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Portrait of Paul Heyse.

THE CHILDREN OF

THE WORLD

BY

PAUL HEYSE

"The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the
children of light."

NEW YORK

WORTHINGTON CO., 747 BROADWAY

1890

Copyright, 1889, By

WORTHINGTON CO.

Barr-Dinwiddie
Printing and Book-Binding Co.,
Jersey City, N. J.

THE CHILDREN OF THE WORLD.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

A few years ago, in the Dorotheen-strasse, in the midst of the Latin Quarter of Berlin, whose quiet, student-like appearance threatens to become effaced by the growing elegance of the capital, a small, narrow, unpretending two-story house, stood humbly, as if intimidated, between its broad-shouldered neighbors, though every year it received a washing of a delicate pink hue, and recently had even had a new lightning-rod affixed to its ancient gable roof. The owner, an honest master shoemaker, had in the course of time accumulated money enough to have comfortably established himself in a new and far more elegant dwelling, but he had experienced beneath this sharply sloping roof, all the blessings of his life and though a man by no means given to sentimental weaknesses, he would have thought it base ingratitude to turn his back, without good reason, upon the old witnesses and protectors of his happiness. He had, at one time or another, laid his head in almost every corner, from the little attic chamber, where, as a poor dunce of an apprentice, he had, many a night, been unable to close his eyes on account of the pattering raindrops, to the best room on the first story, where stood his nuptial couch, when, after a long and faithful apprenticeship, he brought home, as head journeyman, the daughter of his dead master. But he was far too economical to permit himself to occupy these aristocratic quarters longer than six months, preferring to live in the second story, unassuming as it was--the little house having a front of but three windows--and there, two children had grown up about him. These first-floor apartments were rented to a childless old couple, to whom the owner would not have given notice to quit on any account; for in the white-haired old man he honored a once famous tenor, whom in his youth, he had heard and admired; while the little withered old woman, his wife, had, in her time, been a no less celebrated actress. They had already been pensioned twelve years, and, without song or noise of any kind, spent their quiet days in their tiny rooms, adorned with faded laurel-wreaths and pictures of their famous colleagues. These celebrities, according to the ideas of the proprietor, gave to his little house a certain artistic reputation, and if there were customers in the shop at noon when the old couple returned from their walk, he never failed to direct attention to them and with boastful assurance to revive the fame of the two forgotten and very shrivelled great personages.

On the ground floor was the shop, over which a black sign bore the inscription in gilt letters: "Boot & Shoe Making Done by Gottfried Feyertag." The shoemaker had ordered the large brown boot and red slipper, which had originally been painted on the right and left side, to be effaced, because it annoyed him to see them, when they no longer represented the fashion. He kept up with the times in his trade, and could not possibly alter his sign at every change of style. The shop, he generally left to the management of his wife he himself spending most of the day in the workroom, where he kept a sharp eye on his four or five journeymen. A narrow entry led past the shop into a small, well-kept courtyard, in whose centre stood a tall acacia-tree, three quarters of which had died for want of air and sunlight, so that only its topmost branches were still adorned with a few pale green, consumptive-looking leaves, which every autumn turned yellow some weeks before any other foliage. Here, in one corner, beside the pump, an arbor had been erected by the head journeyman, for the daughter of the house, when a school-girl; it consisted of a few small poles roughly nailed together, and now overgrown with bean-vines, which bloomed most dutifully every summer, but in the best years never produced more than a handful of stunted pods. A little bed along the so-called sunny side of the house contained all sorts of plants that seek the shade, and thrive luxuriantly around cisterns and cellars; and in midsummer, when the sun actually sent a few rays into the courtyard at noonday, the little spot really looked quite gay, especially if the fair-haired Reginchen, now a young girl of seventeen, were seated there reading--if it chanced to be a Sunday--some tale of robbers from a book obtained at a circulating library.

A grey, neglected back building, only united to the front house by the bare adjoining walls, had also two stories, with three windows looking out upon this courtyard; and a steep, ruinous staircase, which creaked and groaned at every step, led past the ground floor, where the workshop and journeymen's sleeping-rooms were situated, to the rooms above. On the night when our story begins, this place was suffocatingly hot. It was one of those evenings late in summer, when not a breath of air was stirring no dew was falling, and when only the dust, which had risen during the day, floated down in light invisible clouds, oppressing with mountainous weight every breathing creature. A slender young man, in a straw hat and grey summer clothes, softly opened the door of the house, walked along the narrow entry on tip-toe, and then crossed the stones with which the courtyard was paved. He could not help seizing the pump-handle and cooling his burning face and hands with the water, which to be sure was none of the freshest. But the noise did not disturb any one; at least nothing stirred below or above. He stood still a few moments and allowed the air to dry the moisture, gazing meantime at the windows of the upper story, which reflected the bright moonlight. Only one was open, and a large white cat lay on the sill, apparently asleep. The windows in the first story were all open, and a faint light stole out and illumined part of the trunk of the acacia with a pale red glow.

There was nothing remarkable in all this. Moreover, the thoughts of the lonely watcher beside the pump seemed to be far away from the narrow, oppressive courtyard, in some fairy garden, for, with a happy smile he sat down on a little stool in the bean arbor, and pulled to pieces a withered leaf, upon which he had first pressed his lips. From the open windows of the workshop in front of him he heard the loud snoring of one of the journeymen, who had found the room in the rear too close, and another seemed to be talking in his sleep. A smell of fresh leather, cobbler's thread, and varnish, penetrated to his retreat, and these odors, in connection with those coarse natural sounds, would have disgusted any one else with this Midsummer Night's Dream. But the youth in the straw hat could not seem to make up his mind to exchange the hard seat under the scanty foliage for his usual bed. He had removed his hat and leaned back against the wall, whose damp surface was pleasant to his burning head. He gazed through the roof of poles at the small patch of sky visible between the walls, and began to count the stars. The topmost branches of the acacia gleamed in the moonlight, as if coated with silver, and the opposite wall, as far as it was touched by the pale light, glittered as if covered with thin ice or hoarfrost. "Ah!" said the lonely man in the arbor, "life is still worth the trouble! True, its brightest gift, fair as yonder stars, is as unattainable as they--but what does that matter? Does not what we are permitted to admire, what we can not forget, belong to us as much, nay more, than if we had it in a chest and had lost the key?" The striking of a clock in a neighboring steeple roused him from this half-conscious, dreamy soliloquy. "One!" he said to himself. "It is time to think of going to sleep. If Balder should have kept awake to watch for me, though I expressly forbade it--"

He rose hastily and entered the house. When he had groped his way cautiously up the rickety stairs and reached the landing on the first story, he perceived to his astonishment that the door which led into the rooms stood half open. A small dark ante-chamber led into a larger apartment, lighted by a sleepy little lamp. On the sofa behind the table lay a female figure, still completely dressed, absorbed in a book. The light fell upon a sharply cut, sullen face, past its first youth, with very dark hair and heavy brows, to which an expression of power and defiance lent a certain charm. The reader's thick locks had become unbound, and she wore a plain summer dress of calico, which left her shoulders and arms bare. Not the slightest change of countenance betrayed that she had heard the sound of the loiterer's footsteps, and when he paused a moment in the entry and looked through the door, she did not even raise her eyes from her book, or push back the hair which had fallen over her forehead.

"Are you still up, Fräulein Christiane?" he said at last, advancing to the threshold of the ante-room.

"As you see, Herr Doctor," she replied in a deep voice, without being in the least disturbed. "The heat--and perhaps also this book--will not permit me to sleep. I was so absorbed that I did not even hear you come in. Besides, it is quite time to go to sleep. Good night."

"May I be permitted to ask, Fräulein, what book it is that will not let you sleep?" he said, still in the dark entry.

"Why not?" was the reply, after some little hesitation. "Besides, you have a special right to do so, for it is your book. The proprietor of the house, Meister Feyertag, borrowed it of you several weeks ago, and yesterday told me so much about it, that I begged it of him for a day. Now I can not leave it."

He laughed, and stepped within the room. "So the wicked rat-catcher, to whose pipe all the men and women now dance, even though they often declare his tunes horrible, has seized upon you also. You have certainly just read the chapter on women, whose most striking portions our worthy host daily quotes to his wife; and though it makes you angry, you can not drive it out of your mind. The old sinner knows how to begin: he hasn't read Göthe for nothing.

"'Doch wem gar nichts dran gelegen
Scheinet ob er reizt und rührt,
Der beleidigt, der verführt!"

"You are mistaken," she replied, now sitting erect, so that her face was shaded by the green screen on the lamp. "True, I have read the chapter, but it made no special impression upon me, either favorable or otherwise It is a caricature, very like, and yet utterly false. He seems to have known only the portion of our sex called 'females': 'tell me with whom you associate,' etc. Well, we are used to that. But where I have become inspired with a great respect for him, is from the chapter entitled 'The Sorrows of the World.' I could, at almost every sentence, make a note or quote an example from what I have myself experienced or witnessed in others. And I also know why, notwithstanding this, we like to read it; because he relates it without a murmur, so calmly and in such a matter-of-course manner, that we see it would be foolish to complain of it, or to hope for anything better for our poor miserable selves, than is bestowed upon a whole world. You must lend me his other books."

"My dear Fräulein," he replied, "we will discuss the question further some other time. You must not suppose that I am one of the professors of philosophy who wish to silence this singular man. It is a pity that he is not still alive to be asked the various and numerous questions, from which he carefully retired to his sybarite seclusion in the Swan, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. But be that as it may, it is too warm to-night to philosophize. Throw Schopenhauer aside, Fräulein, and play something for me,--the Moonlight Sonata, or any sweet, pensive harmony. I should like to cleanse my ears from the ballet-music to which I have been compelled to listen."

"You! listen to ballet-music?"

"Yes; it sounds ridiculous, but nevertheless it is true. How did it come about? You know, at least by sight, our tyrant, the so-called medical counsellor, my university friend and physician in ordinary. He comes up to our hen-roost every day. Well, I have overworked myself a little this summer, finishing a prize essay,--a haste that was most unnecessary, since with my heresies I am safe from academical honors. However, I gained the second premium,--a heavy head, with such rebellious nerves that my state almost borders on a disordered brain, or one of the mild forms of lunacy. A journey, or a few weeks on the Rhigi, would be the best cure. But our physician in ordinary, for excellent reasons, prescribed no such luxurious remedy. It would be much cheaper, he thought, to let the manufactory of thought rest for a while. He proposed to me to play cards, make a collection of beetles, train a poodle, or fall in love. Unfortunately I had neither inclination nor talent for any of these very simple and undoubtedly efficacious remedies. So, early this morning, he brought me a ticket to the opera-house: he always has acquaintances before and behind the scenes. A new ballet was to be performed, to hear and see which would repay even an old habitué, let alone a whimsical fellow like myself, who had not entered a theatre for ten years. Well, I could not escape the experiment. He who has a doctor for a friend must occasionally submit to try new remedies, and a ballet is better than a silver tube in one's stomach."

He smiled,--a half-satisfied, half-mysterious smile.

"Play me the Moonlight Sonata," he asked again. "Life is beautiful, Fräulein Christiane, in spite of all the sorrows of the world. What lovely roses you have in that vase! Permit me--"

He took a small bouquet, which was standing on the table, and pressed it against his face. The full-blown flowers suddenly fell apart, and the leaves covered the book.

"Oh! dear," said he, coloring with embarrassment, "I have done a fine thing now. Will you forgive me, dear Fräulein?"

"Certainly, Herr Doctor, if you will be reasonable now, and go up stairs to sleep off your intoxication. For you are in a condition--You must know how it happened."

"I? I did not know--"

"Any better than to ask me to play for you at half-past two o'clock in the morning! We shall wake the people in the house, and others can see us,--me from the opposite windows. And besides--"

She had risen, and now repressed the rest of the words that were on her lips. After pacing several times up and down the heated room, which contained little furniture except her bed, her piano, and a bookcase, she pushed back her hair from her brow and shoulders, and folding her bare arms across her chest, stood quietly at the window. A sigh heaved the breast which had learned to keep a strict guard over its thoughts and feelings. In this attitude she waited, with apparent calmness, for him to take his leave.

"I must really seem a very singular person," he said, in a frank, honest tone. "We have lived in the same house for months, and the only use I have made of this vicinity, was by my first and only visit, when I begged you not to play during certain hours, which I had selected for study. Now I enter your room in the middle of the night, and take the liberties of an old acquaintance. Forgive me, on account of my disordered brain, dear Fräulein, and--may you have a good night's rest."

He bent his head slightly, and left the room.

As soon as she heard him go up stairs, she hurried into the little ante-chamber, closed the outer door, bolted it, and then stood still a short time, listening, with her trembling body pressed close against the door, and her hands clenched on the latch. He walked slowly up a few steps, and then paused again, as if he had suddenly become absorbed in some dreamy thought. She shuddered, sighed heavily, and tottered back into the sitting-room. Her dress seemed too tight for her, for she slipped out of it like a butterfly from its chrysalis, and then in the airiest night costume, sat down at the open piano. It was an old, much-worn instrument, of very poor tone, and as she ran her slender fingers lightly over the keys, it sounded in the entry outside like the distant music of a harp.

The young man had just reached the topmost stair when he heard it.

"There! she is playing the sonata, after all," he said to himself. "A strange, obstinate person. What can she have suffered from fate? To-morrow I will take more notice of her. It's a pity she is so ugly, and yet--what does it matter? There is a charm in her finger-tips. What wonderful music!"

He stood still a moment listening to the familiar tones, which seemed to express all the familiar thoughts that had been wandering in a confused chaos through his mind. Suddenly he heard a voice from within.

