CHAPTER VI.
On awaking the next morning, it was long ere I could arrive at a clear consciousness of my situation. My sleep had been disturbed by frightful dreams, which had left an oppression upon my spirits. It still seemed to me that I heard my father's voice, when a part of my dream recurred to my memory. I had been fleeing from my father, and came to a smooth pond, into which I threw myself, to escape by swimming. But the smooth pond suddenly changed into a stormy sea, upon whose waves I was now tossed towards heaven, and now plunged into the abyss. I was paralyzed with terror; and strove in vain to call to my father for help, while my father did not see me, although he ran up and down the shore, within reach of me, wringing his hands and breaking into loud lamentations over his drowned son.
I passed my hand repeatedly over my brow to drive away the frightful images, and opened my eyes and looking around, found myself in the room into which my host had conducted me on the previous night. The light in the great bare apartment was so dim, that I thought at first it must be very early; but my watch had stopped at nine, and on examination I discovered that this greenish twilight was produced by the thick foliage of trees whose branches touched the solitary window. At this moment a ray of sunlight found its way through some aperture, and fell upon the wall in front of me, upon which I at first thought the most singular and fantastic figures were painted, until closer observation showed me that the dark hangings had here and there detached themselves from the lighter ground, and hung in irregular strips, which seemed the strange garments of grotesque forms.
Altogether the appearance of the room was as inhospitable as it well could be: the plaster in several places had fallen from the ceiling, and lay in white fragments upon the floor, which was laid in parquetry, but now cracked in all directions. The whole furniture consisted of a great canopied bed, the curtains of which were of faded green damask; two high-backed chairs, covered with similar materials, one of which possessed its normal complement of legs, while the other, which in years had not yet learned to stand upon three, was propped against the wall; and finally, a pine washstand painted white, in singular contrast to the great oval mirror in a rich antique rococo frame, which hung above it; although it is true that the gilding on this piece of magnificence was in many places tarnished by age.
I made these observations while putting on my clothes, which in the short time I had slept by no means dried as thoroughly as I could have desired. But this was but a trifling discomfort: the thought that troubled me was, how should I dress myself the next day, and after? upon which followed the associate reflection:--what was going to become of me altogether?
The answer to this question was by no means clear; and after some consideration I hit upon the idea that it would be as well, before I came to a decision--which in any event was not a matter of such instant urgency--to consult my friendly host upon the subject. Singular enough! up to this day I had always rejected the advice of those whose position and knowledge best qualified them to give it, and had always maintained that I knew best what I had to do; and now I found myself looking with a sort of superstitious reliance to a man whom I had but just learned to know, and that under circumstances by no means of a nature to inspire confidence, and whose name was in evil repute, far and near. It was in this fact, possibly, that lay the greatest attraction for me. "The Wild Zehren" had held a place in my boyish imagination by the side of Rinaldo Rinaldini and Karl Moor; and I had keenly envied my friend Arthur, who used to tell the wildest stories about him, the possession of such an uncle.
Of late years he had been less talked about: I once heard the steuerrath, in a public garden, in the presence of my father and others, thanking God that the "mad fellow" had at last shown some signs of reformation, and the family might consider itself relieved from the perpetual fear that sooner or later he would come to some bad end. At the same time some allusions were made to a daughter, at which several of the gentlemen whispered together, and Justizrath Heckepfennig shrugged his shoulders. Later, Arthur told me that his cousin had eloped with a young tutor, but had not gone far, as his uncle gave chase to the fugitives and caught them before they reached the ferry. She was very beautiful, he said further, and on that account he the more regretted that his father and his uncle were on such unfriendly terms, for, owing to this disagreement, he had never seen Constance (I remembered the name) but once, and that was when she was a child.
All this and much more in this connection came into my mind while I finished my simple toilet before the dim mirror with the tarnished rococo frame; and as I thought of the pretty cousin, I felt chagrin at the tardy development of the beard that had begun to sprout on my upper lip. I caught up the sailor's hat which I had brought with me when I landed, and left the room to look for Herr von Zehren.
Pretty soon it became evident that this very natural intention was not so easy of accomplishment. The room which I left had, luckily, only two doors in it; but that which I entered had three, so that I had to make a choice between two, not including that which led into my chamber. Apparently I did not hit upon the right one, for I came upon a narrow corridor, very dimly lighted through a closed and curtained glass door. Another which I tried, opened into a hall of stateliest dimensions, the three windows of which looked out upon a large park-like garden. From this hall I passed into a great two-windowed room looking upon the court, and from this one happily back to the one adjoining my chamber, from which I had set out. I had to laugh when I made this discovery, but my laughter sounded so strangely hollow as to check my mirth at once. And indeed it was no wonder if laughter had a strange sound in these empty rooms, which seemed as if they had heard few sounds of merriment in recent times, however joyous they might have been in years by-gone. For this room was just as bare and cheerless as that in which I had slept; with just such ragged hangings, crumbling ceilings, and worm-eaten, half ruinous furniture, which might once have adorned a princely apartment. And so was it with the other rooms, which I now examined again more attentively than at first. Everywhere the same signs of desolation and decay; everywhere mournful evidences of vanished splendor: here and there upon the walls hung life-size portraits, which seemed to be spectrally fading into the dark background from which they had once shone brilliantly; in one room lay immense piles of books in venerable leather bindings, among which a pair of rats dived out of sight as I entered; in another, otherwise entirely empty, was a harp with broken chords, and the scabbard of a dress-sword, with its broad silken scarf. Everywhere rubbish, dust and cobwebs; windows dim with neglect, except where their broken panes offered a free passage to the birds that had scattered straw and dirt around--to a plaster cornice still clung a pair of abandoned swallow's nests; everywhere a stifling, musty atmosphere of ruin and decay.
After I had wandered through at least a half dozen more rooms, a lucky turn brought me into a spacious hall, from which descended a broad oaken staircase adorned with antique carved work. This staircase also, that once with its stained windows, its dark panels reaching almost to the ceiling, its antlers, old armor, and standards, must have presented an unusually stately and imposing appearance, offered the same dreary picture of desolation as the rest; and I slowly descended it amazed, and to a certain extent confounded, by all that I had seen. More than one step cracked and yielded as I placed my foot upon it, and as I instinctively laid my hand upon the broad balustrade, the wood felt singularly soft, but it was from the accumulated dust of years, into which, indeed, the whole stair seemed slowly dissolving.
I knew that I had not come this way the previous night, when my host conducted me to my chamber. A steep stair, as I afterwards learned, led from a side hall directly to that dark corridor which adjoined the room I had occupied. I had, therefore, never before been in the great hall in which I was now standing; and as I did not wish to go knocking in vain at half-a-dozen doors, and the great house-door that fronted the stairs, proved to be locked, I succeeded with some difficulty in opening a back-door, which luckily was only bolted, and entered a small court. The low buildings surrounding this, had probably been used as kitchens, or served other domestic purposes in former times; but at present they were all vacant, and looked up piteously with their empty window-frames and crumbling tile-roofs to the bare and ruinous main-building, as a pack of half-starved dogs to a master who himself has nothing to eat.
I was no longer a child: my organization was far from being a susceptible one, nor did I ever lightly fall into the fantastic mood; but I confess, that a strange and weird sensation came over me among these corpses of houses from which the life had evidently long since departed. So far I had not come upon the slightest trace of active human life. As it was now, so it must have been for years, a trysting place and tilt yard for owls and sparrows, rats and mice. Just so might have looked a castle enchanted by the wickedest of all witches; and I do not think that I should have been beyond measure astonished, if the hag had herself arisen, with bristling hair, from the great kettle in the wash-house, into which I cast a glance, and flown up through the wide chimney upon one of the broom-sticks that were lying about.
This wash-house had a door opening upon a little yard surrounded by a hedge, and divided by a deep trench, bridged by a half-rotten plank; which yard, as was evident from the egg-shells and bones scattered about, had formerly been a receptacle for the refuse of the kitchen, but grass had grown over the old rubbish-heaps, and a pair of wild rabbits darted at sight of me into their burrows in the trench. They might possibly preserve some legend of a time when the trench had been full of water, and these burrows the habitations of water-rats, but at such a remote period of antiquity that the whole tradition ran into the mythical.
Hearing a sound at hand which seemed to indicate the presence of a human being, I pushed through the hedge into the garden, and following the direction of the sound, found an old man who was loading a small cart with pales, which he was breaking with a hatchet out of a high stockade. This stockade had evidently once served as the fence of a deer-park; in the high grass lay the ruins of two deer-sheds blown down by the wind: the stags who used to feed from the racks, and try their antlers against the paling, had probably long since found their way to the kitchen, and why should the paling itself not follow?
So at least thought the withered old man whom I found engaged in this singular occupation. When he first came upon the estate, which was in the life-time of the present owner's father, there were forty head of deer in the park, he said; but in the year '12, when the French landed upon the island and took up quarters in the castle, more than half were shot, and the rest broke out and were never recovered, though a part were afterwards killed in the neighboring forest which belonged to Prince Prora.
After giving me this information, the old man fell to his work again, and I tried in vain to draw him into further conversation. His communicativeness was exhausted, and only with difficulty could I get from him that the master had gone out shooting, and would scarcely be back before evening, perhaps not so soon.
"And the young lady?"
"Most likely up yonder," said the old man, pointing with his axe-handle in the direction of the park; then slipping the straps of his cart over his decrepit shoulders, he slowly dragged it along the grass-grown path towards the castle. I watched him till he disappeared behind the bushes; for a while I could still hear the creaking of his cart, and then all was silent.
Silence without a sound, just as in the ruinous castle. But here the silence had nothing oppressive; the sky here was blue, without even the smallest speck of cloud; here shone the bright morning sun, throwing the shadows of the aged oaks upon the broad meadows, and sparkling in the rain-drops which the night's storm had left upon the bushes. Now and then a light breeze stirred, and the long sprays, heavy with rain, waved languidly, and the tall spires of grass bent before it.
It was all very beautiful. I inhaled deep draughts of the cool sweet air, and once more felt the sense of delight that had come over me the evening before, as the wild swans swept above me, high in air. How often, in after days, have I thought of that evening and this morning, and confessed to myself that I then, in spite of all, in spite of my folly and frivolity and misconduct, was happy, unspeakably happy--a short lived, treacherous bliss, it is true, but still bliss--a paradise in which I could not stay, from which the stern realities of life, and nature itself, expelled me--and yet a paradise!
Slowly loitering on, I penetrated deeper into the green wilderness, for wilderness it was. The path was scarcely distinguishable amid the luxuriant weeds and wild overgrowth of bushes--the path which in by-gone days had been swept by the trains of ladies fair, and by which the little feet of children had merrily tripped along. The surface grew hilly; at the end lay the park, and over me venerable beeches arched their giant boughs. Again the path descended towards an opening in the forest, and I stood upon the margin of a moderately large, circular tarn, in whose black water were reflected the great trees that surrounded it nearly to the edge.
A few steps further, upon a slightly elevated spot, at the foot of a tree whose gigantic size seemed the growth of centuries, was a low bank of moss; upon the bank lay a book and a glove. I looked and listened on all sides: all was still as death: only the sunlight played through the green sprays, and now and then a leaf fluttered down upon the dark water of the tarn.
