CHAPTER XVII.
Jansen had gone home as if in a dream; and even the wild demonstrations of joy with which he was received by his child did not succeed in driving away the stupor that hung over him. He did not ask either Frances or her foster-mother what had happened in his absence, but stared vacantly, sighed often, and returned confused answers. When he had eaten something, and drunk some strong wine, he fell asleep while sitting at table, with difficulty roused himself sufficiently to tumble into bed, and had just sense enough left to impress upon the woman the fact that he must be waked at six o'clock.
Then, when the evening came, little Frances only succeeded, after much shouting and shaking, in dispelling his leaden sleep; from which, however, the weary man awoke with joyous eyes. He lay for a while and enjoyed the physical relief, the peace in his heart, which he had missed so long. Every word his beloved had said to him that morning came back to his mind again; he knew that with all her kind words she could have meant but one thing; and yet he trembled at the thought that it might all have been a delusion. But the certainty of happiness invariably kept the upper hand.
When, at length, he arose, he felt as if he had recovered from an illness--as if he were invigorated by fresh blood--and he marveled at this transformation; for he remembered that on this very morning he would have liked best to burrow his way into the earth and never see the sun again. He kissed his little daughter again and again, pressed the old woman's hand--the foster-mother was absent--and started off for Julie's lodgings.
But, when he arrived at the house, he was surprised to see a bright light streaming through the blinds of all five windows. He knew that she was fond of having her room bright, but for all that it struck him that all was not as usual. He asked the old servant, who helped him to take off his overcoat in the hall, but received no definite answer; and he was painfully surprised when he opened the door and saw the brightly-lighted room full of people.
It is true, they were all familiar faces. Angelica sat on a sofa by the side of old Schoepf, Rossel had established himself in the most comfortable of the two armchairs, and Rosenbusch and Kohle appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of some engravings on the wall, while Julie was conversing with Schnetz and Elfinger near the door. A covered table, decorated with beautiful bouquets, stood along the wall on the side where the windows were, and little Frances's foster-mother was busy adding the last finishing touches to it. They were all in evening dress, and even Rosenbusch had refrained from wearing his historical velvet-jacket, which the summer had dealt with pretty severely, and appeared in a magnificent dress-coat--the only trouble with which was that it was rather too broad, inasmuch as it had been taken from Rossel's wardrobe. But the most beautiful of all, in her simplicity, appeared the mistress of these halls herself. She wore a white dress of the finest woolen, which exposed but a little of her white shoulders and her arms as far as the elbow. A plain gold chain, from which hung a medallion containing a miniature of her mother, was wound several times about her neck; her hair was brushed back smoothly, and intertwined with a garland of myrtle; in her bosom was fastened a dark-red pomegranate blossom.
In his first surprise Jansen started back from the threshold with a look of bitter disappointment, which Julie alone understood. But, before he had time to recover his presence of mind, he felt himself seized by the gentlest hands, and disarmed by a single soft word whispered in his ear.
"Here he comes at last," she said, leading the speechless man into the centre of the room. "And first of all I must beg his pardon for not having told him beforehand whom he would find here. For even though they are only our best and dearest friends whom I have invited to our farewell gathering--still, I know you would have preferred to see no one this evening but myself. And yet, though I would gladly do anything else for your sake--I could not do otherwise than what I have done on this occasion. Our friends all know that I am determined to share my life with you until death parts us. Do you not feel with me that it would be contrary to my honor and my womanly pride, to pass clandestinely into the new life that has been opened to us, as if we had committed a sin, instead of entering upon it with open brow, followed by the congratulations of our dearest friends, as other happy bridal couples do?"
She stopped, for a moment, overcome by her emotion. But, as he made no movement, except to raise to his lips the hand with which she held his, she recovered her courage, and continued in a lower voice:
"Our rôles are so singularly transposed. It is customary for the voice of the bride to be heard only when she says 'yes' at the foot of the altar. But here there is no altar, and the bride must pronounce the wedding address herself. I confess that, since I plighted my heart and my troth to my beloved friend, I have always cherished the hope that things would turn out differently. I thought it would be so beautiful to go up to the altar with him, as other brides do; and have our union so sanctioned. But, since this could not be, what right have we to be so cowardly and narrow-minded as to cling to a mere form when two human lives are at stake? As soon as I saw that it was to decide the weal or woe of his life and of his art, every scruple left me. We are neither of us so young or so inexperienced as to be deceived about our hearts. They are indissolubly bound together. And it is therefore no crime and no presumption, but something that was as certainly decreed by Heaven as was ever union between two human beings, for me to be from this day forth the true wife of this man, and for him to be forever my beloved husband."
