Through Night to Light: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER XIV.

Any one who had seen Oswald Stein and Albert Timm sitting every night behind their bottle, in the city cellar of Grunwald, both full of jokes and jests and merry tales, would have been convinced that both of them lived fully up to the motto of the illustrious club of "the Rats," to which they had the honor to belong. They evidently enjoyed life; and yet this was true only of Albert Timm, who had seriously adopted the first and sole article of faith of the secret society: "Live as thou wilt desire to have feasted when thou diest," and made it the principle of his existence. For Oswald, on the contrary, this wild life was but a means to stifle within him the incessant, painful longing after a nobler model of life. The memory of all "that had once been his" mingled like the notes of an Æolian harp with the wild allegro of his present life. His enthusiastic youth, when rosy clouds edged the horizon, and behind them lay a mysterious, wonderful future; his days of supreme happiness at Grenwitz, where the old legend of the paradise seemed to be repeated for him; his friendly intimacy with great and at least good men;--whither had all this flown? His youth was gone forever, with all the sweet rosy dreams of youth. Of the paradise, nothing was left but the bitter taste of the fruit from the tree of knowledge: that fickleness of heart and true love can never go hand in hand .... And his friends? With Berger he had parted, and probably forever, at the gate of the insane asylum; in Oldenburg he now hated a rival, and the rich aristocrat, the favorite of fortune, who easily overcame all impediments that exhausted the full strength of others. Franz, who had stood by him like a brother in the most embarrassing moments of his life, he had treated with black ingratitude; and in vain did he try to excuse himself on the ground that he could not possibly have continued to be the friend of a character which, in its self-poised calmness and dispassionate seriousness, was so entirely different from his own. From Bemperlein, the good, harmless, honorable man, who had met him with the offer of his enthusiastic friendship, he was separated by the consciousness that he had mortally offended him through her whom he worshipped, so that when he met him in the street he was apt to look to the other side in his painful embarrassment.

And what had he gained in return for so much lost happiness? The few rare moments which Oswald gave to serious thoughts on his present situation were unsatisfactory enough. His position in the college was almost untenable, and yet he had occupied it scarcely three months. The whole "humanity" of the rector, Clemens, was not sufficient to cover with the cloak of charity the great and the small vices which Oswald had committed in his official capacity; and Mrs. Clemens declared before the assembled dramatic club, with regard to the same unfortunate young man, that "she had cherished a serpent in her bosom." And the worthy lady had good reason to complain. She had met Oswald with a three-fold friendship: as the mother of two marriageable daughters, as the wife of his superior, and as the president of the dramatic club, and she had been deeply offended in all these capacities. Oswald had not only failed to return the bashful attachment which had begun to germinate in the hearts of Thusnelda and Fredegunda, but he had called these victims of his caprice before a numerous company "little goslings, who wanted nothing but the plumage to be perfect." Ah, it had all been duly and faithfully reported! He had compared the fair president, the wife of his presiding officer, with an old turkey hen, who was so proud of the goslings she had hatched that her empty head was utterly turned; and, finally, he had not only ceased to frequent the dramatic club, after reading there three times amid general applause, but he had passed over, with flags flying, so to say, into the hostile camp, and had become an active member of the lyric club which had rapidly risen under Mrs. Jager's direction to a splendor unheard of in the annals of the dramatic club. Certainly, if Oswald had felt no other misdeed but this on his conscience, the cloud of dark discontent which was continually hanging on his brow would have seemed natural enough.

