"Well, I believe that is so," answered the doctor, "and I know I ought to read her letters now and then to you and the boys; but somehow it always happens----"
And the doctor made another dive into his breast-pocket, then, as if in desperation, crammed his battered hat upon his large bald head, and hurried off, leaving me once more in absolute uncertainty as to what really were the contents of Paula's letters, which he was always rummaging his pockets for without ever finding.
That their contents had, directly or indirectly, some reference to me, was not to be doubted; for what other reason could the doctor have had in concealing these letters from me so carefully? But my conjectures could penetrate no further than this; and I was obliged to admit to myself, with deep grief, that I could no longer understand Paula. And I also could not avoid the thought that she was herself responsible for this, and that it was the result of her own conduct, if my dearest friend, my sister, as she had so often called herself, had become a stranger and a riddle to me. And why? I did not know, nor could I fathom the cause. Was it a fault in me that I once loved her with all the strength of my young, buoyant, confiding soul? That after she had so often, under such different circumstances, and in so many ways, rejected my love, I had become like a ship torn from its anchor and driven rudderless upon a rough sea? Was it a fault that even in my love for Hermine, I could not forget her, though I knew that she would remain forever distant from me, and that I had in future only to look up to her as to the high inaccessible stars? Must I pay so heavy a penalty for what was as natural to me as to breathe? Must she on this account exclude me from the council of her heart, in which I had before been so proud of my place; and forbid my participation in her hopes, her plans, her wishes, her triumphs, and perhaps her disappointments? Must she for this deny the cordial interest which she had once felt for me, and deny it at a time when all my friends crowded around to help me with word and deed, and when she had nothing for me but two or three lines which she wrote from Rome, containing scarcely anything but the expression of a sympathy which in such cases is felt by mere acquaintances?
I had become a stranger to her, that was plain; or I should have heard her sweet consoling voice in the dark hours that followed Hermine's death. And she had grown a stranger to me: I scarcely knew more of her than did the indifferent crowd that stood before her pictures at the exhibition. I knew as little as they why she, whose fresh venturous power had charmed and astonished every one in her first pictures, now for a long time seemed only to take pleasure in melancholy themes--in views in the most desolate parts of the Campagna, where sad-featured peasants watched their goats among the ruins of long-past splendor; in scenes upon the Calabrian coast where a burning sun glowed pitilessly between the bare pointed rocks, and the solitude and desertion seemed to sink into the beholder's soul. How did the choice of such subjects, and the strangely serious, even gloomy coloring, agree with the cheerful frame of mind which, according to the doctor's report, she continually enjoyed?
"Only one who is deeply unhappy can paint thus," I once heard a lady dressed in mourning remark to her companion, as they stood before one of these pictures.
"Of late her pictures have shown a great falling-off," said a critic whose judgment carried great weight in the city. "Such pictures please, because they flatter a certain leaning towards pessimism which belongs to most men of our time; but all largeness of conception and treatment is wanting. I might say here is an egotistic sorrow which is forcibly imposed upon nature. The execution, too, leaves much to be desired: look here, and here"--and the critic pointed to several places which he pronounced weak. "But her younger brother is a genius indeed," he went on. "Have you seen his aquarelles? Heavens! what fire and what life! And he is still little more than a boy they say. He will be at the top of the tree before long, mind my words."
It seemed that the public did not altogether agree with the critic in his estimation of Paula's talents; at all events they fairly fought for her pictures, and paid the highest prices for them. I, for my part, did not trust myself to form a judgment, and in fact I had none; I only knew that if Paula enjoyed such unbroken happiness and cheerfulness as the doctor reported, she gave this cheerfulness the strangest expression in the world.
The conversation in which the doctor informed me that Paula and her mother were staying at Meran, took place in February, nearly two years after my misfortunes. In the beginning of the summer I heard again from him that she was making sketching excursions in the Salzkammergut and Tyrol, and somewhat later, that she would pass the latter part of the summer in Thüringen.
"She keeps coming nearer, nearer, all the time," said the doctor; "will you not now undertake your long-planned trip to England?"
"It seems," said I, looking straight into the doctor's spectacles, "that you think I ought to celebrate Paula's return by my own absence."