She turned away for a moment; her voice failed her. A breathless silence reigned. The gentlemen, with the exception of the bridegroom, who gazed fixedly in his beloved's eyes, lowered their eyes and stood solemn and still as if in a house of worship; the little foster-mother held her handkerchief before her eyes, and the big tear-drops rolled down Angelica's face, while she struggled to look at her friend as cheerfully and encouragingly as possible. Now, when the latter turned to her, she hastily took up a little silver dish she had held in readiness and handed it to Julie, trying, as she did so, to give her friend's hand a stolen pressure. Two little gold rings, looking rubbed and thin, as if they had been worn a long time, lay in the plate.
"These are the wedding rings of my parents," said the bride. "For many long years they served as the sign of a union that grew ever firmer in good and in bad fortune. I think you will not oppose me, dearest, if I use them to sanctify our marriage. I herewith give you this ring that my father received from my mother, and swear to you, before these friends of ours, to be a true wife to you and a good mother to your child. And if you do not repent of having offered me your life--"
She could not finish. In a sudden overflow of feeling he seized the other ring, thrust it at random on one of her fingers, and folded the blushing girl in a passionate embrace. It seemed as if he would never let her go again; his breast heaved with suppressed sobbing, he hid his face upon her neck, and her soft locks dried the tears he was ashamed to show.
In the mean while it appeared that none of the witnesses took the slightest notice of this passionate outburst. Rossel seemed to be earnestly studying the pattern of the carpet; old Schoepf took out his handkerchief and polished his spectacles; Elfinger stood at the piano, with his back toward the newly-married couple, and slowly turned over the pages of a music-book. Angelica fell upon the foster-mother's neck, while Kohle seized Rosenbusch's hand and shook it warmly.
At length when the bride had somewhat recovered her composure and had gently released herself from her husband's arms, Schnetz, who up to this time had been violently plucking at his imperial, advanced toward the couple and stammered out a few words of cordial felicitation. This gave the signal for a general crowding around, and the most joyful handshaking and congratulation. All spoke at the same time, each held the hand of the bride and bridegroom as tightly as if he hoped never to have to release it again, and every one seemed to want to repudiate, as something very superfluous and out of place, the emotion which had moved all their hearts but a few minutes before. Angelica was the first to restore quiet and order to this confusion, by rapping on a glass and requesting the guests to come to supper. The bridal couple were to start on their wedding journey in a few hours, and, as the bridegroom had not even packed his trunk yet, it was doubly advisable for them not to let the wedding feast grow cold.
So they took their places. Old Schoepf was given the seat of honor on the other side of the bride, Rosenbusch captured a place next to Angelica, and Rossel took charge of the foster-mother, although, as a general thing, he studiously avoided having any women near him when at table. Of the meal itself it will only be necessary to say that Edward Rossel had placed his own cook at Angelica's disposal, and had sent his servants along with her; the selection and the cooling of the wine had also been his care, although, except himself, scarcely any one of the guests took much notice of what they ate and drank. Those in particular who sat opposite the bridal couple seemed to be so fascinated by the sight of their happiness, by the beauty of Julie, and the dreamy look of inspiration in Jansen's face, that they looked very little at their plates. To this number belonged Angelica, whose hand wandered across the table every now and then to meet that of her adored friend under the shadow of the huge bouquet.
Julie's plan was to carry her husband off to Italy, there to look for some spot on which to settle down and found their home. When they had made up their minds whether Florence, or Rome, or Venice was to be their resting-place, they were to return and get little Frances, who would have been rather out of place in this wintry wedding-journey of her parents.
Meanwhile Julie had taken advantage of a favorable opportunity to enter into a low conversation with old Schoepf in regard to the future of his grandchild. In spite of the power she exerted over all with whom she came in contact, she did not find it easy to break down the old man's obstinacy. Finding that all her assertions of how sincere the baron's remorse was were of as little avail as her efforts to convince him of the material benefit which the reconciliation would be to his grandchild's future, she finally summoned cunning to her aid, and represented that in granting this request he would be conferring a personal favor upon her, a sort of wedding-present, which such an old friend of her husband surely could not refuse her. The chivalrous old man could resist no longer, and so, with a solemn shake of the hand, Julie secured all that the baron could demand with any kind of justice, although a complete reconciliation still seemed quite unattainable for the present.
