CHAPTER LXXV.
“TO THE END.”
Woven now, and waiting to be loosed from the loom, stands the web of the old Cathedral Clock’s story; and yet before the lacings that hold it be severed for good, the weaver would crave a few minutes’ grace for scanning it, to see no threads of it hang obtrusively fraying. Nay, let that be, that harsh, coarse-grained fibre, bursting through its thin pinchbeck veneer. Never vex finger with it again. Leave it zig-zagging there, in its place, and be thankful that Tobias Hackernagel is disposed of. Lift rather but gently this light, parti-coloured, somewhat slippery silken thread—which in the flesh is Otto von Steinbach—and knot it down firm and secure with the honest unbreakable stuff which makes up the nature of Gretchen Hackernagel.
Out of sore tribulation long refusing to be comforted, Otto von Steinbach is happy again. Not carelessly happy, as in that long ago, ere the Horologe was born or thought of; for dear as is the wife he has taken to himself has come to be to him, not even she can fill the void which broke into his life when Radegund died. Radegund, than whom no mother could have been so sweet and pitiful, when life’s wearinesses and vexations bruised his shallower nature too roughly.
It is hard to say what mischief in the earliest days of his loss, the young man, wandering half-distraught up and down his great lonely house, would not have done himself; but its first violence spent, he found distraction in the fuss and excitement which his marriage preparations brought, modest and quiet, as reasons many made them; and long before he was a housefather, Otto was himself again. Till that auspicious event befell, he kept his dead sister’s painting-room religiously closed, allowing none excepting himself ever to cross its threshold. His children’s voices, however, wakened in him cheerier memories of Radegund, and he came to think that the spirit of her, whose pride always melted like snow in sunshine, in the presence of little children, and all innocent helpless creatures would, if indeed it hovered there—as so it seemed to him it did—be in no wise troubled, but rejoice at the pranks of those curly-locked youngsters whom Mistress Gretchen von Steinbach declared had no match for loveliness in all Strassburg, and growing more and more like their father each hour they lived. A postulate which Otto swears to be all favour and prejudice, as he bestows a sounding kiss on their mother’s smiling lips, and a pinch on the cheek which is fuller and rounder than ever was Gretchen Hackernagel’s.
And so it came to pass that the old studio was turned into a nursery; and the carven deities who once looked down with their unchanging eyes on the tragedy of the artist’s life, witnessed now the merry pantomine of childhood’s antics and oddities. O tempora! O Mores!
Gretchen’s three sisters lived and died in that condition of single blessedness, which they always enthusiastically advocated as the only tolerable one in this wicked world. Their wants were duly provided for by the State, to which their sire’s goods and chattels were made over, but it was at no great pains to oppress them with superfluous luxury. For any of life’s little sweets, they were beholden to the thoughtfulness of their sister, whose lot they never ceased to compassionate. “Poor Gretchen!” these ladies would sigh to their gossips. “Well, well, but after all, what a providence, my dear, that a man can always find some woman to love him!”
And now what of this piece of tough, strong—Thunder weather! leave metaphor alone, for Isaac Habrecht steps to the fore. And what is to be said of the stout horologist, more than that he lived and died in harness, unless indeed that one fine morning Master Habrecht said he was going Schaffhausen way—on a little business matter—and should be back in three days at midday. And so he was, on the stroke of it, but not alone; and with a blush on his brown face, as deep, if not as dainty, as those chasing each other on the comely cheeks of his companion, and whom he introduced to his friends and acquaintance as his wife.
“And a good sort of one I reckon she’ll turn out,” he remarked confidentially to Dasipodius, as he took up his file and began to scrape. “I put my question to her ten years and five months ago this very day. And a real good thing,” he added, a little apologetically, “is always a real good thing.”
“Quite true,” smiled Dasipodius. “And God bless you both, Isaac. And what,” he added, laying his hand with the old gentle pressure on Kaspar’s shoulder, “what is to become of our Treuer Kamerad here? Does the good wife take him under her wing?”
“Ay, surely, with all his chips and rattletraps, or she’d never have been wife of mine. That was a bargain. The lad and I are not going to be parted, because a petticoat’s come to whisk about the Wheel.”
“Some of these fine days,” merrily laughed a gentle voice at the professor’s elbow, “if you don’t look well after him, Master Habrecht, there may come another petticoat to whisk him away.”
“Time enough for that, Mistress Dasipodius,” grunted the ungallant husband with a grim smile. “Time enough to let himself be made a fool of a dozen years hence.”
