, carrying a yapping lap-dog, casting a few indifferent glances at the sea, and retiring immediately again, after this modest enjoyment of nature.
Below, by the rope, a bald-headed male visitor splashed in the but slightly-disturbed waves; everything else was quiet and tranquil.
Blanden walked uneasily up and down. Perhaps the whole colony had made some excursion; he would return to the inn to make enquiries about Regierungsrath Kalzow, as chance, upon which he had at first calculated, did not favour him.
The sea, after yesterday's storm, lay in sunny clearness and calm; the splashing of the breakers on the strand only rose like a gentle murmur; merely a slight quiver spread over the vast surface; one hardly knew whether it was the shadow of a cloud flying past, or the pulse's gentle throb of the slumbering sea itself.
Then Blanden perceived a boat being put off from the shore; two girls sat in it, one of whom rowed, while the other, in a clear voice, sang a merry song.
He took his telescope to his aid; a fisher-girl was rowing, but the other was gazing out steadily over the sea. He could not see her features, but he did see that a wreath of blue-bells adorned her straw hat. There, she turned round and directed her face towards the cliffs along the coast; the morning sun lay full upon those fresh features--it was his campanula!
Quickly resolved, Blanden hastened down the steep footpath from the Fuchs-spitze to a landing-place, where two boats still lay at anchor.
He had soon made his bargain with the fisherman: to the latter's great astonishment, he had bought the one for a price which richly compensated him for the temporary loss.
Quickly as lightning, Blanden sprang into the boat, seized the oar, and followed the skiff, which was already disappearing in the distance. The vigorous physical exertion made him feel his internal impatience less keenly.
"I seem to myself," thought he, "to be like an old pirate-prince, who gives chase to a beautiful woman. The confounded stillness of the sea! If I could only set full sail, so as to hasten more speedily after my sweet prey. But no quarter when once I have boarded the enemy's ship!"
Blanden pulled with all his might, and the distance between him and the two girls' skiff did indeed become ever smaller; it appeared, too, as though they were about to turn round, they watched the boat following them, and sought to avoid it; all the more determinedly did it pursue their evading movements.
The one girl stood erectly in the skiff, her hand resting on the rudder; she looked in curious expectance at the persistent pursuer, while the other girl rowed on with stolid indifference.
Blanden, with the art of a skilled sailor, cut off every possible means of return; so that farther flight seaward only remained. Both girls seemed to be agreed on that point; Eva's signs and actions left no doubt about it; but it was already too late: by attempting to return they had lost too much of their start, and Blanden, in his little boat, pulled, with great strength and rapidity.
"Campanula!" cried he to her, when they had come near enough to one another; she recognised his voice. As in sweet alarm, she let the tiller ropes slip from her hands; then she stood motionlessly and folded them. But the fisher-girl commenced a spasmodic race, in vain Eva signed and called to her; the girl only nodded her head and pulled on, but Blanden after a short time overtook them once more.
"Captured at last!" cried he triumphantly, "difficult as it is made for us to greet an old acquaintance again!"
"Welcome, Herr Assistant!" cried Eva, who had recovered her unaffected liveliness, "I admire your knowledge of seamanship; you probably have gained it in duck-shooting?"
"Do you not find, my beautiful child," said Blanden, "that this conversation is somewhat uncomfortable, and at the same time, dangerous? Our boats are so close together, that they might knock against and upset one another, and I shall not stir from your side any more, after having worked my way into your vicinity by the sweat of my brow."
"What is to be done then?" asked Eva, "we shall go down together."
"Oh, no, I shall act according to the rights of the sea!"
"Have you some kind of right on your side again? Are you an inspector of the sea perhaps, as you were inspector of the forest, and would you ask me again for my passport?"
"The right which I have on my side, is one of the oldest and best rights which history knows; it is the right of might! I shall take possession of your boat and declare it, with all that it contains, to be a lawful prize. You are sailing without a flag, you have no ship's papers."
"And do we live in time of war?"
"Certainly until we have made peace, I see a lovely enemy in you; therefore--board and give no quarter!"
And with a rapid bound Blanden had sprung into Eva's violently rocking boat, while he relinquished his own to the waves.
The weak minded fisher-girl, with a low cry, pointed to the boat floating away, while she exclaimed--
"Father's boat! Father's boat!"
"Indeed," said Eva, as she retired completely to the rudder, "you are not wanting in audacity? This is an attack in pirate fashion!"
"Do I look like a corsair?"
"I do not know any personally, but why should you not sit for the frontispiece to Byron's poem? You are sun-burnt enough for it, and look as though you would have no fear of adventures!"
