CHAPTER X.
In the first days of his wanderings through the quaint old streets--for he avoided, as far as possible, the new and deserted quarters of the town--Felix felt to the full the charm of South German life; that robust, unrestrained power of enjoyment, that perpetual holiday-mood, whose motto is "You may do what you choose." That this cheerful state also has its dark sides; that it is not possible, without the sacrifice of some higher benefits, to establish an average of character and education which makes all classes mingle easily; that the lack of a proletariat brings with it the lack of a rich and powerful intellectual aristocracy--all such political and social speculations never entered our friend's head, in spite of the fact that his travels about the world had given him a keen insight into the civilization of different countries. In a spirit of quiet defiance, he took delight in doing here the very things which would have been most severely frowned on in that native town from which he had fled. He visited the dingiest restaurants and the most modest beer-gardens, ate from an uncovered table, and drank from the mug which he had himself washed under the water-pipe; and it seemed as if the only thing wanting to make his happiness complete was, that the highly aristocratic society with which he had quarreled should happen by and see, in silent horror, how happy the fugitive was in his self-imposed exile.
And yet, since everything inspired by pique carries with it a secret feeling of dissatisfaction, he was after all not quite contented. Jolly as it looked to wander about again at his own sweet will, it was, after all, very different from what it had been years before when he first spread his wings. In short, in his moments of reflection, when he neither cared to forget nor to deceive himself, he was forced to admit, with a kind of shame, that he was no longer young enough to goon looking upon life as a brilliant adventure amid shifting scenes, and that, in riper years, more depended upon the piece and the rôle which one played in it than upon the scenes and the spectators who sit before the footlights.
True, he had from the first devoted himself zealously to his new apprenticeship. But his conscience was too delicate to forget what Jansen had said in regard to his fitness for art. Had his friend congratulated him upon his decision, who knows but what, in spite of all that was wanting to his happiness, he might have felt as contented as it is possible for any man to feel in this imperfect world? But his proud heart told him that the people who were now to be his associates did not, in their hearts, consider him quite genuine, but looked upon him as a singular being, who, from mere whim, had taken up with art instead of with some other noble passion more suitable to his rank.
This unfortunate feeling was still further heightened by the fact that his relation to the only old friend he had here, for whose society he had passionately yearned, did not, in spite of their daily intercourse, ripen again into the old intimacy.
When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be petted by ladies and engaged for æsthetic tea parties, the first feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social traditions.
It was thus that Felix found him then, and he found him but little different now, after all these years of separation--averse to all intercourse with men who did not stand in some relation or other to his art, and inaccessible, so far as his inner life was concerned, even to his few intimate acquaintances. But still the years had not passed without leaving some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon relapsed into more sullen silence than before.
Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock.
One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl. Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie.
And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who was his only love, that he could not help bursting out into a laugh, only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute.
He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends, who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day.
When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon horseback.
He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylæa, and outside, in the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a quieter gait of his own accord.
The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took him for an officer in mufti, or were frightened by his commanding manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark meadow.
The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he recalled her name.
"Good-evening, Fräulein Zenz," he said. "What lonely and dangerous walks you take!"
"Dangerous!" she returned, laughing, for she had immediately recognized him. "What is there dangerous about it? They wouldn't have eaten me. I can take care of myself."
"But if I hadn't by good luck come up--"
"Do you suppose I couldn't have got away from those two without your help? I can run like the wind. You couldn't catch me even on horseback."
"Well see about that, you little witch! If you don't look out--"
He bent over and began, in his turn, to try and seize hold of her hair. But her slim little figure instantly spun round on its heels, so that her long locks slipped out of his hand again, and then she sprang like lightning over the narrow ditch by the side of the road, and, before he could collect himself, was away across the broad field, where she suddenly vanished from his sight as if by miracle.
His horse had shied at the girl's quick movement, and, for a moment, gave his master enough to do in looking after him. Now, when he had quieted him again, and, half laughing, half provoked, had dashed into the meadow in pursuit of the fugitive, he could find no trace of her. He called her name, spoke to her persuasively, and promised not to touch her any more if she would only show herself again. It was only after he had given up the search, and had angrily wheeled his horse round in order to ride back into the avenue, that he heard, from behind a heap of stones close at his side, which he had overlooked in his zeal, a shrill giggling; and suddenly the girl sprang from the ground and coolly marched up to him.
