The First Violin Part 26

"He's not liked, though he is such a popular fellow."

"The public is often a great fool."

"Well, but you can't expect it to kiss the hand that slaps it in the face, as von Francius does," said Karl, driven to metaphor, probably for the first time in his life, and seeming astonished at having discovered a hitherto unknown mental property pertaining to himself.

Courvoisier laughed.

"I'm certain of one thing: von Francius will go on slapping the public's face. I won't say how it will end; but it would not surprise me in the least to see the public at his feet, as it is now at those of--"

"Humph!" said Karl, reflectively.

He did not stay much longer, but having finished his cigar, rose. He seemed to feel very apologetic, and out of the fullness of his heart his mouth spake.

"I really wouldn't have intruded if I had known--"

"Known what?" inquired Eugen, with well-a.s.sumed surprise.

"I thought you were just by yourselves, you know, and--"

"So we are; but we can do with other society. Friedel here gets very tedious sometimes--in fact, _langweilig_. Come again, _nicht wahr_?"

"If I sha'n't be in your way," said Karl, looking round the room with somewhat wistful eyes.

We a.s.sured him to the contrary, and he promised, with unnecessary emphasis, to come again.

"He will return; I know he will!" said Eugen, after he had gone.

The next time that Herr Linders arrived, which was ere many days had pa.s.sed, he looked excited and important; and after the first greetings were over, he undid a great number of papers which wrapped and infolded a parcel of considerable dimensions, and displayed to our enraptured view of a white woolly animal of stupendous dimensions, fastened upon a green stand, which stand, when pressed, caused the creature to give forth a howl like unto no lowing of oxen nor bleating of sheep ever heard on earth. This inviting-looking creature he held forth toward Sigmund, who stared at it.

"Perhaps he's got one already?" said Karl, seeing that the child did not display any violent enthusiasm about the treasure.

"Oh, no!" said Eugen, promptly.

"Perhaps he doesn't know what it is," I suggested, rather unkindly, scarcely able to keep my countenance at the idea of that baby playing with such a toy.

"Perhaps not," said Karl, more cheerfully, kneeling down by my side--Sigmund sat on my knee--and squeezing the stand, so that the woolly animal howled. "_Sieh!_ Sigmund! Look at the pretty lamb!"

"Oh, come, Karl! Are you a lamb? Call it an eagle at once," said I, skeptically.

"It is a lamb, ain't it?" said he, turning it over. "They called it a lamb at the shop."

"A very queer lamb; not a German breed, anyhow."

"Now I think of it, my little sister has one, but she calls it a rabbit, I believe."

"Very likely. You might call that anything, and no one could contradict you."

"Well, _der Kleine_ doesn't know the difference; it's a toy," said Karl, desperately.

"Not a toy that seems to take his fancy much," said I, as Sigmund, with evident signs of displeasure, turned away from the animal on the green stand, and refused to look at it. Karl looked despondent.

"He doesn't like the look of it," said he, plaintively.

"I thought I was sure to be right in this. My little sister" (Karl's little sister had certainly never been so often quoted by her brother before) "plays for hours with that thing that she calls a rabbit."

Eugen had come to the rescue, and grasped the woolly animal which Karl had contemptuously thrown aside. After convincing himself by near examination as to which was intended for head and which for tail, he presented it to his son, remarking that it was "a pretty toy."

"I'll pray for you after that, Eugen--often and earnestly," said I.

Sigmund looked appealingly at him, but seeing that his father appeared able to endure the presence of the beast, and seemed to wish him to do the same, from some dark and inscrutable reason not to be grasped by so young a mind--for he was modest as to his own intelligence--he put out his small arm, received the creature into it, and embracing it round the body, held it to his side, and looked at Eugen with a pathetic expression.

"Pretty plaything, _nicht wahr_?" said Eugen, encouragingly.

Sigmund nodded silently. The animal emitted a howl; the child winced, but looked resigned. Eugen rose and stood at some little distance, looking on. Sigmund continued to embrace the animal with the same resigned expression, until Karl, stooping, took it away.

"You mustn't _make_ him, just because I brought it," said he. "Better luck next time. I see he's not a common child. I must try to think of something else."

We commanded our countenances with difficulty, but preserved them.

Sigmund's feelings had been severely wounded. For many days he eyed Karl with a strange, cold glance, which the latter used every art in his power to change, and at last succeeded. Woolly lambs became a forbidden subject. Nothing annoyed Karl more than for us to suggest, if Sigmund happened to be a little cross or mournful, "Suppose you just go home, Karl, and fetch the 'lamb-rabbit-lion.' I'm sure he would like it." From that time the child had another wors.h.i.+per, and we a constant visitor in Karl Linders.

We sat together one evening--Eugen and I, after Sigmund had been in bed a long time, after the opera was over--chatting, as we often did, or as often remained silent. He had been reading, and the book from which he read was a volume of English poetry. At last, laying the book aside, he said:

"The first night we met, you fainted away from exhaustion and long fasting. You said you would tell me why you had allowed yourself to do so, but you have never kept your word."

"I didn't care to eat. People eat to live--except those who live to eat, and I was not very anxious to live, I didn't care for my life, in fact, I wished I was dead."

"Why? An unlucky love?"

"_I, bewahre!_ I never knew what it was to be in love in my life," said I, with perfect truth.

"Is that true, Friedel?" he asked, apparently surprised.

"As true as possible. I think a timely love affair, however unlucky, would have roused me and brought me to my senses again."

"General melancholy?"

"Oh, I was alone in the world. I had been reading, reading, reading; my brain was one dark and misty muddle of Kant, Schopenhauer, von Hartmann, and a few others. I read them one after another, as quickly as possible; the mixture had the same effect upon my mind as the indiscriminate contents of taffy-shop would have upon Sigmund's stomach--it made it sick. In my crude, ungainly, unfinished fas.h.i.+on I turned over my information, laying down big generalizations upon a foundation of experience of the smallest possible dimensions, and all upon one side."

He nodded. "_Ei!_ I know it."

"And after considering the state of the human race--that is to say the half dozen people I knew, and the miseries of the human lot as set forth in the books I had read, and having proved to myself, all up in that little room, you know"--I pointed to my bedroom--"that there neither was nor could be heaven or h.e.l.l or any future state, and having decided, also from that room, that there was no place for me in the world, and that I was very likely actually filling the place of some other man, poorer than I was, and able to think life a good thing" (Eugen was smiling to himself in great amus.e.m.e.nt), "I came to the conclusion that the best thing I could do was to leave the world."

"Were you going to starve yourself to death? That is rather a tedious process, _nicht wahr_?"

"Oh, no! I had not decided upon any means of effacing myself; and it was really your arrival which brought on that fainting fit, for if you hadn't turned up when you did I should probably have thought of my interior some time before seven o'clock. But you came. Eugen, I wonder what sent you up to my room just at that very time, on that very day!"

"Von Francius," said Eugen, tranquilly. "I had seen him, and he was very busy and referred me to you--that's all."

"Well--let us call it von Francius."