Transcriber's Note:
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BY COPYRIGHT ARRANGEMENT WITH THE AUTHOR.
F. Spielhagen's Complete Works.
Translated from the German.
JUST PUBLISHED.
I.
PROBLEMATIC CHARACTERS.
A Novel. Translated by Prof. Schele de Vere. 12mo. Cloth. $2.00.
II.
THROUGH NIGHT TO LIGHT.
A Novel. Translated by Prof. Schele de Vere. Uniform with the above. 12mo. cloth. $2.00.
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 it's author's insight into the souls of his characters.... If Germany is poorer than England, as regards the number of its novelists, it in 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 civilisation. 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."
IN PRESS.
III. The Hohenstein Family. Translated by Prof. Schele de Vere. IV. Hammer and Anvil. V. In Rank And File. VI. Rose, And The Village Coquette.
LEYPOLDT & HOLT, Publishers,
451 BROOME ST., NEW YORK.
PROBLEMATIC
CHARACTERS.
A Novel
BY
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN.
Author's Edition.
NEW YORK
LEYPOLDT & HOLT
1870.
Problematic Characters
A Novel
BY
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN
FROM THE GERMAN
BY
PROF. SCHELE DE VERE
Author's Edition.
"There are problematic characters, who are not equal to any situation in life, and whom no situation satisfies. This causes an immense discord within, and their whole life is spent without enjoyment."
GOETHE.
NEW YORK
LEYPOLDT & HOLT
1870
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.
The New York Printing Company,
81, 83, and 85 Centre St.,
New York.
FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN.
Extract from the Westminster Review, October, 1868.
From biographical notices of Spielhagen in German periodicals,[[1]] we gather that he was born in Magdeburg, in 1829, and is the son of a Prussian functionary of considerable rank (Regierungsrath). His youth was passed in the romantic old town of Stralsund, to which his father was removed in 1835, and the scenery of that neighborhood, and of the near lying island Rügen, appears to have become so deeply impressed on the opening mind of the boy, that he subsequently painted it with enthusiasm in several of his romances. His course of "gymnasial" education in Stralsund having been completed in 1847, he went in that year to the University of Berlin, intending to study medicine. But his poetical nature soon caused him to give up all thoughts of the medical profession, and the following year he removed to Bonn to study philology. He remained at Bonn till 1850, when he returned to Berlin, continuing his studies partly at that university and partly at that of Greifswald. Whilst at these universities he appears to have studied a variety of subjects, but discursively rather than with reference to any regular profession--for which both his poetical vein and his thirst for observations of actual life seem to have disqualified him. After serving his allotted time in the Prussian army, and occupying the post of tutor in the family of a Pomeranian nobleman, he went to Leipzig, in 1854, to devote himself to general literature, and he afterwards became a teacher (Privat Docent) of modern literature and æsthetics.
His first romance, "Clara Vere," was published in 1857, and in the following year a short romance, "Auf der Düne" ("On the Downs"), appeared, and attracted considerable attention. In the six years Spielhagen resided at Leipzig he wrote many critical essays for periodicals, translated a considerable number of French, English, and American works[[2]]--particularly of American poets, and published there two more short romances, one of which, "Röschen vom Hofe," a charming idyl, rapidly passed through four editions. In 1860 he went to Hanover, where he married; and the following year he removed to Berlin, where he has since resided, displaying great activity in connection with a leading periodical, and as romance writer. In 1861 his first large romance, "Problematische Naturen," appeared, and at once established for the writer a great reputation. It was followed the next year by a continuation, "Durch Nacht zum Lichte" ("Through Night to Light"). In 1864 another long romance, "Die von Hohenstein," was published, and lastly, in the autumn of 1866, "In Reih' und Glied" ("In the Ranks"), a romance in six volumes.[[3]]
The scenes of all Spielhagen's romances, with the exception of his first, "Clara Vere," are laid in the Baltic provinces or islands, in the Prussian capital, or on the Rhine.... The heroes in many of Spielhagen's romances are not made of common stuff. They are very unusual natures, gifted with more than the average of intellectual power, even for our intellectual age. A few have even Titanic qualities,--towering ambition, insatiable cravings, and overwhelming passions, which bring them to a miserable end. That the heroes in romances--which have been styled the modern epics--should stand at least a foot higher than ordinary men is but what we have a right to expect. It can interest none but the most unrefined minds, to be occupied chiefly in works of fiction with commonplace, vulgar natures and their unpoetical surroundings, or with stilted heroes clothed in tinsel, and talking in high-flown fashion amidst scenes of extravagant conception. In Spielhagen's heroes psychological truth is never violated. The principal personages in his romances live before us and fix our interest. Their dispositions are not described, but impressed upon our minds in action. The plots of his romances too, despite the great number of scenes and characters introduced, are nevertheless skilful, consistent, and artistic. He makes no extravagant use of improbable coincidences, nor is the reader kept on the tenter-hooks of suspense whilst the intricacies of a plot are unravelled. It was Schiller, we believe, who called the romancist the half-brother of the poet. To Spielhagen's glowing descriptions of nature, which are never tediously minute, and are invariably brought into harmony with, or made to enhance by contrast, the moods and actions of his personages, a true poetical charm is given. In this respect they may be said to occupy a happy position between the vague and shadowy pictures formerly met with in German romances, and the photographic realism or word-painting, so wearisome to readers of taste in many of our modern English novels. With a skilful hand, too, he paints the tender emotions and longings of the heart, particularly in his female characters. Though the interest in his stories is generally well sustained, yet in many of them the dénoûments are sad, a foreboding of which, as the consequences of vices, errors, or weaknesses in the actors, too soon perhaps arises in the reader's mind.... But the comic elements, satire, wit, and humor, are not wanting to afford amusement to the reader. Apart from the national coloring pertaining to his characters, their peculiar qualities are shown to have little to do with external circumstances. We see the hereditary influences of temperament and other organic conditions indicated; and in descriptions of bodily gestures, and expressions of the countenance, much knowledge of human nature, in its morbid as well as healthy state, is displayed. But enough of general observation on this author. We have before us numerous criticisms of his works in well-accredited German periodicals, which could be cited in proof that we have not overestimated his powers nor his popularity. Indeed, in Germany he is generally acknowledged to occupy the foremost rank amongst modern writers of fiction; an opinion, moreover, confirmed to some extent by the publication of his romances in a collected form.
In agreement with German critics, we consider "Problematic Natures" to be the most interesting and poetical of our author's productions.[[4]] ...
Goethe says in his "Dichtung und Wahrheit": "There are problematic natures who are not equal to any situation in which they are placed, and for whom no situation is good enough. A fearful conflict results therefrom, which consumes life without enjoyment." These pregnant words of the great German poet are placed as motto on the title-page of the work before us, and Spielhagen has built upon them a tale full of poetry and psychological interest. In the course of the romance the author, through one of his personages, more specifically characterizes problematic natures as "beings for the most part liberally endowed by nature with good qualities; whose feelings and endeavors in general are directed to what is good, yet who all, without exception, come to a sad end, because they understand, either never or too late, that the most enthusiastic efforts and the loftiest aims not only remain uncrowned by success, but at length destroy the struggler himself if he overlooks the conditions of our earthly existence. Such people are not satisfied with anything--with themselves least of all. Possessed of endless susceptibilities, they seize everything with avidity, cast it, however, away as soon as its limited nature becomes clear to them. The world does not satisfy them, and they do not satisfy the world. The world lets those who despise it fall, despair, die of hunger, as may be; and it is right it should be so, for naturally those only can be rewarded who, sacrificing their egotistical desires, strive to serve the world earnestly and diligently."
... Detestation of the aristocracy is prominent in all Spielhagen's romances. The aristocracy in general--though there are several most favorable exceptions--is shown in them to be rotten and out of date. In some of his romances, a very pandemonium of "Junker" arrogance, frivolity, and debauchery--particularly of the military "Junker"--is painted, perhaps in colors somewhat too dark. In the people, including the Bürger class, healthy virtues and high intelligence are shown to dwell almost as prerogatives. Still, as regards the citizen classes, he has guarded himself against the reproach of one-sidedness, for several of his low-born characters are innately weak and vicious, and amongst his political democrats he has sketched popularity-hunting demagogues, actuated likewise by motives entirely base and selfish. Amongst the distinguished and good personages our author introduces, young physicians, and other students of science and nature occupy the foremost places. They are some of them evidently painted after life; and in his great appreciation of physical sciences, and the men who devote to them their energies, he does but give expression to sentiments now-a-days prevailing in Germany. And in his low estimate of the nobility, he forms no exception to modern writers of fiction in Germany. Indeed, Immermann, in his village tales, and even Goethe, in "Wilhelm Meister" and the "Wanderjahre," display anti-aristocratic sympathies. To these great writers of fiction the names of Gutzkow, Auerbach, Freitag, Schloenbach, and many others may be added.
