Barbarossa, and Other Tales

by Paul Heyse

This was about noon, when most persons were at home, and Kurt could go through Frau Amthor's garden-gate with least risk of being observed. Some hours passed by without the mother and daughter opening their lips even to speak on indifferent subjects. They were more occupied with each other than ever, and showed it in a hundred little loving ways, only they hardly dared to allow their eyes to meet, for each had a secret to keep. When the day got cooler, the mother was just going to invite her child, who was walking alone in the garden, to put on her hat and take a turn with her through the town, when Valentin suddenly appeared with an anxious visage, and hastily announced that the chief sergeant, who had paid his mistress a visit twelve days before, now requested to know whether she was at home. He had something, he said, of importance and urgency to communicate. Frau Helena--whose first idea was some fresh imprudence on the part of Kurt--had just time to make a sign to Valentin, enjoining silence towards Lisabethli, when in came the stately dignitary, looking far more solemn and mysterious than he had done on the former occasion, and requesting a private interview. After she had led him into a small study, where he took his seat facing her, coughed several times, and re-arranging the tags on his dress, he began in evident embarrassment to address her as follows:--

"I need not to premise, worthy Frau Amthor, how not only your family and house, but also your own character are held in honour by every person, public or private, in our good town, and your virtues, as well at the name and memory of your departed husband, looked up to as a Christian example. It is, therefore, the universal wish to keep sorrow far from you, and to offer you whatever consolation lies within human power for such trial as Heaven has appointed. It will not have escaped you that all as by common consent have long avoided touching the wound that your son's conduct has inflicted, and I indeed as your friend and relative, should have been especially bound never to name your lost Andreas in your presence, if my official duty had not required me so to do. Will you, therefore, not render my painful duty still harder to me by suppression or evasion, but openly tell me what accounts of your son you have lately had, and where you have reason to believe him now to be?"

"If you ask me thus earnestly," replied the mother, without betraying either in look or tone how fast her heart was beating; "I must, alas! return you for answer, that it will be four years next All Saints' since I saw my unhappy son for the last time, and that since then I have had no manner of communication from him. But now let me enquire what leads you and the rest of the Town-Council to make such enquiries about the absent one who--whatever his offences may be--has at least not given his native town any cause for complaint for a space of nine years?"

The sergeant coughed again, and resumed after a pause, during which he was evidently in search of the most appropriate words possible. "Hear me out patiently, my worthy friend and relative, and do not be startled if my communication should sound strange and alarming. Up to the present time it is only a surmise which may--God grant it!--prove to be entirely unfounded. You remember the night on which the train-band intruded upon you, and the disorderly conduct on the island, respecting which I waited upon you the following day, bearing the apologies of the Council. The tavern which caused you so much annoyance, was closed at once, and the scene of much nightly misdemeanour removed. Neither since that night had any trace of the chief offenders been found, so that I began to suspect the watchmen must have been bewildered with new wine, and seen phantoms. But last evening, just as we were breaking up, a young female was brought before us, who had gone to the sexton of St. Ursula to request him to give private burial to a corpse then in her room, since she feared--the fatal wound having been received in a brawl--that she might else as a stranger in the place be held in some way amenable to the law. The little money the girl possessed--she seemed to be no better than a French courtesan, and could scarcely put ten German words together--she had offered the sexton as a bribe for secrecy, but when he, as his duty was, gave information of the death, and took her with him to the Court, she seemed inspired with sudden courage, and being thoroughly cross-examined by us, was yet able to establish her innocence in this tragic matter. The dead man, who had been her lover and brought her with him from Lyons, had on the night of the storm picked a quarrel on the island with an unknown youth, and had been stabbed by the latter during a struggle on the bridge. When the train-band was seen approaching, she had just had time with the help of two of their travelling companions, to get the unconscious man into a boat, and to bring him to the obscure inn where they had arrived on the previous day. The two other men seeing that there was nothing more to be made, got themselves out of the scrape, but she had faithfully tended the wounded man by night and day, and persuaded the host that he was getting better, and would if secrecy were maintained reward him liberally by-and-by. It was only when he had drawn his last breath that she thought of herself with any anxiety, for during his illness she had been obliged to spend all the money he had won at play, and the few ornaments she had, she had sold to a Jew in hopes of getting him quietly buried. As to her future maintenance, however, she continued with brazen assurance, she should have no fear, as she was young and--thank God!--not ugly, if only she were acquitted by us, and could get to a country where people understood her. The dead man had, indeed, treated her liberally as regarded dress, food, and presents, but she had not had much pleasure with him, for he was of a sulky temper, and not a thorough Frenchman, spite of his name. She rather thought he must have been an Alsatian. He called himself Laporte, had travelled through many lands, had served in the Dutch army, and was not fond of speaking about his past. The idea of travelling in Switzerland occurred to him when he had exhausted all his means. She had never found out whether he had a treasure buried in this country, or friends who were in any way bound to him, and at whose door he had only to knock in order to be set on his legs again. This was the simple truth, and more she did not herself know, and therefore could not tell us, even if she were put to the torture.

