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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/33704-8.txt b/33704-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..acb99a8 --- /dev/null +++ b/33704-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,10293 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Paradise, by Paul Heyse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In Paradise + A Novel. Vol. I. + +Author: Paul Heyse + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33704] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN PARADISE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Page scan source: +http://www.archive.org/details/inparadiseanove00heysgoog] + + + + + + + COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS, + + No. XII. + + * * * * * + + IN PARADISE. + + VOL. I. + + + + + + + VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED: + +I. _SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY_. A Novel. From the French of Victor +Cherbuliez. 1 vol., 16mo. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +II. _GERARD'S MARRIAGE_. A Novel. From the French of André Theuriet. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +III. _SPIRITE_. A Fantasy. From the French of Théophile Gautier. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +IV. _THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT_. From the French of George Sand. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +V. _META HOLDENIS_. A Novel. From the French of Victor Cherbuliez. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +VI. _ROMANCES OF THE EAST_. From the French of Comte de Gobineau. Paper +cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +VII. _RENEE AND FRANZ_ (Le Bleuet). From the French of Gustave Haller. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +VIII. _MADAME GOSSELIN_. From the French of Louis Ulbach. Paper cover, +60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +IX. _THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS_. From the French of André Theuriet. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +X. _ARIADNE_. From the French of Henry Greville. Paper cover, 50 cents; +cloth, 75 cents. + +XI. _SAFAR-HADGI_; or, Russ and Turcoman. From the French of Prince +Lubomirski. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +XII. _IN PARADISE_. From the German of Paul Heyse. 2 vols. Per vol., +paper cover, 60 cents; doth, $1.00. + + + + + + + IN + + PARADISE + + _A NOVEL_ + + + FROM THE GERMAN OF + PAUL HEYSE + + + + VOL. I + + + + NEW YORK + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + 549 AND 551 BROADWAY + 1878 + + + + +***_It has been decided to omit from this translation the poems which +are scattered through the novel in the German. A few trifling changes +in certain passages have been made necessary by this omission; and the +translator has in two or three cases very slightly condensed the text._ + + + * * * * * + + COPYRIGHT BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, + 1878. + + + + + + IN PARADISE. + + + + + + _BOOK I_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +It was a Sunday in the midsummer of 1869. + +The air, cleared by a thunderstorm the night before, was still +tremulous with that soft, invigorating warmth which, farther south, +makes breathing such an easy matter, but which, north of the Alps, +seldom outlasts the early morning. And yet the bells, that sounded from +the Munich Frauenkirche far across the Theresienwiese, and the field +where stands the great statue of Bavaria, were already ringing for high +mass. Here, outside the city, there seemed to be no human ear to +listen. The great bronze maiden stood there in the deepest solitude, +holding her wreath above her head, and with a mazed and dreamy look, as +though she might be thinking whether this were not an opportune moment +to step down from her granite pedestal, and to wander at will through +the town, that to-day raised its towers and roofs like a city of the +dead above the bare green plain. Now and then a bird flew out of the +little grove behind the Ruhmes-halle, and fluttered about the shoulders +of the giant maiden, or rested for a moment on the mane of the lion +that sat lazily listening, pressed close to the knee of his great +mistress. But away in the city the bells rang on. The air grew drowsy +with the steadily increasing heat, with the hum and the vibration of +the distant ringing, and the strong fragrance that rose from the +meadow, which had been mown the day before. At last the bells ceased; +and now not a sound was to be heard, save that there came from a house +in one of the outer streets the sound of a flute, played by fits and +starts, as though the player stopped for breath between the passages, +or as though he forgot his notes in other thoughts. + +The window, from which this singular music sounded into the summer air, +opened from the upper story of a house that stood some distance back +from the street--a house of a kind of which there are many in this +western suburb. They are generally entirely unornamented, boxlike +buildings, windowless except on the northern side, and there pierced by +great quadrangular openings, supplied with all manner of arrangements +for admitting the steadiest possible light from above. In summer one +never sees above them the little cloud of smoke that betrays a domestic +hearth, and no profane smell of cooking meets the visitor upon the +threshold--as in most other Munich houses. From the open windows floats +only a light, invisible odor of tobacco-smoke, agreeably mingled with +the invigorating fragrance of varnishes, oils, and turpentine--which +shows that here only the holy fire of art is fed, and that here, upon +silent altars (three-legged easels and sculptors' pedestals) are +offered sacrifices that cannot even shelter the priests that offer them +from the pangs of hunger. + +The house of which we speak turned its windowless southern side +toward a little yard, in which lay scattered marble and sandstone +blocks of different sizes. The four studio-windows of the northern side +looked into a carefully-tended, narrow garden, that sheltered them +from all disagreeable reflected lights. Around a little, slender, +drowsily-splashing fountain in the middle bloomed a glorious wealth of +roses; and the neighboring flower-beds, filled with all kinds of +garden-stuff, were enclosed in thick borders of mignonette. Here the +smell of oil and turpentine just referred to could not penetrate, +especially as only the two upper studios were those of painters; while +in the lower story, as could be seen by the blocks of stone in the +yard, a sculptor carried on his art. + +Artists--enjoying, as they do, a perpetual holiday mood over their +work--are not wont to be supporters of a regular celebration of the +Sabbath. Those who are so must be such as in the course of years +have come to devote themselves--as not a few do in a so-called +"art-city"--to the mere business-like manufacture of pictures for +"art-clubs," or of parlor statuettes; and so are privileged to take +their rest on the seventh day, among the other customs of solid +citizens. They, "thank God, no longer feel obliged" to be industrious, +and to work even on a holiday. + +But the dwellers in this little house were not of such a type. + +On the ground-floor all possible panes in the windows had been opened, +to let as much as possible of the glowing air stream into the sunless +room; and perhaps, too, to tempt in the fragrance of the flowers, or +the notes of the flute that sounded from the window overhead. A flock +of sparrows, that seemed accustomed to make themselves at home in the +place, availed themselves of the opportunity to whirr in and out of the +garden, to flutter, chattering and scolding, about among the ivy-vines +with which one wall of the studio was thickly covered, and to hunt +through every corner for neglected crusts of bread. With all this, +however, they seemed well-bred enough to make no other trouble but +their noise--though the busts and clay models, that stood about the +room on boards and scaffoldings, showed many traces of their visits. On +the damp cloth, in which a large group that stood in the middle of the +great room was carefully wrapped, in order to keep the fresh clay from +drying, sat an old and rather decrepit-looking sparrow, who still +looked about him with an air of considerable dignity--evidently the +chief of this wild army, to whom the pleasant coolness of his seat +seemed to make it an agreeable one. He took no part in the fluttering +and chatter of the younger company, but fixed his attention with +critical gravity upon the artist in the gray blouse, who had moved his +modeling-table close to the window, and was busy in finishing from a +living model the statue of a dancing Bacchante. + +The model was a young girl, hardly eighteen years old, who stood on a +little platform opposite the sculptor, and, with her arms thrown up and +backward, held fast by a rod that hung from the ceiling--for the statue +held a tambourine in the hands flung upward with such _abandon_, and +the _pose_ was none of the most comfortable. Still, the girl had borne +it a good half hour already without complaining or asking for a rest. +Although she had to hold her head far back, with its loosened auburn +hair that fell below her waist, yet she followed with intense +curiosity--her little eyes almost closed the while, so that the long +golden-blond lashes lay upon her cheeks--every movement of the artist, +every one of his critical and comparing glances. It seemed to flatter +her beyond measure that her youthful beauty should be the subject of +such conscientious study; and in this satisfaction to her vanity she +forgot fatigue. And indeed she was of unusually slender and graceful +form; and from the rough brown calico dress that was tightly fastened +about her waist there sprung, like a fair flower from a coarse husk, a +girlish figure of as perfect whiteness and delicacy as though the poor +child had no other occupation but to care for her complexion. Her face +was not exactly beautiful; a rather flat nose with broad nostrils +projected above the large, half-opened mouth. But in the ill-formed +jaws, that gave to the face something wild and almost like an animal, +shone perfect and beautiful teeth; and a merry, innocent, childlike +smile enlivened the full lips and the otherwise rather expressionless +eyes. The complexion of her face, too, was of a brilliant, transparent +white, spotted here and there by a few little freckles, of which there +were two or three also on her neck and breast. It was comical to see +how she herself shared in the study of her own beauty, as she found +such serious attention given to it by another; and, as she saw her +girlish self treated with such respect, she seemed to forget every +trace of anything like coquetry, such as might otherwise have entered +into the matter. + +"You must be tired, Zenz," said the sculptor. "Don't you want to rest +awhile?" + +She shook her auburn hair with a laugh. "It is so cool here," she +answered without stirring. "You don't feel your own weight at all in +the open air like this--and besides, there's the sweet smell of the +mignonette in the garden. I believe I could stand this way till night." + +"So much the better. I was just going to ask you if you were not cold, +and didn't want a shawl over your shoulders. I don't need them now; I +am just doing the arms." + +He went seriously and quietly on with his work. In his plain face, +framed in smooth blond hair streaked with gray, the only features that +struck one at first glance were the eyes, that shone with an unusual +force and fire. When he fixed them upon a certain point, it seemed as +though they took complete possession of what they saw, and made +themselves completely master of it. And yet there could be nothing more +quiet or less inquiring in expression than these same eyes. + +"Who is that playing the flute up stairs?" asked the girl. "The first +time I was here, a week ago to-day, it was perfectly still up there; +but to-day it goes tramp, tramp, every few minutes, and somebody plays, +and then it stops again for a little while." + +"A friend of mine has his studio just over us," answered the sculptor; +"a battle-painter, Herr Rosenbusch. If he can't make his work go to +please him, he takes up his flute and walks up and down like that, and +plays, and buries himself in thought. And then he stops in front of his +easel and looks at his picture; and so goes on until he hits upon what +he is after. But what are you laughing at, Zenz?" + +"Only at his name. Rosenbusch![1] And paints battles!--Is he a Jew?" + +"I don't think so. But now if you want to rest a little while--your +neck must be perfectly stiff by this time." + +She let go the rod at once, and sprang down from the bench. While he +was polishing with his modeling-tool the portion he had just finished, +she stood close by him, her arms crossed behind her with a lightness +peculiar to her figure, and looked closely at the beautiful statue, +which within the last hour had made such obvious progress. But only in +the upper half; for the active hips and limbs of the dancer, only +hidden by her long, flowing hair, were only very roughly outlined. + +"Are you satisfied, child?" asked the artist. "But then I can only, at +the best, work it out in marble for you, and you are really a better +bit for a painter. That snow-white skin and flaming mane of yours--if +you had lived two thousand years ago, when they made statues of gold +and ivory, you would have been just in your proper place." + +"Gold and ivory?" she repeated, thoughtfully. "Those must have been +rich people! However, I am satisfied for my part with the beautiful +white marble--like the young gentleman there behind, that you didn't +finish." + +"Do you like him? It was a long while ago that I began that bust. Isn't +it fine, how the small, firm, round head springs from the broad +shoulders? It's a pity that I only sketched out the face; you would +have liked that too." + +"Are you going to make my portrait too, there in the clay? I mean, so +that it will be just like me--so that my friends will say at once 'That +is Red Zenz?'" + +"That depends. I could use your little nose and your small, sharp-cut +ears well enough. But you know, child, I had quite another wish; and, +if you will fulfill that, I'll make the face so that no human being +will ever dream that Red Zenz was my model. Have you thought it +over--what I asked you a week ago?" + +He did not look at her as he spoke, but kept on diligently smoothing +and kneading the soft clay. + +She made as though she had not heard his question, and turned on her +heel, wrapping her thick hair about her like a cloak, and went over to +a corner of the studio, where a great black Newfoundland dog, with a +white breast, was lying on a straw mat with his head between his fore +paws, and growling lightly in his sleep. The girl bent down to him and +began to scratch his head softly--of which he took no other notice than +an instant's opening of his eyes, dim with old age. + +"He isn't very gallant," said the girl, laughing. "One of my girl +friends has a little terrier, and when I stroke him he is perfectly +wild with joy, and I have to look out that he doesn't lick my face and +neck and hands all over with his little pink tongue. But this fellow is +as reverend as a grandfather. What is his name?" + +"Homo." + +"Homo? What a queer name! What does it mean?" + +"It is Latin, and means 'man.' Years ago the old boy showed so much +human reason, just as his master seemed on the point of losing his +head, that it was decided to rechristen him. Since then he has never +brought shame upon his name. So you see, child, in what good company +you are. If I am hardly as old as a grandfather yet, I am almost old +enough to be your father. And I thought these two sittings would have +convinced you that you were perfectly safe with me--that I shall +faithfully keep what I promised you. And that is the reason--" + +"No, no, no, no!" cried she, jumping suddenly up and whirling around, +and shaking her head so violently that her hair flew about her like a +wheel of fire. "What makes you speak of that again, Herr Jansen? You +take me for a silly, thoughtless kind of girl, no doubt--and think that +in time I shan't be able to refuse you anything. But you are very much +mistaken. It is true, I don't mind doing some foolish things; and +standing about for you here like this doesn't seem to me anything wrong +or disgraceful. Why, at a ball last winter where we had made up the +flowers, and so they let us look in through the dressing-room, the fine +ladies appeared before gentlemen in a very different way from the way I +am standing and walking about here; and there were a great many +officers there--not even artists, like you, that only look artistically +at a bare neck and shoulders. But, if I will do _that_ for you, you +mustn't ask anything more. It is true, my friend, when I told her, did +not think anything of it--and she could come with me. But that is +decided--it would make me so that I never could look anybody straight +in the face again. No--no--no! I will not do it--now or ever!" + +"You are right, child," interrupted the sculptor, breaking in on her +excited words and, suddenly changing the form of his speech into the +more familiar "thou." "Nobody need know of it, and, if it is +disagreeable to you, I will not speak of it again. And yet--it's a +pity! I could make the figure from a single mould, so to speak; and in +half the time that I shall have to spend now in looking about for +something that will suit." + +She made no answer, but of her own accord mounted upon the bench, and +leaned back again, hanging from the rod. + +"Is that right?" she asked. "Am I standing just as I did before?" + +He only nodded, without looking up at her. + +"What makes you cross with me?" she asked, after a while. "I cannot +help it because I am not like my friend. To be sure, she has had a +great deal more experience than I. And then she has been in love more +than once." + +"Have you never had a sweetheart, Zenz?" + +"No; a real sweetheart, such as one would go through the fire +for--never! My red hair didn't have very good fortune out in Salzburg, +where I have generally lived. And, besides, I was too ugly. One of them +said I had a dog's face. It has only been within the last year, when I +have suddenly shot up a little, and grown a little stouter, that the +gentlemen have sometimes run after me; and with one of them--a right +nice young fellow--I had a kind of a flirtation. But he was so silly +that he tired me; and so it hadn't gone far between us when one fine +day he fell sick and died. And it was only then that I found I couldn't +have loved him so very, very much; for I didn't even cry about him. +Since then I have taken good care not to make a fool of myself again. +Men are bad; everybody says that that knows anything. As for me, if I +liked one--if I really liked him, 'von Herzen, mit Schmerzen'--" + +"Well, Zenz, what would you do?" + +She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly let her arms fall close +by her sides. It seemed as though a chill ran over her soft skin; she +shook herself, and shrugged her white shoulders. + +"What would I do?" she repeated, as though to herself. "Everything he +wanted! And so it is better as it is--much better." + +"You are a good girl, Zenz," he muttered, nodding his head slowly. +"Come, there is my hand; shake hands, and I promise you now that there +never shall be a word again between us of what you are not willing to +hear." + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +She was just about to lay her round, white little hand in his, which +was rough and muddy from kneading the clay, when a knock at the door +caused them both to look up and listen. + +The janitor called out through the key-hole that a strange gentleman +wished to speak with Herr Jansen. When he heard that the sculptor had a +model sitting to him at the moment, he had asked the janitor to take in +his card. With this the janitor pushed the card through a narrow hole +in the door made for the purpose. + +The sculptor, grumbling, went toward the threshold and picked up the +card. "Felix, Freiherr von Weiblingen." He shook his head thoughtfully. +Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of joy. Under the printed name was +written, with a pencil, "Icarus." + +"A good friend of yours?" queried the girl. + +He made no answer, but threw down his modeling-tool hastily, hurriedly +wiped his hands on a towel, and hastened to the door again. As he +opened it, he turned around. + +"Stay here, Zenz," he said. "Amuse yourself for a while; there is a +book of pictures; and, if you should be hungry, you will find something +in the cupboard. I will lock the door behind me." + +In the hall outside there was no one but the janitor, with his bent, +long-shaped head, that looked very much like the head of a horse, +especially when he spoke; then he moved his under-jaw, as though he had +a bit between his great, yellow teeth. + +He was a most serviceable old fellow, who had grown gray in the service +of art, and had a more delicate judgment than many a professor. He was +a thorough expert in preparing a canvas; and occupied his leisure in +studying the chemistry of colors. + +"Where are the gentlemen, Fridolin?" asked the sculptor. + +"There is only one. He is walking in the yard. A very handsome young +gentleman. You can see in his face the look of the 'Baron' that is on +his card. He said--" + +But the sculptor had hurried by him, and had rushed down the steps that +led into the yard. "Felix!" he cried, "is it you or your ghost?" + +"I am inclined to think it is both, and a heart in addition," replied +the person addressed, grasping the hand that the sculptor held out to +him. "Come, old fellow, I can't see why we should be ashamed to fall on +each other's necks, here under God's free heaven. I have had to get on +for years without my best and dearest old Dædalus--" + +He did not finish his sentence. The sculptor had pressed him so +heartily to his breast that it fairly took away his breath. + +Then suddenly he loosened his grasp, and, stepping back a pace, cast a +critical glance over the slight figure of his friend. + +"Still just the same," he said, as though to himself; "but we must get +those Samson-like locks under the shears. You don't know your strongest +point, my dear boy, when you bury your round head in such a thicket. +And your full beard must come off. However, all that will come with +time. Tell me what has conjured you forth out of your primeval forests +into our tame art-city?" + +He grasped the young man's arm, and led him around the house into the +little garden. Both were silent, and seemed to avoid looking at one +another, as though they had begun to feel ashamed of the extravagant +affection with which they had marked their reunion. + +At the extreme end of the garden was an arbor overgrown with +honeysuckle; at its entrance stood sentry two potbellied Cupids in the +_rococco_ style, with little queues and all that--both of them painted +sky-blue from head to foot. + +"It's easy to see whom one is visiting," said Felix, laughing. "'His +pig-tail hangs behind him,' or have you had it cut off?" Then, without +waiting for an answer: "But tell me, old fellow, how have you had the +heart to leave your poor Icarus all these terribly long years without a +sign of life on your part? Haven't any of the six or eight letters I +have written you--the last only a year ago from Chicago--" + +The sculptor had turned away and buried his face in a bunch of +full-blown roses. He turned suddenly toward his friend, and said, with +a quick, lowering glance: "A sign of life! How do you know that I +_have_ lived these terribly long years? But let us drop all that. Come +and sit down here in the arbor, and now unpack your budget. A +circumnavigator like you must have brought all manner of things with +you that are entertaining and wonderful to dusty stay-at-homes like us. +When you went away from Kiel, we did not either of us think the earth +would turn so often before we looked each other in the face again." + +"What shall I tell you?" asked the young man, and his delicate brow +contracted, "If my letters reached you, you have not lost the thread of +my story. As for all the details that belong to it, you knew me well +enough in my first university days, in those old times at Kiel, to +imagine how I went on afterward in Heidelberg and Leipsic, till I got +an older head under my corps-student's cap. It is true, I soon grew +tired of the ridiculous corps business; but, for the mere sake of not +seeming to play the renegade, I kept on with the old associations even +more shamelessly than before. My three years passed away, and a fourth +beside; I was fully three-and-twenty when I went back into my dear, +dull, little home, and passed my examination to enter the civil +service. How I managed to get on so long without giving you a call, +Heaven knows! As early as the second year after our separation, I was +very near you. I had a trifling reminder of a pistol-duel with a +Russian, here in my left shoulder, and had to go to a watering-place +for my health. In Heligoland I heard that you had moved to Hamburg. I +needn't say that I designed to call upon you on my way back. But, +suddenly, a sad message called me home abruptly. My poor old father had +had an apoplectic stroke, and I found him dead. Then there was all the +dreary necessary business, and, after it all--. But why must we spoil +our first pleasant hour with all these old stories? My dear Hans, if +you had a notion how good it is to be sitting here again by your side, +to smell these roses, and imagine that my life is beginning all over +again--a new life in a better world, free from all fetters and--. But, +by-the-way, you have married, I hear? An actress, was it not? Where did +she come from? I heard in Heligoland--" + +The sculptor suddenly rose. "You find me as you left me," he said, his +face darkening quickly; "what is past, let us let it rest. Come out of +the arbor; it is suffocatingly hot under those thick vines." + +He went toward the little fountain, held his hands under the slender +stream, and passed them over his brow. Then, for the first time, he +turned to Felix again. His face was once more composed and bright. + +"And now tell me what has brought you here, and how long you are going +to stay with me." + +"As long as you will have me--for ever and ever--_in infinitum_ if you +will!" + +"You are joking. Don't do that, my dear boy. I am so utterly alone +here, in spite of a plenty of good comrades with whom I can share +everything except my most intimate thoughts, that the thought of +beginning our old life again seems far too happy to me to be only made +a jest of." + +"But it is my most serious earnest, dear old Hans. I am going to stay +here with you, if you have nothing against it, in your most intimate +daily companionship; and, if some day you strike your tent and wander +away somewhere else, I will go too. In one word, I have put my whole +past career behind me, and broken up all my old associations, so that I +may begin, as I said, my whole life over again, and not be anything but +what I care most to be--a free man; not make myself anything but what I +have always secretly longed to be, an artist, as good or as bad a one +as mother Nature will let me." + +He poured forth these words hurriedly, and with downcast face, and as +he talked drew a light circle in the nearest flower-bed with his cane. +It was only after a pause, and when his friend made no reply, that he +raised his eyes and met, with some embarrassment, the quiet gaze fixed +upon him. + +"You don't seem quite able to accept this change in my life all at +once, Hans? Others besides you have had the same feeling--the person +most concerned in it, for instance. That I have become a conceited ass, +and fancy that because I used to be extravagantly fond of modeling all +manner of absurdities in clay, and cutting caricatures of my friends in +meerschaum--this I hope you will not believe. But why I can't get +beyond the condition of a dilettante, if I only am serious about it, +and think of and do nothing else but study my A, B, C, under a good +master--I beg of you, my dear Dædalus, don't pull such a disheartening +face! Don't look so sadly at the lost youth--as I probably seem to you; +or at least smile ironically, so as to rouse my anger and wound my +_amour propre_ a little! But by the eternal gods--what is there after +all so horribly fatal in this decision? That it hasn't occurred to me +till after twenty-seven years? That is bad, I admit, but not a proof +that it is hopeless. Think of your own half-countryman, Asmus Carstens, +or of--well, I won't give you a whole chapter of artists' biographies. +And besides, when I am altogether independent and have burnt my ships +behind me--" + +He stopped again. His friend's silence seemed to check his utterance. +For a time nothing was to be heard around them but the splashing of the +little fountain, and from the window above them the notes of the +battle-painter's flute, every little while dying dismally away. + +Suddenly the sculptor stood still. + +"And does your fiancée agree to this project?" + +"My fiancée? What in the world puts that question into your head?" + +"Because, although I never answered your letters, I remember them all +very well. Is it possible that you too do not remember what you wrote +me three years ago, under the seal of the deepest--" + +"So I did do it then!" cried the young man with a short, abrupt laugh. +"So I did chatter, did I? I assure you, my dear Hans, I was myself +doubtful how far I had initiated you--you, the only one before whom I +ever lifted even a corner of the veil from this veiled picture. After +awhile--as you sent no congratulations--I began to persuade myself that +I had kept a quiet tongue in my head, even with you; and, in truth, +that would have been the best thing to do. Then I should have escaped +the full confession that it is hard enough for me to make--and after +all, it is perfectly superfluous. For how shall I--who am no poet, and +who am besides an interested party in the transaction--how shall I +describe the persons concerned so that you will understand how it all +came about--how it was partly the fault of both--and yet how both are +innocent, after all? + +"But if you must have it, let it be so--as briefly as possible. + +"I came back, then, to my native town, to pay the last honors to my +good old father. You know what an unhomelike home I had always found +it. The capital of a third-class Duodezstaat--thank your good star that +you have no idea what it means. My father before me had suffered under +the absurd despotism of this court-etiquette, this endlessly-branching, +complicated, spun-out primeval jungle of dry genealogical trees--under +these ridiculous traditions of a worm-eaten bureaucracy. He was a man +of quite another type--a sturdy, stately country noble, of the most +exclusive and most independent spirit; and since the death of my +mother--who could not of course withdraw herself so entirely from her +family connections--he had lived on our own estate, altogether apart +from 'society.' Then came his death; and I--looked upon askance even as +a boy because of my likeness to my father, and almost given up as far +as a career at court or in politics was concerned--I believe no cock +would have crowed at it, if I had once for all acknowledged that I was +my father's true heir in this respect also, and had forever turned my +back on the spot where I was cradled. But, much as I felt inclined to +do so, it fell out otherwise." + +He put his hand into his pocket and took out a little memorandum-book. + +"You shall have the romance in an illustrated edition," he said, with a +rather forced attempt at jesting. "See, it was this little person's +fault that I thought for a while it was really my calling to be a +useful citizen--chamberlain to his Highness--by and by master of the +hunt--court marshal--heaven knows what all. Is not that a face that +could persuade one of anything, and could turn a head that never sat +very firmly? And that is only a commonplace photograph, and three years +old; and besides, in these three years the wicked child has learned all +manner of witches' arts; and the eyes that here in the photograph look +so still and fixed--half curious, half timid, as if they were looking +at a theatre-curtain that would not go up--I can tell you, my dear boy, +they look into the world now with such a queenly confidence and dignity +that it fairly--but that is no part of our present talk. And at that +time, when the misfortune happened and I lost my heart to the child, +the little thing was hardly more than a schoolgirl, just sixteen years +old; and shy, silent and unformed as a young bird. We had known each +other since we were children--she is some sort of a cousin, seventeen +times removed--just as all good families with us are related in some +way. I had not the least idea, however, of visiting her, until her +uncle, with whom she lived--her parents died when she was very +young--until this jovial gentleman came to make me a visit of +condolence. Of course I had to return it, and it was on this occasion +that I first saw the slender, pale, large-eyed child, with her +exquisite, tight-shut red lips and her ravishing, tiny little ears. + +"Soon afterward I went away again, and only after a year had +passed--after the infernal examination that I would not shirk, in spite +of my freedom, lest it should seem as though I were afraid of it--only +then, when she was seventeen years old, did I see her again. While I +was away, a recollection of her had come back to me from time to time; +suddenly, in the midst of altogether different things, I had seen +something flitting before me that resembled nothing but her slight and +somewhat spare figure, about which there was one trait that always +seemed to me especially charming--that though she was perhaps not quite +tall enough, her little form was always so haughty and erect and so +delicately and perfectly balanced on its slender pedestal. Sometimes, +too, her eyes met me in a fairly ghost-like fashion, when I was among +my comrades or alone out of doors. And yet I had never exchanged ten +words with her. + +"And now, when I found her again, a year older and suddenly developed +into a young woman--no, Hans, you need not fear that I am shamelessly +going to put our whole love-story at your mercy, here in the bright +morning sunlight. Enough to say that it had fared much the same with +her, as far as my worthy self was concerned, as with me in respect to +her. We saw that we were meant for one another, as people say--without +ever thinking how much is meant by the words. + +"Well! everything would have been well enough; the match seemed as +_bien assortie_ as could possibly have been wished even in such an +aristocratic and cosmopolitan capital as ours. If we had only +married at once, on the spur of the moment, we should have been just +the people--she with her seventeen years, and I with my three or +four-and-twenty--to be altogether suited to one another, and, as time +went on, to so round off the very perceptible and serious corners and +sharpnesses of our two temperaments, that finally it would have been a +thoroughly happy marriage. But, unfortunately, Irene's mother had +married at seventeen, and attributed her lifelong invalidism--for she +was a delicate creature and always remained so--to this early marriage. +When she died--still very young--she charged her husband solemnly that +he should not let their only daughter marry before she was twenty; and +the uncle, who afterward filled a father's place to my sweetheart, +considered himself absolutely bound by this inherited pledge. I must +wait patiently, therefore, for three whole years. And as he was a +bachelor, and his niece had no chaperon to call upon but a former +servant, I was required to pledge myself to avoid all companionship +with my betrothed during this long probation, and only to carry on my +courtship by letter; so that every temptation to seek to shorten the +time of waiting might be put a stop to once for all. + +"You can imagine what my feelings were when the old gentleman told me +all this. To decree a three years' banishment just because we should +give him trouble--because he hated responsibility, and because he +believed, as an old hand at love-making, that this was the best way to +protect lovers against themselves! But, jovial as his manner was, he +was an uncompromising egotist where his own quiet and comfort were +concerned. And I was too stubborn and too proud to make any +supplications, and too sure of myself and my sweetheart to fear the +length of the interval; which did not seem to me at first glance so +intolerable as I often felt it afterward--in sighs and misery. + +"My sweetheart, too, threw back her little head and said: 'Yes, we will +wait.'--Afterward, it is true, when it came to our last parting, she +fell out of my arms as though she were dead, and I thought she would +never open her eyes again. Even now I don't know how I succeeded, in +spite of it all, in tearing myself away. + +"And this three years' separation itself! If I had only been a man of +sense--that is, if I had been another than myself--I should have +settled down somewhere in Germany, and taken up some task at which +I could have worked myself tired--to fight down my unprofitable +lover's-melancholy. Why could not I devote my three years to making +myself a perfect agriculturist, or a prominent jurist, or a politician, +or something that is of some use in the world? To make one's self so +completely master of some department of life or knowledge that one +knows every square foot of it is rather an absurd and commonplace +consolation, to be sure; but it is better, after all, than an +objectless activity, a love nourished on prison-fare, and a longing for +freedom that at last makes one look upon mere change as something +desirable. + +"Even then I thought of my old Dædalus. I was on the very point of +falling upon you in your studio, and, for want of a smooth, girlish +cheek to caress, of trying my hand on a soft bit of clay. Just then I +chanced upon an opportunity to go to England; there I stayed until I +was ripe for America; and he who once sets foot in the New World, and +hasn't left any very pressing business behind him in the Old, can get +rid of a few years of his life without knowing exactly how he has done +it. It is enough to tell you that I had already reached Rio, traveling +by way of San Francisco and Mexico, when I said to myself one day that +if I did not want to prolong my exile voluntarily, and so appear to my +betrothed in rather a bad light, I must take the next steamer that +sailed for Havre, in order to land at last, after all this wandering +over the wide world, in the harbor of my wedded bliss. + +"I had written regularly to my betrothed every month--beautiful +diary-like love-letters--and had received with equal regularity letters +from her, which, to speak honestly, had now and then irritated me +greatly; so that we had already had (on paper) all manner of +misunderstandings, tiffs, quarrels, and reconciliations. I considered +that all this belonged of right to a well-conducted three-years' +engagement, and did not take it too much to heart when my well-bred, +rather provincial little sweetheart, who had grown up in the atmosphere +of the petty capital, occasionally gave her vagabond _fiancé_ a little +moral lesson. Perhaps I was wrong, and certainly I was foolish, always +to report my varied adventures with absolute candor. There were no very +serious matters among them; and the few cases of real human weaknesses +and sins I kept to myself--shut up in a sincerely remorseful heart. But +she found fault even with the _tone_ of my 'sketches from two +hemispheres.' Good heavens! it is easily comprehensible that the poor +child, living as she did among such absurd surroundings, could not have +much taste for a free life out in the world! Thrown entirely on +herself, watched over by a hundred eyes in a narrow, starched, formal +society--I once wrote to her that she was only so serious beyond her +years because she had had to fill, as it were, a mother's place to +herself, and be her own governess and duenna. And, besides all this, +there was her uncle's frightful example--for she could not long remain +ignorant of his habit of compensating himself for outward +respectability by private orgies at his bachelor clubs and _petits +soupers_. + +"Only let the three years be over, I thought to myself, and we will +soon weed out the tares that have sprung up between our roses. But I +did not know the vigor of the ground in which all this bad crop had +grown up. Nor did I know how much the years between seventeen and +twenty signified in such a girl's life. + +"At last, then, I arrived at home, and found--but, no!" He checked +himself abruptly, and made a sharp cut at the air with his cane. "Why +should I bore you with a detailed story of a domestic comedy that has +only a decidedly unfavorable likeness to 'Much Ado about Nothing,' and, +instead of ending with the reconciliation between Benedict and +Beatrice, finished with a ridiculous eternal separation? For isn't it +almost as laughable as lamentable that two lovers, who for three whole +years, the world over, have been extravagantly fond of one another, +should count the days till they could fall again on one another's +necks, and then should not be able to get on together for six weeks? +And all this only because--as old Goethe says--man strives for liberty, +woman for morality; and because the said moral law seems to the man a +wretched slavery, while the unhappy young woman thinks even a very +moderate freedom immoral! Ah, my dear old Hans, what did I not endure +in those six weeks!--and more especially because I was thoroughly +dissatisfied with myself. After our altogether fruitless (and therefore +all the more obstinate) discussions of these questions, in which I +poured out my bitterest scorn upon her court-etiquette, her kid-gloved +prejudices, her duenna-like code of morals, while she put my baseless +principles to shame with a maidenly pride and firmness that I could +have kissed her for--always after these discussions I used to say to +myself, in the quiet of my chamber, that I was a mad fool to upset +matters as I did. With a little diplomacy, a little delicate tact, and +patient hypocrisy, I could have thoroughly gained my end; could have +borne the stupid ban of society until my marriage; and then, when we +were alone together, could have gradually developed my little wife out +of her doll-like state of servitude, and rejoiced to see her spread her +wings in freedom. + +"But it was odd: as often as I appeared before her with the best +resolves in the world--the war began again. You must not imagine that +she fairly entered the lists, challenged me, and herself brought up our +old points of conflict. But it was precisely her quiet reserve, her +obvious good intention to be cautious with the reckless scapegrace, and +to leave his reform to time--it was all this that overthrew my finest +diplomatic projects. I would begin to joke, then to chaff, then to hurl +the most fearful insults against people and customs that seemed fairly +holy to her--and so it went on, day after day, until there came one day +that fairly 'forced the bottom out of the cask'--a wretched, wretched +day!" + +He paused a moment, and fixed his eyes gloomily upon the ground. + +"There's no help for it!" he said, at last. "It must come out. +Once in my life I did something that humiliated me in my own eyes. I +committed a sin against my own sense of honor--a base act, for which I +never can forgive myself, although a court of honor in matters of +gallantry--chosen from among my own equals, mind you--would probably +have let me off with a slight penance, if not scot-free altogether. You +know what I think of what is called sin; there is no _absolute_ moral +code; what brands one forever is only a little spot upon another--all +according to the delicacy and sensitiveness of the skin. Even +conscience is a product of culture, and the categorical imperative is a +pure fiction. What a brutal blackguard of a soldier permits himself in +plundering a captured town, and feels his conscience untroubled, would +dishonor his officer to all eternity. But I am not going to theorize; +suffice it to say that that inner harmony with one's self, on which +everything depends, was utterly destroyed in me by this act. From the +way in which it haunted me, you can conceive how, in a moment of +weakness, I confessed the whole story to Irene's uncle, little +consolation as I could get from the absolution of so very odd a saint. +I saw _how_ little, when he utterly failed to understand how I could +take the matter so to heart, especially as it had taken place a +considerable time before my engagement. I instantly repented most +bitterly that I had confided in him; and his promise, never by a single +syllable to recur to it, reassured me but little. + +"I was right. He forgot it himself; and one unhappy day he began, in +the very presence of his niece--we had just been speaking of all manner +of far more innocent adventures, and even these she would not let +pass--he began to refer to that wretched story. Something must have +come into my face that instantly gave my sweetheart an idea that this +reference meant something beyond the common. Her uncle, too, began to +stammer, and made a clumsy attempt to change the subject. That made the +matter worse. Irene stopped talking, and soon after left the room. The +uncle, good-natured as usual, cursed his own loquacity again and again; +but, naturally, that did not help things. When I saw my little one +again, she asked me to what his words referred. I was too proud to lie +to her; I confessed that I carried about with me the memory of +something that I wished to conceal from myself--how much more from her! +With that she grew silent again. But on the evening of that day, when I +was a second time alone with her, she told me that she must know the +whole. I could not have done anything that she could not forgive me; +but she felt that she could not live by my side when there was such a +secret between us. + +"Perhaps a wiser man might have invented some story, and so have +avoided a greater evil. There is such a thing as a necessary lie. But I +held to the belief that every man is alone responsible for his acts; +that I should add a second sin to the first if I burdened the pure soul +of my darling with such a confidence; and so I remained unshaken, +though I knew her too well not to know how much was at stake. + +"On the next morning I received her parting letter--a letter that for +the first time showed me all that I was losing. + +"But I had gone too far to turn back. I answered that I would wait +until she changed her opinions; that in the mean time I should look +upon myself as bound to her; but she was, of course, entirely free. + +"That was a week ago. I reflected that of course it would be necessary +to leave at once those places where she might meet me. In putting my +house in order for an indefinite absence, I came upon a package of +visiting-cards in one of my mother's cupboards that had on them the +name of her brother, my godfather, Felix von Weiblingen. It occurred to +me as a good idea that, under this name, I might for a while +(_incognito_) breathe the same air with my oldest friend, and at the +same time attain the goal of my dearest wishes--to begin a new life. +There is nothing in me of the ordinary numbered and classified type of +'man with a calling,' and, even with the best wife in the world, I +never should have been able to busy myself quietly on my estate with +bringing up children, making brandy, and fox-hunting. It is better, +then, that I should use this involuntary opportunity to dispose of +myself as I choose, in trying whether I can't really make a life of my +own. If in time she should bring herself to my way of thinking, she +would then find a _fait accompli_ that she would have to accept. + +"It will be no shame to me in your eyes if I don't at once find my +spirits so entirely in order that I can go rushing into a mastery of +the fine arts by lightning express. I have reached the door of your +studio but slowly, and by very short stages--but this very slowness has +done me good. You see before you a thoroughly sensible man, who is +determined to submit to fate without a grumble. If you will only take +me into _die Mache_, it will not be long before the wings of your +faithful Icarus will grow again, to lift him above all this wretched +world of Philistinism and its foolish love-affairs." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +The sculptor had listened to this long confession in silence. And even +now, when Felix ended, and began to pull to pieces a sprig of +mignonette as carefully as though he were trying to count the stamens +in the little blossoms, he betrayed neither by word nor look any +opinion of what he had just heard. + +"I find that you have made great progress in your old art of expressing +yourself by silence," said the young man at length, with a somewhat +forced lightness of tone. "Do you remember how I used to be able to +tell from the degree, and, so to speak, from the pitch of your silence, +just what you were thinking of my nonsense? I can tell in the same way +now: you think my decision to become an artist is a mere absurdity. You +used to tell me that I was not fit either for science or art--that I +was an _homme d'action_. But there's no help for it now: if it is a +wrong road--why, I am in it once for all and mean to follow it to the +end. So speak out, and tell me candidly whether I must look up another +master, or whether the lion will endure the company of the puppy in his +cage--as he used to before he himself was a full-grown king of the +desert?" + +"What shall I say to you, my dear boy?" replied the sculptor, in his +quiet, rather slow manner. "The thing is a matter of course. I need not +say to you, well as you know me, that I can hardly base any very +exalted hopes upon an art-apprentice who takes up his task somewhat as +a man might marry a woman with whom he had not been especially in love, +but who now, when his real sweetheart has given him the mitten, is a +good enough last resort; that the future career of an art adopted thus +out of spite, as it were, seems to me very doubtful. But then, too, I +know you well enough to be sure that all the Phidiases and Michael +Angelos in the world couldn't make you break your resolution, and that, +if I should lock my door against you, you would be just the fellow to +bind yourself out as an apprentice to the first of my colleagues you +might chance upon. And then--to be honest--it is such a pleasure to me +to have you back again at all, that out of pure selfishness I can't +make any objection if your energy, instead of taking hold of real life, +chooses to spend itself on a harmless bit of clay. For the rest--let us +speak of it another time--or not at all, whichever pleases you better. +In such matters we take no counsel, after all, but that of our own +souls; and if this isn't always the best for us--why, we are sovereigns +of ourselves, and have it in our own power to save or ruin ourselves +according to our natures. Here is my hand, then. You can begin +to-morrow, if you like, your apprenticeship as a kneader of clay and +chipper of stone--and your baronial ancestors can turn in their graves +at it as they please." + +"Chaff away, dear old Hans!" cried the young man, joyously. "Now I'll +stake my head that I will become a famous artist just to have the laugh +on you! I will work from morning till night with a true malicious +pleasure, grinding and fretting till the dilettante skin is rubbed off +and something better appears below it. And you shall see that I have +not spent these seven years altogether in lounging. If you will run +through my sketch-books from both continents--but _apropos_, what have +you been doing in the mean while? Is it not a shame that I haven't been +able to keep track of your progress toward immortality, even by a +wretched photograph? And here I have been running on for an hour over +my own adventures, while the most glorious wonders of the world are +waiting for me over yonder!" + +He strode quickly across the yard, to which they had come back while +they were talking, and entered the house. + +"You will repent this haste, rash boy!" Jansen called after him, while +an odd smile played about his lips. "You will indeed wonder over much +that you see--but the wonders of the world that you dream of--they are +still in this narrow room" (he pointed to his forehead), "and even +there they are not always in the best light!" + +With these words he unlocked one of the two lower doors, and let Felix +pass in. + +It was a second studio, adjoining that in which he had worked during +the morning; a room precisely like the other, its walls painted in the +same stone-color, and its great square window half draped in the same +fashion. And yet no one would have believed that the same spirit ruled +here that had created the dancing Bacchante in the next atelier. + +On slender pedestals stood a multitude of figures, most of them of half +life-size, such as are used for the decoration of Catholic churches, +chapels and cemeteries. Some of them were just begun, some were almost +finished works; and in all could be clearly recognized the hands of the +pupils who had their execution in charge--sometimes more and sometimes +less skillfully imitating the little original models, barely six inches +high, that stood on small shelves beside the copies. While the latter +were neatly cut in sandstone or in the cheaper marbles--and a few in +wood, decorated with all manner of painting and gilding--the little +models were in plaster, and spotted and nicked by constant use. Yet +these doll-like little madonnas, saints and apostles, and praying and +playing angels in their heavy draperies, had a certain odd and now and +then almost caricatured life-likeness--so great that not all of its +charm was lost, even in the dry copies made by the assistants. They had +something of the same element of humor that Ariosto gives to his +personages--which by no means lose in life or force because their +author has lost his own simple faith in them. + +"Allow me to ask," said Felix, after looking about blankly for a +moment, "into whose room you have brought me? And is your good friend +who practises this pious art hidden somewhere close by, so that one +must be cautious in his criticisms?" + +"You needn't be in the least disturbed, my dear fellow; the lord and +master of this worshipful company stands before you." + +"You, yourself? Dædalus with a saint's halo! The preacher in the +wilderness of modern art actually at the foot of the cross! Before I +believe that, I shall have to take the cowl myself, and declare poor +naked Beauty to be an invention of the devil!" + +The sculptor cast down his eyes for a moment. + +"Yes, my dear fellow," he said, "this is what we have come to in our +art-desert. You ask me for beauty, and I offer you clothes-racks with +dolls'-heads! As long ago as when we were in Kiel, I had to learn that +the world of to-day will have nothing to do with true art. You know how +hard I found it to turn these stones of mine into bread. It was still +worse when I moved to Hamburg, and there--" he checked himself +suddenly, and turned away; "well, living is more expensive there, and I +began to be older and less easily satisfied; and, when I could no +longer support myself in the place--it was the wretched trading city's +fault, I thought--I packed up my best models and sketches and came +here, to the much-praised land of art, the 'Athens on the Iser,' of +which so much is said and sung. You will soon learn how it is here. I +won't begin as soon as you have crossed the threshold to sweep all the +disagreeable things in the house out of the corners for you. I will +only say that the Munich Philistine isn't a hair better than those on +the Jungfernstieg or in our old Holstein. After I had managed, with +great difficulty, to keep myself alive here for a year, and had hardly +earned enough in the service of pure beauty to keep life in my body, I +found that such misery was enough to make a man turn Catholic--and, as +this spectacle shows, I did turn so, half-and-half. It wasn't so easy +as it may seem to you here--to my shame! Besides a trace of conscience, +which was always reminding me that + + 'Man, after all, has higher goals to seek + Than simply feeding seven times a week;' + +besides my own humiliation before myself and a few of my good +colleagues, I was hampered by a real lack of skill. It needs a good +deal to take all the manliness out of one's self, so that one can fit +himself to all the miserable complications, the twisted deformities and +tameness of our modern civilization. But it only depends, after all, on +one's capability of getting the humor out of the thing. The idea that +I, an unmitigated pagan, should establish a manufactory of images of +saints, struck me as so indescribably rich that one fine day I actually +set to work to model a Saint Sebastian, in which task my knowledge of +anatomy stood me in good stead. But, even here, I soon found that it is +only 'clothes that make the man.' It was only when I betook myself to +making draperies, trains, and sleeves, that the result took on the true +devotional air such as the public is accustomed to and desires. And, +since then, I have grown prosperous so fast that now I employ eight or +ten assistants; and, if it goes on, I shall some day bid farewell to +temporal affairs, in the odor of sanctity and as rich as----." (He +named a colleague who enjoyed a continued rush of business.) + +"Yes, my dear Icarus," continued he, still more laughingly, as Felix +made no reply to these revelations, "you would not have believed it +all, I know, when in the first fire of youth we rode our proud hobbies, +and called every man a low fool who, in art or life, proved faithless +to his ideals by a straw's breadth. But the mill of every-day life rubs +off much that a man believed was bound to him as with iron--like a very +part of himself. And here you have an example, worth your deep +consideration, of that celebrated 'liberty' you think to find here. If +I allow myself the liberty of doing what I cannot give up, I must, at +the same time, make up my mind to work at absurdities with which my +heart has no sympathy. In order to be an artist, such as I wish to be, +I am compelled to make Nuremberg toys and to display them in the +market-places. But, after all--behind my own back, as it were--I +continue quietly to be my own master. Let thy troubled heart take +courage, beloved son! thy old Dædalus hasn't even yet become quite so +utterly bad as these trade-wares show him. I think you will give me +back your esteem if I lead you now out of my holy into my profane +_atelier_--out of my tailor's-shop into my paradise!" + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +With these words he opened the little door that separated the two +studios and passed in, followed by Felix. + +"You will find an old acquaintance again," he said. "I wonder whether +friend Homo still remembers you. He has certainly had time to grow old +and dull." + +The dog was still lying in front of the old sofa, on the straw mat, and +seemed to have slept quietly on, although the girl had seated herself +near him and had buried both feet in his thick coat as in a rug. +Evidently the old dog thought it not disagreeable, but rather pleasant +than otherwise, to be rubbed and trampled on by the little shoes. At +all events he uttered a comfortable growl from time to time, like a +purring cat. + +To the girl herself the time had seemed very long. At first, when she +heard voices out in the garden, she had climbed upon a chair close to +the window, and, pulling her skirt over her bare shoulders that she +might not be seen by any chance passer-by, had peeped out curiously +through the roses. The strange young man, who spoke so long and +seriously with Jansen, had taken her fancy greatly, with his tall, +slender figure, his small head above the broad shoulders, and the fiery +glance of his brown eyes, that wandered absently about. She had seen +directly that he must be somebody of distinction. But, when he +disappeared with Jansen into the arbor, her post at the window grew +uncomfortable. She climbed slowly and thoughtfully down, stationed +herself before a little looking-glass on the wall, and looked +attentively at her own youthful figure, which only seemed to her +anything especially remarkable now that an artist copied from it. Only +to-day she was even less satisfied than usual with her face, and tried +whether it could not be improved if she screwed up her mouth as much +as possible, drew in her nostrils, and opened her eyes very wide. She +was vexed because she could not make herself as beautiful as the +plaster-heads that stood above her on the brackets. But suddenly she +had to laugh at the horribly distorted face she made; her old high +spirits came back; she thrust out her tongue at her reflection in the +glass, and was pleased to see how pretty and red it looked between her +glittering white teeth. Then she shook her thick red hair and went +singing, and patting her shoulders in time with the tune, up and down +the room, so that the sparrows were frightened and fluttered out at the +window. Then she stood still for a long while and looked at the casts +and clay models around her on the walls; and seemed especially +interested in the half-finished marble bust. It reminded her again of +the stranger outside in the arbor, whose head sprung just so from his +stately shoulders. Finally she tired of this also; and besides, she +began to feel a little hungry. She found in the cupboard, behind her in +the corner to which the sculptor had directed her, a few rolls and an +opened bottle of red wine. There was all sorts of rubbish besides in +the cupboard; a masquerader's costume, pieces of gold-stamped leather +tapestry, of blue and red silk and brocade, with large flowers in their +patterns, and a saint's halo, cut out of paper and painted with +beautiful golden rays--that might have done service for a _tableau +vivant_, or some other profane purpose. The idle girl seized upon this +last, fastened it on her head with the two ribbons still attached to +it, and went again before the looking-glass, where she smiled and made +faces at her own reflection. Then she took a piece of blue damask out +of the pile of things, and threw it like a cloak over her white +shoulders. Her hair flowed freely over it, so that at a distance, when +one did not see her uncovered neck, she looked like a mediæval madonna, +who had stepped out of her frame and had wandered into some merry +company. The girl thought herself very beautiful, and quite worthy of +reverence in this disguise, and secretly congratulated herself on the +surprise and admiration of the sculptor, when he should find her so +dressed. That she might await his return more comfortably, she had +seated herself on the sofa, put a glass of wine on a chair beside her, +and begun to eat a roll. She had come across a portfolio of photographs +of celebrated pictures, and had laid it open in her lap, resting her +feet on the dog's back; and so she had sat now a full half-hour, +absorbed in looking at the pictures (which she found generally very +ugly), when the little door opened and Jansen again entered the room. + +At the same moment she started as though shot up by a spring--so rudely +that the old dog, giving a low howl and shaking himself, also scrambled +up from his sleep. + +She had seen the young stranger enter behind the sculptor; and now she +stood in the middle of the atelier, drawing the little blue silk flag +as tightly as she could across her breast, her eyes flaming with anger, +and her whole body trembling with excitement. + +"You need not be afraid, my child," said the sculptor, "this gentleman +is also an artist. Good Heavens! How magnificently you have dressed +yourself! The halo becomes you excellently. Turn round a little--" + +She shook her head violently. + +"Let me go! I will never come again!" she said half aloud. "You haven't +kept your word to me! Oh! it is shameful!" + +"But, Zenz--" + +"No, never again! You have deceived me. You know very well what you +promised me, and yet--" + +"But if you would only listen! I assure you solemnly--" + +Shaking her head and blushing crimson, she ran to the chair where she +had laid her waist and her straw hat, seized them hurriedly, and shot +like an arrow through the little side-door into the second studio. + +The sculptor tried to follow her, but had to turn back at the bolted +door. Vexed and annoyed, he turned again to Felix, who had let the girl +pass almost unnoticed in the demonstrative recognition he received from +the dog. The powerful animal had come leaping toward him with all the +liveliness of his younger days, had rested his heavy paws on his old +friend's breast, barking hoarsely the while, and seemed unwilling to +let him go again. + +"Do you really know me still, true old soul?" cried the young man, +patting the dog's great head, and looking with real emotion into the +faithful old fellow's large eyes, already grown a little dim.--"See, +Hans, with what _empressement_ he receives me! But what have I done to +vex the little girl? Is it the custom here in your blessed land of free +art for models to set themselves up as examples of propriety?" + +"This is rather a peculiar case," answered Jansen, with some vexation. +"It was only after long hesitation that she did me the favor to stand +as a model at all; and I shall be hard put to it now to make the shy +thing so tame again. She has neither father nor mother--at least, so +she says. I used often to meet her on her way to an artificial-flower +factory, where she works hard to support, herself. Her figure attracted +me; and the little pert-nosed thing did not look as though her ideas +were very rigidly conventional. But she would have nothing to say to +it, although, as I look older than I am, I have made much shyer people +trust me. Finally, though, my last resort helped me here, as it had +before." + +"Your last resort?" + +"Yes; the remark that, after all, the matter really was not worth so +much trouble as I had given to it; and perhaps, on the whole, she was +wise in only wishing to show her figure with the aid of dress. This was +too much for the vain little creature, and she consented to come as a +model--but no one but myself must ever enter the studio. I +thoughtlessly broke this agreement to-day in admitting you." + +Felix stepped before the statue of the Bacchante. + +"Unless you have greatly flattered her, you are to be congratulated on +finding so good a one," he said. "And, as far as I have been able to +see in to-day's wanderings through the town, you must have every reason +to be satisfied with most of the figures you can find here." + +Jansen did not answer. He seemed to be absorbed in gazing at his +friend, who happened to be standing at the moment in a most favorable +light. Then, muttering to himself, he went over to the cupboard in +which the girl had been rummaging, searched a while in its +compartments, and at last came back to Felix, hiding behind him a great +pair of shears. The young man still stood absorbed in admiration of the +Bacchante. + +"Before we do anything else, my dear boy," said the sculptor, "you must +allow me to crop this hair of yours into a more rational shape. Sit +down there on that stool. In less than five minutes we shall have it +all arranged; and that neck of yours, that looks like the neck of the +Borghese Gladiator--the very best point about you--will be got out of +all this thicket." + +At first Felix laughingly refused; but finally he submitted; and his +friend's skillful hand cropped his long hair, and trimmed his full +beard more closely. + +"There!" said Jansen. "Now a man needn't be ashamed to be seen with +you. And, as a reward for this submission, I will show you something +that until now very few mortal eyes have had the privilege of seeing." + +He approached the great veiled group in the middle of the studio, and +began cautiously to unwrap the damp cloths in which the work was +everywhere enveloped. + +The figure of a youth appeared, of more than mortal strength and +stature, lying stretched upon the ground in an attitude of perfect and +natural grace and beauty. Sleep seemed to have just left his eyes; for +he lay with his head a little raised, leaning upon his right arm, and +passing the left across his forehead as though to clear away the mists +of some deep dream. Before him--or behind him, as it appeared to the +spectator--knelt upon one knee a youthful female figure, bending over +him in a posture of innocent wonder. This figure was much less advanced +toward completion than that of its male companion--there being, indeed, +scarcely anything left to do on the latter excepting a little delicate +work upon the luxuriant hair and the hands and feet. And yet, though +the lines of the woman's figure were still almost in the rough, and her +beautiful form seemed only the fruit of a few days' labor, the modeling +of the whole was so broad and strong, the bend of the neck and the +posture of the arms were so expressive, that no one could fail to catch +the full force of the whole, even from the unfinished work, and to see +that the two figures were worthy of one another, and of equal birth. + +Felix uttered an exclamation of delight. Then, for a full quarter of an +hour, he stood motionless before the mighty group, and seemed +altogether to forget the sculptor in his work. + +At length the dog, which came beside him and began again to lick his +hand, aroused him from his reverie. + +"The old-time Hans still lives!" he cried, turning to Jansen. "And more +than that--this is for the first time the complete, genuine Dædalus, +who has thoroughly learned to use his wings. Listen, old boy; it is +gradually dawning upon me that I must have been altogether mad and +absurd when I introduced myself to you as a kind of fellow-artist!" + +"You shall go to the art-club to-morrow, and gather new courage when +you see some of your other colleagues," said Jansen, dryly. "However, I +am glad the thing pleases you. You remember how I used to dwell on the +germ of the idea of this work years ago. The First Man face to face +with the First Woman--hardly daring as yet to actually touch the being +who for the first time makes his human existence full and complete; +while she--more mature already, as a woman is, and having had time +while he slept to recover from her first surprise--feels herself drawn +by a strange and joyful yearning to him who is to be her lord, and to +call forth for the first time her true woman's nature. It is a subject +that stirs one to the core; it touches all that is deep and sacred in a +man's fancy; and yet it is not impossible to reproduce it with the +means our art affords. I have made more than one study of it, and yet +not satisfied myself. It was only this spring, when I realized one day, +to my horror, how this wretched business next door--this money-getting +and trying to please priests and women--was threatening to demoralize +me, that for three weeks I never set foot in my saint-factory, but +locked myself in here and expanded my soul again with this work. I know +that I am only doing it for myself and for a little group of true +friends, as restless as I am. Where could I put such a thing as that +nowadays? True Art is homeless and without a place to lay her head. A +dancing Bacchante is sure to find a lover in some rich man who will put +her in some niche in his _salon_, and think when he looks at her of the +ballet-girls who have been his associates. But Adam and Eve, before +their fall, in all their rude and vigorous strength, with the fragrance +of the fresh earth lingering, as it were, about them--they are as +useless for a decoration as they would be for the altar of a chapel. +Even their heroic proportions would pass for brutal! But, after all, +they are my old favorites; and, if they please me, to whom does it +matter?" + +Felix did not answer. He was again absorbed in gazing at the group. + +"A good friend of mine, whose acquaintance you will soon make, by the +way," continued the sculptor, "one Schnetz, who likes to play the +Thersites, advised me to put a fusilier's uniform on Adam, and make Eve +into a sister of charity, with a medicine-glass and spoon in her hand. +Then the group would perhaps be adopted to ornament the pediment of +some hospital. His satire on the present condition of our art was so +true that I had almost a mind to try it for a joke. My first man and +woman, without an inkling of all the ills of our pestilential century, +enthroned over the door of a _lazaretto_--what do you say to that as a +piece of colossal humor?" + +"Only finish it, Hans!" cried the younger man. "Dream out your dream, +and I will vouch for it that, however stupidly and sleepily men are +plodding on, this lightning-stroke of genius will dash the scales from +their eyes! Why haven't you made more progress with your Eve?" + +"Because I have never yet found a model; and because I will not +botch my work by mere patching together of my own recollections, +or by the last resort of borrowing from the Venus of Milo. Ah, +my dear fellow--the fine figures you think you saw in the streets +to-day--psha! you'll soon think otherwise. The German corset-makers, +the school-room benches, and the miserable food we live on, may +possibly leave enough of dear old Nature for me to make a laughing-doll +out of, like my dancer there; but a future mother of mankind, untouched +as yet by any breath of want or degradation, and fresh from the hand of +her Creator--what do you think our professional models would say to +that--or the seamstresses or flower-girls that money or persuasion can +induce to enter the service of art? If it were a Roman, now, or a +Greek, or any untamed child of Nature who had grown up under a happier +heaven than ours! And that is what makes the ground here fairly burn +under my feet--and if they were not fettered with leaden fetters--" + +He suddenly checked himself, and a dark shadow passed across his face; +but Felix shrunk from the effort to draw from him by a question any +confidence beyond what Jansen offered willingly. + +At this moment the clock in a neighboring tower struck twelve; and for +a few moments the bells for mid-day service filled the pause that had +interrupted the talk of the two friends. + +The sculptor began to wrap up the group again, after he had given it a +thorough sprinkling. And then, while Felix examined in silence the +other sculptures, many of which were familiar, he went to a wash-stand +in a corner, where he washed the traces of the clay from his hands and +face, and exchanged his working-blouse for a light summer-coat. + +"And now," said he, as he finished his toilette--"now you shall go with +me to our high mass--one that we never miss on Sundays. At the stroke +of twelve we working-bees forsake our hives, and swarm to that great +flower-garden, the Pinakothek, to gather our store of wax and honey for +the whole week. Do you hear the door slam above us? That is my neighbor +in the upper story--a right good fellow, by the name of Maximilian +Rosenbusch, but called 'Rosebud' for short by his friends. An excellent +youngster, not in the least cut out by Nature for a desperado--but +rather inclined, on the contrary, to all the more delicate pursuits of +the muses. He is suspected of being secretly engaged on a volume of +'Poems to Spring,' and you could have heard his flute up-stairs +an hour ago. But at the same time he paints the most tremendous +battle-pieces--generally in Wallenstein or Swedish costume--battles of +the bloodiest sort, and where there is no quarter. In the studio next +to his lives a Fräulein, a thoroughly estimable woman, and by no means +a despicable artist. Among her friends she goes by the name of +Angelica, but her real name is Minna Engelken. This good creature--but +there they come now down the stairs. You can make their acquaintance at +once." + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +It was certainly an odd pair that they found waiting in the yard. The +battle-painter, an animated young fellow, with a clear, bright, rosy +complexion, wore an enormous gray felt hat, with a small cock's-feather +in the band; and an abundant red beard, that looked as queerly against +his pink-and-white face as though a girl had tied a false beard round +her chin, in the attempt to disguise herself as a brigand. Looking at +the face closely, there was a decidedly spirited and manly look in the +clear blue eyes, while a merry laugh lurked constantly about the mobile +mouth. Beside him, his companion--though she was apparently still under +thirty--seemed almost as though she might be his mother, there was such +a weighty seriousness and prompt decision in her movements. She had one +of those faces in which one never sees whether they are pretty or ugly; +her mouth was a little large, perhaps; her eyes were bright and full of +life, and her figure was rather short and thickset. She wore her hair +cut short under a simple Leghorn hat; but in the rest of her dress +there was nothing especially conspicuous. + +Jansen introduced Felix, and a few commonplaces were exchanged. After +her first glance at him, Angelica whispered something to the sculptor +that evidently related to the stately figure of his friend, and its +likeness to the bust she had seen in his studio. Then all four strolled +along the Schwanthalerstrasse, followed by the dog, which kept close +behind Felix, and from time to time rubbed its nose against his hand. + +They stopped before a pretty one-story house in the suburb, standing in +the middle of a neatly-kept garden. Rosenbusch took his flute out of +his pocket, and played the beginning of the air "Bei Männern, welche +Liebe fühlen." But nothing stirred in the house, although the upper +windows were only closed with blinds, and every note rang out far and +clear in the hot noonday air. + +"Fat Rossel is either asleep or else he pretends he is, so as to shirk +our high mass again," said the painter, putting up his flute. "I think +we had better go on." + +"_Andiamo!_" said Angelica, nodding. (She had once passed a year in +Italy, and certain everyday Italian phrases had a way of slipping +involuntarily from her lips every minute or two.) + +The conversation, as they strolled on, was not exactly animated. Jansen +seemed to be lost in thought; long silences were a habit of his, and, +especially when there were several people about him, he could remain +for hours apparently without the least interest in what was going on. +And then, if something that was said happened to kindle a spark in him, +his eloquence seemed all the more surprising. Felix knew him well, and +made no attempt to disturb his abstracted mood. He looked about him as +he walked, and tried to recognize the streets that he had first +strolled through, long before, in one of his vacation journeys. Nor did +Rosenbusch seem to be in a particularly talkative frame of mind; and +only Angelica, who had a way of assuming a certain chaffing tone toward +him, and besides was out of humor because, as she said, she had got +"into a blind alley" with one of her pictures, kept up a fire of little +sarcasms and ridicule against her neighbor. She even adopted the +familiarity of calling him by his nickname, but not without putting a +"Herr" before it. + +"Do you know, Herr Rosebud, when you're composing a picture, you ought +to repeat your poems instead of playing the flute? I know it would +inspire you a great deal more, and your neighbors would suffer less. +Now, to-day, for instance, I put some carmine on a whole group of +children I was painting, and spoiled it, just because that everlasting +_adagio_ of yours had made me so sentimental." + +"Why didn't you pound on the door, then, my honored friend, as we +agreed, and then I would have 'ceased my cruel sport?'" + +"If it hadn't been Sunday, and I hadn't said to myself it will soon be +twelve o'clock, and then he'll stop anyhow--. But see that sweet little +girl in the carriage--the one with the blue hat, next to the young +man--it's a bridal couple, surely! What eyes she has! And how she +laughs, and throws herself back in the carriage like a thoughtless +child!" + +She had stopped in the street in her ecstasy, and impulsively imitated +the gesture of the girl who was driving by, bending back and crossing +her arms behind her head. The friends stood still and laughed. + +"I must beg of you, Angelica, calm your enthusiasm," growled +Rosenbusch; "you forget that not only God and your artistic friends are +looking at you, but profane eyes also, that can't imagine what you are +driving at with your rather reckless studies of posture." + +"You are right," said the little painter, casting a scared glance about +her, but somewhat relieved to find that the street was deserted. "It's +a silly habit of mine, that I have fought against from a child. My +parents gave up taking me to the theatre because they said I always +went through too many contortions over what I saw. But, when anything +excites me, I always forget my best resolutions to maintain my +composure and dignity. When you come to see my studio, baron," she +said, turning to Felix, "I hope you will bear me witness that I know +how to keep within bounds on canvas at least." + +"It is comical," she continued, as no one answered, "what singular +neighbors we are. Here Rosebud, who looks so gentle and innocent, as if +he could not kill a fly, wades ankle-deep in blood every day, and isn't +happy unless, like a new Hotspur, he can kill at least fourteen +Pappenheimer cuirassiers with oil in a morning. And I--whose best +friends have to confess that the Graces didn't stand beside my +cradle--I bother myself over fragrant flower-pieces and laughing +children's faces, and then read in the reviews that I should do well to +take up subjects that have more body to them!" + +So she ran on for a while, without sparing herself or her companions in +her jokes--yet without the least rudeness or old-maidish bitterness in +her talk. A certain element of womanly coquetry showed now and then in +her frank, honest speeches--an attempt to caricature herself and her +faults and follies, so that she might be taken, after all, at a little +higher value than her own exaggerations gave her credit for. But even +this was done so good-naturedly that any gallant speeches that her +companions might try to make were generally smothered in laughter. +Felix was greatly attracted by her cleverness and droll good-humor; +and, as he showed clearly how they amused him, her mood grew all the +merrier, and one jest followed another so that the long walk seemed +very short to all of them, and they stood at the door of the Pinakothek +before they realized that they had come so far. + +"And here, Baron, we must bid one another good-by for the present," +said the painter. "You must know that in this art-temple of ours we +behave like good Catholics in their churches. Each kneels before a +different altar; I before St. Huysum and Rachel Ruysch; Herr Rosebud +before his Wouvermans; Herr Jansen before Saints Peter and Paul; and +Homo stays outside, in silent converse with the stone lions on the +steps. I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you in my +studio. Don't let yourself be alarmed by these two malicious gentlemen +with the idea that I shall try to capture you for a sitter. I must +paint your portrait some time, of course--it is a fate you cannot +escape; but my brush is by no means so presumptuous as these wicked men +will try to represent it. When you are a little more at home among us, +perhaps; but now--good-by!" + +She nodded to the others, and disappeared into a side hall, into which +Rosenbusch also retreated, after a short stay among the old German +masters. + +"We don't enforce this separation very rigidly, of course," said +Jansen, smiling. "But we have found out that when we all go together we +cannot bring ourselves into a really proper mood for study; we neither +learn nor enjoy. At best, we only get into a discussion of technical +points--problems of color and secrets of the palette, which are +especially unimportant to me, as I make no use of that kind of thing." + +"But why do not you prefer to hold your Sunday solemnities before the +Medusa or the Barberini Faun?" said Felix. + +"Because I know the Glyptothek by heart. And besides, I do not believe +that what we ought to look at in the works of the great masters is the +purely artistic side, if we want to profit by their study. Every one +who has passed his apprenticeship has his own ideas and prejudices and +obstinacies on those points. What we ought to get from them are +characteristics; force, refinement, and contempt for small means used +to small ends. But these I can learn just as well from a symphony of +Beethoven as from a noble building--from a gallery of paintings as from +a tragedy of Shakespeare; and then next day I can turn them to account +in my own work. And it is just these things that Rubens gives me better +than any other here--Rubens, whose works fill this whole room. As soon +as I come near him, he makes me forget all the photographic pettiness, +the fashionable rubbish and 'art-association' absurdities of our own +day." + +"Tell me yourself," he continued, pointing to the walls of the Rubens +room, "do not you too feel as though you were in your tropical +wildernesses again, where Nature hardly knows how to restrain her +overflowing vigor, and where all that moves or grows seems fairly +intoxicated with its own abounding strength? Here, no one dreams that +there is an everyday, prosaic life outside, that presses all created +things into its service--men serving the State, women mere family +beasts of burden, horses harnessed to the plough--and only suffers +untamed animals to exist in its midst when they are on show in +zoölogical gardens or fair-booths. Here the whole glorious creation +swarms unadorned and vigorous as on the seventh day after chaos; and +all that we conceal and pamper in our dapper civilization appears here +in all innocence in the open light of day. Look at this brown, lusty +peasant and this beautiful woman--these sleeping nymphs watched by the +satyrs--this glorious throng of the blessed and the damned--all this +unveiled humanity is living and acting for itself alone, and never +dreams whether prudish and pedantic fools are looking on and taking +umbrage at it. You know that nothing is really good or bad _in itself_; +it is only the power of thinking about it that makes it so. And these +creatures have never troubled themselves with thinking. They are +enjoying life fully and overflowingly--like the fat little satyr's wife +above there, nursing her twins--or they are absorbed in the sharp +struggle for existence. Look at this lion-hunt! Horace Vernet, who +wielded no unskillful brush, has painted one too. But just there you +can see the contrast between great art and petty art. Here everything +is mingled in a raging turmoil, so that there is not a hand's breadth +between--here is the very instant of highest conflict, the climax of +struggle and defense, fury and death--every muscle strained to its +utmost, and everything in such deadly yet triumphant earnest that one +trembles and yet is filled with the spirit of victory. For all true +strength is full of a certain triumphant joy. But the French picture is +like a tableau in a circus, where, in spite of all the grimacing and +posturing, there is no real struggle _à l'outrance_, And look at the +purely artistic side; here all the outlines are so melted into one +another, so lost in each other in spite of the strongest contrasts, +that they necessarily lead the eye into a network from which it cannot +escape, where it never has an opportunity to wish for anything else, or +indeed to think that anything else is possible. A skillful modern +artist, going to work with his patchwork of knowledge on the various +subjects, could not possibly produce such a work. You will always find +holes and gaps--stiff triangles and hexagons between the legs of the +horses, and the figures kept apart as nicely and neatly as though they +were going to be packed up in their cases again after it was all over." + +He stood a good half hour before the lion-hunt, looking at it as though +for the first time. And then, as though tearing himself away with +difficulty, he took Felix by the arm and said, "You know I am no mere +fanatical _doctrinaire_. Nobody can have more respect for the other +great artists of the golden age. But still it always seems to me as +though I did not find, even in the greatest and most immortal of them, +a true balance between art and Nature. There is always an excess of +technical aim over unaffected seeing and feeling--an excess of 'can' +over 'must.' Even with Raphael (whom, it is true, they say one doesn't +really know until one has seen his work in Rome), I feel a too great +excess of the purely spiritual and abstract over the sensuous. And with +the glorious Titian and the Venetians, this paradisaic naturalness, +this effortless flow of beauty from an exhaustless soil, this breathing +forth of pure and unadulterated force and freedom, is only found in +their greatest moments; while this man, like the immortal gods, seems +never to have known an hour of poverty or insufficiency." + +He talked on in this fashion for some time, as though to pour out his +heart before his friend. But just as they were standing before the +little picture of Rubens and his beautiful young wife in the garden, +walking beside a bed of tulips, they heard Angelica's voice behind +them. + +"I cannot help it, gentlemen; you must tear yourselves away from this +well-fed domestic happiness and these tedious box-hedges, and come with +me. I have something to show you that is quite as much a masterpiece of +its kind. Please have confidence in my artistic eye for this once, and +come quickly, before the miracle disappears again." + +"What is this beautiful thing you have discovered, Fräulein?" asked +Felix, laughing, "that instantly vanishes again if one is not +immediately on the watch?" + +"Something that is alive--but hardly according to your taste, as I +imagine it," answered the painter. "But our master there--" + +"A beautiful woman?" + +"Ah! and what a woman! I have followed her about like a young Don Juan +ever since we have been here, and looked askance at her as I stood +before the pictures. She seems to be a little near-sighted--at least +she half shuts her eyelids when she looks intently at anything; and she +looks at the upper row of pictures through a lorgnette. A blonde--and a +face, I tell you--and a figure!--just what you call _Portament_, +Jansen--the kind of thing that grows much oftener in Trastevere than +among our German oaks." + +"And why don't you give _me_ credit, too, for enough taste to do this +lady justice?" asked Felix. + +"Because--well, because you are a trifle young, and--thus far at +least--you are not an artist. This beauty of mine is far from being +conspicuous or attracting attention--like everything really great. I +will wager, Baron, that you find my enthusiasm exaggerated. These +polished checks and temples, and the poise of the head on the neck and +the neck on the shoulders, and the whole figure--neither too full nor +too slender--but hush! I believe she is standing over there at this +moment! Yes, it is she--the one in the raw silk, with the broad, +somewhat antiquated straw-hat set back upon her head--doesn't it look +almost like a halo? Well, Jansen? Do say something! Generally you are +so extraordinarily prompt in picking flaws in my ideals." + +Jansen had paused, and had coolly turned his quiet, clear gaze upon the +lady, who stood, entirely unsuspicious of scrutiny, a few alcoves away +from them, and turned her full face toward the observing party. +Angelica had not said too much. Her figure was of rare grace and +majesty, as her light summer-dress showed its beautiful outlines +clearly against the dark background; her head, thrown back a little, +hardly moved upon the slender, graceful neck, and her hat allowed its +form to be all the more distinctly seen, as she wore her soft, light +hair simply parted, and falling in a few curls upon her shoulders. Her +face was not striking at first glance; quiet, steel-gray eyes, +concealing their brilliancy behind the slightly closed lids; a mouth +not exactly full or rosy, but of the most beautiful form and full of +character; and a chin and neck worthy of an antique statue. She seemed +so completely absorbed in the study of the gallery that she did not +look up as the friends approached her. It was only when they entered +the alcove, and Angelica began to express her wild admiration (quite +secretly, she imagined, but really loud enough to be plainly audible), +that the stranger suddenly noticed them. With a slight blush, she drew +about her shoulders the white shawl that had hung carelessly about her +waist--as though to shield her from these curious eyes--cast an annoyed +glance at the whispering painter, and left the alcove. + +"See how she moves--a queenly walk!" cried Angelica, looking after her. +"But alas! I have driven her away. I like that in her, too, that she is +too refined to let herself be stared at. _Quant' è bella!_ But _do_ say +something, Jansen! Have you suddenly turned into a statue, or has the +enchantment worked too strongly?" + +"You may be right, Angelica," said the sculptor, smiling. "I have met +this kind of phenomenal being here now and then; and, as they were +always strangers (for you never see a native of Munich in the +Pinakothek), looking at them was always but a fleeting joy, and I could +only gaze after them as they went. So now I have grown cautious. You +know 'a burnt child--'" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed the artist. "This divine being may be a stranger, +of course, but no one studies the pictures so closely who is looking at +them for the first and last time, only to carry out the instructions of +her Baedeker. What's to prevent our watching her again? And, even if I +lose all to-morrow forenoon over it, and let my group of children dry +into the canvas, I must study this exquisite creature once more, and at +leisure. There--there she is again! Rosebud is just passing her, and +starts back as if he had met the _Bella di Tiziano_ in person! See how +he stares after her! He has taste, after all, in spite of his old +Swedes." + +And now the little battle-painter came hurrying up to his friends, and +began to tell them what a discovery he had made. Angelica laughed. + +"You come too late, Herr von Rosebud! _I_ am the one to whom belongs +the fame of having discovered this comet! But do you know what I have +in mind, gentlemen? As none of you seem to be inclined to follow up +this adventure, I, as the least suspicious of us four, will take it +upon myself to pursue our beauty, and see if I can discover where she +lives and who she is. If she stays here but a week, she shall be +painted. I have sworn it! And whichever of you is particularly good +shall come to the last sitting; and Herr Rosebud hereby receives +permission to play her a serenade under my window. _Addio, signori!_ +To-morrow you shall hear how the matter turns out." + +She nodded hurriedly to the friends, and followed the stranger, who had +in the mean time passed through the rooms, and was now preparing to +leave the gallery. + +"I'll wager she does it!" said Rosenbusch. "An astoundingly resolute +woman that, and absolutely not to be stopped when an enthusiasm seizes +her! This time she really has made a devilish remarkable discovery; but +you know what wonderful beauties she has tried to talk up to us +before--eh, Jansen? She has a positive mania for admiration, and, when +she is possessed by it, she is not very fastidious in her choice of +subjects. 'The sea rages, and will have its sacrifice!'" + +The sculptor did not answer. He strolled along beside the others for a +while, silent and abstracted. Then he suddenly said: "Let us go! It +seems as though the art-sense had suddenly disappeared or died out in +me. Such a perfect piece of living Nature puts to shame all illusions +of color, so that even the great masters seem like bunglers beside it." + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +Meanwhile the beautiful unknown had slowly descended the steps of the +Pinakothek, and turned in the direction of the Obelisk, clearly +unconscious of the fact that twenty paces behind her an enthusiastic +artist was upon her track, never losing sight of her for an instant. + +And, indeed, it was a rare refreshment to the eye to look upon this +beautiful figure as it passed along. If one may talk of a "silent music +of form," here everything was _legato_, while the little artist was in +a perpetual _staccato_ movement. The stranger moved as though she +stepped on an elastic ground, and seemed not to mind the walk in the +least, in spite of the oppressive mid-day heat. She looked neither to +the right nor left; in her hands, on which she wore half-gloves of +black net, she held a large green fan, which she opened now and then to +protect her face against the sun. + +Her worshiper grew more enthusiastic with every moment, and gave +utterance to her feelings in muttered monologue, sprinkled, according +to her fashion, with Italian interjections. + +At length she saw the subject of her admiration turn to the left, and +go into a neat house on the Briennerstrasse. Here, she knew, there were +furnished rooms to let; so the stranger must have arranged for a +considerable stay in Munich. But how to get at her? To ring at every +bell in the two stories, and ask if a beautiful woman in yellow silk +lived there, did not seem very practicable. And did she live here, +after all? Might she not be only making a visit? + +The painter was just debating whether she should walk up and down +before the house like a sentry, when a window opened in the corner-room +on the ground-floor, before which lay a little garden with its tall +shrubs looking dry and dusty in the mid-day sun, and the beauty leaned +out to shut the blind. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was a +little disordered, which wonderfully added to her beauty. Without +hesitating a moment, Angelica marched through the little path past the +garden, and entered the vestibule. + +Her ring was answered by a very old servant with a white, +soldierly-looking mustache, and dressed in a long, silver-buttoned +livery-coat that reached to his knees. He eyed the visitor +suspiciously, took her card, on which there was nothing but "Minna +Engelken," and came back at once, indicating by a silent nod that his +mistress would receive her. + +As Angelica entered the stranger was standing in the middle of the +room, in the midst of the warm, greenish light that came through the +closed blinds. She had hastily put up her hair again, but without +special care; and now she greeted her visitor somewhat coldly, with a +scarcely perceptible nod of her exquisite head. + +"First of all, I must introduce myself a little more fully than the +very obscure name on my card can have done," began the artist, without +the slightest trace of embarrassment. (She had begun immediately upon +her entrance to study the head, as though at a regular sitting.) "I am +a painter; that is the sole excuse I have for my intrusion upon you. I +met you a short time ago at the Pinakothek. It can hardly be a novelty +to you to have people stop when you go by, or even follow you. But that +a person should intrude into your very house does seem a little too +much. My honored Fräulein, or should I call you Madame?" (the stranger +shook her head slightly) "I do not know whether you, too, have a +prejudice against women-artists? If you have, I shall certainly appear +to you in a very bad light. And it is true, I must say that this +meddling with brushes and colors doesn't particularly become many of my +colleagues. Although the nine Muses are women, our sex easily get by +association with them an unwomanly touch that is not by any means to +their advantage.--Oh, please keep that position just an instant; the +three-quarters face is especially effective in this light! Yes, it is +true, Fräulein, I myself know women-artists who think it is prosaic to +put on a clean collar or darn a stocking. And yet--" + +"If you would only be kind enough to tell me the motive of your +visit--" + +"I was just coming to that. I had really a double motive. First, to beg +your pardon if I drove you away from the gallery by my persistent +staring. You see, my dear Fräulein--oh, please bend your head a +little--so! If you could only see how capital that is--that _chiar' +oscuro_--and what glorious hair you have! I see you think I am fairly +crazy, treating you like a model in the first ten minutes! But so much +the better; you will know at once what we are coming to. I am really, +you must know, not quite responsible for my actions when I see anything +that greatly delights me; and however lacking my talents may be in the +power to produce anything beautiful from mere imagination, I have +attained a real mastery in the discovery, the enjoyment, and admiration +of true living beauty. The moment I saw you afar off--no, you must not +turn away, dear Fräulein. How can you help it, and what sin is it, if +an honest artist-soul--of your own sex, too--expresses its delight in +and admiration for your beauty? It seems petty to me, the way that many +people keep such a gift of God hidden--or pretend to. There are some +little doll-like faces, it is true, whose chief charm lies in the fact +that they always seem to be ashamed of their own prettiness. But you, +Fräulein--such a classic head--please turn for once fully round toward +the light--a pure Palma Vecchio, I tell you--" + +The Fräulein could not help smiling, and, although she blushed, +permitting this singular, unrestrained, formless admiration. "I +confess," she said, "that I have been such a recluse for years, only +busied with the care of an invalid, that I have quite fallen out of +practice in listening to such flatteries and wearing the fitting +expression when I hear them. And besides, in spite of hard and sad +experience, I am still young and foolish enough not to take offense at +the pleasure you seem to take in my personal appearance. But if you +would only tell me--you spoke of a _double_ motive." + +"Thank you a thousand times, dear, dear Fräulein!" cried the painter, +excitedly. "Every word you say confirms me in the opinion I formed at +the first glance--that you would be as good and amiable in character as +you were beautiful in face and figure. And you give me courage to come +out at once with my other petition: I should be the happiest person +under the sun, if I might paint your portrait.--Please don't be +alarmed," she added, hurriedly. "The agony is brief--I am no torturer. +If you have not more time to spare, I will paint you _alla prima_--at +most three or four sittings--you shall not be able to complain of me. +Of course I can't ask that you will let me have the picture; but you +will allow me to have a little sketch for a study and a souvenir?--The +great picture--" + +"A large portrait, then?" + +"Only a three-quarters length, but of course life-size. It would be a +sin and a shame to put such a head and such a figure on a canvas the +size of a tea-tray. But my dear, best Fräulein, tell me you will have +the heavenly goodness to visit my studio--the street and number are on +my card--and look at my things, and sit to me only if--if you yourself +take pleasure in them; for I would not for anything have you think you +were making a sacrifice for the benefit of a mere dauber." + +"My dear Fräulein, I really do not know what--" + +"Perhaps you haven't time at this moment? Perhaps you are an artist +yourself? The careful way in which you studied the pictures in the +Pinakothek--" + +"Unfortunately I have not the smallest natural talent," answered the +Fräulein, smiling; "but only a little taste and a strong yearning +toward everything beautiful and artistic; and this is the reason why I +have come to Munich--as I am quite alone in the world. It is still +uncertain how long I shall stay here. But if I can really give you +pleasure by doing so--I rely upon it, of course, that it shall be +entirely a matter between ourselves if I sit to you. And in return, you +shall initiate me into the secrets of your art, which to a lay observer +must always remain closed, no matter of how good intentions he may be, +unless he is given the right introduction." + +"_Brava! bravissima!_" cried the delighted painter. "Heaven reward you a +thousand times for your great kindness; and I will see to it that you +shall not repent it. My dear, dear Fräulein, when you know me a little +more intimately you will see that you have to do with an honest woman +who has a grateful heart, and against whom no one of her friends can +utter a reproach." + +In the wildest delight she took her leave of the beautiful +face--which, in spite of all this worship, had preserved a rather cool +expression--and, as though she feared the promise might possibly be +retracted on further reflection, she hurried from the room. + +When she reached the street, she stood still for a moment, fairly out +of breath, tied her loosened hat-strings more firmly under her chin, +and gleefully rubbed her hands. "What eyes they'll make!" she said to +herself. "How they will envy me! But then what makes them such shy, +silly Philistines? It's true, to make such a conquest in a moment, one +must not be a man, but just such an utterly harmless old maid as I!" + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +The friends turned their steps toward a beer-garden on the Dultplatz, +where, at this time of day--between two and three o'clock--it was +pretty quiet in spite of its being Sunday. The noonday guests had +finished with their dinners long ago, and the afternoon concert had not +yet begun. Instead of it three sleepy fiddlers, an elderly harp-player, +and a jovial clarinet were playing on a platform in the middle of the +garden. Of these musicians the clarinet-player alone still defied the +drowsy influences of the siesta hour, attempting, by wild and desperate +runs, to rouse the nodding quartette. On the benches in the shade of +the tall ash-trees there sat a very mixed company, for in Munich the +differences between the classes is far less marked than in any of the +other large German cities; and among the rest, at the smallest tables, +were numerous pairs of lovers who, lulled into a state of dreamy +comfort by plentiful eating and drinking, rested their heads on one +another's shoulders, held each other's hands and abandoned themselves +freely to their feelings. Yet no one seemed to take offense at this; on +the contrary, it seemed to belong to the place as much as the gnats +that swarmed in the air. The three late arrivals seated themselves in +one of the most secluded corners and proceeded to do justice to the +viands which the waitress, who treated Jansen with conspicuous respect, +had put aside for them. It was anything but a sumptuous meal, but the +taste for the pleasures of the table seemed to be so little developed +in the sculptor that it never occurred to him to celebrate the reunion +with his friend by a bottle of wine. Felix knew this and overlooked it. +Still, he had hoped to find him more animated and communicative after +their long separation; and now he could not help noticing how he sat at +his side, preoccupied and speaking only in monosyllables, intent only +upon feeding Homo, who swallowed the big mouthfuls that were given him +with grave decorum. + +In the mean time, there joined the group a fourth person, for whom the +battle-painter seemed to have looked from the beginning. He was a slim +young man, pale and with curly black hair, whose manner at once +announced him to be an actor. He wore, over one eye, a black silk +shade, that made his paleness still more conspicuous, and the sharp +lines above his expressive mouth gave evidence of some hardly +suppressed suffering. Rosenbusch introduced him as his neighbor, Herr +Elfinger, formerly a member of the ---- court-theatre, now a clerk in +one of the Munich banking-houses. The manner in which Jansen also +welcomed him showed that he was one of the intimates of this circle. He +bore himself with such easy cheerfulness and enlivened the conversation +in such an agreeable way that Felix felt very much drawn toward him, +and even Jansen brightened up and took part in the lively chat. + +But suddenly the sculptor stood up, looked at his watch, cast a glance +over the picket fence that separated the garden from the sunny square, +and said, coloring slightly: "I must leave you now, old boy. My friends +here will bear me witness that nothing is to be done with me on Sunday +afternoons. At such times I have to go my own ways and to fulfill +certain duties, which, to-day in particular, I could only escape with +the greatest difficulty. I hope you will excuse me." + +"He has to turn back into a sea monster one day in seven, like +Melusine," laughed Rosenbusch. "We are used to that." + +Felix looked up in surprise. "Don't let me disturb you, old boy," he +said. "Besides, I still have to find a lodging. Where are you +quartered? Perhaps I could find a place in your neighborhood--" + +"I am not going home now and I should hardly recommend the neighborhood +where I live," the sculptor interrupted, with such a frown that it put +an end to all further questioning. "You will find me in my studio again +tomorrow. Good-by for to-day and good luck to you. Come, Homo!" + +He nodded to his friends without giving them his hand, pulled his hat +down over his eyes, and left the garden with his faithful dog. + +They saw him stride with rapid steps across the square and approach a +two-horse _fiacre_ that stood on the other side, not far from the gate, +apparently waiting for him on the shady side of the street. Then, as he +stepped in they could plainly see that there was some one sitting +inside; there was a glimpse of a woman's bright-colored dress, and a +child's little hand thrust a sunshade out the window. Except this, all +the windows were shut, notwithstanding the great heat; and, as the +mysterious vehicle rolled rapidly away, the friends who had been +looking after it turned to one another with wonder in their eyes. + +"He appears to have a family," said Felix. "Why doesn't he say anything +to anybody about it? Even to me, his oldest friend, he has never +uttered a word about his projected or perhaps actual marriage, about +which there was a rumor some six years ago. I thought the whole matter +had either fallen through or else turned out unhappily. But now he +seems, after all, not to be alone. Do you know anything about his +private circumstances?" + +"Nothing whatever," answered the painter. "None of us have ever set +foot across his threshold; and, the moment any one asks where he +lodges, he grows as snappish as a bear, just as you saw him a few +minutes ago. As for women, he will have nothing to do with them, that +can be seen plainly enough from all he does. Whether, in spite of all +this, he has a household of his own, can't be discovered. He once cut +dead a prying fellow who followed him one night to see where he kept +himself." + +"I think," said Elfinger, "that the pleasure we get from his society +six days in the week is so great that we might at least leave him to +himself on the seventh. But now let us help the Baron look for rooms, +and debate how we can best show him the city this evening." + +When, toward midnight, Felix left the beer-cellar, where he had been +for several hours enjoying the evening air, and returned to his +lodgings--a suite of pleasant rooms overlooking flower-gardens and the +quiet streets beyond--a singular feeling of depression suddenly came +over him. He had now attained what he cared more for than for anything +else. No one could enjoy more perfect freedom than he. No one could +begin life afresh more untrammeled by social forms. Then, too, the +cheerful, lively city, with its gay life, the free and easy artists' +society into which he had entered--all this had corresponded with his +wish and expectations, and promised him compensation for many a ruined +hope. It was the only atmosphere that seemed suited to him, the only +surroundings among which he could find again, even in the Old World, +something of that unrestrained freedom that he had enjoyed so much +beyond the ocean. And when, notwithstanding all this, he went to bed +with a heavy sigh and waited long for sleep in vain--why was it? + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +On the following morning, Felix brought a whole armful of his +sketch-books to Jansen. The latter seemed to look through them with +interest, and listened patiently to the accounts of the adventures, of +which many of them were hasty illustrations, but he did not utter a +single word in regard to any artistic worth which the sketches might +possess. + +When the last page had been turned, and Jansen, with a quiet "hm!" had +begun to pile up the books and tablets in a little tower, Felix was +forced to ask whether he had not made some progress after all. + +"Progress? Why, that depends upon the way you look at it." + +"And how do you look at it, old fellow?" + +"I?--Hm! I look at it from a geographical point of view." + +"You are very good. I understand perfectly." + +"Don't be angry, my dear fellow, but understand me rightly. I mean, on +the path of dilettantism, on which you have been wandering up to this +date, all progress must necessarily be deceptive, even though, +outwardly, you have circumnavigated the world; for, after all, all your +efforts move in a circle. I am very sorry for it, though." + +"For what?" + +"That you really want to take up art in earnest. You might have +remained such an enviable dilettante, for you have all the necessary +qualifications to an uncommon degree." + +"And they are?" + +"Self-confidence, time, and money. No, don't be angry. I am truly +serious when I say this to you, and of course it would be needless for +me to assure you that I mean well when I say it. Seriously: these +traveling sketches of yours are done so skillfully that any of the +illustrated papers might consider themselves lucky if they had such +special artists. And yet I wish, since you are determined to be an +artist, that they were not half so skillful." + +"If it is nothing more than that, a remedy can easily be found. You +will soon see how much talent I have for unskillfulness, when you give +me something to model." + +The sculptor shook his head gently. "It is not the hands," he said. "It +is the mind that has already attained a very respectable maturity and +facility in you; only, unfortunately, in a wrong direction. For the +truth is, my dear fellow, the very things that please you best, and +have probably most impressed unprofessional persons, the dash and +readiness, the so-called artist's touch, those are the very things that +stand most in the way of your getting back into the right track. It is +just as if, instead of learning to write in the ordinary way, one +should begin with stenography. He never in all his life will have a +good handwriting. For the spirit of dilettantism, take it for all in +all, is, like that of stenography, in the art of abbreviation; in +substituting a symbol for the _form_, just as in the other case +we substitute one for the letter, so that in the course of time +all real feelings--yes, the very want of and appreciation of the +rightly-developed natural form--are hopelessly lost. Why is it then +that the dilettanti attain their end so much more quickly than the true +artists? Because, with this system of abbreviation, they steer straight +for those results which seem to them of the most importance: +resemblance, spirit, elegance of execution. For that reason they are +often marvelously skillful in mastering the proportions of a face, for +instance, and setting it off by a few dots and strokes so that +everybody cries: 'Oh! how like! how speaking! and how quickly done!' +The true artist knows that the length of time spent in the production +is by no means a measure of excellence; and as he has not only a +general sense of proportion, but also a feeling for the true form +itself, he does not rest until he has done it full justice--until, so +to speak, he has worked outward from the very core of that the exterior +of which his eyes have already taken in and fully comprehended. +However," he went on after a short pause, during which he unwound the +wet cloths from his Bacchante, "you are at liberty to believe that all +this is merely my personal opinion and nothing more than exaggerated +estimate of what constitutes true art. In ordinary life the artist is +distinguished from the dilettante only by the fact that the former +follows the thing as a calling, and the latter only for his own +amusement. According to this, you would be an artist from the moment +you cast aside the baron, the statesman or jurist, the _homme +d'action_, that you have in you, and regularly devoted a certain number +of hours of the day to dirtying your fingers with clay. If you stick to +it persistently, it would be very hard lines indeed if, in the course +of several years, you should not possess the necessary mechanical skill +just as well as any one else. Even to become an academic professor need +not be an unattainable aim of your ambition. And if, in spite of all +that, I should still continue, in my heart, to look upon you as a born +dilettante, you could smile down upon me graciously, and heap coals of +fire upon my head by proposing me as an honorary member of your +academy. Ah! my dear boy, I tell you, if you should make a close +examination of many of our most famous great men, you would bring to +light little else than a disguised and beautiful dilettantism, made up +of humbug, elegant trappings, and perhaps a few so-called ideas. I know +painters who dash off a hand or a foot, a horse's head or an oak-tree, +with as unerring an audacity as--well, as a thorough stenographer will +bring a two hours' speech into the compass of an octavo page. But Lord +have mercy upon them, for they have long since ceased to know what they +do; and as the dear public has an even coarser sense, a still blunter +natural feeling, and even more respect for appearances--why, it's all +just as it should be, and no one can complain that he has been +cheated." + +For some time after this speech silence reigned in the studio. There +were heard only the fluttering of the sparrows, the heavy breathing of +Homo, for the old fellow was already enjoying his morning nap again, +and, in the saint-factory near by, the clatter and scraping and picking +of seven or eight chisels in the hands of the assistants who were hard +at work. + +"Thank you, Dædalus," said Felix, at last. "Upon the whole you are +perfectly right, and I think it very kind of you to try and scare me +off so thoroughly. But, with your permission, I intend to hold to my +intentions until I have been made wise by my own experience. If, a year +from this time, you preach me the same sermon, you shall see how +penitently I will beat my breast and become converted from all my +sins. But now, first give me something to sin with. Look here, my +coat is already off, and I have nothing more to do but to roll up my +shirt-sleeves." + +"So be it, then!" replied Jansen, with a good-natured smile. "Not as +God wills, but as you wish--here!" + +He went to the large closet and took out a skull, which he laid +on a little table near the window. At the same time he wheeled a +modeling-bench out of the corner, placed it before the table, and +pointed, without speaking, to a big lump of clay that lay moist and +shiny in a tub. + +"Are we to study phrenology?" laughed Felix, rather nervously, for a +suspicion began to dawn upon him. + +"No, my dear fellow, but we must take pains to make as exact a copy as +possible of this round mass of bones.... We shall have plenty of time +for the flesh when we have first mastered the skeleton." + +"I am to model a whole skeleton?" + +"Bone for bone, down to the big toe. In this way we combine an +anatomical course with practice in modeling forms. Yes, my dear +fellow," he smilingly continued, as he perceived the horrified +expression of his pupil; "if you thought to begin your apprenticeship +with the soft, white flesh of a woman, you have greatly deceived +yourself. However, since you have already done quite enough preparatory +studying in this field--" + +He suddenly broke off. On the landing, outside, they heard a pleasant +feminine voice say: + +"Is this the way to Fräulein Minna Engelken's studio?" + +"If you will kindly give yourself the trouble to mount a flight +higher," responded the hoarse bass of the janitor. "The door to the +right--the name is on the sign. The Fräulein has been there for the +last two hours." + +"Thanks." + +At the first sound of the voice Jansen had hurried to the door; he now +opened it a little and peeped out. Then he came back to Felix, and, +with his face slightly flushed, went silently to work. + +"Who was the lady?" asked Felix, though he felt no particular curiosity +on the subject. + +"The stranger we saw yesterday. Strange! when I heard that unknown +voice her face suddenly came up before my eyes again." + +Felix said nothing. He had gone up to the modeling-bench, had begun to +work at a great ball of clay about as large as the skull, and appeared +to be completely absorbed in his task. + +But they had scarcely been working on in this way, side by side and in +silence, for more than a quarter of an hour when some one knocked +softly on the door and Rosenbusch entered, looking excited, merry, and +full of mischief. + +He nodded to the friends, stepped close up to them and said, with an +air of mysterious importance: "Do you know who is up-stairs? The +lady of the Pinakothek! Angelica is painting her picture--she has +succeeded--an incredibly resolute woman that! And can keep a secret +like the devil! Now just conceive of it; I discovered her early this +morning clearing up her studio, as though the queen had given notice of +a visit. For that matter it always does look damned elegant and neat up +there--flowers in whichever direction you turn, and a hothouse +fragrance that makes you sick. But, to-day, it is a positive show-room! +'What the devil is this, Angelica?' said I; 'is to-day your birthday, +or are you going to get engaged, or are you painting a Russian +princess?'--for I had long forgotten all about the affair of yesterday. +But she, turning round the old yellow-silk cushion on the armchair so +as to present the side which had the fewest spots--she scarcely looked +at me, and said: 'Go and get to work, Herr von Rosebud'--that is what +she always calls me when she is cross--'I am not at home to you, +to-day!' In this way she morally turned me out of doors without farther +ceremony, and, I must confess, I rather like it in her; energy, +fearlessness, the courage of one's opinions, are always fine, even in a +woman. So I withdrew, wondering, and was already at work laying on my +colors when I heard some one coming up the stairs. Yes, I was right, +she was going to Angelica; and as the wall between us is not very +thick, and they did not at first take the precaution to lower their +voices, I discovered the whole mystery--that it is our beauty of +yesterday, that she is going to have her picture painted, and that her +first name is Julie. And now I appeal to you, friends and companions in +art, are we men or cowardly poltroons? Are we to suffer this vixen to +carry away such a prize from under our very noses, and to withhold such +a paragon of beauty from us under our own roof? Or shall we rush up as +one man, and, in the name of art, lay siege to the door of this +obdurate sister, and compel her, by force or persuasion, to open to +us?" + +"I would advise you, Rosenbusch, to go quietly upstairs again and wreak +your martial ardor on the battle of Lützen," Jansen answered, without +the slightest approach to a smile. "But, if your excitement will not +let you work, convey your homage to the lady through the wall by means +of your flute. Perhaps they will invite you to come round and declaim +some of your verses." + +"Wretched scoffer!" cried the battle-painter. "I thought to render you +a service by bringing you this news. But you are of the earth, earthy, +and are incapable of soaring to any height of enthusiasm. Well, God be +with you! I see that I am not understood down here!" + +He rushed out of the door, and, sure enough, they soon afterward heard +the flute pouring out its most melting passages. + +This language, however, did not seem to be understood in the next room. +Angelica's room remained tight shut, and when it was opened, a few +hours after, soft steps came down the stairs, and the listeners below +were led to conclude that the sitting was over. + +In the mean while dinner-time had come, and the assistants in +the adjoining room had stopped work and left the studio. Jansen, +too--although, as a rule, he seldom made a pause before two +o'clock--now laid down his modeling-tool. + +"Come," he said, "you must make your calls of ceremony upon our +fellow-lodgers." + +They mounted the stairs, and went first into Rosenbusch's studio. As no +notice had been taken of his flute-playing, he had seated himself at +his easel again, and had set himself zealously to work to paint away +his anger. His room certainly presented a most remarkable appearance; +the walls shone, almost like those of an armory, with old arms, +halberds, muskets, and swords, relieved here and there by enormous +boots with wheel-spurs, leather collars, saddles, and singular +stirrups. An immense old kettle-drum stood on a rickety stand in front +of a worm-eaten arm-chair, and served as a table on which to pile all +sorts of odds and ends. Some cactus-plants, with great red blossoms, +stood in full bloom in the window, and among them was a delicate little +wire-cage, containing two white mice, who ran restlessly up and down, +squeaking and looking shyly at the new faces out of their little red +eyes. + +The battle of Lützen stood on the easel; it was quite a vigorous work, +and Felix could praise it with a good conscience. The horses, +especially, reared and plunged, full of life and spirits; and the young +baron could hardly believe it when the painter confessed that he had +never mounted a horse in his life. After they had joked and laughed +about this for a while, and Rosenbusch had delivered an earnest speech +in defense of the romantic school, he threw off the old, much-patched +Swedish trooper's jacket in which he always painted, in order, as he +said, to have the true historical inspiration, and dressed himself, in +spite of the heat, in a violet-colored velvet coat, so that he might +accompany the friends in their visit to the adjoining room. + +Their knock on Angelica's door was answered by a cordial "Come in!" +Rosenbusch had not exaggerated: the studio did, in truth, resemble a +hot-house decked out for a festival, to which the sketches, and +studies, and half-finished pictures of flowers merely served as +decorations. The painter had had a window cut through the wall on the +east side at her own expense, in order that she might give her plants, +which she tended with scientific knowledge, plenty of sun whenever the +nature of her work did not require a pure north light. The plants were +truly grateful, and twined and throve so luxuriantly that the slender +stems of the palms and figs reached almost to the ceiling. + +Angelica stood before her easel in an antiquated painting-jacket, her +straw hat perched on one side, her cheeks glowing from her work, and +was so busily occupied in "toning down" the background that she merely +nodded to her friends as they entered, without interrupting her work. + +"She has gone!" she cried to them, "otherwise I could not have let you +in, no matter how much I had wanted to. My children, you have no +conception of what a charming person she is! If I were a man, I would +marry her or blow my brains out!" + +"You are indulging in very reckless assertions," Rosenbusch interposed, +raising himself a little on his toes, and stroking his thick beard. +"Just let's see if she really is so dangerous." + +Angelica stepped back from the easel. + +"Gentlemen," she said, "I hope you will praise me. Either I understand +as much about painting as a roast goose, or this will be my best +picture, and a real work of art. But just look at these curves! All +large, simple, noble, such as never grow under our native heaven. My +first idea was to paint the picture _alla prima_; but in the nick of +time it occurred to me that I should be very foolish to do so. For the +longer I can study this heavenly face, the happier I shall be. Just see +this figure, Jansen. Have you often come across anything like it?" + +"The lady has style," remarked Rosenbusch, assuming as cool an air as +possible. "However, she doesn't seem to be particularly young, or else +your dead coloring gives her ten years too many." + +"You are a strange mortal, Herr von Rosebud," answered the painter, +angrily. "In art you rave over nothing but old leather, but in life no +school-girl's complexion is rosy and satiny enough to suit you. It is +true, my beauty here told me herself that she was already--but I won't +be such a fool as to tell a girl's secret to gentlemen. But of this I +can assure you: that twenty years from now, when certain pretty little +dolls' faces have long grown old and faded, that woman there will still +be so beautiful that people will stand still in the streets to look +after her." + +"And may we be permitted to ask of what nationality she is?" inquired +Felix. + +"Why not? She makes no secret of the fact that she is from Saxony, +although you would never detect it from her accent; nor that her name +is Julie S., nor that she lost her old mother a year or so ago, and now +stands quite alone in the world. However, we haven't been having a mere +family gossip, but the most profound conversation on art-matters. She +is more intelligent in such things, let me tell you, than many of our +colleagues. And now you must excuse me, gentlemen, if I don't let you +interrupt me in my work, but go on and finish this background to-day, +before the colors dry in." + +Up to this time Jansen had not spoken a syllable. Now he stepped up to +Angelica, gave her his hand, and said: + +"If you don't spoil this, my dear friend, you will make something out +of it that will do you great honor. Adieu!" + +He turned quickly away, and strode out of the studio without casting a +glance to right or left. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +When his friends overtook him in the street he remained silent and +serious; while Rosenbusch praised, in the most extravagant language, +the beauty of the picture. + +"If my heart were not already in such firm hands," he said, with a +sigh, "who knows what might happen! But constancy is no empty dream. +Besides, Angelica would scratch any one's eyes out who tried to play +the Romeo to her Juliet. But where are you dragging us to, Jansen?" + +"We are going to see 'Fat Rossel.'" + +"Then I prefer to withdraw at once to my feeding-place and to await you +there. I have made a solemn vow never again to visit that accursed +Sybarite just before meal-time. It smells so devilishly of ambergris, +_pâti de foie gras_ and East-Indian birds'-nests, so that after coming +away a man feels like a thorough vagabond over his wretched dumplings. +The devil take these lazy voluptuaries! Long live energy and +_sauerkraut_!" + +After this fierce outburst he nodded smilingly to the two others, +slouched his big hat over his left ear, and turned, whistling, into a +side street. + +"Who is this 'Fat Rossel' against whom our friend Rosebud displays all +his thorns?" asked Felix. + +"He isn't really so fierce as he tries to make himself out. The two are +good comrades, and would go through fire and water for one another in +case of need. This so-called 'Fat Rossel'--one Edward Rossel--is a very +rich man who isn't obliged to earn his living by painting--and for that +reason lets his great talent lie fallow. However, he has reduced his +intellectual laziness and amateur enjoyment of art to a system, and +concerning this system Rosenbusch invariably falls foul of him; for he +himself, in spite of all his 'energy,' has never produced anything of +much account. Here we are at the house." + +They passed through the pretty little front garden, before which they +had halted the day previous while on their way to the Pinakothek, +entered the door of a villa-like house, and mounted a staircase covered +with soft carpets. The hall shone with polished marbles, bronze +candelabra, and beautiful flowering plants in porcelain pots, that +perfumed the whole vestibule. + +When they entered the high-studded room above, that served as a +studio, but looked more like a museum of choice objects and works of +art than it did like a regular artist's workshop, there rose from a low +divan, covered with a leopard's skin, a singular figure. On a portly +but by no means clumsy body rested a stately head, in which sparkled a +pair of exceedingly bright black eyes. The face was of a very white +complexion, the beautiful hands were daintily cared for. The cut of the +features, with the close cropped silky hair, and the long black beard, +recalled the beautiful, dignified type of the high-bred Orientals. This +impression was still further heightened by a little red fez, shoved +back on the head, and a variegated Persian dressing-gown with slippers +to match, into which his bare feet were thrust, while the dressing-gown +apparently served in lieu of any other clothing. + +Slowly, but with great cordiality, the painter advanced to meet his +friends, shook hands with them, and said: "I made your acquaintance +yesterday from a distance, Herr Baron--through the blinds, when that +sly dog Rosebud was trying to entice me out into the noonday heat with +his flute. But that kind of thing is against my principles. It may be +all very meritorious to eat one's bread in the sweat of one's brow. But +as for enjoying art when reeking with perspiration--never! Excuse the +costume in which I receive you. I have just been taking a douche bath +and afterward resting a quarter of an hour. In five minutes I shall be +in a condition to present my material part with propriety." + +He disappeared into a side chamber, that was only separated by a +magnificent piece of Gobelin tapestry from his studio, and went on +talking with his friends while completing his toilet. + +"Just take a look at my Böcklin, that I bought the day before +yesterday--over there by the window on the little easel--I am quite +happy over the possession. Well, what do you say to it, Jansen? Isn't +that something to console one's self with for a while, in the midst of +this universal poverty of art?" + +It was a little forest picture, that stood in the most favorable light, +near the window; it represented a dense wood of lofty oaks and laurel +bushes, through a little cleft of which could be seen a slender strip +of the distant horizon, and in one corner a patch of blue sky. At the +feet of the shady trees a brook rippled through the luxuriant grass, on +the banks of which reclined a sleeping nymph, with her nursling at her +side, its blunt little nose pressed close against the full maternal +breast, from which it seemed to be feeding quietly. In the centre of +the picture, leaning against a luxuriant tree, stood the young father, +a slim, well-built faun, looking down well pleased upon his family, and +holding in his hand the shepherd's flute with which he had just played +his wife to sleep. + +Felix and Jansen were still absorbed in the contemplation of this +charming work when Rossel again appeared. + +"Such a thing is refreshing, isn't it?" he said. "It is a comfort to +know that there are still men who have such beautiful dreams, and the +courage to tell them to others, no matter if advanced and sensible +humanity, which now, thank God, has outgrown its baby shoes, and every +day sets its foot down more squarely on the broad sole of realism, does +shake its head and talk about having gotten beyond such standpoints. +This man is one of the few who interest me. You have undoubtedly seen +his splendid pictures in the Schack Gallery? No? Well, since you have +only been two days in Munich, I will forgive your ignorance. I will +take you there; it will afford me the greatest pleasure to recruit a +quiet list of worshipers for my few idols." + +"First of all," said Felix, smiling, "you would do me a greater favor +if you would show me something by one Edward Rossel, to whose +acquaintance my friends have led me to look forward with great +curiosity." + +"My own immortal works!" cried the painter, threatening Jansen with his +finger. "I know who is behind all this. I know the sly cabals of my +much-esteemed friends, who seize every opportunity to parade my +unproductiveness before my eyes. I know that they mean no harm, and +give me credit for some talent; I ought to be ashamed of myself for not +sharing this good opinion and at last rousing myself to action. But it +all glances aside from the armor of my own self-knowledge. I don't deny +that I have all sorts of good qualifications for an artist, sense and +brains and some insight into the true aims of art. Unfortunately, there +is only one little thing lacking--the disposition to really produce +something. I should have been just the man to have been born a Raphael +without hands, and would have borne this fate with the greatest +complacency. But won't you light a cigar, or do you prefer a chibouque? +By the way, a little refreshment wouldn't be out of place, considering +this tropical temperature." + +Without waiting for an answer, he rang a beautifully chased silver +bell. + +A young servant-girl, of pretty figure and graceful manner, entered; +the painter whispered a word in her ear, whereupon the girl disappeared +and returned, five minutes after, with a silver waiter, on which stood +a wicker-work bottle and some glasses. + +"I brought this wine myself from Samos," said Rossel; "You must at +least taste it and drink to our good friendship!" + +"Then let me immediately sin against that friendship and ask a somewhat +indiscreet question: how is it possible for you to bury, like a dead +treasure, a talent which you yourself admit you have?" + +"My dear fellow," replied the artist, coolly, "the matter is much +simpler than you suppose. My object is, like that of all men--let them +prate as much as they like about duty, virtue, or self-sacrifice--to be +as happy as possible. But happiness consists, as I believe, in nothing +else than in creating for one's self a certain state, a manner of life +or pursuit, in which one finds himself at the height of his +individuality, in the full enjoyment of his peculiar powers and gifts. +Therefore, every man has a happiness of his own; and nothing can be +more foolish than for one person to object to another's way of enjoying +himself, or to persuade or advise others to exchange their way for his. +The more any one makes himself feel, by his manner of life, that he is +a particular individual, the more Nature has attained her end in making +him, and the more contented he can be with himself and his situation. +All unhappiness arises from the fact that men try to do things for +which they are not fitted. If you give a million to a man born with a +genius for begging, you will make him an unhappy millionaire. He can no +longer exercise his talent. A virtuoso in suffering, a Stylites, or a +sister of charity, for whom you should suddenly provide a healthy and +comfortable life, would at once lose all individuality and so all +happiness. For it is undeniable that there are men who are only +conscious of their individuality when they are torturing themselves, in +the coarser or finer sense of the expression. To such, a state of +repose is an abasement, and to this class belong all truly productive +artists. To work, to produce something which shall afterward stand as a +monument of their power, appears to them the highest happiness; and +this happiness ought to be accorded to them all the more readily, from +the fact that most of them cannot live without it. Only they ought to +be just enough to look at the matter also from the opposite point of +view, where an individual only feels conscious of his powers and gifts +when in the free enjoyment of an apparently fruitless repose. When I +lie on my back and make pictures in the smoke of my cigar, or gaze upon +the works which great creative beings have produced in times gone by, +am I not, in my way, putting to good use that buried treasure within me +in which you were so good as to believe? and making of this individual, +whom his friends accuse of culpable laziness, the very thing for which +he was really fitted and intended--a perfectly harmonious and happy +man? Once in a while, indeed, the vulgar prejudice seizes even me, and +I suddenly grow tremendously active. But after the paroxysm has lasted +a week, at the longest, I suddenly see the folly of the proceeding and +throw the unfinished daub into some dark closet, among other embryos +of immortal works. Ah! my dear friend, there is so much struggling, and +pushing, and producing going on, that a quiet, inoffensive art-lover of +my disposition might well be tolerated as a salutary antidote to this +epidemic of activity." + +"We will let this old apple of discord drop for to-day," interrupted +Jansen, smiling. "I won't yet give up my old bet that some fine day you +will cease to take comfort in this bed that you have stuffed with +sophisms, and will begin to seek your happiness in some other way. But +in the meanwhile you might certainly show yourself at my place again. I +should like to know what you would say to my dancing girl; and besides, +I have done all sorts of other things since you were there." + +"I will come, Hans. You know how I delight to take to heart the +frightful example of industry that I see in your saint-factory. By the +way--isn't next Saturday 'Paradise?'" + +"Certainly. The last before the autumn. Most of the fellows have +already begun to make their preparations for the summer vacation, and +in fourteen days we three shall probably be almost the only ones who +still hold out in the city." + +They left the studio, the painter accompanying them as far as the gate +of the front yard, and taking leave of Felix with great cordiality and +the hope that he should see him often. + +"What is this about 'Paradise?'" inquired the latter, when they were +alone in the street again. + +"You shall soon see for yourself. We come together once a month and +attempt to delude ourselves into the idea that it is possible in the +midst of this world to throw off the hypocrisy of society, and return +once more to a state of innocence. And for a few years past we have +really been fairly successful. A little group of good fellows has been +brought together, who are all equally impressed with the worthlessness +of our social state. But, after all, the German is not a social +creature; that which constitutes the charm of such societies among the +Latins and Slavs--the delight in talking for talking's sake, a certain +delicacy in lying, and, moreover, an early-acquired and really humane +tact and consideration for one's neighbors--all this we may possibly +gain in time in some of our large cities. But for the time being it is +certainly foreign to the genius of our nation, and it is only feebly +developed. The consequence is that in this city of art, where of all +the arts that of sociability is most behindhand, one has to choose +between two evils: the conventional society entertainments, which are +chiefly devoted to eating and drinking, and where one is seldom +compensated for the constraint of cultivated _ennui_; or else +Philistinism over the beer-table. For this reason we have adopted +another plan, which, to be sure, can only be successful when all those +who take part in it are united by the same longing for freedom, and the +same respect for the freedom of their neighbors. For, when no one wraps +a cloak about him, but shows himself unrestrainedly just as he is, no +one, on the other hand, has a right to pounce maliciously on the weak +spots which his neighbor may possibly expose--and each must, upon the +whole, be so constituted that he can show himself in his true character +without being disagreeable." + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +In the first days of his wanderings through the quaint old streets--for +he avoided, as far as possible, the new and deserted quarters of the +town--Felix felt to the full the charm of South German life; that +robust, unrestrained power of enjoyment, that perpetual holiday-mood, +whose motto is "You may do what you choose." That this cheerful state +also has its dark sides; that it is not possible, without the sacrifice +of some higher benefits, to establish an average of character and +education which makes all classes mingle easily; that the lack of a +proletariat brings with it the lack of a rich and powerful intellectual +aristocracy--all such political and social speculations never entered +our friend's head, in spite of the fact that his travels about the +world had given him a keen insight into the civilization of different +countries. In a spirit of quiet defiance, he took delight in doing here +the very things which would have been most severely frowned on in that +native town from which he had fled. He visited the dingiest restaurants +and the most modest beer-gardens, ate from an uncovered table, and +drank from the mug which he had himself washed under the water-pipe; +and it seemed as if the only thing wanting to make his happiness +complete was, that the highly aristocratic society with which he had +quarreled should happen by and see, in silent horror, how happy the +fugitive was in his self-imposed exile. + +And yet, since everything inspired by pique carries with it a secret +feeling of dissatisfaction, he was after all not quite contented. Jolly +as it looked to wander about again at his own sweet will, it was, after +all, very different from what it had been years before when he first +spread his wings. In short, in his moments of reflection, when he +neither cared to forget nor to deceive himself, he was forced to admit, +with a kind of shame, that he was no longer young enough to goon +looking upon life as a brilliant adventure amid shifting scenes, and +that, in riper years, more depended upon the piece and the _rôle_ which +one played in it than upon the scenes and the spectators who sit before +the footlights. + +True, he had from the first devoted himself zealously to his new +apprenticeship. But his conscience was too delicate to forget what +Jansen had said in regard to his fitness for art. Had his friend +congratulated him upon his decision, who knows but what, in spite of +all that was wanting to his happiness, he might have felt as contented +as it is possible for any man to feel in this imperfect world? But his +proud heart told him that the people who were now to be his associates +did not, in their hearts, consider him quite genuine, but looked upon +him as a singular being, who, from mere whim, had taken up with art +instead of with some other noble passion more suitable to his rank. + +This unfortunate feeling was still further heightened by the fact that +his relation to the only old friend he had here, for whose society he +had passionately yearned, did not, in spite of their daily intercourse, +ripen again into the old intimacy. + +When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in +Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon +become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend +with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was +cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by +taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the +senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him +long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and +his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble +arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and +then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in +confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were +looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen +struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, +who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own +unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, +that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any +encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist +by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in +other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to +detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less +incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, +and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty +living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be +petted by ladies and engaged for æsthetic tea parties, the first +feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders +people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp +antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his +pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social +traditions. + +It was thus that Felix found him then, and he found him but little +different now, after all these years of separation--averse to all +intercourse with men who did not stand in some relation or other to his +art, and inaccessible, so far as his inner life was concerned, even to +his few intimate acquaintances. But still the years had not passed +without leaving some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that +one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after +the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature +had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a +degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the +little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at +his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk +over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections +of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their +love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the +subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some +dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation +a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon +relapsed into more sullen silence than before. + +Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which +would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of +his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and +now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green +island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was +then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock. + +One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not +in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now +visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter +from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and +her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl. +Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She +evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and +soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the +light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her +proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do +so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face +could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost +love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie. + +And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and +idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange +city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who +was his only love, that he could not help bursting out into a laugh, +only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute. + +He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends, +who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of +the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it +was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day. + +When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his +fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon +horseback. + +He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across +the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful +broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylæa, and outside, in +the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his +horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the +quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a +quieter gait of his own accord. + +The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home +from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a +tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back +to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very +pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her +hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the +fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish +way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence +the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly +attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the +foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in +vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up +just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to +instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took +him for an officer in _mufti_, or were frightened by his commanding +manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the +barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark +meadow. + +The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no +doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red +hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he +recalled her name. + +"Good-evening, Fräulein Zenz," he said. "What lonely and dangerous +walks you take!" + +"Dangerous!" she returned, laughing, for she had immediately recognized +him. "What is there dangerous about it? They wouldn't have eaten me. I +can take care of myself." + +"But if I hadn't by good luck come up--" + +"Do you suppose I couldn't have got away from those two without your +help? I can run like the wind. You couldn't catch me even on +horseback." + +"Well see about that, you little witch! If you don't look out--" + +He bent over and began, in his turn, to try and seize hold of her hair. +But her slim little figure instantly spun round on its heels, so that +her long locks slipped out of his hand again, and then she sprang like +lightning over the narrow ditch by the side of the road, and, before he +could collect himself, was away across the broad field, where she +suddenly vanished from his sight as if by miracle. + +His horse had shied at the girl's quick movement, and, for a moment, +gave his master enough to do in looking after him. Now, when he had +quieted him again, and, half laughing, half provoked, had dashed into +the meadow in pursuit of the fugitive, he could find no trace of her. +He called her name, spoke to her persuasively, and promised not to +touch her any more if she would only show herself again. It was only +after he had given up the search, and had angrily wheeled his horse +round in order to ride back into the avenue, that he heard, from behind +a heap of stones close at his side, which he had overlooked in his +zeal, a shrill giggling; and suddenly the girl sprang from the ground +and coolly marched up to him. + +"Now you see that you couldn't have caught me, if I had not wanted you +to," she cried. "Now just ride quietly home; I can find my way well +enough." + +"You are a regular witch--that's what you are!" he cried, laughingly. +"I see that people have more reason to be afraid of you than you of +them. But listen, Zenz, since we have chanced to meet in this way, tell +me now why you won't come to Herr Jansen's any more?" + +The question seemed to be disagreeable to her. She turned sharply on +her heel, and said, defiantly, beginning to put her dishevelled hair in +order: "What is that to you? What do you know about me, anyway? I can +do as I like, I suppose." + +"To be sure, Zenz. But it would be very nice of you if you would listen +to reason, and show yourself again. I am an artist, too, and would like +very much to make a sketch of you. Or, if you don't want to come to the +big studio any more, I have a very quiet lodging, and not a soul would +find it out if you came to me; you may be sure no one would do you any +harm, and I would give you a good reward--and you should choose what +you would have." + +While he was speaking she had never left off shaking her head. What her +expression was he could not see, for she had sank her chin on her +breast. Now she suddenly looked up at him and said, with a little laugh +that became her charmingly, while she twisted her streaming hair into a +thick knot: "I would just like to sit on horseback once, and ride round +real fast in a circle." + +"If it's nothing more than that," he laughed, "come! Don't be afraid, +but put your foot in the stirrup." + +He bent down over her again, grasped her under the arm that she reached +out to him, and swung up the light little figure as if it had been a +feather; then he let her down on the saddle before him and seized the +bridle. She instantly clasped her arms tight round his body, and clung +so close to him that for a moment she almost took his breath away, "Do +you sit firmly?" he called to her. She nodded, and laughed softly to +herself. Then he set his horse in motion and began to ride round in a +circle, at first slowly, then faster and faster, and she sat before him +on the saddle without moving, and pressed her head close against his +breast. + +"Is that what you like?" he cried; "or shall I stop?" + +She did not answer. + +"How would it be," he said, "if now I should trot back to town with +you, and not draw rein until I came to my house? You would have to come +with me, then, whether you wanted to or not, and do what I asked you. +Aren't you quite in my power now?" + +He reined in the horse for a moment, as though to give her opportunity +to settle herself for a longer ride. But suddenly he felt how her arms +unclasped, and in the next instant she had slid down from the saddle, +and stood before him in the dusk, out of breath and rearranging her +light dress. + +"I thank you very much." she said. "It was very jolly; but, now, that's +enough. And all the rest is nonsense, and so, good-night! If you can +catch me again you may keep me!" + +In a second she had sprung away and disappeared behind the nearest +houses. Even if he had been seriously inclined to follow her, he would +never have been able to find her trail again among the gardens and +hedges that bordered the field. + +A few passers-by had watched this singular performance from the avenue. +He heard all sort of jokes that he did not understand. "Thank God!" he +said to himself, "if I had allowed myself to do such a thing in my own +dear home, the whole town would be talking of nothing else to-morrow, +besides adding all sorts of exaggerations. But here--'Hier bin ich +Mensch, hier darf ich's sein!' Long live golden liberty!" + +He rode back to town in merry mood. He imagined that he could still +feel the arms of the girl about his breast, and her warm breath on his +face. His blood had not been cooled by his ride, as he had hoped, and +the sharp trot to which he spurred on his horse did not help him. He +gave up the reeking horse at the riding-school, and then turned into +the Briennerstrasse, in order to sit awhile in the Court Garden, and +eat an ice and nurse his dreams. + +When he came back to the house where Julie lived, he checked himself +suddenly. Who was that standing motionless by the garden fence, with +his eyes fixed on the bright parterre window? Jansen? + +Felix made a wide circuit to avoid him, and stood looking at him on the +other side of the street in the shadow of the houses. For a good half +hour he saw his friend opposite continue at his post. Then the window +was closed by a heavy curtain, and, immediately after, the watcher at +the gate tore himself away and departed slowly. + +Felix did not follow him. He scorned to be a spy on the secret ways of +his friend. What chance had disclosed to him gave him enough to think +about for to-day, without being able to find a solution to the riddle. + + + + + + _BOOK II_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +It was unusually still in Angelica's studio, so still that one could +plainly hear, through the thin wall that separated her from her +neighbor, the cheerful squeak of his white mice. This was always a sign +that their master was, as he expressed it, on the rampage, wielding his +brush in the thick of the battle of Lützen. + +Angelica, too, was very busy. But although she usually liked to chat +over her work, to keep the people who sat to her from falling asleep, +to-day she rarely opened her lips. It was the last sitting; the last +touch, which, after all, is always a new beginning, was to be given to +the picture--every stroke of the brush decided the fate of a _nuance_, +the success or failure of an expression. + +In order to work more surely, she had put on a pair of spectacles, +that can scarcely be said to have improved her appearance, and the +painting-jacket, on the left sleeve of which she was accustomed to wipe +her brush, had burst open in the ardor of her work, and, with her +lance-like maulstick and her shield-like palate, gave a certain +pugnacious aspect to her good, honest face, as if she were engaged in a +struggle for the release of the enchanted princess who sat in a chair +opposite her, and who was also unusually quiet. Whether Julie was +turning over in her mind some especially serious thought, or had, like +all people sitting to a painter, merely fallen under the influence of a +certain absent-minded melancholy, it was impossible to make out. + +She was especially beautiful to-day. Instead of her raw-silk dress, she +wore a lighter stuff of transparent black, through which gleamed her +white neck. Angelica had planned this in order that all the light +might be concentrated on the face; and the arrangement of the hair, +which left the contour of the head fully visible and allowed a few +simply-braided locks to flow over the shoulders, was a special +invention of the artist. Now, in the steady light, the dead white of +her complexion, and the soft blond of her hair, shone out so gently +subdued and yet so clear, and the eyes, under the brown lashes, had, +with all their softness, such a fiery sparkle, that one could +appreciate Angelica's assertion that a thing of this sort could not be +painted--gold, pearls, and sapphires were the only materials with which +to rival this fusion of color. + +It is true, the first bloom of youth was passed. A keen eye could +detect a wrinkle here and there, a certain sharpness of feature, and +the easy grace with which her noble figure moved left no doubt that she +had passed those years when a girl is always turning this way and that, +like a bird on a branch, as if always on the point of fluttering away +into the unknown, tempting, beautiful life outside, or else glancing +eagerly around to see whether a hunter or trapper is in sight. + +For that matter it would have been hard to conceive that this still, +reserved, charming creature had ever committed the usual school-girl +follies. But as soon as she began to speak, and especially to laugh, +her expressive face beamed with youthful merriment, her eyes, which +were a little near-sighted, slightly closed and took on a mischievous +look, and only her firm mouth retained its expression of thoughtful +determination. "The rest of your face," said Angelica at the very +first sitting, "was given you by God; for your mouth you must thank +yourself." + +She had intended by this remark to lead up to a conversation about +careers and experiences; but the only answer was a meaning, yet +reserved, smile from the mouth of which she spoke. Angelica was a girl +of delicate feeling; she was naturally burning with curiosity to learn +more of the past life of her admired conquest. But, after the repulse +of her first attempts, she was much too proud to beg for a confidence +that was not proffered. For this self-denial she was to-day to be +rewarded, for Julie suddenly opened her lips, and said with a sigh: + +"You are one of the happiest human beings I ever knew, Angelica." + +"Hm!" replied the artist. "And why do I seem so?" + +"Because you are not only free, but know how to make some use of your +freedom." + +"If it were only a good use! But do you really believe, dear Julie, +that my pictures of 'flower, fruit, and thorn pieces,' and my bungling +attempts to imitate God's likeness, have made me imagine that I am an +especially interesting example of my class? Dearest friend, what you +call happiness is really only the well-known 'German happiness'--a +happiness, because it is not a greater unhappiness--a happiness of +necessity." + +"I can well understand," continued Julie, "that a moment never comes +when one feels perfectly contented; when one, so to speak, has reached +the summit of the mountain, and looks around and says: there is nothing +higher than this, unless one steps straight into the clouds. But yet +you love your art, and I think you can busy yourself all day, your +whole life long, with anything you love--" + +"If I only knew whether it loved me in return! Don't you see, there +lies the rub; a most 'devilish' rub, Herr Rosebud would say. Are +you really consecrated to art--I mean consecrated by the grace of +God--when, if it hadn't been for the merest chance in the world, you +would never have touched a brush?" + +"You would never have touched a brush!" + +"Certainly; but instead of it a common kitchen-spoon and similar +household utensils. Why do you look at me incredulously? Do you think I +have been all my life a plain old maid? I, too, was once seventeen +years old, and by no means ill-looking--naturally not to be compared to +what is now sitting opposite me--not a regular feature in my whole +pretty face, no form, no style, merely the ordinary _beauté du diable_. +But, if one may trust certain evidences--though my archives of sonnets, +ball-favors, and other delicate offerings of the sort are burned, to be +sure--I was as neat and attractive a young person as thousands of +others. I had plenty of mother wit, you could read in my eyes that I +had a good heart, and, besides, I was by no means poor. Why should I +have lacked suitors? No, my dear, I even had a choice; and although I +do not now understand why I preferred one particular mortal to all +others, I must have known well enough at the time. I dimly remember how +wonderfully happy, joyous, and in love I was! If all had gone on in the +beaten track, I should probably have always been as happy and as much +in love--constancy is my chief fault--even if no longer so joyous. But +this was not to be. My betrothed was drowned while bathing--just think +of it, what an absurd misfortune! I was driven into a brain fever by +the shock and grief; when I got up from it my little _beauté du diable_ +had gone to the _diable_. The next few years were spent as a widowed +bride, in tears; and, when these gradually ceased to flow, I was a +plain, prematurely-faded person, with a heart to be sure that had never +yet fairly blossomed out, but about which no one troubled himself +particularly. It was at that time also that we lost our little +property, and I was obliged to take up with some pursuit or other; then +it turned out to be good luck that even as a child at school I had +wasted much time on drawing and painting. Do you believe, dear friend, +that a virtue which one makes in this way out of a necessity--no matter +how deserving it may be--can ever make a mortal thoroughly happy at +heart?" + +"Why not, when all kinds of happiness come with it, as has been the +case with you? You visited Italy with that kind old lady about whom you +told me such nice stories the other day; you can work at your art here +in perfect freedom, without anxiety, thanks to the legacy of your +motherly friend; you live in this beautiful city, in the society of +friends and colleagues in art by whom you are respected--is all that +nothing?" + +"True, it is a great deal, and yet--I will whisper something in your +ear--let it be entirely between ourselves, and if I did not love you so +unreasonably that you might ask anything of me I would sooner bite off +my tongue than confess it to any living mortal--if I should become, in +the course of time, as celebrated as my namesake (whose pictures, it +must be confessed, always appear to me to be very stupid), or even +should in so far succeed as to become contented with myself as an +artist, I would give up all this exceptional good fortune for an +ordinary, humdrum happiness; a good husband, who need not even be a +remarkable combination of excellences, and a few pretty children, who, +for all I care, might be a little bit boisterous and naughty. There, +now you know all about it, and you will laugh at me because I so +naively confessed to you what we women generally hide like a sin." + +"You would certainly have made a splendid housewife," said Julie, +musingly. "You are so good, so warmhearted, so unselfish; you might +have made a husband very happy. I--when I compare myself with you--but +why shouldn't we call each other '_du_?' I have had all sorts of +unpleasant experiences with women friends with whom I have used that +familiar form, and that is the reason I have been so slow about it with +you--. Stop, stop, you must leave my head on my shoulders!--you are +squeezing me to death--if I had only known it sooner! And who knows but +what if you learn to know me better--." + +The artist had thrown away palette and maulstick, and had, after her +enthusiastic fashion, rushed upon the adored friend who had at last +made this return for her worship. + +"If I should know you a hundred years, I'll take care to love you a +hundred times more dearly!" she cried, as, kneeling down before Julie, +she folded her hands in her lap with a droll vivacity, and gazed +reverentially through her spectacles at the beautiful face. + +"No," said her friend earnestly, "you do not really know me yet. Have +you any suspicion that by my own fault I have thrown away that +happiness for which you long, because, even as my best friends said, I +was heartless?" + +"Nonsense!" cried Angelica. "You heartless? Then I am a crocodile and +live on human flesh!" + +Julie smiled. + +"Were they right? Perhaps. I don't believe it myself. But you know it +is such a universal fashion to show one's self 'full of heart,' to +express feeling, sympathy, tenderness, even when one remains perfectly +cold, that the Cordelias will always be at a disadvantage. Even when +very young, and perhaps by inheritance from my father, who was a +strict, and on the surface a severe, old soldier, not much given to +demonstrations--even when a school-girl I felt a disgust for sweetness +and suavity, for affected sentimentality and humility--for all that +conventional amiability behind which the most cruel envy, the most icy +egotism, lurk concealed. I could never take kindly to sentimental +bosom-friendship, to compacts of the heart for life and death, that +were suddenly broken up by a ball-room rivalry, an honest reproof, or +even by pure _ennui_. My first experience in this respect was my +last. And how much sincere liking, and fidelity, and unappreciated +self-sacrifice I wasted on this child's play! From that time forth I +knew how to take better care of myself. And, in truth, it was not +difficult for me to keep guard over my heart. I lived with my old +parents, who both appeared, on the surface, dry and pedantic; but who +understood the art of making for themselves and me a rich, warm, and +beautiful life, that gave my thoughts and feelings ample nourishment. I +modeled myself after them, and spoke much the same language. I must +indeed have borne myself rather strangely, when, in the society of +young people, I expressed myself with regard to certain conventional +feelings in scornful terms which might have been pardoned to an old +soldier, but which did not become his daughter. I meant no harm with it +all. On many occasions, when others were moved to tears or enthusiasm, +I really experienced no sensation whatever, unless it were a feeling of +discomfort. But as often as anything really touched me--beautiful +music, a poem or some solemn impression of Nature, I became perfectly +dumb, and could not join in the enthusiastic prattle that went on in +the circle about me. Out of pure contempt for phrases, I assumed, in +defiance of my real feelings, to be cool and critical, and had to bear +being told that there was no getting on with me, that these secret joys +must always remain closed to me, a girl without a heart. I smiled at +this, and my smile confirmed these fine-strung souls in their belief in +my lack of feeling. As it so happened that I found none of them all +amiable enough to love in spite of these bad practices, I didn't care +in the least for my isolation. I had fared thus with my own sex, and +soon I was to find that I did not succeed much better with young men. I +was not long in observing that the stronger sex merely had other, and +by no means more amiable, weaknesses than we; above all, that they were +much vainer, and so care most for those of us who are willing to do +homage to their manly superiority. What is generally called maidenly +modesty, womanly tenderness, and virginal feeling--is it not, in ninety +cases out of a hundred, a craftily-planned artificial stratagem for +making fools of these mighty lords of creation? Here they find what +they want. Do they not meet in this pliant, yielding, dependent being +the best supplement to their dominant natures, the most touching +submission to their higher will, an accurately-toned echo of all their +most excellent wishes and thoughts? Afterward, when the purpose of the +pretty comedy has been attained, the mask is laid aside quickly enough; +we good lambs show that we, too, have a will and a mind and a power of +our own, and the beautiful delusion is rudely dissipated. As soon as I +had come to clearly recognize this, I felt the bitterest disgust for +it. Soon, however, I was forced to laugh, and to say to myself, this +farce is as old as the world! If, notwithstanding this, the proud lords +of creation still permit themselves to be deceived, they must, in one +way or another, find some advantage in it. But I could not even then +bring myself to join in the game, as I saw all the rest do. I cared +nothing for the object which made these petty means holy to all the +others. Merely to please the men in general? To do this I had no need +to exert myself especially, for I resembled my mother, who had passed +for a beauty. And to have won the _love_ of a man it would have been +necessary for him to have first taken _my_ fancy, for him to have first +become dangerous to _me_. But it never came to that. Really, I often +thought, have you a heart, or have you none, since it feels nothing at +all in the society of these gay officers, students, and artists, who +are such good dancers, have such a triumphant mien, and such faultless +white cravats, and who, with the most condescending superiority, allow +themselves to be enticed into the share by all these timid, blushing, +demure, sweet creatures, who are all the while secretly laughing in +their sleeves." + +Julie paused for a while with downcast eyes. "It is strange," said she, +with a sigh, "how we happened to come upon these old stories! You must +know, my dear, they are _really_ very old--older than you think. I +shall soon be thirty-one years old! When I first began to make these +observations I was eighteen--now you can subtract for yourself. If I +had married then, I might now have had a daughter twelve years old. +Instead of that I am a well-preserved old maid, and my only admirer is +a silly painter, who has fallen in love with me merely out of a whim +for color." + +"No," said Angelica, who, in the mean time, had zealously gone on with +her painting, "I won't be put aside in that way. I always did consider +the men pretty stupid, because, as you very rightly said, they allow +themselves to be caught by such clumsy tricks and artifices. But that +they should not have recognized your worth, that they should not have +cut each others' throats about you--as they did before Troy for that +Grecian witch--that is really incomprehensible to me! They cannot all +be so conceited and foolish; and, after all, there must be a few--I, +myself, have known one or two--. But please lower your chin just a +trifle." + +"Yes, it is true," continued Julie, "there are a few. I have even come +across one for whose sake I myself might finally have been induced to +take part in the comedy, had not all talent for that kind of thing been +denied me. What his name was, how he came to know me, cannot matter to +you. He long ago married another, and has probably forgotten all of me +but my name--if not that. I--one of us never forgets such an +experience, even when it lies dead and buried in some corner of our +hearts; for that I had a heart, as well as other people, I discovered +at that time only too plainly--I pleased him exceedingly--he took care +to let me see this on every occasion--and then he really was better by +far, and much less infected by conceit and selfishness than most of the +others; and my straight-forward way of showing myself just as I was, +without affecting any coquettish sensibility, seemed to be attractive +to him because of its very rarity. As he was rich, and my parents were +well off, there was, on the other hand, no outward hinderance in our +way. And so, although no binding words had been exchanged, we were +tacitly looked upon as a match--I think the men relinquished me to him +much more honestly than my female friends gave up this much-sought man +to me. To be sure I myself was, even in this case, at least outwardly +much cooler and more reserved than happy lovers generally. I was, at +heart, deeply attached to the man of my choice; but there was always +mixed with it a silent fear, a sort of lack of sympathy--perhaps a +prophetic impulse of my heart that warned me not to give myself up +absolutely and entirely to this love. And, one day, during a +conversation about an accident in a Brazilian mine, where fifty men had +suddenly been killed by an explosion of fire-damp, the storm burst upon +me, and I had to suffer with those distant victims. All were deeply +lamenting over the occurrence, as is the fashion. I remained silent; +and when my betrothed asked me whether the terrible accident had +absolutely petrified me, I said I could not help it, but it affected me +very little more than if I had read in some history that in some +battle, a thousand years ago, ten thousand men had perished. The misery +of this world was so near us daily and hourly, and we were, for the +most part, so culpably indifferent to it, that I could not understand +why I should all of a sudden be expected to feel so much sympathy for a +misfortune which only attracted attention because it was in the latest +newspaper; and which was, moreover, a very common one and not even +accompanied by especially horrible circumstances. I had scarcely said +this when they all fell upon me--at first, of course, in a joking way, +and my old nickname--'the heartless girl'--was raked up again; but, as +I kept quiet and rather sharply repelled the accusations of these +delicate souls, their tempers became more and more aroused, and the +most zealous sermons on philanthropy were launched at me by the very +ones who would not have given a drink of water to a sick dog, and who +would only succor a poor man if it didn't make them too much trouble. +My friend, too, had grown silent, after having at first attempted to +take my part. But, like a thorough man--for such he always remained--he +could not conceal from himself the frightful truth that I was by no +means sufficiently soft and womanly in my feelings. My combative spirit +began to trouble him more and more--I could see this clearly--but now +all my pride was enlisted against any smoothing over or suppression of +my true nature. Although I was very near bursting into tears, I kept up +my bravery, fought out my case, and had the miserable satisfaction of +appearing to bear off the victory. A dearly-purchased victory! From +this evening my lover perceptibly began to draw back, my 'best friend' +took it upon herself to enlighten him more and more concerning my +character; and since she herself possessed those very traits which were +lacking in me, and which alone, it is said, can guarantee the happiness +of marriage, nothing could be more natural than that before three weeks +were up he should become engaged to this sympathetic being, who for +thirteen years now has--. But I will say nothing bad of her. She has +certainly done _me_ a great service, for, perhaps, I might not have +made this man much happier. And, at the time, she spared me a hard +spiritual struggle. Had I been actually engaged, I might, perhaps, have +hesitated to fulfill the duties that my poor mother had a right to +demand of me. For you must know that my father died very suddenly, and +then it appeared that the mother of the heartless girl--who also passed +for a cold character--concealed a much more passionate love under an +austere exterior than most old women are accustomed to retain beyond +their silver-wedding. The death of her old husband first threw my +mother into a serious illness, and then into a half-wandering state, in +which she lived on for many years, to her torture and to mine!" + +She paused; then she suddenly stood up and stepped to the artist's side +behind the easel. + +"Pardon me, dear," she said, "but I think you ought to stop. Every +additional stroke of the brush that tones down or paints away anything +will make it look less like me. Look at me more carefully--am I really +that blooming creature that beams upon the world from out that canvas? +Twelve years of denial, loneliness, and living entombment, have they +left no trace upon my face? That is the way I might have looked, +perhaps, had I known happiness. They say, you know, happiness preserves +youth. But I--I am horribly old! And yet, in reality, I have not begun +to live!" + +She turned hastily away and walked to the window. + +Angelica laid aside her palette, went softly up to her, and threw her +arm about her agitated friend. + +"Julie," said she, "when _you_ speak that way--you, who by a mere smile +could tame wild animals and drive tame men mad!" + +She turned to her comforter, and the tears stood in her eyes. + +"Oh, my dear," she said, "what nonsense you are talking! How often I +have envied a young peasant girl, with an ugly, stupid face, who +brought us eggs and milk, simply because she could come and go as she +liked, and moved among living beings! But I--can you conceive what it +means to have constantly at your side a being whom you cannot but love, +and yet whom you are forced to look upon as one dead, as a living +ghost; to hear the voice that once caressed you utter senseless +sounds, to see the eye that once beamed on you so warmly, strange and +dimmed--the eye, the voice, of your own mother? And this, year in and +year out--and this half-dead being only waked into anxiety and +agitation whenever I made an attempt to leave her. For, truly, when I +had borne it a year, I thought I was being crushed by it, without +feeling the satisfaction that the sacrifice of my life could be of any +possible service to this most miserable being. Yet as often as she +missed me for a longer time than the few hours daily to which she had +become accustomed, she lapsed into the most violent uneasiness, and +only became quiet again when she saw me once more. I had to reconcile +myself to the idea that I was necessary to her existence--to an +existence that I could by no possibility make happy, or enliven, or +even lighten. For so long as I was at her side she scarcely noticed me; +indeed, she often appeared not even to recognize me. And still she +could not exist without me; and in the asylum, to which she was once +carried for the sake of an experiment, she lapsed into a state so +pitiable that even 'a girl without a heart' could not but be moved by +it." + +"Horrible! And you lived with her in this way for twelve long years?" + +"For twelve long years! Does it still seem to you so incomprehensible, +so 'stupid' of the men that they did not positively force themselves +upon a girl who would have brought, with a little bit of beauty and +property, this face into their house? No, dear, the men are not so +stupid, after all. Even if I had been engaged, and had loved my lover +with my whole heart, I could never have expected him to join his life +to that of a woman who was chained fast to so horrible a lot." + +"But now, since you have become free--" + +"Free! A fine freedom to be allowed to dance when the ball is over, to +console myself with artificial or painted flowers for the rosy time +that was neglected. I once read somewhere that happiness is like wine; +if one does not drink up the entire cask at once, but pours some of it +into bottles, some time one will have the good of it. It will have time +to ripen and become nobler, if it is of the right sort. There may be +some truth in this; but, no matter how noble it may be, the old wine +has lost its bouquet. The happiness that one hasn't enjoyed when young +has a bitter taste; and, for that matter, who guarantees that I shall +ever slake my thirst again? Many thousands never moisten their lips, +and live soberly on. Why should I fare better? Because I have more +beauty than many! That would be fine, indeed! Fate is not in the least +gallant, and draws up its decrees without regard to persons. Now, when +I stand before the glass, I always see the same well-known face that +has lost its youth. I seem to myself like a silk dress that has hung in +the closet for twelve years. When one takes it out it is still silk, +but the color has faded, the folds tear when it is touched, and when it +is shaken out fly the moths! But I have let enough of them fly out of +my head to-day. There is no use in going over old experiences. Come! we +will paint a little more, and then go and take a drive--for what is our +glorious liberty for?" + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +In Jansen's studio, too, there was more talking than working going on +this morning. + +Edward Rossel had, at last, in spite of the heat, summoned up +sufficient energy to undertake the short walk thither. A gigantic +Panama hat, over which he also held a sunshade, protected his head; +besides this he wore a summer suit of snow-white piqué, and light shoes +of yellow leather. + +He was in a very good humor, praised Felix for the assiduity with which +he continued to study his skeleton, and then stepped up to the Dancing +Girl, to which Jansen had just put the finishing touches. + +He stood silently before it for some time, then he drew up a chair near +it and begged Jansen to turn the stand so that he would be able to view +the work from all sides. + +His friends declared that it was a pleasure to see him look at +anything. His glances seemed to fairly fasten upon the form, or rather +to take it all in; all the muscles of his face became animated, and an +intellectual tension curved his somewhat languid mouth. + +"Well," asked Jansen, at last, "how does it strike you? You know I can +bear anything." + +"_Est, est, est!_ What is there to be said about it, especially? +Naturally, it has gained and lost, as is always the case. The innocent +audacity, the Pompeian _abandon_, that charmed me in the little sketch +has, as a whole, suffered in the execution. You might do better, +perhaps, to disguise your respect for Nature a little more. And, +by-the-way--with all respect for this Nature--what sort of a model did +you have? Of course it is very strongly idealized?" + +"Not in the least. A pure _facsimile_." + +"What? This neck and breast, these shoulders, arms--" + +"A conscientious copy, without any additions." + +Fat Rossel stood up. + +"I should have to see that to believe it," he said. "Look here, +compared with this the conventionalities of Canova are mere wretched +sugar-work. And that is what I was just going to say to you--the +Grecian element that was in the sketch is gone. In its place there are +a grace, an _esprit_, an elegance of form--and that, too, of a +spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky +man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did +this little slip grow?" + +Jansen shrugged his shoulders. + +"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any +length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition +in mind, for which this little one--" + +"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your +laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by +the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this +forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful +red--" + +"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over +to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks +past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature." + +"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop +in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that, +since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her." + +"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better. +Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will +also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest +shall be my care." + +He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall +near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in +the middle of the studio. + +"How far have you got with the Eve?" + +"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen, +quickly. "She is just at a stage--" + +"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How +long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins? +Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in +from the saint-factory?" + +A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of +answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and +with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel, +appeared on the threshold. + +"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have +company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask." + +"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague +and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly +kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fräulein Angelica how this +undeserved slight hurt my tender heart!" + +"Herr Rossel," continued the artist, "you are a scoffer, and, as a +punishment for boasting of a tender heart, which you do not possess, +you shall not be given a chance to see something beautiful. I simply +wished to request Herr Jansen to come and look at my picture, for I +have just had my last sitting, and my friend has given me permission. +She knows how important his judgment is to me." + +"But if I vow to be very good, and not to open my mouth--" + +"You have such a deprecating way of screwing up the corners--" + +"I will hold my hat before my face--only my eyes shall peep over the +rim." + +"For Heaven's sake, come then! although I don't place much confidence +in your most solemn vows. I place myself under Herr Jansen's +protection; and if the Herr Baron would perhaps like to come too?" + +Jansen had not spoken a word, but, with conspicuous haste had exchanged +his frock for a coat and had washed the dust from his hands. + +When they entered the studio above, they found Rosenbusch already +engaged in the most enthusiastic admiration of the picture, while, at +the same time, he endeavored in his chivalrous way, to bestow at least +half of his enthusiasm upon the original. + +Julie had risen and gone toward his chair. When she saw Angelica return +with a triple escort, instead of the one she expected, she seemed +slightly confused. But the next moment she greeted the gentlemen, whom +Angelica introduced to her, with easy grace. + +A pause followed. Jansen had stepped before the picture, and, with the +great authority which he enjoyed in this circle, not even Edward +himself dared to say a word before he had expressed his opinion. It was +Jansen's way not to reduce his impression immediately to words. But, on +this occasion, he remained silent unusually long. + +"Tell me frankly, dear friend," Angelica began at last, "that I have +once more undertaken something that deserves the palm for no other +reason than for its audacity. If you only knew what contemptuous +epithets I have heaped upon myself while I was painting! I have made +myself out so bad, have so run myself down, that Homo would not take a +piece of bread from me if he had heard me. And yet, in the midst of my +dejection, I still took such unheard-of pleasure in my daubery that, do +what I would, I could not let my courage sink. If my friend were not +present, I should be able to explain to you the reason for this. As it +is, it would seem in very bad taste if I should forthwith make her a +declaration of love in the presence of witnesses." + +The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly, + +"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that +this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent +performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?" + +A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round +face of the painter. + +"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it +only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--" + +Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the +contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at +the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other +things. + +In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion +that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised +the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful +coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise +in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of +his commendation as a whole. + +"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to +do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one. +What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain +around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--_à la Paris Bordone_? or +a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home, +that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the +hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--" + +"And so on, with graces _in infinitum_!" laughed the painter. "You must +know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most +magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my +dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have +accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so +favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of +patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time +to come." + +"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely +jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that +has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for +just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?" + +"You?--your laziness is all that is immortal about you!" replied the +painter. + +They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch +and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and +Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no +further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded. + +After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two +friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she +might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said: + +"Well, how did he please you?" + +"Who?" + +"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted +himself least to please anybody, not even you." + +"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!" + +"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old +as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and +the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows +the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable +of the most incredible and superhuman things." + +"I really believe, my dear, you are in--" + +"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let +anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say +to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat +this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would +try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I +believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must +undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to +comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this +unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do +anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes, +something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who +knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has +something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the +sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside. +His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in +him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an +unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I +chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was +combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck +me then as being so helpless that I could not help laughing and +offering myself as a lady's maid for the dog, at which he showed great +delight. That broke the ice between us, and, since then, I take the +most inconceivable liberties with him, although my heart still +continues to thump if he chances to look at me in his quiet, steady +way, for a minute at a time." + +Julie was silent. After some time she said, suddenly: + +"It is true he has eyes such as I have never before seen in a man. One +can read in those eyes that he is not happy; all his genius cannot make +him glad. Don't you find it so, too? Wonderfully lonely eyes! Like +a man who has lived long, years in a desert, and has seen no living +soul--nothing but earth and sun. Do you know anything of his life?" + +"No. He himself never speaks of it. Nor do any of the others know +what he may not have gone through before he came to Munich. That was +about five years ago. But now, if you will just sit still a moment +longer--so!--it's only for the reflection in the left eye, and the +retouching about the mouth." + +Then the painting went on for another hour in silence. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +On the outskirts of the "English Garden" there lies, among other +pleasure-resorts of its class, the so-called "Garden of Paradise." In +the midst of a grove stands a large, stately building, at the laying of +whose corner-stone no one would have ventured to predict that it would +some day become a place of refuge for so mixed a company. Here, on +summer days, merry and thirsty folk are wont to gather round the tables +and benches, while a band plays from a covered platform. But the large +hall on the ground floor of the house is generally used for dancing, +while the lower side-wings are opened for spectators and for couples +that are resting from the waltz. + +It was eleven o'clock at night, A thunderstorm, that had gathered +toward evening, had prevented the advertised garden-concert from taking +place. When the storm had scattered again after a few harmless +thunderclaps, the seats filled up very slowly; and the beer-drawer at +the open booth among the trees had plenty of time to doze between the +stray mugs that were handed in to him to be filled. For this reason the +garden had been closed earlier than usual; and when it struck eleven +the house lay as still and deserted as though there were not a living +being within. + +And yet the long hall in the left wing, which was reached from the +garden by a few steps, was, if not actually as light as day, at all +events sufficiently illuminated by a dozen lamps along the wall. In the +rear, where at this time scarcely any one passed through the deserted +street, the upper, semicircular part of the windows was left open for +the sake of ventilation, while the lower part remained tightly closed. +Dark figures approached along the street, singly, or in groups of two +or three just as they chanced to come together, and entered the house +by the back door. On the side toward the English Garden everything +remained as dark and lifeless as was ever an old wall behind which +counterfeiters ply their trade in dimly-lighted cellars. + +The interior of the hall was, when seen by daylight, not altogether +unornamented. The inspired hand of some house-painter had covered the +wall spaces between the windows with bold landscape conceptions _al +fresco_, where were to be seen, amid fabulous castles, cities, +river-gorges, and wooded ravines, blue wanderers strolling about in +green hats, and horsemen careering on chargers of very questionable +anatomy, followed by dogs that belonged to no known race. In the +dazzling blue sky above these outgrowths of a cheery decorator's +fantasy, sometimes through a tree-top or the slanting pinnacle of a +robber-castle, a society of carpenters' apprentices, which met here +once a week, had driven large nails that they might hang up +symmetrically their various diplomas, decorated with pictures and +mottoes, and dotted with little balls. + +But, on the night of which we speak, all this splendor had disappeared +behind a thick veil of growing plants. Tall evergreen bushes stood +between the windows, and stretched their slender branches to the roof, +so that the squalid walls seemed transformed into a tropical garden. A +long, narrow table, with green, big-bellied flagons, occupied the +middle of the room, and in a corner was a cask, about the polished tap +of which hung a wreath of roses, while on a little table near by stood +baskets with white rolls and a few plates of fruit. + +Only a few dozen chairs surrounded the table, and these were not more +than half occupied, when Jansen and Felix entered the room. Through the +light haze of lamplight and tobacco-smoke they could discern the pale +face of Elfinger beside the battle-painter's blooming countenance; the +fez-covered head of Edward Rossel, comfortably reclining in an American +rocking-chair and smoking a chibouque; then one and another of the +artists who had occasionally shown themselves in Jansen's studio. +Nothing like a servant was anywhere to be seen; and each, as soon as he +had emptied his glass, went himself to the cask and filled it. Some +strolled, chatting, along the green hedge up and down the hall; others +sat, absent and expectant, in their places, as though in a theatre +before the beginning of the play; and only Fat Rossel, who alone +rejoiced in a comfortable seat, seemed to blow clouds of smoke up to +the ceiling as if already in a true paradisaic frame of mind. + +As Felix approached him, there arose at his side a tall, thin figure in +a hunting-blouse, with high riding-boots, and a short French pipe +between his lips. Once before, while walking in the street, Felix had +caught a hasty glimpse of this singularly-shaped face, with its +choleric complexion and its close-cropped hair, its coal-black +imperial, and a broad scar across the right temple; its owner had been +mounted on a handsome English horse, which had attracted his attention +more than the rider. This man managed his lank limbs awkwardly and +clumsily, as if he had lost his natural balance the moment that he +ceased to feel his horse between his legs. Besides, he had a way of +either continually pulling at his goatee, or of twitching the lobe of +his right ear. Felix noticed that he wore a little gold ring in his +left ear. The right one was disfigured; the earring, that had once been +worn there, seemed to have been torn out by force at some time or +other. + +"I take the liberty of introducing myself," said the lank individual, +bowing to Felix with soldierly formality. "My name is Aloys von +Schnetz, a first-lieutenant on the retired list; as a friend of the +seven liberal arts, I am allowed the honor of entering this Paradise. +Inasmuch as amphibious creatures undoubtedly existed even in the garden +of God, therefore a being like myself, who occupies a middle place, at +once an aristocrat and a proletarian, no longer a soldier, for good +reasons, and also not an artist--unfortunately for still better +reasons--may be said not to be out of place among good people, of whom +each has some pretty definite aims and powers. You, too, as Fat Rossel +has just confided to me, belong, to a certain extent, to my class, +although I hope and trust that you represent a somewhat more edifying +species. Come, take a seat here by my side. There are people who +declare that I put them out of humor. I am accused of giving myself +great pains to see the world as it is, and to call things by their +right names; sensitive natures call that cynicism, and find it +unpleasant. But you shall see it is not so bad, and here in Paradise I +try to forget, as far as possible, that we pick sour apples from the +tree of knowledge. However, I ought, like a true amphibian, to conduct +you, after so dry an introduction, into a moist element." + +He set his long, Don-Quixote legs in motion toward the cask, filled two +bumpers and brought them back to Felix. + +"We have become converted to wine," he said, growling it out in a half +ironical, half bitter tone; "although, strictly speaking, it is an +anachronism, as it is well known that wine was given to mankind as a +compensation for a lost Paradise. Beer, on the other hand, is entirely +an invention of the darker middle ages, to make men mere idle slaves to +the priests, and it has never yet occurred to any one to seek truth +anywhere but in wine. So, then, here's to your health, and hoping that +you may succeed better than I have in becoming one of these primitive +men!" + +Felix knocked glasses with his queer new friend, and then proceeded to +observe the unknown persons who had in the mean while strolled in. +Schnetz gave him their names. Most of them had passed their first +youth. Only one boyish face, of a foreign cast, gazed dreamily with +big, black eyes into the cloud of smoke that circled up from his +cigarette. It was, Schnetz told his neighbor, that of a young Greek +painter, twenty-two years old, who was, in spite of his delicate, +almost girl-like appearance, a dangerous lady-killer. He was not really +intimately acquainted with any of them, and only Rossel's intercession +in his favor and his talent, which was by no means slight, had procured +him the entrance into this circle. + +A little, bent old man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, was +the last to enter. He hung his hat and cloak on a nail, and took his +seat in the only unoccupied chair at the upper end of the table near +Jansen, who gave him a kindly welcome. + +Felix was surprised at the presence of an old man amid this rising +generation. To be sure, Schnetz, too, was no longer a youth--he might +well be over forty. But in every muscle of his sinewy figure throbbed a +suppressed energy, while it was evident that the quiet, white-haired +old man, who sat at the upper end of the table, had long since left +behind him the storms and struggles of life. + +"I see that you are puzzling your head about our 'creator,'" said +Schnetz, twisting his goatee. "For that matter I don't know much more +about his intimate affairs than I do about the personal experiences of +the real Deity. That he is an artist, or rather that he was once--of +that there can be no doubt. Every word that he utters, when the +conversation turns upon art, proves this. He undoubtedly belongs, +however, to a geological stratum whose fauna has died out. Nor has any +one of us ever seen one of his works, or known how or where or from +what he lives. His name is Schöpf; and when, three years ago, while +our Paradise was still in its infancy, he was introduced here by +Jansen--whom he had visited in his studio, and whose interest he had +speedily known how to enlist--we permitted ourselves the cheap joke of +twisting Schöpf into Schöpfer,[2] and at the same time of appointing +him host and chief steward of the Paradise. At that time we still +reveled in buffoonery of that sort, each of us bearing some kind of +appropriate nickname; and we continued to keep this up until at last +the cheap joke was run into the ground. But we had grown to like and +respect the old man, who showed himself such a quiet and friendly +providence that the first man could hardly have boasted of a better +one. He looks after all our business affairs, takes charge of the +society's treasury, selects our wine, and keeps an eye on the gardener +who decorates our hall. With all this we see him but once a month. +During the intervening period he vanishes. When we hold our masked +ball, at which the _daughters_ of Eve are also allowed to appear, he +makes himself useful until the first stroke of the fiddle is given, and +then he creeps off home again." + +"It is hardly probable that he can be a native here, if he can play the +_rôle_ of a mysterious personage so easily." + +"Don't you believe it. Here in Munich there are a large number of such +subterranean existences, whose strange ways and dodges escape +attention--ay, even common gossip--for the reason that here there is no +society, in the true sense of the word. In every other city of equal, +or even of greater size, one knows pretty well what his dear fellow-men +are about; at least this is the case in regard to the notable ones who +rise above the common level--one knows what they have to pay their +tailor with, or how much they are owing him. But this place swarms with +amphibious beings of both sexes who, when they are no longer able to +keep above water, dive down into a more or less turbid element, where +they become invisible. I myself have already had the honor of +introducing myself to you as such a dual being; not that the ground is +unsteady under my feet--I quitted the service of my own accord from +personal motives--but the dryness up there on the surface became +unbearable for me; I am one of the malcontents, of whom you see so many +here, who have slammed the door in the face of so-called good society, +partly because it is insipid, partly because it is base, and who now, +in paradisaic freedom, are trying to find their world in their friends. +But your glass is still full! Come! You must do our Jordan more honor." + +"A Jordan in Paradise? My geography does not go so far as that, or +perhaps new discoveries have--" + +Schnetz had just began to explain to him that this noble wine came from +the vineyard of Herr Jordan at Deidesheim, and that for this reason +they had agreed to transfer the river of the promised land into India +on their maps, when Elfinger rose and informed them that it was "his +turn" to-night, and that he had prepared something, but that first some +sketches would be exhibited. + +Upon this a number of studies were passed around the table, landscape +sketches, and plans and designs of all kinds--among others the drawings +of a young architect for the building of a special hall for the +Paradise Club, which excited great applause, and called forth the most +amusing propositions as to the manner in which funds should be raised +to cover the cost of this most timely work. + +In the mean while an insignificant-looking, lean man, with an +awkward manner, and wearing a threadbare coat that was buttoned +tight to conceal the absence of a waistcoat, had taken a large gray +sheet of paper from a portfolio, had fastened it with tacks to the +window-shutter, so that the lamps on the wall threw a pretty strong +light upon it, and had then stepped back in order to invite an +inspection of his work. It was a pen and ink sketch, full of figures, +the lights touched up with white, but done with so complete a disregard +of effect that the composition appeared, at the first glance, to be a +strangely-confused swarm, in which it was impossible to make out either +the details or the plan as a whole. + +"Our Cornelian, Philip Emanuel Kohle!" growled Schnetz. "Another of +those unlucky erratic bowlders in the midst of the flat common of our +modern art, torn from the summit of some heaven-aspiring mountain, and +then rolled, a strange intruder, into the fertile plain of mediocrity, +where no one knows what to do with it. Let us go nearer. These outline +fanatics scorn to produce an effect at a distance." + +"I have taken for my subject," explained the artist, "a poem of +Hölderlin's--you undoubtedly all know it--Hyperion's song of fate--or, +if it has escaped your recollection--I have brought the text with me." + +Upon this he drew from his pocket a very dog'seared little book and +read the verses, although he knew them by heart. As he proceeded his +cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkled, and his whole meagre figure appeared +to grow in height; and when he finished there was silence for a while +in the group that was examining the drawing. + +The artist still seemed to have an explanation to make, but he did not +utter it: as if, after such words of genius, any prosaic paraphrase +would be a desecration. And, indeed, the singular composition now +sufficiently explained itself. + +A mountain, whose base covered the whole lower breadth of the large +sheet, rose up in jagged tiers like a tower, and ended in a smooth +plateau, on which were seen reclining, veiled in a light cloud, the +figures of gods assembled about a banquet table, while others, with +winged feet, either strolled about singly or arm-in-arm, or amused +themselves with dance and song. All seemed a dreamy, floating whirl of +forms, heightened here and there by abrupt foreshortenings of the long +limbs and by angular effects of drapery. Among these Olympian figures, +but separated by an impassable barrier of cloud and storm, could be +seen the races of mankind, in the most various and spirited groups, +suffering all the woes of mortals. Nearest the gods, and hallowed as it +were by their proximity, children were playing and lovers were +whispering; but the paths that branched off soon led to scenes of +suffering and misery, and certain symbolical figures, which were +scattered in among the human forms at the principal passes of the +mountain, made manifest the intention of the designer to represent both +the effects and power of vice and passion, while the division into +seven stages pointed to the seven deadly sins. A solemn, unbending +earnestness, and a certain loftiness in their submission to this +downfall-- + + "Through long years into the uncertain depths below"-- + +gave to this somewhat unwieldy composition a great depth of feeling +which animated even what was grotesque, and impressed upon the stronger +parts the unmistakable stamp of a great mind. + +The mere number of the figures occupied the attention for a long time; +then followed all sorts of criticism, which the designer bore without +contradiction--no one knew whether from defenselessness or secret +obstinacy. For Jansen's opinion only did he watch with eagerness, who, +after his usual fashion, allowed the others to talk, while he merely +pointed now and then with an eloquent finger to some defective spot. + +The only one who had remained quietly seated, and who had looked at the +sheet across the table and down the whole length of the hall, through a +little ivory opera-glass, was Edward. + +At length Rosenbusch, whose high tenor had rung out in enthusiastic +expressions of praise above all the confusion of voices, turned to him. + +"What!" he cried, in a hearty tone of challenge, "will not the blessed +gods rouse themselves this once from their reclining-place, and cast a +gracious look upon this work of a mortal?" + +"Pardon me, my dear Rosebud," replied Fat Rossel, lowering his voice so +that he should not be heard by Kohle; "you know I like to have what is +beautiful come to me, instead of having to run painfully after it; and +the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel made the most profound impression +upon me, because a man can only enjoy it thoroughly lying on his back. +Concerning this last heaven-towering monument of thought, that my +godfather has set up"--for so he had persisted in calling him +ever since he had aptly, though ironically, christened one of his +unnamed, thoughtful drawings, and Kohle had accepted the title in sober +earnest--"concerning this I am not gymnast enough to follow his motives +up seven stories high without growing giddy. However, when you have all +finished, I will draw up a chair in front of it and go to work; or, to +tell the truth, I should prefer to do it tomorrow alone with him." + +"I should be very glad, Rossel, if I might bring you the sketch +to-morrow," stammered the pale man, who had probably overheard the +scoffing words, and had blushed deeply. + +"Would you really like it, godfather?" said Edward, with a shake of the +head. "No, my good friend, if my heresies have reached your ears after +all, let us come to an honorable understanding; and here in Paradise, +at all events, let us wear no cloaks. You know that all paintings that +represent thought make my head ache; that, to my mind, a single +thoughtless Venus of Titian outweighs a whole Olympus full of spiritual +motives, such as swarm about like ants over your big pound-cake of an +allegorical mountain. Yes, we are old antipodes, my dear godfather; +which fact, by-the-way, does not lessen our friendship. On the +contrary, when I see how you and your creations are losing flesh +through pure intellect, I feel a hearty compassion mingled with my +esteem. You should try a milk-cure, my good godfather, at the full +breasts of our old mother Nature; you should follow the flesh for a +year or so, instead of high ideas--" + +"It is not every tree that has its bark full grown," interposed Kohle, +meekly. + +"True. But a tree that has no bark at all!