“Wishes are pilgrims to the vale of tears.”
A week—ten days passed. I did not see the beautiful girl again—nor did I forget her. One night at the opera I found her. It was “Lohengrin”—but she has told all that story herself—how Eugen came in late (he had a trick of never coming in till the last minute, and I used to think he had some reason for it)—and the recognition and the cut direct, first on her side, then on his.
Eugen and I walked home together, arm in arm, and I felt provoked with him.
“I say, Eugen, did you see the young lady with Vincent and the others in the first row of the parquet?”
“I saw some six or eight ladies of various ages in the first row of the parquet. Some were old and some were young. One had a knitted shawl over her head, which she kept on during the whole of the performance.”
“Don’t be so maddening. I said the young lady with Vincent and Fräulein Sartorius. By the bye, Eugen, do you know, or have you ever known her?”
“Who?”
“Fräulein Sartorius.”
“Who is she?”
“Oh, bother! The young lady I mean sat exactly opposite to you and me—a beautiful young girl; an Engländerin—fair, with that hair that we never see here, and—”
“In a brown hat—sitting next to Vincent. I saw her—yes.”
“She saw you too.”
“She must have been blind if she hadn’t.”
“Have you seen her before?”
“I have seen her before—yes.”
“And spoken to her?”
“Even spoken to her.”
“Do tell me what it all means.”
“Nothing.”
“But, Eugen—”
“Are you so struck with her, Friedel? Don’t lose your heart to her, I warn you.”
“Why?” I inquired, wilily, hoping the answer would give me some clew to his acquaintance with her.
“Because, mein Bester, she is a cut above you and me, in a different sphere, one that we know nothing about. What is more, she knows it, and shows it. Be glad that you can not lay yourself open to the snub that I got to-night.”
There was so much bitterness in his tone that I was surprised. But a sudden remembrance flushed into my mind of his strange remarks after I had left him that day at Cologne, and I laughed to myself, nor, when he asked me, would I tell him why. That evening he had very little to say to Karl Linders and myself.
Eugen never spoke to me of the beautiful girl who had behaved so strangely that evening, though we saw her again and again.
Sometimes I used to meet her in the street, in company with the dark, plain girl, Anna Sartorius, who, I fancied, always surveyed Eugen with a look of recognition. The two young women formed in appearance an almost startling contrast. She came to all the concerts, as if she made music a study—generally she was with a stout, good-natured-looking German Fräulein, and the young Englishman, Vincent. There was always something rather melancholy about her grace and beauty.
Most beautiful she was; with long, slender, artist-like hands, the face a perfect oval, but the features more piquant than regular; sometimes a subdued fire glowed in her eyes and compressed her lips, which removed her altogether from the category of spiritless beauties—a genus for which I never had the least taste.
One morning Courvoisier and I, standing just within the entrance to the theater orchestra, saw two people go by. One, a figure well enough known to every one in Elberthal, and especially to us—that of Max von Francius. Did I ever say that von Francius was an exceedingly handsome fellow, in a certain dark, clean-shaved style? On that occasion he was speaking with more animation than was usual with him, and the person to whom he had unbent so far was the fair English woman—that enigmatical beauty who had cut my friend at the opera. She also was looking animated and very beautiful; her face turned to his with a smile—a glad, gratified smile. He was saying:
“But in the next lesson, you know—”
They passed on. I turned to ask Eugen if he had seen. I needed not to put the question. He had seen. There was a forced smile upon his lips. Before I could speak he had said:
“It’s time to go in, Friedel; come along!” With which he turned into the theater, and I followed thoughtfully.
Then it was rumored that at the coming concert—the benefit of von Francius—a new soprano was to appear—a young lady of whom report used varied tones; some believable facts at least we learned about her. Her name, they said was Wedderburn; she was an English woman, and had a most wonderful voice. The Herr Direktor took a very deep interest in her; he not only gave her lessons; he had asked to give her lessons, and intended to form of her an artiste who should one day be to the world a kind of Patti, Lucca, or Nilsson.
I had no doubt in my own mind as to who she was, but for all that I felt considerable excitement on the evening of the haupt-probe to the “Verlorenes Paradies.”
Yes, I was right. Miss Wedderburn, the pupil of von Francius, of whom so much was prophesied, was the beautiful, forlorn-looking English girl. The feeling which grew upon me that evening, and which I never found reason afterward to alter, was that she was modest, gentle, yet spirited, very gifted, and an artiste by nature and gift, yet sadly ill at ease and out of place in that world into which von Francius wished to lead her.
She sat quite near to Eugen and me, and I saw how alone she was, and how she seemed to feel her loneliness. I saw how certain young ladies drew themselves together, and looked at her (it was on this occasion that I first began to notice the silent behavior of women toward each other, and the more I have observed, the more has my wonder grown and increased), and whispered behind their music, and shrugged their shoulders when von Francius, seeing how isolated she seemed, bent forward and said a few kind words to her.
I liked him for it. After all, he was a man. But his distinguishing the child did not add to the delights of her position—rather made it worse. I put myself in her place as well as I could, and felt her feelings when von Francius introduced her to one of the young ladies near her, who first stared at him, then at her, then inclined her head a little forward and a little backward, turned her back upon Miss Wedderburn, and appeared lost in conversation of the deepest importance with her neighbor. And I thought of the words which Karl Linders had said to us in haste and anger, and after a disappointment he had lately had, “Das weib ist der teufel.” Yes, woman is the devil sometimes, thought I, and a mean kind of devil too. A female Mephistopheles would not have damned Gretchen’s soul, nor killed her body, she would have left the latter on this earthly sphere, and damned her reputation.
Von Francius was a clever man, but he made a grand mistake that night, unless he were desirous of making his protégée as uncomfortable as possible. How could those ladies feel otherwise than insulted at seeing the man of ice so suddenly attentive and bland to a nobody, an upstart, and a beautiful one?
The probe continued, and still she sat alone and unspoken to, her only acquaintance or companion seeming to be Fräulein Sartorius, with whom she had come in. I saw how, when von Francius called upon her to do her part, and the looks which had hitherto been averted from her were now turned pitilessly and unwinkingly upon her, she quailed. She bit her lip; her hand trembled. I turned to Eugen with a look which said volumes. He sat with his arms folded, and his face perfectly devoid of all expression, gazing straight before him.
