Hammer and Anvil: A Novel
by Friedrich Spielhagen · English · Gutenberg #34868 · 1,532,967 chars · public domain (US)
The Project Gutenberg eBook of Hammer and Anvil: A Novel
This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and
most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions
whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms
of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online
at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,
you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located
before using this eBook.
Title: Hammer and Anvil: A Novel
Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
Translator: William Hand Browne
Release date: January 6, 2011 [eBook #34868]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34868
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HAMMER AND ANVIL: A NOVEL ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Notes:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/3626115
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
BY COPYRIGHT ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHOR.
* * * * *
_THE NOVELS OF_
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN.
_12mo, cloth, uniform in size and style, per vol._, $2.00.
JUST PUBLISHED.
_I.--PROBLEMATIC CHARACTERS_.
_II.--THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT_.
_III.--THE HOHENSTEINS_.
The above translated by Prof. SCHELE DE VERE.
_IV.--HAMMER AND ANVIL_.
Translated by WM. HAND BROWNE.
IN PRESS.
_V.--IN RANK AND FILE_.
_VI.--ROSE, AND THE VILLAGE COQUETTE_.
* * * * *
CRITICAL NOTICES.
"Such a novel as no English author with whom we are acquainted could
have written, and no American author except Hawthorne. What separates
it from the multitude of American and English novels is the perfection
of its plot, and its author's insight into the souls of his
characters.... If Germany is poorer than England, as regards the number
of its novelists, it is richer when we consider the intellectual value
of their works. If it has not produced a Thackeray, or a Dickens, it
has produced, we venture to think, two writers who are equal to them in
genius, and superior to them in the depth and spirituality of their
art--Auerbach and Spielhagen."--_Putnam's Magazine_.
"The name is suggested by a passage in Goethe, which serves as a
motto to the book. Spielhagen means to illustrate what Goethe speaks
of--natures not in full possession of themselves, 'who are not equal to
any situation in life, and whom no situation satisfies'--the Hamlet of
our latest civilization. With these he deals in a poetic, ideal
fashion, yet also with humor, and, what is less to be expected in a
German, with sparkling, flashing wit, and a cynical vein that reminds
one of Heine. He has none of the tiresome detail of Auerbach, while he
lacks somewhat that excellent man's profound devotion to the moral
sentiment. There is more depth of passion and of thought in Spielhagen,
together with a French liveliness by no means common in German
novelists.... At any rate, they are vastly superior to the bulk of
English novels which are annually poured out upon us--as much
above Trollope's as Steinberger Cabinet is better than London
porter.--_Springfield Republican_.
"The reader lives among them (the characters) as he does among his
acquaintances, and may plead each one's case as plausibly to his own
judgment as he can those of the men whose mixed motives and actions he
sees around him. In other words, these characters live, they are men
and women, and the whole mystery of humanity is upon each of them. Has
no superior in German romance for its enthusiastic and lively
descriptions, and for the dignity and the tenderness with which its
leading characters are invested."--_New York Evening Post_.
"He strikes with a blow like a blacksmith, making the sparks fly and
the anvil ring. Terse, pointed, brilliant, rapid, and no dreamer, he
has the best traits of the French manner, while in earnestness and
fulness of matter he is thoroughly German. One sees, moreover, in his
pages, how powerful is the impression which America has of late been
making upon the mind of Europe."--_Boston Commonwealth_.
"The work is one of immense vigor; the characters are extraordinary,
yet not unnatural; the plot is the sequence of an admirably-sustained
web of incident and action. The portraitures of characteristic foibles
and peculiarities remind one much of the masterhand of the great
Thackeray. The author Spielhagen In Germany ranks very much as
Thackeray does with us, and many of his English reviewers place him at
the head and front of German novelists."--_Troy Daily Times_.
"His characters have, perhaps, more passion, and act their parts with
as much dramatic effect as those which have passed under the hand of
Auerbach."--_Cincinnati Chronicle_.
The N. Y. Times, of Oct. 23d, in a long Review of the above two works,
says: "The descriptions of nature and art, the portrayals of character
and emotion, are always striking and truthful. As one reads, there
grows upon him gradually the conviction that this is one of the
greatest of works of fiction.... No one, that is not a pure _egoiste_,
can read _Problematic Characters_ without profound and even solemn
interest. It is altogether a tragic work, the tragedy of the nineteenth
century--greater in its truth and earnestness, and absence of _Hugoese_
affectation, than any tragedy the century has produced. It stands far
above any of the productions of either _Freytag_ or _Auerbach_."
* * * * *
_LEYPOLDT & HOLT, Publishers_,
25 BOND ST., NEW YORK.
HAMMER AND ANVIL
_A Novel_
BY
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
_Author's Edition_.
NEW YORK
LEYPOLDT & HOLT
25 Bond Street
1870.
HAMMER AND ANVIL
A NOVEL
BY
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
WILLIAM HAND BROWNE
_Author's Edition_.
NEW YORK
LEYPOLDT & HOLT
25 Bond Street
1870.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.
STEREOTYPED BY PRESS OF
DENNIS BRO'S & THORNE, THE NEW YORK PRINTING COMPANY
AUBURN, N. Y. _81, 83, and 85 Centre Street_,
NEW YORK
HAMMER AND ANVIL.
PART FIRST.
CHAPTER I.
We were standing in a deep recess at the open window of our class-room.
The sparrows were noisily chattering in the school-yard, and some
scattered rays of the late summer sun glanced past the old gray walls
down to the grass-grown pavement; from the class-room, which was
high-ceilinged, sunless, and ill-ventilated, came the buzzing sound of
repressed talk from our schoolfellows, who were all in their places,
bent over their Sophocles, and watching for the arrival of the "old
man," who was looked for every moment.
"At the worst, you can shuffle through somehow," I was saying, when the
door opened and he came in.
_He_--Professor Lederer, Provisory Director of the Gymnasium, and
Ordinarius of the first form,[1] "the old man," as we used to call
him--was in reality not exactly old, but a man past the middle of the
forties, whose small head, already turning gray, rested upon a stiff
white cravat, and whose tall and extraordinarily lean figure was
buttoned up, from one year's end to the other, summer and winter, in a
coat of the finest and glossiest black. His slender hands, of which he
took extreme care, with their long and tapering fingers--when twitching
nervously, as they had a habit of doing, close under my eyes--had
always a sort of fascination for me, and more than once I could
scarcely resist the temptation to seize one of those artistic-looking
hands and crush it in my own coarse brown fist.
Professor Lederer always paced the distance from the door to his desk
in twelve measured, dignified strides, head and eyes a little drooped,
with the austere look of intensest meditation; like a priest
approaching the sacrificial altar, or a Caesar entering the senate--at
all events like a being who, far removed from the modern plebeian
sphere, walked day by day in the light of the sun of Homer, and was
perfectly aware of the majestic fact. So it was never a judicious
proceeding to try to detain this classical man upon this short journey,
and in most cases a prohibitory gesture of his hand checked the
attempt; but the sanguine Arthur was so sure that his request would not
be refused, that he ventured it, reckless of further consequences. So,
stepping out in front of the professor, he asked for a holiday for the
day, which was Saturday.
"Certainly not," said the professor.
"To go sailing," urged Arthur, not in the least deterred by the
stern tone of the professor, for my friend Arthur was not easily
abashed--"to go in my uncle's steamboat to examine the oyster-beds
which my uncle planted two years ago. I have a note from my father, you
know, professor," and he produced the credential in question.
"Certainly not!" repeated the professor. His pale face flushed a little
with irritation; his white hand, from which he had drawn his black
glove, was extended towards Arthur with a classical minatory gesture;
his blue eyes deepened in hue, like the sea when a cloud-shadow passes
over it.
"Certainly not!" he exclaimed for the third time, strode past Arthur to
his desk, and after silently folding his white hands, explained that he
was too much excited to begin with the customary prayers. And presently
followed a stammering philippic--the professor always stammered when
irritated--against that pest of youth, worldliness and hankering after
pleasure, which chiefly infected precisely those upon whom rested the
smallest portion of the spirit of Apollo and Pallas Athené. "He was a
mild and humane man," he said, "and well mindful of the words of the
poet, that it was well to lay seriousness aside at the proper time and
place; ay, even at times to quaff the wine-cup and move the feet
in the dance; but then the cause should be sufficient to justify the
license--a Virgil must have returned from a far-off land, or a
Cleopatra have freed the people from imminent peril by her voluntary,
yet involuntary death. But how could any one who notoriously was one of
the worst scholars--yes, might be styled absolutely the worst, unless
one other"--here the professor gave a side-glance at me--"could claim
this evil pre-eminence--how could such a one dare to clutch at a
garland which should only encircle a brow dripping with the sweat of
industry! Was he, the speaker, too strict? He thought not. Assuredly,
no one could wish it more earnestly than he, and no one would rejoice
more heartily than he, if the subject of his severe rebuke would even
now give the proof of his innocence by translating without an error the
glorious chorus of the _Antigone_, which was the theme of the morning's
lecture. Von Zehren, commence!"
Poor Arthur! I still see, after the lapse of so many years, his
beautiful, but even then somewhat worn face, striving in vain to hold
fast upon its lips the smile of aristocratic indifference with which he
had listened to the professor's rebuke, as he took the book and read,
not too fluently, a verse or two of the Greek. Even in this short
reading the scornful smile gradually faded, and he glanced from under
his dropped lids a look of beseeching perplexity towards his neighbor
and Pylades. But how was it possible for me to help him; and who knew
better than he how impossible it was? So the inevitable came to pass.
He turned the "shaft of Helios" into a "shield of Æolus," and blundered
on in pitiable confusion. The others announced their better knowledge
by peals of laughter, and a grim smile of triumph over his discomfiture
even played over the grave features of the professor.
"The curs!" muttered Arthur with white lips, as he took his seat after
the recitation had lasted a couple of minutes. "But why did you not
prompt me?"
I had no time to answer this idle question, for it was now my turn. But
I had no notion of making sport for my comrades by submitting to be
classically racked; so I declared that I was even less prepared than my
friend, and added that I trusted this testimony would corroborate the
charge that the professor had been pleased to bring against me.
I accompanied these words with a threatening look at the others, which
at once checked their mirth; and the professor, either thinking he had
gone far enough, or not deigning to notice my insolent speech, turned
away with a shrug of the shoulders, and contented himself with treating
us with silent contempt for the rest of the recitation, while towards
the others he was unusually amiable, enlivening the lesson by sallies
of the most classical and learned wit.
No sooner had the door closed behind him, than Arthur stood up before
the first form and said:
"You fellows have behaved meanly again, as you always do; but as for
me, I have no notion of staying here any longer. The old man will not
be back any more to-day; and if the others ask for me, say I am sick."
"And for me too," cried I, stepping up to Arthur and laying my arm on
his shoulder. "I am going with him. A fellow that deserts his friend is
a sneak."
A moment later we had dropped from the window twelve feet into the
yard, and crouching between two buttresses that the professor might not
espy us as he went out, we consulted what was next to be done.
There were two ways of getting out of the closed court in which we now
were: either to slip through the long crooked corridors of the
gymnasium--an old monastery--and so out into the street; or to go
directly through the professor's house, which joined the yard at one
corner, and thence upon the promenade, which nearly surrounded the
town, and had in fact been constructed out of the old demolished
town-walls. The first course was hazardous, for it often happened that
a pair of teachers would walk up and down the cool corridors in
conversation long after the regular time for the commencement of the
lessons, and we had no minute to lose in waiting. The other was still
more dangerous, for it led right through the lion's den; but it was far
shorter, and practicable every moment, so we decided to venture it.
Creeping close to the wall, right under the windows of our class-room,
in which the second lesson had already begun, we reached the narrow
gate that opened into the little yard of the professor's house. Here
all was quiet; through the open door we could see into the wide hall
paved with slabs of stone, where the professor, who had just returned,
was playing with his youngest boy, a handsome black-haired little
fellow of six years, chasing him with long strides, and clapping his
white hands. The child laughed and shouted, and at one time ran out
into the yard, directly towards where we were hidden behind a pile of
firewood--two more steps of the little feet, and we should have been
detected.
I have often thought, since that time, that on those two little steps,
in reality, depended nothing less than the whole destiny of my life. If
the child had discovered us, we had only to come forward from behind
the wood-pile, which every one had to pass in going from the gymnasium
to the director's house, as two scholars on their way to their teacher
to ask his pardon for their misbehavior. At least Arthur confessed to
me that this idea flashed into his mind as the child came towards us.
Then there would have been another reprimand, but in a milder tone, for
the professor was a kind man at the bottom of his heart; we should have
gone back to the class-room, pretended to our schoolmates that our
running away was only a joke, and--well, I do not know what would have
happened then; certainly not what really did happen.
But the little trotting feet did not come to us; the father, following
with long strides, caught the child and tossed it in the air till the
black curls glistened in the sunshine, and then carried it back,
caressing it, to the house, where Mrs. Professor now appeared at the
door, with her hair in papers, and a white apron on; and then father,
mother, and child disappeared. Through the open door we could see that
the hall was empty--now or never was the time.
With beating hearts, such as only beat in the breasts of school-boys
bent on some dangerous prank, we stole to the door through the silent
hall where the motes were sparkling in the sunbeams that slanted
through the gothic windows. As we opened the house-door, the bell gave
a clear note of warning; but even now the leafy trees of the promenade
were beckoning to us; in half a minute we were concealed by the thick
bushes, and hastening with rapid steps, that now and then quickened to
a half run, towards the port.
"What will you say to your father?" I asked.
"Nothing at all, because he will ask no questions," Arthur replied; "or
if he does, I will say that I was let off; what else? It will be
capital; I shall have splendid fun."
We kept on for a while in silence. For the first time it occurred to me
that I had run away from school for just nothing at all. If Arthur came
in for a couple of days in the dungeon, he, at all events, would have
had "splendid fun," and thus, for him at least, there was some show of
reason in the thing. His parents, too, were very indulgent; his share
of the danger was as good as none, while I ran all the risk of
discovery and punishment without the least compensation; and my stern
old father was a man who understood no trifling, least of all in
matters of this sort. So once again, as many times before, I had helped
to pull the chestnuts out of the fire for somebody else. However, what
did it matter? Here, under the rustling trees, after our brisk race, it
was more pleasant than in the stifling class-room; and for me, in those
times, every silly, venturesome frolic had a pleasure in itself. So I
felt it a special piece of magnanimity on the part of my usually
selfish friend, when he suddenly said:
"Look here, George, you shall come too. Uncle charged me particularly
to bring as many friends as I could. I tell you it will be splendid.
Elise Kohl and Emilie Heckepfennig are going with us. For once I shall
leave Emilie to you. And then the oysters, and the champagne, and the
pineapple punch--yes, you certainly must come."
"And my father?" I said; but I only said it, for my resolution to be
one of the party was already taken. Emilie Heckepfennig--Emilie, with
her little turned-up nose and laughing eyes, who had always shown me a
decided preference; and recently, at forfeits, had given me a hearty
kiss, to which she was in no wise bound, and whom Arthur, the coxcomb,
was going to leave especially to me! Yes, I must go along, happen what
might.
"Can I go as I am, do you think?" I asked, suddenly halting, with a
glance at my dress, which was plain and neat, it is true--I was always
neat--but not exactly the thing for company.
"Why not?" said Arthur. "What difference does it make? And, besides, we
have not a minute to spare."
Arthur, who was in his best clothes, had not looked at me, nor
slackened his pace in the least. We had not a minute to spare, that was
true enough, for as slipping through some narrow alleys we reached the
harbor, we heard the bell ringing on board the steamer that was lying
at the wharf just ready to start. The sturdy figure of the captain was
seen standing upon the paddle-box. We pushed through the crowd on the
wharf, ran up the gang-plank, which they were just hauling in, and
mingled with the gay throng on deck, as the wheels began to turn.
CHAPTER II.
"How you startled me!" said Frau von Zehren, seizing her son by both
hands. "We began to think, what was really impossible, that Professor
Lederer had refused you permission. You see now, Zehren, that I was
right."
"Well, it is all right now," replied the steuerrath.[2] "The young
ladies were inconsolable at the prospect of your absence Arthur--or am
I saying too much, Fräulein Emilie and Fräulein Elise?" and the
steuerrath turned with a polite wave of his hand to the young ladies,
who tittered and nodded their dark broad-brimmed straw-hats at each
other.
"And now you must speak to your uncle," he went on; "but where is your
uncle, then?" and he ran his eye over the company that was moving about
the deck.
The Commerzienrath Streber came bouncing up. His little, light-blue
eyes glittered under bushy gray brows, the long peak of his
old-fashioned cap was pushed back from his bald forehead, the left
sleeve of his loose blue frock-coat, with gold buttons, had slipped
half off his shoulder, as he hurried along on his little legs, cased in
yellow nankeen trousers:
"Where has that rascal John put the----?"
"Allow me, brother-in-law, to present my Arthur----."
"Very good," cried the commerzienrath, without even giving a look at
the presentee. "Aha! there the villain is!" and he made a dart at his
servant, who was just coming up the companion-way with a tray of
glasses.
The steuerrath and his lady exchanged a look, in which "the old brute,"
or some similarly flattering expression, was plainly legible. Arthur
had joined the young ladies and said something at which they burst out
laughing and rapped him with their parasols; I, whom nobody seemed to
notice, turned away and went on the more quiet forward deck, where I
found a seat upon a coil of rope, and leaning my back against the
capstan, looked out upon the bright sky and the bright sea.
In the meantime the boat had left the harbor, and was moving down with
the coast on our larboard, where the red roofs of the fishermen's
cottages shone through the trees and bushes; while on the narrow strip
of level beach here and there figures were seen, seafaring folks
probably, or sea-bathers, who were watching the steamer go by. To our
right the shore receded, so that it was only just possible to
distinguish it from the water; before us, but at a still more remote
distance, gleamed the chalk-coast of the neighboring island over the
blue expanse of sea, which now began to roughen a little under a
fresher breeze, while countless flocks of seabirds now flew up from the
approach of the puffing steamer, and now, with their cunning heads
turned towards us, sported on the waves and filled the air with their
monotonous cries.
It was a bright and lovely morning; but though I saw its beauty, it
gave me no pleasure. I felt singularly dejected. Had the _Penguin_
that, with a sluggishness altogether at variance with her name, was
slowly toiling through the water, been a beautiful swift clipper, bound
for China or Buenos Ayres, or somewhere thousands of miles away, and I
a passenger with a great purse of gold, or even a sailor before the
mast, with the assurance that I should never again set eyes on the
hateful steeples of my native town, I should have been light-hearted
enough. But now! what was it then that made me so low-spirited? The
consciousness of my disobedience? Dread of the disagreeable
consequences, now, to all human foresight, inevitable? Nothing of the
sort. The worst could only be that my stern father would drive me from
his house, as he had already often enough threatened to do; and this
possibility I regarded as a deliverance from a yoke which seemed to
grow more intolerable every day; and as the idea arose in my mind, I
welcomed it with a smile of grim satisfaction. No, it was not that.
What then?
Well, to have run away from school with an ardor as if some glorious
prize was to be won, and then, in a merry company, on the deck of a
steamboat, to sit away by myself on a coil of rope, not one of the
gentlemen or ladies taking the slightest notice of me, and with not
even the prospect that the waiter, with the caviar-rolls and port wine,
would at last come round to me! This last neglect, to tell the honest
truth, for the moment afflicted me most sorely of all. My appetite, as
was natural for a robust youth of nineteen, was always of the best,
and now by the brisk run from school to the harbor and the fresh
sea-breeze, it was sharpened to a distressing keenness.
I stood up in a paroxysm of impatience, but quickly sat down again. No,
Arthur certainly would come and take me to the company; it was the
least that he owed me, after I had been so obliging as to run away
with him. As if he had ever yet paid me what he owed me! How many
fishing-rods, canary birds, shells, fifes, pocket-knives, had he not
already bought of me, that is, coaxed and worried me out of, without
ever paying me for them. Ay, how often had he not borrowed my slender
stock of pocket-money, whenever the amount made it worth his while; for
which sometimes even a couple of _silbergroschen_ sufficed.
