Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 10

Unconcernedly Ktchen allowed all to pa.s.s over her; she replied to no questions. Her frog-like eyes only rested upon Blanden with an expression of silent beat.i.tude.

The girl was conducted to the fisherman's cottage.

Miranda, when she heard the news, fell into a swoon. How she had cautioned Eva against spending an evening on the sea; the latter had escaped secretly in order to indulge her unhappy love for the ocean.

The Rthin acknowledged this when she had recovered again, and Blanden and Wegen could hardly protect the idiot girl from the gigantic lady's maltreatment, who felt constrained to let her boundless excitement vent itself upon some victim or other.

A rural policeman chanced to be stopping just before the inn; he was summoned in order to take Ktchen with him to the district town to undergo what certainly promised to be a futile examination, because only seldom did a sudden gleam of light flash through her obscured mind.

Then Miranda, whose anguish indeed needed some outlet for its anger, turned with the most unjust reproaches upon Blanden, who, by his recklessness, had plunged mother and daughter into ruin, and had put both into the pillory before the whole of Neukuhren, before the capital, and before the entire Province; Eva had become ill in consequence of that disgrace, and since her illness had not been able to cast off a state of intense melancholy. Ktchen certainly should be arrested, but who knows if not she, but others, for whom there were no policemen, were perhaps the murderers of her unhappy child?

Blanden left the ign.o.ble woman who, like hundreds of others, had transformed herself into a Megra, when, in the heat of excitement, the lacquer of the gloss of cultivation melts away from them; yet he left her with a dagger in his heart! Was she right, could Eva have taken her own life? But no word of farewell, not a line indicated such a thing.

Must he be accountable for the victim whom the sea had swallowed up?

Who should solve that mystery?

Blanden stared at the storm that now discharged itself with terrific blows, and ignited an old Perkunos oak upon the height, like a beacon for s.h.i.+ps in danger.

In his heart surged a tempestuous, agitated uproar, as great as the conflict of the elements without.

Two hours later the full moon shone from out a cloudless sky; the ocean still gasped in short breaths after the spasm that had shaken it. But it became calmer, and at last displayed a smooth mirror-like surface.

A boat glided over it.

"Farewell my amber nymph," cried Blanden, "I send your jewels after you, that you may remember me in those subterranean halls, and one portion of my life I bury with you in the deep."

With a loud noise the chest and its jewels sank into the sea; but still for a long time the boat of the solitary nocturnal sailor was driven about upon the waves.

Peace dwells in its unfathomable lap, but just as unfathomable is the grief of that human life, the grief which rends the heart of that nocturnal sailor, and which he pours out in plaints to the mysterious planets.

CHAPTER VI.

THE CASTLE LAKE.

Two years had pa.s.sed away since lovely Eva Kalzow had met her death in the waves of the amber sea. The obscurity that veiled her end had never been lifted.

Blanden brooded in solitude, retired from the world in his Castle Kulmitten; he absorbed himself completely in the study of Sanscrit and of the Indian philosophical systems; in these he found the original spring from which eastern wisdom has always drawn its supplies, even supposing that the same train of thought has not led the minds in the eastern and western worlds into the same path.

He had little intercourse with his neighbours; only his friend Baron von Wegen and the worthy Landrath of the district remained true to him.

Of all others he was suspicious; he did not know who, at the late election, had voted for or against him, and, under his peculiar circ.u.mstances at the time of the election, and the similarity of his political views to those of the electors, he felt obliged to look upon the, to him, unfavourable record of votes, as an expression of want of esteem, or at last of decided aversion.

But intensely as he mourned the unhappy occurrences at the sea-side, for the malignity of fate which by means of his past had destroyed all his plans for a beautiful future, and entangled an innocent n.o.ble maiden in his own doom and hurled her into destruction, yet he was but little qualified for a hermit's life; amidst the penance to which he had condemned himself, the promptings to activity and love of life stirred ever anew within him; he would work and labour, and if at times he thought more with silent sadness of the charming girlish picture that had entered into his life like a transient dream, full of beautiful promise, yet the recollection of a shattered bliss could not force the relinquishment of every one of the joys of life upon him.

He had much sympathy with the belief and mode of thought of the Buddhists, but not the inclination to bury himself in nonent.i.ty. He seemed to hear in distant reverberation the stream of the great world pa.s.s by, and it drove him forth out of his solitude into the temptations of life. He often imagined himself to be like Saint Augustine, who was visited in his desert by the seductive spirits of brighter days; often the pictures of Lago Maggiore rose before his mind, the recollection of a southern night, and while wandering through the apartments of his castle, he believed still to perceive the s.h.i.+ning traces of that mysterious visit which had never been explained to him.

He had been neither to the chief town nor to the sea-side during those two years; then an event occurred which drew him forth out of his brooding quiet life, the Jubilee at the University.

