"Umkenheim, July 30, 18--.
"Honoured Sir:
"You should have believed me when I told you that there was nothing to be done with bringing the water from that miserable spring. Twenty years ago you placed me at the head of this factory, and I think I have shown that I understand my business. It is a ruinous thing to conduct such a huge undertaking from a distance. I told you so when you got back the factory again, but you never believe what I say. If the business had been allowed to proceed as usual, we should have made a sure, although small, profit from it. But you were in such a devil of a hurry to make the capital yield a hundred per cent., because you were always afraid lest your ward should smell a rat and require her own again,--or lest she should marry, and you would have to render an account to some suspicious husband, who would be less forbearing even than Fräulein Ernestine. Therefore these giant speculations were set on foot, and everything was to be accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. I told you we had not sufficient sewerage for such an enormous enlargement. Then you never rested until that expensive drain was dug, and we very soon found that it had too little incline and the refuse all stuck fast in it. Then you thought we could carry it off by a stream of water turned into the drain. More money was spent, and again spent in vain. The dry summer had exhausted the spring,--it was always small, and now it has entirely disappeared. The large supply of raw material, not yet paid for, cannot be worked up, for the villagers are beginning to talk again of 'poisoning the springs,' and the drain has begun to leak. If the necessary amount of water cannot be procured, I shall be prosecuted, and then nothing will shield either you or me from discovery. The people already think it strange that the Italian gentleman, who pretended to buy the factory by your advice, has disappeared. It is whispered about that he is not the real owner, and Heaven only knows what it all means. We have, therefore, more need of caution than ever!
"There is nothing for it but to face the worst and continue the aqueduct to the forest,--then we shall be safe. Digging ditches and hunting for springs is of no use,--more money is frittered away so than in large undertakings. I do not know what cash you have on hand; if you have not enough to lengthen the aqueduct, in a few weeks you will be bankrupt. It will not be my fault!
"I have no more money for the workmen's wages,--and it would be well, now that work must be suspended for a time, to pay them up. It might keep them in good humour. I know that you will vent all your anger upon me again, but I tell you I will put up with nothing more. I was an honest man until you tempted me and made me your accomplice. Still, I have not played the rogue to you, my principal, although I have, more's the pity, made myself amenable to the law. You have gone on just like Herr Neuenstein, who became bankrupt too, because he would not listen to me; but he was an honourable man, and paid up every penny that he owed, so that he was not afraid to look any one in the face. If you fail, you drag down your ward, whose money you have been using, with you,--and me too,--poor devil that I am! There is truth in the proverb 'Ill-gotten gains never prosper.' God help me!
"Yours, etc.,
"Clemens Prücker,
"Overseer."
It was too much. "My child! my child! I have sinned, forged, embezzled, for your sake, in vain! Can you be sufficiently proud of such a father?" he moaned,--his head fell back in his chair, and he lost consciousness.
The day had dawned when he opened his eyes; the atmosphere was full of the disagreeable odour of the dying candles, his limbs were stiff and numb from his uneasy posture, and he was shivering with cold. When he tried to walk, his hands and feet were asleep, and he staggered like a drunken man. At last his eyes lighted upon the letters. He picked them up and went to his writing-table. There he put them away in a secret drawer, then drew forth a safe and investigated its contents. It contained certificates of stock and some rolls of ready money.
The sun shone brightly into the room, and still the pale man sat there counting and calculating. At last he put all the contents of the safe into a leather travelling-bag. Then he rang the bell and ordered the servant, who appeared, to have the carriage brought round and to pack up for him sufficient clothes to last during a journey of several days.
When he heard that his niece had arisen, he went to her. "Good-morning, Ernestine," said he. "How are you to-day?"
"I should put that question to you, uncle," she replied. "You look as if you had just arisen from the grave!"
"Oh, there is nothing the matter with me. I did not sleep much. The overseer at Unkenheim writes to me on the part of my Italian friend, begging me to come as soon as possible to the factory, where everything is going wrong. I think it my duty to do what I can in the matter, as I know all about the business, and unfortunately advised my friend to make the purchase."
"Are you going, then?" asked Ernestine, with a feeling of secret delight that she could not explain to herself.
"Yes, I must leave you for a few days, hard as it is for me. But promise me before I go that you will have that treatise that you are at work upon completed by my return. Let nothing prevent you from finishing it. If you feel unwell,--you know that is of no real consequence,--you can readily overcome all your ailments by resolutely willing to do so. Take quinine, if you must. Now may I rely upon finding the essay complete when I see you again?"
"Yes, uncle, I promise; and if I do not keep my word, it will be for the first time in my life."
"Farewell, then, my child,--I must hurry to catch the train. Let nothing interrupt you,--do you hear?--nothing!"
He hurried out, and sought the housekeeper. "Frau Willmers," he said, "I rely on you to prevent Fräulein von Hartwich from receiving any visitors, be they who they may. If I find, upon my return, that you have permitted the least infringement of my orders, you may consider yourself dismissed. I cannot tell you when I shall return. Conduct yourself so that you need not fear my arrival, for it may take place at any moment."
"Rely upon me entirely, Herr Professor," replied Frau Willmers; and Leuthold got hastily into his vehicle.
"Now, that sly master of mine thinks all is secure, and that he has the heart of a girl of two-and-twenty under lock and key. How stupid these clever folks often are!" After this fashion Frau Willmers soliloquized, as her master drove off.
CHAPTER V.
FRUITLESS PRETENSIONS.
"Your new dress-coat has come from the tailor's," was Frau Herbert's greeting to her husband, upon his entrance.
"Indeed! where is it?" he asked gruffly.
"In the next room, on the bed."
"On the bed!" her husband snapped out. "So that it may be covered with lint? How careless!"
Frau Herbert looked down, and was silent. Herbert hurried into the next room to rescue his slighted property.