Jansen had been listening to this conversation, which had been carried on in a low tone; and now he, in his turn, thanked the old man by a pressure of the hand. All this time he had scarcely uttered a word. His heart was full of a bliss too deep for words; the cheerful noise of the good people about him sounded in his ears as if it came from a great distance; his eyes rested on the flowers before his plate, and did not even venture to gaze at the noble woman who was really his own at last; and it was only with difficulty that he could force himself even to smile when the others burst into roars of laughter over some joke of the lieutenant's, or some enthusiastic expression of Angelica's.
As they sat thus, there suddenly burst forth from Julie's piano, at which Elfinger was seated, the first bars of the wedding-march in the "Midsummer Night's Dream." On the instant all voices were hushed, and they stood listening to the fairy strains that made them forget, for the moment, that the winter night with its thousand glittering stars looked in upon them, and suffered no other elfin tricks than those which possibly lurked concealed in the foam of the champagne glasses.
When it came to an end the silence still continued for a while. The bride had disappeared with Angelica into the next room, and now returned again in traveling-dress. Schnetz now called upon Rosenbusch to let the departing couple take some of his verses with them as a farewell blessing on their journey. But he, who was generally so obliging, could not be induced to do this at any price. He would only promise to forward them his bad rhymes in black and white, accompanied with marginal illustrations.
"It is late," said Julie, "and we have still to take leave of our child. We leave her in the best of care, and hope soon to see her again. And now we must say good-by."
She first embraced the foster-mother and kissed her warmly. Then she gave her hand and a kind word and look to each of the others in turn, and hastened out of the room, no longer able to control her emotion. Jansen, too, had parted from his friends with great feeling, entreating them all not to follow him beyond the door. Angelica alone insisted upon accompanying the couple as far as the carriage. The others stepped to the window and watched them get in, together with old Erich, who was to accompany them, while Angelica still stood on the carriage step unable to tear herself from Julie's neck. When she at last stepped down, and the door was slammed to, those in the house stepped to the wide-opened window, with full glasses and burning lamps and candles, and shouted a loud "good luck!" to the departing couple. The waving of a handkerchief and of hands from the carriage doors answered them; and the drosky rolled away.
BOOK VII.
CHAPTER I.
All of a sudden Paradise had become very desolate. In the rooms that had once resounded with conversation and laughter until long after midnight, there now assembled a mere handful of rather morose and chilly comrades, who did not thaw out even over their wine. They sat behind their glasses, silent and disconsolate, each one expecting of the other that he would suddenly break out again in the old festal mood. For, in spite of the great necessity for social intercourse that is inherent in the German character, nothing is more remarkable than the rarity of true social talent, and still more the lack of that social sense of duty which urges the individual to do all in his power to contribute to the general entertainment. Most Germans go into society just as they go to the theatre, and believe they have done all that duty requires of them when, from their seats, they have made careful observations of the actors; and they think themselves justified in complaining of being bored whenever the latter are in a bad mood for acting. This unmistakable decline, which generally takes place in every club soon after it has reached its highest prosperity, was still further hastened, in the case of the Paradise society, by outward circumstances. In Jansen's departure it had lost the one member whose mere presence gave it its distinctive character. The very fact that he had no desire to rule had led them to give him, without opposition, that leadership for which he was qualified before all others by his superiority, mature judgment, and simplicity of bearing. Still, there were several among his friends who might have succeeded in upholding the old traditions after his departure, had it not happened that the very ones who were best fitted and most influential had themselves personal reasons for withdrawing.
Since the recovery of his grandchild it was impossible to induce old Schoepf to pass an evening away from home. He devoted himself entirely to taming his little refractory savage--a task in which he was obliged to work very carefully, for the strange creature still threatened to run away if they tried to restrict her freedom in the slightest degree. She would not submit for a moment to any regular course of instruction, but thought she did quite enough if she took charge of household matters, for which she showed great aptitude, and attended to her toilet or took a walk with her grandfather in her spare hours. She never asked after his friends, Jansen and Schnetz, not even after Felix, who had disappeared so suddenly. Her face had grown rather prettier from good living and comfortable surroundings, and her figure fuller; and she could now gratify her taste for dress, for her grandfather treated her like a pet doll. It was no wonder, therefore, that Rossel only grew more confirmed in his passion, particularly as he made it a rule to see her daily.
He came in the evening, generally bringing with him Kohle, who had been the greatest sufferer by Jansen's departure. The two gradually became so accustomed to the old man's parlor that they willingly gave up the nights at the Paradise club for its sake. Usually, after they had talked awhile, or had looked over some photographs or engravings, Rossel drew a book from his pocket, either a volume of poems or something else that was interesting at once to children and sages, and began to read aloud; apparently without giving a thought to the girl, who took pains to move about as much as possible, as if to show that both he and his companion were utterly indifferent to her. Sometimes, however, when he chanced to strike the right key, she would crouch down on her little chair near the stove, and listen with open mouth and wide-open eyes in which the light of intelligence was slowly beginning to dawn. But she never allowed herself to be drawn into a conversation about what had been read, and never varied in her manner toward her admirer, so that he perceptibly grew thin with disappointment.
This same conduct, so singularly made up of frivolity and persistency, she maintained toward her own father. After old Schoepf had consented to allow the baron to exercise at least the outward rights of a father, an interview had taken place between the two; and the sincere melancholy of the baron, who was usually such a lighthearted cavalier, had not failed to make an impression upon the grim old man. As the latter felt that he could not acquit himself of all blame in the affair, they had arrived at an understanding which, though not exactly cordial, was nevertheless very different from the frosty relations that had previously existed between them; and arrangements had been made for the daughter's benefit in accordance with the baron's wishes. During the half hour which she consented to give, at her grandfather's request, to an interview between her and the author of her being, she sat at her papa's side as cold and stiff as possible, and almost as if she were giving an audience; while he exhausted his amiability in attempts to touch her heart. She did not feel the slightest affection for him, she declared over and over again. Before she saw him she hated him; now she felt absolutely indifferent toward him, and she could not understand how her dead mother could ever have loved him. He must not flatter himself that she would ever feel differently. She had never been able to bear faces like his; she was sorry, but it was always her way to speak the truth, and because he had lied to her mother was no reason why she should now lie to him. Let him keep his money. She had no intention of marrying; and even if she had she would not accept a man who took her merely because she had a rich father.
That the beautiful Fräulein was her cousin did indeed seem strange to her. At first she laughed at the idea, as if it were all a joke; then she blushed crimson, no one knew why, stood up suddenly, made her father a stiff courtesy, and hurried out of the room.
With a sigh the baron left the old man's lodgings, to go and give his old companion-in-arms, Schnetz, an account of this unsuccessful attempt at reconciliation.
Ever since the wedding evening the lieutenant, too, had felt himself in a misanthropic and depressed state of mind, which kept him at home for months and made him forget Paradise utterly; all the more readily because it seemed to him that Jansen's presence there was necessary to its very existence. His artistic talent was, after all, merely the shadow cast by his character when it chanced to stand in a humorous light. He had taken up with the artists because their society seemed to him more tolerable than any other that came within the great dreariness of his ordinary life, less because they created beautiful works than because they were men who were capable of producing something that lay beyond the pale of ordinary society, for which he had a profound contempt. Even they did not escape his Thersites mood. But the fact that he had discovered one among them at whom he found it absolutely impossible to rail, and whom he had not the heart to ridicule even with his black art, had inspired him with a strange feeling toward Jansen; as though, if the whole decaying world should fall to pieces and leave only this one man, nothing would really be lost, and the human race, copied after this model, would be restored to a far higher grandeur. He had really loved this man, carefully as he tried to conceal such "sentimentalities" from every one, especially from himself. And now he sat alone again in his Timonian bitterness, cutting silhouettes in the dark, and angry with all other men because all of them taken together could not compensate him for the loss of this one.
He received the baron exceedingly badly, listened to his account of his unloving child with a sardonic grin, and assured him that the only consolation he found in this whole muddle of a world was that there were still a few beings left, even of the female sex, who would not let themselves be fooled by fine words, and who spoke out just what they thought. He advised him to go to Africa and shoot a lioness, and adopt her brood, whereupon he immediately began to cut out the baron in black paper as the nurse of a wildcat, that he might give him a memento to take with him on his journey.