He would not be missing when all the scattered intellectual life in the Province suddenly concentrated round one focus, and the companions of his youth, the veterans of former days at the University, the later rising generation of studious youths, bound in one common bond, met one another in equal enthusiasm for works of science.

Blanden's first walk in Knigsberg was to the little house in the _Prinzessinstra.s.se_ in which the great Thinker lived. If any one spirit descended to preside at this festival, it could only be that of Emmanuel Kant, who had imprinted his n.o.ble impression for ever upon this High School. Like the silver Albertus upon the cap, all citizens of _Alma Mater_ bore the Thinker's picture in their heart.

And Blanden heard the inflammatory words of the spirited King who laid the foundation stone of the new University in the _Knigsgarten_.

He declared that it should be a home of light, and should scare the bird of night back into its darkness. What a n.o.ble flight did that Prince's enthusiasm take! He sounded the trumpet in the conflict of intellect, but by his call he never failed to awake that which was opposed to his own ideas.

The stirring life of this festival made a feverishly exciting impression upon Blanden after his long retirement; his pulses throbbed, his heart beat, the undecided need for mental occupation as for a life transfigured by soul and beauty, became so overpowering within him, that he felt physically oppressed and often gasped for breath. All others here possessed some certain object in life, and rejoiced in the pleasures of communion of labour; only he in the midst of these thousand jubilant beings was a solitary man, yes, he even fancied that his college friends avoided him, that the friendliness of their greetings was somewhat constrained.

Towards evening he went across the bridge of the castle lake. There a varied scene prevailed: gondolas filled with men singing, pa.s.sed up and down and frightened the proud swans as they sailed along; rockets and b.a.l.l.s of light ascended from the more distant gardens, while those nearest began to gleam in a fairy-like manner, so that not only the shade of the tree tops, but also the reflection of their radiance floated in the water.

Blanden entered the _Brsengarten_; here too a dense, gay crowd prevailed. Hardly had he forced his way past several well-filled tables, before he encountered Dr. Kuhl, in the cheeriest, most excited mood.

"Welcome, welcome--I should never have expected you to be here; this alone converts the festivity into a thorough jubilee!"

"You have not allowed me to see anything of you for a long time," said Blanden, reproachfully, "if even our friends forget us, we must become perfect savages yonder in our Masuren desert."

"I have too much to do, new chemical discoveries and divers other elective affinities! But the main thing is that you are here! To-day it is delightful! Walpurgis for all authorities, and there is no lack of charming witches. It is true that little red mice do not leap out of their mouths as they did from that of the blessed Lilith, but to-day most unguarded declarations escape the custody of their lips. All the world is infatuated; the closest men of learning permit a glance into their empty waistcoat pockets, and even the most prudish girls expand a little to-day."

"But where shall we sit?"

"I am to sit by Dr. Reising, and shall be able to obtain a seat for you."

"Dr. Reising is here?"

"How could he fail at the University Jubilee? besides, he is now a special professor; his father-in-law has provided for him."

"And which daughter did he marry?"

"Like a sensible, order-loving man, the eldest naturally, Euphrasia!

But really he has to provide for all; old Baute is dead, they say in consequence of a stroke of paralysis, which he brought upon himself by his constant discussions with his son-in-law. Fortunately Dr. Reising's uncle, whose heir he was, is also dead, and left him several hundred thousand dollars. But Euphrasia is very economical with the money, and as the sisters do not obtain what they wish from her, they have struck into a better path and seek to win him over to themselves by the development of their united amiability!"

"But of course he would provide for them?"

"Yes, what was needful, but they have plans which he shall further.

Lori has pa.s.sed her examination as governess, and would like to begin a boarding school here; but thrifty Emma, on the contrary, wishes to set up a boarding-house, the sisters should help partly here partly there.

Then the question is how to get hold of the Doctor's capital for these mild inst.i.tutions; but Euphrasia guards the Nibelungen treasure like the dragon Fafner in the legend."

The friends meanwhile had drawn near to the table, at which the Professor with his wife and her three sisters Lori, Emma and Albertine were sitting; the others had stayed behind in their new home. Reising's appearance betrayed unwonted fas.h.i.+on; he even wore a gay coloured neckerchief. That was Lori's taste, and at the same time a trophy of her victory, because although Euphrasia had objected and maintained that her husband must avoid everything remarkable, as it did not suit him, Lori had conquered, and he had taken a gra.s.s green and ocean blue tie from his drawer.

Reising greeted Blanden very pleasantly, as did his wife and sisters-in-law. Of all those merry and sad events at the sea-side, the ball beneath the pear-tree alone lived in their recollection.

"A glorious festival!" said the Professor, while pus.h.i.+ng his hand through his rebellious hair, which hitherto had opposed invincible resistance to the combined attempts at beautifying it on the part of his six sisters-in-law. "By it East Prussia makes progress in the consciousness of liberty."

"You will take cold, dear brother," said Emma, "there is a cold air from the lake."