Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=auUBAAAAQAAJ&source
2. The diphthong oe is represented by œ.

WITHERED LEAVES.

A Novel,

BY

Rudolf von Gottschall.

FROM THE GERMAN,

By BERTHA NESS.

Translator of Werner's "Riven Bonds" and "Sacred Vows."

THREE VOLUMES.

AUTHORISED TRANSLATION.

VOL. I.

London:
REMINGTON AND CO.,
5, Arundel Street, Stand, W.C.

1879.

[All Rights Reserved.]

CONTENTS OF VOLUME I.

WITHERED LEAVES.

CHAPTER I.

[ON THE FUCHS-SPITZE.]

Large and full stood the moon in the eastern sky, and reflected its broken light in the troubled waves which the Baltic Sea cast upon the coast of Samland; it silvered the tangled thicket of the ravine through which here and there quivered a ray of the woodland stream, with its scanty supply of water, as with difficulty it forced its way amongst the stones onward to the ocean. The primordiate blocks of granite, which kept watch at the estuary of the streamlet, gained a venerable appearance in the light of the planets; but more venerable still appeared the primeval oaks of Perkunos, with their silvery tips, as they rose upon the rocky projection, and down whose lightning-struck stems the moonlight glided softly.

Was it a priestess of the old heathen deities who stood there, in her light robe, leaning against the trunk of the mightiest oak, her gaze turned outwards upon the wide sea, whose opposite breakers washed the land of the ancient Vikings? But no! The heathen priestesses, who sacrificed at the oaks of their gods, were venerable women, while that slender figure bore all the witchery of youth, and looked much too gentle for such a horrible craft! So much spiritual tenderness lay in her large, widely-opened gazelle-like eyes, and besides--many, many centuries ago the days of Paganism had passed away, even although then, as now, the waves beat upon the strand, and the tops of the oaks rustled, for we live in the nineteenth century; old Herkus Monte and the other Nathang and Samland leaders of armies have long since been replaced by the commanders of the King of Prussia's regiments and battalions, and for two years this coast, like the whole land of Prussia, has been ruled over by that spirited Hohenzollern Prince, Friedrich Wilhelm IV.

"How it blows," said the Regierungsrath, as he buttoned his overcoat more closely, "I do not love these evening amusements; I find that the sea makes a much deeper impression by day, and then, one does not expose oneself to the danger of paying for these so-called enjoyments of nature with rheumatic pains."

"But, my husband," replied the Regierungsräthin, a fine woman, a thorough Lithuanian, whose cradle stood on the shores of Memel, "you are indeed too prosaic! One must just for once see the ocean by moonlight; besides Evchen has cherished this wish for long. Two weeks already have we been in Warnicken, and always have gone to bed as the moon rose."

"We do not go in for marine painting," replied the Regierungsrath drily, as his chin disappeared farther and farther into his enormous white cravat, "and Eva, too, will take cold. The girl has a delicate constitution; you, dear wife, judge all the world by yourself; but we are not all so fortunate as to possess weather-proof giant natures. How the girl stands there in her light summer dress! Eva, wrap your shawl round you, a cold breeze from the north is blowing."

The girl awoke as if from a dream, she wrapped herself obediently in the shawl that she carried upon her arm, and hastened towards her father and mother, who were standing against the foremost railing of the projection.

"Oh, how beautiful, how enchantingly beautiful it is here," cried Eva, with her heart full, and tears standing in her eyes, tears such as only youth can shed in overflowing moods, when the charm of nature presciently awakes gloomy feelings in the heart.

The Regierungsrath could not explain these tears to himself, because every rational cause for them was wanting, and indeed every irrational one; any kind of wish denied would speedily have solved the mystery for him. Therefore he made the cold wind responsible, and folded his daughter still more closely in her shawl. Her mother, on the contrary, who had equally little sympathy with such-like emotional outbreaks, but knew better how to divine their cause, cried, reprovingly--

"Learn to wean yourself from over-sensitiveness, dear child! How often already have I been obliged to tell you so! You must learn gradually to control your feelings. All this is very beautiful: moonshine and ocean's tide, groups of trees and wooded vallies, and the steep precipitous rocks; yet one must not admire it too much; it is after all an old tale, and one must not appear too new to the world. What would people say to it? At some period one must leave school behind, and enter into life."

Eva pressed herself deprecatingly against her mother, whose gigantic form towered above the slender girl; but her father, after having taken a pinch of snuff, assumed a complacent tone of voice, and began to expound his views as to the capabilities of profit possessed by the Samland sea-bathing places. Eva had ample leisure to survey the beautiful picture of the moonlight evening, to follow the lines of the surf-surrounded coasts to the uttermost foreland, and ever again to lower her gaze into the mystery of the Wolf's schlucht, above which the most luxuriant vegetation rose and fell like green breakers in the sough of the night wind.

Then voices suddenly arose from the paths which led upward through the wood to the Fuchs-spitze; they were not the melodies of strolling singers, but the music of artists. One female voice, by its beautiful full tone, made itself conspicuous amongst all the others, and that singer's execution appeared to be by no means inconsiderable. The Regierungsrath found this interruption to his discourse the more disagreeable, because he was about to make a few propositions by which sea-bathing places, such as this romantic Warnicken, could be raised out of their rude primitive condition into fashionable watering places.

In the meanwhile the party of male and female singers had reached the summit, their hats and coats garlanded with wreaths of leaves. They appeared to be in a most lively mood, and broke out into loud rejoicings when they had gained the point whence a view could be obtained; some clapped their hands, and at a signal, which an elderly gentleman gave with a walking-stick used as a conductor's bâton, all began to sing a most artistically correct Jodler. In the faces and in the whole demeanour of the party there lay that peculiarity by which actors and actresses are unmistakable even in their exterior; an air of mental freedom, the assurance and self-sufficiency of manner, and at the same time the appearance of struggling after an ideal, which even those know how to maintain who follow their art as a rather rude handicraft. In fact, they were singers from the provincial capital, who were wandering along the shore for a holiday excursion, but had set up their head-quarters in the favourite seaside watering place Cranz, which by its sociable doings atoned for what its desolate strand lacked in natural beauty.

It soon became apparent that the most prominent female person in the group, a tall figure with southern glowing eyes, with noble aristocratic features, and dark hair that shone amongst the green oak branches with the polish of ebony, was that accomplished singer, who, during the party's ascent, had borne away the prize of song. Leaning over the balustrade, she warbled a melody into the night air, with trills and cadences irreproachably executed, while the fuller notes were uttered with most soul-felt intensity of expression.

"Bravo, Signora Bollini!" cried the elderly gentleman, who had previously waved the bâton, "even the most unfavourable critic, the most venomous monster that lurks in any newspaper's crevice, would be obliged to write a laudatory criticism upon this performance. Besides you are in wonderfully good voice."

"You know, dear Conductor," replied the Signora, "that I possess an impressionable soul; here in free beautiful nature I regulate my powers quite differently from what I do when I stand behind you at the piano, looking down upon its venerable smooth surface, and the pages of music upon the lifeless paper, that I am to transpose into ringing coin. One must have illusions, best of conductors; but to sing to order, at the appointed time, as announced on the black board, for wages which themselves sometimes belong to illusions, takes away all inclination, and acts most depressingly upon one's mind. Art can only thrive in freedom!"

"It is well known to us all," said the Conductor, "that our beautiful prima donna belongs to those natures, which, in the language of art, may be designated as cappricciose, and which only with difficulty can accustom themselves to any regular walk in life, or indeed to any rules of business."

"Now you are talking of business again," said the Signora, "naming art and business in one breath, it is enough to make all the muses take to flight!"

"Well, well," replied the Director, "everything in the world will have its season, and as regards business, prime donne do not understand that so badly when honorariums for their performances, or profitable paragraphs, are concerned."

"Not seldom, dear Master," said the singer, with a winning expression of countenance, which suddenly became somewhat gentler, and more amiable. That which she had said about her impressionability, had been confirmed by the rapid change of her face's expression; yes, it betokened cordial acquiescence, most unhesitating reciprocation of everything that was friendly; the greatest readiness to follow the other's moods, the trains of thought, certainly as it seemed, without that reserve which stricter womanliness required, as the flattering speeches by which she now sought to assuage the Conductor, contained something syren-like; every word was a caress, and only slight mockery, which sometimes echoed from them, showed that no real affection prompted their utterance.

