Through Night to Light: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER III.

About the same hour--perhaps a little earlier two gentlemen displayed at the billiard-table, in the restaurant near the main guard-house on the square, that industry which is so becoming to busy idlers. The two gentlemen who met at this favorite lounging place of the jeunesse dorée of Grunwald, were Cloten and Barnewitz. The former, who excelled in all the arts which required a sure eye and a steady hand, and no head work, had beaten his adversary in every game, and hence the young man was in excellent humor, while the other was nearly angry.

"Another game, Barnewitz?" asked Cloten, triumphantly, after having finished the twelfth with a brilliant carom.

"Thank you; no!" said Barnewitz, throwing his cue on the billiard-table; "am not in the right humor for it to-day. I cannot play well anyhow in this miserable twilight!"

"We can have the lamps lit."

"No, thank you! Another day! We can play quits to-morrow."

Cloten now laid down his cue also, stepped before the looking-glass and twisted his blonde moustache, while Barnewitz threw himself upon the sofa and yawned.

"It is wretchedly tedious here," he said; "don't know how on earth to kill the whole afternoon!"

"Let us take a walk."

"It is too abominably cold."

"A game at piquet?"

"Too tiresome."

"A bottle of claret?"

"Well, that's better."

"Waiter! a bottle of Pichon and a light."

The waiter brought what was ordered. Cloten threw himself into an arm-chair opposite to Barnewitz, and stretched out his legs.

"Well?"

"Well!"

"Don't you know anything?"

"No! Do you?"

"No!"

After this exchange of bright thoughts there followed, as a matter of course, a pause of exhaustion, and the ship of conversation remained for a quarter of an hour stranded on a sandbank, while the two men smoked their cigars and sipped their wine.

Cloten and Barnewitz had been apparently excellent friends ever since their terrible collision in summer, but in reality they had watched each other with unbroken distrust. It is true, the distrust was but too well founded in this case. Hortense Bamewitz had no sooner come to Grunwald than she cast out her net--experienced fisher of men as she was--after her old lover, and Cloten had at that time already discovered that happiness in the arms of his former lady-love was far more attractive than the honor of being the husband of the most fashionable lady in town. Barnewitz, on the other hand, gave the noble couple ample opportunity for meeting; for he threw himself, at Grunwald, head foremost into a vortex of amusements, of which there was no lack there for a rich nobleman who cared more for quantity than for quality. Nevertheless, he was as much the victim of jealousy now as before, and he was therefore highly pleased to see, what all others saw as well, that Emily treated her husband like a school-boy, and had evidently found a worthier object for her loving heart.

Barnewitz had long wished for an hour when he might inform Cloten under the mask of friendship of the reports which filled the town about him and his wife. The day before he had accidentally heard of some new scandal, and to-day Cloten's superiority at billiards had greatly annoyed him. After thinking the matter over for some time, therefore, he exploded:

"How is your wife, Cloten?"

"Thanks! Pretty well; why?" replied Cloten, not a little astonished at the brusque question.

"Well, I suppose it is permitted to inquire after your wife! Or do you allow no questions to be asked?"

"Certainly; but what do you mean?"

"Because she has been so very charming for a little while past."

"Is that so very uncommon?" asked Cloten, slightly embarrassed, and torturing his moustache.

"Yes; for she had just before treated everybody, yourself included, so very badly, that one could not help wondering at the sudden change. At all events, I was not the only one to notice it; the whole world is full of it."

"The whole world ought to pull its own nose," said Cloten; and his hand trembled with annoyance as he filled his glass.

"Certainly; but they don't do it."

"---- the whole world!"

"Certainly; if you wish it. But if you would rather talk about something else;--I only thought that, as your oldest friend, it was my duty to call your attention to certain things."

"Well, then, come; out with your story," said Cloten, with nervous vehemence. "What is it? Out with it!"

"I shall take good care not to say anything more, if the first word puts you into such a state."

"I am not in any state," said Cloten; and to prove it, he dashed his glass upon the table, so that the foot broke to pieces and the wine flooded the marble top.

