Chapter XVII
Almost all night long Hans Unwirrsch had to listen to all the tower clocks the strokes of which reached his pillow. He heard voices of all kinds as he lay awake. The big city sounded every passing quarter of an hour in his ear with a twelve-fold stroke. The tones came from nearby and from far away;—first came the dull bell from quite close by, then the light, clear tone that rang in the distance and sounded much like the bell in a railway station. This fine, distant little voice was followed by the sonorous rumbling of the clock on St. Nicholas' tower; and so it went on and on, one clock and bell following close on another's heels.
It was a curious thing to lie thus in a strange house, in a strange town, in a strange world, counting the hours of night and recalling his past life in an effort in some way to connect it with the mad events of the present.
What was the relation of Dr. Théophile Stein to the Moses of Kröppel Street, the Moses of the Gymnasium and of the university? Hans Unwirrsch gave up bothering his head about that. Inexplicable as this figure might be that had suddenly risen out of the ground, its outlines were yet too distinct and sharp to admit of any doubt as to its reality.
It is possible to think of many people while counting the hours in the night. We can think of living people and of dead, particularly of the latter, for the night is the time for spirits.
Hans thought of his dead,—of his mother, of her old black box where she kept her savings, of her kind, faithful eyes and of the morning on which he, returning from his sermon, had found those eyes closed. Hans thought of his father, of the shining glass globe, of his beautiful book of songs. Now, gradually all his narrow, hemmed-in childhood rose before him in the dark, and once the restless dreamer raised himself in bed believing that he heard the voices of Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Grünebaum on the stairs outside. It was a closely circumscribed world, to be sure, that surrounded the candidate that night, but when morning dawned it had made him able to meet with assurance the wider world which now opened before him. Lieutenant Götz did not need to haul "his preceptor" out of bed that morning. He found him fully clothed and ready—as the lieutenant expressed it—"to offer a broad back for everything that might be laid upon it."
Thrice Lieutenant Götz walked round Unwirrsch, candidate for the ministry, and regarded him with favor.
"You look just as they do on the stage," he said as he finished his third circle. "What is theology without black trousers? What is a preceptor without a dress coat? My word!—You're capital! A little out of fashion, but very decent! My friend, if those two beautiful black coat-tails don't please my brother Theodor, it can only be the fault of the blue handkerchief which peeps out from between them perhaps a little too impertinently to suit my fastidious sister-in-law."
Hastily Hans stuffed the handkerchief as far down into the depths of the pocket as he could, but the lieutenant cried:
"Let it hang, let it hang out boldly! That's not why I remarked upon it, upon my word. What do you care for Theodor and Kleophea; if only——"
The old man broke off; Hans did not learn at that time what was to have followed the words "if only." At a quarter past eleven he was on his way with the lieutenant to the house of the Privy Councillor Götz.
Hans had firmly declined the old soldier's advice to strengthen himself for the expedition with a glass of cognac and the lieutenant had said:
"On the whole perhaps you are right; my brother has a pretty keen nose and it might engender unjustified suspicions. Forward!"
Hans had buttoned his clerical coat awry above his beating heart. With joking irony Colonel von Bullau had waved a white handkerchief from the window of the "Green Tree;" the sun looked down from the sky at the preceptor, smiling, but not ironically. The weather left less to be desired that day than the lieutenant's humor. He talked or growled to himself the whole way; he had pulled his cap well down over his forehead and seemed to have clenched his fists in his overcoat pockets. His shortness of temper was far from being delightful and the preceptor gave a positive start when his ill-humored guide suddenly exclaimed: "Confound it, here we are already!"
First they had left the busy, noisy business quarter of the town behind them, had wandered through a quieter, better quarter and now, by passing through a part of the park, they had reached the last row of houses in a still more elegant section which lay along the side of the park and was separated from it by driveways and riding paths. The houses in that street were approached through small gardens, well-kept even at that early season, and the lieutenant stopped before a fine iron garden gate and pointed grimly to the fine building beyond the round lawn and the empty fountain.
Grimly he pulled the bell of the garden gate, Sesame opened, and the two men walked round the lawn and the fountain. Three steps—an elaborately carved door which also seemed to open of itself—a dim, elegant hall—colored panes of glass—the sound of a grand piano—a screeching parrot somewhere in a room—a servant in green and gold on whose foot Hans Unwirrsch stepped in his confusion and who scorned to take any notice of the stammered apology—an opened door—a young lady in violet—a melodious ejaculation of pleased surprise and the young lady's clear laugh—a quarter to twelve!
"It's Uncle! Terrible Uncle! Uncle Petz! Oh what a joy! Uncle Grimbeard, above all things a kiss, mon vieux!"
The young lady in violet fell on the bearish old man's neck so suddenly that he had to endure the kiss and returned it, as it appeared, in a somewhat better humor. Then, however, he freed himself quickly from the beautiful arms, pushed the young lady in violet back and turned to his black-gowned Hans.
"This is my niece Kleophea; my niece with the pious name and the wicked heart. Beware of her, Candidate."
The candidate did not step on the beautiful young lady's foot; he bowed to her at a respectful distance and she returned his greeting not at all coldly. The changing, charming light in her eyes made a great impression on Hans in spite of his faithful Eckart's warning.
"Won't you also introduce the gentleman to me, Uncle Rudolf?" asked Kleophea, smiling. "You have given due publicity to my name and character; you know that you occupy the lightest and most comfortable corner in my wicked heart. Now be fair and——"
"Mr. Johannes Unwirrsch of Neustadt, candidate in theology—a young man well fitted to make spoilt young scamps of both sexes see reason,—a youth who possesses my entire approval."
"That bodes ill for you, Sir," said the young lady. "What my uncle approves of—Jean, please, for goodness sake, don't stare at us with such extraordinary intelligence, go; perhaps after all there may be some useful occupation for you somewhere or other!—is in this house often, exceedingly often, not recognized at its true worth. But you please me and I will take you under my most frivolous protection, Mr. Umquirl."
"Unwirrsch! Theological candidate Unwirrsch!" snapped the lieutenant.
"I beg your pardon. And so you are the patient gentleman whom we have so long sought in vain for our lovely, angelic Aimé? How very interesting, Mr. Rumwisch!"
"Unwirrsch!! Confound it!" shouted the lieutenant. "Is your father at home, girl?"
Kleophea nodded. "March!" commanded the old man; as Kleophea, Hans and the lieutenant ascended the stairs, Jean's wide-open rabbit-like eyes and imposing whiskers appeared again in the hall where their indignant possessor was waiting impatiently for the carriage containing his mistress who would certainly be also much interested in the news that the tutor, accompanied by Lieutenant Götz, had arrived.
Kleophea mounted the stairs at Hans' side; her uncle followed them growling.
Twelve steps! At the thirteenth the stairs turned to the right and when, in the corridor above, Hans looked round for the lieutenant the latter had disappeared. The candidate stood alone with Kleophea and she was much amused at the confused tutor.
"Why, where is he? Where can he be?" she said laughing. "Don't you know that side of him yet? He has delivered you here and has disappeared like an old bearded magician. The magic coach has turned into an empty nut-shell, the horses are mice now and have run to their holes; you might as well give up looking about you, Mr. Unwirrsch. It is highly probable that my uncle has gone to find my cousin Franziska. So now you are left entirely to yourself and to me;—here is my Papa's room; I shall take much pleasure in introducing you. Without flattery, I am very well pleased with you and I hope that we shall not embitter each other's lives in this house."
As she looked at him while she spoke the last words Hans was quite unable to beware of her as the lieutenant had so emphatically advised him. Her brown eyes possessed a magic power of the first rank and if Circe's glance was at all like this it was no wonder that Gryllus would rather be a pig in her service than be a cook in the service of Odysseus.
But the door opened. Kleophea led the tutor through a sumptuous drawing room into another room full of books and cabinets for documents. Hans bowed three times toward an extensive table covered with green cloth on which lay still more books and documents. A gentleman sat behind the table and on being greeted rose from his chair, grew taller, taller, ever taller—thin, black, shadowy—and finally stood there behind his papers, long, thin and black, buttoned up to his white tie like a sign-post bearing the warning: no laughter here.
But Kleophea laughed nevertheless.
"Candidate Unwirrsch, Papa," said she; Hans bowed again and the Privy Councillor Götz cleared his throat, seemed to regret very much that he had risen, yet remained standing, now that he had once got up, and put his right arm rapidly behind his back, an action which in everyone except Hans would have aroused the suspicion that he was pressing a spring, or turning a screw, or pulling a string.
Whatever he was trying to do with the two buttons on the back of his coat, the result was a poor imitation of one of the six theological bows.
"Candidate Unwirrsch," said Kleophea repeating her introduction, while her father seemed to deliberate in privy council how he should receive the tutor. At last he made up his mind and said:
"I see the gentleman, have expected him indeed for the last ten minutes and now extend my welcome to him. Is my wife, your mother, at home, dear Kleophea?"
"No, Papa."
"Most regrettable! Mr. Unwirrsch, I hope that a longer and nearer acquaintance will bring us closer together. Kleophea, when will my wife, your mother, return?"
"I can't say, Papa. You know that it is seldom possible to say definitely as to that."
There was a sound of whirring in the Privy Councillor and he cleared his throat ponderously. Hans Unwirrsch thought the time appropriate to announce his firm desire to make himself as useful as possible and to perform his difficult, but at the same time grateful, duties to the best of his ability. He thanked the Councillor for the confidence which he placed in a stranger and voluntarily promised in no way to prove unworthy of it.
While he was speaking the Privy Councillor had again reached behind him, set his mechanism in motion and had sunk slowly down into his chair behind his heap of papers. It is doubtful whether he was meditating deeply on the new tutor's words or whether he had not heard them at all; but truly magical was the way in which he jumped up again when the golden green lackey suddenly appeared in the room and announced that his mistress had just returned and wished to see and speak to the new tutor at once.
"Go, Jean, and tell my wife that I will bring Mr. Unwirrsch to her immediately. My dear Kleophea, will you not precede us?"
Jean bowed and went; Kleophea shrugged her shoulders, smiled as she did so and also went. When they had both gone a miracle took place—the Privy Councillor took hold of the tutor by a coat button, drew him close to him and whispered:
"It is my wish that you should remain in this house; as far as I can judge after this preliminary acquaintance with your person and status, you please me very well. I wish that you might also please my wife. Do your part to that end, and now come."
The Privy Councillor now led the tutor across the drawing room through which he had entered to the room on the opposite side, at the door of which another noticeable change came over the man. The springs inside him seemed suddenly to lose their elasticity, the wheels and wires refused to work, his whole figure seemed to grow smaller,—the Privy Councillor knocked at his wife's door and seemed to feel a desire to peep through the keyhole first, or at least to listen at it. A moment later Hans Unwirrsch stood before the—Mistress of the House.
He saw a stately lady in black with an aquiline nose and a double chin—as solemn as a starless night; she sat on a dark divan behind a table covered with dark drapery! The whole apartment made a solemn impression—every chair and seat an altar of dignity. Serious, chaste, solemn and dignified were walls, ceiling and rugs, pictures and curtains—everything in stately order and regularity except the seven-year-old, coffee-colored, puffy little brat who at sight of the tutor raised a horrible, detestable, furious howl and attacked Hans Unwirrsch's legs with a toy whip.
"Oh, Aimé, what a way to behave!" said the lady in black. "Come to me, my darling, don't excite yourself so. Kleophea, won't you take the little whip away from the child?"
Again Kleophea shrugged her shoulders.
"No thank you, Mama. Aimé and I——"
"Be silent, now;" the Councillor's wife cried with a gesture. "I know very well what you want to say. Look here, my little lamb, see what I will give you for your whip."
The charming child could not resist the box of sweets; he put his instrument of torture into his mother's hands and she thus received the last touch that completed her imposing appearance.
With the whip in her hand the lady of the house now devoted herself entirely to the new tutor. She subjected him to a severe examination and asked for the most detailed information about the "conduct" of his life. The morals and dogmas of the young man to whom such a precious jewel was to be entrusted were very important to her and not all her questions could be answered without causing her to wrinkle her brow. On the whole, however, the examination ended favorably for the candidate and the conclusion was even very satisfactory.
"I am glad to be able to hope that your work in this house will be blessed. You will find that the Lord has led you under a strictly Christian roof. You will find that the seeds of faith have already been sown in the heart of this sensitive little angel. Under my special, maternal supervision you will be able to aid all the beautiful blossoms in this young heart to unfold and the Lord will bless your work. With a humble and simple heart you will work among us here and will not allow yourself to be led astray by any worldly laughter and mockery (at this point a glance and an imaginary blow with the whip struck her beautiful daughter Kleophea). Aimé, my little rosebud, you may give your hand to Mr. Unwirrsch now and say 'how do you do?'"
The little rosebud must have misunderstood this permission. Instead of giving his tutor his hand he showed him something else and began again to howl and scream in the terrible manner we have described. When Hans dared to approach him he kicked him on the shins, so that with painful feelings he withdrew and at a safe distance expressed the hope that he and Aimé might soon become more intimate with each other.
"I hope so too," said Mrs. Götz. "I hope that you will try your best to gain my boy's love and affection. It is easy to win a child's love by a simple and humble manner. Oh, what a treasure I am laying in your hands, Mr. Unwirrsch! Oh, my sensitive little lamb, my Aimé!"
The Privy Councillor had not spoken a word throughout the proceedings. He stood there and apparently approved, at least externally, of everything. No sign betrayed what he may have felt within; in the presence of his wife the good man had learnt silently to possess his soul in patience.
Kleophea had disappeared altogether. What she was doing behind the window curtain where she had hidden herself remained as great a secret as her father's feelings. The tutor's feelings were not of the pleasantest. He looked into the future with apprehension and confessed to himself sighingly that even Kohlenau had had its charms. He felt himself surrounded by an atmosphere which furthered perspiration and at the same time checked it. With no immoderate sense of gratitude he thought of Lieutenant Rudolf Götz, who had procured for him the honor and pleasure of entering this house as an educator. The puzzling disappearance of the man at the most important moment and on the stairs also admitted of no favorable interpretation; Hans Unwirrsch began to think of him as a crafty character; the faithful Eckart was transformed into a deceptive will-o'-the-wisp which suddenly went out in the middle of the swamp. Beneath the gaze of the mistress of the house, Aurelia Götz, née von Lichtenhahn, Hans Unwirrsch sank slowly but surely into the depths and neither from behind the window curtain nor from behind the Privy Councillor's back did a helping hand appear.
It was from another direction that a hand brought aid.
"Where is Franziska?" asked Mrs. Götz. Kleophea behind the curtain did not know; the Privy Councillor did not know either.
"Please, Mr. Unwirrsch, will you be kind enough to ring the bell?" asked Mrs. Götz and Hans' eyes sought it. But just at the moment when he had found it the door opened which led from the drawing room into Mrs. Götz's apartment and a small, insignificant figure in a gray, insignificant gown stepped into the room with downcast eyes;—Hans Unwirrsch did not ring. During the last half hour he had not thought of Franziska Götz.
"Oh, here you are, Franziska," cried Mrs. Götz. "My niece, Miss Götz, Mr. Unwirrsch!" she added briefly, at the same time looking, if possible, more stately and more like a glacier than before. "Have Mr. Unwirrsch shown to his room, my child; we have received him into our household."
Franziska Götz bowed in silence and, as she passed Hans inaudibly, she raised her eyes to him only to drop them again instantly.
"Won't you follow my niece, Mr. Unwirrsch," said Mrs. Götz laying down the whip. Hans made another bow of which this time no notice was taken; he also bowed to the Privy Councillor, whose mechanism moved at least a little bit and, as the window curtain now moved slightly, Hans bowed to it as well; then he followed Lieutenant Rudolf's Fränzchen and, once in the corridor, allowed himself to draw a deep, yet cautious, breath of relief.
There stood the majestic servant again, whose whiskers seemed to swell the longer you looked at him. He looked over his liveried shoulder at the "new tutor" with legitimate contempt and manifested only a doubtful inclination to show the ungenteel starveling his way.
But Fräulein Franziska Götz too looked doubtfully at the man in green and gold, then turned to Hans and said softly:
"If you will be good enough to go with me I will show you your room."
Her voice was soft, gentle and low, "an excellent thing in woman" as old King Lear said, and at its sound Jean turned on his heels and walked away with unbent knees, quite superior and quite convinced that he knew how to maintain the dignity of his position.
"Oh, Miss Götz, how strangely fate has brought us together again and how thankful I am for that!" cried Hans; but the girl laid her finger on her lips and whispered:
"I have seen my Uncle Rudolf—have talked to him—he has told me about you. Oh, my poor, faithful, dear Uncle Rudolf!"
She stopped speaking but Hans Unwirrsch saw a tear on her lashes; he did not dare to address her again but followed her silently up to the second floor of the house. At the bottom of his soul he said: "God be praised!" He must have had some reason to say so.
"Here is your room," said Franziska, unlocking a door. "May you pass glad and happy hours in it. That is my sincere wish and my Uncle Rudolf's too, who seems to be very fond of you."
"How much I thank you, and how much I thank your uncle. All this that he has done for me is so undeserved. It is like a dream the way he has taken my fortunes into his hand and led me into this house."
"He has often spoken of you since the evening when we met at that inn. I was so troubled at that time, so unhappy. Oh, good Uncle Rudolf, he has guided my poor life too. Oh, if you only knew him through and through, Mr. Unwirrsch!"
"I hope to learn to know him and appreciate his full worth!" cried Hans. "If I stay long enough in this house——"
Franziska again laid her fingers on her lips as if frightened.
"You must not talk so much about Uncle Rudolf in this house," she said. "My Aunt does not like him. It is very sad."
"Oh!" sighed Hans Unwirrsch and a moment later the Lieutenant's Fränzchen had left him alone in his new quarters. He could look at them more closely and gaze out the window after he had examined the four walls and the furniture. There was nothing extraordinary about the blue-papered walls, the four chairs, the table, the hat-tree, the little sofa and the little round cast-iron stove; but the view from the window was not so easily forgotten.
In the middle of the lawn the fountain was now playing merrily with a shining brass ball. There was the ornamental iron fence which separated the Privy Councillor's property from the public street of the big city. There was something wonderful to Hans Unwirrsch in the view of this promenade with its throng of carriages, riders and pedestrians and he waited in vain for the variegated stream to come to an end. And there, beyond the driveway, riding and foot paths, was the wood-like park with its long straight avenues into which one looked as into a peep-show. And how beautiful that must all be when the trees were green! Truly, the hope of this green to come was in itself some consolation for the grayness of the present.
The porter from the "Green Tree" now came with a greeting from Lieutenant Götz and brought the tutor his traveling bag, thus tearing him away from his observations at the window. He would have to write to the manager in Kohlenau for the things he had left behind there. As Hans laid a Greek pocket edition of the New Testament on the table a card fell out of it on which could be read in fine steel engraving:
Dr. Théophile Stein,
25 Hedwig Street.
Hans Unwirrsch had no more time to dream; he had to think and deliberate as well as he could with his mind baffled by an entanglement of persons and mutual relationships. Moses Freudenstein and Franziska Götz, Franziska and the mistress of the house, the mistress of the house and Kleophea, the Privy Councillor, Jean in green and gold;—bellum omnium contra omnes, and Hans Unwirrsch, Candidatus theologiæ and tutor in the midst of them all! That was a state of affairs in which a man was certainly justified in putting his hand to his forehead like some one who has been turned round many times in a circle blindfolded and after the bandage has been removed feels by no means steady on his feet and knows still less what to think of his surroundings.
Hans Unwirrsch, too, felt irresistibly the need of winding up some of the springs in his being and tightening some of the screws. He read a chapter in the New Testament and followed that with a page in a pocket edition of Epictetus. He was then able to meet the stately Jean's eyes with greater composure when the latter came to call him to dinner and let fall the remark that it was customary to wear white gloves to that function.
For the first time Hans partook of bread and salt with his new associates in life. Again he had to answer many questions in regard to his preëxistence and it appeared that in that preëxistence many of the things that came onto the table were unknown. Mrs. Götz still remained a born von Lichtenhahn, the Privy Councillor remained what he was; Kleophea smiled and shrugged her shoulders, Aimé was very unamiable, and Fränzchen sat at the lower end of the table next to the candidate Hans Unwirrsch.