"I know all you can possibly say on that subject," replied Franz, "and I must tell you frankly that I have no good reason whatever for making the proposition. But I feel as if I ought not to leave you here alone--as if there was something in the air here that boded you no good. Come with me, Oswald!"
"I will follow you as soon as I can."
"Then farewell! Go on, driver!"
Franz once more pressed Oswald's hand. The carriage rattled over the uneven pavement of the little town and disappeared around a corner.
"What a pity the gentleman had to leave so soon," said Louis, the head waiter at the Kurhaus, who was standing near Oswald, a napkin under his arm and a pen behind his ear. "A most pleasant gentleman--would you like to have supper now, sir? You will find very agreeable company in the dining-room, sir."
Oswald went back into the house. If Franz could have repeated his request at that moment, Oswald would not have again refused to accompany him. For since Franz had left him he felt as if his guardian angel had abandoned him, and as if the air of Fichtenau was really laden with mischief.
CHAPTER VI.
On the next morning Oswald awoke late from his broken slumbers, which had been much disturbed by strange haunted dreams. Melitta, whom he had so ardently loved but a short time ago, had appeared to him, her fair, pale face disfigured by sorrow, her brown, gentle eyes overflowing with tears, and looking at him with an expression of ineffable sadness. Thus she had sat by him--her sad, sweet smile on her full lips, which he had so often kissed, intoxicated with love! And Oswald's heart had been overflowing with love and pity! He had forgotten all that had come between her and himself the bad weeds sown by whispering tongues which had grown up to maturity so suddenly, thanks to the fickleness of his own heart; he had forgotten everything except the remembrance of those sunny days of inexpressible happiness. And he had thrown himself at her feet and shed tears, bitter-sweet tears, upon her knees, and stammered words of repentance, and implored her forgiveness. Then an icy-cold hand had been laid on his brow, and as he looked up it was no longer Melitta, but Professor Berger; but not the man of the melancholy humor and the biting satire, who had so often sat opposite to him with his sardonic smile on the mysterious lips when they met at æsthetic teas, but a gruesome mask of wax, motionless and silent. And of a sudden there had begun a quivering and a stirring in the cold, rigid face of the mask, as when one tries to speak and the tongue refuses to serve him; then the mask had actually spoken, not in human language, but in a mystic idiom, of things half intelligible, half mysterious, of unspeakable, fearful things--awful secrets of another world.
Oswald had not been able to endure the horror any longer, and his soul had made a desperate effort to rise from the intolerable twilight into the bright light of day. But the light of day had not brought him the right kind of cheerfulness, for the visions of the night still cast their spectral shadows upon the day. Woe to him whose heart is not clear of sin! Woe to him whose heart conceals recollections, which he drives away with a slight frown, when they obtrude upon him in moments of wakefulness and preparation! He may well see to it. What dreams are coming to him in his sleep?
Oswald spent the whole forenoon in this heavy state of mind. He could not summon courage to undertake the painful task of going to Doctor Birkenhain's Asylum; he postponed the visit till the afternoon, and tried to persuade himself that he would then be in better humor, and better prepared to stand once more before Berger, face to face. He went down to take his dinner at the table-d'hôte, where he found, in spite of the advanced season, quite a number of persons still, who, were either drinking the waters of the place or travelling for their amusement. He sat quietly sipping his wine, and amused himself with listening to the brilliant conversation of some commercial travellers, as it flitted to and fro, touching a thousand subjects, and among them also the escape of the gypsy woman and her child, and the "enormous row" which had arisen in consequence, disturbing the peace of the Green Hat and the nightly rest of a considerable part of the little town. Some of the young gentlemen who had witnessed the exhibition on the great meadow enlightened more recent arrivals as to the beauty of the gypsy, and regretted eloquently the disappearance of that "famous person." The little one, also, was represented as a "famous" thing, with really "famous" eyes. An eccentric Englishman, who had been near the stage, they added, had instantly fallen in love with her, and there was no doubt at all but that this Englishman, of whom no one had afterwards seen or heard anything more, had eloped with the gypsy girl.