And so, while healthfully as ever the old science life at the Silver Dial still throbs on, it is cheered and spiritualized now by love’s sweet presence. There was a passing difficulty between Burgomaster von Steinbach and the Professor Dasipodius when the time drew near for the transplanting of the Lily from the Munster-gasse. “What could be easier,” Niklaus demanded, “than for Conrad to give up his house and all its contents, sentient and inanimate alike, to become part and parcel of his own great house, where there was room enough to quarter a garrison? But Christian would no more give up his old home, than he would have given up Strassburg to France, and Dasipodius gently but firmly stood by his father’s wish, until Niklaus declared that of all proud, obstinate, stick-by-your-own-way fellows, commend him to a mathematician. And as to Christian, when the Fleur-de-lis floated from the Cathedral tower top, he’d first begin to know what was really good for him.” And though a truce was speedily established over the Marcobrunner, Niklaus to the end of his days would find his opportunities for saying: “Never was such a thief as you, professor; carrying off my lily-flower to bloom in your garden!”
“Nay”—for so Time, as he flew, furnished the mathematician with a rejoinder—“but the buds, Burgomaster?”
“Well, well.” And the mollified Niklaus would smile and say no more; for very dear to the grandfather’s heart were those same young blossoms; and no sound was so sweet to him as the light patter of the little feet about the great fountain in his courtyard, and their pealing laughter as they pranked with the beauteous Antinous.
Mitte of course went with her mistress to her new home. Le levo l’incomodo is the wise Italian phrase; and while incontestably a more charming creature than Mitte did not exist, the Burgomaster found compensation for the void caused by her departure, in the comfortable sense of being able to sit down in his own easy chair, without that ejectment therefrom which had so frequently laid him open to the charge of inhumanity.
The cession question between Christian and Burgomaster Niklaus remained open to the end; although each renewed discussion gathered in animation as years flowed on, and the little cloud both politicians fancied they had long discerned, showed unmistakeably in the reddening horizon. Christian’s forebodings, however, that Strassburg will throw off her homely Teutonic garb, and find herself a lily-garlanded belle-dame, will not be realized till he and his gossip have long lain sleeping their last sleep. That notion of his is the one sole disturber of his latter years. Far behind now, all his griefs lie, in memory’s dimming distance; while across the Bourne, whither he is gently wending, the fair form of her who went so long before, beckons him a welcome that will rob death when it comes of all its bitterness. The blow which sent him staggering, when first the knowledge of his son’s affliction burst upon him, is now but an abiding pain he can bravely endure. Can he do otherwise, when the blind man himself makes so light of it? Never the faintest suspicion has Christian that his frank, truth-loving son can so artfully play the hypocrite, and assume in his father’s presence a lightheartedness he does not always feel.
When Bishop John was called to his rest, if there were many who rejoiced, out of hope that, his mild rule removed, Protestantism would find more breathing room in that divided city, there were many who sorrowed deeply for his loss. Under a stately marble tomb they reverently laid all of him that was mortal, “and his works do follow him”. One more star faded from about Bruno Wolkenberg’s shadowy path, when death took this man who had understood and so highly prized the genius of his dead love. To him he had dared recall her memory; with him he had taken counsel how best to expend that wealth the artist had left in his stewardship for the good of her native city. There had been no home claims upon her generosity; for besides Otto’s modest entail, it had happened that the ancient aunt, on whose obliging departure from this world he had for some time counted, died, and placed at his disposal all her vast possessions; and if Otto had his faults, greed was not one of them; and he was content, and proud to see the riches his sister’s toil had garnered in go to bringing back sunshine to poverty, and helping poor student artists to start fair on the road to fame.
But the goodliest memorial of her was of Surgeon Wolkenberg’s creating out of his own crushed hopes. He wandered through his desolate chambers, conjuring up visions of sweet impossible joys, until reason well-nigh forsaking him, he sat down beside their cheerless hearthplaces, seeing there the pale ashes of his ill-starred love. The terrible silence was eloquent of those low earnest tones—sweeter to him than sweetest music, which never again in this world would gladden his soul. Not to drown those echoes—ah! Heaven!—no! How rather to hold them there for ever. How to make memory a consoling angel instead of the haunting fiend it was. And, tested to the quick, there gleamed out the true metal of Bruno’s heart. Misery’s verjuice could not corrode its generosity, and dull out all sense of this world’s suffering except his own. It rather quickened within him a project he had long nursed, of transforming his goodly house into a home for those who had none, and a refuge for the sick poor of the great city. A modest institution, Doctor Wolkenberg’s hospital, uncommemorated by any foundation formulæ, dedicated in no canonized saint’s name, but only to the memory of an erring woman he loved.
That haven in the storm to many a shipwrecked soul and battered body, the tide of change swept away generations ago, but in its day it bravely achieved its manifold mission of healing; and from his shadowy laboratory Bruno ruled his little colony, toiling from dawn to midnight—ay, and often from midnight to dawn—onward, patiently till the end might come, with a light in his face, which only grew the sweeter as the years gathered.