Miss Wedderburn might have been satisfied to the full with her revenge. That was a voice! such a volume of pure, exquisite melody as I had rarely heard. After hearing that, all doubts were settled. The gift might be a blessing or a curse—let every one decide that for himself, according to his style of thinking—but it was there. She possessed the power which put her out of the category of commonplace, and had the most melodious “Open, Sesame!” with which to besiege the doors of the courts in which dwell artists—creative and interpretative.
The performance finished the gap between her and her companions. Their looks said, “You are not one of us.” My angry spirit said, “No; you can never be like her.”
She seemed half afraid of what she had done when it was over, and shrunk into herself with downcast eyes and nervous quivering of the lips at the subdued applause of the men. I wanted to applaud too, but I looked at Eugen. I had instinctively given him some share in the affairs of this lovely creature—a share, which he always strenuously repudiated, both tacitly and openly.
Nevertheless, when I saw him I abstained from applauding, knowing, by a lightning-quick intuition, that it would be highly irritating to him. He showed no emotion; if he had done, I should not have thought the occasion was anything special to him. It was his absurd gravity, stony inexpressiveness, which impressed me with the fact that he was moved—moved against his will and his judgment. He could no more help approving both of her and her voice than he could help admiring a perfect, half-opened rose.
It was over, and we went out of the saal, across the road, and home.
Sigmund, who had not been very well that day, was awake, and restless. Eugen took him up, wrapped him in a little bed-gown, carried him into the other room, and sat down with him. The child rested his head on the loved breast, and was soothed.
She had gone; the door had closed after her. Eugen turned to me, and took Sigmund into his arms again.
“Mein Vater, who is the beautiful lady, and why did you speak so harshly to her? Why did you make her cry?”
The answer, though ostensibly spoken to Sigmund, was a revelation to me.
“That I may not have to cry myself,” said Eugen, kissing him.
“Could the lady make thee cry?” demanded Sigmund, sitting up, much excited at the idea.
Another kiss and a half laugh was the answer. Then he bade him go to sleep, as he did not understand what he was talking about.
By and by Sigmund did drop to sleep. Eugen carried him to his bed, tucked him up, and returned. We sat in silence—such an uncomfortable constrained silence, as had never before been between us. I had a book before me. I saw no word of it. I could not drive the vision away—the lovely, pleading face, the penitence. Good heavens! How could he repulse her as he had done? Her repeated request that he would take that money—what did it all mean? And, moreover, my heart was sore that he had concealed it all from me. About the past I felt no resentment; there was a secret there which I respected; but I was cut up at this. The more I thought of it, the keener was the pain I felt.
“Friedel!”
I looked up. Eugen was leaning across the table and his hand was stretched toward me; his eyes looked full into mine. I answered his look, but I was not clear yet.
“Forgive me!”
“Forgive thee what?”
“This playing with thy confidence.”
“Don’t mention it,” I forced myself to say, but the sore feeling still remained. “You have surely a right to keep your affairs to yourself if you choose.”
“You will not shake hands? Well, perhaps I have no right to ask it; but I should like to tell you all about it.”
I put my hand into his.
“I was wounded,” said I, “it is true. But it is over.”
“Then listen, Friedel.”
He told me the story of his meeting with Miss Wedderburn. All he said of the impression she had made upon him was:
“I thought her very charming, and the loveliest creature I had ever seen. And about the trains. It stands in this way. I thought a few hours of her society would make me very happy, and would be like—oh, well! I knew that in the future, if she ever should see me again, she would either treat me with distant politeness as an inferior, or, supposing she discovered that I had cheated her, would cut me dead. And as it did not matter, as I could not possibly be an acquaintance of hers in the future, I gave myself that pleasure then. It has turned out a mistake on my part, but that is nothing new; my whole existence has been a monstrous mistake. However, now she sees what a churl’s nature was under my fair-seeming exterior, her pride will show her what to do. She will take a wrong view of my character, but what does that signify? She will say that to be deceitful first and uncivil afterward are the main features of the German character, and when she is at Cologne on her honey-moon, she will tell her bride-groom about this adventure, and he will remark that the fellow wanted horsewhipping, and she—”
“There! You have exercised your imagination quite sufficiently. Then you intend to keep up this farce of not recognizing her. Why?”
He hesitated, looked as nearly awkward as he could, and said, a little constrainedly:
“Because I think it will be for the best.”
“For you or for her?” I inquired, not very fairly, but I could not resist it.
Eugen flushed all over his face.
“What a question!” was all he said.
“I do not think it such a remarkable question. Either you have grown exceedingly nervous as to your own strength of resistance or your fear for hers.”
“Friedhelm,” said he, in a cutting voice, “that is a tone which I should not have believed you capable of taking. It is vulgar, my dear fellow, and uncalled for; and it is so unlike you that I am astonished. If you had been one of the other fellows—”
I fired up.
“Excuse me, Eugen, it might be vulgar if I were merely chaffing you, but I am not; and I think, after what you have told me, that I have said very little. I am not so sure of her despising you. She looks much more as if she were distressed at your despising her.”
“Pre—pos—ter—ous!”
“If you can mention an instance in her behavior this evening which looked as if she were desirous of snubbing you, I should be obliged by your mentioning it,” I continued:
“Well—well—”
“Well—well. If she had wished to snub you she would have sent you that money through the post, and made an end of it. She simply desired, as was evident all along, to apologize for having been rude to a person who had been kind to her. I can quite understand it, and I am not sure that your behavior will not have the very opposite effect to that you expect.”
“I think you are mistaken. However, it does not matter; our paths lie quite apart. She will have plenty of other things to take up her time and thoughts. Anyhow I am glad that you and I are quits once more.”
So was I. We said no more upon the subject, but I always felt as if a kind of connecting link existed between my friend and me, and that beautiful, solitary English girl.
The link was destined to become yet closer. The concert was over at which she sung. She had a success. I see she has not mentioned it; a success which isolated her still more from her companions, inasmuch as it made her more distinctly professional and them more severely virtuous.
