In Paradise: A Novel. Vol. I.

by Paul Heyse

"Tonnerre de Dieu!" he growled at length, as a clumsy peasant ran against him and roused him from his reverie. "It is curious how our feelings toward people change. Only yesterday these two were in my way, and I would have given a good deal to have been released from my woman-service. And now I feel wretchedly bored without the little highness, and as if I were of no use to anybody. If I were not an old fellow and past all child's-play, and had not such a good wife, I almost believe--Tonnerre de Dieu!"

And slowly, humming a French soldiers' song between his teeth, he wended his way home, which to-day, for the first time, appeared to him as sad and solitary as it really was.

CHAPTER XI.

In the mean while Jansen and his two companions had gone on their way, too much occupied with their own thoughts to think about the company in which Schnetz had driven by. They were not, indeed, taking an ordinary morning walk, for it had no less an object in view than to make a child acquainted with its new mother for the first time--yes, even more than this. The evening before Julie had expressed her ardent wish to take the child under her own care at once; the plan to take an apartment with Angelica had been given up again, for this good soul could not bring herself to leave the people with whom she was staying, who lived in great part from what she paid them. So Julie had plenty of room; and, though she said nothing about it, no doubt the consideration that the presence of the child would do much to lighten the trial year, both for herself and her lover, had a great deal to do in determining her. Since everything that made the bond between them stronger could not but be very welcome to Jansen, it was decided to put the plan into execution on the very next day.

But though Jansen had welcomed and urged the idea most eagerly, he became more and more doubtful, as the hour for putting it into execution drew near, whether he should succeed without some trouble in removing the child from the associations to which it was accustomed, and placing it amid entirely new relations. Julie felt no less nervous; what had seemed to her the evening before to be easy and self-evident, appeared to her now in broad daylight as an audacious undertaking that made her heart beat more anxiously the nearer they approached to their goal. What if the child should not take to her? What if she, try as hard as she would, should not be able to take it to her heart at once?--or should not be able to learn the art of managing it rightly?

The thought made her silent, and she involuntarily walked more slowly. Jansen, too, slackened his pace, so that the good Angelica, who walked along with them quite cheerful and free from care, was obliged to stand still every few minutes in order to wait for the stragglers.

But she did not lose her good-nature. On the contrary, it seemed as though the happiness of her adored friend, the share in it which fell to her as the patron saint of the secret union, and, by no means least, the authority which her position as protectress gave her over her honored master, tended to excite her humor in an unusual degree, so that she delivered the drollest speeches entirely on her own account, whenever the other two abused too flagrantly the privilege of being tiresome--a privilege that belongs by right to all lovers.

"Children," she cried, standing still again and fanning her heated face with her handkerchief, "this is the first time in my life that I ever 'played the elephant' to a pair of secret lovers, but I swear by the ball on the tower of that Protestant church never to do so again, unless I am provided with an equipage at the very least! That you are not very entertaining I find to be quite in order, and at all events much better than if you should perpetually speak in sonnets, like Romeo and Juliet--which I find highly absurd even on the stage. But to creep along at your side through this Sahara-like glare, while you walk at a snail's-pace, since you no longer feel external heat because of the flames within, is more than an elderly girl of my complexion can stand. So we will jump into the next droschke, where I can close my eyes and ponder why it is that love, which is after all such a pleasurable invention, generally makes the most sensible people melancholy."

Jansen's home lay in one of the old lanes between the city and the Au suburb. Any one wandering along here by the side of the babbling brook, a small tributary of the Isar, and seeing the low cottages with their little front gardens and courtyards, and picturesque gables, might easily imagine himself transported far away from the city and set down in one of the country towns of the middle ages, so quiet and deserted are the streets and ways, and so freely does every one pursue his occupation under the eye of his neighbor, washing his linen and his salad at the same well and sitting in his shirt-sleeves before his door. The house of our friend stood a little back, in a sort of blind-alley, so that you could not drive up to the door. It belonged to an honest and hard-working man who had formerly been a teacher in one of the provincial industrial schools, and who was now employed as an engineer by different railways. As his work obliged him to travel during many months of the year, he had invited his wife's mother to come and live with him and give company and assistance to his little wife--a cheery, practical woman from the Palatinate, sound to the core both in body and soul. The mother was an excellent old woman, who, although rather deaf, knew so well how to get on with the children that the little ones desired no better company than their grandmamma, who read all their little wishes in their eyes.

She was sitting in her accustomed place in the deep window-niche, with her youngest grandchild, who was barely two years old, on her knee, and her five-year-old foster-child on a stool at her feet, when the door opened and her daughter, the sculptor, and the two ladies, walked in. Jansen was an especial favorite of hers, and his child held as warm a place in her heart as her own grandchildren. And so it was natural, when, without any preparation or notice, these two strange Fräuleins, of whom one was striking beautiful, were introduced to her as relations of the sculptor who wanted to see little Frances, that she had a feeling there was something wrong about the matter; especially as one of the strange ladies, the beautiful one, immediately took up the little girl, who made great eyes at her, kissed and caressed her, and took out all sorts of sweetmeats and toys from her pocket, with which she tried to gain the child's friendship. Jansen sat near her, silent, his face wearing a peculiar expression. For the first time his child struck him as not looking so pretty or to so much advantage as he could have wished. It had, to be sure, feature for feature the face of its father, and fortunately his clear, flashing eyes as well; and in addition to this a head of dark-brown hair and black eyebrows, which made the eyes appear still more brilliant. Moreover, it evidently took a strong fancy to the beautiful "aunt," who brought it such nice things, and it behaved altogether with great propriety considering its few years. But, for all that, a certain uneasiness weighed upon all the people in the little room, as they sat together on the sofa or round the table. Neither Jansen nor Julie had considered how they should properly clothe their project in words, since their relation to one another heretofore had borne none of the usual names, and it might not be so easy to explain to these simple-minded women what was meant by the engagement of a married man, and the maternal rights of his "bride" to his child.