Withered Leaves Volume I Part 5

"Always the same old Don Juan!"

"You are mistaken! The marble governor took him away long ago! It is a more serious love affair, but which, I allow, requires careful scrutiny."

"Indeed," said Wegen, while his good-natured face a.s.sumed a peculiarly kindly expression. "Marriage would not be the most stupid of all the things that you have done hitherto. A married man--that sounds so respectable, inspires such confidence! I have always thought that it would be a most fortunate move on the board. The queen would then rule over all the squares! Everything in the past is forgiven and forgotten!

If an amiable young woman is not alarmed at that past, then all will probably follow her example, and even the Baroness von Fuchs will beat the retreat. I do not care much for matrimony, I shall remain a bachelor. A _fiance_ may be an angel, but one never knows how she may cook when she is one's wife. And a constantly bad _cuisine_--I should prefer the infernal regions!"

"You encourage me, old friend; it pleases me! Then--leave for four days! Perhaps they will be the most important in my life--and after that, back to the Castle!"

"I will ride over to my place to-day, and will see that things are right on yours."

"Thank you! And afterwards I will invite a newly-made friend to stay with me--Doctor Kuhl--he is an original fellow; but I like people to have and express new ideas."

"Then I am not sufficient for you, dear friend!" replied Wegen, stroking his blonde moustache in a melancholy manner. "Certainly, I possess few new ideas! Only at a good dinner they pour in upon me; then I understand what the poets call inspiration--I am often astonished at myself."

"You are good-natured," said Blanden, pressing his friend's hand, "and that is worth more than all this world's wisdom. Then we will seek Kuhl--he was abducted by two fair women."

"Stop, stop!" cried Wegen, with a pathetic gesture. "I am still breathless with my business-journies and reports, and you would have this state of exhaustion continue still longer? Storm and tempest--we have fasted long enough; now for a substantial breakfast! A few gla.s.ses of sherry, to defy wind and weather, and a beefsteak as underdone as possible--in that I am an Englishman!"

He beckoned to a waiter, and tied a napkin, that was lying upon the table, round his neck, brandis.h.i.+ng his knife and fork impatiently in the air.

CHAPTER IV.

BATHING-PLACE PICTURES.

The Samland coast is frequented but little by strangers; the list of visitors seldom contains a Russ or Pole. However, a great number of people flows from East Prussia, from distant Masure, and its lonely lakes; from the primeval forests of Lithuania, to these homely seaside places; but more especially, the ancient town Ottokars sends its officials, its professors, its students, its young merchants, to the sea, and the sacred ocean-tide often overhears very learned discourses, which are held across the bathing-rope during the pauses which ensue between each rus.h.i.+ng wave.

Everything here possesses the charm of fresh primitiveness; the festive bathing gown, the tasteful, fas.h.i.+onable toilet of Western seaside places are unknown.

Youth, full of the love of enterprise, a.s.sembles in Neukuhren; small dance in the evening, an expedition in a _leiter-wagon_, in which numerous families are crowded together, a concert, a performance--everything that with small means gives great enjoyment to eager spirits, is provided here by the leaders of social amus.e.m.e.nts.

Let us follow Doctor Kuhl, with his two friends, upon their way through the watering place.

The respected elders sit before the Kurhouses, newspapers in their hands, and hold council about the State's welfare. The debate is very keen, as it is a time of political agitation. The little Jewish doctor yonder, a follower of Johann Jacoby, defends the "four questions"

against a whole bench of judges and councillors, who are beside themselves that the tiny little man's inexhaustible eloquence does not permit them to put in a word. Their lips quiver, their eyes flash; they have armed replies upon their lips, but all attempts are vain, and at last only the energetic ba.s.s voice of a minister of finance succeeds, if not in allaying, at least, in deafening him.

A ladies' club is sitting on the terrace of the Kur-house, in questionable morning-costumes. Even the ladies of a certain age, who in the evening still expect to obtain partners for the dance, and even admirers, have as yet neglected to summon the Graces to their toilet-tables; a portion of them sits there in grandmother-like caps; the charming love-locks that in the evening droop so fascinatingly over their temples, still linger in some place of concealment, and no one can foresee that these garments of sackcloth can develop later into elegant draperies. Everything is so homely, so simple, so nun-like; all the more lively is the conversation. A betrothal, which had taken place on the previous evening, gave cause for plentiful shrugging of shoulders, because the gentleman as yet held no respectable position in life, and the _fiance_, as several female friends a.s.serted, a very uncertain one.