I could not resist an impulse of curiosity: I approached the bank and took up the book. It was Eichendorf's "Life of a Good-for-Nothing." I had never seen the book, nor even heard of the author; but could not refrain from smiling as I read the title: it was as though some one had called me by name. But at that time I cared little for books: so I replaced it, open, as I had found it, and picked up the glove, not, however, without another cautious glance around, to see if the owner might not be a witness of my temerity.
This glove, I at once divined, belonged to Arthur's beautiful cousin--whose else could it be? The inference was simple enough; and, indeed, the circumstance of a young lady leaving her glove on the spot where she had been resting, had nothing in it remarkable. But the fancy of a youth of my temperament is not fettered; and I confess that as I held the little delicate glove in my hand, and inhaled its faint perfume, my heart began to beat very unreasonably. I had walked, times without number, past Emilie Heckepfennig's window in hope of a glance from that charmer; and had even worn on my heart, for weeks together, a ribbon which she once gave me as I was dancing with her; but that ribbon never gave me such feelings as did this little glove; there must have been some enchantment about it.
I threw myself upon the bank of moss, and indulged my fancy in the wild dreams of a youth of nineteen; at times laying the glove on the seat beside me, and then taking it up again to scrutinize it with ever closer attention, as though it were the key to the mystery of my life.
I had been sitting thus perhaps a quarter of an hour, when I suddenly started up and listened. As if from the sky there came a sound of music and singing, faint at first, then louder, and finally I distinguished a soft female voice, and the tinkling notes of a guitar. The voice was singing what seemed the refrain of a song:
"All day long the bright sun loves me;
All day long."
"All day long," it was repeated, now quite close at hand, and I now perceived the singer, who had been concealed from me hitherto by the great trunks of the beeches.
She was coming down a path which descended rather steeply among the trees, and as she came to a spot upon which the bright sunshine streamed through a canopy of leaves, she paused and looked thoughtfully upwards, presenting a picture which is ineffaceably imprinted upon my memory, and even now after so many years it comes back to me vividly as ever.
A charming, deep brunette, whose exquisitely proportioned form made her stature appear less than it really was; and whose somewhat fantastic dress of a dark green material, trimmed with gold braid, admirably accorded with her striking, almost gypsy-like appearance. She carried a small guitar suspended around her neck with a red ribbon, and her fingers played over its chords like the rays of sunlight over the lightly waving sprays.
Poor Constance! Child of the sun! Why, if it loved thee so well, did it not slay thee now with one of these rays, that I might have made thee a grave in this lonely forest-glade, far from the world for which thy heart so passionately yearned--thy poor foolish heart!
I was standing motionless, fascinated by the vision, when with a deep sigh she seemed to awake from a reverie, and as she descended the path her eyes and mine met. I noticed that she started lightly, as one who meets a human being where he only expected to see the stem of a tree: but the surprise was but momentary, and I observed that she regarded me from under her drooped lids, and a transient smile played round her lips; in truth, a beautiful maiden, conscious of her beauty could scarcely have seen without a smile the amazed admiration, bordering on stupefaction, depicted in my face.
Whether she or I was the first to speak I do not now remember; and indeed I clearly retain, of this our first conversation, only the memory of the tones of her soft and somewhat deep voice, which to my ear was like exquisite music. We must have ascended together from the forest-dell to the upland, and the sea-breeze must have awakened me to a clearer consciousness, for I can still see the calm, blue water stretching in boundless expanse around us, the white streaks of foam lying among the rocks of the beach perhaps a hundred feet below, and a pair of large gulls wheeling hither and thither, and then dipping to the water, where they gleamed like stars. I see the heather of the upland waving in the light breeze, hear the lapping of the surf among the sharp crags of the shore, and amid it all I hear the voice of Constance.
"My mother was a Spaniard, as beautiful as the day, and my father, who had gone thither to visit a friend he had known in Paris, saw her, and carried her off. The friend was my mother's brother, and he loved my father dearly, but was never willing that they should marry, because he was a strict Catholic, and my father would never consent to become a Catholic, but laughed and mocked at all religions. So they secretly eloped; but my uncle pursued and overtook them in the night, upon a lonely heath, and there were wild words between them, and then swords were drawn, and my father killed the brother of his bride. She did not know this until long afterwards; for she fainted during the fight, and my father contrived to make her believe that he had parted from his brother-in-law in friendship. Then they came to this place; but my mother always pined for her home, and used to say that she felt a weight upon her heart, as if a murder were resting on her soul. At last she learned, through an accident, the manner of death of her brother, whom she had devotedly loved; and so she grew melancholy, and wandered about day and night, asking every one whom she met which was the road to Spain. My father at last had to shut her up; but this she could not endure, and became quite raving, and tried to take her own life, until they let her go free again, when she wandered about as before. And one morning she threw herself into this pool, and when they drew her out she was dead. I was then only three years old, and I have no recollection of her looks, but they say she was handsomer than I am."
I said that could hardly be possible; and I said it with so much seriousness, for I was thinking of the poor woman who had drowned herself here, that Constance again smiled, and said I was certainly the best creature in the world, and that one could say anything to me that came into one's head; and that was what she liked. So I was always to stay with her, she said, and be her faithful George, and slay all the dragons in the world for her sake. Was I agreed to that? Indeed was I, I answered. And again a smile played over her rosy lips.
"You look as if you would. But how did you really come here, and what does my father want with you? He gave me a special charge on your account this morning before he set out; you must stand high in his favor, for he does not usually give himself much care for the welfare of other people. And how come you to have a sailor's hat on, and a very ugly one at that? I think you said you came from school; are there scholars there as large as you? I never knew that. How old are you really?"
