Problematic Characters: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

"But, Felix!" said the baroness, with a reproachful glance.

"Coffee is served," announced the servant.

"Then let us go in," said the baroness.

CHAPTER XV.

In the mean time Oswald had spent some sad, anxious hours at Bruno's bedside. He had noticed of late Bruno's excited state of mind, and felt deeply concerned about it. Explosions of violent passion, such as Oswald had witnessed when he first came, but which had then almost entirely disappeared for a time, had now again become more frequent and violent than ever. A contradiction, a failure, a slighting remark at table from the baroness, were sufficient to unchain the demon. In vain had Oswald begged and besought him to control his temper, which exposed him to the attacks of his adversaries and prevented his friends from defending him--"I cannot help it," was his invariable answer; "it is a power I cannot resist. It boils up within me, it gnaws at my heart, it beats in my temples, and then I do not know any longer what I am saying or doing."--If Oswald replied that he was not in earnest with his efforts to control himself, Bruno answered angrily: Well, scold me as the rest of them do; make common cause with them. I do not want lukewarm friends; he who is not for me is against me.--Then, when he saw how he had hurt Oswald's feelings by such speeches, he would throw himself passionately into his arms and beg his pardon amid burning tears.--Have pity on me, he said. You do not know how thoroughly wretched I am.--In vain that Oswald urged him to tell him what it was that oppressed him.--I do not know myself, Bruno replied; I only wish I were far, for away from here, never to return any more; and then, again, I do not want to go, not for anything in the world; I do not know what it is; I believe I should like best to be dead.

Oswald tried his best to find out what could be the cause of this strange state of mind; but, though often on the point of discovery, he never found out the real mystery, which the poor boy concealed in his innermost heart, perhaps from himself as much as from others. It is a well-known fact, that even clever men often commit the strangest blunders in their judgment of those who are nearest to them, while others, at a distance, see clearly and distinctly. Impossible! exclaims a father, who is told what a bad son he has; impossible! cries a brother, when he first hears that his sister has engaged herself to his best friend. At times we are blinded by affection, at other times by antipathy; here it is indifference which makes us ignore a miracle that happens before our eyes; there it is noble shame which makes us cast down our eyes in order not to see a cheek blushing with guilt. No prophet is accepted in his own country, and in most cases the heart of one brother is to the other a book sealed with seven seals.

Thus it was the case here. Oswald consoled himself with the thought that the years of transition from boyhood to manhood were always an age of storms, within and without, and that strong, passionate characters like Bruno's must, of course, suffer more than others. He knew, from frequent conversations on such subjects, that Bruno's mind was a noble one, and that his heart was pure "as the heart of waters." He was, therefore, quite reassured on this score; but he did not suspect that Bruno, noble and pure as he was, loved his beautiful cousin with all the power of his strong heart, with all the fire of youthful passion, with the unbounded happiness of a first attachment, with the silent despair of a first passion which is not returned and cannot be returned.

He had never before seen Helen. When he was brought to the house of his relatives, three years ago, the young girl had already been sent to the boarding-school. They mentioned her very rarely in the family, and when they did so, it was with a few cool words only--a circumstance which probably excited Bruno's attention. With that sympathy which the poor have for the poor, and the forsaken for the forsaken, he felt instinctively that she was, like himself, a sufferer and an outcast. Gradually he formed in his mind a kind of ideal form of the absent beauty, an image of all that his fancy could suggest. The very name of Helen had something intoxicating for him, like the perfume of a hyacinth, and contributed still farther to make this ideal image dear to him. Then there had come a time when Aunt Berkow had for a while usurped the throne in his heart, becoming to him the personification of all that is highest and fairest in woman; when a kind word of Melitta, a simple: You dear boy! or a passing caress from her soft white hand could have sent him to brave every kind of deadly danger. It was just at the time when Oswald first came to Grenwitz, that this enthusiasm for Aunt Berkow had been at its highest. He had treated Melitta's son like a younger brother, as he was in the habit of treating the mother, in her youthful beauty, like an elder sister. Melitta used in those days to come quite frequently to Grenwitz, and to bring Julius, and Bemperlein, always mindful of his pupil's interests and pleasures, did all in his power to foster this intercourse; thus Bruno had constant opportunities of seeing Aunt Berkow, of rendering her a hundred little services, to wait on her like a page, when she mounted her horse or wanted somebody to hold her hat, her gloves, or her riding-whip. Aunt Berkow was in those days incessantly on his lips, and Oswald had had no objection to his telling him countless stories, in which Aunt Berkow invariably played the principal part Melitta had no doubt contributed largely to the rapid development of the boy, who passed in a few months through stages which detain less fiery characters for years. It is a very common error which women commit, to fancy that they can treat boys, who are almost men already, still as children, and permit them certain liberties which, a year hence, would be utterly inadmissible. They do not bear in mind that a young man's heart is, at that age, in a state of morning dawn, which may be disturbed by the slightest touch--a slow fire, glimmering almost unseen in the green wood, which the least puff of wind may fan into a blaze. They would be distressed if they were told that they had, in all innocence, destroyed the innocence of a friend, and yet that is but too often what they are doing.

Melitta saw herself, at last, that she could no longer put Bruno on the same footing with Julius, or even with Malte, as she had done heretofore, and when she now was speaking of the "boys," she meant exclusively the latter two. She had commenced treating Bruno like a friend or a younger brother; like a page who for the present does woman's service, but who at need may be called upon to show his brave heart and his strong arm. And indeed Bruno was so powerfully built that in any personal conflict the odds would have been with him as a matter of course. The classic statue of a Mercury, a Bacchus, or a youthful Faun could not have been more symmetrically formed or more delicately modelled than Bruno's lithe and yet powerful figure. His mere walk was a pleasure to an experienced eye. Oswald, whom nature had endowed with a keen sense of the beautiful, was delighted when he saw Bruno, before taking his bath near the sea-shore, leap lightly from rock to rock, with an accuracy which admitted of no doubt or fear, and then plunge headlong into the waves from the last projecting cliff. Bruno, in fact, knew no danger, and refused to see it where others trembled. Whenever a venture, was to be risked, from which everybody shrank, when a runaway horse was to be checked, a cherry to be reached on the topmost branch of a tree, or a ditch to be leaped which seemed to be impassable--Bruno would undertake it at once; he trembled with eagerness, his cheeks burnt, he cast imploring glances at those he loved, and they could not refuse him. They let him go, for they knew he could do more than others. Such was Bruno: a youth rather than a boy, with a fire in his heart that could have warmed a world.

Thus he saw Helen.