This party was very disagreeable to the Regierungsrath; he did not love art, he liked to avoid all artists; in his eyes closer intercourse with them did not appear suitable to his position and he was glad to withdraw himself from the brotherly manner in which the disciples of art seek to place themselves on a footing of equality with all other mortals. He was on the point of taking flight from the Fuchs-spitze, which had suddenly become a Parnassus to him, when he was prevented doing so by the greeting of a young man, who released himself from the oak-leaf-wreathed group and stepped towards him.

"Good evening, Herr Regierungsrath Kalzow," rang the cordial greeting accompanied by a hearty shake of the hand, with which the female members of the Kalzow family were also favoured.

"Ah, Herr Doctor Schöner," replied the Rath, "what brings you here, then, in such jovial company?"

"You know," replied the young Doctor of Law, "that the ministry puts a stop to my political career, will not grant me the venia legendi at the University. Thus I have been obliged to exchange the useful for the agreeable; I have dedicated myself as dramatic scenery assistant to the theatre, and belong to a certain extent to the strolling troupe. We have just come from Memel, where we stirred up the Jack tars to enthusiasm with our melodies; then we waded through the sand of the Kurische Nehrung; sailed across the waters of the Kurische Haff in a smoking steamboat and settled down domestically in Cranz. The opera namely, and I, who although I really live on very bad terms with the trebles and general bass, yet am more enthusiastic about the operatic than the dramatic company, and at least enjoy my holidays with the former; the ballet, too, is represented here! Look, that languishing lady there is our première danseuse, does she not look something like one of the moon's rays that had been left behind? Each of her pas is a danced sigh. None of these ladies will receive a part through me; therefore I believe in the disinterestedness of their love glances."

The Doctor had only made these confessions to the Rath. Eva, with her mother, had retreated farther into the shadowy net of a Perkunos oak; but suddenly a peculiar pallor lay upon her features.

Young Schöner was well known to her; she had often seen and spoken to him in a friend's house, and as he strove very eagerly to gain her good-will, she had not remained perfectly indifferent to him.

Indeed, he might well win a girlish heart by his uncommon character. He behaved much more romantically than all adherents of art; his velvet coat, certainly, had been neat and glossy when it came from the tailor; yet it was terribly receptive of everything that flies about in the air, and soon lost all its charms of freshness.

A wide, turned-down shirt collar, without any intervening neckerchief, lay extended over his shoulders, like linen upon a bleaching-ground; a student's velvet cap sat defiantly upon his brow, even although it had now forfeited the silver Albertus, the proud badge of the academical citizens of Albertina, and the thorn stick in his hand quite answered to that one which the "wild man" carries in popular pictures.

His long black hair, however, which fell down upon his shoulders, enframed an interesting face, which was sharply, but not badly cut, and was surmounted by a pair of fiery and remarkable eyes.

The young Doctor, indeed, was an aspiring young fellow, and had allowed several poetical larks to rise, whose warbling notes had been heard afar through Germany.

At two-and-twenty years of age he was a species of celebrity, and celebrity is often the easily-obtained fruit of fashion. At that time everything was the fashion that came from the Baltic shore, where the beacons of political freedom blazed.

Thus young Doctor Schöner was deemed a genius--that is a strong letter of recommendation to a young girl, who has just left school--and, therefore, even the keen female eye does not perceive those tiny specks upon the velvet coat and that unfashionable hair, which detests the scissors.

The young poet now went towards Eva, and commenced a conversation with her about the beauty of the evening, and the beauties in the party of actresses, extolling Signora Bollini with glowing eulogy.

Eva, who leaned against the trunk of the giant oak, would have liked best to hide herself in it like a dryad, so as not to be obliged to listen to this praise, not to look at this goddess of art.

"Doctorchen, whither have you vanished?" suddenly rang the Signora's mellifluous voice, audible far around, and stepping nearer, she said, with a graceful inclination towards mother and daughter: "Ah, with the blue-bell, in the shadow of the sacred oak! You must spare my amanuensis tome to-day, ladies. He knows the road, the path, the names of all the hills on the coast, and the little bays--he is my map."

At the Signora's first words, Schöner had retreated from Eva, as though he had been caught upon forbidden paths. He introduced the ladies to one another, and immediately disappeared amongst the group of actors.

After a few polite words, which she had exchanged with the Regierungsrath's family, the Signora was back again in the midst of her own people.

Again a bright song resounded, accompanied by the waves breaking still louder on the shore.

Annoyed at the long stay, the Regierungsrath gave the signal to return home, and as they departed Eva could still hear the singer's merry words.

"Now ladies, away into the surging tide! Who would not wish to be a moonlight-water-fairy for once? I feel like a spirit of the elements, and my adorers have long since declared me to be an Undine, because in their opinion I have no soul. All the same--souls are the cheapest things in the world, and the smallest State has many hundreds of thousands of them! Besides, one must be able to exist without a soul, if one can only offer some substitute for it."

"Bravo!" cried Schöner; "long live our Undine!"

"Therefore, gentlemen, abonnement suspendu for the Baltic Sea? To-night it belongs to the ladies, and you return quietly to the hotel. You need have no fear that I shall transform myself down below in the breaking surf into a Melusina, and perhaps, coquette with a fish's tail. I am no silvery-scaled monster, but both on land and in water a woman comme il faut. En avant, ladies! Here are no hearses as in Cranz; here one springs from the shore into the waves, and the only Actæon who plays the spy upon us is the moon! It shall have its horns; it will soon enter upon its last quarter!"

Ladies and gentlemen descended the Fuchs-spitze on separate paths.

Eva had not lost a word of the singer's speech; it caused her to shiver uncomfortably, and she wrapped herself more closely in her shawl.

"An intolerable party," said the Regierungsrath to his wife; "so bold, so impudent."

"I do not understand," replied she, "how young Doctor Schöner can find pleasure in it."

"I understand it quite well! It is just the society for such ill-regulated minds! He would never have been fitted for a political career; it is not that he has no head, but everything ferments and surges in him in wild confusion."

"Perhaps he would settle down in time."

"Never! A thorn bends itself early to the form which it is to assume, and an official must bend himself betimes; I mean by this, control and govern himself, as we have only one gospel, that of duty!"

"He is thoughtless with girls, too; without exception, he pays attention to all, if they only belong in any degree to the fair sex. Evchen, you have met him at Justizrath Spillner's; he is said to have distinguished you, too."

Eva bent down and gathered a large-belled campanula, which grew by the roadside.

"It is fortunate," said the Regierungsrath, "that he has not yet dared to enter our house; in his poetry he has uttered such thoughts for the world's reform, that I should fall into bad odour with the whole of my colleagues, if he forced himself into my society."

"Perhaps he fears the same with his good friends," replied the Regierungsräthin, shrugging her shoulders; "as these so-called Liberals make their comments also, and we are certainly in their bad books."

"It is incredible, but you may be right. What have we not had to experience since our King's accession to the throne! Parties are formed, there is an Opposition, and we, who until now only had to command in order to meet with obedience, are confronted by resistance! Any young Doctor of Law thinks he can dictate to a President of Council what he is to do or leave undone."

"Calm yourself, my dear husband! In return he is in this prima donna's fetters, and he must obey her signs, as you have seen, and be a slave to her. A beautiful woman, certainly!"

"I did not look so closely at her."

"I know better, old man! I believe you could write her passport, mentioning all her peculiar marks of distinction. It does not matter! There is no danger in it, as she only seeks young admirers; I wager that Doctor Schöner's baptismal certificate is dated a few years after hers."

"I do not comprehend," said Kalzow, "how any man can place himself under the command of a feminine being! What becomes of manly dignity in such a case?"

At these words the Regierungsrath brought out a cigar-case so as to light himself a Havannah cigar.

"What are you doing, old man? How often have I already told you that you shall not smoke a cigar in the evening just before going to bed! It does not agree with you, the Doctor advised you not to do it; I forbid it positively in his name."

While speaking these words the Frau Regierungsräthin drew herself up to her full height.

"Then, at least, I will have another glass of beer over there."

"Nothing! That too is injurious for you! In other matters you are quite right! It is a disgrace to bow to the orders of such a theatrical princess; but to obey a sensible woman has never brought evil or dishonour."

Amid such conversations the family had reached the small fisherman's cottage in which they lived; Eva soon went to her attic-chamber, locked the door, opened the window and looked out into the moonlight night. Silently she had listened to her parents' discussion; only a few days ago she had taken young Doctor Schöner under her protection against all accusations, to-day she could do so no longer! She had been credulous enough to believe the Doctor's words of flattery; had he not distinguished her amongst her girl friends! As yet no word of love had been spoken, but a liking for the gifted young man had found utterance in her heart.

