Problematic Characters Part 20

"And the other half to my sisters," continued Bemperlein, and rubbed his hands with delight.

"But what did you keep for yourself?"

"For myself?" said Bemperlein, quite astonished. "Did I not tell you I had full board? And now listen! I had been a year at Berkow, when one fine day the good lady sends for me, and after we have been talking about this and that, she says:--

"You have been here a year now, dear Bemperlein; now tell me candidly, how do you like it here?--That needs no answer, Madam, replied I.--Well, I am glad of that, said she, but have you no special desire?--Not that I know, said I.--But your salary is evidently too low, said she, with the kindest face in the world. I was so astonished at these words that I could find no answer.

"I must tell you frankly, she said, with angelic goodness, that I have looked at the time up to now only in the light of a trial, and that I regulated the salary accordingly. I never imagined that a man, to whom I can intrust my child's education with perfect confidence, could be paid with money at all; and if I now ask you to let me double the salary which you have heretofore received, I beg you to understand that I still remain your debtor.

"If I had been surprised before, I was much more so now, or rather, I was deeply moved--not so much by her generosity, as by the indescribable kindness with which the offer was made, so that the tears trickled down my cheeks. I stammered something about not being able to accept so much and such like, but then she became quite angry, so that I quickly recovered myself, and told her I would accept her present, not for myself, because that would be unwarrantable, but for those whom I had to support, because they could not support themselves.--Do with it what you like, she said, in going out, but remember that you owe something also to yourself. There the matter ended, but not so Frau von Berkow's goodness, which has no end. But I was going to tell you something very different; I mean, how I came to discover the error which had crept into the account of my life, and what that error is."

CHAPTER XVIII.

At this moment a horseman pa.s.sed them at full gallop, who had turned a few moments before from a byway into the high-road. A large Newfoundland dog, whom Oswald at first took for Melitta's dog, galloped in long strides by the side of the horse, a superb jet-black thorough-bred, whose chest was covered with white foam. The horseman, as far as they could judge in pa.s.sing, was a man of perhaps thirty, tall and thin, and, contrary to the custom of the country gentlemen of that region, in long trousers instead of top-boots; his seat on horseback was utterly unlike that of a country gentleman. But this was perhaps more the effect of negligence and the habit of carelessness than real awkwardness, for when he found himself suddenly close before the two wanderers, whom he had not noticed before in his thoughts or his reveries, he threw his horse with such force and skill on his haunches, that he proved his horsemans.h.i.+p beyond all doubt. "_Excusez, Messieurs_," he said, touching his hat and riding off again.

"Do you know that gentleman?" said Oswald, pausing and looking after the man, whose features seemed to him familiar and yet strange.

"_Tiens!_" said Mr. Bemperlein, also stopping; "that must have been Baron Oldenburg. Yes, it was the baron!" he cried, as he saw the gentleman stop when he reached the two boys, with whom he shook hands.

"I should not have recognized him with his black beard and his sunburnt face. He looks like a veritable Cabyle. When can he have come back?"

"Has he been travelling?" asked Oswald, with a.s.sumed indifference.

"He has been travelling these ten years," replied Mr. Bemperlein.

"Three years ago Frau von Berkow, the two Barnewitz, met him in Rome, and then they travelled together through Southern Italy. In Sicily they parted again. My friends prepared to return home, but the baron went on to Egypt, Arabia, and heaven knows where else his restless spirit has driven him. But we have again lost sight of our subject."

Mr. Bemperlein began his tale once more with his inexhaustible fund of details; but if Oswald had before only listened with one ear, his thoughts now were far away. That, then, was the man who had played so prominent a part in Melitta's life! So great a part! How great a part?

She had never really loved him--perhaps--no, certainly never loved him--but is true love always the last reward of a woman's highest favor? Is there no such thing as desire without love? Or love without desire? Only a wish to hold him captive by all means, among them, by the memory of pleasure enjoyed. Has she ever been happy by the side of this man, at whose cradle the graces had failed to appear; happy, though not perfectly so, not as happy as she had hoped, but still? Oh!

that thought brought intolerable torment!

The demon of jealousy was whispering and hissing bad thoughts in his ear, which made his blood boil and big drops of perspiration to break out on his forehead--no wonder, then, that he heard Mr. Bemperlein's tale only in a dream. This only he understood, that the strange man had only now begun to think of his so-called science, his long-cherished profession only now, when all the troubles of life seemed to be ended, and he could breathe, a free man, in the green solitude of Berkow. He had now only begun to make the acquaintance of the heroes of modern literature, especially of Shakespeare; and from the poets he had pa.s.sed to the philosophers, here again above all in Spinoza finding a new world opening before him which he had not suspected in his scholastic studies. Under such influence he had been led to the study of nature, to botany, mineralogy, and physics; he had built himself, with old Baumann's aid, a small laboratory, where he had industriously pursued his new sciences, and there, alas! he had found, amid phials and retorts, that his orthodox faith, as far as the reading of the philosophers had not destroyed it already, had altogether evaporated!