Curious, that just now, on this bright sunny morning, I should take to
reckoning up this black account! It was certainly the first time since
the beginning of our friendship, which dated at least from our sixth
year. For I had always loved the handsome slender boy, who had such
sunny hair and gentle brown eyes, and whose velvet Sunday jacket felt
so soft to the touch. I had loved him as a great rough mastiff might
love a delicate greyhound that he could crush with one snap of his
jaws; and so I loved him even now, while he was flirting with the
girls, and chattering and laughing with the company like the _petit
maître_ he was.
I grew very melancholy as I watched all this from my place, where
nobody could see me--very melancholy and altogether disspirited. I must
have been very hungry.
We were now just rounding a long headland, which ran out from the
western coast. At its farthest low extremity, in a spot entirely
surrounded by water, separated by a wide interval from the row of
houses on the dune, and shadowed by a half-decayed oak, stood a
cottage, the sight of which called into my mind a flood of pleasant
memories. The old blacksmith, Pinnow, lived there, the father of my
friend Klaus Pinnow. Smith Pinnow was by far the most remarkable
personage of all my acquaintance. He possessed four old double-barreled
percussion guns, and a long single-barreled fowling-piece with a flint
lock, which he used to hire to the bathers when they took a fancy to
have a little shooting, and sometimes to us youngsters when we were in
funds, for Smith Pinnow was not in the habit of conferring gratuitous
favors. He had, besides, a great sail-boat, also kept for the bathing
company, at least of late years, since he had grown half blind and
could not venture longer trips. The rumor ran that formerly he used to
make very different voyages, of by no means so innocent a character;
and the excise officers, my father's colleagues (my father had lately
been promoted to an accountantship) shook their heads when Smith
Pinnow's by-gone doings happened to be referred to. But what was that
to us youngsters? Especially, what was it to me, who owed the happiest
hours of my life to the four rusty guns, and the fowling-piece, and
Smith Pinnow's old boat, and who had had the best comrade in the world
in Klaus Pinnow? Had had, I say, for during the last four years, while
Klaus was an apprentice to the locksmith Wangerow, and afterwards when
he became a journeyman, I had seen him but seldom, and, indeed, for the
last half year not at all.
He came at once into my mind as we steamed past his father's cottage,
and I perceived a figure standing on the sands by the side of the boat
which was drawn up on the beach. The distance was great, but my keen
eyes recognized Christel Möwe, Klaus's adopted sister, whom sixteen
years before, old Pinnow's wife--long since dead--had found the morning
after a storm, lying on the beach among the boxes and planks driven
ashore from a wreck, and whom the old blacksmith, in an unwonted
impulse of generosity, as some said, or to raise his credit with the
neighbors, according to others, had taken into his house. The wreck was
a Dutch ship from Java, as they made out from some of the things cast
ashore; but her name and owners were never discovered--probably from
the negligence of the officials charged with the investigations--and
they named the little foundling Christina, or Christel, Möwe [_Gull_],
because the screams of a flock of gulls in the air had attracted
Goodwife Pinnow to the spot where the child was lying.
A noise close at hand caused me to look round. Two paces from me a
hatchway was opened, and out of the hatchway emerged the figure of a
man who was standing on the ladder, but whose head rose high enough
above the deck to allow him to see over the low bulwarks. His short
stiff hair, his broad face, his bare muscular neck, his breast open
almost to the belt, his shirt which had once been striped with red, and
his trousers which had once been white--were all covered with a thick
black deposit of coal-dust; and as he was blinking with his small eyes
almost shut in order to see more keenly some distant object, he would
have presented an unbroken surface of blackness, had he not at this
moment expanded an immense mouth into a joyous grin, and displayed two
rows of teeth of unsurpassed whiteness. And now he raised himself a few
inches higher, waved his great black hand as a greeting towards the
beach, and all at once I recognized him.
"Klaus!" I called out.
"Hallo!" he cried, starting, and quickly bringing his small eyes to
bear upon me.
"That was a mighty affectionate salute of yours, Klaus."
Klaus blushed visibly through his rind of soot, and showed all his
teeth. "Why, in the name of ----, George," cried he, "where do you come
from, and what has brought you here?"
"And what has brought you here?"
"I have been here ever since Easter. I have had it in my mind for some
time to come to see you and inquire after your health."
"You foolish fellow, why do you put on that respectful tone with me?"
"Oh, you belong to the great folks now," replied Klaus, jerking his
thumb over his shoulder in the direction of the quarter-deck.
"I wish I were below with you, and you would give me a good thick slice
of bread and butter. Hang the great folks, as you call them."
Klaus looked at me in astonishment.
"Well, but why in the world----" he began.
"Why am I here? Is that what you mean? Why, because I am a fool and an
ass."
"Oh, no," remonstrated Klaus.
"Yes, I am--a complete ass. I wish all my friends were as good as you
are, Klaus." Here I gave a glance towards the perfidious Arthur, who
was strutting about among the guests with the parasol of the perfidious
Emilie, while she had set his little straw-hat in a coquettish fashion
on her curls.
"I am wanted below," said Klaus, with a friendly grin; "Good-by." And
down the ladder he went.
"Was that a chimney-sweep?" asked a clear voice behind me.
I turned hastily round, rising from my seat. There stood a charming
little lady of eight, in a little white frock with ribbons of
cornflower blue at the shoulders and streaming from her straw-hat,
whose great cornflower blue eyes first stared with intense curiosity at
the hatchway through which my black friend had vanished, and then
turned inquiringly to me.
At this moment the hatch was raised again, and Klaus's head
emerged--"Shall I really get you a slice?"
"Oh, mercy!" cried the little lady. Klaus vanished instantaneously, and
the hatch shut down with a bang.
"Oh, mercy!" cried the little maid again. "How it frightened me!"
"What frightened you, _ma chère_!" asked another voice. The voice was
extremely thin, and so was the lady to whom it belonged, and who had
just come out of the deck-cabin. So also was the worn dress of
changeable silk that fluttered about her figure, and the reddish locks
that drooped on each side of her pale face.
This lady was Fräulein Amalie Duff, and the little maid with the
cornflower eyes and ribbons was her pupil, Hermine Streber, the
commerzienrath's only child. Of course I knew them both, as indeed I
was pretty well acquainted with everybody in our little town, as soon
as they were out of long-clothes; and they might well have known me,
for I had been two or three times with Arthur in his uncle's large
garden at the town-gate, and a fortnight before had even had the honor
to swing the little Hermine in the great wooden swing, from which, if
you swung high enough, you could catch a sight of the sea through the
tops of the trees. Fräulein Duff, moreover, was a native of the little
Saxon town which was the birthplace of my parents; and when she
arrived, some months before, she brought various messages and greetings
from the old home, which unhappily came too late for my good mother,
who had been resting in the churchyard for fifteen years. She had
frequently condescended indeed no longer ago than the afternoon of the
swinging to bestow her instructive conversation upon me; but she was
very near-sighted, and I could not take it amiss that she applied her
gold double eye-glass to her pale eyes, and with a sweeping reverence,
which in the dancing-school is called, I believe, _grand compliment_,
inquired: "Whom have I the honor to----?"
I introduced myself.
CHAPTER II.
"O ciel!" cried Fräulein Duff, "_mon jeune compatriote!_ A thousand
pardons!--my near-sightedness! How is your respected father, and your
amiable mother? Dear me! how confused I am! But your sudden appearance
in this retired corner of the world has quite unnerved me. I was about
to say--the company are asking for you. How did you manage to elude
observation?--they are looking for you everywhere."
"Yet I might have been found easily enough," I said, probably with a
touch of wounded pride in the tone, which did not escape the quick ear
of Fräulein Duff.
"Ah, yes," she said, conveying a look of intelligence into her pale
eyes. "'Who solace seeks in solitude'--alas! too true.
"'For gold all are longing,
Round gold all are thronging--'"
"Not so wild, _ma chère_! The dreadful creature will tear your dress!"
These last words were addressed to the little Hermine, who had begun to
romp on the smooth deck with a pretty little spaniel that had run to
her barking and jumping.
"You have a feeling heart," continued the governess, turning again to
me; "I see it in the pained expression of your mouth. Your soul shrinks
from noisy joys; this boisterous merriment is odious to you. But we
poor ones must submit to the inevitable--or I, at least must. Would I
be here if it were not so? Upon this tossing bark, in terror for my
life? And all for what purpose? to assist at a cannibal feast! Innocent
oysters, which men tear from the maternal bosom of the sea to devour
alive! Is that a fit spectacle to be exhibited to a child?" and
Fräulein Duff shook her thin locks with an expression of the deepest
solicitude.
"It remains yet to be seen whether we shall find any," I said, with
something like a sneer.
"Do you think so? The other gentlemen doubt it, too. The water of the
Baltic is not salt enough. True, we are informed that the Romans
propagated them in fresh-water lakes near Naples--but why parade my
modest bit of learning before a young scholar like yourself? The good
commerzienrath! Yes, yes; despise reason and learning who will!--but
here he comes himself. Not a word of what we have been saying, my young
friend, I beseech you!"
I had no time to assure the pale lady of my discretion, for nearly the
whole company came crowding on the forward-deck, in the wake of the
commerzienrath, who had the fat Mrs. Justizrath Heckepfennig upon his
arm, to look at a three-master that was just passing us under full
sail. In the next moment I was in the midst of the crowd, and the ice,
in which I had been sitting, so to speak, was broken. Arthur, whose
delicate face was already flushed by the wine he had been drinking,
clapped me on the shoulder and asked where upon earth I had been
hiding. The perfidious Emilie held out her hand and murmured: "Had you
then entirely forgotten me?" and--as just at that moment a salute was
fired from some small mortars on board the steamer--fell, with a little
scream, into my arms. The three-master, that was just returning from
the West Indies, belonged to the commerzienrath's fleet. They knew that
she would arrive to-day; and it was by no means disagreeable to the
commerzienrath to be able to carry his guests, on their way to his
oyster-beds, past the finest of his ships. He mounted the paddle-box,
speaking-trumpet in hand, and roared, at the pitch of his lungs,
something which, amid the universal hurrahing and the explosions of the
mortars, was perfectly inaudible to the bronzed captain of the ship,
who shrugged his broad shoulders as a sign that he could not catch a
word of it all. What difference did it make? It was a splendid sight;
and the commerzienrath upon the paddle-box, trumpet in hand, was the
chief figure in it. That was enough for him; and as the _Albatros_ with
her wide wings swept by, and the short legs of the _Penguin_ began to
paddle again, and he descended from his pedestal to receive the
congratulations of the company, his little clear eyes sparkled, his
nostrils expanded, and his loud laugh rang like the crowing of a cock,
exulting in the proud consciousness that he is the master of the
dunghill.
The rest of the poultry freely acknowledged this superiority: there was
cackling and clucking, bowing and scraping, and no one more obsequious
than Arthur's father, the steuerrath, who kept constantly at the side
of the great man, saying, in his smooth voice, flatteries, which the
other received as a matter of course--something to which he was well
accustomed, especially from that quarter--with an indifference which to
most others would have been insulting. It is quite possible that
the steuerrath did not find this behavior on the part of his rich
brother-in-law altogether pleasant, but he was too much a man of the
world to give any outward sign of his inward emotions. But his spouse
was not quite so successful in her self-command, who, as born Baroness
Kippenreiter, had an unquestionable claim to respectful attention, and
a right to be dissatisfied if this were withheld. So she sought to
indemnify herself for the humiliation by the extremest possible
condescension of manner towards the other ladies, Mrs. Burgomaster
Koch, Mrs. Justizrath Heckepfennig, Mrs. Bauinspector Strombach, and
the rest of the feminine _élite_ of our little town, though even this
satisfaction could not roll away the clouds from her aristocratic brow.
I had hardly begun to feel at ease in the company, which happened
quickly enough, when my natural vivacity, which bordered on rudeness,
returned and impelled me to a hundred pranks, which were decidedly not
in the best taste, though certainly not instigated by any intention to
offend, and which I carried on all the more recklessly, as I perceived
I had all the laughers on my side. I could blush with shame even now,
when I think of my shallow attempts at wit, and how poor in invention
and clumsy in execution were the comic imitations to which I must needs
treat my respectable audience, because forsooth I had a sort of
celebrity in the town for this sort of thing, (my masterpiece, I
remember, was a lover bent on regaling his mistress with a serenade,
and incessantly disturbed by barking dogs, mewing cats, scolding
neighbors, and malicious passers-by, and finally taken up by the
watch,) what foolish flippancy and want of tact in the speeches that I
made at the table, and with how many glasses of wine I repaid myself
for all my ridiculous exertions.
And yet this lunch under an awning on deck of the steamer that was now
anchored in the calm, smooth sea, was the last real merry-making that I
was to have for many long years. I do not know if it was this that
keeps it so bright in my memory, or rather the youth that then glowed
in my veins, the wine that sparkled in the glasses, the bright sunshine
that glistened on the sea, and the sweet air that swept so softly over
the water that it did not suffice to cool the flushed cheeks of the
maidens. It was rather all together--youth, sunlight, sea-breeze,
golden wine, rosy cheeks; and ah! the oysters, the unlucky oysters,
that had had two years in which to multiply like the sand of the sea,
and which the sea-sand and sea-currents had buried and swept away, all
to a few empty shells! What an inexhaustible theme were these empty
shells, displayed with humorous ostentation in a splendid dish in the
centre of the table! how every one tried his wit on them, and what a
malicious joy each felt that the millionaire's obstinate conceit had
had a lesson, and that not all his millions could extort from nature
what she had determined to refuse!
But the old fellow bore it all with the utmost good-humor; and after he
had bewailed his ill-luck in a humorous speech, suddenly a loud clamor
arose on the forward-deck, and the sailors dragged forward great
barrels of oysters, which they declared they had just taken up. Then
there was no end to the exultation and cheers to our magnificent host,
who once more had shown that his sagacity and foresight were even
greater than his conceit and his obstinacy.
I do not know how late the feast was protracted, while the ladies
promenaded the deck; it was certainly kept up far too long for us
youngsters. Very queer stories were told, in which the commerzienrath
particularly distinguished himself; we laughed, we shouted--I must
volunteer songs, which were received with storms of applause, and I was
not a little vain as my powerful bass drew even the ladies to the table
again, and did my best, when both ladies and gentlemen joined in unison
in the glee, "What it means I cannot tell," to carry through a second
voice (in thirds), keeping my eye all the while on Fräulein Emilie--an
attention which naturally set the other young ladies to giggling and
nudging each other, and occasioned Arthur such pangs of jealousy, that
afterwards, as we were walking up and down the deck, with our cigars,
he called me to account for it.
By this time it was evening, for I remember that, while talking with
Arthur, I noticed on the coast of the island, which we had neared on
our return, an old ruin, standing picturesquely on a high and steep
cliff, and glowing in the light of the setting sun. The sight of this
ruin gave an unpleasant turn to our discussion, which had already grown
sharp. This tower happened to be the sole remnant of the ancient
Zehrenburg, the ancestral seat of Arthur's family, which, in former
times, had enjoyed large possessions on the island. Arthur pointed with
a pathetic gesture to the ruddy walls, and demanded that I, here and
now, with my eye upon the castle of his ancestors, should renounce
forever all pretensions to Emilie Heckepfennig. "A plebeian like
myself," he said, "was in duty bound to give way to a patrician." I
maintained that there were no such things as plebeians or patricians in
affairs of the heart, and that I would never consent to a pledge which
would entail perpetual wretchedness on both Emilie and myself.
"Slave!" cried Arthur, "is it thus that you repay me for the
condescension that has so long tolerated your society?"
I laughed aloud, and my laughter still further exasperated Arthur's
drunken passion.
"My father is Steuerrath von Zehren," he cried, "and yours a miserable
subaltern."
"Let us leave our fathers out of the question, Arthur; you know I will
not endure any insult to mine."
"Your father----"
"Once more I warn you, Arthur, leave my father's name alone. My father,
at the very least, is as good as yours. And if you say another word
about my father, I'll fling you overboard," and I shook my fist in
Arthur's face.
"What's the matter here?" asked the steuerrath, who suddenly appeared.
"How, young man, is this the respect that you owe to my son--that you
owe to me? It appears that you are disposed to add the crown to your
disgraceful behavior all day. My son has invited you into his company
for the last time."
"Invited me, indeed!" I said. "We ran away, both of us!"--and I burst
into a shout of laughter that quite justified the steuerrath's
qualification of my behavior.
"How!" he exclaimed. "Arthur, what does this mean?"
But Arthur was not in condition to give an intelligible answer. He
stammered out something, and rushed toward me, apparently with the
intention of striking me, but his father caught his arm and led him
away, speaking very earnestly to him in a low tone, and as he went he
threw a furious look at me.
My blood, already excited, was now boiling in my veins. The next thing
I remember I was walking arm-in-arm with the commerzienrath--I have
never been able to understand how I did it--and passionately
complaining to him of the crying outrage I had received from my best
friend, for whom I was at all times ready to sacrifice fortune and
blood. The commerzienrath seemed as if he would die with laughing.
"Fortune and blood!" he cried; "as for the fortune"--here he shrugged
his shoulders and blew out his cheeks--"and as for the blood"--here he
nudged me with his elbow in the side. "Full blood, capital blood, of
course. I have had one of the breed myself; a Kippenreiter! Baroness
Kippenreiter! My Hermann, at all events, is of the half blood. There
she runs; is she not an angel? Pity she was not a boy: that's the
reason I always call her Hermann. Hermann! Hermann!"
The little maid came running: she had on a red scarf, which her father,
after kissing her, wrapped closer around her delicate shoulders.
"Is she not an angel--a pride?" he went on taking my arm again. "She
shall have a count for a husband; not a poor, penniless sprig of
nobility, like my brother-in-law, nor like his drunken brother at
Zehrendorf, nor the other, that sneaking fellow, the penitentiary
superintendent at What-d'ye-call-it. No, a real count, a fellow six
feet high, just like you, my boy, just like you!"
The short commerzienrath tried to lay his two fat hands upon my
shoulders, and tipsy emotion blinked in his eyes.
"You are a capital fellow, a splendid fellow. Pity you are such a poor
devil; you should be my son-in-law. But I must call you _thou_: thou
mayst say _thou_ to me, too, brother!" and the worthy man sobbed upon
my breast and called for champagne, apparently with a view of solemnly
ratifying the bond, of brotherhood after the ancient fashion.
I have my doubts whether he carried this design into effect: at all
events I remember nothing of the ceremony, which could scarcely have
escaped my memory. But I remember that not long after I was in the
engine-room with a bottle of wine, hobnobbing with my friend Klaus, and
swearing that he was the best and truest fellow in the world, and that
I would appoint him head-stoker in hell as soon as I got there, which
would not be long coming as I must have a settlement with father this
evening, and that I would let myself be torn in pieces for him at any
time, and that I would be glad if it were done right at once, and that
if the great black fellow there did not stop swinging his long iron arm
up and down I would lay my head under it, and there would be an end of
George Hartwig.
How the good Klaus brought me out of this suicidal frame of mind, and
how he got me up the ladder again, I cannot say; it must have been
managed somehow, for as we steamed into the harbor I was sitting on
deck, watching the masts of the anchored ships glide past us, and the
stars glittering through the spars and cordage. The crescent moon that
was standing over the spire of the church of St Nicholas seemed
suddenly to drop behind it, but it was I that dropped, as the _Penguin_
struck the timbers of the wharf, on which there was again assembled a
crowd of people, not hurrahing, however, as when we started, but, as it
seemed to me, strangely silent; and, as I made my way through them,
staring at me I thought in a singular manner, so that I felt as if
something terrible must have happened, or was on the point of
happening, and that I was in some mysterious way the cause of it.
I stood before my father's small house in the narrow Water street. A
light was glimmering through the closed shutters of the room to the
left of the front door, by which I knew that my father was at home--he
usually took a solitary walk around the town-wall at this hour. Could
it be so very late, then? I took out my watch and tried to make out the
time by the moonlight--for the street-lamps were never lighted in
Uselin on moonlight nights--but could not succeed. No matter, I said to
myself, it is all one! and grasped resolutely the brass knob of the
front door. To my feverish hand it felt cold as ice.
CHAPTER III.
As I closed the door behind me, old Frederica, who, since my mother's
death, had been housekeeper for my father, came suddenly out of the
small room on the right. By the light of a lamp burning dimly on the
hall-table I saw the good old woman throw up her hands and stare at me
with wide, frightened eyes. "Has anything happened to my father?" I
stammered, seizing the table to support myself What with the warm
atmosphere of the house after the fresh night-air, and my alarm at
Frederica's terrified looks, my breath failed me, the blood seemed to
rush to my head, and the room began to go round.
"Wretched boy, what have you done?" piteously exclaimed the old woman.
"In heaven's name, what has happened?" I cried, seizing her by both
hands.
Here my father opened the door of his room and appeared upon the
threshold. Being a large man and the door small, he nearly filled up
the doorway.
"Thank God!" I murmured to myself.
At this moment I experienced no other feeling than that of joyful
relief from the anxiety which seemed on the point of suffocating me; in
the next, this natural emotion gave way to another, and we glared at
each other like two foes who suddenly meet, after one has long been
seeking the other, and the other nerves himself for the result, be it
what it may, from which he now sees there is no escape.
"Come in," said my father, making way for me to pass into his room.
I obeyed: there was a humming noise in my ears, but my step was firm;
and if my heart beat violently in my breast, it was certainly not with
fear.
As I entered, a tall black figure slowly rose from my father's large
study-chair---my father allowed no sofa in his house--it was Professor
Lederer. I stood near the door, my father to the right, by the stove,
the professor at the writing-table in front of the lamp, so that his
shadow reached from the ceiling to the floor, and fell directly upon
me. No one moved or spoke; the professor wished to leave the first word
to my father, and my father was under too much excitement to speak. In
this way we stood for about half a minute, which seemed to me an
eternity, and during which the certainty flashed into my mind that if
the professor did not immediately leave the room and the house, all
possible chance of an explanation between my father and myself was cut
off.
"Misguided young man," at last began the professor.
"Leave me alone with my father, Herr Professor," I interrupted him.
The professor looked at me as if he could not believe his ears. A
delinquent, a criminal--for such I was in his eyes--to dare to
interrupt his judge in such a tone, and with such a request--it was
impossible.
"Young man," he began again, but his tone was not as assured as the
first time.
"I tell you, leave us alone together," I cried with a louder voice, and
making a motion towards him.
"He is mad," said the professor, taking a hasty step backwards, which
brought him in contact with the table.
"Sirrah!" exclaimed my father, stepping quickly forward, as if to
protect the professor from my violence.
"If I am mad," I said, turning my burning eyes from one to the other,
"so much the greater reason for leaving us alone."
The professor looked round for his hat, which stood behind him on the
table.
"No; remain, remain," said my father, his voice quivering with passion.
"Is this audacious boy again to have his insolent way? I have too long
been culpably negligent; it is high time to take other measures."
My father began to pace up and down the room, as he always did when
violently agitated.
"Yes, to take other measures," he continued. "This has gone on far too
long. I have done all I could; I have nothing to reproach myself with;
but I will not become a public by-word for the sake of a perverse boy.
If he refuses to do what is his plain duty and obligation, then have I
no further duty or obligation towards him; and let him see how he can
get through the world without me."
He had not once looked at me while he uttered these words in a voice
broken with passion. Later in life I saw a painting representing the
Roman holding his burning hand in the glowing coals, and looking
sideways upon the ground with an expression of intensest agony. It
brought at once into my mind the remembrance of my father at this
fateful moment.
"Your father is right"--commenced for the third time the professor, who
held it his duty to strike in while the iron was hot--"when was there
ever a father who has done more for his children than your excellent
parent, whose integrity, industry and virtue have become a proverb, and
who through your fault is now deprived of the crowning ornament of a
good citizen; that is, a well-disciplined son, to be the stay of his
declining years. Is it not enough that inevitable fate has already hard
smitten this excellent man--that he has lost a dear consort and a son
in the bloom of youth? Shall he now lose the last, the Benjamin of
his old age? Shall his unwearied solicitude, his daily and nightly
prayers----"
My father was a man of strictest principles, but far from devout, in
the ordinary acceptation of the word; an untruth was his abhorrence,
and it was an untruth to say that he had prayed by night and day; and
besides, he had an excessive, almost morbid modesty, and the
professor's panegyric struck him as exaggerated and ill-timed.
"Let all that pass, Herr Professor"--he interrupted the learned man
rather impatiently--"I say again, I have done my duty. Enough! let him
do his. I want nothing of him--nothing--nothing whatever--not so much
as"--and he brushed one hand over the other; "but this I will have, and
if he refuses----"
My father had worked himself into a rage again, and my apparent
composure only further exasperated him. Strange! Had I fallen to
prayers and entreaties, I know that my father would have despised me,
and yet, because I did what he himself would most assuredly have done
in my position, because I was silent and stubborn, he hated me at this
moment as one hates anything that stands in one's way, and which yet
cannot be spurned aside with contempt.
"You have been guilty of a heavy offence, George Hartwig"--the
professor began again in a declamatory tone--"that of leaving the
Gymnasium without the permission of your teachers. I will not speak of
the boundless disrespect with which, as so often before, you rejected
the precious opportunity offered you of acquiring knowledge: I will
only speak of the terrible guilt of disobedience, of insolent defiance
of orders, of the evil example that your disgraceful conduct has
presented to your class-mates. If Arthur von Zehren's facile temper has
at last been warped into confirmed frivolity, this is the evil fruit of
your bad example. Never would that misguided boy have dared to do what
he has done to-day----"
As I knew the misguided boy so much better than he, I here broke
into a loud, contemptuous laugh, which drove the professor completely
beyond his self-control. He caught up his hat, and muttering some
unintelligible words, apparently expressing his conviction that I was
lost beyond all possibility of reformation, was about to leave the
room, when he was detained by my father.
"One moment, Herr Professor," he said, and then turning to me--"You
will instantly ask pardon of your teacher for this additional
insolence--instantly!"
"I will not," I replied.
"Instantly!" thundered my father.
"I will not!" I repeated.
"Once more, will you, or will you not?"
He stood before me his whole frame quivering with anger. His naturally
sallow complexion had turned of an ashy gray, the veins of his brow
were swollen, his eyes flashed. His last words had been spoken in a
hoarse, hissing tone.
"I will not," I said for the third time.
My father raised his arm as if to strike me, but he did not strike; his
arm slowly descended, and with outstretched hand he pointed to the
door:
"Begone!" he said, slowly and firmly. "Leave my house forever!"
I looked straight into his eyes; I was about to say something--perhaps
"Forgive me, father; I will ask _your_ forgiveness;" but my heart lay
like a stone in my breast; my teeth were clenched like a vice; I could
not speak. I moved silently towards the door. The professor hurried
after me and seized my arm, no doubt with the kindest intentions; but I
saw in him only the cause of my disgrace. I thrust him roughly aside,
flung the door to after me, ran past the old housekeeper--the good old
creature had evidently been listening, for she stood there wringing her
hands, the picture of despair--and out of the house into the street.
CHAPTER IV.
I ran for a short distance like a madman, when suddenly my limbs began
to totter under me; the moonlit roofs, the lighted windows in some of
the houses, danced wildly before my eyes; the fumes of the wine I had
been drinking, repressed for a while by my mental excitement, now rose
again to my brain; I had to lean against a wall to keep myself from
falling.
I had probably remained for a few minutes in a state of partial
insensibility when the voices of some maids, who were bringing water
from the adjacent fountain, recalled me to consciousness. I roused
myself, and staggered down the street. Soon my strong natural
constitution began to assert itself; my steps grew firmer, and I began
to consider what I should do, and first of all, whither I should go.
The idea of seeking lodgings at an inn I rejected at once; I had never
yet passed a night from home; and besides, my whole stock of money did
not exceed one _thaler_--my father always kept me on a very meagre
allowance of pocket-money--and I had an indistinct notion that I should
have to make this slender sum go a long way. Had I not quarreled with
Arthur and parted from him in anger, I should probably have gone to
him; but as it was, I felt it impossible to present myself at his house
as a supplicant; and, besides, by this time he was most likely sleeping
off his intoxication, and his parents had never been friendly disposed
towards me. The commerzienrath! He had embraced me, called me _thou_
and _brother_: he would assuredly receive me with rapture, have me
shown to a magnificent chamber, with a grand four-post curtained
bed----
But while I was indulging in the picture of my brilliant reception at
the commerzienrath's, I was hastening steadily in the opposite
direction, towards the harbor. I passed some low taverns in which
sailors were roaring out coarse songs. How if I went in and joined the
drinkers, and to-morrow went out into the wide world a sailor, like my
brother Fritz? That would be a way to be revenged upon my father! To
lose two sons--both in the same way! And then to perish at sea, and my
corpse to lie at the bottom of the ocean, where my brother's bones had
long been lying! "Shame upon you, George!"--I said to myself--"shame!
The poor old man!"
How if I turned back? The professor had certainly long since left
the house. My father was alone in his room. I would go to him and
say--"Strike me if you will, father; I will not resist; I will not move
an eyelid!"
But I did not return, nor even slacken my pace; I had already left the
town behind, and was now in the wide street of the suburb, on both
sides of which stood the little cottages which at this season were
chiefly occupied by the bathing-guests. Here and there they shone
through the dark trees; some of them had lamps burning in glass globes
at the doors, and under trellises, and in the little gardens sat
cheerful groups; song and laughter and the merry voices of children
came up on the pleasant evening air; a light breeze just stirred the
tops of the trees over my head, and fire-flies twinkled in the bushes.
The moist, warm breeze from the sea seemed to refresh me; how pleasant
it must be, I thought, over there beyond the houses; and on the
instant, Smith Pinnow's cottage came into my mind. The very thing!
there I was sure of a shelter. The old man would give me a bed, or at
least a shake-down in the forge; or there was the old woman's great
arm-chair--certainly she could not sit crouching in it all night as
well as all day. Pity Klaus was not at home; but then the pretty
Christel was there. Christel had always been a favorite of mine;
indeed, at one time I had fancied myself really in love with her, and
her charms had attracted me to the hut at least quite as often as the
old man's four double-barrels and the long single-barrel, or the mulled
wine which he used to sell in the winter to the skaters that thronged
the beach.
Strange light-heartedness of youth! At this moment all the mischief I
had done, my father's grief, my own serious position, were all
forgotten; or, if not forgotten, they were only the dark background
upon which shone brightly and cheerily the picture of the old ruinous
hut with the glowing forge-fire, and above all the pretty figure of the
brisk Christel moving lightly about. What was the school--what was my
father's house and all the rest of my slavery to me now? At other
times, when I had been out at this hour, I was haunted with anxiety how
I should get in without the knowledge of my father, who went to bed
punctually at half-past nine: now my father had himself driven me from
his house. No need now to pull off my boots at the door, and creep
softly up the creaking stair to my chamber; I was a free man and could
do what I chose, and come and go at my pleasure.
The wide street and the suburbs were now behind me; I strode along
the well-known path, on my left a little meadow, on my right a
potato-field, here and there a solitary tree, blackly defined against
the clear starlit sky, and on either side the water, whose hollow sound
I heard plainer and plainer as the tongue of land narrowed, especially
towards the west, the windward quarter, where lay the open sea. I
noticed for the first time that I had no cap. I had either lost it
or left it by the lamp on the hall-table; so much the better, the
sea-breeze could play freely around my heated temples and in my loose
hair.
A pair of wild swans flew high above me; I could not see them, but
heard their peculiar wailing cry--two simple notes that rang strangely
through the silence of the night. "Good speed!" I called out to them:
"Good speed, my good comrades!"
A strangely happy feeling, mingled of sadness and joy, came over me,
such as I had never known before. I could have thrown myself upon the
earth and wept; I could have leaped and shouted in exultation. I could
not then comprehend what it was that so singularly possessed me. Now I
know well what it was: it was the sense of delight that must thrill
through the fish when he darts like an arrow through the liquid
crystal, the bird when he sweeps on expanded pinions through the air,
the stag when he bounds over the wild plain; the rapture that thrills
man's breast when in the full glow of youth and vigor he feels himself
one with the great mother, Nature. The fore-feeling of this delight,
the longing to taste it, are what drives the man from the narrow round
of circumstances in which he was born, out into the wide world, across
seas, into the desert, to the peaks of the Alps, anywhere where the
winds blow free, where the heaven broadens grandly above, where he must
risk his life to win it.
Does this after-thought excuse the insolent obstinacy of which I had
been guilty towards my father; and the terrible rashness with which I
staked my whole future on a cast of the die? Assuredly not. I will
excuse nothing, extenuate nothing; but simply narrate what happened to
me and within me during these events and those that followed; only
giving an explanation here and there when circumstances seem to require
it. Let the story tell its own moral; only this will I add, for the
consolation of thoughtful souls, that if, as cannot be gainsaid, my
conduct deserved punishment, this punishment was dealt out to me
speedily, and that in no stinted measure.
But at the time the haggard form with the lame foot was still too far
behind to cast the shade of her terrors upon me; two other figures,
however, as I hastened with a quickened pace over the heath, appeared
in sight, who had assuredly nothing spectral about them, for they were
standing in a close embrace. They sprang apart, with a cry of alarm
from a female voice, as, turning sharply around a hillock, I came
directly upon them. The maiden caught up a great basket, which she had
set upon the ground, having just had other employment for her arms, and
her companion gave an "Ahem!" which was so loud and so confused that it
could only have proceeded from a very innocent breast.
"Good evening," I said; "I trust----"
"Good Lord! is it really you?" said the man. "Why, Christel, only think
it's him!"--and Klaus caught Christel Möwe, who was about taking to
flight, by her dress, and detained her.
"Oh! I thought it was _him_!" stammered Christel, whose mind did not
seem entirely relieved by the discovery that if they had been espied it
was by a good friend.
Although the position in which Klaus and Christel evidently stood to
each other did not exactly require an explanation, still I was somewhat
astonished. As long as Klaus lived with his father, from the
commencement of our friendship, I had never detected in the good
fellow's heart anything more than brotherly affection for his pretty
adopted sister; but then that was four years ago. Klaus was but sixteen
when he went to work with locksmith Wangerow; and perhaps this
temporary separation had aroused the love which otherwise would have
calmly slumbered on, and possibly never awakened of itself. This was
confirmed by what the lovers themselves told me, as we walked slowly on
together towards the forge, often stopping for a minute at a time when
the story reached a point of particularly critical interest. One of
these points--and indeed the most serious--was the strongly and even
violently expressed aversion of old Pinnow to the engagement. Klaus did
not say so, but from all that I gathered I surmised that it was not
altogether impossible that the old man himself had cast an eye upon his
pretty adopted daughter; at least I could see no other reasonable
explanation of the fact that year by year, and day by day, he had grown
more morose and rancorous towards Klaus, and at last, after much
snarling and storming over his gadding about, and his shameful waste
of time, had ended by forbidding him the house, without the good
fellow--as he solemnly asseverated, and I believed him--having ever
given him the slightest cause of complaint. Therefore they--the
lovers--were under the necessity of keeping their meetings secret, a
proceeding not without considerable difficulties, as the old man was
extraordinarily watchful and cunning. For instance, he would send the
deaf and dumb apprentice, Jacob, to the town to make the necessary
purchases, although he was certain to make some blunder or other; and
to-day he would not have sent Christel, had he not heard that Klaus had
some late work to do on board the steamer, that would prevent his
coming ashore.
As I had a sincere affection for the good Klaus, who had been my
comrade in many a merry frolic by land and water, and was no less fond
of the rosy, soft-voiced Christel Möwe, I felt the liveliest sympathy
with them; and improbable though it may seem, their love, with its
sorrows and its joys, and the possibility of its happy termination, lay
at this moment nearer my heart than the thought of my own fortune. My
mind, however, recurred to my own situation, when, as we reached a
slight elevation in the path, the forge, with the light of the
kitchen-fire shining through its low window, appeared close at hand,
and Klaus asked if we should now turn back. He then for the first time
learned that it was no mere evening stroll that had brought me so far
from the town across the heath, and that my intention was to ask his
father for shelter for a day at least, or perhaps for several days. At
the same time I briefly explained to him the cause that compelled me to
so singular a step.
Klaus seemed greatly affected by what he heard; he grasped me by the
hand, and taking me a little aside, asked in an agitated whisper if I
had well considered what I was about? My father, he said, could not
mean to deal so harshly with me, and would certainly forgive me if I
returned at once. He himself would go and prepare the way, and let the
storm spend its first wrath upon him.
"But, Klaus, old fellow," I said, "you are no better off than I. We are
comrades in misery: your father has forbidden you his house, just as
mine has done with me. What difference is there between us?"
"This difference," Klaus answered, "that I have done nothing to give my
father the right to be angry with me, while you tell me yourself that
you--don't take it hard of me--have been playing a very ugly trick."
I answered that, be that as it might, home I would never go. What
further I should do, I did not know: I would come on board the steamer
to-morrow and talk the matter over with him; it was very likely that I
would need his assistance.
Klaus, who saw that my resolution was taken, and who had always been
accustomed to adapt himself to my plans, gave my hand another hearty
grasp, and said: "Well, then, till to-morrow."
His good heart was so full of what he had just heard that he was going
off without bidding Christel good-by, had I not, laughing, called his
attention to this highly reprehensible oversight. But he did not get
the kiss I had hoped for him; Christel said I had been very wicked; and
so we departed, Klaus going back towards the town, and soon
disappearing in the darkness, and Christel and I keeping on to the
forge, where through the window the fire was now blazing brighter than
before.
"How does the old man come to be working so late?" I asked the girl.
"It just happens so," she answered.
I put other questions, to all of which I received but the briefest
possible answers. Christel and I had always been the best friends in
the world, and I had ever known her as the brightest, merriest
creature. I could only suppose that she had been seriously offended by
my bit of sportiveness. As it was never my nature, unless when overcome
with passion, to wound the feelings of any one, least of all a poor
girl of whom I was really fond, so I did not for a moment hesitate to
frankly ask her pardon, if I had offended her, saying that what I had
done was with the best intention in the world, namely, that her lover
should not, through my fault, leave her without a good-by kiss.
Christel made me no answer, and I was about placing my arm around her
trim waist, in order to give more emphasis to my petition for
forgiveness, when the girl suddenly burst into tears, and in a
frightened tone said that I must not go with her to "his" house; and
that it was anyhow of no use, for "he" would certainly give me no
lodging there.
This declaration and this warning would have made most persons
hesitate. The forge was in such a lonely place, the reputation of the
old smith was far from being a good one, and I was sufficiently versed
in robber-stories to recall the various romantic situations where the
robber's daughter warns the hero, who has lost his way, against the
remaining members of her estimable family, and at the same time reveals
her love for him in a style equally discreet and intelligent. But I was
never subject to those attacks of timidity to which imaginative persons
are so liable; and besides, I thought, if the old man is jealous of his
son--and this I set down as certain--why may he not be so of me?--and
in the third place, a little cur at this moment rushed, furiously
barking, at my legs, and simultaneously appeared a stout figure at the
open door of the forge, and Smith Pinnow's familiar voice called out in
his deep bass: "Who is there?"
"A friend--George Hartwig," I answered, tossing the little yelping
brute with my foot into the bushes.
Christel must have given the old man an intimation of what I wanted as
she pushed by him into the house, for he said at once, without moving
from his post in the doorway, "I can give you no lodging here; my house
is not an inn."
"I know that very well, Pinnow," I answered, stepping up and offering
my hand; "but I thought you were my friend."
The old man did not take my hand, but muttered something that I did not
catch.
"I shall not return home, you maybe sure of that," I continued. "So, if
you do not mean that I shall lie here in the bushes, and join your dog
in howling at the moon, you will let me in, and mix me a glass of
grog--half-and-half, you know; and take a glass or two yourself: it
will do you good, and put better thoughts in your head."
With these words, I laid my hand on the shoulder of the inhospitable
smith, and gave him a hearty shake, in token of my friendly feelings.