"Now you see that you couldn't have caught me, if I had not wanted you to," she cried. "Now just ride quietly home; I can find my way well enough."
"You are a regular witch--that's what you are!" he cried, laughingly. "I see that people have more reason to be afraid of you than you of them. But listen, Zenz, since we have chanced to meet in this way, tell me now why you won't come to Herr Jansen's any more?"
The question seemed to be disagreeable to her. She turned sharply on her heel, and said, defiantly, beginning to put her dishevelled hair in order: "What is that to you? What do you know about me, anyway? I can do as I like, I suppose."
"To be sure, Zenz. But it would be very nice of you if you would listen to reason, and show yourself again. I am an artist, too, and would like very much to make a sketch of you. Or, if you don't want to come to the big studio any more, I have a very quiet lodging, and not a soul would find it out if you came to me; you may be sure no one would do you any harm, and I would give you a good reward--and you should choose what you would have."
While he was speaking she had never left off shaking her head. What her expression was he could not see, for she had sank her chin on her breast. Now she suddenly looked up at him and said, with a little laugh that became her charmingly, while she twisted her streaming hair into a thick knot: "I would just like to sit on horseback once, and ride round real fast in a circle."
"If it's nothing more than that," he laughed, "come! Don't be afraid, but put your foot in the stirrup."
He bent down over her again, grasped her under the arm that she reached out to him, and swung up the light little figure as if it had been a feather; then he let her down on the saddle before him and seized the bridle. She instantly clasped her arms tight round his body, and clung so close to him that for a moment she almost took his breath away, "Do you sit firmly?" he called to her. She nodded, and laughed softly to herself. Then he set his horse in motion and began to ride round in a circle, at first slowly, then faster and faster, and she sat before him on the saddle without moving, and pressed her head close against his breast.
"Is that what you like?" he cried; "or shall I stop?"
She did not answer.
"How would it be," he said, "if now I should trot back to town with you, and not draw rein until I came to my house? You would have to come with me, then, whether you wanted to or not, and do what I asked you. Aren't you quite in my power now?"
He reined in the horse for a moment, as though to give her opportunity to settle herself for a longer ride. But suddenly he felt how her arms unclasped, and in the next instant she had slid down from the saddle, and stood before him in the dusk, out of breath and rearranging her light dress.
"I thank you very much." she said. "It was very jolly; but, now, that's enough. And all the rest is nonsense, and so, good-night! If you can catch me again you may keep me!"
In a second she had sprung away and disappeared behind the nearest houses. Even if he had been seriously inclined to follow her, he would never have been able to find her trail again among the gardens and hedges that bordered the field.
A few passers-by had watched this singular performance from the avenue. He heard all sort of jokes that he did not understand. "Thank God!" he said to himself, "if I had allowed myself to do such a thing in my own dear home, the whole town would be talking of nothing else to-morrow, besides adding all sorts of exaggerations. But here--'Hier bin ich Mensch, hier darf ich's sein!' Long live golden liberty!"
He rode back to town in merry mood. He imagined that he could still feel the arms of the girl about his breast, and her warm breath on his face. His blood had not been cooled by his ride, as he had hoped, and the sharp trot to which he spurred on his horse did not help him. He gave up the reeking horse at the riding-school, and then turned into the Briennerstrasse, in order to sit awhile in the Court Garden, and eat an ice and nurse his dreams.
When he came back to the house where Julie lived, he checked himself suddenly. Who was that standing motionless by the garden fence, with his eyes fixed on the bright parterre window? Jansen?
Felix made a wide circuit to avoid him, and stood looking at him on the other side of the street in the shadow of the houses. For a good half hour he saw his friend opposite continue at his post. Then the window was closed by a heavy curtain, and, immediately after, the watcher at the gate tore himself away and departed slowly.
Felix did not follow him. He scorned to be a spy on the secret ways of his friend. What chance had disclosed to him gave him enough to think about for to-day, without being able to find a solution to the riddle.
BOOK II.
CHAPTER I.
It was unusually still in Angelica's studio, so still that one could plainly hear, through the thin wall that separated her from her neighbor, the cheerful squeak of his white mice. This was always a sign that their master was, as he expressed it, on the rampage, wielding his brush in the thick of the battle of Lützen.
