CHAPTER III.
As the next day was Sunday, I had leisure to reflect upon the singular behavior of the doctor the evening before; but either the affair was in itself too complicated, or else my memory had suffered from the effects of my strong potations, and I could arrive at no satisfactory conclusion. That the strange man loved me much, after his fashion, I had innumerable proofs, and his anger on the previous evening had been rather that of an elder brother, who sees that the younger, whom he loves, is straying from the right way.
But what upon earth had I done amiss, then? It could not be possible that the doctor could seriously reproach me with my determination to make my own way in the world. He himself had trusted to his own resources very early in life, and with the toughest perseverance carried out his own plans.
Assuredly the fact that I had chosen the lot of a workman could be no crime in the eyes of a man whose heart beat so warmly for the poor, and who devoted his whole life to the relief of poverty and misery. The cause of his wrath must lie elsewhere; and after long pondering I came around to the point, that the picture of Paula's, upon which I figured as Richard the Lion-heart, had been the starting-point of our dispute. Had he taken it amiss that Paula held fast to her model? Did he grudge me the honor of being painted by her? Was he vexed that this picture was not in his possession, but in the hands of a man whom he so hated and despised as the commerzienrath? These were all questions worth considering. I concluded at last that my supposition must be correct, and resolved that this very day, before I called on Paula, I would have a look at the cause of our quarrel.
So about noon I set out for the academy, in the halls of which the great exhibition of paintings had been open now for some weeks. It was my first visit to an exhibition of the sort. My knowledge of pictures up to this time was restricted to a few old discolored saints in the churches of my native town, the engravings and family portraits in the superintendent's house, and the pictures which I had seen growing under Paula's hand. Still, as I had over and over contemplated and studied these few with never-ceasing delight, and had for years been witness of the development of a genuine artist nature, I had, perhaps, if no more, at least no less enthusiasm for beauty than the hundreds that flooded the exhibition-rooms. I cannot describe the feeling with which I, now following the throng, and now separated from it, wandered through the lofty rooms. I had never seen anything like this. I could not have conceived it possible. Were there then so many men who knew how to handle pencils and colors that the walls of this labyrinth of rooms were hung from ceiling to floor with the works of their skill? And was the world so gloriously rich? Was the sky that bent above the sunny bays of the South in truth of so marvellous a blue? Did snow-clad mountains really tower so majestically into the luminous ether? Was the twilight thus mysterious in the pine-fringed gorges of our own mountains? Did such infinite multitudes of birds indeed hover over the enormous rivers of Africa? Did the palaces of Italian cities rise thus gorgeously above the narrow canals along which black gondolas were noiselessly gliding? Were there halls in princely mansions whose marble floors thus clearly reflected the luxurious furniture and the forms of the guests? Yes; all these things that I here saw depicted really existed, and much more which my eager fancy added, half in dreaming. For the more I looked, examined, and admired, the stronger came over me a sense of having seen all this before; yes, seen so clearly that I could tell the artist what he had done well, and where he had fallen far short of the lovely reality. Often I felt really angry with a stupid painter who had seen so dimly, and so poorly represented what little he saw. In a word, in the briefest space of time I had become a finished connoisseur of the noble art of the painter, with the solitary drawback that I could in no case have told how the artist should go to work to make his picture better; but perhaps this was a special qualification for the office of critic.
I had probably wandered thus for an hour through the rooms, when stepping into one of the last, which was remarkably brightly lighted by a skylight, I started with sudden and extreme surprise. Looking over the heads of the crowd that filled the hall I seemed to see myself. And it was myself, or at least my counterfeit in Paula's picture, the picture which I had come on purpose to see, and which I looked for so far in vain. A particularly large group was collected before it, looking with eager and admiring eyes at Paula's work, while from many fair lips came the words, "Charming!" "how beautiful!" "what depth of feeling!" It was a queer sensation to me to see myself thus lying upon a bed, in a rich robe of fine linen, and scarcely concealed by a light drapery. The blood suffused my cheeks; I expected every instant to see the crowd turn from the picture to me to compare the copy with the original. But it was probably no easy thing to discover in the tall, healthy young man, in plain citizen's dress, standing back in a window niche, the original of the lion-hearted king, glorified by legend, in a picture on public exhibition. At all events no one made the discovery, and I was left to contemplate the painting at my leisure.
Now I observed for the first time that the picture was of far larger dimensions than the study which I knew. It was, in fact, a new picture, which had been completed since I last had seen Paula. So much the more wonderful, as it seemed to me, was the striking likeness to the original. Here were my curled reddish locks, my rather broad than high forehead, my large blue eyes, which found it so difficult to take an expression of anger. Even the feverish flush which lay upon the sunken cheeks of the royal Richard might at this moment have been seen upon those of the man in the window. In other respects the design remained the same, only the young knight who had the lineaments of Arthur had perhaps withdrawn a little more into the background, so that the broad-shouldered yeoman with the features of Sergeant Süssmilch came better into view. An admirable figure was the Arab physician, alias Doctor Willibrod Snellius, the most singular personage that could be imagined, in the garb of a dervish, and one whom one could not help liking, notwithstanding his ugliness, so that the generous confidence of the king became at once intelligible.
This then was the picture which Paula had painted and Hermine bought. Was there not here a two-fold reason for a little pride and even vanity? Must not the original be very firmly implanted in the artist's heart when she could make from recollection alone so true a likeness? Must not the original be somewhat interesting to the purchaser, when she was willing to pay such a price for the copy? These were foolish thoughts, and I can affirm that they vanished as soon as they arose, and the next moment I was heartily ashamed of them. Vexed with myself I aroused myself from my foolish dreaming and turned my gaze once more upon the picture, in front of which the eager crowd of gazers had increased.