One afternoon when Eugen and I happened to have nothing to do, we took Sigmund to the Grafenberg. We wandered about in the fir wood, and at last came to a pause and rested. Eugen lay upon his back and gazed up into the thickness of brown-green fir above, and perhaps guessed at the heaven beyond the dark shade. I sat and stared before me through the straight red-brown stems across the ground,
“With sheddings from the pining umbrage tinged,”
to an invisible beyond which had charms for me, and was a kind of symphonic beauty in my mind. Sigmund lay flat upon his stomach, kicked his heels and made intricate patterns with the fir needles, while he hummed a gentle song to himself in a small, sweet voice, true as a lark’s, but sadder. There was utter stillness and utter calm all round.
Presently Eugen’s arm stole around Sigmund and drew him closer and closer to him, and they continued to look at each other until a mutual smile broke upon both faces, and the boy said, his whole small frame as well as his voice quivering (the poor little fellow had nerves that vibrated to the slightest emotion): “I love thee.”
A light leaped into the father’s eyes; a look of pain followed it quickly.
“And I shall never leave thee,” said Sigmund.
Eugen parried the necessity of speaking by a kiss.
“I love thee too, Friedel,” continued he, taking my hand. “We are very happy together, aren’t we?” And he laughed placidly to himself.
Eugen, as if stung by some tormenting thought, sprung up and we left the wood.
Oh, far back, by-gone day! There was a soft light over you shed by a kindly sun. That was a time in which joy ran a golden thread through the gray homespun of every-day life.
Back to the restauration at the foot of the berg, where Sigmund was supplied with milk and Eugen and I with beer, where we sat at a little wooden table in a garden and the pleasant clack of friendly conversation sounded around; where the women tried to make friends with Sigmund, and the girls whispered behind their coffee-cups or (pace, elegant fiction!) their beer-glasses, and always happened to be looking up if our eyes roved that way. Two poor musiker and a little boy; persons of no importance whatever, who could scrape their part in the symphony with some intelligence and feel they had done their duty. Well, well! it is not all of us who can do even so much. I know some instruments that are always out of tune. Let us be complacent where we justly can. The opportunities are few.
We took our way home. The days were long, and it was yet light when we returned and found the reproachful face of Frau Schmidt looking for us, and her arms open to receive the weary little lad who had fallen asleep on his father’s shoulder.
I went upstairs, and, by a natural instinct, to the window. Those facing it were open; some one moved in the room. Two chords of a piano were struck. Some one came and stood by the window, shielded her eyes from the rays of the setting sun which streamed down the street and looked westward. Eugen was passing behind me. I pulled him to the window, and we both looked—silently, gravely.
The girl dropped her hand; her eyes fell upon us. The color mounted to her cheek; she turned away and went to the interior of the room. It was May Wedderburn.
“Also!” said Eugen, after a pause. “A new neighbor; it reminds me of one of Andersen’s ‘Märchen,’ but I don’t know which.”
CHAPTER XX.
“For though he lived aloof from ken,
The world’s unwitnessed denizen,
The love within him stirs
Abroad, and with the hearts of men
His own confers.”
The story of my life from day to day was dull enough, same enough for some time after I went to live at the Wehrhahn. I was studying hard, and my only variety was the letters I had from home; not very cheering, these. One, which I received from Adelaide, puzzled me somewhat. After speaking of her coming marriage in a way which made me sad and uncomfortable, she condescended to express her approval of what I was doing, and went on:
“I am catholic in my tastes. I suppose all our friends would faint at the idea of there being a ‘singer’ in the family. Now, I should rather like you to be a singer—only be a great one—not a little twopenny-halfpenny person who has to advertise for engagements.
“Now I am going to give you some advice. This Herr von Francius—your teacher or whatever he is. Be cautious what you are about with him. I don’t say more, but I say that again. Be cautious! Don’t burn your fingers. Now, I have not much time, and I hate writing letters, as you know. In a week I am to be married, and then—nous verrons. We go to Paris first, and then on to Rome, where we shall winter—to gratify my taste, I wonder, or Sir Peter’s for moldering ruins, ancient pictures, and the Coliseum by moonlight? I have no doubt that we shall do our duty by the respectable old structures. Remember what I said, and write to me now and then.
“A.”
I frowned and puzzled a little over this letter. Be cautious? In what possible way could I be cautious? What need could there be for it when all that passed between me and von Francius was the daily singing lesson at which he was so strict and severe, sometimes so sharp and cutting with me. I saw him then; I saw him also at the constant proben to concerts whose season had already begun; proben to the “Passions-musik,” the “Messiah,” etc. At one or two of these concerts I was to sing. I did not like the idea, but I could not make von Francius see it as I did. He said I must sing—it was part of my studies, and I was fain to bend to his will.
Von Francius—I looked at Adelaide’s letter, and smiled again. Von Francius had kept his word; he had behaved to me as a kind elder brother. He seemed instinctively to understand the wish, which was very strong on my part, not to live entirely at Miss Hallam’s expense—to provide, partially at any rate, for myself, if possible. He helped me to do this. Now he brought me some music to be copied; now he told me of a young lady who wanted lessons in English—now of one little thing—now of another, which kept me, to my pride and joy, in such slender pocket-money as I needed. Truly, I used to think in those days, it does not need much money nor much room for a person like me to keep her place in the world. I wished to trouble no one—only to work as hard as I could, and do the work that was set for me as well as I knew how. I had my wish and so far was not unhappy.
But what did Adelaide mean? True, I had once described von Francius to her as young, that is youngish, clever and handsome. Did she, remembering my well-known susceptibility, fear that I might fall in love with him and compromise myself by some silly Schwärmerei? I laughed about all by myself at the very idea of such a thing. Fall in love with von Francius, and—my eyes fell upon the two windows over the way. No; my heart was pure of the faintest feeling for him, save that of respect, gratitude, and liking founded at that time more on esteem than spontaneous growth. And he—I smiled at that idea, too.
In all my long interviews with von Francius throughout our intercourse he maintained one unvaried tone, that of a kind, frank, protecting interest, with something of the patron on his part. He would converse with me about Schiller and Goethe, true; he would also caution me against such and such shop-keepers as extortioners, and tell me the place where they gave the largest discount on music paid for on the spot; would discuss the “Waldstein” or “Appassionata” with me, or the beauties of Rubinstein or the deep meanings of Schumann, also the relative cost of living en pension or providing for one’s self.