And so the maiden prattled on--and yet it was not prattling, for she remained quite serious all the time, and it seemed to me that while she talked her mind was far away; and her dark eyes but seldom were turned to me, and then with but a momentary glance, as though I were no living man, but an inanimate figure; and frequently she put a second question without waiting for an answer to the first.
This suited me well, for thus at least I found courage to look at her again and again, and at last scarcely turned my eyes from her. "You will fall over there, if you do not take care," she suddenly said, lightly touching my arm with her finger, as we stood on the verge of a cliff. "It seems you are not easily made giddy."
"No, indeed," I answered.
"Let us go up there," she said.
Upon what was nearly the highest part of the promontory on which we were, were the ruins of a castle, overgrown with thick bushes. But a single massive tower, almost entirely covered with ivy, had defied the power of the sea and of time. These were the ruins of the Zehrenburg, to which Arthur had pointed yesterday, as we passed on the steamer; the same tower on which I was to fix my gaze as I renounced in his favor all pretensions to Emilie Heckepfennig. This I had passionately refused to do--yesterday: what was Emilie Heckepfennig to me to-day?
The beautiful girl had taken her seat upon a mossy stone, and looked fixedly into the distance. I stood beside her, leaning against the old tower, and looked fixedly into her face.
"All that, once was ours," she said, slowly sweeping her hand round the horizon; "and this, is all that remains."
She rose hastily, and began to descend a narrow path which led, through broom and heather, from the heights down to the forest. I followed. We came to the beech-wood again, and back to the tarn, where her book and guitar still lay upon the bank. I was very proud when she gave me both to carry, saying at the same time that the guitar had been her mother's, and that she had never trusted it to any one before; but now I should always carry this, her greatest treasure, for her, and she would teach me to play and to sing, if I stayed with them. Or perhaps I did not mean to stay with them?
I said that I could not tell, but I hoped so; and the thought of going away fell heavy upon my heart.
We had now reached the castle. "Give me the guitar," she said, "but keep the book: I know it by heart. Have you had breakfast? No? Poor, poor George! it is lucky that no dragon met us; you would have been hardly able to stand upon your feet."
A side-door, that I had not previously noticed, led to that part of the ground-floor inhabited by the father and daughter. Constance called an old female servant, and directed her to prepare me some breakfast, and then she left me, after giving me her hand, with that melancholy transient smile which I had already noted on her beautiful lips.
CHAPTER VII.
The breakfast which the ugly, taciturn old woman--whom Constance called "Pahlen"--set before me after about half an hour, might well have been ready in less time, for it consisted only of black bread, butter, cheese, and a flask of cognac. The cognac was excellent; but the remainder of the repast far from luxurious, for the bread was sour and mouldy in spots, the butter rancid, and the cheese hard as a stone; but what was that to a youth of nineteen, who had eaten nothing for twelve hours, and whose silly heart, moreover, was palpitating with its first passion! So it seemed to me that I had never had a more sumptuous repast; and I thanked the old woman for her trouble with the utmost politeness. "Pahlen" did not seem to know what to make of me. She looked askance at me two or three times, with a sort of surly curiosity; and to the questions that I put to her, replied with an unintelligible grumbling, out of which I could make nothing.
The room in which I now found myself--it was the same into which Herr von Zehren had conducted me on our first arrival--might, in comparison with the deserted apartments of the upper story, be called habitable, though the carpet under the table was ragged, several of the carved oaken chairs were no longer firm upon their legs, and a great antique buffet in one corner had decidedly seen better days. The windows opened upon a court, into which, my breakfast once over, I cast a look. This court was very spacious, the barns and stables that enclosed it of the very largest dimensions, such as are only found on the most considerable estates. So much the more striking was the silence that prevailed in it. In the centre of the space was a dove-cot built of stone, but no wings fluttered about it, unless perhaps those of a passing swallow. There was a duck-pond without ducks, a dunghill upon which no fowls were scratching--one peacock sat upon the broken paling--everything seemed dead or departed. Here was no hurrying to and fro of busy men, no lowing of cattle or neighing of horses--all was vacant and silent; only from time to time the peacock on the paling uttered his dissonant cry, and the sparrows twittered in the twigs of an old linden.
As Constance did not return, and as Pahlen, to my question about the dinner hour, responded by asking me if I now wanted dinner too, I came to the conclusion that for some hours at least I would be left to my own devices. I therefore walked into the court, and then perceived that this part of the castle was an addition, which formed a continuation to the main building, and had probably served as the manager's house. In the castle the shutters on the ground floor were closed, and secured with massive iron bars, a fact which did not by any means tend to give the old pile a more cheerful appearance. That a manager's house had long been a superfluous appendage, the surroundings plainly showed. In truth, there was nothing here to manage; the buildings, which at a distance still presented a tolerable appearance, proved, when near, to be little better than crumbling ruins. The thatched roofs had sunk in decay and were overgrown with moss, the ornamental work had dropped away, the plaster peeled off in patches, the doors hung awry on their rusted hinges, and in many places were entirely wanting. A stable into which I looked had been originally built to accommodate forty horses; now there stood in a corner four lean old brutes that set up a hungry neighing as they saw me. As I came out again into the court, a wagon, partly laden with corn and dragged by four other miserable jades, went reeling over the broken stones of the pavement, and disappeared in the yawning doorway of one of the immense barns, like a coffin in a vault.