--and, you see, that's just +how your whole style appears to me, you mighty disciple of Cornelius! +We see the complicated structure of your thoughts, we see how the sap +of your ideas circulates through it; all of which is very remarkable +and edifying, but anything rather than artistic. For ought not true art +to work upon us like a higher Nature, without putting forth much +ingenuity and subtilty, without all that complication of poetical +affinities and philosophical _finesse_? No, it should be simple and +plain, but purified by the flame of genius from all weakness, all +defects, and every kind of wretchedness. For instance, in the +contemplation of a beautiful woman, lying there so quietly, or of a +stately senator, or of an 'Adoration of the Kings,' how much does one +think about the ingenuity of the thing? Either it conveys no meaning, +or an incomprehensible one, or even an unprofitable one. And yet it +charms us, even across the whole width of the hall, merely by its +_silhouette_, or its wealth of color, or its simple and majestic +sensuous beauty, such as we seldom or never find in Nature without some +vulgar adjunct. On the other hand, take a poem in picture like the one +before us--I invariably find myself searching at the foot of the frame +to see whether the draughtsman has not added some notes that may serve +to explain the text. A printed paper answers the whole purpose quite as +well, something entitled 'The picture and its description;' and the +dear Philistine who talks about the 'arts of culture'--because he +thinks it is with his own special culture that they have to do--is only +too happy if he can imagine that he is going through some connected +process of thought while he looks at it. But _I_ say, long live the art +that leaves no room for thought! And, now, give me something to drink!" + +Schnetz filled his glass for him, which he drained at one draught as if +he were exhausted by his long oration. A painful silence had ensued; +the depreciatory tone in which the words had been spoken had depressed +even those who were of Rossel's way of thinking. At length a mild and +somewhat husky voice was heard proceeding from the upper end of the +table, and they saw that old Schöpf had taken upon himself to defend +the cause of the party attacked. + +"You are undoubtedly right in the main, Herr Rossel," said he. "In +the great epochs of art--among the Greeks, and the Italians of the +_cinque-cento_--mind and Nature were inseparably united. But, +unfortunately, they have quarreled since then, and it is quite as rare +to find a painter of the so-called fleshly school who knows how to give +soul to his form as it is to find a poet among draughtsmen who succeeds +perfectly in incorporating his conceptions. In fact it is a period of +extremes, of specialties, and of strife. But is not strife the father +of things? Shall we not hope that from this chaos a new and beautiful +world will crystallize? And, until then, should we not give every one a +chance who fights with honest weapons and open visor? What if there are +artists who have more to say than can be shown? Who cannot look upon +their inner life in such a spirit of tranquil beauty, but see in it a +tragedy which must work itself out in discords? And, indeed, the life +of man, as it is to-day, has passed out of the idyllic stage; on every +side we see intellect leading the van, and enjoyment and pleasure +limping after. An art that shows no traces of this, would that still be +_our_ art?" + +"Let it be whatever it liked," cried Fat Rossel, leisurely rising; "it +would be my art at all events. But, naturally, that need matter little +to you. And by the way--I have not once shaken hands with you this +evening, my lord and creator. I do so now, and at the same time I thank +you for so bravely dragging my excellent godfather Kohle from out the +fray. He himself likes to keep his best thoughts in his own breast, +unless he has a chance to sketch them on a sheet of paper. And here in +Paradise no one ought to fall upon his fellow-man in the murderous +fashion that I just did. Kohle, I esteem you. You are a character, and +have the courage of your convictions, in defiance of all the lusts of +the flesh. I thank you, especially, for that poem of Hölderlin's, that +I confess I did not know, and that is very fine; how does it go?..." + +He seated himself with the greatest good-nature by the side of his +"godfather," and began to go thoroughly over the sketch, and to make a +number of keen criticisms of its details. In the mean time the young +Greek had placed in position a large sketch in colors, dashed off in +bold, strong lines; and now this took its turn of criticism. + +It had for its subject, as the artist explained in broken German, in a +soft, musical voice, a scene from Goethe's "Bride of Corinth." The +youth had sunk back upon his couch, and his ghostly bride had thrown +herself vampire-like upon him, "eagerly drinking in the flame of his +lips," while the mother, standing outside the door, seemed to be +listening to the suppressed voices, just ready to burst in and disturb +the pair. + +Over this work also criticism held its breath for a time, though for a +very different reason. The whole picture breathed such a stifling +spirit of sultry passion that even the members of the Paradise Club, +who most certainly were not prudish, seem to feel that the bounds of +what was permissible had been overstepped. + +Once more Rosenbusch was the first to speak. + +"There he sits over yonder in the realm of pure spirit," he cried to +Fat Rossel, who was still studying Kohle's work, "while we here are +dealing with pure flesh. Holla! You man of the silhouette and the +beautiful decorative form, come over here and exorcise this demon!" + +Edward nodded without looking round; he seemed to know the work +already, and to have no desire to express himself concerning it. + +As none of the others uttered a single word, the artist finally +appealed directly to Jansen, and begged for his judgment. + +"Hm!" growled the sculptor, "the work is full of talent. Only you have +christened it wrongly--or have forgotten the two veils." + +"Christened it wrongly?" + +"In the name of Goethe; Saint Priapus stood godfather to it." + +"But--the two veils!" stammered the youth, who had cast down his eyes. + +"Beauty and horror. Only read the poem. You will see how artistically +everything immodest in it is veiled by these two. And yet--a decidedly +talented work. It will find admirers fast enough." + +He turned away and went quietly back to his seat. At the same instant +the young man tore the picture from the wall, and, without saying a +word, held the gilt frame in which it was enclosed over the nearest +lamp. + +Perhaps he had expected that some one would seize him by the arm; but +no one stirred. The flame seized eagerly upon the canvas. When a part +was consumed, the young man swung himself upon the window-sill and +hurled the burning picture through the upper part of the window, which +was open, into the dark garden below, where it fell hissing on the damp +gravel. + +Upon springing down again he was greeted with general applause, which +he received with a gloomy brow and compressed lips. His hasty act had +evidently given him no inward relief. Nor could even Jansen's kind +greeting succeed immediately in banishing his sinister mood. It was his +innermost nature that he had consigned to this fiery death. + +Felix, upon whom this curious incident had made a deep impression, was +just on the point of going up to the youth, whom he saw standing apart +from the others and enveloping himself in a dense cloud of tobacco +smoke, when a clock in one of the church steeples near by announced, +with its twelve slow strokes, that the hour of midnight had arrived. + +On the instant all conversation was hushed, the chairs were drawn up in +line; and it then occurred to Felix, for the first time, that Elfinger, +whose "turn" it was this evening, had left the hall some little time +before, in company with Rosenbusch. + +The folding-doors that led into the central hall flew open, and +disclosed on the threshold, illuminated by lamps at the sides, and +standing on a framework draped in red, a puppet-theatre that occupied +almost the entire width of the space. The table was quickly pushed to +one side, and the chairs for the spectators were arranged in rows. +After everybody had taken his place, a short prelude was played +upon a flute behind the scenes; and then the curtain in front +of the little stage rose, and a puppet in a dress-coat and black +knee-breeches, carrying his hat in his hand--with the air of a director +who has an official communication to make, or of a dramatic poet who +has held himself in readiness behind the wings, to respond in case he +should possibly be called before the footlights--delivered a rhymed +prologue. In this he greeted the associates, and, after lamenting in +half-satirical, half-serious stanzas, the decline of art and of the +love of the beautiful, introduced his troop of players, of whom he +especially boasted that no modern strifes or heartburnings ever invaded +their temple, or kept them from a pure and lofty devotion to the Muses. +His speech concluded, the little man made a dignified obeisance, and +the curtain fell, to be again drawn up after a few moments, upon the +little drama that had been prepared for the amusement of the company. + +It bore the title of "The Wicked Brothers," and was in reality but the +introduction to a longer play, designed to be produced upon some +future evening. In rhyming verses it set forth the history of a +musician, an artist, and a poet--three brothers who had been left at +the foundling-asylum of a little village, and had grown up to become +the curse of the region with their pranks; a very demon of evil-doing +appearing to possess them, and their parentage remaining an +impenetrable mystery to the quiet village folk. To them, after some of +the worst of their misdeeds, and just as the villagers were about to +wreak their vengeance on them, appeared no less a personage than the +devil himself, revealing to them that he was their father, and that he +had called them into being that they might work the ruin of the human +race. This said, he summoned them away with him to undertake their +mission in a larger field than this of their apprenticeship. And here +the action left them; the fantastic little piece closing at last with a +short epilogue by the same puppet who had introduced the play, his +final verses promising the Paradise associates that on some other night +they should enjoy a view of the results of this deep plot against their +kind, but hinting, nevertheless, that they should see how, in the end, +the true and beautiful should triumph, and the fell scheming of the +brothers and their father should be brought to naught. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +The play came to an end amid great applause. The quaintness of the +composition, the easy flow of the words, and that mixture of gaiety and +melancholy which is always effective, excited such enthusiasm among the +spectators that the clapping would have no end, and the little puppet +who recited the epilogue was obliged to come forward again and again to +return thanks in the name of the poet. + +Felix, especially, found much to admire in the little comedy, that had +apparently lost the charm of novelty for the others; especially the +extraordinary life-likeness of the little figures, scarcely two spans +high, which were carved, painted, and dressed in the most careful +manner, each in accordance with his character; the astonishing +dexterity with which they moved upon the stage, and, finally, and above +all else, the masterly art of the delivery. + +The voices changed so rapidly and distinctly, the keynote to each +_rôle_ was so happily struck, and in the long speeches of the devil the +speaker developed so brilliant a power that there was probably not one +person among the audience who could repress a feeling of creeping +horror, such as one has when ghost stories are told in the dark. + +When the rows had broken up again, and everybody was standing about +talking and laughing noisily, Felix took occasion to express to Schnetz +his amazement that a person of such great rhetorical talent should have +turned his back forever upon his art, and have settled down at a +clerk's desk. + +"He will have all or nothing!" remarked the lieutenant. "Since he lost +one of his eyes, and deluded himself into the belief that with a glass +eye he would not be fit for the stage, he is far too proud to step down +from the high horse of the tragedian to the donkey of the public +reader. Every one knows whether he is acting to his own disadvantage +when he plays the malcontent. It is true, though, some one really ought +to prevail upon him to become the manager of a puppet-theatre. And +then, besides, it would offer a good employment for Rosenbusch, who +makes his puppets for him, and lends him a helping hand at the +exhibition. Although, to be sure, anything of that sort only affords +pleasure to a person of his stamp so long as it is an art which earns +him no bread. He has been puttering away over this farce for three +weeks at least, and letting everything else slide in consequence of it. +If it were exhibited for an entrance fee, he would soon be tired of +it." + +Elfinger now entered again, and was obliged to submit to the applause +showered upon him in his proper person, and to acknowledge the toasts +drunk in his honor. He modestly refused, however, to accept the +applause, since the thanks of the audience belonged more properly to +the author, who was not himself, but a poet known to them all, who +cherished a wish to be admitted to Paradise. It was merely with this +end in view that he had written the text for the puppets, in the hope +of introducing himself in this way to the society, and of winning their +good opinion. + +His admission was immediately agreed upon by acclamation, without the +usual formalities. Kohle begged the loan of the manuscript, as he +wished to illustrate it in a series of sketches. Rossel began, after +his usual fashion, to make criticisms upon different parts, censuring +especially the imitation of Immermann's "Merlin." Elfinger defended the +poem, and the dispute had begun to run in danger of becoming heated, +when the door was thrown open and Rosenbusch rushed in in a state of +great excitement. + +"Treachery!" he cried; "black, villainous treachery! Hell sends forth +its spies to ferret out the secrets of Paradise! The veil of night is +no longer sacred; profane curiosity is plucking at the curtain of our +mysteries--and, by-the-way, give me something to drink!" + +All pressed around the breathless speaker, who had thrown himself into +a chair, refusing, however, in spite of the confusion of questions and +suggestions that went on about him, to give any explanation whatever +until he had moistened his thirsty throat. Not until he had done this +to the most liberal extent did he begin to relate his adventure. + +After his assistance behind the scenes was no longer needed, he had +swung himself out of one of the windows of the central hall into the +cool garden, in order to refresh himself a little in the night air. So +he strolled comfortably up and down under the trees, studying the +clouds and occasionally playing a few snatches on his flute, until he +at last experienced a most remarkable thirst. As he was slowly walking +around the house, with the intention of rejoining the company by way of +the back-door, he suddenly beheld two suspicious-looking figures, +women, in long dark cloaks and with hoods or veils over their heads, +who stood at one of the windows intently peering in through a crack in +the shutters. He tried to surprise them, and catch them _in flagrante +delicto_. But, stealthily as he crept upon them, the crunching of the +gravel had betrayed him. They both immediately rushed away from the +window and fled in the direction of the gate, he after them like +lightning, all the more eagerly because he saw a carriage waiting +outside in the street. And sure enough, he succeeded in catching one of +them by the sleeve, just as she reached the lattice-gate--the stouter +one, who carried something under her cloak which hindered her in +running. The prisoner besought him, in a frightened but evidently +disguised voice, to let her go--she had done no harm, a mere chance, +and other excuses of a like sort. He, on his part, excited by anger and +indignation, and not a little by curiosity, would not let go, but +insisted upon learning their names; the cloak, that he held firmly, had +already begun to rip in a suspicious way, as if it were on the point of +tearing and remaining alone in his hands, like the affair of Joseph +reversed, when the other woman, who had in the mean while reached the +carriage, turned round again and said, in a deep voice: + +"Don't be afraid, my dear, the gentleman is much too chivalrous to make +an attack on two unprotected ladies. _Venez, ma chère!_" + +"These words," he continued, springing up, "made--I confess it to my +shame--so strong an impression upon me that I, ass that I was, let go +of the cloak and the woman for the purpose of taking off my hat and +making a very polite bow to the second of the wretches. They were both, +however, too much frightened to laugh at my devilish absurdity, and +spoke not another word, but slipped away from me into the carriage, and +drove off the devil knows where." + +"And I stood there and could have knocked my brains out; for it +occurred to me in a second what a wonderful figure I must have cut in +the affair. But the best is still to come. What did the woman have +under her cloak? In struggling with her I had several times struck +against it, and noticed that it must be something four-cornered, +something like a picture-frame. And suddenly, as I was very sulkily +sneaking back again toward the house, it occurred to me, 'what if it +were the Bride of Corinth! Now, supposing I go and see what really +became of it.' I knew perfectly well out of which window Stephanopulos +had sent it flying. So I searched and searched--but, grope about as I +would, no trace of it could be discovered, and inasmuch as the ground +all around the place is still full of little puddles, and the flame +must undoubtedly have been immediately extinguished, you may bet ten to +one that these spying night-rovers saw it burning--perhaps indeed were +first led by it to slink into the garden; and that now they have borne +away their booty to a place of safety." + +A great tumult followed upon this communication. Some of the youngest, +excited by wine, wanted to rush out on the track of the flying women, +in order that they might recover the stolen property. The wildest +proposals were heard as to how they should take revenge for this +outrage, and how they should prevent such a desecration of their mystic +rites in the future. All these noisy ones were silenced when Jansen +suddenly took up the matter, and admonished them to listen to reason. +What was done here had no cause to shun the light. The only one who was +personally affected by the matter was Stephanopulos. Since he did not +appear to be much troubled, the others might rest content. + +So said, so done; and the festive feeling once more burst forth in all +its glory. The wine loosened even the heaviest tongues; every one +sought out the neighbor he liked best; and even the young Greek thawed +out so thoroughly from his ill-humor that he condescended to sing some +of the popular airs of his native land, which earned him great +applause. In the mean while Philip Emanuel Kohle went up and down the +hall, like one of the gracious genii, with head high in air and beaming +look, bearing his goblet in his hand, and drinking toasts with +everybody--to the ideal--to resignation and the gods of Greece--and +declaiming, in the intervals, verses of Hölderlin. + +Schnetz also seemed to be in admirable spirits. He had seated himself +astride of the little cask in the corner, had a few sprigs of +wild-grape vine above his close-cropped head, and was delivering an +oration that no one heard. + +When it struck three o'clock, Elfinger was dancing a fandango with the +architect who had recently returned from Spain, Rosenbusch playing an +accompaniment on the flute; and Fat Rossel had placed three empty +glasses before him, on which he beat time with a lead pencil. Felix, +who had also learned the dance in Mexico, relieved Elfinger after a +time, and gradually the excitement seized upon the others. Jansen alone +remained quiet, but his eyes sparkled joyously. He had erected a sort +of throne for old Schöpf upon the table, and had placed a number of +green plants around it. And there the white-haired old man sat, above +all the noise, until the wine warmed him too, and he rose, and with +charming dignity gave vent to all sorts of odd sayings and wise saws. + +At four o'clock the wine in the cask ran dry. Schnetz announced this +sorrowful discovery to the dancers, singers, and speakers, with a +funereal mien and pathetic earnestness, and summoned them to pay the +last honors to the deceased. A solemn procession was formed; each +person bore a candle, a blazing piece of kindling wood or anything that +would pass for a torch; and, standing in a semicircle about the cask, +they sang a requiem, at the close of which all the lights were suddenly +extinguished. + +And now the pale light of dawn penetrated through the windows, and +Jansen announced that the time had come for the dissolving of the +meeting, which took place according to unvarying usage--all leaving at +the same time. The abundant wine had robbed none of them of their +senses, though a few were not perfectly firm on their legs. As they +passed out, a fresh morning breeze was just springing up on the still +meadows of the English Garden. The trees shivered in the falling dew. +Arm-in-arm the friends sauntered along in the gray morning air, that +cooled their feverish foreheads, humming to themselves snatches of song +and fragments of the fandango; and last of all came Jansen and Felix, +arm-in-arm, now and then pressing closer to one another, both lost in +thought that found no words. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +Angelica threw down her brush. "It is strange," she said, "that +everything I do to-day is so absurd. At all events the proverb is false +to the core; the beginning is always easy, and only the completion has +its wretched trials. And then, besides, when no one else is working in +the whole house, one appears to one's self to be perfectly crazy with +diligence. Naturally, the saint-factory downstairs stands still on +Sunday. But then the others too! In Rosenbusch's room the mice are +squealing from pure hunger or _ennui_; and I have not heard Jansen's +door squeak once this morning. It is natural that they should be lazy +or have a headache after their night's revel; and they will certainly +miss the Sunday mass in the Pinakothek. Yesterday they were in +Paradise." + +"Paradise?" + +"That is the name they give to their secret society that meets every +four weeks. There must be wild goings on there; at least Rosenbusch, +who, as a general thing, cannot easily keep a secret from me, assumes a +face like the holy Vehm if I ever begin to speak about it. Oh, these +men, Julie, these men! This Maximilian Rosenbusch--I must say that I +really think he is by nature good; indeed, between ourselves, my +dearest, he would be more interesting to me if he looked a little +_less_ moral, did not play on the flute, and were really the terrible +scapegrace that he sometimes makes himself out. But there, one infects +the other, and the very name of 'Paradise!' One can easily conceive +that a pretty antediluvian tone must prevail there, somewhat highly +spiced and free and easy." + +"Do they keep to themselves, or are 'ladies' also present?" + +"I don't know. As a rule, they appear to amuse themselves in quite a +moral manner; but now and then, especially at carnival time, when, for +that matter, every one here in Munich carries the freedom of the mask +pretty far--" + +"Does Jansen also belong to the society?" + +"Of course, he cannot help doing so. But he is said to be one of the +quietest among them, according to Rosenbusch. Upon my life, I would +just like to peep through the keyhole once! 'Oh, had I a jacket and +trousers and hat!'" + +"Why, Angelica, you have the true woman's-rights ideas!" + +The painter drew a deep sigh. + +"Julie," she said, with comical solemnity, "that is just the misfortune +of my life, that two souls dwell in this breast--a timid, old-maidish, +conservative girl's soul by the side of a very bold, dare-devil, +Bohemian artist's temperament. Tell me, did you never in your life +experience a strong desire to cut loose for once from propriety--to do +something thoroughly reckless, improper, unpermissible? Of course I +mean when one was entirely among boon companions, and no one could +reprove the other, because all were possessed of the same demon. The +men fare well in this respect. When they steal back again into the lost +Paradise, they call it a sign of genius. An unfortunate woman, though +she were ten times an artist, and as such perpetually inclined not to +be a Philistine, must never let it be seen in her manner of life that +she can do more than darn stockings!--It is true," she continued, +thoughtfully, "as for women in a body, a whole swarm of talented +women--no matter how much capacity some among them might have for such +a thing--I myself would decline such a Paradise with thanks. Now, why +is that? Does it really amount to this, that we cannot exist by +ourselves alone; that we can neither plan nor bring about anything +successful?" + +"Perhaps it merely arises from the fact that true friendship, real +thorough companionship, is so rare among our sex," answered Julie, +musingly. "We are just as loath to permit another to shine among +ourselves as before the men. But something has just occurred to me; +might not we take advantage of the occasion, and, as you recently +proposed, take a look at Jansen's studio?" + +"And why not rather when he is there himself? He would undoubtedly be +very happy--" + +"No, no!" interposed Julie, hastily, "I will not do that. I have +invariably played such a silly part in studios--because it is +impossible for me to bring myself to pay a trivial compliment--that I +have sworn never again to visit an artist surrounded by his works. You +know it is my Cordelia-like character--whenever my heart is full my +mouth refuses to overflow." + +"Foolish woman!" laughed the artist, hastily wiping her brush and +preparing herself to go out. "You of the public always imagine that we +want to hear eulogies. When you lose the power of speech from +admiration, and make the most foolish and enraptured faces, I like you +a thousand times better." + +Angelica called the janitor, who was busily engaged in the yard +brushing away the moths from an old piece of Gobelin tapestry that +Rosenbusch had recently bought. While he went off to fetch the key to +the studio, she whispered to her friend: + +"We will not go first into the saint-factory, but pass at once into +the holy of holies! It is always painful to see how even such an +artist--one of the few great ones--must use his art to gain bread. It +is true, no human being can imagine why he really has to do it. He +needs almost nothing for himself. And, since he stands quite alone in +the world--to be sure, though, that needs yet to be proved--his saints +must bring him in a great deal of money. What he does with it, whether +he buries it as the wages of sin, walls it up, or speculates with it on +the Bourse-- But here comes our old factotum with the key. Thank you, +Fridolin. Here is something for your trouble. Drink a measure to the +health of this beautiful lady. What, she pleases you too? To be sure +you have had an opportunity to cultivate your taste, living as you do +among artists." + +The flattered old man grinned, attempted to stammer a compliment, and +opened the studio door. Angelica immediately ran up to the "Dancing +Girl" and began to free her from the damp cloths wrapped about her. + +"Now, place yourself here!" she cried, when the figure was entirely +exposed. "To be sure she is divine seen from any side, but viewed in +half-profile--taking in just a little of the back and the outline +standing out so clearly against the bright sky--is it not ravishing? +Does not one feel as if it were just going to spring from its pedestal +and rush through the room, dragging one with it in its mad whirl? I can +never look at this work without my old love for dancing coming back to +me in my old age, and vibrating through every limb! It is a pity that I +am such an ungraceful person, otherwise you would have to tuck up your +dress and dance a reel with me." + +And she did indeed make a few very lively movements, which were +grotesque enough. + +"I entreat you, Angelica, be sensible! You are, to be sure, thoroughly +at home here. But it takes away my breath! Everything is so strange to +me--" + +"Isn't it so--one doesn't see anything of this sort every day? How +every part lives and breathes! One might actually believe that the +blooming young flesh must yield when one touches it; and, with all +that, so pure and magnificent and full of style, that one never thinks +of the model when looking at it." + +"Is it modeled after life?" + +"Do you think that this kind of thing is imagined out of thin air?" + +"And girls can actually be found who allow themselves to be made use of +for--" + +"More than enough, you darling innocent. To be sure--of a sort that one +of us would not touch with gloves. But Rosenbusch says that, for all +that, they are better than their reputation. He has found very +respectable creatures among them--one, indeed, who had a regular +husband and a number of children, and who went to the studios as +soberly as others go to the seamstress or the milliner. Yes, yes, my +dearest, we good children of good families have no conception of all +this. Look," she continued, turning to Felix's modeling-board, "there +is where the young baron works. He has copied the foot of the +anatomical model, and now, as a reward, he is permitted to recruit +himself over the foot of an Æginite. Not bad!--by no means without +talent! An uncommonly handsome and agreeable man, too, whom I like very +much. But--remember what I tell you--he will always remain a cavalier, +and will never in all his life become a true artist!" + +She accented the word "cavalier," in the contemptuous manner in which a +sailor talks about a landsman. Then she stepped up to the large central +group of the Adam and Eve, and began cautiously to undo the covering. + +"How is this?" said she. "Why he has actually fastened the group with +clothes-pins since I last saw it, a fortnight ago. Well, I think I may +be allowed to unfasten it somewhat, and, after all, he will never +notice it. What eyes you will make at it, Giulietta! _È una magia_, as +the Italians say. It is much grander, more imposing and unprecedented +than the 'Dancing Girl' over there. There! Now, just let me unwind this +towel very carefully indeed--the head of the Eve has only just been +modeled--" + +The damp linen cloth, that enveloped the figure of the kneeling woman, +now slipped off; at the same instant Angelica, who stood behind the +group and was carefully removing the last folds from the clay figure, +heard a half-suppressed cry from the lips of her friend. + +"Now, don't you see that I was right?" she cried. "It is beautiful +enough to shriek over. No respectable person can see such a thing +without uttering a few inarticulate sounds. But, for Heaven's sake!" +she cried, interrupting herself and rushing to Julie, whom she saw turn +suddenly pale and step backward, "what is the matter with you, my own +love? You are so very--speak--what has so--gracious Heaven! That! +I never would have believed it myself! Such a surprise--such an +unheard-of piece of treachery and meanness! And, with all that, so +extraordinarily well carried out! Oh, this Jansen! So that accounts for +the pins--that accounts for his not wishing to show the group to any +one for the last fortnight!" + +Julie had retreated to the window and stood there, undecided what to +do, her head sunk upon her heaving breast. But the painter, in whom +enthusiasm had banished all alarm about her agitated friend, stood with +folded hands, as if absorbed in worship, before the work that was so +well known to her, and upon which, nevertheless, she gazed in utter +surprise. For since she saw it last the head of Eve, that was +then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm, +carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with +which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled, +feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her +chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked +up at her own image. + +And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have +overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock, +now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the +robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there +was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had +run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent +work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became +woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features +of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious +thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one +could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed +the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told +her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good +devil's-advocate; and when she had played her trump card, always +keeping her back turned to the silent girl, and had declared that no +one ought to think herself too good to be so immortalized--that this +was entirely different from the case of the sister of Napoleon, whom +Canova had portrayed in marble, or that of the so-called "Venus" of +Titian, whose lover was playing the lute by her side--she suddenly +turned to Julie, threw her arms round her neck and besought her with +humble appeals and caresses not to be angry with her, that she was as +innocent of this evil deed as Rosebud's white mice; and that if she had +a suspicion that this wicked Jansen would have dared to do such a +thing, she would certainly never have invited him to her studio at the +last sitting. And, as a proof of this, she would at once hunt him up +and firmly insist--though what a pity it would be for the wonderful +work's sake--that every trace of resemblance, even the most remote, in +this airily-clad Eve to her deeply offended descendant should be +removed. + +"Do so--I shall rely upon it!" said Julie, suddenly, with great +earnestness, as she rose in all her dignity and womanly majesty. "That +I must never be thrown in contact with him again, that I can never +enter this house again, you will easily understand!" And as she said +this, turning toward the door, she cast a last angry look at her +counterfeit. + +She understood it perfectly, replied the painter, meekly. She would not +have it otherwise; Jansen had acted altogether too inconsiderately, and +toward her, too, who as an old fellow-inmate of the same house was, to +a certain extent, responsible for the good behavior of the rest. But of +one thing Julie might be sure: Jansen had not been guilty of any bad +intention, or of one of those pieces of presumption that artists often +indulge in, but merely of thoughtlessness and indiscretion, and he +would undoubtedly take it very much to heart; and if she should really +remain firm in the intention of never seeing him again, a punishment +which, it is true, he had richly deserved-- + +While these speeches were being poured out, to all of which Julie +listened with an expression of face that it was not easy to understand, +the two friends--for Julie helped, too, with trembling hands--had +carefully wrapped up the group again, and had added to the pins from +their own stock. When they went out into the yard after having done +this, they earnestly cautioned the janitor not to open the studio +again for any one, until Herr Jansen himself had gone in again. Then +they left the house, not, as on the day before, walking familiarly +arm-in-arm, but silent and dejected, and taking leave of one another at +the very first street-corner. + +Angelica determined to make an attempt to see if she could not meet the +offender in the Pinakothek, in spite of the festival of the preceding +day. Julie, who had lowered her veil as if, after this experience, she +no longer dared to look any one in the face, hastened by the shortest +way toward home, where she could, in complete solitude, collect herself +and compose her excited mind. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +Buy scarcely was she alone when the excitement within her, although not +at once stilled, lost, singularly enough, all that it had had of pain +and bitterness, and such an unmistakable feeling of pleasure and +happiness filled her soul that she herself, as she was forced to admit, +felt frightened at it. + +Do what she would, she could no longer feel as angry at the secret +insult that had been offered to her maiden dignity as she ought +properly to have felt. It seemed indeed as if, the moment the witness +of the misdeed was removed from her sight, all the bad aspect had +disappeared from the matter, which, after all, had only become wrong +and unpardonable when strange eyes had spied into the well-guarded +secret of a pure artist-soul. Now, when she thought about the work, how +it stood there in the deserted studio, carefully wrapped, with only the +sparrows flying about it, and guarded from every betraying ray of +light, what was there so sinful in the fact that the head of this +beautiful kneeling woman bore her own features? + +This figure constantly floated before her, no matter how hard she might +try to turn her attention upon other things. And although in the work +of the artist nothing was finished but the head, her fancy saw the +finished statue, and, for the first time in her life, she looked upon +her own beauty, in her thoughts, with other eyes than her own, which +could find nothing new or especial in it. The cruel lot that had held +her apart from life in her girlish years, and the early experiences +that had given her a contemptuous, if not a hostile opinion of men, had +kept her mind isolated from all those feelings that usually agitate a +girl's soul in its spring-time. It had never occurred to her to look at +herself, as it were, through the eyes of a man, for she had never known +one for whose sake she would have thought it worth while to give +herself so much trouble. When she observed her face in the mirror, and +could not help finding it beautiful, it afforded her just as little +pleasure as if--like a female Robinson Crusoe on some island in the +ocean--she had seen her reflection in clear water, and had known by it +that she was queen of the wilderness. In the next room sat the poor +madwoman, in her arm-chair, and nodded at the beautiful daughter, whom +she was robbing of life, with an idiotic smile. Of what avail was her +beauty against this inexorable fate? + +Sometimes indeed, in the spring nights, between dreaming and waking, or +when she read some beautiful moving story, it seemed to her as if the +frost that had settled about her heart were bursting, as if a secret +longing for something sweet and precious swelled her bosom, a trembling +desire for some unknown, unattainable happiness. But this feeling never +took the shape of a being who should strive to gain her love, and whom +she might love in return. At such times she dreamed of nothing better +than to have the liberty of belonging to herself, of being freed from +that horrible duty which, to be sure, had grown less hard through +custom, and which no longer awakened even a shudder, but which held her +a prisoner daily and hourly. If these chains only fell from her--would +she then be so unwise as to voluntarily submit herself to a new form of +restraint? + +But by this time she had enjoyed her freedom long enough to have been +sometimes forced to admit, with a quiet sigh, that the longed-for +happiness was not so overpowering that it relieved the soul of all +other desires. What she really did want she did not know. She fancied +that, if she only had a talent of some sort, it would fill this +yearning emptiness within her. Since she believed it to be too late for +her to take up music or drawing, she hit upon the idea of writing down +her thoughts and moods in free rhythmic forms of her own invention. +These were by no means the usual imitations of well-known lyric poets, +in the conventional and occasionally much-abused metres and stanzas. +What she wrote in her secret diary bore about the same relation to this +conventional poetry that the play of the wind upon an Æolian harp does +to a sonnet. But for all that it was an unspeakable comfort to her, +when she felt that she was striking melodious chords within her lonely +soul, to listen to the rise and fall of this melody of thoughts, and to +transcribe it as well as she was able. The secrecy with which she +pursued this art lent it an additional charm; and many a lonely evening +hour was thus whiled away, as quickly and happily as if it had been +spent in the company of an intimate friend, to whom she could have +poured out her innermost heart. + +But now, when she had reached her home, and had hurriedly closed the +blinds that she might brood in absolute silence and solitude over what +had happened, she felt a sudden shock pass through her heart as she +reflected that during the past week her thoughts had more than once +been busy with the audacious man who had dared this theft of her +beauty--ay, that he had even entered more than once into her secret +poems. She had not given much more thought to this than to the other +subjects she had touched on in her diary: merely that she had made one +more acquaintance, and that of a man who could scarcely be said to have +an everyday face, and to whom all the others in his circle conceded the +first rank without a moment's jealousy. But was it not a singular +coincidence that, at the very time when she was attempting to describe +the impression that he had made upon her, he should be engaged in +moulding the image of her own features? + +She rose thoughtfully to go to her writing-desk. She was obliged to +pass by the glass, and she stood before it for a while earnestly +contemplating her reflection, with the same sort of curiosity she would +have shown had she never seen herself before, but had just had her +attention drawn to herself by some third person. But, at the moment, +she was not at all pleased with her appearance. The face of the Eve +seemed to her fancy a thousand times more beautiful; he himself would +be forced to admit this if he should see her and compare her, face to +face, with his work. "Ten years ago," she said to herself, with a shake +of the head, "I may, perhaps, have looked like that. Oh, for the +beautiful lost years!" + +For all this she began to arrange her hair in the same way that he had +arranged it in the statue, and she found this style of coiffure, in a +plain knot, charmingly becoming to her. She blushed at this, and turned +away. And now her heart beat still louder, as she drew forth from the +desk the book containing her confessions, and read over the last pages. +"I really believe I was in a fair way of falling in love with him," she +said aloud, when she had reached the end. "And he--he looked upon me as +he would upon any good model that chanced to fall in his way; studied +my face, so that he might steal it from me, and ruthlessly insulted +every womanly feeling I have. If I had been anything more to him, if he +had even taken a deep interest in me, he would never have had the heart +to make such a display of me, he would never have subjected me to such +ideas!--Oh, it is shameful! I will never, never forgive him that!" + +A passionate feeling of pain, like the anger and indignation that had +overwhelmed her in the first moment of the discovery, once more flamed +within her. She threw the book into the drawer and hastily locked it +up. Then she paced up and down through her entire suite of rooms, and +struggled to calm her mood again. + +But it was not so easy as she had expected. For the first time she +failed to understand the voices that were speaking in her heart, nor +could she silence them. A feeling had come over this mature, firm +nature, such as seldom takes possession of any but the young in the +time of their earliest development; that oppressing sense of delight +that is almost akin to pain, that threatens to burst the heart, and +that makes the thought of dying and passing quietly away so grateful as +if death were nothing but a gentle sinking into some unfelt deep that +is brimming over with flowers. + +Her anger had suddenly passed away. She tried hard, as soon as she was +conscious of this, to picture to herself her insulter in the most +repulsive shape. Not succeeding in that, she made an attempt to be +angry with herself, to reproach herself for her womanish weakness, in +being frivolous enough to feel flattered by this robbery. But she +succeeded little better than before; one thing only stood before her +mind, that he and she were in the world together, and that they had +both thought of one another at the same moment. + +The door opened softly; the old servant stepped in and announced that +Mr. Jansen wished to pay his respects. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +Of course he had come to apologize. Angelica must have urged the +necessity of his doing so very strongly indeed: must have depicted to +him in pretty glowing colors the anger of her deeply insulted friend, +to judge from the fact of his knocking at her door but two hours after. +Her first thought was to refuse to see him. But then, what if he should +be disposed to treat the matter altogether too lightly; what if he +thought to appease her by some jesting or even gallant apology? Well, +she would soon let him know with whom he had to deal, and that he could +not escape so easily. Had she not been called "the girl without a +heart," and was she not at this moment without friend or protector, +forced to rely entirely upon her native dignity, which had just been so +audaciously insulted? + +"If the gentleman would have the goodness--I should be very glad to see +him--very glad!" + +She stood in the middle of the room as he entered. Her beautiful face +had struggled hard to assume its coldest and haughtiest expression. But +with the first look that she cast upon the visitor, the armor of ice +that she had fastened about her bosom melted away. + +For, in fact, a very different man from the one she had expected stood +before her. Where was the confident smile that sought to make the +matter appear in the light of a jest, or even of an act of homage? +Where the confidence with which the famous master reckons upon +absolution for the sin of having made an unknown beauty immortal? + +It was true, he did not appear quite like a penitent malefactor. Erect, +and with a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, he saluted +her, and his eyes did not avoid hers; on the contrary, they even dwelt +upon her features with so gloomy a fire that she involuntarily lowered +her eyelids, and asked herself in secret whether she was not the guilty +one after all, since this man appeared before her so sad and +melancholy. + +"Gnädiges Fräulein," he said, "I have given you reason to be very +angry with me. I merely come to inform you that the cause of your +displeasure is already removed. If you were willing to visit my +_atelier_ again--which, unfortunately, I must doubt--you would see in +the place where your own features confronted you this morning nothing +but a shapeless mass." + +"You have--you really ought to have--" + +"I have done at once what I owed to you, in order that you might not +form a wrong opinion of me. Sooner or later I should have had to do it +in any case--even though no one had urged me to it. I wish sincerely +that you would believe me when I say this--though I scarcely dare to +hope so, since you do not know me--and are perhaps still too angry with +me not to--not to believe me capable of any piece of discourtesy." + +"I?--I confess--I have until now thought neither well nor ill of--" + +She did not complete the sentence--she felt that she blushed, as she +tried to assure him of her complete indifference--three steps from the +drawer where her confessions were lying. + +"I know it," continued he; and his dark glance wandered over the +dimly-lighted room. "I am so perfectly indifferent to you, that it +must, after all, be very easy for you to pardon something that cannot +have awakened any very strong personal feeling in your mind. One who is +entirely unknown to us cannot insult us. When he has taken back again +that with which he has wounded us, it is as if nothing had happened. +And so I might perhaps take my leave of you, gnädiges Fräulein, with +the renewed assurance of my sincere regret that I have unconsciously +offended you." + +She made a scarcely perceptible motion toward the sofa, as if she would +invite him to be seated. He was much too occupied with his own thoughts +to pay any attention to it. + +"Perhaps it is folly," continued he, after a pause--"perhaps more than +that--wrong, if I intrude any longer, and give you an explanation for +which you have no desire, and which will perhaps strike you +disagreeably, since it turns upon something that cannot but be a matter +of perfect indifference to you: not much more interesting than if you +should hear there had been a thunderstorm at a place forty miles away, +and that the lightning had struck a tree. Still--now that I have +acknowledged my wrong and have done all in my power to make it good +again--I owe it to myself not to permit you to take a worse view of me +than I have really deserved. When, before a court of justice, one can +put forth the plea of mental irresponsibility, it is considered the +most important of all mitigating circumstances. Now this is just the +case in which I find myself placed in regard to you. I can plead, as an +excuse for the insane thought of giving your features to my Eve, the +fact that since I first saw you I have actually been insane; that +waking or dreaming no other face floated before me except yours; that I +have gone about as if in a fever, and that I knew no better way of +dealing with my hopeless passion than by striving, shut up alone in my +workshop, to reproduce your face--and wretchedly enough did I succeed!" + +He made a movement as though he were about to leave her; but once again +he remained where he was, and appeared to be struggling painfully for +words. + +"You are silent, Fräulein," he continued. "I know you think it very +strange that I should endeavor to atone for a great and almost +unpardonable act of audacity, by committing a still greater one. +Perhaps you will not believe me, or will consider me a raving madman +for betraying to you, after so short an acquaintance, a passion that +has carried me beyond all bounds of propriety and decorum. But you +would judge differently, if you knew in what dreariness and isolation +of heart I have passed the five years since I came to Munich; that not +an hour's happiness has been vouchsafed to me; that no womanly being +capable of awakening a single deeper thought has come near me. It is +true I have not thought it worth my while to seek for such +companionship. I have deluded myself with the idea that I missed +nothing, that my heart and feelings did not hunger and thirst--until +you suddenly crossed my path--and then this sudden vision of beauty and +grace, coming as it did after long loneliness, brought about an +intoxication that has completely robbed me of my senses. + +"I doubt whether this explanation will be clear to you. I know nothing +more of you than your enthusiastic friend, our good Angelica, has told +us. Perhaps you may never have had any experience yourself that would +lead you to believe that a passion which bursts so suddenly upon +reasonable men could be found anywhere but in a fairy tale. Enough, I +thought I owed it to myself to tell you of this fact, merely as a +singular instance that need trouble you no farther. And now, permit me +to take my leave. I--I should really have nothing more to tell you, and +as for you--I find it no more than right that you should prefer to +reply only by silence to such singular and extraordinary disclosures." + +"No," she cried suddenly, as he already had his hand upon the +door-knob; "it is not so right as you think, for one to tell all that +he has upon his heart, while the other only accepts it all, and gives +no confidence in return. To be sure, I know very well--I must attribute +much of what you have confided to me to the easily-excited fantasy of +an artist. Nevertheless, I am not so vain as not to imagine that in the +course of five years you have never encountered a face fairer and more +blooming than this of mine, that I have now borne about with me for +full thirty-one. And for that reason I am almost forced to believe that +there really is a secret bond of fate that quickly draws two human +beings together in an altogether inexplicable way. For see--" she +continued, covered with a confusion that only made her more beautiful, +as she opened the drawer of her writing-desk and drew forth her +diary--"I, too, although I perhaps knew less of you than you of me--I, +too, have often had you with me in my thoughts--and since you have +destroyed again the image that you took from me without my knowledge, +ought not I also to destroy those pages in which you are spoken of--" + +She made a gesture as if she were about to tear out the pages. In an +instant he had sprung to her side and had seized firm hold of her hand. + +"Julie!" he cried, as if beside himself; "is it true--is it possible? +Your thoughts were with me?--and in these pages--I beseech you, let me +have but one look--only let me see one line, so that I shall not think +that you have invented all this in order to give me comfort, and to +relieve me from my shame--" + +"Shame!" she whispered. "But cannot you see that in spite of my +thirty-one years I am trembling like a child detected in some +naughtiness? Must I really read aloud to you out of this book what +you--what you might long ago have guessed from my silence--if you had +not been trembling so yourself?" + +The last words died away on her lips. The book slipped from her hands +and fell on the carpet, where it lay without his bending to pick it up. + +A kind of stupor had come over him. He seized both her hands and +clasped them so tightly that it pained her; but the pain did her good. +His face was so near hers that she could see every muscle in it quiver; +his eyes gleamed with a wild fire, like the gaze of a somnambulist. And +yet she had no horror of him. She would gladly have stood so forever, +and have felt her hands in his, and have encountered the power of his +fixed gaze. + +It was only when she felt that her eyes were on the point of +overflowing, and feared that he might misunderstand it, that she said +softly, smilingly shaking her head: "Don't you believe me even yet?" + +Then at last he released her hands, threw his arms about her yielding +figure, and pressed her wildly to his breast. + +A noise was heard in the front room; the old servant apparently wished +to remind the visitor, by the rattling of plates and knives and forks, +that dinner-time was something that must be respected. + +As if startled out of a dream, Jansen suddenly tore himself from +Julie's arms. "Unhappy wretch that I am!" cried he, hoarsely, covering +his face with his hands. "Oh, God! Where have I let myself be carried?" + +"You have only followed where our hearts had already led!" said Julie, +with a happy smile, while her moist eyes sought his. "What is the +matter with you, best and dearest friend?" she continued, anxiously, +for he was about to seize his hat. "You are going--and now? What drives +you away from me? Who--who can part us? What have I done that you again +turn away from me? My best and dearest friend, I entreat you--" + +He struggled hard to answer; a dark red flush overspread his pale face. +"Do not ask me now," he stammered; "this blessed hour--this +inconceivable happiness--no--it must--it cannot be!--Forgive--forget--" + +At this moment the old servant opened the door; he cast a look at the +visitor that could hardly be interpreted as an invitation to stay +longer. Jansen stepped hastily up to the agitated and speechless girl. +"You shall hear from me soon, everything. Forgive--and may you be +forever blessed for this hour!" + +He seized her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips. Then he +rushed from the room, followed by the old servant shaking his head, +while Julie gazed after him, lost in a maze of conflicting emotions. + +It is true that the moment she was alone again the happiness of knowing +that her love was returned overpowered all feelings of doubt that had +been awakened within her. His mysterious behavior, his sudden flight, +his strange awakening from the sweetest realization of a hopeless +dream, ought that to make her distrust him, when it merely confirmed +what he had said of himself; that this intoxication had driven him out +of his senses? And was it not best upon the whole that this miracle +which had happened to them both should not be reduced all at once to an +affair of everyday life, but that they should part, bearing away with +them in their hearts their new-found treasure in all its fullness? +To-morrow--to-morrow he will come again, and all will be new and +wonderful once more, as it was to-day; and is that day lost which one +can spend in thoughts of one's great happiness, or that night in which +one can dream of it? + +She threw back her head, as if in doing so she would shake from her the +last remaining doubts. Then she stepped to the mirror, and began to +rearrange her hair that her violent friend had completely disordered. +What would her old servant have thought had he found her in this state? +As she thought of this she smiled mysteriously at her own image, as if +it were a _confidante_ who alone knew of some great happiness that had +just fallen to her lot. Little as she ordinarily cared to look at her +own reflection, to-day she could not tear herself away from the glass; +"So, to please him, one must look as I do," she said to herself. + +"I wonder whether he saw this wrinkle here, and that deep line, and all +those traces that these hateful, anxious years have left upon my face? +But it cannot be helped now; I have not cheated him, at all events, and +besides, he has eyes of his own--and such eyes!" + +Then she sighed again and pressed her hand to her heart. "Who would +have dreamed it?" she said, once more walking up and down: "only +yesterday and I was so calm here--wearied and tired of life--and +to-day!--And not a soul besides us two knows anything of it! Angelica, +it is true--I wonder whether she suspects nothing?--the good soul! +Perhaps I ought to go and confess to her.--But would not that look as +if I wanted to boast to her of my happiness? And then I will wager that +she herself is secretly in love with him--who could live under the same +roof with him and resist it?--'Julie Jansen'--It sounds as though it +could never have been otherwise since the world began." + +Suddenly the room felt so close and oppressive to her that she sent the +old servant to call her a droschke, that she might go out into the air +for a while. He was allowed to take a seat on the box, and in this way +they drove at a slow trot around the English Garden. The beautiful +weather, and the fact that it was Sunday, had filled all the avenues +and paths with people; all the beer-gardens were gay with music and +thronging crowds. Heretofore she had never felt at home among these +multitudes of merry people, for her solitary life with her unhappy +mother had made her unaccustomed to scenes of noise and confusion. But +to-day, she would like nothing better than to have joined the throng, +feeling that she really belonged there now; for had not she too found a +sweetheart, like all these other girls dressed in their Sunday clothes? +She ordered the carriage to stop in front of the Chinese tower, and sat +there for a long time, listening, and really moved by the music of a +band that would on any other day have provoked a smile. The people who +passed her wondered at the beautiful, solitary Fräulein, who sat, lost +in thought, gazing up at the tree tops. They did not know that the +color of the sky, up there between the two tall silver poplars, +recalled certain eyes that were ever present to the lady in the +carriage. + +It was already dusk when she reached home after her drive. A note was +lying on the table, that had been brought during her absence. She felt +a shock of alarm as she took it up. If it should be from him--if he had +written, instead of coming himself; and yet, although she had never +seen his handwriting, it was impossible that these lines could be his; +they were in a woman's hand. With a quieter heart she stepped to the +window, and read these words: + + +"A person unknown to you, whose name is of no consequence, feels it her +duty to warn you, honored Fräulein, against a man whose attentions to +you can no longer be a secret, since he is regularly to be found every +evening before your window, and to-day even went so far as to pay you a +visit. This letter is to tell you that this man has a wife, and a child +six years of age; a fact, however, which he carefully conceals from all +his acquaintances. Leaving it to you to form your own opinion of this +conduct, the writer signs herself respectfully, N. N." + + +Half an hour after, the bell in Julie's room was rung. The old servant +found his mistress sitting at her writing-desk, with a calm face, but +with traces of tears still on her cheeks, that she had forgotten to +wipe away. She had just sealed a letter, which she now handed to the +old man. + +"See that this letter is delivered to-day, Erich, and at the studio; I +do not know where Herr Jansen lodges. Tell the janitor to hand it to +him the first thing to-morrow morning. And now, bring me something to +eat. We were cheated out of our dinner. I--I shall die of exhaustion +unless I eat something." + +The anonymous note was inclosed in the letter to Jansen. Julie had +added nothing but the words: + + +"I shall be at home all day to-morrow. Come and give me back my faith +in mankind and my own heart. + + "Your Julie." + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +On this very afternoon Felix had carried out a resolution that he had +long had in mind, and had sought out the two friends, Elfinger and +Rosenbusch, in their own quarters. + +They occupied two rooms in the third story of a somewhat tumble-down +house, which, situated in one of the quaint old streets of the +city, concealed its little fantastically-framed windows under a +far-projecting roof, like purblind eyes under bushy eyebrows. + +Felix had often passed without ever having persuaded himself to enter +the untidy-looking vestibule, and climb the dark stairs. To-day, since +the dissipation of the previous night and the fact of its being Sunday +condemned him to idleness, he determined to fulfill at length the duty +he owed to civility. Moreover, he had begun the day before to take a +great interest in Elfinger, and wished very much to have an hour's more +intimate talk with him. + +Luckily he chanced, at his first attempt, to knock at the right door, +although, on account of the absolute darkness on the upper landing, it +was impossible to make out the names; and, upon entering, he saw +Elfinger jump up hastily from a chair, where he had been sitting +apparently entirely unoccupied. + +As the street, which was not especially lively even on a weekday, +reposed to-day in the most profound Sunday quiet, Felix wondered +what it could have been that had held his attention there, especially +when he noticed that the actor, who was generally so ready and +self-possessed, showed evident signs of embarrassment as he hastened +forward to welcome him, and, as if to keep him away from the window, +forced him to take a seat upon the sofa. + +But he soon recovered his easy bearing again. + +"You are looking at the walls," said he, "and are wondering that I +still preserve these mementoes of my stage days, these pictures of +great actors and my pretty colleagues of the fair sex, and even the +obligatory laurel-wreath, with its satin ribbons, that is never lacking +in any true actor's domicile. If my present employer should ever by +chance condescend to visit his clerk, I should, it is true, have done +far better had I hung up a bulletin of the stock boards instead of the +lithograph of Seydelmann as _Mephistophiles_. But, as I am safe up here +from all _haute finance_, I think I may be allowed, without injury to +my reputation as a sound accountant, to surround myself with all those +relics that I hold sacred, even that all-too-flaming sword over there, +that drove me from my paradise of the footlights." + +He pointed to a rapier that hung on the wall opposite the sofa, +arranged with a few pistols and fencing-gloves in the form of a trophy, +underneath which hung a picture in water colors representing Elfinger +in the costume of _Hamlet_. + +"Yes," he continued, with a quiet smile; "if the point of that sword +had not slipped in the hands of an unskillful _Laertes_, and entered +the eye of the unfortunate _Hamlet_, I should hardly have had the +pleasure of seeing you in my chambers just at this particular moment. I +should probably have been sitting in my dressing-room at the theatre, +painting myself to fit the character of an _Alba_ or a _Richard III._, +for this evening's performance. Whether the public has lost much by it, +I can't say. At all events, there is no doubt that I have gained." + +"I am amazed that you can speak so cold-bloodedly of something that any +other man would regard as the great misfortune of his life. After the +high opinion of your talents that I was led to form by your performance +of yesterday--" + +"Do not allow yourself to be deceived by a little bit of coarse humor, +my excellent friend. A man, can rid himself of any other kind of +homesickness sooner or later; but no one who has once felt himself at +home behind the footlights can ever be free from homesickness for the +stage. I must confess that I felt a real pang of envy when I took my +little troupe of yesterday out of their box, and rigged them out for +the play. Now, does not that positively border on insanity? But reason +counts for nothing in such a case. I know that I, with my average +talent, could never have attained the highest point of eminence, and +that for that reason I ought to feel nothing but gratitude toward my +friend _Laertes_ for pushing me back into that obscurity where I can +plod comfortably along on the golden, path of mediocrity. And yet all +my philosophy oozes away the moment the conversation turns upon the +theatre." + +"But should not this be so? and since you are justified in thinking +yourself a born actor, what reason have you for believing that the +highest distinction would have been denied you? Why should not your +fate strike you as a tragical one?" + +"Because with all my good qualifications, especially for declamation, I +am not only a born actor but also a born German, which, I admit, sounds +like a very palpable paradox. But just consider our race a moment. In +spite of some rare exceptions, that stand out almost like miracles and +that merely prove the rule, it may be said to possess scarcely a single +qualification that would enable it to reach any decided greatness in +the art! Ought not the actor to be able to shed his own skin when he +slips into that of another? And when did a true German ever exist that +could put himself in another's place? When was he ever untrue to +himself?--when did he ever deny his personal virtues and faults? Don't +you see, the very thing that makes our people so respectable stands in +the way of our acting. We are not a people given to impersonation, to +posing, and to representation. We are sublime in our earnestness, and +silly in our trifling. We like best to sit still in our private corner +behind the stove, and we grow red and awkward if we have to pass +through a room where there are ten unknown men, or even as many ladies, +watching us. Only the highest problems of tragic poetry give us wings +to lift us over these chasms. When we attempt to walk with metrical +feet, which are shod with winged shoes, we get on very well. But on our +own flat every-day extremities, we stumble so wretchedly that an +ordinary Frenchman or Italian, who can neither read nor write, appears +like a prince of the blood beside us." + +"I wish I were able to deny all this," said Felix. "Unfortunately we +have no real society; and where we have the germs of one, actors are as +a rule excluded from it. But though that part of your art that has to +do with the representation of human beings and a characteristic +imitation of life suffers from this, the higher branches still continue +to be our domain; and if you compare the art of tragedy among the +Italians or the French with our representations of Shakespeare and +Goethe--" + +"That is all very true," interrupted the actor; "in what is spiritual +and belongs to an inner consciousness, we can always bear comparison +with our neighbors. But only wait ten years longer and you will see +that not a soul here in Germany will ever think of going to see a +tragedy, and our classical theatre will be then just such another +puppet-show as the Théâtre Français is now. Ought we to be surprised at +this? All tragedy is aristocratic. Why should the hero leave this world +with such sublimity and grandeur if it were not that he found it too +miserable for him to feel comfortable in? But he who finds the world a +wretched place insults all those to whom it appears most charming, +because, with their low desires, they are able to take comfort in it. +And inasmuch as the good of the masses will become more and more the +watchword, as time goes on, therefore he who towers above the masses +must not be disappointed if he finds that he cannot be of much use +either in real life or behind the footlights. Tragical heroes are only +possible where social differences exist; where the ordinary man looks +on with a certain respect while a _Coriolanus_ conquers and falls, +without thinking to himself: 'It served him right. Why did he insult us +common folk?' But with our excellent, humane, democratic way of looking +at things--" + +"A depressing prospect, certainly! So the longer our nation goes on +freeing itself from prejudices and conforming to true ideas of +humanity, the less hope will there be that we shall ever be able to cut +a good figure on the stage?" + +"On the contrary, I think then is the time when we shall really first +begin. Self-respect is one of the most important requisites even in the +acting of a comedy. When we have once taken our place among the nations +of Europe, when we have rid ourselves of our dullness and tactlessness +in our dealings with the outside world, when we cease to be such +wretched crawlers that we will go through any humiliation for our +daily-bread's sake, and cannot conduct ourselves like gentlemen, then +you will see how quickly we shall find the art of acting infused into +our blood--we who have been for so many centuries mere zealous animals. +To be sure, in regard to tragedy it is a question whether we shall ever +succeed, in our better days, in attaining sufficient earnestness and +reverence to enable us to keep in mind the fact that, as old Goethe +says, 'awe is mankind's best quality'--" + +He seemed about to talk still further of his hopes and fears; and +Felix, to whom many of these ideas were new, and to whom the speaker, +with his unselfish warmth, grew more and more attractive as he went on, +would gladly have listened half through the night. But the door was +noisily thrown open, and Rosenbusch made his appearance on his friend's +threshold arrayed in a costume the comicality of which irresistibly +swept away all these serious considerations. + +He had had his red beard shaved off, leaving only a diminutive mustache +and a pair of side whiskers; his flowing hair was elegantly arranged; +he wore an old-fashioned black coat, and a tall stove-pipe hat, brushed +smooth and shining. + +"You may well laugh!" cried he, knitting his brows tragically at his +friends. "If you only knew how a man felt who was yesterday in +Paradise, and to-day is forced to get himself up in such a toilet as +this, as if he were going to his execution. The executioner's minion, +who cut my hair, has just left me. Whoever wishes to have a lock of +hair of the celebrated battle-painter Maximilian Rosenbusch will find +them lying about, like useless wool, on the floor of the adjoining +room. O Delila, for whom I have suffered this! O Nanny, for whose sake +I cut my noble hair!--for whom I dress myself in this Philistine +fashion!" + +He stopped, and now revealed to Felix that he was on the point of +taking the most painful step of his life. In the opposite house lived +the object of his desire, the muse of his songs, the beautiful daughter +of a glovemaker, with whom he had been madly in love for the last six +months, so that he could positively hold out no longer. He had received +quite enough tokens to show him that his love was returned; indeed he +had an assurance, written on rose-colored paper and exhibiting one or +two orthographical liberties, that if the parents did not say no their +little daughter would certainly say yes. In order to have this question +decided, he had been obliged to assume his present masquerading +costume, notwithstanding the fact that the carnival was still far off. +For papa glovemaker had no very exalted opinion of artists of the +ordinary type. + +"Therefore, my friends, drop a tear for the departed splendors of my +noble head, and pray for my poor soul, that it may soon be released +from this purgatory and admitted to the joys of the blessed. And, +by-the-way, how is it, Elfinger? Don't you want to slip on your best +coat and come with me? Then the whole thing would be finished at one +go." + +Felix saw that the actor blushed, and cast a look of displeasure at his +loquacious friend. + +"Ah! to be sure!" replied the latter, stepping in front of the glass +and winking at Felix as he passed, "you haven't slept off your headache +from last night. Hm! Another time, then. It seems to me, do you know, I +look devilish respectable, and the glovemaker's little daughter will +make no end of a good match in catching a person of my tone and style. +Look, there she sits over there at her post, the little witch, and at +the other window, completely absorbed in her work, is her pious sister. +_Sua cuique_-- Well, I won't quote any further, Elfinger, my boy! But +now, I must wend my way to the high tribunal. Will you accompany me, +friend baron? You must support me with spiritual comfort, in case I +should show signs of weakness by the way. To be sure, I have just been +working up my courage by three beautiful strophes; but a lyric of that +sort, strongly diluted with water, does not last long, and a more +spiritual elixir for the heart cannot be prepared off-hand. May Heaven +take me in its safe keeping! Amen! Well, Elfinger, you shall hear +before long how it turns out!" + +Upon this he pressed his hat down firmly on his forehead, nodded to his +friend with a comical expression of misery and despair, and dragged +Felix with him from the room. + +On the stairs he suddenly stood still and said, in a suppressed and +mysterious voice: + +"Our friend up-stairs has the same trouble worse than I have. He is +smitten with the other one; but she is a little saint, as much of a +nun, thanks to her education with the English sisters, as my little +witch is a child of the world for the same reason. Now just conceive of +it, the more my little imp carries on--it will be hard work making a +sensible housewife of her--the more zealously does our good Fanny +confess and do penance and pray, and it really looks as if she were +seriously intent upon gaining a saint's halo. The fact is the girls +never associate with sensible people, and for that reason one of us +must sacrifice himself so that the ice will at last be broken, although +I confess it is pure madness on my part to think of marrying. You have +no idea, my dear friend, what extraordinary cobwebs gather in an old +Munich burgherhouse like this. Well, a few fresh fellows like us--I +imagine it would not take us long to bring new life into it, if we were +only once inside!" + +He sighed, and appeared not to be in the most courageous mood, +notwithstanding his brave words. Felix accompanied him across the +street and saw him enter the narrow, arched door next to the glove +store, which was closed on account of its being Sunday--going in with +an assumed air of boldness, as if he were going to a dance. + +Then he himself wandered aimlessly down the street. In what direction +should he turn his steps? In the whole city there was no one who would +be looking for him to-day, and the one to whom he felt most drawn was, +strangely enough, on Sunday afternoons farther out of his reach than at +any other time. + +He was deliberating whether he should not hire a horse again and dash +away across the country, when companionship was unexpectedly thrown in +his way, of a kind that a man in his frame of mind could not but +welcome. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +His way led him along the Dultplatz, past the beer-garden in which he +had sat with his friends on his first Sunday in Munich. The music was +playing as before, but the people sat about under the lanterns, that +had just been lighted, in rather a sleepy and listless way, for the day +showed as yet no sign of growing cooler. + +Near the fence that separated the garden from the street, a Dachau +peasant-family had taken possession of one of the tables, leaving only +one end free. Their extraordinary, ugly costume attracted the attention +of Felix as he went wandering by. But his gaze soon turned from their +ridiculous dress and fixed on a slim girlish figure, closely wrapped in +a dark shawl, who sat at the other end of the table, with a full glass +and an empty plate before her, at which she seemed to have been staring +for some time, with her head resting on her hands and her elbows +planted on the table, as if utterly regardless of what was going on +about her. Nothing could be seen of the face, but a little, white, +short nose; her straw hat and a veil that hung half down over the +little hands threw the rest into shadow. But the little nose, and the +thick red hair, carelessly confined by a net, left not a moment's doubt +in Felix's mind that this picture of solitary melancholy was no other +than Red Zenz. + +As he stepped softly up to her, touched her familiarly on the shoulder, +and pronounced her name, she looked up with a frightened start, and, +with eyes red from weeping, gazed into the face of the unexpected +comforter, as if she took him for a ghost. But the moment she +recognized him, she hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her little +round hand, and smiled upon him with undisguised pleasure. He asked +compassionately what it was that made her so heavy-hearted, and why she +sat here all alone; and, drawing up a chair, he seated himself between +one of the horrible young peasant-girls and the melancholy little +Bacchante. Then she told him what the trouble was. "Black Pepi," her +friend, the girl with whom she had been living, had suddenly "proved +false" to her, because her (Pepi's) lover, a young surgeon, had +declared red to be the most beautiful color. He afterward apologized +for it by saying that, of course, with his profession, it was only +natural that he should prefer the color of the blood to any other. But +it had for some time past appeared to Pepi that her faithless lover +paid rather more attention to her friend than was permissible in such a +case; and so, after a very violent scene, she had not only broken off +the friendship, but had given her notice that she could no longer share +her quarters with her. Furthermore, inasmuch as Zenz was still owing +rent for several months, she had seized upon the few things she had to +hold as security, and had then driven her from the house with only the +clothes she had on at the time. + +"Only see," said the girl, lifting her dark shawl; "she did not even +leave me a respectable dress: if it had not been for the shawl that the +landlady lent me, I should have been ashamed to go across the street." + +And it was really so; she wore a simple sack of striped cotton under +her black covering, that she carefully wrapped about her again. But now +it began to look as though she no longer troubled herself in the least +about the adventure that had so recently made her weep. The pale +little face that she turned toward her neighbor, brightly illuminated +by the lantern, had even lost its expression of anger at this +insulting treatment and betrayal of friendship, and beamed again with +light-heartedness and irrepressible enjoyment. + +"And what are you going to do, Zenz?" + +"I don't know yet. I shall manage to find some place to stay at. I +could go to the Rochus garden, or the Neusigl, where I lodged when I +first came here; but the waiters there have keys to the doors, and I +have found that it is not safe there. And anywhere else, where I am not +known, they might think that I would not be able to pay for the room, +and I really have no money but a few kreutzers. I should have to pawn +the ring that I have from my poor dead mother. Well, the day is not +over yet, and I can think the matter over again." + +"To be sure," continued she, after a pause, during which Felix sat, as +if in a dream, gazing at her red lips and her white teeth, that one +could have counted when she spoke, "to be sure, I might fare well +enough if I only would! So well, that that false black cat Pepi would +envy me." + +"If you only would, Zenz?" + +"Yes, if I were willing to be wicked!" she added, in a low tone, and +for a moment her face grew serious. But in the next instant she laughed +merrily again, as if she would laugh away the flush that had suffused +her face. + +"Do you know an artist named Rossel?" + +"Certainly. Edward Rossel. What of him?" + +"He came to see me about a week ago. He said he had seen the figure +that Herr Jansen modeled from me, and he said, if I would come to him +and stand as a model, he would pay me three times as well for it." + +"And why haven't you gone to him?" + +"Hm!--because I didn't like him. I will not hire myself out in that way +for the gentlemen, so that every one will know me and say: 'Aha! that +is Red Zenz!' I am sorry enough that I stood to please Herr Jansen, +although he is such a good gentleman. But now they know my address, and +they think that is as much as to say that I will go and be a model for +any one who wants me." + +"Didn't you like Herr Rossel?" + +"No. Not at all. He doesn't look in the least as if he were an artist, +and wanted to study from a model. He made such big eyes--No! I sent him +off with a flea in his ear. And then he went to Pepi to get her to +persuade me. But she knows me. She went to him herself, for she thought +he would just as soon have one as another. But he only gave her a +gulden and sent her away again, saying that he had no time just then, +and that he happened to particularly want red hair. Then she flew out +again about red. I have heard though that Herr Rossel lives like a +prince, and Pepi said that if I were not a fool--at that time she was +not so down on me--I might make my fortune." + +"But are you going to continue such a fool all your life long, Zenz?" + +"I don't know," replied she, frankly. "Nobody is sure of herself when +she is young and has plenty of time on her hands. But I think as long +as I have my five senses about me--" + +She hesitated. + +"Well, Zenz?" he asked, taking one of her little hands, with its +fingers' ends roughened by work, in one of his. + +"So long," she said, quietly, "I will not do such a thing to please +anyone whom I do not love." + +"And how must the man look whom you could love? Only like Herr Jansen?" + +She laughed. "Oh! no. He is so much older than I. I only like him in +just the same way that I might have liked my father. He must be younger +and very nice, and--" + +She stopped abruptly, looked askance at him, a little coquettishly, and +said: "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't you eat and drink +something, or has the scarecrow next you there taken away all your +appetite!" + +She glanced disapprovingly at his neighbors, who looked, with their +nodding cap-borders and strait-laced Sunday suits, for all the world +like stuffed dolls, and did not understand a word of what had been said +by the other two. + +"Zenz," said Felix, without answering her; "do you know you could stop +over night in my quarters just as well as not? I have two rooms: you +could bolt the door between them if you should feel any fear of me, and +each room has a separate entrance. What do you think about it?" + +"You are only joking!" she hastily replied, without the slightest +embarrassment; "you would never think of encumbering yourself with such +a poor, ugly thing as I am." + +"Ugly? I don't find you at all ugly, Zenz. And if you only cared to be +a model for me, as you do for Herr Jansen--Do you know, he has kept me +for weeks studying an old skeleton and a lay figure, and I am +forgetting over such work the very sight of a human being." + +She shook her head, laughed, and then said, becoming serious again: + +"That was only meant in joke, of course. I am not so simple as to let +myself be talked into believing that you are really a sculptor!" + +"Well, just as you like, Zenz. I won't try to persuade you to do +anything you don't like. Come, take some beer; a new cask has just been +broached." + +She drank eagerly out of his glass; and then a spirited overture was +played which interrupted their conversation for a time. Even after this +they talked entirely about other things. She told him about her former +life in Salzburg, how strict her mother had been with her, how often +she had known want, and how often of a Sunday she had sat quietly in +her chamber and had wished she might be allowed, just for once, to join +the merry, gayly-dressed throng outside, that she could only look at +from a distance. No doubt her mother had really cared for her, but for +all that she let her feel that her existence was an eternal reproach +and burden to her. Of course she cried when she lost her mother, but +her grief did not last long. The pleasure of feeling herself free soon +dried her tears. Now, to be sure--all alone as she was, without a soul +in all the wide world to trouble itself whether she lived or died--now, +she sometimes felt that she would give up everything if she could only +be back again at her mother's side. + +"That is always the way," concluded she, with a nod of the head that +looked droll enough in its seriousness, "one never has what one wants; +and still, people say one ought to be contented. Sometimes I wish I +were dead. And then again I feel as if I would like to promenade up and +down the live-long summer through, wear beautiful dresses, live like a +princess, and--" + +"And be made love to by a prince--isn't it so?" + +"Of course. Alone, one can have no happiness. What would be the use of +my princess's dresses, unless I could drive some one perfectly crazy +with them?" + +He gazed so steadfastly in her eyes, that she suddenly blushed and was +silent. The strange mixture of lightheartedness and melancholy in the +poor child, of enjoyment of life and reserve, of secret love and +introspective moralizing, attracted him more and more. Then, too, the +night, the subdued light of the lanterns, and the stirring music, and +his own loneliness of heart, and his seven-and-twenty years-- + +"Zenz," he whispered, bending over so near to her ear that his lips +almost touched her neck, "if you would only care just a little bit for +me, why shouldn't we fare just as well as if you really were a princess +and I a prince?" + +She did not answer. Her lips were parted, she breathed quickly, and her +nostrils quivered, while her eyes were tightly shut, as if it were all +a dream from which she did not wish to wake. + +"We could lead a life like that in Paradise," continued he, gently +stroking with his own the two little hands that she had laid side by +side on the table. "We are both of us two stray children for whom no +one cares. If we should stay at home a year and a day, and never let +ourselves be seen, who would inquire what had become of us? All about +us people live and love and think only about themselves! Why should not +we think only of ourselves, too?" + +"Go away from me!" answered she, in a low voice. "You are not in +earnest. You think about me? Not even in your dreams. How can you care +for me? Such a red-haired little monkey, as Black Pepi called me +today!" + +"Your hair is very pretty. I remember yet how pretty it made you look, +when you let it hang loose over your blue cloak that morning in Herr +Jansen's studio, when you ran away so fast. And now I will hold you +tight by it. Come! I thought we were going? It begins to be cool; at +least, I see that you are trembling." + +"Not from cold!" she said, in a strange tone, as she stood up and +wrapped her shawl tightly about her. + +Then, without waiting for him to ask her, she took his arm and they +left the garden. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +She did not ask where he was leading her, and indeed spoke very little +more, and scarcely betrayed by any sign whether she was listening to +what he said, or was entirely absorbed in her own thoughts. He had +begun by telling her, with a kind of forced liveliness, about all sorts +of things that he thought would interest her; about the women in the +countries on the other side of the ocean, their way of dressing, their +songs and dances, and their ideas about love and men. As she made no +reply to it all, he at last grew silent too. For a moment he felt a +keen pang of pain, when, by the light of a street lamp, he caught sight +of his own shadow and that of the girl swaying before them on the +ground. How came he to constitute himself the knight of this poor +creature, who clung so tightly to his arm that he realized well enough +it would not be easy to shake her off again? + +Six weeks ago, in another city--it was a summer night, too--in what a +different mood had he returned home from a walk, and in what different +company! But that was passed forever. Should he wander about in the +desert all his life long in sackcloth and ashes, and turn his back upon +all the happiness of existence? Who would be benefited by his +sacrifice? And yet, why could he not suppress this obstinate pain, this +remembrance of past days that sought to fill him with disgust at the +lighthearted life of this "city of pleasure?" + +He would not let his life be ruined by a spectre, he would carry his +head high and sneer away all attacks of sentimentality. Laughing +defiantly, to silence the low, far-off voice in his heart, he released +his arm from the girl's, only to put it still tighter and more tenderly +about her shoulder. + +"Zenz," he said, "you are a darling little sweetheart. It would be a +sin if you should not know where to lay your head. Do you see that +house over there, with the lamp burning in front? That is where I live, +and no one has a key to all the doors. How would it be if we should +play hide-and-seek there for a time, with all this tiresome world?" + +He merrily lifted her up from the ground, as if he would carry her over +the street into the house; but she suddenly released herself and +pointed anxiously to two riders, who were already so close upon them +that they were forced to run to get by them. + +"You little goose!" he laughed, "surely you are not afraid of two +people on horseback, and they peaceful Sunday riders--" + +The word died on his lips. As the light of the lantern fell on the +faces of the two horsemen, he recognized in the one the lean profile +and the black imperial of Lieutenant Schnetz, and in the other a little +mustached gentleman, with a straw hat and a light riding-jacket. + +No; it must be a mistake! How came _he_ here? He had been deceived by a +resemblance. It was only because he had so recently been thinking about +past times, that their shadow had risen up before him. What could +possibly bring the uncle of his betrothed to Munich, and in the company +of the lieutenant--he who never left his niece? + +And yet--as he looked he heard him say a word or two to Schnetz, and +then there was a merry laugh. + +The two rode unsuspectingly by, and long after their voices had died +away, Felix stood gazing listlessly after them in the darkness without +rousing himself from his thoughts. + +It was he--Irene's uncle. But how did he come here? True, he had +distant relatives in Munich; but it was years since he had left off all +intercourse with them. Did he know, perhaps, that Felix was here in the +city? Was that why he had come, and had he perhaps brought his ward +with him? And even if it were all an accident--even the acquaintance +with Schnetz--must not he inevitably learn from the latter that the +fugitive had hidden himself here under the disguise of a sculptor's +blouse? + +"What is the matter?" asked the girl, at last growing impatient. "Do +you know these gentlemen?" + +"Ah! Yes," he answered, suddenly recalling where he was and with whom +he was standing here in the street. With a deep sigh he brought himself +back to the _rôle_ of protector to this poor child. He stammered a +meaningless remark about the breed of the horses and about skill in +riding, and once more offered Zenz the arm he had withdrawn in his +momentary confusion. + +He led her thus across the street and into the house. + +When they had reached his rooms, where the windows stood open toward +the garden, he hastened to light a lamp. And then he forced himself, in +his character of host, to show the now somewhat silent and shy girl the +arrangement of his rooms, and all the curiosities that he had brought +back from his travels. On the table lay a little Damascus dagger, which +she took up and looked at curiously. He told her how a young Spanish +lady had given it to him in Mexico. And then he remembered a bottle of +sherry that was standing in his closet, and brought it and drew the +cork. + +"This is all the hospitality I can offer you," said he, still very +absently, setting down a full glass before her. + +She shook her head, and could not be prevailed upon even to taste the +wine. And in all that she did she had grown very shy and timid, like a +young swallow that has flown into an inhabited room, and keeps close +pressed into a corner, where you can see the frightened heart beating +under its feathered breast. + +"Will you not look and see whether you can make yourself comfortable on +the sofa?" + +She did not answer, and sat still in a chair by the window, her hat +still on her head, and her shawl wrapped closely about her. + +"A beautiful night," she said softly, at last. "How far you can see +from here over the city! You are very happy to be able to live in such +a beautiful place." + +"Well, you can share the happiness, then. Only make yourself quite at +home. Are you tired?" + +"Oh, no! but please don't trouble yourself about me. If you want to go +to sleep, I will sit here and will not stir." + +He came and stood beside her by the open window. + +"Well, Zenz," he said, "you must not mind if I leave you alone now. The +day has been so hot, the wretched music of that band and all sorts of +other things have given me a furious headache, and I had better get to +sleep. Good-night, child! If you want anything to amuse you, here are +all manner of things--photographs and books of pictures. I will light +you another candle. And now, make yourself comfortable. You can bolt +the door from this side, and my housekeeper goes to market early in the +morning, so that you are quite safe from her. And so, good-night!" + +He touched her cheek lightly. She raised her face toward him, quietly +and submissively, and looked at him half inquiringly, half afraid. Her +lips, with their white teeth, were parted--yet now without a laugh--and +her hands lay quietly folded in her lap. Yet, as he bent over her, he +only touched the hair upon her forehead lightly with his lips. + +"Good-night!" he said again. + +Then he went into the adjoining room, and closed the door behind him. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + +At the foot of his bed stood a cabinet in which he preserved all kinds +of relics, diaries, letters--mementos of his lost love. He thrust in +his hand at random, and drew out a portfolio containing all Irene's +letters, from the first unimportant notes, in which she sent him some +communication from her uncle--her uncle had an aversion to pen and ink, +and was very glad to make use of his niece as a secretary--to the +sheets on which the fate of his life stood written. + +He lit a lamp and spread out before him this chronicle of the happiest +years of his youth. Thus he sat with his back to the door of the +sitting-room, now reading, and now mechanically taking up one sheet +after the other. What could they tell him that was new? And yet these +fine, slender letters reminded him of the hand that had written them. +He had never seen any other hand that had expressed so much character, +so much delicacy and firmness, so much flexibility and noble repose. He +had often teased Irene about this, by telling her that he would +undertake to decide from the appearance of her hands whether she was +glad or sad, laughing or crying. The handwriting, too, was a very +correct expression of her impulsive and self-controlled inner nature. +Now, as he picked out here and there some particular sheet and glanced +over it again, the whole past rose up so vividly before him that he +felt as if he must suffocate in the close, lonely, sad atmosphere that +surrounded him; as if he were lying in his grave, and a voice arose +from these pages and repeated to him the history of his own life, that +now lay ruined and shattered for ever more. + +"Your dear, long letter from Mexico," she wrote, "I gave to uncle to +read. He is always teasing me, because I assert that the letters of two +lovers are written to be read by two pairs of eyes only. It was not +possible, he declared, that an epistle of sixteen closely-written +pages, like your last, could be a mere love-letter; no human being +could stand such a thing, and we no longer lived, thank God, in that +paradise of letter-writers--the time of Werther. So I showed him the +Mexican letter, and he gave it back to me with one of his most comical +faces. He declared he had never before come across such a lover; here +he was giving a detailed description of a charming young girl, passing +from one handsome woman to another, as if he could think of nothing +that would give greater pleasure to his far-off sweetheart. That was +certainly rather the opposite of a love-letter; but if I was content to +make the acquaintance of all these Paquitas, Chatitas, and Mariquitas, +he would not begrudge me the pleasure, and congratulated me upon my +slight disposition to jealousy, which, to be sure, was a very useful +trait for me to have in the case of a traveler of this sort. + +"I laughed, and he went off to his club, shaking his head. + +"But then I grew very serious, and looked into my own heart and tried +to make out why it was that I really did not feel the faintest spark of +jealousy. Perhaps because there is room for nothing in my heart but my +love for you; neither for conceit, nor fear, nor desires, nor doubt. I +have never stopped to consider _why_ it was that we two should have +loved one another. It _was_ so; I felt that even more strongly than I +did my own existence. And for that very reason it seems to me +inconceivable that it can ever be any different. For you do not love me +because I am the most beautiful, the wisest, the wittiest, or the most +lovable person that you have ever seen, but because I am _I_ the one +person, with all that I have and all that I lack, that you will never +find a second time. So, though you may find many beyond the sea who are +more charming, more attractive, more brilliant, you will never find me +again; and because I know that, I can, when evening comes, lay your +sixteen-page letter from over the ocean under my pillow, and very +quietly go to sleep and dream of you, without feeling any desire to +snatch you, with poison and dagger, from the attractions of some +olive-colored Creole. + +"For I know, dearest love--vain as it may sound, and little store as I +set by my few talents and attractions--that I alone can make you happy +as no other can; not so happy that you will never have a wish +unfulfilled; that I shall appear to you at all times the crown and +jewel of all wives, and you the chosen favorite of fortune; but as +happy as it is possible for one human being to make another, so happy +will I make you and you make me; and because we can never comprehend +this, but ask ourselves each day why it should be so, therefore our +happiness shall have no end, and no phenomenon of beauty, grace, or +wit, that ever crosses your path, will be capable of disturbing this +happiness. + +"My old Christel would raise her eyebrows very ominously at this point, +and would repeat 'unjustified, entirely unjustified!' But I cannot help +it; as a rule I am timid and skeptical about anything good that is +promised to me. But when I think of our love, I overflow with boldness +and confidence. What harm can fortune do us? Is not our love itself +fortune? What tricks of fate ought we to fear, when we hear this fate, +the most important and the greatest of all, within us? + +"You will not feel tempted to translate this letter for the benefit of +your Spanish lady friends. They would only pity you for having a +sweetheart who would write you about such serious matters. Ah! and yet +my whole heart laughs when I think that they are so serious with us!" + + +In a later letter, that had been addressed to Paris, she wrote: + + +"Yesterday, I was at court again, and to-day I thank heaven that I +managed to bear it, and that the headache which was caused by its +tiresomeness is only a moderate one. This undoubtedly proceeds from the +fact that I sat at supper next to the embassador for ----, who has been +in India, and who described to me, in great detail and for the third +time, the burning of a widow that he had once been present at. (They +say that he always tells the gentlemen a similar story about a +tiger-hunt.) For this reason it happened that I could think a great +deal about you, and when I can do that I am always happy. My darling, +have you yet learned to put a good face on a bad matter? To howl with +the wolves? To do homage to 'his serene highness your sovereign +prince,' without letting your own sovereignty come out too plainly? I +am afraid that, inasmuch as they don't dance the bolero here at the +court balls, and as the whole _tempo_ of our life is an _andante +maestoso_, you will soon grow impatient with all this again, and give +umbrage to some of the best and best-intentioned people in the world. +No one can understand your feeling better than I do; only to think that +your poor sweetheart, whom you have always teased about her good +breeding and her respect for conventional forms, is looked upon by the +society of this city as a very emancipated individual, or, at all +events, is notorious for being a _tête forte_! The reason of this is, +that I generally am quite dumb in the midst of all tiresome talk and +whispered gossip; but if the conversation happens to turn upon anything +deeper, upon affairs of real human interest and not merely upon court +events, then I express my true opinion, without troubling myself to +care whether it falls in with the court tone or not. And the good +people look on this as very pronounced, and not at all good form for a +young lady. + +"But don't you see, my dearest, in this way I manage to make this whole +world of forms bearable, by holding my human part ready in reserve, and +looking upon all these absurd prejudices and narrow conventionalities +as something purely superficial and accidental, as unimportant as the +other habits and customs we have in our toilet, behavior, and our +living and dying? And although the forms of the circle in which our lot +has happened to place us are very often more tiresome and senseless +than in other stations, still existence can nowhere be entirely +formless, and at the most can only seem so to one who only looks upon +it as a traveler may look, and who, as an irresponsible spectator, does +not feel bound to submit himself to any of the constraint that is +incumbent upon the natives. Have not you yourself told me that even +among the students a severe etiquette prevails, according to which they +sing and drink, and fight duels, and make up their quarrels? If young +people, in the years of their happiest freedom, cannot amuse themselves +without submitting to the restraint of customs and conventionality, why +should you be so angry with our poor aristocracy, that endeavors to +console itself by these wretched devices for the emptiness of its +existence? + +"It is only among ourselves that we need not submit to any formality! +Only when in his most intimate circle can one be a human being! And, +since it is so, I think we can easily spare the little tribute of +restraint that we have to render to our social equals. + +"So do come back, and behave like a pink of propriety, my darling +scapegrace; and try and make your seven-league boots accommodate +themselves to the minuet step of our dear capital at least once in +every month or two. Then when we are alone again in our own four walls, +I will do all I can to make up to you for the _ennui_ you have +suffered; and I will gladly dance the bolero with you, if you will only +teach me how." + +This letter was soon followed by their reunion. With what a feeling he +took up all the little notes, that at that time had but a few streets +to go, to bring messages about a walk, a visit for which he was to call +for her, or some incident that had made it impossible to keep an +engagement! These notes showed, now and then, traces of some more +serious misunderstanding that had taken place between the two lovers: +an appeal to be very gentle to-day, a promise not to refer by a +syllable to the dispute of the day before. He seemed to see again all +that he had once read between these lines. + +And then came her last letter, the letter of parting: + + +"I am quite quiet now, Felix, or at least as quiet as one is when pain +has exhausted all one's strength. I write to you this very night, for +of course there can be no thought of sleep. I have again and again +thought it all over from the beginning, and have each time arrived at +the same conclusion--that I deceived myself in believing through all +these years that I was necessary to your happiness. Do not try to shake +this belief; I am sadly humbled, Felix, very wretched and miserable +because of this confession; but I am as sure that it is true, as I am +that I still live and breathe. + +"I know that you still love me, perhaps quite as much as you have +always loved me. But one thing I did not know before, and I learn it +now with pain: you love something better than you do me--your freedom. + +"You would be willing to sacrifice it, partly from chivalry, in order +that you might keep your promise; partly from kind-heartedness, for you +must feel how my whole life has hung on you, and how slowly these +wounds will heal. And yet, _it must be!_ How could anything that would +not make you perfectly happy ever be happiness to me? + +"You shall be free again, and you may be so without any anxiety about +me. I have more strength than I seem to have. There is only one thing I +cannot bear: to see a sacrifice laid at my feet. + +"Even if you were now willing to disclose your secret to me, it would +not alter my resolve. I would not have you think that I wanted to wring +anything from you, which you would not give to me of your own accord. +But that you should make a distinction between that which you share +with me, and that which belongs only to yourself ... it may seem +narrow-minded or weak or arrogant of me, but I cannot help myself, I +cannot rise above it. + +"I shall never feel toward you, Felix, any differently from what I do +now; I shall never feel toward another as I do toward you. I have to +thank you for the best and dearest feelings that I have ever possessed +and experienced. No lapse of time can change this in the least--as +little as it can my resolve. + +"Think kindly of me, too--without bitterness. And now +farewell!--farewell forever! Irene." + + +He knew this letter by heart, word for word, and yet he read it through +again, word for word, and when he came to the end all the pain, and +defiance, and anger against himself and against her blazed up within +him, as it had in the hour when he first read it. Her calmness, her +gentle strength, that he used to laugh at as artificial, although he +knew how free she was from all feminine tricks; her clear comprehension +and her courage in asserting it: all this humiliated him anew. Then, +indeed, he had comforted himself with the belief that a word from him, +a look, her name merely pronounced by his lips, would demolish the +barrier that she had raised up between them, as easily as one blows +down a tower of cards. He had bitterly deceived himself. Neither by +entreaties nor stratagems had he succeeded in again gaining access to +her. He had to admit, with a new feeling of humiliation, that she was +the stronger. Then at last he too had, as he believed, bound his breast +in the seven-fold bands of iron, and had turned away from her. For the +last time he wrote to her a short, proud, but not unkind letter, almost +like an ultimatum from one power to another. He had felt some hope in +regard to it for that very reason. When it remained unanswered, he +acknowledged that all was over. + +His face had sunk down on the little portfolio, he had closed his +eyes and had given himself up, with a kind of ecstasy, to all these +bitter-sweet memories. The thought that there was any one near him had +passed completely out of his mind, and his dreams began to lapse deeper +and deeper into the haziness that usually precedes unconsciousness. + +Suddenly he roused himself with a start. A light hand had touched his +shoulder. As he turned hurriedly, he saw Zenz standing behind him. She +hastily stepped back again as far as the threshold of the door, which +she had softly opened, and stood there in the frame thus made in the +exact attitude of Jansen's "Dancing Girl," her arms thrown back and +holding, instead of the tambourine, the little plate on which Felix had +handed her the wine. The candle-light that streamed in from the +sitting-room, and the little lamp by the side of Felix's bed, doubly +illuminated the slim, youthful figure, and its shadow flickering back +and forth heightened the weird charm. She stood there with her profile +slightly turned upward, motionless as a statue, gazing straight before +her. It was not until quite a time had elapsed, and she had begun to +feel tired, that she asked, still without turning her head, whether he +was not going to begin to sketch? He rose and took a step toward her, +and then stood still again. + +"My dear child," he said, controlling himself with difficulty, "it is +too late for that. The night has grown cool--you will catch cold. Come, +I thank you very much. You are a beautiful girl, and I--am not made of +stone. Now go back and go to sleep. To-morrow--tomorrow we will +sketch." + +She gave a start, and he noticed with amazement that she began to +tremble violently. She gave but one timid glance at him. Suddenly, the +tears streamed from her eyes, she threw down the plate with such force +that it shivered into fragments, rushed back from the threshold into +the sitting-room and violently slammed the door behind her. + +An instant after, he heard the bolt pushed to. + +"For God's sake, child!" he cried, "what has come to you all of a +sudden? What have I done to offend you? Open the door, and let us have +a sensible talk together. Didn't I tell you that I had a headache? And +who ever heard of such an idea as sketching in the middle of the night? +Zenz! don't you hear? Won't you make it up again?" + +All in vain. After wasting his entreaties and at last his anger, for +some time longer, on the tightly-closed door, he was finally obliged to +give it up. His blood was in a whirl; he could not conceive now how he +could have repulsed the poor creature in such cold-blooded fashion. +"Perhaps her anger will pass over, if I leave her to herself for a +while," he thought. + +"I am going out to take a little walk," he cried through the key-hole. +"I must have a breath of fresh air. When I come back again, perhaps my +headache will be gone and your fit of temper, too. In the mean while, +pass away the time as pleasantly as you can." + +And he really did go out into the night; but he returned again before a +quarter of an hour had passed--he was drawn back by some power that he +himself could not understand. + +As he entered his sleeping-room, where the lamp was still burning +steadily, it was empty. He passed quickly through the door, which was +now unbolted, into the sitting-room. But here, too, no trace could be +found of his guest, search as he would behind the curtains and in the +dark corners. The light had not been extinguished and a bat had flown +into the room, and the exertion of hunting him out again threw him into +a perspiration. When at last he succeeded, and, exhausted by such a +variety of excitement, had sunk back upon the sofa, he found that all +the little knickknacks, which he had spread before her when they first +arrived, were still lying on the table in the same order in which he +had left them. The little dagger which his Creole friend had given him +was the only thing he missed, and he could not find it though he +searched for it everywhere. + + + + + + _BOOK III_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +There are summer nights that are not made for sleep. The moon shines +far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full +height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People +strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under +their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow +of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of +crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does +in the hot noontide. On such nights as this, sounds of life and +merriment are heard throughout the city long after the police have +sounded the hour for retiring; the couples that wander through the +streets seem unable to find their way home; young fellows march along +arm-in-arm, in long rows stretching the whole width of the road, as if +advancing to battle against some invisible enemy, singing all the while +as tenderly and sweetly as they know how, or else shrieking and yelling +like a troop of wild Indians. Here and there, where a window stands +open and a _sonata_ of Beethoven floats out into the night, they +suddenly hush their noise and listen, only to break out in a wild burst +of applause the moment the music ceases. On such a night solitary youth +lies dreaming, with open eyes, till long past midnight, of the glories +of the future; and solitary age thinks sadly how glorious the past was; +and at last they fall asleep over their musing, and slumber quietly, +until some young cock in a neighboring roost, who cannot sleep himself, +gives a glance up to heaven and begins to crow with such vigor at the +setting moon, which he mistakes for the rising sun, that the sleepers +start up again, throw off the bedclothes from their hot limbs, and +creep to the window to see whether the night is really at an end. After +this there is no more sleep for the aged; but they who are young lie +down once more and soon make up for all that they have lost. + +Such was the night that followed that Sunday. Of those in whose fate +and adventures we are interested, none went to bed before midnight, +though in truth some other sprite than the charm of the sultry night +had possession of their hearts and senses. Even the good Angelica, who +to the best of our knowledge was not in love, and who rejoiced moreover +in that softest of pillows, a good conscience, sat at the open window +of her little virgin bower, in which a lamp was dimly burning, half +through the night, twining her curls and heavily sighing and dropping +into a doze, until her head would strike against the window-sash, +when she would start up and begin once more to spin her sorrowful +summer-night's thoughts. She had been at Julie's door that afternoon to +inquire what had been the upshot of this bad business. But no one was +at home. And so she was waiting impatiently for the following day. + +It was later still before Julie could bring herself to go to bed. The +windows in her chamber stood open so as to let in the night-air through +the openings in the closed blinds. But with the air the magical +moonbeams streamed in too, and made a pattern on her green silk +coverlet; her thoughts were lost in its mazes, so that she could not +close her eyes. She felt as if she had never been at once so happy and +so wretched. At heart she did not doubt for a moment that everything +really was just as it stood in the baleful letter; that she would never +possess him whom she loved. His own puzzling behavior, the way in which +he had suddenly broken off and rushed out of the room, confirmed the +anonymous accusation only too well. But the thought that she loved him, +and that he returned her love, crowded out all others, and made her so +glad in the depths of her heart, that no hostile fate could crush the +rejoicing within her. So he is to "give her back her faith in her own +heart!" What a senseless phrase! When had she ever believed in anything +as she believed in the strength and truth and invincibility of this +feeling, in the feeling that it was worth while to have lived through a +long youth without love and happiness for the sake of this man, so that +now she might lavish upon him a hoarded wealth of passion? + +She could not help smiling when it occurred to her how often she had +thought that she had done with the world, and could look back without +regret upon the years of youth she had lost. What had become of those +ten anxious years? Had she really lived in them or only dreamed of +them? Was she not as young and inexperienced, as thirsty for happiness +and as coy in its presence, as she had ever been in the first blooming +years of her girlhood? Yes, she felt the courage of her earliest youth, +when she still believed in miracles, bubbling up within her from an +inexhaustible spring. She made no attempt to close her eyes to what +could and would happen. But that this love, hopeless as it seemed, +would be a source of unspeakable happiness to her, that in the +sanctuary of her heart she would never cease to look upon this man as +belonging to her--all this she admitted to herself in words so plain +that, as she lay there wide awake in the moonlight, they sometimes +found utterance in a half-audible soliloquy. + +Then she marveled at the suddenness with which it had all come about, +but she soon convinced herself again that this was just as it should +be. She tried hard to picture to herself the kind of wife he might +have. But she could not; it seemed to her impossible that he could ever +have loved any one but herself. She closed her eyes and tried to recall +his features to her mind. Singularly enough she met with no great +success. His eyes were all that she could distinctly call up before +her, and his voice seemed always to be close to her ear. She rose and +stepped to the window, and opened the blinds a little to see if the +night were not almost over. She herself did not know why she should +thus look forward to the morning, for there was little hope that it +would bring her anything new or good. But it would bring _him_, she +could count on that. With burning lips she drew in the mild night-air, +and listened to a love-song, which a solitary youth sang as he passed +under her window. + +She understood each word, and as he ended she repeated the closing +verses softly, and sighed as she shut the blinds again. Then she lay +down and at last fell asleep. + +The day had long dawned outside, but the green twilight in which she +lay caused her to dream on undisturbed. It struck seven, eight, nine, +from the clock on the Theatinerkirche. Then at last she awoke, feeling +as refreshed as if she had just emerged from bathing in the sea. It was +some time before she could think clearly of all that had happened +yesterday and would probably happen today, but as she did so a vague +fear and anxiety came over her. She hastened to dress, so that she +might go out and ask whether any letter had come. When at last she +opened the door into the parlor, her figure wrapped in a loose robe, +and her hair thrust carelessly under a pretty cap, her foot hit against +some heavy object that took up the whole breadth of the threshold. As +the blinds were closed in this room also, she did not see at first, +owing to her short-sightedness, what it was that lay in her way. But +the object immediately began to move of its own accord, and raised +itself up before her, and she felt a cold tongue on her hand and saw +that the intruder was no other than Jansen's venerable Newfoundland +dog. The start he gave her was almost instantly lost in the greater one +with which she found herself saying, "Where the dog is, the master will +not be far away." And she was right, for there, in the back part of the +room, leaning against the stove, was a dark figure with disheveled +hair, standing as immovable in its place as she herself stood in the +doorway, deprived of all power to move a limb or open her lips. + +Just at this moment the other door opened, and the old servant stepped +in and turned to the man at the stove with a gesture which was half +indignant, half timid, but which said plainer than words that it had +been impossible to turn away this uncomfortably early guest; he had +made his way in by force. + +"It is quite right, Erich," said his mistress, who had now completely +recovered her composure. "I will ring when I want breakfast. And, +by-the-way, I am not at home in case any one calls." + +The old man retired, shrugging his shoulders, and muttering to himself. +The moment he closed the door behind him, Julie stepped quickly up to +Jansen, who stood in silence at the opposite end of the room, and +cordially extended her hand. + +"Thank you for coming," she said; and from her voice it would have been +hard for any one to have believed how her heart beat as she uttered +these few words, "But sit down. We have much to say to one another." + +He bowed slightly, but remained standing where he was, and appeared not +to notice that she had offered him her hand. + +"Pardon this early visit," he said. "Your note did not reach me last +evening. Early this morning, when I went into the studio--" + +"Have you any suspicion as to who could have written the letter?" she +interrupted, wishing to come to his aid. She had sunk down into a +chair, and the dog lay beside her on the carpet, occasionally giving a +growl of content as he felt her soft hand on his head. + +"I think I know," replied Jansen, after a short pause. "I am certain +that some one in this city is dogging all my steps, very likely in the +interest of another. What was in that letter is nothing but the pure +truth; and when I went to my studio this morning, I carried a letter in +my pocket which I had written overnight, and which tells you almost the +same thing. Here it is--if you would like to read it." + +She shook her head slightly. + +"What for, my dear friend, if it tells me nothing new?" + +"Perhaps it may. But you are right; this piece of paper cannot prove to +you the fact I most desire to have proved: that is, that I really wrote +this letter last night before I knew of any other. That is something +you can only believe from my personal assurance--and that is the reason +of my being here." + +"That is the reason? Oh! my friend, as if I needed such an +assurance--as if your hasty departure yesterday had not told me that +you did not trust yourself to stay because you--because you had only +said what you did in a moment of self-forgetfulness--and yet, believe +me, that was a thoughtless word that slipped from my pen, that only an +explanation from you could give me back my faith in my own heart. I +have never lost that faith. I believe to-day, as yesterday, that my +heart knew perfectly well what it was about when it surrendered itself +to you." + +"You are an angel from heaven!" he cried, his grief breaking forth; +"you seek to defend me even from myself. Yet for me with my hopeless +lot to have forced myself into your quiet life, will never cease to be +a crime. That is what I said to myself yesterday the moment I left your +door. This letter attempted to say the same thing, and informed you +also of my firm resolve never to show myself in your sight again. But +the strange hand that tugs at the chords of my ruined life, and seeks +to tear them asunder, has shattered this resolve. Now I owe you a +longer confession than could be written in a letter. For not until you +know all about me will you be able to understand that, though it was a +sin, it was still a human one, that caused me so to forget myself; and +that you need not withdraw your respect from me--though you do your +heart--and your hand." + +He was silent again for a moment; she, too, said nothing. She trembled, +but she strove hard to appear calm, so that he would go on. How +willingly she would have heard her fate in two words--her "to be or not +to be!" What did she care for all the rest? But she felt that he had +more to tell her, and she would not interrupt him. + +"I hardly know," he continued, "how much our friend Angelica has told +you about me. I am a peasant's son, and had to struggle through a hard +childhood; and it was a long time before I could bend my stiff +peasant's neck so that it fitted without chafing in the yoke of city +etiquette. Few men have ever gone such strange ways as I have, always +wavering between defiance and humility, audacity and shrinking, as +well in my dealings with my fellow-men as in my art. I had a mother of +the true old yeoman nobility--which is synonymous with true human +nobility--at least in our part of the country. She finally succeeded in +making a strong, silent man of my father, who had a streak of the +tyrant in him. If she had lived longer, who knows whether I should ever +have left her? But soon after her death I prevailed upon my father to +let me go to the art-school at Kiel. I did little good there. There was +a wild element among the scholars, and I was not the tamest. I always +had a great contempt--perhaps because I was ashamed of my peasant's +manners--for what we were pleased to call the Philistinism of the +worthy citizens. That I, as an artist, was permitted all sorts of +liberties that were denied to officials, scholars, and tradespeople, +pleased me greatly; and I abused my freedom without stint. But as I +moved in a very narrow circle, and seldom came in contact with any high +type of humanity, I had no great field in which to display the +profligacy of my thoughts and habits. A few wretched _liaisons_, and a +number of silly and by no means edifying scrapes, were all that came of +it. + +"Then I moved to Hamburg. There the same wild life was continued on a +somewhat larger scale. You will readily spare me the details. Now, when +I think back on that time, I have to stop and reflect whether it really +could have been _I_ who wasted his days and nights in such shameful +dissipation with such worthless companions. They were my Prince Hal +days. 'The wild oats had to be sown.' But now I thank my good star for +having led me safely, though by dubious ways, past all that kind of +crime and wrong-doing which could not have been covered by this trite +saying." + +"Well, one evening, when my aching head and my gnawing rage at my own +idiocy unfitted me for anything else, I went to the theatre, and saw +for the first time an actress who was just entering on an engagement +there. The piece was a flat, sensational, social drama, in which she +took the part of the noble, generous, young wife, who plays the saving +angel to the dissipated husband. It was a moral lecture that appealed +directly to my own case; and as the sinner, even in his deepest +degradation, seemed an enviable creature as compared with me--for he +invariably fell into the arms of his guardian angel--I could not help +wishing myself in his place; and so was led to examine that angel very +carefully. + +"She was certainly well worth looking at. A most charming young person, +with a figure, a bearing, and a certain indolent grace in all her +movements, such as I had never seen before. In addition to all this a +childlike face, with dove-like eyes, and such an innocent, plaintive +mouth, that you would have been willing to storm the very heavens just +to bring a smile to those pretty lips. When this really appeared at the +close of the play (for the young husband reformed), it was all over +with me. As I noticed that half the audience--indeed, the entire male +part--had gone mad over her, I considered my sudden infatuation not +extraordinary; especially as I have a way of not being very slow in my +feelings of love and hate. You have had experience of that yourself." + +He paused for a moment, and gave her a hasty glance. But she did not +stir, so breathlessly was she listening to him, her eyes fixed on the +head of the dog, who lay quietly sleeping at her side. + +"I will spare you any account of the further course of my love affair," +he continued. "It is enough that in eight days I gained my case by +ardor and flattery: and Lucie was my betrothed. + +"The strange manner in which she bore herself in this position ought to +have warned me. To my first passionate wooing she had opposed a +prudishness and a maidenly reserve such as I had not expected to find +in an actress, especially as she let me see plainly enough that she +felt anything but indifferent toward me, and that the homage of an +artist whose reputation was then in the ascendant was exceptionally +flattering to her. But no sooner did I, somewhat taken aback by this +severe maidenly reserve, make her a proposal that aimed at nothing less +than our marriage and her retirement from the stage, than her tone +changed. She began to treat the subject with greater lightness, to +utter platitudes against marriages among artists, and in praise of the +happiness of liberty; to tease me with moods, and to attract me again +by all kinds of pretty coaxing; so that my passionate obstinacy was +urged higher and higher, until at last I forced her, half against her +will, to fix the wedding-day. + +"Of course this excited the greatest amazement among my former +companions, who could scarcely believe their ears. To those with whom I +was most intimate I expatiated on the matter as an exceedingly +practical undertaking, as a truly sensible marriage. I should never +again find a being who was thus equally removed from Philistinism and +evil courses. Besides, one cannot go on sowing wild oats forever; and +it seemed to me that now, when my prospects had begun to seem quite +favorable on account of a number of orders I had received, was the most +suitable time to settle to a steadier life. This is what I said to my +most intimate friends. I said nothing to the others. One of them, our +Falstaff, who was the one most concerned at my loss, took me aside one +day and asked whether I was really in earnest about this foolish +affair. Upon my replying that I was sufficiently in earnest to forbid +any contemptuous criticism upon my conduct, even from a good friend, he +shrugged his shoulders and excused himself: he had not had the +slightest intention of offending me, but he merely wished to call my +attention to the fact that this freak of mine might cost me too dearly. +Then, when I pressed him further, he remarked that 'in his opinion +there were such things as artificial violets, and that the most genuine +thing about this creature was her acting, which, unfortunately, she +kept up in real life as well as on the stage.' And then followed a +short sketch of her adventurous career, which this well-meaning man had +collected, not without considerable trouble, from numberless inquiries +at the theatres where she had appeared. + +"Of course I expressed my appreciation of his kindness in the plainest +possible words, broke with him once and for all, and ran off to my +betrothed, to whom I excitedly related the whole chronicle of what I +had heard about her way of life. The idea had never even entered my +head that she would answer me in any other way than with a burst of +burning indignation, and I had already been considering what kind words +I should make use of in order to soothe her. But she heard me through +without emotion, indeed without even blushing, so that for a moment I +was fool enough to say to myself, 'I really believe she is so innocent +that she doesn't even understand what I have been telling her.' But +when I ceased speaking, she looked me full in the face, quite unabashed +and with her most angelic expression, and said: 'This is all a lie, +except in one particular. I committed a single wrong when I was a mere +child, and that was the reason why I refused to become your wife. Do +now as you like; you know what you take when you take me.' + +"This confession, which she made with her irresistible melodramatic +voice, blinded me completely; and I was more convinced than ever that +all the rest of the talk about her deceitfulness and coquetry, and her +heartless flirting with foolish young admirers, was a lie. 'No,' I +cried, folding her in my arms, 'you shall not find yourself +disappointed in me, you shall not find a narrow-minded Philistine, when +you thought you were giving yourself up to a free artist's soul. What +lies behind you shall cast no shadow over our future. If it is true +that you love me, why then--' and here I quoted, slightly changing it +to suit the occasion, a verse of poetry that I had read but a short +time before and had thought very profound. 'Was _I_ a saint before I +asked your hand? And yet I was master of my fate, and knew what I did. +No, let there be day before us and behind us night, that none may look +upon us! Only promise me that in the _future_ all your thoughts shall +belong to me alone.' + +"She sobbed violently in my arms, and made me the fairest promises. I +almost believe that at that moment she did indeed mean what she said, +for there was a sound spot in her that had not yet been touched by the +worm--a longing for what was pure and good. If this had not been the +case, how would it have been possible for me to have continued in my +blindness longer than the few weeks of the honey-moon? But she herself +seemed so happy in those first months, though we lived quite by +ourselves--for I had broken with my old cronies, and had no particular +desire to form new acquaintances, whom I could only have found among +the Philistine class that I so heartily despised. Then, too, she grew +more charming with each day. Once in a while, however, I caught her +poring over her prompt-books; and then I told her bluntly, for I could +see that her eyes were red with weeping, that she longed to be back +behind the foot-lights again, that she missed the applause and grieved +because she could not any longer turn the heads of the whole parquet. +'What can you be thinking of!' she laughed. 'In my condition! Why, I +should feel like sinking through the deepest trap-door, I should be so +ashamed!' In this way she would drive away my suspicions; and when at +length her child was born, I really thought she was so taken up with +household joys and cares that she cared for nothing else. + +"It is true she was not such a foolish mother as to think her child an +angel of beauty. It was a rather plain, unattractive-looking little +thing--'the father over again,' remarked the women, very justly. But +she played the _rôle_ of mother with considerable talent; and not until +a long time later, when she was sent to the sea-shore to recuperate, +did it occur to me that she parted without any particular grief from +the laughing and cooing little creature that clung so tightly to her. I +staid at home and let her go over to Heligoland by herself, in the +charge of an elderly friend of hers--an actress, but a woman bearing an +irreproachable name. I happened to have a few orders that it was +necessary to execute just as soon as possible--among others two busts +of a rich wharfinger and his wife--and as our household, small as it +was, made pretty heavy drains upon my purse, I felt that I ought not to +let these chances slip through my fingers. It was our first separation, +and I found it hard enough to bear. But, as I had to work hard and also +to fill a mother's place toward the child, the first two weeks passed +pretty quickly. + +"But after that the little one began to give me a great deal of +anxiety. Teething set in, there were bad days and worse nights, and the +letters I received from my wife--in which she said she was doing +admirably and had grown quite young again--did not tend to raise my +spirits especially, for it appeared as if nothing were wanting to her +happiness, not even her husband and child. + +"Heretofore I had had neither disposition nor occasion for jealousy. +Suddenly I was to learn what an abyss can be uncovered in a man's soul, +into which everything sinks that he has before believed firm and true. + +"I had been sitting up late; the child was very feverish, and toward +midnight we had been obliged to call in the doctor. For the first time +I thought with bitterness about my wife, who could stay at such a +distance and nurse her own health while the little life, that should +have been dearer to her than her own, was trembling in the balance. +When the child had been quieted a little, so that I could think of +taking some rest, it was a long time before I could close my eyes, +though as a general thing I could reckon on my peasant's sleep under +all circumstances. At last it came, but with it came dreams--dreams +such as I would not have wished to the damned in hell. Always about +_her_, in ever-new costumes, playing the old play of pledged and broken +faith. Out of the last scene, where, in the very presence of her lover +and with the quietest mien in the world, she sought to demonstrate to +me her right to transfer her love from one man to another, until I +sprang forward with a cry of fury to seize her by the hair--out of this +wretched vision of hell I was awakened by the crying of my child; so +that I did not take time to wipe the cold sweat from my forehead, but +ran into the nursery quite prepared to find Death standing at the head +of the little bed. But once again it passed, and in the morning we were +both able to get a couple of hours of quiet sleep. Then, at last, I sat +down and wrote to my wife just how things stood. + +"For some days before, I had not sent her any very encouraging reports. +Any other woman would have returned at once, and not have tried to +excuse herself on the ground that the water-cure ought not to be +interrupted. But she--enough! I must try and control myself when I +speak of her. After all the poor creature cannot be blamed because she +had no heart, and because my love and passion could not conjure up one +within her breast. + +"But at the time I wrote in all the roughness and bitterness of my +mood, and insisted upon her immediate return. I had almost forgotten +the dreams of the night before. But a little later, when I was taking a +walk through the city, chance willed it that they should again be +recalled to my mind. + +"I met a gossiping acquaintance, who had also been passing a few weeks +at the island. Heaven knows how it came about that I stopped him and +inquired about my wife. He was very much surprised to hear that she had +been there, indeed that she was there still. As in such a small place +everybody met everybody else, he could not understand how so beautiful +a woman could have escaped his notice. 'To be sure, she has lived in +great retirement,' I stammered, and he found this very natural and +praiseworthy of a charming young lady, and hoped the cure would be +successful, and so left me; while I stood there like a fool for a full +quarter of an hour, staring vacantly at the same flag-stone, and +blocking peoples' way as if I had been a stopping-post. Yet she _must_ +have been there; letters had daily passed back and forth; and then, +what earthly reason could she have for trying to deceive me in this +respect? But then again: you will readily understand that this +incident, trifling as it was in itself, was well calculated to add new +fuel to the fever that was raging within me. + +"I could not expect her back before the following day. How I survived +the intervening hours will always remain a mystery to me. I was +incapable of any occupation, of any connected thought or action. I had +just sufficient strength and reason left to sit by the side of the +poor, feverish child, and apply the ice-bandages, and count the hairs +on its forehead. + +"Even when night came I would not leave my post. I dreaded to dream. +Then came the morning again, and noon and afternoon, and still no news. +But at length a drosky drove up, the house-door was opened, the stairs +creaked under a light step, I sprang to my feet and rushed to meet her; +just then she entered the door, and my first look in her face +strengthened all my horrible suspicions. + +"Or no; it was not her face. I have no right to do this actress an +injustice; she had her face as completely under control as ever--the +innocent violet eyes, the Madonna mouth, the clear forehead--and yet it +_was_ her face that sent a shudder to my inmost heart. Was that the +mien of a mother, hastening to her child that lay at the door of death? +of a wife returning, after such anxious weeks of separation, to the +husband whom she pretended to have married for love? + +"Enough! The fate of our lives was decided in the first few hours. But +I was crafty too, and played my _rôle_ bravely. That we should refrain +from all demonstrations of tenderness, while our child lay in such +danger, was so natural--she herself could find nothing wrong in this. +But on the following morning, after the night had brought a change for +the better and we were able to breathe freely once more, she said to +me--and I can see her before me now, as she knelt at a trunk and turned +over the gay contents trying to find a comfortable dress to put on, for +she had not taken off her clothes during the night--'Do you know, +Hans,' she said, looking up at me with her dove-like eyes, half +petulantly, half pleadingly, 'do you know that it isn't at all nice of +you not to have paid me a single compliment upon how well I am looking? +I left a gallant husband, and find a cold-hearted bear. Come, as a +punishment, I will let you kiss this little slipper, that I might have +put on the neck of the whole male population of the island if I had +wanted to.' + +"'Lucie,' said I, 'I want first to make a request of you.' + +"'About what?' asked she, innocently. + +"'That you will swear to me, by the life of our child, that it is only +a devilish delusion, sprung from my jealous dreams, that makes me think +you do not come back to me what you were when you went away.' + +"I had arranged this sentence word for word, just as one loads with the +greatest care a gun with which one wants to take sure aim. And I did +not miss the mark. She suddenly flushed purple, bent down her head over +the trunk, and fumbled nervously with the heap of sashes and scarfs. + +"But she quickly recovered herself. + +"'You have had bad dreams?' she asked, still quite unabashed. 'What did +you dream, then?' + +"And I replied: 'That you had been unfaithful to me. It is nonsense; I +know that you can give me back my peace by a single word. But, unless +you speak this word--did you understand me, Lucie? By the life of our +child, who lies there barely escaped from death--I only want to hear +one word. I cannot reproach myself with any neglect of my duty toward +_you_. Do you hear me, Lucie? Why don't you answer me? Can't you bear +my look?' + +"She actually succeeded in forcing herself to look at me, but there was +not the flash of innocent pride, of offended womanly honor; it was an +unsteady, flickering defiance, and the flaring up of a hostile feeling, +that I read in her eyes. + +"'I have no answer to such a question,' said she, with a gesture that +carried me back to the time when she was on the stage. 'You insult me, +Hans. Let us talk about something else. I will pardon you for the +child's sake, and because of the anxiety you have been suffering.' + +"I was still so under her influence that I hesitated for a moment +whether to mistrust the voice in my heart, or this serpent look. She +had risen, and was standing at the window, her face turned away and her +hand before her eyes, such a picture of insulted majesty and innocence +that I already began to curse my heat, and to accuse myself of having +done the greatest injustice and wrong that can be done to a helpless +woman. But just as I was on the point of going up to her and trying the +power of kind words, I heard my dog give a strange sort of a growl and +bark, as if he were angry and provoked; for which I could see no +reason. He did not like the woman. Either she had never known how, or +else she had never thought it worth while, to gain his favor. But +heretofore he had seemed to feel the greatest indifference toward her, +and I could not understand why her offended speech and bearing should +now enrage him. The truth is he was not paying the slightest attention +to her, but seemed to have been excited by something that he had +dragged out of the pile of things she had taken from her trunk. I +called out to him to lie down and keep quiet; he was still in a moment; +but, wagging his tail violently, he ran up to me, holding something in +his mouth which he laid on my knee. It was a man's glove. + +"Can you believe it?--my first feeling at the sight of this evidence +was a wild joy and satisfaction. I was suddenly at one with myself +again, and the wretched feeling of shame that perhaps after all I had +let my suspicious heat get the better of my reason, gave place to an +icy calmness. + +"'If you would only turn round,' I said, 'perhaps you would speak in a +different tone. Without knowing it or wishing it, you have brought me a +present from your journey for which I ought to thank you.' + +"As she turned round, even she was not actress enough to repress a +gesture of terror. + +"'I swear to you--she stammered, pale as death. + +"'Very good,' I said; 'that is precisely what I have been asking you to +do. But--do you hear?--consider well what you swear and by what you +swear it. By the life of the innocent creature lying in that chamber, +by that God who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto +the third and fourth generation--' + +"'I don't know what you mean--I--I have done no wrong and have no need +to swear. This glove, Heaven knows--' + +"'Heaven does know!' I shrieked, my smouldering rage breaking out +furiously. + +"I reached out my hand toward her; everything reeled before my eyes; I +have no further recollection of what I said and did at that moment, +except that I was very near seizing her by her long locks, as in my +dream, and dragging her across the room and down the stairs, and +casting her out into the street. I am sure, however, that I did not +touch her, but my looks and words must have been so relentless and +unmistakable that she herself found it advisable to leave me. Half an +hour later I was alone again with my child. + +"That very day I received a letter from her, full of well-turned +periods and insidious accusations. I read it without emotion. I was +like a well that has been choked forever--nothing can make its water +bubble up again. I answered this letter with a single word--'Swear!' No +second letter came; a last remnant of human feeling, sunk deep in +superstition, made it impossible for her to utter a lie that might be +revenged upon her child. + +"I waited three days. Then I wrote her a note that contained no word of +reproach, but simply said that it would be impossible for me to share +my life with her longer. I told her I would provide for her as I had +done heretofore, under the single condition that she would take her +maiden name again and never make any claim upon the child. When I wrote +this--I can't help confessing my foolishness to you--something within +me said, 'She will never consent to this condition. She will come and +fall at your feet, with a full confession of her guilt, and pray you +rather to kill her than to separate her from her child.' Then--what +might I not have done then?--it makes me shudder to think of it. I +almost believe I should have pardoned her--and been wretched ever +after, with my honor wounded and my confidence shaken at the very +roots. But I had loved her too dearly for me to become master of my +weakness so quickly. + +"She spared me the temptation. In a few days her answer came; she +refrained from making any explanations, which she knew would never be +satisfactory to a person so inclined to be suspicious as I was. Great +God! I suspicious--I, whom a lie would have quieted again! She accepted +what I had proposed to her, intended to return to the stage--for which +she was undoubtedly born--thanked me for all the goodness I had shown +her, hoped all would go well with me, and much more--a letter well +written, friendly, and icy cold. + +"Not a syllable was said about the child!" + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and +his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this +position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been +telling his dreary, melancholy story. + +The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes, +went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort, +and made as though he would take his departure. + +But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said +in her soft voice: + +"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went +on: "And you have never seen her since?" + +"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear +the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came +to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined +when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change +of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree +hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I +might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated +and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in +Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled +myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns +money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who +lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that +noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his +convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it +would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in +order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger +except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a +disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my +fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my +money-getting. It was all one, after all. + +"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was +not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the +thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I +sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately +sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and +better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together, +so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for +her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I +was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It +seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my +accomplishing this end. + +"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she +wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the +child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know. +Certainly not her heart. + +"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a +kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good, +honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose +children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof. +When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little +to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I +either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it +to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances, +who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried. +But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an +enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer. +Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman +before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those +violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all +my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you +confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to +you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send +it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would +have been a reproach to me. And now--" + +"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted. + +"Julie, what could you ask that I would not joyfully--" + +"I would love so dearly to see the child. Will you bring it to me? or +will you go there with me?" + +He took a step toward her; now, for the first time, he ventured to look +her in the face. She rose and went forward to meet him. + +"Dear friend," she said, "I must know this child. No matter how well it +may be taken care of where it is, it is and always will be motherless. +It can only find a mother again in her who loves the father more than +all else, and who would take to her heart all that belongs to him. Do +you not see that you must bring the child to me?" + +"Julie!" he cried, in a tone that burst from his innermost heart, just +as when a dreamer with a loud cry shakes off the nightmare that is so +suffocating him. He staggered toward her, and tried to seize her hand; +but she drew back a step, shook her head gently, and said, with a +blush: + +"Listen patiently to what I am going to say, or else it will be hard +for me to control myself and find the words. The sad story you have +just told me has given me a great deal to think of; I have not yet +clearly fixed it in my mind. But one thing is already clear to me: that +nothing in your past life can ever separate me from you. On the +contrary, I have been continually testing my feeling during your +confession, and have found that I love you now even more wholly than I +did yesterday, and that I know better _why_ I love you, if this is not +a senseless thing to say. My heart is old enough to be wise, and to +know why it loves any one, though my head is not quite so ready. And +so, my dearest friend, I now seriously declare to you, I have not the +slightest intention of ceasing to love you because so and so many years +ago you made the mistake of believing another human being to be better +than she really was. I will go still further: you shall not cease to +love me either, unless you made a second mistake yesterday, which I +confess would be much more painful to me than that first one." + +She did not succeed in uttering these last words, for, overwhelmed with +joy, Jansen had seized her in his arms. He held her long in this +embrace, until at last she recovered breath enough to beg for her +release. + +"No, no," she said, as she gently freed herself, "do not do so, dear, +or I will take it all back again; for you and I are not to be spared +our time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and +let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you. +You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced +and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at +such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I +just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling +myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all +the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you +have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact +that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break +the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up +within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice +your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will +consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come +to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote +my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I +tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some +place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another. +But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly. +Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really +do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art +and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has +been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much +better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of +being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not +see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve, +and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was +necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for +that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a +whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay +such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of +youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a +long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I +should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and +will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your +child's heart, so that it will not draw back, as from a stranger, from +her whom it is to call mother?" + +She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness, +and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both +sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw +it again. + +"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you +understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the +truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that +you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a +heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and +always--" + +He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet +which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when +they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one, +in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody +today. + +"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so +herself before I will believe it." + +"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature +from our happiness." + +She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third +person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection. + +"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica +into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and +not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take +my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no +difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to +help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen, +do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished +friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose +sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a +way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave +without her reward!" + +There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter, +and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in +such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness. +He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to +Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well, +and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was +generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up their +quarters together; that the visits of the _fiancé_ should only take +place on certain days and in her own presence; that, for the present at +least, they would not disclose the great event even to their most +intimate friends in "Paradise"--all this and more was discussed, the +burden of the conversation falling almost entirely on Julie. A certain +lightheartedness had taken possession of her, such as her friend had +never seen her show before. She insisted upon Jansen and Angelica +taking breakfast with her, and played the part of hostess most +charmingly. Jansen followed every movement she made, as if he were +attracted by a magnet; and was caught more than once returning the most +irrelevant answers. + +At last, when he really had to go--it was already past noon, but no one +had taken any heed of the time--Angelica too rose in great haste. + +"I will go on ahead," said she; "lovers don't go through with their +leave-takings quite as quickly as we single people." + +But Julie detained her. She merely gave Jansen her hand to kiss, and +closed the door behind him. Then she fell on her friend's neck and +kissed her, her eyes overflowing with tears. + +"Forgive me my happiness!" she whispered. "It is so great I am almost +afraid of it, as though I had stolen a crown!" + +"What a child you are!" said the artist, bending over her and blushing. +"I told you how it would be--though really I was not so reckless as you +have been. To love this man just as one would any ordinary mortal, to +take him to your heart in this sudden fashion--well, I must say, I +admire your courage. It is true you are a perfectly charming piece of +human nature, from top to toe, and can do things other folks can't. +Now, such miserable institutions as we common people are, mere images +of God in _gouache_ or water-color--well, we have to be sensible, at +all hazards, unless we would bring down ridicule as well as injury upon +our heads. _Addio, cara! Iddio ti benedica!_" and with these words she +rushed out of the door. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +It was close upon midnight when Rosenbusch, with a heavy sigh, shut the +little sketch-book in which he had been scribbling verses on the empty +leaves between portraits of horses' heads and studies of costumes and +armor, and proceeded to drink off the last drops of his red Würtemberg +wine. For more than three hours he had been sitting in the same place +in the corner of a quiet little beer-house, where few of the regular +guests were to be found to-day on account of the beautiful weather +outside, and where those who were present were fully occupied with +their customary drink. It would not be very hard to divine what had led +our friend hither. First of all, the certainty of not meeting any one +whom he knew. Then, probably, an unconscious attraction in the name. +The landlord of this little wine-room bore the name of the first man, +and it is probable that one who had just been driven from Paradise felt +a strong inclination to go and console himself with another Adam over +the common fate of the race. In this object he seemed to have been +wonderfully successful, partly because of the innocent power of the red +Würtemberger, of which this desperate man had managed to empty four +Schoppen; partly because of the soothing influence of the muses. + +What Rosenbusch had written in his sketch-book had been a melancholy +strain; a sad lament over the misappreciation of the world, its +hardhearted realism, its effect upon his own fate, and, finally, over +his own desperate love affair. + +Any one who knew how to read poems might easily have derived from this +one the consolation that the author's life was in no immediate danger +from the stunning blows which had fallen upon it. The truth is he +belonged to those delicately-strung, romantic souls, who consider it +almost a moral duty to suffer continually from some gentle inflammation +of the heart or fantasy. But the more chronic their state becomes, the +less dangerous it is, as a general rule. Unfortunately, in the case of +our lyric poet, there was another circumstance which tended greatly to +increase the unpleasantness of his situation. Though, by temperament, +he was little inclined to passionate catastrophes, he felt, on the +other hand, a certain abstract craving for action, which made it +impossible for him to be content with looking on at life from a +distance. A certain lack of physical courage--for he was of a slender, +nervous build--made him feel it incumbent on him to exercise so much +the more moral boldness, and to carry a fancy, which another would have +quickly put aside--for it had not really taken a very strong hold on +him--to some romantic end, or to illustrate it by some adventurous +enterprise. This love of _dénouements_ had generally turned out so +badly for him that he might well have been discouraged; his friends +told the most comical stories of what he had suffered in this way. But +in spite of all this, he had just taken the most audacious step of his +life, with the deliberate intention of doing something at the same time +chivalrous and practical. He, who barely lived from hand to mouth, had +seriously appeared as a suitor in the house of a worthy citizen of the +good old Munich type, entirely incapable of taking a joke in such a +matter. Why matters had been pushed to such an extreme in this +particular case, he himself would have found it hard to say. For a long +time the affair had run the usual course; first, stolen glances were +interchanged from window to window, across the narrow alley; then came +the first tributes of homage in the shape of little notes in verse, +surreptitiously delivered, and flowery contributions to the Munich +daily paper, the _Latest News_. These effusions were accompanied by +much lurking about the streets, which eventually resulted in the +formation of the desired acquaintance, and ended in a bold confession +of love under the "dark arches" of the Marienplatz. With all her +blushing and laughing, and nods and glances, the dear child had managed +to draw the line so skillfully that she appeared to refuse his +attentions as little as she appeared to encourage them. She treated the +whole matter as a joke, as something to be laughed over, but never for +one moment to be regarded in a serious light. That the good-looking, +dashing, gallant painter found favor in the eyes of his pretty neighbor +could not be exactly denied. She even went so far once as to entreat +him to keep up his flute practice diligently. She never fell asleep so +comfortably as when he was sending forth some really heartrending +melody. For the rest she knew very well what to expect of artists, and +she had no doubt but what he had copied the beautiful poems he had +addressed to her from some book or other. + +Rosenbusch felt himself rather flattered than hurt by these doubts; but +still this did not advance matters at all, and his dramatic instinct +for fresh excitement and change of action was almost in danger of +lagging a little, when it received an unexpected impulse from another +quarter. He discovered a secret that heretofore had been guarded more +carefully than his own; this was the hopeless love that his next-door +neighbor, Elfinger, entertained for the sister of his sweetheart. + +He felt at once that it was incumbent upon his honor for him to do +something which should release them both from this state of unmanly +submission to their fate, and of base yearning toward the house of a +Philistine, and at the same time push the fortunes of his friend. If he +himself could once obtain free access to the house in the character of +_fiancé_ to the worldly daughter, Elfinger would have no difficulty in +becoming more intimate with her spiritually-inclined elder sister, and +would undoubtedly be able to overcome those scruples that had +heretofore prevented this singular girl from accepting any of his +letters, or even from consenting to strike up an acquaintance with him +in the open street. + +Confident in this belief, he determined upon the desperate step; and, +if he could not muster up sufficient courage, after the miserable +termination of his undertaking, to return to his friend with the bad +news, let us not think any the worse of his good heart. + +Yet we must confess that, as far as he himself was concerned, he +regarded this crushing conclusion to the novel as beneficial rather +than lamentable. He had done his best, had displayed uncommon courage, +and had shown the beautiful being how serious he was in his intentions; +but now he felt that he had a right to rejoice in peace over an +honorable defeat that permitted him to go on setting his heart on +everything that was lovable and unattainable. When at last he stepped +out of the wine-room into the square, where the moonlight shone full +upon the five bronze statues standing rigidly in their regular rank and +file, a feeling of infinite satisfaction stole over him; a malicious +joy that he could wander here in flesh and blood beneath the changing +moon and have as many love affairs as he liked, while these celebrated +dignitaries stood on their pedestals unable to move a muscle. He even +caught himself beginning to sing in a loud voice; but a moment after he +came to a sudden stop. He felt that it was not at all the proper thing +for him to go about bawling merry songs, considering the mournful mood +he ought by good rights to be in. + +So he composed his feelings, and wended his way home in a much more +subdued manner. But when he reached his street, and saw the lights in +Elfinger's windows blinking down at him, his heart quickly sunk into +his boots again. He could not bring himself to go up at this dead hour +of the night and confess to his friend how badly the affair had turned +out. So he turned swiftly upon his heel, and, taking a roundabout way, +finally reached his studio, where he knew he could find tolerable +sleeping quarters. + +The janitor opened his eyes wide when he was knocked up to open the +back-door for Herr Rosenbusch. The white mice, too, quickly sprang up +from their pleasant dreams of biscuit and Swiss cheese, and rubbed +their snouts against the wire-netting in nervous excitement; for they +recognized their master. There he stood in the moonlight, paying no +attention to them, firmly planted before the battle of Lützen. He gazed +at it for a while in silence; then he felt for the place where his +beard was usually to be found. + +"You are no fool, after all!" he muttered to himself. "If you had never +painted anything but that black charger there, rearing because he has +received a bullet in his neck--_Basta! Anch' io sono pittore!_" + +Then he took his flute out of its case, and marched up and down for a +while blowing an _adagio_, in order to dissipate the fumes of the red +Würtemberger. At length, when he felt tired enough, he rigged up a bed +on the floor out of a Swedish saddle, that he took for a pillow, a +saddle-blanket, said to have been used by Count Piccolomini, and a +tiger-skin which the moths had eaten until it looked like a variegated +geographical chart, but which was popularly supposed to have belonged +to Froben, the Master of the Horse. However this might be, it served to +make a softer bed for the tired body of the last of the romantic +battle-painters; and he stretched himself upon it with a sigh, looked +out once more on the moonlight night, and then fell into a deep and +dreamless sleep, such as is rarely granted to a disappointed lover. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +Elfinger had been sitting up late into the night awaiting the return of +his friend, until at last he was forced to admit that there could be no +doubt but what the adventure had not ended very gloriously. He fell +asleep with a heavy heart, for his last hopes were now defeated. + +The next morning he crept mournfully down to the bank, and left it +earlier than usual under some pretext or other. He hoped to find +Rosenbusch at home at last. But the little, scantily furnished, untidy +chamber of the battle-painter was still vacant. + +Could he have done something desperate, left the city or even--? + +In great excitement, for he loved his good comrade heartily, he mounted +the dark stairs for the second time, after the close of his evening +duties at his desk. He found on his little table an unmistakable +symbolical sign that his friend was still in the land of the living. A +large market-basket stood in the middle, provided with a long paper +label such as they put on medicine-bottles; and on it were written +these words: + + "A REMEDY FOR BEARDLESS ARTISTS. + TO BE TAKEN ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITIES + OF THE CASE. + FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF + THE LEATHER GLOVE."[3] + +There was nothing in the basket but the sketch-book, in which the +solitary outcast had written his lamentations the night before. + +The actor had not yet finished reading the last strophes when the door +opened, and Rosenbusch solemnly entered, with such an indescribably +mournful expression upon his face that it was impossible to look at him +without laughing. As soon as he saw that Elfinger was once more capable +of appreciating the humor of the situation, it was easy to perceive +that a weight was lifted from his heart. He stepped hastily up to his +friend, and, giving him both his hands, cried: + + "Drink to the lost, O stranger, + And pray for his poor soul!" + +the final words of his own verses. + +"But come, brother," he continued, "let us rise superior to our fate, +and although our manly spirit may not forbid us to shed a tear-- + +"So it is all over, and there is no more hope?" interrupted Elfinger, +shutting up the sketch-book. + +"Over and gone forever! unless I should change my course in my old age +and become a cattle-painter, or should crawl back into the womb so as +to be born again as a pupil of Piloty. Just conceive it, Roscius! Only +yesterday, hardly an hour before I paid my visit to papa, this brave +Theban had fallen into the hands of a good friend at the art-club, who +had stuffed him with a long account of the wonderfully flourishing +financial condition of art in our good city of Munich. A flock of +sheep, that had just been sold for eight thousand gulden, and the +vivisection of a rabbit by some Hungarian or Pole whom that magician +Piloty had developed into a celebrated man in six months, and whose +pictures are now sold for unheard-of prices before they leave the +easel, had given the two Philistines a chance to air their æsthetics, +which are as irrefutable as mathematics. Figures show this. The export +of painted canvas from this city, which has attained a gigantic height +during the last few years, even surpassing the export of tanned +leather, could not but impress even Nanny's unpoetical father. I might +have carried off the little jewel without the slightest trouble if I +could only have shown him a single cow, or some little historical +atrocity. But for battles there was 'no demand'--eternal peace lay +before us. How much did I make a year out of my old-fashioned art? +Well--I lied like a trooper, and mentioned some unheard of sum +for a man in my condition. Whereupon the monster laughed: he knew +an animal-painter who had made double that amount from a single +sheep's-head, in which, to be sure, you could distinctly perceive the +quality of the wool by looking at it through a magnifying-glass. It was +then that my temperament played me a shabby trick. I could not resist +the temptation to make a disrespectful pun[4]--one, moreover, that was +much too obvious to make it worth the while--and after this there was +no helping matters. Unfortunately we could distinctly hear a burst of +laughter, over my poor joke at papa's expense, proceeding from the +adjoining room. The author of it had apparently been unable to +withstand her maidenly curiosity, and had been listening to all that +had been said. But I--" + +He checked himself suddenly. His eyes unconsciously wandered to the +windows across the street, and what he saw there caused him to forget +the end of his report. + +A most charming girl made her appearance behind the window-pane, and +two little hands could be seen fastening a little straw-hat firmly on +the brown head; then the window was opened and the sky was eagerly +scanned, apparently in order to find out whether it threatened rain or +promised to be fair. At the window to the left a slim figure could also +be discerned, as it shut up some sewing in the drawer of the little +work-table, and then threw open the window so that the evening air +might benefit the flowers. But while the mischievous eyes of the +younger sister, in roving merrily about, lighted on Rosenbusch, who had +quickly stepped up to his window, and gave him a stolen glance in +passing, the second sister refrained from all such worldly arts and +immediately disappeared from the window, after having said something to +the younger which the spy opposite could not understand, in spite of +the windows being open. + +"Elfinger," cried the painter, "it was a wrong conclusion after all. +The affair is not over yet by any means, and I am willing to bet that +the chapter we have just reached won't be the most tiresome one in this +great sensational romance." + +He quickly dragged his astonished friend, who, in his despondency, +could not understand this sudden change of mood, out of the door and +down into the street. They stepped out of the house-door just as the +two sisters over opposite crossed the threshold of their home, both +modestly veiled, and carrying little black prayer-books in their hands. +But, before they turned down the street to the right, a bright smile +passed over the face of the younger one, which Rosenbusch noted through +her veil and knew well enough how to interpret. + +"Let's wait a second," he said. "We'll give them a little start. That +little Philistine is a perfect witch! I wonder where she got it from!" + +"They seem to be going to church. Is there any open so late as this?" + +"You forget that this good city of Munich is called _Monachum +monachorum_. If it's too late for vespers, then it's just early enough +for a vigil. So now--march! Otherwise they will be round the corner, +and we shall lose track of them." + +It was still light in the street, but Sunday evening sets in pretty +early in Munich, especially on summer days, when a hot air prevails +that is provocative of an early thirst. The two slight girlish figures +made their way through the throng in the inner town as skillfully as +lizards, now disappearing from the gaze of their faithful followers, +and now coming into view again. They turned into a rather broad but +deserted side-street, in which stood an insignificant little chapel, +scarcely to be distinguished from the row of dwelling-houses, though it +had the reputation of enjoying the special protection of the Virgin. A +slight jutting out of the decorated façade was the only thing which +indicated its whereabouts, just as a well-to-do ecclesiastical +gentleman going about in the midst of his flock shows, by the gentle +outward curve of his body, that he has dedicated his life to +contemplation, and to thanksgiving for all the good gifts of Heaven. + +From the low portal of this out-of-the-way little church, which was +guarded by a plain wooden door, a dense crowd of worshipers were just +streaming forth, mostly old women and shriveled-up old men, and a few +early-converted sinners with faded faces and restless looks. No sooner +did they come out into the street than most of them gave themselves up +to the refreshing enjoyment of fresh air and cheerful conversation--two +luxuries which they had been forced to dispense with inside. Only a few +wheezing old men crept along alone, counting their beads with their +long bony fingers as they went. The pious company were far too much +occupied with themselves to pay any attention to the two sisters, who +now entered the deserted sanctum. It was dark and gloomy enough within. +A gaunt, fellow in a white surplice, who figured as sacristan, was +sleepily engaged in putting out the candles on the principal altar, +with a rod on which was fastened an extinguisher. When this was done, +he spread a covering over the altar-cloth. And now the fading daylight +found its only entrance through two arched windows, on which the +figures of the Virgin and Joseph with the Child stood out in brilliant +red and blue. Over opposite, where two red columns of porphyry +supported the organ-loft, deep darkness had already settled down, but +faintly broken by the little stumps of tapers before which a few +tireless suppliants continued to read in their little books, though the +regular service had long since come to an end. An iron stand, with +prongs and nails with the sharp ends up, also bore a number of large +and small wax-candles, which had been planted there by the devout as a +modest offering. A reddish light from this fragrant candelabrum, which +stood before one of the side shrines, fell upon the numerous crucifixes +and silver votive offerings near the altars, upon the artificial +flowers that decorated the reliquaries, and upon the dilapidated finery +of the figure of the Madonna standing at the feet of her crucified Son. +It had a singularly weird and depressing effect--the soft crackling of +the lights, the subdued mumbling from those toothless lips, the +sniffing and wheezing of the kneeling old women, and the peculiar smell +of the wax-tapers, incense and snuff, which last article seemed to be +in constant use to prevent the devotional spirit from falling into a +doze. + +But all these impressions, which at first almost took away the breath +of the two friends, seemed, from long familiarity, to have lost all +power over the sisters. After sprinkling themselves with holy-water out +of a basin near one of the red columns, they stepped softly up to the +candelabrum, and each fastened her little taper to one of the sharp +points, carefully lighting it before doing so, and then returned to the +columns and knelt down in two of the back pews, one on one side and one +on the other of the middle aisle. + +Both appeared to be immediately absorbed in devotional exercises, the +forehead pressed upon the open prayer-book, the little hands busied +with the beads of their rosaries. But they could hardly have had time +to repeat a paternoster before the places at their side were occupied +by two voluntary participants in their worship. On the footstool to the +right, next the startled Fanny, knelt Elfinger, while Rosenbusch had +sunk gently down on the stool on the other side, close to his more +worldly sweetheart, who appeared not to take the slightest notice of +him. The muttering, wheezing, snuff-taking old hags, who sat about here +and there, evidently took no offense at this symmetrical group, which +quietly busied itself with its own affairs; and only a round, red-faced +little priest, who was kneeling before his own taper and reading out of +a book, with his spectacles shoved high up on his forehead, seemed to +be suddenly disturbed in his perusal. The spectacles quickly slipped +down upon his nose, and his little eyes strove earnestly to pierce the +dim light that played about the two red columns. + +"Are you really in earnest?" whispered Elfinger, bending down close to +the ear of his neighbor. "You really want to turn your back upon this +beautiful world and bury yourself in a convent? You, so young, so +charming, so well fitted to be happy and to make others happy." + +A deep sigh was the only response he received. At the same time she +almost imperceptibly hitched her stool about half an inch farther away +from the speaker, and buried her delicate little nose still deeper in +her prayer-book. + +"Fräulein Fanny," he whispered, after a pause, "what horrible thing +have you seen or experienced in the world that has made you already +weary of it? Or does the air here in this house of prayer seem to you +easier to breathe than the lovely air of heaven outside? And do you +think you will find a convent better ventilated than this place, and +filled with a better company?" + +"_Ave Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora_--" murmured the girl, +making the sign of the cross. + +"And do you think I will be put off in this way?" whispered Rosenbusch +to his neighbor. "Oh, my adored Fanny, you do not know me! If painting +battles does not exactly make a man fat, it makes him strong, bold as a +lion, invincible. You shall see what heroic deeds I will yet +accomplish--on condition, of course, that you remain faithful and true +to me. Or do you doubt me?" + +She was silent for a moment. A quick, mischievous side-glance rested on +him for an instant: "Go away!" she whispered, scarcely above her +breath. "You are only joking. It was very wrong of you to follow us +here. I still have six paternosters to repeat, and it is a positive +sin--" + +"It's a sin of your papa, sweet Nanny mine, to shut you up like a nun +and let you go nowhere but to church, as if a young creature needed +nothing but to be pious. When should one be merry, then, unless it is +when one is young? Come, Fräulein Nanny, if your father had not been so +angry yesterday, and I were sitting by your side--not here in the dark +corner, but in your own house on the sofa--and were whispering all +sorts of silly love-talk in your ear, and your sister, who was left to +matronize us, should find her presence absolutely necessary in the +kitchen, and--" + +The round red face in the window-niche assumed a highly displeased +expression, for the two heads near the red columns had approached so +near together that their hair touched, and the softest whispering +sufficed to make itself understood. Over opposite, where the other +couple were, a space two spans broad still intervened between the two +kneeling figures. But even there not a syllable appeared to be lost. + +"I know I have no right to hope for any great happiness," whispered +Elfinger. "I am a poor cripple. If you reply by saying that it is a +piece of audacity for me to hope, with my single eye, to find favor in +the most beautiful pair of eyes that ever read in a prayer-book, I find +it very natural. Yes, you will even do me a favor, Fräulein Fanny, if +you will tell me so--if you will confess to me that a man who looks +as I do can never win your heart. I would try then to come to my +senses--that is to say, to become quite hopeless. Will you do me this +favor?" + +Deep silence. Nevertheless she hardly seemed inclined to make such a +declaration. + +"You are cruel!" he continued; "I am neither to live nor die. But of +what account am I? If I could believe that _you_ would be happy--O +Fanny, I would really suppress my own feelings and call the convent a +paradise in which you lived and were content. But I shudder to think +that you may regret what you have done when it is too late; that then +even a life by the side of such an ugly, insignificant, unknown man as +I am, who loves you more than himself and would do everything for you, +and who finds his whole world in you--" + +He raised his voice so loud as he said this that she looked up in +affright, and made a beseeching sign for him to calm himself. In doing +this, she involuntarily moved a little nearer to him. + +"For Heaven's sake!" she stammered, "what are you doing? Pray--pray +leave me. It can never, it must never be!--never, never! A secret, that +I dare not tell to any one, not even in the--" + +"In the confessional," she was about to add. Suddenly she started back, +in alarm at what she had already said, and bowed her face down upon her +book again. + +"This miserable, faint-hearted, wretched world of shopkeepers!" raved +Rosenbusch, on his stool over opposite. "Can there still be bold and +manly deeds? O Nanny! if it only were as it once was, I would come +spurring up to your father's castle some fine night on my gallant +charger. You would let down a rope-ladder from the donjon-window, and +would swing yourself up behind me on my horse--and away we would go +into the wide, wide world! But nowadays--" + +"Hm! nowadays we have railroads," she murmured, slyly. + +"Girl!" he cried, in a sepulchral voice, "are you really in earnest? +You would--you have the courage? O dearest Nanny of my heart! If I +should elope with you, you would love me so dearly that you would +follow me to the end of the world--" + +She shook her head. There was a sound like a suppressed giggle. + +"Nonsense!" she said, "we need only go as far as Pasing. Then papa will +steam by us; or we can do as another couple once did. They merely went +to the top of the church of St. Peter and sat concealed there with the +warden, and their people went searching about all over the country for +them, while they sat there and laughed at them all." + +"Nanny, love, you really will--oh, what a heavenly idea! To-morrow--if +you are truly in earnest--to-morrow evening at this time--" + +This time she actually laughed out loud, but she held her handkerchief +before her face. + +"Oh, stop!" she said, "I was only joking! It is absurd to talk of such +a thing! Mother would worry herself to death, and besides--but we must +go; Fanny has risen already." + +She put her book up near her face, so as to pray as quickly as +possible. But he, burning with his adventurous spirit, and encouraged +by the darkness of the place, quickly whispered to her: + +"And you will send me away in this fashion? Not a single stolen--oh, +Nanny dear, you would be doing a good deed--a kiss, in all honor!" + +She seemed to have suddenly become deaf, so motionless did she kneel +there, with her eyes tightly closed. At last, however, she made a +movement as though she would stand up. In doing so, her little book +slipped from the slanting rack and fell between her and her chivalrous +neighbor. She stooped down hastily to pick it up, and, as he could not +help doing likewise, nothing was more natural than that their faces +should approach near enough, there in the darkness, for him to impress +a hasty kiss on the girl's round cheek. She did not even seem to be +conscious of what had occurred. + +"Thank you," she whispered as she rose up again, holding the book he +had officiously handed her. "Goodnight--but you mustn't follow us!" + +She said this in a tone which made it very doubtful whether she meant +it seriously. At the same time she rose from the stool and hurried to +her sister, who stood waiting for her, with downcast eyes, near the +holy-water basin. + +The two slim figures reverently bent the knee before the principal +altar, sprinkled themselves again with the holy-water, and left the +little church in the same manner as they had come, deeply veiled and +carrying their prayer-books before them in their hands. + +Five minutes after, Rosenbusch might have been seen stepping out of the +porch, arm-in-arm with the actor. The battle-painter threw the only +sixpence he had about him into a lame beggar's hat. + +"Holy Mother!" he cried, "life is splendid, after all, in spite of +leather-glove-makers." + +"Where shall we go?" asked his gloomy friend, whose spirits had been +completely crushed by the "secret" of his sweetheart. + +"To the tower of St. Peter's, noble Roscius! I must get acquainted with +the warden this very evening, and take a look at the arrangement of the +place. One can never know what devilish queer adventures one may +encounter, when it would be very useful to have such high friends and +patrons." + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +Early on the morning following their nocturnal encounter, Felix sought +out the lieutenant; he could not rest without trying to find out +whether it was not an illusion of his senses which made him think he +saw Irene's uncle riding at his friend's side. Schnetz lived in the top +story of a dismal old house whose winding stairway was but dimly +illuminated by a faint stream of light proceeding from a dingy skylight +covered with dust and cobwebs. A woman, too refined-looking to be a +servant, and, on the other hand, too modest in her behavior to be a +housekeeper, opened the door for the strange visitor, looked at him in +a frightened and confused way, and informed him in a soft, subdued +voice that the lieutenant had gone out very early in the morning; when +he would be back she did not know. He sometimes staid away whole days +at a time; this time, besides, he had said something to her about +taking a ride into the mountains. So Felix was forced to restrain his +impatience. But he felt quite incapable of going to his work as usual. +He lounged about the streets for hours, regardless of the heat and +dust. He carefully scanned every horseman whom he met, and every +carriage from which he saw a veil waving; and a girl's head, turning +about with restless curiosity to see all that was going on, caused his +heart to beat until he had convinced himself it was not the dreaded, +and yet secretly so longed-for, face--for which he sought thus +earnestly only that it might not take him too much by surprise. + +On the following day he continued his aimless wanderings, at first on +foot, through all the picture galleries, and in the afternoon in a +drosky, in which he rattled through the Au suburb, the English Garden, +and, finally, the Nymphenburg and the deer park, until his panting +horse landed him, toward evening, at one of the suburban theatres; for +there was still a bare possibility that the travelers would feel a +desire to see the "Pfarrer von Kirchfeld," which happened to be the +sensation of the hour. + +All these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Half tired out and half +angry with himself, he left the theatre at the close of the first act, +and strolled back to his lodgings by the most unfrequented streets he +could find. There he found a line from Jansen, who had been alarmed at +his long absence. + +"It is true," he laughed bitterly to himself, "such an old apprentice +as I am ought to know the value of his time better than to cut school +for two days. What is the good of it all, except to give one tired legs +and a heavy head? And, if I really had found her, what then? We should +have stared at one another like total strangers, and hurried out of one +another's sight." + +He threw himself on the sofa, and mechanically reached out his hand for +one of the books that lay upon the table. As he did so he noticed that +he had taken up with it a fine red hair, and this recalled his thoughts +to the night when he had given up this room to Zenz. + +"What a fool I was!" he muttered between his teeth. "If I had not +driven the good creature away from me, perhaps I should be in better +humor now, and would not have wasted these two days in such a senseless +way." + +Then he tried very hard to recall the figure of the poor child. But she +exercised no more power over him now than she had when she was present +in the body. At last sleep took compassion on his troubled soul. + +The next morning he resigned himself with no little bitterness to his +fate, and betook himself to Jansen's workshop. He hoped that he should +be in better mood when once he had a piece of clay between his fingers. + +He started back in positive alarm, therefore, when, while crossing one +of the large, deserted squares, he saw the very person whom he had +yesterday sought so diligently, coming out of a hotel door and +advancing straight upon him. The lieutenant wore his usual suit--a +close-buttoned green riding-jacket, high top-boots, and a gray hat, +with a little feather, slightly tipped toward the left ear. His dry, +yellow face, with its black imperial, had a most grim and defiant look, +but it was instantly lighted up by a polite smile when he caught sight +of his young friend of the "Paradise." + +"I missed your visit day before yesterday, and have not been able to +return it yet because I have been in service again. An old acquaintance +has fallen upon me from the skies, a Baron N----" (he gave the name of +Irene's uncle). "I got acquainted with this jolly crony some years ago +in Algiers, when, just to get a smell of powder, I was fool enough to +take the field against _Messieurs les Arabes_, although they had never +done me the slightest harm in the world. The baron was trying at the +time to become a lion-hunter; but he afterward preferred to offer his +homage to the king of the desert from a respectful distance, and to +travel back to his peaceful home with a skin bought at a bazaar, and a +good store of burnooses and shawls. He was the sensible man of the two. +For my part, it was a long time before I could get rid of the ugly +remembrance that I had really done my hunting in earnest, and had +probably deprived several of those poor devils of the pleasure of +protecting their native soil against the French invaders. And now my +old tent-fellow comes upon me here like a ghost--though a very portly +and jolly one--and drags me about with him for days; in fact, I am +coming from his hotel at this very moment." + +Felix involuntarily gave a glance toward the windows of the hotel. It +cost him a hard struggle to suppress all signs of his emotion. + +"Does your guest live here?" he asked. "You have been visiting him so +early?" + +"We were going to take a ride. But I found a note from him, in which he +informed me that I might take a holiday. His party has been invited by +one of its noble relatives to take an excursion of several days, at +which I, thank Heaven, should be quite superfluous." + +"His party? Then the baron is--" + +"Married? No; but almost worse than that. He has a young niece with him +who is really the cause of his having come here at all. A bad story--a +broken engagement, great surmising and gossiping about it in the little +capital--in short, the health of the Fräulein demanded a change of air, +and she insisted upon going off to Italy for a year. My old comrade, +who remained a bachelor because he feared the claws of a lioness less +than the slipper of a pretty wife--well, he simply jumped from the +frying-pan into the fire. This young niece of his rules him with her +little finger. The consequence was that the trunks immediately had to +be packed for Italy. But, while here, their noble relatives succeeded +in frightening them so about the Italian summers and the cholera, that +they have decided to wait until the worst of the season is over, +spending part of the time here in the city and part in the mountains. +You will perceive, my dear friend, what a charming prospect this is for +me." + +"Is the young Fräulein so unamiable that your 'service' is such a hard +task?" Felix remarked, with an attempt at lightness. At the same time +he looked abstractedly away from the lieutenant, as if he merely +continued the topic from politeness. + +"Look here!" continued Schnetz, with his peculiar, dry chuckle. "If you +like, I'll introduce you to the young lady, and resign all my rights. +You will then have an opportunity to become acquainted with the +sweetness of such service, and will perhaps make out better than I, who +certainly have not succeeded in winning my way to favor. This proud +little person--provided, by-the-way, with a pair of eyes that are +equally well fitted to rule, to be gracious, and to condemn one +forever--has unfortunately never felt a strong hand over her. The +consequence is, she has a way of always setting up her own wishes on +every subject, among others in regard to this unfortunate engagement. +She appears to have made it so hot for the good youth who had the +courage to take up with her, that at last he couldn't stand it any +longer. It is very probable that she was sorry for this at heart, and +so at the present moment she is in a decidedly irritable and +discontented mood, and it is dangerous to touch her without gloves. +Unfortunately I neglected to use this consideration; and, as a +consequence, we stand on a most charming war-footing toward one +another." + +He struck his boot impatiently with his riding-whip, put his left arm +through his young companion's right, and, striding rapidly forward with +his long legs, growled out: + +"It's enough to drive a man wild when he sees how God's images are +disfigured--whether by saints or devils, it's all the same. Either +confined by strait-lacing or by nuns' robes, or else _décolletées_ to +the very waist. Believe me, my dear fellow, as far as the education of +the women of the upper classes is concerned, we are not much farther +advanced to-day than we were in the darkest middle ages, when a brothel +stood next door to a church. At least, we, down here in our envied +South, are not; though, to be sure, this Northern blood--" + +"A North German?" + +"Hum! North or middle German!