One chief cause of the antipathy of the citizen classes in Germany to the nobility we have already mentioned in speaking of "Problematical Natures." Another cause may be found in the circumstance that the nobility, since 1848, has in general used whatever political influence it possesses in a reactionary, ultraconservative spirit. As a consequence, however, of the strict line of demarcation, based on pedigree, between nobles and the citizen classes in Germany, the vulgar conceit and mean struggles for social position, so well known in this country, and so fertile a theme with our satirical novelists, are but seldom experienced in that country. The characters in Spielhagen's romances most resembling our snobs are worldly-minded, sycophantic clergymen and the low-born nouveaux riches....
Although in some respects this popular German romance-writer displays subjective biases; yet, on the whole, he is objective, and most decidedly reflects opinions now prevalent in his country. In fact, one of his critics avers, that "a psychological historian of the future may turn to his works for valuable data on many aspects of social life in the present times." As a delineator of individual characters--many of them types of different classes of society; as a painter of various situations, scenic and social, he appears to us unequalled by any other modern German writer of fiction.
Problematic Characters.
Part First.
CHAPTER I.
It was a warm evening in July in the year 184-, when an ordinary wagon, drawn by two heavily-built bay horses, made its way slowly through the heavy roads of a pine forest.
"Is this forest never to have an end?" exclaimed the young man who was sitting alone on the back seat of the carriage, and raised himself impatiently.
The taciturn driver answered only by cracking his whip. The slow bays made a desperate effort to trot, but soon abandoned the purpose, which was as little suitable to their tempers as to the deep sand. The young man leaned back again with a sigh, and commenced once more to listen to the monotonous music of the vehicle, as it tried to keep in the deep rots, and let the dark trunks of the pine-trees glide by, one by one, noticing how here and there a ray of moonlight fell upon them; for the moon was just rising above the wood. He began again to fancy what would be his reception at the château, and his new situation, upon which he was about to enter; but these dim visions of an unknown future became vaguer and vaguer, his weary eyes closed, and the first sound of which he was again conscious was the dull tramp of the horses on a wooden bridge which led to a lofty stone portal. "At last!" exclaimed the young man, rising and looking around him full of curiosity, as the wagon drove rapidly through a dark avenue of gigantic trees, followed a rounded-off curve on a large open courtyard covered with gravel, and then stopped before the doors of the château, on whose windows the rays of the moon glittered brightly.
The silent driver cracked his whip to make his arrival known. The only answer was the loud sound of a clock, quite near by, which slowly struck eleven o'clock. When the last stroke had been heard, the door opened and a servant stepped out, and behind him the figure of an old gentleman became visible, whose wrinkled face was lighted up by the glare of a candle, which he tried to protect with his hand against the strong draught.
The young man jumped briskly from the wagon to meet the old gentleman, who offered him his hand, and said to him in a voice full of kindness, but betraying his old age by its tremor, and marked by a foreign accent:
"Be heartily welcome, doctor!" The young man pressed his hand cordially and replied: "I come rather late, baron, but----"
"No matter, no matter at all," interrupted the old gentleman. "My good wife is still up. John, carry the doctor's traps to his room! Please come in here!"
Oswald had arranged his dress quickly in the hall, which had a beautiful tessellated floor, and now followed the baron into a lofty large room.
As he entered, two ladies arose from the sofa behind a table, where they seemed to have been busy reading.
"My wife," said the baron, presenting Oswald to the older of the two, a tall, graceful lady of about forty years, who had advanced a few steps to meet the new-comer and now replied to his bow with some formality. Then he bowed to the younger lady, a delicate, small figure, with a sharp, thoroughly French face, framed in long curls; not thinking that he ought to neglect this act of politeness, merely because he had not been introduced to her also.
"You are late, Doctor Stein," said the baroness, with a deep sonorous voice, which was not exactly in harmony with the cold light of her dark gray eyes.
"As early, madam," replied the young man, cheerfully, "as the contrary wind, which delayed the ferry-boat in the morning for several hours, and the baron's driver, whose patience I had ample time to admire on the way, would permit me."
"Patience is a noble virtue," said the baroness, when she had resumed her seat on the sofa, while the others took chairs around the table; "a virtue which you no doubt value very highly, as you need it so much in your vocation. I am afraid the two boys will give you but too frequent opportunities to practise this virtue to its fullest extent."
"I promise myself everything that is good from my future pupils, and am quite sure, in advance, that the trials which they will make of my patience will be no fiery trials."
"I hope so," said the baroness, resuming her work, which she had laid aside when the young man entered. "But you will find the boys just now rather neglected, as your arrival has been retarded for several days, and your predecessor could not, or would not, do us the favor to delay his departure for a few days."
"I should not think fairly of the character of the boys," replied Oswald, "and still less so of the ability of Mr. Bauer, whom I have heard much praised, if I were really to fear that his influence had not survived a week."
"Well, Mr. Bauer had his virtues, but also his foibles," said the baroness, counting the stitches in her work.
"That is the fate of men," replied Oswald.
"Perhaps the doctor would like some refreshment, dear Anna Maria," said the old gentleman, suddenly. Oswald could not make out whether he was prompted by an impulse of hospitality, or by a desire to change the conversation, which was assuming a somewhat lively character.
"No, I thank you," said Oswald, dryly.
"You have not been long engaged in teaching," continued the baroness, taking no notice of the interruption, "if I understood Professor Berger correctly, who gave us your address."
"No."
"You will oblige me particularly if you will give me, at a favorable moment, your views about education. I am convinced in advance that we shall agree in all essential points. But, of course, we must be prepared to differ in some minor matters. I shall always tell you frankly what I may wish or think, and I beg you will be as frank with me. As to the knowledge acquired by the boys, you will be the best judge of that yourself. Nor do I wish to anticipate your opinion of their character; only one thing I should like to mention to you: you will find our son Malte a somewhat spoiled child; while Bruno--you know that Bruno von Löwen is a distant relative of my husband's, whom we have adopted after the death of his father--is a boy who has had no education at all, and is, therefore, perfectly wild."
"My dear Anna Maria," said the old gentleman.
"I know what you are going to say, my dear Grenwitz," interrupted the baroness. "Bruno is, once for all, your favorite, and our views concerning him will always be at variance. You may be perfectly right when you say that I am unable to judge him fairly; but that is less my own fault than his, as the boy's morose and reserved manner makes all approach on our part--I mean on my part--almost impossible."
"But, my dear Anna Maria----"
"Well, never mind, dear Grenwitz; we will not weary Dr. Stein on the very first evening he spends under our roof by the spectacle of discord between husband and wife. Besides, Doctor Stein must be tired. Mademoiselle, please ring the bell." The last words, spoken in French, were addressed to the young lady who had been sitting immovable at the table, without ever looking at the new-comer, and holding the book, from which she seemed to have been reading aloud, still in her hand. Now she rose and went to the door, near which the bell-rope was hanging. Oswald anticipated her, saying: "Permit me, mademoiselle." The girl looked at him out of her large brown eyes with a half-wondering, half-frightened glance, which betrayed clearly enough how little she was accustomed to be treated with such courtesy. Then, casting down her eyes quickly, she went back to her seat at the table. A servant entered, and received orders to show Oswald to his room.
"I hope you will find everything as you wish it," said the baroness, as Oswald took his leave with a silent bow; "if anything has been forgotten, or does not suit your taste, I beg you will let us know at once; I am exceedingly anxious for our own sake that you should be comfortable in our house."
Oswald bowed once more and followed the servant to his room.
They went across a hall, on the walls of which Oswald noticed, by the flickering light of the candle, full-size portraits of gentlemen and ladies in old-fashioned costumes; then up a stone staircase, through long galleries and a suite of rooms into a larger apartment.
"This is your room, doctor," said the man, lighting the two candles which stood on a large round table in the centre of the room. "That door opens into your bedroom."
"And where do the boys sleep?" asked Oswald.
"If you go through your bedroom, you get into the young gentlemen's room. Have you any orders, sir?"
"No, I thank you."
"I wish you a good-night, sir."
"Good-night."
Oswald was alone. He had remained standing, one hand resting upon the table, and listened mechanically as the footsteps of the servant became gradually fainter and fainter down the long passage. Then he took one of the candles, passed through his chamber to the door which the servant had told him would admit him to the boys' room, opened it cautiously and went in, carefully screening the light with his hand.
The beds of the two boys stood close by each other. Before one bed lay a carpet, before the other none. Above the bed without a carpet hung a small silver watch; above the bed with a carpet, a still smaller gold watch. In the bed below the gold watch lay a boy of perhaps fourteen years, with light, straight hair, and a delicate, finely-cut face, which, at that moment, looked rather silly, thanks to the half-open mouth. In the bed with the silver watch lay a boy who might have been a year older than the other, but who looked at least three years his senior, and formed in every way the most singular contrast with him. While the arms of the younger lay languidly on the coverlet, those of the other were firmly crossed on his chest. The compressed lips and the slightly frowning eyebrows, drawn together perhaps by a troublesome dream, gave to the irregular but not unattractive face an expression of dark defiance and pride, which would not have been amiss in the heir to a throne.