But Oswald had to answer for more than this faithlessness. His connection with Emily Cloten, which he had so suddenly begun, partly from caprice and partly from real attachment, now weighed upon his soul like a heavy burden, especially since the reckless, passionate temper of the young lady threatened to betray their secret at every moment. Emily no sooner felt sure of Oswald's affections than she thought she could throw down the gauntlet to the whole world. "To love you, and to be loved by you, is my sole wish and will--everything else is utterly indifferent to me," she said; and she acted accordingly. Was she to bridle her inordinate desires, now that her heart for the first time clearly felt its own capacities? And she loved Oswald with the whole passion of a naturally most tender, affectionate heart, and with the whole recklessness of a woman who had all her life looked upon the world only as a football of her sovereign pleasure. It was in vain that Oswald reminded her of the duties of his position--of the difficulties arising from his narrow circumstances. "I cannot conceive how you can hesitate between the weariness you feel in teaching your boys and the delight we feel in each other's company. Why don't you give up the stupid college, and live only for me?" "But, my dear child, I am already living almost alone for you; and if matters continue so much longer. Rector Clemens will not only consent to my leaving the college, but desire that I should only live for you." "Oh, wouldn't that be splendid!" cried Emily, clasping her hands; "then we could carry out my pet wish, and go to Paris, where there are no stupid people watching every step we take." Oswald shrugged his shoulders. "And what are we to live on in Paris?" Emily made a long face; but the next moment she was laughing again, and said: "Oh, that will take care of itself if we are once there."

The desire to get away from Grunwald, where indeed her position was every moment liable to be exposed, had of late become a fixed idea with Emily, and she returned constantly to the danger they were running. She wanted to enjoy Oswald's love without interruption, and not to pay for every half-hour spent stealthily in his company with long days of care and anxiety. So far they had met either in Primula's boudoir, or in Ferrytown at the house of Emily's old nurse, Mrs. Lemberg, which they could easily reach as long as the ice held that covered the bay between the island and the continent. Primula had been initiated into the secret after Emily's recklessness had once led to a most ridiculous scene of discovery, and it was characteristic that the author of the "Cornflowers" had soon overcome her first feeling of jealousy, and henceforth looked upon this "union of loving souls" as extremely romantic, and found that the lovers in their helplessness, threatened by an unloving world, were highly pitiable, and she herself, as the protector of such an "heroic passion," worthy of all admiration! She dreamt herself more and more into the part she was playing, and the subscribers to the "Daffodils," for whose "album" Primula Veris was now writing her poems, were forced to read long pages about "the twisted thread of love; the silent, secret doings of secret love, shunning the light of day;" and especially of the "chaste guardian of the faithful love." She even warned her readers not to imagine that the latter was "the moon--the pale virgin," but hinted very explicitly at the meaning.

Primula also favored Emily's plan. "Flee, my children," she said, "from this rude Cimmerian sky to milder skies, away from these wild cyclopses and soulless ichthyophagi! Amid snow and ice even the blue cyane cannot thrive, much less the red rose of wild love."

Oswald was not so blinded that he could not have seen the insanity of the project, but he was pleased with the adventurous nature of the plan, and he was dazzled by the hope of thus ridding himself at one blow of all the troubles that beset him, no matter what the blow might cost. Finally, his attachment for Emily had grown from a mere whim into a full passion, which did not exactly warm his heart but influenced his imagination, and which he did not care to combat very earnestly because it afforded him a kind of excuse for his fickleness. He began to reflect seriously on the plan for an elopement, especially as the little remnant of his fortune was rapidly disappearing, owing to the life he was now leading, and he saw, therefore, that he would have to do quickly whatever was to be done.

Oswald would have liked to consult his friend Albert on this embarrassing subject, but he no longer ventured to speak to him about Emily. At first he had now and then dropped a word about his last romance, and Albert was one of those clever men who need be told only half a word to be at home in the most complicated affair. He had never troubled Oswald with curious questions, and yet knew how to draw from him very quickly nearly all he desired to hear. He knew that Oswald had secret meetings at Mrs. Jager's house, and across in Ferrytown; he knew who the young, thoughtless woman was, and he was yet by no means misled when Oswald suddenly ceased speaking of Emily. He only concluded that matters had entered that stage where silence becomes a duty.