People talk so much of first and only love--and yet, if one looks closer into it, all kinds of budding affections, which never attain their full development, precede this first love; near the first rose there are plenty of buds which hang broken and faded on the stalk; many side-chapels where love erects itself modest altars, are forsaken before it strides to the high one in the great nave of the church. And no girl leaves sixteen or seventeen years behind her, without having obtained in a brother's friend, in a neighbour, in a vis-à-vis, a small ideal for the preliminary studies of love. There is a heart's idolatry even in earliest youth; yet the roots of such affections only rest loosely in the lightest soil.

Eva's first attempt at love was devoted to the young Doctor; she had erected a little temple for him in her heart, and adorned his picture with many floral wreaths of tender feelings. It is true her friends had often cautioned her in joke against the homage of the fickle poet; she ascribed it to envy, which even amongst young female friends is not a rarity. But now she had seen, with her own eyes, how he had bestowed his admiration upon another proud beauty, yes wandered with her through the country; she had heard how confidently that other had asserted her rights over him; it had dealt a stab to her heart, and it was a consolation for her, when her father and mother expressed themselves so hostilely towards him: a defiant feeling became powerful within her, she would hear nothing more from him, release herself entirely from him, drive away his picture as one wipes a dream out of one's eyes.

Yet slightly below the surface as the roots of a love, in this case not at all serious, had struck, it was a mixture of bitter and painful emotions which besieged the girl's heart, as it dug up its first shy affection.

Was that not the roar of the sea that sounded from afar? Was it not the proud Melusina who sang as she bathed her beautiful form in the billows. How small, how speechlessly she herself had stood beside that other, yonder by the oak! What a homely little flower was she herself beside that splendid exotic! With what spirit, with what fire that other one could speak--and how shyly she herself brought out such every-day words. Was it a marvel, that the poet turned away from her and followed the admired singer? But even if she were not beautiful, not proud, not intellectual, she yet had a sense of her own worth, and would not allow herself to be insulted with impunity.

Come ye waves, and if ye have kissed the dark hair of the bathing beauty, then rush upon the strand and efface for evermore the name of the poet, which, with the point of a parasol, love has written upon the sand; efface it there, and also--in my heart.

Scalding tears gushed from the maiden's eyes, she shut the window that the surging of the distant sea might not reverberate in her dreams like a triumphal song of victorious love! Weeping, she threw herself upon her bed, but then slept soundly and well, as youth can sleep.

She owned a determined mind, she had indeed cast clods of earth upon the coffin of a first, tender affection, which, as yet, had hardly outgrown the incipient bud.

CHAPTER II.

[THE BLUE CAMPANULA.]

Woodland gloom--high beeches form a temple's hall--mighty oaks keep watch before it; in their midst a green glade in which a hill rises clad with weeping willows and large fronded ferns growing on every side.

Eva sits upon the hill, she has fled from the forester's little house, whither the party of visitors from Warnicken had made an excursion, which was presided over by the Regierungsrath, who knew all the paths in these beautiful Samland woods. There was the Frau Gerichtsräthin with her daughters, the Frau Banquier with her gallant son, whose Latin mistakes made him uncertain of the upper form in the Kniephof College, but who had a flower culled from a poetical casket ready for every lady; there were yet other ladies and girls all in light straw hats, beneath which the withered faces of town cousins looked very odd; yet they, too, all continued their handicraft here, and the echoes of the woods and the little room of the forest-house rang again with city tales, and with the recapitulation of every folly that occurred in the town of pure reason.

Eva fled from this sociable circle; alone she followed a footpath into the wood, farther and farther until she reached that solitude, that spot dedicated to melancholy, where the weeping willows rock whisperingly in the wind.

There she gathered rosemary, and, like Ophelia, began to deck herself with it; she thought of her buried love, and her whole former life seemed so sad to her, so worthy of tears! Her mother's picture, who weeping had once left her, rose before her, for the Frau Räthin was not her mother, the Kalzows were her adopted parents, who never spoke of her real mother, never! No token of the latter's existence ever reached the daughter; she must tarry in some far-off place, must have to suffer, to atone for something; never was her name mentioned in society, and little Eva, herself, for eight years, had been Fräulein Kalzow in the eyes of God and man, and this had all been carried out correctly, and according to the universal law of the country as the Regierungsrath always said, when he wished to denote that anything was particularly excellent and admirable.

But Eva still saw her mother before her! it was indeed a touching picture; the pale lady with those large, enthusiastic eyes, which the daughter had inherited; for the small, sparkling coal black eyes of her adopted mother had nothing in common with that heritage, and she saw these orbs veiled in tears, as she had seen them at the last farewell, and thus this picture accompanied her through life.

And again the weeping willows rustled! How gloomy was the boarding school, were the classes! Eva was no light-hearted girl, and was avoided by the other pupils; questions were upon her lips that did not stand in the catechism, nor in her school books; these queries displeased her teachers, all the more so, because often they could not give an answer to the enquiries; the best meaning one amongst the governesses jokingly called Eva the little philosopher; but in the school she was universally called the girl with the inquiring eyes. Her eyes did indeed speak many questions of her heart to which life alone could impart a reply. Yet Eva was not happy! Her heart thirsted after love; but she did not possess the art of winning it easily by ready acquiescence.

Once, it might be in her twelfth year, she had found a little friend, an innocent girl with merry eyes, who attached herself to Eva like a burr. The latter even became merry in her company, beginning to jest, to play, to dance with the child. This continued throughout one whole winter; when the little one returned after the Easter holidays, she was distant and shy towards Eva, and withdrew entirely from her. For long Eva bore this unmerited estrangement silently, at last she enquired its cause.

"I am not to associate with you," replied the little one, with downcast eyes, "on account of your mother--"

This word buried itself deeply in the girl's heart, and became united to all her sad thoughts; and again in the head class of the school, an enlightened teacher, who in deep draughts had inhaled the air of pure reason which was wafted thither from the Königsberg philosophical dyke, had made remarks about the sad consequences of false piety, which could be seen in many near examples, and thereupon all her schoolfellows looked with meaning glances at Eva, who became alarmed at the enigmatic nature of this insinuation.

Thus she had a right to enquire with her eyes, and with her heart; because a dark shadow fell upon her life.

And again the weeping willows rustled! should no friend then approach her, no love adorn her life? The only one of whom she had dreamed that he might stand nearer to her heart, had become estranged from her again, and her life was lonelier than ever!

But why the wreath of rosemary? Does he deserve such mourning, who flutters heedlessly from flower to flower? No, he does not deserve it. And she flung the rosemary wreath aside; she left the shade of the weeping willows and through the high, bushy ferns sprang down the hill.

"A blue campanula the proud singer called me; good, so may they ring around me, those blue bells; I will be sad no more, I will deck myself with the joyous, open hearted children of the wood."

And she hastened into the cooler valley where the woodland rivulet rippled between alders, and plucked the tiny bells of the wood, the flower of the manifold campanula, which like a blue ribbon intersected the valley.

"I will be glad," murmured she to herself, as, sitting upon the moss-clad roots in the shade of a wide-spreading oak, she twined the large flowered bells into a wreath for her head, while she twisted the smaller ones into a garland, and thus she adorned herself like a wood nymph. The green blooming girdle set off her slender form to advantage.

And she began to sing a cheerful song, as though she would take her own joyful mood by surprise.

Suddenly there arose a rustling in the bushes, and a man in shooting dress stood before her. She sprang up in alarm, then stood still in confusion, and cast her eyes to the ground.

"I regret that I should disturb you," said the stranger, "but I felt constrained to satisfy myself as to whence came such lovely singing."

"The wood belongs to all the world," replied she, "and above all to sportsmen."

"Like yourself, my Fräulein, I am merely a visitor here, I certainly have a right to disturb the stags and hinds, which at such a season of the year have no claims to be spared, but on no account may I startle other living creatures out of lovely hiding places."

Eva now raised her eyes, and regarded the stranger with a cursory glance; his figure was tall and slight, his features seemed to be bronzed by a southern sun, his eyes were half closed, listlessness lay in their glance, but a gentle, refined smile played upon his lips.

"I did not expect to find so charming a flower-fairy in this extensive forest, where the hart-royals dwell. You are as completely buried beneath leaf and flowers, as a Chinese woman of the wood, because if these little bells could ring, they would yield a far sweeter peal than that which the women of the Celestial Empire tinkle before their ancestors' images."