No. Adelaide was mistaken. I wished, parenthetically, that she could make the acquaintance of von Francius, and learn how mistaken—and again my eyes fell upon the opposite windows. Friedhelm Helfen leaned from one, holding fast Courvoisier’s boy. The rich Italian coloring of the lovely young face; the dusky hair; the glow upon the cheeks, the deep blue of his serge dress, made the effect of a warmly tinted southern flower; it was a flower-face too; delicate and rich at once.
Adelaide’s letter dropped unheeded to the floor. Those two could not see me, and I had a joy in watching them.
To say, however, that I actually watched my opposite neighbors would not be true. I studiously avoided watching them; never sat in the window; seldom showed myself at it, though in passing I sometimes allowed myself to linger, and so had glimpses of those within. They were three and I was one. They were the happier by two. Or if I knew that they were out, that a probe was going on, or an opera or concert, there was nothing I liked better than to sit for a time and look to the opposite windows. They were nearly always open, as were also mine, for the heat of the stove was oppressive to me, and I preferred to temper it with a little of the raw outside air. I used sometimes to hear from those opposite rooms the practicing or playing of passages on the violin and violoncello—scales, shakes, long complicated flourishes and phrases. Sometimes I heard the very strains that I had to sing to: airs, scraps of airs, snatches from operas, concerts and symphonies. They were always humming and singing things. They came home haunted with “The Last Rose,” from “Marta”—now some air from “Faust,” “Der Freischütz,” or “Tannhauser.”
But one air was particular to Eugen, who seemed to be perfectly possessed by it—that which I had heard him humming when I first met him—the March from “Lenore.” He whistled it and sung it; played it on violin, ’cello and piano; hummed it first thing in the morning and last thing at night; harped upon it until in despair his companion threw books and music at him, and he, dodging them, laughed, begged pardon, was silent for five minutes, and then the March da Capo set in a halting kind of measure to the ballad.
By way of a slight and wholesome variety there was the whole repertory of “Volkslieder,” from
“Du, du, liegst mir im Herzen;
Du, du, liegst mir im Sinn,”
up to
“Mädele, ruck, ruck, ruck
An meine gürne Seite.”
Sometimes they—one or both of them with the boy—might be seen at the window leaning out, whistling or talking. When doors banged and quick steps rushed up or down the stairs two steps at a time I knew it was Courvoisier. Friedhelm Helfen’s movements were slower and more sedate. I grew to know his face as well as Eugen’s, and to like it better the more I saw of it. A quite young, almost boyish face, with an inexpressibly pure, true, and good expression upon the mouth and in the dark-brown eyes. Reticent, as most good faces are, but a face which made you desire to know the owner of it, made you feel that you could trust him in any trial. His face reminded me in a distant manner of two others, also faces of musicians, but greater in their craft than he, they being creators and pioneers, while he was only a disciple, of Beethoven and of the living master, Rubinstein. A gentle, though far from weak face, and such a contrast in expression and everything else to that of my musician, as to make me wonder sometimes whether they had been drawn to each other from very oppositeness of disposition and character. That they were very great friends I could not doubt; that the leadership was on Courvoisier’s side was no less evident. Eugen’s affection for Helfen seemed to have something fatherly in it, while I could see that both joined in an absorbing worship of the boy, who was a very Crœsus in love if in nothing else. Sigmund had, too, an adorer in a third musician, a violoncellist, one of their comrades, who apparently spent much of his spare substance in purchasing presents of toys and books and other offerings, which he laid at the shrine of St. Sigmund, with what success I could not tell. Beyond this young fellow, Karl Linders, they had not many visitors. Young men used occasionally to appear with violin-cases in their hands, coming for lessons, probably.
All these things I saw without absolutely watching for them; they made that impression upon me which the most trifling facts connected with a person around whom cling all one’s deepest pleasures and deepest pains ever do and must make. I was glad to know them, but at the same time they impressed the loneliness and aloofness of my own life more decidedly upon me.
I remember one small incident which at the time it happened struck home to me. My windows were open; it was an October afternoon, mild and sunny. The yellow light shone with a peaceful warmth upon the afternoon quietness of the street. Suddenly that quietness was broken. The sound of music, the peculiar blatant noise of trumpets smote the air. It came nearer, and with it the measured tramp of feet. I rose and went to look out. A Hussar regiment was passing; before them was borne a soldier’s coffin; they carried a comrade to his grave. The music they played was the “Funeral March for the Death of a Hero,” from the “Sinfonia Eroica.” Muffled, slow, grand and mournful, it went wailing and throbbing by. The procession passed slowly on in the October sunshine, along the Schadowstrasse, turning off by the Hofgarten, and so on to the cemetery. I leaned out of the window and looked after it—forgetting all outside, till just as the last of the procession passed by my eyes fell upon Courvoisier going into his house, and who presently entered the room. He was unperceived by Friedhelm and Sigmund, who were looking after the procession. The child’s face was earnest, almost solemn—he had not seen his father come up. I saw Helfen’s lip caress Sigmund’s loose black hair that waved just beneath them.
Then I saw a figure—only a black shadow to my eyes which were dazzled by the sun—come behind them. One hand was laid upon Helfen’s shoulder, another turned the child’s chin. What a change! Friedhelm’s grave face smiled: Sigmund sprung aside, made a leap to his father, who stooped to him, and clasping his arms tight round his neck was raised up in his arms.
They were all satisfied—all smiling—all happy. I turned away. That was a home—that was a meeting of three affections. What more could they want? I shut the window—shut it all out, and myself with it into the cold, feeling my lips quiver. It was very fine, this life of independence and self-support, but it was dreadfully lonely.
The days went on. Adelaide was now Lady Le Marchant. She had written to me again, and warned me once more to be careful what I was about. She had said that she liked her life—at least she said so in her first two or three letters, and then there fell a sudden utter silence about herself, which seemed to me ominous.
Adelaide had always acted upon the assumption that Sir Peter was a far from strong-minded individual, with a certain hardness and cunning perhaps in relation to money matters, but nothing that a clever wife with a strong enough sense of her own privileges could not overcome.
She said nothing to me about herself. She told me about Rome; who was there; what they did and looked like; what she wore; what compliments were paid to her—that was all.