Timm had not exactly desired that matters should go quite so far. Timm did not object to Oswald's reviving his taste for an aristocratic mode of life by an affair with a great lady, and to his becoming thus more and more anxious for larger means; but he did not desire that this should turn into a serious attachment, which might lead no one could tell where, and which, above all, threatened to become fatal to Oswald's romantic passion for Helen. For it was upon this love that Timm had based his whole plan. If Oswald could not be induced by any other means to enter into a lawsuit with the Grenwitz family for the legacy, then the hope of winning Helen should be his motive. Thus it was why Helen must not be lost for Oswald, nor Oswald for Helen. And even this might now happen. Albert, whose eyes were everywhere, had not failed to learn that Prince Waldenberg was daily at the Grenwitz mansion; he had discovered, besides, other suspicious evidences of the favorable progress of the new relations between Helen and the prince; as, for instance, magnificent bouquets ordered at the first florist's establishment by the prince, which were "to be sent that night to Grenwitz House." Since the snow was firm, and the jeunesse dorée was devising sleighing parties in all possible directions of the compass, he had, moreover, repeatedly seen Helen by the side of the prince in a magnificent sleigh, whose costly coverings, with the three horses harnessed abreast after Russian fashion, pointed it out as the property of his highness. He had as frequently warned Oswald against so dangerous a rival, but the latter had only given evasive answers. This state of things displeased Albert altogether, and he considered how he might, to use his own words, "get the cart into a new track."

He had not reappeared for some time at Grenwitz House. Felix had sent him, before leaving, four hundred dollars in advance for the month of November, taking it from his travelling money, and requesting him at the same time to address himself hereafter, "in all business matters," directly to his aunt, the baroness. Albert had as yet not availed himself of this permission, as it was difficult even for him to spend four hundred dollars a month in the modest town of Grunwald; and he had, besides, been specially successful at faro of late. Nevertheless, he proposed to pay his visit very soon, and to avail himself of the opportunity for a better examination of the whole situation.

It happened in these same days that Albert received one evening, just as he was going out, a letter by the town mail, which put him into such bad humor that he gave up his original intention to attend an extraordinary meeting of "the Rats" in the city cellar, and instead, paid a visit to his landlord--the sexton, Toby Goodheart--the man who had filled all the little crooked streets and lanes around St. Bridget's with the odor of his sanctity.

Mr. Toby Goodheart was a bachelor, because he was too ugly to obtain a wife, as he said himself: because his heaven-aspiring mind did not condescend to such worldly thoughts, as his admirers insisted upon believing. But neither the one nor the other could be the true reason, for Mr. Toby was not ugly, but a very good-looking man of some forty years, whose high forehead, bald at the temples, gave him a most god-fearing expression. Nor was Mr. Toby really so very god-fearing, unless his piety consisted in the solemn manner with which he stepped, Sunday after Sunday and year after year, dressed in his shiny-black dress-coat, black trousers, and a long flowing black gown fastened to the collar, through the church, pushing his velvet bag by means of a long pole under the noses of the "devout listeners." That Mr. Toby was in reality a son of Belial was known to but very few men in Grunwald, where the excellent man had now been living for twenty years--perhaps only to one single man, and that was the occupant of the two best rooms in the sexton's official dwelling: Mr. Albert Timm, surveyor.

Mr. Toby had dropped his mask in an evil hour, when the spirit of his much-beloved grog was stronger in him than the spirit of lies, and shown his true face to Mr. Timm, the "famous fellow." Mr. Toby Goodheart and Mr. Albert Timm had since that hour formed the closest intimacy, a friendship which was cemented and secured in its firmness and duration by a remarkable community of fondness for women, wine, and dice, and the common possession of delicate secrets.

Albert Timm entered the little room behind the parlor, where his landlord used to sit, with his hat on his head, and found the excellent man engaged in the pleasant occupation of preparing a glass of his favorite beverage.

"You may make one for me too," said Albert, throwing his hat upon a chair and himself into the corner of the well-padded sofa.

"As heretofore, Albert mine?" asked the obliging landlord, taking another tumbler and spoon from the cupboard and placing it on the table by the side of the smoking tea-kettle.

"Rather a little more than less," was the mysterious reply.

While Mr. Toby was brewing the hot drink according to this prescription, Albert was gazing at the tips of his boots.

"You are not in good humor to-night, Albert mine!" said Toby, looking up from his occupation.

"It would be a lie to say the contrary!"

"What's the matter? Has little Louisa caught you?"

"Little Louisa be d----d."

"Or have they sent you a little note, which you had conveniently forgotten?"

"Something of the kind!"

"Well, what is it?" asked Toby, placing the grog he had mixed for Albert upon the table and stirring it busily. "There, take a mouthful, and then speak out!"

Albert took the tumbler, tasted, to see if it was neither too hot nor too cold, neither too sweet nor too bitter, neither too strong nor too weak, and when he had gained the conviction that it came fully up to his standard, he more than half emptied it at one draught.

"It goes down easily to-night," said Toby, good naturedly. "Try it again."

"You recollect that I commenced last summer at Grenwitz a foolish sort of a thing with a little black-eyed witch of a French girl?" continued Timm.

"I know," said Toby, smiling cunningly; "I know what's the matter now."

"No, you don't. The little thing was as shy as a wild-duck. In other respects, to be sure, she was as stupid, too, for you know she lent me, poor as I was, three hundred dollars, which she had put into the savings bank."

"That was noble in her."

"But now she wants them back."

"Did you give her a note?"

"No!"

"Why, then, you have only to say that you know nothing about it, and it's all right. Selah!"

"That is not so easy. She has great friends, with whom I should not like to have trouble."

"Why not?"

"Did I not tell you that Marguerite is no longer with the Grenwitz people?"

"Not a word. Where is she?"

"At Privy Councillor Rohan's."

"How did she get there?"

"I believe through Bemperlein, the candidate for the university, forsooth; the hypocrite who, I am told, is now the privy councillor's right hand, and as others say engaged to my pet of other days."

"Much good may it do him!" said Toby. "But who has dunned you?"

"The old privy councillor himself; look!"--and here Albert drew from his pocket the letter he had received half an hour ago. "The old sinner writes, 'Dear sir! As Miss Marguerite, who now does me the honor,' etc., etc., 'tells me,' etc. 'As the relations which formerly may have existed between yourself and the young lady are now entirely and forever broken off--you know best why--you will understand that you cannot, as a man of honor, keep a moment longer a sum of money which was placed at your disposal under very different circumstances. Finally, I beg leave to say that the young lady feels a very natural inclination to leave the matter untouched, but that I learnt accidentally from members of the Grenwitz family that Miss Martin had been enabled to save a little capital while staying with that family, and that this led me to question the young lady on the subject, and to insist upon being told,' etc. 'Of course, I must consider it my duty,' etc., etc. Well, what do you say of that?" asked Albert, crushing the letter and stuffing it angrily into his pocket.

"That is a bad thing," replied the honorable Toby, scratching his grizzly head. "The privy councillor is a man of high standing in the town, especially since he has paid his debts--heaven knows how; so that you cannot enter the lists against him. I am afraid you will have to pay."

"So am I," replied Albert. "That cursed gossip, the baroness! It is malice in her; but she shall pay for it. I'll put the thumbscrews on her, till----"

Albert paused, and poured the rest of the drink down his throat.

"Look here, Albert mine," said Toby; "how are you standing with the baroness? I hope, Albert mine, my boy, you have got all the lots of money which you have made such an unusual show of, of late, in an honest way?"

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the baroness is not so bad yet, and----"

"Nonsense. That old vixen! I am not so low yet."

"Then tell me; how did you get the money?"

"First tell me what you mean by your mysterious allusions to the power you have over the Grenwitz family, and let me hear it all."

"Will you then tell me where the money comes from?"

"Yes."

"Well! But let us first brew another tumbler, and then we can begin our stories. But look here; honor bright, Albert mine; honor bright, and no prattling!"

"One crow does not peck at another!" said Albert.

Mr. Toby smilingly nodded his venerable head, mixed the grog with artistic care, unbuttoned his black satin waistcoat, leaned back in his chair, and said,

"I have not always lived in Grunwald; and I have not always been sexton at St. Bridget's."

"I know! The capital has the undisputed honor to call you her own; and whose sexton you were before you became St. Bridget's own sexton, the gentleman in black will probably know best."

Toby Goodheart seemed to take this as a high compliment. He smiled contentedly, and sipped his grog with evident delight.