Professor Herbert's dwelling-room was rather small and low, but there appeared, at a cursory glance, an air of elegance about it. The chairs and lounges were covered with fine woollen stuff, the curtains were richly embroidered, and an elegant cabinet, with mirrored doors, closely locked, apparently contained silver plate. Upon a closer inspection, however, the furniture was found to be stuffed with straw, the curtains were shabby, with the holes in them not even darned, and the cabinet contained only broken household-utensils, with the remains of the previous meal, locked up there to be safe from the hungry servant-maid. Even the arm-chair by the window, occupied by Frau Herbert, evidently an invalid, was as hard as a stone. The only thing in the room of real and decided value was a collection of old English copper-plates that decorated the walls of the apartment, representing scenes from Shakspeare's plays and Roman history. These old pictures were one of Professor Herbert's fancies; and he belonged to that class of men with whom the necessities of a wife and of the household are never considered in comparison with the gratification of their fancies.
Frau Herbert was one of those unfortunate women who, in the consciousness that they are burdens to their husbands, believe themselves called to endure everything, even the grossest injustice, with meekness, and who hold it their duty to entreat forgiveness of their lords and masters for continuing to exist at all. The sight of that quiet woman, with her sad face, upon which pain had ploughed deep furrows, sitting at the window mending the straw-coloured gloves in which her husband was, in the evening, to play the part of an æsthetic exquisite, while she lay suffering at home, would instantly suggest the complete picture of an unhappy wife tied to the side of a cold-blooded egotist.
"Poor Professor Herbert!" people were wont to say, "what a misfortune it is for a man to have such an invalid wife!"
But a closer observer of the pair would have said, "What a misfortune for an invalid wife to have such a husband!"
The miserable woman, however, had no such thought; she would gladly have died,--not only to be free from suffering, but that her husband might be rid of her presence. In her inmost heart she despised his selfishness and want of feeling. She knew that a worthier man would have had consideration for her and patience with her, as her burden was surely the heavier; but she was too much afraid of her husband to put such thoughts in words, even to her own mind. Suffering that is incessant, and that undermines the physical frame, must gradually weaken the mind; and thus the only strength of the hapless wife consisted in hopeless endurance.
Professor Herbert entered in his new coat, and surveyed himself attentively in the large mirror.
"It fits well,--does it not?" he asked.
"Very well! but it is very expensive."
"Did the bill come with it?"
"Here it is."
"Oh, that is not so bad. Hecht is certainly the best tailor in the city."
A shade of bitter feeling passed across his wife's face and she could not refrain from saying, "When I recollect that you lately refused to let me have the shawl I so needed, that did not cost half so much, and----"
"The money for your dress all goes to the apothecary, my dear," Herbert replied, with a sneer.
"My dress!" his wife repeated,--"you would be ashamed to walk in the street with me,--my clothes are so shabby."
"No one expects much elegance from an invalid whose illness costs her husband so much money."
Frau Herbert cast a glance at her husband, but she said not a word more. For one moment she leaned her weary head against the back of her chair, but the position was too uncomfortable, and she resumed her work, thinking with pain how the physician had imperatively recommended her to procure a more comfortable chair, in which she could sleep sitting up,--but now this small luxury, as well as all the rest, had been denied her!
Suddenly the door opened, and in rustled and fluttered a creature half child, half old maid,--half butterfly, half bat. Around her head floated a mass of very light curls. A nez retroussé gave to her face a naïve air of youthfulness, which, however, the crafty, eager expression of her small eyes contradicted. Just so her teeth, short and wide apart, resembled those of a young child who has shed his first set, while the wrinkles about her thin, open lips indicated an age of thirty years at least. The figure, crowned by this strange head with its huge mane of curls, was delicate and slender as that of a half-grown girl. Her hands were small, but wrinkled like those of an old woman. She was dressed in thin, flowing garments,--her round straw hat was adorned by long, light-brown ribbons. Her gait, bearing, and address were light, airy, sylph-like. It was evident at the first glance that she was a creature who believed herself highly poetic, richly gifted, breathing a charmed atmosphere, and that although she might in reality be thirty years old she had in imagination never passed sweet sixteen. Such a creature is only conceivable with a sheet of music or a sketch-book in her hand; and, in obedience to a mysterious law of nature, this too was not wanting in the present instance. "Brother, darling!" she cried, skipping up to Herbert, "how charming you are in your new coat! Aha, are you going to the Möllner's reception this evening? Yes!" Trilling a little air, she laid aside her book, hat, and gloves. "Tra-la-la-la--oh, I am so happy to-day I cannot talk, I can only sing." And she hummed the refrain of the charming song by Taubert, "I know not why, but sing I must!" Then she remembered that she had not yet spoken to her brother's wife. "Oh, dear Ulrika, forgive me for not asking how you are. No better yet? Ah! your little Elsa is so agitated to-day! I feel--I can't tell how--my bosom heaves and thrills as with the breath of May! I must go to my work. To-day I feel sure, in my present frame of mind, I must create something!"
And she was about to hover away to the blissful retirement of her own room, when Herbert, who had meanwhile exchanged his new coat for a light summer sacque, cried after her, "Stay here a moment, and speak at least one sensible word before you go."
She paused.
"What are you going to attempt now? I am really afraid to trust you by yourself."
She skipped up to her brother again and roguishly laid her finger on his lips, looking archly in his eyes. "Dearest brother, I shall surprise you! I have an idea!"
"Pray cease your folly for the present. You do not want to flirt with your brother, I hope? Tell me, what is your idea? If it is good for anything, it will be the first of its kind that you have ever had in your head."
"Oh, you discourteous brother!" pouted the fair indignant, "to grieve your sister so! But, since you bid me, I will obey you, and give you a glimpse into the transparent depths of an artist's soul. Every maiden must practise the sweet duty of obedience, that she may one day gladden a husband's heart by her submission."
"Well, well, to the point!" cried Herbert impatiently.