"Poor boy," said Oswald to himself, looking with deepest interest at the enigmatical face of the child; "you have had already tears in the spring of your life, if you ever really had a spring."
He was deeply moved, scarcely knowing why. But he bent over the sleeping child and kissed his forehead. The boy turned in his sleep, his arms relaxed, and opening his large, deep blue eyes, he looked at Oswald through the mist of his dream. All of a sudden a ray of sunlight seemed to flash across his face; the dark expression vanished, and a warm, inexpressibly sweet smile played over the animated features.
"I love you," said the boy.
"And I love you, too," replied Oswald.
Then Bruno turned over, and Oswald saw from his deep, regular breathing that he had fallen fast asleep once more.
"Has he really seen you or were you only a dream to him?" the young man asked himself, as he went back to his room after the little scene which had moved him deeply. He put the candle on the table, went to the window, opened it and looked out.
The sky was covered with clouds and fogs, through which the full moon shone like a ball of red fire, far down near the horizon. In the east sheet lightning flashed to and fro. The air was hot and oppressive. In the garden below the windows the flowering fruit-trees shone with a white sheen, while the oaks and beeches, which rose like giants along the wall around the garden, up to the heavens, lay buried in deep, dark shadow. Nightingales sang in long, full notes; a fountain played merrily, but in subdued tones, as if dreaming.
Oswald felt strangely excited. His past arose before his mind's eye in dim images, scene after scene, as the veil of clouds drove over the face of the moon; visions of the future flashed across them, as the lightning toward the east. Suddenly the trees rustled, and the loud bell, which he had heard at his arrival, struck twelve in slow, measured beats.
He started. "Did you not mean to give up dreaming?" he asked himself, smiling. "Well then, you had better go to bed if you cannot stay awake without dreaming."
CHAPTER II.
Oswald had been a week at Castle Grenwitz, and the week had seemed to him but a day. It was his nature to take up every new thing with a passion, even though the new thing was ordinary enough in itself, and here it was far from being so. He had a new situation, new surroundings, new acquaintances. All this caused him, with his sanguine temper, for a time a most delightful sensation; he found it easy to discover charms, and at least something interesting, in all with whom he came into contact; in the baroness, with her cold, severe features; even in the reticent coachman, against whom he had been so strongly prejudiced on the very first evening; even in the humble familiar servant, with his everlasting: "What are your orders, sir?" The letters which he wrote at this time to his friends all bore the impress of this happy, conciliatory disposition. "Here I am," he said in one of them, "here I am in this new station of my strange life, and upon my word I think I shall stay here, in spite of the impatience for which you blame me so often, until Father Chronos has changed the horses in his stage, and blows his horn once more. If I were not afraid of calling down upon me your bitter irony by my enthusiasm, I might go so far as to thank the kind star that has led me here. I am just in the temper to do so. I have breathed in these days so freely in this air of salt water and forests, that my poor head, filled with the dust of miserable old folios, is quite unsettled. Certainly, if the people here are not altogether unfit for this paradise, I have the finest future for some years to come.
"Pardon me, my dear friend, that I did not ask your special permission before I took the decisive step which brought me here. I have heretofore followed your higher wisdom with implicit obedience, and so you had a right to expect that I should have consulted you first. But I had determined to take this step. I knew you would refuse your consent, and therefore I preferred to meet your full-armed reasons with an equally full-armed fait accompli, so as not to deprive your good advice of its old privilege--to come too late. Besides, the whole thing came so suddenly, and I had to decide so quickly, that I had but just time to inform you of the fact. Finally, Professor Berger is the only cause of the whole proceeding; he has to bear the blame of it, if blame there must be, and him alone I make herewith solemnly responsible for all the consequences.
"We have corresponded but rarely and very briefly, you know, since we parted about a year ago in the capital. Thus I have probably hardly ever mentioned Professor Berger to you, and it is high time to make you acquainted with this original, who has of late played so important a part in my life, and to whom alone I owe it if I did not miserably fail in that principal scene of the tragi-comedy, my examination.
"When I left B-----for Grunwald, in the vague hope of being able to find the necessary repose in this quiet seat of the Muses, with the grass growing in the streets, which I could not obtain amid the literary circles, the æsthetic teas, and musical suppers of the great city, I found here, among the terrible judges who could make me happy or condemn me forever, Professor Berger as the most terrible of all. My poor fellow-sufferers, whose acquaintance I could not avoid making in spite of all my objections, told me really fearful things of his amazing erudition, and much that disquieted me about his eccentricities and droll whimsicalities. They had numerous stories about his great influence over the other members of the Board of Examiners, who were completely overawed by his learning, and still more so by his caustic wit, which spared no one, from the lowest to the highest. I had never yet met the terrible man in person. He had one of his hypochondriac attacks, during which, I was told, he kept himself locked up in his room during the day, and wandered about all night in the woods of the neighborhood.
"One day I received an invitation to dinner from a family to whom I had brought letters of introduction. The company was very numerous; I took a young lady of the house in to dinner, a pretty, fair-haired girl, whose merry ways attracted me exclusively during the first part of the dinner. But when the usual topics which are apt to be discussed with young ladies fresh from school were nearly exhausted, I found my attention engaged by a gentleman who sat opposite me. He was a small, elderly man, with a massive brow, as if cut in granite, from beneath which two clever eyes shone forth brightly. The somewhat full cheeks betrayed a fondness for good living, which was not belied by the earnestness with which the man did honor to the gifts of Ceres and Bacchus. But the lines around the firm, well-shaped mouth were enigmatical: sensuality, wit, humor, and melancholy demons and genii--all seemed to dwell there.
"The conversation at our part of the table soon became general, and I could venture to join in without presumption. They discussed art, literature, and politics. Everywhere the strange man seemed to be perfectly at home; everywhere he surprised us by clever views, startling antitheses, and odd paradoxes. It seemed to give him special pleasure to throw in a little spark of purgatory-fire, and then to see how the tiny flames from below tickled the noses of the good people. Thus he would suddenly assert that revolutions had never done any good to mankind, and never would benefit us. You know my views on this point, which have often been the subject of our discussions. I accepted the challenge; I grew warm in speaking of my pet theme, and all the warmer as my adversary tried hard to confuse me by all kinds of odd questions. I forgot everything around me; I became pathetic, satiric--I felt that I said some good things, at least that I had never in my life spoken as well. At a later day I learnt to my humiliation that the good man had highly enjoyed the sham fight,--for such it was to him,--but then I only noticed that he gave up the combat and listened to what I said, bending his large head a little upon his right shoulder, smiling at my energy out of his large bright eyes beneath the bushy eyebrows, and sipping one glass of hock after the other. Soon afterwards we left the table. As I took my lady back to the room where tea was served, I asked her: 'And who was the gentleman with whom I carried on a conversation, which I fear was very dull to you?'
"'What! you do not know Professor Berger?' the little lady asked, quite amazed.
"'That was Professor Berger?'
"'Certainly; shall I introduce you?'
"'For heaven's sake, no!' I cried, with genuine terror. 'Oh me! what a misfortune!'"
"'Why, what is the matter?' asked the pretty girl. 'What is the matter?'
"I had let her arm slip out of mine and made my escape to the remotest room. There I threw myself upon a low sofa in a dark corner, and lay brooding over the grievous blunder I had committed. While I thought I was playing with a good-natured poodle-dog, I had been engaged with a formidable bear! They had represented this man to me as just as malicious as he was learned and witty. Would he not be sore to remember my sarcasms and bitter sayings in that evil hour when I was lying helpless on the examination-table, ready to be dissected? It was a desperate case.
"I heard a noise near me, and raised my head--before me stood Professor Berger. I jumped up instantly.
"'Allow me to sit down by you,' said the eccentric man, and sat down on the low sofa, beckoning me to follow his example. 'I like you, and I wish to become better acquainted with you. I am Professor Berger; whom have I the honor to address?'
"'My name is Stein.'
"'You are a student, or, rather, you have been a student. What have you studied?'
"'I wish I could simply answer, Philology; but as that would not be exactly true, I can only say I would I had studied Philology.'
"'How so?'
"'Because then I would be less afraid of the honor of becoming better known to you.'
"A smile played around the lips of the professor, passed up the cheek, and was lost in the corner of the right eye.
"'You are a candidate for honors?'
"'Yes; but with little hope.'
"The smile came down again from the eye to the lips.
"'And therefore you are frightened at seeing me, as Hamlet was before his father's ghost?'
"'At least I do not see you very clearly.'
"'Well, then, you see yourself that we must become better acquainted with each other. Will you come to-morrow evening, or some other evening, when you have time and inclination, and drink a glass of punch with me?'
"Of course I did not refuse.