Stella told me my letters were dull—and I dare say they were—and that there was no use in her writing, because nothing ever happened in Skernford, which was also true. And for Eugen, we were on exactly the same terms—or rather no terms—as before. Opposite neighbors, and as far removed as if we had lived at the antipodes.
My life, as time went on, grew into a kind of fossilized dream, in which I rose up and lay down, practiced so many hours a day, ate and drank and took my lesson, and it seemed as if I had been living so for years, and should continue to live on so to the end of my days—until one morning my eyes would not open again, and for me the world would have come to an end.
CHAPTER XXI.
“And nearer still shall further be,
And words shall plague and vex and buffet thee.”
It was December, close upon Christmas. Winter at last in real earnest. A black frost. The earth bound in fetters of iron. The land gray; the sky steel; the wind a dagger. The trees, leafless and stark, rattled their shriveled boughs together in that wind.
It met you at corners and froze the words out of your mouth; it whistled a low, fiendish, malignant whistle round the houses; as vicious and little louder than the buzz of a mosquito. It swept, thin, keen and cutting, down the Königsallée, and blew fine black dust into one’s face.
It cut up the skaters upon the pond in the Neue Anlage, which was in the center of the town, and comparatively sheltered; but it was in its glory whistling across the flat fields leading to the great skating-ground of Elberthal in general—the Schwanenspiegel at the Grafenbergerdahl.
The Grafenberg was a low chain of what, for want of a better name, may be called hills, lying to the north of Elberthal. The country all around this unfortunate apology for a range of hills was, if possible, flatter than ever. The Grafenbergerdahl was, properly, no “dale” at all, but a broad plain of meadows, with the railway cutting them at one point, then diverging and running on under the Grafenberg.
One vast meadow which lay, if possible, a trifle lower than the rest, was flooded regularly by the autumn rains, but not deeply. It was frozen over now, and formed a model skating place, and so, apparently, thought the townspeople, for they came out, singly or in bodies, and from nine in the morning till dusk the place was crowded, and the merry music of the iron on the ice ceased not for a second.
I discovered this place of resort by accident one day when I was taking a constitutional, and found myself upon the borders of the great frozen mere covered with skaters. I stood looking at them, and my blood warmed at the sight. If there were one thing—one accomplishment upon which I prided myself, it was this very one—skating.
In a drawing-room I might feel awkward—confused among clever people, bashful among accomplished ones; shy about music and painting, diffident as to my voice, and deprecatory in spirit as to the etiquette to be observed at a dinner-party. Give me my skates and put me on a sheet of ice, and I was at home.
As I paused and watched the skaters, it struck me that there was no reason at all why I should deny myself that seasonable enjoyment. I had my skates, and the mere was large enough to hold me as well as the others—indeed, I saw in the distance great tracts of virgin ice to which no skater seemed yet to have reached.
I went home, and on the following afternoon carried out my resolution; though it was after three o’clock before I could set out.
A long, bleak way. First up the merry Jägerhofstrasse, then through the Malkasten garden, up a narrow lane, then out upon the open, bleak road, with that bitter wind going ping-ping at one’s ears and upon one’s cheek. Through a big gate-way, and a court-yard pertaining to an orphan asylum—along a lane bordered with apple-trees, through a rustic arch, and, hurrah! the field was before me—not so thickly covered as yesterday, for it was getting late, and the Elberthalers did not seem to understand the joy of careering over the black ice by moonlight, in the night wind. It was, however, as yet far from dark, and the moon was rising in silver yonder, in a sky of a pale but clear blue.
I quickly put on my skates—stumbled to the edge, and set off. I took a few turns, circling among the people—then, seeing several turn to look at me, I fixed my eyes upon a distant clump of reeds rising from the ice, and resolved to make it my goal. I could only just see it, even with my long-sighted eyes, but struck out for it bravely. Past group after group of the skaters who turned to look at my scarlet shawl as it flashed past. I glanced at them and skimmed smoothly on, till I came to the outside circle where there was a skater all alone, his hands thrust deep into his great-coat pockets, the collar of the same turned high about his ears, and the inevitable little gray cloth Studentenhut crowning the luxuriance of waving dark hair. He was gliding round in complicated figures and circles, doing the outside edge for his own solitary gratification, so far as I could see; active, graceful, and muscular, with practiced ease and assured strength in every limb. It needed no second glance on my part to assure me who he was—even if the dark bright eyes had not been caught by the flash of my cloak, and gravely raised for a moment as I flew by. I dashed on, breasting the wind. To reach the bunch of reeds seemed more than ever desirable now. I would make it my sole companion until it was time to go away. At least he had seen me, and I was safe from any contretemps—he would avoid me as strenuously as I avoided him. But the first fresh lust after pleasure was gone. Just one moment’s glance into a face had had the power to alter everything so much. I skated on, as fast, as surely as ever, but,
“A joy has taken flight.”
The pleasant sensation of solitude, which I could so easily have felt among a thousand people had he not been counted among them, was gone. The roll of my skates upon the ice had lost its music for me; the wind felt colder—I sadder. At least I thought so. Should I go away again now that this disturbing element had appeared upon the scene? No, no, no, said something eagerly within me, and I bit my lip, and choked back a kind of sob of disgust as I realized that despite my gloomy reflections my heart was beating a high, rapid march of—joy! as I skimmed, all alone, far away from the crowd, among the dismal withered reeds, and round the little islets of stiffened grass and rushes which were frozen upright in their places.
The daylight faded, and the moon rose. The people were going away. The distant buzz of laughter had grown silent. I could dimly discern some few groups, but very few, still left, and one or two solitary figures. Even my preternatural eagerness could not discern who they were! The darkness, the long walk home, the probe at seven, which I should be too tired to attend, all had quite slipped from my mind; it was possible that among those figures which I still dimly saw, was yet remaining that of Courvoisier, and surely there was no harm in my staying here.