--upon that point she is positively +fiendish! In the very first hour of our meeting, this Fräulein asked me +what sort of society we had here--of course, the aristocratic society, +as it loves to call itself; for a mere crowd of human beings, without +the forms of etiquette, can never be regarded as human society. I +replied quietly that the so-called _good_ society here was the worst +one could possibly wish for, and that it was only in the so-called +_bad_ society that I had come across a few good comrades here and +there, with whom there was such a thing as living. Whereupon the +little princess looked at me as much as to say that she should never +have supposed, from my dress--which was anything but suited to the +_salon_--that my exclusion from polite society was otherwise than +involuntary. But I, pretending not to notice this, proceeded to explain +to her at length the reasons which caused me to be disgusted with the +_crême_ of our city; the strange odor of their _salons_--a mixture of +patchouli, incense, and the stable--their very doubtful French, and +their undoubtedly worse German; their almost sublime ignorance of all +that is generally considered to belong to education; and that _naïve_ +lack of knowledge in moral matters, which is generally to be found only +in convents, and which can only be properly fostered by an +ecclesiastical society and sanctioned by sly father confessors. Your +nobles in the North, so far as I have known them--well, I needn't tell +you about the clay of which they are made. No matter what hard-mouthed +hobbies they ride in regard to affairs of church and state, they +nevertheless hold fast to _noblesse oblige_; and then, too, you are +very likely to find, in the castles of Pomerania and the Mark, the +Bible and the hymn-book side by side with Ranke's 'History of the +Popes' and Macaulay's 'History of England.' With us, on the other +hand--to be sure, though, Paul de Kock and the 'Seeress of Prevorst' +are also classics, and do not stand on the 'Index Expurgatorius.' I +notice that you are thinking to yourself how much less jolly, and more +discontented and bristling, I am to-day than I was that night in +'Paradise.' You see, my good fellow, you got acquainted with me then in +one of my holiday humors, that come over me only once a month; and, +to-day, you see my old Adam with his every-day face. If no one else has +told you this, to give you due warning about me, I must confess it +myself--since I left the service I have really had no occupation but to +scoff and grumble. It is true, we live at a time when every honest +fellow will have his hands full if he only conscientiously improves +every opportunity to do this. But you know this goes very badly with +our celebrated South German good-nature; all the worse if the one who +scolds happens to be in the right. It is because of this that I have +grown old in my lieutenancy; for I could not keep my mouth shut even +about our military shortcomings, and at last succeeded in bolting every +door to advancement so tightly against me, that I preferred to leave +the beaten track of a military career altogether. Wouldn't even the +blessed Thersites have been forced to resign if he had served as first +lieutenant under the generals Achilles or Diomedes? And yet, those +times were far simpler than ours! So, now, I go on grumbling without +hinderance, and without caring whether any notice is taken of it or +not. The wheat of the Philistines is sown too thick, and thrives too +well, for it to be hurt by the few tares that grow among it. Still, it +does me some good; in the first place, because it purges me of my gall +before it mixes with my blood and attacks my vitals; and then because +it makes me more and more hated by good society, and avoided by persons +of my own rank. You don't know what a Robinson-Crusoe-like existence I +lead; in the midst of the city I am as solitary as Saint Anthony in his +cave; yes, even more lonely, for I suffer no temptations. Won't you +take a look at my hermitage? Here we are at the door." + +They had arrived at the old house with which Felix had already made +acquaintance. He felt very little disposition to mount the stairs +again. While his companion had been running on in this odd, bitter way, +his mind had been occupied by one single thought. "She is here! You +need only wish it, and you can see her to-morrow!" Nevertheless, he +could not well refuse Schnetz's polite invitation; and so he followed +him up into his fourth-story quarters. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +The pale, quiet woman opened the door for them, and looked neither at +Schnetz nor his companion, but withdrew hastily to a little back-room +near the kitchen, without giving any other answer than a slow shake of +the head to her master's kind nod and inquiry whether any one had been +there. Felix was struck, even more than the first time, by the sad, +timid expression of her eyes, which had a noble form and a soft +brilliancy, while her features could never have been handsome even in +her younger days. + +"You must excuse me," said Schnetz, when they had entered his room, +where he offered his visitor a cigar--he himself smoked Algerian +tobacco out of a short clay-pipe--"for not having introduced you to +Madame Thersites. You would not have gained much by it, for the spirits +of that good soul are not, unfortunately, the best in the world. She +labors under the fixed delusion that she is the great misfortune of my +life, because I quitted the service on her account; since which time I +have had hard work to keep her from quitting life itself in some moment +of depression. Yes, my dear fellow, there is a little example of the +profound sense, wisdom, and morality of our social condition. This +excellent woman, who has now borne the world with me for ten years, +comes of a family of country schoolmasters. I became acquainted with +her when I was visiting the lord of the manor; her old father had been +pensioned, her mother was dead, and she, the eldest daughter, took +entire charge of the household, educated her brothers and sisters, and +yet found time enough to do something for herself and perfect her +education. Of course she is a Protestant. Well, I began to respect her +greatly; and so one thing followed another, until I discovered that I +could not live without her. The fact that I could not give the bonds +which a lieutenant must have in order to marry, did not seem to me at +the time an insurmountable difficulty. My sweetheart thought just as I +did, that we only need wait until her second sister was old enough to +take her place in the household. As soon as this was possible, we could +live in the city. An old aunt, whose heir I expected to be, had, as she +said herself, long had her trunks packed for the journey to the other +world, and then I could easily raise the necessary sum; while the fact +that my marriage would be a _mésalliance_ especially delighted my heart +on account of my family, with whom I had long before broken off all +relations. + +"But the departure of my aunt was put off from year to year; and we +resolved not to wait till our best days were past, and lived for some +four or five years in Christian and true marriage, though it had not +received ecclesiastical sanction. Our only trouble was the loss of +our four children. At last my aunt betook herself to her last +resting-place; and now, for we were again expecting a child, we made +preparations to procure an official recognition of our union, though +nothing could make it closer than it was already. But see what sublime +sentiments were all at once expressed by my good comrades!--the whole +corps knew our relations to one another in all its uprightness, and +knew me besides. The honor of the corps would suffer under it, they +said, if I married a 'person' who had had children before the official +recognition of her marriage. They wouldn't have found it in the least +offensive had I merely continued the old relations. The logic of this +_point d'honneur_ was incomprehensible to my stupid head, as well as to +my wife's. But while it merely made mine sit all the firmer on my +shoulders, so that I preferred to resign rather than to submit, it +threw my poor wife's completely off its balance. We went through the +ceremony sadly; the child, which was soon after brought into the world, +died within a few months; and since that time the poor creature has +been afflicted with the melancholy delusion that she has the ruin of my +life upon her conscience. I have tried a hundred times to make it clear +to her that I could have wished for nothing better than to be free from +the routine of military service, and devote my life to my studies. +There are certain points in military history, and also a few technical +problems and controversial questions, concerning which I sometimes have +a word or two to say in military periodicals; and so, when the wretched +campaign of '66 came, in which we had hard work to save the honor of +our arms, to say nothing of our having been delightfully fooled by +Austria, I thanked the Lord that I was not forced to march with the +rest, but had done forever with a trade which can make a man act +against his convictions. Since then, we have lived on unmolested, and I +devote my spare hours, as you see, to illustrating my prosaic existence +according to the best of my ability." + +His eyes wandered over the little room, which certainly did not seem +very cheerful, and had, even on this summer day, a strangely chilling +air. It is possible that this impression was caused in part by the +peculiar decoration of the walls, that were but sparsely relieved by a +few plain articles of furniture, a black leather sofa and a carved, +worm-eaten wardrobe. Instead of framed pictures or engravings, wherever +there was a vacant spot, and even behind the stove and in the niche of +the solitary window, there were the most grotesque _silhouettes_ cut +out of black paper and pasted on the bare plaster, which had once been +painted white. They formed an extraordinary collection of figures, +taken from the most different stations of life, most of them +exhibited in ridiculous postures appropriate to their respective +occupations--pedantic scholars, students, artists, women, +ecclesiastics, and soldiers--all as if caught _in flagrante_ in their +pet weaknesses and sins, and fixed upon the wall, standing revealed in +shadowy outline. Yet an artist could not help taking delight in the +broad yet spirited strokes with which each figure was portrayed; and it +was simply the superabundance of these weird groups that covered the +walls, and had already begun to overspread the smoke-stained ceiling, +which was calculated to excite feverish dreams in a quiet brain if they +were looked at for any length of time. + +"You see now why I dragged you up here," said Schnetz, throwing off his +riding-jacket and crossing his lean arms (round which flapped a pair of +coarse shirtsleeves) behind his back. "From my intercourse with artists +I have caught vanity enough to mercilessly entice inoffensive people +into my den, although the black art which I pursue appears to very +few of them to be worth the trouble of toiling up four flights of +stairs to examine. Life viewed from the wrong side--the fancies of a +misanthrope--a Thersites album, or rather nigrum--well, am I wrong in +thinking that this world of shadows is even less to your taste than an +ordinary art exhibition? + +"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has +its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern +art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects? +Simply this: it no longer respects the _silhouette_! In landscape and +_genre_, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you +find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate +shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the +whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great +feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow +of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of +black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the +nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as +Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so +that every one of them shall make a good showing, the _rococo_ period +included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our +boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined +tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a +little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same +thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and +from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization. +But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention +to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining +outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our +sins and weaknesses, I have become a _silhouette_ cutter--an art that +not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he +might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one +who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and +deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one +all of whose sides the sun should especially light up." + +It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz +was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of +their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when +their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single +whim in inexhaustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix +interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would +scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not +spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the +remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit, +and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep +him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable +cigar. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +The weird shadow-pictures and the biting epigrams of his new friend +haunted Felix all the way down the four flights. His head was in a +whirl with them; his heart felt a keen sympathy for this extraordinary +being. "What a life!" he said to himself. "How much power is rusting +and going to decay there in the dark! And who is to blame for it?--and +I, who knows but what I--" + +He pursued his soliloquy no further. As he stepped into the sunny +streets a carriage rolled quickly past, and from it fluttered a +silver-gray veil. In a moment all his thoughts were upon Irene again. +Of course it could not have been she; not to-day, at all events. But +if she should return from her excursion to-morrow and drive by like +this--what then? What would she think? That he had followed her and was +seeking an opportunity for reconciliation, after she had bidden him go? +Anything rather than such a suspicion! Even though he knew that he was +not entirely blameless, his pride was too deeply hurt, his honor was +too deeply wounded, for him to make any advances or to suffer even the +suspicion of doing so. That she was not running after him, and that she +had not the slightest idea in what direction he had turned his steps, +he did not for a moment doubt. He knew her proud spirit so well, that +he only feared one thing, and that was, that upon catching the faintest +hint of his being anywhere near her, she would throw aside all her +plans and insist upon leaving the city again; indeed, would rather face +the Italian summer and all the dangers of sickness, than give rise to +the suspicion that she felt she had been too hasty with him and wished +the unfortunate letter unwritten. + +The simplest and at the same time the most chivalrous way of getting +out of the difficulty would have been for him to have gone out of her +way himself; but after brief consideration he rejected this plan as +altogether impracticable. An uncontrollable love of art was suddenly +aroused in his soul--a strong conviction as to his duty toward Jansen +and his own future; and it seemed to him so humiliating to have to +confide to his friends the reasons which induced him to run away from +school again so soon, that he hastily struck into the nearest way to +the studio, as if he felt that there was the place where he would be +safest from all vexations and temptations. + +Besides, he had a whole day left in which to take serious counsel with +himself, to look at the matter from all sides, and to decide what it +was best to do. + +As he entered the court he saw a carriage standing at the door of the +rear house. Although he knew it could not be hers, it gave him a sharp +start, and he beckoned to the janitor and asked him who had come to +call. "A lady, neither young nor old, with two gentlemen; and they +spoke French." It was evidently a matter of no interest to him, and so, +without devoting another thought to it, he opened the door of Jansen's +studio and went in. + +The visitors were standing directly before the Adam and Eve, with their +backs to the door, and did not hear him enter. Jansen gave him a nod of +welcome, and old Homo rose slowly from his tiger-skin to rub his gray +head against Felix's hand. For a moment, therefore, he could examine +the three visitors at his leisure. In the youth with the curly black +hair he immediately recognized the young Greek he had met in +"Paradise." He was pointing to different parts of the work with +animated gestures, and seemed to be expressing to the lady his +enthusiastic admiration. The latter, holding an eye-glass close to her +eyes, stood silent and motionless before the group, to all appearances +completely carried away by it. She was dressed with simple elegance, +was rather _petite_ than tall, and her face, seen as Felix saw it, in +very slight profile, was not exactly youthful or of special beauty, but +was striking because of the whiteness of the skin and a certain +expression of force and intelligence in the slightly-parted lips. + +The Slavic type could be recognized at the first glance, even before +she opened her lips, and expressed her admiration to Jansen with that +soft modulation which is so peculiar to the Poles and Russians. + +The gentleman on her left took advantage of the first pause to put in +his word. He was a lean, elderly, carelessly-dressed man, who +continually swayed his long body to and fro while speaking, and raised +his eyebrows with an odd expression of importance, he, too, spoke with +a foreign accent; but it turned out, in the course of his conversation, +that he was a born German, and had merely acquired this touch of Slavic +pronunciation by long residence in Russia. He had introduced himself as +an art-collector and professor of æsthetics; and explained that, while +making a professional journey to Italy and France, he had, to his great +joy and surprise, encountered at the hotel the countess, whom he had +known before in Berlin as an ardent art-lover. Although he had never +visited Italy, he spoke of its masterpieces of sculpture with the +greatest confidence; nor did he seem to find anything in Jansen's +studio for which he had not a formula at his tongue's end. + +In the mean while Stephanopulos had turned round and recognized Felix, +and had hastened to introduce him to the lady. Her keen, brown eyes +rested with evident pleasure upon the stately figure of the young man; +she asked him how long he had enjoyed the good-fortune to be the pupil +of such an artist, and wished to see some of his own productions, a +favor which Felix politely but firmly refused to grant. + +"Do you fully realize," said she, in her deep, mellow voice, "what an +enviable being you are? You unite the aristocracy of blood and talent, +and the fact that you have decided in favor of sculpture sets the crown +to your happiness. What is life, what is all other happiness in life, +but an endless series of excitements? What are all other arts but oil +to the fire, fuel for the passionate soul that yearns to free itself +from the trammels of the world, and seeks repose in the ideal, and, +instead of repose, finds merely more inspired emotions? I express +myself very awkwardly--you must supply what I mean. But, really, now, +in regard to sculpture--is it not, if only because of its material, +peculiarly suggestive of moderation and repose, even in the liveliest +plays of lines and forms? Take, for instance, that Bacchante over +there--what person, no matter how light of foot and fond of dancing, +feels when he looks at it the time of the music in the tips of his +toes, as if he heard a dance played? Even the storm and whirl of the +maddest reel is controlled by the law of beauty, much as one conceives +of the idea of the unfettered air in the spirit of the Creator of the +universe. And then this unutterably grand group of the first human +beings! All disquiet and trouble, all the fates that were reserved for +mankind, repose here as if in the germ--in the bud. In the presence of +this wonderful work, one forgets all petty wishes and weaknesses! But +why haven't you finished the head of your Eve, honored master?" + +A sudden blush suffused Jansen's face as he replied that he had not +quite made up his mind in regard to the type of face. He was, according +to his wont, monosyllabic and almost awkward in the presence of this +eloquent woman. But it struck Felix that his face did not darken with +suppressed disgust, as was usually the case when he received tiresome +visitors, but that he preserved the same patient, smiling mien during +the wise utterances of the professor and the rambling scintillations of +the lady. They had not met for two days. Felix had no suspicion of what +had happened in the mean time that caused his friend's eyes to sparkle +with such unwonted mildness and animation. + +Meanwhile the countess was engaged in inspecting the statues that stood +about the studio. The professor had previously expressed the opinion +that the greater the genius of the man the less he was capable of duly +estimating his own labors, and that for that reason he ought to have +his own works explained to him; and, in accordance with this sentiment, +he now relieved Jansen of the trouble of acting as _cicerone_ in his +own workshop. The casts of separate limbs in dimensions larger than +life seemed to interest the lady, and the beautifully-shaped breast of +a young girl afforded the professor an opportunity to launch into a +long discourse on the form of the Venus of Milo as compared with that +of the Venus of Medici. + +Suddenly the lady turned to a little female figure which stood, still +in clay, on the modeling-board near the window, and which must have +been a work of the last few days; for even Felix had never seen it +before. Although the head was not larger than a child's fist, and the +execution was, as yet, only very sketchy, it was easy to see at the +first glance that Julie's picture had floated before the eyes of the +sculptor. The beautiful figure leaned gently against the back of a +simple _fauteuil_, her right arm, from which the sleeve was pushed +back, resting on the arm of the chair, her cheek pressed against her +hand, while her left arm hung listlessly down so that the long, +exquisitely-formed fingers just touched the head of a dog that was +sleeping by her side. The eyes were half closed, just as Julie's +generally were; and, quickly as the features had been designed, an +expression of thoughtful attention, of earnest and loving sympathy, was +clearly conveyed in the face. + +In this position she had sat before him while he told her his unhappy +story. Amid all the remembrances of the past his eyes had been +enchained by the charm of the present, and with that strange, +independent action of the artistic temperament, that capacity of the +senses for observing closely while the soul smarts and bleeds, he had +taken in every line of the beloved figure. + +Then, when he had returned to his studio, where Felix did not make his +appearance that day, and no one else broke his solitude, he had begun, +at first with a careless hand, to form from a piece of clay the picture +that never left him, until at length he had grown serious over his +pastime, and had produced in an incredibly short time the whole +charming figure. A spirit of life, a natural grace, breathed through +the whole work, and was still further heightened by its diminutive +proportions, reminding one of the fairy-tale about the pygmy maiden who +was carried about by her happy lover in a casket. + +The æsthetic professor took advantage of the occasion to hold forth +concerning sitting statues from the time of the Agrippinas down to that +of Marie Louise in Parma; about the importance of portraits in general, +and about other profound subjects of like nature. As for Stephanopulos, +he was sincerely carried away by the charm of the figure, and expressed +his admiration in enthusiastic terms. + +The countess remained silent for a considerable time. Enthusiastically +as she had expressed herself concerning Jansen's other works; she +evidently found it hard to conquer a certain jealousy in regard to this +beautiful woman. + +"How often did the lady sit to you?" she asked, at length. + +He answered, with a peculiar smile, that he had made the sketch from +memory. + +"Really? Then you are something more than a magician. You not only +conjure up spirits, but spirit and body together. To be sure, we know +what helping spirit assists artists in their works of magic--a spirit +that rules all other men, and is the servant of genius only.--Or don't +you believe, professor," said she, turning to her companion, "that +Raphael and Titian could conjure up those whom they loved before their +imaginations more vividly than they could other mortals?" + +The professor delivered a few brilliant remarks about the power of +fancy, which the countess received with an absent smile; for she was +once more deeply absorbed in contemplation of the statue. + +"Does she live here, and is she to be seen?" she said, suddenly +interrupting his flow of eloquence. + +"I think, madame, you will give yourself useless trouble in trying to +make her acquaintance," replied Jansen, dryly. "The lady lives in a +very retired way, and I doubt--" + +"Very well, very well, I understand; you are miserly with your +treasures, and want to keep the most beautiful to yourself. +Unfortunately, it is impossible to be angry with anything genius does! +Present my compliments to the charming, mysterious original, and tell +her--but who is that playing up-stairs?" + +At this moment they heard Rosenbusch's flute, which had been playing a +light prelude for some time, strike up a grand _bravura_ movement with +all the power and feeling of which its owner was capable. + +Jansen gave Felix a meaning look. Then he told as much about Rosenbusch +as was necessary to excite the lady's curiosity. Upon taking leave, she +gave the master and his pupil an invitation for that evening. + +"You _must_ come," she said; "to be sure, I haven't much to offer you, +especially no such beautiful women as you are accustomed to. But we +shall have music--you love music, too, don't you? And, for the rest, +you must be contented with what we can do for you. I live in the hotel; +a bird of passage never has a comfortable nest. But only come to Moscow +some time; I own a few good old pictures and some sculptures there. +Will you? We will talk of this again. Well, good-by until this evening. +Here is my address, in case you should be as forgetful as geniuses and +friends of beautiful women generally are. _Au revoir!_" + +She gave Jansen her card and a shake of the hand, bowed cordially to +Felix, and left the studio, followed by her two adjutants. + +"Our rat-catcher has made a lucky hit again," laughed Jansen, as they +heard the strangers going up-stairs; and immediately afterward the +flute stopped in the room above. "When I have visitors, he invariably +becomes musical, in order to remind them that there are other people +living in the top story. This time I am especially grateful to him. +Upon my word, my patience and politeness were put to a hard test." + +"You are right; the professor certainly was a tough morsel," +interrupted Felix. "But, as for the lady--although I know enough of her +kind not to be deceived--still, for all that, it is a game of the sex +that one never fails to follow with interest." + +"A charming game!" cried Jansen, and his face darkened. "I would rather +see the most stolid Esquimaux or Hottentot standing before my works +than one of these highly-cultured, artificially-excited devotees of +art, hungry for emotion--seeking in everything nothing but their own +gratification, and worrying a really earnest man to death by their +conceited coquetry with all that he holds most sacred. There is nothing +which will awe them into silence, or even make them forget themselves. +Just as they interest themselves in living creatures only so far as +they tend to increase their own importance, so all works of art exist +for them only so far as they can be made of use in setting off their +beloved _ego_. This same woman visited me once before, a good while +ago, and I was so rude to her that I hoped I had shaken her off +forever. But even rudeness excites these _blasé_ women of the world, +just as _Pumpernickel_ does the palate when one has been eating too +much sugar-cake. In reality, she cares as little for sculpture as for +anything else; unless, perhaps, the study of the nude interests her. +And she is here in Munich in search of very different things--trying to +gain proselytes for the new school of music." + +"I can't help thinking you are rather unjust to her. The very fact that +she feels a respect for you, and even a sort of secret fear, shows that +you interest her. That is one thing I like about these women; they are +strongly attracted by anything that represents power, and is capable of +producing something." + +"Yes," laughed Jansen, "until this power humbles itself to be a +foot-stool for their restless little feet; then it will be thrown +aside. No, my dear fellow, the only reason these comets are not more +particular is because they are forced to keep adding to their tails; +I'd be willing to bet that even our harmless little Rosebud will not be +thought too insignificant to be enrolled in her body-guard. But let her +do whatever she likes--what difference does it make to us? But where +have you been hiding yourself these last few days? and what is the +matter with you now? You are staring at the Russian's visiting-card as +if your senses had suddenly been spirited away to Siberia!" + +"It is nothing," stammered Felix, putting down the card again. He had +read the name of the hotel on it; it happened to be the same one in +which Irene was stopping. "'Countess Nelida F----;' I assure you I +never heard the name before. Are you going to-night?" + +"Possibly, unless something should happen to prevent. It is a matter +of perfect indifference to me now with what sort of people I mix, +since I--" + +He hesitated. His eye glanced involuntarily toward the statuette. Then, +after a pause, he said: + +"Listen: all sorts of things have happened since we last met. Don't you +notice any change in me? I thought I must have grown ten years +younger." + +Felix looked at him searchingly. + +"That could make no one happier than it would me, old Dædalus. And, +since we are on the subject, it has somewhat depressed me to find--I +must out with it--a different man from the friend I left ten years ago. +I always thought it must be my fault that made you so much more +reserved and distant toward me than you used to be. If you would only +be the same old fellow again--but mayn't I know what has brought this +about?" + +"Not yet," answered the sculptor, seizing the hand Felix held out to +him, and pressing it with evident emotion. "I haven't got permission +yet, much as the secret burns in my breast. But, take my word for it, +my dear fellow, all will come right now. I tell you miracles and +wonders still happen; a withered staff burgeons and flourishes, and is +filled once more with green sap and white blossoms. The winter was a +little long, and no wonder that even you felt the cold." + +A knock on the door interrupted him. They heard the voice of the +battle-painter outside, eagerly demanding admission. + +Jansen drew the bolts which, in his disgust, he had fastened behind the +æsthetical professor, and let Rosenbusch in. + +"Well!" cried he to his friend, "what do you say to this divine +creature? Hasn't she been making herself agreeable to you too? A woman +of the gods, by my life! How she hits the nail on the head with every +word, draws out the most secret thoughts of the soul, so that one has +only to keep his ears and mouth open, and always nod an affirmative! +There isn't a horseshoe in all my Battle of Lützen about which she +didn't show a profound knowledge; and if she remains in Munich any +length of time, she says she shall visit me often, so as to watch me at +my work. I am on the only true road, she said; art is action, passion, +excitement--a battle for life and death, and other things of the sort, +which she actually seemed to snatch from my mouth. A devilish smart +woman, and her traveling companion also seems to be a first-rate judge +of art. Of course you have been invited to the musical _soirée_ this +evening. She wants me to bring my flute with me; but I sha'n't be such +a fool as to expose myself before this northern Semiramis. What are you +laughing at?" + +"We are only laughing at the rapid progress of this friend of art in +discovering what fits the occasion. Down here she declared that true +art was repose. A flight higher and the sight of the Battle of Lützen +caused a new light to be thrown on the subject, and she finds that art +is nothing but turmoil and excitement. Yon have effected a speedy +conversion, Rosenbusch. If it is only as permanent as speedy!" + +For once the battle-painter failed to see the humor of the thing. + +"All the same," he said; "I am devilish anxious to continue this +acquaintance. Why shouldn't a talented woman be many-sided? So this +evening at eight o'clock I will call for you, baron. What a pity that I +should have shaved off my beard and cropped my hair just at this time! +I should have been much more imposing with my former romantic head than +in this bald, Philistine guise. However, if the spirit is only unshorn +and free--and in any case my velvet jacket will carry me through!" + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +Punctually at eight o'clock Rosenbusch made his appearance at Felix's +lodgings. He was arrayed with a gorgeousness such as he only assumed on +the most extraordinary occasions. It is true, picturesque lights played +in the folds of his violet velvet jacket, indicative of the extreme age +of its material; but those who knew that this garment, as was +authentically proved by the records, was cut from the robe of state +worn by an historical Countess of Tilly, regarded it with reverence, +especially as it was exceedingly becoming to its present red-cheeked +wearer. About his neck he had wound a spotlessly white cambric necktie, +tied in a delicate knot. His white waistcoat was, to be sure, a little +yellowed, and his black trousers were a little shiny in places; but +when he entered his friend's room with an elastic step, carrying his +tall, antiquated cylinder hat under his arm, and swinging a pair of +tolerably white kid gloves in one hand, he cut, upon the whole, such an +excellent figure that Felix felt called upon to say something +flattering concerning his toilet. + +"One must maintain the honor of his station, and prove to the world +that the tailor ought to learn from the artist, and not the reverse," +replied the painter, with great solemnity, stopping before the glass +and endeavoring to give a bolder wave to his cropped hair. + +"Now you," he continued, "haven't by any means got rid of the baron +yet. Take my word for it, clothes really do make the man. One is a very +different kind of fellow in his shirt-sleeves or in a blouse, than in +one of the elegant, pinched-up monkey-jackets of the latest style. +Doesn't every one of us play a _rôle_? Now just ask Elfinger whether +the true spirit of the _rôle_ doesn't lie in the costume of the actor. +I, for example, in a coat that any Tom or Dick could wear, should feel +myself so lowered to their level that I shouldn't want to take a brush +in my hand. But dressed as I am, even in my company toilet, I can shout +_anch' io_ as lustily as far greater people. But you show no signs of +getting ready. What do you say to making a sensation by coming late?" + +Felix had had time to relapse once more into his melancholy mood. He +answered that he had had disagreeable news from home, and was in no +humor for going into company. Rosenbusch must excuse him; besides, it +would make no difference to the countess whether an unknown beginner-- + +"What!" cried the battle-painter, "you are going to leave me to go +alone to the enchanted garden of this Armida, while all the time I have +been counting on you to save me in case of necessity! Jansen is sure to +come late in any case, even if he decides to go at all. No, my dear +fellow, you know I expend such unheard-of courage on canvas, that not +much remains to me for the _salon_. So, back to back, shoulder to +shoulder, with a friend and companion-in-arms, or I will crawl into the +first violon-cello-case I come to, and bring disgrace upon the Paradise +Club." + +He forced Felix, who half laughed and half protested, to make his +toilet, and then dragged him out with him, holding tightly to his arm +even after they were in the street, as though he still feared that he +might try to give him the slip. At heart Felix was glad to be forced. +He was secretly ashamed of his fear to enter, even on a day when she +was absent, the house where his old sweetheart was living; but now all +the depression which had weighed upon him ever since he found out she +was in the city left him in the company of his merry friend, and the +latter's account of his latest adventures as rejected suitor and happy +lover put him in the most cheerful humor. He rallied the artist upon +his flighty heart, which, instead of dreading the fire like a burned +child, wanted to singe itself in this new flame; all of which +Rosenbusch received with a quiet sigh. + +"The fact is," he said, "a countess like this is not so very dangerous. +It goes without saying, that in all intercourse with her one must +respect certain limits when one is a poor fool of a painter who has to +let himself be snubbed even by a glove-maker. But if, on the other +hand, a female demon like this should really take it into her head to +elope with one of my sort to Italy or Siberia, let us say--well, she +will know what she is about; and in the mean time we can let things go +as Heaven wills." + +Amid talk of this sort they had reached the hotel, in the first story +of which a row of lighted windows had already shown them where the +female autocrat of all the arts was holding her court. Felix pulled his +hat down lower over his forehead, and sprang up the stairs so rapidly +that Rosenbusch was left behind breathless. + +"You are an extraordinary fellow!" he cried, laughing, after he had +overtaken him at the top. "It takes a good deal of diplomacy to get you +started, but once started, you can't get there soon enough." + +Felix made no reply, for just then a servant opened a side-door and +they entered a spacious _salon_, which resounded with the last notes of +one of Chopin's nocturnes, with which the hostess herself had opened +the _soirée_. + +A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people +with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled +with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people +without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being +introduced everywhere. The professor of æsthetics advanced to meet the +new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with +them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a +yellow piqué waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black +cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up. +Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order +to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at +home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept +up to the new-comers. + +She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light +material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in +appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied +carelessness about her head, and fastened on one side by a fresh, +dark-red rose. The dead white of her cheeks looked more blooming than +usual in the warm light of the candles, and her keen, piercing eyes and +white teeth vied with one another in brilliancy. + +"I am so glad you have kept your word," she exclaimed to the young men, +giving one of her soft little hands to each of them. "I hope, too, your +talented friend and master will also find his way here; and you shall +not regret having come. To be sure, I told you beforehand you must be +contented with what your ears would let you enjoy. Still, your eyes +sha'n't go away quite unsatisfied. Come, I will show you something +beautiful." + +She took Felix's arm, and, talking rapidly all the time, led him to the +other end of the _salon_. In a corner, on a semicircular sofa, sat +several mothers and duennas, and in the chairs on either side perhaps a +half dozen young girls, all belonging to the stage or the music-school, +engaged in earnest conversation with some young musicians about the +latest opera and the last concert. A little to one side of them a group +of elderly gentlemen could be seen gathered about a slight, youthful +figure, who sat near a little flower-stand, and who appeared to be +listening in rather an absent way to a white-haired little man, who was +giving a long disquisition on Bach's Passion-Music. Her back was turned +toward the side from which the countess approached with Felix. Now, +upon hearing the hostess's voice, she turned with much dignity. + +"Allow me, _ma toute belle_, to introduce to you Baron von Weiblingen +and Herr Rosenbusch," said the countess. "The gentlemen are artists, +dear Irene; Herr Rosenbusch is a painter and musician.--You have +brought your flute, haven't you?" + +The painter exhausted himself in assurances of his inability to produce +his sounds of Nature, as he called them, for any ears but his own; but +the countess had already turned to Felix again. + +"Did I say too much?" she whispered, loud enough for the Fräulein to +hear her. "Isn't she charming? But your silence says enough. Happy +youth! For a woman's ears there is no sweeter music than such silence, +when she herself is the cause of it. I leave you to your enchantment; +_bonne chance!_" + +She tapped his arm lightly with her black fan, nodded slyly to the +beautiful girl, and disappeared once more in the crowd about the piano. + +The old gentleman, a musical amateur of the old school whom the +countess hoped to convert to the new movement, had withdrawn upon the +approach of the young men. Rosenbusch took advantage of the moment to +make his bows as gracefully as possible, and to open the conversation +by asking how the gracious Fräulein liked Munich. Then, upon turning +round to give Felix a chance to say something, he discovered to his +great surprise that the latter had withdrawn into one of the window +niches, from which he vanished a few minutes after. "What devil has got +into our young baron?" thought Rosenbusch. It seemed to him out of all +propriety to abruptly turn one's back on a charming young lady. +However, he determined to take advantage of this opportunity to show +himself in a still more favorable light, for the Fräulein pleased him. + +She was very simply dressed, which fact, however, only served to +contrast her advantageously with the others, with their silks and showy +ornaments. The excursion that was to have lasted several days had been +shortened, for the old countess had been seized with an attack of +neuralgia, and Irene had scarcely reached home when she was taken +possession of by her fellow-lodger for this, as the latter had assured +her, entirely improvised _soirée_, for which there was no need to make +any great toilet. Her uncle had fled to a gentlemen's club. It was +impossible for her to refuse the invitation. + +In truth, it was a matter of perfect indifference to her into what +company she went. What did she care for any strange faces since the one +which was dearest to her had become a stranger? And she had not had the +faintest suspicion that she should meet him here. + +And now she stood opposite him, and the only look that was exchanged +between them showed her that he had come into her presence not less +unexpectedly. + +A violin concerto, which, to Rosenbusch's great disgust, interrupted +him in an eloquent description of the pleasant summer weather in the +Bavarian mountains, gave her time to collect her thoughts and to +recover herself so far, at least, as not to betray by her manner the +emotions that were at strife within her. But what would come next--what +she ought to do--was no clearer to her now, when the last tones of the +violins were dying away, than in the first few minutes. + +"My friend the baron has suddenly disappeared," Rosenbusch now began +again. "You must have got a curious impression of him; for, upon my +word, he stood before you like a painted Turk, as they say here in +Munich. I'll eat my head if I can understand why he suddenly became +such a stick. He is generally a devilish jolly fellow, and not at all +bashful in the presence of ladies." + +"He is--your friend?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice. + +"We have known each other for several weeks, and you know, until one +has eaten salt with a man--in the mean time, I imagine I think more of +him than he does of your humble servant." + +"Your friend--is also an artist?" + +"Most certainly, Fräulein. He has devoted himself to sculpture under +the instruction of his old friend, the celebrated Jansen. How he +suddenly came to do it, no one knows. Don't you, too, think he looks +more like a cavalier? At all events there is something so romantic, +interesting, and Lord Byronish about him that I should not wonder at +all if he found tremendous favor with the women. I beg pardon, if I +have expressed myself too freely." + +He grew red and plucked at his cuffs. She appeared to take no offense +at his forcible style, but merely asked again, in the most indifferent +tone: + +"You think he has no talent?" + +"How much talent he has, God only knows," replied his friend candidly. +"But one thing is certain, a gigantic courage and a devilish deal of +perseverance are required of one who ventures to take up with sculpture +nowadays. You wouldn't believe, Fräulein, how difficult it is--in this +profession of all others--to find the means with which to mount to +the source, in this strait-laced civilization of ours, with its +conventional prejudices. The days when three goddesses did not +think it improper to get a certificate of their beauty from a royal +goatherd--I beg a thousand pardons, I always do wax warm when I think +of our wretched art-condition, and then I blurt out whatever comes into +my head. This much is certain: if my friend has allowed himself to be +induced merely by his love of beauty to become an artist, instead of +living on his estates, he will find he has reckoned without his host +even here in Munich. There are charming girls here, to be sure;--seen +on the street as they sweep by in their coquettish costumes, with their +little hats and chignons, one might almost be tempted to sell one's +soul to the devil out of pure delight--but when one comes to examine +them by a stronger light--" + +The Fräulein all at once seemed to discover that her presence was +imperatively required opposite, where the music pupils were sitting. +She rose hastily, bowed coldly to the astonished artist, and approached +one of the young ladies with the question whether she too did not find +it very warm. + +Rosenbusch gazed upon her with open mouth. A suspicion dawned in his +innocent brain that perhaps his conversation had appeared rather too +free-and-easy to this young lady. He could not understand this, and +laid it to the score of her North German education. He had talked in a +similar way with his countrywomen at balls, without arousing any +special displeasure. Now he slunk pensively away from the flower-stand, +just as a promising amateur began to perform one of Bach's preludes. +Slipping quietly along, and keeping close to the wall, he succeeded in +reaching the adjoining room, which was dimly lighted, without +attracting attention. A lady's-maid had been making tea there. The +national samovar was still singing on the little table, as though +secretly accompanying the playing outside. But in the doorway stood +Felix, his gaze, piercing through all the crowd and confusion, fixed +upon one particular spot. + +He started as the battle-painter's hand was laid softly on his +shoulder, and scowled angrily. Rosenbusch thought he did not wish to be +disturbed while listening to the music, and kept as still as a mouse as +long as the prelude lasted. He himself did not care for Bach. He was, +as he expressed it, too "cyclopean" for him. He preferred something +melting or merry. So he spent the time in looking about the room, and +was astonished to see on an easel near the window, in a sufficiently +good light to attract attention, that cartoon of the Bride of Corinth +which had brought so little honor to Stephanopulos in "Paradise." The +burned corner had not yet been repaired, so that the singular picture +made a still more weird impression among its elegant surroundings. + +How came it here? Who could have brought it to the countess? Could it +be that the young sinner himself had lent a helping hand in getting it +for her? His name stood in the corner that had been spared by the fire. +It was possible that the honest finder, whom Rosenbusch caught _in +flagranti_ that night in the "Paradise" garden, had returned it to the +artist; that the countess had seen it in his studio, and thought that +it would be piquant to exhibit a drawing in her house which had been +condemned by the male critics on account of its lack of modesty. Oh, +these countesses!--these Russians! + +The door leading to a third room was also standing open--to no less +a sanctum than the sleeping-chamber of the lady of the house. A +hanging-lamp was suspended within, whose light streamed through a +rose-colored shade, casting its dreamy rays upon the furniture, and +upon the bed hung with embroidered muslin. Near the bed, in an +arm-chair, a woman's figure reclined, motionless, so that it could only +be discerned with difficulty by a person outside. But Rosenbusch, who +was to-day in one of his reckless moods, had already advanced several +steps into the sanctum, when he suddenly saw two piercing eyes fixed +upon him. He felt as if he had encountered the glowing eyes of a cat in +the dark. Confusedly stammering an apology, he bowed to the silent +unknown, and hastily beat a retreat into the front room. + +In the mean while the playing had come to an end, and the _salon_ +resounded once more with a confusion of voices in all tongues and +dialects; but still Felix stood there, solitary and unapproachable, as +if no one among all who surrounded him knew how to speak his language. + +"You don't seem inclined to be particularly gallant," he now heard the +cheerful voice of the battle-painter remark; "or was it merely because +you didn't want to cut me out that you refrained from engaging in any +further conversation with that splendid Fräulein? If you had looked +closer at her, you would hardly have been capable of such rather +insulting magnanimity toward my poor self. A perfectly splendid girl, I +assure you; very exclusive, intellectual and amiable; and without +wanting to flatter myself, I really believe I didn't give her a bad +impression of the Munich artists. If I were not so wholly engaged +already--But, by-the-way, have you seen what is standing over there, on +the easel? That Stephanopulos!--just look at him over there, half +sprawling over the piano--how he follows the countess with his eyes, +all the while, with a face like an _Ecce Homo_ of Mount Athos! A +devilish queer kind of fellow!" + +"Did she inquire about me?" interrupted Felix, suddenly starting out of +his brooding. He passed his hand over his forehead, on which the cold +perspiration had started, and drew a long breath. Just at that moment +Irene's slender figure glided out of the _salon_ in spite of the +countess's earnest attempts to detain her. + +"Inquire after you?" repeated the artist. "Of course she did. Such a +dumb cavalier, who immediately vanishes into obscurity, couldn't help +exciting a woman's curiosity." + +"And what--what did you say about me?" eagerly inquired Felix. + +"I excused you as well as I could, saying that you were generally much +more gallant toward ladies." + +"Thank you. You are really very kind, Rosenbusch. And she--what did she +say to that?" + +"Why, what could she say? She didn't appear to feel in the least +offended. Very likely she thought her beauty had rather struck you +dumb--no woman is offended at that. Don't tell me I don't understand +women! And then I talked to her about sculpture--But, upon my word, +here comes Jansen. I must go and say good-evening to him." + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +It was late when Jansen arrived. He had, as usual, been spending the +evening with Julie; and had then escorted Angelica home, who complained +afresh each time that she was compelled to be a restraint upon two +lovers. + +But Julie insisted upon being "matronized" by her during the year of +probation, and so she submitted, and knew how to conduct herself so +sensibly that the very fact of her presence gave the peculiar charm of +suppressed emotion to these happy hours. The after-glow of it still +shone upon Jansen's face as he entered the _salon_. A sudden stillness +ensued; all looked at him; but he seemed hardly to see any one but his +hostess, whom he greeted with a shake of the hand. She received him +with studied cordiality, immediately took exclusive possession of him, +and merely chided him for arriving so late by an allusion to older and +higher duties which had a prior claim upon him. + +"Now don't deny it," she said, smiling. "It cost you a heroic struggle +to tear yourself away at all. It is true a man seldom finds it at all +difficult to leave one woman in order to go to another; but when he is +forced to leave a beauty in the lurch, in order to pay a little +attention to an old woman, one cannot estimate the sacrifice too +highly." + +"You are mistaken, countess," he laughingly replied. "I have been +forced to tear myself away, not from _one_ but from two elderly women, +as they are fond of calling themselves--with just as little reason and +just as little seriousness as when you, countess, count yourself among +that class. But, if it had really cost me a sacrifice, you would have +deserved it of me. I know how ungratefully I conducted myself toward +you in former years. Yet you haven't treasured it up against me." + +"Unfortunately there are men with whom one cannot be offended, no +matter what they do. _Ils le savent et ils en abusent_-- But what is +that?" + +She suddenly broke off. Her sharp eye had seen that one of the young +ladies at the opposite end of the room had become faint, and that the +elder ones were busied over her. In a second she was at her side, +noiselessly and swiftly doing what was necessary. The insensible girl +was borne into the sleeping-chamber, and soon came to herself again. +When the countess returned, she said, in passing, to Jansen: + +"The poor child! Think of practising nine hours daily, and eating +nothing all the while! What existences some people do lead!" Then to +the others: "The Fräulein feels better already. The excessive heat was +the cause of her illness. Perhaps if we should turn down the gas just +for a little while, the temperature would be somewhat more bearable." + +Several of the young people hastened to execute this hint. When the +gas-lights were extinguished, the candles on the piano and a lamp +on the mantel over the fireplace gave only a subdued light, so the +clear night sky, with its moon and stars, shed its lustre through the +wide-opened windows. In this twilight, every one seemed to feel happy +and at ease. A young person, who had previously been entreated to sing +in vain, now mustered up sufficient courage, and her sweet, sympathetic +contralto voice sounded charmingly in the breathless stillness. Jansen +had seated himself in a corner of the sofa in the adjoining room; it +did him good to sit there in the dim light, with half-closed eyes, +watching the play of the shadows as they passed before him, drinking in +the soft tones and thinking all the while upon his happiness. He spoke +with no one. Rosenbusch had at first taken a seat by his side; but as +he had received only monosyllabic answers, he had soon withdrawn again. +Felix had disappeared without taking leave; he could not longer +suppress all that he felt. And now the scene in the _salon_ grew +livelier and more fantastic. No one thought any longer of playing an +entire piece of music. The instrument merely served to illustrate this +or that assertion, as it came up in the course of the confused +conversation; now a few chords were struck, now the hoarse voice of +some composer hummed an air in order to explain some passage; the +younger guests had separated into little groups, and were apparently +engaged in other conversation than that relating to art. In the midst +of all was heard from time to time the high, thin voice of the +professor, who was continually in search of new victims for his +eloquence, and buttonholed now one person and now another. This +intellectual exertion exhausted him all the less from the fact that he +consumed an incredible quantity of the refreshments which were handed +about. After having emptied a whole basket of cakes, he devoted himself +persistently to the ices, and, finally, when, toward midnight, the +champagne was brought in, he seized a whole bottle out of the waiter's +hands and placed it with his glass in a little niche behind a pillar. +As he did so the countess honored him with a cold, almost contemptuous +glance, and her lips curled slightly. The expression enhanced the +beauty of her face exceedingly. Then, too, the dim light that now +prevailed in the room lent her a strange charm. She looked very much +younger, and her eyes flashed sparks that were still capable of +kindling fire. Stephanopulos devoured her with his eyes, and was +continually seeking a chance to approach her. But she always passed +without noticing him; nor did she sit down by Jansen again. It was easy +to see that her mind was fixed upon something which took her thoughts +away from all that was going on about her. + +As it struck midnight, it so chanced that there was a momentary hush in +the conversation. The æsthetical professor advanced into the middle of +the _salon_, holding a full glass in his hand, and said: + +"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to propose a toast to our honored +mistress, in whose name we are here assembled. I do not mean by this +the gracious lady, so sincerely honored by us all, whose guests we are. +I have praised her too often not to be willing to resign, for once, to +her younger guests this privilege of an old friend. My toast is offered +to a mistress even greater than she--to the sublime art of Music, the +art of arts, whose supremacy is becoming more and more acknowledged and +exalted, without envy by her sisters. May she, the mightiest of all +the powers which move the world--thrice glorious and thrice holy +Music--live, flourish, and prevail to the end of time!" + +Enthusiastic applause followed these words, but even the clinking of +the glasses, and the shouts of the different voices, were drowned by a +loud flourish which a young musician improvised upon the piano. The +professor, who had emptied his bumper at a draught and instantly filled +it again, now stepped, with a complacent smile, into the cabinet where +Jansen sat, thoughtfully holding his half-filled glass, from which he +had scarcely sipped, as if he were counting the rising pearls within +it. + +"My honored master," he heard a voice say at his side, "we have not yet +touched glasses with one another." + +He quietly looked up at the speaker. + +"Do you care very much to have your resolution passed by a strictly +unanimous vote?" + +"My resolution?" + +"I mean your exaltation of music above all other arts. If it was merely +a polite phrase to catch the applause of the musicians and the devotees +of music, I have nothing to say against it. It is always expedient to +howl with the wolves. But in case you expressed your real opinion, and +ask me now, on my conscience and between ourselves, whether I share it, +you must permit me to draw back my glass in silence, and, if I drink, +to think my own thoughts in so doing." + +"Do what you can't help doing, _carissimo_!" replied the professor, +with a thoughtful nod of the head. "I know very well that you worship +other gods, and only esteem you the more for having the true artist's +courage to be one-sided. To your health!" + +Jansen held his glass in the same position, and did not seem in the +least inclined to approach it to that of the professor. + +"I am very sorry to sink in your estimation," he said, "but I am really +not quite so one-sided as you think. I not only love music, but it is +fairly necessary to my existence; and if I am deprived of it for any +length of time, my spirit is as ill as my body would be if it were +forced to go without its bath." + +"A strange comparison!" + +"And yet, perhaps, it is more appropriate than it would seem at first. +Doesn't a bath stimulate and excite, calm, or quicken the blood, wash +away the grime of everyday life from the limbs, and soothe all manner +of pain? But it stills neither hunger nor thirst, and he who bathes too +often feels his nervous strength relaxed, his blood over-excited, and +his organs toned down to a voluptuous languor. Isn't it just so with +music? It is possible our thanks are due to her alone that mankind has +gradually lost its bestiality, and grown nearer the likeness of God. +But this is equally certain, that men who now carry this enjoyment to +excess sink gradually into a vegetating dream-life, and that if a time +should come when music should really be exalted as the highest art, the +highest problems of humanity would remain unsolved, and the very marrow +of mankind would be forceless and feeble.--I know well," he continued, +without noticing that the people in the _salon_ were listening to his +monologue, and that groups of listeners had approached the door--"I +know well that these are heresies which one cannot utter in certain +circles without being stoned a little. Nor would I care to discuss the +question with a musician, for he would scarcely understand what I +really mean. The effect of this art 'of thinking in tones' is gradually +to dissolve all that is solid in the brain into a softened mass, and +only the great, truly creative talents can preserve the capacity and +disposition for other intellectual interests. That the highest masters +of every art stand on an equality with one another, I need not say. As +to the others, the expression which some one used in regard to lyric +poets maybe justly used toward them--'They are like geese whose livers +have been fattened; excellent livers, but sick geese.' How can the +balance of the intellectual powers be preserved, when any one sits nine +hours a day at an instrument and continually practises the same +exercises? And for that reason I should be careful how I tried to +convince a musician of the error of his fanaticism. But to you, who are +an æsthetic by profession--" + +He chanced to let his eyes wander toward the door, and broke off +suddenly. He noticed now, for the first time, before what an audience +he had been speaking. The professor observed his surprise, and grinned +maliciously. + +"You are talking to your own destruction, my dear sir," he said, +raising his voice. "You might just as well declare in a mosque that +Allah was not Allah, and Mohammed was not his prophet, as to assert to +this crowd of enthusiastic youths that there is anything more divine +than music, or that devotion to it, its service and its cultivation, +could ever be pushed too far. Entrench yourself behind your blocks of +marble, so that we may grant you peace on favorable terms. What would +you say if some one declared that whoever uses his mallet nine hours of +the day must, in the course of time, lose his sense of hearing and +sight, that his intellectual power would finally become deadened and +petrified, and that his soul would get to be as dusty and muddy as the +blouse he wears when he hammers his stones?" + +A unanimous shout of bravos arose from the group standing nearest him, +and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the _salon_. + +The countess, who now for the first time became aware of the dialogue, +was seen hastily approaching, with the intention of averting the +threatened storm by a timely word. But Jansen had already risen to his +feet, and stood confronting the professor with the most unruffled +composure. + +"What would I say?" he cried, loud enough to be understood by all. "I +would say that in every art there are artists and mechanics, and that +the latter know as little of the god whom they serve as the sexton who +sweeps out the church and hands about the contribution-box. Of all the +arts there is but one which does not know the dust of the workshop, +that has no underlings and assistants, or, at the worst, merely +charlatans who fancy themselves masters; and even these know nothing of +that kind of mechanical readiness which murders the soul and deadens +thought. For that reason it is the highest and most divine of the arts, +before which the others bow, and which they ought to worship as their +mistress and goddess. To you, who are in the habit of lecturing upon +æsthetics, I should be ashamed to explain myself more fully by saying +that I refer to poetry, were it not that in your toast you offered an +insult to the majesty of this, the highest muse, which I can only +excuse upon the supposition that you have strayed from the temple of +the true divinity, and wandered by mistake into a mosque." + +With these words he raised his glass, held it before the flame of the +lamp and slowly drank it off. A deathlike silence followed; the +professor, who was apparently on the point of making a rather +irritating reply, was restrained by a meaning look from the countess. +She herself had looked at the sculptor while he spoke, with a peculiar, +searching, flashing look, and merely threatened him playfully with her +finger as he now advanced toward her as if to take leave. + +"Stay," she whispered to him, "I have a word to speak with you." + +Then she turned to the others, and invited them to be seated again and +not to think of breaking up so soon. But her most cordial words and +demeanor could not banish a certain uncomfortable feeling that had +taken possession of the company. No one could be induced to take a +place at the piano, and a court musician, who still had a violin sonata +_in petto_, shut up his instrument-case with conspicuous noise and took +his leave of the countess, bestowing upon Jansen as he passed a look +full of meaning. The others followed his example, and, finally, even +the professor, who took his defeat most easily, entered upon his +retreat after addressing a few jesting remarks to his opponent. +Rosenbusch, who would probably otherwise have waited for Jansen, had +offered his services in escorting home the young Fräulein who had +fainted earlier in the evening. + +The artist and the countess now stood alone confronting one another, in +the dimly-lighted room. From the street below they could hear the +departing guests as they went away, laughing, talking, and singing. + +"I beg for a mild punishment, countess," began Jansen, smiling. "Of +course you have only detained me in order to exact a penance in the +absence of witnesses. I thank you for this kind intention, although, to +be honest, I rather favor a public execution if the head really must +come off!" + +"You are very, very wicked!" she answered, slowly shaking her head as +if she were deeply in earnest in what she said. "You fear neither God +nor man, least of all that which seems to many the most terrible--the +anger of a woman. And, for that reason, I shall not succeed in +punishing you for your sins as you have deserved." + +"No," he said. "I submit voluntarily to any penance you may put upon +me. How I wish that by so doing I could rid myself of my old fault of +thinking aloud without first looking around to see who may be +listening!" + +She walked up and down the room with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully +before her. + +"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not +worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool +the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as +you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman. +For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately +because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more +grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters, +and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such +an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind +that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my +knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To +me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge +into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the +bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said +as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a +work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely +cool waters? And that is the main thing in the end. The few moments in +life that satisfy our innermost desires are, after all, those only in +which we almost believe we are dying. Enjoyment of art, enthusiasm, a +great deed, a passion--in the main they all have the same ending. Or do +not you agree, dear friend?" + +He indicated his assent by a gesture, though he had only caught a few +stray words. This woman interested him so little that his thoughts, +even when he was at her side, secretly flew away to her whose image +filled his heart. + +She took his silence as a sign that she had made a deep impression upon +him. + +"You see," she continued, "it is a satisfaction to me to tell you this. +It is so seldom one finds people capable of comprehending one, and from +whom one need have no secrets. It is a privilege of all sovereign +natures that they dare to confess all to one another--the highest as +well as the lowest thoughts--for, even when we confess our weakness, we +are ennobled by the boldness and daring with which we do it. Oh, my +dear friend! if you knew how hard a woman has to struggle to attain +that freedom which you men claim as a birthright! For how long a time +do we throw away the best years of our life because of false shame, and +a thousand other considerations! It is only since I acknowledged it as +a moral duty toward my own nature to possess myself of anything toward +which I felt drawn, to dare anything which was not beyond my powers, to +say anything for which I could find a sympathetic listener--it is only +since that time that I can say I have learned to respect myself. But I +forget; it does not follow that these confessions interest you, no +matter how much sympathy you may feel for them. I am, doubtless, not +the first woman who has given you similar confidences. The world in +which you live is used to seeing fall the veils and coverings with +which we drape ourselves in the prudish society of ordinary mortals. +Nor would I, perhaps, have detained you here with me merely to talk to +you of such feelings and thoughts, if I had not besides something very +particular at heart, a great, great favor--" + +She had thrown herself down on a sofa and rested there in a careless, +picturesque attitude, her arms thrown back gracefully behind her head. +Her face was pale as marble, and her lips were slightly parted--but not +with a smile. + +"A favor?" he asked, absently. "You know, countess, I was prepared to +receive a penance. How much sooner--" + +"Who knows whether the granting of this favor will not seem to you a +penance, and none of the lightest either!" she hastily interrupted. "In +a word, will you make my portrait?" + +"Your portrait?" + +"Yes; a portrait-statue, sitting or standing, as you like. I confess to +you that the thought first came to me this morning. I can't get that +beautiful portrait of your charming friend out of my head, though I am +not so conceited as to wish to compare myself with this unknown woman, +especially in your eyes. I have a special reason for wanting it; I know +a foolish man who still finds me young and pretty enough to want my +portrait--particularly if it were done by such a master--a friend, from +whom I have been separated often and long, and whom I should make very +happy if I could send him my effigy as a compensation." + +While she delivered this excited speech, Jansen had let his eyes rest +on her, without betraying by any sign whether he was disposed to grant +her the favor or not. She blushed under this cool, searching look, and +cast down her eyes. + +"He is beginning to study me already," she thought. "But you mustn't +think," she continued, "that I am altogether too modest in my request. +He, for whom this master-work is intended, would be ready to pay its +weight in gold for even the most hasty sketch from your hand. But it +appears as if the undertaking had no great charm for you? Tell me +frankly; in any case, we will still remain good friends." + +"Countess," he began, for the first time this evening betraying some +confusion, "you are really too good--" + +"No! You are trying to escape me--now, don't deny it. Perhaps I know +the reason which makes you unfavorable to my request. You have delicate +duties that you must regard. If your friend should discover that you +had shown the same favor to me as to her--I don't know her, but, for +all that, it might be possible, and certainly pardonable, for her to be +a little jealous! Am I not right? Isn't it that which makes you +hesitate?" + +He was silent for a moment. Then, still in an absent way and as if +speaking to himself, he said, quietly: + +"Jealous? She would certainly have no cause to be." + +The unfortunate expression had scarcely passed his lips when a hot +and cold shudder passed over him, and he suddenly became conscious +what a deadly insult he had uttered. He looked at her in alarm; he saw +that all the blood had fled from her cheeks, leaving even her lips a +deathly white. But immediately, before he could even recover sufficient +self-possession to soften the impression of his words, she forced a +pleasant laugh, hastily rose from the sofa and stepped up to him with +both her hands extended. + +"Thank you, my friend," she said, in her easiest tone; "you are not +particularly gallant, but something better and rarer--you are candid. +You are right; unless a woman is able to set the whole female sex wild +with envy and jealousy, like your beautiful unknown friend, she is not +a worthy subject for your art. I really ought to be old enough to see +that myself. But, as I said, you are partly to blame for my having hit +on such a foolish idea--the portrait of that beautiful woman had turned +my head. But now it is in its right place again, and I thank you for +your speedy cure. _Prenez que je n'aie rien dit._ That my tardy wish, +which perhaps would have been an impudent one even in earlier days, +remains our secret, I expect from your chivalry. So--your hand upon +it--and _soyons amis!_ And now, good-night. Though I am in no danger of +awakening jealousy, I am not old enough yet to be secure from malicious +gossip, and--you have already staid longer than is proper." + +In the most painful confusion he attempted to stammer out a few +palliating words. But she would not listen to them, and, amid all sorts +of pretty speeches and jests, almost hustled him by main force out of +the door, which she immediately locked behind him. + +No sooner did she find herself alone than her features became +transformed; the smile on her lips faded into a grimace, and a +threatening scowl appeared on her smooth forehead. She brushed from her +eyelashes the tears of angry humiliation which she had held back too +long already, and drew a long, deep breath, as if to save her heart +from suffocation. Thus she stood, near the threshold, her little hands +clinched tight, gazing motionless at the door through which the man who +had insulted her had passed out. If a passionate wish possessed the +magic power to kill, Jansen would probably have never left her house +alive. + +She heard steps in the adjoining cabinet. She looked up, passed her +hands across her eyes and seized a glass of water, which she emptied at +a single draught. She was herself again. An elderly woman entered +cautiously, dressed simply and entirely in black, but with a care which +betrayed long practice in the arts of the toilet. Moreover, her manner +of speaking and carrying herself showed, at the first glance, that she +had once been at home behind the foot-lights. She was apparently well +on in the forties; but her real face was concealed under a coating of +paint, very skillfully laid on, and her soft, regular features made no +disagreeable impression. + +"You are still here, my dear?" cried the countess, scarcely attempting +to conceal a feeling of displeasure. "I thought you had long ago felt +bored at your self-chosen part and gone away." + +"I have passed an unspeakably pleasurable evening, my dear countess, +and wanted to thank you for it. Since I lost my voice and left the +stage, I scarcely remember to have heard so much good music in so few +hours. Manna in the desert, my dear countess!--manna in the desert! But +how lucky it was that I listened to the concert, as I did, in my dark +box over there! It is true that he, before whom I particularly wished +to avoid appearing, might not have noticed me. Since his new _liaison_ +he seems to be blind for everything else, and the many years since we +last met have done their best to make it hard for him to recognize me. +But imagine, countess, that young painter--the same one who got in my +way that night when we discovered the burning picture--strayed by +chance into your bedroom! Fortunately, he hastily retired again. But +it was a bright moonlight night the first time. Who knows whether he +did not recognize me again, especially as the picture in the cabinet +there--" + +"Certainly," nodded the countess, "you are right. Who knows?" + +She had not heard a word the other had spoken. + +"Oh, my honored patroness!" continued the latter, "if I could only tell +you how it infuriated me again to see him--the hard and cruel man who +made my poor daughter's life so wretched--enter the room with such a +proud, arrogant air, and receive homage everywhere; to hear his voice, +and his aggressive speeches that seemed meant to throw down the glove +to the whole company--oh, you cannot tell how I hate him! But has not a +mother a right to hate the enemy of her daughter?--all the more when +this daughter is so foolish as still to love the man who cast her out +of his house, and even begrudged her the consolation of weeping over +her wrongs on the neck of her own child?" + +She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in a theatrical manner, as if +her grief had overpowered her. + +The countess gave her a cold look. + +"Don't play comedy before me, my dear," she said, sharply. "According +to all that I have heard of your daughter, I don't imagine she is +inconsolable. What reasons have you for thinking she still loves him?" + +"I know her heart, countess. She is too proud to mourn and weep. But +would she not ask her mother to come and live with her, were it not +that then she would be obliged to give up ever hearing any news of +the child? If she only knew what it cost me to be a spy, so that I +can write to her now and then how it fares with her hardhearted +husband--the poor, innocent child! And yet, gracious countess, if I +could ever succeed in tying the broken bond again, in freeing this +ungrateful, inconstant man from this snare of unworthy passion, in +leading him back again to his rightful wife--" + +Her voice appeared to be choked with tears. The countess made a +movement of impatience. + +"Enough!" she said. "It is late, and I am very tired. Still, it is +true, something must be done. This man's great talent will go to rack +and ruin amid false surroundings and vulgar love affairs, unless some +one brings him back into the right path. Come to me again to-morrow +forenoon, my dear. We will talk further on the subject then. Adieu!" + +She nodded to the singer in an absent way. The latter bowed low before +her, and started in haste to leave the room. As she was crossing the +threshold she heard her name called. + +"Don't you think me very unbecomingly dressed today, dear Johanna? It +seems to me I appear very old and haggard in this Venetian coiffure. +For that matter, I really ought to have put off the _soirée_ +altogether; I could hardly keep on my feet, I had such a headache." + +"You have this advantage over us, that even suffering makes you appear +more beautiful. From my place in my invisible box, I caught words that +would prove to you how great injustice you do yourself." + +"Flatterer!" laughed the countess, bitterly. "Go away I--do go away! At +all events you can't contradict the evidence of my own eyes." + +After the singer had gone, Nelida remained for a time standing on the +same spot where the former had taken leave of her. She murmured a few +words in her mother tongue, and then said in German: + +"He wants to do penance, does he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!" + +She stepped in front of the mirror above the fireplace, before which a +lamp, nearly out, burned with a weak, red flame. The candles on the +piano were burned down almost to the socket. In this dim light her +cheeks looked still more wan, her eyes more sunken, and the scowl on +her forehead as if it could nevermore be smoothed away. + +"Is it really too late for happiness?" she said aloud, in a hollow +voice. + +She shuddered, for the night wind swept coldly through the room. Slowly +she took the rose from her hair and let it fall to the ground, so that +the leaves were strewed over the carpet; then she unwound the veil from +her head, took out the comb and shook her hair down over her shoulders. +As she did so the blood returned to her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and +she began to be pleased with herself once more. "_Il y a pourtant +quelques beaux restes!_" she said to herself. Then, with sunken head, +she strode across the _salon_, talking half aloud to herself, and +stepped up to the open piano. She struck the keys with her open hand so +that they gave forth a loud, harsh discord. She laughed scornfully at +this. "He will do penance, will he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!" +and, once more folding her arms across her breast, she stepped into the +cabinet and stood still before the young Greek's cartoon. She knew the +picture by heart. And yet she stood before it as lost in contemplation +as though she saw it for the first time. + +Suddenly she felt a hot breath upon her neck. She shuddered slightly +and looked round. + +Stephanopulos stood behind her. + +"Are you crazy?" whispered Nelida. "What are you doing here? Leave me +this moment! My maid is coming!" + +"She is asleep," whispered the youth. "I told her you would not need +her. Do you reproach me, countess?--me, who only live in your +smiles--to whom a glance of your eyes is heaven or hell!" + +"Hush!" she said, leaving him her hand which he had seized. "You are +talking nonsense, my friend. But you have a good voice, and, besides, +one cannot be angry with you. _Vous êtes un enfant!_" + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +On the morning following the _soirée_, the lieutenant sat in the second +story of the same hotel, in the little _salon_ which lay between +Irene's bedroom and her uncle's. Although he was continually +complaining about his wretched vassalage to friendship, he had, +nevertheless, presented himself again in good season in order to +receive the watchword for the day. Inasmuch as he had not the faintest +regular occupation, this pretext for passing away the hours was, in +reality, heartily welcome to him. More than this, Irene's strangely +resigned and yet self-reliant character, her repellent manner and +almost bluntness, joined as they were with all the charm of youth, +attracted him more than he knew or cared to admit. + +The Fräulein was still invisible when Schnetz arrived. He found the +uncle seated at breakfast, and was forced to listen to his account of +his experiences of the excursion, and of his evening at the club. The +baron may possibly have been a good dozen years older than the +lieutenant, whom he still continued to treat in his frank and jovial +manner, just as he had formerly treated the young fellow who, in +Africa, had felt flattered to be kindly taken under the wing of his +more experienced countryman and initiated into the mysteries of +lion-hunting and other noble pastimes. Sixteen years had passed since +then. The baron's hair had grown thin, the little rakish mustache on +his upper lip had turned gray, his nervous, thick-set figure had +rounded out, and, seen from behind, looked almost venerable; while +the long, lank figure of his younger comrade had grown even more +spindle-shanked, his face more like parchment, and his movements +clumsier than before. For all that the baron let his eyes rest with +fatherly satisfaction upon the officer, whom he still called "Schnetz, +my dear boy," and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder; all of +which Schnetz, who would have grimly resented any such familiarity from +any one else, received with great patience from him. + +"_Bonjour, mon vieux!_" cried the baron, with both cheeks full, when +Schnetz entered. "My little highness is still resting from the fatigues +of a musical entertainment given by a Russian lady here in the hotel. +Come, light a cigar. No?--don't be afraid! On neutral ground smoking is +allowed. That is the only thing which I, the best guarded of guardians, +ever succeeded in carrying through against my ward's wishes. Positively +I have regretted a hundred times that I didn't marry, and bring a few +lively boys into the world. If they had tyrannized over me, I should +know well enough for what sins I had to suffer. Now don't wink for me +to speak lower. She is accustomed to hear these sighs of agony from me. +She knows that her slave lets his hands and feet be put in chains, +but not his tongue. To be sure," he continued, concluding this +lamentation--which he had pronounced with far too jolly an air for it +to excite serious sympathy--"to be sure, my dear Schnetz, my yoke was +never so bearable as it is here in your blessed Munich: before all +else, because you have lent your shoulder to the wheel, and I have a +substitute in you such as I have wished for in vain at my own house, +when my severe little niece has led the old lion-hunter about by her +apron-string like a meek lamb." + +Then he related how he had made the most charming acquaintances at the +club yesterday, and what a cordial tone he had found there. + +"You South Germans are really a fine race of men!" he cried, excitedly. +"Everybody is so open, so true-hearted, in his _négligé_, just as God +made him. You don't have to feel about a long time until you get +through all the padding, and reach something like a human core; but +whatever there is in you appears on the surface, and, if it doesn't +please, it can't be helped. For that reason, of course, one sometimes +comes across a slight roughness, which, however, only does you honor." + +Schnetz puckered his mouth to an ironical grimace. + +"Allow me, _chère_ papa, to remark that you over-estimate us," he said, +dryly. "That which you take to be our honest, natural skin is only a +flesh-colored material under which the real epidermis lies concealed as +securely and as secretly as the nut under its shell. We do well to +throw aside our cloaks, because, with us, we do not show ourselves as +we are when we do so. Of course, between ourselves we know perfectly +well how matters stand, and that we can't make an X into a Y. Believe +me, were it not for the drop of Frankish blood that I got from my +mother, I should not be so _naïf_ as to blurt out our national secret +to you. I would leave you to quietly find out for yourself whether, at +the end of a year--yes, or even at the end of ten or twenty years--you +would have advanced any further in the friendships made yesterday than +you did in the first hour; whether you would have succeeded even in +penetrating the padding and putting your hand upon a real human heart +of flesh and blood. I--much pains as I have taken--never succeeded in +doing this. It is true, I myself was so exceedingly ill-humored as to +consider it my duty to speak the truth to those whom I consider my +friends. But that is something one must guard against doing here as +carefully as against stealing silver spoons. Why has a man a back, +unless it is that his friends may abuse him behind it?" + +"I know you, _mon vieux_," cried the baron. "When you haven't a pair of +shears and some black paper at hand, you cut your caricatures out of +the air with your sharp tongue. But I won't allow this jaundiced art of +yours to put me out of humor with this beautiful city and its good +people. I grumbled sadly when my little highness insisted upon +traveling, and taking up her residence further south. Now, nothing +could afford me greater pleasure than her whim to settle down here in +Munich, of all places, and if she only would decide not to go away from +here again at all--" + +The entrance of Irene interrupted him. She looked paler than on the day +before, and greeted the gentlemen with heavy eyes and a languid +movement of her little head, which generally sat so spiritedly and so +erect upon her shoulders. + +"Dear uncle," she said, "you would do me a great favor if you would +consent to take me away from here--into the country, no matter where, +if only away from this house. I have passed a night such as I hope I +may never pass again, and didn't get a wink of sleep until this +morning. You came home too late, and sleep too soundly, to have been +disturbed long by the concert and the noise below us. But I--though I +got away from the countess's just as early as possible--the music and +the noise of the conversation reached my ears through the open windows. +It will be just the same every night, for this lady is eternal unrest +personified; and her circle expands into the infinite, since she not +only patronizes music but all the other arts as well. So, if you love +me, uncle, and don't want me to have a brain fever, see that we leave +this house! Don't you too think, Herr von Schnetz, that nothing is left +for me but rapid flight?" + +Schnetz looked at his friend, from whose jovial face all the sunshine +had departed. But he took good care not to come to his aid. + +"My dearest child," the baron now ventured to remonstrate in a +conciliatory voice, "the idea of rushing off in this wild fashion, +after telling our friends only yesterday that it would be much nicer to +take up our headquarters here in the town, and to make excursions from +here to all points of the compass--" + +She did not let him finish his speech. + +"Feel how hot my hand is!" she said, pressing two little fingers +against his forehead; "that is fever; and you know how people have +warned us against the Munich climate. Didn't aunt tell us yesterday +that even she intended to fly to the nearest mountains very soon? And +besides, I should never think of asking you to shut yourself up with me +in a mountain hut. I know very well, uncle, that you can't get on +without the city for any length of time. I don't wish to go any further +than the lake where we were yesterday; from there you can be back in +Munich again in an hour, if you find you cannot stand it any longer. +Don't you think this will be the most sensible thing for all parties, +Herr von Schnetz?" + +"_Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!_" replied the lieutenant, bowing, +with the most serious face in the world. It did not escape his keen +eye that this young highness had been battling with some trouble +of the heart during the night, and had not yet recovered her usual +self-possession. While she was speaking, her eyes wandered about in an +odd way, now toward the window, now toward the door, as if she trembled +in fear of some surprise. She pleased him better, however, in this +state of excitement than in her usual cool self-possession; he felt a +curious sympathy for her beautiful youth, that had no friend and +adviser to consult, except an old bachelor whose susceptibilities were +none of the most delicate. + +"In Heaven's name, then!" sighed the latter, casting a droll look +upward, "I submit to higher guidance, and acknowledge with gratitude +the consideration you have shown toward my poor person in your project. +Schnetz will find his way out to us, I suppose--after all a horse can +always be found or sent for; there will most likely be a pistol-gallery +at hand; and, if all other sports should leave me in the lurch, I can +still become an angler on the lake--that most insipid of all pastimes, +which I have heretofore regarded with quiet horror from a distance. +When shall we be off? Not before this evening, of course?" + +"With the next train, uncle. We have only half an hour to spare. Fritz +is already at work packing your things, for he had heard from Betty +that my trunk was ready. All you will have to do will be to make your +own toilet." + +The baron broke into a shout of laughter. + +"What do you say to that, Schnetz? Abd-el-Kader himself might learn a +lesson from this rapidity in breaking camp. Child, child! And my new +acquaintances of last night--the stag-party that was arranged for +to-morrow--Count Werdenfels, whose collection of weapons I was to go +and see--" + +"You can send them your excuses by letter from Starnberg, dear uncle. +And truly I would not hurry so if there were any other way of avoiding +taking leave in person of our fellow-guest down stairs. But, if we go +off at once, these two lines, which the waiter will give her as soon as +we are gone, will be sufficient." + +She produced a visiting-card, on which she had already written a word +of farewell. + +"The note already written, too! _La letterina eccola qua!_" cried the +baron. "Child, your genius for command is so sublime that subordination +under your flag becomes a pleasure, and blind submission a matter of +honor. In five minutes I will be ready for the journey." + +With comical gallantry he kissed the girl's hand, who had listened to +all his jests in a preoccupied and serious way, gave his friend a look +that seemed to say: "I yield to force!" and rushed out of the room. + +Schnetz was left alone with the Fräulein. A feeling that was almost +fatherly in its tenderness passed over him as he looked at the serious +young face. + +"Perhaps," he thought, "it needs but a first word, a light touch, and +this young heart that is full to the brim will overflow and be +relieved." + +But, before he could even open his lips, she said suddenly: + +"I do hope Starnberg is not such a great resort for artists as the +other places in the Bavarian mountains, of which my cousins have told +me." + +He looked at her in amazement. + +"You hope so, Fräulein? And what possible reason can you have for not +wishing it to be such a place? Artists are, as a rule, among the most +harmless of God's creatures, and can hardly be said to disfigure a fine +region with their umbrellas and camp-stools." + +"And yet, last evening, I made the acquaintance of one of these artists +at the countess's below. The tone which he adopted--" + +"Do you recollect his name?" + +"No; but perhaps you know him--a young man in a violet velvet jacket." + +Schnetz gave a loud laugh. + +"Why do you laugh?" + +"I beg a thousand pardons, Fräulein--it really is not a matter to be +laughed at. This honest fellow--our secret poet--I know him down to the +very folds in his historical velvet jacket. What, in the name of +wonder, were the thorns that this Rosebud presented for you to scratch +your delicate skin upon?" + +"I must submit to let you think me a prudish fool, who takes offense at +every light word, Herr von Schnetz," said she, with some asperity. "I +do not care to repeat the conversation of your friend. If he is one of +the most inoffensive of men, I would rather avoid a place where one is +forced to meet people of his stamp at every step." + +She turned away and stepped to the window. + +"My dearest Fräulein," she now heard Schnetz's voice say behind her, +"you are ill, seriously ill; I don't know whether in body; but +certainly there is a wounded spot somewhere in your mental +organization." + +She turned round upon him quickly. + +"I must confess, Herr von Schnetz," she said, with her proudest look, +"I really do not understand--" + +"A sick person is very often unconscious that anything is wrong with +him," continued Schnetz, unmoved, pulling at his imperial. "But it is +impossible that you could have seen this picture of the most innocent +of all mortals in such distortion, unless your eye had been clouded by +illness. My dear Fräulein--no, don't look at me so ungraciously; you +cannot deceive me by so doing; and at the risk of incurring your +direful wrath, I don't see why you shouldn't listen to an honest word +from a fatherly friend. I do not know whether you have many other +friends; but, as far as I know, there is no one here who takes a more +cordial interest in you than my not particularly attractive self--no +one in whom you could more safely confide. Dearest Fräulein, if you +would only consent to open that proud little mouth and tell me whether +I can help you; whether what you experienced last night--for it is +impossible that it is friend Rosenbusch who has suddenly given you such +a distaste for your stay in this city--" + +"Thank you," she said, interrupting him suddenly; "I believe you mean +kindly toward me. Here is my hand on it; and, if I ever need counsel or +help, you shall be the first and only man to whom I will turn. But you +are mistaken if you think I--I--" + +She suddenly checked herself, her eyes filled with heavy drops, and her +voice failed her; but she controlled herself, and smiled upon him so +kindly that he could not help admiring the brave young heart. + +"All the better," he said. "I am too well bred to doubt the word of a +lady. And the assurance you give me is so precious--" + +"Here is my hand on it! Here's to our true friendship, Herr von +Schnetz, and-- Of course I don't need to ask you not to say anything to +uncle; he undoubtedly means well with me, but he knows so little--less +than you who saw me for the first time only a week ago." + +She put her finger to her lips and looked listeningly toward the door, +behind which the baron's footsteps could now be heard. Schnetz had only +time, while cordially pressing the hand she offered him, to nod to her +that the pact just concluded should remain her secret, when her uncle +stepped in again in complete traveling costume, and began to urge on +the preparations for departure as zealously as he had before protested +against the flight. + +Schnetz got into the carriage with them, in order to accompany the +uncle and niece to the station. The curtains were drawn down on the +first floor of the hotel. The countess was still sleeping. As far as +she was concerned, Irene would have had no need to pull down her veil +over her face before she got into the carriage. But from behind it her +eyes wandered restlessly hither and thither, across the square and +through the streets; for she feared that he from whom she was fleeing +might have taken up his post somewhere in the vicinity, in order to +keep watch upon her movements. + +He was nowhere to be seen. She noticed, on the other hand, a beautiful +blonde lady who happened to be crossing the square just at that moment, +accompanied by a rather insignificant-looking female companion and a +male escort, and who had to stand still in order to let the carriage +pass. Schnetz did not recognize them until they had gone by, but then +he waved his hat excitedly by way of greeting, and gazed after them for +some time longer. + +"Who was that you were bowing to?" asked Irene. + +"Take a good look at that man, my dear Fräulein. He is only a sculptor, +not yet as celebrated as he deserves to be, and by birth the son of a +peasant. But I have never known a man of more genuine nobility, and he +alone would make the bad society in which I delight to move the very +best in the world. Of the two ladies one is a painter, a very good +person and not a bad artist by any means, while the beautiful one on +Jansen's left--" + +"Jansen?" + +"Do you know the name? Perhaps you have already seen some of his +works?" + +She stammered out a confused answer, and leaned far out of the carriage +as if she wanted to take another look at the party. All her blood had +mounted to her cheeks. + +So that was he with whom Felix now passed his days, that friend of his +youth whose presence and society made up for all lost happiness! + +A secret jealousy, which she was ashamed to admit even to herself, +arose within her. Luckily for her the carriage drew up a few minutes +after before the entrance of the station; and in the confusion of +getting out and taking leave of their faithful companion, she was able +to recover herself so far as to throw back her veil once more and to +exact from Schnetz, with the merriest mien in the world, a promise that +he would come out to the lake and visit them very, very soon. + +The whistle of the locomotive had long died away, and our friend stood +in the middle of the square, like a post, with his eyes fixed on the +ground. + +"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he growled at length, as a clumsy peasant ran +against him and roused him from his reverie. "It is curious how our +feelings toward people change. Only yesterday these two were in my +way, and I would have given a good deal to have been released from my +woman-service. And now I feel wretchedly bored without the little +highness, and as if I were of no use to anybody. If I were not an old +fellow and past all child's-play, and had not such a good wife, I +almost believe--_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" + +And slowly, humming a French soldiers' song between his teeth, he +wended his way home, which to-day, for the first time, appeared to him +as sad and solitary as it really was. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + +In the mean while Jansen and his two companions had gone on their way, +too much occupied with their own thoughts to think about the company in +which Schnetz had driven by. They were not, indeed, taking an ordinary +morning walk, for it had no less an object in view than to make a child +acquainted with its new mother for the first time--yes, even more than +this. The evening before Julie had expressed her ardent wish to take +the child under her own care at once; the plan to take an apartment +with Angelica had been given up again, for this good soul could not +bring herself to leave the people with whom she was staying, who lived +in great part from what she paid them. So Julie had plenty of room; +and, though she said nothing about it, no doubt the consideration that +the presence of the child would do much to lighten the trial year, both +for herself and her lover, had a great deal to do in determining her. +Since everything that made the bond between them stronger could not but +be very welcome to Jansen, it was decided to put the plan into +execution on the very next day. + +But though Jansen had welcomed and urged the idea most eagerly, he +became more and more doubtful, as the hour for putting it into +execution drew near, whether he should succeed without some trouble in +removing the child from the associations to which it was accustomed, +and placing it amid entirely new relations. Julie felt no less nervous; +what had seemed to her the evening before to be easy and self-evident, +appeared to her now in broad daylight as an audacious undertaking that +made her heart beat more anxiously the nearer they approached to their +goal. What if the child should not take to her? What if she, try as +hard as she would, should not be able to take it to her heart at +once?--or should not be able to learn the art of managing it rightly? + +The thought made her silent, and she involuntarily walked more slowly. +Jansen, too, slackened his pace, so that the good Angelica, who walked +along with them quite cheerful and free from care, was obliged to stand +still every few minutes in order to wait for the stragglers. + +But she did not lose her good-nature. On the contrary, it seemed as +though the happiness of her adored friend, the share in it which fell +to her as the patron saint of the secret union, and, by no means least, +the authority which her position as protectress gave her over her +honored master, tended to excite her humor in an unusual degree, so +that she delivered the drollest speeches entirely on her own account, +whenever the other two abused too flagrantly the privilege of being +tiresome--a privilege that belongs by right to all lovers. + +"Children," she cried, standing still again and fanning her heated face +with her handkerchief, "this is the first time in my life that I ever +'played the elephant' to a pair of secret lovers, but I swear by the +ball on the tower of that Protestant church never to do so again, +unless I am provided with an equipage at the very least! That you are +not very entertaining I find to be quite in order, and at all events +much better than if you should perpetually speak in sonnets, like +_Romeo_ and _Juliet_--which I find highly absurd even on the stage. But +to creep along at your side through this Sahara-like glare, while you +walk at a snail's-pace, since you no longer feel external heat because +of the flames within, is more than an elderly girl of my complexion can +stand. So we will jump into the next droschke, where I can close my +eyes and ponder why it is that love, which is after all such a +pleasurable invention, generally makes the most sensible people +melancholy." + +Jansen's home lay in one of the old lanes between the city and the Au +suburb. Any one wandering along here by the side of the babbling brook, +a small tributary of the Isar, and seeing the low cottages with their +little front gardens and courtyards, and picturesque gables, might +easily imagine himself transported far away from the city and set down +in one of the country towns of the middle ages, so quiet and deserted +are the streets and ways, and so freely does every one pursue his +occupation under the eye of his neighbor, washing his linen and his +salad at the same well and sitting in his shirt-sleeves before his +door. The house of our friend stood a little back, in a sort of +blind-alley, so that you could not drive up to the door. It belonged to +an honest and hard-working man who had formerly been a teacher in one +of the provincial industrial schools, and who was now employed as an +engineer by different railways. As his work obliged him to travel +during many months of the year, he had invited his wife's mother to +come and live with him and give company and assistance to his little +wife--a cheery, practical woman from the Palatinate, sound to the core +both in body and soul. The mother was an excellent old woman, who, +although rather deaf, knew so well how to get on with the children that +the little ones desired no better company than their grandmamma, who +read all their little wishes in their eyes. + +She was sitting in her accustomed place in the deep window-niche, with +her youngest grandchild, who was barely two years old, on her knee, and +her five-year-old foster-child on a stool at her feet, when the door +opened and her daughter, the sculptor, and the two ladies, walked in. +Jansen was an especial favorite of hers, and his child held as warm a +place in her heart as her own grandchildren. And so it was natural, +when, without any preparation or notice, these two strange Fräuleins, +of whom one was striking beautiful, were introduced to her as relations +of the sculptor who wanted to see little Frances, that she had a +feeling there was something wrong about the matter; especially as one +of the strange ladies, the beautiful one, immediately took up the +little girl, who made great eyes at her, kissed and caressed her, and +took out all sorts of sweetmeats and toys from her pocket, with which +she tried to gain the child's friendship. Jansen sat near her, silent, +his face wearing a peculiar expression. For the first time his child +struck him as not looking so pretty or to so much advantage as he could +have wished. It had, to be sure, feature for feature the face of its +father, and fortunately his clear, flashing eyes as well; and in +addition to this a head of dark-brown hair and black eyebrows, which +made the eyes appear still more brilliant. Moreover, it evidently took +a strong fancy to the beautiful "aunt," who brought it such nice +things, and it behaved altogether with great propriety considering its +few years. But, for all that, a certain uneasiness weighed upon all the +people in the little room, as they sat together on the sofa or round +the table. Neither Jansen nor Julie had considered how they should +properly clothe their project in words, since their relation to one +another heretofore had borne none of the usual names, and it might not +be so easy to explain to these simple-minded women what was meant by +the engagement of a married man, and the maternal rights of his "bride" +to his child. + +It is very possible they had both counted on the aid of their good +"elephant," who, as a general thing, was never at a loss for a word on +either serious or pleasant occasions. But Angelica also seemed to have +left her humor outside, when she entered this peaceful little chamber. +She only had sufficient tact to admire the other children, and to +devote herself especially to the little two-year nestling, whom she +pronounced to be "a charming little rascal, with true Rubens coloring." + +Thus a good half hour passed away; every subject was exhausted which +could possibly be broached on a first visit, and still the main topic +had not been touched upon. Then at last the little housewife, who had +now and then exchanged a meaning look with the old woman in the window +corner, came to the aid of her old friend and lodger by rising and +requesting him to step into the adjoining room with her for a moment, +as she had something to say to him that would be of no interest to the +ladies. + +So she led him into her absent husband's study, shut and locked the +door behind her, and, the moment she was alone with him, plunged into +the heart of the matter. + +"Dear friend," she said, in her rapid Palatinate dialect, dropping all +the _n_'s at the ends of her words, and introducing a number of those +pretty turns of speech that flow so charmingly from the lips of pretty +Palatinate women, "now just tell me straightforwardly what all this +means. Do you seriously suppose you can pull the wool over my eyes, or +that I sha'n't see that this charming woman is your sweetheart or +something of that sort, and not a mere cousin in the seventeenth +degree? Now, I most certainly have nothing against it if you admire a +beautiful Fräulein; that is your privilege as an artist, and besides +you are no old beau with silver locks; and this woman could almost +steal my own heart away if I were a man. But there is something behind +it all in this case, and you need not try to convince me of the +contrary; and this fondling and fussing over the child has some reason. +Didn't she ask whether little Frances would like to come with her and +see all the pretty things she had in her house? Now, I know well +enough, dear Jansen, that if it were any ordinary attachment she would +have no wish to entice to her a child who would perpetually remind her +admirer of his earlier relations." + +"You have guessed the secret, my good woman," answered Jansen, as he +pressed her hand with a feeling of relief. "You are as wise as the day +is long, and would steal the most secret plans from the bosom of a much +more skillful diplomatist than I am. And who has a better right than +you, dear friend, to know all that concerns our dear child, whom you +have always cared for with the faithfulness of a mother? But now listen +to me quietly. It is truly a strange story, and the right way through +the maze is not so clear. But, if you only knew that wonderful being as +well as I do--" + +And then he began to tell the history of the last few weeks to the +woman, who listened with great attention to all he said; and closed by +saying that he did not like under these circumstances to dissuade Julie +from taking the child to live with her, especially when, in beginning +to care for that which was dearer to him than all else except herself, +she would be giving him a new proof of how earnestly she desired his +happiness. + +He had grown so earnest over his story that, when he came to an end, +nothing seemed more natural and right to him than this opinion. He was, +therefore, very much amazed when the little woman said to him, with a +doubtful expression, and speaking, against her wont, very slowly and +solemnly: + +"You mustn't be offended with me, dear friend, but if you did this you +would make the most foolish mistake it would be possible for you to +make in your position and at your age. There! Now you know it, and +though it may not sound very polite, it is my opinion nevertheless, and +most certainly my mother's also; and, if you have not the heart to tell +it, I myself will say it to the beautiful Fräulein's face, with all the +love and esteem of which she may be in every respect worthy. What? I am +to give up the child to a single woman with whom its father is in love? +To a beautiful lady who never has learned how such a little plant as +this should be watered, or trained when it shows signs of growing +crooked, or how much air and sunshine it needs?" + +"Of course we should get an experienced nurse," he ventured meekly to +suggest. + +The excitable little woman, who had become quite red in the face in her +zeal, gave him a side glance full of pity and reproach. + +"So," she said, "a nurse! So you think, I suppose, that this ought to +make me quite contented? No; and though you are the own father of the +child ten times over and I only the foster-mother, still for all that I +will take the liberty of telling you that you don't know anything about +it, and only talk as you do because you are blindly in love. Oh, my +good friend, do you think then that, because I have no right to say: 'I +will not allow it--I will not give up the child that I have long loved +as dearly as my own,' therefore I would not fight hand and foot if +anything should befall her that would be as dangerous to her as +if you should give her brandy to drink? Yes, you may stare at me as +much as you like, it is as I say! A child belongs only amid pure +relations--don't be angry at the expression. What will you say to +little Frances when she asks whether the beautiful lady with whom she +lives is her papa's wife, because he always kisses and caresses her +when he comes and goes, just as her foster-mother's husband used to do +with his wife, only perhaps even more tenderly? Do you imagine the dear +little thing hasn't eyes in her head, and very wise thoughts behind +them? And no matter with what propriety you may act, there is something +not quite right about the whole matter. Your Fräulein sweetheart has +her head full of other things than what the child needs, and won't sit +and talk and play and learn with her all day long, like grandmamma and +our other children. Think the matter over again, and then put the plan +out of your mind. Don't you remember you have often said to me that you +would be glad if you only knew some way in which to repay me for my +love and care for your child, and I always laughed at you for talking +such nonsense? But to-day I do not laugh at all--to-day I tell you very +seriously, if you really think you owe me anything, then pay me by +saying that you will not take the child away from me, but will leave +her here where she is happy." + +She extended both her hands to him, which he seized and pressed +heartily, though still with averted face. + +"My best friend," he said, "you mean so well by our child--" + +"And by her father, too!" she eagerly continued; "and even by her +father's beautiful friend, with whom I have no need to eat salt in +order to believe all the good you have said of her. But, for that very +reason and because we are on this subject, do make a hearty resolve, +dear Jansen, and procure the divorce now at any price and as soon as +possible. You see, I am but a simple woman and have not seen much of +the world, but still I have seen enough to know that even with the best +intentions everything can't go exactly according to rule; and if you +artists sometimes overstep the bounds rather more than is necessary, +still you are not one of the kind who would do such a thing merely out +of wantonness. And I know, too, why you haven't wanted things to be any +different heretofore. But now--believe me, now you owe it to three +beings to provide a pure atmosphere in which you can begin a new life. +And, though you shake your head even now, as much as to say it is +impossible, believe me--" + +The door was suddenly thrown open, and little Frances came jumping in, +holding a candied fruit in her hand, of which she had taken a bite, and +which she insisted upon the little foster-mother's tasting too. Jansen +took the dear little creature in his arms, pressed her passionately to +his breast, and kissed her bright eyes. Then he gave her back to the +little wife and said, in a voice choked with emotion: + +"There, you have her again! God reward you for your kindness and good +sense. We will finish our talk some other time." + +He stepped into the room again where his two friends had been waiting, +their conversation confined to a rather tiresome attempt to make +themselves understood by the deaf old woman. Julie read in Jansen's +eyes that his interview had not met with the desired success; but, hard +as it was for her to relinquish her plan and not to take the child with +her at once, she refrained from all hasty objections, and rested +content with the promise that little Frances should soon visit her. + +It was only after they were in the carriage that Jansen informed her of +the objections raised by the little woman. Julie listened in silence, +with downcast eyes and burning cheeks. Angelica, on the contrary, +attempted, in her droll way, to protest against this project, to +which she, as the protecting genius of the two foolish lovers, had +given her consent, being considered so very wild and impracticable. +By imperceptible degrees, however, she passed from scolding the +capricious little woman to praising her, maintaining that she, as a +portrait-painter, was a sufficiently good judge of human nature to +know at once what sort of a character lay behind any face. And, +consequently, she could not help admitting that, if the dear child was +not to be with Julie, there was no place in the world where it would be +better cared for than in this house. + +Julie persisted in her silence. Her heart had grown heavy; she began, +for the first time, to have a presentiment that her great happiness was +not to be all sunshine, that storms were lowering on the horizon which +the first gust of wind might roll across the sky, and cause to break +upon the heads of herself and her lover. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Rosebush.] + +[Footnote 2: Schöpfer--creator--a pun somewhat less irreverent to +German than it would sound to English ears.] + +[Footnote 3: The Germans say "to get the basket," as we say "to get the +mitten."--Translator.] + +[Footnote 4: Of course a play on _Schafskopf_ (sheep's-head), the +German phrase for a stupid fool.--_Translator_.] + + + + + END OF VOL. I. + + + + + + SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY. + + From the French of VICTOR CHERBUUEZ. + + _Paper_, 60 _Cents_; _Cloth_, $1.00. + + * * * + + _From the New York World._ + +"The book is one of the best of even Cherbuliez's novels. No one needs +to be told that this is high praise.... Nowhere has the ideal +adventurer been portrayed with more skill, more art, more genius even, +than Cherbuliez has portrayed him in this novel." + + _From the New York Evening Post._ + +"The story illustrates anew what has been illustrated a thousand times, +namely, that in the art of story-telling the French are masters, whose +skill we English-speaking folk can never learn. It is not as novelists +that they excel us, for there are English novels enough to contradict +that; but as deft-handed story-tellers and deft-handed playwrights the +French are much superior to any other race." + + _From the London Examiner._ + +"M. Cherbuliez is a very clever novelist, certainly one of the +cleverest of the second rank of living French novelists. A new novel +from his pen is always something to be looked forward to with pleasure; +and if of late his novels have not been so remarkable as formerly, they +are always exceedingly readable. But 'Samuel Brohl et Cie' is more +than merely readable; it is as good in its way as anything that M. +Cherbuliez has ever done." + + _From the New York Express._ + +"The Appletons have commenced the publication of a 'Collection of +Foreign Authors,' which is destined, we think, to be a success, and +which certainly will be a success if its forthcoming volumes are as +good as its first one, which is entitled 'Samuel Brohl & Company,' and +is by that adroit story-teller, Victor Cherbuliez. We do not intend to +give away the plot of this remarkable novel, which is a marvel of +ingenuity from beginning to end." + + _From the Philadelphia Item._ + +"'Samuel Brohl & Company' is a powerful work, possessing a strong, +skillfully-constructed plot, and is admirably elaborated in all its +details." + + + GÉRARD'S MARRIAGE: + + A NOVEL. + + From the French of ANDRÉ THEURIET. + + * * * + + (_FORMING No. II. OF "A COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS._") + + * * * + + 16mo. Paper covers, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + + * * * * * + +As exquisite in its form, color, and delicacy, as a choice piece of +Sèvres porcelain."--_Literary World_. + +"This lovely idyl of French provincial life introduces to the notice of +American readers Theuriet, one of the most quietly enjoyable among +modern French novelists, and one who holds rank among the highest for +his portraiture of the charms of country landscapes, and the sweet +peace and happiness clustering around country-life."--_Providence +Journal_. + +"Its chief merit lies in the admirable skill with which it is told, the +skill in apt narration, which seems to be a birthright of all +Frenchmen, and which men of other races never fail to admire, and never +succeed in imitating."--_New York Evening Post_. + +"There is much charm in the narrative, the characters are vigorously +sketched, the descriptive portions, especially of out-door life, are +picturesque and animated, and the whole is distinguished by grace and +delicacy."--_Boston Gazette_. + +"'Gérard's Marriage' is as exquisite of its kind as Tennyson's +'Princess,' and its moral is that of the old song, 'Love will find out +the way.'"--_New York Express_. + +"The use of these simple materials is so artistic, and the story +is so deftly told, that the book is delightful from beginning to +end."--_Detroit Post_. + +"The story is pleasant, the characters drawn with that light, firm +touch, peculiar to a Frenchman; the colloquy, if not brilliant, always +to the purpose, and about the whole there plays a poetic light that is +not the less charming because it is so wholly French."--_New York +World_. + +"André Theuriet excels in the painting of rural scenes, and the +skillful management of romantic comedy."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. + +"The story is told, particularly the trials of the lovers, with great +vivacity and brilliancy, in which particulars the French seem to excel +all other nations."--_Boston Commonwealth_. + +"Affords a charming illustration of the exceeding elegance, refinement, +and delicacy, that mark the romances of André Theuriet, one of the most +graceful and popular French novelists of the present time."-- +_Providence Journal_. + + * * * * * + + New York: D. 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Vol. I</title> +<meta name="Author" content="Paul Heyse"> +<meta name="Publisher" content="D. Appleton and Company"> +<meta name="Date" content="1878"> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1"> +<style type="text/css"> +body {margin-left:10%; + margin-right:10%; background-color:#FFFFFF;} + + + +p.normal {text-indent:.25in; text-align: justify;} +p.center {text-align:center; margin-top:9pt;} + + +p.section {letter-spacing:1em; text-align:center; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt;} +p.right {text-align:right; margin-right:10%;} + +p.continue {text-indent: 0in; margin-top:9pt;} +.text10 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:10%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} +.text20 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:20%; margin-right:0px; font-size:90%;} + +.t0 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:0em; margin-right:0px;} +.t1 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:1em; margin-right:0px;} +.t2 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:2em; margin-right:0px;} +.t3 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:3em; margin-right:0px;} +.t4 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:4em; margin-right:0px;} +.t5 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:5em; margin-right:0px;} +.t6 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:6em; margin-right:0px;} +.t7 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:7em; margin-right:0px;} +.t8 {margin-top:0px; margin-bottom:0px; margin-left:8em; margin-right:0px;} + +.quote {font-size:90%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} +.dateline {text-align:right; font-size:90%; margin-top:24pt; margin-bottom:24pt} + +h1,h2,h3,h4,h5 {text-align: center;} + +span.sc {font-variant: small-caps; font-size:100%} +.space {letter-spacing: 1em; text-align:center; margin-bottom:24pt; margin-top:24pt;} + + +hr.W10 {width:10%; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; + color:black;} + +hr.W20 {width:20%; margin-top:12pt; margin-bottom:12pt; + color:black;} + +hr.W50 {width:50%; margin-top:12pt; color:black;} +hr.W90 {width:90%; margin-top:12pt; color:black;} + +p.hang1 {margin-left:3em; text-indent:-3em;} +p.hang2 {margin-left:3em; text-indent:-3em; margin-bottom:24pt; font-size:90%; margin-top:24pt} + +.poem { + margin-top: 24pt; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + text-align: left; + margin-bottom: 24pt + } + .poem .stanza { + margin : 1em 0; + margin-top:24pt; + } + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of In Paradise, by Paul Heyse + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: In Paradise + A Novel. Vol. I. + +Author: Paul Heyse + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33704] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN PARADISE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + +</pre> + + + + +<p class="normal"><p class="hang1">[Transcriber's Note: Page scan source:<br> +http://www.archive.org/details/inparadiseanove00heysgoog]</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS,</h2> +<br> +<h3>No. XII.</h3> + +<hr class="W20"> + +<h2>IN PARADISE.</h2> + +<h3>VOL. I.</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED:</h2> +<p class="hang1">I. <i>SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY</i>. A Novel. From the French of Victor +Cherbuliez. 1 vol., 16mo. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="hang1">II. <i>GERARD'S MARRIAGE</i>. A Novel. From the French of André Theuriet. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">III. <i>SPIRITE</i>. A Fantasy. From the French of Théophile Gautier. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">IV. <i>THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT</i>. From the French of George Sand. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">V. <i>META HOLDENIS</i>. A Novel. From the French of Victor Cherbuliez. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">VI. <i>ROMANCES OF THE EAST</i>. From the French of Comte de Gobineau. Paper +cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="hang1">VII. <i>RENEE AND FRANZ</i> (Le Bleuet). From the French of Gustave Haller. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">VIII. <i>MADAME GOSSELIN</i>. From the French of Louis Ulbach. Paper cover, +60 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="hang1">IX. <i>THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS</i>. From the French of André Theuriet. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">X. <i>ARIADNE</i>. From the French of Henry Greville. Paper cover, 50 cents; +cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<p class="hang1">XI. <i>SAFAR-HADGI</i>; or, Russ and Turcoman. From the French of Prince +Lubomirski. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00.</p> + +<p class="hang1">XII. <i>IN PARADISE</i>. From the German of Paul Heyse. 2 vols. Per vol., +paper cover, 60 cents; doth, $1.00.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>IN</h1> +<br> +<h1>PARADISE</h1> +<br> +<h2><i>A NOVEL</i></h2> +<br> +<br> +<h3>FROM THE GERMAN OF</h3> +<h2>PAUL HEYSE</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>VOL. I</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>NEW YORK<br> +D. APPLETON AND COMPANY</h2> +<h3>549 AND 551 BROADWAY<br> +1878</h3> + +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<p class="normal"><sub>*</sub>*<sub>*</sub><i>It has been decided to omit from this translation the poems which +are scattered through the novel in the German. A few trifling changes +in certain passages have been made necessary by this omission; and the +translator has in two or three cases very slightly condensed the text.</i></p> +<br> +<br> +<hr class="W20"> +<br> +<h4>COPYRIGHT BY</h4> +<h3>D. APPLETON AND COMPANY,<br> +1878.</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>IN PARADISE.</h1> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><i>BOOK I</i>.</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">It was a Sunday in the midsummer of 1869.</p> + +<p class="normal">The air, cleared by a thunderstorm the night before, was still +tremulous with that soft, invigorating warmth which, farther south, +makes breathing such an easy matter, but which, north of the Alps, +seldom outlasts the early morning. And yet the bells, that sounded from +the Munich Frauenkirche far across the Theresienwiese, and the field +where stands the great statue of Bavaria, were already ringing for high +mass. Here, outside the city, there seemed to be no human ear to +listen. The great bronze maiden stood there in the deepest solitude, +holding her wreath above her head, and with a mazed and dreamy look, as +though she might be thinking whether this were not an opportune moment +to step down from her granite pedestal, and to wander at will through +the town, that to-day raised its towers and roofs like a city of the +dead above the bare green plain. Now and then a bird flew out of the +little grove behind the Ruhmes-halle, and fluttered about the shoulders +of the giant maiden, or rested for a moment on the mane of the lion +that sat lazily listening, pressed close to the knee of his great +mistress. But away in the city the bells rang on. The air grew drowsy +with the steadily increasing heat, with the hum and the vibration of +the distant ringing, and the strong fragrance that rose from the +meadow, which had been mown the day before. At last the bells ceased; +and now not a sound was to be heard, save that there came from a house +in one of the outer streets the sound of a flute, played by fits and +starts, as though the player stopped for breath between the passages, +or as though he forgot his notes in other thoughts.</p> + +<p class="normal">The window, from which this singular music sounded into the summer air, +opened from the upper story of a house that stood some distance back +from the street--a house of a kind of which there are many in this +western suburb. They are generally entirely unornamented, boxlike +buildings, windowless except on the northern side, and there pierced by +great quadrangular openings, supplied with all manner of arrangements +for admitting the steadiest possible light from above. In summer one +never sees above them the little cloud of smoke that betrays a domestic +hearth, and no profane smell of cooking meets the visitor upon the +threshold--as in most other Munich houses. From the open windows floats +only a light, invisible odor of tobacco-smoke, agreeably mingled with +the invigorating fragrance of varnishes, oils, and turpentine--which +shows that here only the holy fire of art is fed, and that here, upon +silent altars (three-legged easels and sculptors' pedestals) are +offered sacrifices that cannot even shelter the priests that offer them +from the pangs of hunger.</p> + +<p class="normal">The house of which we speak turned its windowless southern side +toward a little yard, in which lay scattered marble and sandstone +blocks of different sizes. The four studio-windows of the northern side +looked into a carefully-tended, narrow garden, that sheltered them +from all disagreeable reflected lights. Around a little, slender, +drowsily-splashing fountain in the middle bloomed a glorious wealth of +roses; and the neighboring flower-beds, filled with all kinds of +garden-stuff, were enclosed in thick borders of mignonette. Here the +smell of oil and turpentine just referred to could not penetrate, +especially as only the two upper studios were those of painters; while +in the lower story, as could be seen by the blocks of stone in the +yard, a sculptor carried on his art.</p> + +<p class="normal">Artists--enjoying, as they do, a perpetual holiday mood over their +work--are not wont to be supporters of a regular celebration of the +Sabbath. Those who are so must be such as in the course of years +have come to devote themselves--as not a few do in a so-called +"art-city"--to the mere business-like manufacture of pictures for +"art-clubs," or of parlor statuettes; and so are privileged to take +their rest on the seventh day, among the other customs of solid +citizens. They, "thank God, no longer feel obliged" to be industrious, +and to work even on a holiday.</p> + +<p class="normal">But the dwellers in this little house were not of such a type.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the ground-floor all possible panes in the windows had been opened, +to let as much as possible of the glowing air stream into the sunless +room; and perhaps, too, to tempt in the fragrance of the flowers, or +the notes of the flute that sounded from the window overhead. A flock +of sparrows, that seemed accustomed to make themselves at home in the +place, availed themselves of the opportunity to whirr in and out of the +garden, to flutter, chattering and scolding, about among the ivy-vines +with which one wall of the studio was thickly covered, and to hunt +through every corner for neglected crusts of bread. With all this, +however, they seemed well-bred enough to make no other trouble but +their noise--though the busts and clay models, that stood about the +room on boards and scaffoldings, showed many traces of their visits. On +the damp cloth, in which a large group that stood in the middle of the +great room was carefully wrapped, in order to keep the fresh clay from +drying, sat an old and rather decrepit-looking sparrow, who still +looked about him with an air of considerable dignity--evidently the +chief of this wild army, to whom the pleasant coolness of his seat +seemed to make it an agreeable one. He took no part in the fluttering +and chatter of the younger company, but fixed his attention with +critical gravity upon the artist in the gray blouse, who had moved his +modeling-table close to the window, and was busy in finishing from a +living model the statue of a dancing Bacchante.</p> + +<p class="normal">The model was a young girl, hardly eighteen years old, who stood on a +little platform opposite the sculptor, and, with her arms thrown up and +backward, held fast by a rod that hung from the ceiling--for the statue +held a tambourine in the hands flung upward with such <i>abandon</i>, and +the <i>pose</i> was none of the most comfortable. Still, the girl had borne +it a good half hour already without complaining or asking for a rest. +Although she had to hold her head far back, with its loosened auburn +hair that fell below her waist, yet she followed with intense +curiosity--her little eyes almost closed the while, so that the long +golden-blond lashes lay upon her cheeks--every movement of the artist, +every one of his critical and comparing glances. It seemed to flatter +her beyond measure that her youthful beauty should be the subject of +such conscientious study; and in this satisfaction to her vanity she +forgot fatigue. And indeed she was of unusually slender and graceful +form; and from the rough brown calico dress that was tightly fastened +about her waist there sprung, like a fair flower from a coarse husk, a +girlish figure of as perfect whiteness and delicacy as though the poor +child had no other occupation but to care for her complexion. Her face +was not exactly beautiful; a rather flat nose with broad nostrils +projected above the large, half-opened mouth. But in the ill-formed +jaws, that gave to the face something wild and almost like an animal, +shone perfect and beautiful teeth; and a merry, innocent, childlike +smile enlivened the full lips and the otherwise rather expressionless +eyes. The complexion of her face, too, was of a brilliant, transparent +white, spotted here and there by a few little freckles, of which there +were two or three also on her neck and breast. It was comical to see +how she herself shared in the study of her own beauty, as she found +such serious attention given to it by another; and, as she saw her +girlish self treated with such respect, she seemed to forget every +trace of anything like coquetry, such as might otherwise have entered +into the matter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must be tired, Zenz," said the sculptor. "Don't you want to rest +awhile?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her auburn hair with a laugh. "It is so cool here," she +answered without stirring. "You don't feel your own weight at all in +the open air like this--and besides, there's the sweet smell of the +mignonette in the garden. I believe I could stand this way till night."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So much the better. I was just going to ask you if you were not cold, +and didn't want a shawl over your shoulders. I don't need them now; I +am just doing the arms."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went seriously and quietly on with his work. In his plain face, +framed in smooth blond hair streaked with gray, the only features that +struck one at first glance were the eyes, that shone with an unusual +force and fire. When he fixed them upon a certain point, it seemed as +though they took complete possession of what they saw, and made +themselves completely master of it. And yet there could be nothing more +quiet or less inquiring in expression than these same eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is that playing the flute up stairs?" asked the girl. "The first +time I was here, a week ago to-day, it was perfectly still up there; +but to-day it goes tramp, tramp, every few minutes, and somebody plays, +and then it stops again for a little while."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A friend of mine has his studio just over us," answered the sculptor; +"a battle-painter, Herr Rosenbusch. If he can't make his work go to +please him, he takes up his flute and walks up and down like that, and +plays, and buries himself in thought. And then he stops in front of his +easel and looks at his picture; and so goes on until he hits upon what +he is after. But what are you laughing at, Zenz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only at his name. Rosenbusch!<a name="div2_01" href="#div2Ref_01"><sup>[1]</sup></a> And paints battles!--Is he a Jew?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't think so. But now if you want to rest a little while--your +neck must be perfectly stiff by this time."</p> + +<p class="normal">She let go the rod at once, and sprang down from the bench. While he +was polishing with his modeling-tool the portion he had just finished, +she stood close by him, her arms crossed behind her with a lightness +peculiar to her figure, and looked closely at the beautiful statue, +which within the last hour had made such obvious progress. But only in +the upper half; for the active hips and limbs of the dancer, only +hidden by her long, flowing hair, were only very roughly outlined.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you satisfied, child?" asked the artist. "But then I can only, at +the best, work it out in marble for you, and you are really a better +bit for a painter. That snow-white skin and flaming mane of yours--if +you had lived two thousand years ago, when they made statues of gold +and ivory, you would have been just in your proper place."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Gold and ivory?" she repeated, thoughtfully. "Those must have been +rich people! However, I am satisfied for my part with the beautiful +white marble--like the young gentleman there behind, that you didn't +finish."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you like him? It was a long while ago that I began that bust. Isn't +it fine, how the small, firm, round head springs from the broad +shoulders? It's a pity that I only sketched out the face; you would +have liked that too."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you going to make my portrait too, there in the clay? I mean, so +that it will be just like me--so that my friends will say at once 'That +is Red Zenz?'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That depends. I could use your little nose and your small, sharp-cut +ears well enough. But you know, child, I had quite another wish; and, +if you will fulfill that, I'll make the face so that no human being +will ever dream that Red Zenz was my model. Have you thought it +over--what I asked you a week ago?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not look at her as he spoke, but kept on diligently smoothing +and kneading the soft clay.</p> + +<p class="normal">She made as though she had not heard his question, and turned on her +heel, wrapping her thick hair about her like a cloak, and went over to +a corner of the studio, where a great black Newfoundland dog, with a +white breast, was lying on a straw mat with his head between his fore +paws, and growling lightly in his sleep. The girl bent down to him and +began to scratch his head softly--of which he took no other notice than +an instant's opening of his eyes, dim with old age.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He isn't very gallant," said the girl, laughing. "One of my girl +friends has a little terrier, and when I stroke him he is perfectly +wild with joy, and I have to look out that he doesn't lick my face and +neck and hands all over with his little pink tongue. But this fellow is +as reverend as a grandfather. What is his name?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Homo."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Homo? What a queer name! What does it mean?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is Latin, and means 'man.' Years ago the old boy showed so much +human reason, just as his master seemed on the point of losing his +head, that it was decided to rechristen him. Since then he has never +brought shame upon his name. So you see, child, in what good company +you are. If I am hardly as old as a grandfather yet, I am almost old +enough to be your father. And I thought these two sittings would have +convinced you that you were perfectly safe with me--that I shall +faithfully keep what I promised you. And that is the reason--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no, no, no!" cried she, jumping suddenly up and whirling around, +and shaking her head so violently that her hair flew about her like a +wheel of fire. "What makes you speak of that again, Herr Jansen? You +take me for a silly, thoughtless kind of girl, no doubt--and think that +in time I shan't be able to refuse you anything. But you are very much +mistaken. It is true, I don't mind doing some foolish things; and +standing about for you here like this doesn't seem to me anything wrong +or disgraceful. Why, at a ball last winter where we had made up the +flowers, and so they let us look in through the dressing-room, the fine +ladies appeared before gentlemen in a very different way from the way I +am standing and walking about here; and there were a great many +officers there--not even artists, like you, that only look artistically +at a bare neck and shoulders. But, if I will do <i>that</i> for you, you +mustn't ask anything more. It is true, my friend, when I told her, did +not think anything of it--and she could come with me. But that is +decided--it would make me so that I never could look anybody straight +in the face again. No--no--no! I will not do it--now or ever!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are right, child," interrupted the sculptor, breaking in on her +excited words and, suddenly changing the form of his speech into the +more familiar "thou." "Nobody need know of it, and, if it is +disagreeable to you, I will not speak of it again. And yet--it's a +pity! I could make the figure from a single mould, so to speak; and in +half the time that I shall have to spend now in looking about for +something that will suit."</p> + +<p class="normal">She made no answer, but of her own accord mounted upon the bench, and +leaned back again, hanging from the rod.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that right?" she asked. "Am I standing just as I did before?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He only nodded, without looking up at her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What makes you cross with me?" she asked, after a while. "I cannot +help it because I am not like my friend. To be sure, she has had a +great deal more experience than I. And then she has been in love more +than once."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Have you never had a sweetheart, Zenz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; a real sweetheart, such as one would go through the fire +for--never! My red hair didn't have very good fortune out in Salzburg, +where I have generally lived. And, besides, I was too ugly. One of them +said I had a dog's face. It has only been within the last year, when I +have suddenly shot up a little, and grown a little stouter, that the +gentlemen have sometimes run after me; and with one of them--a right +nice young fellow--I had a kind of a flirtation. But he was so silly +that he tired me; and so it hadn't gone far between us when one fine +day he fell sick and died. And it was only then that I found I couldn't +have loved him so very, very much; for I didn't even cry about him. +Since then I have taken good care not to make a fool of myself again. +Men are bad; everybody says that that knows anything. As for me, if I +liked one--if I really liked him, 'von Herzen, mit Schmerzen'--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, Zenz, what would you do?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly let her arms fall close +by her sides. It seemed as though a chill ran over her soft skin; she +shook herself, and shrugged her white shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What would I do?" she repeated, as though to herself. "Everything he +wanted! And so it is better as it is--much better."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are a good girl, Zenz," he muttered, nodding his head slowly. +"Come, there is my hand; shake hands, and I promise you now that there +never shall be a word again between us of what you are not willing to +hear."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">She was just about to lay her round, white little hand in his, which +was rough and muddy from kneading the clay, when a knock at the door +caused them both to look up and listen.</p> + +<p class="normal">The janitor called out through the key-hole that a strange gentleman +wished to speak with Herr Jansen. When he heard that the sculptor had a +model sitting to him at the moment, he had asked the janitor to take in +his card. With this the janitor pushed the card through a narrow hole +in the door made for the purpose.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor, grumbling, went toward the threshold and picked up the +card. "Felix, Freiherr von Weiblingen." He shook his head thoughtfully. +Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of joy. Under the printed name was +written, with a pencil, "Icarus."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A good friend of yours?" queried the girl.</p> + +<p class="normal">He made no answer, but threw down his modeling-tool hastily, hurriedly +wiped his hands on a towel, and hastened to the door again. As he +opened it, he turned around.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Stay here, Zenz," he said. "Amuse yourself for a while; there is a +book of pictures; and, if you should be hungry, you will find something +in the cupboard. I will lock the door behind me."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the hall outside there was no one but the janitor, with his bent, +long-shaped head, that looked very much like the head of a horse, +especially when he spoke; then he moved his under-jaw, as though he had +a bit between his great, yellow teeth.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was a most serviceable old fellow, who had grown gray in the service +of art, and had a more delicate judgment than many a professor. He was +a thorough expert in preparing a canvas; and occupied his leisure in +studying the chemistry of colors.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where are the gentlemen, Fridolin?" asked the sculptor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is only one. He is walking in the yard. A very handsome young +gentleman. You can see in his face the look of the 'Baron' that is on +his card. He said--"</p> + +<p class="normal">But the sculptor had hurried by him, and had rushed down the steps that +led into the yard. "Felix!" he cried, "is it you or your ghost?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am inclined to think it is both, and a heart in addition," replied +the person addressed, grasping the hand that the sculptor held out to +him. "Come, old fellow, I can't see why we should be ashamed to fall on +each other's necks, here under God's free heaven. I have had to get on +for years without my best and dearest old Dædalus--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He did not finish his sentence. The sculptor had pressed him so +heartily to his breast that it fairly took away his breath.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then suddenly he loosened his grasp, and, stepping back a pace, cast a +critical glance over the slight figure of his friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Still just the same," he said, as though to himself; "but we must get +those Samson-like locks under the shears. You don't know your strongest +point, my dear boy, when you bury your round head in such a thicket. +And your full beard must come off. However, all that will come with +time. Tell me what has conjured you forth out of your primeval forests +into our tame art-city?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He grasped the young man's arm, and led him around the house into the +little garden. Both were silent, and seemed to avoid looking at one +another, as though they had begun to feel ashamed of the extravagant +affection with which they had marked their reunion.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the extreme end of the garden was an arbor overgrown with +honeysuckle; at its entrance stood sentry two potbellied Cupids in the +<i>rococco</i> style, with little queues and all that--both of them painted +sky-blue from head to foot.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's easy to see whom one is visiting," said Felix, laughing. "'His +pig-tail hangs behind him,' or have you had it cut off?" Then, without +waiting for an answer: "But tell me, old fellow, how have you had the +heart to leave your poor Icarus all these terribly long years without a +sign of life on your part? Haven't any of the six or eight letters I +have written you--the last only a year ago from Chicago--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor had turned away and buried his face in a bunch of +full-blown roses. He turned suddenly toward his friend, and said, with +a quick, lowering glance: "A sign of life! How do you know that I +<i>have</i> lived these terribly long years? But let us drop all that. Come +and sit down here in the arbor, and now unpack your budget. A +circumnavigator like you must have brought all manner of things with +you that are entertaining and wonderful to dusty stay-at-homes like us. +When you went away from Kiel, we did not either of us think the earth +would turn so often before we looked each other in the face again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What shall I tell you?" asked the young man, and his delicate brow +contracted, "If my letters reached you, you have not lost the thread of +my story. As for all the details that belong to it, you knew me well +enough in my first university days, in those old times at Kiel, to +imagine how I went on afterward in Heidelberg and Leipsic, till I got +an older head under my corps-student's cap. It is true, I soon grew +tired of the ridiculous corps business; but, for the mere sake of not +seeming to play the renegade, I kept on with the old associations even +more shamelessly than before. My three years passed away, and a fourth +beside; I was fully three-and-twenty when I went back into my dear, +dull, little home, and passed my examination to enter the civil +service. How I managed to get on so long without giving you a call, +Heaven knows! As early as the second year after our separation, I was +very near you. I had a trifling reminder of a pistol-duel with a +Russian, here in my left shoulder, and had to go to a watering-place +for my health. In Heligoland I heard that you had moved to Hamburg. I +needn't say that I designed to call upon you on my way back. But, +suddenly, a sad message called me home abruptly. My poor old father had +had an apoplectic stroke, and I found him dead. Then there was all the +dreary necessary business, and, after it all--. But why must we spoil +our first pleasant hour with all these old stories? My dear Hans, if +you had a notion how good it is to be sitting here again by your side, +to smell these roses, and imagine that my life is beginning all over +again--a new life in a better world, free from all fetters and--. But, +by-the-way, you have married, I hear? An actress, was it not? Where did +she come from? I heard in Heligoland--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor suddenly rose. "You find me as you left me," he said, his +face darkening quickly; "what is past, let us let it rest. Come out of +the arbor; it is suffocatingly hot under those thick vines."</p> + +<p class="normal">He went toward the little fountain, held his hands under the slender +stream, and passed them over his brow. Then, for the first time, he +turned to Felix again. His face was once more composed and bright.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now tell me what has brought you here, and how long you are going +to stay with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"As long as you will have me--for ever and ever--<i>in infinitum</i> if you +will!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are joking. Don't do that, my dear boy. I am so utterly alone +here, in spite of a plenty of good comrades with whom I can share +everything except my most intimate thoughts, that the thought of +beginning our old life again seems far too happy to me to be only made +a jest of."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it is my most serious earnest, dear old Hans. I am going to stay +here with you, if you have nothing against it, in your most intimate +daily companionship; and, if some day you strike your tent and wander +away somewhere else, I will go too. In one word, I have put my whole +past career behind me, and broken up all my old associations, so that I +may begin, as I said, my whole life over again, and not be anything but +what I care most to be--a free man; not make myself anything but what I +have always secretly longed to be, an artist, as good or as bad a one +as mother Nature will let me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He poured forth these words hurriedly, and with downcast face, and as +he talked drew a light circle in the nearest flower-bed with his cane. +It was only after a pause, and when his friend made no reply, that he +raised his eyes and met, with some embarrassment, the quiet gaze fixed +upon him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You don't seem quite able to accept this change in my life all at +once, Hans? Others besides you have had the same feeling--the person +most concerned in it, for instance. That I have become a conceited ass, +and fancy that because I used to be extravagantly fond of modeling all +manner of absurdities in clay, and cutting caricatures of my friends in +meerschaum--this I hope you will not believe. But why I can't get +beyond the condition of a dilettante, if I only am serious about it, +and think of and do nothing else but study my A, B, C, under a good +master--I beg of you, my dear Dædalus, don't pull such a disheartening +face! Don't look so sadly at the lost youth--as I probably seem to you; +or at least smile ironically, so as to rouse my anger and wound my +<i>amour propre</i> a little! But by the eternal gods--what is there after +all so horribly fatal in this decision? That it hasn't occurred to me +till after twenty-seven years? That is bad, I admit, but not a proof +that it is hopeless. Think of your own half-countryman, Asmus Carstens, +or of--well, I won't give you a whole chapter of artists' biographies. +And besides, when I am altogether independent and have burnt my ships +behind me--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He stopped again. His friend's silence seemed to check his utterance. +For a time nothing was to be heard around them but the splashing of the +little fountain, and from the window above them the notes of the +battle-painter's flute, every little while dying dismally away.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly the sculptor stood still.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And does your fiancée agree to this project?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My fiancée? What in the world puts that question into your head?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because, although I never answered your letters, I remember them all +very well. Is it possible that you too do not remember what you wrote +me three years ago, under the seal of the deepest--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"So I did do it then!" cried the young man with a short, abrupt laugh. +"So I did chatter, did I? I assure you, my dear Hans, I was myself +doubtful how far I had initiated you--you, the only one before whom I +ever lifted even a corner of the veil from this veiled picture. After +awhile--as you sent no congratulations--I began to persuade myself that +I had kept a quiet tongue in my head, even with you; and, in truth, +that would have been the best thing to do. Then I should have escaped +the full confession that it is hard enough for me to make--and after +all, it is perfectly superfluous. For how shall I--who am no poet, and +who am besides an interested party in the transaction--how shall I +describe the persons concerned so that you will understand how it all +came about--how it was partly the fault of both--and yet how both are +innocent, after all?</p> + +<p class="normal">"But if you must have it, let it be so--as briefly as possible.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I came back, then, to my native town, to pay the last honors to my +good old father. You know what an unhomelike home I had always found +it. The capital of a third-class Duodezstaat--thank your good star that +you have no idea what it means. My father before me had suffered under +the absurd despotism of this court-etiquette, this endlessly-branching, +complicated, spun-out primeval jungle of dry genealogical trees--under +these ridiculous traditions of a worm-eaten bureaucracy. He was a man +of quite another type--a sturdy, stately country noble, of the most +exclusive and most independent spirit; and since the death of my +mother--who could not of course withdraw herself so entirely from her +family connections--he had lived on our own estate, altogether apart +from 'society.' Then came his death; and I--looked upon askance even as +a boy because of my likeness to my father, and almost given up as far +as a career at court or in politics was concerned--I believe no cock +would have crowed at it, if I had once for all acknowledged that I was +my father's true heir in this respect also, and had forever turned my +back on the spot where I was cradled. But, much as I felt inclined to +do so, it fell out otherwise."</p> + +<p class="normal">He put his hand into his pocket and took out a little memorandum-book.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall have the romance in an illustrated edition," he said, with a +rather forced attempt at jesting. "See, it was this little person's +fault that I thought for a while it was really my calling to be a +useful citizen--chamberlain to his Highness--by and by master of the +hunt--court marshal--heaven knows what all. Is not that a face that +could persuade one of anything, and could turn a head that never sat +very firmly? And that is only a commonplace photograph, and three years +old; and besides, in these three years the wicked child has learned all +manner of witches' arts; and the eyes that here in the photograph look +so still and fixed--half curious, half timid, as if they were looking +at a theatre-curtain that would not go up--I can tell you, my dear boy, +they look into the world now with such a queenly confidence and dignity +that it fairly--but that is no part of our present talk. And at that +time, when the misfortune happened and I lost my heart to the child, +the little thing was hardly more than a schoolgirl, just sixteen years +old; and shy, silent and unformed as a young bird. We had known each +other since we were children--she is some sort of a cousin, seventeen +times removed--just as all good families with us are related in some +way. I had not the least idea, however, of visiting her, until her +uncle, with whom she lived--her parents died when she was very +young--until this jovial gentleman came to make me a visit of +condolence. Of course I had to return it, and it was on this occasion +that I first saw the slender, pale, large-eyed child, with her +exquisite, tight-shut red lips and her ravishing, tiny little ears.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Soon afterward I went away again, and only after a year had +passed--after the infernal examination that I would not shirk, in spite +of my freedom, lest it should seem as though I were afraid of it--only +then, when she was seventeen years old, did I see her again. While I +was away, a recollection of her had come back to me from time to time; +suddenly, in the midst of altogether different things, I had seen +something flitting before me that resembled nothing but her slight and +somewhat spare figure, about which there was one trait that always +seemed to me especially charming--that though she was perhaps not quite +tall enough, her little form was always so haughty and erect and so +delicately and perfectly balanced on its slender pedestal. Sometimes, +too, her eyes met me in a fairly ghost-like fashion, when I was among +my comrades or alone out of doors. And yet I had never exchanged ten +words with her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now, when I found her again, a year older and suddenly developed +into a young woman--no, Hans, you need not fear that I am shamelessly +going to put our whole love-story at your mercy, here in the bright +morning sunlight. Enough to say that it had fared much the same with +her, as far as my worthy self was concerned, as with me in respect to +her. We saw that we were meant for one another, as people say--without +ever thinking how much is meant by the words.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well! everything would have been well enough; the match seemed as +<i>bien assortie</i> as could possibly have been wished even in such an +aristocratic and cosmopolitan capital as ours. If we had only +married at once, on the spur of the moment, we should have been just +the people--she with her seventeen years, and I with my three or +four-and-twenty--to be altogether suited to one another, and, as time +went on, to so round off the very perceptible and serious corners and +sharpnesses of our two temperaments, that finally it would have been a +thoroughly happy marriage. But, unfortunately, Irene's mother had +married at seventeen, and attributed her lifelong invalidism--for she +was a delicate creature and always remained so--to this early marriage. +When she died--still very young--she charged her husband solemnly that +he should not let their only daughter marry before she was twenty; and +the uncle, who afterward filled a father's place to my sweetheart, +considered himself absolutely bound by this inherited pledge. I must +wait patiently, therefore, for three whole years. And as he was a +bachelor, and his niece had no chaperon to call upon but a former +servant, I was required to pledge myself to avoid all companionship +with my betrothed during this long probation, and only to carry on my +courtship by letter; so that every temptation to seek to shorten the +time of waiting might be put a stop to once for all.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can imagine what my feelings were when the old gentleman told me +all this. To decree a three years' banishment just because we should +give him trouble--because he hated responsibility, and because he +believed, as an old hand at love-making, that this was the best way to +protect lovers against themselves! But, jovial as his manner was, he +was an uncompromising egotist where his own quiet and comfort were +concerned. And I was too stubborn and too proud to make any +supplications, and too sure of myself and my sweetheart to fear the +length of the interval; which did not seem to me at first glance so +intolerable as I often felt it afterward--in sighs and misery.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My sweetheart, too, threw back her little head and said: 'Yes, we will +wait.'--Afterward, it is true, when it came to our last parting, she +fell out of my arms as though she were dead, and I thought she would +never open her eyes again. Even now I don't know how I succeeded, in +spite of it all, in tearing myself away.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And this three years' separation itself! If I had only been a man of +sense--that is, if I had been another than myself--I should have +settled down somewhere in Germany, and taken up some task at which +I could have worked myself tired--to fight down my unprofitable +lover's-melancholy. Why could not I devote my three years to making +myself a perfect agriculturist, or a prominent jurist, or a politician, +or something that is of some use in the world? To make one's self so +completely master of some department of life or knowledge that one +knows every square foot of it is rather an absurd and commonplace +consolation, to be sure; but it is better, after all, than an +objectless activity, a love nourished on prison-fare, and a longing for +freedom that at last makes one look upon mere change as something +desirable.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Even then I thought of my old Dædalus. I was on the very point of +falling upon you in your studio, and, for want of a smooth, girlish +cheek to caress, of trying my hand on a soft bit of clay. Just then I +chanced upon an opportunity to go to England; there I stayed until I +was ripe for America; and he who once sets foot in the New World, and +hasn't left any very pressing business behind him in the Old, can get +rid of a few years of his life without knowing exactly how he has done +it. It is enough to tell you that I had already reached Rio, traveling +by way of San Francisco and Mexico, when I said to myself one day that +if I did not want to prolong my exile voluntarily, and so appear to my +betrothed in rather a bad light, I must take the next steamer that +sailed for Havre, in order to land at last, after all this wandering +over the wide world, in the harbor of my wedded bliss.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had written regularly to my betrothed every month--beautiful +diary-like love-letters--and had received with equal regularity letters +from her, which, to speak honestly, had now and then irritated me +greatly; so that we had already had (on paper) all manner of +misunderstandings, tiffs, quarrels, and reconciliations. I considered +that all this belonged of right to a well-conducted three-years' +engagement, and did not take it too much to heart when my well-bred, +rather provincial little sweetheart, who had grown up in the atmosphere +of the petty capital, occasionally gave her vagabond <i>fiancé</i> a little +moral lesson. Perhaps I was wrong, and certainly I was foolish, always +to report my varied adventures with absolute candor. There were no very +serious matters among them; and the few cases of real human weaknesses +and sins I kept to myself--shut up in a sincerely remorseful heart. But +she found fault even with the <i>tone</i> of my 'sketches from two +hemispheres.' Good heavens! it is easily comprehensible that the poor +child, living as she did among such absurd surroundings, could not have +much taste for a free life out in the world! Thrown entirely on +herself, watched over by a hundred eyes in a narrow, starched, formal +society--I once wrote to her that she was only so serious beyond her +years because she had had to fill, as it were, a mother's place to +herself, and be her own governess and duenna. And, besides all this, +there was her uncle's frightful example--for she could not long remain +ignorant of his habit of compensating himself for outward +respectability by private orgies at his bachelor clubs and <i>petits +soupers</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only let the three years be over, I thought to myself, and we will +soon weed out the tares that have sprung up between our roses. But I +did not know the vigor of the ground in which all this bad crop had +grown up. Nor did I know how much the years between seventeen and +twenty signified in such a girl's life.</p> + +<p class="normal">"At last, then, I arrived at home, and found--but, no!" He checked +himself abruptly, and made a sharp cut at the air with his cane. "Why +should I bore you with a detailed story of a domestic comedy that has +only a decidedly unfavorable likeness to 'Much Ado about Nothing,' and, +instead of ending with the reconciliation between Benedict and +Beatrice, finished with a ridiculous eternal separation? For isn't it +almost as laughable as lamentable that two lovers, who for three whole +years, the world over, have been extravagantly fond of one another, +should count the days till they could fall again on one another's +necks, and then should not be able to get on together for six weeks? +And all this only because--as old Goethe says--man strives for liberty, +woman for morality; and because the said moral law seems to the man a +wretched slavery, while the unhappy young woman thinks even a very +moderate freedom immoral! Ah, my dear old Hans, what did I not endure +in those six weeks!--and more especially because I was thoroughly +dissatisfied with myself. After our altogether fruitless (and therefore +all the more obstinate) discussions of these questions, in which I +poured out my bitterest scorn upon her court-etiquette, her kid-gloved +prejudices, her duenna-like code of morals, while she put my baseless +principles to shame with a maidenly pride and firmness that I could +have kissed her for--always after these discussions I used to say to +myself, in the quiet of my chamber, that I was a mad fool to upset +matters as I did. With a little diplomacy, a little delicate tact, and +patient hypocrisy, I could have thoroughly gained my end; could have +borne the stupid ban of society until my marriage; and then, when we +were alone together, could have gradually developed my little wife out +of her doll-like state of servitude, and rejoiced to see her spread her +wings in freedom.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But it was odd: as often as I appeared before her with the best +resolves in the world--the war began again. You must not imagine that +she fairly entered the lists, challenged me, and herself brought up our +old points of conflict. But it was precisely her quiet reserve, her +obvious good intention to be cautious with the reckless scapegrace, and +to leave his reform to time--it was all this that overthrew my finest +diplomatic projects. I would begin to joke, then to chaff, then to hurl +the most fearful insults against people and customs that seemed fairly +holy to her--and so it went on, day after day, until there came one day +that fairly 'forced the bottom out of the cask'--a wretched, wretched +day!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He paused a moment, and fixed his eyes gloomily upon the ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There's no help for it!" he said, at last. "It must come out. +Once in my life I did something that humiliated me in my own eyes. I +committed a sin against my own sense of honor--a base act, for which I +never can forgive myself, although a court of honor in matters of +gallantry--chosen from among my own equals, mind you--would probably +have let me off with a slight penance, if not scot-free altogether. You +know what I think of what is called sin; there is no <i>absolute</i> moral +code; what brands one forever is only a little spot upon another--all +according to the delicacy and sensitiveness of the skin. Even +conscience is a product of culture, and the categorical imperative is a +pure fiction. What a brutal blackguard of a soldier permits himself in +plundering a captured town, and feels his conscience untroubled, would +dishonor his officer to all eternity. But I am not going to theorize; +suffice it to say that that inner harmony with one's self, on which +everything depends, was utterly destroyed in me by this act. From the +way in which it haunted me, you can conceive how, in a moment of +weakness, I confessed the whole story to Irene's uncle, little +consolation as I could get from the absolution of so very odd a saint. +I saw <i>how</i> little, when he utterly failed to understand how I could +take the matter so to heart, especially as it had taken place a +considerable time before my engagement. I instantly repented most +bitterly that I had confided in him; and his promise, never by a single +syllable to recur to it, reassured me but little.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was right. He forgot it himself; and one unhappy day he began, in +the very presence of his niece--we had just been speaking of all manner +of far more innocent adventures, and even these she would not let +pass--he began to refer to that wretched story. Something must have +come into my face that instantly gave my sweetheart an idea that this +reference meant something beyond the common. Her uncle, too, began to +stammer, and made a clumsy attempt to change the subject. That made the +matter worse. Irene stopped talking, and soon after left the room. The +uncle, good-natured as usual, cursed his own loquacity again and again; +but, naturally, that did not help things. When I saw my little one +again, she asked me to what his words referred. I was too proud to lie +to her; I confessed that I carried about with me the memory of +something that I wished to conceal from myself--how much more from her! +With that she grew silent again. But on the evening of that day, when I +was a second time alone with her, she told me that she must know the +whole. I could not have done anything that she could not forgive me; +but she felt that she could not live by my side when there was such a +secret between us.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps a wiser man might have invented some story, and so have +avoided a greater evil. There is such a thing as a necessary lie. But I +held to the belief that every man is alone responsible for his acts; +that I should add a second sin to the first if I burdened the pure soul +of my darling with such a confidence; and so I remained unshaken, +though I knew her too well not to know how much was at stake.</p> + +<p class="normal">"On the next morning I received her parting letter--a letter that for +the first time showed me all that I was losing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But I had gone too far to turn back. I answered that I would wait +until she changed her opinions; that in the mean time I should look +upon myself as bound to her; but she was, of course, entirely free.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was a week ago. I reflected that of course it would be necessary +to leave at once those places where she might meet me. In putting my +house in order for an indefinite absence, I came upon a package of +visiting-cards in one of my mother's cupboards that had on them the +name of her brother, my godfather, Felix von Weiblingen. It occurred to +me as a good idea that, under this name, I might for a while +(<i>incognito</i>) breathe the same air with my oldest friend, and at the +same time attain the goal of my dearest wishes--to begin a new life. +There is nothing in me of the ordinary numbered and classified type of +'man with a calling,' and, even with the best wife in the world, I +never should have been able to busy myself quietly on my estate with +bringing up children, making brandy, and fox-hunting. It is better, +then, that I should use this involuntary opportunity to dispose of +myself as I choose, in trying whether I can't really make a life of my +own. If in time she should bring herself to my way of thinking, she +would then find a <i>fait accompli</i> that she would have to accept.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It will be no shame to me in your eyes if I don't at once find my +spirits so entirely in order that I can go rushing into a mastery of +the fine arts by lightning express. I have reached the door of your +studio but slowly, and by very short stages--but this very slowness has +done me good. You see before you a thoroughly sensible man, who is +determined to submit to fate without a grumble. If you will only take +me into <i>die Mache</i>, it will not be long before the wings of your +faithful Icarus will grow again, to lift him above all this wretched +world of Philistinism and its foolish love-affairs."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">The sculptor had listened to this long confession in silence. And even +now, when Felix ended, and began to pull to pieces a sprig of +mignonette as carefully as though he were trying to count the stamens +in the little blossoms, he betrayed neither by word nor look any +opinion of what he had just heard.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I find that you have made great progress in your old art of expressing +yourself by silence," said the young man at length, with a somewhat +forced lightness of tone. "Do you remember how I used to be able to +tell from the degree, and, so to speak, from the pitch of your silence, +just what you were thinking of my nonsense? I can tell in the same way +now: you think my decision to become an artist is a mere absurdity. You +used to tell me that I was not fit either for science or art--that I +was an <i>homme d'action</i>. But there's no help for it now: if it is a +wrong road--why, I am in it once for all and mean to follow it to the +end. So speak out, and tell me candidly whether I must look up another +master, or whether the lion will endure the company of the puppy in his +cage--as he used to before he himself was a full-grown king of the +desert?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What shall I say to you, my dear boy?" replied the sculptor, in his +quiet, rather slow manner. "The thing is a matter of course. I need not +say to you, well as you know me, that I can hardly base any very +exalted hopes upon an art-apprentice who takes up his task somewhat as +a man might marry a woman with whom he had not been especially in love, +but who now, when his real sweetheart has given him the mitten, is a +good enough last resort; that the future career of an art adopted thus +out of spite, as it were, seems to me very doubtful. But then, too, I +know you well enough to be sure that all the Phidiases and Michael +Angelos in the world couldn't make you break your resolution, and that, +if I should lock my door against you, you would be just the fellow to +bind yourself out as an apprentice to the first of my colleagues you +might chance upon. And then--to be honest--it is such a pleasure to me +to have you back again at all, that out of pure selfishness I can't +make any objection if your energy, instead of taking hold of real life, +chooses to spend itself on a harmless bit of clay. For the rest--let us +speak of it another time--or not at all, whichever pleases you better. +In such matters we take no counsel, after all, but that of our own +souls; and if this isn't always the best for us--why, we are sovereigns +of ourselves, and have it in our own power to save or ruin ourselves +according to our natures. Here is my hand, then. You can begin +to-morrow, if you like, your apprenticeship as a kneader of clay and +chipper of stone--and your baronial ancestors can turn in their graves +at it as they please."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Chaff away, dear old Hans!" cried the young man, joyously. "Now I'll +stake my head that I will become a famous artist just to have the laugh +on you! I will work from morning till night with a true malicious +pleasure, grinding and fretting till the dilettante skin is rubbed off +and something better appears below it. And you shall see that I have +not spent these seven years altogether in lounging. If you will run +through my sketch-books from both continents--but <i>apropos</i>, what have +you been doing in the mean while? Is it not a shame that I haven't been +able to keep track of your progress toward immortality, even by a +wretched photograph? And here I have been running on for an hour over +my own adventures, while the most glorious wonders of the world are +waiting for me over yonder!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He strode quickly across the yard, to which they had come back while +they were talking, and entered the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will repent this haste, rash boy!" Jansen called after him, while +an odd smile played about his lips. "You will indeed wonder over much +that you see--but the wonders of the world that you dream of--they are +still in this narrow room" (he pointed to his forehead), "and even +there they are not always in the best light!"</p> + +<p class="normal">With these words he unlocked one of the two lower doors, and let Felix +pass in.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a second studio, adjoining that in which he had worked during +the morning; a room precisely like the other, its walls painted in the +same stone-color, and its great square window half draped in the same +fashion. And yet no one would have believed that the same spirit ruled +here that had created the dancing Bacchante in the next atelier.</p> + +<p class="normal">On slender pedestals stood a multitude of figures, most of them of half +life-size, such as are used for the decoration of Catholic churches, +chapels and cemeteries. Some of them were just begun, some were almost +finished works; and in all could be clearly recognized the hands of the +pupils who had their execution in charge--sometimes more and sometimes +less skillfully imitating the little original models, barely six inches +high, that stood on small shelves beside the copies. While the latter +were neatly cut in sandstone or in the cheaper marbles--and a few in +wood, decorated with all manner of painting and gilding--the little +models were in plaster, and spotted and nicked by constant use. Yet +these doll-like little madonnas, saints and apostles, and praying and +playing angels in their heavy draperies, had a certain odd and now and +then almost caricatured life-likeness--so great that not all of its +charm was lost, even in the dry copies made by the assistants. They had +something of the same element of humor that Ariosto gives to his +personages--which by no means lose in life or force because their +author has lost his own simple faith in them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Allow me to ask," said Felix, after looking about blankly for a +moment, "into whose room you have brought me? And is your good friend +who practises this pious art hidden somewhere close by, so that one +must be cautious in his criticisms?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You needn't be in the least disturbed, my dear fellow; the lord and +master of this worshipful company stands before you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You, yourself? Dædalus with a saint's halo! The preacher in the +wilderness of modern art actually at the foot of the cross! Before I +believe that, I shall have to take the cowl myself, and declare poor +naked Beauty to be an invention of the devil!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor cast down his eyes for a moment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, my dear fellow," he said, "this is what we have come to in our +art-desert. You ask me for beauty, and I offer you clothes-racks with +dolls'-heads! As long ago as when we were in Kiel, I had to learn that +the world of to-day will have nothing to do with true art. You know how +hard I found it to turn these stones of mine into bread. It was still +worse when I moved to Hamburg, and there--" he checked himself +suddenly, and turned away; "well, living is more expensive there, and I +began to be older and less easily satisfied; and, when I could no +longer support myself in the place--it was the wretched trading city's +fault, I thought--I packed up my best models and sketches and came +here, to the much-praised land of art, the 'Athens on the Iser,' of +which so much is said and sung. You will soon learn how it is here. I +won't begin as soon as you have crossed the threshold to sweep all the +disagreeable things in the house out of the corners for you. I will +only say that the Munich Philistine isn't a hair better than those on +the Jungfernstieg or in our old Holstein. After I had managed, with +great difficulty, to keep myself alive here for a year, and had hardly +earned enough in the service of pure beauty to keep life in my body, I +found that such misery was enough to make a man turn Catholic--and, as +this spectacle shows, I did turn so, half-and-half. It wasn't so easy +as it may seem to you here--to my shame! Besides a trace of conscience, +which was always reminding me that</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="t4">'Man, after all, has higher goals to seek</p> +<p class="t4">Than simply feeding seven times a week;'</p> +</div> + +<p class="continue">besides my own humiliation before myself and a few of my good +colleagues, I was hampered by a real lack of skill. It needs a good +deal to take all the manliness out of one's self, so that one can fit +himself to all the miserable complications, the twisted deformities and +tameness of our modern civilization. But it only depends, after all, on +one's capability of getting the humor out of the thing. The idea that +I, an unmitigated pagan, should establish a manufactory of images of +saints, struck me as so indescribably rich that one fine day I actually +set to work to model a Saint Sebastian, in which task my knowledge of +anatomy stood me in good stead. But, even here, I soon found that it is +only 'clothes that make the man.' It was only when I betook myself to +making draperies, trains, and sleeves, that the result took on the true +devotional air such as the public is accustomed to and desires. And, +since then, I have grown prosperous so fast that now I employ eight or +ten assistants; and, if it goes on, I shall some day bid farewell to +temporal affairs, in the odor of sanctity and as rich as----." (He +named a colleague who enjoyed a continued rush of business.)</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, my dear Icarus," continued he, still more laughingly, as Felix +made no reply to these revelations, "you would not have believed it +all, I know, when in the first fire of youth we rode our proud hobbies, +and called every man a low fool who, in art or life, proved faithless +to his ideals by a straw's breadth. But the mill of every-day life rubs +off much that a man believed was bound to him as with iron--like a very +part of himself. And here you have an example, worth your deep +consideration, of that celebrated 'liberty' you think to find here. If +I allow myself the liberty of doing what I cannot give up, I must, at +the same time, make up my mind to work at absurdities with which my +heart has no sympathy. In order to be an artist, such as I wish to be, +I am compelled to make Nuremberg toys and to display them in the +market-places. But, after all--behind my own back, as it were--I +continue quietly to be my own master. Let thy troubled heart take +courage, beloved son! thy old Dædalus hasn't even yet become quite so +utterly bad as these trade-wares show him. I think you will give me +back your esteem if I lead you now out of my holy into my profane +<i>atelier</i>--out of my tailor's-shop into my paradise!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">With these words he opened the little door that separated the two +studios and passed in, followed by Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will find an old acquaintance again," he said. "I wonder whether +friend Homo still remembers you. He has certainly had time to grow old +and dull."</p> + +<p class="normal">The dog was still lying in front of the old sofa, on the straw mat, and +seemed to have slept quietly on, although the girl had seated herself +near him and had buried both feet in his thick coat as in a rug. +Evidently the old dog thought it not disagreeable, but rather pleasant +than otherwise, to be rubbed and trampled on by the little shoes. At +all events he uttered a comfortable growl from time to time, like a +purring cat.</p> + +<p class="normal">To the girl herself the time had seemed very long. At first, when she +heard voices out in the garden, she had climbed upon a chair close to +the window, and, pulling her skirt over her bare shoulders that she +might not be seen by any chance passer-by, had peeped out curiously +through the roses. The strange young man, who spoke so long and +seriously with Jansen, had taken her fancy greatly, with his tall, +slender figure, his small head above the broad shoulders, and the fiery +glance of his brown eyes, that wandered absently about. She had seen +directly that he must be somebody of distinction. But, when he +disappeared with Jansen into the arbor, her post at the window grew +uncomfortable. She climbed slowly and thoughtfully down, stationed +herself before a little looking-glass on the wall, and looked +attentively at her own youthful figure, which only seemed to her +anything especially remarkable now that an artist copied from it. Only +to-day she was even less satisfied than usual with her face, and tried +whether it could not be improved if she screwed up her mouth as much +as possible, drew in her nostrils, and opened her eyes very wide. She +was vexed because she could not make herself as beautiful as the +plaster-heads that stood above her on the brackets. But suddenly she +had to laugh at the horribly distorted face she made; her old high +spirits came back; she thrust out her tongue at her reflection in the +glass, and was pleased to see how pretty and red it looked between her +glittering white teeth. Then she shook her thick red hair and went +singing, and patting her shoulders in time with the tune, up and down +the room, so that the sparrows were frightened and fluttered out at the +window. Then she stood still for a long while and looked at the casts +and clay models around her on the walls; and seemed especially +interested in the half-finished marble bust. It reminded her again of +the stranger outside in the arbor, whose head sprung just so from his +stately shoulders. Finally she tired of this also; and besides, she +began to feel a little hungry. She found in the cupboard, behind her in +the corner to which the sculptor had directed her, a few rolls and an +opened bottle of red wine. There was all sorts of rubbish besides in +the cupboard; a masquerader's costume, pieces of gold-stamped leather +tapestry, of blue and red silk and brocade, with large flowers in their +patterns, and a saint's halo, cut out of paper and painted with +beautiful golden rays--that might have done service for a <i>tableau +vivant</i>, or some other profane purpose. The idle girl seized upon this +last, fastened it on her head with the two ribbons still attached to +it, and went again before the looking-glass, where she smiled and made +faces at her own reflection. Then she took a piece of blue damask out +of the pile of things, and threw it like a cloak over her white +shoulders. Her hair flowed freely over it, so that at a distance, when +one did not see her uncovered neck, she looked like a mediæval madonna, +who had stepped out of her frame and had wandered into some merry +company. The girl thought herself very beautiful, and quite worthy of +reverence in this disguise, and secretly congratulated herself on the +surprise and admiration of the sculptor, when he should find her so +dressed. That she might await his return more comfortably, she had +seated herself on the sofa, put a glass of wine on a chair beside her, +and begun to eat a roll. She had come across a portfolio of photographs +of celebrated pictures, and had laid it open in her lap, resting her +feet on the dog's back; and so she had sat now a full half-hour, +absorbed in looking at the pictures (which she found generally very +ugly), when the little door opened and Jansen again entered the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">At the same moment she started as though shot up by a spring--so rudely +that the old dog, giving a low howl and shaking himself, also scrambled +up from his sleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had seen the young stranger enter behind the sculptor; and now she +stood in the middle of the atelier, drawing the little blue silk flag +as tightly as she could across her breast, her eyes flaming with anger, +and her whole body trembling with excitement.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You need not be afraid, my child," said the sculptor, "this gentleman +is also an artist. Good Heavens! How magnificently you have dressed +yourself! The halo becomes you excellently. Turn round a little--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head violently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let me go! I will never come again!" she said half aloud. "You haven't +kept your word to me! Oh! it is shameful!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, Zenz--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, never again! You have deceived me. You know very well what you +promised me, and yet--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"But if you would only listen! I assure you solemnly--"</p> + +<p class="normal">Shaking her head and blushing crimson, she ran to the chair where she +had laid her waist and her straw hat, seized them hurriedly, and shot +like an arrow through the little side-door into the second studio.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor tried to follow her, but had to turn back at the bolted +door. Vexed and annoyed, he turned again to Felix, who had let the girl +pass almost unnoticed in the demonstrative recognition he received from +the dog. The powerful animal had come leaping toward him with all the +liveliness of his younger days, had rested his heavy paws on his old +friend's breast, barking hoarsely the while, and seemed unwilling to +let him go again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you really know me still, true old soul?" cried the young man, +patting the dog's great head, and looking with real emotion into the +faithful old fellow's large eyes, already grown a little dim.--"See, +Hans, with what <i>empressement</i> he receives me! But what have I done to +vex the little girl? Is it the custom here in your blessed land of free +art for models to set themselves up as examples of propriety?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is rather a peculiar case," answered Jansen, with some vexation. +"It was only after long hesitation that she did me the favor to stand +as a model at all; and I shall be hard put to it now to make the shy +thing so tame again. She has neither father nor mother--at least, so +she says. I used often to meet her on her way to an artificial-flower +factory, where she works hard to support, herself. Her figure attracted +me; and the little pert-nosed thing did not look as though her ideas +were very rigidly conventional. But she would have nothing to say to +it, although, as I look older than I am, I have made much shyer people +trust me. Finally, though, my last resort helped me here, as it had +before."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your last resort?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes; the remark that, after all, the matter really was not worth so +much trouble as I had given to it; and perhaps, on the whole, she was +wise in only wishing to show her figure with the aid of dress. This was +too much for the vain little creature, and she consented to come as a +model--but no one but myself must ever enter the studio. I +thoughtlessly broke this agreement to-day in admitting you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix stepped before the statue of the Bacchante.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Unless you have greatly flattered her, you are to be congratulated on +finding so good a one," he said. "And, as far as I have been able to +see in to-day's wanderings through the town, you must have every reason +to be satisfied with most of the figures you can find here."</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen did not answer. He seemed to be absorbed in gazing at his +friend, who happened to be standing at the moment in a most favorable +light. Then, muttering to himself, he went over to the cupboard in +which the girl had been rummaging, searched a while in its +compartments, and at last came back to Felix, hiding behind him a great +pair of shears. The young man still stood absorbed in admiration of the +Bacchante.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Before we do anything else, my dear boy," said the sculptor, "you must +allow me to crop this hair of yours into a more rational shape. Sit +down there on that stool. In less than five minutes we shall have it +all arranged; and that neck of yours, that looks like the neck of the +Borghese Gladiator--the very best point about you--will be got out of +all this thicket."</p> + +<p class="normal">At first Felix laughingly refused; but finally he submitted; and his +friend's skillful hand cropped his long hair, and trimmed his full +beard more closely.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There!" said Jansen. "Now a man needn't be ashamed to be seen with +you. And, as a reward for this submission, I will show you something +that until now very few mortal eyes have had the privilege of seeing."</p> + +<p class="normal">He approached the great veiled group in the middle of the studio, and +began cautiously to unwrap the damp cloths in which the work was +everywhere enveloped.</p> + +<p class="normal">The figure of a youth appeared, of more than mortal strength and +stature, lying stretched upon the ground in an attitude of perfect and +natural grace and beauty. Sleep seemed to have just left his eyes; for +he lay with his head a little raised, leaning upon his right arm, and +passing the left across his forehead as though to clear away the mists +of some deep dream. Before him--or behind him, as it appeared to the +spectator--knelt upon one knee a youthful female figure, bending over +him in a posture of innocent wonder. This figure was much less advanced +toward completion than that of its male companion--there being, indeed, +scarcely anything left to do on the latter excepting a little delicate +work upon the luxuriant hair and the hands and feet. And yet, though +the lines of the woman's figure were still almost in the rough, and her +beautiful form seemed only the fruit of a few days' labor, the modeling +of the whole was so broad and strong, the bend of the neck and the +posture of the arms were so expressive, that no one could fail to catch +the full force of the whole, even from the unfinished work, and to see +that the two figures were worthy of one another, and of equal birth.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix uttered an exclamation of delight. Then, for a full quarter of an +hour, he stood motionless before the mighty group, and seemed +altogether to forget the sculptor in his work.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length the dog, which came beside him and began again to lick his +hand, aroused him from his reverie.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The old-time Hans still lives!" he cried, turning to Jansen. "And more +than that--this is for the first time the complete, genuine Dædalus, +who has thoroughly learned to use his wings. Listen, old boy; it is +gradually dawning upon me that I must have been altogether mad and +absurd when I introduced myself to you as a kind of fellow-artist!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall go to the art-club to-morrow, and gather new courage when +you see some of your other colleagues," said Jansen, dryly. "However, I +am glad the thing pleases you. You remember how I used to dwell on the +germ of the idea of this work years ago. The First Man face to face +with the First Woman--hardly daring as yet to actually touch the being +who for the first time makes his human existence full and complete; +while she--more mature already, as a woman is, and having had time +while he slept to recover from her first surprise--feels herself drawn +by a strange and joyful yearning to him who is to be her lord, and to +call forth for the first time her true woman's nature. It is a subject +that stirs one to the core; it touches all that is deep and sacred in a +man's fancy; and yet it is not impossible to reproduce it with the +means our art affords. I have made more than one study of it, and yet +not satisfied myself. It was only this spring, when I realized one day, +to my horror, how this wretched business next door--this money-getting +and trying to please priests and women--was threatening to demoralize +me, that for three weeks I never set foot in my saint-factory, but +locked myself in here and expanded my soul again with this work. I know +that I am only doing it for myself and for a little group of true +friends, as restless as I am. Where could I put such a thing as that +nowadays? True Art is homeless and without a place to lay her head. A +dancing Bacchante is sure to find a lover in some rich man who will put +her in some niche in his <i>salon</i>, and think when he looks at her of the +ballet-girls who have been his associates. But Adam and Eve, before +their fall, in all their rude and vigorous strength, with the fragrance +of the fresh earth lingering, as it were, about them--they are as +useless for a decoration as they would be for the altar of a chapel. +Even their heroic proportions would pass for brutal! But, after all, +they are my old favorites; and, if they please me, to whom does it +matter?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix did not answer. He was again absorbed in gazing at the group.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A good friend of mine, whose acquaintance you will soon make, by the +way," continued the sculptor, "one Schnetz, who likes to play the +Thersites, advised me to put a fusilier's uniform on Adam, and make Eve +into a sister of charity, with a medicine-glass and spoon in her hand. +Then the group would perhaps be adopted to ornament the pediment of +some hospital. His satire on the present condition of our art was so +true that I had almost a mind to try it for a joke. My first man and +woman, without an inkling of all the ills of our pestilential century, +enthroned over the door of a <i>lazaretto</i>--what do you say to that as a +piece of colossal humor?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only finish it, Hans!" cried the younger man. "Dream out your dream, +and I will vouch for it that, however stupidly and sleepily men are +plodding on, this lightning-stroke of genius will dash the scales from +their eyes! Why haven't you made more progress with your Eve?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because I have never yet found a model; and because I will not +botch my work by mere patching together of my own recollections, +or by the last resort of borrowing from the Venus of Milo. Ah, +my dear fellow--the fine figures you think you saw in the streets +to-day--psha! you'll soon think otherwise. The German corset-makers, +the school-room benches, and the miserable food we live on, may +possibly leave enough of dear old Nature for me to make a laughing-doll +out of, like my dancer there; but a future mother of mankind, untouched +as yet by any breath of want or degradation, and fresh from the hand of +her Creator--what do you think our professional models would say to +that--or the seamstresses or flower-girls that money or persuasion can +induce to enter the service of art? If it were a Roman, now, or a +Greek, or any untamed child of Nature who had grown up under a happier +heaven than ours! And that is what makes the ground here fairly burn +under my feet--and if they were not fettered with leaden fetters--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He suddenly checked himself, and a dark shadow passed across his face; +but Felix shrunk from the effort to draw from him by a question any +confidence beyond what Jansen offered willingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment the clock in a neighboring tower struck twelve; and for +a few moments the bells for mid-day service filled the pause that had +interrupted the talk of the two friends.</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor began to wrap up the group again, after he had given it a +thorough sprinkling. And then, while Felix examined in silence the +other sculptures, many of which were familiar, he went to a wash-stand +in a corner, where he washed the traces of the clay from his hands and +face, and exchanged his working-blouse for a light summer-coat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And now," said he, as he finished his toilette--"now you shall go with +me to our high mass--one that we never miss on Sundays. At the stroke +of twelve we working-bees forsake our hives, and swarm to that great +flower-garden, the Pinakothek, to gather our store of wax and honey for +the whole week. Do you hear the door slam above us? That is my neighbor +in the upper story--a right good fellow, by the name of Maximilian +Rosenbusch, but called 'Rosebud' for short by his friends. An excellent +youngster, not in the least cut out by Nature for a desperado--but +rather inclined, on the contrary, to all the more delicate pursuits of +the muses. He is suspected of being secretly engaged on a volume of +'Poems to Spring,' and you could have heard his flute up-stairs +an hour ago. But at the same time he paints the most tremendous +battle-pieces--generally in Wallenstein or Swedish costume--battles of +the bloodiest sort, and where there is no quarter. In the studio next +to his lives a Fräulein, a thoroughly estimable woman, and by no means +a despicable artist. Among her friends she goes by the name of +Angelica, but her real name is Minna Engelken. This good creature--but +there they come now down the stairs. You can make their acquaintance at +once."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">It was certainly an odd pair that they found waiting in the yard. The +battle-painter, an animated young fellow, with a clear, bright, rosy +complexion, wore an enormous gray felt hat, with a small cock's-feather +in the band; and an abundant red beard, that looked as queerly against +his pink-and-white face as though a girl had tied a false beard round +her chin, in the attempt to disguise herself as a brigand. Looking at +the face closely, there was a decidedly spirited and manly look in the +clear blue eyes, while a merry laugh lurked constantly about the mobile +mouth. Beside him, his companion--though she was apparently still under +thirty--seemed almost as though she might be his mother, there was such +a weighty seriousness and prompt decision in her movements. She had one +of those faces in which one never sees whether they are pretty or ugly; +her mouth was a little large, perhaps; her eyes were bright and full of +life, and her figure was rather short and thickset. She wore her hair +cut short under a simple Leghorn hat; but in the rest of her dress +there was nothing especially conspicuous.</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen introduced Felix, and a few commonplaces were exchanged. After +her first glance at him, Angelica whispered something to the sculptor +that evidently related to the stately figure of his friend, and its +likeness to the bust she had seen in his studio. Then all four strolled +along the Schwanthalerstrasse, followed by the dog, which kept close +behind Felix, and from time to time rubbed its nose against his hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">They stopped before a pretty one-story house in the suburb, standing in +the middle of a neatly-kept garden. Rosenbusch took his flute out of +his pocket, and played the beginning of the air "Bei Männern, welche +Liebe fühlen." But nothing stirred in the house, although the upper +windows were only closed with blinds, and every note rang out far and +clear in the hot noonday air.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fat Rossel is either asleep or else he pretends he is, so as to shirk +our high mass again," said the painter, putting up his flute. "I think +we had better go on."</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Andiamo!</i>" said Angelica, nodding. (She had once passed a year in +Italy, and certain everyday Italian phrases had a way of slipping +involuntarily from her lips every minute or two.)</p> + +<p class="normal">The conversation, as they strolled on, was not exactly animated. Jansen +seemed to be lost in thought; long silences were a habit of his, and, +especially when there were several people about him, he could remain +for hours apparently without the least interest in what was going on. +And then, if something that was said happened to kindle a spark in him, +his eloquence seemed all the more surprising. Felix knew him well, and +made no attempt to disturb his abstracted mood. He looked about him as +he walked, and tried to recognize the streets that he had first +strolled through, long before, in one of his vacation journeys. Nor did +Rosenbusch seem to be in a particularly talkative frame of mind; and +only Angelica, who had a way of assuming a certain chaffing tone toward +him, and besides was out of humor because, as she said, she had got +"into a blind alley" with one of her pictures, kept up a fire of little +sarcasms and ridicule against her neighbor. She even adopted the +familiarity of calling him by his nickname, but not without putting a +"Herr" before it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know, Herr Rosebud, when you're composing a picture, you ought +to repeat your poems instead of playing the flute? I know it would +inspire you a great deal more, and your neighbors would suffer less. +Now, to-day, for instance, I put some carmine on a whole group of +children I was painting, and spoiled it, just because that everlasting +<i>adagio</i> of yours had made me so sentimental."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why didn't you pound on the door, then, my honored friend, as we +agreed, and then I would have 'ceased my cruel sport?'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"If it hadn't been Sunday, and I hadn't said to myself it will soon be +twelve o'clock, and then he'll stop anyhow--. But see that sweet little +girl in the carriage--the one with the blue hat, next to the young +man--it's a bridal couple, surely! What eyes she has! And how she +laughs, and throws herself back in the carriage like a thoughtless +child!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had stopped in the street in her ecstasy, and impulsively imitated +the gesture of the girl who was driving by, bending back and crossing +her arms behind her head. The friends stood still and laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must beg of you, Angelica, calm your enthusiasm," growled +Rosenbusch; "you forget that not only God and your artistic friends are +looking at you, but profane eyes also, that can't imagine what you are +driving at with your rather reckless studies of posture."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are right," said the little painter, casting a scared glance about +her, but somewhat relieved to find that the street was deserted. "It's +a silly habit of mine, that I have fought against from a child. My +parents gave up taking me to the theatre because they said I always +went through too many contortions over what I saw. But, when anything +excites me, I always forget my best resolutions to maintain my +composure and dignity. When you come to see my studio, baron," she +said, turning to Felix, "I hope you will bear me witness that I know +how to keep within bounds on canvas at least."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is comical," she continued, as no one answered, "what singular +neighbors we are. Here Rosebud, who looks so gentle and innocent, as if +he could not kill a fly, wades ankle-deep in blood every day, and isn't +happy unless, like a new Hotspur, he can kill at least fourteen +Pappenheimer cuirassiers with oil in a morning. And I--whose best +friends have to confess that the Graces didn't stand beside my +cradle--I bother myself over fragrant flower-pieces and laughing +children's faces, and then read in the reviews that I should do well to +take up subjects that have more body to them!"</p> + +<p class="normal">So she ran on for a while, without sparing herself or her companions in +her jokes--yet without the least rudeness or old-maidish bitterness in +her talk. A certain element of womanly coquetry showed now and then in +her frank, honest speeches--an attempt to caricature herself and her +faults and follies, so that she might be taken, after all, at a little +higher value than her own exaggerations gave her credit for. But even +this was done so good-naturedly that any gallant speeches that her +companions might try to make were generally smothered in laughter. +Felix was greatly attracted by her cleverness and droll good-humor; +and, as he showed clearly how they amused him, her mood grew all the +merrier, and one jest followed another so that the long walk seemed +very short to all of them, and they stood at the door of the Pinakothek +before they realized that they had come so far.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And here, Baron, we must bid one another good-by for the present," +said the painter. "You must know that in this art-temple of ours we +behave like good Catholics in their churches. Each kneels before a +different altar; I before St. Huysum and Rachel Ruysch; Herr Rosebud +before his Wouvermans; Herr Jansen before Saints Peter and Paul; and +Homo stays outside, in silent converse with the stone lions on the +steps. I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you in my +studio. Don't let yourself be alarmed by these two malicious gentlemen +with the idea that I shall try to capture you for a sitter. I must +paint your portrait some time, of course--it is a fate you cannot +escape; but my brush is by no means so presumptuous as these wicked men +will try to represent it. When you are a little more at home among us, +perhaps; but now--good-by!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She nodded to the others, and disappeared into a side hall, into which +Rosenbusch also retreated, after a short stay among the old German +masters.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We don't enforce this separation very rigidly, of course," said +Jansen, smiling. "But we have found out that when we all go together we +cannot bring ourselves into a really proper mood for study; we neither +learn nor enjoy. At best, we only get into a discussion of technical +points--problems of color and secrets of the palette, which are +especially unimportant to me, as I make no use of that kind of thing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But why do not you prefer to hold your Sunday solemnities before the +Medusa or the Barberini Faun?" said Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because I know the Glyptothek by heart. And besides, I do not believe +that what we ought to look at in the works of the great masters is the +purely artistic side, if we want to profit by their study. Every one +who has passed his apprenticeship has his own ideas and prejudices and +obstinacies on those points. What we ought to get from them are +characteristics; force, refinement, and contempt for small means used +to small ends. But these I can learn just as well from a symphony of +Beethoven as from a noble building--from a gallery of paintings as from +a tragedy of Shakespeare; and then next day I can turn them to account +in my own work. And it is just these things that Rubens gives me better +than any other here--Rubens, whose works fill this whole room. As soon +as I come near him, he makes me forget all the photographic pettiness, +the fashionable rubbish and 'art-association' absurdities of our own +day."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me yourself," he continued, pointing to the walls of the Rubens +room, "do not you too feel as though you were in your tropical +wildernesses again, where Nature hardly knows how to restrain her +overflowing vigor, and where all that moves or grows seems fairly +intoxicated with its own abounding strength? Here, no one dreams that +there is an everyday, prosaic life outside, that presses all created +things into its service--men serving the State, women mere family +beasts of burden, horses harnessed to the plough--and only suffers +untamed animals to exist in its midst when they are on show in +zoölogical gardens or fair-booths. Here the whole glorious creation +swarms unadorned and vigorous as on the seventh day after chaos; and +all that we conceal and pamper in our dapper civilization appears here +in all innocence in the open light of day. Look at this brown, lusty +peasant and this beautiful woman--these sleeping nymphs watched by the +satyrs--this glorious throng of the blessed and the damned--all this +unveiled humanity is living and acting for itself alone, and never +dreams whether prudish and pedantic fools are looking on and taking +umbrage at it. You know that nothing is really good or bad <i>in itself</i>; +it is only the power of thinking about it that makes it so. And these +creatures have never troubled themselves with thinking. They are +enjoying life fully and overflowingly--like the fat little satyr's wife +above there, nursing her twins--or they are absorbed in the sharp +struggle for existence. Look at this lion-hunt! Horace Vernet, who +wielded no unskillful brush, has painted one too. But just there you +can see the contrast between great art and petty art. Here everything +is mingled in a raging turmoil, so that there is not a hand's breadth +between--here is the very instant of highest conflict, the climax of +struggle and defense, fury and death--every muscle strained to its +utmost, and everything in such deadly yet triumphant earnest that one +trembles and yet is filled with the spirit of victory. For all true +strength is full of a certain triumphant joy. But the French picture is +like a tableau in a circus, where, in spite of all the grimacing and +posturing, there is no real struggle <i>à l'outrance</i>, And look at the +purely artistic side; here all the outlines are so melted into one +another, so lost in each other in spite of the strongest contrasts, +that they necessarily lead the eye into a network from which it cannot +escape, where it never has an opportunity to wish for anything else, or +indeed to think that anything else is possible. A skillful modern +artist, going to work with his patchwork of knowledge on the various +subjects, could not possibly produce such a work. You will always find +holes and gaps--stiff triangles and hexagons between the legs of the +horses, and the figures kept apart as nicely and neatly as though they +were going to be packed up in their cases again after it was all over."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stood a good half hour before the lion-hunt, looking at it as though +for the first time. And then, as though tearing himself away with +difficulty, he took Felix by the arm and said, "You know I am no mere +fanatical <i>doctrinaire</i>. Nobody can have more respect for the other +great artists of the golden age. But still it always seems to me as +though I did not find, even in the greatest and most immortal of them, +a true balance between art and Nature. There is always an excess of +technical aim over unaffected seeing and feeling--an excess of 'can' +over 'must.' Even with Raphael (whom, it is true, they say one doesn't +really know until one has seen his work in Rome), I feel a too great +excess of the purely spiritual and abstract over the sensuous. And with +the glorious Titian and the Venetians, this paradisaic naturalness, +this effortless flow of beauty from an exhaustless soil, this breathing +forth of pure and unadulterated force and freedom, is only found in +their greatest moments; while this man, like the immortal gods, seems +never to have known an hour of poverty or insufficiency."</p> + +<p class="normal">He talked on in this fashion for some time, as though to pour out his +heart before his friend. But just as they were standing before the +little picture of Rubens and his beautiful young wife in the garden, +walking beside a bed of tulips, they heard Angelica's voice behind +them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I cannot help it, gentlemen; you must tear yourselves away from this +well-fed domestic happiness and these tedious box-hedges, and come with +me. I have something to show you that is quite as much a masterpiece of +its kind. Please have confidence in my artistic eye for this once, and +come quickly, before the miracle disappears again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is this beautiful thing you have discovered, Fräulein?" asked +Felix, laughing, "that instantly vanishes again if one is not +immediately on the watch?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Something that is alive--but hardly according to your taste, as I +imagine it," answered the painter. "But our master there--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A beautiful woman?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! and what a woman! I have followed her about like a young Don Juan +ever since we have been here, and looked askance at her as I stood +before the pictures. She seems to be a little near-sighted--at least +she half shuts her eyelids when she looks intently at anything; and she +looks at the upper row of pictures through a lorgnette. A blonde--and a +face, I tell you--and a figure!--just what you call <i>Portament</i>, +Jansen--the kind of thing that grows much oftener in Trastevere than +among our German oaks."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And why don't you give <i>me</i> credit, too, for enough taste to do this +lady justice?" asked Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because--well, because you are a trifle young, and--thus far at +least--you are not an artist. This beauty of mine is far from being +conspicuous or attracting attention--like everything really great. I +will wager, Baron, that you find my enthusiasm exaggerated. These +polished checks and temples, and the poise of the head on the neck and +the neck on the shoulders, and the whole figure--neither too full nor +too slender--but hush! I believe she is standing over there at this +moment! Yes, it is she--the one in the raw silk, with the broad, +somewhat antiquated straw-hat set back upon her head--doesn't it look +almost like a halo? Well, Jansen? Do say something! Generally you are +so extraordinarily prompt in picking flaws in my ideals."</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen had paused, and had coolly turned his quiet, clear gaze upon the +lady, who stood, entirely unsuspicious of scrutiny, a few alcoves away +from them, and turned her full face toward the observing party. +Angelica had not said too much. Her figure was of rare grace and +majesty, as her light summer-dress showed its beautiful outlines +clearly against the dark background; her head, thrown back a little, +hardly moved upon the slender, graceful neck, and her hat allowed its +form to be all the more distinctly seen, as she wore her soft, light +hair simply parted, and falling in a few curls upon her shoulders. Her +face was not striking at first glance; quiet, steel-gray eyes, +concealing their brilliancy behind the slightly closed lids; a mouth +not exactly full or rosy, but of the most beautiful form and full of +character; and a chin and neck worthy of an antique statue. She seemed +so completely absorbed in the study of the gallery that she did not +look up as the friends approached her. It was only when they entered +the alcove, and Angelica began to express her wild admiration (quite +secretly, she imagined, but really loud enough to be plainly audible), +that the stranger suddenly noticed them. With a slight blush, she drew +about her shoulders the white shawl that had hung carelessly about her +waist--as though to shield her from these curious eyes--cast an annoyed +glance at the whispering painter, and left the alcove.</p> + +<p class="normal">"See how she moves--a queenly walk!" cried Angelica, looking after her. +"But alas! I have driven her away. I like that in her, too, that she is +too refined to let herself be stared at. <i>Quant' è bella!</i> But <i>do</i> say +something, Jansen! Have you suddenly turned into a statue, or has the +enchantment worked too strongly?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You may be right, Angelica," said the sculptor, smiling. "I have met +this kind of phenomenal being here now and then; and, as they were +always strangers (for you never see a native of Munich in the +Pinakothek), looking at them was always but a fleeting joy, and I could +only gaze after them as they went. So now I have grown cautious. You +know 'a burnt child--'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nonsense!" exclaimed the artist. "This divine being may be a stranger, +of course, but no one studies the pictures so closely who is looking at +them for the first and last time, only to carry out the instructions of +her Baedeker. What's to prevent our watching her again? And, even if I +lose all to-morrow forenoon over it, and let my group of children dry +into the canvas, I must study this exquisite creature once more, and at +leisure. There--there she is again! Rosebud is just passing her, and +starts back as if he had met the <i>Bella di Tiziano</i> in person! See how +he stares after her! He has taste, after all, in spite of his old +Swedes."</p> + +<p class="normal">And now the little battle-painter came hurrying up to his friends, and +began to tell them what a discovery he had made. Angelica laughed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You come too late, Herr von Rosebud! <i>I</i> am the one to whom belongs +the fame of having discovered this comet! But do you know what I have +in mind, gentlemen? As none of you seem to be inclined to follow up +this adventure, I, as the least suspicious of us four, will take it +upon myself to pursue our beauty, and see if I can discover where she +lives and who she is. If she stays here but a week, she shall be +painted. I have sworn it! And whichever of you is particularly good +shall come to the last sitting; and Herr Rosebud hereby receives +permission to play her a serenade under my window. <i>Addio, signori!</i> +To-morrow you shall hear how the matter turns out."</p> + +<p class="normal">She nodded hurriedly to the friends, and followed the stranger, who had +in the mean time passed through the rooms, and was now preparing to +leave the gallery.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I'll wager she does it!" said Rosenbusch. "An astoundingly resolute +woman that, and absolutely not to be stopped when an enthusiasm seizes +her! This time she really has made a devilish remarkable discovery; but +you know what wonderful beauties she has tried to talk up to us +before--eh, Jansen? She has a positive mania for admiration, and, when +she is possessed by it, she is not very fastidious in her choice of +subjects. 'The sea rages, and will have its sacrifice!'"</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor did not answer. He strolled along beside the others for a +while, silent and abstracted. Then he suddenly said: "Let us go! It +seems as though the art-sense had suddenly disappeared or died out in +me. Such a perfect piece of living Nature puts to shame all illusions +of color, so that even the great masters seem like bunglers beside it."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Meanwhile the beautiful unknown had slowly descended the steps of the +Pinakothek, and turned in the direction of the Obelisk, clearly +unconscious of the fact that twenty paces behind her an enthusiastic +artist was upon her track, never losing sight of her for an instant.</p> + +<p class="normal">And, indeed, it was a rare refreshment to the eye to look upon this +beautiful figure as it passed along. If one may talk of a "silent music +of form," here everything was <i>legato</i>, while the little artist was in +a perpetual <i>staccato</i> movement. The stranger moved as though she +stepped on an elastic ground, and seemed not to mind the walk in the +least, in spite of the oppressive mid-day heat. She looked neither to +the right nor left; in her hands, on which she wore half-gloves of +black net, she held a large green fan, which she opened now and then to +protect her face against the sun.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her worshiper grew more enthusiastic with every moment, and gave +utterance to her feelings in muttered monologue, sprinkled, according +to her fashion, with Italian interjections.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length she saw the subject of her admiration turn to the left, and +go into a neat house on the Briennerstrasse. Here, she knew, there were +furnished rooms to let; so the stranger must have arranged for a +considerable stay in Munich. But how to get at her? To ring at every +bell in the two stories, and ask if a beautiful woman in yellow silk +lived there, did not seem very practicable. And did she live here, +after all? Might she not be only making a visit?</p> + +<p class="normal">The painter was just debating whether she should walk up and down +before the house like a sentry, when a window opened in the corner-room +on the ground-floor, before which lay a little garden with its tall +shrubs looking dry and dusty in the mid-day sun, and the beauty leaned +out to shut the blind. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was a +little disordered, which wonderfully added to her beauty. Without +hesitating a moment, Angelica marched through the little path past the +garden, and entered the vestibule.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her ring was answered by a very old servant with a white, +soldierly-looking mustache, and dressed in a long, silver-buttoned +livery-coat that reached to his knees. He eyed the visitor +suspiciously, took her card, on which there was nothing but "Minna +Engelken," and came back at once, indicating by a silent nod that his +mistress would receive her.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Angelica entered the stranger was standing in the middle of the +room, in the midst of the warm, greenish light that came through the +closed blinds. She had hastily put up her hair again, but without +special care; and now she greeted her visitor somewhat coldly, with a +scarcely perceptible nod of her exquisite head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"First of all, I must introduce myself a little more fully than the +very obscure name on my card can have done," began the artist, without +the slightest trace of embarrassment. (She had begun immediately upon +her entrance to study the head, as though at a regular sitting.) "I am +a painter; that is the sole excuse I have for my intrusion upon you. I +met you a short time ago at the Pinakothek. It can hardly be a novelty +to you to have people stop when you go by, or even follow you. But that +a person should intrude into your very house does seem a little too +much. My honored Fräulein, or should I call you Madame?" (the stranger +shook her head slightly) "I do not know whether you, too, have a +prejudice against women-artists? If you have, I shall certainly appear +to you in a very bad light. And it is true, I must say that this +meddling with brushes and colors doesn't particularly become many of my +colleagues. Although the nine Muses are women, our sex easily get by +association with them an unwomanly touch that is not by any means to +their advantage.--Oh, please keep that position just an instant; the +three-quarters face is especially effective in this light! Yes, it is +true, Fräulein, I myself know women-artists who think it is prosaic to +put on a clean collar or darn a stocking. And yet--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you would only be kind enough to tell me the motive of your +visit--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was just coming to that. I had really a double motive. First, to beg +your pardon if I drove you away from the gallery by my persistent +staring. You see, my dear Fräulein--oh, please bend your head a +little--so! If you could only see how capital that is--that <i>chiar' +oscuro</i>--and what glorious hair you have! I see you think I am fairly +crazy, treating you like a model in the first ten minutes! But so much +the better; you will know at once what we are coming to. I am really, +you must know, not quite responsible for my actions when I see anything +that greatly delights me; and however lacking my talents may be in the +power to produce anything beautiful from mere imagination, I have +attained a real mastery in the discovery, the enjoyment, and admiration +of true living beauty. The moment I saw you afar off--no, you must not +turn away, dear Fräulein. How can you help it, and what sin is it, if +an honest artist-soul--of your own sex, too--expresses its delight in +and admiration for your beauty? It seems petty to me, the way that many +people keep such a gift of God hidden--or pretend to. There are some +little doll-like faces, it is true, whose chief charm lies in the fact +that they always seem to be ashamed of their own prettiness. But you, +Fräulein--such a classic head--please turn for once fully round toward +the light--a pure Palma Vecchio, I tell you--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The Fräulein could not help smiling, and, although she blushed, +permitting this singular, unrestrained, formless admiration. "I +confess," she said, "that I have been such a recluse for years, only +busied with the care of an invalid, that I have quite fallen out of +practice in listening to such flatteries and wearing the fitting +expression when I hear them. And besides, in spite of hard and sad +experience, I am still young and foolish enough not to take offense at +the pleasure you seem to take in my personal appearance. But if you +would only tell me--you spoke of a <i>double</i> motive."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you a thousand times, dear, dear Fräulein!" cried the painter, +excitedly. "Every word you say confirms me in the opinion I formed at +the first glance--that you would be as good and amiable in character as +you were beautiful in face and figure. And you give me courage to come +out at once with my other petition: I should be the happiest person +under the sun, if I might paint your portrait.--Please don't be +alarmed," she added, hurriedly. "The agony is brief--I am no torturer. +If you have not more time to spare, I will paint you <i>alla prima</i>--at +most three or four sittings--you shall not be able to complain of me. +Of course I can't ask that you will let me have the picture; but you +will allow me to have a little sketch for a study and a souvenir?--The +great picture--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A large portrait, then?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only a three-quarters length, but of course life-size. It would be a +sin and a shame to put such a head and such a figure on a canvas the +size of a tea-tray. But my dear, best Fräulein, tell me you will have +the heavenly goodness to visit my studio--the street and number are on +my card--and look at my things, and sit to me only if--if you yourself +take pleasure in them; for I would not for anything have you think you +were making a sacrifice for the benefit of a mere dauber."</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear Fräulein, I really do not know what--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps you haven't time at this moment? Perhaps you are an artist +yourself? The careful way in which you studied the pictures in the +Pinakothek--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Unfortunately I have not the smallest natural talent," answered the +Fräulein, smiling; "but only a little taste and a strong yearning +toward everything beautiful and artistic; and this is the reason why I +have come to Munich--as I am quite alone in the world. It is still +uncertain how long I shall stay here. But if I can really give you +pleasure by doing so--I rely upon it, of course, that it shall be +entirely a matter between ourselves if I sit to you. And in return, you +shall initiate me into the secrets of your art, which to a lay observer +must always remain closed, no matter of how good intentions he may be, +unless he is given the right introduction."</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Brava! bravissima!</i>" cried the delighted painter. "Heaven reward you a +thousand times for your great kindness; and I will see to it that you +shall not repent it. My dear, dear Fräulein, when you know me a little +more intimately you will see that you have to do with an honest woman +who has a grateful heart, and against whom no one of her friends can +utter a reproach."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the wildest delight she took her leave of the beautiful +face--which, in spite of all this worship, had preserved a rather cool +expression--and, as though she feared the promise might possibly be +retracted on further reflection, she hurried from the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">When she reached the street, she stood still for a moment, fairly out +of breath, tied her loosened hat-strings more firmly under her chin, +and gleefully rubbed her hands. "What eyes they'll make!" she said to +herself. "How they will envy me! But then what makes them such shy, +silly Philistines? It's true, to make such a conquest in a moment, one +must not be a man, but just such an utterly harmless old maid as I!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">The friends turned their steps toward a beer-garden on the Dultplatz, +where, at this time of day--between two and three o'clock--it was +pretty quiet in spite of its being Sunday. The noonday guests had +finished with their dinners long ago, and the afternoon concert had not +yet begun. Instead of it three sleepy fiddlers, an elderly harp-player, +and a jovial clarinet were playing on a platform in the middle of the +garden. Of these musicians the clarinet-player alone still defied the +drowsy influences of the siesta hour, attempting, by wild and desperate +runs, to rouse the nodding quartette. On the benches in the shade of +the tall ash-trees there sat a very mixed company, for in Munich the +differences between the classes is far less marked than in any of the +other large German cities; and among the rest, at the smallest tables, +were numerous pairs of lovers who, lulled into a state of dreamy +comfort by plentiful eating and drinking, rested their heads on one +another's shoulders, held each other's hands and abandoned themselves +freely to their feelings. Yet no one seemed to take offense at this; on +the contrary, it seemed to belong to the place as much as the gnats +that swarmed in the air. The three late arrivals seated themselves in +one of the most secluded corners and proceeded to do justice to the +viands which the waitress, who treated Jansen with conspicuous respect, +had put aside for them. It was anything but a sumptuous meal, but the +taste for the pleasures of the table seemed to be so little developed +in the sculptor that it never occurred to him to celebrate the reunion +with his friend by a bottle of wine. Felix knew this and overlooked it. +Still, he had hoped to find him more animated and communicative after +their long separation; and now he could not help noticing how he sat at +his side, preoccupied and speaking only in monosyllables, intent only +upon feeding Homo, who swallowed the big mouthfuls that were given him +with grave decorum.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean time, there joined the group a fourth person, for whom the +battle-painter seemed to have looked from the beginning. He was a slim +young man, pale and with curly black hair, whose manner at once +announced him to be an actor. He wore, over one eye, a black silk +shade, that made his paleness still more conspicuous, and the sharp +lines above his expressive mouth gave evidence of some hardly +suppressed suffering. Rosenbusch introduced him as his neighbor, Herr +Elfinger, formerly a member of the ---- court-theatre, now a clerk in +one of the Munich banking-houses. The manner in which Jansen also +welcomed him showed that he was one of the intimates of this circle. He +bore himself with such easy cheerfulness and enlivened the conversation +in such an agreeable way that Felix felt very much drawn toward him, +and even Jansen brightened up and took part in the lively chat.</p> + +<p class="normal">But suddenly the sculptor stood up, looked at his watch, cast a glance +over the picket fence that separated the garden from the sunny square, +and said, coloring slightly: "I must leave you now, old boy. My friends +here will bear me witness that nothing is to be done with me on Sunday +afternoons. At such times I have to go my own ways and to fulfill +certain duties, which, to-day in particular, I could only escape with +the greatest difficulty. I hope you will excuse me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He has to turn back into a sea monster one day in seven, like +Melusine," laughed Rosenbusch. "We are used to that."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix looked up in surprise. "Don't let me disturb you, old boy," he +said. "Besides, I still have to find a lodging. Where are you +quartered? Perhaps I could find a place in your neighborhood--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am not going home now and I should hardly recommend the neighborhood +where I live," the sculptor interrupted, with such a frown that it put +an end to all further questioning. "You will find me in my studio again +tomorrow. Good-by for to-day and good luck to you. Come, Homo!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He nodded to his friends without giving them his hand, pulled his hat +down over his eyes, and left the garden with his faithful dog.</p> + +<p class="normal">They saw him stride with rapid steps across the square and approach a +two-horse <i>fiacre</i> that stood on the other side, not far from the gate, +apparently waiting for him on the shady side of the street. Then, as he +stepped in they could plainly see that there was some one sitting +inside; there was a glimpse of a woman's bright-colored dress, and a +child's little hand thrust a sunshade out the window. Except this, all +the windows were shut, notwithstanding the great heat; and, as the +mysterious vehicle rolled rapidly away, the friends who had been +looking after it turned to one another with wonder in their eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He appears to have a family," said Felix. "Why doesn't he say anything +to anybody about it? Even to me, his oldest friend, he has never +uttered a word about his projected or perhaps actual marriage, about +which there was a rumor some six years ago. I thought the whole matter +had either fallen through or else turned out unhappily. But now he +seems, after all, not to be alone. Do you know anything about his +private circumstances?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nothing whatever," answered the painter. "None of us have ever set +foot across his threshold; and, the moment any one asks where he +lodges, he grows as snappish as a bear, just as you saw him a few +minutes ago. As for women, he will have nothing to do with them, that +can be seen plainly enough from all he does. Whether, in spite of all +this, he has a household of his own, can't be discovered. He once cut +dead a prying fellow who followed him one night to see where he kept +himself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think," said Elfinger, "that the pleasure we get from his society +six days in the week is so great that we might at least leave him to +himself on the seventh. But now let us help the Baron look for rooms, +and debate how we can best show him the city this evening."</p> + +<p class="normal">When, toward midnight, Felix left the beer-cellar, where he had been +for several hours enjoying the evening air, and returned to his +lodgings--a suite of pleasant rooms overlooking flower-gardens and the +quiet streets beyond--a singular feeling of depression suddenly came +over him. He had now attained what he cared more for than for anything +else. No one could enjoy more perfect freedom than he. No one could +begin life afresh more untrammeled by social forms. Then, too, the +cheerful, lively city, with its gay life, the free and easy artists' +society into which he had entered--all this had corresponded with his +wish and expectations, and promised him compensation for many a ruined +hope. It was the only atmosphere that seemed suited to him, the only +surroundings among which he could find again, even in the Old World, +something of that unrestrained freedom that he had enjoyed so much +beyond the ocean. And when, notwithstanding all this, he went to bed +with a heavy sigh and waited long for sleep in vain--why was it?</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">On the following morning, Felix brought a whole armful of his +sketch-books to Jansen. The latter seemed to look through them with +interest, and listened patiently to the accounts of the adventures, of +which many of them were hasty illustrations, but he did not utter a +single word in regard to any artistic worth which the sketches might +possess.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the last page had been turned, and Jansen, with a quiet "hm!" had +begun to pile up the books and tablets in a little tower, Felix was +forced to ask whether he had not made some progress after all.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Progress? Why, that depends upon the way you look at it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And how do you look at it, old fellow?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?--Hm! I look at it from a geographical point of view."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are very good. I understand perfectly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't be angry, my dear fellow, but understand me rightly. I mean, on +the path of dilettantism, on which you have been wandering up to this +date, all progress must necessarily be deceptive, even though, +outwardly, you have circumnavigated the world; for, after all, all your +efforts move in a circle. I am very sorry for it, though."</p> + +<p class="normal">"For what?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That you really want to take up art in earnest. You might have +remained such an enviable dilettante, for you have all the necessary +qualifications to an uncommon degree."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And they are?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Self-confidence, time, and money. No, don't be angry. I am truly +serious when I say this to you, and of course it would be needless for +me to assure you that I mean well when I say it. Seriously: these +traveling sketches of yours are done so skillfully that any of the +illustrated papers might consider themselves lucky if they had such +special artists. And yet I wish, since you are determined to be an +artist, that they were not half so skillful."</p> + +<p class="normal">"If it is nothing more than that, a remedy can easily be found. You +will soon see how much talent I have for unskillfulness, when you give +me something to model."</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor shook his head gently. "It is not the hands," he said. "It +is the mind that has already attained a very respectable maturity and +facility in you; only, unfortunately, in a wrong direction. For the +truth is, my dear fellow, the very things that please you best, and +have probably most impressed unprofessional persons, the dash and +readiness, the so-called artist's touch, those are the very things that +stand most in the way of your getting back into the right track. It is +just as if, instead of learning to write in the ordinary way, one +should begin with stenography. He never in all his life will have a +good handwriting. For the spirit of dilettantism, take it for all in +all, is, like that of stenography, in the art of abbreviation; in +substituting a symbol for the <i>form</i>, just as in the other case +we substitute one for the letter, so that in the course of time +all real feelings--yes, the very want of and appreciation of the +rightly-developed natural form--are hopelessly lost. Why is it then +that the dilettanti attain their end so much more quickly than the true +artists? Because, with this system of abbreviation, they steer straight +for those results which seem to them of the most importance: +resemblance, spirit, elegance of execution. For that reason they are +often marvelously skillful in mastering the proportions of a face, for +instance, and setting it off by a few dots and strokes so that +everybody cries: 'Oh! how like! how speaking! and how quickly done!' +The true artist knows that the length of time spent in the production +is by no means a measure of excellence; and as he has not only a +general sense of proportion, but also a feeling for the true form +itself, he does not rest until he has done it full justice--until, so +to speak, he has worked outward from the very core of that the exterior +of which his eyes have already taken in and fully comprehended. +However," he went on after a short pause, during which he unwound the +wet cloths from his Bacchante, "you are at liberty to believe that all +this is merely my personal opinion and nothing more than exaggerated +estimate of what constitutes true art. In ordinary life the artist is +distinguished from the dilettante only by the fact that the former +follows the thing as a calling, and the latter only for his own +amusement. According to this, you would be an artist from the moment +you cast aside the baron, the statesman or jurist, the <i>homme +d'action</i>, that you have in you, and regularly devoted a certain number +of hours of the day to dirtying your fingers with clay. If you stick to +it persistently, it would be very hard lines indeed if, in the course +of several years, you should not possess the necessary mechanical skill +just as well as any one else. Even to become an academic professor need +not be an unattainable aim of your ambition. And if, in spite of all +that, I should still continue, in my heart, to look upon you as a born +dilettante, you could smile down upon me graciously, and heap coals of +fire upon my head by proposing me as an honorary member of your +academy. Ah! my dear boy, I tell you, if you should make a close +examination of many of our most famous great men, you would bring to +light little else than a disguised and beautiful dilettantism, made up +of humbug, elegant trappings, and perhaps a few so-called ideas. I know +painters who dash off a hand or a foot, a horse's head or an oak-tree, +with as unerring an audacity as--well, as a thorough stenographer will +bring a two hours' speech into the compass of an octavo page. But Lord +have mercy upon them, for they have long since ceased to know what they +do; and as the dear public has an even coarser sense, a still blunter +natural feeling, and even more respect for appearances--why, it's all +just as it should be, and no one can complain that he has been +cheated."</p> + +<p class="normal">For some time after this speech silence reigned in the studio. There +were heard only the fluttering of the sparrows, the heavy breathing of +Homo, for the old fellow was already enjoying his morning nap again, +and, in the saint-factory near by, the clatter and scraping and picking +of seven or eight chisels in the hands of the assistants who were hard +at work.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you, Dædalus," said Felix, at last. "Upon the whole you are +perfectly right, and I think it very kind of you to try and scare me +off so thoroughly. But, with your permission, I intend to hold to my +intentions until I have been made wise by my own experience. If, a year +from this time, you preach me the same sermon, you shall see how +penitently I will beat my breast and become converted from all my +sins. But now, first give me something to sin with. Look here, my +coat is already off, and I have nothing more to do but to roll up my +shirt-sleeves."</p> + +<p class="normal">"So be it, then!" replied Jansen, with a good-natured smile. "Not as +God wills, but as you wish--here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He went to the large closet and took out a skull, which he laid +on a little table near the window. At the same time he wheeled a +modeling-bench out of the corner, placed it before the table, and +pointed, without speaking, to a big lump of clay that lay moist and +shiny in a tub.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are we to study phrenology?" laughed Felix, rather nervously, for a +suspicion began to dawn upon him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, my dear fellow, but we must take pains to make as exact a copy as +possible of this round mass of bones.... We shall have plenty of time +for the flesh when we have first mastered the skeleton."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am to model a whole skeleton?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Bone for bone, down to the big toe. In this way we combine an +anatomical course with practice in modeling forms. Yes, my dear +fellow," he smilingly continued, as he perceived the horrified +expression of his pupil; "if you thought to begin your apprenticeship +with the soft, white flesh of a woman, you have greatly deceived +yourself. However, since you have already done quite enough preparatory +studying in this field--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He suddenly broke off. On the landing, outside, they heard a pleasant +feminine voice say:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is this the way to Fräulein Minna Engelken's studio?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you will kindly give yourself the trouble to mount a flight +higher," responded the hoarse bass of the janitor. "The door to the +right--the name is on the sign. The Fräulein has been there for the +last two hours."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thanks."</p> + +<p class="normal">At the first sound of the voice Jansen had hurried to the door; he now +opened it a little and peeped out. Then he came back to Felix, and, +with his face slightly flushed, went silently to work.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who was the lady?" asked Felix, though he felt no particular curiosity +on the subject.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The stranger we saw yesterday. Strange! when I heard that unknown +voice her face suddenly came up before my eyes again."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix said nothing. He had gone up to the modeling-bench, had begun to +work at a great ball of clay about as large as the skull, and appeared +to be completely absorbed in his task.</p> + +<p class="normal">But they had scarcely been working on in this way, side by side and in +silence, for more than a quarter of an hour when some one knocked +softly on the door and Rosenbusch entered, looking excited, merry, and +full of mischief.</p> + +<p class="normal">He nodded to the friends, stepped close up to them and said, with an +air of mysterious importance: "Do you know who is up-stairs? The +lady of the Pinakothek! Angelica is painting her picture--she has +succeeded--an incredibly resolute woman that! And can keep a secret +like the devil! Now just conceive of it; I discovered her early this +morning clearing up her studio, as though the queen had given notice of +a visit. For that matter it always does look damned elegant and neat up +there--flowers in whichever direction you turn, and a hothouse +fragrance that makes you sick. But, to-day, it is a positive show-room! +'What the devil is this, Angelica?' said I; 'is to-day your birthday, +or are you going to get engaged, or are you painting a Russian +princess?'--for I had long forgotten all about the affair of yesterday. +But she, turning round the old yellow-silk cushion on the armchair so +as to present the side which had the fewest spots--she scarcely looked +at me, and said: 'Go and get to work, Herr von Rosebud'--that is what +she always calls me when she is cross--'I am not at home to you, +to-day!' In this way she morally turned me out of doors without farther +ceremony, and, I must confess, I rather like it in her; energy, +fearlessness, the courage of one's opinions, are always fine, even in a +woman. So I withdrew, wondering, and was already at work laying on my +colors when I heard some one coming up the stairs. Yes, I was right, +she was going to Angelica; and as the wall between us is not very +thick, and they did not at first take the precaution to lower their +voices, I discovered the whole mystery--that it is our beauty of +yesterday, that she is going to have her picture painted, and that her +first name is Julie. And now I appeal to you, friends and companions in +art, are we men or cowardly poltroons? Are we to suffer this vixen to +carry away such a prize from under our very noses, and to withhold such +a paragon of beauty from us under our own roof? Or shall we rush up as +one man, and, in the name of art, lay siege to the door of this +obdurate sister, and compel her, by force or persuasion, to open to +us?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I would advise you, Rosenbusch, to go quietly upstairs again and wreak +your martial ardor on the battle of Lützen," Jansen answered, without +the slightest approach to a smile. "But, if your excitement will not +let you work, convey your homage to the lady through the wall by means +of your flute. Perhaps they will invite you to come round and declaim +some of your verses."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Wretched scoffer!" cried the battle-painter. "I thought to render you +a service by bringing you this news. But you are of the earth, earthy, +and are incapable of soaring to any height of enthusiasm. Well, God be +with you! I see that I am not understood down here!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He rushed out of the door, and, sure enough, they soon afterward heard +the flute pouring out its most melting passages.</p> + +<p class="normal">This language, however, did not seem to be understood in the next room. +Angelica's room remained tight shut, and when it was opened, a few +hours after, soft steps came down the stairs, and the listeners below +were led to conclude that the sitting was over.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean while dinner-time had come, and the assistants in +the adjoining room had stopped work and left the studio. Jansen, +too--although, as a rule, he seldom made a pause before two +o'clock--now laid down his modeling-tool.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come," he said, "you must make your calls of ceremony upon our +fellow-lodgers."</p> + +<p class="normal">They mounted the stairs, and went first into Rosenbusch's studio. As no +notice had been taken of his flute-playing, he had seated himself at +his easel again, and had set himself zealously to work to paint away +his anger. His room certainly presented a most remarkable appearance; +the walls shone, almost like those of an armory, with old arms, +halberds, muskets, and swords, relieved here and there by enormous +boots with wheel-spurs, leather collars, saddles, and singular +stirrups. An immense old kettle-drum stood on a rickety stand in front +of a worm-eaten arm-chair, and served as a table on which to pile all +sorts of odds and ends. Some cactus-plants, with great red blossoms, +stood in full bloom in the window, and among them was a delicate little +wire-cage, containing two white mice, who ran restlessly up and down, +squeaking and looking shyly at the new faces out of their little red +eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">The battle of Lützen stood on the easel; it was quite a vigorous work, +and Felix could praise it with a good conscience. The horses, +especially, reared and plunged, full of life and spirits; and the young +baron could hardly believe it when the painter confessed that he had +never mounted a horse in his life. After they had joked and laughed +about this for a while, and Rosenbusch had delivered an earnest speech +in defense of the romantic school, he threw off the old, much-patched +Swedish trooper's jacket in which he always painted, in order, as he +said, to have the true historical inspiration, and dressed himself, in +spite of the heat, in a violet-colored velvet coat, so that he might +accompany the friends in their visit to the adjoining room.</p> + +<p class="normal">Their knock on Angelica's door was answered by a cordial "Come in!" +Rosenbusch had not exaggerated: the studio did, in truth, resemble a +hot-house decked out for a festival, to which the sketches, and +studies, and half-finished pictures of flowers merely served as +decorations. The painter had had a window cut through the wall on the +east side at her own expense, in order that she might give her plants, +which she tended with scientific knowledge, plenty of sun whenever the +nature of her work did not require a pure north light. The plants were +truly grateful, and twined and throve so luxuriantly that the slender +stems of the palms and figs reached almost to the ceiling.</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica stood before her easel in an antiquated painting-jacket, her +straw hat perched on one side, her cheeks glowing from her work, and +was so busily occupied in "toning down" the background that she merely +nodded to her friends as they entered, without interrupting her work.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She has gone!" she cried to them, "otherwise I could not have let you +in, no matter how much I had wanted to. My children, you have no +conception of what a charming person she is! If I were a man, I would +marry her or blow my brains out!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are indulging in very reckless assertions," Rosenbusch interposed, +raising himself a little on his toes, and stroking his thick beard. +"Just let's see if she really is so dangerous."</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica stepped back from the easel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Gentlemen," she said, "I hope you will praise me. Either I understand +as much about painting as a roast goose, or this will be my best +picture, and a real work of art. But just look at these curves! All +large, simple, noble, such as never grow under our native heaven. My +first idea was to paint the picture <i>alla prima</i>; but in the nick of +time it occurred to me that I should be very foolish to do so. For the +longer I can study this heavenly face, the happier I shall be. Just see +this figure, Jansen. Have you often come across anything like it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"The lady has style," remarked Rosenbusch, assuming as cool an air as +possible. "However, she doesn't seem to be particularly young, or else +your dead coloring gives her ten years too many."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are a strange mortal, Herr von Rosebud," answered the painter, +angrily. "In art you rave over nothing but old leather, but in life no +school-girl's complexion is rosy and satiny enough to suit you. It is +true, my beauty here told me herself that she was already--but I won't +be such a fool as to tell a girl's secret to gentlemen. But of this I +can assure you: that twenty years from now, when certain pretty little +dolls' faces have long grown old and faded, that woman there will still +be so beautiful that people will stand still in the streets to look +after her."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And may we be permitted to ask of what nationality she is?" inquired +Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why not? She makes no secret of the fact that she is from Saxony, +although you would never detect it from her accent; nor that her name +is Julie S., nor that she lost her old mother a year or so ago, and now +stands quite alone in the world. However, we haven't been having a mere +family gossip, but the most profound conversation on art-matters. She +is more intelligent in such things, let me tell you, than many of our +colleagues. And now you must excuse me, gentlemen, if I don't let you +interrupt me in my work, but go on and finish this background to-day, +before the colors dry in."</p> + +<p class="normal">Up to this time Jansen had not spoken a syllable. Now he stepped up to +Angelica, gave her his hand, and said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you don't spoil this, my dear friend, you will make something out +of it that will do you great honor. Adieu!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He turned quickly away, and strode out of the studio without casting a +glance to right or left.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">When his friends overtook him in the street he remained silent and +serious; while Rosenbusch praised, in the most extravagant language, +the beauty of the picture.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If my heart were not already in such firm hands," he said, with a +sigh, "who knows what might happen! But constancy is no empty dream. +Besides, Angelica would scratch any one's eyes out who tried to play +the Romeo to her Juliet. But where are you dragging us to, Jansen?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"We are going to see 'Fat Rossel.'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I prefer to withdraw at once to my feeding-place and to await you +there. I have made a solemn vow never again to visit that accursed +Sybarite just before meal-time. It smells so devilishly of ambergris, +<i>pâti de foie gras</i> and East-Indian birds'-nests, so that after coming +away a man feels like a thorough vagabond over his wretched dumplings. +The devil take these lazy voluptuaries! Long live energy and +<i>sauerkraut</i>!"</p> + +<p class="normal">After this fierce outburst he nodded smilingly to the two others, +slouched his big hat over his left ear, and turned, whistling, into a +side street.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who is this 'Fat Rossel' against whom our friend Rosebud displays all +his thorns?" asked Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He isn't really so fierce as he tries to make himself out. The two are +good comrades, and would go through fire and water for one another in +case of need. This so-called 'Fat Rossel'--one Edward Rossel--is a very +rich man who isn't obliged to earn his living by painting--and for that +reason lets his great talent lie fallow. However, he has reduced his +intellectual laziness and amateur enjoyment of art to a system, and +concerning this system Rosenbusch invariably falls foul of him; for he +himself, in spite of all his 'energy,' has never produced anything of +much account. Here we are at the house."</p> + +<p class="normal">They passed through the pretty little front garden, before which they +had halted the day previous while on their way to the Pinakothek, +entered the door of a villa-like house, and mounted a staircase covered +with soft carpets. The hall shone with polished marbles, bronze +candelabra, and beautiful flowering plants in porcelain pots, that +perfumed the whole vestibule.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they entered the high-studded room above, that served as a +studio, but looked more like a museum of choice objects and works of +art than it did like a regular artist's workshop, there rose from a low +divan, covered with a leopard's skin, a singular figure. On a portly +but by no means clumsy body rested a stately head, in which sparkled a +pair of exceedingly bright black eyes. The face was of a very white +complexion, the beautiful hands were daintily cared for. The cut of the +features, with the close cropped silky hair, and the long black beard, +recalled the beautiful, dignified type of the high-bred Orientals. This +impression was still further heightened by a little red fez, shoved +back on the head, and a variegated Persian dressing-gown with slippers +to match, into which his bare feet were thrust, while the dressing-gown +apparently served in lieu of any other clothing.</p> + +<p class="normal">Slowly, but with great cordiality, the painter advanced to meet his +friends, shook hands with them, and said: "I made your acquaintance +yesterday from a distance, Herr Baron--through the blinds, when that +sly dog Rosebud was trying to entice me out into the noonday heat with +his flute. But that kind of thing is against my principles. It may be +all very meritorious to eat one's bread in the sweat of one's brow. But +as for enjoying art when reeking with perspiration--never! Excuse the +costume in which I receive you. I have just been taking a douche bath +and afterward resting a quarter of an hour. In five minutes I shall be +in a condition to present my material part with propriety."</p> + +<p class="normal">He disappeared into a side chamber, that was only separated by a +magnificent piece of Gobelin tapestry from his studio, and went on +talking with his friends while completing his toilet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Just take a look at my Böcklin, that I bought the day before +yesterday--over there by the window on the little easel--I am quite +happy over the possession. Well, what do you say to it, Jansen? Isn't +that something to console one's self with for a while, in the midst of +this universal poverty of art?"</p> + +<p class="normal">It was a little forest picture, that stood in the most favorable light, +near the window; it represented a dense wood of lofty oaks and laurel +bushes, through a little cleft of which could be seen a slender strip +of the distant horizon, and in one corner a patch of blue sky. At the +feet of the shady trees a brook rippled through the luxuriant grass, on +the banks of which reclined a sleeping nymph, with her nursling at her +side, its blunt little nose pressed close against the full maternal +breast, from which it seemed to be feeding quietly. In the centre of +the picture, leaning against a luxuriant tree, stood the young father, +a slim, well-built faun, looking down well pleased upon his family, and +holding in his hand the shepherd's flute with which he had just played +his wife to sleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix and Jansen were still absorbed in the contemplation of this +charming work when Rossel again appeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Such a thing is refreshing, isn't it?" he said. "It is a comfort to +know that there are still men who have such beautiful dreams, and the +courage to tell them to others, no matter if advanced and sensible +humanity, which now, thank God, has outgrown its baby shoes, and every +day sets its foot down more squarely on the broad sole of realism, does +shake its head and talk about having gotten beyond such standpoints. +This man is one of the few who interest me. You have undoubtedly seen +his splendid pictures in the Schack Gallery? No? Well, since you have +only been two days in Munich, I will forgive your ignorance. I will +take you there; it will afford me the greatest pleasure to recruit a +quiet list of worshipers for my few idols."</p> + +<p class="normal">"First of all," said Felix, smiling, "you would do me a greater favor +if you would show me something by one Edward Rossel, to whose +acquaintance my friends have led me to look forward with great +curiosity."</p> + +<p class="normal">"My own immortal works!" cried the painter, threatening Jansen with his +finger. "I know who is behind all this. I know the sly cabals of my +much-esteemed friends, who seize every opportunity to parade my +unproductiveness before my eyes. I know that they mean no harm, and +give me credit for some talent; I ought to be ashamed of myself for not +sharing this good opinion and at last rousing myself to action. But it +all glances aside from the armor of my own self-knowledge. I don't deny +that I have all sorts of good qualifications for an artist, sense and +brains and some insight into the true aims of art. Unfortunately, there +is only one little thing lacking--the disposition to really produce +something. I should have been just the man to have been born a Raphael +without hands, and would have borne this fate with the greatest +complacency. But won't you light a cigar, or do you prefer a chibouque? +By the way, a little refreshment wouldn't be out of place, considering +this tropical temperature."</p> + +<p class="normal">Without waiting for an answer, he rang a beautifully chased silver +bell.</p> + +<p class="normal">A young servant-girl, of pretty figure and graceful manner, entered; +the painter whispered a word in her ear, whereupon the girl disappeared +and returned, five minutes after, with a silver waiter, on which stood +a wicker-work bottle and some glasses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I brought this wine myself from Samos," said Rossel; "You must at +least taste it and drink to our good friendship!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then let me immediately sin against that friendship and ask a somewhat +indiscreet question: how is it possible for you to bury, like a dead +treasure, a talent which you yourself admit you have?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear fellow," replied the artist, coolly, "the matter is much +simpler than you suppose. My object is, like that of all men--let them +prate as much as they like about duty, virtue, or self-sacrifice--to be +as happy as possible. But happiness consists, as I believe, in nothing +else than in creating for one's self a certain state, a manner of life +or pursuit, in which one finds himself at the height of his +individuality, in the full enjoyment of his peculiar powers and gifts. +Therefore, every man has a happiness of his own; and nothing can be +more foolish than for one person to object to another's way of enjoying +himself, or to persuade or advise others to exchange their way for his. +The more any one makes himself feel, by his manner of life, that he is +a particular individual, the more Nature has attained her end in making +him, and the more contented he can be with himself and his situation. +All unhappiness arises from the fact that men try to do things for +which they are not fitted. If you give a million to a man born with a +genius for begging, you will make him an unhappy millionaire. He can no +longer exercise his talent. A virtuoso in suffering, a Stylites, or a +sister of charity, for whom you should suddenly provide a healthy and +comfortable life, would at once lose all individuality and so all +happiness. For it is undeniable that there are men who are only +conscious of their individuality when they are torturing themselves, in +the coarser or finer sense of the expression. To such, a state of +repose is an abasement, and to this class belong all truly productive +artists. To work, to produce something which shall afterward stand as a +monument of their power, appears to them the highest happiness; and +this happiness ought to be accorded to them all the more readily, from +the fact that most of them cannot live without it. Only they ought to +be just enough to look at the matter also from the opposite point of +view, where an individual only feels conscious of his powers and gifts +when in the free enjoyment of an apparently fruitless repose. When I +lie on my back and make pictures in the smoke of my cigar, or gaze upon +the works which great creative beings have produced in times gone by, +am I not, in my way, putting to good use that buried treasure within me +in which you were so good as to believe? and making of this individual, +whom his friends accuse of culpable laziness, the very thing for which +he was really fitted and intended--a perfectly harmonious and happy +man? Once in a while, indeed, the vulgar prejudice seizes even me, and +I suddenly grow tremendously active. But after the paroxysm has lasted +a week, at the longest, I suddenly see the folly of the proceeding and +throw the unfinished daub into some dark closet, among other embryos +of immortal works. Ah! my dear friend, there is so much struggling, and +pushing, and producing going on, that a quiet, inoffensive art-lover of +my disposition might well be tolerated as a salutary antidote to this +epidemic of activity."</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will let this old apple of discord drop for to-day," interrupted +Jansen, smiling. "I won't yet give up my old bet that some fine day you +will cease to take comfort in this bed that you have stuffed with +sophisms, and will begin to seek your happiness in some other way. But +in the meanwhile you might certainly show yourself at my place again. I +should like to know what you would say to my dancing girl; and besides, +I have done all sorts of other things since you were there."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will come, Hans. You know how I delight to take to heart the +frightful example of industry that I see in your saint-factory. By the +way--isn't next Saturday 'Paradise?'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly. The last before the autumn. Most of the fellows have +already begun to make their preparations for the summer vacation, and +in fourteen days we three shall probably be almost the only ones who +still hold out in the city."</p> + +<p class="normal">They left the studio, the painter accompanying them as far as the gate +of the front yard, and taking leave of Felix with great cordiality and +the hope that he should see him often.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is this about 'Paradise?'" inquired the latter, when they were +alone in the street again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall soon see for yourself. We come together once a month and +attempt to delude ourselves into the idea that it is possible in the +midst of this world to throw off the hypocrisy of society, and return +once more to a state of innocence. And for a few years past we have +really been fairly successful. A little group of good fellows has been +brought together, who are all equally impressed with the worthlessness +of our social state. But, after all, the German is not a social +creature; that which constitutes the charm of such societies among the +Latins and Slavs--the delight in talking for talking's sake, a certain +delicacy in lying, and, moreover, an early-acquired and really humane +tact and consideration for one's neighbors--all this we may possibly +gain in time in some of our large cities. But for the time being it is +certainly foreign to the genius of our nation, and it is only feebly +developed. The consequence is that in this city of art, where of all +the arts that of sociability is most behindhand, one has to choose +between two evils: the conventional society entertainments, which are +chiefly devoted to eating and drinking, and where one is seldom +compensated for the constraint of cultivated <i>ennui</i>; or else +Philistinism over the beer-table. For this reason we have adopted +another plan, which, to be sure, can only be successful when all those +who take part in it are united by the same longing for freedom, and the +same respect for the freedom of their neighbors. For, when no one wraps +a cloak about him, but shows himself unrestrainedly just as he is, no +one, on the other hand, has a right to pounce maliciously on the weak +spots which his neighbor may possibly expose--and each must, upon the +whole, be so constituted that he can show himself in his true character +without being disagreeable."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">In the first days of his wanderings through the quaint old streets--for +he avoided, as far as possible, the new and deserted quarters of the +town--Felix felt to the full the charm of South German life; that +robust, unrestrained power of enjoyment, that perpetual holiday-mood, +whose motto is "You may do what you choose." That this cheerful state +also has its dark sides; that it is not possible, without the sacrifice +of some higher benefits, to establish an average of character and +education which makes all classes mingle easily; that the lack of a +proletariat brings with it the lack of a rich and powerful intellectual +aristocracy--all such political and social speculations never entered +our friend's head, in spite of the fact that his travels about the +world had given him a keen insight into the civilization of different +countries. In a spirit of quiet defiance, he took delight in doing here +the very things which would have been most severely frowned on in that +native town from which he had fled. He visited the dingiest restaurants +and the most modest beer-gardens, ate from an uncovered table, and +drank from the mug which he had himself washed under the water-pipe; +and it seemed as if the only thing wanting to make his happiness +complete was, that the highly aristocratic society with which he had +quarreled should happen by and see, in silent horror, how happy the +fugitive was in his self-imposed exile.</p> + +<p class="normal">And yet, since everything inspired by pique carries with it a secret +feeling of dissatisfaction, he was after all not quite contented. Jolly +as it looked to wander about again at his own sweet will, it was, after +all, very different from what it had been years before when he first +spread his wings. In short, in his moments of reflection, when he +neither cared to forget nor to deceive himself, he was forced to admit, +with a kind of shame, that he was no longer young enough to goon +looking upon life as a brilliant adventure amid shifting scenes, and +that, in riper years, more depended upon the piece and the <i>rôle</i> which +one played in it than upon the scenes and the spectators who sit before +the footlights.</p> + +<p class="normal">True, he had from the first devoted himself zealously to his new +apprenticeship. But his conscience was too delicate to forget what +Jansen had said in regard to his fitness for art. Had his friend +congratulated him upon his decision, who knows but what, in spite of +all that was wanting to his happiness, he might have felt as contented +as it is possible for any man to feel in this imperfect world? But his +proud heart told him that the people who were now to be his associates +did not, in their hearts, consider him quite genuine, but looked upon +him as a singular being, who, from mere whim, had taken up with art +instead of with some other noble passion more suitable to his rank.</p> + +<p class="normal">This unfortunate feeling was still further heightened by the fact that +his relation to the only old friend he had here, for whose society he +had passionately yearned, did not, in spite of their daily intercourse, +ripen again into the old intimacy.</p> + +<p class="normal">When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in +Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon +become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend +with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was +cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by +taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the +senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him +long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and +his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble +arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and +then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in +confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were +looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen +struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, +who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own +unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, +that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any +encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist +by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in +other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to +detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less +incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, +and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty +living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be +petted by ladies and engaged for æsthetic tea parties, the first +feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders +people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp +antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his +pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social +traditions.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was thus that Felix found him then, and he found him but little +different now, after all these years of separation--averse to all +intercourse with men who did not stand in some relation or other to his +art, and inaccessible, so far as his inner life was concerned, even to +his few intimate acquaintances. But still the years had not passed +without leaving some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that +one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after +the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature +had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a +degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the +little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at +his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk +over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections +of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their +love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the +subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some +dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation +a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon +relapsed into more sullen silence than before.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which +would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of +his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and +now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green +island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was +then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock.</p> + +<p class="normal">One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not +in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now +visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter +from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and +her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl. +Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She +evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and +soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the +light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her +proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do +so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face +could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost +love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie.</p> + +<p class="normal">And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and +idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange +city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who +was his only love, that he could not help bursting out into a laugh, +only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute.</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends, +who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of +the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it +was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his +fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon +horseback.</p> + +<p class="normal">He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across +the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful +broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylæa, and outside, in +the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his +horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the +quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a +quieter gait of his own accord.</p> + +<p class="normal">The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home +from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a +tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back +to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very +pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her +hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the +fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish +way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence +the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly +attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the +foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in +vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up +just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to +instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took +him for an officer in <i>mufti</i>, or were frightened by his commanding +manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the +barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark +meadow.</p> + +<p class="normal">The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no +doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red +hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he +recalled her name.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good-evening, Fräulein Zenz," he said. "What lonely and dangerous +walks you take!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dangerous!" she returned, laughing, for she had immediately recognized +him. "What is there dangerous about it? They wouldn't have eaten me. I +can take care of myself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But if I hadn't by good luck come up--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you suppose I couldn't have got away from those two without your +help? I can run like the wind. You couldn't catch me even on +horseback."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well see about that, you little witch! If you don't look out--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He bent over and began, in his turn, to try and seize hold of her hair. +But her slim little figure instantly spun round on its heels, so that +her long locks slipped out of his hand again, and then she sprang like +lightning over the narrow ditch by the side of the road, and, before he +could collect himself, was away across the broad field, where she +suddenly vanished from his sight as if by miracle.</p> + +<p class="normal">His horse had shied at the girl's quick movement, and, for a moment, +gave his master enough to do in looking after him. Now, when he had +quieted him again, and, half laughing, half provoked, had dashed into +the meadow in pursuit of the fugitive, he could find no trace of her. +He called her name, spoke to her persuasively, and promised not to +touch her any more if she would only show herself again. It was only +after he had given up the search, and had angrily wheeled his horse +round in order to ride back into the avenue, that he heard, from behind +a heap of stones close at his side, which he had overlooked in his +zeal, a shrill giggling; and suddenly the girl sprang from the ground +and coolly marched up to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now you see that you couldn't have caught me, if I had not wanted you +to," she cried. "Now just ride quietly home; I can find my way well +enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are a regular witch--that's what you are!" he cried, laughingly. +"I see that people have more reason to be afraid of you than you of +them. But listen, Zenz, since we have chanced to meet in this way, tell +me now why you won't come to Herr Jansen's any more?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The question seemed to be disagreeable to her. She turned sharply on +her heel, and said, defiantly, beginning to put her dishevelled hair in +order: "What is that to you? What do you know about me, anyway? I can +do as I like, I suppose."</p> + +<p class="normal">"To be sure, Zenz. But it would be very nice of you if you would listen +to reason, and show yourself again. I am an artist, too, and would like +very much to make a sketch of you. Or, if you don't want to come to the +big studio any more, I have a very quiet lodging, and not a soul would +find it out if you came to me; you may be sure no one would do you any +harm, and I would give you a good reward--and you should choose what +you would have."</p> + +<p class="normal">While he was speaking she had never left off shaking her head. What her +expression was he could not see, for she had sank her chin on her +breast. Now she suddenly looked up at him and said, with a little laugh +that became her charmingly, while she twisted her streaming hair into a +thick knot: "I would just like to sit on horseback once, and ride round +real fast in a circle."</p> + +<p class="normal">"If it's nothing more than that," he laughed, "come! Don't be afraid, +but put your foot in the stirrup."</p> + +<p class="normal">He bent down over her again, grasped her under the arm that she reached +out to him, and swung up the light little figure as if it had been a +feather; then he let her down on the saddle before him and seized the +bridle. She instantly clasped her arms tight round his body, and clung +so close to him that for a moment she almost took his breath away, "Do +you sit firmly?" he called to her. She nodded, and laughed softly to +herself. Then he set his horse in motion and began to ride round in a +circle, at first slowly, then faster and faster, and she sat before him +on the saddle without moving, and pressed her head close against his +breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that what you like?" he cried; "or shall I stop?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not answer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How would it be," he said, "if now I should trot back to town with +you, and not draw rein until I came to my house? You would have to come +with me, then, whether you wanted to or not, and do what I asked you. +Aren't you quite in my power now?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He reined in the horse for a moment, as though to give her opportunity +to settle herself for a longer ride. But suddenly he felt how her arms +unclasped, and in the next instant she had slid down from the saddle, +and stood before him in the dusk, out of breath and rearranging her +light dress.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I thank you very much." she said. "It was very jolly; but, now, that's +enough. And all the rest is nonsense, and so, good-night! If you can +catch me again you may keep me!"</p> + +<p class="normal">In a second she had sprung away and disappeared behind the nearest +houses. Even if he had been seriously inclined to follow her, he would +never have been able to find her trail again among the gardens and +hedges that bordered the field.</p> + +<p class="normal">A few passers-by had watched this singular performance from the avenue. +He heard all sort of jokes that he did not understand. "Thank God!" he +said to himself, "if I had allowed myself to do such a thing in my own +dear home, the whole town would be talking of nothing else to-morrow, +besides adding all sorts of exaggerations. But here--'Hier bin ich +Mensch, hier darf ich's sein!' Long live golden liberty!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He rode back to town in merry mood. He imagined that he could still +feel the arms of the girl about his breast, and her warm breath on his +face. His blood had not been cooled by his ride, as he had hoped, and +the sharp trot to which he spurred on his horse did not help him. He +gave up the reeking horse at the riding-school, and then turned into +the Briennerstrasse, in order to sit awhile in the Court Garden, and +eat an ice and nurse his dreams.</p> + +<p class="normal">When he came back to the house where Julie lived, he checked himself +suddenly. Who was that standing motionless by the garden fence, with +his eyes fixed on the bright parterre window? Jansen?</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix made a wide circuit to avoid him, and stood looking at him on the +other side of the street in the shadow of the houses. For a good half +hour he saw his friend opposite continue at his post. Then the window +was closed by a heavy curtain, and, immediately after, the watcher at +the gate tore himself away and departed slowly.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix did not follow him. He scorned to be a spy on the secret ways of +his friend. What chance had disclosed to him gave him enough to think +about for to-day, without being able to find a solution to the riddle.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><i>BOOK II</i>.</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">It was unusually still in Angelica's studio, so still that one could +plainly hear, through the thin wall that separated her from her +neighbor, the cheerful squeak of his white mice. This was always a sign +that their master was, as he expressed it, on the rampage, wielding his +brush in the thick of the battle of Lützen.</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica, too, was very busy. But although she usually liked to chat +over her work, to keep the people who sat to her from falling asleep, +to-day she rarely opened her lips. It was the last sitting; the last +touch, which, after all, is always a new beginning, was to be given to +the picture--every stroke of the brush decided the fate of a <i>nuance</i>, +the success or failure of an expression.</p> + +<p class="normal">In order to work more surely, she had put on a pair of spectacles, +that can scarcely be said to have improved her appearance, and the +painting-jacket, on the left sleeve of which she was accustomed to wipe +her brush, had burst open in the ardor of her work, and, with her +lance-like maulstick and her shield-like palate, gave a certain +pugnacious aspect to her good, honest face, as if she were engaged in a +struggle for the release of the enchanted princess who sat in a chair +opposite her, and who was also unusually quiet. Whether Julie was +turning over in her mind some especially serious thought, or had, like +all people sitting to a painter, merely fallen under the influence of a +certain absent-minded melancholy, it was impossible to make out.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was especially beautiful to-day. Instead of her raw-silk dress, she +wore a lighter stuff of transparent black, through which gleamed her +white neck. Angelica had planned this in order that all the light +might be concentrated on the face; and the arrangement of the hair, +which left the contour of the head fully visible and allowed a few +simply-braided locks to flow over the shoulders, was a special +invention of the artist. Now, in the steady light, the dead white of +her complexion, and the soft blond of her hair, shone out so gently +subdued and yet so clear, and the eyes, under the brown lashes, had, +with all their softness, such a fiery sparkle, that one could +appreciate Angelica's assertion that a thing of this sort could not be +painted--gold, pearls, and sapphires were the only materials with which +to rival this fusion of color.</p> + +<p class="normal">It is true, the first bloom of youth was passed. A keen eye could +detect a wrinkle here and there, a certain sharpness of feature, and +the easy grace with which her noble figure moved left no doubt that she +had passed those years when a girl is always turning this way and that, +like a bird on a branch, as if always on the point of fluttering away +into the unknown, tempting, beautiful life outside, or else glancing +eagerly around to see whether a hunter or trapper is in sight.</p> + +<p class="normal">For that matter it would have been hard to conceive that this still, +reserved, charming creature had ever committed the usual school-girl +follies. But as soon as she began to speak, and especially to laugh, +her expressive face beamed with youthful merriment, her eyes, which +were a little near-sighted, slightly closed and took on a mischievous +look, and only her firm mouth retained its expression of thoughtful +determination. "The rest of your face," said Angelica at the very +first sitting, "was given you by God; for your mouth you must thank +yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">She had intended by this remark to lead up to a conversation about +careers and experiences; but the only answer was a meaning, yet +reserved, smile from the mouth of which she spoke. Angelica was a girl +of delicate feeling; she was naturally burning with curiosity to learn +more of the past life of her admired conquest. But, after the repulse +of her first attempts, she was much too proud to beg for a confidence +that was not proffered. For this self-denial she was to-day to be +rewarded, for Julie suddenly opened her lips, and said with a sigh:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are one of the happiest human beings I ever knew, Angelica."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm!" replied the artist. "And why do I seem so?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because you are not only free, but know how to make some use of your +freedom."</p> + +<p class="normal">"If it were only a good use! But do you really believe, dear Julie, +that my pictures of 'flower, fruit, and thorn pieces,' and my bungling +attempts to imitate God's likeness, have made me imagine that I am an +especially interesting example of my class? Dearest friend, what you +call happiness is really only the well-known 'German happiness'--a +happiness, because it is not a greater unhappiness--a happiness of +necessity."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can well understand," continued Julie, "that a moment never comes +when one feels perfectly contented; when one, so to speak, has reached +the summit of the mountain, and looks around and says: there is nothing +higher than this, unless one steps straight into the clouds. But yet +you love your art, and I think you can busy yourself all day, your +whole life long, with anything you love--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"If I only knew whether it loved me in return! Don't you see, there +lies the rub; a most 'devilish' rub, Herr Rosebud would say. Are +you really consecrated to art--I mean consecrated by the grace of +God--when, if it hadn't been for the merest chance in the world, you +would never have touched a brush?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You would never have touched a brush!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly; but instead of it a common kitchen-spoon and similar +household utensils. Why do you look at me incredulously? Do you think I +have been all my life a plain old maid? I, too, was once seventeen +years old, and by no means ill-looking--naturally not to be compared to +what is now sitting opposite me--not a regular feature in my whole +pretty face, no form, no style, merely the ordinary <i>beauté du diable</i>. +But, if one may trust certain evidences--though my archives of sonnets, +ball-favors, and other delicate offerings of the sort are burned, to be +sure--I was as neat and attractive a young person as thousands of +others. I had plenty of mother wit, you could read in my eyes that I +had a good heart, and, besides, I was by no means poor. Why should I +have lacked suitors? No, my dear, I even had a choice; and although I +do not now understand why I preferred one particular mortal to all +others, I must have known well enough at the time. I dimly remember how +wonderfully happy, joyous, and in love I was! If all had gone on in the +beaten track, I should probably have always been as happy and as much +in love--constancy is my chief fault--even if no longer so joyous. But +this was not to be. My betrothed was drowned while bathing--just think +of it, what an absurd misfortune! I was driven into a brain fever by +the shock and grief; when I got up from it my little <i>beauté du diable</i> +had gone to the <i>diable</i>. The next few years were spent as a widowed +bride, in tears; and, when these gradually ceased to flow, I was a +plain, prematurely-faded person, with a heart to be sure that had never +yet fairly blossomed out, but about which no one troubled himself +particularly. It was at that time also that we lost our little +property, and I was obliged to take up with some pursuit or other; then +it turned out to be good luck that even as a child at school I had +wasted much time on drawing and painting. Do you believe, dear friend, +that a virtue which one makes in this way out of a necessity--no matter +how deserving it may be--can ever make a mortal thoroughly happy at +heart?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why not, when all kinds of happiness come with it, as has been the +case with you? You visited Italy with that kind old lady about whom you +told me such nice stories the other day; you can work at your art here +in perfect freedom, without anxiety, thanks to the legacy of your +motherly friend; you live in this beautiful city, in the society of +friends and colleagues in art by whom you are respected--is all that +nothing?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"True, it is a great deal, and yet--I will whisper something in your +ear--let it be entirely between ourselves, and if I did not love you so +unreasonably that you might ask anything of me I would sooner bite off +my tongue than confess it to any living mortal--if I should become, in +the course of time, as celebrated as my namesake (whose pictures, it +must be confessed, always appear to me to be very stupid), or even +should in so far succeed as to become contented with myself as an +artist, I would give up all this exceptional good fortune for an +ordinary, humdrum happiness; a good husband, who need not even be a +remarkable combination of excellences, and a few pretty children, who, +for all I care, might be a little bit boisterous and naughty. There, +now you know all about it, and you will laugh at me because I so +naively confessed to you what we women generally hide like a sin."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You would certainly have made a splendid housewife," said Julie, +musingly. "You are so good, so warmhearted, so unselfish; you might +have made a husband very happy. I--when I compare myself with you--but +why shouldn't we call each other '<i>du?</i>' I have had all sorts of +unpleasant experiences with women friends with whom I have used that +familiar form, and that is the reason I have been so slow about it with +you--. Stop, stop, you must leave my head on my shoulders!--you are +squeezing me to death--if I had only known it sooner! And who knows but +what if you learn to know me better--."</p> + +<p class="normal">The artist had thrown away palette and maulstick, and had, after her +enthusiastic fashion, rushed upon the adored friend who had at last +made this return for her worship.</p> + +<p class="normal">"If I should know you a hundred years, I'll take care to love you a +hundred times more dearly!" she cried, as, kneeling down before Julie, +she folded her hands in her lap with a droll vivacity, and gazed +reverentially through her spectacles at the beautiful face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said her friend earnestly, "you do not really know me yet. Have +you any suspicion that by my own fault I have thrown away that +happiness for which you long, because, even as my best friends said, I +was heartless?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nonsense!" cried Angelica. "You heartless? Then I am a crocodile and +live on human flesh!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie smiled.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Were they right? Perhaps. I don't believe it myself. But you know it +is such a universal fashion to show one's self 'full of heart,' to +express feeling, sympathy, tenderness, even when one remains perfectly +cold, that the Cordelias will always be at a disadvantage. Even when +very young, and perhaps by inheritance from my father, who was a +strict, and on the surface a severe, old soldier, not much given to +demonstrations--even when a school-girl I felt a disgust for sweetness +and suavity, for affected sentimentality and humility--for all that +conventional amiability behind which the most cruel envy, the most icy +egotism, lurk concealed. I could never take kindly to sentimental +bosom-friendship, to compacts of the heart for life and death, that +were suddenly broken up by a ball-room rivalry, an honest reproof, or +even by pure <i>ennui</i>. My first experience in this respect was my +last. And how much sincere liking, and fidelity, and unappreciated +self-sacrifice I wasted on this child's play! From that time forth I +knew how to take better care of myself. And, in truth, it was not +difficult for me to keep guard over my heart. I lived with my old +parents, who both appeared, on the surface, dry and pedantic; but who +understood the art of making for themselves and me a rich, warm, and +beautiful life, that gave my thoughts and feelings ample nourishment. I +modeled myself after them, and spoke much the same language. I must +indeed have borne myself rather strangely, when, in the society of +young people, I expressed myself with regard to certain conventional +feelings in scornful terms which might have been pardoned to an old +soldier, but which did not become his daughter. I meant no harm with it +all. On many occasions, when others were moved to tears or enthusiasm, +I really experienced no sensation whatever, unless it were a feeling of +discomfort. But as often as anything really touched me--beautiful +music, a poem or some solemn impression of Nature, I became perfectly +dumb, and could not join in the enthusiastic prattle that went on in +the circle about me. Out of pure contempt for phrases, I assumed, in +defiance of my real feelings, to be cool and critical, and had to bear +being told that there was no getting on with me, that these secret joys +must always remain closed to me, a girl without a heart. I smiled at +this, and my smile confirmed these fine-strung souls in their belief in +my lack of feeling. As it so happened that I found none of them all +amiable enough to love in spite of these bad practices, I didn't care +in the least for my isolation. I had fared thus with my own sex, and +soon I was to find that I did not succeed much better with young men. I +was not long in observing that the stronger sex merely had other, and +by no means more amiable, weaknesses than we; above all, that they were +much vainer, and so care most for those of us who are willing to do +homage to their manly superiority. What is generally called maidenly +modesty, womanly tenderness, and virginal feeling--is it not, in ninety +cases out of a hundred, a craftily-planned artificial stratagem for +making fools of these mighty lords of creation? Here they find what +they want. Do they not meet in this pliant, yielding, dependent being +the best supplement to their dominant natures, the most touching +submission to their higher will, an accurately-toned echo of all their +most excellent wishes and thoughts? Afterward, when the purpose of the +pretty comedy has been attained, the mask is laid aside quickly enough; +we good lambs show that we, too, have a will and a mind and a power of +our own, and the beautiful delusion is rudely dissipated. As soon as I +had come to clearly recognize this, I felt the bitterest disgust for +it. Soon, however, I was forced to laugh, and to say to myself, this +farce is as old as the world! If, notwithstanding this, the proud lords +of creation still permit themselves to be deceived, they must, in one +way or another, find some advantage in it. But I could not even then +bring myself to join in the game, as I saw all the rest do. I cared +nothing for the object which made these petty means holy to all the +others. Merely to please the men in general? To do this I had no need +to exert myself especially, for I resembled my mother, who had passed +for a beauty. And to have won the <i>love</i> of a man it would have been +necessary for him to have first taken <i>my</i> fancy, for him to have first +become dangerous to <i>me</i>. But it never came to that. Really, I often +thought, have you a heart, or have you none, since it feels nothing at +all in the society of these gay officers, students, and artists, who +are such good dancers, have such a triumphant mien, and such faultless +white cravats, and who, with the most condescending superiority, allow +themselves to be enticed into the share by all these timid, blushing, +demure, sweet creatures, who are all the while secretly laughing in +their sleeves."</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie paused for a while with downcast eyes. "It is strange," said she, +with a sigh, "how we happened to come upon these old stories! You must +know, my dear, they are <i>really</i> very old--older than you think. I +shall soon be thirty-one years old! When I first began to make these +observations I was eighteen--now you can subtract for yourself. If I +had married then, I might now have had a daughter twelve years old. +Instead of that I am a well-preserved old maid, and my only admirer is +a silly painter, who has fallen in love with me merely out of a whim +for color."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," said Angelica, who, in the mean time, had zealously gone on with +her painting, "I won't be put aside in that way. I always did consider +the men pretty stupid, because, as you very rightly said, they allow +themselves to be caught by such clumsy tricks and artifices. But that +they should not have recognized your worth, that they should not have +cut each others' throats about you--as they did before Troy for that +Grecian witch--that is really incomprehensible to me! They cannot all +be so conceited and foolish; and, after all, there must be a few--I, +myself, have known one or two--. But please lower your chin just a +trifle."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, it is true," continued Julie, "there are a few. I have even come +across one for whose sake I myself might finally have been induced to +take part in the comedy, had not all talent for that kind of thing been +denied me. What his name was, how he came to know me, cannot matter to +you. He long ago married another, and has probably forgotten all of me +but my name--if not that. I--one of us never forgets such an +experience, even when it lies dead and buried in some corner of our +hearts; for that I had a heart, as well as other people, I discovered +at that time only too plainly--I pleased him exceedingly--he took care +to let me see this on every occasion--and then he really was better by +far, and much less infected by conceit and selfishness than most of the +others; and my straight-forward way of showing myself just as I was, +without affecting any coquettish sensibility, seemed to be attractive +to him because of its very rarity. As he was rich, and my parents were +well off, there was, on the other hand, no outward hinderance in our +way. And so, although no binding words had been exchanged, we were +tacitly looked upon as a match--I think the men relinquished me to him +much more honestly than my female friends gave up this much-sought man +to me. To be sure I myself was, even in this case, at least outwardly +much cooler and more reserved than happy lovers generally. I was, at +heart, deeply attached to the man of my choice; but there was always +mixed with it a silent fear, a sort of lack of sympathy--perhaps a +prophetic impulse of my heart that warned me not to give myself up +absolutely and entirely to this love. And, one day, during a +conversation about an accident in a Brazilian mine, where fifty men had +suddenly been killed by an explosion of fire-damp, the storm burst upon +me, and I had to suffer with those distant victims. All were deeply +lamenting over the occurrence, as is the fashion. I remained silent; +and when my betrothed asked me whether the terrible accident had +absolutely petrified me, I said I could not help it, but it affected me +very little more than if I had read in some history that in some +battle, a thousand years ago, ten thousand men had perished. The misery +of this world was so near us daily and hourly, and we were, for the +most part, so culpably indifferent to it, that I could not understand +why I should all of a sudden be expected to feel so much sympathy for a +misfortune which only attracted attention because it was in the latest +newspaper; and which was, moreover, a very common one and not even +accompanied by especially horrible circumstances. I had scarcely said +this when they all fell upon me--at first, of course, in a joking way, +and my old nickname--'the heartless girl'--was raked up again; but, as +I kept quiet and rather sharply repelled the accusations of these +delicate souls, their tempers became more and more aroused, and the +most zealous sermons on philanthropy were launched at me by the very +ones who would not have given a drink of water to a sick dog, and who +would only succor a poor man if it didn't make them too much trouble. +My friend, too, had grown silent, after having at first attempted to +take my part. But, like a thorough man--for such he always remained--he +could not conceal from himself the frightful truth that I was by no +means sufficiently soft and womanly in my feelings. My combative spirit +began to trouble him more and more--I could see this clearly--but now +all my pride was enlisted against any smoothing over or suppression of +my true nature. Although I was very near bursting into tears, I kept up +my bravery, fought out my case, and had the miserable satisfaction of +appearing to bear off the victory. A dearly-purchased victory! From +this evening my lover perceptibly began to draw back, my 'best friend' +took it upon herself to enlighten him more and more concerning my +character; and since she herself possessed those very traits which were +lacking in me, and which alone, it is said, can guarantee the happiness +of marriage, nothing could be more natural than that before three weeks +were up he should become engaged to this sympathetic being, who for +thirteen years now has--. But I will say nothing bad of her. She has +certainly done <i>me</i> a great service, for, perhaps, I might not have +made this man much happier. And, at the time, she spared me a hard +spiritual struggle. Had I been actually engaged, I might, perhaps, have +hesitated to fulfill the duties that my poor mother had a right to +demand of me. For you must know that my father died very suddenly, and +then it appeared that the mother of the heartless girl--who also passed +for a cold character--concealed a much more passionate love under an +austere exterior than most old women are accustomed to retain beyond +their silver-wedding. The death of her old husband first threw my +mother into a serious illness, and then into a half-wandering state, in +which she lived on for many years, to her torture and to mine!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She paused; then she suddenly stood up and stepped to the artist's side +behind the easel.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Pardon me, dear," she said, "but I think you ought to stop. Every +additional stroke of the brush that tones down or paints away anything +will make it look less like me. Look at me more carefully--am I really +that blooming creature that beams upon the world from out that canvas? +Twelve years of denial, loneliness, and living entombment, have they +left no trace upon my face? That is the way I might have looked, +perhaps, had I known happiness. They say, you know, happiness preserves +youth. But I--I am horribly old! And yet, in reality, I have not begun +to live!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned hastily away and walked to the window.</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica laid aside her palette, went softly up to her, and threw her +arm about her agitated friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Julie," said she, "when <i>you</i> speak that way--you, who by a mere smile +could tame wild animals and drive tame men mad!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned to her comforter, and the tears stood in her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, my dear," she said, "what nonsense you are talking! How often I +have envied a young peasant girl, with an ugly, stupid face, who +brought us eggs and milk, simply because she could come and go as she +liked, and moved among living beings! But I--can you conceive what it +means to have constantly at your side a being whom you cannot but love, +and yet whom you are forced to look upon as one dead, as a living +ghost; to hear the voice that once caressed you utter senseless +sounds, to see the eye that once beamed on you so warmly, strange and +dimmed--the eye, the voice, of your own mother? And this, year in and +year out--and this half-dead being only waked into anxiety and +agitation whenever I made an attempt to leave her. For, truly, when I +had borne it a year, I thought I was being crushed by it, without +feeling the satisfaction that the sacrifice of my life could be of any +possible service to this most miserable being. Yet as often as she +missed me for a longer time than the few hours daily to which she had +become accustomed, she lapsed into the most violent uneasiness, and +only became quiet again when she saw me once more. I had to reconcile +myself to the idea that I was necessary to her existence--to an +existence that I could by no possibility make happy, or enliven, or +even lighten. For so long as I was at her side she scarcely noticed me; +indeed, she often appeared not even to recognize me. And still she +could not exist without me; and in the asylum, to which she was once +carried for the sake of an experiment, she lapsed into a state so +pitiable that even 'a girl without a heart' could not but be moved by +it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Horrible! And you lived with her in this way for twelve long years?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"For twelve long years! Does it still seem to you so incomprehensible, +so 'stupid' of the men that they did not positively force themselves +upon a girl who would have brought, with a little bit of beauty and +property, this face into their house? No, dear, the men are not so +stupid, after all. Even if I had been engaged, and had loved my lover +with my whole heart, I could never have expected him to join his life +to that of a woman who was chained fast to so horrible a lot."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But now, since you have become free--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Free! A fine freedom to be allowed to dance when the ball is over, to +console myself with artificial or painted flowers for the rosy time +that was neglected. I once read somewhere that happiness is like wine; +if one does not drink up the entire cask at once, but pours some of it +into bottles, some time one will have the good of it. It will have time +to ripen and become nobler, if it is of the right sort. There may be +some truth in this; but, no matter how noble it may be, the old wine +has lost its bouquet. The happiness that one hasn't enjoyed when young +has a bitter taste; and, for that matter, who guarantees that I shall +ever slake my thirst again? Many thousands never moisten their lips, +and live soberly on. Why should I fare better? Because I have more +beauty than many! That would be fine, indeed! Fate is not in the least +gallant, and draws up its decrees without regard to persons. Now, when +I stand before the glass, I always see the same well-known face that +has lost its youth. I seem to myself like a silk dress that has hung in +the closet for twelve years. When one takes it out it is still silk, +but the color has faded, the folds tear when it is touched, and when it +is shaken out fly the moths! But I have let enough of them fly out of +my head to-day. There is no use in going over old experiences. Come! we +will paint a little more, and then go and take a drive--for what is our +glorious liberty for?"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">In Jansen's studio, too, there was more talking than working going on +this morning.</p> + +<p class="normal">Edward Rossel had, at last, in spite of the heat, summoned up +sufficient energy to undertake the short walk thither. A gigantic +Panama hat, over which he also held a sunshade, protected his head; +besides this he wore a summer suit of snow-white piqué, and light shoes +of yellow leather.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was in a very good humor, praised Felix for the assiduity with which +he continued to study his skeleton, and then stepped up to the Dancing +Girl, to which Jansen had just put the finishing touches.</p> + +<p class="normal">He stood silently before it for some time, then he drew up a chair near +it and begged Jansen to turn the stand so that he would be able to view +the work from all sides.</p> + +<p class="normal">His friends declared that it was a pleasure to see him look at +anything. His glances seemed to fairly fasten upon the form, or rather +to take it all in; all the muscles of his face became animated, and an +intellectual tension curved his somewhat languid mouth.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well," asked Jansen, at last, "how does it strike you? You know I can +bear anything."</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Est, est, est!</i> What is there to be said about it, especially? +Naturally, it has gained and lost, as is always the case. The innocent +audacity, the Pompeian <i>abandon</i>, that charmed me in the little sketch +has, as a whole, suffered in the execution. You might do better, +perhaps, to disguise your respect for Nature a little more. And, +by-the-way--with all respect for this Nature--what sort of a model did +you have? Of course it is very strongly idealized?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not in the least. A pure <i>facsimile</i>."</p> + +<p class="normal">"What? This neck and breast, these shoulders, arms--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A conscientious copy, without any additions."</p> + +<p class="normal">Fat Rossel stood up.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should have to see that to believe it," he said. "Look here, +compared with this the conventionalities of Canova are mere wretched +sugar-work. And that is what I was just going to say to you--the +Grecian element that was in the sketch is gone. In its place there are +a grace, an <i>esprit</i>, an elegance of form--and that, too, of a +spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky +man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did +this little slip grow?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen shrugged his shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any +length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition +in mind, for which this little one--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your +laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by +the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this +forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful +red--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over +to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks +past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop +in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that, +since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better. +Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will +also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest +shall be my care."</p> + +<p class="normal">He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall +near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in +the middle of the studio.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How far have you got with the Eve?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen, +quickly. "She is just at a stage--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How +long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins? +Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in +from the saint-factory?"</p> + +<p class="normal">A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of +answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and +with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel, +appeared on the threshold.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have +company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague +and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly +kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fräulein Angelica how this +undeserved slight hurt my tender heart!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Herr Rossel," continued the artist, "you are a scoffer, and, as a +punishment for boasting of a tender heart, which you do not possess, +you shall not be given a chance to see something beautiful. I simply +wished to request Herr Jansen to come and look at my picture, for I +have just had my last sitting, and my friend has given me permission. +She knows how important his judgment is to me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But if I vow to be very good, and not to open my mouth--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have such a deprecating way of screwing up the corners--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will hold my hat before my face--only my eyes shall peep over the +rim."</p> + +<p class="normal">"For Heaven's sake, come then! although I don't place much confidence +in your most solemn vows. I place myself under Herr Jansen's +protection; and if the Herr Baron would perhaps like to come too?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen had not spoken a word, but, with conspicuous haste had exchanged +his frock for a coat and had washed the dust from his hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they entered the studio above, they found Rosenbusch already +engaged in the most enthusiastic admiration of the picture, while, at +the same time, he endeavored in his chivalrous way, to bestow at least +half of his enthusiasm upon the original.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie had risen and gone toward his chair. When she saw Angelica return +with a triple escort, instead of the one she expected, she seemed +slightly confused. But the next moment she greeted the gentlemen, whom +Angelica introduced to her, with easy grace.</p> + +<p class="normal">A pause followed. Jansen had stepped before the picture, and, with the +great authority which he enjoyed in this circle, not even Edward +himself dared to say a word before he had expressed his opinion. It was +Jansen's way not to reduce his impression immediately to words. But, on +this occasion, he remained silent unusually long.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Tell me frankly, dear friend," Angelica began at last, "that I have +once more undertaken something that deserves the palm for no other +reason than for its audacity. If you only knew what contemptuous +epithets I have heaped upon myself while I was painting! I have made +myself out so bad, have so run myself down, that Homo would not take a +piece of bread from me if he had heard me. And yet, in the midst of my +dejection, I still took such unheard-of pleasure in my daubery that, do +what I would, I could not let my courage sink. If my friend were not +present, I should be able to explain to you the reason for this. As it +is, it would seem in very bad taste if I should forthwith make her a +declaration of love in the presence of witnesses."</p> + +<p class="normal">The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly,</p> + +<p class="normal">"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that +this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent +performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?"</p> + +<p class="normal">A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round +face of the painter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it +only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--"</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the +contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at +the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other +things.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion +that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised +the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful +coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise +in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of +his commendation as a whole.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to +do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one. +What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain +around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--<i>à la Paris Bordone?</i> or +a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home, +that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the +hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And so on, with graces <i>in infinitum</i>!" laughed the painter. "You must +know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most +magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my +dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have +accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so +favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of +patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time +to come."</p> + +<p class="normal">"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely +jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that +has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for +just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You?--your laziness is all that is immortal about you!" replied the +painter.</p> + +<p class="normal">They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch +and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and +Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no +further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded.</p> + +<p class="normal">After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two +friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she +might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, how did he please you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted +himself least to please anybody, not even you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old +as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and +the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows +the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable +of the most incredible and superhuman things."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I really believe, my dear, you are in--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let +anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say +to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat +this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would +try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I +believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must +undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to +comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this +unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do +anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes, +something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who +knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has +something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the +sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside. +His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in +him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an +unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I +chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was +combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck +me then as being so helpless that I could not help laughing and +offering myself as a lady's maid for the dog, at which he showed great +delight. That broke the ice between us, and, since then, I take the +most inconceivable liberties with him, although my heart still +continues to thump if he chances to look at me in his quiet, steady +way, for a minute at a time."</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie was silent. After some time she said, suddenly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is true he has eyes such as I have never before seen in a man. One +can read in those eyes that he is not happy; all his genius cannot make +him glad. Don't you find it so, too? Wonderfully lonely eyes! Like +a man who has lived long, years in a desert, and has seen no living +soul--nothing but earth and sun. Do you know anything of his life?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. He himself never speaks of it. Nor do any of the others know +what he may not have gone through before he came to Munich. That was +about five years ago. But now, if you will just sit still a moment +longer--so!--it's only for the reflection in the left eye, and the +retouching about the mouth."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then the painting went on for another hour in silence.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">On the outskirts of the "English Garden" there lies, among other +pleasure-resorts of its class, the so-called "Garden of Paradise." In +the midst of a grove stands a large, stately building, at the laying of +whose corner-stone no one would have ventured to predict that it would +some day become a place of refuge for so mixed a company. Here, on +summer days, merry and thirsty folk are wont to gather round the tables +and benches, while a band plays from a covered platform. But the large +hall on the ground floor of the house is generally used for dancing, +while the lower side-wings are opened for spectators and for couples +that are resting from the waltz.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was eleven o'clock at night, A thunderstorm, that had gathered +toward evening, had prevented the advertised garden-concert from taking +place. When the storm had scattered again after a few harmless +thunderclaps, the seats filled up very slowly; and the beer-drawer at +the open booth among the trees had plenty of time to doze between the +stray mugs that were handed in to him to be filled. For this reason the +garden had been closed earlier than usual; and when it struck eleven +the house lay as still and deserted as though there were not a living +being within.</p> + +<p class="normal">And yet the long hall in the left wing, which was reached from the +garden by a few steps, was, if not actually as light as day, at all +events sufficiently illuminated by a dozen lamps along the wall. In the +rear, where at this time scarcely any one passed through the deserted +street, the upper, semicircular part of the windows was left open for +the sake of ventilation, while the lower part remained tightly closed. +Dark figures approached along the street, singly, or in groups of two +or three just as they chanced to come together, and entered the house +by the back door. On the side toward the English Garden everything +remained as dark and lifeless as was ever an old wall behind which +counterfeiters ply their trade in dimly-lighted cellars.</p> + +<p class="normal">The interior of the hall was, when seen by daylight, not altogether +unornamented. The inspired hand of some house-painter had covered the +wall spaces between the windows with bold landscape conceptions <i>al +fresco</i>, where were to be seen, amid fabulous castles, cities, +river-gorges, and wooded ravines, blue wanderers strolling about in +green hats, and horsemen careering on chargers of very questionable +anatomy, followed by dogs that belonged to no known race. In the +dazzling blue sky above these outgrowths of a cheery decorator's +fantasy, sometimes through a tree-top or the slanting pinnacle of a +robber-castle, a society of carpenters' apprentices, which met here +once a week, had driven large nails that they might hang up +symmetrically their various diplomas, decorated with pictures and +mottoes, and dotted with little balls.</p> + +<p class="normal">But, on the night of which we speak, all this splendor had disappeared +behind a thick veil of growing plants. Tall evergreen bushes stood +between the windows, and stretched their slender branches to the roof, +so that the squalid walls seemed transformed into a tropical garden. A +long, narrow table, with green, big-bellied flagons, occupied the +middle of the room, and in a corner was a cask, about the polished tap +of which hung a wreath of roses, while on a little table near by stood +baskets with white rolls and a few plates of fruit.</p> + +<p class="normal">Only a few dozen chairs surrounded the table, and these were not more +than half occupied, when Jansen and Felix entered the room. Through the +light haze of lamplight and tobacco-smoke they could discern the pale +face of Elfinger beside the battle-painter's blooming countenance; the +fez-covered head of Edward Rossel, comfortably reclining in an American +rocking-chair and smoking a chibouque; then one and another of the +artists who had occasionally shown themselves in Jansen's studio. +Nothing like a servant was anywhere to be seen; and each, as soon as he +had emptied his glass, went himself to the cask and filled it. Some +strolled, chatting, along the green hedge up and down the hall; others +sat, absent and expectant, in their places, as though in a theatre +before the beginning of the play; and only Fat Rossel, who alone +rejoiced in a comfortable seat, seemed to blow clouds of smoke up to +the ceiling as if already in a true paradisaic frame of mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">As Felix approached him, there arose at his side a tall, thin figure in +a hunting-blouse, with high riding-boots, and a short French pipe +between his lips. Once before, while walking in the street, Felix had +caught a hasty glimpse of this singularly-shaped face, with its +choleric complexion and its close-cropped hair, its coal-black +imperial, and a broad scar across the right temple; its owner had been +mounted on a handsome English horse, which had attracted his attention +more than the rider. This man managed his lank limbs awkwardly and +clumsily, as if he had lost his natural balance the moment that he +ceased to feel his horse between his legs. Besides, he had a way of +either continually pulling at his goatee, or of twitching the lobe of +his right ear. Felix noticed that he wore a little gold ring in his +left ear. The right one was disfigured; the earring, that had once been +worn there, seemed to have been torn out by force at some time or +other.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I take the liberty of introducing myself," said the lank individual, +bowing to Felix with soldierly formality. "My name is Aloys von +Schnetz, a first-lieutenant on the retired list; as a friend of the +seven liberal arts, I am allowed the honor of entering this Paradise. +Inasmuch as amphibious creatures undoubtedly existed even in the garden +of God, therefore a being like myself, who occupies a middle place, at +once an aristocrat and a proletarian, no longer a soldier, for good +reasons, and also not an artist--unfortunately for still better +reasons--may be said not to be out of place among good people, of whom +each has some pretty definite aims and powers. You, too, as Fat Rossel +has just confided to me, belong, to a certain extent, to my class, +although I hope and trust that you represent a somewhat more edifying +species. Come, take a seat here by my side. There are people who +declare that I put them out of humor. I am accused of giving myself +great pains to see the world as it is, and to call things by their +right names; sensitive natures call that cynicism, and find it +unpleasant. But you shall see it is not so bad, and here in Paradise I +try to forget, as far as possible, that we pick sour apples from the +tree of knowledge. However, I ought, like a true amphibian, to conduct +you, after so dry an introduction, into a moist element."</p> + +<p class="normal">He set his long, Don-Quixote legs in motion toward the cask, filled two +bumpers and brought them back to Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have become converted to wine," he said, growling it out in a half +ironical, half bitter tone; "although, strictly speaking, it is an +anachronism, as it is well known that wine was given to mankind as a +compensation for a lost Paradise. Beer, on the other hand, is entirely +an invention of the darker middle ages, to make men mere idle slaves to +the priests, and it has never yet occurred to any one to seek truth +anywhere but in wine. So, then, here's to your health, and hoping that +you may succeed better than I have in becoming one of these primitive +men!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix knocked glasses with his queer new friend, and then proceeded to +observe the unknown persons who had in the mean while strolled in. +Schnetz gave him their names. Most of them had passed their first +youth. Only one boyish face, of a foreign cast, gazed dreamily with +big, black eyes into the cloud of smoke that circled up from his +cigarette. It was, Schnetz told his neighbor, that of a young Greek +painter, twenty-two years old, who was, in spite of his delicate, +almost girl-like appearance, a dangerous lady-killer. He was not really +intimately acquainted with any of them, and only Rossel's intercession +in his favor and his talent, which was by no means slight, had procured +him the entrance into this circle.</p> + +<p class="normal">A little, bent old man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, was +the last to enter. He hung his hat and cloak on a nail, and took his +seat in the only unoccupied chair at the upper end of the table near +Jansen, who gave him a kindly welcome.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix was surprised at the presence of an old man amid this rising +generation. To be sure, Schnetz, too, was no longer a youth--he might +well be over forty. But in every muscle of his sinewy figure throbbed a +suppressed energy, while it was evident that the quiet, white-haired +old man, who sat at the upper end of the table, had long since left +behind him the storms and struggles of life.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I see that you are puzzling your head about our 'creator,'" said +Schnetz, twisting his goatee. "For that matter I don't know much more +about his intimate affairs than I do about the personal experiences of +the real Deity. That he is an artist, or rather that he was once--of +that there can be no doubt. Every word that he utters, when the +conversation turns upon art, proves this. He undoubtedly belongs, +however, to a geological stratum whose fauna has died out. Nor has any +one of us ever seen one of his works, or known how or where or from +what he lives. His name is Schöpf; and when, three years ago, while +our Paradise was still in its infancy, he was introduced here by +Jansen--whom he had visited in his studio, and whose interest he had +speedily known how to enlist--we permitted ourselves the cheap joke of +twisting Schöpf into Schöpfer,<a name="div2_02" href="#div2Ref_02"><sup>[2]</sup></a> and at the same time of appointing +him host and chief steward of the Paradise. At that time we still +reveled in buffoonery of that sort, each of us bearing some kind of +appropriate nickname; and we continued to keep this up until at last +the cheap joke was run into the ground. But we had grown to like and +respect the old man, who showed himself such a quiet and friendly +providence that the first man could hardly have boasted of a better +one. He looks after all our business affairs, takes charge of the +society's treasury, selects our wine, and keeps an eye on the gardener +who decorates our hall. With all this we see him but once a month. +During the intervening period he vanishes. When we hold our masked +ball, at which the <i>daughters</i> of Eve are also allowed to appear, he +makes himself useful until the first stroke of the fiddle is given, and +then he creeps off home again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is hardly probable that he can be a native here, if he can play the +<i>rôle</i> of a mysterious personage so easily."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't you believe it. Here in Munich there are a large number of such +subterranean existences, whose strange ways and dodges escape +attention--ay, even common gossip--for the reason that here there is no +society, in the true sense of the word. In every other city of equal, +or even of greater size, one knows pretty well what his dear fellow-men +are about; at least this is the case in regard to the notable ones who +rise above the common level--one knows what they have to pay their +tailor with, or how much they are owing him. But this place swarms with +amphibious beings of both sexes who, when they are no longer able to +keep above water, dive down into a more or less turbid element, where +they become invisible. I myself have already had the honor of +introducing myself to you as such a dual being; not that the ground is +unsteady under my feet--I quitted the service of my own accord from +personal motives--but the dryness up there on the surface became +unbearable for me; I am one of the malcontents, of whom you see so many +here, who have slammed the door in the face of so-called good society, +partly because it is insipid, partly because it is base, and who now, +in paradisaic freedom, are trying to find their world in their friends. +But your glass is still full! Come! You must do our Jordan more honor."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A Jordan in Paradise? My geography does not go so far as that, or +perhaps new discoveries have--"</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz had just began to explain to him that this noble wine came from +the vineyard of Herr Jordan at Deidesheim, and that for this reason +they had agreed to transfer the river of the promised land into India +on their maps, when Elfinger rose and informed them that it was "his +turn" to-night, and that he had prepared something, but that first some +sketches would be exhibited.</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon this a number of studies were passed around the table, landscape +sketches, and plans and designs of all kinds--among others the drawings +of a young architect for the building of a special hall for the +Paradise Club, which excited great applause, and called forth the most +amusing propositions as to the manner in which funds should be raised +to cover the cost of this most timely work.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean while an insignificant-looking, lean man, with an +awkward manner, and wearing a threadbare coat that was buttoned +tight to conceal the absence of a waistcoat, had taken a large gray +sheet of paper from a portfolio, had fastened it with tacks to the +window-shutter, so that the lamps on the wall threw a pretty strong +light upon it, and had then stepped back in order to invite an +inspection of his work. It was a pen and ink sketch, full of figures, +the lights touched up with white, but done with so complete a disregard +of effect that the composition appeared, at the first glance, to be a +strangely-confused swarm, in which it was impossible to make out either +the details or the plan as a whole.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Our Cornelian, Philip Emanuel Kohle!" growled Schnetz. "Another of +those unlucky erratic bowlders in the midst of the flat common of our +modern art, torn from the summit of some heaven-aspiring mountain, and +then rolled, a strange intruder, into the fertile plain of mediocrity, +where no one knows what to do with it. Let us go nearer. These outline +fanatics scorn to produce an effect at a distance."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have taken for my subject," explained the artist, "a poem of +Hölderlin's--you undoubtedly all know it--Hyperion's song of fate--or, +if it has escaped your recollection--I have brought the text with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon this he drew from his pocket a very dog'seared little book and +read the verses, although he knew them by heart. As he proceeded his +cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkled, and his whole meagre figure appeared +to grow in height; and when he finished there was silence for a while +in the group that was examining the drawing.</p> + +<p class="normal">The artist still seemed to have an explanation to make, but he did not +utter it: as if, after such words of genius, any prosaic paraphrase +would be a desecration. And, indeed, the singular composition now +sufficiently explained itself.</p> + +<p class="normal">A mountain, whose base covered the whole lower breadth of the large +sheet, rose up in jagged tiers like a tower, and ended in a smooth +plateau, on which were seen reclining, veiled in a light cloud, the +figures of gods assembled about a banquet table, while others, with +winged feet, either strolled about singly or arm-in-arm, or amused +themselves with dance and song. All seemed a dreamy, floating whirl of +forms, heightened here and there by abrupt foreshortenings of the long +limbs and by angular effects of drapery. Among these Olympian figures, +but separated by an impassable barrier of cloud and storm, could be +seen the races of mankind, in the most various and spirited groups, +suffering all the woes of mortals. Nearest the gods, and hallowed as it +were by their proximity, children were playing and lovers were +whispering; but the paths that branched off soon led to scenes of +suffering and misery, and certain symbolical figures, which were +scattered in among the human forms at the principal passes of the +mountain, made manifest the intention of the designer to represent both +the effects and power of vice and passion, while the division into +seven stages pointed to the seven deadly sins. A solemn, unbending +earnestness, and a certain loftiness in their submission to this +downfall--</p> + +<p class="center" style="font-size:90%">"Through long years into the uncertain depths below"--</p> + +<p class="continue">gave to this somewhat unwieldy composition a great depth of feeling +which animated even what was grotesque, and impressed upon the stronger +parts the unmistakable stamp of a great mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">The mere number of the figures occupied the attention for a long time; +then followed all sorts of criticism, which the designer bore without +contradiction--no one knew whether from defenselessness or secret +obstinacy. For Jansen's opinion only did he watch with eagerness, who, +after his usual fashion, allowed the others to talk, while he merely +pointed now and then with an eloquent finger to some defective spot.</p> + +<p class="normal">The only one who had remained quietly seated, and who had looked at the +sheet across the table and down the whole length of the hall, through a +little ivory opera-glass, was Edward.</p> + +<p class="normal">At length Rosenbusch, whose high tenor had rung out in enthusiastic +expressions of praise above all the confusion of voices, turned to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What!" he cried, in a hearty tone of challenge, "will not the blessed +gods rouse themselves this once from their reclining-place, and cast a +gracious look upon this work of a mortal?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Pardon me, my dear Rosebud," replied Fat Rossel, lowering his voice so +that he should not be heard by Kohle; "you know I like to have what is +beautiful come to me, instead of having to run painfully after it; and +the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel made the most profound impression +upon me, because a man can only enjoy it thoroughly lying on his back. +Concerning this last heaven-towering monument of thought, that my +godfather has set up"--for so he had persisted in calling him +ever since he had aptly, though ironically, christened one of his +unnamed, thoughtful drawings, and Kohle had accepted the title in sober +earnest--"concerning this I am not gymnast enough to follow his motives +up seven stories high without growing giddy. However, when you have all +finished, I will draw up a chair in front of it and go to work; or, to +tell the truth, I should prefer to do it tomorrow alone with him."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I should be very glad, Rossel, if I might bring you the sketch +to-morrow," stammered the pale man, who had probably overheard the +scoffing words, and had blushed deeply.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Would you really like it, godfather?" said Edward, with a shake of the +head. "No, my good friend, if my heresies have reached your ears after +all, let us come to an honorable understanding; and here in Paradise, +at all events, let us wear no cloaks. You know that all paintings that +represent thought make my head ache; that, to my mind, a single +thoughtless Venus of Titian outweighs a whole Olympus full of spiritual +motives, such as swarm about like ants over your big pound-cake of an +allegorical mountain. Yes, we are old antipodes, my dear godfather; +which fact, by-the-way, does not lessen our friendship. On the +contrary, when I see how you and your creations are losing flesh +through pure intellect, I feel a hearty compassion mingled with my +esteem. You should try a milk-cure, my good godfather, at the full +breasts of our old mother Nature; you should follow the flesh for a +year or so, instead of high ideas--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is not every tree that has its bark full grown," interposed Kohle, +meekly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"True. But a tree that has no bark at all!--and, you see, that's just +how your whole style appears to me, you mighty disciple of Cornelius! +We see the complicated structure of your thoughts, we see how the sap +of your ideas circulates through it; all of which is very remarkable +and edifying, but anything rather than artistic. For ought not true art +to work upon us like a higher Nature, without putting forth much +ingenuity and subtilty, without all that complication of poetical +affinities and philosophical <i>finesse?</i> No, it should be simple and +plain, but purified by the flame of genius from all weakness, all +defects, and every kind of wretchedness. For instance, in the +contemplation of a beautiful woman, lying there so quietly, or of a +stately senator, or of an 'Adoration of the Kings,' how much does one +think about the ingenuity of the thing? Either it conveys no meaning, +or an incomprehensible one, or even an unprofitable one. And yet it +charms us, even across the whole width of the hall, merely by its +<i>silhouette</i>, or its wealth of color, or its simple and majestic +sensuous beauty, such as we seldom or never find in Nature without some +vulgar adjunct. On the other hand, take a poem in picture like the one +before us--I invariably find myself searching at the foot of the frame +to see whether the draughtsman has not added some notes that may serve +to explain the text. A printed paper answers the whole purpose quite as +well, something entitled 'The picture and its description;' and the +dear Philistine who talks about the 'arts of culture'--because he +thinks it is with his own special culture that they have to do--is only +too happy if he can imagine that he is going through some connected +process of thought while he looks at it. But <i>I</i> say, long live the art +that leaves no room for thought! And, now, give me something to drink!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz filled his glass for him, which he drained at one draught as if +he were exhausted by his long oration. A painful silence had ensued; +the depreciatory tone in which the words had been spoken had depressed +even those who were of Rossel's way of thinking. At length a mild and +somewhat husky voice was heard proceeding from the upper end of the +table, and they saw that old Schöpf had taken upon himself to defend +the cause of the party attacked.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are undoubtedly right in the main, Herr Rossel," said he. "In +the great epochs of art--among the Greeks, and the Italians of the +<i>cinque-cento</i>--mind and Nature were inseparably united. But, +unfortunately, they have quarreled since then, and it is quite as rare +to find a painter of the so-called fleshly school who knows how to give +soul to his form as it is to find a poet among draughtsmen who succeeds +perfectly in incorporating his conceptions. In fact it is a period of +extremes, of specialties, and of strife. But is not strife the father +of things? Shall we not hope that from this chaos a new and beautiful +world will crystallize? And, until then, should we not give every one a +chance who fights with honest weapons and open visor? What if there are +artists who have more to say than can be shown? Who cannot look upon +their inner life in such a spirit of tranquil beauty, but see in it a +tragedy which must work itself out in discords? And, indeed, the life +of man, as it is to-day, has passed out of the idyllic stage; on every +side we see intellect leading the van, and enjoyment and pleasure +limping after. An art that shows no traces of this, would that still be +<i>our</i> art?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let it be whatever it liked," cried Fat Rossel, leisurely rising; "it +would be my art at all events. But, naturally, that need matter little +to you. And by the way--I have not once shaken hands with you this +evening, my lord and creator. I do so now, and at the same time I thank +you for so bravely dragging my excellent godfather Kohle from out the +fray. He himself likes to keep his best thoughts in his own breast, +unless he has a chance to sketch them on a sheet of paper. And here in +Paradise no one ought to fall upon his fellow-man in the murderous +fashion that I just did. Kohle, I esteem you. You are a character, and +have the courage of your convictions, in defiance of all the lusts of +the flesh. I thank you, especially, for that poem of Hölderlin's, that +I confess I did not know, and that is very fine; how does it go?..."</p> + +<p class="normal">He seated himself with the greatest good-nature by the side of his +"godfather," and began to go thoroughly over the sketch, and to make a +number of keen criticisms of its details. In the mean time the young +Greek had placed in position a large sketch in colors, dashed off in +bold, strong lines; and now this took its turn of criticism.</p> + +<p class="normal">It had for its subject, as the artist explained in broken German, in a +soft, musical voice, a scene from Goethe's "Bride of Corinth." The +youth had sunk back upon his couch, and his ghostly bride had thrown +herself vampire-like upon him, "eagerly drinking in the flame of his +lips," while the mother, standing outside the door, seemed to be +listening to the suppressed voices, just ready to burst in and disturb +the pair.</p> + +<p class="normal">Over this work also criticism held its breath for a time, though for a +very different reason. The whole picture breathed such a stifling +spirit of sultry passion that even the members of the Paradise Club, +who most certainly were not prudish, seem to feel that the bounds of +what was permissible had been overstepped.</p> + +<p class="normal">Once more Rosenbusch was the first to speak.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There he sits over yonder in the realm of pure spirit," he cried to +Fat Rossel, who was still studying Kohle's work, "while we here are +dealing with pure flesh. Holla! You man of the silhouette and the +beautiful decorative form, come over here and exorcise this demon!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Edward nodded without looking round; he seemed to know the work +already, and to have no desire to express himself concerning it.</p> + +<p class="normal">As none of the others uttered a single word, the artist finally +appealed directly to Jansen, and begged for his judgment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm!" growled the sculptor, "the work is full of talent. Only you have +christened it wrongly--or have forgotten the two veils."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Christened it wrongly?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the name of Goethe; Saint Priapus stood godfather to it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But--the two veils!" stammered the youth, who had cast down his eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Beauty and horror. Only read the poem. You will see how artistically +everything immodest in it is veiled by these two. And yet--a decidedly +talented work. It will find admirers fast enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">He turned away and went quietly back to his seat. At the same instant +the young man tore the picture from the wall, and, without saying a +word, held the gilt frame in which it was enclosed over the nearest +lamp.</p> + +<p class="normal">Perhaps he had expected that some one would seize him by the arm; but +no one stirred. The flame seized eagerly upon the canvas. When a part +was consumed, the young man swung himself upon the window-sill and +hurled the burning picture through the upper part of the window, which +was open, into the dark garden below, where it fell hissing on the damp +gravel.</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon springing down again he was greeted with general applause, which +he received with a gloomy brow and compressed lips. His hasty act had +evidently given him no inward relief. Nor could even Jansen's kind +greeting succeed immediately in banishing his sinister mood. It was his +innermost nature that he had consigned to this fiery death.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix, upon whom this curious incident had made a deep impression, was +just on the point of going up to the youth, whom he saw standing apart +from the others and enveloping himself in a dense cloud of tobacco +smoke, when a clock in one of the church steeples near by announced, +with its twelve slow strokes, that the hour of midnight had arrived.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the instant all conversation was hushed, the chairs were drawn up in +line; and it then occurred to Felix, for the first time, that Elfinger, +whose "turn" it was this evening, had left the hall some little time +before, in company with Rosenbusch.</p> + +<p class="normal">The folding-doors that led into the central hall flew open, and +disclosed on the threshold, illuminated by lamps at the sides, and +standing on a framework draped in red, a puppet-theatre that occupied +almost the entire width of the space. The table was quickly pushed to +one side, and the chairs for the spectators were arranged in rows. +After everybody had taken his place, a short prelude was played +upon a flute behind the scenes; and then the curtain in front +of the little stage rose, and a puppet in a dress-coat and black +knee-breeches, carrying his hat in his hand--with the air of a director +who has an official communication to make, or of a dramatic poet who +has held himself in readiness behind the wings, to respond in case he +should possibly be called before the footlights--delivered a rhymed +prologue. In this he greeted the associates, and, after lamenting in +half-satirical, half-serious stanzas, the decline of art and of the +love of the beautiful, introduced his troop of players, of whom he +especially boasted that no modern strifes or heartburnings ever invaded +their temple, or kept them from a pure and lofty devotion to the Muses. +His speech concluded, the little man made a dignified obeisance, and +the curtain fell, to be again drawn up after a few moments, upon the +little drama that had been prepared for the amusement of the company.</p> + +<p class="normal">It bore the title of "The Wicked Brothers," and was in reality but the +introduction to a longer play, designed to be produced upon some +future evening. In rhyming verses it set forth the history of a +musician, an artist, and a poet--three brothers who had been left at +the foundling-asylum of a little village, and had grown up to become +the curse of the region with their pranks; a very demon of evil-doing +appearing to possess them, and their parentage remaining an +impenetrable mystery to the quiet village folk. To them, after some of +the worst of their misdeeds, and just as the villagers were about to +wreak their vengeance on them, appeared no less a personage than the +devil himself, revealing to them that he was their father, and that he +had called them into being that they might work the ruin of the human +race. This said, he summoned them away with him to undertake their +mission in a larger field than this of their apprenticeship. And here +the action left them; the fantastic little piece closing at last with a +short epilogue by the same puppet who had introduced the play, his +final verses promising the Paradise associates that on some other night +they should enjoy a view of the results of this deep plot against their +kind, but hinting, nevertheless, that they should see how, in the end, +the true and beautiful should triumph, and the fell scheming of the +brothers and their father should be brought to naught.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">The play came to an end amid great applause. The quaintness of the +composition, the easy flow of the words, and that mixture of gaiety and +melancholy which is always effective, excited such enthusiasm among the +spectators that the clapping would have no end, and the little puppet +who recited the epilogue was obliged to come forward again and again to +return thanks in the name of the poet.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix, especially, found much to admire in the little comedy, that had +apparently lost the charm of novelty for the others; especially the +extraordinary life-likeness of the little figures, scarcely two spans +high, which were carved, painted, and dressed in the most careful +manner, each in accordance with his character; the astonishing +dexterity with which they moved upon the stage, and, finally, and above +all else, the masterly art of the delivery.</p> + +<p class="normal">The voices changed so rapidly and distinctly, the keynote to each +<i>rôle</i> was so happily struck, and in the long speeches of the devil the +speaker developed so brilliant a power that there was probably not one +person among the audience who could repress a feeling of creeping +horror, such as one has when ghost stories are told in the dark.</p> + +<p class="normal">When the rows had broken up again, and everybody was standing about +talking and laughing noisily, Felix took occasion to express to Schnetz +his amazement that a person of such great rhetorical talent should have +turned his back forever upon his art, and have settled down at a +clerk's desk.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He will have all or nothing!" remarked the lieutenant. "Since he lost +one of his eyes, and deluded himself into the belief that with a glass +eye he would not be fit for the stage, he is far too proud to step down +from the high horse of the tragedian to the donkey of the public +reader. Every one knows whether he is acting to his own disadvantage +when he plays the malcontent. It is true, though, some one really ought +to prevail upon him to become the manager of a puppet-theatre. And +then, besides, it would offer a good employment for Rosenbusch, who +makes his puppets for him, and lends him a helping hand at the +exhibition. Although, to be sure, anything of that sort only affords +pleasure to a person of his stamp so long as it is an art which earns +him no bread. He has been puttering away over this farce for three +weeks at least, and letting everything else slide in consequence of it. +If it were exhibited for an entrance fee, he would soon be tired of +it."</p> + +<p class="normal">Elfinger now entered again, and was obliged to submit to the applause +showered upon him in his proper person, and to acknowledge the toasts +drunk in his honor. He modestly refused, however, to accept the +applause, since the thanks of the audience belonged more properly to +the author, who was not himself, but a poet known to them all, who +cherished a wish to be admitted to Paradise. It was merely with this +end in view that he had written the text for the puppets, in the hope +of introducing himself in this way to the society, and of winning their +good opinion.</p> + +<p class="normal">His admission was immediately agreed upon by acclamation, without the +usual formalities. Kohle begged the loan of the manuscript, as he +wished to illustrate it in a series of sketches. Rossel began, after +his usual fashion, to make criticisms upon different parts, censuring +especially the imitation of Immermann's "Merlin." Elfinger defended the +poem, and the dispute had begun to run in danger of becoming heated, +when the door was thrown open and Rosenbusch rushed in in a state of +great excitement.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Treachery!" he cried; "black, villainous treachery! Hell sends forth +its spies to ferret out the secrets of Paradise! The veil of night is +no longer sacred; profane curiosity is plucking at the curtain of our +mysteries--and, by-the-way, give me something to drink!"</p> + +<p class="normal">All pressed around the breathless speaker, who had thrown himself into +a chair, refusing, however, in spite of the confusion of questions and +suggestions that went on about him, to give any explanation whatever +until he had moistened his thirsty throat. Not until he had done this +to the most liberal extent did he begin to relate his adventure.</p> + +<p class="normal">After his assistance behind the scenes was no longer needed, he had +swung himself out of one of the windows of the central hall into the +cool garden, in order to refresh himself a little in the night air. So +he strolled comfortably up and down under the trees, studying the +clouds and occasionally playing a few snatches on his flute, until he +at last experienced a most remarkable thirst. As he was slowly walking +around the house, with the intention of rejoining the company by way of +the back-door, he suddenly beheld two suspicious-looking figures, +women, in long dark cloaks and with hoods or veils over their heads, +who stood at one of the windows intently peering in through a crack in +the shutters. He tried to surprise them, and catch them <i>in flagrante +delicto</i>. But, stealthily as he crept upon them, the crunching of the +gravel had betrayed him. They both immediately rushed away from the +window and fled in the direction of the gate, he after them like +lightning, all the more eagerly because he saw a carriage waiting +outside in the street. And sure enough, he succeeded in catching one of +them by the sleeve, just as she reached the lattice-gate--the stouter +one, who carried something under her cloak which hindered her in +running. The prisoner besought him, in a frightened but evidently +disguised voice, to let her go--she had done no harm, a mere chance, +and other excuses of a like sort. He, on his part, excited by anger and +indignation, and not a little by curiosity, would not let go, but +insisted upon learning their names; the cloak, that he held firmly, had +already begun to rip in a suspicious way, as if it were on the point of +tearing and remaining alone in his hands, like the affair of Joseph +reversed, when the other woman, who had in the mean while reached the +carriage, turned round again and said, in a deep voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't be afraid, my dear, the gentleman is much too chivalrous to make +an attack on two unprotected ladies. <i>Venez, ma chère!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">"These words," he continued, springing up, "made--I confess it to my +shame--so strong an impression upon me that I, ass that I was, let go +of the cloak and the woman for the purpose of taking off my hat and +making a very polite bow to the second of the wretches. They were both, +however, too much frightened to laugh at my devilish absurdity, and +spoke not another word, but slipped away from me into the carriage, and +drove off the devil knows where."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I stood there and could have knocked my brains out; for it +occurred to me in a second what a wonderful figure I must have cut in +the affair. But the best is still to come. What did the woman have +under her cloak? In struggling with her I had several times struck +against it, and noticed that it must be something four-cornered, +something like a picture-frame. And suddenly, as I was very sulkily +sneaking back again toward the house, it occurred to me, 'what if it +were the Bride of Corinth! Now, supposing I go and see what really +became of it.' I knew perfectly well out of which window Stephanopulos +had sent it flying. So I searched and searched--but, grope about as I +would, no trace of it could be discovered, and inasmuch as the ground +all around the place is still full of little puddles, and the flame +must undoubtedly have been immediately extinguished, you may bet ten to +one that these spying night-rovers saw it burning--perhaps indeed were +first led by it to slink into the garden; and that now they have borne +away their booty to a place of safety."</p> + +<p class="normal">A great tumult followed upon this communication. Some of the youngest, +excited by wine, wanted to rush out on the track of the flying women, +in order that they might recover the stolen property. The wildest +proposals were heard as to how they should take revenge for this +outrage, and how they should prevent such a desecration of their mystic +rites in the future. All these noisy ones were silenced when Jansen +suddenly took up the matter, and admonished them to listen to reason. +What was done here had no cause to shun the light. The only one who was +personally affected by the matter was Stephanopulos. Since he did not +appear to be much troubled, the others might rest content.</p> + +<p class="normal">So said, so done; and the festive feeling once more burst forth in all +its glory. The wine loosened even the heaviest tongues; every one +sought out the neighbor he liked best; and even the young Greek thawed +out so thoroughly from his ill-humor that he condescended to sing some +of the popular airs of his native land, which earned him great +applause. In the mean while Philip Emanuel Kohle went up and down the +hall, like one of the gracious genii, with head high in air and beaming +look, bearing his goblet in his hand, and drinking toasts with +everybody--to the ideal--to resignation and the gods of Greece--and +declaiming, in the intervals, verses of Hölderlin.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz also seemed to be in admirable spirits. He had seated himself +astride of the little cask in the corner, had a few sprigs of +wild-grape vine above his close-cropped head, and was delivering an +oration that no one heard.</p> + +<p class="normal">When it struck three o'clock, Elfinger was dancing a fandango with the +architect who had recently returned from Spain, Rosenbusch playing an +accompaniment on the flute; and Fat Rossel had placed three empty +glasses before him, on which he beat time with a lead pencil. Felix, +who had also learned the dance in Mexico, relieved Elfinger after a +time, and gradually the excitement seized upon the others. Jansen alone +remained quiet, but his eyes sparkled joyously. He had erected a sort +of throne for old Schöpf upon the table, and had placed a number of +green plants around it. And there the white-haired old man sat, above +all the noise, until the wine warmed him too, and he rose, and with +charming dignity gave vent to all sorts of odd sayings and wise saws.</p> + +<p class="normal">At four o'clock the wine in the cask ran dry. Schnetz announced this +sorrowful discovery to the dancers, singers, and speakers, with a +funereal mien and pathetic earnestness, and summoned them to pay the +last honors to the deceased. A solemn procession was formed; each +person bore a candle, a blazing piece of kindling wood or anything that +would pass for a torch; and, standing in a semicircle about the cask, +they sang a requiem, at the close of which all the lights were suddenly +extinguished.</p> + +<p class="normal">And now the pale light of dawn penetrated through the windows, and +Jansen announced that the time had come for the dissolving of the +meeting, which took place according to unvarying usage--all leaving at +the same time. The abundant wine had robbed none of them of their +senses, though a few were not perfectly firm on their legs. As they +passed out, a fresh morning breeze was just springing up on the still +meadows of the English Garden. The trees shivered in the falling dew. +Arm-in-arm the friends sauntered along in the gray morning air, that +cooled their feverish foreheads, humming to themselves snatches of song +and fragments of the fandango; and last of all came Jansen and Felix, +arm-in-arm, now and then pressing closer to one another, both lost in +thought that found no words.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Angelica threw down her brush. "It is strange," she said, "that +everything I do to-day is so absurd. At all events the proverb is false +to the core; the beginning is always easy, and only the completion has +its wretched trials. And then, besides, when no one else is working in +the whole house, one appears to one's self to be perfectly crazy with +diligence. Naturally, the saint-factory downstairs stands still on +Sunday. But then the others too! In Rosenbusch's room the mice are +squealing from pure hunger or <i>ennui</i>; and I have not heard Jansen's +door squeak once this morning. It is natural that they should be lazy +or have a headache after their night's revel; and they will certainly +miss the Sunday mass in the Pinakothek. Yesterday they were in +Paradise."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Paradise?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is the name they give to their secret society that meets every +four weeks. There must be wild goings on there; at least Rosenbusch, +who, as a general thing, cannot easily keep a secret from me, assumes a +face like the holy Vehm if I ever begin to speak about it. Oh, these +men, Julie, these men! This Maximilian Rosenbusch--I must say that I +really think he is by nature good; indeed, between ourselves, my +dearest, he would be more interesting to me if he looked a little +<i>less</i> moral, did not play on the flute, and were really the terrible +scapegrace that he sometimes makes himself out. But there, one infects +the other, and the very name of 'Paradise!' One can easily conceive +that a pretty antediluvian tone must prevail there, somewhat highly +spiced and free and easy."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do they keep to themselves, or are 'ladies' also present?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know. As a rule, they appear to amuse themselves in quite a +moral manner; but now and then, especially at carnival time, when, for +that matter, every one here in Munich carries the freedom of the mask +pretty far--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Does Jansen also belong to the society?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course, he cannot help doing so. But he is said to be one of the +quietest among them, according to Rosenbusch. Upon my life, I would +just like to peep through the keyhole once! 'Oh, had I a jacket and +trousers and hat!'"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, Angelica, you have the true woman's-rights ideas!"</p> + +<p class="normal">The painter drew a deep sigh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Julie," she said, with comical solemnity, "that is just the misfortune +of my life, that two souls dwell in this breast--a timid, old-maidish, +conservative girl's soul by the side of a very bold, dare-devil, +Bohemian artist's temperament. Tell me, did you never in your life +experience a strong desire to cut loose for once from propriety--to do +something thoroughly reckless, improper, unpermissible? Of course I +mean when one was entirely among boon companions, and no one could +reprove the other, because all were possessed of the same demon. The +men fare well in this respect. When they steal back again into the lost +Paradise, they call it a sign of genius. An unfortunate woman, though +she were ten times an artist, and as such perpetually inclined not to +be a Philistine, must never let it be seen in her manner of life that +she can do more than darn stockings!--It is true," she continued, +thoughtfully, "as for women in a body, a whole swarm of talented +women--no matter how much capacity some among them might have for such +a thing--I myself would decline such a Paradise with thanks. Now, why +is that? Does it really amount to this, that we cannot exist by +ourselves alone; that we can neither plan nor bring about anything +successful?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps it merely arises from the fact that true friendship, real +thorough companionship, is so rare among our sex," answered Julie, +musingly. "We are just as loath to permit another to shine among +ourselves as before the men. But something has just occurred to me; +might not we take advantage of the occasion, and, as you recently +proposed, take a look at Jansen's studio?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And why not rather when he is there himself? He would undoubtedly be +very happy--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no!" interposed Julie, hastily, "I will not do that. I have +invariably played such a silly part in studios--because it is +impossible for me to bring myself to pay a trivial compliment--that I +have sworn never again to visit an artist surrounded by his works. You +know it is my Cordelia-like character--whenever my heart is full my +mouth refuses to overflow."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Foolish woman!" laughed the artist, hastily wiping her brush and +preparing herself to go out. "You of the public always imagine that we +want to hear eulogies. When you lose the power of speech from +admiration, and make the most foolish and enraptured faces, I like you +a thousand times better."</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica called the janitor, who was busily engaged in the yard +brushing away the moths from an old piece of Gobelin tapestry that +Rosenbusch had recently bought. While he went off to fetch the key to +the studio, she whispered to her friend:</p> + +<p class="normal">"We will not go first into the saint-factory, but pass at once into +the holy of holies! It is always painful to see how even such an +artist--one of the few great ones--must use his art to gain bread. It +is true, no human being can imagine why he really has to do it. He +needs almost nothing for himself. And, since he stands quite alone in +the world--to be sure, though, that needs yet to be proved--his saints +must bring him in a great deal of money. What he does with it, whether +he buries it as the wages of sin, walls it up, or speculates with it on +the Bourse-- But here comes our old factotum with the key. Thank you, +Fridolin. Here is something for your trouble. Drink a measure to the +health of this beautiful lady. What, she pleases you too? To be sure +you have had an opportunity to cultivate your taste, living as you do +among artists."</p> + +<p class="normal">The flattered old man grinned, attempted to stammer a compliment, and +opened the studio door. Angelica immediately ran up to the "Dancing +Girl" and began to free her from the damp cloths wrapped about her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, place yourself here!" she cried, when the figure was entirely +exposed. "To be sure she is divine seen from any side, but viewed in +half-profile--taking in just a little of the back and the outline +standing out so clearly against the bright sky--is it not ravishing? +Does not one feel as if it were just going to spring from its pedestal +and rush through the room, dragging one with it in its mad whirl? I can +never look at this work without my old love for dancing coming back to +me in my old age, and vibrating through every limb! It is a pity that I +am such an ungraceful person, otherwise you would have to tuck up your +dress and dance a reel with me."</p> + +<p class="normal">And she did indeed make a few very lively movements, which were +grotesque enough.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I entreat you, Angelica, be sensible! You are, to be sure, thoroughly +at home here. But it takes away my breath! Everything is so strange to +me--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Isn't it so--one doesn't see anything of this sort every day? How +every part lives and breathes! One might actually believe that the +blooming young flesh must yield when one touches it; and, with all +that, so pure and magnificent and full of style, that one never thinks +of the model when looking at it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it modeled after life?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you think that this kind of thing is imagined out of thin air?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And girls can actually be found who allow themselves to be made use of +for--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"More than enough, you darling innocent. To be sure--of a sort that one +of us would not touch with gloves. But Rosenbusch says that, for all +that, they are better than their reputation. He has found very +respectable creatures among them--one, indeed, who had a regular +husband and a number of children, and who went to the studios as +soberly as others go to the seamstress or the milliner. Yes, yes, my +dearest, we good children of good families have no conception of all +this. Look," she continued, turning to Felix's modeling-board, "there +is where the young baron works. He has copied the foot of the +anatomical model, and now, as a reward, he is permitted to recruit +himself over the foot of an Æginite. Not bad!--by no means without +talent! An uncommonly handsome and agreeable man, too, whom I like very +much. But--remember what I tell you--he will always remain a cavalier, +and will never in all his life become a true artist!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She accented the word "cavalier," in the contemptuous manner in which a +sailor talks about a landsman. Then she stepped up to the large central +group of the Adam and Eve, and began cautiously to undo the covering.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How is this?" said she. "Why he has actually fastened the group with +clothes-pins since I last saw it, a fortnight ago. Well, I think I may +be allowed to unfasten it somewhat, and, after all, he will never +notice it. What eyes you will make at it, Giulietta! <i>È una magia</i>, as +the Italians say. It is much grander, more imposing and unprecedented +than the 'Dancing Girl' over there. There! Now, just let me unwind this +towel very carefully indeed--the head of the Eve has only just been +modeled--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The damp linen cloth, that enveloped the figure of the kneeling woman, +now slipped off; at the same instant Angelica, who stood behind the +group and was carefully removing the last folds from the clay figure, +heard a half-suppressed cry from the lips of her friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now, don't you see that I was right?" she cried. "It is beautiful +enough to shriek over. No respectable person can see such a thing +without uttering a few inarticulate sounds. But, for Heaven's sake!" +she cried, interrupting herself and rushing to Julie, whom she saw turn +suddenly pale and step backward, "what is the matter with you, my own +love? You are so very--speak--what has so--gracious Heaven! That! +I never would have believed it myself! Such a surprise--such an +unheard-of piece of treachery and meanness! And, with all that, so +extraordinarily well carried out! Oh, this Jansen! So that accounts for +the pins--that accounts for his not wishing to show the group to any +one for the last fortnight!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie had retreated to the window and stood there, undecided what to +do, her head sunk upon her heaving breast. But the painter, in whom +enthusiasm had banished all alarm about her agitated friend, stood with +folded hands, as if absorbed in worship, before the work that was so +well known to her, and upon which, nevertheless, she gazed in utter +surprise. For since she saw it last the head of Eve, that was +then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm, +carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with +which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled, +feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her +chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked +up at her own image.</p> + +<p class="normal">And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have +overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock, +now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the +robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there +was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had +run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent +work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became +woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features +of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious +thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one +could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed +the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told +her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good +devil's-advocate; and when she had played her trump card, always +keeping her back turned to the silent girl, and had declared that no +one ought to think herself too good to be so immortalized--that this +was entirely different from the case of the sister of Napoleon, whom +Canova had portrayed in marble, or that of the so-called "Venus" of +Titian, whose lover was playing the lute by her side--she suddenly +turned to Julie, threw her arms round her neck and besought her with +humble appeals and caresses not to be angry with her, that she was as +innocent of this evil deed as Rosebud's white mice; and that if she had +a suspicion that this wicked Jansen would have dared to do such a +thing, she would certainly never have invited him to her studio at the +last sitting. And, as a proof of this, she would at once hunt him up +and firmly insist--though what a pity it would be for the wonderful +work's sake--that every trace of resemblance, even the most remote, in +this airily-clad Eve to her deeply offended descendant should be +removed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do so--I shall rely upon it!" said Julie, suddenly, with great +earnestness, as she rose in all her dignity and womanly majesty. "That +I must never be thrown in contact with him again, that I can never +enter this house again, you will easily understand!" And as she said +this, turning toward the door, she cast a last angry look at her +counterfeit.</p> + +<p class="normal">She understood it perfectly, replied the painter, meekly. She would not +have it otherwise; Jansen had acted altogether too inconsiderately, and +toward her, too, who as an old fellow-inmate of the same house was, to +a certain extent, responsible for the good behavior of the rest. But of +one thing Julie might be sure: Jansen had not been guilty of any bad +intention, or of one of those pieces of presumption that artists often +indulge in, but merely of thoughtlessness and indiscretion, and he +would undoubtedly take it very much to heart; and if she should really +remain firm in the intention of never seeing him again, a punishment +which, it is true, he had richly deserved--</p> + +<p class="normal">While these speeches were being poured out, to all of which Julie +listened with an expression of face that it was not easy to understand, +the two friends--for Julie helped, too, with trembling hands--had +carefully wrapped up the group again, and had added to the pins from +their own stock. When they went out into the yard after having done +this, they earnestly cautioned the janitor not to open the studio +again for any one, until Herr Jansen himself had gone in again. Then +they left the house, not, as on the day before, walking familiarly +arm-in-arm, but silent and dejected, and taking leave of one another at +the very first street-corner.</p> + +<p class="normal">Angelica determined to make an attempt to see if she could not meet the +offender in the Pinakothek, in spite of the festival of the preceding +day. Julie, who had lowered her veil as if, after this experience, she +no longer dared to look any one in the face, hastened by the shortest +way toward home, where she could, in complete solitude, collect herself +and compose her excited mind.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Buy scarcely was she alone when the excitement within her, although not +at once stilled, lost, singularly enough, all that it had had of pain +and bitterness, and such an unmistakable feeling of pleasure and +happiness filled her soul that she herself, as she was forced to admit, +felt frightened at it.</p> + +<p class="normal">Do what she would, she could no longer feel as angry at the secret +insult that had been offered to her maiden dignity as she ought +properly to have felt. It seemed indeed as if, the moment the witness +of the misdeed was removed from her sight, all the bad aspect had +disappeared from the matter, which, after all, had only become wrong +and unpardonable when strange eyes had spied into the well-guarded +secret of a pure artist-soul. Now, when she thought about the work, how +it stood there in the deserted studio, carefully wrapped, with only the +sparrows flying about it, and guarded from every betraying ray of +light, what was there so sinful in the fact that the head of this +beautiful kneeling woman bore her own features?</p> + +<p class="normal">This figure constantly floated before her, no matter how hard she might +try to turn her attention upon other things. And although in the work +of the artist nothing was finished but the head, her fancy saw the +finished statue, and, for the first time in her life, she looked upon +her own beauty, in her thoughts, with other eyes than her own, which +could find nothing new or especial in it. The cruel lot that had held +her apart from life in her girlish years, and the early experiences +that had given her a contemptuous, if not a hostile opinion of men, had +kept her mind isolated from all those feelings that usually agitate a +girl's soul in its spring-time. It had never occurred to her to look at +herself, as it were, through the eyes of a man, for she had never known +one for whose sake she would have thought it worth while to give +herself so much trouble. When she observed her face in the mirror, and +could not help finding it beautiful, it afforded her just as little +pleasure as if--like a female Robinson Crusoe on some island in the +ocean--she had seen her reflection in clear water, and had known by it +that she was queen of the wilderness. In the next room sat the poor +madwoman, in her arm-chair, and nodded at the beautiful daughter, whom +she was robbing of life, with an idiotic smile. Of what avail was her +beauty against this inexorable fate?</p> + +<p class="normal">Sometimes indeed, in the spring nights, between dreaming and waking, or +when she read some beautiful moving story, it seemed to her as if the +frost that had settled about her heart were bursting, as if a secret +longing for something sweet and precious swelled her bosom, a trembling +desire for some unknown, unattainable happiness. But this feeling never +took the shape of a being who should strive to gain her love, and whom +she might love in return. At such times she dreamed of nothing better +than to have the liberty of belonging to herself, of being freed from +that horrible duty which, to be sure, had grown less hard through +custom, and which no longer awakened even a shudder, but which held her +a prisoner daily and hourly. If these chains only fell from her--would +she then be so unwise as to voluntarily submit herself to a new form of +restraint?</p> + +<p class="normal">But by this time she had enjoyed her freedom long enough to have been +sometimes forced to admit, with a quiet sigh, that the longed-for +happiness was not so overpowering that it relieved the soul of all +other desires. What she really did want she did not know. She fancied +that, if she only had a talent of some sort, it would fill this +yearning emptiness within her. Since she believed it to be too late for +her to take up music or drawing, she hit upon the idea of writing down +her thoughts and moods in free rhythmic forms of her own invention. +These were by no means the usual imitations of well-known lyric poets, +in the conventional and occasionally much-abused metres and stanzas. +What she wrote in her secret diary bore about the same relation to this +conventional poetry that the play of the wind upon an Æolian harp does +to a sonnet. But for all that it was an unspeakable comfort to her, +when she felt that she was striking melodious chords within her lonely +soul, to listen to the rise and fall of this melody of thoughts, and to +transcribe it as well as she was able. The secrecy with which she +pursued this art lent it an additional charm; and many a lonely evening +hour was thus whiled away, as quickly and happily as if it had been +spent in the company of an intimate friend, to whom she could have +poured out her innermost heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">But now, when she had reached her home, and had hurriedly closed the +blinds that she might brood in absolute silence and solitude over what +had happened, she felt a sudden shock pass through her heart as she +reflected that during the past week her thoughts had more than once +been busy with the audacious man who had dared this theft of her +beauty--ay, that he had even entered more than once into her secret +poems. She had not given much more thought to this than to the other +subjects she had touched on in her diary: merely that she had made one +more acquaintance, and that of a man who could scarcely be said to have +an everyday face, and to whom all the others in his circle conceded the +first rank without a moment's jealousy. But was it not a singular +coincidence that, at the very time when she was attempting to describe +the impression that he had made upon her, he should be engaged in +moulding the image of her own features?</p> + +<p class="normal">She rose thoughtfully to go to her writing-desk. She was obliged to +pass by the glass, and she stood before it for a while earnestly +contemplating her reflection, with the same sort of curiosity she would +have shown had she never seen herself before, but had just had her +attention drawn to herself by some third person. But, at the moment, +she was not at all pleased with her appearance. The face of the Eve +seemed to her fancy a thousand times more beautiful; he himself would +be forced to admit this if he should see her and compare her, face to +face, with his work. "Ten years ago," she said to herself, with a shake +of the head, "I may, perhaps, have looked like that. Oh, for the +beautiful lost years!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For all this she began to arrange her hair in the same way that he had +arranged it in the statue, and she found this style of coiffure, in a +plain knot, charmingly becoming to her. She blushed at this, and turned +away. And now her heart beat still louder, as she drew forth from the +desk the book containing her confessions, and read over the last pages. +"I really believe I was in a fair way of falling in love with him," she +said aloud, when she had reached the end. "And he--he looked upon me as +he would upon any good model that chanced to fall in his way; studied +my face, so that he might steal it from me, and ruthlessly insulted +every womanly feeling I have. If I had been anything more to him, if he +had even taken a deep interest in me, he would never have had the heart +to make such a display of me, he would never have subjected me to such +ideas!--Oh, it is shameful! I will never, never forgive him that!"</p> + +<p class="normal">A passionate feeling of pain, like the anger and indignation that had +overwhelmed her in the first moment of the discovery, once more flamed +within her. She threw the book into the drawer and hastily locked it +up. Then she paced up and down through her entire suite of rooms, and +struggled to calm her mood again.</p> + +<p class="normal">But it was not so easy as she had expected. For the first time she +failed to understand the voices that were speaking in her heart, nor +could she silence them. A feeling had come over this mature, firm +nature, such as seldom takes possession of any but the young in the +time of their earliest development; that oppressing sense of delight +that is almost akin to pain, that threatens to burst the heart, and +that makes the thought of dying and passing quietly away so grateful as +if death were nothing but a gentle sinking into some unfelt deep that +is brimming over with flowers.</p> + +<p class="normal">Her anger had suddenly passed away. She tried hard, as soon as she was +conscious of this, to picture to herself her insulter in the most +repulsive shape. Not succeeding in that, she made an attempt to be +angry with herself, to reproach herself for her womanish weakness, in +being frivolous enough to feel flattered by this robbery. But she +succeeded little better than before; one thing only stood before her +mind, that he and she were in the world together, and that they had +both thought of one another at the same moment.</p> + +<p class="normal">The door opened softly; the old servant stepped in and announced that +Mr. Jansen wished to pay his respects.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Of course he had come to apologize. Angelica must have urged the +necessity of his doing so very strongly indeed: must have depicted to +him in pretty glowing colors the anger of her deeply insulted friend, +to judge from the fact of his knocking at her door but two hours after. +Her first thought was to refuse to see him. But then, what if he should +be disposed to treat the matter altogether too lightly; what if he +thought to appease her by some jesting or even gallant apology? Well, +she would soon let him know with whom he had to deal, and that he could +not escape so easily. Had she not been called "the girl without a +heart," and was she not at this moment without friend or protector, +forced to rely entirely upon her native dignity, which had just been so +audaciously insulted?</p> + +<p class="normal">"If the gentleman would have the goodness--I should be very glad to see +him--very glad!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She stood in the middle of the room as he entered. Her beautiful face +had struggled hard to assume its coldest and haughtiest expression. But +with the first look that she cast upon the visitor, the armor of ice +that she had fastened about her bosom melted away.</p> + +<p class="normal">For, in fact, a very different man from the one she had expected stood +before her. Where was the confident smile that sought to make the +matter appear in the light of a jest, or even of an act of homage? +Where the confidence with which the famous master reckons upon +absolution for the sin of having made an unknown beauty immortal?</p> + +<p class="normal">It was true, he did not appear quite like a penitent malefactor. Erect, +and with a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, he saluted +her, and his eyes did not avoid hers; on the contrary, they even dwelt +upon her features with so gloomy a fire that she involuntarily lowered +her eyelids, and asked herself in secret whether she was not the guilty +one after all, since this man appeared before her so sad and +melancholy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Gnädiges Fräulein," he said, "I have given you reason to be very +angry with me. I merely come to inform you that the cause of your +displeasure is already removed. If you were willing to visit my +<i>atelier</i> again--which, unfortunately, I must doubt--you would see in +the place where your own features confronted you this morning nothing +but a shapeless mass."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have--you really ought to have--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have done at once what I owed to you, in order that you might not +form a wrong opinion of me. Sooner or later I should have had to do it +in any case--even though no one had urged me to it. I wish sincerely +that you would believe me when I say this--though I scarcely dare to +hope so, since you do not know me--and are perhaps still too angry with +me not to--not to believe me capable of any piece of discourtesy."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I?--I confess--I have until now thought neither well nor ill of--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not complete the sentence--she felt that she blushed, as she +tried to assure him of her complete indifference--three steps from the +drawer where her confessions were lying.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know it," continued he; and his dark glance wandered over the +dimly-lighted room. "I am so perfectly indifferent to you, that it +must, after all, be very easy for you to pardon something that cannot +have awakened any very strong personal feeling in your mind. One who is +entirely unknown to us cannot insult us. When he has taken back again +that with which he has wounded us, it is as if nothing had happened. +And so I might perhaps take my leave of you, gnädiges Fräulein, with +the renewed assurance of my sincere regret that I have unconsciously +offended you."</p> + +<p class="normal">She made a scarcely perceptible motion toward the sofa, as if she would +invite him to be seated. He was much too occupied with his own thoughts +to pay any attention to it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps it is folly," continued he, after a pause--"perhaps more than +that--wrong, if I intrude any longer, and give you an explanation for +which you have no desire, and which will perhaps strike you +disagreeably, since it turns upon something that cannot but be a matter +of perfect indifference to you: not much more interesting than if you +should hear there had been a thunderstorm at a place forty miles away, +and that the lightning had struck a tree. Still--now that I have +acknowledged my wrong and have done all in my power to make it good +again--I owe it to myself not to permit you to take a worse view of me +than I have really deserved. When, before a court of justice, one can +put forth the plea of mental irresponsibility, it is considered the +most important of all mitigating circumstances. Now this is just the +case in which I find myself placed in regard to you. I can plead, as an +excuse for the insane thought of giving your features to my Eve, the +fact that since I first saw you I have actually been insane; that +waking or dreaming no other face floated before me except yours; that I +have gone about as if in a fever, and that I knew no better way of +dealing with my hopeless passion than by striving, shut up alone in my +workshop, to reproduce your face--and wretchedly enough did I succeed!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He made a movement as though he were about to leave her; but once again +he remained where he was, and appeared to be struggling painfully for +words.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are silent, Fräulein," he continued. "I know you think it very +strange that I should endeavor to atone for a great and almost +unpardonable act of audacity, by committing a still greater one. +Perhaps you will not believe me, or will consider me a raving madman +for betraying to you, after so short an acquaintance, a passion that +has carried me beyond all bounds of propriety and decorum. But you +would judge differently, if you knew in what dreariness and isolation +of heart I have passed the five years since I came to Munich; that not +an hour's happiness has been vouchsafed to me; that no womanly being +capable of awakening a single deeper thought has come near me. It is +true I have not thought it worth my while to seek for such +companionship. I have deluded myself with the idea that I missed +nothing, that my heart and feelings did not hunger and thirst--until +you suddenly crossed my path--and then this sudden vision of beauty and +grace, coming as it did after long loneliness, brought about an +intoxication that has completely robbed me of my senses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I doubt whether this explanation will be clear to you. I know nothing +more of you than your enthusiastic friend, our good Angelica, has told +us. Perhaps you may never have had any experience yourself that would +lead you to believe that a passion which bursts so suddenly upon +reasonable men could be found anywhere but in a fairy tale. Enough, I +thought I owed it to myself to tell you of this fact, merely as a +singular instance that need trouble you no farther. And now, permit me +to take my leave. I--I should really have nothing more to tell you, and +as for you--I find it no more than right that you should prefer to +reply only by silence to such singular and extraordinary disclosures."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," she cried suddenly, as he already had his hand upon the +door-knob; "it is not so right as you think, for one to tell all that +he has upon his heart, while the other only accepts it all, and gives +no confidence in return. To be sure, I know very well--I must attribute +much of what you have confided to me to the easily-excited fantasy of +an artist. Nevertheless, I am not so vain as not to imagine that in the +course of five years you have never encountered a face fairer and more +blooming than this of mine, that I have now borne about with me for +full thirty-one. And for that reason I am almost forced to believe that +there really is a secret bond of fate that quickly draws two human +beings together in an altogether inexplicable way. For see--" she +continued, covered with a confusion that only made her more beautiful, +as she opened the drawer of her writing-desk and drew forth her +diary--"I, too, although I perhaps knew less of you than you of me--I, +too, have often had you with me in my thoughts--and since you have +destroyed again the image that you took from me without my knowledge, +ought not I also to destroy those pages in which you are spoken of--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She made a gesture as if she were about to tear out the pages. In an +instant he had sprung to her side and had seized firm hold of her hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Julie!" he cried, as if beside himself; "is it true--is it possible? +Your thoughts were with me?