"Certainly not, if the prize be worth the risk!"
"And then--how recklessly you treat the property of others! The poor fisherman's boat drifts upon the waves, without a master."
"Excuse me, my Fräulein! That boat is my property; I bought it and can give it up again to the billows."
"And why do you do this?"
"Is it not worth some sacrifice to be with you? Nor would I appear here as lord and master; no, but as your humble oarsman! Away little one, let me go to the oar."
The fisher-girl did not stir; seeing he was about to take the oar from her by force, she prepared to stand upon the defensive.
"Let the poor child alone," said Eva, "she will not leave her post."
Blanden hesitated; suddenly the girl voluntarily relinquished the oar, cried again twice in a shrieking voice--
"Father's boat! Father's boat!" and then plunged into the sea. Blanden was about to jump after her.
"Do not," said Eva, "she is the best swimmer in all the villages on the coast; but she is imbecile, and only seldom has gleams of reason."
"And you trust yourself to her?" asked Blanden.
"No one pulls so good an oar, has better knowledge of wind and weather and of the sea's peculiarities; she is a water spirit with her meaningless frog's eyes. I should rely most implicitly upon her in every danger of the stormy sea. Only look how she swims; she has reached the forsaken boat, swings herself into it, and grasps the oar!"
"That is disagreeable enough for me!" said Blanden.
"Why in the world?"
"If you would take my telescope, lovely child, you would perceive that a large number of glasses are directed towards us from the Fuchs-spitze, although a short time ago, the most solemn silence reigned beneath the Perkunos oaks. People are observing us, and will observe us still more--what will they say, if Fräulein Eva sails upon the sea with a stranger."
"You are right," said Eva, suddenly blushing deeply, "but what has that to do with your boat?"
"Very much, my Fräulein! If the latter floated quietly away on the sea, we might relate a credible tale of how it had leaked and I had taken refuge in your safer boat; that stupid child has deprived us of this fiction because she will row the skiff, uninjured back to the shore."
"Then you must invent another tale," said Eva.
"Why should I not sing and tell of a Baltic Lorelei, at sight of whom the boatman in the little boat is seized with wild melancholy, to whom he is irresistibly drawn."
"Because that boatman with his little boat is not swallowed up."
"Heine only fears it, my Fräulein; it need not therefore happen, and as yet we do not know the end of this little story. But just look; a whole girls' school seems to have assembled on the Fuchs-spitze and below also on the landing place I see visitors."
"I fear, they are my father and mother," said Eva, "they have already always forbidden these sailing expeditions; but I cannot give them up. Such a morning's row upon the sea refreshes me so wonderfully; one seems to glide onwards into eternity upon these deep, quiet waves; above the wide heavens, beneath the increasing abyss, the farther we retire from the safe shore; and where the billows meet the sky, even there the world does not end; it only seems to do so! Far away beyond, extends the longing for other shores, for other people! There the sailing ships, the steam boats, distant, stately pass by from harbour to harbour. How large the world is! And thus surrounded with the splashing of chattering waves, with the fresh breeze wafted from afar, there I have quite different, better thoughts, than yonder amidst mankind, that is always gossiping of trivial, everyday matters, criticising dress, depriving itself of the small respect due to it."
"Bravo, my Lorelei!" cried Blanden, "the sailor shares these thoughts and feelings with his mermaid, he rejoices that he really bears a mermaid in his boat, not one of those ordinary land young ladies, who even in the face of eternity, only think of their own little wares, of their possessions and belongings, dresses and bonnets, ribbons and bows, and who believe that their passenger ticket upon earth has merely been given to them on account of their goods. But father and mother--there some slight justification is due. Did you tell them of our late meeting?"
"No," said Eva, blushing.
"And why not?"
Eva was silent.
"Our adventure in the wood was too unimportant, or you forgot it quickly?"
"Oh, no," said Eva; "but visits without visiting cards are not announced."
"Good; then we have one little secret between us, and our sea excursion is another. I shall explain that I believed you to be in danger, as a half-witted girl rowed your boat, and that I therefore changed places."
During this conversation they had neared the shore. The Regierungsrath was running angrily up and down, his hands in his coat-pockets; the large, white cravat in which he had buried his chin seemed to be loosely twined round it to-day, and moved to and fro.
His massive wife was more self-possessed, but an ominous lecture lay in her eyes, and about the corners of her mouth.
"Oh, Eva," she cried to her daughter, as soon as her voice could be at all audible without the aid of a speaking trumpet.