Angelica, too, was very busy. But although she usually liked to chat over her work, to keep the people who sat to her from falling asleep, to-day she rarely opened her lips. It was the last sitting; the last touch, which, after all, is always a new beginning, was to be given to the picture--every stroke of the brush decided the fate of a nuance, the success or failure of an expression.
In order to work more surely, she had put on a pair of spectacles, that can scarcely be said to have improved her appearance, and the painting-jacket, on the left sleeve of which she was accustomed to wipe her brush, had burst open in the ardor of her work, and, with her lance-like maulstick and her shield-like palate, gave a certain pugnacious aspect to her good, honest face, as if she were engaged in a struggle for the release of the enchanted princess who sat in a chair opposite her, and who was also unusually quiet. Whether Julie was turning over in her mind some especially serious thought, or had, like all people sitting to a painter, merely fallen under the influence of a certain absent-minded melancholy, it was impossible to make out.
She was especially beautiful to-day. Instead of her raw-silk dress, she wore a lighter stuff of transparent black, through which gleamed her white neck. Angelica had planned this in order that all the light might be concentrated on the face; and the arrangement of the hair, which left the contour of the head fully visible and allowed a few simply-braided locks to flow over the shoulders, was a special invention of the artist. Now, in the steady light, the dead white of her complexion, and the soft blond of her hair, shone out so gently subdued and yet so clear, and the eyes, under the brown lashes, had, with all their softness, such a fiery sparkle, that one could appreciate Angelica's assertion that a thing of this sort could not be painted--gold, pearls, and sapphires were the only materials with which to rival this fusion of color.
It is true, the first bloom of youth was passed. A keen eye could detect a wrinkle here and there, a certain sharpness of feature, and the easy grace with which her noble figure moved left no doubt that she had passed those years when a girl is always turning this way and that, like a bird on a branch, as if always on the point of fluttering away into the unknown, tempting, beautiful life outside, or else glancing eagerly around to see whether a hunter or trapper is in sight.
For that matter it would have been hard to conceive that this still, reserved, charming creature had ever committed the usual school-girl follies. But as soon as she began to speak, and especially to laugh, her expressive face beamed with youthful merriment, her eyes, which were a little near-sighted, slightly closed and took on a mischievous look, and only her firm mouth retained its expression of thoughtful determination. "The rest of your face," said Angelica at the very first sitting, "was given you by God; for your mouth you must thank yourself."
She had intended by this remark to lead up to a conversation about careers and experiences; but the only answer was a meaning, yet reserved, smile from the mouth of which she spoke. Angelica was a girl of delicate feeling; she was naturally burning with curiosity to learn more of the past life of her admired conquest. But, after the repulse of her first attempts, she was much too proud to beg for a confidence that was not proffered. For this self-denial she was to-day to be rewarded, for Julie suddenly opened her lips, and said with a sigh:
"You are one of the happiest human beings I ever knew, Angelica."
"Hm!" replied the artist. "And why do I seem so?"
"Because you are not only free, but know how to make some use of your freedom."
"If it were only a good use! But do you really believe, dear Julie, that my pictures of 'flower, fruit, and thorn pieces,' and my bungling attempts to imitate God's likeness, have made me imagine that I am an especially interesting example of my class? Dearest friend, what you call happiness is really only the well-known 'German happiness'--a happiness, because it is not a greater unhappiness--a happiness of necessity."
"I can well understand," continued Julie, "that a moment never comes when one feels perfectly contented; when one, so to speak, has reached the summit of the mountain, and looks around and says: there is nothing higher than this, unless one steps straight into the clouds. But yet you love your art, and I think you can busy yourself all day, your whole life long, with anything you love--"
"If I only knew whether it loved me in return! Don't you see, there lies the rub; a most 'devilish' rub, Herr Rosebud would say. Are you really consecrated to art--I mean consecrated by the grace of God--when, if it hadn't been for the merest chance in the world, you would never have touched a brush?"
"You would never have touched a brush!"