"Don't be coarse, Albert mine, or I cannot go on," he said. "My father was a servant; and I was, from tender infancy, intended for the same profession. You may judge what remarkable talents I had for my vocation, when I tell you that I had had twenty masters before I was twenty years old. About this time it occurred to me how much more pleasant it would be to be my own master; and as I had laid by a considerable little sum during the time of my service,"--here the honorable Toby smiled with his left eye and the left corner of his mouth--"I had capital enough to open a house of entertainment."

"Nice entertainment, I dare say, you gave," said Albert.

"Yes, indeed!" replied Toby, adding another lump of sugar to his grog; "at least the fair sex was abundantly represented in my nice little business. I made it a principle to have only female waiters, and so the 'Cafe Goodheart' was well frequented. I had at least six or eight young ladies to do the honors of my house."

Albert Timm seemed to listen to these statistics with much delight. He leaned back in the corner of the sofa and broke out into a loud laugh, while the honorable Toby again only smiled--but this time, for the sake of change, with the right eye and the right corner of the mouth.

"Hush, hush, Albert mine!" he said; "the people might hear us in the street. How can a prudent youth like yourself ever laugh aloud? I have never in all my life done more than smile, and I have succeeded pretty well. But never mind that. The young ladies were, of course, always very pretty; and I can say that, of all my colleagues, I managed to get the prettiest. But I must also confess that this was not so much due to my own good taste as to the discrimination and cleverness of a lady with whom I had once upon a time stood in tender relations, when we were both in service, and who was still a friend and a partner in business. This lady, called Rose Pape, was in her way a very remarkable woman, with a marvellous talent for business."

"I can imagine what kind of business that was," said Albert.

"You can imagine no such thing, young man," replied Toby. "Mrs. Rose Pape was an excellent lady, whose society was not only sought after by the most respectable ladies, but also paid for with large sums of money, and whose night-bell was well known in the whole thickly-settled neighborhood in which she lived. But Mrs. Rose Pape took not only a warm interest in young wives, but very consistently, also, in those who might become such; and thus she had as extensive an acquaintance among the pretty chambermaids and seamstresses as among the wives of high officials and rich merchants.

"One fine day, now, Mrs. Rose came to see me, and told me that an immensely rich baron of her acquaintance had fallen desperately in love with a pretty girl, and had charged her, Rose, to help him, without regard to expense. She had already formed a plan, but she was in need of a valet of special abilities in order to carry out her superb conception. She added that there was a lot of money to be made in the business, and asked me to join her.

"It so happened that just at that time the police had found occasion to interfere with the management of my café, and I was afraid of unpleasant consequences; I seized, therefore, with eagerness the opportunity of leaving the capital for a time in such good company. Twenty-four hours later I was on my way, accompanying the young lady in question, and riding in the comfortable carriage of my new master, who was going to--well, guess, Albert mine, where he was going?"

"How can I know? But you were surely not going to give me the complete history of your life? I thought you were going to tell me how you got to Grenwitz," said Albert, who had been busy with his own affairs, and had not listened very attentively.

"Why, you hear, we are on the way to Grenwitz," said Toby, glancing at Albert from the corner of his left eye across the rim of his tumbler; "for my new master was Baron Grenwitz, and the end of our journey was Castle Grenwitz, where you were last summer."

An Indian, who on his pursuit has discovered his enemy's track in the grass of the prairie, cannot exert himself more powerfully, with all his senses, than Albert did as soon as he heard the last words. He had instantly recognized in Toby Goodheart the valet who had played so ambiguous a part in the story of Mother Claus; but he did not betray by a word or gesture the importance of this discovery, but asked, with well-feigned indifference,

"The old baron? Upon my word! I should not have expected such things from the old boy!"

"Not the present baron, but his cousin, of the older line--Baron Harald; or Wild Harald, as he is still called by those who have known him. I tell you, Albert mine, it was a merry life we were leading at Castle Grenwitz in the year of the Lord eighteen hundred and twenty-two. Wine and women in abundance! and with all that we played comedy--well, it was equal to the best thing I have ever seen on the stage. Just imagine: my good friend. Rose----"

"She was there, too?"

"Certainly! Did I not tell you the baron had engaged her to play his great-aunt?"

"His what?"

Toby smiled--this time with both eyes and both corners of the mouth.

"She played the great-aunt of the baron, with wig and crutch: because that foolish thing, Marie--Marie Montbert was the name of the little monkey; and as pretty a girl she was as I have ever seen with these eyes of mine--I have never seen the like of her. What was I going to say? Yes! Marie had made a conditio sine qua non, as we scholars say, that an old lady of the baron's family should be at the castle, if she was to come there. Well, now we had an elderly lady, a famous elderly lady, eh! Albert mine, eh?" and the honorable Toby tittered, and poked Albert most cordially in the side.

"Well, and how did the matter end?" asked Albert, who did not want to hear the part of the story which he knew.

"Why, I did not see it end; for we, Rose and I, ran away sometime before. To tell the truth, we were afraid the whole story might upset; for Marie had many friends in the city, who might make a great noise about it, and get us all, especially Rose and myself, into serious trouble. So we slipped off one fine morning, or rather one fine night, without taking leave, but requesting various things which happened to fall into our hands to keep us company in going away with us. Here in Grunwald we parted, or rather we were separated. For I was taken so sick--probably in consequence of the high living we had enjoyed at Grenwitz--that I could not go on, and had to be carried to the hospital. What I then thought was a great misfortune, turned out afterwards to be the most fortunate thing; for the late Dean Darkling, the father of Mrs. Professor Jager, who was then chaplain to the hospital, fell in love with my modest smiles, and insisted, as soon as I was well again, upon my entering his service. Well! from the servant of a minister to the sexton of his church, it is but a step!" and Mr. Toby sipped comfortably the remainder of his grog.

"And did you ever hear anything more of your friend Mrs. Rose?"

"She is living at the capital, and carries on her business with double entry, and more profitably than ever. If you ever go up to town, Albert mine, you must not forget to call on her. She lives at the corner of Gertrude and Rose streets, third story."

"I am going to take that down at once," said Albert, entering the address in his note-book. "But what has become of Marie, or whatever the stupid thing's name was?"

"Well, that is a curious story. Shortly after we had left, there really did come one of her friends, a Mr. d'Estein, and stole her away from the baron, who was so furious at the whole story that he died soon after from sheer anger. But the most curious part of the whole is this: Just imagine! Rose has hardly taken up her business again, when the bell wakes her one fine night, and who do you think wants her? The same Mr. d'Estein! and for whom? for the same Marie, who is in need of a midwife!"

"Impossible!" cried Albert, forgetting for a moment his assumed indifference.

"As I tell you. Rose wrote to me at once, and I could have killed myself laughing at the fun of the thing. First, she is great aunt; and then--ha! ha! ha!" Toby was so very much amused at the thing that he could not help laughing aloud, contrary to all his principles.

"Ha, ha, ha!" chimed in Albert. "Very good! Ha, ha, ha! Perhaps Mrs. Rose knows also what became of the child?"

"Maybe," replied Toby; "but I rather think she does not want to know anything about it. Otherwise she would no doubt have presented herself at the time when Baron Harald offered in all the newspapers a very liberal reward for any information concerning Marie's present residence, etc. I think she was afraid of the consequences, and has done as I have done--kept her counsel for twenty odd years, till the grass has grown over the whole affair. Well, but now, Albert mine, it is your turn to tell me how you have managed to be such a rich man of late?"

"Upon my word! I just remember I must attend the meeting of the Rats to-night!" cried Albert, starting up. "Why, this is foundation-day! Good-by, Toby; another time. I cannot stay, upon my word!"

And Albert put on his hat and hurried off, paying no attention to the grumbling of his friend and hospitable landlord, the honorable Toby Goodheart, who at once went to work drowning his anger in his favorite beverage--a plan in which he succeeded so well that the watchman, who was sent about midnight to fetch the key of the vestry, had to knock half an hour before Mr. Toby could disentangle himself from between the legs of the table, under which he had fallen after his sixth tumbler.