Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

Very possible; very possible; but perhaps I needed him still less; perhaps I was in a position to bid him farewell before he gave me a dismissal. This absence of the man, which seemed like a flight from me, came at this moment as a warning to accept the tempting offer of the young prince. What had I thus far attained from the commerzienrath in furtherance of my own aims? Abundance of promises, a flood of compliments--and that was all, and so it would evidently remain, especially if he did not sell Zehrendorf, and was thus released from his promise to me about the factory: yes, and very probably even though the sale were still effected.

For there were but few things that the commerzienrath held sacred, and I had good reason to believe that his word was not one of them. Thus he had promised me not to dismiss the foreman of the saw-mill, to whom he had already given notice; and as I passed the mill this morning it was not running, and a workman told me that the master had been there the previous evening while I was at Rossow, and after a short conversation dismissed the foreman on the spot.

There was an instance; but it was merely the most recent; I had caught him more than once in these breaches of his word. No, indeed, the man did not seem a likely proselyte to my religion of humanity!

And the prince? The more distinctly I recalled to memory the particulars of our yesterday's conversation, the more vividly his face arose before me, so much the more did I believe that I discovered the stamp of an honorable and kindly nature in his features, and felt confident that it would well repay me to attach myself to him. It is a hard matter to remain entirely unmoved when any one approaches us with marked good will, especially when our well-wisher is a person of high rank and great influence. Now I cannot say that either then or at any time I should have considered a prince's favor the height of earthly felicity; but neither can I deny that, at that time at least, the reverence for dignities in which I had been brought up, helped to place this behavior of the young prince in its most favorable light. I thought that I had now found the key to the conduct which yesterday had seemed so enigmatical; and I highly prized the delicacy with which he had cleared out of the way what he knew lay as a stumbling-block between us, before he disclosed his real object. He had made no allusion to the scene in Zehrendorf forest nine years before; but he had never forgotten that I had then spared him, and why I had done so, and had attempted in this way to cancel the obligation.

I had to admit to myself that, all things considered, the procedure was noble and chivalrous on his part. So he had explained to me the reason of his visit to Paula's studio, and to a certain extent apologized for his conduct there; and if his attempt on the same day to clear scores with me was premature and unbecoming, he had more than compensated for it in my eyes by his present magnanimous and important proposal.

For it was both. Magnanimous, when I considered the open loyal way in which he made it, with no manœuvrings, no bargaining nor chaffering; important, when I admitted to myself, as I had to do, that if it was really his wish to provide me with a wider field of operations, he was fully in a position to realize his promises. Granting that the commerzienrath was what he pretended to be--though on this point my doubts had rather increased than diminished--but granting that he was the wealthy and influential man he was generally thought, what was his wealth and influence compared with those of a Prince of Prora-Wiek? As a schoolboy I had known, like every one else in the town, and I believe every inhabitant of our province, that upon the island alone the prince owned a hundred and twenty estates; then the small town of Prora, the residence--in which there was now probably agitation enough in consequence of its lord's sudden illness--which stood entirely upon the prince's land; then the hunting-castle Wiek with its leagues of forest; the Grafschaft of Ralow on the mainland near Uselin, where the townsfolk used to make excursions to the park in the summer; the magnificent palace at the residence, which I had often passed with strange emotions; the domains in Silesia with the celebrated iron-works, the value of which alone was estimated at several millions--what was the Crœsus of Uselin in comparison with this real Crœsus, whose revenues for two years probably amounted to as much as the commerzienrath's whole capital?

True, I had looked forward to a far different career. My passion for mathematical science, my advances in the machine-builder's art, my hope some day to be actively helpful in promoting the development of railroad industry, the plans I had so often devised with worthy Doctor Snellius for the good of the working classes--it was no pleasant thought to have to give up all this. But had I then to give it up? Was it not in reality the same thing whether I worked here or there, in this manner or in that, so that I only worked and strove in the noble spirit of my unforgotten teacher and of my truehearted friend? Assuredly I might in that spirit accept the prince's offer, and Paula would not be dissatisfied with me, for her thoughts and wishes, like those of her noble-hearted father, were only bent upon goodness in every form. I felt that it would not be difficult for me to show her how in this sphere I would have full opportunity to become more worthy of her than I had ever been. And then--I had always endeavored to hide it from myself, because it too rudely touched a painful spot in my heart; but now in this sleepless night it and many another thing stood in sharp conviction before my mind--she had not only let me go because a wider field of usefulness opened before me; she had even sent me away, because she had compassion with me, because she knew that my deep, devoted, reverential love found no echo in her heart; and as a kindly nature never takes away anything without offering, if possible, some indemnity, she had offered my loving heart, that yearned for a return of affection, the fulfilment of all my wishes in a lovely fascinating form, in the form of the beautiful wayward Bacchante who had played with me as she had played with tigers, leopards, and other forest-creatures which she was accustomed to yoke to her chariot. What did Paula's innocent heart know of this dangerous sport? What did she know of the arts of caressing with one hand while the other plies the lash?--of delighting at one moment in the free gambols of the favorite, and the next moment barring it into a narrow cage? What did Paula know of all this?

Had she known it, would she not be the first to called me back and say:

"You may and must sacrifice yourself, if nothing less will avail; but you may not throw yourself away; and as for my wishes and yours, they are all past and gone."

Thus it fermented and worked in my heated brain and my swelling heart all day long, while the sun rolled on his glowing path through the sky, and behind him clomb the gray vaporous clouds which had lowered on the horizon at his rise. I had looked up instinctively at the sky from time to time, as I wandered restlessly through the fields and the heath, tormented by my thoughts, and oppressed by the threatening storm, and so possessed by the emotions within me and the ominous preparations without, that I had lost my consciousness of place and time, found myself now in the evening twilight on the road to Trantowitz, the same road along which I had driven to Rossow, and which was also the road by which the excursionists would return, without knowing how I had got there or why I had come. Certainly not to visit Hans, who was with the party. Still I pushed on, until I reached the ill-kept broken hedge which divided Hans's famous garden, with its stunted fruit-trees, its neglected grass, and its waste potato and cabbage patches, from the road. Looking over the hedge, I thought that at the further end of this melancholy croft I saw a tall figure which could be no other than the good Hans himself. I pushed through the hedge--an operation attended with no difficulty--and went towards the figure. It was Hans, as I thought.