Among the new spectators I noticed a lady in a rich and becoming toilette, leaning on the arm of a slender and rather foppishly dressed gentleman. The lady attracted my attention by her elegant figure and the vivacious manner in which she gesticulated with her little hand in its dainty kid glove, and spoke with great animation to her companion, who was evidently more interested by the spectators than by the picture itself. As her back was towards me I could only from time to time catch a glimpse of her face when she glanced over her shoulder at her companion. But the glimpse that I caught affected me powerfully, without my being able to explain the cause: a dark eye-brow, a fleeting glance from the corner of the eye, the contours of a brunette's cheek and of a rounded chin. Yet I could not turn my gaze from the lady. I even made one or two attempts to catch sight of her face, but she always turned it to the other side. The gentleman then seemed to propose that they should go: they were about leaving the room, when in the moment that they crossed the threshold the lady turned her head once more towards the picture, and I came very near uttering an exclamation of surprise? Was it not Constance?
"Did you see the Bellini?" a young officer near me asked an acquaintance who approached and accosted him.
"That lady with the gray-silk dress. Cashmere shawl, and jaunty hat? Is she the Bellini?"
"Yes, indeed. Is she not a charming creature?"
"Superb! And who was the gentleman with her? Baron Sandstrom, of the Swedish embassy?"
"Do you suppose he would let himself be seen here with the Bellini? What are you thinking of, baron? It was Lenz, the tenor of the Albert Theatre."
"The man that brought her on the stage?"
"The same. She has a wonderful talent, they say. Well, we shall see what there is in it."
"See? You would not go to the Albert Theatre, baron?"
"Why not, when a Bellini is in question?"
"You are a gay fellow, baron."
"I can return the compliment, if it is one."
And the two young men separated, laughing.
I breathed deeply. "Thank heaven!" I murmured. "Thank heaven that it was an actress and not Constance von Zehren. I would not meet her on the arm of such a fop and hear a pair of such fellows speak of her thus."
It did not, in the first moments of my surprise, occur to me that I had only to follow the lady in order to catch another look at her; and now, as I hastily traversed the rooms she was no longer to be seen. Again I breathed deeply, with a sensation of relief, when I had convinced myself of the inutility of further search, and said to myself: "It is better that I should not see this Fräulein Bellini again." And while I said this I felt my heart beat violently, and my eyes still wandered searching through the crowd. They were strange recollections which the face, at once known and unknown, of this lady, had awakened within me; recollections from a time in which the impressions once received remained forever.
These memories did not leave me until I traversed the long streets of the city, many of them new to me, on my way to Paula's residence, which I had the doctor carefully describe to me the previous day. Being Sunday, the shops and stores were closed, but the streets were still full of life. It was a clear, cold forenoon in the beginning of December. A little snow had fallen in the night, just enough to give a silvery glitter to the roofs and bring into handsome relief the projections and ornaments of the façades. Numerous pedestrians hastened along the streets; showy horses in handsome carriages pawed vigorously upon the frosty pavement, and even the wretched jades in the rickety droschkies trotted rather better than usual. The sight of this cheerful life scattered the evil dreams that had tried to master my soul, I felt myself so young and strong in the midst of a vast, powerful stream which drove me along but did not overpower me. All was new, fair, and rich; who could know to what glorious shores the current would bear me? And even now I saw a fair harbor and a beloved form beckoning to me, and I hastened my steps until I arrived, out of breath, at a large, handsome house in one of the most fashionable suburbs, and, on asking the porter if Frau von Zehren was at home, was shown up two flights of stairs.
"But the ladies are not at home," said the man.
"No one?"
"One of the young gentlemen may be."
"I will see."
"Can I take any message?"
"No; I wish to see them."
The porter closed his window, not without a sort of suspicious look at the tall stranger, who did not appear to be a gentleman of fashion, and I hurried up the two carpeted flights of stairs, and drawing a deep breath I pulled the bell over which was a brass plate with the name "Frau von Zehren," and under it "Paula von Zehren."
"Which of the boys shall I see?" I asked myself, and in fancy I saw the friendly faces of Benno, Kurt, and Oscar, at the door; but a step approached which could belong to neither of the boys. The door was opened and the old furrowed brown face of the sergeant looked at me inquisitively out of its clear blue eyes.
"Good day, sergeant."
The sergeant in his surprise very nearly let fall the bunch of brushes he had in his hand.
"Thunder and lightning, are we here at last? Won't the gnädige Frau and the young gentlemen be glad!--and the young lady too! Come in!"
And he pulled me in and closed the door behind us, and then led me into a room in which the furniture greeted me as old acquaintances.
The old man pressed my hands, exclaiming over and over:
"How splendid we are looking! I believe we are bigger than ever. And how we must have been working to make our hands so hard! We have had hard times, eh? But we have held up bravely, that is the main thing. How long since we got out of that cursed hole?"
Thus the sergeant questioned me, and pushed me into an easy-chair; and he was quite indignant when I told him that I had already been over two weeks in the city.
"It is not possible!" he cried. "Two weeks without coming to us, and we have been expecting you every day! It is not possible! It is enough to turn a man into a bear with seven senses!"
"Every one for himself first, old friend," I said. "Suppose I had come here first of all, and Fräulein Paula had asked what the tall George was going to do?"
The sergeant scratched his curly gray head. "To be sure, to be sure!" he said. "Self is the man. With a woman or a girl, of course, it is quite different; and so one had to bring them away at once that they might have some one to rely on on the way, and here, upon first moving in, some one to look after things; for women are women and men are men. Am I not right?"