"And this was the beginning of my acquaintance with this strange man, whom I now may call my friend. We have ever since that day met daily, as long as I remained in Grunwald, and I value the deep insight into one of the most remarkable characters which was thus afforded me by the intimate intercourse with him, far more highly than the practical advantages which I derived from my friendship with so great a scholar. I am almost afraid there must exist some affinity between him and myself, or we would not so quickly have discovered what was sympathetic in each of us; nor would we have learnt so soon to speak with such unreserved candor, and to understand each other by a mere word or a hint. I say I am afraid, because Berger is a most unhappy man. The bright lights of his brilliant wit play upon a dark background full of storms. He is standing alone in the world, misjudged by everybody, feared by many, loved by none. Why that is so, I dare not tell even you, for friendship is a temple to which no third person can be admitted. But I shudder whenever I think of the dark night that must break down upon him as soon as old age dims the light of the bright torch which now alone illumines the terrible waste of his miserable heart. Perhaps, however--who knows?--that may prove fortunate for him. Perhaps the words which he now often quotes, half in bitter irony and half in melancholy conviction: 'Blessed are the poor in spirit!' may yet become a truth for him.
"My intimacy with the learned man had surrounded me, in the eyes of the world, with a halo, which made me hope that under such protection I might, like the heroes of Homer, safely pass through the dangers of the impending battle--the examination. On the morning of the decisive day, Berger said to me: 'Do you know, dear Stein, I have a great mind to reject you?'
"'Why?'
"'Because I fear to lose you--to lose you twice. Great God! what changes may not happen to a man whom we seat in the easy-chair of an office, and whom we crown with the night-cap of a dignity! You may actually see the day when you will consider Horace a great poet and Cicero a distinguished philosopher--why, you may in due time, and from sheer disgust of life, become a learned professor like myself.'
"The examination had been held, and I had received, as Berger called it, license to thresh empty straw. One day he came to me, an open letter in his hand, and asked:
"'Would you like to become a tutor in a nobleman's family?'
"'I hardly think I would.'
"'Perhaps so; but the offer is so tempting that it is at least worth your while to consider the matter. You would have to bind yourself for four years.'
"'And you call that a tempting offer? Four years? Not four weeks!'
"'Just listen. Of these four years, two only will be spent at the house; the other two you are to travel with your pupil. You want to see the world, and you ought to see it, even if it were only in order to learn that men have a right to like dogs everywhere. You have no means of your own, and you are too civilized to be a good vagabond. Well now, here you have the finest opportunity, such as may not present itself a second time in all your life.'
"'And who is the Alexander whose Aristotle I am to be?'
"'A young lord, like the hero of Macedonia. I have seen the noble race last year in Ostend. The father, a Baron Grenwitz, is a nullity; the baroness, an unknown quantity, which I could not ascertain. At all events, she is a clever woman. I know that that is no small attraction for you. She speaks three or four modern languages, to say nothing of her mother tongue. I even suspect her of having secretly read Latin and Greek with her present tutor, a certain Bauer, who has studied here, and was a thoroughly well-educated youth.'
"'And you, who have told me yourself that you have written a book about the nobles and against the nobles, which, unfortunately, cannot be printed anywhere in Germany, although specially intended for Germany--you advise me, who hold the same pariah notions about this Brahmin caste, to go over to the army of our hereditary enemies?'
"'That is exactly the fun,' laughed Berger. 'I want you to go there like a Mohican into the camp of the Iroquois, and I am delighted at the spoil you will bring back with you. We will hang them up in our wigwams, and enjoy them heartily.'
"'And if I lose my scalp among them--what then?'
"'Then I am the last of the Mohicans, and smoke my calumet in loneliness on the grave of my Uncas.'
"He rested his head on his hand, and stared grimly at the distance. 'Yes, yes, I know,' he growled, 'the Big Serpent, when it is tired hissing at men, will creep into a deep morass and perish there alone.'
"I took his hand in mine: 'That shall not be so; at least not as long as I live.'
"He looked at me sadly.
"'But you will die before me,' he said; 'the big Serpent is tough and you are soft--much too soft for this hard world. But let us leave that alone. What do you think of my offer?'
"'That I like it only so-so.'
"'Then I must play my last trump,' cried Berger, jumping up. 'Hear, then, you incredulous man, that the house to which I wish to send you owns an angel in the shape of a most lovely girl. She is the sister of your Alexander, and, God be thanked, as yet at a boarding-school in Hamburg. I hate her, for she has caused me infinite trouble. All the mad dreams of my youth revived when I saw her, and worried me like fair ghosts. At last I ran away as soon as I saw her coming on the smooth sand of the beach, with her light straw-hat. Yes, I must tell you; I wrote those sonnets which I read to you the other day, and which I told you I had composed thirty years ago at Heligoland, only last year at Ostend. You were good enough to call them glowing with love, and heaven knows what else--well, I was bewitched by the fair demon, and I wrote them with blood, the blood of my heart. But you will not tell that to anybody?'
"'Why not? Not a soul would believe me.'
"'There you are right And now?'
"'Now I am less inclined than ever. I do not wish to repeat the foolish story of the love affair between a tutor and the daughter of a noble house, which I have read over and over again in so many a novel. And if the girl is really so beautiful and lovely, that----'
"'That even the dry branches put out fresh leaves--what might then happen to the green wood?' interrupted me Berger, laughing aloud. 'Well, then, fall in love! why not? My dear fellow, the book of life, for people like ourselves, has the same title as one of Balzac's novels: Illusions Perdues. Every day only adds a new chapter, and the shorter the book, the better and the more interesting it is. But since it must needs be written, and cannot be written by any other means, it is, after all, immaterial whether we go east or west; we pass through the same experiences here and there. Therefore I say once more: Go to Grenwitz!'
"What could I do? It seemed to me my duty to fulfil the wish of my friend, to whom I owed so much. And then, was not Berger right in saying that it was immaterial whether I went east or west? In fine, I packed my trunks, bade my Mentor farewell, and went across to this island."
CHAPTER III.
Oswald had always lived in the city. His manners, his views, his attachments were all those of a city man. Thus it happened that when he saw himself suddenly, and as if by magic, transferred to the country, he was charmed and almost intoxicated with the unspeakable beauty of the first bright summer days at a beautiful country place. He enjoyed it more than most men. Everything was so new and yet so strangely familiar to him, as when we find ourselves in a country which we fancy we have seen before in a dream. Was the dark blue vault, which rose higher and higher every day, the same sky which hung so sadly and mournfully over the ocean of houses in the great city? Were these sparkling lights the same lonely stars to which he had now and then glanced up as he came from the opera or from a party? Could a summer morning really be so rich in splendor, a summer evening really so soft and almost lascivious? Had he never heard birds sing, that he must now listen forever to their simple piping? Had he never seen flowers, that he must stand and gaze at their bright colors and strange forms without ever being tired? He felt like a person who comes back to life again after a severe illness. The recent past lay behind him, covered with a thick veil; but days long since gone by, memories drowned in an ocean of oblivion, rose once more before his mind's eye like a dazzling, deceiving Fata Morgana. "Why, there is larkspur!" he cried out one of those days, full of happy surprise, as he saw the flower blooming brightly on many a bed of the garden in which he was walking up and down.
"To be sure," replied Bruno, who accompanied him; "have you never seen it before?"
"Yes, long since," murmured the young man, bending down and looking with deep emotion at the fanciful flower. He saw in his memory a little cozy garden near the town wall, where he played about, gathering small stones, flowers, and other rarities, and carried them to a beautiful but pale young woman, who always stroked his head when he came to throw his burden into her lap, and with a mother's patience never tired to answer his thousand questions. Then he had brought her such a flower, too, and the beautiful lady had said: "That is larkspur!" And then she had gazed so long at the flower that the tears had gathered in her eyes, and she had taken him passionately and pressed him to her bosom, and there he must have fallen asleep, tired from playing so long, for he remembered nothing more. The beautiful young lady he knew was his mother; she had died before he was five years old. Who has not experienced it himself, that amid the stir and turmoil of life, where one image continually crowds out another, and we are forever tyrannically held fast by the moment, everything gradually fades away, even what we held dearest upon earth, even the parents to whom we owe our life! Thus Oswald also had almost forgotten that he had ever had a mother; now the simple little flower awakened in him forcibly the memory of the long lost mother. The first weeks which he spent in the solitude of country life recalled to him the first years of his life, for he had never since communed so closely, so intimately, with nature, or beheld her charming face so near by. He remembered now also his father, who had died two years ago in the same isolation in which he had lived, and felt for him now that grateful affection, which, unfortunately, never blooms out fully till those are long gone whom its fragrance would have rejoiced most. He remembered his father, a strange pygmy in form, whom the son at eighteen years already overtopped by more than two feet; an eccentric misanthrope, who was known all over town as the "Old Candidate," and whose wornout black dress coat, in which he appeared winter and summer alike, was familiar to every child in the street. He remembered how the strange, enigmatical man jealously locked up the rich wealth of his learning and his goodness from all the world except from his only son, whom he loved with ineffable affection, whom he nursed and tended with all a mother's tenderness, and for whom even he, the miser, thought nothing too dear.