Elsa bashfully cast down her eyes, and, stammering with the charming embarrassment of an artistic nature, said, "When, a few days ago, I asked Professor Möllner what lady author was his favourite, he answered me in jest, 'She who has written the best cookery book!' I am going to show the mocking man that I can do that too. Oh, how amazed he will be when he finds that the wealth of fancy in my soul can beautify and transfigure what is so prosaic! This it is that he deems the charm of womanhood,--the power to seize and mould to beauty the commonplace and sordid. I am going to publish a cookery book in verse, with illustrations, and entitle it 'The German Wife at the Hearth of Home.' Only think what splendid initial letters and arabesques I can have! I will show that a bunch of parsley can be as gracefully arranged as roses or violets. Such lovely green borders to the pages must always be beautiful, whether composed of parsley, lettuce, or sorrel; and, if a warmer colour is desirable, I will paint a couple of blushing radishes peeping, half hidden, from among the leaves, and there you have as perfect a picture as any of our famous artistes have produced of Spring. Is not the meanest kitchen-stuff the work of the Creator, and as beautiful as any other of his creations? And there can be such variety in the volume. For example, the chapter of receipts for cooking fish can have a title-page of its own, after the style of the engravings in Schleiden's 'Wonders of the Deep.' Beneath a placid crystal lake may be seen sporting together all the fish alluded to in the ensuing chapter. Branches of coral are wreathed in and out, and, illuminated by the rosy light of the setting sun, water-lilies float upon the calm surface of the water. Every chapter will have a suitable title-page, displaying in its native element the animal to be cooked,--game in the forest, fleeing from the pursuing huntsman and hounds,--the dove hovering above the ark, with the olive-branch in her beak,--domestic fowls, in the Dutch style, cooped in their accustomed poultry yard. Fruit and vegetables can be treated as still-life, in arabesques, and decorating the margins of single recipes. At the end of the book a picture representing a family seated at dinner. Over their heads, in gothic letters, the line, 'Lord Jesus, come and be our guest.' And, in pursuance of this invitation, he must be seated at the head of the table, in the midst of a brilliant halo of glory. On either side of the table sit the children, and at the foot the happy husband and wife, each offering food to the other. Angels are in attendance upon the able,--the angels of harmony, peace, and content. The wife sits with her face turned from the spectator, but the husband--and this is the grand point--the husband will be a portrait!"
She paused, carried away by her poetic dreams, and by the thought of the immense success that the book must command.
"Well, and whom is the portrait to represent?--me, perhaps?" asked Herbert with a sneer.
"You? Oh, no. Ah, rogue! can you not guess? Heavens! do not look at me so,--you know whom I mean!"
"Möllner?" asked her brother.
"Yes,--you have guessed it. Oh, when I think of the smile that will play around that proud mouth as he beholds his portrait drawn by my hand, as he sees how his image is present with me everywhere in all that I think and do! Oh, it will, it must touch him!"
"Yes, it will touch him uncommonly," remarked Herbert; "and there will be a charming scene when he presents his inamorata, the Hartwich, with the work, that she may learn cookery from it. Do not forget to add a receipt for broiling frogs' legs, by which she can dress the frogs that they use together for their physiological experiments."
"Oh, Edmund!" exclaimed Elsa, startled and a little vexed, "your words are full of wormwood to-day. Go,--your caustic wit destroys all my flowers of fancy. This is why I always avoid you when I am about to begin a work. What pleasure can it give you to thrust me from my paradise? Is it right? Let the soul that can find no home on this rude earth seek it in brighter realms."
And she raised her eyes to the ceiling, and laid her wrinkled little hand upon her breast. "Mine is a modest, shrinking soul,--its childlike trust and hope are all that I possess. Dear brother, do not you rob me of them, as long as no other hand snatches them from me."
"But you must find out at last that your hopes are vain, and therefore I wish to warn you, that you may not make yourself ridiculous by an untimely parade of your feelings. I know, from the most trustworthy sources, that Möllner has been to Hochstetten to see the Hartwich, and that he spent two hours with her. Rhyme that with his enthusiasm for her at the meeting the other day, and complete the verse yourself."
Elsa looked down and thought for a minute or two, then she sighed and shook her flowing mane, saying, "No, it cannot, cannot be! That man-woman may excite his curiosity, she cannot win his heart! No, no, Elsa has no fear that Lohengrün will be misled by Ortrude! And now to work, that the day may soon come when he will ask, 'Elsa, whose is the face of the wife who sits at table by my side?' Then I shall avert my face and reply, 'That you know best.' Oh, darling brother! dearest sister! he will turn my blushing countenance to him then, and say, 'This is her face!' Oh, I must go: the breath of spring is wafted towards me from my studio. Yes, yes, I feel that the Muses await me there." With these words she rustled and fluttered away to her room.
Frau Herbert looked after her with a sad, almost a compassionate, glance. "Tell me, Edmund," she said to her husband, "did you ever for one moment believe that such a man as Möllner would marry that girl?"
"Why not? There are many more unequal matches made every day: the only thing is to manœuvre the matter skilfully. If poor Elsa had as managing a mother as you were blessed with, the affair would certainly not be beyond the bounds of possibility. But the poor thing has no one to help her but myself, and we men are clumsier at match-making than the most stupid of women."
Frau Herbert looked pained and crushed by this attack upon her mother and herself. She thought it, however, beneath her dignity to reply to it. She only said very quietly, "I am glad, Edmund, that there is one creature in the world for whom you have some regard, or even blind affection. Well, she is your sister. I, too, love the poor thing, but I cannot believe that she will ever succeed in kindling one spark of interest in Möllner's breast."
"You have always regarded her with jaundiced eyes," Herbert went on to say. "You talk as though she were a monster. She is no longer young, but there is still something youthful about her. She is not, it is true, a genius, but her nature is really artistic. She is not pretty, but an enthusiast like Möllner is more observant of inner graces than physical beauty, and he cannot fail to be impressed by her beauty of soul. It certainly is true that he always distinguishes her in society. Does he not always take her to supper when she is unprovided with an escort, as is usually the case? When all the others avoid her, is not Möllner sure to sit and talk with her? Such a conscientious prig as Möllner would not do that unless he had some object in view; and if she has no other charm for him, her undisguised admiration of him would attract him to her, for he has a due amount of vanity, and every one must take pleasure in being so fanatically adored. If it were not for that confounded Hartwich, who knows how far he might be brought! But I will be revenged upon her, she may rely upon that!"
