Mohr cast a keen side glance at him. Were these words, which struck his sensitive spot, intentionally aimed at him? Had Edwin told the little gentleman anything about his symphony or comedy, and was this lecture on contentment intended to put a damper on his fruitless zeal? But the artist's bright innocent expression contradicted such a suspicion, and made it impossible for the other to utter the sharp answer that was already hovering on his tongue. Besides, while engaged in this conversation they had reached the little house on the canal, and the artist urged his companion so cordially to come in for a moment and take a cup of tea, that Mohr in spite of his dejection, could not refuse. Where else should he go? The wind was blowing from the river with icy coldness, and all life on the banks seemed frozen. Nothing awaited him in his lonely bachelor lodgings save a dark night full of anxious dreams. So he allowed himself to be guided across the timber yard, along the narrow path between the lofty piles of wood, toward the door, from which streamed a faint ray of light.
CHAPTER IX.
Leah was seated at the table in her little sitting room; before her was the tea urn, and a closed book but she seemed to have been occupied with neither, but entirely absorbed in her own thoughts. As the two men entered she started up, her first glance fell upon the stranger, and a look akin to disappointment flittered over her face. Had her ears deceived her and made her suppose that Edwin was accompanying her father?
She did not speak, but with downcast eyes listened to the report of the invalid's condition. Her father introduced his guest as a friend of her former teacher; she bowed in visible embarrassment. By degrees, however, as Mohr himself thawed out and began to talk about his university life with Edwin, she too became more at ease and performed the duties of hostess with the most winning grace. The guest was very much pleased with her, he even wondered that Edwin had never spoken of her personal appearance, which was really worth mentioning, though a sickly pallor made her seem older than her years, and her movements when she walked, were weary and languid. After she had poured out the tea, she took some sewing and sat down in an armchair at a little distance from the others, not far from the niche in which her mother's bust stood. A warm light animated the still features of the marble image, and Leah's transparently pale complexion, especially when her beautifully sparkling eyes were fixed on her work, made the semblance between the living woman and the dead marble so striking as to produce an almost uncomfortable impression upon the visitor. He again relapsed into his own gloomy cares and presentiments, and if the little artist had not continued the conversation with the most persistent cheerfulness, the mood that prevailed in the pleasant room would have become more and more dismal.
But with each passing moment the zaunkönig seemed to become more comfortable in his nest. When Mohr, out of courtesy, asked to see some of his work, he brought out of his studio with a diffidence with which, however, was blended an air of quiet satisfaction, a large portfolio, and began to spread the sketches before his guest. "These are old designs," said he. "When my wife was alive, I was in the habit while we sat together in the evening--the child yonder used to go to bed early--of scrawling my fancies on a sheet of paper. They were not so modest and tame as now, but took the boldest leaps and caricoles, as if they belonged to a great artist who possessed the ability to execute them. To be sure, even in those days, I knew that I was no Poussin or Claude Lorraine; but when alone, after toiling honestly all day as a mediocre artist, I would permit myself during the evening hours, to dream of what I would paint if I were one of those great geniuses. Now these fits come more rarely, and I'm slow to detain them. If I can't wholly reform, I merely sweep a bit of charcoal over the sheet for a time, and my sleeve effaces even the smallest trace."
Mohr turned over the drawings, which were on rather an exaggerated scale, and the way in which he expressed his opinion of one and another and detected the artistic idea in the often very imperfect lines, seemed to delight the little gentleman greatly. When the cuckoo clock struck eleven and the guest rose, with an apology for having already remained too long, the master of the house most cordially invited him to come again very soon, if their modest tea table had not seemed tedious. The portfolio, he added smiling, certainly should not appear again.
"My dear sir," replied Mohr, "I fear you would repent this philanthropic offer, if I availed myself of it. I have a vein of that 'shelterless, restless barbarian,' and I like you too well not to spare you a closer acquaintance with me. But no one can answer for himself. If my own society becomes unbearable even to myself, I shall come and beg to be allowed to sit quietly in this sofa corner for an hour. Your tea urn sings so melodiously that in listening to it one quite forgets what a discord usually prevails in this world."
He shook hands with the father and daughter and left the little house in a strange paradoxical mood. "What is it that we want?" he muttered to himself, as, insensible to the storm he stood beside the river, gazing down into its gloomy depths. "This man, to whom everything seems to work together for good, because as a well trained child of God, he believes in time and eternity; who is satisfied with everything, his mediocrity, his weakness, his skill and want of skill, who makes a virtue of every necessity, even the heart-sorrow of his only child,--does he deserve honor or detestation? Is not this yearning for God, which ennobles everything to him, and shows him a paradise behind every face, in reality only selfishness in disguise? Is not even this piety, viewed apart from intellectual blindness, a fondling of self at the expense of others? I, who enter this house for the first time, can scarcely see the lovely girl without compassion and indignation at her fate, and her own father, trusting that his dear God will again lead the stray sheep back to the fold when the wolf has once been made harmless, reconciles himself to see the beautiful, talented, patient creature waiting away because her proper nourishment is withheld from her. Really, we savages are the better men! If I should ever have a daughter--"
He did not finish the sentence. The wind suddenly dashed such a whirl of snow flakes into his face, that he was forced for a time to close his eyes and mouth and cling involuntarily to the railing. When he again looked around him, the storm seemed to have raged itself calm, the moon even cast a misty light through the black clouds, and for a moment revealed the houses on the opposite side of the canal, from which, as it was now almost midnight, only a few lights gleamed.
"It's time to go home," murmured the young man. "Every one in the boats below is already asleep. I wonder how a man feels who's born in the cabin of a boat on the Spree and dies there, after gazing for sixty years through his window into this Cloaca maxima!"