"You are a queer fellow," said Barnewitz. "Wait till you have cause to get angry. What does it amount to? They say that you are not exactly Darby and Joan; that your wife has her own way; that you quarrel occasionally so that the servants hear it in the kitchen, and the like."

"Who says so?"

"The whole world!"

"And you believe it?"

Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.

"I shouldn't like to hurt your feelings, Arthur; but I cannot deny it that the way your wife acts looks very suspicious to me. I should not wonder, and no one in our circle would wonder, if she had some little liaison, and I rather think I know the person."

"I insist upon it that you tell me all you know," said Cloten, with great pathos.

"Do you recollect the party at my house last summer? But of course you do, for we came near killing each other on that occasion. Ha, ha, ha! Well, on that evening already your wife began to flirt with that confounded fool--that Doctor Stein--in a way which struck everybody, and me too. But I had totally forgotten the whole affair till I was reminded of it yesterday. You recollect I had left Stilow's because, to tell the truth, the wine was too bad, and I was very thirsty. I found in my way to the city cellars, where the company is low enough but the wine excellent. There were a dozen people--authors, actors, and such stuff--sitting round a table and drinking; among them our old friend Timm the surveyor, who talked very big. I sat down at some distance, ordered a few dozen oysters and a bottle of champagne, and listened, because I could not help listening. They talked, heaven knows what stuff. I did not understand a word, and was just thinking what a lot of sheep they all were, and my eyes were beginning to be heavy, when I suddenly heard somebody mention your name, or rather your wife's name. Of course, I was wide awake in a moment. 'Who is she?' asked somebody. 'A wonderful creature,' said Timm. 'Well, and friend Stein is in love with her.' 'That's it!' 'What a fellow--that man Stein!' 'How did he get hold of her?' 'Oh, that is a long story!' said Timm; and then they put their heads together and talked so low that I could not hear the rest. At all events they laughed like madmen, and I had a great mind to pitch a few bottles at their heads."

"Why didn't you do it?" asked Cloten, angrily.

"I do not like to get into trouble in a strange establishment; I have had to pay for it often enough," replied the philosophic nobleman, pouring the rest of the bottle into his glass.

Then followed a pause, after which Cloten cried out with much vehemence: "I don't believe a word of it."

Barnewitz shrugged his shoulders.

"That's the best for you to do."

"Don't say so! I won't have it!" exclaimed Cloten, furiously.

"I only say what the world says," replied Barnewitz, sipping his wine leisurely.

"And you think the world says nothing about you?" asked Cloten, ironically.

"What do they say about me?" cried Barnewitz, starting up. "---- the fellow who dares say a word; and I think you, of all men, ought to be most careful not to open your mouth."

"Careful or not, I don't see why I should not talk as well as you."

"What! a fellow like you?" said Barnewitz, thrusting his hands into his pockets with an air of contempt "I suppose you think you are wonderfully successful with the sex?"

Who knows what serious consequences might have arisen from this word-combat if the door of the billiard-room had not opened just then to admit Professor Jager, who crept in cautiously, after having first reconnoitred the room through his round glasses.

Professor Jager's appearance was never specially inviting, but on this evening there was something peculiarly unpleasant about the man's pale face. His stereotyped smile, and the drooping corners of the mouth, contrasted with his effort to give an air of solemnity to his forehead, and to look as melancholy as possible through his spectacles, so that he appeared on the whole not unlike a black tom cat who glides purring and with raised back around a person's leg, preparing to scratch his hands the next moment furiously.

Thus he drew near to the two noblemen, made a very low bow, and said:

"I beg ten thousand pardons if I am disturbing the entente cordiale of two bosom friends, but----"

"Come here, professor," said Barnewitz, who welcomed the interruption; "join us in a glass of Pichon. Waiter! another----"

"Pray, don't; many thanks. Regret infinitely that I should have interrupted you in your cozy talk; but I heard at your house, Baron Cloten, that I should find you here, and a matter of importance which I had to communicate----"

"Don't mind me, gentlemen," said Barnewitz. "I'll go into the reading-room till you have done."

"Pray, pray; I have only two words----"

"Well, all right. Call me when you have done!"

With these words Barnewitz went into the adjoining room, where he rested his elbows on the table and his head on his hands, and then plunged into the mysteries of the Grunwald official journal.