These pleasant, and yet also painful recollections passed through Oswald's mind as he roved about in his leisure hours, wandering alone, or with his pupils, through the garden, the fields, and the forest, and daily growing fonder of life in the country. Often he would run down into the great garden early in the morning before the lessons commenced, and look into the dew-filled flowers and listen to the song of the birds, and then it appeared to him marvellous how anybody, how he himself, had ever been able to live in a city.
It is true that Castle Grenwitz and its surroundings were such as to excite the admiration of eyes more familiar even than his with landscape beauties, although the crowds of tourists who every summer visited the island rarely penetrated so far. If some accidentally discovered it, they wondered why so charming a place, with so many points of interest about it, could have been forgotten in the hand-books for travellers, merely because it lay a few miles from the great high-road.
The château bears, to this day, traces of the wealth and the power of the old knightly race of the Barons of Grenwitz, who have been landowners here from time immemorial, and who built the castle for their own defence, and in defiance of the neighboring barons, towards the middle of the fourteenth century. The lower story of one of the wings, with its colossal blocks of stone, dates from that early period; so does also the big round tower, at the point where the old and the new castle now meet. The new part was built in the seventeenth century, in the prevailing style of that day, and looks, with its ornamented pillars and queer decorations by the side of the plain, massive tower, like a man of fashion of the time of Louis XIV. by the side of a knight in armor of the days of Crécy and Poitiers.
All around the château and the numerous outbuildings runs an immense wall, at least twenty feet high, which dates back into even greater antiquity than the tower; it leaves ample space open, so that even the enormous building looks but small in the wide circle. This wall has, however, long since been changed into a peaceful promenade, overshadowed on high by lofty beeches, walnut-trees, and lindens. The broad moat which follows it all around is now partly obliterated, forming a low swamp filled with reeds; and wherever the water has held its own, it is covered with a green carpet of water-plants, in which half-wild ducks love to feed and fatten. The wall and the moat had evidently been intended to afford safe protection not only to the inhabitants of the castle, but also to the faithful vassals of the warlike barons, with their wives and children, their herds and their provisions. Even the farm buildings, which, since the erection of the new château, had been removed to a distant part of the farm, had originally been enclosed within the wall. In those days there had been a single passage in the wall, a huge fortified gate under a tower, which opened upon a drawbridge, and then led to a strong tête de pont. Now the tower had been demolished; the drawbridge refused to move, and the fortification had long since been changed into a number of ovens and other useful contrivances. From this principal gate an avenue of magnificent lime-trees, some of which were several hundred years old, led to the great portal of the château. To the right of the avenue and in front of the castle was a vast lawn, with a stone basin in the centre; a naiad stood over it as patroness, but she had long since lost her head, perhaps from grief that for half a century the water had refused to come at her bidding.
The remaining space inside of the wall was filled with gardens and plantations, which dated from the time of the new building, and clearly enough betrayed the character of that period by the straight walks, carefully trimmed evergreen hedges, huge pyramids of box, and an abundance of gods carved in sandstone. Here and there, however, a spirit of innovation seemed to have been at work. Box-trees had made desperate efforts to stretch out their crippled branches, and to grow for a while as nature prompted them; the two sides of a long, stiff walk had made common cause, and formed, united, an impenetrable bosquet; and a gardener, who had no taste for the silent language of yew pyramids and box avenues, had defied all æsthetic rules, and boldly planted fruit-trees of every kind wherever he had found an open space; even vegetables were met with, encroaching impudently upon trim beds of flowers. A sister of the naiad in the courtyard was completely hid under brambles and briers; but, more easily resigned than the other goddess, she had preserved her head, and prattled in silent nights merrily of the good old times.
Thus every generation had for a thousand years contributed something to the strengthening or beautifying of the old castle, from the giant wall which belonged to pagan times, to the asparagus beds that had been laid out this spring. Much had disappeared without leaving a trace; much also had been preserved; but as even the oldest parts bore the marks of life, of continued usefulness, there was no sudden break visible, and the whole produced a most pleasing impression, as if everything was just as it ought to be. Castle Grenwitz had lost, it is true, its primitive character, and Oswald hardly thought he was looking upon an old feudal castle, built by robber-knights, but fancied rather he saw a peaceful convent of contemplative monks, when he returned in the evening from a walk with his pupils, and remained standing at a certain place of the wall, from whence he could look down upon the grass-covered yard in its dark shade, the garden with its countless flowers, and the castle itself, whose gray walls shone dimly in the twilight, while the swallows were flying swiftly to and fro, twittering merrily in their evening sport.
CHAPTER IV.
A quiet, convent-like life it was which they led at Castle Grenwitz. The region enclosed by the old wall lay virtually behind an ivy-covered churchyard wall, and no noise, no disturbance was ever heard there. No dogs barked there, no horses neighed; the hours glided quietly away, like the shadow on the sun-dial above the portal--quietly as the flowers in the garden bloomed and gave out their perfumes. The very wind seemed but to rustle gently in the branches; the birds sang low melodies in the tree-tops; and as for the inhabitants of the castle, why, the large hall-clock in its oaken stand could not do its daily work more punctually and systematically, or be freer from all desire of innovation than they were. The servants did their work with the regularity of automatons. Even the furniture seemed to be imbued with this spirit of order, so that Oswald could not get rid of the idea that the chairs and sofas moved by themselves back to their proper places, if by a rare chance they had been dislodged for a time. Little as Oswald had ever been accustomed to such a methodical life, and much as he disliked it by nature, he still had enough elasticity in him to adapt himself readily to the profound peace which reigned all around--an effort in which he was largely aided by his gentle disposition, full of good-will towards man. He did what he saw others do, and returned the formal bows with which people greeted each other on all occasions, with the same air of solemnity which he would have assumed when dancing a minuet at a masked ball.
At first he had not been over-punctual in the matter of the lessons, and taken more delight in enjoying himself with his pupils in the open air. They had explored the beech forest, which extended for half an hour from Castle Grenwitz down to the sea-shore; they had discovered an ancient tumulus and a cave, and often they had climbed down from the lofty chalk cliffs to the beach below, where, standing upon a huge block, they had enjoyed seeing the tide rush up, and shouted aloud to see if the breakers overpowered their voices.
During these excursions, which Oswald jestingly called preliminary studies for Homer, he had had constant opportunity to study the character of his two pupils. A greater contrast could hardly exist. Bruno was tall for his years, but slender and agile, swift like a deer. Malte, the young heir, looked stunted and sickly by the side of his proud companion. He was narrow-chested and hollow-breasted; his angular, awkward movements contrasted strangely with the marvellously graceful carriage of Bruno, and the effect was still greater when the latter was running or leaping. Malte shrank back from every danger, from every exertion, conscious of his feeble strength, and from native or acquired cowardice; for Bruno no tree was too high, no rock too steep, no ditch too broad; it seemed almost as if he were trying to subdue the passionate heat of his soul by bodily exhaustion. Oswald bound a wreath of oak-leaves together and placed it on the boy's bluish-black curls, to make him still more like one of the Bacchantes. But as in his native land, Sweden, the icy night of winter suddenly gives birth to fragrant, smiling spring, so in his mind also sunshine and tempest changed in a moment. Now it was exuberant joy and now sad melancholy which prevailed; now he abandoned himself like a child to others, and now he became rigid in sudden defiance; and all this suddenly and without transition, as lights and shadows change on the mountain slope on a day when the wind is driving the clouds like arrows across the face of the sun. Thus Oswald found the boy, a stranger in the house of his relations, hated by some, feared by others, an inexplicable riddle for all, even for the good old baron, who always took the part of the boy, though generally more from inborn magnanimity than from conviction. But for Oswald a single glance at the dreamy dark eye of the boy had sufficed to recognize in him a kindred spirit, and the mystic alliance which they had formed at that moment had been strengthened by every hour of their intercourse since. Bruno had met him on the first day of their meeting with the dark, defiant look which he was wont to show to everybody. He had then watched him with his shy but penetrating glances for two or three days more, and then Oswald's kindly, cheerful manner had dissipated all suspicion, as the sun scatters unwholesome fogs. His eye had become more open, more brilliant, as if the unexpected happiness of meeting a man who loved him, and cared to be loved by him, was dazzling and confusing him; and at last all the passionate tenderness of his soul had broken forth, the long pent-up current of affection had overflowed its banks--powerfully, irresistibly, like a mountain torrent which breaks through a rocky gate and pours its waters exultingly into the broad valley.
"Do you know," said the boy to Oswald, "that I was determined beforehand to hate you?"
"Why, Bruno, is hatred so sweet?"
"Oh, no. But I thought all tutors were like our first, and so I said to myself that what was good for one was good for all."
"And how was Mr. Bauer?"
"Well, he was a boor," said the boy, bitterly.
"Why, my proud little lord, will you despise all low-born men?"
