Transcriber's Note:Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source: http://www.archive.org/details/throughnighttol00veregoog

Through Night To Light

A NOVEL

BY

FRIEDRICH SPIELHAGEN

FROM THE GERMAN

BY

PROF. SCHELE DE VERE

Author's Edition

"Ex fumo dare lucem cogitat."

Horace

REVISED EDITION

NEW YORK

HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1878

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by
LEYPOLDT & HOLT,
In the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States
for the Southern District of New York.

STEREOTYPED BY
DENNIS BRO'S & THORNE,
AUBURN N. Y.

Through Night to Light.

Part First.

CHAPTER I.

The sun hung glaring red near the horizon. In the valleys of the mountain ranges dark-blue shadows were gathering, while high on the forest-crowned tops the warm evening light was still aglow. The trees were gorgeous in their gay autumn livery, but in this part of the mountain dark forests of sombre evergreens covered the narrow ravines up and down, and all the swelling heights.

On the turnpike which led in manifold windings towards the main ridge of the mountains, and was lined on both sides with unbroken rows of dwarf fruit-trees, an old-fashioned carriage was slowly making its way. It was one of those broad but clumsy vehicles, drawn by two raw-boned, broken-kneed horses, and carefully provided with a huge drag-chain, which are hired in the cities for a few days' excursion into the mountains. The horses lagged, with drooping heads, heavily in their harness, and labored painfully step by step up the hill, for the road was steep and the carriage heavy. The driver encouraged them from time to time with a friendly Gee, bay! up, sorrel! as he walked slowly by their side, and the two gentlemen who had employed him for some days had gotten out at the foot of the mountain and were leisurely following at some distance behind him.

They were a couple of young men, evidently belonging to the best classes of society, that is, to the middle classes, in which intelligence and culture are nowadays almost exclusively found. They were both tall and showed the slight build and the elasticity belonging to their years. One, the smaller one, whose mouth and cheeks were nearly hid under a close, deep-black beard, would probably have been thought the more interesting of the two, as his finely-cut features, full of intelligence, were sure to please the more careful observer, and yet he was neither as tall nor as handsome as his companion, who at once attracted the eyes of all fair maidens and matrons in the towns and villages through which they had passed.

The two young men had for a time walked on in silence, separated as they were by the whole breadth of the turnpike, which was here covered with small broken stones, to the despair of horses and foot-passengers. Now, when they had passed the bad places, they approached each other again, and the one with the black beard put his hand in a kindly manner on the other's shoulder and said affectionately: "Eh bien, Oswald, why so silent?"

"I return your question," replied the latter, turning his beautiful, earnest eyes towards his companion.

"I enjoy in full draughts the glory of this evening's landscape," said Doctor Braun; "and enjoyment, you know, is silent, because the very pleasure is business enough, and leaves us no leisure for talking. But tell me, is it not a wonderful country, this Thuringia? Is it not worthy to be the heart of Germany, and thus the heart of the heart of our continent, in fact of the inhabited globe? Stop a moment where you are; we have just here a view which would be unique if there were not thousands and thousands like it in these lovely mountains. There is the valley, which we have just left! you can now follow easily the meandering course of the willow-fringed brook through the meadows. There is the village, a dirty place when seen near by, but now how beautiful it is, half veiled by its gay cloak of trees, and the blue columns of smoke, which rise straight up from the chimneys, and gradually dissolve on the sides of the mountains into blue, transparent clouds. And now these beautiful heights with their evergreens! how they rise one behind the other with their deep coloring. And now, here to our left, the glimpse of the blue mountains which we crossed this morning. And, above all, this marvellously fair sky, clear and deep and unfathomable, like the eye of some one we love. Oh, there is something divine in these outlines and these lights. They are surely intended to be more than a mere pleasure for the eye, or even a study for the painter: they are meant to comfort us and to admonish us. A glance at the enchanting face of our mother nature puts our wild hearts to sleep, makes us forget the eccentric character of our so-called culture, brings us back to the first harmony of the soul, and awakens and revives in us the conviction that everything true, beautiful, and noble, is infinitely simple, and that the well of contentment gushes forth at the bidding of every one who seeks it with a pure heart."

While Doctor Braun had spoken these words in his usual animated and impressive manner, Oswald had looked with sad eyes into the far distance. Now, when his companion ceased, he said--an ironical smile playing around his lips--

"Are you quite sure of that? And suppose it were so, who will blame the unfortunate man whose heart is not pure, who is cursed with blindness, and never sees the well of contentment? We shall meet one of these unfortunate men to-night. If you will open his closed eyes and restore to him the purity of his heart, I will worship you as a god."

Doctor Braun seemed to be much affected by these words, which had towards the end assumed a passionate tone of bitterness. He was silent for a few moments while they ascended the mountain, and then he said,

"I thought the journey would have calmed you and made you more cheerful, Oswald. I begin to doubt my professional skill when I see that the old dreams are as powerful as ever in you. You seemed to be almost cured of the fatal desire to sit down, like Heine's young man, by the sea coast, and to ask the restless waves for an answer to the painful old riddles of life, and now----"

"Now I am once more bored with the old complaint! No, Franz, I will not bring disgrace upon your mental cure and try to find the world as beautiful and reasonable as you do. That was only a recollection of the past. Is it not natural, is it not quite intelligible, that it should turn up just now, when we approach the end of our pilgrimage, and I am about once more to meet face to face the noble, unfortunate man to whom I owe so much, and that after an interval during which so much, so very much, has changed for him and for myself! I have followed your advice faithfully, as well as I could. I have let the past bury the past; I have practised industriously the art of forgetting, and I have sent the very shadows of the departed back to Hades, when they became troublesome. But here comes the form of a living man who is dead, of a dead man who still lives, and I find neither in my mind nor in my heart the magic words which will lay this spirit, whom I reverence, whom I mourn with tears, like the others."

"Then let us turn back," said Doctor Braun, with great vivacity. "If you do not feel the strength in you to maintain the position which you have yourself chosen, against every objection and every authority, it would be madness to expose yourself to such danger. Let us turn back; it is time yet."

"No," said Oswald, "that would be both cowardly and foolish. We do not overcome danger by avoiding it. I must see Berger and speak to him. This interview must be the test of the problem that has occupied us these four weeks. Either I recover myself from my own insanity by seeing this madman, or----"

"There is no or," cried Franz. "Really, when I hear you talk so, Oswald, I have a great mind to let you starve and thirst till you come again to your senses, or consent to do honor to reason. You are an enigmatical man, a thoroughly problematic character. There are incongruities in your character which I have not yet learnt to explain, in spite of our long intimacy. Natural disposition and education, which jointly make the man, must in your case have been most strangely intermingled. I have so far always avoided speaking of your early youth, because I felt a natural reluctance to inquire after what you evidently did not care to reveal. But my friendship for you is greater than such considerations, which are after all of little account between such intimate friends as we are. What do you say, Oswald, while the sun is gloriously setting behind those mountains, and our poor horses are painfully dragging themselves up the hill, you might tell me something about your early years--much or little, as you are disposed. Will you do it?"

"Willingly," replied Oswald. "I also have been thinking much of my youth in these last days. If one is engaged in settling his affairs, as I am now doing, at a certain epoch of one's life, it is almost indispensable to trace that life back to the beginning. It is true you are the first man, and perhaps the only one, whom I could permit to look into those dark portions of my existence; but I will do it."

"I shall be all the more attentive," replied Doctor Braun.

CHAPTER II.

"To begin at the beginning," said Oswald, after a pause, during which he seemed to have collected his thoughts, "I was born in the capital. My father was a teacher of languages, my mother the daughter of a mechanic. You see, therefore, that I have no claims to nobility, and that my hatred against the nobles is the very natural and legitimate hatred of the plebeian against the patrician, of the Pariah against the Brahmin.

"I have never learnt why my father left the capital, and shortly after my birth--I was, and remained, the only child of my parents--he went to live in the little Pomeranian port W----. It is true I never knew much of the history of my parents and of all that happened before my birth. I do not even know whether I have any relations on the father's or the mother's side. If there are any, I have never made their acquaintance.

"My mother also I only recollect dimly, after the manner of a person whom we have seen in a dream. But even now I sometimes dream of a fair young lady, with great, sweet blue eyes. She says in a soft tone some words which I do not understand, but which sound like the music of heaven, and always move me to tears even in my sleep. I know that this lovely creature of my dreams is my mother, for she never changes. She died before I had ended my fourth year.

"If ever man succeeded in replacing a mother to an orphaned, motherless child, my father solved that problem. When I was a little child, he sang and talked me to sleep; when I was sick, he watched day and night by the side of my little bed; he sat by me in the garret window and blew alternately with me bright soap-bubbles from a little clay pipe into the air; he taught me the alphabet and to make ships from the bark of trees; he made me learn the first Latin words, and taught me to swim and to skate; he gave me the first lessons in Greek, and in pistol-shooting and fencing. I had no other friend but him, until I went to the University."

"He was a strange, unfathomable man, even so far as his outer appearance was concerned. Imagine a figure of dwarfish size, but exceedingly well proportioned, very agile and active, dressed in winter and summer, early and late, invariably in a worn-out black dress-coat, black shorts, black stockings, and shoes with large buckles, walking in sunshine or rain, always hat in hand, through the streets of the city. Imagine this figure ending in a disproportionately large head, with a well-set brow, bald on the temples, beneath which a pair of sharp eyes sent out flashes of lightning, and a face which, though fine and sharp of outline, either had never known how to laugh or forgotten how to do it for long, long years. This was the figure of my father, the Old Candidate, as he was called in W---- by everybody, even the boys in the street, with whom I had many a battle royal, when they dared to laugh at the old gentleman's appearance.

"The nickname, besides, had no application to my father, if I except the word Old. He had never in his life been a candidate for any office, clerical or political, as far as I know, and, in spite of his enormous erudition, he would not have been fit for any office, for his eccentricity and odd disposition would have made it impossible for him to fulfil his duties.

"In later years I have often and often tried in vain to find out what bitter experience of life, what sad misfortunes, could have changed my father into such an odd character. He was a hypochondriac and a misanthrope at once, who avoided most carefully every contact with the world, and who, therefore, was as carefully let alone by everybody else. Those who claimed to be men of refinement and religious convictions called him a cynic because he had emancipated himself from all social obligations; and an atheist, because he never appeared at church. The superstitious rabble crossed themselves when they saw him, as if he were standing in nearer relations to the Evil One than was proper for a good Christian. If he had lived two hundred years sooner, they would no doubt have burnt him as a sorcerer or a magician.

"I must confess, to be candid, that the refined and the unrefined rabble were not so far amiss when they attributed to my father ideas and notions which are not ordinarily met with in the brains of the majority. He had a supreme contempt for all faith founded merely upon authority, because he felt himself fettered by it in the freedom of his existence; and an intense hatred for all worldly tyranny, because it prevented him from acting freely. He openly declared a republic to be the only form of government under which a man who had the right point d'honneur could live happily. Every prerogative granted to one, to a few, or to the many, was to him an injustice, which could only be explained by the insolence of the ruler and the cowardice of the ruled. He could see no difference in the end between a flock of sheep driven to the slaughter-house by a stupid servant and a savage dog, and a people who allowed themselves to be oppressed and ill-treated by a proportionately small number of men. The men, he said, only managed to cover their disgrace with bright-colored garments, while the sheep were not able to do the same.

"His special hatred, however, was given to the nobility. As soon as he happened to speak of their caste, he had a whole dictionary of opprobrious epithets at his command. He never entered the house of a nobleman; and whenever young men of noble birth proposed to take lessons from him, he immediately refused. Once, as we were firing at a target--a practice in which he excelled--he told me that in his youth he had hoped thus to engage himself against a nobleman who had mortally offended him. Unfortunately the man had died before he could carry out his plan. That is the only hint which I ever received as to my father's former life.

"And thus I grew up, exclusively communing with this strange man. The relations between us were as extraordinary as he himself. Although my father did more for me than generally both parents jointly do for their child, and although he apparently lived and suffered only for my sake, I still do not think he really loved me. He was a purely spiritual man. Either his heart had received, at some time or other, a fatal blow from which it had never recovered, or his sentiments had all evaporated into mere notions under the influence of his scepticism. Whatever he did, he did from a sense of duty, from a conviction that it was right; for, as he said himself, Justice is higher than Love; it does all that Love does and a great deal more.

"More, and yet not quite so much," interrupted Franz, "What we do from affection for those we love, we ought to do for others from a sense of justice; that is, from a conviction that the interests of all men are represented in each. Love and Justice stand in the same relation to each other as individual and species. One can not exist without the other, for they need each other mutually. Justice can never teach us all the thousand little acts of tenderness which we lavish upon those we love, as individual love does not aid us any longer when we are called upon to help a brotherhood, a nation, or all mankind."

"You may be right," replied Oswald, "and what you say renders it easier for me to make a confession which I was about to make. I honored my father deeply, but I did not love him; on the contrary, I often experienced, as I only felt clearly in later years, a fear approaching repugnance, when I came in closer contact with the strange man. Now I hardly wonder at it, since I have found out that nature probably never produced two beings more radically different than my father and myself. We were as unlike in body as in mind and in inclination. I loved already, as a boy, with perfect passion, everything brilliant and splendid, and whatever is beautiful in nature and the world of men. I was enthusiastically fond of my schoolmates, who rejoiced in the youthful ornaments of golden locks, red cheeks, and bright eyes. I loved to visit in houses where everything was elegant and in style, after the manner of those days. I attached much importance to my dress, and liked to hear it when women called me a handsome boy.

"You may imagine how little a young fellow with such wants and such inclinations must have suited, as a companion, a misanthropic hypochondriac, whose manner of life he was nevertheless forced to share to a certain degree. For although my father allowed me a certain amount of liberty, which was hardly in keeping with his general views, and although he indulged me in my love of fine clothes and the comforts of life to a degree which I have never been able to comprehend, I knew nevertheless that he was deeply offended by this fondness of mine for a world which he despised. I tried, therefore, very hard, to wean myself from such a life, and succeeded all the more readily in my efforts, as I soon discovered in the solitude, which was at first intensely hateful to me, a source which changes the most desolate desert into a blooming paradise--the Castalian spring of poetry.

"We lived in a small house built against and upon the city wall. The solitary small window from which my room received its light was pierced in the thick wall, so that the whole looked very much more like a prison than anything else; and yet, what marvellously blessed hours I have spent in that room! From my window I had an unlimited view over the wall and the ramparts of the city--upon smooth ponds, lined with beautiful copses of trees--upon rich meadows, with willows scattered over them here and there, far out to the sea, which glittered like a dark-blue ribbon through the green woods.

"Here, at this window, I used to sit on summer evenings, when the sun was setting in brilliant splendor, my heart full to overflowing of chaotic sentiments, and my head weaving thoughts as fair and bright, and, alas! as perishable as soap bubbles! I remember I often wrote verses in bright summer days and in dark autumn evenings, afterwards, while I was sitting in deep meditation over my books, to remind me of the happy days then, which had dropped one by one from the cup of time, bright and brilliant, into the ocean of eternity.

"But why should I any longer attempt to describe to you these relations to my father, which appear only the more enigmatical to me the more clearly I desire to present them to you. If I ever had felt, as a child, true, hearty love for my father, it grew less and less as I became older and more independent. I had to hide in my heart all the feelings, all the tenderness, which we ordinarily lavish upon our mother and brothers and sisters and friends, for I could not feel any confidence in him who, as matters happened to stand, ought to have stood me in place of all of them. The constant intercourse with a mind so sombre and sceptical gave to my mind a coloring which was little in harmony with my sanguine and passionate disposition. I was an Epicurean sitting at the feet of a Stoic, a Sybarite on terms of intimacy with a Cynic philosopher. My exuberant fancy dreamed of the most magnificent worlds, which my cool judgment destroyed pitilessly; I exhausted myself in subtle devices, while my hot blood was filling my heart to overflowing; I sat in my cell and studied dusty old parchments, while my adventurous mind was longing for the marvels of the East and for lofty deeds of chivalry.

"Thus matters continued till I went to the University, when I was nineteen years old. I parted without grief from my father. What he felt at the parting I cannot tell. He spoke to me, when I said good-by, like a philosopher who dismisses his pupil, and recalled to my mind once more all the great principles of his harsh worldly wisdom. The letters which he wrote to me at regular intervals were in the same tone. There were not many of them; for about six months after I had left him I received a letter from the authorities of my native place, in which they dryly informed me of the death of my father. He had left me a little property, the fruit of his long and painful saving; it was just enough to support me in a modest way during my university course, and perhaps some little time beyond that. No will had been found; nor had there been any papers, letters, diaries, or anything which might have possibly given me a clue to the former history of my parents.

"Thus I was standing alone in the world--a young man in years, with the weary mind of an old man. I was far too old for my fellow-students, who looked to me like children at play; and yet I was far too young and inexperienced myself to resist the temptations of a large city, or to wander about in such a Babel without ever and anon losing my way. How could a young man, in whom the current of full youthful life had been so long artificially dammed up, avoid going astray? I became the hero of many an intrigue, of which I was in my heart thoroughly ashamed, as I ought to have been. I was spoilt by the women, and became the innocent victim of many a heartless coquette. I gathered much experience without growing any wiser--the worst thing that can befall a man. And the most remarkable of it all was that I loathed in my heart the enjoyments to which I gave myself up; that my heart yearned after true love at the very times when I wasted it upon women unworthy of such a gift; and that I cherished the most extraordinary plans for the future, while I squandered my strength in senseless amusements.

"A friend, who in those days had some influence over me, rescued me from the whirlpool in which I would have perished sooner or later. He advised me to go to Grunwald. I followed his advice.

"From that moment you know my life, at least in its outlines. You know that I became there acquainted with the unfortunate man whom we are about to visit. You will now also be able to understand why it was utterly impossible for me to resist the charm of Berger's extraordinary character, and how I entangled myself by my intercourse with him only more and more deeply in the thorns and briars of internal conflicts, which finally made my heart bleed to death.

"Berger wished me to go to Grenwitz and to take there a position in a noble family, which suited me about as well as a dove-cote suits a hawk. You have followed me through the great periods of my life there with an observant eye, and at the same time as a philosopher and as a friend. I do not know--and I do not want to know--how much you have seen, how much you have understood, and what may have remained an unexplained mystery for you. A part of these events I dare not touch upon; another part I am in duty bound to leave untouched. When the catastrophe came which you had anticipated, and the frivolous world in which I was living, crushed me--then you stood by me as a friend; you snatched me out of the confusion, and you laid upon yourself a burden which has no doubt made you sigh more than once since. But no! that cannot be! You are as clever as you are wise, and as wise as you are kind. Tell me, Franz, what Odysseus was your father, what Penelope bore you, that Pallas Athene, goddess of wisdom, should always so manifestly have held you under her gracious protection?"

"I believe everything in my life has happened in the most ordinary way," said Franz, laughing. "I pray you will not think I escaped altogether from either Scylla or Charybdis! I have been, like yourself, on the point of despair. What has saved me is the conviction that the world is, after all, but a Cosmos, in which everybody, be he what he may, has to fill his modest place--a conviction which came to me first very dimly, then more and more clearly and distinctly, and finally filled my heart with triumphant certainty. This idea has given me that cheerful calmness without which life would in the end become unbearable. I said to myself: This world, of which you know after all but very little, is such an old, solid, and well-finished edifice that you need not give up the plan on which it was built, even if you should not comprehend it in all its details. This race of ours, which maybe is intended for as many millions of years as we now know thousands, is such a marvellous and unfathomable problem of creative power that you will never come to an end studying it, if you were to live ever so long. Goethe tells us that no man ever possessed art, and I add, no one ever possessed philosophy.

"Starting from this conviction, I determined to find a sense and a meaning in life, and I cannot help saying that my efforts have been crowned with some success. Mistrusting even as a school-boy the results to be obtained from mere speculation, I chose a science which reveals the processes of our soul, as it were, ad oculos--Medicine. I chose it, moreover, because in its practice it brings us advantageously into intimate contact with other men, from whom we hold but too generally aloof--whatever may be said in praise of solitude. He who has once understood the solidarity of all human interests--that fundamental principle of all moral and political wisdom--knows also that his individual existence is but a drop in the vast stream, and that such a drop has no right to claim absolute independence. It would be different if men fell like ripe fruit from the trees. But we are brought into this world through the agony of a mother, in order to be the most helpless of all created beings, entirely dependent on the faithful care of parents; we are then allowed to grow up, if fate favors us, amid brothers and sisters, in order not only to share with them all the joys of life, but also to obtain them by their assistance; and, even later, we cannot enjoy any true pleasure, any delight of our heart, except through others and with others. All this teaches us that we are true children of men, the offspring of this earth, with the right and the duty to work out our life here below upon our inheritance side by side with other children of men, our brethren, who have the same rights, and of course also the same duties, as we ourselves.

"Thus you see, Oswald, the world becomes a Cosmos, and we cease to be mere atoms whirling about in the infinite space without a reasonable government, while nobody knows whence we come and whither we go. The great fault of your life, which it is true you could hardly avoid with such an experience as you had in your young days, is that you have always lived for yourself only and never truly for others. Thus you have drifted into a false position, in which you could not be useful to the world, and the world could not be useful to you. Now, all this will be different. From friendship for me, you have made the sacrifice of taking a step which I know well--and better now than before--must be very painful to your whole nature. But I am convinced you will bless this step hereafter. The trial year which you mean to devote to the college at Grunwald will be in more senses than one a trial year for you. You will see whether you can obtain the hardest of all victories, the victory over yourself--over your own arbitrary, sovereign will. I wish you were, like myself, engaged to some good, sensible girl. That would compel you to work and compel you to struggle, if not for your own interest, at least for the sake of her who is dearer to you--ten thousand times dearer to you--than your own life, and you would see how easy the battle, how easy the victory would be to you."

Oswald made no reply. He felt convinced of the truth of what his companion said, but at the same time he felt painfully ashamed. For the face of truth is stern, and makes him tremble who does not worship it at the cost of every feeling of his own.

Thus they walked side by side in deep silence, until they reached the top of the mountain, where the carriage was waiting. They got in again, and now they rolled in a quick trot down hill towards the little town which was lying at their feet in the bosom of a secluded valley, surrounded on all sides by well-wooded hills, and veiled at this moment by the gray evening mists. It was the end of their day's journey, and for Oswald the place of his destination--a watering-place, called Fichtenau, renowned far and near on account of its charming position, its invigorating baths of spruce leaves, and more recently yet its large and admirably-kept insane asylum, which Doctor Birkenhain, a man of great intelligence and large experience in such matters, had founded there a few years ago.

Oswald's heart was filled with strange sensations as he saw from the corner in which he was leaning back the rocks and the trees flit by, and felt that every step brought him nearer to the place which had occupied his mind during the last months so persistently and so painfully. How unmeaning the name had sounded to him when he first heard it mentioned at Grenwitz as the place where Melitta von Berkow's suffering husband was living! Then he did not know Melitta yet, then he did not anticipate that he would a few days later be enchained by the charms of that beautiful woman. Afterwards he had heard her mention the name, though only rarely, and always with much reluctance, and in his state of boundless delight the place had given him very much the impression with which the owner of a superb, brilliant house looks upon a dark room which he does not like to open, and of which he avoids speaking, because years ago a person who was dear to him had committed suicide there. Then the time had come when Melitta obeyed Dr. Birkenhain's summons and went to see her dying husband--at last the painful, wretched days during which he knew she was at Fichtenau by the side of her unfortunate husband, and when he received from Fichtenau those letters in which every word was a longing kiss. In those days Fichtenau had appeared to him alternately the grave and the cradle of his happiness, as he at one moment fancied Berkow's death would remove all impediments in the way of his marrying Melitta, and then again feared the very same event might forever separate him from her. Then came the fatal day when he found out that the man whom he had from the beginning looked upon as his most formidable rival was with Melitta; when malicious tongues had whispered the most hateful explanations of this fact in his ear, and he, unhappy man, had but too readily listened to these abominable slanders. Alas! he had even then betrayed his own love by his own acts, and, like a ship-wrecked man, who, in order to save himself and his treasures, pitilessly pushes his best friend from the frail plank into the ocean, he had sacrificed Melitta in order to justify his passion for the fair Helen before the tribunal of his own heart! And finally, to fill the cup to overflowing, and to prove as it were to his troubled mind that the whole world was out of joint, and one error more or less did not matter much, the same place must hold both the woman he loved so ardently, who sought comfort for the moments she must needs spend at the deathbed of her husband in the arms of a fascinating roué, and the revered friend and teacher, whose genius, so like a bright blazing torch, had just been extinguished in the deep darkness of insanity! Only a little later death had robbed him of the boy whom he had learnt to love as a brother, and Fate had broken, in a most painful manner, his connection with a great and noble family; then he had seen his rival wounded unto death by his ball, lying at his feet, and separating him forever by this one deed from the beloved girl, from whom a thousand other reasons would, even without this, have compelled him to flee. Was it a wonder that he felt as if the whole earth had no more suitable asylum for him than a cell adjoining that of his friend and teacher in Doctor Birkenhain's famous Insane Asylum at Fichtenau?

Doctor Braun had originally suggested to him this trip for scientific purposes, but now Oswald had insisted upon starting at once, although the former had endeavored to postpone the visit under one pretext or another for some time, and this for good reasons. He had written to Doctor Birkenhain, without telling Oswald, and asked him to give him a minute description of Berger's case. Doctor Birkenhain had replied, that Berger's insanity consisted exclusively in the fixed idea of the absolute non-existence of all things, but that otherwise he was in full possession of all his mental powers, and would have been dismissed from the institution long since but for his own urgent desire to prolong his stay there. Doctor Braun knew perfectly well that under these circumstances a visit to Fichtenau might be extremely dangerous to Oswald's eccentric mind, excited as he was by all that had happened of late. The sight of a madman might have restored him to tranquillity; but the intercourse with a hypochondriac, whose genius shone brightly even in Its aberrations, might possibly only tend to confirm him in his extravagant ideas.

Moved by this apprehension Doctor Braun had postponed the visit to Fichtenau till the end of their journey, instead of going there at first, as Oswald had wished. He had hoped that the frequent intercourse with other men, the beneficent influence of a journey through a beautiful country, brilliant in all the glory of autumn, would bring Oswald back to calmer and more reasonable views of life, and enable him to meet Berger, if not with the superiority of this calmness, at least without danger for himself.

Now Franz saw himself deceived in his hopes. He was by no means pleased with Oswald's excited manner, and would have liked best to turn back, if that had still been possible. He sat casting now and then an anxious glance at Oswald, who, throwing himself back in his corner, looked with fixed eyes upon the little town below, and he determined at least to shorten the visit as much as possible, and to prevent his friend's being alone with Berger while they were there together.

CHAPTER III.

The sun had already set for half an hour behind the broad back of the well-wooded hill, which embraces Fichtenau on the western side, when the carriage left the mountains and rolled down into the plain in which the town is situated. The wearied horses enjoyed the level ground and the easier motion of the carriage, and hastened to meet their good supper of oats. They seemed to gather new strength from the shrill notes of a clarinet which were heard high above the unfailing roll of a big drum, from the midst of a close circle of men on the commons near the town-gate, who surrounded a band of rope-dancers. The road passed close by the place, and as the crowd of curious people had overflowed upon the turnpike, the driver saw himself compelled to drive more slowly, and at last to stop altogether, as the people were not willing, in spite of his scolding and cursing, to give up their vantage ground, and persisted in remaining on the spot, from which they could comfortably look down upon the performance.

The good people thought it naturally quite hard to be disturbed just then, as the wandering artists were at that moment engaged in performing their masterpiece, with which they always wound up the evening's work, so as to dismiss the audience with the most favorable impression.

They had stretched a rope from the little circus to the top of a tall but broad-branched oak-tree which stood upon the common, smaller ropes ran on both sides down to the ground, and were there held fast by stout boys, who had volunteered to perform that service for the sake of High Art. The increased shrillness of the clarinet and the growing thunder of the big drum announced the coming of the great moment when the famous acrobat, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, called the Flying Pigeon, would have the honor to perform, with permission of the authorities, his great feat, admired by all the potentates of Asia and Europe, viz., to fetch down a flag fastened to the top of a steeple four hundred feet high, on the extraordinary path of a single rope, and moreover walking backwards all the time, a feat which he hoped the nobility and the highly cultivated public of Fichtenau would not fail duly to appreciate.

The tower, four hundred feet high, of which the placards at all the street corners had spoken, had changed, it is true, into an oak of perhaps forty feet in height, and the enemies and rivals of the Flying Pigeon--and what great artist is without enemies?--insisted upon it that this change in the programme diminished not only the danger but also the interest of the daring feat. But it was not Mr. John Cotterby's fault, surely, that in the Thirty Years' War the Imperialists had shot to pieces the steeple of the little church on the public square of Fichtenau, which was then held by the Swedes. Nor was he to be blamed if the paternal government had now for two hundred years annually determined to rebuild the steeple, but never accomplished it yet. What could he do, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, if, for want of better times to come, the church on the square was to this day without a steeple? Certainly, if the conscience of the Flying Pigeon was as innocent of every other crime as of this, he could perform his great feat, even with the change of the programme, unblushingly before the potentates of Europe and Asia, and the nobility and highly cultivated public of Fichtenau.

And without blushing--unless the carmine of his rouge should be interpreted as the flush of modesty--the Flying Pigeon now presented himself upon a little scaffolding, hung with soiled linen sheets, to begin his journey heavenward, accompanied by desperate efforts of the clarinet and the big drum, which were at that solemn moment reinforced by the tinkling of a triangle and the squeaking of a tuneless fiddle. He was a handsome, well-made man, and quite young; his dark curly hair was confined by a narrow band of brass, and his whole costume consisted of a suit of stockinet which had long lost its first color of innocent white, and a jacket of the same material, to which on the shoulders two wings had been fastened, which, however, had evidently performed such very hard service that they had lost many a feather on previous occasions.

Encouraging applause greeted the artist and drowned easily the hissing of the opposition; he bowed gracefully all around, with an air which is only found among circus riders, rope-dancers, and other members of that airy guild, while other mortals in vain endeavor to imitate it, and thus to rob them of their exclusive secret. But the applause ceased suddenly, when to the astonishment of the whole audience a huge, shapeless figure was seen climbing after the courteous artist upon the platform, and presenting him, after a hearty slap upon the place between the Icarus wings, with a long slip of paper! The white nightcap, the large blue apron, but above all the enormous, deep-red nose, left no one who was learned in such matters long in doubt as to the nature of the man; they saw at once in him the owner of a beer-shop, or something of the kind, and in the paper an unpaid bill.

The artist would not have been a true artist if he had not been deeply embarrassed by this sudden intrusion of stern reality upon the bright regions of art. There followed a pretty pantomime; the Flying Pigeon shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the place in his stockinet where people with trousers of larger dimensions indulge in pockets, in order to express his very evident inability to pay, and seemed to implore the landlord with much wringing of hands and plaintive gesticulating to have patience. The latter replied, however, as it seemed, only by making fearful faces and by striking his hand with his closed fist, and thus made it very clear that he was inexorably hard-hearted.

The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country looked upon the scene as a very serious affair, and showed their amazement and deep interest in every feature. But the excitement rose to a painful intensity when next, upon a sign from the red-nosed landlord, two fellows with huge moustaches, in blue coats and black tri-cornered hats, came climbing up on the stage, and filled the hearts of the innocent spectators with horror as they raised their arms upon the bidding of injured Justice, and, seizing the unlucky artist with fearful grimaces and gesticulations, bound his impecunious hands behind his winged back.

And now, at this most painful moment in the earthly career of an artist, it was to be shown that the great god Apollo knows how to lead his saints wonderfully out of troubles and trials, and to secure to them the well-earned apotheosis, if not in this vale of tears, at least in heavenly regions.

For, from the thickest of the oak-tree, where the rope had been fastened to a mighty branch, there suddenly appeared the figure of a lovely genius, winged like the Flying Pigeon, with a wreath on the hair and a bright banner in the right hand. This was evidently the flag which Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, usually fetched down from a steeple four hundred feet high, and which he saw himself on this day forced, for want of a suitable tower, to bring down from heaven itself. For was not the winged genius one of the heavenly choirs?

When the messenger from Olympus showed himself so opportunely, the servants of earthly Justice and the wine-colored dispenser of abominable beverages were, as in duty bound, seized with sudden terror. They abandoned their victim and fell with all the signs of deep contrition upon their knees, while the Flying Pigeon relieved himself of his fetters and began to ascend the narrow path that leads to heaven, with all the swiftness and agility which had won such honor for his name and reputation. When he had gone up half-way he knelt down before the heavenly apparition, who had beckoned him on with unceasing waving of the flag, rose to his full height and made there, far above the earth and all earthly fear, a gesture towards his conscience-stricken pursuers, which is universally understood upon the earth. Loud applause and cheerful laughter accompanied the humorous artist up to the very heavens, where the genius handed him the flag, crowned him with the wreath, and then disappeared once more in the branches. Mr. John Cotterby then returned to the stage, where the constables had in the meantime learnt to appreciate the value of the ideal and of the divine nature of art, and now received him with deep bows, while the red-nosed landlord yielded to the impulse of the moment, and with most praiseworthy repentance tore the enormous bill from end to end, thus giving the spectators a comforting assurance that the Flying Pigeon was, at least for the present, safe against all attacks upon his freedom.

The performance was at an end. The generous landlord, who now appeared in the character of manager of the company of artists, alone remained behind on the stage, and in his epilogue promised the nobility and highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country on the next day a far more splendid representation. The audience dispersed very suddenly, for a suspicious ringing of money on tin plates reminded them suddenly of a duty which the ungrateful among the spectators did not hold themselves bound to perform, while many grateful admirers regretted deeply their inability to prove their gratitude.

Nevertheless the majority of those unable to pay were still honest enough to allow the unwelcome plate to come quite near to them, and those who were not kept by honesty remained from curiosity to find out how the genius who dwelt in the branches of oak-trees might look when seen near by. For it was Apollo's own messenger who deigned to make the collection for the benefit of his children upon earth.

The cunning director could not have made a better choice. The genius--it was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl--had a pair of magnificent brown eyes, which looked with such bewitching modesty and so imploringly into every face that the purses opened together with the hearts. Kindly words followed the child everywhere, and one or the other of the well-to-do citizens seemed to think himself entitled by his gift of a few cents to pinch the brown cheeks; but the genius appeared by no means disposed to appreciate the caress.

The driver had been on the point of leaving as soon as the crowd allowed him to pass, but Franz and Oswald, who had followed the drama of the artist's earthly career and his apotheosis with great interest, and now and then with hearty laughter, ordered him to stop till the genius should have made his way through the dense crowd to the carriage. They had not to wait long, for a travelling carriage with two gentlemen inside was surely worth more than a dozen of poor citizens of Fichtenau.

Franz was looking for some small change in his purse when he was startled by a loud exclamation.

"What is the matter?" he asked, looking wonderingly up at Oswald, who had jumped up and uttered the cry.

Oswald did not reply, but leaped with a single bound out of the carriage, and hurried to meet the genius, who no sooner recognized the young man than he dropped the plate with all the silver and copper coins, and fell into his arms.

"Czika, is it really you?"

"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:

"Is the other one there also?"

"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"

"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up the coins that were half hid in the dust.

"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself, mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered pennies.

The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace, more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of this extraordinary meeting.

Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald, who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,

"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."

At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on, and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore, ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard by the bystanders,

"I am a physician, sir. This young man (pointing over his shoulder at Oswald, who was still kneeling down with Czika) is rather eccentric. You understand. Here is something in compensation for the loss he may have caused you."

The man considered this explanation, which was given in a very solemn manner, perfectly satisfactory, since the possible loss was amply made up by the two silver dollars which Franz had slipped into his hand. He smiled cunningly, and said, pulling off his night-cap and bowing low,

"Understand, understand, your excellency. Only pray get him away quickly, so that the Czika can go on with the collection."

"Where are you staying?" inquired Franz.

"At the Green Hat, your excellency. Your excellency will rejoice a poor artist's soul if you will bestow upon him your gracious patronage."

"Well, well," said Franz, and then turning to Oswald, who had risen in the meantime,

"I pray you, Oswald, let us go on now. I know where these people are staying; you can go and see them some other time."

Oswald, who had recovered from his first overwhelming astonishment at finding Czika in such company, now saw very clearly the extraordinary character of his position, and knew too well how sensible his friend's advice was to neglect it any longer.

The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by Franz.

The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper that awaited them in their warm rooms at home.

CHAPTER IV.

It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low, simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength, agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow; how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician (who no doubt was bringing him to Doctor Birkenhain's great institution), and how he had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he was saying, remarked,

"Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on the great meadow."

There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the people of Fichtenau.

The long table in the public room, which was filled with tobacco smokers, could scarcely hold the number of guests, although they were sitting closely enough on the hard benches. At the upper end, especially, the crowd was great, for there the artists sat and drank in the full consciousness of their dignity and the hearty enjoyment of a free treat. The director, Mr. Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, presided as a matter of course. He had laid aside all the insignia of the last part he had played, except a few patches of rouge which still adorned his bloated face; he had taken off his nightcap and the blue-checked apron, together with the pillow with which it was stuffed. He appeared now in the comfortable and elegant costume of a gentleman who has relieved himself of his coat and waistcoat, and who forgets, in the consciousness of his artistic fame and of his broad, richly-embroidered suspenders, that his linen is not of the cleanest. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, who sat on the right hand of his lord and master, had been compelled to make a greater alteration in his toilette, especially since the artistic wardrobe boasted only of a single suit of stockinet, and it was therefore of the utmost importance for him to do all that could be done in order to preserve its delicate whiteness. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, wore a short, gray coat with green trimmings, and would have looked, all in all, far more like a handsome Tyrolese (which was, by-the-by, his real character) than the son of the land of mystery through which the Nile rolls its waves, if the narrow brass band which still confined his dark locks, and the broken German which he composed most artistically for the occasion, had not vouched for his mystic descent. There were two other artists sitting a little further down the table; one a modest, silent, tall man, who took his craft in earnest, and meditated deeply how he might introduce a new feature in his far-famed performance, the Gigantic Cask; the other, the clown of the company, a round, odd-looking creature, who produced a new grimace at every glass which he drank with a new guest, and thus proved the immense stock of those valuable commodities which he owned, since this process of touching glasses occurred on an average every five minutes.

Mr. Casper Schmenckel, director, etc., had been a fine-looking man until the abundance of his potations had injured the fair symmetry of his person, and he loved to recall the many gallant adventures of which he had been the hero, and in which even great ladies, whose eyes had been well pleased with the gigantic proportions of the Hercules, played a prominent part. When Mr. Schmenckel had emptied his third glass he was apt to become eloquent about this heroic age of his life, and tonight he had already more than doubled the mysterious number which loosened the chaste seal on his lips. The young men who pressed around him glass in hand would have fared better, probably, as far as their morals were concerned, if they had not honored the Green Hat on that particular evening with their presence.

Mr. Schmenckel's fancy was exuberant, and where ordinary eyes saw but a number of midges dancing in the air, his rolling orbs beheld a host of elephants. He calculated with incredible boldness upon the credulity of his listeners; above all he endeavored to surround himself and the members of his company with a nimbus of adventurous glory. The accident on the great meadow, which had brought the madman and the Czika into contact with each other, was far too useful for such a purpose not to be fully employed by Mr. Schmenckel. It is true the gypsy and her child had joined his troop quite accidentally a few days ago, as they were making their way across the mountains towards Fichtenau, and Mr. Schmenckel knew as little of their former history as any one in the company; but his imagination was only the more perfectly free to rove at random, and he invented a magnificent story in order to satisfy the curiosity of the guests, who continually came back to the beautiful child and the gypsy woman who had appeared as a dancer in the first part of the performance.

"Yes, you see," said Director Schmenckel, "that is a very mysterious story, and I should be quite ready to tell you all about it, but it is so very incredible."

Mr. Schmenckel dived with his red nose into his beer and slowly absorbed the remaining half, while his eyes twinkled with delight as he looked by turns through the swollen lids at one and the other of his friends.

"Tell us, tell us, Director!" cried half a dozen voices.

"Another bumper for the Director!" cried another half dozen.

"It may be about ten or twelve years," began Mr. Schmenckel, after having diminished the contents of the new glass to a considerable extent, "when I was making a trip to Egypt----"

When he said Egypt all eyes turned to Mr. John Cotterby, who leaned back in his chair and smiled mysteriously.

"What were you going to do in Egypt?" asked a voice.

"May I tell, Mr. Cotterby?" asked Mr. Schmenckel.

"Fideremkankinsavalilaloramei," replied the Egyptian, who could not imagine what his lord and master wanted to be allowed to tell.

"Thanks, Cotterby," said Mr. Schmenckel, "modesty adorns a man, but why should I conceal it that it was on your account I was making that journey? You must know, gentlemen, that the fame of Mr. Cotterby was in those days filling the whole Orient, and that nobody spoke of anything but the Flying Pigeon. I said to myself: You must induce this man, the greatest artist whom the world ever saw, to join your company, as sure as your name is Caspar Schmenckel. No sooner said than done. I went to Egypt, where I was told Mr. Cotterby was then residing, but Mr. Cotterby was nowhere to be found. At last I learnt from an old Dervish who had sold me the talking serpent, which I shall have the honor of exhibiting to-morrow, that Mr. Cotterby was staying somewhere far away in the desert near the pyramids. May I tell why you did so, Cotterby?"

"Framtebaramta! Tell what you wish to tell," replied the Egyptian, with a generous, modest smile.

"Mr. Cotterby, you must know, had retired for some time into the desert, and sworn a fearful oath that he would not again appear in public till he had ascended every one of the pyramids on a rope."

"What are those pyramids?" inquired a voice.

"Pyramids!" said Mr. Schmenckel, dictatorially, "are immense heaps of stone, which the old Egyptians raised in honor of their gods, a thousand feet high, or more, and so steep that a cat can hardly get to the top. On the top there is a pointed stone pillar, called obelisk; to this Mr. Cotterby fastened one end of a rope, while the lower end was held by two thousand black slaves of his, and thus he walked up and down, so that those who saw it felt their hair stand on an end. That was the way I found Mr. Cotterby engaged in the desert, and of course I became more anxious than ever to engage him for our company; but he refused. What was I to do? I had nothing left but to climb at night to the top of the pyramid at the risk of my life, and next morning, when Mr. Cotterby arrived there, to seize him around the waist and to cry: Either you consent to an engagement for three thousand a year, or I send you head over heels down this pyramid, as sure as my name is Caspar Schmenckel. May I tell what you replied, Cotterby?"

The Egyptian nodded assent.

"If you are Mr. Schmenckel from Vienna," said Mr. Cotterby, "you need not have made such an ado about it. I should have come to you any way to Vienna, as soon as I had done with this pyramid. There is only one Schmenckel, as there is only one Cotterby; both ought to be together, like bread and butter. But that was not exactly what I was going to tell you, gentlemen," said Mr. Schmenckel, emptying his glass and holding it up to the light, as if he wished to convince himself that there was really nothing left in it.

"A glass for Director Schmenckel," cried a dozen voices.

"Thanks! thanks! gentlemen! Your health!--but how I made the acquaintance of Madame Xenobia--or Kussuk Arnem, as her true name is. But that story is almost still more incredible, and contains certain episodes which I can only touch upon in the way of delicate allusions----"

"Oh, never mind! Just go on and tell us!" exclaimed the listeners, crowding more closely around him.

"Well, then, I will tell you! A short time after I had thus secured Mr. Cotterby for my company, I was giving a few representations at Constantinople on the great square before the Sultan's palace. He took uncommon interest in our art, and had given us permission to fasten our rope to the uppermost turret of his palace, upon the flat roof itself. Now, you must know that the upper story of this palace contains the rooms of the wives of the Sultan, and on that account it is called the harem. I had always felt the most intense desire to make my way some time or other into such an harem, which otherwise is utterly inaccessible to everybody. And now Cotterby had told me that whenever he came by the top story the most beautiful black eyes in the world were glancing at him through the narrow crevices between the planks, which are nailed over the windows of the harem. What could I do? I say to Cotterby: 'Cotterby,' says I, 'you can do anything. Suppose you take me to-morrow in the wheelbarrow which you carry up and down the rope, and then let me get out on the roof. I must see how things look up there. You can bring me back the same way the day after. Will you do it?' 'Why not?' says Cotterby, 'if you wish it particularly.' The next day the thing is done. I hide myself in the wheelbarrow. Cotterby carries me up to the roof; he turns the barrow over and there I am, on the roof, quite alone, for Cotterby had gone back immediately, so as to create no suspicion. Now you may believe it or not as you choose, gentlemen, but I assure you I felt rather peculiar in that position. How easily the head of a black guardsman might pop out through one of the openings in the roof--and then farewell to my sweet life! But there I was, caught in the trap, and I was determined not to leave again until I had a taste of the bait. While I was still considering what I had better do next, I suddenly hear the rattling of spears and of swords on the staircase which leads up to the roof. It was the Sultan himself, who wished to admire Mr. Cotterby from that elevation. I, in my terror, run up to the nearest chimney which rose out of the roof, creep into it, and--I had not time to think for a moment--down I go some twenty feet deep--and where do you think, gentlemen, I came out again? In the fire-place of the bed-room of the Sultan's first favorite. But here I must ask the pardon of all the gentlemen present if, to spare the honor of a great lady, I can only assure them that the next twenty-four hours were among the happiest which Caspar Schmenckel has ever enjoyed in this life. On the day following, Cotterby brought, as a matter of precaution, a much larger wheelbarrow, and carried me safely down again. We left Constantinople that very night, and from that moment our company was richer by one great artist, and the harem of the Sultan had lost its fairest flower."

Mr. Schmenckel looked around him triumphantly. He could well be satisfied with the impression which he had made by his stories on his audience; they sat there listening with breathless attention. At that moment a lady came running into the room; it was the same one who used to sit at the ticket office, and who attended to all the domestic affairs of the company; she whispered a few words in the director's ear, of which the company only heard one or two, which sounded like "woman--run away." The director did not seem to be pleased with the information. His face darkened perceptibly. He grumbled something about the devil and his luck, and left the table without finishing his glass--a proof that the news he had just received must have been of the utmost importance.

And the news was important, for it amounted to nothing less than that the fair flower, which Mr. Schmenckel had stolen ten years ago with so much daring and such cunning from the palace of the Lord of the Faithful, had been lost again. Alas! he had allowed her to rest ever since on his broad bosom, he had seen the tender bud of the beauteous flower unfold itself under his watchful care, and now both flower and bud had been torn away by a storm, carried off by the deeply-injured Sultan, or at least they could not be found anywhere in their chamber or in the whole house! Mamselle Adele had made the discovery as she was about to invite the gypsy to the common supper of the ladies of the company, which was laid in another room. Mamselle Adele, a lady with an abundance of black curls, the genuineness of which was strongly suspected by envious rivals, a dark face full of energy, and a voice chronically hoarse and rough, informed Mr. Schmenckel of her discovery with that gift of the gab and that dramatic power which is given to ladies who are in the habit of addressing the public from the open steps of a wooden booth. The news was soon confirmed by the result of a thorough search of the whole house, in which he himself took the lead; it fell upon him like a flash of lightning from a clear sky. The escape of the gypsy woman was to him what the death of his best lioness and her cub would have been to the owner of a menagerie. He lost in the mother and child a capital which had cost him next to nothing, and which yet promised to produce abundant interest--the ornament, the glory, the poetry of his establishment. Even Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, might have been replaced more easily. Flying Pigeons are rare, but after all they can be procured; but a genius with such eyes, such deep, brown eyes, with such a kindly, serious smile, that could tempt the stingiest green-grocer to lavish profusion, was not to be found again. Mr. Schmenckel would not have been a man and a director, and above all he would have had to drink, instead of so many glasses of bitter beer, as many gallons of the milk of human kindness, if he had borne such a loss with stoic repose. Mr. Schmenckel was a man, he was a director, he had been drinking beer and not milk--and Mr. Schmenckel gave himself up to fearful wrath. The first explosion fell very naturally upon the bearer of the bad news, especially as Mr. Schmenckel had had full opportunity during the many years of their intimacy to become aware of the jealous temper of this lady, as well as of her other foibles. He accused her in terms which ought t© be impossible even among the most intimate friends, of having compelled the gypsy by her intrigues to seek safety in flight. Mamselle Adele, whose temper was naturally not of the gentlest, and who found herself in this case considered guilty when she was really quite innocent, replied in a tone which betrayed her inner excitement but too distinctly. Mr. Schmenckel belonged to that class of heroic men who, in the consciousness of their superiority--especially when they have drunk deep--allow of no contradiction, and whose proud motto in decisive moments is: "Works, not words." Mamselle Adele no sooner felt the heavy hand of her master upon her cheeks than her burning heart burst forth in flames, and her tongue began to ring the alarm-bell with such loudness and shrillness that the guests inside started up from their seats and hurried to the door, apprehending that some dire calamity had taken place in the hall, where the scene between Mr. Schmenckel and Mamselle Adele was then under way.

The sight of so many uninvited and undesirable witnesses brought the director, who was always anxiously concerned for the good name of his troop, very quickly to his senses; but the poor lady, who saw her honor thus compromised before a great crowd, was exasperated beyond endurance. So far she had only threatened to let the director feel her nails; now she added the act to the threat. The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau, as far as it had assembled at the Green Hat, were unspeakably shocked when they saw the celebrated artist, the hero of so many adventures, the master of the far-famed pyramid-climber, the robber of the Grand Sultan's own palace, in such a state of suffering. Mamselle Adele's attacks did not cease for a moment; they were even carried out with irresistible energy, force, and agility. Some wished to come to the assistance of the defeated general; others laughed and encouraged her; still others, men in blue blouses and heavy hob-nailed shoes, who were regular customers at the Green Hat with their wagons and horses, and bore no good-will to the rope-dancers, because they interfered with their accustomed comfort, spoke loud of "rabble," and "turn them out," a sentiment which in its turn displeased a few enthusiastic admirers of high art. Angry faces, threatening arms lifted high, and curses loud and many, formed a tableau, which in the twinkling of an eye was changed into another, in which even the landlord of the Green Hat, who was leaning against the kitchen door in phlegmatic composure, his pipe between his lips, could no longer distinguish any details. Dense clouds of dust half concealed and half revealed a heap of struggling men, rolling to and fro on the floor of the inn, while everybody was striking out with his natural weapon of the fist, or the artificial weapon of a leg of a chair, against his real or imaginary adversary.

CHAPTER V.

Oswald had been hospitably provided for in the elegant "Kurhaus" of Fichtenau, but he had not been able to resist the desire to visit little Czika that same evening. He hoped to learn from the Brown Countess how they had become mixed up with such strange company, and at the same time to persuade her either to return to Baron Oldenburg, or at least to give up the child to him. He thought he should be able to accomplish by management what the violence of the baron had rendered impossible, and this all the more readily as the Brown Countess seemed to be kindly disposed towards him, and little Czika evidently felt more confidence in himself than in the "other," who was her father. And then there was still another feeling besides the personal interest which he felt in the beautiful child and the gypsy, whom he had first met on that eventful afternoon when he was lost in the forest on his way to Melitta, and who, therefore, had in a manner been the instrument to bring him to Melitta, to say nothing of their subsequent connection with Oldenburg, all of which prompted him to act energetically. He felt the burden of the gratitude which he owed to Oldenburg for his chivalrous assistance at Bruno's death, and in the duel with Felix. He did not like to be under such obligations to a man against whom he had felt a strong antipathy from the beginning, and whom he had afterwards, in the days of his love for Melitta, feared as his most dangerous rival--a man whose determined strength of will had something imposing to him in spite of his reluctance to acknowledge it, and whom he yet accused--heaven knows with what justice!--of duplicity and inconsistency!--a man who had betrayed him all these days in the most humiliating manner, if the relations between Oldenburg and Melitta were at all like what they were represented to be by the Barnewitz family and other friendly spies and gossips. If he could now succeed in rescuing the child whom he had almost given up, and render him the very great service of restoring her to him--then the oppressive debt of gratitude would be paid, he would have acquitted himself of all he owed, and Oswald Stein would have no reason to cast down his eyes before Baron Oldenburg, if fate should ever array them against each other as foes--and the young man apprehended that such a moment might come.

These thoughts and feelings filled Oswald's heart as he followed a servant from the Kurhaus through the silent streets of the town towards the Green Hat, where he had been told by Franz that he should find the rope-dancers. Franz himself had remained at the Kurhaus, as he was too discreet to intrude upon a secret which was apparently kept from him. For when he had laughingly endeavored to explain to his friend how he had managed to interpret, for the benefit of the crowd, the strange scene with the rope-dancer's child, Oswald had remained perfectly silent, and Franz had seen no other way to explain this reticence than by supposing that his companion was either not willing or not at liberty to give any further explanations about the matter. When Oswald, therefore, remarked that it would probably be too late that evening to pay a visit to Berger, he had simply answered: "I think so!" and refrained from offering his company when Oswald, after walking up and down in his room for a quarter of an hour in perfect silence, had at last declared his intention to take a walk in the cool of the evening. Franz adapted himself all the more readily to the fancies of his companion, as he was busily occupied at that moment with his own affairs. He had hoped to find in Fichtenau a letter from his betrothed, but his hopes had not been fulfilled. This disappointment caused him some apprehension, as Sophie generally wrote very punctually, and they had come to Fichtenau several days later than they had originally intended. He consoled himself, however, with the hope that the last mail, which was expected every moment, might yet bring him the much-desired letter.

In the meantime Oswald arrived at the hospitable shelter of the Green Hat at the very moment when it sent a part of the odd crowd that had assembled there that evening through the open house-door into the street, where the conflict in large masses, as it had been carried on in the hall, changed into a fight between isolated groups. For a moment they blazed up, like the remains of an exhausted fire, only to sink the next moment into utter night for want of fuel. Peace was soon restored, for nobody knew exactly why they had been fighting each other with such rage, and there were quite enough closed eyes and bruised limbs for such an intangible cause of war. The excitement, it is true, was not allayed, and there was still a good deal of noise, but it was only the long swell of the ocean after the violence of the storm has been broken. They cursed and swore, they bragged and threatened--but they sat down again and drowned the last remnants of hostility in beer.

Oswald was so anxious about Czika that he had not been so much disgusted with the horrible scene as he would have been under other circumstances. Fortunately he saw neither the child nor Xenobia in the crowd, but the mere thought that they might have been mixed up with such a pandemonium was terrible to him, and he determined to remove them at any hazard. He pushed his way through the noisy fighting crowd, who did not notice him at all, and inquired of the one and the other why they were fighting, and where Xenobia the gypsy was, with her child? No one had time or inclination to answer his questions, until at last he happened to speak to a young man who looked a little less rowdyish than the rest, and who told him that some members of the rope-dancer's troop had run away, a gypsy woman and her daughter, and that this had given rise to a general fight. He pointed out to him a man who was wiping the blood off his face and speaking with most animated gesticulations, intimating that that was the director, and that he would probably be able to tell him all he desired to know.

Oswald felt greatly relieved when he heard this. Xenobia and Czika were gone, and it mattered little where they had gone to, so they were free from this association. He considered for a moment whether he had better return without having anything more to do with the rope-dancers; but the desire to hear more, and to ascertain, perhaps, the place to which the fugitives might have escaped, overcame his reluctance, and he addressed the person who had been pointed out to him as the director.

Mr. Schmenckel was a man of remarkable elasticity of mind, and had readily recovered the imperilled harmony of his soul after the battle, from which he had come forth covered with honorable wounds. As soon as the first storm of his passions had subsided a little, he generally exhibited a high degree of that philosophic resignation which submits with dignity to the inevitable, and makes every effort to adapt itself to the circumstances. Since the gypsy woman was gone, all lamentations about his loss would only make him ridiculous, and it became a noble character to forgive and forget. He pretended, therefore, to ignore the whole occurrence, and treated it as something by no means unexpected. "Ingratitude is the world's reward--easily won, easily lost--to-day it is I, to-morrow it is another. Let us sit down again, gentlemen. Director Schmenckel is not so easily thrown out of gear. We have other means still in reserve to entertain a highly-honored public, and you shall see that the performance which I shall have the honor to give to-morrow--what does the gentleman wish?--you wish to speak to me? I am at your service--a director must be always ready." Mr. Schmenckel followed Oswald, who had asked him for a few moments conversation, very readily, since the circumstance that an elegantly-dressed gentleman came all the way to the Green Hat in order to have an interview with Director Schmenckel, was well calculated to make a sensation.

"What does your excellency desire?" inquired Mr. Schmenckel, when they were in the hall.

"I should be glad if you would give me some information about the gypsy woman, who, I am told, has left your company this evening."

Mr. Schmenckel was startled; the question sounded suspicious. He availed himself of the light of the lamp before the house--for they had reached the street by this time--to examine Oswald's face more carefully, and he now recognized in him the gentleman whom the Czika had embraced. Mr. Schmenckel knew at once how the matter stood. This young gentleman was an immensely rich lord who had a mania for gypsies, and was in the habit of buying up young gypsy children for his amusement. Mr. Schmenckel reflected that the woman might possibly return, and that the greater his claims were upon her, the higher the price he might ask for the child.

"Well," he said, in order to gain time for consideration, "why would your excellency like to know?"

"That does not matter," replied Oswald; "it will suffice for you that I do not mean to leave the man who gives me the information I desire to obtain unrewarded," and he slipped a dollar into Mr. Schmenckel's hand.

"Thanks, your excellency," replied Mr. Schmenckel, whose suspicions were only confirmed by Oswald's liberality, "nevertheless I should like to----"

"But I do not understand why you should hesitate to tell me what little you may possibly know about the woman?"

"Well," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "perhaps it is not so very little I know about her. When one has had somebody thirteen years in the company----"

"But I have met the gypsy only this summer at--never mind, not very far from here, and quite alone."

"That may very well be," replied the cunning director; "it is not the first time to-night that Xenobia has run away, but she has always come back again."

"Thirteen years!" said Oswald, who did not think for a moment of doubting the fable; "how old was the child, then, when she came to join you?"

"How old?" said Mr. Schmenckel. "Why, your excellency, when she came to us, she had no child. I know that, as a matter of course, ha, ha, ha!"

"You?" said Oswald, and he shuddered. "You?"

"Well! why not? Do I look to your excellency's eye as if a pretty young woman could not possibly fall in love with me; and did not this girl, moreover, take wages from me? I can tell your excellency that I have made very different conquests in my time. Has your excellency ever been in St. Petersburg? There is the Princess--but, after all, I am not at liberty to speak as freely of such a great lady as----"

"In one word," said Oswald, scarcely able to restrain himself, "the Czika is your child?"

"I couldn't swear to that," said Mr. Schmenckel, smiling, "but I can take my oath that she might be my child, and that I have always looked upon her in that light."

"And you think the gypsy will come back again?"

"Oh, your excellency may rely upon that; she is never as well off as when she stays with me."

"But why does she run away so often, then?"

"Yes, just think of it, your excellency; women are a strange kind of people," said Mr. Schmenckel, philosophizing, "and the kinder you are to them, the sooner they will play you some trick or other. There is no truth and no faith among them, and especially these gypsies----"

"Very well," said Oswald, who was overcome with disgust, "we will talk about that some other time." And he went away quickly.

Director Schmenckel followed him with his eye for awhile, shook his head, put the dollar, which he was still holding in his hand, in his pocket, laughed and returned into the public room, feeling very happy in the pleasant conviction that he had cheated a greenhorn. Within peace had in the meantime recovered its sway, and the whole company had joined in singing the favorite ballad: "Blue blooms a blossom."

While Oswald was receiving this doubtful information about the true history of poor little Czika from the truth-loving lips of Director Schmenckel, Franz was waiting for his return with painful impatience. The mail had really brought him the long-desired letter from his betrothed, but unfortunately had also confirmed the vague apprehensions which had of late troubled his mind. Sophie wrote in a hand almost illegible from anxiety, that her father had had a stroke of paralysis, from which the physicians feared the very worst. Her father, she added, was at that moment, several hours after the attack, still speechless and unable to move. If there were any hope for her father, help could only come from Him whom she looked up to with trusting confidence and perfect submission.

Franz had formed his resolution instantly. As the driver who had brought them to this place declared he was unable to go any further, he had at once ordered post-horses, in order to reach the nearest railway station that night. To think of his sweet love in such bitter need and sorrow--watching and weeping by the sickbed, perhaps already by the coffin of her father--and he, her comfort and her hope, some four hundred miles away--all this was enough to disturb even so firm a heart as that of Doctor Braun was under ordinary circumstances. He felt as if the ground was burning under his feet. The few minutes before the carriage could be made ready, seemed to him an eternity.

At last he heard the horses coming, and Oswald also returned. Franz told him the sad news he had just received, and what he had determined to do. He begged his friend, in a few parting words, not to prolong his stay at Fichtenau beyond what was absolutely necessary, and above all to be punctually at the appointed time at his post in Grunwald. Oswald had been so thoroughly excited by the many extraordinary occurrences of the last hours that he apparently expected nothing but surprises, and thus he received his friend's communications with an air of indifference. He promised, however, what Franz asked of him, as he accompanied him to the carriage.

"What do you say, Oswald," said Franz, who had already settled himself down in the carriage; "Come along with me! You may find my proposal somewhat extraordinary, but the strangest way is often the best way."

"I cannot do it, Franz," said Oswald. "I cannot leave here without having seen Berger, and besides----"

"I know all you can possibly say on that subject," replied Franz, "and I must tell you frankly that I have no good reason whatever for making the proposition. But I feel as if I ought not to leave you here alone--as if there was something in the air here that boded you no good. Come with me, Oswald!"

"I will follow you as soon as I can."

"Then farewell! Go on, driver!"

Franz once more pressed Oswald's hand. The carriage rattled over the uneven pavement of the little town and disappeared around a corner.

"What a pity the gentleman had to leave so soon," said Louis, the head waiter at the Kurhaus, who was standing near Oswald, a napkin under his arm and a pen behind his ear. "A most pleasant gentleman--would you like to have supper now, sir? You will find very agreeable company in the dining-room, sir."

Oswald went back into the house. If Franz could have repeated his request at that moment, Oswald would not have again refused to accompany him. For since Franz had left him he felt as if his guardian angel had abandoned him, and as if the air of Fichtenau was really laden with mischief.

CHAPTER VI.

On the next morning Oswald awoke late from his broken slumbers, which had been much disturbed by strange haunted dreams. Melitta, whom he had so ardently loved but a short time ago, had appeared to him, her fair, pale face disfigured by sorrow, her brown, gentle eyes overflowing with tears, and looking at him with an expression of ineffable sadness. Thus she had sat by him--her sad, sweet smile on her full lips, which he had so often kissed, intoxicated with love! And Oswald's heart had been overflowing with love and pity! He had forgotten all that had come between her and himself the bad weeds sown by whispering tongues which had grown up to maturity so suddenly, thanks to the fickleness of his own heart; he had forgotten everything except the remembrance of those sunny days of inexpressible happiness. And he had thrown himself at her feet and shed tears, bitter-sweet tears, upon her knees, and stammered words of repentance, and implored her forgiveness. Then an icy-cold hand had been laid on his brow, and as he looked up it was no longer Melitta, but Professor Berger; but not the man of the melancholy humor and the biting satire, who had so often sat opposite to him with his sardonic smile on the mysterious lips when they met at æsthetic teas, but a gruesome mask of wax, motionless and silent. And of a sudden there had begun a quivering and a stirring in the cold, rigid face of the mask, as when one tries to speak and the tongue refuses to serve him; then the mask had actually spoken, not in human language, but in a mystic idiom, of things half intelligible, half mysterious, of unspeakable, fearful things--awful secrets of another world.

Oswald had not been able to endure the horror any longer, and his soul had made a desperate effort to rise from the intolerable twilight into the bright light of day. But the light of day had not brought him the right kind of cheerfulness, for the visions of the night still cast their spectral shadows upon the day. Woe to him whose heart is not clear of sin! Woe to him whose heart conceals recollections, which he drives away with a slight frown, when they obtrude upon him in moments of wakefulness and preparation! He may well see to it. What dreams are coming to him in his sleep?

Oswald spent the whole forenoon in this heavy state of mind. He could not summon courage to undertake the painful task of going to Doctor Birkenhain's Asylum; he postponed the visit till the afternoon, and tried to persuade himself that he would then be in better humor, and better prepared to stand once more before Berger, face to face. He went down to take his dinner at the table-d'hôte, where he found, in spite of the advanced season, quite a number of persons still, who, were either drinking the waters of the place or travelling for their amusement. He sat quietly sipping his wine, and amused himself with listening to the brilliant conversation of some commercial travellers, as it flitted to and fro, touching a thousand subjects, and among them also the escape of the gypsy woman and her child, and the "enormous row" which had arisen in consequence, disturbing the peace of the Green Hat and the nightly rest of a considerable part of the little town. Some of the young gentlemen who had witnessed the exhibition on the great meadow enlightened more recent arrivals as to the beauty of the gypsy, and regretted eloquently the disappearance of that "famous person." The little one, also, was represented as a "famous" thing, with really "famous" eyes. An eccentric Englishman, who had been near the stage, they added, had instantly fallen in love with her, and there was no doubt at all but that this Englishman, of whom no one had afterwards seen or heard anything more, had eloped with the gypsy girl.

Oswald was rather troubled by these authentic reports of the fate of Xenobia and the Czika, and left the table for the purpose of returning to his room. He was naturally less than ever disposed now to call upon Berger, and he had therefore to make a great effort at last to ring for the waiter, and to inquire of him the way to Doctor Birkenhain's institution.

"Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, sir? Quite near by, sir. The best way is through our garden up the hill, then always turning to the left, on the height along the river, until you come to a large house. That is Doctor Birkenhain's asylum. You have perhaps a relation of yours there? We have many people coming here who have relations at Doctor Birkenhain's. Only this summer there was a lady here from your country, who stayed several months at the house. Very beautiful lady, sir, perhaps you may know her; a Frau von Berkow, with her brother, a Baron Oldenburg--very tall gentleman, with a black beard----"

"Is Baron Oldenburg a brother of that lady?" asked Oswald, not without some reluctance.

"Why, certainly, sir. The gentleman and the lady were at least two weeks here, and always together. But the brother had to leave before the lady's husband died--what a misfortune for such a beautiful lady! Will you be back in time for supper, sir? No? But you will certainly stay over night, sir? Oh, I thought so--of course. Nothing else I can do for you, sir? How far is it? Oh, at most, ten minutes' walk. I'll show you the way, sir."

When the loquacious waiter had at last left him, Oswald walked slowly along the path which followed the slope of the low range of hills. On the left hand prattled merrily a clear mountain brook, rich in trout, which gave its name to the town, and flowed evenly beneath tall trees. Here and there the water peeped out from between the dense foliage, but only to disappear again, like a playful child that likes to tease. At one point the brook had been stopped and forced to turn the wheels of a mill. The little vagabond did not seem to like the delay. It poured its waters wrathfully into the mill-race, shook and struck the buckets with all its might, and then rushed off, foaming and pelting, in angry haste.

Oswald sat down on the low railing opposite the mill, and looked wearily into the water, as it played and purled, drawing wide circles and pushing wave after wave. He thought of Melitta, how often she had probably come down this way, hanging on the arm of "her brother," and stopping no doubt frequently at this very spot, whose picturesque beauty could not have escaped her attention.

He felt sad unto death. His feelings boiled within him as the waters did in the mill-race; his thoughts were whirling around like the foam-bubbles on the surface. Was his hatred to be as blind as his love? Was there anything wrong and anything right in the world?--the world to be a cosmos? Yes, for him whose glance was content with skimming the surface, where the waters flowed merrily over the level ground in the shade of beautiful trees--but also for him who sounded the depths, where all was rushing and roaring chaotically? Up! up! to him, the man of sorrow! He had sounded the depths of life, he shall tell me what he has seen there, what masks and spectres, that he should ever after close his eyes in horror and disgust!

Oswald rose and continued his journey; the path became steeper until it led to a large building, which lay at a short distance from the highroad on a moderate hill, amid gardens. Surrounded as it was on all sides by high walls, it looked too much like a castle to be a private residence, and yet too much like a prison also for a castle. It was Dr. Birkenhain's asylum.

Oswald rang the bell by the side of the iron grating, with some palpitation of heart. A window opened in the porter's lodge; the gate-keeper looked out and asked what he wanted. Oswald wished to see Doctor Birkenhain.

"Do you come by appointment?"

"Yes."

"Your name?"

Oswald gave his name.

The man looked at a table, on which the names of those who were to be admitted seemed to be written; then he put his head out again, and said through the small window,

"Go straight across the court to the main entrance; there ring again!"

The gate opened, and closed again when Oswald had entered. He went towards the house across the large court-yard, which was covered with gravel and adorned here and there with groups of trees and shrubberies. On a bench under one of the trees, amidst a group of several persons, sat a young man remarkably well dressed. When Oswald passed him he rose very politely, and taking off his hat and making a deep bow, said,

"I surely have the honor of addressing the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

As Oswald answered No! to the strange question, the young man shook his head sadly, and looking at Oswald with a vacant stare, he added,

"It is very remarkable! the emperor had promised me solemnly to come for me this summer; and now the summer is nearly gone and the emperor has not come yet. I shall have to wait till next summer. But then he will be here most certainly. Don't you think so?"

"I do not doubt it for a moment," replied Oswald. A faint ray of joy flashed across the pale face of the unfortunate man. He bowed again, put on his hat, and went back to his seat on the bench.

Oswald went to the front door, rang the bell, and a servant who appeared at the summons opened the door for him and showed him into a parlor. Then he took his name, and begged him to wait a few moments. Doctor Birkenhain would be in directly.

It was a handsome, lofty apartment. A few excellent oil-paintings hung on the walls; antique heads and busts stood about on brackets, the Apollo Belvedere, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Ludovisi Juno; upon the centre-tables lay books and portfolios with engravings. All breathed the highest kind of enjoyment, and nothing reminded the visitor that he was in a house of disease and death.

After a few minutes the door opened and Doctor Birkenhain entered. Oswald had of course formed to himself some idea of the man who had recently become so very important to him, and was grievously disappointed when he found that there was not a feature of his portrait in the man before him. He had imagined Doctor Birkenhain to be a venerable old man, full of dignity and gravity, and now he found himself standing before a man little older than himself--he had surely not passed his thirtieth year--tall and thin, with spare, light-brown hair and carefully-trimmed moustache and beard, a pale face of a sickly, sallow color, a lofty brow, and large light-blue eyes, in which one could instantly see that they were accustomed to read the hearts of men, and whose intense piercing sharpness became after awhile almost unbearable.

Doctor Birkenhain greeted Oswald with due politeness, and then expressed his regret that he should have been deprived of the pleasure of making Doctor Braun's acquaintance, whom he had wished to congratulate upon having secured to himself a place among the first physicians of Germany by his admirable treatise on typhus. Then he added:

"I have looked forward to your visit with the greatest interest, because I hope great things for Berger from the effect of your meeting with him. I know through Mr. Bemperlein, and also from Berger's own lips, that you are the most intimate friend, and, so to speak, the favorite, of the unfortunate man--that you were so at least before the breaking out of his disease. If anything can succeed in reviving once more the interest in life which has been almost entirely extinguished in Berger, it is love--not the universal love of mankind, which is only another kind of egotism, but the special love for a single individual, with whose joys and sorrows he can heartily sympathize. Love is the most vigorous of all feelings; it resists annihilation better than any other and outlives all others. The greatest psychologist who ever lived, and to whom we physicians are deeply indebted, Shakespeare, makes Lear say to the fool shortly before insanity overwhelms him: 'I have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee.' This one part of the heart is the sound part, where the cure must begin, and so it is with Berger. I beg, therefore, you will try to interest Berger by all means in your own fate. Tell him all about your plans and purposes, your hopes and your wishes--about your joys and your sorrows; speak to him especially of your griefs, if you have any--and you will pardon such an indiscretion in a physician--I think your confidences will be particularly ample in that direction. You smile! Well, perhaps I am mistaken, and what I thought I read in your face is the result of mere bodily uneasiness, and not of mental suffering; but, however that may be, do not conceal from Berger the shady side, and even the night side of your life. On the contrary, complain--and the more impressively, the more painfully, you can do that, the better--only mourn and grieve like a sick man, who longs after health like an imprisoned bird that yearns after freedom. The sufferings of those we love are a thousand times more touching to us than our own, and the burden which Berger hardly feels in his own case will appear to him unbearable when he sees it on the shoulders of one who is dear to him. For, I repeat it, that is the only way to approach such a man. He is too deep a thinker, too subtle a philosopher, not to be clad in impenetrable armor against all reasoning. If you prove to him the dignity and usefulness of life, he meets you with ten arguments which prove the contrary; and if you split a hair, he splits each half over again. On the other hand, you need not fear that he will involve you, as formerly, in long philosophic discussions. The science which was once his delight, is now a horror to him; he will hear nothing of it and see nothing. And now, one thing more: how long do you propose staying in Fichtenau?"

"Four or five days at most."

"Very well; I was just about to ask you not to extend your visit beyond that. The purpose is to make a deep impression upon Berger; and after the pleasure he will feel at seeing you again, he must experience the pain of parting so soon. Perhaps we may thus lure him back into the world, from which he now turns away in disgust."

"Has Berger been made aware of my arrival?"

"No. I wished to profit even by the surprise. I shall not go with you, so that there maybe nothing to diminish the surprise. You can tell me afterwards how he received you. He generally takes about this time a walk in the mountains, which he occasionally extends into the night. I give him perfect liberty, as any restraint would only be injurious. You know, besides, that his coming here was his own wish and resolution. Go with him when he takes his walk; heart opens to heart more readily under the great dome of heaven than under the ceiling of a room."

"One thing more," continued Doctor Birkenhain, as they were rising. "You will find Berger much changed in appearance; try to influence him in that direction also, though of course you will have to use your discretion. Such apparent trifles are of great importance; a missing glove-button may make a dandy lose his composure, and we have a different temper in our dressing gown and in evening dress. Now let us go, if you like; I will show you the way to Berger's door."

The two gentlemen went from the reception room across the hall, with its tessellated floor, up the wide stone steps, through lofty, airy passages.

They were met by several persons whom Oswald would not have taken for patients if Doctor Birkenhain had not told him so; they gave such sensible answers to the casual questions of the physician.

"This wing is for the slightly-affected patients," said Doctor Birkenhain; "as it is such fine weather most of them are in the garden or in the court-yard. How do you do, counsellor?"

"Thank you, doctor," replied an exceedingly corpulent, good-looking man, whom they met passing with a watering-pot in his hand, "thank you, I should be perfectly well, if----"

The counsellor cast a glance at Oswald, and then came quite close to the doctor, whispering something in his ear, of which Oswald could only catch the words, "bundle of hay"--"in my side." "Oh, that matters very little," replied Birkenhain, in a tone full of confidence, which sounded as if it must have been inspiring to the greatest hypochondriac; "we'll soon settle that." The patient gratefully shook hands with his physician and went on, evidently quite comforted and delighted with the probable victory over his imaginary ailment.

"I wish Berger's case were as easy as that man's," said Doctor Birkenhain, as they were walking down the long passage; "but pills and ointments have no effect on his complaint. Here we are; now you go to the end of the passage, and the last door to the left is Berger's room. I am very curious to hear what you will have to tell me. Will you dine with me to-morrow? I shall take great pleasure in presenting you to my wife. At three o'clock. Will you come? Au revoir, then!"

Doctor Birkenhain shook hands with Oswald and went into one of the rooms which they had passed. Oswald went alone to the end of the passage, full of the deep impression which the man who had just left him had made upon him, and at the same time very much troubled about the part which he was to play. He was to help Berger to recover his interest in life, and he had himself lost all such interest! Was he not of all men the least fitted for such a mission? And yet he had accepted it! He must fulfil it!

Oswald came to the door which had been pointed out to him. Upon the brown panel was something written in chalk, and evidently in Berger's hand:

"Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate."

Oswald shuddered as he read it. He remained standing undecided before the door, and it was some time before he could make up his mind to knock. He listened to hear if anything was stirring within; he heard nothing. At last he summoned courage and knocked with a strong hand. As no answer came, he knocked still louder; again no answer. A great fear overcame him; he hastily opened the door and entered the room.

CHAPTER VII.

Oswald need not have feared. Berger was sitting in the centre of the darkened room, all the curtains being closed, before a table covered with books. He was resting his head in both hands, and seemed to sleep, for he did not stir even when Oswald stepped up close to the table. Oswald did not dare wake him. He remained standing by the table and looked at the poor sufferer, his eyes filling unconsciously with tears. What havoc these few months had made with the face once so proud, so full of energy; the dark curling hair was grizzled; the massive brow, hewn apparently out of the live granite, appeared even more powerful and imposing, thanks to the increased baldness at the temples. A full beard, formerly an aversion to Berger, now flowed, silver-gray, from cheek, lips, and chin, so that the end nearly touched the table. His hands, once so plump and carefully kept, had become so thin, so transparent! And what a costume! A blue smock-frock, instead of the black coat which was never allowed to show a particle of dust; a coarse, ill-fitting shirt, instead of the fine, dazzling white linen upon which he formerly insisted. On the table a worn-out slouched hat and a stick, which had evidently not long ago formed part of a hedge of thorns, in place of the smooth silk hat from Paris, and the clouded cane with its gold head! If the outer man could change to such an extent, what a revolution must have taken place in the lowest depths of the soul!

Berger stirred. He raised his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Oswald. His eyes were deep and clear, and looked larger than usual; he did not start nor betray astonishment, wonder, or fear, at the unexpected sight.

"I had but just now dreamt of you, Oswald," he said, rising, with a low voice, from which all former sharpness and energy seemed to have departed.

Oswald could restrain himself no longer. He sobbed aloud and threw himself into Berger's arms. Now only, lying on the bosom of this man, he felt all his sufferings fully, as he thought; now only, in the arms of this man who had endured so much, he fancied he need not be ashamed any longer of the tears which his heart had bled when his eyes refused to weep.

Berger held him in his arms, as a father holds his son who comes home from a far country in which he has fed with the swine.

"Weep on," he said, "weep! Tears relieve a young, overflowing heart. When I was as young as you, I wept as you do; now my eyes have forgotten how to weep."

"Berger, dear, dear Berger!"

"I knew I should see you again. I expected you long ago. I did not think you would stand it so long in the great desert outside. Weep on! Tears are the price with which we buy our souls back again, when we find what a wretched bargain we had made before we knew better. Ere we give up life we have to learn that it is better not to live. Some learn that sooner, others later. Be glad that you are one of those who during the bitterness of the Sansara have already a foretaste of the sweetness of the Nirvana."

He left Oswald, and took his hat and cane from the table.

"Come!" he said.

Oswald was so deeply moved by this scene that the recollection of Berger's odd costume only suggested to him the conviction how utterly impossible it would be to speak to such a man of such things. He would as lief have reminded a mother who was weeping over the body of her child of some defect in her toilet, a bow out of place, or a ribbon which had come loose.

They passed through the long passages, down the broad stone staircase and out into the court-yard. As they went across the latter, the young man who was sitting on the bench came up to them and repeated the question which he had before asked of Oswald:

"I certainly have the honor to address the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

"No!" replied Berger, "The emperor is not coming; you may rely upon it."

"Is not coming!" repeated the young man; and his pale face became still paler, and his eyes wandered restlessly to and fro; "is not coming! how do you know that?"

"Because, if he should come it would not be for your happiness, as you imagine, but for your final ruin. Why do you wish him to come? To bring you gold, which you will gamble away? and jewels, which you will lavish upon your mistresses; to afford you the means of continuing a life which you ought to thank God on your knees you have escaped from--if you believe in any God? What appears to you a star of promise, is a will-o'-the-wisp from the moors. Do not trust in its glimmer--it lures you hither and thither, and each time deeper into the moor. Turn resolutely back from it! I tell you once more, the emperor is not coming! and it is fortunate for you that he does not come!"

"Do you know his majesty so intimately?" stammered the young man.

"Very intimately," said Berger, and a peculiar smile played on his features, "only too intimately. I also was misled by his majesty. You expect from his promise money and lands. I was promised--never mind what; and thus he promises everybody something else, in order to fool and trick everybody. The conviction that his majesty's promises are nothing but wind--that is the beginning of wisdom, and the last conclusion of wisdom into the bargain."

Berger had uttered the last words with a suddenly-sinking voice, as if he were speaking to himself. He paid no further attention to the young man, who was standing there, hat in hand, with an indescribably sad face. Nor did he seem to notice Oswald, who followed him silently, and most painfully affected by the touching scene.

Berger apparently felt what was going on in his companion's heart, for they had left the gate which was opened to them without delay, and found themselves on the turnpike, which followed first one bank, and then, after crossing the river on a bridge, the opposite bank, rising higher and higher into the mountains. He suddenly broke his silence and said,

"You are wondering why I did not treat the poor fellow more tenderly, instead of destroying so rudely his absurd illusions? This apparent cruelty was in reality a great kindness."

"Who is the unfortunate man?"

"A Count Mattan, from our country. He has spent during the last few years a fortune of half a million in senseless extravagance. Now he hopes for the fabulous emperor, who is to restore to him all his losses."

"But if your robbing the young man of his last consolation should deprive him of the last feeble remnant of sense----"

"You speak like Doctor Birkenhain. It makes me laugh to see how these optimists blindly try to arrest the power which drives man irresistibly into destruction, like children who try to stop a river with their little hands. My study here is the observation of this peculiar struggle, which would be grand if it were not so ludicrous. These doctors move in the dark, as if they were playing blindman's buff, and think they have cured the disease when they have gotten rid of the symptoms. They do not know, they do not even suspect, that life itself is the shoe that pinches, the garment of Nessus which burns our living body--and that to pull off this shoe, to throw away the garment, is not only the best but the only remedy by which we can escape the wretchedness of existence."

They had left the highroad and reached a clearing in the forest, which was thickly overgrown with moss and heather. Before them was a view over the tops of pine trees into the plain from which they had ascended, and far into the land of hills; behind them the forest extended upwards. It was quiet, perfectly quiet, around them. Long white gossamer floated through the thin, clear air. The flowers were gone; the birds had forgotten their songs, the locusts their chirping; summer itself had died, and Nature sat in silent grief by the corpse. Even the autumnal sunshine had something sad in it, like a widow's smile; the blue of the sky was sickly, like the tearful eye of a mourner.

Berger had seated himself on the low stump of a tree, and Oswald lay down close by him on the thick heather. In this silence of the forest, which reminded him so forcibly of the woods of Berkow and Grenwitz, and of the painfully sweet days he had spent there, he felt that irrepressible impulse to speak which at times overcomes us all of a sudden. As the Catholic is moved to whisper his deep-hidden secrets into the ear of the priest, his personified conscience, so Oswald felt impelled to confess to the unhappy man by his side, in whom he had ever seen another self, all that he had experienced, tried to obtain, suffered and sinned, during these last eventful, fatal months. He did not think of Doctor Birkenhain's suggestion to interest Berger by all means at his command in his own fate, and thus to play the part of the physician to his patient. Was he not a very sick patient himself? But, whatever might agitate his heart--the man by his side had suffered worse things; what, he hardly dared confess to himself--the man who was wandering with lowered head in the dark labyrinth of his soul, and could find no way to light, he could hear all, all. And thus he told him, first hesitatingly, then with animation, with passionate excitement, all he had to tell: his love of Melitta, his love of Helen, his friendship for Bruno, and how jealousy and sickness of heart had robbed him of the one, and strange circumstances and death of the other.

Berger had listened in silence, supporting his chin in his hand, and looking with his large eyes fixedly at the distance, without once interrupting Oswald. At last, when the young man wound up with the painful complaint "Why did you send me into this troublesome world? Why did you let me wander about so long in this darkness?" Berger raised his head, turned his eyes towards him, and said slowly, thoughtfully,

"Because you had to learn this also; because, as long as you were with me in Grunwald, you still believed in that great falsehood which we call life; because the pride with which you insisted upon its being a truth had to be broken. I have led you the shortest and safest way to wisdom. I knew you would allow yourself to be dazzled by false splendor; I knew you would hasten with beating heart, with parched tongue, through the lonely, white sand of the desert, towards the blue lake with the wooded shore, which drew back further and further as you thought you were coming nearer, until you would at last break down, cursing your sufferings and your existence. Be joyful! You have gone through with it; you have finished your first and hardest course in as many weeks as it took me years. You have opened your eyes and looked at what was there, and behold! it was not good! The value of life, the purpose of life, has become doubtful to you. You have begun to understand that the assertion of superficial optimists: Life is the purpose of life! is hardly correct--unless one could find satisfaction in striving after a purpose which can never be accomplished, or which, if it be accomplished, is worth nothing. You have seen how indissolubly untruth, stupidity, and vulgarity are interwoven with truth, honesty, wisdom, and majesty. This knowledge, which only the brutalized slave, grinning under the lash of the driver, receives with indifference, but which saddens noble hearts unto death, is the beginning of wisdom, the entrance to the great mystery."

"And the great mystery?"

Berger made no reply; he looked again with fixed eyes at the distance. Oswald dared not repeat his question.

Deep silence all around. Silently the light gossamer floated through the clear air; silently the evening sunshine wove its golden net around the heather and the dark-green tops of the pine-trees.

They sat thus speechless side by side--silent and sad, like two children lost in the woods. But while the one, who had wound up his life, and who was fearfully in earnest with his contempt of the world, suffered himself to sink deeper and deeper into the abyss of his grief, the young, fresh vitality of the other struggled mightily towards light and air.

"What is this in me which rouses me at this very moment, when I least expected it, to oppose your wisdom?" he inquired, looking up at Berger. "My reason tells me you are right, but my eye drinks with delight the beauty of this evening landscape; drinks it down into the heart, and there, in my heart, a voice whispers: 'The world is so fair, so fair! and even if life makes you suffer bitter things without end, it is still sweet.' Tell me, Berger, did you ever love with all the strength of your heart? and can love die, as the summer dies, and the flowers, and the warm sunlight?"

Berger smiled--it was a strange, weird smile.

"Did I ever love?"

He cast down his eyes, and took off with his stick a piece of the thick crust of moss at his feet.

"What good does it do," he said, "to lift the veil which so many years have spread over the past? You see what is below--decay and destruction."

"And yet," he said, after a pause, "it is but right you should learn that also. Hear, then:"

"It is now thirty years. I was then at your age, but without having made your experiences; clinging to life in full, unbroken strength, and thinking it as sweet and precious as a love of my heart. If ever man was enthusiastic about liberty and beauty--about all those fail fancies with which we try to beautify our miserable existence here, and to hide its wretched hollowness--if ever man was raving about those bloodless images which we call ideals--I was that man. In my madness I fancied that eternal bliss might be won even here below wherever men were living in a free country. I believed in my native land, and sealed my faith with my blood on the battle-fields of Leipzig and Waterloo. I returned full of burning zeal to complete the great work. But before I could undertake to heal the wounds which my country had received during the war, I had to think of healing my own wounds. They sent me, when I recovered, to Fichtenau.

"In those days Fichtenau was not what it is now. There was no Kurhaus then, and no asylum for the insane; nevertheless the town was always full of visitors, for the poetic halo with which the great men of Weimar had surrounded these valleys attracted the crowd. I kept aloof, and lived only for my health and my studies.

"I boarded in the house of an old schoolmaster with whom I had become acquainted, and whose friendship I cultivated because he possessed quite a large library, and books were not so easily accessible then, especially in this remote part of the world. But the old gentleman possessed yet another treasure, besides his library--a most beautiful daughter. The daughter soon became more interesting to me than the library. You asked me if I had ever loved with all my heart. If you had known Leonora, and seen how high and how powerfully my heart then beat, you would not have asked me that question.

"It was a summer day--a marvellously beautiful summer day. We had gone out into the woods after dinner--a mixed company--young and old. We lay down on the swelling moss in the shade of the pine-trees. How my eye dwelt upon her graceful form as she did the honors of the company with merry modesty; how my ear drank in the tones of her silvery, sweet voice! It was the old song of the sirens, which was heard thousands and thousands of years ago, and which will yet be heard thousands and thousands of years hence--till the time is fulfilled.

"After the coffee we strolled about in the forest--in groups, by pairs, as accident and inclination brought it about. I had followed Leonora, who was gathering a bunch of wild-flowers. I helped her, although I did not know much of these things, and was often laughed at by the teasing girls on account of my odd selection. She however became more and more silent the deeper we went into the wood and the further we left the others behind. As she became more silent and anxious, I grew more animated and pressing. Her silence and the blush on her cheeks told me what I had long since desired in secret, what I had prayed heaven to grant me, and what I had yet never hoped to obtain.

"Then we stepped out upon this clearing. The same mountains which are there lying before us looked as blue to us, and the same sun which looks down from heaven now poured a dazzling light lavishly down upon us. And the golden light shone brightly on her dark, curling hair, and played upon her round, white shoulders; and here, on this very place, we fell into each other's arms and swore each other eternal love, amid hot kisses and hot tears.

"The stump on which I am now sitting was then a tall, slender, powerful pine-tree, and I was young and slender, and full of exuberant strength. The tree has been cut down and burnt in the fire; I--I have become what I am----"

Berger paused and stirred up the moss at his feet with his cane. Oswald looked with reverence at the unfortunate man; but he dared not speak, nor even seize Berger's hand, which was listlessly hanging down by his side. Lofty calmness rested on Berger's face; not a gesture betrayed what was going on in his heart; but he did not look like one who requires sympathy or expects sympathy.

"Not at once," he suddenly continued--"the strength within me was great and could only be broken by piecemeal. I spoke, after our return home, to the old gentleman; he liked me and was heartily glad to see our affection. A few days later I returned to the University in order to resume my studies, which the war had interrupted. I studied with increasing diligence, for my thirst of knowledge was hardly less of an incentive than my desire to be able as soon as possible to carry Leonora home with me as my wife. I therefore went only rarely to Fichtenau, and then stayed only a short time to sun myself in Leonora's love, and to return to my work with new courage and new strength. But I had another lady-love, whom I worshipped with no less ardor--Liberty. I shared that passion with many other noble young men. We did not mean to have shed our blood on the battlefields in vain; we were not willing to become the prey of so many jackals and wolves, after we had successfully overcome a lion. But the jackals were on their guard, and the wolves broke in our fold.

"I had been engaged in teaching for a year; I had prepared everything for the wedding; the day was fixed; I was counting the days and the hours. Suddenly, one night, I was seized in my bed by armed men. My papers were sealed up; and the next night I slept in a casemate of a fortress.

"Or, rather, I did not sleep--I was enraged, I was maddened; my hands bled from my efforts to break the bars of my cage. Gradually I consoled myself with the hope that this captivity could not last long, and Leonora--well! she would bear her hard lot like a heroine. A second Egmont, I saw freedom and my beloved hand in hand. Through night to light! Through battle to victory! That was the mystic word with which I tried to frighten back the serpent-haired monster. Despair, when it was pressing upon me and about to strike its fangs into my heart. The mystic word had ample time to prove its power. I remained in prison for five years!

"You may imagine if my faith in the so-called divine nature of the world's government was shaken during this time, which I measured by the beats of my heart, and the drops which fell, one by one, from the damp ceiling of my cell. But, I told you before, my strength was great, and I was sternly determined to live. I had heard, to be sure, in the silent nights which saw me tossing restlessly upon my hard couch, the great word that releases us, but I had understood it only half, and perhaps not quite half. I had but just begun to spell the letters in my long apprenticeship; life itself was to be my school, before I should be able to read it fluently.

"I had scarcely been set free when I hastened to this place--you may imagine with what feelings! In the beginning of my captivity I had received one or two letters from Leonora, in which she conjured me to endure patiently, and to remain faithful, appealing to the God to whom she was hourly sending up her prayers for my release. Her letters had become rarer, and after about two years none had come any more. That was my greatest sorrow; but I always believed that it was the cruelty of my jailors which denied me this consolation, and I ground my teeth and cursed my tormentors.

"I had done them injustice.

"It was far in the night when I reached Fichtenau. I drove directly to the familiar house. I jumped from the carriage and pulled the bell. A window was opened up-stairs; an old woman looked out and asked what I wanted? I inquired after the schoolmaster. 'He died three years ago,' was the curt answer. 'And where is his daughter?' 'You must ask the great gentleman who eloped with her three years ago,' said the woman, and shut the window with violence. I stood thunderstruck. Then I laughed aloud; but I was silenced by an intense pain in the heart--for, Oswald, I had loved Leonora.

"I never knew how I reached the inn. Late in the night I roused the good people from their slumbers by my wild laughing and furious raging. They broke open the door of my room--I was in full delirium. The air of the prison had affected my health, and the fearful blow, finding me utterly unprepared, had shaken the weakened edifice to the foundation. I struggled four weeks for my life, but I clung to it fiercely, and Death had to give up its prey. Woe to me! That death would not have been the ordinary death to me--it would have restored me to life! If I should die now I would die for ever!"

Oswald shuddered. What was the meaning of these mysterious words: "Die forever!" Did they contain that great mystery which was yet hidden from him by a thick veil?

"My convalescence," continued Berger, "lasted long, for my strength had been utterly exhausted. I crept through the streets of the village, leaning on a stick, and rejoiced to find that I could climb, day by day, a few steps higher, until I succeeded at last in reaching this spot here--the scene of an oath, which I had fancied to be sworn for eternity, and which had passed away with the breath of her lips. I came every day here to weep over my lost happiness, and to quarrel with Heaven who lets his sun shine upon the unjust, and hurls his lightnings at the just. For I was, like King Lear, a man more sinned against than sinning. I had meant well and faithfully in all I had hoped and striven for in life. I had loved my native land as a child loves its parents, with a simple, believing heart; and in return it had made me suffer five years in a dungeon. I had loved Leonora with every drop of blood in my heart; and in return she had betrayed me. Up to that moment I had so lived in the world that I could face all and say: Who can accuse me of a sin?--and yet! and yet! I racked my brain to solve the mystery. I had never yet understood fully that life itself is the great sin, from which all other sins flow necessarily, as the stone, once set in motion, must roll inevitably down the precipice. Thus only I gradually comprehended that He cannot be a God of love who created and still creates a world in which the sins of the fathers are punished down to the third and fourth generation--a world, the whole government of which rests on the fearful Jesuitical principles that the end sanctions the means. So far I had always tried to find out only what was good in the world and in men; now my eyes had been opened by sore sufferings for the sufferings of my fellow-beings. I now saw how every page of our history bears the record of some fearful deed that makes our hair stand on end, and our blood curdle in our veins; I saw that there is a dark corner in every man's heart which he never dares look into; that no man yet has lived who did not wish once in his life that he had never been born; I saw that the life of countless multitudes is nothing more than a desperate struggle for existence; that sickness and sin, repentance and sorrow, undermine our life most thoroughly and eat their way to the core like worms in ripe fruit; that at best our pleasures are a dance upon graves--that, if life really ever was precious, death, inexorable death, is forever scorning and scoffing at this precious life. And I looked around on nature, in which poets see an idyll, and I found that it was either dead and insensible, or, when it does feel and sympathize, only repeating the bloody drama of human existence in a ruder and more shocking form. I saw that the different races of animals are engaged in fierce, implacable warfare against each other, uninterrupted by a moment's peace, and that their wars are carried on with a cruelty by the side of which even the most refined tortures of the Inquisition appear at times very harmless proceedings.

"And whilst I thus tore the gay rags to pieces, under which cowardice and stupidity try to conceal the wounds and sores of society, there arose in my heart a feeling which I had not known before--hatred. It was only my love in another form, although I tried to persuade myself that I had forgotten the faithless one; it was only another expression of my fondness of life, although I had fancied that I had forever closed my account with life. When we really give up life, we know nothing more of love or hatred.

"At that time, however, I did hate. Passionately as I had loved, my whole being was concentrated in the one, burning desire to be revenged. Revenge! revenge! on him! on her!--this was the cry of a voice within me, which I could never silence again. They all knew my misfortune in Fichtenau, and felt for me with that cheap sympathy which is composed of delight in scandal and the pleasure we take in the failures of others. They told me, unasked, all that was known about Leonora's flight.

"About the time when my letters had first failed to come to me, a young Polish count had arrived in Fichtenau and taken the rooms in the old schoolmaster's house which I had occupied. Soon the whole town had been full of him, of his beauty and his wealth. They had teased Leonora about her handsome lodger, but she had rebuked all such jests on the part of her young friends with great indignation. Soon, however, they no longer dared to say openly to her what they thought about her relations to the young count, but only whispered it about with bated breath that they had been seen together late at night at such and such places, and that the gold chain which she was now wearing had not been in her possession before. And then came a day on which they had no longer whispered, but proclaimed aloud in the streets, that the schoolmaster's Leonora had eloped the night before with the handsome count, and that her poor old father, a confirmed invalid, had been so deeply affected by the news as to be dangerously ill. A few days later the old man had really died. Of Leonora nothing had been heard since that night.

"Fortunately the name of the count was well known, and that was all I desired in order to carry out my plan of revenge. I took what little remained of my fortune and began my travels--first to Warsaw. There the count was very well known; they described him to me as a profligate young man, who made it the business of his life to seduce beautiful women. An acquaintance added, that he had seen him about two years before in Venice in company with a beautiful lady, who might have been Leonora from his description.

"I went to Venice. There also he was well remembered; he had lived there several months and had then moved to Milan. From Milan they sent me to Rome. There I met with a friend of my youth, a painter. He had seen the count and Leonora very frequently, and pitied the poor girl long before he knew that she had ever been dear to me. He told me that the count had treated her very badly, and laughingly told everybody that no one could do him a more valuable service than by relieving him of this burden. Then the painter hesitated and declined to say more. I conjured him to tell me all, assuring him that I was prepared to hear the worst. At last he yielded, and told me that after some time the count had really found a successor in the person of a French marquis, or at least a pretended marquis, who had taken Leonora with him to Paris. This had occurred about a year ago. The count was said to be living in Naples. I went to Naples, with my friend the painter. I had told him my purpose to have my revenge. He thought it would be very difficult, since the count was as cunning and brave as he was dissipated and cruel. But when he saw me firmly bent upon my purpose, he offered to accompany me. I accepted the offer; for the painter had many acquaintances among the great men of the world, and could introduce me into the circles frequented by the count, to which I would not otherwise have found access.

"We reached Naples. The count was still there, the spoilt pet of the women and the horror of fathers and husbands. The painter succeeded without any trouble in introducing me in good society. For some time chance seemed to defeat every effort I made to meet the count at one of the parties where he was expected. At last I met him at a great soiree given by the Russian Minister. I saw him standing in the centre of a group of ladies and gentlemen, and could not deny him the praise of really superb beauty and an almost irresistible charm of manner. I approached the group, with the painter by my side.

"'Count,' said the painter, 'Doctor Berger, of Fichtenau, desires to make your acquaintance; permit me to present him to you.'

"At the mention of Fichtenau the count had turned pale, and changed countenance in such a manner that all the by-standers were struck by it.

"'I shall not detain you long, count,' said I, stepping forward, 'I only desire to learn from you the present place of residence of that young lady whom you carried off from her paternal home three years ago, and whom you finally sold to a French adventurer in Rome.'

"I said these words calmly, slowly, weighing every syllable. My voice was heard all over the room, for at the first words I uttered everybody had become so silent that you could have heard a pin drop.

"The count had turned still paler, but he soon recovered himself and said:

"'And what right have you to ask such a question at a time and place which you have chosen marvellously well?'

"'I had the misfortune of being engaged to the young lady.'

"'And if I decline giving you the information----'

"'Then I declare you before all these ladies and gentlemen to be from head to foot nothing but a vulgar blackguard.'

"With these words I threw my glove into his face and left the company, after having asked their pardon for the necessity that had forced me to provoke so unpleasant a scene.

"An insult of this kind could only be wiped out by blood, according to the views of the society in which the count moved. To prevent his pleading too great a disparity in social rank I had taken the precaution of wearing my officer's uniform; and besides, the well-known name of my friend, the painter, secured me against the suspicion of being an unknown adventurer. The very favor which the count enjoyed with the ladies had, moreover, made him very hateful to the men, so that everybody was glad to see him thus publicly exposed, and if he had refused to fight me he would probably have lost his standing in society. His few friends had, therefore, shrugged their shoulders, and his enemies had smiled with delight, when he had left the house soon after my departure, and an hour afterwards I received a challenge for the following morning. That was all I desired. I was delighted; and the few hours still wanting till I should see the seducer of Leonora, the murderer of my earthly happiness, at the mouth of my pistol, seemed to me an eternity. I could not bear the confinement of my hotel; I wanted to cool the fever of revenge that burnt in me in the balsamic night air. My friend begged me not to do so, since I might easily take cold during my nightly promenade, as he called it, with an ironical smile. But excited and maddened as I was, I insisted on my purpose, and he accompanied me, but only after having provided daggers for both of us.

"I was soon to learn how much better the painter knew the character of my enemy and the manners of the people among whom we happened to be. We had scarcely gone a few hundred yards from the hotel, and were just turning into Toledo street from a narrow lane, when four men suddenly jumped forth from the deep shadow of a house and fell upon us with incredible fury. Fortunately the painter was a man of gigantic strength, and I also had my good arm and presence of mind. The murderers seemed to be surprised by our resistance. After a few moments they took to their heels. I was going to follow them. 'Let them run,' said the painter, wiping his bloody dagger; 'I fear I have scratched one of them rather too deep. But the fellow was really too zealous to earn the few dollars which the count had given him.'

"I had lost all desire to continue my walk. We returned by the nearest way to our hotel, and awaited the appointed hour with impatience.

"The painter tried to persuade me that I ought not to fight a duel with a man who had resorted to assassination, but should knock him down like a mad dog; but I replied to him that that was exactly what I meant to, do, and that the duel was only an empty ceremony. We became quite warm in the discussion.

"Very unnecessarily so. Morning broke at last; we were the first on the spot; no adversary was to be seen. At last, an hour later, the count's second appeared--a young Italian nobleman--pale and overwhelmed with shame. He told us how sorry he was to have kept us waiting so long, but that it was not his fault. The count had left his house late at night, after having arranged everything with his second, leaving orders for his man servant not to sit up for him. Since that moment he had not been seen again. It seemed to be highly probable that some accident had befallen him, for of course it would be ridiculous to presume for a moment that a man of the count's high social position should have escaped by flight from a duel.

"The painter replied that we could very well afford to wait, and that delay was not defeat. The young nobleman promised to inform us of anything he might learn concerning the count's movements. But the count remained unseen, and I had at last to take the painter's view, which he had already mentioned on the night of our encounter with the assassins, that the count himself had led the attack, being in all probability the very person whose violence had been most conspicuous, and who had been so severely punished by the strong arm of the painter. Either he had died in consequence of the wound received on that occasion, or, what was more probable, he was only wounded and remained concealed in order to avoid giving an explanation of his condition. Perhaps, also, he wished to escape the investigation of the affair by the police, who showed an unusual activity in the matter, as if they had been stimulated by the enemies of the count, and at the same time to escape from an adversary who attached such vulgar importance to matters which in his circle were passed over with a slight smile.

"However this might be, my adversary did not re-appear, and after the strange affair had been for four weeks the favorite topic of conversation all over town--for it had created an enormous sensation--I saw myself compelled to leave Naples without having accomplished my purpose.

"I went by way of Rome--where I took leave of my friend--to Paris. I felt that I had fulfilled my duty only half; the hardest part was yet to be done. I was afraid to meet Leonora again; and yet I wished it almost as earnestly. You will ask how I could take so deep an interest in a person who had so frivolously trifled with my happiness, and who had lost the last relic of respect which might have remained alive for her after her elopement with the Pole, by running away with the Frenchman. But I told you I had loved Leonora with an ardent, demoniacal love, the fire of which had never yet burned out, and which was to burn, alas! long after all was consumed. Besides, I knew that Leonora, however recklessly she might have acted, was in reality not ignoble, but had probably in Rome been forced by a most fearful necessity to leave the man whom she had followed so far from love. I felt that now, if she was still alive, she must most assuredly be wretchedly unhappy.

"I reached Paris. The city was quite familiar to me, for I had already paid two visits there, in company with a few thousand armed friends. Moreover, I had provided myself in Naples with letters of introduction from the painter and several distinguished Italian and French gentlemen, whose acquaintance I had made there. A few inquiries confirmed at once the painter's original suspicion, that the marquis who had carried off Leonora from Rome was an adventurer. A marquis of that name did not exist, had never existed, at all events not in the Faubourg St. Germain. I had to continue my search in other less aristocratic quarters.

"A young Frenchman, an author, whose acquaintance I had made years ago, was my faithful companion in all my wanderings. He was a pleasant man, warmly attached to myself, and has ever since remained my best friend. I had, of course, told him the whole of my sad story; and he, who was far superior to me in knowledge of the world, and especially of that little world which makes up Paris, had first suggested to me to carry my investigations into the Quartier Latin, and other still more modest parts of the city. 'Paris,' said the Frenchman, 'is a place where men and things rarely preserve their original value long; they rise and fall in price with amazing rapidity. During a whole year the poor girl may have passed through very sad changes. If she has not committed suicide--and this is hardly probable, as she would probably have killed herself already in Rome, if she had had the courage to die--she has certainly sunk very low. I pray you prepare yourself for the very worst.'

"You may imagine how my heart bled when I heard these words, and felt how true they were likely to be. I felt like a man who is grappling in a lake for the body of his drowned child.

"One evening, as we were wandering about at haphazard through one of the most crowded suburbs, my companion surprised me by asking me: 'Did Leonora have any talent for dancing?' When I told him that she had always been perfect in that art, he said, 'We ought to have thought of that before. How strange that I never thought of asking you before.' He was so taken up with his new idea that he did not deign to answer when I inquired what the art of dancing had to do with our search. He hailed a cab; we went back into the city. We stopped at one of those dancing-halls which were then less brilliant, perhaps, but certainly not less crowded than nowadays. 'Look around, if you can see Leonora anywhere! We searched the whole establishment; Leonora was not there. 'Then let us go on.' We drove to another dancing-hall, and, when our search was here also fruitless, to a third, and a fourth. All in vain. I was so exhausted by the sad scenes I had witnessed, by the dust and the heat which filled these crowded rooms, by the efforts to find one certain person among so many, who were constantly changing from place to place, and by the excitement, the anxiety, and the very fear of finding what I was looking for, that I begged my companion to abandon the search, at least for to-night. 'Only one more locality,' he replied; 'I have on purpose left it for the last, because the probability of finding her there is strong enough, but also very painful.' 'How so?' 'The establishments which you have seen so far,' replied the Frenchman, 'are after a fashion quite respectable in spite of what is going on there. The visitors are beyond measure reckless, arrogant, frivolous, but after all not exactly vicious. They are students with their ladies, clerks with their grisettes, well-to-do mechanics who want to have a frolic, in company with their girls. The society into which I am now going to introduce you is far more elegant, but not quite so harmless. It is a house frequented mainly by wild young men of rank from the aristocratic quarters of the town, who seek here compensation for the dullness of their own saloons, and by foreigners who come to Paris to ruin their health and to waste their fortune. The fair sex is such as suits these people. You find here the most beautiful, but also the most corrupt of women, men-catchers, who drive to-day a four-in-hand, and die to-morrow in the hospital--mainly foreigners: Creoles, English, Italian, or German girls, who here find countrymen in numbers. Prepare yourself to look for her--I trust in vain--in this pandemonium.

"We reached the place. Broad marble steps led up. My heart beat violently; I could scarcely stand, for something within me told me that I had reached the goal of my wanderings; that the disfigured, swollen head of the dead body would the next moment rise from the black waters.

"We entered the brilliantly lighted hall. The orchestra played bacchantic music, and in bacchantic madness the dancers rushed by each other. The dazzling lights, the loud trumpets, the crowds, the heat, the narcotic fragrance of exotics, with which the room was adorned, and the fearful excitement under which I labored, took away my breath. I had to lean for a moment against a pillar, and closed my eyes in order to collect myself. As I was standing thus, faint and nearly falling, a voice fell upon my ear which stung me at the first note like an adder. The ear is a faithful monitor; it never in all this life forgets a voice whose notes have once been sweet and dear to it. It had not deceived me.

"Close before me, so close that I could have touched her with my hand, stood a girl, talking fast to a handsome young man; she was tall and slender, had large, brown eyes, which shone with feverish brightness, and a face far too sharply accented, too much worn out by life for so young a person, but nevertheless still very beautiful--and this girl was Leonora.

"Strange! when I had first heard her voice my heart had trembled as at the moment when I stood at night before the house in Fichtenau, and the old woman called down to me that Leonora had eloped. But after the first spasm I felt calm, quite calm. The chord had been stretched too far, it had broke; it now uttered not a sound of joy or of grief. I looked down upon Leonora as coldly as if she were a picture on the wall. I heard every word she said to her partner, as we hear words just before we are going to faint--as if they had been spoken at the other end of the hall. I examined her from head to foot, even her costume, with the calm criticism of an artist. I noticed that she was rouged, and that her dark eyebrows and lashes were dyed still darker. I noticed that she wore her hair exactly in the same manner in which I had myself once arranged it, after an antique, and as she had ever after worn it as long as I knew her. I heard everything, I saw everything, and yet I heard and saw nothing; for I had no clear perception of what I saw and heard.

"My companion, who had looked all around the hall in the meantime, now returned to where I stood. 'I have not been able to find any one corresponding to your description,' he said. 'God be thanked! I breathe more freely; I should not have liked, for the world, to have found her whom we look for in this place. But, mon Dieu, what is the matter? You look like a corpse!'

"'I have found her.'

"'Where?'

"'There!'

"He took his glass and examined Leonora for a few moments with most intense interest. She was still perfectly unconscious of those who were so near to her, and chatted and coquetted with her dancer.

"Then he shrugged his shoulders with pity and dropped his eye-glass. His face had become very serious.

"'Pauvre homme!' he whispered to himself.

"The music was breaking forth louder than ever; a new figure began in the Française, and it was Leonora's turn. She had evidently made great progress in her art since the day when I had seen her last dance at a club-ball in Fichtenau. I can candidly say I have never before or afterwards seen anything more perfect. It was the enchanting gracefulness of a jet-d'eau swaying to and fro in the light breeze, and yet at the same time a passionate rapture, such as we find nowhere else except perhaps among the Zingarellas of Spain or the Ghawazees of Egypt. At one moment it was the soft longing and yearning of gentle and subdued love, at the next moment it was the very soul of passion, trembling in every nerve and vibrating in every muscle, but here as well as there, a beautiful rhythm of marvellously complicated and yet ever harmoniously united movements was never wanting. This dance was a song--a song of love--but not of German love, dreamy, fragrant with the perfume of blooming lime-trees and softened by the pale light of the moon, but of sensuous Oriental love, hot with the burning rays of a Southern sun, and breathing narcotic voluptuousness. And with all that, her features were calm, not a muscle moving, not a trace of that repulsive, stereotyped smile worn by so many far-famed artists. Only her eyes burnt with uncanny fire, which blazed up brighter with every step, with every motion. Her partner rather walked than danced all the steps required with much elegance, but with a lofty carelessness, as if he looked rather ridiculous in his own eyes while performing the ceremony, and this calm composure seemed to make the passionate woman almost desperate, and determined to rouse him from his weary apathy by all the arts of which she was master. Perhaps this was really so; perhaps it only looked so--at all events this gave to the dance a rich dramatic interest, and afforded the by-standers a most attractive sight.

"'Ah, la belle Allemande!' cried an enthusiast near me.

"'Grand Dieu, qu'elle est jolie!' cried another; 'Brava! brava!' and he applauded energetically with both hands till all the by-standers followed his example. 'Brava! brava! Vive la reine Eléonore! Vive la belle Allemande!'

"My friend seized my arm and drew me further back under the pillars near which we had been standing. 'Come!' he said. 'Where?' 'Away from here!' 'Never!' 'Why, it is impossible you can feel an interest in such a creature! What can you do with her? I tell you she is lost! irreparably lost!' 'We will see that!' I murmured. The Frenchman shrugged his shoulders. 'You Germans are a strange people. But, at least follow my advice. Do not make a scene here; you would most likely have to fight half a dozen duels. Call upon the girl to-morrow, or whenever you choose. I will find out in a few minutes all about her residence, and whatever else you may want to know.'

"I saw that his was sensible advice. While he slipped away through the crowd, I threw myself into a chair and rested my head on my hands. Those were terrible moments. My temples were beating, my limbs were trembling--and yet within me all was calm, deadly calm and quiet. And, Oswald, in those moments, while I sat there alone, my face hid in my hands, in silent, unspeakable sorrow, amid the noisy crowd; and while my idol, the beloved of my youth, the woman whom I had worshipped in my dark dungeon like a glorious saint, was dancing a few steps from me, after a wicked, voluptuous music, the voluptuous dance of Herodias--in those moments, Oswald, I bid an eternal farewell to happiness, to life. It was then that the curtain which had so long concealed from me the Great Mystery suddenly parted in the middle, and I stood shuddering at the threshold, which I yet dared not cross, and which I only crossed many, many years afterwards, for then I had not yet drained the cup to the dregs.

"The dance had come to an end. It became very lively all around me; laughter and joking, the rustling of rich dresses close to my ear. They took seats at the small tables, to cool their fever with ices and champagne. To my table also came a couple, who either could find no other place vacant, or thought the sleeper was not likely to be a dangerous listener.

"'Et vous m'aimez vraiment, Eléonore?' said a soft but manly voice.

"'Oui, Charles!'

"'De tout votre coeur?'

"'De tout mon coeur!'

"I thought what an impression it would make upon Leonora if I should suddenly raise my head from the table and say to her: 'Did you not tell me precisely the same thing on the meadow in the forest of Fichtenau?' But I checked myself and listened to the conversation, which continued for some time. At last the gentleman said:

"'And when shall I see you again?'

"'Whenever you wish.'

"'What does that mean?'

"'That I am always at home for my friends.'

"'And where is at home?'

"'Boulevard des Capucines, Numéro Dix-sept. You have only to inquire after Mademoiselle Eléonore----'

"'Or rather la Reine Eléonore. Adieu, ma reine!'

"'You won't go already?'

"'Unfortunately I have to go.'

"'Why?'

"'My betrothed is waiting for me at her mother's, and she will be inconsolable if her faithful shepherd keeps her waiting much longer.'

"'You are engaged--oh, poor man!'

"'I hope, ma reine, you will help me bear my misfortune?'

"'Nous verrons.'

"And the two went off laughing; Leonora's silk dress struck me as she passed.

"My companion came back and put his hand on my shoulder.

"'I have learnt everything,' he said.

"'So have I,' I replied, raising my head.

"'How?'

"'She has told me all herself.'

"My friend thought I was delirious. 'Come,' he said, 'the heat has been too much for you.'

"You may imagine that I did not sleep much that night. I formed a thousand plans and rejected them again. Only one thing was certain: I must save Leonora from this hell. I did not doubt what was my duty for a moment.

"And yet I rose next morning without having formed a resolution. I was not afraid for myself, for my heart could not be torn more fearfully than it had been torn the night before. I was afraid only for Leonora, that a sudden meeting might humiliate her too fearfully, might kill her perhaps. A few days passed, and I found no better plan after all than to go straight to her. My friend shook his head whenever I spoke of my project. 'But, mon cher,' he said again and again, 'don't you see that you still love her?' Was he right? I do not know. At all events, this kind of love was very different from ordinary love, for it knew nothing of humiliated pride, of mortified vanity--nay, nothing even of the fear of possibly becoming ridiculous, by attempting to save a woman who did not at all desire to be saved.

"When I had at last decided in my own heart, I went one forenoon to the house on the Boulevard. The porter smiled as he gave his customary reply: 'Qui, monsieur, au troisème!' to my question if Mademoiselle Eléonore was living there. But he added: 'Mademoiselle will hardly be at home for anybody; she only came home towards daybreak.'

"I ascended the staircase covered with costly carpets; in the third story I read on a china plate near a bell-rope: 'Mademoiselle Eléonore de Saint Georges.' How many names had the poor girl had, since she had laid aside the honest name of her father?

"I rang the bell. An ugly woman, half waiting-maid, half companion, and looking all the uglier because of the neatness of her dress and the affected respectability of her manner, opened and asked me what I wanted, I wished to see Mademoiselle Eléonore.

"'Mademoiselle is indisposed and cannot see anybody to-day.'

"'But I must see her.'

"'Impossible,' said the woman, 'I have just sent for a doctor.'

"'But, madame, I am the doctor.'

"'Ah, c'est autre chose, entrez, monsieur le docteur.'

"She led me through a small entry into a lofty, stately apartment, furnished with almost princely splendor, and asked me to wait there a few minutes, until her mistress should be able to see me.

"'Has mademoiselle got up yet?'

"'Yes; I shall be back in a moment.'

"She disappeared behind a thick curtain.

"I remained standing in the centre of the room, and looked upon all the splendor by which I was surrounded--the luscious paintings by Watteau and Boucher in their broad, gilt frames; the Chinese pagodas upon the marble mantelpiece; the vases and cups of finest porcelain, the luxurious divans and sofas--and I felt like the physician who is looking upon the lace cuff of a hand which he is called in to amputate. Had I not come here as a physician? Was I not here now under the pretext of being a physician?

"The maid returned, and begged me to follow her. She drew back the curtain to let me pass. I entered a half-dark room, covered like all the others with thick, soft carpets, and hung with deep red-silk hangings, the chamber of the mistress of the house, and then through another curtain into a second room, light and bright. Of the furniture of this room I saw nothing; I saw only the slender, white form which rose when I entered from the divan on which she had been resting, and now advanced a few steps to meet me. And this slender, white form, with the pale, worn-out, beautiful face, in which the large dark eyes shone with almost ghastly brightness--this beautiful being, broken in body and soul, lost for eternity, was my Leonora, whom I had worshipped, and who had once been blooming like a rose in innocence and youth!

"'I have sent for you, doctor,' she said in a low voice.

"Then she raised her eyes and looked at me. Her lips grew silent; she stared at me with eyes which seemed to leap forth from their orbits; then she uttered a piercing cry and fell down, before I or her maid could seize her in our arms.

"We carried her back to the divan. She was deadly pale and cold; I thought for a moment the sudden blow might have snapped the frail thread on which her life was hanging. I should have hailed her death as a rescue from hell, as a mercy from heaven. But soon I became convinced that life was not going to let her loose for some time yet. I knew enough of medicine to remember what was to be done in such an emergency. While I was busy with the fainting girl, I asked the maid if Leonora was at all subject to such attacks; what was the general state of her health? The woman thought it her duty to drop her assumed respectability before a physician. 'She had been only about six months in the service of mademoiselle. Since then matters had gone down hill very fast indeed. But mademoiselle was really living too fast in all conscience. Dancing every night till three or four o'clock in the morning, drinking champagne without stopping--no one could stand that long, least of all a lady of such delicate structure. She was begging mademoiselle every day to abandon such a life, but she received always the same answer: the sooner it is over the better. And over it will be very soon,' cried the woman; 'and I shall lose my poor dear mistress, whom I love like my own child, although she does not lead a life such as she ought to lead.'

"The invalid began to recover. I sent the maid away, ordering her to buy some salts at the druggist's; for I did not want to have any witness present when Leonora should fully awake. The old hypocrite had hardly left the room when Leonora once more opened her eyes and looked at me with a confused, incredulous glance. I noticed that in proportion as her mind returned her horror at my presence increased anew, and threatened to make her faint a second time. This painful shrinking from one whom she used to meet with open arms was harder to bear than all the rest, and nearly moved me to tears. I felt not a trace of hatred, of anger, in my heart, not even of contempt--no, nothing but pity, boundless, unspeakable pity. I do not know what I said--but I must have spoken good, mild words of love and of forgiveness, for her rigid features began gradually to become softer; her eyes, dilated with horror, filled with tears, and at last she broke out into passionate weeping, hiding her head on my bosom as I was kneeling by her side. It was a terrible weeping; it was as if all the tears of the last years, which she had concealed under laughter and jests, were breaking forth from their deep, deep cells and would never cease to flow; and between a sobbing as if her heart were breaking, a crying as if her innermost soul were pierced by two-edged swords. I have never in all my life, either before or afterwards, witnessed anything like this fearful breaking forth of repentance in a soul stained with sin, but noble by nature.

"We seemed to have exchanged the parts allotted to us. It looked as if she had been offended, and I was the criminal. I exhausted myself in prayers, in implorations, to pour soothing oil into her wounds, to calm the terrible grief that was raging with such violence. Gradually I succeeded in calming her after a fashion. She wept, quietly resting her head on one hand, while I spoke to her holding the other hand--how white and slender and transparent her fingers had become!--spoke to her as a brother would speak to his sister in such a case. I begged her to look upon me as a brother, to confide in me as her best, perhaps her only friend. I conjured her by all that was sacred to her, by the memory of her youth, by the memory of her parents--who were both now resting under the green turf--to tear herself away from this whirlpool which must swallow her up sooner or later, and to follow me. I promised to take her, if she wished it, into a desert--to the very ends of the world--only away, away from this gilded wretchedness.

"'It is too late; too late!' she murmured. 'You are kind, I know; inexpressibly kind; but it is too late, too late!'

"I do not know how long this struggle might have lasted if a strange episode had not occurred, which decided it to my great astonishment quickly in my favor.

"While I was yet kneeling at Leonora's side, I suddenly heard somebody say behind me: 'Mais vraiment, c'est superbe!' I rose, full of horror. Before me stood a young man elegantly dressed, who examined me through his eye-glass from head to foot and back again, and then repeated: 'Superbe! mademoiselle, I congratulate you on this new conquest.'

"The young man was one of Leonora's friends, whose lavish liberality had procured for him the privilege of being looked upon by her as her only lover. He knew that Leonora was by no means rigorously faithful to him, and did not mind it much; but he did not like to meet his rivals at her house, which he had furnished at his own expense, and with princely magnificence.

"'I beg you will explain this scene, mademoiselle, he said, turning to Leonora, in a tone of insulting indifference, which drove all the blood from my cheeks to the heart.

"I was opening my lips to give him an insulting answer, when Leonora anticipated me. As soon as she had seen the new comer she had risen, and stood now, pushing me gently back, between him and myself.

"'This gentleman,' she said, pointing at me, 'has a right to be here.'

"'What right?'

"'The right of one who has been unfortunate enough to love me once.'

"'Ah, mademoiselle,' replied the young man, smiling ironically, 'the gentleman shares that misfortune with many others.'

"'Sir,' said I, 'whatever claims you may have upon mademoiselle, I have older claims, and I cannot allow you to insult a lady to whom I was once engaged in my presence.'

"'Ah,' said the young man; 'you were engaged to mademoiselle. It is not possible! and now, I dare say, you propose to marry her, after I'--with a glance at the furniture--'have had the folly to provide mademoiselle with a trousseau. Very well conceived, upon my word!'

"'Stop, sir!' cried Leonora, rising to her full height, 'enough has been said. You think you can control me, and insult me, because I have accepted your presents. Here, I return you all you have ever given me. There, and there, and there!' and she tore with feverish excitement the gold bracelets and all the jewels she wore from her and threw them at the feet of the young man.

"The passion with which she did this was too deep to be for a moment misinterpreted, and evidently made a great impression upon the dandy. 'I have had enough of this.' he said. 'I shall see you again, mademoiselle, here is my card, sir!' and he hastened to leave the room.

"'Come! come!' cried Leonora; 'not another moment will I stay here. Rather at the bottom of the Seine than here!'

"'I took her at her word. I begged her to change her dress while I wrote in her name a few lines to the Marquis de Saintonges--this was the name of Leonora's lover--and placed the lodging, which he had rented for Leonora, and everything he had ever given her, once more at his disposal. We left the house, handed the keys to the porter, and gave the letter into the hands of a messenger, who promised to deliver it immediately, and a few hours afterwards I had settled all my affairs, said farewell to my friends, and the city was several miles behind us.

"Our journey was for the present not to be a very long one. A few stations beyond Paris, Leonora became so unwell, we had to stop in a little town. The physician who was called in was fortunately an able man, and told me that mademoiselle, my sister (for such Leonora appeared to be), was threatened with inflammation of the brain. His diagnosis was unfortunately but too correct. The very next day the terrible disease showed itself clearly. The poor sufferer raved in her delirium of the hot orgies in the Jardin aux Lilas and of the cool shades in her native woods, of the Marquis de Saintonges, and other Paris acquaintances, and of myself, now appearing as her guardian angel, and now as an avenging demon, while I sat by her bedside and meditated on our strange position. During my eager pursuit of Leonora I had followed rather a blind impulse than very clear motives, and never, in all my dreams, had it occurred to me that we might be placed in a situation like that in which I now found myself. But amid all my troubles one thought rose high above all doubt: I must never again quit Leonora, if she should recover.

"After a little while symptoms appeared which gave us hope, and one fine morning the physician brought me the news that a crisis had taken place in the disease, and that Leonora was for the present out of danger. 'Nevertheless,' he added, with a very serious expression, 'I must not conceal it from you that, according to human calculations, your sister is not destined to survive this attack very long. I apprehend that her lungs are seriously affected; she must have been ill a long time before I saw her. I do not know your circumstances, and cannot tell, therefore, whether you will be able to follow my advice. My advice is this: Go with your sister to a southern climate--to Italy; if you can, to Egypt. In a less genial climate mademoiselle would succumb in a very short time.'

"My resolution was instantly formed. I had nothing more to win and nothing to lose in Germany, where my political cure was to be completed by a prohibition to teach publicly during the next five years. My means had been nearly consumed during my long wanderings; there was only a small remnant left, but I might spend that sum just as well in Italy as elsewhere; besides, I hoped to derive abroad some advantages from my knowledge of languages; and, finally, I had no choice. I would have rather endured extreme suffering than to omit doing anything that could benefit Leonora. A few days later we were on our way to Italy.

"I settled down a few miles from Genoa, upon the coast of the glorious Mediterranean. I was fortunate enough to obtain a few lessons in the family of a rich Englishman, who had come to the place for the same reasons which brought me there, and thus I was relieved of all anxiety on the score of money. All the greater was my anxiety for Leonora.

"Our flight from Paris had been so sudden, and was for Leonora so entirely the result of a momentary impulse--her sickness, following immediately afterwards, had so completely broken down all her energies that she had willingly acceded to all my arrangements, and was only now coming to a clear understanding of our situation--I had not thought of it at first, and became aware of it only now through Leonora's manner towards me--that in this dependence on a man whom she had shamefully betrayed, and in the constant company of him before whom she would have loved to hide herself in the lowest depth, she suffered probably the severest punishment that could have been inflicted upon a person in whom the last spark of honor and self-respect was not extinguished. Leonora did not hesitate to say so; but she added, 'the punishment is severe but just; it was the only way, perhaps, to teach me how grievously I had sinned against you.' While Leonora found thus a soothing comfort for her conscience in her deep repentance, I had in my unspeakable sorrow only one very modest consolation: to act towards Leonora as my conscience dictated. I was at liberty to drain the cup of sorrow to the very last drop. That was the fulfilment of all the precious happiness of which I had dreamt so much in the golden days of Fichtenau, and even later in the dark nights of my imprisonment in the fortress! This pale, feeble form--that walked slowly along the sea-coast in the evening sunlight, hanging on my arm and never lifting up the weary head--she by whose sick-bed I sat watching day after day, when sickness confined her in her room, and in whose broken heart it had become my duty to pour soothing balm, of which I stood so much in need myself--this was the girl whom I had chosen to be my wife, and in whom I had worshipped, full of bright hopes, the mother of my children. Oh, Oswald! Oswald! the most fanatical optimist might have been appalled--the most orthodox soul might have been led to doubt if there were not after all a great deal of truth in Voltaire's assertion, that life was nothing but a mauvaise plaisanterie.

"And yet it was good for me to pass through this trial also. It was a bitter medicine; but it cured me thoroughly of that disease which others call joy of existence and pleasure in life.

"Leonora's humility in bearing her sufferings put me altogether to shame. In proportion as the disease was destroying her bodily form, the original beauty of her soul began to reappear. She had led a sinful life; when she died, she died like a saint.

"It was late in the evening. I had carried the poor sufferer, who was specially excited on that day, and anxiously yearned after air and light, in my own arms from the fisherman's cottage which we occupied, to the edge of the black basaltic rocks which here hang over the sea. She was resting on a couch formed of cushions. The sun was setting in resplendent magnificence, and just sinking into the sea. Not a breath stirred the smooth surface of the waters, and the emerald and golden lights which shone in the sky were purely and calmly reflected below, as in a mirror. Upon the pale face of the patient also fell an enchanting sheen--a rosy lie--the lie with which the sun and life scoff at the night and at death. And in that hour Leonora took leave of the sun and of life. She told me that she had always loved me, even at that moment when vanity and folly had blinded her; that her whole life since that day had been but a continuous effort to drown her remorse. She did not desire to live, even if it were possible that I should ever love her again. She felt herself to be unworthy of being my slave, much more so of being my wife. She was shuddering at the mere thought. 'Oh never, never more,' she continued, and her beautiful eyes shone with a supernatural fire, 'never upon this earth, where I have so tearfully sinned against you. But when this desecrated body has crumbled into dust, and the soul has been freed from the fetters that bound it to the dust, then I will hover around you, I will wait for you; and when you come, your soul will kiss my soul, and by that kiss I shall know that all has been atoned for, that all is forgotten and forgiven.'

"I told her that I had long since forgiven her fully, and that I now loved her with a purer and holier love than in the days of our happiness.

"I kissed, weeping, her white hands and her pale lips.

"'This is our wedding-day,' she whispered--'poor, poor man.' She sank back upon the cushions.

"I carried her, quite exhausted, back to the cottage and to her bed.

"It was the last time.

"That night Leonora died."

Berger had risen, and Oswald had followed his example. The former was entirely filled with the recollections which had just passed before his mind's eye, clothed by his powerful imagination with all the accuracy and clearness of reality; the latter thought of nothing but what he had just heard; and thus both hardly noticed the road which led them gradually higher and higher through the dark pine forests.

Thus they found themselves suddenly upon the bare top of the mountain, which the people of the neighborhood call the Lookout, and which is by far the highest all around among all the brothers and sisters.

The sun had set, but the western sky was still glowing in all the splendor of the evening glory, and a faint reflex gave even to the eastern horizon a faint, rosy tinge. Here and there one of the higher mountain-tops, steeped in purple, looked after the parting light of the day; but the larger valleys were already filled with gray shadows of the evening, and whitish mists floated in the narrower glens. The pine-trees, whose heads rose from below to a level with the travellers' feet, stood calm and rigid, like a breathless multitude in anxious expectation.

Berger gazed into the glow of the setting sun, resting on his stick, and watching it as every instant some tinge vanished and another turned pale. Oswald's eye hung upon his features, which seemed every moment to become more and more spiritual. Was it the effect of the ghastly light, or merely the expression of what was going on within? Suddenly Berger dropped his cane, spread out his hands as if in prayer, and said: "Mother Night, all-powerful original Night, from whose bosom the creature tears itself away in mad desire to live, only in order to return after long wanderings, penitent and humiliated, to your faithful maternal heart, I hail you, even in this faint, earthly image! Yon bottomless bourn of oblivion, yon sweet cradle of unbroken rest, how I long for you with my whole heart! Oh, take it from me, this intolerable burden of life; spare me the daily returning grief to open these weary eyes to a light which they hate; take from me this remnant of dust, which weighs me down with its sinfulness, and which becomes only the more painful as it daily dwindles away! Let it, oh, let it quickly be consumed! I know I could quickly come to you if I but took a single step beyond the edge of this rock; but even if my bones were broken into atoms below, my soul would find no rest, for it has still a few drops left in the cup of life; perhaps--who can tell?--the very bitterest of them all. No! no! get thee away from me, Satan, who allurest me down into the abyss! The abyss is not death; life in all its splendor, is true death. I know thy old tricks; thou didst try them with the carpenter's son of Nazareth! But he rebuked thee and thy temptations--honor, power, and the favor of women--all he rejected, in order to hunger, to thirst, and not to have where he might lay his head, to wash off the last remnant of earthly life in the bloody sweat of the night on the Mount of Olives, and in order to die the death of a murderer on the cross at Golgotha! Oh that I could go forth into all the world, to preach the word, the sacred word, that frees us now and forever--the word that leads us back again to our good, mild, dear Mother Night, whom we have left in order to suffer infernal punishment in the bright sun-glow of life, while our tongue is parched and our temples are beating! The word, the holy, mysterious word, which has become a mere mummery, a derision, and a mockery, in the vain show with which they fancy they serve their God. Forgive them, oh Mother, for they know not what they do; they would willingly come to you if they had but ears to hear your sweet voice, and eyes to see your mild beauty. I can see your holy face; its smile fills me with hope and comfort. I can hear your voice; it whispers, 'wait, wait but a little while, and you shall sink back into my faithful arms, back to eternal peace.'"

The rosy hues had vanished from the sky; gray twilight was spreading over the valleys, and the evening breeze began to whisper and to murmur in the tops of the pine-trees.

Oswald was seized with vague terror. He felt as if that mystical Night, which Berger had invoked in his strange prayer, was chilling him already with a breath from the grave--as if the sun had set never to rise again But this fear was not without a strange admixture of delight. The narcotic fragrance of thoughts of death which had been borne to him on Berger's ecstatic words, filled his heart, together with the perfume of the heather and the aroma of the pines.

He thought of Helen and of Melitta, but not with the restless anxiety of the morning, but in calm melancholy, as we think of the departed whom we have loved. He thought of the troubles and blunders of his gay drama in the château of Grenwitz, but it looked to him like a puppet-show for children. He thought of the future, but it had no longer any charms for him; it filled him neither with hope nor with fear; it was as if his whole life were withdrawing from without, as if the world were not worthy of so much love or so much hatred.

Thus he sat, resting his head on his hands, upon a large rock, and looked out into the evening, which was spreading its dark wings wider and wider over the heavens.

A hand was laid on his shoulder.

"Come!" said Berger, "let us return to the dead!"

They descended from the summit and plunged into the damp darkness of the forest. Berger seemed to know every path and every stone in the mountains. He went on, supporting himself every now and then with his stout cane, at a pace which made it difficult for Oswald to follow him, though he was considered a good pedestrian.

Thus they had reached a meadow lying in the very heart of the forest. As they followed the edge of the wood they suddenly saw a light glimmering on the opposite side. It came from the flame of a pile of briars which had just been kindled. Within the bright circle of the flames two persons were visible--a woman, as it seemed, and a child.

Oswald's sharp eyes confirmed him in a suspicion which had entered his heart at the first glance.

They were Xenobia and Czika.

He hastened as fast as he could across the meadow towards the fire, but he had hardly accomplished half the distance when he sank up to his ankles into the morass. He saw that he could not go any further. He cried as loud as he could: "Xenobia! Czika! it is I! Oswald!"

But his call had scarcely broken the peace of the silent forest when the fire vanished, and with the fire the two forms he had seen.

All was quiet--quiet as death. Oswald might have imagined that his fancy had played him a trick.

"What was the matter?" asked Berger, when Oswald joined him again.

"Did you not see the fire!"

"It was a will-o'-the-wisp in the swamp," replied Berger. "Let us go on."

CHAPTER VIII.

It was completely dark when the two wanderers left the last spur of the mountain, and reached the first houses of the village. Oswald, who was for the first time in this region, and whose sense of locality was not strongly developed, had of course allowed himself to be entirely guided by Berger, and had expected that the latter would return by the nearest road to Doctor Birkenhain's asylum. He was, therefore, not a little surprised when he found out that they were approaching the town from the opposite direction. There were the huge wagons laden with bales, there was the wide court-yard with its hospitably open gates, there was the green lamp burning in dismal dimness over the door of the house, and casting a mournful light upon one-half of the leaden hat which had once shone in all the splendor of oil-paint, but which had since passed through many a storm, losing its youthful freshness under the action of wind and weather and rain. There they heard in the low room to the right of the hall, with its four tiny windows and its dim light, the clinking of glasses, as thirsty guests knocked them impatiently against each other, and the concentrated noise of some twenty male voices, which were by no means delicate, and yet insisted upon being all heard at once.

It would scarcely have needed all these unmistakable signs to convince Oswald that he was near the hospitable roof of the Green Hat.

The sudden meeting with the gypsies in the forest had reminded him most forcibly of this whole affair, which Berger's recital had nearly driven from his mind.

He should have liked much to consult Berger in this matter, as the latter had in former times given him frequent opportunities to admire his skill in unravelling intricate situations and problematic characters; but he was loth to trouble a mind which was constantly seeking the truth in the mysterious depths of mysticism, with stories in which Director Schmenckel was playing the most prominent part.

What was his amazement, therefore, when Berger suddenly stopped at the door of the Green Hat, and said:

"I am thirsty; let us go in here for a moment!"

"Here?" inquired Oswald, who shrank from the idea of introducing the dreamy, delicate man, with his horror of the mere odor of tobacco, to such vulgar society. "The company in there is hardly suitable."

"What does that matter?" replied Berger. "Are they not the children of men?"

With these words he entered through the open house-door into the halls where yesterday the enthusiastic admirers of art had fought their battle royal with their adversaries, and through the door of the room which was also open into the coffee-room.

The appearance of the latter was nearly the same as on the previous day, before and after the fight, only that the table at which the artists had their seats was to-day much less sought after by the other guests. The glory of artists is apt to fade quickly in the eyes of men who still feel the smarting of the blows which they have received a day before on account of this very glory, and who are prosaic enough to recollect the number of glasses of beer which the artists have drunk at their expense, solely for the purpose of not interfering with the general good-temper of the company. Thus it came about that many who, in their enthusiasm for art, had utterly forgotten their old friends in the blue overalls and the heavy shoes, to-night joined them once more, and granted to new comers the privilege of listening to Director Schmenckel's long stories, and of paying his long bills.

Mr. Schmenckel was far too great a philosopher to lose his good humor and his temper on account of this insulting desertion by his friends. His fat face shone as bright as ever--it was redder than usual, even, because its original color appeared still richer and more intense in contrast with a few patches of black which had become indispensable in consequence of his fight with Mamselle Adele. His swollen eyelids winked at everybody as cunningly as ever, his linen was perhaps a shade less white, but the suspenders had not lost a line of their width, and none of the embroidered roses seemed to have suffered in the least.

And as rosy as this indispensable part of his wardrobe, was also the temper of the man whose broad bosom it adorned.

"How do you like the beer, Cotterby?" he said, laying his broad hand upon the shoulder of the man of the pyramids.

"Sour!" was the laconic reply; for the hero had received but meagre applause to-day, since the genius in the oak-tree had not been there to hallow his flight.

"Pshaw!" said Mr. Schmenckel, "you are spoilt, Cotterby. It is of course not as good as you drink it in Egypt, but nevertheless it is good, very good indeed. Your health gentlemen."

The director put the glass to his lips, but only swallowed a moderate quantity, a circumstance which might have convinced the impartial observer of the correctness of the judgment of the Flying Pigeon, whose beer had not been paid for to-night by enthusiastic admirers of art.

At that moment Berger and Oswald entered the room and approached a table at which the artists sat, because it had some vacant seats. Mr. Schmenckel's observant eye had scarcely seen the new comers--whom he recognized instantly as the insane young count of the day before, and an old gray-bearded fellow of curious appearance whom the count had picked up for his amusement after the escape of the gypsies--when he rose from his seat, went up to Oswald, bowed low before him, and said, with a voice which he intended should be distinctly heard all over the room,

"Ah, your excellency, count, that is nice in you, that you come to call upon a poor artist in his lowly inn. Sit down here by the side of Director Schmenckel! Move on a little, Cotterby! That's it! Now, gentlemen, take your seats; delighted to make your acquaintance, old fellow, much honor. Two fresh glasses of beer for the gentlemen, and one for Director Schmenckel! Empty your glass, Cotterby! So, now bring four glasses! Who would have thought that we should have such excellent company to-night?" and Mr. Schmenckel rubbed his hands with delight as Oswald and Berger took seats in his immediate neighborhood.

"Well, here is the beer--fresh from the cask, my angel--well, all the better! Here gentlemen! Your health, count, and your health also, old man! Ah! that was the first mouthful I have relished this evening. Odd! is it not? Bad company spoils good beer; good company makes bad beer good! Am a lover of sociability, count. See that you are another. Will you have the kindness to introduce me to the old gentleman? Director Schmenckel likes to know with whom he has to do."

Oswald glanced at Berger to see what impression was made upon him by this company and these surroundings, and to judge from that what he had better do for Director Schmenckel. To his astonishment, Berger seemed to listen to the prattle of the rope-dancer with some interest. He had hung his hat upon the back of the chair, placed the cane by his side, and was now leaning with both arms upon the table, exactly like one who does not intend to leave the place very soon again.

"My name is Berger," he answered to the director's question.

"Professor Berger," added Oswald, with the good intention of making an impression upon Mr. Schmenckel by the title, and to put, if possible, a check upon his familiarity.

"Professor!" repeated Mr. Schmenckel, with a look at Berger's blue blouse and ill-kept beard. "Ha! ha! ha! Very good! May I make you acquainted with my friend Cotterby? Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, known as the Flying Pigeon. Mr. Berger, known as Professor! Ha! ha! ha!"

"Shall we go again," inquired Oswald, who was seriously embarrassed by Mr. Schmenckel's conduct.

"I think we had better stay a little longer," replied Berger.

"Your fist, old boy!" said Mr. Schmenckel, seizing Berger's small thin hand and shaking it warmly. "I like you prodigiously. When your tile is losing its glue, and your blouse is going to tatters completely, you must come to me. Director Schmenckel will be delighted to receive a man like you as a member of his company. Your beard alone is an ornament for the whole land. You would create a sensation in a pantomime. What did you think of our performance to-day, count?"

"I was unfortunately unable to see it," replied Oswald, encouraged by a smile upon Berger's lips to continue the strange conversation.

"Oh, you have lost much, indeed very much," said the director in a tone of sincere regret, shaking his huge head slowly to and fro. "The performance was by far the finest we have given for a long time. Director Schmenckel has convinced everybody that the absence of a few estimable members of his company could in no wise impair the general efficiency of the same. I do not mean myself--although the world-renowned Schmenckel-act, with three cannon-balls of forty-eight pounds each, has never yet been imitated by anybody in this world, and my fontaine d'argent, with ten silver balls, is as yet unequalled. But, gentlemen, you ought to have seen Mr. Cotterby on the trapeze; I tell you the ring-tailed apes of the Island of Sumatra are miserable bunglers in comparison--absolutely miserable bunglers! And then Mr. Stolsenberg with his gigantic cask! I tell you--come nearer, Stolsenberg. An artist such as you are need not be so very modest, and the count here does not mind another glass of beer, or even several he is not like ordinary men. And then Mr. Pierrot, as contortionist!--come this way, Pierrot! Artists ought always to keep to each other. I tell you, count, your penknife is a ramrod in comparison with Mr. Pierrot. I have said it again and again: Pierrot, if we ever should travel by rail together, I mean to pay only for myself; I shall put you in my hat-box. Ha! ha! ha! A clever idea! Is it not, count? But the professor's glass is empty; and by all the Powers! mine is empty too! I verily believe that man Stolsenberg has secretly emptied my glass, and his own into the bargain! You had better drink yours too, Pierrot. You will save the pretty waiting-maid some trouble. Here, my angel, five fresh glasses; but really fresh, my beauty--fresh, like the roses on your cheeks. Fond of pretty women, count?--such a pretty child, with brown eyes, dark hair, and a slight, graceful person, like Czika? Eh? Just let her grow a few years older and you'll see something; she'll give you pleasure!"

"Have you any news about them?" asked Oswald.

Mr. Schmenckel, who had not the remotest idea of what could have become of the two gypsies, but who considered it wrong to destroy all hope of meeting the last object of his mad fancy in the heart of a man who was immensely rich and passionately fond of young gypsy-children, winked cunningly with his swollen eyes, put his fat finger against his nose, and said: "Are not far from here, in the woods--have certain information--can get her when I want her--don't want her, though--women must have time to get over their tantrums--then they come of their own account, and are thoroughly cured of their fancies. Yes, you have to know them well! Women are troublesome people to deal with, only they are all alike--and yet not one is like the other. What do you think about that, old boy?"

"I think you a great philosopher, from whom one might learn a great deal yet," replied Berger, looking with a curious smile into Mr. Schmenckel's face.

"Well, I should think so," said the director, throwing out his capacious chest and resting his hands on his hips. "Mr. Schmenckel, of Vienna, knows where the hare burrows, and the man who wants to lead him astray has to rise early in the morning. But, by all the Powers! it is no wonder after all if I know rather better than others how the world wags; I have been shaken about in it, upside and down, round and round and round, like a cork in an empty bottle."

"An empty bottle," said Berger. "That's a capital comparison; perfectly correct. How did you get hold of that?"

"How I got hold of it?" replied the director with an air of astonishment. "How I got hold of it? Probably, because I have an empty glass standing before me. Ha, ha, ha."

"It looks as if you had not been displeased, so far, with the beverage of life," said Berger, while Mr. Schmenckel made use of the interval, till the new glass of beer could come, to fill his short clay pipe.

"Well, and why not?" replied the director, lighting his pipe at the flame of the tallow candle that stood near him on the table, and disappearing for a few moments from the sight of the by-standers in thick, blue clouds. "Life is a prodigiously funny thing for a man who knows what's what, like Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna. Thanks, my angel!"

"I am not your angel, sir," said the girl, snappishly, as she pushed back violently the arm with which Mr. Schmenckel had embraced her waist, and cast a stolen glance at Oswald.

Mr. Schmenckel's only reply to this insulting correction was this: he pressed the five finger-tips of his right hand against his thick lips and cast a kiss after the girl as she slipped out, and then, closing his left eye, winked cunningly with the other at Oswald, who was sitting on the opposite side.

"Nice girl, your excellency, isn't she? Pretends to eat me up alive, and is head over ears in love with me."

"You seem to be very successful with ladies," said Oswald, merely in order to say something.

"Well, can't complain, your excellency," said Mr. Schmenckel, laughing complacently. "Women are like the weather. To-day too hot, and to-morrow too cold; to-day sunshine, and to-morrow rainy weather. Must take everything as it comes from them, just as from the Great One above."

"I should think that depended solely upon yourself," said Berger, whose look dwelt imperturbably upon his jovial companion, as if his mind could not comprehend so remarkable a phenomenon.

"How so, old fellow? You think I should let them alone, every one of them? Well, old gentleman, that might do very well for you; but of Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you cannot expect such a thing. The deuce! Leave them alone? Why, I had rather be dead and buried!"

"That would certainly be the best of all," said Berger.

"Look here, old gentleman," replied the director, with an effort to be serious, which sat very oddly upon him. "Don't commit such a sin! I tell you again, life is a mighty good thing, and we must not paint the devil's likeness on the wall. Oh, pshaw! Why do you let your beer grow stale, and make a face like a tanner whose skins have been washed down the stream? Come, drink a glass with Caspar Schmenckel! Well, that's right! Schmenckel is a merry fellow, and likes to be in company with merry fellows. Well, gentlemen, what do you say, shall we have a nice song? Cotterby, you have a voice like a nightingale! Come, fall in! Does your excellency know the song of the midges?"

"No; but let us hear it."

"Well, here goes; Stolsenberg, Pierrot, fall in!"

And Mr. Schmenckel took the pipe from his mouth, leaned back in his chair, and began with a tremendous bass voice, while his three friends sang chorus:

"Good morning, fiddler,
Why are you so late?
Retreating, advancing,
The midges are dancing,
With the little killekeia
With the big cumcum.

"Then came the women,
With scythe and sickle,
To keep the midges
From dancing like witches,
With the little killekeia,
With the big cumcum."

"Well, gentlemen, isn't that a fine song?" cried Mr. Schmenckel, after having finished off the remarkable air by pummelling the table with both hands so that the glasses began to dance.

"Very fine," said Berger; "do you know any more?"

"Hundreds," replied Mr. Schmenckel, "but Mr. Cotterby knows the best. Sing us a solo, Cotterby."

The Egyptian smiled complacently, twisted his small, jet-black moustache, and passed his hand through his dark, well-oiled hair, leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes half, and began in quite a pleasant tenor voice:

"A peasant had a pretty wife,
She loved to stay at home,
She begged her husband by her life,
To go abroad and roam,
Through the grass and through the hay,
Through the grass--alas!
Ha, ha, ha; ha, ha, ha; hideldeedee!
Hurrah! hurrah!
To go abroad, and in the grass."

"Ho, ho, ho!" laughed the director. "That is a good song--very good. That reminds me of a pretty story, which I will tell if you say so, gentlemen. You can finish the song afterwards, Cotterby."

The Egyptian seemed to take it rather amiss that he was thus interrupted; but Mr. Schmenckel did not notice it, or did not choose to notice it. He took a long pull at his glass of beer, and said to the waiting maid, whom the song or the presence of the young, distinguished stranger had brought back to the table,

"You go a little outside, my angel. The story which Director Schmenckel is going to tell is not made for young girls."

The pretty girl blushed up to her ears and ran away, looking back for a moment at Oswald. Mr. Schmenckel cleared his voice, leaned over the table, and began with a voice which sounded all the hoarser for his efforts to subdue it:

"Gentlemen, you know that all thinking men divide women into two classes--such as serve, and such as are served. But love knows no such distinction, for love masters them all. I have myself experienced this very often in life, but it has never become quite so clear to me as some----" Here Mr. Schmenckel looked almost anxiously around, to see that no unauthorized ear, especially no female ear, should catch the chronological fact which he was about to mention. "Some twenty years ago, in St. Petersburg. Have any of the gentlemen ever been in St. Petersburg?"

They said no.

"How did you get to St. Petersburg?" inquired the hopeful son of a citizen of Fichtenau, who had in the meanwhile joined the company.

"Schmenckel, of Vienna," replied the director, in a dogmatic tone of voice, "has been everywhere. You may expect him, therefore, at any place on earth. St. Petersburg, gentlemen, is a beautiful city, as you may judge from the fact that the palaces of the emperor and of all the great nobles are cut of blue and white ice, which shines brilliantly in the sun."

"How can that be," inquired again the man from Fichtenau; "don't they melt in summer?"

"In summer," said Mr. Schmenckel, by no means taken aback; "in summer? Why, what are you thinking of? I tell you, sir, in St. Petersburg there is no summer. Snow and ice, ice and snow, all the year round, from one New Year's Eve to the next New Year's Eve. You have no idea, in your country here, of such a cold; the human mind can't conceive it. I tell you, the breath from your mouth falls instantly as snow to the ground, and when two persons have been talking to each other for some time in the street, a heap is formed between them so high that when they part they have to climb up in order to be able to shake hands. Why, it is so cold there that the milk freezes in the cow; and when you say: here, give me a glass of beer, or a little mug-full, the Petersburg people say: give me a slice, for the beer freezes into a thick syrup, and is not poured out, but cut into long, thin slices, put upon buttered bread, and eaten in that way."

"That must be quite uncomfortable," remarked the oldest guest of the Green Hat.

"Every land has its ways," replied Mr. Schmenckel.

"But we know that expression, too," said the fat landlord, who had come up to the table.

"Well, then, just let me have a slice, my good man," said Mr. Schmenckel, draining his glass and handing it over his shoulder to the landlord, "but Christian measure, if you please!

"In one word," continued the director, after he had graciously accepted the applause which his wit received as a tribute due to his superiority, and after trying cautiously the contents of the new glass, "in a word, St. Petersburg is a fine city, and when you see how the sun glitters on all the ice palaces, and how the Russians, wrapped in their bearskins, drive furiously through the streets in their sleighs with four reindeers abreast, you feel as if your heart was laughing within you with delight, and you must go into the nearest shop to take a good glass of gin.

"Well, then, we were in St. Petersburg, and liked it mightily. We--that is to say, the famous circus company of my uncle, who was the director, Francis Schmenckel, and myself, who had the honor to be engaged as Hercules--I can say that we created a sensation, especially our horses; for the Russians know horses only from hearsay. The emperor alone has two or three shaggy creatures that look like big dogs in his stables. Everybody else, as I said before, drives only reindeer--even the cavalry is mounted in that way; and I can assure you, gentlemen, that a Russian cuirassier of the guards, mounted on his reindeer stallion, is not so bad a sight after all.

"We had immense audiences. The emperor and the whole court were every evening at the circus. His majesty applauded so furiously that he had to put on a new pair of white kid gloves every five minutes, because he had torn the others to pieces. During the entire act I had to be on my post at the door of the Imperial box, so that I could show his majesty the way behind the scenes and into the stables, where his majesty condescended to pat the best animals most graciously on the neck, and to pinch the cheeks of the handsomest ladies in the company, with his own hand. But more than anybody else did I enjoy the emperor's favor. I cannot tell exactly why! I only know that the emperor sent for me to his box the very first night, and said to me before the whole court: 'Mr. Schmenckel, you are not only the strongest but also the handsomest man I have ever seen. Ask a favor!' 'Your majesty,' I replied, bowing gracefully, 'I ask only for a continuance of your favor, which I esteem above all things else.' 'That you shall have, and patents of nobility into the bargain,' exclaimed his majesty, most enthusiastically. 'Give me your strong hand, Mr. von Schmenckel; with a company of men like yourself, I would dictate laws to the whole world.'

"From that moment we were sworn friends. 'Mr. Schmenckel, come this evening and take a cup of caravan tea with me! Will you drink a glass of wutki punch with me to-night, after the performance is over? dear von Schmenckel. You know, quite entre nous, perhaps, a few ladies and gentlemen of my court. Will you come?' That was the way, day by day.

"Well, gentlemen, Mr. Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not a proud man, but he likes to be in good company----"

Here Mr. Schmenckel made a courteous bow to the bystanders, and continued:

"And an emperor is, after all, always an emperor, and it is a pleasure, which I will not deny, to be on such terms of intimacy with such a man.

"Those were famous evenings which I spent, so to say, in the bosom of the imperial family. The gentlemen of the court were very pleasant people, and the ladies----"

Mr. Schmenckel closed his eyes, kissed his hand toward! the ceiling, and sent a deep sigh after the winged messenger of his love. "The ladies! I tell you, gentlemen, he who has not seen the women of Russia, has not seen any women at all. Such hair, such eyes, such figures, such fire; and if Schmenckel of Vienna, was to live four thousand years, he would never forget the winter in St. Petersburg!

"The Russian women are beautiful, and you may feel a little twitch of envy, gentlemen, when I tell you that I had the pick among the fairest of the fair. You may think that sounds like brag, gentlemen, but I cannot help it, it was so. They sent me whole wagon-loads of locks of hair, bouquets and little notes, which always began thus: 'Divine Schmenckel, or Apollo Schmenckel,' and always ended thus: 'Meet me at such and such a place, at such and such an hour.'

"But, as it happens most frequently in such cases, she whose favor I should have valued most highly was not one of my admirers. This was a young and very beautiful lady, whom I saw every evening at the circus; but she always assumed a prodigiously haughty and reserved air, although I invariably made her a special bow when they applauded.

"'How do you like our ladies?' the emperor asked me one evening as we were walking, arm-in-arm, up and down the reception room.

"'So so! your majesty,' I replied, for discretion was always Caspar Schmenckel's special gift.

"'You are hard to please,' said the emperor. 'How do you like the little Malikowsky?'

"'What name was that?' suddenly asked Berger, who had been sitting immovable, his brow buried in his hand, and who now, for the first time, raised his head.

"Malikowsky, old gentleman," repeated Mr. Schmenckel. "Another Russian slice, landlord. With your leave, gentlemen. I'll fill my pipe once more."

Oswald looked at Berger. He felt as if a strange nervous twitching was agitating his calm, serious features, and as if the eyes betrayed an unusual excitement but the next moment Berger had again hid his brow in his hand. Mr. Schmenckel continued his story:

"'The little Malikowsky?' I asked. 'Who is she?'

"'Have you never noticed a lady in black who sits very near the imperial box? Pale face, large eyes, chin rather long?'

"'Certainly, your majesty; but she seems to be a shy bird.'

"'Nonsense! dear Schmenckel; sheer nonsense! Between us be it said, the lady once stood in somewhat nearer relations to our house than I liked. We have given her a husband, a Polish nobleman who was ruined; her reputation was not very good, his is very bad; he has nothing, she has half a million souls----'"

"How much is that in Prussian money?" inquired the fat habitué of the Green Hat, who kept a grocery-store in the town.

"Five million dollars, twenty-six silver groschen, and fourpence--'thus they suit each other exactly. When she wants to get rid of him for a time, she sends him to his estates in Poland. Just now he is again on his travels. You had better make a conquest of her, and I will say then that Schmenckel, of Vienna, is not only the strongest and the handsomest, but also the luckiest man on earth.'

"'Your majesty's wish is my command,' I replied, and went home considering how I could win the heart of the beauty. 'Only by doing something which no man ever yet has been able to do,' I said to myself, and then, gentlemen, it was I invented the famous Schmenckel-act, with the three cannon balls of forty-eight pounds each. On the first evening I played with one of them as with a boy's ball--she smiled; on the second I played with two--she clapped her tiny hands; on the third I played with all three of them--she threw me a bouquet. I was sure of my success now. But here, gentlemen, I must beg you to excuse me if I follow my invariable custom when a lady is mentioned in my recollections, and if I only suggest, therefore, in a general way, that the same evening a pretty maid presented herself at my rooms and asked me to follow her to her mistress who was dying of love for me. I may add that Schmenckel, of Vienna, has too good a heart to let anybody die for him, and least of all for love for him, if he can help it, and that the next four weeks belonged to the happiest of his whole life."

"You are a fortunate man, director," said the native of Fichtenau, who had been for four years secretly in love with the daughter of an alderman, and had already triumphed so far over all obstacles as to have obtained, almost, a kiss from her.

"As you take it, young man," replied Mr. Schmenckel, with paternal benevolence, "where there is much light, there must also be dark shadows. I ought properly to let my story end here, but I suppose I must finish it for the benefit of such young hot-blooded creatures as you are. Master Miller, and you Cotterby, you abominably fast man, and you Pierrot, the greatest scamp I know. Well, just listen, gentlemen! The pretty maid was not less passionately fond of me than her mistress, for, as I said just now, in that matter of love all the women are alike What happens, therefore? One fine evening, as I was drinking my cup of tea with the lady--in all honor and propriety, gentlemen, upon my word of honor--somebody suddenly knocks with great violence at the door which leads into the count's apartment, and which was locked from inside. 'Open the door! open the door!----'

"'Great God, the count!' whispered the countess, pale with terror. 'Nadeska has betrayed us.'

"'Open the door'--and here followed a fearful oath--'open the door!'

"'Well,' said I, 'that's a nice predicament; what's to be done next?'

"'Schmenckel, you must save me.'

"'With pleasure; but how?'

"'I'll slip into my chamber, and lock the door behind me.'

"'Very good; but what am I to do?'

"'You have broken into the house, through that window'--and as she said this she opened the window, took the candelabra with the lights, passed through the second door, locked it, and began to cry as loud as she could--'Help! Help! Thieves!'

"Well, gentlemen, just imagine my position, if you can. Before I could collect my five senses the door was broken open, and the count rushed in, holding two pistols in his hands, and five men-servants with lights and big sticks behind him."

"How did the count look?" Berger asked in a low voice, without raising his head.

"Well, old gentleman, I had not exactly time to look closely at him. I only know that he was a fine-looking, tall man, with a pair of eyes that fairly burnt with fury. 'Ah, I have caught you, rascal?' he cried. Crack! went a ball past my left ear--crack! and another ball went past my right ear. Well, gentlemen, that was, after all, a little too strong, and not exactly the way to make Caspar Schmenckel's acquaintance. What could I do? I seized the count around the body, and threw him out of the window; and in case he should have broken something in falling, I threw one of the servants right after him. The others were frightened and ran away as fast as they could. I ran after them through the other rooms across the hall and down the stairs, and, gentlemen, when I had gotten so far I found the way into the street easily enough by myself. How do you like my story, professor?" and Mr. Schmenckel put his broad hand upon Berger's shoulder.

Berger raised his head. His face was deadly pale, his eyes were rolling fearfully, his gray hair hung down into his face.

"If you can tell the truth, man," he said, with weird-sounding voice, "answer me; have you told the truth?"

"I believe the old gentleman has taken a little too much," said Mr. Schmenckel, good-naturedly.

"Yes, I have drunk too much," cried Berger, gesticulating violently with his hands--"too much of the wretched beverage of this miserable life, which is utterly good for nothing, and the liquor has gotten into my head. Ha! ha! ha!"

It was a terrible laughter; but the half-drunk visitors thought it highly amusing.

"Oh, ho! the professor is taking to it very kindly," cried Mr. Schmenckel, holding his sides. "Speech, speech! Let the professor give us a speech!"

Oswald had jumped up and stood by Berger's side. He tried in his anxiety to calm the over-excited man, and to persuade him to leave the house.

Berger paid no attention to him. He stood there, leaning with both his hands upon the table, as Oswald had seen him do so often in his lecture-room.

"Write, gentlemen," he said, "this is the quintessence of the long syllogism, the parts of which I have just explained to you:

"I climbed on a pear-tree,
I wanted to dig beets,
Then have I all my life
Eaten no better plums.

"You will say that this is not a speculative idea, but an old drinking song; but, gentlemen, in a world where good people are made fun of, and led by the nose by impudent demons--where folly with the fool's cap on the head is ruling supreme, and causes its lofty conceptions to be executed by stupidity, vulgarity, and brutality--there speculation becomes a drinking song, and the idea--the grand, all-sublime idea--why, you are the idea yourselves, gentlemen, rough, vulgar fellows as you are."

"Oh, ho! old man, I won't stand that," cried Mr. Schmenckel, who could hardly laugh any longer.

"Yes indeed, yourself," continued Berger, growing more and more violent. "You, Director Caspar Schmenckel, of Vienna, you represent the justice of heaven! The idea can do nothing without you; you are the idea, the incarnate idea. I told you life was good for nothing, but no--that is saying too much--it is worthy of you. I detest you, but I honor you; I shudder at the sight of you, but I worship you. Come into my arms, that I may measure the depths of this wretchedness, that I may touch with my own hands the incredible."

"Come to my heart, old boy," cried Mr. Schmenckel returning the embrace. "You are a trump--a perfect brick; let us be brothers."

He let go Berger and seized his glass.

At the same moment Berger fell, pressing his hand upon his heart, with a fearful cry, and fainted away.

It was a fearful cry indeed--like the cry for help of a drowning man at the instant of sinking--a cry that was heard high above the din in the room, that silenced all the chatting and chaffing, and made the drinkers jump up from their seats in utter consternation. They crowded around the fallen man, and glared with stupid, half-drunken eyes at him, as Oswald tried in vain to raise him from the floor. No one lent a hand to assist the young man. The fright seemed to have paralyzed the crowd.

"Will nobody help me?" cried Oswald, supporting the burden of the lifeless body in his arms.

These words were addressed to Mr. Schmenckel, who until now had been quietly standing near, with open mouth and fixed eyes, his pipe in one hand, the glass of beer in the other.

Oswald's appeal brought him back to his senses.

"You are right, count," he said, "we must do something for the old gentleman."

He put his pipe on the table, took Berger, who was still unconscious, from Oswald's arms, lifted him without effort on his shoulder, and carried him out of the room as a lion bears off a dead gazelle.

Oswald and the landlord followed him.

"Here, come in here," said the landlord, opening the door of the room on the opposite side of the hall, where more distinguished guests were commonly received.

Mr. Schmenckel laid the patient on the sofa.

"The old gentleman had an empty stomach," said Director Schmenckel, whispering his information gravely into Oswald's ear, while the latter was busy about Berger.

"Your excellency ought to have made him eat a good slice of ham with brown bread, and a glass of brandy."

Berger began to stir. He opened his eyes and looked wonderingly at the by-standers, like somebody who is awaking from a heavy dream. Then he rose fully, with Oswald's assistance, and said in a low voice:

"I thank you, my friends. I have given you much trouble. We are dependent one on the other in this life. I hope I shall soon meet you again; perhaps I may be able then to reciprocate your kindness. Come, Oswald, let us go."

"Do you feel strong enough? Had we not better send for a carriage?"

"Oh no! Horses and carriages are not for people like me."

He went to the door. Suddenly he stopped again.

"Pay the people what we owe them, Oswald; we must not remain in anybody's debt on this earth."

Oswald paid the landlord his bill, including in it, to Mr. Schmenckel's evident satisfaction, all that the ropedancers had consumed.

A few moments afterward he and Berger had left the house and were walking slowly through the silent streets of Fichtenau, back to Doctor Birkenhain's asylum.

Berger observed a silence which Oswald dared not break. The young man reproached himself in secret to have been so imprudent as to have left Berger so long in such company. He ascribed his exaltation mainly to the heat and the drinking of the strong beer, to which he was not accustomed. He had no suspicion of the close connection between Berger's history and the grotesque adventures of the circus-director, whose story he had scarcely heard. He only thought of Dr. Birkenhain, and how little he had attended to his suggestions. He was reflecting whether his presence was not perhaps rather injurious than useful for Berger, and thought of leaving Fichtenau as soon as possible, for his own benefit as well as for Berger's.

Thus they had reached in silence the road which led past the mill to the gateway of Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, when Berger suddenly said:

"You must leave us to-night, Oswald!"

"To-night?"

"Rather to-day than to-morrow. You have to go out into the desert once more; I cannot spare you the trial. And I, myself--I have to learn much yet, and you cannot assist me. It is better for us, therefore, to part. You go your way, and I shall go my way--it is the same road and although I am a little ahead of you, you learn quickly and will soon overtake me. Until then, Oswald farewell!"

Berger embraced Oswald and kissed him.

Oswald was deeply moved.

"Let me stay with you," he said, his voice half-drowned in tears; "let me stay with you and never leave you again. I hate the world, I despise the world, as much as you do."

"I know that," said Berger, "but to despise the world is but the first stage of the three on the road to the Great Mystery."

"And which is the second stage? Mention it, so that I may reach it at once!"

"To despise one's self."

"And--the third?"

They were standing before the gateway. Berger rang the bell; the door sprang open.

"And the third--the last stage?"

"Despise being despised."

"And the mystery itself--the Great Mystery?"

"He who has passed all three stages knows it and understands it without asking any questions. He who asks about it does not know it, and cannot understand it. Oswald, farewell; we shall meet again!"

Berger pressed Oswald once more to his heart; then he entered through the gate, which closed immediately upon him.

Oswald remained standing near the gate, like the beggar who has been refused the refreshing drink for which he has asked; then he went, with drooping head, back the way he had come with Berger.

The night was dark; hardly a star on the murky, cloudy sky; the poplars by the wayside were whispering to each other; and the mill-race down below said in its own way: To despise the world--to despise one's self--to despise being despised.

CHAPTER IX.

During the time when Oswald and Berger had watched the sun from the summit of the Lookout Mountain, as he sank slowly into the green ocean of the forest, a guest had arrived at the Kurhaus, whose arrival caused a certain joyous sensation in the hotel. It was a fair young lady, dressed in a dark, remarkably elegant costume, and accompanied by a not less handsome boy of about twelve years, who looked, however, pale and sickly. With them came an old man, whose gray moustache and military carriage gave him a very marked appearance, and who seemed to be partly a servant and partly a friend of the lady. The lady had spent several weeks in Fichtenau during the summer, though then without the boy, in order to attend her husband, who had been for seven years in Doctor Birkenhain's asylum, and who was now dying. Her sad fate, not less than her great gentleness and kindness towards everybody, especially the poor and the sick, had won her the love and admiration of the inhabitants of the little town to such a degree that even now they were blessing, in more than one family, the remembrance of the "good lady" with deep gratitude.

It did not look as if this time, also, a pleasant purpose had brought the lady to Fichtenau, for she had scarcely been shown by the landlord himself, amid countless bows and scrapings, into the best parlor of the second story, when she sat down to write a few lines to Doctor Birkenhain, which the old servant had orders to carry immediately to the asylum, a hotel servant showing him the way. In the meantime the boy, who was exceedingly tired from the journey, had been put to bed. Two rooms to the left of the parlor had been fitted up for the lady's use, and great regret was expressed that unfortunately the room on the right could not at once be added, since it was yet occupied by a gentleman, who, however, would certainly not stay beyond the next morning.

An hour later Doctor Birkenhain had driven up before the Kurhaus with the old servant by his side; he had gone up to the lady in her parlor, and had been engaged with her in a long conversation, which could not have been very satisfactory, for Jean, the waiter attached to those rooms, had seen, when he carried the tea-things into the parlor, that the lady had been weeping, and was trying to wipe her eyes.

Doctor Birkenhain had, after the conversation was ended, walked up once more to the bed of the boy, who was fast asleep, had put his hand on his heart, bent over him, and pressing his ear on the boy's bare breast, listened attentively for some time. Then he raised himself again, carefully covered the sleeper, pushed the abundant curly hair from the fair, pale brow, and turning to the lady with a smile on his lips which positively lighted up the stern, serious features of the man, said to her, while she held a light in her hand and looked up to him with the strained expression of painful uncertainty,

"Calm yourself, madame; I can, of course, not decide positively, but all that I have seen so far gives me great hope that matters are not half as bad with our little patient there as my colleagues in Grunwald seem to have fancied."

A beam of joy lighted up the lady's face, and her large eyes filled with tears.

Doctor Birkenhain took the light from her hand and escorted her back to the parlor.

"I shall come again to-morrow morning," he said, taking his hat and cane; "if it comforts you, you can let old Baumann sit up with the boy. But you yourself must go to bed early, and take one of these powders. You are very much exhausted and require rest."

"Stay another moment, doctor!" said the lady. "I have one more question to ask."

Her features betrayed great emotion, her bosom rose and sank with agitation; she seemed to be about to give utterance to a thought which she was unable from great fear to clothe in words.

Doctor Birkenhain laid dawn again his hat and cane.

"Sit down, madame, I pray you!" he said, sitting down by her side on the sofa. "I know what you are about to ask. I have read the question all this evening in your anxious eyes and upon your trembling lips. You do not believe in the disease of the heart, of which the physicians at Grunwald have said so much; if you did you would not have come to me, however kindly you may think of my modest knowledge and my experience. You fear the evil is more serious--in fact, that it is a hereditary disease, the first germ, the beginning, of an affection which has already once been so fatal for you. Am I right?"

The lady's answer was a flood of tears, which broke irresistibly from her eyes, like a long pent-up torrent. Sobbing, she pressed her handkerchief to her face.

"My dear madame," said the physician, taking her hand in his, "I pray you, I implore you, calm yourself. As far as I can judge from the written reports of my colleagues, from your own account, and from my observation, there is not the slightest ground for your terrible apprehension. Insanity is hereditary, to be sure; it descends through many generations, turning up here and there, often after a long interval; but in your husband's family his own case is the very first in the whole history of his family, and consequently for many hundred years. And this exceptional case had its own peculiar and very sad causes, which could affect only the individual, and could not possibly have any effect upon his descendants. Herr von Berkow was naturally in the enjoyment of very good health, perhaps even superior in his physique to most men; but remember, I pray that it is a physician who is speaking now--he had ruined this powerful constitution by dissipation. That which often saves others in his position--the marriage with a chaste, pure being--became in his case his ruin, for he felt his own unworthiness--felt it so deeply that he despaired of ever winning your love or attaining your forgiveness, and therefore abandoned himself hopelessly to that melancholy in which he quickly lost all pleasure in life and all energy of mind. The sins of the father will not be visited on the next generation. If there should really be an affection of the heart, it has as yet made very little progress and can easily be cured, with the aid of Julius's youth and excellent constitution. Therefore I pray you, madame, lay aside all your anxiety; confide in me; confide in your good fortune; the clouds that are hiding your star for a moment will soon disappear."

"My star?" asked the lady, with a melancholy smile; "my star? Why, doctor, I fear, if there ever was such a one, it has set long since and forever."

"That we shall see," said Doctor Birkenhain, rising. "I believe in favorable stars, and above all in your good star. One so fair and so dear and so good as you are must not and shall not be unhappy! Good night!"

Doctor Birkenhain took the lady's hand, raised it reverently to his lips, and left the room.

She remained sitting after the physician had left her, resting her head in her hand, and sunk in deep meditation.

As in a dream, all the scenes of her life passed before her mind's eye.

She saw herself a rosy-cheeked, wild child, playing in her father's park with a solemn, awkward boy, whom she at times loved dearly and then again hated bitterly; who, now haughty and imperious, resisted her caprices, and then, when she was kinder to him, spared no trouble and feared no danger in order to fulfil her childish wishes. She saw herself, a few years later, in company with the same boy and a few other boys and girls, perform very complicated steps in the large room of her father's chateau, while a poor man accompanied them with the violin, and the grown people, men and women, expressed their delight and overwhelmed the little coquette with praises and caresses; and she saw the boy, whose awkwardness she had ridiculed and derided in her exuberance of spirits, sit in a distant corner and weep bitterly. She saw herself again, a few years later, in the fresh brightness of a beauty of sixteen years, courted and admired on all sides, thoughtlessly sipping the sweet, precious beverage from the rose-crowned cup of life with eager thirst; flitting from pleasure to pleasure, as a light-winged butterfly flits from flower to flower, and yet feeling, amid all these blissful enjoyments, in her heart's deepest depth, a continuous restlessness, which made the golden Present appear gray and colorless in comparison with the bright-colored, glorious Future, which was to fulfil all her plans and all her hopes. She had lost sight of the solemn, awkward boy in those days. What could he have done in the midst of this fairy world, full of brightness and fragrance, in which nightingales sang, and all were playful and happy. But the Future had become the Present, and nothing had been fulfilled of all her promises; a poisonous dew had fallen upon her bright flowers, and had robbed them of their beauty and their fragrance; the nightingales had ceased to sing, and the whole spring landscape was concealed under a gray, dismal veil--a veil through which now and then fearful scenes became visible--a father kneeling before his daughter and beseeching her by his gray head, which he must bury in dishonor if she did not comply with his wishes to marry a man whom she does not love, and against whom an instinctive feeling warns the pure, innocent maid; a husband who--away, away with these fearful visions, which make the unfortunate woman hide her face with shuddering, even now, after an interval of so many years. And then she sees once more the form of the solemn, stubborn boy in the shape of a haughty, cold man, who yet, whenever he meets her, changes his haughtiness into humility, and his coldness into unspeakable kindness and love; who assists her with counsel, comfort, and help; who turns aside whatever harm he can avert, and helps her bear it where he cannot prevent it; who ever tries to take everything upon his own shoulders. And now the thought occurs to her, more and more frequently, that, after all, this man is probably worth more than all her fantastic dreams; but as yet she cannot, by any effort of her own, abandon all the ideals that once filled her youthful heart. She treats the man as she has treated the boy; she sends him on his travels as she used to send him in the garden, when he was not willing to fall in with her caprices.

And now come peaceful visions of years spent in the green solitude of her estate, and among them continually re-appearing the forms of a fair, delicate boy and an old gray-bearded servant in varied and yet always similar situations--peaceful visions, although a certain fragrance of melancholy attaches itself to all their bright perfumes, the effect of unsatisfied longing and vain hopes. She thinks often enough of the man whom she has sent into exile, but no longer with the warm heart, which is in truth ashamed of its ingratitude. Some bitterness has begun to mingle with her feelings towards this man, since he has dared--it happened during a journey to Italy--to speak openly of his love for her; since she has rejected him, fancying in her false logic that she was consistent when she only adhered obstinately to a caprice; and since he, proud as he was, had at once accepted her decision, and left the country to travel in Egypt and Nubia. She imagines even that she has begun to hate the companion of her youthful years, the faithful friend who has stood by her in every need and danger; and yet, any one who knows the human heart might have told her that hatred is only the wild brother of the sweet sister love, and indifference the only really impenetrable armor for a woman's heart.

And now there appears amid these peaceful scenes the form of a man whose beauty delights her artistic eye, whose gentle kindness lingers around her like the breath of spring, whose longing finds in her own heart, full of vague yearning, an eloquent echo--of a man who in everything seems to be the realization of all her dreams. And as in a dream she accepts his love, returns it with thousand-fold fire; she will not see the danger, she will not wake, she insists upon being happy once in her life. But morning breaks; it becomes impossible to keep her eyes closed any longer, and to retain the visions of her dream. Her friend has returned, contrary to all expectations, and appears before her, warning her, and the very next hour his prophecy has become true. Blow upon blow, misfortune falls upon her. Did he dream of it, when it drove him from the ruins of Karnak to his home in the far North? The news of the approaching death of the man whose name she bears summons her away from the arms of him whom she loves; she hastens to fulfil a duty which is all the more sacred to her because of the blissful happiness that she has enjoyed during the last weeks; and she returns, her heart full of sweet hopes, and at the same time full of painful anticipations, and she hears and sees that the man to whom she has abandoned herself with boundless love has betrayed her. And, as if that was not enough punishment for her short, secret happiness, her only child--that beautiful, lovely boy, who was her delight and her pride--is taken down with a disease which appears to her the beginning of an affection such as she has just seen end in the most fearful manner in the father of that child.

But this second blow is perhaps a blessing in disguise. It stuns her so that she scarcely feels the wound in her heart. The love of the woman is swallowed up in the love of the mother. She watches day and night by the bedside of the boy; she has eyes and ears only for his wants and his wishes; and as soon as he recovers slightly, she takes a journey to the man in whose experience she has unbounded confidence, and from whose lips she means to hear the sentence, the decision of life or death--no! a thousand times worse than death itself! And he has spoken; he has left her some hope; he has even encouraged her to hope--her boy is going to live; he will recover; the sins of the father are not to be visited on the next generation.

And now that her soul has been relieved of the fearful burden--now she thinks for the first time again of her betrayed love.

Was not this betrayal a just punishment for having cared so much for her own happiness, and so little for that of the boy? For having committed treason against her own child; for was not the love for a man who filled her whole heart treason against her child?

Here, in this very room, she had during the past summer dreamt so often of a future which was to be realized in such a sad present, and now the current of life had floated her back to the same place, almost into the same situation! Was it not as if Fate wished to give her time to consider before she acted--before she laid her own happiness, and that of her child, into hands which were far too feeble to defend such a treasure successfully?

Here, in this very room, her friend had warned her against these hands that were grasping with childish eagerness at everything that was great and beautiful, in order to cast it aside again in childish caprice, as if it were worth little. Here, in this very room, he had prophesied to her things which had since come true, word by word.

Here, in this very room, he had spoken to her thus: "And when you lie crushed by this blow, and wish to die, and yet cannot die; then you will be able to feel what anguish a heart suffers when it sees its love betrayed and despised; then you will make me amends in your heart, and be sorry for the wrong you have done me."

Where was he now? this faithful, noble friend, who--she had often felt it, though never so deeply as at this moment--was wasting his proud strength for her sake in idleness or senseless adventures, as a tree whose heart has been taken out breaks forth in abundant branches and leaves, but never bears fruit again? Once more he was wandering restlessly, like the wandering Jew, through the wide, desert world. And, as if he should never call anything his own, the child whom he had loved before he knew her to be his child, had vanished again like a short, fair dream. He had let her go, because his sense of justice told him that he had no claim upon this child, for whom he had done nothing but to call it into existence. Was it really to be his fate to sow love and reap indifference?

No! no! not indifference; although it might not be love such as he felt, and such as he wished for, but certainly not indifference! Did she not feel hearty friendship, deep, sincere regard for him? Would she not have sacrificed whole years of her existence, if by so doing she could have restored his child to him?

Where was he now? She had become so accustomed to seeing him by her side, whenever the dark hours of her life were coming, that she missed him sadly now, when he was for the first time absent. And yet, what right had she to a love which she had refused a hundred times, and which she had so grievously insulted by her love for another man?

The fair lady had been so lost in such thoughts that she did not hear a gentle knock at the door. The door opened, and an old, gray-bearded face peeped in. Behind the grim, bearded face the form of a tall man was visible.

"Madame," said the moustache, "a good friend who has just arrived wishes to present his respects, if possible yet, this evening."

"Who is it?" asked the lady, rising with surprise from her seat.

The tall gentleman entered.

"Oldenburg!" cried the lady; "Oldenburg! Is it really you?"

"Yes, Melitta!" said the baron, seizing the proffered hand of the lady and carrying it to his lips. "It is I, in person."

The old man had remained where he stood, rubbing his hands and looking at the two, as they were shaking hands, with an eye full of hope and apprehension. When he saw the unmistakable expression of joyful surprise upon the fair face of his beloved mistress, and the tear which glistened in her eye as the baron bent over her hand, his own eyes slowly filled with tears. He left the room with noiseless steps, closed the door very gently, and one who could have observed the old man afterwards--but there was no one there to see him--would have seen how he folded his hands, when he was outside, and murmured an ardent prayer with trembling lips, in his gray beard--a prayer which thanked God for this meeting between his mistress and the only man whom he thought worthy of her, and implored Him to turn everything, oh everything, to the best, in this the eleventh hour, by His infinite mercy and kindness.

* * * * *

When old Baumann had left the room, the baron had, according to his old habit, walked silently up and down the room with long strides, to overcome a feeling which threatened to get the better of his self-control. Melitta had seated herself on the sofa, since her own excitement, which was probably not less strong than Oldenburg's had deprived her of the power of standing.

After a few minutes the baron came and took his seat by her side on the sofa, and said with a soft voice, which did not show the slightest trace of the vehemence of his rough manner,

"And you do not ask, Melitta, what has brought me here through night and storm, across these mountains, to this village and this room?"

"No!" replied Melitta, looking full and clear into his eyes; "no! for I know it without asking."

"I thank you, Melitta!"

This was all he answered; but the whole heart of the man was in these few words.

"Yes, and even more than that," continued Melitta. "I was but just thinking of you--of the faithful friend who has as yet always stood by me in the hour of misfortune, aiding me by counsel and deed, however I may have rejected his advice and rewarded the sacrifices he has made for my sake with bitter ingratitude.

"Sacrifices--ingratitude!" said Oldenburg, and a melancholy smile played around his lips; "those are words, Melitta, which have no meaning for us--I mean for myself. At least they have none now, whatever else I may have thought of them in former years. In the end everybody submits to his fate; and when the captured lion has come to an end with his despair, and sees that his strength can do nothing against the iron bars of his cage, he lies down in the corner and is for the future as gentle as a lamb. But no more of that; I did not come here to plead for myself, and to renew a suit which has already been lost in all the stages of appeal; I did not come for my sake, but for yours. I was told in Grunwald, where I was on business, that Julius had been attacked by serious sickness, and that you had gone with him to Fichtenau. I feared the worst, and followed you at once, travelling day and night, in order to help you as far as I could. Fortunately our apprehensions were unfounded. I have spoken with Birkenhain downstairs, after he left you. He has completely reassured me, and thinks you can go back as soon as you feel strong enough. That is all I wished to know; and now, when the purpose of my journey is fulfilled, and I have been able by a lucky accident, thanks to the gods, to see you and to hold your dear hand in mine--God bless you, Melitta! and may misfortune--for good fortune has nothing to do with us--not make us meet soon again."

The baron said these last words with a smiling air, but in his voice there was a secret pain, the pain of a noble heart full of love, which finds no home in all this wide, rich world.

He had taken Melitta's hand in bidding her farewell, and was about to rise; but he could not do it, for the hand so dear to him not only returned warmly the pressure of his--he felt, at least he thought he felt, that Melitta would not let him leave her, that she would be pleased to see him stay.

This was something so new to him that he looked at her, wondering whether it were really possible--whether his presence was for once no punishment to her.

"You must not go yet," said Melitta, with some precipitancy, while a passing flush colored her pale cheeks for a moment. "I cannot bear to see that, while all the world praises my kindness and every beggar leaves me contented, you alone should look upon me as upon a statue, which never gives and always takes without ever saying Thank you! You have not told me a word yet about yourself; not a word how and where you have been all this time. You come from a distance of several thousand miles to look at my Julius, and you mean to go again before I have even been able to ask you if you have had any news of your Czika? Is that generous? Why, it is not even right in you."

The baron looked at Melitta as she said this, almost frightened.

"Melitta," he answered, so seriously as to be almost solemn; "it is not right to awaken the desire to live, in a man who is sick unto death. Do not spoil me, from pure pity, with a kindness which does not come from the heart!"

"Not from the heart!" repeated Melitta in a low voice. "To be sure I have deserved that reproach; I ought not to complain."

"I did not mean to reproach you, Melitta."

"And yet I deserve it. Yes, Oldenburg, I must tell you, or it will oppress my heart beyond endurance. I feel deeply ashamed before you. The burden of gratitude which you impose upon me weighs me down."

"A burden, Melitta! A burden! By God, I did not wish to lay any burden upon you by the few services I have been able to render you."

"You will not believe me. I cannot measure and weigh my words as you do. If there is no voice in your heart speaking for me--if you are not willing to listen to me with your heart, then----"

Her voice was drowned in tears.

"What is this?" said Oldenburg, seizing his head with both his hands. "Am I dreaming? Is this my head? Are these my hands? Am I Oldenburg? Are you Melitta? You, who are shedding tears, because I, Oldenburg, do not understand you, or will not understand you?"

"You shall understand me," said Melitta, drying her tears, with an impetuosity very unusual in her. "You have seen me so often weak and irresolute in our intercourse, that you do not think me any longer capable of forming a resolution. And yet I have the strength to do so; and that I have it, I owe to you, Adalbert. During the sickness of my child you have spoken to me, and I have not closed my heart to your voice. I have heard it very distinctly during the long, anxious night hours which I spent watching and weeping by the bedside of my child. Then I have asked my child's pardon with silent, burning tears, that I could ever forget being a mother. Then I have vowed to myself that I would never, never forget it again. Then I have----"

She was silent; burning shame flooded her cheeks with deep glowing blushes; but she made a great effort and said,

"Then I have abjured a passion which humiliates me in my own eyes, in my child's eyes, and, Adalbert, in yours."

"Stop, Melitta! stop!" cried Oldenburg, rising suddenly. "You are beside yourself! You are not alone! You are in the presence of another person--of a man who loves you, Melitta. He does not want to hear what you ought to say to no one but to yourself."

"Let me finish, Adalbert! I trust in your goodness, as I trust in your strength. I have not told you all yet; not even all the vows I have made by the bedside of my sick child. I have often thought of your child, then, and that a most terrible fate has robbed you of the love of your child as well as of the love of her whom you love. And then I vowed that, if I cannot make you as happy as you deserve to be; if much, far too much, has happened which parts you and me forever; I can yet help you bear your fate, as far as in me lies. I will try to reconcile you to life, and live for you as far as I am able."

Melitta had, while she said these words, risen from the sofa. She stood before him with deep-red cheeks and beaming eyes.

Oldenburg had heard her with breathless excitement, with an emotion which grew stronger and deeper with every word. His eyes flashed, his bosom heaved, he pressed his hands upon his heart, which felt as if it would burst with unspeakable bliss.

When Melitta's last word had dropped from her lips he approached her, knelt down before her, and said, with a voice deep and firm, like the sound of an iron shield,

"And now hear my vow, Melitta! As surely as I have loved you ever since I can think, as surely as the night of my life has been lighted up but by a single star, as surely as I have wandered about restlessly and aimlessly in the vast desert of life, only because I despaired that that star could ever shine down upon me benignly--so surely will I, from this moment, strive to attain the highest aim of man with all the power I may possess. I will lay aside all little weaknesses and all my cowardice; I will try to make up for the time which I have lost in inactivity. And as sure as my heart is at this moment overflowing with a happiness which words cannot describe, so surely will I seek neither rest nor repose till you love me as I love you--till you are mine. Do you near, Melitta--till you are my wife!"

He had risen, too.

"And now, Melitta," he cried, and his words sounded like shouts of joy, "farewell! I cannot bear it any longer under this roof; the whole, wide world has become too narrow for me. Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"

He embraced Melitta impetuously, and kissed her on her brow. Then he hastily left the room.

Melitta had remained standing in the middle of the room, as if she were petrified. She had not had the strength to keep Oldenburg back, nor to return his farewell. She placed her hand upon her beating temples.

"What have I done? What have I said?" she asked herself. And the voice of her heart answered: "Nothing you need be ashamed of, before yourself or before your child."

She hastened into the adjoining room. She bent over the sleeping boy; she kissed him amid burning tears.

Then she heard the rolling of a carriage, which rapidly drove away from the door of the hotel.

"That is he!" she said, listening; and then, pressing her face in the cushions, "Farewell! farewell! till we meet again!"

CHAPTER X.

While this interview between Melitta and Oldenburg was taking place at the Kurhaus, and, as by the blow of a charmed wand, the barriers fell which had seemed to be destined to part two good hearts forever, there had been sitting in the room on the right hand--which "was occupied by a traveller who would surely not stay beyond the next morning"--this very traveller quite near the door which led from one room to the other, supporting his feverish head with his hands, and suffering in his lacerated heart unspeakable anguish.

Oswald had returned, on his way from the asylum, along the river, almost as in a dream; for when he left Berger at the gate of the institution, the parting with him and the last terrible words of the unfortunate man had quite overwhelmed him, and kept him from every effort of thinking calmly.

His brains and his heart were a perfect chaos, filled with all that he had heard and seen since his arrival in Fichtenau on the preceding evening--with all the impressions which he had so suddenly received, all the thoughts that had been stirred up, all the passions that had been unchained. He had a dim presentiment that such a state of mind must in the end lead to insanity, if it were not already itself a kind of insanity.

Ought he not to turn back and knock at the gate behind which Berger had disappeared? Was not that house, with its high prison-walls, the best refuge for hearts that were as weary of the world as his was? Or still better, ought he not to throw himself over the railing into the river below, where it rushed, deep and silent, between the steep, high banks, gliding noiselessly along like a serpent? Would he not be sure thus to cool his heated brow forever, and to silence the hammering pulsations in his temples for all eternity? How could he hope ever to find an issue into rosy light from a labyrinth in which so noble, so lofty a mind as Berger's had lost its way irretrievably? Was not Berger far superior to him in strength of mind, as well as in nobility of soul? And yet, and yet--"that I may fully measure the depth of this wretchedness, that I may touch with my own hands the incredible," the poor man had said, when he fell into the arms of the rope-dancer. Was that, then, the last conclusion of wisdom? The high-minded idealist saw himself excelled by the rude slave of sensuality in courage of life and joyousness of life! The pupil of Plato acknowledged a drunken clown as his master! The man who, like the youth of Saïs, had striven all his life only after truth, fraternized with a coarse story-teller, a charlatan, who defied all rules, of probability even, and lived merrily and cheerfully on the credulity of others, as the swallow lives on midges. As old Lear in the tempestuous night on the heath tears the royal mantle from his shoulders, so as to have no advantage over poor Tom, the "poor bare-backed animal, whose belly cries for two red herrings," so Berger also had laid aside the philosopher's cloak, that did not warm him half as well as the rope-dancer's bare vulgarity. Berger had learnt from this man that only he can hope to enjoy real happiness who gives up all pretentions to wealth, to honor, and splendor, and who sees neither a punishment nor a disgrace in the contempt of the world. Did those men of olden times think differently about it who fed on locusts, and exposed their bodies to the heat of the sun and the chill of rains--Indian penitents. Christian anchorites, Flagellants, pillar-saints, and ascetics of every kind? Is asceticism not the consistent pursuit of holiness? Is not contempt of the world, and of one's self, the consistent effect of asceticism? Can we reach the Holiest of Holies--the blissful original state, the sweet Nirvana--unless we first annihilate ourselves, as far as it can be done in life? And is such annihilation possible as long as we continually cling to life and to all that makes life dear to us? Is it an accident that saints appear odd in the eyes of the multitude, and the company of publicans and sinners is the best in the eyes of holy men? Yes, indeed! Berger and Schmenckel, arm in arm! Was that the solution of the great mystery, the squaring of the circle?

Oswald could not get rid of the picture, and the terrible impression it had made upon him at last brought him back to calmer views. His sense, of the beautiful was shocked by the abhorrent garb which that ascetic wisdom had adopted. He agreed with all his heart to join the order of the threefold contempt, but he could not be reconciled to the costume of the order. He thought of himself in the dress in which he had seen Berger--a blue, faded blouse, a coarse slouched hat, a stick cut from a thorn-bush--and he shuddered all over. He thought of Doctor Braun, and what he would have said if he had met him in company with Berger--he who gainfully fastidious about his appearance, and considered it a fundamental principle, that if we wished to remain physically and psychically healthy, we must be careful not to come in contact with bodily or mental uncleanliness. Despise the world!--why not? Despise one's self! I have done that often enough; and, alas, generally for very good reasons. But despise being despised! Never!--rather die!--rather, a thousand times.

And why die? Why not rather live? Is life so very contemptible? Have I not found in Braun a friend of whom I have every reason to be proud? Might I not succeed in finding my way out of this labyrinth, if I had such a friend by my side? May not much come right again, even if everything does not turn out well? Suppose I were to make up my mind to abandon this striving after exalted ideals which threaten to ruin my mind? If I were to turn back, even at this the eleventh hour, from the way which leads in the end to Doctor Birkenhain's insane asylum? If I were this very night to leave Fichtenau, where the air is filled with ill luck for me, as Doctor Braun anticipated.

Oswald was standing before the Kurhaus. A carriage which had just arrived was waiting at the door. In the dining-room, at the end of the long table, two gentlemen were sitting in close conversation. He thought one of them was Doctor Birkenhain. He did not desire in the least to meet the physician, whose wishes with regard to Berger he had so lamentably failed to fulful. He would drop him a few lines before leaving, and excuse himself on the score of pressing business and Berger's express desire, for his failure to say good-by in person.

He went to his room and rang the bell.

"Is there any mail leaving to-night?"

"In half-an-hour, sir."

"I shall leave by the mail, then. Secure me a seat in the coach, and bring the bill," said Oswald, already busy packing his things.

"Yes, sir, directly."

"Yes! yes! I must leave here," murmured Oswald, passionately, strengthening himself more and more in his resolution. "Away from here before more ill luck befalls me!"

"The bill, sir!" said the waiter, coming back again. "Much obliged to you, sir. Need not be in such a hurry, sir; you have twenty-five minutes left; the office is close by here. Thought you would stay over night, sir. Might have given this room to a lady, sir, if we had known, who has just arrived; she has taken the parlor next door, and two rooms on the other side. We had to give her those rooms, although they are not good enough for such a grand and beautiful lady."

The waiter uttered these words in a whisper, which made it clear that the doors of the Kurhaus were not exactly impenetrable to sound.

"Who is the lady?" asked Oswald, locking his trunk.

"A Frau von Berkow; old customer of ours. Told you this morning about her, sir. Will send the porter directly to carry your trunk to the office. Anything else, sir?"

The waiter left the room, waving his napkin in a most graceful manner. Oswald rose. His face was deadly pale. He had to support himself on the table; his limbs trembled.

Had he heard right? Melitta here? In this house? Next door? How did she get here? What did she come for? To this place, which had such mournful associations for her? Was it an accident? Was it purpose? Could she have come for his sake? Could she have found out the purpose of his journey? Was she looking for him? Had she failed to receive the letter which he wrote to her after Bruno's death, and an hour before his duel with Felix--that letter in which he told her with unfeeling cruelty, though he thought it heroism then, that "his heart was no longer exclusively hers, that he did not intend to deceive her and himself, and that he was bidding her--and perhaps life itself--an eternal adieu?" Or had she received it, and read it with the incredulity of a loving heart, which does not comprehend faithlessness, because it knows itself no other love but true love? Had she come to tell him that she had forgiven him?--that she was still his Melitta? If he were to hasten to her and to fall at her feet, would she raise the repentant lover and tell him that all was forgiven and forgotten?--that she had never ceased to love him?

He listened to hear if anything was stirring in the adjoining room. He heard nothing--nothing but the beating of his violently-agitated heart.

She was alone. She waited for his coming. Were the blissful days of Berkow really to return once more? Was really everything to end well, after all?

He listened. A door opened.

Probably a waiter, who has executed an order.

A deep male voice. The soft notes of a woman's voice.

The soft voice was Melitta's! But the other?

He listened. The voices rose, became more distinct.

A convulsive spasm flew across the features of the listener; a hoarse, unpleasant laugh broke from his lips. The man who was speaking so warmly to Melitta was Baron Oldenburg.

The sofa on which the two speakers were sitting, stood close against the door which led from one room to the other. Oswald could not hear everything they said, but why was that necessary? The meeting of the two in this remote little town, which had already once before been the scene of their stealthy rendezvous, spoke eloquently enough. He had been right, after all! The two had after all but made a fool of him! He had done Melitta no wrong which she had not inflicted on him also. They were quits.

A knock at the door.

The porter came to carry the gentleman's trunk to the office.

"It is high time, sir. The postilion has blown his horn twice."

Oswald followed the man mechanically down the long passages, out of the house, across the dark street to the coach.

A minute later and the heavy coach was rumbling over the pavement. The postilion played a merry melody in the silent night-air, and Oswald furnished a text to the air: to despise one's self, despise the world, despise being despised.

CHAPTER XI.

It was an early hour of a murky day in autumn. Fogs were brewing in the mountains around Fichtenau, and hung so low that the traveller on the high road, which makes a steep ascent close behind the village and loses itself in thick woods, could scarcely distinguish the pine-trees on the edge of the forest.

By the wayside, at a place where two roads crossed each other, sat Xenobia and Czika. Their faithful companion in all their wanderings, the little donkey, with the red feathers on his head and the scarlet saddle-cloth on his back, was grazing peacefully in the ditch on the short, ill-flavored grass. He did not seem to relish it much; he shook his head indignantly, as if he wanted to say: I am frugal, but everything has its limits.

Nor did the gypsy woman and her child seem to enjoy the weather any more. They sat there, each wrapped in a large coarse shawl, silent and motionless, like a couple of Egyptian statues. This attitude, natural as it might be to the woman, had something very uncanny in so young a child as Czika.

And Xenobia herself was no longer the hearty woman whom Oswald had seen on that afternoon in October in the forest near Berkow. Was it the effect of the weather, or was it sickness and sorrow--but her features had little now of that haughty energy which formerly made them so remarkable. Her brow was furrowed with small lines; her eyes had sunk deep into their orbits and did not shine with the same brightness as of old, as she now glanced in the direction from which her sharp ear heard the noise of a carriage comings from Fichtenau.

"That is not theirs," she said, letting her head sink again. A few minutes later a well-closed travelling carriage, drawn by two horses, appeared rising out of the fog. On the box, by the side of the driver, sat an old man with a long, silver-gray moustache. He turned round continually, to cast a look at the inside of the carriage, and to smile respectfully and yet amicably at the occupants--a lady and a boy.

Thus he had failed to notice the gypsy woman, who had stepped forward as she saw the great lady in the carriage, and asked for alms. What was his amazement therefore, when he saw that the lady suddenly called to him to stop the horses, exhibiting all the signs of extreme consternation, and that she was standing in the road itself long before the horses could be checked.

"Isabel, it is you! and the Czika! My God, how fortunate!" cried Melitta, seizing both hands of the gypsy. "Now I shall not let you go again. My God, how very fortunate!" and the young lady embraced the gypsy woman with tears in her eyes.

But the latter freed herself almost violently, and stepping back some little distance she crossed her arms on her bosom and looked at Melitta with a suspicious, almost hostile glance.

"Do you not know me, Isabel?" said Melitta; "it is I! Have you forgotten the days at Berkow five years ago? That is my Julius, there! And how tall and how beautiful the Czika has grown."

Julius had jumped out of the carriage; old Baumann also had climbed down from the box.

Melitta hastened up to Czika, embraced the child, and kissed and caressed her over and over again. The others spoke to Xenobia, who paid no attention to them, but looked with anxious eyes at Melitta, who now came back to her, holding Czika by the hand.

"Isabel!" said Melitta, "you must, really you must, give me the little one. I dare not, I cannot, continue my journey without her."

"Why will you not leave us as we are?" said the gypsy. "You are a great lady, fit for the house; the gypsy is fit only for the forest. You would die in the forest; the gypsy would die in the house. I cannot go with you."

"Then give me the Czika?"

"Will you give me your boy?"

Melitta did not know what to answer. She felt too deeply that the gypsy woman could not act differently, and that she, in her place, would have done the same. And yet could she let the two go out again into the wide world? To see Oldenburg's little daughter, whom he yearned after, whom he was searching for everywhere, disappear once more, after an accident such as might never happen again in all her life, had brought her right in her path--she could not bear the thought, and like a child that feels how helpless and friendless it is, she broke into tears.

The gypsy woman seemed to be touched. She took Melitta's hand and kissed it.

"You are very kind, I know," she said; "I know it well. I would rather give you the Czika than anybody else."

She reflected deeply. Suddenly she took Melitta's hand once more and led her aside.

"Do you know," she asked, "who Czika's father is?"

"Yes."

"And are you doing what you do for the father's sake, or for your own?"

Melitta's cheeks reddened.

"For the sake of both," she replied, after some hesitation.

"Where are you going to now?"

"Home--to Berkow."

"And are you going to stay there?"

"Yes; at least during the winter."

"Then listen to me. I swear to you by the Great Spirit, I will bring you the Czika as soon as I feel that I am to be gathered to my fathers. That may be very soon. More I cannot promise; more I dare not say."

Melitta felt that she must be satisfied with this promise. She knew the character of the Brown Countess too well not to be aware that if she had once formed a resolution, all persuasion was in vain. She re-entered her carriage, therefore, sadly, after having embraced Xenobia and the child once more, and soon was out of sight.

The rattling of the wheels and the trot of the horses were no longer heard. The gypsies were still sitting by the wayside.

Another carriage came up in the direction of Fichtenau. One could hear from afar off the cries of the driver, and the clanking of chains which formed part of the harness.

A few minutes later the wagon appeared out of the mist. It was a huge box--a whole house on four wheels, stuffed up to the roof and high above the roof with chests and boxes, kettle drums and trombones, stage scenery, poles and ladders, and all kinds of kitchen utensils and stage property. The four horses who drew this Noah's Ark had hard work of it.