"Doubtless, Süssmilch, doubtless. So you have been here, of course, ever since?"
"Of course," said the old man, who had taken a seat opposite to me, but sat upon the extreme edge of the chair, as if to show that he knew how to keep within the bounds himself had fixed. "And apart from other things, can they ever get on without my head?"
"And without your hands?"
"Not of so much consequence, though they come into play sometimes too," the old man replied, arranging the brushes between his fingers, "but the head" and he thoughtfully shook this interesting and important part of his person.
"I have just seen it at the exhibition," I said, a light suddenly flashing upon me in regard to the part the old man's head really played in the family arrangements.
"Does pretty well, don't it?" said the sergeant; "but the monk is better still."
"Who?"
"The monk. To be sure nobody knows what we are painting. But you must see it."
The old man sprang up with youthful alacrity and led me into a large and high apartment adjoining, which was Paula's studio. Sketches and designs of all kinds were hanging and leaning upon the walls, with heads, arms, and legs in plaster, a couple of sets of ancient armor, a lay figure draped with a long white mantle, and near the window, which reached to the ceiling, an easel with a picture from which the sergeant removed the covering.
"Here's the place to stand," he said. "Is not that splendid?"
"Splendid indeed!" I exclaimed.
"Was I not right that my head is quite another thing here?" said the old man, pointing proudly to the work. The scene was from Nathan the Wise, and represented the monk about to sound the intentions of the templar. Both figures stood out clear and plastic, with such animation in their looks that one might almost catch the words from their lips; the grand simplicity in the good weather-beaten face of the pious brother who had once been a squire, and had many a valiant lord and accomplished many a hard service, none of which had ever been so hard to him as this commission of the patriarch. On the other side the templar, young and slender, his head thrown defiantly back, his lips compressed with an expression of discontent, and his blue eyes bent upon the poor monk. In the middle distance a portion of Nathan's house, and the palms that surround the Holy Tomb; behind these the domes and slender minarets of Jerusalem, with the haughty crescent sharply defined against the southern sky, where the eye lost itself with delight in the immeasurable distance.
"The young gentleman has something from us; here, for instance, and here," said the sergeant, pointing with his finger at the eyes and mouth of the templar, and then looking again at me; "but I said at once that it is not so good as King Richard; by far not so good," and the old man shook his head gravely.
"But the Fräulein cannot paint me always," I said; "that would at last become too monotonous. With you it is different: such a head as yours is not to be met with again."
"Yes," said the sergeant. "It is curious: one never believed it; in fact one hardly knew he had a head; but that's the way they all talk that come here, and they want me in all their studios; and Fräulein Paula did lend me once or twice, but in the other pictures one looks like a bear with seven senses, and don't know himself again."
"And how is she?" I asked.
"Oh, well enough, if we did not have to work so much; but from morning, as soon as it is light enough, until evening when it is too dark to tell one color from another, working here in the studio, or copying in the museum--no bear could stand it, let alone such a good young lady who has not yet got over her father's death, and secretly weeps for it every day. It is a real pity."
The old man turned away, laid the brushes in the box, and passed the back of his hand quickly over his eyes.
I stood with folded arms before the picture, which no longer pleased me when I thought that she worked on it unresting from morning till night, while grief for the loss of her beloved father still dimmed her eyes. It would be a great thing to have fifty thousand thalers and be able to say: "You shall not have so hard a life of it; you shall not lose your beautiful eyes like your poor mother."
"How is Frau von Zehren?" I asked.
"Well enough in health," answered the sergeant, moving back the easel; "but she has scarcely a glimpse of light; and the doctor, who ought to know best, told her, when she asked him, that there was no hope that she would ever see again."
"And Benno and the others?"
A bright gleam passed over the old man's brown face,
"Ah," said he, "there we have our pleasure, and with each one more than the other, Benno has been a student now for a month, and Kurt will soon enter. Yes, we are happy in these. And our youngster too! He is going to be a painter, and has begun of course upon my head, and not done so badly for his fifteen years. Look for yourself, if it is not----"
At this moment there was a ring at the door. The old man stepped to the window and looked out.
"I thought it was they. You see we all went out walking, because the day is so fine; but it is too soon yet for them to be back; it must be some one else; I will see;" and the old man put back the drawing-board on which Oscar had sketched his first head from the life, and left me alone in the studio.
I heard a voice in the passage which I thought I recognized as Paula's, and then the door opened, and Paula entered.
At first she did not observe me, and I saw at a glance that the sergeant had said nothing of my arrival. Advancing quickly she looked eagerly at the covered picture on the easel. The fresh air of the winter day had reddened her cheeks, her lips were slightly parted. I had never seen her so fair, nor could I have believed it possible. Suddenly she perceived me; she stopped, gazed at me with fixed eyes and a frightened look. "Paula," I said, hastily coming forward, "dear Paula, it is really I."
"Dear George!"
She stood before me, and I took both her hands, while she looked at me, smiling and blushing.
"Thank heaven, George, that you are here at last. I have had no quiet hour since I knew that you were free again, and on the way here: I could not imagine where you were staying; I even feared something had happened to you. What have you been doing, and what adventures have you had, you bad boy? I know of one already, and that from the fairest mouth in the world."
Paula had seated herself upon a low chair near the picture, and looked up to me with smiling eyes.
"You need not be so confused," she said, mischievously.
"With a sister, you know, it makes no matter. I am in the exclusive possession of all Benno's tender secrets, and lately Kurt has honored me with his confidence. He is smitten with the twelve-year-old daughter of the geheimrath who has recently moved into the rooms below, and vows that Raphael never painted such a head. Why should I not be your confidante also, especially since you are my eldest brother--or are you not?"