For although Irene had not yet given him official permission, her uncle had, nevertheless, determined to follow her. As matters now stood he no longer dared to present himself even to the old countess, who, when he called to deliver Irene's farewell, had preached him an edifying sermon upon her incredible conduct, and had received his jesting answer with a very bad grace. There was not the slightest prospect of hearing anything further in regard to Felix here in the city. No one knew in what direction the supposed duel had taken him. Thus the old habit of being under his niece's thumb, and the uselessness and joylessness of his further stay in Munich, drew the old baron toward the South; and the harsh manner in which even Schnetz had suddenly turned upon him made the parting very easy.
He put the silhouette in his letter-case without a smile, shook his old friend by the hand, and left him, expressing the hope that they might meet again under a warmer sun.
CHAPTER II.
Two other pillars of the Paradise Club had grown shaky, and were in no condition to arrest its fall.
Rosenbusch and Elfinger had both appeared at the first meeting which took place after the unfortunate masquerade, but in a conspicuously depressed mood, and neither so witty nor so grateful for the wit of others as was usually the case with them.
On the way home they confessed to one another that the thing had outlived its day; even the wine to-night was much sourer than in the good old times.
Now, the truth is, it was the very same wine, but its flavor could not overcome the bitter taste on the tongue of the drinkers; and in each this bitter taste arose from exactly opposite causes.
Elfinger's deep and unswerving fondness had really succeeded in stealing away his little devotee's heart from her heavenly bridegroom. At one of those afternoon services in the little church already mentioned, she had with many tears allowed the confession to escape her that his love was returned; adding, however, a saving clause, that once more put all his hopes to naught, that she should not on this account consider herself any the less bound by her former vow, particularly as her father confessor had clearly proved to her that she would be neither happy on earth nor blessed in heaven unless she renounced her sinful love for a Lutheran, and especially for one who had once been an actor.
To Elfinger's most eloquent attempts at dissuasion, the poor child had only replied by tears and shakes of the head, and had answered the long letters which her lover sent to her almost daily, by nicely-written little notes, not altogether free from orthographical blunders, in which she besought him in the most touching terms not to make her heart still heavier, but rather to move to some other lodgings and never to meet her again.
This correspondence had, of course, merely poured oil upon the fire, on this as well as on the other side of the street. Nevertheless it really did seem, after all, as though their love was not destined to overcome the evil powers; and in his grief at this Elfinger began more and more to lose his taste for the joys of Paradise, generally spending his evenings at home, brooding over plans for the overthrow of the priesthood--which resulted in his toiling through all the pamphlets against the Vatican Council, and in his composing for some of the smaller newspapers violent articles favoring the abolition of convents.
But, while his fate was trembling in the balance, his next-door neighbor was still worse off; and, sad to relate, solely because of the incredible worldly-mindedness of his sweetheart. Through his trusty ally, the servant-girl, he learned that the only son of a rich brewer, from one of the smaller cities of the region, was paying his attentions to her; and the pretty little witch appeared to have refrained from doing any of those things by which even the most obedient daughter may show her aversion to a hated suitor. Rosenbusch, whose soul still clung fondly to his romantic elopement project, refused, at first, to believe in such villainous treachery. But when his letters remained unanswered, the last one indeed being returned unopened by the post, he fell into a terrible passion, spent whole nights in composing the most insulting poems against brewers' sons and Philistines' daughters, and gave himself up more and more to the most extravagant melancholy, misanthropy, and dislike for work. He began to neglect his person too in the most terrible way, wore, as his daily clothing, that ample dress-coat of Edward Rossel's, which the latter had formally made over to him after the wedding evening; and over this a coarse red-and-blue plaid shawl, and a cap which he had cut out himself from his old slouch hat, whose rim had been nibbled and considerably diminished by his white mice, one night when he had left the door of the cage open.
It is true, he still went regularly to the studio and shut himself in under the pretense of laboring at some great, mysterious work; yet he never touched a brush all day long, but cowered over the stove, in which he managed to keep up a wretched little fire made out of fragments of old fences that he had picked up here and there. There he sat wrapped in his shawl, an unlighted cigar in his mouth, spying around among his antiquities, to see which piece he should next tear from his soul and deliver to the shop-keepers.
For a very considerable payment that he had to make had exhausted his last penny of ready money. In his emotion over the martyrdom of the faithful dog, Rosenbusch had determined to give Jansen a pleasant surprise by ordering a grave-stone for the little mound in the garden, bearing the following profound inscription:
Hic jacet Homo,
Nihil humani a se alienum putans.