"Why visit your anger upon the innocent? How can it be this stranger's fault that Möllner is more interested by her genius than by our Elsa's sentimental dilettanteism, her perpetual attempts and failures? His courtesy to her in society always seemed to me prompted by his humanity. She certainly makes herself very ridiculous,--you must see that; and a man of Möllner's kindly, chivalric character cannot permit an innocent, harmless girl to be made sport of, and, accordingly, he constitutes himself her protector, and tries generously to indemnify her for the neglect of others. He does not dream that Elsa's vanity builds all kinds of schemes upon his conduct, or he would never forgive himself----"
"Enough, enough!" Herbert interrupted her angrily. "I cannot see how, with the pain in your face, you manage to talk so much. I can understand that Elsa is disagreeable to you because I have educated her, but I cannot understand how, tied to your invalid chair as you are, you have contrived to fall in love with this Möllner. Indeed, if I had not had hopes of marrying him to my sister, I should have broken with the arrogant pedant long ago, for I hate him as much as you women, old and young, adore him."
Frau Herbert looked with a quiet, thoughtful expression at the speaker, who had worked himself into a violent rage, and then she silently resumed her work, suppressing the words that rose to her lips,--for she possessed the rare talent of knowing when to be silent.
Herbert waited for some minutes for a reply which might afford him further opportunity for venting his spleen, but, receiving none, he turned away, and was about to seek his study.
Just then there was a knock at the door, and the postman entered, with a thick square parcel in his hand. Herbert grew pale at sight of it, and his wife too looked sad and sorry.
"Your manuscript?" she asked.
"My manuscript," he said, writing his name in the mail-book with an unsteady hand.
"There's a gulden and twenty-four kreutzers to pay," said the messenger.
"So much?" growled Herbert, counting out the money carefully by groschen and kreutzers. When the man had left the room, Herbert hastily tore open the envelope, and a letter appeared, which he hurriedly looked through and handed to his wife with a look of despair. The letter was from the manager of the royal court theatre at X----, and ran thus:
"To Herr Professor Herbert, of N----:
"I am greatly concerned, sir, to be obliged to return you your tragedy of 'Penthesilea,' as it presents insurmountable difficulties for scenic representation. The secrecy enjoined upon me shall be inviolably preserved.
"With great respect, etc.,
"W----."
Frau Herbert looked up with a sigh at her husband, who stood pale and trembling beside her.
"There goes my last hope," he said, tearing up the letter. "I forgave all the other managers and directors for sending back the manuscript, for they are incapable of appreciating the value of such a work. But no one can accuse a man like W---- of not appreciating genuine art, and if he refuses to bring it out he must be actuated by envy. However that may be, in these lines he has written his own death-warrant." He raised his hand containing the crushed letter with something like solemnity, and continued: "I now declare war upon the German stage and its supporters. If I have nothing to hope, I have nothing to fear. I have written six tragedies for the waste-paper basket. I will not write another. Having nothing to fear, I may allow myself the delight of revenge. Criticism is an all-embracing friend, affording a sure refuge for every one who is misunderstood and depreciated. I will throw myself into its arms from this moment. Our public is degenerate. I give up composing for a people who crowd to a farce, shout applause at the commonplace jests of the hero of a modern comedy, and dissolve in tears at a sensation drama from a woman's pen. Shakspeare's, Schiller's, and Goethe's works would be rejected to-day as 'pulpit eloquence,' if past ages had not stamped them as classic. This degraded generation must be educated anew by criticism. They sneer and jeer, and jingle the money in their pockets, these traders of the drama, who demoralise the public; but I will so scourge them that I shall be called the Attila of the German stage."
He paused, for breath failed him to continue his philippic, and he began to read over his manuscript, murmuring to himself, "This is for the future."
Frau Herbert, as was her wont, suffered him to rage on without interruption; but at last she was compelled, out of regard for truth, to attempt to check the outpourings of the angry man. "It is a mournful office," she began, "that of literary executioner, and one I should be sorry to undertake. There is no good done to anybody by it. Many a blossoming genius is destroyed in the bud, and the critic brings upon himself the curses of those who have been striving and labouring honestly, night and day, only to see the offspring of all their pains ruthlessly murdered by the cold steel of his criticism. And the public do not thank you for degrading in its eyes what it had taken pleasure in, and thus robbing it of much enjoyment. Schiller and Goethe never practised criticism after this fashion. They knew how to live and let live, for they were too great to wish to aggrandize themselves at the expense of their contemporaries, and too good to destroy the results of the painful labours of others. Oh, Edmund, how small the man must be who can seek to exalt himself by depreciating others!"
"You are preaching again without sense or reason," Herbert said angrily to his wife. "It was very easy for Schiller and Goethe to play at magnanimity, for they were never misunderstood,--the wiser generation of their day did not refuse them the crowns that belonged to them of right. A king by election would be a fool to make war upon the vassals of his realm. But the nation refuses me my right, and therefore I shall make war upon it."
"Are you so sure of this right?" Frau Herbert asked in a low tone. "Are you so sure that your works are of equal value with Schiller's and Goethe's, and deserve the same applause?"
Herbert stood as if petrified at the presumption of such a speech. "I really think the pain must have gone from your face to your brain. We had better discontinue this conversation."
Frau Herbert went on with her work. A slight flush tinged her bloodless cheek, but she was too used to such attacks to reply to them. She had already said too much of what she thought, and when she looked at Herbert's anxious face she was seized with compassion. Poorly as he bore it, he had met with misfortune, and she would not add to his pain. "Pray, Edmund," she said, after a pause, occupied by Herbert in seeking and finding consolation in the beauties of his manuscript, "make up your mind now to read the piece to your friends. There are so many intellectual people here who will give you their opinion honestly,--then you can see what impression your work makes as a whole, and perhaps their criticism may enable you to improve it here and there."
"I desire no one's opinion. I know perfectly well myself what the tragedy is worth. Shall I give occasion to have it said that I needed the assistance of others to enable me to complete my work? And then to have it reported that I composed dramas that were always rejected! No, I will not acknowledge a work that has met with no applause; neither my brother professors nor my students must hear of it."