I strolled further on, passing one or two dilapidated hovels, where half-naked children were playing in the sand, and a couple of fellows, more like bandits than farm-hands, were lounging, who stared at me with looks half shy half insolent, and reached the fields. The sun shone brightly enough, but it lighted up little that was pleasant to the eye: waste land, with here and there scattering patches of sparse oats, overgrown with blue cornflowers and scarlet poppies, a little rusted wheat, an acre or so where the rye--late enough for the season--still stood in slovenly sheaves, and where a second wagon was being laden by two fellows of the same bandit appearance as the men at the hovels, and who stared at me with the same surprised and skulking looks, without answering my salutation. At some distance appeared through the trees and bushes the roofs of farm-buildings, evidently upon another estate, to which belonged, doubtless, the far better cultivated fields which I had now reached. Further to the right, above a larger collection of houses, arose the plain white steeple of a church. But I did not care to push my exploration further: an impulse drew me back to the park, which I reached by a circuitous route on the other side, for I wished to avoid the castle and the grumbling old Pahlen.
I had hoped here to meet Constance again; but in vain did I listen more than an hour under the trees and among the bushes, watching the castle until I knew by heart nearly every broken tile upon the roof, and each separate patch--and they were not few--where the rains of so many years had detached the plaster and laid bare the stones beneath. No one was to be seen; no sound was audible; while the afternoon sun gleamed upon the window-panes, save when the shadow of a passing cloud swept over them.
My spirits began to yield to the depressing influences of this scene of sunlit desolation. I felt as if the silence, like an invisible magic net, was folding around me closer and closer, until I scarcely ventured to move--scarcely to speak. In place of the careless audacity, which was my natural temperament, a deep sadness took possession of me. How came I here? What was I to do here--what did I want here, where no one troubled himself about me? Was not all that had happened to me since yesterday only a dream, and had I not merely dreamed the beauteous maiden with the dark eyes and strange smile?
A sense as of home-sickness came over me. I saw in fancy the town with the narrow, crooked streets running between the old-fashioned gabled houses; I saw my little room, to which I would have returned from school by this time to fling my wearisome books upon the table and then fly to my friend Arthur, who I knew had arranged a boat excursion in the harbor. I saw my father sitting at the window of his bureau in the excise-office, and crept close to the wall to avoid being seen by him. How had my father borne my departure? Was he anxious about me? Assuredly he was; for he still loved me, notwithstanding our mutual alienation. What would he do when he learned--as sooner or later he must learn--that I was with the wild Zehren? Would he allow me to stay? Would he command me to return? Perhaps come for me himself?
As this thought came into my mind, I looked uneasily around. It would be intolerable to have to go back to the stifling class-room, to be scolded again, like a boy by Professor Lederer, and never more to see Fräulein von Zehren Constance! Never would I endure it! My father had driven me from his house; he might take the consequences. Rather than go back, I would turn bandit--smuggler----
I do not know how the last word came upon my lips, but I remember--and I have since often thought of it--that when I had uttered the word half aloud, merely as a heroical phrase, without attaching any distinct meaning to it, I suddenly started as if some one had spoken it in my immediate vicinity; and at the same moment the adventures of the previous night and what I had since observed, arranged themselves in a definite connection, just as one looking through a telescope sees heaven and earth blended together in dim confusion, until the right focus is attained, when a distinct picture stands before him. How could I have been so blind--so destitute of ordinary apprehension? Herr von Zehren over at Pinnow's, the strange connection that manifestly existed between the nobleman and the smith, Christel's warnings, Pinnow's behavior towards me, and the night sail in the terrible storm! And then this uncared-for house, this ruinous farm-yard, these desolated fields, this neglected park! The solitary situation of the place, upon a promontory extending far into the sea! I had learned already from frequent conversations between my father and his colleagues in the excise-office, how actively smuggling was carried on in these waters, what a flourishing business it was, and how much might be made at it by any one who was willing to peril his life upon occasion. All was clear as day; this, and no other, was the solution of the mystery.
"You must be mad," I said to myself again, "completely mad. A nobleman like Herr von Zehren! Such doings are for the rabble. Old Pinnow--yes, yes, that is likely enough; but a Herr von Zehren--shame upon you!"
I endeavored with all my might to shake off a suspicion which was really intolerable; and thus afforded another proof that we all, however free we think ourselves, or perhaps have really become, still ever in our feelings, if not in our thoughts, are bound by other imperceptible but none the less firm ties to the impressions of our childhood and early youth. Had my father been a king and I the crown-prince, I should probably have seen the Evil One embodied in the person of a revolutionist; or in a runaway slave, had I been the descendant of a planter; so, as I had for a father a pedantically rigid excise-officer, to my conceptions the most hideous of all stigmas was affixed to the smuggler's career. Yet at the same time--and this will seem surprising to no one who remembers the strange duplicate character of the devil in the Christian mythology--this murky gate of Tophet, by which my childish fancy had so often stolen at a timid distance, was invested with a diabolical fascination. How could it be otherwise, when I heard tell of the privations which the wretches often endured with such fortitude, of the ingenuity with which they knew how to baffle the utmost vigilance of the officers, of the fearlessness with which they not seldom confronted the most imminent peril? These were perilous stories to reach the ear of an adventurous boy; but far too many such were talked over in our town; and what was the worst of all, I had heard the most terrible and most fascinating from the lips of my own father--naturally with an appendix of indignant reprobation always tacked on in form of a moral; but this antidote was, of a surety, never sufficient entirely to neutralize the poison. Had not Arthur and I, shortly before an examination in which we had the most confident assurance that we should cut but a poor figure, for a whole day taken earnest counsel together over the question whether we, in case we failed--or better yet, before standing the trial--should not turn smugglers ourselves, until we actually were scared at our own plans? That had been four years ago; but, although in the meantime the vehement antipathies and sympathies of youth had been moderated by maturer reason, still the thought of having fallen into the hands of a smuggler had even now the effect of making my heart beat violently.
"You must be mad--stark mad! Such a man--it is not possible!" I continually repeated to myself, as I hurried along the path I had followed that morning--for indeed I then knew no other--through the park into the forest, until I again reached the tarn with the bank of moss.
