"'Fair is foul, and foul is fairHover through the fog and filthy air.'
"'Fair is foul, and foul is fairHover through the fog and filthy air.'
"And to Mephistopheles the witch says--
"'And nine is oneAnd ten is noneThat is the witches' one times one.'
"'And nine is oneAnd ten is noneThat is the witches' one times one.'
"I have commenced an album of witches' poetry, these verses taken from it also apply to criticism."
"I protest against any such remarks," cried Spiegeler, in whom the effects of deep potations became more apparent; "besides which I can praise and blame what I choose and as I will--criticism is absolute. Signora Giulia dazzled me at first--I do not deny it; I deemed her art to be an apple of Paradise; now I recognise it as one of Sodom, which crumbles to ashes in my hand, and that which I have recognised I must express. Criticism does not lie; whoever says it does, I declare to be a liar."
Blanden had risen, indignant at the man's daring behaviour and the daring calumniation of his Giulia; but before he had time seriously and sharply to rebuke the reporter, it had been done very effectually from another quarter.
A resounding box on his ears roused the astonishment of the lookers-on, who did not know whence it came so suddenly, and also roused the boundless rage of the victim.
"Bugiardo, bugiardo, you are a liar yourself," cried a powerful voice, and by Spiegeler's side stood the Italian, drawn up erectly, and with proud gladness in his features at the lynch-law which he had just carried out. Suddenly a solemn silence reigned around.
"Corpo di bacco," cried the stranger, whose singular appearance inspired the students with respect, "to cut off a singer's fame, curtail her receipts, ruin her credit, is honourable, worthy of agentiluomo! Thegiornalethat hisses forth such venom should be made into spills, and he who boasts of producing it deserves to be chastised by every honest man."
Spiegeler had let the one crutch fall, he held his burning cheek while his lips quivered convulsively. Big and little witches stood drawn up in a line with their kitchen spoons, and with quiet enjoyment watched a scene not unusual in that house.
"That was rude, sir!"
"Laying on of hands is no refutation."
"The man is lame and a cripple."
Thus spoke the somewhat timid defence of the disciples of the Albertina; but Salomon exclaimed--
"Sir, it is an ambuscade, a species ofbrigantaggio! Intellect is our only stiletto, with which we have been favoured by nature. You appear to be a foreigner, for you curse in the language of theInferno, but we do not tolerate such attempts here, we protest!"
"We protest," cried several students, waving their little liqueur glasses.
Spiegeler now stood foaming with rage before thesignor, who with folded arms bid defiance to public opinion.
"You shall not escape me, there are judges in Prussia; we are not in the inn at Terracina, mySignor Fra Diavolo, and do not permit ourselves to be attacked."
And as he let his second crutch fall, and caught his opponent by a coat button, he cried as loudly as his hoarse squeaking voice would permit him--
"Your name, sir--your name!"
Baluzzi, bowing politely, gave him a card.
"Then ourprime-donneare allied to Italianbravi? They possess a little robber's cave close to their drawing-rooms? Is truth to be cudgelled? You are mistaken, sir! We shall not allow ourselves to be intimidated, we will even expose the matter in a trenchant article, and as far as Signora Giulia is concerned--you have broken my eye-glasses, sir! I shall now make use of a magnifying lens, which not the smallest failing can escape, and if hitherto I have beaten her with rods, I will now scourge her with scorpions."
Salomon meanwhile had picked up the crutches for the critic, who during his angry speech had supported himself upon the table; he now limped out of the room, followed by the students, whose cries of "Bravo Spiegeler" accompanied him, for they looked upon the critic as a species of clown, who first in newspapers, then in inn parlours, performed somersaults for the general amusement.
Blanden had looked on at the scene in a divided frame of mind; the reporter's remarks had roused his indignation, but the Italian's brutality not less so, and indeed he had always felt the most decided aversion for the amber merchant. Especially odious did the man appear, because he stood in some dark relation to Giulia, as the violence proved with which he had maltreated one of her opponents.
As Blanden stood there lost in thought, and weighed his intention of questioning the Signora about this person, who even on the Lago Maggiore had followed her like a shadow, Kätchen stepped up to him, and whispered she had now a moment's time, he should go with her.
They groped their way along a gloomy corridor into the yard, whose dark square was not illuminated by any reflection of light from out the dull little windows, which opened into it on four sides. Kätchen looked like a night-goblin in the dim snow-light, she sprang on in advance, and danced as if in insane gladness.
Suddenly she moved the pump handle: some time elapsed before the pump awoke out of its winter sleep. Kätchen then, however, did not merely wash her hands, she bent down and let the icy cold water trickle over her head, and dried herself with the shawl which she had thrown about her neck. Then she led her companion up the stairs of the building at the back, it was a break-neck staircase, uneven steps, unusual windings; she counted the steps, gave her hand to Blanden, and he remarked that she squeezed his, and pressed it to her heart, and in one of the narrow bends nestled up to him, and her still dripping hair wetted his bosom.
They ascended three flights; he had to stoop beneath the beams of the sloping roof. Kätchen opened a creaking door that moved with difficulty upon its hinges. Then she begged Blanden to wait until she had struck a light, yet she hesitated in doing so, nestled beseechingly against him, stroked his hair until he shook the caressing witch angrily from him.
"Wait a moment longer," said she, "not in the light shall you see where the locket is hidden."
A pause ensued, and Blanden perceived that her laced bodice became looser.
Soon the dreary ray of a tallow candle, whose wick was but meagrely fed by some guttered masses of fatty substance, lighted the tiny room in which by the window alone Blanden could find one spot on which to stand uprightly beneath the sloping roof. That attic with the moss overgrown beams was a melancholy sight; the melting snow penetrated the badly closing windows, into the wood were nails driven, on which some clothes and a fishing net hung. The bed was most peculiar, of a shape resembling a boat, the coarse straw mattress seemed to be bedded in a skiff.
And in the midst of these poverty-stricken surroundings stood the sea-maiden banished into the country, with dripping hair, her bosom half bared, and gazing at her guest with her protruding eyes, while she held the locket in one hand.
"The paper--the paper," cried Blanden impatiently.
"I have carried it about with me, always upon my heart, have squeezed the lines into this locket. I was searched before the authorities at the institution--nothing was found! Ha, ha, it was too well taken care of."
And at the same time she commenced to dance about like a wild woman, holding the locket high in the air. She appeared like one of the Nikobar island girls, who once, when upon his voyage round the world he had been cast upon their shore, surrounded him in such dizzy tumult.
He was fain to confess that Kätchen was no longer the half-witted seal of former days, that a remarkable transformation had taken place, but that her mind, far from having found its proper balance, had now passed from moody absorption into a wandering will-o'-the-wisp-like frenzy.
"And why did you not show this paper to the judges? Its contents are still unknown to me, but I surmise that it might have spared you the long confinement and detention in the institution."
"To be sure; oh, to be sure! I should have been free as the sea-gull in the air; I only needed to press this. Snap! the case would fly open, and they would all have known what they wished. They pressed all around it, too, but the good spring did not move; they believed at last that it was merely a senseless amber ornament and gave it back to me."
"And you preferred to be tortured and locked up?"
"Of course; it was not intended for the judges. Oh, the clever people--judges and doctors! How they exerted themselves; how they thought, and consulted and questioned! And what faces they made over it--it was enough to kill one with laughing! Ha-ha! half-witted Kätchen outwitted them all."
"And who gave you this locket?"
"The man down below, who was so liberal to-day; he dispenses good and evil. Once I brought him safely to shore through a storm that had suddenly arisen, and he rewarded me with this."
"And for whom are these lines destined!"
"You still ask! Any other man would have guessed long since; for you, for you! She wrote them out at sea, before she sprang into the water."
"Then it is the truth! I was convinced of it long since," said he to himself; "but yet moments came in which I was glad to doubt again--what is not possible upon the lonely waves between heaven and earth, with a half-witted--or evil-minded girl?" and then suddenly starting, he cried, as he held Kätchen firmly with his strong arms--
"And yet you are her murderess--why did you not save her?"
"It was not possible," said she, stuttering and shaking; "a wave washed her away from my side--she was buried."
"And the paper--unhappy girl, when were you to give me the paper?"
"She did not say--I could do it at once."
"And you did not do it?"
"I would not."
"Out with the paper!" cried Blanden, enraged.
"I have kept it securely in my bosom for so long, I want my reward for it."
"Your reward for having kept it from me for years! It is my property--I shall obtain it by force."
He began to struggle with Kätchen, who held the locket convulsively in her hand, and uttered a piercing shriek, followed by a wild laugh.
"Ha-ha, and if you have it in the net, it will escape again through the meshes! It will avail you nothing, absolutely nothing--without the secret."
"Give it me, then."
"I love you--love me in return!" cried she, stretching out her arms towards him.