"Is that you, Edwin?"

"Of course it is I," he replied.

The next instant he had opened the door and entered the room which was brightly lighted by the moonbeams.

CHAPTER II.

This room, termed by its occupants' friends "the tun," was a large three-windowed apartment, with walls painted light grey, a floor scoured snow white, and over the windows instead of curtains, three narrow green calico lambrequins of the simplest pattern. A desk stood at the right-hand window, a small turning-lathe at the left, and in the spaces between the casements two tall bookcases; there were two beds placed against the wall, several cane chairs and small chests made of white wood, and finally, a low, smoky ceiling, which here and there showed large cracks, and threatened to fall. But the room, spite of its simplicity, had an aristocratic air from the presence of two copperplate engravings of Raphael's paintings, framed in plain brown wood, that hung over the beds, and two antique busts on the bookcases,--one a head of Aristotle, the other the gloomy-eyed, stern-browed Demosthenes. Even the low stove was adorned with a piece of sculpture at which no one is ever weary of gazing--the mask of Michael Angelo's young prisoner, who, with closed lids, lets his beautiful head sink on his shoulder as if weary of torture and longing for sleep. Here, however, the moonlight did not reach: it merely fell obliquely across the bed placed against the wall.

On this bed, with his eyes fixed upon the door, lay a young man, whose pale features, almost feminine in their delicacy, were framed in a wreath of thick, fair locks. It was difficult to guess his age from his countenance, since the boyish expression of mirth that dwelt about his mouth contrasted strangely with the mature beauties of the finely cut features. He was wrapped in a light quilt, and a book lay open on the chair beside him. When Edwin entered, he slowly rose and held out a white delicately formed hand.

"Well," said he, "was it very fine? Has it done you good?"

"Good evening, Balder," replied Edwin, "or rather, good morning! You see I do everything thoroughly, even rioting at night. But I see I must not leave you alone again, child. I really believe you have been reading by moonlight."

A deep flush crimsoned the face of the recumbent youth. "Don't be angry," said he in a clear, musical voice. "I could not sleep; and, as the lamp had burned out and the room was so bright,--but now tell me About it. Has the remedy already produced an effect?"

"To-morrow you shall hear as much as you wish, but not a syllable now, to punish you for your carelessness in spoiling your eyes and heating your head. Do you know that your forehead is burning again?" And he passed his hand tenderly over the soft hair. "I will complain of you to the physician in ordinary. And you don't seem to have touched your supper; there is the plate with your bread and butter."

"I wasn't hungry," replied the youth, letting his head fall gently back on the pillow. "Besides, I thought if you came home late, and, after the unusual excitement, might perhaps feel inclined to eat something."

Edwin brought the plate to the bed. "If you don't want me to be seriously angry, you artful fellow," said he, "you will have the goodness to repair the omission at once. But to make it easier for you, I'll take half myself. Heavens! what is to be done with such a disobedient child? So divide fairly, or I'll complain of you to-morrow to Jungfrau Reginchen, who will soon bring you to reason."

Again a vivid blush crimsoned the young man's face, but Edwin pretended not to notice it. He had sat down on the bed, and was beginning to eat, from time to time pushing a piece into his brother's mouth, who submitted with a half smile. "The bread is good," said Edwin; "the butter might be better. But that is Reginchen's weak point. Now a drink as fresh as our cellar affords."

He poured out a class of water, and swallowed it at a single gulp. "Balder," said he, "I am returning to truth and nature, after having incurred the danger of being enervated by luxury. Just think, I had some ice-cream at the theatre. It could not be helped; others eat it, and a philosopher must become familiar with everything. Besides, it wasn't worth the five groschen, for I learned nothing new, and only regretted that you could not have it. Once, and no more, good night."

While undressing, he said to himself, "This shameless moon! As soon as we have any extra money, we must get curtains, so that we can be able to close our eyes on such nights. However, the illumination is very moderate, compared to that of an opera-house. It took me so by surprise as I entered the box, that I would gladly have retreated and seen the whole spectacle from the corridor outside. Believe me, child, the doorkeepers have the real and best enjoyment. To walk up and down in the cooler passages over soft carpets, with the faint buzzing and sighing of the orchestra in one's ears, interrupted at times by a louder passage with the drums and trumpets, which, smothered by the walls, sounds like a melodious thunder-storm, and often, when some belated great lady rustles in, to obtain a glimpse through the door of the Paradise of painted houris in tights, and the wonderful sunrises and sunsets,--it is really an enviable situation, compared with that of the poor mortals in the purgatory within, who, in return for their money, are cooped up in plush, and must atone for the sins of the Messrs. Taglioni, while feeling as if all their fine senses were being hammered upon at once. A time will come when people will read of these barbarities with a shudder, and envy us because we have nerves to endure them."

"And yet you remained to the end."

"I? Why yes; in the first place I had a very comfortable seat; the box to which my ticket admitted me is like a little parlor, and happened to be almost empty. And then--but I will close the window. The air is beginning to grow cool,--don't you feel it? Besides, your friend Friezica has crept away."

Balder made no reply; but though his eyes were apparently closed, steadily watched Edwin, who, in a fit of absence of mind had thrown himself upon the bed only half undressed, and turned his face toward the wall. A half hour elapsed without any movement from either. Suddenly Edwin turned, and his eyes met his brother's quiet, anxious gaze.

"I see it won't do, child," said he. "For the first time in our lives, we are playing a farce with each other; at least I am, in trying to keep something from you. It is very foolish. What is the use of a man having a brother, especially one to whom he might be called married, except to share everything with him, not only the bread and butter, and whatever else he eats, but also what is gnawing at him. I will confess what has happened, though it is really nothing remarkable; a great many people have already experienced it; but when we feel it for the first time in our own persons, all our 'philosophy, Horatio,' will not permit us to dream what a singularly delightful, uncomfortable, troublesome, melancholy,--in a word, insane condition it is."

He had sprung from his bed and was now crouching on the foot of Balder's, half sitting, half leaning back, so that he was in shadow, and looked past his brother at the opposite wall.

"Prepare yourself to hear something very unexpected," he said, still in a tone which showed that he was making an effort to speak at all. "Or do you already know all I wish to tell you, young clairvoyant? So much the better. Then my confession will weary you, and at least one of us will be able to sleep. In short, my dear fellow, it is very ridiculous to say, but I believe it is only too true: I am in the condition which our physician in ordinary desired, in order to cast out the devil by Beelzebub; that is, I am in love, and as hopelessly, absurdly, and senselessly, as any young moth that ever flew into a candle. Pray, child," he continued, starting to his feet again and beginning to pace up and down the room, "first hear how it came about, that you may realize the full extent of my madness. You know that I am twenty-nine years old, and hitherto have been spared this childish disease. It is not necessary for everybody to catch the scarlet fever. As for the natural and healthy attractions of the 'fair sex,' I was old enough when our dear mother died, to feel that a woman like her would hardly appear on earth a second time. For the daily necessities of living and loving--which every human heart needs to retain its requisite warmth--I was abundantly supplied in our brotherly affection, to say nothing of the miserable, unamiable, and yet love-needing human race. And then, ought a man to have for his profession the science of pure reason, and, like any other thoughtless mortal, make a fool of himself over the first woman's face he sees, without any cause except that the lightning has struck him. Heaven knows why? It seems incredible, but I fear I have accomplished the impossible."

He sat down on the bed again, but this time so that his face was turned toward Balder. "I will allow you to study me thoroughly, without any mercy," he said, smiling. "This is the way a man looks, who suddenly becomes the sport of the elements,--whose reflection, wisdom, pride, and whatever else the trash may be called, are of no avail. I always shuddered when I read the story of the magnetic mountain. When I was a boy, I thought, defiantly, if I had only been on the ship, I would have set so many sails, sent so many men to work the oars, and steered in such a way, that the spell would not have reached me. And so I thought this evening, daring the whole of the first hour. But--

'Tales of magic e'er so strange,
Woman's wiles to truth can change.'

The helm is broken, the oars refuse their service, and the very portion of my nature that was steel and iron, most resistlessly obeys the attraction of the magnet, and really assists in making keel and deck spring asunder."

He leaned back again, and passed his hand over his brow. The hand trembled, and a cold perspiration stood on his forehead.

"There is only one thing I don't understand," said Balder, moving aside to make room for his brother; "why must all this be hopeless?"

"Just listen, my boy, and you will understand all, even the incomprehensible part, over which I am still puzzling my brains. For I am no artist, and can only give you a poor, shadowy outline of a certain face. I entered the box, which was perfectly empty, and I hoped it would remain so. Clad in my fourteen-thaler summer-suit and without gloves, I did not seem to myself exactly fit for society, and the person who opened the box looked at me as if he wanted to say, 'You ought to be up in the gallery, my friend, instead of in this holy of holies, to which I usually admit only people belonging to the great or demi monde.' I also did not like to sit down, simple as the matter might seem to be, on a chair that was better dressed than I. However, the mischief was done; I determined to assume a very elegant deportment, such as I had noticed at private colleges in young diplomatists, and hitherto had always considered mere buffoonery. So I leaned back in my chair like an Englishman, and glanced now at the stage, now at the parquet. As I have already said, there was such a buzzing and fluttering down below, the poor creatures in white gauze glittering with gold and huge wreaths of flowers tossed their arms and legs about so wildly, and the violins quavered so madly, that I already began to think: 'if this goes on long, you will go too.' Suddenly the door of the box was thrown wide open; while I had squeezed through a narrow chink, a young lady rustled in, a diminutive servant in livery and high shirt-collar, which almost sawed off the youngster's huge red ears, removed a blue silk cloak, the doorkeeper casting a contemptuous glance at me, rushed forward, drew up a chair, and officiously put a play-bill on the balustrade. The lady said a few words to the boy in an undertone, then chose the corner seat nearest the stage, raised a tiny opera-glass, and, without taking the slightest notice of me, instantly became absorbed in her enjoyment of art.

"I ought now to describe her to you; but description has its difficulties. Do you remember the pastille picture from the Dresden gallery, painted by a Frenchman,--I have forgotten his name,--stay, I think it was Liotard; we saw a photograph of it in the medical counsellor's book of beauty?--la belle Chocoladière was written underneath. Well, the profile before me was something like that, and yet very very different, far more delicate, pure, and childlike, without any of the pretentious, cold-hearted expression of the shop-girl, whose numerous admirers and constant practice in breaking hearts had gradually transformed her face into a mere alabaster mask. But the shape of the nose, the long lashes, the proud little mouth,--enough, your imagination will supply the rest.

"Well, the first quarter of an hour passed very tolerably. From the first moment I saw no one except my neighbor, who showed me only a quarter of her face, charming as the tiny sickle of the moon; but to make amends for that, I studied her dark brown hair, which without any special ornament, was drawn in smooth bands over her white forehead, and simply fastened at the back with two coral pins of Italian form. A few short curls fell on the white neck, and seemed to me to have a very enviable position, though they remained in the shade. As to her dress, I am unable to say whether it was in the latest fashion, and according to French taste, for I have not the necessary technical knowledge; but a certain instinct told me that nothing could be more elegant, more aristocratic in its simplicity; there was not the smallest article of jewelry about her person, she did not even wear ear-rings; her high-necked dress was fastened at the throat with a little velvet bow, without a brooch. The hands which held the opera-glass--tiny little hands--were cased in light grey gloves, so I could not see whether she wore rings.

"I had noticed that there was a universal movement when she entered the box. Hundreds of lorgnettes were instantly directed toward her, and even the première danseuse, who was just making her highest leap, momentarily lost her exclusive dominion over her admirers. But my beauty seemed to be very indifferent to this homage. She did not turn her eyes from the stage, at which she gazed with an earnestness, a devotion, that was both touching and ludicrous. When the first act was over, and a storm of applause burst forth, it was charming to see how she hastily laid aside the opera-glass to clap her hands too, more like a child when it wants another biscuit and says 'please, please,' than an aristocratic patroness of the fine arts, who occasionally condescends to join in the applause of the populace.

"She had dropped her handkerchief, a snowy, lace-trimmed bit of cobweb, which could easily have been put away in a nutshell. I hastily raised and handed it to her, muttering a few not particularly brilliant words. She looked at me without the slightest change of expression, and graciously bowed her thanks like a princess. Not a word was vouchsafed me. Then she again raised her lorgnette, and, during the entire intermission, apparently devoted herself to an eager study of the various toilettes; at least her glass remained a long time turned toward the opposite box, which was full of ladies.

"I would have given much to have heard her voice, in order to discover whether she was a foreigner; but no matter how I racked my brain, I could think of nothing to say. Besides, she looked as if at the first liberty I might take, she would rise with an annihilating glance, and leave me alone.

"I was just working hard to concoct some polite remark about ballets in general and this one in particular, when the intermission ended and she was again entirely absorbed in the spectacle below.

"A thought flashed through my mind, which, as you will acknowledge, did me great credit, but unfortunately met with no success. I left the box, ate the ice-cream already mentioned, and while wiping my beard, strolled up and down the corridor several times as if weary of the performance, and carelessly asked the doorkeeper if he knew the lady who was sitting in the stranger's box. But he replied that this was the first time he had ever seen her; the opera-house had been reopened to-night with the new ballet. So, with my purpose unaccomplished, I retired, and went back to my post.

As she glided past me, I felt an electric shock to the very tips of my toes.

