Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

CHAPTER XXVI.

It is often desperately dark in this world; who can say: "It cannot be darker now?"

When I reached home there was a running and a calling--something had happened. An hour before she had rung for me, and I was not to be found. "She was taken in a dreadful way; but luckily what was most needed was ready at hand; for the doctor----"

"He is close behind me," I said, and hurried into the room, from which came the most heart-breaking cries.

"Courage, dearest friend, courage," said the doctor an hour or two later: "it is a little too soon, and--but there are often worse cases, I think--but stay here a few minutes and breathe a little fresh air; you are terribly excited; you cannot bear it."

"She has to bear it," I cried, wringing my hands.

"Of course," he answered. "Come with me."

The day was fine, notwithstanding the cold night and the gray rainy morning; the March sun had broken gloriously through the clouds, and shone dazzlingly from the clear-blue sky: the thawing snow was dropping from all the roofs and pouring from all the rain-spouts, and in the thick branches of the trees of the garden upon which the windows opened, birds were fluttering and twittering, proclaiming that winter was at last over and the spring had come.

But I had no ear for this proclamation: I had no faith in the blue sky and the running water; I awaited other tidings--awaited them with fervent prayers and passionate vows, such as men offer in the time of sore extremity; and the tidings came at sunset, in a tiny piping voice that seemed to go directly to my heart.

Yes, now it was spring. I saw the spring sunlight in the happy smile of the pale young mother; I saw the bright spring sky in her blue eyes that looked smilingly up to me in a soft tremulous light such as I had never before seen in them, and then were turned with beaming love upon her babe.

"It is a girl, after all," she whispered. "You will spoil her terribly, and love her a great deal more than me; but I will not be jealous, I promise you."

And the next day the sun was shining again, and the heaven still blue and the birds jubilant.

"If the weather keeps so fine, we can soon go to Zehrendorf," she said. "It is very well that you have not come to a definite settlement with the prince. He has been very kind and obliging to us, it is true, but still I think you had better reconsider the matter with my father. Why does my father not come? You have written to him, haven't you?"

"Certainly; but he had started on a journey. And you must not talk so much."

"I feel quite strong: I only wish I could give the little one some of my strength. Oh me! such a giant as you are, George, and such a tiny morsel of a babe! But it has your eyes, sir!"

"I hope it has yours, madame."

"Why so?"

"Because then it would have the loveliest in the world."

"What a flatterer! But to come back to Zehrendorf: we will have to keep it on account of the child, which will need country air, the doctor says. I can see us both sitting under the great beech which I saved because you carved your name on it--for somebody else, sir!--and now to be sitting with wife and child, a prosaic, common-place husband, where you once stood full of romantic dreams--is it not very comical?"

"Oh yes, it is inexpressibly comical; but now you really must not talk any more."

"Your commands shall be obeyed, my lord."

And her blue eyes laughed so saucily, and she was so full of life and hope and happiness, so merry, and full, of mirthful fancies; it cut me to the heart when I saw and heard her, and had to leave her, under the pretext of urgent business, to go and bury her father, who had killed himself to avoid the disgrace of a shameful bankruptcy. And this day too was a bright golden day of spring; only here and there were these drops falling from the roofs, for the bright sun and warm air had dried the moisture; in the sky, making it a still deeper blue, were standing great white clouds, and the birds in the budding trees were thinking seriously of setting up housekeeping--who could help looking cheerfully in spite of all, into the future that was to make all right? Who would not shake off his winter cares when he saw how everything was springing and budding and blooming? But--

Let this sad refrain of the old song say for me what I cannot bring myself to narrate in words. It needs no comment; nor do the two fresh graves, one larger and one tiny hillock, close side by side; nor the flowers which loving hands have strewn above them.

CHAPTER XXVII.

Only work can make us free!

I had opportunity enough in the two following years to test this leading aphorism of the wisdom of my teacher, in all its bearings.

Work indeed made me free.

But free from what?

First from the meshes of the dishonest web in which the association with my father-in-law had involved me, the meshes from which he for his part had torn himself swiftly loose by a self-inflicted death, and from which I gradually disengaged myself with incredible toil, which I had to disentangle, untie, straighten out, if I would not let disgrace and obloquy rest upon the name of the man who had been the father of my wife.

It came to light that, like a desperate player, he had given up the game before it was quite lost. But in truth that is not exactly the right word. It was lost for him; for what alone could have saved him, could have set him free, as it set me free who took his obligations upon myself, was conscientious, honest, manly work. But this was to him impossible: he had never accustomed himself to it, had never believed in its efficacy and its mighty results. When I spoke with enthusiasm to him of the future that would bloom for our enterprises, and that out of the waste place of ruins that he had despised for so many years, there would arise a star of life and prosperity whose genial influences would extend far and wide, he only smiled in contemptuous incredulity, and called me an enthusiast, a dreamer, who would end by burning his fingers, or at best would only pull the sweet chestnuts out of his furnace-fires for others to feast upon.

And he had gone on and gambled on upon 'Change, in stocks, in foreign loans, in spirits, in cotton, in heaven knows what, just as he had formerly gambled in contraband goods and in uninsured ships, until at last the cards so fell that he saw no escape but to quit at once the table and his life.

