Withered Leaves Volume Ii Part 11

Lori, with superior decision, took up a shawl that lay upon the table, and wrapped the Professor in it. Unanimous as the two sisters were that their brother-in-law's large heritage should be diminished in their favour, yet a constant small internecine war of jealousy as to the privilege of such favours, raged between them: Lori struggled for intellectual cultivation, Emma for food and attendance. Euphrasia looked upon her sisters' loving coquetry with proud indifference; she knew that the key of the cash box lay in her hands.

"My brother is right," said Lori. "Such festivals contribute considerably to the people's education, and the people must be educated; one feels this necessity most keenly on such occasions as the present. Not only the lower orders, even the higher require education; people may say that men's student life for a time unsettles them; scorn of citizen-like customs is implanted in them; late hours, beer-drinking, smoking are acquired as n.o.ble habits of life, and to be intoxicated is considered manly and correct, perhaps because the ancient Germans, even upon their bearskins, sometimes lost their sense of sobriety with drinking mead. Thus it is with men; but the daughters of the higher cla.s.ses are not much better off; more or less, they are all badly brought up. Yes, people may even maintain the same of us, although we are the daughters of a professor."

"You go too far," said Albertine, angrily, and thus broke the silence, deep as an abyss, with which until now she had celebrated the day of jubilee.

"Too far? What, have we then really learned, according to any system, any principle? Nothing, absolutely nothing! Yes, any one who gave herself the trouble, who followed her own inclinations, might attain splendid results. But that is the case even with the B[oe]otians!

Method is everything; I shall introduce a method into my educational inst.i.tution that will satisfy the most temperate minds."

Reising looked timidly at Euphrasia, who always resisted the mention of this future boarding-school most decidedly, to-day she contented herself with carelessly humming a few bars of music.

"That is very grand," said Emma; "but I believe that physical well-being has its rights also. Living in hotels is as uncomfortable as possible; a stranger runs about like a numbered prisoner whose whole rights of humanity depend upon the numeral of his rooms. How totally different is a furnished house upon the English model; everything in common, breakfast-table, dinner, tea in the evening, all flavoured with conversation; an hotel transformed into a drawing-room--I could arrange it capitally, like that intellectual society of which papa always talked."

"What, intellectual society!" said Dr. Reising, while he coughed slightly, as though this Herbartian allusion had stuck in his throat, "all you have to do is to provide for the system of wants, for good food and drink, that soul of every hotel, and even of an _hotel garni_."

"What is the use of these castles in the air?" said Euphrasia, shrugging her shoulders.

"What do you say to it, Herr von Blanden," began Lori, who wished to draw the silent guest into the conversation.

"I have become estranged from all society in my forest solitude,"

replied he.

"And you live solitarily and alone?" asked Lori, with peculiar emphasis.

"Alone with my thoughts and with the remembrance of the grief that has befallen me."

Lori's eyes shone. Here was a chance, and the daughters of the upper cla.s.ses might wait. With rapid change of front, she turned away from her brother-in-law and looked on without jealousy while Emma b.u.t.toned up his overcoat. She herself began to pour out a cornucopia of sweetness which was only destined for Herr von Blanden. She possessed _esprit_ and aspirations, did that little Lori, and under pedagogic education the _enfant terrible_ would have developed into a more reserved lady of mental acuteness.

"I imagine life to be so beautiful in those primeval forests, where elks and bison rove as in the days of the blessed Pikullus! How delightful to be able thus to live upon one's recollections. You have seen the world, Herr von Blanden; what a miserable part we must play compared with you. You have seen the snowy peaks of the Himalaya, the calm lakes of Thibet, the cloisters and paG.o.das, the tea-gardens of j.a.pan and the tea-plantations of the Celestial Empire. Lions, tigers and apes are as familiar to you as generals, counsellors and dancing partners of the _haute vole_ are to us; how insignificant to you must the society appear that revolves in a circle upon this tiny spot of earth! And yet you should not live in such retirement; a man of intellect such as you is guilty of robbing us all, of robbing society even when he buries himself in quietude."

