Hammer and Anvil Part 71

Not quite in the place of the old one: the old castle had been built upon the higher ground, so that it looked proudly out over the whole land. The new possessor did not wish a haughty site, but one sheltered from the north and east winds, so he did well to fix his habitation somewhat lower.

"And where are the magnificent old trees of the park, which reached to the old house, and here joined the forest?" I asked.

"They are cut down," said the driver; "the whole park is cleared away; there is hardly enough left to make a coffin of."

I do not know what suggested this melancholy expression to the taciturn man, but it struck me strangely. Did not the Wild Zehren once, when we were standing at the window and looking out into the park, say that not enough of it belonged to him to make him a coffin, and that it all stood only to be cut down and turned into money by his successors? And now it had all come to pa.s.s, and that light was s.h.i.+ning from the new home which the new master had built on the ruins of the old.

Away, gloomy thoughts! Blow harder, thou glad, strong sea-wind! Gallop, you stout horses, down the hard, smooth road! And now, rattling through the gate, we enter the court before the great, stately house, and as we stop at the door servants come out with lights.

They come rather incited by curiosity than obsequiousness, which last, had it been present, would have suddenly cooled at the unpretending garb of the visitor and the limited amount of his luggage. Indeed, as I crossed the lower hall I caught sight, in a tall mirror, of the face of the servant who preceded me carrying my portmanteau, and who, by dint of thrusting his tongue into his right cheek, was making a frightful grimace, undoubtedly intended to express his disgust at having to carry such a disgraceful old mangy sealskin portmanteau--I had borrowed it from Klaus--up the brilliantly lighted staircase of the great house of Zehrendorf. The honest fellow's feelings were apparently much hurt by the incongruity of the visitor's appearance with the service he had to render, and he found a neat way of exhibiting the fact by tossing the question to me over his shoulder, as he rather flung down my portmanteau than set it down: "I suppose you are a countryman of our Mamselle?"

"Who is your Mamselle?" I asked in a tone of perfect good humor, for I confess to my shame that the contemptuous manner of the man, far from offending me, afforded me considerable amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Why, the old scarecrow with the----" and he made an undulatory wave of his hand down from his shoulder, a bit of pantomime in which a lively imagination could see the fluttering of long tresses.

"You mean Fraulein Duff, I suppose, friend--what is your name?" I asked.

"William Kluckhuhn," answered he. "You can call me William, for short."

"Thank you. And why do you suppose me to be a countryman of Fraulein Duff, friend William?"

"Well, the old girl made a great fuss about you to me. I was to show you every attention, and you were to have this room which looks on the garden, and is really our young lady's room, and which she, heaven knows why, took a notion three days ago to make a guest-room. It seemed a little queer to us, for you are, after all, a workman in the master's factory in Berlin, as the master himself said at the table today. I am from Berlin myself, you must know, and we know there that a hand in a machine-shop is not exactly the Great Mogul. But what are we to do?

After all, we have to dance to the old girl's piping, or she will abuse us to our young lady, and she reports it to the master, and then there is the deuce to pay, of course."

"So that is the way it goes, eh?" I said, laughing; "from Fraulein Duff to your young lady, and from her to the Herr Commerzienrath."

"Well, sometimes it goes the other way," said the philosophic William; "but this is not so bad, for we can hold our own with the old scarecrow; that is an eternal truth."

As I heard the pet phrase of my good friend from the impudent lips of this ironical rascal I had to look another way to avoid laughing.

"Well, and I was to ask you if you wanted any supper. Tea will be served down-stairs in half an hour. But you will get nothing with it but stale biscuit and thin sandwiches, and she thought you would be hungry."

"So I am, my friend," I replied, "and you will oblige me if you will bring me a bit of cold chicken, with a gla.s.s of wine, or whatever you happen to have handy. And one thing more, friend William. I am not a countryman of Fraulein Duff, but you will particularly oblige me if in future you never mention that lady in my presence in other than a respectful manner. Now you can go; and you will have the goodness to ask the Herr Commerzienrath if I shall wait upon him before tea."

I said these words in an impressive manner, not with the intention of humbling my friend in livery, but simple because, as a guest of the house, I considered it my duty. The facetious William gave me a look in which astonishment was blended with suspicion, and in his heart, I fancy, he thought that the old proverb, "Do not trust appearances,"

might also be a sc.r.a.p of an eternal truth.