"Certainly not," exclaimed the boy, warmly; "my own father was but a peasant, although he was a nobleman; I have often seen him behind the plough; but this man was coarse and rude, and a coward into the bargain. Once after dinner, I do not know what I had done, he slapped me in the face because aunty was present, and he thought she would be pleased to see him do so. Yes, he beat me," and the boy's eye flashed as he recalled the insult, and the big vein on his forehead, where wrath lies hidden, swelled up high.
"And then, Bruno?"
"Then I took the knife that was lying before me on the table and jumped at him, and the wretch ran away, crying for help. And when I saw that, and all the pale faces around me, I could not help laughing, and went quietly out of the room. And I would have liked to run away into the wide, wide world on the spot, but uncle came after me and promised me that that man should never touch me again. Uncle is very kind; you don't know how kind he is. But he is afraid of aunty; everybody is afraid of her--and yet I am fond of her, for she has pluck like a man, and I hate only cowards. Malte is a coward."
"Malte is weak and sickly, and you ought to be patient with him; but if you are really fond of your aunt, why are you so cross to her?"
"Am I cross?" The boy became silent. A cloud passed over his brow, his nostrils quivered, and his dark-blue eyes looked like a thunder-cloud when he said, glancing quickly upward:
"I know I am cross; but how can I help that? I am only on sufferance here in the house; shall I be grateful for that? I cannot be so; I will not be so, and if they were to turn me out. Look here, Oswald, I have often wished they would drive me away; I have done things on purpose to make them send me off; then I would go into the wide world and earn my own bread, as thousands of boys do who are not half as strong and as brave as I am. Even to-day, as we were walking along the strand, and the great three-decker rose on the horizon and disappeared again, I wished, oh! so eagerly, I could have sailed away in her as a boy, as a sailor--only away, away from here, no matter where to."
When the boy thus laid open the most secret wishes of his heart to his friend and teacher, the latter often wondered whether he, with his own doubts as to the way which he ought to follow in life, was exactly the right person to guide a wild, passionate boy. But the less he felt himself able to keep down the vague wishes and chimerical hopes which he shared with him in secret, the more the distance disappeared between him and his pupil, the more brotherly became their relations. No human being had ever yet made so deep an impression upon Oswald as this strange boy. He loved him as the artist loves the work with which he is occupied, as the father loves his son in whom he hopes to realize what he has himself failed to accomplish, as a mother loves her child for whom she has to work, to watch, and to care. Every night, when he was weary from long reading and studying, he went, before seeking his own bed, into the boys' room. He would not have been able to sleep if he had not first seen his favorite once more. That reserve which makes it impossible for nobler natures to show the whole fulness of their tenderness, made him during the day withhold his caresses; but then, at night, he took the boy's hands in his own and stroked them, and kissed the sleeper on his brow.
"They call you unfeeling, my pet, you whose heart is hungering and thirsting after love! And if all misjudge you and hate you, I understand you and love you."
CHAPTER V.
The farm-buildings and tenant-houses which belonged to the estate lay beyond the wall, and in order to make the communication between the castle and the farm-yard easier, a door had been broken through the wall. A wooden grating which could not be moved, and a bridge which could not be raised, bespoke the peaceful disposition of the descendants of those warlike barons who had built the massive gates on the other side, with its ponderous drawbridge suspended by iron chains. The intercourse between the castle and the farm was, however, generally limited to the exchange of energetic notes between the steward and the housekeeper, as the two officials were often at variance with each other as to the quantity and quality of provisions which the former had to send to the latter. The farm itself was, like all the other estates of the family, rented out; the tenant, a Mr. Bader, lived on one of the other farms, which he had also rented, and rarely came to Grenwitz, which he left to the management of his steward.
Oswald, to whom farming was as new as the life in the country itself, frequently went to the farm-yard, in order to be shown by the steward over the barns and stables, and to be introduced by him into the mysteries of agriculture and cattle-raising. The steward, whose name was Wrampe, was a giant who always went about in huge top-boots, and who seemed to cherish the superstitious belief that he would lose his strength if he were to trim his immense black beard, or ever deprive the rain of its exclusive privilege to wash his face. The broad jargon of that region was his native and his only tongue; he hated the pure German of the educated classes, and in his heart suspected all who spoke it of being dishonest; his voice sounded, when heard from afar, like the roaring of a slightly hoarse lion. His enemies accused him of the bad habit of getting drunk every now and then; but as he did so only once a month, and then always for several days at once, in order to show all the more energy during the rest of the time, his friends winked at it, and even his employer preferred to ignore his little foible. Oswald liked to talk with the man, who was a fair representative of the people of that region in his blunt good-nature, his straightforward though often rude speech, and his fondness for proverbs.
Thus he had one afternoon taken a walk towards the farm-yard with the two boys. They found it deserted. The men and the horses were all in the fields. In the stables nothing was left but the baron's four bays, who played a melancholy quartette on the iron chains of their halters. The silent coachman was sitting at the door, gazing at the blue sky, as he had nothing on earth to do when the horses had been fed. A big black cat was wandering slowly around his feet; it was his spiritus familiaris, which accompanied him everywhere, and even on the box sat between his feet under the apron. In the cow-stables they found but a single cow, who was trying to shape her new-born calf, by industrious licking, into that form which may appear most desirable to a respectable cow-mother of certain pretensions. On the dungheap the chickens were scratching industriously, utterly unmindful of a battle royal between two young roosters, who had fallen out with each other about a little beetle, that lay on its back quietly awaiting its fate. An old cock, who might possibly have been the father of the two hostile brethren, was perched on the pole of a wagon, and crowed again and again, either from joy at the chivalrous nature of his offspring, or in order to report a cloud which was coming up above the roof of the barn. At one end of the roof sat a stork on her nest. The husband was just coming home, bringing the trophy of his hunt, a small snake, in his bill. The wife rattled her bill to give voice to her delight, and the stork, proud of having done his duty, was not slow to answer. From the little pond near the big stable a lot of ducks had begun their single file march across the yard, under the command of a majestic drake; they had evidently received an authentic report that behind the barn a sack of corn had burst, and the grains were lying about.
Oswald had been looking with much pleasure at this still-life picture of a farm-yard during a warm summer afternoon, while Bruno had tried to engage the reticent coachman into a conversation on the only two topics on which he could hope for success--his horses and his cat. Malte was tired, as there were few things anywhere in which he could take much interest, and ducks and chickens surely were not among them, at least as long as they were wandering about in the light of the sun. He asked, therefore, that they should go on; and so they passed through the yard, and a little cluster of miserable huts, into the open field. At some distance before them, on the road lined with willow trees, a servant seemed to have upset his wagon. The horses were standing across the road, and he was pulling at them, and cursing fearfully, as people of his class are apt to do under such circumstances. At last he seemed to have lost the little patience which nature had given and which liquor had left him. He seized the bridle of one of the horses and kicked it unmercifully with his heavy feet, encased as they were in immense boots. Oswald hardly noticed all this, till Bruno flew at the man like an arrow, crying out: "What a barbarian! what a brute!"
In an instant he was by his side, and ordered the man to stop his ill-treatment; his voice trembled, but more from indignation than from the effort of running.
"I know what I am doing!" replied the servant, and kicked the horse, which had become entangled in the traces, harder than ever.
"Let the horse go this instant, or----"
"Oh!" replied the servant, "or what?"
"Or I stab you with this knife."
The man started back and gazed at Bruno with amazement. It was not the fear of the knife which the boy held in his uplifted right hand--for the servant was a large, powerful man, who might have felled the boy with a single blow, and was, moreover, half drunk--but it was the fear of the demon that showed himself in Bruno's flashing eye, the fear of the terrible passion which made the boy's blood flow back from his cheeks to his heart, and caused his nostrils to tremble and his lips to quiver.
"The beast is so savage," stammered the man, as if to excuse himself.
But Bruno did not deign to answer. With quick hands, and as cleverly as if he had managed horses all his life, he undid the traces in which the animal had become entangled. Oswald tried to help him, but his efforts were more distinguished by good-will than by great success. Then the boy ran to the ditch, filled his straw-hat with water, and washed the wounds on the ill-treated legs of the horse.
At that moment a horseman leaped across the same ditch and alighted on the road. It was the steward, Wrampe, who had witnessed the scene from a distance and came galloping up at full speed.
"Now I come," said the slater, as he fell from the roof; "what on earth does that mean? Why do you drive through the ditch, if you have a bridge within ten yards? and to ill-treat brown Lizzie! I will pay you for your laziness, you--" and here followed a curse of two minutes' length.
To deliver this energetic speech, to jump down from his horse, to spit in his hands in order the better to take hold of the heavy riding-whip, and to begin belaboring the broad back of the servant according to rule--all this was the work of a moment for the impetuous steward.
"I will not be beaten, sir," remonstrated the man.
"You won't be beaten, you rascal," replied the other, never stopping for a moment; "I dare say not, but you'll get your beating notwithstanding."