"Have you heard those bells ring?" asked Eva, with that boldness, which is often merely an indication of great embarrassment.

"Certainly, my beautiful fairy! I have heard the bells of human folly in every zone; they have much the same sound in all parts; one flies from them, and finds them again everywhere; however, why should one destroy this charming woodland quiet with such thoughts? But yet. Robbers everywhere! Do not be alarmed my lovely child! I am not one of them, I only mean the hawks which hover yonder about the summits! The nightingales have already winged their southern flight, it is a pity! Their songs would sound so exquisitely here in the valley as an accompaniment to a living picture, to this fleur animée, the lovely campanula!"

Again Eva ventured to raise her glance, and saw a wide-open blue eye resting upon her. She had been mistaken before, when she deemed it to be small and insignificant; she thereupon recollected that there are eyes upon which the lids rest with heavy pressure, then suddenly seem to shake off this weight and gleam with a full, bright light.

"I am ashamed of myself," said she, already more confidentially, "it was childish folly to deck myself with these flowers. I was sitting over there upon the hill beneath the weeping willows, you probably know the little spot. Suddenly, my heart became filled with fear, I hastened down into the valley, and fancied I should become more cheerful, if all these flowers' eyes looked at me when placed quite close beside me."

"Still so young and yet sad?" asked the stranger, as he drew nearer concernedly, removing his fowling piece from his shoulder, and leaning upon it.

"Nor do I myself know why," replied Eva with embarrassment, "it seems to be wafted over us! There is indeed so much sadness in the world."

"Yet if it does hover about in the air, it only settles and remains there where personal experience makes one susceptible of it, and what can a young girl have experienced?"

"Little and much!"

"You speak as if you were a sybil, promulgating mysterious prophecies!"

"Ah, no, my Herr! Little that can be told, what is but little for others, but unutterably much for myself!"

"Then no bankrupt father, no dead mother, no brother fallen in a duel?"

"Nothing of that kind!"

"Perhaps even a school friend, who, married before--"

"Oh, how you scoff!"

"Or, perhaps a dear friend, who has transferred his heart to another's keeping!"

Eva became red, and looked down upon the ground; the sportsman struck his gun against the earth.

"Oh, that I could leave it alone! You are right; this scoffing tone is horrid. Yet it is a means of defence against the world, and those who have learned to know it, at home and abroad, use it, and it becomes a habit to them; but here, where such sweetly-charming innocence encounters me in the shadow of the tall forest trees, here I might adopt another tone, as I feel my heart also is quite different. Truly, I feel as if in a fairy tale! If there were still enchanted princesses, I should believe I had found one here, and I am already looking round for the monster that guards you, so that in knightly combat I may release you from the dragon; I have an incomparable weapon; my bullet will penetrate through any scaly armour."

"But we are talking too long, my Herr," said Eva, rising. "Excuse me, but my friends are expecting me."

"Then, of course, I must retire," replied the sportsman, as he stepped respectfully on one side.

Eva bowed pleasantly, and followed the path which led into the valley.

"May I ask, my Fräulein, where you wish to go?" said the stranger's voice, behind her; "on this road you would go still farther into the forest! That, indeed, confirms my idea that you dwell in some invisible fairy-palace, as queen of this wood, or that you are, after all, only a flower-spirit, that will float away to dance in the air with elves."

"I am, indeed, quite confused," said Eva, turning back. "Yonder lies the hill, with the weeping willows, and yet I hardly even know by which road I reached it! My friends will be seeking me; they will be uneasy about me! The sun already begins to glow with evening's red, between the tree-stems from the west, instead of beaming above their heads."

"If you really belong to mortal beings, my Fräulein, and even to the most prosaic class of them, who are known under the name of seaside visitors--"

"Now you are right, my Herr!"

"And if you will initiate me into the secret of the point whence you commenced this solitary wandering in the wood, I will guide you to the right road."

Eva told the name of the forest-house where her friends were resting.

"Then you must confide yourself to my unwelcome companionship."

"I am grateful to you, my Herr!"

"Oh, is it not a little adventure for you to wander through this wilderness, accompanied by a gentleman, who happily no longer can be accounted a young one. I certainly have experienced adventures enough in teak and palm groves, with tigers and crocodiles, and have wandered through forests with brown and black beauties, while apes and parrots looked on enviously; but to tell the truth, this nice little adventure in the Royal Prussian chase has a greater charm for me than the encounters with beauties who shine in native brown like old mahogany."

They were now passing by the hill. The heather, which grew wild upon it, was bathed in the evening's crimson, which also flooded the quivering bowed branches of the weeping willows.

Eva did not take any notice of it; she was quite absorbed in her conversation with the stranger.

"Oh, you cannot think, my Fräulein, how a man's mind develops, not only with his wider aims, but also with his more extensive travels. So much weighed upon me; my fatherland had grown too small for me; I was a dreamer and an enthusiast; and as such, had laden myself with guilt."

"It pleases you, doubtlessly, to accuse yourself," said Eva. "Those are generally the best people who perceive so many dark spots in their own life."

"Did your governess tell you that?" said the sportsman, smiling. "The good lady may be mistaken."

"How disagreeable you are," said Eva, petulantly.

"Believe me, it was bad enough! Even now, when I feel myself freer, I often see the old shadow cross my path. But in those days the world's contempt pursued me in such a manner as to crush me to the ground. Only when I convinced myself that the world, as it is called, is merely a very small, fading portion of the great world through which I wandered, that what is whispered and insinuated here on the East Sea, becomes of no importance already on the Adriatic, and still less so far, far away on the Pacific, since then I became storm-proof and invulnerable to the little pin-pricks of public opinion, to the gossip of the provincial neighbourhood. But what am I telling you! You do not yet know what all this means, and that you do not know it, that I can see how strange the dark legend of human guilt is to you, that it is which refreshes and benefits me so intensely. You still possess a delicate little conscience that at the outside ticks like a watch; my own alarms me with the groaning beats of a large clock, such as that which hangs at the Kremlin in Moscow."

"If you were in earnest about it," replied Eva, "you would not pass it over in such a light tone."

"Life, thought, feeling, my Fräulein, with you are all cast in one mould. Therefore, you do not comprehend how, in a man of the world, it is all in confusion, how often in him his soul weeps, while his thoughts spend themselves in frivolous raillery."

"That is a bad habit," said Eva. "Why do people turn everything topsy-turvy? Nature must run its course; the tree with its straight growth strives to attain the summit, the plant the blossom, and both Heaven! What, then, would our good Lord say to His world if the trees wished suddenly to stand upon their heads, stirred up the earth with them, and with their roots sought to reach the sky?"

"There are plants, though, my Fräulein, which one can turn upside down, and which then continue to grow briskly; perhaps I am some kind of offshoot of that species. Yet, seriously speaking, my Fräulein, we stand immeasurably higher than Nature, and, therefore, can fall immeasurably lower."

Eva seemed to be lost in meditation, when she heard her companions' voices, calling her name, sound through the aisles of beeches.

"We are at our goal," said the sportsman, "a few more steps and at a turn of the road you will see the roof of the forester's lodge."

"I thank you, my Herr!"

"But you shall not escape me thus! You penetrated much too far into the Royal Forest; I am a sort of assistant to the chief Forester, and must enquire about your antecedents. If I have understood the echo of these beech-aisles correctly, your name reminds one of Paradise, and it shall also remind me of it."

"I am called Eva, my Herr."

"Yet we no longer live in those primitive days when a Christian name sufficed to prove our identity before the Creator and created."

"My name is Eva Kalzow!"

"And your father?"

"Regierungsrath."

"How prosaic! One meets a fairy in the wood, and her father is a Regierungsrath! And now, you live--"

"In Warnicken, my Herr!"

"Thank you; the enquiry is closed, so far as I am concerned. I am an official personage, who has neither the duty nor the right to introduce himself by name. Think that I am the wild huntsman who traverses the woods at night with black hounds and halloes, but by day escorts lovely women. I shall not, however, place the campanula in my herbarium, but in a vase of fresh water, where bouquets of sweet recollections bloom. Farewell, my Fräulein!"

The stranger took leave with a courteous inclination.

Eva's glances followed him into the thicket, while the Kanzleiräthin, with her round, buxom daughter drew near from the other side.

"You were surely not alone, Eva?" said the latter. "I heard the bushes rustle over there."

"And how we have sought you; it is late already," remarked the Kanzleiräthin, as she put on her spectacles, in order to examine the girl from head to foot and see whether some adventure did not peep out of the folds of her dress.