Blanden pulled to the shore, sprang out, bound the boat firmly to a post, offered his hand to assist Eva to descend, and then busied himself with the boat and oars, while Eva had to let the first hurricane of reproaches and reproof sweep over her.
"And, who, then, is this strange gentleman?" asked old Kalzow, with the air of an inquisitor.
Eva shrugged her shoulders.
"It is too bad, though," stormed her mother; "atête-à-têteupon the sea with a perfect stranger!"
"He only introduced himself to me as a pirate, who had boarded my ship."
"No, my Fräulein," said Blanden, now stepping nearer; "I believed you to be in danger. One ought not to venture upon the sea with an idiot girl."
"There you are right," said the Regierungsrath, suddenly appeased by the stranger coinciding with him, and also reproaching his imprudent daughter.
The former's fashionable appearance made a favourable impression upon the old gentleman, who, as an introduction to friendly relations, offered him a pinch of snuff.
Blanden thanked him with a slight bow.
"Our meeting upon the ocean waves, my Fräulein, was of so poetical a character that I feared to desecrate it by the prose of social forms; permit me, therefore, now only to introduce myself to you and your family. My name is Blanden--Max von Blanden."
The Regierungsrath gave his name.
"I have an additional pleasure in making your acquaintance if you are a relation of that old gentleman to whom the magnificent estates, Rossitten, Kulmitten, and Nehren belong. I used often to be in that neighbourhood; I know the estates, because they border upon a district whither my official duties sometimes lead me; I am, namely, in the third division of the Government, Woods and Forests--that is my branch! Thus I have seen the old proprietor once or twice, and heard his beautiful estates much talked about--a pleasant gentleman."
"All praise that he receives, honours and gratifies me, because I am his son!"
"His son!" said the Regierungsrath, with a friendly chuckle; "then you probably manage that extensive property."
"Certainly, and entirely upon my own account; because my poor, good-hearted father now contents himself with a very small portion of it."
"Then he has resigned most of the estates to you?" said the Regierungsräthin, who looked upon the promising heir with especial good will.
"All, all,gnädigeFrau! He only claims one very small place--the place in the Blandens' family vault--he died half a year ago!"
"Oh, how sad!" said thegnädigeFrau, with a sigh, while, speedily consoled, she added--
"Then in you we recognise the heir and owner of these beautiful possessions."
"Alas! I cannot alter it, little talent as I have hitherto displayed in exercising my rights of ownership in a becomingly solemn manner."
The result of this examination was a brilliant one. Rath and Räthin were seized with internal disquiet as to how they could best ensure themselves this gratifying acquaintance for some time. They looked at one another with questioning and answering glances.
Eva was too happy; she did not know why. She concerned herself but little about the master and owner of the property; but the friendly footing between her parents and Blanden made her very happy.
For a moment she might be vexed with him that he had enveloped himself in mystery towards her, and had not even told her his name; this fleeting sensation of anger soon passed tracelessly away.
The world lay so seemingly bright before her; she could have sung, shouted, danced, had it not been so very contrary to propriety; but she could not quite restrain her exuberant spirits.
Half-witted Käthe landed just at that moment with her father's boat; dripping with wet, she sprang upon the shore.
Eva liked the poor girl, in whom there was something heroic, resolute; it was painful to her that the brave child believed herself to have rescued something, while by her plunge into the sea and her skill in rowing, she had only brought a stranger's boat into the haven; and when the little one, with radiant eyes, stepped towards Eva, and with a triumphant smile, pointed to the skiff which she had rowed to the shore, the former embraced the girl--she was so full of her own happiness that others' misfortunes touched her doubly. Certainly, she had not considered the consequences, as the embrace had rendered her morning toilet so wet that she shivered with the cold damp, and her mother scoldingly bade her go home to change her clothes.
First, however, Herr von Blanden was invited to share the modest mid-day meal at the inn, as well as accompany them to the forest, on an afternoon excursion, which had been arranged with other visitors. His acceptance made her parents and Eva equally happy.
On their road home, the Regierungsrath calculated to his wife what the average revenue of the Rositten, Kulmitten and Nehren estates would be, trying to draw the correct medium of income between favourable and unfavourable years. He knew the nature of the soil, the number of acres; the result worked out in ponderous figures was received by the Frau Räthin with a well-pleased smile.
Eva had hastened on in front; yet her parents' conversation was confined to income, taxes, and other questions of national economy. No discussion was needed, for they understood one another.
Suddenly Frau Räthin stayed her winged steps; daring hopes and plans had lent a more lively movement to her usually majestic gait; but a rising thought suddenly paralysed it in a most disturbing manner.