Hardly was this conversation worn out before Doctor Kuhl, pa.s.sing by with the two Fruleins Dornau, offered an inexhaustible topic.

Here all considerations were at an end, and the battle-axes were wielded pitilessly. A widow, of dubious age, but of indubitable inclination to marry again, was reckless enough to take the unlucky victims under her protection, as she hazarded the remark, that one sister was at the same time a chaperon for the other. Both the Fruleins Dornau slight capacity for playing a chaperon's part was then discussed on all sides with exultant eloquence.

Fortunately, the pa.s.sers-by did not overhear the verdict of this court of censure, which sought to ostracise them from all good society: they walked along the village street. Tents were set up before the fishermen's cottages, beneath which the bathing nomads had taken up their abode. Here a young girl was reading George Sand's newest romance, or Doctor Schner's poems, little attractive to a female mind as was the young lyrist's daring suggestion of turning the bells into cannon, naturally for the army of liberty which should blow the world out of its grooves. There a young man without any upper light, was attempting to execute a painting of the Samland Sea; the old gentleman, who, in his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves, gazes out of a narrow window in one of the fishermen's cottages, is a Privy Councillor, who had almost attained to being "his excellency:" and yonder, on the bench, in the arbour, if a little erection of boards merits that poetical name, sat one of the most admired beauties from the capital, her embroidery lying idle on her lap, while she herself gazed with dreamy eyes after the goose-herd who drove the unrenowned sisters of the Capitoline celebrities through the village street.

Doctor Kuhl, with his fair friends, had left the village behind him, and found a retired spot beneath whispering birches close by the surging sea, below in the "hollow way."

No inconvenient watchers disturbed them here at this hour of the day; it was as still in the hot sun as it usually only is on a cool, moonlight night.

"Here by the sacred, briny waves of Homer," cried the Doctor, "by the syrens and neredes and all the G.o.ddesses of the cla.s.sical Walpurgis-night, I feel within me some of the blood of the dwellers in Olympus, who allowed themselves to be enchanted by beauty and love whenever the latter met them triumphantly. Poor Paris, who had only an apple for one G.o.ddess, instead of for all three at once! Yet all were worthy of the prize, and it was lamentable to grant to two only the second best. We three, dear Olga, my Ccilie, we three form a beautiful union which the world does not understand how to respect!"

"You must allow yourself to understand, that you only actually love Olga!" remarked Ccilie.

Doctor Kuhl sprang up indignantly.

"Any one hearing you speak in that manner would believe you to be jealous. Jealousy--that fruit of an odious narrow-mindedness, this inculcated social vice, which must always be alien to every natural emotion! Nothing irritates me so much as when I perceive tokens of jealousy in reasonable beings. Jealousy is a natural daughter of envy; but, alas! it has been legitimatised by society."

"On the contrary, dear Paul," replied Ccilie, "it arises from an inherent feeling which belongs, more or less, to all mankind."

"And if it were so," replied the Doctor in an energetic tone, "one must curb and subdue these inherent feelings by true cultivation. The latter, however, tells us that the human heart is much too rich to exhaust its wealth in one sensation, that, indeed, a man can lay out his feelings, like his capital, in various investments, and that the coupons of the one do not in the remotest degree lose in value because he cuts coupons off the others. You understand me, Olga?"

Olga, who swore blindly by the master's words, nodded her perfect acquiescence, and was rewarded by a kiss for her powers of comprehension; she willingly a.s.sented that Doctor Kuhl should cut off this coupon from the invested capital of his feelings.

The sun, rising still higher, however, obliged the three lovers to retire, besides which, Doctor Kuhl had promised a college friend to meet him at the Kur-houses, and therefore he first accompanied the two Fruleins Dornau to their dwelling, which was situated in a by-street of the village, and was a fisherman's cottage in the word's most daring sense. Mother Dornau, a poor officer's widow, could with difficulty only afford the expenses of a trip to the sea; modest as they might be, she was obliged to stint herself in every respect. Her two daughters'

splendid figures could hardly stand uprightly in the two tiny rooms which she had rented there, and were always obliged first to remove out of the way several fis.h.i.+ng nets lying upon the threshold when they wished to enter. Frau Rittimeisterin von Dornau, however, hoped to obtain husbands for her daughters by this sea-side visit, as the climate of Neukuhren was particularly favourable to engagements.