"I had lost my way," said Eva, "and had fallen asleep beneath the weeping willows! There I dreamed of a wild huntsman; he took me upon his steed, and we sped through the air like a whirlwind."

"Eva, where are you?" resounded the Regierungsrath's voice. "The mists are beginning to rise from the marshes; we shall take cold on our way home."

"I have seen the Erl-king, papa, with the golden hoop; yet I am still alive, and you will take me home safe and sound, and not as a dying child."

And, beginning to warble Schubert's song of the Erl-King, Eva walked on with firm steps and exalted demeanour, in front of the home-bound party.

CHAPTER III.

[DUAL LOVE AND EVIL REPUTE.]

A few days later, two strangers engaged in eager conversation sat together in the garden-square, between the four Kur-houses of Bad Neukuhren. In the one, notwithstanding that he wore fashionable summer garments, we again recognise the sportsman of the forest, whose sun-burnt features contrasted so strongly with the light straw hat and light-coloured clothes; the other gazed morosely from beneath an untidy felt hat, his sharp furrowed face, which was, however, cast in a noble and somewhat elevated mould, suited the muscular figure.

He might have been taken for a sailor, owing to the power and determination that lay in his whole appearance, had not a refined spiritual expression in his eyes shown that he was wont to occupy himself with intellectual subjects.

"I rejoice, dear Doctor, to have become better acquainted with you here," said the sportsman, "the companions of my own position are somewhat too coolly indifferent to everything that interests me. At the Chief Forester's, things are conducted too patriarchally, and, therefore, I fled to the sea to distract my mind. I will only return to my castle when the rebuilding of the one wing is completed. I gave the architect the exact plan; but always to be present oneself, and to watch its being carried out, is not in accordance with my taste. Everything unfinished is odious to me; those lime pits, those carts of stone, those scaffoldings, make an uncomfortable impression upon me. Therefore, I accepted the Chief Forester's invitation at first, he being an old friend of my father."

"How long have you been back in Europe, Herr Von Blanden?" asked the Doctor.

"I have been in Europe for two years; but during that time I have exhausted the romance of the south; spent two summers on the Italian lakes, whose charms are indescribable! I have seen the Highland lakes in the giant mountains of Thibet and the sun of Palestine; yet the peculiarity of a Lago Maggiore; that balminess that hovers over the water, the islands, the shores, cannot be found elsewhere! My father's death, two month's ago, recalled me to East Prussia; it marked a turning point in my life."

"You became rich," said the Doctor.

"I have never needed to trouble myself about money, and I consider that a great advantage. Those are unhappy mortals who, amongst all the other ills of life, must also take that vile metal into consideration in everything that they do or wish! Is there a more inconsolable slavery than that of dependance upon money? Therein consists the happiness of riches, that they do not know these limits."

"The German student does not know them either," interposed the Doctor, "or, rather, will not know them. Youth is free! But the unpaid accounts follow us for many long years, and a frowning father reminds us that this youthful freedom belongs to the kingdom of dreams."

"Thus, it was not that," continued Blanden, "which made such a metamorphosis in my life; yet I returned with the firm determination to put an end, at last, to the epoch of adventures by land and sea; not to seek an object in life in the refined, inordinate longing after enjoyment of travelling; not in the varying circumstances which it offers to the mind and heart, but rather in active, earnest work, and, above all, by these means, to extinguish the unpleasant recollections that cling to my past."

"Youthful recollections!" said the Doctor, as he removed his felt hat, and took advantage of its pliability to press it into diverse forms, "who has not similar ones to note down in his diaries? And, after all, one may ask if these wanderings astray do not give more worth to life, than our exertions drawn by rule and measure?"

"But, at some time, one must put an end to it, I feel that! Far abroad as one may have wandered, a man must sometime prove to his nearest, his relations, his country associates that he has changed, that he can do something, can work, that he can do his duty to his neighbour, although he may see farther than they all."

"It does not require much to do that," said the Doctor, as he pushed his somewhat tangled hair from his forehead. "Our landed gentry's horizon does not extend far beyond the price of corn in summer, beyond l'ombre and sleighing parties in the winter. Here they possess a peculiar instrument called a zoche, with which they attack Mother Earth's body! All the world uses the plough; here they have the zoche, a two-legged agricultural implement of very ancient date! This zoche is a species of East Prussian symbol; we do not imitate it, but that which we possess ourselves is still less worthy of imitation."

"I must defend my brother squires, best of Doctors," replied Von Blanden, "there are many sterling, educated men amongst them, and especially amongst those whom I must still reckon as my opponents, to gain whose friendship is a wish very dear to my heart. Yes, dear Doctor," continued von Blanden, "I am contented with the spirit which now pervades this province, and the conditions are favourable to my plan. Here we have a public life, which, until now, has been wanting; the political spirit is awakened, and, if it was always painful for me, in the midst of the life and bustle of London and Paris, where great political questions stirred all minds, to think of the intensely quiet home and its inhabitants, who, like political backwoodsmen, live in the densest gloom of ignorance and indifference, now a joyous feeling fills me at the thought that the first pulse's throbs of constitutional existence are heard here, that all Germany gazes at the Baltic shores, at our East Prussia."

The Doctor shook his head.

"It may be, may be! It is a little better than formerly; but all politics are merely a struggle about forms! No one becomes happier by them. A more deeply penetrating revolution is necessary. The old views of the world must change their grooves."

"Those were the dreams of my youth! I longed for a new religion, which should develop itself out of the old one; yet one learns gradually to limit oneself to the Possible. You are still a young man; I am thirty-six years old; a decade lies between us! At that age I was an enthusiast like you! Now, I look upon the groundwork of political liberty as the most worthy object to strive for, by means of which we first become the equals of other nations. My wishes are to be elected to the Provincial Diet. A general representation will not long have to be waited for. I will pledge my mental power, the whole of my experiences upon it."

"Always practical!" muttered the Doctor to himself, "and, at the same time, it is nothing but misty theory! The Provincial Diet to be united to the General Diet--possible! Perhaps some day, too, we may even have a Parliament. Many grand discourses will be held there; but so long as Government holds the reins in its hands, it will do as it chooses, let others speak as they may."

"I do not look so gloomily upon matters," said Blanden. "The world's spirit becomes elevated by a more liberal organisation. I long for political labour, but shall not for it neglect the management of my estate. I have learnt much abroad, and also look upon the world from the position of a landowner. And then--if a man will do anything great in a narrow circle, he must limit himself in every respect, form a domestic hearth, and, in fact, I am resolved to marry!"

"The Philistines are upon you, Sampson!" cried the Doctor, as he crushed his hat angrily on to his head.

"What is there so astounding in it?" asked Blanden.

Now the Doctor was riding his favourite hobby!

"Marry! The thought makes my blood boil!"

"Then you are easily excited. What all the world does--"

"Is exactly that which one must not do," interrupted the Doctor.

"There we have the zoche, instead of the plough!" said Blanden, smiling.

"No, respected friend! I am a practical doctor, although until now I may only have cured few sick; but in the same illnesses I should not prescribe the same remedies to all constitutions. Natures such as ours are not fitted for matrimony. For it, steady, equable minds are needed--we do not possess them. Any one who is accustomed to a variety of sensations would be killed by everlasting sameness. Marriage cannot be happy without blinkers; but is it happiness to wander through life in them?"

"Alas, you are an incorrigible radical, who attacks everything!"

"A man must study himself!" said the Doctor, as he assumed a tone of instruction. "He must study the original phenomenon, and that is his own heart. After observing myself closely, I cannot but believe that marriage in general is no beneficent arrangement; at least it is not for such natures as mine. It is based upon the dogma of one faith which alone can bring salvation; it requires of the husband, 'You shall have none other gods but me!' But I could not confine myself to this love; I consider this exclusiveness of affection to be one of the greatest drawbacks with which mankind has been indoctrinated, not only by its priests, but also by its great poets with their tragedies of love and jealousy. Not alone for Turkish sensuality, but for the most intellectual and imaginative view of life, such exclusiveness is an obstructive barrier! And what narrow-mindedness lies in this wilful possession, which feels hatred and enmity towards everything, and lays claim to the same right! How indeed can any one talk of rights, when free affection is in question? Why should not two women love the same man, and be loved by him, without wishing to tear each other into pieces? Is it not more natural and more human that similar emotions and affections should dwell together in peace? I know that this is boundless heresy, and yet it is my conviction. Richly endowed natures which would live their lives cannot exhaust their hearts in one single love."