While he went to do what I had told him I cast a look of some curiosity round the room which three days before had been that of the beautiful capricious girl. I could hardly believe it, and yet it did not look like a guest-room--certainly not like one intended for so unpretending a guest as myself. A thick soft carpet of a Persian pattern covered the whole floor. The curtains of the windows and lambrequins of the doors were of heavy damask, also of a bright fantastic pattern, and looped with rich cords and ta.s.sels. The whole decoration and furniture were in harmony with this, to my eyes, oriental magnificence. A very low broad divan occupied nearly three sides of the room, while on the fourth, where the windows were, low chairs were standing in the recesses, and between the windows stood a costly cabinet of rosewood, inlaid with mother-of-pearl. From the ceiling hung by gilt chains a lamp in a red globe, diffusing, with the two wax candles that were burning upon the table, a soft rosy light throughout the apartment.

On drawing a curtain, behind which I thought there was a door, I discovered a deep alcove, with a wide low bed, with silken pillows and coverlids. I dropped the curtain again.

Again I examined the room, in ever increasing surprise at the singular reception which had been provided for me here. Upon the rosewood cabinet stood a vase with fresh flowers--hyacinths and crocuses. As I bent over the vase to inhale their perfume my eye was caught by a blue ribbon entwined among them which had letters embroidered upon it in gold thread, and upon examining it more closely I read the words "Seek faithfully and thou shalt find."

A sudden change came over my feelings at this discovery, and I broke into a fit of laughter, but checked myself suddenly and dropped the mysterious ribbon again into its fragrant hiding-place, as William Kluckhuhn entered with a large salver, from the contents of which he arranged an excellent collation upon one of the small tables standing before the divan.

"Well, when does the Herr Commerzienrath wish to see me?" I asked, as William, his napkin under his arm, stood before me at the respectful distance of three paces.

"The Herr Commerzienrath will have the honor to meet the Herr Engineer at tea," replied William Kluckhuhn.

I took a closer look at the man, his style of expression and even the tone of his voice had undergone such a change. Was I then suddenly promoted to the rank of engineer? Something must have happened to him that had wrought a revolution in his views of the new guest.

I pondered on what it might be, but it was a superfluous trouble.

William Kluckhuhn was not one of those who can keep a secret hidden in the depths of their souls.

He cleared his throat in an emphatic significant manner, and observed:

"The _gnadige Fraulein_ will not be down to tea."

"Ah," I said in an indifferent tone, which was belied by the sudden beating of my heart.

"Yes," went on my communicative friend, "I was just now in the parlor to ask the Herr Commerzienrath when he wished to see the Herr Engineer--" William Kluckhuhn laid a strong accent upon the last word.

"'At tea, of course,' said the commerzienrath. 'I wish to receive him quite familiarly.' 'Do you not wish first to have some private conversation with him?' said the _gnadige Fraulein_. The _gnadige Fraulein_ had risen quite suddenly from the piano-forte at which she had just been playing and singing, and turned to the door where I was--standing. 'Good heavens, no,' said the commerzienrath. 'Where are you going?' 'To my room,' said the _gnadige Fraulein_; 'I have been suffering with headache all day.' 'Then you will not be down again, I suppose,' said the Herr Commerzienrath. The _gnadige Fraulein_ said nothing, for she had already gone past me out of the door; and I can tell you, Herr Engineer, she had a pair of cheeks like my shoulder-knots here," and he pointed with his finger to the dark-crimson knot on his left sleeve.

"This is all very remarkable," I said.

"It is, indeed," said William, elevating his eye-brows as high as his long forehead would allow, and drawing down the corners of his mouth into a horse-shoe curve, "very remarkable. And so it seemed to the others, for they looked at one another, so----" and William Kluckhuhn stretched his little eyes as wide open as he could get them, and stared at me so that I thought for a moment he was going out of his senses.

"Who are the others?" I asked.

"Well, the master himself, and Mamselle--I mean Fraulein Duff, and the Herr Steuerrath and his lady----"

"They here too?" I asked, not very agreeably surprised.

"They have been here for three weeks," answered William; "but the day is yet to come when any one of us has seen this from them--" and he made a gesture with the right forefinger and thumb over the palm of his left hand. "And they all looked queer, and the Herr Commerzienrath looked very angry, but restrained himself, which is not his usual way, and said: 'That is unfortunate: but it is not to be helped. I must invite the Herr Engineer to tea.' _Apropos!_--excuse me, but it is a word we use in Berlin--why did not the Herr Engineer tell me at first that he was the Herr Engineer?"