Therefore she did not hesitate even to break into her small capital for this purpose, so as to cover the outlay of the undertaking. As in addition her hearing was bad and her sight still worse, she could only learn its results from her daughters' reports, and Doctor Kuhl appeared to her to be a very eligible wooer, who at first only seemed to bear a resemblance, which it was to be hoped would soon disappear, to Eulenspiegl's jacka.s.s, as it is represented standing between two bundles of hay.

The Doctor, jubilantly humming a song, now went to the Kur-house square, where he had appointed to meet his friend; much to his astonishment, he perceived the latter sitting at a long table, around which were a.s.sembled seven young girls and one elderly gentleman in spectacles who appeared to be engaged in some learned discourse, as was clearly evident from the long pauses in his harangue, during which he wiped the gla.s.ses of his spectacles, as at the same time he addressed each girl in turn by her Christian name, Doctor Kuhl arrived at the well-founded conclusion that the learned gentleman was the father of these seven daughters, and with the greater reason, because the former's eye rested with satisfaction upon each, much as does the eye of an author upon every single tome of a seven-volumed work. Doctor Kuhl made a sign to his friend; yet the latter did not appear to acknowledge the signal for departure; he only nodded pleasantly, and intimated by plain pantomimic language that for the moment it was impossible for him to follow his friend's hint. Kuhl tried to console himself with a "stiff gla.s.s of grog," for he had contracted several sailor-like habits. The elderly gentleman's discourse, in the meantime seemed never to intend to come to an end; several of his daughters could not suppress a sly yawn, and Doctor Reising--that was the young friend's name--pushed his chair impatiently to and fro. At last a conclusion "fast in its prison walls of earth," seemed to comprise the contents of the whole discourse; Doctor Reising rose somewhat impetuously and begged to be excused for a short time; soon the two young friends were seated together, undisturbedly, while the female Round Table cast surrept.i.tious glances across, and examined the new comer's powerfully built figure.

"Who are those seven girls without uniform?" asked Doctor Kuhl, as Reising took a seat beside him.

"My dear fellow," replied the latter, "I am in a peculiar and very difficult position."

"You surely have not to solve a prize problem with the comedy's motto, 'The ugliest of seven?'"

"Do not speak so loudly," said young Doctor Reising, as he looked timidly round at the fair ones. The shyness and timidity of his manner became more apparent as he did so; he was a beardless, fair man, and his blonde hair stood up rather like bristles; his pointed nose seemed somewhat too sharp, and his lean figure was in a state of constant nervous, trembling motion.

"Well, make your confession to me," said Kuhl after a steady pull at the sailor's drink.

"Look here, dear friend," replied Reising, whispering, "you know that I have taken a degree of a Doctor of Philosophy, and contemplate settling down at the university of B----, there a philosopher has the best chance. That gentleman is the most influential Professor of Philosophy in B----, at the same time the only one who reads Logic and Psychology; everything for me, depends upon his favour!"

"I understand," replied Kuhl, "and there are seven charming obstacles."

"You are far from understanding all," said Reising more and more mysteriously; "that Professor is a disciple of Herbart, and I am a follower of Hegel, heart and soul."

"Then I should prefer to go to another University."

"My good friend, my rich uncle, whose heir I expect to be, lives in B----, and he wishes me positively to be near him; I cannot trifle with these prospects. The Hegelite philosophy is not, as it used to be under Altenstein, State's-philosophy which was encouraged, ensuring appointments and posts. A contrary wind blows under Eichhorn's ministry, and I myself incline very much to the wrong side, so I may make use of a rich uncle from whom I have expectations. My thoughts lead me to even bolder results. I require the goodwill of the authorities; but Herbart, I must tell you, my dear friend, it is especially Herbart, who is so unpalatable to me, and much as I would control myself, I cannot do it; I am constantly being drawn into a dispute with Professor Baute; the numberless schools are incomprehensible to me."

"But he seeks to make them more comprehensible by means of his seven daughters."

"That is just the misfortune! I am convinced that I could easily get over the chasm that separates the Hegelite and Herbartian philosophy, if I could resolve to propose to one of his seven daughters; my University career would then be ensured, as certainly as I should receive his daughter's hand; as being my uncle's heir, I am accounted a good match; but my dear friend, I feel nothing as yet!"

"A Hegelite, who would have any feeling!" said Doctor Kuhl, "your master extols marriages of reason! Show in this case, that you are his worthy disciple _hic Rhodus, hic salta!_ It is not a question of being in love, and a more rational marriage you can certainly not make."

"And then," whispered Doctor Reising, "if I had mustered the resolution, the choice is so difficult."