"Gracious heavens!" cried she, as she supported herself with her parasol against an old oak trunk.
"What is the matter with you, Miranda?" asked her husband anxiously.
"We have invited him--and have quite forgotten the one thing!"
"The poor dinner, do you mean? Oh, people are used to that at the seaside; Spartan fare is the rule here!"
"No, no! We have forgotten to ask--"
"What then, in the world?"
"If Herr von Blanden is not already married?"
The Regierungsrath's chin jumped into his cravat with a slight shock of alarm.
"You are right, Miranda! We are very foolish!"
"He is no longer a youth; I should put him down as being thirty years old, and a man of that age, of his brilliant position, looked up to, rich--nothing else can be possible--he must have had a wife long since!"
Lost in sad thought, both walked silently side by side.
"But if I consider it properly," said Kalzow, "it cannot well be so. He would have taken his wife with him to the sea."
"People do not always take their wives with them to bathing-places."
"And then, he showed such evident interest in Eva! It has not been exactly explained yet how that occurrence took place at sea. Did you hear what Eva said about the buccaneer? He boarded, captured her, I don't know what else! Let us hope that it was all right."
"We should hope so? You talk of boarding and capturing--and on that account Herr von Blanden must be unmarried? Old man--we know better! Many an one has laid siege and taken captive who should not have gone out to steal, because he has a good wife at home. And you, too, old man, if one knew everything! But you should not pretend such innocence, when your daughter's happiness is concerned!"
This turn to the conversation was plainly disagreeable to the Regierungsrath; he took several pinches of snuff quickly one after another, and sought to bring about an understanding with his wife, by devising a plan of campaign, how to-day at dinner, even before the pudding arrived, they might tear aside the veil which shrouded Herr von Blanden's domestic circumstances.
They were agreed on one point, that if he were guilty of the crime of being married already, he should be treated accordingly, and all further intercourse be coolly broken off.
In the meanwhile, the hero of this discussion still stood on the shore, and studied the wet ocean curiosity with its goggle eyes, which he could picture perfectly to himself as one of those subordinate fish-goddesses who flounder about Neptune's car. He tried in vain to make her understand about his boat. The old fisherman came forward and rated the girl for the boldness with which she had taken possession of another person's property.
Blanden made her a present of the boat, and gradually, with silent delight, she comprehended that she had become its owner. Then he pressed a piece of gold into her hand, and its flashing shimmer transported idiot Käthe into a perfect tumult of happiness. She held it in the sun, and at the same time danced in a circle round it, until the fisherman reminded her of the duty of returning thanks for it.
She hastened to Blanden, kissed his hands, and looked at him with eyes whose glassy glitter was brightened with a moist gleam.
The second meeting with Eva had only strengthened Blanden in his hopes and wishes. She appeared to be as sensible and beautiful as the first time; as fresh, pure, and frank as he had imagined the wife of his choice. At the same time, she was not without mental ability; not so slow and apathetic as such calm and beautiful natures often are. She was not consumed by commonplace, insignificant ideas, in which, from the character of their bringing up, the daily associations, the depressing example, talents of a higher organisation are often stifled.
Father and mother had made careful arrangements for the dinner in the modest inn; the daughter, however, remained in reserve until the ground had been properly reconnoitred.
Blanden was appointed to a seat by the mother, while the daughter sat on the other side of her father. These precautionary measures astonished him slightly; he did not imagine that he must first prove himself to be a man towards whom it was possible to entertain serious intentions.
The conversation turned upon politics, which, at that time, were the salt of every East Prussian dinner-table. The Regierungsrath pushed his vedettes carefully forward, and, with the vanguard of his articles of belief, made a retrograde movement, as he remarked that a superior enemy's force stood before him.
Not on any account would he injure his cause with Herr Von Blanden, and manifested himself a temperate, tolerant man, to the great amazement of the Kreisgerichtsrath sitting opposite to him, with whom he had often broken a lance at table over these very questions.
"We are not yet ripe for a constitution," said Kalzow, "at least, not for a constitution according to the modern English and French form. We are a patriarchal people, and what would become of our bureaucracy if Parliament should speak the decisive words? In England and France it is quite different; there they have no such official power representing the intelligence of the whole State, yes, which, as it were, it has absorbed within itself. I cannot imagine a Prussia with a constitutional organisation: we shall never live to see that, little as I fail to recognise the advantages of such institutions."
"But, my dear friend," interposed the Kreisgerichtsrath, "you have always hurled unqualified anathemas at them."
