The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 09 / Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig

by Unknown

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (1856)

By OTTO LUDWIG

TRANSLATED AND CONDENSED BY MURIEL ALMON

The little garden lies between the dwelling-house and the slate shed; whoever goes from one to the other must pass it. As you go from the house to the shed it is on your left; on the right there is a yard with a woodshed and a stable, separated from the neighboring house by a trellis-fence. Every morning the house opens twelve green shutters onto one of the busiest streets of the town, the shed opens a large gray door on a back street; the roses on the bushes that have been trained to grow like trees in the little garden can look out into the lane which connects its two larger sisters. On the other side of the lane stands a tall house which, in elegant seclusion, does not deign to bestow a glance on the smaller one. Its eyes are open only to the doings of the main street; if you look nearer at its closed eyes facing the narrow street, you soon see the reason for its eternal sleep—they are only a sham, painted on the outer wall.

Not all sides of the house that belongs to the little garden look as decorative as the one on the main street. There, a pale rose-colored tint contrasts not too sharply with the green window-shutters and the blue slate roof. The weather side of the house, on the narrow street, looks as if it were clad in an armor of slate from top to toe; the other gable-end joins directly on to the row of houses of which it is the beginning or the end; at the back, however, it is an example of the proverb that everything has its weak point. There, an upstairs piazza has been built onto the house, not unlike half a crown of thorns. Supported by roughly-hewn wooden posts it runs along the upper story and expands toward the left into a little room. There is no direct entrance to it from the upper story of the house. To reach the "gallery chamber" from there one must leave the house by the back door, walk perhaps six steps along the wall, past the dog-kennel, to the wooden stairs, resembling those of a henhouse, and after climbing these must wander the whole length of the piazza to the left.

If all the structures are not equally ornamental and if piazza, stable and shed stand out noticeably against the dwelling-house, yet there is nowhere lacking a quality which adorns more than beauty of form and shining ornamentation. Extreme cleanliness smiles at the observer from the most hidden corners. In the little garden it reaches such a pitch that it hardly dares to smile. The garden does not look as if it were cleaned with a hoe and broom; it looks as if it had been brushed. The little beds that stand out so sharply against the yellow gravel of the walks look, not as if they had been dug by a cord, but as if they were drawn on the ground with a ruler and compasses, the box edging has the air of being daily attended to by the most accurate barber in town with comb and razor. And yet the blue coat which, if one stands on the piazza, one may see twice daily stepping into the little garden and every day at exactly the same minute, is still more neatly kept than the garden. When, after doing various pieces of work, the old gentleman leaves the garden again—and every day he goes at the same minute, just as punctually as he comes—the white apron over his blue coat shines with such unblemished whiteness that it is really incomprehensible why the old gentleman should have put it on. When he moves about among the tall rose-bushes which seem to have taken the old gentleman's bearing for a model, each of his steps is like the other, none is longer or fails to keep the regularity of his tempo. If one looks at him closer as he stands thus in the middle of his creation, one sees that he has merely copied externally that of which nature has created the model in himself. The regularity of the different parts of his tall figure seems to have been as accurately measured as the beds of the little garden. When nature formed him, her countenance must have borne the same expression of conscientiousness as the old man's face—an expression which, because of its strength, would appear to be obstinacy if an expression of loving gentleness, indeed almost of dreamy enthusiasm, were not mixed with it. And even now nature seems to watch over him with the same care that his eye shows when it looks over his little garden. His hair, cut short at the back and twisted above his brow into a so-called "corkscrew-curl," is of the same unblemished whiteness that is shown by his neckerchief, waistcoat, collar and the apron over his buttoned-up coat. Here, in his little garden, he completes the finished picture that it presents; away from home his appearance and personality must appear a little odd. His hat still has the high pointed crown, his blue overcoat the narrow collar and padded shoulders of a long vanished fashion. These offer opportunities enough for bad jokes; but no one makes them. It is as if there were an invisible something emanating from the stately figure that prevents the rise of flippant thoughts.

When the older inhabitants of the town, meeting Herr Nettenmair, pause in their conversation to greet him respectfully, it is not alone the magic something that has this effect. They know what it is that they respect in the old gentleman; when he has passed, their eyes follow him as they stand, still in silence, until he has disappeared round the corner; then it may well be that a hand is raised and an extended forefinger tells more eloquently than lips could of a long life adorned with all the virtues of a good citizen and untarnished by a single misdeed. He is never seen in a public place, unless indeed something relating to the common welfare is to be discussed or started. The recreation which he allows himself he seeks in his little garden. At other times he sits over his ledgers or stands in the shed superintending the loading and unloading of the slate which comes from his own quarry and which he sells all over the country and far beyond its borders. A widowed sister-in-law looks after his house for him and her sons manage the business of slating which is connected with the trade in slate and is scarcely inferior to it in size. It is their uncle's spirit, the spirit of orderliness, of conscientiousness to the point of obstinacy, that rests upon the nephews and gains and keeps for them such confidence that they are sent for from far away wherever a slater is needed to roof a new building or to make extensive repairs to an old one.

It is a peculiar life that goes on in the house with the green window-shutters. The sister-in-law, still a beautiful woman, little younger than the master of the house, treats him with a kind of silent respect, or even veneration. And her sons do the same. The old gentleman shows his sister-in-law a respectful consideration, a sort of chivalry that has something touching in its grave reserve; toward his nephews he displays the fondness of a father. Yet even there something lies between them that lends to their whole intercourse something of considerate formality.

The sabbath-like peace that now spreads its wings above the most strenuous activity of the dwellers in the house did not always hover there. There was a time when bitter sorrow that came from stolen happiness, and wild desires divided its inmates, when even the menace of murder cast its shadow into the house; when despair at self-created misery wandered, wringing its hands in the still night, from the back door, up the stairs and along the piazza and down again by the path between the little garden and the stable-yard to the shed, creeping restlessly to the front again and again to the back.

What, at that time, made the hearts in the house swell to the bursting-point, what went on in the shadowed souls and issued from them in part, in the self-forgetfulness of fear, or became a deed, a deed of desperation—all that may pass through the memory of the man with whom we have been occupied. It is thirty-one years today since he returned to his home town from a long absence. So we turn back the thirty-one years and find a young man instead of the old one whom we leave. He is tall, but not so strong; and, like the old man, he wears his brown hair cut short at the back and brushed into a "corkscrew-curl" above his high white forehead. The sternness of the old man does not yet appear in his face, and the scar of mental pain endured has not yet been stamped upon his good-humored expression. Yet he is far from showing the light-hearted carelessness usually belonging to his age and the easy-going manners that are so frequently habitual with the traveling journeyman. The high road still leads him through the dense woods; but from the town, far down below, the sound of St. George's bells rises up to the height, as impossible to restrain as a mother flying to the loved child that comes toward her. Home! How much lies in this one short syllable! What swells within the human heart when the voice of home, the tone of the bells, calls a welcome to him who is returning from abroad, the tone that called the child to church, the boy to his confirmation and his first communion, that spoke to him every hour! In the idea of home, all our good angels embrace one another.

Tears gathered in our young wanderer's serious and yet kindly eyes. If he had not been ashamed he would have sobbed aloud. He felt as if he had only dreamed his sojourn away from home and, now that he was awake, could scarcely remember the dream; as if he had only dreamed that he had grown to be a man while abroad; as if it had always seemed to him in his dreams that he was only dreaming abroad in order, when he should wake up at home, to be able to tell about it. It might have been noticed that, in spite of all this inward agitation of the moment, he did not fail to see the cobweb that the breeze from home laid as a greeting against his coat collar, and that he carefully dried his tears so that they might not fall on his neckerchief, and that he removed the last, tiniest scraps of the silver thread with the most persistent patience before he gave himself up to his feeling for home with his whole soul. And even his attachment to his home was in part only an expression of his obstinate need of cleanliness which made him regard everything alien that threatened to fly against him as dirt; and this need in turn sprang from the warmth of feeling with which he embraced everything that stood in closer relation to his personality. The clothes on his body were a piece of home to him, from which he must ward off everything strange.

Now the road turned; the mountain ridge which had closed it in up to this point was now left behind to one side and the top of a spire appeared above the young growth. It was the top of St. George's steeple. The young wanderer paused. Natural as it was that the highest building of the town should become visible to him before the others, the tender meaning with which his fancy imbued the fact made him forget that it was so. The slate roof of the church and steeple needed repairs. This work had been given to his father; and it was the reason, or at least the pretext, for his father's calling him back home sooner than he had intended. Perhaps tomorrow he would begin his part of the work. There, above the wide arch through which he saw the bells moving, the steeple door had been placed. There the two beams would have to be pushed out to bear the ladder on which he should climb up to the broach-post to fasten to it the rope of the contrivance in which he would make his airy circuit of the roof. And as it was his nature to bind the cords of his heart to the objects with which his work brought him in touch, he saw a greeting in the sudden appearance of the spire and involuntarily reached out toward it as if he would press a hand offered him in friendship. Then the thought of the work quickened his step, till a clearing in the wood and his arrival on the highest slope of the mountain showed him his whole home town lying at his feet.

Again he stopped. There stood his father's house with the slate shed behind it, not far from it the house where she had lived at the time he went away. Now she lived in his father's house, was his father's daughter, his brother's wife; and from now on he was to live in the same house with her and to see her daily as his sister-in-law. His heart beat harder at the thought of her. But it did not allow any of the hopes which had formerly been bound up with her memory to rise. His affection had become that of a brother for a sister, and what moved him now was more like anxiety. He knew that she thought of him with dislike. She was the only one in his father's whole house who looked forward to his coming with displeasure. How had this all come about? Had there not been a time when she seemed to be fond of him, when she had apparently liked to meet him as much as she later avoided him? Down below there, in front of the town, the shooting-house stood surrounded by gardens. How much bigger the trees round the house had grown since he had waved his last greeting to it from this height! Shortly before he had stood there under that acacia—it had been a beautiful spring evening, the most beautiful he thought he had ever known—at the Whitsuntide shooting. Within all the other young people were dancing; he walked happily round outside the house in which he knew her to be dancing. Even now he still felt embarrassed with girls and women and did not know how to talk to them; at that time he had felt even more so. How dearly he would have loved to tell her—how much he had to tell her, when he was alone, and how well he knew how to say it; and if chance ordained that he met her alone (it was wonderful how busy chance seemed to be in arranging such meetings) the thought that now the moment had come drove all the blood to his heart, the words from his tongue back into their hiding-place in the depths of his soul. Thus it had been when, her cheeks still glowing from the dance, she had come out of the house alone. She seemed to be concerned only with getting cool; she fanned herself with her white scarf, but her cheeks only grew the redder. He felt that she had seen him, that she expected him to come nearer; and it was the knowledge that he understood her that dyed her cheeks redder—that drove her, as he hesitated, back again into the hall. Perhaps, too, she had heard a third person coming. His brother came out of another door of the hall. He had seen the two standing silently opposite each other, perhaps had also seen the girl's blush. "Are you looking for Beate?" asked our hero to hide his embarrassment. "No," answered his brother, "she is not at the dance—and it's just as well. Nothing can come of it, after all; I must get another—and until I find one, Bohemian beer is my sweetheart."

There was something wild in his brother's speech. Our hero looked at him amazed and at the same time disturbed. "Why can nothing come of it?" he asked. "And what is the matter with you?"

"Oh, yes, you think I ought to be like you, pious and patient so long as there is no thread on your coat. But I am another kind of fellow, and if anybody upsets my calculations I have to let off steam. Why can nothing come of it? Because the old man in the blue coat won't have it."

"Father called you into the little garden yesterday—"

"Yes, and raised his white eyebrows, which are drawn with a ruler, an inch and a half. 'I thought it was so. You are going with Beate, the collector's daughter. That comes to an end today!'"

"Is it possible? And why?"

"Did you ever know old Blue-coat to give any 'why'? And did you ever ask him 'But why, father?' He didn't say so, but I know why it has to come to an end with me and Beate. I've been expecting it the whole week; whenever he raised his hand I thought he was pointing to the little garden and was ready to follow him like a poor sinner. That is the place where he gives his cabinet orders. The collector is said not to be in very good circumstances. There is some gossip about his spending more than his pay. And—well, you are a quill-driver, too, like old Blue-coat. But what can the girl do? Or I? Well, the affair must stop—but I'm sorry about the girl, and I must see how I can forget her. I must drink or get another one."

Our hero was accustomed to his brother's manner; he knew that the words were not intended to be as wild as they sounded, and his brother was showing his love and respect for their father by the fact of his obedience; still our hero would have liked to see them shown in speech as well as in action. It seemed to Apollonius as if there were something unclean on his brother's soul and involuntarily he stroked the other's coat collar several times with his hand as if he could brush it off him from outside. Dust had collected on the collar during the dance; when he had removed it he felt as if he had really removed what had troubled him.

The subject of their conversation changed. They began to speak of the girl who had just been out, fanning herself to get cool; Apollonius certainly did not know that he was responsible for this. Just as the girl was the goal to which all his lines of thought led, so, too, when once he began to speak of her he could not escape from his theme. He forgot his brother so completely that at last he was really talking to himself. His brother now seemed for the first time to perceive all the beautiful and good things in her that the hero lauded with unconscious eloquence. He agreed with more and more enthusiasm until he broke into a wild laugh which roused the hero from his self-forgetfulness and dyed his cheeks as red as those of the girl had been a short time before.

"And so you slink about round the hall where she is dancing with others, and if she shows herself you haven't the heart to draw her into conversation. Wait, I will be your ambassador. From now on she shall dance no turn except with me, so that no one else shall cross your plans. I know how to get on with girls. Let me take your part for you."

Our hero was frightened at the thought that the girl should learn that very day what he felt for her. Besides, he was ashamed of his own embarrassed and awkward behavior to her, and of what she must think of him when she knew that he needed a mediator. He had already raised his hand to stop his brother when the appearance of the girl herself caused everything else to grow dark to him. Quietly and alone, as before, she stepped out of the door. Beneath the scarf with which she had fanned herself she seemed to glance furtively about her. Again he saw her cheeks grow redder. Had she seen him? But she turned her face in the opposite direction. She seemed to be looking for something in the grass in front of her. He saw her pick a little flower, lay it on a bench and, after she had stood for a time as if in doubt whether she should pick it up again or not, with quick decision turn again to the door. A half involuntary movement of her arm seemed to tell him to take it, that it was picked for him. Once more a wave of red rushed up over her face to her dark brown hair, and the haste with which she disappeared in the door seemed intended to prevent a regret which might give rise to anxiety as to how her conduct would be understood.

The brother, who seemed not to have noticed anything of all this, had continued to speak in his lively, vehement fashion; his words were lost; our hero would have had to have had two lives in order to hear them, for all the one he possessed was in his eyes. Now he saw his brother rushing away toward the hall. He thought of detaining him, but it was too late. In vain he hurried after him up to the door. There the flower absorbed him again which the girl had left lying for some finder, for a happy one, if he found it for whom it was intended. And while his lips continued to call softly and mechanically to his brother, who no longer heard him, to keep silence, he was inwardly asking himself: "Was it really I for whom she laid the flower here? Did she lay it here for any one?" His heart answered both questions with a happy "Yes," while at the same time the thing that his brother intended to do troubled him.

If it was a sign of love from her and for him, then it was the last.

Twice he glanced surreptitiously into the hall when the door was opened; he saw her dancing with his brother and then, when they were resting after the dance, he saw his brother talking persuasively to her in his hasty way. "Now he is talking of me," he thought, his whole face burning. He rushed into the shade of the bushes when she left the hall. His brother took her home. He followed them at as great a distance as he thought necessary to prevent her seeing him. When his brother came back from accompanying her he stepped away from the door. He felt naked with shame. His brother had noticed him nevertheless. He said: "She won't hear of you yet; I don't know whether she means it, or whether it is just airs. I shall meet her again. No tree falls at one stroke. But I must confess, you have good taste. I don't know where my eyes have been up to now. She's away ahead of Beate; and that's saying a good deal!"

From then on his brother had danced untiringly with Walter's Christiane and spoken for Apollonius and always, after he had taken her home, he came and gave our hero an account of his efforts on his behalf. For a long time he was uncertain whether it was only affectation, or whether she really looked with disfavor on our hero. He repeated conscientiously what he had said in our hero's praise, and how she had answered his questions and assurances. He still had hope after our hero had already given it up. And her behavior toward the latter would have compelled him to realize that he could expect no return of his affection, even if he had not known what answers she gave his brother. She avoided him wherever she saw him as assiduously as she had formerly seemed to seek him. And had it really been he whom she had sought before, if indeed she had sought any one?

A hundred times his brother urged him to waylay her and press his own suit. He exerted all his inventive power to procure him an opportunity of speaking to her alone. Our hero refused to be urged or to accept his offers. After all, it was useless. All that he might accomplish would be to make her still more angry.

"I can't stand by any longer and see you growing thinner and paler all the time," said his brother one evening, after he had reported how unsuccessfully he had spoken for him again that day. "You must go away from here for a while; that will have good results for you in two ways. When I tell her that it is on her account that you have gone out into the world, perhaps she will turn. Believe me, I know the long-haired tribe, and I know how to treat them. You must write her a touching letter for good-by; I will deliver it, and I'll manage to soften her heart. And if it can't be accomplished, it will do you good to be away from here where everything reminds you of her, for a year—or several years. And finally, strange places will make another man of you, who will know better how to get round the apron-wearers. You must learn to dance; that's already half the battle. And anyway, the old Blue-coat has been asked by his cousin in Cologne to send one of us to him; I read it the other day in a letter that had fallen out of his pocket. Just tell him that you have gathered something of the sort from several things he has said lately and that you are ready to go if he wants you to. Or let me do that. You are too honest."

And he really did arrange it. It is a question whether our hero would have been able voluntarily to make up his mind to leave home. He could not understand how any one could live anywhere else but in his home town; to him it had always seemed like a fairy tale that there were other towns and people living in them. He had not imagined the life and doings of these people as real, like those of the inhabitants of his home, but as a kind of shadow-play that existed only for the looker-on, not for the shadows themselves. His brother, who knew how to treat the old man, led the conversation up to the cousin in Cologne as if by chance, and was clever enough to interpret the suggestions that Herr Nettenmair made in his diplomatic way as preliminary hints and connect them with others that referred to our hero. After frequent conversations he seemed to take it as the express desire of the old man that Apollonius should go to his cousin in Cologne. This put the idea into the old man's mind and, as it passed for his own, he brooded over it in his own way. There was little work to do at the time, and there seemed to be no prospect of its increasing materially for some time. A pair of hands could be spared; if they remained in the business all the workers would be condemned to semi-idleness. The old man could stand nothing as little as what he called dawdling. The only thing that was lacking was that our hero should resist. He knew nothing of his brother's plans. The latter had wisely not initiated him into them, because he knew him too well to expect his support in a matter that he would have rejected as both underhand and disrespectful to his father.

"You want to send Apollonius to Cologne," said his brother to the old man one afternoon; "but will he want to go? I don't think so. You will have to send me out on my travels. Apollonius won't go—at least not today, nor tomorrow."

That was enough. That very evening the old man beckoned our hero to follow him into the little garden. He stopped in front of the old pear-tree and, removing a little twig that was growing out of its trunk, said: "Tomorrow you will go to your cousin in Cologne."

With a rapid movement he turned toward his son, and saw with astonishment that Apollonius nodded his head obediently. It seemed almost to displease him that he should have no self-will to break. Did he think that the poor boy was nursing defiant thoughts, even if he did not express them, and did he want to break down even the defiance of thoughts? "You pack your knapsack this very day, do you hear?" he shouted at him.

"Yes, father," said Apollonius.

"You start tomorrow at sunrise." After he had seemed to try almost to force a defiant answer, he may have regretted his anger. He made a gesture of dismissal; Apollonius went obediently. The old man followed him, and several times he came up to the brothers' room with milder sternness to remind his son, who was packing, of this and that which he was not to forget.

And the last of four strokes was just ringing out from the tower of St. George's when the door of the house with the green shutters opened, and our young wanderer stepped out, accompanied by his brother. At the same spot where he now stood looking down on the town lying below him, his brother had taken farewell of him, and he had looked after him a long, long time. "Perhaps I can win her for you after all," his brother had said; "and then I'll write you so at once. And if you can't get her, she isn't the only one in the world. I can tell you, you are as good-looking a fellow as any; and if you'll only lay aside your stupid way you can get on with any of them. Once for all, things are so that the girls can't court us—and I shouldn't even want one that threw herself at my head of her own accord. And what can a lively girl do with a dreamer? Our cousin in Cologne is said to have a couple of pretty daughters. And now, good-by. I will deliver your letter today." With that his brother had left him.

"Yes," said Apollonius to himself as he looked after him. "He is right. Not because of my cousin's daughters, or any other girl, no matter how pretty she might be. If I had been different perhaps I need not have had to go away now. Was it I for whom she laid the flower there at the Whitsuntide shooting? Did she want to meet me then, and before then? Who knows how hard it has become for her! And having done all that in vain must she not have felt ashamed? Oh, she is right not to want to have anything more to do with me. I must learn to be different."

And this resolution had been no bloomless bud. His cousin's house in Cologne did not encourage dreaming of any kind. Apollonius found an entirely different family life there from that in his own home. His old cousin was as full of life as the youngest member of the family. Loneliness was impossible. A lively sense of the ridiculous [Illustration: Jacob's Journey. Schnorr Von Carolsfeld] [Blank Page] prevented the growth of any kind of peculiarity. Every one had to be on his guard; no one could let himself go.

Apollonius could not have avoided growing to be another man, even if he had not wanted to change; and he recognized clearly that it was a piece of good fortune that had led him to his cousin. He lost more and more of his dreaminess; before long his cousin could put the most difficult task into the young man's hands and he would complete it, without the aid of another's advice, so satisfactorily that his cousin was obliged to confess to himself that even he would not have begun the matter more thoroughly, carried it on more energetically, finished it more speedily and happily. Soon the youth was able to form his own opinion of the way in which the business at home had been carried on. He was obliged to acknowledge that it had not been the most practical way, in fact, that some of his father's orders could not but be called wrong-headed; then he reproached himself bitterly for his unfilial criticism, endeavored to justify his father's actions to himself, and, if he found that impossible, forced himself to believe that the old man must have had his good reasons and it could only be that he himself was too limited in knowledge to be able to guess them.

Letters came from his brother. In the first one he wrote that he was now clear in his mind about the girl to this extent, that her harshness toward Apollonius was due to her fondness for another whom he could not bring her to name. In the next, one in which he scarcely spoke of the girl, Apollonius read between the lines a certain pity for himself, the reason for which he knew not how to find. The third gave this reason only too clearly. His brother himself was the object of the girl's secret affection. She had given him various signs of this, after he had renounced his former sweetheart in accordance with his father's will. He had suspected nothing of this; and when he had approached her as a suitor on his brother's behalf, shame and the conviction that he himself did not love her had sealed her lips.

Now Apollonius realized with pain that he had been mistaken when he believed that those dumb signs had been meant for him. He wondered that he had not seen that he was in error at the time. Had not his brother been as near to her as he when she laid down the flower which the wrong man found? And when she had met him alone so intentionally unintentionally—indeed, when he called to mind the moments that dominated his dreams—she had sought his brother, that was why she had been so startled to meet him, that was why she had fled every time as soon as she had recognized him, as soon as she found him whom she was not seeking. She did not talk to him, but she could joke for a quarter of an hour at a time with his brother.

These thoughts characterized hours, days and weeks of pain that lay deep within him, but his cousin's confidence which he had to reward by living up to it, the healing effect of busy and purposeful work, the manliness which both these things had already ripened in him, all held their own in the struggle and came out of it strengthened.

A later letter which he received from his brother announced that old Walther had discovered the inclination of the girl's heart and that he and the old gentleman in the blue coat had decided that Apollonius' brother should marry the girl. The old gentleman's "should" was a "must;" Apollonius knew that as well as his brother. The girl's affection had touched his brother; she was beautiful and good; should he oppose his father's will for Apollonius' sake, for the sake of a love that was without hope? Being certain of Apollonius' consent beforehand, he had resigned himself to the decree of heaven.

Throughout the first half of the following letter, in which he announced his marriage, this pious mood echoed. After many cordial words of comfort came his brother's apology, or rather justification, for having allowed two years to elapse between this letter and the last one. Then followed a description of his domestic happiness; his young wife who still clung to him with all the fire of her girlish love, had borne him a girl and a boy. In the mean time his father had been afflicted by an ailment of the eyes, and had grown constantly less able to conduct the business alone in his sovereign manner. This had made him grow odder and odder. After he had left the reins in his son's hands for a time, the old imperative desire to rule, intensified by the monotony of enforced idleness, had caused him to rouse himself once more. Finally, however, he had been obliged to realize that things could not go on in his way. To subordinate himself to another merely as an advisory assistant, and particularly when the other was his own son who until recently had carried out his commands without being consulted and without any will of his own, this proved to be impossible for the old man. He found occupation in the little garden. There he could remove the old, think of something new, and again make room for something newer; and he did so. Ruling unrestrictedly in the little green realm in which from now on no "why" might be heard, where, beside the law of nature, only one other governed and that his will, he forgot or seemed to forget that he had formerly borne a mightier sceptre.

But his brother's following letters were not so full of the business and of the odd old gentleman as they were of the festivities of the shooting society of the home town and of a club which had been formed to keep its pleasures separate from those of the lower classes. In all the descriptions of bird and target shooting, concerts and balls of which he and his young wife appeared as the centre, shone the utmost gratification of the writer's vanity. Only in a postscript to the last letter did he mention the more serious fact that the town wanted to have repairs made to the tower and roof of St. George's, and that the work had been entrusted to him. The old gentleman in the blue coat urged him to ask Apollonius to return to his home town and the business. It was his brother's opinion that Apollonius would not care to leave the life in Cologne of which he had become fond for such a trifling matter. The repairs could be completed in a short time with the present working force. There were only a few damaged places on the tower and roof. Moreover, apart from his wife's dislike of Apollonius which he had continued to combat in vain, it would be a useless torture to his brother to refresh in his mind all that he must be glad to have forgotten. He would easily find an excuse for refusing to obey a command which only oddity had suggested. The conclusion of the letter contained a teasing insinuation of a relation between our hero and his cousin's youngest daughter, of which his home town was talking. His brother sent his regards to her as his future sister-in-law.

Although no such relation existed, Apollonius acknowledged to himself that it was only for him to call it into being. He knew that he could become his cousin's son-in-law if he wished. The girl was pretty, good, and fond of him, as was her sister. But he looked on her only as a sister; he had never felt a wish that she might be more to him. He believed he had conquered his love for Christiane; he did not know that after all it was only she that stood between him and his cousin's daughter, as she would have stood between him and any other woman. When he learned that Christiane loved his brother, he had taken from his breast the little metal box in which he had carried the flower ever since the evening when he had picked it up in the mistaken belief that it had been laid there for him. When Christiane became his brother's wife, he packed up the box with the flower and sent it to him. He could not throw away what had once been dear to him—but he might no longer possess it. Only he had a right to the flower for whom it had been intended, to whom belonged the hand which had bestowed it.

His father called him back; he must obey. But it was more than mere obedience that awoke in him. He not only went; he went gladly. His father's words conveyed to him a permission rather than an order. When the spring sun penetrates into a room that has been uninhabited and closed for the winter we see that what has lain on the floor like dry mummies was really sleeping life. Now it moves and stretches itself and becomes a buzzing cloud and swarms up jubilantly into the golden ray. Not his father alone, every house in his home-town, every hill, every garden about it, every tree within it, called him. His brother, his sister—this was the name he gave Christiane—called him. Yet, she did not call him. She felt a dislike of him, a dislike so strong that for six years his brother had struggled in vain to overcome it. He felt as if he must go home on that account if on no other; he must show her that he did not deserve her dislike, that he was worthy to be her brother. He wrote this to his brother in the letter which announced his intention to obey and named the day on which they might expect him. He was able to assure him that recollections of the time that was gone would not torture him, that his brother's anxiety was groundless.

It had come to that—the thought of her did not awaken any of the old hopes. When he looked down from the height he asked himself: "Shall I succeed in becoming a brother to her who is now my sister?"

He has arrived at the door of the paternal home. In vain he has scanned the windows, seeking for some familiar face. Now a thickset man in a black coat comes rushing out. He dashes out so hastily, embraces him so wildly, presses him so close to his white waistcoat, lays his cheek so near his cheek and keeps it there so long that one must choose to believe either that he loves his brother to the utmost or—that he does not want him to look into his eyes. But at last he has to let go of him; he takes him by the right arm and draws him into the door.

"It's fine that you've come! It's grand that you've come! It really wasn't necessary—simply an idea of the old man's, and he has nothing more to say about the business. But it really is splendid of you; I'm only sorry that you're making your betrothed's eyes red for nothing." He said the words "your betrothed" so distinctly and in such a loud tone that they could be heard and understood in the living room. Apollonius searched his brother's face with moist eyes, as if to check off, point by point, whether everything was still there that had been so dear to him. His brother did nothing to help him; he looked only at what lay between Apollonius' chin and toes.

"Father wanted it," said Apollonius easily; "and what you say of a betrothed—"

His brother interrupted him; he laughed loudly in his old manner, so that even if Apollonius had gone on speaking he could not have been understood. "That's all right! That's all right! And once more, it's splendid that you've come to visit us, and we won't let you go for a fortnight at least, whether you want to or not. Don't mind her," he added softly, pointing through the doorway with his right hand while he opened the door with his left.

The young wife was standing at a cupboard with the contents of which she was busy, her back toward the door. She turned, in an embarrassed and not quite friendly manner, and only toward her husband. Her brother-in-law could still see nothing but a part of her right cheek, with a burning blush upon it. Whatever other criticism might be made of her behavior, an unmistakable honesty showed itself in it, an incapability of pretending to be otherwise than she was. She stood there as if she were preparing herself to hear an expected insult. Apollonius went up to her and took her hand, which at first she seemed to want to draw away and then allowed to lie motionless in his. He was glad to greet his sister-in-law. He begged her not to be displeased at his coming and hoped by earnest endeavor to conquer the unmistakable dislike that she felt for him.

* * * * *

However considerate and courteous were the terms in which he clothed his pleading and hope, yet he expressed both only in thought. That everything was just as he had imagined it and yet so entirely different robbed him of all ease and courage.

His brother put a welcome end to the painful pause, for his wife did not utter a syllable in reply. He pointed to the children. They were still crowding, unconfused by all that oppressed their elders and which they did not notice or understand, about their new uncle; and he was glad of the opportunity to bend down to them and to have to answer a thousand questions.

"They're a forward brood," said their father. He pointed to the children, but he looked furtively at his wife. "For all that I'm surprised to see how soon you have become acquainted—and intimate at once," he added. Perchance he continued his last remark in thought: "it seems that you know how to become intimate quickly and to make others intimate with you!" A shade as of anxiety spread over his red face. But his anxiety was not about the children; otherwise he would have looked at the children and not at his wife.

Apollonius was talking more and more eagerly to the children. He had failed to hear the remark or he did not want to let the angry woman know whose face he carried so vividly within him. He would have recognized the little ones, if they had met him by chance, as his brother's children by their resemblance to their mother. But the question how they had become so quickly intimate with him ought to have been put to old Valentine. It was he who had been continually telling them about the uncle who was soon coming to see them—perhaps only so as to be able to talk with some one about what he liked to talk of so much. The brother and the sister-in-law avoided such conversations, and the father did not make himself familiar enough with the old fellow to talk with him about matters which might give him an excuse to drop into any kind of intimacy. Old Valentine would also have been able to say that the children had not met their uncle just by chance. They had come to find him. Old Valentine had thought of how love that has waited long hurries to meet thousands of homecomers; it had hurt him to think that his favorite alone should fail to find any greeting before he knocked at his father's door.

Apollonius suddenly ceased speaking. He was shocked to think that his embarrassment had caused him to forget his father. His brother understood his start and said with relief: "He's in the little garden." Apollonius jumped up and hurried out.

There, among his beds, crouched the figure of the old gentleman. He was still following old Valentine's shears with his critical hands as the servant slipped along on his knees before him. He found many an inequality which the fellow had to remove at once. It was no wonder. Twice every minute old Valentine thought: "Now he's coming!" And when he thought thus the shears cut crookedly right into the bog. And the old gentleman would have growled in quite another manner if the same thought had not made uncertain the hand that was now his eye.

Apollonius stood before his father and could not speak for pain. He had long known that his father was blind and had often pictured him to himself in sorrowful thought. At such times he had seen him looking as usual, only with a shield over his eyes. He had thought of him sitting or leaning on old Valentine, but never as he now saw him, the tall figure helpless as a child, the trembling and uncertain hands feeling their way. Now he knew for the first time what it meant to be blind.

Valentine laid the shears down and laughed or cried on his knees; it could not be said what he did. The old gentleman first inclined his head to one side as if listening, then he pulled himself together. Apollonius saw that his father felt his blindness to be something of which he must be ashamed. He saw how the old man exerted himself to avoid every movement that might recall the fact that he was blind. The old gentleman felt that the new-comer was somewhere near him. But where? On which side? Apollonius understood that his father felt this uncertainty with shame, and forced himself to cry with a voice that almost failed him. "Father! Dear father!" He dropped on his knees beside the old man and wanted to throw both arms around him. His father made a motion which seemed to beg for forbearance, though it was only intended to keep the young man away from him. Apollonius threw the arms his father had refused around his own breast to hold the pain there which, if it had risen and crossed his lips, would have betrayed to his father how deeply he felt the latter's misery. The same consideration made old Valentine turn his involuntary motion to help the old gentleman to stand upright, into a movement to pick up the shears which lay between him and his master. He too wanted to hide from the son what could not be hidden, so faithfully and deeply had he learned to live in the father's feelings.

The old gentleman had risen and held out his hand to his son much as if the latter had been absent as many days as he had been years. "You must be tired and hungry! I am somewhat troubled with my eyes—but it is of no consequence. As regards the business, talk to Fritz. I have given it up. I want to have peace. But that is not the real reason; young people must become independent some time. It makes them more eager to work."

He came a step nearer his son. He seemed to be carrying on a struggle within himself. He wanted to say something which no one should hear except his son. But he was silent. Why did he suppress what he wanted to say? Did it concern the business, or the honor of the house? And did he know or suspect that the one who was now responsible for both in his place was standing leaning against the gate of the little garden and could hear what he said to the new-comer, or, if he spoke secretly to him, could at least see that he did so? Was this why he had had Apollonius called home from abroad? And did the expression of a "why" now still seem to him incompatible with his position?

It was a curious party at the midday meal. The old gentleman dined alone in his little room as usual. The children too had been sent away, and did not come in again until after the meal. The young wife was more in the kitchen or elsewhere out of the room than at the table; and if she did once sit down there for a few minutes, she was as dumb as she had been when Apollonius greeted her; the resentful cloud did not pass from her forehead. Fritz was accustomed to his father's condition, which pierced Apollonius' heart with the keenness of new-felt pain. He talked only of the old man's oddities; old Blue-coat did not know what he wanted himself, and made life needlessly unpleasant for himself and all the others in the house. If Apollonius began to talk of the business, of the repairs to be made to the roof of St. George's, his brother spoke of pleasures with which he was glad to be able to make his brother's stay with him more agreeable—and he always mentioned this stay as he would a passing visit. When Apollonius told him he had not come to enjoy himself but to work, he laughed as if it were an incomparable joke that Apollonius should want to help to do nothing, and showed that he understood wit, however dry might be its expression. Then, when his wife had gone out of the room, he asked about his brother's understanding with his cousin's daughter, and then laughed again at his brother wag, in whom no one would recognize the old dreamer.

After dinner the children came in again, and with them more life and easy familiarity. While the old conditions still confronted Apollonius as new and strange, to the children what was new had already become old and familiar. All the afternoon Fritz, and apparently his wife too, were occupied only with a ball that was to be given. Fritz forgot more and more whatever might have caused him uneasiness, in thinking of the impression that he, as the chief person, would make on the new-comer at the festivity, and made use of the time till it should begin in giving him a foretaste of the affair by means of tales and hints dropped of the honor and attention shown him on such occasions by the most prominent citizens. He became noticeably more cheerful, and walked more and more proudly up and down the room. The creaking of his well-polished shoes said for the present, before the guests at the ball could do so: "Ah, there he is! Ah, there he is!" And when at intervals he jingled the money in his trousers-pockets all the corners of the hall rang with: "Now the fun will begin! Now the fun will begin!" And thither among those who were welcoming the guests—but he was no longer walking, he was gliding, swimming on the music—every dance was a jubilant overture on the name Nettenmair—he felt no floor, no feet, no legs beneath him, he scarcely still felt young Frau Nettenmair swimming along beside him, hanging to his right fin, the most beautiful among the beautiful, just as he was the most jovial among the jovial, the thumb on the hand of the ball.

And two hours later cries of "There he is!" really did ring from all sides and all the corners shouted: "Now the fun will begin!" Wherever they passed chairs were offered them. No hand was shaken as often and as long as that of jovial Fritz Nettenmair, no member of the company had so much sincere praise poured into his ears as he. But then, how agreeable he was! How condescendingly he accepted all this deserved homage! How witty he showed himself; how pleasantly he laughed! And not at his own jokes alone—there was no art in that; they were so brilliant that he had to laugh even if he didn't want to—he laughed at others too, little as they deserved it, compared with his. There were people, to be sure, who paid little attention to him, but he did not notice them; and those who showed it more plainly were "Philistines, everyday fellows, insignificant people," as he whispered to his brother with contemptuous pity. It was quite peculiar: everyone's greater or lesser importance as a man and a citizen could be measured with perfect exactitude by the degree of his admiration for Fritz Nettenmair.

When the dancing began Fritz drew his brother into a room at the side. "You must dance," he said. "My wife would turn you down, and that would be unpleasant for me. I will bring you a partner who is firm on her feet and can keep you in time. Pluck up heart, boy, even if it doesn't go smoothly all at once."

In the excitement of vanity Fritz Nettenmair had forgotten six years. His brother was still to him the dreamer of old whom he forced to dance at times for his pleasure. Now, when, paying no attention to his refusal, he led the girl to Apollonius, the latter resigned himself so as not to appear impolite.

Fritz Nettenmair was the best-natured fellow in the world as long as he knew himself to be the sole object of the general admiration. In such a mood he could perform deeds of sacrifice for those who threw his brilliance into the shade. So it was now. As he sat among the important people, treating them to champagne, and read in his wife's eyes the gratification with which she saw him overwhelmed with honors, a feeling crept over him as if he had forgiven his brother a great wrong, and he felt himself to be an extraordinarily noble man, who deserved all these marks of honor and who yet with wonderful modesty condescended to allow himself to be touched by them. He saw that his brother was no longer the dreamer of old; but he forgave him that too. All eyes were directed toward the handsome dancer and his skilful carriage. Fritz teased his wife, and, in the certainty that he must far outshine his brother, he felt the additional gratification of forgiving any amount of wrong that Apollonius had never done him.

But, oh the ungrateful one! He would not allow himself to be outshone. Fritz Nettenmair danced jovially, as one who is at home in the world and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; his brother was a stiff figure in comparison. He did not keep time with his head, nor, if the step was made with the left foot on the down beat, throw the upper part of his body to the right and vice versa; he did not now and again, with the boldness of a genius, slide across the hall and outdistance other couples. He danced neither jovially nor as one who is familiar with the world and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; yet all eyes remained fixed on him, and Fritz Nettenmair outdid himself in vain.

It was the dullest ball that Fritz Nettenmair had ever experienced; it could not have been more so if Fritz Nettenmair had stayed at home. Fritz Nettenmair proclaimed the fact with mighty oaths, and the important people who had drunk his champagne agreed with him in his opinion, as they always did.

Some of the important women expressed to Frau Nettenmair their righteous and friendly indignation at her brother-in-law. That he had not asked his sister-in-law for the first dance betrayed an unpardonable disparagement of her. Frau Nettenmair, who felt the universal wrong done to her husband as deeply as if it had been done to herself, said that her brother-in-law had long known that she would only have turned him down if he had. But still Apollonius was only admired and honored more and more, and consequently the ball only became still duller. It became so dull, in fact, that Fritz Nettenmair left with his wife at an hour when as a rule he was only just beginning to be really jovial. Nevertheless he heaped coals of fire on his ungrateful brother's head. He asked the girl in his brother's name to allow Apollonius to accompany her home. Then he went out of the little room at the side into the hall again to his wife, and with her left the house, to the unfeigned despair of the important people, who were still thirsty for champagne.

After he had performed his enforced knightly service for his lady, Apollonius found the door of the paternal home open and all its inmates already asleep. At least there was no light to be seen anywhere and everything was still. His brother had assigned to him the little room at the left of the second-story piazza. Fortunately for Apollonius, the six years had not altered the house as they had its inmates. He went softly through the back door, past Moldau who growled in a friendly way and whose rough neck he stroked full of gratitude for this sign of constancy, mounted the stairs, walked the length of the piazza and found a bed in his little room. But before he undressed he still sat for a long time on the chair by the window and compared what he had found with what he had left. Before he lay down for the night he had determined on his future course of action. The next morning he must learn what he was to do here, his relation to his father's house must be clearly settled. If there was no work for him, he would be on his way back to Cologne before the day was over.

He was up with the sun; but he had long to wait before it pleased his brother to rise from his couch. He made use of the time to take a walk to St. George's; he wanted to see for himself what was to be done there. When he came back again he met his brother and a gentleman with him who were just about to leave the living room. Apollonius knew the gentleman as the inspector of buildings from the town council. They greeted each other. They had already spoken to each other the day before at the ball, where the gentleman had not proved himself to be a prominent man and citizen, but, on the contrary, had joined the Philistines, everyday fellows, and insignificant people. Apparently he was not displeased to meet Apollonius just now. After the customary exchange of courtesies he explained the purpose of his presence. A final conference of experts was to take place that morning to consider what was to be done to the roof of the church and the tower, so that the result could be reported at a meeting of the council in the afternoon and a decision reached. Fritz Nettenmair and the inspector were on the way to St. George's, where they knew that the rest of the experts were already assembled.

Fritz, as he said, did not want to trouble his visitor by making him participate in business in which he was not concerned; just as little—but he did not say this—did he want to leave him alone at home. He asked him to be at the house in the woods, from which he would fetch him to go for a walk. Apollonius assured him quite easily that he would rather be present at the meeting; and when the inspector went so far as to ask him to go with him as another expert, no pretext could be found on which this could be prevented. Perhaps Fritz Nettenmair had a suspicion that he would soon have a great deal more to forgive the newcomer.

They found the rest of the meeting, two strange master-slaters and the official builders of the council, carpenter, masons, and tinsmiths, waiting for them at the tower-door. Several scaffoldings had already been fastened to the roof so that it could be examined; the conference took place in the church-loft nearest the largest of them. Apollonius stood modestly a few steps away in order to hear and, if he were asked, to speak. He had carefully examined the roof beforehand and formed his own opinion of the matter.

The two strange slaters stated that they thought extensive repairs were necessary. Fritz Nettenmair, on the contrary, was convinced that with a few patches which he enumerated, nothing more need be done for years. The builders, carpenter, masons and tinsmith eagerly agreed with him; all of them jovial and prominent men at yesterday's ball who conscientiously believed that if you drank a man's champagne, his was the opinion you must hold. The strange slaters knew very well that the Council feared the expense of more extensive repairs and had postponed those that had long been highly necessary from year to year. As, moreover, they had no prospect of being intrusted with the repairs themselves, they did not give themselves unnecessary trouble to aid in forcing upon Herr Fritz Nettenmair work and profit for which he himself seemed to care nothing at all. Hence in the course of the discussion they became more and more convinced that, whatever way you looked at the matter, Herr Fritz Nettenmair too was right. The inspector, a good man, perhaps grasped their motives and those of the prominent men. For a time he had listened in silence with a dissatisfied face, when he remembered Apollonius. He saw something in the latter's expression that seemed to correspond to his own opinion. "And what do you say?" he asked, turning to him.

Apollonius modestly came a step nearer.

"I wish you would look at the matter as carefully as possible," said the councilman.

Apollonius replied that he had already done so.

"I need not draw your attention to the fact that the matter is very important," continued the councilman.

Apollonius bowed. The councilman repressed what he had been about to say. With all its softness and mildness, such strict conscientiousness and obstinate honesty was expressed in the young man's countenance, that the councilman was almost ashamed of the admonition he had been on the point of giving him.

Apollonius began by stating the results of the examination he had made. He explained the condition of the places he had been able to test and what might be inferred from that as regarded the others. As the church accounts showed, no extensive repairs had been made to the church roof for eighty years. Even though the slate itself, if the material was good, might defy the elements for a long time yet, this was not true of the nails with which the slates were fastened to the lathing and planking. And wherever he had tested them he had found the nails either entirely destroyed or very nearly so.

It was unavoidably necessary to re-lay the entire slate covering and to replace with new material the rotten spots in the lathing and planking. Another winter would make the condition of the roof so much worse that there was nothing to be gained by postponing the repairs with the object of saving the interest, for, without greater loss, the repairs could at the most be delayed only till the next year. He led those assembled to places which might serve as samples. He did not draw the conclusion himself, but knew how to use the cleverness which he had learnt from his cousin to force his opponents to do that for him.

The councilman's confidence in and respect for our Apollonius grew visibly. During the rest of the discussion he appealed almost entirely to him and shook his hand cordially when the left the meeting. If the undertaking should receive the approval of the Council, which he now no longer doubted, he hoped that Apollonius would take an active part in it, and he requested him to write out a report as to the most practical method of beginning it. Apollonius thanked him modestly for his confidence, of which he would try to show himself worthy. As to his taking part in the work itself, he replied that his father, as the master, would have to decide.

"I'll go with you at once," said the councilman, "and speak to him."

Even though Fritz had conducted the business until now and was regarded and treated by the important people as the master, still he was not. The old man had let him become master just as little as he had formally made over the business to him; he wanted to reserve to himself a sovereign power of interference wherever he should find it necessary.

He heard the two approaching while still at a distance and groped his
way to a bench in his arbor. There he was sitting when they entered.
After greetings had passed the councilman asked after Herr
Nettenmair's health.

"Thank you," replied the old gentleman, "I am somewhat troubled with my eyes—but it is of no consequence." He smiled as he spoke, and the councilman exchanged a glance with Apollonius that won the latter's whole soul. Then he told the old man the whole conference, and made Apollonius blush in his modesty so that it was long before his usual color came back. The old man pulled his shield lower down on his face, that no one might see the thoughts which were oddly struggling with one another there.

Any one who could have seen beneath the shield would have thought at first that the old gentleman was glad; the shade of suspicion with which he had received Apollonius the day before disappeared. He need not be afraid, then, that this son would make common cause with his brother against him! Indeed, a something appeared on his countenance that seemed to rejoice malignantly at the elder's humiliation. Perhaps he might have interfered, as was his way, with a laconic: "You will take my place from now on, Apollonius, do you hear?" if the councilman had not sung Apollonius' praise and if it had not been so well deserved.

"Yes," he said in his diplomatic manner of hiding his thoughts by only half expressing them; "yes, indeed, youth! he is young." "And yet so efficient already!" supplemented the councilman.

The old gentleman inclined his head. One who was interested, as was the councilman, might believe that he nodded. But he said: "It's the young men that are all-important today in the world!" Yes, he felt proud that his son was so efficient, ashamed that he himself was blind, glad that Fritz could now no longer do as he liked, that the honor of the home had gained one guardian more, afraid that the efficiency in which he rejoiced would make him himself superfluous. And he could do nothing to prevent it; he could do nothing more, he was nothing more. And as if Apollonius had expressed that, he rose stiffly erect, as if to show that his son was triumphing too early.

The councilman begged the old gentleman to keep his son at home during the time that the repairs were being made and to allow him to work at them. The old gentleman was silent for a time as if he were waiting for Apollonius to refuse to stay. Then he seemed to assume that Apollonius refused for, with his harsh brevity, he commanded: "You are to stay; do you hear?"

Apollonius went to his little room to unpack his things. He was still thus engaged when the news came that the town council had approved the repairs.

So it was settled: he was to stay. He was to be allowed to work for his beloved home and to apply what he had learnt while abroad.

After he had arranged all his things in his room, he at once set to work on the report which the councilman had requested. The repairs had been decided upon on his advice, he was concerned in them not alone as one of his father's "hands," as a mere workman; he felt that he had taken upon himself in addition a special moral obligation toward his home town; he must do everything in his power to fulfil it. He would not have needed such an incentive; even without it he would have done all that he could; he did not know himself well enough to know that.

In this exalted mood it appeared to him easy to overcome whatever threatened, on the part of his brother and his sister-in-law, to make his stay uncomfortable. After all, his brother wished him to go only on account of his sister-in-law's dislike of him and that could be conquered by enduring, honest effort. He had never offended his brother; he would willingly subordinate himself to him in the business. It did not occur to him that we can offend without knowing it or wishing to do so, in fact, that duty may command us to offend. It did not occur to him that his brother might have offended him. He did not know that one can also hate him whom one has offended, not only the offender.

Below, near the shed, a disagreeable-looking workman stood grinning in front of Fritz Nettenmair and said: "I understand some one at the first glance. Oh, yes, Herr Apollonius knows what he's about! But it's of no consequence. That won't last long!" Fritz Nettenmair gnawed his nails and ignored the gesture that was intended to excite him to ask what the fellow meant when he said, that would not last long. He went toward the living room and as he went he flew out quietly at somebody who was not there: "Uprightness? Knowledge of business, as that Philistine of an inspector says? I know why you're forcing your way in and insinuating yourself in here, you fluff-picker! Pretend to be as innocent as you like, I"—he made the gesture that meant: "I am one who know life and the species that wears long hair and aprons!" With this he turned toward the door, but his movement was not jovial, as usual.

How many people think they know the world, and know only themselves!

* * * * *

Between heaven and earth lies the slater's realm. Far below is the noisy tumult of the wanderers of the earth, high above are the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds in their vast course. For months, years, decades, this realm has no inhabitants but the restlessly fluttering race of cawing jackdaws. But one day the narrow door halfway up the tower-roof is opened; invisible hands push two scaffolding timbers out, part way into space. To the spectator below it looks as if they wanted to build a bridge of straws into the sky. The jackdaws have fled to the pommel of the steeple and to the weather-vane and look down from there, ruffling their feathers with fear. The timbers stand out only a few feet from the door and the invisible hands cease pushing. Then a hammering begins in the heart of the tower-loft. The sleeping owls start up and tumble staggeringly out of their scuttles into the open eye of the day. The jackdaws hear it with horror; the child of man below on the firm earth does not catch the sound, the clouds above on the sky pass over it untroubled. The pounding continues a long time; then it ceases and two or three short boards follow the timbers and are laid across them. Behind them appear a man's head and a pair of vigorous arms. One hand holds the nail, the other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly nailed down. The "flying" scaffold is ready. Thus the builder calls it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring it. Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof is very high, ladder upon ladder. Nothing holds it together but iron hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans. Once it is tied fast to the broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of match-wood glued together, like a child's Christmas toy. But before he has bound the ladder fast—and in order to do that he must climb it once—the slater may commend his poor soul to God. Then he is indeed between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the ladder—and a single false step may shift it—will dash him helplessly down to certain death. Stop the clang of the bells beneath him, it may startle him! The spectators far below on the earth involuntarily clasp their hands breathlessly; the jackdaws, who have been driven from their last place of refuge by the ascending figure, caw as they flutter wildly round his head; only the clouds in the sky pursue their way above him, untouched. Only the clouds? No. The daring man on the ladder goes on as calmly as they. He is no vain dare-devil wantonly bent on making himself talked of; he goes his dangerous way in the course of his calling. He knows that the ladder is firm; he himself has built the scaffold, he knows that it is firm; he knows that his heart is strong and his tread sure. He does not look down where the earth holds out her green arms luringly, he does not look up where from the procession of clouds in the sky the fatal giddiness may drop down on his steady eye. The centre of the rungs is the pathway of his glance, and he stands on top. No heaven exists for him, no earth, nothing but the broach-post and the ladder which he ties together with his rope. The knot is made; the spectators breathe with relief and give utterance in all the streets to their admiration for the daring man and his doings high up between heaven and earth. For a week the children of the town play at being slaters.

But now the daring man begins his work indeed. He fetches up another rope and lays it as a rotary ring round the post below the pommel of the steeple. To this he fastens his tackle with three blocks, to the tackle the rings of his hanging seat. A board to sit on with two places cut out to allow his legs to hang down, and with a low, curved back, on either side boxes for slates, nails and tools; in front, between the places for his legs, a little anvil on which he hammers the slate to the shape he wants it with his slater's hammer; this apparatus, held by four strong cables which unite above to form two rings for the hooks of the tackle, is the hanging-seat as he calls it, the light craft in which he sails round the roof of the steeple high in the air. By means of the tackle he easily pulls himself up or lets himself down as high or as low as he likes; the ring above turns round the steeple with the tackle and hanging-seat in whichever direction he desires. A gentle kick against the roof sets the whole in motion, for him to stop where he pleases. Soon no one stands below any longer looking up; the slater at work is no longer any novelty. The children turn again to their old games. The jackdaws grow accustomed to him; they regard him as a bird, like themselves, only bigger, but peaceful, as they are; and the clouds in the sky have never troubled themselves about him from the beginning. The ladies envy him his view. Who can look out so freely across the green plain and see how mountains range themselves behind mountains, first green, then growing bluer and bluer to where the sky, even bluer than they, rests on the last ones! But he troubles himself as little about the mountains as the clouds trouble themselves about him. Day after day he works on with iron and claw-hammer, day after day he hammers slates and drives in nails, till he is done with hammering and nailing. One day man, tackle, ladder and scaffolding have disappeared. The removal of the ladder is just as dangerous as its setting up; but no one below folds his hands, no mouth extols the achievement of the man between heaven and earth. The crows wonder for a whole week and then it seems to them as if years ago they had dreamt of some odd bird. Far below the tumult of the wanderers of the earth still sounds, high above the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds still continue in their vast course, but no one flies around the steep roof save the cawing swarm of jackdaws.

It was proposed to put the whole management of the repairs in Apollonius' hands. In order not to hurt his brother's feelings, he begged the council to arrange differently. He was so anxious not to hurt his brother that he did not even say why he asked this. His work in Cologne had accustomed him to act independently; he foresaw that his brother, as he had found him again, would be the cause of many a hindrance. He knew that he was taking a heavy burden upon himself when he promised the inspector that the work itself should not suffer by reason of the two-headed management. The honest man, who guessed Apollonius' purpose and only respected him the more on that account, obtained the consent of the council for him, and silently resolved that wherever it should be necessary he would take the part of his favorite and uphold the latter's orders against those of his brother.

It was a difficult task that Apollonius had set himself; it was much more difficult than he knew. His presence at home had not pleased his brother from the beginning; Apollonius attributed that to the influence of his sister-in-law; since then he had grown even more estranged from him—and no wonder! Apollonius had already become acquainted with his brother's vanity and greed for honor, and what had happened since then had made the latter feel himself slighted in favor of Apollonius. His sister-in-law's dislike Apollonius thought he could overcome in time by honest endeavor, his brother's injured greed of honor by outward subordination. If there was no further obstacle in the way, he might hope to perform the task, difficult as it seemed. But what lay between him and his brother was something different, very different, from what he thought; and that he did not know it only made it more dangerous. It was a suspicion, born of the consciousness of guilt. Whatever he did to clear the apparent obstacles out of the way could only increase the real one.

Apollonius soon saw that the system to which he had become accustomed in Cologne, the rapid and carefully planned coöperation, did not exist here, nor even such methodical management as his father had formerly maintained. The slater had to wait for fifteen minutes and longer at a time for the slates; the tenders dawdled and had a good excuse for doing so in the slackness and laziness of the cutters and sorters. His brother laughed half compassionately at Apollonius' complaint. Such system as he demanded did not exist anywhere and was not even possible. In his own mind he made fun again of the dreamer who was so unpractical. And even if the system had been possible the work was done by the day. Wasted time was paid for just the same as that properly applied. And when Apollonius himself tried to put an end to the old method of jogging along, his brother saw in him again the time-server of the inspector and the council, while he saw himself as the straightforward man who disdained such tricks. He persuaded himself that Apollonius wanted to unseat him altogether, and had even worse intentions in his mind—in which, however, he should not succeed with all his cunning, although he had come home on purpose to do so. And still he thought the dreamer would make a fool of himself if he tried to carry out what he himself, who knew the world, could not succeed in doing;—he who was keener in action than even old Blue-coat had been in his day.

Fritz Nettenmair thought he was outdoing the old gentleman when he whistled still more shrilly on his fingers, coughed still more wrathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which, even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm, self-contained dignity of a capable personality—these he failed to see. Not possessing them himself, he lacked also the desire to perceive them in others. Just as his figure was absolutely at variance with the bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing joviality and onto a plane where joking rubs out with dirty fingers the line between superior and subordinate as if it had never existed. Then when he forcibly jerked himself back just as suddenly into the person of authority, he did not regain the respect he had lost, he merely offended. To all this was added the fact that he knew himself to be excelled by some of his workmen, and in difficult cases was obliged to let them do as they liked.

Apollonius, on the contrary, had by nature and by virtue of the training that he had received at his cousin's what his brother lacked; he possessed dignity of personality, consistency to the point of obstinacy. His inward sureness made him authoritative; he did not have to exert himself to be so—he was raised above the necessity of demanding respect by visible effort which so seldom attains its purpose, indeed usually defeats it. And so he succeeded in doing what he wanted. Soon the work was being carried on in the most systematic order, and all those concerned seemed to feel contented under the change—all except Fritz Nettenmair. The rapid coöperation that moved as on the track of an invisible necessity made the figure in the blue coat in which he felt himself so big, superfluous. Another reason for uneasiness was that the new system came from his brother; from him whom he already had so much to forgive and whom he wanted less and less to forgive. He did not know, or did not want to know, what charm a self-contained personality exercises, although he himself was obliged to acknowledge it against his will, and still less that he lacked this and that his brother possessed it. He had agreed in his own mind that his brother had used means which he was pleased to feel himself too noble to apply. In that way Apollonius had won the people away from him. The latter had no suspicion of what was going on in his brother's breast; he was on his guard against him, as one must be against cunning persons, for such enemies can only be defeated with their own weapons. The brotherly friendliness and respect with which Apollonius treated him was a mask behind which he thought he could certainly hide his sinister plans; he would pay him back and make him more easily harmless if he hid his watchfulness behind the same mask. Apollonius' good-natured willingness outwardly to subordinate himself to him appeared to his brother like derision in which the workmen, won over by the deceitful one, knowingly took part. In his sensitiveness, he himself resorted to the means that he assumed his brother employed. He was prevented from opposing him openly by the fact that Apollonius impressed him himself, even though he would not have acknowledged this to be the reason. He laid the blue coat of thunder aside and descended to the very lowest rung of his joviality. He began by hints and then gradually by words to show his sympathy with the workmen who groaned beneath the tyranny of a time-serving intruder, as he proved to them; as he had not the courage to incite them to open rebellion he sought to lead them to commit single petty acts of mutiny. He began to treat them to food and drink daily. They ate and drank, but remained as before in the course that Apollonius marked out for them.

The common man has a child's keen eye for the strong points and weaknesses of his superior. This endeavor, which they saw through, lost Fritz Nettenmair the last vestige of the men's respect; it taught them, if they did not already know it, in whose bad books they might safely come, in whose they might not. And if they had been uncertain, the inspector's different behavior toward the two brothers might have determined them. And as they were not so finely organized, and also had not the same reasons as Fritz Nettenmair, their opinion made itself undisguisedly plain. They took liberties with him which showed him that the success of his condescension was entirely different from what he had intended. Then he drew the cloud of the blue coat once more wrathfully about him, whistled more shrilly than ever, so that the big bell on the other side resounded, was doubly bombastic and raised his shoulders as high again toward his black head. The wrath and decision of his former coughing and spitting was child's play to those he displayed now. But the workmen soon knew that this went on only in Apollonius' absence; and his chance appearance, like the rising full moon, disconcerted the heaviest thunder-storms.

Fritz Nettenmair was obliged to despair of reëstablishing his lost importance on the scene of the repairs. Naturally he added also the result of his mistaken measures to Apollonius' ever-growing account. The feeling that he was superfluous seized him as it had his father, but not with quite the same effect. What the little garden was to the old gentleman the slate-shed now became to the elder son; at least as long as he saw Apollonius on the hanging-seat or on the church roof. But now he also brought the blue coat with him into the living room. His children—and this was easy as he himself did not trouble himself about them—had also been won over by his brother, by reprehensible means, of course. The reprehensible means were just those which he himself never applied: unintentional kindness and love that was wise in its severity. But even in his wife he began to see more and more one who was to some extent his brother's ally in the latter's conspiracy against him. He saw this long before he had the slightest real cause to do so, and that was the shadow that his guilt threw across the future of his imagination. Its old law was to compel him, by reason of the wrongness of his means of defense, to make of this shadow a real, living form and to place it in his life as a retributive force.

Vague, premonitory fear that fluttered by in momentary clear intervals, seemed to tell him that his changed behavior toward his wife must hasten this change. At such times he suddenly became doubly pleasant and jovial with her; but even this joviality bore something of the nature of the sultry soil from which it grew.

One cure for such a disease is highly praised; that is diversion, self-forgetfulness. As if the navigator should forget himself at sight of the threatening reef, as if every one should forget himself wherever double foresight is necessary! Fritz Nettenmair took the cure.

From now on he was never missing at a ball or any public amusement; he felt himself to have fled the danger forever if he were absent only for an hour from the place where he saw it threatening. He was more out of his house than in it—and not he alone. He thought the cure still more necessary for his wife than for himself. His vengeful self-consciousness assumed what lay as a mere possibility in the future to be a reality of the present. And his wife was still so much on his side that she was now angry with his brother to whose influence she attributed the change in her husband's behavior—only not in the way in which it really was responsible.

Apollonius, who was oppressed by all this as by a heavy cloud, an uncomprehended intuitive feeling, understood only this: his brother and his sister-in-law avoided him. He kept away from the places to which they went. The inmost need of his nature, the tendency to gather together rather than to dissipate, in itself, would have led him to do so. Solitude became a better cure for him than diversion proved to be for the other two. He saw how different his sister-in-law was from what she had seemed to him to be before. He was obliged to congratulate himself that his dearest hopes had not been fulfilled. His work gave him enough sense of himself; whatever gaps remained the children filled.

And the old man in the blue coat? Has he in his blindness no suspicion of the clouds that are piling up all about his house? Or is it such a suspicion that grips him at times when, meeting Apollonius, he exchanges indifferent words with him? Then two powers strive on his brow which his son, confronted by the shield over his father's eyes, does not see. He wants to ask something but he does not ask. So thick is the cloud that the old man has spun about him like a cocoon that there is no longer any way through it from him out into the world nor any, leading from outside in to him. He behaves as if he knew about everything. If he did not do so, he would show the world his helplessness and himself challenge it to abuse this helplessness. And if he should ask would people tell him the truth? No! He believes the world to be as obdurate toward him as he is toward it. He does not ask. He listens where he knows he is not seen listening, straining feverishly to catch every sound. And in every sound he hears something that is not there; his strained imagination builds boulders of it that crush his breast, but he does not ask. He dreams of nothing but of things that bring disgrace on him and his house.

It is the nature of guilt that it entangles not alone its author in new guilt. It has the magic power of drawing into its fermenting circle all who surround him and of ripening in him whatever is bad to fresh guilt. Well for him who successfully defends his unblemished heart against this magic power! Even if he cannot save the guilty one himself, he may be an angel to the others. Here are these four human beings with all their differences of individuality, held together in one knot of life which is being consumed by the guilt of one! What destiny will they spin for themselves, the people in the house with the green shutters?

Weeks had now passed since Apollonius' return and still he had not realized his sister-in-law's fears. During the first few days Fritz Nettenmair read in her demeanor a convulsive effort to pull herself together, a desperate endeavor to be prepared; now this gave way to something that appeared to be amazement. He, and he alone, saw how she began to observe his brother more and more courageously when he did not suspect that her gaze rested upon him. She seemed to be comparing his personality, his behavior with her expectation. Fritz Nettenmair felt in her soul how little the two agreed. He took pains to nurse his young wife's dislike of her brother-in-law back to its old strength. He did so, feeling all the time how vain his effort was; for a single glance at his brother's gentle, upright countenance must tear down what it had taken him days laboriously to build up. He felt how delicately he ought to go to work and how roughly he really did so; for the same power that sharpened his feeling for the degree carried him beyond it as soon as he came to act. He knew that what he had begun must complete its course to his ruin. He sought forgetfulness and drew his wife ever deeper with him into the whirlpool of diversion.

Medicines taken in too large doses are said to have the opposite of the desired effect. Thus it was with Fritz Nettenmair's medicine; at least as regarded his young wife. In the midst of every-day domestic work she had formerly longed for the festival of pleasure; now that this had become her every-day atmosphere her longing was for the quiet life of her home. Satiated with the marks of honor bestowed upon her husband by the important people, she now began for the first time to notice that there were other people who measured him according to a different standard. She began to compare, and the important people fell lower and lower in her eyes beside the every-day people. She thought of the dull ball on the evening of Apollonius' arrival.

She was sitting in the garden sewing while the old gentleman dreamt his heavy midday dreams. She felt so peculiarly happy at home. Her boys were playing at her feet, as quietly as if the old gentleman had been present, or no, not like that, for if he had been in the little garden they would not have dared to go in there at all. The little girl had thrown her arms round her mother, who seemed herself to be still a girl, so chaste did she appear. Now the child raised her little head with old-fashioned earnestness, looked meditatively at her mother and said: "Whatever can be the reason?"

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD DAVID BEING STONED BY SINAI]

"Reason of what?" asked her mother.

"Whenever you have been with us and then go away, he looks after you so sadly."

"Who?" asked her mother.

"Why, Uncle Apollonius. Who else could it be? Did you scold him, or slap him as you do me when I take sugar without asking? You must have done something to him, or he wouldn't be so sorry."

The little girl went on chattering and soon forgot her uncle over a butterfly. Not so her mother. She no longer heard what the child said. What a queer feeling was this that had come over her, happy and unhappy at the same time! She had let her needle fall without noticing it. Was she startled? It seemed to her that she was startled, much as she would have been if she had been speaking to some one and suddenly realized that it was not the person she thought. She had thought that Apollonius wanted to insult her, and now the child told her that she had insulted him. She looked up and saw Apollonius coming from the shed toward the house. At the same moment another man stood between her and him as if he had grown up out of the earth. It was Fritz Nettenmair. She had not heard him approaching.

After putting an indifferent question he went on with strange haste to speak of the "dull ball." He repeated what people had said about it, told her how offended every one felt that Apollonius had not asked her for a dance, not even for the first one. It was curious that when he reminded her of it now she felt it more keenly than ever; but not with anger, only with sad pain. She did not say so; she did not need to. Fritz Nettenmair was like a man in a magnetic sleep; from the leaf of a tree, from a picket in the fence, from a white wall he read, with closed eyes, what his wife felt.

"We shall soon get rid of him, I think," he went on as if he had not been reading from the stable-wall. "There is no room here for two households. And Anne is accustomed to plenty of space."

That was the name of the girl with whom Apollonius had been obliged to dance at the dull ball and see home afterward. Since then she had often been at the house on pretexts which her crimson cheek branded as lies. Her father too, a much-respected citizen, had sought Apollonius' acquaintance, and Fritz Nettenmair had furthered the matter in every way he could.

"Anne?" cried his wife as if shocked.

"It's good that she can't lie," thought Fritz Nettenmair with relief. But it occurred to him that her inability to disguise her feelings would also promote his brother's evil plan. He had sought to make her jealous as a last resort. That had been foolish of him, and he already regretted it. She could not pretend; and even if he were still the dreamer of old, her excitement could not but betray to him what was going on in her breast, could not but betray it to herself. And then—once more he had reached the point to which every conclusion led him; he saw her awakening to an understanding of herself. "And then"—he forced the words out so that every syllable tore itself on his teeth—"and then—she'll learn to know what it means!"

His brother expected him in the living-room. "Of course, now that he knows I saw him, he must make some excuse for having passed by here when he thought she was alone." Thus thought Fritz, and followed his brother.

Apollonius was really waiting for him in the living-room. He wanted to see his brother in order to warn him against the evil-looking workman. He had heard much that was suspicious about him, and knew that his brother trusted him implicitly. "And so you order me to send him away?" asked Fritz; and this time he could not help allowing his spite to gleam through his disguise. From the tone in which he spoke Apollonius could not fail to read his real feeling. It was: "So you want to force your way even into the shed too, and drive me out of it. Try it, if you dare!"

Apollonius looked into his brother's eyes with unconcealed pain. He brushed the lapel of his brother's coat as if he would wipe away whatever clouded the relations between them, and said: "Have I done anything to hurt you?"

"Me?" laughed his brother. His laughter was intended to mean: "I'm sure I don't know what!" But it really meant: "Do you ever do anything else, do you ever want to do anything else, but just what you know will hurt me?"

"For a long time I have wanted to say something to you," went on
Apollonius, "I will tomorrow; you are not in the right humor today.
You had to know what I have told you about the workman, and it wasn't
meant as you have taken it."

"Of course! Of course!" laughed Fritz. "I'm convinced that it wasn't so meant."

Apollonius went and Fritz supplemented his speech with, "it was not meant as you would have me believe, old fox. And wasn't it meant as I took it? You think—The workman is a bad fellow; but you would never have warned me if you hadn't needed an excuse." He turned on his heel with a movement that suggested his feeling of superiority. In his desolate state of mind it had pleased him to make successful use of his father's diplomatic method of concealing his thoughts by half expressing them.

His pleasure was short-lived; his old worry fastened him again to the rack. And a newer one had been added to it. He had neglected the business. In his master's absence from the shed the workman had had opportunity enough to steal, and had certainly made use of it. It was long since Fritz had done any work at the church; Apollonius had been obliged to engage another workman and put him in his brother's place. He had earned nothing now for a long time and yet never missed any public amusement. The esteem of the important people showed a growing inclination to fall, and could only be kept up by increasing quantities of champagne. He had plunged himself into debt, and continued to add to his obligations daily. And yet the moment was bound to come when the appearance of prosperity which he had been at such pains to sustain would disappear.

Anne Wohlig had often been at the house since Apollonius' arrival; and Christiane, with the credulity which in simple souls is the natural consequence of their own truthfulness, had seen nothing suspicious in her most far-fetched pretexts. This was not so today. She had suddenly grown so keen-sighted that what she recognized to be an excuse assumed in her eyes the proportions of an unpardonable crime. She disliked any girl that could be so double-faced, and she herself was too honest to hide her opinion. Anne sought the reason for Christiane's treatment of her in the latter's dislike of her brother-in-law. It was well known that she begrudged the poor fellow his brother's affection. She herself had said that she would turn him down if he should dare to ask her for a dance. And Apollonius' appearance showed that she made it impossible for him to enjoy his stay in his father's house. Vexation made Anne honest, too, and she expressed her thoughts as far as she could without touching on the delicate point of her own feeling for Apollonius. Christiane was now obliged to hear the same reproach from a stranger's mouth that she had already heard from her own child.

The girl went. Apollonius, on his way back from his brother, passed by again. He was still in time to see Anne leaving. But nothing showed in his face to confirm Christiane's only half understood fear.

The child had said: "You have done something to him." Anne had said: "You hate him, you won't let him enjoy himself." And the sad glance that he sent after her—she herself caught him now and then unnoticed—said the same thing. Like a flash of joyous light it came into her mind that he did not look sadly after Anne—nor joyfully either. His gaze was as indifferent as it was with every one else. She had been told: "You hate him, you have offended him and you want to hurt him." And she had believed that he hated her, that he wanted to hurt her. And had he not done so? She looks back into the time long past when he insulted her. It is long now since she had felt angry with him for it; she had only feared a fresh insult. Could she still be angry, when he had become such a different man, when she herself knew that he would not offend her, when people said, and his own sad glance confirmed it, that she offended him? And she let her thoughts run back eagerly, so eagerly that the music sounded again about her and she sat again among her girl friends, in her white dress with the pink sash, in the shooting-house, on the bench in front of the windows; and she got up again, driven by a vague impulse and, dreaming, made her way among the dancers to the door—there she saw outside, was it not the same face that looked after her now when she passed, so honest, so gentle in its sadness? Was it not the same peculiar sympathy now as then, that followed her every step and never left her? Then, she had avoided him and looked at him no more, for he was false. False? Is he false again? Is he still false?

* * * * *

All day long Fritz Nettenmair thought of what it could be that Apollonius wanted to say to him tomorrow: "Tomorrow, because I am not in the humor for it today? In the humor? I've let the fox see my hand. If I hadn't, he would have blurted it out; now I have warned him and made him cautious. I am too honest with a player who cheats so; I am bound to lose. Good; I will be 'in the humor' tomorrow, I'll act as though I were blind and deaf, as if I didn't see what it is he is trying to do, even if it were still clearer. A cobweb on the lapel of my coat so that he may have something to brush off! I can't bear to have a fellow like that look into my face—the hypocrite!"

Thus prepared and resolved to outdo the fox in cunning, even though it should put his self-control to the severest test, Apollonius found his brother waiting for him the following day. Apollonius too had resolved on his course. He was determined not to let himself be confused today by any mood of his brother's; everything depended on shutting off the source of all these moods. Fritz wished him the most unembarrassed, jovial good morning that he could command.

"If you will listen to me calmly and in a spirit of brotherliness," said Apollonius, "I hope that this will be the best kind of a morning for you and me and all of us."

"And all of us," repeated Fritz and put nothing of his explanation of the three words into his tone. "I know that you always think of us all, so speak out merrily from your heart; I'll do the same."

Apollonius omitted his intended introduction. He had learnt to be wise and cautious; but to be wise and cautious toward a brother would have seemed to him to be duplicity. Even if he had known of his brother's duplicity he, unlike the latter, would never have thought of meeting him with the same weapons. Even in the face of his experience he would have persuaded himself that he was mistaken.

"I think, Fritz," he, began cordially, "we should have been different toward each other from what we have been." He good-naturedly took half the blame on himself. In his own mind his brother put the whole of it on him, and was about to assure him jovially of the contrary when Apollonius continued. "Things have not been the same as they used to be between us, nor as they should be. The reason for this, as far as I know, is only your wife's dislike of me. Or do you know of any other?"

"I know of none," said his brother shrugging his shoulders regretfully; but he thought of Apollonius' return against his advice, of the ball, of the conference in the church loft, of his being pushed aside in the matter of the repairs, of his brother's whole plan, of that part of it that had been and of that part which was still to be carried out. He thought that Apollonius was occupied only in trying to put it into execution, and of how much depended on his guessing Apollonius' next intention and bringing it to naught.

While he was thinking this, Apollonius went on speaking, with no idea of what was passing in his brother's mind. "I do not know what it can be that has made your wife dislike me. I only know that it cannot be anything that I have done intentionally. Can you tell me what it is? I do not want to accuse her; it is possible that there is something about me that displeases her. And if so, then it is certainly nothing that should be praised or spared. And I should be the very last to spare myself if I only knew what it is. If you know, please tell me. If it is anything bad you must not spare me, even if it should cause you pain to tell me. If you know it and don't tell me, that can be the only reason. But you would not offend me by telling me, really, Fritz."—

Fritz Nettenmair did what Apollonius had just done; in his own mind he measured his brother by himself. The result was bound to be to Apollonius' disadvantage. Apollonius took his thoughtful silence for an answer.

"If you do not know," he went on, "let us go to her together and ask her. I must know what I ought to do. Our life cannot go on like this. What would father say if he knew? I reproach myself day and night that he does not know. It is better for us all, Fritz. Come, let us not put it off."

Fritz Nettenmair heard only his brother's presumptuous demand that he should take him to her! That he should take him to her now! Did Apollonius already know of her state and want to take advantage of it? The question was superfluous; if they saw each other now they could not fail to understand each other. And then it would be there, the thing that for weeks he had not allowed himself an hour's rest in trying to prevent. Then it would come to pass, the thing of which he knew that it must come and the coming of which he had yet made desperate efforts to hinder. They must not see each other face to face now; they must not see each other now until he had built a new dividing wall between them. Of what? He had no leisure to think of that now. He must have some pretext on which to prevent the meeting, must have time to find an excuse. And merely to gain time he said laughingly:

"Of course! Ask her freely and cheerfully. Whoever asks is told. But how do you come to think of that just now? Just now?" A thought that flashed overwhelmingly into his mind involuntarily expressed itself in this question. Apollonius was already at the door. He turned back to his brother, and answered with a gladness that seemed fiendish to the latter because he did not look into the other's honest face. If he had, Apollonius would have caught something of the devilish fear that disfigured his brother's countenance. And still, perhaps he would not. He might have thought his brother ill, so entirely was he without the slightest suspicion of anything in his proposal that could inspire his brother with fear. In fact he thought that what pleased him must please his brother also.

"Before," replied Apollonius, "I was obliged to fear that I should make her still more angry. And that would have been even more disagreeable for you than for me."

His brother laughed and nodded in his jovial way with his head and shoulders merely for the sake of doing something. And his: "And now?" sounded as if it were half stifled with laughter, not with anything else.

"Your wife has been different for some time," went on Apollonius confidingly.

"She is"—answered Fritz Nettenmair's start against his will and wanted to say what he considered her to be. It was an evil word. But would he himself who had made her that tell him so? No, it has not yet come to pass, what he fears. And even if it is bound to come; he can still delay it. He forces himself not to give utterance to his excitement. He would like to ask: "And how do you know that she—is different?" But he knows that his voice would tremble and betray him. He must know who has told his brother. Has he already spoken to her? Has he read it in her eyes at a distance? Or is there a third person involved—an enemy whom he already hates before he knows whether he exists?

Apollonius seems to have caught something of his brother's unfortunate gift of reading another's thoughts. His brother does not ask; his face is turned away; he is seeking like a desperate man and cannot find; and yet Apollonius answers him. "Your little Annie told me," he said, and laughed as he thought of the child. "'Uncle,' said the odd little thing, 'mother is not so cross with you any more; go to her and say you won't do it any more; then she'll be kind again and will give you sugar.' That's how she put the idea into my head. It's wonderful how it sometimes seems as if an angel were speaking out of a child's mouth. Your little Annie may have been an angel to us all."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed so boisterously at the child that Apollonius' laughter caught fire again from his. But Fritz knew that it was a devil that had spoken out of the child's mouth. Yet he laughed—so hard that it did not strike Apollonius how forced and disconnected his reply was. "Well then, tomorrow, as far as I'm concerned, or even this afternoon; now I can't possibly spare the time. Now I'll go down with you to St. George's. I have a necessary errand to do tomorrow! Oh, the confounded child!"

Apollonius had no suspicion how seriously the laughing "confounded" was meant. He said, still laughing at the child himself, "Good. We'll ask tomorrow then. And then everything will be different. I am looking forward to it as gladly as the child, and you are too, I know, Fritz. We'll make it a very different life from what we have been leading." Kindhearted Apollonius rejoiced so heartily at his brother's joy! He continued to do so even after he was up again on his swinging seat, flying round the church roof.

Just as restlessly hovered about his brother's fear the sinister something that hung above him and threatened to engulf him; still more industriously did his heart hammer away at the crumbling plans to hinder the fall: but the ship of his thoughts did not hang between heaven and earth, held by the light of heaven. It pitched deeper and ever deeper between earth and hell, and hell branded him ever darker with its fire.

Toward evening Christiane was suddenly aroused from her dreaming by two men's voices. She was sitting in the grass not far from the closed door of the shed. Fritz and his brother had just entered the shed from the street at the back. She heard him teasing his brother about Anne Wohlig. Anne was the best match in the whole town—and Apollonius was a rascal who knew the world and the species that wore long hair and aprons. Anne was already sewing away at her outfit, and her cousins were carrying the news of her approaching marriage to Apollonius from house to house. Christiane heard her husband ask when the wedding was to be. She had been about to move away; now she forgot to go, she forgot to breathe. And then she almost gave a jubilant shout: Apollonius had said that he was not going to marry at all, either Anne or any one else.

His brother laughed. "Then that's why the evening you came back you didn't dance with any one but Anne and took her home afterward?"

"I would have danced with your wife," replied Apollonius. "You warned me that she would turn me down because she was so set against me. Then I didn't want to dance at all. You brought Anne up to me, and when you went you asked her if I might see her home. I couldn't do anything else under the circumstances. I have never thought of Anne in connection with—"

"Marriage?" interrupted his brother laughing. "Well, she's pretty enough to—amuse yourself with too, and it's worth the trouble to make her perfectly mad about you.

"Fritz!" exclaimed Apollonius, displeased. "But you're not in earnest," he added to soothe himself. "I know you know me better; but even in fun it isn't right to jest lightly about a respectable girl."

"Pshaw," said his brother, "if she behaves like that herself! What does she come to the house for and throw herself at your head?"

"She hasn't done that," answered Apollonius hotly. "She is a good girl, and comes here without any thought of wrong."

"Yes, or you would have put her right," laughed Fritz, and there was mockery in his voice.

"Did I know what she thought?" said Apollonius. "You've teased her about me and me about her. I have done nothing that could have awakened any such thoughts in her. I should have thought it a sin."

The men went back the way they had come. It did not occur to Christiane that they might have come along the path where she stood. All that was open and true in her rose in indignation against her husband. It was not other people who had lied to him; he himself was false. He had lied to her and to Apollonius and she had erred and had hurt Apollonius, Apollonius who was so good that he could not bear to hear Anne made fun of, who had certainly never made fun of her. Everything had been a lie from the beginning. Her husband was persecuting Apollonius because he was false and Apollonius was good. Her inmost heart turned away from the persecutor and toward the persecuted. Out of the rebellion of all her emotions a new and sacred feeling rose triumphant, and she gave herself up to it with the complete abandon of innocence. She did not know it. Oh, that she might never learn to know it! As soon as she learnt to know it would become a sin.—And already the steps were rustling through the grass that were to bring her the bitter knowledge.

Fritz Nettenmair had to erect a new dividing wall before he could bring his brother to his wife. He came for this purpose. His gait was uneven. He was still choosing and could not decide. He became even more uncertain when he stood before her. He read what she felt in her face; it was too honest to conceal anything; it knew too little of what it spoke to think it must hide this feeling. He felt that he could do nothing more with her by repeating the old slanders. He knew that petty absurdities are better fitted to destroy a growing interest than are gross faults. He imitated Apollonius going back along a way along which he had already passed with a light, for fear that he might have let a spark fall; he showed how his brother could not rest at night for thinking that perhaps a workman had not deserved the harsh word that he had spoken to him in the heat of the moment, how he sprang up out of bed to straighten the position of a ruler that he had left lying crooked on the table. At the same time Fritz kept on blowing imaginary fluff from his sleeves. He saw indeed that his efforts were having an opposite effect to what he wished. Irritated by this he went on to stronger measures. He pitied poor Anne whom Apollonius had made fall in love with him by hypocrisy, and told how coarsely he made fun of her in public.

A dark red had come into his young wife's cheeks. Frank, simple natures have a deep hatred of all duplicity, perhaps because they feel instinctively how defenseless they stand before such an enemy. She was trembling with emotion as she rose and said: "You might do that; he could not."

Fritz Nettenmair was startled. In the sight of the figure that stood before him full of contempt there was something that disarmed him. It was the power of truth, the loftiness of innocence confronting the sinner. He pulled himself together with an effort. "Did he tell you so? Have you got so far already?" he said, forcing the words out between his teeth. Christiane wanted to go into the house; he stopped her. She wanted to tear herself away.

"You have lied about everything," she said. "You have lied to him. You have lied to me. I heard what you said to him just now in the shed."

Fritz Nettenmair drew a breath of relief. So she did not know everything. "Was I not obliged to?" he said, his eye scarcely able to stand the purity of her gaze. "Was I not obliged to in order to prevent your disgrace? Do you want the fluff-picker to despise you?" Now her eyes made him drop his. "Do you know what you are? Ask him what a woman is who forgets her honor and her duty. Of whom do you think as you should think only of your husband? When you creep about like a wench in love wherever you think you will see him? And you think that people are blind. Ask him what he calls that kind of a woman? Oh, people have fine names for a woman of that sort."

He saw how she started, shocked. Her arm quivered in his hand. He saw she was beginning to understand him, was beginning to understand herself. He had feared her obstinacy—and behold, she was breaking down! The angry red faded in her cheek and a blush of shame flushed wildly over its pallor. He saw her eyes seek the ground as if she felt the gaze of all men fixed upon her, as if the shed, the fence, the trees all had eyes and they were all staring into hers. He saw how in the suddenness of her perception she called herself one of the women for whom people have such fine names.

The pain poured its rain over her burning cheeks that bled with shame and her tears were like oil; the fire grew when a voice sounded from the shed and his tread was heard. She tried to tear herself violently away and looked up with a half wild, half imploring glance that, dying, sank again to the ground before the thousand eyes that were fixed upon her. He saw that the eye of the man who was coming through the shed was the most terrible of all to her. He was again in possession of all his courage.

"Tell him,"—he forced the words out softly—"what you want of him. If he is as you think he is he must despise you."

Fritz Nettenmair held the struggling woman fast with the strength of the victor until he had beckoned to Apollonius, who stepped questioningly out of the shed, to come over to him. He let her go and she fled into the house. Apollonius, shocked, stopped halfway up to him.

"You see how she is," Fritz said to him. "I told her you wanted to ask her. If you like we will go after her, and she must confess to us. I'll see whether my wife can safely insult my brother, who is so good."

Apollonius had to restrain him. Fritz would not consent at first. Finally he said: "Well, now you see, at least, that it is not my fault. Oh, I am so sorry!"

There was an involuntary dismay in the last words which Apollonius connected with the failure at a reconciliation. Fritz Nettenmair repeated them softly, and this time they sounded like a mockery of Apollonius, like mocking regret at the failure of a sly trick.

Christiane had rushed into the living-room and bolted the door behind her. She was not thinking of Fritz; but Apollonius might come in. She turned over and over the feverish thought of fleeing out into the world. But wherever she thought of herself, on the steepest mountain, in the deepest valley, he met her and saw what it was that she wanted and he had to despise her. Little Annie was in the room; she had not noticed the child. All the mother's life was engaged in her inward struggle; Annie could not tell from her mother's look what was going on within her. She drew her mother onto a chair, threw her arms round her in her usual fashion and looked up into her face. Her gaze struck her mother as if it came from Apollonius' eyes. Little Annie said:

"Do you know, Mother, Uncle 'Lonius"—the mother jumped up and pushed the child away from her as if it had been he himself. "Don't tell me anything more about—don't tell me anything more about him!" she said with such angry fear that the little girl stopped speaking and began to cry. Little Annie did not see the fear, she saw only the anger in her mother's action. It was anger at herself. The little girl lied when she told her uncle of her mother's anger at him. He did not need to be told. Had he not seen her red cheek himself, when she fled from his and his brother's question; the same red of angry dislike with which she had received him when he came home? Oh, from then on life was curiously sultry in the house with the green shutters for days and weeks.

Fritz Nettenmair was very little at home. From early in the morning till late at night he sat in a public house from which the door in the church roof and the hanging seat on the tower could be seen. He was more jovial than ever, and treated everybody in order to forget himself in their insincere admiration.

In the shed and in the slate quarry the disagreeable-looking workman took his place. Until he came home late at night, the workman wandered back and forth in the passage leading from the living-room to the shed. There had been some cases of theft in the neighborhood, and the workman stood watch; Fritz Nettenmair had become a very anxious man about his home. Other people wondered at Fritz Nettenmair's confidence in the workman. Apollonius warned him repeatedly. Of course! He had good reason not to desire any watch kept, least of all by this workman who did not like him. And that was just why Fritz Nettenmair trusted the workman and would not listen to warnings. When Fritz Nettenmair said to his brother: "I am so sorry," he had just caught sight of the workman. The latter's grin showed him that the workman saw through him and knew what it was that he feared. He ground his teeth; half an hour later he intrusted him with the watch and his place in the shed and the quarry. It needed but few words. The workman understood what Fritz told him that he must do; he also understood what Fritz did not tell him and what he must do nevertheless. Fritz Nettenmair had as little confidence in the fellow's honesty in the business as had Apollonius; but the man's dishonesty there secured him his honesty where he needed it more.

The old gentleman in the blue coat had worse dreams than ever; he listened more anxiously than ever to every fleeting sound, heard more in it, and added ever greater loads to what lay on his breast. But he did not ask.

It was late one evening. From the tavern window Fritz Nettenmair had seen Apollonius leave his hanging seat and tie it to the scaffold. According to his custom, he hurried out of the restaurant so as to get home before Apollonius. He found his wife in the living-room, busy about her household work. The workman came in and made his customary report. Then he whispered something to his master and went.

Fritz Nettenmair sat down at the table with his wife. He usually sat there until the sound of the workman's shuffling tread in the hall told him that Apollonius had gone to bed. Then he went back again to his tavern; he knew that the house was safe from thieves, the workman was on the watch.

The feeling that he had his wife in his hand and that she resigned herself to the situation with suffering had until now aided the wine to cast over him a faint reflection of the jovial condescension which formerly had shone like the sun from every button of his clothes. Today the reflection was unusually faint—perhaps because her eye had not sought the ground when it met his glance. He put a few indifferent questions, and then said: "You have been merry today." He wanted her to feel that he knew everything that went on in the house even when he was not there. "You were singing."

She looked at him calmly and said: "Yes, and tomorrow I'll sing again.
I don't know why I shouldn't."

He got up noisily from his chair and walked up and down with heavy steps. He wanted to intimidate her. She rose quietly, and stood there as if expecting an attack that she did not fear. He stepped close to her, laughed hoarsely and made a gesture which he intended to frighten her into stepping back. She did not do so. But the crimson of hurt feelings spread over her cheeks. She had grown keen-sighted, distrustful of her husband. She knew that he had her and Apollonius watched.

"And did he tell you nothing more?" she asked. "Who?" shouted Fritz. He raised his shoulders and thought he looked like the old man in the blue coat. His wife did not answer.

Presently she said softly, "I have come to be at peace with myself," and this was written so brightly in her eyes that the man began to walk up and down again in order not to have to look at them. "I am at peace with myself. The thoughts came to me; I was not to blame for that, and I did not call them into my mind. I did not know they were evil. Then I fought with them and I will not tire as long as I live. In my soul I went to my dear mother's bed where she died, and I saw her lying there and laid three fingers on her heart. I promised her that I will do and suffer nothing dishonorable and I begged her with tears to help me not to do or suffer anything dishonorable. I promised and begged until all my fear had gone away, and I knew that I was an honorable woman and would remain an honorable woman. And no one may despise me. Whatever you may do to me, I am not afraid and will not defend myself. But you shall not do anything to the child. You do not know how strong I am and what I can do. I will not have it; that I tell you."

His glance passed fearfully by the slender figure without touching her pale, beautiful countenance; he knew that an angel stood there and threatened him. Oh, he realized, he felt how strong she was; he felt how powerfully the resolution of an honest heart protects. But only against him! His weakness made him feel that. He felt that no one who had the power of belief could fail to believe her. He had gambled away this right in the crooked game. He would have had to believe her, if he had not known that what must come, would come. Not she nor any one could prevent it. He had fallen into the hands of the spirit of his guilt, the thought of retribution, which drove him irresistibly to bring about what he wished to prevent; the long steady habit of thinking this thought had buried him too deep. Hope and trust were alien to the thought; hate was more akin to it. And it was hate that he called to his aid.—Outside the workman's feet shuffled on the sanded floor of the hall. The house was safe from thieves: he could leave it again.

Fritz Nettenmair was as jovial in the tavern that night as he could possibly be. His flatterers were thirsty, and pleased with his condescension. He drank, pushed the guests' hats down over their ears, performed many another tender caress with his stick and his hand, and laughed admiringly at them as brilliant jokes. He did everything to forget himself; but he did not succeed.

If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was sitting solitary at home! The thing for which he longed—to forget himself—was the very thing against which she must be on her guard. What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing for which she strove unavailingly—to remember herself. All her thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius. She thought she was avoiding him, and now she saw that he had fled from her. She ought to be glad, and it hurt her. Her cheeks burned again. It was peculiar that she herself regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly. He had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things. Did he know what she was, and despise her? He was so gentle and indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her. Even before he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had and did he guess them? And he was sorry for her, and that was why he looked after her with such a sad glance when she went? Yes! Of course! And now he fled from her in order to spare her: the sight of him should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she herself slept in her coffin. Perhaps he himself had said so to her husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband's desk? She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock. She remembered that he had never been so careless before. Usually she would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without locking the desk and taking the key with him. Apollonius' letters lay in the top right-hand drawer; usually her glance avoided the spot. Now she opened the desk and drew out the drawer. Her hands trembled, her whole form quivered—not for fear that her husband might surprise her in what she was doing. She must know how it stood between her, Apollonius, and her husband; she would have asked the latter, she would not have come to her own aid if she could have trusted him. She trembled in expectation of what she should find. Had she any premonition of what it would be?

There were many letters in the drawer; all of them lay open and unfolded. She touched them all, one after another, before she read them. With each one that she touched a fresh flush spread over her cheeks, as if she touched Apollonius himself, and involuntarily she drew back her hand. Now a little metal box fell from one of the letters back into the drawer; the box flew open and out of it fell a small, dry blossom—a little bluebell. It was just such a one that she had once laid on the bench that he might find it. She was startled. That one, Apollonius had auctioned off the same evening with ridicule and mockery among his comrades, asking them what they would give and finally, amid the general laughter, solemnly knocked it down to his brother. He had brought it to her and told her about it while they were dancing and Apollonius had looked in at the hall window, mockingly, as his brother had said. That one she had pulled to pieces; all the young people had danced over the ruins. The blossom in the box was another one. The letter must tell from whom it was or to whom Apollonius sent it.

And yet it was the same flower. She read it. What feelings took possession of her as she read that it was the same one. Tear after tear fell on the paper and out of them mounted a rosy haze and veiled the narrow walls of the little room. Oh, it was a world of happiness, of laughing and crying with happiness that rose from the tears; every one shone more like a rainbow, every one cried: "She was yours!" And the last one lamented: "And she has been stolen from you!" The flower was from her; he carried it on his breast in yearning, hope, and fear, until she of whom he thought when he touched it had become his brother's. He was so good that he had thought it a sin to keep the poor blossom away from the man who had stolen the giver from him. And she might have clung to such a man, might have enfolded him in the arms of her yearning and never let him go! She could have done it, might have done it, should have done it! It would not have been a sin; it would have been a sin if she had not done so. And now it was a sin because the other had defrauded him and her, the other who now tormented her about what he himself had made sinful, who forced her to sin—for be forced her to hate him, and that too was a sin and his fault. With terribly sweet fear she thought of the nearness of the man who should be a stranger to her, who was not a stranger to her, from whom in the dread of her weakness she saw no escape. She fled from him, from herself, into the room where her children slept, where her mother had died. There, where such peace had come to her, she heard the slight movement of the innocent little slumberers whose guardian God had made her, heard their quiet breathing whispering into the still, dark night. She went from bed to bed, sank motionless on her knees before each, and pressed her forehead against the sharp edges of the bedsteads.

From the tower of St. George's the bells rang as the step of time passed over her; and he did not cease his march. She lay, her hot hands clasped, a long, long time. Then from the gentle web of her feelings there rose, silvery as the sound of Easter morning bells, the thought: why are you afraid of him? And she saw all her angels kneeling About her and he was one of her angels, the most beautiful and the strongest and the gentlest. And she might look up to him as one looks up to his angels. She rose and went back into the other room. She spread the letters out on the table and then laid herself to rest. She meant their possessor to know, when he came home and found the letters, that she had read them. It was hard for her to part with them; but they did not belong to her. She took away only the little box with the withered flower, and meant to tell him in the morning that she had done so.

Fritz Nettenmair still sat on all alone in the wine-tavern. His head hung wearily down on his breast. He justified to himself his hatred and his course of action. His brother and she were false; his brother and she were guilty, not he who sat here squandering what belonged to his children. He who had stolen her heart away from him might look after them. Just at the moment when he had succeeded in convincing himself, the door of the bedroom at home opened. His wife had got up out of bed again and put back the box containing the flower with the letters. Apollonius had not kept it, neither might she. Her husband had not yet thought of going home when she once more pulled the covers over her chaste limbs. In the thought that thence-forward Apollonius should be her lode-star, and that if she acted as he did she would remain pure and safe from evil, she fell asleep and smiled in her slumber like a carefree child.

Apollonius knew little of his brother's mode of life. Fritz Nettenmair hid it from him through the involuntary restraint that Apollonius' efficient personality laid upon him, though he would not have acknowledged it to any one, least of all to himself. And the workmen knew that they might not go to Apollonius with anything that looked like tale-bearing, least of all where his brother was concerned, whom he would have liked to see respected by them all more than himself. But he had noticed that Fritz looked on him as an intruder on his rights who robbed him of all pleasure in his business and occupation. From the day of his return Apollonius had not felt happy at home. He was a burden to those whom he loved most; he often thought of Cologne, where he knew himself to be welcome. Until now the moral obligation had held him which he had taken upon himself in respect to the repairs. These were nearing completion with rapid strides. Thus his thought was at liberty to demand realization; and he imparted it to his brother.

It was difficult for Apollonius at first to convince his brother that he was in earnest in his intention to return to Cologne. Fritz took it for a sly pretext meant to reassure him. Man gives up a fear with as much difficulty as he does a hope. And he would have had to confess to himself that he had done wrong to the two whom he had become so accustomed to accusing of having done wrong to him that he felt a kind of satisfaction in so doing. He would have had to forgive his brother for a second wrong which the latter had suffered from him. He did not become reconciled until he had succeeded in seeing again in his brother the dreamer of old and in his intention a piece of foolishness, until he saw in it an involuntary confession that his brother had recognized in him a superior opponent and was leaving in despair of ever being able to carry out his evil plan. Then at once all his old jovial condescension waked as from a winter sleep. His boots creaked again: "There he is!" and his dangling seal once more voiced the triumphant shout: "Now the fun will begin!" His boots drowned what his head said to him of the unavoidable consequences of his extravagance, of his descent in the general esteem. It seemed to him that everything would be just as it had been, once his brother was away. Looking ahead, he even believed in his extraordinary magnanimity in forgiving his brother for having been there. He stood before his brother in all his old greatness, in which he confronted the intruder as the sole head of the business; with his most condescending laugh he waved to his brother the assurance that he would manage to get the old man in the blue coat to consent; he himself must send Apollonius away.

The young wife felt as if her angel were about to leave her. She felt that she was safer from him when near him than when he was at a distance; for all the charm that forbade her desires to be sinful fell upon her from his honest eyes.

Apollonius had also told the councilman of his decision. It hurt him that the good man—who usually approved of everything that Apollonius wanted to do, in advance, as if the latter could not do anything that he would not be obliged to approve—received his news with odd, wondering, monosyllabic coldness. He pressed him to tell him the reason for this change. The two good men understood each other easily. After recovering from his surprise at finding Apollonius in ignorance of it, the councilman told him what he knew of his brother's mode of life and expressed the opinion that his father's house and business could not exist without Apollonius' aid. He promised to make further inquiries about the matter, and was soon able to enlighten Apollonius as to the details. Here and there in the town his brother owed not inconsiderable sums; the slate business, particularly of late, had been so carelessly and unconscientiously carried on that some customers of many years' standing had already withdrawn their patronage, and others were about to do so. Apollonius was frightened. He thought of his father, of his sister-in-law and of her children. He thought of himself too, but it was just his own strong sense of honor that made him first imagine what the proud, upright, blind old man would have to suffer under the disgrace of a possible bankruptcy. He would be able to earn his bread; but his brother's wife and children? And they were not accustomed to hardship. He had heard that Christiane's inheritance from her parents had been considerable. He took heart. Perhaps the situation could still be saved. And he wanted to save it. He would not stop at any sacrifice of time and strength and property. If he could not hinder the decline, at least those who were dear to him should not want.

The staunch councilman rejoiced at his favorite's view of the matter, on which indeed he had reckoned; he had thought it odd that Apollonius had not shown it before. He offered him his aid, saying that he had neither wife nor child and that God had permitted him to acquire something so that he might help a friend with it. Apollonius did not as yet accept his offer. He wanted first to see how matters stood and to feel sure that he could remain an honest man if he took his friend at his word.

Hard days came for Apollonius. His old father must as yet know nothing, and, if it were possible to uphold his honor, should never learn that it had tottered. In his treatment of his brother Apollonius required all his firmness and all his gentleness.

After having found out who the creditors were and what the various sums amounted to, Apollonius examined the condition of the business and found it even more confused than he had feared. The books were in disorder; for some time no more entries had been made at all. Letters from customers were found complaining of the poor quality of the material delivered and of carelessness in the execution of their orders; others, with bills inclosed, were from the owner of the quarry who did not want to take any new orders on credit until the old ones were paid. The greater part of Christiane's fortune was gone; Apollonius had to force his brother to produce the remains of it. He was obliged to threaten him with court proceedings. What did not Apollonius, with his punctilious love of order, suffer in the midst of such confusion! What did he not go through, with his intense love of his family, in having to act thus toward his brother! And yet the latter saw in every utterance, every act of this man who was suffering so, only badly concealed triumph. After infinite pains Apollonius succeeded in getting a comprehensive survey of the state of affairs. If the creditors could be persuaded to have patience and the customers who had transferred their business could be won back again, it would be possible, with strict economy, industry and conscientiousness, to save the honor of the house; and, by untiring effort, he might succeed in assuring to his brother's children at least an unincumbered business as their inheritance.

Apollonius wrote at once to the customers and then went to his brother's creditors. The former agreed to give the house another trial. Among the latter he had the pleasure of learning what confidence he had already won in his home town. In every case if he would stand security the creditor was willing to allow the sum owing to remain as a loan, at low interest, to be gradually paid off. Some of them even wanted to intrust him with cash in addition. He did not attempt to test the sincerity of these offers by accepting them, and thus only added to the confidence that those who made them felt in him. Then he modestly and gently explained to his brother what he had done and still wanted to do. Reproaches could not do any good, and he thought that admonitions were superfluous where the necessity was so plain. If from now on Apollonius, acting alone and independently, took over the management of the whole, of the business and of the household, his brother surely could not see in his conduct any voluntary derogation. In a matter in which he had staked his honor he must have a free hand.

Above all things the selling end of the business must once more be brought up to its former standing. The quality of the material delivered by the owner of the quarry had steadily deteriorated, and his brother had been obliged to accept it in order to get any material at all. The other creditors' offers, to let the money owing them stand as loans, he accepted, in order to settle the quarry owner's old account with what could at once be liquidated of the remnant of Christiane's fortune, and to pay cash at once for a new order. Thus it was possible to obtain good material again at a reasonable price and to satisfy his purchasers. The owner of the quarry, who on this occasion made Apollonius' acquaintance and saw something of his knowledge of the material and of its treatment, made him an offer, as he himself was old and tired of work, to lease him the quarry. The conditions under which he was willing to do this would have allowed Apollonius to reckon on large profits; but as long as he had only himself to depend upon in his difficult situation, he could not divide his strength among several enterprises.

Apollonius made his plan for the first year and fixed a certain sum which his brother was to receive from him weekly for his household expenses. He dismissed as many of the hands as he could possibly spare. He put the faithful Valentine in charge during the time that he himself was obliged to be busy about affairs outside. There was a well-founded suspicion that the disagreeable-looking workman had been guilty of various dishonest acts. Fritz Nettenmair, who clung to the guardian of his honor as to its last bulwark, did everything he could to justify him and thus to keep him in the house. He explained that he had given the man express orders to do all the things of which he was accused. Apollonius would have liked to have made a legal complaint against the fellow, but he was obliged to be content with paying him off and forbidding him the house. Apollonius was inexorable, gentle though he was in putting his reasons before his brother. Any unprejudiced person would have to admit that he could not do otherwise, that the fellow must go. And with a savage laugh Fritz Nettenmair, too, thought, when he was alone, "Of course he must go!" Whatever Apollonius showed him, strictness and gentleness merely strengthened him in the belief that relaxed its hold upon him the less the longer he nourished it and that grew the thirstier for his heart's blood the longer he fed it from that fount. He saw no further obstacle to prevent his brother's criminal intention from succeeding.

From now on his state of mind alternated between despairing resignation to what could no longer be prevented, what had already probably taken place, and feverish endeavors to prevent it notwithstanding. In accordance with these two moods his behavior toward Apollonius took the form of unconcealed obstinacy or of cringing and vigilant dissimulation. When the first mood governed him he sought forgetfulness day and night. Unfortunately the discharged workman had found employment in a quarry near by and was his companion on many a night. The important people turned away from him, and revenged themselves on him with unconcealed contempt for the desire that he had awakened in them and could no longer satisfy. He avoided them, and followed the workman into places where the latter was at home. There he sounded his jovial condescension an octave lower. The gin-shops now rang with his jokes; and they took on more and more the character of the surroundings.

Roofs that are covered with metal or tiles usually require repairing only after a number of years have elapsed; it is different with slate roofs. While the roof is being covered damage to the slates from the scaffolds and the workmen's feet cannot be avoided. And such damage often does not become apparent until afterward. Often more considerable repairs are required during the three years immediately following the covering of the roof than for fifty years afterward. The roof of St. George's added its testimony to the truth of this old experience. The slate roof of the tower, on the contrary, which Apollonius had attended to alone, bore gratifying witness to its maker's obstinate conscientiousness. The jackdaws who inhabited it would have been left in peace by his swinging seat for a long time if an old master-tinsmith had not chosen to show his ecclesiastical leanings by donating a tin ornament. This wreath of tin flowers which Apollonius was to lay around the tower roof was now the cause of his once more fastening his ladder to the broach-post. A little more than six months had elapsed since he had taken it down.

In the meantime his strenuous efforts had not been without success. He had kept his old customers and won new ones in addition. His creditors had their interest and a small payment on the principal for the first year; confidence in Apollonius and respect for him grew from day to day and with them grew his hope and his strength, for which he paid by redoubled exertions. If only the same thing could have been said of his brother, of the understanding between him and his wife!

It was fortunate for Apollonius that he had to put his whole soul into his purpose, that he had no time to follow his brother with his eye and heart, to see how the man whom he was trying to save sank deeper and deeper. When he rejoiced in his success, he did so from a feeling of loyalty to his brother and his brother's family; Fritz saw something quite different in his rejoicing and thought of nothing but of how to destroy it.

In the beginning he had given his wife the greater part of the money that he received weekly for his household expenses. Then he began to keep back more and more and finally he carried the whole of it into the places where the need of buying flatterers by treating them had followed him more faithfully than had the respect of the town. The experience he had had with the "important" people had not converted him. His wife had been obliged to get on with less and less. Old Valentine saw her distress, and from now on the house money went through his, instead of her husband's, hands. Finally Valentine became her treasurer, and never gave her more than she needed at the moment because money was no longer safe from her husband in her hands.

She used what time she had from her housekeeping and her children in doing different pieces of work which Valentine, as her agent, sold for her. The money that she thus received she used partly—she herself would rather go hungry even though she could not see her children do so—to adorn the living-room with all kinds of things that she knew that Apollonius loved. And yet she knew that Apollonius never came in there, that he never saw it. But then, she would not have done it if she had known that he would see it. Her husband saw it as often as he came into the room. Nothing escaped his eyes that might act as an excuse for his anger and his hatred. Then he began to abuse Apollonius, and in such terms as if he too must now show how much it is possible to acquire of another person's manner.

If the children were present it was his wife's first care to send them away. They must not witness his roughness and learn to despise their father—not for his sake but for their own. He did not betray how glad he was to be rid of the "spies." He feared that the children would complain of him to Apollonius. He did not think that his wife would complain herself, although he assumed that she and Apollonius met each other. Everything that he saw in the room was to him a fresh proof of his shame. How could he believe that it was for any other purpose than to be noticed by Apollonius? Then, when she told him that he might abuse her, only not Apollonius, the keen eye of jealousy showed him what pleasure she took in suffering for Apollonius. He reproached her with it, and she did not deny it. She said to him: "Because he suffers for me and for my children. He gives what he has been at great pains to save to take the place of the weekly sum of which the father has robbed his children."

"And he tells you that? He tells you that!" said the man, laughing with savage joy at having trapped her into a confession that she met him.

"Not he," returned his wife angrily, because the man she despised was judging Apollonius by himself. "Old Valentine told me." She went on to tell him that Valentine had sold as his own the watch that Apollonius had brought with him from Cologne. Apollonius had forbidden him to tell her.

"And also to tell you that he forbade him?" laughed her husband. And there was something of contempt in his laugh. Such things might indeed be believed of the dreamer; but now he would not believe it of him. "Of course!" he laughed still more wildly. "Even a stupider fellow than that dreamer knows that no woman will do it for nothing. The worst of them thinks herself worth something. One with such hair and such eyes and such a body!" He seized her by the hair and gazed into her eyes with a glance before which purity must blush; only depravity could meet it and laugh. He took her blush for a confession and laughed still more wildly. "You want to say that I am worse than he. Ha, Ha! You're right; I married such a woman. He wouldn't have done that. He isn't bad enough for that!"

Old Valentine must have failed to keep his word, or else Apollonius passed the door by chance when his brother believed him far away. He heard his brother's savage outbreak of anger, he heard the clear tone of the wife's voice, still clear and melodious in spite of her excitement. He heard them both without understanding what they were saying. He was shocked. He had not imagined that the breach between them had gone so far. And he was the cause of this breach. He must do what he could to improve matters.

His brother stood in his threatening attitude as if turned to stone when he caught sight of Apollonius entering. He had the feeling of a man suddenly surprised while doing a wrong. If Apollonius had turned on him as he deserved he would have groveled before him. But Apollonius wanted to reconcile them, and said so calmly and from his heart. He might indeed have known, for he had experienced it often enough, that his gentleness only gave his brother the courage to be sneeringly obstinate. It was the same this time. Fritz sneered at him, laughing savagely, and said that he was making an excuse where he was master. Was that the reason he had made himself master of the house? He knew that in Apollonius' place he would have behaved quite differently. He would have let the woman feel it whom he knew to be in his power. He was an honest fellow, and did not need to pretend to be so sweet. It occurred to him, moreover, how often he had sneaked about the door in vain, hoping to surprise Apollonius in the room. Now he was in the room. He had come in because he had not expected to find him. It was Apollonius who must be startled, Apollonius was the person caught, not he. The reconciliation was merely the first excuse on which Apollonius had seized. That was why he was so meek. That was why his wife was frightened—she had been trying to make him believe that Apollonius never came into the room. That was why she looked up at him so pleadingly. The contemptuous gaze with which she had just measured him had suddenly been torn from her consciously guilty face with the mask of pretended innocence. Now he knew with certainty: there was no longer anything to prevent; nothing remained to him but retribution. Now he could show his brother that he knew him, had always known him.

He pointed to his wife. "She's begging me to go. Why should I? I'll look out of the window. That will do just as well. I shan't see what you are doing."

Apollonius did not understand him. Christiane knew that he did not, without looking at him. She tried to leave the room. She could not endure to be humiliated in Apollonius' presence till she was nothing but dirt under his feet. Her husband held her with a savage grip. He seized her with the swoop of a bird of prey. She would have had to scream aloud if her mental torture had not deadened her physical pain.

"Don't mind her wanting to go away," gasped Fritz Nettenmair, stifled with unnatural laughter, and held his brother with his eye as he held his wife with his hand. "You needn't be afraid. Just as soon as I turn my back she will be here again. Go on, talk to each other. Go on, tell him that you can't bear him; I believe it of course; what won't a man believe if a woman like you tells him so? And you, give her some of your teachings from Cologne, where you learnt everything, how to drive your brother out of his house and business so as to—hm—well—Ha, ha! Why don't you tell her? A woman ought to be willing. Oh, such a willing woman is—go on, tell her what that kind of a woman is. She doesn't know it yet, innocent as she is! Ha, ha!"

Apollonius understood nothing of what he heard and saw; but the abuse of a man's strength on a helpless woman filled him with indignation. Involuntarily this feeling carried him away. It doubled his strength, which was far superior to his brother's at all times, when he gripped him by the arm that held his wife so that it let go its prey and dropped as if paralyzed. Christiane tried to leave the room, but she collapsed helplessly. Apollonius caught her and laid her on the sofa, supported against its back. Then he stood before his brother like a wrathful angel.

"I have tried to win you by gentleness, but you are not worthy of it. I have endured much at your hands and will continue to endure," said Apollonius; "you are my brother. You blame me for having driven you into misfortune; God is my witness that I have done everything that I knew to hold you back. For whom have I done what you reproach me with doing, if not for you, and for the sake of your honor and to save your wife and your children? Who compelled me to be hard on you? For whom do I work? For whom am I doing all that I do? If you knew how it hurts me to have you force me to tell you what I am doing for you! God knows, you force me to it; I have never done it yet, not with others, nor with myself. You know that you are only seeking an excuse to be unbrotherly toward me. I know it, and will continue to endure you as I have done till now. But that you should make an excuse of your wife's dislike of me to torture her too, and to treat her as no good man treats a good woman, that I will not stand."

Fritz Nettenmair burst into a horrible laugh. His brother had put him to shame in every way, and now still wanted to play the virtuous hero to him, the innocently offended, the chivalrous protector of the innocently offended woman. "A good woman! Such a good woman! Oh yes indeed! Is she not? You say so—and you are a good man. Ha, ha! Who should know better whether a woman is good or not than such a good man? You have not robbed me of everything? You have still to rob me of my reason so that I shall believe your fairy-tale. She dislikes you? She can't bear you? Oh, you don't know yet how much she dislikes you. I need only be away, then she will tell you. Then it will be bad for you! She will strangle you to make you believe her. When I am present she won't tell you. A woman won't tell a thing like that when her husband is there—a good woman, as she is. Why don't you say that you can't bear her either? Oh, I have no longer any sense! I'll believe anything that you two tell me!"

Forgetting everything but his passion, Fritz Nettenmair was convinced that Christiane and Apollonius had invented the fairy-tale of her dislike.

Apollonius stood shocked. He was obliged to say to himself what he did not want to believe. His brother read in his face terror at the light that was breaking in on him, dismay and pain at the misconstruction put upon his conduct. And everything that he saw was so genuine that even he was obliged to believe it. He was silenced by the thoughts that pierced his brain like strokes of lightning. So it might still have been prevented after all; what must come might still have been hindered! And again it was he, himself—But Apollonius—he saw that in spite of his confusion—still doubted and could not believe. So he might still destroy the effects of his madness, might still perhaps prevent, still hinder what must come, even if it were only for today and tomorrow. But how? Should he make a wild joke out of the whole scene? Such jokes were not unusual with him, and in his mind Apollonius once more became the dreamer of old who believed everything that was told him. He broke into a laugh, a fearful caricature of the jovial laugh with which he had formerly been accustomed to reward his own sallies. That was a confounded joke, that Apollonius could be made to believe that Fritz Nettenmair was jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair jealous! Jovial Fritz Nettenmair! And, better still, of him. He had never heard a more confounded joke than that! He read in his wife's face how relieved she was at the turn he had given to the scene. He dared to appeal to her to confirm the fact that it was a confounded joke. Her "yes" made him still bolder. Now he laughed at his wife who could be "confounded" enough to reproach him angrily with having made her dependent on the favor of the man she hated, and explained laughingly that it was such things that gave rise to little quarrels in married life. He laughed at Apollonius for taking such a little dispute so seriously. He asked to be shown the married people who didn't have such disagreements now and then. It was easy to see that Apollonius was still a bachelor!

Apollonius heard the councilman's voice in the hall, asking for him; he went out quickly so that the councilman should not come in and be a witness to the scene. His brother heard them going away together. He was far from being reassured yet. When he went out Apollonius' face had shown that he was still struggling with the thought that had dawned on him.

Two passions were fighting against each other in Fritz Nettenmair's soul. The dissolute habit of forgetting himself in drink drew him out of the house by a hundred chains; jealous fear held him at home with a thousand talons. If his brother had not yet thought of what he might have if he liked, he himself had now introduced the thought into his mind. All day long he turned his fear over and over and did not let his wife out of his sight. Not until it had all grown quiet around him, till his wife had put the children to bed and laid herself to rest, till he no longer saw any light in Apollonius' windows, did the talons relax their hold and the chains draw the stronger. He locked the back door which separated Apollonius from the rest of the house, he even bolted it as well, and locked the door of the stairs leading to the piazza and finally the door at which he went out. He had cause for haste without knowing it. The disagreeable-looking workman could not stay much longer. Fritz Nettenmair did not yet know that Apollonius had been to the quarry owner and succeeded in having the workman dismissed, had talked to the police and brought it about that the workman might no longer let himself be seen in the neighborhood on the morrow. The workman was ready for his departure; from the public house he was going straight out into the wide world. He only wanted to take leave of his former master and tell him something more before he went.

There was little left in the world to which Fritz Nettenmair was attached. The road that he had been traveling led farther and farther down from what he loved most; it was irretrievably lost to him. He would never again be the centre of admiration and flattery. All that still bound him to his wife was the searing chain of jealousy. He never had been fond of his father; he hated his brother. He knew himself to be hated or, in his madness, believed himself to be hated. Little Annie would have clung to him with all the strength of a child's heart longing to be loved, but he drove her away from him with hatred; to him she was "the spy." To one man alone did his heart cling, to the one who least deserved it. He knew that the man had cheated him, had helped to ruin him, and still he clung to him. The man hated Apollonius, he was the only person besides himself who hated Apollonius and therefore Apollonius' brother clung to him!

Fritz Nettenmair accompanied the workman a part of his way. The workman wanted to walk faster, so he thanked him for his company, intending to proceed alone. When others part their last words are of what they both love; Fritz Nettenmair's and the workman's last words were of their hatred. The workman knew that Apollonius would have liked to have put him in the penitentiary, if he could. As the two now stood facing each other at parting, the workman measured the other with his eye. It was an evil, lurking glance, a grimly surreptitious glance that asked Fritz Nettenmair, without intending to be heard, whether he was ready for something which the workman did not name. Then he said, in a hoarse voice which would have struck the other but that Fritz Nettenmair was accustomed to it: "What was it I wanted to say? Oh, yes, you will soon be in mourning. I saw him the other day." He did not need to mention any name, Fritz Nettenmair knew whom he meant. "There are people who see more than others," the workman continued, "there are people who can see in a slater's face if he is doomed to fall that year, who see him being carried home, and see him lying there, only he is not there any more. An old slater told me the secret of how to see with the 'second sight.' I have it. And now farewell. Meet it with resignation when they carry him home."

The workman had left him; his steps were already growing faint in the distance. Fritz Nettenmair still stood and gazed into the white-gray fog into which the workman had disappeared. The layers of fog hung horizontally above the meadows by the street spread out like a cloth. They rose and melted together, forming strange shapes, they curled, floated apart and sank down again only to rear themselves once more. They hung on the branches of the willows by the way, now veiling them, now leaving them free, till it seemed uncertain whether the fog was dissolving into trees or the trees into fog. It was a dreamlike activity, untiring movement without aim or purpose. It was a picture of what was going on in Fritz Nettenmair's soul, such a true picture that he did not know whether he was looking at something outside or something within himself. There came a hazy bending down and wringing of hands about a pale figure on the ground, then a slowly moving funeral procession, and now it was his enemy, his brother who lay there, whom they carried. Now malicious joy flamed up sharply, died down and pity took its place, now both were mixed and one tried to hide the other. The figure lying there, whom they carried, Fritz forgave everything. He wept over him; for in the intervals of the funeral song the merry dance-tune sounded softly which the future struck up: "There he comes! Now the fun will begin!" And beside the dead lay a second corpse, invisible, his fear of what must come if his poor brother did not lie dead. And in the coffin, Fritz Nettenmair's old jovial happiness put forth new buds. Fritz Nettenmair felt himself to be an angel; he wished that his brother need not die, because—he knew that his brother must die.

He was still walking in the fog when the pavement of the town sounded again under his feet. He had forgotten a past, he forgot the present, for the future was his again. And he was one who—as he turned into his street the old words rang as jovially as they ever did.

It gave him a curious feeling to think that through the door which he had just opened a coffin was going to be carried out. Involuntarily he stood aside as if to let the procession pass him. "We must submit," he said softly, as if repeating to himself what he would have to answer some one offering him consolation when once the time had come, "We must submit to what is unalterable." And as he raised his shoulders in accompaniment to the words, he perceived a faint glimmer of light. He looked up; the light came through the crack between the lower part of the shutter and the window ledge. There was a light in there, in the living-room. "So late?" He gasped; the load lies again on his breast. His brother was still alive; and what must come if he were not to die, might still come before he died, or—it was already here! How swiftly his hands moved—and yet the door was locked again quietly in an instant! Just as softly and just as quickly he went to the back door. It was not open, but the key was only turned once in the lock, and Fritz Nettenmair could swear to it that he turned it twice before he went. He felt his way to the door of the room; he found the latch and gently pressed it; the door opened; a faint glimmer shone out into the hall. It came from a covered light on the table; beside the table a small bed stood in the shadow. It was little Annie's bed, and her mother was sitting beside it.

Christiane did not notice the opening of the door. Her head was bent low down over the bed; she was singing softly and did not know what she was singing; she was listening full of fear, but not to her song; she would cry if the tears did not dim her eyes. But now the color might come back to the child's cheek again, the strange expression about the child's eyes and mouth might disappear, and she might fail to see it and might fear in vain. It seemed to her as if the color must come and the expression change if she only tried hard enough to notice this coming and going. And at the same time she was able to think how suddenly this thing had come that had made her so afraid; how little Annie in the bed beside her own, suddenly cried out in a strange voice and then could not speak any more; how she jumped up and dressed; how she waked Valentine in her distress, and he, without her knowledge, waked Apollonius. The old fellow had tried all the keys in the house until he found that the key of the shed opened the back door; she did not know that. So much the more vividly did she picture how Apollonius came in, how she felt at his unexpected appearance, full of terror and shame and yet wonderfully tranquillized. Apollonius had fetched the doctor at once and medicines. He had stood by the bed and bent over little Annie as she did now. He had looked at her full of pain and said that little Annie's illness was owing to the discord between herself and her husband, and that she would not get well unless this ceased. He had told her of the miracles that are possible to a mother and of how men and women can and must conquer themselves. Then he had given Valentine a few more orders relating to little Annie and had left, fearing that his brother, in his error, might otherwise believe that he wanted to drive him away from the sick-bed of his children. Apollonius had said that little Annie would not get well again if the discord did not cease. He had said that people can and must conquer themselves; Christiane determined to conquer herself because he had said so. A mother could do miracles for her child; if she thought of Apollonius' face when he spoke thus, the greatest miracle must become possible to her.

Fritz Nettenmair entered. He thought of nothing but that Apollonius must have been there, even if he were not there any longer. Everything danced before his eyes he was in such a fury. He would have flown at his wife if he had not seen old Valentine sitting at the door of the bedroom. He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly, when he was such a different man. His wife heard his soft tread; she could not see his face. It seemed to her that he knew of little Annie's condition and walked so softly on that account. She looked at little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was about to do now she would do for the sake of her sick child; a glance at the door by which he had gone out added: "And because he said I should."

"Here is father, Annie," she said. In reality she was talking to her husband who sat at the window, but she could not turn her face toward him, could not address her words directly to him. "You always asked for him, you know. You thought that when he came he would be as he used to be before you were sick. Mother wants him to be like that too—for your sake."

Her voice came from so deep down in her chest that the man had to force himself to control his rage. He thought: "She is speaking so sweetly so as to deceive me. They planned that when he was here." And the soft tones in which she continued only caused his anger to swell more wrathfully.

"And you won't go to Heaven yet, will you Annie? You're such a good little girl and you'll stay with father and mother. If only—you mustn't be afraid of father, you silly little Annie, because he speaks so loud. He doesn't mean to be cross."

She stopped; she expected an answer from the father, not from the child. She expected that he would come to the bed and speak to the child as she had done, and through the child with her. Whatever she might think of him, the child was his child, after all, and it was ill.

The man remained silent and sat on quietly in his chair. For the length of time that it takes to say half the Lord's Prayer there was no sound but the ticking of the clock; and that grew faster and faster like the beating of a human heart that feels misfortune approaching. The flame of the light flickered as with fear.

Valentine rose from his chair to attend to the light.

There was a sound of wheezing in the child's chest; she wanted to speak and could not. She wanted to stretch out her hands toward her father, and she could not. She could do nothing but hold out the arms of her soul to her father. But her father's soul did not see the beseeching arms; it held its wrath convulsively in its hands and had no hand free for the child. Valentine stepped away from the light and went out to give vent to his feelings in tears. The man rose and approached his wife softly without her noticing him. He wanted to surprise her, and he succeeded. She started, frightened, as she suddenly saw facing her across the bed a distorted human countenance. She started, and he said through his teeth: "You are frightened? Do you know why?"

She meant to tell him herself that Apollonius had been there, but she had not yet had an opportunity; she did not dare to do so at the sick child's bedside, because she knew that he would fly into a rage; whenever she could she had spared the child the sight of his roughness while she was still well; now it might frighten the little girl to death. She did not answer him, but looked at him beseechingly, indicating the child by a glance.

"He was here! Wasn't he here?" he asked, not for information but to show that he did not need any. He raised his clenched fist; little Annie struggled to sit up. He did not see it; but his wife saw it, and her terror grew. She clasped her hands, she looked at him with a glance in which there was everything that a woman can promise, that a woman can threaten. He saw only her terror at his knowing what had happened—and his fist descended on her forehead.

There was a shriek. The child writhed in convulsions; the mother, who had fallen upon her, wept loudly. Valentine hurried in, Fritz Nettenmair went into the bedroom. He did not know which was uppermost in him, gratified revenge or fright at what he had done. He sank down on the bed as if the blow that he struck had stunned himself. He only half heard Valentine running for the doctor. In the same state he heard the latter come and go, and in the same state he listened to see if he could hear Apollonius' voice whispering and his soft tread. He did not dare to show himself; shame restrained him. He justified his behavior and called little Annie's illness just a desire to be coddled. "Children think they're dying one day, and the next they're more lively than ever," he said to himself.

His feverish listening and efforts to reassure himself turned into feverish dreaming. Between waking and sleeping he heard quiet steps in the next room, quiet voices, quiet weeping, and at intervals silence.

The quiet weeping that grows loud and is controlled again as if a sleeper were near whom it will not wake, that breaks out again as if it could not wake the sleeper, and again grows soft as if it were frightened at itself for being so loud when every one is quiet: who does not know such weeping? Who does not guess what it means, even if he does not know it?

Fritz Nettenmair knew it, half asleep; there was a dead person in the next room. They had brought him home. "We must submit to what is unalterable."

For the first time for many months he slept quietly again.

And why should he not? The quiet weeping turned into a merry waltz. "There he is! Now the fun will begin"—the words rang triumphantly from the "Red Eagle Tavern" in the distance, into his sleep.

But the quiet steps and the quiet voices were real, and they continued; and there was a dead body in the next room, the beautiful, dead body of a child. The breach between the parents had made the child ill; pain at her father's savage attack on her mother had broken her little heart.

When the new day sent its first glimmer of light through his window, Apollonius rose from the chair on which he had sat ever since his return to his room. There was something solemn in the manner in which he stood upright. He seemed to say to himself: "If it is as I fear, I must act for us both; it is for that that I am a man. I have sworn to uphold my father's house and his honor, and I will do what I have sworn to do, in every sense."

Fritz Nettenmair woke at last. He knew nothing more of the dream-scenes of the night. He only knew that his wife had magnified the "spy's" desire to be coddled into an illness so that she might have an excuse for being together with "him." He began to think of how he should put an end to this coddling. With this idea in his mind he stepped through the door and stood—before a dead body. A shudder ran over him. The dead child lay there before him like a sign to warn him: "You shall not go farther on the way that you have taken!" There the child lay, his child, and she was dead. The child stood before him, an accuser and a witness. She bore witness for her mother. The mother had known that she was dying; and at the deathbed of her child not even the lowest creature would do what he had thought her capable of doing. The child accused him. He had struck a mother at the side of her child's deathbed. No man can do that, not even if the woman were guilty. And she was not; the child testified to that. Now he knew that the pale, dumb countenance of the mother had cried: "You will kill the child; don't strike!" And he had struck nevertheless. He had killed the child. That thought fell on him like a thunder-bolt, so that he collapsed before the child's bed, across which he had struck her mother, before the bed in which his child had died because he struck her mother.

There he lay a long time. The bolt that struck him down had lighted the past with cruel distinctness: he had seen them both innocent whom he persecuted. And there was no guilt but his. He alone had built up the misery that lay crushingly upon him, load on load, guilt on guilt. But after all it was not yet too late! He heard his wife's quiet step in the hall coming toward the door of the room. He heard the door open. If little Annie had been standing in the door of the bedroom then, she would have smiled. He meant to be kind, he meant to be again as he had been before little Annie had been taken sick. He held out his hand to the woman as she entered. She saw him and started. She was as white as little Annie's body, even her lips, usually so crimson, were white. Her neck, her beautiful arms, her soft hands were white, her eyes that were always so shining, were dull. All the life in her had withdrawn to the deepest recesses of her heart and there wept for her dead child. When she saw him her whole body began to tremble. In two steps she stood between him and the body; as if she still wanted to protect the child from him. And yet it was not that. Neither fear nor dread quivered about her little mouth; it was firmly closed. It was a different feeling that drew her beautifully arched eyebrows together and flamed in her usually so gentle eyes. He saw: this was no longer the woman who had spoken melting words of peace; she had died with her child in the terrible night just past. The woman who stood before him was no longer the mother who looked at him with hope, whose child he could save; it was the mother whose child he had killed. It was a mother who drove the murderer away from the holy place where her child lay. He spoke—Oh, if he had but spoken yesterday! Yesterday she had yearned for the words; today she did not hear them.

"Give me your hand, Christiane," he said. She drew her hand back convulsively, as if he had already touched her. "I have been mistaken," he continued; "I will believe you, I see myself; I will not do it again! You are better than I."

"The child is dead," she said, and even her voice sounded pale. "Don't leave me without comfort in my terrible fear. If I can become different I can only do so now, and if you give me your hand and raise me up," said the man. She looked at the child, not at him.

"The child is dead," she repeated. Did that mean it was indifferent to her what became of him now that his improvement could no longer save the child? The man half raised himself; he gripped her hand with a strength full of fear and held it fast.

"Christiane," he sobbed wildly, "Here I lie like a worm. Don't tread on me! Don't tread on me! For God's sake, have mercy. I could never forget it, if I had lain here like a worm in vain. Think of it! For God's sake, think of it; you have me in your hand now. You can make of me what you will. I hold you responsible. You will be to blame for anything that may come after this."—She had finally succeeded in withdrawing her hand from his grasp; she held it away from herself as if she looked at it with loathing because he had touched it.

"The child is dead," she said. He understood that she said: "Between me and the murderer of my child there can never be anything more in common, neither on earth nor in heaven."

He rose. A word of forgiveness might perhaps have saved him! Perhaps! Who knows! He staggered back into the bedroom. Christiane did not see him go, but she felt that his presence no longer profaned the place in which lay the sacred image of her maternal sorrow. Weeping softly, she sank down over her dead child.

In the meantime Apollonius had begun the decorating of the tower-roof of St. George's. He had built a scaffold, fastened his ladder to the broach-post, put a hempen ring on it, attached his tackle to the ring and hung his swinging-seat on the pulley. The tin ornamentation, which consisted of single long pieces, was intended to represent two garlands festooned around the spire.

Apollonius was industrious at his work. The mastertinsmith, who was anxious to see his decorations completed as soon as possible, had less ground to complain of Apollonius than the latter had to be dissatisfied with him. At first the master urged Apollonius; soon Apollonius had to drive the master on. A part of the top garland which was to hang in a festoon over the door in the roof was lacking. Apollonius could not finish his work until he had the material for it. A neighboring village required his services for minor repairs. Leaving his tackle hanging from the tower of St. George's he went to Brambach.

The next day old Valentine knocked at the living-room door. He had already been there several times and gone away again. His entire being expressed uneasiness. He was so preoccupied with something that he had on his mind that he thought he must have failed to hear the answer to his knock and laid his ear to the key-hole as if he assumed that it must still be there to hear if he only listened hard enough. His anxiety aroused him from his absent-mindedness. He knocked a second and a third time and, still receiving no answer, plucked up courage to open the door and go in. The young wife had avoided him for some time. She did so now, too, but today he had to speak to her. She intentionally sat at some distance from the windows, near the bedroom door. The old man did not perceive that she was as uneasy as he, and that his presence made her even more so. He apologized for his intrusion. When she made a movement to leave the room, he assured her that he would not remain long and that he would not have forced himself upon her had he not been impelled to do so by something which was perhaps very important. He hoped that it was not so, but still, it might be. She listened and looked more and more anxiously now at the windows, now at the door. Her demeanor showed plainly that she hoped if he had anything to say to her he would say it as quickly as he could.

Valentine began: "Master Fritz is on the roof of St. George's. I saw him just now in the church-yard."

"And did he look this way? Did he see you coming into the house?" asked Christiane breathlessly.

"God forbid!" replied the old man. "He is working like the devil today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink. When a man works like that—" Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to himself—"he has some end in view." Christiane was silent. She was struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the faithful old soul. He saw nothing of this. "Our neighbor, over there," he continued, "has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all. The night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the shed." He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected the young wife to ask. But she had not even heard his story. "The previous evening," he went on, "before Master Apollonius left for Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make up his mind what to take. And it is so strange that Master Fritz has become so industrious all of a sudden."

Apollonius' name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man continued: "It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed. I wondered what he could be wanting there, and at night too. And when I looked up and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick. There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have done. First I saw the ax that belongs with the other tools lying near the door. I thought to myself: did he do anything with the ax? And again I imagined what any one who had crept in there at night might have done with it. It occurred to me that he might have done something to the ladders. But I found nothing wrong there. Nor was there anything wrong with the swinging-seat that still lay there. Then I began to look at the pulleys and last of all at the tackle. It seemed as if one of the ropes had been worn a little by rubbing against something hard. I thought to myself: 'that often happens,' and was about to lay it down again, but then I thought: 'there is nothing else wrong, and if somebody crept in here at night he meant to do something, and if he had the ax then he did something with that.' I looked a little closer and—merciful Heavens!—the rope had been cut into in several different places. I threw it over the beam and hung on it; the cuts gaped open. I believe if the seat were hung on it the rope would break." The old man had become quite pale. Christiane hung breathlessly on his every word; she had fallen back in her chair and could scarcely speak.

"It was not so the evening before," he continued. "Master Apollonius has an eye for every detail. He would have discovered it. I think the person who cut the rope watched Master Apollonius as he examined everything, and thought he would not look them over again before he used them. That is the reason why he crept in at night."

"Valentine!" cried the young wife, seizing him by the shoulders, half as if she wanted to compel him to tell the truth, half as if to support herself, "he did not take it with him? Valentine, tell me!"

"No, not that one," said Valentine. "But the other seat that was there, and the tackle belonging to it."

"And was that cut too?" she asked with ever increasing fear. He replied: "I do not know. But the man who did it had no idea which one Master Apollonius would take with him."

The woman trembled so violently that the old man forgot his fears concerning Apollonius in his fear concerning her. He had to support her to prevent her from falling. She pushed him away and half imploringly, half threateningly, cried: "Oh, save him, Valentine, save him. Oh God, it is I who have done it!" She prayed to God to save him, and then moaned that he was dead and that it was her fault. She called Apollonius by the tenderest names and entreated him not to die. Valentine, in his distress, sought for words to comfort her and in so doing found comfort for himself; or if there were no real comfort, at least there was the hope that Apollonius was already on his way home. He had certainly examined the tackle again. If he had met with an accident they would have heard of it by now. He had to repeat this a dozen times before she understood what he meant. And now she began to expect the bearer of the terrible tidings, and started at every sound. She even imagined her own sobbing to be his voice. Finally Valentine, infected by her desperate terror and not knowing what else to do, ran to fetch the old gentleman, thinking that he might know how to save Apollonius, if it were still possible.

The old gentleman sat in his little room. As he withdrew deeper and deeper into the clouds that separated him from the outer world, even his little garden finally became strange to him. Especially the eternal question: "How are you, Herr Nettenmair?" had driven him to the house. He felt that people no longer believed his: "I am somewhat troubled with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence," and in every question he heard only a mockery. Much as Apollonius suffered with him, his father's isolation and increasing unsociability were not altogether unwelcome to him; for the deeper his brother sank, the more difficult it had become to conceal from the old gentleman the condition of the house; and to exclude busybodies from the garden was impossible. Apollonius did not know that his father suffered tortures in his room equal to those from which he wanted to protect him. Here the old gentleman sat the livelong day, crouched down in his leather chair behind the table, and brooded over all the possibilities of dishonor that might come to his house; or he strode up and down with hasty step, the flush in his sunken cheeks and the vehement gestures of his arms betraying all too plainly how in his thoughts he did his utmost to avert impending calamity. His was a condition which would eventually lead to complete insanity, if the external world did not throw a bridge across to him and force him to leave his isolation.

This was what happened on that day. Force of habit compelled old Valentine, without his being conscious of the fact, to open the door gently, and gently to step in; but the old gentleman, with his morbidly acute perception, discerned at once the unusual. His anticipation naturally took the same course which all his thoughts pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference. When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman, tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured. Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips in town!"

Valentine noticed nothing of the feverish suspense with which the old gentleman awaited an answer to the question which he had disguised as an exclamation. "I've done nothing of the kind," he replied earnestly. The old gentleman's supposition had wounded him. "In the first place I didn't really think myself that anything was very wrong yet; and Frau Nettenmair has not spoken to a soul since then."

The old gentleman took hope anew. During Valentine's absence he had given way for a moment to all the anguish that a father cannot but feel under such circumstances; but then he reasoned with himself that there was no use in wasting time in idle complaint as long as something might still be done. Even if Valentine and Christiane had told nobody what they knew, other things of the same sort might have become known. Such a criminal thought does not originate by chance; it is the blossom of a poisonous tree with trunk and branches. Valentine had to tell him all that had happened since Apollonius' return home. It was the story of a wanton, inordinate, pleasure-seeking spendthrift who in spite of the efforts of his better brother had sunk to the level of an ordinary libertine and drunkard; of a faithful brother who, compelled by the necessity of rescuing the honor of business and home, had shouldered the care of everything and as a reward was being persecuted unto death by the degraded prodigal.

The old gentleman sat motionless. Only the blush that burned ever warmer on his thin cheeks betrayed what he suffered for the honor of his house. Otherwise he seemed to know it all, already. That was his old manner, which he perhaps made use of now because he thought that Valentine would then be less likely to conceal or alter facts against his better knowledge. His inward agitation prevented him from perceiving in what strong contradiction this semblance of calm stood to his morbid sense of honor. Valentine did not endeavor to deepen the shadows which fell upon Fritz Nettenmair's conduct, but, knowing the old gentleman as he thought he did, he deemed it necessary to place Apollonius' actions in the brightest possible light. But he only half knew the old gentleman after all. He miscalculated the effect that he would produce when he praised the filial tenderness with which Apollonius had withheld all news of danger from his father's ears. Thus he undid what a simple tale, describing the son's efforts to save that which the old gentleman held most dear, had accomplished. The father saw only a realization of the fear which Apollonius' diligence had awakened in him. In unfilial fashion Apollonius had concealed the danger from him in order to be able to take the whole credit for the rescue to himself. Or he looked upon his father as a helpless, blind old man who was not, and could not be anything but an incumbrance. This latter feeling the old gentleman could forgive him less than the former, even in face of his grief over his son's death, which he now deemed a certainty. The more he thought of it, the more convinced he became that things would never have come to such a pass if he had known about it and taken the matter in hand, and that Apollonius in fact had only his own ambitious desires to thank for his death. These thoughts, however, had to give way before immediate necessity. What he knew concerning Fritz was enough to strengthen suspicion once it was aroused, but not to create it in the first place unless there were some additional reason of which he knew nothing. He must learn from his guilty son himself if such existed. He had made up his mind what to do in any case. He called for his hat and cane. At any other time Valentine would have been astonished at this command, perhaps even frightened. But when one is wrought up over something unusual, only the usual seems unexpected, only that which calls to mind the old quiet state of affairs. As the old gentleman made ready to depart, he pointed out to Valentine once more how foolish and groundless his fears were. "Who knows," he said grimly, "what our neighbor saw? How could he recognize anybody at night, so far off? And you with your ax story! If the rope should break by chance or any other accident happen to the boy in Brambach, of course you would be sure and certain that it was your imaginary ax-slashes that had done it, and that the man whom our neighbor pretends to have seen sneaking into the shed, had made them. And if you say a word or make mysterious hints about all that you imagine in your silly pate, the whole town will be full of it in no time. Not because what you have invented is probable enough for any sensible man to believe, but just because people are glad to speak ill of anybody. God will take care that nothing happens to the boy. But of course it might happen, and maybe it has already happened. How easy it is for an accident to happen to anybody, specially to a slater who hovers between heaven and earth like a bird, and yet has not the wings of a bird. That is why the slater's calling is such a noble calling; the slater is the most manifest picture of how Providence holds the man who works at an honest profession safe in its hands. But if Providence lets him fall, there is a reason for it, and nobody has a right to go around spinning yarns which will bring unhappiness and even disgrace on somebody else. I am sure this affair will soon show itself as it really is and not as your fears have led you to imagine. For—"

The old gentleman had reached this point in his speech when some one was heard outside setting down a load. He stood for a moment dumb, petrified. Valentine looked through the window and saw that it was the journeyman tinner unloading.

"It's Jörg," said he, "who is bringing the tin garlands."

"And you get frightened and think they are bringing, goodness knows whom. Where is Fritz?"

"On the church roof," replied Valentine.

"Good," said Herr Nettenmair. "Tell the tinner to come in when he has done—." Valentine did so. Until he came Herr Nettenmair continued his lecture in a somewhat lower tone. Then he turned to where the workman's respect made itself audible in a quiet clearing of the throat and asked him if he had time to accompany him to the church roof of St. George's where his elder son was at work. The tinner assented. Valentine ventured the suggestion that it would be better to send for Fritz. The old gentleman said grimly: "I must speak to him up there. It is about the repairs." He turned again to the tinner and said with condescending grimness: "I shall take your arm. I am having a little trouble with my eyes, but it is a matter of no consequence."

The appearance of the old gentleman on the street was calculated to create a sensation. He would certainly have been stopped by a hundred hand-shakers and interrogators if something had not diverted public attention. A hurried, whispered rumor ran through the streets. Two or three stood together in little groups awaiting the approach of a third or fourth, who would give them to understand that he knew what it was that was responsible for the formation of the ten or twelve similar groups standing around. Then somebody would whisper it as he passed rapidly by, beginning always with a: "Haven't you heard?" which was generally brought forth by a: "What has happened?" Herr Nettenmair did not need to ask; he knew without being told what had happened, but he did not dare to appear as if he knew. The journeyman thought Herr Nettenmair was going to sink down beside him, but the old gentleman had only struck his foot: "it was of no consequence." The journeyman questioned a hurrying passer-by. "A slater has been killed in Brambach." "How?" asked the journeyman. "A rope broke; nothing further is known." Herr Nettenmair felt that the journeyman was frightened, and that he was frightened at the thought that it was the son of the man he was leading who had been killed. He said: "It was probably in Tambach. They have made a mistake. It is of no consequence." The journeyman did not know what to think of Herr Nettenmair's indifference. The latter kept repeating to himself, as a burning flush came into his cheeks: "Yes, it must be. It must be." He thought of a way in which one can escape all courts, all investigations. It must have been a hard way of which he thought, for he clenched his teeth, as he shook his head and said: "It must be, now it must be." As if in a dream the journeyman led the old gentleman up the tower steps of St. George's. The people were right, Herr Nettenmair was certainly a queer man!

The old gentleman had said he had to speak to his son on the church-roof—about some repairs. He had spoken unconsciously in his diplomatic way.

It had to be on the church-roof, and it was about some repairs—but not about those of the church-roof.

Between heaven and earth is the slater's realm. Between heaven and earth, high up on the roof of St. George's Fritz Nettenmair was at work when the old gentleman was led up the steps to him. He had fled here to escape the eyes of men which he imagined riveted upon him; he had fled here to escape his own thoughts in a fury of diligence. But he had brought with him all the demons of hell, and, industriously as he toiled, the moisture that stood on his brow was not the warm sweat of honest labor, but the cold sweat born of a guilty conscience. In agonized haste he hammered and nailed slate together as if he were nailing fast the universe which otherwise would crumble to pieces in a quarter of an hour. But his soul was not where he hammered; it was where ropes were constantly breaking and luckless slaters plunging headlong to certain death. Now he heard voices, and the sound of one of them struck like the blow of a hammer on his tortured heart. It was the only voice which he did not expect to hear. Would he to whom it belonged ask, "Where is thy brother Abel?" No. He wanted to tell his son that his brother had met with disaster, that it was a day of misfortune and that he must not work any more. And if he should ask, the answer was almost as old as the human race; "Am I my brother's keeper?" It seemed like a relief to him when he remembered that his father was blind. For he knew that he could not endure his father's seeing eyes. He hammered and nailed more and more hurriedly. He would elude his father if he could, but the roof-truss was small, and the old gentleman's voice was already at the roof door. He would not notice him until he was compelled. He heard him say: "This is far enough. My compliments to your master, and here is something for you. Drink my health with it." Fritz Nettenmair, listening, heard his father sit down on the empty board in the dormer window and knew that his tall figure filled the entire opening. He heard the journeyman's thanks and his footsteps as they gradually receded.

"Beautiful weather," said Herr Nettenmair. The son realized that the father wanted to know if anybody else were near by. There came no answer, the words died in Fritz Nettenmair's breast, he hammered always louder and more vehemently. He wished the hour, the day, his life were at an end. "Fritz!" called the old gentleman. He called again and yet again. At last Fritz Nettenmair was compelled to answer. He thought of the call, "Cain, where art thou?" and responded "Here, father," and hammered on.

"The slate is solid," said the old man, indifferently; "I can tell by the sound; it does not split."

"Yes," replied Fritz with chattering teeth, "it will let no water through."

"It is better than it used to be," continued his father, "they have got deeper into the quarry. You seem to be alone." A "Yes" died on the son's lips. "The deeper it lies, the stronger the slate is. Is there no other scaffold near?"

"None."

"Good. Come here. Here in front of me!"—

"What do you want me to do?"

"To come here. What has to be said must be said softly."

Fritz Nettenmair went and stood before his father, shaking all over. He knew that he was blind and yet he sought to avoid his glance. The old man struggled for composure but not a line of his withered face betrayed the struggle, only the length of his silence and his breathing, which sounded like the tired echo of the creaking swing of the pendulum on the tower clock near-by, might have suggested it. These preparations awoke in Fritz Nettenmair a premonition of what was to come. He strove for defiance. "If he in his distrust has surmised it, who can prove it? And if he could prove it, he would never tell, of that I am sure. Otherwise why does he speak so softly? He may say what he will—I know nothing, it was not I. I have done nothing." The muscles of his face quivered; an expression of wild defiance played upon his features. The old gentleman said no word. The sound of traffic in the streets rose muffled to the heights, violet shadows lay on all below, about Apollonius' swinging seat trembled the sun's last ray.

"Where is your brother?" came at last from between the father's teeth.

"I do not know. How should I know?" answered the son defiantly.

"You do not know?" It was only a whisper but every word struck like thunder in the soul of the son. "I will tell you. Yonder in Brambach he lies dead. The rope broke with him, and you had made slits in it with the ax. Our neighbor saw you sneaking into the shed. You threatened before your wife that you would do it. The whole town knows it, they are carrying it now to the courts. The first person who comes up these steps will be the bailiff to lead you before the judge."

Fritz Nettenmair broke down completely; the scaffolding creaked beneath him. The old gentleman listened. If the miserable wretch should fall over the edge of the scaffolding, he would be plunged into the depths and all would be over. All that had to be, would be! A lark soared above them scattering its merry Tirili over trees and houses. Happier mortals heard the song from afar; workmen let their spades rest, children their whips and tops; with eyes turned heavenward all sought the soaring, singing bird and hearkened with bated breath. Herr Nettenmair did not hear the lark; he also held his breath, but he was listening to what was happening below, not above. It was nothing that sounded like the song of a lark which he wanted to hear. There was a rumbling, and a broken cry of anguish. At first he listened full of hope, then filled with despair. On the boards of the scaffolding before him he heard the rattle of heavy breathing. Fate, which might have stretched out a sympathizing, helping hand, had not done so. He must do it, for it must be done. If he did not, people would point their finger at the children and say: "It was their father who slew his brother and died on the gallows" or "in the penitentiary." And when it was long forgotten the children would only need to appear and it would be called into life again; people would point with their fingers and turn from them in horror. The confidence of the world which one inherits from one's parents is the capital with which one begins life. Confidence must be placed in man before he deserves it, in order that he may learn to deserve it. Who would place confidence in children branded with a father's guilt? The flush on his thin cheeks burned brighter, his sunken breast panted heavily. Involuntarily he pointed forward with his arm. Fritz Nettenmair divined his meaning, tried to pull himself together, and would have sunk helplessly down again if he had not supported himself with both hands. Lying thus on his hands and knees before the old gentleman he cried out in an agony of fear, "What do you want, father? What have you in mind?"

"I want to see," said the old gentleman in a shrill whisper, "whether I must do it or whether you will do what must be done. For it must be done. Nobody knows anything as yet which could lead to an investigation before the courts except me, your wife and Valentine. For myself I can answer, but not for them; they may betray what they know. If you should fall now from the scaffolding, so that people could think it was an accident, the great disgrace would be prevented. The slater who meets his death through accident stands before the world as an honest man—honest as the soldier who dies on the battle-field. You are not worthy of such a death, you bankrupt soul. The hangman should drag you on a cowhide to the gallows, you villain, who have murdered your brother and have tried to poison the future of your innocent children and my past life which has been always full of honor. You have brought down disgrace enough on your house, you shall not bring more. They shall never say of me, that my son, or of my grandchildren, that their father, died on the gallows or in the penitentiary. Say the Lord's Prayer, now, if you can still pray. Then turn as if you were going back to your work and step with your right foot over the scaffolding. If I say the shock of your brother's death made you dizzy, the courts and the town will believe me. That is the return for a life that has been different from yours. If you will not do it of your own accord, I shall go with you and you will have me too on your conscience. People know that I have trouble with my eyes; they will say that I stumbled and tried to hold on to you and dragged you down with me. My life is of no value after what I have heard today, but your children's is just beginning. And no disgrace shall be attached to them, as truly as my name is Nettenmair. Make up your mind now what is to be done. I shall count thirty—by the pendulum there."

Fritz Nettenmair had listened to his father's words with growing horror. That his deed had not yet become generally known, gave him hope. Fear of impending death aroused his energies. He took refuge again in defiance. Vehemently he declared: "I do not know what you want. I am innocent. I do not know what you mean by an ax." He expected his father to enter into his protest, even if sceptically at first. But the old gentleman began calmly to count—"one—two—"

"Father!" he cried with increasing fear, and his mocking defiance broke into a wail. "Only listen to me. The courts would listen and you will not. I will throw myself over because you want me to be dead; I will die, though I am innocent. But at least listen to me." The old gentleman gave no answer; he counted on. The miserable man saw that sentence had been pronounced. His father would not believe him no matter what he said, and he knew that what the stubborn old man undertook, he always carried out, unrelentingly. First he decided to acquiesce in his fate; then the thought came to him that he would plead again; and then it occurred to him that he could push the old man aside and make his escape; then that he could hang on to something in some way when the old man caught hold of him and not fall with him. Nobody could blame him for this. Through all these thoughts he saw shudderingly what awaited him if he escaped and the courts should seize him. It was better to die now. But on the other side of death something still more terrible awaited him. He looked back and lived his whole life through in a moment to see if the eternal Judge would find pardon for him. His thoughts became confused, he was now here, now there, and had forgotten why. He saw the mist gathering in which the workman had disappeared and at the same time he looked into the bright windows of the Red Eagle inn where he heard voices: "There he comes—now the fun will begin." He stood on the street corners and counted, and the boards beneath Apollonius would not break, nor the ropes above him; he stood before his wife and, leaning over little Annie's dying bedside, said, "Do you know why you are frightened?" and reached out his hand to give the fatal blow; also he lay as if in a fever dream before his father and brooded in anxious, terrible fear. Then it was as if he had come to himself again and unending time had elapsed between the moment when his father began to count and the present. Everything must be all right by now, only he must try to recall whether he had pushed his father aside and thus made his escape or whether he had held back when his father attempted to drag him down with him. But there he still lay, and there his father still sat. He heard him count "nine" and stop. Consciousness forsook him completely. The old gentleman had in truth ceased to count. His sharp ear heard a hurrying footstep on the stairs. He seized hold of his son and held fast as if to be sure that he did not escape him. So cold and lifeless was the son's body that the father knew it was not necessary to hold him; he must be unconscious. A new uneasiness awoke in him. If the son had lost consciousness, he must be hidden from strange eyes, for this unconsciousness might in some way arouse suspicion. He arose and turned away from the window in the direction of the newcomer. He was undecided whether he would stand before the window covering it with his body or go forward to meet the intruder.

[Illustration: SCHNORR VON CAROLSFELD JOSIAH HEARS THE LAW]

The journeyman whom he had sent to Brambach, for it was he who was approaching in such haste, coughed as he came up the stairs. He could keep him back from the scaffolding and most likely prevent him from seeing that somebody was lying there if he went to meet him; if he stood in front of the window it was probable that he would not be able to cover the whole space. The old gentleman felt now for the first time how his strength had been broken by what he had gone through that day. The journeyman, however, observed nothing unusual as Herr Nettenmair, leaning on the rafters of the stairs, barred the way.

"Shall I tell him to come to you here, Herr Nettenmair?" asked the journeyman.

"Tell whom?" Herr Nettenmair had difficulty in retaining his artificial composure.

"He will be home by this time," responded the journeyman. The old gentleman did not repeat his question; he held fast to the rafter on which he was leaning. "He was already on his way home," continued the journeyman. "I came with him as far as the gate. Then he sent me to the tinner's to see if the tin was ready at last. Jörg told me that he had already brought it to the house and had just come from the roof of St. George's where he had led you and I thought because you were in such a hurry to see Herr Apollonius, I would ask you if I must tell him to come up here."

Herr Nettenmair ran his hand up and down the rafter as if he had only taken hold of it to examine it. But, feeling that his hands trembled, he gave up the examination. As grimly as he could, he replied, "I shall come down myself." Wait at the landing until I call you. The journeyman obeyed. Herr Nettenmair drew a deep breath when he knew he was no longer observed. This breath became a sob. The terrible strain which he had undergone was beginning to find an end, and the agony of the father which had been swallowed up till now in passionate fear for the honor of the house, asserted itself. But he knew that his good son's life would hang in the same danger as long as the wicked son lived near him. He had foreseen this contingency and had mapped out a plan of action. He felt his way back to the window. Fritz Nettenmair in the meanwhile had recovered consciousness and been able to rise. The old gentleman bade him come in from the scaffolding and said: "Tomorrow before sunrise you will no longer be here. See if you can become another man in America. Here you are in disgrace, and can only bring disgrace. You will follow me home. I will give you money, you will make ready for the trip. You have done nothing for your wife and children for years. I will take care of them. Do you hear?"

Fritz Nettenmair reeled. He had just looked inevitable death in the face and now he might live! Live where nobody knew what he done, where every chance sound would not frighten him with the vision of the bailiff.

"Apollonius did not fall," continued the old gentleman, and Fritz Nettenmair's bright, new heaven sank into nothingness. The old spectre held him again in its grasp. He loved again the woman from whom he had just wanted to flee. The old gentleman had awaited his son's assent. "You will go," he said, when the son remained silent. "You will go. Tomorrow before day-break you will be on your way to America, or I shall be on my way to the court. If disgrace must be, it is better to have disgrace alone and not disgrace combined with murder. Remember, I have sworn it. Take your choice."

The old gentleman called to the journeyman to come up to him and lead him home.

* * * * *

The rumor which the old gentleman had heard on his way to St. George's, had penetrated to the street where the house with the green shutters stands. One passer-by said to another: "Have you heard the news? A slater has been killed in Brambach." The young wife sprang from her chair but sank fainting to the floor. A second time Valentine forgot his fears for Apollonius in his anxiety about her. He sat near her as she lay on the floor and held her head in his trembling hands. At last she made a slight movement. He helped her raise the upper part of her body and supported her. She brushed her disheveled hair from her face and looked about her. Her gaze was such a strange tense one that Valentine's fear increased. She nodded her head and said in a low voice, "Yes!" Valentine knew that she was saying to herself that she had really heard the terrible news and had not dreamed it. She sat for a long time motionless, hearing no word of all that Valentine spoke to her—not even when he tried to prove that Apollonius could not be dead, that he was too careful and too good for an accident to happen to him. He would have given his life to help her, but he knew not how. So he talked on and on, hoping by ceaseless chatter to help her and himself over the anguish of the moment.

At last she found tears. Valentine lived again; he saw that she was saved. He read it in her face, which, open as she herself, could conceal nothing. He sat and listened with joyful attention to her weeping, as if it were a beautiful song she was singing him. He listened to the pure melody of her voice as she wept, the melody which she had not lost when, leaning over little Anne's dying bed, she had uttered the twofold cry of pain and horror. She wept her heart out and arose without help from Valentine. Then she prepared to go out. There was something solemn and resolute in her bearing. Valentine perceived it with astonishment and dread. He asked anxiously if she were going anywhere. She nodded her head. "But I must not let you," he said. "The old gentleman made me solemnly vow."

"I must," she replied. "I must go to the court. I must say that I am guilty. I must suffer my punishment. Their grandfather will take care of my children. I would like to tell them to lay him by little Anne's side, he loved her so. I should like to lie there too, but they won't allow that. No, I won't say anything to them about that."

"Won't you stay until the old gentleman comes back? Then I shall be free of my responsibility." He hoped that Herr Nettenmair would find some way to dissuade her from her purpose.

The young wife nodded assent. "I will wait that long," she said.

Anxiety and hope drove Valentine out of the house to see if Herr Nettenmair were anywhere in sight. Christine took her hymn-book from the desk and sat down at the table.

When Valentine returned he was no longer the same man who had gone out. He was confused and embarrassed, but in a very different way from what he had been before. He appeared constantly on the point of doing or saying something, became suddenly frightened and did and said something entirely different, and then seemed uncertain whether he should not be frightened at that too. At first the young wife did not notice the change in him, but soon she began to watch him curiously and with increasing apprehension. Gradually she became infected by his behavior. When he laughed involuntarily she glowed with hope, and when he put on a long face she clasped her hands convulsively together and turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart, sometimes to her burning, hammering temples. At last Valentine considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic. "It is a day," said he, "when men might rise from the dead, and who knows—but please, for my sake, don't be frightened." She became frightened, however. She said to herself, "But it isn't possible." And she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but certain. "Look toward the back of the house," sobbed Valentine, attempting to laugh. She had looked before he told her to do so. She held fast to the door post as she heard footsteps in the shed. But even the door post no longer stood firmly, she herself stood no longer on firm ground; she rocked dizzily between heaven and earth. When she saw him coming, there was nothing in the world for her except the man for whom she had suffered weeks of death-agony; everything whirled about her in a circle, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the trees, the sky and the green earth; it was as if the whole world would sink from under her and drag her into its vortex if she did not hold fast to him. She felt herself fall to the ground, and then she knew nothing more.

Apollonius caught her as she fell. He stood and held in his arms the beautiful woman whom he loved, who loved him. She was pale and seemed dead. He did not carry her into the room, he did not let her fall to the ground, he did nothing to revive her. He stood bewildered; he did not know what had happened to him, he had to collect himself. Valentine had not yet spoken with him, he had only heard from the journeyman who was hastening to St. George's that Apollonius was following him and would soon be there. Apollonius had been detained at the gate for a moment by the nail-smith. He had then made haste to obey his father's command which he, however, found surprising, as he could discover no reason for it. He had heard of the slater's death in Tambach; but he did not know that rumor had confused the names of the two places, and that it was possible for anybody to believe that the accident had occurred to him. Absolutely unprepared for that which was to happen in the next moment, he came through the shed. He had meant to go straight to his father in his room, when, seeing Christiane fall fainting to the ground, he hastened toward her. Now he held her in his arms. Slowly her deep blue eyes opened. She looked at him and recognized him. She did not know how she had come into his arms, she did not know that she lay there, she knew only that he lived. She wept and laughed at the same time, and put both arms around him to be sure that he was there. She asked in yearning, anxious eagerness: "Is it you? Are you really here? Are you still alive? You didn't fall? I didn't kill you? You are you, and I am I? But he—he may come." She gazed about wildly. "He will kill you. He will not rest till he has killed you." She clasped him to her as if she wanted to cover him with her body from the enemy, then she forgot all fears in the certainty that he still lived, and she laughed and wept and asked him again if it were really he, and if he were alive. But she must warn him. She must tell him everything that the other had done—and what he had threatened to do to him. She must do it quickly; any minute he might come. Warning, sweet unconscious love-words, weeping, laughter, blessed gladness, fear, anguish over lost happiness, bride-like embarrassment, forgetfulness of the world in the one moment which was life to her—all this trembled through each quivering word she uttered. "He lied to you and to me. He told me that you jeered at me and that you had offered my flower to the highest bidder. You know, at the Whitsun feast, the little blue-bell that I laid there. And you sent it to him. I saw it. I did not know why I was sorry for you. Then he told me during the dance that you had laughed at me. You went away, and he told me you made fun of me in your letters. That hurt me. You don't know how it hurt, even though I did not know why. Father wanted me to marry him. And when you came I was afraid of you, but I was still sorry for you and I loved you though I did not know it. It was he who first told me so. Then I avoided you—I didn't want to become a bad woman—and I still don't want to. Then he compelled me to lie. And he made threats of what he would do to you. He would see to it that you fell and were killed. It was only a joke, he said, but if I told you, then he would do it in earnest. Since then I have not slept a night, I have sat up in my bed and been full of deadly fear. I saw you in danger and could not tell you and could not help you. And he made slits in the rope with the ax the night before you went to Brambach. Valentine told me that our neighbor had seen him creeping into the shed. I thought you were dead, and I wanted to die too. For I was the cause of your death, when I would die a thousand times to save you. And now you are alive and I cannot grasp it. Everything is just as it was, the trees, the shed, the sky, and you are not dead. And I wanted to die because you were dead. And now you are alive, and I don't know whether it is true or whether I am dreaming. Is it true? Tell me, is it true? I will believe anything you say. And if you tell me that I must die, I will die. But he may be coming! Perhaps he has been listening! Tell Valentine to go to the court and have him taken away, so that he can do you no more harm."

Thus the feverish woman went on raving, laughing and weeping in his arms. Forgetting everything, like a child playing on the edge of an abyss of which it knows nothing, she unconsciously called into life a danger more deadly than the one which had just been averted, more threatening than the one from which she wanted to guard the man with her body. She did not realize what her passionate movements, the sweetness of her reckless abandon, her caresses, her warm, throbbing embraces must arouse in the man who loved her; that she was doing everything that could make the man whose uprightness and honor she trusted so blindly, forget uprightness and honor in the tumult of his blood. She had no idea what a conflict she was kindling in him, and how hard, if not impossible she was making the victory. Now he knew that the woman in his arms was his, that his brother had defrauded him of her and her of him. Now he knew it, while the woman in his arms revealed to him the greatness of the happiness of which his brother had robbed him. The brother had stolen her and had ill-treated her; and for all that he had suffered and done for his brother's sake, he now persecuted him and sought his life. Did the woman belong to him who had stolen and ill-treated her, to him whom she hated—or to him from whom she had been infamously stolen, who loved her and whom she loved? These were not clearly defined thoughts, but countless detached sensations which, borne along in a stream of deep, wild feeling, rushed through his veins and made taut the muscles in his arms—to clasp to his heart that which was his! But a vague, dark fear rose counter to this current and stiffened his muscles in a convulsive cramp—the feeling that he wanted to do something and did not know what it was or where it might lead him, a far-off recollection that he had made a vow and would break it if he now let himself be carried away. He struggled for a long time beneath the flow of intoxicating sounds before he realized that he was struggling and that the thing for which he struggled was clearness, the fundamental requirement of his nature. At last this clearness came to him and said: "The vow that you have made is to uphold the honor of your house, and what you want to do now will destroy it forever." He was the man, and must answer for himself and for her. The treachery of which he with a touch, with a glance, might be guilty toward this woman whose trust in him was so unbounded, stood before him in all its blackness. There still stood, protectingly, a holy reserve between him and her, which a single touch, a single glance might dispel forever. He looked anxiously about for a helper. If only Valentine would come! Then he would have to let her go from his arms. Valentine did not come. But shame at his weakness that sought help from without, became his helper. He gently laid the defenseless woman down. Not until he felt the soft limbs slip from his grasp did he lose her. He had to turn away and could not choke back a loud sob. Just then the youngest boy peeped curiously into the yard. He hastened to him, took him in his arms, pressed him to his heart and placed him between him and her. It was strange; the pressure with which he clasped the child to his heart relieved his wild yearning and his tense muscles relaxed. In the child he had clasped her to his heart in the only way he dared hold her close to him.

She saw him place the child between him and her and understood him. A burning flush rose to the roots of her brown, unruly locks. She knew now for the first time that she had lain in his arms, had embraced him, had talked to him as only unforbidden love may talk. She saw now for the first time the abyssmal danger in which she had placed him and herself. She raised herself up on her knees, as if she wanted to beseech him not to despise her. Then it occurred to her that her husband might have been listening and might still carry out his threat. Through her joy over his escape she might still be his destruction. He saw all this and suffered with her. He had gained the conflict with himself not to show her what was going on within him, but he had not yet fought the inward struggle to its end. He leaned toward her and said "Above us and your husband is God. Go in now, sister, my dear, good sister." She dared not look up but through her closed lids she saw the benevolence, the deep, inexhaustible kindliness, the indelible respect for man which shone in his eyes and played about his gentle mouth. And as he was her conscious and unconscious standard, so now she knew that she was not bad, could not become so, he would carry her in his strong arms, protected, as a mother carries her child. Herr Nettenmair came from the shed toward them accompanied by the journey-man. Fritz Nettenmair who followed them saw Apollonius lead Christiane to the house door.

When Herr Nettenmair came home, nothing was to be read in his crusty face of all that he had suffered and planned that day. The young wife and Valentine had to listen to a sermon on unfounded imaginings, for the story had proved to be as it was, not as Valentine had imagined it in his fear. He spoke of Fritz Nettenmair's trip as one which his son had had in contemplation for a long time but to which he had not consented until today. Apollonius was told to bring the account books into the old gentleman's room at once.

He had to read them aloud to the old gentleman; a curiously purposeless task, for neither of them had his mind on the figures. And moreover the old gentleman behaved as if he knew all about everything already. Valentine came and received various instructions relative to the departure of the elder son. An hour later he returned, having performed his duties. He told how Fritz Nettenmair was looking forward to his new life in America. They would be astonished when they saw him again. He could hardly await the time. The old gentleman's courage revived. Grimly he commanded Apollonius to go to bed; the work they had begun could be continued another time.

Disquieted, like a tortured spirit, now wringing his hands, now clenching his fists, Fritz Nettenmair wandered from the shed to the house and from the house again to the shed. With each round he made, his soul rose up in the wildest defiance and sank again into despairing helplessness. His heart cried out for a word of love. His arms stretched out convulsively to press something to his heart which was his, that he might know he was not lost. For nobody is lost who has somebody in the world to love. Endowed of a sudden with renewed strength, he hastened through the house door into the room where his children lay. A night-light protected by a shade shone brightly enough for the father to see his children. He sank on his knees before the nearest little bed. A long forgotten sound rose to his lips and he whispered it, yearningly as never before. "Fritz!" He only wanted to clasp his children to his heart once, to see their love and then to go; to go and become another man, a better one, a happier one. The little fellow awakened: he thought his mother had called. Smilingly he opened his eyes and—shivered with fright. He feared the man standing at his bedside; one he knew so well, and yet more strange than a stranger to him. It was the man who had given him such angry glances, the man from whom his mother had locked him in his room that he might not see what the man did to her. But he had got up trembling and listened at the door; and clenched his little fists in powerless rage.

"Fritz," said the father anxiously, "I am going away and I shall not come back. But I will send you beautiful apples and picture-books, and think of you a thousand times a minute."

"I don't want them," replied the boy, frightened but defiant. "Uncle
'Lonius gives me apples. I don't want yours."

"Don't you love me either?" asked the father in a breaking voice at the second little bed. George took flight into his brother's bed. There the children clung to each other in fright. Scorn and repugnance were reflected in George's face. "I love mother and I love Uncle 'Lonius, but I don't like you. Let me alone; I'll tell Uncle 'Lonius."

Fritz Nettenmair laughed in wild mockery, and at the same time sobbed in impotent pain. The children were no longer his. He was no longer their father. Yet they were his children! And he had to go away and leave them; and those whom he hated, who had ruined everything for him, would be happy through his going. He became even more miserable than he had already been. He saw his wife lying before him in her beauty, and the desire entered his mind to destroy this beauty. But his recollection of the moment when he lay stretched before his father, prepared for death, was mightier than the desire and banished it. The picture of that moment lived strong within him, only there was an exchange of persons. He painted it with more and more vivid colors. And now it was a fierce joy that drove him again from the house to the shed and from the shed to the house. His arms moved in violent gesticulation. The moon rose. The house with the green shutters lay there so peaceful in its shimmer. No passer-by would have divined the unrest concealed behind its walls; none would have suspected the thought that hell was brewing there in a ruined vessel.

* * * * * Apollonius was exhausted from watching and struggling. He needed rest. The next morning he had to complete the garlanding of the tower-roof, and then take down his swinging-seat, block and pulley, iron ring and ladder. His step must be firm, his eye clear. For the single hour that remained before work was to begin, he did not wish to undress and go to bed. He sat down in his wooden chair. There sleep came to him sooner than he expected—but it was not the kind of sleep he needed; it was an uninterrupted disturbing dream. Christiane lay in his arms as she had lain the day before; he struggled again, but this time he did not conquer, he clasped her to him. When he opened his eyes, it was day and time to go to work. He was in a more excited state of mind than when he had left his father. He hoped that the visions of his dream which had intensified his old desires and his pangs of conscience concerning them would retreat before the fresh morning air and the sobering effect of a cold water rub. But this did not happen; they stayed with him and would not let go of him, not even during his work. The breath of her warm lips lingered on his cheek, he felt himself always in her throbbing embrace; passionate upbraidings of his brother rose again and again in his heart. He did not know himself any longer. In addition to the reproaches he made himself for his evil thoughts, came dissatisfaction because he knew he was not putting his whole mind on his work. Usually he worked his cheerful, industrious self into each task he performed, and it was bound to be good and lasting. But today it seemed to him that he was hammering unrighteous thoughts into his work, that he was forging out of them an evil charm, and that the result could not be good nor enduring.

The slater must work thoughtfully. The man who undertakes repairs today must rely upon the faithfulness of him who stood decades, perhaps centuries ago where he stands now. The lack of conscientiousness that rivets a roof-hook slovenly today may be the cause of a good man's death fifty years hence when he hangs his ladder on that hook. Behind the struggle of his conscience against the visions of his sinful dream lurked, like a dark cloud, the fear that in his distraction he might be forging a future disaster for somebody.

His work was done. The new tin decoration gleamed in the sun around the dark surface of the slate roof. Ring, tackle, swinging-seat and ladder had been removed; the workmen who had assisted at the removal had gone again. Apollonius had taken down the "flying" scaffold and the poles on which it rested; he stood alone on the narrow board which formed the path from the cross-beam to the roof-door. He stood thinking. He felt as if he had forgotten to drive in nails somewhere. He looked in the slate and nail boxes of his swinging-seat which hung near him on a beam. The sound of a mysterious hurrying step came to his ears from the tower stairs. He paid no attention to it, for just then he found a sheet of lead lying among his things. He had brought with him the exact number of sheets that he needed. So this was evidently one that he had forgotten; in his distracted state of mind he had overlooked one of the riveting points. From the door he looked up and down the surface of the roof. If the mistake had happened on this side of the tower he could perhaps rectify it without his seat. Perhaps the ladder would suffice to reach the required point. And so it proved to be. About six feet above him, near the roof-hook he had taken out a slate and had neglected to replace it with a sheet of lead and to fasten the garland to it. In the meantime the mysterious steps were coming ever nearer; the man in such haste had now reached the end of the stone stairs and was climbing the ladder to the roof. The clock below rumbled. It was almost two. Apollonius had not yet had dinner, but when there was a flaw of any kind in his work he could not rest until he had rectified it. He had gone back to fetch the ladder. It lay on the beam near the swinging-seat. As he stooped to get it he felt himself seized and pushed with wild violence toward the door. Instinctively he caught hold of the lower edge of a beam with his right hand while with his left he sought in vain for support. This movement brought him face to face with his assailant. Horrified he saw the distorted, wild features of his brother.

"You shall have her all to yourself, or down you go with me."

"Away!" cried Apollonius. In his angry pain all his reproaches against his brother mounted into his face. Exerting all his strength he pushed him back with his free hand.

"So you show your true face, at last?" mocked Fritz Nettenmair in still greater rage. "You have dislodged me from every place that I possessed; now it is my turn. You shall have me on your conscience, you fluff-picker. Throw me over, or down you go with me!"

Apollonius saw no deliverance. The hand with which he held desperately to the sharp edge of the beam was well-nigh exhausted. With all his strength he would have to seize his brother by the arms, turn him round and push him over if he did not want to be dragged down with him. And yet he cried: "I will not!"

"Very well," groaned Fritz. "You want to put the blame of this too on me; you want to make me do this too. Your sanctimoniousness shall now have an end." Apollonius would have sought a new hold, but he knew that his brother would take advantage of the instant when he let go his present one. Fritz was already just on the point of making a violent dash at him. Apollonius' hand was slipping from the edge of the beam. He would be lost if he did not find some new hold. He could perhaps make a jump and catch the beam with both hands; but then his brother, by the force of his own onset, would certainly fall through the door. A vision of his honest, proud, old father, of the young wife and her children, rose before him, and he remembered the vow that he had made to himself; he was their only support—he must live. One spring and he had caught the beam in his arms; at the same moment his brother rushed headlong past him. The weights below rattled, and the clock struck two. The jackdaws, disturbed in their rest by the struggle, swooped wildly down to the roof-door and fluttered about in a croaking cloud. There was the sound of a heavy body striking on the street pavement far below. A cry went up from all sides. Pale living faces looked on a paler dead one which lay all bloody on the pavement. Ghastly haste, screams, a clasping of hands, a running hither and thither, spread like a whirlwind from the church-yard to the farthest corner of the town. But the clouds high above in the sky heeded it not and continued on their vast course unmoved. They see so much self-created misery below them that a single instance cannot touch them.

Everything in the world has its use, if not in itself or for him who does it or who has it, then at least for others. So that which had brought disgrace on the house of Nettenmair was now a guard against greater disgrace. Fritz Nettenmair's love of drink was known everywhere; everybody had seen him drunk; it was no wonder that all who learned of his death attributed it to this vice. It was well that nobody outside of the Nettenmair household knew that he had intended to go to America; it was also well that, to avoid attracting attention upon his return, he had worn his ordinary workman's clothes in the mail coach with only his overcoat thrown over them. The coat had got lost on the way and those who had a right to its restitution naturally put in no claim for it. It did not occur to anybody to attach much importance to this scarcely-noticed incident, as it was not necessary to piece a story together when a complete one was already at hand. Moreover, before the deed he had gone to his usual place of recreation, had drunk heavily, and, after boasting in his foolhardy way that he would now perform his master-piece, had left the tavern for St. George's much intoxicated. All these outward circumstances served to confirm the generally accepted opinion. By a fortunate chance there had been no workmen at St. George's; of the struggle that had taken place before the fall nobody knew anything except Apollonius and the jackdaws who lived there. As soon as the inspector learned of Fritz's death he looked up Apollonius, whom he found sitting exhausted at the foot of the tower, and told him the story that was going the rounds. It entered nobody's head to question Apollonius. They all told him about it instead of letting him tell. He therefore kept silence about that which nobody questioned. The courts found no reason to make an investigation, and the danger which had menaced the honor of the family passed quietly over.

One evening a black bier was seen before the house with the green shutters. At a distance stood groups of women and children, now whispering softly to one another, now peering eagerly in one direction with a curiosity that at times became impatient. Here and there a long black coat and a three-cornered hat came down the street in solemn gloom and vanished behind the bier into the house. At last the door opened. The coffin stood on the bier, the pall covered both; gently, in rhythmical motion, there appeared a black moving mass; now they were in their places; the pall-bearers adjusted their hats. The procession moved, rippling, wavering. On top gleamed bright the hammer which Valentine had polished, and told that what they were now surrendering to earth had worked honestly between heaven and earth. The sweet tears of the old women washed away whatever stains clung to his memory. Inwardly they made a vow that none who belonged to them should ever become a slater. The slater's calling is a dangerous one, between heaven and earth; the man who lay beneath the black pall, between the boards, silent as he was, preached that with poignant eloquence. They turned their eyes toward the old gentleman who was led by two mourners. He seemed to embody the very spirit of honest burial. But when their gaze fell upon Apollonius they forgot the mildness with which they had just judged; they unburied the dead man from the cool funeral flowers that covered his human nakedness. The hammer lying above him would have been covered with the dark rust of shame had it not been for Apollonius. Then they looked at the young wife, and, according to the way of their sex, the mourners became match-makers. And indeed they had right on their side; a bonnier couple or one better suited could scarce have been found in the whole town. The procession passed by the Red Eagle, where a ball was in progress at which Fritz Nettenmair was missing—surely a dull affair! The procession went the same way that Fritz Nettenmair had gone after he had talked with the workman. He had then seen in spirit his brother lying beneath the black fluttering pall and himself following as a mourner. The procession went on, still keeping to the streets that Fritz Nettenmair had trodden on that occasion. Outside the town-gate the willows melted again into mist or the mist into willows. Here and there mist-men carried mist-coffins near the real one. At the cross-ways, where Fritz Nettenmair had seen the journeyman disappear in the mist, he himself disappeared. In Tambach they were bearing the journeyman to burial. The two must have had much to say to each other. Fritz Nettenmair could have told the workman how carefully he had carried out the thought sown by him, even to the cutting of the rope; and the workman could have told his former master how he became a victim to the cuts thus made. The pastor who preached the sermon over Fritz Nettenmair's grave, who was buried with all the honors due to his standing or to be bought with money, did not know what an awe-inspiring theme had eluded him.

The last word of the funeral sermon had died away, the last spadeful of earth had fallen on the coffin, the mourners had gone home; it became night, and again day, and again night, and again and again day and night; other things drove Fritz Nettenmair's unfortunate death from the minds of the townsmen—and still other things these things. A stone was erected over his grave, and his honest death was vouched for by a sculptor and impressed with chisel-strokes upon forgetful posterity. One might think that the dark cloud that had hovered over the house with the green shutters would have burst in the storm that dashed the older son from the tower-roof of St. George's to the pavement below, and that life would now be bright there, as its outer aspect promised. One might indeed think so if one saw only the young widow and her children. The three strong young beings raised their drooping heads as soon as the burden which had oppressed them was lifted. The young widow did not look as if she had been a wife, still less an unhappy wife; from day to day she seemed more like a bridal maiden or a maidenly bride. And why should she not? Did she not know that he loved her? Did she not love him? Did not the teasing words of others, even if she did not think of it herself, remind her that her love was no longer a forbidden one? The marriage was so natural, so necessary according to traditional ideas that those who were too old or too dignified to jest took it as a matter of course without mentioning it, and did not mention it merely because they took it as a matter of course.

In his diplomatic fashion the old gentleman made various intimations that if he had remained at the head of things all would have happened differently. What Apollonius had spoiled, he would now carry out to the best possible end. Necessity had placed him at the helm again, and he would remain there. He forgot that he had twice been forced to the acknowledgment that when one becomes old, control in the business is only possible when one need not see through strange eyes. He was to experience this now for a third time. Since the night before his older son met a violent death, Herr Nettenmair had resumed his position as manager of the business. Apollonius reported to him daily concerning the progress of current work and received orders. When a piece of work has once been fairly started it can go on by itself and requires from the superintendent nothing but inspection and an occasional stimulus. If, however, something new is to be undertaken, a groove must be sought in which it can run, and the groove must be the shortest, surest, and most profitable. Clear-seeing eyes are needed, with a quick power to grasp. That Apollonius possessed these the old gentleman perceived on the first occasion. It pertained to a particularly difficult piece of work. Apollonius put it before him with such clearness that the old gentleman believed he saw it with his bodily eyes. It was a case, however, in which his experience failed him. To Apollonius it presented no difficulties. He pointed out three or four different ways in which it could be done and reduced the old gentleman to such a state of confusion that he could scarcely conceal it. A curious, wild train of contradictory sensations rushed through his brain—joy and pride in his son, then pain that he was nothing and never could be any more, then shame and wrath that his son knew this and triumphed over him; the desire to curb him and show him that he still was lord and master. But even if he wanted to carry his point, would his son obey? There was no way to preserve even the appearance of leadership save through his diplomatic art. In a grim voice he gave commands which were utterly unnecessary, because they pertained to things which would have been done as a matter of course without command. In new matters he angrily disapproved of all suggestions made by Apollonius; but the commands which he finally gave were always in general accordance with that which Apollonius had suggested as most expedient. Afterward he made excuses to himself and found something that would have been much better than Apollonius' suggestion. He was convinced that if he only had his eyesight everything would be different. Sometimes he gave himself up unreservedly to his joy and pride in his son's efficiency; but this feeling was soon replaced by the wrathful necessity to exert his diplomatic art. Apollonius realized the restraint that he was imposing upon his father quite as little as he did his father's pride in him. He was glad that he had nothing more to conceal from the old gentleman concerning the business, and that obedience to him did not interfere with the fulfilment of his vow. The sky above the house with the green shutters took on a brighter, bluer hue. But the spirit of the house still wandered about wringing its hands. When the clock struck two in the morning it stood in the arbor before the door to Apollonius' room and raised its pallid arms pleadingly toward heaven.

The business increased under Apollonius' diligent hand; the orders were twice as many as they had formerly been. The postman brought great piles of letters into the house. Apollonius accepted an advantageous offer made by the owner and leased the slate quarry. He understood the management of the works from his stay in Cologne, and he employed a former acquaintance from that city whom he knew to be an expert in the business and reliable in his dealings. His choice was a good one; the man was energetic, but in spite of this fact much additional work fell on Apollonius. The councilman shook his head sometimes doubtfully, fearing that Apollonius had over-estimated his strength. It did not strike the young widow how seldom Apollonius came into the living-room. The children, whom he often called to him to perform little services whereby they might learn, kept up the intercourse. They could testify that Apollonius had very little time. She went to his room frequently, but always when he was not at home. She adorned the doors and walls with everything she had which she knew he loved, and she spent many hours there at work. She noticed the pallor of his face, which seemed to become greater each time she saw him. As she was but a mirror of his feelings, his pallor reflected itself in her. She would have liked to cheer him up, but she did not seek to be near him; her presence seemed to have the opposite effect upon him from what she desired. He was always friendly and full of chivalrous respect toward her. This at least comforted her to a certain extent. She had endowed him with all the virtues that she knew; among these she had not forgotten truthfulness, the first of them all to her. Therefore she knew that he would not compel himself to show respect to her if he did not feel it. He made merry sometimes, especially when he saw her eyes fixed anxiously upon his pale face, but she noticed that her society did not make him healthier or more cheerful. She would have liked to ask him what was the matter. When he stood before her she did not dare. When she was alone she asked him. Many nights through she thought of ways to entice the confession from him and talked with him. Surely if he had heard her weep, had heard how sweetly and tenderly she cajoled and pleaded, had heard the dear names she gave him, he would have told her what ailed him. Her whole life was between heart and mouth; and when her heart whispered in her ear what she had said, she flushed rosily and hid her blushes deep beneath the covers from herself and the listening night.

She confided her fears to the old inspector. "Is it a wonder?" he asked, "when a person sits all day long for a year and a half over his business and all night long over books and letters? And then all the anxiety he had about his—God forgive him, he is dead and one should not speak ill of the dead—about his brother; and then the fright, which made me ill for three days, over—and when his widow is there too—I never did like him much, least of all toward the end. But youth is so! I warned him a hundred times, the brave fellow! And now the confounded quarry! Such conscientiousness! He is one who would never consider his own health." The councilman gave the young widow a long lecture which was not in the least meant for her. Then they agreed that Apollonius ought to have a doctor whether he wanted him or not; and the councilman immediately went to the best physician in town. The physician promised to do all that was possible. He called on Apollonius, who put up with him because those whom he loved desired it. The doctor felt his pulse, came again and again, prescribed and re-prescribed; Apollonius became ever paler and gloomier. At last the good man declared that here was a malady against which all art was useless. So deep-seated was the trouble that no remedy of his could reach it.

Apollonius knew that no physician could cure his illness. The councilman had only partly divined the cause. Overwork had merely watered the soil for the parasite growth which was gnawing at Apollonius' inmost being. The first symptoms seemed of a physical nature. As his brother had plunged to death before him, the clock below had struck the hour of two. Since then every sound of a bell frightened him. What aroused more serious apprehension was an attack of dizziness. All the horrors of that day did not obliterate the feeling of uneasiness which had taken possession of him when he discovered the inexactitude in his work. Every time a bell sounded it seemed to him a warning. Early the next morning he went to the roof-door with his ladder in his hand. He had already noticed how insecure his step was as he climbed the tower stairs; now, when through the open door the distant mountains began to nod so curiously to him and the firm tower to rock beneath him, he became frightened. That was dizziness, the slater's worst, most malicious enemy when it takes sudden hold of him on a swaying ladder between heaven and earth. In vain Apollonius strove to overcome it; he had to give up his purpose for the day. No way had ever been so hard for Apollonius as the tower stairs down from St. George's. What would happen? How could he fulfil his vow if this dizziness did not leave him? On the same day he had some work to do on the tower of St. Nicholas. There he had to venture into more dangerous places than at St. George's; the bells rang at the most critical instant; he felt no trace of dizziness. Joyfully he hastened back to St. George's, but again the ladder trembled under his feet, the mountains nodded, the tower rocked. He was on the lowest rung of the ladder when the clock began to strike the hour. The sound penetrated every nerve of his body; he had to hold fast to the railing until the last echo had died away. He made attempt after attempt, and climbed all ladders and towers with his old sureness of foot; only at St. George's did dizziness return. There he had hammered his sinful thoughts into his work; he had felt at the time that he was forging an evil charm, a coming disaster. Day and night the picture followed him of the place where he had forgotten to insert the sheet of lead and to rivet the decoration. The flaw was like an evil spot, a spot where a crime had been begun or completed and where no grass grows, no shadow falls; like an open wound which does not heal until it has been avenged, like an empty grave which does not close until it has received its denizen. If only the gap were closed the charm would lose its potency. He might authorize a workman to do the job, but the thought of leaving his neglected work to another brought a flush of shame to his pale cheeks. The sheet of lead nailed by another would be certain to fall; the gap cried out for him, and he alone could close it. Or the destruction which he had forged there would seize hold of the workman, dizziness would overtake him and he would plunge into the depths.

Since his brother's wife had lain in his arms he had lived a double life. During the day he worked outside and at night he sat in his room among his books, all that went on mechanically; in spite of his efforts his heart was only half in his work; the other half lived its own life, hovering with the jackdaws about the flaw in the tower-roof and brooding over the coming disaster which he had forged that morning. His soul fought ever anew the battle with his brother. Was it his brother's fall that he had forged? Perhaps it would have been possible to save the madman. Anxiously he sought for possibilities, and shrank with horror from the thought that he might find one. All his good qualities became overwrought—his loyalty, his conscientiousness, his scrupulousness. He did not try to put his shortcomings upon his brother; with loving hand he took his brother's guilt and placed it on his own shoulders. It became ever clearer in his mind that he might have saved his brother. He could have found some way if his heart and head had not been full of wild, forbidden desires, if he had not been full of wrath against the madman instead of feeling pity for him. With his evil thoughts he had forged disaster for his brother. Without those thoughts his work would have been finished and his brother would not have found him in the tower, would have come too late and would have repented of his resolve. Or, if he had still been there, he was the stronger, cooler headed, and he should have found a way to prevent the calamity.

It was natural that people should chaff him about the marriage that seemed a necessity to them. He had to confess to himself that they were right and that his desires were no longer forbidden ones. But the fact that they had once been so cast its shadow over the blameless present. His love seemed sullied to him. Reason and love might say what they would, he felt that there would be guilt in the marriage. And so it came that Christiane's presence brought him no cheer. There were moments when his gloom struck him as a sort of illness and he hoped that it would pass over. But even then he drew no nearer to Christiane, much as his heart yearned for her. He continued the same as on that day when he placed the child between him and her. She remained pure and holy to him.

To the old gentleman with his external sense of honor, a life like Apollonius' and Christiane's, without the consecration of the church, was a grave offense. Only under the name of her husband could Apollonius, without disgrace, be the protector and supporter of the beautiful young widow and her children. According to his way he pronounced the ultimatum. He fixed the time for the wedding. The indispensable half-year of mourning was over; in a week the betrothal should be announced, three weeks later the marriage should take place.

Life in the house with the green shutters grew more and more sultry. The new clouds which had gathered invisibly about it threatened a storm severer than that in which the old ones had been dispelled. The young widow had no choice but to play the part of the affianced; she was rallied about her wedding garment, and, adjusting herself to the situation, she began preparations. Tears fell upon her work, and joy had an ever smaller and smaller part in it. She saw the condition of the man she loved become hourly worse; and she could not fail to know that the approaching marriage was to blame. The paler and more fragile he became, the gentler and more full of respect was his conduct toward her. There was something in it that seemed like pitying pain and an unexpressed prayer for forgiveness of a wrong, an insult of which he felt himself guilty toward her.

Apollonius was compelled to come to a decision. He could not. The yawning discord in his soul became ever greater. If he resolved to renounce happiness, the phantom of guilt disappeared and happiness stretched out alluring arms toward him. She loved him and had always loved him, only him; all the world approved, in fact demanded it of him. He saw her before she had been stolen from him, how she had laid the little blue-bell down for him, all rosy beneath the brown curling locks which struggled to be free; then, pale under the ill-treatment of the brother who had stolen her from him, pale for him; then trembling before his brother's threats, trembling for him; then laughing, weeping, full of anguish and full of happiness in his arms. His brother's fall had made this woman free. He had known that when he let his brother fall. If he should wed his brother's wife, who had become free through the fall, he would make himself guilty of this fall. If he received the reward of the deed, the deed was also his. If he took her, the feeling would never leave him; he would be unhappy and would make her unhappy with him. For her sake and for his he must refrain. When he came to this decision, he realized how unsubstantial his conclusions were, viewed with the clear eye of the spirit; and yet, if he tried to reach out for happiness, the dark feeling of guilt hovered over him like an icy frost about a flower, and his soul could do nothing against its annihilating power. And the bells of St. George's continued to ring their warning. What made Apollonius' agitation even more feverish was the knowledge that the flaw in his work had not been corrected. It rained incessantly, the gap yawned wide, the boarding greedily drank in the water, the wood was bound to rot. If the winter cold increased, the water would freeze in the wood and injure the slate. The town, which trusted to his sense of duty, would suffer harm through him. Each night the stroke of two awakened him from sleep. Shadows mingled with his fever-dreams. The reproaches of his inward and outward yearning for purity blended. The open wound cried aloud for justice, the open grave for him who would close it. And it was he whom the bells called to justice, he who must close the grave before the disaster he had forged should descend upon an innocent head. He must climb to the tower and correct the flaw. But when he got there, it struck two, dizziness seized hold of him and dragged him down after his brother. From day to day, from hour to hour, the beautiful young widow saw him grow paler and became pale with him. Only the old gentleman in his blindness did not see the cloud which was lowering so threateningly. The air was very sultry in the house with the green shutters. No one who looks at the little house now would suspect how sultry it once was there.

It was on the night before the appointed betrothal day. Snow had fallen, and then great cold had suddenly set in. For several nights the so-called St. Elmo's fire had been seen darting tongues of flame from the tops of the towers to the gleaming stars of heaven. In spite of the dry cold, the inhabitants of the district felt a curious heaviness in their limbs. There was no air stirring. The people looked at one another as if each were asking the other if he too felt the same uneasiness. Odd prophecies of war, sickness and famine went from mouth to mouth. The more intelligent smiled, but were themselves unable to refrain from clothing their inward gloom in corresponding pictures of some impending disaster. All day long dark clouds, of different form and color from what the wintry sky is accustomed to display, had been gathering. Their blackness would have been in unbearably glaring contrast to the snow which covered mountains and valley and hung like candied sugar on the leafless boughs, if their dark reflection had not somewhat deadened the dazzling splendor. Here and there the firm outline of the cloud-castles softened and seemed to hang down over earth like drooping breasts. These bore more nearly the aspect of ordinary snow-clouds, and their dull reddish gray served to unite the leaden blackness of the higher plane with earth's drab whiteness and dingy appearance. The whole mass hung motionless over the town. The blackness increased. Two hours after midday it was already night in the streets. Dwellers on the ground floor drew down their blinds; in the windows of the upper stories appeared one light after another. In the public squares of the town, where a greater portion of the sky could be seen, groups of people stood, looking now upward into the heavens, now into the long, doubtful faces around them. They told of the ravens that had come in great flocks into the suburbs, they pointed to the deep, restless, uneven fluttering of the jackdaws around St. George's and St. Nicholas', they spoke of earthquakes, of land-slides and even of the Judgment Day. The more courageous thought it was only a violent thunder-storm. But even that seemed serious enough. The river and the so-called fire-pond, the waters of which could, at a moment's notice, be let into any part of the town by means of subterranean channels, were both frozen. Some hoped the danger would pass by. But each time they looked up at the sky they saw that the dark cloud-mass had not changed its position. Two hours after midday it had stood there; toward midnight it still stood there unmoved. Only it seemed to have become heavier and had sunk lower. How could it move when there was not a breath of air in motion, and to scatter and dispel such a mass as this a hurricane would have been required!

It struck twelve from St. George's tower. The last stroke seemed unable to die away. But the deep trembling murmur that hung on so long was no longer the dying tone of the bell. For now it began to grow; as if on a thousand wings it came rushing and surging and pushed angrily against the houses that would retard it; whistling and shrieking, it drove through every crevice that it met, and blustered about the house until it found another rift to drive out of again; it tore shutters open and slammed them furiously, it squeezed its way groaningly between adjacent walls, whistled madly round street corners, lost itself in a thousand currents, found itself again and rushed headlong into a raging stream, careered up and down with savage joy, jolted everything that stood fast, trilled with wild-playing fingers on the rusty vanes and weather-cocks and laughed shrilly at their groans; it blew the snow from one roof to another, swept it from the street, chased it onto steep walls where it crouched with fear in all the window chinks, and whirled great, dancing fir-trees of snow before it in its mad course.

Seeing that a storm was imminent, no one had taken off his clothes. The town and county storm night-watch, as well as the fire company, had been gathered together for hours. Herr Nettenmair had sent his son to the main guard-room in the town hall to represent him there as the master-slater of the town. The two journeymen sat with the tower watchman, one at St. George's, one at St. Nicholas'. The other municipal workmen entertained one another in the guard-room as well as they could. The building inspector looked anxiously at Apollonius, who, feeling his friend's eye fixed upon him, rose, to conceal from him if possible his brooding state of mind. At this very moment the storm broke forth with renewed violence. From the town-hall tower it struck one. The sound of the bell whimpered in the grip of the storm which dragged it along in its wild chase. Apollonius stepped to the window as if to see what was happening outside. A gigantic, sulphur-blue tongue leaped into the room, sprang twice trembling upon stove, wall and people, and then, leaving no trace, was swallowed up in itself again. The tempest raged on: but, even as the storm had seemed born out of the last sound of St. George's bell, there now arose a something out of the raging which exceeded it in force as far as the raging had exceeded the sound of the bell. An invisible world seemed to tear it to pieces in the air. The storm raged and panted with the fury of the tiger which cannot destroy what it holds in its grasp; the deep, majestic rolling that outsounded it was the roar of the lion which has his foot on the enemy—the triumphant expression of struggle satisfied by action.

"That struck somewhere!" said one. Apollonius thought: "If it should strike St. George's tower, where the gap is, and I should have to climb up, and the clock should strike two, and"—he could think no further. A cry for help, a cry of fire resounded through storm and thunder. "The lightning has struck!" was the cry on the street. "It has struck St. George's tower! Quick to St. George's! Fire! Help! Fire! St. George's! Fire in the tower of St. George's!" Horns blew, drums beat. And always the storm and peal after peal of thunder! Then the cry came: "Where is Nettenmair? If anybody can help it is Nettenmair. Fire! Fire! At St. George's! Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair? The tower of St. George's is on fire!"

The councilman saw Apollonius turn pale, his form sink more deeply into itself than before. "Where is Nettenmair?" was again the cry from the street. Then came a dark flush over his pale cheeks and his slender figure rose to its full height. He buttoned his coat quickly, and drew the strap of his cap firmly under his chin. "If I stay," he said to the councilman, as he turned to go, "remember my father, my brother's wife and the children." The councilman was taken aback. The young man's "if I stay" sounded like "I shall stay." A presentiment came over the friend that here was something that had to do with the salvation of Apollonius' soul. But the expression on Apollonius' face was no longer one of suffering; nor was it anxious or wild. In spite of apprehension and alarm, the stout-hearted man felt something like joyful hope. It was indeed the old Apollonius again who stood before him, with the same quiet, modest resoluteness that had won his heart at the first sight of the young man. "If he would only remain so!" thought the inspector. He had no time to reply. He pressed his hand. Apollonius felt all that this hand-pressure wanted to say. Compassion crept over him for the good old man, and something like regret for the anxiety he had caused him and would still cause him. He said with his old-time smile: "For such cases I am always prepared. But there is no time to spare. Good-by for a while!" Apollonius, who moved more quickly than the councilman, was soon out of sight. All the way to St. George's, amid the cries, the horns, drums, storm and thunder, the councilman kept repeating to himself: "Either I shall never see the good fellow again, or he will be well when he returns." He did not try to explain to himself how he had come to this conclusion. There was no time. His duty as municipal inspector demanded his entire attention.

The cry "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" greeted Apollonius on all sides and echoed in the distance. The confidence of his fellow-citizens awakened in him a renewed sense of his own worth. When, upon returning from afar, he had seen his native town stretched out before him, he had dedicated himself to her and her service. The opportunity now presented itself to show whether he had meant this vow in earnest. He reviewed in his mind all the possible forms of danger and how they could best be met. A fire-sprinkler lay ready in the roof-truss, and cloths were at hand to dip into water and protect the places most in danger. The journeyman had been instructed to have hot water ready. The beams were connected everywhere by ladders. For the first time since his return from Brambach he threw his whole soul into his work. Before real necessity and its demands the visions of his brooding fancy receded like dissolving shadows. All his old elasticity and buoyancy were [Illustration: The Prophet Jeremiah] [Blank Page] called into being again, intensified by the feeling of relief which had taken possession of him. Thoughts can be refuted by thoughts, against feelings they are a very weak weapon. In vain had his spirit seen the way of salvation; he had fallen a victim to the general apathy about him. Now a strong, healthful feeling sprang up in opposition to the strong, morbid ones and devoured them in the ardor of its flame. He knew, without any special thought on the subject, that he had found the solution which brings redemption, and that this was the cause of his renewed being. He knew that dizziness would not overcome him, but if he should remain it would be a sacrifice made to duty, not to guilt, and God and the gratitude of the town would assume in his stead the responsibility for his loved ones.

St. George's Square was thronged with people who gazed in troubled fear at the roof of the tower. The ancient building stood like a rock in the fierce battle which the brightness of lightning and the old night waged untiringly about it. A thousand glowing arms embraced the tower with such ardor that it seemed as if it would be consumed in their glow; like a great surging sea the light broke upon its walls, only to fall back again before the power of night which engulfed all in its dark flood. The mass of pale faces, pressed close together at the foot of the tower, flashed into view during momentary gleams of light but were soon lost again in dreary blackness. The storm tore at their hats and coats, blew hair into their faces, struck them with flapping garments and pelted them with glistening drops of snow, as if it wanted to make them atone for the wounds it received when it beat as rain on the rocky ribs of the tower. And as the people now appeared, now disappeared in alternating light and darkness, so also their confused attempts at conversation were drowned at every turn by storm and thunder.

Somebody called out in self-consolation: "It was a harmless flash; though it struck, nothing caught fire." Somebody else thought that the flame might still break out. A third became angry; he took this suggestion as a wish that the flame might break out. He had been comforted by the first thought; he had to avenge himself for the uneasiness which the suggestion created in his mind. Trembling with cold and anxiety, many stared up stupidly with blinded eyes into space and knew not even why. A hundred voices explained what misfortune would befall the town, must befall it, if the lightning had really struck and the tower had caught fire. Some told of the nature of slate, how it melts in fire and is carried as slack through the air, often setting fire to a whole city at the same time. Others lamented that the storm would further a possible fire, and that there would be no water with which to extinguish it. Still others said that if there were any water it would freeze in the engines and be of no avail. Most of them depicted with fearful eloquence the course that the fire would take. If the burning truss should fall the storm would blow it right where there was a thick cluster of houses, quite near the tower. This was the most dangerous place in the whole town in case of fire, for there were numberless frame verandas in narrow courts, boarded gable roofs and shingle-covered sheds, all crowded so closely together that it would be impossible for a fire-engine to be squeezed in among them or for the firemen to get at their work. If the burning truss should fall on this side, as it most certainly would, the entire portion of the town that lay before the wind would be irretrievably lost. These reflections reduced the timid to such a state of mind that every new flash seemed to them the inevitable fire. That nobody could see more than one side of the tower at a time tended to increase the misapprehension. It was curious, but from all sides the cry was heard: "Where? Where?" Storm and thunder prevented mutual understanding. Everybody wanted to see for himself. Wild excitement prevailed.

"Where did it strike?" asked Apollonius, who had just arrived. "On the side toward Brambach," answered many voices. Apollonius pushed his way through the crowd. With long strides he hastened toward the tower steps. He had come considerably in advance of his more deliberate associates. In the tower his questions were to no purpose. The people in the tower thought that though the lightning had struck it had not set fire to anything; still they were on the point of gathering together their best things to flee from the danger. Only the journeyman, whom he found occupied at the stove, remained self-possessed. Apollonius hastened with lanterns to the truss, to hang them there. The ladder steps did not tremble beneath his feet; he was in too great haste to notice it. There seemed to be no trace of incipient fire in the truss. Neither the odor of sulphur, which denotes fire by lightning, nor ordinary smoke was perceptible. Apollonius heard his associates on the steps. He called to them that he was there. Just at that moment a blue light flashed through all the tower-windows followed immediately by a tremendous crash of thunder. Apollonius stood for an instant, stunned. If he had not unconsciously caught hold of a beam, he would have fallen to the ground from the shock. A thick fume of sulphur took his breath away. He sprang to the nearest window to obtain fresh air. The workmen farther from where it had struck had not been stunned, but stood motionless with fright on the topmost flight of steps. "Come!" cried Apollonius. "Quick! the water! The sprinkler! It must have struck on this side—that's where the pressure and the smell of sulphur came from. Quick, water and the sprinkler at the door!" The master-carpenter, standing on the ladder steps, called, coughing, "But the smoke!" "Quick!" replied Apollonius, "the door will give more air than we want." The mason and the chimney-sweep followed the carpenter, who carried the hose with the sprinkler, as quickly as he could, up the ladder steps. The others brought buckets of cold water, the journeyman a pail of hot water to pour over the cold to prevent its freezing.

At such moments he who remains calm inspires confidence; to the self-possessed man of action others defer without question. The wooden passage-way to the door was narrow, but through Apollonius' intelligent directions room was immediately found for all. Next to Apollonius stood the carpenter, then the sprinkler, then the mason. The sprinkler was so turned that the two men had the levers before them. Two strong men could work it. Behind the mason stood the journeyman who was to pour hot water on the cold as often as was necessary. Others performed the journeyman's previous duty; they melted snow and ice and kept the water thus obtained in the watchman's warm room so that it should not freeze again. Still others were ready to serve as carriers and formed a sort of double line between roof and watchman's room. While Apollonius was explaining to the carpenter and mason, in rapid words and signs, his plan of action which they then carried into effect, he had taken hold of the roof-ladder with his right hand and was reaching out with his left toward the bolt of the door. The workmen were all full of hope, but when the storm whistled in through the opened door, tore the carpenter's cap from his head, blew masses of fine snow against the beams, howled, rattled, and blustered against the ridge of the roof, while flash after flash of lightning broke through the dark opening, the bravest among them wanted to withdraw his hand from the futile work. Apollonius had to stand with his back to the door to get his breath. Then gripping the lath-work above the door, with both hands, he bent his head back in order to get a look at the roof from the outside. "It can still be saved," he cried with an effort so that he could be heard above the storm and the uninterrupted rolling of the thunder. He seized the tube of the shorter hose, the lower end of which the carpenter had screwed onto the sprinkler, and wound the upper part around his body. "When I pull twice on the hose start the sprinkler; we'll save the church and perhaps the town." With his right hand propped against the lath-work he swung himself out of the door; in his left hand he held the light roof-ladder which he wanted to hang on the next hook above the door. This seemed impossible to the workmen. The storm would certainly tear the ladder down, and all too possibly the man with it. It came in well for Apollonius that the wind pressed the ladder against the surface of the roof. There was plenty of light by which to find the hook; but the fine snow which flurried about and, rolling down from the roof, struck him in the eyes, was a hindrance. He could feel, however, that the ladder hung securely. There was no time to lose; he swung himself up on it. He had to trust more to the strength and sureness of his arms and hands than to a secure footing as he climbed upward, for the storm swayed man and ladder to and fro like a bell. Above, to one side of the topmost rung of the ladder, blue flames with yellow points leaped forth from under the gap and licked the edges of the slate roof. The lightning had struck two feet below the point where the sheet of lead was lacking. A short hour ago he had been frightened by the thought of the mere possibility that the lightning could strike there and that he would have to climb up—a series of dark, deadly fever visions had risen before him: now, all had happened as he had pictured it—but the gap was like any other part of the tower-roof and he stood on the ladder, free from all dizziness, pervaded only by a keen, strong desire to avert impending danger from church and town. Yes, something that had enhanced his vague fears now proved to be of distinct advantage to him. The water which had been pouring into the hole for weeks, and which was now frozen in the wood, prevented the flame from obtaining the upper hand as quickly as it would otherwise have done. The area taken possession of by the fire up to the present time was small. The frost in the boarding had stubbornly beat back the leaping, ever-returning flames and it would take time before they could permanently strike root and from their vantage point do further destruction. If they had united in one big flame and overstepped the space below the hole protected by the frost, the fire would soon have grown to gigantic proportions and the church, perhaps the town, have succumbed to the combined force of fire and storm. He saw that there was still time to save, and he needed the strength that this thought gave. The ladder not only swung backward and forward, it moved up and down. What could be the cause of that? If the beams of the roof were loose—but he knew that that was not the case—this movement would be impossible. But the trouble was that the ladder was not hanging on the hook; he had hung it on a projecting tin oak-leaf which formed part of the roof's decoration, near one of the rivets, and he had neglected to fasten the other end of the garland on which the ladder hung. His weight was pulling on it now and dragging it and the ladder gradually down. An inch more and the leaf would be horizontal, the ladder would slide off it and he and the ladder together would fall into the tremendous depth below. His newly-acquired courage was to be put to the test. Six inches from the leaf was the hook. He took three cautious steps up the tottering ladder; then, seizing hold of the hook with his left hand and holding fast, he raised the ladder with his right hand from the leaf to the hook. It hung securely. He let go the hook and, holding fast to a rung of the ladder with both hands, stepped back onto it again. And now the slates below the hole began to glow; it would not be long before the burning particles carried destruction far and near. Apollonius drew his claw-hammer from his belt; a few strokes with the tool and the slate fell, splintering below. Now he could see clearly the very small area of burning surface; his confidence increased. He pressed twice on the hose and the sprinkler began to work. First he held the nozzle toward the hole so that the lath-work above might be the better protected from the flame. The sprinkler proved to be powerful; the water that penetrated beneath the edge of the slate shivered it into small bits. The flames cracked and leaped angrily under the gushing water; only when the jet was turned directly upon them, and then more by means of its smothering power than its inherent qualities, did it finally vanquish them.

The surface of the fire lay black before him; there was no hissing in response to the jet from the hose. Far below him the works of the clock rattled. It struck two! Two strokes! Two! And he stood and did not plunge headlong into space. How different in reality from what his feverish forebodings had threatened! In his brooding, waking dreams he had stood at the top of the tower, it had struck two, a great dizziness had come over him and dragged him down, to expiate a dark crime. But now he stood there in reality, the ladder swayed in the storm, snowdust flurried about him, lightning darted around him, the sheet of snow on roofs, mountains and valley shimmered bright with each gleaming flash, it struck two below him, the tone of the bells, rent by the storm, wailed in the tumult, and he stood, stood free from all dizziness and did not fall. He knew that no guilt was attached to him, he had done his duty where thousands would have failed, he had saved the town which he loved with all his soul, from a terrible danger. But there was no vainglory in his heart, only a prayer of thanksgiving. His thoughts were not of the people who would praise him, but of those who would breathe freely again, of the misery that had been prevented, of the happiness that would be preserved. For the first time in many months he felt what it means to breathe freely. This night had brought gladness to him. With joy he looked back on the vow that he had made. To men like Apollonius, the highest blessing of a good deed is that it gives courage for new good deeds.

The throng below still cried: "Where? Where?" and crowded close together when the second stroke occurred. They stood for a moment paralyzed with fear. "Thank the Lord! It was harmless this time too!" exclaimed one voice. "No! No! It is burning. God have mercy!" replied others; sharp eyes saw in the darkness that appeared between the flashes little blue flames leaping like candles over the slate. These flames sought one another and when they found one another they blazed up convulsively into a larger flame, then fled dancingly away and shivered into pieces. The storm bent and blew them here and there; sometimes they seemed to die out, but suddenly they leaped up brighter than ever. They were growing, one could see that, but their growth was not rapid. Much more rapid and vehement was the new cry of fire that swelled through the town. In anxious suspense the gaze of all was riveted on the one small spot. "Help! Now! It can still be put out!" And again through storm and thunder sounded the agonized cry: "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair?" A voice called, "He is in the tower." All hearts felt relief when they heard that. And most of them did not know him, even among those who called out for him, and those who did not know him cried out loudest. In moments of general helplessness the crowd clings to a name, to a mere word. Some thus thrust from themselves the calls of conscience which demanded personal effort, personal risk, and these are they who are most merciless in their judgment of the helper if he is unable to help. The rest are happy if they can delude themselves for the moment. "What could he do?" cried one. "Help! Rescue!" cried others. "Even if one had wings, he would not dare the ascent in such a storm." "Nettenmair surely would." In the depths of their hearts, however, even the most confident knew that he would not. The thought that the flame could be extinguished if it were only accessible aggravated the general spirit of uneasiness. It prevented that dull submission which the inevitable with gentle severity compels. When the door opened and the suspended ladder became visible, and it seemed as if somebody were going to dare the deed, the effect on the crowd was as terrifying as the stroke itself had been. And the ladder hung and swayed in the air with the man who was climbing upward, enveloped in snow, encircled by lightning; the ladder that seemed cut from a splinter swinging with the man like a bell in the awful heights. Every one held his breath. The same expression of horror stared from hundreds of unlike faces at the man on high. None believed in the daring feat—and yet they saw the man who dared. It was like something that was at the same time dream and reality. Nobody believed in it, and yet each one stood himself on the ladder while under him swung the light splinter in storm and lightning and thunder, high between heaven and earth. And again they stood below on the firm earth and looked upward; and yet if the man should fall it would be they who fell. The people on the firm ground held convulsively to their own hands, to their canes, to their clothes, that they might not fall from the terrible height. They stood secure, and yet at the same time they hung over the abyss of death, for years, for a lifetime; the past had never been; and yet they had only been hanging on high for a moment. They forgot the peril to the town and their own, in the peril of the man above them whose peril was their own. They saw that the fire was quenched, the danger to the town was over; they knew it as in a dream when one knows that he dreams; it was a mere thought without a living meaning. Only when the man had climbed down the ladder, had disappeared into the door and drawn the ladder after him, only when the people no longer clung to their own hands, canes, and clothes, only then did admiration battle with anxiety, only then did the exultant cry: "Hurrah! Brave fellow!" become smothered in the lament: "He is lost!" A trembling old voice began to sing: "Now thank we all our God!" When the aged man came to the line: "Who has protected us," a great consciousness seemed to sweep over the people of what might have been lost and what had been rescued for them. Absolute strangers fell into one another's arms, each embraced in his neighbor the loved ones whom he might have lost and who had been saved. All united in the singing of the hymn; the sounds of thanksgiving swelled through the whole town, soared over the streets and squares where the people stood who had feared to go closer, entered the houses, penetrated into the innermost chambers, rose to the remotest garrets. The sick man in his lonely bed, the old man in the chair where weakness had bound him, little children who did not know the meaning of the hymn or of the danger that had been averted, all joined in the song of praise. The town was one great church, and storm and thunder the giant organ. Again the cry was heard: "Nettenmair! Where is Nettenmair? Where is our helper? Where is our rescuer? Where is the brave fellow? Where is the noble man?" Wind and storm were forgotten. Everybody pushed forward, looking for the man who was being called on all sides. The tower of St. George's was besieged. The carpenter appeared, saying that Nettenmair had lain down in the watchman's room to rest for a few moments. The carpenter was beset with questions. Had he been injured at all? Would his health suffer? The carpenter could tell nothing except that Nettenmair had done more than a man is capable of doing in the ordinary course of events. In such supreme moments man is a different being; later he marvels himself at the power he displayed. But everything must be paid for. It would not surprise the carpenter if, after the tremendous exertion, Nettenmair should sleep for three days and nights at a stretch. The people seemed prepared to wait on the steps for that length of time, in order to see the brave man as soon as he waked. In the meantime a prominent man had begun to take up a collection in the market-place. Money, of course, could not reward such a deed as had been performed that day; but at least they could show their gratitude to the courageous doer. Carried away by the impulse of the moment, acknowledged misers hastened home to fetch their contribution, regardless of the fact that in an hour they would regret having done so. Not many of the well-to-do refused to contribute, all the poor gave their share. The collector was astonished at the rich success of his efforts.

Apollonius rested for half an hour. Before he lay down he saw that the lanterns were carefully put out. He closed the door, and had the sprinkler emptied and the hose brought into the watchman's room so that the frost could do no harm to them. He was able to stand no longer. The councilman, who had come to him in the meantime, had to compel him almost with force, to go down to the watchman's room. His friend then bolted the door, made Apollonius take off his frozen clothes, and sat down like a mother at his bedside. Apollonius could not sleep, but the old man did not allow him to speak. He had brought rum and sugar with him, and there was hot water enough; but Apollonius, who had never drunk anything strong, declined the grog with thanks. In the meantime the workman had brought clothes. Apollonius assured them that he felt perfectly himself again but that he felt a hesitancy about getting out of bed. Laughingly the old man gave him his clothes. Apollonius had undressed under the bedclothes and in the same way he now dressed beneath them. The councilman turned his back to him and looked laughingly out of the window at storm and lightning; whether his smiles were over Apollonius' bashfulness or from pure joy at having his favorite again he did not know. He had often regretted having remained a bachelor, now he was almost glad. He had a son at any rate, and as good a one as a father could wish.

Trouble now began for Apollonius. He was torn from arm to arm; even women of prominence kissed and embraced him. His hands were so shaken and squeezed that for three days he had no feeling in them. He did not lose, however, his naturally noble bearing. His modest, blushing embarrassment in the face of so much enthusiastic thanks and admiring praise, became him as well as his brave, determined conduct in time of danger. Those who did not already know him were amazed; they had formed a very different conception of him: dark, bold-eyed, audacious, overflowing with spirits, in fact almost wild. Still they had to acknowledge that his appearance was not at variance with his deed. His maidenly blushes lent an added charm to the tall manly figure, and the modest embarrassment of his honest face, which seemed in no way to realize what he had done, was very winning; his gentle thoughtfulness and quiet simplicity placed his achievement in a still more pleasing light, for it was plainly to be seen that vanity and ambition had played no part in it.

* * * * *

We pass now in spirit over a period of three decades and return to the man with whom we were occupied at the beginning of our tale. We left him in the arbor of his little garden. The bells of St. George's called the dwellers of the town to morning service; they sounded also in the garden behind the house with the green shutters. There he sits every Sunday at this time. When the bells call to afternoon service he is seen wending his way to church with his silver-headed cane in his hand. Nobody sees the old gentleman without greeting him with reverence. It has been nearly thirty years, but there are still people who lived through that remarkable night. They can tell those who do not know what the man with the silver-headed cane did for the town on that night. And to what he set on foot the next day the stones themselves bear witness. Just outside of the town, on the road to Brambach, not far from the rifle-range there rises a stately building with a pleasant garden. It is the new town hospital. Every stranger who goes to it learns that its conception originated with Herr Nettenmair. He also has to listen to the entire story of that night, and of Herr Nettenmair's brave deed, who was then a young man; and how a collection was taken up for him, and how he gave this money to the town as a nucleus for the hospital, and how rich citizens, inspired by his example, donated and bequeathed until, after a number of years, an additional contribution from the town completed the sum necessary for the erection of the building.

When Herr Nettenmair returns from church he spends the rest of Sunday in his little room where he still lives; or he takes a walk to the slate quarry, which now belongs to him, or rather to his nephews. The fulfilment of the vow which he made to himself has continued to be the aim of his life. Everything that he has done he has done for his brother's family, he has considered himself only the administrator. If he happens to see a pretty little girl anywhere, he thinks of dear little dead Annie. His memory is as conscientious as he himself, for he always calls the child to him, strokes her hair, and it would be strange indeed if he did not find in the pocket of his blue coat something or other wrapped up in nice clean paper which he produces to bring forth a word of thanks from the little mouth. The child, however, cannot enjoy herself to the full until he has gone, for, in spite of his friendliness, his tall figure has something so grave and solemn about it that her joy is usually swallowed up in respect. During the week Herr Nettenmair sits over his books and letters, or superintends the packing and unpacking, the chipping and sorting of the slate. Punctually at twelve o'clock he has his dinner in his room, punctually at six his evening meal; this takes a quarter of an hour. Then, rubbing his hand gently over the old sofa, he rises and, if it is summer time, exercises for three-quarters of an hour in his garden. On the stroke of a quarter to one and a quarter to seven he latches the door behind him. On Sunday it is different; then he sits for a whole hour in the arbor and gazes up at the church roof of St. George's. There is little for us to tell; the reader knows all that goes on in Nettenmair's soul, and what he reads from the church tower. The reader also knows to whom the aged but still beautiful face belongs that sometimes peers through the trellised arbor at the old man. The lock which is now white was dark brown and full, falling over an unwrinkled forehead, the cheeks glowed with youthful strength, the lips were red and smiling and the blue eyes gleamed when she hastened to meet the man who had rescued the town. He kissed her gently on the brow and called her "Sister." She understood what he meant. Even at that time she looked up to the man with the submission, nay, the devotion with which she now hangs on his every word; but at that time there was another feeling as well that showed itself in her open countenance.

The old gentleman flew into a rage when Apollonius told him of his determination not to marry. He gave his son his choice between considering the honor of the family or returning to Cologne. Apollonius' heart found it harder than his head to convince his father that it devolved upon him alone to uphold the honor of the family and that he must remain. He knew that he could keep his word only by remaining true to his determination. But he could not tell his father this, for if the old man should discover the true relation existing between the two young people he would insist upon the marriage more strongly than ever. Then he would also have to tell him how his brother had met his death, and that would cause his father unnecessary pain. He did not realize that his father in his heart was convinced that his brother had taken his own life. The two men, so closely related, did not understand each other. Apollonius assumed that his father had the same inward sense of honor which he himself possessed; and the father saw in his son's refusal and in his argument of having to maintain the position of the family, nothing but the old obstinacy contending that his presence was indispensable and not even taking the trouble to conceal itself—he thought that in his son's eyes he was nothing but a blind, helpless old man. And what caused and furthered their misunderstanding was reserve, that family trait which they held in common. On the same morning a delegation had tendered Apollonius the thanks of the town and its most prominent citizens had vied with each other in giving tokens of esteem and respect. This was cause enough to arouse arrogance in an ambitious soul, and cause enough for the old gentleman, who considered that Apollonius had such a soul, to believe in this arrogance. The old gentleman had to admit that his son was indispensable and dared assert neither right nor might against him. The emotion and mental exertion on the day before the death of his eldest son had undermined his strength; he collapsed entirely now and became each day queerer and more sensitive. He no longer demanded subserviency from Apollonius; he found a certain self-tormenting pleasure in reproaching his son with unfilial conduct, and in continually giving expression to his bitter regret that such an industrious son should have to put up with so much from an overbearing old father who was not, and never could be, anything any more. At the same time he rejoiced in his eccentric fashion over the industry of his son, the growing honor and increasing fortunes of his house. He lived to see the purchase of the slate quarry which Apollonius had previously leased. The son endured his father's eccentricities with the same loving, untiring patience which he had exhibited toward his brother. He lived only in the thought of fulfilling as completely as lay within his power the vow that he had made to himself, and in this vow he had included his father. The success of his work gave him strength to bear all little annoyances with cheerfulness.

On the day after the winter night's storm he had told the old building inspector the whole story of his inner life. The councilman, who till the day of his death clung to Apollonius with all his soul, remained the latter's only companion, as he was the only person with whom he could hold intimate intercourse without being untrue to his own nature.

For several days after the storm Apollonius had to lie in bed. A burning fever had taken hold of him. At first the physician pronounced his illness a very serious one, but in reality it was only the body fighting triumphant battle against the general suffering which had found mental absolution in the resolve of that night. The sympathy of the town manifested itself in various touching ways. The old councilman and Valentine were his nurses. The one whom nature through love and gratitude had determined upon as the best nurse for the sick man, Apollonius did not call to his bed, and she dared not go uncalled. Throughout his illness, however, she took up her abode in the little trellised arbor and remained there so as to be as near to him as possible. When he slept the old councilman beckoned to her to enter. Then she stood with folded hands behind the screen at the foot of his bed and accompanied his every breath with anxiety and hope. Unconsciously her gentle breathing regulated itself by his. For hours she stood looking through a crack in the screen at the sick man. He knew nothing of her presence, and yet the inspector could see how his sleep became easier, his face more smiling. There was no bottle from which he took his medicine which, without his knowing it, he did not receive from her hand, no plaster, no application which she had not prepared; no cloth, no cover touched him which she had not warmed on her breast, kissed with her loving lips. When he talked with the councilman about her, she saw that he was more anxious concerning her than himself; when he sent friendly, comforting messages to her she trembled behind the screen with joy. She rested but little; and when the cold night wind blew flakes of snow through the loose blinds onto her warm face, when her own breath, frozen on the pillow, touched icily throat, chin and bosom, she was happy in the thought that she was allowed to suffer something for him who had suffered all for her. In those nights sacred love conquered earthly love in her; out of the pain of sweet, disappointed desire which yearned to possess, arose his image surrounded once more by that halo of unattainable glory in which she had known him of yore.

Apollonius recovered quickly. And now began the joint life of these two people. They saw each other but seldom. He lived in his little room by himself. Valentine brought him his meals, as always. The children were often with him. If the two happened to meet, he greeted her with friendly reserve and she returned his greeting. If they had anything to discuss together it happened each time as if by chance that either the maid was present or the children and Valentine. But no day passed without some silent token of courteous respect. On Sundays, when he came in from his garden, he brought a bouquet of flowers with him which Valentine then presented to her. He could have made a brilliant marriage, gallant lovers sued for her hand; but he repelled all offers and she all suitors. So passed days, weeks, months, years, decades. The old gentleman died and was buried. The good councilman followed, and then Valentine. The children grew to be youths. The unruly lock over the widow's brow, Apollonius' corkscrew-curl, turned gray; the children became men, strong and gentle like their teacher and master; lock and curl were silver white; the life of the two remained the same.

Now the reader knows all the past which the old man, sitting in his arbor, reads from St. George's tower when the bells call for Sunday morning service. Today he looks forward into the future, rather than backward into the past. For his older nephew is soon to lead Anna Wohlig's daughter to the altar of St. George's, and then home; not to the house with the green shutters, however, but to the big house close by. The pink-tinted house is too small for the growing business—and besides the new household would not find room there; Herr Nettenmair has bought the big house across the way. The youngest nephew is going to Cologne. The old cousin who did so much for Apollonius has been dead for many years; also the son has died, leaving his large business to his only child who is the betrothed of Fritz Nettenmair's younger son. There will be a double wedding at St. George's. The two old people will then live alone in the house with the green shutters. For a long time the old gentleman has wanted to hand over the business to his nephews, but the young men have steadfastly refused till now. The older nephew insists that his uncle shall remain at the head; the old gentleman does not wish to do so. A part of the councilman's estate, which he inherited, he has reserved for himself for his lifetime; everything else, and that is by no means little, for Herr Nettenmair is considered a rich man, he will give over to his nephews; what he has reserved for himself will go at his death to the new town hospital. He has made good his word; he will go down to his grave with unsullied name.

The future bride protests against accepting all that her mother-in-law wants to give her. There is but one thing that the old lady wishes to keep for herself; it is a little tin box with a withered flower, and it lies with her Bible and hymn-book, as sacred to the owner as these.

The bells still call. The roses on the tall bushes are fragrant as of yore; a white-throat sits on the bush beneath the old pear-tree and sings; a gentle breeze steals through the garden and even the box around the circular beds rustles its dark leaves. The old gentleman looks musingly at the tower of St. George's; the beautiful matron's face peers through the trellis at him. The bells call it, the white-throat sings it, the roses breathe it, the gentle breeze whispers it, the beautiful aged faces speak it, from the tower roof of St. George's you may read it: "Men tell of the happiness and unhappiness that heaven brings them! What men call happiness and unhappiness is but the raw material. It lies within man himself to mold that material as he will. It is not heaven that brings happiness; man prepares happiness for himself, and raises heaven in his own breast. Man need take no care to go to heaven, if heaven but comes to him. Who carries not heaven within himself may search in vain for it through all the universe. Be guided by reason, but encroach not upon the sacred bounds of feeling. Turn not disapprovingly from the world as it is, but seek to be just to it, and it will be just to thee. In this sense let thy path be

BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH."