The Children of the World Part 16

"To you?"

"Well, you may suppose that during my visit yesterday, I made every effort to appear not only the experienced physician, but also the profound connoisseur in female hearts and female beauty. _Oleum et operam_, my dear fellow! A statue, I tell you, a marble Sphinx would have been more moved by my engaging manners. This young glacier in Brussels lace remained as unapproachable as on the first evening, and will you believe it: even my secret ally, Jean the Little, who ought to be grateful--is a _rocher de bronze_ in everything that concerns his mistress. The maid, my last hope, did not appear. So I'm just as wise to-day as I was before, or rather still more stupid, for all my experience and psychology have not helped me to understand our solitary beauty, or make up my mind whether she belongs to the great world, the _demi monde_, or no world at all."

"There can be no lack of people who will help you on the trail."

"Perhaps others know more," said the doctor, as he paused and cleaned his spectacles. "Meantime, as I told you just now: I give her up. I hereby relinquish her to you for the second time and forever, and swear by yonder turrets, that it does not even cost me an effort. She's an amphibious creature, a beautiful, faultless young serpent, just fit to drive men mad. I prefer warm, red blood. I've discovered some one--curiously enough in your house--a soubrette, who takes lessons from your piano-playing young lady--not by any means so exquisite or princess like as our sphinx, but to make amends--you know 'we don't cry for the moon' unless we are incorrigible idealists and star gazers, like certain people."

He laughingly shook hands with Edwin and entered the house before which his carriage was waiting.

CHAPTER II.

Ever since the day mentioned in the last chapter, Edwin had become a regular dinner guest at the house in Jagerstra.s.se. He came every third day, but could never be induced to encroach upon little Jean's share of the remains of the meal any farther than he had done the first time. He dined as it were symbolically, by dipping a biscuit in the dainty gla.s.s which the young hostess filled with Spanish wine. If she asked him why he would never gratify her by really eating, he pleaded his old fas.h.i.+oned custom of dining at noon. In reality, his feelings rebelled against being so luxuriously entertained in the fairy castle, after having merely been a spectator at the scanty meal in the "tun."

Besides, he was now separated from Balder so often and so long, that he wished at any cost to keep their cosy dinner hour, where jesting with Reginchen roused him a short time from his reveries. Yet it happened more and more frequently, that his evenings were not spent at home.

True, his fair friend always dismissed him just before she went to the theatre, and neither invited him to accompany her nor gave him any hope of seeing her afterwards. But the hour spent in talking with her, during which he played the part of the calm, clever thinker, her "wise friend," as she jestingly called him, left his soul in a state of agitation, a fever of doubt, longing, gloom, and happiness, which he was forced to calm by long, lonely walks, before he could a.s.sociate with others again.

He knew also that Balder was rarely alone at these times, Mohr came almost every evening to chat, to play chess with him, or to sit at the open window and listen to Christiane's piano. He declared that this music and Balder's golden mane were the only domestic medicines that afforded him any relief, when he had a particularly violent attack of his chronic self-contempt. He often brought some of his verses with him or a scene of his famous comedy: "I am I, and rely on myself," to get the youth's opinion, but could never make up his mind to read them aloud. Now and then Franzelius also appeared, but soon went away again if he met Mohr. To be sure the latter, at Balder's request, made the most earnest efforts to curb his mocking tongue and to spare the fiery tribune of the people, who was so helpless when in a small company. But his mere presence annoyed the irritable fellow, especially as he imagined that since Mohr's return some secret barrier had arisen between himself and Balder. He loved the youth more than any other human being, and knew that no one understood him better. Now he was jealous of every smile that Mohr's quaint manner won from his darling, and in his stupidity and dullness, felt doubly at a disadvantage in the presence of the cynical jester, who nevertheless was an object of scorn to him, as a drone among the working bees.

Balder, with his delicate sensibility, would probably have been even more careful than usual to soothe his wounded friend; but he was very anxious, and his thoughts, even while the two young men were with him, secretly followed his brother along the unknown paths, of which he had such a superficial knowledge. Not that Edwin would have concealed where he went, and that he was daily becoming more and more ensnared by the magic of this singular relation, but he could not reconcile his mind to confess the full extent of his weakness, for in so doing he would have been obliged to have acknowledged it to himself, and against such an acknowledgement all the pride and manliness in his nature struggled.

How contemptible he appeared to himself when at night, after he had wandered about, long and aimlessly, he again turned his steps toward the house in Jagerstra.s.se, instead of going home, to stand on the opposite side of the street pressed against the wall in some dark corner, until her carriage brought her back from the theatre, and then to wait hour after hour at his post, to see whether the door would not open again and allow some more fortunate person admittance or egress, until the light behind her curtain vanished, and every thing around him was hushed to repose in the coolness of the autumnal night, except the fever in his blood. How he cursed the hour which had first brought him to her presence, and made the firmest resolutions to put an end to this madness and never cross that fatal threshold again!

But the next, day would find him once more at the little table, envying the birds that pecked their food in happy ignorance and in freedom from suffering like his.

The young girl herself seemed to have no suspicion of how little prudence her "wise friend" possessed. She treated him on the tenth day exactly as she had done on the first, with the same frank cordiality, the same careless confidence; as if it were impossible he could ever become more distant or approach her nearer. When he came and went, she gave him her hand like an old friend, scolded him if he kept her waiting, questioned him, after she had once discovered that his nerves were disordered, most sympathizingly about his health, and urged him to use all sorts of remedies and medicines, of which she had read or heard. More than once she acknowledged that she did not understand how she had ever got through the long days before making his acquaintance, and only dreaded the moment when he would grow weary of wasting his time on such a foolish, ignorant girl, though to be sure the tone in which she had expressed this fear was not very grave. But though she must have been perfectly aware of her own powers of attraction, the idea that any deeper feeling might bind him to her never seemed to enter her head. The longer he watched her, the more he became convinced that in speaking of love as she had, she had given utterance to her real opinions. It actually appeared to her like a sort of madness, by which weak minds were sometimes attacked. How a sensible man, who came to see her every third day, brought her solid books and said very clever things, could be seized by it, would evidently have been incomprehensible to her.

He perceived all this, recognized the hopelessness of his concealed longing, the improbability of ever thawing the ice that surrounded her like a protecting wall. He had once asked what there was about him to inspire her, usually so reserved to every one, with so much confidence in him. She laughed, and shaking her head declared that that was a secret she intended to keep to herself, and when, contrary to his usual custom, he pressed her for an answer, she confessed that neither his honest face, nor anything he had said, had given her the a.s.surance that he would not abuse her confidence, but--and here she looked at him with a bewitchingly droll, half timid, half doubtful smile on her face, as if wondering whether he would take it amiss--the fact that he wore no gloves, and did not pay any more attention to his dress when he made the second visit, than when he first called to return her the bookmark.

He laughed, but was obliged to exert considerable self control, to treat as a jest a matter that was far from being one to him.

He distinctly perceived that she only preferred him because, as a being belonging to a totally different sphere, she thought him perfectly harmless. In the seclusion of her life, a visitor who, like him, brought her amus.e.m.e.nt without making any special claims, was very welcome, and the fact that he meantime remained as much a stranger to her, as she to him, only increased the charm of this intercourse.

Besides, a man who always visited her in the same grey summer suit and without gloves, was safe from the least suspicion of desiring any closer relation.

There were moments when he could not help being grateful to her honesty, for not leaving him in doubt about the impa.s.sable gulf between her worldly desires and needs and his own, when he suddenly shrank from the mere thought that she could ever return his pa.s.sion, as if such a return would be a terrible misfortune. Aside from all the mystery that surrounded her, how could he ever hope to harmonize his fate and Balder's, their cheerfully endured poverty, his duties to his profession, with the life she led, and which alone could be satisfactory to her, since she expressed no wish to change it. He only needed to imagine her in the place of Reginchen, who brought them their dinner, and to transport to the "tun" the form of his enchantress, with the striped waistcoat and his silver dish behind her, to measure the abyss of impossibility that yearned between them.