I was surprised to hear Paula, who usually weighed every word, chattering after this fashion. A great change must have taken place in her since we had parted. It was no longer the Paula who in the shade of the high prison walls had developed under my eyes from a child to a maiden, and whom I thought I knew as I knew myself. What had loosened her tongue in this way? And whence had she the free carriage which I so much admired in her, as she now sat in a graceful posture in the low chair, while a beam of sunlight touched her head which seemed surrounded with an aureola?
"But you don't answer me," she resumed; "and really you have no cause to be ashamed of what you have done. Hermine says that without you the boat would have been lost, and probably the ship also. You may judge how proud I was when I heard it. And what do you think was my first thought?--that my father could have heard it too."
Paula's large eyes filled with tears, but she quickly suppressed her emotion and said:
"Yes, I was proud of you, and happy in the thought that you should commence life with such a noble deed, a deed worthy of yourself. And now you must tell me what you have been doing all this time, and you must expect to pay the penalty if I am not entirely satisfied with you. Sit here in this chair. We have a quarter of an hour yet before my mother and the boys come back. An idea about the picture there had come into my mind, but it is better so."
I gave the dear girl an exact account of all that had happened to me since my discharge. She listened with the closest attention, and only once smiled when I took pains to prove that I should have entered the machine-works in any event, and that the fact that the commerzienrath was my employer was far from agreeable to me.
"But neither the commerzienrath nor Hermine know anything about it."
"No," I answered; "and that is one comfort."
"Which will not last long, for they will soon learn it."
"From whom will they learn it?"
"From me, for one. Hermine has adjured me by sun, moon, and stars, to give her notice of the runaway as soon as he is found; and the tears were standing in her beautiful eyes, and Fräulein Duff laid her hand upon her shoulder and said, 'Seek faithfully, and thou wilt find!' I can assure you, George, it was a moving scene."
Paula smiled, but so kindly that her banter, if she was bantering me, did not wound me. On the contrary I was thankful to her, very thankful. I had considered over and over how I should tell her of my strange meeting with Hermine without embarrassment, and now under her kindly hands all was smooth and straight, which my clumsy fingers would have hopelessly entangled. I was grateful to her--very grateful.
And now Paula told me of Hermine, and how amiable and good she had been to her, and had spent the three days she had stayed in Berlin almost exclusively in her company, and had at once fallen in love with the picture at the exhibition--here Paula smiled again very slightly--and could not reconcile herself to leaving it, after she had bought it, for a whole month at the exhibition. She further related how the notice which Richard the Lion-heart had excited had already brought her new commissions, and that her Monk and Templar was already sold for a handsome sum to a Jewish banker; and how her studio had since been visited by very distinguished persons, indeed more frequently than was agreeable, and she had had to lock up her portfolios of sketches because they began unaccountably to disappear.
"You can judge," she went on, "how inexpressibly happy all this makes me. Not that I think myself entitled to be proud--I think that I well know my defects and how great they are--but it is a sweet consolation to me to be at ease about the future of my mother and brothers, and that the boys can now go boldly forward in the paths they have chosen, without being compelled anxiously to consider every step--all the boys, from the youngest to the oldest, is it not so, George?--from the youngest to the oldest."
She looked full into my eyes, and I very well understood what she meant.
"I do not anxiously consider every step, Paula," I said. "I know that I am in the right path; why should I then be anxious?"
"I have boundless confidence in you," replied Paula; "both in your clear-sightedness and your energy. I know that you will make your way; but one can make his way with greater or with less labor, and in longer or in shorter time; and your sister desires that her brother, who has been so cruelly cheated of so many years of his life, may lose no moment, and may encounter no obstacle which his sister can remove from his path."
"I thank you, Paula," I said; "from the whole depth of my soul I thank you; but you will not be angry with me for trusting that the hour may never come when you will have to work for me; for that I may ever be able to care for you and yours--this, my clearest hope and most cherished desire, I see that I must now renounce."
"How can you speak so?" said Paula, gently shaking her beautiful head. "True, I deserve it for my own wilfulness. You must consider me a foolish girl who allows herself to be dazzled by the false glitter of success. But believe me, it is not so. I know very well that I may be let fall just as quickly as I have been lifted, far above my desert. And then I may fall sick, or my invention may fail me: I cannot go on forever painting you and old Süssmilch; and a girl has so little opportunity to make well-grounded studies, and to extend the narrow circle of her experience. And then what would become of the boys, of me, of all of us, if we had not our eldest to look to?"
"You are jesting with me now, Paula."
"Indeed I am not," she said, earnestly. "I have only too often felt how my powers are no longer sufficient for my brothers, and that young men need to be guided by a man, and not by a woman, who does not know where the limit lies to which a youth may go, nay, must go, if he is to become anything. Good friend as the doctor is, I cannot rely on him in this point, for he is an eccentric, and an eccentric is no fitting model for a young man. For this reason I have been all the time wishing for you. You know the boys so well, and they are so fond of you. I know no one to whom I would so willingly intrust them."
"But, Paula, a workman in a machine-shop, a mere common journeyman blacksmith, is no pattern for students and young artists."
"You will not--yes, you will always be a workman, but not always a journeyman: you will become a master, a great master in your craft. And the day is no longer distant; at least it is much nearer than you think. You do not know your own worth."
Paula said this with a slightly elevated voice, and with flashing eyes. I was so in the habit of giving full confidence to her words, and it had so prophetic a sound, that I did not venture to express the slight doubt that arose in my mind as to its fulfilment.
At this moment came a ring at the bell. "It is my mother and the boys," Paula said hurriedly and softly.
"They do not know that you have been two weeks at liberty; my mother could not comprehend how you could let so long a time elapse without coming to see us, after you had once reached the city. You must not let her know that it has been so long."
