Arthur O'Leary Part 39

* Thick-milk--a mess of sour cream thickened with sugar and crumbs of bread _Kallte-schade_--the same species of abomination, the only difference being beer, for cream, for the fluid.

No matter, thought I--a man in such grief as mine need little care what he eats; and I ordered both, that I might afterwards decide which I'd prefer. They came, and were placed before me. Himmel und Erde! what did I do but eat the two!--beer and cream, cream and beer, pepper and sugar, brown bread and nutmeg! Such was my abstraction, that I never noticed what I was doing till I saw the two empty bowls before me. "I am a dead Hofrath before day breaks," said I, "and I'll make my will"; but before I could put the plan into execution I became very ill, and they were obliged to carry me to bed. From that moment my senses began to wander; exhaustion, sour beer, and despair were all working within me, and I was mad. It was a brief paroxysm, but a fearful one. A hundred and fifty thousand ridiculous fancies went at racing speed through my mind, and I spent the night alternately laughing and crying. My pipe, that lay on the chair beside the bed, figured in nearly every scene, and performed a part in many a strange adventure.

'By noon the others learned where I was, and came over to see me. After sitting for half an hour beside me they were going away, when I called Caroline and Martha back. Caroline blushed; but, taking Martha's arm, she seated herself upon a sofa, and asked in a timid voice what I wished for.

'"To hear before I die," replied I; "to listen to a wonderful vision I have seen this night."

"A vision," said Caroline; "oh, what was it?"

'"A beautiful and a touching one. Let me tell it to you.

I will call it 'The-never-to-be-lost-sight-of, though not-the-less-on-that-account-to-be-concealed, Loves of the Mug and the Meerschaum.'"

'Caroline sprang to my side as I uttered these words, and as she wiped the tears from her eyes she sobbed forth--

'"Let me but hear it! let me but hear it!"

'"Sit down," said I, taking her hand and pressing it to my lips--"sit down, and you shall." With that I began my tale. I suppose,' continued the Hofrath, 'you don't wish to have the story?'

'Gott bewahre (Heaven forbid)!' broke in the whole company in a breath.

'Leave the Mug and the Meerschaum, and go on with Caroline!'

'Well, from that hour her heart was mine. Ludwig might call all the reptiles that ever crawled, every vegetable that ever grew, to his aid--the victory was with me. He saw it, and, irritated by defeat, returned to Berlin without bidding us even farewell; and we never heard of him till we saw his new novel of _Fortunio_. But to go on. The day after Tieck left us was my birthday, and they all arranged to give me a little fete; and truly nothing could be prettier. The garden of the inn was a sweet spot, and there was a large linden like this, where the table was spread; and there was a chair all decked with roses and myrtle for me--Caroline herself had done it; and they had composed a little hymn in honour of me, wherein were sundry compliments to my distinction in science and poesy, the gifts of my mind and the graces of my person.

Ach, ja! I was handsome then.

[Ill.u.s.tration: 272-392]

'Well, well, I must close my tale--I cannot bear to think of it even now. Caroline came forward, dressed in white, with a crown of roses and laurel leaves intertwined, and approached me gracefully, as I sat waiting to receive her--all the rest ranged on either side of me.

'Auf seine Stirne, wo das Licht-----'

(Upon that brow where s.h.i.+nes the light)

said Caroline, raising the chaplet.

'"Ach, Du Heiliger!" screamed Martha, who only that instant saw I was bareheaded, "the dear man will catch his death of cold!" and with that she s.n.a.t.c.hed this confounded nightcap from her pocket, and rus.h.i.+ng forward clapped it on my head before I could know it was done. I struggled and kicked like one possessed, but it was of no use; she had tied the strings in a black knot, and they could neither be loosened nor broken. "Be still there!" said she; "thou knowest well that at fifty-three----" You can conceive,' said the Hofrath in a parenthesis, 'that her pa.s.sion obliterated her memory. At fifty-three one can't play the fool like at twenty.'

'Ach, ja! it was over with me for ever. Caroline screamed at the cap, first laughing, then crying, and then both; the rest nearly died of it, and so did I. Caroline would never look at me after, and I came back home, disappointed in my love--and all because of a woollen nightcap.'