"Would you attack a weak old man in his own house?" he exclaimed in an
angry tone, and in my turn I felt on my shoulders two hands whose size
and steely hardness were, for "a weak old man," quite remarkable. My
blood, which the cooler night air had by no means yet lowered to the
desirable temperature, needed but little provocation; and besides, here
was too favorable an opportunity to put to the proof my much-admired
strength; so I seized my antagonist, jerked him at a single effort from
the threshold, and hurled him a couple of paces to one side. I had not
the slightest design of forcing an entrance into his house; but the
smith, who feared that this was my intention, and was resolved to
prevent it at all hazards, threw himself upon me with such fury that I
was obliged in self-defence to exert my whole strength. I had had many
a hard tussle in my time, and had always come off victorious; but never
before had I been so equally matched as now. Perhaps it was from some
small remains of regard for the old man who now assaulted me, in sailor
fashion, with heavy blows of his fist, that I refrained from repaying
him in the same coin, but endeavored to grapple with him. At last I
felt that I had him in my power: seizing a lower hold, I raised him
from the ground, and the next moment he would have measured his length
upon the sand, when a peal of laughter resounded close at hand.
Startled, I lost my hold, and my antagonist, no sooner felt himself
free, than he rushed upon me again. Unprepared for this new attack, I
lost my balance, stumbled and fell, my antagonist above me. I felt his
hands of iron at my throat, when suddenly the laughter ceased. "For
shame, old man!" cried a sonorous voice, "he has not deserved that of
you;" and a pair of strong arms tore the smith from me. I sprang to my
feet and confronted my deliverer, for so I must call him, as without
his interference I do not know what would have happened to me.
CHAPTER V.
He was, as well as I could distinguish by the faint light of the moon
that was now partly obscured by clouds, a man of tall stature and
slender frame; so alert in his movements that I took him to be young,
or at least comparatively young, until, at a sudden turn he made, the
flickering glare of the fire through the open door fell upon his face,
and I saw that his features were deeply furrowed, apparently with age.
And as now, holding my hand, he led me into the forge, which glowed
with a strong light, he seemed to me to be neither young nor old, or
rather both at once.
It is true, the moment was not precisely favorable to physiognomical
investigations. The stranger surveyed me with large eyes that flashed
uncannily out of the crumpled folds and wrinkles that surrounded them
from head to foot, and felt my shoulders and arms, as a jockey might
examine a horse that has got over a distance in three minutes that it
takes other horses five to accomplish. Then, turning on his heel, he
burst into a peal of laughter, as the smith turned upon the deaf and
dumb apprentice, Jacob, who all this time had been blowing the bellows,
quite indifferent to what was going forward, and gave him a push which
spun him around like a top.
"Bravo! bravo!" cried the stranger, "that was well done! Easier
handling him than the other--eh, Pinnow?"
"The other may thank his stars that he gets off so easily," growled the
smith, as he drew a red-hot bar from the coals.
"I am ready to try it again at any time, Pinnow," I cried, and was
delighted that the stranger, with an amused look, nodded his
approbation, while with affected solemnity he cried: "For shame young
man, for shame! a poor old man! Do you consider that a thing to boast
of?"
The smith had seized his heavy forge-hammer, and was plying the glowing
bar with furious strokes until the sparks flew in showers, and the
windows rattled in the frames.
The stranger stopped his ears. "For heaven's sake, man," he cried,
"stop that infamous noise! Who in the devil's name can stand it, do you
think? Do you suppose that I have your plebeian ears? Stop, I say,
or----"
He gave the smith a push, as the latter had just before done to his
apprentice, but the old man stood more firmly than the young one. With
a furious look he raised his hammer--it seemed as if the next moment he
would bring it down on the stranger's head.
"Have you gone mad?" said the stranger, casting a stern look at the
enraged smith. Then, as the latter slowly lowered the hammer, he began
speaking to him in an undertone, to which the old man answered in a
muttering voice, in which I thought I could at intervals distinguish my
own name.
"It may be," said the stranger; "but here he is now, and here he shall
stay."
"Excuse me," I said, "I have not the least idea of thrusting my company
upon you: I would not have set my foot in the house, had not----"
"Now _he's_ beginning again," exclaimed the stranger, with a laugh of
half vexation; "will you ever come to your senses, you two? What I want
is peace and quiet, and above all, some supper; and you shall keep me
company. Hallo! Christel! Where is the girl? You, Pinnow, take off your
leather apron and come in too."
With these words he opened the low door on the right of the forge-fire,
which led from the forge into the living-room. I had often enough been
in the latter, and indeed I knew the whole place well: the living-room
was a moderately large apartment, but only half as high from floor to
ceiling as the forge; the sleeping-rooms lying above it, which were
reached by a steep stair, or sort of ladder, in a corner of the room,
passing through a hole in the ceiling. There was also a door, reached
by two steps, which led into a small side-room, where the smith's
mother slept. This old woman, a prodigy of age, was now crouching in
her easy-chair in her usual corner, close to the stove, which was
heated from without. In the middle of the room stood a heavy oaken
table, and on the table the great basket which Christel had brought
from the town. Christel herself was apparently searching for something
in a closet at the further end of the room.
"Now, Christel," said the stranger, taking a light to look into the
basket, "what have you brought? That looks inviting. But bestir
yourself, for I am hungry as a wolf--and you too," turning to me--"are
you not? One is always hungry at your age. Come this way to the window.
Sit down."
He made me sit on one of the two benches that stood in the recess of
the window, seated himself on the other, and continued in a somewhat
lower tone, with a glance at Christel, who was now, with a noiseless
despatch, beginning to set the table:----
"A pretty girl: rather too much of a blonde, perhaps; she is a
Hollander; but that is in keeping here: is not the old woman nodding
there in her easy chair just like a picture by Terburg? Then old
Pinnow, with the face of a bull-dog and the figure of a seal, and Jacob
with his carp's eyes! But I like it; I seldom fail, when I have been in
the town without my carriage, as happens to-day, to look in here, and
let old Pinnow set me over; especially as with a good wind I can get
across in half an hour, while by the town-ferry it takes me a full
hour, and then afterwards as much more before I reach my estate."
The stranger spoke in a courteous, engaging manner, which pleased me
exceedingly; and while speaking, repeatedly stroked with his left hand
his thick beard, which fell half-way down his breast, and from time to
time glanced at a diamond ring on his finger. I began to feel a great
respect for the strange gentleman, and was extremely curious to know
who he was, but could not venture to ask him.
"What an abominable atmosphere in this room!" he suddenly exclaimed;
"enough to make one faint;" and he was about opening the window at
which we were sitting, but checking himself, he turned and said: "To be
sure! the old woman might take cold. Christel, can't you get the old
lady to bed?"
"Yes, sir; directly," said Christel, who had just finished setting the
table, and going up to the old woman, screamed in her ear,
"Grandmother, you must go to bed!"
The old woman received this intimation with evident disfavor, for she
shook her head energetically, but at last allowed herself to be raised
from her crouching position, and tottered from the room, leaning on
Christel's arm. When Christel reached the steps that led to the side
room she looked round. I sprang to her assistance, and carried the old
lady up the steps, while Christel opened the door, through which she
then disappeared with her charge.
"Well done, young man," said my new acquaintance, as I came back to
him; "we must always be polite to ladies. And now we will open the
window."
He did so, and the night air rushed in. It had grown darker; the moon
was hidden behind a heavy mass of cloud that was rolling up from the
west; from the sea, which was but a few paces distant, came a hollow
roaring and plashing of the waves breaking on the beach; a few drops of
rain drove into my face.
The stranger looked out intently at the weather. "We must be off
presently," I heard him say to himself. Then turning to me: "But now we
will have some supper; I am almost dying of hunger. If Pinnow prefers
grumbling to eating, let him consult his taste. Come."
He took his seat at the table, inviting me by a gesture to place myself
beside him. I had, during the day, eaten far less than I had drunk, and
my robust frame, which had long since overcome the effects of my
intoxication, now imperatively demanded sustenance. So I very willingly
complied with the invitation of my entertainer; and indeed the contents
of the basket which Christel had now unpacked were of a nature to tempt
a far more fastidious palate than mine. There were caviare, smoked
salmon, ham, fresh sausage, pickles; nor was a supply of wine wanting.
Two bottles of Bordeaux, with the label of a choice vintage, stood upon
the table, and out of the basket peeped the silvery neck of a bottle of
Champagne.
"Quite a neat display," said the stranger, filling both our glasses,
helping himself first from one dish and then from another, and inviting
me to follow his example, while chatting at intervals in his pleasant
fashion. Without his questioning me directly, we had somehow come to
speak of my affairs; and, unsuspicious and communicative as I was,
before the first bottle was emptied I had given him a pretty fair
account of my neither long nor eventful life. The occurrences of the
past day, so momentous for me, occupied rather more time in the
recital. In the ardor of my narration, I had, without observing it,
filled and drunk several glasses of wine; the weight that had laid upon
my spirits had disappeared; my old cheerful humor had returned, all the
more as this meeting with the mysterious stranger under such singular
circumstances, gave my imagination room for the wildest conjectures. I
described our flight from the school, I mimicked Professor Lederer's
voice and manner, I threw all my powers of satire into my sketch of the
commerzienrath, and I fear that I smote the table with my fist when I
came to speak of Arthur's shameful ingratitude, and the outrageous
partiality of the steuerrath. But here my talkative tongue was checked;
the melancholy dimness of my father's study spread a gloom over my
spirits; I fell into a tragic tone, as I swore that though I should
have to go on a pilgrimage to the North Cape, barefoot, as I was
already bareheaded, and beg my bread from door to door--or, as begging
was not my forte, should I have to take to the road--I would never more
set foot in my father's house again, after he had once driven me from
it. That what I was in duty bound to bear from a parent had here
reached its limits; that nature's bond was cancelled, and that my
resolution was as firmly fixed as the stars in the sky, and if any one
chose to ridicule it, he did it at his peril.
With these words I sprang from the table, and set down the glass from
which I had been drinking, so violently, that it shivered to pieces.
For the stranger, whose evident enjoyment of my story had at times
encouraged me, and at others embarrassed, when I came to my peroration,
which was delivered with extreme pathos, burst into a paroxysm of
laughter which seemed as if it would never end.
"You have been kind to me," I exclaimed; "true, I think I could have
held my own without your assistance; but no matter for that--you came
to my help at the right moment, and now you have entertained me with
food and drink. You are welcome to laugh as much as you please, but I,
for my part, will not stay to listen to it. Farewell!"
I looked round for my cap; then, remembering that I had none, strode to
the door, when the stranger, who in the meantime had also risen from
his seat, hastened after me, caught me by the arm, and in the grave but
kindly tone that had previously so charmed me, said:
"Young man, I entreat your pardon. And now come back and take your seat
again. I offer you the word of a nobleman that I will respect your
feelings, even if your expression of them takes a somewhat singular
form."
His dark eyes gleamed, and there were twitchings in the maze of
wrinkles that surrounded them.
"You are jesting with me," I said.
"I am not," he replied, "upon the word of a nobleman. On the contrary,
you please me extremely, and I was several times on the point of
interrupting your story to ask a favor of you. Come and stay awhile
with me. Whether you are reconciled with your father, as I hope, or if
the breach be past closing, as you believe, at all events you must
first have a roof over your head; and you cannot possibly stay here,
where you are evidently not wanted. As I said, I will feel it a favor
if you will accept my invitation. I cannot offer you much, but--there
is my hand! Good! now we will pledge good fellowship in champagne."
I had already forgiven my mysterious but amiable acquaintance, and
pledged him in the sparkling wine with all my heart. With merriment and
laughter we had soon emptied the flask, when the smith entered. He had
thrown off his leather apron, donned a sailor's jacket, and wrapped a
thick muffler round his muscular neck. It now struck me for the first
time that he had not on the great blue spectacles which for several
years I had never seen him without, and which he wore on account of his
alleged near-sightedness: and it now occurred to me that he was not
wearing them at the time of our quarrel. Still, I might be mistaken on
that point; but I had no time to reflect upon so unimportant a matter,
for my attention was at once fixed by some words exchanged in a low
tone between the smith and the stranger.
"Is it time?" asked the latter.
"It is," replied the smith.
"The wind is favorable?"
"Yes."
"Everything in order?"
"Except the anchor, which you would not let me finish."
"We can do without it."
"Not well."
The stranger stood for a few moments in thought; his handsome face
seemed suddenly to have grown twenty years older; he stroked his beard,
and I noticed that he was observing me from the corner of his eye. He
then caught the smith by the arm and led him out of the door, which he
closed behind him. Outside the door I heard them talking, but could
make out nothing, for the stranger spoke in a subdued voice, and the
smith's growling speech was at all times difficult to understand;
presently, however, the dialogue grew louder, and, as it seemed, more
and more vehement, especially on the part of the smith.
"I will have it so!" cried the stranger.
"And I say no!" maintained the smith.
"It is my affair."
"And my affair as well."
The voices sank again, and presently I heard the outer door creak. They
had left the forge; I stepped to the open window and saw them go to the
little shed close to the beach, by which Pinnow's boat was usually
drawn up on the sand. They disappeared in the shadow of the shed; then
I heard a chain rattle, and a grating on the sand; they were launching
the boat. All was then still: the only sounds audible were the stronger
roaring of the sea, mingled with the rush of the wind in the leaves of
the old oak, which threw its half-decayed boughs over the forge.
I heard a rustling in the room, and turned quickly round. It was
Christel; she stood behind me, looking with an intense gaze, as I had
just done, through the window into the darkness.
"Well, Christel!" I said.
She placed her finger on her lips, and whispered, "Hush!" then beckoned
me from the window. Surprised rather than alarmed, I followed her.
"What is the matter, Christel?"
"Don't go with them, whatever you do. And go away from here at once.
You cannot stay here."
"But, Christel, why not? And who is the gentleman?"
"I must not tell you; I must not speak his name. If you go with them,
you will learn it soon enough; but do not go!"
"Why? What will they do to me, Christel?"
"Do? They will do nothing to you. But do not go with them."
A noise was heard outside; Christel turned away and began clearing the
table, while the voices of the two who were returning from the beach
came nearer and nearer.
I do not know what another would have done in my place; I can only say
that the girl's warning produced upon me an effect precisely opposite
to that intended. True, I well remember that my heart beat quicker, and
that I cast a hurried glance at the four double-barrels and the long
fowling-piece that hung in the old places on the wall; but the desire
to go through with the adventure was now fully awaked in me. I felt
equal to any danger that might beset me; and, for the matter of that,
Christel had just said that no harm was intended to me.
Besides--and this circumstance is, perhaps, the real key to my conduct
that evening--the stranger, whoever he might be, with his partly
serious and partly jocose, half-sympathetic and half-mocking language,
had somehow established a mysterious influence over me. In later years,
when I heard the legend of the Piper of Hameln, whom the children were
irresistibly compelled to follow, I at once recalled this night and the
stranger.
He now appeared at the door, dressed in a coarse, wide sailor's jacket,
and wearing a low-crowned tarpaulin hat in place of his cloth cap.
Pinnow opened a press in the wall, and produced a similar outfit for
me, which the stranger made me put on.
"It is turning cold," he remarked, "and your present dress will be but
little protection to you, though I trust our passage will be a short
one. So: now you are equipped capitally: now let us be off."
The smith had stepped to Christel and whispered her a few words, to
which she made no reply. She had turned her back upon me since the men
had entered, and did not once turn her head as I bade her good-night.
"Come on," said the stranger.
We went through the forge, where the fire had now burnt down, and
stepped out into the windy night. After proceeding a few steps, I
turned my head: the light in the living-room was extinguished; the
house lay dark in the darkness, and the wind roared and moaned in the
dry branches of the old oak.
The noise of the sea had increased; the wind had freshened to a stiff
breeze; the moon had set; no star shone through the scudding clouds
which from time to time were lighted with a lurid gleam, followed by a
mutter of distant thunder.
We reached the boat which was already half in the water, and they made
me get on board, while the stranger, Pinnow, and the deaf and dumb
Jacob, who had suddenly made his appearance out of the darkness, and
was, as well as I could make out, also in sailor's dress and
fisherman's boots--pushed off. In a few minutes we were flying through
the water; the stranger stood at the helm, but presently yielded it to
Pinnow, when the latter with Jacob's assistance had finished setting
the sails, and took his seat beside me.
"Now, how do you like this?" he asked me.
"Glorious!" I exclaimed. "But I think, Pinnow, that you had better take
in another reef; we are carrying too much sail, and over yonder"--I
pointed to the west--"it has an ugly look."
"You seem to be no greenhorn," said the stranger.
Pinnow made no reply but gave the hasty order: "Take in the foresail,"
at the same time putting up the helm and letting the boat fall off the
wind. It was not a moment too soon, for a squall striking us an instant
after made her careen so violently that I thought she would founder,
though luckily she righted again. The jib was taken in altogether, and
the foresail now hoisted only half-mast high, and under this canvas we
flew through the waves, upon whose whitening crests played the pale
glare of the lightning at ever shorter intervals, and still louder and
louder followed the roll of the thunder.
After a while the squall abated as rapidly as it had come up, and the
stars began to shine here and there through the clouds. I came aft--I
had been helping Jacob to handle the sails--and took my seat again by
the stranger. He passed his hand over my jacket:
"You are wet to the skin," he said.
"So are we all," I answered.
"But you are not used to it."
"But I am nineteen."
"No older?"
"Not two months."
"You are a man."
I felt more pride from this short speech than I had ever felt shame
during the longest diatribe of Professor Lederer, or any of my other
teachers. There were few things which I would not have been willing at
that moment to attempt had the stranger required it; but he offered no
compact with the powers of darkness, nor anything of the sort, but only
advised me to lie down in the boat and be covered with a piece of
canvas, as the trip was likely to last longer than had been expected,
the wind having hauled round another quarter; I could be of no more
service now, and "Sleep is a warm cloak, as Sancho Panza says," he
added.
I protested, affirming that I could keep awake for three days and three
nights together; but I yielded to his insistence, and had hardly
stretched myself on the bottom of the boat, when sleep, which I had
thought so far, fell upon me heavy as lead.
How long I slept I do not exactly know; but I was awakened by the
grating of the keel upon the sand of the shore. The stranger helped me
up, but I was still so heavy with sleep that I cannot remember how I
got ashore. The night was still dark; I could distinguish nothing but
the gleaming crests of the waves breaking on a long level beach, from
which the land rose higher as it ran inward. When I had recovered my
full consciousness the boat had already pushed off; my unknown friend
and I were following a path that ascended among trees. He held me by
the hand, and in a friendly, pleasant manner pointed out the various
irregularities of the path, in which he seemed to know every stone and
every projecting root. At last we reached the top of the cliff; before
us lay the open country, and in the distance a dark pile, which I
gradually made out, in the dawning light, to be a mass of buildings,
with a park or wood of immense trees.
"Here we are," said the stranger at last, as, after passing through a
silent court-yard, we stood before a great dark building.
"Where?" I asked.
"At my house," he responded, laughing. We were now standing in the
hall, and he was trying to light a match.
"And where is that?" I asked again. I could not myself have told how I
found the boldness to put this question.
The match kindled; he lighted a lamp which was in readiness, and the
light fell upon his long dishevelled beard and haggard face, in which
the rain and surf seemed to have deepened every wrinkle to a fold and
every fold to a furrow. He looked at me fixedly with his large deep-set
eyes.
"At Zehrendorf," he replied, "the house of Malte von Zehren, whom they
call 'The Wild.' You don't regret having come with me?"
"That I do not," I answered him with energy.
CHAPTER VI.
On awaking the next morning, it was long ere I could arrive at a clear
consciousness of my situation. My sleep had been disturbed by frightful
dreams, which had left an oppression upon my spirits. It still seemed
to me that I heard my father's voice, when a part of my dream recurred
to my memory. I had been fleeing from my father, and came to a smooth
pond, into which I threw myself, to escape by swimming. But the smooth
pond suddenly changed into a stormy sea, upon whose waves I was now
tossed towards heaven, and now plunged into the abyss. I was paralyzed
with terror; and strove in vain to call to my father for help, while my
father did not see me, although he ran up and down the shore, within
reach of me, wringing his hands and breaking into loud lamentations
over his drowned son.