At this they came rushing in at the door: Oscar, my favorite, Kurt, my second favorite, and Benno, who had always been my third favorite, who came with his mother on his arm; and there was rejoicing, and shaking hands, and kisses, and exultations, and perhaps some tears, though I am not sure. Of course I must spend the day with them. And in the evening nothing could keep them from seeing me home, that they might bring their sister word where and how I was living: and then I went back with them a piece of the way until they were out of the workmen's quarter, and in a part of the town which they knew better; and when I returned it was very late, and I fell asleep at once and had a long dream about the picture which Paula had painted, and Hermine had bought, and the fair Bellini, who resembled Constance von Zehren, had so much admired.
CHAPTER IV.
To be sure, if I had any fancy at this time for indulging in dreaming, I had to do it at night, for by day I had no leisure for such vagaries. By day I was taken possession of by work--hard jealous work, that kept me busy from the early morning to late at night--now thrusting the heavy hammer into my hand and giving me a mass of iron to conquer, and then placing in my fingers the pen with which I covered page after page with long rows of figures and complicated formulas. Altogether it was a pleasant time, and even now I think of it with pleasure tempered with sadness. In our memory the brightest light always lies upon those periods of our lives in which we have striven forward most eagerly, and I was now, in all senses, a striver, and there was no day in which I did not mount at least one round of the steep ladder. Now it was some bit of technical dexterity that I caught from my fellow-workmen; now a new formula which I had calculated myself; and at all times the delightful sensation of rising, of progressing, of increasing powers, the joyous consciousness that a far heavier burden might lie upon my shoulders without danger of my sinking under it. It was a happy, a delightful time; and whenever I think of it, it is as if the perfume of violets and roses were floating around me, and as if then the days must all have been days of spring.
And yet it was not spring, but a rough severe winter, in which the icy sky lay gray and heavy above the snow-piled roofs and the filthy factory-yards, while the sparrows fluttered about all day, seeking in vain for food, and at night the famishing crows expressed their sufferings in incessant cawing; and day by day we saw pale, hollowed-eyed, ragged figures, in ever-increasing numbers, wandering in the stormy streets, or crouching at night in the dim light of the lamps upon the steps of the houses, or where any projecting masonry offered them a little shelter.
I now walked the streets more frequently, for, notwithstanding the distance at which my friends lived, no week passed in which I did not spend at least one evening with them. Then Benno, who was now studying chemistry and physics, and had occasion to repair some deficiencies in his mathematics, came twice a week to my room to work with me, and I then accompanied him back half the way, and sometimes the whole distance. It had been discussed whether I had not better take another lodging, nearer to them; but Paula decided that it was best for me to live where my work was; and one Sunday forenoon she came with her brothers to pay me a visit, and convince me that I by no means lived entirely out of her reach, as I had maintained. She pronounced my inhabiting the lonely ruinous court of the machine-works, which her hope looked to in the future, perfectly absurd; and the fitting-up of my room with the old worm-eaten rococo furniture of the previous century a crackbrained fancy; but she observed it all with the warmest interest, and did not conceal that she was touched by the sight of the terra-cotta vases on the mantel-piece, and the copy of the Sistine Madonna on the walk.
"Stay here," she finally said; "not because this lodging is convenient for you, and is really original enough; nor because the fitting-up does honor to your taste, wanting only a set of curtains, which I will make for you, and a piece of carpet by your writing-table, which I undertake to provide; for these are trifles. What determines my opinion is the feeling that you belong here; that this place belongs to you already, as if like a conqueror you had taken possession of this desolate province, and planted your standard first of all. The rest will surely follow. I fancy that I see these heaps of stone already growing up into stately buildings, the fire leaping from the tall chimneys, and these vacant courts alive with busy workmen; this house changed to a handsome villa, and you ruling and directing the whole as master and owner. Stay here, George; the place will bring you good fortune."
Words like these, from Paula's lips, had for me the force of irresistible conviction, as the words of a consecrated priestess might have for her trusting worshippers. Not that I always cheerfully and willingly acquiesced in her views; it would have been, for example, far more pleasant to me if Paula had said: "Your lodging is very well situated for your purposes, it is true; but I would rather have you nearer to me; I see you now once a week, and I could then see you twice, or perhaps every day." And then I upbraided myself that I did not value Paula's desire to advise me always for the best, higher than all else; but still I could not help wishing that this advice, however good, had not seemed quite so easy for her to give.
When I was thus brought to reflect upon my relations with Paula it could not escape even my inexperience that these relations were different from what they used to be. One circumstance especially proved this fact. The boys and I had from the first used to each other the familiar "thou;" but between Paula and myself the formal "you" had never been laid aside, not even in those trying days after the death of her father, when we had hand-in-hand to face the storm which had burst over us all. Even then, when our hearts were moved to their lowest depths, and our tears were mingled, the brotherly "thou" had never risen to our lips. And now she used it to me from the very moment of our meeting. The evening before I would have deemed it impossible; now, that it was really so, I could scarcely believe it. Did I feel that the very thing which made our intercourse easy and unrestrained was at the same time a strong fetter with which Paula bound my hands? Was it with that intention or, not? I did not know nor hope ever to know.
Of course I did not go about tormenting myself with this enigma. Guessing riddles was a kind of work in which I had no skill, so for the most part I enjoyed unalloyed the happiness which the friendship of this noble-hearted girl, and of her amiable family afforded me. Every moment spent in their society was precious to me, nor could I anywhere have found more purifying and ennobling influences.