"Lunatic," cried Blanden, retreating, as though a sea polypus would Lave encircled him with its arms.
She caught at the empty space, then knelt down, crying and sobbing.
"Poor Kätchen has nobody in the world; her father is dead--he was always hard and stern. Ah, the sea is so wide, so wide--and the boat drifts farther and farther out--and who cares for me? You were good to me--you gave me the boat--oh, it does not lie on the shore by the post! Here--that is your boat! I had it made into my bed, my sole possession--and there I dream of you."
Blanden was moved; he drew nearer, he stroked her wet hair and said kindly--
"Poor child."
Thereupon she gave him the locket, after having opened it with a quick pressure and sobbing aloud, hid her face.
Blanden went up to the light that was burning low into its socket, and cast a gloomy flickering dense shadow upon the half-effaced letters. Already he doubted whether he should be able to decipher them here, but Kätchen came to his assistance, saying in a hollow voice--
"I will be your light; I know what stands there, I have read it many thousand times--
"'I do not desire to live any longer--love my mother!
"'Eva.'"
Blanden was struck to his heart; he had imagined this connection, but now that he saw it in black and white, written with the trembling hand of death, so that all soothing doubt had become impossible for evermore; that these half-faded characters, as did theMene Tekelof Belshazzar, announced to him in fire how Eva had merely sought death because he had loved her mother, he was terribly shaken, as with a new unexpected blow. He felt as though a hurricane whirled up all the withered leaves of his life and dashed them into his face.
He struggled for composure, one hand propped upon the window-ledge in the wet snow, the other covering his eyes.
There was a long pause. Kätchen still lay upon her knees; in her face an expression of silent beatitude--he had spoken kindly and lovingly to her. All the more was she alarmed when Blanden suddenly sprang upon her in violent anger and dragged her up roughly.
"And this message from the dead you have withheld from me for years, not from idiotcy, not from mental stupidity--I see through you now. It was all pretence or deceit, who can tell; or else such God-forsaken creatures have a cursed instinct that is as cunning as much vaunted reason. You would not save Eva, merely because I loved her. You did not give me her words of farewell, because they urged me to love her mother; you only gave me these lines now when her mother is also dead! I was to love nothing in the world excepting yourself! Rather would I tarry at the North Pole with senseless seals than with such a creature as you! Certainly, they, too, possess the power to kill men! Away, out of my sight, you horror!"
And he dashed her from him, so that she fell upon her straw couch.
A short pause ensued; the light faded into smoke. Blanden groped for the door. Then he heard Kätchen's voice from the bed; it sounded quite changed--ghostly and hollow--
"Yes, none of them shall have you; none, none--only I alone! Ha-ha, I save no one--whosoever seeks death may have it--there will be room, there will be room. May they all die, all-- Hark! the sea rises--come into my boat, come, come!"
Blanden had reached the door; he had begun to feel it gruesome with the love-mad girl.
In his haste to escape he had not thought of the obstacles which would impede him; now here, now there, knocking against them he felt for the stairs, down which he stumbled in the dark without caring that he had hurt his foot by frequent false steps.
Below in the witches' kitchen the kettle was simmering as before; but Mother Hecht, her elbows planted on her hips, stood surrounded once more with her unoccupied subordinate witches and a new troop of students who had arrived, gazing at the spectacle which was afforded them, the hero being once again none other than the Italian, only that this time he could not display himself to the crowd in the elevated consciousness of having performed a daring deed.
On the contrary, he appeared very dejected and disconsolate before the officer of justice, who, in all the pride of his position, laid his hand upon the man's shoulder.
"At last I have you, my Herr! It has cost me trouble enough, and my night's rest also. Böller and Co. knew that the time for the bill had run out; why did you make our task harder and let yourself be sought for everywhere!"
"I will pay to-morrow, or the day after."
"It is too late! You follow me to the debtor's prison. No resistance! You know the laws!"
The students felt pity for the victim of the laws concerning bills of exchange.
"A misunderstanding, Signori!" cried Baluzzi, quickly recovering. "I am in a position to pay all my debts. I have only to write a few lines. He who incurs no debts may cast the first stone."
"Good, very good," shouted the students after the Italian, as he followed the officer with a defiant mien.
Blanden, standing at the side door, had watched the episode. It confirmed him in his intention of warning Giulia against a man who certainly did not merit her confidence, if she were infatuated enough to grant it him.
Footnote 1: "To receive the basket" signifies to be rejected. (Translator's note.)