Thus weeks elapsed, without any change, either for the better or worse, having taken place in their intercourse. To be sure he did not always find her in the same mood; oftentimes he even thought he perceived that she had been weeping, or she greeted him with a look of surprise, as if it were difficult for her to recall her thoughts from some distant scene to him and what he brought. But a few words from Edwin were sufficient to clear her brow and transform her once more into the frank, friendly child that, with all her pampering and the strange independence of her life, she really was. She fairly provoked him to sometimes catch her in a piece of carelessness or failure in etiquette, and then he treated her with condescending, sarcastic composure, as if she were a person not fully accountable for her actions. But he carefully avoided letting her feel his superiority in any other than a jesting manner. If, as she was fond of doing, she roved in fancy, with strange transitions of thought, over the world and mankind, life and death, time and eternity, he could sit for fifteen minutes, tattooing an apple in fantastic designs with a silver fruit knife, and listening in silence. It always vexed her that he did not seem to think it worth while to contradict her, and declared that even if he laughed aloud and derided her, it would be less impolite than to sit silently smiling, while she was talking about the most serious matters. If the wind were blowing, or a fountain plas.h.i.+ng, he could not adopt a more indifferent air--"Was it his fault?" he answered laughing, "that in her presence he often felt as strange an emotion as in that of nature, whose manifold voices frequently rippled over him with similar elementary power, without his feeling called upon to make any reply? He would seem to himself a ridiculous pedant if he tried to talk logic to the woodland birds, and reason to the waterfalls."

And yet, when he came again, it almost always happened that the conversation went back to the same point at which it had been broken off the last time. Then they exchanged parts, and it was his turn to give utterance to his thoughts and rhapsodize undisturbed over the most important questions. It was the strangest dialogue in monologues that can be imagined, since twice four and twenty hours usually elapsed between question and answer.

Was the cause of this, his fear of making the contrast between their natures too perceptible, the dread that any dispute must instantly part them forever, while he still considered it almost a duty, when the matter had once more become indifferent to her, not to withhold his opposition or deny his opinion. Or did he suspect that he should lose all mastery over himself, if he obtained more and more control over her and gradually harmonized and a.s.simulated the heterogenious traits in her character? And what was the use of this daring venture? What was to be hoped for, even in the best case? To tame a gazelle, an antelope--what can it avail in a zone and on a soil that are not created for tropical animals--

It was on a gloomy afternoon in September, the first autumn rain was falling, and the wind sweeping chilly through the empty street, the windows were closed and a little fire was burning on the hearth, though rather for the pleasure afforded by the sight of the bright flames, than through any necessity for warmth. The beautiful girl, who had often boasted that she had never been really sick, complained of a slight headache, sent away the carriage which was to convey her to the theatre, and threw herself on the sofa in the little red dining room, with her feet toward the flames, whose red flickering light lent some color to her pale cheeks.

"Read something aloud to me, Doctor," she said. "If I fall asleep over it, so much the better. But don't choose Hermann and Dorothea; I don't wish to offend you, as we have already quarrelled over it once, and yet I can't help being lulled to sleep by the wonderful verses, as if I were in a cradle, gladly as I would keep awake to listen to the beautiful story. Do you know that I consider this Dorothea a very enviable person, nay I have really never found the fate of any heroine in a novel happier than hers? Poor, orphaned, homeless--she suddenly comes into possession of a farm, and is loved and petted, and it all comes about as naturally as if such a thing might happen any day! She must have been very charming," she added after a pause, "I always imagine her tall and slender, with raven hair and grey eyes, a black ribbon round her fair neck, and ear rings with a red stone, which is really only a bit of gla.s.s--"

"By the way," he interrupted, "I have long wanted to ask you something: why do you wear no earrings or jewelry of any kind?"

"Because I am too poor to get large diamonds or real pearls, and I do not care for any other ornaments."

"Too poor?"

"Yes indeed, much too poor, far poorer than you perhaps suppose, at any rate poorer than Dorothea, who possessed the greatest treasure, contentment. I, on the contrary--do you suppose I should have considered it a happiness to become Frau Hermann?"