--and in these pages--I beseech you, let me +have but one look--only let me see one line, so that I shall not think +that you have invented all this in order to give me comfort, and to +relieve me from my shame--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Shame!" she whispered. "But cannot you see that in spite of my +thirty-one years I am trembling like a child detected in some +naughtiness? Must I really read aloud to you out of this book what +you--what you might long ago have guessed from my silence--if you had +not been trembling so yourself?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The last words died away on her lips. The book slipped from her hands +and fell on the carpet, where it lay without his bending to pick it up.</p> + +<p class="normal">A kind of stupor had come over him. He seized both her hands and +clasped them so tightly that it pained her; but the pain did her good. +His face was so near hers that she could see every muscle in it quiver; +his eyes gleamed with a wild fire, like the gaze of a somnambulist. And +yet she had no horror of him. She would gladly have stood so forever, +and have felt her hands in his, and have encountered the power of his +fixed gaze.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was only when she felt that her eyes were on the point of +overflowing, and feared that he might misunderstand it, that she said +softly, smilingly shaking her head: "Don't you believe me even yet?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then at last he released her hands, threw his arms about her yielding +figure, and pressed her wildly to his breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">A noise was heard in the front room; the old servant apparently wished +to remind the visitor, by the rattling of plates and knives and forks, +that dinner-time was something that must be respected.</p> + +<p class="normal">As if startled out of a dream, Jansen suddenly tore himself from +Julie's arms. "Unhappy wretch that I am!" cried he, hoarsely, covering +his face with his hands. "Oh, God! Where have I let myself be carried?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have only followed where our hearts had already led!" said Julie, +with a happy smile, while her moist eyes sought his. "What is the +matter with you, best and dearest friend?" she continued, anxiously, +for he was about to seize his hat. "You are going--and now? What drives +you away from me? Who--who can part us? What have I done that you again +turn away from me? My best and dearest friend, I entreat you--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He struggled hard to answer; a dark red flush overspread his pale face. +"Do not ask me now," he stammered; "this blessed hour--this +inconceivable happiness--no--it must--it cannot be!--Forgive--forget--"</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment the old servant opened the door; he cast a look at the +visitor that could hardly be interpreted as an invitation to stay +longer. Jansen stepped hastily up to the agitated and speechless girl. +"You shall hear from me soon, everything. Forgive--and may you be +forever blessed for this hour!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He seized her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips. Then he +rushed from the room, followed by the old servant shaking his head, +while Julie gazed after him, lost in a maze of conflicting emotions.</p> + +<p class="normal">It is true that the moment she was alone again the happiness of knowing +that her love was returned overpowered all feelings of doubt that had +been awakened within her. His mysterious behavior, his sudden flight, +his strange awakening from the sweetest realization of a hopeless +dream, ought that to make her distrust him, when it merely confirmed +what he had said of himself; that this intoxication had driven him out +of his senses? And was it not best upon the whole that this miracle +which had happened to them both should not be reduced all at once to an +affair of everyday life, but that they should part, bearing away with +them in their hearts their new-found treasure in all its fullness? +To-morrow--to-morrow he will come again, and all will be new and +wonderful once more, as it was to-day; and is that day lost which one +can spend in thoughts of one's great happiness, or that night in which +one can dream of it?</p> + +<p class="normal">She threw back her head, as if in doing so she would shake from her the +last remaining doubts. Then she stepped to the mirror, and began to +rearrange her hair that her violent friend had completely disordered. +What would her old servant have thought had he found her in this state? +As she thought of this she smiled mysteriously at her own image, as if +it were a <i>confidante</i> who alone knew of some great happiness that had +just fallen to her lot. Little as she ordinarily cared to look at her +own reflection, to-day she could not tear herself away from the glass; +"So, to please him, one must look as I do," she said to herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wonder whether he saw this wrinkle here, and that deep line, and all +those traces that these hateful, anxious years have left upon my face? +But it cannot be helped now; I have not cheated him, at all events, and +besides, he has eyes of his own--and such eyes!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she sighed again and pressed her hand to her heart. "Who would +have dreamed it?" she said, once more walking up and down: "only +yesterday and I was so calm here--wearied and tired of life--and +to-day!--And not a soul besides us two knows anything of it! Angelica, +it is true--I wonder whether she suspects nothing?--the good soul! +Perhaps I ought to go and confess to her.--But would not that look as +if I wanted to boast to her of my happiness? And then I will wager that +she herself is secretly in love with him--who could live under the same +roof with him and resist it?--'Julie Jansen'--It sounds as though it +could never have been otherwise since the world began."</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly the room felt so close and oppressive to her that she sent the +old servant to call her a droschke, that she might go out into the air +for a while. He was allowed to take a seat on the box, and in this way +they drove at a slow trot around the English Garden. The beautiful +weather, and the fact that it was Sunday, had filled all the avenues +and paths with people; all the beer-gardens were gay with music and +thronging crowds. Heretofore she had never felt at home among these +multitudes of merry people, for her solitary life with her unhappy +mother had made her unaccustomed to scenes of noise and confusion. But +to-day, she would like nothing better than to have joined the throng, +feeling that she really belonged there now; for had not she too found a +sweetheart, like all these other girls dressed in their Sunday clothes? +She ordered the carriage to stop in front of the Chinese tower, and sat +there for a long time, listening, and really moved by the music of a +band that would on any other day have provoked a smile. The people who +passed her wondered at the beautiful, solitary Fräulein, who sat, lost +in thought, gazing up at the tree tops. They did not know that the +color of the sky, up there between the two tall silver poplars, +recalled certain eyes that were ever present to the lady in the +carriage.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was already dusk when she reached home after her drive. A note was +lying on the table, that had been brought during her absence. She felt +a shock of alarm as she took it up. If it should be from him--if he had +written, instead of coming himself; and yet, although she had never +seen his handwriting, it was impossible that these lines could be his; +they were in a woman's hand. With a quieter heart she stepped to the +window, and read these words:</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">"A person unknown to you, whose name is of no consequence, feels it her +duty to warn you, honored Fräulein, against a man whose attentions to +you can no longer be a secret, since he is regularly to be found every +evening before your window, and to-day even went so far as to pay you a +visit. This letter is to tell you that this man has a wife, and a child +six years of age; a fact, however, which he carefully conceals from all +his acquaintances. Leaving it to you to form your own opinion of this +conduct, the writer signs herself respectfully,<span style="letter-spacing:10px"> </span> N. N."</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">Half an hour after, the bell in Julie's room was rung. The old servant +found his mistress sitting at her writing-desk, with a calm face, but +with traces of tears still on her cheeks, that she had forgotten to +wipe away. She had just sealed a letter, which she now handed to the +old man.</p> + +<p class="normal">"See that this letter is delivered to-day, Erich, and at the studio; I +do not know where Herr Jansen lodges. Tell the janitor to hand it to +him the first thing to-morrow morning. And now, bring me something to +eat. We were cheated out of our dinner. I--I shall die of exhaustion +unless I eat something."</p> + +<p class="normal">The anonymous note was inclosed in the letter to Jansen. Julie had +added nothing but the words:</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">"I shall be at home all day to-morrow. Come and give me back my faith +in mankind and my own heart.</p> + +<p style="margin-left:40%">"Your <span style="letter-spacing:25px"> </span> Julie."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">On this very afternoon Felix had carried out a resolution that he had +long had in mind, and had sought out the two friends, Elfinger and +Rosenbusch, in their own quarters.</p> + +<p class="normal">They occupied two rooms in the third story of a somewhat tumble-down +house, which, situated in one of the quaint old streets of the +city, concealed its little fantastically-framed windows under a +far-projecting roof, like purblind eyes under bushy eyebrows.</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix had often passed without ever having persuaded himself to enter +the untidy-looking vestibule, and climb the dark stairs. To-day, since +the dissipation of the previous night and the fact of its being Sunday +condemned him to idleness, he determined to fulfill at length the duty +he owed to civility. Moreover, he had begun the day before to take a +great interest in Elfinger, and wished very much to have an hour's more +intimate talk with him.</p> + +<p class="normal">Luckily he chanced, at his first attempt, to knock at the right door, +although, on account of the absolute darkness on the upper landing, it +was impossible to make out the names; and, upon entering, he saw +Elfinger jump up hastily from a chair, where he had been sitting +apparently entirely unoccupied.</p> + +<p class="normal">As the street, which was not especially lively even on a weekday, +reposed to-day in the most profound Sunday quiet, Felix wondered +what it could have been that had held his attention there, especially +when he noticed that the actor, who was generally so ready and +self-possessed, showed evident signs of embarrassment as he hastened +forward to welcome him, and, as if to keep him away from the window, +forced him to take a seat upon the sofa.</p> + +<p class="normal">But he soon recovered his easy bearing again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are looking at the walls," said he, "and are wondering that I +still preserve these mementoes of my stage days, these pictures of +great actors and my pretty colleagues of the fair sex, and even the +obligatory laurel-wreath, with its satin ribbons, that is never lacking +in any true actor's domicile. If my present employer should ever by +chance condescend to visit his clerk, I should, it is true, have done +far better had I hung up a bulletin of the stock boards instead of the +lithograph of Seydelmann as <i>Mephistophiles</i>. But, as I am safe up here +from all <i>haute finance</i>, I think I may be allowed, without injury to +my reputation as a sound accountant, to surround myself with all those +relics that I hold sacred, even that all-too-flaming sword over there, +that drove me from my paradise of the footlights."</p> + +<p class="normal">He pointed to a rapier that hung on the wall opposite the sofa, +arranged with a few pistols and fencing-gloves in the form of a trophy, +underneath which hung a picture in water colors representing Elfinger +in the costume of <i>Hamlet</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," he continued, with a quiet smile; "if the point of that sword +had not slipped in the hands of an unskillful <i>Laertes</i>, and entered +the eye of the unfortunate <i>Hamlet</i>, I should hardly have had the +pleasure of seeing you in my chambers just at this particular moment. I +should probably have been sitting in my dressing-room at the theatre, +painting myself to fit the character of an <i>Alba</i> or a <i>Richard III.</i>, +for this evening's performance. Whether the public has lost much by it, +I can't say. At all events, there is no doubt that I have gained."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am amazed that you can speak so cold-bloodedly of something that any +other man would regard as the great misfortune of his life. After the +high opinion of your talents that I was led to form by your performance +of yesterday--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do not allow yourself to be deceived by a little bit of coarse humor, +my excellent friend. A man, can rid himself of any other kind of +homesickness sooner or later; but no one who has once felt himself at +home behind the footlights can ever be free from homesickness for the +stage. I must confess that I felt a real pang of envy when I took my +little troupe of yesterday out of their box, and rigged them out for +the play. Now, does not that positively border on insanity? But reason +counts for nothing in such a case. I know that I, with my average +talent, could never have attained the highest point of eminence, and +that for that reason I ought to feel nothing but gratitude toward my +friend <i>Laertes</i> for pushing me back into that obscurity where I can +plod comfortably along on the golden, path of mediocrity. And yet all +my philosophy oozes away the moment the conversation turns upon the +theatre."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But should not this be so? and since you are justified in thinking +yourself a born actor, what reason have you for believing that the +highest distinction would have been denied you? Why should not your +fate strike you as a tragical one?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Because with all my good qualifications, especially for declamation, I +am not only a born actor but also a born German, which, I admit, sounds +like a very palpable paradox. But just consider our race a moment. In +spite of some rare exceptions, that stand out almost like miracles and +that merely prove the rule, it may be said to possess scarcely a single +qualification that would enable it to reach any decided greatness in +the art! Ought not the actor to be able to shed his own skin when he +slips into that of another? And when did a true German ever exist that +could put himself in another's place? When was he ever untrue to +himself?--when did he ever deny his personal virtues and faults? Don't +you see, the very thing that makes our people so respectable stands in +the way of our acting. We are not a people given to impersonation, to +posing, and to representation. We are sublime in our earnestness, and +silly in our trifling. We like best to sit still in our private corner +behind the stove, and we grow red and awkward if we have to pass +through a room where there are ten unknown men, or even as many ladies, +watching us. Only the highest problems of tragic poetry give us wings +to lift us over these chasms. When we attempt to walk with metrical +feet, which are shod with winged shoes, we get on very well. But on our +own flat every-day extremities, we stumble so wretchedly that an +ordinary Frenchman or Italian, who can neither read nor write, appears +like a prince of the blood beside us."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I wish I were able to deny all this," said Felix. "Unfortunately we +have no real society; and where we have the germs of one, actors are as +a rule excluded from it. But though that part of your art that has to +do with the representation of human beings and a characteristic +imitation of life suffers from this, the higher branches still continue +to be our domain; and if you compare the art of tragedy among the +Italians or the French with our representations of Shakespeare and +Goethe--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is all very true," interrupted the actor; "in what is spiritual +and belongs to an inner consciousness, we can always bear comparison +with our neighbors. But only wait ten years longer and you will see +that not a soul here in Germany will ever think of going to see a +tragedy, and our classical theatre will be then just such another +puppet-show as the Théâtre Français is now. Ought we to be surprised at +this? All tragedy is aristocratic. Why should the hero leave this world +with such sublimity and grandeur if it were not that he found it too +miserable for him to feel comfortable in? But he who finds the world a +wretched place insults all those to whom it appears most charming, +because, with their low desires, they are able to take comfort in it. +And inasmuch as the good of the masses will become more and more the +watchword, as time goes on, therefore he who towers above the masses +must not be disappointed if he finds that he cannot be of much use +either in real life or behind the footlights. Tragical heroes are only +possible where social differences exist; where the ordinary man looks +on with a certain respect while a <i>Coriolanus</i> conquers and falls, +without thinking to himself: 'It served him right. Why did he insult us +common folk?' But with our excellent, humane, democratic way of looking +at things--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A depressing prospect, certainly! So the longer our nation goes on +freeing itself from prejudices and conforming to true ideas of +humanity, the less hope will there be that we shall ever be able to cut +a good figure on the stage?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"On the contrary, I think then is the time when we shall really first +begin. Self-respect is one of the most important requisites even in the +acting of a comedy. When we have once taken our place among the nations +of Europe, when we have rid ourselves of our dullness and tactlessness +in our dealings with the outside world, when we cease to be such +wretched crawlers that we will go through any humiliation for our +daily-bread's sake, and cannot conduct ourselves like gentlemen, then +you will see how quickly we shall find the art of acting infused into +our blood--we who have been for so many centuries mere zealous animals. +To be sure, in regard to tragedy it is a question whether we shall ever +succeed, in our better days, in attaining sufficient earnestness and +reverence to enable us to keep in mind the fact that, as old Goethe +says, 'awe is mankind's best quality'--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He seemed about to talk still further of his hopes and fears; and +Felix, to whom many of these ideas were new, and to whom the speaker, +with his unselfish warmth, grew more and more attractive as he went on, +would gladly have listened half through the night. But the door was +noisily thrown open, and Rosenbusch made his appearance on his friend's +threshold arrayed in a costume the comicality of which irresistibly +swept away all these serious considerations.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had had his red beard shaved off, leaving only a diminutive mustache +and a pair of side whiskers; his flowing hair was elegantly arranged; +he wore an old-fashioned black coat, and a tall stove-pipe hat, brushed +smooth and shining.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You may well laugh!" cried he, knitting his brows tragically at his +friends. "If you only knew how a man felt who was yesterday in +Paradise, and to-day is forced to get himself up in such a toilet as +this, as if he were going to his execution. The executioner's minion, +who cut my hair, has just left me. Whoever wishes to have a lock of +hair of the celebrated battle-painter Maximilian Rosenbusch will find +them lying about, like useless wool, on the floor of the adjoining +room. O Delila, for whom I have suffered this! O Nanny, for whose sake +I cut my noble hair!--for whom I dress myself in this Philistine +fashion!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He stopped, and now revealed to Felix that he was on the point of +taking the most painful step of his life. In the opposite house lived +the object of his desire, the muse of his songs, the beautiful daughter +of a glovemaker, with whom he had been madly in love for the last six +months, so that he could positively hold out no longer. He had received +quite enough tokens to show him that his love was returned; indeed he +had an assurance, written on rose-colored paper and exhibiting one or +two orthographical liberties, that if the parents did not say no their +little daughter would certainly say yes. In order to have this question +decided, he had been obliged to assume his present masquerading +costume, notwithstanding the fact that the carnival was still far off. +For papa glovemaker had no very exalted opinion of artists of the +ordinary type.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Therefore, my friends, drop a tear for the departed splendors of my +noble head, and pray for my poor soul, that it may soon be released +from this purgatory and admitted to the joys of the blessed. And, +by-the-way, how is it, Elfinger? Don't you want to slip on your best +coat and come with me? Then the whole thing would be finished at one +go."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix saw that the actor blushed, and cast a look of displeasure at his +loquacious friend.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! to be sure!" replied the latter, stepping in front of the glass +and winking at Felix as he passed, "you haven't slept off your headache +from last night. Hm! Another time, then. It seems to me, do you know, I +look devilish respectable, and the glovemaker's little daughter will +make no end of a good match in catching a person of my tone and style. +Look, there she sits over there at her post, the little witch, and at +the other window, completely absorbed in her work, is her pious sister. +<i>Sua cuique</i>-- Well, I won't quote any further, Elfinger, my boy! But +now, I must wend my way to the high tribunal. Will you accompany me, +friend baron? You must support me with spiritual comfort, in case I +should show signs of weakness by the way. To be sure, I have just been +working up my courage by three beautiful strophes; but a lyric of that +sort, strongly diluted with water, does not last long, and a more +spiritual elixir for the heart cannot be prepared off-hand. May Heaven +take me in its safe keeping! Amen! Well, Elfinger, you shall hear +before long how it turns out!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Upon this he pressed his hat down firmly on his forehead, nodded to his +friend with a comical expression of misery and despair, and dragged +Felix with him from the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the stairs he suddenly stood still and said, in a suppressed and +mysterious voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Our friend up-stairs has the same trouble worse than I have. He is +smitten with the other one; but she is a little saint, as much of a +nun, thanks to her education with the English sisters, as my little +witch is a child of the world for the same reason. Now just conceive of +it, the more my little imp carries on--it will be hard work making a +sensible housewife of her--the more zealously does our good Fanny +confess and do penance and pray, and it really looks as if she were +seriously intent upon gaining a saint's halo. The fact is the girls +never associate with sensible people, and for that reason one of us +must sacrifice himself so that the ice will at last be broken, although +I confess it is pure madness on my part to think of marrying. You have +no idea, my dear friend, what extraordinary cobwebs gather in an old +Munich burgherhouse like this. Well, a few fresh fellows like us--I +imagine it would not take us long to bring new life into it, if we were +only once inside!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He sighed, and appeared not to be in the most courageous mood, +notwithstanding his brave words. Felix accompanied him across the +street and saw him enter the narrow, arched door next to the glove +store, which was closed on account of its being Sunday--going in with +an assumed air of boldness, as if he were going to a dance.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he himself wandered aimlessly down the street. In what direction +should he turn his steps? In the whole city there was no one who would +be looking for him to-day, and the one to whom he felt most drawn was, +strangely enough, on Sunday afternoons farther out of his reach than at +any other time.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was deliberating whether he should not hire a horse again and dash +away across the country, when companionship was unexpectedly thrown in +his way, of a kind that a man in his frame of mind could not but +welcome.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">His way led him along the Dultplatz, past the beer-garden in which he +had sat with his friends on his first Sunday in Munich. The music was +playing as before, but the people sat about under the lanterns, that +had just been lighted, in rather a sleepy and listless way, for the day +showed as yet no sign of growing cooler.</p> + +<p class="normal">Near the fence that separated the garden from the street, a Dachau +peasant-family had taken possession of one of the tables, leaving only +one end free. Their extraordinary, ugly costume attracted the attention +of Felix as he went wandering by. But his gaze soon turned from their +ridiculous dress and fixed on a slim girlish figure, closely wrapped in +a dark shawl, who sat at the other end of the table, with a full glass +and an empty plate before her, at which she seemed to have been staring +for some time, with her head resting on her hands and her elbows +planted on the table, as if utterly regardless of what was going on +about her. Nothing could be seen of the face, but a little, white, +short nose; her straw hat and a veil that hung half down over the +little hands threw the rest into shadow. But the little nose, and the +thick red hair, carelessly confined by a net, left not a moment's doubt +in Felix's mind that this picture of solitary melancholy was no other +than Red Zenz.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he stepped softly up to her, touched her familiarly on the shoulder, +and pronounced her name, she looked up with a frightened start, and, +with eyes red from weeping, gazed into the face of the unexpected +comforter, as if she took him for a ghost. But the moment she +recognized him, she hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her little +round hand, and smiled upon him with undisguised pleasure. He asked +compassionately what it was that made her so heavy-hearted, and why she +sat here all alone; and, drawing up a chair, he seated himself between +one of the horrible young peasant-girls and the melancholy little +Bacchante. Then she told him what the trouble was. "Black Pepi," her +friend, the girl with whom she had been living, had suddenly "proved +false" to her, because her (Pepi's) lover, a young surgeon, had +declared red to be the most beautiful color. He afterward apologized +for it by saying that, of course, with his profession, it was only +natural that he should prefer the color of the blood to any other. But +it had for some time past appeared to Pepi that her faithless lover +paid rather more attention to her friend than was permissible in such a +case; and so, after a very violent scene, she had not only broken off +the friendship, but had given her notice that she could no longer share +her quarters with her. Furthermore, inasmuch as Zenz was still owing +rent for several months, she had seized upon the few things she had to +hold as security, and had then driven her from the house with only the +clothes she had on at the time.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Only see," said the girl, lifting her dark shawl; "she did not even +leave me a respectable dress: if it had not been for the shawl that the +landlady lent me, I should have been ashamed to go across the street."</p> + +<p class="normal">And it was really so; she wore a simple sack of striped cotton under +her black covering, that she carefully wrapped about her again. But now +it began to look as though she no longer troubled herself in the least +about the adventure that had so recently made her weep. The pale +little face that she turned toward her neighbor, brightly illuminated +by the lantern, had even lost its expression of anger at this +insulting treatment and betrayal of friendship, and beamed again with +light-heartedness and irrepressible enjoyment.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what are you going to do, Zenz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know yet. I shall manage to find some place to stay at. I +could go to the Rochus garden, or the Neusigl, where I lodged when I +first came here; but the waiters there have keys to the doors, and I +have found that it is not safe there. And anywhere else, where I am not +known, they might think that I would not be able to pay for the room, +and I really have no money but a few kreutzers. I should have to pawn +the ring that I have from my poor dead mother. Well, the day is not +over yet, and I can think the matter over again."</p> + +<p class="normal">"To be sure," continued she, after a pause, during which Felix sat, as +if in a dream, gazing at her red lips and her white teeth, that one +could have counted when she spoke, "to be sure, I might fare well +enough if I only would! So well, that that false black cat Pepi would +envy me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"If you only would, Zenz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes, if I were willing to be wicked!" she added, in a low tone, and +for a moment her face grew serious. But in the next instant she laughed +merrily again, as if she would laugh away the flush that had suffused +her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know an artist named Rossel?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly. Edward Rossel. What of him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"He came to see me about a week ago. He said he had seen the figure +that Herr Jansen modeled from me, and he said, if I would come to him +and stand as a model, he would pay me three times as well for it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And why haven't you gone to him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm!--because I didn't like him. I will not hire myself out in that way +for the gentlemen, so that every one will know me and say: 'Aha! that +is Red Zenz!' I am sorry enough that I stood to please Herr Jansen, +although he is such a good gentleman. But now they know my address, and +they think that is as much as to say that I will go and be a model for +any one who wants me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Didn't you like Herr Rossel?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. Not at all. He doesn't look in the least as if he were an artist, +and wanted to study from a model. He made such big eyes--No! I sent him +off with a flea in his ear. And then he went to Pepi to get her to +persuade me. But she knows me. She went to him herself, for she thought +he would just as soon have one as another. But he only gave her a +gulden and sent her away again, saying that he had no time just then, +and that he happened to particularly want red hair. Then she flew out +again about red. I have heard though that Herr Rossel lives like a +prince, and Pepi said that if I were not a fool--at that time she was +not so down on me--I might make my fortune."</p> + +<p class="normal">"But are you going to continue such a fool all your life long, Zenz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I don't know," replied she, frankly. "Nobody is sure of herself when +she is young and has plenty of time on her hands. But I think as long +as I have my five senses about me--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She hesitated.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, Zenz?" he asked, taking one of her little hands, with its +fingers' ends roughened by work, in one of his.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So long," she said, quietly, "I will not do such a thing to please +anyone whom I do not love."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And how must the man look whom you could love? Only like Herr Jansen?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She laughed. "Oh! no. He is so much older than I. I only like him in +just the same way that I might have liked my father. He must be younger +and very nice, and--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She stopped abruptly, looked askance at him, a little coquettishly, and +said: "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't you eat and drink +something, or has the scarecrow next you there taken away all your +appetite!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She glanced disapprovingly at his neighbors, who looked, with their +nodding cap-borders and strait-laced Sunday suits, for all the world +like stuffed dolls, and did not understand a word of what had been said +by the other two.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Zenz," said Felix, without answering her; "do you know you could stop +over night in my quarters just as well as not? I have two rooms: you +could bolt the door between them if you should feel any fear of me, and +each room has a separate entrance. What do you think about it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are only joking!" she hastily replied, without the slightest +embarrassment; "you would never think of encumbering yourself with such +a poor, ugly thing as I am."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ugly? I don't find you at all ugly, Zenz. And if you only cared to be +a model for me, as you do for Herr Jansen--Do you know, he has kept me +for weeks studying an old skeleton and a lay figure, and I am +forgetting over such work the very sight of a human being."</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head, laughed, and then said, becoming serious again:</p> + +<p class="normal">"That was only meant in joke, of course. I am not so simple as to let +myself be talked into believing that you are really a sculptor!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, just as you like, Zenz. I won't try to persuade you to do +anything you don't like. Come, take some beer; a new cask has just been +broached."</p> + +<p class="normal">She drank eagerly out of his glass; and then a spirited overture was +played which interrupted their conversation for a time. Even after this +they talked entirely about other things. She told him about her former +life in Salzburg, how strict her mother had been with her, how often +she had known want, and how often of a Sunday she had sat quietly in +her chamber and had wished she might be allowed, just for once, to join +the merry, gayly-dressed throng outside, that she could only look at +from a distance. No doubt her mother had really cared for her, but for +all that she let her feel that her existence was an eternal reproach +and burden to her. Of course she cried when she lost her mother, but +her grief did not last long. The pleasure of feeling herself free soon +dried her tears. Now, to be sure--all alone as she was, without a soul +in all the wide world to trouble itself whether she lived or died--now, +she sometimes felt that she would give up everything if she could only +be back again at her mother's side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is always the way," concluded she, with a nod of the head that +looked droll enough in its seriousness, "one never has what one wants; +and still, people say one ought to be contented. Sometimes I wish I +were dead. And then again I feel as if I would like to promenade up and +down the live-long summer through, wear beautiful dresses, live like a +princess, and--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And be made love to by a prince--isn't it so?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course. Alone, one can have no happiness. What would be the use of +my princess's dresses, unless I could drive some one perfectly crazy +with them?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He gazed so steadfastly in her eyes, that she suddenly blushed and was +silent. The strange mixture of lightheartedness and melancholy in the +poor child, of enjoyment of life and reserve, of secret love and +introspective moralizing, attracted him more and more. Then, too, the +night, the subdued light of the lanterns, and the stirring music, and +his own loneliness of heart, and his seven-and-twenty years--</p> + +<p class="normal">"Zenz," he whispered, bending over so near to her ear that his lips +almost touched her neck, "if you would only care just a little bit for +me, why shouldn't we fare just as well as if you really were a princess +and I a prince?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not answer. Her lips were parted, she breathed quickly, and her +nostrils quivered, while her eyes were tightly shut, as if it were all +a dream from which she did not wish to wake.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We could lead a life like that in Paradise," continued he, gently +stroking with his own the two little hands that she had laid side by +side on the table. "We are both of us two stray children for whom no +one cares. If we should stay at home a year and a day, and never let +ourselves be seen, who would inquire what had become of us? All about +us people live and love and think only about themselves! Why should not +we think only of ourselves, too?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Go away from me!" answered she, in a low voice. "You are not in +earnest. You think about me? Not even in your dreams. How can you care +for me? Such a red-haired little monkey, as Black Pepi called me +today!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your hair is very pretty. I remember yet how pretty it made you look, +when you let it hang loose over your blue cloak that morning in Herr +Jansen's studio, when you ran away so fast. And now I will hold you +tight by it. Come! I thought we were going? It begins to be cool; at +least, I see that you are trembling."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not from cold!" she said, in a strange tone, as she stood up and +wrapped her shawl tightly about her.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then, without waiting for him to ask her, she took his arm and they +left the garden.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">She did not ask where he was leading her, and indeed spoke very little +more, and scarcely betrayed by any sign whether she was listening to +what he said, or was entirely absorbed in her own thoughts. He had +begun by telling her, with a kind of forced liveliness, about all sorts +of things that he thought would interest her; about the women in the +countries on the other side of the ocean, their way of dressing, their +songs and dances, and their ideas about love and men. As she made no +reply to it all, he at last grew silent too. For a moment he felt a +keen pang of pain, when, by the light of a street lamp, he caught sight +of his own shadow and that of the girl swaying before them on the +ground. How came he to constitute himself the knight of this poor +creature, who clung so tightly to his arm that he realized well enough +it would not be easy to shake her off again?</p> + +<p class="normal">Six weeks ago, in another city--it was a summer night, too--in what a +different mood had he returned home from a walk, and in what different +company! But that was passed forever. Should he wander about in the +desert all his life long in sackcloth and ashes, and turn his back upon +all the happiness of existence? Who would be benefited by his +sacrifice? And yet, why could he not suppress this obstinate pain, this +remembrance of past days that sought to fill him with disgust at the +lighthearted life of this "city of pleasure?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He would not let his life be ruined by a spectre, he would carry his +head high and sneer away all attacks of sentimentality. Laughing +defiantly, to silence the low, far-off voice in his heart, he released +his arm from the girl's, only to put it still tighter and more tenderly +about her shoulder.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Zenz," he said, "you are a darling little sweetheart. It would be a +sin if you should not know where to lay your head. Do you see that +house over there, with the lamp burning in front? That is where I live, +and no one has a key to all the doors. How would it be if we should +play hide-and-seek there for a time, with all this tiresome world?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He merrily lifted her up from the ground, as if he would carry her over +the street into the house; but she suddenly released herself and +pointed anxiously to two riders, who were already so close upon them +that they were forced to run to get by them.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You little goose!" he laughed, "surely you are not afraid of two +people on horseback, and they peaceful Sunday riders--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The word died on his lips. As the light of the lantern fell on the +faces of the two horsemen, he recognized in the one the lean profile +and the black imperial of Lieutenant Schnetz, and in the other a little +mustached gentleman, with a straw hat and a light riding-jacket.</p> + +<p class="normal">No; it must be a mistake! How came <i>he</i> here? He had been deceived by a +resemblance. It was only because he had so recently been thinking about +past times, that their shadow had risen up before him. What could +possibly bring the uncle of his betrothed to Munich, and in the company +of the lieutenant--he who never left his niece?</p> + +<p class="normal">And yet--as he looked he heard him say a word or two to Schnetz, and +then there was a merry laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two rode unsuspectingly by, and long after their voices had died +away, Felix stood gazing listlessly after them in the darkness without +rousing himself from his thoughts.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was he--Irene's uncle. But how did he come here? True, he had +distant relatives in Munich; but it was years since he had left off all +intercourse with them. Did he know, perhaps, that Felix was here in the +city? Was that why he had come, and had he perhaps brought his ward +with him? And even if it were all an accident--even the acquaintance +with Schnetz--must not he inevitably learn from the latter that the +fugitive had hidden himself here under the disguise of a sculptor's +blouse?</p> + +<p class="normal">"What is the matter?" asked the girl, at last growing impatient. "Do +you know these gentlemen?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ah! Yes," he answered, suddenly recalling where he was and with whom +he was standing here in the street. With a deep sigh he brought himself +back to the <i>rôle</i> of protector to this poor child. He stammered a +meaningless remark about the breed of the horses and about skill in +riding, and once more offered Zenz the arm he had withdrawn in his +momentary confusion.</p> + +<p class="normal">He led her thus across the street and into the house.</p> + +<p class="normal">When they had reached his rooms, where the windows stood open toward +the garden, he hastened to light a lamp. And then he forced himself, in +his character of host, to show the now somewhat silent and shy girl the +arrangement of his rooms, and all the curiosities that he had brought +back from his travels. On the table lay a little Damascus dagger, which +she took up and looked at curiously. He told her how a young Spanish +lady had given it to him in Mexico. And then he remembered a bottle of +sherry that was standing in his closet, and brought it and drew the +cork.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This is all the hospitality I can offer you," said he, still very +absently, setting down a full glass before her.</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head, and could not be prevailed upon even to taste the +wine. And in all that she did she had grown very shy and timid, like a +young swallow that has flown into an inhabited room, and keeps close +pressed into a corner, where you can see the frightened heart beating +under its feathered breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Will you not look and see whether you can make yourself comfortable on +the sofa?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not answer, and sat still in a chair by the window, her hat +still on her head, and her shawl wrapped closely about her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A beautiful night," she said softly, at last. "How far you can see +from here over the city! You are very happy to be able to live in such +a beautiful place."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, you can share the happiness, then. Only make yourself quite at +home. Are you tired?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, no! but please don't trouble yourself about me. If you want to go +to sleep, I will sit here and will not stir."</p> + +<p class="normal">He came and stood beside her by the open window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, Zenz," he said, "you must not mind if I leave you alone now. The +day has been so hot, the wretched music of that band and all sorts of +other things have given me a furious headache, and I had better get to +sleep. Good-night, child! If you want anything to amuse you, here are +all manner of things--photographs and books of pictures. I will light +you another candle. And now, make yourself comfortable. You can bolt +the door from this side, and my housekeeper goes to market early in the +morning, so that you are quite safe from her. And so, good-night!"</p> + +<p class="normal">He touched her cheek lightly. She raised her face toward him, quietly +and submissively, and looked at him half inquiringly, half afraid. Her +lips, with their white teeth, were parted--yet now without a laugh--and +her hands lay quietly folded in her lap. Yet, as he bent over her, he +only touched the hair upon her forehead lightly with his lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Good-night!" he said again.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he went into the adjoining room, and closed the door behind him.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">At the foot of his bed stood a cabinet in which he preserved all kinds +of relics, diaries, letters--mementos of his lost love. He thrust in +his hand at random, and drew out a portfolio containing all Irene's +letters, from the first unimportant notes, in which she sent him some +communication from her uncle--her uncle had an aversion to pen and ink, +and was very glad to make use of his niece as a secretary--to the +sheets on which the fate of his life stood written.</p> + +<p class="normal">He lit a lamp and spread out before him this chronicle of the happiest +years of his youth. Thus he sat with his back to the door of the +sitting-room, now reading, and now mechanically taking up one sheet +after the other. What could they tell him that was new? And yet these +fine, slender letters reminded him of the hand that had written them. +He had never seen any other hand that had expressed so much character, +so much delicacy and firmness, so much flexibility and noble repose. He +had often teased Irene about this, by telling her that he would +undertake to decide from the appearance of her hands whether she was +glad or sad, laughing or crying. The handwriting, too, was a very +correct expression of her impulsive and self-controlled inner nature. +Now, as he picked out here and there some particular sheet and glanced +over it again, the whole past rose up so vividly before him that he +felt as if he must suffocate in the close, lonely, sad atmosphere that +surrounded him; as if he were lying in his grave, and a voice arose +from these pages and repeated to him the history of his own life, that +now lay ruined and shattered for ever more.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your dear, long letter from Mexico," she wrote, "I gave to uncle to +read. He is always teasing me, because I assert that the letters of two +lovers are written to be read by two pairs of eyes only. It was not +possible, he declared, that an epistle of sixteen closely-written +pages, like your last, could be a mere love-letter; no human being +could stand such a thing, and we no longer lived, thank God, in that +paradise of letter-writers--the time of Werther. So I showed him the +Mexican letter, and he gave it back to me with one of his most comical +faces. He declared he had never before come across such a lover; here +he was giving a detailed description of a charming young girl, passing +from one handsome woman to another, as if he could think of nothing +that would give greater pleasure to his far-off sweetheart. That was +certainly rather the opposite of a love-letter; but if I was content to +make the acquaintance of all these Paquitas, Chatitas, and Mariquitas, +he would not begrudge me the pleasure, and congratulated me upon my +slight disposition to jealousy, which, to be sure, was a very useful +trait for me to have in the case of a traveler of this sort.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I laughed, and he went off to his club, shaking his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But then I grew very serious, and looked into my own heart and tried +to make out why it was that I really did not feel the faintest spark of +jealousy. Perhaps because there is room for nothing in my heart but my +love for you; neither for conceit, nor fear, nor desires, nor doubt. I +have never stopped to consider <i>why</i> it was that we two should have +loved one another. It <i>was</i> so; I felt that even more strongly than I +did my own existence. And for that very reason it seems to me +inconceivable that it can ever be any different. For you do not love me +because I am the most beautiful, the wisest, the wittiest, or the most +lovable person that you have ever seen, but because I am <i>I</i> the one +person, with all that I have and all that I lack, that you will never +find a second time. So, though you may find many beyond the sea who are +more charming, more attractive, more brilliant, you will never find me +again; and because I know that, I can, when evening comes, lay your +sixteen-page letter from over the ocean under my pillow, and very +quietly go to sleep and dream of you, without feeling any desire to +snatch you, with poison and dagger, from the attractions of some +olive-colored Creole.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For I know, dearest love--vain as it may sound, and little store as I +set by my few talents and attractions--that I alone can make you happy +as no other can; not so happy that you will never have a wish +unfulfilled; that I shall appear to you at all times the crown and +jewel of all wives, and you the chosen favorite of fortune; but as +happy as it is possible for one human being to make another, so happy +will I make you and you make me; and because we can never comprehend +this, but ask ourselves each day why it should be so, therefore our +happiness shall have no end, and no phenomenon of beauty, grace, or +wit, that ever crosses your path, will be capable of disturbing this +happiness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My old Christel would raise her eyebrows very ominously at this point, +and would repeat 'unjustified, entirely unjustified!' But I cannot help +it; as a rule I am timid and skeptical about anything good that is +promised to me. But when I think of our love, I overflow with boldness +and confidence. What harm can fortune do us? Is not our love itself +fortune? What tricks of fate ought we to fear, when we hear this fate, +the most important and the greatest of all, within us?</p> + +<p class="normal">"You will not feel tempted to translate this letter for the benefit of +your Spanish lady friends. They would only pity you for having a +sweetheart who would write you about such serious matters. Ah! and yet +my whole heart laughs when I think that they are so serious with us!"</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">In a later letter, that had been addressed to Paris, she wrote:</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">"Yesterday, I was at court again, and to-day I thank heaven that I +managed to bear it, and that the headache which was caused by its +tiresomeness is only a moderate one. This undoubtedly proceeds from the +fact that I sat at supper next to the embassador for ----, who has been +in India, and who described to me, in great detail and for the third +time, the burning of a widow that he had once been present at. (They +say that he always tells the gentlemen a similar story about a +tiger-hunt.) For this reason it happened that I could think a great +deal about you, and when I can do that I am always happy. My darling, +have you yet learned to put a good face on a bad matter? To howl with +the wolves? To do homage to 'his serene highness your sovereign +prince,' without letting your own sovereignty come out too plainly? I +am afraid that, inasmuch as they don't dance the bolero here at the +court balls, and as the whole <i>tempo</i> of our life is an <i>andante +maestoso</i>, you will soon grow impatient with all this again, and give +umbrage to some of the best and best-intentioned people in the world. +No one can understand your feeling better than I do; only to think that +your poor sweetheart, whom you have always teased about her good +breeding and her respect for conventional forms, is looked upon by the +society of this city as a very emancipated individual, or, at all +events, is notorious for being a <i>tête forte</i>! The reason of this is, +that I generally am quite dumb in the midst of all tiresome talk and +whispered gossip; but if the conversation happens to turn upon anything +deeper, upon affairs of real human interest and not merely upon court +events, then I express my true opinion, without troubling myself to +care whether it falls in with the court tone or not. And the good +people look on this as very pronounced, and not at all good form for a +young lady.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But don't you see, my dearest, in this way I manage to make this whole +world of forms bearable, by holding my human part ready in reserve, and +looking upon all these absurd prejudices and narrow conventionalities +as something purely superficial and accidental, as unimportant as the +other habits and customs we have in our toilet, behavior, and our +living and dying? And although the forms of the circle in which our lot +has happened to place us are very often more tiresome and senseless +than in other stations, still existence can nowhere be entirely +formless, and at the most can only seem so to one who only looks upon +it as a traveler may look, and who, as an irresponsible spectator, does +not feel bound to submit himself to any of the constraint that is +incumbent upon the natives. Have not you yourself told me that even +among the students a severe etiquette prevails, according to which they +sing and drink, and fight duels, and make up their quarrels? If young +people, in the years of their happiest freedom, cannot amuse themselves +without submitting to the restraint of customs and conventionality, why +should you be so angry with our poor aristocracy, that endeavors to +console itself by these wretched devices for the emptiness of its +existence?</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is only among ourselves that we need not submit to any formality! +Only when in his most intimate circle can one be a human being! And, +since it is so, I think we can easily spare the little tribute of +restraint that we have to render to our social equals.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So do come back, and behave like a pink of propriety, my darling +scapegrace; and try and make your seven-league boots accommodate +themselves to the minuet step of our dear capital at least once in +every month or two. Then when we are alone again in our own four walls, +I will do all I can to make up to you for the <i>ennui</i> you have +suffered; and I will gladly dance the bolero with you, if you will only +teach me how."</p> + +<p class="normal">This letter was soon followed by their reunion. With what a feeling he +took up all the little notes, that at that time had but a few streets +to go, to bring messages about a walk, a visit for which he was to call +for her, or some incident that had made it impossible to keep an +engagement! These notes showed, now and then, traces of some more +serious misunderstanding that had taken place between the two lovers: +an appeal to be very gentle to-day, a promise not to refer by a +syllable to the dispute of the day before. He seemed to see again all +that he had once read between these lines.</p> + +<p class="normal">And then came her last letter, the letter of parting:</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">"I am quite quiet now, Felix, or at least as quiet as one is when pain +has exhausted all one's strength. I write to you this very night, for +of course there can be no thought of sleep. I have again and again +thought it all over from the beginning, and have each time arrived at +the same conclusion--that I deceived myself in believing through all +these years that I was necessary to your happiness. Do not try to shake +this belief; I am sadly humbled, Felix, very wretched and miserable +because of this confession; but I am as sure that it is true, as I am +that I still live and breathe.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know that you still love me, perhaps quite as much as you have +always loved me. But one thing I did not know before, and I learn it +now with pain: you love something better than you do me--your freedom.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You would be willing to sacrifice it, partly from chivalry, in order +that you might keep your promise; partly from kind-heartedness, for you +must feel how my whole life has hung on you, and how slowly these +wounds will heal. And yet, <i>it must be!</i> How could anything that would +not make you perfectly happy ever be happiness to me?</p> + +<p class="normal">"You shall be free again, and you may be so without any anxiety about +me. I have more strength than I seem to have. There is only one thing I +cannot bear: to see a sacrifice laid at my feet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Even if you were now willing to disclose your secret to me, it would +not alter my resolve. I would not have you think that I wanted to wring +anything from you, which you would not give to me of your own accord. +But that you should make a distinction between that which you share +with me, and that which belongs only to yourself ... it may seem +narrow-minded or weak or arrogant of me, but I cannot help myself, I +cannot rise above it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I shall never feel toward you, Felix, any differently from what I do +now; I shall never feel toward another as I do toward you. I have to +thank you for the best and dearest feelings that I have ever possessed +and experienced. No lapse of time can change this in the least--as +little as it can my resolve.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Think kindly of me, too--without bitterness. And now +farewell!--farewell forever!<span style="letter-spacing:15px"> </span> Irene."</p> +<br> +<p class="normal">He knew this letter by heart, word for word, and yet he read it through +again, word for word, and when he came to the end all the pain, and +defiance, and anger against himself and against her blazed up within +him, as it had in the hour when he first read it. Her calmness, her +gentle strength, that he used to laugh at as artificial, although he +knew how free she was from all feminine tricks; her clear comprehension +and her courage in asserting it: all this humiliated him anew. Then, +indeed, he had comforted himself with the belief that a word from him, +a look, her name merely pronounced by his lips, would demolish the +barrier that she had raised up between them, as easily as one blows +down a tower of cards. He had bitterly deceived himself. Neither by +entreaties nor stratagems had he succeeded in again gaining access to +her. He had to admit, with a new feeling of humiliation, that she was +the stronger. Then at last he too had, as he believed, bound his breast +in the seven-fold bands of iron, and had turned away from her. For the +last time he wrote to her a short, proud, but not unkind letter, almost +like an ultimatum from one power to another. He had felt some hope in +regard to it for that very reason. When it remained unanswered, he +acknowledged that all was over.</p> + +<p class="normal">His face had sunk down on the little portfolio, he had closed his +eyes and had given himself up, with a kind of ecstasy, to all these +bitter-sweet memories. The thought that there was any one near him had +passed completely out of his mind, and his dreams began to lapse deeper +and deeper into the haziness that usually precedes unconsciousness.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly he roused himself with a start. A light hand had touched his +shoulder. As he turned hurriedly, he saw Zenz standing behind him. She +hastily stepped back again as far as the threshold of the door, which +she had softly opened, and stood there in the frame thus made in the +exact attitude of Jansen's "Dancing Girl," her arms thrown back and +holding, instead of the tambourine, the little plate on which Felix had +handed her the wine. The candle-light that streamed in from the +sitting-room, and the little lamp by the side of Felix's bed, doubly +illuminated the slim, youthful figure, and its shadow flickering back +and forth heightened the weird charm. She stood there with her profile +slightly turned upward, motionless as a statue, gazing straight before +her. It was not until quite a time had elapsed, and she had begun to +feel tired, that she asked, still without turning her head, whether he +was not going to begin to sketch? He rose and took a step toward her, +and then stood still again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dear child," he said, controlling himself with difficulty, "it is +too late for that. The night has grown cool--you will catch cold. Come, +I thank you very much. You are a beautiful girl, and I--am not made of +stone. Now go back and go to sleep. To-morrow--tomorrow we will +sketch."</p> + +<p class="normal">She gave a start, and he noticed with amazement that she began to +tremble violently. She gave but one timid glance at him. Suddenly, the +tears streamed from her eyes, she threw down the plate with such force +that it shivered into fragments, rushed back from the threshold into +the sitting-room and violently slammed the door behind her.</p> + +<p class="normal">An instant after, he heard the bolt pushed to.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For God's sake, child!" he cried, "what has come to you all of a +sudden? What have I done to offend you? Open the door, and let us have +a sensible talk together. Didn't I tell you that I had a headache? And +who ever heard of such an idea as sketching in the middle of the night? +Zenz! don't you hear? Won't you make it up again?"</p> + +<p class="normal">All in vain. After wasting his entreaties and at last his anger, for +some time longer, on the tightly-closed door, he was finally obliged to +give it up. His blood was in a whirl; he could not conceive now how he +could have repulsed the poor creature in such cold-blooded fashion. +"Perhaps her anger will pass over, if I leave her to herself for a +while," he thought.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am going out to take a little walk," he cried through the key-hole. +"I must have a breath of fresh air. When I come back again, perhaps my +headache will be gone and your fit of temper, too. In the mean while, +pass away the time as pleasantly as you can."</p> + +<p class="normal">And he really did go out into the night; but he returned again before a +quarter of an hour had passed--he was drawn back by some power that he +himself could not understand.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he entered his sleeping-room, where the lamp was still burning +steadily, it was empty. He passed quickly through the door, which was +now unbolted, into the sitting-room. But here, too, no trace could be +found of his guest, search as he would behind the curtains and in the +dark corners. The light had not been extinguished and a bat had flown +into the room, and the exertion of hunting him out again threw him into +a perspiration. When at last he succeeded, and, exhausted by such a +variety of excitement, had sunk back upon the sofa, he found that all +the little knickknacks, which he had spread before her when they first +arrived, were still lying on the table in the same order in which he +had left them. The little dagger which his Creole friend had given him +was the only thing he missed, and he could not find it though he +searched for it everywhere.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2><i>BOOK III</i>.</h2> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER I.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">There are summer nights that are not made for sleep. The moon shines +far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full +height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People +strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under +their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow +of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of +crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does +in the hot noontide. On such nights as this, sounds of life and +merriment are heard throughout the city long after the police have +sounded the hour for retiring; the couples that wander through the +streets seem unable to find their way home; young fellows march along +arm-in-arm, in long rows stretching the whole width of the road, as if +advancing to battle against some invisible enemy, singing all the while +as tenderly and sweetly as they know how, or else shrieking and yelling +like a troop of wild Indians. Here and there, where a window stands +open and a <i>sonata</i> of Beethoven floats out into the night, they +suddenly hush their noise and listen, only to break out in a wild burst +of applause the moment the music ceases. On such a night solitary youth +lies dreaming, with open eyes, till long past midnight, of the glories +of the future; and solitary age thinks sadly how glorious the past was; +and at last they fall asleep over their musing, and slumber quietly, +until some young cock in a neighboring roost, who cannot sleep himself, +gives a glance up to heaven and begins to crow with such vigor at the +setting moon, which he mistakes for the rising sun, that the sleepers +start up again, throw off the bedclothes from their hot limbs, and +creep to the window to see whether the night is really at an end. After +this there is no more sleep for the aged; but they who are young lie +down once more and soon make up for all that they have lost.</p> + +<p class="normal">Such was the night that followed that Sunday. Of those in whose fate +and adventures we are interested, none went to bed before midnight, +though in truth some other sprite than the charm of the sultry night +had possession of their hearts and senses. Even the good Angelica, who +to the best of our knowledge was not in love, and who rejoiced moreover +in that softest of pillows, a good conscience, sat at the open window +of her little virgin bower, in which a lamp was dimly burning, half +through the night, twining her curls and heavily sighing and dropping +into a doze, until her head would strike against the window-sash, +when she would start up and begin once more to spin her sorrowful +summer-night's thoughts. She had been at Julie's door that afternoon to +inquire what had been the upshot of this bad business. But no one was +at home. And so she was waiting impatiently for the following day.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was later still before Julie could bring herself to go to bed. The +windows in her chamber stood open so as to let in the night-air through +the openings in the closed blinds. But with the air the magical +moonbeams streamed in too, and made a pattern on her green silk +coverlet; her thoughts were lost in its mazes, so that she could not +close her eyes. She felt as if she had never been at once so happy and +so wretched. At heart she did not doubt for a moment that everything +really was just as it stood in the baleful letter; that she would never +possess him whom she loved. His own puzzling behavior, the way in which +he had suddenly broken off and rushed out of the room, confirmed the +anonymous accusation only too well. But the thought that she loved him, +and that he returned her love, crowded out all others, and made her so +glad in the depths of her heart, that no hostile fate could crush the +rejoicing within her. So he is to "give her back her faith in her own +heart!" What a senseless phrase! When had she ever believed in anything +as she believed in the strength and truth and invincibility of this +feeling, in the feeling that it was worth while to have lived through a +long youth without love and happiness for the sake of this man, so that +now she might lavish upon him a hoarded wealth of passion?</p> + +<p class="normal">She could not help smiling when it occurred to her how often she had +thought that she had done with the world, and could look back without +regret upon the years of youth she had lost. What had become of those +ten anxious years? Had she really lived in them or only dreamed of +them? Was she not as young and inexperienced, as thirsty for happiness +and as coy in its presence, as she had ever been in the first blooming +years of her girlhood? Yes, she felt the courage of her earliest youth, +when she still believed in miracles, bubbling up within her from an +inexhaustible spring. She made no attempt to close her eyes to what +could and would happen. But that this love, hopeless as it seemed, +would be a source of unspeakable happiness to her, that in the +sanctuary of her heart she would never cease to look upon this man as +belonging to her--all this she admitted to herself in words so plain +that, as she lay there wide awake in the moonlight, they sometimes +found utterance in a half-audible soliloquy.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she marveled at the suddenness with which it had all come about, +but she soon convinced herself again that this was just as it should +be. She tried hard to picture to herself the kind of wife he might +have. But she could not; it seemed to her impossible that he could ever +have loved any one but herself. She closed her eyes and tried to recall +his features to her mind. Singularly enough she met with no great +success. His eyes were all that she could distinctly call up before +her, and his voice seemed always to be close to her ear. She rose and +stepped to the window, and opened the blinds a little to see if the +night were not almost over. She herself did not know why she should +thus look forward to the morning, for there was little hope that it +would bring her anything new or good. But it would bring <i>him</i>, she +could count on that. With burning lips she drew in the mild night-air, +and listened to a love-song, which a solitary youth sang as he passed +under her window.</p> + +<p class="normal">She understood each word, and as he ended she repeated the closing +verses softly, and sighed as she shut the blinds again. Then she lay +down and at last fell asleep.</p> + +<p class="normal">The day had long dawned outside, but the green twilight in which she +lay caused her to dream on undisturbed. It struck seven, eight, nine, +from the clock on the Theatinerkirche. Then at last she awoke, feeling +as refreshed as if she had just emerged from bathing in the sea. It was +some time before she could think clearly of all that had happened +yesterday and would probably happen today, but as she did so a vague +fear and anxiety came over her. She hastened to dress, so that she +might go out and ask whether any letter had come. When at last she +opened the door into the parlor, her figure wrapped in a loose robe, +and her hair thrust carelessly under a pretty cap, her foot hit against +some heavy object that took up the whole breadth of the threshold. As +the blinds were closed in this room also, she did not see at first, +owing to her short-sightedness, what it was that lay in her way. But +the object immediately began to move of its own accord, and raised +itself up before her, and she felt a cold tongue on her hand and saw +that the intruder was no other than Jansen's venerable Newfoundland +dog. The start he gave her was almost instantly lost in the greater one +with which she found herself saying, "Where the dog is, the master will +not be far away." And she was right, for there, in the back part of the +room, leaning against the stove, was a dark figure with disheveled +hair, standing as immovable in its place as she herself stood in the +doorway, deprived of all power to move a limb or open her lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">Just at this moment the other door opened, and the old servant stepped +in and turned to the man at the stove with a gesture which was half +indignant, half timid, but which said plainer than words that it had +been impossible to turn away this uncomfortably early guest; he had +made his way in by force.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is quite right, Erich," said his mistress, who had now completely +recovered her composure. "I will ring when I want breakfast. And, +by-the-way, I am not at home in case any one calls."</p> + +<p class="normal">The old man retired, shrugging his shoulders, and muttering to himself. +The moment he closed the door behind him, Julie stepped quickly up to +Jansen, who stood in silence at the opposite end of the room, and +cordially extended her hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you for coming," she said; and from her voice it would have been +hard for any one to have believed how her heart beat as she uttered +these few words, "But sit down. We have much to say to one another."</p> + +<p class="normal">He bowed slightly, but remained standing where he was, and appeared not +to notice that she had offered him her hand.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Pardon this early visit," he said. "Your note did not reach me last +evening. Early this morning, when I went into the studio--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Have you any suspicion as to who could have written the letter?" she +interrupted, wishing to come to his aid. She had sunk down into a +chair, and the dog lay beside her on the carpet, occasionally giving a +growl of content as he felt her soft hand on his head.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think I know," replied Jansen, after a short pause. "I am certain +that some one in this city is dogging all my steps, very likely in the +interest of another. What was in that letter is nothing but the pure +truth; and when I went to my studio this morning, I carried a letter in +my pocket which I had written overnight, and which tells you almost the +same thing. Here it is--if you would like to read it."</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head slightly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What for, my dear friend, if it tells me nothing new?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps it may. But you are right; this piece of paper cannot prove to +you the fact I most desire to have proved: that is, that I really wrote +this letter last night before I knew of any other. That is something +you can only believe from my personal assurance--and that is the reason +of my being here."</p> + +<p class="normal">"That is the reason? Oh! my friend, as if I needed such an +assurance--as if your hasty departure yesterday had not told me that +you did not trust yourself to stay because you--because you had only +said what you did in a moment of self-forgetfulness--and yet, believe +me, that was a thoughtless word that slipped from my pen, that only an +explanation from you could give me back my faith in my own heart. I +have never lost that faith. I believe to-day, as yesterday, that my +heart knew perfectly well what it was about when it surrendered itself +to you."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are an angel from heaven!" he cried, his grief breaking forth; +"you seek to defend me even from myself. Yet for me with my hopeless +lot to have forced myself into your quiet life, will never cease to be +a crime. That is what I said to myself yesterday the moment I left your +door. This letter attempted to say the same thing, and informed you +also of my firm resolve never to show myself in your sight again. But +the strange hand that tugs at the chords of my ruined life, and seeks +to tear them asunder, has shattered this resolve. Now I owe you a +longer confession than could be written in a letter. For not until you +know all about me will you be able to understand that, though it was a +sin, it was still a human one, that caused me so to forget myself; and +that you need not withdraw your respect from me--though you do your +heart--and your hand."</p> + +<p class="normal">He was silent again for a moment; she, too, said nothing. She trembled, +but she strove hard to appear calm, so that he would go on. How +willingly she would have heard her fate in two words--her "to be or not +to be!" What did she care for all the rest? But she felt that he had +more to tell her, and she would not interrupt him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I hardly know," he continued, "how much our friend Angelica has told +you about me. I am a peasant's son, and had to struggle through a hard +childhood; and it was a long time before I could bend my stiff +peasant's neck so that it fitted without chafing in the yoke of city +etiquette. Few men have ever gone such strange ways as I have, always +wavering between defiance and humility, audacity and shrinking, as +well in my dealings with my fellow-men as in my art. I had a mother of +the true old yeoman nobility--which is synonymous with true human +nobility--at least in our part of the country. She finally succeeded in +making a strong, silent man of my father, who had a streak of the +tyrant in him. If she had lived longer, who knows whether I should ever +have left her? But soon after her death I prevailed upon my father to +let me go to the art-school at Kiel. I did little good there. There was +a wild element among the scholars, and I was not the tamest. I always +had a great contempt--perhaps because I was ashamed of my peasant's +manners--for what we were pleased to call the Philistinism of the +worthy citizens. That I, as an artist, was permitted all sorts of +liberties that were denied to officials, scholars, and tradespeople, +pleased me greatly; and I abused my freedom without stint. But as I +moved in a very narrow circle, and seldom came in contact with any high +type of humanity, I had no great field in which to display the +profligacy of my thoughts and habits. A few wretched <i>liaisons</i>, and a +number of silly and by no means edifying scrapes, were all that came of +it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Then I moved to Hamburg. There the same wild life was continued on a +somewhat larger scale. You will readily spare me the details. Now, when +I think back on that time, I have to stop and reflect whether it really +could have been <i>I</i> who wasted his days and nights in such shameful +dissipation with such worthless companions. They were my Prince Hal +days. 'The wild oats had to be sown.' But now I thank my good star for +having led me safely, though by dubious ways, past all that kind of +crime and wrong-doing which could not have been covered by this trite +saying."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well, one evening, when my aching head and my gnawing rage at my own +idiocy unfitted me for anything else, I went to the theatre, and saw +for the first time an actress who was just entering on an engagement +there. The piece was a flat, sensational, social drama, in which she +took the part of the noble, generous, young wife, who plays the saving +angel to the dissipated husband. It was a moral lecture that appealed +directly to my own case; and as the sinner, even in his deepest +degradation, seemed an enviable creature as compared with me--for he +invariably fell into the arms of his guardian angel--I could not help +wishing myself in his place; and so was led to examine that angel very +carefully.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She was certainly well worth looking at. A most charming young person, +with a figure, a bearing, and a certain indolent grace in all her +movements, such as I had never seen before. In addition to all this a +childlike face, with dove-like eyes, and such an innocent, plaintive +mouth, that you would have been willing to storm the very heavens just +to bring a smile to those pretty lips. When this really appeared at the +close of the play (for the young husband reformed), it was all over +with me. As I noticed that half the audience--indeed, the entire male +part--had gone mad over her, I considered my sudden infatuation not +extraordinary; especially as I have a way of not being very slow in my +feelings of love and hate. You have had experience of that yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">He paused for a moment, and gave her a hasty glance. But she did not +stir, so breathlessly was she listening to him, her eyes fixed on the +head of the dog, who lay quietly sleeping at her side.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will spare you any account of the further course of my love affair," +he continued. "It is enough that in eight days I gained my case by +ardor and flattery: and Lucie was my betrothed.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The strange manner in which she bore herself in this position ought to +have warned me. To my first passionate wooing she had opposed a +prudishness and a maidenly reserve such as I had not expected to find +in an actress, especially as she let me see plainly enough that she +felt anything but indifferent toward me, and that the homage of an +artist whose reputation was then in the ascendant was exceptionally +flattering to her. But no sooner did I, somewhat taken aback by this +severe maidenly reserve, make her a proposal that aimed at nothing less +than our marriage and her retirement from the stage, than her tone +changed. She began to treat the subject with greater lightness, to +utter platitudes against marriages among artists, and in praise of the +happiness of liberty; to tease me with moods, and to attract me again +by all kinds of pretty coaxing; so that my passionate obstinacy was +urged higher and higher, until at last I forced her, half against her +will, to fix the wedding-day.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course this excited the greatest amazement among my former +companions, who could scarcely believe their ears. To those with whom I +was most intimate I expatiated on the matter as an exceedingly +practical undertaking, as a truly sensible marriage. I should never +again find a being who was thus equally removed from Philistinism and +evil courses. Besides, one cannot go on sowing wild oats forever; and +it seemed to me that now, when my prospects had begun to seem quite +favorable on account of a number of orders I had received, was the most +suitable time to settle to a steadier life. This is what I said to my +most intimate friends. I said nothing to the others. One of them, our +Falstaff, who was the one most concerned at my loss, took me aside one +day and asked whether I was really in earnest about this foolish +affair. Upon my replying that I was sufficiently in earnest to forbid +any contemptuous criticism upon my conduct, even from a good friend, he +shrugged his shoulders and excused himself: he had not had the +slightest intention of offending me, but he merely wished to call my +attention to the fact that this freak of mine might cost me too dearly. +Then, when I pressed him further, he remarked that 'in his opinion +there were such things as artificial violets, and that the most genuine +thing about this creature was her acting, which, unfortunately, she +kept up in real life as well as on the stage.' And then followed a +short sketch of her adventurous career, which this well-meaning man had +collected, not without considerable trouble, from numberless inquiries +at the theatres where she had appeared.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course I expressed my appreciation of his kindness in the plainest +possible words, broke with him once and for all, and ran off to my +betrothed, to whom I excitedly related the whole chronicle of what I +had heard about her way of life. The idea had never even entered my +head that she would answer me in any other way than with a burst of +burning indignation, and I had already been considering what kind words +I should make use of in order to soothe her. But she heard me through +without emotion, indeed without even blushing, so that for a moment I +was fool enough to say to myself, 'I really believe she is so innocent +that she doesn't even understand what I have been telling her.' But +when I ceased speaking, she looked me full in the face, quite unabashed +and with her most angelic expression, and said: 'This is all a lie, +except in one particular. I committed a single wrong when I was a mere +child, and that was the reason why I refused to become your wife. Do +now as you like; you know what you take when you take me.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"This confession, which she made with her irresistible melodramatic +voice, blinded me completely; and I was more convinced than ever that +all the rest of the talk about her deceitfulness and coquetry, and her +heartless flirting with foolish young admirers, was a lie. 'No,' I +cried, folding her in my arms, 'you shall not find yourself +disappointed in me, you shall not find a narrow-minded Philistine, when +you thought you were giving yourself up to a free artist's soul. What +lies behind you shall cast no shadow over our future. If it is true +that you love me, why then--' and here I quoted, slightly changing it +to suit the occasion, a verse of poetry that I had read but a short +time before and had thought very profound. 'Was <i>I</i> a saint before I +asked your hand? And yet I was master of my fate, and knew what I did. +No, let there be day before us and behind us night, that none may look +upon us! Only promise me that in the <i>future</i> all your thoughts shall +belong to me alone.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"She sobbed violently in my arms, and made me the fairest promises. I +almost believe that at that moment she did indeed mean what she said, +for there was a sound spot in her that had not yet been touched by the +worm--a longing for what was pure and good. If this had not been the +case, how would it have been possible for me to have continued in my +blindness longer than the few weeks of the honey-moon? But she herself +seemed so happy in those first months, though we lived quite by +ourselves--for I had broken with my old cronies, and had no particular +desire to form new acquaintances, whom I could only have found among +the Philistine class that I so heartily despised. Then, too, she grew +more charming with each day. Once in a while, however, I caught her +poring over her prompt-books; and then I told her bluntly, for I could +see that her eyes were red with weeping, that she longed to be back +behind the foot-lights again, that she missed the applause and grieved +because she could not any longer turn the heads of the whole parquet. +'What can you be thinking of!' she laughed. 'In my condition! Why, I +should feel like sinking through the deepest trap-door, I should be so +ashamed!' In this way she would drive away my suspicions; and when at +length her child was born, I really thought she was so taken up with +household joys and cares that she cared for nothing else.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is true she was not such a foolish mother as to think her child an +angel of beauty. It was a rather plain, unattractive-looking little +thing--'the father over again,' remarked the women, very justly. But +she played the <i>rôle</i> of mother with considerable talent; and not until +a long time later, when she was sent to the sea-shore to recuperate, +did it occur to me that she parted without any particular grief from +the laughing and cooing little creature that clung so tightly to her. I +staid at home and let her go over to Heligoland by herself, in the +charge of an elderly friend of hers--an actress, but a woman bearing an +irreproachable name. I happened to have a few orders that it was +necessary to execute just as soon as possible--among others two busts +of a rich wharfinger and his wife--and as our household, small as it +was, made pretty heavy drains upon my purse, I felt that I ought not to +let these chances slip through my fingers. It was our first separation, +and I found it hard enough to bear. But, as I had to work hard and also +to fill a mother's place toward the child, the first two weeks passed +pretty quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But after that the little one began to give me a great deal of +anxiety. Teething set in, there were bad days and worse nights, and the +letters I received from my wife--in which she said she was doing +admirably and had grown quite young again--did not tend to raise my +spirits especially, for it appeared as if nothing were wanting to her +happiness, not even her husband and child.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Heretofore I had had neither disposition nor occasion for jealousy. +Suddenly I was to learn what an abyss can be uncovered in a man's soul, +into which everything sinks that he has before believed firm and true.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had been sitting up late; the child was very feverish, and toward +midnight we had been obliged to call in the doctor. For the first time +I thought with bitterness about my wife, who could stay at such a +distance and nurse her own health while the little life, that should +have been dearer to her than her own, was trembling in the balance. +When the child had been quieted a little, so that I could think of +taking some rest, it was a long time before I could close my eyes, +though as a general thing I could reckon on my peasant's sleep under +all circumstances. At last it came, but with it came dreams--dreams +such as I would not have wished to the damned in hell. Always about +<i>her</i>, in ever-new costumes, playing the old play of pledged and broken +faith. Out of the last scene, where, in the very presence of her lover +and with the quietest mien in the world, she sought to demonstrate to +me her right to transfer her love from one man to another, until I +sprang forward with a cry of fury to seize her by the hair--out of this +wretched vision of hell I was awakened by the crying of my child; so +that I did not take time to wipe the cold sweat from my forehead, but +ran into the nursery quite prepared to find Death standing at the head +of the little bed. But once again it passed, and in the morning we were +both able to get a couple of hours of quiet sleep. Then, at last, I sat +down and wrote to my wife just how things stood.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For some days before, I had not sent her any very encouraging reports. +Any other woman would have returned at once, and not have tried to +excuse herself on the ground that the water-cure ought not to be +interrupted. But she--enough! I must try and control myself when I +speak of her. After all the poor creature cannot be blamed because she +had no heart, and because my love and passion could not conjure up one +within her breast.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But at the time I wrote in all the roughness and bitterness of my +mood, and insisted upon her immediate return. I had almost forgotten +the dreams of the night before. But a little later, when I was taking a +walk through the city, chance willed it that they should again be +recalled to my mind.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I met a gossiping acquaintance, who had also been passing a few weeks +at the island. Heaven knows how it came about that I stopped him and +inquired about my wife. He was very much surprised to hear that she had +been there, indeed that she was there still. As in such a small place +everybody met everybody else, he could not understand how so beautiful +a woman could have escaped his notice. 'To be sure, she has lived in +great retirement,' I stammered, and he found this very natural and +praiseworthy of a charming young lady, and hoped the cure would be +successful, and so left me; while I stood there like a fool for a full +quarter of an hour, staring vacantly at the same flag-stone, and +blocking peoples' way as if I had been a stopping-post. Yet she <i>must</i> +have been there; letters had daily passed back and forth; and then, +what earthly reason could she have for trying to deceive me in this +respect? But then again: you will readily understand that this +incident, trifling as it was in itself, was well calculated to add new +fuel to the fever that was raging within me.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I could not expect her back before the following day. How I survived +the intervening hours will always remain a mystery to me. I was +incapable of any occupation, of any connected thought or action. I had +just sufficient strength and reason left to sit by the side of the +poor, feverish child, and apply the ice-bandages, and count the hairs +on its forehead.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Even when night came I would not leave my post. I dreaded to dream. +Then came the morning again, and noon and afternoon, and still no news. +But at length a drosky drove up, the house-door was opened, the stairs +creaked under a light step, I sprang to my feet and rushed to meet her; +just then she entered the door, and my first look in her face +strengthened all my horrible suspicions.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Or no; it was not her face. I have no right to do this actress an +injustice; she had her face as completely under control as ever--the +innocent violet eyes, the Madonna mouth, the clear forehead--and yet it +<i>was</i> her face that sent a shudder to my inmost heart. Was that the +mien of a mother, hastening to her child that lay at the door of death? +of a wife returning, after such anxious weeks of separation, to the +husband whom she pretended to have married for love?</p> + +<p class="normal">"Enough! The fate of our lives was decided in the first few hours. But +I was crafty too, and played my <i>rôle</i> bravely. That we should refrain +from all demonstrations of tenderness, while our child lay in such +danger, was so natural--she herself could find nothing wrong in this. +But on the following morning, after the night had brought a change for +the better and we were able to breathe freely once more, she said to +me--and I can see her before me now, as she knelt at a trunk and turned +over the gay contents trying to find a comfortable dress to put on, for +she had not taken off her clothes during the night--'Do you know, +Hans,' she said, looking up at me with her dove-like eyes, half +petulantly, half pleadingly, 'do you know that it isn't at all nice of +you not to have paid me a single compliment upon how well I am looking? +I left a gallant husband, and find a cold-hearted bear. Come, as a +punishment, I will let you kiss this little slipper, that I might have +put on the neck of the whole male population of the island if I had +wanted to.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Lucie,' said I, 'I want first to make a request of you.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'About what?' asked she, innocently.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'That you will swear to me, by the life of our child, that it is only +a devilish delusion, sprung from my jealous dreams, that makes me think +you do not come back to me what you were when you went away.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I had arranged this sentence word for word, just as one loads with the +greatest care a gun with which one wants to take sure aim. And I did +not miss the mark. She suddenly flushed purple, bent down her head over +the trunk, and fumbled nervously with the heap of sashes and scarfs.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But she quickly recovered herself.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'You have had bad dreams?' she asked, still quite unabashed. 'What did +you dream, then?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"And I replied: 'That you had been unfaithful to me. It is nonsense; I +know that you can give me back my peace by a single word. But, unless +you speak this word--did you understand me, Lucie? By the life of our +child, who lies there barely escaped from death--I only want to hear +one word. I cannot reproach myself with any neglect of my duty toward +<i>you</i>. Do you hear me, Lucie? Why don't you answer me? Can't you bear +my look?'</p> + +<p class="normal">"She actually succeeded in forcing herself to look at me, but there was +not the flash of innocent pride, of offended womanly honor; it was an +unsteady, flickering defiance, and the flaring up of a hostile feeling, +that I read in her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I have no answer to such a question,' said she, with a gesture that +carried me back to the time when she was on the stage. 'You insult me, +Hans. Let us talk about something else. I will pardon you for the +child's sake, and because of the anxiety you have been suffering.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"I was still so under her influence that I hesitated for a moment +whether to mistrust the voice in my heart, or this serpent look. She +had risen, and was standing at the window, her face turned away and her +hand before her eyes, such a picture of insulted majesty and innocence +that I already began to curse my heat, and to accuse myself of having +done the greatest injustice and wrong that can be done to a helpless +woman. But just as I was on the point of going up to her and trying the +power of kind words, I heard my dog give a strange sort of a growl and +bark, as if he were angry and provoked; for which I could see no +reason. He did not like the woman. Either she had never known how, or +else she had never thought it worth while, to gain his favor. But +heretofore he had seemed to feel the greatest indifference toward her, +and I could not understand why her offended speech and bearing should +now enrage him. The truth is he was not paying the slightest attention +to her, but seemed to have been excited by something that he had +dragged out of the pile of things she had taken from her trunk. I +called out to him to lie down and keep quiet; he was still in a moment; +but, wagging his tail violently, he ran up to me, holding something in +his mouth which he laid on my knee. It was a man's glove.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Can you believe it?--my first feeling at the sight of this evidence +was a wild joy and satisfaction. I was suddenly at one with myself +again, and the wretched feeling of shame that perhaps after all I had +let my suspicious heat get the better of my reason, gave place to an +icy calmness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'If you would only turn round,' I said, 'perhaps you would speak in a +different tone. Without knowing it or wishing it, you have brought me a +present from your journey for which I ought to thank you.'</p> + +<p class="normal">"As she turned round, even she was not actress enough to repress a +gesture of terror.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I swear to you--she stammered, pale as death.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Very good,' I said; 'that is precisely what I have been asking you to +do. But--do you hear?--consider well what you swear and by what you +swear it. By the life of the innocent creature lying in that chamber, +by that God who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto +the third and fourth generation--'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'I don't know what you mean--I--I have done no wrong and have no need +to swear. This glove, Heaven knows--'</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Heaven does know!' I shrieked, my smouldering rage breaking out +furiously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I reached out my hand toward her; everything reeled before my eyes; I +have no further recollection of what I said and did at that moment, +except that I was very near seizing her by her long locks, as in my +dream, and dragging her across the room and down the stairs, and +casting her out into the street. I am sure, however, that I did not +touch her, but my looks and words must have been so relentless and +unmistakable that she herself found it advisable to leave me. Half an +hour later I was alone again with my child.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That very day I received a letter from her, full of well-turned +periods and insidious accusations. I read it without emotion. I was +like a well that has been choked forever--nothing can make its water +bubble up again. I answered this letter with a single word--'Swear!' No +second letter came; a last remnant of human feeling, sunk deep in +superstition, made it impossible for her to utter a lie that might be +revenged upon her child.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I waited three days. Then I wrote her a note that contained no word of +reproach, but simply said that it would be impossible for me to share +my life with her longer. I told her I would provide for her as I had +done heretofore, under the single condition that she would take her +maiden name again and never make any claim upon the child. When I wrote +this--I can't help confessing my foolishness to you--something within +me said, 'She will never consent to this condition. She will come and +fall at your feet, with a full confession of her guilt, and pray you +rather to kill her than to separate her from her child.' Then--what +might I not have done then?--it makes me shudder to think of it. I +almost believe I should have pardoned her--and been wretched ever +after, with my honor wounded and my confidence shaken at the very +roots. But I had loved her too dearly for me to become master of my +weakness so quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She spared me the temptation. In a few days her answer came; she +refrained from making any explanations, which she knew would never be +satisfactory to a person so inclined to be suspicious as I was. Great +God! I suspicious--I, whom a lie would have quieted again! She accepted +what I had proposed to her, intended to return to the stage--for which +she was undoubtedly born--thanked me for all the goodness I had shown +her, hoped all would go well with me, and much more--a letter well +written, friendly, and icy cold.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not a syllable was said about the child!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER II.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and +his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this +position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been +telling his dreary, melancholy story.</p> + +<p class="normal">The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes, +went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort, +and made as though he would take his departure.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said +in her soft voice:</p> + +<p class="normal">"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went +on: "And you have never seen her since?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear +the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came +to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined +when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change +of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree +hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I +might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated +and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in +Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled +myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns +money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who +lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that +noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his +convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it +would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in +order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger +except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a +disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my +fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my +money-getting. It was all one, after all.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was +not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the +thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I +sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately +sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and +better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together, +so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for +her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I +was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It +seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my +accomplishing this end.</p> + +<p class="normal">"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she +wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the +child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know. +Certainly not her heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a +kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good, +honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose +children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof. +When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little +to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I +either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it +to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances, +who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried. +But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an +enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer. +Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman +before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those +violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all +my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you +confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to +you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send +it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would +have been a reproach to me. And now--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Julie, what could you ask that I would not joyfully--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I would love so dearly to see the child. Will you bring it to me? or +will you go there with me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He took a step toward her; now, for the first time, he ventured to look +her in the face. She rose and went forward to meet him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dear friend," she said, "I must know this child. No matter how well it +may be taken care of where it is, it is and always will be motherless. +It can only find a mother again in her who loves the father more than +all else, and who would take to her heart all that belongs to him. Do +you not see that you must bring the child to me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Julie!" he cried, in a tone that burst from his innermost heart, just +as when a dreamer with a loud cry shakes off the nightmare that is so +suffocating him. He staggered toward her, and tried to seize her hand; +but she drew back a step, shook her head gently, and said, with a +blush:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Listen patiently to what I am going to say, or else it will be hard +for me to control myself and find the words. The sad story you have +just told me has given me a great deal to think of; I have not yet +clearly fixed it in my mind. But one thing is already clear to me: that +nothing in your past life can ever separate me from you. On the +contrary, I have been continually testing my feeling during your +confession, and have found that I love you now even more wholly than I +did yesterday, and that I know better <i>why</i> I love you, if this is not +a senseless thing to say. My heart is old enough to be wise, and to +know why it loves any one, though my head is not quite so ready. And +so, my dearest friend, I now seriously declare to you, I have not the +slightest intention of ceasing to love you because so and so many years +ago you made the mistake of believing another human being to be better +than she really was. I will go still further: you shall not cease to +love me either, unless you made a second mistake yesterday, which I +confess would be much more painful to me than that first one."</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not succeed in uttering these last words, for, overwhelmed with +joy, Jansen had seized her in his arms. He held her long in this +embrace, until at last she recovered breath enough to beg for her +release.</p> + +<p class="normal">"No, no," she said, as she gently freed herself, "do not do so, dear, +or I will take it all back again; for you and I are not to be spared +our time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and +let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you. +You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced +and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at +such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I +just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling +myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all +the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you +have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact +that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break +the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up +within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice +your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will +consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come +to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote +my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I +tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some +place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another. +But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly. +Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really +do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art +and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has +been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much +better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of +being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not +see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve, +and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was +necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for +that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a +whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay +such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of +youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a +long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I +should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and +will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your +child's heart, so that it will not draw back, as from a stranger, from +her whom it is to call mother?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness, +and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both +sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw +it again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you +understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the +truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that +you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a +heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and +always--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet +which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when +they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one, +in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody +today.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so +herself before I will believe it."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature +from our happiness."</p> + +<p class="normal">She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third +person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica +into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and +not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take +my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no +difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to +help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen, +do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished +friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose +sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a +way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave +without her reward!"</p> + +<p class="normal">There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter, +and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in +such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness. +He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to +Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well, +and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was +generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up their +quarters together; that the visits of the <i>fiancé</i> should only take +place on certain days and in her own presence; that, for the present at +least, they would not disclose the great event even to their most +intimate friends in "Paradise"--all this and more was discussed, the +burden of the conversation falling almost entirely on Julie. A certain +lightheartedness had taken possession of her, such as her friend had +never seen her show before. She insisted upon Jansen and Angelica +taking breakfast with her, and played the part of hostess most +charmingly. Jansen followed every movement she made, as if he were +attracted by a magnet; and was caught more than once returning the most +irrelevant answers.</p> + +<p class="normal">At last, when he really had to go--it was already past noon, but no one +had taken any heed of the time--Angelica too rose in great haste.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I will go on ahead," said she; "lovers don't go through with their +leave-takings quite as quickly as we single people."</p> + +<p class="normal">But Julie detained her. She merely gave Jansen her hand to kiss, and +closed the door behind him. Then she fell on her friend's neck and +kissed her, her eyes overflowing with tears.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Forgive me my happiness!" she whispered. "It is so great I am almost +afraid of it, as though I had stolen a crown!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a child you are!" said the artist, bending over her and blushing. +"I told you how it would be--though really I was not so reckless as you +have been. To love this man just as one would any ordinary mortal, to +take him to your heart in this sudden fashion--well, I must say, I +admire your courage. It is true you are a perfectly charming piece of +human nature, from top to toe, and can do things other folks can't. +Now, such miserable institutions as we common people are, mere images +of God in <i>gouache</i> or water-color--well, we have to be sensible, at +all hazards, unless we would bring down ridicule as well as injury upon +our heads. <i>Addio, cara! Iddio ti benedica!</i>" and with these words she +rushed out of the door.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER III.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">It was close upon midnight when Rosenbusch, with a heavy sigh, shut the +little sketch-book in which he had been scribbling verses on the empty +leaves between portraits of horses' heads and studies of costumes and +armor, and proceeded to drink off the last drops of his red Würtemberg +wine. For more than three hours he had been sitting in the same place +in the corner of a quiet little beer-house, where few of the regular +guests were to be found to-day on account of the beautiful weather +outside, and where those who were present were fully occupied with +their customary drink. It would not be very hard to divine what had led +our friend hither. First of all, the certainty of not meeting any one +whom he knew. Then, probably, an unconscious attraction in the name. +The landlord of this little wine-room bore the name of the first man, +and it is probable that one who had just been driven from Paradise felt +a strong inclination to go and console himself with another Adam over +the common fate of the race. In this object he seemed to have been +wonderfully successful, partly because of the innocent power of the red +Würtemberger, of which this desperate man had managed to empty four +Schoppen; partly because of the soothing influence of the muses.</p> + +<p class="normal">What Rosenbusch had written in his sketch-book had been a melancholy +strain; a sad lament over the misappreciation of the world, its +hardhearted realism, its effect upon his own fate, and, finally, over +his own desperate love affair.</p> + +<p class="normal">Any one who knew how to read poems might easily have derived from this +one the consolation that the author's life was in no immediate danger +from the stunning blows which had fallen upon it. The truth is he +belonged to those delicately-strung, romantic souls, who consider it +almost a moral duty to suffer continually from some gentle inflammation +of the heart or fantasy. But the more chronic their state becomes, the +less dangerous it is, as a general rule. Unfortunately, in the case of +our lyric poet, there was another circumstance which tended greatly to +increase the unpleasantness of his situation. Though, by temperament, +he was little inclined to passionate catastrophes, he felt, on the +other hand, a certain abstract craving for action, which made it +impossible for him to be content with looking on at life from a +distance. A certain lack of physical courage--for he was of a slender, +nervous build--made him feel it incumbent on him to exercise so much +the more moral boldness, and to carry a fancy, which another would have +quickly put aside--for it had not really taken a very strong hold on +him--to some romantic end, or to illustrate it by some adventurous +enterprise. This love of <i>dénouements</i> had generally turned out so +badly for him that he might well have been discouraged; his friends +told the most comical stories of what he had suffered in this way. But +in spite of all this, he had just taken the most audacious step of his +life, with the deliberate intention of doing something at the same time +chivalrous and practical. He, who barely lived from hand to mouth, had +seriously appeared as a suitor in the house of a worthy citizen of the +good old Munich type, entirely incapable of taking a joke in such a +matter. Why matters had been pushed to such an extreme in this +particular case, he himself would have found it hard to say. For a long +time the affair had run the usual course; first, stolen glances were +interchanged from window to window, across the narrow alley; then came +the first tributes of homage in the shape of little notes in verse, +surreptitiously delivered, and flowery contributions to the Munich +daily paper, the <i>Latest News</i>. These effusions were accompanied by +much lurking about the streets, which eventually resulted in the +formation of the desired acquaintance, and ended in a bold confession +of love under the "dark arches" of the Marienplatz. With all her +blushing and laughing, and nods and glances, the dear child had managed +to draw the line so skillfully that she appeared to refuse his +attentions as little as she appeared to encourage them. She treated the +whole matter as a joke, as something to be laughed over, but never for +one moment to be regarded in a serious light. That the good-looking, +dashing, gallant painter found favor in the eyes of his pretty neighbor +could not be exactly denied. She even went so far once as to entreat +him to keep up his flute practice diligently. She never fell asleep so +comfortably as when he was sending forth some really heartrending +melody. For the rest she knew very well what to expect of artists, and +she had no doubt but what he had copied the beautiful poems he had +addressed to her from some book or other.</p> + +<p class="normal">Rosenbusch felt himself rather flattered than hurt by these doubts; but +still this did not advance matters at all, and his dramatic instinct +for fresh excitement and change of action was almost in danger of +lagging a little, when it received an unexpected impulse from another +quarter. He discovered a secret that heretofore had been guarded more +carefully than his own; this was the hopeless love that his next-door +neighbor, Elfinger, entertained for the sister of his sweetheart.</p> + +<p class="normal">He felt at once that it was incumbent upon his honor for him to do +something which should release them both from this state of unmanly +submission to their fate, and of base yearning toward the house of a +Philistine, and at the same time push the fortunes of his friend. If he +himself could once obtain free access to the house in the character of +<i>fiancé</i> to the worldly daughter, Elfinger would have no difficulty in +becoming more intimate with her spiritually-inclined elder sister, and +would undoubtedly be able to overcome those scruples that had +heretofore prevented this singular girl from accepting any of his +letters, or even from consenting to strike up an acquaintance with him +in the open street.</p> + +<p class="normal">Confident in this belief, he determined upon the desperate step; and, +if he could not muster up sufficient courage, after the miserable +termination of his undertaking, to return to his friend with the bad +news, let us not think any the worse of his good heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">Yet we must confess that, as far as he himself was concerned, he +regarded this crushing conclusion to the novel as beneficial rather +than lamentable. He had done his best, had displayed uncommon courage, +and had shown the beautiful being how serious he was in his intentions; +but now he felt that he had a right to rejoice in peace over an +honorable defeat that permitted him to go on setting his heart on +everything that was lovable and unattainable. When at last he stepped +out of the wine-room into the square, where the moonlight shone full +upon the five bronze statues standing rigidly in their regular rank and +file, a feeling of infinite satisfaction stole over him; a malicious +joy that he could wander here in flesh and blood beneath the changing +moon and have as many love affairs as he liked, while these celebrated +dignitaries stood on their pedestals unable to move a muscle. He even +caught himself beginning to sing in a loud voice; but a moment after he +came to a sudden stop. He felt that it was not at all the proper thing +for him to go about bawling merry songs, considering the mournful mood +he ought by good rights to be in.</p> + +<p class="normal">So he composed his feelings, and wended his way home in a much more +subdued manner. But when he reached his street, and saw the lights in +Elfinger's windows blinking down at him, his heart quickly sunk into +his boots again. He could not bring himself to go up at this dead hour +of the night and confess to his friend how badly the affair had turned +out. So he turned swiftly upon his heel, and, taking a roundabout way, +finally reached his studio, where he knew he could find tolerable +sleeping quarters.</p> + +<p class="normal">The janitor opened his eyes wide when he was knocked up to open the +back-door for Herr Rosenbusch. The white mice, too, quickly sprang up +from their pleasant dreams of biscuit and Swiss cheese, and rubbed +their snouts against the wire-netting in nervous excitement; for they +recognized their master. There he stood in the moonlight, paying no +attention to them, firmly planted before the battle of Lützen. He gazed +at it for a while in silence; then he felt for the place where his +beard was usually to be found.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are no fool, after all!" he muttered to himself. "If you had never +painted anything but that black charger there, rearing because he has +received a bullet in his neck--<i>Basta! Anch' io sono pittore!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he took his flute out of its case, and marched up and down for a +while blowing an <i>adagio</i>, in order to dissipate the fumes of the red +Würtemberger. At length, when he felt tired enough, he rigged up a bed +on the floor out of a Swedish saddle, that he took for a pillow, a +saddle-blanket, said to have been used by Count Piccolomini, and a +tiger-skin which the moths had eaten until it looked like a variegated +geographical chart, but which was popularly supposed to have belonged +to Froben, the Master of the Horse. However this might be, it served to +make a softer bed for the tired body of the last of the romantic +battle-painters; and he stretched himself upon it with a sigh, looked +out once more on the moonlight night, and then fell into a deep and +dreamless sleep, such as is rarely granted to a disappointed lover.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IV.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Elfinger had been sitting up late into the night awaiting the return of +his friend, until at last he was forced to admit that there could be no +doubt but what the adventure had not ended very gloriously. He fell +asleep with a heavy heart, for his last hopes were now defeated.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next morning he crept mournfully down to the bank, and left it +earlier than usual under some pretext or other. He hoped to find +Rosenbusch at home at last. But the little, scantily furnished, untidy +chamber of the battle-painter was still vacant.</p> + +<p class="normal">Could he have done something desperate, left the city or even--?</p> + +<p class="normal">In great excitement, for he loved his good comrade heartily, he mounted +the dark stairs for the second time, after the close of his evening +duties at his desk. He found on his little table an unmistakable +symbolical sign that his friend was still in the land of the living. A +large market-basket stood in the middle, provided with a long paper +label such as they put on medicine-bottles; and on it were written +these words:</p> + +<h3>"A REMEDY FOR BEARDLESS ARTISTS.<br> +TO BE TAKEN ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITIES<br> +OF THE CASE.<br> +FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF<br> +THE LEATHER GLOVE."<a name="div2_03" href="#div2Ref_03"><sup>[3]</sup></a></h3> + + +<p class="normal">There was nothing in the basket but the sketch-book, in which the +solitary outcast had written his lamentations the night before.</p> + +<p class="normal">The actor had not yet finished reading the last strophes when the door +opened, and Rosenbusch solemnly entered, with such an indescribably +mournful expression upon his face that it was impossible to look at him +without laughing. As soon as he saw that Elfinger was once more capable +of appreciating the humor of the situation, it was easy to perceive +that a weight was lifted from his heart. He stepped hastily up to his +friend, and, giving him both his hands, cried:</p> + +<div class="poem"> +<p class="t4">"Drink to the lost, O stranger,</p> +<p class="t4">And pray for his poor soul!"</p> +</div> + +<p class="continue">the final words of his own verses.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But come, brother," he continued, "let us rise superior to our fate, +and although our manly spirit may not forbid us to shed a tear--</p> + +<p class="normal">"So it is all over, and there is no more hope?" interrupted Elfinger, +shutting up the sketch-book.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Over and gone forever! unless I should change my course in my old age +and become a cattle-painter, or should crawl back into the womb so as +to be born again as a pupil of Piloty. Just conceive it, Roscius! Only +yesterday, hardly an hour before I paid my visit to papa, this brave +Theban had fallen into the hands of a good friend at the art-club, who +had stuffed him with a long account of the wonderfully flourishing +financial condition of art in our good city of Munich. A flock of +sheep, that had just been sold for eight thousand gulden, and the +vivisection of a rabbit by some Hungarian or Pole whom that magician +Piloty had developed into a celebrated man in six months, and whose +pictures are now sold for unheard-of prices before they leave the +easel, had given the two Philistines a chance to air their æsthetics, +which are as irrefutable as mathematics. Figures show this. The export +of painted canvas from this city, which has attained a gigantic height +during the last few years, even surpassing the export of tanned +leather, could not but impress even Nanny's unpoetical father. I might +have carried off the little jewel without the slightest trouble if I +could only have shown him a single cow, or some little historical +atrocity. But for battles there was 'no demand'--eternal peace lay +before us. How much did I make a year out of my old-fashioned art? +Well--I lied like a trooper, and mentioned some unheard of sum +for a man in my condition. Whereupon the monster laughed: he knew +an animal-painter who had made double that amount from a single +sheep's-head, in which, to be sure, you could distinctly perceive the +quality of the wool by looking at it through a magnifying-glass. It was +then that my temperament played me a shabby trick. I could not resist +the temptation to make a disrespectful pun<a name="div2_04" href="#div2Ref_04"><sup>[4]</sup></a>--one, moreover, that was +much too obvious to make it worth the while--and after this there was +no helping matters. Unfortunately we could distinctly hear a burst of +laughter, over my poor joke at papa's expense, proceeding from the +adjoining room. The author of it had apparently been unable to +withstand her maidenly curiosity, and had been listening to all that +had been said. But I--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He checked himself suddenly. His eyes unconsciously wandered to the +windows across the street, and what he saw there caused him to forget +the end of his report.</p> + +<p class="normal">A most charming girl made her appearance behind the window-pane, and +two little hands could be seen fastening a little straw-hat firmly on +the brown head; then the window was opened and the sky was eagerly +scanned, apparently in order to find out whether it threatened rain or +promised to be fair. At the window to the left a slim figure could also +be discerned, as it shut up some sewing in the drawer of the little +work-table, and then threw open the window so that the evening air +might benefit the flowers. But while the mischievous eyes of the +younger sister, in roving merrily about, lighted on Rosenbusch, who had +quickly stepped up to his window, and gave him a stolen glance in +passing, the second sister refrained from all such worldly arts and +immediately disappeared from the window, after having said something to +the younger which the spy opposite could not understand, in spite of +the windows being open.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Elfinger," cried the painter, "it was a wrong conclusion after all. +The affair is not over yet by any means, and I am willing to bet that +the chapter we have just reached won't be the most tiresome one in this +great sensational romance."</p> + +<p class="normal">He quickly dragged his astonished friend, who, in his despondency, +could not understand this sudden change of mood, out of the door and +down into the street. They stepped out of the house-door just as the +two sisters over opposite crossed the threshold of their home, both +modestly veiled, and carrying little black prayer-books in their hands. +But, before they turned down the street to the right, a bright smile +passed over the face of the younger one, which Rosenbusch noted through +her veil and knew well enough how to interpret.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Let's wait a second," he said. "We'll give them a little start. That +little Philistine is a perfect witch! I wonder where she got it from!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"They seem to be going to church. Is there any open so late as this?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You forget that this good city of Munich is called <i>Monachum +monachorum</i>. If it's too late for vespers, then it's just early enough +for a vigil. So now--march! Otherwise they will be round the corner, +and we shall lose track of them."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was still light in the street, but Sunday evening sets in pretty +early in Munich, especially on summer days, when a hot air prevails +that is provocative of an early thirst. The two slight girlish figures +made their way through the throng in the inner town as skillfully as +lizards, now disappearing from the gaze of their faithful followers, +and now coming into view again. They turned into a rather broad but +deserted side-street, in which stood an insignificant little chapel, +scarcely to be distinguished from the row of dwelling-houses, though it +had the reputation of enjoying the special protection of the Virgin. A +slight jutting out of the decorated façade was the only thing which +indicated its whereabouts, just as a well-to-do ecclesiastical +gentleman going about in the midst of his flock shows, by the gentle +outward curve of his body, that he has dedicated his life to +contemplation, and to thanksgiving for all the good gifts of Heaven.</p> + +<p class="normal">From the low portal of this out-of-the-way little church, which was +guarded by a plain wooden door, a dense crowd of worshipers were just +streaming forth, mostly old women and shriveled-up old men, and a few +early-converted sinners with faded faces and restless looks. No sooner +did they come out into the street than most of them gave themselves up +to the refreshing enjoyment of fresh air and cheerful conversation--two +luxuries which they had been forced to dispense with inside. Only a few +wheezing old men crept along alone, counting their beads with their +long bony fingers as they went. The pious company were far too much +occupied with themselves to pay any attention to the two sisters, who +now entered the deserted sanctum. It was dark and gloomy enough within. +A gaunt, fellow in a white surplice, who figured as sacristan, was +sleepily engaged in putting out the candles on the principal altar, +with a rod on which was fastened an extinguisher. When this was done, +he spread a covering over the altar-cloth. And now the fading daylight +found its only entrance through two arched windows, on which the +figures of the Virgin and Joseph with the Child stood out in brilliant +red and blue. Over opposite, where two red columns of porphyry +supported the organ-loft, deep darkness had already settled down, but +faintly broken by the little stumps of tapers before which a few +tireless suppliants continued to read in their little books, though the +regular service had long since come to an end. An iron stand, with +prongs and nails with the sharp ends up, also bore a number of large +and small wax-candles, which had been planted there by the devout as a +modest offering. A reddish light from this fragrant candelabrum, which +stood before one of the side shrines, fell upon the numerous crucifixes +and silver votive offerings near the altars, upon the artificial +flowers that decorated the reliquaries, and upon the dilapidated finery +of the figure of the Madonna standing at the feet of her crucified Son. +It had a singularly weird and depressing effect--the soft crackling of +the lights, the subdued mumbling from those toothless lips, the +sniffing and wheezing of the kneeling old women, and the peculiar smell +of the wax-tapers, incense and snuff, which last article seemed to be +in constant use to prevent the devotional spirit from falling into a +doze.</p> + +<p class="normal">But all these impressions, which at first almost took away the breath +of the two friends, seemed, from long familiarity, to have lost all +power over the sisters. After sprinkling themselves with holy-water out +of a basin near one of the red columns, they stepped softly up to the +candelabrum, and each fastened her little taper to one of the sharp +points, carefully lighting it before doing so, and then returned to the +columns and knelt down in two of the back pews, one on one side and one +on the other of the middle aisle.</p> + +<p class="normal">Both appeared to be immediately absorbed in devotional exercises, the +forehead pressed upon the open prayer-book, the little hands busied +with the beads of their rosaries. But they could hardly have had time +to repeat a paternoster before the places at their side were occupied +by two voluntary participants in their worship. On the footstool to the +right, next the startled Fanny, knelt Elfinger, while Rosenbusch had +sunk gently down on the stool on the other side, close to his more +worldly sweetheart, who appeared not to take the slightest notice of +him. The muttering, wheezing, snuff-taking old hags, who sat about here +and there, evidently took no offense at this symmetrical group, which +quietly busied itself with its own affairs; and only a round, red-faced +little priest, who was kneeling before his own taper and reading out of +a book, with his spectacles shoved high up on his forehead, seemed to +be suddenly disturbed in his perusal. The spectacles quickly slipped +down upon his nose, and his little eyes strove earnestly to pierce the +dim light that played about the two red columns.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you really in earnest?" whispered Elfinger, bending down close to +the ear of his neighbor. "You really want to turn your back upon this +beautiful world and bury yourself in a convent? You, so young, so +charming, so well fitted to be happy and to make others happy."</p> + +<p class="normal">A deep sigh was the only response he received. At the same time she +almost imperceptibly hitched her stool about half an inch farther away +from the speaker, and buried her delicate little nose still deeper in +her prayer-book.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Fräulein Fanny," he whispered, after a pause, "what horrible thing +have you seen or experienced in the world that has made you already +weary of it? Or does the air here in this house of prayer seem to you +easier to breathe than the lovely air of heaven outside? And do you +think you will find a convent better ventilated than this place, and +filled with a better company?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Ave Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora</i>--" murmured the girl, +making the sign of the cross.</p> + +<p class="normal">"And do you think I will be put off in this way?" whispered Rosenbusch +to his neighbor. "Oh, my adored Fanny, you do not know me! If painting +battles does not exactly make a man fat, it makes him strong, bold as a +lion, invincible. You shall see what heroic deeds I will yet +accomplish--on condition, of course, that you remain faithful and true +to me. Or do you doubt me?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She was silent for a moment. A quick, mischievous side-glance rested on +him for an instant: "Go away!" she whispered, scarcely above her +breath. "You are only joking. It was very wrong of you to follow us +here. I still have six paternosters to repeat, and it is a positive +sin--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's a sin of your papa, sweet Nanny mine, to shut you up like a nun +and let you go nowhere but to church, as if a young creature needed +nothing but to be pious. When should one be merry, then, unless it is +when one is young? Come, Fräulein Nanny, if your father had not been so +angry yesterday, and I were sitting by your side--not here in the dark +corner, but in your own house on the sofa--and were whispering all +sorts of silly love-talk in your ear, and your sister, who was left to +matronize us, should find her presence absolutely necessary in the +kitchen, and--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The round red face in the window-niche assumed a highly displeased +expression, for the two heads near the red columns had approached so +near together that their hair touched, and the softest whispering +sufficed to make itself understood. Over opposite, where the other +couple were, a space two spans broad still intervened between the two +kneeling figures. But even there not a syllable appeared to be lost.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know I have no right to hope for any great happiness," whispered +Elfinger. "I am a poor cripple. If you reply by saying that it is a +piece of audacity for me to hope, with my single eye, to find favor in +the most beautiful pair of eyes that ever read in a prayer-book, I find +it very natural. Yes, you will even do me a favor, Fräulein Fanny, if +you will tell me so--if you will confess to me that a man who looks +as I do can never win your heart. I would try then to come to my +senses--that is to say, to become quite hopeless. Will you do me this +favor?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Deep silence. Nevertheless she hardly seemed inclined to make such a +declaration.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are cruel!" he continued; "I am neither to live nor die. But of +what account am I? If I could believe that <i>you</i> would be happy--O +Fanny, I would really suppress my own feelings and call the convent a +paradise in which you lived and were content. But I shudder to think +that you may regret what you have done when it is too late; that then +even a life by the side of such an ugly, insignificant, unknown man as +I am, who loves you more than himself and would do everything for you, +and who finds his whole world in you--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He raised his voice so loud as he said this that she looked up in +affright, and made a beseeching sign for him to calm himself. In doing +this, she involuntarily moved a little nearer to him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"For Heaven's sake!" she stammered, "what are you doing? Pray--pray +leave me. It can never, it must never be!--never, never! A secret, that +I dare not tell to any one, not even in the--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"In the confessional," she was about to add. Suddenly she started back, +in alarm at what she had already said, and bowed her face down upon her +book again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This miserable, faint-hearted, wretched world of shopkeepers!" raved +Rosenbusch, on his stool over opposite. "Can there still be bold and +manly deeds? O Nanny! if it only were as it once was, I would come +spurring up to your father's castle some fine night on my gallant +charger. You would let down a rope-ladder from the donjon-window, and +would swing yourself up behind me on my horse--and away we would go +into the wide, wide world! But nowadays--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hm! nowadays we have railroads," she murmured, slyly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Girl!" he cried, in a sepulchral voice, "are you really in earnest? +You would--you have the courage? O dearest Nanny of my heart! If I +should elope with you, you would love me so dearly that you would +follow me to the end of the world--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She shook her head. There was a sound like a suppressed giggle.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nonsense!" she said, "we need only go as far as Pasing. Then papa will +steam by us; or we can do as another couple once did. They merely went +to the top of the church of St. Peter and sat concealed there with the +warden, and their people went searching about all over the country for +them, while they sat there and laughed at them all."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Nanny, love, you really will--oh, what a heavenly idea! To-morrow--if +you are truly in earnest--to-morrow evening at this time--"</p> + +<p class="normal">This time she actually laughed out loud, but she held her handkerchief +before her face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, stop!" she said, "I was only joking! It is absurd to talk of such +a thing! Mother would worry herself to death, and besides--but we must +go; Fanny has risen already."</p> + +<p class="normal">She put her book up near her face, so as to pray as quickly as +possible. But he, burning with his adventurous spirit, and encouraged +by the darkness of the place, quickly whispered to her:</p> + +<p class="normal">"And you will send me away in this fashion? Not a single stolen--oh, +Nanny dear, you would be doing a good deed--a kiss, in all honor!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She seemed to have suddenly become deaf, so motionless did she kneel +there, with her eyes tightly closed. At last, however, she made a +movement as though she would stand up. In doing so, her little book +slipped from the slanting rack and fell between her and her chivalrous +neighbor. She stooped down hastily to pick it up, and, as he could not +help doing likewise, nothing was more natural than that their faces +should approach near enough, there in the darkness, for him to impress +a hasty kiss on the girl's round cheek. She did not even seem to be +conscious of what had occurred.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," she whispered as she rose up again, holding the book he +had officiously handed her. "Goodnight--but you mustn't follow us!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She said this in a tone which made it very doubtful whether she meant +it seriously. At the same time she rose from the stool and hurried to +her sister, who stood waiting for her, with downcast eyes, near the +holy-water basin.</p> + +<p class="normal">The two slim figures reverently bent the knee before the principal +altar, sprinkled themselves again with the holy-water, and left the +little church in the same manner as they had come, deeply veiled and +carrying their prayer-books before them in their hands.</p> + +<p class="normal">Five minutes after, Rosenbusch might have been seen stepping out of the +porch, arm-in-arm with the actor. The battle-painter threw the only +sixpence he had about him into a lame beggar's hat.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Holy Mother!" he cried, "life is splendid, after all, in spite of +leather-glove-makers."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Where shall we go?" asked his gloomy friend, whose spirits had been +completely crushed by the "secret" of his sweetheart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"To the tower of St. Peter's, noble Roscius! I must get acquainted with +the warden this very evening, and take a look at the arrangement of the +place. One can never know what devilish queer adventures one may +encounter, when it would be very useful to have such high friends and +patrons."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER V.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Early on the morning following their nocturnal encounter, Felix sought +out the lieutenant; he could not rest without trying to find out +whether it was not an illusion of his senses which made him think he +saw Irene's uncle riding at his friend's side. Schnetz lived in the top +story of a dismal old house whose winding stairway was but dimly +illuminated by a faint stream of light proceeding from a dingy skylight +covered with dust and cobwebs. A woman, too refined-looking to be a +servant, and, on the other hand, too modest in her behavior to be a +housekeeper, opened the door for the strange visitor, looked at him in +a frightened and confused way, and informed him in a soft, subdued +voice that the lieutenant had gone out very early in the morning; when +he would be back she did not know. He sometimes staid away whole days +at a time; this time, besides, he had said something to her about +taking a ride into the mountains. So Felix was forced to restrain his +impatience. But he felt quite incapable of going to his work as usual. +He lounged about the streets for hours, regardless of the heat and +dust. He carefully scanned every horseman whom he met, and every +carriage from which he saw a veil waving; and a girl's head, turning +about with restless curiosity to see all that was going on, caused his +heart to beat until he had convinced himself it was not the dreaded, +and yet secretly so longed-for, face--for which he sought thus +earnestly only that it might not take him too much by surprise.</p> + +<p class="normal">On the following day he continued his aimless wanderings, at first on +foot, through all the picture galleries, and in the afternoon in a +drosky, in which he rattled through the Au suburb, the English Garden, +and, finally, the Nymphenburg and the deer park, until his panting +horse landed him, toward evening, at one of the suburban theatres; for +there was still a bare possibility that the travelers would feel a +desire to see the "Pfarrer von Kirchfeld," which happened to be the +sensation of the hour.</p> + +<p class="normal">All these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Half tired out and half +angry with himself, he left the theatre at the close of the first act, +and strolled back to his lodgings by the most unfrequented streets he +could find. There he found a line from Jansen, who had been alarmed at +his long absence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is true," he laughed bitterly to himself, "such an old apprentice +as I am ought to know the value of his time better than to cut school +for two days. What is the good of it all, except to give one tired legs +and a heavy head? And, if I really had found her, what then? We should +have stared at one another like total strangers, and hurried out of one +another's sight."</p> + +<p class="normal">He threw himself on the sofa, and mechanically reached out his hand for +one of the books that lay upon the table. As he did so he noticed that +he had taken up with it a fine red hair, and this recalled his thoughts +to the night when he had given up this room to Zenz.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What a fool I was!" he muttered between his teeth. "If I had not +driven the good creature away from me, perhaps I should be in better +humor now, and would not have wasted these two days in such a senseless +way."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he tried very hard to recall the figure of the poor child. But she +exercised no more power over him now than she had when she was present +in the body. At last sleep took compassion on his troubled soul.</p> + +<p class="normal">The next morning he resigned himself with no little bitterness to his +fate, and betook himself to Jansen's workshop. He hoped that he should +be in better mood when once he had a piece of clay between his fingers.</p> + +<p class="normal">He started back in positive alarm, therefore, when, while crossing one +of the large, deserted squares, he saw the very person whom he had +yesterday sought so diligently, coming out of a hotel door and +advancing straight upon him. The lieutenant wore his usual suit--a +close-buttoned green riding-jacket, high top-boots, and a gray hat, +with a little feather, slightly tipped toward the left ear. His dry, +yellow face, with its black imperial, had a most grim and defiant look, +but it was instantly lighted up by a polite smile when he caught sight +of his young friend of the "Paradise."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I missed your visit day before yesterday, and have not been able to +return it yet because I have been in service again. An old acquaintance +has fallen upon me from the skies, a Baron N----" (he gave the name of +Irene's uncle). "I got acquainted with this jolly crony some years ago +in Algiers, when, just to get a smell of powder, I was fool enough to +take the field against <i>Messieurs les Arabes</i>, although they had never +done me the slightest harm in the world. The baron was trying at the +time to become a lion-hunter; but he afterward preferred to offer his +homage to the king of the desert from a respectful distance, and to +travel back to his peaceful home with a skin bought at a bazaar, and a +good store of burnooses and shawls. He was the sensible man of the two. +For my part, it was a long time before I could get rid of the ugly +remembrance that I had really done my hunting in earnest, and had +probably deprived several of those poor devils of the pleasure of +protecting their native soil against the French invaders. And now my +old tent-fellow comes upon me here like a ghost--though a very portly +and jolly one--and drags me about with him for days; in fact, I am +coming from his hotel at this very moment."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix involuntarily gave a glance toward the windows of the hotel. It +cost him a hard struggle to suppress all signs of his emotion.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Does your guest live here?" he asked. "You have been visiting him so +early?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"We were going to take a ride. But I found a note from him, in which he +informed me that I might take a holiday. His party has been invited by +one of its noble relatives to take an excursion of several days, at +which I, thank Heaven, should be quite superfluous."</p> + +<p class="normal">"His party? Then the baron is--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Married? No; but almost worse than that. He has a young niece with him +who is really the cause of his having come here at all. A bad story--a +broken engagement, great surmising and gossiping about it in the little +capital--in short, the health of the Fräulein demanded a change of air, +and she insisted upon going off to Italy for a year. My old comrade, +who remained a bachelor because he feared the claws of a lioness less +than the slipper of a pretty wife--well, he simply jumped from the +frying-pan into the fire. This young niece of his rules him with her +little finger. The consequence was that the trunks immediately had to +be packed for Italy. But, while here, their noble relatives succeeded +in frightening them so about the Italian summers and the cholera, that +they have decided to wait until the worst of the season is over, +spending part of the time here in the city and part in the mountains. +You will perceive, my dear friend, what a charming prospect this is for +me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is the young Fräulein so unamiable that your 'service' is such a hard +task?" Felix remarked, with an attempt at lightness. At the same time +he looked abstractedly away from the lieutenant, as if he merely +continued the topic from politeness.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Look here!" continued Schnetz, with his peculiar, dry chuckle. "If you +like, I'll introduce you to the young lady, and resign all my rights. +You will then have an opportunity to become acquainted with the +sweetness of such service, and will perhaps make out better than I, who +certainly have not succeeded in winning my way to favor. This proud +little person--provided, by-the-way, with a pair of eyes that are +equally well fitted to rule, to be gracious, and to condemn one +forever--has unfortunately never felt a strong hand over her. The +consequence is, she has a way of always setting up her own wishes on +every subject, among others in regard to this unfortunate engagement. +She appears to have made it so hot for the good youth who had the +courage to take up with her, that at last he couldn't stand it any +longer. It is very probable that she was sorry for this at heart, and +so at the present moment she is in a decidedly irritable and +discontented mood, and it is dangerous to touch her without gloves. +Unfortunately I neglected to use this consideration; and, as a +consequence, we stand on a most charming war-footing toward one +another."</p> + +<p class="normal">He struck his boot impatiently with his riding-whip, put his left arm +through his young companion's right, and, striding rapidly forward with +his long legs, growled out:</p> + +<p class="normal">"It's enough to drive a man wild when he sees how God's images are +disfigured--whether by saints or devils, it's all the same. Either +confined by strait-lacing or by nuns' robes, or else <i>décolletées</i> to +the very waist. Believe me, my dear fellow, as far as the education of +the women of the upper classes is concerned, we are not much farther +advanced to-day than we were in the darkest middle ages, when a brothel +stood next door to a church. At least, we, down here in our envied +South, are not; though, to be sure, this Northern blood--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A North German?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hum! North or middle German!--upon that point she is positively +fiendish! In the very first hour of our meeting, this Fräulein asked me +what sort of society we had here--of course, the aristocratic society, +as it loves to call itself; for a mere crowd of human beings, without +the forms of etiquette, can never be regarded as human society. I +replied quietly that the so-called <i>good</i> society here was the worst +one could possibly wish for, and that it was only in the so-called +<i>bad</i> society that I had come across a few good comrades here and +there, with whom there was such a thing as living. Whereupon the +little princess looked at me as much as to say that she should never +have supposed, from my dress--which was anything but suited to the +<i>salon</i>--that my exclusion from polite society was otherwise than +involuntary. But I, pretending not to notice this, proceeded to explain +to her at length the reasons which caused me to be disgusted with the +<i>crême</i> of our city; the strange odor of their <i>salons</i>--a mixture of +patchouli, incense, and the stable--their very doubtful French, and +their undoubtedly worse German; their almost sublime ignorance of all +that is generally considered to belong to education; and that <i>naïve</i> +lack of knowledge in moral matters, which is generally to be found only +in convents, and which can only be properly fostered by an +ecclesiastical society and sanctioned by sly father confessors. Your +nobles in the North, so far as I have known them--well, I needn't tell +you about the clay of which they are made. No matter what hard-mouthed +hobbies they ride in regard to affairs of church and state, they +nevertheless hold fast to <i>noblesse oblige</i>; and then, too, you are +very likely to find, in the castles of Pomerania and the Mark, the +Bible and the hymn-book side by side with Ranke's 'History of the +Popes' and Macaulay's 'History of England.' With us, on the other +hand--to be sure, though, Paul de Kock and the 'Seeress of Prevorst' +are also classics, and do not stand on the 'Index Expurgatorius.' I +notice that you are thinking to yourself how much less jolly, and more +discontented and bristling, I am to-day than I was that night in +'Paradise.' You see, my good fellow, you got acquainted with me then in +one of my holiday humors, that come over me only once a month; and, +to-day, you see my old Adam with his every-day face. If no one else has +told you this, to give you due warning about me, I must confess it +myself--since I left the service I have really had no occupation but to +scoff and grumble. It is true, we live at a time when every honest +fellow will have his hands full if he only conscientiously improves +every opportunity to do this. But you know this goes very badly with +our celebrated South German good-nature; all the worse if the one who +scolds happens to be in the right. It is because of this that I have +grown old in my lieutenancy; for I could not keep my mouth shut even +about our military shortcomings, and at last succeeded in bolting every +door to advancement so tightly against me, that I preferred to leave +the beaten track of a military career altogether. Wouldn't even the +blessed Thersites have been forced to resign if he had served as first +lieutenant under the generals Achilles or Diomedes? And yet, those +times were far simpler than ours! So, now, I go on grumbling without +hinderance, and without caring whether any notice is taken of it or +not. The wheat of the Philistines is sown too thick, and thrives too +well, for it to be hurt by the few tares that grow among it. Still, it +does me some good; in the first place, because it purges me of my gall +before it mixes with my blood and attacks my vitals; and then because +it makes me more and more hated by good society, and avoided by persons +of my own rank. You don't know what a Robinson-Crusoe-like existence I +lead; in the midst of the city I am as solitary as Saint Anthony in his +cave; yes, even more lonely, for I suffer no temptations. Won't you +take a look at my hermitage? Here we are at the door."</p> + +<p class="normal">They had arrived at the old house with which Felix had already made +acquaintance. He felt very little disposition to mount the stairs +again. While his companion had been running on in this odd, bitter way, +his mind had been occupied by one single thought. "She is here! You +need only wish it, and you can see her to-morrow!" Nevertheless, he +could not well refuse Schnetz's polite invitation; and so he followed +him up into his fourth-story quarters.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VI.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">The pale, quiet woman opened the door for them, and looked neither at +Schnetz nor his companion, but withdrew hastily to a little back-room +near the kitchen, without giving any other answer than a slow shake of +the head to her master's kind nod and inquiry whether any one had been +there. Felix was struck, even more than the first time, by the sad, +timid expression of her eyes, which had a noble form and a soft +brilliancy, while her features could never have been handsome even in +her younger days.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You must excuse me," said Schnetz, when they had entered his room, +where he offered his visitor a cigar--he himself smoked Algerian +tobacco out of a short clay-pipe--"for not having introduced you to +Madame Thersites. You would not have gained much by it, for the spirits +of that good soul are not, unfortunately, the best in the world. She +labors under the fixed delusion that she is the great misfortune of my +life, because I quitted the service on her account; since which time I +have had hard work to keep her from quitting life itself in some moment +of depression. Yes, my dear fellow, there is a little example of the +profound sense, wisdom, and morality of our social condition. This +excellent woman, who has now borne the world with me for ten years, +comes of a family of country schoolmasters. I became acquainted with +her when I was visiting the lord of the manor; her old father had been +pensioned, her mother was dead, and she, the eldest daughter, took +entire charge of the household, educated her brothers and sisters, and +yet found time enough to do something for herself and perfect her +education. Of course she is a Protestant. Well, I began to respect her +greatly; and so one thing followed another, until I discovered that I +could not live without her. The fact that I could not give the bonds +which a lieutenant must have in order to marry, did not seem to me at +the time an insurmountable difficulty. My sweetheart thought just as I +did, that we only need wait until her second sister was old enough to +take her place in the household. As soon as this was possible, we could +live in the city. An old aunt, whose heir I expected to be, had, as she +said herself, long had her trunks packed for the journey to the other +world, and then I could easily raise the necessary sum; while the fact +that my marriage would be a <i>mésalliance</i> especially delighted my heart +on account of my family, with whom I had long before broken off all +relations.</p> + +<p class="normal">"But the departure of my aunt was put off from year to year; and we +resolved not to wait till our best days were past, and lived for some +four or five years in Christian and true marriage, though it had not +received ecclesiastical sanction. Our only trouble was the loss of +our four children. At last my aunt betook herself to her last +resting-place; and now, for we were again expecting a child, we made +preparations to procure an official recognition of our union, though +nothing could make it closer than it was already. But see what sublime +sentiments were all at once expressed by my good comrades!--the whole +corps knew our relations to one another in all its uprightness, and +knew me besides. The honor of the corps would suffer under it, they +said, if I married a 'person' who had had children before the official +recognition of her marriage. They wouldn't have found it in the least +offensive had I merely continued the old relations. The logic of this +<i>point d'honneur</i> was incomprehensible to my stupid head, as well as to +my wife's. But while it merely made mine sit all the firmer on my +shoulders, so that I preferred to resign rather than to submit, it +threw my poor wife's completely off its balance. We went through the +ceremony sadly; the child, which was soon after brought into the world, +died within a few months; and since that time the poor creature has +been afflicted with the melancholy delusion that she has the ruin of my +life upon her conscience. I have tried a hundred times to make it clear +to her that I could have wished for nothing better than to be free from +the routine of military service, and devote my life to my studies. +There are certain points in military history, and also a few technical +problems and controversial questions, concerning which I sometimes have +a word or two to say in military periodicals; and so, when the wretched +campaign of '66 came, in which we had hard work to save the honor of +our arms, to say nothing of our having been delightfully fooled by +Austria, I thanked the Lord that I was not forced to march with the +rest, but had done forever with a trade which can make a man act +against his convictions. Since then, we have lived on unmolested, and I +devote my spare hours, as you see, to illustrating my prosaic existence +according to the best of my ability."</p> + +<p class="normal">His eyes wandered over the little room, which certainly did not seem +very cheerful, and had, even on this summer day, a strangely chilling +air. It is possible that this impression was caused in part by the +peculiar decoration of the walls, that were but sparsely relieved by a +few plain articles of furniture, a black leather sofa and a carved, +worm-eaten wardrobe. Instead of framed pictures or engravings, wherever +there was a vacant spot, and even behind the stove and in the niche of +the solitary window, there were the most grotesque <i>silhouettes</i> cut +out of black paper and pasted on the bare plaster, which had once been +painted white. They formed an extraordinary collection of figures, +taken from the most different stations of life, most of them +exhibited in ridiculous postures appropriate to their respective +occupations--pedantic scholars, students, artists, women, +ecclesiastics, and soldiers--all as if caught <i>in flagrante</i> in their +pet weaknesses and sins, and fixed upon the wall, standing revealed in +shadowy outline. Yet an artist could not help taking delight in the +broad yet spirited strokes with which each figure was portrayed; and it +was simply the superabundance of these weird groups that covered the +walls, and had already begun to overspread the smoke-stained ceiling, +which was calculated to excite feverish dreams in a quiet brain if they +were looked at for any length of time.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You see now why I dragged you up here," said Schnetz, throwing off his +riding-jacket and crossing his lean arms (round which flapped a pair of +coarse shirtsleeves) behind his back. "From my intercourse with artists +I have caught vanity enough to mercilessly entice inoffensive people +into my den, although the black art which I pursue appears to very +few of them to be worth the trouble of toiling up four flights of +stairs to examine. Life viewed from the wrong side--the fancies of a +misanthrope--a Thersites album, or rather nigrum--well, am I wrong in +thinking that this world of shadows is even less to your taste than an +ordinary art exhibition?</p> + +<p class="normal">"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has +its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern +art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects? +Simply this: it no longer respects the <i>silhouette</i>! In landscape and +<i>genre</i>, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you +find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate +shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the +whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great +feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow +of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of +black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the +nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as +Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so +that every one of them shall make a good showing, the <i>rococo</i> period +included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our +boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined +tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a +little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same +thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and +from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization. +But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention +to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining +outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our +sins and weaknesses, I have become a <i>silhouette</i> cutter--an art that +not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he +might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one +who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and +deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one +all of whose sides the sun should especially light up."</p> + +<p class="normal">It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz +was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of +their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when +their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single +whim in inexhaustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix +interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would +scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not +spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the +remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit, +and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep +him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable +cigar.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">The weird shadow-pictures and the biting epigrams of his new friend +haunted Felix all the way down the four flights. His head was in a +whirl with them; his heart felt a keen sympathy for this extraordinary +being. "What a life!" he said to himself. "How much power is rusting +and going to decay there in the dark! And who is to blame for it?--and +I, who knows but what I--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He pursued his soliloquy no further. As he stepped into the sunny +streets a carriage rolled quickly past, and from it fluttered a +silver-gray veil. In a moment all his thoughts were upon Irene again. +Of course it could not have been she; not to-day, at all events. But +if she should return from her excursion to-morrow and drive by like +this--what then? What would she think? That he had followed her and was +seeking an opportunity for reconciliation, after she had bidden him go? +Anything rather than such a suspicion! Even though he knew that he was +not entirely blameless, his pride was too deeply hurt, his honor was +too deeply wounded, for him to make any advances or to suffer even the +suspicion of doing so. That she was not running after him, and that she +had not the slightest idea in what direction he had turned his steps, +he did not for a moment doubt. He knew her proud spirit so well, that +he only feared one thing, and that was, that upon catching the faintest +hint of his being anywhere near her, she would throw aside all her +plans and insist upon leaving the city again; indeed, would rather face +the Italian summer and all the dangers of sickness, than give rise to +the suspicion that she felt she had been too hasty with him and wished +the unfortunate letter unwritten.</p> + +<p class="normal">The simplest and at the same time the most chivalrous way of getting +out of the difficulty would have been for him to have gone out of her +way himself; but after brief consideration he rejected this plan as +altogether impracticable. An uncontrollable love of art was suddenly +aroused in his soul--a strong conviction as to his duty toward Jansen +and his own future; and it seemed to him so humiliating to have to +confide to his friends the reasons which induced him to run away from +school again so soon, that he hastily struck into the nearest way to +the studio, as if he felt that there was the place where he would be +safest from all vexations and temptations.</p> + +<p class="normal">Besides, he had a whole day left in which to take serious counsel with +himself, to look at the matter from all sides, and to decide what it +was best to do.</p> + +<p class="normal">As he entered the court he saw a carriage standing at the door of the +rear house. Although he knew it could not be hers, it gave him a sharp +start, and he beckoned to the janitor and asked him who had come to +call. "A lady, neither young nor old, with two gentlemen; and they +spoke French." It was evidently a matter of no interest to him, and so, +without devoting another thought to it, he opened the door of Jansen's +studio and went in.</p> + +<p class="normal">The visitors were standing directly before the Adam and Eve, with their +backs to the door, and did not hear him enter. Jansen gave him a nod of +welcome, and old Homo rose slowly from his tiger-skin to rub his gray +head against Felix's hand. For a moment, therefore, he could examine +the three visitors at his leisure. In the youth with the curly black +hair he immediately recognized the young Greek he had met in +"Paradise." He was pointing to different parts of the work with +animated gestures, and seemed to be expressing to the lady his +enthusiastic admiration. The latter, holding an eye-glass close to her +eyes, stood silent and motionless before the group, to all appearances +completely carried away by it. She was dressed with simple elegance, +was rather <i>petite</i> than tall, and her face, seen as Felix saw it, in +very slight profile, was not exactly youthful or of special beauty, but +was striking because of the whiteness of the skin and a certain +expression of force and intelligence in the slightly-parted lips.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Slavic type could be recognized at the first glance, even before +she opened her lips, and expressed her admiration to Jansen with that +soft modulation which is so peculiar to the Poles and Russians.</p> + +<p class="normal">The gentleman on her left took advantage of the first pause to put in +his word. He was a lean, elderly, carelessly-dressed man, who +continually swayed his long body to and fro while speaking, and raised +his eyebrows with an odd expression of importance, he, too, spoke with +a foreign accent; but it turned out, in the course of his conversation, +that he was a born German, and had merely acquired this touch of Slavic +pronunciation by long residence in Russia. He had introduced himself as +an art-collector and professor of æsthetics; and explained that, while +making a professional journey to Italy and France, he had, to his great +joy and surprise, encountered at the hotel the countess, whom he had +known before in Berlin as an ardent art-lover. Although he had never +visited Italy, he spoke of its masterpieces of sculpture with the +greatest confidence; nor did he seem to find anything in Jansen's +studio for which he had not a formula at his tongue's end.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean while Stephanopulos had turned round and recognized Felix, +and had hastened to introduce him to the lady. Her keen, brown eyes +rested with evident pleasure upon the stately figure of the young man; +she asked him how long he had enjoyed the good-fortune to be the pupil +of such an artist, and wished to see some of his own productions, a +favor which Felix politely but firmly refused to grant.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you fully realize," said she, in her deep, mellow voice, "what an +enviable being you are? You unite the aristocracy of blood and talent, +and the fact that you have decided in favor of sculpture sets the crown +to your happiness. What is life, what is all other happiness in life, +but an endless series of excitements? What are all other arts but oil +to the fire, fuel for the passionate soul that yearns to free itself +from the trammels of the world, and seeks repose in the ideal, and, +instead of repose, finds merely more inspired emotions? I express +myself very awkwardly--you must supply what I mean. But, really, now, +in regard to sculpture--is it not, if only because of its material, +peculiarly suggestive of moderation and repose, even in the liveliest +plays of lines and forms? Take, for instance, that Bacchante over +there--what person, no matter how light of foot and fond of dancing, +feels when he looks at it the time of the music in the tips of his +toes, as if he heard a dance played? Even the storm and whirl of the +maddest reel is controlled by the law of beauty, much as one conceives +of the idea of the unfettered air in the spirit of the Creator of the +universe. And then this unutterably grand group of the first human +beings! All disquiet and trouble, all the fates that were reserved for +mankind, repose here as if in the germ--in the bud. In the presence of +this wonderful work, one forgets all petty wishes and weaknesses! But +why haven't you finished the head of your Eve, honored master?"</p> + +<p class="normal">A sudden blush suffused Jansen's face as he replied that he had not +quite made up his mind in regard to the type of face. He was, according +to his wont, monosyllabic and almost awkward in the presence of this +eloquent woman. But it struck Felix that his face did not darken with +suppressed disgust, as was usually the case when he received tiresome +visitors, but that he preserved the same patient, smiling mien during +the wise utterances of the professor and the rambling scintillations of +the lady. They had not met for two days. Felix had no suspicion of what +had happened in the mean time that caused his friend's eyes to sparkle +with such unwonted mildness and animation.</p> + +<p class="normal">Meanwhile the countess was engaged in inspecting the statues that stood +about the studio. The professor had previously expressed the opinion +that the greater the genius of the man the less he was capable of duly +estimating his own labors, and that for that reason he ought to have +his own works explained to him; and, in accordance with this sentiment, +he now relieved Jansen of the trouble of acting as <i>cicerone</i> in his +own workshop. The casts of separate limbs in dimensions larger than +life seemed to interest the lady, and the beautifully-shaped breast of +a young girl afforded the professor an opportunity to launch into a +long discourse on the form of the Venus of Milo as compared with that +of the Venus of Medici.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly the lady turned to a little female figure which stood, still +in clay, on the modeling-board near the window, and which must have +been a work of the last few days; for even Felix had never seen it +before. Although the head was not larger than a child's fist, and the +execution was, as yet, only very sketchy, it was easy to see at the +first glance that Julie's picture had floated before the eyes of the +sculptor. The beautiful figure leaned gently against the back of a +simple <i>fauteuil</i>, her right arm, from which the sleeve was pushed +back, resting on the arm of the chair, her cheek pressed against her +hand, while her left arm hung listlessly down so that the long, +exquisitely-formed fingers just touched the head of a dog that was +sleeping by her side. The eyes were half closed, just as Julie's +generally were; and, quickly as the features had been designed, an +expression of thoughtful attention, of earnest and loving sympathy, was +clearly conveyed in the face.</p> + +<p class="normal">In this position she had sat before him while he told her his unhappy +story. Amid all the remembrances of the past his eyes had been +enchained by the charm of the present, and with that strange, +independent action of the artistic temperament, that capacity of the +senses for observing closely while the soul smarts and bleeds, he had +taken in every line of the beloved figure.</p> + +<p class="normal">Then, when he had returned to his studio, where Felix did not make his +appearance that day, and no one else broke his solitude, he had begun, +at first with a careless hand, to form from a piece of clay the picture +that never left him, until at length he had grown serious over his +pastime, and had produced in an incredibly short time the whole +charming figure. A spirit of life, a natural grace, breathed through +the whole work, and was still further heightened by its diminutive +proportions, reminding one of the fairy-tale about the pygmy maiden who +was carried about by her happy lover in a casket.</p> + +<p class="normal">The æsthetic professor took advantage of the occasion to hold forth +concerning sitting statues from the time of the Agrippinas down to that +of Marie Louise in Parma; about the importance of portraits in general, +and about other profound subjects of like nature. As for Stephanopulos, +he was sincerely carried away by the charm of the figure, and expressed +his admiration in enthusiastic terms.</p> + +<p class="normal">The countess remained silent for a considerable time. Enthusiastically +as she had expressed herself concerning Jansen's other works; she +evidently found it hard to conquer a certain jealousy in regard to this +beautiful woman.</p> + +<p class="normal">"How often did the lady sit to you?" she asked, at length.</p> + +<p class="normal">He answered, with a peculiar smile, that he had made the sketch from +memory.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Really? Then you are something more than a magician. You not only +conjure up spirits, but spirit and body together. To be sure, we know +what helping spirit assists artists in their works of magic--a spirit +that rules all other men, and is the servant of genius only.--Or don't +you believe, professor," said she, turning to her companion, "that +Raphael and Titian could conjure up those whom they loved before their +imaginations more vividly than they could other mortals?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The professor delivered a few brilliant remarks about the power of +fancy, which the countess received with an absent smile; for she was +once more deeply absorbed in contemplation of the statue.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Does she live here, and is she to be seen?" she said, suddenly +interrupting his flow of eloquence.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I think, madame, you will give yourself useless trouble in trying to +make her acquaintance," replied Jansen, dryly. "The lady lives in a +very retired way, and I doubt--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Very well, very well, I understand; you are miserly with your +treasures, and want to keep the most beautiful to yourself. +Unfortunately, it is impossible to be angry with anything genius does! +Present my compliments to the charming, mysterious original, and tell +her--but who is that playing up-stairs?"</p> + +<p class="normal">At this moment they heard Rosenbusch's flute, which had been playing a +light prelude for some time, strike up a grand <i>bravura</i> movement with +all the power and feeling of which its owner was capable.</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen gave Felix a meaning look. Then he told as much about Rosenbusch +as was necessary to excite the lady's curiosity. Upon taking leave, she +gave the master and his pupil an invitation for that evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You <i>must</i> come," she said; "to be sure, I haven't much to offer you, +especially no such beautiful women as you are accustomed to. But we +shall have music--you love music, too, don't you? And, for the rest, +you must be contented with what we can do for you. I live in the hotel; +a bird of passage never has a comfortable nest. But only come to Moscow +some time; I own a few good old pictures and some sculptures there. +Will you? We will talk of this again. Well, good-by until this evening. +Here is my address, in case you should be as forgetful as geniuses and +friends of beautiful women generally are. <i>Au revoir!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">She gave Jansen her card and a shake of the hand, bowed cordially to +Felix, and left the studio, followed by her two adjutants.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Our rat-catcher has made a lucky hit again," laughed Jansen, as they +heard the strangers going up-stairs; and immediately afterward the +flute stopped in the room above. "When I have visitors, he invariably +becomes musical, in order to remind them that there are other people +living in the top story. This time I am especially grateful to him. +Upon my word, my patience and politeness were put to a hard test."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are right; the professor certainly was a tough morsel," +interrupted Felix. "But, as for the lady--although I know enough of her +kind not to be deceived--still, for all that, it is a game of the sex +that one never fails to follow with interest."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A charming game!" cried Jansen, and his face darkened. "I would rather +see the most stolid Esquimaux or Hottentot standing before my works +than one of these highly-cultured, artificially-excited devotees of +art, hungry for emotion--seeking in everything nothing but their own +gratification, and worrying a really earnest man to death by their +conceited coquetry with all that he holds most sacred. There is nothing +which will awe them into silence, or even make them forget themselves. +Just as they interest themselves in living creatures only so far as +they tend to increase their own importance, so all works of art exist +for them only so far as they can be made of use in setting off their +beloved <i>ego</i>. This same woman visited me once before, a good while +ago, and I was so rude to her that I hoped I had shaken her off +forever. But even rudeness excites these <i>blasé</i> women of the world, +just as <i>Pumpernickel</i> does the palate when one has been eating too +much sugar-cake. In reality, she cares as little for sculpture as for +anything else; unless, perhaps, the study of the nude interests her. +And she is here in Munich in search of very different things--trying to +gain proselytes for the new school of music."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I can't help thinking you are rather unjust to her. The very fact that +she feels a respect for you, and even a sort of secret fear, shows that +you interest her. That is one thing I like about these women; they are +strongly attracted by anything that represents power, and is capable of +producing something."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes," laughed Jansen, "until this power humbles itself to be a +foot-stool for their restless little feet; then it will be thrown +aside. No, my dear fellow, the only reason these comets are not more +particular is because they are forced to keep adding to their tails; +I'd be willing to bet that even our harmless little Rosebud will not be +thought too insignificant to be enrolled in her body-guard. But let her +do whatever she likes--what difference does it make to us? But where +have you been hiding yourself these last few days? and what is the +matter with you now? You are staring at the Russian's visiting-card as +if your senses had suddenly been spirited away to Siberia!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"It is nothing," stammered Felix, putting down the card again. He had +read the name of the hotel on it; it happened to be the same one in +which Irene was stopping. "'Countess Nelida F----;' I assure you I +never heard the name before. Are you going to-night?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Possibly, unless something should happen to prevent. It is a matter +of perfect indifference to me now with what sort of people I mix, +since I--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He hesitated. His eye glanced involuntarily toward the statuette. Then, +after a pause, he said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Listen: all sorts of things have happened since we last met. Don't you +notice any change in me? I thought I must have grown ten years +younger."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix looked at him searchingly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"That could make no one happier than it would me, old Dædalus. And, +since we are on the subject, it has somewhat depressed me to find--I +must out with it--a different man from the friend I left ten years ago. +I always thought it must be my fault that made you so much more +reserved and distant toward me than you used to be. If you would only +be the same old fellow again--but mayn't I know what has brought this +about?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Not yet," answered the sculptor, seizing the hand Felix held out to +him, and pressing it with evident emotion. "I haven't got permission +yet, much as the secret burns in my breast. But, take my word for it, +my dear fellow, all will come right now. I tell you miracles and +wonders still happen; a withered staff burgeons and flourishes, and is +filled once more with green sap and white blossoms. The winter was a +little long, and no wonder that even you felt the cold."</p> + +<p class="normal">A knock on the door interrupted him. They heard the voice of the +battle-painter outside, eagerly demanding admission.</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen drew the bolts which, in his disgust, he had fastened behind the +æsthetical professor, and let Rosenbusch in.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Well!" cried he to his friend, "what do you say to this divine +creature? Hasn't she been making herself agreeable to you too? A woman +of the gods, by my life! How she hits the nail on the head with every +word, draws out the most secret thoughts of the soul, so that one has +only to keep his ears and mouth open, and always nod an affirmative! +There isn't a horseshoe in all my Battle of Lützen about which she +didn't show a profound knowledge; and if she remains in Munich any +length of time, she says she shall visit me often, so as to watch me at +my work. I am on the only true road, she said; art is action, passion, +excitement--a battle for life and death, and other things of the sort, +which she actually seemed to snatch from my mouth. A devilish smart +woman, and her traveling companion also seems to be a first-rate judge +of art. Of course you have been invited to the musical <i>soirée</i> this +evening. She wants me to bring my flute with me; but I sha'n't be such +a fool as to expose myself before this northern Semiramis. What are you +laughing at?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"We are only laughing at the rapid progress of this friend of art in +discovering what fits the occasion. Down here she declared that true +art was repose. A flight higher and the sight of the Battle of Lützen +caused a new light to be thrown on the subject, and she finds that art +is nothing but turmoil and excitement. Yon have effected a speedy +conversion, Rosenbusch. If it is only as permanent as speedy!"</p> + +<p class="normal">For once the battle-painter failed to see the humor of the thing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All the same," he said; "I am devilish anxious to continue this +acquaintance. Why shouldn't a talented woman be many-sided? So this +evening at eight o'clock I will call for you, baron. What a pity that I +should have shaved off my beard and cropped my hair just at this time! +I should have been much more imposing with my former romantic head than +in this bald, Philistine guise. However, if the spirit is only unshorn +and free--and in any case my velvet jacket will carry me through!"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER VIII.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">Punctually at eight o'clock Rosenbusch made his appearance at Felix's +lodgings. He was arrayed with a gorgeousness such as he only assumed on +the most extraordinary occasions. It is true, picturesque lights played +in the folds of his violet velvet jacket, indicative of the extreme age +of its material; but those who knew that this garment, as was +authentically proved by the records, was cut from the robe of state +worn by an historical Countess of Tilly, regarded it with reverence, +especially as it was exceedingly becoming to its present red-cheeked +wearer. About his neck he had wound a spotlessly white cambric necktie, +tied in a delicate knot. His white waistcoat was, to be sure, a little +yellowed, and his black trousers were a little shiny in places; but +when he entered his friend's room with an elastic step, carrying his +tall, antiquated cylinder hat under his arm, and swinging a pair of +tolerably white kid gloves in one hand, he cut, upon the whole, such an +excellent figure that Felix felt called upon to say something +flattering concerning his toilet.</p> + +<p class="normal">"One must maintain the honor of his station, and prove to the world +that the tailor ought to learn from the artist, and not the reverse," +replied the painter, with great solemnity, stopping before the glass +and endeavoring to give a bolder wave to his cropped hair.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now you," he continued, "haven't by any means got rid of the baron +yet. Take my word for it, clothes really do make the man. One is a very +different kind of fellow in his shirt-sleeves or in a blouse, than in +one of the elegant, pinched-up monkey-jackets of the latest style. +Doesn't every one of us play a <i>rôle?</i> Now just ask Elfinger whether +the true spirit of the <i>rôle</i> doesn't lie in the costume of the actor. +I, for example, in a coat that any Tom or Dick could wear, should feel +myself so lowered to their level that I shouldn't want to take a brush +in my hand. But dressed as I am, even in my company toilet, I can shout +<i>anch' io</i> as lustily as far greater people. But you show no signs of +getting ready. What do you say to making a sensation by coming late?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix had had time to relapse once more into his melancholy mood. He +answered that he had had disagreeable news from home, and was in no +humor for going into company. Rosenbusch must excuse him; besides, it +would make no difference to the countess whether an unknown beginner--</p> + +<p class="normal">"What!" cried the battle-painter, "you are going to leave me to go +alone to the enchanted garden of this Armida, while all the time I have +been counting on you to save me in case of necessity! Jansen is sure to +come late in any case, even if he decides to go at all. No, my dear +fellow, you know I expend such unheard-of courage on canvas, that not +much remains to me for the <i>salon</i>. So, back to back, shoulder to +shoulder, with a friend and companion-in-arms, or I will crawl into the +first violon-cello-case I come to, and bring disgrace upon the Paradise +Club."</p> + +<p class="normal">He forced Felix, who half laughed and half protested, to make his +toilet, and then dragged him out with him, holding tightly to his arm +even after they were in the street, as though he still feared that he +might try to give him the slip. At heart Felix was glad to be forced. +He was secretly ashamed of his fear to enter, even on a day when she +was absent, the house where his old sweetheart was living; but now all +the depression which had weighed upon him ever since he found out she +was in the city left him in the company of his merry friend, and the +latter's account of his latest adventures as rejected suitor and happy +lover put him in the most cheerful humor. He rallied the artist upon +his flighty heart, which, instead of dreading the fire like a burned +child, wanted to singe itself in this new flame; all of which +Rosenbusch received with a quiet sigh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The fact is," he said, "a countess like this is not so very dangerous. +It goes without saying, that in all intercourse with her one must +respect certain limits when one is a poor fool of a painter who has to +let himself be snubbed even by a glove-maker. But if, on the other +hand, a female demon like this should really take it into her head to +elope with one of my sort to Italy or Siberia, let us say--well, she +will know what she is about; and in the mean time we can let things go +as Heaven wills."</p> + +<p class="normal">Amid talk of this sort they had reached the hotel, in the first story +of which a row of lighted windows had already shown them where the +female autocrat of all the arts was holding her court. Felix pulled his +hat down lower over his forehead, and sprang up the stairs so rapidly +that Rosenbusch was left behind breathless.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are an extraordinary fellow!" he cried, laughing, after he had +overtaken him at the top. "It takes a good deal of diplomacy to get you +started, but once started, you can't get there soon enough."</p> + +<p class="normal">Felix made no reply, for just then a servant opened a side-door and +they entered a spacious <i>salon</i>, which resounded with the last notes of +one of Chopin's nocturnes, with which the hostess herself had opened +the <i>soirée</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people +with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled +with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people +without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being +introduced everywhere. The professor of æsthetics advanced to meet the +new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with +them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a +yellow piqué waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black +cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up. +Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order +to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at +home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept +up to the new-comers.</p> + +<p class="normal">She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light +material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in +appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied +carelessness about her head, and fastened on one side by a fresh, +dark-red rose. The dead white of her cheeks looked more blooming than +usual in the warm light of the candles, and her keen, piercing eyes and +white teeth vied with one another in brilliancy.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am so glad you have kept your word," she exclaimed to the young men, +giving one of her soft little hands to each of them. "I hope, too, your +talented friend and master will also find his way here; and you shall +not regret having come. To be sure, I told you beforehand you must be +contented with what your ears would let you enjoy. Still, your eyes +sha'n't go away quite unsatisfied. Come, I will show you something +beautiful."</p> + +<p class="normal">She took Felix's arm, and, talking rapidly all the time, led him to the +other end of the <i>salon</i>. In a corner, on a semicircular sofa, sat +several mothers and duennas, and in the chairs on either side perhaps a +half dozen young girls, all belonging to the stage or the music-school, +engaged in earnest conversation with some young musicians about the +latest opera and the last concert. A little to one side of them a group +of elderly gentlemen could be seen gathered about a slight, youthful +figure, who sat near a little flower-stand, and who appeared to be +listening in rather an absent way to a white-haired little man, who was +giving a long disquisition on Bach's Passion-Music. Her back was turned +toward the side from which the countess approached with Felix. Now, +upon hearing the hostess's voice, she turned with much dignity.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Allow me, <i>ma toute belle</i>, to introduce to you Baron von Weiblingen +and Herr Rosenbusch," said the countess. "The gentlemen are artists, +dear Irene; Herr Rosenbusch is a painter and musician.--You have +brought your flute, haven't you?"</p> + +<p class="normal">The painter exhausted himself in assurances of his inability to produce +his sounds of Nature, as he called them, for any ears but his own; but +the countess had already turned to Felix again.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did I say too much?" she whispered, loud enough for the Fräulein to +hear her. "Isn't she charming? But your silence says enough. Happy +youth! For a woman's ears there is no sweeter music than such silence, +when she herself is the cause of it. I leave you to your enchantment; +<i>bonne chance!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">She tapped his arm lightly with her black fan, nodded slyly to the +beautiful girl, and disappeared once more in the crowd about the piano.</p> + +<p class="normal">The old gentleman, a musical amateur of the old school whom the +countess hoped to convert to the new movement, had withdrawn upon the +approach of the young men. Rosenbusch took advantage of the moment to +make his bows as gracefully as possible, and to open the conversation +by asking how the gracious Fräulein liked Munich. Then, upon turning +round to give Felix a chance to say something, he discovered to his +great surprise that the latter had withdrawn into one of the window +niches, from which he vanished a few minutes after. "What devil has got +into our young baron?" thought Rosenbusch. It seemed to him out of all +propriety to abruptly turn one's back on a charming young lady. +However, he determined to take advantage of this opportunity to show +himself in a still more favorable light, for the Fräulein pleased him.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was very simply dressed, which fact, however, only served to +contrast her advantageously with the others, with their silks and showy +ornaments. The excursion that was to have lasted several days had been +shortened, for the old countess had been seized with an attack of +neuralgia, and Irene had scarcely reached home when she was taken +possession of by her fellow-lodger for this, as the latter had assured +her, entirely improvised <i>soirée</i>, for which there was no need to make +any great toilet. Her uncle had fled to a gentlemen's club. It was +impossible for her to refuse the invitation.</p> + +<p class="normal">In truth, it was a matter of perfect indifference to her into what +company she went. What did she care for any strange faces since the one +which was dearest to her had become a stranger? And she had not had the +faintest suspicion that she should meet him here.</p> + +<p class="normal">And now she stood opposite him, and the only look that was exchanged +between them showed her that he had come into her presence not less +unexpectedly.</p> + +<p class="normal">A violin concerto, which, to Rosenbusch's great disgust, interrupted +him in an eloquent description of the pleasant summer weather in the +Bavarian mountains, gave her time to collect her thoughts and to +recover herself so far, at least, as not to betray by her manner the +emotions that were at strife within her. But what would come next--what +she ought to do--was no clearer to her now, when the last tones of the +violins were dying away, than in the first few minutes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My friend the baron has suddenly disappeared," Rosenbusch now began +again. "You must have got a curious impression of him; for, upon my +word, he stood before you like a painted Turk, as they say here in +Munich. I'll eat my head if I can understand why he suddenly became +such a stick. He is generally a devilish jolly fellow, and not at all +bashful in the presence of ladies."</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is--your friend?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">"We have known each other for several weeks, and you know, until one +has eaten salt with a man--in the mean time, I imagine I think more of +him than he does of your humble servant."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your friend--is also an artist?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Most certainly, Fräulein. He has devoted himself to sculpture under +the instruction of his old friend, the celebrated Jansen. How he +suddenly came to do it, no one knows. Don't you, too, think he looks +more like a cavalier? At all events there is something so romantic, +interesting, and Lord Byronish about him that I should not wonder at +all if he found tremendous favor with the women. I beg pardon, if I +have expressed myself too freely."</p> + +<p class="normal">He grew red and plucked at his cuffs. She appeared to take no offense +at his forcible style, but merely asked again, in the most indifferent +tone:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You think he has no talent?