I struck out in another direction, and flew on in the keen air; the frosty moon shedding a weird light upon the black ice; I saw the railway lines, polished, gleaming too in the light; the belt of dark firs to my right; the red sand soil frozen hard and silvered over with frost. Flat and tame, but still beautiful. I felt a kind of rejoicing in it; I felt it home. I was probably the first person who had been there since the freezing of the mere, thought I, and that idea was soon converted to a certainty in my mind, for in a second my rapid career was interrupted. At the furthest point from help or human presence the ice gave way with a crash, and I shrieked aloud at the shock of the bitter water. Oh, how cold it was! how piercing, frightful, numbing! It was not deep—scarcely above my knees, but the difficulty was how to get out. Put my hand where I would the ice gave way. I could only plunge in the icy water, feeling the sodden grass under my feet. What sort of things might there not be in that water? A cold shudder, worse than any ice, shot through me at the idea of newts and rats and water-serpents, absurd though it was. I screamed again in desperation, and tried to haul myself out by catching at the rushes. They were rotten with the frost and gave way in my hand. I made a frantic effort at the ice again; stumbled and fell on my knees in the water. I was wet all over now, and I gasped. My limbs ached agonizingly with the cold. I should be, if not drowned, yet benumbed, frozen to death here alone in the great mere, among the frozen reeds and under the steely sky.
I was pausing, standing still, and rapidly becoming almost too benumbed to think or hold myself up, when I heard the sound of skates and the weird measure of the “Lenore March” again. I held my breath; I desired intensely to call out, shriek aloud for help, but I could not. Not a word would come.
“I did hear some one,” he muttered, and then in the moonlight he came skating past, saw me, and stopped.
“Sie, Fräulein!” he began, quickly, and then altering his tone. “The ice has broken. Let me help you.”
“Don’t come too near; the ice is very thin—it doesn’t hold at all,” I chattered, scarcely able to get the words out.
“You are cold?” he asked, and smiled. I felt the smile cruel; and realized that I probably looked rather ludicrous.
“Cold!” I repeated, with an irrepressible short sob.
He knelt down upon the ice at about a yard’s distance from me.
“Here it is strong,” said he, holding out his arms. “Lean this way, mein Fräulein, and I will lift you out.”
“Oh, no! You will certainly fall in yourself.”
“Do as I tell you,” he said, imperatively, and I obeyed, leaning a little forward. He took me round the waist, lifted me quietly out of the water, and placed me upon the ice at a discreet distance from the hole in which I had been stuck, then rose himself, apparently undisturbed by the effort.
Miserable, degraded object that I felt! My clothes clinging round me; icy cold, shivering from head to foot; so aching with cold that I could no longer stand. As he opened his mouth to say something about its being “happily accomplished,” I sunk upon my knees at his feet. My strength had deserted me; I could no longer support myself.
“Frozen!” he remarked to himself, as he stooped and half raised me. “I see what must be done. Let me take off your skates—sonst geht’s nicht.”
I sat down upon the ice, half hysterical, partly from the sense of the degrading, ludicrous plight I was in, partly from intense yet painful delight at being thus once more with him, seeing some recognition in his eyes again, and hearing some cordiality in his voice.
He unfastened my skates deftly and quickly, slung them over his arm, and helped me up again. I essayed feebly to walk, but my limbs were numb with cold. I could not put one foot before the other, but could only cling to his arm in silence.
“So!” said he, with a little laugh. “We are all alone here! A fine time for a moonlight skating.”
“Ah! yes,” said I, wearily, “but I can’t move.”
“You need not,” said he. “I am going to carry you away in spite of yourself, like a popular preacher.”
He put his arm round my waist and bade me hold fast to his shoulder. I obeyed, and directly found myself carried along in a swift, delightful movement, which seemed to my drowsy, deadened senses, quick as the nimble air, smooth as a swallow’s flight. He was a consummate master in the art of skating—that was evident. A strong, unfailing arm held me fast. I felt no sense of danger, no fear lest he should fall or stumble; no such idea entered my head.
We had far to go—from one end of the great Schwanenspiegel to the other. Despite the rapid motion, numbness overcame me; my eyes closed, my head sunk upon my hands, which were clasped over his shoulder. A sob rose to my throat. In the midst of the torpor that was stealing over me, there shot every now and then a shiver of ecstasy so keen as to almost terrify me. But then even that died away. Everything seemed to whirl round me—the meadows and trees, the stiff rushes and the great black sheet of ice, and the white moon in the inky heavens became only a confused dream. Was it sleep or faintness, or coma? What was it that seemed to make my senses as dull as my limbs, and as heavy? I scarcely felt the movement, as he lifted me from the ice to the ground. His shout did not waken me, though he sent the full power of his voice ringing out toward the pile of buildings to our left.
With the last echo of his voice I lost consciousness entirely; all failed and faded, and then vanished before me, until I opened my eyes again feebly, and found myself in a great stony-looking room, before a big black stove, the door of which was thrown open. I was lying upon a sofa, and a woman was bending over me. At the foot of the sofa, leaning against the wall, was Courvoisier, looking down at me, his arms folded, his face pensive.
“Oh, dear!” cried I, starting up. “What is the matter? I must go home.”
“You shall—when you can,” said Courvoisier, smiling as he had smiled when I first knew him, before all these miserable misunderstandings had come between us.
My apprehensions were stilled. It did me good, warmed me, sent the tears trembling to my eyes, when I found that his voice had not resumed the old accent of ice, nor his eyes that cool, unrecognizing stare which had frozen me so many a time in the last few weeks.
“Trinken sie ’mal, Fräulein,” said the woman, holding a glass to my lips; it held hot spirits and water, which smoked.
“Bah!” replied I, gratefully, and turning away. “Nie, nie!” she repeated. “You must drink just a Schnäppschen, Fräulein.”
I pushed it away with some disgust. Courvoisier took it from her hand and held it to me.
“Don’t be so foolish and childish. Think of your voice after this,” said he, smiling kindly; and I, with an odd sensation, choked down my tears and drank it. It was bad—despite my desire to please, I found it very bad.
“Yes, I know,” said he, with a sympathetic look, as I made a horrible face after drinking it, and he took the glass. “And now this woman will lend you some dry things. Shall I go straight to Elberthal and send a drosky here for you, or will you try to walk home?”
“Oh, I will walk. I am sure it would be the best—if—do you think it would?”
“Do you feel equal to it? is the question,” he answered, and I was surprised to see that though I was looking hard at him he did not look at me, but only into the glass he held.
“Yes,” said I. “And they say that people who have been nearly drowned should always walk; it does them good.”
