The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

by Gustav Freytag

"It endeavors," was the patient answer of the Professor to this perplexing question, "to instruct men in the life of their mind and spirit, and thus to strengthen and improve them."

"The life of the spirit!" exclaimed Mrs. Rollmaus, excitedly; "but do you too believe that spirits can appear to men after death?"

"Why, do you know any instance where that has happened?" asked the Professor. "It would be interesting to all to hear the exact details. Has anything of the kind occurred hereabouts?"

"So far as ghosts and spirits are concerned, No," replied Mrs. Rollmaus, looking doubtfully at the Proprietor; "but of second sight, and what is called sympathy a great deal. Only think, we once had a servant; she was not obliged to live out, but her parents wished to send her away from home for a time; for there was in the village a poor lad who was a great fiddler and who strolled round her house morning and evening, and when the girl could come, they sat together behind a bush--he playing on the fiddle and she listening. And she could not part from him. She was a nice girl, and adapted herself to everything in our house, only she was always melancholy. The fiddler was impressed as a hussar, for which he was fitted because he was very courageous. After a year the cook came to me and said: 'Mrs. Rollmaus, I cannot stand it any longer, Hetty walks in her sleep. She gets out of bed and sings the song about a soldier whom a captain caused to be shot, because he was ordered to do so, and then she groans so that it would move a stone, and in the morning she knows nothing about her singing, but always continues to weep.' And this was the truth. I called her, and asked her seriously; 'What is the matter with you? I cannot bear this mysterious conduct, you are a riddle to me.' Whereupon she lamented much, and begged me not to think ill of her, as she was an honorable girl; but she had seen an apparition. And then she told me the whole story. Her Gottlob had appeared at the door of her room in the night, quite haggard and sorrowful, and had said: 'Hetty, it is all over with me; to-morrow it is my turn.' I tried to persuade the girl out of it, but her fears infected me. I wrote to an officer whose acquaintance my husband had made at the hunt, and asked whether it was nonsense, or whether it was due to the so-called second-sight. And he wrote back to me very much astonished. It was a true case of second-sight, for on the same day the fiddler had fallen from his horse and broken his leg, and then lay in the hospital at the point of death. Now, I pray you, was not that a real natural phenomenon?"

"And what became of the poor people?" asked the Professor.

"O, as for them," answered Mrs. Rollmaus, "it all came right; for a comrade of the invalid, who had a sick mother, was from our village. I wrote to him requesting him to send me a letter every third day to report how the invalid was getting on, and added that I would repay him by sending his mother bacon and flour. He wrote regularly; and the affair lasted many weeks. At last the fiddler was cured and came back; and both were white as a sheet when they met, and embraced each other before my eyes without hesitation; whereupon I spoke to the parents of the girl, which was of little avail. Then I spoke to my husband, to whom our village inn belongs, and who was then looking out for a good tenant. And that brought the history to a close, or, as the saying goes, to the commencement du pain. For Mr. Rollmaus is not a lover of fiddles and thinks them instruments of frivolity. But the people behave in an orderly way. I was the sponsor of their first child and Rollmaus of the second. But there have been no more apparitions."

"That was indeed good and kind of you," exclaimed the Professor, warmly.

"We are all human," said Mrs. Rollmaus, apologetically.

"And I hope, all good," replied the Professor. "Believe me, madame, though there are many and various views in philosophy and in every branch of learning, and much contention respecting many points, and though one is easily led and tempted to consider another ignorant; yet with respect to honesty, uprightness, and benevolence, there has seldom been any difference of opinion, and all delight in and esteem those in whom they find these qualities. And it is these qualities, Mrs. Rollmaus, I now find and honor in you."

This he said to the learned lady with much warmth and earnestness. On his other side he heard the gentle rustling of a dress, and when he turned to Ilse he met a look so full of humble gratitude that he could hardly preserve his composure.