Withered Leaves Volume I Part 21

"I am proud of you, and will show all the world that I am so; you must let me have my own way in this matter."

The entertainment at Neukuhren flattered her parent's pride; they gave their consent, and undertook to take lodgings there a few days later, so as to a.s.sist in his preparations. Of course, Blanden said, all the visitors staying at Warnicken were included in the invitation; neither the Kriesgerichtsrath nor Salomon, nor Minna with her envious mother were to be omitted.

The particular evening was decided upon, everything planned. Miranda possessed courage sufficient not to dread the troubles of a migration, and never had Rath Kalzow's pipe seemed so enjoyable to him as on that evening.

But Blanden wished to enjoy the sanct.i.ty of those hours alone with Eva; they granted themselves leave of absence, and walked towards the sea.

The idiot ocean-maiden lay on the sand beside her boat, and stared fixedly at the east, where the moon was just rising deeply red out of the waters; she did not look unlike a seal.

"Kthe, we wish to row on the sea," Blanden called to her. Quickly as lightning the girl arose, kissed his hand, sprang into the boat and seized the oar.

Soon the lovers were rocking upon the slightly disturbed waters.

Kthe kept good time with her oars, but glared as if amazed when Blanden and Eva exchanged kisses and embraces. On the first occasion she even let the oars drop while she folded her hands.

The moon meanwhile had risen entirely, and silvered the wide expanse of the East Sea, the bare cliffs, the green ravines, but a cold wind swept from the north. The waves rose higher, the boat began to roll. Blanden pressed his beloved one firmly to himself, to protect her from the raw north wind; she looked into his eyes, and so avoided the sight of the rolling gunwales, and at the same time the discomfort of dizziness.

Above brightly sparkled the Polar star, Ca.s.siopea, the Milky-way; but it seemed as though, by the boat's uncertain motion, even the heavenly stars began to rock.

It was a disagreeable voyage. Eva s.h.i.+vered; Blanden could not help thinking of the excursions in boats on Lago Maggiore, of the warm breath that glided over the magic lake, of the enchanting delight of a southern night; but the young life that was pressed so trustingly to his side had given itself up for ever to him; how differently his heart was stirred by it from what it was by that mysterious beauty who only broke one or two jewels out of her crown for him.

"This is yours, confided to your protection for a whole life-time!"

With that thought he replied to the questions which seemed to be directed to his heart from Eva's widely-opened, gazelle-like eyes.

Louder became the roaring of the distant waves; Kthe, without waiting for orders, guided the boat back to the sh.o.r.e. And the billows, rearing themselves up ever higher, came rolling on like serpents behind the young betrothed couple, tossing the skiff up and down. Eva's blooming features and cheeks paled, dizziness and discomfort took possession of her; it was time that the boat should reach the sh.o.r.e. Blanden was obliged to exert all his strength in a.s.sisting Kthe to land.

"The storm has put our young love to the test," said Blanden, "but we hold to one another in trouble and in joy, and defy danger."

Which Eva confirmed with a heartfelt kiss and fervent embrace.

The ocean-maiden, however, again lay upon the strand; the tempest raged above her; her red shawl fluttered in the wind; the waves must wet her feet.

Of what was she thinking?

Idiot Kthe loved Blanden and hated her rival.

CHAPTER XI.

IN NEUKUHREN.

During all these occurrences, life in the bathing-place, Neukuhren, continued on its course, like a wound-up watch. Professor Baute and Dr.

Reising still lived upon a philosophical war-footing; Baute often maintained, with an energy which seemed to disarm any contradiction, that Hegel's philosophy was quite incomprehensible to any reasonable creature, that the somersaults of his ideas were only harlequinades of thought, and that if he had read a few chapters of logic he felt like the scholar of Faust--

"My brain with all that nonsense reels, As if in my head revolved mill wheels."

Dr. Reising paled with internal annoyance, and bit his lips; he pushed his rebellious hair back from his head with a nervously trembling hand, but he took tall Albertina for an example, who, like a G.o.ddess of silence, always seemed to lay a finger upon his lips. He, too, was silent, and he had his reasons for it, he was now making great progress in the conquest of the Professor's seven daughters. Dr. Kuhl had advised him to fix his eyes upon one of two youngest, who had the longest future before them, and of whom, perhaps, something might still be made; but when, obediently to such experienced counsel, he devoted particular attention to Gretchen and Marie, he encountered a decided repulse, as the two foolish creatures did not know how to appreciate the great importance of a Hegelite. Gretchen and Marie, who quarrelled the live-long day, were only unanimous on one point--that Dr. Reising's nose had an ugly termination, and that there was something intolerably knowing in his mode of placing his finger upon it. Gretchen considered that his voice was too thin, that his words could be pa.s.sed through the eye of a needle, and Marie said the Doctor appeared to her like a nibbling mouse.

Of what a.s.sistance was all Dr. Kuhl's wisdom? It was rendered futile by circ.u.mstances. Forced to retreat by the young troops, Reising met with better success before the old guards. He did not know himself how it came about, but Euphrasia, with her two Slavonian plaits, and her coquettish smile, had conquered his heart, and here, too, he encountered a readiness that was only ill concealed beneath mock-modest resistance. And she was the eldest.

