In Paradise: A Novel. Vol. I.

by Paul Heyse

CHAPTER IV.

Elfinger had been sitting up late into the night awaiting the return of his friend, until at last he was forced to admit that there could be no doubt but what the adventure had not ended very gloriously. He fell asleep with a heavy heart, for his last hopes were now defeated.

The next morning he crept mournfully down to the bank, and left it earlier than usual under some pretext or other. He hoped to find Rosenbusch at home at last. But the little, scantily furnished, untidy chamber of the battle-painter was still vacant.

Could he have done something desperate, left the city or even--?

In great excitement, for he loved his good comrade heartily, he mounted the dark stairs for the second time, after the close of his evening duties at his desk. He found on his little table an unmistakable symbolical sign that his friend was still in the land of the living. A large market-basket stood in the middle, provided with a long paper label such as they put on medicine-bottles; and on it were written these words:

"A REMEDY FOR BEARDLESS ARTISTS.
TO BE TAKEN ACCORDING TO THE NECESSITIES
OF THE CASE.
FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT OF
THE LEATHER GLOVE."[^[3]]

There was nothing in the basket but the sketch-book, in which the solitary outcast had written his lamentations the night before.

The actor had not yet finished reading the last strophes when the door opened, and Rosenbusch solemnly entered, with such an indescribably mournful expression upon his face that it was impossible to look at him without laughing. As soon as he saw that Elfinger was once more capable of appreciating the humor of the situation, it was easy to perceive that a weight was lifted from his heart. He stepped hastily up to his friend, and, giving him both his hands, cried:

"Drink to the lost, O stranger,

And pray for his poor soul!"

the final words of his own verses.

"But come, brother," he continued, "let us rise superior to our fate, and although our manly spirit may not forbid us to shed a tear--

"So it is all over, and there is no more hope?" interrupted Elfinger, shutting up the sketch-book.

"Over and gone forever! unless I should change my course in my old age and become a cattle-painter, or should crawl back into the womb so as to be born again as a pupil of Piloty. Just conceive it, Roscius! Only yesterday, hardly an hour before I paid my visit to papa, this brave Theban had fallen into the hands of a good friend at the art-club, who had stuffed him with a long account of the wonderfully flourishing financial condition of art in our good city of Munich. A flock of sheep, that had just been sold for eight thousand gulden, and the vivisection of a rabbit by some Hungarian or Pole whom that magician Piloty had developed into a celebrated man in six months, and whose pictures are now sold for unheard-of prices before they leave the easel, had given the two Philistines a chance to air their æsthetics, which are as irrefutable as mathematics. Figures show this. The export of painted canvas from this city, which has attained a gigantic height during the last few years, even surpassing the export of tanned leather, could not but impress even Nanny's unpoetical father. I might have carried off the little jewel without the slightest trouble if I could only have shown him a single cow, or some little historical atrocity. But for battles there was 'no demand'--eternal peace lay before us. How much did I make a year out of my old-fashioned art? Well--I lied like a trooper, and mentioned some unheard of sum for a man in my condition. Whereupon the monster laughed: he knew an animal-painter who had made double that amount from a single sheep's-head, in which, to be sure, you could distinctly perceive the quality of the wool by looking at it through a magnifying-glass. It was then that my temperament played me a shabby trick. I could not resist the temptation to make a disrespectful pun[^[4]]--one, moreover, that was much too obvious to make it worth the while--and after this there was no helping matters. Unfortunately we could distinctly hear a burst of laughter, over my poor joke at papa's expense, proceeding from the adjoining room. The author of it had apparently been unable to withstand her maidenly curiosity, and had been listening to all that had been said. But I--"

He checked himself suddenly. His eyes unconsciously wandered to the windows across the street, and what he saw there caused him to forget the end of his report.