"If you had really been in love with him--"

She looked at him quietly, as if trying to discover whether he was in earnest, and then said:

"You're a singular person. Wisdom does not seem to be any protection against folly, and you take no notice of the existence of anything that does not accord with your system. How often must I explain to you, that I have no idea of what you call being in love. And see, even in your Dorothea, though created by a poet--and falling in love plays so prominent a part in all poetry--yet I can discover no trace of this singular condition. She meets a young man, who leads her from the street into his house and wishes to make her his wife. As he seems kind and good, and promises to become one of those persons who are represented as pattern husbands--why should she say no, especially as the pastor and doctor and provincial customs are not at all repulsive to her? And that's just why I envy her. I, on the contrary--but please throw a few sticks of wood on the fire; it's going out."

He did as she requested, and was kneeling before the hearth kindling the flames anew with a dainty pair of bellows, when a noise and altercation arose in the entry, which attracted his attention. The whinning voice of little Jean, eagerly arguing with a deep ba.s.s, was distinctly audible, then the door of the ante-room was thrown open, and the disputants approached the little drawing room; the stranger, with a rude laugh, pushed aside the boy, who endeavored to prevent his entrance, there was a knock at the door, and without even waiting for a reply, a tall fellow in a rich huntsman's livery, boldly entered, as if entirely at home.

The young lady had hastily started up and was gazing at the intruder in speechless alarm. Edwin had also risen from his knees, with the bellows still in his hand, and was just in the act of accosting the man, when the latter, with an elegant bow to Toinette, drew a letter from his pocket and laid it on the little table before the sofa.

"Beg pardon, Fraulein, if I have disturbed you," he said casting an insolent glance at Edwin, "but the Herr Count expressly commanded me to deliver this note into your own hands."

"Did not my servant tell you--?" Toinette interrupted.

"That his young lady was not at home, yes; and also that she wished to receive no notes, and preferred not to know the Herr Count, as she had already intimated by not answering the letters His Excellency sent through the post office--"

"Leave this room at once," fell with great difficulty from the lips of the pallid girl, "and if you venture to come again and force an entrance in this way--I shall find some means to protect my rights in this house."

"Pardon me, Fraulein," said the impudent fellow, with a saucy grin, "but no one has any rights in a house except the person to whom it belongs. If it is agreeable to my lord the count, to have his servant turned out of a house, or the doors shut in his face, when His Excellency is, so to speak, the tenant--"

"Insolent rascal!" Edwin burst forth. "Did you not hear what the young lady told you? I've not the honor of your master's acquaintance. But if he's a gentleman, it cannot be his intention to have a lady insulted by a boorish lackey!"

The man, with cool impertinence, measured the person who so unexpectedly addressed him from head to foot.

"And I, sir, have not the honor of your acquaintance," he retorted.

"But as for my conduct, no one but the Herr Count has a right to call me a boor. There is the letter, and now I can go, as I have done my errand. I had no idea of insulting the young lady, that would have been entirely against my orders. But to have the first stranger--"

Edwin involuntarily raised the little weapon he held in his hand, but the next instant recollected himself. The bellows fell on the floor, he pa.s.sed close by the man, opened the drawing room door, and fixing a firm glance on the suddenly intimidated lackey, exclaimed: "Be off!"

The man lingered an instant longer, then with another bow to Toinette, slowly retreated.

"I will inform His Excellency," he said on the threshold, "that the young lady had no time to answer the Herr Count's letters, because she had gentlemen visitors."

Edwin closed the door behind him. They heard the fellow laugh loudly and joke with Jean as he went away, as if nothing had happened.

A death-like silence pervaded the little drawing room. The beautiful girl sat motionless on the sofa, with her eyes fixed upon the fatal letter, which still lay unopened on the table, and her pale hands folded in her lap. Edwin stood at the door, his hand still raised in the threatening gesture with which he had motioned the insolent fellow to leave the room. Not until he heard the outer door close, did he suddenly move, as if he had shaken off an incubus, and quietly approached the silent Toinette.

"Will you have the kindness to explain this scene, Fraulein?" he asked in a voice from which every trace of agitation seemed to have vanished.

As she did not immediately reply, he continued:

"May I hope that you will introduce me to this count, who apparently has some right to compel you to read his letters?"