Oswald, who suffered witnessing the scene, although he knew well how fully the man had deserved his punishment, begged Mr. Wrampe to let him go now. The latter gratified his wrath by a few last blows of great energy, and then said, as if concluding a quiet argument:
"Well, now come along, John, we'll get the wagon right again."
Then he put his broad shoulders to the wagon and got it into the road as if it had been a child's carriage; the horses, who had had time to recover, pulled heartily, and the servant could go on his way.
"Drive slowly home, you hear, and don't forget what I have told you," the steward cried after him.
"But you have told him nothing; you have only beaten him," said Oswald, smiling.
"And do you think these people understand any other kind of talking?"
"Have you ever tried it?"
Mr. Wrampe seemed to be slightly embarrassed by this question. He said, in reply: "That has made me warm."
Then he pulled a brandy-flask, which held at least a quart, from his pocket, put his thumb against the place down to which he meant to empty it, drank, held the bottle against the light, and then, as he seemed to think that he had not done the whole of his duty, he took another good pull. After that he mounted his horse, which had stood quietly by him as if accustomed to such scenes, wished them a good evening, leaped once more across the ditch, and rode off at full gallop.
With Bruno everything turned into a passion. The glow of his imagination changed the fictions of poetry into men of flesh and blood. The death of Hector drew tears of sympathy and indignation from his eyes, and the moral disgust which he felt, when he witnessed an act of injustice or of cruelty, was so intense that it caused him a physical indisposition.
Thus, when Oswald the same night approached the bed of his favorite he found him, contrary to his usual habit, still wide awake. His face was paler than ordinarily, and large drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. Oswald was concerned, and learnt, after some hesitation on the boy's part, that the latter had concealed his sickness in order not to trouble his friend, and was now suffering great pain. Oswald was about to wake up everybody in the house and to send for a doctor, but Bruno begged him not to do so, because such a thing was always looked upon at the château as a very grave affair of state, and he disliked excessively to give so much trouble to others; besides, he confessed that the hubbub they made about the matter was apt to make his sickness only worse.
"Moreover," he said, "I am quite used to these attacks, and if you will be good enough to make me some tea, and to give me a few drops of the medicine which the doctor prescribed for me the other day,--the phial is on my desk,--you will see that I shall be right again directly."
Oswald hastened to bring him what he wanted. He gave the boy the medicine, made him drink his tea, arranged the pillows, brought another blanket, and did it all with that thoughtfulness and handiness, in which men of delicate feelings, even when they are not accustomed to sick-rooms, often far surpass professional nurses.
"It is almost a pleasure to be sick when one has you for a nurse," said Bruno, gratefully pressing his friend's hand.
"Hush! hush!" replied the latter; "now do me the favor and get rid of your pain."
"I will do my best," said the boy, smiling.
Oswald's good wishes were soon fulfilled. The cold drops on the patient's brow became warm, and kindly nature lulled him to sleep, in order to restore in silence and secret the disturbed equilibrium of his system. At first, the delicate narrow hand which Oswald held in his own would now and then twitch a little; then all became quiet, and the improvised physician congratulated himself on the good success of his treatment. But he probably had some fears of a relapse; for he quietly slipped his hand from that of the boy, went for an easy-chair to his own room, and then sat down at the head of the bed. He had screwed down the lamp, so that the unusual light should not disturb the sleeper, and thus he sat in the dark, watching the moonlight as it was slowly sinking on the wall through an opening in the curtain, and listened to the regular breathing of the boy until weariness overcame him also and he fell asleep.
CHAPTER VI.
It was in the evening hours of one of the next following days when two ladies were seated in the garden saloon of the château; one was the Baroness Grenwitz, and the other a young lady who had ridden over from her seat in the neighborhood to pay a visit. The glass door which led from the room into the garden was wide open, and showed immediately before them a large lawn enclosed by tall trees, in the centre of which a Flora, carved in sandstone, had now for a century and a half poured stone flowers from her cornucopia. Within the room, which lay towards the north, it was almost dark already; but outside, the evening light was still lying warm on the green turf and the magnificent beech-trees and oaks; and the outlines of the two ladies, as they sat near a table pushed into the door, were sharply defined against the bright background.
A greater contrast than that which they formed could hardly be imagined. The Baroness Grenwitz was scarcely forty years old, but her large, cold gray eyes, which she always fixed long and piercingly upon those with whom she conversed, her lofty stature, far exceeding the ordinary height of women, and especially her peculiar way of dressing, made her sometimes look almost ten years older than she really was. Whether from love of extreme simplicity, or, as others would have it, from a love of economy which degenerated into avarice, she preferred materials more famous, like the wedding-dress of the worthy wife of the Vicar of Wakefield, for their durability than for other showy qualities, and she chose a way of having her dresses made which could not be called old-fashioned, because there never had been such a fashion in existence. The first impression which she generally made was that of imposing dignity; the careful observer noticed, moreover, in her always perfect carriage, and especially in the unfailing quietness of her deep, sonorous voice, and her carefully chosen language, which was scrupulously free from any vulgar expression, a consciousness of the impression she produced, and a desire not to break the charm by any fault of hers.
We cannot say with certainty whether the lady who was with the baroness really was overawed by her stately appearance, or merely appeared to be so; this much only was evident, that she endeavored at that moment to assume an air which harmonized neither with the expression of her features nor with the costume which she wore. She was dressed in a riding-habit of dark green velvet, which she had tucked up sufficiently not to be troublesome in walking, and not to hide her small feet in their elegant little boots. The tight-fitting dress set off to great advantage the well-rounded outlines of her youthful form; and the little round hat, now lying with the gloves and the whip on a small table near by, must have been exceedingly becoming to the well-shaped head with the rich brown hair, which, simply parted in the middle, was falling in rich waves over forehead and ears, and was then gathered up behind in a wreath. She is seated opposite the baroness, who is a pattern of industry, and sews zealously on a piece of linen, which may possibly become a napkin, while the visitor is busy embroidering a cipher in another napkin. This is strange kind of work to be done in a riding-habit, and the lady does not seem to be particularly fond of it; at least she quickly throws up her head, when the baroness rises in order to look for something in another part of the room, and shows a pretty face, with soft, child-like features, and large brown eyes, full of moist tenderness. Just now, however, the face bears rather the expression of a wilful school-girl, when her rigid teacher's back is turned for a moment.
"What were you saying, my dear Anna Maria?" asked the lady, bending once more over her work as the baroness turned round.
"I was asking, dear Melitta, whether you had enough red yarn?"
Melitta looked as if she were going to say, "More than I want!" but she contented herself with the reply: "I think I have enough."
The baroness had taken her seat again and continued the conversation, which had been interrupted for a moment.
"Then there if little hope of complete recovery?" she said.
"Little or none," replied Melitta, "especially now, since his violent attacks have ceased. Doctor Birkenhain writes that only a miracle can save Carlo from insanity, and I presume that means simply, he is irrevocably lost."
"It is a sad fate which the Almighty has decreed for you, my poor Melitta," said the baroness.
Melitta shrugged her shoulders, but said nothing.
"It was in this very room," continued the baroness, taking it apparently for granted that the subject could not be in any way painful to Melitta, "that I saw Berkow the last time. I must confess that I could not overcome a slight suspicion already, on the evening on which he had that disagreeable quarrel with your cousin Barnewitz, when Baron Oldenburg tried in vain to make an end to the trying scene."
Melitta von Berkow did not seem to be specially delighted with this evidence of the admirable memory of the baroness; she became restless, and asked, apparently without knowing what she was saying:
"Have you heard from Oldenburg?"
"The baron came back a week ago."
"Oh!" cried Melitta, in a tone which made the baroness look up from her work.
"What is the matter, Melitta?"
"I am so awkward," said the latter, and pressed a tiny drop of blood from a finger of her left hand. "So Oldenburg is back again? What brings him back to us? Has he found Egypt as tiresome as our own country here?"
"The contracts with his tenants expire next November, like some of our own. I presume that was the cause of his return. He seems to have become a greater misanthrope than ever. Griebenow, one of our men, met him in the forest; he has not been here yet."
"Well, my dear Anna Maria, you will not mind, I am sure, that want of attention on his part; you never were very good friends, I believe."
"I am not aware that Oldenburg ever desired to be a friend of mine. He never had any friends. A man who openly scoffs at all religion, who forgets the honor of his caste and the interests of his equals so far as to speak in the National Assembly and at every meeting in favor of all innovators; a man who apparently only comes among us in order to laugh at us--such a man has only to blame himself if we bestow our interest and our sympathy upon others who deserve it better."
"Well, I should not have thought that he was ever made to feel the want of interest in himself. Nor will he be left without it now. I never could understand why all the world took so much trouble about a man who minds the world as little as he does."
"That is easy of explanation, dear Melitta. The Oldenburgs are one of our oldest families; we cannot look on with indifference when the last scion of such a race becomes a plebeian."