"Meantime my seat had been occupied; a very much over-dressed foreign couple, American or English nabobs blazing with jewels, had planted themselves in the best seats beside the beauty. At first I was inclined to assert my rights, but I really liked to stand in the dark corner and seeing and hearing nothing of the elegant tastelessness around, gaze only at the charming shape of the head, the fair neck with its floating curls, slender shoulders, and a small portion of the sweet face. I heard the gentleman address her in broken French. She replied without embarrassment, in the best Parisian accent. Now I knew what I wanted to learn. She was a natural enemy, in every sense of the word!

"If I tell you, brother, that during the next two hours I stood like a statue, thinking of nothing except how one can live to be twenty-nine years old, before understanding the meaning of the old legend of the serpent in Paradise,--you will fancy me half mad. You wrong me, my dear fellow, I was wholly mad--a frightful example of the perishableness of all manly virtues. I beg Father Wieland's pardon a hundred times, for having reviled him as a pitiful coxcomb, because he allows his Greek sages, with all their strength of mind and stoical dignity, to come to disgrace for the smile of a Lais or Musarion. Here there was not even a smile, no seductive arts were used, and yet a poor private tutor of philosophy lays down his arms and surrenders at discretion, because a saucy little nose, some black eyelashes, and ditto curls, did not take the slightest notice of him.

"But you ought to go to sleep, child; I'll cut my story short. Besides, it must be tiresome enough to a third person. Five minutes before the curtain fell for the last time she rose; some one had knocked softly at the door of the box. As she glided past me, I felt an electric shock to the very tips of my toes. This was a great piece of good luck, or I should hardly have been able to shake off my stupor quickly enough to follow her. Outside stood the gnome with the high shirt-collar and tow-colored head, gazing at her respectfully with wide open eyes. The little blue cloak was on his arm. She hastily threw on the light wrap, almost without his assistance, though he stood on tip-toe, drew the hood over her head, and hurried toward the stairs, the lad and my insignificant self following her. Every one she passed started and looked after her in astonishment.

"At the entrance below stood an elegant carriage. The dwarf opened the door, made an unsuccessful attempt to lift his mistress in, then swung himself up behind, and away dashed the equipage before I had sense enough to jump into a droschky and follow it.

"'Perhaps it is better so,' I thought, when I was once more left alone. Of what use would it be to follow her? And now I endeavored to become a philosopher again in the most audacious sense of the word, namely, a private tutor of logic and metaphysics, an individual most graciously endowed by the government with permission to starve, sub specie acterni,--from whom if he becomes infatuated with princesses, the veina legendi ought to be withdrawn, since it is a proof that he has not understood even the first elements of worldly wisdom.

"There! you have now the whole story. I hoped to have been able to spare you the recital, trusting that the vision would vanish at last, if I could cool my excited blood by rambling about a few hours in the night air. But unfortunately I did not succeed. The Lindens were swarming with lovers, the music still sounded in my ears, shooting stars darted across the sky, and, above all, the sentimental witching light of the moon, altering the aspect of everything which it touched,--yes, my last hope is sleep, which has often heretofore cooled the fever of my nerves. Look, the moon is just sinking behind yonder roof; our night-lamp has gone out; let us try whether we can at last obtain some rest."

He rose slowly from his brother's bed, like a person who finds it difficult to move his limbs, passed his hand caressingly over the cheek of the silent youth, and said: "I can't help it, child; I really ought to have kept it to myself, for I know you always take my troubles to heart far more than I do. It is this confounded habit of sharing everything with you! Well, it is no great misfortune after all. We shall be perfectly sensible--entirely cured of our folly--to-morrow, and if anything should still be out of order, for what purpose has Father Kant written the admirable treatise on 'the power the mind possesses to rule the sickly emotions of the heart by the mere exercise of will'?"

He stooped, pressed his lips lightly upon the pale forehead of the youth, and then threw himself upon his bed. A few notes of the piano still echoed on the air, but these too now died away, and in fifteen minutes Balder perceived by Edwin's calm, regular breathing, that he had really fallen asleep. He himself still lay with his eyes wide open, gazing quietly at the mask of the prisoner on the stove, absorbed in thoughts, which, for the present, may remain his secret.

CHAPTER III.

We have now to relate the little that is to be told of the two brothers' former life.

About thirty years before, their father, during a holiday excursion, had made their mother's acquaintance; he was then a young law-student from Silesia, and she the beautiful daughter of the owner of a small estate in Holstein, who had other views for his favorite child than to give her to the first embryo Prussian lawyer, who had enjoyed a few days' hospitality at his house. And yet no objections were made. All, who knew the young girl, declared that it had always been impossible to oppose her quietly expressed wishes; she had possessed so much power over all minds, both by her great beauty and the gentle nobleness of her nature, which in everything she did and said always seemed to hit the right mark, with that almost prophetic insight into the confused affairs of the world, which is said to have been peculiar to German seeresses. What particular attractions she found in the unassuming stranger, that she wanted him and no one else for her husband, was not easy to discover. Yet to her last hour she had no occasion to repent, that, with firm resolution, beneath which perhaps passionate emotions were concealed, she had aided in removing all the obstacles that stood in the way of a speedy marriage. As she herself brought little dowry, except her wealth of golden hair, which when unbound must have reached nearly to her knees, and as the young lawyer had still a long time of probation before him ere he could establish a home of his own, they would have had little happiness if both or either had considered themselves too good for a subordinate position. The post of bookkeeper in one of the largest institutions in Berlin had just become vacant. When the young jurist applied for it, he was forced to hear from all quarters that he was doing far from wisely in resigning his profession and giving up all chance of rising to higher offices and dignities, merely for the sake of an early and certain maintenance. He declared that he knew what he was doing, and, as he had the best testimonials, drove his competitors from the field, and, after a betrothal of a few months, installed his beautiful young wife in the comfortable lodgings assigned to the accountant.

Ambition is only one phase of the universal human longing for happiness. He who has his life's happiness embodied in a beloved form at his side, can easily forget the formless dreams of his aspiring youth, especially if, as was the case here, the joy which appears so trifling to the eyes of the proud world nevertheless excites the envy of those close at hand, and the narrow limits of the household horizon do not bind down the soul. This, however, was chiefly owing to the fair-haired wife. She had what is called a tinge of romance, a dissatisfaction with the dry, bare reality of things around her, a longing to gild the grey light of every-day existence with the treasures of her own heart and a lively imagination, and amid the oppressive uniformity of her household cares, retained a play of fancy, that with all her toil and weariness kept her young and gay. She herself said people ought to follow the example of the birds, who, while building their nests, did not sweat as if working for daily wages, but as they flew to and fro sang, eat a berry, or perhaps soared so high into the air, that one might suppose they would never return to their lowly bush. As this arose from a necessity of her nature, and she never boasted of it, though she never denied it, her poetic taste built a brighter world above this dreary, prosaic one, and was a source of constant rejuvenation to her more practical husband. He never emerged from the state of transfiguration that surrounds the honeymoon, and even after he had been married many years, felt when sitting in his office over his account-books, as much impatience to rejoin his beloved wife, as he had ever experienced as an enthusiastic young lawyer, in the earliest days of his love.

In his circumstances there was no outward improvement; his sons grew up, and no promotion or increase of salary could be thought of. But nevertheless their happiness increased, and their stock of youth, love, and romance seemed to grow greater as the children grew. The mother, who bore the beautiful name of Nanna, would not hear of calling her first-born Fritz or Carl, but gave him the name of Edwin. But the boy himself made no preparations to accommodate himself to the lyrically adorned idyl of his parents. His outward appearance was insignificant and remained so; a tall lad with awkward limbs, which were all the more unmanageable because their master in the upper story was thinking of very different matters than how he ought to move his arms and legs; besides, the boy's mind was fixed upon other things than the fairy tales his mother told him, or any of the elegancies with which she surrounded her child. A thoughtful, analytic mind developed in him at an early age; his mother, for the first time in her life was seriously angry with her dear husband, declaring that the father's horrible calculating of figures had gone to the child's head and entered his blood. She tormented herself a long time in trying to efface this instinctive taste, but was at last forced to relinquish her efforts when the boy went to school and brought home the most brilliant testimonials of his progress; yet a secret vexation still gnawed at her heart, all the more unbanishable as for nine years he remained the only child. At last she gave birth to a second, a boy, who promised to make ample amends for the disappointment caused by the apparently sober, prosaic nature of her oldest son. This child was in every respect the exact image of his mother; beautiful as the day, with rich golden curls; he liked nothing better than to be lulled to sleep with fairy tales, cultivate flowers, and learn little stories by heart. The mother seemed to grow young again in her radiant delight in the possession of this innocent creature, to whom the name of Balder, the God of Spring, appeared to her exactly suited. Any one who had seen her at that time, would scarcely have believed her to be the mother of her older son, the long-legged schoolboy with the grave, prematurely old face; so young and smiling, so untried by life, did she look, that her fair head seemed bathed in perpetual sunlight. But it was only a short spring-time of joy. Balder had not yet commenced to distinguish between poetry and reality, when his mother was suddenly attacked by a violent nervous fever, and after a few days' illness, during which she recognized neither husband nor children, she left them forever.

It was a blow which brought her husband to a state of despair which bordered upon madness. But upon the older boy the event had a strange effect. There was, at first, an outburst of wild, passionate grief, such as, from his steady, quiet temperament, no one would have expected. Now it was evident how passionately he had loved his mother, with a fervor for which he had never found words. Up to the time of the funeral it was impossible to induce him to eat; he pushed away his favorite dishes with loathing, and only a little milk crossed his lips just before he went to bed. When he returned with his father from the churchyard, and, himself like a corpse, saw in his father's face every sign of breaking down under the misery of a happiness so cruelly destroyed, while little Balder gazed in perplexity at him with his dead mother's eyes, a great transformation seemed to take place in the older brother's soul. His convulsed face grew suddenly calm, he pushed from his forehead his thin straight hair, and, going up to his father, said: "We must now see how we can get along without mother. You shall never be dissatisfied with me again." Then he sat down on the floor beside the child, and began to play with him as his mother used to do; a thing to which, hitherto, with all his love for the little one, he had never condescended. Balder stretched out his hands to him, and laughingly prattled on in his merry way. The father seemed to take no notice of anything that was passing around him. Weeks and months elapsed before he even outwardly returned to his old habits.

But even then there was not much gained. The portion of him which had been a calculating-machine faultlessly continued its work, but the human affections were totally destroyed. Had not Edwin, with a prudence wonderful in one so young, managed the affairs of the little household when the old maid servant could not get along alone, everything would have been in confusion. When, during the year after his mother's death, the child had a fall which injured his knee so severely that he remained delicate ever after, the last hope which Edwin had of seeing the father take a firm hold of life vanished. He now showed that he had only existed in the reflected lustre left behind by his beautiful wife in the bright-eyed boy. When those eyes grew dim, he could no longer bear the light of day. Without any special illness, he took to his bed and never rose from it again.

The orphaned children were received by one of their father's relatives, a well-to-do official in Breslau, who had a number of children of his own, and could therefore only give his foster sons a moderate share of care and support. They were sent to board in a teacher's family, and fared no worse than hundreds of other parentless boys. Balder felt the disaster least. He had a charm that everywhere won hearts, and his delicate helplessness did the rest. People did not find it so easy to get along with Edwin. A taciturnity and cool reserve, together with the early superiority of his judgment, made him uncomfortable, and, as it always gave him the appearance of not desiring love, people did not see why they should force it upon him. Besides, among all to whom he owed gratitude, there was not a single person to whom he desired to be bound by any closer ties. Thus his little brother remained the sole object of his affectionate anxiety, and it was touching to see how closely, during his play hours, he kept him by his side, spending his scanty stock of pocket-money solely for his pleasure, and shortening his hours of sleep that he might devote his entire afternoon to the sickly child.

Years elapsed. When Edwin went to the university, for despite his poverty and the burning desire for independence, he could not make up his mind to begin any practical business, Balder was about eight years old. He had been unable to go to school on account of his feeble health, as his knee required constant care, and he could not have borne to sit on the school-room benches. But notwithstanding this, he was far in advance of most boys of his age, for he had had Edwin for a teacher, who, by a far more rapid method than that of the schools, had always pointed out the essential part of every lesson, and encouraged him above all to develope his own powers. He succeeded in doing so most wonderfully, without brushing from the boy's soul the bloom of the enthusiasm inherited from their mother. His nature was utterly unlike his brother's; instead of the keen dialectics with which Edwin broke a path into the world of ideas, as a colonist uproots the primeval forest with his axe, Balder's spirit rose aloft as if on wings, and soaring above all intervening tree-tops, he found himself unwearied on the very spot his brother had pointed out in the distance. It was the same in everything connected with school wisdom, as in the mysteries life gave him to solve in regard to men and circumstances. The sure, instantaneous perception, the prophetic power we have described in his mother, seemed born anew in him, and gave the beautiful face, framed in his thick fair hair, and showing few traces of pain, a peculiar and irresistibly winning expression. Besides, he was so kind-hearted, so self-sacrificing, traits doubly rare in chronic invalids, in whom anxiety about themselves becomes at last the sole interest, and almost a sort of sacred duty. He was never heard to complain, and it really did not seem to be a victory of resignation or heroism which he obtained over himself, but rather a natural faculty of his soul to look upon his sufferings and deprivations as a possession from which the greatest gain must be derived, the only innocent speculation, and one for which he had cultivated a masterly aptitude.

At the time we have made the brothers' acquaintance, they had lived together in the shoemaker's back building, the so-called "tun," about five years. Edwin had first gone to Berlin alone, in order to devote himself exclusively to the study of philosophy and physical science, for which he had little opportunity in Breslau. He had been unable to resolve to enter into any money-making business, and his study of law was a mere pretence. So when he found himself acting in direct opposition to his benefactor's wishes, he thought it dishonorable to continue to eat the bread of one with whose opinions he could not coincide. Balder meantime remained in his old home, but as soon as Edwin could support both, was to follow him to Berlin.