“In that case then,” said he, repressing a smile, “I should say it would be better for you to try. But pray make haste and get your wet things off, or you will come to serious harm.”
“I will be as quick as ever I can.”
“Now hurry,” he replied, sitting down, and pulling one of the woman’s children toward him. “Come, mein Junge, tell me how old you are?”
I followed the woman to an inner room, where she divested me of my dripping things, and attired me in a costume consisting of a short full brown petticoat, a blue woolen jacket, thick blue knitted stockings, and a pair of wide low shoes, which habiliments constituted the uniform of the orphan asylum of which she was matron, and belonged to her niece.
She expatiated upon the warmth of the dress, and did not produce any outer wrap or shawl, and I, only anxious to go, said nothing, but twisted up my loose hair, and went back into the large stony room before spoken of, from which a great noise had been proceeding for some time.
I stood in the door-way and saw Eugen surrounded by other children, in addition to the one he had first called to him. There were likewise two dogs, and they—the children, the dogs, and Herr Concertmeister Courvoisier most of all—were making as much noise as they possibly could. I paused for a moment to have the small gratification of watching the scene. One child on his knee and one on his shoulder pulling his hair, which was all ruffled and on end, a laugh upon his face, a dancing light in his eyes as if he felt happy and at home among all the little flaxen heads.
Could he be the same man who had behaved so coldly to me? My heart went out to him in this kinder moment. Why was he so genial with those children and so harsh to me, who was little better than a child myself?
His eye fell upon me as he held a shouting and kicking child high in the air, and his own face laughed all over in mirth and enjoyment.
“Come here, Miss Wedderburn; this is Hans, there is Fritz, and here is Franz—a jolly trio; aren’t they?”
He put the child into his mother’s arms, who regarded him with an eye of approval, and told him that it was not every one who knew how to ingratiate himself with her children, who were uncommonly spirited.
“Ready?” he asked, surveying me and my costume and laughing. “Don’t you feel a stranger in these garments?”
“No! Why?”
“I should have said silk and lace and velvet, or fine muslins and embroideries, were more in your style.”
“You are quite mistaken. I was just thinking how admirably this costume suits me, and that I should do well to adopt it permanently.”
“Perhaps there was a mirror in the inner room,” he suggested.
“A mirror! Why?”
“Then your idea would quite be accounted for. Young ladies must of course wish to wear that which becomes them.”
“Very becoming!” I sneered, grandly.
“Very,” he replied, emphatically. “It makes me wish to be an orphan.”
“Ah, mein Herr,” said the woman, reproachfully, for he had spoken German. “Don’t jest about that. If you have parents—”
“No, I haven’t,” he interposed, hastily.
“Or children either?”
“I should not else have understood yours so well,” he laughed. “Come, my—Miss Wedderburn, if you are ready.”
After arranging with the woman that she should dry my things and return them, receiving her own in exchange, we left the house.
It was quite moonlight now; the last faint streak of twilight had disappeared. The way that we must traverse to reach the town stretched before us, long, straight, and flat.
“Where is your shawl?” he asked, suddenly.
“I left it; it was wet through.”
Before I knew what he was doing, he had stripped off his heavy overcoat, and I felt its warmth and thickness about my shoulders.
“Oh, don’t!” I cried, in great distress, as I strove to remove it again, and looked imploringly into his face.
“Don’t do that. You will get cold; you will—”
“Get cold!” he laughed, as if much amused, as he drew the coat around me and fastened it, making no more ado of my resisting hands than if they had been bits of straw.
“So!” said he, pushing one of my arms through the sleeve. “Now,” as he still held it fastened together, and looked half laughingly at me, “do you intend to keep it on or not?”
“I suppose I must.”
“I call that gratitude. Take my arm—so. You are weak yet.”
We walked on in silence for some time. I was happy; for the first time since the night I had heard “Lohengrin” I was happy and at rest. True, no forgiveness had been asked or extended; but he had ceased to behave as if I were not forgiven.
“Am I not going too fast?” he inquired.
“N—no.”
“Yes, I am, I see. We will moderate the pace a little.”
We walked more slowly. Physically I was inexpressibly weary. The reaction after my drenching had set in; I felt a languor which amounted to pain, and an aching and weakness in every limb. I tried to regret the event, but could not; tried to wish it were not such a long walk to Elberthal, and found myself perversely regretting that it was such a short one.
At length the lights of the town came in sight. I heaved a deep sigh. Soon it would be over—“the glory and the dream.”
“I think we are exactly on the way to your house, nicht wahr?” said he.
“Yes; and to yours since we are opposite neighbors.”
“Yes.”
“You are not as lonely as I am, though; you have companions.”
“I—oh—Friedhelm; yes.”
“And—your little boy.”
“Sigmund also,” was all he said.
But “auch Sigmund” may express much more in German than in English. It did so then.
“And you?” he added.
“I am alone,” said I.
I did not mean to be foolishly sentimental. The sigh that followed my words was involuntary.
“So you are. But I suppose you like it?”
“Like it? What can make you think so?”
“Well, at least you have good friends.”
“Have I? Oh, yes, of course!” said I, thinking of von Francius.
“Do you get on with your music?” he next inquired.
“I hope so. I—do you think it strange that I should live there all alone?” I asked, tormented with a desire to know what he did think of me, and crassly ready to burst into explanations on the least provocation. I was destined to be undeceived.
“I have not thought about it at all; it is not my business.”
Snub number one. He had spoken quickly, as if to clear himself as much as possible from any semblance of interest to me.
I went on, rashly plunging into further intricacies of conversation:
“It is curious that you and I should not only live near to each other, but actually have the same profession at last.”
“How?”
Snub number two. But I persevered.
“Music. Your profession is music, and mine will be.”
“I do not see the resemblance. There is little point of likeness between a young lady who is in training for a prima-donna and an obscure musiker, who contributes his share of shakes and runs to the symphony.”
“I in training for a prima-donna! How can you say so?”
“Do we not all know the forte of Herr von Francius? And—excuse me—are not your windows opposite to ours, and open as a rule? Can I not hear the music you practice, and shall I not believe my own ears?”
“I am sure your own ears do not tell you that a future prima-donna lives opposite to you,” said I, feeling most insanely and unreasonably hurt and cut up at the idea.