"Halt, halt," Blanden smilingly interrupted the eccentric Doctor, "You cannot thus, with one breath, cast existing customs to the winds."

Doctor Kuhl did not feel himself beaten; he pushed his chair uneasily back and forward, sprang up, and with arms folded, defiantly continued to force his worldly wisdom upon his companion. Kuhl was known along the shores of the Baltic Sea by his Herculean strength. He was a preserver of life by profession; wherever misfortunes loomed, he was present. He caught the reins of runaway horses; where any one was, voluntarily or involuntarily, near death in the water, Doctor Kuhl appeared as a guardian angel. He was an excellent swimmer, and when the flag hung out in the sea-baths, forbidding people to bathe because a storm stirred up the billows of the East Sea, Doctor Kuhl was sure to hazard a conflict with the waves, as the only living creature who at once defied the tempest and bathing-police. By means of all these valiant deeds, he had become more popular than any other person, and even in society his extreme views, of which he made no secret, were pardoned. He was simply considered eccentric, and public opinion judged him by an exceptional standard.

"Look here, dear fellow," he continued his lecture, "you know both the Fräulein von Dornau, Olga and Cäcilie; may heaven's and their mother's anger punish me! I love them both at once, and with the finest apothecary's scales could not discover the least preponderance of either in the balance."

"And what, then, do these ladies say to your simultaneous love?"

"I believe I have already somewhat converted them to my theory, even although the old Adam or the old Eve in them still rebels against it. On days so full of vigour as this, when the ocean glistens in the sunshine, and a fresh breeze blows hither from the north, when the feeling of strength fills my breast, then Olga is my calendar's saint. She possesses something fresh, natural, voluptuous in all her being, something Juno-like, and even the large eye is not wanting, which old Homer eulogises with such a base comparison. I will not say for a moment that a large mind speaks from that large eye, but Nature has made everything abundant about her. She reminds me of hotels, in which everything is arranged with the greatest comfort; nor must large plate glass windows be wanting there, either."

"That is, indeed," interposed Blanden, "quite a new form of praise of the fair sex, and our poets might go to school to you."

"She is purely sensual life," continued the Doctor, without letting himself be disturbed by this interlocutory remark. "All nature, instinct, little knowledge, no reason; she does not raise any special opposition even to my most daring views. It is quite different with Cäcilie: she is my calendar's saint for intellectual days; she is slighter, more refined; she has something Lacertian about her, that escapes one easily, that one would always grasp anew; everything about her has form, body and mind. She argues with me, she refutes, her eyes scintillate, and yet in the midst of the conflict she seems suddenly to lay down her arms; if her delicate lips do weave the most ingenious arguments wherewith to conquer me, the charm of submission lies already in her eyes. She is a Penelope; her mind weaves a web, that her heart ever again unravels. Olga acts by the charm of nature's body, Cäcilie by the charm of the spirit. I bear both in my heart; I stand as closely to the one as to the other. Shall I sacrifice one part of my being, in order to do homage to exclusive love?"

"We have," said Blanden, "no social forms in which a dual love could be lastingly secured; it is indeed a daring, yes, reprehensible innovation."

"Not at all," replied the Doctor. "It is the greatest secret of our society but certainly is only seldom spoken of; yet sometimes when you open books of the history of literature, in the lives of gifted men, you will find pages on which it is legibly written! Think of Bürger, of Doris and Molly; think of Schiller, of Charlotte and Caroline. How candid are the confessions of our great poets! I do not flatter myself I am the first who makes this great discovery, but I utter it fearlessly; this is Nature's law, which society outlaws, while it exercises its secret dominion undisturbedly."

"That may hold good during the stormy impetuous period of life," said Blanden. "I have experienced it in every quarter of the globe. Now I long for tranquillity, for restriction; I know that now in it alone can I find happiness, and I have no longing to lead either an Olga or a Cäcilie home, but a sweet, modest maiden who has not yet developed into independent womanliness, who is still capable of being formed, and growing up to twine herself around me."

"The old fable," replied Doctor Kuhl, scoffingly; "as if ever a girl was formed or changed by a man! Girls are the pure elementary spirits, but what they are, they are from the beginning. An elf will never become a nymph, and if one lives in the water and has a fish's tail, no power in the world will make her into a salamander with a sparkling golden crown."

"All the same," said Blanden, "I shall take an elf, and be satisfied with it."

"Then you have probably already found the one beauty which can make you happy?" asked the Doctor, inquisitively.

"Indeed, I almost think it," replied Blanden. "Lately, in the forest, I made the acquaintance of a beautiful wood-maiden, and I shall soon renew it in Warnicken."

"Well, you have my blessing," said the Doctor, with annoyance, crushing the felt hat, which in the meantime had again become a plaything in his hands, violently on to his head.

At this moment, the pair of sisters walked past the friends; Olga and Cäcilie came out of the sea, and, as is customary at bathing places, let their long wet, nymph-like hair flow down to dry in the sun. They both had splendid figures; the one fuller, the other slighter.

The Doctor greeted them with an eager bow, and soon found himself sailing in the wake of the elder sister, while the younger one, with a slight side movement sent a whole broadside of fiery glances upon him.

Blanden meditated over the peculiarity of those singular fellows who seek to bring everything into a system, of which they at last become the slaves. A hand was suddenly placed upon his shoulder, and his neighbour, Freiherr von Wegen, looked at him good-temperedly, as he turned round--

"There, I have found you at last; I sought you in vain at the Chief Forester's."

"Well, and what news do you bring me?" Blanden asked the fair, affectionate friend of his childish and youthful days, who, since his return, had become his indispensable assistant.

Wegen took a chair, lighted his cigar, beckoned to the waiter, and then began in an important manner--

"It is fatal, really fatal!"

"What then?" asked Blanden.

"That stupid story of former days!"

"Well."

"You know that I travel about as your agent, from estate to estate, in order to ensure your election to the Diet, and I am a commercial traveller who is not afraid of being seen. I advance all your qualifications--first-rate recommendations, clever, great traveller, wealthy, undoubted possessions! So far I met with no dispute. Liberal--then the symptoms of questioning begin. 'Liberal?' says Oberamtmann von Schlöhitten, whom I sought in his sheep-fold, while he examined his breed of sheep, one of the few which can exist in Silesia and Australia--'well as yet he has given no proof of it.' 'Only first elect him, and the proofs will follow,' replied I, prompt to serve. 'Now, from what I know about it--he belonged to the religious set--that is a species which I cannot endure, wolves in sheep's clothing!' He had by this time arrived at the principal ewe, whose fleece he allowed to glide through his fingers with satisfaction. I utilised this moment of tranquil delight, and said--'That was in his youth, he has changed.' 'Any one who changes his colours so quickly,' said the Oberamtmann, disagreeably, as he released the mother sheep with a loud smack, 'is not fitted for a representative! They stand bold to their colours!'"

"Well," said Blanden, "we will generously relinquish that vote."

"Yes, if it were the only one! I went to the wealthy Milbe of Kuhlwangen, the same who once announced in the newspapers; always of Kuhlwangen, but seldom in Kuhlwangen--that man is every inch a peasant, but he is a splendid humorist; he was just looking at a horse, that had arrived fresh from Trakehner; I went straight to my point. 'Blanden,' asked he, 'is that the same Blanden who was mixed up in that ugly Königsberg affair?' 'That was ten years ago,' replied I. 'That is all the same, the mark has been burnt into him like this Trakehner stud-brand.' He also invited me to a good breakfast, that I enjoyed thoroughly, although it was not without reluctance that I broke bread and drank wine at the table of a man who turned so deaf an ear to my proposals."

"Dear friend," said Blanden, "in politics one must accustom oneself to failure."

"But not when it comes thick as hail," replied Wegen, as he struck the table with his riding-whip, and with his left hand angrily curled his fair moustache. "There was Hermann von Gutsköhnen, Sengern von Laerchen, they only knew that you are a large and rich landed proprietor, and will give you their votes; there they live upon their sixty acres, and plough their manors themselves; they are homely people who understand nothing of the world."

"Now I know, according to your views, where I must seek my supporters."

"Graf von Donahoff," Wegen continued his report, "received me very pleasantly; he belongs to those nobles, about whose party-leaning I was still uncertain; he is connected with the Liberals by marriage. 'Blanden,' cried he, 'surely a pious man, one of those who remained true to his creed and defied calumny; we Conservatives should have a good supporter in him!' I hardly dared to undeceive the man with silvery locks. And yet it must be done! 'A Liberal, then?' exclaimed he, 'that is inconsolable! If that species now grows wild here in our province, well so be it; but when men who have drank at our refreshing well of salvation, are so fickle as to go over to the camp of the unrighteous, one could shed burning tears!' And he folded his hands, yet what was worse, he poured me out no more of that exquisite Madeira which stood upon the table; for he had discovered that I, too, wandered upon the paths of the godless, and sat amongst the seats of the scornful; I took leave very dejectedly, and disappeared as though the earth had swallowed me up."