When the Hofrath concluded, he poured the remainder of the Rosenthaler into his gla.s.s, and bowing to each in turn, wished us good-night, while taking the Fraulein Martha's arm they both disappeared in the shade, as the little party broke up and each wended his way homeward.

CHAPTER XXI. THE STUDENT

If I were not sketching a real personage, and retailing an anecdote once heard, I should p.r.o.nounce the Hofrath von Froriep a fict.i.tious character, for which reason I bear you no ill-will if you incline to that opinion. I have no witness to call in my defence. There were but two Englishmen in Gottingen in my day; one of them is now no more. Poor fellow! he had just entered the army; his regiment was at Corfu, and he was spending the six months of his first leave in Germany. We chanced to be fellow-travellers, and ended by becoming friends. When he left me, it was for Vienna, from which after a short stay he departed for Venice, where he purchased a yacht, and with eight Greek sailors sailed for a cruise through the Ionian Islands. He was never seen alive again; his body, fearfully gashed and wounded, was discovered on the beach at Zante. His murderers, for such they were, escaped with the vessel, and never were captured. Should any Sixty-first man throw his eye over these pages he will remember that I speak of one beloved by every one who knew him. With all the heroic daring of the stoutest heart, his nature was soft and gentle as a child's. Poor G----! some of the happiest moments of my life were spent with you; some of the saddest, in thinking over your destiny.

You must take my word for the Hofrath, then, good reader. They who read the modern novels of Germany--the wild exaggerations of Fouque and Hoffman, Musaeus and Tieck--will comprehend that the story of himself has no extravagance whatever. To ascribe language and human pa.s.sions to the lower animals, and even to the inanimate creation, is a favourite German notion, the indulgence of which has led to a great deal of that mysticism which we find in their writings; and the secret sympathies of cauliflowers and cabbages for young ladies in love is a constant theme among this cla.s.s of novelists.

A word now of the students, and I have done. Whatever the absurdities in their code of honour, however ludicrous the etiquette of the 'comment'

as it is called, there is a world of manly honesty and true-heartedness among them. There is nothing mean or low, nothing dishonourable or unworthy in the spirit of the Burschen-schaft. Exaggerated ideas of their own importance, an overweening sense of their value to the Fatherland, there are in abundance, as well as a ma.s.s of crude, unsettled notions about liberty and the regeneration of Germany. But, after all, these are harmless fictions; they are not allied to any evil pa.s.sions at the time, they lead to no bad results for the future. The murder of Kotzebue, and the attempt on the life of Napoleon by Staps, were much more attributable to the mad enthusiasm of the period than to the principles of the Student-league. The spirit of the nation revolted at the tyranny they had so long submitted to, and these fearful crimes were the agonised expression of endurance pushed to madness. Only they who witnessed the frantic joy of the people when the tide of fortune turned against Napoleon, and his baffled legions retreated through Germany on their return from the Russian campaign, can understand how deeply stored were the wrongs for which they were now to exact vengeance. The _Volker Schlacht_ (the 'people's slaughter'), as they love to call the terrible fight of Leipsic, was the dreadful recompense of all their sufferings.

When the French Revolution first broke out, the German students, like many wiser and more thinking heads than theirs in our own country, were struck with the great movement of a mighty people in their march to liberty; but when, disgusted with the atrocities that followed, they afterwards beheld France the first to a.s.sail the liberties and trample on the freedom of every other country, they regarded her as a traitor to the cause she once professed. And while their apathy in the early wars of the republican armies marked their sympathy with the wild notions of liberty of which Frenchmen affected to be the apostles in Europe, yet when they saw the l.u.s.t of conquest and the pa.s.sion for dominion usurp the place of those high-sounding virtues--_Liberte, Egalite_--the reverse was a tremendous one, and may well excuse, if excuse were needful, the proud triumph of the German armies when they bivouacked in the streets of Paris.