"Certainly; but instead of it a common kitchen-spoon and similar household utensils. Why do you look at me incredulously? Do you think I have been all my life a plain old maid? I, too, was once seventeen years old, and by no means ill-looking--naturally not to be compared to what is now sitting opposite me--not a regular feature in my whole pretty face, no form, no style, merely the ordinary beauté du diable. But, if one may trust certain evidences--though my archives of sonnets, ball-favors, and other delicate offerings of the sort are burned, to be sure--I was as neat and attractive a young person as thousands of others. I had plenty of mother wit, you could read in my eyes that I had a good heart, and, besides, I was by no means poor. Why should I have lacked suitors? No, my dear, I even had a choice; and although I do not now understand why I preferred one particular mortal to all others, I must have known well enough at the time. I dimly remember how wonderfully happy, joyous, and in love I was! If all had gone on in the beaten track, I should probably have always been as happy and as much in love--constancy is my chief fault--even if no longer so joyous. But this was not to be. My betrothed was drowned while bathing--just think of it, what an absurd misfortune! I was driven into a brain fever by the shock and grief; when I got up from it my little beauté du diable had gone to the diable. The next few years were spent as a widowed bride, in tears; and, when these gradually ceased to flow, I was a plain, prematurely-faded person, with a heart to be sure that had never yet fairly blossomed out, but about which no one troubled himself particularly. It was at that time also that we lost our little property, and I was obliged to take up with some pursuit or other; then it turned out to be good luck that even as a child at school I had wasted much time on drawing and painting. Do you believe, dear friend, that a virtue which one makes in this way out of a necessity--no matter how deserving it may be--can ever make a mortal thoroughly happy at heart?"
"Why not, when all kinds of happiness come with it, as has been the case with you? You visited Italy with that kind old lady about whom you told me such nice stories the other day; you can work at your art here in perfect freedom, without anxiety, thanks to the legacy of your motherly friend; you live in this beautiful city, in the society of friends and colleagues in art by whom you are respected--is all that nothing?"
"True, it is a great deal, and yet--I will whisper something in your ear--let it be entirely between ourselves, and if I did not love you so unreasonably that you might ask anything of me I would sooner bite off my tongue than confess it to any living mortal--if I should become, in the course of time, as celebrated as my namesake (whose pictures, it must be confessed, always appear to me to be very stupid), or even should in so far succeed as to become contented with myself as an artist, I would give up all this exceptional good fortune for an ordinary, humdrum happiness; a good husband, who need not even be a remarkable combination of excellences, and a few pretty children, who, for all I care, might be a little bit boisterous and naughty. There, now you know all about it, and you will laugh at me because I so naively confessed to you what we women generally hide like a sin."
"You would certainly have made a splendid housewife," said Julie, musingly. "You are so good, so warmhearted, so unselfish; you might have made a husband very happy. I--when I compare myself with you--but why shouldn't we call each other 'du?' I have had all sorts of unpleasant experiences with women friends with whom I have used that familiar form, and that is the reason I have been so slow about it with you--. Stop, stop, you must leave my head on my shoulders!--you are squeezing me to death--if I had only known it sooner! And who knows but what if you learn to know me better--."
The artist had thrown away palette and maulstick, and had, after her enthusiastic fashion, rushed upon the adored friend who had at last made this return for her worship.
"If I should know you a hundred years, I'll take care to love you a hundred times more dearly!" she cried, as, kneeling down before Julie, she folded her hands in her lap with a droll vivacity, and gazed reverentially through her spectacles at the beautiful face.
"No," said her friend earnestly, "you do not really know me yet. Have you any suspicion that by my own fault I have thrown away that happiness for which you long, because, even as my best friends said, I was heartless?"
"Nonsense!" cried Angelica. "You heartless? Then I am a crocodile and live on human flesh!"
Julie smiled.
"Were they right? Perhaps. I don't believe it myself. But you know it is such a universal fashion to show one's self 'full of heart,' to express feeling, sympathy, tenderness, even when one remains perfectly cold, that the Cordelias will always be at a disadvantage. Even when very young, and perhaps by inheritance from my father, who was a strict, and on the surface a severe, old soldier, not much given to demonstrations--even when a school-girl I felt a disgust for sweetness and suavity, for affected sentimentality and humility--for all that conventional amiability behind which the most cruel envy, the most icy egotism, lurk concealed. I could never take kindly to sentimental bosom-friendship, to compacts of the heart for life and death, that were suddenly broken up by a ball-room rivalry, an honest reproof, or even by pure ennui. My first experience in this respect was my last. And how much sincere liking, and fidelity, and unappreciated self-sacrifice I wasted on this child's play! From that time forth I knew how to take better care of myself. And, in truth, it was not difficult for me to keep guard over my heart. I lived with my old parents, who both appeared, on the surface, dry and pedantic; but who understood the art of making for themselves and me a rich, warm, and beautiful life, that gave my thoughts and feelings ample nourishment. I modeled myself after them, and spoke much the same language. I must indeed have borne myself rather strangely, when, in the society of young people, I expressed myself with regard to certain conventional feelings in scornful terms which might have been pardoned to an old soldier, but which did not become his daughter. I meant no harm with it all. On many occasions, when others were moved to tears or enthusiasm, I really experienced no sensation whatever, unless it were a feeling of discomfort. But as often as anything really touched me--beautiful music, a poem or some solemn impression of Nature, I became perfectly dumb, and could not join in the enthusiastic prattle that went on in the circle about me. Out of pure contempt for phrases, I assumed, in defiance of my real feelings, to be cool and critical, and had to bear being told that there was no getting on with me, that these secret joys must always remain closed to me, a girl without a heart. I smiled at this, and my smile confirmed these fine-strung souls in their belief in my lack of feeling. As it so happened that I found none of them all amiable enough to love in spite of these bad practices, I didn't care in the least for my isolation. I had fared thus with my own sex, and soon I was to find that I did not succeed much better with young men. I was not long in observing that the stronger sex merely had other, and by no means more amiable, weaknesses than we; above all, that they were much vainer, and so care most for those of us who are willing to do homage to their manly superiority. What is generally called maidenly modesty, womanly tenderness, and virginal feeling--is it not, in ninety cases out of a hundred, a craftily-planned artificial stratagem for making fools of these mighty lords of creation? Here they find what they want. Do they not meet in this pliant, yielding, dependent being the best supplement to their dominant natures, the most touching submission to their higher will, an accurately-toned echo of all their most excellent wishes and thoughts? Afterward, when the purpose of the pretty comedy has been attained, the mask is laid aside quickly enough; we good lambs show that we, too, have a will and a mind and a power of our own, and the beautiful delusion is rudely dissipated. As soon as I had come to clearly recognize this, I felt the bitterest disgust for it. Soon, however, I was forced to laugh, and to say to myself, this farce is as old as the world! If, notwithstanding this, the proud lords of creation still permit themselves to be deceived, they must, in one way or another, find some advantage in it. But I could not even then bring myself to join in the game, as I saw all the rest do. I cared nothing for the object which made these petty means holy to all the others. Merely to please the men in general? To do this I had no need to exert myself especially, for I resembled my mother, who had passed for a beauty. And to have won the love of a man it would have been necessary for him to have first taken my fancy, for him to have first become dangerous to me. But it never came to that. Really, I often thought, have you a heart, or have you none, since it feels nothing at all in the society of these gay officers, students, and artists, who are such good dancers, have such a triumphant mien, and such faultless white cravats, and who, with the most condescending superiority, allow themselves to be enticed into the share by all these timid, blushing, demure, sweet creatures, who are all the while secretly laughing in their sleeves."
Julie paused for a while with downcast eyes. "It is strange," said she, with a sigh, "how we happened to come upon these old stories! You must know, my dear, they are really very old--older than you think. I shall soon be thirty-one years old! When I first began to make these observations I was eighteen--now you can subtract for yourself. If I had married then, I might now have had a daughter twelve years old. Instead of that I am a well-preserved old maid, and my only admirer is a silly painter, who has fallen in love with me merely out of a whim for color."
"No," said Angelica, who, in the mean time, had zealously gone on with her painting, "I won't be put aside in that way. I always did consider the men pretty stupid, because, as you very rightly said, they allow themselves to be caught by such clumsy tricks and artifices. But that they should not have recognized your worth, that they should not have cut each others' throats about you--as they did before Troy for that Grecian witch--that is really incomprehensible to me! They cannot all be so conceited and foolish; and, after all, there must be a few--I, myself, have known one or two--. But please lower your chin just a trifle."
