CHAPTER II.
But there was one of their traveling-companions who remained behind at the villa. It is needless to say that Homo accompanied them on their visit to his sick friend, not traveling, of course, as others of his race do, in the low compartment reserved for dogs--but in a coupé with his master and the ladies; for everybody knew him, and esteemed him highly for his superior traits of character. At the last station he found it too close for him in the narrow compartment. He escaped into the open air, and bounded along by the side of the train for the rest of the way. But as he had gotten out of the habit of taking such youthful runs, and as the way was hot, he made the remaining part of the journey--from Starnberg to Rossel's villa--at a snail's pace, and with hanging head and thirsty tongue. Upon reaching the sick-chamber--after having greeted the wounded Felix with a low, half-angry, half-mournful howl--he stretched himself out at the foot of the bed, and nothing could induce him to forsake his resting-place when Jansen took his leave. He pretended to be asleep, and the friends were too much accustomed to respect him as an independent, intelligent being to disturb his rest.
Then, too, he conducted himself; after he had recovered his strength, with exceeding tact and modesty; demanded no particular care or attention from anybody, for he evidently saw that they had little time to spare for him, and accepted with a good grace whatever fell to his share. He would have been much better provided for down-stairs in the kitchen, but he evidently thought it would be selfish for him to leave his place at the sick-bed for the sake of a better meal, and he passed the greater part of the day at the patient's side; for Felix loved to pass his heavy hand, half in a dream, over his back, and when he was awake to address all sorts of caressing speeches to him.
At other times the sick man let his dim, feverish eyes rove about the studio; examined Kohle's cartoon, which was slowly making progress, nodded gratefully and contentedly to his silent watchers--to whichever one happened to be on post at the moment--and then sunk back again into a refreshing slumber, often with a name on his lips which none of his attendants understood.
The possessor of this name had not appeared in the garden again since that first visit. Her uncle, on the other hand, rode by daily, drew up at the gate whenever there happened to be any one within hail, or else dismounted and, after tying his horse, went into the house, to inquire about the invalid. This did not excite remark, for he was an old acquaintance of the lieutenant, and his niece had made one at the fatal water-party. Zenz, alone, although as a rule little given to pondering, had her own thoughts in regard to the interest which uncle and niece took in an utter stranger, and they only tended to confirm her former surmises.
The reports from the sick-chamber were not the most favorable that could have been wished. The healing of the wound in the shoulder went on, it is true, without interruption--but slowly, on account of the restlessness and feverishness of the patient. On the following Sunday, when Jansen came out again with Rosenbusch and the actor, the fever had, indeed, disappeared; but even now the visits to the sick man were not allowed to last more than ten minutes, for the physician had strictly forbidden all conversation until the wound in the lung should have completely healed. Rosenbusch's offer to relieve Schnetz was declined--greatly to his sorrow, which was only partially relieved by Felix begging him to play his flute for a little while in the garden under the window. Of Elfinger's proposal to read aloud to him, he promised to take advantage later. He showed constantly how happy the devoted care of his friends made him, and held the hand of his "Dædalus" tightly clasped in his own during the whole of the visit, with a tenderness such as he rarely exhibited before others.
Homo was to have returned with the three visitors, but even now he could not be induced to do so.
On the day after this second visit Kohle was standing down-stair in the dining-room at a time which, according to the orders of the day, he should have devoted to sleep to strengthen himself for his night-watch. But he could find no rest until he finally put his hand to the work that burned within his soul. Although the walls had not yet been prepared for frescoing, but still wore their old stone-gray tint, he had, by way of experiment, set to work to draw with charcoal an architectural frame for his cycle of pictures--a row of round-arched arcades with sturdy Romanesque pillars, resting upon bases connected by a plain foundation. There were just the same number of arches as the Venus legend contained separate scenes, and the panels in the spandrils over the pillars were to contain the portraits of the friends who had assembled under this roof. This portrait-gallery was begun with the beautiful head of Jansen's betrothed, who was certainly well fitted to contest the first rank with Dame Venus (as the latter had been depicted by Kohle's fancy, at least), while at the end of the row, the round, good-natured face of Angelica, with its merry, flowing curls, peered forth in all its plainness. Zenz and old Katie were to be immortalized among the people in the convents.
Kohle had traced the outlines of the decoration with a bold hand, and had even allowed himself to be so carried away by his delight as to begin to fill in the first panel with its whole sketch; for he was anxious to convince the ever skeptical and critical Rossel how excellently it would fit into the space allotted to it. But he was suddenly interrupted by an unexpected visit.
In looking back to that first evening in Paradise, the indulgent reader may perhaps find some difficulty in recalling a modest figure that took small part in the bacchanalian excitement of the younger members, and made no noise himself. But, even if the old man with the calm face and snow-white hair should be still unforgotten, the figure that now came tottering into the little hall with unsteady walk, agitated face, and an old straw hat stuck on the side of his head like a drunken man's, would find no recognition.
"For God's sake, Herr Schoepf, what's happened to you?" cried the painter, as he threw aside his crayon. "You look terribly! Do tell me--"
The old man threw himself on the nearest divan, and gasped as though compelled to draw his breath from some deep well.
"Is it you, Herr Kohle?" he finally stammered out with much difficulty; "I sincerely beg your forgiveness for bursting in on you in this way, without being announced--but don't let me disturb you. Once more I beg you to excuse me; but there are times when all one's good manners--no, no, I won't drink anything," he cried, interrupting himself, for he saw that Kohle had reached out his hand for the bottle of sherry that had been left from breakfast and still stood on the table--"not a drop, Herr Kohle--Oh, God! who would have imagined it!"
He sank back on the sofa again after an unsuccessful attempt to rise, and muttered unintelligibly to himself, as old people so often do.
The painter was greatly shocked. He had always honored this old gentleman as a very model of cheerful equanimity and clear-headedness; and in many of his professional or personal troubles he had often felt disposed to go and ask his advice, which he always gave with great wisdom and gentleness. And now Kohle saw him sitting there helpless and unmanned, like a night-bird that has lost its way in the daylight, and closes its eyes and tries to shrink into itself.
But, at last, the old man appeared to rouse himself by a powerful effort; he opened his eyes wide and attempted to smooth his withered, faded face, fringed with a gray stubble, into the old kindly lines, only succeeding, however, in producing a kind of grin, something between laughing and weeping.
"My dear Herr Kohle," he said, "I must seem to you like a madman; but, if you knew all, you would easily understand why my old brain has been thrown a little off its balance. And you shall know all about it some day; but now--don't be offended with me--you are so much younger, it would be very hard for me to tell you everything. Oblige me by calling the lieutenant--he has had more experience--or no, you are at your work, tell me where I can find Herr von Schnetz. I don't wish to disturb you--"
At this moment he of whom they had been speaking came into the room, and was, in his turn, not a little amazed when he saw the state his old friend was in. Kohle left the two alone. In spite of his fever for work, he could not find it in his heart to lead the exhausted old man into another apartment.
The latter did not appear to notice his absence. He had not yet let go of the hand Schnetz had offered him, as if, in his agitation, he found it necessary to cling to some support. Notwithstanding his benevolent feelings toward those younger than himself, he was, as a general thing, a man of rather reserved manners, and not particularly lavish of signs of confidence and familiarity.
"My good friend," he said, "be lenient toward me, and listen patiently without interrupting me. For in order to help me you must know my whole sad history, and I can only tell it when I can almost forget that there is any one listening. Sit down here by my side. And now, listen while I tell you something that has not passed my lips for twenty years.
"I was once a very different man from what I now appear to you; not simply that I was younger and better contented, and had not known what true misfortune was; but I bore another name, which may possibly have reached your ears. For although I cannot say that I exactly raised it to any particular fame, still, as a born Municher, you have probably heard it mentioned among those who assisted at the art-works of the early part of old Louis's reign, though; to be sure, only as a young apprentice. Even in those days I was not possessed by the demon of ambition, and on the pictures that I painted, as well as on the frescoes that I helped to execute, you will not find even my monogram. From the very first, I had too great a respect for true genius to form an exalted idea of my own humble qualifications for an artist. By the side of my master, Cornelius, I felt like the sparrow that soared up to the sun under the eagle's wing, and was permitted to enjoy himself royally up there so long as he did not forget that he was, after all, only an insignificant sparrow. However, I was always bent upon letting well enough alone, and consoled myself with the thought that, even if I did possess but a mediocre talent for creative art, I could vie with the greatest masters in the art of living.
"I had a pretty, gentle, sensible wife, two children, who were growing up finely, as much money as I wanted, and more honor than I deserved. For in those days all of us here in Munich were like members of one family, or like soldiers in a corps élite--whatever fame was won by the leaders redounded to the benefit of us privates.
"It was a life which seemed to leave nothing wanting to its happiness, and I began to take credit to myself for the many blessings Heaven had poured into my lap. I deluded myself with the idea that although I was not phenomenal as a man or as an artist, I was, on the other hand, something no less rare--a perfectly normal citizen of the world, a truly model specimen of honesty and excellence, especially selected by fate to be a source of joy and imitation for less favored mortals. My good wife, too, who did not at first chime in with my lofty tone, was gradually converted to this state of self-exaltation, until she came to believe that not a single flaw could be found in her husband, her children, her friends, her home life, or even in her pets.
"I will not recount to you the ridiculous details of our pride and self-complacency. Enough! This audacious structure of conceit and Phariseeism received a blow one day that sent it tumbling in hopeless ruin about our heads. One evening, quite late, while I was sitting on my scaffolding in the palace, painting, my wife tottered up the steps looking like a picture of despair. She had not even stopped to reflect whether there were others about us who might overhear our conversation; her horror at the terrible discovery had so unbalanced her clear mind that she could not wait until I came home, but ran into a public building after me to tell me that our daughter--the only child we had, besides a fine, sturdy boy--a girl on whom I had lavished all my fatherly pride--that she, our jewel, so loved and treasured-- But I must retrace my steps a little, so that you may understand all this.
"About this time my wife having come into possession of a very considerable fortune, we had begun, contrary to the Munich custom, to keep open house. As model beings, for such we fancied ourselves to be, we even regarded it as a sort of duty not to hide our light under a bushel. And then, besides, it was a pleasant enough thing to do, and even now I can't condemn our having rebelled against the narrow-hearted, inhospitable custom of the place, and admitted all manner of good friends to enjoy our domestic happiness with us. But even here our pride in our daughter played an important rôle. The girl was not beautiful, nor even what one would generally call pretty; she had inherited my flat features, little eyes, and large mouth. But something sparkled in those eyes that attracted everybody; and when the large red mouth, with its white teeth, expanded in a laugh that seemed to come straight from the heart, it was impossible to help feeling merry too. She had a remarkable talent for communicating her high spirits to her circle of young people, and this mirthfulness often reached the wildest extravagance; though, with her, it never went beyond proper limits, so that I, in my blind adoration, was wont to say to my wife, when she occasionally shook her head over it: 'Let the child alone, her nature will protect her better than all our art.'
"I knew that others thought differently; indeed, I was often obliged to listen to warnings, more or less distinct, from this or that friend, to draw the reins tighter; a young untamed thing like her would be sure to bolt some day or other. For hints like these I had always the same superior smile, and only told my wife of them that I might laugh at the Philistinism of my colleagues.
"The daughter of such a thoroughly well-balanced person, surely one could confidently leave her to herself, in cases where there would have been danger for weaker natures.
"And now came the discovery of our shame! Now came the fearful fall from that height to which we had soared in our dreams!
"Any other man would have turned his eyes inward, would, before all else, have taken himself to task and looked upon the sad and terrible occurrence as a just chastisement of his foolish blindness. But this model man was superior to all such weaknesses. Oh, my good friend, it is not true what philosophy teaches, that the real nature of a man cannot be changed; that it is only his outward conduct that gradually gains a certain power of habit over the true character of the individual. I know this by bitter experience; of that fool who drove his poor child from his home in her shame and misery and forbade her ever to come in his sight again; of that childish and cruel father there is not a vestige left in me--so little that I can search my nature for it as much as I will. With all my other faults and human weaknesses, it is absolutely incomprehensible to me how I could ever have torn my poor flesh and blood from me, and cast it forth into the outside world.
"The child bore herself far better and more nobly than her parents. She declared decidedly that having, as she found to her sorrow, forfeited forever the love of father and mother by her weakness, she would no longer accept anything from their bounty. We thought this was merely a fine phrase. But we soon learned how seriously she had meant what she said. The poor girl suddenly disappeared from our house and the city--and probably from the country--for all our efforts to find her were without result.
"She had persistently refused to give the name of her betrayer, and we were either compelled or tempted to suspect every friend who had been intimate at our house; so that, although appearances were kept up for a while longer, and a plausible pretext was found for the disappearance of our daughter, our domestic bliss was ended at a blow, and soon vanished utterly. She who had given, life and charm to the most trifling domestic pleasures was wanting.
"But we had not yet reached the end of our sorrows; our son, too, was to be taken from us. He studied medicine---a quiet, steady, and, to all appearances, a somewhat phlegmatic man; but he had an exceptionally keen sense of honor. When his sister did not return, this and that began to be gossiped about her. The slightest allusion, often a perfectly innocent speech, would throw him into a state of furious anger. It was some remark of this sort that had as its sequel a duel between him and his best friend. They bore the last joy of our life, bathed in bloody back into our wretched home.
"And now the floodgates were opened. It was all over with our model household. It came out why our daughter had been driven to misery and our son to death. Our friends could not help assuming a certain air of pity toward us, that broke my wife's heart and drove me from the city. I went to North Germany, and there I buried my wife a year later. Soon after I gave up painting. I looked upon engraving, with all its drudgery, as an instrument of chastisement--as a mode of daily forcing down my pride. My dishonored name had become hateful to me, and I had laid it aside when I left Bavaria, But I did not neglect to have an appeal to my outcast child inserted in all the newspapers, begging her to return to her solitary father, to forgive him, and to help him bear his remaining years of life.
"No answer ever came, although I continued to have the notice inserted for many years.
"At last I became thoroughly convinced that she was no longer in this world; and no sooner did this belief, which it had taken ten years to beat into my head, become a settled conviction, than a singular transformation took place in me. I grew calm again, after all my wretched experiences, and at peace with myself; there were times when I had difficulty in recognizing in my present self the man whose guilt and foolishness had worked so much misery. I succeeded so well in outliving my old nature, in working a complete regeneration of my inner man, that I actually felt something like curiosity to see the city in which my predecessor had suffered so much sorrow and shame.
"And so, one day, I came back to Munich, though I scarcely knew it again, for everything at whose birth I had assisted was now completed, and besides a new world had sprung up. Nor did the old city recognize me either. I had grown a white-headed, quiet, solitary man, bore another name, and lived like a hermit--never going out during the day, unless, perhaps, to visit the studio of one of the younger artists who had settled here since my day. It has sometimes happened that I have found myself in a beer-garden seated next to some boon companion of the days of my prosperity, who had no idea who the silent old man was who was eating and drinking at the same table with him.
"And this is the way I have gone on for six or seven years, counting myself always among the departed spirits, and sometimes startled at the sight of my own face if I chanced to catch a glimpse of it in the mirror. It is incredible, my dear friend, how tough the thread of life is sometimes. For really had it not been for my interest in art, and in some good young friends who have shown me confidence and respect, the whole world would have been a blank to me. Besides, when photography came into such general use, it seemed to me that my graver was a very superfluous sort of thing, of little further use except to multiply copies of business cards, labels on wine-bottles, and other things of that sort.
"So I continued to grow more idle, more contemplative, and, if you like, wiser; except that I myself felt little respect, and sometimes even disgust and loathing, for any wisdom that could haunt such a useless wreck of a man."
The old man spoke these last words in such a mournful voice, and hung his head so low upon his breast, that Schnetz could not help feeling the warmest pity for him. At the same time he asked himself with amazement how it could have been possible for them all to have associated with this terribly-tried man for so many long years without having taken the trouble to find out anything about his history.
He now bluntly said as much, inveighing in his bitter way against the wretched state of society in which they lived.
"A fine Paradise!" he growled out, half to himself. "We have a great idea of how necessary we are to one another, and yet the few fellow-men who are worth troubling ourselves about stand in no nearer relation to us than the wild animals did to our first parents. Though, to be sure, in your case we ought not to bear the chief blame. Why did you yourself never feel a desire to break the ice between us? It would have been a healthier thing for you, if you had long ago formed an intimacy with one of us."
The old man raised his head again, but still kept his eyes shut tight, and groped blindly for Schnetz's hand, which he pressed warmly.
"Perhaps it is not yet too late," he stammered, in a trembling voice. "I hope it may still be in your power to assist me in finding a place in life again.
"One morning about a fortnight ago a little sealed packet was brought to me by a street messenger. It bore no address, but when I saw the seal I felt a terrible shock. I recognized it as one I had once given to my daughter--a cornelian, in which was cut an Egyptian scarabæus. I asked the man who had given it to him. A girl, he said, who had given him an exact description of my lodging and appearance; and she had also known my name--my present one--which I have no reason to suppose my lost daughter had ever even heard of. I was so beside myself with alarm, joy, and a thousand indescribable sensations that I did not break the seal at first; only one thing seemed clear to me in my confusion--before all else I must find the person who had sent the messenger. Did he know where she was to be found? I asked. But she had engaged him in the street, had paid in advance, and had then immediately disappeared round the next corner. And then he described her! It was my lost one, feature for feature, and yet it could not be she herself, for this one must have been about as old as my daughter was when I cast her off. So it must be the child of my lost darling! And to think that she, too, should flee from me like her poor mother!
"At last I tore the string off the packet, and there fell out a letter and two small pictures--daguerreotypes, such as they used in those days to take on silvered plates--one of them a picture of her mother, the only thing she had taken away with her from her home, the other a young man whose face I had great difficulty in recalling.
"The letter had been written several years before. Only in case of her death was it to come into my hands, she wrote in the very first lines. She had always been a proud child, and guilt and want and her sad life had not changed her. Yet there was a loving, tender tone in her words, a spirit of parting that softens even the hardest and most bitter natures; and as I read her simple confession, in which she accused herself of having robbed me of my happiness and ruined my life--of having offended me beyond forgiveness--it seemed as if my heart would burst. She could never prevail upon herself to return to me; at first from fear that I would renounce her a second time, and later, because she did not want to become a fresh burden to me. She knew that I had taken another name, and was living in the strictest seclusion. If she should suddenly appear with her child, it might not be convenient for me. But, when she should be no more--and this must be soon, for her lungs grew weaker every day--she begged me not to let the child suffer for the wrong her mother had done me. It was a good child, unspoiled as yet, but with little sense and very giddy. She needed a father's hand to guide her through her years of danger. She had appealed in vain to the child's father in the first years after his desertion of her. But, when no answer came, she had taken an oath that he should be dead to her forever. She had found no difficulty in keeping it, for she hated him now as much as she had once loved him.
"For the child's sake she would now speak his name for the first time in eighteen years, so that if he should still be alive her father might call him to account and force him to make provision for his orphaned daughter.
"And then followed a short word of farewell and the name of my child, and beside it in brackets that of her betrayer, which was also on the back of the daguerreotype, where, with his own hand, he had written some words of presentation to my daughter.
"Give me a glass of water, my dear friend. My tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth, as if I had swallowed the dust of a whole graveyard! So--thank you--and now I shall soon have done.
"For I shall take good care not to tell you how I have spent my time since the receipt of this legacy. I sometimes realized myself how much like a madman I must have looked as I rushed about the streets, at all hours of the day and night, peering under the hats of all the young girls, and forcing my way into the houses wherever I caught the faintest glimpse of red hair at the window."
"Holy Moses!" interrupted Schnetz, springing up and pacing the hall with long strides, all the while furiously twisting at his imperial. "Why didn't you tell us this before? Why, it must be our Zenz!"
The old man bowed his head with a sigh.
"I first learned it, or rather guessed it, yesterday, when I happened to meet Herr Rosenbusch, and he told me of all that had happened here. It came upon me like a flash; this red-haired servant and my granddaughter, who felt so little desire to know the grandfather who had cast off her mother, are one and the same person. I could hardly wait for the morning before coming here and clasping to my heart the one thing that still belongs to me in this world. But as I entered the park a short time ago, my knees scarcely able to carry me from excitement, and saw from a distance, through the branches, the red hair and the round face with the red lips and the short nose--she stood in the very centre of the lawn raking together the new-mown hay--I stepped up to her and cried, 'Don't you know me, Zenz?'
"And then, instead of throwing herself into my outstretched arms, she gave a cry, as if a wild beast were upon her, and started off down the garden as fast as she could run, and I after her, pursuing her around the lawn and shouting out the most heart-rending words and entreaties, until she saw her chance, pushed open the gate and escaped from me into the road.
"In spite of my sixty years I am no crippled invalid, my dear friend, and in the midst of all my wretchedness and grief my anger at this futile and ridiculous chase, after a foolish thing who refused to understand how well I meant by her, got the better of me, and I put forth all my strength to overtake her. But the foolish thing sped away from me, as blind and deaf as if death itself were at her heels. I believe she would have thrown herself under the wheels of the locomotive that was approaching rather than have me catch her.
"Then, all of a sudden, I felt shocked at this unconquerable fear and loathing in so young a heart, and stood still and called to her to have no fear--that I gave it up. And then, when I saw her flee into the thick wood to the right, I faced about and dragged myself back to the villa. For the first time I realized how my limbs shook, and what a miserable figure I should cut in your eyes. But you are old enough, Herr von Schnetz, to no longer feel amazed at any fate, however sad and strange, that may befall a man. I felt I could tell you all this; and now I have come to the end of my foolishness and of my wisdom. For, after what I have just experienced, I can scarcely hope ever again to approach the legacy left me by my poor daughter. I have become a scarecrow; the warm nest I would offer to the child seems more terrible to her than the haystack or fence under which she can crouch for a few nights, before starting off upon her wanderings again."