Through Night to Light: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER VIII.

In a fine room of a large private hotel in Broad street there sat, a few days later, Melitta and Baron Oldenburg. A lamp was burning on the table; lighted wax-candles were standing on the mantel-piece and on the consoles. Frau von Berkow expected other visitors that night, and Oldenburg had only availed himself of the privilege of an old friend to come before the appointed time.

"It seems to me you are very silent to-night, Adalbert," said Melitta, putting her work on the table and turning with a kindly smile to Oldenburg. "I talk to you of the children, how hearty the boy has grown, and how pretty Czika looks in her fashionable dresses, and you look--well, how do you look?"

"Like the knight of the rueful countenance, most probably; at least I feel so, from head to foot;" replied Oldenburg, rising and walking up and down in the room.

"Not exactly!" said Melitta. "I thought, on the contrary, you looked very well in your brown paletot."

"Jesting apart, Melitta, I am quite sad to-night."

"That is a pretty compliment for me, who have made the long trip from my home-nest to this tedious city only for your sake--you hear, sir, only in order to give you what I thought would be a pleasant surprise to you; bringing you the children too. For your sake, I say; so that we might see and talk unobserved. For this reason only I have taken rooms here at a private hotel, like a farmer's wife; and now, in return for all this apparently wasted goodness and love, I am told: 'You might as well have remained at home!'"

"Do you believe it, Melitta? That thought has occurred to me really more than once, yesterday and today!"

"That is hard!" said Melitta, and her face showed that she did not exactly know whether she ought to take Oldenburg's words as a jest or in earnest.

The baron did not leave her long in uncertainty. He sat down again by her, seized her hand, and said:

"My dear Melitta, my words may sound hard, but I ask you yourself, if I, as a man, must not think and feel so. I need not assure you, I hope, that I am heartily grateful to you for your kindness, for you know that; or, at least, you ought to know it. Even that you do not mind evil tongues for my sake I do not count for so much, since I know how little the judgment of the world is worth; I have despised it all my life. There is something else which prevents my enjoying your presence here heartily, and I will tell you what that is. Look, Melitta: it is natural to man to wish to work and to care for her whom he loves; more than that, he likes to see the beloved one in a certain way dependent on him; I mean on his strength, his courage, his wisdom. Many a warm affection has died out simply because it was impossible to arrange matters in this way, and many an affection is even now fading away for the same reason. Thus it is with my love for you. As matters stand I can only live for you, care and work for you, in trifles; but not at every hour, every minute, as I must do, if I am to be happy. In the country, where we, as neighbors, could often spend half of a day together, without being observed and watched, it was easier; and yet, even there, the feeling of my uselessness was so painful to me that I was grateful for the political storm which drove me to Paris, where I could at least imagine that nothing parted us but distance. But here, in a large city, the painful feeling overcomes me; it looks to me as if the moment at which we meet had been expressly chosen to show that the relations between us are unnatural and false. We are standing here on a volcano, which may break out every moment. The soil is trembling under our feet, and before many days are passed we shall have seen unheard-of things. I am not afraid of the end; on the contrary, I desire a decision, for it is necessary and will do us good. But in order to stand firm in days when our people are going to be in trouble and in danger, in order to be a man in the full sense of the word, I must have peace within me and that I cannot have as long as we stand thus. I shall have no peace, Melitta, till you are mine, till we are one; till I know that I speak and act and fight, and, if it must be, die for wife and child! Melitta! in your own name, in my name, in all our names, I ask you: Will you be at last my wife, after I have served you for more years than Jacob served for Rachel?"

The baron's voice trembled, although he evidently made a great effort to speak as calmly and as convincingly as he could. He had bent over Melitta, who held her beautiful head bowed low; when he paused she looked up, and showed Oldenburg her pale, tear-flooded face. She said in a low voice:

"Would to God, Adalbert--for your sake, for my sake, for all our sakes--I could answer you Yes!"

"Why can you not do it?"

"You know!"

"But, Melitta, is the memory of the man whom you cannot possibly love any longer, and of whom you say yourself that you do not love him any longer, to part us forever? Have you not paid the penalty of your wrong--if wrong it was to follow the impulse of a free heart--with a thousand tears? Are you not now to me what you have always been? And, if there must be a reckoning between us, have you not to forgive and forget far more in me than I in you? Is it reasonable to sacrifice the wife to a rigorous moral law, which the husband does not consider binding? Who has made that unwise law? Not I; nor you. Why then should you and I obey it? I tell you, the day of freedom, which is now dawning, will blow all such self-imposed laws to the four winds, and with them all the ordinances devised by a dark monkish prejudice to fetter nature and to torment our hearts."

"Whenever that day comes--and when it comes for me," replied Melitta, "I will greet it with joy. If it is a mere notion which prevents me from falling into your arms and from saying: Take me; I am yours, now and forever!--have pity on me, it makes me suffer as much as yourself. But Adalbert, I am a woman; and a woman can wait and hope for the day of release, but she cannot fight for it. And until that day comes, until I feel as free as I must be in order to be yours in honor, things must remain as they are now."

Melitta had said this with a low and sad but yet firm voice, and Oldenburg felt that it would be cruel to press her further. He took her hand, kissed it, and said,

"Never mind, Melitta! I am patient. I know that you do not make me suffer from obstinacy. That is enough for me. And then the day of release which you wait for, and which we fight for, must come sooner or later."

At that moment old Baumann knocked and entered to announce the expected visitors. Melitta passed her handkerchief over her face, while Oldenburg advanced to greet Sophie, who entered with her husband and Bemperlein by her side.

Melitta and Sophie met to-night for the first time, but the meeting was free from all ceremonious formality. The two ladies had heard so much of each other (especially Sophie of Melitta) that they knew each other down to the smallest details of their outward appearance, and then it was natural to both of them to lay aside all restraint when they felt a sympathetic attraction. Nevertheless they looked at each other with much interest as they shook hands and exchanged the first words. Sophie noticed that Melitta appeared much milder and gentler than she had expected from the great lady; and Melitta observed, on the other hand, that Sophie did not look half as serious and thoughtful as Bemperlein had made her believe of the clever and highly educated daughter of the privy councillor. Sophie saw also Baron Oldenburg for the first time, and she cast from her seat on the sofa many a trying glance at the tall man in black, who stood in the centre of the room talking to the two gentlemen. He also had never seen her before, and, on his part, observed carefully the two ladies. It struck him that both had an abundance of soft, curling hair, and in that feature, as well as in the cut of their large, expressive eyes, a certain resemblance like two roses, of which one, the darker and fuller, has entirely opened its calyx, while the other lighter one is but just unfolding the delicately-colored leaves to the light of day.

As a matter of course, Sophie was especially curious to see how Oldenburg and Melitta would behave towards each other, for, in spite of Bemperlein's assurances she had persisted in believing that there were close relations between them. But Melitta was too much of a lady of the great world, and Oldenburg had too much self-control, to show anything more than a tone of perfect politeness and mutual esteem.

There was no lack of topics for conversation in those days of great excitement, when feverish restlessness had seized on all minds, because all felt, more or less, the shadow of the coming events. Franz was not a politician, properly speaking. His fondness for the Fine Arts, which at first threatened to divide his strength, and then the study of his great science which gave him finally peace and satisfaction, had left him little time for politics. But he was liberal in all respects, and besides, his profession had given him frequent opportunities to become acquainted with the wants of the people themselves, and an insight which had convinced him of the necessity of an entire change of social relations. He was not quite as clear about the doctrine that this could not be done without first changing the political forms of the state, especially because his eye was more busy with details than with the whole. "I am at heart a Republican," he was wont to say, "but I have no desire to hear a Republic proclaimed, because I do not believe that that would help us essentially as long as the evil is not taken hold of at the root. But I see the root of the evil in the dark superstitions which reverse nature and change men from free citizens of this earth into helots of a supernatural world."

Franz expressed himself in this sense to-night also to Oldenburg, but he found him a decided adversary.

"I believe, doctor," said the latter, "that you attach too little importance to the results obtained by a well-ordered commonwealth--res publica, ladies, the Romans used to call it--and to the difference between a sensible and an unwise form of government. I wish you could have heard the discussions I have had with Professor Berger, speaking of the sad character of a time which produces hardly anything else but problematic characters."

"Where is the professor?" asked Bemperlein. "I had half promised Mrs. Braun that she should meet her father's old friend."

"I cannot tell you," said Melitta; "do you know, Oldenburg?"

"No; I lost him at the meeting at the Booths from my arm, and could not find him again in the crowd. I am quite sure, however, that he will yet come."

"Problematic characters!" repeated Franz, who had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not heard the last words. "Do you know, baron, that when I heard that expression of Goethe's the first time it was in connection with your name, and from the lips of a man who was once very dear to me, and in whom you also, as far as I know, once took a very lively interest? You need not beat the devil's tattoo on the table, Bemperlein; I know that you, who are generally as gentle as a lamb, have talked yourself into a most unchristian hatred against Oswald Stein, and I only mention our former friend because he, as well as his teacher, Berger, appeared to me always as a type of such problematic characters."