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"How much talent he has, God only knows," replied his friend candidly. +"But one thing is certain, a gigantic courage and a devilish deal of +perseverance are required of one who ventures to take up with sculpture +nowadays. You wouldn't believe, Fräulein, how difficult it is--in this +profession of all others--to find the means with which to mount to +the source, in this strait-laced civilization of ours, with its +conventional prejudices. The days when three goddesses did not +think it improper to get a certificate of their beauty from a royal +goatherd--I beg a thousand pardons, I always do wax warm when I think +of our wretched art-condition, and then I blurt out whatever comes into +my head. This much is certain: if my friend has allowed himself to be +induced merely by his love of beauty to become an artist, instead of +living on his estates, he will find he has reckoned without his host +even here in Munich. There are charming girls here, to be sure;--seen +on the street as they sweep by in their coquettish costumes, with their +little hats and chignons, one might almost be tempted to sell one's +soul to the devil out of pure delight--but when one comes to examine +them by a stronger light--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The Fräulein all at once seemed to discover that her presence was +imperatively required opposite, where the music pupils were sitting. +She rose hastily, bowed coldly to the astonished artist, and approached +one of the young ladies with the question whether she too did not find +it very warm.</p> + +<p class="normal">Rosenbusch gazed upon her with open mouth. A suspicion dawned in his +innocent brain that perhaps his conversation had appeared rather too +free-and-easy to this young lady. He could not understand this, and +laid it to the score of her North German education. He had talked in a +similar way with his countrywomen at balls, without arousing any +special displeasure. Now he slunk pensively away from the flower-stand, +just as a promising amateur began to perform one of Bach's preludes. +Slipping quietly along, and keeping close to the wall, he succeeded in +reaching the adjoining room, which was dimly lighted, without +attracting attention. A lady's-maid had been making tea there. The +national samovar was still singing on the little table, as though +secretly accompanying the playing outside. But in the doorway stood +Felix, his gaze, piercing through all the crowd and confusion, fixed +upon one particular spot.</p> + +<p class="normal">He started as the battle-painter's hand was laid softly on his +shoulder, and scowled angrily. Rosenbusch thought he did not wish to be +disturbed while listening to the music, and kept as still as a mouse as +long as the prelude lasted. He himself did not care for Bach. He was, +as he expressed it, too "cyclopean" for him. He preferred something +melting or merry. So he spent the time in looking about the room, and +was astonished to see on an easel near the window, in a sufficiently +good light to attract attention, that cartoon of the Bride of Corinth +which had brought so little honor to Stephanopulos in "Paradise." The +burned corner had not yet been repaired, so that the singular picture +made a still more weird impression among its elegant surroundings.</p> + +<p class="normal">How came it here? Who could have brought it to the countess? Could it +be that the young sinner himself had lent a helping hand in getting it +for her? His name stood in the corner that had been spared by the fire. +It was possible that the honest finder, whom Rosenbusch caught <i>in +flagranti</i> that night in the "Paradise" garden, had returned it to the +artist; that the countess had seen it in his studio, and thought that +it would be piquant to exhibit a drawing in her house which had been +condemned by the male critics on account of its lack of modesty. Oh, +these countesses!--these Russians!</p> + +<p class="normal">The door leading to a third room was also standing open--to no less +a sanctum than the sleeping-chamber of the lady of the house. A +hanging-lamp was suspended within, whose light streamed through a +rose-colored shade, casting its dreamy rays upon the furniture, and +upon the bed hung with embroidered muslin. Near the bed, in an +arm-chair, a woman's figure reclined, motionless, so that it could only +be discerned with difficulty by a person outside. But Rosenbusch, who +was to-day in one of his reckless moods, had already advanced several +steps into the sanctum, when he suddenly saw two piercing eyes fixed +upon him. He felt as if he had encountered the glowing eyes of a cat in +the dark. Confusedly stammering an apology, he bowed to the silent +unknown, and hastily beat a retreat into the front room.</p> + +<p class="normal">In the mean while the playing had come to an end, and the <i>salon</i> +resounded once more with a confusion of voices in all tongues and +dialects; but still Felix stood there, solitary and unapproachable, as +if no one among all who surrounded him knew how to speak his language.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You don't seem inclined to be particularly gallant," he now heard the +cheerful voice of the battle-painter remark; "or was it merely because +you didn't want to cut me out that you refrained from engaging in any +further conversation with that splendid Fräulein? If you had looked +closer at her, you would hardly have been capable of such rather +insulting magnanimity toward my poor self. A perfectly splendid girl, I +assure you; very exclusive, intellectual and amiable; and without +wanting to flatter myself, I really believe I didn't give her a bad +impression of the Munich artists. If I were not so wholly engaged +already--But, by-the-way, have you seen what is standing over there, on +the easel? That Stephanopulos!--just look at him over there, half +sprawling over the piano--how he follows the countess with his eyes, +all the while, with a face like an <i>Ecce Homo</i> of Mount Athos! A +devilish queer kind of fellow!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Did she inquire about me?" interrupted Felix, suddenly starting out of +his brooding. He passed his hand over his forehead, on which the cold +perspiration had started, and drew a long breath. Just at that moment +Irene's slender figure glided out of the <i>salon</i> in spite of the +countess's earnest attempts to detain her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Inquire after you?" repeated the artist. "Of course she did. Such a +dumb cavalier, who immediately vanishes into obscurity, couldn't help +exciting a woman's curiosity."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And what--what did you say about me?" eagerly inquired Felix.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I excused you as well as I could, saying that you were generally much +more gallant toward ladies."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you. You are really very kind, Rosenbusch. And she--what did she +say to that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why, what could she say? She didn't appear to feel in the least +offended. Very likely she thought her beauty had rather struck you +dumb--no woman is offended at that. Don't tell me I don't understand +women! And then I talked to her about sculpture--But, upon my word, +here comes Jansen. I must go and say good-evening to him."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER IX.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">It was late when Jansen arrived. He had, as usual, been spending the +evening with Julie; and had then escorted Angelica home, who complained +afresh each time that she was compelled to be a restraint upon two +lovers.</p> + +<p class="normal">But Julie insisted upon being "matronized" by her during the year of +probation, and so she submitted, and knew how to conduct herself so +sensibly that the very fact of her presence gave the peculiar charm of +suppressed emotion to these happy hours. The after-glow of it still +shone upon Jansen's face as he entered the <i>salon</i>. A sudden stillness +ensued; all looked at him; but he seemed hardly to see any one but his +hostess, whom he greeted with a shake of the hand. She received him +with studied cordiality, immediately took exclusive possession of him, +and merely chided him for arriving so late by an allusion to older and +higher duties which had a prior claim upon him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Now don't deny it," she said, smiling. "It cost you a heroic struggle +to tear yourself away at all. It is true a man seldom finds it at all +difficult to leave one woman in order to go to another; but when he is +forced to leave a beauty in the lurch, in order to pay a little +attention to an old woman, one cannot estimate the sacrifice too +highly."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are mistaken, countess," he laughingly replied. "I have been +forced to tear myself away, not from <i>one</i> but from two elderly women, +as they are fond of calling themselves--with just as little reason and +just as little seriousness as when you, countess, count yourself among +that class. But, if it had really cost me a sacrifice, you would have +deserved it of me. I know how ungratefully I conducted myself toward +you in former years. Yet you haven't treasured it up against me."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Unfortunately there are men with whom one cannot be offended, no +matter what they do. <i>Ils le savent et ils en abusent</i>-- But what is +that?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She suddenly broke off. Her sharp eye had seen that one of the young +ladies at the opposite end of the room had become faint, and that the +elder ones were busied over her. In a second she was at her side, +noiselessly and swiftly doing what was necessary. The insensible girl +was borne into the sleeping-chamber, and soon came to herself again. +When the countess returned, she said, in passing, to Jansen:</p> + +<p class="normal">"The poor child! Think of practising nine hours daily, and eating +nothing all the while! What existences some people do lead!" Then to +the others: "The Fräulein feels better already. The excessive heat was +the cause of her illness. Perhaps if we should turn down the gas just +for a little while, the temperature would be somewhat more bearable."</p> + +<p class="normal">Several of the young people hastened to execute this hint. When the +gas-lights were extinguished, the candles on the piano and a lamp +on the mantel over the fireplace gave only a subdued light, so the +clear night sky, with its moon and stars, shed its lustre through the +wide-opened windows. In this twilight, every one seemed to feel happy +and at ease. A young person, who had previously been entreated to sing +in vain, now mustered up sufficient courage, and her sweet, sympathetic +contralto voice sounded charmingly in the breathless stillness. Jansen +had seated himself in a corner of the sofa in the adjoining room; it +did him good to sit there in the dim light, with half-closed eyes, +watching the play of the shadows as they passed before him, drinking in +the soft tones and thinking all the while upon his happiness. He spoke +with no one. Rosenbusch had at first taken a seat by his side; but as +he had received only monosyllabic answers, he had soon withdrawn again. +Felix had disappeared without taking leave; he could not longer +suppress all that he felt. And now the scene in the <i>salon</i> grew +livelier and more fantastic. No one thought any longer of playing an +entire piece of music. The instrument merely served to illustrate this +or that assertion, as it came up in the course of the confused +conversation; now a few chords were struck, now the hoarse voice of +some composer hummed an air in order to explain some passage; the +younger guests had separated into little groups, and were apparently +engaged in other conversation than that relating to art. In the midst +of all was heard from time to time the high, thin voice of the +professor, who was continually in search of new victims for his +eloquence, and buttonholed now one person and now another. This +intellectual exertion exhausted him all the less from the fact that he +consumed an incredible quantity of the refreshments which were handed +about. After having emptied a whole basket of cakes, he devoted himself +persistently to the ices, and, finally, when, toward midnight, the +champagne was brought in, he seized a whole bottle out of the waiter's +hands and placed it with his glass in a little niche behind a pillar. +As he did so the countess honored him with a cold, almost contemptuous +glance, and her lips curled slightly. The expression enhanced the +beauty of her face exceedingly. Then, too, the dim light that now +prevailed in the room lent her a strange charm. She looked very much +younger, and her eyes flashed sparks that were still capable of +kindling fire. Stephanopulos devoured her with his eyes, and was +continually seeking a chance to approach her. But she always passed +without noticing him; nor did she sit down by Jansen again. It was easy +to see that her mind was fixed upon something which took her thoughts +away from all that was going on about her.</p> + +<p class="normal">As it struck midnight, it so chanced that there was a momentary hush in +the conversation. The æsthetical professor advanced into the middle of +the <i>salon</i>, holding a full glass in his hand, and said:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to propose a toast to our honored +mistress, in whose name we are here assembled. I do not mean by this +the gracious lady, so sincerely honored by us all, whose guests we are. +I have praised her too often not to be willing to resign, for once, to +her younger guests this privilege of an old friend. My toast is offered +to a mistress even greater than she--to the sublime art of Music, the +art of arts, whose supremacy is becoming more and more acknowledged and +exalted, without envy by her sisters. May she, the mightiest of all +the powers which move the world--thrice glorious and thrice holy +Music--live, flourish, and prevail to the end of time!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Enthusiastic applause followed these words, but even the clinking of +the glasses, and the shouts of the different voices, were drowned by a +loud flourish which a young musician improvised upon the piano. The +professor, who had emptied his bumper at a draught and instantly filled +it again, now stepped, with a complacent smile, into the cabinet where +Jansen sat, thoughtfully holding his half-filled glass, from which he +had scarcely sipped, as if he were counting the rising pearls within +it.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My honored master," he heard a voice say at his side, "we have not yet +touched glasses with one another."</p> + +<p class="normal">He quietly looked up at the speaker.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you care very much to have your resolution passed by a strictly +unanimous vote?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"My resolution?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I mean your exaltation of music above all other arts. If it was merely +a polite phrase to catch the applause of the musicians and the devotees +of music, I have nothing to say against it. It is always expedient to +howl with the wolves. But in case you expressed your real opinion, and +ask me now, on my conscience and between ourselves, whether I share it, +you must permit me to draw back my glass in silence, and, if I drink, +to think my own thoughts in so doing."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do what you can't help doing, <i>carissimo</i>!" replied the professor, +with a thoughtful nod of the head. "I know very well that you worship +other gods, and only esteem you the more for having the true artist's +courage to be one-sided. To your health!"</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen held his glass in the same position, and did not seem in the +least inclined to approach it to that of the professor.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I am very sorry to sink in your estimation," he said, "but I am really +not quite so one-sided as you think. I not only love music, but it is +fairly necessary to my existence; and if I am deprived of it for any +length of time, my spirit is as ill as my body would be if it were +forced to go without its bath."</p> + +<p class="normal">"A strange comparison!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And yet, perhaps, it is more appropriate than it would seem at first. +Doesn't a bath stimulate and excite, calm, or quicken the blood, wash +away the grime of everyday life from the limbs, and soothe all manner +of pain? But it stills neither hunger nor thirst, and he who bathes too +often feels his nervous strength relaxed, his blood over-excited, and +his organs toned down to a voluptuous languor. Isn't it just so with +music? It is possible our thanks are due to her alone that mankind has +gradually lost its bestiality, and grown nearer the likeness of God. +But this is equally certain, that men who now carry this enjoyment to +excess sink gradually into a vegetating dream-life, and that if a time +should come when music should really be exalted as the highest art, the +highest problems of humanity would remain unsolved, and the very marrow +of mankind would be forceless and feeble.--I know well," he continued, +without noticing that the people in the <i>salon</i> were listening to his +monologue, and that groups of listeners had approached the door--"I +know well that these are heresies which one cannot utter in certain +circles without being stoned a little. Nor would I care to discuss the +question with a musician, for he would scarcely understand what I +really mean. The effect of this art 'of thinking in tones' is gradually +to dissolve all that is solid in the brain into a softened mass, and +only the great, truly creative talents can preserve the capacity and +disposition for other intellectual interests. That the highest masters +of every art stand on an equality with one another, I need not say. As +to the others, the expression which some one used in regard to lyric +poets maybe justly used toward them--'They are like geese whose livers +have been fattened; excellent livers, but sick geese.' How can the +balance of the intellectual powers be preserved, when any one sits nine +hours a day at an instrument and continually practises the same +exercises? And for that reason I should be careful how I tried to +convince a musician of the error of his fanaticism. But to you, who are +an æsthetic by profession--"</p> + +<p class="normal">He chanced to let his eyes wander toward the door, and broke off +suddenly. He noticed now, for the first time, before what an audience +he had been speaking. The professor observed his surprise, and grinned +maliciously.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are talking to your own destruction, my dear sir," he said, +raising his voice. "You might just as well declare in a mosque that +Allah was not Allah, and Mohammed was not his prophet, as to assert to +this crowd of enthusiastic youths that there is anything more divine +than music, or that devotion to it, its service and its cultivation, +could ever be pushed too far. Entrench yourself behind your blocks of +marble, so that we may grant you peace on favorable terms. What would +you say if some one declared that whoever uses his mallet nine hours of +the day must, in the course of time, lose his sense of hearing and +sight, that his intellectual power would finally become deadened and +petrified, and that his soul would get to be as dusty and muddy as the +blouse he wears when he hammers his stones?"</p> + +<p class="normal">A unanimous shout of bravos arose from the group standing nearest him, +and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the <i>salon</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">The countess, who now for the first time became aware of the dialogue, +was seen hastily approaching, with the intention of averting the +threatened storm by a timely word. But Jansen had already risen to his +feet, and stood confronting the professor with the most unruffled +composure.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What would I say?" he cried, loud enough to be understood by all. "I +would say that in every art there are artists and mechanics, and that +the latter know as little of the god whom they serve as the sexton who +sweeps out the church and hands about the contribution-box. Of all the +arts there is but one which does not know the dust of the workshop, +that has no underlings and assistants, or, at the worst, merely +charlatans who fancy themselves masters; and even these know nothing of +that kind of mechanical readiness which murders the soul and deadens +thought. For that reason it is the highest and most divine of the arts, +before which the others bow, and which they ought to worship as their +mistress and goddess. To you, who are in the habit of lecturing upon +æsthetics, I should be ashamed to explain myself more fully by saying +that I refer to poetry, were it not that in your toast you offered an +insult to the majesty of this, the highest muse, which I can only +excuse upon the supposition that you have strayed from the temple of +the true divinity, and wandered by mistake into a mosque."</p> + +<p class="normal">With these words he raised his glass, held it before the flame of the +lamp and slowly drank it off. A deathlike silence followed; the +professor, who was apparently on the point of making a rather +irritating reply, was restrained by a meaning look from the countess. +She herself had looked at the sculptor while he spoke, with a peculiar, +searching, flashing look, and merely threatened him playfully with her +finger as he now advanced toward her as if to take leave.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Stay," she whispered to him, "I have a word to speak with you."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then she turned to the others, and invited them to be seated again and +not to think of breaking up so soon. But her most cordial words and +demeanor could not banish a certain uncomfortable feeling that had +taken possession of the company. No one could be induced to take a +place at the piano, and a court musician, who still had a violin sonata +<i>in petto</i>, shut up his instrument-case with conspicuous noise and took +his leave of the countess, bestowing upon Jansen as he passed a look +full of meaning. The others followed his example, and, finally, even +the professor, who took his defeat most easily, entered upon his +retreat after addressing a few jesting remarks to his opponent. +Rosenbusch, who would probably otherwise have waited for Jansen, had +offered his services in escorting home the young Fräulein who had +fainted earlier in the evening.</p> + +<p class="normal">The artist and the countess now stood alone confronting one another, in +the dimly-lighted room. From the street below they could hear the +departing guests as they went away, laughing, talking, and singing.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I beg for a mild punishment, countess," began Jansen, smiling. "Of +course you have only detained me in order to exact a penance in the +absence of witnesses. I thank you for this kind intention, although, to +be honest, I rather favor a public execution if the head really must +come off!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are very, very wicked!" she answered, slowly shaking her head as +if she were deeply in earnest in what she said. "You fear neither God +nor man, least of all that which seems to many the most terrible--the +anger of a woman. And, for that reason, I shall not succeed in +punishing you for your sins as you have deserved."</p> + +<p class="normal">"No," he said. "I submit voluntarily to any penance you may put upon +me. How I wish that by so doing I could rid myself of my old fault of +thinking aloud without first looking around to see who may be +listening!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She walked up and down the room with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully +before her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not +worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool +the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as +you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman. +For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately +because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more +grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters, +and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such +an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind +that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my +knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To +me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge +into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the +bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said +as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a +work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely +cool waters? And that is the main thing in the end. The few moments in +life that satisfy our innermost desires are, after all, those only in +which we almost believe we are dying. Enjoyment of art, enthusiasm, a +great deed, a passion--in the main they all have the same ending. Or do +not you agree, dear friend?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He indicated his assent by a gesture, though he had only caught a few +stray words. This woman interested him so little that his thoughts, +even when he was at her side, secretly flew away to her whose image +filled his heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">She took his silence as a sign that she had made a deep impression upon +him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You see," she continued, "it is a satisfaction to me to tell you this. +It is so seldom one finds people capable of comprehending one, and from +whom one need have no secrets. It is a privilege of all sovereign +natures that they dare to confess all to one another--the highest as +well as the lowest thoughts--for, even when we confess our weakness, we +are ennobled by the boldness and daring with which we do it. Oh, my +dear friend! if you knew how hard a woman has to struggle to attain +that freedom which you men claim as a birthright! For how long a time +do we throw away the best years of our life because of false shame, and +a thousand other considerations! It is only since I acknowledged it as +a moral duty toward my own nature to possess myself of anything toward +which I felt drawn, to dare anything which was not beyond my powers, to +say anything for which I could find a sympathetic listener--it is only +since that time that I can say I have learned to respect myself. But I +forget; it does not follow that these confessions interest you, no +matter how much sympathy you may feel for them. I am, doubtless, not +the first woman who has given you similar confidences. The world in +which you live is used to seeing fall the veils and coverings with +which we drape ourselves in the prudish society of ordinary mortals. +Nor would I, perhaps, have detained you here with me merely to talk to +you of such feelings and thoughts, if I had not besides something very +particular at heart, a great, great favor--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had thrown herself down on a sofa and rested there in a careless, +picturesque attitude, her arms thrown back gracefully behind her head. +Her face was pale as marble, and her lips were slightly parted--but not +with a smile.</p> + +<p class="normal">"A favor?" he asked, absently. "You know, countess, I was prepared to +receive a penance. How much sooner--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who knows whether the granting of this favor will not seem to you a +penance, and none of the lightest either!" she hastily interrupted. "In +a word, will you make my portrait?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Your portrait?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Yes; a portrait-statue, sitting or standing, as you like. I confess to +you that the thought first came to me this morning. I can't get that +beautiful portrait of your charming friend out of my head, though I am +not so conceited as to wish to compare myself with this unknown woman, +especially in your eyes. I have a special reason for wanting it; I know +a foolish man who still finds me young and pretty enough to want my +portrait--particularly if it were done by such a master--a friend, from +whom I have been separated often and long, and whom I should make very +happy if I could send him my effigy as a compensation."</p> + +<p class="normal">While she delivered this excited speech, Jansen had let his eyes rest +on her, without betraying by any sign whether he was disposed to grant +her the favor or not. She blushed under this cool, searching look, and +cast down her eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">"He is beginning to study me already," she thought. "But you mustn't +think," she continued, "that I am altogether too modest in my request. +He, for whom this master-work is intended, would be ready to pay its +weight in gold for even the most hasty sketch from your hand. But it +appears as if the undertaking had no great charm for you? Tell me +frankly; in any case, we will still remain good friends."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Countess," he began, for the first time this evening betraying some +confusion, "you are really too good--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No! You are trying to escape me--now, don't deny it. Perhaps I know +the reason which makes you unfavorable to my request. You have delicate +duties that you must regard. If your friend should discover that you +had shown the same favor to me as to her--I don't know her, but, for +all that, it might be possible, and certainly pardonable, for her to be +a little jealous! Am I not right? Isn't it that which makes you +hesitate?"</p> + +<p class="normal">He was silent for a moment. Then, still in an absent way and as if +speaking to himself, he said, quietly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"Jealous? She would certainly have no cause to be."</p> + +<p class="normal">The unfortunate expression had scarcely passed his lips when a hot +and cold shudder passed over him, and he suddenly became conscious +what a deadly insult he had uttered. He looked at her in alarm; he saw +that all the blood had fled from her cheeks, leaving even her lips a +deathly white. But immediately, before he could even recover sufficient +self-possession to soften the impression of his words, she forced a +pleasant laugh, hastily rose from the sofa and stepped up to him with +both her hands extended.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you, my friend," she said, in her easiest tone; "you are not +particularly gallant, but something better and rarer--you are candid. +You are right; unless a woman is able to set the whole female sex wild +with envy and jealousy, like your beautiful unknown friend, she is not +a worthy subject for your art. I really ought to be old enough to see +that myself. But, as I said, you are partly to blame for my having hit +on such a foolish idea--the portrait of that beautiful woman had turned +my head. But now it is in its right place again, and I thank you for +your speedy cure. <i>Prenez que je n'aie rien dit.</i> That my tardy wish, +which perhaps would have been an impudent one even in earlier days, +remains our secret, I expect from your chivalry. So--your hand upon +it--and <i>soyons amis!</i> And now, good-night. Though I am in no danger of +awakening jealousy, I am not old enough yet to be secure from malicious +gossip, and--you have already staid longer than is proper."</p> + +<p class="normal">In the most painful confusion he attempted to stammer out a few +palliating words. But she would not listen to them, and, amid all sorts +of pretty speeches and jests, almost hustled him by main force out of +the door, which she immediately locked behind him.</p> + +<p class="normal">No sooner did she find herself alone than her features became +transformed; the smile on her lips faded into a grimace, and a +threatening scowl appeared on her smooth forehead. She brushed from her +eyelashes the tears of angry humiliation which she had held back too +long already, and drew a long, deep breath, as if to save her heart +from suffocation. Thus she stood, near the threshold, her little hands +clinched tight, gazing motionless at the door through which the man who +had insulted her had passed out. If a passionate wish possessed the +magic power to kill, Jansen would probably have never left her house +alive.</p> + +<p class="normal">She heard steps in the adjoining cabinet. She looked up, passed her +hands across her eyes and seized a glass of water, which she emptied at +a single draught. She was herself again. An elderly woman entered +cautiously, dressed simply and entirely in black, but with a care which +betrayed long practice in the arts of the toilet. Moreover, her manner +of speaking and carrying herself showed, at the first glance, that she +had once been at home behind the foot-lights. She was apparently well +on in the forties; but her real face was concealed under a coating of +paint, very skillfully laid on, and her soft, regular features made no +disagreeable impression.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You are still here, my dear?" cried the countess, scarcely attempting +to conceal a feeling of displeasure. "I thought you had long ago felt +bored at your self-chosen part and gone away."</p> + +<p class="normal">"I have passed an unspeakably pleasurable evening, my dear countess, +and wanted to thank you for it. Since I lost my voice and left the +stage, I scarcely remember to have heard so much good music in so few +hours. Manna in the desert, my dear countess!--manna in the desert! But +how lucky it was that I listened to the concert, as I did, in my dark +box over there! It is true that he, before whom I particularly wished +to avoid appearing, might not have noticed me. Since his new <i>liaison</i> +he seems to be blind for everything else, and the many years since we +last met have done their best to make it hard for him to recognize me. +But imagine, countess, that young painter--the same one who got in my +way that night when we discovered the burning picture--strayed by +chance into your bedroom! Fortunately, he hastily retired again. But +it was a bright moonlight night the first time. Who knows whether he +did not recognize me again, especially as the picture in the cabinet +there--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Certainly," nodded the countess, "you are right. Who knows?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She had not heard a word the other had spoken.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Oh, my honored patroness!" continued the latter, "if I could only tell +you how it infuriated me again to see him--the hard and cruel man who +made my poor daughter's life so wretched--enter the room with such a +proud, arrogant air, and receive homage everywhere; to hear his voice, +and his aggressive speeches that seemed meant to throw down the glove +to the whole company--oh, you cannot tell how I hate him! But has not a +mother a right to hate the enemy of her daughter?--all the more when +this daughter is so foolish as still to love the man who cast her out +of his house, and even begrudged her the consolation of weeping over +her wrongs on the neck of her own child?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in a theatrical manner, as if +her grief had overpowered her.</p> + +<p class="normal">The countess gave her a cold look.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't play comedy before me, my dear," she said, sharply. "According +to all that I have heard of your daughter, I don't imagine she is +inconsolable. What reasons have you for thinking she still loves him?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know her heart, countess. She is too proud to mourn and weep. But +would she not ask her mother to come and live with her, were it not +that then she would be obliged to give up ever hearing any news of +the child? If she only knew what it cost me to be a spy, so that I +can write to her now and then how it fares with her hardhearted +husband--the poor, innocent child! And yet, gracious countess, if I +could ever succeed in tying the broken bond again, in freeing this +ungrateful, inconstant man from this snare of unworthy passion, in +leading him back again to his rightful wife--"</p> + +<p class="normal">Her voice appeared to be choked with tears. The countess made a +movement of impatience.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Enough!" she said. "It is late, and I am very tired. Still, it is +true, something must be done. This man's great talent will go to rack +and ruin amid false surroundings and vulgar love affairs, unless some +one brings him back into the right path. Come to me again to-morrow +forenoon, my dear. We will talk further on the subject then. Adieu!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She nodded to the singer in an absent way. The latter bowed low before +her, and started in haste to leave the room. As she was crossing the +threshold she heard her name called.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Don't you think me very unbecomingly dressed today, dear Johanna? It +seems to me I appear very old and haggard in this Venetian coiffure. +For that matter, I really ought to have put off the <i>soirée</i> +altogether; I could hardly keep on my feet, I had such a headache."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have this advantage over us, that even suffering makes you appear +more beautiful. From my place in my invisible box, I caught words that +would prove to you how great injustice you do yourself."</p> + +<p class="normal">"Flatterer!" laughed the countess, bitterly. "Go away I--do go away! At +all events you can't contradict the evidence of my own eyes."</p> + +<p class="normal">After the singer had gone, Nelida remained for a time standing on the +same spot where the former had taken leave of her. She murmured a few +words in her mother tongue, and then said in German:</p> + +<p class="normal">"He wants to do penance, does he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!"</p> + +<p class="normal">She stepped in front of the mirror above the fireplace, before which a +lamp, nearly out, burned with a weak, red flame. The candles on the +piano were burned down almost to the socket. In this dim light her +cheeks looked still more wan, her eyes more sunken, and the scowl on +her forehead as if it could nevermore be smoothed away.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Is it really too late for happiness?" she said aloud, in a hollow +voice.</p> + +<p class="normal">She shuddered, for the night wind swept coldly through the room. Slowly +she took the rose from her hair and let it fall to the ground, so that +the leaves were strewed over the carpet; then she unwound the veil from +her head, took out the comb and shook her hair down over her shoulders. +As she did so the blood returned to her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and +she began to be pleased with herself once more. "<i>Il y a pourtant +quelques beaux restes!</i>" she said to herself. Then, with sunken head, +she strode across the <i>salon</i>, talking half aloud to herself, and +stepped up to the open piano. She struck the keys with her open hand so +that they gave forth a loud, harsh discord. She laughed scornfully at +this. "He will do penance, will he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!" +and, once more folding her arms across her breast, she stepped into the +cabinet and stood still before the young Greek's cartoon. She knew the +picture by heart. And yet she stood before it as lost in contemplation +as though she saw it for the first time.</p> + +<p class="normal">Suddenly she felt a hot breath upon her neck. She shuddered slightly +and looked round.</p> + +<p class="normal">Stephanopulos stood behind her.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Are you crazy?" whispered Nelida. "What are you doing here? Leave me +this moment! My maid is coming!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"She is asleep," whispered the youth. "I told her you would not need +her. Do you reproach me, countess?--me, who only live in your +smiles--to whom a glance of your eyes is heaven or hell!"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Hush!" she said, leaving him her hand which he had seized. "You are +talking nonsense, my friend. But you have a good voice, and, besides, +one cannot be angry with you. <i>Vous êtes un enfant!</i>"</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER X.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">On the morning following the <i>soirée</i>, the lieutenant sat in the second +story of the same hotel, in the little <i>salon</i> which lay between +Irene's bedroom and her uncle's. Although he was continually +complaining about his wretched vassalage to friendship, he had, +nevertheless, presented himself again in good season in order to +receive the watchword for the day. Inasmuch as he had not the faintest +regular occupation, this pretext for passing away the hours was, in +reality, heartily welcome to him. More than this, Irene's strangely +resigned and yet self-reliant character, her repellent manner and +almost bluntness, joined as they were with all the charm of youth, +attracted him more than he knew or cared to admit.</p> + +<p class="normal">The Fräulein was still invisible when Schnetz arrived. He found the +uncle seated at breakfast, and was forced to listen to his account of +his experiences of the excursion, and of his evening at the club. The +baron may possibly have been a good dozen years older than the +lieutenant, whom he still continued to treat in his frank and jovial +manner, just as he had formerly treated the young fellow who, in +Africa, had felt flattered to be kindly taken under the wing of his +more experienced countryman and initiated into the mysteries of +lion-hunting and other noble pastimes. Sixteen years had passed since +then. The baron's hair had grown thin, the little rakish mustache on +his upper lip had turned gray, his nervous, thick-set figure had +rounded out, and, seen from behind, looked almost venerable; while +the long, lank figure of his younger comrade had grown even more +spindle-shanked, his face more like parchment, and his movements +clumsier than before. For all that the baron let his eyes rest with +fatherly satisfaction upon the officer, whom he still called "Schnetz, +my dear boy," and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder; all of +which Schnetz, who would have grimly resented any such familiarity from +any one else, received with great patience from him.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Bonjour, mon vieux!</i>" cried the baron, with both cheeks full, when +Schnetz entered. "My little highness is still resting from the fatigues +of a musical entertainment given by a Russian lady here in the hotel. +Come, light a cigar. No?--don't be afraid! On neutral ground smoking is +allowed. That is the only thing which I, the best guarded of guardians, +ever succeeded in carrying through against my ward's wishes. Positively +I have regretted a hundred times that I didn't marry, and bring a few +lively boys into the world. If they had tyrannized over me, I should +know well enough for what sins I had to suffer. Now don't wink for me +to speak lower. She is accustomed to hear these sighs of agony from me. +She knows that her slave lets his hands and feet be put in chains, +but not his tongue. To be sure," he continued, concluding this +lamentation--which he had pronounced with far too jolly an air for it +to excite serious sympathy--"to be sure, my dear Schnetz, my yoke was +never so bearable as it is here in your blessed Munich: before all +else, because you have lent your shoulder to the wheel, and I have a +substitute in you such as I have wished for in vain at my own house, +when my severe little niece has led the old lion-hunter about by her +apron-string like a meek lamb."</p> + +<p class="normal">Then he related how he had made the most charming acquaintances at the +club yesterday, and what a cordial tone he had found there.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You South Germans are really a fine race of men!" he cried, excitedly. +"Everybody is so open, so true-hearted, in his <i>négligé</i>, just as God +made him. You don't have to feel about a long time until you get +through all the padding, and reach something like a human core; but +whatever there is in you appears on the surface, and, if it doesn't +please, it can't be helped. For that reason, of course, one sometimes +comes across a slight roughness, which, however, only does you honor."</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz puckered his mouth to an ironical grimace.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Allow me, <i>chère</i> papa, to remark that you over-estimate us," he said, +dryly. "That which you take to be our honest, natural skin is only a +flesh-colored material under which the real epidermis lies concealed as +securely and as secretly as the nut under its shell. We do well to +throw aside our cloaks, because, with us, we do not show ourselves as +we are when we do so. Of course, between ourselves we know perfectly +well how matters stand, and that we can't make an X into a Y. Believe +me, were it not for the drop of Frankish blood that I got from my +mother, I should not be so <i>naïf</i> as to blurt out our national secret +to you. I would leave you to quietly find out for yourself whether, at +the end of a year--yes, or even at the end of ten or twenty years--you +would have advanced any further in the friendships made yesterday than +you did in the first hour; whether you would have succeeded even in +penetrating the padding and putting your hand upon a real human heart +of flesh and blood. I--much pains as I have taken--never succeeded in +doing this. It is true, I myself was so exceedingly ill-humored as to +consider it my duty to speak the truth to those whom I consider my +friends. But that is something one must guard against doing here as +carefully as against stealing silver spoons. Why has a man a back, +unless it is that his friends may abuse him behind it?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I know you, <i>mon vieux</i>," cried the baron. "When you haven't a pair of +shears and some black paper at hand, you cut your caricatures out of +the air with your sharp tongue. But I won't allow this jaundiced art of +yours to put me out of humor with this beautiful city and its good +people. I grumbled sadly when my little highness insisted upon +traveling, and taking up her residence further south. Now, nothing +could afford me greater pleasure than her whim to settle down here in +Munich, of all places, and if she only would decide not to go away from +here again at all--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The entrance of Irene interrupted him. She looked paler than on the day +before, and greeted the gentlemen with heavy eyes and a languid +movement of her little head, which generally sat so spiritedly and so +erect upon her shoulders.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dear uncle," she said, "you would do me a great favor if you would +consent to take me away from here--into the country, no matter where, +if only away from this house. I have passed a night such as I hope I +may never pass again, and didn't get a wink of sleep until this +morning. You came home too late, and sleep too soundly, to have been +disturbed long by the concert and the noise below us. But I--though I +got away from the countess's just as early as possible--the music and +the noise of the conversation reached my ears through the open windows. +It will be just the same every night, for this lady is eternal unrest +personified; and her circle expands into the infinite, since she not +only patronizes music but all the other arts as well. So, if you love +me, uncle, and don't want me to have a brain fever, see that we leave +this house! Don't you too think, Herr von Schnetz, that nothing is left +for me but rapid flight?"</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz looked at his friend, from whose jovial face all the sunshine +had departed. But he took good care not to come to his aid.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dearest child," the baron now ventured to remonstrate in a +conciliatory voice, "the idea of rushing off in this wild fashion, +after telling our friends only yesterday that it would be much nicer to +take up our headquarters here in the town, and to make excursions from +here to all points of the compass--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She did not let him finish his speech.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Feel how hot my hand is!" she said, pressing two little fingers +against his forehead; "that is fever; and you know how people have +warned us against the Munich climate. Didn't aunt tell us yesterday +that even she intended to fly to the nearest mountains very soon? And +besides, I should never think of asking you to shut yourself up with me +in a mountain hut. I know very well, uncle, that you can't get on +without the city for any length of time. I don't wish to go any further +than the lake where we were yesterday; from there you can be back in +Munich again in an hour, if you find you cannot stand it any longer. +Don't you think this will be the most sensible thing for all parties, +Herr von Schnetz?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!</i>" replied the lieutenant, bowing, +with the most serious face in the world. It did not escape his keen +eye that this young highness had been battling with some trouble +of the heart during the night, and had not yet recovered her usual +self-possession. While she was speaking, her eyes wandered about in an +odd way, now toward the window, now toward the door, as if she trembled +in fear of some surprise. She pleased him better, however, in this +state of excitement than in her usual cool self-possession; he felt a +curious sympathy for her beautiful youth, that had no friend and +adviser to consult, except an old bachelor whose susceptibilities were +none of the most delicate.</p> + +<p class="normal">"In Heaven's name, then!" sighed the latter, casting a droll look +upward, "I submit to higher guidance, and acknowledge with gratitude +the consideration you have shown toward my poor person in your project. +Schnetz will find his way out to us, I suppose--after all a horse can +always be found or sent for; there will most likely be a pistol-gallery +at hand; and, if all other sports should leave me in the lurch, I can +still become an angler on the lake--that most insipid of all pastimes, +which I have heretofore regarded with quiet horror from a distance. +When shall we be off? Not before this evening, of course?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"With the next train, uncle. We have only half an hour to spare. Fritz +is already at work packing your things, for he had heard from Betty +that my trunk was ready. All you will have to do will be to make your +own toilet."</p> + +<p class="normal">The baron broke into a shout of laughter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"What do you say to that, Schnetz? Abd-el-Kader himself might learn a +lesson from this rapidity in breaking camp. Child, child! And my new +acquaintances of last night--the stag-party that was arranged for +to-morrow--Count Werdenfels, whose collection of weapons I was to go +and see--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"You can send them your excuses by letter from Starnberg, dear uncle. +And truly I would not hurry so if there were any other way of avoiding +taking leave in person of our fellow-guest down stairs. But, if we go +off at once, these two lines, which the waiter will give her as soon as +we are gone, will be sufficient."</p> + +<p class="normal">She produced a visiting-card, on which she had already written a word +of farewell.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The note already written, too! <i>La letterina eccola qua!</i>" cried the +baron. "Child, your genius for command is so sublime that subordination +under your flag becomes a pleasure, and blind submission a matter of +honor. In five minutes I will be ready for the journey."</p> + +<p class="normal">With comical gallantry he kissed the girl's hand, who had listened to +all his jests in a preoccupied and serious way, gave his friend a look +that seemed to say: "I yield to force!" and rushed out of the room.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz was left alone with the Fräulein. A feeling that was almost +fatherly in its tenderness passed over him as he looked at the serious +young face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Perhaps," he thought, "it needs but a first word, a light touch, and +this young heart that is full to the brim will overflow and be +relieved."</p> + +<p class="normal">But, before he could even open his lips, she said suddenly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"I do hope Starnberg is not such a great resort for artists as the +other places in the Bavarian mountains, of which my cousins have told +me."</p> + +<p class="normal">He looked at her in amazement.</p> + +<p class="normal">"You hope so, Fräulein? And what possible reason can you have for not +wishing it to be such a place? Artists are, as a rule, among the most +harmless of God's creatures, and can hardly be said to disfigure a fine +region with their umbrellas and camp-stools."</p> + +<p class="normal">"And yet, last evening, I made the acquaintance of one of these artists +at the countess's below. The tone which he adopted--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you recollect his name?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"No; but perhaps you know him--a young man in a violet velvet jacket."</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz gave a loud laugh.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Why do you laugh?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I beg a thousand pardons, Fräulein--it really is not a matter to be +laughed at. This honest fellow--our secret poet--I know him down to the +very folds in his historical velvet jacket. What, in the name of +wonder, were the thorns that this Rosebud presented for you to scratch +your delicate skin upon?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must submit to let you think me a prudish fool, who takes offense at +every light word, Herr von Schnetz," said she, with some asperity. "I +do not care to repeat the conversation of your friend. If he is one of +the most inoffensive of men, I would rather avoid a place where one is +forced to meet people of his stamp at every step."</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned away and stepped to the window.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My dearest Fräulein," she now heard Schnetz's voice say behind her, +"you are ill, seriously ill; I don't know whether in body; but +certainly there is a wounded spot somewhere in your mental +organization."</p> + +<p class="normal">She turned round upon him quickly.</p> + +<p class="normal">"I must confess, Herr von Schnetz," she said, with her proudest look, +"I really do not understand--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"A sick person is very often unconscious that anything is wrong with +him," continued Schnetz, unmoved, pulling at his imperial. "But it is +impossible that you could have seen this picture of the most innocent +of all mortals in such distortion, unless your eye had been clouded by +illness. My dear Fräulein--no, don't look at me so ungraciously; you +cannot deceive me by so doing; and at the risk of incurring your +direful wrath, I don't see why you shouldn't listen to an honest word +from a fatherly friend. I do not know whether you have many other +friends; but, as far as I know, there is no one here who takes a more +cordial interest in you than my not particularly attractive self--no +one in whom you could more safely confide. Dearest Fräulein, if you +would only consent to open that proud little mouth and tell me whether +I can help you; whether what you experienced last night--for it is +impossible that it is friend Rosenbusch who has suddenly given you such +a distaste for your stay in this city--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Thank you," she said, interrupting him suddenly; "I believe you mean +kindly toward me. Here is my hand on it; and, if I ever need counsel or +help, you shall be the first and only man to whom I will turn. But you +are mistaken if you think I--I--"</p> + +<p class="normal">She suddenly checked herself, her eyes filled with heavy drops, and her +voice failed her; but she controlled herself, and smiled upon him so +kindly that he could not help admiring the brave young heart.</p> + +<p class="normal">"All the better," he said. "I am too well bred to doubt the word of a +lady. And the assurance you give me is so precious--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Here is my hand on it! Here's to our true friendship, Herr von +Schnetz, and-- Of course I don't need to ask you not to say anything to +uncle; he undoubtedly means well with me, but he knows so little--less +than you who saw me for the first time only a week ago."</p> + +<p class="normal">She put her finger to her lips and looked listeningly toward the door, +behind which the baron's footsteps could now be heard. Schnetz had only +time, while cordially pressing the hand she offered him, to nod to her +that the pact just concluded should remain her secret, when her uncle +stepped in again in complete traveling costume, and began to urge on +the preparations for departure as zealously as he had before protested +against the flight.</p> + +<p class="normal">Schnetz got into the carriage with them, in order to accompany the +uncle and niece to the station. The curtains were drawn down on the +first floor of the hotel. The countess was still sleeping. As far as +she was concerned, Irene would have had no need to pull down her veil +over her face before she got into the carriage. But from behind it her +eyes wandered restlessly hither and thither, across the square and +through the streets; for she feared that he from whom she was fleeing +might have taken up his post somewhere in the vicinity, in order to +keep watch upon her movements.</p> + +<p class="normal">He was nowhere to be seen. She noticed, on the other hand, a beautiful +blonde lady who happened to be crossing the square just at that moment, +accompanied by a rather insignificant-looking female companion and a +male escort, and who had to stand still in order to let the carriage +pass. Schnetz did not recognize them until they had gone by, but then +he waved his hat excitedly by way of greeting, and gazed after them for +some time longer.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Who was that you were bowing to?" asked Irene.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Take a good look at that man, my dear Fräulein. He is only a sculptor, +not yet as celebrated as he deserves to be, and by birth the son of a +peasant. But I have never known a man of more genuine nobility, and he +alone would make the bad society in which I delight to move the very +best in the world. Of the two ladies one is a painter, a very good +person and not a bad artist by any means, while the beautiful one on +Jansen's left--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Jansen?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Do you know the name? Perhaps you have already seen some of his +works?"</p> + +<p class="normal">She stammered out a confused answer, and leaned far out of the carriage +as if she wanted to take another look at the party. All her blood had +mounted to her cheeks.</p> + +<p class="normal">So that was he with whom Felix now passed his days, that friend of his +youth whose presence and society made up for all lost happiness!</p> + +<p class="normal">A secret jealousy, which she was ashamed to admit even to herself, +arose within her. Luckily for her the carriage drew up a few minutes +after before the entrance of the station; and in the confusion of +getting out and taking leave of their faithful companion, she was able +to recover herself so far as to throw back her veil once more and to +exact from Schnetz, with the merriest mien in the world, a promise that +he would come out to the lake and visit them very, very soon.</p> + +<p class="normal">The whistle of the locomotive had long died away, and our friend stood +in the middle of the square, like a post, with his eyes fixed on the +ground.</p> + +<p class="normal">"<i>Tonnerre de Dieu!</i>" he growled at length, as a clumsy peasant ran +against him and roused him from his reverie. "It is curious how our +feelings toward people change. Only yesterday these two were in my +way, and I would have given a good deal to have been released from my +woman-service. And now I feel wretchedly bored without the little +highness, and as if I were of no use to anybody. If I were not an old +fellow and past all child's-play, and had not such a good wife, I +almost believe--<i>Tonnerre de Dieu!</i>"</p> + +<p class="normal">And slowly, humming a French soldiers' song between his teeth, he +wended his way home, which to-day, for the first time, appeared to him +as sad and solitary as it really was.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h2>CHAPTER XI.</h2> +<br> +<p class="normal">In the mean while Jansen and his two companions had gone on their way, +too much occupied with their own thoughts to think about the company in +which Schnetz had driven by. They were not, indeed, taking an ordinary +morning walk, for it had no less an object in view than to make a child +acquainted with its new mother for the first time--yes, even more than +this. The evening before Julie had expressed her ardent wish to take +the child under her own care at once; the plan to take an apartment +with Angelica had been given up again, for this good soul could not +bring herself to leave the people with whom she was staying, who lived +in great part from what she paid them. So Julie had plenty of room; +and, though she said nothing about it, no doubt the consideration that +the presence of the child would do much to lighten the trial year, both +for herself and her lover, had a great deal to do in determining her. +Since everything that made the bond between them stronger could not but +be very welcome to Jansen, it was decided to put the plan into +execution on the very next day.</p> + +<p class="normal">But though Jansen had welcomed and urged the idea most eagerly, he +became more and more doubtful, as the hour for putting it into +execution drew near, whether he should succeed without some trouble in +removing the child from the associations to which it was accustomed, +and placing it amid entirely new relations. Julie felt no less nervous; +what had seemed to her the evening before to be easy and self-evident, +appeared to her now in broad daylight as an audacious undertaking that +made her heart beat more anxiously the nearer they approached to their +goal. What if the child should not take to her? What if she, try as +hard as she would, should not be able to take it to her heart at +once?--or should not be able to learn the art of managing it rightly?</p> + +<p class="normal">The thought made her silent, and she involuntarily walked more slowly. +Jansen, too, slackened his pace, so that the good Angelica, who walked +along with them quite cheerful and free from care, was obliged to stand +still every few minutes in order to wait for the stragglers.</p> + +<p class="normal">But she did not lose her good-nature. On the contrary, it seemed as +though the happiness of her adored friend, the share in it which fell +to her as the patron saint of the secret union, and, by no means least, +the authority which her position as protectress gave her over her +honored master, tended to excite her humor in an unusual degree, so +that she delivered the drollest speeches entirely on her own account, +whenever the other two abused too flagrantly the privilege of being +tiresome--a privilege that belongs by right to all lovers.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Children," she cried, standing still again and fanning her heated face +with her handkerchief, "this is the first time in my life that I ever +'played the elephant' to a pair of secret lovers, but I swear by the +ball on the tower of that Protestant church never to do so again, +unless I am provided with an equipage at the very least! That you are +not very entertaining I find to be quite in order, and at all events +much better than if you should perpetually speak in sonnets, like +<i>Romeo</i> and <i>Juliet</i>--which I find highly absurd even on the stage. But +to creep along at your side through this Sahara-like glare, while you +walk at a snail's-pace, since you no longer feel external heat because +of the flames within, is more than an elderly girl of my complexion can +stand. So we will jump into the next droschke, where I can close my +eyes and ponder why it is that love, which is after all such a +pleasurable invention, generally makes the most sensible people +melancholy."</p> + +<p class="normal">Jansen's home lay in one of the old lanes between the city and the Au +suburb. Any one wandering along here by the side of the babbling brook, +a small tributary of the Isar, and seeing the low cottages with their +little front gardens and courtyards, and picturesque gables, might +easily imagine himself transported far away from the city and set down +in one of the country towns of the middle ages, so quiet and deserted +are the streets and ways, and so freely does every one pursue his +occupation under the eye of his neighbor, washing his linen and his +salad at the same well and sitting in his shirt-sleeves before his +door. The house of our friend stood a little back, in a sort of +blind-alley, so that you could not drive up to the door. It belonged to +an honest and hard-working man who had formerly been a teacher in one +of the provincial industrial schools, and who was now employed as an +engineer by different railways. As his work obliged him to travel +during many months of the year, he had invited his wife's mother to +come and live with him and give company and assistance to his little +wife--a cheery, practical woman from the Palatinate, sound to the core +both in body and soul. The mother was an excellent old woman, who, +although rather deaf, knew so well how to get on with the children that +the little ones desired no better company than their grandmamma, who +read all their little wishes in their eyes.</p> + +<p class="normal">She was sitting in her accustomed place in the deep window-niche, with +her youngest grandchild, who was barely two years old, on her knee, and +her five-year-old foster-child on a stool at her feet, when the door +opened and her daughter, the sculptor, and the two ladies, walked in. +Jansen was an especial favorite of hers, and his child held as warm a +place in her heart as her own grandchildren. And so it was natural, +when, without any preparation or notice, these two strange Fräuleins, +of whom one was striking beautiful, were introduced to her as relations +of the sculptor who wanted to see little Frances, that she had a +feeling there was something wrong about the matter; especially as one +of the strange ladies, the beautiful one, immediately took up the +little girl, who made great eyes at her, kissed and caressed her, and +took out all sorts of sweetmeats and toys from her pocket, with which +she tried to gain the child's friendship. Jansen sat near her, silent, +his face wearing a peculiar expression. For the first time his child +struck him as not looking so pretty or to so much advantage as he could +have wished. It had, to be sure, feature for feature the face of its +father, and fortunately his clear, flashing eyes as well; and in +addition to this a head of dark-brown hair and black eyebrows, which +made the eyes appear still more brilliant. Moreover, it evidently took +a strong fancy to the beautiful "aunt," who brought it such nice +things, and it behaved altogether with great propriety considering its +few years. But, for all that, a certain uneasiness weighed upon all the +people in the little room, as they sat together on the sofa or round +the table. Neither Jansen nor Julie had considered how they should +properly clothe their project in words, since their relation to one +another heretofore had borne none of the usual names, and it might not +be so easy to explain to these simple-minded women what was meant by +the engagement of a married man, and the maternal rights of his "bride" +to his child.</p> + +<p class="normal">It is very possible they had both counted on the aid of their good +"elephant," who, as a general thing, was never at a loss for a word on +either serious or pleasant occasions. But Angelica also seemed to have +left her humor outside, when she entered this peaceful little chamber. +She only had sufficient tact to admire the other children, and to +devote herself especially to the little two-year nestling, whom she +pronounced to be "a charming little rascal, with true Rubens coloring."</p> + +<p class="normal">Thus a good half hour passed away; every subject was exhausted which +could possibly be broached on a first visit, and still the main topic +had not been touched upon. Then at last the little housewife, who had +now and then exchanged a meaning look with the old woman in the window +corner, came to the aid of her old friend and lodger by rising and +requesting him to step into the adjoining room with her for a moment, +as she had something to say to him that would be of no interest to the +ladies.</p> + +<p class="normal">So she led him into her absent husband's study, shut and locked the +door behind her, and, the moment she was alone with him, plunged into +the heart of the matter.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Dear friend," she said, in her rapid Palatinate dialect, dropping all +the <i>n</i>'s at the ends of her words, and introducing a number of those +pretty turns of speech that flow so charmingly from the lips of pretty +Palatinate women, "now just tell me straightforwardly what all this +means. Do you seriously suppose you can pull the wool over my eyes, or +that I sha'n't see that this charming woman is your sweetheart or +something of that sort, and not a mere cousin in the seventeenth +degree? Now, I most certainly have nothing against it if you admire a +beautiful Fräulein; that is your privilege as an artist, and besides +you are no old beau with silver locks; and this woman could almost +steal my own heart away if I were a man. But there is something behind +it all in this case, and you need not try to convince me of the +contrary; and this fondling and fussing over the child has some reason. +Didn't she ask whether little Frances would like to come with her and +see all the pretty things she had in her house? Now, I know well +enough, dear Jansen, that if it were any ordinary attachment she would +have no wish to entice to her a child who would perpetually remind her +admirer of his earlier relations."</p> + +<p class="normal">"You have guessed the secret, my good woman," answered Jansen, as he +pressed her hand with a feeling of relief. "You are as wise as the day +is long, and would steal the most secret plans from the bosom of a much +more skillful diplomatist than I am. And who has a better right than +you, dear friend, to know all that concerns our dear child, whom you +have always cared for with the faithfulness of a mother? But now listen +to me quietly. It is truly a strange story, and the right way through +the maze is not so clear. But, if you only knew that wonderful being as +well as I do--"</p> + +<p class="normal">And then he began to tell the history of the last few weeks to the +woman, who listened with great attention to all he said; and closed by +saying that he did not like under these circumstances to dissuade Julie +from taking the child to live with her, especially when, in beginning +to care for that which was dearer to him than all else except herself, +she would be giving him a new proof of how earnestly she desired his +happiness.</p> + +<p class="normal">He had grown so earnest over his story that, when he came to an end, +nothing seemed more natural and right to him than this opinion. He was, +therefore, very much amazed when the little woman said to him, with a +doubtful expression, and speaking, against her wont, very slowly and +solemnly:</p> + +<p class="normal">"You mustn't be offended with me, dear friend, but if you did this you +would make the most foolish mistake it would be possible for you to +make in your position and at your age. There! Now you know it, and +though it may not sound very polite, it is my opinion nevertheless, and +most certainly my mother's also; and, if you have not the heart to tell +it, I myself will say it to the beautiful Fräulein's face, with all the +love and esteem of which she may be in every respect worthy. What? I am +to give up the child to a single woman with whom its father is in love? +To a beautiful lady who never has learned how such a little plant as +this should be watered, or trained when it shows signs of growing +crooked, or how much air and sunshine it needs?"</p> + +<p class="normal">"Of course we should get an experienced nurse," he ventured meekly to +suggest.</p> + +<p class="normal">The excitable little woman, who had become quite red in the face in her +zeal, gave him a side glance full of pity and reproach.</p> + +<p class="normal">"So," she said, "a nurse! So you think, I suppose, that this ought to +make me quite contented? No; and though you are the own father of the +child ten times over and I only the foster-mother, still for all that I +will take the liberty of telling you that you don't know anything about +it, and only talk as you do because you are blindly in love. Oh, my +good friend, do you think then that, because I have no right to say: 'I +will not allow it--I will not give up the child that I have long loved +as dearly as my own,' therefore I would not fight hand and foot if +anything should befall her that would be as dangerous to her as +if you should give her brandy to drink? Yes, you may stare at me as +much as you like, it is as I say! A child belongs only amid pure +relations--don't be angry at the expression. What will you say to +little Frances when she asks whether the beautiful lady with whom she +lives is her papa's wife, because he always kisses and caresses her +when he comes and goes, just as her foster-mother's husband used to do +with his wife, only perhaps even more tenderly? Do you imagine the dear +little thing hasn't eyes in her head, and very wise thoughts behind +them? And no matter with what propriety you may act, there is something +not quite right about the whole matter. Your Fräulein sweetheart has +her head full of other things than what the child needs, and won't sit +and talk and play and learn with her all day long, like grandmamma and +our other children. Think the matter over again, and then put the plan +out of your mind. Don't you remember you have often said to me that you +would be glad if you only knew some way in which to repay me for my +love and care for your child, and I always laughed at you for talking +such nonsense? But to-day I do not laugh at all--to-day I tell you very +seriously, if you really think you owe me anything, then pay me by +saying that you will not take the child away from me, but will leave +her here where she is happy."</p> + +<p class="normal">She extended both her hands to him, which he seized and pressed +heartily, though still with averted face.</p> + +<p class="normal">"My best friend," he said, "you mean so well by our child--"</p> + +<p class="normal">"And by her father, too!" she eagerly continued; "and even by her +father's beautiful friend, with whom I have no need to eat salt in +order to believe all the good you have said of her. But, for that very +reason and because we are on this subject, do make a hearty resolve, +dear Jansen, and procure the divorce now at any price and as soon as +possible. You see, I am but a simple woman and have not seen much of +the world, but still I have seen enough to know that even with the best +intentions everything can't go exactly according to rule; and if you +artists sometimes overstep the bounds rather more than is necessary, +still you are not one of the kind who would do such a thing merely out +of wantonness. And I know, too, why you haven't wanted things to be any +different heretofore. But now--believe me, now you owe it to three +beings to provide a pure atmosphere in which you can begin a new life. +And, though you shake your head even now, as much as to say it is +impossible, believe me--"</p> + +<p class="normal">The door was suddenly thrown open, and little Frances came jumping in, +holding a candied fruit in her hand, of which she had taken a bite, and +which she insisted upon the little foster-mother's tasting too. Jansen +took the dear little creature in his arms, pressed her passionately to +his breast, and kissed her bright eyes. Then he gave her back to the +little wife and said, in a voice choked with emotion:</p> + +<p class="normal">"There, you have her again! God reward you for your kindness and good +sense. We will finish our talk some other time."</p> + +<p class="normal">He stepped into the room again where his two friends had been waiting, +their conversation confined to a rather tiresome attempt to make +themselves understood by the deaf old woman. Julie read in Jansen's +eyes that his interview had not met with the desired success; but, hard +as it was for her to relinquish her plan and not to take the child with +her at once, she refrained from all hasty objections, and rested +content with the promise that little Frances should soon visit her.</p> + +<p class="normal">It was only after they were in the carriage that Jansen informed her of +the objections raised by the little woman. Julie listened in silence, +with downcast eyes and burning cheeks. Angelica, on the contrary, +attempted, in her droll way, to protest against this project, to +which she, as the protecting genius of the two foolish lovers, had +given her consent, being considered so very wild and impracticable. +By imperceptible degrees, however, she passed from scolding the +capricious little woman to praising her, maintaining that she, as a +portrait-painter, was a sufficiently good judge of human nature to +know at once what sort of a character lay behind any face. And, +consequently, she could not help admitting that, if the dear child was +not to be with Julie, there was no place in the world where it would be +better cared for than in this house.</p> + +<p class="normal">Julie persisted in her silence. Her heart had grown heavy; she began, +for the first time, to have a presentiment that her great happiness was +not to be all sunshine, that storms were lowering on the horizon which +the first gust of wind might roll across the sky, and cause to break +upon the heads of herself and her lover.</p> +<br> +<br> +<h3>FOOTNOTES:</h3> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2Ref_01" href="#div2_01">Footnote 1</a>: Rosebush.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2Ref_02" href="#div2_02">Footnote 2</a>: Schöpfer--creator--a pun somewhat less irreverent to +German than it would sound to English ears.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2Ref_03" href="#div2_03">Footnote 3</a>: The Germans say "to get the basket," as we say "to get the +mitten."--Translator.</p> + +<p class="hang1"><a name="div2Ref_04" href="#div2_04">Footnote 4</a>: Of course a play on <i>Schafskopf</i> (sheep's-head), the +German phrase for a stupid fool.--<i>Translator</i>.</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h3>END OF VOL. I.</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY.</h1> + +<h3>From the French of VICTOR CHERBUUEZ.</h3> + +<p class="center"><i>Paper</i>, 60 <i>Cents</i>; <i>Cloth</i>, $1.00.</p> + +<hr class="W10"> +<br> +<p class="center"><i>From the New York World.</i></p> + +<p class="normal"><p class="normal">"The book is one of the best of even Cherbuliez's novels. No one needs +to be told that this is high praise.... Nowhere has the ideal +adventurer been portrayed with more skill, more art, more genius even, +than Cherbuliez has portrayed him in this novel."</p> +<br> +<p class="center"><i>From the New York Evening Post.</i></p> + +<p class="normal">"The story illustrates anew what has been illustrated a thousand times, +namely, that in the art of story-telling the French are masters, whose +skill we English-speaking folk can never learn. It is not as novelists +that they excel us, for there are English novels enough to contradict +that; but as deft-handed story-tellers and deft-handed playwrights the +French are much superior to any other race."</p> +<br> +<p class="center"><i>From the London Examiner.</i></p> + +<p class="normal">"M. Cherbuliez is a very clever novelist, certainly one of the +cleverest of the second rank of living French novelists. A new novel +from his pen is always something to be looked forward to with pleasure; +and if of late his novels have not been so remarkable as formerly, they +are always exceedingly readable. But 'Samuel Brohl et Cie' is more +than merely readable; it is as good in its way as anything that M. +Cherbuliez has ever done."</p> +<br> +<p class="center"><i>From the New York Express.</i></p> + +<p class="normal">"The Appletons have commenced the publication of a 'Collection of +Foreign Authors,' which is destined, we think, to be a success, and +which certainly will be a success if its forthcoming volumes are as +good as its first one, which is entitled 'Samuel Brohl & Company,' and +is by that adroit story-teller, Victor Cherbuliez. We do not intend to +give away the plot of this remarkable novel, which is a marvel of +ingenuity from beginning to end."</p> +<br> +<p class="center"><i>From the Philadelphia Item.</i></p> + +<p class="normal">"'Samuel Brohl & Company' is a powerful work, possessing a strong, +skillfully-constructed plot, and is admirably elaborated in all its +details."</p> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<h1>GÉRARD'S MARRIAGE:</h1> + +<h3>A NOVEL.</h3> + +<h2>From the French of ANDRÉ THEURIET.</h2> + +<hr class="W10"> + +<p class="center">(<i>FORMING No. II. OF "A COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS."</i>)</p> + +<hr class="W10"> + +<p class="center">16mo. Paper covers, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents.</p> + +<hr class="W20"> + +<p class="normal">As exquisite in its form, color, and delicacy, as a choice piece of +Sèvres porcelain."--<i>Literary World</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"This lovely idyl of French provincial life introduces to the notice of +American readers Theuriet, one of the most quietly enjoyable among +modern French novelists, and one who holds rank among the highest for +his portraiture of the charms of country landscapes, and the sweet +peace and happiness clustering around country-life."--<i>Providence +Journal</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Its chief merit lies in the admirable skill with which it is told, the +skill in apt narration, which seems to be a birthright of all +Frenchmen, and which men of other races never fail to admire, and never +succeed in imitating."--<i>New York Evening Post</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"There is much charm in the narrative, the characters are vigorously +sketched, the descriptive portions, especially of out-door life, are +picturesque and animated, and the whole is distinguished by grace and +delicacy."--<i>Boston Gazette</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"'Gérard's Marriage' is as exquisite of its kind as Tennyson's +'Princess,' and its moral is that of the old song, 'Love will find out +the way.'"--<i>New York Express</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The use of these simple materials is so artistic, and the story +is so deftly told, that the book is delightful from beginning to +end."--<i>Detroit Post</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The story is pleasant, the characters drawn with that light, firm +touch, peculiar to a Frenchman; the colloquy, if not brilliant, always +to the purpose, and about the whole there plays a poetic light that is +not the less charming because it is so wholly French."--<i>New York +World</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"André Theuriet excels in the painting of rural scenes, and the +skillful management of romantic comedy."--<i>Chicago Inter-Ocean</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"The story is told, particularly the trials of the lovers, with great +vivacity and brilliancy, in which particulars the French seem to excel +all other nations."--<i>Boston Commonwealth</i>.</p> + +<p class="normal">"Affords a charming illustration of the exceeding elegance, refinement, +and delicacy, that mark the romances of André Theuriet, one of the most +graceful and popular French novelists of the present time."-- +<i>Providence Journal</i>.</p> + +<hr class="W20"> + +<h3><span class="sc">New York</span>: D. APPLETON & CO., <span class="sc">Publishers</span>.</h3> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of In Paradise, by Paul Heyse + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN PARADISE *** + +***** This file should be named 33704-h.htm or 33704-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/3/7/0/33704/ + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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Vol. I. + +Author: Paul Heyse + +Release Date: September 12, 2010 [EBook #33704] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IN PARADISE *** + + + + +Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive + + + + + +[Transcriber's note: Page scan source: +http://www.archive.org/details/inparadiseanove00heysgoog] + + + + + + + COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS, + + No. XII. + + * * * * * + + IN PARADISE. + + VOL. I. + + + + + + + VOLUMES ALREADY PUBLISHED: + +I. _SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY_. A Novel. From the French of Victor +Cherbuliez. 1 vol., 16mo. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +II. _GERARD'S MARRIAGE_. A Novel. From the French of Andre Theuriet. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +III. _SPIRITE_. A Fantasy. From the French of Theophile Gautier. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +IV. _THE TOWER OF PERCEMONT_. From the French of George Sand. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +V. _META HOLDENIS_. A Novel. From the French of Victor Cherbuliez. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +VI. _ROMANCES OF THE EAST_. From the French of Comte de Gobineau. Paper +cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +VII. _RENEE AND FRANZ_ (Le Bleuet). From the French of Gustave Haller. +Paper cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +VIII. _MADAME GOSSELIN_. From the French of Louis Ulbach. Paper cover, +60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +IX. _THE GODSON OF A MARQUIS_. From the French of Andre Theuriet. Paper +cover, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + +X. _ARIADNE_. From the French of Henry Greville. Paper cover, 50 cents; +cloth, 75 cents. + +XI. _SAFAR-HADGI_; or, Russ and Turcoman. From the French of Prince +Lubomirski. Paper cover, 60 cents; cloth, $1.00. + +XII. _IN PARADISE_. From the German of Paul Heyse. 2 vols. Per vol., +paper cover, 60 cents; doth, $1.00. + + + + + + + IN + + PARADISE + + _A NOVEL_ + + + FROM THE GERMAN OF + PAUL HEYSE + + + + VOL. I + + + + NEW YORK + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY + 549 AND 551 BROADWAY + 1878 + + + + +***_It has been decided to omit from this translation the poems which +are scattered through the novel in the German. A few trifling changes +in certain passages have been made necessary by this omission; and the +translator has in two or three cases very slightly condensed the text._ + + + * * * * * + + COPYRIGHT BY + D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, + 1878. + + + + + + IN PARADISE. + + + + + + _BOOK I_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +It was a Sunday in the midsummer of 1869. + +The air, cleared by a thunderstorm the night before, was still +tremulous with that soft, invigorating warmth which, farther south, +makes breathing such an easy matter, but which, north of the Alps, +seldom outlasts the early morning. And yet the bells, that sounded from +the Munich Frauenkirche far across the Theresienwiese, and the field +where stands the great statue of Bavaria, were already ringing for high +mass. Here, outside the city, there seemed to be no human ear to +listen. The great bronze maiden stood there in the deepest solitude, +holding her wreath above her head, and with a mazed and dreamy look, as +though she might be thinking whether this were not an opportune moment +to step down from her granite pedestal, and to wander at will through +the town, that to-day raised its towers and roofs like a city of the +dead above the bare green plain. Now and then a bird flew out of the +little grove behind the Ruhmes-halle, and fluttered about the shoulders +of the giant maiden, or rested for a moment on the mane of the lion +that sat lazily listening, pressed close to the knee of his great +mistress. But away in the city the bells rang on. The air grew drowsy +with the steadily increasing heat, with the hum and the vibration of +the distant ringing, and the strong fragrance that rose from the +meadow, which had been mown the day before. At last the bells ceased; +and now not a sound was to be heard, save that there came from a house +in one of the outer streets the sound of a flute, played by fits and +starts, as though the player stopped for breath between the passages, +or as though he forgot his notes in other thoughts. + +The window, from which this singular music sounded into the summer air, +opened from the upper story of a house that stood some distance back +from the street--a house of a kind of which there are many in this +western suburb. They are generally entirely unornamented, boxlike +buildings, windowless except on the northern side, and there pierced by +great quadrangular openings, supplied with all manner of arrangements +for admitting the steadiest possible light from above. In summer one +never sees above them the little cloud of smoke that betrays a domestic +hearth, and no profane smell of cooking meets the visitor upon the +threshold--as in most other Munich houses. From the open windows floats +only a light, invisible odor of tobacco-smoke, agreeably mingled with +the invigorating fragrance of varnishes, oils, and turpentine--which +shows that here only the holy fire of art is fed, and that here, upon +silent altars (three-legged easels and sculptors' pedestals) are +offered sacrifices that cannot even shelter the priests that offer them +from the pangs of hunger. + +The house of which we speak turned its windowless southern side +toward a little yard, in which lay scattered marble and sandstone +blocks of different sizes. The four studio-windows of the northern side +looked into a carefully-tended, narrow garden, that sheltered them +from all disagreeable reflected lights. Around a little, slender, +drowsily-splashing fountain in the middle bloomed a glorious wealth of +roses; and the neighboring flower-beds, filled with all kinds of +garden-stuff, were enclosed in thick borders of mignonette. Here the +smell of oil and turpentine just referred to could not penetrate, +especially as only the two upper studios were those of painters; while +in the lower story, as could be seen by the blocks of stone in the +yard, a sculptor carried on his art. + +Artists--enjoying, as they do, a perpetual holiday mood over their +work--are not wont to be supporters of a regular celebration of the +Sabbath. Those who are so must be such as in the course of years +have come to devote themselves--as not a few do in a so-called +"art-city"--to the mere business-like manufacture of pictures for +"art-clubs," or of parlor statuettes; and so are privileged to take +their rest on the seventh day, among the other customs of solid +citizens. They, "thank God, no longer feel obliged" to be industrious, +and to work even on a holiday. + +But the dwellers in this little house were not of such a type. + +On the ground-floor all possible panes in the windows had been opened, +to let as much as possible of the glowing air stream into the sunless +room; and perhaps, too, to tempt in the fragrance of the flowers, or +the notes of the flute that sounded from the window overhead. A flock +of sparrows, that seemed accustomed to make themselves at home in the +place, availed themselves of the opportunity to whirr in and out of the +garden, to flutter, chattering and scolding, about among the ivy-vines +with which one wall of the studio was thickly covered, and to hunt +through every corner for neglected crusts of bread. With all this, +however, they seemed well-bred enough to make no other trouble but +their noise--though the busts and clay models, that stood about the +room on boards and scaffoldings, showed many traces of their visits. On +the damp cloth, in which a large group that stood in the middle of the +great room was carefully wrapped, in order to keep the fresh clay from +drying, sat an old and rather decrepit-looking sparrow, who still +looked about him with an air of considerable dignity--evidently the +chief of this wild army, to whom the pleasant coolness of his seat +seemed to make it an agreeable one. He took no part in the fluttering +and chatter of the younger company, but fixed his attention with +critical gravity upon the artist in the gray blouse, who had moved his +modeling-table close to the window, and was busy in finishing from a +living model the statue of a dancing Bacchante. + +The model was a young girl, hardly eighteen years old, who stood on a +little platform opposite the sculptor, and, with her arms thrown up and +backward, held fast by a rod that hung from the ceiling--for the statue +held a tambourine in the hands flung upward with such _abandon_, and +the _pose_ was none of the most comfortable. Still, the girl had borne +it a good half hour already without complaining or asking for a rest. +Although she had to hold her head far back, with its loosened auburn +hair that fell below her waist, yet she followed with intense +curiosity--her little eyes almost closed the while, so that the long +golden-blond lashes lay upon her cheeks--every movement of the artist, +every one of his critical and comparing glances. It seemed to flatter +her beyond measure that her youthful beauty should be the subject of +such conscientious study; and in this satisfaction to her vanity she +forgot fatigue. And indeed she was of unusually slender and graceful +form; and from the rough brown calico dress that was tightly fastened +about her waist there sprung, like a fair flower from a coarse husk, a +girlish figure of as perfect whiteness and delicacy as though the poor +child had no other occupation but to care for her complexion. Her face +was not exactly beautiful; a rather flat nose with broad nostrils +projected above the large, half-opened mouth. But in the ill-formed +jaws, that gave to the face something wild and almost like an animal, +shone perfect and beautiful teeth; and a merry, innocent, childlike +smile enlivened the full lips and the otherwise rather expressionless +eyes. The complexion of her face, too, was of a brilliant, transparent +white, spotted here and there by a few little freckles, of which there +were two or three also on her neck and breast. It was comical to see +how she herself shared in the study of her own beauty, as she found +such serious attention given to it by another; and, as she saw her +girlish self treated with such respect, she seemed to forget every +trace of anything like coquetry, such as might otherwise have entered +into the matter. + +"You must be tired, Zenz," said the sculptor. "Don't you want to rest +awhile?" + +She shook her auburn hair with a laugh. "It is so cool here," she +answered without stirring. "You don't feel your own weight at all in +the open air like this--and besides, there's the sweet smell of the +mignonette in the garden. I believe I could stand this way till night." + +"So much the better. I was just going to ask you if you were not cold, +and didn't want a shawl over your shoulders. I don't need them now; I +am just doing the arms." + +He went seriously and quietly on with his work. In his plain face, +framed in smooth blond hair streaked with gray, the only features that +struck one at first glance were the eyes, that shone with an unusual +force and fire. When he fixed them upon a certain point, it seemed as +though they took complete possession of what they saw, and made +themselves completely master of it. And yet there could be nothing more +quiet or less inquiring in expression than these same eyes. + +"Who is that playing the flute up stairs?" asked the girl. "The first +time I was here, a week ago to-day, it was perfectly still up there; +but to-day it goes tramp, tramp, every few minutes, and somebody plays, +and then it stops again for a little while." + +"A friend of mine has his studio just over us," answered the sculptor; +"a battle-painter, Herr Rosenbusch. If he can't make his work go to +please him, he takes up his flute and walks up and down like that, and +plays, and buries himself in thought. And then he stops in front of his +easel and looks at his picture; and so goes on until he hits upon what +he is after. But what are you laughing at, Zenz?" + +"Only at his name. Rosenbusch![1] And paints battles!--Is he a Jew?" + +"I don't think so. But now if you want to rest a little while--your +neck must be perfectly stiff by this time." + +She let go the rod at once, and sprang down from the bench. While he +was polishing with his modeling-tool the portion he had just finished, +she stood close by him, her arms crossed behind her with a lightness +peculiar to her figure, and looked closely at the beautiful statue, +which within the last hour had made such obvious progress. But only in +the upper half; for the active hips and limbs of the dancer, only +hidden by her long, flowing hair, were only very roughly outlined. + +"Are you satisfied, child?" asked the artist. "But then I can only, at +the best, work it out in marble for you, and you are really a better +bit for a painter. That snow-white skin and flaming mane of yours--if +you had lived two thousand years ago, when they made statues of gold +and ivory, you would have been just in your proper place." + +"Gold and ivory?" she repeated, thoughtfully. "Those must have been +rich people! However, I am satisfied for my part with the beautiful +white marble--like the young gentleman there behind, that you didn't +finish." + +"Do you like him? It was a long while ago that I began that bust. Isn't +it fine, how the small, firm, round head springs from the broad +shoulders? It's a pity that I only sketched out the face; you would +have liked that too." + +"Are you going to make my portrait too, there in the clay? I mean, so +that it will be just like me--so that my friends will say at once 'That +is Red Zenz?'" + +"That depends. I could use your little nose and your small, sharp-cut +ears well enough. But you know, child, I had quite another wish; and, +if you will fulfill that, I'll make the face so that no human being +will ever dream that Red Zenz was my model. Have you thought it +over--what I asked you a week ago?" + +He did not look at her as he spoke, but kept on diligently smoothing +and kneading the soft clay. + +She made as though she had not heard his question, and turned on her +heel, wrapping her thick hair about her like a cloak, and went over to +a corner of the studio, where a great black Newfoundland dog, with a +white breast, was lying on a straw mat with his head between his fore +paws, and growling lightly in his sleep. The girl bent down to him and +began to scratch his head softly--of which he took no other notice than +an instant's opening of his eyes, dim with old age. + +"He isn't very gallant," said the girl, laughing. "One of my girl +friends has a little terrier, and when I stroke him he is perfectly +wild with joy, and I have to look out that he doesn't lick my face and +neck and hands all over with his little pink tongue. But this fellow is +as reverend as a grandfather. What is his name?" + +"Homo." + +"Homo? What a queer name! What does it mean?" + +"It is Latin, and means 'man.' Years ago the old boy showed so much +human reason, just as his master seemed on the point of losing his +head, that it was decided to rechristen him. Since then he has never +brought shame upon his name. So you see, child, in what good company +you are. If I am hardly as old as a grandfather yet, I am almost old +enough to be your father. And I thought these two sittings would have +convinced you that you were perfectly safe with me--that I shall +faithfully keep what I promised you. And that is the reason--" + +"No, no, no, no!" cried she, jumping suddenly up and whirling around, +and shaking her head so violently that her hair flew about her like a +wheel of fire. "What makes you speak of that again, Herr Jansen? You +take me for a silly, thoughtless kind of girl, no doubt--and think that +in time I shan't be able to refuse you anything. But you are very much +mistaken. It is true, I don't mind doing some foolish things; and +standing about for you here like this doesn't seem to me anything wrong +or disgraceful. Why, at a ball last winter where we had made up the +flowers, and so they let us look in through the dressing-room, the fine +ladies appeared before gentlemen in a very different way from the way I +am standing and walking about here; and there were a great many +officers there--not even artists, like you, that only look artistically +at a bare neck and shoulders. But, if I will do _that_ for you, you +mustn't ask anything more. It is true, my friend, when I told her, did +not think anything of it--and she could come with me. But that is +decided--it would make me so that I never could look anybody straight +in the face again. No--no--no! I will not do it--now or ever!" + +"You are right, child," interrupted the sculptor, breaking in on her +excited words and, suddenly changing the form of his speech into the +more familiar "thou." "Nobody need know of it, and, if it is +disagreeable to you, I will not speak of it again. And yet--it's a +pity! I could make the figure from a single mould, so to speak; and in +half the time that I shall have to spend now in looking about for +something that will suit." + +She made no answer, but of her own accord mounted upon the bench, and +leaned back again, hanging from the rod. + +"Is that right?" she asked. "Am I standing just as I did before?" + +He only nodded, without looking up at her. + +"What makes you cross with me?" she asked, after a while. "I cannot +help it because I am not like my friend. To be sure, she has had a +great deal more experience than I. And then she has been in love more +than once." + +"Have you never had a sweetheart, Zenz?" + +"No; a real sweetheart, such as one would go through the fire +for--never! My red hair didn't have very good fortune out in Salzburg, +where I have generally lived. And, besides, I was too ugly. One of them +said I had a dog's face. It has only been within the last year, when I +have suddenly shot up a little, and grown a little stouter, that the +gentlemen have sometimes run after me; and with one of them--a right +nice young fellow--I had a kind of a flirtation. But he was so silly +that he tired me; and so it hadn't gone far between us when one fine +day he fell sick and died. And it was only then that I found I couldn't +have loved him so very, very much; for I didn't even cry about him. +Since then I have taken good care not to make a fool of myself again. +Men are bad; everybody says that that knows anything. As for me, if I +liked one--if I really liked him, 'von Herzen, mit Schmerzen'--" + +"Well, Zenz, what would you do?" + +She was silent for a moment, and then suddenly let her arms fall close +by her sides. It seemed as though a chill ran over her soft skin; she +shook herself, and shrugged her white shoulders. + +"What would I do?" she repeated, as though to herself. "Everything he +wanted! And so it is better as it is--much better." + +"You are a good girl, Zenz," he muttered, nodding his head slowly. +"Come, there is my hand; shake hands, and I promise you now that there +never shall be a word again between us of what you are not willing to +hear." + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +She was just about to lay her round, white little hand in his, which +was rough and muddy from kneading the clay, when a knock at the door +caused them both to look up and listen. + +The janitor called out through the key-hole that a strange gentleman +wished to speak with Herr Jansen. When he heard that the sculptor had a +model sitting to him at the moment, he had asked the janitor to take in +his card. With this the janitor pushed the card through a narrow hole +in the door made for the purpose. + +The sculptor, grumbling, went toward the threshold and picked up the +card. "Felix, Freiherr von Weiblingen." He shook his head thoughtfully. +Suddenly he uttered an exclamation of joy. Under the printed name was +written, with a pencil, "Icarus." + +"A good friend of yours?" queried the girl. + +He made no answer, but threw down his modeling-tool hastily, hurriedly +wiped his hands on a towel, and hastened to the door again. As he +opened it, he turned around. + +"Stay here, Zenz," he said. "Amuse yourself for a while; there is a +book of pictures; and, if you should be hungry, you will find something +in the cupboard. I will lock the door behind me." + +In the hall outside there was no one but the janitor, with his bent, +long-shaped head, that looked very much like the head of a horse, +especially when he spoke; then he moved his under-jaw, as though he had +a bit between his great, yellow teeth. + +He was a most serviceable old fellow, who had grown gray in the service +of art, and had a more delicate judgment than many a professor. He was +a thorough expert in preparing a canvas; and occupied his leisure in +studying the chemistry of colors. + +"Where are the gentlemen, Fridolin?" asked the sculptor. + +"There is only one. He is walking in the yard. A very handsome young +gentleman. You can see in his face the look of the 'Baron' that is on +his card. He said--" + +But the sculptor had hurried by him, and had rushed down the steps that +led into the yard. "Felix!" he cried, "is it you or your ghost?" + +"I am inclined to think it is both, and a heart in addition," replied +the person addressed, grasping the hand that the sculptor held out to +him. "Come, old fellow, I can't see why we should be ashamed to fall on +each other's necks, here under God's free heaven. I have had to get on +for years without my best and dearest old Daedalus--" + +He did not finish his sentence. The sculptor had pressed him so +heartily to his breast that it fairly took away his breath. + +Then suddenly he loosened his grasp, and, stepping back a pace, cast a +critical glance over the slight figure of his friend. + +"Still just the same," he said, as though to himself; "but we must get +those Samson-like locks under the shears. You don't know your strongest +point, my dear boy, when you bury your round head in such a thicket. +And your full beard must come off. However, all that will come with +time. Tell me what has conjured you forth out of your primeval forests +into our tame art-city?" + +He grasped the young man's arm, and led him around the house into the +little garden. Both were silent, and seemed to avoid looking at one +another, as though they had begun to feel ashamed of the extravagant +affection with which they had marked their reunion. + +At the extreme end of the garden was an arbor overgrown with +honeysuckle; at its entrance stood sentry two potbellied Cupids in the +_rococco_ style, with little queues and all that--both of them painted +sky-blue from head to foot. + +"It's easy to see whom one is visiting," said Felix, laughing. "'His +pig-tail hangs behind him,' or have you had it cut off?" Then, without +waiting for an answer: "But tell me, old fellow, how have you had the +heart to leave your poor Icarus all these terribly long years without a +sign of life on your part? Haven't any of the six or eight letters I +have written you--the last only a year ago from Chicago--" + +The sculptor had turned away and buried his face in a bunch of +full-blown roses. He turned suddenly toward his friend, and said, with +a quick, lowering glance: "A sign of life! How do you know that I +_have_ lived these terribly long years? But let us drop all that. Come +and sit down here in the arbor, and now unpack your budget. A +circumnavigator like you must have brought all manner of things with +you that are entertaining and wonderful to dusty stay-at-homes like us. +When you went away from Kiel, we did not either of us think the earth +would turn so often before we looked each other in the face again." + +"What shall I tell you?" asked the young man, and his delicate brow +contracted, "If my letters reached you, you have not lost the thread of +my story. As for all the details that belong to it, you knew me well +enough in my first university days, in those old times at Kiel, to +imagine how I went on afterward in Heidelberg and Leipsic, till I got +an older head under my corps-student's cap. It is true, I soon grew +tired of the ridiculous corps business; but, for the mere sake of not +seeming to play the renegade, I kept on with the old associations even +more shamelessly than before. My three years passed away, and a fourth +beside; I was fully three-and-twenty when I went back into my dear, +dull, little home, and passed my examination to enter the civil +service. How I managed to get on so long without giving you a call, +Heaven knows! As early as the second year after our separation, I was +very near you. I had a trifling reminder of a pistol-duel with a +Russian, here in my left shoulder, and had to go to a watering-place +for my health. In Heligoland I heard that you had moved to Hamburg. I +needn't say that I designed to call upon you on my way back. But, +suddenly, a sad message called me home abruptly. My poor old father had +had an apoplectic stroke, and I found him dead. Then there was all the +dreary necessary business, and, after it all--. But why must we spoil +our first pleasant hour with all these old stories? My dear Hans, if +you had a notion how good it is to be sitting here again by your side, +to smell these roses, and imagine that my life is beginning all over +again--a new life in a better world, free from all fetters and--. But, +by-the-way, you have married, I hear? An actress, was it not? Where did +she come from? I heard in Heligoland--" + +The sculptor suddenly rose. "You find me as you left me," he said, his +face darkening quickly; "what is past, let us let it rest. Come out of +the arbor; it is suffocatingly hot under those thick vines." + +He went toward the little fountain, held his hands under the slender +stream, and passed them over his brow. Then, for the first time, he +turned to Felix again. His face was once more composed and bright. + +"And now tell me what has brought you here, and how long you are going +to stay with me." + +"As long as you will have me--for ever and ever--_in infinitum_ if you +will!" + +"You are joking. Don't do that, my dear boy. I am so utterly alone +here, in spite of a plenty of good comrades with whom I can share +everything except my most intimate thoughts, that the thought of +beginning our old life again seems far too happy to me to be only made +a jest of." + +"But it is my most serious earnest, dear old Hans. I am going to stay +here with you, if you have nothing against it, in your most intimate +daily companionship; and, if some day you strike your tent and wander +away somewhere else, I will go too. In one word, I have put my whole +past career behind me, and broken up all my old associations, so that I +may begin, as I said, my whole life over again, and not be anything but +what I care most to be--a free man; not make myself anything but what I +have always secretly longed to be, an artist, as good or as bad a one +as mother Nature will let me." + +He poured forth these words hurriedly, and with downcast face, and as +he talked drew a light circle in the nearest flower-bed with his cane. +It was only after a pause, and when his friend made no reply, that he +raised his eyes and met, with some embarrassment, the quiet gaze fixed +upon him. + +"You don't seem quite able to accept this change in my life all at +once, Hans? Others besides you have had the same feeling--the person +most concerned in it, for instance. That I have become a conceited ass, +and fancy that because I used to be extravagantly fond of modeling all +manner of absurdities in clay, and cutting caricatures of my friends in +meerschaum--this I hope you will not believe. But why I can't get +beyond the condition of a dilettante, if I only am serious about it, +and think of and do nothing else but study my A, B, C, under a good +master--I beg of you, my dear Daedalus, don't pull such a disheartening +face! Don't look so sadly at the lost youth--as I probably seem to you; +or at least smile ironically, so as to rouse my anger and wound my +_amour propre_ a little! But by the eternal gods--what is there after +all so horribly fatal in this decision? That it hasn't occurred to me +till after twenty-seven years? That is bad, I admit, but not a proof +that it is hopeless. Think of your own half-countryman, Asmus Carstens, +or of--well, I won't give you a whole chapter of artists' biographies. +And besides, when I am altogether independent and have burnt my ships +behind me--" + +He stopped again. His friend's silence seemed to check his utterance. +For a time nothing was to be heard around them but the splashing of the +little fountain, and from the window above them the notes of the +battle-painter's flute, every little while dying dismally away. + +Suddenly the sculptor stood still. + +"And does your fiancee agree to this project?" + +"My fiancee? What in the world puts that question into your head?" + +"Because, although I never answered your letters, I remember them all +very well. Is it possible that you too do not remember what you wrote +me three years ago, under the seal of the deepest--" + +"So I did do it then!" cried the young man with a short, abrupt laugh. +"So I did chatter, did I? I assure you, my dear Hans, I was myself +doubtful how far I had initiated you--you, the only one before whom I +ever lifted even a corner of the veil from this veiled picture. After +awhile--as you sent no congratulations--I began to persuade myself that +I had kept a quiet tongue in my head, even with you; and, in truth, +that would have been the best thing to do. Then I should have escaped +the full confession that it is hard enough for me to make--and after +all, it is perfectly superfluous. For how shall I--who am no poet, and +who am besides an interested party in the transaction--how shall I +describe the persons concerned so that you will understand how it all +came about--how it was partly the fault of both--and yet how both are +innocent, after all? + +"But if you must have it, let it be so--as briefly as possible. + +"I came back, then, to my native town, to pay the last honors to my +good old father. You know what an unhomelike home I had always found +it. The capital of a third-class Duodezstaat--thank your good star that +you have no idea what it means. My father before me had suffered under +the absurd despotism of this court-etiquette, this endlessly-branching, +complicated, spun-out primeval jungle of dry genealogical trees--under +these ridiculous traditions of a worm-eaten bureaucracy. He was a man +of quite another type--a sturdy, stately country noble, of the most +exclusive and most independent spirit; and since the death of my +mother--who could not of course withdraw herself so entirely from her +family connections--he had lived on our own estate, altogether apart +from 'society.' Then came his death; and I--looked upon askance even as +a boy because of my likeness to my father, and almost given up as far +as a career at court or in politics was concerned--I believe no cock +would have crowed at it, if I had once for all acknowledged that I was +my father's true heir in this respect also, and had forever turned my +back on the spot where I was cradled. But, much as I felt inclined to +do so, it fell out otherwise." + +He put his hand into his pocket and took out a little memorandum-book. + +"You shall have the romance in an illustrated edition," he said, with a +rather forced attempt at jesting. "See, it was this little person's +fault that I thought for a while it was really my calling to be a +useful citizen--chamberlain to his Highness--by and by master of the +hunt--court marshal--heaven knows what all. Is not that a face that +could persuade one of anything, and could turn a head that never sat +very firmly? And that is only a commonplace photograph, and three years +old; and besides, in these three years the wicked child has learned all +manner of witches' arts; and the eyes that here in the photograph look +so still and fixed--half curious, half timid, as if they were looking +at a theatre-curtain that would not go up--I can tell you, my dear boy, +they look into the world now with such a queenly confidence and dignity +that it fairly--but that is no part of our present talk. And at that +time, when the misfortune happened and I lost my heart to the child, +the little thing was hardly more than a schoolgirl, just sixteen years +old; and shy, silent and unformed as a young bird. We had known each +other since we were children--she is some sort of a cousin, seventeen +times removed--just as all good families with us are related in some +way. I had not the least idea, however, of visiting her, until her +uncle, with whom she lived--her parents died when she was very +young--until this jovial gentleman came to make me a visit of +condolence. Of course I had to return it, and it was on this occasion +that I first saw the slender, pale, large-eyed child, with her +exquisite, tight-shut red lips and her ravishing, tiny little ears. + +"Soon afterward I went away again, and only after a year had +passed--after the infernal examination that I would not shirk, in spite +of my freedom, lest it should seem as though I were afraid of it--only +then, when she was seventeen years old, did I see her again. While I +was away, a recollection of her had come back to me from time to time; +suddenly, in the midst of altogether different things, I had seen +something flitting before me that resembled nothing but her slight and +somewhat spare figure, about which there was one trait that always +seemed to me especially charming--that though she was perhaps not quite +tall enough, her little form was always so haughty and erect and so +delicately and perfectly balanced on its slender pedestal. Sometimes, +too, her eyes met me in a fairly ghost-like fashion, when I was among +my comrades or alone out of doors. And yet I had never exchanged ten +words with her. + +"And now, when I found her again, a year older and suddenly developed +into a young woman--no, Hans, you need not fear that I am shamelessly +going to put our whole love-story at your mercy, here in the bright +morning sunlight. Enough to say that it had fared much the same with +her, as far as my worthy self was concerned, as with me in respect to +her. We saw that we were meant for one another, as people say--without +ever thinking how much is meant by the words. + +"Well! everything would have been well enough; the match seemed as +_bien assortie_ as could possibly have been wished even in such an +aristocratic and cosmopolitan capital as ours. If we had only +married at once, on the spur of the moment, we should have been just +the people--she with her seventeen years, and I with my three or +four-and-twenty--to be altogether suited to one another, and, as time +went on, to so round off the very perceptible and serious corners and +sharpnesses of our two temperaments, that finally it would have been a +thoroughly happy marriage. But, unfortunately, Irene's mother had +married at seventeen, and attributed her lifelong invalidism--for she +was a delicate creature and always remained so--to this early marriage. +When she died--still very young--she charged her husband solemnly that +he should not let their only daughter marry before she was twenty; and +the uncle, who afterward filled a father's place to my sweetheart, +considered himself absolutely bound by this inherited pledge. I must +wait patiently, therefore, for three whole years. And as he was a +bachelor, and his niece had no chaperon to call upon but a former +servant, I was required to pledge myself to avoid all companionship +with my betrothed during this long probation, and only to carry on my +courtship by letter; so that every temptation to seek to shorten the +time of waiting might be put a stop to once for all. + +"You can imagine what my feelings were when the old gentleman told me +all this. To decree a three years' banishment just because we should +give him trouble--because he hated responsibility, and because he +believed, as an old hand at love-making, that this was the best way to +protect lovers against themselves! But, jovial as his manner was, he +was an uncompromising egotist where his own quiet and comfort were +concerned. And I was too stubborn and too proud to make any +supplications, and too sure of myself and my sweetheart to fear the +length of the interval; which did not seem to me at first glance so +intolerable as I often felt it afterward--in sighs and misery. + +"My sweetheart, too, threw back her little head and said: 'Yes, we will +wait.'--Afterward, it is true, when it came to our last parting, she +fell out of my arms as though she were dead, and I thought she would +never open her eyes again. Even now I don't know how I succeeded, in +spite of it all, in tearing myself away. + +"And this three years' separation itself! If I had only been a man of +sense--that is, if I had been another than myself--I should have +settled down somewhere in Germany, and taken up some task at which +I could have worked myself tired--to fight down my unprofitable +lover's-melancholy. Why could not I devote my three years to making +myself a perfect agriculturist, or a prominent jurist, or a politician, +or something that is of some use in the world? To make one's self so +completely master of some department of life or knowledge that one +knows every square foot of it is rather an absurd and commonplace +consolation, to be sure; but it is better, after all, than an +objectless activity, a love nourished on prison-fare, and a longing for +freedom that at last makes one look upon mere change as something +desirable. + +"Even then I thought of my old Daedalus. I was on the very point of +falling upon you in your studio, and, for want of a smooth, girlish +cheek to caress, of trying my hand on a soft bit of clay. Just then I +chanced upon an opportunity to go to England; there I stayed until I +was ripe for America; and he who once sets foot in the New World, and +hasn't left any very pressing business behind him in the Old, can get +rid of a few years of his life without knowing exactly how he has done +it. It is enough to tell you that I had already reached Rio, traveling +by way of San Francisco and Mexico, when I said to myself one day that +if I did not want to prolong my exile voluntarily, and so appear to my +betrothed in rather a bad light, I must take the next steamer that +sailed for Havre, in order to land at last, after all this wandering +over the wide world, in the harbor of my wedded bliss. + +"I had written regularly to my betrothed every month--beautiful +diary-like love-letters--and had received with equal regularity letters +from her, which, to speak honestly, had now and then irritated me +greatly; so that we had already had (on paper) all manner of +misunderstandings, tiffs, quarrels, and reconciliations. I considered +that all this belonged of right to a well-conducted three-years' +engagement, and did not take it too much to heart when my well-bred, +rather provincial little sweetheart, who had grown up in the atmosphere +of the petty capital, occasionally gave her vagabond _fiance_ a little +moral lesson. Perhaps I was wrong, and certainly I was foolish, always +to report my varied adventures with absolute candor. There were no very +serious matters among them; and the few cases of real human weaknesses +and sins I kept to myself--shut up in a sincerely remorseful heart. But +she found fault even with the _tone_ of my 'sketches from two +hemispheres.' Good heavens! it is easily comprehensible that the poor +child, living as she did among such absurd surroundings, could not have +much taste for a free life out in the world! Thrown entirely on +herself, watched over by a hundred eyes in a narrow, starched, formal +society--I once wrote to her that she was only so serious beyond her +years because she had had to fill, as it were, a mother's place to +herself, and be her own governess and duenna. And, besides all this, +there was her uncle's frightful example--for she could not long remain +ignorant of his habit of compensating himself for outward +respectability by private orgies at his bachelor clubs and _petits +soupers_. + +"Only let the three years be over, I thought to myself, and we will +soon weed out the tares that have sprung up between our roses. But I +did not know the vigor of the ground in which all this bad crop had +grown up. Nor did I know how much the years between seventeen and +twenty signified in such a girl's life. + +"At last, then, I arrived at home, and found--but, no!" He checked +himself abruptly, and made a sharp cut at the air with his cane. "Why +should I bore you with a detailed story of a domestic comedy that has +only a decidedly unfavorable likeness to 'Much Ado about Nothing,' and, +instead of ending with the reconciliation between Benedict and +Beatrice, finished with a ridiculous eternal separation? For isn't it +almost as laughable as lamentable that two lovers, who for three whole +years, the world over, have been extravagantly fond of one another, +should count the days till they could fall again on one another's +necks, and then should not be able to get on together for six weeks? +And all this only because--as old Goethe says--man strives for liberty, +woman for morality; and because the said moral law seems to the man a +wretched slavery, while the unhappy young woman thinks even a very +moderate freedom immoral! Ah, my dear old Hans, what did I not endure +in those six weeks!--and more especially because I was thoroughly +dissatisfied with myself. After our altogether fruitless (and therefore +all the more obstinate) discussions of these questions, in which I +poured out my bitterest scorn upon her court-etiquette, her kid-gloved +prejudices, her duenna-like code of morals, while she put my baseless +principles to shame with a maidenly pride and firmness that I could +have kissed her for--always after these discussions I used to say to +myself, in the quiet of my chamber, that I was a mad fool to upset +matters as I did. With a little diplomacy, a little delicate tact, and +patient hypocrisy, I could have thoroughly gained my end; could have +borne the stupid ban of society until my marriage; and then, when we +were alone together, could have gradually developed my little wife out +of her doll-like state of servitude, and rejoiced to see her spread her +wings in freedom. + +"But it was odd: as often as I appeared before her with the best +resolves in the world--the war began again. You must not imagine that +she fairly entered the lists, challenged me, and herself brought up our +old points of conflict. But it was precisely her quiet reserve, her +obvious good intention to be cautious with the reckless scapegrace, and +to leave his reform to time--it was all this that overthrew my finest +diplomatic projects. I would begin to joke, then to chaff, then to hurl +the most fearful insults against people and customs that seemed fairly +holy to her--and so it went on, day after day, until there came one day +that fairly 'forced the bottom out of the cask'--a wretched, wretched +day!" + +He paused a moment, and fixed his eyes gloomily upon the ground. + +"There's no help for it!" he said, at last. "It must come out. +Once in my life I did something that humiliated me in my own eyes. I +committed a sin against my own sense of honor--a base act, for which I +never can forgive myself, although a court of honor in matters of +gallantry--chosen from among my own equals, mind you--would probably +have let me off with a slight penance, if not scot-free altogether. You +know what I think of what is called sin; there is no _absolute_ moral +code; what brands one forever is only a little spot upon another--all +according to the delicacy and sensitiveness of the skin. Even +conscience is a product of culture, and the categorical imperative is a +pure fiction. What a brutal blackguard of a soldier permits himself in +plundering a captured town, and feels his conscience untroubled, would +dishonor his officer to all eternity. But I am not going to theorize; +suffice it to say that that inner harmony with one's self, on which +everything depends, was utterly destroyed in me by this act. From the +way in which it haunted me, you can conceive how, in a moment of +weakness, I confessed the whole story to Irene's uncle, little +consolation as I could get from the absolution of so very odd a saint. +I saw _how_ little, when he utterly failed to understand how I could +take the matter so to heart, especially as it had taken place a +considerable time before my engagement. I instantly repented most +bitterly that I had confided in him; and his promise, never by a single +syllable to recur to it, reassured me but little. + +"I was right. He forgot it himself; and one unhappy day he began, in +the very presence of his niece--we had just been speaking of all manner +of far more innocent adventures, and even these she would not let +pass--he began to refer to that wretched story. Something must have +come into my face that instantly gave my sweetheart an idea that this +reference meant something beyond the common. Her uncle, too, began to +stammer, and made a clumsy attempt to change the subject. That made the +matter worse. Irene stopped talking, and soon after left the room. The +uncle, good-natured as usual, cursed his own loquacity again and again; +but, naturally, that did not help things. When I saw my little one +again, she asked me to what his words referred. I was too proud to lie +to her; I confessed that I carried about with me the memory of +something that I wished to conceal from myself--how much more from her! +With that she grew silent again. But on the evening of that day, when I +was a second time alone with her, she told me that she must know the +whole. I could not have done anything that she could not forgive me; +but she felt that she could not live by my side when there was such a +secret between us. + +"Perhaps a wiser man might have invented some story, and so have +avoided a greater evil. There is such a thing as a necessary lie. But I +held to the belief that every man is alone responsible for his acts; +that I should add a second sin to the first if I burdened the pure soul +of my darling with such a confidence; and so I remained unshaken, +though I knew her too well not to know how much was at stake. + +"On the next morning I received her parting letter--a letter that for +the first time showed me all that I was losing. + +"But I had gone too far to turn back. I answered that I would wait +until she changed her opinions; that in the mean time I should look +upon myself as bound to her; but she was, of course, entirely free. + +"That was a week ago. I reflected that of course it would be necessary +to leave at once those places where she might meet me. In putting my +house in order for an indefinite absence, I came upon a package of +visiting-cards in one of my mother's cupboards that had on them the +name of her brother, my godfather, Felix von Weiblingen. It occurred to +me as a good idea that, under this name, I might for a while +(_incognito_) breathe the same air with my oldest friend, and at the +same time attain the goal of my dearest wishes--to begin a new life. +There is nothing in me of the ordinary numbered and classified type of +'man with a calling,' and, even with the best wife in the world, I +never should have been able to busy myself quietly on my estate with +bringing up children, making brandy, and fox-hunting. It is better, +then, that I should use this involuntary opportunity to dispose of +myself as I choose, in trying whether I can't really make a life of my +own. If in time she should bring herself to my way of thinking, she +would then find a _fait accompli_ that she would have to accept. + +"It will be no shame to me in your eyes if I don't at once find my +spirits so entirely in order that I can go rushing into a mastery of +the fine arts by lightning express. I have reached the door of your +studio but slowly, and by very short stages--but this very slowness has +done me good. You see before you a thoroughly sensible man, who is +determined to submit to fate without a grumble. If you will only take +me into _die Mache_, it will not be long before the wings of your +faithful Icarus will grow again, to lift him above all this wretched +world of Philistinism and its foolish love-affairs." + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +The sculptor had listened to this long confession in silence. And even +now, when Felix ended, and began to pull to pieces a sprig of +mignonette as carefully as though he were trying to count the stamens +in the little blossoms, he betrayed neither by word nor look any +opinion of what he had just heard. + +"I find that you have made great progress in your old art of expressing +yourself by silence," said the young man at length, with a somewhat +forced lightness of tone. "Do you remember how I used to be able to +tell from the degree, and, so to speak, from the pitch of your silence, +just what you were thinking of my nonsense? I can tell in the same way +now: you think my decision to become an artist is a mere absurdity. You +used to tell me that I was not fit either for science or art--that I +was an _homme d'action_. But there's no help for it now: if it is a +wrong road--why, I am in it once for all and mean to follow it to the +end. So speak out, and tell me candidly whether I must look up another +master, or whether the lion will endure the company of the puppy in his +cage--as he used to before he himself was a full-grown king of the +desert?" + +"What shall I say to you, my dear boy?" replied the sculptor, in his +quiet, rather slow manner. "The thing is a matter of course. I need not +say to you, well as you know me, that I can hardly base any very +exalted hopes upon an art-apprentice who takes up his task somewhat as +a man might marry a woman with whom he had not been especially in love, +but who now, when his real sweetheart has given him the mitten, is a +good enough last resort; that the future career of an art adopted thus +out of spite, as it were, seems to me very doubtful. But then, too, I +know you well enough to be sure that all the Phidiases and Michael +Angelos in the world couldn't make you break your resolution, and that, +if I should lock my door against you, you would be just the fellow to +bind yourself out as an apprentice to the first of my colleagues you +might chance upon. And then--to be honest--it is such a pleasure to me +to have you back again at all, that out of pure selfishness I can't +make any objection if your energy, instead of taking hold of real life, +chooses to spend itself on a harmless bit of clay. For the rest--let us +speak of it another time--or not at all, whichever pleases you better. +In such matters we take no counsel, after all, but that of our own +souls; and if this isn't always the best for us--why, we are sovereigns +of ourselves, and have it in our own power to save or ruin ourselves +according to our natures. Here is my hand, then. You can begin +to-morrow, if you like, your apprenticeship as a kneader of clay and +chipper of stone--and your baronial ancestors can turn in their graves +at it as they please." + +"Chaff away, dear old Hans!" cried the young man, joyously. "Now I'll +stake my head that I will become a famous artist just to have the laugh +on you! I will work from morning till night with a true malicious +pleasure, grinding and fretting till the dilettante skin is rubbed off +and something better appears below it. And you shall see that I have +not spent these seven years altogether in lounging. If you will run +through my sketch-books from both continents--but _apropos_, what have +you been doing in the mean while? Is it not a shame that I haven't been +able to keep track of your progress toward immortality, even by a +wretched photograph? And here I have been running on for an hour over +my own adventures, while the most glorious wonders of the world are +waiting for me over yonder!" + +He strode quickly across the yard, to which they had come back while +they were talking, and entered the house. + +"You will repent this haste, rash boy!" Jansen called after him, while +an odd smile played about his lips. "You will indeed wonder over much +that you see--but the wonders of the world that you dream of--they are +still in this narrow room" (he pointed to his forehead), "and even +there they are not always in the best light!" + +With these words he unlocked one of the two lower doors, and let Felix +pass in. + +It was a second studio, adjoining that in which he had worked during +the morning; a room precisely like the other, its walls painted in the +same stone-color, and its great square window half draped in the same +fashion. And yet no one would have believed that the same spirit ruled +here that had created the dancing Bacchante in the next atelier. + +On slender pedestals stood a multitude of figures, most of them of half +life-size, such as are used for the decoration of Catholic churches, +chapels and cemeteries. Some of them were just begun, some were almost +finished works; and in all could be clearly recognized the hands of the +pupils who had their execution in charge--sometimes more and sometimes +less skillfully imitating the little original models, barely six inches +high, that stood on small shelves beside the copies. While the latter +were neatly cut in sandstone or in the cheaper marbles--and a few in +wood, decorated with all manner of painting and gilding--the little +models were in plaster, and spotted and nicked by constant use. Yet +these doll-like little madonnas, saints and apostles, and praying and +playing angels in their heavy draperies, had a certain odd and now and +then almost caricatured life-likeness--so great that not all of its +charm was lost, even in the dry copies made by the assistants. They had +something of the same element of humor that Ariosto gives to his +personages--which by no means lose in life or force because their +author has lost his own simple faith in them. + +"Allow me to ask," said Felix, after looking about blankly for a +moment, "into whose room you have brought me? And is your good friend +who practises this pious art hidden somewhere close by, so that one +must be cautious in his criticisms?" + +"You needn't be in the least disturbed, my dear fellow; the lord and +master of this worshipful company stands before you." + +"You, yourself? Daedalus with a saint's halo! The preacher in the +wilderness of modern art actually at the foot of the cross! Before I +believe that, I shall have to take the cowl myself, and declare poor +naked Beauty to be an invention of the devil!" + +The sculptor cast down his eyes for a moment. + +"Yes, my dear fellow," he said, "this is what we have come to in our +art-desert. You ask me for beauty, and I offer you clothes-racks with +dolls'-heads! As long ago as when we were in Kiel, I had to learn that +the world of to-day will have nothing to do with true art. You know how +hard I found it to turn these stones of mine into bread. It was still +worse when I moved to Hamburg, and there--" he checked himself +suddenly, and turned away; "well, living is more expensive there, and I +began to be older and less easily satisfied; and, when I could no +longer support myself in the place--it was the wretched trading city's +fault, I thought--I packed up my best models and sketches and came +here, to the much-praised land of art, the 'Athens on the Iser,' of +which so much is said and sung. You will soon learn how it is here. I +won't begin as soon as you have crossed the threshold to sweep all the +disagreeable things in the house out of the corners for you. I will +only say that the Munich Philistine isn't a hair better than those on +the Jungfernstieg or in our old Holstein. After I had managed, with +great difficulty, to keep myself alive here for a year, and had hardly +earned enough in the service of pure beauty to keep life in my body, I +found that such misery was enough to make a man turn Catholic--and, as +this spectacle shows, I did turn so, half-and-half. It wasn't so easy +as it may seem to you here--to my shame! Besides a trace of conscience, +which was always reminding me that + + 'Man, after all, has higher goals to seek + Than simply feeding seven times a week;' + +besides my own humiliation before myself and a few of my good +colleagues, I was hampered by a real lack of skill. It needs a good +deal to take all the manliness out of one's self, so that one can fit +himself to all the miserable complications, the twisted deformities and +tameness of our modern civilization. But it only depends, after all, on +one's capability of getting the humor out of the thing. The idea that +I, an unmitigated pagan, should establish a manufactory of images of +saints, struck me as so indescribably rich that one fine day I actually +set to work to model a Saint Sebastian, in which task my knowledge of +anatomy stood me in good stead. But, even here, I soon found that it is +only 'clothes that make the man.' It was only when I betook myself to +making draperies, trains, and sleeves, that the result took on the true +devotional air such as the public is accustomed to and desires. And, +since then, I have grown prosperous so fast that now I employ eight or +ten assistants; and, if it goes on, I shall some day bid farewell to +temporal affairs, in the odor of sanctity and as rich as----." (He +named a colleague who enjoyed a continued rush of business.) + +"Yes, my dear Icarus," continued he, still more laughingly, as Felix +made no reply to these revelations, "you would not have believed it +all, I know, when in the first fire of youth we rode our proud hobbies, +and called every man a low fool who, in art or life, proved faithless +to his ideals by a straw's breadth. But the mill of every-day life rubs +off much that a man believed was bound to him as with iron--like a very +part of himself. And here you have an example, worth your deep +consideration, of that celebrated 'liberty' you think to find here. If +I allow myself the liberty of doing what I cannot give up, I must, at +the same time, make up my mind to work at absurdities with which my +heart has no sympathy. In order to be an artist, such as I wish to be, +I am compelled to make Nuremberg toys and to display them in the +market-places. But, after all--behind my own back, as it were--I +continue quietly to be my own master. Let thy troubled heart take +courage, beloved son! thy old Daedalus hasn't even yet become quite so +utterly bad as these trade-wares show him. I think you will give me +back your esteem if I lead you now out of my holy into my profane +_atelier_--out of my tailor's-shop into my paradise!" + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +With these words he opened the little door that separated the two +studios and passed in, followed by Felix. + +"You will find an old acquaintance again," he said. "I wonder whether +friend Homo still remembers you. He has certainly had time to grow old +and dull." + +The dog was still lying in front of the old sofa, on the straw mat, and +seemed to have slept quietly on, although the girl had seated herself +near him and had buried both feet in his thick coat as in a rug. +Evidently the old dog thought it not disagreeable, but rather pleasant +than otherwise, to be rubbed and trampled on by the little shoes. At +all events he uttered a comfortable growl from time to time, like a +purring cat. + +To the girl herself the time had seemed very long. At first, when she +heard voices out in the garden, she had climbed upon a chair close to +the window, and, pulling her skirt over her bare shoulders that she +might not be seen by any chance passer-by, had peeped out curiously +through the roses. The strange young man, who spoke so long and +seriously with Jansen, had taken her fancy greatly, with his tall, +slender figure, his small head above the broad shoulders, and the fiery +glance of his brown eyes, that wandered absently about. She had seen +directly that he must be somebody of distinction. But, when he +disappeared with Jansen into the arbor, her post at the window grew +uncomfortable. She climbed slowly and thoughtfully down, stationed +herself before a little looking-glass on the wall, and looked +attentively at her own youthful figure, which only seemed to her +anything especially remarkable now that an artist copied from it. Only +to-day she was even less satisfied than usual with her face, and tried +whether it could not be improved if she screwed up her mouth as much +as possible, drew in her nostrils, and opened her eyes very wide. She +was vexed because she could not make herself as beautiful as the +plaster-heads that stood above her on the brackets. But suddenly she +had to laugh at the horribly distorted face she made; her old high +spirits came back; she thrust out her tongue at her reflection in the +glass, and was pleased to see how pretty and red it looked between her +glittering white teeth. Then she shook her thick red hair and went +singing, and patting her shoulders in time with the tune, up and down +the room, so that the sparrows were frightened and fluttered out at the +window. Then she stood still for a long while and looked at the casts +and clay models around her on the walls; and seemed especially +interested in the half-finished marble bust. It reminded her again of +the stranger outside in the arbor, whose head sprung just so from his +stately shoulders. Finally she tired of this also; and besides, she +began to feel a little hungry. She found in the cupboard, behind her in +the corner to which the sculptor had directed her, a few rolls and an +opened bottle of red wine. There was all sorts of rubbish besides in +the cupboard; a masquerader's costume, pieces of gold-stamped leather +tapestry, of blue and red silk and brocade, with large flowers in their +patterns, and a saint's halo, cut out of paper and painted with +beautiful golden rays--that might have done service for a _tableau +vivant_, or some other profane purpose. The idle girl seized upon this +last, fastened it on her head with the two ribbons still attached to +it, and went again before the looking-glass, where she smiled and made +faces at her own reflection. Then she took a piece of blue damask out +of the pile of things, and threw it like a cloak over her white +shoulders. Her hair flowed freely over it, so that at a distance, when +one did not see her uncovered neck, she looked like a mediaeval madonna, +who had stepped out of her frame and had wandered into some merry +company. The girl thought herself very beautiful, and quite worthy of +reverence in this disguise, and secretly congratulated herself on the +surprise and admiration of the sculptor, when he should find her so +dressed. That she might await his return more comfortably, she had +seated herself on the sofa, put a glass of wine on a chair beside her, +and begun to eat a roll. She had come across a portfolio of photographs +of celebrated pictures, and had laid it open in her lap, resting her +feet on the dog's back; and so she had sat now a full half-hour, +absorbed in looking at the pictures (which she found generally very +ugly), when the little door opened and Jansen again entered the room. + +At the same moment she started as though shot up by a spring--so rudely +that the old dog, giving a low howl and shaking himself, also scrambled +up from his sleep. + +She had seen the young stranger enter behind the sculptor; and now she +stood in the middle of the atelier, drawing the little blue silk flag +as tightly as she could across her breast, her eyes flaming with anger, +and her whole body trembling with excitement. + +"You need not be afraid, my child," said the sculptor, "this gentleman +is also an artist. Good Heavens! How magnificently you have dressed +yourself! The halo becomes you excellently. Turn round a little--" + +She shook her head violently. + +"Let me go! I will never come again!" she said half aloud. "You haven't +kept your word to me! Oh! it is shameful!" + +"But, Zenz--" + +"No, never again! You have deceived me. You know very well what you +promised me, and yet--" + +"But if you would only listen! I assure you solemnly--" + +Shaking her head and blushing crimson, she ran to the chair where she +had laid her waist and her straw hat, seized them hurriedly, and shot +like an arrow through the little side-door into the second studio. + +The sculptor tried to follow her, but had to turn back at the bolted +door. Vexed and annoyed, he turned again to Felix, who had let the girl +pass almost unnoticed in the demonstrative recognition he received from +the dog. The powerful animal had come leaping toward him with all the +liveliness of his younger days, had rested his heavy paws on his old +friend's breast, barking hoarsely the while, and seemed unwilling to +let him go again. + +"Do you really know me still, true old soul?" cried the young man, +patting the dog's great head, and looking with real emotion into the +faithful old fellow's large eyes, already grown a little dim.--"See, +Hans, with what _empressement_ he receives me! But what have I done to +vex the little girl? Is it the custom here in your blessed land of free +art for models to set themselves up as examples of propriety?" + +"This is rather a peculiar case," answered Jansen, with some vexation. +"It was only after long hesitation that she did me the favor to stand +as a model at all; and I shall be hard put to it now to make the shy +thing so tame again. She has neither father nor mother--at least, so +she says. I used often to meet her on her way to an artificial-flower +factory, where she works hard to support, herself. Her figure attracted +me; and the little pert-nosed thing did not look as though her ideas +were very rigidly conventional. But she would have nothing to say to +it, although, as I look older than I am, I have made much shyer people +trust me. Finally, though, my last resort helped me here, as it had +before." + +"Your last resort?" + +"Yes; the remark that, after all, the matter really was not worth so +much trouble as I had given to it; and perhaps, on the whole, she was +wise in only wishing to show her figure with the aid of dress. This was +too much for the vain little creature, and she consented to come as a +model--but no one but myself must ever enter the studio. I +thoughtlessly broke this agreement to-day in admitting you." + +Felix stepped before the statue of the Bacchante. + +"Unless you have greatly flattered her, you are to be congratulated on +finding so good a one," he said. "And, as far as I have been able to +see in to-day's wanderings through the town, you must have every reason +to be satisfied with most of the figures you can find here." + +Jansen did not answer. He seemed to be absorbed in gazing at his +friend, who happened to be standing at the moment in a most favorable +light. Then, muttering to himself, he went over to the cupboard in +which the girl had been rummaging, searched a while in its +compartments, and at last came back to Felix, hiding behind him a great +pair of shears. The young man still stood absorbed in admiration of the +Bacchante. + +"Before we do anything else, my dear boy," said the sculptor, "you must +allow me to crop this hair of yours into a more rational shape. Sit +down there on that stool. In less than five minutes we shall have it +all arranged; and that neck of yours, that looks like the neck of the +Borghese Gladiator--the very best point about you--will be got out of +all this thicket." + +At first Felix laughingly refused; but finally he submitted; and his +friend's skillful hand cropped his long hair, and trimmed his full +beard more closely. + +"There!" said Jansen. "Now a man needn't be ashamed to be seen with +you. And, as a reward for this submission, I will show you something +that until now very few mortal eyes have had the privilege of seeing." + +He approached the great veiled group in the middle of the studio, and +began cautiously to unwrap the damp cloths in which the work was +everywhere enveloped. + +The figure of a youth appeared, of more than mortal strength and +stature, lying stretched upon the ground in an attitude of perfect and +natural grace and beauty. Sleep seemed to have just left his eyes; for +he lay with his head a little raised, leaning upon his right arm, and +passing the left across his forehead as though to clear away the mists +of some deep dream. Before him--or behind him, as it appeared to the +spectator--knelt upon one knee a youthful female figure, bending over +him in a posture of innocent wonder. This figure was much less advanced +toward completion than that of its male companion--there being, indeed, +scarcely anything left to do on the latter excepting a little delicate +work upon the luxuriant hair and the hands and feet. And yet, though +the lines of the woman's figure were still almost in the rough, and her +beautiful form seemed only the fruit of a few days' labor, the modeling +of the whole was so broad and strong, the bend of the neck and the +posture of the arms were so expressive, that no one could fail to catch +the full force of the whole, even from the unfinished work, and to see +that the two figures were worthy of one another, and of equal birth. + +Felix uttered an exclamation of delight. Then, for a full quarter of an +hour, he stood motionless before the mighty group, and seemed +altogether to forget the sculptor in his work. + +At length the dog, which came beside him and began again to lick his +hand, aroused him from his reverie. + +"The old-time Hans still lives!" he cried, turning to Jansen. "And more +than that--this is for the first time the complete, genuine Daedalus, +who has thoroughly learned to use his wings. Listen, old boy; it is +gradually dawning upon me that I must have been altogether mad and +absurd when I introduced myself to you as a kind of fellow-artist!" + +"You shall go to the art-club to-morrow, and gather new courage when +you see some of your other colleagues," said Jansen, dryly. "However, I +am glad the thing pleases you. You remember how I used to dwell on the +germ of the idea of this work years ago. The First Man face to face +with the First Woman--hardly daring as yet to actually touch the being +who for the first time makes his human existence full and complete; +while she--more mature already, as a woman is, and having had time +while he slept to recover from her first surprise--feels herself drawn +by a strange and joyful yearning to him who is to be her lord, and to +call forth for the first time her true woman's nature. It is a subject +that stirs one to the core; it touches all that is deep and sacred in a +man's fancy; and yet it is not impossible to reproduce it with the +means our art affords. I have made more than one study of it, and yet +not satisfied myself. It was only this spring, when I realized one day, +to my horror, how this wretched business next door--this money-getting +and trying to please priests and women--was threatening to demoralize +me, that for three weeks I never set foot in my saint-factory, but +locked myself in here and expanded my soul again with this work. I know +that I am only doing it for myself and for a little group of true +friends, as restless as I am. Where could I put such a thing as that +nowadays? True Art is homeless and without a place to lay her head. A +dancing Bacchante is sure to find a lover in some rich man who will put +her in some niche in his _salon_, and think when he looks at her of the +ballet-girls who have been his associates. But Adam and Eve, before +their fall, in all their rude and vigorous strength, with the fragrance +of the fresh earth lingering, as it were, about them--they are as +useless for a decoration as they would be for the altar of a chapel. +Even their heroic proportions would pass for brutal! But, after all, +they are my old favorites; and, if they please me, to whom does it +matter?" + +Felix did not answer. He was again absorbed in gazing at the group. + +"A good friend of mine, whose acquaintance you will soon make, by the +way," continued the sculptor, "one Schnetz, who likes to play the +Thersites, advised me to put a fusilier's uniform on Adam, and make Eve +into a sister of charity, with a medicine-glass and spoon in her hand. +Then the group would perhaps be adopted to ornament the pediment of +some hospital. His satire on the present condition of our art was so +true that I had almost a mind to try it for a joke. My first man and +woman, without an inkling of all the ills of our pestilential century, +enthroned over the door of a _lazaretto_--what do you say to that as a +piece of colossal humor?" + +"Only finish it, Hans!" cried the younger man. "Dream out your dream, +and I will vouch for it that, however stupidly and sleepily men are +plodding on, this lightning-stroke of genius will dash the scales from +their eyes! Why haven't you made more progress with your Eve?" + +"Because I have never yet found a model; and because I will not +botch my work by mere patching together of my own recollections, +or by the last resort of borrowing from the Venus of Milo. Ah, +my dear fellow--the fine figures you think you saw in the streets +to-day--psha! you'll soon think otherwise. The German corset-makers, +the school-room benches, and the miserable food we live on, may +possibly leave enough of dear old Nature for me to make a laughing-doll +out of, like my dancer there; but a future mother of mankind, untouched +as yet by any breath of want or degradation, and fresh from the hand of +her Creator--what do you think our professional models would say to +that--or the seamstresses or flower-girls that money or persuasion can +induce to enter the service of art? If it were a Roman, now, or a +Greek, or any untamed child of Nature who had grown up under a happier +heaven than ours! And that is what makes the ground here fairly burn +under my feet--and if they were not fettered with leaden fetters--" + +He suddenly checked himself, and a dark shadow passed across his face; +but Felix shrunk from the effort to draw from him by a question any +confidence beyond what Jansen offered willingly. + +At this moment the clock in a neighboring tower struck twelve; and for +a few moments the bells for mid-day service filled the pause that had +interrupted the talk of the two friends. + +The sculptor began to wrap up the group again, after he had given it a +thorough sprinkling. And then, while Felix examined in silence the +other sculptures, many of which were familiar, he went to a wash-stand +in a corner, where he washed the traces of the clay from his hands and +face, and exchanged his working-blouse for a light summer-coat. + +"And now," said he, as he finished his toilette--"now you shall go with +me to our high mass--one that we never miss on Sundays. At the stroke +of twelve we working-bees forsake our hives, and swarm to that great +flower-garden, the Pinakothek, to gather our store of wax and honey for +the whole week. Do you hear the door slam above us? That is my neighbor +in the upper story--a right good fellow, by the name of Maximilian +Rosenbusch, but called 'Rosebud' for short by his friends. An excellent +youngster, not in the least cut out by Nature for a desperado--but +rather inclined, on the contrary, to all the more delicate pursuits of +the muses. He is suspected of being secretly engaged on a volume of +'Poems to Spring,' and you could have heard his flute up-stairs +an hour ago. But at the same time he paints the most tremendous +battle-pieces--generally in Wallenstein or Swedish costume--battles of +the bloodiest sort, and where there is no quarter. In the studio next +to his lives a Fraeulein, a thoroughly estimable woman, and by no means +a despicable artist. Among her friends she goes by the name of +Angelica, but her real name is Minna Engelken. This good creature--but +there they come now down the stairs. You can make their acquaintance at +once." + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +It was certainly an odd pair that they found waiting in the yard. The +battle-painter, an animated young fellow, with a clear, bright, rosy +complexion, wore an enormous gray felt hat, with a small cock's-feather +in the band; and an abundant red beard, that looked as queerly against +his pink-and-white face as though a girl had tied a false beard round +her chin, in the attempt to disguise herself as a brigand. Looking at +the face closely, there was a decidedly spirited and manly look in the +clear blue eyes, while a merry laugh lurked constantly about the mobile +mouth. Beside him, his companion--though she was apparently still under +thirty--seemed almost as though she might be his mother, there was such +a weighty seriousness and prompt decision in her movements. She had one +of those faces in which one never sees whether they are pretty or ugly; +her mouth was a little large, perhaps; her eyes were bright and full of +life, and her figure was rather short and thickset. She wore her hair +cut short under a simple Leghorn hat; but in the rest of her dress +there was nothing especially conspicuous. + +Jansen introduced Felix, and a few commonplaces were exchanged. After +her first glance at him, Angelica whispered something to the sculptor +that evidently related to the stately figure of his friend, and its +likeness to the bust she had seen in his studio. Then all four strolled +along the Schwanthalerstrasse, followed by the dog, which kept close +behind Felix, and from time to time rubbed its nose against his hand. + +They stopped before a pretty one-story house in the suburb, standing in +the middle of a neatly-kept garden. Rosenbusch took his flute out of +his pocket, and played the beginning of the air "Bei Maennern, welche +Liebe fuehlen." But nothing stirred in the house, although the upper +windows were only closed with blinds, and every note rang out far and +clear in the hot noonday air. + +"Fat Rossel is either asleep or else he pretends he is, so as to shirk +our high mass again," said the painter, putting up his flute. "I think +we had better go on." + +"_Andiamo!_" said Angelica, nodding. (She had once passed a year in +Italy, and certain everyday Italian phrases had a way of slipping +involuntarily from her lips every minute or two.) + +The conversation, as they strolled on, was not exactly animated. Jansen +seemed to be lost in thought; long silences were a habit of his, and, +especially when there were several people about him, he could remain +for hours apparently without the least interest in what was going on. +And then, if something that was said happened to kindle a spark in him, +his eloquence seemed all the more surprising. Felix knew him well, and +made no attempt to disturb his abstracted mood. He looked about him as +he walked, and tried to recognize the streets that he had first +strolled through, long before, in one of his vacation journeys. Nor did +Rosenbusch seem to be in a particularly talkative frame of mind; and +only Angelica, who had a way of assuming a certain chaffing tone toward +him, and besides was out of humor because, as she said, she had got +"into a blind alley" with one of her pictures, kept up a fire of little +sarcasms and ridicule against her neighbor. She even adopted the +familiarity of calling him by his nickname, but not without putting a +"Herr" before it. + +"Do you know, Herr Rosebud, when you're composing a picture, you ought +to repeat your poems instead of playing the flute? I know it would +inspire you a great deal more, and your neighbors would suffer less. +Now, to-day, for instance, I put some carmine on a whole group of +children I was painting, and spoiled it, just because that everlasting +_adagio_ of yours had made me so sentimental." + +"Why didn't you pound on the door, then, my honored friend, as we +agreed, and then I would have 'ceased my cruel sport?'" + +"If it hadn't been Sunday, and I hadn't said to myself it will soon be +twelve o'clock, and then he'll stop anyhow--. But see that sweet little +girl in the carriage--the one with the blue hat, next to the young +man--it's a bridal couple, surely! What eyes she has! And how she +laughs, and throws herself back in the carriage like a thoughtless +child!" + +She had stopped in the street in her ecstasy, and impulsively imitated +the gesture of the girl who was driving by, bending back and crossing +her arms behind her head. The friends stood still and laughed. + +"I must beg of you, Angelica, calm your enthusiasm," growled +Rosenbusch; "you forget that not only God and your artistic friends are +looking at you, but profane eyes also, that can't imagine what you are +driving at with your rather reckless studies of posture." + +"You are right," said the little painter, casting a scared glance about +her, but somewhat relieved to find that the street was deserted. "It's +a silly habit of mine, that I have fought against from a child. My +parents gave up taking me to the theatre because they said I always +went through too many contortions over what I saw. But, when anything +excites me, I always forget my best resolutions to maintain my +composure and dignity. When you come to see my studio, baron," she +said, turning to Felix, "I hope you will bear me witness that I know +how to keep within bounds on canvas at least." + +"It is comical," she continued, as no one answered, "what singular +neighbors we are. Here Rosebud, who looks so gentle and innocent, as if +he could not kill a fly, wades ankle-deep in blood every day, and isn't +happy unless, like a new Hotspur, he can kill at least fourteen +Pappenheimer cuirassiers with oil in a morning. And I--whose best +friends have to confess that the Graces didn't stand beside my +cradle--I bother myself over fragrant flower-pieces and laughing +children's faces, and then read in the reviews that I should do well to +take up subjects that have more body to them!" + +So she ran on for a while, without sparing herself or her companions in +her jokes--yet without the least rudeness or old-maidish bitterness in +her talk. A certain element of womanly coquetry showed now and then in +her frank, honest speeches--an attempt to caricature herself and her +faults and follies, so that she might be taken, after all, at a little +higher value than her own exaggerations gave her credit for. But even +this was done so good-naturedly that any gallant speeches that her +companions might try to make were generally smothered in laughter. +Felix was greatly attracted by her cleverness and droll good-humor; +and, as he showed clearly how they amused him, her mood grew all the +merrier, and one jest followed another so that the long walk seemed +very short to all of them, and they stood at the door of the Pinakothek +before they realized that they had come so far. + +"And here, Baron, we must bid one another good-by for the present," +said the painter. "You must know that in this art-temple of ours we +behave like good Catholics in their churches. Each kneels before a +different altar; I before St. Huysum and Rachel Ruysch; Herr Rosebud +before his Wouvermans; Herr Jansen before Saints Peter and Paul; and +Homo stays outside, in silent converse with the stone lions on the +steps. I hope I shall soon have the pleasure of seeing you in my +studio. Don't let yourself be alarmed by these two malicious gentlemen +with the idea that I shall try to capture you for a sitter. I must +paint your portrait some time, of course--it is a fate you cannot +escape; but my brush is by no means so presumptuous as these wicked men +will try to represent it. When you are a little more at home among us, +perhaps; but now--good-by!" + +She nodded to the others, and disappeared into a side hall, into which +Rosenbusch also retreated, after a short stay among the old German +masters. + +"We don't enforce this separation very rigidly, of course," said +Jansen, smiling. "But we have found out that when we all go together we +cannot bring ourselves into a really proper mood for study; we neither +learn nor enjoy. At best, we only get into a discussion of technical +points--problems of color and secrets of the palette, which are +especially unimportant to me, as I make no use of that kind of thing." + +"But why do not you prefer to hold your Sunday solemnities before the +Medusa or the Barberini Faun?" said Felix. + +"Because I know the Glyptothek by heart. And besides, I do not believe +that what we ought to look at in the works of the great masters is the +purely artistic side, if we want to profit by their study. Every one +who has passed his apprenticeship has his own ideas and prejudices and +obstinacies on those points. What we ought to get from them are +characteristics; force, refinement, and contempt for small means used +to small ends. But these I can learn just as well from a symphony of +Beethoven as from a noble building--from a gallery of paintings as from +a tragedy of Shakespeare; and then next day I can turn them to account +in my own work. And it is just these things that Rubens gives me better +than any other here--Rubens, whose works fill this whole room. As soon +as I come near him, he makes me forget all the photographic pettiness, +the fashionable rubbish and 'art-association' absurdities of our own +day." + +"Tell me yourself," he continued, pointing to the walls of the Rubens +room, "do not you too feel as though you were in your tropical +wildernesses again, where Nature hardly knows how to restrain her +overflowing vigor, and where all that moves or grows seems fairly +intoxicated with its own abounding strength? Here, no one dreams that +there is an everyday, prosaic life outside, that presses all created +things into its service--men serving the State, women mere family +beasts of burden, horses harnessed to the plough--and only suffers +untamed animals to exist in its midst when they are on show in +zoological gardens or fair-booths. Here the whole glorious creation +swarms unadorned and vigorous as on the seventh day after chaos; and +all that we conceal and pamper in our dapper civilization appears here +in all innocence in the open light of day. Look at this brown, lusty +peasant and this beautiful woman--these sleeping nymphs watched by the +satyrs--this glorious throng of the blessed and the damned--all this +unveiled humanity is living and acting for itself alone, and never +dreams whether prudish and pedantic fools are looking on and taking +umbrage at it. You know that nothing is really good or bad _in itself_; +it is only the power of thinking about it that makes it so. And these +creatures have never troubled themselves with thinking. They are +enjoying life fully and overflowingly--like the fat little satyr's wife +above there, nursing her twins--or they are absorbed in the sharp +struggle for existence. Look at this lion-hunt! Horace Vernet, who +wielded no unskillful brush, has painted one too. But just there you +can see the contrast between great art and petty art. Here everything +is mingled in a raging turmoil, so that there is not a hand's breadth +between--here is the very instant of highest conflict, the climax of +struggle and defense, fury and death--every muscle strained to its +utmost, and everything in such deadly yet triumphant earnest that one +trembles and yet is filled with the spirit of victory. For all true +strength is full of a certain triumphant joy. But the French picture is +like a tableau in a circus, where, in spite of all the grimacing and +posturing, there is no real struggle _a l'outrance_, And look at the +purely artistic side; here all the outlines are so melted into one +another, so lost in each other in spite of the strongest contrasts, +that they necessarily lead the eye into a network from which it cannot +escape, where it never has an opportunity to wish for anything else, or +indeed to think that anything else is possible. A skillful modern +artist, going to work with his patchwork of knowledge on the various +subjects, could not possibly produce such a work. You will always find +holes and gaps--stiff triangles and hexagons between the legs of the +horses, and the figures kept apart as nicely and neatly as though they +were going to be packed up in their cases again after it was all over." + +He stood a good half hour before the lion-hunt, looking at it as though +for the first time. And then, as though tearing himself away with +difficulty, he took Felix by the arm and said, "You know I am no mere +fanatical _doctrinaire_. Nobody can have more respect for the other +great artists of the golden age. But still it always seems to me as +though I did not find, even in the greatest and most immortal of them, +a true balance between art and Nature. There is always an excess of +technical aim over unaffected seeing and feeling--an excess of 'can' +over 'must.' Even with Raphael (whom, it is true, they say one doesn't +really know until one has seen his work in Rome), I feel a too great +excess of the purely spiritual and abstract over the sensuous. And with +the glorious Titian and the Venetians, this paradisaic naturalness, +this effortless flow of beauty from an exhaustless soil, this breathing +forth of pure and unadulterated force and freedom, is only found in +their greatest moments; while this man, like the immortal gods, seems +never to have known an hour of poverty or insufficiency." + +He talked on in this fashion for some time, as though to pour out his +heart before his friend. But just as they were standing before the +little picture of Rubens and his beautiful young wife in the garden, +walking beside a bed of tulips, they heard Angelica's voice behind +them. + +"I cannot help it, gentlemen; you must tear yourselves away from this +well-fed domestic happiness and these tedious box-hedges, and come with +me. I have something to show you that is quite as much a masterpiece of +its kind. Please have confidence in my artistic eye for this once, and +come quickly, before the miracle disappears again." + +"What is this beautiful thing you have discovered, Fraeulein?" asked +Felix, laughing, "that instantly vanishes again if one is not +immediately on the watch?" + +"Something that is alive--but hardly according to your taste, as I +imagine it," answered the painter. "But our master there--" + +"A beautiful woman?" + +"Ah! and what a woman! I have followed her about like a young Don Juan +ever since we have been here, and looked askance at her as I stood +before the pictures. She seems to be a little near-sighted--at least +she half shuts her eyelids when she looks intently at anything; and she +looks at the upper row of pictures through a lorgnette. A blonde--and a +face, I tell you--and a figure!--just what you call _Portament_, +Jansen--the kind of thing that grows much oftener in Trastevere than +among our German oaks." + +"And why don't you give _me_ credit, too, for enough taste to do this +lady justice?" asked Felix. + +"Because--well, because you are a trifle young, and--thus far at +least--you are not an artist. This beauty of mine is far from being +conspicuous or attracting attention--like everything really great. I +will wager, Baron, that you find my enthusiasm exaggerated. These +polished checks and temples, and the poise of the head on the neck and +the neck on the shoulders, and the whole figure--neither too full nor +too slender--but hush! I believe she is standing over there at this +moment! Yes, it is she--the one in the raw silk, with the broad, +somewhat antiquated straw-hat set back upon her head--doesn't it look +almost like a halo? Well, Jansen? Do say something! Generally you are +so extraordinarily prompt in picking flaws in my ideals." + +Jansen had paused, and had coolly turned his quiet, clear gaze upon the +lady, who stood, entirely unsuspicious of scrutiny, a few alcoves away +from them, and turned her full face toward the observing party. +Angelica had not said too much. Her figure was of rare grace and +majesty, as her light summer-dress showed its beautiful outlines +clearly against the dark background; her head, thrown back a little, +hardly moved upon the slender, graceful neck, and her hat allowed its +form to be all the more distinctly seen, as she wore her soft, light +hair simply parted, and falling in a few curls upon her shoulders. Her +face was not striking at first glance; quiet, steel-gray eyes, +concealing their brilliancy behind the slightly closed lids; a mouth +not exactly full or rosy, but of the most beautiful form and full of +character; and a chin and neck worthy of an antique statue. She seemed +so completely absorbed in the study of the gallery that she did not +look up as the friends approached her. It was only when they entered +the alcove, and Angelica began to express her wild admiration (quite +secretly, she imagined, but really loud enough to be plainly audible), +that the stranger suddenly noticed them. With a slight blush, she drew +about her shoulders the white shawl that had hung carelessly about her +waist--as though to shield her from these curious eyes--cast an annoyed +glance at the whispering painter, and left the alcove. + +"See how she moves--a queenly walk!" cried Angelica, looking after her. +"But alas! I have driven her away. I like that in her, too, that she is +too refined to let herself be stared at. _Quant' e bella!_ But _do_ say +something, Jansen! Have you suddenly turned into a statue, or has the +enchantment worked too strongly?" + +"You may be right, Angelica," said the sculptor, smiling. "I have met +this kind of phenomenal being here now and then; and, as they were +always strangers (for you never see a native of Munich in the +Pinakothek), looking at them was always but a fleeting joy, and I could +only gaze after them as they went. So now I have grown cautious. You +know 'a burnt child--'" + +"Nonsense!" exclaimed the artist. "This divine being may be a stranger, +of course, but no one studies the pictures so closely who is looking at +them for the first and last time, only to carry out the instructions of +her Baedeker. What's to prevent our watching her again? And, even if I +lose all to-morrow forenoon over it, and let my group of children dry +into the canvas, I must study this exquisite creature once more, and at +leisure. There--there she is again! Rosebud is just passing her, and +starts back as if he had met the _Bella di Tiziano_ in person! See how +he stares after her! He has taste, after all, in spite of his old +Swedes." + +And now the little battle-painter came hurrying up to his friends, and +began to tell them what a discovery he had made. Angelica laughed. + +"You come too late, Herr von Rosebud! _I_ am the one to whom belongs +the fame of having discovered this comet! But do you know what I have +in mind, gentlemen? As none of you seem to be inclined to follow up +this adventure, I, as the least suspicious of us four, will take it +upon myself to pursue our beauty, and see if I can discover where she +lives and who she is. If she stays here but a week, she shall be +painted. I have sworn it! And whichever of you is particularly good +shall come to the last sitting; and Herr Rosebud hereby receives +permission to play her a serenade under my window. _Addio, signori!_ +To-morrow you shall hear how the matter turns out." + +She nodded hurriedly to the friends, and followed the stranger, who had +in the mean time passed through the rooms, and was now preparing to +leave the gallery. + +"I'll wager she does it!" said Rosenbusch. "An astoundingly resolute +woman that, and absolutely not to be stopped when an enthusiasm seizes +her! This time she really has made a devilish remarkable discovery; but +you know what wonderful beauties she has tried to talk up to us +before--eh, Jansen? She has a positive mania for admiration, and, when +she is possessed by it, she is not very fastidious in her choice of +subjects. 'The sea rages, and will have its sacrifice!'" + +The sculptor did not answer. He strolled along beside the others for a +while, silent and abstracted. Then he suddenly said: "Let us go! It +seems as though the art-sense had suddenly disappeared or died out in +me. Such a perfect piece of living Nature puts to shame all illusions +of color, so that even the great masters seem like bunglers beside it." + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +Meanwhile the beautiful unknown had slowly descended the steps of the +Pinakothek, and turned in the direction of the Obelisk, clearly +unconscious of the fact that twenty paces behind her an enthusiastic +artist was upon her track, never losing sight of her for an instant. + +And, indeed, it was a rare refreshment to the eye to look upon this +beautiful figure as it passed along. If one may talk of a "silent music +of form," here everything was _legato_, while the little artist was in +a perpetual _staccato_ movement. The stranger moved as though she +stepped on an elastic ground, and seemed not to mind the walk in the +least, in spite of the oppressive mid-day heat. She looked neither to +the right nor left; in her hands, on which she wore half-gloves of +black net, she held a large green fan, which she opened now and then to +protect her face against the sun. + +Her worshiper grew more enthusiastic with every moment, and gave +utterance to her feelings in muttered monologue, sprinkled, according +to her fashion, with Italian interjections. + +At length she saw the subject of her admiration turn to the left, and +go into a neat house on the Briennerstrasse. Here, she knew, there were +furnished rooms to let; so the stranger must have arranged for a +considerable stay in Munich. But how to get at her? To ring at every +bell in the two stories, and ask if a beautiful woman in yellow silk +lived there, did not seem very practicable. And did she live here, +after all? Might she not be only making a visit? + +The painter was just debating whether she should walk up and down +before the house like a sentry, when a window opened in the corner-room +on the ground-floor, before which lay a little garden with its tall +shrubs looking dry and dusty in the mid-day sun, and the beauty leaned +out to shut the blind. She had taken off her hat, and her hair was a +little disordered, which wonderfully added to her beauty. Without +hesitating a moment, Angelica marched through the little path past the +garden, and entered the vestibule. + +Her ring was answered by a very old servant with a white, +soldierly-looking mustache, and dressed in a long, silver-buttoned +livery-coat that reached to his knees. He eyed the visitor +suspiciously, took her card, on which there was nothing but "Minna +Engelken," and came back at once, indicating by a silent nod that his +mistress would receive her. + +As Angelica entered the stranger was standing in the middle of the +room, in the midst of the warm, greenish light that came through the +closed blinds. She had hastily put up her hair again, but without +special care; and now she greeted her visitor somewhat coldly, with a +scarcely perceptible nod of her exquisite head. + +"First of all, I must introduce myself a little more fully than the +very obscure name on my card can have done," began the artist, without +the slightest trace of embarrassment. (She had begun immediately upon +her entrance to study the head, as though at a regular sitting.) "I am +a painter; that is the sole excuse I have for my intrusion upon you. I +met you a short time ago at the Pinakothek. It can hardly be a novelty +to you to have people stop when you go by, or even follow you. But that +a person should intrude into your very house does seem a little too +much. My honored Fraeulein, or should I call you Madame?" (the stranger +shook her head slightly) "I do not know whether you, too, have a +prejudice against women-artists? If you have, I shall certainly appear +to you in a very bad light. And it is true, I must say that this +meddling with brushes and colors doesn't particularly become many of my +colleagues. Although the nine Muses are women, our sex easily get by +association with them an unwomanly touch that is not by any means to +their advantage.--Oh, please keep that position just an instant; the +three-quarters face is especially effective in this light! Yes, it is +true, Fraeulein, I myself know women-artists who think it is prosaic to +put on a clean collar or darn a stocking. And yet--" + +"If you would only be kind enough to tell me the motive of your +visit--" + +"I was just coming to that. I had really a double motive. First, to beg +your pardon if I drove you away from the gallery by my persistent +staring. You see, my dear Fraeulein--oh, please bend your head a +little--so! If you could only see how capital that is--that _chiar' +oscuro_--and what glorious hair you have! I see you think I am fairly +crazy, treating you like a model in the first ten minutes! But so much +the better; you will know at once what we are coming to. I am really, +you must know, not quite responsible for my actions when I see anything +that greatly delights me; and however lacking my talents may be in the +power to produce anything beautiful from mere imagination, I have +attained a real mastery in the discovery, the enjoyment, and admiration +of true living beauty. The moment I saw you afar off--no, you must not +turn away, dear Fraeulein. How can you help it, and what sin is it, if +an honest artist-soul--of your own sex, too--expresses its delight in +and admiration for your beauty? It seems petty to me, the way that many +people keep such a gift of God hidden--or pretend to. There are some +little doll-like faces, it is true, whose chief charm lies in the fact +that they always seem to be ashamed of their own prettiness. But you, +Fraeulein--such a classic head--please turn for once fully round toward +the light--a pure Palma Vecchio, I tell you--" + +The Fraeulein could not help smiling, and, although she blushed, +permitting this singular, unrestrained, formless admiration. "I +confess," she said, "that I have been such a recluse for years, only +busied with the care of an invalid, that I have quite fallen out of +practice in listening to such flatteries and wearing the fitting +expression when I hear them. And besides, in spite of hard and sad +experience, I am still young and foolish enough not to take offense at +the pleasure you seem to take in my personal appearance. But if you +would only tell me--you spoke of a _double_ motive." + +"Thank you a thousand times, dear, dear Fraeulein!" cried the painter, +excitedly. "Every word you say confirms me in the opinion I formed at +the first glance--that you would be as good and amiable in character as +you were beautiful in face and figure. And you give me courage to come +out at once with my other petition: I should be the happiest person +under the sun, if I might paint your portrait.--Please don't be +alarmed," she added, hurriedly. "The agony is brief--I am no torturer. +If you have not more time to spare, I will paint you _alla prima_--at +most three or four sittings--you shall not be able to complain of me. +Of course I can't ask that you will let me have the picture; but you +will allow me to have a little sketch for a study and a souvenir?--The +great picture--" + +"A large portrait, then?" + +"Only a three-quarters length, but of course life-size. It would be a +sin and a shame to put such a head and such a figure on a canvas the +size of a tea-tray. But my dear, best Fraeulein, tell me you will have +the heavenly goodness to visit my studio--the street and number are on +my card--and look at my things, and sit to me only if--if you yourself +take pleasure in them; for I would not for anything have you think you +were making a sacrifice for the benefit of a mere dauber." + +"My dear Fraeulein, I really do not know what--" + +"Perhaps you haven't time at this moment? Perhaps you are an artist +yourself? The careful way in which you studied the pictures in the +Pinakothek--" + +"Unfortunately I have not the smallest natural talent," answered the +Fraeulein, smiling; "but only a little taste and a strong yearning +toward everything beautiful and artistic; and this is the reason why I +have come to Munich--as I am quite alone in the world. It is still +uncertain how long I shall stay here. But if I can really give you +pleasure by doing so--I rely upon it, of course, that it shall be +entirely a matter between ourselves if I sit to you. And in return, you +shall initiate me into the secrets of your art, which to a lay observer +must always remain closed, no matter of how good intentions he may be, +unless he is given the right introduction." + +"_Brava! bravissima!_" cried the delighted painter. "Heaven reward you a +thousand times for your great kindness; and I will see to it that you +shall not repent it. My dear, dear Fraeulein, when you know me a little +more intimately you will see that you have to do with an honest woman +who has a grateful heart, and against whom no one of her friends can +utter a reproach." + +In the wildest delight she took her leave of the beautiful +face--which, in spite of all this worship, had preserved a rather cool +expression--and, as though she feared the promise might possibly be +retracted on further reflection, she hurried from the room. + +When she reached the street, she stood still for a moment, fairly out +of breath, tied her loosened hat-strings more firmly under her chin, +and gleefully rubbed her hands. "What eyes they'll make!" she said to +herself. "How they will envy me! But then what makes them such shy, +silly Philistines? It's true, to make such a conquest in a moment, one +must not be a man, but just such an utterly harmless old maid as I!" + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +The friends turned their steps toward a beer-garden on the Dultplatz, +where, at this time of day--between two and three o'clock--it was +pretty quiet in spite of its being Sunday. The noonday guests had +finished with their dinners long ago, and the afternoon concert had not +yet begun. Instead of it three sleepy fiddlers, an elderly harp-player, +and a jovial clarinet were playing on a platform in the middle of the +garden. Of these musicians the clarinet-player alone still defied the +drowsy influences of the siesta hour, attempting, by wild and desperate +runs, to rouse the nodding quartette. On the benches in the shade of +the tall ash-trees there sat a very mixed company, for in Munich the +differences between the classes is far less marked than in any of the +other large German cities; and among the rest, at the smallest tables, +were numerous pairs of lovers who, lulled into a state of dreamy +comfort by plentiful eating and drinking, rested their heads on one +another's shoulders, held each other's hands and abandoned themselves +freely to their feelings. Yet no one seemed to take offense at this; on +the contrary, it seemed to belong to the place as much as the gnats +that swarmed in the air. The three late arrivals seated themselves in +one of the most secluded corners and proceeded to do justice to the +viands which the waitress, who treated Jansen with conspicuous respect, +had put aside for them. It was anything but a sumptuous meal, but the +taste for the pleasures of the table seemed to be so little developed +in the sculptor that it never occurred to him to celebrate the reunion +with his friend by a bottle of wine. Felix knew this and overlooked it. +Still, he had hoped to find him more animated and communicative after +their long separation; and now he could not help noticing how he sat at +his side, preoccupied and speaking only in monosyllables, intent only +upon feeding Homo, who swallowed the big mouthfuls that were given him +with grave decorum. + +In the mean time, there joined the group a fourth person, for whom the +battle-painter seemed to have looked from the beginning. He was a slim +young man, pale and with curly black hair, whose manner at once +announced him to be an actor. He wore, over one eye, a black silk +shade, that made his paleness still more conspicuous, and the sharp +lines above his expressive mouth gave evidence of some hardly +suppressed suffering. Rosenbusch introduced him as his neighbor, Herr +Elfinger, formerly a member of the ---- court-theatre, now a clerk in +one of the Munich banking-houses. The manner in which Jansen also +welcomed him showed that he was one of the intimates of this circle. He +bore himself with such easy cheerfulness and enlivened the conversation +in such an agreeable way that Felix felt very much drawn toward him, +and even Jansen brightened up and took part in the lively chat. + +But suddenly the sculptor stood up, looked at his watch, cast a glance +over the picket fence that separated the garden from the sunny square, +and said, coloring slightly: "I must leave you now, old boy. My friends +here will bear me witness that nothing is to be done with me on Sunday +afternoons. At such times I have to go my own ways and to fulfill +certain duties, which, to-day in particular, I could only escape with +the greatest difficulty. I hope you will excuse me." + +"He has to turn back into a sea monster one day in seven, like +Melusine," laughed Rosenbusch. "We are used to that." + +Felix looked up in surprise. "Don't let me disturb you, old boy," he +said. "Besides, I still have to find a lodging. Where are you +quartered? Perhaps I could find a place in your neighborhood--" + +"I am not going home now and I should hardly recommend the neighborhood +where I live," the sculptor interrupted, with such a frown that it put +an end to all further questioning. "You will find me in my studio again +tomorrow. Good-by for to-day and good luck to you. Come, Homo!" + +He nodded to his friends without giving them his hand, pulled his hat +down over his eyes, and left the garden with his faithful dog. + +They saw him stride with rapid steps across the square and approach a +two-horse _fiacre_ that stood on the other side, not far from the gate, +apparently waiting for him on the shady side of the street. Then, as he +stepped in they could plainly see that there was some one sitting +inside; there was a glimpse of a woman's bright-colored dress, and a +child's little hand thrust a sunshade out the window. Except this, all +the windows were shut, notwithstanding the great heat; and, as the +mysterious vehicle rolled rapidly away, the friends who had been +looking after it turned to one another with wonder in their eyes. + +"He appears to have a family," said Felix. "Why doesn't he say anything +to anybody about it? Even to me, his oldest friend, he has never +uttered a word about his projected or perhaps actual marriage, about +which there was a rumor some six years ago. I thought the whole matter +had either fallen through or else turned out unhappily. But now he +seems, after all, not to be alone. Do you know anything about his +private circumstances?" + +"Nothing whatever," answered the painter. "None of us have ever set +foot across his threshold; and, the moment any one asks where he +lodges, he grows as snappish as a bear, just as you saw him a few +minutes ago. As for women, he will have nothing to do with them, that +can be seen plainly enough from all he does. Whether, in spite of all +this, he has a household of his own, can't be discovered. He once cut +dead a prying fellow who followed him one night to see where he kept +himself." + +"I think," said Elfinger, "that the pleasure we get from his society +six days in the week is so great that we might at least leave him to +himself on the seventh. But now let us help the Baron look for rooms, +and debate how we can best show him the city this evening." + +When, toward midnight, Felix left the beer-cellar, where he had been +for several hours enjoying the evening air, and returned to his +lodgings--a suite of pleasant rooms overlooking flower-gardens and the +quiet streets beyond--a singular feeling of depression suddenly came +over him. He had now attained what he cared more for than for anything +else. No one could enjoy more perfect freedom than he. No one could +begin life afresh more untrammeled by social forms. Then, too, the +cheerful, lively city, with its gay life, the free and easy artists' +society into which he had entered--all this had corresponded with his +wish and expectations, and promised him compensation for many a ruined +hope. It was the only atmosphere that seemed suited to him, the only +surroundings among which he could find again, even in the Old World, +something of that unrestrained freedom that he had enjoyed so much +beyond the ocean. And when, notwithstanding all this, he went to bed +with a heavy sigh and waited long for sleep in vain--why was it? + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +On the following morning, Felix brought a whole armful of his +sketch-books to Jansen. The latter seemed to look through them with +interest, and listened patiently to the accounts of the adventures, of +which many of them were hasty illustrations, but he did not utter a +single word in regard to any artistic worth which the sketches might +possess. + +When the last page had been turned, and Jansen, with a quiet "hm!" had +begun to pile up the books and tablets in a little tower, Felix was +forced to ask whether he had not made some progress after all. + +"Progress? Why, that depends upon the way you look at it." + +"And how do you look at it, old fellow?" + +"I?--Hm! I look at it from a geographical point of view." + +"You are very good. I understand perfectly." + +"Don't be angry, my dear fellow, but understand me rightly. I mean, on +the path of dilettantism, on which you have been wandering up to this +date, all progress must necessarily be deceptive, even though, +outwardly, you have circumnavigated the world; for, after all, all your +efforts move in a circle. I am very sorry for it, though." + +"For what?" + +"That you really want to take up art in earnest. You might have +remained such an enviable dilettante, for you have all the necessary +qualifications to an uncommon degree." + +"And they are?" + +"Self-confidence, time, and money. No, don't be angry. I am truly +serious when I say this to you, and of course it would be needless for +me to assure you that I mean well when I say it. Seriously: these +traveling sketches of yours are done so skillfully that any of the +illustrated papers might consider themselves lucky if they had such +special artists. And yet I wish, since you are determined to be an +artist, that they were not half so skillful." + +"If it is nothing more than that, a remedy can easily be found. You +will soon see how much talent I have for unskillfulness, when you give +me something to model." + +The sculptor shook his head gently. "It is not the hands," he said. "It +is the mind that has already attained a very respectable maturity and +facility in you; only, unfortunately, in a wrong direction. For the +truth is, my dear fellow, the very things that please you best, and +have probably most impressed unprofessional persons, the dash and +readiness, the so-called artist's touch, those are the very things that +stand most in the way of your getting back into the right track. It is +just as if, instead of learning to write in the ordinary way, one +should begin with stenography. He never in all his life will have a +good handwriting. For the spirit of dilettantism, take it for all in +all, is, like that of stenography, in the art of abbreviation; in +substituting a symbol for the _form_, just as in the other case +we substitute one for the letter, so that in the course of time +all real feelings--yes, the very want of and appreciation of the +rightly-developed natural form--are hopelessly lost. Why is it then +that the dilettanti attain their end so much more quickly than the true +artists? Because, with this system of abbreviation, they steer straight +for those results which seem to them of the most importance: +resemblance, spirit, elegance of execution. For that reason they are +often marvelously skillful in mastering the proportions of a face, for +instance, and setting it off by a few dots and strokes so that +everybody cries: 'Oh! how like! how speaking! and how quickly done!' +The true artist knows that the length of time spent in the production +is by no means a measure of excellence; and as he has not only a +general sense of proportion, but also a feeling for the true form +itself, he does not rest until he has done it full justice--until, so +to speak, he has worked outward from the very core of that the exterior +of which his eyes have already taken in and fully comprehended. +However," he went on after a short pause, during which he unwound the +wet cloths from his Bacchante, "you are at liberty to believe that all +this is merely my personal opinion and nothing more than exaggerated +estimate of what constitutes true art. In ordinary life the artist is +distinguished from the dilettante only by the fact that the former +follows the thing as a calling, and the latter only for his own +amusement. According to this, you would be an artist from the moment +you cast aside the baron, the statesman or jurist, the _homme +d'action_, that you have in you, and regularly devoted a certain number +of hours of the day to dirtying your fingers with clay. If you stick to +it persistently, it would be very hard lines indeed if, in the course +of several years, you should not possess the necessary mechanical skill +just as well as any one else. Even to become an academic professor need +not be an unattainable aim of your ambition. And if, in spite of all +that, I should still continue, in my heart, to look upon you as a born +dilettante, you could smile down upon me graciously, and heap coals of +fire upon my head by proposing me as an honorary member of your +academy. Ah! my dear boy, I tell you, if you should make a close +examination of many of our most famous great men, you would bring to +light little else than a disguised and beautiful dilettantism, made up +of humbug, elegant trappings, and perhaps a few so-called ideas. I know +painters who dash off a hand or a foot, a horse's head or an oak-tree, +with as unerring an audacity as--well, as a thorough stenographer will +bring a two hours' speech into the compass of an octavo page. But Lord +have mercy upon them, for they have long since ceased to know what they +do; and as the dear public has an even coarser sense, a still blunter +natural feeling, and even more respect for appearances--why, it's all +just as it should be, and no one can complain that he has been +cheated." + +For some time after this speech silence reigned in the studio. There +were heard only the fluttering of the sparrows, the heavy breathing of +Homo, for the old fellow was already enjoying his morning nap again, +and, in the saint-factory near by, the clatter and scraping and picking +of seven or eight chisels in the hands of the assistants who were hard +at work. + +"Thank you, Daedalus," said Felix, at last. "Upon the whole you are +perfectly right, and I think it very kind of you to try and scare me +off so thoroughly. But, with your permission, I intend to hold to my +intentions until I have been made wise by my own experience. If, a year +from this time, you preach me the same sermon, you shall see how +penitently I will beat my breast and become converted from all my +sins. But now, first give me something to sin with. Look here, my +coat is already off, and I have nothing more to do but to roll up my +shirt-sleeves." + +"So be it, then!" replied Jansen, with a good-natured smile. "Not as +God wills, but as you wish--here!" + +He went to the large closet and took out a skull, which he laid +on a little table near the window. At the same time he wheeled a +modeling-bench out of the corner, placed it before the table, and +pointed, without speaking, to a big lump of clay that lay moist and +shiny in a tub. + +"Are we to study phrenology?" laughed Felix, rather nervously, for a +suspicion began to dawn upon him. + +"No, my dear fellow, but we must take pains to make as exact a copy as +possible of this round mass of bones.... We shall have plenty of time +for the flesh when we have first mastered the skeleton." + +"I am to model a whole skeleton?" + +"Bone for bone, down to the big toe. In this way we combine an +anatomical course with practice in modeling forms. Yes, my dear +fellow," he smilingly continued, as he perceived the horrified +expression of his pupil; "if you thought to begin your apprenticeship +with the soft, white flesh of a woman, you have greatly deceived +yourself. However, since you have already done quite enough preparatory +studying in this field--" + +He suddenly broke off. On the landing, outside, they heard a pleasant +feminine voice say: + +"Is this the way to Fraeulein Minna Engelken's studio?" + +"If you will kindly give yourself the trouble to mount a flight +higher," responded the hoarse bass of the janitor. "The door to the +right--the name is on the sign. The Fraeulein has been there for the +last two hours." + +"Thanks." + +At the first sound of the voice Jansen had hurried to the door; he now +opened it a little and peeped out. Then he came back to Felix, and, +with his face slightly flushed, went silently to work. + +"Who was the lady?" asked Felix, though he felt no particular curiosity +on the subject. + +"The stranger we saw yesterday. Strange! when I heard that unknown +voice her face suddenly came up before my eyes again." + +Felix said nothing. He had gone up to the modeling-bench, had begun to +work at a great ball of clay about as large as the skull, and appeared +to be completely absorbed in his task. + +But they had scarcely been working on in this way, side by side and in +silence, for more than a quarter of an hour when some one knocked +softly on the door and Rosenbusch entered, looking excited, merry, and +full of mischief. + +He nodded to the friends, stepped close up to them and said, with an +air of mysterious importance: "Do you know who is up-stairs? The +lady of the Pinakothek! Angelica is painting her picture--she has +succeeded--an incredibly resolute woman that! And can keep a secret +like the devil! Now just conceive of it; I discovered her early this +morning clearing up her studio, as though the queen had given notice of +a visit. For that matter it always does look damned elegant and neat up +there--flowers in whichever direction you turn, and a hothouse +fragrance that makes you sick. But, to-day, it is a positive show-room! +'What the devil is this, Angelica?' said I; 'is to-day your birthday, +or are you going to get engaged, or are you painting a Russian +princess?'