It was merely a plain block of granite ornamented by a dog's head cut in profile, and the letters were not even gilded. Yet the stone-cutter's bill proved to be twice as large as the first estimate of the cost; so that he had been obliged to sell the sword and scabbard of a Walloon cuirassier, a rusty snaffle-bit of the time of the Swedish war, and his last halberds; and besides this, to paint an oil-portrait of the stone-cutter's wife, in order to complete this act of respect without incurring any debts.
He never said a word about his troubles to any of his friends, not even to Elfinger, and at the dedication of the monument, over which he presided, he conducted himself with so much ease and dignity that they all thought he had really found some unknown patron who advanced him money on his great new picture. The fact that he appeared in a dress-coat, in spite of the bitter winter cold, was attributed to the formality with which he insisted upon treating the whole affair.
He himself tried hard at first to keep up his spirits. He composed an account of the ceremony in his most feeling verses, and accompanied them with a sketch of the grave-stone and other illustrations relating to the dedication, and sent the document to Florence, where Jansen and Julie were then sojourning.
The postage for this parcel cost him his last kreutzer. That day it was nine o'clock in the evening before he ate his dinner (on credit); and even then he went to bed hungry.
But, though he deceived all others by the smiling mien with which he wrapped himself in his shawl and his love-sickness, there were two eyes near him that he could not blind in this way.
Those were the eyes of his neighbor Angelica, and they, too, no longer saw the world in such a rosy light as that in which it had appeared at Christmas.
The necessity that was inborn in her nature, to passionately worship something or other, and to give vent to her adoration in extravagant terms, no longer found anything to feed on since the departure of the happy pair. Indeed, she would have had a very poor opinion of herself if, after having found in Jansen the ideal of a true artist, and in Julie the quintessence of beauty, she had now been contented to take up with anything of a lower grade. At first she tried hard to grow sentimental over little Frances, and to transfer to the child the enthusiasm she felt for its parents. But as this was attended with some difficulty because of their living so far apart, as well as on account of a certain reserve peculiar to the little creature, she gradually withdrew from this also, and contented herself with visiting the child every Sunday and making enthusiastic speeches about its talents to its foster-mother. The sensible little woman always received them rather coolly, partly because she disliked everything like gushing compliments, and partly because she felt hurt that her own children were completely overlooked. For this reason, and for this reason only, she was not sorry when, toward spring, a letter came from Julie with the request to bring the child to its parents in Florence as soon as the state of the weather would permit. Unfortunately, she could not come for the child herself as she had hoped, her doctor having forbidden her "for important reasons" to take the journey. Still, she had too great a yearning to see Frances to be able to wait any longer, and she entreated the faithful foster-mother to make still another sacrifice for her sake, and to take advantage of the occasion to get a peep at their Italian home.
Some fine presents were added for the other children and a letter for Angelica, in which her friend heartily besought her to accompany the child, and, if possible, to spend the whole summer with them. Jansen seconded this invitation in a very kind postscript; and the money enclosed for the traveling expenses was reckoned for three persons.
It is needless to describe the feelings of this good soul as she read this letter, and saw the prospect opened to her of seeing again with her own eyes, and clasping again in her arms, all that she loved and admired. With beating heart and glowing cheeks she sat for a good hour motionless before her easel, and had never in all her life felt so happily unhappy or so torn by conflicting wishes. When at last she had clearly made up her mind to decline the proffered happiness, she appeared, in her own eyes, such a subject for commiseration, notwithstanding all her consciousness of heroic virtue, that she began to weep bitterly, and did not heed how her tears fell upon a wreath of flowers in water color that she had just painted, moistening them with an all too natural dew.
CHAPTER III.
In order to explain this, we must disclose a secret that our artist had heretofore guarded carefully from every one--even from herself, as far as such a thing was possible.
The fate of the one man with whom this peaceable soul always stood on a war-footing, and who, as it seemed, possessed none of all the qualities by which one could generally win her love and admiration, had become of such importance to her in the course of time, that her own weal and woe, and even such a happiness as had just been offered her, became but a secondary matter when compared with it.