As Franz had not the least suspicion of Oswald's former relations to Melitta, to Oldenburg, and to Bemperlein, he did not notice the blush which suddenly spread over Melitta's cheeks so that she bent low over her work in order to conceal it; and the vehemence with which Bemperlein exclaimed: "I should think, Franz, that man does not deserve being mentioned here," only excited his opposition.

"Do you too think so, baron?" he said, turning to Oldenburg; "would you relentlessly condemn a man whose greatest misfortune it probably was to have been born in these days?"

"No," said Oldenburg, calmly and solemnly; "I have not yet forgotten the old word, that we must not judge if we do not wish to be judged. I have always sincerely admired the brilliant talents which nature has lavished upon that man, and I have as sincerely regretted that a mind so richly endowed should, like a luxuriant tree, bear only sterile blossoms, which can produce no fruit whatever."

While Oldenburg spoke thus his eyes had been steadily fixed on Melitta, who had raised her face once more and now looked as eagerly up to him as if she wished to read him to the bottom of his soul. Franz was still too warmly interested in Oswald to be really satisfied by Oldenburg's words. He replied, therefore, in his earnest, hearty manner:

"I was sure you would judge Stein fairly. I have heard Stein himself quote you too often not to know how fully you understood the peculiar condition of his mind, and your intimacy with Berger was a guaranty for me that you are a physician for the sick, and not for the healthy, who, Bemperlein, need no physician. Berger and Stein are two characters strikingly alike in talents and temper. How else could they have formed so close a friendship, with their great difference in age?--a friendship which, I fear, has contributed more than anything else to develop in Oswald those eccentricities which sooner or later must lead him to insanity or suicide."

"But don't you see, Franz," said Bemperlein, who was always particularly tenacious in matters connected with Oswald, "that Berger has successfully rid himself of the alp of his disease, which was evidently more bodily than mental, and has thus shown that there is a very different energy in him from Stein?"

"Do not praise the day before the evening comes!" replied Franz. "I desire, of course, as anxiously as either of you, the complete recovery of Professor Berger; but I am bound to say, as a medical man, that I do not consider a relapse yet out of question. And if I am not mistaken, Bemperlein, you mentioned only last night that my father-in-law had expressed himself in the same manner?"

"But would not that be fearful?" said Melitta.

"I do not say, madame, that it will be so; I only say it may be so."

"Have you lately noticed anything peculiar in Berger?" asked Melitta, turning to Oldenburg.

"Yes!" said the latter, after some hesitation. "I cannot deny that his manner has seemed to me lately much more excited than before. Since the revolution in February, in which, you know, he took an active part, he seems to be undermined by a kind of feverish impatience, which often reminds me of the restlessness of a lion who walks growling up and down behind the bars of his cage. Minutes seem to grow into hours to him, and hours into days. I have told him in vain that the history of great ideas counts only by thousands of years. 'I have no time,' is his invariable answer. 'If you had, like myself, wandered forty years through the desert, you would comprehend the longing of the weary pilgrim to breathe at last the air of the promised land. This delaying and deferring, this hesitating and halting, will cause me to despair.' But, gentlemen, what is that?"

All listened. From afar off there came a low but steady sound, louder than the rattling of carriages.

"That is the beating to arms!" said Oldenburg, and his cheeks flushed up. "I know the sound; I heard it just so on the evening of the twenty-third of February, along the Boulevard des Capucins."

Oldenburg had hardly said these words, and they were all rising to go to the window, when the door was hastily opened, and a man rushed in, whom they found it difficult to recognize as Berger. His long gray hair hung in matted locks around his head; his face and beard were covered with blood, which seemed to come from a wound in his forehead; his coat was torn to pieces, as if sharp instruments had cut and pierced it in different places. His eyes were glowing, his breath came with an effort, as he stepped close up to the table and, gazing at the company, said, in a hoarse voice,

"Up! up! You sit and talk, while without your brothers and your sisters are murdered! Up! up! With these our bare hands we will turn aside their bayonets and strangle these executioners."

"He is fainting," cried Franz, seizing Berger, who had already while he was yet speaking begun to sway to and fro, and now broke down completely.

The men ran up and carried their fainting friend to a sofa.

"Some cologne, madame," said Franz; "thank you. Do not be afraid; it amounts to nothing this time, but I fear for the future."

They all stood around the patient, whose breathing became more quiet in proportion as the beating of the drums became more subdued in the streets.