I passed my hand repeatedly over my brow to drive away the frightful
images, and opened my eyes and looking around, found myself in the room
into which my host had conducted me on the previous night. The light in
the great bare apartment was so dim, that I thought at first it must be
very early; but my watch had stopped at nine, and on examination I
discovered that this greenish twilight was produced by the thick
foliage of trees whose branches touched the solitary window. At this
moment a ray of sunlight found its way through some aperture, and fell
upon the wall in front of me, upon which I at first thought the most
singular and fantastic figures were painted, until closer observation
showed me that the dark hangings had here and there detached themselves
from the lighter ground, and hung in irregular strips, which seemed the
strange garments of grotesque forms.
Altogether the appearance of the room was as inhospitable as it well
could be: the plaster in several places had fallen from the ceiling,
and lay in white fragments upon the floor, which was laid in parquetry,
but now cracked in all directions. The whole furniture consisted of a
great canopied bed, the curtains of which were of faded green damask;
two high-backed chairs, covered with similar materials, one of which
possessed its normal complement of legs, while the other, which in
years had not yet learned to stand upon three, was propped against the
wall; and finally, a pine washstand painted white, in singular contrast
to the great oval mirror in a rich antique rococo frame, which hung
above it; although it is true that the gilding on this piece of
magnificence was in many places tarnished by age.
I made these observations while putting on my clothes, which in the
short time I had slept by no means dried as thoroughly as I could have
desired. But this was but a trifling discomfort: the thought that
troubled me was, how should I dress myself the next day, and after?
upon which followed the associate reflection:--what was going to become
of me altogether?
The answer to this question was by no means clear; and after some
consideration I hit upon the idea that it would be as well, before I
came to a decision--which in any event was not a matter of such instant
urgency--to consult my friendly host upon the subject. Singular enough!
up to this day I had always rejected the advice of those whose position
and knowledge best qualified them to give it, and had always maintained
that I knew best what I had to do; and now I found myself looking with
a sort of superstitious reliance to a man whom I had but just learned
to know, and that under circumstances by no means of a nature to
inspire confidence, and whose name was in evil repute, far and near. It
was in this fact, possibly, that lay the greatest attraction for me.
"The Wild Zehren" had held a place in my boyish imagination by the side
of Rinaldo Rinaldini and Karl Moor; and I had keenly envied my friend
Arthur, who used to tell the wildest stories about him, the possession
of such an uncle.
Of late years he had been less talked about: I once heard the
steuerrath, in a public garden, in the presence of my father and
others, thanking God that the "mad fellow" had at last shown some signs
of reformation, and the family might consider itself relieved from the
perpetual fear that sooner or later he would come to some bad end. At
the same time some allusions were made to a daughter, at which several
of the gentlemen whispered together, and Justizrath Heckepfennig
shrugged his shoulders. Later, Arthur told me that his cousin had
eloped with a young tutor, but had not gone far, as his uncle gave
chase to the fugitives and caught them before they reached the ferry.
She was very beautiful, he said further, and on that account he the
more regretted that his father and his uncle were on such unfriendly
terms, for, owing to this disagreement, he had never seen Constance (I
remembered the name) but once, and that was when she was a child.
All this and much more in this connection came into my mind while I
finished my simple toilet before the dim mirror with the tarnished
rococo frame; and as I thought of the pretty cousin, I felt chagrin at
the tardy development of the beard that had begun to sprout on my upper
lip. I caught up the sailor's hat which I had brought with me when I
landed, and left the room to look for Herr von Zehren.
Pretty soon it became evident that this very natural intention was not
so easy of accomplishment. The room which I left had, luckily, only two
doors in it; but that which I entered had three, so that I had to make
a choice between two, not including that which led into my chamber.
Apparently I did not hit upon the right one, for I came upon a narrow
corridor, very dimly lighted through a closed and curtained glass door.
Another which I tried, opened into a hall of stateliest dimensions, the
three windows of which looked out upon a large park-like garden. From
this hall I passed into a great two-windowed room looking upon the
court, and from this one happily back to the one adjoining my chamber,
from which I had set out. I had to laugh when I made this discovery,
but my laughter sounded so strangely hollow as to check my mirth at
once. And indeed it was no wonder if laughter had a strange sound in
these empty rooms, which seemed as if they had heard few sounds of
merriment in recent times, however joyous they might have been in years
by-gone. For this room was just as bare and cheerless as that in which
I had slept; with just such ragged hangings, crumbling ceilings, and
worm-eaten, half ruinous furniture, which might once have adorned a
princely apartment. And so was it with the other rooms, which I now
examined again more attentively than at first. Everywhere the same
signs of desolation and decay; everywhere mournful evidences of
vanished splendor: here and there upon the walls hung life-size
portraits, which seemed to be spectrally fading into the dark
background from which they had once shone brilliantly; in one room lay
immense piles of books in venerable leather bindings, among which a
pair of rats dived out of sight as I entered; in another, otherwise
entirely empty, was a harp with broken chords, and the scabbard of a
dress-sword, with its broad silken scarf. Everywhere rubbish, dust and
cobwebs; windows dim with neglect, except where their broken panes
offered a free passage to the birds that had scattered straw and dirt
around--to a plaster cornice still clung a pair of abandoned swallow's
nests; everywhere a stifling, musty atmosphere of ruin and decay.
After I had wandered through at least a half dozen more rooms, a lucky
turn brought me into a spacious hall, from which descended a broad
oaken staircase adorned with antique carved work. This staircase also,
that once with its stained windows, its dark panels reaching almost to
the ceiling, its antlers, old armor, and standards, must have presented
an unusually stately and imposing appearance, offered the same dreary
picture of desolation as the rest; and I slowly descended it amazed,
and to a certain extent confounded, by all that I had seen. More than
one step cracked and yielded as I placed my foot upon it, and as I
instinctively laid my hand upon the broad balustrade, the wood felt
singularly soft, but it was from the accumulated dust of years, into
which, indeed, the whole stair seemed slowly dissolving.
I knew that I had not come this way the previous night, when my host
conducted me to my chamber. A steep stair, as I afterwards learned, led
from a side hall directly to that dark corridor which adjoined the room
I had occupied. I had, therefore, never before been in the great hall
in which I was now standing; and as I did not wish to go knocking in
vain at half-a-dozen doors, and the great house-door that fronted the
stairs, proved to be locked, I succeeded with some difficulty in
opening a back-door, which luckily was only bolted, and entered a small
court. The low buildings surrounding this, had probably been used as
kitchens, or served other domestic purposes in former times; but at
present they were all vacant, and looked up piteously with their
empty window-frames and crumbling tile-roofs to the bare and ruinous
main-building, as a pack of half-starved dogs to a master who himself
has nothing to eat.
I was no longer a child: my organization was far from being a
susceptible one, nor did I ever lightly fall into the fantastic mood;
but I confess, that a strange and weird sensation came over me among
these corpses of houses from which the life had evidently long since
departed. So far I had not come upon the slightest trace of active
human life. As it was now, so it must have been for years, a trysting
place and tilt yard for owls and sparrows, rats and mice. Just so might
have looked a castle enchanted by the wickedest of all witches; and I
do not think that I should have been beyond measure astonished, if the
hag had herself arisen, with bristling hair, from the great kettle in
the wash-house, into which I cast a glance, and flown up through the
wide chimney upon one of the broom-sticks that were lying about.
This wash-house had a door opening upon a little yard surrounded by a
hedge, and divided by a deep trench, bridged by a half-rotten plank;
which yard, as was evident from the egg-shells and bones scattered
about, had formerly been a receptacle for the refuse of the kitchen,
but grass had grown over the old rubbish-heaps, and a pair of wild
rabbits darted at sight of me into their burrows in the trench. They
might possibly preserve some legend of a time when the trench had been
full of water, and these burrows the habitations of water-rats, but at
such a remote period of antiquity that the whole tradition ran into the
mythical.
Hearing a sound at hand which seemed to indicate the presence of a
human being, I pushed through the hedge into the garden, and following
the direction of the sound, found an old man who was loading a small
cart with pales, which he was breaking with a hatchet out of a high
stockade. This stockade had evidently once served as the fence of a
deer-park; in the high grass lay the ruins of two deer-sheds blown down
by the wind: the stags who used to feed from the racks, and try their
antlers against the paling, had probably long since found their way to
the kitchen, and why should the paling itself not follow?
So at least thought the withered old man whom I found engaged in this
singular occupation. When he first came upon the estate, which was in
the life-time of the present owner's father, there were forty head of
deer in the park, he said; but in the year '12, when the French landed
upon the island and took up quarters in the castle, more than half were
shot, and the rest broke out and were never recovered, though a part
were afterwards killed in the neighboring forest which belonged to
Prince Prora.
After giving me this information, the old man fell to his work again,
and I tried in vain to draw him into further conversation. His
communicativeness was exhausted, and only with difficulty could I get
from him that the master had gone out shooting, and would scarcely be
back before evening, perhaps not so soon.
"And the young lady?"
"Most likely up yonder," said the old man, pointing with his axe-handle
in the direction of the park; then slipping the straps of his cart over
his decrepit shoulders, he slowly dragged it along the grass-grown path
towards the castle. I watched him till he disappeared behind the
bushes; for a while I could still hear the creaking of his cart, and
then all was silent.
Silence without a sound, just as in the ruinous castle. But here the
silence had nothing oppressive; the sky here was blue, without even the
smallest speck of cloud; here shone the bright morning sun, throwing
the shadows of the aged oaks upon the broad meadows, and sparkling in
the rain-drops which the night's storm had left upon the bushes. Now
and then a light breeze stirred, and the long sprays, heavy with rain,
waved languidly, and the tall spires of grass bent before it.
It was all very beautiful. I inhaled deep draughts of the cool sweet
air, and once more felt the sense of delight that had come over me the
evening before, as the wild swans swept above me, high in air. How
often, in after days, have I thought of that evening and this morning,
and confessed to myself that I then, in spite of all, in spite of my
folly and frivolity and misconduct, was happy, unspeakably happy--a
short lived, treacherous bliss, it is true, but still bliss--a paradise
in which I could not stay, from which the stern realities of life, and
nature itself, expelled me--and yet a paradise!
Slowly loitering on, I penetrated deeper into the green wilderness, for
wilderness it was. The path was scarcely distinguishable amid the
luxuriant weeds and wild overgrowth of bushes--the path which in
by-gone days had been swept by the trains of ladies fair, and by which
the little feet of children had merrily tripped along. The surface grew
hilly; at the end lay the park, and over me venerable beeches arched
their giant boughs. Again the path descended towards an opening in the
forest, and I stood upon the margin of a moderately large, circular
tarn, in whose black water were reflected the great trees that
surrounded it nearly to the edge.
A few steps further, upon a slightly elevated spot, at the foot of a
tree whose gigantic size seemed the growth of centuries, was a low bank
of moss; upon the bank lay a book and a glove. I looked and listened on
all sides: all was still as death: only the sunlight played through the
green sprays, and now and then a leaf fluttered down upon the dark
water of the tarn.
I could not resist an impulse of curiosity: I approached the bank and
took up the book. It was Eichendorf's "Life of a Good-for-Nothing." I
had never seen the book, nor even heard of the author; but could not
refrain from smiling as I read the title: it was as though some one had
called me by name. But at that time I cared little for books: so I
replaced it, open, as I had found it, and picked up the glove, not,
however, without another cautious glance around, to see if the owner
might not be a witness of my temerity.
This glove, I at once divined, belonged to Arthur's beautiful
cousin--whose else could it be? The inference was simple enough; and,
indeed, the circumstance of a young lady leaving her glove on the spot
where she had been resting, had nothing in it remarkable. But the fancy
of a youth of my temperament is not fettered; and I confess that as I
held the little delicate glove in my hand, and inhaled its faint
perfume, my heart began to beat very unreasonably. I had walked, times
without number, past Emilie Heckepfennig's window in hope of a glance
from that charmer; and had even worn on my heart, for weeks together, a
ribbon which she once gave me as I was dancing with her; but that
ribbon never gave me such feelings as did this little glove; there must
have been some enchantment about it.
I threw myself upon the bank of moss, and indulged my fancy in the wild
dreams of a youth of nineteen; at times laying the glove on the seat
beside me, and then taking it up again to scrutinize it with ever
closer attention, as though it were the key to the mystery of my life.
I had been sitting thus perhaps a quarter of an hour, when I suddenly
started up and listened. As if from the sky there came a sound of music
and singing, faint at first, then louder, and finally I distinguished a
soft female voice, and the tinkling notes of a guitar. The voice was
singing what seemed the refrain of a song:
"All day long the bright sun loves me;
All day long."
"All day long," it was repeated, now quite close at hand, and I now
perceived the singer, who had been concealed from me hitherto by the
great trunks of the beeches.
She was coming down a path which descended rather steeply among the
trees, and as she came to a spot upon which the bright sunshine
streamed through a canopy of leaves, she paused and looked thoughtfully
upwards, presenting a picture which is ineffaceably imprinted upon my
memory, and even now after so many years it comes back to me vividly as
ever.
A charming, deep brunette, whose exquisitely proportioned form made her
stature appear less than it really was; and whose somewhat fantastic
dress of a dark green material, trimmed with gold braid, admirably
accorded with her striking, almost gypsy-like appearance. She carried a
small guitar suspended around her neck with a red ribbon, and her
fingers played over its chords like the rays of sunlight over the
lightly waving sprays.
Poor Constance! Child of the sun! Why, if it loved thee so well, did it
not slay thee now with one of these rays, that I might have made thee a
grave in this lonely forest-glade, far from the world for which thy
heart so passionately yearned--thy poor foolish heart!
I was standing motionless, fascinated by the vision, when with a deep
sigh she seemed to awake from a reverie, and as she descended the path
her eyes and mine met. I noticed that she started lightly, as one who
meets a human being where he only expected to see the stem of a tree:
but the surprise was but momentary, and I observed that she regarded me
from under her drooped lids, and a transient smile played round her
lips; in truth, a beautiful maiden, conscious of her beauty could
scarcely have seen without a smile the amazed admiration, bordering on
stupefaction, depicted in my face.
Whether she or I was the first to speak I do not now remember; and
indeed I clearly retain, of this our first conversation, only the
memory of the tones of her soft and somewhat deep voice, which to my
ear was like exquisite music. We must have ascended together from the
forest-dell to the upland, and the sea-breeze must have awakened me to
a clearer consciousness, for I can still see the calm, blue water
stretching in boundless expanse around us, the white streaks of foam
lying among the rocks of the beach perhaps a hundred feet below, and a
pair of large gulls wheeling hither and thither, and then dipping to
the water, where they gleamed like stars. I see the heather of the
upland waving in the light breeze, hear the lapping of the surf among
the sharp crags of the shore, and amid it all I hear the voice of
Constance.
"My mother was a Spaniard, as beautiful as the day, and my father, who
had gone thither to visit a friend he had known in Paris, saw her, and
carried her off. The friend was my mother's brother, and he loved my
father dearly, but was never willing that they should marry, because he
was a strict Catholic, and my father would never consent to become a
Catholic, but laughed and mocked at all religions. So they secretly
eloped; but my uncle pursued and overtook them in the night, upon a
lonely heath, and there were wild words between them, and then swords
were drawn, and my father killed the brother of his bride. She did not
know this until long afterwards; for she fainted during the fight, and
my father contrived to make her believe that he had parted from his
brother-in-law in friendship. Then they came to this place; but my
mother always pined for her home, and used to say that she felt a
weight upon her heart, as if a murder were resting on her soul. At last
she learned, through an accident, the manner of death of her brother,
whom she had devotedly loved; and so she grew melancholy, and wandered
about day and night, asking every one whom she met which was the road
to Spain. My father at last had to shut her up; but this she could not
endure, and became quite raving, and tried to take her own life, until
they let her go free again, when she wandered about as before. And one
morning she threw herself into this pool, and when they drew her out
she was dead. I was then only three years old, and I have no
recollection of her looks, but they say she was handsomer than I am."
I said that could hardly be possible; and I said it with so much
seriousness, for I was thinking of the poor woman who had drowned
herself here, that Constance again smiled, and said I was certainly the
best creature in the world, and that one could say anything to me that
came into one's head; and that was what she liked. So I was always to
stay with her, she said, and be her faithful George, and slay all the
dragons in the world for her sake. Was I agreed to that? Indeed was I,
I answered. And again a smile played over her rosy lips.
"You look as if you would. But how did you really come here, and what
does my father want with you? He gave me a special charge on your
account this morning before he set out; you must stand high in his
favor, for he does not usually give himself much care for the welfare
of other people. And how come you to have a sailor's hat on, and a very
ugly one at that? I think you said you came from school; are there
scholars there as large as you? I never knew that. How old are you
really?"
And so the maiden prattled on--and yet it was not prattling, for she
remained quite serious all the time, and it seemed to me that while she
talked her mind was far away; and her dark eyes but seldom were turned
to me, and then with but a momentary glance, as though I were no living
man, but an inanimate figure; and frequently she put a second question
without waiting for an answer to the first.
This suited me well, for thus at least I found courage to look at her
again and again, and at last scarcely turned my eyes from her. "You
will fall over there, if you do not take care," she suddenly said,
lightly touching my arm with her finger, as we stood on the verge of a
cliff. "It seems you are not easily made giddy."
"No, indeed," I answered.
"Let us go up there," she said.
Upon what was nearly the highest part of the promontory on which we
were, were the ruins of a castle, overgrown with thick bushes. But a
single massive tower, almost entirely covered with ivy, had defied the
power of the sea and of time. These were the ruins of the Zehrenburg,
to which Arthur had pointed yesterday, as we passed on the steamer; the
same tower on which I was to fix my gaze as I renounced in his favor
all pretensions to Emilie Heckepfennig. This I had passionately refused
to do--yesterday: what was Emilie Heckepfennig to me to-day?
The beautiful girl had taken her seat upon a mossy stone, and looked
fixedly into the distance. I stood beside her, leaning against the old
tower, and looked fixedly into her face.
"All that, once was ours," she said, slowly sweeping her hand round the
horizon; "and this, is all that remains."
She rose hastily, and began to descend a narrow path which led, through
broom and heather, from the heights down to the forest. I followed. We
came to the beech-wood again, and back to the tarn, where her book and
guitar still lay upon the bank. I was very proud when she gave me both
to carry, saying at the same time that the guitar had been her
mother's, and that she had never trusted it to any one before; but now
I should always carry this, her greatest treasure, for her, and she
would teach me to play and to sing, if I stayed with them. Or perhaps I
did not mean to stay with them?
I said that I could not tell, but I hoped so; and the thought of going
away fell heavy upon my heart.
We had now reached the castle. "Give me the guitar," she said, "but
keep the book: I know it by heart. Have you had breakfast? No? Poor,
poor George! it is lucky that no dragon met us; you would have been
hardly able to stand upon your feet."
A side-door, that I had not previously noticed, led to that part of the
ground-floor inhabited by the father and daughter. Constance called an
old female servant, and directed her to prepare me some breakfast, and
then she left me, after giving me her hand, with that melancholy
transient smile which I had already noted on her beautiful lips.
CHAPTER VII.
The breakfast which the ugly, taciturn old woman--whom Constance called
"Pahlen"--set before me after about half an hour, might well have been
ready in less time, for it consisted only of black bread, butter,
cheese, and a flask of cognac. The cognac was excellent; but the
remainder of the repast far from luxurious, for the bread was sour and
mouldy in spots, the butter rancid, and the cheese hard as a stone; but
what was that to a youth of nineteen, who had eaten nothing for twelve
hours, and whose silly heart, moreover, was palpitating with its first
passion! So it seemed to me that I had never had a more sumptuous
repast; and I thanked the old woman for her trouble with the utmost
politeness. "Pahlen" did not seem to know what to make of me. She
looked askance at me two or three times, with a sort of surly
curiosity; and to the questions that I put to her, replied with an
unintelligible grumbling, out of which I could make nothing.