I do not recall a single instance of the slightest misunderstanding occurring between the members of this family, or even of one raising the voice in momentary irritation. In affectionate devotion to their mother, in chivalrously tender love for their sister, the brothers were literally one heart and one soul; and if even a shadow of misunderstanding threatened to fall between them, one word of Paula's, yes, often a mere glance from her loving eyes, sufficed to banish it. Now as ever was Paula the good genius of the family, the honored priestess to whose keeping was committed the sacred flame of the hearth, the helper, the comforter, the adviser to whom each turned when he needed aid, consolation or counsel. And with what maidenly grace she wore this priestly crown! Who that did not know her could have divined that this delicate creature was not only the moral support of the whole family, but that this small, slender, diligent hand also provided their daily bread? Yet this was the fact: indeed it could hardly now be doubted that she would soon be able to raise her family to a comparatively brilliant position. Her Monk and Templar had been purchased by one of the wealthiest bankers at an unusually high price, and there was already another picture upon her easel which had been bought at an even higher price before it was begun.
A picture-dealer--not the one who used to buy at a trifling price those pictures of Paula's which he afterwards sold to Doctor Snellius for handsome sums, but one of the first in the city, came to Paula and asked if she could paint a hunting piece. Just at that time there was a run on hunting-pieces: Prince Philip Francis had brought them into fashion, and the nobility had run mad about them, so the Jewish bankers naturally began to take an interest in hares and foxes. Paula answered that she had not yet painted a picture of this kind, and did not feel warranted to undertake the commission; but the dealer was so importunate, and the price he offered so high--"what do you think of it?" Paula asked me. "Do you think I can do it?"
"How can you doubt it?" I replied. "The landscape and the figures will give you no trouble, and as for the technical part, I can help you, if you have any difficulty with it."
"You have told me so many things about your hunter's life with Uncle Malte," said Paula, "and one scene has especially fixed itself in my memory. It was in the earlier time of your stay at Zehrendorf, and you were sitting at breakfast with my uncle on the heath, in the shadow of a tree which grew on the edge of a hollow; my uncle was enjoying the repose of the bivouac, when suddenly a hare came in sight on the edge of the mound. Flinging bottle and glass away, you seized your gun, when the hare turned out to be a lean old wether grazing on the heath. Would not that make a picture!"
"You might try it at all events," I said.
She tried it, and the attempt, as I had never doubted, succeeded capitally. Even one who took no interest in the somewhat humorous character of the incident must at least have been captivated by the beauty of the landscape. The autumnal sunlight on the brown heath, to the left the white dunes between which here and there glistened the blue sea,--all this was painted with a delicious freshness that one felt invigorated even by looking at it. And the little scene which comprised the action of the picture was so clearly rendered that no one could fail to understand it--the elder hunter, lying in the grassy bank with his hand under his head, only taking the short pipe from his mouth to laugh at his companion, who with flashing eyes and in the greatest excitement has half-risen to his knee, and a few paces off the silly sheep's face looking over the heath, and saluting his over-hasty friend with a bleat of insulting confidence;--it was enough to bring a smile upon the face of the gloomiest hypochondriac. Naturally the elder hunter gradually assumed the features of the Wild Zehren, and the young novice day by day grew into a likeness of me.
"I ought not, really, to have introduced you again into one of my pictures," said Paula, "for two reasons: first, that you may not grow vain, and secondly that people may not think me barren of all invention. But in fact I cannot picture the scene to myself without you, any more than I can without my poor uncle; and I fear if I were to leave you both out the picture would be a poor one. You must give me one or two of your Sunday mornings. Of course I know your face well enough, and could paint it, I think, with any expression; but the action of a person throwing down a glass with his left hand, and reaching for his gun with his right, half-raised on his right knee while the left is still extended, is too complicated for me to paint without a model."
Thus it came that for several successive Sunday mornings I spent delightful hours in Paula's studio. The time never seemed long to us. I had so frequently gone over the ground of Paula's landscape that I could describe to her every bush, every tuft of grass, every peculiarity of the surface, and every effect of light upon the sandy dunes or the bushy heath. And while I was able thus to be really of use to the dear girl, it was a sweet reward to me to hear from her own lips that, if the picture turned out a good one, as she almost believed it would, it was in great measure owing to me. Then we had so many things to talk about: my progress in my trade, my increasing knowledge of the steam-engine, were topics of which Paula could never hear enough. Or else the question was discussed whether Kurt, who was now in his sixteenth year, ought to remain longer at school, or commence learning his trade, and if Streber's works were the right place, and Klaus, who was now a master-workman, the right master for this richly-gifted pupil. This led us again to speak of Klaus, what a good-natured and excellent fellow he was, and of Christel, whether any one would respond to her inquiry in the Dutch newspapers, and if so, whether this some one would be a Javanese aunt, as Klaus and Christel firmly maintained, or a Sumatran uncle.
So we were chatting together one morning, Paula at her easel, while I was pacing backwards and forwards at the farther end of the room, with my hands behind my back. The winter sun shown so brightly that the light had to be lessened at the high window near which the easel stood, while at the others it streamed brilliantly in, in clustering beams in which the motes were dancing. Frau von Zehren was out walking with her sons. A Sabbath stillness pervaded the house, and when Paula ceased speaking I felt like Uhland's shepherd, who "alone upon a wide plain hears the morning bell, and then all is silent, near and far."
Suddenly the hall-bell rang.
"I had hoped we should not be troubled with any visitors to-day," I said with some annoyance.
"Eminence must pay its penalty," said Paula, jestingly. "Let us only hope they will not stay too long."
At this moment the girl opened the door. I stopped my walk, and stood, stark with amazement, in the background, as I saw two gentlemen enter, one of whom was Arthur von Zehren, while the other, whom with a polite bow he had motioned to precede him, awakened in me some faint recollection which I could not precisely define.