This was not accomplished as speedily as the latter had at first hoped. Months elapsed before he could fit himself for a tutor, as the private lessons he had undertaken robbed him of both time and patience. Then followed anxieties about his first lectures, which, with great difficulty, he obtained an opportunity to deliver, and which brought in nothing. During all this time, his only intercourse with his brother was by means of frequent letters, until at last he could bear the separation no longer, and one Whitsuntide went to Breslau, to ask the beloved youth if he felt strong enough to share his poverty. Balder flushed to the roots of his hair with joyful agitation at this question, which fulfilled the most secret wish of his heart. He had only been withheld from making the proposal long before, by the fear of becoming a burden to his brother. Now he confessed that he had quietly made arrangements not to be entirely dependent on Edwin, though he would have submitted to be supported by him more willingly than by any one else. He had found an opportunity to learn turning, from a neighbor, and in the space of a year the young apprentice had made so much progress, that any master workman would gladly have engaged him for a journeyman. With shamefaced consciousness, he showed Edwin a number of pretty household utensils which he had made for his foster-mother and the family of the teacher with whom he boarded. "I see," said Edwin, smiling, "that I probably pursue the least lucrative of all professions, and shall be doing a very good thing in forming a partnership with my skillful brother. But wait, my lad, I won't fail to add my contribution to the capital with which we begin. The next fee I receive--I am coaching the weak-minded son of a count for his examination--we will devote to the purchase of the best turning-lathe that is to be found in all Berlin."

CHAPTER IV.

Day had long since dawned over the great city, and the little house in the Dorotheen-strasse prided itself upon remaining no whit behind its more aristocratic neighbors in this respect. The occupants of the "tun" were usually no late sleepers, and Balder in particular never failed to hear the general alarm-clock of the house, the old pump-handle, which sang a well-meant but monotonous morning song, when at six o'clock in summer and seven in winter, Reginchen set it in motion to get her father his glass of water for breakfast. At the same time the windows in the workshop were opened, and the grumbling of the head journeyman, who took advantage of the half hour before the master appeared, to make the apprentices feel his importance, became audible. But as soon as the master of the house, in his loose jacket and slippers, crossed the courtyard, everything below was perfectly still. Indeed, though the brothers had been unable to procure a watch, they had no occasion to be at a loss to know the time, even during the day. Exactly one hour after the first music of the pump, Reginchen appeared in the "tun" with the well-beaten clothes and the breakfast. Punctually at nine o'clock a window was opened in the second story, a yellow old face in a night-cap, the once famous actress, stretched out a wrinkled little nose to find out which way the wind was blowing, as her husband, the tenor, though he no longer had occasion to spare his high C, could not give up the habit of staying in the house when there was an East wind. Precisely one hour after, the little man himself appeared at another window which opened upon the courtyard, not lighted by the sun, to shave with great deliberation and apply before the little mirror the necessary cosmetics, which an old celebrity of the stage considers an indispensable, nay, an incontestable proof of the dignity of his calling. When eleven o'clock struck, the piano in the room below, occupied by Fräulein Christiane, with whom we formed a passing acquaintance in the first chapter, was opened, and a practised hand struck a few notes by way of prelude to a singing-lesson, which, from consideration for Edwin had been deferred to this time, when he usually went to his lecture. Various pupils came to take lessons; of late, twice a week a merry soubrette, belonging to one of the theatres in the suburbs, appeared, who desired to practise her little parts in new operettas, and drove her grave teacher to despair by a number of blunders, musical and otherwise. As a loud conversation could be heard through the open windows, almost word for word, Balder often became an ear-witness to the most singular scenes, which afforded him a glimpse of an utterly unknown world. Punctually at twelve o'clock the dinner-bell rang, and was usually hailed by the pupil with a merrily whistled street song, as the grateful feeling of release could be expressed in no better way.

The household clock performed its duty to-day as well as ever, but the occupants of the upper story in the back building seemed deaf to its sounds. The pump's morning song died away unheard. No "come in" answered the low knock an hour later, and, after a short delay and a shake, of the head, the slender household sprite, hanging the clothes on the banister of the stairs, glided down again with the breakfast. Miezica, the white cat, which at the same time appeared at the window to be fed by Balder, remained on the broad sill that ran from gutter to gutter, staring into the room, where no living creature was yet stirring. Not until the yellow top of the acacia-tree was gilded by the rising sun--it must have been ten minutes past ten for the old tenor was just beginning to powder himself--did Balder open his eyes, astonished at the bright light that filled the room. He looked toward Edwin; the latter gave no sign that the sunlight was too dazzling for him to continue his dreams.

Softly the youth rose and limped to the turning-lathe in the corner, where he noiselessly arranged a variety of tools, bits of wood, and little bottles. He did not, however, begin to work, but taking a book, became for a time absorbed in its contents. Suddenly the thoughts which had kept him awake so long during the night, seemed to return. He laid the book aside, opened a window, and leaned out into the already heated air.

Ere long a low knock at the door roused him from his reverie. He glided on tip-toe past the sleeper, and slipped through the half-opened door into the dusky entry.

Reginchen stood without; her round face, whose eyes and mouth were ever ready to bubble over with mirth, was turned toward him with a sort of curious anxiety.

"Good morning, Reginchen," he whispered. "I can't let you in, he is still asleep. He did not go to rest until long after midnight; I am glad the sun does not wake him. You have already been to the door once--I overslept myself too, contrary to my custom--we talked so long last night. I am sorry we have made you so much trouble, Reginchen. Give me the waiter, I will carry the breakfast in."

"It is no trouble," replied the young girl, who when talking to the brothers always tried to correct her Berlin dialect as much as possible, but without precisely solving the mystery of the dative and accusative. "But you will be completely starved. Sha'n't I get you some coffee? Cold milk on an empty stomach--"

"Thank you, Reginchen. I am used to it. You are always so kind. Why have you dressed so early to-day, Reginchen?"

The young girl blushed as she smoothed her little black silk apron and the folds of a light muslin that had been freshly washed and ironed.

"This is my birthday, Herr Walter," (she could not accustom herself to the name of "Balder.") "My mother gave me the apron, and the old gentleman on the second floor, the garnet breastpin. I am going to visit my aunt at Schöneberg after dinner, and so I wanted to ask if I might bring your dinner up very early to-day. My brother will come for me punctually at one o'clock."

"Your birthday, Reginchen! And I have forgotten it! Are you angry with me? My brother's sickness has given me so much to think of lately. You know, Reginchen, I wish you all possible good fortune and happiness, though my congratulations are late; but you are used to seeing me limp."

"How can you talk so. Herr Walter?" she replied, quietly allowing the firm little hand he had so cordially grasped to rest in his. "It makes no difference whether a stupid thing like me, without education or culture, is seventeen or eighteen. Father says women remain great children all their lives; so whether they become older or not can be of little consequence."

"He is only joking, Reginchen. What would your father do without you, to say nothing of the rest of us in the house? So you are really eighteen years old to-day? I wish I knew of something that would give you pleasure; I should like to make you a birthday present."

"I don't want any present," she replied, hastily turning away and putting her foot on the upper stair. "I have already had so many gifts from you at Christmas and such times, and my mother always scolds and says I am too large to receive presents from strange gentlemen. Hark! she is calling me; I must go, Herr Walter."

She darted down the steep staircase, like an arrow, and Balder, who remained at the top, heard her singing a song in a clear, childish voice, as she skipped across the pavement of the courtyard in her little slippers. As he took the waiter from the low attic stairs where she had placed it, and limped softly back into the room, he involuntarily sighed.

Going up to his sleeping brother he gazed at him with affectionate anxiety. Edwin seemed to be slumbering quietly. His high, beautifully arched brow was unwrinkled, a smile played around his lips, and his delicate nostrils quivered slightly, as they always did when he made a witty speech. His shirt was open at the throat, and a small gold locket attached to a silk cord and containing a tress of his mother's golden hair, was plainly visible. Balder wore one like it.

He was about to retire to the window corner again, when a hasty step was heard on the stairs, and ere Balder could reach the door to stop the new comer, an eager knock announced a visitor who knew himself to be welcome at any hour.

"Come in!" said Edwin, as he slowly rose from his pillow, still half asleep. "That must be Marquard. Good heavens, it is broad daylight!"

"To be sure!" laughed the new arrival. "It requires the presence of a despicable empiric like myself, to make the Herr Philosopher aware that the sun is several hours high in the heavens. Well, how are you, patient? Has the prescription wrought its work? I am almost inclined to believe that the dose was too strong."

Nodding kindly to Balder, he hastily approached the bed and touched Edwin's brow and temples before feeling his pulse. The keen, light gray eyes gazed through a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles at a heavy gold watch, and the youthfully round and regular, though somewhat pale face, which on entering the door had worn an expression of the gayest unconcern, now assumed a quiet, watchful air, while the elegant figure, which was of about the medium height, leaned lightly on a chair beside the bed.

"My dear Herr Medicinalrath," said Edwin, "your master work has been performed on me. Mother Nature, who may well fear you since you irreverently pry into her most sacred secrets and scan all her little weaknesses as through a microscope, seems, at your command, to have once more taken pity upon me, and granted me sleep. All else will follow as a matter of course; at least I already feel a truly wolfish appetite. If you'll allow me. Doctor, I'll only put on the most necessary articles of clothing, and go to breakfast at once, to relieve Balder, who I see has again waited for me."

"Probatum est," laughed the doctor, pocketing his watch. "I was perfectly well aware, that for brains like yours, there is no better narcotic than the mixture of folly, noise, and tights, we men of the world swallow to excite us. I find your symptoms to-day far more encouraging than yesterday, and, within a few days, I think I shall repeat the dose. Hunger is a good symptom. But I don't see the breakfast."

"It is standing on the table yonder," said Balder, quietly.

The doctor stepped to the little table, which, covered with a green cloth, stood in the middle of the room, and gazed, with an indescribable look of pity and horror, at the white pitcher, which stood between two stoneware cups, while a tin plate beside it contained two small rolls.

"Pardon me," said he, "my science does not extend so far as to enable me to determine, by its mere appearance, the name of the strong broth which awaits you here as your first meal."

"It is pure, unadulterated milk, in which we dip the flower of wheat," said Edwin, who, having in the meantime hastily clothed himself, now approached the table and filled both cups. "You are doubtless aware, my dear fellow, that milk contains all the elements of nourishment which--"

"Which a child in swaddling clothes needs till it cuts its teeth! Sacred Reason, what is the world coming to, when your ablest votaries, the philosophers, confess themselves addicted to the most preposterous habits and customs. Are you not startled, my lad, by the frightful contradiction involved by your endeavor, amidst our exhaustive, enervating civilization, which constitutes such a drain upon the blood and marrow, to sustain yourself on the nourishment of stupid pastoral tribes? In Berlin, too, where as you know, all the cows are infected with the pallor of the Hegel philosophy, and where the watery fluid they give is still further diluted at every pump. No, my dear fellow, either I give you up as incurable, or you must decide at once upon a radical change of habit, wash your face with this innocent fluid--an admirable preventive of premature wrinkles--and moisten your inner man at this time with a glass of port wine, to be followed by the consumption of half a pound of roast meat. I'll wager that in a short time there will be a change in your organism which will make itself perceptibly felt if you visit the Berlin ballet too frequently. What are you laughing at? I am perfectly serious."

"That is just why I laughed," said Edwin, as, standing by the table, he quietly broke his roll into the thin blue milk. "You forget, my dear fellow, that I can only make use of prescriptions which are put up at the pharmacy 'for lucky beggars.' Or do you happen to have it in your pocket?"

"What?"

"My professorship, or Balder's diploma as turner to the court. With your practice in such circles, you can not fail, if you are in earnest, to help us to a brilliant career. But until then I deeply regret that I can give you no prospect of a change of diet."

Marquard looked around the room, and shook his head angrily, as he said: "But it is suicidal folly, absurd nonsense, to live as you do! Balder, too, will never fare any better, so long as you squat here like two old women, and fast till you are livid for lack of blood. Professorship? Nonsense! With your views, you'll never get one to the end of your days in our Christian German government. If you had only learned some commonplace thing, so that you might be made useful somewhere. However, you know something of arithmetic, don't you?"

"The first four formulæ, and the rule of three."

"No joking. You are a thorough mathematician. I will get you a position in a life insurance company, where they need some one for their estimates of probabilities. Five hundred thalers at first. You need say but one word."

"Rather three, my faithful Eckhart: Thank you, kindly. I can not endure the atmosphere of an office. But seriously, my dear preserver of mankind, don't give yourself any trouble about me. I am incorrigible. Every German must have a whim. Mine is to belong exclusively to myself, shake as many nuts from the tree of life as I like, and waste as much time as I can spare in cracking them and getting at the kernels. To make a career is an occupation that robs one of a great deal of time, and it is the same with the effort to become a millionaire in a respectable way. Both, therefore, I must renounce, and since I have for either as little talent as inclination, and can get along for a time in this way, why should I fly into a passion because the Berlin cows have deteriorated as much in the fabrication of milk as Prussian political philosophy has deteriorated since the days of Father Kant? Except on occasions when, by an Epicurean like yourself, unnatural desires are created in us, we want for nothing in our 'tun,' and, moreover, have something put aside for a rainy day; have we not, Balder?"

The doctor was about to make some reply, but controlled himself, and seized his hat. "Adieu!" he growled, and went toward the door, but paused on the threshold.

"You will allow me," he said harshly, "as I still have charge of you, to send you some medicine from my own pharmacy. I received a gift of some excellent Bordeaux from a wine-dealer, on whom I performed a very surprising cure, I will send you some on trial, and if you don't drink half a bottle every noon--Balder may content himself with a glass--I--"

"Will show me no farther friendship? Better not say that. It would be a pity: for your sake, because without our society you would sink completely into empiricism and gluttony; and for ours, because we should be compelled to deny ourselves the luxury of consulting a physician. No, old fellow, I thank you very kindly for your philanthropic design, but it is wiser for us to continue to cut our coats according to our cloth."

"And these people wish to be elevated above ordinary prejudices!" exclaimed the doctor fiercely, putting on his hat. "If you really were so elevated, you would not be too proud to accept a few pitiful drops of wine from an old college friend! Go, you are perfect fools with your idealism!"

"And you are on the way to become as famous a doctor as old Heim. At least you already have the needful roughness!" laughed Edwin.

The doctor heard him no longer; he had slammed the door and was noisily descending the stairs. Balder looked at his brother.

"You ought not to have refused," said he. "He means kindly, and he is undoubtedly right: our diet is not fit for you."

"So you, too, are beginning to scold," said Edwin, drinking the remainder of his milk as if it were the most exquisite nectar. "But the trump of doom would not disturb the serenity of my soul to-day. I am in exactly the phlegmatic, abstract frame of mind, to which the most difficult problems seem like child's play. It is a pity I have nothing harder to elucidate than how it comes to pass that a crazy man can say such clever things in his dreams, and yet on awaking be just as mad as before."

"What do you mean?"

"I have been most dutifully dreaming of the acquaintance I made yesterday; you remember, child, la belle Chocoladière. I discovered, God knows how, that she was the daughter of a Polish countess and a French valet de chambre; a thoroughly ignorant, vain, and not over-virtuous creature. As she made merry over my defective French, I quietly began to explain how grateful she ought to be that a sensible man conversed with her at all. Then I talked long and very impressively about the dignity of man in general and philosophers in particular; something after the style of Wieland's sages, and she, after at first looking as if she were grieving over her weaknesses and sins, suddenly began to laugh loudly, danced around the room--in the style of the rope-dancers we saw yesterday--hummed French songs of by no means the most decorous nature, and altogether conducted herself in such a manner that I grew more and more angry, and at last told her to her face that I should consider myself the most contemptible fool and weakling on earth, if I allowed her little nose and black eyelashes to turn my head an instant longer. She now became very haughty, I still colder and more bitter, she more bacchanalian, and I was just in the act of jumping out of a low window into a beautiful and spacious garden, when she coaxingly passed her hands over my face, and tried to smooth the angry frown from my brow; then I awoke, and quickly perceived that notwithstanding all the wisdom I had possessed in my dream, I had not become one whit the wiser than I was when I went to bed.

"But don't take the matter so much to heart, child," he continued, as Balder remained silent. "I can assure you that a hopeless passion is no such terrible misfortune. I am perfectly positive that I shall never see her again, but how long it will be before I think of something else, I can't say. Yet it is one of the most delightful experiences--this gentle consuming fire, this sacred defencelessness, this introspection, joined to the consciousness of external impressions; it is the true, immanent, and transcendent contradiction, which is the veritable secret of all life, and of which man, with his accustomed eminently respectable but imperfect knowledge of our being, is seldom so keenly conscious. Some day, child, you too will experience it, and then for the first time you will fully understand what I mean. The head does not appear to work at all; the mill of ideas is stopped; it has no more grist to grind. Very different nerve-centres appear to have assumed control, and when I have overcome the first sense of strangeness, it will be a very interesting psychological task--"

Here the door was thrown open, and a new visitor interrupted our philosopher's attempt to make a virtue of necessity, and at least to render useful to the cause of science, the sorrows of his heart.

CHAPTER V.

The new comer was a tall and very broad-shouldered young man, who carried a travelling-satchel and a shawl thrown over his shoulder; unceremoniously tossing a faded brown felt hat on Balder's bed, he nodded, and smiling called out a "good morning" to the brothers. The first impression made by the ash-colored face, furrowed by several scars, and the somewhat crooked mouth, was not particularly favorable. An expression of bitterness or malice dwelt about the strongly cut lips, and the teeth, which, in speaking, were fully revealed, increased the fierce, unamiable look. But when the countenance was in repose, the melancholy expression of the eyes predominated over the more ignoble features, and the brow beneath the short bristling hair seemed to have been developed by grave mental labor. His movements were restless and impetuous, and his whole attire was that of a man who thought little of his personal appearance, though his stately figure was well worthy to command attention, had but a little care been bestowed upon it.

"Why, Mohr! Heinrich Mohr! What wind has blown you to us again?" cried Edwin, advancing to meet him and cordially shaking hands.

"The same thoughtless whirlwind, I suppose, that tosses all the sweepings of humanity into confusion," replied the other. "It is only those individuals, who possess a certain specific weight, that do not change their places without special cause. You, for instance, I find in the same old house where I left you three years ago. And, if I must be honest, the only sensible reason I can give for venturing out of my dull little birthplace back to this huge, clever, mad Berlin, was the desire to see you again. After all, you have the most friendly faces, and that you really seem to feel a sort of pleasure in being troubled with me again, proves that you are still the same as of old."

"And you, too, seem to have altered little; less, perhaps, than would have been advisable," said Edwin, laughing.

Mohr's only answer was a shrug of the shoulders. He threw down his satchel and went to the turning-lathe, beside which Balder was leaning.

"Still as conscientious as ever; trying to kill himself," he muttered, taking up some of the little articles which were waiting for the last touches. "But I can't blame you, Balder. You at least accomplish something every day, and only hurt your chest by bending and stooping. Other people would be fairly beside themselves with impatience, if they had to sit doubled up all day long turning their stock in trade. Besides, it seems to me you have made considerable progress. You are an enviable fellow, Balder."

The youth looked at him with a smile.

"Would that you could only convince Edwin of it!" he said; "he is always trying to persuade me to give up my trade. He won't believe that to sit perfectly idle, and see everybody else work would kill me much sooner."

"Idle! As if you ever could be idle!" cried Edwin indignantly. "As if it were not the most insane obstinacy to refuse to accept from his own and only brother, that which even he has means sufficient to procure--a pitiful mouthful of bread! But we will let it pass, though it is the only real annoyance of my life, and this hard heart might so easily spare it me,--Basta! I will not be vexed to-day. So begin your confession, my friend! To-day, at least, you are secure from any moralizing on my part."

Mohr having seated himself in a chair beside the open window, had begun to twist a cigarette, the materials for which he took from a tin box.

"There is absolutely nothing new to tell," he replied with great apparent indifference. "The old apothegm that no one can add one inch to his stature, has been once more ratified, that's all. I left Berlin, as you will remember, because I thought that the noise and bustle alone prevented me from becoming a great man. 'Talent developes in a quiet life.' Well, I've lived quietly enough with my old mother, but nothing has developed. So, thinks I to myself, as no talent developes let us try character--'character is formed in the current of the world'--and so back I have come again, and have already selected a character to which I intend to adapt myself. A match, Edwin!"

He puffed huge clouds of very strong Turkish tobacco out of the window.

"So nothing came of the editing of the newspaper, from which you expected so much?"

"It was a miserable sheet, children, a commonplace, provincial, gossiping little paper, in which appeared, twice a week, bad novels, stolen from various quarters, or 'original contributions' by the bürgermeister's daughter or chief customhouse officer's son, and lastly charades and rebuses. However, all the citizens swore by it, and not a syllable was lost. The right kind of fellow might have made something of it, or at least in time have smuggled in something better, and, in so doing, might himself have found room to grow. But there is the point. After first turning up my nose at this narrowmindedness, I at last discovered that I really could not do much better myself. You know I always believed that if I could once form a correct appreciation of my own powers, a thing not to be accomplished in the intellectual ant-hill of Berlin, the world would be astonished. Well, I have really arrived at this just appreciation, and for a long time have been unable to endure myself! God be thanked, that my good taste yet remains to save me from that."

"Still the same old Mohr, whose favorite pastime it is to blacken his character instead of washing himself white."

"Let me go on, and don't suppose that I am making myself out bad in order that you may praise me the more. Besides, I don't wish to make myself out 'bad'; I am really quite a passable fellow, neither stupid nor tedious, with fair acquirements, and powers of judgment by no means ordinary, nota bene, for what others do. If I were a rascal, I might by means of them, accomplish something, open a booth for criticism, for instance, and sell myself as dearly as possible. But the misfortune is that I have, or at least had, the ambition to accomplish something myself, and what is worse, desired to possess all sorts of talents. I have a most decided capacity for becoming a mediocre poet or musician, and in political articles, which appear to mean something and really say nothing, I have yet to find my superior. You will say there are many such wights. Certainly. But not many who have in addition such an honest, devout envy of the real men who can accomplish something genuine, such a loathing of all botching, such disgust when they have caught themselves at it. It was this that drove me away from you. I could not endure to see you all, each in his own field of labor, busy tilling and planting and at last reaping,--real grain, whether much or little--and stand by with my cockle-weed. I felt like spitting in my own face from chagrin at my mediocrity in everything that is worthy to be called work, achievement, getting on in the world, while in talking I was a very hero. Now, however, I have discovered that that is my destiny. A sorry creature, created by Nature through some malicious whim, and condemned always to stick halfway at everything. But I will spoil her jest; I will at least do something completely and well, and in one point, at all events, I will reach virtuosoship."

"I don't understand why this idea did not occur to you long ago," replied Edwin. "You were born for a critic, and as such can have as much influence on the world and society, as if you were a poet."

"I should be a fool!" exclaimed the other, tossing his cigarette into the courtyard, as he started up and clasped his hands behind his head. "Attempt to improve the world, tell it plain truths in black and white, which of course every one will apply to his worthy neighbor, try to educate artists who fancy that thinking paralyses the imagination, or tell truths to authors, who upon perusing them fail more signally to comprehend themselves than when they penned their thoughts,--no, my dear fellow, vestigia terrent. A certain Lessing tried all that a hundred years ago, and broke his teeth on the hard wood. All these philanthropic sacrifices make the world no happier, and only render the individual wretched. The only pure and noble calling left for such a superfluous mortal as myself to choose, is pure envy. In that I have hitherto made considerable progress, and, as I said before, I expect to attain in it a tolerable degree of eminence."

"Upon my word," laughed Edwin, "this is a novel way of attaining happiness."

"Don't laugh, wiseacre," sighed Mohr, impressively. "You see, my child, everybody in this miserable world, which all about us is so unfinished and incomplete, is endeavoring to the best of his ability, at least to perfect his own perishable self. The really gifted individuals have a surplus, from which they impart a portion to others, and thereby help them to patch up their poverty, and perhaps even scantily to complete themselves. I, for my part, can only obtain repose when I fervently envy every thing that is great, entire, exuberant. Through this envy I shall become, in a certain sense, allied to it; for if I appreciated, tasted, felt, and deserved to possess no portion, how could I envy it? Only those things that are somewhat homogenous attract each other. And when I have sat during an entire morning, thoroughly permeated with the sense of my own insignificance, sincerely envying a Shakespeare, a Goethe, or a Mozart, have I not fulfilled the purpose of my life better than if I had spent the same time in composing a poor tragedy, some wretched love-songs, or a mediocre sonata?"

He went to the window and gazed at the top of the acacia-tree.

"You are right," said Balder's clear voice. "Only you ought not to give the name of envy to what is really love, reverence, and the most beautiful and unselfish enthusiasm."

"Balder has hit the nail on the head, as usual," said Edwin.

Mohr turned. The brothers noticed that he was winking rapidly, as if desiring to make way with a suspicious moisture.

"It would be beautiful, if it were true," said he. "But this is only the bright side of my virtuosoship; it has its shadows too, and they grow broader than I like. I can see nothing that is complete and in harmony with itself, without envy; no self-satisfied stupidity, no broad-mouthed falsehood, no snobbish faces. And as if these worthies had really no right to be happy, the demon of envy induces me to say something cutting, merely to show them their own pitifulness. Thus in a short time I had all my worthy fellow-citizens about my ears, and wherever I went was decried, avoided, and warned off like a mad dog. It makes all the blood in my body boil, when I see how everywhere the scamps get on in the world, and how the honest fellows, who don't use their elbows, remain behind. You, for instance, if I had my way, should be driving in a handsome coach with servants at your command, as beseems the aristocracy of the human race. Instead of that, that insignificant fellow, Marquard, whom I met below, has his equipage, and graciously nods as he drives by, after reconnoitering me from top to toe through his gold spectacles. Death and perdition, who can see such things and not go wild--"

"Don't abuse our medical counsellor," said Edwin. "In spite of all you have said he is a good fellow, and his carriage would suit my trade and Balder's as little as my slow-stepping scientific methods would suit his empirical gallop. Besides--"

At this moment they heard from the windows below, the first bars of the overture to Glück's "Orpheus."

Mohr approached the window again, and listened attentively.

"Who is playing?" he asked after a time, in an undertone.

"One of the inmates of the house, a young lady of whom we know little more than that she gives music-lessons. Last night--I have not yet told you of it, Balder--I found her absorbed in Schopenhauer's Parerga. She spoke enthusiastically about the chapter on 'the sorrows of the world.'

"Her music bears witness that in those sorrows she had had experience," said Mohr. "Women only play as she does when their hearts have been once broken and then pieced together again. It is with them as it is with old violins, which must be shattered several times before they have the right resonance. But hush, it is growing still more beautiful."

He sat down on the window-sill, and, gazing without, became completely absorbed in listening. Balder worked noiselessly at his little boxes, while Edwin had taken a book though his gaze became fixed upon one page. It was so quiet in the room, that during the pauses in the music, they could hear the stealthy footsteps of the cat, which had just previously leaped into the chamber, and eaten the remnants of the breakfast.

CHAPTER VI.

About the same time that these things were occurring in the back building, the master of the house was in the shop talking with a customer, who had just brought to be mended a pair of embroidered slippers, carefully wrapped in an old newspaper.

It was somewhat unusual for the shoemaker to be absent from the workroom at this time of day. But it was also, as the reader will remember, an unusual occasion, Reginchin's birthday, and her mother, who generally attended to the management of everything in the shop, was obliged to give up the charge to her husband, in order to go into the kitchen and mix the dough herself, for the usual birthday cake. She would not relinquish this task, though there was a confectioner's shop at the very next corner. For ever since Reginchin was four years old, she had been very fond of a certain kind of home-made plumb-cake, and, though she could rarely do anything exactly to her mother's mind, and was continually subject to her criticism, the young girl was, as she very well knew, the apple of her mother's eye, and, for her the good woman would have gone through fire. So, hot as the day was, Madame Feyertag stood without a murmur beside the servant at the fire, allowing herself to be troubled but little by the principal anxiety which usually rendered her unwilling to have her husband in the shop: the jealous fear that some female customers might come in, and that the shoemaker might find other feet, whose measure he would be obliged to take, prettier than those adorned with the legitimate slippers of his wife.

To be sure the worthy man, though he might have been a sly fellow in his bachelor days, had given very little cause for such a suspicion during twenty-three years of extremely peaceful married life. But within a few months a change had taken place which attracted the attention of his clever wife; a change not much apparent in his actions and conduct, since he quietly continued his regular mode of life and did not even oppose the before-mentioned slippers, but noticeable in his language. She was already accustomed to hear him talk much of progress, and inveigh against all tyranny, especially domestic slavery, giving utterance to very forcible expressions, and this harmless amusement she willingly countenanced, since all affairs of state and family pursued, as before, their even course. But during the last three months his revolutionary table-talk had changed its tone, and had been steadily pointed against "women," of whom he repeated the most malicious things, usually in strange, outlandish words. Perhaps he had merely picked up these contemptuous epithets at the liberal trades-union, to which he owed all his progressive ideas; and if so, it was something to be thankful for. But except on certain festive occasions, women were excluded from these meetings, and at the entertainments a very decorous tone always prevailed, to say nothing of the obligatory toast to the fair sex. So, when all at once in speaking of "women," he used the word "females," and talked of the "sex" with a shade of contempt, for which Madame Feyertag's person and conduct did not give the slightest cause, nothing was more probable than that the shoemaker had obtained his new knowledge of feminine nature in other circles, and, perhaps led astray by some acquaintances formed in the shop, had approached nearer to the light-minded portion of the sex than could be at all desirable for the peace of the household. Since that time, Madame Feyertag had kept a sharp eye on the secret sinner, no longer permitting his presence in the shop, and had emphatically forbidden the utterance of his offensive remarks, at least in Reginchen's presence. For this restraint the worthy man indemnified himself by talking all the more freely to others, and on this very morning, when, contrary to his usual custom, we find him in the shop, he was in the act of giving vent to the pent-up emotions of his heart. Compelled to keep silence, his companion with some little surprise, patiently submitted to the torrent of his eloquence. He was a little old-fashioned gentleman, with a timid but lively manner, whose delicate regular features bore an expression of such winning kindness that the most casual observer could not fail to notice it; his was one of those faces, which, in consequence of the delicacy of the skin, become prematurely withered, and yet never grow old. A small grey moustache endeavored in vain to give a martial air to the innocent childish face, and the forehead, which, through baldness, seemed to reach to the crown of his head, failed just as signally to cast upon its owner the air of a deep thinker. Yet when any important subject was under discussion, the mild eyes could sparkle with a strange fire, and the whole face become transfigured with interest and excitement.

This little man wore a neatly brushed but rather threadbare coat, cut in a fashion that had prevailed ten years before, and a large white cravat, fastened with a pin containing a woman's picture. He had placed upon the counter an old-fashioned grey hat, with a piece of crape twisted around it, and, with both hands resting on his cane, he sat opposite the shoemaker, who had just examined the slippers, and said that they could be mended so as to look very well, only that a part of the embroidery would be lost.

"Spare as much of it as you can," pleaded the little gentleman. "They were my dead wife's last birthday gift; she worked them herself. I have worn them constantly for five years; but I step so lightly that I don't wear out many shoes. I suppose I am your worst customer," he added, with an apologetic smile.

"That is of no consequence, Herr König," replied the shoemaker; "it is always an honor as well as a pleasure to work for you and your family, not only on account of the high instep which you all have, but because you are an artist and have an eye for shape. As for the durableness of the shoes, that is not your fault, but the fault of the leather. But wait till your daughter goes to balls. Good work is of no avail then, Herr König; dancing shoes which are not as delicate and as easily broken as poppy-leaves, do the shoemaker no credit."

The little gentleman shook his head thoughtfully.

"My daughter, I fear, will give you little opportunity to earn money in that article," said he, "She has no desire for any of the seemly amusements which I would willingly grant her; her mind is filled with her work and her father; she can't be induced to attend to anything else."

"Well, well," said the shoemaker, drawing from his jacket a little silver snuff-box, which he offered the artist, "those things will come as a matter of course. Young ladies always have some peculiarities, you know; they do not forget the mother; but women are women, Herr König, and there is no virtue in youth. True, you yourself still wear crape around your hat; in your case constancy may be in the blood. But wait a while. The will, Herr König, is master; the perception weak; of how weak it is, we have sometimes little idea."

"You are mistaken," replied the other, fixing his eyes which wore a quiet, thoughtful expression upon the floor. "She has become perfectly cheerful again, and I also, though every day I still miss my dead wife. God does not like to see discontented faces, He has made the world too beautiful for that. The crape--yes, I have kept it on my hat. Why should I take it off, and when? It would seem very strange to me, to say to myself on a certain day: From this time things shall no longer be as they were yesterday; I will now remove this token of remembrance. Should I thereby blot out the memory too? But even if her mother were still alive, I do not think the child would be any different. She has a very peculiar character."

"Be kind enough to permit me to differ from you," said the shoemaker with great positiveness, despite the courteous language he studiously adopted. "Women--true women--have generally no character of their own, but one that belongs in common to all the sex. For the sole object for which they are in the world, is, to use Salvenia's words, only to continue the species, or, as we term it, for propagation. A woman who desires anything else, has something wrong about her; I say this without intending to cast any reflections upon your daughter."

The artist opened his little eyes to their widest extent. "My dear Feyertag, why do you say such strange things?" he said, naïvely. "Is not a woman as much a creature of the dear God as we ourselves? formed in his image, and endowed with soul and mind?"

The shoemaker laughed, as if fully conscious of his own superiority.

"Don't take it amiss, Herr König," he said, "but that is an exploded opinion. Have you never heard of the great philosopher, Schopenhauer? He will make you understand it thoroughly; he will prove as plainly as that twice two make four, of what account is the so-called emancipation of women."

"I don't have much time to read," replied the little artist. "But the little you have told me does not render me anxious to become familiar with an author who has thought so slightingly of the noblest and most lovable portion of humanity. I prefer to say with my beloved Schiller, 'Honor to women'!"

"'They spin and weave,'" replied, the shoemaker. "Yes, and they can do it very skillfully, and it is an extremely useful occupation. But in other things, in the employments of men--this low-statured, narrow-shouldered, broad-hipped, and short-legged sex, as Herr Schopenhauer expresses it,--no, Herr König, men must not allow them to become too strong. Propagation, nothing more. But propaganda, you see, for the liberal and progressive, is our affair. For instance, there is my wife; the best woman in the world! But if I did not now and then show her that I am master, where should I be? I admit that during the last few years, out of pure indolence, I have allowed her to do and say more than was well. But Schopenhauer has brought me to myself. Now, when she mistakes her social position, and wants to emancipate herself too much, I say: 'Hush, Guste. You, too, were once an explosive effect of Nature; but now the noise has died away, and the effect remains.' Then she scolds about my worthless way of talking, as she calls it, but no longer ventures to say anything, because she has not the least suspicion what I really mean by it, and that it is in Schopenhauer. Ha! ha! ha!"

He chuckled with delight, and rubbed his broad hands.

"How did you chance upon this mischievous book?" asked the artist.

"Very naturally. In my back building lives a very learned gentleman, a philosopher by profession, and soon to become professor of philosophy. One day, when he was not at home, the bookbinder's boy came and left in my shop a whole package of freshly bound books, which I was to keep for the Herr Doctor. It was after dinner, when I usually take a little nap. So, half asleep, I aimlessly took the uppermost book in my hand, and began to read at the place where it opened. Zounds, how my eyes flew open! 'Upon females' was the heading of the chapter. I could not stop till I had read the last lines. I tell you, Herr König, old King Solomon, much as he knew about women, and propagation, and the conception of species, might have gone to school to him."

"Is Schopenhauer the author's name? And do you call him a philosopher, because he revives the old commonplaces about the other sex?"

The little artist's eyes flashed as he uttered these words, and he seized his hat as if he were in a hurry to leave the shop.

"He is a philosopher, for the Herr Doctor himself says so; but not merely because of what he has written about women; the Herr Doctor showed me another thick book. He said it treated of will and perception; however, it was too heavy for me. If you would like to read it, he will cheerfully lend it to you."

"Thank you, I have not the slightest desire to make the acquaintance of a gentleman who holds and desires to spread such opinions."

"The Herr Doctor? There you are very much mistaken, Herr König. He won't listen to a word about the essay on women, and says there is just as much falsehood as truth in it. He is a bachelor, Herr König, and what does a bachelor know about the conception of species? Besides, he never associates with women, but devotes himself entirely to his invalid brother. They might as well be in a monastery, Herr König; my wife often says that if we were to advertise in the newspapers and offer a reward of a hundred thalers, we could not find such another couple of well-behaved young men in all Berlin."

"Indeed? And learned too, you say?"

"Only the older one, the Herr Doctor. He has not much money, because he is at the university, and you are probably aware the minister of public worship and instruction wants to starve out the whole university, and then fill all the vacant places with pastors; there is but one opinion about it in the trades union. But our Herr Doctor gives private lessons, and his brother sells some of the little articles he turns; they live on the proceeds always paying punctually the rent, and the household bills for cooking and washing. Two young men, Herr König, to whom immorality is something utterly unknown."

The artist had laid down his hat again, and seemed to be struggling with some resolution.

"My dear Herr Feyertag," he said at last, "Do you know, I think I should like after all to make the acquaintance of your Herr Doctor. If what you say is true, he is the very man for whom I have been looking a long time. My daughter complains that she cannot continue her studies alone. What she knows she learned from her mother. But since the latter died, I have found her services indispensable at home, and I thought her so clever that she could get on by herself if I only bought her books. But it seems that she cannot dispense with regular instruction, and now she is too old and too sensible to content herself with the first instructor that offers, and recently, when she met a certain young lady, a teacher who has given lessons in very aristocratic families, she conversed with her so cleverly that the young woman declared she could teach her nothing. So if your Herr Doctor is really such a phoenix, and a true man besides--"

"If by 'phoenix' you mean insurance against fire, one can never be certain of that in young people, but I'll stake my life on his goodness; everything else you must find out for yourself in case you are really serious about giving your daughter--but that is none of my business. My Regine can read and write, and that is enough to enable her to get along with everything that does not concern propagation. However, everybody has a right to his own opinion. If that is yours, Herr König, you will probably find the Herr Doctor at home now. It is vacation, and most of his private pupils are traveling."

"I suppose," said the artist timidly, as he put on his hat and followed the shoemaker into the entry, "the price for the lessons will not be exorbitant."

"You need have no anxiety on that score," replied the shoemaker, shuttings the door of the shop. "If he were paid as he deserves, he wouldn't need to climb my old back stairs, but could buy the handsomest house on Unter der Linden. Turn to the left here, and then cross the courtyard, Herr König, if you please."

CHAPTER VII.

Meantime the brothers had again been left alone.

As soon as the music below ceased, Mohr took his hat. "To envy this happiness is one of my favorite occupations," he growled, twisting his under lip awry. "I pity you for being able to listen to such a thing quietly, without becoming filled with fiendish joy or rage, I tried to express this mood in a somewhat rattling, but I think not wholly meritless composition, which I call my sinfonia ironica. When I have a lodging and a tin pan, I'll play it to you, and then read you my new comedy: 'I am I, and rely on myself.'"

"A great many pleasures at once, Heinz," said Edwin.

"You need not fear the length of this concert spirituel. Only two bars of the symphony and an act and a half of the comedy are finished. A man who is but half a man, never brings any work to completion."

"Fortunately, as you know, the half is more than the whole,"

"You shall give me a lecture on that subject very shortly, Philosopher. Adieu."

He went out to search for lodgings in the neighborhood. His mother, a widow in easy circumstances, seemed to have provided him with sufficient means to live for some time without work. At the pianist's door he paused, and read on the little porcelain plate: "Christiane Falk, music teacher." Within everything was still. He would gladly have found some pretext to ring and to make her acquaintance; however, none occurred to him, so he deferred it until a more favorable opportunity.

Balder had returned to his work again. He seemed in great haste to complete a dainty little box of olive-wood, which contained all sorts of implements for sewing.