The room in which I now found myself--it was the same into which Herr
von Zehren had conducted me on our first arrival--might, in comparison
with the deserted apartments of the upper story, be called habitable,
though the carpet under the table was ragged, several of the carved
oaken chairs were no longer firm upon their legs, and a great antique
buffet in one corner had decidedly seen better days. The windows opened
upon a court, into which, my breakfast once over, I cast a look. This
court was very spacious, the barns and stables that enclosed it of the
very largest dimensions, such as are only found on the most
considerable estates. So much the more striking was the silence that
prevailed in it. In the centre of the space was a dove-cot built of
stone, but no wings fluttered about it, unless perhaps those of a
passing swallow. There was a duck-pond without ducks, a dunghill upon
which no fowls were scratching--one peacock sat upon the broken
paling--everything seemed dead or departed. Here was no hurrying to and
fro of busy men, no lowing of cattle or neighing of horses--all was
vacant and silent; only from time to time the peacock on the paling
uttered his dissonant cry, and the sparrows twittered in the twigs of
an old linden.
As Constance did not return, and as Pahlen, to my question about the
dinner hour, responded by asking me if I now wanted dinner too, I came
to the conclusion that for some hours at least I would be left to my
own devices. I therefore walked into the court, and then perceived that
this part of the castle was an addition, which formed a continuation to
the main building, and had probably served as the manager's house. In
the castle the shutters on the ground floor were closed, and secured
with massive iron bars, a fact which did not by any means tend to give
the old pile a more cheerful appearance. That a manager's house had
long been a superfluous appendage, the surroundings plainly showed. In
truth, there was nothing here to manage; the buildings, which at a
distance still presented a tolerable appearance, proved, when near, to
be little better than crumbling ruins. The thatched roofs had sunk in
decay and were overgrown with moss, the ornamental work had dropped
away, the plaster peeled off in patches, the doors hung awry on their
rusted hinges, and in many places were entirely wanting. A stable into
which I looked had been originally built to accommodate forty horses;
now there stood in a corner four lean old brutes that set up a hungry
neighing as they saw me. As I came out again into the court, a wagon,
partly laden with corn and dragged by four other miserable jades, went
reeling over the broken stones of the pavement, and disappeared in the
yawning doorway of one of the immense barns, like a coffin in a vault.
I strolled further on, passing one or two dilapidated hovels, where
half-naked children were playing in the sand, and a couple of fellows,
more like bandits than farm-hands, were lounging, who stared at me with
looks half shy half insolent, and reached the fields. The sun shone
brightly enough, but it lighted up little that was pleasant to the eye:
waste land, with here and there scattering patches of sparse oats,
overgrown with blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies, a little rusted
wheat, an acre or so where the rye--late enough for the season--still
stood in slovenly sheaves, and where a second wagon was being laden by
two fellows of the same bandit appearance as the men at the hovels, and
who stared at me with the same surprised and skulking looks, without
answering my salutation. At some distance appeared through the trees
and bushes the roofs of farm-buildings, evidently upon another estate,
to which belonged, doubtless, the far better cultivated fields which I
had now reached. Further to the right, above a larger collection of
houses, arose the plain white steeple of a church. But I did not care
to push my exploration further: an impulse drew me back to the park,
which I reached by a circuitous route on the other side, for I wished
to avoid the castle and the grumbling old Pahlen.
I had hoped here to meet Constance again; but in vain did I listen more
than an hour under the trees and among the bushes, watching the castle
until I knew by heart nearly every broken tile upon the roof, and each
separate patch--and they were not few--where the rains of so many years
had detached the plaster and laid bare the stones beneath. No one was
to be seen; no sound was audible; while the afternoon sun gleamed upon
the window-panes, save when the shadow of a passing cloud swept over
them.
My spirits began to yield to the depressing influences of this scene of
sunlit desolation. I felt as if the silence, like an invisible magic
net, was folding around me closer and closer, until I scarcely ventured
to move--scarcely to speak. In place of the careless audacity, which
was my natural temperament, a deep sadness took possession of me. How
came I here? What was I to do here--what did I want here, where no one
troubled himself about me? Was not all that had happened to me since
yesterday only a dream, and had I not merely dreamed the beauteous
maiden with the dark eyes and strange smile?
A sense as of home-sickness came over me. I saw in fancy the town with
the narrow, crooked streets running between the old-fashioned gabled
houses; I saw my little room, to which I would have returned from
school by this time to fling my wearisome books upon the table and then
fly to my friend Arthur, who I knew had arranged a boat excursion in
the harbor. I saw my father sitting at the window of his bureau in the
excise-office, and crept close to the wall to avoid being seen by him.
How had my father borne my departure? Was he anxious about me?
Assuredly he was; for he still loved me, notwithstanding our mutual
alienation. What would he do when he learned--as sooner or later he
must learn--that I was with the wild Zehren? Would he allow me to stay?
Would he command me to return? Perhaps come for me himself?
As this thought came into my mind, I looked uneasily around. It would
be intolerable to have to go back to the stifling class-room, to be
scolded again, like a boy by Professor Lederer, and never more to see
Fräulein von Zehren Constance! Never would I endure it! My father had
driven me from his house; he might take the consequences. Rather than
go back, I would turn bandit--smuggler----
I do not know how the last word came upon my lips, but I remember--and
I have since often thought of it--that when I had uttered the word half
aloud, merely as a heroical phrase, without attaching any distinct
meaning to it, I suddenly started as if some one had spoken it in my
immediate vicinity; and at the same moment the adventures of the
previous night and what I had since observed, arranged themselves in a
definite connection, just as one looking through a telescope sees
heaven and earth blended together in dim confusion, until the right
focus is attained, when a distinct picture stands before him. How could
I have been so blind--so destitute of ordinary apprehension? Herr von
Zehren over at Pinnow's, the strange connection that manifestly existed
between the nobleman and the smith, Christel's warnings, Pinnow's
behavior towards me, and the night sail in the terrible storm! And then
this uncared-for house, this ruinous farm-yard, these desolated fields,
this neglected park! The solitary situation of the place, upon a
promontory extending far into the sea! I had learned already from
frequent conversations between my father and his colleagues in the
excise-office, how actively smuggling was carried on in these waters,
what a flourishing business it was, and how much might be made at it by
any one who was willing to peril his life upon occasion. All was clear
as day; this, and no other, was the solution of the mystery.
"You must be mad," I said to myself again, "completely mad. A nobleman
like Herr von Zehren! Such doings are for the rabble. Old Pinnow--yes,
yes, that is likely enough; but a Herr von Zehren--shame upon you!"
I endeavored with all my might to shake off a suspicion which was
really intolerable; and thus afforded another proof that we all,
however free we think ourselves, or perhaps have really become, still
ever in our feelings, if not in our thoughts, are bound by other
imperceptible but none the less firm ties to the impressions of our
childhood and early youth. Had my father been a king and I the
crown-prince, I should probably have seen the Evil One embodied in the
person of a revolutionist; or in a runaway slave, had I been the
descendant of a planter; so, as I had for a father a pedantically rigid
excise-officer, to my conceptions the most hideous of all stigmas was
affixed to the smuggler's career. Yet at the same time--and this will
seem surprising to no one who remembers the strange duplicate character
of the devil in the Christian mythology--this murky gate of Tophet, by
which my childish fancy had so often stolen at a timid distance, was
invested with a diabolical fascination. How could it be otherwise, when
I heard tell of the privations which the wretches often endured with
such fortitude, of the ingenuity with which they knew how to baffle the
utmost vigilance of the officers, of the fearlessness with which they
not seldom confronted the most imminent peril? These were perilous
stories to reach the ear of an adventurous boy; but far too many such
were talked over in our town; and what was the worst of all, I had
heard the most terrible and most fascinating from the lips of my own
father--naturally with an appendix of indignant reprobation always
tacked on in form of a moral; but this antidote was, of a surety, never
sufficient entirely to neutralize the poison. Had not Arthur and I,
shortly before an examination in which we had the most confident
assurance that we should cut but a poor figure, for a whole day taken
earnest counsel together over the question whether we, in case we
failed--or better yet, before standing the trial--should not turn
smugglers ourselves, until we actually were scared at our own plans?
That had been four years ago; but, although in the meantime the
vehement antipathies and sympathies of youth had been moderated by
maturer reason, still the thought of having fallen into the hands of a
smuggler had even now the effect of making my heart beat violently.
"You must be mad--stark mad! Such a man--it is not possible!" I
continually repeated to myself, as I hurried along the path I had
followed that morning--for indeed I then knew no other--through the
park into the forest, until I again reached the tarn with the bank of
moss.
I gazed into the calm black water; I thought of the unhappy lady who
had drowned herself there because she could not find the way back to
Spain, and how strange it was that her daughter should select precisely
this spot for her favorite resting-place. Behind the bank lay her other
glove, for which we had looked in vain in the morning. I kissed it
repeatedly, with a thrill of delight, and placed it in my bosom. Then
leaving the place hastily I ascended the cliff, and passing the ruined
tower, went out to the furthest extremity of the promontory, which was
also its highest point. Approaching the verge, I looked over. A strong
breeze had sprung up; the streaks of foam lying among the great rocks
and countless pebbles of the beach had grown broader; and here and
there upon the blue expanse flashed the white crest of a breaker. The
mainland lay towards the south-west. I could have seen the steeples of
my native town but for a cliff that intervened, rising abruptly from
the sea, and now of a steel-blue color in the afternoon light. "And
this is all that remains!" I said, repeating the words of Constance, as
my eye, in turning, fell upon the ruined tower.
I descended and threw myself down upon the soft moss that grew among
the ruins. No place could have been found more fit to inspire fantastic
reveries. The wide expanse of sky, and beyond the edge of the upland a
great stretch of sea, and the nodding broom around me! In the sky the
fleecy clouds, on the water a gleaming sail, and in the broom the
whispering wind! How luxurious to lie idly here and dream--the sweetest
dream of sweet love that loves idleness: a dream, of course, full of
combats and peril, such as naturally fills a youthful fancy. Yes! I
would be her deliverer; would bear her in my arms from this desolate
castle, a dismal dungeon for one so young and so fair--would rescue her
from this terrible father, and these ruins would I erect again into a
stately palace; and when the work was done and the topmost battlements
burned in the evening-red, would lead her in, and kneeling humbly
before her, say, "This is thine! Live happy! Me thou wilt never see
more!"
Thus I wove the web of fancy, while the sun sank towards the horizon,
and the white clouds of noon began to flush with crimson. What else
could I have done? A young fellow who has just run away from school,
who has not a _thaler_ in his pocket, and a borrowed hat on, and who
scarcely knows where he shall lay his head--what else can he do but
build castles in the air?
CHAPTER VIII.
As I entered the court through a little door in the park-wall, there
stood a light wagon from which the horses were being unharnessed, and
by the wagon a man in hunting-dress, his gun upon his shoulder--it was
Herr von Zehren.
I had planned to assume towards my host a sort of diplomatic attitude;
but I never was a good actor, and had had, besides, so little time to
get up the part, that the friendly smile and cordial grasp of the hand
with which Herr von Zehren received me, completely threw me out, and I
met his smile and returned his grasp with as much fervor as if I had
all day been waiting for the moment when I should see my friend and
protector: in a word, I was entirely in the power of the charm with
which this singular man had, from the first moment of our meeting,
captivated my young and inexperienced heart.
But in truth a maturer understanding than mine might well have been
ensnared by the charm of his manner. Even his personal appearance had
for me something fascinating; and as he stood there, laughing and
jesting with the setting sun lighting up a face which seemed really to
have grown young again from the excitement of his day's sport, and as
he took off his cap and pushed the soft fine locks, already touched
with gray, from his nobly-formed brow, and stroked his thick brown
beard, I thought I had never seen a handsomer man.
"I came to your bedside this morning," he said, in a sportive manner;
"but you slept so soundly that I had not the heart to waken you. Though
if I had known that you could handle a gun as well as you can rudder
and halyards--and yet I might have known it, for fishing and shooting
and--something else besides--go together, like sitting by the stove and
sleeping. But we will make up for it: we have, thank heaven, more than
one day's shooting before us. And now come in and let us talk while
supper is getting ready."
The room which Herr von Zehren occupied was in the front part of the
building, just in the rear of the dining-room, and his sleeping
apartment immediately adjoined it. He entered the latter, and conversed
with me through the open door, keeping all the while such a clattering
with jugs, basins, and other apparatus of ablution, that I had some
difficulty in understanding what he was saying. I made out, however,
that he had this morning written to his brother, the steuerrath,
requesting him to apprise my father where I was now staying. My father
certainly would not be sorry to hear that I had found shelter in the
house of a friend, at least until some arrangement could be effected.
In similar circumstances, he said, a temporary separation often
prevented a perpetual one. And even should this not be the case here,
at all events--here his head dipped into the water, and I lost the
remainder of the sentence. Under any circumstances--he was saying when
he became again intelligible--it would be as well if I mentioned to no
one where it was that we had happened to meet. We might have met upon
the road, as I was about to be ferried over to the island. What was to
prevent a young man, whose father had just driven him from his house,
from going, if he pleased, as far as the blue sky spread overhead? and
why should he not meet a gentleman who has a vacant place in his
carriage, and asks the young man if he will not get in? This was all
very simple and natural. And in fact this was the way he had stated the
circumstances in his letter to his brother this morning. He had given
old Pinnow his cue yesterday evening. And besides, the question of
where and how was really nobody's affair. He added some further remarks
with his head inside his wardrobe, but I only caught the word
"inconveniences."
I felt relieved from a load of anxiety. My frightful dream of the
morning, of which I had not thought during the whole day, had recurred
to my memory in the dusk of the evening twilight. For a moment an
apprehension seized me that my father might think I had made away with
myself; but it was but for a moment, for youth finds it so unlikely
that others will take things more seriously than it does itself. One
point, however, was clear: that I must give some account of myself to
my father. But at this thought the old misery came back; I could, in
any event, no longer stay here. And now I suddenly saw a way of escape
from this labyrinth. The steuerrath, being his immediate chief, was, as
I well knew, looked upon by my loyal and zealous father as a kind of
superior being; indeed he knew upon earth but four other beings
higher than himself; the Provincial Excise-Director, the General
Excise-Director, His Excellency the Minister of Commerce, next to whom
came His Majesty the King--which latter, however, was a being of
distinct and peculiar kind, and separated, even from an excellency, by
a vast chasm. If, therefore, Herr von Zehren wished to keep me with
him, and the steuerrath would use his influence with my father--but
would he? The steuerrath had never liked me much; and besides, the
evening before, I had deeply offended him. I expressed my doubts on
this point to Herr von Zehren. "I will make that all right," he said,
as, rubbing his freshly washed hands, he came out of his chamber.
"And now then," he went on, stretching himself luxuriously in an
easy-chair, "how have you spent the day? Have you seen my daughter?
Yes? Then you may boast of your luck--many a time I do not see her for
days together. And have you had something to eat? Poor fare enough, I
warrant; the provision is but indifferent when I am at home, but
execrable when I am away. Moonshine and beefsteak are two things that
do not suit together. When I want good fare, I must go from home.
Yesterday evening, for example, at old Pinnow's--wasn't it capital?
Romantic too, eh? Friar Tuck and the Black Knight, and you besides as
the Disinherited Knight. I love such little adventures above
everything."
And he stretched himself at ease in his great chair, and laughed so
joyously that I mentally asked his pardon for my suspicions, and
pronounced myself a complete fool to have had such an idea enter my
brain.
He went on chatting: asked me many questions about my father, my
family, the past events of my life, all in a tone of such friendly
interest that no one could have taken it amiss. He seemed to be much
pleased with my answers; nor did I take offence again when, as he had
done the evening before, he broke into loud laughter at some of my
remarks. But when this happened, he was always careful to soothe my
sensitiveness with a kind word or two. I felt assured that he meant
well towards me; and to this day I have remained in the conviction that
from the first moment he had conceived a hearty liking for me, and that
if it was a mere caprice that drew him towards a young man who needed
assistance, it was one of those caprices of which none but naturally
generous hearts are capable.
"But what keeps our supper so long?" he cried, springing up impatiently
and looking into the dining-room. "Ah! there you are, Constance!"
He went in; through the half-open door I heard him speaking in a low
tone with his daughter; my heart beat, I could not tell why.
"Well, why do you not come?" he called to me from the dining-room. I
went in; by the table, that to my unaccustomed eye seemed richly
spread, stood Constance. The light of the hanging lamp fell upon her
from above. Whether it was the different light, or the different
arrangement of her hair, which was now combed upwards, so as to rest
upon her head like a dark crown, with a golden ribbon interwoven in it,
or her different attire--now a plain blue close-fitting dress, cut low
at the neck, which was covered by a wide lace collar, worn somewhat
like a handkerchief--whether it was all these together, and in addition
the changed expression of her face, which had now something
indescribably childlike about it, I cannot say; but I scarcely
recognized her again; I could have believed that the Constance I had
seen in the morning was the older, more impassioned sister of this fair
maidenly creature.
"Last half of the previous century," said Herr von Zehren--"Lotte, eh?
You only want a sash, and perhaps a Werther--otherwise superb!"
A shadow passed over the face of Constance, and her brows contracted. I
had not entirely understood the allusion, but it pained me. Constance
seemed so fair to me; how could any one who saw her say aught else but
that she was fair?
Gladly would I have said it, but I had scarcely the courage to look at
her, let alone speak to her; and she, for her part, was silent and
abstracted; the dishes she hardly touched; and indeed now I cannot
remember ever to have seen her eat. In truth, the meal, composed of
fish and pheasants which Herr von Zehren had brought in from his day's
shooting, was of a kind only suited to his own appetite, which was as
keen as a sportsman's usually is. During supper he drank freely of the
excellent red wine, and often challenged me to pledge him; and indeed
he directed his vivacious and genial conversation almost exclusively to
me. I was fairly dazzled by it; and as there was much that I only half
understood, and much that I did not understand at all, it sometimes
happened that I laughed in the wrong place, which only increased his
mirth. One thing, however, I saw clearly; the constrained, not to say
hostile, relations between father and daughter. Things of this kind are
easily perceived, especially when the observer is as well prepared as
was I to catch the meaning lurking under the apparent indifference of a
hasty question, and to mark the unnecessarily prolonged pause which
preceded the answer, and the irritated tone in which it followed. For
it had not been so long since my father and I had sat together in the
same way; when I used to thank heaven in my heart if any lucky chance
relieved us sooner than usual of each other's presence. Here I should
have been a disinterested spectator had I not been so inordinately in
love with the daughter, and had not the father, by his brilliancy and
amiability, obtained such a mastery over me. So my heart, shared
between them both, was torn asunder by their division; and if a few
hours before I had formed the heroic resolution to protect the lovely
and unhappy daughter from her terrible father, I was now fixed like a
rock in my conviction that to me had fallen the sublime mission to join
these two glorious beings again in an indissoluble bond of love. That
it would have better become me to go back to the door of a certain
small house in Uselin, where dwelt an old man whom I had so deeply
wounded--of that I never for a moment thought.
I breathed quick with expectation as a carriage came rattling over the
broken pavement of the court and stopped at the door. It was a visitor
whom Herr von Zehren had said he was expecting; a fellow-sportsman and
the owner of an adjoining estate, who brought with him a friend who was
staying at his house, and who had been out with them shooting.
Constance had at once arisen from the table, and was about to leave the
room, in spite of her father's request, uttered in a tone that almost
made it a command, "I beg that you will remain!" when the gentlemen
entered. One was a tall, broad-shouldered, fair young man, with
handsome, regular features, and a pair of large, prominent blue eyes
that stared out into the world with a sort of good-natured
astonishment. My host introduced him to me as Herr Hans von Trantow.
The other, a short, round figure, whose head, with its sloping brow,
and almost deficient occiput, was so small as to leave scarce a hand's
breadth of room for his close-cropped, stiff brown hair, and whose
short turned-up nose, and immense mouth, always open, and furnished
with large white teeth, gave their possessor a more than passing
resemblance to a bull-dog--was called Herr Joachim von Granow. He had
been an officer in the army, and on his succession, a few months
before, to a handsome fortune, had purchased an estate in the
neighborhood.
Constance had found herself compelled to remain, for the little Herr
von Granow had at once turned upon her with an apparently inexhaustible
flood of talk, and the bulky Herr von Trantow remained standing
immovable so near the open door that it was not easy to pass him. From
the first moment of seeing them I felt a strong antipathy to them both:
to the little one because he ventured to approach so near to Constance,
and to talk so much; and to the large one, who did not speak, indeed,
but stared steadily at her with his glassy eyes, which seemed to me a
still more offensive proceeding.