--for I had long forgotten all about the affair of yesterday. +But she, turning round the old yellow-silk cushion on the armchair so +as to present the side which had the fewest spots--she scarcely looked +at me, and said: 'Go and get to work, Herr von Rosebud'--that is what +she always calls me when she is cross--'I am not at home to you, +to-day!' In this way she morally turned me out of doors without farther +ceremony, and, I must confess, I rather like it in her; energy, +fearlessness, the courage of one's opinions, are always fine, even in a +woman. So I withdrew, wondering, and was already at work laying on my +colors when I heard some one coming up the stairs. Yes, I was right, +she was going to Angelica; and as the wall between us is not very +thick, and they did not at first take the precaution to lower their +voices, I discovered the whole mystery--that it is our beauty of +yesterday, that she is going to have her picture painted, and that her +first name is Julie. And now I appeal to you, friends and companions in +art, are we men or cowardly poltroons? Are we to suffer this vixen to +carry away such a prize from under our very noses, and to withhold such +a paragon of beauty from us under our own roof? Or shall we rush up as +one man, and, in the name of art, lay siege to the door of this +obdurate sister, and compel her, by force or persuasion, to open to +us?" + +"I would advise you, Rosenbusch, to go quietly upstairs again and wreak +your martial ardor on the battle of Luetzen," Jansen answered, without +the slightest approach to a smile. "But, if your excitement will not +let you work, convey your homage to the lady through the wall by means +of your flute. Perhaps they will invite you to come round and declaim +some of your verses." + +"Wretched scoffer!" cried the battle-painter. "I thought to render you +a service by bringing you this news. But you are of the earth, earthy, +and are incapable of soaring to any height of enthusiasm. Well, God be +with you! I see that I am not understood down here!" + +He rushed out of the door, and, sure enough, they soon afterward heard +the flute pouring out its most melting passages. + +This language, however, did not seem to be understood in the next room. +Angelica's room remained tight shut, and when it was opened, a few +hours after, soft steps came down the stairs, and the listeners below +were led to conclude that the sitting was over. + +In the mean while dinner-time had come, and the assistants in +the adjoining room had stopped work and left the studio. Jansen, +too--although, as a rule, he seldom made a pause before two +o'clock--now laid down his modeling-tool. + +"Come," he said, "you must make your calls of ceremony upon our +fellow-lodgers." + +They mounted the stairs, and went first into Rosenbusch's studio. As no +notice had been taken of his flute-playing, he had seated himself at +his easel again, and had set himself zealously to work to paint away +his anger. His room certainly presented a most remarkable appearance; +the walls shone, almost like those of an armory, with old arms, +halberds, muskets, and swords, relieved here and there by enormous +boots with wheel-spurs, leather collars, saddles, and singular +stirrups. An immense old kettle-drum stood on a rickety stand in front +of a worm-eaten arm-chair, and served as a table on which to pile all +sorts of odds and ends. Some cactus-plants, with great red blossoms, +stood in full bloom in the window, and among them was a delicate little +wire-cage, containing two white mice, who ran restlessly up and down, +squeaking and looking shyly at the new faces out of their little red +eyes. + +The battle of Luetzen stood on the easel; it was quite a vigorous work, +and Felix could praise it with a good conscience. The horses, +especially, reared and plunged, full of life and spirits; and the young +baron could hardly believe it when the painter confessed that he had +never mounted a horse in his life. After they had joked and laughed +about this for a while, and Rosenbusch had delivered an earnest speech +in defense of the romantic school, he threw off the old, much-patched +Swedish trooper's jacket in which he always painted, in order, as he +said, to have the true historical inspiration, and dressed himself, in +spite of the heat, in a violet-colored velvet coat, so that he might +accompany the friends in their visit to the adjoining room. + +Their knock on Angelica's door was answered by a cordial "Come in!" +Rosenbusch had not exaggerated: the studio did, in truth, resemble a +hot-house decked out for a festival, to which the sketches, and +studies, and half-finished pictures of flowers merely served as +decorations. The painter had had a window cut through the wall on the +east side at her own expense, in order that she might give her plants, +which she tended with scientific knowledge, plenty of sun whenever the +nature of her work did not require a pure north light. The plants were +truly grateful, and twined and throve so luxuriantly that the slender +stems of the palms and figs reached almost to the ceiling. + +Angelica stood before her easel in an antiquated painting-jacket, her +straw hat perched on one side, her cheeks glowing from her work, and +was so busily occupied in "toning down" the background that she merely +nodded to her friends as they entered, without interrupting her work. + +"She has gone!" she cried to them, "otherwise I could not have let you +in, no matter how much I had wanted to. My children, you have no +conception of what a charming person she is! If I were a man, I would +marry her or blow my brains out!" + +"You are indulging in very reckless assertions," Rosenbusch interposed, +raising himself a little on his toes, and stroking his thick beard. +"Just let's see if she really is so dangerous." + +Angelica stepped back from the easel. + +"Gentlemen," she said, "I hope you will praise me. Either I understand +as much about painting as a roast goose, or this will be my best +picture, and a real work of art. But just look at these curves! All +large, simple, noble, such as never grow under our native heaven. My +first idea was to paint the picture _alla prima_; but in the nick of +time it occurred to me that I should be very foolish to do so. For the +longer I can study this heavenly face, the happier I shall be. Just see +this figure, Jansen. Have you often come across anything like it?" + +"The lady has style," remarked Rosenbusch, assuming as cool an air as +possible. "However, she doesn't seem to be particularly young, or else +your dead coloring gives her ten years too many." + +"You are a strange mortal, Herr von Rosebud," answered the painter, +angrily. "In art you rave over nothing but old leather, but in life no +school-girl's complexion is rosy and satiny enough to suit you. It is +true, my beauty here told me herself that she was already--but I won't +be such a fool as to tell a girl's secret to gentlemen. But of this I +can assure you: that twenty years from now, when certain pretty little +dolls' faces have long grown old and faded, that woman there will still +be so beautiful that people will stand still in the streets to look +after her." + +"And may we be permitted to ask of what nationality she is?" inquired +Felix. + +"Why not? She makes no secret of the fact that she is from Saxony, +although you would never detect it from her accent; nor that her name +is Julie S., nor that she lost her old mother a year or so ago, and now +stands quite alone in the world. However, we haven't been having a mere +family gossip, but the most profound conversation on art-matters. She +is more intelligent in such things, let me tell you, than many of our +colleagues. And now you must excuse me, gentlemen, if I don't let you +interrupt me in my work, but go on and finish this background to-day, +before the colors dry in." + +Up to this time Jansen had not spoken a syllable. Now he stepped up to +Angelica, gave her his hand, and said: + +"If you don't spoil this, my dear friend, you will make something out +of it that will do you great honor. Adieu!" + +He turned quickly away, and strode out of the studio without casting a +glance to right or left. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +When his friends overtook him in the street he remained silent and +serious; while Rosenbusch praised, in the most extravagant language, +the beauty of the picture. + +"If my heart were not already in such firm hands," he said, with a +sigh, "who knows what might happen! But constancy is no empty dream. +Besides, Angelica would scratch any one's eyes out who tried to play +the Romeo to her Juliet. But where are you dragging us to, Jansen?" + +"We are going to see 'Fat Rossel.'" + +"Then I prefer to withdraw at once to my feeding-place and to await you +there. I have made a solemn vow never again to visit that accursed +Sybarite just before meal-time. It smells so devilishly of ambergris, +_pati de foie gras_ and East-Indian birds'-nests, so that after coming +away a man feels like a thorough vagabond over his wretched dumplings. +The devil take these lazy voluptuaries! Long live energy and +_sauerkraut_!" + +After this fierce outburst he nodded smilingly to the two others, +slouched his big hat over his left ear, and turned, whistling, into a +side street. + +"Who is this 'Fat Rossel' against whom our friend Rosebud displays all +his thorns?" asked Felix. + +"He isn't really so fierce as he tries to make himself out. The two are +good comrades, and would go through fire and water for one another in +case of need. This so-called 'Fat Rossel'--one Edward Rossel--is a very +rich man who isn't obliged to earn his living by painting--and for that +reason lets his great talent lie fallow. However, he has reduced his +intellectual laziness and amateur enjoyment of art to a system, and +concerning this system Rosenbusch invariably falls foul of him; for he +himself, in spite of all his 'energy,' has never produced anything of +much account. Here we are at the house." + +They passed through the pretty little front garden, before which they +had halted the day previous while on their way to the Pinakothek, +entered the door of a villa-like house, and mounted a staircase covered +with soft carpets. The hall shone with polished marbles, bronze +candelabra, and beautiful flowering plants in porcelain pots, that +perfumed the whole vestibule. + +When they entered the high-studded room above, that served as a +studio, but looked more like a museum of choice objects and works of +art than it did like a regular artist's workshop, there rose from a low +divan, covered with a leopard's skin, a singular figure. On a portly +but by no means clumsy body rested a stately head, in which sparkled a +pair of exceedingly bright black eyes. The face was of a very white +complexion, the beautiful hands were daintily cared for. The cut of the +features, with the close cropped silky hair, and the long black beard, +recalled the beautiful, dignified type of the high-bred Orientals. This +impression was still further heightened by a little red fez, shoved +back on the head, and a variegated Persian dressing-gown with slippers +to match, into which his bare feet were thrust, while the dressing-gown +apparently served in lieu of any other clothing. + +Slowly, but with great cordiality, the painter advanced to meet his +friends, shook hands with them, and said: "I made your acquaintance +yesterday from a distance, Herr Baron--through the blinds, when that +sly dog Rosebud was trying to entice me out into the noonday heat with +his flute. But that kind of thing is against my principles. It may be +all very meritorious to eat one's bread in the sweat of one's brow. But +as for enjoying art when reeking with perspiration--never! Excuse the +costume in which I receive you. I have just been taking a douche bath +and afterward resting a quarter of an hour. In five minutes I shall be +in a condition to present my material part with propriety." + +He disappeared into a side chamber, that was only separated by a +magnificent piece of Gobelin tapestry from his studio, and went on +talking with his friends while completing his toilet. + +"Just take a look at my Boecklin, that I bought the day before +yesterday--over there by the window on the little easel--I am quite +happy over the possession. Well, what do you say to it, Jansen? Isn't +that something to console one's self with for a while, in the midst of +this universal poverty of art?" + +It was a little forest picture, that stood in the most favorable light, +near the window; it represented a dense wood of lofty oaks and laurel +bushes, through a little cleft of which could be seen a slender strip +of the distant horizon, and in one corner a patch of blue sky. At the +feet of the shady trees a brook rippled through the luxuriant grass, on +the banks of which reclined a sleeping nymph, with her nursling at her +side, its blunt little nose pressed close against the full maternal +breast, from which it seemed to be feeding quietly. In the centre of +the picture, leaning against a luxuriant tree, stood the young father, +a slim, well-built faun, looking down well pleased upon his family, and +holding in his hand the shepherd's flute with which he had just played +his wife to sleep. + +Felix and Jansen were still absorbed in the contemplation of this +charming work when Rossel again appeared. + +"Such a thing is refreshing, isn't it?" he said. "It is a comfort to +know that there are still men who have such beautiful dreams, and the +courage to tell them to others, no matter if advanced and sensible +humanity, which now, thank God, has outgrown its baby shoes, and every +day sets its foot down more squarely on the broad sole of realism, does +shake its head and talk about having gotten beyond such standpoints. +This man is one of the few who interest me. You have undoubtedly seen +his splendid pictures in the Schack Gallery? No? Well, since you have +only been two days in Munich, I will forgive your ignorance. I will +take you there; it will afford me the greatest pleasure to recruit a +quiet list of worshipers for my few idols." + +"First of all," said Felix, smiling, "you would do me a greater favor +if you would show me something by one Edward Rossel, to whose +acquaintance my friends have led me to look forward with great +curiosity." + +"My own immortal works!" cried the painter, threatening Jansen with his +finger. "I know who is behind all this. I know the sly cabals of my +much-esteemed friends, who seize every opportunity to parade my +unproductiveness before my eyes. I know that they mean no harm, and +give me credit for some talent; I ought to be ashamed of myself for not +sharing this good opinion and at last rousing myself to action. But it +all glances aside from the armor of my own self-knowledge. I don't deny +that I have all sorts of good qualifications for an artist, sense and +brains and some insight into the true aims of art. Unfortunately, there +is only one little thing lacking--the disposition to really produce +something. I should have been just the man to have been born a Raphael +without hands, and would have borne this fate with the greatest +complacency. But won't you light a cigar, or do you prefer a chibouque? +By the way, a little refreshment wouldn't be out of place, considering +this tropical temperature." + +Without waiting for an answer, he rang a beautifully chased silver +bell. + +A young servant-girl, of pretty figure and graceful manner, entered; +the painter whispered a word in her ear, whereupon the girl disappeared +and returned, five minutes after, with a silver waiter, on which stood +a wicker-work bottle and some glasses. + +"I brought this wine myself from Samos," said Rossel; "You must at +least taste it and drink to our good friendship!" + +"Then let me immediately sin against that friendship and ask a somewhat +indiscreet question: how is it possible for you to bury, like a dead +treasure, a talent which you yourself admit you have?" + +"My dear fellow," replied the artist, coolly, "the matter is much +simpler than you suppose. My object is, like that of all men--let them +prate as much as they like about duty, virtue, or self-sacrifice--to be +as happy as possible. But happiness consists, as I believe, in nothing +else than in creating for one's self a certain state, a manner of life +or pursuit, in which one finds himself at the height of his +individuality, in the full enjoyment of his peculiar powers and gifts. +Therefore, every man has a happiness of his own; and nothing can be +more foolish than for one person to object to another's way of enjoying +himself, or to persuade or advise others to exchange their way for his. +The more any one makes himself feel, by his manner of life, that he is +a particular individual, the more Nature has attained her end in making +him, and the more contented he can be with himself and his situation. +All unhappiness arises from the fact that men try to do things for +which they are not fitted. If you give a million to a man born with a +genius for begging, you will make him an unhappy millionaire. He can no +longer exercise his talent. A virtuoso in suffering, a Stylites, or a +sister of charity, for whom you should suddenly provide a healthy and +comfortable life, would at once lose all individuality and so all +happiness. For it is undeniable that there are men who are only +conscious of their individuality when they are torturing themselves, in +the coarser or finer sense of the expression. To such, a state of +repose is an abasement, and to this class belong all truly productive +artists. To work, to produce something which shall afterward stand as a +monument of their power, appears to them the highest happiness; and +this happiness ought to be accorded to them all the more readily, from +the fact that most of them cannot live without it. Only they ought to +be just enough to look at the matter also from the opposite point of +view, where an individual only feels conscious of his powers and gifts +when in the free enjoyment of an apparently fruitless repose. When I +lie on my back and make pictures in the smoke of my cigar, or gaze upon +the works which great creative beings have produced in times gone by, +am I not, in my way, putting to good use that buried treasure within me +in which you were so good as to believe? and making of this individual, +whom his friends accuse of culpable laziness, the very thing for which +he was really fitted and intended--a perfectly harmonious and happy +man? Once in a while, indeed, the vulgar prejudice seizes even me, and +I suddenly grow tremendously active. But after the paroxysm has lasted +a week, at the longest, I suddenly see the folly of the proceeding and +throw the unfinished daub into some dark closet, among other embryos +of immortal works. Ah! my dear friend, there is so much struggling, and +pushing, and producing going on, that a quiet, inoffensive art-lover of +my disposition might well be tolerated as a salutary antidote to this +epidemic of activity." + +"We will let this old apple of discord drop for to-day," interrupted +Jansen, smiling. "I won't yet give up my old bet that some fine day you +will cease to take comfort in this bed that you have stuffed with +sophisms, and will begin to seek your happiness in some other way. But +in the meanwhile you might certainly show yourself at my place again. I +should like to know what you would say to my dancing girl; and besides, +I have done all sorts of other things since you were there." + +"I will come, Hans. You know how I delight to take to heart the +frightful example of industry that I see in your saint-factory. By the +way--isn't next Saturday 'Paradise?'" + +"Certainly. The last before the autumn. Most of the fellows have +already begun to make their preparations for the summer vacation, and +in fourteen days we three shall probably be almost the only ones who +still hold out in the city." + +They left the studio, the painter accompanying them as far as the gate +of the front yard, and taking leave of Felix with great cordiality and +the hope that he should see him often. + +"What is this about 'Paradise?'" inquired the latter, when they were +alone in the street again. + +"You shall soon see for yourself. We come together once a month and +attempt to delude ourselves into the idea that it is possible in the +midst of this world to throw off the hypocrisy of society, and return +once more to a state of innocence. And for a few years past we have +really been fairly successful. A little group of good fellows has been +brought together, who are all equally impressed with the worthlessness +of our social state. But, after all, the German is not a social +creature; that which constitutes the charm of such societies among the +Latins and Slavs--the delight in talking for talking's sake, a certain +delicacy in lying, and, moreover, an early-acquired and really humane +tact and consideration for one's neighbors--all this we may possibly +gain in time in some of our large cities. But for the time being it is +certainly foreign to the genius of our nation, and it is only feebly +developed. The consequence is that in this city of art, where of all +the arts that of sociability is most behindhand, one has to choose +between two evils: the conventional society entertainments, which are +chiefly devoted to eating and drinking, and where one is seldom +compensated for the constraint of cultivated _ennui_; or else +Philistinism over the beer-table. For this reason we have adopted +another plan, which, to be sure, can only be successful when all those +who take part in it are united by the same longing for freedom, and the +same respect for the freedom of their neighbors. For, when no one wraps +a cloak about him, but shows himself unrestrainedly just as he is, no +one, on the other hand, has a right to pounce maliciously on the weak +spots which his neighbor may possibly expose--and each must, upon the +whole, be so constituted that he can show himself in his true character +without being disagreeable." + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +In the first days of his wanderings through the quaint old streets--for +he avoided, as far as possible, the new and deserted quarters of the +town--Felix felt to the full the charm of South German life; that +robust, unrestrained power of enjoyment, that perpetual holiday-mood, +whose motto is "You may do what you choose." That this cheerful state +also has its dark sides; that it is not possible, without the sacrifice +of some higher benefits, to establish an average of character and +education which makes all classes mingle easily; that the lack of a +proletariat brings with it the lack of a rich and powerful intellectual +aristocracy--all such political and social speculations never entered +our friend's head, in spite of the fact that his travels about the +world had given him a keen insight into the civilization of different +countries. In a spirit of quiet defiance, he took delight in doing here +the very things which would have been most severely frowned on in that +native town from which he had fled. He visited the dingiest restaurants +and the most modest beer-gardens, ate from an uncovered table, and +drank from the mug which he had himself washed under the water-pipe; +and it seemed as if the only thing wanting to make his happiness +complete was, that the highly aristocratic society with which he had +quarreled should happen by and see, in silent horror, how happy the +fugitive was in his self-imposed exile. + +And yet, since everything inspired by pique carries with it a secret +feeling of dissatisfaction, he was after all not quite contented. Jolly +as it looked to wander about again at his own sweet will, it was, after +all, very different from what it had been years before when he first +spread his wings. In short, in his moments of reflection, when he +neither cared to forget nor to deceive himself, he was forced to admit, +with a kind of shame, that he was no longer young enough to goon +looking upon life as a brilliant adventure amid shifting scenes, and +that, in riper years, more depended upon the piece and the _role_ which +one played in it than upon the scenes and the spectators who sit before +the footlights. + +True, he had from the first devoted himself zealously to his new +apprenticeship. But his conscience was too delicate to forget what +Jansen had said in regard to his fitness for art. Had his friend +congratulated him upon his decision, who knows but what, in spite of +all that was wanting to his happiness, he might have felt as contented +as it is possible for any man to feel in this imperfect world? But his +proud heart told him that the people who were now to be his associates +did not, in their hearts, consider him quite genuine, but looked upon +him as a singular being, who, from mere whim, had taken up with art +instead of with some other noble passion more suitable to his rank. + +This unfortunate feeling was still further heightened by the fact that +his relation to the only old friend he had here, for whose society he +had passionately yearned, did not, in spite of their daily intercourse, +ripen again into the old intimacy. + +When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in +Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon +become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend +with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was +cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by +taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the +senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him +long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and +his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble +arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and +then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in +confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were +looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen +struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, +who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own +unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, +that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any +encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist +by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in +other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to +detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less +incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, +and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty +living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be +petted by ladies and engaged for aesthetic tea parties, the first +feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders +people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp +antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his +pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social +traditions. + +It was thus that Felix found him then, and he found him but little +different now, after all these years of separation--averse to all +intercourse with men who did not stand in some relation or other to his +art, and inaccessible, so far as his inner life was concerned, even to +his few intimate acquaintances. But still the years had not passed +without leaving some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that +one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after +the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature +had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a +degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the +little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at +his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk +over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections +of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their +love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the +subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some +dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation +a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon +relapsed into more sullen silence than before. + +Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which +would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of +his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and +now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green +island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was +then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock. + +One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not +in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now +visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter +from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and +her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl. +Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She +evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and +soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the +light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her +proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do +so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face +could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost +love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie. + +And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and +idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange +city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who +was his only love, that he could not help bursting out into a laugh, +only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute. + +He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends, +who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of +the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it +was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day. + +When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his +fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon +horseback. + +He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across +the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful +broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylaea, and outside, in +the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his +horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the +quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a +quieter gait of his own accord. + +The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home +from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a +tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back +to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very +pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her +hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the +fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish +way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence +the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly +attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the +foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in +vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up +just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to +instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took +him for an officer in _mufti_, or were frightened by his commanding +manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the +barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark +meadow. + +The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no +doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red +hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he +recalled her name. + +"Good-evening, Fraeulein Zenz," he said. "What lonely and dangerous +walks you take!" + +"Dangerous!" she returned, laughing, for she had immediately recognized +him. "What is there dangerous about it? They wouldn't have eaten me. I +can take care of myself." + +"But if I hadn't by good luck come up--" + +"Do you suppose I couldn't have got away from those two without your +help? I can run like the wind. You couldn't catch me even on +horseback." + +"Well see about that, you little witch! If you don't look out--" + +He bent over and began, in his turn, to try and seize hold of her hair. +But her slim little figure instantly spun round on its heels, so that +her long locks slipped out of his hand again, and then she sprang like +lightning over the narrow ditch by the side of the road, and, before he +could collect himself, was away across the broad field, where she +suddenly vanished from his sight as if by miracle. + +His horse had shied at the girl's quick movement, and, for a moment, +gave his master enough to do in looking after him. Now, when he had +quieted him again, and, half laughing, half provoked, had dashed into +the meadow in pursuit of the fugitive, he could find no trace of her. +He called her name, spoke to her persuasively, and promised not to +touch her any more if she would only show herself again. It was only +after he had given up the search, and had angrily wheeled his horse +round in order to ride back into the avenue, that he heard, from behind +a heap of stones close at his side, which he had overlooked in his +zeal, a shrill giggling; and suddenly the girl sprang from the ground +and coolly marched up to him. + +"Now you see that you couldn't have caught me, if I had not wanted you +to," she cried. "Now just ride quietly home; I can find my way well +enough." + +"You are a regular witch--that's what you are!" he cried, laughingly. +"I see that people have more reason to be afraid of you than you of +them. But listen, Zenz, since we have chanced to meet in this way, tell +me now why you won't come to Herr Jansen's any more?" + +The question seemed to be disagreeable to her. She turned sharply on +her heel, and said, defiantly, beginning to put her dishevelled hair in +order: "What is that to you? What do you know about me, anyway? I can +do as I like, I suppose." + +"To be sure, Zenz. But it would be very nice of you if you would listen +to reason, and show yourself again. I am an artist, too, and would like +very much to make a sketch of you. Or, if you don't want to come to the +big studio any more, I have a very quiet lodging, and not a soul would +find it out if you came to me; you may be sure no one would do you any +harm, and I would give you a good reward--and you should choose what +you would have." + +While he was speaking she had never left off shaking her head. What her +expression was he could not see, for she had sank her chin on her +breast. Now she suddenly looked up at him and said, with a little laugh +that became her charmingly, while she twisted her streaming hair into a +thick knot: "I would just like to sit on horseback once, and ride round +real fast in a circle." + +"If it's nothing more than that," he laughed, "come! Don't be afraid, +but put your foot in the stirrup." + +He bent down over her again, grasped her under the arm that she reached +out to him, and swung up the light little figure as if it had been a +feather; then he let her down on the saddle before him and seized the +bridle. She instantly clasped her arms tight round his body, and clung +so close to him that for a moment she almost took his breath away, "Do +you sit firmly?" he called to her. She nodded, and laughed softly to +herself. Then he set his horse in motion and began to ride round in a +circle, at first slowly, then faster and faster, and she sat before him +on the saddle without moving, and pressed her head close against his +breast. + +"Is that what you like?" he cried; "or shall I stop?" + +She did not answer. + +"How would it be," he said, "if now I should trot back to town with +you, and not draw rein until I came to my house? You would have to come +with me, then, whether you wanted to or not, and do what I asked you. +Aren't you quite in my power now?" + +He reined in the horse for a moment, as though to give her opportunity +to settle herself for a longer ride. But suddenly he felt how her arms +unclasped, and in the next instant she had slid down from the saddle, +and stood before him in the dusk, out of breath and rearranging her +light dress. + +"I thank you very much." she said. "It was very jolly; but, now, that's +enough. And all the rest is nonsense, and so, good-night! If you can +catch me again you may keep me!" + +In a second she had sprung away and disappeared behind the nearest +houses. Even if he had been seriously inclined to follow her, he would +never have been able to find her trail again among the gardens and +hedges that bordered the field. + +A few passers-by had watched this singular performance from the avenue. +He heard all sort of jokes that he did not understand. "Thank God!" he +said to himself, "if I had allowed myself to do such a thing in my own +dear home, the whole town would be talking of nothing else to-morrow, +besides adding all sorts of exaggerations. But here--'Hier bin ich +Mensch, hier darf ich's sein!' Long live golden liberty!" + +He rode back to town in merry mood. He imagined that he could still +feel the arms of the girl about his breast, and her warm breath on his +face. His blood had not been cooled by his ride, as he had hoped, and +the sharp trot to which he spurred on his horse did not help him. He +gave up the reeking horse at the riding-school, and then turned into +the Briennerstrasse, in order to sit awhile in the Court Garden, and +eat an ice and nurse his dreams. + +When he came back to the house where Julie lived, he checked himself +suddenly. Who was that standing motionless by the garden fence, with +his eyes fixed on the bright parterre window? Jansen? + +Felix made a wide circuit to avoid him, and stood looking at him on the +other side of the street in the shadow of the houses. For a good half +hour he saw his friend opposite continue at his post. Then the window +was closed by a heavy curtain, and, immediately after, the watcher at +the gate tore himself away and departed slowly. + +Felix did not follow him. He scorned to be a spy on the secret ways of +his friend. What chance had disclosed to him gave him enough to think +about for to-day, without being able to find a solution to the riddle. + + + + + + _BOOK II_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +It was unusually still in Angelica's studio, so still that one could +plainly hear, through the thin wall that separated her from her +neighbor, the cheerful squeak of his white mice. This was always a sign +that their master was, as he expressed it, on the rampage, wielding his +brush in the thick of the battle of Luetzen. + +Angelica, too, was very busy. But although she usually liked to chat +over her work, to keep the people who sat to her from falling asleep, +to-day she rarely opened her lips. It was the last sitting; the last +touch, which, after all, is always a new beginning, was to be given to +the picture--every stroke of the brush decided the fate of a _nuance_, +the success or failure of an expression. + +In order to work more surely, she had put on a pair of spectacles, +that can scarcely be said to have improved her appearance, and the +painting-jacket, on the left sleeve of which she was accustomed to wipe +her brush, had burst open in the ardor of her work, and, with her +lance-like maulstick and her shield-like palate, gave a certain +pugnacious aspect to her good, honest face, as if she were engaged in a +struggle for the release of the enchanted princess who sat in a chair +opposite her, and who was also unusually quiet. Whether Julie was +turning over in her mind some especially serious thought, or had, like +all people sitting to a painter, merely fallen under the influence of a +certain absent-minded melancholy, it was impossible to make out. + +She was especially beautiful to-day. Instead of her raw-silk dress, she +wore a lighter stuff of transparent black, through which gleamed her +white neck. Angelica had planned this in order that all the light +might be concentrated on the face; and the arrangement of the hair, +which left the contour of the head fully visible and allowed a few +simply-braided locks to flow over the shoulders, was a special +invention of the artist. Now, in the steady light, the dead white of +her complexion, and the soft blond of her hair, shone out so gently +subdued and yet so clear, and the eyes, under the brown lashes, had, +with all their softness, such a fiery sparkle, that one could +appreciate Angelica's assertion that a thing of this sort could not be +painted--gold, pearls, and sapphires were the only materials with which +to rival this fusion of color. + +It is true, the first bloom of youth was passed. A keen eye could +detect a wrinkle here and there, a certain sharpness of feature, and +the easy grace with which her noble figure moved left no doubt that she +had passed those years when a girl is always turning this way and that, +like a bird on a branch, as if always on the point of fluttering away +into the unknown, tempting, beautiful life outside, or else glancing +eagerly around to see whether a hunter or trapper is in sight. + +For that matter it would have been hard to conceive that this still, +reserved, charming creature had ever committed the usual school-girl +follies. But as soon as she began to speak, and especially to laugh, +her expressive face beamed with youthful merriment, her eyes, which +were a little near-sighted, slightly closed and took on a mischievous +look, and only her firm mouth retained its expression of thoughtful +determination. "The rest of your face," said Angelica at the very +first sitting, "was given you by God; for your mouth you must thank +yourself." + +She had intended by this remark to lead up to a conversation about +careers and experiences; but the only answer was a meaning, yet +reserved, smile from the mouth of which she spoke. Angelica was a girl +of delicate feeling; she was naturally burning with curiosity to learn +more of the past life of her admired conquest. But, after the repulse +of her first attempts, she was much too proud to beg for a confidence +that was not proffered. For this self-denial she was to-day to be +rewarded, for Julie suddenly opened her lips, and said with a sigh: + +"You are one of the happiest human beings I ever knew, Angelica." + +"Hm!" replied the artist. "And why do I seem so?" + +"Because you are not only free, but know how to make some use of your +freedom." + +"If it were only a good use! But do you really believe, dear Julie, +that my pictures of 'flower, fruit, and thorn pieces,' and my bungling +attempts to imitate God's likeness, have made me imagine that I am an +especially interesting example of my class? Dearest friend, what you +call happiness is really only the well-known 'German happiness'--a +happiness, because it is not a greater unhappiness--a happiness of +necessity." + +"I can well understand," continued Julie, "that a moment never comes +when one feels perfectly contented; when one, so to speak, has reached +the summit of the mountain, and looks around and says: there is nothing +higher than this, unless one steps straight into the clouds. But yet +you love your art, and I think you can busy yourself all day, your +whole life long, with anything you love--" + +"If I only knew whether it loved me in return! Don't you see, there +lies the rub; a most 'devilish' rub, Herr Rosebud would say. Are +you really consecrated to art--I mean consecrated by the grace of +God--when, if it hadn't been for the merest chance in the world, you +would never have touched a brush?" + +"You would never have touched a brush!" + +"Certainly; but instead of it a common kitchen-spoon and similar +household utensils. Why do you look at me incredulously? Do you think I +have been all my life a plain old maid? I, too, was once seventeen +years old, and by no means ill-looking--naturally not to be compared to +what is now sitting opposite me--not a regular feature in my whole +pretty face, no form, no style, merely the ordinary _beaute du diable_. +But, if one may trust certain evidences--though my archives of sonnets, +ball-favors, and other delicate offerings of the sort are burned, to be +sure--I was as neat and attractive a young person as thousands of +others. I had plenty of mother wit, you could read in my eyes that I +had a good heart, and, besides, I was by no means poor. Why should I +have lacked suitors? No, my dear, I even had a choice; and although I +do not now understand why I preferred one particular mortal to all +others, I must have known well enough at the time. I dimly remember how +wonderfully happy, joyous, and in love I was! If all had gone on in the +beaten track, I should probably have always been as happy and as much +in love--constancy is my chief fault--even if no longer so joyous. But +this was not to be. My betrothed was drowned while bathing--just think +of it, what an absurd misfortune! I was driven into a brain fever by +the shock and grief; when I got up from it my little _beaute du diable_ +had gone to the _diable_. The next few years were spent as a widowed +bride, in tears; and, when these gradually ceased to flow, I was a +plain, prematurely-faded person, with a heart to be sure that had never +yet fairly blossomed out, but about which no one troubled himself +particularly. It was at that time also that we lost our little +property, and I was obliged to take up with some pursuit or other; then +it turned out to be good luck that even as a child at school I had +wasted much time on drawing and painting. Do you believe, dear friend, +that a virtue which one makes in this way out of a necessity--no matter +how deserving it may be--can ever make a mortal thoroughly happy at +heart?" + +"Why not, when all kinds of happiness come with it, as has been the +case with you? You visited Italy with that kind old lady about whom you +told me such nice stories the other day; you can work at your art here +in perfect freedom, without anxiety, thanks to the legacy of your +motherly friend; you live in this beautiful city, in the society of +friends and colleagues in art by whom you are respected--is all that +nothing?" + +"True, it is a great deal, and yet--I will whisper something in your +ear--let it be entirely between ourselves, and if I did not love you so +unreasonably that you might ask anything of me I would sooner bite off +my tongue than confess it to any living mortal--if I should become, in +the course of time, as celebrated as my namesake (whose pictures, it +must be confessed, always appear to me to be very stupid), or even +should in so far succeed as to become contented with myself as an +artist, I would give up all this exceptional good fortune for an +ordinary, humdrum happiness; a good husband, who need not even be a +remarkable combination of excellences, and a few pretty children, who, +for all I care, might be a little bit boisterous and naughty. There, +now you know all about it, and you will laugh at me because I so +naively confessed to you what we women generally hide like a sin." + +"You would certainly have made a splendid housewife," said Julie, +musingly. "You are so good, so warmhearted, so unselfish; you might +have made a husband very happy. I--when I compare myself with you--but +why shouldn't we call each other '_du_?' I have had all sorts of +unpleasant experiences with women friends with whom I have used that +familiar form, and that is the reason I have been so slow about it with +you--. Stop, stop, you must leave my head on my shoulders!--you are +squeezing me to death--if I had only known it sooner! And who knows but +what if you learn to know me better--." + +The artist had thrown away palette and maulstick, and had, after her +enthusiastic fashion, rushed upon the adored friend who had at last +made this return for her worship. + +"If I should know you a hundred years, I'll take care to love you a +hundred times more dearly!" she cried, as, kneeling down before Julie, +she folded her hands in her lap with a droll vivacity, and gazed +reverentially through her spectacles at the beautiful face. + +"No," said her friend earnestly, "you do not really know me yet. Have +you any suspicion that by my own fault I have thrown away that +happiness for which you long, because, even as my best friends said, I +was heartless?" + +"Nonsense!" cried Angelica. "You heartless? Then I am a crocodile and +live on human flesh!" + +Julie smiled. + +"Were they right? Perhaps. I don't believe it myself. But you know it +is such a universal fashion to show one's self 'full of heart,' to +express feeling, sympathy, tenderness, even when one remains perfectly +cold, that the Cordelias will always be at a disadvantage. Even when +very young, and perhaps by inheritance from my father, who was a +strict, and on the surface a severe, old soldier, not much given to +demonstrations--even when a school-girl I felt a disgust for sweetness +and suavity, for affected sentimentality and humility--for all that +conventional amiability behind which the most cruel envy, the most icy +egotism, lurk concealed. I could never take kindly to sentimental +bosom-friendship, to compacts of the heart for life and death, that +were suddenly broken up by a ball-room rivalry, an honest reproof, or +even by pure _ennui_. My first experience in this respect was my +last. And how much sincere liking, and fidelity, and unappreciated +self-sacrifice I wasted on this child's play! From that time forth I +knew how to take better care of myself. And, in truth, it was not +difficult for me to keep guard over my heart. I lived with my old +parents, who both appeared, on the surface, dry and pedantic; but who +understood the art of making for themselves and me a rich, warm, and +beautiful life, that gave my thoughts and feelings ample nourishment. I +modeled myself after them, and spoke much the same language. I must +indeed have borne myself rather strangely, when, in the society of +young people, I expressed myself with regard to certain conventional +feelings in scornful terms which might have been pardoned to an old +soldier, but which did not become his daughter. I meant no harm with it +all. On many occasions, when others were moved to tears or enthusiasm, +I really experienced no sensation whatever, unless it were a feeling of +discomfort. But as often as anything really touched me--beautiful +music, a poem or some solemn impression of Nature, I became perfectly +dumb, and could not join in the enthusiastic prattle that went on in +the circle about me. Out of pure contempt for phrases, I assumed, in +defiance of my real feelings, to be cool and critical, and had to bear +being told that there was no getting on with me, that these secret joys +must always remain closed to me, a girl without a heart. I smiled at +this, and my smile confirmed these fine-strung souls in their belief in +my lack of feeling. As it so happened that I found none of them all +amiable enough to love in spite of these bad practices, I didn't care +in the least for my isolation. I had fared thus with my own sex, and +soon I was to find that I did not succeed much better with young men. I +was not long in observing that the stronger sex merely had other, and +by no means more amiable, weaknesses than we; above all, that they were +much vainer, and so care most for those of us who are willing to do +homage to their manly superiority. What is generally called maidenly +modesty, womanly tenderness, and virginal feeling--is it not, in ninety +cases out of a hundred, a craftily-planned artificial stratagem for +making fools of these mighty lords of creation? Here they find what +they want. Do they not meet in this pliant, yielding, dependent being +the best supplement to their dominant natures, the most touching +submission to their higher will, an accurately-toned echo of all their +most excellent wishes and thoughts? Afterward, when the purpose of the +pretty comedy has been attained, the mask is laid aside quickly enough; +we good lambs show that we, too, have a will and a mind and a power of +our own, and the beautiful delusion is rudely dissipated. As soon as I +had come to clearly recognize this, I felt the bitterest disgust for +it. Soon, however, I was forced to laugh, and to say to myself, this +farce is as old as the world! If, notwithstanding this, the proud lords +of creation still permit themselves to be deceived, they must, in one +way or another, find some advantage in it. But I could not even then +bring myself to join in the game, as I saw all the rest do. I cared +nothing for the object which made these petty means holy to all the +others. Merely to please the men in general? To do this I had no need +to exert myself especially, for I resembled my mother, who had passed +for a beauty. And to have won the _love_ of a man it would have been +necessary for him to have first taken _my_ fancy, for him to have first +become dangerous to _me_. But it never came to that. Really, I often +thought, have you a heart, or have you none, since it feels nothing at +all in the society of these gay officers, students, and artists, who +are such good dancers, have such a triumphant mien, and such faultless +white cravats, and who, with the most condescending superiority, allow +themselves to be enticed into the share by all these timid, blushing, +demure, sweet creatures, who are all the while secretly laughing in +their sleeves." + +Julie paused for a while with downcast eyes. "It is strange," said she, +with a sigh, "how we happened to come upon these old stories! You must +know, my dear, they are _really_ very old--older than you think. I +shall soon be thirty-one years old! When I first began to make these +observations I was eighteen--now you can subtract for yourself. If I +had married then, I might now have had a daughter twelve years old. +Instead of that I am a well-preserved old maid, and my only admirer is +a silly painter, who has fallen in love with me merely out of a whim +for color." + +"No," said Angelica, who, in the mean time, had zealously gone on with +her painting, "I won't be put aside in that way. I always did consider +the men pretty stupid, because, as you very rightly said, they allow +themselves to be caught by such clumsy tricks and artifices. But that +they should not have recognized your worth, that they should not have +cut each others' throats about you--as they did before Troy for that +Grecian witch--that is really incomprehensible to me! They cannot all +be so conceited and foolish; and, after all, there must be a few--I, +myself, have known one or two--. But please lower your chin just a +trifle." + +"Yes, it is true," continued Julie, "there are a few. I have even come +across one for whose sake I myself might finally have been induced to +take part in the comedy, had not all talent for that kind of thing been +denied me. What his name was, how he came to know me, cannot matter to +you. He long ago married another, and has probably forgotten all of me +but my name--if not that. I--one of us never forgets such an +experience, even when it lies dead and buried in some corner of our +hearts; for that I had a heart, as well as other people, I discovered +at that time only too plainly--I pleased him exceedingly--he took care +to let me see this on every occasion--and then he really was better by +far, and much less infected by conceit and selfishness than most of the +others; and my straight-forward way of showing myself just as I was, +without affecting any coquettish sensibility, seemed to be attractive +to him because of its very rarity. As he was rich, and my parents were +well off, there was, on the other hand, no outward hinderance in our +way. And so, although no binding words had been exchanged, we were +tacitly looked upon as a match--I think the men relinquished me to him +much more honestly than my female friends gave up this much-sought man +to me. To be sure I myself was, even in this case, at least outwardly +much cooler and more reserved than happy lovers generally. I was, at +heart, deeply attached to the man of my choice; but there was always +mixed with it a silent fear, a sort of lack of sympathy--perhaps a +prophetic impulse of my heart that warned me not to give myself up +absolutely and entirely to this love. And, one day, during a +conversation about an accident in a Brazilian mine, where fifty men had +suddenly been killed by an explosion of fire-damp, the storm burst upon +me, and I had to suffer with those distant victims. All were deeply +lamenting over the occurrence, as is the fashion. I remained silent; +and when my betrothed asked me whether the terrible accident had +absolutely petrified me, I said I could not help it, but it affected me +very little more than if I had read in some history that in some +battle, a thousand years ago, ten thousand men had perished. The misery +of this world was so near us daily and hourly, and we were, for the +most part, so culpably indifferent to it, that I could not understand +why I should all of a sudden be expected to feel so much sympathy for a +misfortune which only attracted attention because it was in the latest +newspaper; and which was, moreover, a very common one and not even +accompanied by especially horrible circumstances. I had scarcely said +this when they all fell upon me--at first, of course, in a joking way, +and my old nickname--'the heartless girl'--was raked up again; but, as +I kept quiet and rather sharply repelled the accusations of these +delicate souls, their tempers became more and more aroused, and the +most zealous sermons on philanthropy were launched at me by the very +ones who would not have given a drink of water to a sick dog, and who +would only succor a poor man if it didn't make them too much trouble. +My friend, too, had grown silent, after having at first attempted to +take my part. But, like a thorough man--for such he always remained--he +could not conceal from himself the frightful truth that I was by no +means sufficiently soft and womanly in my feelings. My combative spirit +began to trouble him more and more--I could see this clearly--but now +all my pride was enlisted against any smoothing over or suppression of +my true nature. Although I was very near bursting into tears, I kept up +my bravery, fought out my case, and had the miserable satisfaction of +appearing to bear off the victory. A dearly-purchased victory! From +this evening my lover perceptibly began to draw back, my 'best friend' +took it upon herself to enlighten him more and more concerning my +character; and since she herself possessed those very traits which were +lacking in me, and which alone, it is said, can guarantee the happiness +of marriage, nothing could be more natural than that before three weeks +were up he should become engaged to this sympathetic being, who for +thirteen years now has--. But I will say nothing bad of her. She has +certainly done _me_ a great service, for, perhaps, I might not have +made this man much happier. And, at the time, she spared me a hard +spiritual struggle. Had I been actually engaged, I might, perhaps, have +hesitated to fulfill the duties that my poor mother had a right to +demand of me. For you must know that my father died very suddenly, and +then it appeared that the mother of the heartless girl--who also passed +for a cold character--concealed a much more passionate love under an +austere exterior than most old women are accustomed to retain beyond +their silver-wedding. The death of her old husband first threw my +mother into a serious illness, and then into a half-wandering state, in +which she lived on for many years, to her torture and to mine!" + +She paused; then she suddenly stood up and stepped to the artist's side +behind the easel. + +"Pardon me, dear," she said, "but I think you ought to stop. Every +additional stroke of the brush that tones down or paints away anything +will make it look less like me. Look at me more carefully--am I really +that blooming creature that beams upon the world from out that canvas? +Twelve years of denial, loneliness, and living entombment, have they +left no trace upon my face? That is the way I might have looked, +perhaps, had I known happiness. They say, you know, happiness preserves +youth. But I--I am horribly old! And yet, in reality, I have not begun +to live!" + +She turned hastily away and walked to the window. + +Angelica laid aside her palette, went softly up to her, and threw her +arm about her agitated friend. + +"Julie," said she, "when _you_ speak that way--you, who by a mere smile +could tame wild animals and drive tame men mad!" + +She turned to her comforter, and the tears stood in her eyes. + +"Oh, my dear," she said, "what nonsense you are talking! How often I +have envied a young peasant girl, with an ugly, stupid face, who +brought us eggs and milk, simply because she could come and go as she +liked, and moved among living beings! But I--can you conceive what it +means to have constantly at your side a being whom you cannot but love, +and yet whom you are forced to look upon as one dead, as a living +ghost; to hear the voice that once caressed you utter senseless +sounds, to see the eye that once beamed on you so warmly, strange and +dimmed--the eye, the voice, of your own mother? And this, year in and +year out--and this half-dead being only waked into anxiety and +agitation whenever I made an attempt to leave her. For, truly, when I +had borne it a year, I thought I was being crushed by it, without +feeling the satisfaction that the sacrifice of my life could be of any +possible service to this most miserable being. Yet as often as she +missed me for a longer time than the few hours daily to which she had +become accustomed, she lapsed into the most violent uneasiness, and +only became quiet again when she saw me once more. I had to reconcile +myself to the idea that I was necessary to her existence--to an +existence that I could by no possibility make happy, or enliven, or +even lighten. For so long as I was at her side she scarcely noticed me; +indeed, she often appeared not even to recognize me. And still she +could not exist without me; and in the asylum, to which she was once +carried for the sake of an experiment, she lapsed into a state so +pitiable that even 'a girl without a heart' could not but be moved by +it." + +"Horrible! And you lived with her in this way for twelve long years?" + +"For twelve long years! Does it still seem to you so incomprehensible, +so 'stupid' of the men that they did not positively force themselves +upon a girl who would have brought, with a little bit of beauty and +property, this face into their house? No, dear, the men are not so +stupid, after all. Even if I had been engaged, and had loved my lover +with my whole heart, I could never have expected him to join his life +to that of a woman who was chained fast to so horrible a lot." + +"But now, since you have become free--" + +"Free! A fine freedom to be allowed to dance when the ball is over, to +console myself with artificial or painted flowers for the rosy time +that was neglected. I once read somewhere that happiness is like wine; +if one does not drink up the entire cask at once, but pours some of it +into bottles, some time one will have the good of it. It will have time +to ripen and become nobler, if it is of the right sort. There may be +some truth in this; but, no matter how noble it may be, the old wine +has lost its bouquet. The happiness that one hasn't enjoyed when young +has a bitter taste; and, for that matter, who guarantees that I shall +ever slake my thirst again? Many thousands never moisten their lips, +and live soberly on. Why should I fare better? Because I have more +beauty than many! That would be fine, indeed! Fate is not in the least +gallant, and draws up its decrees without regard to persons. Now, when +I stand before the glass, I always see the same well-known face that +has lost its youth. I seem to myself like a silk dress that has hung in +the closet for twelve years. When one takes it out it is still silk, +but the color has faded, the folds tear when it is touched, and when it +is shaken out fly the moths! But I have let enough of them fly out of +my head to-day. There is no use in going over old experiences. Come! we +will paint a little more, and then go and take a drive--for what is our +glorious liberty for?" + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +In Jansen's studio, too, there was more talking than working going on +this morning. + +Edward Rossel had, at last, in spite of the heat, summoned up +sufficient energy to undertake the short walk thither. A gigantic +Panama hat, over which he also held a sunshade, protected his head; +besides this he wore a summer suit of snow-white pique, and light shoes +of yellow leather. + +He was in a very good humor, praised Felix for the assiduity with which +he continued to study his skeleton, and then stepped up to the Dancing +Girl, to which Jansen had just put the finishing touches. + +He stood silently before it for some time, then he drew up a chair near +it and begged Jansen to turn the stand so that he would be able to view +the work from all sides. + +His friends declared that it was a pleasure to see him look at +anything. His glances seemed to fairly fasten upon the form, or rather +to take it all in; all the muscles of his face became animated, and an +intellectual tension curved his somewhat languid mouth. + +"Well," asked Jansen, at last, "how does it strike you? You know I can +bear anything." + +"_Est, est, est!_ What is there to be said about it, especially? +Naturally, it has gained and lost, as is always the case. The innocent +audacity, the Pompeian _abandon_, that charmed me in the little sketch +has, as a whole, suffered in the execution. You might do better, +perhaps, to disguise your respect for Nature a little more. And, +by-the-way--with all respect for this Nature--what sort of a model did +you have? Of course it is very strongly idealized?" + +"Not in the least. A pure _facsimile_." + +"What? This neck and breast, these shoulders, arms--" + +"A conscientious copy, without any additions." + +Fat Rossel stood up. + +"I should have to see that to believe it," he said. "Look here, +compared with this the conventionalities of Canova are mere wretched +sugar-work. And that is what I was just going to say to you--the +Grecian element that was in the sketch is gone. In its place there are +a grace, an _esprit_, an elegance of form--and that, too, of a +spontaneous sort. Don't you find it so, my dear baron? You are a lucky +man, Hans, to have such a being run into your hands. In what garden did +this little slip grow?" + +Jansen shrugged his shoulders. + +"Come, out with it, old Jealousy! You need not lend her to me for any +length of time--only for one forenoon. I happen to have a composition +in mind, for which this little one--" + +"You will have to run after luck more persistently than the law of your +laziness permits," added Jansen, quietly. "I myself didn't catch it by +the forelock this time without some trouble; and, although this +forelock is very thick, and shone before me in the most beautiful +red--" + +"Red hair? Now no dodges will help you, Jansen, you must hand her over +to me. Something of this sort has floated before my fancy for weeks +past--something of the wood-nymph, water-nymph nature." + +"Hand her over! But it isn't in my power. Friend Felix happened to drop +in, the second time she was with me. She took this so to heart that, +since then, she has disappeared, leaving no traces behind her." + +"Is there virtue under this beautiful exterior? So much the better. +Nature will enjoy her natural bounds all the longer, and so virtue will +also tend to the benefit of art. Tell me where she lives--the rest +shall be my care." + +He noted down the address, which was written in charcoal on the wall +near the window, and then advanced toward the large, veiled group in +the middle of the studio. + +"How far have you got with the Eve?" + +"Unfortunately, I can't show her to you to-day," replied Jansen, +quickly. "She is just at a stage--" + +"What the devil!" laughed Fat Rossel; "this looks very dangerous! How +long is it since you have fastened your cloths down with safety pins? +Don't you want the priests to snuff around here when they wander in +from the saint-factory?" + +A knock on the door relieved Jansen from the evident embarrassment of +answering. The door opened, and Angelica, in her painting-jacket and +with her brush behind her ear, just as she had come from her easel, +appeared on the threshold. + +"Good-day, Herr Jansen," she said. "Ah! I am disturbing you. You have +company. I will come again later--I merely had a favor to ask." + +"And you hesitate to give utterance to this request before a colleague +and old admirer?" cried Rossel, going up to the artist and gallantly +kissing her hand. "If you only knew, Fraeulein Angelica how this +undeserved slight hurt my tender heart!" + +"Herr Rossel," continued the artist, "you are a scoffer, and, as a +punishment for boasting of a tender heart, which you do not possess, +you shall not be given a chance to see something beautiful. I simply +wished to request Herr Jansen to come and look at my picture, for I +have just had my last sitting, and my friend has given me permission. +She knows how important his judgment is to me." + +"But if I vow to be very good, and not to open my mouth--" + +"You have such a deprecating way of screwing up the corners--" + +"I will hold my hat before my face--only my eyes shall peep over the +rim." + +"For Heaven's sake, come then! although I don't place much confidence +in your most solemn vows. I place myself under Herr Jansen's +protection; and if the Herr Baron would perhaps like to come too?" + +Jansen had not spoken a word, but, with conspicuous haste had exchanged +his frock for a coat and had washed the dust from his hands. + +When they entered the studio above, they found Rosenbusch already +engaged in the most enthusiastic admiration of the picture, while, at +the same time, he endeavored in his chivalrous way, to bestow at least +half of his enthusiasm upon the original. + +Julie had risen and gone toward his chair. When she saw Angelica return +with a triple escort, instead of the one she expected, she seemed +slightly confused. But the next moment she greeted the gentlemen, whom +Angelica introduced to her, with easy grace. + +A pause followed. Jansen had stepped before the picture, and, with the +great authority which he enjoyed in this circle, not even Edward +himself dared to say a word before he had expressed his opinion. It was +Jansen's way not to reduce his impression immediately to words. But, on +this occasion, he remained silent unusually long. + +"Tell me frankly, dear friend," Angelica began at last, "that I have +once more undertaken something that deserves the palm for no other +reason than for its audacity. If you only knew what contemptuous +epithets I have heaped upon myself while I was painting! I have made +myself out so bad, have so run myself down, that Homo would not take a +piece of bread from me if he had heard me. And yet, in the midst of my +dejection, I still took such unheard-of pleasure in my daubery that, do +what I would, I could not let my courage sink. If my friend were not +present, I should be able to explain to you the reason for this. As it +is, it would seem in very bad taste if I should forthwith make her a +declaration of love in the presence of witnesses." + +The sculptor still remained silent. At last he said, dryly, + +"You may set your mind at rest, Angelica. Don't you know very well that +this is not only your best picture, but, moreover, a most excellent +performance, such as one only too seldom meets with nowadays?" + +A deep blush of joyful embarrassment suffused the good-natured, round +face of the painter. + +"Is that your candid opinion?" cried she. "Oh, my dear Jansen! if it +only is not meant as a salve for the goadings of my own conscience--" + +Jansen did not answer. He was once more deeply absorbed in the +contemplation of the picture. Now and then he cast a critical glance at +the original, who stood quietly by and appeared to be thinking of other +things. + +In the mean while Edward labored zealously to efface the bad opinion +that Angelica had formed of his love for critical mockery. He praised +the work highly in detail--the drawing, the arrangement, the successful +coloring, and the simple light effects, and what he found to criticise +in the details of the technique only served to heighten the worth of +his commendation as a whole. + +"But, do you know," he said, enthusiastically, "this is only one way to +do it, a very skillful and talented way, but by no means the only one. +What do you say, for instance, to dark-red velvet, a light golden chain +around the neck, a dark carnation in the hair--_a la Paris Bordone_? or +a gold brocade--I happen to have a magnificent genuine costume at home, +that was sent to me last week from Venice? or shall we have simply the +hair disheveled, a dark dress, behind it a laurel-bush--" + +"And so on, with graces _in infinitum_!" laughed the painter. "You must +know, Julie, this gentleman has already painted thousands of the most +magnificent pictures--unfortunately nearly all in imagination. No, my +dear Rossel, we are obliged to you. We are only too glad to have +accomplished it in this very modest way, and to have received so +favorable a criticism. My dear friend, although she is an angel of +patience, has had quite enough to do with the fine arts for some time +to come." + +"O, Angelica!" sighed Rossel with comical pathos, "you are merely +jealous: you will vouchsafe to no other person the good fortune that +has been accorded to you. Now, what if I had always been waiting for +just such a task, so that I, too, might produce something immortal?" + +"You?--your laziness is all that is immortal about you!" replied the +painter. + +They continued for a while to chaff and plague one another, Rosenbusch +and Felix also contributing their share. Jansen alone did not jest, and +Julie, too, took advantage of her slight acquaintance to take no +further part in the conversation than common politeness demanded. + +After the men had gone, a long silence followed between the two +friends. The artist had taken up her palette again, in order that she +might, after all, make use of Rossel's hints. Suddenly she said: + +"Well, how did he please you?" + +"Who?" + +"Why, of course, there can be only one in question: the one who exerted +himself least to please anybody, not even you." + +"Jansen? Why, I scarcely know him!" + +"One knows such men in the first quarter of an hour, when one is as old +as we two are. It is just that which distinguishes the great men and +the thorough artists from the petty and the half-way ones--one knows +the lion by his claws. Just one look, and you will believe him capable +of the most incredible and superhuman things." + +"I really believe, my dear, you are in--" + +"Love with him! No. I am, at all events, sensible enough not to let +anything so nonsensical as that enter my head. But, if he were to say +to me: 'I should take it as a favor, Angelica, if you would just eat +this bladder-full of flake-white for your breakfast,' or, 'if you would +try to paint with your foot, it would afford me a personal pleasure,' I +believe I should not hesitate a moment. I should think he must +undoubtedly have his reasons for it, and that I was only too stupid to +comprehend them. Don't you see, such is my immovable faith in this +unprecedented man, so impossible does it seem to me that he could do +anything small, foolish, or even commonplace. Something horrible--yes, +something monstrous and insane--I could believe him capable of, and who +knows whether he has not really done something of the sort? He has +something about him like a little Vesuvius, that stands there in the +sun peacefully enough, and yet everybody knows what is boiling inside. +His friends say of Jansen that, if the Berserker once breaks out in +him, he is a bad man to deal with. I felt this from the first, with an +unerring instinct, and I hardly dared to sneeze in his presence. Then I +chanced to meet him in the garden, near the fountain, where he was +combing his Homo, and showing himself pretty awkward at it. He struck +me then as being so helpless that I could not help laughing and +offering myself as a lady's maid for the dog, at which he showed great +delight. That broke the ice between us, and, since then, I take the +most inconceivable liberties with him, although my heart still +continues to thump if he chances to look at me in his quiet, steady +way, for a minute at a time." + +Julie was silent. After some time she said, suddenly: + +"It is true he has eyes such as I have never before seen in a man. One +can read in those eyes that he is not happy; all his genius cannot make +him glad. Don't you find it so, too? Wonderfully lonely eyes! Like +a man who has lived long, years in a desert, and has seen no living +soul--nothing but earth and sun. Do you know anything of his life?" + +"No. He himself never speaks of it. Nor do any of the others know +what he may not have gone through before he came to Munich. That was +about five years ago. But now, if you will just sit still a moment +longer--so!--it's only for the reflection in the left eye, and the +retouching about the mouth." + +Then the painting went on for another hour in silence. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +On the outskirts of the "English Garden" there lies, among other +pleasure-resorts of its class, the so-called "Garden of Paradise." In +the midst of a grove stands a large, stately building, at the laying of +whose corner-stone no one would have ventured to predict that it would +some day become a place of refuge for so mixed a company. Here, on +summer days, merry and thirsty folk are wont to gather round the tables +and benches, while a band plays from a covered platform. But the large +hall on the ground floor of the house is generally used for dancing, +while the lower side-wings are opened for spectators and for couples +that are resting from the waltz. + +It was eleven o'clock at night, A thunderstorm, that had gathered +toward evening, had prevented the advertised garden-concert from taking +place. When the storm had scattered again after a few harmless +thunderclaps, the seats filled up very slowly; and the beer-drawer at +the open booth among the trees had plenty of time to doze between the +stray mugs that were handed in to him to be filled. For this reason the +garden had been closed earlier than usual; and when it struck eleven +the house lay as still and deserted as though there were not a living +being within. + +And yet the long hall in the left wing, which was reached from the +garden by a few steps, was, if not actually as light as day, at all +events sufficiently illuminated by a dozen lamps along the wall. In the +rear, where at this time scarcely any one passed through the deserted +street, the upper, semicircular part of the windows was left open for +the sake of ventilation, while the lower part remained tightly closed. +Dark figures approached along the street, singly, or in groups of two +or three just as they chanced to come together, and entered the house +by the back door. On the side toward the English Garden everything +remained as dark and lifeless as was ever an old wall behind which +counterfeiters ply their trade in dimly-lighted cellars. + +The interior of the hall was, when seen by daylight, not altogether +unornamented. The inspired hand of some house-painter had covered the +wall spaces between the windows with bold landscape conceptions _al +fresco_, where were to be seen, amid fabulous castles, cities, +river-gorges, and wooded ravines, blue wanderers strolling about in +green hats, and horsemen careering on chargers of very questionable +anatomy, followed by dogs that belonged to no known race. In the +dazzling blue sky above these outgrowths of a cheery decorator's +fantasy, sometimes through a tree-top or the slanting pinnacle of a +robber-castle, a society of carpenters' apprentices, which met here +once a week, had driven large nails that they might hang up +symmetrically their various diplomas, decorated with pictures and +mottoes, and dotted with little balls. + +But, on the night of which we speak, all this splendor had disappeared +behind a thick veil of growing plants. Tall evergreen bushes stood +between the windows, and stretched their slender branches to the roof, +so that the squalid walls seemed transformed into a tropical garden. A +long, narrow table, with green, big-bellied flagons, occupied the +middle of the room, and in a corner was a cask, about the polished tap +of which hung a wreath of roses, while on a little table near by stood +baskets with white rolls and a few plates of fruit. + +Only a few dozen chairs surrounded the table, and these were not more +than half occupied, when Jansen and Felix entered the room. Through the +light haze of lamplight and tobacco-smoke they could discern the pale +face of Elfinger beside the battle-painter's blooming countenance; the +fez-covered head of Edward Rossel, comfortably reclining in an American +rocking-chair and smoking a chibouque; then one and another of the +artists who had occasionally shown themselves in Jansen's studio. +Nothing like a servant was anywhere to be seen; and each, as soon as he +had emptied his glass, went himself to the cask and filled it. Some +strolled, chatting, along the green hedge up and down the hall; others +sat, absent and expectant, in their places, as though in a theatre +before the beginning of the play; and only Fat Rossel, who alone +rejoiced in a comfortable seat, seemed to blow clouds of smoke up to +the ceiling as if already in a true paradisaic frame of mind. + +As Felix approached him, there arose at his side a tall, thin figure in +a hunting-blouse, with high riding-boots, and a short French pipe +between his lips. Once before, while walking in the street, Felix had +caught a hasty glimpse of this singularly-shaped face, with its +choleric complexion and its close-cropped hair, its coal-black +imperial, and a broad scar across the right temple; its owner had been +mounted on a handsome English horse, which had attracted his attention +more than the rider. This man managed his lank limbs awkwardly and +clumsily, as if he had lost his natural balance the moment that he +ceased to feel his horse between his legs. Besides, he had a way of +either continually pulling at his goatee, or of twitching the lobe of +his right ear. Felix noticed that he wore a little gold ring in his +left ear. The right one was disfigured; the earring, that had once been +worn there, seemed to have been torn out by force at some time or +other. + +"I take the liberty of introducing myself," said the lank individual, +bowing to Felix with soldierly formality. "My name is Aloys von +Schnetz, a first-lieutenant on the retired list; as a friend of the +seven liberal arts, I am allowed the honor of entering this Paradise. +Inasmuch as amphibious creatures undoubtedly existed even in the garden +of God, therefore a being like myself, who occupies a middle place, at +once an aristocrat and a proletarian, no longer a soldier, for good +reasons, and also not an artist--unfortunately for still better +reasons--may be said not to be out of place among good people, of whom +each has some pretty definite aims and powers. You, too, as Fat Rossel +has just confided to me, belong, to a certain extent, to my class, +although I hope and trust that you represent a somewhat more edifying +species. Come, take a seat here by my side. There are people who +declare that I put them out of humor. I am accused of giving myself +great pains to see the world as it is, and to call things by their +right names; sensitive natures call that cynicism, and find it +unpleasant. But you shall see it is not so bad, and here in Paradise I +try to forget, as far as possible, that we pick sour apples from the +tree of knowledge. However, I ought, like a true amphibian, to conduct +you, after so dry an introduction, into a moist element." + +He set his long, Don-Quixote legs in motion toward the cask, filled two +bumpers and brought them back to Felix. + +"We have become converted to wine," he said, growling it out in a half +ironical, half bitter tone; "although, strictly speaking, it is an +anachronism, as it is well known that wine was given to mankind as a +compensation for a lost Paradise. Beer, on the other hand, is entirely +an invention of the darker middle ages, to make men mere idle slaves to +the priests, and it has never yet occurred to any one to seek truth +anywhere but in wine. So, then, here's to your health, and hoping that +you may succeed better than I have in becoming one of these primitive +men!" + +Felix knocked glasses with his queer new friend, and then proceeded to +observe the unknown persons who had in the mean while strolled in. +Schnetz gave him their names. Most of them had passed their first +youth. Only one boyish face, of a foreign cast, gazed dreamily with +big, black eyes into the cloud of smoke that circled up from his +cigarette. It was, Schnetz told his neighbor, that of a young Greek +painter, twenty-two years old, who was, in spite of his delicate, +almost girl-like appearance, a dangerous lady-killer. He was not really +intimately acquainted with any of them, and only Rossel's intercession +in his favor and his talent, which was by no means slight, had procured +him the entrance into this circle. + +A little, bent old man, with delicate features and snow-white hair, was +the last to enter. He hung his hat and cloak on a nail, and took his +seat in the only unoccupied chair at the upper end of the table near +Jansen, who gave him a kindly welcome. + +Felix was surprised at the presence of an old man amid this rising +generation. To be sure, Schnetz, too, was no longer a youth--he might +well be over forty. But in every muscle of his sinewy figure throbbed a +suppressed energy, while it was evident that the quiet, white-haired +old man, who sat at the upper end of the table, had long since left +behind him the storms and struggles of life. + +"I see that you are puzzling your head about our 'creator,'" said +Schnetz, twisting his goatee. "For that matter I don't know much more +about his intimate affairs than I do about the personal experiences of +the real Deity. That he is an artist, or rather that he was once--of +that there can be no doubt. Every word that he utters, when the +conversation turns upon art, proves this. He undoubtedly belongs, +however, to a geological stratum whose fauna has died out. Nor has any +one of us ever seen one of his works, or known how or where or from +what he lives. His name is Schoepf; and when, three years ago, while +our Paradise was still in its infancy, he was introduced here by +Jansen--whom he had visited in his studio, and whose interest he had +speedily known how to enlist--we permitted ourselves the cheap joke of +twisting Schoepf into Schoepfer,[2] and at the same time of appointing +him host and chief steward of the Paradise. At that time we still +reveled in buffoonery of that sort, each of us bearing some kind of +appropriate nickname; and we continued to keep this up until at last +the cheap joke was run into the ground. But we had grown to like and +respect the old man, who showed himself such a quiet and friendly +providence that the first man could hardly have boasted of a better +one. He looks after all our business affairs, takes charge of the +society's treasury, selects our wine, and keeps an eye on the gardener +who decorates our hall. With all this we see him but once a month. +During the intervening period he vanishes. When we hold our masked +ball, at which the _daughters_ of Eve are also allowed to appear, he +makes himself useful until the first stroke of the fiddle is given, and +then he creeps off home again." + +"It is hardly probable that he can be a native here, if he can play the +_role_ of a mysterious personage so easily." + +"Don't you believe it. Here in Munich there are a large number of such +subterranean existences, whose strange ways and dodges escape +attention--ay, even common gossip--for the reason that here there is no +society, in the true sense of the word. In every other city of equal, +or even of greater size, one knows pretty well what his dear fellow-men +are about; at least this is the case in regard to the notable ones who +rise above the common level--one knows what they have to pay their +tailor with, or how much they are owing him. But this place swarms with +amphibious beings of both sexes who, when they are no longer able to +keep above water, dive down into a more or less turbid element, where +they become invisible. I myself have already had the honor of +introducing myself to you as such a dual being; not that the ground is +unsteady under my feet--I quitted the service of my own accord from +personal motives--but the dryness up there on the surface became +unbearable for me; I am one of the malcontents, of whom you see so many +here, who have slammed the door in the face of so-called good society, +partly because it is insipid, partly because it is base, and who now, +in paradisaic freedom, are trying to find their world in their friends. +But your glass is still full! Come! You must do our Jordan more honor." + +"A Jordan in Paradise? My geography does not go so far as that, or +perhaps new discoveries have--" + +Schnetz had just began to explain to him that this noble wine came from +the vineyard of Herr Jordan at Deidesheim, and that for this reason +they had agreed to transfer the river of the promised land into India +on their maps, when Elfinger rose and informed them that it was "his +turn" to-night, and that he had prepared something, but that first some +sketches would be exhibited. + +Upon this a number of studies were passed around the table, landscape +sketches, and plans and designs of all kinds--among others the drawings +of a young architect for the building of a special hall for the +Paradise Club, which excited great applause, and called forth the most +amusing propositions as to the manner in which funds should be raised +to cover the cost of this most timely work. + +In the mean while an insignificant-looking, lean man, with an +awkward manner, and wearing a threadbare coat that was buttoned +tight to conceal the absence of a waistcoat, had taken a large gray +sheet of paper from a portfolio, had fastened it with tacks to the +window-shutter, so that the lamps on the wall threw a pretty strong +light upon it, and had then stepped back in order to invite an +inspection of his work. It was a pen and ink sketch, full of figures, +the lights touched up with white, but done with so complete a disregard +of effect that the composition appeared, at the first glance, to be a +strangely-confused swarm, in which it was impossible to make out either +the details or the plan as a whole. + +"Our Cornelian, Philip Emanuel Kohle!" growled Schnetz. "Another of +those unlucky erratic bowlders in the midst of the flat common of our +modern art, torn from the summit of some heaven-aspiring mountain, and +then rolled, a strange intruder, into the fertile plain of mediocrity, +where no one knows what to do with it. Let us go nearer. These outline +fanatics scorn to produce an effect at a distance." + +"I have taken for my subject," explained the artist, "a poem of +Hoelderlin's--you undoubtedly all know it--Hyperion's song of fate--or, +if it has escaped your recollection--I have brought the text with me." + +Upon this he drew from his pocket a very dog'seared little book and +read the verses, although he knew them by heart. As he proceeded his +cheeks flushed, his eyes sparkled, and his whole meagre figure appeared +to grow in height; and when he finished there was silence for a while +in the group that was examining the drawing. + +The artist still seemed to have an explanation to make, but he did not +utter it: as if, after such words of genius, any prosaic paraphrase +would be a desecration. And, indeed, the singular composition now +sufficiently explained itself. + +A mountain, whose base covered the whole lower breadth of the large +sheet, rose up in jagged tiers like a tower, and ended in a smooth +plateau, on which were seen reclining, veiled in a light cloud, the +figures of gods assembled about a banquet table, while others, with +winged feet, either strolled about singly or arm-in-arm, or amused +themselves with dance and song. All seemed a dreamy, floating whirl of +forms, heightened here and there by abrupt foreshortenings of the long +limbs and by angular effects of drapery. Among these Olympian figures, +but separated by an impassable barrier of cloud and storm, could be +seen the races of mankind, in the most various and spirited groups, +suffering all the woes of mortals. Nearest the gods, and hallowed as it +were by their proximity, children were playing and lovers were +whispering; but the paths that branched off soon led to scenes of +suffering and misery, and certain symbolical figures, which were +scattered in among the human forms at the principal passes of the +mountain, made manifest the intention of the designer to represent both +the effects and power of vice and passion, while the division into +seven stages pointed to the seven deadly sins. A solemn, unbending +earnestness, and a certain loftiness in their submission to this +downfall-- + + "Through long years into the uncertain depths below"-- + +gave to this somewhat unwieldy composition a great depth of feeling +which animated even what was grotesque, and impressed upon the stronger +parts the unmistakable stamp of a great mind. + +The mere number of the figures occupied the attention for a long time; +then followed all sorts of criticism, which the designer bore without +contradiction--no one knew whether from defenselessness or secret +obstinacy. For Jansen's opinion only did he watch with eagerness, who, +after his usual fashion, allowed the others to talk, while he merely +pointed now and then with an eloquent finger to some defective spot. + +The only one who had remained quietly seated, and who had looked at the +sheet across the table and down the whole length of the hall, through a +little ivory opera-glass, was Edward. + +At length Rosenbusch, whose high tenor had rung out in enthusiastic +expressions of praise above all the confusion of voices, turned to him. + +"What!" he cried, in a hearty tone of challenge, "will not the blessed +gods rouse themselves this once from their reclining-place, and cast a +gracious look upon this work of a mortal?" + +"Pardon me, my dear Rosebud," replied Fat Rossel, lowering his voice so +that he should not be heard by Kohle; "you know I like to have what is +beautiful come to me, instead of having to run painfully after it; and +the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel made the most profound impression +upon me, because a man can only enjoy it thoroughly lying on his back. +Concerning this last heaven-towering monument of thought, that my +godfather has set up"--for so he had persisted in calling him +ever since he had aptly, though ironically, christened one of his +unnamed, thoughtful drawings, and Kohle had accepted the title in sober +earnest--"concerning this I am not gymnast enough to follow his motives +up seven stories high without growing giddy. However, when you have all +finished, I will draw up a chair in front of it and go to work; or, to +tell the truth, I should prefer to do it tomorrow alone with him." + +"I should be very glad, Rossel, if I might bring you the sketch +to-morrow," stammered the pale man, who had probably overheard the +scoffing words, and had blushed deeply. + +"Would you really like it, godfather?" said Edward, with a shake of the +head. "No, my good friend, if my heresies have reached your ears after +all, let us come to an honorable understanding; and here in Paradise, +at all events, let us wear no cloaks. You know that all paintings that +represent thought make my head ache; that, to my mind, a single +thoughtless Venus of Titian outweighs a whole Olympus full of spiritual +motives, such as swarm about like ants over your big pound-cake of an +allegorical mountain. Yes, we are old antipodes, my dear godfather; +which fact, by-the-way, does not lessen our friendship. On the +contrary, when I see how you and your creations are losing flesh +through pure intellect, I feel a hearty compassion mingled with my +esteem. You should try a milk-cure, my good godfather, at the full +breasts of our old mother Nature; you should follow the flesh for a +year or so, instead of high ideas--" + +"It is not every tree that has its bark full grown," interposed Kohle, +meekly. + +"True. But a tree that has no bark at all!--and, you see, that's just +how your whole style appears to me, you mighty disciple of Cornelius! +We see the complicated structure of your thoughts, we see how the sap +of your ideas circulates through it; all of which is very remarkable +and edifying, but anything rather than artistic. For ought not true art +to work upon us like a higher Nature, without putting forth much +ingenuity and subtilty, without all that complication of poetical +affinities and philosophical _finesse_? No, it should be simple and +plain, but purified by the flame of genius from all weakness, all +defects, and every kind of wretchedness. For instance, in the +contemplation of a beautiful woman, lying there so quietly, or of a +stately senator, or of an 'Adoration of the Kings,' how much does one +think about the ingenuity of the thing? Either it conveys no meaning, +or an incomprehensible one, or even an unprofitable one. And yet it +charms us, even across the whole width of the hall, merely by its +_silhouette_, or its wealth of color, or its simple and majestic +sensuous beauty, such as we seldom or never find in Nature without some +vulgar adjunct. On the other hand, take a poem in picture like the one +before us--I invariably find myself searching at the foot of the frame +to see whether the draughtsman has not added some notes that may serve +to explain the text. A printed paper answers the whole purpose quite as +well, something entitled 'The picture and its description;' and the +dear Philistine who talks about the 'arts of culture'--because he +thinks it is with his own special culture that they have to do--is only +too happy if he can imagine that he is going through some connected +process of thought while he looks at it. But _I_ say, long live the art +that leaves no room for thought! And, now, give me something to drink!" + +Schnetz filled his glass for him, which he drained at one draught as if +he were exhausted by his long oration. A painful silence had ensued; +the depreciatory tone in which the words had been spoken had depressed +even those who were of Rossel's way of thinking. At length a mild and +somewhat husky voice was heard proceeding from the upper end of the +table, and they saw that old Schoepf had taken upon himself to defend +the cause of the party attacked. + +"You are undoubtedly right in the main, Herr Rossel," said he. "In +the great epochs of art--among the Greeks, and the Italians of the +_cinque-cento_--mind and Nature were inseparably united. But, +unfortunately, they have quarreled since then, and it is quite as rare +to find a painter of the so-called fleshly school who knows how to give +soul to his form as it is to find a poet among draughtsmen who succeeds +perfectly in incorporating his conceptions. In fact it is a period of +extremes, of specialties, and of strife. But is not strife the father +of things? Shall we not hope that from this chaos a new and beautiful +world will crystallize? And, until then, should we not give every one a +chance who fights with honest weapons and open visor? What if there are +artists who have more to say than can be shown? Who cannot look upon +their inner life in such a spirit of tranquil beauty, but see in it a +tragedy which must work itself out in discords? And, indeed, the life +of man, as it is to-day, has passed out of the idyllic stage; on every +side we see intellect leading the van, and enjoyment and pleasure +limping after. An art that shows no traces of this, would that still be +_our_ art?" + +"Let it be whatever it liked," cried Fat Rossel, leisurely rising; "it +would be my art at all events. But, naturally, that need matter little +to you. And by the way--I have not once shaken hands with you this +evening, my lord and creator. I do so now, and at the same time I thank +you for so bravely dragging my excellent godfather Kohle from out the +fray. He himself likes to keep his best thoughts in his own breast, +unless he has a chance to sketch them on a sheet of paper. And here in +Paradise no one ought to fall upon his fellow-man in the murderous +fashion that I just did. Kohle, I esteem you. You are a character, and +have the courage of your convictions, in defiance of all the lusts of +the flesh. I thank you, especially, for that poem of Hoelderlin's, that +I confess I did not know, and that is very fine; how does it go?..." + +He seated himself with the greatest good-nature by the side of his +"godfather," and began to go thoroughly over the sketch, and to make a +number of keen criticisms of its details. In the mean time the young +Greek had placed in position a large sketch in colors, dashed off in +bold, strong lines; and now this took its turn of criticism. + +It had for its subject, as the artist explained in broken German, in a +soft, musical voice, a scene from Goethe's "Bride of Corinth." The +youth had sunk back upon his couch, and his ghostly bride had thrown +herself vampire-like upon him, "eagerly drinking in the flame of his +lips," while the mother, standing outside the door, seemed to be +listening to the suppressed voices, just ready to burst in and disturb +the pair. + +Over this work also criticism held its breath for a time, though for a +very different reason. The whole picture breathed such a stifling +spirit of sultry passion that even the members of the Paradise Club, +who most certainly were not prudish, seem to feel that the bounds of +what was permissible had been overstepped. + +Once more Rosenbusch was the first to speak. + +"There he sits over yonder in the realm of pure spirit," he cried to +Fat Rossel, who was still studying Kohle's work, "while we here are +dealing with pure flesh. Holla! You man of the silhouette and the +beautiful decorative form, come over here and exorcise this demon!" + +Edward nodded without looking round; he seemed to know the work +already, and to have no desire to express himself concerning it. + +As none of the others uttered a single word, the artist finally +appealed directly to Jansen, and begged for his judgment. + +"Hm!" growled the sculptor, "the work is full of talent. Only you have +christened it wrongly--or have forgotten the two veils." + +"Christened it wrongly?" + +"In the name of Goethe; Saint Priapus stood godfather to it." + +"But--the two veils!" stammered the youth, who had cast down his eyes. + +"Beauty and horror. Only read the poem. You will see how artistically +everything immodest in it is veiled by these two. And yet--a decidedly +talented work. It will find admirers fast enough." + +He turned away and went quietly back to his seat. At the same instant +the young man tore the picture from the wall, and, without saying a +word, held the gilt frame in which it was enclosed over the nearest +lamp. + +Perhaps he had expected that some one would seize him by the arm; but +no one stirred. The flame seized eagerly upon the canvas. When a part +was consumed, the young man swung himself upon the window-sill and +hurled the burning picture through the upper part of the window, which +was open, into the dark garden below, where it fell hissing on the damp +gravel. + +Upon springing down again he was greeted with general applause, which +he received with a gloomy brow and compressed lips. His hasty act had +evidently given him no inward relief. Nor could even Jansen's kind +greeting succeed immediately in banishing his sinister mood. It was his +innermost nature that he had consigned to this fiery death. + +Felix, upon whom this curious incident had made a deep impression, was +just on the point of going up to the youth, whom he saw standing apart +from the others and enveloping himself in a dense cloud of tobacco +smoke, when a clock in one of the church steeples near by announced, +with its twelve slow strokes, that the hour of midnight had arrived. + +On the instant all conversation was hushed, the chairs were drawn up in +line; and it then occurred to Felix, for the first time, that Elfinger, +whose "turn" it was this evening, had left the hall some little time +before, in company with Rosenbusch. + +The folding-doors that led into the central hall flew open, and +disclosed on the threshold, illuminated by lamps at the sides, and +standing on a framework draped in red, a puppet-theatre that occupied +almost the entire width of the space. The table was quickly pushed to +one side, and the chairs for the spectators were arranged in rows. +After everybody had taken his place, a short prelude was played +upon a flute behind the scenes; and then the curtain in front +of the little stage rose, and a puppet in a dress-coat and black +knee-breeches, carrying his hat in his hand--with the air of a director +who has an official communication to make, or of a dramatic poet who +has held himself in readiness behind the wings, to respond in case he +should possibly be called before the footlights--delivered a rhymed +prologue. In this he greeted the associates, and, after lamenting in +half-satirical, half-serious stanzas, the decline of art and of the +love of the beautiful, introduced his troop of players, of whom he +especially boasted that no modern strifes or heartburnings ever invaded +their temple, or kept them from a pure and lofty devotion to the Muses. +His speech concluded, the little man made a dignified obeisance, and +the curtain fell, to be again drawn up after a few moments, upon the +little drama that had been prepared for the amusement of the company. + +It bore the title of "The Wicked Brothers," and was in reality but the +introduction to a longer play, designed to be produced upon some +future evening. In rhyming verses it set forth the history of a +musician, an artist, and a poet--three brothers who had been left at +the foundling-asylum of a little village, and had grown up to become +the curse of the region with their pranks; a very demon of evil-doing +appearing to possess them, and their parentage remaining an +impenetrable mystery to the quiet village folk. To them, after some of +the worst of their misdeeds, and just as the villagers were about to +wreak their vengeance on them, appeared no less a personage than the +devil himself, revealing to them that he was their father, and that he +had called them into being that they might work the ruin of the human +race. This said, he summoned them away with him to undertake their +mission in a larger field than this of their apprenticeship. And here +the action left them; the fantastic little piece closing at last with a +short epilogue by the same puppet who had introduced the play, his +final verses promising the Paradise associates that on some other night +they should enjoy a view of the results of this deep plot against their +kind, but hinting, nevertheless, that they should see how, in the end, +the true and beautiful should triumph, and the fell scheming of the +brothers and their father should be brought to naught. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +The play came to an end amid great applause. The quaintness of the +composition, the easy flow of the words, and that mixture of gaiety and +melancholy which is always effective, excited such enthusiasm among the +spectators that the clapping would have no end, and the little puppet +who recited the epilogue was obliged to come forward again and again to +return thanks in the name of the poet. + +Felix, especially, found much to admire in the little comedy, that had +apparently lost the charm of novelty for the others; especially the +extraordinary life-likeness of the little figures, scarcely two spans +high, which were carved, painted, and dressed in the most careful +manner, each in accordance with his character; the astonishing +dexterity with which they moved upon the stage, and, finally, and above +all else, the masterly art of the delivery. + +The voices changed so rapidly and distinctly, the keynote to each +_role_ was so happily struck, and in the long speeches of the devil the +speaker developed so brilliant a power that there was probably not one +person among the audience who could repress a feeling of creeping +horror, such as one has when ghost stories are told in the dark. + +When the rows had broken up again, and everybody was standing about +talking and laughing noisily, Felix took occasion to express to Schnetz +his amazement that a person of such great rhetorical talent should have +turned his back forever upon his art, and have settled down at a +clerk's desk. + +"He will have all or nothing!" remarked the lieutenant. "Since he lost +one of his eyes, and deluded himself into the belief that with a glass +eye he would not be fit for the stage, he is far too proud to step down +from the high horse of the tragedian to the donkey of the public +reader. Every one knows whether he is acting to his own disadvantage +when he plays the malcontent. It is true, though, some one really ought +to prevail upon him to become the manager of a puppet-theatre. And +then, besides, it would offer a good employment for Rosenbusch, who +makes his puppets for him, and lends him a helping hand at the +exhibition. Although, to be sure, anything of that sort only affords +pleasure to a person of his stamp so long as it is an art which earns +him no bread. He has been puttering away over this farce for three +weeks at least, and letting everything else slide in consequence of it. +If it were exhibited for an entrance fee, he would soon be tired of +it." + +Elfinger now entered again, and was obliged to submit to the applause +showered upon him in his proper person, and to acknowledge the toasts +drunk in his honor. He modestly refused, however, to accept the +applause, since the thanks of the audience belonged more properly to +the author, who was not himself, but a poet known to them all, who +cherished a wish to be admitted to Paradise. It was merely with this +end in view that he had written the text for the puppets, in the hope +of introducing himself in this way to the society, and of winning their +good opinion. + +His admission was immediately agreed upon by acclamation, without the +usual formalities. Kohle begged the loan of the manuscript, as he +wished to illustrate it in a series of sketches. Rossel began, after +his usual fashion, to make criticisms upon different parts, censuring +especially the imitation of Immermann's "Merlin." Elfinger defended the +poem, and the dispute had begun to run in danger of becoming heated, +when the door was thrown open and Rosenbusch rushed in in a state of +great excitement. + +"Treachery!" he cried; "black, villainous treachery! Hell sends forth +its spies to ferret out the secrets of Paradise! The veil of night is +no longer sacred; profane curiosity is plucking at the curtain of our +mysteries--and, by-the-way, give me something to drink!" + +All pressed around the breathless speaker, who had thrown himself into +a chair, refusing, however, in spite of the confusion of questions and +suggestions that went on about him, to give any explanation whatever +until he had moistened his thirsty throat. Not until he had done this +to the most liberal extent did he begin to relate his adventure. + +After his assistance behind the scenes was no longer needed, he had +swung himself out of one of the windows of the central hall into the +cool garden, in order to refresh himself a little in the night air. So +he strolled comfortably up and down under the trees, studying the +clouds and occasionally playing a few snatches on his flute, until he +at last experienced a most remarkable thirst. As he was slowly walking +around the house, with the intention of rejoining the company by way of +the back-door, he suddenly beheld two suspicious-looking figures, +women, in long dark cloaks and with hoods or veils over their heads, +who stood at one of the windows intently peering in through a crack in +the shutters. He tried to surprise them, and catch them _in flagrante +delicto_. But, stealthily as he crept upon them, the crunching of the +gravel had betrayed him. They both immediately rushed away from the +window and fled in the direction of the gate, he after them like +lightning, all the more eagerly because he saw a carriage waiting +outside in the street. And sure enough, he succeeded in catching one of +them by the sleeve, just as she reached the lattice-gate--the stouter +one, who carried something under her cloak which hindered her in +running. The prisoner besought him, in a frightened but evidently +disguised voice, to let her go--she had done no harm, a mere chance, +and other excuses of a like sort. He, on his part, excited by anger and +indignation, and not a little by curiosity, would not let go, but +insisted upon learning their names; the cloak, that he held firmly, had +already begun to rip in a suspicious way, as if it were on the point of +tearing and remaining alone in his hands, like the affair of Joseph +reversed, when the other woman, who had in the mean while reached the +carriage, turned round again and said, in a deep voice: + +"Don't be afraid, my dear, the gentleman is much too chivalrous to make +an attack on two unprotected ladies. _Venez, ma chere!_" + +"These words," he continued, springing up, "made--I confess it to my +shame--so strong an impression upon me that I, ass that I was, let go +of the cloak and the woman for the purpose of taking off my hat and +making a very polite bow to the second of the wretches. They were both, +however, too much frightened to laugh at my devilish absurdity, and +spoke not another word, but slipped away from me into the carriage, and +drove off the devil knows where." + +"And I stood there and could have knocked my brains out; for it +occurred to me in a second what a wonderful figure I must have cut in +the affair. But the best is still to come. What did the woman have +under her cloak? In struggling with her I had several times struck +against it, and noticed that it must be something four-cornered, +something like a picture-frame. And suddenly, as I was very sulkily +sneaking back again toward the house, it occurred to me, 'what if it +were the Bride of Corinth! Now, supposing I go and see what really +became of it.' I knew perfectly well out of which window Stephanopulos +had sent it flying. So I searched and searched--but, grope about as I +would, no trace of it could be discovered, and inasmuch as the ground +all around the place is still full of little puddles, and the flame +must undoubtedly have been immediately extinguished, you may bet ten to +one that these spying night-rovers saw it burning--perhaps indeed were +first led by it to slink into the garden; and that now they have borne +away their booty to a place of safety." + +A great tumult followed upon this communication. Some of the youngest, +excited by wine, wanted to rush out on the track of the flying women, +in order that they might recover the stolen property. The wildest +proposals were heard as to how they should take revenge for this +outrage, and how they should prevent such a desecration of their mystic +rites in the future. All these noisy ones were silenced when Jansen +suddenly took up the matter, and admonished them to listen to reason. +What was done here had no cause to shun the light. The only one who was +personally affected by the matter was Stephanopulos. Since he did not +appear to be much troubled, the others might rest content. + +So said, so done; and the festive feeling once more burst forth in all +its glory. The wine loosened even the heaviest tongues; every one +sought out the neighbor he liked best; and even the young Greek thawed +out so thoroughly from his ill-humor that he condescended to sing some +of the popular airs of his native land, which earned him great +applause. In the mean while Philip Emanuel Kohle went up and down the +hall, like one of the gracious genii, with head high in air and beaming +look, bearing his goblet in his hand, and drinking toasts with +everybody--to the ideal--to resignation and the gods of Greece--and +declaiming, in the intervals, verses of Hoelderlin. + +Schnetz also seemed to be in admirable spirits. He had seated himself +astride of the little cask in the corner, had a few sprigs of +wild-grape vine above his close-cropped head, and was delivering an +oration that no one heard. + +When it struck three o'clock, Elfinger was dancing a fandango with the +architect who had recently returned from Spain, Rosenbusch playing an +accompaniment on the flute; and Fat Rossel had placed three empty +glasses before him, on which he beat time with a lead pencil. Felix, +who had also learned the dance in Mexico, relieved Elfinger after a +time, and gradually the excitement seized upon the others. Jansen alone +remained quiet, but his eyes sparkled joyously. He had erected a sort +of throne for old Schoepf upon the table, and had placed a number of +green plants around it. And there the white-haired old man sat, above +all the noise, until the wine warmed him too, and he rose, and with +charming dignity gave vent to all sorts of odd sayings and wise saws. + +At four o'clock the wine in the cask ran dry. Schnetz announced this +sorrowful discovery to the dancers, singers, and speakers, with a +funereal mien and pathetic earnestness, and summoned them to pay the +last honors to the deceased. A solemn procession was formed; each +person bore a candle, a blazing piece of kindling wood or anything that +would pass for a torch; and, standing in a semicircle about the cask, +they sang a requiem, at the close of which all the lights were suddenly +extinguished. + +And now the pale light of dawn penetrated through the windows, and +Jansen announced that the time had come for the dissolving of the +meeting, which took place according to unvarying usage--all leaving at +the same time. The abundant wine had robbed none of them of their +senses, though a few were not perfectly firm on their legs. As they +passed out, a fresh morning breeze was just springing up on the still +meadows of the English Garden. The trees shivered in the falling dew. +Arm-in-arm the friends sauntered along in the gray morning air, that +cooled their feverish foreheads, humming to themselves snatches of song +and fragments of the fandango; and last of all came Jansen and Felix, +arm-in-arm, now and then pressing closer to one another, both lost in +thought that found no words. + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +Angelica threw down her brush. "It is strange," she said, "that +everything I do to-day is so absurd. At all events the proverb is false +to the core; the beginning is always easy, and only the completion has +its wretched trials. And then, besides, when no one else is working in +the whole house, one appears to one's self to be perfectly crazy with +diligence. Naturally, the saint-factory downstairs stands still on +Sunday. But then the others too! In Rosenbusch's room the mice are +squealing from pure hunger or _ennui_; and I have not heard Jansen's +door squeak once this morning. It is natural that they should be lazy +or have a headache after their night's revel; and they will certainly +miss the Sunday mass in the Pinakothek. Yesterday they were in +Paradise." + +"Paradise?" + +"That is the name they give to their secret society that meets every +four weeks. There must be wild goings on there; at least Rosenbusch, +who, as a general thing, cannot easily keep a secret from me, assumes a +face like the holy Vehm if I ever begin to speak about it. Oh, these +men, Julie, these men! This Maximilian Rosenbusch--I must say that I +really think he is by nature good; indeed, between ourselves, my +dearest, he would be more interesting to me if he looked a little +_less_ moral, did not play on the flute, and were really the terrible +scapegrace that he sometimes makes himself out. But there, one infects +the other, and the very name of 'Paradise!' One can easily conceive +that a pretty antediluvian tone must prevail there, somewhat highly +spiced and free and easy." + +"Do they keep to themselves, or are 'ladies' also present?" + +"I don't know. As a rule, they appear to amuse themselves in quite a +moral manner; but now and then, especially at carnival time, when, for +that matter, every one here in Munich carries the freedom of the mask +pretty far--" + +"Does Jansen also belong to the society?" + +"Of course, he cannot help doing so. But he is said to be one of the +quietest among them, according to Rosenbusch. Upon my life, I would +just like to peep through the keyhole once! 'Oh, had I a jacket and +trousers and hat!'" + +"Why, Angelica, you have the true woman's-rights ideas!" + +The painter drew a deep sigh. + +"Julie," she said, with comical solemnity, "that is just the misfortune +of my life, that two souls dwell in this breast--a timid, old-maidish, +conservative girl's soul by the side of a very bold, dare-devil, +Bohemian artist's temperament. Tell me, did you never in your life +experience a strong desire to cut loose for once from propriety--to do +something thoroughly reckless, improper, unpermissible? Of course I +mean when one was entirely among boon companions, and no one could +reprove the other, because all were possessed of the same demon. The +men fare well in this respect. When they steal back again into the lost +Paradise, they call it a sign of genius. An unfortunate woman, though +she were ten times an artist, and as such perpetually inclined not to +be a Philistine, must never let it be seen in her manner of life that +she can do more than darn stockings!--It is true," she continued, +thoughtfully, "as for women in a body, a whole swarm of talented +women--no matter how much capacity some among them might have for such +a thing--I myself would decline such a Paradise with thanks. Now, why +is that? Does it really amount to this, that we cannot exist by +ourselves alone; that we can neither plan nor bring about anything +successful?" + +"Perhaps it merely arises from the fact that true friendship, real +thorough companionship, is so rare among our sex," answered Julie, +musingly. "We are just as loath to permit another to shine among +ourselves as before the men. But something has just occurred to me; +might not we take advantage of the occasion, and, as you recently +proposed, take a look at Jansen's studio?" + +"And why not rather when he is there himself? He would undoubtedly be +very happy--" + +"No, no!" interposed Julie, hastily, "I will not do that. I have +invariably played such a silly part in studios--because it is +impossible for me to bring myself to pay a trivial compliment--that I +have sworn never again to visit an artist surrounded by his works. You +know it is my Cordelia-like character--whenever my heart is full my +mouth refuses to overflow." + +"Foolish woman!" laughed the artist, hastily wiping her brush and +preparing herself to go out. "You of the public always imagine that we +want to hear eulogies. When you lose the power of speech from +admiration, and make the most foolish and enraptured faces, I like you +a thousand times better." + +Angelica called the janitor, who was busily engaged in the yard +brushing away the moths from an old piece of Gobelin tapestry that +Rosenbusch had recently bought. While he went off to fetch the key to +the studio, she whispered to her friend: + +"We will not go first into the saint-factory, but pass at once into +the holy of holies! It is always painful to see how even such an +artist--one of the few great ones--must use his art to gain bread. It +is true, no human being can imagine why he really has to do it. He +needs almost nothing for himself. And, since he stands quite alone in +the world--to be sure, though, that needs yet to be proved--his saints +must bring him in a great deal of money. What he does with it, whether +he buries it as the wages of sin, walls it up, or speculates with it on +the Bourse-- But here comes our old factotum with the key. Thank you, +Fridolin. Here is something for your trouble. Drink a measure to the +health of this beautiful lady. What, she pleases you too? To be sure +you have had an opportunity to cultivate your taste, living as you do +among artists." + +The flattered old man grinned, attempted to stammer a compliment, and +opened the studio door. Angelica immediately ran up to the "Dancing +Girl" and began to free her from the damp cloths wrapped about her. + +"Now, place yourself here!" she cried, when the figure was entirely +exposed. "To be sure she is divine seen from any side, but viewed in +half-profile--taking in just a little of the back and the outline +standing out so clearly against the bright sky--is it not ravishing? +Does not one feel as if it were just going to spring from its pedestal +and rush through the room, dragging one with it in its mad whirl? I can +never look at this work without my old love for dancing coming back to +me in my old age, and vibrating through every limb! It is a pity that I +am such an ungraceful person, otherwise you would have to tuck up your +dress and dance a reel with me." + +And she did indeed make a few very lively movements, which were +grotesque enough. + +"I entreat you, Angelica, be sensible! You are, to be sure, thoroughly +at home here. But it takes away my breath! Everything is so strange to +me--" + +"Isn't it so--one doesn't see anything of this sort every day? How +every part lives and breathes! One might actually believe that the +blooming young flesh must yield when one touches it; and, with all +that, so pure and magnificent and full of style, that one never thinks +of the model when looking at it." + +"Is it modeled after life?" + +"Do you think that this kind of thing is imagined out of thin air?" + +"And girls can actually be found who allow themselves to be made use of +for--" + +"More than enough, you darling innocent. To be sure--of a sort that one +of us would not touch with gloves. But Rosenbusch says that, for all +that, they are better than their reputation. He has found very +respectable creatures among them--one, indeed, who had a regular +husband and a number of children, and who went to the studios as +soberly as others go to the seamstress or the milliner. Yes, yes, my +dearest, we good children of good families have no conception of all +this. Look," she continued, turning to Felix's modeling-board, "there +is where the young baron works. He has copied the foot of the +anatomical model, and now, as a reward, he is permitted to recruit +himself over the foot of an AEginite. Not bad!--by no means without +talent! An uncommonly handsome and agreeable man, too, whom I like very +much. But--remember what I tell you--he will always remain a cavalier, +and will never in all his life become a true artist!" + +She accented the word "cavalier," in the contemptuous manner in which a +sailor talks about a landsman. Then she stepped up to the large central +group of the Adam and Eve, and began cautiously to undo the covering. + +"How is this?" said she. "Why he has actually fastened the group with +clothes-pins since I last saw it, a fortnight ago. Well, I think I may +be allowed to unfasten it somewhat, and, after all, he will never +notice it. What eyes you will make at it, Giulietta! _E una magia_, as +the Italians say. It is much grander, more imposing and unprecedented +than the 'Dancing Girl' over there. There! Now, just let me unwind this +towel very carefully indeed--the head of the Eve has only just been +modeled--" + +The damp linen cloth, that enveloped the figure of the kneeling woman, +now slipped off; at the same instant Angelica, who stood behind the +group and was carefully removing the last folds from the clay figure, +heard a half-suppressed cry from the lips of her friend. + +"Now, don't you see that I was right?" she cried. "It is beautiful +enough to shriek over. No respectable person can see such a thing +without uttering a few inarticulate sounds. But, for Heaven's sake!" +she cried, interrupting herself and rushing to Julie, whom she saw turn +suddenly pale and step backward, "what is the matter with you, my own +love? You are so very--speak--what has so--gracious Heaven! That! +I never would have believed it myself! Such a surprise--such an +unheard-of piece of treachery and meanness! And, with all that, so +extraordinarily well carried out! Oh, this Jansen! So that accounts for +the pins--that accounts for his not wishing to show the group to any +one for the last fortnight!" + +Julie had retreated to the window and stood there, undecided what to +do, her head sunk upon her heaving breast. But the painter, in whom +enthusiasm had banished all alarm about her agitated friend, stood with +folded hands, as if absorbed in worship, before the work that was so +well known to her, and upon which, nevertheless, she gazed in utter +surprise. For since she saw it last the head of Eve, that was +then in the first rough stage of development, had assumed a firm, +carefully-executed form, and the face, sweetly bowed forward, with +which she gazed at the man just awakening from sleep, resembled, +feature for feature, the beautiful girl who now, sinking down into her +chair in an indescribable state of confusion, shame, and anger, looked +up at her own image. + +And then it would have been most edifying for a third person to have +overheard how the painter, as soon as she had overcome the first shock, +now strove to enter into the spirit of her friend and storm over the +robbery of her beauty; now strove to make it clear to her that there +was nothing wrong or improper in the whole matter. Then, when she had +run on for a while in the most enraptured terms about this magnificent +work, the majesty and the charm of these forms, she suddenly became +woman enough again to find the undeniable resemblance of the features +of this beautiful Eve, in her paradisaical innocence, a very serious +thing after all. To be sure, she strove to defend the artist; no one +could help his inspirations, and the more than life-size scale removed +the work from all realistic consideration. But her burning cheeks told +her better than anything else that she was not made to be a good +devil's-advocate; and when she had played her trump card, always +keeping her back turned to the silent girl, and had declared that no +one ought to think herself too good to be so immortalized--that this +was entirely different from the case of the sister of Napoleon, whom +Canova had portrayed in marble, or that of the so-called "Venus" of +Titian, whose lover was playing the lute by her side--she suddenly +turned to Julie, threw her arms round her neck and besought her with +humble appeals and caresses not to be angry with her, that she was as +innocent of this evil deed as Rosebud's white mice; and that if she had +a suspicion that this wicked Jansen would have dared to do such a +thing, she would certainly never have invited him to her studio at the +last sitting. And, as a proof of this, she would at once hunt him up +and firmly insist--though what a pity it would be for the wonderful +work's sake--that every trace of resemblance, even the most remote, in +this airily-clad Eve to her deeply offended descendant should be +removed. + +"Do so--I shall rely upon it!" said Julie, suddenly, with great +earnestness, as she rose in all her dignity and womanly majesty. "That +I must never be thrown in contact with him again, that I can never +enter this house again, you will easily understand!" And as she said +this, turning toward the door, she cast a last angry look at her +counterfeit. + +She understood it perfectly, replied the painter, meekly. She would not +have it otherwise; Jansen had acted altogether too inconsiderately, and +toward her, too, who as an old fellow-inmate of the same house was, to +a certain extent, responsible for the good behavior of the rest. But of +one thing Julie might be sure: Jansen had not been guilty of any bad +intention, or of one of those pieces of presumption that artists often +indulge in, but merely of thoughtlessness and indiscretion, and he +would undoubtedly take it very much to heart; and if she should really +remain firm in the intention of never seeing him again, a punishment +which, it is true, he had richly deserved-- + +While these speeches were being poured out, to all of which Julie +listened with an expression of face that it was not easy to understand, +the two friends--for Julie helped, too, with trembling hands--had +carefully wrapped up the group again, and had added to the pins from +their own stock. When they went out into the yard after having done +this, they earnestly cautioned the janitor not to open the studio +again for any one, until Herr Jansen himself had gone in again. Then +they left the house, not, as on the day before, walking familiarly +arm-in-arm, but silent and dejected, and taking leave of one another at +the very first street-corner. + +Angelica determined to make an attempt to see if she could not meet the +offender in the Pinakothek, in spite of the festival of the preceding +day. Julie, who had lowered her veil as if, after this experience, she +no longer dared to look any one in the face, hastened by the shortest +way toward home, where she could, in complete solitude, collect herself +and compose her excited mind. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +Buy scarcely was she alone when the excitement within her, although not +at once stilled, lost, singularly enough, all that it had had of pain +and bitterness, and such an unmistakable feeling of pleasure and +happiness filled her soul that she herself, as she was forced to admit, +felt frightened at it. + +Do what she would, she could no longer feel as angry at the secret +insult that had been offered to her maiden dignity as she ought +properly to have felt. It seemed indeed as if, the moment the witness +of the misdeed was removed from her sight, all the bad aspect had +disappeared from the matter, which, after all, had only become wrong +and unpardonable when strange eyes had spied into the well-guarded +secret of a pure artist-soul. Now, when she thought about the work, how +it stood there in the deserted studio, carefully wrapped, with only the +sparrows flying about it, and guarded from every betraying ray of +light, what was there so sinful in the fact that the head of this +beautiful kneeling woman bore her own features? + +This figure constantly floated before her, no matter how hard she might +try to turn her attention upon other things. And although in the work +of the artist nothing was finished but the head, her fancy saw the +finished statue, and, for the first time in her life, she looked upon +her own beauty, in her thoughts, with other eyes than her own, which +could find nothing new or especial in it. The cruel lot that had held +her apart from life in her girlish years, and the early experiences +that had given her a contemptuous, if not a hostile opinion of men, had +kept her mind isolated from all those feelings that usually agitate a +girl's soul in its spring-time. It had never occurred to her to look at +herself, as it were, through the eyes of a man, for she had never known +one for whose sake she would have thought it worth while to give +herself so much trouble. When she observed her face in the mirror, and +could not help finding it beautiful, it afforded her just as little +pleasure as if--like a female Robinson Crusoe on some island in the +ocean--she had seen her reflection in clear water, and had known by it +that she was queen of the wilderness. In the next room sat the poor +madwoman, in her arm-chair, and nodded at the beautiful daughter, whom +she was robbing of life, with an idiotic smile. Of what avail was her +beauty against this inexorable fate? + +Sometimes indeed, in the spring nights, between dreaming and waking, or +when she read some beautiful moving story, it seemed to her as if the +frost that had settled about her heart were bursting, as if a secret +longing for something sweet and precious swelled her bosom, a trembling +desire for some unknown, unattainable happiness. But this feeling never +took the shape of a being who should strive to gain her love, and whom +she might love in return. At such times she dreamed of nothing better +than to have the liberty of belonging to herself, of being freed from +that horrible duty which, to be sure, had grown less hard through +custom, and which no longer awakened even a shudder, but which held her +a prisoner daily and hourly. If these chains only fell from her--would +she then be so unwise as to voluntarily submit herself to a new form of +restraint? + +But by this time she had enjoyed her freedom long enough to have been +sometimes forced to admit, with a quiet sigh, that the longed-for +happiness was not so overpowering that it relieved the soul of all +other desires. What she really did want she did not know. She fancied +that, if she only had a talent of some sort, it would fill this +yearning emptiness within her. Since she believed it to be too late for +her to take up music or drawing, she hit upon the idea of writing down +her thoughts and moods in free rhythmic forms of her own invention. +These were by no means the usual imitations of well-known lyric poets, +in the conventional and occasionally much-abused metres and stanzas. +What she wrote in her secret diary bore about the same relation to this +conventional poetry that the play of the wind upon an AEolian harp does +to a sonnet. But for all that it was an unspeakable comfort to her, +when she felt that she was striking melodious chords within her lonely +soul, to listen to the rise and fall of this melody of thoughts, and to +transcribe it as well as she was able. The secrecy with which she +pursued this art lent it an additional charm; and many a lonely evening +hour was thus whiled away, as quickly and happily as if it had been +spent in the company of an intimate friend, to whom she could have +poured out her innermost heart. + +But now, when she had reached her home, and had hurriedly closed the +blinds that she might brood in absolute silence and solitude over what +had happened, she felt a sudden shock pass through her heart as she +reflected that during the past week her thoughts had more than once +been busy with the audacious man who had dared this theft of her +beauty--ay, that he had even entered more than once into her secret +poems. She had not given much more thought to this than to the other +subjects she had touched on in her diary: merely that she had made one +more acquaintance, and that of a man who could scarcely be said to have +an everyday face, and to whom all the others in his circle conceded the +first rank without a moment's jealousy. But was it not a singular +coincidence that, at the very time when she was attempting to describe +the impression that he had made upon her, he should be engaged in +moulding the image of her own features? + +She rose thoughtfully to go to her writing-desk. She was obliged to +pass by the glass, and she stood before it for a while earnestly +contemplating her reflection, with the same sort of curiosity she would +have shown had she never seen herself before, but had just had her +attention drawn to herself by some third person. But, at the moment, +she was not at all pleased with her appearance. The face of the Eve +seemed to her fancy a thousand times more beautiful; he himself would +be forced to admit this if he should see her and compare her, face to +face, with his work. "Ten years ago," she said to herself, with a shake +of the head, "I may, perhaps, have looked like that. Oh, for the +beautiful lost years!" + +For all this she began to arrange her hair in the same way that he had +arranged it in the statue, and she found this style of coiffure, in a +plain knot, charmingly becoming to her. She blushed at this, and turned +away. And now her heart beat still louder, as she drew forth from the +desk the book containing her confessions, and read over the last pages. +"I really believe I was in a fair way of falling in love with him," she +said aloud, when she had reached the end. "And he--he looked upon me as +he would upon any good model that chanced to fall in his way; studied +my face, so that he might steal it from me, and ruthlessly insulted +every womanly feeling I have. If I had been anything more to him, if he +had even taken a deep interest in me, he would never have had the heart +to make such a display of me, he would never have subjected me to such +ideas!--Oh, it is shameful! I will never, never forgive him that!" + +A passionate feeling of pain, like the anger and indignation that had +overwhelmed her in the first moment of the discovery, once more flamed +within her. She threw the book into the drawer and hastily locked it +up. Then she paced up and down through her entire suite of rooms, and +struggled to calm her mood again. + +But it was not so easy as she had expected. For the first time she +failed to understand the voices that were speaking in her heart, nor +could she silence them. A feeling had come over this mature, firm +nature, such as seldom takes possession of any but the young in the +time of their earliest development; that oppressing sense of delight +that is almost akin to pain, that threatens to burst the heart, and +that makes the thought of dying and passing quietly away so grateful as +if death were nothing but a gentle sinking into some unfelt deep that +is brimming over with flowers. + +Her anger had suddenly passed away. She tried hard, as soon as she was +conscious of this, to picture to herself her insulter in the most +repulsive shape. Not succeeding in that, she made an attempt to be +angry with herself, to reproach herself for her womanish weakness, in +being frivolous enough to feel flattered by this robbery. But she +succeeded little better than before; one thing only stood before her +mind, that he and she were in the world together, and that they had +both thought of one another at the same moment. + +The door opened softly; the old servant stepped in and announced that +Mr. Jansen wished to pay his respects. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +Of course he had come to apologize. Angelica must have urged the +necessity of his doing so very strongly indeed: must have depicted to +him in pretty glowing colors the anger of her deeply insulted friend, +to judge from the fact of his knocking at her door but two hours after. +Her first thought was to refuse to see him. But then, what if he should +be disposed to treat the matter altogether too lightly; what if he +thought to appease her by some jesting or even gallant apology? Well, +she would soon let him know with whom he had to deal, and that he could +not escape so easily. Had she not been called "the girl without a +heart," and was she not at this moment without friend or protector, +forced to rely entirely upon her native dignity, which had just been so +audaciously insulted? + +"If the gentleman would have the goodness--I should be very glad to see +him--very glad!" + +She stood in the middle of the room as he entered. Her beautiful face +had struggled hard to assume its coldest and haughtiest expression. But +with the first look that she cast upon the visitor, the armor of ice +that she had fastened about her bosom melted away. + +For, in fact, a very different man from the one she had expected stood +before her. Where was the confident smile that sought to make the +matter appear in the light of a jest, or even of an act of homage? +Where the confidence with which the famous master reckons upon +absolution for the sin of having made an unknown beauty immortal? + +It was true, he did not appear quite like a penitent malefactor. Erect, +and with a scarcely perceptible inclination of the head, he saluted +her, and his eyes did not avoid hers; on the contrary, they even dwelt +upon her features with so gloomy a fire that she involuntarily lowered +her eyelids, and asked herself in secret whether she was not the guilty +one after all, since this man appeared before her so sad and +melancholy. + +"Gnaediges Fraeulein," he said, "I have given you reason to be very +angry with me. I merely come to inform you that the cause of your +displeasure is already removed. If you were willing to visit my +_atelier_ again--which, unfortunately, I must doubt--you would see in +the place where your own features confronted you this morning nothing +but a shapeless mass." + +"You have--you really ought to have--" + +"I have done at once what I owed to you, in order that you might not +form a wrong opinion of me. Sooner or later I should have had to do it +in any case--even though no one had urged me to it. I wish sincerely +that you would believe me when I say this--though I scarcely dare to +hope so, since you do not know me--and are perhaps still too angry with +me not to--not to believe me capable of any piece of discourtesy." + +"I?--I confess--I have until now thought neither well nor ill of--" + +She did not complete the sentence--she felt that she blushed, as she +tried to assure him of her complete indifference--three steps from the +drawer where her confessions were lying. + +"I know it," continued he; and his dark glance wandered over the +dimly-lighted room. "I am so perfectly indifferent to you, that it +must, after all, be very easy for you to pardon something that cannot +have awakened any very strong personal feeling in your mind. One who is +entirely unknown to us cannot insult us. When he has taken back again +that with which he has wounded us, it is as if nothing had happened. +And so I might perhaps take my leave of you, gnaediges Fraeulein, with +the renewed assurance of my sincere regret that I have unconsciously +offended you." + +She made a scarcely perceptible motion toward the sofa, as if she would +invite him to be seated. He was much too occupied with his own thoughts +to pay any attention to it. + +"Perhaps it is folly," continued he, after a pause--"perhaps more than +that--wrong, if I intrude any longer, and give you an explanation for +which you have no desire, and which will perhaps strike you +disagreeably, since it turns upon something that cannot but be a matter +of perfect indifference to you: not much more interesting than if you +should hear there had been a thunderstorm at a place forty miles away, +and that the lightning had struck a tree. Still--now that I have +acknowledged my wrong and have done all in my power to make it good +again--I owe it to myself not to permit you to take a worse view of me +than I have really deserved. When, before a court of justice, one can +put forth the plea of mental irresponsibility, it is considered the +most important of all mitigating circumstances. Now this is just the +case in which I find myself placed in regard to you. I can plead, as an +excuse for the insane thought of giving your features to my Eve, the +fact that since I first saw you I have actually been insane; that +waking or dreaming no other face floated before me except yours; that I +have gone about as if in a fever, and that I knew no better way of +dealing with my hopeless passion than by striving, shut up alone in my +workshop, to reproduce your face--and wretchedly enough did I succeed!" + +He made a movement as though he were about to leave her; but once again +he remained where he was, and appeared to be struggling painfully for +words. + +"You are silent, Fraeulein," he continued. "I know you think it very +strange that I should endeavor to atone for a great and almost +unpardonable act of audacity, by committing a still greater one. +Perhaps you will not believe me, or will consider me a raving madman +for betraying to you, after so short an acquaintance, a passion that +has carried me beyond all bounds of propriety and decorum. But you +would judge differently, if you knew in what dreariness and isolation +of heart I have passed the five years since I came to Munich; that not +an hour's happiness has been vouchsafed to me; that no womanly being +capable of awakening a single deeper thought has come near me. It is +true I have not thought it worth my while to seek for such +companionship. I have deluded myself with the idea that I missed +nothing, that my heart and feelings did not hunger and thirst--until +you suddenly crossed my path--and then this sudden vision of beauty and +grace, coming as it did after long loneliness, brought about an +intoxication that has completely robbed me of my senses. + +"I doubt whether this explanation will be clear to you. I know nothing +more of you than your enthusiastic friend, our good Angelica, has told +us. Perhaps you may never have had any experience yourself that would +lead you to believe that a passion which bursts so suddenly upon +reasonable men could be found anywhere but in a fairy tale. Enough, I +thought I owed it to myself to tell you of this fact, merely as a +singular instance that need trouble you no farther. And now, permit me +to take my leave. I--I should really have nothing more to tell you, and +as for you--I find it no more than right that you should prefer to +reply only by silence to such singular and extraordinary disclosures." + +"No," she cried suddenly, as he already had his hand upon the +door-knob; "it is not so right as you think, for one to tell all that +he has upon his heart, while the other only accepts it all, and gives +no confidence in return. To be sure, I know very well--I must attribute +much of what you have confided to me to the easily-excited fantasy of +an artist. Nevertheless, I am not so vain as not to imagine that in the +course of five years you have never encountered a face fairer and more +blooming than this of mine, that I have now borne about with me for +full thirty-one. And for that reason I am almost forced to believe that +there really is a secret bond of fate that quickly draws two human +beings together in an altogether inexplicable way. For see--" she +continued, covered with a confusion that only made her more beautiful, +as she opened the drawer of her writing-desk and drew forth her +diary--"I, too, although I perhaps knew less of you than you of me--I, +too, have often had you with me in my thoughts--and since you have +destroyed again the image that you took from me without my knowledge, +ought not I also to destroy those pages in which you are spoken of--" + +She made a gesture as if she were about to tear out the pages. In an +instant he had sprung to her side and had seized firm hold of her hand. + +"Julie!" he cried, as if beside himself; "is it true--is it possible? +Your thoughts were with me?--and in these pages--I beseech you, let me +have but one look--only let me see one line, so that I shall not think +that you have invented all this in order to give me comfort, and to +relieve me from my shame--" + +"Shame!" she whispered. "But cannot you see that in spite of my +thirty-one years I am trembling like a child detected in some +naughtiness? Must I really read aloud to you out of this book what +you--what you might long ago have guessed from my silence--if you had +not been trembling so yourself?" + +The last words died away on her lips. The book slipped from her hands +and fell on the carpet, where it lay without his bending to pick it up. + +A kind of stupor had come over him. He seized both her hands and +clasped them so tightly that it pained her; but the pain did her good. +His face was so near hers that she could see every muscle in it quiver; +his eyes gleamed with a wild fire, like the gaze of a somnambulist. And +yet she had no horror of him. She would gladly have stood so forever, +and have felt her hands in his, and have encountered the power of his +fixed gaze. + +It was only when she felt that her eyes were on the point of +overflowing, and feared that he might misunderstand it, that she said +softly, smilingly shaking her head: "Don't you believe me even yet?" + +Then at last he released her hands, threw his arms about her yielding +figure, and pressed her wildly to his breast. + +A noise was heard in the front room; the old servant apparently wished +to remind the visitor, by the rattling of plates and knives and forks, +that dinner-time was something that must be respected. + +As if startled out of a dream, Jansen suddenly tore himself from +Julie's arms. "Unhappy wretch that I am!" cried he, hoarsely, covering +his face with his hands. "Oh, God! Where have I let myself be carried?" + +"You have only followed where our hearts had already led!" said Julie, +with a happy smile, while her moist eyes sought his. "What is the +matter with you, best and dearest friend?" she continued, anxiously, +for he was about to seize his hat. "You are going--and now? What drives +you away from me? Who--who can part us? What have I done that you again +turn away from me? My best and dearest friend, I entreat you--" + +He struggled hard to answer; a dark red flush overspread his pale face. +"Do not ask me now," he stammered; "this blessed hour--this +inconceivable happiness--no--it must--it cannot be!--Forgive--forget--" + +At this moment the old servant opened the door; he cast a look at the +visitor that could hardly be interpreted as an invitation to stay +longer. Jansen stepped hastily up to the agitated and speechless girl. +"You shall hear from me soon, everything. Forgive--and may you be +forever blessed for this hour!" + +He seized her hand and pressed it passionately to his lips. Then he +rushed from the room, followed by the old servant shaking his head, +while Julie gazed after him, lost in a maze of conflicting emotions. + +It is true that the moment she was alone again the happiness of knowing +that her love was returned overpowered all feelings of doubt that had +been awakened within her. His mysterious behavior, his sudden flight, +his strange awakening from the sweetest realization of a hopeless +dream, ought that to make her distrust him, when it merely confirmed +what he had said of himself; that this intoxication had driven him out +of his senses? And was it not best upon the whole that this miracle +which had happened to them both should not be reduced all at once to an +affair of everyday life, but that they should part, bearing away with +them in their hearts their new-found treasure in all its fullness? +To-morrow--to-morrow he will come again, and all will be new and +wonderful once more, as it was to-day; and is that day lost which one +can spend in thoughts of one's great happiness, or that night in which +one can dream of it? + +She threw back her head, as if in doing so she would shake from her the +last remaining doubts. Then she stepped to the mirror, and began to +rearrange her hair that her violent friend had completely disordered. +What would her old servant have thought had he found her in this state? +As she thought of this she smiled mysteriously at her own image, as if +it were a _confidante_ who alone knew of some great happiness that had +just fallen to her lot. Little as she ordinarily cared to look at her +own reflection, to-day she could not tear herself away from the glass; +"So, to please him, one must look as I do," she said to herself. + +"I wonder whether he saw this wrinkle here, and that deep line, and all +those traces that these hateful, anxious years have left upon my face? +But it cannot be helped now; I have not cheated him, at all events, and +besides, he has eyes of his own--and such eyes!" + +Then she sighed again and pressed her hand to her heart. "Who would +have dreamed it?" she said, once more walking up and down: "only +yesterday and I was so calm here--wearied and tired of life--and +to-day!--And not a soul besides us two knows anything of it! Angelica, +it is true--I wonder whether she suspects nothing?--the good soul! +Perhaps I ought to go and confess to her.--But would not that look as +if I wanted to boast to her of my happiness? And then I will wager that +she herself is secretly in love with him--who could live under the same +roof with him and resist it?--'Julie Jansen'--It sounds as though it +could never have been otherwise since the world began." + +Suddenly the room felt so close and oppressive to her that she sent the +old servant to call her a droschke, that she might go out into the air +for a while. He was allowed to take a seat on the box, and in this way +they drove at a slow trot around the English Garden. The beautiful +weather, and the fact that it was Sunday, had filled all the avenues +and paths with people; all the beer-gardens were gay with music and +thronging crowds. Heretofore she had never felt at home among these +multitudes of merry people, for her solitary life with her unhappy +mother had made her unaccustomed to scenes of noise and confusion. But +to-day, she would like nothing better than to have joined the throng, +feeling that she really belonged there now; for had not she too found a +sweetheart, like all these other girls dressed in their Sunday clothes? +She ordered the carriage to stop in front of the Chinese tower, and sat +there for a long time, listening, and really moved by the music of a +band that would on any other day have provoked a smile. The people who +passed her wondered at the beautiful, solitary Fraeulein, who sat, lost +in thought, gazing up at the tree tops. They did not know that the +color of the sky, up there between the two tall silver poplars, +recalled certain eyes that were ever present to the lady in the +carriage. + +It was already dusk when she reached home after her drive. A note was +lying on the table, that had been brought during her absence. She felt +a shock of alarm as she took it up. If it should be from him--if he had +written, instead of coming himself; and yet, although she had never +seen his handwriting, it was impossible that these lines could be his; +they were in a woman's hand. With a quieter heart she stepped to the +window, and read these words: + + +"A person unknown to you, whose name is of no consequence, feels it her +duty to warn you, honored Fraeulein, against a man whose attentions to +you can no longer be a secret, since he is regularly to be found every +evening before your window, and to-day even went so far as to pay you a +visit. This letter is to tell you that this man has a wife, and a child +six years of age; a fact, however, which he carefully conceals from all +his acquaintances. Leaving it to you to form your own opinion of this +conduct, the writer signs herself respectfully, N. N." + + +Half an hour after, the bell in Julie's room was rung. The old servant +found his mistress sitting at her writing-desk, with a calm face, but +with traces of tears still on her cheeks, that she had forgotten to +wipe away. She had just sealed a letter, which she now handed to the +old man. + +"See that this letter is delivered to-day, Erich, and at the studio; I +do not know where Herr Jansen lodges. Tell the janitor to hand it to +him the first thing to-morrow morning. And now, bring me something to +eat. We were cheated out of our dinner. I--I shall die of exhaustion +unless I eat something." + +The anonymous note was inclosed in the letter to Jansen. Julie had +added nothing but the words: + + +"I shall be at home all day to-morrow. Come and give me back my faith +in mankind and my own heart. + + "Your Julie." + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +On this very afternoon Felix had carried out a resolution that he had +long had in mind, and had sought out the two friends, Elfinger and +Rosenbusch, in their own quarters. + +They occupied two rooms in the third story of a somewhat tumble-down +house, which, situated in one of the quaint old streets of the +city, concealed its little fantastically-framed windows under a +far-projecting roof, like purblind eyes under bushy eyebrows. + +Felix had often passed without ever having persuaded himself to enter +the untidy-looking vestibule, and climb the dark stairs. To-day, since +the dissipation of the previous night and the fact of its being Sunday +condemned him to idleness, he determined to fulfill at length the duty +he owed to civility. Moreover, he had begun the day before to take a +great interest in Elfinger, and wished very much to have an hour's more +intimate talk with him. + +Luckily he chanced, at his first attempt, to knock at the right door, +although, on account of the absolute darkness on the upper landing, it +was impossible to make out the names; and, upon entering, he saw +Elfinger jump up hastily from a chair, where he had been sitting +apparently entirely unoccupied. + +As the street, which was not especially lively even on a weekday, +reposed to-day in the most profound Sunday quiet, Felix wondered +what it could have been that had held his attention there, especially +when he noticed that the actor, who was generally so ready and +self-possessed, showed evident signs of embarrassment as he hastened +forward to welcome him, and, as if to keep him away from the window, +forced him to take a seat upon the sofa. + +But he soon recovered his easy bearing again. + +"You are looking at the walls," said he, "and are wondering that I +still preserve these mementoes of my stage days, these pictures of +great actors and my pretty colleagues of the fair sex, and even the +obligatory laurel-wreath, with its satin ribbons, that is never lacking +in any true actor's domicile. If my present employer should ever by +chance condescend to visit his clerk, I should, it is true, have done +far better had I hung up a bulletin of the stock boards instead of the +lithograph of Seydelmann as _Mephistophiles_. But, as I am safe up here +from all _haute finance_, I think I may be allowed, without injury to +my reputation as a sound accountant, to surround myself with all those +relics that I hold sacred, even that all-too-flaming sword over there, +that drove me from my paradise of the footlights." + +He pointed to a rapier that hung on the wall opposite the sofa, +arranged with a few pistols and fencing-gloves in the form of a trophy, +underneath which hung a picture in water colors representing Elfinger +in the costume of _Hamlet_. + +"Yes," he continued, with a quiet smile; "if the point of that sword +had not slipped in the hands of an unskillful _Laertes_, and entered +the eye of the unfortunate _Hamlet_, I should hardly have had the +pleasure of seeing you in my chambers just at this particular moment. I +should probably have been sitting in my dressing-room at the theatre, +painting myself to fit the character of an _Alba_ or a _Richard III._, +for this evening's performance. Whether the public has lost much by it, +I can't say. At all events, there is no doubt that I have gained." + +"I am amazed that you can speak so cold-bloodedly of something that any +other man would regard as the great misfortune of his life. After the +high opinion of your talents that I was led to form by your performance +of yesterday--" + +"Do not allow yourself to be deceived by a little bit of coarse humor, +my excellent friend. A man, can rid himself of any other kind of +homesickness sooner or later; but no one who has once felt himself at +home behind the footlights can ever be free from homesickness for the +stage. I must confess that I felt a real pang of envy when I took my +little troupe of yesterday out of their box, and rigged them out for +the play. Now, does not that positively border on insanity? But reason +counts for nothing in such a case. I know that I, with my average +talent, could never have attained the highest point of eminence, and +that for that reason I ought to feel nothing but gratitude toward my +friend _Laertes_ for pushing me back into that obscurity where I can +plod comfortably along on the golden, path of mediocrity. And yet all +my philosophy oozes away the moment the conversation turns upon the +theatre." + +"But should not this be so? and since you are justified in thinking +yourself a born actor, what reason have you for believing that the +highest distinction would have been denied you? Why should not your +fate strike you as a tragical one?" + +"Because with all my good qualifications, especially for declamation, I +am not only a born actor but also a born German, which, I admit, sounds +like a very palpable paradox. But just consider our race a moment. In +spite of some rare exceptions, that stand out almost like miracles and +that merely prove the rule, it may be said to possess scarcely a single +qualification that would enable it to reach any decided greatness in +the art! Ought not the actor to be able to shed his own skin when he +slips into that of another? And when did a true German ever exist that +could put himself in another's place? When was he ever untrue to +himself?--when did he ever deny his personal virtues and faults? Don't +you see, the very thing that makes our people so respectable stands in +the way of our acting. We are not a people given to impersonation, to +posing, and to representation. We are sublime in our earnestness, and +silly in our trifling. We like best to sit still in our private corner +behind the stove, and we grow red and awkward if we have to pass +through a room where there are ten unknown men, or even as many ladies, +watching us. Only the highest problems of tragic poetry give us wings +to lift us over these chasms. When we attempt to walk with metrical +feet, which are shod with winged shoes, we get on very well. But on our +own flat every-day extremities, we stumble so wretchedly that an +ordinary Frenchman or Italian, who can neither read nor write, appears +like a prince of the blood beside us." + +"I wish I were able to deny all this," said Felix. "Unfortunately we +have no real society; and where we have the germs of one, actors are as +a rule excluded from it. But though that part of your art that has to +do with the representation of human beings and a characteristic +imitation of life suffers from this, the higher branches still continue +to be our domain; and if you compare the art of tragedy among the +Italians or the French with our representations of Shakespeare and +Goethe--" + +"That is all very true," interrupted the actor; "in what is spiritual +and belongs to an inner consciousness, we can always bear comparison +with our neighbors. But only wait ten years longer and you will see +that not a soul here in Germany will ever think of going to see a +tragedy, and our classical theatre will be then just such another +puppet-show as the Theatre Francais is now. Ought we to be surprised at +this? All tragedy is aristocratic. Why should the hero leave this world +with such sublimity and grandeur if it were not that he found it too +miserable for him to feel comfortable in? But he who finds the world a +wretched place insults all those to whom it appears most charming, +because, with their low desires, they are able to take comfort in it. +And inasmuch as the good of the masses will become more and more the +watchword, as time goes on, therefore he who towers above the masses +must not be disappointed if he finds that he cannot be of much use +either in real life or behind the footlights. Tragical heroes are only +possible where social differences exist; where the ordinary man looks +on with a certain respect while a _Coriolanus_ conquers and falls, +without thinking to himself: 'It served him right. Why did he insult us +common folk?' But with our excellent, humane, democratic way of looking +at things--" + +"A depressing prospect, certainly! So the longer our nation goes on +freeing itself from prejudices and conforming to true ideas of +humanity, the less hope will there be that we shall ever be able to cut +a good figure on the stage?" + +"On the contrary, I think then is the time when we shall really first +begin. Self-respect is one of the most important requisites even in the +acting of a comedy. When we have once taken our place among the nations +of Europe, when we have rid ourselves of our dullness and tactlessness +in our dealings with the outside world, when we cease to be such +wretched crawlers that we will go through any humiliation for our +daily-bread's sake, and cannot conduct ourselves like gentlemen, then +you will see how quickly we shall find the art of acting infused into +our blood--we who have been for so many centuries mere zealous animals. +To be sure, in regard to tragedy it is a question whether we shall ever +succeed, in our better days, in attaining sufficient earnestness and +reverence to enable us to keep in mind the fact that, as old Goethe +says, 'awe is mankind's best quality'--" + +He seemed about to talk still further of his hopes and fears; and +Felix, to whom many of these ideas were new, and to whom the speaker, +with his unselfish warmth, grew more and more attractive as he went on, +would gladly have listened half through the night. But the door was +noisily thrown open, and Rosenbusch made his appearance on his friend's +threshold arrayed in a costume the comicality of which irresistibly +swept away all these serious considerations. + +He had had his red beard shaved off, leaving only a diminutive mustache +and a pair of side whiskers; his flowing hair was elegantly arranged; +he wore an old-fashioned black coat, and a tall stove-pipe hat, brushed +smooth and shining. + +"You may well laugh!" cried he, knitting his brows tragically at his +friends. "If you only knew how a man felt who was yesterday in +Paradise, and to-day is forced to get himself up in such a toilet as +this, as if he were going to his execution. The executioner's minion, +who cut my hair, has just left me. Whoever wishes to have a lock of +hair of the celebrated battle-painter Maximilian Rosenbusch will find +them lying about, like useless wool, on the floor of the adjoining +room. O Delila, for whom I have suffered this! O Nanny, for whose sake +I cut my noble hair!--for whom I dress myself in this Philistine +fashion!" + +He stopped, and now revealed to Felix that he was on the point of +taking the most painful step of his life. In the opposite house lived +the object of his desire, the muse of his songs, the beautiful daughter +of a glovemaker, with whom he had been madly in love for the last six +months, so that he could positively hold out no longer. He had received +quite enough tokens to show him that his love was returned; indeed he +had an assurance, written on rose-colored paper and exhibiting one or +two orthographical liberties, that if the parents did not say no their +little daughter would certainly say yes. In order to have this question +decided, he had been obliged to assume his present masquerading +costume, notwithstanding the fact that the carnival was still far off. +For papa glovemaker had no very exalted opinion of artists of the +ordinary type. + +"Therefore, my friends, drop a tear for the departed splendors of my +noble head, and pray for my poor soul, that it may soon be released +from this purgatory and admitted to the joys of the blessed. And, +by-the-way, how is it, Elfinger? Don't you want to slip on your best +coat and come with me? Then the whole thing would be finished at one +go." + +Felix saw that the actor blushed, and cast a look of displeasure at his +loquacious friend. + +"Ah! to be sure!" replied the latter, stepping in front of the glass +and winking at Felix as he passed, "you haven't slept off your headache +from last night. Hm! Another time, then. It seems to me, do you know, I +look devilish respectable, and the glovemaker's little daughter will +make no end of a good match in catching a person of my tone and style. +Look, there she sits over there at her post, the little witch, and at +the other window, completely absorbed in her work, is her pious sister. +_Sua cuique_-- Well, I won't quote any further, Elfinger, my boy! But +now, I must wend my way to the high tribunal. Will you accompany me, +friend baron? You must support me with spiritual comfort, in case I +should show signs of weakness by the way. To be sure, I have just been +working up my courage by three beautiful strophes; but a lyric of that +sort, strongly diluted with water, does not last long, and a more +spiritual elixir for the heart cannot be prepared off-hand. May Heaven +take me in its safe keeping! Amen! Well, Elfinger, you shall hear +before long how it turns out!" + +Upon this he pressed his hat down firmly on his forehead, nodded to his +friend with a comical expression of misery and despair, and dragged +Felix with him from the room. + +On the stairs he suddenly stood still and said, in a suppressed and +mysterious voice: + +"Our friend up-stairs has the same trouble worse than I have. He is +smitten with the other one; but she is a little saint, as much of a +nun, thanks to her education with the English sisters, as my little +witch is a child of the world for the same reason. Now just conceive of +it, the more my little imp carries on--it will be hard work making a +sensible housewife of her--the more zealously does our good Fanny +confess and do penance and pray, and it really looks as if she were +seriously intent upon gaining a saint's halo. The fact is the girls +never associate with sensible people, and for that reason one of us +must sacrifice himself so that the ice will at last be broken, although +I confess it is pure madness on my part to think of marrying. You have +no idea, my dear friend, what extraordinary cobwebs gather in an old +Munich burgherhouse like this. Well, a few fresh fellows like us--I +imagine it would not take us long to bring new life into it, if we were +only once inside!" + +He sighed, and appeared not to be in the most courageous mood, +notwithstanding his brave words. Felix accompanied him across the +street and saw him enter the narrow, arched door next to the glove +store, which was closed on account of its being Sunday--going in with +an assumed air of boldness, as if he were going to a dance. + +Then he himself wandered aimlessly down the street. In what direction +should he turn his steps? In the whole city there was no one who would +be looking for him to-day, and the one to whom he felt most drawn was, +strangely enough, on Sunday afternoons farther out of his reach than at +any other time. + +He was deliberating whether he should not hire a horse again and dash +away across the country, when companionship was unexpectedly thrown in +his way, of a kind that a man in his frame of mind could not but +welcome. + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +His way led him along the Dultplatz, past the beer-garden in which he +had sat with his friends on his first Sunday in Munich. The music was +playing as before, but the people sat about under the lanterns, that +had just been lighted, in rather a sleepy and listless way, for the day +showed as yet no sign of growing cooler. + +Near the fence that separated the garden from the street, a Dachau +peasant-family had taken possession of one of the tables, leaving only +one end free. Their extraordinary, ugly costume attracted the attention +of Felix as he went wandering by. But his gaze soon turned from their +ridiculous dress and fixed on a slim girlish figure, closely wrapped in +a dark shawl, who sat at the other end of the table, with a full glass +and an empty plate before her, at which she seemed to have been staring +for some time, with her head resting on her hands and her elbows +planted on the table, as if utterly regardless of what was going on +about her. Nothing could be seen of the face, but a little, white, +short nose; her straw hat and a veil that hung half down over the +little hands threw the rest into shadow. But the little nose, and the +thick red hair, carelessly confined by a net, left not a moment's doubt +in Felix's mind that this picture of solitary melancholy was no other +than Red Zenz. + +As he stepped softly up to her, touched her familiarly on the shoulder, +and pronounced her name, she looked up with a frightened start, and, +with eyes red from weeping, gazed into the face of the unexpected +comforter, as if she took him for a ghost. But the moment she +recognized him, she hastily wiped her eyes with the back of her little +round hand, and smiled upon him with undisguised pleasure. He asked +compassionately what it was that made her so heavy-hearted, and why she +sat here all alone; and, drawing up a chair, he seated himself between +one of the horrible young peasant-girls and the melancholy little +Bacchante. Then she told him what the trouble was. "Black Pepi," her +friend, the girl with whom she had been living, had suddenly "proved +false" to her, because her (Pepi's) lover, a young surgeon, had +declared red to be the most beautiful color. He afterward apologized +for it by saying that, of course, with his profession, it was only +natural that he should prefer the color of the blood to any other. But +it had for some time past appeared to Pepi that her faithless lover +paid rather more attention to her friend than was permissible in such a +case; and so, after a very violent scene, she had not only broken off +the friendship, but had given her notice that she could no longer share +her quarters with her. Furthermore, inasmuch as Zenz was still owing +rent for several months, she had seized upon the few things she had to +hold as security, and had then driven her from the house with only the +clothes she had on at the time. + +"Only see," said the girl, lifting her dark shawl; "she did not even +leave me a respectable dress: if it had not been for the shawl that the +landlady lent me, I should have been ashamed to go across the street." + +And it was really so; she wore a simple sack of striped cotton under +her black covering, that she carefully wrapped about her again. But now +it began to look as though she no longer troubled herself in the least +about the adventure that had so recently made her weep. The pale +little face that she turned toward her neighbor, brightly illuminated +by the lantern, had even lost its expression of anger at this +insulting treatment and betrayal of friendship, and beamed again with +light-heartedness and irrepressible enjoyment. + +"And what are you going to do, Zenz?" + +"I don't know yet. I shall manage to find some place to stay at. I +could go to the Rochus garden, or the Neusigl, where I lodged when I +first came here; but the waiters there have keys to the doors, and I +have found that it is not safe there. And anywhere else, where I am not +known, they might think that I would not be able to pay for the room, +and I really have no money but a few kreutzers. I should have to pawn +the ring that I have from my poor dead mother. Well, the day is not +over yet, and I can think the matter over again." + +"To be sure," continued she, after a pause, during which Felix sat, as +if in a dream, gazing at her red lips and her white teeth, that one +could have counted when she spoke, "to be sure, I might fare well +enough if I only would! So well, that that false black cat Pepi would +envy me." + +"If you only would, Zenz?" + +"Yes, if I were willing to be wicked!" she added, in a low tone, and +for a moment her face grew serious. But in the next instant she laughed +merrily again, as if she would laugh away the flush that had suffused +her face. + +"Do you know an artist named Rossel?" + +"Certainly. Edward Rossel. What of him?" + +"He came to see me about a week ago. He said he had seen the figure +that Herr Jansen modeled from me, and he said, if I would come to him +and stand as a model, he would pay me three times as well for it." + +"And why haven't you gone to him?" + +"Hm!--because I didn't like him. I will not hire myself out in that way +for the gentlemen, so that every one will know me and say: 'Aha! that +is Red Zenz!' I am sorry enough that I stood to please Herr Jansen, +although he is such a good gentleman. But now they know my address, and +they think that is as much as to say that I will go and be a model for +any one who wants me." + +"Didn't you like Herr Rossel?" + +"No. Not at all. He doesn't look in the least as if he were an artist, +and wanted to study from a model. He made such big eyes--No! I sent him +off with a flea in his ear. And then he went to Pepi to get her to +persuade me. But she knows me. She went to him herself, for she thought +he would just as soon have one as another. But he only gave her a +gulden and sent her away again, saying that he had no time just then, +and that he happened to particularly want red hair. Then she flew out +again about red. I have heard though that Herr Rossel lives like a +prince, and Pepi said that if I were not a fool--at that time she was +not so down on me--I might make my fortune." + +"But are you going to continue such a fool all your life long, Zenz?" + +"I don't know," replied she, frankly. "Nobody is sure of herself when +she is young and has plenty of time on her hands. But I think as long +as I have my five senses about me--" + +She hesitated. + +"Well, Zenz?" he asked, taking one of her little hands, with its +fingers' ends roughened by work, in one of his. + +"So long," she said, quietly, "I will not do such a thing to please +anyone whom I do not love." + +"And how must the man look whom you could love? Only like Herr Jansen?" + +She laughed. "Oh! no. He is so much older than I. I only like him in +just the same way that I might have liked my father. He must be younger +and very nice, and--" + +She stopped abruptly, looked askance at him, a little coquettishly, and +said: "But what nonsense we are talking! Won't you eat and drink +something, or has the scarecrow next you there taken away all your +appetite!" + +She glanced disapprovingly at his neighbors, who looked, with their +nodding cap-borders and strait-laced Sunday suits, for all the world +like stuffed dolls, and did not understand a word of what had been said +by the other two. + +"Zenz," said Felix, without answering her; "do you know you could stop +over night in my quarters just as well as not? I have two rooms: you +could bolt the door between them if you should feel any fear of me, and +each room has a separate entrance. What do you think about it?" + +"You are only joking!" she hastily replied, without the slightest +embarrassment; "you would never think of encumbering yourself with such +a poor, ugly thing as I am." + +"Ugly? I don't find you at all ugly, Zenz. And if you only cared to be +a model for me, as you do for Herr Jansen--Do you know, he has kept me +for weeks studying an old skeleton and a lay figure, and I am +forgetting over such work the very sight of a human being." + +She shook her head, laughed, and then said, becoming serious again: + +"That was only meant in joke, of course. I am not so simple as to let +myself be talked into believing that you are really a sculptor!" + +"Well, just as you like, Zenz. I won't try to persuade you to do +anything you don't like. Come, take some beer; a new cask has just been +broached." + +She drank eagerly out of his glass; and then a spirited overture was +played which interrupted their conversation for a time. Even after this +they talked entirely about other things. She told him about her former +life in Salzburg, how strict her mother had been with her, how often +she had known want, and how often of a Sunday she had sat quietly in +her chamber and had wished she might be allowed, just for once, to join +the merry, gayly-dressed throng outside, that she could only look at +from a distance. No doubt her mother had really cared for her, but for +all that she let her feel that her existence was an eternal reproach +and burden to her. Of course she cried when she lost her mother, but +her grief did not last long. The pleasure of feeling herself free soon +dried her tears. Now, to be sure--all alone as she was, without a soul +in all the wide world to trouble itself whether she lived or died--now, +she sometimes felt that she would give up everything if she could only +be back again at her mother's side. + +"That is always the way," concluded she, with a nod of the head that +looked droll enough in its seriousness, "one never has what one wants; +and still, people say one ought to be contented. Sometimes I wish I +were dead. And then again I feel as if I would like to promenade up and +down the live-long summer through, wear beautiful dresses, live like a +princess, and--" + +"And be made love to by a prince--isn't it so?" + +"Of course. Alone, one can have no happiness. What would be the use of +my princess's dresses, unless I could drive some one perfectly crazy +with them?" + +He gazed so steadfastly in her eyes, that she suddenly blushed and was +silent. The strange mixture of lightheartedness and melancholy in the +poor child, of enjoyment of life and reserve, of secret love and +introspective moralizing, attracted him more and more. Then, too, the +night, the subdued light of the lanterns, and the stirring music, and +his own loneliness of heart, and his seven-and-twenty years-- + +"Zenz," he whispered, bending over so near to her ear that his lips +almost touched her neck, "if you would only care just a little bit for +me, why shouldn't we fare just as well as if you really were a princess +and I a prince?" + +She did not answer. Her lips were parted, she breathed quickly, and her +nostrils quivered, while her eyes were tightly shut, as if it were all +a dream from which she did not wish to wake. + +"We could lead a life like that in Paradise," continued he, gently +stroking with his own the two little hands that she had laid side by +side on the table. "We are both of us two stray children for whom no +one cares. If we should stay at home a year and a day, and never let +ourselves be seen, who would inquire what had become of us? All about +us people live and love and think only about themselves! Why should not +we think only of ourselves, too?" + +"Go away from me!" answered she, in a low voice. "You are not in +earnest. You think about me? Not even in your dreams. How can you care +for me? Such a red-haired little monkey, as Black Pepi called me +today!" + +"Your hair is very pretty. I remember yet how pretty it made you look, +when you let it hang loose over your blue cloak that morning in Herr +Jansen's studio, when you ran away so fast. And now I will hold you +tight by it. Come! I thought we were going? It begins to be cool; at +least, I see that you are trembling." + +"Not from cold!" she said, in a strange tone, as she stood up and +wrapped her shawl tightly about her. + +Then, without waiting for him to ask her, she took his arm and they +left the garden. + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +She did not ask where he was leading her, and indeed spoke very little +more, and scarcely betrayed by any sign whether she was listening to +what he said, or was entirely absorbed in her own thoughts. He had +begun by telling her, with a kind of forced liveliness, about all sorts +of things that he thought would interest her; about the women in the +countries on the other side of the ocean, their way of dressing, their +songs and dances, and their ideas about love and men. As she made no +reply to it all, he at last grew silent too. For a moment he felt a +keen pang of pain, when, by the light of a street lamp, he caught sight +of his own shadow and that of the girl swaying before them on the +ground. How came he to constitute himself the knight of this poor +creature, who clung so tightly to his arm that he realized well enough +it would not be easy to shake her off again? + +Six weeks ago, in another city--it was a summer night, too--in what a +different mood had he returned home from a walk, and in what different +company! But that was passed forever. Should he wander about in the +desert all his life long in sackcloth and ashes, and turn his back upon +all the happiness of existence? Who would be benefited by his +sacrifice? And yet, why could he not suppress this obstinate pain, this +remembrance of past days that sought to fill him with disgust at the +lighthearted life of this "city of pleasure?" + +He would not let his life be ruined by a spectre, he would carry his +head high and sneer away all attacks of sentimentality. Laughing +defiantly, to silence the low, far-off voice in his heart, he released +his arm from the girl's, only to put it still tighter and more tenderly +about her shoulder. + +"Zenz," he said, "you are a darling little sweetheart. It would be a +sin if you should not know where to lay your head. Do you see that +house over there, with the lamp burning in front? That is where I live, +and no one has a key to all the doors. How would it be if we should +play hide-and-seek there for a time, with all this tiresome world?" + +He merrily lifted her up from the ground, as if he would carry her over +the street into the house; but she suddenly released herself and +pointed anxiously to two riders, who were already so close upon them +that they were forced to run to get by them. + +"You little goose!" he laughed, "surely you are not afraid of two +people on horseback, and they peaceful Sunday riders--" + +The word died on his lips. As the light of the lantern fell on the +faces of the two horsemen, he recognized in the one the lean profile +and the black imperial of Lieutenant Schnetz, and in the other a little +mustached gentleman, with a straw hat and a light riding-jacket. + +No; it must be a mistake! How came _he_ here? He had been deceived by a +resemblance. It was only because he had so recently been thinking about +past times, that their shadow had risen up before him. What could +possibly bring the uncle of his betrothed to Munich, and in the company +of the lieutenant--he who never left his niece? + +And yet--as he looked he heard him say a word or two to Schnetz, and +then there was a merry laugh. + +The two rode unsuspectingly by, and long after their voices had died +away, Felix stood gazing listlessly after them in the darkness without +rousing himself from his thoughts. + +It was he--Irene's uncle. But how did he come here? True, he had +distant relatives in Munich; but it was years since he had left off all +intercourse with them. Did he know, perhaps, that Felix was here in the +city? Was that why he had come, and had he perhaps brought his ward +with him? And even if it were all an accident--even the acquaintance +with Schnetz--must not he inevitably learn from the latter that the +fugitive had hidden himself here under the disguise of a sculptor's +blouse? + +"What is the matter?" asked the girl, at last growing impatient. "Do +you know these gentlemen?" + +"Ah! Yes," he answered, suddenly recalling where he was and with whom +he was standing here in the street. With a deep sigh he brought himself +back to the _role_ of protector to this poor child. He stammered a +meaningless remark about the breed of the horses and about skill in +riding, and once more offered Zenz the arm he had withdrawn in his +momentary confusion. + +He led her thus across the street and into the house. + +When they had reached his rooms, where the windows stood open toward +the garden, he hastened to light a lamp. And then he forced himself, in +his character of host, to show the now somewhat silent and shy girl the +arrangement of his rooms, and all the curiosities that he had brought +back from his travels. On the table lay a little Damascus dagger, which +she took up and looked at curiously. He told her how a young Spanish +lady had given it to him in Mexico. And then he remembered a bottle of +sherry that was standing in his closet, and brought it and drew the +cork. + +"This is all the hospitality I can offer you," said he, still very +absently, setting down a full glass before her. + +She shook her head, and could not be prevailed upon even to taste the +wine. And in all that she did she had grown very shy and timid, like a +young swallow that has flown into an inhabited room, and keeps close +pressed into a corner, where you can see the frightened heart beating +under its feathered breast. + +"Will you not look and see whether you can make yourself comfortable on +the sofa?" + +She did not answer, and sat still in a chair by the window, her hat +still on her head, and her shawl wrapped closely about her. + +"A beautiful night," she said softly, at last. "How far you can see +from here over the city! You are very happy to be able to live in such +a beautiful place." + +"Well, you can share the happiness, then. Only make yourself quite at +home. Are you tired?" + +"Oh, no! but please don't trouble yourself about me. If you want to go +to sleep, I will sit here and will not stir." + +He came and stood beside her by the open window. + +"Well, Zenz," he said, "you must not mind if I leave you alone now. The +day has been so hot, the wretched music of that band and all sorts of +other things have given me a furious headache, and I had better get to +sleep. Good-night, child! If you want anything to amuse you, here are +all manner of things--photographs and books of pictures. I will light +you another candle. And now, make yourself comfortable. You can bolt +the door from this side, and my housekeeper goes to market early in the +morning, so that you are quite safe from her. And so, good-night!" + +He touched her cheek lightly. She raised her face toward him, quietly +and submissively, and looked at him half inquiringly, half afraid. Her +lips, with their white teeth, were parted--yet now without a laugh--and +her hands lay quietly folded in her lap. Yet, as he bent over her, he +only touched the hair upon her forehead lightly with his lips. + +"Good-night!" he said again. + +Then he went into the adjoining room, and closed the door behind him. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + +At the foot of his bed stood a cabinet in which he preserved all kinds +of relics, diaries, letters--mementos of his lost love. He thrust in +his hand at random, and drew out a portfolio containing all Irene's +letters, from the first unimportant notes, in which she sent him some +communication from her uncle--her uncle had an aversion to pen and ink, +and was very glad to make use of his niece as a secretary--to the +sheets on which the fate of his life stood written. + +He lit a lamp and spread out before him this chronicle of the happiest +years of his youth. Thus he sat with his back to the door of the +sitting-room, now reading, and now mechanically taking up one sheet +after the other. What could they tell him that was new? And yet these +fine, slender letters reminded him of the hand that had written them. +He had never seen any other hand that had expressed so much character, +so much delicacy and firmness, so much flexibility and noble repose. He +had often teased Irene about this, by telling her that he would +undertake to decide from the appearance of her hands whether she was +glad or sad, laughing or crying. The handwriting, too, was a very +correct expression of her impulsive and self-controlled inner nature. +Now, as he picked out here and there some particular sheet and glanced +over it again, the whole past rose up so vividly before him that he +felt as if he must suffocate in the close, lonely, sad atmosphere that +surrounded him; as if he were lying in his grave, and a voice arose +from these pages and repeated to him the history of his own life, that +now lay ruined and shattered for ever more. + +"Your dear, long letter from Mexico," she wrote, "I gave to uncle to +read. He is always teasing me, because I assert that the letters of two +lovers are written to be read by two pairs of eyes only. It was not +possible, he declared, that an epistle of sixteen closely-written +pages, like your last, could be a mere love-letter; no human being +could stand such a thing, and we no longer lived, thank God, in that +paradise of letter-writers--the time of Werther. So I showed him the +Mexican letter, and he gave it back to me with one of his most comical +faces. He declared he had never before come across such a lover; here +he was giving a detailed description of a charming young girl, passing +from one handsome woman to another, as if he could think of nothing +that would give greater pleasure to his far-off sweetheart. That was +certainly rather the opposite of a love-letter; but if I was content to +make the acquaintance of all these Paquitas, Chatitas, and Mariquitas, +he would not begrudge me the pleasure, and congratulated me upon my +slight disposition to jealousy, which, to be sure, was a very useful +trait for me to have in the case of a traveler of this sort. + +"I laughed, and he went off to his club, shaking his head. + +"But then I grew very serious, and looked into my own heart and tried +to make out why it was that I really did not feel the faintest spark of +jealousy. Perhaps because there is room for nothing in my heart but my +love for you; neither for conceit, nor fear, nor desires, nor doubt. I +have never stopped to consider _why_ it was that we two should have +loved one another. It _was_ so; I felt that even more strongly than I +did my own existence. And for that very reason it seems to me +inconceivable that it can ever be any different. For you do not love me +because I am the most beautiful, the wisest, the wittiest, or the most +lovable person that you have ever seen, but because I am _I_ the one +person, with all that I have and all that I lack, that you will never +find a second time. So, though you may find many beyond the sea who are +more charming, more attractive, more brilliant, you will never find me +again; and because I know that, I can, when evening comes, lay your +sixteen-page letter from over the ocean under my pillow, and very +quietly go to sleep and dream of you, without feeling any desire to +snatch you, with poison and dagger, from the attractions of some +olive-colored Creole. + +"For I know, dearest love--vain as it may sound, and little store as I +set by my few talents and attractions--that I alone can make you happy +as no other can; not so happy that you will never have a wish +unfulfilled; that I shall appear to you at all times the crown and +jewel of all wives, and you the chosen favorite of fortune; but as +happy as it is possible for one human being to make another, so happy +will I make you and you make me; and because we can never comprehend +this, but ask ourselves each day why it should be so, therefore our +happiness shall have no end, and no phenomenon of beauty, grace, or +wit, that ever crosses your path, will be capable of disturbing this +happiness. + +"My old Christel would raise her eyebrows very ominously at this point, +and would repeat 'unjustified, entirely unjustified!' But I cannot help +it; as a rule I am timid and skeptical about anything good that is +promised to me. But when I think of our love, I overflow with boldness +and confidence. What harm can fortune do us? Is not our love itself +fortune? What tricks of fate ought we to fear, when we hear this fate, +the most important and the greatest of all, within us? + +"You will not feel tempted to translate this letter for the benefit of +your Spanish lady friends. They would only pity you for having a +sweetheart who would write you about such serious matters. Ah! and yet +my whole heart laughs when I think that they are so serious with us!" + + +In a later letter, that had been addressed to Paris, she wrote: + + +"Yesterday, I was at court again, and to-day I thank heaven that I +managed to bear it, and that the headache which was caused by its +tiresomeness is only a moderate one. This undoubtedly proceeds from the +fact that I sat at supper next to the embassador for ----, who has been +in India, and who described to me, in great detail and for the third +time, the burning of a widow that he had once been present at. (They +say that he always tells the gentlemen a similar story about a +tiger-hunt.) For this reason it happened that I could think a great +deal about you, and when I can do that I am always happy. My darling, +have you yet learned to put a good face on a bad matter? To howl with +the wolves? To do homage to 'his serene highness your sovereign +prince,' without letting your own sovereignty come out too plainly? I +am afraid that, inasmuch as they don't dance the bolero here at the +court balls, and as the whole _tempo_ of our life is an _andante +maestoso_, you will soon grow impatient with all this again, and give +umbrage to some of the best and best-intentioned people in the world. +No one can understand your feeling better than I do; only to think that +your poor sweetheart, whom you have always teased about her good +breeding and her respect for conventional forms, is looked upon by the +society of this city as a very emancipated individual, or, at all +events, is notorious for being a _tete forte_! The reason of this is, +that I generally am quite dumb in the midst of all tiresome talk and +whispered gossip; but if the conversation happens to turn upon anything +deeper, upon affairs of real human interest and not merely upon court +events, then I express my true opinion, without troubling myself to +care whether it falls in with the court tone or not. And the good +people look on this as very pronounced, and not at all good form for a +young lady. + +"But don't you see, my dearest, in this way I manage to make this whole +world of forms bearable, by holding my human part ready in reserve, and +looking upon all these absurd prejudices and narrow conventionalities +as something purely superficial and accidental, as unimportant as the +other habits and customs we have in our toilet, behavior, and our +living and dying? And although the forms of the circle in which our lot +has happened to place us are very often more tiresome and senseless +than in other stations, still existence can nowhere be entirely +formless, and at the most can only seem so to one who only looks upon +it as a traveler may look, and who, as an irresponsible spectator, does +not feel bound to submit himself to any of the constraint that is +incumbent upon the natives. Have not you yourself told me that even +among the students a severe etiquette prevails, according to which they +sing and drink, and fight duels, and make up their quarrels? If young +people, in the years of their happiest freedom, cannot amuse themselves +without submitting to the restraint of customs and conventionality, why +should you be so angry with our poor aristocracy, that endeavors to +console itself by these wretched devices for the emptiness of its +existence? + +"It is only among ourselves that we need not submit to any formality! +Only when in his most intimate circle can one be a human being! And, +since it is so, I think we can easily spare the little tribute of +restraint that we have to render to our social equals. + +"So do come back, and behave like a pink of propriety, my darling +scapegrace; and try and make your seven-league boots accommodate +themselves to the minuet step of our dear capital at least once in +every month or two. Then when we are alone again in our own four walls, +I will do all I can to make up to you for the _ennui_ you have +suffered; and I will gladly dance the bolero with you, if you will only +teach me how." + +This letter was soon followed by their reunion. With what a feeling he +took up all the little notes, that at that time had but a few streets +to go, to bring messages about a walk, a visit for which he was to call +for her, or some incident that had made it impossible to keep an +engagement! These notes showed, now and then, traces of some more +serious misunderstanding that had taken place between the two lovers: +an appeal to be very gentle to-day, a promise not to refer by a +syllable to the dispute of the day before. He seemed to see again all +that he had once read between these lines. + +And then came her last letter, the letter of parting: + + +"I am quite quiet now, Felix, or at least as quiet as one is when pain +has exhausted all one's strength. I write to you this very night, for +of course there can be no thought of sleep. I have again and again +thought it all over from the beginning, and have each time arrived at +the same conclusion--that I deceived myself in believing through all +these years that I was necessary to your happiness. Do not try to shake +this belief; I am sadly humbled, Felix, very wretched and miserable +because of this confession; but I am as sure that it is true, as I am +that I still live and breathe. + +"I know that you still love me, perhaps quite as much as you have +always loved me. But one thing I did not know before, and I learn it +now with pain: you love something better than you do me--your freedom. + +"You would be willing to sacrifice it, partly from chivalry, in order +that you might keep your promise; partly from kind-heartedness, for you +must feel how my whole life has hung on you, and how slowly these +wounds will heal. And yet, _it must be!_ How could anything that would +not make you perfectly happy ever be happiness to me? + +"You shall be free again, and you may be so without any anxiety about +me. I have more strength than I seem to have. There is only one thing I +cannot bear: to see a sacrifice laid at my feet. + +"Even if you were now willing to disclose your secret to me, it would +not alter my resolve. I would not have you think that I wanted to wring +anything from you, which you would not give to me of your own accord. +But that you should make a distinction between that which you share +with me, and that which belongs only to yourself ... it may seem +narrow-minded or weak or arrogant of me, but I cannot help myself, I +cannot rise above it. + +"I shall never feel toward you, Felix, any differently from what I do +now; I shall never feel toward another as I do toward you. I have to +thank you for the best and dearest feelings that I have ever possessed +and experienced. No lapse of time can change this in the least--as +little as it can my resolve. + +"Think kindly of me, too--without bitterness. And now +farewell!