"It depends upon the nature of the soil, dear friend," replied the Regierungsrath; "elsewhere these plants may thrive capitally, it is impossible with us."
"I cannot see that," said Blanden, "I believe that we, too, shall one day occupy the position that is due to us amongst Europe's nations, if we become the equals of advanced peoples by means of a free constitution. Until then, I hesitate to count Prussia amongst the leading civilised states. The bureaucracy alone, best of Regierungsraths, cannot assist us to it. I have travelled far over the world, I know the Celestial Empire."
"You mean China?" interrupted the Räthin. Unbroken silence reigned around.
"Yes,gnädigeFrau, and I assure you that officialdom is excellently organised there. The candidate undergoes his examination before theWald der Pinsel,[2]in Nankin."
"Wald der Pinsel?" asked the Regierungsrath.
"So is the college for examinations designated there."
"That term of ridicule has surely been invented by some candidate who failed," suggested the Gerichtsrath.
"It is no term of ridicule," explained Blanden, "it is the official designation. The Chinese, it is well known, write with brushes, and thisWald der Pinselis as well versed in all the old books of law and history, in the philosophical writings of Con-fut-se and La-ot-se, as any European University's Senate is at home in the works of all the professions. I will not assert that these men are specially intelligent--that is to say, I mean the ChineseWald der Pinsel, not the European--but they are learned, pedantic, and so strict in examination, that many a bachelor who has, perhaps, paid more homage to a lover with a green girdle than to the muses, fails irretrievably."
"I was not aware," said the Regierungsrath, "that they possessed institutions in China betokening such high cultivation."
"Oh, they have a great many of them," continued Blanden, "the different grades of Mandarins have buttons on their caps. It is thus known at once if one of these dignitaries is a Chinese assessor, counsellor, chief-counsellor, privy counsellor; and, without asking for his visiting-card, each can immediately be treated with due respect. With us, people sometimes make mistakes about rank; one gives offence, and yet rank is not less esteemed by us than it is in China."
"With reason," said the Regierungsrath; "that which one has earned and merited, one likes to see recognised by the world."
"You see, in the Celestial Empire, everything is arranged in the most excellent manner. Yet this State is a pig-tail State, a marionette State, because the people only count by souls and heads, because all intellectual life and action, every right, every liberty, is wanting. The Celestial son rules it by the rod of his officials. Everything blooms and flourishes, but it is a lacquered happiness, all paper and tinsel rubbish, a crushing existence of formula. What I saw there of the law and Government reminds me of the Kasperle Theatre; they chop off heads with the same equanimity as that with which Kasperle disposes of his enemies--human life has no value, dignity of man is unknown."
"But that is different with us," said the Regierungsrath, as he assumed a self-conscious bearing, and laid knife and fork aside. "What have we in Prussia, according to your views, in common with the Celestial Empire?"
"The Bureaucracy and patriarchal Government."
"Did I not always say so?" cried the Kreisgerichtsrath, triumphantly, "that is quite my view! I am delighted to receive so worthy an ally."
And, at the same time, he cast a malicious glance at the Regierungsrath, as if at a beaten opponent, so that a flush of anger suffused the latter's face, and he contracted his bushy eyebrows.
"Education," continued Blanden, "is so propagated amongst all classes of the Prussian people, that the introduction of a constitution is indeed no reckless venture; besides, it is the fulfilment of old promises, and will unite the bond between prince and people still more firmly. I shall employ all my powers in this province, with the assistance of my worthy colleagues, so that the military Government of Prussia shall become a constitutional one. It will not lose its warlike energy by these means. I say, openly, that this is my dearest task in life. I consider our present political condition to be at the same time intolerable and unworthy."
The Regierungsrath crumpled his dinner-napkin convulsively in his hand; the challenge was too daring. He would gladly have given annihilating expression to his opposite conviction; but he reserved it all on the chance that when at the estates of Kulmitten, Rositten and Nehren, he should not need in future to evince any such tender consideration. Meanwhile, he had one of those coughing and choking attacks which sometimes befell him in moments of great agitation, which he was obliged to suppress. Miranda came readily to his assistance, and thought, as the head waitress had already brought the pudding, she must not hesitate any longer to clear up the state of affairs.
"Since when, Herr von Blanden," asked she, with a most unconcerned countenance, "have you returned from your travels?"
"Only half a-year ago."
That sounded consolatory enough, and the Regierungsrath's condition visibly improved.
"Then, probably," continued the Regierungsräthin, as she calmly poured a spoonful of fruit-sauce upon the pudding, "you have already set up a quiet domestic hearth?"