That violent hate can turn into burning love is a fact that is no longer considered strange. But the transformation of a thoroughly honest and obvious contempt into the exact opposite, without the object of these conflicting feelings having changed especially himself, must ever remain a difficult riddle to solve. This was especially the case because this contempt for her neighbor was not directed against his character as an artist and a man, of whose good qualities she might in time have become more clearly convinced, but rested solely on the contradiction in their characters, which appeared to her to have been completely reversed in their cases from what Nature had intended.
Little of the Amazon as there was about her, she nevertheless felt herself, as compared with Rosenbusch, the stronger, more resolute and more manly of the two; and, since devotion to something higher and stronger was a chief necessity of her nature, nothing would have struck her as more absurd than that this flute-playing, verse-scribbling art-colleague of hers, who decked himself out in silk and satin like a bearded girl, could ever become dangerous to her peace of mind.
Consequently, when she found that ever since that stolen kiss on Christmas night, innocent though it was, the picture of the robber rose up before her oftener than before, each time causing a certain ashamed surprise to creep over her virgin heart, she fought against this weakness with all her power, and took pains to exaggerate, in her own mind, the faults and absurdities of this gay deceiver. But, in doing so, she was obliged to occupy her thoughts with him to an uncommon extent, and she often caught herself studying his praiseworthy qualities with far greater fondness than his laughable ones. Unfortunately, she had plenty of spare time for these studies; for, as Schnetz expressed it, she was enjoying a vacation from idolatry since Jansen's and Julie's departure. And, finally, what contributed as much as anything else to make her heart more tender, was the just fear that things were going badly with her neighbor, and might end seriously for him some fine day, unless some one came to his aid.
She positively breathed easier when she discovered that he was hungry and cold, and began quite cheerfully to revolve in her mind how she could best assist him.
She took good care to say nothing about it to his friends. To her alone he should owe his rescue, and that without having the slightest suspicion of it. She herself could hardly be said to be swimming in luxury; that which she earned was just sufficient to carry her through the world respectably; for she had the greatest horror of anything in her art that had a taint of fraud about it, and was exceedingly conscientious with regard to such matters. More than once she had taken back a picture, with which the person who had ordered it expressed himself as quite content, merely because it did not satisfy herself.
But the suspiciously jolly air with which Rosenbusch met her on the stairs, the ominous stillness next door, where the stove no longer sang its morning song, nor the flute summoned the mice to the dance, so cut her to the heart, that she would not have hesitated even to have got into debt, if by so doing she could have saved her friend from bankruptcy.
It was a sunny morning in April; she had accompanied little Frances and her foster-mother to the station, and had thus given up the last thing she had to exercise her sentimental devotion upon; and now she walked slowly to her studio, firmly determined to seek consolation in her art. But on arriving up stairs, where a fresh canvas was already awaiting her, she made a mistake in the door, and, instead of going into her own workshop, knocked at the battle-painter's, of whom she had not caught a glimpse for several days.
Rosenbusch knew her knock well. He always declared it was a pity she did not play on the piano, she had such an excellent touch. However, he did not seem inclined to let her in; at all events she had to knock three times, and to call out that it was no use, he needn't pretend any longer, she had seen him through the keyhole sitting there, and must come in for ten minutes as she had an order for him; then, at last, he slowly got up, crept to the door, sighing, and drew back the bolt.
As she entered she cast a stolen look at the bare walls of the room, that was as damp and chilly as a cellar, and at its miserable occupant, who had folded his shawl tight about his body just as a beetle does his wings in a rainstorm, and, with his pinched, half-starved looking little nose, was making a wretched attempt to look chipper and pleased.
"What are you making such an ecce homo face for?" she said, in her brusquest tone, which now stood her in good stead in concealing her emotion. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Herr von Rosenbusch, to sit here in a corner and mope, this heavenly weather. Besides, it's so cold here that the oil would freeze on one's brush. But I forget, you are not doing any painting now. You have another acute attack of your chronic laziness--or are you sick?"
"You are mistaken, honored patroness," said Rosenbusch, in his silver tenor, which now, however, sounded a little cracked. "I am quite well, with the exception of a certain nervousness that is often to be found among artists; atrophy of the nervus rerum, the men of science call it. Besides, I am not sitting here so idle as you perhaps imagine; I am working away at my great picture, having accustomed myself of late to first complete the picture in my head, down to the last light effect on the nostrils of a pack-horse. In this way you save an incredible deal of color that you would otherwise have wasted in constant scratching out. You ought to try it, Angelica."