"We have had but a poor day's sport," said the little one in a
squeaking voice to Constance; "but day before yesterday, at Count
Griebenow's, we had an uncommonly splendid time. Whenever a covey rose
I was right among them; three times I brought down a brace--right and
left barrels; and that I call shooting. They were as jealous of me--I
expected to be torn to pieces. Even the prince lost his temper. 'You
have the devil's own luck, Granow,' he kept saying. 'Young men must
have some luck,' I answered. 'But I am younger than you,' said he.
'Your highness does not need any luck,' said I. 'Why not?' 'To be a
Prince of Prora-Wiek is luck enough of itself' Wasn't that a capital
hit?" and he shook with laughter at his own wit, and shrugged his round
shoulders until they nearly swallowed his little head.
"The prince was there, then?" Constance said.
It was the first word she had uttered in reply to the small man's
chatter. Perhaps this was the reason that I, who had been standing by,
taking no interest in what was said--Herr von Zehren had left the room,
and Herr von Trantow still held his post at the door--suddenly gave all
my attention to the conversation.
"Yes indeed; did you not know it?" said the little man. "To be sure,
your father does not come to the shooting at Griebenow's; but I
supposed Trantow would have told you."
"Herr von Trantow and I are not accustomed to keep each other _au
courant_ of our adventures," answered Constance.
"Indeed!" said Herr von Granow, "is it possible? Yes; as I was going on
to say, the prince was there: he is going to be betrothed to the young
Countess Griebenow, they say. At all events, he has fixed his quarters
at Rossow; the only one of his estates in this part of the country, you
know, that has anything like a suitable residence, and then besides it
lies very handy to Griebenow. A capital opportunity--if a prince ever
needs an opportunity. But that is only for us poor devils--ha! ha!
ha!"--and the little fellow's head again nearly disappeared into his
shoulders.
I was standing near enough to hear every word and observe every look,
and I had clearly perceived that as Herr von Granow mentioned the young
prince, Constance, who had been standing half-turned away from the
speaker, with an inattentive, rather annoyed expression, suddenly
turned and fixed her eyes upon him, while a deep blush suffused her
cheeks. I had afterwards sufficient reason to remember this fact, but
at the moment had not time to ponder over it, as Herr von Zehren now
returned with the cigars for which he had gone; and Constance, after
offering Herr von Granow the tips of her fingers, giving me her hand
with great apparent cordiality, and saluting Herr von Trantow, who
stood, as ever, silent and motionless at the door, with a distant,
scarcely perceptible bow, at once left the room.
As the door closed behind her, Herr von Trantow passed his hand over
his brow, and then turned his large eyes on me, as he slowly approached
me. I returned, as defiantly as I was able, his look, in which I
fancied I read a dark menace, and stood prepared for whatever might
happen, when he suddenly stopped before me, his staring eyes still
fixed upon my face.
"This is my young friend of whom I was speaking to you, Hans," said
Herr von Zehren, coming up to us. "Do you think you can manage him?"
Von Trantow shrugged his shoulders.
"You see I have laid a wager with Hans that you are the stronger of the
two," our host continued. "He is counted the strongest man in all this
part of the country; so I held it my duty to bring so formidable a
rival to his notice."
"But not this evening," said Hans, offering me his hand. It was just as
when a great mastiff, of whom we are not sure whether he will bite or
not, suddenly sits on his haunches before us, and lays his great paw on
our knees. I took it without an instant's hesitation.
"Heaven forbid!" said Herr von Zehren to Trantow's remark. "My young
friend will make a long stay with me, I trust. He wishes to learn the
management of a country place; and where could he sooner attain his
object than upon such a model estate as mine?"
He laughed as he said it. Von Granow exclaimed, "Very good!" the silent
Hans, said nothing, and I stood confused. Von Zehren, in our previous
conversation, had made no allusion to my staying with him as a pupil.
Why had he not done so? It was one of the happiest of ideas, I thought,
and one that at once cleared away all the difficulties of my position.
As for his "model estate," why might I not succeed in changing this
ironical phrase to a real description? Yes; here I had a new mission,
which went hand in hand with the other: to reconcile father and
daughter, to reclaim the ruined estate, to rebuild the castle of their
ancestors--in a word, to be the good genius, the guardian angel of the
family.
All this passed through my mind as the gentlemen took their seats at
the card-table; and with my brain still busy with the thought, I left
the room, under the pretext of wanting a little fresh air, and strolled
about the now familiar paths among the dark shrubbery of the park. The
moon was not yet up, but a glimmer on the eastern horizon showed that
she was rising. The stars twinkled through the warm air that was
ascending from the earth. There was a rustling and whispering in bush
and copse, and a screech-owl at intervals broke the silence with her
cry. From one of the windows on the ground-floor of the castle came a
faint light, and the breeze brought to my ear the notes of a guitar. I
could not withstand the temptation, and crept with hushed breath,
startled at the least noise that my footsteps made, nearer and nearer,
until I reached the stone balustrade which surrounded the wide, low
terrace. I now perceived that the light came from an open casement,
through which I could see into a dimly-lighted room. Thick curtains
were dropped before the two windows to the right and left. From the
place where I stood I could not see the occupant, and I was hesitating,
with a beating heart, whether I should venture to advance, when she
suddenly appeared at the open casement. Not to be discovered, I
crouched close behind a great stone vase.
Her fingers glided over the strings of her guitar, trying first one
note and then another, then striking an uncertain chord or two, as if
she were trying to catch a melody. Presently the chords were struck
more firmly, and she sang:
"All day long the bright sun loves me,
Woos me with his glowing light;
But I better love the gentle
Stars of night.
From the boundless deep above me
Come their calm and tender beams,
Bringing to my wayward fancy
Sweetest dreams.
Sweetest dreams of love unending,
Bitter tears for love undone;
For the dearest, for the fairest,
Only one.
Falsest-hearted, only chosen--
Soon the short-lived dream was o'er--
He is gone, and I am lonely
Evermore."
The last words were sung in a broken voice, and she now leaned her head
against the casement-frame, and I heard her sobbing. My agitation was
so great that I forgot the precaution which my situation demanded, and
a stone which I had dislodged from the crumbling edge of the terrace
rolled down the slope. Constance started, and called with an unsteady
voice, "Who is there?" I judged it more prudent to discover myself, and
approached her, saying that it was I.
"Ah, it is you, then," she said.
"I entreat you to forgive me. The music of your guitar attracted me. I
know I ought not to have come: pray forgive me."
I stood near her; the light from the room fell brightly upon her face
and her eyes, which were lifted to mine.
"How kind you are," she said in a soft voice; "or are you not dealing
truly with me?"
I could not trust myself to answer, but she knew how to interpret my
silence aright.
"Yes," she said, "you are my trusty squire, my faithful George. If I
were to say to you: watch this terrace tonight until the break of day,
you would do it, would you not?"
"Yes," I answered.
She looked in my face and smiled. "How sweet it is--how sweet to know
that there is one creature upon earth that is true to us!"
She gave me her hand; my own trembled as I took it.
"But I do not ask anything of the kind," she said; "only this one
thing, that you will not go away except by your own determination, and
not without my permission. You promise? That is so kind of you! And now
go; good-night!"
She lightly pressed my hand before letting it go, and then re-entered
her room. As I turned away I heard the casement close.
I stood under one of the great trees of the park and looked back
towards the house. The moon had risen above the trees, and the great
mass of buildings stood out in bolder relief against the dark
background; a faint light occasionally appeared and vanished in one of
the windows of the upper story. The light from Constance's window came
towards me with that magic lustre which shines upon us once in our
lives, and only once.
The lawn before me lay in deep shadow; but just as the first rays of
the moon began to illuminate it, I thought I perceived a figure, which,
coming from the other side, was slowly approaching Constance's window.
In this there was nothing to excite suspicion, for it might be one of
the laborers; but it is the duty of a faithful squire to make sure in
any case; so without a moment's hesitation I started across the lawn to
meet the figure. Unluckily I stepped upon a dry twig and it snapped.
The figure stopped instantly, and began to retreat with swift, stealthy
steps. He had but little start of me, but the thick coppice which
closed in the lawn on that side, and was the limit of the park, was so
near that he reached it a few moments before me. I distinctly heard
some one pushing through the branches, but with my utmost exertions I
could not reach him. I began to think that my ear had led me in a wrong
direction, when suddenly a loud crashing and clattering close at hand
proved that I was on the right track. The man was evidently clambering
over the rotten paling which fenced in the park on this side. Now I
knew he could not escape me. On the other side lay a wide open space,
and I had never yet met the man whom I could not overtake in a fair
race. But at the instant that I reached the paling, I heard a horse's
feet, and looking up saw a rider galloping across the open in the clear
moonlight. The horse was evidently one of great power and speed. At
each stride he cleared such a stretch of ground, that in less than half
a minute horse and rider were lost to sight; for a brief space I still
heard the sound of the hoofs, and then that also ceased. The whole
adventure passed in so little time, that I might have fancied I had
dreamed it all, but for the evidence of my heart beating violently with
excitement and the exertion of the chase, and the smarting of my hands,
which were torn by the thorns and briers.
Who could the audacious intruder be? Certainly not an ordinary thief;
doubtless some one who had been attracted by the light from Constance's
window, and not to-night for the first time; it was plain that he had
often followed that path in the dark.
That it was a favored lover, I did not for a moment suppose. Such a
surmise would have seemed to me an outrage, and upon one, too, whose
dreamy eyes, whose melancholy song, and whose tears rather told of an
unhappy than of a requited attachment. But they surely told of love.
Not that I was presumptuous enough to indulge in any hope, or even
wish; how could I dare to lift my eyes to her? I could only live and
die for her, and perhaps another time break the neck of the rash mortal
who had dared under cover of the night to approach her sanctuary.
This idea somewhat solaced my dejection, but my former happiness had
departed never to return. It was with a heavy sense of anxiety and
apprehension that I re-entered the room where the gentlemen were still
at the card-table.
They had commenced with whist, but were now engaged at faro. Von Zehren
held the bank, and seemed to have been winning largely. In a plate
before him lay a great heap of silver, with some gold, and this plate
lay on another which was filled with crumpled treasury notes. The two
guests had already lost their ready money, and from time to time they
handed over bills, which went to swell the pile of notes, and received
in exchange larger or smaller sums, which evinced a strong proclivity
to return to the source from which they sprang. Herr von Trantow
appeared to bear his ill-luck with great equanimity. His good-natured
handsome face was as passionless as before, only perhaps a shade or two
deeper in color, and his great blue eyes rather more staring. But this
might very well be the effect of the wine he had been drinking, of
which they had already emptied at least half-a-dozen bottles. Herr von
Granow's nerves were less fitted to bear the slings and arrows of
outrageous fortune. He would at times start up from his chair, then
fall back into it; swore sometimes aloud, sometimes softly to himself,
and was plainly in the very worst of humors, to the secret delight, as
I thought, of Herr von Zehren, whose brown eyes twinkled with amusement
as he politely expressed his regret whenever he was compelled to gather
in the little man's money.
I had taken my seat near the players, in order better to watch the
chances of the game, of which I had sufficient knowledge from furtive
school-boy experiences, when Herr von Zehren pushed over to me a pile
of bank-notes which he had just won, saying, "You must join us."
"Excuse me," I stammered.
"Why so punctilious about a trifle?" he asked. "There is no need for
you to go to your room for money; here is enough."
He knew that my whole stock of cash did not amount to quite a _thaler_,
for I had told him so the previous evening. I blushed crimson, but had
not the courage to contradict my kind host's generous falsehood. I drew
up my chair with the air of a man who has no wish to spoil sport, and
began to play.
Cautiously at first, with small stakes, and with the firm determination
to remain perfectly cool; but before long the fever of gaming began to
fire my brain. My heart beat ever quicker and quicker, my head and my
eyes seemed burning. While the cards were dealing I poured down glass
after glass of wine to moisten my parched throat, and it was with a
shaking hand that I gathered up my winnings. And I won almost
incessantly; if a card was turned against me, the next few turns
brought me in a three-fold or a five-fold gain. My agitation almost
suffocated me as the money before me increased to a larger sum than I
had ever before seen in a heap--two or three hundred _thalers_, as I
estimated it in my mind.
Presently my luck came to a pause. I ceased winning, but did not lose;
and then I began to lose slowly at first, then faster and faster. Cold
chills ran over me, as one after another of the large notes passed into
the banker's hands; but I took care not to imitate the behavior of Herr
von Granow, which had struck me so repulsively. Like Herr von Trantow,
I lost without the slightest change of countenance, and my calmness was
praised by my host, who continued encouraging me. My stock of money had
melted away to one-half, when Hans von Trantow declared with a yawn
that he was too tired to play any longer. Von Granow said it was not
late; but the candles burnt to the sockets, and the great clock on the
wall, which pointed to three, told a different story. The two guests
lighted fresh cigars, and drove off in their carriages, which had long
been waiting at the door, after having arranged a shooting expedition,
in which I was to join, for the following day.
My host and I returned to the room, which reeked with the fumes of wine
and the smoke of cigars, where old Christian, for whom the difference
between night and day seemed to have no existence, was busy clearing
up. Von Zehren threw open the window and looked out. I joined him; he
laid his hand upon my shoulder and said: "How gloriously the stars are
shining, and how delicious the air is! And there"--he pointed back into
the room, "how horrible--disgusting--stifling! Why cannot one play faro
by starlight, inhaling the perfume of wall-flowers and mignonette? And
why, after every merry night, must repentance come in the form of an
old man shaking his head as he counts the emptied bottles and sweeps up
the ashes? How stupid it is; but we must not give ourselves gray hairs
fretting about it--they will come soon enough of themselves. And now do
you go to bed. I see you have a hundred things on your mind, but
to-morrow is a new day, and if not--so much the better. Good-night, and
pleasant rest."
But it was long ere my host's kind wish was accomplished. A real
witch-sabbath of beautiful and hideous figures danced in the wildest
gyrations before my feverish, half-sleeping, half-waking eyes:
Constance, her father, his guests, the dark form in the park, my
father, Professor Lederer, and Smith Pinnow--and all appealing to me to
save them from some danger or other;--Professor Lederer especially from
two thick lexicons, which were really two great oysters that gaped with
open shells at the lean professor, while the commerzienrath stood in
the background, nearly dying with laughter:--and all whirling and
swarming together, and caressing and threatening, and charming and
terrifying me, until at last, as the gray dawn began to light the
ragged hangings of the chamber, a profound slumber dispersed the
phantoms.
CHAPTER IX.
If, according to the unanimous report of travellers by that route, the
road to hell is paved with good intentions, I am convinced that several
square rods of it are my work, and that the greater part of it was laid
down in the first fortnight of my stay at Zehrendorf. There could,
indeed, scarcely have been a place where everything essential to this
easy and pleasant occupation was provided in ampler abundance. Wherever
one went, or stood, or turned the eyes, there lay the materials ready
to hand; and I was too young, too inexperienced, and I will venture to
add, too good-hearted, not to fall to work with all my energy. Of what
unspeakable folly I was guilty in undertaking to set right the
disordered and disjointed world in which I was now moving, after I had
already shown that I could not adjust myself to the correct and orderly
world from which I came--this thought did not seize me till long
afterwards.
No; I was thoroughly convinced of my sublime mission; and I thanked my
propitious star that had so gloriously brought me from the harsh
slavery of the school and of my father's house, where I was pining
away; from the oppressive bonds of Philistine associations which
hampered the free flight of my heroic soul, into this freedom of the
desert which seemed to have no bounds, and behind which must lie a
Canaan which I was gallantly resolved to conquer--a land flowing with
the milk of friendship and with the honey of love.
True, the letter which soon arrived, with a great box containing my
personal chattels, from my father to Herr von Zehren, for a while gave
me pause. The letter comprised but very few lines, to the effect that
he--my father--was fully convinced of the impossibility of ever leading
me by his road to any good end, and that he was compelled to give me
over, for weal or woe, to my own devices; only hoping that my
disobedience and my obstinacy might not be visited upon me too heavily.
Herr von Zehren showed me the letter, and as he observed my grave look
upon reading it, asked me, "Do you wish to go back?" adding
immediately, "Do not do it. That is no place for you. The old gentleman
wanted to make a draught-horse out of you, but, tall and strong as you
are, that is not your vocation. You are a hunter, for whom no ditch is
too wide, and no hedge too high. Come along! I saw a covey of some two
dozen over in the croft; we will have them before dinner."
He was right, I thought. I felt that my father had given me up too
soon, that he might have allowed me one chance more, and that, as it
was, he had forfeited the right to threaten me in addition with the
retribution of heaven. And yet it pained me, when an hour or so later
Herr von Zehren, who had used up all his wads, took my father's letter
from his pocket, and tearing it up, rammed it down both barrels of his
gun, with the jesting phrase that necessity knows no law. I could not
help feeling as if some misfortune would happen. But the gun did not
burst, the birds dropped, and nothing remained of the letter but a
smouldering scrap which fell in some dry stubble, and upon which Herr
von Zehren set his foot as he thrust the birds into his game-bag.
If I had any doubt left whether I was right in setting myself upon my
own feet, as I phrased it, a letter which I received from Arthur was
only too well adapted to confirm me in my notions of my finally-won
liberty.
"A lucky dog you always were," he wrote. "You run away from school, and
they let you go, as if it was a matter of course; while me they catch
as if I were a runaway slave, cram me in the dungeon for three days,
every hour cast up to me my disgraceful conduct, and in every way make
my life a perfect misery to me. Even my father carries on as if I was
guilty of heaven knows what; only mamma is sensible, and says I mustn't
take it too much to heart, and that papa will have to come round, or
the professor will not let me go into the upper class, and there will
be more botherations. It is really a shame that I, just because my
uncle, the commerzienrath, wills it so, must go through the final
examination, while Albert von Zitzewitz, no older than I, is at the
cadets' school, and has a pair of colors already. What has my uncle to
do with me, anyhow? Papa says that he will not be able to support me
during my lieutenancy without the help he expects from my uncle; and
that is likely too, for things get tighter with us every day, and papa
went quite wild yesterday when he had to pay sixteen _thalers_ for a
glove-bill of mine. If mamma did not help me now and then, I don't know
what I should do; but she has nothing, and said to me only yesterday
that she did not know what would happen at New Year, when all the bills
came in.
"Now you might help me out of all this trouble. Papa says that Uncle
Malte never looks at money when he happens to have any, and anybody
that would hit the lucky moment might get as much from him as they
pleased. You, lucky fellow, are now with him all the time, and you
might watch your chance, for the sake of an old friend, and slip in a
good word for me. Or better, tell him that you have some old debts that
you are worried about, and wouldn't he lend you fifty or a hundred
_thalers_, and then do you send it to me, for you can't want it, you
know. You'll never come back here, whatever happens, for you cannot
imagine the way people here talk about you. Lederer prays an extra five
minutes every day for the strayed lamb--that's what he calls you, you
old sinner. Justizrath Heckepfennig said that if ever it was written in
a mortal's face that he would die in his shoes, it is in yours. In
Emilie's coterie it was resolved to tear out of all their albums the
leaves on which you had immortalized yourself; and at my uncle's, day
before yesterday, there was a regular scene about you. Uncle said at
the table that you must take powerfully long strides if you meant to
outrun the ---- and here he made a sign, you understand, at which
Hermine began to cry terribly, and Fräulein Duff said it was a shame to
talk that way before a child. So you see you have a pair of firm
friends among the females. You always did have, and have still, the
most unaccountable luck in that quarter. Don't break my pretty cousin's
heart, you lucky dog!
"P. S.--Papa once told me that Constance gets a small sum of money
every year from an old Spanish aunt of hers. She certainly has no use
for it. Maybe you could coax something from her--at all events, you
might look into the matter a little."