The changed fortunes of the Continent have of course obliterated every political feature in the student life of Germany; or if such still exist, it takes the form merely of momentary enthusiasm in favour of some banished professor, or a Burschen festival in honour of some martyr of the Press. Still their ancient virtues survive, and the German student is yet a type--one of the few remaining---of the Europe of thirty years ago. Long may he remain so, say I; long may so interesting a land have its national good faith and brotherly affection rooted in the minds of its youth; long may the country of Schiller, of Wieland, and of Goethe possess the race of those who can appreciate their greatness, or strive to emulate their fame!

I leave to others the task of chronicling their beer orgies, their wild festivals, and their duels; and though not disposed to defend them on such charges, I might, were it not invidious, adduce instances nearer home of practices little more commendable. At those same festivals, at many of which I have been present, I have heard music that would shame most of our orchestras, and listened to singing such as I have never heard surpa.s.sed except within the walls of a grand opera. And as to their duelling, the practice is bad enough in all conscience; but still I would mention one instance, of which I myself was a witness, and perhaps even in so little fertile a field we may find one grain of goodly promise.

Among my acquaintances in Gottingen were two students, both Prussians, and both from the same small town of Magdebourg. They had been school-fellows, and came together to the University, where they lived together on terms of brotherly affection, which even there, where friends.h.i.+p takes all the semblance of a sacred compact, was the subject of remark. Never were two men less alike, however, than these.

Eisendecker was a bold, hotheaded fellow, fond of all the riotous excesses of Burschen life; his face, seamed with many a scar, declared him a 'hahn,' as in student phrase a confirmed duellist is termed. He was ever foremost in each scheme of wild adventure, and continually being brought up before the senate on some charge of insubordination.

Von Muhry, his companion, was exactly the opposite. His sobriquet--for nearly every student had one--was 'der Zahme (the gentle),' and never was any more appropriate. His disposition was mildness itself. He was very handsome, almost girlish in his look, with large blue eyes and fine, soft silky hair, which, Germanlike, he wore upon his neck. His voice--the index of his nature--soft, low, and musical, would have predisposed you at once in his favour. Still, those disparities did not prevent the attachment of the two youths; on the contrary, they seemed rather to strengthen the bond between them--each, as it were, supplying to the other the qualities which Nature had denied him. They were never separate in lecture-room, at home, or in the _allee_ (as the promenade was called) or in the garden, where each evening the students resorted to sup, and listen to the music of the Jager band. Eisendecker and Muhry were names that no one ever heard separated, and when one appeared the other was never more than a few yards off.

Such was their friends.h.i.+p, when an unhappy incident occurred to trouble its even course, and sow dissension between these who never had known a pa.s.sing difference in their lives. The sub-rector of Gottingen was in the habit of giving little receptions every week, to which many of the students were invited, and to which Eisendecker and Muhry were frequently asked, as they both belonged to the professor's cla.s.s. In the quiet world of a little University town, these soirees were great occasions; and the invited plumed themselves not a little on the distinction of a card which gave the privilege of bowing in the Herr professor's drawing-room, and kissing the hand of his fair daughter the Frederica von Ettenheim, the belle of Gottingen. Frederica was the prettiest German girl I ever saw; for this reason, that having been partly educated at Paris, French _espieglerie_ relieved what had been otherwise the too regular monotony of her Saxon features, and imparted a character of sauciness--or _fierte_ is a better word--to that quietude which is too tame to give the varied expression so charming in female beauty. The _esprit_, that delicious ingredient which has been so lamentably omitted in German character, she had imbibed from her French education; and in lieu of that plodding interchange of flat commonplaces which const.i.tute the ordinary staple of conversation between the young of opposite s.e.xes beyond the Rhine, she had imported the light, delicate tone of Parisian raillery--the easy and familiar gaiety of French society, so inexpressibly charming in France, and such a boon from heaven when one meets it by accident elsewhere.

Oh, confess it, ye who, in the dull round of this world's so-called pleasure, in the Eryboean darkness of the dinners and evening parties of your fas.h.i.+onable friends, sit nights long, speaking and answering, half at random, without one thought to amuse, without one idea to interest you--what pleasure have you felt when some chance expression, some remark--a mere word, perhaps--of your neighbour beside you, reveals that she has attained that wondrous charm, that most fascinating of all possessions--the art to converse; that neither fearful of being deemed pedantic on the one hand, or uninformed on the other, she launches forth freely on the topic of the moment, gracefully ill.u.s.trating her meaning by womanly touches of sensibility and delicacy, as though to say, these lighter weapons were her own peculiar arms, while men might wield the more ma.s.sive ones of sense and judgment. Then with what lightness she flits along from theme to theme, half affecting to infer that she dares not venture deep, yet showing every instant traits of thoughtfulness and reflection!