I could never rid myself of the thought that the shame of having to appear so small before me, to whom he had always so vaunted himself; to have to admit that I was right with my stupid honesty; the shame of this it was, I say, drove to his death the man who had inordinate vanity, but not a trace of genuine pride. He knew that it was all over with his wisdom, his superiority; and worst of all, it was all over with his authority: and he grudged me what was to come in the future, since I had so often, both in jest and earnest, foretold him that a new time had come; an age of brotherhood, of equity, of justice, of mutual help; and that the old egotism with its narrow schemes, its little tricks and petty craft, would perish at the coming of the great new era.

Perhaps one or another of my readers may think that in thus prophesying I drew too largely on my hopes and fancies, and that the golden time of which I spoke lies still as then upon the lap of the gods.

But I am merely writing the history of my own life; and I can only say that if my temperament be sanguine and my views inclined to optimism, my own experiences in these things have not rendered turbid the free current of my blood, nor shaken my pious belief in the better qualities of human nature and beyond all, my faith in the approaching triumph of goodness and truth, even in our own day. Wherever industry and uprightness have gone hand in hand, in those provinces where I am most at home--the provinces of industry and commerce--there and only there have I seen permanent successes achieved; and if in politics it now and then appears otherwise, this is but an appearance destined soon to vanish and disclose the stern reality.

But, as I said, I am only writing the story of my own life, which has taught me this lesson first and chiefest of all, and at no time were the lessons more impressive than at the period of which I am now speaking. And had I been the worst of pessimists, the most splenetic of misanthropes, the proofs of love, of kindness, and of devotion which were offered me on all sides, would have taught me another and a better faith.

On all sides, even where I had least expected them.

For instance from the old man whom during the building of the new factory I had often seen in dressing-gown and slippers, a little black cap on his bald head, and a long pipe in his toothless mouth, standing by the paling which separated the building-place from the gardens behind it, and with whom I had occasionally exchanged a few friendly words, without knowing or asking who he was. This old man came to see me on one of the first days of my trials, while my business misfortunes and my domestic afflictions were dealing me blow after blow, and introduced himself as Herr Weber, the former owner of the ground. He had heard, he said, that my deceased father-in-law's affairs were not in the best condition, and he had come to say to me that as for the payment I need be in no hurry--(my father-in-law had assured me that the purchase had been paid for to the last farthing)--and that he saw what trouble I was in, and that I had never shunned to give my personal help wherever it was necessary. As for the old gentleman, he would never have lent him a penny; but when active young men like myself needed it, he had always a few thousands at their service, say twenty or forty as might be wanted, and if they would be of any help to me, I might come and see him when I pleased.

A day or two later came a letter in a big school-boy hand and the queerest spelling, from the good Hans, to the effect that there was a considerable portion left of his mother's fortune, which was entirely at his disposal, and that it was at my service to the last penny; but as he could not lay hands upon the cash at once, he had in the meantime instituted a very thorough search in his desk and in all his coats, with astonishingly successful results, and he expected of my friendship that I would allow him to send me this sum without delay. Moreover, I knew, he said, that he was a better manager than he seemed to be, and if I would permit him to canter over every day to Zehrendorf and look after things a little there, it would be a real kindness both to his bay horse and himself.

I scarcely need mention that the good doctor offered me his capital for the third time; but this and all the rest did not move me so much, nor exercise such an influence on my future, as the proposition made to me by a deputation of the workmen of the factory, with Herr Roland at their head as spokesman. They had heard, he said, that matters were not in the condition they should be, and that there was danger that the works would pass into other hands; that this possibility was very alarming to them, and they had unanimously resolved to avert it, if it lay at all within their power. They therefore begged to inquire if it would in any way diminish my embarrassments if they one and all agreed to a reduction of wages until the danger was over, and I was in a condition to make good the arrears; releasing me at the same time from all responsibility in case the hoped-for turn of affairs did not come to pass.

It was some time before I could so far control my emotion as to be able to answer, and then I said to the brave fellows that I could never agree to accept their generous offer; not because I was ashamed to be under an obligation to my comrades, but because, thanks to the friendly assistance I had received from other sources, I was in a position to fulfil all my engagements to them.

But I had something else, I said, in view. And here I unfolded to them a project which I had long planned with the doctor and Klaus, upon the model of similar enterprises in England, by which each of the workmen, according to the degree of his skill and merit, became a participator in the establishment. I told them that a time of uncertainty, a crisis like the present, was not suitable for putting this plan into execution, but that I was more resolved than ever to exert all my powers to bring about a fitting time, and that I hoped to be able to offer the matter to them definitely, perhaps within a year.

And before a year had passed, I was able to redeem my word.

Nor was I less fortunate in regard to the second point, which I had held to with a kind of passion while I gave up so much else so willingly: Zehrendorf still remained in my possession, and I had not been forced to abandon a single one of the useful improvements that had been commenced there. On the contrary, all was thriving and prospering; and I had even commenced a new work, the draining of the great moor, with the best results. The property was now worth, if not the price which the commerzienrath had demanded for it, still very nearly that which the generous young prince had offered at our memorable interview. I could not look without sadness at the letter which he had written to me that evening, before I went to him the second time, in which he placed his credit at my disposal to an extent far exceeding the sum mentioned. What had become of the other letter in which he called upon his father to make good this offer, in the event of his falling in the duel? Doubtless it never reached the hands for which it was intended, for the old prince, who survived his son several years, was a man of generous and noble character, and would have held sacred the last wish of his unfortunate son. And the dishonesty of those who intercepted this letter turned to my advantage. I should certainly, in those first days of trial and confusion, have parted at once with the property had the proposition been made to me; but as no one offered to buy it, and I was not disposed to throw it away for a fourth of its value to Herr von Granow, I was compelled to keep it, and I was enabled to keep it, thanks to the generous help of my good Hans, and--why should I not say it? thanks to my own untiring exertions.