"Oldenburg will never be a plebeian," said the younger lady, with some warmth.
"Why, dear Melitta, you take the baron's part very warmly. Would you also defend his immoral way of living, and his love affairs with which he has enriched the chronique scandaleuse of this and other districts?"
"I have never done anything immoral, as far as I know, nor approved of it," said the visitor, with greater heat than before. "And as for Baron Oldenburg's private life, I do not presume to judge it, because I know nothing of it. However," she continued, after a short pause and in a much quieter tone, "I should really be astonished if Oldenburg were such a Don Juan as people make him out to be. You must admit, my dear Anna Maria, that he has neither the beauty nor the address which are commonly expected in such a character?"
"Now that is a point on which I do not presume to judge," said the baroness, with an effort to be ironical. "I leave that to you young people."
"Young people!" exclaimed Melitta, laughing. She let her work fall into her lap, and leaned back comfortably in her chair, looking at the baroness, who worked on industriously, and showing much humor blended with a goodly share of malice. "Young people? Do you know, dearest Anna Maria, that I shall be thirty this very year? My Julius will be twelve next month--only four years younger than your Helen. By the way, how is the child? Is she to remain forever in the boarding-school in Hamburg? How long has she been there now? Two--no, it is already three years! and not once has she been back here all that time! You will not know your own child any longer, dear baroness."
"The boarding-school is so very superior, everybody praises it so highly, that I should blame myself if I did not leave the child there as long as I can. But you seem to have forgotten, dearest Melitta, that we saw Helen last year at Ostend; and since you seem to have such a longing for the young lady, I will tell you in secret that you will be able to see her here at Grenwitz this summer."
"This very summer? Why see there! Has that any connection with Oldenburg's return? Pardon my indiscretion! But I recollect that some years ago, when the baron came back from his first great journey, you said a match with Oldenburg would perhaps not be objectionable to you."
"Then I did not know the baron as I have unfortunately learnt to know him since. Nor would that fall in with my husband's wishes, who, I believe, has promised Helen half and half to somebody else."
"To somebody else? Not to your worthy cousin Felix?"
"As I said before, I know nothing positive about it; Grenwitz is very reserved; but I almost guess so, from the fact that he has procured for Felix a year's leave of absence, and he is going to spend that year here. They say his health is very much impaired."
"I hope not as much so as his fortune," said Melitta, dryly.
"His fortune? What do you know of his circumstances?"
"I only repeat what the world says. You must agree, my dear, that if the chronique scandaleuse has something to say about Oldenburg, it is far more eloquent about Felix, and the lieutenant surely has furnished topics enough."
"Felix is very young."
"Not younger than Oldenburg."
"Five years."
"One would not think so upon looking at him. But then he has lived rather fast."
"One could really imagine, my dear Melitta, that Felix was nearer to you than he really is. Candidly, I should like to know what you think of this match, if Grenwitz should not abandon the project."
"Well, then--I should consider it a misfortune, a very great misfortune, and in proportion as Helen is beautiful and innocent; what in all the world can suggest to the baron such a match? For I shall never believe that a mother could consent to such a union, which cannot fail to make her daughter inexpressibly unhappy."
Melitta had risen and cut the air with her riding-whip, as if she wished to say: That is what he deserves, who offers to aid in such a piece of rascality. Her tall, slender form looked a different being from her who had been timidly bending over her work or negligently reclining in her easy-chair. Even the features of her face seemed to change, and to become sharper, older; the fire in her large eyes blazed forth ominously. The mention of this match had evidently struck a chord in her soul which vibrated painfully through her whole system. She continued in the same excited tone:
"Felix is notoriously a fast young man. How can such a man feel love? And even if Helen's beauty, her youth, and her innocence should for a time get the better of his exhaustion, that would not last long. A man like him, thoroughly blasé, never becomes again a real man, and can Helen ever love such a person? And is life worth anything without love? And can you prevent all the misery that must needs spring from such a match? I know----"
The young wife suddenly stopped and walked rapidly up and down the room. Then, after a short pause, she said:
"And what external advantages can such a match have? Felix has satisfied his excessive vanity at the expense of his fortune as well as of his health. His estates are mortgaged beyond their real value; and he has, as far as I know, no expectations."
"Except that in case Malte should die, which God prevent! he would inherit the Grenwitz fortune," said the baroness.
"Ah! indeed," replied Melitta, with a strange emphasis. This last remark of the baroness had presented the whole matter in a new light to the generous woman; it was a ray like the light from the dark lantern of the thief, which falls upon the strong-box he is about to steal. But she took good care not to let the baroness see what was going on in her heart, and continued in an unconcerned tone, throwing herself once more into the easy-chair:
"I hope Malte will not be so kind to the creditors of Felix as to die before his time. I see he is getting stronger visibly, and if you would only give the boy a little more liberty----"
"Liberty!" exclaimed the baroness. "Must I hear that word again? I give him as much liberty as a sensible mother ought to give her child. My opinion is that a man who, like Malte, will have a large fortune at his command, cannot learn too soon to obey, to economize, and to deny himself all that is superfluous and unnecessary. We have in our nephew Felix an example of the sad effects of too great indulgence."
"That is very true," said Melitta; "but----"
"We had, if I am not mistaken, agreed to avoid all discussion on the subject of education," said the baroness, with a smile of superiority. "I know what I am doing, and I hope, with the help of God, to carry it out successfully."
"By the way, did I tell you that I mean to send my Julius, a few days hence, to the college at Grunwald?"
"What a venture again!" replied the baroness. "That is the kind of public education, as they call it, which Baron Oldenburg enjoyed when he was young, and you see what the results are. To be sure, private tutors have their dark sides also."
"You have a new one, I believe?" said Melitta, who had risen and was leaning against the door-frame. "How is he?"
The baroness shrugged her shoulders.
"But what a question, to be sure," said Melitta, laughing. "He is probably like all the rest: terribly learned, awkward, pedantic, a bore. Bemperlein, Bauer--they are all after the same pattern. I should know a tutor at a hundred yards. Ah! who is that young man, crossing the lawn there with Bruno?"
The question remained unanswered, for at that moment Mademoiselle Marguerite entered the room, and the baroness rose to give her some orders. Melitta turned round, but the baroness had left the room with the words, "Pray excuse me!" Melitta was alone, and had to find the answer to her question for herself. She drew a little back behind the door and examined the form of the unknown young man.
CHAPTER VII.
Oswald and Bruno had stepped forth from the trees which surrounded the lawn, just opposite to the château. His right arm was resting on the boy's shoulder, who again had put his arm round Oswald's waist, and looked smilingly up into the face of the young man. They were eagerly talking to each other, and stopped when they had advanced a few steps on the lawn. Oswald pointed in the direction from which they had come, and Bruno ran back into the wood. The young man stood waiting for his return, and whisked off, to pass his time, the heads of some grasses which had shot up too high. He had no suspicion that, at a little distance from him, a pair of beautiful sharp eyes were carefully examining every feature in his face and watching every motion.
"If that is the new tutor, he is one more proof of the old saying, that there is no rule without exception. He certainly does not look as if he belonged to the family of the Bemperleins. That elegant summer costume you must have bought in the city. Very neat, indeed, for a tutor. You seem to be rather vain, my dear sir, and to hold long interviews with your tailor. But you are well made, I must confess, and the little moustache is extremely becoming to you. I wish you would please raise your head a little more, so that I could see your eyes. That is right--ah! sauve qui peut!"
Oswald had raised his head and looked at the windows; Melitta stepped quickly back and hid behind the door. She cast a glance at the mirror that was hanging close by, and smoothed her hair in an instant. Then she approached the door once more stealthily.
Bruno came rushing forth from the shrubbery and showed Oswald a small volume. "Here it is," he cried, "but you shall not have it." Oswald tried to catch the provoking boy; but the latter only allowed him to approach quite close in order to escape again by a sudden turn, or by a leap such as Uncas himself would have boasted of frankly.
Melitta, attracted by the pretty scene, had stepped out of the room. As soon as Bruno perceived her he ran up to her, and Oswald, who had stopped in surprise at the unexpected sight, saw how the boy seized her hands and pressed them eagerly to his lips.
"There you are, little savage," said the lady, stroking the dark curls of the boy; "where have you been all the afternoon?"
"I have been out walking--with Oswald--I mean with Dr. Stein," said Bruno, and then turning to Oswald, who had come up in the mean while and bowed, "this is Frau von Berkow, of whom I spoke this morning; this is Mr. Stein, dear aunt, whom I love dearly, and whom you must like for my sake."
"We must not praise our own wares too much," said Oswald, bowing once more to the fair visitor, "or the purchaser will become suspicious."
"Not when the merchant enjoys such confidence as this wild little fellow," replied Melitta, blushing lightly. "How long have you been here at Grenwitz, doctor?"
"About a fortnight."
"I think the baroness told me you came from the capital?" asked Melitta, who was curious to know if her suspicions about Stein's costume were well founded.