Ilka on the Hill-Top and Other Stories Part 11

It was rather an anomalous position for a knight of Dannebrog, a familiar friend of princes and n.o.bles, and an _ex-habitue_ of the Cafe Anglais, to be a common reporter on a Chicago republican journal. Yet this was the position to which (after some daring exploits in book-reviewing and art criticism) my friend was finally reduced. As an art-critic, he might have been a success, if western art had been more nearly in accord with his own fastidious and exquisitely developed taste. As it was, he managed in less than a fortnight to bring down the wrath of the whole artistic brotherhood upon our journal, and as some of these men were personal friends of the princ.i.p.al stockholders in the paper, his destructive ardor was checked by an imperative order from the authorities, from whose will there is no appeal. As a book-reviewer he labored under similar disadvantages; he stoutly maintained that the reading of a volume would necessarily and unduly bias the critic's judgment, and that a man endowed with a keen, literary nose could form an intelligent opinion, after a careful perusal of the t.i.tle-page, and a glance at the preface. A man who wrote a book naturally labored under the delusion that he was wiser or better than the majority of his fellow-creatures, in which case you would do moral service by convincing him of his error, inhumanity continued to encourage authors.h.i.+p at the present rate, obscurity would soon become a claim to immortality. If a writer informed you that his work "filled a literary void," his conceit was reprehensible, and on moral grounds he ought to be chastised; if he told you that he had only "yielded to the urgent request of his friends," it was only fair to insinuate that his friends must have had very long ears.

Nevertheless, Dannevig's reviews were for about a month a very successful feature of our paper. They might be described as racy little essays, bristling with point and epigram, on some subject suggested by the t.i.tle-pages of current volumes. At the end of that time, however, books began to grow scarce in our office, and before another month was at an end, we had no more need of a reviewer. My friend was then to have his last trial as a reporter.

One of his first experiences in this new capacity was at a ma.s.s-meeting preceding an important munic.i.p.al election. Not daring to send his "copy" to the printer without revision, I determined to sacrifice two or three hours' sleep, and to await his return. But the night wore on, the clock struck twelve, one, and two, and no Dannevig appeared. I began to grow anxious; our last form went to press at four o'clock, and I had left a column and a half open for his expected report. Not wis.h.i.+ng to resort to dead matter, I hastily made some selections from a fresh magazine, and sent them to the foreman.

The next day, about noon, a policeman brought me the following note, written in pencil, on a leaf torn from a pocket-book.

DEAR FRIEND;

I made a speech last night (and a very good one too) in behalf of oppressed humanity, but its effect upon my audience was, to say the least, singular. Its results, as far as I am personally concerned were also somewhat unpleasant. Looking at myself in my pocketgla.s.s this morning, I find that my nose has become disproportionately prominent, besides showing an abnormal lateral development If you would have the goodness to accompany the obliging gentleman, who is the bearer of this, to my temporary lodgings, I will further explain the situation to you. By the way, it is absolutely necessary that you should come.

Yours in haste,

VICTOR J. ST. D. DANNEVIG, R.D.O.[A]

[Footnote A: Knight of the Order of Dannebrog.]

I found Dannevig, as I had expected, at the so-called Armory (the city prison), in pleasant converse with half-a-dozen policemen, to whom he was describing, with inimitable grace and good-humor, his adventures of the preceding night. He was too absorbed in his narrative to notice my arrival, and I did not choose to interrupt him.

"You can imagine, gentlemen," he was saying, accompanying his words with the liveliest gesticulations, "how the rude contact of a plebeian fist with my tender skin must have impressed me. Really gentlemen, I was so surprised that I literally lost my balance. I was, as you are no doubt aware, merely a.s.serting my rights as a free citizen to protest against the presumptions of the unprincipled oligarchy which is at present ruling this fair city. My case is exactly parallel to that of Caius Gracchus, who, I admit, reaped a similar reward."

"But you were drunk," replied a rude voice from his audience. "Dead drunk."

"Drunk," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Dannevig, with a gesture of dignified deprecation.

"Now, I submit it to you as gentlemen of taste and experience: how would you define that state of mind and body vulgarly styled 'drunk?'

