And Mr. Timm poured down a full glass of champagne with the hasty eagerness of a traveller whose tongue is glued to the palate.
Oswald watched the exulting companion who sat opposite to him with a peculiar sense of pleasure, not unmixed with envy. How sharp and bold, and yet how fine and intelligent, were the features in this smooth, almost boyish face! How well that haughty superciliousness suited him, which played around his delicate nostrils and curved the sharply-accented red lips! How the words flew from these lips, swift as feathered arrows, each one of which hits the bull's-eye! What a sovereign contempt for mere phrases, for any kind of ornament, for all those rags with which hypocrites and fools try to cover their nakedness! How eloquent the whole bearing of the man, his head thrown boldly back, as he blew the smoke of his cigar from him, or as he took the bottle from the cooler, shook it, and filled again and again his empty glass to overflowing! How light the burden of life seemed to be to this man, light as to the lion who leaps with the colt in his teeth swiftly over hedges and ditches!
Oswald was not inclined at that moment to cast a glance into the bottomless abyss of selfishness which lay concealed under the surface of this humor, dancing about in merry waves. The time and the place were not favorable to such an analysis. He felt down here, in this deep, quiet cellar, with its dim, mysterious light of two small candles, as if he were thousands of miles away from the rest of the world. He had come here to drink himself into oblivion; he had succeeded in his wishes. His brow was all aglow, as he followed the example of his companion and poured down glass after glass. He had not felt so free and so happy for a long time as he did at that moment.
"As for you, now, noble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian, without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene, and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the nobles, you hate the rich, you hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a desire to be noble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of your moral humbug of the nobility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart, and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it, and were I to take them I know not where."
"I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm."
"Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act in such a case towards your old friend."
"I would do with the mammon, you may rest assured of that, as I did when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it with my friends."
Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream:
"I am a curious fellow, Oswald; as sceptical as a heathen, and yet as fond of all sorts of omens as an old woman. As I was sitting here alone eating my oysters, I said to myself: you happen to have a few dollars in your pocket and you would like to spend them with a friend. And then there occurred to me, as to Wallenstein, the question: who of all those whom I meet here evening after evening meant it best and most honestly? and that it should be the one who would first enter at the door. But, strange enough, contrary to all the customs of the place, not one of them came. Instead of that, you came--you, of whom I had not thought at all. Oswald, I do not know how you think about such matters, and it may be that my request will offend you, but I should like to drink with you to our future, our intimate friendship. What do you say?"
"With all my heart!" cried Oswald. "There is just one more glass for each of us in the bottle."