This terrible occurrence exerted such a shattering effect upon Master Wacht that a consuming surly peevishness was the consequence of it. This time the stout strong oak was shaken from its topmost branch to its deepest root. Often when his mind was thought to be busy with quite different matters, he was heard to murmur in a low tone, "Sebastian--a fratricide! That's how you reward me?" and then he seemed to come to himself like one awakening out of a nasty dream. The only thing that kept him from breaking down was the hardest and most assiduous labour. But who can fathom the unsearchable depths in which the secret links of feeling are so strangely forged together as they were in Master Wacht's soul? His abhorrence of Sebastian and his wicked deed faded out of his mind, whilst the picture of his own life, ruined by Jonathan's love for Nanni, deepened in colour and vividness as the days went by. This frame of mind Master Wacht betrayed in many short exclamations--"So then your brother is condemned to hard labour and to work in chains!--That's where he has been brought by his attempted crime against you--It's a fine thing for a brother to be the cause of making his own brother a convict--shouldn't like to be in the first brother's place--but lawyers think differently; they want justice, that is, they want to play with a lay figure and dress it up and give it whatever name they please."

Such like bitter, and even incomprehensible reproaches, the young advocate was obliged to hear from Master Wacht, and to hear them only too often. Any attempt at rebutting these charges would have been fruitless. Accordingly Jonathan made no reply; only often when his heart was almost distracted by the old man's fatal delusion, which was ruining all his happiness, he broke out in his exceeding great pain, "Father, father, you are unjust towards me, exasperatingly unjust."

One day when the family were assembled at the decorator Leberfink's, and Jonathan also was present, Master Wacht began to tell how somebody had been saying that Sebastian Engelbrecht, although apprehended as a criminal, could yet make good by action at law his claim against Master Wacht, who had been his guardian. Then, smiling venomously and turning to Jonathan, he went on, "That would be a pretty case for a young advocate. I thought you might take up the suit; you might play a part in it yourself; perhaps I have cheated you as well?" This made the young lawyer start to his feet; his eyes flashed, his bosom heaved; he seemed all of a sudden to be quite a different man; stretching his hand towards Heaven he cried, "No, you shall no longer be my father; you must be insane to sacrifice without scruple the peace and happiness of the most loving of children to a ridiculous prejudice. You will never see me again; I will go and at once accept the offer which the American consul made to me to-day; I will go to America." "Yes," replied Wacht filled with rage and anger, "ay, away out of my eyes, brother of the fratricide, who've sold your soul to Satan." Casting upon Nanni, who was half fainting, a look full of hopeless love and anguish and despair, the young advocate hurriedly left the garden.

It was remarked earlier in the course of this story when the young lawyer threatened to shoot himself à la Werther,[21] what a good thing it was that the indispensable pistol was in very many cases not within reach. And here it will be just as useful to remark that the young advocate was not able, to his own good be it said, to embark there and then on the Regnitz and sail straight away to Philadelphia. Hence it was that his threat to leave Bamberg and his darling Nanni for ever remained still unfulfilled, even when at last, after two years more had elapsed, the wedding-day of Herr Leberfink, decorator and gilder, was come. Leberfink would have been inconsolable at this unjust postponement of his happiness, although the delay was almost a matter of necessity after the terrible events which had fallen blow after blow in Wacht's house, had it not afforded him an opportunity to decorate over again in deep red and appropriate gold the ornamental work in his parlour, which had before been gay with nice light-blue and silver, for he had picked up from Rettelchen that a red table, red chairs, and so on, would be more in accordance with her taste.

When the happy decorator insisted upon seeing the young lawyer at his wedding. Master Wacht had not offered a moment's opposition; and the young lawyer--he was pleased to come. It may be imagined with what feelings the two young people saw each other again, for since that terrible moment when Jonathan had left the garden they had literally not set eyes upon each other. The assembly was large; but not a single person with whom they were on a friendly footing fathomed their pain.

Just as they were on the point of setting out for church. Master Wacht received a thick letter; he had read no more than a few lines when he became violently agitated and rushed off out of the room, not a little to the consternation of the rest, who at once suspected some fresh misfortune. Shortly afterwards Master Wacht called the young advocate out. When they were alone together in the Master's own room, the latter, vainly endeavouring to conceal his excessive agitation, began, "I've got the most extraordinary news of your brother; here is a letter from the governor of the prison relating fully all the circumstances of what has taken place. As you cannot know them all, I must begin at the beginning and tell you everything right to the end so as to make credible to you what is incredible; but time presses." So saying, Master Wacht fixed a keen glance upon the advocate's face, so that he blushed and cast down his eyes in confusion. "Yes, yes," went on Master Wacht, raising his voice, "you don't know how great a remorse took possession of your brother a very few hours after he was put in prison; there is hardly anybody whose heart has been more torn by it. You don't know how his attempt at murder and theft has prostrated him. You don't know how that in mad despair he prayed Heaven day and night either to kill him or to save him that he might henceforth by the exercise of the strictest virtue wash himself pure from bloodguiltiness. You don't know how that on the occasion of building a large wing to the prison, in which the convicts were employed as labourers, your brother so distinguished himself as a clever and well-instructed carpenter that he soon filled the post of foreman of the workmen, without anybody's noticing how it came about so. You don't know how his quiet good behaviour, and his modesty, combined with the decision of his regenerate mind, made everybody his friend. All this you do not know, and so I am telling it you. But to go on. The Prince-bishop has pardoned your brother; he has become a master. But how could all this be done without a supply of money?" "I know," said the young advocate in a low voice, "I know that you, my good father, have sent money to the prison authorities every month, in order that they might keep my brother separate from the other prisoners and find him better accommodation and better food. Later on you sent him materials for his trade"---- Then Master Wacht stepped close up to the young advocate, took him by both arms, and said in a voice that vacillated in a way that cannot be described between delight, sadness, and pain, "But would that alone have helped Sebastian to honour again, to freedom, and his civil rights, and to property, however strongly his fundamental virtuous qualities had sprung up again? An unknown philanthropist, who must take an especially warm interest in Sebastian's fate, has deposited ten thousand 'large' thalers with the court, to"---- Master Wacht could not speak any further owing to his violent emotion; he drew the young advocate impetuously to his heart, crying, though he could only get out his words with difficulty, "Advocate, help me to penetrate to the deep import of law such as lives in your breast, and that I may stand before the Eternal Bar of justice as you will one day stand before it.--And yet," he continued after a pause of some seconds, releasing the young lawyer, "and yet, my dear Jonathan, if Sebastian now comes back as a good and industrious citizen and reminds me of my pledged word, and Nanni"---- "Then I will bear my trouble till it kills me," said the young advocate; "I will flee to America." "Stay here," cried Master Wacht in an enthusiastic burst of joy and delight, "stay here, son of my heart! Sebastian is going to marry a girl whom he formerly deceived and deserted. Nanni is yours."

Once more the Master threw his arms around Jonathan's neck, saying, "My lad, I feel like a schoolboy before you, and should like to beg your pardon for all the blame I have put upon you, and all the injustice I have done you. But let us say no more; other people are waiting for us." Therewith Master Wacht took hold of the young lawyer and pulled him along into the room where the wedding guests were assembled; there he placed himself and Jonathan in the midst of the company, and said, raising his voice and speaking in a solemn tone, "Before we proceed to celebrate the sacred rite I invite you all, my honest friends, ladies and gentlemen, and you too, my virtuous maidens and young men, six weeks hence to a similar festival in my house; for here I introduce to you Herr Jonathan Engelbrecht, the advocate, to whom I herewith solemnly betroth my youngest daughter, Nanni." The lovers sank into each other's arms. A breath of the profoundest astonishment passed over the whole assembly; but good old Andreas, holding his little three- cornered carpenter's cap before his breast, said softly, "A man's heart is a wonderful thing; but true, honest faith overcomes the base and even sinful resoluteness of a hardened spirit; and all things turn out at last for the best, just as the good God wishes them to do."

FOOTNOTES TO "MASTER JOHANNES WACHT":

Footnote [1] Included in a collection of stories entitled Geschichten, Märchen, und Sagen, Von Fr. H. v. d. Hagen, E. T. A. Hoffmann, und H. Steffens; Breslau, 1823.]

Footnote [2] See [note p. 81, Vol. II.]]