How long since have you forgotten that she who thus holds you entranced is the brunette, with features rather too bold than otherwise; that those eyes which now sparkle with the fire of mind seemed but half an hour ago to have a look of cold effrontery? Such is the charm of _esprit_; and without it the prettiest woman wants her greatest charm. A diamond she may be, and as bright and of purest water; but the setting, which gives such l.u.s.tre to the stone, is absent, and half the brilliancy of the gem is lost to the beholder.

Now, of all tongues ever invented by man, German is the most difficult and clumsy for all purposes of conversation. You may preach in it, you may pray in it, you may hold a learned argument, or you may lay down some involved and intricate statement--you may, if you have the gift, even tell a story in it, provided the hearers be patient, and some have gone so far as to venture on expressing a humorous idea in German; but these have been bold men, and their venturous conduct is more to be admired than imitated. At the same time, it is right to add that a German joke is a very wooden contrivance at best, and that the praise it meets with is rather in the proportion of the difficulty of the manufacture than of the superiority of the article--just as we admire those Indian toys carved with a rusty nail, or those fourth-string performances of Paganini and his followers.

And now to come back to the students, whom mayhap you deem to have been forgotten by me all this time, but for whose peculiar ill.u.s.tration my digression was intended--it being neither more nor less than to show that if Frederica von Ettenheim turned half the heads in Gottingen, Messrs. Eisendecker and Muhry were of the number. What a feature it was of the little town, her coming to reside in it! What a sweet atmosphere of womanly gracefulness spread itself like a perfume through those old salons, whose dusty curtains and moth-eaten chairs looked like the fossils of some antediluvian furniture! With what magic were the old ceremonials of a professor's reception exchanged for the easier habits of a politer world! The venerable dignitaries of the University felt the change, but knew not where it lay, and could not account for the pleasure they now experienced in the vice-rector's soirees; while the students knew no bounds to the enthusiastic admiration, and 'Die Ettenheim' reigned in every heart in Gottingen.

Of all her admirers none seemed to hold a higher place in her favour than Von Muhry. Several causes contributed to this, in addition to his own personal advantages and the distinction of his talents, which were of a high order. He was particularly noticed by the vice-rector, from the circ.u.mstance of his father holding a responsible position in the Prussian Government; while Adolphe himself gave ample promise of one day making a figure in the world. He was never omitted in any invitation, nor forgotten in any of the many little parties so frequent among the professors; and even where the society was limited to the dignitaries of the college, some excuse would ever be made by the vice-rector to have him present, either on the pretence of wanting him for something, or that Frederica had asked him without thinking.

Such was the state of this little world when I settled in it, and took up my residence at the Meissner Thor, intending to pa.s.s my summer there.

The first evening I spent at the vice-rector's, the matter was quite clear to my eyes. Frederica and Adolphe were lovers. It was to no purpose that when he had accompanied her on the piano he retreated to a distant part of the room when she ceased to sing. It signified not that he scarcely ever spoke to her, and when he did, but a few words, hurriedly and in confusion. Their looks met once; I saw them exchange one glance--a fleeting one, too--but I read in it their whole secret, mayhap even more than they knew themselves. Well had it been, if I alone had witnessed this, but there was another at my side who saw it also, and whispered in my ear, 'Der Zahme is in love.' I turned round--it was Eisendecker: his face, sallow and sickly, while large circles of dark olive surrounded his eyes, and gave him an air of deep suffering. 'Did you see that?' said he suddenly, as he leaned his hand on my arm, where it shook like one in ague.

'Did you see that?'

'What--the flower?'

'Yes, the flower. It was she dropped it, when she crossed the room. You saw him take it up, didn't you?'

The tone he spoke in was harsh and hissing, as if he uttered the words with his teeth clenched. It was clear to me now that he, too, was in love with Frederica, and I trembled to think of the cruel shock their friends.h.i.+p must sustain ere long.

