CHAPTER II.
Two other pillars of the Paradise Club had grown shaky, and were in no condition to arrest its fall.
Rosenbusch and Elfinger had both appeared at the first meeting which took place after the unfortunate masquerade, but in a conspicuously depressed mood, and neither so witty nor so grateful for the wit of others as was usually the case with them.
On the way home they confessed to one another that the thing had outlived its day; even the wine to-night was much sourer than in the good old times.
Now, the truth is, it was the very same wine, but its flavor could not overcome the bitter taste on the tongue of the drinkers; and in each this bitter taste arose from exactly opposite causes.
Elfinger's deep and unswerving fondness had really succeeded in stealing away his little devotee's heart from her heavenly bridegroom. At one of those afternoon services in the little church already mentioned, she had with many tears allowed the confession to escape her that his love was returned; adding, however, a saving clause, that once more put all his hopes to naught, that she should not on this account consider herself any the less bound by her former vow, particularly as her father confessor had clearly proved to her that she would be neither happy on earth nor blessed in heaven unless she renounced her sinful love for a Lutheran, and especially for one who had once been an actor.
To Elfinger's most eloquent attempts at dissuasion, the poor child had only replied by tears and shakes of the head, and had answered the long letters which her lover sent to her almost daily, by nicely-written little notes, not altogether free from orthographical blunders, in which she besought him in the most touching terms not to make her heart still heavier, but rather to move to some other lodgings and never to meet her again.
This correspondence had, of course, merely poured oil upon the fire, on this as well as on the other side of the street. Nevertheless it really did seem, after all, as though their love was not destined to overcome the evil powers; and in his grief at this Elfinger began more and more to lose his taste for the joys of Paradise, generally spending his evenings at home, brooding over plans for the overthrow of the priesthood--which resulted in his toiling through all the pamphlets against the Vatican Council, and in his composing for some of the smaller newspapers violent articles favoring the abolition of convents.
But, while his fate was trembling in the balance, his next-door neighbor was still worse off; and, sad to relate, solely because of the incredible worldly-mindedness of his sweetheart. Through his trusty ally, the servant-girl, he learned that the only son of a rich brewer, from one of the smaller cities of the region, was paying his attentions to her; and the pretty little witch appeared to have refrained from doing any of those things by which even the most obedient daughter may show her aversion to a hated suitor. Rosenbusch, whose soul still clung fondly to his romantic elopement project, refused, at first, to believe in such villainous treachery. But when his letters remained unanswered, the last one indeed being returned unopened by the post, he fell into a terrible passion, spent whole nights in composing the most insulting poems against brewers' sons and Philistines' daughters, and gave himself up more and more to the most extravagant melancholy, misanthropy, and dislike for work. He began to neglect his person too in the most terrible way, wore, as his daily clothing, that ample dress-coat of Edward Rossel's, which the latter had formally made over to him after the wedding evening; and over this a coarse red-and-blue plaid shawl, and a cap which he had cut out himself from his old slouch hat, whose rim had been nibbled and considerably diminished by his white mice, one night when he had left the door of the cage open.
It is true, he still went regularly to the studio and shut himself in under the pretense of laboring at some great, mysterious work; yet he never touched a brush all day long, but cowered over the stove, in which he managed to keep up a wretched little fire made out of fragments of old fences that he had picked up here and there. There he sat wrapped in his shawl, an unlighted cigar in his mouth, spying around among his antiquities, to see which piece he should next tear from his soul and deliver to the shop-keepers.
For a very considerable payment that he had to make had exhausted his last penny of ready money. In his emotion over the martyrdom of the faithful dog, Rosenbusch had determined to give Jansen a pleasant surprise by ordering a grave-stone for the little mound in the garden, bearing the following profound inscription:
Hic jacet Homo,
Nihil humani a se alienum putans.
It was merely a plain block of granite ornamented by a dog's head cut in profile, and the letters were not even gilded. Yet the stone-cutter's bill proved to be twice as large as the first estimate of the cost; so that he had been obliged to sell the sword and scabbard of a Walloon cuirassier, a rusty snaffle-bit of the time of the Swedish war, and his last halberds; and besides this, to paint an oil-portrait of the stone-cutter's wife, in order to complete this act of respect without incurring any debts.
He never said a word about his troubles to any of his friends, not even to Elfinger, and at the dedication of the monument, over which he presided, he conducted himself with so much ease and dignity that they all thought he had really found some unknown patron who advanced him money on his great new picture. The fact that he appeared in a dress-coat, in spite of the bitter winter cold, was attributed to the formality with which he insisted upon treating the whole affair.
He himself tried hard at first to keep up his spirits. He composed an account of the ceremony in his most feeling verses, and accompanied them with a sketch of the grave-stone and other illustrations relating to the dedication, and sent the document to Florence, where Jansen and Julie were then sojourning.
The postage for this parcel cost him his last kreutzer. That day it was nine o'clock in the evening before he ate his dinner (on credit); and even then he went to bed hungry.
But, though he deceived all others by the smiling mien with which he wrapped himself in his shawl and his love-sickness, there were two eyes near him that he could not blind in this way.
Those were the eyes of his neighbor Angelica, and they, too, no longer saw the world in such a rosy light as that in which it had appeared at Christmas.
The necessity that was inborn in her nature, to passionately worship something or other, and to give vent to her adoration in extravagant terms, no longer found anything to feed on since the departure of the happy pair. Indeed, she would have had a very poor opinion of herself if, after having found in Jansen the ideal of a true artist, and in Julie the quintessence of beauty, she had now been contented to take up with anything of a lower grade. At first she tried hard to grow sentimental over little Frances, and to transfer to the child the enthusiasm she felt for its parents. But as this was attended with some difficulty because of their living so far apart, as well as on account of a certain reserve peculiar to the little creature, she gradually withdrew from this also, and contented herself with visiting the child every Sunday and making enthusiastic speeches about its talents to its foster-mother. The sensible little woman always received them rather coolly, partly because she disliked everything like gushing compliments, and partly because she felt hurt that her own children were completely overlooked. For this reason, and for this reason only, she was not sorry when, toward spring, a letter came from Julie with the request to bring the child to its parents in Florence as soon as the state of the weather would permit. Unfortunately, she could not come for the child herself as she had hoped, her doctor having forbidden her "for important reasons" to take the journey. Still, she had too great a yearning to see Frances to be able to wait any longer, and she entreated the faithful foster-mother to make still another sacrifice for her sake, and to take advantage of the occasion to get a peep at their Italian home.
Some fine presents were added for the other children and a letter for Angelica, in which her friend heartily besought her to accompany the child, and, if possible, to spend the whole summer with them. Jansen seconded this invitation in a very kind postscript; and the money enclosed for the traveling expenses was reckoned for three persons.
It is needless to describe the feelings of this good soul as she read this letter, and saw the prospect opened to her of seeing again with her own eyes, and clasping again in her arms, all that she loved and admired. With beating heart and glowing cheeks she sat for a good hour motionless before her easel, and had never in all her life felt so happily unhappy or so torn by conflicting wishes. When at last she had clearly made up her mind to decline the proffered happiness, she appeared, in her own eyes, such a subject for commiseration, notwithstanding all her consciousness of heroic virtue, that she began to weep bitterly, and did not heed how her tears fell upon a wreath of flowers in water color that she had just painted, moistening them with an all too natural dew.