"Yes, it is true," continued Julie, "there are a few. I have even come across one for whose sake I myself might finally have been induced to take part in the comedy, had not all talent for that kind of thing been denied me. What his name was, how he came to know me, cannot matter to you. He long ago married another, and has probably forgotten all of me but my name--if not that. I--one of us never forgets such an experience, even when it lies dead and buried in some corner of our hearts; for that I had a heart, as well as other people, I discovered at that time only too plainly--I pleased him exceedingly--he took care to let me see this on every occasion--and then he really was better by far, and much less infected by conceit and selfishness than most of the others; and my straight-forward way of showing myself just as I was, without affecting any coquettish sensibility, seemed to be attractive to him because of its very rarity. As he was rich, and my parents were well off, there was, on the other hand, no outward hinderance in our way. And so, although no binding words had been exchanged, we were tacitly looked upon as a match--I think the men relinquished me to him much more honestly than my female friends gave up this much-sought man to me. To be sure I myself was, even in this case, at least outwardly much cooler and more reserved than happy lovers generally. I was, at heart, deeply attached to the man of my choice; but there was always mixed with it a silent fear, a sort of lack of sympathy--perhaps a prophetic impulse of my heart that warned me not to give myself up absolutely and entirely to this love. And, one day, during a conversation about an accident in a Brazilian mine, where fifty men had suddenly been killed by an explosion of fire-damp, the storm burst upon me, and I had to suffer with those distant victims. All were deeply lamenting over the occurrence, as is the fashion. I remained silent; and when my betrothed asked me whether the terrible accident had absolutely petrified me, I said I could not help it, but it affected me very little more than if I had read in some history that in some battle, a thousand years ago, ten thousand men had perished. The misery of this world was so near us daily and hourly, and we were, for the most part, so culpably indifferent to it, that I could not understand why I should all of a sudden be expected to feel so much sympathy for a misfortune which only attracted attention because it was in the latest newspaper; and which was, moreover, a very common one and not even accompanied by especially horrible circumstances. I had scarcely said this when they all fell upon me--at first, of course, in a joking way, and my old nickname--'the heartless girl'--was raked up again; but, as I kept quiet and rather sharply repelled the accusations of these delicate souls, their tempers became more and more aroused, and the most zealous sermons on philanthropy were launched at me by the very ones who would not have given a drink of water to a sick dog, and who would only succor a poor man if it didn't make them too much trouble. My friend, too, had grown silent, after having at first attempted to take my part. But, like a thorough man--for such he always remained--he could not conceal from himself the frightful truth that I was by no means sufficiently soft and womanly in my feelings. My combative spirit began to trouble him more and more--I could see this clearly--but now all my pride was enlisted against any smoothing over or suppression of my true nature. Although I was very near bursting into tears, I kept up my bravery, fought out my case, and had the miserable satisfaction of appearing to bear off the victory. A dearly-purchased victory! From this evening my lover perceptibly began to draw back, my 'best friend' took it upon herself to enlighten him more and more concerning my character; and since she herself possessed those very traits which were lacking in me, and which alone, it is said, can guarantee the happiness of marriage, nothing could be more natural than that before three weeks were up he should become engaged to this sympathetic being, who for thirteen years now has--. But I will say nothing bad of her. She has certainly done me a great service, for, perhaps, I might not have made this man much happier. And, at the time, she spared me a hard spiritual struggle. Had I been actually engaged, I might, perhaps, have hesitated to fulfill the duties that my poor mother had a right to demand of me. For you must know that my father died very suddenly, and then it appeared that the mother of the heartless girl--who also passed for a cold character--concealed a much more passionate love under an austere exterior than most old women are accustomed to retain beyond their silver-wedding. The death of her old husband first threw my mother into a serious illness, and then into a half-wandering state, in which she lived on for many years, to her torture and to mine!"
She paused; then she suddenly stood up and stepped to the artist's side behind the easel.
"Pardon me, dear," she said, "but I think you ought to stop. Every additional stroke of the brush that tones down or paints away anything will make it look less like me. Look at me more carefully--am I really that blooming creature that beams upon the world from out that canvas? Twelve years of denial, loneliness, and living entombment, have they left no trace upon my face? That is the way I might have looked, perhaps, had I known happiness. They say, you know, happiness preserves youth. But I--I am horribly old! And yet, in reality, I have not begun to live!"
She turned hastily away and walked to the window.
Angelica laid aside her palette, went softly up to her, and threw her arm about her agitated friend.
"Julie," said she, "when you speak that way--you, who by a mere smile could tame wild animals and drive tame men mad!"
She turned to her comforter, and the tears stood in her eyes.