Many a woman’s heart would turn from the gallantest gentleman’s wooing, to yield homage to this man with the grizzled locks and care-lined lips and brow; but Bruno heeded no such tender lures. Alone he bided his Master’s bidding, come when it should. No visits, save to sick folks’ houses, the doctor ever paid—always excepting indeed one house, where, in a quiet shadowy corner of the professor’s sitting-room, is a nook family tradition calls “Doctor Bruno’s corner”. In the brief intervals of leisure he sometimes allows himself towards evening, Doctor Bruno will come and take up his place in the happy circle. It is hard to say which of the three generations it embraces, loves best to hear the surgeon’s step upon the threshold; not excepting Grandfather Niklaus, who will romp with you as merrily as heart can desire, nor Grandfather Christian, who will take you where sweetest violets grow, and find the biggest nuts anybody ever saw, is more dearly loved than Doctor Bruno, with his store of strange beautiful stories. Glorious they are;—such as never the like were heard of. Giants and pigmies, knights and ladies, demons and dragons, kelpies and castles, all spring into being at this mighty magician’s bidding. His store is utterly inexhaustible. To pronounce any preference where all is so enchanting would be almost impossible. And yet—one sweet, sweet story there is. “That one of the brave Crusader Knight, you know, Väterle,” says a little wistful voice.
“Ritter Toggenburg,” says the Professor, who has just come in from his University lecture, and has seated himself beside the house-mother, with her crown of golden hair, and the sleeping babe nestled to her bosom, a picture as fair—if, alas! the sightless eyes could recall the old comparison—as the gentle Madonna in the Cathedral choir. “It is Ritter Toggenburg he means, isn’t it, Mütterle?” smiles Conrad, lifting the youngster on to his knee.
“No, no, father; not Ritter Toggenburg. This knight I mean had a horse.”
“Surely. Du junger, Kerl, Du,” laughs Burgomaster Niklaus, pinching the boy’s ear. “As all brave knights should have, shouldn’t they?”
“And a lady love,” adds Christian.
“Perhaps,” carelessly assents the eager little voice; “but the horse—the dear, good, faithful horse——”
“Ay,” says Sabina. “Now I know what he means. It is the brave knight, Conrad, who rode on, and on, and on——”
“Yes, yes,” cries the boy, clapping his hands.
“All alone, through a great wide wilderness——”
“Yes, until, you know, he came to a fair chapel, mother dear.”
“And there he got down, for his heart was sad and sore; and he wanted to pray, and——”
“But tell it in the verses, Mütterle.”
“Nay. I cannot remember them. Can you, father, dear?” asks Sabina.
And the great mathematical professor cudgels his brain, but flounders and bungles so deeply over it, that at last Mistress Dasipodius bids him give over.
“Your stories,” she says, “never did have any more head nor tail to them than——”
“A circle,” suggests the unabashed Conrad.
“And your poetry is fifty times worse than even your prose; when it’s a question of fairy tales.”
“He doesn’t describe such whimsies so neatly as he does his parallelograms, eh?” laughs Niklaus. “And we shall have to wait till the doctor comes after all.”
“And—hey, presto!—here he is,” says the blind man, whose quick ear has first caught Bruno’s footstep. “Our Necromancer-in-chief. Come now, Sir Paladin, sit you down and square our difficulty for us. Our rhymes want your surgery:
“How does it go?”
prompted the doctor.
“Yes—that’s it!” cried the child, clapping his hands—“‘till I come again’. Go on, dear Uncle Bruno. Quick.”
goes on Bruno, thus adjured.
concludes Bruno, standing in their midst, the waning golden of the sunset transfiguring his face with a mysterious beauty.
“True to the end,” dreamily murmurs the little voice. “True to the end, wasn’t he, father?”
“Ay, lad,” says the blind man, as his hand seeks Bruno’s, and clasps it with a gentle pressure. “True to the End.”
FINIS.
[Transcriber’s note—the following changes have been made to this text.
Page 17: look to looked—“looked puzzled.”
Page 18: churchmen to churchman—“groaned the churchman”.
Page 28: faaher’s to father’s—“causes of her father’s”.
Page 33: Maitre to Maître—“Maître Léonard”.
Page 31: se to si—“_e pur si muove_”.
Page 116: moated to moted—“whose moted haze”.
Page 138: abstracedly to abstractedly—“abstractedly—abstractedly”.
Page 172: Munster-strasse to Munster-gasse—“visit at the Munster-gasse”.
Page 190: Dasipodious to Dasipodius—“Conr—the Professor Dasipodius”.
Page 203: Rumpelpuppelschnarchentein to Rumpelpuppelschnarchenstein—“Countess of Rumpelpuppelschnarchenstein”.
Page 287: celdre to celare—“Ars celare Artem”.
Page 303: wern’t to weren’t—“weren’t we, till”.
Page 335: repeated word “outside” removed—“outside the city gates”.
Page 361: Krauken-haus to Kranken-haus—“Kranken-haus”.
Page 408: “llevo il incommodo” to “levo l’incomodo”.]