"Oh, I know--a sister of his formerly belonged to our sect; she, too, in the meanwhile has become a Liberal, since she married, and has seceded disgracefully."

"Yes, the women, dear Blanden," said Wegen, shrugging his shoulders, "the women, you are really in their black books! Baron von Fuchs is a very sensible man, he recognises your mental superiority, is ready to give you his vote, and has only a smile for the reproaches which are brought against you on all sides. He invited me to dinner. I took my place triumphantly beside the lady of the house, who helped me liberally. We had just arrived at the joint--no, it was at the pudding--now I recollect it quite accurately, when the conversation turned upon you. 'Only to name such a man,' cried the Baroness, angrily, and threw her knife and fork upon the table. I received no more of the delicious wine-sauce. 'Well, what more is there?' said the Baron, as with great equanimity he poured himself out a glass of Johannisberger, 'we are going to return him to the Assembly!' Then the storm broke loose. 'That wicked man, that hypocrite--no Adalbert, if you do that!--I do not trouble myself about your politics, I never have troubled myself about them; but if you make your Assembly into a Sodom and Gomorrah, all we must protest who have been brought up with proper principles, and who know what morality demands! You at least shall not give your vote to Blanden!' and she sprang up from the table, the tart did not go round again, the most beautiful dessert remained untouched. The Baron, as far as appearances went, did not allow himself to be disturbed, but yet he was put out, and I am convinced that she will conquer in this domestic war, because she is a woman of principle--and the devil must manage all such as her."

"Our prospects seem bad," said Blanden, after a pause, while he sat lost in meditation, "I shall feel it most painfully if my new wish to take to active life should meet with insurmountable obstacles, just because I feel the power within me to enter upon new paths, because I have the earnest desire to break with my past, because I would as it were grasp the firm shore, I should not like to be hurled back into the breakers."

"Dear friend," replied Baron von Wegen, "all is not lost as yet! The Landrath is on your side, and he commands a considerable number of electors, but you must take decided steps yourself."

"And which?" asked Blanden.

"You must return to your castle; the rebuilding of the one wing will be ready in a few days; you must pay visits yourself amongst your neighbours; you are a kindly fellow at heart--and that after all is the principal thing; before it all the on dit disappear, what people say and what they think! Then invite them all to a sumptuous dinner, and they will come, be convinced! You are still one of the most respected landowners, whom they will not dare to scorn. But a good dinner opens people's hearts, I know it! When once the veuve Cliquot is uncorked, and she exercises her magical influence, then people allow themselves to be persuaded to anything, to which otherwise they do not show the slightest inclination. Then you can hold a little electioneering speech. You are a master of oratory, and you will see, even those obstinate von Schlöhitten and Kuhlwangen will pledge themselves to follow your standard. A good dinner is not only the most agreeable thing that there is--but also under certain circumstances the most necessary! I know it!"

"You may be right, dear Caspar--"

"For heaven's sake do not address me by my Christian name, I hate it! I always think of the Free-shooter and the 'Wolf's schlucht,' when I hear myself spoken to by it, or what is still much worse, of the 'Kasperle Theatre.'"

"But before I go home, I must take three or four days more leave."

"What for?"

"I wish to go across to Warnicken; I have discovered a treasure there, that I must inspect more closely; perhaps I shall adorn my castle with it."

"Good heavens--a love adventure!" said Wegen, humming--

'Reich mir die hand mein Leben!
Komm 'auf mein Schloss mit mir!'

"Always the same old Don Juan!"

"You are mistaken! The marble governor took him away long ago! It is a more serious love affair, but which, I allow, requires careful scrutiny."

"Indeed," said Wegen, while his good-natured face assumed a peculiarly kindly expression. "Marriage would not be the most stupid of all the things that you have done hitherto. A married man--that sounds so respectable, inspires such confidence! I have always thought that it would be a most fortunate move on the board. The queen would then rule over all the squares! Everything in the past is forgiven and forgotten! If an amiable young woman is not alarmed at that past, then all will probably follow her example, and even the Baroness von Fuchs will beat the retreat. I do not care much for matrimony, I shall remain a bachelor. A fiancée may be an angel, but one never knows how she may cook when she is one's wife. And a constantly bad cuisine--I should prefer the infernal regions!"

"You encourage me, old friend; it pleases me! Then--leave for four days! Perhaps they will be the most important in my life--and after that, back to the Castle!"

"I will ride over to my place to-day, and will see that things are right on yours."

"Thank you! And afterwards I will invite a newly-made friend to stay with me--Doctor Kuhl--he is an original fellow; but I like people to have and express new ideas."

"Then I am not sufficient for you, dear friend!" replied Wegen, stroking his blonde moustache in a melancholy manner. "Certainly, I possess few new ideas! Only at a good dinner they pour in upon me; then I understand what the poets call inspiration--I am often astonished at myself."

"You are good-natured," said Blanden, pressing his friend's hand, "and that is worth more than all this world's wisdom. Then we will seek Kuhl--he was abducted by two fair women."

"Stop, stop!" cried Wegen, with a pathetic gesture. "I am still breathless with my business-journies and reports, and you would have this state of exhaustion continue still longer? Storm and tempest--we have fasted long enough; now for a substantial breakfast! A few glasses of sherry, to defy wind and weather, and a beefsteak as underdone as possible--in that I am an Englishman!"

He beckoned to a waiter, and tied a napkin, that was lying upon the table, round his neck, brandishing his knife and fork impatiently in the air.

CHAPTER IV.

[BATHING-PLACE PICTURES.]

The Samland coast is frequented but little by strangers; the list of visitors seldom contains a Russ or Pole. However, a great number of people flows from East Prussia, from distant Masure, and its lonely lakes; from the primeval forests of Lithuania, to these homely seaside places; but more especially, the ancient town Ottokars sends its officials, its professors, its students, its young merchants, to the sea, and the sacred ocean-tide often overhears very learned discourses, which are held across the bathing-rope during the pauses which ensue between each rushing wave.

Everything here possesses the charm of fresh primitiveness; the festive bathing gown, the tasteful, fashionable toilet of Western seaside places are unknown.

Youth, full of the love of enterprise, assembles in Neukuhren; small dance in the evening, an expedition in a leiter-wagon, in which numerous families are crowded together, a concert, a performance--everything that with small means gives great enjoyment to eager spirits, is provided here by the leaders of social amusements.

Let us follow Doctor Kuhl, with his two friends, upon their way through the watering place.

The respected elders sit before the Kurhouses, newspapers in their hands, and hold council about the State's welfare. The debate is very keen, as it is a time of political agitation. The little Jewish doctor yonder, a follower of Johann Jacoby, defends the "four questions" against a whole bench of judges and councillors, who are beside themselves that the tiny little man's inexhaustible eloquence does not permit them to put in a word. Their lips quiver, their eyes flash; they have armed replies upon their lips, but all attempts are vain, and at last only the energetic bass voice of a minister of finance succeeds, if not in allaying, at least, in deafening him.

A ladies' club is sitting on the terrace of the Kur-house, in questionable morning-costumes. Even the ladies of a certain age, who in the evening still expect to obtain partners for the dance, and even admirers, have as yet neglected to summon the Graces to their toilet-tables; a portion of them sits there in grandmother-like caps; the charming love-locks that in the evening droop so fascinatingly over their temples, still linger in some place of concealment, and no one can foresee that these garments of sackcloth can develop later into elegant draperies. Everything is so homely, so simple, so nun-like; all the more lively is the conversation. A betrothal, which had taken place on the previous evening, gave cause for plentiful shrugging of shoulders, because the gentleman as yet held no respectable position in life, and the fiancée, as several female friends asserted, a very uncertain one.

Hardly was this conversation worn out before Doctor Kuhl, passing by with the two Fräuleins Dornau, offered an inexhaustible topic.

Here all considerations were at an end, and the battle-axes were wielded pitilessly. A widow, of dubious age, but of indubitable inclination to marry again, was reckless enough to take the unlucky victims under her protection, as she hazarded the remark, that one sister was at the same time a chaperon for the other. Both the Fräuleins Dornau slight capacity for playing a chaperon's part was then discussed on all sides with exultant eloquence.