He had no sooner left them than Professor Jager turned to Cloten and said, whispering mysteriously:

"Baron Cloten, I have to tell you something that will frighten you."

Cloten turned pale and stepped back. His first thought was that his stables had been burnt, and Arabella and Macdonald, his two thoroughbreds, had perished in the flames. The professor did not leave him long in this terrible uncertainty; but with a low, spectral voice, and drawing the corners of his mouth so low down that they seemed to meet under the chin, he said: "Your wife----"

"Ha!" cried Cloten. "What is it? What has happened?"

"I don't know," replied Jager, "but I fear for the worst. Look at this paper [he searched his pockets and produced a folded-up piece of paper]. I found it just now on my wife's writing-table. But before I read to you what is on the paper you must swear you will never tell from whom you have heard it."

"I'll swear anything you want," said Cloten, with nervous excitement. "What is the matter with the paper?"

"Directly, directly! First, let me tell you that for some weeks now your wife and mine have become great friends, an intimacy which from the beginning has puzzled me sorely. Their meetings, I was told, had a purely poetical purpose--you know my wife is president of the Lyric Club--but I was struck by the fact that a third person appeared there always, or at least very frequently, a person against whom I have ever felt an unconquerable aversion. This person is----"

"Doctor Stein! I know! Go on," said Cloten, breathlessly.

"You know!--ah, indeed!" replied the professor, with a Mephistophelian smile, which gleamed unpleasantly behind his glasses. "Oh, well; then the hardest part of my task has been performed by others. Well, sir, if you know it already I will not detain you by telling you how the first spark of suspicion fell into my simple soul; how subsequent observations fanned this into a bright flame, which threatened to consume this heart of mine, that only beats for the welfare of my brethren [here the professor laid his hand with its black glove on the left side]. I dared not forbid my wife all intercourse with the person in question. You know, sir, poetic minds are apt to be eccentric, and the æsthetic standpoint from which----"

"But I pray you, professor, come to the point," said Cloten, who was standing upon coals. "What was on the paper?"

"Why, you see," said Jager, opening the paper, "it is the rough sketch of a poem, which I found quite wet yet on my wife's bureau; the servant told me she had just left the house to pay a visit. Shall I read it to you?"

"Yes; in the devil's name!" cried Cloten, who hardly knew what he was saying.

Professor Jager arranged his spectacles carefully on his nose, drew the light somewhat nearer, and read, in a half-loud, rattling voice, while the young nobleman was looking over his shoulder: "'Grunwald, December 10, 1847.' You see the date corresponds exactly.

'FOR THE ALBUM OF AN ESCAPING PRISONER.

'You flee!--by the light of the twinkling stars,
In rapturous flight through Cimmerian night;
You flee! and alas I would break all the bars,
I, who have watched over you day and night!
But terrible bonds have forged me a chain,
Which ever in bondage will here me retain.
You flee!--and I stay in Cimmerian night.'

"You see this poetical eccentricity of a soul generally chaste and full of affection," said the professor, who had read the last lines with a somewhat unsteady voice.

"Go on! go on!" urged Cloten, whose sufferings made him indifferent to the sufferings of others.

The professor continued:

"'You flee! and the icicles glitter so bright,
The hoofs now thunder on quivering ice,
You are not frightened by terrible night,
You follow the lurings of glorious price.
You flee! and you do what is proper and right!
Why should you remain with a wretched wight
A puppet of wood on a couch of ice?'"

"That is meant for me!" said Cloten, furiously, grinding his teeth.

"Certainly, certainly!" said the professor; "but listen:

"'You flee! and yonder on rockiest strand,
In nurse's familiar house by the sea,
There falls in a moment the hampering band
That bound you before, and there is he!
There love in a thousand fiery brooks,
Breaks forth in caresses and tenderest looks
In Nurse's familiar house by the sea.

"'You flee! and alas 'tis not to the port,
Where spies are no more nor watching eyes!
Oh flee to the safe, to the only resort,
Where wait for you milder and happier skies!
Oh flee to the banks of the beautiful Seine,
Where love is at freedom, amain! amain!
And free from society's hateful lies!'"