--farewell forever! Irene." + + +He knew this letter by heart, word for word, and yet he read it through +again, word for word, and when he came to the end all the pain, and +defiance, and anger against himself and against her blazed up within +him, as it had in the hour when he first read it. Her calmness, her +gentle strength, that he used to laugh at as artificial, although he +knew how free she was from all feminine tricks; her clear comprehension +and her courage in asserting it: all this humiliated him anew. Then, +indeed, he had comforted himself with the belief that a word from him, +a look, her name merely pronounced by his lips, would demolish the +barrier that she had raised up between them, as easily as one blows +down a tower of cards. He had bitterly deceived himself. Neither by +entreaties nor stratagems had he succeeded in again gaining access to +her. He had to admit, with a new feeling of humiliation, that she was +the stronger. Then at last he too had, as he believed, bound his breast +in the seven-fold bands of iron, and had turned away from her. For the +last time he wrote to her a short, proud, but not unkind letter, almost +like an ultimatum from one power to another. He had felt some hope in +regard to it for that very reason. When it remained unanswered, he +acknowledged that all was over. + +His face had sunk down on the little portfolio, he had closed his +eyes and had given himself up, with a kind of ecstasy, to all these +bitter-sweet memories. The thought that there was any one near him had +passed completely out of his mind, and his dreams began to lapse deeper +and deeper into the haziness that usually precedes unconsciousness. + +Suddenly he roused himself with a start. A light hand had touched his +shoulder. As he turned hurriedly, he saw Zenz standing behind him. She +hastily stepped back again as far as the threshold of the door, which +she had softly opened, and stood there in the frame thus made in the +exact attitude of Jansen's "Dancing Girl," her arms thrown back and +holding, instead of the tambourine, the little plate on which Felix had +handed her the wine. The candle-light that streamed in from the +sitting-room, and the little lamp by the side of Felix's bed, doubly +illuminated the slim, youthful figure, and its shadow flickering back +and forth heightened the weird charm. She stood there with her profile +slightly turned upward, motionless as a statue, gazing straight before +her. It was not until quite a time had elapsed, and she had begun to +feel tired, that she asked, still without turning her head, whether he +was not going to begin to sketch? He rose and took a step toward her, +and then stood still again. + +"My dear child," he said, controlling himself with difficulty, "it is +too late for that. The night has grown cool--you will catch cold. Come, +I thank you very much. You are a beautiful girl, and I--am not made of +stone. Now go back and go to sleep. To-morrow--tomorrow we will +sketch." + +She gave a start, and he noticed with amazement that she began to +tremble violently. She gave but one timid glance at him. Suddenly, the +tears streamed from her eyes, she threw down the plate with such force +that it shivered into fragments, rushed back from the threshold into +the sitting-room and violently slammed the door behind her. + +An instant after, he heard the bolt pushed to. + +"For God's sake, child!" he cried, "what has come to you all of a +sudden? What have I done to offend you? Open the door, and let us have +a sensible talk together. Didn't I tell you that I had a headache? And +who ever heard of such an idea as sketching in the middle of the night? +Zenz! don't you hear? Won't you make it up again?" + +All in vain. After wasting his entreaties and at last his anger, for +some time longer, on the tightly-closed door, he was finally obliged to +give it up. His blood was in a whirl; he could not conceive now how he +could have repulsed the poor creature in such cold-blooded fashion. +"Perhaps her anger will pass over, if I leave her to herself for a +while," he thought. + +"I am going out to take a little walk," he cried through the key-hole. +"I must have a breath of fresh air. When I come back again, perhaps my +headache will be gone and your fit of temper, too. In the mean while, +pass away the time as pleasantly as you can." + +And he really did go out into the night; but he returned again before a +quarter of an hour had passed--he was drawn back by some power that he +himself could not understand. + +As he entered his sleeping-room, where the lamp was still burning +steadily, it was empty. He passed quickly through the door, which was +now unbolted, into the sitting-room. But here, too, no trace could be +found of his guest, search as he would behind the curtains and in the +dark corners. The light had not been extinguished and a bat had flown +into the room, and the exertion of hunting him out again threw him into +a perspiration. When at last he succeeded, and, exhausted by such a +variety of excitement, had sunk back upon the sofa, he found that all +the little knickknacks, which he had spread before her when they first +arrived, were still lying on the table in the same order in which he +had left them. The little dagger which his Creole friend had given him +was the only thing he missed, and he could not find it though he +searched for it everywhere. + + + + + + _BOOK III_. + + + + + CHAPTER I. + + +There are summer nights that are not made for sleep. The moon shines +far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full +height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People +strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under +their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow +of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of +crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does +in the hot noontide. On such nights as this, sounds of life and +merriment are heard throughout the city long after the police have +sounded the hour for retiring; the couples that wander through the +streets seem unable to find their way home; young fellows march along +arm-in-arm, in long rows stretching the whole width of the road, as if +advancing to battle against some invisible enemy, singing all the while +as tenderly and sweetly as they know how, or else shrieking and yelling +like a troop of wild Indians. Here and there, where a window stands +open and a _sonata_ of Beethoven floats out into the night, they +suddenly hush their noise and listen, only to break out in a wild burst +of applause the moment the music ceases. On such a night solitary youth +lies dreaming, with open eyes, till long past midnight, of the glories +of the future; and solitary age thinks sadly how glorious the past was; +and at last they fall asleep over their musing, and slumber quietly, +until some young cock in a neighboring roost, who cannot sleep himself, +gives a glance up to heaven and begins to crow with such vigor at the +setting moon, which he mistakes for the rising sun, that the sleepers +start up again, throw off the bedclothes from their hot limbs, and +creep to the window to see whether the night is really at an end. After +this there is no more sleep for the aged; but they who are young lie +down once more and soon make up for all that they have lost. + +Such was the night that followed that Sunday. Of those in whose fate +and adventures we are interested, none went to bed before midnight, +though in truth some other sprite than the charm of the sultry night +had possession of their hearts and senses. Even the good Angelica, who +to the best of our knowledge was not in love, and who rejoiced moreover +in that softest of pillows, a good conscience, sat at the open window +of her little virgin bower, in which a lamp was dimly burning, half +through the night, twining her curls and heavily sighing and dropping +into a doze, until her head would strike against the window-sash, +when she would start up and begin once more to spin her sorrowful +summer-night's thoughts. She had been at Julie's door that afternoon to +inquire what had been the upshot of this bad business. But no one was +at home. And so she was waiting impatiently for the following day. + +It was later still before Julie could bring herself to go to bed. The +windows in her chamber stood open so as to let in the night-air through +the openings in the closed blinds. But with the air the magical +moonbeams streamed in too, and made a pattern on her green silk +coverlet; her thoughts were lost in its mazes, so that she could not +close her eyes. She felt as if she had never been at once so happy and +so wretched. At heart she did not doubt for a moment that everything +really was just as it stood in the baleful letter; that she would never +possess him whom she loved. His own puzzling behavior, the way in which +he had suddenly broken off and rushed out of the room, confirmed the +anonymous accusation only too well. But the thought that she loved him, +and that he returned her love, crowded out all others, and made her so +glad in the depths of her heart, that no hostile fate could crush the +rejoicing within her. So he is to "give her back her faith in her own +heart!" What a senseless phrase! When had she ever believed in anything +as she believed in the strength and truth and invincibility of this +feeling, in the feeling that it was worth while to have lived through a +long youth without love and happiness for the sake of this man, so that +now she might lavish upon him a hoarded wealth of passion? + +She could not help smiling when it occurred to her how often she had +thought that she had done with the world, and could look back without +regret upon the years of youth she had lost. What had become of those +ten anxious years? Had she really lived in them or only dreamed of +them? Was she not as young and inexperienced, as thirsty for happiness +and as coy in its presence, as she had ever been in the first blooming +years of her girlhood? Yes, she felt the courage of her earliest youth, +when she still believed in miracles, bubbling up within her from an +inexhaustible spring. She made no attempt to close her eyes to what +could and would happen. But that this love, hopeless as it seemed, +would be a source of unspeakable happiness to her, that in the +sanctuary of her heart she would never cease to look upon this man as +belonging to her--all this she admitted to herself in words so plain +that, as she lay there wide awake in the moonlight, they sometimes +found utterance in a half-audible soliloquy. + +Then she marveled at the suddenness with which it had all come about, +but she soon convinced herself again that this was just as it should +be. She tried hard to picture to herself the kind of wife he might +have. But she could not; it seemed to her impossible that he could ever +have loved any one but herself. She closed her eyes and tried to recall +his features to her mind. Singularly enough she met with no great +success. His eyes were all that she could distinctly call up before +her, and his voice seemed always to be close to her ear. She rose and +stepped to the window, and opened the blinds a little to see if the +night were not almost over. She herself did not know why she should +thus look forward to the morning, for there was little hope that it +would bring her anything new or good. But it would bring _him_, she +could count on that. With burning lips she drew in the mild night-air, +and listened to a love-song, which a solitary youth sang as he passed +under her window. + +She understood each word, and as he ended she repeated the closing +verses softly, and sighed as she shut the blinds again. Then she lay +down and at last fell asleep. + +The day had long dawned outside, but the green twilight in which she +lay caused her to dream on undisturbed. It struck seven, eight, nine, +from the clock on the Theatinerkirche. Then at last she awoke, feeling +as refreshed as if she had just emerged from bathing in the sea. It was +some time before she could think clearly of all that had happened +yesterday and would probably happen today, but as she did so a vague +fear and anxiety came over her. She hastened to dress, so that she +might go out and ask whether any letter had come. When at last she +opened the door into the parlor, her figure wrapped in a loose robe, +and her hair thrust carelessly under a pretty cap, her foot hit against +some heavy object that took up the whole breadth of the threshold. As +the blinds were closed in this room also, she did not see at first, +owing to her short-sightedness, what it was that lay in her way. But +the object immediately began to move of its own accord, and raised +itself up before her, and she felt a cold tongue on her hand and saw +that the intruder was no other than Jansen's venerable Newfoundland +dog. The start he gave her was almost instantly lost in the greater one +with which she found herself saying, "Where the dog is, the master will +not be far away." And she was right, for there, in the back part of the +room, leaning against the stove, was a dark figure with disheveled +hair, standing as immovable in its place as she herself stood in the +doorway, deprived of all power to move a limb or open her lips. + +Just at this moment the other door opened, and the old servant stepped +in and turned to the man at the stove with a gesture which was half +indignant, half timid, but which said plainer than words that it had +been impossible to turn away this uncomfortably early guest; he had +made his way in by force. + +"It is quite right, Erich," said his mistress, who had now completely +recovered her composure. "I will ring when I want breakfast. And, +by-the-way, I am not at home in case any one calls." + +The old man retired, shrugging his shoulders, and muttering to himself. +The moment he closed the door behind him, Julie stepped quickly up to +Jansen, who stood in silence at the opposite end of the room, and +cordially extended her hand. + +"Thank you for coming," she said; and from her voice it would have been +hard for any one to have believed how her heart beat as she uttered +these few words, "But sit down. We have much to say to one another." + +He bowed slightly, but remained standing where he was, and appeared not +to notice that she had offered him her hand. + +"Pardon this early visit," he said. "Your note did not reach me last +evening. Early this morning, when I went into the studio--" + +"Have you any suspicion as to who could have written the letter?" she +interrupted, wishing to come to his aid. She had sunk down into a +chair, and the dog lay beside her on the carpet, occasionally giving a +growl of content as he felt her soft hand on his head. + +"I think I know," replied Jansen, after a short pause. "I am certain +that some one in this city is dogging all my steps, very likely in the +interest of another. What was in that letter is nothing but the pure +truth; and when I went to my studio this morning, I carried a letter in +my pocket which I had written overnight, and which tells you almost the +same thing. Here it is--if you would like to read it." + +She shook her head slightly. + +"What for, my dear friend, if it tells me nothing new?" + +"Perhaps it may. But you are right; this piece of paper cannot prove to +you the fact I most desire to have proved: that is, that I really wrote +this letter last night before I knew of any other. That is something +you can only believe from my personal assurance--and that is the reason +of my being here." + +"That is the reason? Oh! my friend, as if I needed such an +assurance--as if your hasty departure yesterday had not told me that +you did not trust yourself to stay because you--because you had only +said what you did in a moment of self-forgetfulness--and yet, believe +me, that was a thoughtless word that slipped from my pen, that only an +explanation from you could give me back my faith in my own heart. I +have never lost that faith. I believe to-day, as yesterday, that my +heart knew perfectly well what it was about when it surrendered itself +to you." + +"You are an angel from heaven!" he cried, his grief breaking forth; +"you seek to defend me even from myself. Yet for me with my hopeless +lot to have forced myself into your quiet life, will never cease to be +a crime. That is what I said to myself yesterday the moment I left your +door. This letter attempted to say the same thing, and informed you +also of my firm resolve never to show myself in your sight again. But +the strange hand that tugs at the chords of my ruined life, and seeks +to tear them asunder, has shattered this resolve. Now I owe you a +longer confession than could be written in a letter. For not until you +know all about me will you be able to understand that, though it was a +sin, it was still a human one, that caused me so to forget myself; and +that you need not withdraw your respect from me--though you do your +heart--and your hand." + +He was silent again for a moment; she, too, said nothing. She trembled, +but she strove hard to appear calm, so that he would go on. How +willingly she would have heard her fate in two words--her "to be or not +to be!" What did she care for all the rest? But she felt that he had +more to tell her, and she would not interrupt him. + +"I hardly know," he continued, "how much our friend Angelica has told +you about me. I am a peasant's son, and had to struggle through a hard +childhood; and it was a long time before I could bend my stiff +peasant's neck so that it fitted without chafing in the yoke of city +etiquette. Few men have ever gone such strange ways as I have, always +wavering between defiance and humility, audacity and shrinking, as +well in my dealings with my fellow-men as in my art. I had a mother of +the true old yeoman nobility--which is synonymous with true human +nobility--at least in our part of the country. She finally succeeded in +making a strong, silent man of my father, who had a streak of the +tyrant in him. If she had lived longer, who knows whether I should ever +have left her? But soon after her death I prevailed upon my father to +let me go to the art-school at Kiel. I did little good there. There was +a wild element among the scholars, and I was not the tamest. I always +had a great contempt--perhaps because I was ashamed of my peasant's +manners--for what we were pleased to call the Philistinism of the +worthy citizens. That I, as an artist, was permitted all sorts of +liberties that were denied to officials, scholars, and tradespeople, +pleased me greatly; and I abused my freedom without stint. But as I +moved in a very narrow circle, and seldom came in contact with any high +type of humanity, I had no great field in which to display the +profligacy of my thoughts and habits. A few wretched _liaisons_, and a +number of silly and by no means edifying scrapes, were all that came of +it. + +"Then I moved to Hamburg. There the same wild life was continued on a +somewhat larger scale. You will readily spare me the details. Now, when +I think back on that time, I have to stop and reflect whether it really +could have been _I_ who wasted his days and nights in such shameful +dissipation with such worthless companions. They were my Prince Hal +days. 'The wild oats had to be sown.' But now I thank my good star for +having led me safely, though by dubious ways, past all that kind of +crime and wrong-doing which could not have been covered by this trite +saying." + +"Well, one evening, when my aching head and my gnawing rage at my own +idiocy unfitted me for anything else, I went to the theatre, and saw +for the first time an actress who was just entering on an engagement +there. The piece was a flat, sensational, social drama, in which she +took the part of the noble, generous, young wife, who plays the saving +angel to the dissipated husband. It was a moral lecture that appealed +directly to my own case; and as the sinner, even in his deepest +degradation, seemed an enviable creature as compared with me--for he +invariably fell into the arms of his guardian angel--I could not help +wishing myself in his place; and so was led to examine that angel very +carefully. + +"She was certainly well worth looking at. A most charming young person, +with a figure, a bearing, and a certain indolent grace in all her +movements, such as I had never seen before. In addition to all this a +childlike face, with dove-like eyes, and such an innocent, plaintive +mouth, that you would have been willing to storm the very heavens just +to bring a smile to those pretty lips. When this really appeared at the +close of the play (for the young husband reformed), it was all over +with me. As I noticed that half the audience--indeed, the entire male +part--had gone mad over her, I considered my sudden infatuation not +extraordinary; especially as I have a way of not being very slow in my +feelings of love and hate. You have had experience of that yourself." + +He paused for a moment, and gave her a hasty glance. But she did not +stir, so breathlessly was she listening to him, her eyes fixed on the +head of the dog, who lay quietly sleeping at her side. + +"I will spare you any account of the further course of my love affair," +he continued. "It is enough that in eight days I gained my case by +ardor and flattery: and Lucie was my betrothed. + +"The strange manner in which she bore herself in this position ought to +have warned me. To my first passionate wooing she had opposed a +prudishness and a maidenly reserve such as I had not expected to find +in an actress, especially as she let me see plainly enough that she +felt anything but indifferent toward me, and that the homage of an +artist whose reputation was then in the ascendant was exceptionally +flattering to her. But no sooner did I, somewhat taken aback by this +severe maidenly reserve, make her a proposal that aimed at nothing less +than our marriage and her retirement from the stage, than her tone +changed. She began to treat the subject with greater lightness, to +utter platitudes against marriages among artists, and in praise of the +happiness of liberty; to tease me with moods, and to attract me again +by all kinds of pretty coaxing; so that my passionate obstinacy was +urged higher and higher, until at last I forced her, half against her +will, to fix the wedding-day. + +"Of course this excited the greatest amazement among my former +companions, who could scarcely believe their ears. To those with whom I +was most intimate I expatiated on the matter as an exceedingly +practical undertaking, as a truly sensible marriage. I should never +again find a being who was thus equally removed from Philistinism and +evil courses. Besides, one cannot go on sowing wild oats forever; and +it seemed to me that now, when my prospects had begun to seem quite +favorable on account of a number of orders I had received, was the most +suitable time to settle to a steadier life. This is what I said to my +most intimate friends. I said nothing to the others. One of them, our +Falstaff, who was the one most concerned at my loss, took me aside one +day and asked whether I was really in earnest about this foolish +affair. Upon my replying that I was sufficiently in earnest to forbid +any contemptuous criticism upon my conduct, even from a good friend, he +shrugged his shoulders and excused himself: he had not had the +slightest intention of offending me, but he merely wished to call my +attention to the fact that this freak of mine might cost me too dearly. +Then, when I pressed him further, he remarked that 'in his opinion +there were such things as artificial violets, and that the most genuine +thing about this creature was her acting, which, unfortunately, she +kept up in real life as well as on the stage.' And then followed a +short sketch of her adventurous career, which this well-meaning man had +collected, not without considerable trouble, from numberless inquiries +at the theatres where she had appeared. + +"Of course I expressed my appreciation of his kindness in the plainest +possible words, broke with him once and for all, and ran off to my +betrothed, to whom I excitedly related the whole chronicle of what I +had heard about her way of life. The idea had never even entered my +head that she would answer me in any other way than with a burst of +burning indignation, and I had already been considering what kind words +I should make use of in order to soothe her. But she heard me through +without emotion, indeed without even blushing, so that for a moment I +was fool enough to say to myself, 'I really believe she is so innocent +that she doesn't even understand what I have been telling her.' But +when I ceased speaking, she looked me full in the face, quite unabashed +and with her most angelic expression, and said: 'This is all a lie, +except in one particular. I committed a single wrong when I was a mere +child, and that was the reason why I refused to become your wife. Do +now as you like; you know what you take when you take me.' + +"This confession, which she made with her irresistible melodramatic +voice, blinded me completely; and I was more convinced than ever that +all the rest of the talk about her deceitfulness and coquetry, and her +heartless flirting with foolish young admirers, was a lie. 'No,' I +cried, folding her in my arms, 'you shall not find yourself +disappointed in me, you shall not find a narrow-minded Philistine, when +you thought you were giving yourself up to a free artist's soul. What +lies behind you shall cast no shadow over our future. If it is true +that you love me, why then--' and here I quoted, slightly changing it +to suit the occasion, a verse of poetry that I had read but a short +time before and had thought very profound. 'Was _I_ a saint before I +asked your hand? And yet I was master of my fate, and knew what I did. +No, let there be day before us and behind us night, that none may look +upon us! Only promise me that in the _future_ all your thoughts shall +belong to me alone.' + +"She sobbed violently in my arms, and made me the fairest promises. I +almost believe that at that moment she did indeed mean what she said, +for there was a sound spot in her that had not yet been touched by the +worm--a longing for what was pure and good. If this had not been the +case, how would it have been possible for me to have continued in my +blindness longer than the few weeks of the honey-moon? But she herself +seemed so happy in those first months, though we lived quite by +ourselves--for I had broken with my old cronies, and had no particular +desire to form new acquaintances, whom I could only have found among +the Philistine class that I so heartily despised. Then, too, she grew +more charming with each day. Once in a while, however, I caught her +poring over her prompt-books; and then I told her bluntly, for I could +see that her eyes were red with weeping, that she longed to be back +behind the foot-lights again, that she missed the applause and grieved +because she could not any longer turn the heads of the whole parquet. +'What can you be thinking of!' she laughed. 'In my condition! Why, I +should feel like sinking through the deepest trap-door, I should be so +ashamed!' In this way she would drive away my suspicions; and when at +length her child was born, I really thought she was so taken up with +household joys and cares that she cared for nothing else. + +"It is true she was not such a foolish mother as to think her child an +angel of beauty. It was a rather plain, unattractive-looking little +thing--'the father over again,' remarked the women, very justly. But +she played the _role_ of mother with considerable talent; and not until +a long time later, when she was sent to the sea-shore to recuperate, +did it occur to me that she parted without any particular grief from +the laughing and cooing little creature that clung so tightly to her. I +staid at home and let her go over to Heligoland by herself, in the +charge of an elderly friend of hers--an actress, but a woman bearing an +irreproachable name. I happened to have a few orders that it was +necessary to execute just as soon as possible--among others two busts +of a rich wharfinger and his wife--and as our household, small as it +was, made pretty heavy drains upon my purse, I felt that I ought not to +let these chances slip through my fingers. It was our first separation, +and I found it hard enough to bear. But, as I had to work hard and also +to fill a mother's place toward the child, the first two weeks passed +pretty quickly. + +"But after that the little one began to give me a great deal of +anxiety. Teething set in, there were bad days and worse nights, and the +letters I received from my wife--in which she said she was doing +admirably and had grown quite young again--did not tend to raise my +spirits especially, for it appeared as if nothing were wanting to her +happiness, not even her husband and child. + +"Heretofore I had had neither disposition nor occasion for jealousy. +Suddenly I was to learn what an abyss can be uncovered in a man's soul, +into which everything sinks that he has before believed firm and true. + +"I had been sitting up late; the child was very feverish, and toward +midnight we had been obliged to call in the doctor. For the first time +I thought with bitterness about my wife, who could stay at such a +distance and nurse her own health while the little life, that should +have been dearer to her than her own, was trembling in the balance. +When the child had been quieted a little, so that I could think of +taking some rest, it was a long time before I could close my eyes, +though as a general thing I could reckon on my peasant's sleep under +all circumstances. At last it came, but with it came dreams--dreams +such as I would not have wished to the damned in hell. Always about +_her_, in ever-new costumes, playing the old play of pledged and broken +faith. Out of the last scene, where, in the very presence of her lover +and with the quietest mien in the world, she sought to demonstrate to +me her right to transfer her love from one man to another, until I +sprang forward with a cry of fury to seize her by the hair--out of this +wretched vision of hell I was awakened by the crying of my child; so +that I did not take time to wipe the cold sweat from my forehead, but +ran into the nursery quite prepared to find Death standing at the head +of the little bed. But once again it passed, and in the morning we were +both able to get a couple of hours of quiet sleep. Then, at last, I sat +down and wrote to my wife just how things stood. + +"For some days before, I had not sent her any very encouraging reports. +Any other woman would have returned at once, and not have tried to +excuse herself on the ground that the water-cure ought not to be +interrupted. But she--enough! I must try and control myself when I +speak of her. After all the poor creature cannot be blamed because she +had no heart, and because my love and passion could not conjure up one +within her breast. + +"But at the time I wrote in all the roughness and bitterness of my +mood, and insisted upon her immediate return. I had almost forgotten +the dreams of the night before. But a little later, when I was taking a +walk through the city, chance willed it that they should again be +recalled to my mind. + +"I met a gossiping acquaintance, who had also been passing a few weeks +at the island. Heaven knows how it came about that I stopped him and +inquired about my wife. He was very much surprised to hear that she had +been there, indeed that she was there still. As in such a small place +everybody met everybody else, he could not understand how so beautiful +a woman could have escaped his notice. 'To be sure, she has lived in +great retirement,' I stammered, and he found this very natural and +praiseworthy of a charming young lady, and hoped the cure would be +successful, and so left me; while I stood there like a fool for a full +quarter of an hour, staring vacantly at the same flag-stone, and +blocking peoples' way as if I had been a stopping-post. Yet she _must_ +have been there; letters had daily passed back and forth; and then, +what earthly reason could she have for trying to deceive me in this +respect? But then again: you will readily understand that this +incident, trifling as it was in itself, was well calculated to add new +fuel to the fever that was raging within me. + +"I could not expect her back before the following day. How I survived +the intervening hours will always remain a mystery to me. I was +incapable of any occupation, of any connected thought or action. I had +just sufficient strength and reason left to sit by the side of the +poor, feverish child, and apply the ice-bandages, and count the hairs +on its forehead. + +"Even when night came I would not leave my post. I dreaded to dream. +Then came the morning again, and noon and afternoon, and still no news. +But at length a drosky drove up, the house-door was opened, the stairs +creaked under a light step, I sprang to my feet and rushed to meet her; +just then she entered the door, and my first look in her face +strengthened all my horrible suspicions. + +"Or no; it was not her face. I have no right to do this actress an +injustice; she had her face as completely under control as ever--the +innocent violet eyes, the Madonna mouth, the clear forehead--and yet it +_was_ her face that sent a shudder to my inmost heart. Was that the +mien of a mother, hastening to her child that lay at the door of death? +of a wife returning, after such anxious weeks of separation, to the +husband whom she pretended to have married for love? + +"Enough! The fate of our lives was decided in the first few hours. But +I was crafty too, and played my _role_ bravely. That we should refrain +from all demonstrations of tenderness, while our child lay in such +danger, was so natural--she herself could find nothing wrong in this. +But on the following morning, after the night had brought a change for +the better and we were able to breathe freely once more, she said to +me--and I can see her before me now, as she knelt at a trunk and turned +over the gay contents trying to find a comfortable dress to put on, for +she had not taken off her clothes during the night--'Do you know, +Hans,' she said, looking up at me with her dove-like eyes, half +petulantly, half pleadingly, 'do you know that it isn't at all nice of +you not to have paid me a single compliment upon how well I am looking? +I left a gallant husband, and find a cold-hearted bear. Come, as a +punishment, I will let you kiss this little slipper, that I might have +put on the neck of the whole male population of the island if I had +wanted to.' + +"'Lucie,' said I, 'I want first to make a request of you.' + +"'About what?' asked she, innocently. + +"'That you will swear to me, by the life of our child, that it is only +a devilish delusion, sprung from my jealous dreams, that makes me think +you do not come back to me what you were when you went away.' + +"I had arranged this sentence word for word, just as one loads with the +greatest care a gun with which one wants to take sure aim. And I did +not miss the mark. She suddenly flushed purple, bent down her head over +the trunk, and fumbled nervously with the heap of sashes and scarfs. + +"But she quickly recovered herself. + +"'You have had bad dreams?' she asked, still quite unabashed. 'What did +you dream, then?' + +"And I replied: 'That you had been unfaithful to me. It is nonsense; I +know that you can give me back my peace by a single word. But, unless +you speak this word--did you understand me, Lucie? By the life of our +child, who lies there barely escaped from death--I only want to hear +one word. I cannot reproach myself with any neglect of my duty toward +_you_. Do you hear me, Lucie? Why don't you answer me? Can't you bear +my look?' + +"She actually succeeded in forcing herself to look at me, but there was +not the flash of innocent pride, of offended womanly honor; it was an +unsteady, flickering defiance, and the flaring up of a hostile feeling, +that I read in her eyes. + +"'I have no answer to such a question,' said she, with a gesture that +carried me back to the time when she was on the stage. 'You insult me, +Hans. Let us talk about something else. I will pardon you for the +child's sake, and because of the anxiety you have been suffering.' + +"I was still so under her influence that I hesitated for a moment +whether to mistrust the voice in my heart, or this serpent look. She +had risen, and was standing at the window, her face turned away and her +hand before her eyes, such a picture of insulted majesty and innocence +that I already began to curse my heat, and to accuse myself of having +done the greatest injustice and wrong that can be done to a helpless +woman. But just as I was on the point of going up to her and trying the +power of kind words, I heard my dog give a strange sort of a growl and +bark, as if he were angry and provoked; for which I could see no +reason. He did not like the woman. Either she had never known how, or +else she had never thought it worth while, to gain his favor. But +heretofore he had seemed to feel the greatest indifference toward her, +and I could not understand why her offended speech and bearing should +now enrage him. The truth is he was not paying the slightest attention +to her, but seemed to have been excited by something that he had +dragged out of the pile of things she had taken from her trunk. I +called out to him to lie down and keep quiet; he was still in a moment; +but, wagging his tail violently, he ran up to me, holding something in +his mouth which he laid on my knee. It was a man's glove. + +"Can you believe it?--my first feeling at the sight of this evidence +was a wild joy and satisfaction. I was suddenly at one with myself +again, and the wretched feeling of shame that perhaps after all I had +let my suspicious heat get the better of my reason, gave place to an +icy calmness. + +"'If you would only turn round,' I said, 'perhaps you would speak in a +different tone. Without knowing it or wishing it, you have brought me a +present from your journey for which I ought to thank you.' + +"As she turned round, even she was not actress enough to repress a +gesture of terror. + +"'I swear to you--she stammered, pale as death. + +"'Very good,' I said; 'that is precisely what I have been asking you to +do. But--do you hear?--consider well what you swear and by what you +swear it. By the life of the innocent creature lying in that chamber, +by that God who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto +the third and fourth generation--' + +"'I don't know what you mean--I--I have done no wrong and have no need +to swear. This glove, Heaven knows--' + +"'Heaven does know!' I shrieked, my smouldering rage breaking out +furiously. + +"I reached out my hand toward her; everything reeled before my eyes; I +have no further recollection of what I said and did at that moment, +except that I was very near seizing her by her long locks, as in my +dream, and dragging her across the room and down the stairs, and +casting her out into the street. I am sure, however, that I did not +touch her, but my looks and words must have been so relentless and +unmistakable that she herself found it advisable to leave me. Half an +hour later I was alone again with my child. + +"That very day I received a letter from her, full of well-turned +periods and insidious accusations. I read it without emotion. I was +like a well that has been choked forever--nothing can make its water +bubble up again. I answered this letter with a single word--'Swear!' No +second letter came; a last remnant of human feeling, sunk deep in +superstition, made it impossible for her to utter a lie that might be +revenged upon her child. + +"I waited three days. Then I wrote her a note that contained no word of +reproach, but simply said that it would be impossible for me to share +my life with her longer. I told her I would provide for her as I had +done heretofore, under the single condition that she would take her +maiden name again and never make any claim upon the child. When I wrote +this--I can't help confessing my foolishness to you--something within +me said, 'She will never consent to this condition. She will come and +fall at your feet, with a full confession of her guilt, and pray you +rather to kill her than to separate her from her child.' Then--what +might I not have done then?--it makes me shudder to think of it. I +almost believe I should have pardoned her--and been wretched ever +after, with my honor wounded and my confidence shaken at the very +roots. But I had loved her too dearly for me to become master of my +weakness so quickly. + +"She spared me the temptation. In a few days her answer came; she +refrained from making any explanations, which she knew would never be +satisfactory to a person so inclined to be suspicious as I was. Great +God! I suspicious--I, whom a lie would have quieted again! She accepted +what I had proposed to her, intended to return to the stage--for which +she was undoubtedly born--thanked me for all the goodness I had shown +her, hoped all would go well with me, and much more--a letter well +written, friendly, and icy cold. + +"Not a syllable was said about the child!" + + + + + CHAPTER II. + + +He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and +his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this +position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been +telling his dreary, melancholy story. + +The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes, +went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort, +and made as though he would take his departure. + +But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said +in her soft voice: + +"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went +on: "And you have never seen her since?" + +"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear +the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came +to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined +when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change +of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree +hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I +might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated +and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in +Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled +myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns +money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who +lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that +noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his +convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it +would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in +order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger +except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a +disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my +fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my +money-getting. It was all one, after all. + +"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was +not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the +thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I +sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately +sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and +better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together, +so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for +her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I +was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It +seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my +accomplishing this end. + +"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she +wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the +child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know. +Certainly not her heart. + +"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a +kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good, +honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose +children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof. +When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little +to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I +either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it +to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances, +who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried. +But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an +enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer. +Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman +before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those +violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all +my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you +confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to +you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send +it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would +have been a reproach to me. And now--" + +"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted. + +"Julie, what could you ask that I would not joyfully--" + +"I would love so dearly to see the child. Will you bring it to me? or +will you go there with me?" + +He took a step toward her; now, for the first time, he ventured to look +her in the face. She rose and went forward to meet him. + +"Dear friend," she said, "I must know this child. No matter how well it +may be taken care of where it is, it is and always will be motherless. +It can only find a mother again in her who loves the father more than +all else, and who would take to her heart all that belongs to him. Do +you not see that you must bring the child to me?" + +"Julie!" he cried, in a tone that burst from his innermost heart, just +as when a dreamer with a loud cry shakes off the nightmare that is so +suffocating him. He staggered toward her, and tried to seize her hand; +but she drew back a step, shook her head gently, and said, with a +blush: + +"Listen patiently to what I am going to say, or else it will be hard +for me to control myself and find the words. The sad story you have +just told me has given me a great deal to think of; I have not yet +clearly fixed it in my mind. But one thing is already clear to me: that +nothing in your past life can ever separate me from you. On the +contrary, I have been continually testing my feeling during your +confession, and have found that I love you now even more wholly than I +did yesterday, and that I know better _why_ I love you, if this is not +a senseless thing to say. My heart is old enough to be wise, and to +know why it loves any one, though my head is not quite so ready. And +so, my dearest friend, I now seriously declare to you, I have not the +slightest intention of ceasing to love you because so and so many years +ago you made the mistake of believing another human being to be better +than she really was. I will go still further: you shall not cease to +love me either, unless you made a second mistake yesterday, which I +confess would be much more painful to me than that first one." + +She did not succeed in uttering these last words, for, overwhelmed with +joy, Jansen had seized her in his arms. He held her long in this +embrace, until at last she recovered breath enough to beg for her +release. + +"No, no," she said, as she gently freed herself, "do not do so, dear, +or I will take it all back again; for you and I are not to be spared +our time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and +let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you. +You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced +and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at +such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I +just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling +myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all +the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you +have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact +that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break +the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up +within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice +your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will +consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come +to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote +my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I +tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some +place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another. +But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly. +Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really +do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art +and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has +been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much +better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of +being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not +see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve, +and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was +necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for +that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a +whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay +such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of +youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a +long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I +should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and +will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your +child's heart, so that it will not draw back, as from a stranger, from +her whom it is to call mother?" + +She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness, +and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both +sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw +it again. + +"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you +understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the +truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that +you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a +heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and +always--" + +He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet +which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when +they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one, +in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody +today. + +"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so +herself before I will believe it." + +"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature +from our happiness." + +She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third +person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection. + +"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica +into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and +not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take +my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no +difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to +help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen, +do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished +friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose +sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a +way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave +without her reward!" + +There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter, +and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in +such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness. +He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to +Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well, +and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was +generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up their +quarters together; that the visits of the _fiance_ should only take +place on certain days and in her own presence; that, for the present at +least, they would not disclose the great event even to their most +intimate friends in "Paradise"--all this and more was discussed, the +burden of the conversation falling almost entirely on Julie. A certain +lightheartedness had taken possession of her, such as her friend had +never seen her show before. She insisted upon Jansen and Angelica +taking breakfast with her, and played the part of hostess most +charmingly. Jansen followed every movement she made, as if he were +attracted by a magnet; and was caught more than once returning the most +irrelevant answers. + +At last, when he really had to go--it was already past noon, but no one +had taken any heed of the time--Angelica too rose in great haste. + +"I will go on ahead," said she; "lovers don't go through with their +leave-takings quite as quickly as we single people." + +But Julie detained her. She merely gave Jansen her hand to kiss, and +closed the door behind him. Then she fell on her friend's neck and +kissed her, her eyes overflowing with tears. + +"Forgive me my happiness!" she whispered. "It is so great I am almost +afraid of it, as though I had stolen a crown!" + +"What a child you are!" said the artist, bending over her and blushing. +"I told you how it would be--though really I was not so reckless as you +have been. To love this man just as one would any ordinary mortal, to +take him to your heart in this sudden fashion--well, I must say, I +admire your courage. It is true you are a perfectly charming piece of +human nature, from top to toe, and can do things other folks can't. +Now, such miserable institutions as we common people are, mere images +of God in _gouache_ or water-color--well, we have to be sensible, at +all hazards, unless we would bring down ridicule as well as injury upon +our heads. _Addio, cara! Iddio ti benedica!_" and with these words she +rushed out of the door. + + + + + CHAPTER III. + + +It was close upon midnight when Rosenbusch, with a heavy sigh, shut the +little sketch-book in which he had been scribbling verses on the empty +leaves between portraits of horses' heads and studies of costumes and +armor, and proceeded to drink off the last drops of his red Wuertemberg +wine. For more than three hours he had been sitting in the same place +in the corner of a quiet little beer-house, where few of the regular +guests were to be found to-day on account of the beautiful weather +outside, and where those who were present were fully occupied with +their customary drink. It would not be very hard to divine what had led +our friend hither. First of all, the certainty of not meeting any one +whom he knew. Then, probably, an unconscious attraction in the name. +The landlord of this little wine-room bore the name of the first man, +and it is probable that one who had just been driven from Paradise felt +a strong inclination to go and console himself with another Adam over +the common fate of the race. In this object he seemed to have been +wonderfully successful, partly because of the innocent power of the red +Wuertemberger, of which this desperate man had managed to empty four +Schoppen; partly because of the soothing influence of the muses. + +What Rosenbusch had written in his sketch-book had been a melancholy +strain; a sad lament over the misappreciation of the world, its +hardhearted realism, its effect upon his own fate, and, finally, over +his own desperate love affair. + +Any one who knew how to read poems might easily have derived from this +one the consolation that the author's life was in no immediate danger +from the stunning blows which had fallen upon it. The truth is he +belonged to those delicately-strung, romantic souls, who consider it +almost a moral duty to suffer continually from some gentle inflammation +of the heart or fantasy. But the more chronic their state becomes, the +less dangerous it is, as a general rule. Unfortunately, in the case of +our lyric poet, there was another circumstance which tended greatly to +increase the unpleasantness of his situation. Though, by temperament, +he was little inclined to passionate catastrophes, he felt, on the +other hand, a certain abstract craving for action, which made it +impossible for him to be content with looking on at life from a +distance. A certain lack of physical courage--for he was of a slender, +nervous build--made him feel it incumbent on him to exercise so much +the more moral boldness, and to carry a fancy, which another would have +quickly put aside--for it had not really taken a very strong hold on +him--to some romantic end, or to illustrate it by some adventurous +enterprise. This love of _denouements_ had generally turned out so +badly for him that he might well have been discouraged; his friends +told the most comical stories of what he had suffered in this way. But +in spite of all this, he had just taken the most audacious step of his +life, with the deliberate intention of doing something at the same time +chivalrous and practical. He, who barely lived from hand to mouth, had +seriously appeared as a suitor in the house of a worthy citizen of the +good old Munich type, entirely incapable of taking a joke in such a +matter. Why matters had been pushed to such an extreme in this +particular case, he himself would have found it hard to say. For a long +time the affair had run the usual course; first, stolen glances were +interchanged from window to window, across the narrow alley; then came +the first tributes of homage in the shape of little notes in verse, +surreptitiously delivered, and flowery contributions to the Munich +daily paper, the _Latest News_. These effusions were accompanied by +much lurking about the streets, which eventually resulted in the +formation of the desired acquaintance, and ended in a bold confession +of love under the "dark arches" of the Marienplatz. With all her +blushing and laughing, and nods and glances, the dear child had managed +to draw the line so skillfully that she appeared to refuse his +attentions as little as she appeared to encourage them. She treated the +whole matter as a joke, as something to be laughed over, but never for +one moment to be regarded in a serious light. That the good-looking, +dashing, gallant painter found favor in the eyes of his pretty neighbor +could not be exactly denied. She even went so far once as to entreat +him to keep up his flute practice diligently. She never fell asleep so +comfortably as when he was sending forth some really heartrending +melody. For the rest she knew very well what to expect of artists, and +she had no doubt but what he had copied the beautiful poems he had +addressed to her from some book or other. + +Rosenbusch felt himself rather flattered than hurt by these doubts; but +still this did not advance matters at all, and his dramatic instinct +for fresh excitement and change of action was almost in danger of +lagging a little, when it received an unexpected impulse from another +quarter. He discovered a secret that heretofore had been guarded more +carefully than his own; this was the hopeless love that his next-door +neighbor, Elfinger, entertained for the sister of his sweetheart. + +He felt at once that it was incumbent upon his honor for him to do +something which should release them both from this state of unmanly +submission to their fate, and of base yearning toward the house of a +Philistine, and at the same time push the fortunes of his friend. If he +himself could once obtain free access to the house in the character of +_fiance_ to the worldly daughter, Elfinger would have no difficulty in +becoming more intimate with her spiritually-inclined elder sister, and +would undoubtedly be able to overcome those scruples that had +heretofore prevented this singular girl from accepting any of his +letters, or even from consenting to strike up an acquaintance with him +in the open street. + +Confident in this belief, he determined upon the desperate step; and, +if he could not muster up sufficient courage, after the miserable +termination of his undertaking, to return to his friend with the bad +news, let us not think any the worse of his good heart. + +Yet we must confess that, as far as he himself was concerned, he +regarded this crushing conclusion to the novel as beneficial rather +than lamentable. He had done his best, had displayed uncommon courage, +and had shown the beautiful being how serious he was in his intentions; +but now he felt that he had a right to rejoice in peace over an +honorable defeat that permitted him to go on setting his heart on +everything that was lovable and unattainable. When at last he stepped +out of the wine-room into the square, where the moonlight shone full +upon the five bronze statues standing rigidly in their regular rank and +file, a feeling of infinite satisfaction stole over him; a malicious +joy that he could wander here in flesh and blood beneath the changing +moon and have as many love affairs as he liked, while these celebrated +dignitaries stood on their pedestals unable to move a muscle. He even +caught himself beginning to sing in a loud voice; but a moment after he +came to a sudden stop. He felt that it was not at all the proper thing +for him to go about bawling merry songs, considering the mournful mood +he ought by good rights to be in. + +So he composed his feelings, and wended his way home in a much more +subdued manner. But when he reached his street, and saw the lights in +Elfinger's windows blinking down at him, his heart quickly sunk into +his boots again. He could not bring himself to go up at this dead hour +of the night and confess to his friend how badly the affair had turned +out. So he turned swiftly upon his heel, and, taking a roundabout way, +finally reached his studio, where he knew he could find tolerable +sleeping quarters. + +The janitor opened his eyes wide when he was knocked up to open the +back-door for Herr Rosenbusch. The white mice, too, quickly sprang up +from their pleasant dreams of biscuit and Swiss cheese, and rubbed +their snouts against the wire-netting in nervous excitement; for they +recognized their master. There he stood in the moonlight, paying no +attention to them, firmly planted before the battle of Luetzen. He gazed +at it for a while in silence; then he felt for the place where his +beard was usually to be found. + +"You are no fool, after all!" he muttered to himself. "If you had never +painted anything but that black charger there, rearing because he has +received a bullet in his neck--_Basta! Anch' io sono pittore!_" + +Then he took his flute out of its case, and marched up and down for a +while blowing an _adagio_, in order to dissipate the fumes of the red +Wuertemberger. At length, when he felt tired enough, he rigged up a bed +on the floor out of a Swedish saddle, that he took for a pillow, a +saddle-blanket, said to have been used by Count Piccolomini, and a +tiger-skin which the moths had eaten until it looked like a variegated +geographical chart, but which was popularly supposed to have belonged +to Froben, the Master of the Horse. However this might be, it served to +make a softer bed for the tired body of the last of the romantic +battle-painters; and he stretched himself upon it with a sigh, looked +out once more on the moonlight night, and then fell into a deep and +dreamless sleep, such as is rarely granted to a disappointed lover. + + + + + CHAPTER IV. + + +Elfinger had been sitting up late into the night awaiting the return of +his friend, until at last he was forced to admit that there could be no +doubt but what the adventure had not ended very gloriously. He fell +asleep with a heavy heart, for his last hopes were now defeated. + +The next morning he crept mournfully down to the bank, and left it +earlier than usual under some pretext or other. He hoped to find +Rosenbusch at home at last. But the little, scantily furnished, untidy +chamber of the battle-painter was still vacant. + +Could he have done something desperate, left the city or even--? + +In great excitement, for he loved his good comrade heartily, he mounted +the dark stairs for the second time, after the close of his evening +duties at his desk. He found on his little table an unmistakable +symbolical sign that his friend was still in the land of the living. A +large market-basket stood in the middle, provided with a long paper +label such as they put on medicine-bottles; and on it were written +these words: + + "A REMEDY FOR BEARDLESS ARTISTS. + TO BE TAKEN ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITIES + OF THE CASE. + FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF + THE LEATHER GLOVE."[3] + +There was nothing in the basket but the sketch-book, in which the +solitary outcast had written his lamentations the night before. + +The actor had not yet finished reading the last strophes when the door +opened, and Rosenbusch solemnly entered, with such an indescribably +mournful expression upon his face that it was impossible to look at him +without laughing. As soon as he saw that Elfinger was once more capable +of appreciating the humor of the situation, it was easy to perceive +that a weight was lifted from his heart. He stepped hastily up to his +friend, and, giving him both his hands, cried: + + "Drink to the lost, O stranger, + And pray for his poor soul!" + +the final words of his own verses. + +"But come, brother," he continued, "let us rise superior to our fate, +and although our manly spirit may not forbid us to shed a tear-- + +"So it is all over, and there is no more hope?" interrupted Elfinger, +shutting up the sketch-book. + +"Over and gone forever! unless I should change my course in my old age +and become a cattle-painter, or should crawl back into the womb so as +to be born again as a pupil of Piloty. Just conceive it, Roscius! Only +yesterday, hardly an hour before I paid my visit to papa, this brave +Theban had fallen into the hands of a good friend at the art-club, who +had stuffed him with a long account of the wonderfully flourishing +financial condition of art in our good city of Munich. A flock of +sheep, that had just been sold for eight thousand gulden, and the +vivisection of a rabbit by some Hungarian or Pole whom that magician +Piloty had developed into a celebrated man in six months, and whose +pictures are now sold for unheard-of prices before they leave the +easel, had given the two Philistines a chance to air their aesthetics, +which are as irrefutable as mathematics. Figures show this. The export +of painted canvas from this city, which has attained a gigantic height +during the last few years, even surpassing the export of tanned +leather, could not but impress even Nanny's unpoetical father. I might +have carried off the little jewel without the slightest trouble if I +could only have shown him a single cow, or some little historical +atrocity. But for battles there was 'no demand'--eternal peace lay +before us. How much did I make a year out of my old-fashioned art? +Well--I lied like a trooper, and mentioned some unheard of sum +for a man in my condition. Whereupon the monster laughed: he knew +an animal-painter who had made double that amount from a single +sheep's-head, in which, to be sure, you could distinctly perceive the +quality of the wool by looking at it through a magnifying-glass. It was +then that my temperament played me a shabby trick. I could not resist +the temptation to make a disrespectful pun[4]--one, moreover, that was +much too obvious to make it worth the while--and after this there was +no helping matters. Unfortunately we could distinctly hear a burst of +laughter, over my poor joke at papa's expense, proceeding from the +adjoining room. The author of it had apparently been unable to +withstand her maidenly curiosity, and had been listening to all that +had been said. But I--" + +He checked himself suddenly. His eyes unconsciously wandered to the +windows across the street, and what he saw there caused him to forget +the end of his report. + +A most charming girl made her appearance behind the window-pane, and +two little hands could be seen fastening a little straw-hat firmly on +the brown head; then the window was opened and the sky was eagerly +scanned, apparently in order to find out whether it threatened rain or +promised to be fair. At the window to the left a slim figure could also +be discerned, as it shut up some sewing in the drawer of the little +work-table, and then threw open the window so that the evening air +might benefit the flowers. But while the mischievous eyes of the +younger sister, in roving merrily about, lighted on Rosenbusch, who had +quickly stepped up to his window, and gave him a stolen glance in +passing, the second sister refrained from all such worldly arts and +immediately disappeared from the window, after having said something to +the younger which the spy opposite could not understand, in spite of +the windows being open. + +"Elfinger," cried the painter, "it was a wrong conclusion after all. +The affair is not over yet by any means, and I am willing to bet that +the chapter we have just reached won't be the most tiresome one in this +great sensational romance." + +He quickly dragged his astonished friend, who, in his despondency, +could not understand this sudden change of mood, out of the door and +down into the street. They stepped out of the house-door just as the +two sisters over opposite crossed the threshold of their home, both +modestly veiled, and carrying little black prayer-books in their hands. +But, before they turned down the street to the right, a bright smile +passed over the face of the younger one, which Rosenbusch noted through +her veil and knew well enough how to interpret. + +"Let's wait a second," he said. "We'll give them a little start. That +little Philistine is a perfect witch! I wonder where she got it from!" + +"They seem to be going to church. Is there any open so late as this?" + +"You forget that this good city of Munich is called _Monachum +monachorum_. If it's too late for vespers, then it's just early enough +for a vigil. So now--march! Otherwise they will be round the corner, +and we shall lose track of them." + +It was still light in the street, but Sunday evening sets in pretty +early in Munich, especially on summer days, when a hot air prevails +that is provocative of an early thirst. The two slight girlish figures +made their way through the throng in the inner town as skillfully as +lizards, now disappearing from the gaze of their faithful followers, +and now coming into view again. They turned into a rather broad but +deserted side-street, in which stood an insignificant little chapel, +scarcely to be distinguished from the row of dwelling-houses, though it +had the reputation of enjoying the special protection of the Virgin. A +slight jutting out of the decorated facade was the only thing which +indicated its whereabouts, just as a well-to-do ecclesiastical +gentleman going about in the midst of his flock shows, by the gentle +outward curve of his body, that he has dedicated his life to +contemplation, and to thanksgiving for all the good gifts of Heaven. + +From the low portal of this out-of-the-way little church, which was +guarded by a plain wooden door, a dense crowd of worshipers were just +streaming forth, mostly old women and shriveled-up old men, and a few +early-converted sinners with faded faces and restless looks. No sooner +did they come out into the street than most of them gave themselves up +to the refreshing enjoyment of fresh air and cheerful conversation--two +luxuries which they had been forced to dispense with inside. Only a few +wheezing old men crept along alone, counting their beads with their +long bony fingers as they went. The pious company were far too much +occupied with themselves to pay any attention to the two sisters, who +now entered the deserted sanctum. It was dark and gloomy enough within. +A gaunt, fellow in a white surplice, who figured as sacristan, was +sleepily engaged in putting out the candles on the principal altar, +with a rod on which was fastened an extinguisher. When this was done, +he spread a covering over the altar-cloth. And now the fading daylight +found its only entrance through two arched windows, on which the +figures of the Virgin and Joseph with the Child stood out in brilliant +red and blue. Over opposite, where two red columns of porphyry +supported the organ-loft, deep darkness had already settled down, but +faintly broken by the little stumps of tapers before which a few +tireless suppliants continued to read in their little books, though the +regular service had long since come to an end. An iron stand, with +prongs and nails with the sharp ends up, also bore a number of large +and small wax-candles, which had been planted there by the devout as a +modest offering. A reddish light from this fragrant candelabrum, which +stood before one of the side shrines, fell upon the numerous crucifixes +and silver votive offerings near the altars, upon the artificial +flowers that decorated the reliquaries, and upon the dilapidated finery +of the figure of the Madonna standing at the feet of her crucified Son. +It had a singularly weird and depressing effect--the soft crackling of +the lights, the subdued mumbling from those toothless lips, the +sniffing and wheezing of the kneeling old women, and the peculiar smell +of the wax-tapers, incense and snuff, which last article seemed to be +in constant use to prevent the devotional spirit from falling into a +doze. + +But all these impressions, which at first almost took away the breath +of the two friends, seemed, from long familiarity, to have lost all +power over the sisters. After sprinkling themselves with holy-water out +of a basin near one of the red columns, they stepped softly up to the +candelabrum, and each fastened her little taper to one of the sharp +points, carefully lighting it before doing so, and then returned to the +columns and knelt down in two of the back pews, one on one side and one +on the other of the middle aisle. + +Both appeared to be immediately absorbed in devotional exercises, the +forehead pressed upon the open prayer-book, the little hands busied +with the beads of their rosaries. But they could hardly have had time +to repeat a paternoster before the places at their side were occupied +by two voluntary participants in their worship. On the footstool to the +right, next the startled Fanny, knelt Elfinger, while Rosenbusch had +sunk gently down on the stool on the other side, close to his more +worldly sweetheart, who appeared not to take the slightest notice of +him. The muttering, wheezing, snuff-taking old hags, who sat about here +and there, evidently took no offense at this symmetrical group, which +quietly busied itself with its own affairs; and only a round, red-faced +little priest, who was kneeling before his own taper and reading out of +a book, with his spectacles shoved high up on his forehead, seemed to +be suddenly disturbed in his perusal. The spectacles quickly slipped +down upon his nose, and his little eyes strove earnestly to pierce the +dim light that played about the two red columns. + +"Are you really in earnest?" whispered Elfinger, bending down close to +the ear of his neighbor. "You really want to turn your back upon this +beautiful world and bury yourself in a convent? You, so young, so +charming, so well fitted to be happy and to make others happy." + +A deep sigh was the only response he received. At the same time she +almost imperceptibly hitched her stool about half an inch farther away +from the speaker, and buried her delicate little nose still deeper in +her prayer-book. + +"Fraeulein Fanny," he whispered, after a pause, "what horrible thing +have you seen or experienced in the world that has made you already +weary of it? Or does the air here in this house of prayer seem to you +easier to breathe than the lovely air of heaven outside? And do you +think you will find a convent better ventilated than this place, and +filled with a better company?" + +"_Ave Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora_--" murmured the girl, +making the sign of the cross. + +"And do you think I will be put off in this way?" whispered Rosenbusch +to his neighbor. "Oh, my adored Fanny, you do not know me! If painting +battles does not exactly make a man fat, it makes him strong, bold as a +lion, invincible. You shall see what heroic deeds I will yet +accomplish--on condition, of course, that you remain faithful and true +to me. Or do you doubt me?" + +She was silent for a moment. A quick, mischievous side-glance rested on +him for an instant: "Go away!" she whispered, scarcely above her +breath. "You are only joking. It was very wrong of you to follow us +here. I still have six paternosters to repeat, and it is a positive +sin--" + +"It's a sin of your papa, sweet Nanny mine, to shut you up like a nun +and let you go nowhere but to church, as if a young creature needed +nothing but to be pious. When should one be merry, then, unless it is +when one is young? Come, Fraeulein Nanny, if your father had not been so +angry yesterday, and I were sitting by your side--not here in the dark +corner, but in your own house on the sofa--and were whispering all +sorts of silly love-talk in your ear, and your sister, who was left to +matronize us, should find her presence absolutely necessary in the +kitchen, and--" + +The round red face in the window-niche assumed a highly displeased +expression, for the two heads near the red columns had approached so +near together that their hair touched, and the softest whispering +sufficed to make itself understood. Over opposite, where the other +couple were, a space two spans broad still intervened between the two +kneeling figures. But even there not a syllable appeared to be lost. + +"I know I have no right to hope for any great happiness," whispered +Elfinger. "I am a poor cripple. If you reply by saying that it is a +piece of audacity for me to hope, with my single eye, to find favor in +the most beautiful pair of eyes that ever read in a prayer-book, I find +it very natural. Yes, you will even do me a favor, Fraeulein Fanny, if +you will tell me so--if you will confess to me that a man who looks +as I do can never win your heart. I would try then to come to my +senses--that is to say, to become quite hopeless. Will you do me this +favor?" + +Deep silence. Nevertheless she hardly seemed inclined to make such a +declaration. + +"You are cruel!" he continued; "I am neither to live nor die. But of +what account am I? If I could believe that _you_ would be happy--O +Fanny, I would really suppress my own feelings and call the convent a +paradise in which you lived and were content. But I shudder to think +that you may regret what you have done when it is too late; that then +even a life by the side of such an ugly, insignificant, unknown man as +I am, who loves you more than himself and would do everything for you, +and who finds his whole world in you--" + +He raised his voice so loud as he said this that she looked up in +affright, and made a beseeching sign for him to calm himself. In doing +this, she involuntarily moved a little nearer to him. + +"For Heaven's sake!" she stammered, "what are you doing? Pray--pray +leave me. It can never, it must never be!--never, never! A secret, that +I dare not tell to any one, not even in the--" + +"In the confessional," she was about to add. Suddenly she started back, +in alarm at what she had already said, and bowed her face down upon her +book again. + +"This miserable, faint-hearted, wretched world of shopkeepers!" raved +Rosenbusch, on his stool over opposite. "Can there still be bold and +manly deeds? O Nanny! if it only were as it once was, I would come +spurring up to your father's castle some fine night on my gallant +charger. You would let down a rope-ladder from the donjon-window, and +would swing yourself up behind me on my horse--and away we would go +into the wide, wide world! But nowadays--" + +"Hm! nowadays we have railroads," she murmured, slyly. + +"Girl!" he cried, in a sepulchral voice, "are you really in earnest? +You would--you have the courage? O dearest Nanny of my heart! If I +should elope with you, you would love me so dearly that you would +follow me to the end of the world--" + +She shook her head. There was a sound like a suppressed giggle. + +"Nonsense!" she said, "we need only go as far as Pasing. Then papa will +steam by us; or we can do as another couple once did. They merely went +to the top of the church of St. Peter and sat concealed there with the +warden, and their people went searching about all over the country for +them, while they sat there and laughed at them all." + +"Nanny, love, you really will--oh, what a heavenly idea! To-morrow--if +you are truly in earnest--to-morrow evening at this time--" + +This time she actually laughed out loud, but she held her handkerchief +before her face. + +"Oh, stop!" she said, "I was only joking! It is absurd to talk of such +a thing! Mother would worry herself to death, and besides--but we must +go; Fanny has risen already." + +She put her book up near her face, so as to pray as quickly as +possible. But he, burning with his adventurous spirit, and encouraged +by the darkness of the place, quickly whispered to her: + +"And you will send me away in this fashion? Not a single stolen--oh, +Nanny dear, you would be doing a good deed--a kiss, in all honor!" + +She seemed to have suddenly become deaf, so motionless did she kneel +there, with her eyes tightly closed. At last, however, she made a +movement as though she would stand up. In doing so, her little book +slipped from the slanting rack and fell between her and her chivalrous +neighbor. She stooped down hastily to pick it up, and, as he could not +help doing likewise, nothing was more natural than that their faces +should approach near enough, there in the darkness, for him to impress +a hasty kiss on the girl's round cheek. She did not even seem to be +conscious of what had occurred. + +"Thank you," she whispered as she rose up again, holding the book he +had officiously handed her. "Goodnight--but you mustn't follow us!" + +She said this in a tone which made it very doubtful whether she meant +it seriously. At the same time she rose from the stool and hurried to +her sister, who stood waiting for her, with downcast eyes, near the +holy-water basin. + +The two slim figures reverently bent the knee before the principal +altar, sprinkled themselves again with the holy-water, and left the +little church in the same manner as they had come, deeply veiled and +carrying their prayer-books before them in their hands. + +Five minutes after, Rosenbusch might have been seen stepping out of the +porch, arm-in-arm with the actor. The battle-painter threw the only +sixpence he had about him into a lame beggar's hat. + +"Holy Mother!" he cried, "life is splendid, after all, in spite of +leather-glove-makers." + +"Where shall we go?" asked his gloomy friend, whose spirits had been +completely crushed by the "secret" of his sweetheart. + +"To the tower of St. Peter's, noble Roscius! I must get acquainted with +the warden this very evening, and take a look at the arrangement of the +place. One can never know what devilish queer adventures one may +encounter, when it would be very useful to have such high friends and +patrons." + + + + + CHAPTER V. + + +Early on the morning following their nocturnal encounter, Felix sought +out the lieutenant; he could not rest without trying to find out +whether it was not an illusion of his senses which made him think he +saw Irene's uncle riding at his friend's side. Schnetz lived in the top +story of a dismal old house whose winding stairway was but dimly +illuminated by a faint stream of light proceeding from a dingy skylight +covered with dust and cobwebs. A woman, too refined-looking to be a +servant, and, on the other hand, too modest in her behavior to be a +housekeeper, opened the door for the strange visitor, looked at him in +a frightened and confused way, and informed him in a soft, subdued +voice that the lieutenant had gone out very early in the morning; when +he would be back she did not know. He sometimes staid away whole days +at a time; this time, besides, he had said something to her about +taking a ride into the mountains. So Felix was forced to restrain his +impatience. But he felt quite incapable of going to his work as usual. +He lounged about the streets for hours, regardless of the heat and +dust. He carefully scanned every horseman whom he met, and every +carriage from which he saw a veil waving; and a girl's head, turning +about with restless curiosity to see all that was going on, caused his +heart to beat until he had convinced himself it was not the dreaded, +and yet secretly so longed-for, face--for which he sought thus +earnestly only that it might not take him too much by surprise. + +On the following day he continued his aimless wanderings, at first on +foot, through all the picture galleries, and in the afternoon in a +drosky, in which he rattled through the Au suburb, the English Garden, +and, finally, the Nymphenburg and the deer park, until his panting +horse landed him, toward evening, at one of the suburban theatres; for +there was still a bare possibility that the travelers would feel a +desire to see the "Pfarrer von Kirchfeld," which happened to be the +sensation of the hour. + +All these hopes were doomed to disappointment. Half tired out and half +angry with himself, he left the theatre at the close of the first act, +and strolled back to his lodgings by the most unfrequented streets he +could find. There he found a line from Jansen, who had been alarmed at +his long absence. + +"It is true," he laughed bitterly to himself, "such an old apprentice +as I am ought to know the value of his time better than to cut school +for two days. What is the good of it all, except to give one tired legs +and a heavy head? And, if I really had found her, what then? We should +have stared at one another like total strangers, and hurried out of one +another's sight." + +He threw himself on the sofa, and mechanically reached out his hand for +one of the books that lay upon the table. As he did so he noticed that +he had taken up with it a fine red hair, and this recalled his thoughts +to the night when he had given up this room to Zenz. + +"What a fool I was!" he muttered between his teeth. "If I had not +driven the good creature away from me, perhaps I should be in better +humor now, and would not have wasted these two days in such a senseless +way." + +Then he tried very hard to recall the figure of the poor child. But she +exercised no more power over him now than she had when she was present +in the body. At last sleep took compassion on his troubled soul. + +The next morning he resigned himself with no little bitterness to his +fate, and betook himself to Jansen's workshop. He hoped that he should +be in better mood when once he had a piece of clay between his fingers. + +He started back in positive alarm, therefore, when, while crossing one +of the large, deserted squares, he saw the very person whom he had +yesterday sought so diligently, coming out of a hotel door and +advancing straight upon him. The lieutenant wore his usual suit--a +close-buttoned green riding-jacket, high top-boots, and a gray hat, +with a little feather, slightly tipped toward the left ear. His dry, +yellow face, with its black imperial, had a most grim and defiant look, +but it was instantly lighted up by a polite smile when he caught sight +of his young friend of the "Paradise." + +"I missed your visit day before yesterday, and have not been able to +return it yet because I have been in service again. An old acquaintance +has fallen upon me from the skies, a Baron N----" (he gave the name of +Irene's uncle). "I got acquainted with this jolly crony some years ago +in Algiers, when, just to get a smell of powder, I was fool enough to +take the field against _Messieurs les Arabes_, although they had never +done me the slightest harm in the world. The baron was trying at the +time to become a lion-hunter; but he afterward preferred to offer his +homage to the king of the desert from a respectful distance, and to +travel back to his peaceful home with a skin bought at a bazaar, and a +good store of burnooses and shawls. He was the sensible man of the two. +For my part, it was a long time before I could get rid of the ugly +remembrance that I had really done my hunting in earnest, and had +probably deprived several of those poor devils of the pleasure of +protecting their native soil against the French invaders. And now my +old tent-fellow comes upon me here like a ghost--though a very portly +and jolly one--and drags me about with him for days; in fact, I am +coming from his hotel at this very moment." + +Felix involuntarily gave a glance toward the windows of the hotel. It +cost him a hard struggle to suppress all signs of his emotion. + +"Does your guest live here?" he asked. "You have been visiting him so +early?" + +"We were going to take a ride. But I found a note from him, in which he +informed me that I might take a holiday. His party has been invited by +one of its noble relatives to take an excursion of several days, at +which I, thank Heaven, should be quite superfluous." + +"His party? Then the baron is--" + +"Married? No; but almost worse than that. He has a young niece with him +who is really the cause of his having come here at all. A bad story--a +broken engagement, great surmising and gossiping about it in the little +capital--in short, the health of the Fraeulein demanded a change of air, +and she insisted upon going off to Italy for a year. My old comrade, +who remained a bachelor because he feared the claws of a lioness less +than the slipper of a pretty wife--well, he simply jumped from the +frying-pan into the fire. This young niece of his rules him with her +little finger. The consequence was that the trunks immediately had to +be packed for Italy. But, while here, their noble relatives succeeded +in frightening them so about the Italian summers and the cholera, that +they have decided to wait until the worst of the season is over, +spending part of the time here in the city and part in the mountains. +You will perceive, my dear friend, what a charming prospect this is for +me." + +"Is the young Fraeulein so unamiable that your 'service' is such a hard +task?" Felix remarked, with an attempt at lightness. At the same time +he looked abstractedly away from the lieutenant, as if he merely +continued the topic from politeness. + +"Look here!" continued Schnetz, with his peculiar, dry chuckle. "If you +like, I'll introduce you to the young lady, and resign all my rights. +You will then have an opportunity to become acquainted with the +sweetness of such service, and will perhaps make out better than I, who +certainly have not succeeded in winning my way to favor. This proud +little person--provided, by-the-way, with a pair of eyes that are +equally well fitted to rule, to be gracious, and to condemn one +forever--has unfortunately never felt a strong hand over her. The +consequence is, she has a way of always setting up her own wishes on +every subject, among others in regard to this unfortunate engagement. +She appears to have made it so hot for the good youth who had the +courage to take up with her, that at last he couldn't stand it any +longer. It is very probable that she was sorry for this at heart, and +so at the present moment she is in a decidedly irritable and +discontented mood, and it is dangerous to touch her without gloves. +Unfortunately I neglected to use this consideration; and, as a +consequence, we stand on a most charming war-footing toward one +another." + +He struck his boot impatiently with his riding-whip, put his left arm +through his young companion's right, and, striding rapidly forward with +his long legs, growled out: + +"It's enough to drive a man wild when he sees how God's images are +disfigured--whether by saints or devils, it's all the same. Either +confined by strait-lacing or by nuns' robes, or else _decolletees_ to +the very waist. Believe me, my dear fellow, as far as the education of +the women of the upper classes is concerned, we are not much farther +advanced to-day than we were in the darkest middle ages, when a brothel +stood next door to a church. At least, we, down here in our envied +South, are not; though, to be sure, this Northern blood--" + +"A North German?" + +"Hum! North or middle German!--upon that point she is positively +fiendish! In the very first hour of our meeting, this Fraeulein asked me +what sort of society we had here--of course, the aristocratic society, +as it loves to call itself; for a mere crowd of human beings, without +the forms of etiquette, can never be regarded as human society. I +replied quietly that the so-called _good_ society here was the worst +one could possibly wish for, and that it was only in the so-called +_bad_ society that I had come across a few good comrades here and +there, with whom there was such a thing as living. Whereupon the +little princess looked at me as much as to say that she should never +have supposed, from my dress--which was anything but suited to the +_salon_--that my exclusion from polite society was otherwise than +involuntary. But I, pretending not to notice this, proceeded to explain +to her at length the reasons which caused me to be disgusted with the +_creme_ of our city; the strange odor of their _salons_--a mixture of +patchouli, incense, and the stable--their very doubtful French, and +their undoubtedly worse German; their almost sublime ignorance of all +that is generally considered to belong to education; and that _naive_ +lack of knowledge in moral matters, which is generally to be found only +in convents, and which can only be properly fostered by an +ecclesiastical society and sanctioned by sly father confessors. Your +nobles in the North, so far as I have known them--well, I needn't tell +you about the clay of which they are made. No matter what hard-mouthed +hobbies they ride in regard to affairs of church and state, they +nevertheless hold fast to _noblesse oblige_; and then, too, you are +very likely to find, in the castles of Pomerania and the Mark, the +Bible and the hymn-book side by side with Ranke's 'History of the +Popes' and Macaulay's 'History of England.' With us, on the other +hand--to be sure, though, Paul de Kock and the 'Seeress of Prevorst' +are also classics, and do not stand on the 'Index Expurgatorius.' I +notice that you are thinking to yourself how much less jolly, and more +discontented and bristling, I am to-day than I was that night in +'Paradise.' You see, my good fellow, you got acquainted with me then in +one of my holiday humors, that come over me only once a month; and, +to-day, you see my old Adam with his every-day face. If no one else has +told you this, to give you due warning about me, I must confess it +myself--since I left the service I have really had no occupation but to +scoff and grumble. It is true, we live at a time when every honest +fellow will have his hands full if he only conscientiously improves +every opportunity to do this. But you know this goes very badly with +our celebrated South German good-nature; all the worse if the one who +scolds happens to be in the right. It is because of this that I have +grown old in my lieutenancy; for I could not keep my mouth shut even +about our military shortcomings, and at last succeeded in bolting every +door to advancement so tightly against me, that I preferred to leave +the beaten track of a military career altogether. Wouldn't even the +blessed Thersites have been forced to resign if he had served as first +lieutenant under the generals Achilles or Diomedes? And yet, those +times were far simpler than ours! So, now, I go on grumbling without +hinderance, and without caring whether any notice is taken of it or +not. The wheat of the Philistines is sown too thick, and thrives too +well, for it to be hurt by the few tares that grow among it. Still, it +does me some good; in the first place, because it purges me of my gall +before it mixes with my blood and attacks my vitals; and then because +it makes me more and more hated by good society, and avoided by persons +of my own rank. You don't know what a Robinson-Crusoe-like existence I +lead; in the midst of the city I am as solitary as Saint Anthony in his +cave; yes, even more lonely, for I suffer no temptations. Won't you +take a look at my hermitage? Here we are at the door." + +They had arrived at the old house with which Felix had already made +acquaintance. He felt very little disposition to mount the stairs +again. While his companion had been running on in this odd, bitter way, +his mind had been occupied by one single thought. "She is here! You +need only wish it, and you can see her to-morrow!" Nevertheless, he +could not well refuse Schnetz's polite invitation; and so he followed +him up into his fourth-story quarters. + + + + + CHAPTER VI. + + +The pale, quiet woman opened the door for them, and looked neither at +Schnetz nor his companion, but withdrew hastily to a little back-room +near the kitchen, without giving any other answer than a slow shake of +the head to her master's kind nod and inquiry whether any one had been +there. Felix was struck, even more than the first time, by the sad, +timid expression of her eyes, which had a noble form and a soft +brilliancy, while her features could never have been handsome even in +her younger days. + +"You must excuse me," said Schnetz, when they had entered his room, +where he offered his visitor a cigar--he himself smoked Algerian +tobacco out of a short clay-pipe--"for not having introduced you to +Madame Thersites. You would not have gained much by it, for the spirits +of that good soul are not, unfortunately, the best in the world. She +labors under the fixed delusion that she is the great misfortune of my +life, because I quitted the service on her account; since which time I +have had hard work to keep her from quitting life itself in some moment +of depression. Yes, my dear fellow, there is a little example of the +profound sense, wisdom, and morality of our social condition. This +excellent woman, who has now borne the world with me for ten years, +comes of a family of country schoolmasters. I became acquainted with +her when I was visiting the lord of the manor; her old father had been +pensioned, her mother was dead, and she, the eldest daughter, took +entire charge of the household, educated her brothers and sisters, and +yet found time enough to do something for herself and perfect her +education. Of course she is a Protestant. Well, I began to respect her +greatly; and so one thing followed another, until I discovered that I +could not live without her. The fact that I could not give the bonds +which a lieutenant must have in order to marry, did not seem to me at +the time an insurmountable difficulty. My sweetheart thought just as I +did, that we only need wait until her second sister was old enough to +take her place in the household. As soon as this was possible, we could +live in the city. An old aunt, whose heir I expected to be, had, as she +said herself, long had her trunks packed for the journey to the other +world, and then I could easily raise the necessary sum; while the fact +that my marriage would be a _mesalliance_ especially delighted my heart +on account of my family, with whom I had long before broken off all +relations. + +"But the departure of my aunt was put off from year to year; and we +resolved not to wait till our best days were past, and lived for some +four or five years in Christian and true marriage, though it had not +received ecclesiastical sanction. Our only trouble was the loss of +our four children. At last my aunt betook herself to her last +resting-place; and now, for we were again expecting a child, we made +preparations to procure an official recognition of our union, though +nothing could make it closer than it was already. But see what sublime +sentiments were all at once expressed by my good comrades!--the whole +corps knew our relations to one another in all its uprightness, and +knew me besides. The honor of the corps would suffer under it, they +said, if I married a 'person' who had had children before the official +recognition of her marriage. They wouldn't have found it in the least +offensive had I merely continued the old relations. The logic of this +_point d'honneur_ was incomprehensible to my stupid head, as well as to +my wife's. But while it merely made mine sit all the firmer on my +shoulders, so that I preferred to resign rather than to submit, it +threw my poor wife's completely off its balance. We went through the +ceremony sadly; the child, which was soon after brought into the world, +died within a few months; and since that time the poor creature has +been afflicted with the melancholy delusion that she has the ruin of my +life upon her conscience. I have tried a hundred times to make it clear +to her that I could have wished for nothing better than to be free from +the routine of military service, and devote my life to my studies. +There are certain points in military history, and also a few technical +problems and controversial questions, concerning which I sometimes have +a word or two to say in military periodicals; and so, when the wretched +campaign of '66 came, in which we had hard work to save the honor of +our arms, to say nothing of our having been delightfully fooled by +Austria, I thanked the Lord that I was not forced to march with the +rest, but had done forever with a trade which can make a man act +against his convictions. Since then, we have lived on unmolested, and I +devote my spare hours, as you see, to illustrating my prosaic existence +according to the best of my ability." + +His eyes wandered over the little room, which certainly did not seem +very cheerful, and had, even on this summer day, a strangely chilling +air. It is possible that this impression was caused in part by the +peculiar decoration of the walls, that were but sparsely relieved by a +few plain articles of furniture, a black leather sofa and a carved, +worm-eaten wardrobe. Instead of framed pictures or engravings, wherever +there was a vacant spot, and even behind the stove and in the niche of +the solitary window, there were the most grotesque _silhouettes_ cut +out of black paper and pasted on the bare plaster, which had once been +painted white. They formed an extraordinary collection of figures, +taken from the most different stations of life, most of them +exhibited in ridiculous postures appropriate to their respective +occupations--pedantic scholars, students, artists, women, +ecclesiastics, and soldiers--all as if caught _in flagrante_ in their +pet weaknesses and sins, and fixed upon the wall, standing revealed in +shadowy outline. Yet an artist could not help taking delight in the +broad yet spirited strokes with which each figure was portrayed; and it +was simply the superabundance of these weird groups that covered the +walls, and had already begun to overspread the smoke-stained ceiling, +which was calculated to excite feverish dreams in a quiet brain if they +were looked at for any length of time. + +"You see now why I dragged you up here," said Schnetz, throwing off his +riding-jacket and crossing his lean arms (round which flapped a pair of +coarse shirtsleeves) behind his back. "From my intercourse with artists +I have caught vanity enough to mercilessly entice inoffensive people +into my den, although the black art which I pursue appears to very +few of them to be worth the trouble of toiling up four flights of +stairs to examine. Life viewed from the wrong side--the fancies of a +misanthrope--a Thersites album, or rather nigrum--well, am I wrong in +thinking that this world of shadows is even less to your taste than an +ordinary art exhibition? + +"But when you consider the matter more carefully, you will find it has +its good side. What is it that is so absolutely lacking in all modern +art, and the absence of which is the source of all other defects? +Simply this: it no longer respects the _silhouette_! In landscape and +_genre_, historical and portrait painting, yes, even in sculpture, you +find everywhere a lot of pretty little tricks of execution; delicate +shades, tones, and touches; a devilish careful, nervous, and, on the +whole, attractive piece of work, but in it all not a single great +feature; no strong decoration, no solid construction, the very shadow +of which suggests something. Give me a pair of shears and a quire of +black paper, and I will cut you out the whole history of art up to the +nineteenth century; the Sistine Madonna and Claude Lorraine as well as +Teniers and Ruysdael; Phidias and Michael Angelo as well as Bernini; so +that every one of them shall make a good showing, the _rococo_ period +included, which, after all, had something sounder at bottom than our +boasted present. Take away from the latter its finical, over-refined +tricks of color, and what is left? An incredible poverty of form, a +little brilliancy or aspiring 'idealism,' and the bare canvas. The same +thing might, it seems to me, be justly applied to our literature, and +from that to all the other manifestations of our boasted civilization. +But I, on the contrary, have from the very first devoted my attention +to the essential part, the primary form, and the really determining +outlines; and as these, unfortunately, only come out strongly in our +sins and weaknesses, I have become a _silhouette_ cutter--an art that +not only earns no bread, but even takes out of one's mouth the bread he +might otherwise have gained. Naturally, mankind will never forgive one +who shows it its dark side, and points out its excrescences and +deformities and defects; for each individual thinks he is just the one +all of whose sides the sun should especially light up." + +It was fortunate for Felix, in his absent-minded state, that Schnetz +was one of those men who, when they once begin upon the great theme of +their life, upon their mission or their one idea, take no offense when +their hearer leaves them to run on alone, but play upon their single +whim in inexhaustible variations. When, after half an hour or so, Felix +interrupted Schnetz with the laughing remark that his teacher would +scold him if he came to work too late, he found that he himself had not +spoken a dozen words; and yet the lieutenant took leave of him with the +remark that he rejoiced to have discovered in him a congenial spirit, +and hoped the four flights of stairs would not be so high as to keep +him from their acquaintance later over a glass of beer and a tolerable +cigar. + + + + + CHAPTER VII. + + +The weird shadow-pictures and the biting epigrams of his new friend +haunted Felix all the way down the four flights. His head was in a +whirl with them; his heart felt a keen sympathy for this extraordinary +being. "What a life!" he said to himself. "How much power is rusting +and going to decay there in the dark! And who is to blame for it?--and +I, who knows but what I--" + +He pursued his soliloquy no further. As he stepped into the sunny +streets a carriage rolled quickly past, and from it fluttered a +silver-gray veil. In a moment all his thoughts were upon Irene again. +Of course it could not have been she; not to-day, at all events. But +if she should return from her excursion to-morrow and drive by like +this--what then? What would she think? That he had followed her and was +seeking an opportunity for reconciliation, after she had bidden him go? +Anything rather than such a suspicion! Even though he knew that he was +not entirely blameless, his pride was too deeply hurt, his honor was +too deeply wounded, for him to make any advances or to suffer even the +suspicion of doing so. That she was not running after him, and that she +had not the slightest idea in what direction he had turned his steps, +he did not for a moment doubt. He knew her proud spirit so well, that +he only feared one thing, and that was, that upon catching the faintest +hint of his being anywhere near her, she would throw aside all her +plans and insist upon leaving the city again; indeed, would rather face +the Italian summer and all the dangers of sickness, than give rise to +the suspicion that she felt she had been too hasty with him and wished +the unfortunate letter unwritten. + +The simplest and at the same time the most chivalrous way of getting +out of the difficulty would have been for him to have gone out of her +way himself; but after brief consideration he rejected this plan as +altogether impracticable. An uncontrollable love of art was suddenly +aroused in his soul--a strong conviction as to his duty toward Jansen +and his own future; and it seemed to him so humiliating to have to +confide to his friends the reasons which induced him to run away from +school again so soon, that he hastily struck into the nearest way to +the studio, as if he felt that there was the place where he would be +safest from all vexations and temptations. + +Besides, he had a whole day left in which to take serious counsel with +himself, to look at the matter from all sides, and to decide what it +was best to do. + +As he entered the court he saw a carriage standing at the door of the +rear house. Although he knew it could not be hers, it gave him a sharp +start, and he beckoned to the janitor and asked him who had come to +call. "A lady, neither young nor old, with two gentlemen; and they +spoke French." It was evidently a matter of no interest to him, and so, +without devoting another thought to it, he opened the door of Jansen's +studio and went in. + +The visitors were standing directly before the Adam and Eve, with their +backs to the door, and did not hear him enter. Jansen gave him a nod of +welcome, and old Homo rose slowly from his tiger-skin to rub his gray +head against Felix's hand. For a moment, therefore, he could examine +the three visitors at his leisure. In the youth with the curly black +hair he immediately recognized the young Greek he had met in +"Paradise." He was pointing to different parts of the work with +animated gestures, and seemed to be expressing to the lady his +enthusiastic admiration. The latter, holding an eye-glass close to her +eyes, stood silent and motionless before the group, to all appearances +completely carried away by it. She was dressed with simple elegance, +was rather _petite_ than tall, and her face, seen as Felix saw it, in +very slight profile, was not exactly youthful or of special beauty, but +was striking because of the whiteness of the skin and a certain +expression of force and intelligence in the slightly-parted lips. + +The Slavic type could be recognized at the first glance, even before +she opened her lips, and expressed her admiration to Jansen with that +soft modulation which is so peculiar to the Poles and Russians. + +The gentleman on her left took advantage of the first pause to put in +his word. He was a lean, elderly, carelessly-dressed man, who +continually swayed his long body to and fro while speaking, and raised +his eyebrows with an odd expression of importance, he, too, spoke with +a foreign accent; but it turned out, in the course of his conversation, +that he was a born German, and had merely acquired this touch of Slavic +pronunciation by long residence in Russia. He had introduced himself as +an art-collector and professor of aesthetics; and explained that, while +making a professional journey to Italy and France, he had, to his great +joy and surprise, encountered at the hotel the countess, whom he had +known before in Berlin as an ardent art-lover. Although he had never +visited Italy, he spoke of its masterpieces of sculpture with the +greatest confidence; nor did he seem to find anything in Jansen's +studio for which he had not a formula at his tongue's end. + +In the mean while Stephanopulos had turned round and recognized Felix, +and had hastened to introduce him to the lady. Her keen, brown eyes +rested with evident pleasure upon the stately figure of the young man; +she asked him how long he had enjoyed the good-fortune to be the pupil +of such an artist, and wished to see some of his own productions, a +favor which Felix politely but firmly refused to grant. + +"Do you fully realize," said she, in her deep, mellow voice, "what an +enviable being you are? You unite the aristocracy of blood and talent, +and the fact that you have decided in favor of sculpture sets the crown +to your happiness. What is life, what is all other happiness in life, +but an endless series of excitements? What are all other arts but oil +to the fire, fuel for the passionate soul that yearns to free itself +from the trammels of the world, and seeks repose in the ideal, and, +instead of repose, finds merely more inspired emotions? I express +myself very awkwardly--you must supply what I mean. But, really, now, +in regard to sculpture--is it not, if only because of its material, +peculiarly suggestive of moderation and repose, even in the liveliest +plays of lines and forms? Take, for instance, that Bacchante over +there--what person, no matter how light of foot and fond of dancing, +feels when he looks at it the time of the music in the tips of his +toes, as if he heard a dance played? Even the storm and whirl of the +maddest reel is controlled by the law of beauty, much as one conceives +of the idea of the unfettered air in the spirit of the Creator of the +universe. And then this unutterably grand group of the first human +beings! All disquiet and trouble, all the fates that were reserved for +mankind, repose here as if in the germ--in the bud. In the presence of +this wonderful work, one forgets all petty wishes and weaknesses! But +why haven't you finished the head of your Eve, honored master?" + +A sudden blush suffused Jansen's face as he replied that he had not +quite made up his mind in regard to the type of face. He was, according +to his wont, monosyllabic and almost awkward in the presence of this +eloquent woman. But it struck Felix that his face did not darken with +suppressed disgust, as was usually the case when he received tiresome +visitors, but that he preserved the same patient, smiling mien during +the wise utterances of the professor and the rambling scintillations of +the lady. They had not met for two days. Felix had no suspicion of what +had happened in the mean time that caused his friend's eyes to sparkle +with such unwonted mildness and animation. + +Meanwhile the countess was engaged in inspecting the statues that stood +about the studio. The professor had previously expressed the opinion +that the greater the genius of the man the less he was capable of duly +estimating his own labors, and that for that reason he ought to have +his own works explained to him; and, in accordance with this sentiment, +he now relieved Jansen of the trouble of acting as _cicerone_ in his +own workshop. The casts of separate limbs in dimensions larger than +life seemed to interest the lady, and the beautifully-shaped breast of +a young girl afforded the professor an opportunity to launch into a +long discourse on the form of the Venus of Milo as compared with that +of the Venus of Medici. + +Suddenly the lady turned to a little female figure which stood, still +in clay, on the modeling-board near the window, and which must have +been a work of the last few days; for even Felix had never seen it +before. Although the head was not larger than a child's fist, and the +execution was, as yet, only very sketchy, it was easy to see at the +first glance that Julie's picture had floated before the eyes of the +sculptor. The beautiful figure leaned gently against the back of a +simple _fauteuil_, her right arm, from which the sleeve was pushed +back, resting on the arm of the chair, her cheek pressed against her +hand, while her left arm hung listlessly down so that the long, +exquisitely-formed fingers just touched the head of a dog that was +sleeping by her side. The eyes were half closed, just as Julie's +generally were; and, quickly as the features had been designed, an +expression of thoughtful attention, of earnest and loving sympathy, was +clearly conveyed in the face. + +In this position she had sat before him while he told her his unhappy +story. Amid all the remembrances of the past his eyes had been +enchained by the charm of the present, and with that strange, +independent action of the artistic temperament, that capacity of the +senses for observing closely while the soul smarts and bleeds, he had +taken in every line of the beloved figure. + +Then, when he had returned to his studio, where Felix did not make his +appearance that day, and no one else broke his solitude, he had begun, +at first with a careless hand, to form from a piece of clay the picture +that never left him, until at length he had grown serious over his +pastime, and had produced in an incredibly short time the whole +charming figure. A spirit of life, a natural grace, breathed through +the whole work, and was still further heightened by its diminutive +proportions, reminding one of the fairy-tale about the pygmy maiden who +was carried about by her happy lover in a casket. + +The aesthetic professor took advantage of the occasion to hold forth +concerning sitting statues from the time of the Agrippinas down to that +of Marie Louise in Parma; about the importance of portraits in general, +and about other profound subjects of like nature. As for Stephanopulos, +he was sincerely carried away by the charm of the figure, and expressed +his admiration in enthusiastic terms. + +The countess remained silent for a considerable time. Enthusiastically +as she had expressed herself concerning Jansen's other works; she +evidently found it hard to conquer a certain jealousy in regard to this +beautiful woman. + +"How often did the lady sit to you?" she asked, at length. + +He answered, with a peculiar smile, that he had made the sketch from +memory. + +"Really? Then you are something more than a magician. You not only +conjure up spirits, but spirit and body together. To be sure, we know +what helping spirit assists artists in their works of magic--a spirit +that rules all other men, and is the servant of genius only.--Or don't +you believe, professor," said she, turning to her companion, "that +Raphael and Titian could conjure up those whom they loved before their +imaginations more vividly than they could other mortals?" + +The professor delivered a few brilliant remarks about the power of +fancy, which the countess received with an absent smile; for she was +once more deeply absorbed in contemplation of the statue. + +"Does she live here, and is she to be seen?" she said, suddenly +interrupting his flow of eloquence. + +"I think, madame, you will give yourself useless trouble in trying to +make her acquaintance," replied Jansen, dryly. "The lady lives in a +very retired way, and I doubt--" + +"Very well, very well, I understand; you are miserly with your +treasures, and want to keep the most beautiful to yourself. +Unfortunately, it is impossible to be angry with anything genius does! +Present my compliments to the charming, mysterious original, and tell +her--but who is that playing up-stairs?" + +At this moment they heard Rosenbusch's flute, which had been playing a +light prelude for some time, strike up a grand _bravura_ movement with +all the power and feeling of which its owner was capable. + +Jansen gave Felix a meaning look. Then he told as much about Rosenbusch +as was necessary to excite the lady's curiosity. Upon taking leave, she +gave the master and his pupil an invitation for that evening. + +"You _must_ come," she said; "to be sure, I haven't much to offer you, +especially no such beautiful women as you are accustomed to. But we +shall have music--you love music, too, don't you? And, for the rest, +you must be contented with what we can do for you. I live in the hotel; +a bird of passage never has a comfortable nest. But only come to Moscow +some time; I own a few good old pictures and some sculptures there. +Will you? We will talk of this again. Well, good-by until this evening. +Here is my address, in case you should be as forgetful as geniuses and +friends of beautiful women generally are. _Au revoir!_" + +She gave Jansen her card and a shake of the hand, bowed cordially to +Felix, and left the studio, followed by her two adjutants. + +"Our rat-catcher has made a lucky hit again," laughed Jansen, as they +heard the strangers going up-stairs; and immediately afterward the +flute stopped in the room above. "When I have visitors, he invariably +becomes musical, in order to remind them that there are other people +living in the top story. This time I am especially grateful to him. +Upon my word, my patience and politeness were put to a hard test." + +"You are right; the professor certainly was a tough morsel," +interrupted Felix. "But, as for the lady--although I know enough of her +kind not to be deceived--still, for all that, it is a game of the sex +that one never fails to follow with interest." + +"A charming game!" cried Jansen, and his face darkened. "I would rather +see the most stolid Esquimaux or Hottentot standing before my works +than one of these highly-cultured, artificially-excited devotees of +art, hungry for emotion--seeking in everything nothing but their own +gratification, and worrying a really earnest man to death by their +conceited coquetry with all that he holds most sacred. There is nothing +which will awe them into silence, or even make them forget themselves. +Just as they interest themselves in living creatures only so far as +they tend to increase their own importance, so all works of art exist +for them only so far as they can be made of use in setting off their +beloved _ego_. This same woman visited me once before, a good while +ago, and I was so rude to her that I hoped I had shaken her off +forever. But even rudeness excites these _blase_ women of the world, +just as _Pumpernickel_ does the palate when one has been eating too +much sugar-cake. In reality, she cares as little for sculpture as for +anything else; unless, perhaps, the study of the nude interests her. +And she is here in Munich in search of very different things--trying to +gain proselytes for the new school of music." + +"I can't help thinking you are rather unjust to her. The very fact that +she feels a respect for you, and even a sort of secret fear, shows that +you interest her. That is one thing I like about these women; they are +strongly attracted by anything that represents power, and is capable of +producing something." + +"Yes," laughed Jansen, "until this power humbles itself to be a +foot-stool for their restless little feet; then it will be thrown +aside. No, my dear fellow, the only reason these comets are not more +particular is because they are forced to keep adding to their tails; +I'd be willing to bet that even our harmless little Rosebud will not be +thought too insignificant to be enrolled in her body-guard. But let her +do whatever she likes--what difference does it make to us? But where +have you been hiding yourself these last few days? and what is the +matter with you now? You are staring at the Russian's visiting-card as +if your senses had suddenly been spirited away to Siberia!" + +"It is nothing," stammered Felix, putting down the card again. He had +read the name of the hotel on it; it happened to be the same one in +which Irene was stopping. "'Countess Nelida F----;' I assure you I +never heard the name before. Are you going to-night?" + +"Possibly, unless something should happen to prevent. It is a matter +of perfect indifference to me now with what sort of people I mix, +since I--" + +He hesitated. His eye glanced involuntarily toward the statuette. Then, +after a pause, he said: + +"Listen: all sorts of things have happened since we last met. Don't you +notice any change in me? I thought I must have grown ten years +younger." + +Felix looked at him searchingly. + +"That could make no one happier than it would me, old Daedalus. And, +since we are on the subject, it has somewhat depressed me to find--I +must out with it--a different man from the friend I left ten years ago. +I always thought it must be my fault that made you so much more +reserved and distant toward me than you used to be. If you would only +be the same old fellow again--but mayn't I know what has brought this +about?" + +"Not yet," answered the sculptor, seizing the hand Felix held out to +him, and pressing it with evident emotion. "I haven't got permission +yet, much as the secret burns in my breast. But, take my word for it, +my dear fellow, all will come right now. I tell you miracles and +wonders still happen; a withered staff burgeons and flourishes, and is +filled once more with green sap and white blossoms. The winter was a +little long, and no wonder that even you felt the cold." + +A knock on the door interrupted him. They heard the voice of the +battle-painter outside, eagerly demanding admission. + +Jansen drew the bolts which, in his disgust, he had fastened behind the +aesthetical professor, and let Rosenbusch in. + +"Well!" cried he to his friend, "what do you say to this divine +creature? Hasn't she been making herself agreeable to you too? A woman +of the gods, by my life! How she hits the nail on the head with every +word, draws out the most secret thoughts of the soul, so that one has +only to keep his ears and mouth open, and always nod an affirmative! +There isn't a horseshoe in all my Battle of Luetzen about which she +didn't show a profound knowledge; and if she remains in Munich any +length of time, she says she shall visit me often, so as to watch me at +my work. I am on the only true road, she said; art is action, passion, +excitement--a battle for life and death, and other things of the sort, +which she actually seemed to snatch from my mouth. A devilish smart +woman, and her traveling companion also seems to be a first-rate judge +of art. Of course you have been invited to the musical _soiree_ this +evening. She wants me to bring my flute with me; but I sha'n't be such +a fool as to expose myself before this northern Semiramis. What are you +laughing at?" + +"We are only laughing at the rapid progress of this friend of art in +discovering what fits the occasion. Down here she declared that true +art was repose. A flight higher and the sight of the Battle of Luetzen +caused a new light to be thrown on the subject, and she finds that art +is nothing but turmoil and excitement. Yon have effected a speedy +conversion, Rosenbusch. If it is only as permanent as speedy!" + +For once the battle-painter failed to see the humor of the thing. + +"All the same," he said; "I am devilish anxious to continue this +acquaintance. Why shouldn't a talented woman be many-sided? So this +evening at eight o'clock I will call for you, baron. What a pity that I +should have shaved off my beard and cropped my hair just at this time! +I should have been much more imposing with my former romantic head than +in this bald, Philistine guise. However, if the spirit is only unshorn +and free--and in any case my velvet jacket will carry me through!" + + + + + CHAPTER VIII. + + +Punctually at eight o'clock Rosenbusch made his appearance at Felix's +lodgings. He was arrayed with a gorgeousness such as he only assumed on +the most extraordinary occasions. It is true, picturesque lights played +in the folds of his violet velvet jacket, indicative of the extreme age +of its material; but those who knew that this garment, as was +authentically proved by the records, was cut from the robe of state +worn by an historical Countess of Tilly, regarded it with reverence, +especially as it was exceedingly becoming to its present red-cheeked +wearer. About his neck he had wound a spotlessly white cambric necktie, +tied in a delicate knot. His white waistcoat was, to be sure, a little +yellowed, and his black trousers were a little shiny in places; but +when he entered his friend's room with an elastic step, carrying his +tall, antiquated cylinder hat under his arm, and swinging a pair of +tolerably white kid gloves in one hand, he cut, upon the whole, such an +excellent figure that Felix felt called upon to say something +flattering concerning his toilet. + +"One must maintain the honor of his station, and prove to the world +that the tailor ought to learn from the artist, and not the reverse," +replied the painter, with great solemnity, stopping before the glass +and endeavoring to give a bolder wave to his cropped hair. + +"Now you," he continued, "haven't by any means got rid of the baron +yet. Take my word for it, clothes really do make the man. One is a very +different kind of fellow in his shirt-sleeves or in a blouse, than in +one of the elegant, pinched-up monkey-jackets of the latest style. +Doesn't every one of us play a _role_? Now just ask Elfinger whether +the true spirit of the _role_ doesn't lie in the costume of the actor. +I, for example, in a coat that any Tom or Dick could wear, should feel +myself so lowered to their level that I shouldn't want to take a brush +in my hand. But dressed as I am, even in my company toilet, I can shout +_anch' io_ as lustily as far greater people. But you show no signs of +getting ready. What do you say to making a sensation by coming late?" + +Felix had had time to relapse once more into his melancholy mood. He +answered that he had had disagreeable news from home, and was in no +humor for going into company. Rosenbusch must excuse him; besides, it +would make no difference to the countess whether an unknown beginner-- + +"What!" cried the battle-painter, "you are going to leave me to go +alone to the enchanted garden of this Armida, while all the time I have +been counting on you to save me in case of necessity! Jansen is sure to +come late in any case, even if he decides to go at all. No, my dear +fellow, you know I expend such unheard-of courage on canvas, that not +much remains to me for the _salon_. So, back to back, shoulder to +shoulder, with a friend and companion-in-arms, or I will crawl into the +first violon-cello-case I come to, and bring disgrace upon the Paradise +Club." + +He forced Felix, who half laughed and half protested, to make his +toilet, and then dragged him out with him, holding tightly to his arm +even after they were in the street, as though he still feared that he +might try to give him the slip. At heart Felix was glad to be forced. +He was secretly ashamed of his fear to enter, even on a day when she +was absent, the house where his old sweetheart was living; but now all +the depression which had weighed upon him ever since he found out she +was in the city left him in the company of his merry friend, and the +latter's account of his latest adventures as rejected suitor and happy +lover put him in the most cheerful humor. He rallied the artist upon +his flighty heart, which, instead of dreading the fire like a burned +child, wanted to singe itself in this new flame; all of which +Rosenbusch received with a quiet sigh. + +"The fact is," he said, "a countess like this is not so very dangerous. +It goes without saying, that in all intercourse with her one must +respect certain limits when one is a poor fool of a painter who has to +let himself be snubbed even by a glove-maker. But if, on the other +hand, a female demon like this should really take it into her head to +elope with one of my sort to Italy or Siberia, let us say--well, she +will know what she is about; and in the mean time we can let things go +as Heaven wills." + +Amid talk of this sort they had reached the hotel, in the first story +of which a row of lighted windows had already shown them where the +female autocrat of all the arts was holding her court. Felix pulled his +hat down lower over his forehead, and sprang up the stairs so rapidly +that Rosenbusch was left behind breathless. + +"You are an extraordinary fellow!" he cried, laughing, after he had +overtaken him at the top. "It takes a good deal of diplomacy to get you +started, but once started, you can't get there soon enough." + +Felix made no reply, for just then a servant opened a side-door and +they entered a spacious _salon_, which resounded with the last notes of +one of Chopin's nocturnes, with which the hostess herself had opened +the _soiree_. + +A rather mixed company was grouped about the piano, mostly young people +with long hair and pale faces, of the music-of-the-future sort; mingled +with these a few diplomatists, officers, journalists, and people +without any other profession than that of knowing everybody and being +introduced everywhere. The professor of aesthetics advanced to meet the +new arrivals with a sort of host-like cordiality, and shook hands with +them. He wore an old-fashioned blue dress-coat with gold buttons, a +yellow pique waistcoat, white summer trousers, and a stiff, black +cravat, that compelled him to keep his chin perpetually thrown up. +Stephanopulos emerged from the crowd of enthusiastic courtiers in order +to welcome the guests, which he too did as if he felt himself quite at +home. But now the dense circle divided, and the countess herself swept +up to the new-comers. + +She had made an exceedingly becoming toilet--a dark dress of light +material, that left bare her shoulders, which were still youthful in +appearance; and a Venetian point-lace veil, thrown with studied +carelessness about her head, and fastened on one side by a fresh, +dark-red rose. The dead white of her cheeks looked more blooming than +usual in the warm light of the candles, and her keen, piercing eyes and +white teeth vied with one another in brilliancy. + +"I am so glad you have kept your word," she exclaimed to the young men, +giving one of her soft little hands to each of them. "I hope, too, your +talented friend and master will also find his way here; and you shall +not regret having come. To be sure, I told you beforehand you must be +contented with what your ears would let you enjoy. Still, your eyes +sha'n't go away quite unsatisfied. Come, I will show you something +beautiful." + +She took Felix's arm, and, talking rapidly all the time, led him to the +other end of the _salon_. In a corner, on a semicircular sofa, sat +several mothers and duennas, and in the chairs on either side perhaps a +half dozen young girls, all belonging to the stage or the music-school, +engaged in earnest conversation with some young musicians about the +latest opera and the last concert. A little to one side of them a group +of elderly gentlemen could be seen gathered about a slight, youthful +figure, who sat near a little flower-stand, and who appeared to be +listening in rather an absent way to a white-haired little man, who was +giving a long disquisition on Bach's Passion-Music. Her back was turned +toward the side from which the countess approached with Felix. Now, +upon hearing the hostess's voice, she turned with much dignity. + +"Allow me, _ma toute belle_, to introduce to you Baron von Weiblingen +and Herr Rosenbusch," said the countess. "The gentlemen are artists, +dear Irene; Herr Rosenbusch is a painter and musician.--You have +brought your flute, haven't you?" + +The painter exhausted himself in assurances of his inability to produce +his sounds of Nature, as he called them, for any ears but his own; but +the countess had already turned to Felix again. + +"Did I say too much?" she whispered, loud enough for the Fraeulein to +hear her. "Isn't she charming? But your silence says enough. Happy +youth! For a woman's ears there is no sweeter music than such silence, +when she herself is the cause of it. I leave you to your enchantment; +_bonne chance!_" + +She tapped his arm lightly with her black fan, nodded slyly to the +beautiful girl, and disappeared once more in the crowd about the piano. + +The old gentleman, a musical amateur of the old school whom the +countess hoped to convert to the new movement, had withdrawn upon the +approach of the young men. Rosenbusch took advantage of the moment to +make his bows as gracefully as possible, and to open the conversation +by asking how the gracious Fraeulein liked Munich. Then, upon turning +round to give Felix a chance to say something, he discovered to his +great surprise that the latter had withdrawn into one of the window +niches, from which he vanished a few minutes after. "What devil has got +into our young baron?" thought Rosenbusch. It seemed to him out of all +propriety to abruptly turn one's back on a charming young lady. +However, he determined to take advantage of this opportunity to show +himself in a still more favorable light, for the Fraeulein pleased him. + +She was very simply dressed, which fact, however, only served to +contrast her advantageously with the others, with their silks and showy +ornaments. The excursion that was to have lasted several days had been +shortened, for the old countess had been seized with an attack of +neuralgia, and Irene had scarcely reached home when she was taken +possession of by her fellow-lodger for this, as the latter had assured +her, entirely improvised _soiree_, for which there was no need to make +any great toilet. Her uncle had fled to a gentlemen's club. It was +impossible for her to refuse the invitation. + +In truth, it was a matter of perfect indifference to her into what +company she went. What did she care for any strange faces since the one +which was dearest to her had become a stranger? And she had not had the +faintest suspicion that she should meet him here. + +And now she stood opposite him, and the only look that was exchanged +between them showed her that he had come into her presence not less +unexpectedly. + +A violin concerto, which, to Rosenbusch's great disgust, interrupted +him in an eloquent description of the pleasant summer weather in the +Bavarian mountains, gave her time to collect her thoughts and to +recover herself so far, at least, as not to betray by her manner the +emotions that were at strife within her. But what would come next--what +she ought to do--was no clearer to her now, when the last tones of the +violins were dying away, than in the first few minutes. + +"My friend the baron has suddenly disappeared," Rosenbusch now began +again. "You must have got a curious impression of him; for, upon my +word, he stood before you like a painted Turk, as they say here in +Munich. I'll eat my head if I can understand why he suddenly became +such a stick. He is generally a devilish jolly fellow, and not at all +bashful in the presence of ladies." + +"He is--your friend?" she asked, in an almost inaudible voice. + +"We have known each other for several weeks, and you know, until one +has eaten salt with a man--in the mean time, I imagine I think more of +him than he does of your humble servant." + +"Your friend--is also an artist?" + +"Most certainly, Fraeulein. He has devoted himself to sculpture under +the instruction of his old friend, the celebrated Jansen. How he +suddenly came to do it, no one knows. Don't you, too, think he looks +more like a cavalier? At all events there is something so romantic, +interesting, and Lord Byronish about him that I should not wonder at +all if he found tremendous favor with the women. I beg pardon, if I +have expressed myself too freely." + +He grew red and plucked at his cuffs. She appeared to take no offense +at his forcible style, but merely asked again, in the most indifferent +tone: + +"You think he has no talent?" + +"How much talent he has, God only knows," replied his friend candidly. +"But one thing is certain, a gigantic courage and a devilish deal of +perseverance are required of one who ventures to take up with sculpture +nowadays. You wouldn't believe, Fraeulein, how difficult it is--in this +profession of all others--to find the means with which to mount to +the source, in this strait-laced civilization of ours, with its +conventional prejudices. The days when three goddesses did not +think it improper to get a certificate of their beauty from a royal +goatherd--I beg a thousand pardons, I always do wax warm when I think +of our wretched art-condition, and then I blurt out whatever comes into +my head. This much is certain: if my friend has allowed himself to be +induced merely by his love of beauty to become an artist, instead of +living on his estates, he will find he has reckoned without his host +even here in Munich. There are charming girls here, to be sure;--seen +on the street as they sweep by in their coquettish costumes, with their +little hats and chignons, one might almost be tempted to sell one's +soul to the devil out of pure delight--but when one comes to examine +them by a stronger light--" + +The Fraeulein all at once seemed to discover that her presence was +imperatively required opposite, where the music pupils were sitting. +She rose hastily, bowed coldly to the astonished artist, and approached +one of the young ladies with the question whether she too did not find +it very warm. + +Rosenbusch gazed upon her with open mouth. A suspicion dawned in his +innocent brain that perhaps his conversation had appeared rather too +free-and-easy to this young lady. He could not understand this, and +laid it to the score of her North German education. He had talked in a +similar way with his countrywomen at balls, without arousing any +special displeasure. Now he slunk pensively away from the flower-stand, +just as a promising amateur began to perform one of Bach's preludes. +Slipping quietly along, and keeping close to the wall, he succeeded in +reaching the adjoining room, which was dimly lighted, without +attracting attention. A lady's-maid had been making tea there. The +national samovar was still singing on the little table, as though +secretly accompanying the playing outside. But in the doorway stood +Felix, his gaze, piercing through all the crowd and confusion, fixed +upon one particular spot. + +He started as the battle-painter's hand was laid softly on his +shoulder, and scowled angrily. Rosenbusch thought he did not wish to be +disturbed while listening to the music, and kept as still as a mouse as +long as the prelude lasted. He himself did not care for Bach. He was, +as he expressed it, too "cyclopean" for him. He preferred something +melting or merry. So he spent the time in looking about the room, and +was astonished to see on an easel near the window, in a sufficiently +good light to attract attention, that cartoon of the Bride of Corinth +which had brought so little honor to Stephanopulos in "Paradise." The +burned corner had not yet been repaired, so that the singular picture +made a still more weird impression among its elegant surroundings. + +How came it here? Who could have brought it to the countess? Could it +be that the young sinner himself had lent a helping hand in getting it +for her? His name stood in the corner that had been spared by the fire. +It was possible that the honest finder, whom Rosenbusch caught _in +flagranti_ that night in the "Paradise" garden, had returned it to the +artist; that the countess had seen it in his studio, and thought that +it would be piquant to exhibit a drawing in her house which had been +condemned by the male critics on account of its lack of modesty. Oh, +these countesses!--these Russians! + +The door leading to a third room was also standing open--to no less +a sanctum than the sleeping-chamber of the lady of the house. A +hanging-lamp was suspended within, whose light streamed through a +rose-colored shade, casting its dreamy rays upon the furniture, and +upon the bed hung with embroidered muslin. Near the bed, in an +arm-chair, a woman's figure reclined, motionless, so that it could only +be discerned with difficulty by a person outside. But Rosenbusch, who +was to-day in one of his reckless moods, had already advanced several +steps into the sanctum, when he suddenly saw two piercing eyes fixed +upon him. He felt as if he had encountered the glowing eyes of a cat in +the dark. Confusedly stammering an apology, he bowed to the silent +unknown, and hastily beat a retreat into the front room. + +In the mean while the playing had come to an end, and the _salon_ +resounded once more with a confusion of voices in all tongues and +dialects; but still Felix stood there, solitary and unapproachable, as +if no one among all who surrounded him knew how to speak his language. + +"You don't seem inclined to be particularly gallant," he now heard the +cheerful voice of the battle-painter remark; "or was it merely because +you didn't want to cut me out that you refrained from engaging in any +further conversation with that splendid Fraeulein? If you had looked +closer at her, you would hardly have been capable of such rather +insulting magnanimity toward my poor self. A perfectly splendid girl, I +assure you; very exclusive, intellectual and amiable; and without +wanting to flatter myself, I really believe I didn't give her a bad +impression of the Munich artists. If I were not so wholly engaged +already--But, by-the-way, have you seen what is standing over there, on +the easel? That Stephanopulos!--just look at him over there, half +sprawling over the piano--how he follows the countess with his eyes, +all the while, with a face like an _Ecce Homo_ of Mount Athos! A +devilish queer kind of fellow!" + +"Did she inquire about me?" interrupted Felix, suddenly starting out of +his brooding. He passed his hand over his forehead, on which the cold +perspiration had started, and drew a long breath. Just at that moment +Irene's slender figure glided out of the _salon_ in spite of the +countess's earnest attempts to detain her. + +"Inquire after you?" repeated the artist. "Of course she did. Such a +dumb cavalier, who immediately vanishes into obscurity, couldn't help +exciting a woman's curiosity." + +"And what--what did you say about me?" eagerly inquired Felix. + +"I excused you as well as I could, saying that you were generally much +more gallant toward ladies." + +"Thank you. You are really very kind, Rosenbusch. And she--what did she +say to that?" + +"Why, what could she say? She didn't appear to feel in the least +offended. Very likely she thought her beauty had rather struck you +dumb--no woman is offended at that. Don't tell me I don't understand +women! And then I talked to her about sculpture--But, upon my word, +here comes Jansen. I must go and say good-evening to him." + + + + + CHAPTER IX. + + +It was late when Jansen arrived. He had, as usual, been spending the +evening with Julie; and had then escorted Angelica home, who complained +afresh each time that she was compelled to be a restraint upon two +lovers. + +But Julie insisted upon being "matronized" by her during the year of +probation, and so she submitted, and knew how to conduct herself so +sensibly that the very fact of her presence gave the peculiar charm of +suppressed emotion to these happy hours. The after-glow of it still +shone upon Jansen's face as he entered the _salon_. A sudden stillness +ensued; all looked at him; but he seemed hardly to see any one but his +hostess, whom he greeted with a shake of the hand. She received him +with studied cordiality, immediately took exclusive possession of him, +and merely chided him for arriving so late by an allusion to older and +higher duties which had a prior claim upon him. + +"Now don't deny it," she said, smiling. "It cost you a heroic struggle +to tear yourself away at all. It is true a man seldom finds it at all +difficult to leave one woman in order to go to another; but when he is +forced to leave a beauty in the lurch, in order to pay a little +attention to an old woman, one cannot estimate the sacrifice too +highly." + +"You are mistaken, countess," he laughingly replied. "I have been +forced to tear myself away, not from _one_ but from two elderly women, +as they are fond of calling themselves--with just as little reason and +just as little seriousness as when you, countess, count yourself among +that class. But, if it had really cost me a sacrifice, you would have +deserved it of me. I know how ungratefully I conducted myself toward +you in former years. Yet you haven't treasured it up against me." + +"Unfortunately there are men with whom one cannot be offended, no +matter what they do. _Ils le savent et ils en abusent_-- But what is +that?" + +She suddenly broke off. Her sharp eye had seen that one of the young +ladies at the opposite end of the room had become faint, and that the +elder ones were busied over her. In a second she was at her side, +noiselessly and swiftly doing what was necessary. The insensible girl +was borne into the sleeping-chamber, and soon came to herself again. +When the countess returned, she said, in passing, to Jansen: + +"The poor child! Think of practising nine hours daily, and eating +nothing all the while! What existences some people do lead!" Then to +the others: "The Fraeulein feels better already. The excessive heat was +the cause of her illness. Perhaps if we should turn down the gas just +for a little while, the temperature would be somewhat more bearable." + +Several of the young people hastened to execute this hint. When the +gas-lights were extinguished, the candles on the piano and a lamp +on the mantel over the fireplace gave only a subdued light, so the +clear night sky, with its moon and stars, shed its lustre through the +wide-opened windows. In this twilight, every one seemed to feel happy +and at ease. A young person, who had previously been entreated to sing +in vain, now mustered up sufficient courage, and her sweet, sympathetic +contralto voice sounded charmingly in the breathless stillness. Jansen +had seated himself in a corner of the sofa in the adjoining room; it +did him good to sit there in the dim light, with half-closed eyes, +watching the play of the shadows as they passed before him, drinking in +the soft tones and thinking all the while upon his happiness. He spoke +with no one. Rosenbusch had at first taken a seat by his side; but as +he had received only monosyllabic answers, he had soon withdrawn again. +Felix had disappeared without taking leave; he could not longer +suppress all that he felt. And now the scene in the _salon_ grew +livelier and more fantastic. No one thought any longer of playing an +entire piece of music. The instrument merely served to illustrate this +or that assertion, as it came up in the course of the confused +conversation; now a few chords were struck, now the hoarse voice of +some composer hummed an air in order to explain some passage; the +younger guests had separated into little groups, and were apparently +engaged in other conversation than that relating to art. In the midst +of all was heard from time to time the high, thin voice of the +professor, who was continually in search of new victims for his +eloquence, and buttonholed now one person and now another. This +intellectual exertion exhausted him all the less from the fact that he +consumed an incredible quantity of the refreshments which were handed +about. After having emptied a whole basket of cakes, he devoted himself +persistently to the ices, and, finally, when, toward midnight, the +champagne was brought in, he seized a whole bottle out of the waiter's +hands and placed it with his glass in a little niche behind a pillar. +As he did so the countess honored him with a cold, almost contemptuous +glance, and her lips curled slightly. The expression enhanced the +beauty of her face exceedingly. Then, too, the dim light that now +prevailed in the room lent her a strange charm. She looked very much +younger, and her eyes flashed sparks that were still capable of +kindling fire. Stephanopulos devoured her with his eyes, and was +continually seeking a chance to approach her. But she always passed +without noticing him; nor did she sit down by Jansen again. It was easy +to see that her mind was fixed upon something which took her thoughts +away from all that was going on about her. + +As it struck midnight, it so chanced that there was a momentary hush in +the conversation. The aesthetical professor advanced into the middle of +the _salon_, holding a full glass in his hand, and said: + +"Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to propose a toast to our honored +mistress, in whose name we are here assembled. I do not mean by this +the gracious lady, so sincerely honored by us all, whose guests we are. +I have praised her too often not to be willing to resign, for once, to +her younger guests this privilege of an old friend. My toast is offered +to a mistress even greater than she--to the sublime art of Music, the +art of arts, whose supremacy is becoming more and more acknowledged and +exalted, without envy by her sisters. May she, the mightiest of all +the powers which move the world--thrice glorious and thrice holy +Music--live, flourish, and prevail to the end of time!" + +Enthusiastic applause followed these words, but even the clinking of +the glasses, and the shouts of the different voices, were drowned by a +loud flourish which a young musician improvised upon the piano. The +professor, who had emptied his bumper at a draught and instantly filled +it again, now stepped, with a complacent smile, into the cabinet where +Jansen sat, thoughtfully holding his half-filled glass, from which he +had scarcely sipped, as if he were counting the rising pearls within +it. + +"My honored master," he heard a voice say at his side, "we have not yet +touched glasses with one another." + +He quietly looked up at the speaker. + +"Do you care very much to have your resolution passed by a strictly +unanimous vote?" + +"My resolution?" + +"I mean your exaltation of music above all other arts. If it was merely +a polite phrase to catch the applause of the musicians and the devotees +of music, I have nothing to say against it. It is always expedient to +howl with the wolves. But in case you expressed your real opinion, and +ask me now, on my conscience and between ourselves, whether I share it, +you must permit me to draw back my glass in silence, and, if I drink, +to think my own thoughts in so doing." + +"Do what you can't help doing, _carissimo_!" replied the professor, +with a thoughtful nod of the head. "I know very well that you worship +other gods, and only esteem you the more for having the true artist's +courage to be one-sided. To your health!" + +Jansen held his glass in the same position, and did not seem in the +least inclined to approach it to that of the professor. + +"I am very sorry to sink in your estimation," he said, "but I am really +not quite so one-sided as you think. I not only love music, but it is +fairly necessary to my existence; and if I am deprived of it for any +length of time, my spirit is as ill as my body would be if it were +forced to go without its bath." + +"A strange comparison!" + +"And yet, perhaps, it is more appropriate than it would seem at first. +Doesn't a bath stimulate and excite, calm, or quicken the blood, wash +away the grime of everyday life from the limbs, and soothe all manner +of pain? But it stills neither hunger nor thirst, and he who bathes too +often feels his nervous strength relaxed, his blood over-excited, and +his organs toned down to a voluptuous languor. Isn't it just so with +music? It is possible our thanks are due to her alone that mankind has +gradually lost its bestiality, and grown nearer the likeness of God. +But this is equally certain, that men who now carry this enjoyment to +excess sink gradually into a vegetating dream-life, and that if a time +should come when music should really be exalted as the highest art, the +highest problems of humanity would remain unsolved, and the very marrow +of mankind would be forceless and feeble.--I know well," he continued, +without noticing that the people in the _salon_ were listening to his +monologue, and that groups of listeners had approached the door--"I +know well that these are heresies which one cannot utter in certain +circles without being stoned a little. Nor would I care to discuss the +question with a musician, for he would scarcely understand what I +really mean. The effect of this art 'of thinking in tones' is gradually +to dissolve all that is solid in the brain into a softened mass, and +only the great, truly creative talents can preserve the capacity and +disposition for other intellectual interests. That the highest masters +of every art stand on an equality with one another, I need not say. As +to the others, the expression which some one used in regard to lyric +poets maybe justly used toward them--'They are like geese whose livers +have been fattened; excellent livers, but sick geese.' How can the +balance of the intellectual powers be preserved, when any one sits nine +hours a day at an instrument and continually practises the same +exercises? And for that reason I should be careful how I tried to +convince a musician of the error of his fanaticism. But to you, who are +an aesthetic by profession--" + +He chanced to let his eyes wander toward the door, and broke off +suddenly. He noticed now, for the first time, before what an audience +he had been speaking. The professor observed his surprise, and grinned +maliciously. + +"You are talking to your own destruction, my dear sir," he said, +raising his voice. "You might just as well declare in a mosque that +Allah was not Allah, and Mohammed was not his prophet, as to assert to +this crowd of enthusiastic youths that there is anything more divine +than music, or that devotion to it, its service and its cultivation, +could ever be pushed too far. Entrench yourself behind your blocks of +marble, so that we may grant you peace on favorable terms. What would +you say if some one declared that whoever uses his mallet nine hours of +the day must, in the course of time, lose his sense of hearing and +sight, that his intellectual power would finally become deadened and +petrified, and that his soul would get to be as dusty and muddy as the +blouse he wears when he hammers his stones?" + +A unanimous shout of bravos arose from the group standing nearest him, +and a murmur of satisfaction ran through the _salon_. + +The countess, who now for the first time became aware of the dialogue, +was seen hastily approaching, with the intention of averting the +threatened storm by a timely word. But Jansen had already risen to his +feet, and stood confronting the professor with the most unruffled +composure. + +"What would I say?" he cried, loud enough to be understood by all. "I +would say that in every art there are artists and mechanics, and that +the latter know as little of the god whom they serve as the sexton who +sweeps out the church and hands about the contribution-box. Of all the +arts there is but one which does not know the dust of the workshop, +that has no underlings and assistants, or, at the worst, merely +charlatans who fancy themselves masters; and even these know nothing of +that kind of mechanical readiness which murders the soul and deadens +thought. For that reason it is the highest and most divine of the arts, +before which the others bow, and which they ought to worship as their +mistress and goddess. To you, who are in the habit of lecturing upon +aesthetics, I should be ashamed to explain myself more fully by saying +that I refer to poetry, were it not that in your toast you offered an +insult to the majesty of this, the highest muse, which I can only +excuse upon the supposition that you have strayed from the temple of +the true divinity, and wandered by mistake into a mosque." + +With these words he raised his glass, held it before the flame of the +lamp and slowly drank it off. A deathlike silence followed; the +professor, who was apparently on the point of making a rather +irritating reply, was restrained by a meaning look from the countess. +She herself had looked at the sculptor while he spoke, with a peculiar, +searching, flashing look, and merely threatened him playfully with her +finger as he now advanced toward her as if to take leave. + +"Stay," she whispered to him, "I have a word to speak with you." + +Then she turned to the others, and invited them to be seated again and +not to think of breaking up so soon. But her most cordial words and +demeanor could not banish a certain uncomfortable feeling that had +taken possession of the company. No one could be induced to take a +place at the piano, and a court musician, who still had a violin sonata +_in petto_, shut up his instrument-case with conspicuous noise and took +his leave of the countess, bestowing upon Jansen as he passed a look +full of meaning. The others followed his example, and, finally, even +the professor, who took his defeat most easily, entered upon his +retreat after addressing a few jesting remarks to his opponent. +Rosenbusch, who would probably otherwise have waited for Jansen, had +offered his services in escorting home the young Fraeulein who had +fainted earlier in the evening. + +The artist and the countess now stood alone confronting one another, in +the dimly-lighted room. From the street below they could hear the +departing guests as they went away, laughing, talking, and singing. + +"I beg for a mild punishment, countess," began Jansen, smiling. "Of +course you have only detained me in order to exact a penance in the +absence of witnesses. I thank you for this kind intention, although, to +be honest, I rather favor a public execution if the head really must +come off!" + +"You are very, very wicked!" she answered, slowly shaking her head as +if she were deeply in earnest in what she said. "You fear neither God +nor man, least of all that which seems to many the most terrible--the +anger of a woman. And, for that reason, I shall not succeed in +punishing you for your sins as you have deserved." + +"No," he said. "I submit voluntarily to any penance you may put upon +me. How I wish that by so doing I could rid myself of my old fault of +thinking aloud without first looking around to see who may be +listening!" + +She walked up and down the room with folded arms, gazing thoughtfully +before her. + +"Why should we disguise ourselves?" she said, after a pause. "It is not +worth the trouble to deceive the thoughtless masses, and we cannot fool +the wise few. Let us drop our masks, dear friend. I think exactly as +you do, only perhaps I feel it even more keenly because I am a woman. +For me, too, music is merely a bath. But I enjoy it more passionately +because a woman, who is much more restricted than you men, is more +grateful for every opportunity to cast off all her chains and fetters, +and plunge her soul in a great excited and exciting element. To me such +an element is music; of course not all music--not that shallow kind +that merely bubbles and murmurs pleasantly, yet scarcely rises to my +knees, but that fathomless music whose billows break over my head. To +me Sebastian Bach is like a shoreless sea, 'and it is sweet to plunge +into its depths.' But do not let us talk of the petty souls, the +bunglers and the underlings! With you great men--you yourself have said +as much--does the material make such a great difference? When you see a +work of Phidias, does not your whole being sink as if into divinely +cool waters? And that is the main thing in the end. The few moments in +life that satisfy our innermost desires are, after all, those only in +which we almost believe we are dying. Enjoyment of art, enthusiasm, a +great deed, a passion--in the main they all have the same ending. Or do +not you agree, dear friend?" + +He indicated his assent by a gesture, though he had only caught a few +stray words. This woman interested him so little that his thoughts, +even when he was at her side, secretly flew away to her whose image +filled his heart. + +She took his silence as a sign that she had made a deep impression upon +him. + +"You see," she continued, "it is a satisfaction to me to tell you this. +It is so seldom one finds people capable of comprehending one, and from +whom one need have no secrets. It is a privilege of all sovereign +natures that they dare to confess all to one another--the highest as +well as the lowest thoughts--for, even when we confess our weakness, we +are ennobled by the boldness and daring with which we do it. Oh, my +dear friend! if you knew how hard a woman has to struggle to attain +that freedom which you men claim as a birthright! For how long a time +do we throw away the best years of our life because of false shame, and +a thousand other considerations! It is only since I acknowledged it as +a moral duty toward my own nature to possess myself of anything toward +which I felt drawn, to dare anything which was not beyond my powers, to +say anything for which I could find a sympathetic listener--it is only +since that time that I can say I have learned to respect myself. But I +forget; it does not follow that these confessions interest you, no +matter how much sympathy you may feel for them. I am, doubtless, not +the first woman who has given you similar confidences. The world in +which you live is used to seeing fall the veils and coverings with +which we drape ourselves in the prudish society of ordinary mortals. +Nor would I, perhaps, have detained you here with me merely to talk to +you of such feelings and thoughts, if I had not besides something very +particular at heart, a great, great favor--" + +She had thrown herself down on a sofa and rested there in a careless, +picturesque attitude, her arms thrown back gracefully behind her head. +Her face was pale as marble, and her lips were slightly parted--but not +with a smile. + +"A favor?" he asked, absently. "You know, countess, I was prepared to +receive a penance. How much sooner--" + +"Who knows whether the granting of this favor will not seem to you a +penance, and none of the lightest either!" she hastily interrupted. "In +a word, will you make my portrait?" + +"Your portrait?" + +"Yes; a portrait-statue, sitting or standing, as you like. I confess to +you that the thought first came to me this morning. I can't get that +beautiful portrait of your charming friend out of my head, though I am +not so conceited as to wish to compare myself with this unknown woman, +especially in your eyes. I have a special reason for wanting it; I know +a foolish man who still finds me young and pretty enough to want my +portrait--particularly if it were done by such a master--a friend, from +whom I have been separated often and long, and whom I should make very +happy if I could send him my effigy as a compensation." + +While she delivered this excited speech, Jansen had let his eyes rest +on her, without betraying by any sign whether he was disposed to grant +her the favor or not. She blushed under this cool, searching look, and +cast down her eyes. + +"He is beginning to study me already," she thought. "But you mustn't +think," she continued, "that I am altogether too modest in my request. +He, for whom this master-work is intended, would be ready to pay its +weight in gold for even the most hasty sketch from your hand. But it +appears as if the undertaking had no great charm for you? Tell me +frankly; in any case, we will still remain good friends." + +"Countess," he began, for the first time this evening betraying some +confusion, "you are really too good--" + +"No! You are trying to escape me--now, don't deny it. Perhaps I know +the reason which makes you unfavorable to my request. You have delicate +duties that you must regard. If your friend should discover that you +had shown the same favor to me as to her--I don't know her, but, for +all that, it might be possible, and certainly pardonable, for her to be +a little jealous! Am I not right? Isn't it that which makes you +hesitate?" + +He was silent for a moment. Then, still in an absent way and as if +speaking to himself, he said, quietly: + +"Jealous? She would certainly have no cause to be." + +The unfortunate expression had scarcely passed his lips when a hot +and cold shudder passed over him, and he suddenly became conscious +what a deadly insult he had uttered. He looked at her in alarm; he saw +that all the blood had fled from her cheeks, leaving even her lips a +deathly white. But immediately, before he could even recover sufficient +self-possession to soften the impression of his words, she forced a +pleasant laugh, hastily rose from the sofa and stepped up to him with +both her hands extended. + +"Thank you, my friend," she said, in her easiest tone; "you are not +particularly gallant, but something better and rarer--you are candid. +You are right; unless a woman is able to set the whole female sex wild +with envy and jealousy, like your beautiful unknown friend, she is not +a worthy subject for your art. I really ought to be old enough to see +that myself. But, as I said, you are partly to blame for my having hit +on such a foolish idea--the portrait of that beautiful woman had turned +my head. But now it is in its right place again, and I thank you for +your speedy cure. _Prenez que je n'aie rien dit._ That my tardy wish, +which perhaps would have been an impudent one even in earlier days, +remains our secret, I expect from your chivalry. So--your hand upon +it--and _soyons amis!_ And now, good-night. Though I am in no danger of +awakening jealousy, I am not old enough yet to be secure from malicious +gossip, and--you have already staid longer than is proper." + +In the most painful confusion he attempted to stammer out a few +palliating words. But she would not listen to them, and, amid all sorts +of pretty speeches and jests, almost hustled him by main force out of +the door, which she immediately locked behind him. + +No sooner did she find herself alone than her features became +transformed; the smile on her lips faded into a grimace, and a +threatening scowl appeared on her smooth forehead. She brushed from her +eyelashes the tears of angry humiliation which she had held back too +long already, and drew a long, deep breath, as if to save her heart +from suffocation. Thus she stood, near the threshold, her little hands +clinched tight, gazing motionless at the door through which the man who +had insulted her had passed out. If a passionate wish possessed the +magic power to kill, Jansen would probably have never left her house +alive. + +She heard steps in the adjoining cabinet. She looked up, passed her +hands across her eyes and seized a glass of water, which she emptied at +a single draught. She was herself again. An elderly woman entered +cautiously, dressed simply and entirely in black, but with a care which +betrayed long practice in the arts of the toilet. Moreover, her manner +of speaking and carrying herself showed, at the first glance, that she +had once been at home behind the foot-lights. She was apparently well +on in the forties; but her real face was concealed under a coating of +paint, very skillfully laid on, and her soft, regular features made no +disagreeable impression. + +"You are still here, my dear?" cried the countess, scarcely attempting +to conceal a feeling of displeasure. "I thought you had long ago felt +bored at your self-chosen part and gone away." + +"I have passed an unspeakably pleasurable evening, my dear countess, +and wanted to thank you for it. Since I lost my voice and left the +stage, I scarcely remember to have heard so much good music in so few +hours. Manna in the desert, my dear countess!--manna in the desert! But +how lucky it was that I listened to the concert, as I did, in my dark +box over there! It is true that he, before whom I particularly wished +to avoid appearing, might not have noticed me. Since his new _liaison_ +he seems to be blind for everything else, and the many years since we +last met have done their best to make it hard for him to recognize me. +But imagine, countess, that young painter--the same one who got in my +way that night when we discovered the burning picture--strayed by +chance into your bedroom! Fortunately, he hastily retired again. But +it was a bright moonlight night the first time. Who knows whether he +did not recognize me again, especially as the picture in the cabinet +there--" + +"Certainly," nodded the countess, "you are right. Who knows?" + +She had not heard a word the other had spoken. + +"Oh, my honored patroness!" continued the latter, "if I could only tell +you how it infuriated me again to see him--the hard and cruel man who +made my poor daughter's life so wretched--enter the room with such a +proud, arrogant air, and receive homage everywhere; to hear his voice, +and his aggressive speeches that seemed meant to throw down the glove +to the whole company--oh, you cannot tell how I hate him! But has not a +mother a right to hate the enemy of her daughter?--all the more when +this daughter is so foolish as still to love the man who cast her out +of his house, and even begrudged her the consolation of weeping over +her wrongs on the neck of her own child?" + +She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes in a theatrical manner, as if +her grief had overpowered her. + +The countess gave her a cold look. + +"Don't play comedy before me, my dear," she said, sharply. "According +to all that I have heard of your daughter, I don't imagine she is +inconsolable. What reasons have you for thinking she still loves him?" + +"I know her heart, countess. She is too proud to mourn and weep. But +would she not ask her mother to come and live with her, were it not +that then she would be obliged to give up ever hearing any news of +the child? If she only knew what it cost me to be a spy, so that I +can write to her now and then how it fares with her hardhearted +husband--the poor, innocent child! And yet, gracious countess, if I +could ever succeed in tying the broken bond again, in freeing this +ungrateful, inconstant man from this snare of unworthy passion, in +leading him back again to his rightful wife--" + +Her voice appeared to be choked with tears. The countess made a +movement of impatience. + +"Enough!" she said. "It is late, and I am very tired. Still, it is +true, something must be done. This man's great talent will go to rack +and ruin amid false surroundings and vulgar love affairs, unless some +one brings him back into the right path. Come to me again to-morrow +forenoon, my dear. We will talk further on the subject then. Adieu!" + +She nodded to the singer in an absent way. The latter bowed low before +her, and started in haste to leave the room. As she was crossing the +threshold she heard her name called. + +"Don't you think me very unbecomingly dressed today, dear Johanna? It +seems to me I appear very old and haggard in this Venetian coiffure. +For that matter, I really ought to have put off the _soiree_ +altogether; I could hardly keep on my feet, I had such a headache." + +"You have this advantage over us, that even suffering makes you appear +more beautiful. From my place in my invisible box, I caught words that +would prove to you how great injustice you do yourself." + +"Flatterer!" laughed the countess, bitterly. "Go away I--do go away! At +all events you can't contradict the evidence of my own eyes." + +After the singer had gone, Nelida remained for a time standing on the +same spot where the former had taken leave of her. She murmured a few +words in her mother tongue, and then said in German: + +"He wants to do penance, does he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!" + +She stepped in front of the mirror above the fireplace, before which a +lamp, nearly out, burned with a weak, red flame. The candles on the +piano were burned down almost to the socket. In this dim light her +cheeks looked still more wan, her eyes more sunken, and the scowl on +her forehead as if it could nevermore be smoothed away. + +"Is it really too late for happiness?" she said aloud, in a hollow +voice. + +She shuddered, for the night wind swept coldly through the room. Slowly +she took the rose from her hair and let it fall to the ground, so that +the leaves were strewed over the carpet; then she unwound the veil from +her head, took out the comb and shook her hair down over her shoulders. +As she did so the blood returned to her cheeks, her eyes sparkled, and +she began to be pleased with herself once more. "_Il y a pourtant +quelques beaux restes!_" she said to herself. Then, with sunken head, +she strode across the _salon_, talking half aloud to herself, and +stepped up to the open piano. She struck the keys with her open hand so +that they gave forth a loud, harsh discord. She laughed scornfully at +this. "He will do penance, will he? He shall!--he shall!--he shall!" +and, once more folding her arms across her breast, she stepped into the +cabinet and stood still before the young Greek's cartoon. She knew the +picture by heart. And yet she stood before it as lost in contemplation +as though she saw it for the first time. + +Suddenly she felt a hot breath upon her neck. She shuddered slightly +and looked round. + +Stephanopulos stood behind her. + +"Are you crazy?" whispered Nelida. "What are you doing here? Leave me +this moment! My maid is coming!" + +"She is asleep," whispered the youth. "I told her you would not need +her. Do you reproach me, countess?--me, who only live in your +smiles--to whom a glance of your eyes is heaven or hell!" + +"Hush!" she said, leaving him her hand which he had seized. "You are +talking nonsense, my friend. But you have a good voice, and, besides, +one cannot be angry with you. _Vous etes un enfant!_" + + + + + CHAPTER X. + + +On the morning following the _soiree_, the lieutenant sat in the second +story of the same hotel, in the little _salon_ which lay between +Irene's bedroom and her uncle's. Although he was continually +complaining about his wretched vassalage to friendship, he had, +nevertheless, presented himself again in good season in order to +receive the watchword for the day. Inasmuch as he had not the faintest +regular occupation, this pretext for passing away the hours was, in +reality, heartily welcome to him. More than this, Irene's strangely +resigned and yet self-reliant character, her repellent manner and +almost bluntness, joined as they were with all the charm of youth, +attracted him more than he knew or cared to admit. + +The Fraeulein was still invisible when Schnetz arrived. He found the +uncle seated at breakfast, and was forced to listen to his account of +his experiences of the excursion, and of his evening at the club. The +baron may possibly have been a good dozen years older than the +lieutenant, whom he still continued to treat in his frank and jovial +manner, just as he had formerly treated the young fellow who, in +Africa, had felt flattered to be kindly taken under the wing of his +more experienced countryman and initiated into the mysteries of +lion-hunting and other noble pastimes. Sixteen years had passed since +then. The baron's hair had grown thin, the little rakish mustache on +his upper lip had turned gray, his nervous, thick-set figure had +rounded out, and, seen from behind, looked almost venerable; while +the long, lank figure of his younger comrade had grown even more +spindle-shanked, his face more like parchment, and his movements +clumsier than before. For all that the baron let his eyes rest with +fatherly satisfaction upon the officer, whom he still called "Schnetz, +my dear boy," and patted him encouragingly on the shoulder; all of +which Schnetz, who would have grimly resented any such familiarity from +any one else, received with great patience from him. + +"_Bonjour, mon vieux!_" cried the baron, with both cheeks full, when +Schnetz entered. "My little highness is still resting from the fatigues +of a musical entertainment given by a Russian lady here in the hotel. +Come, light a cigar. No?--don't be afraid! On neutral ground smoking is +allowed. That is the only thing which I, the best guarded of guardians, +ever succeeded in carrying through against my ward's wishes. Positively +I have regretted a hundred times that I didn't marry, and bring a few +lively boys into the world. If they had tyrannized over me, I should +know well enough for what sins I had to suffer. Now don't wink for me +to speak lower. She is accustomed to hear these sighs of agony from me. +She knows that her slave lets his hands and feet be put in chains, +but not his tongue. To be sure," he continued, concluding this +lamentation--which he had pronounced with far too jolly an air for it +to excite serious sympathy--"to be sure, my dear Schnetz, my yoke was +never so bearable as it is here in your blessed Munich: before all +else, because you have lent your shoulder to the wheel, and I have a +substitute in you such as I have wished for in vain at my own house, +when my severe little niece has led the old lion-hunter about by her +apron-string like a meek lamb." + +Then he related how he had made the most charming acquaintances at the +club yesterday, and what a cordial tone he had found there. + +"You South Germans are really a fine race of men!" he cried, excitedly. +"Everybody is so open, so true-hearted, in his _neglige_, just as God +made him. You don't have to feel about a long time until you get +through all the padding, and reach something like a human core; but +whatever there is in you appears on the surface, and, if it doesn't +please, it can't be helped. For that reason, of course, one sometimes +comes across a slight roughness, which, however, only does you honor." + +Schnetz puckered his mouth to an ironical grimace. + +"Allow me, _chere_ papa, to remark that you over-estimate us," he said, +dryly. "That which you take to be our honest, natural skin is only a +flesh-colored material under which the real epidermis lies concealed as +securely and as secretly as the nut under its shell. We do well to +throw aside our cloaks, because, with us, we do not show ourselves as +we are when we do so. Of course, between ourselves we know perfectly +well how matters stand, and that we can't make an X into a Y. Believe +me, were it not for the drop of Frankish blood that I got from my +mother, I should not be so _naif_ as to blurt out our national secret +to you. I would leave you to quietly find out for yourself whether, at +the end of a year--yes, or even at the end of ten or twenty years--you +would have advanced any further in the friendships made yesterday than +you did in the first hour; whether you would have succeeded even in +penetrating the padding and putting your hand upon a real human heart +of flesh and blood. I--much pains as I have taken--never succeeded in +doing this. It is true, I myself was so exceedingly ill-humored as to +consider it my duty to speak the truth to those whom I consider my +friends. But that is something one must guard against doing here as +carefully as against stealing silver spoons. Why has a man a back, +unless it is that his friends may abuse him behind it?" + +"I know you, _mon vieux_," cried the baron. "When you haven't a pair of +shears and some black paper at hand, you cut your caricatures out of +the air with your sharp tongue. But I won't allow this jaundiced art of +yours to put me out of humor with this beautiful city and its good +people. I grumbled sadly when my little highness insisted upon +traveling, and taking up her residence further south. Now, nothing +could afford me greater pleasure than her whim to settle down here in +Munich, of all places, and if she only would decide not to go away from +here again at all--" + +The entrance of Irene interrupted him. She looked paler than on the day +before, and greeted the gentlemen with heavy eyes and a languid +movement of her little head, which generally sat so spiritedly and so +erect upon her shoulders. + +"Dear uncle," she said, "you would do me a great favor if you would +consent to take me away from here--into the country, no matter where, +if only away from this house. I have passed a night such as I hope I +may never pass again, and didn't get a wink of sleep until this +morning. You came home too late, and sleep too soundly, to have been +disturbed long by the concert and the noise below us. But I--though I +got away from the countess's just as early as possible--the music and +the noise of the conversation reached my ears through the open windows. +It will be just the same every night, for this lady is eternal unrest +personified; and her circle expands into the infinite, since she not +only patronizes music but all the other arts as well. So, if you love +me, uncle, and don't want me to have a brain fever, see that we leave +this house! Don't you too think, Herr von Schnetz, that nothing is left +for me but rapid flight?" + +Schnetz looked at his friend, from whose jovial face all the sunshine +had departed. But he took good care not to come to his aid. + +"My dearest child," the baron now ventured to remonstrate in a +conciliatory voice, "the idea of rushing off in this wild fashion, +after telling our friends only yesterday that it would be much nicer to +take up our headquarters here in the town, and to make excursions from +here to all points of the compass--" + +She did not let him finish his speech. + +"Feel how hot my hand is!" she said, pressing two little fingers +against his forehead; "that is fever; and you know how people have +warned us against the Munich climate. Didn't aunt tell us yesterday +that even she intended to fly to the nearest mountains very soon? And +besides, I should never think of asking you to shut yourself up with me +in a mountain hut. I know very well, uncle, that you can't get on +without the city for any length of time. I don't wish to go any further +than the lake where we were yesterday; from there you can be back in +Munich again in an hour, if you find you cannot stand it any longer. +Don't you think this will be the most sensible thing for all parties, +Herr von Schnetz?" + +"_Ce que femme veut, Dieu le veut!_" replied the lieutenant, bowing, +with the most serious face in the world. It did not escape his keen +eye that this young highness had been battling with some trouble +of the heart during the night, and had not yet recovered her usual +self-possession. While she was speaking, her eyes wandered about in an +odd way, now toward the window, now toward the door, as if she trembled +in fear of some surprise. She pleased him better, however, in this +state of excitement than in her usual cool self-possession; he felt a +curious sympathy for her beautiful youth, that had no friend and +adviser to consult, except an old bachelor whose susceptibilities were +none of the most delicate. + +"In Heaven's name, then!" sighed the latter, casting a droll look +upward, "I submit to higher guidance, and acknowledge with gratitude +the consideration you have shown toward my poor person in your project. +Schnetz will find his way out to us, I suppose--after all a horse can +always be found or sent for; there will most likely be a pistol-gallery +at hand; and, if all other sports should leave me in the lurch, I can +still become an angler on the lake--that most insipid of all pastimes, +which I have heretofore regarded with quiet horror from a distance. +When shall we be off? Not before this evening, of course?" + +"With the next train, uncle. We have only half an hour to spare. Fritz +is already at work packing your things, for he had heard from Betty +that my trunk was ready. All you will have to do will be to make your +own toilet." + +The baron broke into a shout of laughter. + +"What do you say to that, Schnetz? Abd-el-Kader himself might learn a +lesson from this rapidity in breaking camp. Child, child! And my new +acquaintances of last night--the stag-party that was arranged for +to-morrow--Count Werdenfels, whose collection of weapons I was to go +and see--" + +"You can send them your excuses by letter from Starnberg, dear uncle. +And truly I would not hurry so if there were any other way of avoiding +taking leave in person of our fellow-guest down stairs. But, if we go +off at once, these two lines, which the waiter will give her as soon as +we are gone, will be sufficient." + +She produced a visiting-card, on which she had already written a word +of farewell. + +"The note already written, too! _La letterina eccola qua!_" cried the +baron. "Child, your genius for command is so sublime that subordination +under your flag becomes a pleasure, and blind submission a matter of +honor. In five minutes I will be ready for the journey." + +With comical gallantry he kissed the girl's hand, who had listened to +all his jests in a preoccupied and serious way, gave his friend a look +that seemed to say: "I yield to force!" and rushed out of the room. + +Schnetz was left alone with the Fraeulein. A feeling that was almost +fatherly in its tenderness passed over him as he looked at the serious +young face. + +"Perhaps," he thought, "it needs but a first word, a light touch, and +this young heart that is full to the brim will overflow and be +relieved." + +But, before he could even open his lips, she said suddenly: + +"I do hope Starnberg is not such a great resort for artists as the +other places in the Bavarian mountains, of which my cousins have told +me." + +He looked at her in amazement. + +"You hope so, Fraeulein? And what possible reason can you have for not +wishing it to be such a place? Artists are, as a rule, among the most +harmless of God's creatures, and can hardly be said to disfigure a fine +region with their umbrellas and camp-stools." + +"And yet, last evening, I made the acquaintance of one of these artists +at the countess's below. The tone which he adopted--" + +"Do you recollect his name?" + +"No; but perhaps you know him--a young man in a violet velvet jacket." + +Schnetz gave a loud laugh. + +"Why do you laugh?" + +"I beg a thousand pardons, Fraeulein--it really is not a matter to be +laughed at. This honest fellow--our secret poet--I know him down to the +very folds in his historical velvet jacket. What, in the name of +wonder, were the thorns that this Rosebud presented for you to scratch +your delicate skin upon?" + +"I must submit to let you think me a prudish fool, who takes offense at +every light word, Herr von Schnetz," said she, with some asperity. "I +do not care to repeat the conversation of your friend. If he is one of +the most inoffensive of men, I would rather avoid a place where one is +forced to meet people of his stamp at every step." + +She turned away and stepped to the window. + +"My dearest Fraeulein," she now heard Schnetz's voice say behind her, +"you are ill, seriously ill; I don't know whether in body; but +certainly there is a wounded spot somewhere in your mental +organization." + +She turned round upon him quickly. + +"I must confess, Herr von Schnetz," she said, with her proudest look, +"I really do not understand--" + +"A sick person is very often unconscious that anything is wrong with +him," continued Schnetz, unmoved, pulling at his imperial. "But it is +impossible that you could have seen this picture of the most innocent +of all mortals in such distortion, unless your eye had been clouded by +illness. My dear Fraeulein--no, don't look at me so ungraciously; you +cannot deceive me by so doing; and at the risk of incurring your +direful wrath, I don't see why you shouldn't listen to an honest word +from a fatherly friend. I do not know whether you have many other +friends; but, as far as I know, there is no one here who takes a more +cordial interest in you than my not particularly attractive self--no +one in whom you could more safely confide. Dearest Fraeulein, if you +would only consent to open that proud little mouth and tell me whether +I can help you; whether what you experienced last night--for it is +impossible that it is friend Rosenbusch who has suddenly given you such +a distaste for your stay in this city--" + +"Thank you," she said, interrupting him suddenly; "I believe you mean +kindly toward me. Here is my hand on it; and, if I ever need counsel or +help, you shall be the first and only man to whom I will turn. But you +are mistaken if you think I--I--" + +She suddenly checked herself, her eyes filled with heavy drops, and her +voice failed her; but she controlled herself, and smiled upon him so +kindly that he could not help admiring the brave young heart. + +"All the better," he said. "I am too well bred to doubt the word of a +lady. And the assurance you give me is so precious--" + +"Here is my hand on it! Here's to our true friendship, Herr von +Schnetz, and-- Of course I don't need to ask you not to say anything to +uncle; he undoubtedly means well with me, but he knows so little--less +than you who saw me for the first time only a week ago." + +She put her finger to her lips and looked listeningly toward the door, +behind which the baron's footsteps could now be heard. Schnetz had only +time, while cordially pressing the hand she offered him, to nod to her +that the pact just concluded should remain her secret, when her uncle +stepped in again in complete traveling costume, and began to urge on +the preparations for departure as zealously as he had before protested +against the flight. + +Schnetz got into the carriage with them, in order to accompany the +uncle and niece to the station. The curtains were drawn down on the +first floor of the hotel. The countess was still sleeping. As far as +she was concerned, Irene would have had no need to pull down her veil +over her face before she got into the carriage. But from behind it her +eyes wandered restlessly hither and thither, across the square and +through the streets; for she feared that he from whom she was fleeing +might have taken up his post somewhere in the vicinity, in order to +keep watch upon her movements. + +He was nowhere to be seen. She noticed, on the other hand, a beautiful +blonde lady who happened to be crossing the square just at that moment, +accompanied by a rather insignificant-looking female companion and a +male escort, and who had to stand still in order to let the carriage +pass. Schnetz did not recognize them until they had gone by, but then +he waved his hat excitedly by way of greeting, and gazed after them for +some time longer. + +"Who was that you were bowing to?" asked Irene. + +"Take a good look at that man, my dear Fraeulein. He is only a sculptor, +not yet as celebrated as he deserves to be, and by birth the son of a +peasant. But I have never known a man of more genuine nobility, and he +alone would make the bad society in which I delight to move the very +best in the world. Of the two ladies one is a painter, a very good +person and not a bad artist by any means, while the beautiful one on +Jansen's left--" + +"Jansen?" + +"Do you know the name? Perhaps you have already seen some of his +works?" + +She stammered out a confused answer, and leaned far out of the carriage +as if she wanted to take another look at the party. All her blood had +mounted to her cheeks. + +So that was he with whom Felix now passed his days, that friend of his +youth whose presence and society made up for all lost happiness! + +A secret jealousy, which she was ashamed to admit even to herself, +arose within her. Luckily for her the carriage drew up a few minutes +after before the entrance of the station; and in the confusion of +getting out and taking leave of their faithful companion, she was able +to recover herself so far as to throw back her veil once more and to +exact from Schnetz, with the merriest mien in the world, a promise that +he would come out to the lake and visit them very, very soon. + +The whistle of the locomotive had long died away, and our friend stood +in the middle of the square, like a post, with his eyes fixed on the +ground. + +"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he growled at length, as a clumsy peasant ran +against him and roused him from his reverie. "It is curious how our +feelings toward people change. Only yesterday these two were in my +way, and I would have given a good deal to have been released from my +woman-service. And now I feel wretchedly bored without the little +highness, and as if I were of no use to anybody. If I were not an old +fellow and past all child's-play, and had not such a good wife, I +almost believe--_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" + +And slowly, humming a French soldiers' song between his teeth, he +wended his way home, which to-day, for the first time, appeared to him +as sad and solitary as it really was. + + + + + CHAPTER XI. + + +In the mean while Jansen and his two companions had gone on their way, +too much occupied with their own thoughts to think about the company in +which Schnetz had driven by. They were not, indeed, taking an ordinary +morning walk, for it had no less an object in view than to make a child +acquainted with its new mother for the first time--yes, even more than +this. The evening before Julie had expressed her ardent wish to take +the child under her own care at once; the plan to take an apartment +with Angelica had been given up again, for this good soul could not +bring herself to leave the people with whom she was staying, who lived +in great part from what she paid them. So Julie had plenty of room; +and, though she said nothing about it, no doubt the consideration that +the presence of the child would do much to lighten the trial year, both +for herself and her lover, had a great deal to do in determining her. +Since everything that made the bond between them stronger could not but +be very welcome to Jansen, it was decided to put the plan into +execution on the very next day. + +But though Jansen had welcomed and urged the idea most eagerly, he +became more and more doubtful, as the hour for putting it into +execution drew near, whether he should succeed without some trouble in +removing the child from the associations to which it was accustomed, +and placing it amid entirely new relations. Julie felt no less nervous; +what had seemed to her the evening before to be easy and self-evident, +appeared to her now in broad daylight as an audacious undertaking that +made her heart beat more anxiously the nearer they approached to their +goal. What if the child should not take to her? What if she, try as +hard as she would, should not be able to take it to her heart at +once?--or should not be able to learn the art of managing it rightly? + +The thought made her silent, and she involuntarily walked more slowly. +Jansen, too, slackened his pace, so that the good Angelica, who walked +along with them quite cheerful and free from care, was obliged to stand +still every few minutes in order to wait for the stragglers. + +But she did not lose her good-nature. On the contrary, it seemed as +though the happiness of her adored friend, the share in it which fell +to her as the patron saint of the secret union, and, by no means least, +the authority which her position as protectress gave her over her +honored master, tended to excite her humor in an unusual degree, so +that she delivered the drollest speeches entirely on her own account, +whenever the other two abused too flagrantly the privilege of being +tiresome--a privilege that belongs by right to all lovers. + +"Children," she cried, standing still again and fanning her heated face +with her handkerchief, "this is the first time in my life that I ever +'played the elephant' to a pair of secret lovers, but I swear by the +ball on the tower of that Protestant church never to do so again, +unless I am provided with an equipage at the very least! That you are +not very entertaining I find to be quite in order, and at all events +much better than if you should perpetually speak in sonnets, like +_Romeo_ and _Juliet_--which I find highly absurd even on the stage. But +to creep along at your side through this Sahara-like glare, while you +walk at a snail's-pace, since you no longer feel external heat because +of the flames within, is more than an elderly girl of my complexion can +stand. So we will jump into the next droschke, where I can close my +eyes and ponder why it is that love, which is after all such a +pleasurable invention, generally makes the most sensible people +melancholy." + +Jansen's home lay in one of the old lanes between the city and the Au +suburb. Any one wandering along here by the side of the babbling brook, +a small tributary of the Isar, and seeing the low cottages with their +little front gardens and courtyards, and picturesque gables, might +easily imagine himself transported far away from the city and set down +in one of the country towns of the middle ages, so quiet and deserted +are the streets and ways, and so freely does every one pursue his +occupation under the eye of his neighbor, washing his linen and his +salad at the same well and sitting in his shirt-sleeves before his +door. The house of our friend stood a little back, in a sort of +blind-alley, so that you could not drive up to the door. It belonged to +an honest and hard-working man who had formerly been a teacher in one +of the provincial industrial schools, and who was now employed as an +engineer by different railways. As his work obliged him to travel +during many months of the year, he had invited his wife's mother to +come and live with him and give company and assistance to his little +wife--a cheery, practical woman from the Palatinate, sound to the core +both in body and soul. The mother was an excellent old woman, who, +although rather deaf, knew so well how to get on with the children that +the little ones desired no better company than their grandmamma, who +read all their little wishes in their eyes. + +She was sitting in her accustomed place in the deep window-niche, with +her youngest grandchild, who was barely two years old, on her knee, and +her five-year-old foster-child on a stool at her feet, when the door +opened and her daughter, the sculptor, and the two ladies, walked in. +Jansen was an especial favorite of hers, and his child held as warm a +place in her heart as her own grandchildren. And so it was natural, +when, without any preparation or notice, these two strange Fraeuleins, +of whom one was striking beautiful, were introduced to her as relations +of the sculptor who wanted to see little Frances, that she had a +feeling there was something wrong about the matter; especially as one +of the strange ladies, the beautiful one, immediately took up the +little girl, who made great eyes at her, kissed and caressed her, and +took out all sorts of sweetmeats and toys from her pocket, with which +she tried to gain the child's friendship. Jansen sat near her, silent, +his face wearing a peculiar expression. For the first time his child +struck him as not looking so pretty or to so much advantage as he could +have wished. It had, to be sure, feature for feature the face of its +father, and fortunately his clear, flashing eyes as well; and in +addition to this a head of dark-brown hair and black eyebrows, which +made the eyes appear still more brilliant. Moreover, it evidently took +a strong fancy to the beautiful "aunt," who brought it such nice +things, and it behaved altogether with great propriety considering its +few years. But, for all that, a certain uneasiness weighed upon all the +people in the little room, as they sat together on the sofa or round +the table. Neither Jansen nor Julie had considered how they should +properly clothe their project in words, since their relation to one +another heretofore had borne none of the usual names, and it might not +be so easy to explain to these simple-minded women what was meant by +the engagement of a married man, and the maternal rights of his "bride" +to his child. + +It is very possible they had both counted on the aid of their good +"elephant," who, as a general thing, was never at a loss for a word on +either serious or pleasant occasions. But Angelica also seemed to have +left her humor outside, when she entered this peaceful little chamber. +She only had sufficient tact to admire the other children, and to +devote herself especially to the little two-year nestling, whom she +pronounced to be "a charming little rascal, with true Rubens coloring." + +Thus a good half hour passed away; every subject was exhausted which +could possibly be broached on a first visit, and still the main topic +had not been touched upon. Then at last the little housewife, who had +now and then exchanged a meaning look with the old woman in the window +corner, came to the aid of her old friend and lodger by rising and +requesting him to step into the adjoining room with her for a moment, +as she had something to say to him that would be of no interest to the +ladies. + +So she led him into her absent husband's study, shut and locked the +door behind her, and, the moment she was alone with him, plunged into +the heart of the matter. + +"Dear friend," she said, in her rapid Palatinate dialect, dropping all +the _n_'s at the ends of her words, and introducing a number of those +pretty turns of speech that flow so charmingly from the lips of pretty +Palatinate women, "now just tell me straightforwardly what all this +means. Do you seriously suppose you can pull the wool over my eyes, or +that I sha'n't see that this charming woman is your sweetheart or +something of that sort, and not a mere cousin in the seventeenth +degree? Now, I most certainly have nothing against it if you admire a +beautiful Fraeulein; that is your privilege as an artist, and besides +you are no old beau with silver locks; and this woman could almost +steal my own heart away if I were a man. But there is something behind +it all in this case, and you need not try to convince me of the +contrary; and this fondling and fussing over the child has some reason. +Didn't she ask whether little Frances would like to come with her and +see all the pretty things she had in her house? Now, I know well +enough, dear Jansen, that if it were any ordinary attachment she would +have no wish to entice to her a child who would perpetually remind her +admirer of his earlier relations." + +"You have guessed the secret, my good woman," answered Jansen, as he +pressed her hand with a feeling of relief. "You are as wise as the day +is long, and would steal the most secret plans from the bosom of a much +more skillful diplomatist than I am. And who has a better right than +you, dear friend, to know all that concerns our dear child, whom you +have always cared for with the faithfulness of a mother? But now listen +to me quietly. It is truly a strange story, and the right way through +the maze is not so clear. But, if you only knew that wonderful being as +well as I do--" + +And then he began to tell the history of the last few weeks to the +woman, who listened with great attention to all he said; and closed by +saying that he did not like under these circumstances to dissuade Julie +from taking the child to live with her, especially when, in beginning +to care for that which was dearer to him than all else except herself, +she would be giving him a new proof of how earnestly she desired his +happiness. + +He had grown so earnest over his story that, when he came to an end, +nothing seemed more natural and right to him than this opinion. He was, +therefore, very much amazed when the little woman said to him, with a +doubtful expression, and speaking, against her wont, very slowly and +solemnly: + +"You mustn't be offended with me, dear friend, but if you did this you +would make the most foolish mistake it would be possible for you to +make in your position and at your age. There! Now you know it, and +though it may not sound very polite, it is my opinion nevertheless, and +most certainly my mother's also; and, if you have not the heart to tell +it, I myself will say it to the beautiful Fraeulein's face, with all the +love and esteem of which she may be in every respect worthy. What? I am +to give up the child to a single woman with whom its father is in love? +To a beautiful lady who never has learned how such a little plant as +this should be watered, or trained when it shows signs of growing +crooked, or how much air and sunshine it needs?" + +"Of course we should get an experienced nurse," he ventured meekly to +suggest. + +The excitable little woman, who had become quite red in the face in her +zeal, gave him a side glance full of pity and reproach. + +"So," she said, "a nurse! So you think, I suppose, that this ought to +make me quite contented? No; and though you are the own father of the +child ten times over and I only the foster-mother, still for all that I +will take the liberty of telling you that you don't know anything about +it, and only talk as you do because you are blindly in love. Oh, my +good friend, do you think then that, because I have no right to say: 'I +will not allow it--I will not give up the child that I have long loved +as dearly as my own,' therefore I would not fight hand and foot if +anything should befall her that would be as dangerous to her as +if you should give her brandy to drink? Yes, you may stare at me as +much as you like, it is as I say! A child belongs only amid pure +relations--don't be angry at the expression. What will you say to +little Frances when she asks whether the beautiful lady with whom she +lives is her papa's wife, because he always kisses and caresses her +when he comes and goes, just as her foster-mother's husband used to do +with his wife, only perhaps even more tenderly? Do you imagine the dear +little thing hasn't eyes in her head, and very wise thoughts behind +them? And no matter with what propriety you may act, there is something +not quite right about the whole matter. Your Fraeulein sweetheart has +her head full of other things than what the child needs, and won't sit +and talk and play and learn with her all day long, like grandmamma and +our other children. Think the matter over again, and then put the plan +out of your mind. Don't you remember you have often said to me that you +would be glad if you only knew some way in which to repay me for my +love and care for your child, and I always laughed at you for talking +such nonsense? But to-day I do not laugh at all--to-day I tell you very +seriously, if you really think you owe me anything, then pay me by +saying that you will not take the child away from me, but will leave +her here where she is happy." + +She extended both her hands to him, which he seized and pressed +heartily, though still with averted face. + +"My best friend," he said, "you mean so well by our child--" + +"And by her father, too!" she eagerly continued; "and even by her +father's beautiful friend, with whom I have no need to eat salt in +order to believe all the good you have said of her. But, for that very +reason and because we are on this subject, do make a hearty resolve, +dear Jansen, and procure the divorce now at any price and as soon as +possible. You see, I am but a simple woman and have not seen much of +the world, but still I have seen enough to know that even with the best +intentions everything can't go exactly according to rule; and if you +artists sometimes overstep the bounds rather more than is necessary, +still you are not one of the kind who would do such a thing merely out +of wantonness. And I know, too, why you haven't wanted things to be any +different heretofore. But now--believe me, now you owe it to three +beings to provide a pure atmosphere in which you can begin a new life. +And, though you shake your head even now, as much as to say it is +impossible, believe me--" + +The door was suddenly thrown open, and little Frances came jumping in, +holding a candied fruit in her hand, of which she had taken a bite, and +which she insisted upon the little foster-mother's tasting too. Jansen +took the dear little creature in his arms, pressed her passionately to +his breast, and kissed her bright eyes. Then he gave her back to the +little wife and said, in a voice choked with emotion: + +"There, you have her again! God reward you for your kindness and good +sense. We will finish our talk some other time." + +He stepped into the room again where his two friends had been waiting, +their conversation confined to a rather tiresome attempt to make +themselves understood by the deaf old woman. Julie read in Jansen's +eyes that his interview had not met with the desired success; but, hard +as it was for her to relinquish her plan and not to take the child with +her at once, she refrained from all hasty objections, and rested +content with the promise that little Frances should soon visit her. + +It was only after they were in the carriage that Jansen informed her of +the objections raised by the little woman. Julie listened in silence, +with downcast eyes and burning cheeks. Angelica, on the contrary, +attempted, in her droll way, to protest against this project, to +which she, as the protecting genius of the two foolish lovers, had +given her consent, being considered so very wild and impracticable. +By imperceptible degrees, however, she passed from scolding the +capricious little woman to praising her, maintaining that she, as a +portrait-painter, was a sufficiently good judge of human nature to +know at once what sort of a character lay behind any face. And, +consequently, she could not help admitting that, if the dear child was +not to be with Julie, there was no place in the world where it would be +better cared for than in this house. + +Julie persisted in her silence. Her heart had grown heavy; she began, +for the first time, to have a presentiment that her great happiness was +not to be all sunshine, that storms were lowering on the horizon which +the first gust of wind might roll across the sky, and cause to break +upon the heads of herself and her lover. + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[Footnote 1: Rosebush.] + +[Footnote 2: Schoepfer--creator--a pun somewhat less irreverent to +German than it would sound to English ears.] + +[Footnote 3: The Germans say "to get the basket," as we say "to get the +mitten."--Translator.] + +[Footnote 4: Of course a play on _Schafskopf_ (sheep's-head), the +German phrase for a stupid fool.--_Translator_.] + + + + + END OF VOL. I. + + + + + + SAMUEL BROHL AND COMPANY. + + From the French of VICTOR CHERBUUEZ. + + _Paper_, 60 _Cents_; _Cloth_, $1.00. + + * * * + + _From the New York World._ + +"The book is one of the best of even Cherbuliez's novels. No one needs +to be told that this is high praise.... Nowhere has the ideal +adventurer been portrayed with more skill, more art, more genius even, +than Cherbuliez has portrayed him in this novel." + + _From the New York Evening Post._ + +"The story illustrates anew what has been illustrated a thousand times, +namely, that in the art of story-telling the French are masters, whose +skill we English-speaking folk can never learn. It is not as novelists +that they excel us, for there are English novels enough to contradict +that; but as deft-handed story-tellers and deft-handed playwrights the +French are much superior to any other race." + + _From the London Examiner._ + +"M. Cherbuliez is a very clever novelist, certainly one of the +cleverest of the second rank of living French novelists. A new novel +from his pen is always something to be looked forward to with pleasure; +and if of late his novels have not been so remarkable as formerly, they +are always exceedingly readable. But 'Samuel Brohl et Cie' is more +than merely readable; it is as good in its way as anything that M. +Cherbuliez has ever done." + + _From the New York Express._ + +"The Appletons have commenced the publication of a 'Collection of +Foreign Authors,' which is destined, we think, to be a success, and +which certainly will be a success if its forthcoming volumes are as +good as its first one, which is entitled 'Samuel Brohl & Company,' and +is by that adroit story-teller, Victor Cherbuliez. We do not intend to +give away the plot of this remarkable novel, which is a marvel of +ingenuity from beginning to end." + + _From the Philadelphia Item._ + +"'Samuel Brohl & Company' is a powerful work, possessing a strong, +skillfully-constructed plot, and is admirably elaborated in all its +details." + + + GERARD'S MARRIAGE: + + A NOVEL. + + From the French of ANDRE THEURIET. + + * * * + + (_FORMING No. II. OF "A COLLECTION OF FOREIGN AUTHORS._") + + * * * + + 16mo. Paper covers, 50 cents; cloth, 75 cents. + + * * * * * + +As exquisite in its form, color, and delicacy, as a choice piece of +Sevres porcelain."--_Literary World_. + +"This lovely idyl of French provincial life introduces to the notice of +American readers Theuriet, one of the most quietly enjoyable among +modern French novelists, and one who holds rank among the highest for +his portraiture of the charms of country landscapes, and the sweet +peace and happiness clustering around country-life."--_Providence +Journal_. + +"Its chief merit lies in the admirable skill with which it is told, the +skill in apt narration, which seems to be a birthright of all +Frenchmen, and which men of other races never fail to admire, and never +succeed in imitating."--_New York Evening Post_. + +"There is much charm in the narrative, the characters are vigorously +sketched, the descriptive portions, especially of out-door life, are +picturesque and animated, and the whole is distinguished by grace and +delicacy."--_Boston Gazette_. + +"'Gerard's Marriage' is as exquisite of its kind as Tennyson's +'Princess,' and its moral is that of the old song, 'Love will find out +the way.'"--_New York Express_. + +"The use of these simple materials is so artistic, and the story +is so deftly told, that the book is delightful from beginning to +end."--_Detroit Post_. + +"The story is pleasant, the characters drawn with that light, firm +touch, peculiar to a Frenchman; the colloquy, if not brilliant, always +to the purpose, and about the whole there plays a poetic light that is +not the less charming because it is so wholly French."--_New York +World_. + +"Andre Theuriet excels in the painting of rural scenes, and the +skillful management of romantic comedy."--_Chicago Inter-Ocean_. + +"The story is told, particularly the trials of the lovers, with great +vivacity and brilliancy, in which particulars the French seem to excel +all other nations."--_Boston Commonwealth_. + +"Affords a charming illustration of the exceeding elegance, refinement, +and delicacy, that mark the romances of Andre Theuriet, one of the most +graceful and popular French novelists of the present time."-- +_Providence Journal_. + + * * * * * + + New York: D. 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