In Paradise: A Novel. Vol. I.

by Paul Heyse

When, years before, they had become acquainted with one another in Kiel, where Felix first began the study of the law, they had soon become inseparable. The lonely artist stood in special need of a friend with quick perceptions, who, in those early days when his talent was cautiously working its way to the front, could fan his courage by taking a lively interest in his work; and Felix soon saw enough of the senseless and tasteless life led by his fellow-students to make him long for other society. The hours that he stole from his beer-club and his fencing-school, in order to work with Jansen at all sorts of noble arts, sometimes making an attempt himself with a piece of clay, and then again spending the evening in his friend's simple little room in confidential talk over a very frugal supper and some modest wine, were looked back upon as the happiest of his whole youth. Even then Jansen struck people as a very original, reserved, strong, and forceful man, who had no needs but those which he was able to supply by his own unaided powers. It was known that he sprang from a peasant family, that, impelled by accidental incentives only and without any encouragement from teachers or patrons, he had made himself an artist by the force of his iron will. How he also succeeded in attaining, in other fields, such an education that it was not easy for any one to detect the want of a regular course of schooling, was scarcely less incomprehensible. Gradually his talent began to attract some attention, and a few orders straggled in, which enabled him to earn a scanty living. But as he scorned to let himself be lionized in society, to be petted by ladies and engaged for æsthetic tea parties, the first feeling of interest soon grew cold; and with a shrug of the shoulders people left this eccentric individual, who placed himself in such sharp antagonism to the modern tendency of art, to himself again, and to his pictures of naked gods and his undisguised contempt for social traditions.

It was thus that Felix found him then, and he found him but little different now, after all these years of separation--averse to all intercourse with men who did not stand in some relation or other to his art, and inaccessible, so far as his inner life was concerned, even to his few intimate acquaintances. But still the years had not passed without leaving some traces. They had so estranged him, even from that one person to whom he had then loved to unbosom himself, that, after the first outburst of his old tenderness, a steady medium temperature had set in in the relations of the two old friends, that was scarcely a degree warmer than that between Jansen and the other members of the little circle. During the long hours that the pupil spent working at his master's side, there were hundreds of opportunities to talk over old times. But the sculptor seemed to avoid all recollections of the past. Then, they had made no secret to one another of their love-affairs; and now Felix made several attempts to return to the subject of his late betrothal. But, when he did this, it was as if some dark spectre rose up before Jansen. He sought to give the conversation a general direction with some bitter sarcasm or forced jest, and soon relapsed into more sullen silence than before.

Felix felt how heavily this cool reserve weighed on his spirits, which would have been none too light even without it. After the shipwreck of his happy love, he had tried to fall back upon this friendship; and now, though he had indeed found firm ground, it was no longer the green island of his youth, but bare and inhospitable; and the soil, which was then so yielding, had turned to rugged rock.

One evening, as he was walking down the Briennerstrasse, alone, and not in the most cheerful spirits, he met the beautiful stranger, who now visited Angelica daily, but who was jealously guarded by the latter from all other eyes. She appeared to be returning home from a walk, and her old servant walked a few steps behind her, carrying her shawl. Felix bowed to her, and she distantly returned his salute. She evidently had not recognized him. Then he saw her enter the house, and soon afterward the corner-room on the ground-floor was lit up by the light of a lamp. It would have been easy for him to watch her proceedings through the low window. But he did not care at all to do so, though he admired her beauty. For no beautiful, no charming face could cross his path without carrying his thoughts back to his lost love, and plunging him in a melancholy reverie.

And so it was to-day. And suddenly it struck him as so absurd and idiotic for him to be wandering about alone in this utterly strange city, among people who cared nothing for him, separated from her who was his only love, that he could not help bursting out into a laugh, only to sigh all the more sadly the next minute.

He felt the impossibility, in his present mood, of joining his friends, who were waiting for him at a beer-cellar. Jansen was generally one of the party. But, even if everything between them had remained just as it was in the old times, Felix would have avoided him to-day.

When he found himself in such a mood that he could not endure his fellow-men, he generally found that he nowhere felt so well as upon horseback.

He went to a stable in the neighborhood, and was soon cantering across the Obeliskenplatz on a powerful horse. He rode down the beautiful broad street, through the marble gate of the Propylæa, and outside, in the shady avenue that leads to the Nymphenburger Villa, he gave his horse full rein. But even here, where a fresher air blew across the quiet fields, it was so sultry that the animal soon dropped into a quieter gait of his own accord.

The street was not very lively. Only a few workmen were strolling home from the town, and some soldiers came singing arm-in-arm out of a tavern. They were walking behind a girl who was hastening to get back to town before it grew quite dark. She was neatly dressed, of a very pretty figure, and, according to the fashion then in vogue, wore her hair falling loose over her shoulders. This seemed to incite the fellows to strike up an acquaintance with her, and the short, snappish way in which she repelled their advances only fanned their impudence the higher. One seized her by her fluttering hair, another laughingly attempted to get possession of her arm; and, as it chanced that the foot-path behind the trees was quite deserted, she would have tried in vain to shake off her tormentors had not Felix happened to gallop up just at that moment. He shouted to the fellows in a loud voice to instantly let the girl alone, and go to the devil. Whether they took him for an officer in mufti, or were frightened by his commanding manner, they obeyed at once, and started across the fields to the barracks, whose massive structure towered from afar across the dark meadow.

The deliverer now took a closer look at the girl. There could be no doubt he had seen this little nose, these white teeth, and that red hair, once before, on that first morning in Jansen's studio. And now he recalled her name.