"Oh, my dear," she said, "what nonsense you are talking! How often I have envied a young peasant girl, with an ugly, stupid face, who brought us eggs and milk, simply because she could come and go as she liked, and moved among living beings! But I--can you conceive what it means to have constantly at your side a being whom you cannot but love, and yet whom you are forced to look upon as one dead, as a living ghost; to hear the voice that once caressed you utter senseless sounds, to see the eye that once beamed on you so warmly, strange and dimmed--the eye, the voice, of your own mother? And this, year in and year out--and this half-dead being only waked into anxiety and agitation whenever I made an attempt to leave her. For, truly, when I had borne it a year, I thought I was being crushed by it, without feeling the satisfaction that the sacrifice of my life could be of any possible service to this most miserable being. Yet as often as she missed me for a longer time than the few hours daily to which she had become accustomed, she lapsed into the most violent uneasiness, and only became quiet again when she saw me once more. I had to reconcile myself to the idea that I was necessary to her existence--to an existence that I could by no possibility make happy, or enliven, or even lighten. For so long as I was at her side she scarcely noticed me; indeed, she often appeared not even to recognize me. And still she could not exist without me; and in the asylum, to which she was once carried for the sake of an experiment, she lapsed into a state so pitiable that even 'a girl without a heart' could not but be moved by it."
"Horrible! And you lived with her in this way for twelve long years?"
"For twelve long years! Does it still seem to you so incomprehensible, so 'stupid' of the men that they did not positively force themselves upon a girl who would have brought, with a little bit of beauty and property, this face into their house? No, dear, the men are not so stupid, after all. Even if I had been engaged, and had loved my lover with my whole heart, I could never have expected him to join his life to that of a woman who was chained fast to so horrible a lot."
"But now, since you have become free--"
"Free! A fine freedom to be allowed to dance when the ball is over, to console myself with artificial or painted flowers for the rosy time that was neglected. I once read somewhere that happiness is like wine; if one does not drink up the entire cask at once, but pours some of it into bottles, some time one will have the good of it. It will have time to ripen and become nobler, if it is of the right sort. There may be some truth in this; but, no matter how noble it may be, the old wine has lost its bouquet. The happiness that one hasn't enjoyed when young has a bitter taste; and, for that matter, who guarantees that I shall ever slake my thirst again? Many thousands never moisten their lips, and live soberly on. Why should I fare better? Because I have more beauty than many! That would be fine, indeed! Fate is not in the least gallant, and draws up its decrees without regard to persons. Now, when I stand before the glass, I always see the same well-known face that has lost its youth. I seem to myself like a silk dress that has hung in the closet for twelve years. When one takes it out it is still silk, but the color has faded, the folds tear when it is touched, and when it is shaken out fly the moths! But I have let enough of them fly out of my head to-day. There is no use in going over old experiences. Come! we will paint a little more, and then go and take a drive--for what is our glorious liberty for?"
CHAPTER II.
In Jansen's studio, too, there was more talking than working going on this morning.
Edward Rossel had, at last, in spite of the heat, summoned up sufficient energy to undertake the short walk thither. A gigantic Panama hat, over which he also held a sunshade, protected his head; besides this he wore a summer suit of snow-white piqué, and light shoes of yellow leather.
He was in a very good humor, praised Felix for the assiduity with which he continued to study his skeleton, and then stepped up to the Dancing Girl, to which Jansen had just put the finishing touches.
He stood silently before it for some time, then he drew up a chair near it and begged Jansen to turn the stand so that he would be able to view the work from all sides.
His friends declared that it was a pleasure to see him look at anything. His glances seemed to fairly fasten upon the form, or rather to take it all in; all the muscles of his face became animated, and an intellectual tension curved his somewhat languid mouth.
"Well," asked Jansen, at last, "how does it strike you? You know I can bear anything."
"Est, est, est! What is there to be said about it, especially? Naturally, it has gained and lost, as is always the case. The innocent audacity, the Pompeian abandon, that charmed me in the little sketch has, as a whole, suffered in the execution. You might do better, perhaps, to disguise your respect for Nature a little more. And, by-the-way--with all respect for this Nature--what sort of a model did you have? Of course it is very strongly idealized?"
"Not in the least. A pure facsimile."
"What? This neck and breast, these shoulders, arms--"
"A conscientious copy, without any additions."
