CHAPTER IV.
This was the first day for many weeks on which he had felt warm, and as if he had enough to eat. Consequently he only made a few weak protests when Angelica insisted upon furnishing him his meals so long as their common labor lasted, and even made as though he did not notice that she acted like a very Penelope, and again and again put off the completion of the work under one pretext or another. However, the picture was finished at last, and Rosenbusch, who had in the mean while grown quite plump, would have been obliged to fall back again on his fasting and brooding, had not his friend taken care to provide for him without his knowledge.
She succeeded in bringing it about that all the friends of the inconsolable widow became possessed by a desire to have the effigy of their dead or living husbands, done in the same way. Thus it happened that our battle-painter was all at once completely overwhelmed with orders for equestrian portraits, whereat he flew into a great passion, for the modern uniforms were very much at variance with his Wouverman tendencies. However, there were always the horses to fall back on, and upon these he could labor with a good conscience, though he was always complaining that the modern prejudices in regard to horse-breeding had exterminated the majestic Flemish and Burgundian breeds. He painted away at them with great zeal, "for his meals," as he expressed it, and it was only when the approach of twilight forced him to leave off that he allowed himself the pleasure of going round to his neighbors, and inveighing against this servile labor to which his great work was being sacrificed.
Angelica never replied to his complaints by a single word. She had said once for all that she thought there was nothing unworthy in his painting military portraits by the dozen, provided he could get, respectable prices for them; and in support of this she referred him to some famous examples. But, in order that she might get him to work again upon some larger task, she persuaded the young widow to give him an order for the bombardment of Kissingen, at which her husband had fallen.
But in this case she had reckoned without her host. He absolutely refused to paint so prosaic an affair as the bombardment of a modern city, by modern troops who lay under cover and fired their cannon unseen. Besides, he had not been present at the affair. Had he taken part in person at the battle of Lützen? asked Angelica, maliciously. No; but that was not a parallel case at all. Everybody would like to have been present at such a glorious hand-to-hand fight as that, and would, therefore, feel grateful to the artist who did his best to fix on canvas the rearing chargers, the trumpeters blowing their bugles, and the foot soldiers charging and dealing blows to right and left with all their might. Modern battles, on the other hand, showed to quite as much advantage on the maps of the general staff, where one could follow on the table the scientifically-planned moves and countermoves by geometrical lines and different-colored little flags.
He could not be dissuaded from this, for on some subjects even Angelica's influence over him had its limits. But the more she scolded him for his obstinacy, and the more unsparing she was of her forcible expressions, the better pleased she was at heart that he showed himself so independent, so manly, and so unreasonable; and she often had hard work to keep from falling out of her rôle and throwing her arms around his neck.
She was less satisfied with the persistency with which he clung to his quiet melancholy, even after the beautiful weather had come, and there was no longer any lack of money, and his loose dress-coat had long since been exchanged for a natty summer jacket. She attributed this dejection of one who was generally so light-hearted to his affair with the beautiful Nanny, of which, contrary to his habit, he never spoke to her, but which, as she knew, had not turned out very satisfactorily. And so for many a day she sat dejectedly before her easel, listening to catch the slightest sound from her friend's silent studio, where, even now, the flute gave forth no music; while from the deserted rooms below no sound of mallet and chisel nor any other sound of life reached her ear.
In the mean while, as we have said, summer had come. Rossel had invited old Schoepf and his granddaughter to his villa on the lake. But as the old man did not think it would be just the thing for him to go and live with the girl under a bachelor's roof, and as she herself would not listen to the proposal for a moment, our "Fat Rossel" also remained in town, an arrangement, by-the-way, that was far more agreeable to him. Kohle alone took up his quarters with old Katie, in order to paint his allegory of Venus on the wall. The foster-mother had returned from Florence with a whole trunkful of articles of art and ornament for Angelica, and a thousand greetings from the happy pair. She was never tired of telling about the beautiful life the two were leading: how Herr Jansen had begun some wonderful new works; how the Frenchmen and Englishmen had gone wild over them; and how happy little Frances was with her beautiful mamma. She had also seen the baron and Irene, but nothing had as yet been heard of the young baron.
These accounts had greatly excited the good soul of our friend. Long after the cheerful little woman had gone, Angelica sat at the table on which she had spread out Julie's presents, the photographs taken from the pictures of the Tribuna, the mosaic brooch and the beautiful silks, and sadly reflected whether she would not have done better if she had crossed the Alps when she was asked, instead of staying here at home and torturing her soul with the pangs of a hopeless love.
Just then she heard Rosenbusch rush whistling upstairs with unusual haste. Immediately after he entered her studio. His face had the same thoughtless, dare-devil expression that it used to have in his most flourishing days, when he still wore his violet-velvet coat.
"What news do you bring, Rosenbusch?" asked the painter, who was as little pleased with his jollity as she had been before with his dejection. "You look as if you had just made a great find, a genuine Wouverman at some salt-dealer's, or the red cloth of which Countess Terzky dreamed in Eger. Well?"
"My honored friend," he remonstrated, "you wrong me, as usual. What I bring is not antiquities, but two very important items of news, a serious and a comic one. Which do you wish to hear first?"
"First the serious one. You alarm me, Rosenbusch. Why, you really look quite solemn."
"It is a devilish serious matter; there is war, real, genuine war, though the whole thing sounds so absurd that, in spite of the declaration by France that you can read in all the papers, one feels almost tempted to bet that it is a newspaper hoax. What do you say now, Angelica? Is that piece of news serious enough for you?"
"Gracious heavens!" cried Angelica, "what an absurdity!"
"That is a very wise remark of yours, my respected friend; but it can't be helped; on account of just such absurdities the most sensible men have lost their lives and whole nations their blood and treasure. To be sure, there must be wars, else how would the battle-painters live? However, you know my sentiments on that subject. Considering the present system of artillery battles and rapid firing, you may be sure it isn't for the sake of art that I am going."
"You going to the war? You don't know what you are talking about, Rosenbusch! You a warrior and hero? That is undoubtedly your second item of news, the comic one, I mean."
"You are again mistaken, and of course to my disadvantage, my dear patroness. The second item has nothing whatever to do with the first; on the contrary, if we must regard the first as a public calamity, we can call the second a joyful private occurrence: Fräulein Nanny and Herr Franz Xavier Kiederhuber are announced as engaged; the wedding is to take place in three weeks."
His face had not lost its indifferent expression while he spoke these words, but yet there was something about his voice as if everything were not yet quite right.
"My dear friend," she said, at last. "I have been so little au courant of your affairs of the heart for the last few months, that I really do not know whether I ought to congratulate you or to assure you of my silent sympathy, I must tell you frankly, though, that of all your lovesick moods I never could understand this passion of yours for that insignificant, coquettish, and not particularly attractive little doll--" (Even now, when the faithless one had ceased to be dangerous, Angelica's jealousy vented itself in this harsh criticism.) "And now for your grief at having found out such a little hypocrite to drive you into the jaws of a park of artillery, belching forth death and destruction--"
"It isn't that at all," he interrupted, with a heavy sigh. "It isn't any sardonic mood that makes me think this vengeance of fate absurd. For all I care she may make her brewer's son happy, and prefer his beer and brewery horses to my oil and chargers. That unfortunate love of mine has long ceased to be anything but a spectre, a mere phantom, as is shown most clearly by the verses I have composed about it. Elfinger told me to my face long ago: 'You don't love her at all; the stronger the love, the weaker the love poems, and yours are unusually good this time!' Nevertheless, Angelica, you are not altogether wrong in supposing that I am going off to the war on account of an unhappy passion. It is the same hopeless affection that has robbed me of my usual good spirits for some time past. But what's the odds? The powder that is to remedy this folly has been invented at last!"
"Another unhappy love affair? Oh, you wretch! I could almost take sides with the beautiful Nanny; she must have found out what a butterfly with blue-velvet wings was fluttering around her!"
"Well, whether what she did was right or wrong, she certainly conferred a great favor upon us both by acting as she did. But, just because I tried to retain my constancy as long as I possibly could, I grew melancholy when I found how much difficulty I had in feeling the slightest pain at the faithlessness of this young daughter of the Philistines--of this Delilah for whom I once out off my beard and flowing locks. And even though I have been perhaps unduly led, by my sense of justice, to do homage to different styles of beauty at the same time or in rapid succession--I am punished now more cruelly than I have deserved. However, there is no help for it. It is to be hoped it won't last long. It is true that as volunteer nurses, for as such we are going to report ourselves (for Elfinger can't stand it any longer either), we shan't at once get into the heaviest fire; and of course no one can expect for a moment that we would enter as privates at this late day, and go through a course of drill, and then follow after the rest when the sport is all over. But during the battle, when all is confusion, when human beings are bowled down like lead soldiers, perhaps there will be a stray bullet for one of us--"
"Don't talk in that godless way, Rosenbusch! It is very noble and brave of you to want to go with the rest; it certainly does you honor. But, because it is such a holy cause, do leave your jests behind you; forget 'all lighter trifling, dalliance sweet,' and--and when you are in the field--and really--"
She suddenly broke off. The thought that he was going to leave her, that he would be surrounded by dangers and might stand in need of her help, came over her with such force that she had all she could do to restrain her tears.
He was gazing at the ground with a sad face, and had not noticed her emotion.
"You are in one of your jesting moods again," he said, staring at a large photograph of the Cellini "Perseus." "And I willingly give you permission to ridicule all my former 'amours and courtesies,' and to look upon them as Ariostian sports, springing from pure love of adventure. But, you shall not lay hand on this, my last and lasting passion. It is of a very different calibre; and, though I dare not mention its name to you, I am sure you would yourself admit that this flame has nothing in common with the Nannies, Annies, and Barbaras that I once loved. But I won't be such a fool as to take you into my confidence. Then, indeed, you would let out upon me the vials of your raillery, and I am anxious that we should part good friends."
"You speak in riddles, Rosenbusch. If you really should lose your reason in a sensible way--I mean over a subject that is worth the trouble--why should I make fun of you?"
"Because--but no, it is useless to say any more about it. Do tell me, for Heaven's sake! would you have believed this Monsieur Ollivier to have been capable of such a vile performance, such a piece of silly defiance--like a corps-student 'renowning it?' A man that only a little while ago--"
"No dodging, Herr von Rosebud. You have told me too much for you to try and put a seal on your lips now. As a woman, and as your true, sincere friend, it is not only my right but my duty to be curious. Out with it--who is this latest flame?--and if I can aid you by word or deed--"
Her voice grew unsteady again. She did not dare to look at him. He, too, let his eyes wander around the studio in another direction.
"If you positively insist upon knowing," he stammered, at last--"and, after all, there's nothing to be lost or gained by my telling you--the person of whom I speak is the only female being to whose peace of mind I can't imagine myself in any way dangerous--I couldn't imagine it even in a dream. It is impossible for her to feel toward me either love or hate. She has given me unmistakable proof of this--partly by constantly scolding, railing, and mocking at me, partly by the kindest and most brotherly friendship--such as one only shows to a person when one is absolutely certain that one can never fall in love with him. I ought to have been warned by this, and have taken better care of my heart. But, just because such a relation was quite new to me, I fell into it blindfold, and now I am plunged up to my ears in the most hopeless, most undying, and most imprudent passion. There you have my confession. I think you will dispense with my mentioning to you the name of the person in question. But I won't detain you longer. I see you have your palette ready to go to work. Adieu!"
He turned toward the door. But he had not crossed the threshold when his name reached his ear--and his heart, too, because of the unusually tender tone in which it was pronounced. He stood as if rooted to the spot, and waited to hear what more the voice would say. But he had to wait a good while, so he spent the intervening time in observing the wall, which separated this room from his own, and which was large enough to easily admit of a door being cut through.
"Dear Rosenbusch," the voice began again, at last, eyen a little more tenderly than before. "What you have said is so new, so entirely unexpected to me--and then, again, so confusing--come, let us talk about it like a couple of sensible people and good comrades--"
He again made a movement as though he were going. The beginning did not strike him as being particularly consoling. "Sensible discussion and good-fellowship!"--if she had nothing better than that to offer him--
"No," she continued; "hear me out, first. You are always so hasty, Rosenbusch! If you will only promise me not to be offended at anything I say--for I would like to be perfectly frank. Will you promise me?"
He nodded rapidly three times in succession, and gave her an almost timid look; and then hastily looked down again. In the midst of her own confusion and embarrassment she could not help smiling at the shy, penitent air of one who was usually such a self-confident lady-killer.
"I can't deny," she said, "that in the first part of our acquaintance I really did not think much of you; you were--pardon me for saying it--rather disagreeable than dangerous to me. The very name of Rosenbusch sounds so perfumed and sentimental--"
"Well!" he ventured to interpose, "Minna Engelken is also a devilish sweet name!"
"But, still, it doesn't sound so Jewish. I took you for a Jew in disguise."
"We have been baptized these hundred years, and my grandmother came from a Christian family, and was a Fräulein Fliedermüller."
"Then, besides, I found you too--how shall I say?--too 'pretty' for a man, and the others all said you were amiable. Pretty and amiable men have always been intolerable to me. They are generally conscious of it, and contemplate themselves in the glass at moments when they are not watched, and comb their beard and even their eyebrows. And all the while they care for no one but themselves; and, if they pretend to grow sentimental over a woman, it is done in such a way that the unfortunate person thus favored would rather receive a box on the ear than such homage, if her heart is in the right place. Don't get angry, Rosenbusch; it isn't your fault that you have such a pretty little nose and are so amiable--for that you really are. But you will understand; an old girl who is no longer pretty, and who never was considered amiable--"
"Oh, Angelica!--"
"No, you mustn't interrupt me. It would be very stupid of me if I were not wise enough to know how I look, and what impression I make upon people after having had nearly thirty years in which to make my own acquaintance. How old are you, Rosenbusch?"
"I shall be thirty-one on the fifth of August."
"Then there is scarcely thirteen months difference between us. Don't you see, that in itself is an objection? But to proceed: your flute-playing, your white mice, your many love-affairs; can you blame me for looking upon you as a man who was not in the slightest degree dangerous--to me, at least? I had formed a very different idea of the man who was to win my heart, and, if I chanced to find such a one, I knew at once that it would be an unfortunate affair if I regarded the matter seriously. For such men want very different wives, and in that they are quite right. So I intrenched my poor soul behind my sense of humor, and, as you see, that was both a good and a bad thing to do; good, because it has helped me over many a bitter hour; bad, because it made me appear even less amiable than I really am at bottom. A woman who has humor, who does not weigh each of her words--where are the men who still believe that a good, womanly heart lies behind it all? The conceited men, like yourself, for instance, are especially repelled by such a one. Unless we cower in sweet bashfulness before your great words and beards, we are not worthy to be loved by your great souls. For that reason I was truly never more astonished by anything than by what you have just said to me. It is true, that since--well, for some time past I will say--I have gained a very different opinion of you; it is my duty to confess this to you after having so candidly told you the rest to your face. I have learned to esteem you highly, Rosenbusch; I--I even believe I must make use of a stronger expression; I have conceived a hearty love and affection for you--no, you mustn't interrupt me by a single word, it must all come out first. Do you know, on that night when you behaved so naughtily--you recollect it, don't you?--you took a liberty which you regarded merely as the toll of gallantry, but which a girl who has any respect for herself--though I have no prudish notions about such things when people are really in love with one another--and that was it that made me feel so badly, because you took such a liberty without really loving me; and I believe I didn't close an eye half that night, and that I shed many secret tears, because--because, do what I would, I couldn't be angry with you for it!"
"Angelica!" he cried, eagerly, approaching to seize her hand, which, however, she instantly drew back. "Why do you speak this way, if you will not make me happy--if you will not even let me kiss your hand? No, I won't be kept from speaking any longer; for, no matter how much about my bad qualities you may still have on your conscience, you can no longer deny that you like me, that you think well of me; and that is the main thing and a thousand times better than I ever dared to hope. Dearest, best Angelica, only try and believe that even a thirty-one-year-old battle-painter can improve. I will stop up my flute with lead, I will give my mice strychnine in a piece of Swiss cheese, and will wear a covering over my nose so that the children shall run away at sight of me. And, finally, in regard to my love-affairs--do you really believe I am so wanting in taste, to say nothing of all nobler motives, as to have eyes for such every-day doll-faces, after having found in your countenance the image of all love and goodness, of all wisdom and grace?"
In the mean while he got possession of one of her hands and pressed it so earnestly, at the same time gazing into her face with such true-hearted, mischievous eyes, that she grew quite red and came very near losing her firmness. However, she quickly recovered herself again and said:
"You are a truly dangerous man, Rosenbusch. I begin to realize that now from my own experience. If I did not call to my aid all the little sense and self-consciousness I possess, we should now fall into one another's arms, and ruin would take its course. One more name would stand on your list; you would go to the war, and there, in the great events that go to make up the history of the world, you would find the very best excuse for letting this little affair of the heart drop completely out of your memory. No, my friend, I think too much of myself for that. I confidently believe that my respected person has merely become of importance in your eyes, because I have heretofore withstood your amiability in a perfectly incomprehensible way. As soon as you should become convinced that I too am only a weak woman, I should become a matter of great indifference to you. Now, it is true, my stupid honesty has prevented me from concealing this from you; but I don't regard myself as hopelessly lost even yet. Now, if you go to the war, we shall both be equally well off. We shall both have ample time and opportunity for forgetting one another. I, to be sure, here alone in this deathly quiet house, where I hear nothing but the squeak of your mice--I shall have somewhat the harder time. But perhaps some other dangerous youth will move into your quarters--a dark-complexioned Hungarian or Pole--I have always had a partiality for brunettes, and for that reason alone it is a great mistake for me to love you with your red beard."
She had to turn her head away, it was impossible for her to conceal her emotion any longer by forced jests. She stealthily pressed her curls against her overflowing eyes, but, nevertheless, she shook her head when he put his arm around her and drew her to his breast.
"No, no!" she whispered; "I don't believe it even now. You shall see it will turn out badly. It's so silly of my stupid tears to give the lie to my wisest words; and then, too, my foolish heart, that ought to be old enough not to let itself be deluded--"
On the evening of the same day Angelica wrote a long letter to Julie.
After she had relieved her heart of a thousand things that concerned her friend alone, and had arrived at the end of the twelfth page, she finally summoned up all her courage, took a fresh sheet, and wrote the following postscript:
"To tell you the truth, I was going to be so cowardly and deceitful as to send off this letter without telling you of the great event of this day. I don't mean the declaration of war by France, which will be an old story by the time this letter comes into your hands, but the offensive and defensive alliance that I have to-day concluded. With whom, I should very much prefer you should guess for yourself. But as it will be too long for me to wait before I can learn whether you have guessed rightly or not--and as one is said to lose in shrewdness what one gains in happiness--I will state at once that the artful man who has surprised my well-known firmness and prudence is no other than--Rosenbusch. I hope you are not so far-sighted as to see that in making this confession I blush to such an extent as to do all honor to my future name--though my rosiness is of a somewhat faded sort. Oh, dearest! what is our heart? It really seems as though that inexplicable and irresponsible something within us that controls the blood in its course and makes the hand cold or warm if we place it in that of another, exists almost independently of all those other forces which govern that little world we call the individual. How often have I made this dear fellow-creature the butt of my merciless sallies! How often, when alone with you, have I caricatured his weaknesses and human frailties--to be sure he has changed very much since you last saw him--and made merry over this rat-catcher with his flute and blue-velvet coat! And all the while my heart sat in its cell as still as a mouse and made no movement; nay, even my conscience did not rebel at the godless way in which I denied that love we are commanded to feel toward our fellow-creatures. And now all of a sudden--
'Frailty, thy name is woman!'
Oh, dearest! do promise me to forget all my malicious sayings just as quickly as possible, and to believe that I had long been convinced of the critical state of my heart, even before this bad man confessed his feelings to me. I did not write you anything about it, because I naturally regarded the matter as a wretched piece of stupidity on the part of this above-mentioned heart, and even now I can't quite believe in it. You know I never was very lucky in regard to real happiness. And for that reason I haven't much faith even now; if it is true that he loves me to distraction, as he declares he does, I feel convinced I shan't get any enjoyment out of it, and he will be sure to get killed, for he is going off to the war as a volunteer nurse. And yet I have not tried to dissuade him from taking this manly step. You remember that my chief objection to him was that he wasn't quite manly enough. And now, after all, his love is to be put to the test of fire, and we shall see whether he will bring it home uninjured from the smoke and horror of battle! How shall I bear the separation! I shall paint a few poor pictures and get a few gray hairs, and then when he comes back he will realize clearly what a mistake he has made. But, as God wills! I'll bear it quietly. The times are so great, who has the right to think of his or her poor person? All is enthusiasm; Elfinger is going too (his little nun seems to have driven him to desperation), and, what will rejoice you, Schnetz has joined his old regiment again, and looks upon life like a new man. It touched me to hear our good Kohle, who paid me a visit this morning, curse his poor health, which shut him out from all the hardships of war. He has designed a splendid tableau: Germania on the summit of the Lurlei rock, from which she has cast down the enchantress in order to excite all her sons to battle against the enemy by her song of triumph. Rossel, who, of course, would be perfectly useless away from his rocking-chair, has at least subscribed a thousand gulden for the benefit of the wounded. Every one according to his strength. I shall make lint of my paint rags, and sacrifice my heart's blood for the cause in another way. Farewell! Rejoice in your unclouded, paradisaical, peaceful life in the beautiful South; and write to me soon, dearest, beautifullest, happiest, only sister mine! Rosenbusch wishes to be remembered. A fortnight more--and then in this whole house, where so many dear ones have lived and labored, there will beat but one lonely heart--that of your Angelica."