As soon as I had read this letter, which offered me such an opportunity
of heaping coals of fire on the head of my still-loved friend, I
resolved to help him out of his difficulties with a part of the money I
had won on that first evening; but this intention, which I cannot
maintain to have been in any sense a good one, was destined never to be
carried into execution. For the same evening Herr von Zehren gave his
guests their revenge at Hans von Trantow's, and I lost not only all the
money I had won with such palpitations, to the very last _thaler_, but
a considerable sum besides, which my obliging host, who was again the
winner, had forced upon me. This ill fortune, which I might have
foreseen if I had had a grain more sense, struck me as a heavy blow. In
spite of my frivolity, I had always been scrupulously conscientious in
my small money-matters; had always paid my insignificant debts
cheerfully and as promptly as possible; and as we were driving home at
daybreak after this unlucky evening, I felt more wretched than I had
ever done before. How could I ever be in a position to pay such a
sum--especially now that I had resolved never again to touch a card?
How could I venture in broad daylight to look into the face of the man
to whom I was already under so many obligations?
Herr von Zehren, who was in the best of humors, laughed aloud when,
after some urging on his part, I confessed to him my trouble. "My dear
George," said he--he had taken to calling me George altogether--"don't
take it amiss, but you really are too absurd. Why, man, do you really
think that I would for one instant hold you responsible for what you
did at my express request? Whoever lends money to minors, does it, as
everybody knows, at his own risk, and you certainly remember that I
forced the money upon you. And why did I do it? Simply because it gave
me pleasure, and because I liked to see your honest, glowing face
across the table, and to compare it with Granow's hang-dog look and
Trantow's stony stare. And when a young fellow that is my valued guest,
to please me, accompanies me out shooting, or to the faro-table, and he
has no money and no gun, it is right and fair and a matter of course
that I should place my gun-room and purse at his disposal. And now say
no more about the trifle, and give me a cigar if we have any left."
I gave him his cigar-case, which he had handed over to my keeping, and
murmured that his kindness crushed me to the earth, and that my only
consolation was in the trust that an opportunity might yet offer of my
repaying the obligation in some way or other. He laughed again at this,
and said I was as proud as Lucifer, but he liked me all the better for
it; and as for the possibility of my repaying the obligation, as I
called it, he was a man in whose life accidents and lucky hits and
mishaps and chances of all kinds had played so important a part, that
it would be a wonder if, among all the rest, the chance I so longed for
did not turn up. So until then we would let the matter rest.
In this airy way he tried to quiet the twinges of my conscience, but he
only succeeded in part; and I went to sleep, and awaked a couple of
hours later, with the resolution to set decisively about the execution
of another resolution, namely, in my capacity of pupil to devote myself
to the neglected estate; to acquire, with the utmost possible dispatch,
a complete insight into all matters of rural economy, and by the help
of this knowledge and of untiring diligence, and the exertion of all
my faculties, to change this ruined place in the shortest possible
time--say one or two years--into a paradise, and so relieve my kind
host from the necessity of winning at the card-table the resources
which he could not win from his fields.
I at once devoted my attention to the forlorn-looking stables, to the
cattle-sheds, only tenanted by a few wretched specimens of the bovine
genus, and to a score of melancholy sheep; so that Herr von Zehren, who
had an acute sense of the comic, could never get done laughing at me,
until an incident occurred which gave him an opportunity of speaking a
serious word with me, which to a certain extent damped the ardor of my
economical studies.
That old man whom I met in the park on the first day after my arrival
(whose real name was Christian Halterman, though he always went by the
name of Old Christian), in his capacity of under-bailiff, and in
default of a master who paid any attention to the management, and of a
head-bailiff, a post that was not filled--was the wretched chief of the
whole wretched establishment. Such orders as were given emanated from
him; though it required no extraordinary perspicuity of vision to see
that of the whole bandit-looking gang that called themselves laborers,
every man did just what pleased him. When the old man, as I had once or
twice seen, fell into an impotent rage, and more to relieve his wrath
than in the hope of any effectual result, scolded and stormed in his
singular, creaking, parrot-like voice, they laughed in his wrinkled
face and kept on their own way, or sometimes even openly insulted him.
Their ringleader in this insolence was a certain John Swart, commonly
called "Long Jock," a great, tall, broad-shouldered fellow, with long
arms like an ape's, whose physiognomy would probably have appeared to
Justizrath Heckepfennig more unprepossessing even than mine, and of
whose matchless strength the others told all sorts of wonderful
stories.
I came one morning upon this man, quarrelling again with Old Christian.
The subject of dispute was a load of corn which the old man wanted
thrown off, and which the other refused to touch. The scene was the
straw-littered space before the barn-door, and the spectators a
half-dozen fellows who openly sided with Long Jock, and applauded every
coarse jeer of his with whinnying laughter.
I had observed the whole affair from a distance, and my blood was
already boiling with indignation when I reached the spot. Thrusting a
couple of the laughers roughly aside, I confronted Long Jock and asked
him if he intended to obey Old Christian's order or not. Jock answered
me with an insolent laugh and a coarse word. In a moment we were both
rolling in the trampled straw, and in the next I was kneeling upon the
breast of my vanquished antagonist, and made the unpleasantness of his
position so apparent, that he first cried aloud for help, and then,
seeing that the rest stood scared and motionless, and that none could
deliver him out of my hand, begged for mercy like a craven.
I had just allowed him to rise, badly bruised and half strangled, when
Herr von Zehren, who from his chamber-window had been a witness of the
whole scene, came hurrying up. He told Long Jock that he had got no
more than he richly deserved, and that he would do well to take a
lesson from it for the future; reproved the others, but as I thought by
no means so severely as their conduct demanded, then took my arm and
led me a little aside, until we were out of hearing of the men, when he
said, "It is all very well, George, that these fellows should know how
strong you are; but I do not want to turn them against me by any
repetition of the proof."
I looked at him in surprise.
"Yes," he went on, "you would have to repeat the process on a thousand
other occasions, and not even your strength would suffice for such
Herculean labor."
"Let us try that," I said.
"No; let us by no means try that," he answered.
"But the whole estate is going to ruin in this way," I cried, still
under excitement. Herr von Zehren shrugged his shoulders, and said,
"Well, it has not very far to go--two or three steps at the farthest.
And now you understand, George, the word is, Things as they are! As for
the men, they are no bees in point of industry, but they have this much
of bees about them, that when they are meddled with they are very apt
to sting. So be a little more cautious in future."
He said it with a smile, but I perceived very clearly that he was
thoroughly in earnest, and that the paradise I had been planning must
be renounced. A paradise in which these brigand-looking malingerers
slouched about at their pleasure, presented too glaring a contradiction
to escape even my inexperienced eyes.
I cannot say that it cost me much to give up my plans of radical
reformation. I had chiefly thrown myself into them because I hoped thus
to free myself of my load of obligation to my host. If he did not
choose to be paid in this way, it was clearly no fault of mine; and
when he reiterated to me every day that he wanted nothing of me but
myself, that my company was inexpressibly delightful to him, and, so to
speak, a godsend, whose value he could not sufficiently prize--how
could I help believing assurances that were so flattering to me, and
how could I withstand the allurements of a life that so exactly
corresponded with my inclinations?
Fishing and bird-catching--there is associated with these words an
ominous warning, whose justice I was destined to have a long time and a
desperately serious occasion to verify; but even now I cannot condemn
the fascination that clings to those occupations at which the proverb
is aimed. Fish cannot be caught without gazing at the water, nor birds
without gazing into the sky; and then the gliding waves and the flying
clouds get a mysterious hold of us--or at all events did of me, from my
very earliest youth. How often as a boy, coming home from school, did I
go out of my way to sit for half an hour on the outermost end of the
pier, and yield to the lulling influence of the light lapping of the
waves at my feet. How often at my garret-window have I stood gazing
over my wearisome books at the blue sky, where our neighbor's white
pigeons were wheeling in ethereal circles. And I had always longed just
for once to be able to listen to my fill to the plashing waves, and
gaze my fill at the drifting clouds. Then as I grew older, and could
extend the range of my excursions, I enjoyed many a happy hour,
many a boating-trip, many a ramble into the forest, many an expedition
after water-fowl on the beach with one of Smith Pinnow's rusty
fowling-pieces; but these at best were only for a few hours at a time,
which were far from sufficient for the exuberant energies of youth, and
were bought at the price of too much incarceration at home and at
school, too much care, trouble, vexation, and anger.
Now for the first time in my life I enjoyed in full measure all that I
had longed for all my life: forest and field and sea-shore, unlimited
space, and freedom to wander through all these at my pleasure from the
earliest dawn until far in the night, and a companion besides than whom
no fitter could be desired by a youth whose ambition it was to excel in
these profitless, ruinous arts. The "Wild Zehren's" eye was perhaps not
so keen nor his hand so steady as they had been ten or twenty years
before, but he was still an excellent shot, and a master in everything
belonging to field-sports. No one knew better than he where to find the
game; no one had such well-trained dogs, or could handle them so well
as he; no one could so skilfully take advantage of all the chances of
the chase; and above all, no one was so delightful a companion. If his
ardor during the sport carried all away with him, no one could so
happily choose the resting-place in the cool edge of the forest or
under the thin shade of a little copse by the side of a brook, or so
charmingly entertain the tired party with mirth and jest and the most
capitally-told stories. But he always seemed most charming to me when
we two together were on a long tramp. If in a large company of
sportsmen he could not conceal a certain imperious manner, and the
better success of another filled him with envy which found vent in
acrid sarcasms, there was no trace of all this when he was with me. He
taught me all the arts, adroit expedients, and minor dexterities of
woodcraft, in which he was so well skilled, and was delighted to find
me so apt a scholar; indeed he often laughed heartily when I brought
down a bird which he had marked for his own gun.
And then his talk, to which I always listened with new delight! It was
the strangest mingling of excellently-told sporting stories and
anecdotes, acute observations of nature, and biting satire upon
mankind, especially the fairer half of it. In the life of the Wild
Zehren, women had played an important and disastrous part. Like so many
men of ardent passions and fierce desires, he had probably never sought
for true love, and now he charged it as a crime upon the sex, that he
had never found it; not even with that unhappy lady whom he had carried
off from her home under such terrible circumstances, and who brought
him nothing but her parents' curse, beauty which faded but too soon,
and a narrow, bigoted spirit, uncultured and perhaps incapable of
culture, which already bore in itself the germs of madness.
That he, at that time in his fortieth year, who had seen so much of the
world, and had such wide experience, should perceive and acknowledge
that the whole was his own fault, that he had to attribute to himself
all the misery and misfortune ensuing upon so wicked and insensate a
union--all this never occurred to him for a moment. He was the man more
sinned against than sinning; he was the victim of his generosity; he
had been cheated out of his life's happiness. How could a man have
domestic habits who never had any enjoyment in his home? How could he
learn the charm of a calm and peaceful life at the side of a woman
restlessly tormented night and day by madness and superstition?
"Yes, yes, my dear George, I once had fine plans of my own: I meant to
restore the old castle, laid waste in the time of the French invasion,
to its ancient splendor; I thought to regain all the possessions that
once belonged to the Zehrens; but it was not to be. It could not be, in
the years when I was still young and full of hope; and do you think now
to make a careful, economical proprietor of me, now that I am grown old
and half savage? You buoyant, hopeful young---- See! there he goes!
That comes of talking. No; don't shoot now, he is too far. To heel,
Diana, old girl! So frivolous in your old days? Be ashamed of yourself!
Yes; what I was going to say to you, George, was--beware of the women.
They are the cause of every man's misfortunes, just as they have been
of mine. Take my brothers, for instance. There is the steuerrath, whom
you know: the man was predestined to a fine career, for he is as fond
of the shining things of this world as any thievish magpie, cunning as
a fox, smooth as an eel, and being a man without passions of any sort,
unpretentious, and so could easily hold his own. If he absolutely must
marry, then, at a time when he made no pretensions, it should have been
some plain sensible girl, who would have helped him make his way.
Instead of this, when he was a mere penniless barrister, he lets
himself be caught by a Baroness Kippenreiter, the oldest of two
surviving daughters of an army-contractor, made a baron, I believe, by
the King of Sweden, who wasted in speculation the fortune that had
ennobled him, to the last farthing, and finally blew out his brains.
And now the steuerrath must take the consequences. A Baroness
Kippenreiter will not seal her letters with a coat-of-arms twenty years
old, and have the richest man in the province for a brother-in-law, for
nothing. If such a thorough plebeian could rise to such distinction and
to the dignity of commerzienrath, her husband, sprung from the oldest
family in the province, must die prime minister at the very least. The
lithe fox with no pretensions would have found his way into the
poultry-house; but when with hunger and debt he is changed into a
howling and ravenous wolf, he is hunted off with kicks, clubs, and
stones. One of these days they will put him off with a pension, to be
rid of him once for all.
"Then there is my younger brother Ernest. He is a genius; and like all
geniuses, modest, magnanimous as Don Quixote, full of philanthropic
crotchets, unpractical to the last degree, and helpless as a child. He
should have taken a wife of strong mind, who would have brought order
into his genial confusion, and had the ambition to make something out
of him. He had the stuff in him, no doubt; it only wanted fashioning.
And what does he do? When a first lieutenant, twenty years old--for
already, when he was little more than a boy, he had distinguished
himself in the war for freedom, and came back covered with orders, so
that attention was drawn to him, and he had a fine career before
him--what does he do? He falls in love with an orphan, the daughter of
a painter, I believe, or something of that sort, who had served as a
volunteer in his battalion, and on his death-bed left her in his
charge--the generous soul! He marries her; farewell promotion! They
give our lieutenant, who is bent on a _mésalliance_, an honorable
discharge, with the rank of captain; make him superintendent of the
prison; and there he sits now, for these twenty-five years, in Z., with
a half-blind wife and a swarm of children, old and gray before his
time, a wretched invalid--and all this for the sake of a stupid young
goose, whom the first tailor or cobbler would have suited just as well.
Women! women! Dear George, beware of women!"
Had Herr von Zehren, when he talked to me in this way, any special
object in view? I do not think he had. I was now so much with him, we
often set out so early, so seldom returned at noon, and usually came
home so late at night--as a consequence I saw so little of Constance,
and that almost invariably in his presence, when I felt so embarrassed
and ill at ease on account of the constant hostilities between father
and daughter, that I scarcely ventured to raise my eyes to her face--it
was not possible that he could know how I admired the beautiful maiden,
how I found her more lovely every time I saw her, and how my heart beat
when I merely heard the rustle of her dress.
Then there was another reason which contributed to his unsuspiciousness
on this point. Fond as he was of having me with him, and sincerely as
he admired my aptness for everything connected with sport, and my
remarkable bodily strength, which I liked to display before him, still
he scarcely looked upon me as a creature of his own kind. Poor as he
was, leading a problematical existence as he had done for many years,
he could never forget that he sprang from a most ancient race of
nobles, who had once held sway over the island before the princes of
Prora-Wiek had been heard of, and when Uselin, my native place,
afterwards an important Hanseatic town, was a mere collection of
fishers' huts. I am convinced that he, like a dethroned king, had in
his heart never renounced his pretensions to the power and wealth which
had once been his ancestors'; that he considered that Trantow, Granow,
and a score of other titled or untitled gentlemen who held estates in
the neighborhood that had once belonged to the Zehrens, had come to
their so-called possession of these estates by some absurd whimsy of
fortune, but had no genuine title which he recognized, and that
wherever he hunted, it was still upon his own ground. This mystical
_cultus_ of a long-vanished splendor, of which he still fancied himself
the upholder, gave his eye the haughty look, his bearing the dignity,
his speech the graciousness, which belong to sovereign princes whose
political impotence is so absolute, and whose legitimacy is so
unassailable, that they can allow themselves to be perfectly amiable.
Herr von Zehren was an enthusiastic defender of the right of
primogeniture, and found it highly unreasonable that younger brothers
should bear and transmit the nobility that they were not permitted to
represent. "I have nothing to say against a councillor of excise,
nothing against a prison superintendent," he said, "only they ought to
be called Müller or Schultze, and not Zehren." For the nobility of the
court, the public offices, or the army, he cherished the profoundest
contempt. They were only servants, in or out of livery, he maintained;
and he drew a sharp distinction between the genuine old and the
"new-baked" nobility, to the former class of which, for example, the
Trantows belonged, who could trace back an unbroken pedigree to the
middle of the fourteenth century; while Herr von Granow had had a
shepherd for great-grandfather, small tenant-farmer for grandfather,
and a land-owner, who had purchased a patent of nobility, for his
father. "And the man often behaves as if he was of the same caste with
myself! The honor of being permitted to lose his contemptible money to
me, seems to have mounted into his foolish brain. I think before long
he will ask me if I am not willing to be the father-in-law of a
shepherd-boy. Thank heaven, in that point at least I can rely upon
Constance; she had rather fling herself into the sea than marry the
little puffed-up oaf. But it is foolish in her to treat poor Hans so
cavalierly. Trantow is a fellow that can show himself anywhere. He
might be put under a glass-case for exhibition, and nobody could find a
fault in him. You laugh, you young popinjay! You mean that he was not
the man that invented gunpowder, and that if he keeps on as he is
going, he will soon have drunk away what little brains he has. Bah! The
first fact qualifies him for a good husband; and as for the second, I
know of a certainty that it is pure desperation that makes him look
into the glass so much with those staring eyes of his. Poor devil: it
makes one right heartily sorry for him; but that, you see, is the way
with every man that has anything to do with women. Beware of the women,
George; beware of the women!"
Was it possible that the man who held these views and talked with me in
this way, could have the least suspicion of my feelings? It could not
be. I was in his eyes a young fellow who had fallen in his way, and
whom he had picked up as a resource against ennui, whom he kept with
him and talked to, because he did not like to be alone and liked to
talk. Could I complain of this? Could I make any higher pretensions?
Was I, or did I desire to be, anything else than one of my knight's
retinue, even if for the time I happened to be the only one? Could I
have any other concern than for the fact that I could not at the same
time devote the same reverential service to my knight's lovely
daughter?
CHAPTER X.
Since that memorable walk with her through the wood to the ruins on the
promontory, I had not again been alone with Constance for a long time.
During the three rainy days I saw her at the dinner table, and perhaps
about as often at supper when we returned from shooting; but always in
the presence of her father, and usually of Herren von Trantow and
Granow, our companions of the field and the card-table. On these
occasions she scarcely lifted her lovely eyes from her untouched plate,
while the tall Hans stared at her after his fashion, the short Granow
chattered away as usual, undisturbed by her chilling silence, and Herr
von Zehren, who in his daughter's presence always seemed in a
singularly irritated mood, loosed at her more than one of his keen
sarcastic shafts. These were for me sad and bitter hours, and all the
bitterer as I, with all my desire to be of service, felt myself so
utterly helpless, and what was worst of all, thought I observed that
she no longer excepted me from the aversion which she openly manifested
towards her father's friends. In the first days of my stay at the
castle it was entirely different. In those days she had always for me a
ready friendly glance, a kind word occasionally whispered, a cordial if
hasty pressure of the hand. This was all now at an end. She spoke to me
no more, she looked at me no more, except at times with a look in which
indignation seemed mingled with contempt, and which cut me to the
heart.
And had I been short-sighted enough to mistake the meaning of these
looks, a word dropped by old Pahlen would have opened my eyes.
I hit upon the idea of asking permission to occupy, instead of my
present room in the front of the house, one of the empty apartments
looking on the park. Into this I carried from time to time various
articles of furniture, most of them still valuable, which were lying
about in the dilapidated regions of the upper story, until I had
brought together an accumulation which presented a very singular
appearance. Herr von Zehren laughed heartily when one day coming to
call me to dinner, as I in my new occupation had forgotten the hour, he
caught me hard at work arranging my worm-eaten and tarnished treasures.
"Your furniture does not lack variety, at all events," he said; "for an
antiquary the rubbish would not be without interest. Really, it is like
a chapter out of one of Scott's novels. There, in that high-backed
chair, Dr. Dryasdust might have sat; you must set that here, if the old
fellow does not tumble over as soon as you take him from the wall. So!
a little nearer to the window. Isn't that a splendid piece! It comes
down from my great-grandfather's time. He was ambassador at the court
of Augustus the Strong, and the only one of our family, so far as I
know, who as head of the house ever entered public service. He brought
from Dresden the handsome vases o
Showing first 200,000 characters. Full text: gutenberg.org/ebooks/34868