The handle of the door was turned, and through the opening smiled another opening,--Elsa's large mouth. When she saw the gloom overspreading her brother's countenance, her snub-nose, too, made its appearance, and, finally, her entire lovely person. She wore a white apron with a bib, calico over-sleeves, and had one pencil in her hand and another behind her right ear.
"Your voices disturbed me at my work. Why contend thus? You know that my exquisite fancies are scared away, like timid birds, by the slightest noise."
"It is a fine time to consider your nonsense, when such a work as my 'Penthesilea' has been returned to its author as 'unserviceable!'" thundered her brother.
"Heavens!" cried Elsa in dismay. "Penthesilea rejected by W----! Oh, who would have thought it! I so revered that man! My poor brother, this is hard! But, brother, dear Edmund, do not be too much depressed! Oh, I feel with you entirely. Any one who knows as well as I do what it is to have works rejected, can understand your pain. And what says my poor Ulrika? She looks so disappointed."
"Oh, you need not pity her!" observed Herbert bitterly. "Her husband's incapacity alone, not his misfortune, troubles her."
Frau Herbert turned her face towards the window, as if she had not heard him.
"Oh, you must forgive her, brother dear--she has never done anything but translate. She cannot know a poet's finer feeling."
At this disparaging remark, Frau Herbert looked calmly and gravely at Elsa. "And yet my unpretending translations for the periodicals supply us with the only means upon which we can rely, apart from Edmund's salary and the small interest of my property. That is because I never attempt what lies beyond my reach. No undertaking, however humble, that keeps pace with one's ability, can fail to produce some fruit, small though it may be."
Elsa turned away, rather taken aback by this turn of the conversation, and her brother muttered, "Of course this is the sequel to the fine talk about attempting and failing."
Elsa threw herself down upon a cushion at his feet, in Clärchen's attitude before Egmont, patted his smoothly shaven cheeks, and taking the thick manuscript out of his hand, pressed it to her bosom, saying, "Take comfort, my poet. Your 'Penthesilea' must always live! Here,--here,--and in the hearts of all. Print it, and publish it as a dramatic poem. It will find readers among the most intellectual people of the country."
"You are a good sister," said Herbert, flattered. "But you know that I have never yet been able to find a publisher enlightened enough to bring out my tragedies. And my own means are not sufficient to enable me to print the work."
"Oh, brother dear, I cannot believe that 'Penthesilea' would not find a publisher. It is the greatest thing you have ever written. The coarsest of men must be touched by such elevation of thought. There may perhaps be some difficulty in representing fitly upon the stage the conflict between Trojans, Greeks, and Amazons in the presence of the gigantic horse. But I cannot think that any one would refuse to print such a gem,--no--never! Yet, even in case of such incredible obtuseness, do not despair. My cookery-book will bring me in such a large sum that I shall be able to help you. Oh, what a strange freak of destiny, should I be permitted by means of a cookery-book to afford the German nation the knowledge of this immortal work! The ways of genius are inscrutable, and perhaps 'Penthesilea' may one day be born from the steam of a soup-tureen, as Aphrodite was from the foam of the sea. There, now, you are smiling once more. May not your sister contribute somewhat to her brother's success?"
"You are a dear poetical child. Although I do not share your anticipations, your appreciation of my efforts does me good. Thank you!" And darling Edmund laid his hand upon his sister's curly head as it lay tenderly upon his breast.
CHAPTER VI.
EMANCIPATION OF THE FLESH.
On the evening of this eventful day, Professor Herbert, before going to the Möllners', entered a splendid boudoir in a retired villa on the outskirts of the city. The entire room formed a tent of crimson damask shot with gold and gathered in huge folds to a rosette in the centre of the ceiling. Around the walls were ranged low Turkish divans of the same material. The floor was covered with crimson-plush rugs as thick and soft as mossy turf. Turkish pipes and costly weapons of all kinds,--shields, swords, pistols, and daggers,--adorned the walls. In the background of the apartment slender columns supported a canopy above a lounge, before which was spread a lion's skin, with the head carefully preserved. Upon the floor beside it stood an elegant apparatus for smoking opium. A riding-whip, the handle set with diamonds, lay upon a table of bronze and malachite. A Chinese salver, heaped with cigars, was upon a low stand beside the lounge. Upon a polished marble pedestal in the centre of the room stood a bronze of the Farnese bull, and to the right and left of the lounge were placed bronzes of the horse-tamers of the Monte Cavallo at Rome. The rich hangings of the walls were draped over candelabra holding lamps of ground glass.
The smoke of a cigar was circling in blue rings around the room, that was far more fit for a Turkish pasha than for a lady. And yet it was the abode of a lady, and it was the smoke from her cigar that encircled Herbert upon his entrance.
At first he only saw, resting on the lion's skin, two beautiful little feet in Russian slippers embroidered with pearls. The drapery of the canopy above the lounge concealed the rest of the figure. He advanced a few steps, and there, stretched comfortably upon the swelling cushions, reclined a woman beside whom all other works of nature were but journey-work,--such a woman as appears in the world now and then to cast utterly into the shade all that men have hitherto deemed beautiful. Herbert stood dazzled and blinded by the apparition before him. He was dressed in his new coat, and had an elegant cane in his hand, that was covered by a glove, upon which his wife had that morning employed her skill. But what was he, in all his elegance, by the side of this woman! He stood there dumb "in the consciousness of his nothingness." What could he be to her, or what could he give her? She was the woman of her race! She must mate with the man of her race, as the last giantess in the Nibelungen Lied could love only the last giant. Was he in his fine new coat this man of men,--the Siegfried to conquer this Brunhilda? Ah, he was but too conscious that he was nothing but a poor weakling, whose only strength lay in his passionate admiration of her!