"I have the honor," said Arthur, after apologizing to his cousin, with that grace of manner that always belonged to him, for not having called upon her immediately after his return--"I have the honor to present to you Count Ralow, whose acquaintance I was so fortunate as to make in London, and who is a great connoisseur, and an equally great admirer of your talents."
"My friend has not described me quite correctly," said the count, bowing respectfully to Paula. "I am by no means a great connoisseur; but he is quite right in calling me a great admirer of your talents. I have seen your picture at the exhibition, and been charmed with it, like all the world; and as your cousin was presumptuous enough to offer to present me to you, I could not forego a piece of such singular good fortune."
The young man, whose glance now fell for the first time upon the picture, suddenly started back, but rather with the gesture of one who is unpleasantly startled than of one who is agreeably surprised. And well might he be startled, when he suddenly recognized in the hunter by the willow-tree the Wild Zehren, the man who had only needed an opportunity to bathe his hands in the blood that flowed in the veins of Prince Karl of Prora-Wiek.
It had been now eight years since I had seen him, and in my whole life I had only seen him twice: once in the dim light of an autumn afternoon as he flew by me at a rapid gallop, and the second time in the dark forest by the glimmering moonlight; but the slender figure and the pale, refined face had impressed themselves indelibly upon my memory.
"Beautiful!" said the prince. "Admirable! superb! This sunlight, this heath--I know all this--know it perfectly. I tell you, Zehren, even to the minutest details it is nature itself! Is it not?"
Arthur did not answer, for if the confusion of the prince at the first sight of the picture had surprised him, he entirely lost his presence of mind when he caught sight of me in the background, where I had been standing motionless the whole time. I think there were few men whom Arthur von Zehren would not have preferred to meet in his cousin's studio just then.
"Is it not so, Zehren?" the prince repeated, rather impatiently.
"Certainly; it is perfectly superb: I said so before," replied Arthur, evidently in doubt whether it would not be best to overlook me altogether.
But as his hesitation did not prevent him from casting uneasy glances at me, which caused the eyes of the prince to turn in the same direction, the result was that the latter perceived, at the end of the studio, a tall, broad-shouldered, plainly-dressed young man, with curly blond beard and hair, whom he had already seen in the character of King Richard in the picture at the exhibition, and now again saw in the hunting-piece on the easel. Whom could he suppose that he had before him but one of those persons who go from studio to studio, now as a model for Joseph, and now for Pharaoh? And though it is probable that the prince was by no means addicted to minute observation of models in artists' studios, at this moment any opportunity of diverting attention from the unlucky picture was too welcome not to be seized at once.
"Ah! here is our original for King What's-his-name! A splendid fellow, whom I should like to see in the regiment of my cousin, Count Schlachtensee; don't you say so, Zehren?"
The unlucky Arthur's part of second-fiddle was a hard one to play to-day. But it was impossible for him, now that I had been brought directly into the conversation, to pretend, not to know his old schoolmate, apart from the fact that Paula would hardly have forgiven such a piece of insolence; and he perceived, moreover, by my looks that I was malicious enough to enjoy his confusion. Indeed I fear that I even indulged in a smile whose significance could not escape him, so he had no alternative--it was highly exasperating, but he really had no other--but to turn to me with as pleasant a smile as he could force to his whitened lips, and while toying with his eyeglass, so as to have no hand free to offer me, to accost me in an affectedly condescending tone:
"Ah! see there! are we at last out of the--ahem--again? Congratulate you--congratulate you with all my heart--upon my honor--ahem!"
The young prince's looks grew by no means brighter during this singular salutation of his second. The expression of my face, which he now observed more closely, and Arthur's evident embarrassment, showed that there was something wrong here; and at this moment he happened to catch a glance exchanged between Paula and myself, which probably seemed another mesh in the net which was here being drawn over his princely head. But now it seemed to Paula high time to interpose and put an end to this singular scene.
"You would have sooner had the pleasure," she said, turning to Arthur, "of meeting your old schoolmate, if you had found your way to our house earlier during the fortnight that you have been here; George has been in the city three months. This gentleman"--she went on, turning to the prince--"is my oldest and dearest friend, who stood faithfully by me at a time of great trial, and who now devotes a few hours of his valuable time to aid my imperfect invention with his advice. I esteem it an honor to introduce to you Herr George Hartwig."
At hearing my name the prince changed color and bit his lip, though he made a great effort to accost the lady's oldest and dearest friend with a polite phrase. Doubtless he had heard my name too often from Constance and others, and the associations connected with it were of too peculiar a character for more amusing and more agreeable experiences to obliterate it entirely, even from the defective memory of the young prince. A dim recollection of a tall figure before which he had once crouched in a dark forest--and then the circumstance that this man with the broad shoulders and the memorable name stood by the side of the Wild Zehren in the picture by the hand of Paula von Zehren,--all this suddenly fitted into one combination. The prince had to find the meaning of it all, however pleasant it might have been to have been spared the whole riddle.
Just at this disagreeable moment, that is to say just at the right time, the Prince of Prora-Wiek remembered what he owed to himself. The signs of embarrassment vanished from his face and his manner; he looked calmly at the picture and at me, comparing the copy with the original, and said a number of pretty things to Paula, which, if not quite well considered, and possibly not even well meant, sounded as if they were both. He hastily glanced at the drawings on the walls, and turned over the sketches in an open portfolio, declared that the light in the studio was admirable, and the whole arrangement exquisitely original and poetic, then remembered that he had been summoned to an audience of the princess, for which he would be too late if he did not take his leave at once, and went off with his companion.