But I had to thank labor for yet more than this. As she set me free from the load of indebtedness which my father-in-law had suddenly thrown upon my shoulders, so she bathed me in dragon's blood until I was invulnerable to the keen arrows of grief which at first pierced my heart at the loss of my wife and my child. It is true that under the covering of apparent insensibility remained a deep-seated sorrow; but the tears which I often wept in the evening when I came home after the toils of the day to my solitary room, or when I awaked in the night to a sense of my loneliness, had no longer the old corrosive bitterness; they flowed gently, and less for my own loss than at the thought that one so loving, so gentle, so graceful, so full of innocent mirth and lightheartedness had been so untimely summoned away. And yet here too there was something which almost seemed a consolation. As her father had never loved any creature upon earth but her, so she had loved him dearly, however often he may have wounded her pride and sensibility by his coarse and dishonorable nature. His death, the cause of which could not be altogether kept secret, would have been a fearful blow to her; and how could she have passed through this time of trouble, of comparative poverty, this almost desperate struggle, she, who from her earliest youth had found life a long festival, and who only knew struggles and poverty by hearsay? How could she have borne to know that her husband of whom she was so proud, whom her love placed so high above all other men, was a debtor to his friends? And could she have entered with her whole heart into the feast in which the chief of the establishment and his workmen celebrated the founding of their co-operative association, and I declared that from henceforth the distinction between us of master and workmen was at an end; that we were all workmen and all masters in one common cause. Could she have adapted herself to these relations? Of a truth she could! For her love for me was greater than her pride.

She would have adapted herself to it, for she could well play a part when she thought it necessary to do so; but to enter into it, to throw her heart into it, that she could never have done; and this thought remained like a faint dimness upon her lovely portrait, which all my love and endearing memories could not wipe away. I had to admit to myself that in the tasks which were dearest and most sacred to me, I must have been alone.

Alone!

I do not know whether there are men who can endure the sense of being alone; but I know certainly that I do not belong to such. And I was alone for the first time for many, many years; far more alone than in that solitary apprenticeship I passed in the little house among the ruins. There I had at least had the dreams of a golden future for my companions; now this future lay behind me as a past, as something irrevocably gone. I called myself ungrateful: there was still so much left to me, and above all, my dear, my beloved friends. There was the good Doctor Snellius, there was my brave Klaus, there, over on the island, was my faithful old Hans, and even good Fräulein Duff might have been near me, if her parents--now very aged--in Saxony, with whom she was staying, could have been prevailed upon to part with her. And before all, there were Kurt and Benno, now grown tall stately young men, and whom I often sportively called my staff and my prop.

In earnest as well as in sport: for Kurt had now become the soul of the Technical Bureau, and the superiority of his knowledge and his talents freely acknowledged by all, even by Herr Windfang; and Benno, who, half from natural inclination and half from affection to me, had turned farmer, knew how to turn his knowledge of natural science to such account at Zehrendorf as to astonish all who understood what he was doing.

In truth I had no lack of friends, not to mention the hundreds of stalwart men in the midst of whom I lived, and who would have gone through fire and water at a sign from me, and it would have been ungrateful, shamefully ungrateful, had I spoken of being alone, so I did not speak of it; but I was alone, and I felt it, nor could all my labor banish this feeling--indeed it seemed to strengthen it.

"You have worked too hard," said the doctor. "Even such a nature as yours cannot keep this up. You must break away--take a journey--recreate yourself a little. One should study the Brunels and the Stephensons on their own ground, as one studies Raphael and Michel Angelo. Only don't stay away so long as Paula."

The doctor seemed to have startled himself by associating my name thus with Paula's; at least he tuned himself down with an especially energetic effort, looked at me rather doubtfully through his round spectacle-glasses, and said, as if in answer to a question on my part:

"She is very well, and enjoying herself extremely; she writes to me from Meran----"

And the doctor began to hunt for the letter in his old fashion.

"From Meran?" I asked; "how long has she been there?"

"About--let me see--about a week. I thought a short stay there would be beneficial to her. The prolonged stay in the Italian climate does not seem to suit her."

"But I thought you said just now, doctor, that she was very well?"

"Well, so I did--that is to say--what I mean was--of course she is well; but better is better, and she has been there now long enough. Oscar stays behind in Rome. Has not Kurt told you all about it?"

"Not a word, from which I infer that he does not know it himself. Paula corresponds with scarcely any one but you."

"Well, I believe that is so," answered the doctor, "and I know I ought to read her letters now and then to you and the boys; but somehow it always happens----"

And the doctor made another dive into his breast-pocket, then, as if in desperation, crammed his battered hat upon his large bald head, and hurried off, leaving me once more in absolute uncertainty as to what really were the contents of Paula's letters, which he was always rummaging his pockets for without ever finding.