"Aha, here comes our little Philister," said the fair Brunhilda in broken German with a yawn, holding out her soft hand to him and drawing him down upon the lounge beside her like a child. Herbert sank into the luxurious cushions, that almost met, like waves, above him. The position did not at all suit his stiff, erect bearing, which was entirely wanting in the graceful suppleness of the born aristocrat who lolls with ease upon silken cushions. Such a seat would become a man in loose flowing costume, with an opium-pipe between his lips, and ready when wearied to fall asleep with his head pillowed upon the lady's lap. Poor Herbert was not one of these favourites of Fortune. He sat there stiff and wooden as a broken-jointed doll,--his pointed knees emerging from his downy nest, and his tight-fitting clothes stretched almost to their destruction by his unusual posture. He timidly placed his hat upon the stand beside him, and envied it its loftier position.
"How now, my learned gentleman?" the lady began again. "What! dumb? What is the matter now?--what ails you?--domestic misery? Pardon! I mean conjugal bliss."
"That is my constant trouble, dearest countess," Herbert replied, "although its dust never cleaves to my wings when I am with you. It is not that that worries me to-day. My Penthesilea----"
The countess laughed loudly, and puffed out a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. "Here it comes! It is either his wife or his Penthesilea that teases him! I hope both may rest in eternal peace before long, for an unhappy husband and a tragedy are as much out of place in this boudoir as the fragrance of eau de Cologne or chamomile-tea--those horrid accompaniments of a sick-room!"
"And yet it was you, fairest countess, that inspired me to embalm in classic verse that bold Amazon of antiquity."
"That may be, and yet, my good fellow, believe me, Penthesilea herself would have considered it a terrible bore to have to read of her glory in a German tragedy. Come; don't be offended Have a cigar. Do you want fire to light it? Here; I will give you more than you need." And, with a laugh, she leaned towards him and lighted his cigar by her own.
"You know you can do whatever you please with me," said Herbert, making a feeble attempt to twist his legs into a more comfortable position. "But take care not to go too far!"
"Oho! my Herr Professor would fain mount his high horse?"
"No, only take a higher seat," said Herbert involuntarily.
"Well, then, sit on this ottoman, you wooden German with no sense of Oriental ease. There! will that do? When you really wish to mount a high horse, I pray you take mine. How often I have placed my Ali at your disposal! Do let me enjoy the delight of once seeing you on horseback! Will you not? Oh, it would be delightful!"
"Thanks! thanks! I would do all that you desire,--even go to the death for you,--but it is rather too much to ask me to make a laughing-stock of myself."
"Well, then, just take one walk with me, arm-in-arm. Oh, what a face of alarm my honourable gentleman puts on! He will go to the death for me, but not across the street. Ah, what a glorious hero for a tragedy he looks now! Hush! I know just what you would say,--wife, sister, cousins, aunts, good name, reputation as professor,--'great dread,' as Holy Writ hath it, would 'fall on all!' Every coffee-cup and tea-cup in the city of N---- would rattle abroad the startling news that Professor Herbert had been seen escorting the wild countess across the street. But it is all en règle to slip around here in the twilight, and kiss my hands and feet, and then, at your evening party afterwards, shrug your shoulders at the mention of my name. For shame, Herbert! you are a cowardly fellow, fit for nothing but to be a messager d'amour between myself and Möllner."
"Countess," said Herbert menacingly, "do not goad me too far, or you will repent it! You know my passion for you--know that I would dare all for a single kiss from your lips; but you leave me thirsty at the fountain's brink,--hungry beside a spread table,--and you heap me with scorn. No living man could endure such treatment!"
"Well, then, point d'argent, point de Suisse," cried the countess. "For every piece of good news of Möllner that you bring me, you shall have a kiss. For the sake of that man I would hold an asp to my breast! Why should I refuse a kiss to a German Philister like yourself? But you must first taste all the torment of rejected love, that you may make all the more haste to put an end to mine."
"This is a poor prospect for me, countess; for I hardly think I shall ever be able to bring you good news. All that I can do is to bring you news of him; and if you refuse to reward the bad, as well as the good, my lips shall be sealed--you must seek another confidant."
He rose, as if to go; but she took his hand, and looked beseechingly at him with her large, lustrous eyes.
"Herbert!"
The poor professor could not withstand that look, nor the tone in which she uttered that one word. He sank upon the lion-skin at her feet, and pressed his lips upon the pearls and silk of her embroidered slipper.
"See, now, you are not as unkind as you would have me believe you," she said, looking down upon him with a contemptuous smile, that he, fortunately, did not perceive.
"Oh, have some compassion upon me," he moaned. "I am most miserable! My home is a scene of ceaseless complaint. A wife disfigured and crippled by disease, so that she fills my soul with aversion, and, whenever I need rest from the thousand annoyances of my profession, only adds to their number. Then I am overwhelmed by vexations of every kind,--my talents are slighted,--whatever I attempt fails. And then this contrast when I come to you! Before me here lies all that is fairest and loveliest that earth has to offer; but the delight that I feel in beholding it is an insidious poison, eating into my very life,--for nothing--nothing of all this splendour is mine. I stand like a boy before the Christmas-tree that has been decked for another,--I am here only to light the lights upon the tree, that another may behold his bliss; and when I have induced that other to appreciate and take possession of his wealth, then--then I must turn and go empty away! Oh, it is dreadful!" He buried his face in the lion's mane, and, by the motion of his shoulders, he was plainly weeping.
The countess looked down upon him with the compassion that one feels for a singed moth. Had it been possible, she would have crushed him beneath her foot for very pity,--just as we put an end to the insect's sufferings; but, as it was not possible, and as, moreover, she had need of the man, she raised him graciously, and again seated him upon the cushions beside her. "You shall not go away empty-handed, my good fellow. I told you before I will make you a rich man. If you only bring Möllner to my side, my banker shall give you, as long as I live----"
"Countess!" he exclaimed, "do not carry your scorn of me too far. I am sunk low enough, it is true, since I thus chaffer and bargain with you to sell you my assistance for a single kiss. For this single caress I would resign my life! The thought of you is the madness that robs me of sleep at night, makes me hesitate and stammer when I stand before my pupils in the lecture-room, and prevents me from enjoying the food that I eat. A single kiss from you is more bliss than such a wretched man as I should hope to enjoy. But I am not yet sunk so low as to hire myself out for money, and although you may hold me in contempt, you shall at least pay some respect to the position of German professor, which I have the honour to hold!"