Blanden listened with polite attention, when his glance suddenly fell upon two ladies who pa.s.sed by, accompanied by an officer and several gentlemen, and who were greeted on all sides. His glance had only swept slightly over the features of the one; but there was no doubt she was his _principessa_ of the Lago Maggiore.

He would have liked to spring up and follow her; but how could he treat the gifted speaker so cavalierly who turned to him with such ardour and held him enthralled in the spell of her eyes and words. From that moment, however, his distraction was unmistakable; his glances wandered into s.p.a.ce, but Lori would not release the victim of her eloquence.

"You must spend the winter season in the town here; oh, you have more female admirers than you imagine; you will be _fted_ as you deserve, for in truth the world is not so well supplied with intellectual men as it appears to be, when one sees so many wildly luxuriant whiskers and menacing eyebrows and the superior smile, which after all means so little, of so many lords of creation. No, no, Herr von Blanden, you must not withdraw yourself from society, you cannot condemn yourself to everlasting solitude; too many wistful glances, that would be glad to share it, follow you."

"Lori's distaff buzzes incessantly to-day," said Albertina, casting a glance ready for conquest upon the gentleman sitting beside her.

Emma, who found the bird in the hand worth two in the bush, meanwhile redoubled her attentions to her brother-in-law, whose hand she pressed cordially, so as to console him for the few wounding sparks that flew towards him from the anvil of Lori's loquaciousness.

"Yes," said she, "so long as there are gentlemen like Herr von Blanden, and our good brother-in-law, the social circle cannot become oppressed with tedium."

"I feel," said Dr. Kuhl, "that I am _de trop_ here; no one thinks it worth while to transplant me amongst the stars. Therefore I must come to the miserable end of a falling one."

Blanden meanwhile had risen, and after a polite bow had hastened through the leafy garden paths after that form which wholly occupied his attention; it had surely been no vision, but nowhere fluttered the green veil, that like a greeting of hope flowed from the hat of his _principessa_.

Here at a turn of the road, close to the lake, he believed he had recognised it. It was the veil, but another, a strange face looked at him from beneath the hat, a face fearfully hideous, that seemed to laugh and grin at his disappointment.

He hastened back once more; with slow scrutiny he went from table to table; here and there sat officers, but with unknown companions, the one who had accompanied those ladies was remarkably tall and stout, he was unmistakable.

All in vain; she must have already left the garden, but who was this stranger who appeared to be so well known here, was universally greeted with respect, with friendliness? Feeling annoyed, Blanden went up and down the garden walks, he looked at every lady, found all ugly as though the one had borne away with her all the radiance of beauty.

The Professor now made a move, followed by his female retinue. Lori walked triumphantly in front of her sisters, but Blanden hastened to evade a fresh experience of her loquacity. He deemed it safest to take refuge by the castle lake; he entered a boat that lay by the water's edge, and gave himself up to the guidance of the waves.

The moonlight made the lake; the jewel of that town on the Pregel, sparkle in most splendid effulgence; although the evening was cold, a southern s.h.i.+mmer, a dreamlike illumination swept around the lofty trees in the garden, and the festive lights and gay lanterns in the verdant shade, the ascending rockets and b.a.l.l.s of light increased the emotional impression of the small inland lake, lovely even in its everyday life.

A regatta of gondolas glided on wings through the waves, a race between the sons of the muses of the oldest and most recent terms. The gondolas of the former were left behind, for only few still had strength to guide their oars. The others sat on board with redly glowing faces; a few stared into the water in that silent despair which was the fruit of enthusiastic hours, and powerful drinks, which the brewers of Lbnichten understood how to prepare.

The _gaudeamus_ sung by powerful voices, echoed from afar, and as the skiff drew nearer, Blanden perceived that the singers were gentlemen with grey and silvery white hair, but their faces were as if suffused with the reflection of youthful enthusiasm; it was no Charon's boat with candidates for Orkus, enjoyment of life was written in their features upon which at the same moment rested tokens of a glorious emotion.

"Immortal youth of German student life," thought Blanden to himself, "you are the guarantee for the youth of our nation, for the intellectual freshness even of its older years, for the enthusiasm which wors.h.i.+ps the highest G.o.ds, the freedom of the spirit and the friends.h.i.+p of all hearts.

