"Come, you fellows, that's enough joking. This defection of yours, melancholy Eynhardt, combines obstinacy with wisdom, like Balaam's ass! Well! may you rest in peace. And now let us be off."
The glasses, filled with clear Affenthaler, rang merrily together, the smiling landlord took up his money, and the company rose noisily from the wooden bench, overturning it with a bang. The round table was only proof against a similar accident on account of its structure, which some one with wise forethought had so designed that only the most tremendous shaking could upset its equilibrium. The boisterous group consisted of five or six young men, easily recognized as students by their caps with colored bands, the scars on their faces, and their rather swaggering manner. They slung their knapsacks on, stepped through the open door of the little arbor where they had been sitting, on to the highroad, and gathered round the previous speaker. He was a tall, good-looking young man, with fair hair, laughing blue eyes, and a budding mustache.
"Then you are determined, Eynhardt, that you won't go any further?" asked he, with an accent which betrayed him as a Rhinelander.
"Yes, I am determined," Eynhardt answered.
"A groan for the worthless fellow; but more in sorrow than in anger," said the tall one to the others. They groaned three times loudly, all together, while the Rhinelander gravely beat time. An unpracticed ear would very likely have failed to note the shade of feeling implied in the noise; but he appeared satisfied.
"Well, just as you like. No compulsion. Freedom is the best thing in life—including the freedom to do stupid things."
"Perhaps he knows of some cave where he is going to turn hermit," said one of the group.
"Or he has a little business appointment, and we should be in the way," said another.
They laughed, and the Rhinelander went on:
"Well! moon away here, and we will travel on. But before all things be true to yourself. Don't forget that the whole world is as much a phantom as the brown Black Forest maiden. And now farewell; and think a great deal about us phantom people, who will always keep up the ghost of a friendship for you."
The young man whom he addressed shook him and the others by the hand, and they all lifted their caps with a loud "hurrah," and struck out vigorously on the road. The sentiment of the farewell, and the tender speeches, had been disposed of in the inn, so they now parted gayly, in youth's happy fullness of life and hope for the future, and without any of that secret melancholy which Time the immeasurable distils into every parting. Hardly had they turned their backs on the friend they left behind them when they began to sing, "Im Schwarzen Walfisch zu Askalon," exaggerating the melancholy of the first half of the tune, and the gayety of the second, passing riotously away behind a turn of the road, their song becoming fainter and fainter in the distance.
This little scene, which took place on an August afternoon in the year 1869, had for its theater the highroad leading from Hausach to Triberg, just at the place where a footpath descends into the valley to the little town of Hornberg. The persons represented were young men who had lately graduated at Heidelberg, and who were taking a holiday together in the Black Forest, recovering from the recent terrors of examination in the fragrant air of the pine woods. As far off as Offenburg they had traveled by the railway in the prosaic fashion of commercial travelers, from there they had tramped like Canadian backwoodsmen, and reached Hasslach—twelve miles as the crow flies. After resting for a day they set out at the first cockcrow, and before the noontide heat reached the lovely Kinzigthal, which lies all along the way from Hausach to Hornberg. Over the door of a wayside inn a signboard, festooned with freshly-cut carpenter's shavings, beckoned invitingly to them, and here the young men halted. The view from this place was particularly beautiful. The road made a kind of terrace halfway up the mountain, on one side rising sheer up for a hundred feet to its summit, thickly wooded all the way, on the other side sloping to the wide valley, where the Gutach flowed, at times tumbling over rough stones, or again spreading itself softly like oil, through flat meadow land. Below lay the little town of Hornberg, with its crooked streets and alleys, its stately square, framing an old church, several inns, and prosperous-looking houses and shops. Beyond the valley rose a high, steep hill, with a white path climbing in zigzags through its wooded sides. On the summit a white house with many windows was perched, seeming to hang perpendicularly a thousand feet above the valley. Its whitewashed walls stood out sharply against the background of green pine trees, clearly visible for many miles round. A conspicuous inscription in large black letters showed that this audacious and picturesque house was the Schloss hotel, and a glance at the gray ruined tower which rose behind it gave at once a meaning to the name. Behind the hill, with its outline softened by trees and encircled by the blue sky, were ridges of other hills in parallel lines meeting the horizon, alternately sharp-edged and rounded, stretching from north to south. They seemed like some great sea, with majestic wave-hills and wave-valleys; behind the first appeared a second, then a third, then a fourth, as far as one's eye could see; each one of a distinct tone of color, and of all the shades from the deepest green through blue and violet to vaporous pale gray.
The sight of this picture had decided Wilhelm Eynhardt not to go any further. The others had resolved to push on to Triberg the same day, and above all, not to turn back till they had bathed in the Boden-see. As every persuasion was powerless to alter Eynhardt's decision, they separated, and the travelers started on their walk to Triberg. Eynhardt, however, stayed at Hornberg, meaning to climb to the Schloss hotel again from the other side.
Wilhelm Eynhardt was a young man of twenty-four, tall and slim of figure, with a strikingly handsome face. His eyes were almond-shaped, not large but very dark, with much charm of expression. The finely-marked eyebrows served by their raven blackness to emphasize the whiteness of the forehead, which was crowned by an abundant mass of curling black hair. His fresh complexion had still the bloom of early youth, and would hardly have betrayed his age, if it had not been shaded by a dark brown silky beard, which had never known a razor. It was an entirely uncommon type, recalling in profile, Antinous, and the full face reminding one of the St. Sebastian of Guido Roni in the museum of the Capitol; a face of the noblest manhood, without a single coarse feature. His manner, although quiet, gave the impression of keen enthusiasm, or, more rightly speaking, of unworldly inspiration. All who saw him were powerfully attracted, but half-unconsciously felt a slight doubt whether even so fine a specimen of manhood was quite fitly organized and equipped for the strife of existence. At the university he had been given the nickname of Wilhelmina, on account of a certain gentleness and delicacy of manner, and because he neither drank nor smoked. Such jokes, not ill-natured, were directed against his outward appearance, but had a shade of meaning as regards his character.