I gazed into the calm black water; I thought of the unhappy lady who had drowned herself there because she could not find the way back to Spain, and how strange it was that her daughter should select precisely this spot for her favorite resting-place. Behind the bank lay her other glove, for which we had looked in vain in the morning. I kissed it repeatedly, with a thrill of delight, and placed it in my bosom. Then leaving the place hastily I ascended the cliff, and passing the ruined tower, went out to the furthest extremity of the promontory, which was also its highest point. Approaching the verge, I looked over. A strong breeze had sprung up; the streaks of foam lying among the great rocks and countless pebbles of the beach had grown broader; and here and there upon the blue expanse flashed the white crest of a breaker. The mainland lay towards the south-west. I could have seen the steeples of my native town but for a cliff that intervened, rising abruptly from the sea, and now of a steel-blue color in the afternoon light. "And this is all that remains!" I said, repeating the words of Constance, as my eye, in turning, fell upon the ruined tower.
I descended and threw myself down upon the soft moss that grew among the ruins. No place could have been found more fit to inspire fantastic reveries. The wide expanse of sky, and beyond the edge of the upland a great stretch of sea, and the nodding broom around me! In the sky the fleecy clouds, on the water a gleaming sail, and in the broom the whispering wind! How luxurious to lie idly here and dream--the sweetest dream of sweet love that loves idleness: a dream, of course, full of combats and peril, such as naturally fills a youthful fancy. Yes! I would be her deliverer; would bear her in my arms from this desolate castle, a dismal dungeon for one so young and so fair--would rescue her from this terrible father, and these ruins would I erect again into a stately palace; and when the work was done and the topmost battlements burned in the evening-red, would lead her in, and kneeling humbly before her, say, "This is thine! Live happy! Me thou wilt never see more!"
Thus I wove the web of fancy, while the sun sank towards the horizon, and the white clouds of noon began to flush with crimson. What else could I have done? A young fellow who has just run away from school, who has not a thaler in his pocket, and a borrowed hat on, and who scarcely knows where he shall lay his head--what else can he do but build castles in the air?
CHAPTER VIII.
As I entered the court through a little door in the park-wall, there stood a light wagon from which the horses were being unharnessed, and by the wagon a man in hunting-dress, his gun upon his shoulder--it was Herr von Zehren.
I had planned to assume towards my host a sort of diplomatic attitude; but I never was a good actor, and had had, besides, so little time to get up the part, that the friendly smile and cordial grasp of the hand with which Herr von Zehren received me, completely threw me out, and I met his smile and returned his grasp with as much fervor as if I had all day been waiting for the moment when I should see my friend and protector: in a word, I was entirely in the power of the charm with which this singular man had, from the first moment of our meeting, captivated my young and inexperienced heart.
But in truth a maturer understanding than mine might well have been ensnared by the charm of his manner. Even his personal appearance had for me something fascinating; and as he stood there, laughing and jesting with the setting sun lighting up a face which seemed really to have grown young again from the excitement of his day's sport, and as he took off his cap and pushed the soft fine locks, already touched with gray, from his nobly-formed brow, and stroked his thick brown beard, I thought I had never seen a handsomer man.
"I came to your bedside this morning," he said, in a sportive manner; "but you slept so soundly that I had not the heart to waken you. Though if I had known that you could handle a gun as well as you can rudder and halyards--and yet I might have known it, for fishing and shooting and--something else besides--go together, like sitting by the stove and sleeping. But we will make up for it: we have, thank heaven, more than one day's shooting before us. And now come in and let us talk while supper is getting ready."
The room which Herr von Zehren occupied was in the front part of the building, just in the rear of the dining-room, and his sleeping apartment immediately adjoined it. He entered the latter, and conversed with me through the open door, keeping all the while such a clattering with jugs, basins, and other apparatus of ablution, that I had some difficulty in understanding what he was saying. I made out, however, that he had this morning written to his brother, the steuerrath, requesting him to apprise my father where I was now staying. My father certainly would not be sorry to hear that I had found shelter in the house of a friend, at least until some arrangement could be effected. In similar circumstances, he said, a temporary separation often prevented a perpetual one. And even should this not be the case here, at all events--here his head dipped into the water, and I lost the remainder of the sentence. Under any circumstances--he was saying when he became again intelligible--it would be as well if I mentioned to no one where it was that we had happened to meet. We might have met upon the road, as I was about to be ferried over to the island. What was to prevent a young man, whose father had just driven him from his house, from going, if he pleased, as far as the blue sky spread overhead? and why should he not meet a gentleman who has a vacant place in his carriage, and asks the young man if he will not get in? This was all very simple and natural. And in fact this was the way he had stated the circumstances in his letter to his brother this morning. He had given old Pinnow his cue yesterday evening. And besides, the question of where and how was really nobody's affair. He added some further remarks with his head inside his wardrobe, but I only caught the word "inconveniences."
I felt relieved from a load of anxiety. My frightful dream of the morning, of which I had not thought during the whole day, had recurred to my memory in the dusk of the evening twilight. For a moment an apprehension seized me that my father might think I had made away with myself; but it was but for a moment, for youth finds it so unlikely that others will take things more seriously than it does itself. One point, however, was clear: that I must give some account of myself to my father. But at this thought the old misery came back; I could, in any event, no longer stay here. And now I suddenly saw a way of escape from this labyrinth. The steuerrath, being his immediate chief, was, as I well knew, looked upon by my loyal and zealous father as a kind of superior being; indeed he knew upon earth but four other beings higher than himself; the Provincial Excise-Director, the General Excise-Director, His Excellency the Minister of Commerce, next to whom came His Majesty the King--which latter, however, was a being of distinct and peculiar kind, and separated, even from an excellency, by a vast chasm. If, therefore, Herr von Zehren wished to keep me with him, and the steuerrath would use his influence with my father--but would he? The steuerrath had never liked me much; and besides, the evening before, I had deeply offended him. I expressed my doubts on this point to Herr von Zehren. "I will make that all right," he said, as, rubbing his freshly washed hands, he came out of his chamber.