Now it was for Eva, who had listened silently but attentively, and sympathising warmly with Blanden's remarks to the former conversation, to become pale. She started at the thought that she had never put this question to herself; it lay in a measure so near, and yet so far, from her heart. In breathless tension, she waited for the reply; her heart beat eagerly, yet the firm conviction dwelled within her that Blanden could not yet be fettered.
"The domestic hearth of a bachelor," replied Blanden.
These few words exercised a cheering effect upon the Kalzow family. The Regierungsrath had already mobilised a line of victorious arguments against Blanden's reprehensible political views; they were ready to advance at the double so soon as the signal was given. The attack should commence at dessert, if the declaration of war need not be withheld on account of considerations of policy. This was now the case; everything was disembodied; the most telling proofs were dismissed to their homes; the peaceful mood prevailed so completely, that the Regierungsrath condescended to the most extensive admissions as regards politically emancipated nations. The Kreisgerichtsrath, however, stared anew at the Caudine Passes into which his opponent's logic seemed to have wandered. The Regierungsräthin was seized with a most unusual love of enterprise; she made the most various plans and projects, and first thought over an arrangement of the afternoon party, which should give the young people in the forest the utmost liberty possible for an undisturbed meeting. Eva herself was happy; her life was sunnily bright again. The lowering shadow had passed away without dimming it.
The walk in the forest was undertaken in the happiest mood; the little party of seaside visitors had furnished itself with everything that was necessary. Knitting; packets of coffee and sugar, cakes of every kind, formed the provisions which the careful mothers carried with them, concerning themselves less about the sacred shadows and dwellings of sweet enchantment, than about the arrangements for the afternoon--coffee, which should be prepared at the hospitable hearth of the little forest house. The tall trees rustled, the birds sang, the flowers bloomed, but the respected ladies only heard the coffee-cups rattle in imagination.
Blanden conversed a great deal with the Rath and Räthin, although he came more and more to the conclusion that the interest which he felt in Eva could not be extended to her parents without an effort. The Rath was a pedant who at heart had only a mind for figures and all worldly matters that could be reduced to calculations; the Räthin, too, was accustomed to look upon everything from its business side. In addition, neither was free from that envy which is often an hereditary evil in officials' families, from the envy of those fortunate persons' incomes which are not restricted to small official salaries: a few sallies upon the rich banker's wife, if she walked on in front at a sufficient distance, upon the ostentatious display of her wealth, upon the attempts at being literary which pervaded the whole house, convinced Blanden that the Kalzow family, despite the consciousness of their exalted position, yet in truth belonged to those unhappy persons who are excluded from all the higher enjoyments of life.
Frau Kalzow had another especial cause for animosity towards her wealthy friend; the latter's son, a boy in the first form at the Kneiphof College, devoted particular attention to Eva, and during the walk would not stir from her side, so that it was rendered almost impossible for Herr von Blanden to approach her, as he wished to do. Frau Kalzow employed every legitimate stratagem to entice the promising Salomon away from Eva; she begged him to gather her a blue flower which she had espied far away in the wood, she lost a needle out of her knitting, and Salomon had to go far, far back along the footpath to find thiscorpus delicti, and restore Frau Räthin's work materials to their entirety; yet he executed all these commissions with great rapidity, and came running back breathlessly, so as to be able to renew his conversation with charming Eva.
"It is remarkable," said he to Eva, "that lyrical poets always praise the woods; I have instituted an album for poetry on the subject, and have been obliged already to buy a third volume from the bookbinder. I can discover nothing particular in a wood; fundamentally it is always the same. Some trunks are darker, others lighter; the leaves larger or smaller, dented or downy, and if one looks through between the stems it always bears the same aspect, and a forester, moreover, certainly only thinks of building or firewood. How different such a wealthy poet's soul! Unfortunately, I do not possess it, my Fräulein; therefore, I make extracts of as much poetry as is possible, so as always to beau faitwhen sensations amidst the forest's verdure are under discussion. Even Schiller, I believe, had no mind for woodland lyrics; how beautifully he might have described Fridolin's walk to the Eisenhammer. Yet not the forest only, the church he depicts to us. He had only feeling for the Bohemian forests, and when he peopled them with living beings, it was not elves and fairies, but robbers! Ah, the robbers, my Fräulein! I understand that thoroughly! And that Amalie! She is my ideal! How she rushes at Franz with her sword--she must have been blonde, on account of the song that she sings to the guitar; no brunette could possess so much enthusiasm."