The professor folded up the paper again, pocketed it, and said:

"This poem troubled me sorely, for I know the way my wife makes her poems. She takes the subject from actual life. But I was much more startled yet, when I went on using a husband's right and examined the papers that were scattered all over her table. I found this little note [here the professor put his hand in his waistcoat pocket]. Do you know the hand-writing, Baron Cloten?"

"That is my wife's hand," cried the young nobleman, casting a glance at the paper. "What does she say? Let me see! 'All remains as agreed upon, dear Primula. Everything is ready. We meet at Mrs. Lemberg's. Tomorrow at this hour a world divides us. Shall I be able to embrace you once more? I shall be at home at three. I should like to see you so much, but--can you venture to come without rousing suspicion? I leave the matter to you. Good-by, good-by, dearest! Free to-day! Oh, I can hardly conceive such happiness! Good-by--a thousand farewells!' By the Almighty!" cried the happy husband, crumpling up the paper and pushing it into his pocket. "Now I see it all! I never could understand why she was all the time going to see that old woman in Ferrytown! But I'll spoil the fun; I'll----"

As the happy man did not exactly know what he was going to do, he broke down, and walked up and down, like a man suffering with a furious toothache.

Professor Jager looked at him, his head inclined on his right shoulder, and folding his hands in sympathetic emotion; but he had the air of an ear-owl, gazing with big, staring eyes at a poor foolish bird that has been caught in a snare.

"You may believe me, my dear sir," he said; "I am heartily sorry for the whole thing; and I assure you I would have kept it all to myself if I did not think it was the good shepherd's duty to snatch the lamb from the jaws of the wolf. For this man is a raving wolf. I found him out at first sight, but they would not believe me. Now they see it clear enough. Only this morning Doctor Black, one of the trustees of the college, came to see me, and to tell me that Doctor Clemens had called for an official inquiry into the conduct of the terrible man, which could not fail to end in his dismissal--his dismissal in disgrace. And while I was still considering how we could best make it known to all the world that he was a wolf in sheep's clothes, chance came to my aid and caused these papers to fall into my hands, which prove clearly that the worst that was reported about this man was not as bad yet as the truth. I knew at once what my duty was. Certain that my wife would never hear of the exposure to which I had been morally forced, and relying on the discretion of a nobleman, I hastened----"

"I must consult Barnewitz," said Cloten, suddenly; and he made a motion as if he were going into the room where Barnewitz was waiting.

"For God's sake, my dear sir," cried the frightened professor, "are you going to ruin me? Consider, I pray, you have solemnly promised not to expose Mrs. Jager----"

"Nonsense!" said Cloten; "you surely would not have me go into such a serious matter alone. Barnewitz!"

"What's the matter?" said the latter, looking up from his paper.

"Just come this way! I have something important to tell you."

Barnewitz came, and Cloten told him rapidly what the matter was, while the professor stood by, rubbing his hands, in great embarrassment.

"It cannot be doubted," continued Cloten. "I must tell you frankly I had my suspicions; but, to be sure, I did not guess that rascal--that man Stein ... But I see it all now. I knew she was going over to Ferry town again to-day; and now I remember she said, contrary to her usual way, she would not be back before night. And then you saw last night--oh, no doubt it is all so! What am I to do? What ought I to do?" And the young man struck his forehead with his closed fist.

"What ought you to do?" said Barnewitz. "Let her run!"

"Pardon me," said the professor; "that would cause an unheard-of scandal, which even now, I think, can only be prevented by very energetic measures."

"The professor is right," said Cloten; "we must not let them get off; but I cannot prevent it alone. Will you help me, Barnewitz?"

"Avec plaisir," replied Barnewitz. "I never could bear the fellow!"

"But periculum in mora, gentlemen. You must go to work at once!" chimed in the professor.

"Well, we will," said Cloten. "Come, Barnewitz; I'll tell you on the way what I think we had better do. The professor will accompany us part of the way."

"With pleasure; with great pleasure!" replied the professor. "To be sure, my time is very limited now; very limited. Ah--here is the door; I pray, after you, gentlemen!"

And the three gentlemen hastily left the restaurant.