That their contents had, directly or indirectly, some reference to me, was not to be doubted; for what other reason could the doctor have had in concealing these letters from me so carefully? But my conjectures could penetrate no further than this; and I was obliged to admit to myself, with deep grief, that I could no longer understand Paula. And I also could not avoid the thought that she was herself responsible for this, and that it was the result of her own conduct, if my dearest friend, my sister, as she had so often called herself, had become a stranger and a riddle to me. And why? I did not know, nor could I fathom the cause. Was it a fault in me that I once loved her with all the strength of my young, buoyant, confiding soul? That after she had so often, under such different circumstances, and in so many ways, rejected my love, I had become like a ship torn from its anchor and driven rudderless upon a rough sea? Was it a fault that even in my love for Hermine, I could not forget her, though I knew that she would remain forever distant from me, and that I had in future only to look up to her as to the high inaccessible stars? Must I pay so heavy a penalty for what was as natural to me as to breathe? Must she on this account exclude me from the council of her heart, in which I had before been so proud of my place; and forbid my participation in her hopes, her plans, her wishes, her triumphs, and perhaps her disappointments? Must she for this deny the cordial interest which she had once felt for me, and deny it at a time when all my friends crowded around to help me with word and deed, and when she had nothing for me but two or three lines which she wrote from Rome, containing scarcely anything but the expression of a sympathy which in such cases is felt by mere acquaintances?

I had become a stranger to her, that was plain; or I should have heard her sweet consoling voice in the dark hours that followed Hermine's death. And she had grown a stranger to me: I scarcely knew more of her than did the indifferent crowd that stood before her pictures at the exhibition. I knew as little as they why she, whose fresh venturous power had charmed and astonished every one in her first pictures, now for a long time seemed only to take pleasure in melancholy themes--in views in the most desolate parts of the Campagna, where sad-featured peasants watched their goats among the ruins of long-past splendor; in scenes upon the Calabrian coast where a burning sun glowed pitilessly between the bare pointed rocks, and the solitude and desertion seemed to sink into the beholder's soul. How did the choice of such subjects, and the strangely serious, even gloomy coloring, agree with the cheerful frame of mind which, according to the doctor's report, she continually enjoyed?

"Only one who is deeply unhappy can paint thus," I once heard a lady dressed in mourning remark to her companion, as they stood before one of these pictures.

"Of late her pictures have shown a great falling-off," said a critic whose judgment carried great weight in the city. "Such pictures please, because they flatter a certain leaning towards pessimism which belongs to most men of our time; but all largeness of conception and treatment is wanting. I might say here is an egotistic sorrow which is forcibly imposed upon nature. The execution, too, leaves much to be desired: look here, and here"--and the critic pointed to several places which he pronounced weak. "But her younger brother is a genius indeed," he went on. "Have you seen his aquarelles? Heavens! what fire and what life! And he is still little more than a boy they say. He will be at the top of the tree before long, mind my words."

It seemed that the public did not altogether agree with the critic in his estimation of Paula's talents; at all events they fairly fought for her pictures, and paid the highest prices for them. I, for my part, did not trust myself to form a judgment, and in fact I had none; I only knew that if Paula enjoyed such unbroken happiness and cheerfulness as the doctor reported, she gave this cheerfulness the strangest expression in the world.

The conversation in which the doctor informed me that Paula and her mother were staying at Meran, took place in February, nearly two years after my misfortunes. In the beginning of the summer I heard again from him that she was making sketching excursions in the Salzkammergut and Tyrol, and somewhat later, that she would pass the latter part of the summer in Thüringen.

"She keeps coming nearer, nearer, all the time," said the doctor; "will you not now undertake your long-planned trip to England?"

"It seems," said I, looking straight into the doctor's spectacles, "that you think I ought to celebrate Paula's return by my own absence."

"I do not see how you arrive at this singular conclusion," said the doctor.

"Nor do I see how otherwise to interpret your suggestion that I should go away when Paula comes."

"Your wits are certainly wandering," he answered.

A few weeks later he surprised me with the news that he thought of taking a journey the next morning to J., the Thüringian town in which Paula was staying. Her health seemed to be not so good as he could wish, though it was true her letters were as cheerful as usual--here the doctor made a motion toward his breast-pocket--but he would rather see her for himself; it was but a "cat's jump," and he thought of returning the next day.

"Bring her back with you," I said; "perhaps she would like to stay awhile here again."

The doctor looked at me fixedly.

"I would very gladly do you and her the pleasure of being absent when she returns," I continued; "but I really can not now well leave the works for any length of time; and perhaps it will be sufficient if you tell her, doctor, that I have suffered much in the last twelve months, and also learned much; for example, to use your own expression, my friend, to live with half a heart. Will you tell her that?"

I had done my best to speak as firmly as possible, but could not prevent my voice from trembling a little at the last words, and my hand also trembled, which the doctor held fast between both his own small and delicate hands, while he looked steadfastly into my face through his round spectacle-glasses.

"Will you?" I repeated, a little confused.

"I certainly will not!" exclaimed the doctor, suddenly dropping my hand, pushing me back into the chair from which I had risen, and walking in an agitated manner up and down the room; then suddenly stopping before me, he crowed in his shrillest tones:

"I certainly will not! I am sick of this game of hide-and-seek, and out it must come, happen what may. Do you know, sir, or do you not know, that Paula loves you? Do you know, or do you not know, that she has loved you for ten years? that she has loved you from the hour when you saved her father from the axe of that murderous scoundrel--I can't remember his name. That with this love for you she has grown from the half child you first knew her, to womanhood? and that from that time there has been no hour of her life when she has not loved you, and certainly most of all at the times when she has seemed to love you least--for example at the time when you, you brainless mammoth, were fancying she was captivated by Arthur, who was tormenting her about you, and asking whether it was right and fair for the daughter of a prison-superintendent to make an inexperienced young man, condemned to only seven years' imprisonment, a prisoner for life? Have you any idea what it cost the poor girl to conceal her love from you? What it cost her to play the part of a sister and only a sister towards you, that you might remain unfettered to grasp boldly at whatever was highest and fairest in the world, and be able to mount the ladder upon whose topmost round the high-spirited girl wished to see the man she loved? What it cost her to send you to Zehrendorf to win the bride she had destined for you? What it cost her to turn a smiling face upon your happiness! And finally, what, it cost her not to hasten to you in your misfortunes, not to be able to say to you: 'Here, take my life, my soul--all, all is yours?' I ask you for the last time, do you know this, sir, or do you not?" In his excitement the doctor's voice had reached a pitch from which all tuning down was impossible. He did not even make the attempt, but instead, tore off his spectacles, stared angrily at me with his sparkling brown eyes, put on his glasses again, crammed his hat upon his flushed skull until it covered his ears, turned abruptly upon his heel and made for the door.

In two strides I overtook him.

"Doctor," I said, catching him by the arm, "how would it do if you let me go to-morrow in your place?"

"Do whatever you like!" he cried, running out of the room and banging the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

There come days in our lives which we afterwards remember as some blessed dream which knows nothing of earthly sufferings or earthly restrictions, in which we soar as on the pinions of eagles, strong and high above all the little pitiful obstacles that otherwise so lamentably hamper our feet.

Of such dream-like beauty was the day on which I took the most memorable journey of my life: a wonderful summer day, whose glorious brightness was not marred by the smallest cloud, and yet palpitating in a mild balmy air that played around my cheeks and brow, while the train whirled in rattling speed through the lovely Thüringian country. It was the first journey I had made in my life, at least the first that was not a business trip, and the first also that took me from my northern home into the sunny plains of Middle Germany. The novelty of the scenery probably helped to make everything appear to me doubly graceful and lovely: I could not satiate myself with gazing at the soft undulating lines of the hills; at the sharply-defined crags whose summits were crowned with ruined fortresses and ancient keeps, and whose feet were laved by the clear water of winding rivers; at the flowing meadow-lands in which lines of trees with foliage of brightest green marked the courses of the streams; at the cities and towns that lay so peacefully in the valley, and at the little villages that nestled so cosily among the trees. It was not Sunday, but all these things wore a Sunday look, even the men who were working alone in the fields and stopped to look as the train rushed by, or those gathered in the neat stations where we stopped. It was as if everybody was travelling only for pleasure, and that even taking farewell was not painful on such a lovely day. And then the meetings of friends--the happy faces, the hand-shaking and kissing and embracing! Every one of these scenes I watched with the liveliest interest, and always with a feeling of emotion, as if I had a portion in it myself.

Thus I arrived in the afternoon at E., where I quitted the railroad and engaged a carriage from a number that were at the station to take me the remaining distance. We soon left the level land and entered a valley through which the road to "the forest" ran in many windings between hills on either side. The journey lasted several hours, and the sun was already declining as we slowly toiled up a mountain the steepest of all, "but the last," said the driver. We had both descended and were walking on either side the large and powerful horses, and keeping the flies off them with pine branches.

"Woa!" cried the driver; the horses stopped.

We had reached the summit, and stopped to let the horses blow a little.

"That is our pride," said the man, as I looked with astonishment at a primeval and gigantic oak which grew here in an open space in the heart of the pine forest, and spread its gnarled and weather-beaten boughs far up against the blue sky.

"That is a great curiosity," he went on. "People come from miles and miles to see that tree; and it has been painted I don't know how often. Not many days ago a young lady, who has been staying with us a few weeks, came here and made a picture of it. I drove her here myself; I often drive her about."

Absorbed in my own thoughts hitherto, I had, contrary to my usual custom, spoken but little with the man, and indeed scarcely noticed him, and now it seemed as if he and I were old acquaintances, and had the most intimate interests in common. I asked him the young lady's name; not that I had any doubt that it was Paula, and yet it was a sort of shock to me when he pronounced it, and from his lips it sounded strangely. And now the man, who seemed to have been awaiting his opportunity, became very communicative, and told me, while we crossed the back of the mountain and descended in a rattling trot, a multitude of things about the charming young lady; and the old lady her mother, who was blind, but who recognized people at once by the voice; and about the old man, with the hooked nose and long gray moustache and curly white hair, who was really only their servant, but the ladies treated him as one of themselves; and yesterday a young gentleman had arrived, with a sunburnt face and bright brown eyes and long brown hair, who was the young lady's brother, and a painter too.

The carriage was clattering over the rough pavement of the little town, and the talkative fellow was still chattering about Paula and the rest. I had told him that I had come on purpose to see that lady, and that he must put me down at the inn at which he told me she was staying.

The carriage stopped. The head-waiter with two small myrmidons rushed out; two boys who saw a chance of their services being called into requisition as guides came up to have a look at the strange gentleman. Concealing my agitation, I asked the head-waiter if I could have a room, and if either of the guests was at home.

I could have a room, he said, but neither of the guests was at home: the lady and the young gentleman had gone out for a walk, and the young lady had started for the mountains with Herr Süssmilch early in the afternoon: she went into the mountains every afternoon: she painted up there, and hardly ever came back until after sundown.

"Do you know the place?"

"Certainly; perfectly well: this boy here has carried the lady's things there often enough. Say, Carl, you know where the lady goes to paint?"

"To be sure," said the boy. "Shall I take the gentleman there?"

"Yes," I said, and turned to start at once.

"You need not be in any hurry, sir," the attentive headwaiter called after me; "you will reach the place in half an hour."

My little guide ran on ahead, and I followed him along the main street of the little town, planted with lindens, with groups of travellers seated here and there before the doors, and reached the fields upon which still lay the golden evening light, and then entered the cool twilight of the woods. We pursued the wide road which ascended the mountains by a steep acclivity for the most part, but occasionally ran along small level glades, and was elsewhere inclosed on both sides by the tall forest trees. It was wonderfully quiet in the cool pines: no breeze stirred, scarcely was the silence broken at rare intervals by the chirp of a bird: the blue sky looked down from above, and I felt as if the path climbed up to heaven.

No one met us on the way; only when we were almost at the summit and had turned to the right from the main road into the wood and reached an open space where stood a sort of hunting-lodge, I saw a couple of men who were sitting upon benches with mugs of beer in their hands. Out of the wood, directly opposite the spot at which we had entered the clearing, came a man followed by a boy carrying an easel and other painter's apparatus. I recognized the sergeant at once; and my little guide said that the boy who was carrying the things was his brother Hans, and that they were coming from the place where the lady used to paint. This place was only five minutes walk distant, and we had only to follow the way by which the sergeant and Hans had just come.

My old friend, who was talking in a rather animated manner to the boy, who probably was not carrying the things carefully enough to please him, had not observed me, and I was glad of it, for I felt that I was not in a frame of mind to talk with him. So I gave my guide a sign to wait for me; and crossed the clearing towards the path he had pointed out.

It was a broad path, overgrown with short green grass upon which the foot fell noiselessly, and the pines on both sides were of such growth that their branches almost entirely roofed it in, so that only here and there the red sunset glow pierced to the green twilight. It gradually but continually ascended, and I walked on, not even conscious that I was walking or moving my limbs, as one ascends heights in a dream. A breathless expectation, a joyful fear possessed me wholly. Thus might an immortal spirit feel which is about to enter the presence of its judge, and with all its timid hesitation, knows still that this judge is mercy itself.

And now it grew lighter and more open with every step, and I passed out of the forest upon the crest of the mountain, which to my right hand rose to a mighty height, while westwardly, to the left, it sloped away to a deep valley, over which I could see far-distant mountain terraces rising slope above purple slope, against the evening sky. The sun had set, but its radiance still lay calm upon the light clouds which floated over the mountain, and a few paces from me, bathed in the roseate light reflected from the clouds, stood a female figure by a mossy rock upon which she leaned her right arm, while her left hand with her broad straw hat hung idly by her side. She was looking fixedly at the sunset sky, and her features were clearly defined against the bright background. Thus I saw her once more.

But she neither saw me nor heard me, for the soft grass muffled my steps. I wished to call her by name, but could not; and now she slowly turned her face towards me and looked at me with wide fixed eyes and unmoving features, as though I were an apparition which she had long yearned to behold, and which the might of her longings had summoned before her. But as I spread my arms, saying, "Paula, dearest Paula!" a heavenly light flashed into her lovely face, a faint cry broke from her lips, and she lay upon my breast with a storm of passionate tears, as if all the sorrows she had borne all these long years had burst forth in one moment.

What I said, what she said, while we stood on the mountain ridge, while streak after streak of the rosy light faded out of the sky, I cannot now recall.

And then we went back hand in hand through the silent wood, by another way than that by which I had come; a way that at first led over a grassy slope directly down the mountain, so that we could still see the valley in the faint evening light, and then under high beeches where it was quite dark, so that Paula held firmly to my hand until we came upon open spaces and the valley lay before us again, now dim in gray twilight, so that I thought the descent must be longer than the ascent, and yet it was so short--so short! What did it matter? I knew that with her who was leading me down the dim mountain path I would walk henceforth hand-in-hand so long as we both lived upon earth; and an inward prayer rose in my soul that her last day might be mine also.

And now I see ourselves--that is our mother, Paula, Oscar and myself--seated at a table in one of the arbors in front of the inn, and the light of the lamp in its glass shade falls mildly on the gentle features of the blind lady who from time to time lays her soft hand upon mine, and on Paula's dear face that beams with a lovely radiance from her inward happiness, and upon the beautiful young features of Oscar, whose dark eyes glow while he tells how a young English nobleman whose acquaintance he made at Rome has given him a grand commission to paint a series of frescoes in his castle in the Highlands, and how before he sets out there, he had to come after his sister to get some advice from her; and then the youth tosses back his long hair, and lifts a full glass and drinks it off to our health, and the mother smiles gently upon us, and as our glasses clink together there appears in an opening in the trellis that head with the gray moustache and white hair which played so important a part in the history of art.

Then I am standing at the open window of my room, listening to the rustling of the west wind in the branches and the plashing of the fountain before the inn, and my gaze is fixed upon a star that beams brighter than all the rest in the nightly sky.

And the old sadness awakens once more in my heart, and my eyes fill with tears.

But when I look again, the star is beaming more brightly than ever, as if it were an eye looking lovingly down and sending me greeting from the abodes of the blest.

CHAPTER XXIX.