Thus, with inexhaustible eloquence, Salomon entertained his companion, who was too good-natured to display her impatience, or to stop him with derision. After all he intended to show her attention and kindliness, and how could she have repaid it with ingratitude? Eva possessed the most delicate good feeling; her mother did not understand this, and now was indignant at the patience, or rather confidential manner, with which Eva treated the young scholar. At last she had recourse to a fiendish measure; the Frau Kanzleiräthin's fat daughter, otherwise a nice girl, had always been disposed to make advances to that talkative Salomon, and Frau Kalzow spurred her on to them with great zeal and inciting insinuations.
Minna actually did soon appear on Salomon's other side, while showing him a butterfly that she had caught with her summer hat. The butterfly roused the lad's interest, which he did not, however, extend to Minna herself; on the contrary, all the remarks that he made about the capture were directed to Eva, it only offered him an opportunity to show himself in a more brilliant light to the latter, because he knew the day and night butterflies as accurately as the forest lyrists, and, as the son of wealthy parents, possessed a splendid collection of those insects.
"This is a rare specimen, atrauer mantelwith violet borders; thetrauer mantelare distinguished by their borders--Nature has ordained this very wisely; a similar thing occurs with students' caps; the corps which I join is merely distinguished by different borders on its caps from the antagonistic corps with which it always fights. We, too, have our drinking parties my Fräulein, and I preside at these gatherings, but no one as yet has drunk me under the table. But as regards the wisdom of Nature, I find it also imprinted on the Apollo. That butterfly is only found in some few valleys in Silesian and other mountains, which thus possess an especial attraction, and are considered to be worth seeing, and so bring profit to the innkeepers and the inhabitants, for there are more butterfly-seekers than any one would believe, and I know one who even bears caterpillars upon his epaulettes."
Minna was much dejected at the small success of her strategy; deeply shamed, she walked along beside Salomon, casting her good-tempered eyes to the ground, and crushing the poortrauer mantel'shead to death.
In the meantime the forester's lodge was reached, and while the other ladies prepared the coffee, Frau Kalzow deemed it expedient to invite Herr von Blanden to a little walk to the weeping willow hill, but recollected that she had forgotten the way thither, and requested Eva to accompany them as guide. Frau Kalzow remained modestly in the rear during this walk; Eva and Blanden could exchange thoughts and feelings uninterruptedly, gather flowers, climb little hills to obtain views; Frau Kalzow maintained her communications with the vanguard by occasionally calling to it.
Eva chatted innocently and fondly of her girlish and childish years, of her school days; Blanden thus had a glimpse of a mind clear as crystal, but which was also possessed of a sense and sympathy for everything loftier, for art and nature, and even for the questions of the day; only about one thing she was silent in her confessions, she did not mention that she was merely the Kalzow's adopted child; she did not mention her mother. She had often enough experienced what interruption to friendly relations had been called forth by such allusions, how it was her mother, who without knowing or wishing it, had exercised so cruel an influence upon her young life; she thought with silent emotion of the beautiful melancholy figure, whose picture still hovered before her mind; but the inexplicable estrangement permitted no warmer sensation to rise; as all the world was shy of and avoided remembering her mother, so she, too, only thought of her in quiet dreams, and dreaded calling up any lurking ill if she mentioned that name before others: this unsolved mystery oppressed her soul, thisnoli me tangereof her young life; yet there lay so much brightness in her nature that this one single darkening shadow remained unnoticed.
Blanden felt refreshed and younger by his intercourse with the graceful girl; although so many storms had passed over his internal life, yet one spot remained in it, where the longing for peace, the readiness to welcome a quiet state of happiness, defied all desolation, and starting from that spot, his whole life should take a new form; he felt with intense satisfaction that he was still capable of such happiness as the simplicity of a pure, euphonious nature grants, and therein lay the girl's charm, in the perfect harmony of her character. As her slender figure stood before him, not excessively tall, but yet stately and commanding, girlish but not so thin as girls in boarding schools often are in consequence of too much mental cultivation; as the light of her large eyes beamed above beautiful regular features, so in her were mind and heart also in harmonious unison; the movements of her feelings and thoughts possessed the same grace as her physical actions; it was the invisible spirit of tact and moderation that governed her whole body and mind. Wherever she reigned there this spirit must impress itself upon all who approached her, who stepped within her spell! What a guarantee for happiness, for peace, lay in such dominant grace, in such exquisite euphony! All discordant elements must remain aloof; the recollections of the past could have no power before the magical might of such a presence.
That was the thread which Blanden twined mentally around the nosegay of woodland flowers which Eva presented to him! He had firm faith in his own felicity, if he should ensure it by speedy, decisive choice.