The countess was silent for awhile, struck by his words. But such embarrassment could last but a moment with a woman conscious of the power to atone by a smile for the grossest insult. "Come here! Forgive me! I have erred, but I repent."
"Oh, light of my life!" cried Herbert, seizing her offered hand, and pressing it to his breast. "Forgive--forgive you? With what unnumbered pains would I not purchase the joy of such a request! The only thing I cannot forgive you is that such a woman as you should love this Möllner."
"Indeed!--and why?"
"Because he is not worthy of you. Look you,--were you to give yourself to an emperor or a king, I could bear it without a murmur. Crowned heads are entitled to the costliest of earth's treasures,--how could I covet what kings alone could win? But that one of my own class should call you his,--one with no special claim of birth, culture, or intellect,--with nothing that I too do not myself possess, except a physique that is his in common with any prize-fighter,--the thought is madness!"
A dark flush coloured the beautiful woman's brow. "I have not even acknowledged to myself why I love this Möllner. I never hold myself responsible for my impulses--every passion bears its divine credentials in itself. But you have just revealed to me what so enraptures me in this Möllner. Yes! it is nothing else than what we admire as the highest attribute of humanity--a noble, genuine manhood. I think I have read in some poet, 'Take him for all in all, he was a man!' But this man is more; he is what I have never in my life seen before,--a virtuous man. This, my good little professor, is his charm, his advantage over monarchs even,--enabling him to buy what is his now and forever,--my heart! Oh, there can be no more exquisite flower in the garden of Paradise than this which I hope to pluck--the devotion of this virtuous man. It is the bliss of Eve when she breathed the first kiss upon the lips of the first man and marked his first blush!"
The beautiful woman, speaking more to herself than to the miserable man by her side, leaned back upon her lounge and exclaimed with a heavy sigh, "Oh, what a divine office for a woman--to teach a man like this to love!"
Herbert reflected for a moment. He had been playing the traitor here, and, in the hope of winning Johannes for his sister, had never said anything to him in favour of this woman. He had deceived her with falsehoods, that he might be retained as her confidant as long as possible, and perhaps profit by her waning interest in his colleague. But now all his hopes and plans were ruined. Möllner loved the Hartwich, and was lost for Elsa,--who might, at all events, be avenged of her hated rival by means of the countess. The all-conquering charms of the Worronska should subdue Möllner, and he, Herbert, would receive--all that was left for him in the general shipwreck--the gratitude at least of the countess.
He began at last, after a severe inward conflict. "I have a communication for you, but it will make you angry. I cannot, however, feel justified as your friend in withholding it from you."
"Well?" inquired the Amazon, lighting a fresh cigar.
"I have discovered that Möllner is in love."
The countess started, and looked at Herbert as if in a dream. The smoke from the freshly-lighted cigar issued in a cloud from her half-opened lips, and she looked like a beautiful fiend breathing fire.
"Whom does he love?" she asked, her eyes flaming as if she would force the name from Herbert before his lips could find time to utter it.
"Have you ever heard of a learned woman called Hartwich?"
"Yes, yes! she too is emancipated."
"True, but not at all after your fashion, countess," Herbert corrected her, maliciously enjoying the torture to which the haughty woman was put. "You are emancipated for the sake of pleasure--she is emancipated for the sake of principle. She is a rare person, and fills Möllner with admiration of her genius!"
"Well, and it is she?" she cried, stamping her little foot upon the soft carpet.
"He is in love with her!"
For the first time, the countess sprang up from her lounge, and stood before Herbert in all the majesty of her person. Her gold-embroidered Turkish robe hung in heavy folds around her. Her dark hair fell in loosened masses upon her shoulders. The glitter of her long diamond ear-rings betrayed the tremor that agitated her whole frame. Her low, classic brow, with its bold, strongly-marked eyebrows,--her mouth, shaped like a bow, with lips parted,--her firm, massive throat,--the whole figure, so powerfully and yet so perfectly formed,--all suggested the Niobe, only the passion that swayed her was rage, not suffering. "Is this true? Is it really true? I must hear all."
Herbert told her all that he had seen and heard.
The countess was silent for one moment, as if paralyzed by astonishment. Then she muttered, as if to herself, a few broken words that Herbert could not understand, but at last her rage overflowed her lips and reached his ears.
"There is a first time for everything. This is the first time that a man honoured by my notice has loved another." She strode up and down the room so hurriedly that the flame of the lamps flickered as she passed them. She threw her cigar into the fireplace. "Must I endure it? I? Oh, cursed be the day when the count came here for his health! For this I have spent my months of widowhood since his death, in this hole, away from all the enchantments of the world, even timidly waiting and hoping like a bride,--no society about me but my horses, dogs, and--you! For this, for this,--that I might learn that there lives a man who can withstand me. The lesson, it is true, was well worth the trouble!"
She struck her forehead. "Oh that I had never gone to that lecture! then I might never, perhaps, have seen him. Why did I not stay away? What do I care about physiology, anatomy, or whatever the trash is called? I heard this Möllner was distinguished among his fellows, and curiosity impelled me to go. Fool that I was, to imagine that he saw me there and admired me as I did him!" She stood still, and involuntarily lost herself in thought "Ye gods! how glorious the man was that evening! The brow, the hair, the eyes, were all of Jove himself. I felt myself blush like a girl of sixteen, when I met his eye. And such grace, such dignity! His voice, too,--melodious as a deep-toned bell. I did not understand what he said; but there was no need, his voice was such harmony that no words were wanting to the charm. It was a symphony,--no, finer still, for that we only hear, and in him the delight of sight was added. The movements of those lips--how inimitable! And then his smile!" She paused,--her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled. It was a delight to her to lay bare her heart for once, careless as to what were the feelings of her auditor.