"Thank you. Every one has his manner, and my ideas never come to me until I see them first upon the canvas. But listen, Rosenbusch, does this dry mental painting take up all your time? Couldn't you steal a few hours in the day for outside work? A young officer's widow has given me an order for a portrait of her husband, who fell at Kissingen, to be inclosed in a wreath of laurels, cypresses, and passion-flowers--between ourselves, a regular sampler idea. Only think of it: the departed one on horseback, in the background the city; and around it all a wreath, like onions about a dish of sauerkraut and sausages. I let fall a few hints, as to whether it would not look better, perhaps, if we should leave out the wreath, or at most paint in the bust of the deceased? But no, it would not do to leave out the horse, he might almost have been said to have been one of the family, the widow declared--a beautiful bay stallion with a white star; and he had also died in consequence of a wound. As the times are bad and the lady did not find the price I asked any too high, I accepted the commission. I immediately said to myself, it is nonsense; the horses that you paint look a good deal like hippopotamuses, so you can't get it done without Rosenbusch's help; and as he is now at work on his great picture--but still, as you are only painting it in your head--"
She turned away, so that he should not see the sly look that flashed over her round face. But, in his wretched state of body and mind, all his sharpness had left him.
"You know, Angelica," said he, "that if I were painting the battles of Alexander, I would always have time enough left for you. Besides, one nag won't be anything of a job. I shall paint him with wide-spread nostrils snuffing at the wreath, as though the laurels that beckoned to his master had excited his own appetite. Symbolical allusions like that can give an interesting air even to the most foolish picture."
"Will you have the goodness to dispense with all your jokes? The matter is serious, the picture is to be placed on a sort of household altar in the widow's sleeping-chamber, and a night-lamp is to be kept constantly burning before it. So, if you will undertake to do the figures, including, of course, the portrait of the officer--a photograph of the horse is also to be sent to me to-day--I will paint a wreath around them, and we will go shares in the fame and money."
She named twice the sum she had asked. For she was determined to let him have the whole, which would be no inconsiderable sum for him in his present state. But to her alarm he did not show the slightest joy at this unhoped-for income.
"My dear friend," he said, "the two departed ones shall be painted, and I promise you they shall bear as close a resemblance to a fallen hero and a defunct war-horse as any sorrowing widow could possibly wish. I will also, if you insist upon it, paint my monogram on the nag's saddle-cloth, so that we may figure together in art-history, like Rubens and Blumenbreughel. But you alone must have the money. I will never consent to be paid in vile lucre for acts of friendship, especially toward a lady, and above all toward an honored patroness and neighbor. And, by the way, we can commence at once; I have come to a halt in my composition--particularly as I have a cold in my head--and as one finally gets quite confused merely from the number of good thoughts that come to him--therefore, if you please--"
He approached with arm gracefully bent, in order to escort her over to her studio.
Angelica knew him well enough to feel sure that nothing in the world would shake him in the resolution he had taken; and, since everything that was chivalrous in his character flattered her hidden liking, she made no attempt to dissuade him. She would find some way of recompensing him for his trouble without offending his sense of courtesy, and a great deal had already been won in inducing him to go to work again and to come into a heated room.
There, to be sure, he was obliged to take off his shawl and appear in the unlucky dress-coat which, having been intended for Rossel's rounded proportions, hung very loosely about his shrunken limbs. However, he was not in the least embarrassed by this, but proceeded to explain to his friend, with the greatest seriousness, the advantage of having one's clothes too large. In the summer they were airy, for they caught the wind; in the winter they retained a larger supply of warm air--a movable wadding, as it were, between the body and the cloth--while they were much warmer in an unheated room, especially when covered by a shawl, on account of their having so much more material. He delivered this lecture over a cup of tea which Angelica had prepared for him, and which evidently restored to his inner man the warmth he had so long been without. As he was never more active than when he was working for others, the rough sketch of the equestrian portrait was completed in a few hours, and so skillfully set in Angelica's border of flowers that, as she expressed it, the whole picture looked "quite crazy enough," and they were able to proceed at once to the shading.
Over this common labor, that afforded them both great pleasure and gave occasion for innumerable jests, the forenoon had slipped away unheeded. Angelica proposed to take her dinner in her studio to-day, against which proposition Rosenbusch had nothing to object. She dispatched the janitor with a few secret commissions, and in a short time had improvised such an excellent meal that Rosenbusch burst out in great enthusiasm.