"After this declaration of Fleurette,--which was the female's name--the mayor ordered that the body should be moved from the inn (where as yet the death had not transpired) to the hospital, and last night it was borne upon a bier into the dead house, and a protocol was made previous to the interment of the stranger--as such--close to the churchyard wall. The foreign hussy was meanwhile confined for a season in the tower of the hospital. When we betook ourselves this morning to the dead house, and the inspector had given us his report, namely, that the wound had been dealt by a German sword between the fourth and fifth ribs, and that it was a marvel such a wound had been so long survived--there came a judicial investigation of the clothes and few effects found, the result of which in no way contradicted, but rather confirmed, the young woman's statement. We found that in his commission as officer in the Dutch army, he was entered as a Monsieur Laporte or De la Porte; there were no other papers. The clerk had indeed already finished the protocol, when the surgeon called our attention to a seal-ring on the dead man's clenched left hand. It was a thick gold ring of curious make, with a blood-red cornelian, and it was impossible to get it off. But as I chanced--being fond of antiques--to bend down closer with a candle in order to examine the style of it, I saw to my surprise and horror, that it was exactly--but you must not be alarmed, it may as I said be merely accidental--exactly I repeat, like the family arms of the Amthors, two beams supporting a cornice with an open door in the middle and a star above. The candle shook in my hand, all the more that at the same moment I saw in the pale bearded face, which had at first seemed to me that of a perfect stranger, an expression--I pray you, my good cousin, to forgive me if I pain you--an expression such as I had seen on the dead face of my excellent and honoured friend, your late husband, when on the day of his burial I stood for the last time beside his open coffin."

The worthy man, having got so far in his narrative, made a pause, during which he did not venture to look at the matron opposite him, though indeed he could but poorly estimate the amount of the woe that hung over her. He had no idea that the fate of both children might depend on whether the stranger proved to be her own son or not.

"Be comforted, my beloved friend," he at length resumed, wiping away the cold drops from his brow. "I have taken upon myself not to say a word of this discovery to any one but the mayor, whom you know to be an honourable man heartily devoted to your family. I asked him whether this melancholy supposition had not better be buried in our hearts. It is not probable, but yet it is possible, that a branch of the Amthors may have migrated to foreign lands, there changed their name to Laporte or De la Porte for the sake of convenience, retaining, however, the family arms. As to that look in the dead face, which is a good deal disfigured by a deep scar, I said nothing about it to him, as he had declared he saw no likeness whatever to Andreas, whom he remembered to have often met nine or ten years ago. Nevertheless he was of opinion that so singular a coincidence ought not to remain a secret to you. If indeed, contrary to all probability, it should prove to be your poor son who has met with so tragical an end, no one would deny a mother the bitter consolation of blessing to its eternal rest, the head she had carried beneath her heart. Again, as regards official formalities, it is unfitting that we should satisfy ourselves with the declaration of a vagabond female, when we have the most convincing witness at hand; for it may prove desirable hereafter, with regard to future demises, inheritances, and the like, to have some certain knowledge to go upon. Therefore I determined to come to you, to lay the whole case before you, and persuade you, if I can, to pay a visit to the hospital--as secretly as you will--in order to prevent all useless suspense or suspicion."

So saying he rose and went to the window to give Frau Helena time to collect herself and come to a decision. A quarter of an hour passed away, during which nothing was audible in the small room but the ticking of the great clock--a wedding present from Lisabethli's grandfather to his daughter-in-law, bearing on its metal face the family arms of the Amthors. Out of doors, too, all was still--nothing to be heard but the cawing of a flight of rooks wending their way over the terrace, or the muffled thud of an over-ripe apple on the grass.

At length the lady rose and approached her old and tried friend, who met her rigid gaze with an expression of sorrowful sympathy. "I thank you," she said, "for having come to me, and performed this painful duty with so much consideration. Say to the highly respected mayor that I shall find myself at about nine o'clock at the side-door of the hospital, and should wish to be met there by some trustworthy person, and this painful step concealed from all who might be likely to talk of it. The rest I leave in God's hand--He will order it aright."

"I shall be there myself to meet you," replied the sergeant. "May our Lord God strengthen your heart, and your frame, and grant us the fulfilment of our hope that this may prove merely an accidental coincidence!"