"And if that voice is so enchanting when it discourses upon dry, unmeaning topics, what must it be when it comes overflowing from his heart!" She leaned against the pedestal of one of the bronzes, and covered her eyes with her hand.
Herbert sat as if upon the rack,--he could not speak,--his voice denied him utterance.
"No man has seemed to me worthy of a glance since I saw him first. Bound by no vow, no duty, no right, I have still been true to him. Since loving him, I have first known a sense of what the moralist would call decorous reserve. For a woman who for the first time truly loves is in the first bloom of youth, whether she be sixteen or thirty. I was a wife before I was a woman, and the spring, that I had never known before, began to breathe around me beneath the magic influence of that man,--the maiden blossom of my life, crushed in the germ, budded anew. Oh, what would I not have been to him! I, with the experience of ripened womanhood and the first love of a girl! And scorned! I, for whose smile monarchs have contended, scorned by a simple German philosopher! Oh, it stings, it stings!"
And she hid her face again.
Herbert timidly approached her and touched her shoulder lightly with a trembling hand. "Would that I could console you!"
She shrank from his touch as if a reptile had stung her.
"What consolation can you give me, except the relief that I have in pouring out my soul before you?"
She moved away, and again strode restlessly to and fro like a caged lioness. "Fool, fool that I was! How could I suppose that the interest he took in my husband's case was due to my attractions? It was inspired by a hateful disease,--for this he came hither, and I thought he came for my sake! Oh, fie, fie! I stayed for love of him by that terrible sick-bed, and he had eyes only for the sick man,--he never even saw me standing beside him. Is he man, or devil?"
"Oh, no," Herbert interrupted her, with malice, "he is only--a German philosopher."
"And once, when I sank fainting in that room, what an arm supported me, strong as iron, and yet tender as the arm of a mother! He carried me like a child from the apartment. I held my breath, that nothing might arouse me from that enchanting dream. He laid me on a couch, saying, with icy composure, 'Allow me, madam, to call your maid. I must return to the patient.' My cheeks burned with mortification; for one moment I hated him, but when the door had closed behind him I revered him as a saint. I could have knelt at his feet, and, clasping his knees, bedewed his hands with penitential tears. But I restrained myself. I suddenly knew that this pure spirit could love nothing that he did not respect,--that I must first win that before I could hope for his love. I determined to begin a new life, to break with all the past. For no sacrifice would be too great to win the love of this man, and I sowed renunciation that I might reap delight. Fool that I was! I reap nothing but the reward of virtue!"
She laughed bitterly, and a violent burst of tears quenched the fire in her brain. She threw herself down upon the lion's skin, unconsciously representing the Ariadne.
"Loveliest of women!" murmured Herbert, intoxicated by the sight. "Is it not monstrous that such a woman should mourn over an unrequited love? Does he who could withstand such charms deserve the name of man? No, most certainly not. He is an overstrained pedant, the type of a German Philister, and if blind nature had not endowed him with the head of a Jove and the form of an athlete, the Countess Worronska would never have wasted a tear upon him!"
"Herbert, you shall not revile him! You cannot know how great he seems to me in thus coldly despising my beauty, as though he might choose amongst goddesses,--as though Olympus were around him, instead of this insignificant town filled with ugly, gossiping women. What a lofty ideal must have filled his fancy,--an ideal with which I could not compete! When he saw me first, he did not know this Hartwich. I remember how cold his eye was when he first saw me. He looked at me with the cool gaze of an anatomist. And it was always so. Whenever he visited my husband, he always treated me with the strictest formality. Always the same gentle, inviolable repose,--the same calm scrutiny that one accords to a fine picture, but not to a lovely woman. Oh, there is something overpowering, in all this, for a woman used to seeing all men at her feet!" She sank into a gloomy reverie. At last she seized Herbert's hand. "Herbert, who is she who has power to enchant this man? Is all contest with her useless? Must I resign all hope?"
Herbert, as if electrified by her touch, whispered scarcely audibly, "Will you grant me that kiss if I show you how to annihilate the Hartwich in Möllner's eyes?"
A pause ensued.
"It is my only price. Without it I am dumb."
"Well, take it, then!" cried the countess, driven to extremity; and she held up to him her lovely lips.
But, as Herbert approached her, with the expression of a jackal thirsting for his prey, disgust overpowered the haughty woman, and she thrust the slender man from her so violently that he fell to the ground. She was terrified,--perhaps her impetuosity had ruined everything. She went to him and held out her hand. "Stand up and forgive me."
Herbert stood up, pale as a ghost, with sunken, haggard eyes, and readjusted his dress, disordered by his fall. He wiped the cold drops from his brow with his handkerchief, and, without a word, took up his hat.
The countess regarded his proceedings with alarm. "Herbert," she said with a forced smile, "are you angry with me for being so rude?"
"Oh, no," he answered, in a hoarse, hollow tone.
She held out her hand, but he did not take it.
"Do not bear malice against me. I--I am too deeply wounded. I do not know what I am doing."
Herbert was silent. He shivered, as if with cold. His look--the expression of his eyes--alarmed the countess more and more.
"Now you will revenge yourself by not telling me how I can annihilate the Hartwich?"
"Why should I not tell you?" stammered Herbert, with blue lips. "I keep my promises." He fixed his eyes upon the countess. "Make the Hartwich your friend, and you will make her an object of aversion in Möllner's eyes."
The countess started; her terrible glance encountered Herbert's look of hate. They stood now opposed to each other,--enemies to the death,--the effeminate man and the masculine woman. She had offended him mortally, but Herbert's last thrust had gone home; and softly, lightly as an incorporeal shade, he passed from the room.
When the countess was alone, she fell upon her knees, as though utterly crushed.
"Thus outraged Virtue revenges herself! Artful hypocrite that she is! When I left her, she gave me no warning,--I sinned unpunished,--and now, when I would return to her repentant, she thrusts me from her with a remorseless 'Too late!' Too late!--my ships are burned behind me, and there is nothing left for me but to advance, or to repent,--Repent?" She writhed in despair. "No! O Heaven, take pity on me,--I am still too young and too fair for that!"