"And now then," he went on, stretching himself luxuriously in an easy-chair, "how have you spent the day? Have you seen my daughter? Yes? Then you may boast of your luck--many a time I do not see her for days together. And have you had something to eat? Poor fare enough, I warrant; the provision is but indifferent when I am at home, but execrable when I am away. Moonshine and beefsteak are two things that do not suit together. When I want good fare, I must go from home. Yesterday evening, for example, at old Pinnow's--wasn't it capital? Romantic too, eh? Friar Tuck and the Black Knight, and you besides as the Disinherited Knight. I love such little adventures above everything."
And he stretched himself at ease in his great chair, and laughed so joyously that I mentally asked his pardon for my suspicions, and pronounced myself a complete fool to have had such an idea enter my brain.
He went on chatting: asked me many questions about my father, my family, the past events of my life, all in a tone of such friendly interest that no one could have taken it amiss. He seemed to be much pleased with my answers; nor did I take offence again when, as he had done the evening before, he broke into loud laughter at some of my remarks. But when this happened, he was always careful to soothe my sensitiveness with a kind word or two. I felt assured that he meant well towards me; and to this day I have remained in the conviction that from the first moment he had conceived a hearty liking for me, and that if it was a mere caprice that drew him towards a young man who needed assistance, it was one of those caprices of which none but naturally generous hearts are capable.
"But what keeps our supper so long?" he cried, springing up impatiently and looking into the dining-room. "Ah! there you are, Constance!"
He went in; through the half-open door I heard him speaking in a low tone with his daughter; my heart beat, I could not tell why.
"Well, why do you not come?" he called to me from the dining-room. I went in; by the table, that to my unaccustomed eye seemed richly spread, stood Constance. The light of the hanging lamp fell upon her from above. Whether it was the different light, or the different arrangement of her hair, which was now combed upwards, so as to rest upon her head like a dark crown, with a golden ribbon interwoven in it, or her different attire--now a plain blue close-fitting dress, cut low at the neck, which was covered by a wide lace collar, worn somewhat like a handkerchief--whether it was all these together, and in addition the changed expression of her face, which had now something indescribably childlike about it, I cannot say; but I scarcely recognized her again; I could have believed that the Constance I had seen in the morning was the older, more impassioned sister of this fair maidenly creature.
"Last half of the previous century," said Herr von Zehren--"Lotte, eh? You only want a sash, and perhaps a Werther--otherwise superb!"
A shadow passed over the face of Constance, and her brows contracted. I had not entirely understood the allusion, but it pained me. Constance seemed so fair to me; how could any one who saw her say aught else but that she was fair?
Gladly would I have said it, but I had scarcely the courage to look at her, let alone speak to her; and she, for her part, was silent and abstracted; the dishes she hardly touched; and indeed now I cannot remember ever to have seen her eat. In truth, the meal, composed of fish and pheasants which Herr von Zehren had brought in from his day's shooting, was of a kind only suited to his own appetite, which was as keen as a sportsman's usually is. During supper he drank freely of the excellent red wine, and often challenged me to pledge him; and indeed he directed his vivacious and genial conversation almost exclusively to me. I was fairly dazzled by it; and as there was much that I only half understood, and much that I did not understand at all, it sometimes happened that I laughed in the wrong place, which only increased his mirth. One thing, however, I saw clearly; the constrained, not to say hostile, relations between father and daughter. Things of this kind are easily perceived, especially when the observer is as well prepared as was I to catch the meaning lurking under the apparent indifference of a hasty question, and to mark the unnecessarily prolonged pause which preceded the answer, and the irritated tone in which it followed. For it had not been so long since my father and I had sat together in the same way; when I used to thank heaven in my heart if any lucky chance relieved us sooner than usual of each other's presence. Here I should have been a disinterested spectator had I not been so inordinately in love with the daughter, and had not the father, by his brilliancy and amiability, obtained such a mastery over me. So my heart, shared between them both, was torn asunder by their division; and if a few hours before I had formed the heroic resolution to protect the lovely and unhappy daughter from her terrible father, I was now fixed like a rock in my conviction that to me had fallen the sublime mission to join these two glorious beings again in an indissoluble bond of love. That it would have better become me to go back to the door of a certain small house in Uselin, where dwelt an old man whom I had so deeply wounded--of that I never for a moment thought.
I breathed quick with expectation as a carriage came rattling over the broken pavement of the court and stopped at the door. It was a visitor whom Herr von Zehren had said he was expecting; a fellow-sportsman and the owner of an adjoining estate, who brought with him a friend who was staying at his house, and who had been out with them shooting. Constance had at once arisen from the table, and was about to leave the room, in spite of her father's request, uttered in a tone that almost made it a command, "I beg that you will remain!" when the gentlemen entered. One was a tall, broad-shouldered, fair young man, with handsome, regular features, and a pair of large, prominent blue eyes that stared out into the world with a sort of good-natured astonishment. My host introduced him to me as Herr Hans von Trantow. The other, a short, round figure, whose head, with its sloping brow, and almost deficient occiput, was so small as to leave scarce a hand's breadth of room for his close-cropped, stiff brown hair, and whose short turned-up nose, and immense mouth, always open, and furnished with large white teeth, gave their possessor a more than passing resemblance to a bull-dog--was called Herr Joachim von Granow. He had been an officer in the army, and on his succession, a few months before, to a handsome fortune, had purchased an estate in the neighborhood.
Constance had found herself compelled to remain, for the little Herr von Granow had at once turned upon her with an apparently inexhaustible flood of talk, and the bulky Herr von Trantow remained standing immovable so near the open door that it was not easy to pass him. From the first moment of seeing them I felt a strong antipathy to them both: to the little one because he ventured to approach so near to Constance, and to talk so much; and to the large one, who did not speak, indeed, but stared steadily at her with his glassy eyes, which seemed to me a still more offensive proceeding.
"We have had but a poor day's sport," said the little one in a squeaking voice to Constance; "but day before yesterday, at Count Griebenow's, we had an uncommonly splendid time. Whenever a covey rose I was right among them; three times I brought down a brace--right and left barrels; and that I call shooting. They were as jealous of me--I expected to be torn to pieces. Even the prince lost his temper. 'You have the devil's own luck, Granow,' he kept saying. 'Young men must have some luck,' I answered. 'But I am younger than you,' said he. 'Your highness does not need any luck,' said I. 'Why not?' 'To be a Prince of Prora-Wiek is luck enough of itself' Wasn't that a capital hit?" and he shook with laughter at his own wit, and shrugged his round shoulders until they nearly swallowed his little head.
"The prince was there, then?" Constance said.
It was the first word she had uttered in reply to the small man's chatter. Perhaps this was the reason that I, who had been standing by, taking no interest in what was said--Herr von Zehren had left the room, and Herr von Trantow still held his post at the door--suddenly gave all my attention to the conversation.
"Yes indeed; did you not know it?" said the little man. "To be sure, your father does not come to the shooting at Griebenow's; but I supposed Trantow would have told you."
"Herr von Trantow and I are not accustomed to keep each other au courant of our adventures," answered Constance.
"Indeed!" said Herr von Granow, "is it possible? Yes; as I was going on to say, the prince was there: he is going to be betrothed to the young Countess Griebenow, they say. At all events, he has fixed his quarters at Rossow; the only one of his estates in this part of the country, you know, that has anything like a suitable residence, and then besides it lies very handy to Griebenow. A capital opportunity--if a prince ever needs an opportunity. But that is only for us poor devils--ha! ha! ha!"--and the little fellow's head again nearly disappeared into his shoulders.
I was standing near enough to hear every word and observe every look, and I had clearly perceived that as Herr von Granow mentioned the young prince, Constance, who had been standing half-turned away from the speaker, with an inattentive, rather annoyed expression, suddenly turned and fixed her eyes upon him, while a deep blush suffused her cheeks. I had afterwards sufficient reason to remember this fact, but at the moment had not time to ponder over it, as Herr von Zehren now returned with the cigars for which he had gone; and Constance, after offering Herr von Granow the tips of her fingers, giving me her hand with great apparent cordiality, and saluting Herr von Trantow, who stood, as ever, silent and motionless at the door, with a distant, scarcely perceptible bow, at once left the room.
As the door closed behind her, Herr von Trantow passed his hand over his brow, and then turned his large eyes on me, as he slowly approached me. I returned, as defiantly as I was able, his look, in which I fancied I read a dark menace, and stood prepared for whatever might happen, when he suddenly stopped before me, his staring eyes still fixed upon my face.
"This is my young friend of whom I was speaking to you, Hans," said Herr von Zehren, coming up to us. "Do you think you can manage him?"
Von Trantow shrugged his shoulders.
"You see I have laid a wager with Hans that you are the stronger of the two," our host continued. "He is counted the strongest man in all this part of the country; so I held it my duty to bring so formidable a rival to his notice."
"But not this evening," said Hans, offering me his hand. It was just as when a great mastiff, of whom we are not sure whether he will bite or not, suddenly sits on his haunches before us, and lays his great paw on our knees. I took it without an instant's hesitation.
"Heaven forbid!" said Herr von Zehren to Trantow's remark. "My young friend will make a long stay with me, I trust. He wishes to learn the management of a country place; and where could he sooner attain his object than upon such a model estate as mine?"
He laughed as he said it. Von Granow exclaimed, "Very good!" the silent Hans, said nothing, and I stood confused. Von Zehren, in our previous conversation, had made no allusion to my staying with him as a pupil. Why had he not done so? It was one of the happiest of ideas, I thought, and one that at once cleared away all the difficulties of my position. As for his "model estate," why might I not succeed in changing this ironical phrase to a real description? Yes; here I had a new mission, which went hand in hand with the other: to reconcile father and daughter, to reclaim the ruined estate, to rebuild the castle of their ancestors--in a word, to be the good genius, the guardian angel of the family.
All this passed through my mind as the gentlemen took their seats at the card-table; and with my brain still busy with the thought, I left the room, under the pretext of wanting a little fresh air, and strolled about the now familiar paths among the dark shrubbery of the park. The moon was not yet up, but a glimmer on the eastern horizon showed that she was rising. The stars twinkled through the warm air that was ascending from the earth. There was a rustling and whispering in bush and copse, and a screech-owl at intervals broke the silence with her cry. From one of the windows on the ground-floor of the castle came a faint light, and the breeze brought to my ear the notes of a guitar. I could not withstand the temptation, and crept with hushed breath, startled at the least noise that my footsteps made, nearer and nearer, until I reached the stone balustrade which surrounded the wide, low terrace. I now perceived that the light came from an open casement, through which I could see into a dimly-lighted room. Thick curtains were dropped before the two windows to the right and left. From the place where I stood I could not see the occupant, and I was hesitating, with a beating heart, whether I should venture to advance, when she suddenly appeared at the open casement. Not to be discovered, I crouched close behind a great stone vase.
Her fingers glided over the strings of her guitar, trying first one note and then another, then striking an uncertain chord or two, as if she were trying to catch a melody. Presently the chords were struck more firmly, and she sang: