But it was long ere my host's kind wish was accomplished. A real witch-sabbath of beautiful and hideous figures danced in the wildest gyrations before my feverish, half-sleeping, half-waking eyes: Constance, her father, his guests, the dark form in the park, my father, Professor Lederer, and Smith Pinnow--and all appealing to me to save them from some danger or other;--Professor Lederer especially from two thick lexicons, which were really two great oysters that gaped with open shells at the lean professor, while the commerzienrath stood in the background, nearly dying with laughter:--and all whirling and swarming together, and caressing and threatening, and charming and terrifying me, until at last, as the gray dawn began to light the ragged hangings of the chamber, a profound slumber dispersed the phantoms.
CHAPTER IX.
If, according to the unanimous report of travellers by that route, the road to hell is paved with good intentions, I am convinced that several square rods of it are my work, and that the greater part of it was laid down in the first fortnight of my stay at Zehrendorf. There could, indeed, scarcely have been a place where everything essential to this easy and pleasant occupation was provided in ampler abundance. Wherever one went, or stood, or turned the eyes, there lay the materials ready to hand; and I was too young, too inexperienced, and I will venture to add, too good-hearted, not to fall to work with all my energy. Of what unspeakable folly I was guilty in undertaking to set right the disordered and disjointed world in which I was now moving, after I had already shown that I could not adjust myself to the correct and orderly world from which I came--this thought did not seize me till long afterwards.
No; I was thoroughly convinced of my sublime mission; and I thanked my propitious star that had so gloriously brought me from the harsh slavery of the school and of my father's house, where I was pining away; from the oppressive bonds of Philistine associations which hampered the free flight of my heroic soul, into this freedom of the desert which seemed to have no bounds, and behind which must lie a Canaan which I was gallantly resolved to conquer--a land flowing with the milk of friendship and with the honey of love.
True, the letter which soon arrived, with a great box containing my personal chattels, from my father to Herr von Zehren, for a while gave me pause. The letter comprised but very few lines, to the effect that he--my father--was fully convinced of the impossibility of ever leading me by his road to any good end, and that he was compelled to give me over, for weal or woe, to my own devices; only hoping that my disobedience and my obstinacy might not be visited upon me too heavily. Herr von Zehren showed me the letter, and as he observed my grave look upon reading it, asked me, "Do you wish to go back?" adding immediately, "Do not do it. That is no place for you. The old gentleman wanted to make a draught-horse out of you, but, tall and strong as you are, that is not your vocation. You are a hunter, for whom no ditch is too wide, and no hedge too high. Come along! I saw a covey of some two dozen over in the croft; we will have them before dinner."
He was right, I thought. I felt that my father had given me up too soon, that he might have allowed me one chance more, and that, as it was, he had forfeited the right to threaten me in addition with the retribution of heaven. And yet it pained me, when an hour or so later Herr von Zehren, who had used up all his wads, took my father's letter from his pocket, and tearing it up, rammed it down both barrels of his gun, with the jesting phrase that necessity knows no law. I could not help feeling as if some misfortune would happen. But the gun did not burst, the birds dropped, and nothing remained of the letter but a smouldering scrap which fell in some dry stubble, and upon which Herr von Zehren set his foot as he thrust the birds into his game-bag.
If I had any doubt left whether I was right in setting myself upon my own feet, as I phrased it, a letter which I received from Arthur was only too well adapted to confirm me in my notions of my finally-won liberty.
"A lucky dog you always were," he wrote. "You run away from school, and they let you go, as if it was a matter of course; while me they catch as if I were a runaway slave, cram me in the dungeon for three days, every hour cast up to me my disgraceful conduct, and in every way make my life a perfect misery to me. Even my father carries on as if I was guilty of heaven knows what; only mamma is sensible, and says I mustn't take it too much to heart, and that papa will have to come round, or the professor will not let me go into the upper class, and there will be more botherations. It is really a shame that I, just because my uncle, the commerzienrath, wills it so, must go through the final examination, while Albert von Zitzewitz, no older than I, is at the cadets' school, and has a pair of colors already. What has my uncle to do with me, anyhow? Papa says that he will not be able to support me during my lieutenancy without the help he expects from my uncle; and that is likely too, for things get tighter with us every day, and papa went quite wild yesterday when he had to pay sixteen thalers for a glove-bill of mine. If mamma did not help me now and then, I don't know what I should do; but she has nothing, and said to me only yesterday that she did not know what would happen at New Year, when all the bills came in.
"Now you might help me out of all this trouble. Papa says that Uncle Malte never looks at money when he happens to have any, and anybody that would hit the lucky moment might get as much from him as they pleased. You, lucky fellow, are now with him all the time, and you might watch your chance, for the sake of an old friend, and slip in a good word for me. Or better, tell him that you have some old debts that you are worried about, and wouldn't he lend you fifty or a hundred thalers, and then do you send it to me, for you can't want it, you know. You'll never come back here, whatever happens, for you cannot imagine the way people here talk about you. Lederer prays an extra five minutes every day for the strayed lamb--that's what he calls you, you old sinner. Justizrath Heckepfennig said that if ever it was written in a mortal's face that he would die in his shoes, it is in yours. In Emilie's coterie it was resolved to tear out of all their albums the leaves on which you had immortalized yourself; and at my uncle's, day before yesterday, there was a regular scene about you. Uncle said at the table that you must take powerfully long strides if you meant to outrun the ---- and here he made a sign, you understand, at which Hermine began to cry terribly, and Fräulein Duff said it was a shame to talk that way before a child. So you see you have a pair of firm friends among the females. You always did have, and have still, the most unaccountable luck in that quarter. Don't break my pretty cousin's heart, you lucky dog!
"P. S.--Papa once told me that Constance gets a small sum of money every year from an old Spanish aunt of hers. She certainly has no use for it. Maybe you could coax something from her--at all events, you might look into the matter a little."