"Very well, William," I said. "You can take away now, and when it is time, come and call me."

When the talkative William had left me I sprang up from the divan and paced the room in an excitement which I had carefully concealed from the servant. The information which he had just given me afforded me more matter for reflection than I could deal with at the moment. A singular scene must have occurred, or it would never have made so deep an impression upon the by no means susceptible William Kluckhuhn. And why had Hermine's headache grown so intolerable all at once? And why had my old friends, the steuerrath and the born Kippenreiter, seemed so much disturbed!

To all this I could give but one explanation; for a second, that might also have been possible, my modesty rejected at once. The pretty girl had been angry with me ever since our meeting on the steamer. But if this were so, why all those inquiries about me of Paula? Whence came the interest which she manifestly took in my fate? I saw her again before me as I had seen her on the steamboat, her red lips closely compressed, and her blue eyes darting indignant flashes at me. She had told me that I must let her father help me, since her father was rich; and I had replied that for that very reason I did not wish to be helped by him. Was not that the exact state of the case? Did I want anything from him? Had I not rather come to give the rich man some advice of which he seemed to be greatly in want? advice which, if he followed it, was to make him richer than he had ever been? No, I did not come into this house as an asker of favors. I could hold my head proudly erect, as beseems a free man; and if it was meant as an irony upon my humble position that I was here a.s.signed this splendid apartment, I had only to consider myself worthy of the attention, and the solecism vanished.

"Will you please to come now?" said William Kluckhuhn, appearing at the door. I had intended to put on my best suit of clothes, which, with the necessary supply of linen, and a few papers and drawings, formed the entire contents of my portmanteau, but the radical state of mind into which I had happily wrought myself scorned such trivialities, and it was a gratification to me to follow my guide just as I was down the wide staircase to the lower hall, and to a door which he obsequiously threw open for me, and through which, without the least confusion, I entered a large parlor, richly furnished and brilliantly lighted by lamps standing on various tables.

At one of these tables, at the further end of the room, sat the company, consisting of the commerzienrath, his brother-in-law the steuerrath, the steuerrath's lady, and Fraulein Duff. The commerzienrath came to meet me with outstretched hand, crying in his loud voice that he was unspeakably delighted to welcome his dear young friend to his house.

"To be sure I have had you in my house a long time already," he went on, after he had grasped my hand--"a half year already, and I never knew it! It is outrageous; but these girls never will learn reason. For the merest nothing they will make a secret of things that we would cheerfully pay a thousand _thalers_ to know."

He said this with so much warmth that if I had ever doubted whether he had really known that I was in his establishment, that doubt now entirely disappeared. He had known it all along, but had no interest in appearing to know it until I could be of real profitable use to him.

Perhaps it was this observation that made me receive so coolly the friendly protestations of the rich man; but I had to smile, and I felt real pleasure when now the kind-hearted Fraulein Duff put down the tea-pot, at which she had been officiating, and came gliding towards me with a coy smile upon her thin lips, and her eyes lifted to express the emotions of her soul. She held out her hand with the fingers bent and drooping, in precisely the style of a tragedy-queen who expects it kissed by a loyal va.s.sal. But the good lady was thinking of nothing of the sort; it was merely her way of offering her hand; and I took the thin pale hand and pressed it cordially, though cautiously. The sensitive nature of the excellent Fraulein felt at once the sincere good-feeling that my pressure implied, and she returned it with nervous force, her pale eyes filled with tears, and she whispered up to reach my ear: "Do not be annoyed, and do not be angry with her; it is not hate, it is maidenly coyness; do not despair--wait and trust--seek faithfully----"

Fraulein Duff had not time to complete her favorite phrase, for the commerzienrath turned again to me and drew me to the table, by which the steuerrath and his lady had been standing straight as candlesticks from the moment I entered the room without moving from their places, like a pair of wax-figures in a cabinet.

"You have no idea how glad my brother and sister-in-law are to see you again!"' said the commerzienrath, malicious joy sparkling in his small glittering eyes.

"Delighted!" said the steuerrath, offering me two fingers of his long white hand, which I did not take.

"Delighted!" said his lady, with a fixed look at the lamp on the table.