Before the wagon a number of men were walking on foot--Cotterby, the Egyptian; the artist of the gigantic cask, Mr. Stolsenberg; and the clown, Pierrot. All these gentlemen wore gay-colored shawls around the neck, and had short pipes in their mouths. From the open windows of the ark the crying of children was heard, and the scolding voice of Mamselle Adele. Behind the wagon followed, apparently in eager conversation, the director, Mr. Schmenckel (also with a bright shawl around the neck and a pipe in his mouth), and a man in a blue blouse, with a heavy stick in his hand, and an old slouched hat on his head. Director Schmenckel had made his acquaintance a few nights before under very peculiar circumstances, in the drinking-hall of the Green Hat; he had met him since very frequently at the same tavern, and found him quite unexpectedly that morning, ready to join the rope-dancers, just as they were leaving the village.

When the wagon reached the cross-roads the driver stopped to let the horses breathe.

The gypsy woman with her child stepped up and was vociferously greeted by the rope-dancers.

Mr. Schmenckel shook hands with her, and patted the Czika paternally on her brown cheeks.

"That's right, Xenobia! here you are, back again!" he said. "By the great dickens, we could not get on at all without you. Good-by, professor! Thanks for the escort! You must turn back here, or you won't find the way to Fichtenau."

"I'll go a little further with you," replied the man in the blouse.

"All right!" said Mr. Schmenckel; "the further the better. Such a good old brick, like yourself, we do not meet with every day. Is all right in there? Well, go on then!"

The wagon was set in motion. After a few minutes the whole procession--wagon, horses, and men, had been swallowed up by the thick gray fog.

CHAPTER XII.

The town of Grunwald played, in days previous to those to which this story belongs, a far more important part than now. It had been an honored member of the great Hanse League, and rivalled Hamburg, Bremen, and Lubeck in wealth and power. Its ships sailed on all the northern seas, and the Grunwald flag was well known even in the ports of Genoa and Venice. The citizens were a broad-shouldered, hard-headed race, strong in their love and their hatred, and thorough in all their ways. They were justly proud of their liberties and their privileges, and trusted implicitly in their secure position, amid the ocean and bottomless swamps, and the high walls and ramparts of the city, but more fully yet in the sword by their side and the brave heart in their bosom. Even in the Thirty Years' War, Grunwald still proved its ancient reputation in fierce battle against the Imperialists, and the recollection of the glorious deeds of their forefathers survives to this day in the hearts of the present inhabitants.

They must unfortunately fall back upon past glory, for modern times have done little for them in this respect. The long and tortuous canals in the great bay on which the town is situated admit only of small vessels of light draught, and navigation nowadays cannot well get along with such ships; trade has, besides, sought other roads and found other markets, and Grunwald has slowly but steadily sunk from its proud eminence, till it has fallen at last to the level of a small provincial town of no account in the great world, as far as political influence and commercial importance are concerned.

The harbor is filled up now, the ramparts are razed, and the once enormous walls exist only in fragments, and yet there is a melancholy sheen of former greatness about the old Hanse town which attracts the thoughtful traveller, as the mouldy smell of an old parchment charms the book-worm. In spite of all the efforts made by the last generations to give the town a sober, trivial appearance, they have after all not been able to straighten all the crooked narrow streets, and to destroy all the poetry of many an old house, with its narrow, lofty, and richly-adorned gable-end. And above the labyrinth of streets, lanes, and courts, with their half-modern, half-mediæval character, there tower still the steeples of glorious churches, which are far too grand for the reduced proportions of Grunwald. But at night, when they cast their gigantic shadows far over the town which sleeps beneath them in the pale moonlight, or in the evening as you approach the harbor from the open sea, and gray mists rising from the water spread over the whole a mysterious veil, the illusion is yet strong, and the effect full of grandeur.

Justice requires, however, to add that Grunwald can be called insignificant only in comparison with former days of great power and surpassing splendor. The town is still of vast importance for the whole province in which it is situated. If her flag no longer waves on every sea, her port is still continually crowded with schooners and sloops, and near her wharves many a larger vessel awaits completion on the stocks. If her walls have been torn to pieces by the artillery of the Imperialists, and her ramparts have been razed by the French, the town is still a fortress, whose commandant would not sleep quietly unless he had received from all the guards and posts the report that all is quiet. If the town has lost her ancient privileges, and no longer enjoys as of old perfect freedom and sovereign independence, she has profited on the other hand largely by becoming an integral part of a great monarchy. Grunwald has not only a numerous garrison of infantry and artillery, but is also the seat of the highest court of the province; and above all, as everybody knows, enjoys a university, although the light shed by this seat of the muses cannot be said to penetrate far into distant lands. Grunwald is, moreover, the favorite residence of the surrounding nobility, which is particularly rich, and enjoys a very great influence on public life. When the magnificent crops upon their vast domains have been safely housed, when the trees in their parks lose their foliage in the autumn winds, and the crows migrate from the bare woods to the towns, then all the counts and barons and smaller noblemen also come to Grunwald. From the great island, which lies right opposite the town, and from the whole surrounding country, they come in their lumbering state carriages, all driven four-in-hand, and settle down with children, servants, tutors, and governesses for the whole winter. They own stately houses all over the town, which in summer are easily known by their utter silence, the closed curtains, and the grass growing in idyllic happiness between the flags of their court-yards--far different from the ordinary houses inhabited by ordinary people, who have to pay taxes, enjoy no privileges, and are forced to work summer and winter alike.

CHAPTER XIII.

It is autumn. The fields are bare; from the linden-trees in the court-yard at Grenwitz the brown leaves are falling in showers. Thick fogs cover the sea, the high shores of the island with their noble beech-forests, and the low coast of the continent. The towers of Grunwald rise out of the mist like giants of former days, and around the lofty steeples crows and blackbirds are fluttering, having left the unhospitable forests to move to warm cities.

The sun has set for an hour, and the last blood-red streak, just above the edge of the sea, has turned pale in the shadow of the heavy, low-drifting clouds. The streets of the town have grown silent, and the lamplighter is lighting one after the other the oil lamps, whose dim light is useful only in making the mist still denser and the darkness still darker. He has just done with two unusually large and bright lamps before the entrance-gate to a huge, massive building in one of the streets that lead down to the harbor. It was the first time this year--a proof that the great family which has owned this house for many a generation, and which lives on its estates regularly in summer, and quite frequently in the winter also, has moved into town on that very day.

Nevertheless the windows of the mansion which look upon the street are still dark. They are, to be sure, rarely seen lighted up, only on solemn occasions, when the family gives one of those stiff evening parties, to which of course only the nobility and the very highest officials in the government service are ever invited.

Ordinarily these state apartments remain closed, exactly like the lofty halls and grand reception-rooms of the hereditary castle in the country, and the family are content to live in the less gorgeous rooms which look upon the rear. The modest, exceedingly unpretending taste of the mistress of the house prefers the latter, all the more as the front rooms can only be heated at great expense, and the woods of the Grenwitz estate, as far as entailed, are rented out at the ludicrously small sum of ten thousand dollars.

In one of these rooms, which was stately enough, sits the Baroness Grenwitz on a sofa before a round table, on which two wax-candles are burning brightly. She looks as if the last six weeks had added as many years to her age. Her forehead has become narrower and more angular, the dark hair shows here and there a silver thread, her eyes look larger and more fixed and meaning than ever. Her nephew, Felix, is lounging in a most comfortable position opposite her, in a large easy-chair, filled with soft cushions. The young man wears his right arm in a sling, and the sickly pallor of his face contrasts strangely with his hair, as carefully parted and curled as ever, and with the whole toilet, which is as perfect as usual. Between the two stands a table, covered with letters and papers, all of them written in the same handsome handwriting. The baroness and Felix seem just to have finished the perusal of these documents, and to be still too busy with the thoughts which have been suggested by them, to be able to speak. They are brooding in silence over the impression produced on each one, while the monotonous tic-tac of the pendulum of the rococo clock on the mantel-piece is the only noise heard in the room.

At last the young man breaks the silence.

"The thing looks more serious than either of us thought," he says, raising himself slightly in his easy-chair, and taking up once more the paper he had been reading last.

"I still do not believe a word of it," replied the baroness.

"That is saying a good deal, ma tante! although you have read the whole story in black and white."

"In Timm's handwriting! In Timm's handwriting! what must the scamp have invented and written up!"

"Certainly nothing but what is in the original documents."

"And why does he not send us the originals?"

"But, pardon me, ma tante, that is rather a naïve question. To surrender the originals--that is to say, the weapons which he means to use against us--would be an act of generosity or stupidity such as you cannot possibly expect from my good friend Timm, who is a very sly fox, I assure you. He evidently does not fear to be unmasked, but only to be deceived or over-reached by us, else he would not have made the offer to submit the original papers in the presence of a third party, an umpire, to our minute examination. No, no, dear aunt; do not give yourself up to idle hopes. These letters and papers are really in existence; you may take poison upon that."

"What do you say?"

"I mean, you may rely on that. I, for my part, am as fully convinced that this Monsieur Stein is related to the family of Grenwitz as of my own existence, and therefore I hate the man, as one is apt to hate such an interloper of a relative, especially if he happens to be a conceited, vain, puffed-up, impertinent, accursed blackguard, like this scamp of a good-for-nothing fellow."

This flood of names, little suitable to the place, would under other circumstances have infallibly brought down upon the ex-lieutenant a severe reprimand from his highly moral aunt. At this moment, however, the lady was too busy with other things.

"But nothing has as yet been proved," she said, with obstinate vehemence, "as long as the identity of that man with the child of that Marie Montbert has not been fully established by the clearest evidence. I grant the thing is probable--it may be plausible even; nevertheless we cannot afford to throw away hundreds of dollars for mere probabilities or plausibilities."

"Hundreds?" replied Felix, with a contemptuous smile. "You may say thousands! Timm will not let us slip out of his tight grip so cheaply."

"You cannot be in earnest?" said the baroness, raising her eyebrows, Juno-fashion. "That man will surely not carry his impudence so far as that!"

"Nous verrons!" replied the dandy, laconically, and fell back into his easy-chair.

There followed a pause in the conversation of the accomplices, which Felix improved to subject his fingernails to a minute examination, while the baroness busied herself in arranging the papers on the table according to their numbers (for they were all methodically numbered).

"The gentleman keeps us waiting," said the baroness.

"He pretends to be indifferent," replied Felix. "I know him from of old. Whenever he pretended to be tired, and to wish to go home, we could be sure that he was determined to break the bank!"

At that moment the servant announced: "Mr. Albert Timm desires to pay his respects."

"Show him in," said the baroness, raising herself upright, with her accustomed dignity; but her voice was not as firm as usual.

"For heaven's sake keep your temper, aunt!" said Felix in great haste, while the servant went to show in Timm. "If the rascal sees that our pulse goes faster, he'll pull the screws tighter, and----"

"I am perfectly calm," replied the baroness, although the unusual flush on her cheeks and the quick breathing announced just the contrary.

Half a minute's intense excitement on the part of the persons in the room and the door opened, admitting Mr. Timm, who walked in rapidly.

His appearance was, aside from a somewhat more carefully chosen costume of fashionable cut, precisely the same which lingered still in Anna Maria's recollection from last summer: the same white brow, the same smoothly-brushed light hair, the same fresh, rosy cheeks, and the same impertinent smile upon the smooth, handsome face. If the baroness looked at her favorite, in spite of his unchanged appearance, with very different eyes now, the fault was evidently her own. Mr. Timm was not disposed to allow the cold reception to have the slightest influence on his own warm greetings.

"Good evening, baroness! Good evening, baron!" said Mr. Timm, in his clear, fresh voice, kissing Anna Maria's right hand, which she granted him most reluctantly, and heartily shaking Felix's left hand (the other was in the sling). "Delighted, baroness, to see you look so remarkably well--so cheerful too; and as for you, baron,--well, I may say, considering the circumstances, not so bad! Permit me to follow your example----"

And Mr. Timm moved one of the heavy arm-chairs which were standing around the table, sat down, and looked at the two with eyes beaming with insolence and intense delight, as far as one could judge, through his glasses.

"Mighty comfortable!" he continued, stretching out his legs and patting the arms of the chair with his hands "And the baron stayed at home! Must be devilish uncomfortable in the big, damp, old box."

"The baron had to attend to some very important business," said the baroness, merely to say something.

"Business!" cried Mr. Timm. "How can anybody trouble himself about business when his business is, like the baron's, not to have any business at all! Incomprehensible!"

"You ought to be able to comprehend that very well, Timm," said Felix, with very perceptible irony; "otherwise I should not be able to guess why you have troubled yourself about a certain business."

"A lawsuit is no business," remarked Timm.

"But it may become one," said Felix.

"For instance, if one borrows money from the Jews, and sues them afterwards, when they want to be paid, for usury," replied Timm.

This recollection from the early life of Felix was so little to the taste of the ex-lieutenant that he turned over impatiently in his chair, and said in an audibly irritated tone:

"I think we had better come to the point."

"With pleasure," said Mr. Timm, drawing up his chair close to the table, with an expression which by no means belied his words.

"You have been kind enough," began Felix, while the baroness stared with furrowed brow and downcast eyes into her lap, "to send us, at our request, copies of certain letters, and so forth, which you say you have found among the papers of your deceased father."

"You mean, which you have found, baron!"

"Very well, then; which you have found. We can admit that without committing ourselves, for there is nothing in them all to show how this fabulous son of my uncle Harald can be helped by your aid--as you are good enough to state in your letter--to the inheritance he may claim."

"That depends entirely upon the point de vue from which you look at the matter," replied Mr. Timm.

"And may I beg you will inform us of your own?"

"Why not? It gives me special pleasure to do so. According to my view the thing is this: I have here a number of documents and papers, which not only shed a light on the relations once existing between Baron Harald and Mademoiselle Marie Montbert, but which would also, in the hands of an able, practical man (such as any good lawyer would represent), give a certain clue to the subsequent fate of the said Marie Montbert and of her child; that is to say, of the two persons who according to the last will of Baron Harald are alone entitled to the possession of the estates of Stantow and Baerwalde."

"What do you call a certain clue, Mr. Timm?" inquired the baroness.

"A clue that can be established upon evidence, madame. It can be established that the person to whom I have referred, and in whom I believe I have discovered by a fortunate combination of very remarkable and almost miraculous circumstances the heir in question, bears, in the first place, the same name which Monsieur d'Estein (pray look at letter No. 25) says he intends to assume after the elopement with Marie Montbert. In the second place, it can be established that a man called Stein, and accompanied by a young woman who passed for his wife, and by a child which passed for his son, settled shortly after Baron Harald's death in the town of W----."

"How do you know that?" asked Felix.

"I have been myself to W----, and have spoken with the old woman in whose house Mr. Stein lived from the first to the very last day of his residence in that town."

"Go on!"

"In the third place, it is established that this Mr. Stein is the same person who eloped with Marie Montbert from Grenwitz, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, who alone had a right to help the young lady, and who alone was obliged to do so."

"Why the same person?"

"Because the man who managed the elopement looked exactly like the man who a few months afterwards settled in W----."

"That might not be so easy to prove," cried Felix with a smile of incredulity.

"Easier than you think. I have (quite accidentally) discovered the man at whose house Monsieur d'Estein, then already under the name of Stein, stayed a fortnight in order to ascertain the opportunities at Grenwitz, and who afterwards drove in the night of the elopement the couple in his carriage from Grenwitz to that very ferry on which you crossed to-day. This man's name is Clas Wendorf; he lives in Fashwitz, and is well known to everybody (even to the Rev. Mr. Jager) as a perfectly trustworthy man. If this man were to be confronted with Mrs. Pahnke in W----, the identity of the man who eloped with Marie Montbert, viz., Monsieur d'Estein, with the French teacher Stein in W----, would be established beyond all doubt."

The baroness and Felix looked at each other, while Timm was making his statement, in a manner which betrayed but too clearly the consternation which the irresistible logic of their enemy produced in their minds.

"You have made good use of the last four weeks," said Felix.

"Perhaps so," said Timm, good-humoredly. "The days are getting to be short now. Besides, I had to be exceedingly cautious in making my inquiries, since I had promised you not to let anybody into the secret until I should have communicated the matter more fully to you, and I meant to keep my promise. Hereafter, when I can go to work without any such precautionary measures, and when I can avail myself of all the assistance which the law affords in such cases, I shall probably be able to do more in four days than I have now done in as many weeks."

And Mr. Timm rubbed his hands with delight.

"Then you really think of making this ridiculous affair public?" said Anna Maria, in a tone which she meant to be ironical.

"I do not understand you, madame!" replied Mr. Timm, with an air of ingenuous simplicity which, in a farce, would have earned him the applause of all the connoisseurs in the pit.

"I mean: do you really intend, contrary to our wishes and intentions, to expose to common gossip and the scoff and scorn of vulgar plebeians, an affair which concerns no one but our own family, and which, moreover, has been forgotten and buried these many years?"

The applause of the connoisseurs would have become louder and louder, as they watched the peculiar expression in Mr. Timm's face.

"Contrary to your wishes and intentions ... An affair which concerns no one but your family ... I really have not the advantage of knowing how I am to interpret the lady's words. I find it impossible to believe that a lady who is so universally known for her stern sense of justice as the Baroness Grenwitz should wish anything different from the last will of a dying man, when chance or providence brings it about, when, against all human expectations, that last will can after many years be fulfilled; I find it impossible to believe that. But what am I saying? You will laugh at me that I have taken a jest, by which you wished to ridicule my over-great desire to serve you, for a moment in good earnest. Do I not know better than anybody else that I have acted exactly according to your views by preserving all the documents, the sacred relics of departed friends, like a precious treasure, and by doing whatever I could do towards securing the property to the rightful owner? Do I not know that your hesitation, your incredulity, your mistrust even, are only the result of your apprehension to awaken in the heart of a fellow-being brilliant expectations, which may not be realized, for, however improbable, it is not absolutely impossible that we may be mistaken. Do I not know that all the parties concerned are of one and the same opinion, and that your husband, whom you have no doubt promptly informed of all the details, is overjoyous to pay off an old debt which fortunately is not yet extinguished by limitation?"

The position of a captured she bear, whom the increasing heat of the bars of her cage forces to rise on her hind legs and to dance as gracefully as she can, while she would like nothing better than to break out of her prison and to tear her adversary to pieces, resembles exactly that of the baroness as she was now sitting opposite to Mr. Timm. The cruel irony with which Mr. Timm appealed to that sense of justice and equity of which she had boasted all her life, and of which she after all had nothing but the outward appearance, seized her like a hot iron. Her cold, selfish heart boiled over with indignation. Rage and fury filled her soul. She would have liked to strangle Timm, who sat smiling before her--to stab him, poison him. And she could do nothing, nothing, but swallow her wrath, and to say with all the calmness she might command:

"Mr. Timm, you do not look upon the matter exactly as we do; and it is, of course, quite natural that you, who are standing outside, should also see nothing of it but the outside. Unfortunately I am too tired to-night to explain to you my own views of the affair. I have requested my nephew, Felix, to do it in my place, and I beg you, therefore, to look upon anything he may tell you as if it were coming from myself. I am fully persuaded that you will find no difficulty in choosing between the good will of the family of Grenwitz and the friendship of a nameless adventurer. Good-by, Mr. Timm!"

"Regret infinitely not to be able to have the pleasure of seeing you any longer, baroness," said Mr. Timm, accompanying the baroness to the door; "hope it is nothing but a passing indisposition, which will soon disappear after a good night's rest. Hope you will rest well, madame!"

And Mr. Timm closed the door after the baroness, came back, sat down in his easy-chair opposite to Felix, put his hands on his knees, and said, in a dry, short manner, which contrasted very strangely with the smooth kindness of his language so far:

"Eh bien!"

No answer came for some little time. The two men looked for a few seconds at each other with sharp, suspicious glances, like two combatants who try to find out their weak points--like two tricky gamesters, each one of whom knows how carefully he must watch the hand of the other, and who yet is not quite sure that he will not be duped. They both remembered, moreover, that there was an old account to settle between them, which dated back from the time when Ensign Baron Grenwitz had treacherously abandoned Ensign Albert Timm in order to save himself (it was a matter, of security on a bill), and Felix knew perfectly well that Albert was one of those men who, whenever they can get the law or the right of the stronger on their side, insist upon being paid by their debtors to the very last farthing.

He had therefore to summon all his skill and self-control, in order to overcome an unpleasant sensation which threatened to master him as he faced his adversary, who was armed cap-a-pie and utterly without pity. Still he succeeded in assuming a tone of good-natured frankness (which sat very awkwardly upon him) as he said:

"I think, Timm, we had better treat the whole matter without reservation or trick, like men who know the world and what they are about."

"If you know as well what you are about as I do, why, then, the whole thing is easily settled," replied Albert, dryly.

"Well, tell me then frankly, what do you ask?"

"I am the seller, you are the buyer; it is your duty first to say distinctly what you wish to buy."

"We want the originals of those papers on the table, and your word of honor that you will never inform any one, whosoever it be, by writing or by word of mouth, or in any other way, of the discovery which you have made."

"Bon! I understand what you want."

"And what do you ask on your side?"

Albert bent over a little, and said in a low but very distinct voice, with his eyes firmly fixed on his adversary:

"Twenty thousand dollars in Prussian current money, payable between now and eight days."

"The devil!" cried Felix, jumping up from his chair, in spite of his feebleness, and running around the room. "Twenty thousand dollars! why, that is a fortune."

Albert shrugged his shoulders.

"Two years' interest of the sum represented by the two estates of Stantow and Baerwalde. You must know best, of course, what the legacy is worth to you."

"But that is atrocious!" cried Felix, still running about in the room; "atrocious!"

"Don't hollow, Grenwitz; your people might hear you down in the kitchen. Sit down, if you please, and let us talk the matter over like men who know the world."

The unconquerable coolness and the cutting irony with which Albert uttered these words acted like a douche upon Felix's violent agitation. He sat down, and said, in a calmer tone:

"My aunt will never listen to such a demand."

"I should be sorry, for your sake, and for your aunt's sake, if you were not to accept my offer. I can only make you both responsible for the consequences."

"You speak as if it depended on no one but yourself who was to have the two estates!"

"And on whom else can it depend?" replied Albert, and his lips seemed to grow thinner, his nose more pointed, and his whole face sharper, as he spoke: "I tell you, I have made the net so close and so strong--leaving only a few meshes open on purpose till I should hear your decision--that I can draw it together at any moment, right over your head, and you may struggle as you may; it will not break, but you will die. You know, Grenwitz, that I have rather a good head for such things, and you know also that I have no cause to show you the shadow of generosity."

"Me! I have no personal interest whatever in the whole matter."

"Do you think I am a child, Grenwitz? Don't you want to marry Miss Helen? and are not the two estates to be the dower of the young lady?"

"I marry Helen! Who says so? I don't dream of it."

"Well, then, don't marry her; hand the young beauty over to the man whom you have more reason to hate than all other men--who is even now your favored rival--at least evil report has it so--and who will lose nothing, I am sure, in Miss Helen's eyes, if he can present himself a second time as her cousin, and the lawful heir of a very considerable fortune."

Felix had turned alternately white and red as his adversary was inexorably punishing him with these words. His vanity, deeply wounded by the allusion to his fatal encounter with Oswald, writhed like a worm on which somebody has trod. He could not but confess that for the moment Albert was by far the stronger of the two, and that he, who was so proud of his cleverness and adroitness, was utterly helpless in the power of an adversary whom he had in reality always despised.

"Lower your demands a little, Timm," he said, in a subdued voice. "I must confess it is a matter of the very greatest importance for me to bury the whole affair in silence, and if it depended on myself alone I might not be unwilling to pay you the sum which you demand. But you know my aunt, and you know that she would rather let matters go on to the last point than to make such an enormous sacrifice. I tell you, Timm, it can't be done; upon my word, it can't be done. And what do you want with so much money at once? You will lose it in a few unlucky nights at roulette, and then you are poorer than you ever were before. Come, now, I'll make you an offer. We will pay you for one year four hundred dollars a month, and at the end of the year six thousand dollars in a lump."

"Altogether ten thousand eight hundred dollars," replied Albert. "Won't do; and besides, what security can you give me that all the payments will be made?"

"The documents, which in the mean time you may retain in your possession and which you are not expected to hand over till the six thousand dollars are paid."

"Well!" said Albert, "it is not much; but among good friends we ought not to insist too strictly. I accept."

"Let us make it out in writing."

"Why? If we do not wish to keep our word, we'll break it, anyhow; and besides, a paper of that kind might, if it should fall into the hands of the wrong person, commit the family of Grenwitz more seriously than they would like, and would, after all, but put one more weapon in my hands. You see I am perfectly candid."

"Bon!" said Felix. "Do you want the first four hundred at once?"

"I should think so."

Felix rose, took one of the lights, and went to a bureau which was standing back in the room, opened a drawer, took a few packages of bank-notes from it and placed them on the table before Albert.

"Count them!"

"It is not necessary," said Albert, slipping the parcel into his pocket; "your aunt never makes a mistake in counting. Well, Grenwitz, that matter is nicely arranged; now let us have a bottle of wine upon it--I have talked so much I am quite thirsty. If you permit me I will ring the bell."

"Pray do so!"

Felix ordered the servant who came to bring a bottle of Hock and two glasses.

Felix was rather pleased to see that Albert was in better humor; he had another question to ask yet, which no one could answer as well as he could.

"You have seen, Timm," he said, filling the glasses, "that I have met you half way, as far as I could. One service is worth another. Will you do me a favor?"

"Let us hear."

"Then tell me, how is little Marguerite?"

"What interest have you in her?"

"Well, I do have an interest in her."

"And why do you think I know anything about her?"

"Because I have observed you both at Grenwitz, and besides--well, for divers other reasons."

"For instance?"

"I will be frank with you. From sheer ennui I had begun at Grenwitz already to pay her some attentions, and afterwards, during my sickness, I saw still more of the little thing, till it ended in my thinking the girl really very charming and prodigiously attractive. But she pretended to be so very reserved that I suspected at once she had a serious attachment. Now I cannot think of any one else who could have been in my way but yourself."

"Very complimentary," said Albert. "I am, indeed, as good as engaged to the young lady."

"But, Timm, are you going to run into your ruin with your eyes open? You and a wife! and worse than that, a poor wife!--what has become of your former principles? Upon my word, I should not have thought you could be so mad."

"Nor I, myself," replied Albert, emptying his glass and filling it again.

"Are you in love with the girl?"

"There you ask me more than I know myself."

"Look here, Timm, I will make you an offer. We are, it seems, in the way of speculating. Let me have the girl, and I assume the three hundred dollars which you have borrowed from the poor little thing."

"Who says so?" said Albert, furiously.

"Your fury just now, for one; besides that, however, little Louisa, Helen's maid, and my own man's lady love, who happened to see it, when Marguerite gave you the money in the park at Grenwitz."

"Nonsense!" said Albert, who could not repress his anger at this inconvenient exposure.

"Don't be angry!" said Felix; "rather be glad that you find somebody who is willing to relieve you of this troublesome burden. What do you say?"

"We will talk about that another time," said Albert, rising and taking his hat. "Farewell, Grenwitz."

"Good-by, Timm! Be reasonable, and come and see your old comrade as soon as you can."

The worthy pair shook hands, and Albert went away rapidly. His face was darker than when he came. Either the second part of the conversation had not been to his taste, or he thought it good policy to assume an air of being offended. Felix, who knew him pretty well from former days, was disposed to take the latter view.

CHAPTER XIV.

About the same time, and while these transactions were going on in the Grenwitz mansion, a young man was impatiently walking up and down in front of a large house in one of the suburbs of Grunwald. His impatience looked very much like that of an honest lover who is waiting on a cool autumn evening in a dense fog for the lady of his heart, whom he has orders to call for "punctually at seven, but be sure to be punctual," to see her home from a little party, and whom he sees at half-past seven sitting near the brightly-lighted-up window, engaged in most lively conversation. It may be he sees really her whom he loves; it maybe the shadow belongs to a very different person.

The young man is Doctor Braun; the house before which he patrols, Leporello-fashion, is the famous boarding-school of Miss Bear; and the young lady for whom he is waiting is his betrothed Sophie, the only child of the privy councillor and professor, Doctor Roban, a physician of great renown in Grunwald, and a distinguished member of the university.

"What a vague idea of time even the cleverest of women have!" murmured Franz, pulling out his watch and looking at it by the faint light of a badly-burning cigar; "it is a psychological fact which I must treat of one of these days in a monograph."

He throws away the short end of his cigar, which threatened to singe his moustache, and looks up once more at the lighted window.

"Heaven be thanked, they are getting ready! Dark shadows are flitting to and fro near the curtains! Now for the cloak, and the bonnet--a kiss to say good-by then a little bit of a chat of ten minutes about the next place of meeting--then another farewell kiss. The window is looking darker; there is a light in the hall; now a final discussion on the steps--enfin!"

"Do you come at last, ma mignonne? said Doctor Braun, greeting the slight maidenly form which had come out of the house, and now hastened with light steps across the little garden which divided the house from the street, to the iron gate.

"Poor Franz! You have not been waiting for me," answers the girl, affectionately leaning on the arm of her betrothed.

"Oh, not at all! Nothing to speak of! Half an hour or so!"

"I really did not know it was so late. The time passed so quickly, although the whole party consisted only of two persons. Can you guess who they were?"

"Yourself, probably, for one."

"Very well--and the other?"

"Helen Grenwitz."

"Exactly! She sends you her best regards. Only think, she will probably stay with the Great Bear, although her friends are coming to town for the winter, If they have not already come to-day. That will be a fine subject for gossip. Poor Helen! I pity her with all my heart!"

"Why?"

"How can you ask? Is it not bad enough that the whole town will ask why a girl of sixteen--no, sixteen and a half--should be sent back to school when she has hardly been four weeks at home? And as long as the Grenwitz family was not living in town, there might have been some explanation; but now--oh, I think it is abominable. People must think of her--I don't know what; and it is not so much to be wondered at if they connect Helen in some way or other with the duel fought by her cousin and your amiable friend, Stein."

"And what says Miss Helen?"

"Nothing! You know how she is. She never speaks of family matters; at most she occasionally mentions her father, whom she seems to love most tenderly. She is quiet and serious; but not exactly sad."

"I believe she is much too proud ever to be really sad."

"How so?"

"Sadness is a passive disposition; the disposition of one who sees that he cannot struggle with fate, and therefore submits to endure it as well as he can. But there are characters which resist as long as it is possible, and when nothing more can be done, instead of laying down their arms, break them to pieces and throw them fiercely at the victor's feet."

Sophie came up closer to her betrothed and said, after a pause:

"I am not one of those characters, Franz. I am not too proud to be sad; I have been very often sad these last days. I was sad when you left us with Doctor Stein, although at that time I had no particular reason for being so. But since then, when papa was taken sick and I sat by his bedside, and my greatest anxiety--next to that about papa's life--was whether you had received my letter ... You might have travelled on and on, and my heart was all the time breaking with longing for you! You went to see him, I am sure, before you came to call for me at Miss Bear's."

"Of course! He is better. I begged him to lie down, but he insisted upon sitting up till we should come back."

"And I have wasted so much time! Let us go faster!"

"A few minutes, more or less, do not matter; and besides, I should like to speak with you definitely about our future. We must at last make an end to this provisional state, which is pleasant to no one--not to God--I mean Nature--nor to man--and is daily becoming more oppressive. An unmarried man is a fish; but an engaged man is neither fish nor flesh. When two people are in their own heart and conscience man and wife through their mutual love, they ought to be man and wife also in the world, before men, provided circumstances admit of their marrying. Now, that is the case with us. We have enough for our support, and for the present we need no more; whatever else may be necessary will come. In short, shall we have our wedding day four weeks from to-day?"

"But, Franz, I have not finished half of my trousseau!"

"Then we'll marry with half a trousseau."

"And what will papa say? You know how very hard it is for him to let me go from him; and shall I just now ask such a sacrifice from him, when he needs me more than ever? I have not the courage to propose it to him."

"But I have it; your father knows that I am not less anxious for your happiness than he is, and he is far too sensible not to see that my plan is the best. Come, my darling, don't hang your head. To-day four weeks we are man and wife."

"Ah, Franz! I wish it could be so. But I fear, I fear, Heaven does not mean it so well with us!"

"Why not? Heaven means it well with all who have the courage to determine upon their own happiness. For, how says the poet: 'In our bosom are the stars of our fate.'"

The haste with which Franz pressed her had a very good motive in the illness of her father. Franz, as a physician, knew best that the life of the excellent man was hanging on a very slender thread. He had rallied quickly enough from a stroke of apoplexy, which had attacked him a fortnight ago, but several bad symptoms announced that another attack was not improbable, and with his nervous, very delicately-organized system, this was likely to be fatal. But if the father died before his daughter had been married, the poor girl would have been placed in a very painful position, as her mother had been dead for many years, and she had neither brothers and sisters nor any near relations. The world with its prejudices would have hardly been willing to admit that under such circumstances her only home should be in the house of the man whom she loved, but would have been inconceivably shocked if the daughter had married "before the shoes were worn out in which she had followed her father's funeral." The whole city would have broken out in one cry of indignation against such a fearful crime against decency and propriety.

Sophie loved her father with a love which bordered upon enthusiasm, little as enthusiasm generally formed a part of her clear and sensible character, which shrank instinctively from all exaggeration. And the father was well worthy of such love.