In the meantime Edwin was dressing.

This was usually accomplished in the following manner: first he hung a small mirror, scarcely the width of his hand, on a nail in one of the book shelves, just under Kant's critique of pure reason and Fichte's religion of science, and then while passing a comb minus numerous teeth through his hair and beard, gazed less into the little glass than across at Balder. To-day, however, he did something more; he shortened the hair on his temples and chin with a pair of scissors, and moreover looked somewhat carefully to see whether it was cut evenly on both sides. "I find," said he, "that familiarity with the ballet has demoralized me. I am already beginning to be vain, and have discovered all sorts of defects in my honest face, with which I have hitherto been perfectly satisfied. We should have divided our good mother's beauty between us more equally. But perhaps after all, it is better that the inheritance has remained intact, rather than squandered upon two. Come, give your artistic opinion, my boy, has not the plantation been very much improved by mowing?"

"I should have spared the beard," said Balder. "It was very becoming to you."

"You don't understand, child. It has been much too long for some time, even for a philosopher, and although, as in the times of Julius Cæsar, no one must wander about on working days 'without some sign of his occupation,' it is now vacation with me and I want to go out to-day as an ordinary mortal, not as an object to startle women and children. Come, make up your mind to accompany me. We will take a droschky, stop at the confectioner's, where you must be treated to ice-cream to-day as I treated myself yesterday, and afterwards--"

"To-day, Edwin? To-day--excuse me--I don't feel exactly well--it will be better to choose some other time--"

He bent his glowing face over his work.

Just at this moment some one knocked, and the round, good-natured face of the owner of the house appeared in the doorway, for the little artist had insisted upon his going first. In the half jocose, half respectful manner, which he always adopted toward the brothers, he introduced Herr König to them as a cultivated artist, and the father of a daughter already highly educated, but who desired to pursue her education still further. Immediately upon entering, the little gentleman had become absorbed in looking at the copperplate engravings and busts, and, seemingly, had forgotten the cause of his visit. But when the shoemaker paused, and Edwin glanced smilingly at Balder, he recollected himself and modestly told his errand.

"My dear sir," replied Edwin, "I really feel very much honored, but I do not yet know whether I am the man you seek, for I am not a particularly good teacher, since I have not a particle of ambition to become a pedagogue. For a thorough teacher is indifferent to the calibre of his pupil's mind; the more idle, stupid, and destitute of talent the scholar, the more eager should the teacher be to make something out of him. I, on the contrary, still have too much to do for myself, to be able to help others who have not at least the ability to help themselves. I can indeed show the way, but the scholar must perform the work. And as for young ladies, with all due respect for your daughter, Herr König, how are these poor creatures, even if the roads are smoothed before them and the goal pointed out, to journey forward on their own feet, when from their earliest childhood, every natural, firm, and steady step has been prohibited as unwomanly! They trip and dance and glide and hover and soar, with variegated wings over the green meadows of youth, but when they at last reach the highway of sober life, they lean on a husband's arm, and expect to be supported and carried forward by him. Excuse this uncourteous language, I have experienced these things, and I do not see why I should not speak openly. However, as I am now at leisure, if you will venture to try me upon the recommendation of our landlord and foster father, I will make an attempt to ascertain whether you are not deceived in me."

He took his straw hat, and said in an undertone to Balder: "Don't wait meals for me again to-day, my boy, I may wander out somewhere into the green fields, after I have made the acquaintance of this king's daughter,[^[1]] who is so eager for education."

He passed his hand gently over the youth's hair by way of parting, and accompanied the two men down stairs.

When he was alone in the hot street with the little artist, the latter said: "You have not far to go, Herr Doctor, I live on the Schiffbauerdamm, and we can walk in the shade all the way. But, that you may understand my daughter's peculiar course of education, allow me to tell you something of my domestic affairs. Your landlord has made you acquainted with my name. You have probably never heard it mentioned before. My pictures are not remarkable performances, and for several years past I have turned my attention more to wood engraving. A trade, Herr Doctor, takes root in a firmer soil than art, though it may not always be a soil so golden, and it becomes a father of a family, even if the family consists of but two persons--however, I have never wholly relinquished painting, adhering always to my own very modest style, which in art circles, has even earned me a nickname. Just as there is a cat-Raphael, and a velvet-and-hell Breughel, so I am called, owing to my predilection for introducing old fences into my landscapes, the zaun-könig.[^[2]] Predilection?" he smiled as he continued, "that is not exactly the right word either. God knows I would rather paint beautiful woodlands, like Ruysdell, or clear, bright atmospheres like Claude Lorraine, if my talent were but sufficient. But I always succeed best in small, insignificant objects. So a bit of ground with stones, weeds, and brambles, a clod of earth on which mother nature has developed her productive powers as freely as if it were a world in itself, in short what we call a 'foreground,' has always given me so much to do--especially as I am somewhat near-sighted--that I have never arrived at real landscapes. Well, everybody must cut his garment according to his cloth. And when we reflect aright, do not God's power and glory make themselves manifest in just as wonderful a guise behind a low hedge or a garden fence, as in the romance of the primeval forest, or the surpassing grandeur of the Swiss Alps? So what I do, I do because I cannot help it; in short I work for my own edification, and try to represent a small portion, a little corner or bit of creation, with so much care and love, that in looking upon my work people may see that, even this despised spot, God's breath has touched."

Edwin had given but partial attention to these remarks, which would usually have interested him far more deeply. His thoughts were wandering in vague, distant realms. But in order to say something, he remarked: "And do you find purchasers for your pictures?"

The little gentleman smiled, in a half-embarrassed, half-conscious manner.

"Well," said he, "I can't complain. I always dispose of at least every fourth or fifth picture; for, is it not strange! now-a-days everybody must have his specialty; a work may be ever so worthless, but it will possess some value, because its producer has had the courage not to flinch or retreat from the path he has appointed for himself even if the critics assail him with their deadly weapons. Yes, yes, it is indeed surprizing to me, myself, but patrons of the fine arts have come hither from Holland and from England, who wanted a real zaun-könig and nothing better. So it is, that in the great economy of our creator, every creature finds its appointed place, the mite as well as the elephant.

"But I was going to tell you something about my domestic affairs," continued the little man. "You see, Herr Doctor, I have now been a widower five years and seven months, but I cannot yet speak of my dear wife without feeling, a perhaps unmanly or unchristian, but nevertheless unconquerable grief. Therefore I will speak no further of her, except that during the fifteen years I lived with her, there was not an hour which I could wish effaced from my memory. She was a Jewess, and I am a good evangelical Christian, but even that did not cause a single moment of bitterness, for the God in whom we both believed, was one and the same. As for our daughter, the mother agreed that she should be educated as a Christian, and though she herself did not wish to be baptised, she never tried to perplex the child. She was buried in the Jewish churchyard, but that has never troubled me. The spot to which this noble creature was carried for her eternal rest, is holy, no matter whether it was consecrated by Christian minister or Jewish Rabbi. Since she died, I can see that I have not been so pious as when she was alive. The memory of her blends with all my thoughts of heaven; I can no longer, as before, be alone in the presence of my God. Ah well. He will not impute that to me as a sin."

The artist paused a moment. His voice seemed to fail him, but after a moment he continued:

"She has left me a daughter, who in many respects is very like her; in others not at all. She has far more independence, and often we do not understand each other, and that never happened with her mother. The child is nineteen years old, and--I will not praise her--but no one could have a better heart, to say nothing of such a talent for drawing and painting, that I only wonder how she came by it. In many things, flower-pieces for instance, I am a bungler to her. I ought, long ago, to have discountenanced her close application to it, that she might have had more time for other things, I mean for intellectual culture. But it gave her pleasure to think that she could earn something while yet so young, and besides I was vain of her progress. Now, however, the punishment has come. For some time she has been melancholy, because she fancied that she was ignorant, or as she expressed it, that she had no clear ideas. Now to me she seems clever and learned enough, and our old friend, the widow of Professor Valentin, cannot understand what fault she can find in herself, except perhaps, her somewhat singular opinions on religious subjects. But I see that it is secretly destroying her peace of mind, and, as I cannot help her myself, I have had recourse to you, Herr Doctor, and, just because you are no pedantic schoolmaster, I think you will soon discover what is the matter with the dear child."

Meantime they had walked down Friedrichstrasse to the Spree, and now turned the corner to the right. "My house is only a few hundred paces farther," said the artist. "It would be very difficult for me to make up my mind to live in any other part of the city. People are always speaking so contemptuously of our good Spree, and, to be sure, it is by no means the proudest of our German rivers, nor the poorest just here, in the midst of Berlin. But, to an artist's eye--apart from the impression it makes in the open country, and especially in a romantic spot like the Spreewald--can there be anything more charming than this view of the canal, bridges, places of lading, water steps, and the honest old Spree boats, lying so sleepily in the noonday sun, like great fat crocodiles on the banks of the Nile? Look; the sailors have already eaten their dinners; only here and there a thin blue column of smoke, circles upward from some cabin chimney; the husband is lying on deck, under a piece of sail near his cargo of coal, and his wife sits beside him holding the baby in her lap, and brushing away the water-flies. Notice how the brown wood is relieved against the pale surface of the water, and behind it all, the bright sunlight effect. See, too, the white Pomeranian, standing on the cabin stairs barking at the little grey cat in the other boat? Here, in the midst of our elegant capital, you have a fragment of Holland, as complete as you could desire."

"You have been in Holland?"

"No; I have never gone so far. But when one has seen their pictures and the excellent photographs that we have now--but stop a moment if you please, I must show you something else."

They had just passed some high houses and reached a place, where a narrow, ditch-like canal, bridged where the street crossed it, emptied into the Spree. On one side stood the blank wall of a three-story factory. Opposite was a low hut, very narrow in front, but extending along the canal to a considerable depth. It seemed to have formerly opened upon the quay, by a door beside its single window, but the door was now walled up, and the window covered on the inner side by a dark cloth. This decaying little house was connected by means of an iron railing with its massive neighbor.

The artist leaned over the railing and gazed up the canal, whose dirty brown water flowed so sluggishly, that it seemed stagnant and gave forth a mouldering exhalation.

"Of what does this remind you?" he asked, turning to Edwin.

"What do you mean by 'this'?"

"Why, the canal, and yonder little bridge that connects the two banks, the post to which the clothes-line is fastened, and the atmospheric effect and coloring of the stones, which we artists call tone."

"It bears a distant, but by no means flattering resemblance, to Venice and the Bridge of Sighs."

"Right!" cried the little man, who in his earnestness, failed to hear the tinge of sarcasm in Edwin's remark. "True, I have not been in Venice myself. But friends of mine, who have visited Italy, have likewise been compelled to confess that this view was completely Venetian, at least as the city is represented in Canaletto's pictures, which, however, are doubtless somewhat cooler in tone, than the reality. However, we are in Berlin, and it is only a harmless jest when I talk of my lagune."

"Your lagune?"

"Certainly. I live here."

"In this--"

"Yes, in this hut: you need not swallow the word. To be sure it is not a doge's palace, this place where I have lived these twenty years, but I would not exchange it for all the splendor of the old sposo del mare, as the Venetians called their ruler. Besides, it is pleasanter within than its exterior would lead one to expect. The door which is now walled up, was formerly the entrance to a sailor's tavern, a wretched, dirty wine-shop, and behind it were a few miserable rooms, and a hole of a kitchen. Then came the stable and the wood-dealer's shed, whose timber-yard, as you see, adjoins our little house. I had just been married, and with all my treasures of hope and happiness, was but a poor devil, when the host of this inn was arrested by the police for concealing stolen goods and for other bad practices. The lumber merchant would not have another dram-seller on his premises, and the place was not exactly suitable for any one else. So I got it at a very low price, had the door walled up to admit the light into my studio from above, and though it has cost both toil and money to efface the traces of the dirty inn--you shall judge for yourself if we have not at last succeeded."

Taking the lead, he conducted Edwin through a large gate across the spacious timber-yard. A narrow lane led between the huge piles of odorous pine and beech wood, directly to the "hut," whose side view was no more aristocratic than the front.

"These six windows belong to me," said the artist with modest pride. Then he opened the low door and invited Edwin to enter.

The interior of the old barrack, apart from a certain gloom and dampness, really did look more comfortable than one would have thought possible from its exterior. An entry, painted in some light color, was hung with etchings in plain wooden frames. A door, opposite, appeared to open upon the canal.

"Turn to the right, if you please," said the artist, "the apartments on the left are our sitting-room, my daughter's little room, a kitchen, and a bed-chamber. Everything on the right belongs to art--according to my modest style, for I sleep in my studio, and even in my dreams I remain only the zaun-könig, and never fancy myself a Canaletto because I live beside a lagune."

As he concluded he opened the door of his studio.

Certainly the low room no longer showed any trace of having previously sheltered drunken sailors, but to have painted Claude Lorraine atmospheres there on gloomy days would have been a difficult matter. Two windows opened upon the canal and the dark chimney of the next house interposed itself between them and every ray of sunlight. At one of these windows stood a low table, covered with the various tools of a wood-engraver; at the other, a desk-like stand, before which sat a young girl, absorbed in her work. Just in front of her a bouquet of fresh flowers stood in a little vase, and she was evidently employed in copying into the wreath which she was painting on a porcelain plate, leaves and flowers from nature. On the walls hung all sorts of sketches, interspersed with finished pictures which, even at a distance, could not fail to be recognized as "genuine zaun-königs," while on an easel not far from the first window, stood a new half-finished landscape, over which the artist instantly spread a cloth.

"You must not see me too much in négligé," he said blushing. "I usually begin very awkwardly, and make a great many strokes on my little piece of canvas, before any clear outlines appear. But here is my daughter, Leah. She bears her mother's name. What are you going to say, my child? You will be pleased with me, for I have brought you something that you have long been wishing for."

At her father's first words the young girl had arisen, but, on perceiving the stranger she bowed modestly without moving from her place.

"I was not conscious, dear father, of having particularly desired anything," she now said, gazing in surprise at the merry, mysterious face of the little man, who seemed to be revelling in her perplexity.

"'Not a teacher, child?' this very learned Herr Doctor will not get to the end of his Latin as quickly as the good young lady. But he wishes to ascertain how far advanced you are, before saying whether he will give you lessons. Come, come, you need not be frightened. The examination won't kill you, even if you should be obliged to rack your brains a little now and then. Am I not right, Herr Doctor?"

The young girl, whose complexion was usually pale, crimsoned, and remained silent, as if uncertain whether to take the matter in jest or earnest. Edwin had time to observe her closely. She was taller than her father, with a firm, slender figure, and seemed to resemble him in nothing except the remarkably small size of her hands and feet. In the beautiful, but perhaps rather high forehead, or in the large, dark eyes which recalled her mother's race, there was no expression of cheerfulness; but with the exception of the eyes there was nothing Jewish in the face; the nose was perfectly straight, and the mouth possessed a certain sensual fullness, which softened the sternness of the other features. She had woven her thick black hair in braids, which she wore in a singular fashion, crossed under her chin, so that the pale oval face seemed set in a dark frame. A simple brown dress, worn, despite the prevailing fashion, without crinoline, completed the unusually grave appearance of the youthful figure.

At the first glance Edwin perceived that he had reason to congratulate himself on the prospect of having such a scholar.

"Your father was but jesting," he said smiling. "Of course there is no necessity for a thorough examination. On the contrary, if you can assure me, Fräulein, that you think yourself very ignorant, you shall be spared any further questions."

"Well, I will confess that!" laughed her father. "But you won't find fault with the little knowledge she has acquired from school-books."

"Not at all," replied Edwin, as he approached the young girl and looked at her work. "You see, Fräulein, I once had to teach a young lady, who, during the very first lesson, overwhelmed me with such a quantity of learning, had so much to say about cuneated letters, Egyptian mythology, besides relating various narratives about art and literature, that, beside her, I seemed to myself like a child just beginning its A, B, C. To be sure her wise little head was like a lumber-room, where articles for the most varied and opposite uses are stowed side by side without order or connection. But in her innocence she had no suspicion of the existence of anything like clearness and coherence, or cause and effect, in subjects and ideas. So I paid her and her mother the compliment of saying that I found it impossible to improve the young lady's education, and withdrew as speedily as possible."

The father and daughter were silent. Edwin, as if thinking of entirely different matters, walked about the room examining the sketches and studies.

"Well, my child?" the little artist spoke inquiringly; he was growing restless, for he did not exactly understand the state of affairs.

"You will not complain of me for a similar cause," the young girl now said, her voice trembling with suppressed excitement, while her eyes sparkled with a strange light. "My case is exactly the reverse of that young lady's. So long as my mother taught me, all study was a pleasure. She did not make it easy; I was compelled to study out everything by myself, and I never dared to repeat anything by rote, for she chided me when she discovered it. Perhaps I did not learn much, or a great variety; but everything made a strong impression upon me, and I have not forgotten a word. But she died when I was yet very young, and afterwards when I tried to get on by myself with the aid of books everything seemed uninteresting, and I no longer took any pleasure in study. And besides all this I must hasten to confess, Herr Doctor, that, after all, you may not expect too much, that I have an actual aversion to history and geography, and no ability to remember them. On the contrary--but you are smiling. I expected as much; you did not suppose it was so bad."

"And for what have you a taste, Fräulein? What is it you desire to learn? Do not take offence at my smile. It only meant, that, at your age, I was not very unlike you."

She made no reply but cast a timid glance at her father. The little man seemed to understand it. He went to the other window, and busied himself with his bits of wood.

"I should like," she now said in an undertone, fixing her dark eyes on the flowers in the vase, "I should like to have a clear idea of many things which are now dark to my mind. Often when I am sitting quietly at work, thoughts come that frighten me. Then they vanish again, because I cannot detain and think them out. It is like being at night in a strange neighborhood during a thunder-storm; for an instant a flash of lightning reveals streets and alleys, and then, suddenly, all is dark again. Or perhaps I read a passage in a book, over which I am constantly compelled to reflect, longing to ask the author what he meant, but no answer comes. I feel," she added in a still lower tone, "that in many things I am unlike my dear father and a friend of ours, the Fran Professorin Valentin, who is half a theologian, while I--well it is not for lack of good will if I am not like her. But what I do not understand has no existence for me, at least to contemplate it makes me unhappy rather than happy, and yet when they say that the final secrets of the world, and the divine thoughts, cannot be comprehended by the human mind, I am obliged to concede the point. Only I can have no rest until I learn whether we can know anything, and if so how much, or if one, who unfortunately is unable to believe what she cannot understand, must renounce all truth."

She stopped suddenly, as her father made a movement as if to rejoin them, and with a hasty beseeching glance at Edwin, seemed to entreat him not to violate the secret of the confessional.

He smiled again and turned toward the innocent little man, who approached. "My dear Herr König," said he, "your daughter has passed the preliminary examination with great credit. I only hope that the pupil may be as well satisfied with her teacher, as he expects to be with her. So if it suits your convenience, we will begin to-morrow, and I will come to you every other day at any hour in the afternoon which you yourselves may select."

The father looked at his daughter. "I thank you sincerely, dear Herr Doctor," said he. "See how the child's eyes are sparkling with pleasure. Now in regard to your other conditions--"

"I shall make but one, my dear sir: that no one shall be present during the lessons. When I give private instruction, I always insist upon this point. Either a public class-room, or entire privacy."

"Unless you prefer some other place, Leah, you might receive the Herr Doctor in your sitting-room on the other side of the entry, where your writing-table stands; but I think we had better show our friend the whole house, that he may himself choose the best auditory."

When Edwin took his leave a half hour later, he had seen every nook and corner in the little house; the niche in the sitting-room where the bust of Leah's mother stood, the green sofa before it, the ivy at the window, the steps leading to the lagune, where a pleasant-looking old maid-servant was busy with her washing; glancing toward her young mistress, she gazed curiously at the guest, who seemed to be illustrating Jean Paul's pun about the Lehrmeister, who might become a Mehrleister, Edwin himself would never have dreamed of such a thing. He was very gay, and talked brilliantly as if among old acquaintances. Later, when he had taken his leave, and found himself in the street, he again paused a moment by the railing which ran alongside of the canal; he no longer thought it incomprehensible that the occupants of this insignificant "hut" would not have exchanged it for a palace.

CHAPTER VIII.

But he had not strolled far from the quay, when these newly made friends vanished from his memory as suddenly as we blow out a candle, and in their place appeared in most vivid hues, the vision of the Unknown he had seen at the opera-house. The change was so sudden, that he fairly started and stood still a moment to calm the beating of his heart. If he had met her, bodily, on the lonely street, he could not have been more astonished.

"A bad prospect for amendment," he said to himself, with a half compassionate, half satisfied smile. He removed his hat and leaned over the railing. Beneath him, the river flowed noiselessly on. A dead, half-plucked bird floated past him, near a half-eaten apple. "Poor thing," said Edwin, "you have endured to the end, and if not to be is better than to be, you might be congratulated that never more will bright-hued dainties tempt you, or hunger gnaw at your vitals when you have naught else with which to satisfy its claims. Yet the sun is so beautiful, and apples sweet to the taste, and I doubt not that your worst nest was more comfortable than the filthy nothingness that bears you away."

He listened. Few persons and no carriages passed this spot, but in the distance he heard the hum and roar of the streets, through which rolled the principal stream of traffic. It was pleasant to lose his own identity in the vague sense of a manifold life, and yet at the same time to bask in solitude. But, after a time, his enjoyment began to pall. He turned back into the shade and walked slowly along the river toward the neighborhood, where by passing through a few short side streets, the zoölogical gardens may be reached. Here, too, it was lonely at this noonday hour, and his old habit of strolling here and there while thinking out a problem, had taught him all the paths in which there was the least danger of meeting any one. But to-day he had no desire to philosophize. On reaching his favorite spot, the peninsula--not far from the marble statue of the king and the Louise island, where a few weeks before he had developed his best thoughts for the prize essay, he threw himself upon the grass in the dense shade of the huge beeches and closed his eyes, that undisturbed he might devote himself to his hopeless love dream.

Despite his twenty-nine years, his feelings were precisely similar to those which fall to the lot of every one when attacked by his first schoolboy love: the sensation of yielding to violence, of quite forgetting self, and of being borne away on a flood-tide of passion, is so strong and so delightful, that it swallows up all other emotions and impulses, and the thought of possession, or even the desire for a responsive feeling, can scarcely arise,--or, if at all, not in the first stages, and in such a virgin soul as that of our philosopher. The very unexpectedness, aimlessness, and unreasonableness of this event, was to him, o'erwearied with arduous toil over abstruse thoughts, like bathing in a shoreless sea, where, floating, he suffered the waves to buoy him above the fathomless depths.

A hoarse hand-organ close by, which suddenly began to play the "Prince of Arcadia," roused him rudely from the reverie in which time and place were both forgotten. He sprang to his feet, and sought some escape from the intrusive, soulless sounds. In a modest restaurant, where only a few plain citizens were drinking coffee, he hurriedly ate his dinner, and then as the seats were beginning to fill with afternoon guests, he hastily departed, whither he did not himself know; he was only vaguely conscious of a repugnance to appearing in broad daylight, in so helpless a condition, before the brother to whom the preceding night he had frankly confessed his state of mind.

So glancing about him, he walked diagonally through the shrubbery, without any definite purpose, until he entered a broader avenue, when he suddenly stood still, and with a cry of joyful astonishment gazed at some distant object. It was at nothing more remarkable than a red and white striped summer waistcoat, which, as the sun was shining full upon it, was plainly visible. But it contained a little figure that he readily recognized; a boy about fourteen years old, who wore a high collar, a stiff cravat, a leather-colored livery jacket, and knee-breeches of the same material. The youngster was sitting on a bench in a droll old-fashioned attitude; he had placed his shining oil-skin hat beside him, and was engaged in smoothing his light hair with a little brush, glancing from time to time into a small hand-glass.

Edwin would have recognized this boy among a crowd of miniature lackeys, but he had not time to look at him long. Just as he took a few paces forward, fully determined to question him concerning his mistress, a slender figure in a light summer dress and broad Florentine straw hat rose from the next bench, which was concealed by a drooping branch, glanced over her shoulder at the boy, and then holding in one hand the book she had been reading, and carrying a parasol lightly over her shoulder, she walked rapidly toward the main avenue which runs from the Brandebourg gate directly through the Zoölogical Garden.

Her motions were so rapid that the little fellow in the large gaiters found it difficult to overtake her, and even Edwin was compelled to take long strides. As he passed the bench where she had been sitting, he saw a ribbon lying on the ground, which, in her hasty departure, she seemed to have lost. He picked it up; it was a white satin book-mark, the ends trimmed with gold fringe, and somewhat clumsily embroidered in blue and black beads with the well-known symbols of faith, hope, and charity. This discovery detained him a moment. Meantime its owner had already reached an elegant carriage, which had been waiting for her outside, the little page had opened the door, the lady entered without his assistance, the horses started, and the light equipage rolled toward the city at a rapid pace.

But today Edwin had not only better fortune than on the day previous, but also the presence of mind necessary to seize his opportunity. An empty droschky was moving lazily down the road; he threw himself into it and promised the driver a double fare, if he would overtake the carriage and not lose sight of it.

They drove through the gate, down Unter den Linden, turned to the right into Friedrichstrasse, and then to the left into the Jägerstrasse, where the equipage stopped before a pretty new house. The little servant climbed down from the box like a monkey, opened the door, and followed the lady, who had sprung lightly out, into the house, the carriage driving off at once.

Edwin dismissed his droschky at the corner of the street, and now with a throbbing heart walked past the house several times on the opposite side of the street, gazing at the open windows to see whether the charming face would not appear at one of them. But there was nothing to be seen, except in one of the rooms on the second story a flower-stand containing magnificent palms and other broad-leaved plants, and at the window near by a large bird-cage with glittering gilded wires. Here, then, was where she lived. He had in his pocket the best possible excuse for introducing himself, and yet for a long time he could not summon up courage to enter the house and mount the stairs.

When he at last nerved himself to this, he lingered a few moments at the door, trying to recall his somewhat rusty French, in case she really should not understand German. Then he felt ashamed of his boyish timidity and pulled the bell so vigorously, that it pealed loudly through the silent house.

The door was instantly opened, the striped waistcoat appeared, and its owner stared at the noisy visitor, with a disapproving expression in his round, watery blue eyes.

"Be kind enough, my little fellow," said Edwin, "to inform your mistress that some one desires to speak to her, and to return something she has lost."

"Whom have I the honor--?" asked the well-trained dwarf.

"The name is of no consequence. Do as I have told you."

The boy disappeared, but returned in a short time, during which Edwin heard no French spoken, and said: "The young lady begs you to walk in here a moment."

As he spoke he opened the door of a small ante-room, furnished only with a few elegant cane chairs and a dainty marble table, on which lay a book and fan.

"What is your name, my boy?" Edwin asked the little fellow, as he seated himself with much apparent self-possession.