“Will you tell me that you are not studying for the stage?”
“I never said I was not. I said I was not a future prima-donna. My voice is not half good enough. I am not clever enough, either.”
He laughed.
“As if voice or cleverness had anything to do with it. Personal appearance and friends at court are the chief things. I have known prime-donne—seen them, I mean—and from my place below the foot-lights I have had the impertinence to judge them upon their own merits. Provided they were handsome, impudent, and unscrupulous enough, their public seemed gladly to dispense with art, cultivation, or genius in their performances and conceptions.”
“And you think that I am, or shall be in time, handsome, impudent, and unscrupulous enough,” said I, in a low choked tone.
My fleeting joy was being thrust back by hands most ruthless. Unmixed satisfaction for even the brief space of an hour or so was not to be included in my lot.
“O, bewahre!” said he, with a little laugh, that chilled me still further. “I think no such thing. The beauty is there, mein Fräulein—pardon me for saying so—”
Indeed, I was well able to pardon it. Had he been informing his grandmother that there were the remains of a handsome woman to be traced in her, he could not have spoken more unenthusiastically.
“The beauty is there. The rest, as I said, when one has friends, these things are arranged for one.”
“But I have no friends.”
“No,” with again that dry little laugh. “Perhaps they will be provided at the proper time, as Elijah was fed by the ravens. Some fine night—who knows—I may sit with my violin in the orchestra at your benefit, and one of the bouquets with which you are smothered may fall at my feet and bring me aus der fuge. When that happens, will you forgive me if I break a rose from the bouquet before I toss it on to the feet of its rightful owner? I promise that I will seek for no note, nor spy out any ring or bracelet. I will only keep the rose in remembrance of the night when I skated with you across the Schwanenspiegel, and prophesied unto you the future. It will be a kind of ‘I told you so,’ on my part.”
Mock sentiment, mock respect, mock admiration; a sneer in the voice, a dry sarcasm in the words. What was I to think? Why did he veer round in this way, and from protecting kindness return to a raillery which was more cruel than his silence? My blood rose, though, at the mockingness of his tone.
“I don’t know what you mean,” said I, coldly. “I am studying operatic music. If I have any success in that line, I shall devote myself to it. What is there wrong in it? The person who has her living to gain must use the talents that have been given her. My talent is my voice; it is the only thing I have—except, perhaps, some capacity to love—those—who are kind to me. I can do that, thank God! Beyond that I have nothing, and I did not make myself.”
“A capacity to love those who are kind to you,” he said, hastily. “And do you love all who are kind to you?”
“Yes,” said I, stoutly, though I felt my face burning.
“And hate them that despitefully use you?”
“Naturally,” I said, with a somewhat unsteady laugh. A rush of my ruling feeling—propriety and decent reserve—tied my tongue, and I could not say, “Not all—not always.”
He, however, snapped, as it were, at my remark or admission, and chose to take it as if it were in the deepest earnest; for he said, quickly, decisively, and, as I thought, with a kind of exultation:
“Ah, then I will be disagreeable to you.”
This remark, and the tone in which it was uttered, came upon me with a shock which I can not express. He would be disagreeable to me because I hated those who were disagreeable to me, ergo, he wished me to hate him. But why? What was the meaning of the whole extraordinary proceeding?
“Why?” I asked, mechanically, and asked nothing more.
“Because then you will hate me, unless you have the good sense to do so already.”
“Why? What effect will my hatred have upon you?”
“None. Not a jot. Gar keine. But I wish you to hate me, nevertheless.”
“So you have begun to be disagreeable to me by pulling me out of the water, lending me your coat, and giving me your arm all along this hard, lonely road,” said I, composedly.
He laughed.
“That was before I knew of your peculiarity. From to-morrow morning on I shall begin. I will make you hate me. I shall be glad if you hate me.”
I said nothing. My head felt bewildered; my understanding benumbed. I was conscious that I was very weary—conscious that I should like to cry, so bitter was my disappointment.
As we came within the town, I said:
“I am very sorry, Herr Courvoisier, to have given you so much trouble.”
“That means that I am to put you into a cab and relieve you of my company.”
“It does not,” I ejaculated, passionately, jerking my hand from his arm. “How can you say so? How dare you say so?”
“You might meet some of your friends, you know.”
“And I tell you I have no friends except Herr von Francius, and I am not accountable to him for my actions.”
“We shall soon be at your house now.”
“Herr Courvoisier, have you forgiven me?”
“Forgiven you what?”
“My rudeness to you once.”
“Ah, mein Fräulein,” said he, shrugging his shoulders a little and smiling slightly, “you are under a delusion about that circumstance. How can I forgive that which I never resented?”
This was putting the matter in a new, and, for me, an humbling light.
“Never resented!” I murmured, confusedly.
“Never. Why should I resent it? I forgot myself, nicht wahr! and you showed me at one and the same time my proper place and your own excellent good sense. You did not wish to know me, and I did not resent it. I had no right to resent it.”
“Excuse me,” said I, my voice vibrating against my will; “you are wrong there, and either you are purposely saying what is not true, or you have not the feelings of a gentleman.” His arm sprung a little aside as I went on, amazed at my own boldness. “I did not show you your ‘proper place.’ I did not show my own good sense. I showed my ignorance, vanity, and surprise. If you do not know that, you are not what I take you for—a gentleman.”
“Perhaps not,” said he, after a pause. “You certainly did not take me for one then. Why should I be a gentleman? What makes you suppose I am one?”
Questions which, however satisfactorily I might answer them to myself, I could not well reply to in words. I felt that I had rushed upon a topic which could not be explained, since he would not own himself offended. I had made a fool of myself and gained nothing by it. While I was racking my brain for some satisfactory closing remark, we turned a corner and came into the Wehrhahn. A clock struck seven.
“Gott im Himmel!” he exclaimed. “Seven o’clock! The opera—da geht’s schon an! Excuse me, Fräulein, I must go. Ah, here is your house.”
He took the coat gently from my shoulders, wished me gute besserung, and ringing the bell, made me a profound bow, and either not noticing or not choosing to notice the hand which I stretched out toward him, strode off hastily toward the theater, leaving me cold, sick, and miserable, to digest my humble pie with what appetite I might.