The privy councillor, Roban, was a man of rare distinction in many respects. As a man of science he stood very high; he was considered the very first pathologist in Germany. But a remarkable versatility of mind enabled him to gather, outside of the studies which his profession required, information upon the most varied fields of knowledge, and to attain to a high degree of perfection in more than one of the arts. In the morning he would take his pupils, hour after hour, from bed to bed in the hospital, and open to them views into the innermost workings of nature. Then again he would wander for long hours from house to house, soothing here a sufferer's pains, comforting others, and exhorting them to patient endurance. And yet in the evening, when a circle of intimate friends were gathered under his hospitable roof, he would be ready to take an active part in an animated conversation about art, literature, or politics, or perhaps take his favorite instrument, the violoncello, between his knees, and delight even the best cultivated ears by his correct and yet deeply-felt playing in a quickly-improvised quartette.

Where there are lights there must be shadows, and where there are shadows there is never a lack of people who take pleasure in painting everything in the darkest and blackest of colors. Thus it was with the little foibles of the excellent man, which his rivals and enemies subjected to pitiless criticism. Some declared he was a charlatan, who understood his business tolerably well, but the necessary bragging and boasting about it still better; others declared his bon-mots were better than his prescriptions, and a good story more welcome to him than the most famous case in his practice. Still others said that the essence of his nature was a restless vanity, which induced him to try all the arts and to play the Mæcenas for all travelling artists and spoilt men of genius. Still others--so-called practical men, who laid no claim to any opinion in matters of art and science, but who demanded in return that everybody should comply with their standard of morality--shook their heads when people spoke of the councillor's hospitality, and said: "If everybody would sweep the dust before his own door, many things would be seen that are hidden now; and if certain folks would remember the old saying: 'Save in time and you'll have in need,' they would be better off than they were."

Of all these reproaches none really affected the distinguished professor, except the last. Money was to him what it is to Saladin in Lessing's great drama, Nathan: "the most trifling of trifles;" he looked upon it, as Saladin did, as "perfectly superfluous when he had it," much as he appreciated the necessity of being provided with it whenever he was reminded of it by his liberality, his generosity, and his intense antipathy against all bargaining and all haggling. If he had lived economically he might have become a very rich man, for his income was considerable; but Mammon would not stay in his hands, which were ever open to all who were poor and suffering. He never could force himself to accept money from the hard hand of a mechanic, even if the sum had been ever so small. "It is bad enough," he used to say, "that Nature has not wisdom enough to allow only such people to be sick as have leisure and money enough for it; but for the poor, sickness itself is a punishment severe enough, not to sentence them moreover into the payment of costs." Thus it happened to him very often that he poured the golden reward he had earned by his attention and his skill in the palace of rich Sinbad a few minutes later into the open hand of poor Hinbad, and reached home with a lighter purse than he had carried out.

His house also was an expensive one, although the whole family consisted but of himself and his daughter. A nature as richly endowed and as productive as his own was not made to be content with meagre fare and thin beer; he was fond of rich, savory dishes and fiery old wines; above all he loved to share the pleasures of his table with others who were as willing to be pleased as he himself with the good things of this world, and especially with one of the best among the good--a pleasant table-talk.

All this might have been accomplished without causing a deficit in the budget of the privy councillor, if a careful, sensible housewife had managed the whole, and spent what was coming in properly and economically. His wife, however, an exceedingly amiable, intelligent woman, died the second year after their marriage; and her husband, who had loved her above all things, could not summon resolution to fill the place in his heart which death, inexorable death, had made vacant, and to give a stepmother to his daughter, in whom he soon concentrated all his affections. He remembered too well the old saying, apud novercam queri! He had seen the fairy tale of Cinderella repeat itself in too many families. Thus he left his child in the hands of nurses and governesses whom he paid magnificently, and sent her, when she was old enough, to Miss Bear's boarding-school, in case anything should have been forgotten in her outward polish or her inner culture. In the meantime he kept a kind of bachelor's hall, which soon became a very costly life, owing to the thievishness of his servants and the incapacity of a housekeeper in whom he placed implicit confidence. He comforted himself, however, whenever Mrs. Bartsch had forced him into a very uncomfortable discussion about credit and debt, with the prospect of the time when his daughter could relieve him of all this misère, and of the answer to the question: what shall we have for dinner, etc., which ought not to be allowed to trouble a good Christian's peace of mind.

The time came at last, but Miss Sophie's return to the paternal home did not exactly mend matters. Sophie was too young and too inexperienced to see the cause of the evil and to reform the abuses, which were deeply rooted after so many years' toleration. Mrs. Bartsch, who could not adapt herself at all to the new regime, was dismissed, it is true; but--as the doctor said, "the bad one is gone, the bad ones have stayed"--the servants stole just as before, and the privy councillor did not know yet "what in all the world could have become of the miserable money?" As it could not well be otherwise under such circumstances, the accounts agreed less and less every year, and instead of saying, "I must learn to be more economical hereafter," he only said, "I must work harder." He felt himself yet in the full vigor of his strength. He saw before him yet long years of energetic activity, during which he might make up what had been so long neglected.

But it was not to be so, and the beautiful fruit-bearing tree, in whose broad, hospitable shade so many who suffered from the burning heat of life sought shelter and refreshment, and found it too, was to be irreparably injured by a flash of lightning which fell from a clear sky. Like wildfire the news flew one morning all over town that Privy Councillor Roban had had a stroke of paralysis over night, and was now laid up without hope. People told it one to another with grave faces, and said it would be an irreparable loss to science, especially as far as the university was concerned, which had had in Roban its only really great man since Berger had become insane. But of all who suffered by the loss, the poor were most seriously threatened, since they lost in the privy councillor their generous friend and protector. For many and many a day one might have seen old women dragging themselves painfully along on crutches, men so old and feeble that they had to be led by a boy, young pale mothers with a baby in their bosom--all sitting on the steps of the house, bathed in tears, and asking every one who came out whether things were not going a little better with the privy councillor, or whether there was really no hope at all that the good old gentleman would recover?

In the meantime the patient was lying in that terrible state which is neither night nor day, but a painful twilight, when the sun is about to set, and the darkness is rising full of threatenings on all sides. For a long time it remained uncertain whether life or death would be the end, and when at last the cruel conflict was decided in favor of life, death only yielded after having marked his victim unmistakably forever. One might even have said, that he had taken all the reality away with it, and left only the shadow of existence.

To-day was the first time that the privy councillor had risen for a few hours; they had rolled him in his large easy-chair from his bed-chamber, before the fire-place in the sitting-room. He had insisted upon it that his daughter, who since the beginning of his sickness had scarcely left his bed, should go out to her little party; and he had dismissed his son-in-law, who had taken his practice provisionally in hand and came to see him every evening--for he wished to be alone. He felt the necessity of availing himself of the first hour in which the pressure on his brain was less overwhelming, for the purpose of thinking over his situation. As a physician, he would probably have warned his patient against such an injurious excitement; but now he was physician and patient at once, and made the experience in himself that the physician may very often demand certain things which the patient is unable to do with the best will in the world.

Poor, unfortunate man; doubly and trebly poor, because you have been doubly and trebly rich and happy before, in the fulness of your mental and physical strength, in the elasticity of your sanguine temper, nay even in the easy humor which bore you like a bird high over the greatest difficulties! Where is now your restless activity, which formerly made it impossible for you to sit still in one and the same place for any length of time, which induced you even at table frequently to change your place among your guests? Where is your sharp, penetrating mind, which used to solve the hardest problems as in play? Where your brilliant fancy, which threw even upon every-day occurrences a bewitching light? Where, above all, your Olympian cheerfulness, which made it so easy for you not to be angry or excited, but allowed you to fight at most with a humorous smile and satirical wit against the misery and wretchedness of life, against the stupidity and vulgarity of men? Where are the thousand arguments with which you often nearly overwhelmed the pessimist views of your friend Berger, when you tried to persuade him that this earth was by no means a vale of tears from the rising to the setting of the sun, but a wide, fair landscape, in which hill and dale, waste deserts and Elysian fields alternated very wisely, and that in most cases man was not only at liberty but even commanded to avoid the one and to enjoy the other? Have you all at once changed your views? Has a brutal blow of fate suddenly reduced you in the discussion to an absurdum? Has the pressure which weighs on your brain and paralyzes the elasticity of your mind transformed you all of a sudden from an optimist into a pessimist, so that you see the world and your own situation in dark colors, as you are counting the beats of your pulse mechanically, and sit there, rolled in a ball in your easy-chair, glaring in dull thoughts at the dying embers of the fire-place?

And indeed there were reasons why it was hard for the privy councillor to drive away the gray shadowy form of care, as it pressed more and more closely upon him the darker the room grew. He who had himself observed so many similar cases, could least of all disguise from himself how precarious his physical condition was. He knew but too well that he was doomed to be henceforth a cripple in body and mind, that he was only a pensioner on life, and that death might come at any moment to collect the debt which was long since due. And yet, much as he was attached to life, this was his least sorrow. The physician did not struggle against omnipotent fate, which had never yet granted him one of its victims; the pupil of Epicure knew that joy and grief, delight and suffering, are inseparably interwoven in our life. But what made his heart particularly heavy, was the thought of his inability to arrange his circumstances, that he should have to leave life a bankrupt, and that after all he should have to rob his creditors of their rights by his death. Had he not always referred them to the future, and now the future refused to accept the draft; now the credulous man was to be denied credit at the very bank on whose credit he had so implicitly relied.

The unfortunate man sighed, hiding his deep-bowed head in his hands.

And his daughter, his darling daughter! Where was now the hope he had cherished to endow her with a fortune which was forever to free the spoilt, tender child from all the vulgar cares of life? which was to afford her the means always to enjoy a comfortable existence such as alone seemed to be suitable for the character of the young girl? Now he could not only leave her no fortune--no! but not even an honest, stainless name!

She had no idea of the painful pecuniary situation of her father. He never had the courage to trouble her childlike mind with cares which he tried to keep from himself as long as he could. She took it for granted that her father was, if not a rich man, at least well-to-do, and that she could enjoy the simple comforts by which she was surrounded with a clear conscience.

And was she the only one who labored under this illusion, and whom he had allowed to remain blind from fear of an explanation? Did not his friends think the same? Above all, the youngest and dearest of his friends, the man who had won his daughter's heart, and whom he himself loved with hearty, paternal love; who deserved such friendship, such love, by his upright, noble bearing, by his ability and his goodness; what would he say, what would he do, if he should learn what sooner or later he would have to learn--nay, what the father of his future wife was under such circumstances bound to tell him without further delay, if he did not mean to renounce all claims to be considered an honest man?

The privy councillor pressed his trembling hands upon his eyes and groaned loud, like one who is suffering cruel torture.

And suddenly he felt soft arms embracing him, and a girl's voice asked anxiously: "Papa, dearest papa, you are surely sick again;" and the kindly, firm voice of a man who had taken his hand to feel the pulse, and who now said: "You have stayed up too long! we must try and get you into bed again."

These voices, these words, fell like a mild, refreshing rain falling upon a sunburnt plant, upon the heart of the poor man, who was so sick in body and soul. He put his arms around the slender waist of his daughter and drew her to his heart in a long, silent embrace. He could have wept, but he was ashamed. Sophie asked again and again if he felt worse. Franz, who had ordered lights to be brought in, begged more and more urgently that he should not risk what had been so painfully gained by sitting up any longer. But the privy councillor would not hear of going to bed; he said he felt very comfortable in his arm-chair, and not in the least fatigued. Besides, he had to talk to Franz, and Sophie might in the meantime attend to the supper.

Franz, whose clear eye had well observed the restlessness, the excitement of his patient, considered it best to humor him in his wishes, and gave a nod to his betrothed to leave him alone with her father. Sophie went out with an anxious, inquiring glance at Franz, which the latter answered by a reassuring smile.

The door had hardly closed after the slender form of the young girl, when the privy councillor seized Franz's hand and said, in a voice which was in vain striving to be firm,

"I have something to tell you, Franz, which I cannot any longer conceal from you under the circumstances, and, since I may have to meet death any moment, without acting dishonorably."

"What is it, my dear sir?" asked Franz, moving a chair close to the privy councillor's seat and taking his hand into his with a gesture of great kindness.

"It is this!" said the privy councillor--and now he told Franz, that partly the want of prudent economy and partly the loaning of countless sums of money to poor and needy people, which were never returned, had gradually brought him seriously into debt; that he had hoped to work himself out by means of increased industry in the coming years, but that now all such hopes were futile, as he felt but too painfully.

The privy councillor paused here, partly because he was too much exhausted for the time, and partly because he expected an answer from Franz. But the young man sat there with cast-down eyes, remaining silent, and the patient continued with a lower and more trembling voice:

"Pardon me, my dear Franz, that my perhaps criminal selfishness, for which I hope you may find some excuse, has made me hesitate so long before making this communication to you. But it is a terrible task to have to afflict a man whom we love; to have to impoverish a man whom we would like to load with all the world can give."

He paused, and tried to draw his hands from those of the young man, as if the revelation he had just made had interrupted and ended their friendship. But Franz moved nearer to the sufferer and said, looking at him with his clear, truthful, bright eyes:

"I have let you finish, my dear sir; and now let me have my say. Suppose a man were to give the friend he loves best an unspeakably valuable treasure, a treasure which the other values so much that he could not live without it, and he were then to say to this friend, 'My dear, while I was guarding this treasure I had not the time, as you may readily imagine, to attend with proper care to the management and settlement of all my other affairs. There are a few creditors who wish to be paid, and who must be paid. Will you take that upon yourself? You are younger and stronger, and have no objection to business.' Suppose, I say, the giver should speak thus to him who receives, and the latter were to answer: 'The treasure which is to make me immeasurably rich for all time to come I am ready to take, but as to your other affairs you can see how you can manage them yourself. I will have nothing to do with them.' Would you not justly look upon a man who could give such an answer as a monster of heartlessness, as a horrible instance of ingratitude? Exactly such is the relation in which we stand to each other. You are the generous donor; I am the man who receives the costly gift--the immeasurably precious treasure itself is my own Sophie. Between us there can be no longer any question of mine and thine; what I have is yours, for you are to me all in all--my friend, my teacher, and my father. What I have amounts to about ten or eleven thousand dollars, left me by an aunt whom I have never seen in my life, and they are entirely at your disposal. I know that this sum will not suffice to free you from all responsibilities. But it will be a relief to you, a help; and I beg, I conjure you to make any use of it you may choose. No, my dear sir, don't shake your head! You can't help it. You owe it to me to Sophie, to yourself, not to refuse me. And then, I am not going to ask you to do this favor without asking one for myself in return. We have never yet agreed upon the day for our wedding. We were afraid to speak of it, because we feared you would refuse, or at least give your consent only with reluctance. Now I have become bold, and ask neither for Flanders nor for liberty to think, Oh, King Philip, but for your permission to make your daughter, Dona Sophie, my wife, this day four weeks. Look! there she is herself! Kneel down, darling, and thank your lord and father for his kindness. He consents to our marriage this day four weeks."

Sophie, who had entered the room during the last words spoken by Franz, hastened to her father.

"Good, dear papa! dearest darling of a papa!" she cried, embracing the privy councillor and kissing him tenderly on brow and lip. The privy councillor was deeply moved. His trembling lips tried in vain to utter a word; his tear-flooded eyes turned now towards his daughter, who was kneeling before him, and now towards the noble man, who stood by his side leaning over him and looking at him with tenderness. His mind, weakened by his sickness, could not at once overcome the chaos of conflicting thoughts, but in his heart he heard a voice assuring him that he could die now in peace.

Franz, who had his reasons for fearing that the violent emotion might change the condition of the patient for the worse, hastened to make an end to the scene. He rang the bell and asked the servant to help him carry his master to his room. The privy councillor suffered them to do as they chose. Franz and the servant rolled the chair to the door of the adjoining room, which had been opened by Sophie, lifted it over the sill, and closed the door behind them, while Sophie remained alone in the sitting-room.

After a few minutes Franz returned. He was moved as Sophie had never yet seen him; but she saw also that his emotion was not painful. His eyes shone brightly, his step was elastic like that of a conqueror, and his voice, generally rather sharp, sounded softer and fuller, as he said, folding his betrothed almost violently in his arms,

"Rejoice, my girl; all goes well, excellently well. I have won your father's consent by gentle means and harsh means. Did I not tell you we should be man and wife four weeks hence? Did I not tell you, 'In our heart are the stars of our fate?' Oh, I feel a whole heaven in my heart! dear, dear Sophie!"

"Dear, dear Franz!"

And the lovers held each other embraced in that bliss for which the ordinary language of earth-born men has no words.

Then, when the torrent of glorious feelings had sobered down to greater quiet, they walked up and down in the room, arm in arm, and their voices grew low like their steps on the carpet, and what they whispered to each other was sweet and cozy, like the dim rosy light of the lamp under its veil, and yet as hot and as glowing as the coals shining through the light covering of ashes in the fire-place.

It was a lovely pair, the two lovers; and Zeus of Otricoli, whose lordly face with the god-like brow beneath the ambrosiacal curls that shade Olympus, looked majestically down upon them from a niche in the wall, must have enjoyed the sight as they walked again and again past his bust, although neither the young man nor the girl could lay claim to a beauty exactly classic. Their tall forms were too lithe for that, wanting in the voluptuous fulness of the Grecian ideal; their faces, full of expression, were wanting in that architectural regularity, that indelible antique harmony, which knows no struggle, at least no struggle that excites the soul to its innermost depths.

Sophie Roban had, if you examined her strictly, nothing that could be called beauty, except a graceful, delicate figure, though connoisseurs would have objected to her arms as too thin, and a pair of large, soft, deep-blue eyes, of which connoisseur and ignoramus spoke with equal delight. Her mouth is rather large, and it is fortunate for her that her teeth, which are in consequence seen very frequently, are, if not literally "two rows of pearls," at least beautifully white and regular The cheeks are round and full, the nose belongs to no special category. The best feature of the whole is, probably, next to the large blue eyes, the abundance of chestnut-brown hair, which forms a frame of soft waves for the somewhat low but smooth and most intelligent brow, and is very artlessly but tastefully arranged. Sophie is so tall that Franz, who is above medium size, scarcely rises a head's length above her--a proof, as Sophie says, that she has some claims to be counted among Jean Paul's "lofty beings," an opinion which Franz is by no means disposed to accept. He says, on the contrary, that she falls short, if not in everything, yet in much of that great honor, especially in that exuberance in thought and sentiment which the author requires for "lofty beings," and of which Sophie has not a trace, unless it be when she plays on the piano, and the genius of Beethoven, her favorite composer, lends her soul the wings which are otherwise wanting. Franz mentions besides, in his diagnosis of his betrothed, a certain cool sobriety of views and judgment, a kind of shyness to go beyond her own self, and a mistrust of all who do not possess this shyness and are too ready to sing their own praises or their own complaints, without inquiring whether the gods have given them a talent for stating what they suffer or not. Sophie, on the contrary, is disposed to be very quiet in moments of great enjoyment or great sorrow, on which account Franz prefers classing her with Jean Paul's "silent children of heaven." Besides, he attributes to Sophie the following qualities and peculiarities, all of which are more or less incompatible with the character of "lofty beings." She is particularly fond, he says, of canary birds, dogs, tree-frogs, rabbits, horses, and even of donkeys, which evidently shows a predilection for Dutch pictures of still life; she betrays a highly improper indifference for literature, unworthy of the daughter of a man of science, and the betrothed of a man who may possibly yet become famous in the world; she will not condescend to use a dictionary, even in cases of necessity, when she reads French or English authors; and as to the productions of her mother tongue, her indifference is so great that she has actually dared to fall fast asleep when Franz has been reading to her aloud the most beautiful chapters from Goethe's Truth and Fiction or his Italian Journey. Then she has a decided fancy for putting on her hat on one side, and to catch her dress when walking out in all the thorn-bushes by the wayside, both of which habits indicate a dreamy, twilight life, utterly incompatible with the manner of "lofty beings." She is even suspected of clairvoyance, for she had actually once told her maid, when she was dressing her for a ball and wanted a pin, that there was one lying way back in the parlor under the fourth chair from the window.

The conversation of the two lovers had gradually approached this topic of the little weaknesses of his betrothed, which Franz was apt to play upon in countless variations. He had a talent to jest gracefully, and to conceal the sober face of a well-meaning preceptor under the smiling mask of a good-natured but ironical critic. Sophie, who was not fond of ample explanations, felt grateful to her lover for this mode of instructing her, and Franz adopted this method all the more readily as it gave him an opportunity to admire the cleverness and the wit with which Sophie knew how to defend herself against his insidious attacks, and to deny her faults, or even to pretend that they were in reality nothing but very lovable virtues.

They were so deeply engrossed in their conversation, now playful, now sober, occasionally interrupted by a half-suppressed laugh or a stolen kiss, that a person who was in the habit of coming every day at this hour to the privy councillor's house, and of entering unannounced, had to knock three times at the door before they answered with an unisonous "Come in!"

CHAPTER XV.

"Good evening, most honored friends and betrothed," said he, as he entered the room; "do I disturb your devotions?"

"Good evening, Bemperlein," replied Sophie, loosening Franz's hold and cordially offering her hand to the little man, who came with careful steps to her side; "you are just in time to protect me against this arch-scorner."

"Good evening, Bemperlein," said Franz; "you are just in time to help me in my efforts to convince this obstinate sinner."

"Before I can do the one, and not the other," replied Mr. Bemperlein, drawing off his gloves and folding them up carefully, "I beg leave to inquire, as in duty bound, after the privy councillor's health."

"He is much better," replied Franz.

"I hoped so from your joyous disposition," said Bemperlein; "well, I am delighted. Then we can at least take our supper to-night without feeling as if every morsel would stick in our throats from sheer melancholy and mourning, as has been the case for the last fortnight. Ad vocem supper; is it ready. Miss Sophie? I--who am not lucky enough to be able to satisfy my hunger with the ambrosia of confidential talk, and to quench my thirst with the nectar of love--I feel an unmistakable longing after earthly food and drink."

"I believe supper has been on the table for half an hour," said Sophie; "I had forgotten all about it."

"Then let us lose no more time," said Bemperlein, offering Sophie his arm, and leading her the familiar way into the adjoining room, where supper was regularly laid out.

Miss Sophie and Mr. Bemperlein were great friends. The excellent man had at every epoch of his life found somebody to whom he could offer his devotion and his love. When he had come over to settle in Grunwald, he had felt for a few days unspeakably lonely and wretched. Unable to live in solitude, and full of childlike trust, he had no sooner been introduced into the house of Privy Councillor Roban than he had poured out his complaints into the willing ear of Miss Sophie; whose large blue eyes encouraged him wonderfully. Sophie had not only listened to the little, lively man, who opened his whole heart to her with Homeric naïveté, as if he could not help doing so; but after following him with great attention to his last words; "that is all over now! over, and forever!" she had given him her hand with most cordial kindness, saying: "You must come and see us very often, Mr. Bemperlein. Papa is very fond of you and so am I. We'll try if we cannot make some amends to you for the loss of Berkow."

It was a strange friendship that bound the two to each other. Sophie, although twelve years younger than Bemperlein, was the admonishing, reproving, directing Mentor, and he the obedient, attentive, and docile Telemachus. She had aided him in arranging the modest lodgings which he had rented at some little distance from the privy councillor's house, and she made with him, and sometimes without him, the necessary purchases. Her attention went even beyond that. She trained him, after a fashion, for his entrance into society, for there was much to be done. She made him aware that it was not exactly the thing to hold gentlemen with whom he conversed continually by a coat-button, or to turn his back persistently upon ladies by whose side he had found his seat at table, however tedious they might appear in his eyes. "You must not do this, Bemperlein! You must stop doing that, Bemperlein!" the young lady continually said to him, and the good-natured man obeyed her implicitly, and was but too happy and proud if she said another time, "Bemperlein, that was well done! You played quite the cavalier to-night, Bemperlein!"

Bemperlein was soon even fonder of Miss Roban than he had been of Frau von Berkow. The latter remained, with all her kindness and goodness, after all, the great lady, the benefactress, the mistress; and the impression she had made upon him when he, a poor, bashful, awkward candidate for the ministry, had arrived one summer afternoon at Berkow, and been presented by old Baumann to the great lady, had never been wholly effaced in the seven long years which he had spent at her house. But Sophie was not grand; she laughed as heartily as any one of them; she looked at him so trustingly with her big, blue eyes; she made no pretensions; you could speak to her as to an equal, you could love her like a brother, without being all the time filled with awe and reverence.

And such paternal love Bemperlein felt for the hearty girl. Even if she had not been already engaged, it would never have occurred to him to fall in love with her. But to sympathize with all that interested her; to declare that her betrothed, whose acquaintance he made soon afterwards, was the most amiable and excellent of men; to render her any service which he could read in her eyes, and, when the privy councillor was ill, to watch with her till Franz should come back, day and night, with womanly patience and tenderness, by the bedside of the sufferer; and now, when he heard that the latter was better, to rejoice like a child to whom a father is restored, and to conceal this joy under a hundred innocent tricks and teasings--that was in the power of the ex-candidate of divinity and actual student of philosophy, Mr. Anastasius Bemperlein.

* * * * *

"I fear the potatoes are cold," said Sophie, raising the cover off the dish.

"Then they have exactly the temperature of this fish," said Franz, presenting her his dish.

"Or of this sauce," said Bemperlein, handing her the sauce-dish from the other side.

Sophie shrugged her shoulders.

"Nothing is eaten quite as warm as it is cooked, gentlemen. I must know that best, as future housewife!"

"For we are to be married in four weeks from to-day, Bemperlein," said Franz; "that is to say, if your dress-coat, which you have intended to order ever since you first came to Grunwald, can be ready by that time, Bemperlein, otherwise it cannot be."

"The coat shall be ready! The coat shall be ready!" cried Mr. Bemperlein; "even if I have myself to cut it out, to sew it, and to press it."

"That would make a nice coat, Bemperlein."

"Not so bad, perhaps, as you think. At all events it would not be the first dress-coat I have made with my own hands."

"Impossible, Bemperlein!" cried Franz, with amazement.

"As I tell you. It is a long time since, to be sure--perhaps fifteen years; and I was, during that Robinson Crusoe period of my life, much more inventive and industrious than I am now; but still I do not think I should find it impossible even now."

"But how did you come to make such a funny experiment?"

"Through the author of all inventions--necessity. You know, Miss Sophie, that I belong to those of God's children, or rather did belong, for now I have been promoted to another class, to whom the heavenly kingdom is promised, because they call nothing their own upon earth. This compelled me, when I left the Elysian fields of my native village and came to this town, to lead a life like a cicade, and to avoid all unnecessary expenses. Thus it occurred to me also, after long and painful meditation, that it might be feasible, even in this century of ink-consumption, to manufacture my own clothes, like Eumaeus of old, the god-like keeper of swine. No sooner thought than done. I had formed a great intimacy with a boy--his name was Christian Sweetmilk, the son of the old tailor Sweetmilk in Long street--who was to be a tailor and wished to be a doctor. We made a covenant that I should teach him every evening, when papa Sweetmilk's stentorian voice announced the closing of the shop, his Latin and Greek grammar; while he in return should instruct me in the use of the needle and the goose. Our studies were carried on with equal secrecy and industry, for I had good reason to fear the jibes of my school-mates, and he the never-missing yard-stick of his father and master. Oh! those were precious hours which we thus spent together, hours never to be forgotten again! I can see us still sitting by the light of a miserable train-oil lamp in our diminutive garret, on an autumn evening like this to-day, when the rain was pattering down upon the tiles right over our heads, and the gutter was overflowing, and the owls and rooks in the steeple of St. Nicholas were crowing and croaking. We were not cold however, although there was no fire burning in the little cast-iron stove, for the sacred flame of friendship warmed the blood in our veins with a gentle glow, and I was sewing till the thread smoked, and he was learning his grammar till his head smoked; and when I had finished a seam in masterly style, and he could tell his typto, typteis without a mistake, we fell into each other's arms and envied no king on his throne in all his splendor."

Mr. Bemperlein paused and looked deeply moved into his glass.

"Hurrah for old times!" said Franz.

"Hurrah for the new ones, too!" replied Bemperlein, touching glasses with the betrothed.

"But how about the dress-coat, Bemperlein?" asked Sophie. "I hope it was not the coat in which you were confirmed?"

"You have guessed it, fair lady; it was my confirmation coat. The time for the ceremony was drawing near. A merchant, to whose children I had given lessons in reading and writing, and at whose table I dined every Friday gratis, had presented me with the cloth for a dress-coat. The good man even told me to have it made at the tailor's at his expense. But I thought it would be abusing his goodness if I should avail myself of that offer too, and I asked his permission to have the coat made by my own tailor. Well, you may imagine who 'my own tailor' was. But alas! Papa Sweet milk had found out our 'abominable tricks,' as he called the sacred hours devoted to friendship and hard work, in his vulgar language. He had discovered the Greek grammar, which Christian used to throw quickly into 'hell,' the place of remnants and rags, when the Boeotian father suddenly entered, and the effect of this fatal discovery was, that he first used up his yard-stick on the shoulders of the attic youth, and then ordered him peremptorily to give up all intercourse with me hereafter, under penalty of being immediately and permanently banished from the paternal house, and of being disinherited besides. My faithful friend told me of the fearful sentence, weeping bitterly, as I met him the next day at the corner of the street. 'But I will not submit any longer to such tyranny,' he cried, flourishing a pair of trousers, which he was ordered to carry to one of his father's customers, with more energy than grace. 'This one more slavish service I will render (and he struck the dishevelled inexpressibles with his closed fist in wild fury) and then I will go into the wide, wide world. Will you go with me? 'It took me some time to quiet the boy. I knew that nothing pained him more than the thought that he would now be unable to help me with my dress-coat. I reminded him of the commandment, that we must honor father and mother, if we wish to live long in the land which the Lord our God has given us. I told him his father would probably give way after a while; and as for the dress-coat, I promised him that the pupil should do credit to his master. Christian shook his head sadly. 'You can't do it, Anastasius,' he said; 'you will not get it done, even if you had any idea how to cut it out.' 'What will you bet, Christian?' I cried. 'You shall see me to-day week at the confirmation in church, wearing the coat I have made without your assistance, and you shall have to confess that it fits me well. If I win, you shall give me your bird; if you win, I'll give you the Odyssey, Heyne's edition. What do you say?' 'Done!' said Christian, laughing, in spite of his troubles. 'I ought not to bet, because you are sure to lose, but since you will have it so, let it be so.'"

"Well, and who won the wager?" asked Sophie, full of interest.

"On the following Sunday, at St. Nicholas," said Mr. Bemperlein, and his voice trembled, and the glasses in his spectacles were dim, "on the following Sunday I was kneeling amid a number of youths before the altar, and the music of the organ was floating through the vast edifice, and the minister proclaimed God's blessing over us; but I heard nothing of all that. I only looked up to the gallery, to a boy with long, brown hair and brown eyes, who kissed his hand to me, and whose dear face was beaming with pride and joy that his friend should look so well, contrary to all his expectations. When my turn came that 'the Lord might bless me and preserve me and let His countenance shine upon me,' he folded his hands piously and prayed for me earnestly with bent head."

Bemperlein paused again. He had taken off his glasses, which had become dimmer and dimmer, and was now rubbing them bright again with his silk handkerchief.

"And what has become of Christian?" asked Franz.

"He is now professor of ancient languages in one of the best lyceums in Belgium; his grammar of the Doric poets is considered a most valuable work for philologists. I had a letter from him day before yesterday, sixteen pages long."

"And what has become of the dress-coat?" asked Sophie.

"It hangs still, as a valued memento of former days, in my wardrobe," replied Bemperlein, replacing his spectacles, and looking with a smile at Sophie; "and what is more than that, it still fits me so well that I can present myself in it at any time, if my gracious lady should entertain any doubts as to the truthfulness of this veracious story."

"Will you do me a favor, Bemperlein?" said Sophie, with unusual seriousness, offering him her hand.

"Anything!" said Bemperlein, enthusiastically, and seizing the girl's hand.

"Then don't order a new dress-coat for my wedding, but come in the old one, which has become very dear to me through your touching story."

"Are you in earnest?"

"Can you doubt it?"

"Well, then," said Mr. Bemperlein, kissing Sophie's hand reverently, "I will be at your wedding in the coat which I have made myself for my confirmation."

The little company finished their cold supper and then went back to the cosy sitting-room, where Sophie made tea, while Franz went to inquire after the privy councillor. He returned with the welcome news that papa was, for the first time since the beginning of his sickness, lying in quiet, refreshing sleep, and that the servant who was watching by his bedside said "he had fallen asleep almost immediately after having murmured a few unintelligible words, with folded hands."

Franz assured them that the recovery would now progress with rapid strides, and that he felt very little doubt any more of a perfect restoration. Sophie embraced and kissed him as a reward for this good news, and Bemperlein vowed he would hereafter acknowledge a fifth most profane evangelist, besides the four in the Bible--namely, a St. Franciscus.

They were sitting around the fire-place. The steam of the tea-kettle and the smoke of the cigars which the gentlemen had lighted, rose in clouds up to the Olympic Zeus, who now became a comfortable Zeus Xenius. Franz was in a peculiarly elated humor, which Sophie placed on the ground of the favorable turn in her father's disease, but which had a very different reason. It was the nervous excitement which overcomes even the bravest before the beginning of a battle; for Franz felt and knew that to-day the battle of life had commenced for him in good earnest. He had assumed most serious obligations, which might have incalculable consequences for his own future and for Sophie's future. The very heaviest responsibility was henceforth resting on his shoulders. He saw of a sudden the ocean, on which the vessel which contained their joint fortunes was sailing, filled with most dangerous reefs, which it would require an always clear head, an always bold heart, and an always steady hand to clear successfully. Sophie did not suspect what her betrothed was then experiencing; she began, with Bemperlein's aid, to draw a picture of the future--a little paradise, full of peace and comfort, quiet and sunshine.

"You must get married too, Bemperlein," she cried.

"With the greatest pleasure," replied Mr. Bemperlein "if you will find the main thing."

"What is that?"

"A girl who is willing to love me, and whom I can love."