Fat Rossel stood up.
"I should have to see that to believe it," he said. "Look here, compared with this the conventionalities of Canova are mere wretched sugar-work. And that is what I was just going to say to you--the Grecian element that was in the sketch is gone. In its place there are a grace, an esprit, an elegance of form--and that, too, of a spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did this little slip grow?"
Jansen shrugged his shoulders.
"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition in mind, for which this little one--"
"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful red--"
"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature."
"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that, since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her."
"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better. Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest shall be my care."
He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in the middle of the studio.
"How far have you got with the Eve?"
"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen, quickly. "She is just at a stage--"
"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins? Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in from the saint-factory?"
A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel, appeared on the threshold.
"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask."
"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fräulein Angelica how this undeserved slight hurt my tender heart!"
"Herr Rossel," continued the artist, "you are a scoffer, and, as a punishment for boasting of a tender heart, which you do not possess, you shall not be given a chance to see something beautiful. I simply wished to request Herr Jansen to come and look at my picture, for I have just had my last sitting, and my friend has given me permission. She knows how important his judgment is to me."
"But if I vow to be very good, and not to open my mouth--"
"You have such a deprecating way of screwing up the corners--"
"I will hold my hat before my face--only my eyes shall peep over the rim."
"For Heaven's sake, come then! although I don't place much confidence in your most solemn vows. I place myself under Herr Jansen's protection; and if the Herr Baron would perhaps like to come too?"
Jansen had not spoken a word, but, with conspicuous haste had exchanged his frock for a coat and had washed the dust from his hands.
When they entered the studio above, they found Rosenbusch already engaged in the most enthusiastic admiration of the picture, while, at the same time, he endeavored in his chivalrous way, to bestow at least half of his enthusiasm upon the original.
Julie had risen and gone toward his chair. When she saw Angelica return with a triple escort, instead of the one she expected, she seemed slightly confused. But the next moment she greeted the gentlemen, whom Angelica introduced to her, with easy grace.
A pause followed. Jansen had stepped before the picture, and, with the great authority which he enjoyed in this circle, not even Edward himself dared to say a word before he had expressed his opinion. It was Jansen's way not to reduce his impression immediately to words. But, on this occasion, he remained silent unusually long.
"Tell me frankly, dear friend," Angelica began at last, "that I have once more undertaken something that deserves the palm for no other reason than for its audacity. If you only knew what contemptuous epithets I have heaped upon myself while I was painting! I have made myself out so bad, have so run myself down, that Homo would not take a piece of bread from me if he had heard me. And yet, in the midst of my dejection, I still took such unheard-of pleasure in my daubery that, do what I would, I could not let my courage sink. If my friend were not present, I should be able to explain to you the reason for this. As it is, it would seem in very bad taste if I should forthwith make her a declaration of love in the presence of witnesses."
The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly,
"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?"
A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round face of the painter.
"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--"
Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other things.
In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of his commendation as a whole.
"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one. What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--à la Paris Bordone? or a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home, that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--"
"And so on, with graces in infinitum!" laughed the painter. "You must know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time to come."
"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?"
"You?--your laziness is all that is immortal about you!" replied the painter.
They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded.
After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said:
"Well, how did he please you?"
"Who?"
"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted himself least to please anybody, not even you."
"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!"
"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable of the most incredible and superhuman things."
"I really believe, my dear, you are in--"
"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes, something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside. His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck me then as being so helpless that I could not help laughing and offering myself as a lady's maid for the dog, at which he showed great delight. That broke the ice between us, and, since then, I take the most inconceivable liberties with him, although my heart still continues to thump if he chances to look at me in his quiet, steady way, for a minute at a time."
Julie was silent. After some time she said, suddenly:
"It is true he has eyes such as I have never before seen in a man. One can read in those eyes that he is not happy; all his genius cannot make him glad. Don't you find it so, too? Wonderfully lonely eyes! Like a man who has lived long, years in a desert, and has seen no living soul--nothing but earth and sun. Do you know anything of his life?"
"No. He himself never speaks of it. Nor do any of the others know what he may not have gone through before he came to Munich. That was about five years ago. But now, if you will just sit still a moment longer--so!--it's only for the reflection in the left eye, and the retouching about the mouth."
Then the painting went on for another hour in silence.