To a head accustomed to think correctly, this was a decided advantage, for how much evil has not befallen many a family by the marriage of a younger daughter preceding that of an elder one. Surely everything in the world must be done in proper rotation. "In proper rotation" is one of the principles of creation, and the Doctor did little to offend them when he wooed the ripest beauty of the Baute family. But, from want of other conquests, as Dr. Kuhl was absent, and, according to report, was unattainable for several reasons, Ophelia and Lori had also resolved to be pleased with Reising, and to cast out their nets over him. Thus the Baute family performed a sort of "Midsummer Night's Dream," a rus.h.i.+ng to and fro, seeking and evading ensued, such as only the sap of the wonderful flower, "Love-in-Idleness," can produce.

There they sat together in a jasmine bower, Reising and Euphrasia; he had caught her, and she had let herself be caught with pleasure. She sat there reading Puschkin's poems, and her two blonde plaits moved about most gracefully when she shook her head over any of the poet's bold or inadmissible thoughts.

He had come to her; at first she started at this surprise, but then resigned herself to the inevitable. As is befitting womanly modesty, when alone with a strange man, she did not venture to look straightly at him; now and again she cast a glance towards him, in which flashed as much meaning as possible.

"Puschkin is a great poet," said she, in a kind of ecstasy. "Indeed, I love the Russian poets; they are not such Philistines as the Germans.

What views! One sees that they belong to a nation that rules the earth!"

"Very beautiful, Frulein Euphrasia! But still the world is ruled by the mind, and it is the German mind that is called to the world's dominion."

"Herbart, or Hegel?" asked Euphrasia, smiling coquettishly.

"Oh, my Frulein! You touch a very tender spot in my life; it makes me so sad that I cannot hold the same opinions as your father."

"Why sad?" asked Euphrasia. "Learned men are seldom of the same opinion."

"Oh, you know; you must know why it makes me sad!"

"Not at all," replied the fair one, smiling unconsciously.

"I should wish above everything that all men of intellect should recognise Hegel as their mental guide; what is more adapted to such guidance than a system which inculcates the progress of man in the consciousness of freedom. What does Herbart teach?--all respect to your father! Nothing of the sort! He confuses the good and the beautiful in a lamentable manner; nowhere does he speak of the progress of mankind.

With him the mind is a _tabula rasa_, where different ideas agree to meet. Some are stronger, others weaker; they create a king of the rats, and hang one upon another. It is an excellent comedy; there some tumble down again headlong over the threshold of knowledge! Ah, my Frulein!

that may perhaps suit the ideas which one entertains when knitting stockings, but not the ideas which shall found the world's existence."

"Papa may be mistaken," said Euphrasia. "Our mother always maintained that he was mistaken, and if this occurred in matters that we understand, it is probably also the case in those that we do not comprehend."

"Schiller certainly maintained," continued Reising, "that only 'error is life, and knowledge is death,' but which German University could choose such a motto? Why, in that case all would be changed into churchyards, because knowledge is their life, and inconceivably much is known, my Frulein!"

"Certainly, certainly, Herr Doctor, inconceivably much, and even by single individuals, yourself for instance," said Euphrasia, as she bowed humbly before Hegel's all-knowing pupil.

"At least a _horror vacui_ a.s.sails us true disciples of knowledge from a Socratian standpoint. We are to know that we can know nothing; of what use, then, would be the search of a whole life-time? But, my Frulein, it is not about that I would now speak with you. Even the difference of opinions is as old as the world, but I only wished to tell you that it is a misfortune if we, your father and I, cannot agree."

"Oh, there are some points," said Euphrasia, rather hastily, "about which this unanimity is not so difficult."

"Do you think so, my Frulein?" said the Doctor, quickly, as he pa.s.sed his hand several times through his bristly hair. "Oh, you make me happy--if I dared hope, yes, I must confess to you, I must--"

Just at this moment, when Euphrasia hung so devoutly upon the lips of the future private tutor that her plaits even forgot their otherwise wonted pendulum-like motions, malicious chance brought her two dear sisters, Ophelia and Lori, upon the scene, who, behind the creepers around the arbour, had listened, unperceived, to Reising's last outpourings, and now believed that the time had arrived for them to come forward.

"We bring interesting news, dear sister," said Lori, who spitefully remarked the effect produced by her appearance.

Euphrasia rose, glowing with anger, for such an interruption in one of the most beautiful moments of her life, and which promised to be still much more beautiful, had enraged her intensely. Doctor Reising, it is true, as Hegel's pupil, always looked upon chance as unreasoning, but this one appeared to be a stronger argument than ever in favour of the immortal master's doctrine than all other chances which had already befallen him in his young life.

"What is the matter?" asked Euphrasia, sternly. Her whole demeanour a.s.sumed an air of command, and had Reising been a better psychologist, he would have discovered no favourable reading of the horoscope for his wedded future in the tone and manner of his Euphrasia.