In half a minute we heard the prince's coupé, which had been standing at the door, drive off, and we looked at each other and laughed, laughed with great apparent enjoyment, and then suddenly became grave.
"This is the great annoyance of our calling," said Paula. "Inquisitive visitors cannot be refused admission; indeed we are expected to be highly gratified if they come, and then chatter everywhere about our skill and the subject of our last picture. But, as I said, it is an annoyance at best; and Arthur might have been more considerate than to present himself in this fashion after staying away so long. His only apology is that he meant kindly, and thought he was bringing me a distinguished and wealthy patron. Certainly, if one may judge by the exterior, this Count Ralow must be both very distinguished and very rich."
"The inference is correct this time, at all events," I said; "and if you want the proof--it was the young Prince Prora."
"Impossible!" said Paula.
"I am sure of it," I replied. "I have seen in the papers that the prince has lately visited England, where Arthur says he made the acquaintance of this Count Ralow. But I should have recognized him without that; and besides, I now remember that the Princes of Prora are also Counts von Ralow."
"I am glad to hear it," said Paula, "though I should have preferred to make the acquaintance of the prince under his proper title."
"I consider this incognito a piece of rudeness. Why can he not call upon you as he does upon the princess? But the real impertinence lies in his coming here at all. The former lover of Constance had no business to present himself to Constance's cousin. I felt all this strongly enough at the time, Paula; but I also felt that your house and your apartment were not the place to discuss these matters."
"I thank you for your considerateness," said Paula, taking my hand in hers. "I saw in your eyes that you were placing a restraint upon yourself about something. Men best prove their respect for women when they do not suffer any storms of this kind to break loose in their presence; and as to this matter, I beg of you to dismiss it from your thoughts. You have suffered far too much from it already; it is time you had rid yourself of it once for all."
"Yes, if that were only possible," I said; and then I told Paula, what I had never mentioned to her before, about my meeting at the exhibition with the beautiful Bellini, who had so striking a resemblance to Constance. "I have certainly no reason to cherish any love for Constance," I said; "on the contrary, I can meet her seducer without the slightest feeling of hatred or revenge; and yet the image of that beautiful woman follows me everywhere, and it could not be otherwise had I seen Constance herself. Now why is this?"
"Constance was your first love," Paula answered, "and that makes a difference with men."
"With men, Paula? Do you mean that with women it is otherwise?"
"I do mean that," she replied. "A woman's first love differs from a man's, and exceeds it. Exceeds it in proportion as a man is more to a woman than a woman to a man."
"What kind of new philosophy do you call that?"
"It is no new philosophy: at least it is as old as my thoughts upon these matters, which is no very great age, it is true."
A faint flush tinged her usually pale cheeks, but it seemed that altogether she was not displeased that we had fallen upon this theme, and she continued with some animation:
"A man's life is more full of change, richer in deeds and events, than a woman's; and for this reason individual impressions, even the strongest, do not remain so long with them. They have so many new and more important things to record on the tablet of their life that they are obliged from time to time to efface the old writing with the sponge of forgetfulness. With us women it is altogether different: we do not willingly efface a word which sounds sweetly to our ears, much less a line, much less a whole page of our poor life. And then even when a man has an unusually tenacious memory, he can not act and choose as he will: the stronger and manlier his nature, the more does he act and choose as he must. And he must choose suitably to his age and circumstances--to use another phrase, suitably to his development. The man of twenty-five differs from the youth of nineteen far otherwise than the woman of twenty-five differs from the girl of nineteen; and the man of thirty-five again is another man. If the man of twenty-five or thirty-five should make the same choice as the youth of nineteen--I mean such a choice as youth makes, romantically unselfish and inconsiderate--he would commit a folly, in my eyes at least."
"How did you come to be so selfish and practical, Paula?" I inquired, in laughing astonishment.
"One grows so, I suppose," she said, taking up palette and brushes, and beginning to work.
"It may be as you say," I said, "when one, as has been your case, passes through a marked process of development; so that the laws which you have just laid down as governing us men are very possibly applicable to yourself. I knew you when you were but fifteen, and you were then a beginner in your art; now, at two-and-twenty, you are an artist, and at five-and-twenty you will be a distinguished one. In your case it is intelligible enough that the Paula of to-day has no longer those romantic illusions--to the future Paula, alas, I cannot venture to raise my thoughts."
"You are jesting, and cruelly too," she said; "and your good face has not the expression that I could wish it to wear at this moment."
"I do not jest at all," I answered emphatically. "I perfectly understand that your claims upon life must rise higher with every year--I might say with every picture you produce."
"Are you really speaking in earnest?"
"Perfectly so; do you not wish to become a great artist?"
"Assuredly," she replied; "but is that within a woman's power? How many out of the hundreds and thousands of inspired girls and women who have turned to the easel or the desk have become great artists? Upon the stage they may; but I have often questioned whether the dramatic art be a true art, or rather a half-art, in which half-talents can reach the highest eminence. And those who are called actors of genius, what are they in comparison with men of true genius in art, in literature, in music? As far beneath them as I am beneath Raphael. And what have I produced so far? Two or three passable heads; a striking scene or so, which I took directly from the life; recollections from books; Richard Cœur de Lion, the Monk--where in these is an original invention, a single trace of real genius? And what is this picture here? What have I done towards it? Little more than mix the colors; the rest is all of your invention. You told me how the sunlight falls in the sandy dunes, how the wind waves the heads of the heath-flowers; you----"
"But Paula, Paula, you talk as if I were painting your picture, and as if you could paint no picture without me."
"And I have painted none without you: there you see my miserable poverty."
I could not see with what expression she pronounced these words, for she had bent her face down to her easel.