A short time after, when I was about to retire, Eisendecker took my arm, and said, 'Are you for going home? May I go with you?' I gave a willing a.s.sent, our lodgings being near, and we spent much of every day in each other's chambers. It was the first time we had ever returned without waiting for Muhry; and fearing what a separation, once begun, might lead to, I stopped suddenly on the stairs, and said, as if suddenly remembering--'By-the-bye, we are going without Adolphe.'

Eisendecker's fingers clutched me convulsively, and while a bitter laugh broke from him, he said, 'You wouldn't tear them asunder, would you?' For the rest of the way he never spoke again, and I, fearful of awakening the expression of that grief which, when avowed, became confirmed, never opened my lips, save to say, 'Good-night.'

I never intended to have involved myself in a regular story when I began this chapter, nor must I do so now, though, sooth to say, it would not be without its interest to trace the career of these two youths, who now became gradually estranged from each other, and were no longer to be seen, as of old, walking with arms on each other's shoulder--the most perfect realisation of true brotherly affection. Day by day the distance widened between them; each knew the secret of the other's heart, yet neither dared to speak of it. From distrust there is but a short step to dislike--alas! it is scarcely even a step. They parted.

Every one knows that the reaction which takes place when some long-standing friends.h.i.+p has been ruptured is proportionate to the warmth of the previous attachment. Still the cause of this, in a great measure, is more attributable to the world about us than to ourselves; we make partisans to console us for the loss of one who was our confidant, and in the violence of _their_ pa.s.sions we are carried away as in a current. The students were no exception to this theory; scarcely had they ceased to regard each other as friends when they began to feel as enemies. Alas! is it not ever so? Does not the good soil, which, when cultivated with care, produce the fairest flowers and the richest fruits, rear up, when neglected and abandoned, the most noxious weeds and the rankest thistles? And yet it was love for another--that pa.s.sion so humanising in its influence, so calculated to a.s.suage the stormy and vindictive traits of even a savage nature--it was love that made them thus. To how many is the 'light that lies in woman's eyes 'but a beacon to lure to ruin? When we think that but one can succeed where so many strive, what sadness and misery must not result to others?

Another change came over them, and a stranger still. Eisendecker, the violent youth, of ungovernable temper and impetuous pa.s.sion, who loved the wildest freak of student-daring, and ever was the first to lead the way in each mad scheme, had now become silent and thoughtful; a gentle sadness tempered down the fierce traits of his hot nature, and he no longer frequented his old haunts of the cellar and the fighting school, but wandered alone into the country, and spent whole days in solitude.

Von Muhry, on the other hand, seemed to have a.s.sumed the castaway mantle of his once friend: the gentle bearing and almost submissive tone of his manner were exchanged for an air of conscious pride--a demeanour that bespoke a triumphant spirit; and the quiet youth suddenly seemed changed to a rash, high-spirited boy, reckless from very happiness. During this time, Eisendecker had attached himself particularly to me; and although I had always. .h.i.therto preferred Von Muhry, the feeling of the other's unhappiness, a sense of compa.s.sion for suffering, which it was easy to see was great, drew me closer in my friends.h.i.+p towards him; and, at last, I scarcely saw Adolphe at all, and when we did meet, a mutual feeling of embarra.s.sment separated and estranged us from each other.

About this time I set off on an excursion to the Hartz Mountains, to visit the Brocken, and see the mines; my absence, delayed beyond what I first intended, was above four weeks, and I returned to Gottingen just as the summer vacation was about to begin.

About five leagues from Gottingen, on the road towards Nordheim, there is a little village called Meissner, a favourite resort of the students, in all their festivals; while, at something less than a mile distant, stands a water-mill, on a little rivulet among the hills--a wild, sequestered spot, overgrown with stunted oak and brushwood. A narrow bridle-path leads to it from the village, and this was the most approved place for settling all those affairs of honour whose character was too serious to make it safe to decide nearer the University: for, strangely enough, while by the laws of the University duelling was rigidly denounced, yet whenever the quarrel was decided by the sword, the authorities never or almost never interfered, but if a pistol was the weapon, the thing at once took a more serious aspect.