Fortunately, the passers-by did not overhear the verdict of this court of censure, which sought to ostracise them from all good society: they walked along the village street. Tents were set up before the fishermen's cottages, beneath which the bathing nomads had taken up their abode. Here a young girl was reading George Sand's newest romance, or Doctor Schöner's poems, little attractive to a female mind as was the young lyrist's daring suggestion of turning the bells into cannon, naturally for the army of liberty which should blow the world out of its grooves. There a young man without any upper light, was attempting to execute a painting of the Samland Sea; the old gentleman, who, in his shirt-sleeves, gazes out of a narrow window in one of the fishermen's cottages, is a Privy Councillor, who had almost attained to being "his excellency:" and yonder, on the bench, in the arbour, if a little erection of boards merits that poetical name, sat one of the most admired beauties from the capital, her embroidery lying idle on her lap, while she herself gazed with dreamy eyes after the goose-herd who drove the unrenowned sisters of the Capitoline celebrities through the village street.

Doctor Kuhl, with his fair friends, had left the village behind him, and found a retired spot beneath whispering birches close by the surging sea, below in the "hollow way."

No inconvenient watchers disturbed them here at this hour of the day; it was as still in the hot sun as it usually only is on a cool, moonlight night.

"Here by the sacred, briny waves of Homer," cried the Doctor, "by the syrens and nereïdes and all the goddesses of the classical Walpurgis-night, I feel within me some of the blood of the dwellers in Olympus, who allowed themselves to be enchanted by beauty and love whenever the latter met them triumphantly. Poor Paris, who had only an apple for one goddess, instead of for all three at once! Yet all were worthy of the prize, and it was lamentable to grant to two only the second best. We three, dear Olga, my Cäcilie, we three form a beautiful union which the world does not understand how to respect!"

"You must allow yourself to understand, that you only actually love Olga!" remarked Cäcilie.

Doctor Kuhl sprang up indignantly.

"Any one hearing you speak in that manner would believe you to be jealous. Jealousy--that fruit of an odious narrow-mindedness, this inculcated social vice, which must always be alien to every natural emotion! Nothing irritates me so much as when I perceive tokens of jealousy in reasonable beings. Jealousy is a natural daughter of envy; but, alas! it has been legitimatised by society."

"On the contrary, dear Paul," replied Cäcilie, "it arises from an inherent feeling which belongs, more or less, to all mankind."

"And if it were so," replied the Doctor in an energetic tone, "one must curb and subdue these inherent feelings by true cultivation. The latter, however, tells us that the human heart is much too rich to exhaust its wealth in one sensation, that, indeed, a man can lay out his feelings, like his capital, in various investments, and that the coupons of the one do not in the remotest degree lose in value because he cuts coupons off the others. You understand me, Olga?"

Olga, who swore blindly by the master's words, nodded her perfect acquiescence, and was rewarded by a kiss for her powers of comprehension; she willingly assented that Doctor Kuhl should cut off this coupon from the invested capital of his feelings.

The sun, rising still higher, however, obliged the three lovers to retire, besides which, Doctor Kuhl had promised a college friend to meet him at the Kur-houses, and therefore he first accompanied the two Fräuleins Dornau to their dwelling, which was situated in a by-street of the village, and was a fisherman's cottage in the word's most daring sense. Mother Dornau, a poor officer's widow, could with difficulty only afford the expenses of a trip to the sea; modest as they might be, she was obliged to stint herself in every respect. Her two daughters' splendid figures could hardly stand uprightly in the two tiny rooms which she had rented there, and were always obliged first to remove out of the way several fishing nets lying upon the threshold when they wished to enter. Frau Rittimeisterin von Dornau, however, hoped to obtain husbands for her daughters by this sea-side visit, as the climate of Neukuhren was particularly favourable to engagements. Therefore she did not hesitate even to break into her small capital for this purpose, so as to cover the outlay of the undertaking. As in addition her hearing was bad and her sight still worse, she could only learn its results from her daughters' reports, and Doctor Kuhl appeared to her to be a very eligible wooer, who at first only seemed to bear a resemblance, which it was to be hoped would soon disappear, to Eulenspiegl's jackass, as it is represented standing between two bundles of hay.

The Doctor, jubilantly humming a song, now went to the Kur-house square, where he had appointed to meet his friend; much to his astonishment, he perceived the latter sitting at a long table, around which were assembled seven young girls and one elderly gentleman in spectacles who appeared to be engaged in some learned discourse, as was clearly evident from the long pauses in his harangue, during which he wiped the glasses of his spectacles, as at the same time he addressed each girl in turn by her Christian name, Doctor Kuhl arrived at the well-founded conclusion that the learned gentleman was the father of these seven daughters, and with the greater reason, because the former's eye rested with satisfaction upon each, much as does the eye of an author upon every single tome of a seven-volumed work. Doctor Kuhl made a sign to his friend; yet the latter did not appear to acknowledge the signal for departure; he only nodded pleasantly, and intimated by plain pantomimic language that for the moment it was impossible for him to follow his friend's hint. Kuhl tried to console himself with a "stiff glass of grog," for he had contracted several sailor-like habits. The elderly gentleman's discourse, in the meantime seemed never to intend to come to an end; several of his daughters could not suppress a sly yawn, and Doctor Reising--that was the young friend's name--pushed his chair impatiently to and fro. At last a conclusion "fast in its prison walls of earth," seemed to comprise the contents of the whole discourse; Doctor Reising rose somewhat impetuously and begged to be excused for a short time; soon the two young friends were seated together, undisturbedly, while the female Round Table cast surreptitious glances across, and examined the new comer's powerfully built figure.

"Who are those seven girls without uniform?" asked Doctor Kuhl, as Reising took a seat beside him.

"My dear fellow," replied the latter, "I am in a peculiar and very difficult position."

"You surely have not to solve a prize problem with the comedy's motto, 'The ugliest of seven?'"

"Do not speak so loudly," said young Doctor Reising, as he looked timidly round at the fair ones. The shyness and timidity of his manner became more apparent as he did so; he was a beardless, fair man, and his blonde hair stood up rather like bristles; his pointed nose seemed somewhat too sharp, and his lean figure was in a state of constant nervous, trembling motion.

"Well, make your confession to me," said Kuhl after a steady pull at the sailor's drink.

"Look here, dear friend," replied Reising, whispering, "you know that I have taken a degree of a Doctor of Philosophy, and contemplate settling down at the university of B----, there a philosopher has the best chance. That gentleman is the most influential Professor of Philosophy in B----, at the same time the only one who reads Logic and Psychology; everything for me, depends upon his favour!"

"I understand," replied Kuhl, "and there are seven charming obstacles."

"You are far from understanding all," said Reising more and more mysteriously; "that Professor is a disciple of Herbart, and I am a follower of Hegel, heart and soul."

"Then I should prefer to go to another University."

"My good friend, my rich uncle, whose heir I expect to be, lives in B----, and he wishes me positively to be near him; I cannot trifle with these prospects. The Hegelite philosophy is not, as it used to be under Altenstein, State's-philosophy which was encouraged, ensuring appointments and posts. A contrary wind blows under Eichhorn's ministry, and I myself incline very much to the wrong side, so I may make use of a rich uncle from whom I have expectations. My thoughts lead me to even bolder results. I require the goodwill of the authorities; but Herbart, I must tell you, my dear friend, it is especially Herbart, who is so unpalatable to me, and much as I would control myself, I cannot do it; I am constantly being drawn into a dispute with Professor Baute; the numberless schools are incomprehensible to me."

"But he seeks to make them more comprehensible by means of his seven daughters."

"That is just the misfortune! I am convinced that I could easily get over the chasm that separates the Hegelite and Herbartian philosophy, if I could resolve to propose to one of his seven daughters; my University career would then be ensured, as certainly as I should receive his daughter's hand; as being my uncle's heir, I am accounted a good match; but my dear friend, I feel nothing as yet!"

"A Hegelite, who would have any feeling!" said Doctor Kuhl, "your master extols marriages of reason! Show in this case, that you are his worthy disciple hic Rhodus, hic salta! It is not a question of being in love, and a more rational marriage you can certainly not make."

"And then," whispered Doctor Reising, "if I had mustered the resolution, the choice is so difficult."

"But my dear friend," said Kuhl, "that is quite immaterial. Old Hegel would turn in his grave for joy if you took the first that comes, because it is just as rational to take the one as the other. Count them off on your coat buttons."