Problematic Characters Part 9

"Ah, here comes my Gustava," cried the minister, glad to be able to break off a conversation which he liked less and less every moment.

The minister's wife, who just then came into the room, was a lady of about forty, with sandy hair, very light blue eyes, and a face which, at that moment, was rather red from the kitchen-fire and the hurry in which she had dressed; ordinarily she looked pale, faded, and old-maidish. She wore a dress of yellow raw silk, with a gold watch in the belt, and a cap with yellow ribbons, so that on the whole she made upon Oswald the impression of an elderly, unhealthy canary-bird, hung up in a room which looks towards the north. She, too, could hardly find words--and yet they came in crowds--to express her joy at seeing the friend of the great house under her lowly roof--evidently a stereotype phrase common to husband and wife. She felt so grateful for the visit, as her poor man had no well-educated neighbor at all, and now, she knew, the want was at once supplied by Oswald's arrival.

"My poor Jager"--that was the husband's name--"my poor Jager will become a hypochondriac here," she exclaimed, fixing her watery blue eyes with great tenderness upon the object of her apprehensions. "I do what may be in my feeble power to make him miss the society of clever and learned men as little as possible, but a poor ignorant woman cannot do much in that direction."

"You will compel me to contradict you," said Oswald, in whom the sense of the humorous had been getting the better of the disgust with which the hypocrisy of the worthy couple had at first filled him. "I shall insist upon it that ignorance and Mrs. Jager have never yet met, much less can they ever have made acquaintance with each other."

"You are very kind; I am sure you are too kind," said the delighted lady. "I cannot deny that I have all my life endeavored to relieve myself, for one, of the popular reproach that women are unfit for the sphere of highest----"

"Dinner's ready!" cried the parlor-maid in at the door.

"Now you see; that is the way our daily life is always a.s.serting its rights as soon as we try to rise a little higher," said the dweller in the spheres of highest cultivation. Oswald offered her politely his arm, and the minister laid his cigar carefully aside, so that he might easily find it again after dinner.

CHAPTER X.

Dinner was served in a cool, shady room which looked out upon a somewhat bald and very sunny garden, and the conversation soon became quite animated. Oswald's residence at Grunwald was an inexhaustible theme. His hostess was a native of that city, one of the many daughters of a higher church dignitary there, who had just lived long enough to procure for his son-in-law the best cure in the diocese. She was very proud of her Doctor of Divinity, for the minister had actually obtained that academic honor by a most erudite dissertation on the writings which an obscure father of the church, of whom literally nothing was known beyond the name, might possibly have left behind him. But Oswald could not help noticing that he had certainly not been caught by her personal attractions, and no longer wondered why the table was so small and the house so quiet. The good lady also knew Professor Berger, and some other families with whom Oswald had become acquainted. Thus they could enjoy a delightful dish of gossip with each other, and Oswald understood what devastation the double-edged sword of his hostess must, in her time, have caused in a small town like Grunwald.

In the mean time the dessert had been put upon the table, and the minister had opened a second bottle with a certain solemnity; the lady had left them, and ordered coffee to be served in a garden-house. The minister had lighted a cigar, unb.u.t.toned his black satin waistcoat half-way, and seemed to be determined to indulge himself in the illusion that he had enjoyed a sybaritic feast. He summoned Oswald to drink with him to the health of that most ill.u.s.trious family with whom he had the good fortune to reside, a compliment which Oswald returned by offering a toast to his amiable, learned, and yet modest hostess.

"Many thanks, many thanks, my dear young friend," said the flattered minister, pressing Oswald's hand over and over again. "Yes, you are right, a learned, modest woman. Have you noticed that she corresponds with more than one of our greatest literary men, and that she contributes under the name of Primula to some of our magazines?"

"Is it possible?" said Oswald

"I a.s.sure you it is so, my dear friend, and you may imagine what pleasure it gives me to read in the 'Correspondence' of the paper: 'Fashwitz, Primula Veris (that is Gustava's cipher), a thousand thanks for your amiable letter;' or, 'You have given us great pleasure by sending us your admirable poem; it will appear in the next number,'

etc."

"I can well imagine," replied Oswald, in an absent manner. "But had we not better follow our charming hostess into the garden?"

"_Festina lente_," cried the minister, upon whom the wine began to tell a little. "We shall not meet again as young as we are now. A good gla.s.s of wine is a thing not to be treated lightly, and Gustava is too generous to shorten our enjoyment. But the Bible tells us, that of every good thing there are three; so let us have a third bottle." ...

"But, Jager, the coffee is getting cold," cried the piercing voice of Primula Veris from the garden through the open window.

"We are coming, we are coming," replied the obedient husband. "I give thanks for you and me, my dear young friend"--and with these words he embraced Oswald; "my dear friend"--another embrace--"and----"

"But we forget that coffee is waiting for us," said Oswald, barely escaping a third embrace and making his way to the garden, while the minister, before following his guest, quickly poured the last contents of the bottle into a gla.s.s and emptied it in a hurry, probably giving thanks only for himself this time.