As Wilhelm walked into the courtyard of the Schloss hotel he stopped a moment to regain his breath. Before him was the stately new house, whose white-painted walls and many windows had looked down on the high-road; to the left stood the round tower inclosed within a ruined wall, shading an airy lattice-work building, in which on a raised wooden floor stood a table and some benches. Several people, evidently guests at the hotel, sat there drinking wine and beer, and eying the newcomer curiously. The burly landlord, in village dress, emerged from the open door of the cellar in the tower, and wished him "good-day." He had a thick beard and a sunburned face, with good-natured blue eyes. With a searching glance at the young man's cap and knapsack, he waited for Wilhelm to speak.
"Can I have a room looking on to the valley?" asked the latter.
"Not at this moment," the landlord answered, clearing his throat loudly; "there is hardly a room free here, and that only in the top story. But to-morrow, or the day after, many people are leaving, and then I can give you what you want."
Wilhelm's face clouded with disappointment, but only for a moment, then he said: "Very well, I will stay."
"Luggage?" said the landlord, in his short, unceremonious way. "My luggage is at Haslach. It can come up to-morrow."
"Bertha," called the landlord, in such a strident tone that the mountains echoed the sound. The visitors drinking in the kiosk smiled; they were well accustomed to the man. A neat red-cheeked girl appeared in the doorway. "Number 47," shouted the landlord, and went off to his other duties.
Bertha led the new guest up three flights of uncarpeted wooden staircase, down a long passage to a light, clean, but sparely-furnished room. The girl told him the hours of meals, brought some water, and left him alone. He hung his knapsack on a hook on the wall, opened the little window, and gazed long at the view. Underneath was the open space where he had been standing, to the left the tower, and behind, over the ruined walls, he could see the old, neglected castle yard full of weeds and heaps of rubbish—a picture of decay and desolation.
"I have chosen well," thought Wilhelm, for he loved solitude, and promised himself enjoyable hours of wandering in the ruins in company with luxuriant flowers and singing birds.
He barely gave himself time to freshen his face with cold water, and to change his thick walking shoes for lighter ones; immediately hurrying out to make acquaintance with the castle. Before he could get there he had first to find in the tumbledown wall a hole large enough to enable him to get through. He shortly found himself in a fairly large square space, the uneven ground being formed of a mass of rubbish, mounds of earth, and deep holes. Woods protected the greater part of it, most of the trees stunted and choked by undergrowth and shrubs, with occasionally a high, solitary pine tree, and near to the west and south walls half-withered oaks and mighty beeches stood thickly. Here and there from the bushes peeped up bare pieces of crumbling stone and broken pieces of mortar, in whose crevices hung long grasses, and where yellow, white, and red flowers nestled. Climbing, stumbling, and slipping, he worked his way through this wilderness, the length and breath of which he wished to inspect so as to discover a place where he could rest quietly, when he suddenly came to a precipitous fall of the ground, concealed from him by a thick curtain of leaves. Startled and taken by surprise, the ground seemed to him to sink under his feet. He instinctively caught hold of some branches to keep himself from falling, pricking his hands with the thorns, and breaking a slender bough, finally rolling in company with dust and earth, torn-out bushes and stone, down a steep declivity of several feet to a little grass plot at the bottom. He heard a slight scream near him, and a girlish form sprang up and cried in an anxious voice:
"Have you hurt yourself?"
Wilhelm picked himself up as quickly as he could, brushed the earth from his clothes, and taking off his cap said, "Thanks, not much. Only a piece of awkwardness. But I am afraid I have frightened you?" he added.
"A little bit; but that is all right."
They looked at each other for the first time, and the lady laughed, while Wilhelm blushed deeply. She stopped again directly, blushed also, and dropped her eyes. She was a girl in the first bloom of youth, of particularly fine and well-made figure, with a beautiful face; two dimples in her cheeks giving her a roguish expression, and a pair of lively brown eyes. A healthy color was in her cheeks, and in the well-cut, seductive little mouth. Her luxuriant, golden-brown hair, in the fashion of the day, was brushed back in long curls. She had as her only ornament a pale gold band in her hair, and wore a simple dress of light-flowered material, the high waistband fitting close to the girlish figure. Conventionality began to assert its rights over nature, and the girl too felt confused at finding herself in the middle of a conversation with a strange man, suddenly shot down at her very feet. Wilhelm understood and shared her embarrassment, and bowing, he said:
"As no doubt we are at the same house, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Wilhelm Eynhardt. I come from Berlin, and took up my abode an hour ago at the Schloss hotel."
"From Berlin," said the girl quickly; "then we are neighbors. That is very nice. And where do you live in Berlin, if I may ask?"
"In Dorotheenstrasse."
"Of course you do," and a clear laugh deepened the shadow of her dimples.
"Why 'of course?'" asked Wilhelm, rather surprised.
"Why, because that is our Latin quarter, and as a student—you are a student, I suppose?"
"Yes, and no. In the German sense I am no longer a student, for I took my degree a year ago; but the word in English is better and truer, as there 'student' is used where we should say scholar (gelehrter). Scholars we are, not only learners. In the English sense then I am a student, and hope to remain so all my life."
"Ah, you speak English," she said, quickly catching at the word; "that is charming. I am tremendously fond of English, and am quite accustomed to it, as I spent a great part of my time in England when I was very young. I have been told that I have a slight English accent in speaking German. Do you think so?"
"My ear is not expert enough for that," said Wilhelm apologetically.
"My friends," she chattered on, "nearly all speak French; but I think English is much more uncommon. Fluent English in a German is always proof of good education. Don't you think so?"
"Not always," said Wilhem frankly; "it might happen that one had worked as a journeyman in America."
The girl turned up her nose a little at this rather unkind observation, but Wilhelm went on:
"With your leave I would rather keep to our mother-tongue. To speak in a foreign language with a fellow-country-woman without any necessity would be like acting a charade, and a very uncomfortable thing."
"I think a charade is very amusing," she answered; "but just as you like. Opportunities of speaking English are not far to seek. Most of the visitors at the hotel are English. I dare say you have noticed it already. But they are not the best sort. They are common city people, who even drop their h's, but who play at being lords on the Continent. Of course I have learned already to tell a 'gentleman' from a 'snob.'"
Wilhelm smiled at the self-conscious importance with which she spoke. His eyes wandered over her beautiful hair, to the tender curve of her slender neck and beautiful shoulders, while she, feeling perfectly secure again, settled herself comfortably. Her seat was a projecting piece of stone, which had been converted by a soft covering of moss into a delightful resting-place. An overhanging bush shaded it pleasantly. In front lay a corner of the castle; across a smooth piece of turf and through a wide gap in the wall they caught a view of the mountains, as if painted by some artist's brush—a perfect composition which would have put the crowning touch to his fame. The girl had been trying to make a sketch of the view in a well-worn sketchbook which lay near.
"You have given a sufficient excuse for your sketches by your feeling for natural beauty," remarked Wilhelm. "May I look at the page?"
"Oh," she said, somewhat confused, "my will is of the best, but I can do so little," and she hesitatingly gave him her album. He took it and also the pencil, looked alternately at the mountains and on the page of the book, and without asking leave began to improve upon it, strengthening a line here, lightening a shadow and giving greater breadth, and then growing deeply interested in his work, he sat down without ceremony on the mossy bank, took a piece of india-rubber, and erasing here, adding lines there, sometimes laying in a shadow, giving strength to the foreground and lightness to the background, he ended by making a really pretty and artistic sketch.
The girl had watched him wonderingly, and said as he returned the album, "But you are a great artist," and without letting him speak she went on, "and by your appearance I had taken you for a student! But you are not in the least like a student, nor in fact like a German either. I have often met Indian princes in society in London, and I think you are very much like them."
Wilhelm smiled. "There is a grain of truth in what you say, although you overrate it a little. A great artist I certainly am not, nor even a little one, but I have always observed much and painted a good deal myself, and originally I thought of devoting myself to an artist's career; and if I have nothing in common with Indian princes, and am merely a plebeian German, I very likely have a drop of Indian blood in my veins."
"Really," she said, with curiosity.
"Yes, my mother was a Russian German living in Moscow, and whose father, a Thuringian, had married a Russian girl of gypsy descent. Through this grandmother, whom I never knew, I am related by remote genealogical descent to Indians. But you do not look like a German either, with your beautiful dark hair and eyebrows."
She took this personal compliment in good part as she answered quickly:
"There is some reason for that too. Just as you have Indian, I have French blood in my veins. My father's mother was a Colonial, her maiden name was Du Binache."
So they gossiped on like old acquaintances. Young and beautiful as they were, they found the deepest pleasure in one another, and the cold feeling of strangeness melted as by a charm. They were awakened to the consciousness that half an hour earlier neither of them had an idea of the other's existence, by the appearance of a girl in the gap in the wall, who seemed very much surprised at the sight of their evident intimacy. The young lady stood up rather hastily and went a few steps toward the newcomer, a servant-maid, who had brought a cloak for her mistress, and took charge of her album, sunshade, and large straw hat.
"Is it so late already?" she said, with a naive surprise, which left no room for doubt even to Wilhelm's modesty.
"Certainly, fraulein," said the maid, pointing with her hand to the distant mountain, whose peaks were already clothed with the orange hue of twilight; then she looked alternately at her young mistress and the strange gentleman, whose handsome face she inwardly noted.
"Do you think of making any stay here?" asked the young lady of Wilhelm, who followed slowly.
"Yes, certainly," he answered at once.
"Then we may become good friends. My parents will be glad to make your acquaintance. I did not tell you before that my father is Herr Ellrich."
As Wilhelm merely bowed, without seeming to recognize the name, she said rather sharply, and slightly raising her voice:
"I thought as you came from Berlin you would be sure to know my father's name—Councilor Ellrich, Vice-President of the 'Seehandlung.'"
The name and title made very little impression on Wilhelm, but his politeness brought forth an "Ah!" which satisfied Fraulein Ellrich. They left the ruins by an easy path which Wilhelm had not noticed before, and walked together to the entrance of the hotel, where she took leave of him by an inclination of her head. He betook himself to his room in a dream, and while he recalled to his mind the picture of her beautiful face, and the clear ring of her voice, he thought how grateful he was to this chance, that not only had he become acquainted with the girl, but that he had avoided in such a glorious fashion the discomfort of a formal introduction. Also Wilhelm knew himself well, and felt sure that, badly endowed as he was for forming new acquaintances, he could never have become friends with Fraulein Ellrich apart from the accident of his fall in the castle yard.
Dinner was served at separate tables where single guests might take it as they pleased, and Wilhelm was absentminded and dreamy when he sat down. He scarcely glanced at the large, cool dining-room, ornamented with engravings of portraits of the Grand Dukes of Baden and their wives. Six large windows looked into the valley of the Gutach with its little town of Hornberg, and the mountains lying beyond. He hardly noticed the rather silent people at the other tables, in which the English element predominated. He had come in purposely late in the hope of finding Fraulein Ellrich already there. She was not present; but he was not kept long in suspense before a waiter opened the door, and the lovely girl appeared accompanied by a stately gentleman and a stout lady. They seemed to be known to the servants, for as soon as they appeared the headwaiter and his subordinates rushed toward them, and with many bows and scrapes took their wraps from them and ushered them to their places.
Wilhelm, who possessed very little knowledge of society, was somewhat at a loss. Ought he to recognize the young lady? If he followed his inclination, he certainly would do so. But her parents! They seemed to be cold and reserved-looking. Happily all fell out for the best. The Ellrichs walked straight to the table where he was sitting, and in a moment Wilhelm was greeting his lovely acquaintance with a low bow. Her quick eyes had already recognized him from the doorway. She returned his greeting smiling and blushing, and as her father nodded kindly, the ice was broken. Wilhelm introduced himself, and the councilor gave him the tips of his fingers and said: "If you have no objection we will sit at your table." His wife, who gazed at Wilhelm through a gold "pince-nez" with hardly concealed surprise, took her place next to him; on the other side sat her husband, and opposite the daughter's face smiled at him.
The councilor was a well-preserved man of about fifty, of good height, dressed in a well-made gray traveling suit, with a light gray silk tie adorned with a pin of black pearl. His closely-cut hair was very thin, and had almost disappeared from the top of his head. His chin was clean-shaven, but his well-brushed whiskers and closely-cut mustache showed signs of gray. His light blue eyes were cold and rather tired-looking, at the corners of the mouth were evident signs of indolence, and his whole appearance gave an impression of self-consciousness mixed with indifference toward the rest of mankind; his wife, stout, blooming, and tranquil, appeared to be a kindly soul.
The conversation opened trivially on the circumstances of Wilhelm meeting with Fraulein Ellrich, and on the beauty of the neighborhood, which Herr Ellrich glorified as not being overrun.
"I would much rather recommend it for quiet than Switzerland with its crowds," he said.
Wilhelm agreed with him, and related how he was induced by the romantic aspect of the place to give up his original plans, and to anchor himself here. When they questioned him, he gave them some information about Heidelberg and his journey to Hornberg. Frau Ellrich complimented him on his sketch, and while he modestly disclaimed the praise, she asked him why he had not devoted himself to art.
"That is a peculiar result of my development," answered Wilhelm thoughtfully. "While I was still at the gymnasium I sketched and painted hard, and after the final examination I went to the Art Academy for two years; but the further I went into the study of art, and the more attentively I followed in the beaten track of art-studies, the clearer it was to me that he who would secure an abiding success in art must be a blind copyist of nature. Certainly the personal peculiarities of an artist often please his contemporaries. It is the fashion to do him honor if he flatters the prevailing direction of taste. But those of the race who follow after, scorn what those before them have admired, and exactly what those of one time have prized as progressive innovations, they who come after reject as mere aberration. What the artist has himself accomplished, I mean his so-called personal comprehension or his capricious interpretation of nature, passes away; but what he simply and honorably reproduces, as he has truly seen it, lives forever, and the remotest age will gladly recognize in such art-work its old acquaintance, unchanging nature."
Fraulein Ellrich hung on his words in astonishment, while her parents calmly went on eating their fish.
"So," went on Wilhelm, speaking chiefly to his opposite neighbor, "so, I tried when I drew or painted to reproduce nature with the greatest truth; but at a certain point I became conscious of a perception that a hidden meaning in an unintelligible language lay written there. The form of things, and also every so-called accident of form, appeared to me to be the necessary expression of something within, which was hidden from me. The wish arose in me to penetrate behind the visible face of nature, to know why she appears in such a way, and not in another. I wanted to learn the language, the words of which, with no understanding of their sense, I had been slavishly copying; and so I turned to the study of physical science."
"So your two years at the Art School were not wasted," remarked Herr Ellrich.
"Certainly not, for to an observer of natural objects it is most valuable to have a trained eye for form and color."
"Yes, and beside, drawing and painting are such charming accomplishments, and so useful to a young man in society."
"Playing the piano and singing are still more so," put in Frau Ellrich.
"But dancing most of all," cried Fraulein Ellrich. "Do you dance?"
"No," answered Wilhelm shortly.
The words jarred upon him, and a silence ensued.
The councilor broke this with the question:
"Then you are a doctor of physical science?"
"Yes, sir."
"What is your particular department? Zoology, botany?"
"I have principally studied chemistry and physics, and I think of devoting myself to the latter."
"Physics, oh yes. A wide and beautiful sphere. So much is included in it. Electricity, galvanism, magnetism—those are all new faculties very little known; and as regards submarine telegraph the knowledge cannot be too useful."
"These sides of the question have not hitherto interested me. I ask of physics the unlocking of the nature of things. It has not yet given me the key, but it is something to know on what insecure, weak, and limited experiments our vaunted knowledge of the existence of the world of energy, of matter and their properties, depend."
Frau Ellrich looked at him approvingly.
"You speak beautifully, Herr Eynhardt, and it must be a great enjoyment to hear you lecture."
"You will soon have a professorship, I suppose?" remarked Herr Ellrich, turning around to the blushing Wilhelm.
"Oh, no!" said he quickly, "I do not aspire to that; I believe in Faust's verse: 'Ich ziehe... meine Schuler an der Nase herum—Und sehe dass wir nichts wissen konnen;' and I also bilde mir nicht ein, Ich konnte was lehren.' I wonder at and envy the men who teach such things with so much influence and conviction, and I am very grateful to them for initiating me into their methods and power of working properly. But there has never been a likelihood of my venturing to approach young men and saying to them, 'You must work with me for three years earnestly and diligently, and I will lead you to knowledge, so that at last, through the contents of a book, you may get a flying glimpse of the phantom which has so often eluded you.'"
"Your opinions are very interesting," said Herr Ellrich; "but a professorship is still the one practical goal for a man who studies physics. Forgive me if I express my meaning bluntly; there is money to be made in physics through a professorship."
"Happily I am in a position which makes it unnecessary for me to work for my bread."
"That is quite another thing," said the councilor in a friendly way, while his wife cast a quick glance over Wilhelm's clothes, unfashionable and rather worn, but scrupulously clean.
"One can see that this idealist neglects his outward appearance," her good-natured glance, half-apologetic, half-compassionate, seemed to say.
Herr Ellrich changed the conversation to the management of the hotel; discussing for a time the Margrave's wines, the south German cookery, the Black Forest tourists, and a variety of other minor topics. He then asked his daughter:
"Now, Loulou, have you made a programme for tomorrow yet? She is our maitre de plaisir," he explained to Wilhelm.
"A frightfully difficult post," exclaimed Loulou. "Papa and mamma love quiet; I like moving about, and I endeavor to harmonize the two."
Wilhelm thought that the opposing tasks would very soon be harmonized if Loulou subordinated her inclinations to her parents' comfort; but he kept his thoughts to himself.
"I vote that to-morrow morning we go for a little drive. As to the afternoon, we can arrange that later. Perhaps Dr.—-" She stopped short, and her mother came to her help and completed the invitation.
"It would be very kind of you to join us."
"I am only afraid that I might be in the way."
"Oh, no; certainly not," said the mother and daughter together, and Herr Ellrich nodded encouragingly.
Wilhelm felt that the invitation was meant cordially, and his fear of obtruding himself overcome, he accepted.
Circumstances at the castle very greatly favored Wilhelm's intercourse with the Ellrich's, or rather with Loulou. In this house on the summit of the hill they met constantly in close companionship. Frau Ellrich enjoyed nothing better than walking on the arm of this handsome young man up and down the wooded slopes, as till now she had been obliged to go without such escort. Herr Ellrich liked to take his holiday in a different way from the ladies. If he felt obliged to take exercise he would borrow the landlord's gun and dogs and shoot. At other times he would lie down anywhere on a plaid on the grass, smoke a cigar, and read foreign papers like the Times from beginning to end. The afternoon was taken up by a nap, and in the evening he would be ready to hear an account of how his family had spent the day—perhaps in a long carriage excursion through the neighboring valleys.
Frau Ellrich was in the habit of appearing at the first table d'hote, and then doing homage to the peaceful custom of afternoon sleep. In the first cool hours of the morning she walked a little in the perfumed air of the pine woods, and the rest of the time she devoted to a voluminous correspondence, which seemed to be her one passion. Thus Loulou was alone nearly always in the morning, and frequently in the afternoon as well, and quite contented to ramble with Wilhelm through the woods, or to sit with him in the ruins, where they learned to know each other, and chattered without ceasing.
The subject of conversation mattered not. They had the story of their short lives to relate to one another. Loulou's was soon told. Her narrative was like the merry warbling of birds, and was from beginning to end the story of a serene dream of spring. She was the only child of her parents, who in spite of outward indifference and apparent coldness adored her, and had never denied her anything. The first fifteen years of her life were spent in her charming nest, in the beautiful house in the Lennestrasse, where she was born. "When we return to Berlin you shall see how pleasant my home is. I will show you my little blue sitting-room, my winter garden, my aviary, my parrots and blackbirds." A heavy trial had befallen her—the only trial that she had yet experienced. She had been sent to England for the completion of her education, and had to suddenly part from all her home surroundings. She stayed there for three years with an aunt who had married an English banker. The visit proved delightful, and she grew to love England enthusiastically. She drove and rode, and even followed the hounds. In winter there was the pantomime at Drury Lane, the flights to St. Leonards, Hastings, Leamington, the mad rides across country through frosted trees behind the hounds in full cry; in summer during the season there were parties, balls, the opera, the park; then in the holidays splendid travels with papa and mamma, once to Belgium, France, and the Rhine, another time to Switzerland and Italy, then to Heligoland and Norway. No, she could never have such good times again. In the following year she went back to Berlin, and had spent a very agreeable winter, a subscription ball, several other balls, innumerable soirees, a box at the opera, lovely acquaintances, with naturally many successes—the envy of false friends, but she did not allow herself to be much disturbed by them.
Wilhelm listened to this chatter with mixed feelings. If she seemed superficial, he reconciled himself by a glance at her beautiful silken hair, at her laughing brown eyes, at her roguish dimples, and instantly he pleaded with his cooler reason for pardon for the lovely girl—he for nineteen years had had other things beside pleasure to think of! These charms seemed enough to work the taming magic of Orpheus over the wild animals of the woods.
"And you were never," he asked timidly as she paused, "a little bit in love?"
"I can look after myself," she answered, with a silvery laugh, and Wilhelm felt as if an iron band had been lifted from his heart, like the trusty Henry's in the story.
"That points to marvelous wisdom in a child of society—seeing so many people—so attractive! You are indifferent then to admiration?"
"I did not say that. My fancy has been often enough touched, but—"
"But your heart has not?"
"No."
"Really not?" continued he, in a tone of voice in which, he himself detected the anxiety.
She shook her head, and looked down thoughtfully. But after a short pause she raised her rosy face and said, "No—better die than speak untruths—I was rather in love with our pastor who confirmed me. He was thin and pale with long hair, much longer than yours. And he spoke very beautifully and powerfully—I felt sentimental when I thought of him. But I soon got to know his wife, who was as pointed and hard as a knitting needle, and his children, whose number I never could count exactly, and my youthful feelings received a severe chill." She laughed, and Wilhelm joined her heartily.
It was now his turn to relate his story. He was as to his birthplace hardly a German, but a Russian, as he first saw the light in Moscow, in the year 1845.
"So you are now twenty-four?"
"Last May. Are you frightened at such an age, fraulein?"
"That is not so old, twenty-four—particularly for a man," she protested with great earnestness.
His father, he went on, was from Konigsberg, had studied philology, and when he left the university had become a tutor in a distinguished Russian family. He was the child of poor parents, and had to take the first opportunity which presented itself of earning his living. So he went to Russia, where he lived for twenty years as a tutor in private families, and then as a teacher in a Moscow gymnasium. He married late in life, an only child of German descent, who helped her middle-aged husband by a calm observance of duty and a mother's love for his children. "My mother was a remarkable woman. She had dark eyes and hair, and an enthusiastic and devoted expression in her face, which made me feel sad, as a child, if I looked at her for long. She spoke little, and then in a curious mixture of German and Russian. Strangely enough, she always called herself a German, and spoke Russian like a foreigner; but later, when we went to Berlin, she discovered that she was really a Russia, and always wished she were back in Moscow, never feeling at home amid her new surroundings. She was a Protestant like her father, but had inherited from her Russian mother a lingering affection for the orthodox faith, and she often used to go to the Golden Church of the Kremlin, whose brown, holy images had a mystical effect on her. She loved to sing gypsy songs in a low voice. She would not teach them to us. She was always very quiet, and preferred being alone with us to any society or entertainment."
When Wilhelm was four years old there came a little sister, a bright, light-haired, blue-eyed creature after her father's heart. She was named Luise, but she was always called Blondchen. She was his only playfellow, as the irritable father in Moscow cared for no acquaintances. His father's one wish was to return to his home, but for a long time the mother would not have it so. At last, in the year 1858, he accomplished his wish. He was then sixty-three years old, and he represented to his wife that after his life of unremitting work, now in its undoubted decline, he had a right to spend the last few years in peace in his native land. He possessed enough for his family to live on; the children would grow and get a better education than in Russia, and above all he wished to keep his Prussian nationality. The mother yielded, and so they came to Berlin, where the father bought a modest house near the Friedrich-Wilhelm gymnasium. This house was now Wilhelm's property. "We children liked Berlin very much. I soon became independent and self-reliant, after school hours wandering in the streets as much as I pleased, and used to make eager explorations in all directions, coming home enraptured when I had found a beautiful neighborhood, a stately house, a statue of some general in bronze or marble. I used to take Blondchen by the hand, and show her my discovery. The Friedrichstadt with its straight streets interested us very much; I had a fancy that the houses were marshaled in battalions, as if by an officer on parade, and that when he gave the word 'March,' they would suddenly walk away in step, like the soldiers on the parade ground. I explained this to my sister, and often when we were in our own street she would call out 'March!' to see if the long row of houses would not begin to move. However, we liked the old part of Berlin better, where the streets, with their capricious and serpent-like windings, reminded us of the crooked alleys of Moscow. The streamlets of the Spree exercised a powerful attraction over us. Blondchen thought they played hide-and-seek with children, who would run through the streets to search for them. They came suddenly into sight where one would least expect to see them, in the yard of a house in the Werderschen Market, behind an apparently innocent archway on the Hausvogtei Platz, at the backs of houses whose fronts betrayed no existence of any water near. My sister so often longed to catch sight of the oily satiny sheen of the river's light in unsuspected places that she would drag me off to note her discoveries. She wanted all the varying sights of the Spree, which showed itself at the ends of alleys, or in courtyards or behind houses, suddenly to appear to her, so that she might have the right to first name her discovery."
He was silent awhile, deep in memories of the past. Then he said: "If I have lingered over these childish reminiscences it is because I have not my Blondchen any longer. On one of our wandering excursions we were caught in a heavy shower of rain, and became wet through. My sister was taken ill with rheumatism, and eight days afterward we buried her in the churchyard."
The mother soon followed Blondchen. Sorrow over the child, and homesickness, combined with weak health, proved too great a strain. Wilhelm remained alone with the dispirited and sorrowful old father, whom he never left except for his three years' military service in the field. Then the father, to shorten the time of separation, accompanied the army (in spite of his seventy years) as an ambulance assistant. The following year he died, and Wilhelm was left alone in the world.
Loulou was not wanting in heart, and she had as much feeling as it is proper for an educated German girl to show. By an involuntary movement, she held out her hand, which Wilhelm caught and kissed. They both grew very red, and she looked wistfully at him with her eyes wet. Had he understood the look, and been of a bold nature, he would have clasped the girl to his breast and kissed her. Her red lips would have made scarcely any resistance. But the confusion of mind passed quickly, the light afternoon sunshine and the sight of the people passing through the breach in the castle wall brought him to full consciousness, and the dangerous step was not taken. Loulou recovered her sprightliness, and going back to his story asked him, "So you have been in a campaign?"
"Certainly."
"Did you become an officer?"
"No, fraulein, only a 'vize-Feldwebel.'"
"Have you fought in a battle?"
"Oh, yes, at Burkersdork, Skalitz, Koniginhof, and Koniggratz."
"That must have been frightfully interesting. And have you ever killed one of the enemy?"
"Happily not. It does not fall to the lot of every soldier to kill a man. He does his duty if he stands up in his place ready to be killed."
"Have you any photographs of yourself in uniform?"
He looked at her surprised and said:
"No, why?"
A roguish smile, which at the last question had curled at the corners of her mouth, broke into a merry laugh.
"I wanted to know whether you marched into battle with your curls, or whether you sacrificed them to the fatherland?"
Wilhelm was not offended, but said simply:
"Dear young lady, appearances give you the right to make fun—"
"Ah, don't be angry, I am ill-mannered."
"No, no, you are quite right; but, believe me, I only wear my hair long so as to save myself the trouble of going to the hairdresser's. If I dared imagine that I should be less insupportable with a tonsure—"
"For heaven's sake, don't think of it, the curls suit you very well." She said this with a frivolity of manner which she immediately perceived to be unsuitable, and to get over her embarrassment, she jumped at another subject of conversation. "So you live quite alone? That strikes me as being very dreary. Still you must have many friends?"
"Yes, so-called friends—comrades from the gymnasium, from the academy, and the university. But I do not count much on these superficial acquaintances—I have really only one friend."
"Who is she"
"He is called Paul Haber, and is Assistant of Chemistry at the Agricultural College."
"A nice man?"
"Oh, yes."
"How old is he?"
"About a year older than I am."
"What is he like?"
Wilhelm smiled.
"I believe he is very good-looking, strong, not very tall, with a fair mustache, otherwise closely shaved, and with short hair, not like me! He thinks a good deal of appearance, and always knows what sort of ties are worn. He dances well, and is very pleased if people take him for an officer in civilian's clothes. But he is a true soul, and has a heart of gold. He is clever too, practical, and would do for me as much as I would do for him with all my heart."
"Hardly one unpleasant word for an absent friend. That is scarcely as my friends speak of me," and she quietly added: "Nor as I speak of my friends. You make me curious about Herr—"
"Haber."
"You must introduce him to us."
"He would be most happy."
Loulou now knew more about Wilhelm than she had hitherto known of any man in the world. Only on one point was she unenlightened, and this she hastened to clear up on the following day, when they were looking for berries in the wood.
"You asked me if my heart had been touched yet. Would it be right if I were to ask you the same question?"
"The question seems very natural to me—I can truthfully assure you I have never been in love, not even with a pastor with long hair."
"And has no one been in love with you?"
Wilhelm looked at the distance, and said dreamily:
"No; yet once—"
She felt a little stab at her heart, and said:
"Quick, tell me about it."
"It is a wonderful story—it happened in Moscow."
"But you were only a child then?"
"Yes, and she who loved me was a child too. She was four years old."
"Ah," said Loulou, with an involuntary sigh of relief.
"When I was about ten years old I was sitting one sunny autumn afternoon in the yard of our house on a little stool, and was deep in a story of pirates. Suddenly a shadow fell on my book. I looked up, and saw a wonderfully beautiful child before me, a long-haired, rosy-cheeked little girl, who looked at me with deep shining eyes, half-timidly, and shyly held her hand before her mouth. I smiled in a friendly way, and called to her to come nearer. She sprang close to me, at once threw her arms joyfully round my neck, kissed me, sat down on my knee, and said, 'Now tell me what your name is. I am a little girl, and my name is Sonia. I am not going away from you. Let me go to sleep for a little.' An old servant who had followed her came up and said in astonishment, 'Well, young sir, you may be proud of yourself, the child is generally so wild and rough, and with you she is as tame as a kitten.' I learned from her that little Sonia lived in the neighborhood, and that her aunt had come to look for her in our house. She would not go away from me, and the old servant had to call her mother, who only persuaded her to return home with great difficulty. She wanted to take me with her, and she was miserable when they told her that my mamma would not allow me. The next morning early she was there again, and called to me from the threshold, 'I am going to stay with you all day, Wilhelm, the whole day.' I had to go to school, however, and I told her so. She wanted to go with me, and cried and sobbed when they prevented her. Then her relations took her home, and I did not see her again. Later I heard that the same afternoon she was taken ill with diphtheria, and in her illness she cried so much for me that her mother came to mine to beg her to send me to her. My mother said nothing to me about it, fearing I might catch the disease. Sonia died the second day, and my name was the last word on her lips. I cried very much when they told me, and since then I have never forgotten my little Sonia."
"A strange story," said Loulou softly; "such a little girl to fall in love so suddenly. Yes," she went on, "if she had grown up—"
She could not say more, as Wilhelm, who had come near her, looked at her with wide-open, far-seeing eyes, and suddenly threw his arms round her. She cried out softly, and sank on his breast. "Loulou," "Wilhelm," was all they said. It had happened so quickly, so unconsciously, that they both felt as if they were awaking from a dream, as Loulou a minute later freed herself from his burning lips and encircling arms, and Wilhelm, confused and hardly master of his senses, stood before her. They turned silently homeward. She trembled all over and did not dare to take his arm. He inwardly reproached himself, yet he felt very happy in spite of it. Then, before they had reached the summit of the castle hill, he gathered all his courage together and said anxiously:
"Can you forgive me, Loulou? I love you so much."
"I love you too, Wilhelm," she answered, and stretched out her hand to him.
"Dare I speak to your mother, my own Loulou?" whispered he into her ear.
"Not here, Wilhelm," she said quickly, "not here. You do not know my parents well enough yet. Wait till we are in Berlin."
"I will do as you like," sighed he, and took leave of her with an eloquent glance, as they reached the hotel.
On this evening a quantity of curious things happened, which Wilhelm so far had not observed in spite of his studies in natural science. He could not touch his dinner, and Herr and Frau Ellrich's voices, against all the laws of acoustics, seemed to come from the far distance, and several minutes elapsed before the sounds reached his ears, although he sat close to the speakers. The waiters and hotel guests looked odd, and seemed to swim in a kind of rosy twilight. In the sky there seemed to be three times as many stars as usual. When the Ellrichs had withdrawn he went toward midnight alone into the fir woods, and heard unknown birds sing, caught strange and magic harmonies in the rustling of the branches, and felt as if he walked on air. He went to bed in the gray of early dawn, after writing from his overflowing heart the following letter to his friend Haber in Berlin:
"MY DEAREST PAUL: I am happy as I never thought of being happy. I love
an unspeakably beautiful sweet brown maiden, and I really think she
loves me too. Do not ask me to describe her. No words or brush could do
it. You will see her and worship her. Oh, Paul, I could shout and jump
or cry like a child. It is too foolish, and yet so unspeakably
splendid, I can hardly understand how the dull, stupid people in this
house can sleep so indifferently while she is under the same roof. If
only you were here! I can hardly bear my happiness alone. I write this
in great haste. Always your
"WlLHELM."
Four days later the post brought this answer from his friend:
"Well, you are done for, that is certain, my dear Wilhelm. Confound it,
you have gone in for it with a vengeance! I always thought that when
you did catch fire, you would give no end of a blaze. So all your
philosophy of abnegation, all your contempt for appearance go for
nothing. What is your sweet brown maiden but a charming appearance!
Nevertheless you have fallen completely in love with her, for which I
wish you happiness with all my heart. I do not doubt that she loves
you, because I should have been in love with you long ago if I had been
a sweet brown maiden, you shockingly beautiful man. One thing is very
like you, you say no word on what would most interest a Philistine like
myself, viz., the worldly circumstances of the adored one. I must know
her name, her relations, her descent. For all this you have naturally
no curiosity. A name is smoke and empty sound. Now don't let your love
go too far—sleep, and take care of your appetite, and keep a corner in
your perilously full heart for your true
"PAUL"
Wilhelm smiled as he read these lines in the strong symmetrical handwriting of his friend, and hastened to send him the news he desired. In the meanwhile his happiness was continual and increasing, and nothing troubled it but the thought of the coming separation. These two innocent children could hide their love as little as the sun his light. They were always together, their eyes always fixed on one another, their hands as often as possible clasped in each other's. All the people in the hotel noticed it, and were pleased about it, so natural did it seem that this handsome couple should be united by love. The chambermaid, rosy Bertha, saw what was going on with her sly peasant's eye, and by way of making herself agreeable used to whisper to him where he could find the young lady when she happened to meet him on the staircase. Wilhelm good-naturedly forgave the girl her obtrusiveness. Only Herr Ellrich saw nothing. In his foreign newspapers, in the blue smoke from his cigars, in the clouds of powder from his gun, he found nothing which could enlighten him as to the two young people's beautiful secret.
Frau Ellrich certainly had more knowledge than that. In spite of her correspondence and her long afternoon naps, she retained enough observation to see the condition of things pretty clearly. She waited for a confession from Loulou, and as this did not come soon enough for the impatience of her mother's heart, she tried a loving question. After a warm embrace from the girl, a few tears, a great many kisses, the mother and daughter understood each other. Wilhelm had pleased Frau Ellrich very much, and she had no objection to raise, but she could make no answer on her own responsibility, as she knew the views of her husband on the marriage of his only child, and after a few days she made him a cautious communication. Herr Ellrich did not take it badly, but as a practical man of the world he wished to give the feelings of the young people opportunity to bear the trials of separation, and for the present thought a decision useless. The projected visit to Ostend was hastened by some ten days. At dinner he made his decision known, adding, "You have pleased yourselves for three weeks, and now I want you to wait so long to please me." Wilhelm felt bitterly grieved that no one invited him to go to the fashionable watering-place, and Loulou even did not seem particularly miserable. The fact was, that at the bottom of her not very sentimental nature, she did not take the leaving of the Schloss hotel as a matter of great importance, and Ostend with its balls and concerts, its casino and lively society, was not in the least alarming to her. She found the opportunity that evening of consoling Wilhelm, and promised him always to think about him, and to write to him very often, and said she could not be very miserable about their separation, as she felt so happy at the thought of meeting him again in Berlin. The following morning they made a pilgrimage to the castle, the woods, the neighboring valley, to all the places where they had been so happy during the last fortnight. The sky was blue, the pine woods quiet, the air balmy, and the beautiful outline of the mountains unfolded itself far away in the depth of the horizon. Wilhelm drank in the quiet, lovely picture, and felt that a piece of his life was woven into this harmony of nature, and that these surroundings had become part of his innermost "ego," and would be mingled with his dearest feelings now and ever. His love, and these mountains and valleys, and Loulou, the mist and perfume of the pine trees, were forever one, and the pantheistic devotion which he felt in these changing flights of his mind with the soul of nature grew to an almost unspeakable emotion, as he said in a trembling voice to Loulou:
"It is all so wonderful, the mountains and the woods, and the summer-time and our love. And in a moment it will be gone. Shall we ever be so happy again? If we could only stay here always, the same people in the midst of the same nature!"
She said nothing, but let him take her answer from her fresh lips.
They left by the Offenberg railway station in the afternoon. Loulou's eyes were wet. Frau Ellrich smiled in a motherly way at Wilhelm, and Herr Ellrich took his hand in a friendly manner and said:
"We shall see you in Berlin at the end of September."
As the train disappeared down the Gutach valley, it seemed to Wilhelm as if all the light of heaven had gone out, and the world had become empty. He stayed a few days longer at the Schloss hotel, and cherished the remembrance of his time there with Loulou, dreaming for hours in the dearly-loved spots. In this tender frame of mind he received another letter from Paul Haber, who wrote thus:
"DEAREST WILHELM: Your letter of the 13th astonished me so much that it
took me several days to recover. Fraulein Loulou Ellrich, and you write
so lightly! Don't you know—that Fraulein Ellrich is one of the first
'parties' in Berlin? That the little god of love will make you a
present of two million thalers? You have shot your bird, and I am most
happy that for once fortune should bring it to the hand of a fellow
like yourself. In the hope that as a millionaire you will still be the
same to me, I am your heartily congratulatory
"PAUL."
Wilhelm was painfully surprised. What a mercy that the letter had not come sooner. It might have influenced his manner so much as to spoil his relations with Loulou. Now that the Ellrichs were gone, it could for the moment do no harm.
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