A most charming girl made her appearance behind the window-pane, and two little hands could be seen fastening a little straw-hat firmly on the brown head; then the window was opened and the sky was eagerly scanned, apparently in order to find out whether it threatened rain or promised to be fair. At the window to the left a slim figure could also be discerned, as it shut up some sewing in the drawer of the little work-table, and then threw open the window so that the evening air might benefit the flowers. But while the mischievous eyes of the younger sister, in roving merrily about, lighted on Rosenbusch, who had quickly stepped up to his window, and gave him a stolen glance in passing, the second sister refrained from all such worldly arts and immediately disappeared from the window, after having said something to the younger which the spy opposite could not understand, in spite of the windows being open.

"Elfinger," cried the painter, "it was a wrong conclusion after all. The affair is not over yet by any means, and I am willing to bet that the chapter we have just reached won't be the most tiresome one in this great sensational romance."

He quickly dragged his astonished friend, who, in his despondency, could not understand this sudden change of mood, out of the door and down into the street. They stepped out of the house-door just as the two sisters over opposite crossed the threshold of their home, both modestly veiled, and carrying little black prayer-books in their hands. But, before they turned down the street to the right, a bright smile passed over the face of the younger one, which Rosenbusch noted through her veil and knew well enough how to interpret.

"Let's wait a second," he said. "We'll give them a little start. That little Philistine is a perfect witch! I wonder where she got it from!"

"They seem to be going to church. Is there any open so late as this?"

"You forget that this good city of Munich is called Monachum monachorum. If it's too late for vespers, then it's just early enough for a vigil. So now--march! Otherwise they will be round the corner, and we shall lose track of them."

It was still light in the street, but Sunday evening sets in pretty early in Munich, especially on summer days, when a hot air prevails that is provocative of an early thirst. The two slight girlish figures made their way through the throng in the inner town as skillfully as lizards, now disappearing from the gaze of their faithful followers, and now coming into view again. They turned into a rather broad but deserted side-street, in which stood an insignificant little chapel, scarcely to be distinguished from the row of dwelling-houses, though it had the reputation of enjoying the special protection of the Virgin. A slight jutting out of the decorated façade was the only thing which indicated its whereabouts, just as a well-to-do ecclesiastical gentleman going about in the midst of his flock shows, by the gentle outward curve of his body, that he has dedicated his life to contemplation, and to thanksgiving for all the good gifts of Heaven.

From the low portal of this out-of-the-way little church, which was guarded by a plain wooden door, a dense crowd of worshipers were just streaming forth, mostly old women and shriveled-up old men, and a few early-converted sinners with faded faces and restless looks. No sooner did they come out into the street than most of them gave themselves up to the refreshing enjoyment of fresh air and cheerful conversation--two luxuries which they had been forced to dispense with inside. Only a few wheezing old men crept along alone, counting their beads with their long bony fingers as they went. The pious company were far too much occupied with themselves to pay any attention to the two sisters, who now entered the deserted sanctum. It was dark and gloomy enough within. A gaunt, fellow in a white surplice, who figured as sacristan, was sleepily engaged in putting out the candles on the principal altar, with a rod on which was fastened an extinguisher. When this was done, he spread a covering over the altar-cloth. And now the fading daylight found its only entrance through two arched windows, on which the figures of the Virgin and Joseph with the Child stood out in brilliant red and blue. Over opposite, where two red columns of porphyry supported the organ-loft, deep darkness had already settled down, but faintly broken by the little stumps of tapers before which a few tireless suppliants continued to read in their little books, though the regular service had long since come to an end. An iron stand, with prongs and nails with the sharp ends up, also bore a number of large and small wax-candles, which had been planted there by the devout as a modest offering. A reddish light from this fragrant candelabrum, which stood before one of the side shrines, fell upon the numerous crucifixes and silver votive offerings near the altars, upon the artificial flowers that decorated the reliquaries, and upon the dilapidated finery of the figure of the Madonna standing at the feet of her crucified Son. It had a singularly weird and depressing effect--the soft crackling of the lights, the subdued mumbling from those toothless lips, the sniffing and wheezing of the kneeling old women, and the peculiar smell of the wax-tapers, incense and snuff, which last article seemed to be in constant use to prevent the devotional spirit from falling into a doze.

But all these impressions, which at first almost took away the breath of the two friends, seemed, from long familiarity, to have lost all power over the sisters. After sprinkling themselves with holy-water out of a basin near one of the red columns, they stepped softly up to the candelabrum, and each fastened her little taper to one of the sharp points, carefully lighting it before doing so, and then returned to the columns and knelt down in two of the back pews, one on one side and one on the other of the middle aisle.

Both appeared to be immediately absorbed in devotional exercises, the forehead pressed upon the open prayer-book, the little hands busied with the beads of their rosaries. But they could hardly have had time to repeat a paternoster before the places at their side were occupied by two voluntary participants in their worship. On the footstool to the right, next the startled Fanny, knelt Elfinger, while Rosenbusch had sunk gently down on the stool on the other side, close to his more worldly sweetheart, who appeared not to take the slightest notice of him. The muttering, wheezing, snuff-taking old hags, who sat about here and there, evidently took no offense at this symmetrical group, which quietly busied itself with its own affairs; and only a round, red-faced little priest, who was kneeling before his own taper and reading out of a book, with his spectacles shoved high up on his forehead, seemed to be suddenly disturbed in his perusal. The spectacles quickly slipped down upon his nose, and his little eyes strove earnestly to pierce the dim light that played about the two red columns.

"Are you really in earnest?" whispered Elfinger, bending down close to the ear of his neighbor. "You really want to turn your back upon this beautiful world and bury yourself in a convent? You, so young, so charming, so well fitted to be happy and to make others happy."

A deep sigh was the only response he received. At the same time she almost imperceptibly hitched her stool about half an inch farther away from the speaker, and buried her delicate little nose still deeper in her prayer-book.

"Fräulein Fanny," he whispered, after a pause, "what horrible thing have you seen or experienced in the world that has made you already weary of it? Or does the air here in this house of prayer seem to you easier to breathe than the lovely air of heaven outside? And do you think you will find a convent better ventilated than this place, and filled with a better company?"

"Ave Maria, ora pro nobis, nunc et in hora--" murmured the girl, making the sign of the cross.

"And do you think I will be put off in this way?" whispered Rosenbusch to his neighbor. "Oh, my adored Fanny, you do not know me! If painting battles does not exactly make a man fat, it makes him strong, bold as a lion, invincible. You shall see what heroic deeds I will yet accomplish--on condition, of course, that you remain faithful and true to me. Or do you doubt me?"

She was silent for a moment. A quick, mischievous side-glance rested on him for an instant: "Go away!" she whispered, scarcely above her breath. "You are only joking. It was very wrong of you to follow us here. I still have six paternosters to repeat, and it is a positive sin--"

"It's a sin of your papa, sweet Nanny mine, to shut you up like a nun and let you go nowhere but to church, as if a young creature needed nothing but to be pious. When should one be merry, then, unless it is when one is young? Come, Fräulein Nanny, if your father had not been so angry yesterday, and I were sitting by your side--not here in the dark corner, but in your own house on the sofa--and were whispering all sorts of silly love-talk in your ear, and your sister, who was left to matronize us, should find her presence absolutely necessary in the kitchen, and--"

The round red face in the window-niche assumed a highly displeased expression, for the two heads near the red columns had approached so near together that their hair touched, and the softest whispering sufficed to make itself understood. Over opposite, where the other couple were, a space two spans broad still intervened between the two kneeling figures. But even there not a syllable appeared to be lost.

"I know I have no right to hope for any great happiness," whispered Elfinger. "I am a poor cripple. If you reply by saying that it is a piece of audacity for me to hope, with my single eye, to find favor in the most beautiful pair of eyes that ever read in a prayer-book, I find it very natural. Yes, you will even do me a favor, Fräulein Fanny, if you will tell me so--if you will confess to me that a man who looks as I do can never win your heart. I would try then to come to my senses--that is to say, to become quite hopeless. Will you do me this favor?"

Deep silence. Nevertheless she hardly seemed inclined to make such a declaration.

"You are cruel!" he continued; "I am neither to live nor die. But of what account am I? If I could believe that you would be happy--O Fanny, I would really suppress my own feelings and call the convent a paradise in which you lived and were content. But I shudder to think that you may regret what you have done when it is too late; that then even a life by the side of such an ugly, insignificant, unknown man as I am, who loves you more than himself and would do everything for you, and who finds his whole world in you--"

He raised his voice so loud as he said this that she looked up in affright, and made a beseeching sign for him to calm himself. In doing this, she involuntarily moved a little nearer to him.

"For Heaven's sake!" she stammered, "what are you doing? Pray--pray leave me. It can never, it must never be!--never, never! A secret, that I dare not tell to any one, not even in the--"

"In the confessional," she was about to add. Suddenly she started back, in alarm at what she had already said, and bowed her face down upon her book again.

"This miserable, faint-hearted, wretched world of shopkeepers!" raved Rosenbusch, on his stool over opposite. "Can there still be bold and manly deeds? O Nanny! if it only were as it once was, I would come spurring up to your father's castle some fine night on my gallant charger. You would let down a rope-ladder from the donjon-window, and would swing yourself up behind me on my horse--and away we would go into the wide, wide world! But nowadays--"

"Hm! nowadays we have railroads," she murmured, slyly.

"Girl!" he cried, in a sepulchral voice, "are you really in earnest? You would--you have the courage? O dearest Nanny of my heart! If I should elope with you, you would love me so dearly that you would follow me to the end of the world--"

She shook her head. There was a sound like a suppressed giggle.

"Nonsense!" she said, "we need only go as far as Pasing. Then papa will steam by us; or we can do as another couple once did. They merely went to the top of the church of St. Peter and sat concealed there with the warden, and their people went searching about all over the country for them, while they sat there and laughed at them all."

"Nanny, love, you really will--oh, what a heavenly idea! To-morrow--if you are truly in earnest--to-morrow evening at this time--"

This time she actually laughed out loud, but she held her handkerchief before her face.

"Oh, stop!" she said, "I was only joking! It is absurd to talk of such a thing! Mother would worry herself to death, and besides--but we must go; Fanny has risen already."

She put her book up near her face, so as to pray as quickly as possible. But he, burning with his adventurous spirit, and encouraged by the darkness of the place, quickly whispered to her:

"And you will send me away in this fashion? Not a single stolen--oh, Nanny dear, you would be doing a good deed--a kiss, in all honor!"

She seemed to have suddenly become deaf, so motionless did she kneel there, with her eyes tightly closed. At last, however, she made a movement as though she would stand up. In doing so, her little book slipped from the slanting rack and fell between her and her chivalrous neighbor. She stooped down hastily to pick it up, and, as he could not help doing likewise, nothing was more natural than that their faces should approach near enough, there in the darkness, for him to impress a hasty kiss on the girl's round cheek. She did not even seem to be conscious of what had occurred.

"Thank you," she whispered as she rose up again, holding the book he had officiously handed her. "Goodnight--but you mustn't follow us!"

She said this in a tone which made it very doubtful whether she meant it seriously. At the same time she rose from the stool and hurried to her sister, who stood waiting for her, with downcast eyes, near the holy-water basin.

The two slim figures reverently bent the knee before the principal altar, sprinkled themselves again with the holy-water, and left the little church in the same manner as they had come, deeply veiled and carrying their prayer-books before them in their hands.

Five minutes after, Rosenbusch might have been seen stepping out of the porch, arm-in-arm with the actor. The battle-painter threw the only sixpence he had about him into a lame beggar's hat.

"Holy Mother!" he cried, "life is splendid, after all, in spite of leather-glove-makers."

"Where shall we go?" asked his gloomy friend, whose spirits had been completely crushed by the "secret" of his sweetheart.

"To the tower of St. Peter's, noble Roscius! I must get acquainted with the warden this very evening, and take a look at the arrangement of the place. One can never know what devilish queer adventures one may encounter, when it would be very useful to have such high friends and patrons."