The garden was not exactly the most pleasant place in the world at that hour of the day. The plantations were quite young yet; the small trees scarcely as high as a man, and the garden appeared, therefore, most prosaic and bare, affording no shadow anywhere. Oswald could not help comparing it to the theology of his reverend host, even with regard to the eminent place given here also to the practically useful. For the vegetables were flouris.h.i.+ng, while flowers were few and far between; a few sun-flowers alone recalled the appearance of Primula Veris, and by their tendency to turn always towards the sun, in whatever part of the heavens it might stand, the practical philosophy of her ill.u.s.trious husband.

Fortunately, the bower in which coffee was served was thickly overgrown with jessamine and afforded a welcome shelter against the sun, whose rays were burning fiercely. Here they found the minister's wife, with a work-basket by her side, in which Oswald discovered, with some antic.i.p.ation of evil, a small volume amid a host of sewing materials.

"Woe is me," he said to himself, "if that be a collection of Primula's poems, taken from the magazines to which she contributes!"

He tried to interest the minister in his vegetables; he insisted upon examining himself the great improvements which his host had made in beehives; at last he spoke of the necessity which forced him to take his leave at once--in fine, he did all that a man in his critical situation can do, but all in vain!

"We could not think of letting you go in this heat," said Primula, letting her hand gently glide into the work-basket, a movement which did not escape Oswald. "We are not overshadowed here by the tall pine-tree or the white poplar, but at least we are in the shade, and you surely would not exchange that for the heat and dust of the highroad? Out of question! Another cup, my honored guest? This is not Falernian, as the great Roman calls it in the ode from which I quoted just now, but a beverage which has become somewhat cla.s.sic in its turn, since our great Voss has sung 'its praises in his n.o.ble verses.' Tell me, dear sir, has not the sojourn under our lowly roof reminded you of certain parts of his lovely idyl? Have you not felt with me, that here, far from the turmoil of the markets of men, the voice of poetry is heard speaking to us distinctly?"

"Now the terrible event is approaching!" thought Oswald.

"I admire your gift," he said, "to bind so sweetly old and new things, reality and poetry, into a common wreath, full of fragrance. I myself have unfortunately of late come in contact with the prose of daily life alone; and, I confess it with reluctance, I have done the thing I formerly considered impossible, and reconciled myself with it, although of course I have had to pay a penalty by losing all taste for the charms of poetry."

"Oh, you must not think so," exclaimed Primula. "The well of poetry may at times pour forth less abundant waters, but it never dries up entirely. You accuse yourself of being no longer susceptible to the charms of poetry. That--here she put her hand openly upon the little volume in black and gold--that ought perhaps to deter me from my purpose to read to you a few of those poems which you may have noticed, under the pseudonym of Primula Veris, in several of our prominent magazines. But my faith in the power of poetry, and especially of the latent poetry of the heart, is too great to allow my being convinced of the contrary by your self-condemnation. May I venture the attempt to put the correctness of my views to the test?"

"How have I deserved such very great kindness?" murmured Oswald, leaning back in full resignation, and closing the eyes in a manner which fortunately is common to persons who are half asleep as well as to those who are in ecstasy.

"I have given the t.i.tle of Cornflowers to my little work," said Primula, turning over the leaves in sweet bashfulness, "because most of my poems have bloomed forth while I was walking through waving wheatfields, and at all events amid rural surroundings."

"How clever!" breathed Oswald.

"Following the rules of the masters of our art, and imitating the example of the Greeks, who placed a tragedy before a comedy, or rather, who made the comedy always succeed the tragedy, I shall read you first a serious, then a comic, then again...."

"Certainly, certainly; that will much enhance the charm of each poem,"

said Oswald, frightened at the endless perspective.

"Would you not rather, dearest Gustava----" said the minister.

"Let me have my choice," replied the poetess, in a soft but decisive tone, and then, clearing her throat--

"On a Dead Mole."

"On what?" cried Oswald, starting up with amazement.

"Well, you see, dear friend," said Primula, "how the mere t.i.tle already electrifies you."

"Yes, indeed!" murmured Oswald, sinking back in his corner.

"On a Dead Mole," repeated the poetess, "which I found by the wayside:--

"How do you lie so quiet there With black and s.h.i.+ning skin!

Your fate, alas! I cannot bear, Poor fellow, black as sin!

They scorned you, they scoffed at you, They said that you were blind!

They surely were but people who Are of the same blind kind.

You do not show your face by day, Like those to whom the world is dear; Yet light shone on your honest way, And in your heart 'twas clear!

And to the stars on G.o.d's own sky, High in the heaven's dome, You looked from your own hill on sly, You little learned gnome.

You lived so quiet, harmless, still, In honor and in truth below!

You did not steal, you did not kill, Alas! and now you're lying low!

Now do you lie so quiet there With black and s.h.i.+ning skin!

Your fate, alas! I cannot bear, Poor fellow, black as sin!"