I was merely pleasantly animated, as far as such a condition can be induced by those vulgar liquids which you are in the habit of imbibing in this benighted country. Now, if I had had the honor of your acquaintance in the days of my prosperity, it would have given me great pleasure to raise your standard of taste regarding wines and alcoholic liquors. The mixed drinks, which are held in such high esteem in this community, are, in my opinion, utterly demoralizing."

Thinking it was high time to interrupt this discourse, I stepped up to the orator, and laid my hand on his shoulder.

"Dannevig," I said, "I have no time to waste Let me settle this business for you at once."

"In a moment I shall be at your service," he answered, gracefully waving his hand; and for some five minutes more he continued his harangue on the corrupting effects of mixed drinks.

After a visit to the court-room, a brief examination, and the payment of a fine, we took our departure. Feeling in an exceptionally amiable mood, Dannevig offered me his arm, and as we again pa.s.sed the group of policemen at the door he politely raised his dilapidated hat to them, and bade them a pleasant good-morning. The cross of Dannebrog, with its red ribbon, was dangling from the b.u.t.ton-hole of his coat, the front of which was literally glazed with the stains of dried punch.

"My type of countenance, as you will observe," he remarked, as we hailed a pa.s.sing omnibus, "presents some striking deviations from the cla.s.sic ideal; but it is a consoling reflection that it will probably soon resume its normal form."

Of course, all the morning as well as the evening papers, recounted, with flaming headings, Dannevig's oration, and his ignominious expulsion from the ma.s.s-meeting, and the most unsparing ridicule was showered both upon him and the journal which, for the time, he represented. One more experience of a similar nature terminated his career as a journalist; I dared no longer espouse his cause and he was dismissed in disgrace. For some weeks he vanished from my horizon, and I began to hope that he had again set his face toward the Old World, where talents of the order he possessed are at higher premium in the social market. But in this hope I was to be grievously disappointed.

V.

One day, just as I had ordered my lunch at a restaurant much frequented by journalists, a German, named Pfeifer, one of the largest stockholders in our paper, entered and seated himself at the table opposite me. He was a somewhat puffy and voluminous man with a very round bald head, and an air of defiant prosperity about him. He had retired from the brewery business some years ago, with a very handsome fortune.

"I have been hunting for you high and low," he began in his native tongue. "You know there is to be a ball in the _Turnverein_ to-morrow night,--a very grand affair, they say. I suppose they have sent you tickets."

"Yes, two."

"And are you going?"

"I had half made up my mind to send Fenner or some one else."

Mr. Pfeifer here grew superfluously confidential and related to me in a mysterious whisper his object in seeking me. The fact was, he had a niece really _ein allerliebstes Kind_, who had come from Milwaukee to visit him and was to spend the winter with him. Now, to be honest, he knew very few young gentlemen whom he would be willing to have her a.s.sociate with, and the poor child had set her heart on going to the _Turn_-ball to-morrow. Would I kindly overlook the informality of his request, and without telling the young lady of his share in the proceeding, offer her my escort to the ball? Would I be responsible for her and bring her home in good season? And to avert Fraulein Pfeifer's possible suspicions, would I come and dine at his house to-night and make her acquaintance?

To refuse the acquaintance of a young lady who even remotely answered to the description of "a very lovely child," was contrary to my principles, and I need not add that I proved faithful to them in the present instance.

A German, even if he be not what one would call a cultivated man, has nevertheless a certain sombre historic background to his life which makes him averse to those garish effects of barbaric splendor that impress one so unpleasantly in the houses of Americans whose prosperity is unsupported by a corresponding amount of culture. This was my first reflection on entering Mr. Pfeifer's drawing-room, while in my heart I begged the proprietor's pardon for the patronizing att.i.tude I found myself a.s.suming toward him. The heavy, solid furniture, the grave and decorously mediocre pictures, and the very tint of the walls wore an air of substantial, though somewhat lugubrious comfort. His niece, too, although her form was by no means lacking in grace, seemed somehow to partake of this all-pervading air of Teutonic solidity and homelike comfort. She was one of those women who seemed born to make some wretched man undeservedly happy. (I always feel a certain dim hostility to any man, even though I may not know him, who marries a charming and lovable woman; it is with me a foregone conclusion that he has been blessed beyond his deserts.) There was a sweet matronliness and quiet dignity in her manner, and beneath the placid surface of her blue eyes I suspected hidden depths of pure maidenly sentiment. The cast of her countenance was distinctly Germanic; not strikingly beautiful, perhaps, but extremely pleasing; there was no discordant feature in it, no loud or harsh suggestion to mar the subdued richness of the whole picture. Her blond hair was twisted into a ma.s.sive coil on the top of her head, and the un.o.btrusive simplicity and taste of her toilet were merely her character (as I had conceived it) translated into millinery. My feelings, as I stood gazing at her, unconsciously formulated themselves into the well-known benediction of Heine's, which I could with difficult keep from quoting:

"Mir ist als ob ich die Hande, Auf's Haupt dir legen sollt', Betend da.s.s Gott dich erhalte, So rein mid schon und hold."

I observed with quiet amus.e.m.e.nt, though in a very sympathetic spirit, that she did not manage her train well; and from the furtive attention she was ever bestowing upon it, I concluded that her experience with long dresses must have been of recent date. I noticed, too, as she came forward to salute me, that her hands were not unused to toil; but for this I only honored her the more.

The dinner was as serious and substantial as everything else in Mr.

Pfeifer's house, and pa.s.sed off without any notable incident. The host persisted in talking business with me, which the young lady, at whose side I sat, accepted as a matter-of-course, making apparently no claim whatever upon the smallest share of my attention. When the long and tedious meal was at an end, upon her uncle's suggestion, she seated herself at the piano, and sang in a deep, powerful contralto, Schubert's magnificent arrangement of Heine's song of unrequited love:

"Ich grolle nicht, und wenn das Herz auch bricht, Ewig verlornes Lieb! ich grolle nicht.

Wie du auch strahlst in Diamantenpracht, Es fallt kein Strahl in deines Herzens Nacht."

There was a pathos and pa.s.sion in her voice which fairly startled me, and when I hastened to her side to thank her for the pleasure she had given me, she accepted my compliments with a beautiful, unaffected enthusiasm, as if they were meant only for the composer, and were in no respect due to her.

"There is such a depth of suffering in every word and note," she said with glowing cheeks. "He bears her no ill-will, he says, and still you feel how the suppressed bitterness is still rankling within him."

She then sang "Auf Flugeln des Gesanges," whereupon we sat down and talked music and Heine for the rest of the evening. Mr. Pfeifer, reclining in his capacious easy-chair, smoked on with slow, brooding contentment, and now and then threw in a disparaging remark regarding our favorite poet.

"He blackguarded his country abominably," he said. "And I have no respect for a man who can do that. Besides, he was a miserable, renegade Jew, and as I never like to have any more to do with Jews than I can possibly help, I have never read any of his books."

"But, uncle," retorted his niece, warmly, "he certainly could not help being a Jew. And there was no one who loved Germany more ardently than he, even though he did say severe things about it."

"That is a thing about which you can have no opinion, Hildegard,"

said Pfeifer, with paternal decision; and he blew a dense cloud of smoke toward the ceiling.

Miss Hildegard looked rebellious for an instant, but accepted the verdict of superior wisdom with submissive silence. The old man gave me a little confidential wink as if to say:

"There is a model girl for you. She knows that women should not speak in meeting."

"What a delightfully fresh and unspoiled girl," I reflected, as I wended my way homeward through the still moonlight; "so true-hearted, and genuine, and unaffected. And still beneath all that sweet, womanly tranquillity there are strong slumbering forces, which some day will startle some phlegmatic countryman of hers, who takes her to be as submissive as she looks."

VI.

Some fifteen minutes after the appointed hour I called with a carriage for Fraulein Hildegard, whom, to my wonder, I found standing in all the glory of her ball-toilet (for she was evidently afraid to sit down) in the middle of the sombre drawing-room. I had been prepared to wait for a good half-hour, and accordingly felt a little provoked at myself for my seeming negligence.

"I do not mind telling you," she said, as I sat compressed in a corner of the carriage, striving to reduce myself to the smallest practicable dimensions, "that this is my first ball. I don't know any of the gentlemen who will be there to-night, but I know two or three Milwaukee ladies who have promised to come, so, even if I don't dance much, I shall not feel lonely."

"Of course you will give me the first chance at your card," I answered. "How many dances will you grant me?"

"As many as you want. Uncle was very explicit in impressing upon me that I am to obey you unquestioningly and have no will of my own."