But will the young girl be able to love the much older man? Was her ready trust a proof of love, or not, rather qualified to awaken doubt of it? Because perhaps the delicate reserve of love would have been more reticent towards a companion of her own age; the trust reposed so freely in him was in the experienced, older man who should respect it with friendly counsel. And yet the enthusiastic illumination of the gazelle-like eye often excited sympathy, a slight quiver in her voice and her whole being, whenever he approached her, on pressing her hand in his, which Blanden once ventured to offer her, when she was speaking so sweetly and fervently of her childhood's dreams.
And yet, if Eva did really love him, would it be for her own good? Is the chasm not much too great between the unconscious girl, whose life is spent in one single emotion, and the man who has fought his way through every passion, has weathered life's storms in every latitude, to whom graceless womanhood had often offered sweet temptation, who had also felt the charm of danger that lies in forbidden paths, and who on outlawed ways and in a daring manner had sought to unriddle the dark secret in combining the spirituality with the sensuality of human nature? Was it not cold egotism which strove to purchase its own peace, too dearly perhaps, with the price of that of another human being? Could not, sooner or later, the confessions which he had no right, which it was least of all a duty to make to such innocence, be completed by some chance, by gossiping report; and must not some internal rift gradually extend through the beloved one's heart; must she not suddenly feel that she had built the bridge of her happiness across an unknown abyss, from out of whose depth unnatural spirits arose and spread a gloom over her life?
The more serious the affection which Blanden felt for Eva, the more powerful did these considerations become; yes he walked back by her side with a moody brow.
"You are not cheerful," said Eva, "oh you must not cling to gloomy thoughts! What would I not give if I could banish all sadness out of your life!"
"You are good, my child," said Blanden, as he again pressed her hand, "but oh I am not! True goodness of heart, innocence alone can possess; we others have only momentary touches of it; our good works are often but a species of atonement! If you knew what we have lived through, must live through, who have been so tossed about by fate! Often we ask ourselves, if it is really we who have done this or been guilty of that, it seems so strange, so incredible to us; we would gladly sever the thread which binds the present with the past, but always this self, this indestructible I, that cannot set itself free from its deeds, that often grins at us like a spectre. Even the tree can shake off its withered leaves; but the withered leaves of our life cling indissolubly to us, and no coming spring sweeps them away with its rejuvenating breath."
"You certainly have done no evil," said Eva, "I will be surety for that."
"That surety is bold, my Fräulein; yet, certainly, no evil that is the fruit of internal wickedness, that would intentionally injure the well-being of mankind, nothing from base motives. But from personal error, much evil often arises, and one may ruin those whom one loves!"
"Mutual love knows no ruin," replied Eva, and joyful pride, nameless confidence was expressed in these words, and in her demeanour.
"That is a beautiful belief, and it would be cruel to disturb it."
"Oh, you are kind and good," continued Eva, "despite your strange utterances, which might alarm one; yes, sometimes you have such a scoffing expression, and such an evil gleam in your kindly eyes, that I could be afraid of you myself! Yet, it soon passes away. Has mankind injured you so deeply that you should cherish such hostile emotions?"
"They me, and I them! Thus it is in the world! But I will not soil your pure mind with such thoughts."
Eva and Blanden returned thoughtfully to the forester's lodge, and it was welcome to them that Frau Kalzow, who had joined them again, should now bear the burden of the conversation, as she made several unmistakable allusions to the growing intimacy between Blanden and Eva, and then had recourse to a description of the coffee-party, which did not fail in the sharpest, most characteristic colouring.
The hour for coffee had, however, been missed by the expedition to the weeping willows, and the defaulters had to content themselves with a second infusion of the Mocha beverage.
The next day all the members of the forest party were the guests of Herr von Blanden, who had sent for the best and most expensive wines from Neukuhren.
Consequently, all were in the liveliest spirits; the political debates were carried on as eagerly as could be desired; Blanden even no longer felt melancholy, as he had done on the previous day; he was in a most cheerful humour, and brilliant fireworks of thought entertained the guests, of whom most, however, were but little able to appreciate them.
Eva did not criticise the rapid changes of mood which Blanden displayed. She rejoiced at his gaiety, his exuberant spirits.
In the afternoon an excursion was made to the charming Georgswalder ravine, and there pitched a nomad camp beneath tall oaks and beeches.
Blanden's hesitation of the previous day had disappeared; he only perceived in Eva an eligible, beautiful woman. Boldly he sought and paid her attention, which was not repulsed with any false shame or affected modesty.