In this history of my life I have now reached the point at which from the first I intended to close the narrative. To be sure I said to myself then, and still must admit, that in this way I shall not give contentment to all. One will find that there is a certain regular and not unsatisfactory progress in the story, and that he would not object to read a few hundred pages further, if no better entertainment was at hand; another will maintain that according to his experience (this is a man of great experience) life begins to be truly interesting exactly at the point at which I cut short my story. Youthful adventures, he says, are like the maladies of children; every one must have them, sooner or later, and therefore there is nothing of special interest about them; only when the perfectly developed man takes his position in public life, and undertakes his share in solving the problem of the age, or when he, as a private man, has had the opportunity of proving his character in those conflicts which are never wanting in wedded life, and in the relations of parent to children, which always present trials and difficulties--then only is it worth while to follow the story of a life.

Profoundly do I feel the weighty nature of these criticisms; but I had once for all made up my mind not to be guided by the wish to please this one or that--nor, indeed, to please any, as it would now appear--and to the one I can reply that with the least possible trouble he can find a far more amusing book to while away his leisure hours; and as to the other (the man of great experience) with the best will in the world I cannot possibly satisfy his great requirements, though I freely admit that he has a perfect right to make them. Did I wish to make my story ever so interesting, I could find nothing to tell of conflicts in wedded life, nor of domestic trials and difficulties--or nothing that would be worth the telling; and if I--as I sometimes flatter myself in moments of peculiar elation and self-satisfaction--have done an honest day's work at the great task of our time, and all things considered, have approved myself no despicable workman, I would not willingly anticipate my wages; and I think that there will in due time, perhaps, be found a good friend, who, either in an elegant epitaph, or an elaborate obituary notice in the newspapers, will award me my meed of praise in well-chosen words.

But in earnest, dear reader, who have grown to be my friend, or you would not have read on so far--you for whom alone I have written, and for whom alone I write this closing chapter--in earnest I think it will be agreeable to both of us if I break off here. I do not know whether you are a craftsman initiated into our art and mystery; and this is what I should have to know in order to narrate to you the life of a craftsman, such as I am, in such a way that in the one case it would be satisfactory to you, and in the other not too wearisome: indeed I do not even know whether you may not be a lady, who, despite your excessive amiability and general loveliness, with all your other accomplishments have no especial fondness for the discussion of technical matters, and who, for the care with which I have hitherto limited myself to merely touching the edge of these obscurities and mysteries, have given me hearty thanks--thanks which for much I would not forfeit now.

As I say, I know none of these things; but one thing I know, and that is that you--to borrow the phrase of good Professor Lederer--are a human being, to whom nothing that concerns humanity is alien; and as I have hitherto, I trust, only told you what found a ready response in your sympathies, because it concerned a man who was neither better nor worse, wiser nor more foolish, more interesting nor more common-place, than the average of his kind, and whose thoughts and feelings, whose aims and endeavors, even whose errors you could readily understand, so I think you, as a good man and my friend, must feel why I ask you to depict for yourself the rest of my life's history, in accordance with your friendly sympathy and amiable imagination, in bright and cheerful colors.

And the words "bright and cheerful" you may take literally, for--and I say this with a heart full of the deepest gratitude, and without fear of "the envy of the gods" in which I do not believe--there has fallen much, very much glorious sunlight across the path of my life. My efforts have been crowned with amplest success, far beyond my boldest expectations, and very far beyond my modest pretensions and moderate wants; and, what is of far more importance, to arrive at these results I have never had to deny the doctrines of my teacher, never had to be a hard hammer to a poor much-tormented anvil, on the contrary, I am as sure of it as of my own existence that I should not only not be the cheerful man that I am, but I should also not be the rich man that I am, had I not all my life long been a believer in the great and lovely doctrine of mutual helpfulness, brotherhood, and the community of all human interests.

This living, active, and inspiring faith has brought me blessings a hundred and a thousand fold; and with the deepest conviction I recommend it to all who aim at success, even those who are disposed to attach no especial value to the possession of a good conscience, and yet perhaps find that this little prized and contemptible thing, if one only has it, contributes no little to the happiness of life.

You will willingly, I doubt not, my friend, spare me any further exposition of these truths, since you have found them confirmed in your own life; and you are quite ready to go on with the picture of my life in the way I have indicated, and dispense with the narration of further details concerning myself and my family, the number and ages of my children, and whether the boys are strong and intelligent, and the girls bright and handsome--you are already disposed to heap all those excellences upon their young heads, when I simply say that they are, without exception, fine children; but you think that what may be sufficient for myself, my wife, and my children (although these last nowhere appear in this narrative, and consequently have really no just claims to any consideration), what may be sufficient for us, is in no wise just to the other persons who have appeared in this story, and in whose behalf you have a right to put forth decided claims; and you would like before the close to know what has become of them, to one or the other of whom you have perhaps taken a fancy.

Many a one, as you may well suppose, in the five and twenty years that have passed has been taken away by death, whom neither entreaties nor exertions can compel to relinquish his prey, however desperately the survivors try to hold fast in their hands the vanishing threads of a life so dear.

Thus you departed, dearest and best of mothers, and were changed for us into a luminous picture of gentleness, kindness and patience, and at the same time of calm, strong, self-sacrificing courage, to which we have at all times been wont to turn with devotion, as to that of your noble husband, and from whose memory we have often drawn counsel and comfort.

And you too, brave old sergeant, faithful heart of gold, you too left us, full of years, highly honored, and deeply wept, and by none more deeply than our boys whom you taught to ride and to fence, and to speak the truth, happen what might.