"But I myself--am I not become old? Do I not glide like a shadow amongst these joyous beings? Does my heart still possess a youth? Must I not guard myself against the funeral song of the land of the lotos flowers, against the Indian barcarolle of Nirvana? Softly as the moon sinks into the waters, sinks the soul into dreamlessness, after having exhausted one dream after another! No! no! My pulses still throb, my life has still an object, even although it only be the rapturous magic of the moment! _Diva_, I seek my star!"

And with a powerful stroke of the oars, he clove the waves, he guided his boat towards the town, away beneath the bridge! There busy life was moving on the water; even the windows of the backs of the houses, the balconies and seats were peopled with a gay human throng, and despite the hoa.r.s.e confused noise of many hundred voices, the chime of the clock in the reformed church, whose tower cast a long shadow in the waves, was heard above all.

There in the fitful light of the moon, and lamps with which the barks were ornamented, he saw as in a vision the marble-like beautiful features which lived so vividly in his recollection.

The lady sat in a boat with two others; the colossal lieutenant and several young gentlemen rowed: at first the beautiful woman looked up and appeared to contemplate the play of the rockets in the moonlight night, or did she gaze upwards at the stars, which here stood paler in the heavens, which seemed to be wanting in the fire of the south?

Blanden saw the profile of those finely cut features, the harmonious lines of the face; they were the same as those which had enchanted him upon the terrace of Lago Maggiore, when she stood there beneath the unicorn of the Boromei, her gaze directed side-ways upon the peaceful Isola Madre, and again as at that time he felt all the sensation of artistic contentment which such euphonious beauty sheds. Quickly her skiff glided past; now she cast a side glance at him, she too had recognised him; she smiled, she bowed, but then flung the bouquet of flowers which she held in her hand, into the water.

The lieutenant who bent over the gunwale to find the flowery sacrifice, one probably little flattering for him, the donor of the nosegay, suddenly concealed the _Principessa's_ picture. His effort was futile, and with reproaches in which, as it appeared, the other gentlemen also took part, he pulled the boat once more with irate impetuosity towards the garden side of the lake.

Blanden followed in eager haste, but he found himself amid a confusion of barks that formed an inextricably entangled clew. Intoxicated sons of the muses increased the confusion, they took pleasure in the cries of terror of the girls whose boats began to rock dreadfully, and would have liked to enact the rape of the Sabines upon the water. Blanden cursed the interruption; at last he succeeded in freeing his boat; the _Principessa's_ bark had gained a great advantage, but he might hope to encounter it again on its return journey.

This hope disappointed him! When he had rowed along the extent of the last gardens beside the castle lake, he met the empty boat guided by a boatman.

The party must have landed at some private garden, several of which enframed the lake at this part; the surly old man on being hailed, replied "that he knew nothing." The traces of the mysterious beauty were lost to him again.

"But not for ever," he vowed to himself!

She had thrown the nosegay into the water; should all memory of the happiness of love be buried with it?

But, no! He was filled with a new hope in life; the castle lake had suddenly been transformed, as if by fairy's art, into the enchanted Italian one. Vine clad hill terraces rose on its level sh.o.r.es, distant lofty ice peaks cast avalanches upon the Alpine pa.s.ses, and in the shade of the pines lay the villa upon whose windows the moonlight played, telling of happiness to come.

CHAPTER VII.

"NORMA."

The theatre bills, announced "Norma;" the character bearing that name was to be performed by an Italian singer. What was more probable than that on this evening the _Principessa_ of Lago Maggiore should visit the theatre?

At the hour of opening the doors, Blanden appeared in the vestibule of the playhouse, which turns its melancholy monotonous-looking side to the _Knigsgarten_, and resembles a military store building or laboratory for a Chief of the Ordnance, rather than a temple of art.

Blanden watched all comers with painful anxiety; he greeted Professor Reising with his sisters-in-law, who appeared in most striking toilets, in ball costume, which was useless extravagance in the dark apartments of this temple of the muses, grudgingly illuminated by the chandelier.

The gigantic lieutenant appeared also; behind him was borne a not less colossal bouquet.