And you also, dear good Hans, last of an ancient race of heroes! Be not vexed with me, dear friend, if I have allowed myself now and then a sportive word at the quaint ways that clung to you as long as your massive frame threw its broad shadow upon the ground. Believe me, despite all, no one ever loved you as I loved you, perhaps because no one was ever so near to you as I, and no one had the chance of knowing how not one drop of faithless blood ever coursed through your great noble heart, and how from crown to heel you were a true knight without fear and without reproach.

You too, enthusiastic friend with the fantastic ways, with the affected speech, and with sincere love in your soft and gentle soul, kindly Fräulein Duff! I thank you for allowing us to have the care of your declining years; and though your ardent wish to see all our daughters, your pupils, married before your death, was not fulfilled, I think you still lived to find what your loving and affectionate heart had sought so faithfully.

Ah! yes; the ranks of the dear old familiar faces have been sadly thinned; but we will be thankful that so many are still left us, so many whom we never could replace.

For who could replace you, my brave Klaus, best of all foremen, and yourself head-foreman after the worthy Roland with his smile under his bushy beard had himself vanished into that primeval forest from which no one has ever yet emerged, any more than all the treasures of the archipelago which your Javanese aunt was to bring, could replace your Christel, or your eight boys, who, since as boys they cannot compare with their mother, try their best to be as like her as possible, and have all her blue Hollander's eyes and blond hair. The old Javanese aunt has not made her appearance yet, and I am afraid she never will. But I fancy you have long forgiven her this misbehavior; and only once were you really angry with her, and that was at the time when for your friend George fifty thousand thalers more or less were a matter of salvation or ruin, and when you besought heaven to send you the aunt quickly, even though she were an uncle.

And a few other friends are left still, and will remain, if it be heaven's will, awhile longer, though one of them at least has been expecting a stroke of apoplexy every day for the last fifty years----

"No, no, doctor; I will not finish the shameful sentence. You fly at once into your altitudes that I should mention you in my book, as if the history of my life could be anything but the history of my life, and assert that after you have worn an honorable baldness for half a century, I make a child's jest of you at last, and you can no longer show yourself upon the street. Scold as much as you like, doctor, and in the topmost notes of your highest register, if you like; I understand you, and know that you will tune yourself down again presently; and I further know that if everybody does not take off his hat to you on the street, it is because everybody does not know you."

"And I do not wish to be known," cries the doctor, "nor to be exhibited to the public as a curiosity of natural history, least of all by you who have always seen me in a false light--if indeed a mammoth like you can see anything in the right light. If I am to have my portrait taken, it shall be by your wife, who ought to be ashamed, by the way, to neglect her noble art so, out of mere idolatry of you and of her children--or else by Oscar. Apropos, will you not include in your book a thorough analysis of all Oscar's paintings, or at least of his chief works, and thus cover yourself with ridicule, as you really know nothing whatever about art? or will you not set forth in detail all that Kurt has accomplished in our railroad undertakings, and his inventions in various departments of machinery, and so, as he is modesty itself, cover him with a garment of confusion? Or will you not denounce Benno to the government because his agricultural school at Zehrendorf which grows and flourishes so quietly, is a formidable rival to the official country institutes?"

"Scold away, doctor: you have not an idea how admirably all you say fits into my last chapter. I should like to let you have the last word there, as everywhere else."

"That was all that was wanting!" cried the doctor in wrath, and ran out of the door, the last of our guests.

This scene happened yesterday evening, and I said to Paula, "Was it not a happy idea to leave the last word to my best, oldest, dearest friend, to whom I owed more than I could ever find words to say."

"I could never know which was to be the last touch in my pictures until I had given it," said Paula: "perhaps it will be the same way with your book."

To-day, thinking it over in the early dawn, I find that Paula was right. I feel that I must close, and yet have the feeling that I must not stop yet; that I have forgotten or omitted something, I know not what; that I owe the reader, despite my solemn disallowance erewhile, information on a multitude of points.

For example, how it happens that I am sitting at my writing table "in the early dawn," after having, as it seems, a little company of friends with me yesterday evening: have I then been writing all night until morning overtook me?

Nothing of the sort. The early dawn, that is to say, four o'clock in winter, and in midsummer, as now, often two o'clock, has for years found me in my office, reading, calculating, drawing, and now, since I have had this book on hand, for the most part writing. I have all my life been a good sleeper, so far that my sleep is very profound and mostly dreamless: but I have long accustomed myself to do with half the sleep that others find indispensable. The Doctor says I have too large a heart, like most big good-natured fellows of rather limited intelligence and with broad shoulders, whom nature has marked out for carrying burdens and playing the part of anvil; but he smiles when he says so, and I do not know if he be speaking in earnest or in jest.

I have been just now standing at the open window, after extinguishing the lamp by which I have been writing. In the perfectly cloudless, light-green, July sky stood the sickle of the waning moon, but the stars had all faded from sight. Over my window, just under the eaves, sat a swallow, and sang, rocking her little head from side to side and looking towards the east where the sun would presently rise. I have never heard a sweeter song, and even now while I write its melody fills my whole soul. From one of the tall chimneys of the factory, whose main building turns its front towards the villa, arose a column of dense smoke springing slender and straight as a pine-shaft high into the clear air. There is a great casting to be made to-day, and Klaus has had his furnaces lighted early.

I see this picture, as I have endeavored to describe it, often and often in the early morning, and it always inspires me with cheerfulness and joy, and with a thankful heart I greet the rising sun.

There resounds a well-known sound, a welcome clangor the first blow of the hammer on the anvil; the day which the swallow announced is here. Farewell, my friend; we will both go to our work.