"Thus matters went on for a while," said Mr. Bemperlein, "but the moment came when it was my duty to decide whether I should openly avow my apostasy from the faith of my fathers or not. A very lucrative cure in this region, which was in the hands of an uncle of Frau von Berkow, became vacant by the death of the inc.u.mbent. The gentleman thought he would please his niece by offering the place to me; I had nothing to do but to go the following Sunday and preach my trial-sermon. Now, you must know that when the thing was first mentioned to me I was so much overwhelmed by surprise and by fright, and so unwilling to hurt the kind man's feelings, that I said: 'Yes.' You know Frau von Berkow intended to send Julius to Grunwald, and thus I could not have stayed at Berkow any longer at best. I also sat down to compose my sermon. I had so far succeeded in avoiding every call to show my theological talent of declamation, and now I felt, to my horror, that I had completely forgotten the pulpit-talk, and, what was worse, the pulpit logic. Three nights in succession I began my Sisyphus work, but I never got farther than 'My dear brethren!' In the third night, when I had gone to bed quite in despair, and had fallen asleep in great sorrow, thinking what my good father and my worthy grandfather, whom I had known still, would have said if they could see their son and grandson in full incredulity, after he had been so carefully trained in orthodoxy, I had the following curious dream, which no doubt partly arose from an animated description Frau von Berkow had given me of the Louvre.

"I dreamt, then, I was entering into a lofty, large hall, with pictures and statues on all the walls. There sat G.o.d the Father himself, a handsome, bearded old man, and held forth his hand and created heaven and earth; then came Adam and Eve, in white marble--Eve pretty well preserved, but Adam had lost his head; then 'Cain's Fratricide,' a large oil-painting, and by its side 'Adam and Eve find the corpse of murdered Abel,' on which the form of the deadly pale youth, who looked like broken white lilies, was deeply touching. Thus I went on and on, looking at statue after statue and painting after painting. I was not alone in the hall; on the contrary, a crowd of people was moving along the walls and amid the forest of statues. Large groups were standing before some of the most prominent works; for instance, the pa.s.sage of the children of Israel through the Red Sea, a gigantic fresco, and smaller groups before other paintings, less remarkable for historic importance than for the piquancy of the scene they represented. Thus I was much annoyed by a crowd of young people who stood before 'Lot drunk,' and put their heads together and laughed. Altogether, the deportment of the company appeared to me highly improper. The women were laughing and talking and coquetting; the men chatted and ogled, and a few, with long legs and long teeth,--probably English,--actually kept their hats on. Almost all had a book in their hands, into which they looked conscientiously from time to time, when they wished for information about one of the works of art. This book seemed to be a catalogue of the Museum, and I wished to obtain one, because I had forgotten the order in which the prophets came, and thus could not tell whether the bearded man in No. 8 was Habakkuk, and the young man in No.

9 Zephaniah, or not; I turned, therefore, to an old gentleman whom I had seen busy with a fly-brush, and whom I therefore took to be one of the keepers. As I approached him the man turned round, and what was my surprise when I recognized my own grandfather. 'What do you desire, young man?' he asked, in a severe tone. I repeated timidly my question.

'Here is a catalogue,' he said, taking one of the books which lay in large numbers on the table and handing it to me, 'it costs half a dollar.' I opened the book; 'I wanted a catalogue,' said I, 'you have given me--' 'To be sure,' said the old man, in a melancholy tone of voice, 'this is the catalogue of the Old Museum; the door to the New Museum, in which you will find the works of art from the year one of our Christian Era till the year 1793, when the Christian religion was abolished, and the G.o.ddess Reason ascended the throne--is there.' He pointed towards a fine flight of broad stairs, which led up to the other halls. 'You will do well to buy another catalogue there. It costs much less, and you must speak about it to your father, who holds there the same office which I fill here.' And thereupon the old man turned his back to me and began once more to dust the statues and pictures with his tall fly-brush. 'Excuse me, dear grandfather,' I said.--'I am not your grandfather,' replied the old man, quietly going on with his occupation. 'Well, are you the keeper?' I asked. 'Yes, indeed, keeper of the Museum, nothing else.'--'And where have they put all the works of art which have been produced since that time?'--'Since that memorable year,' said the old man, 'nothing worth speaking of has been achieved. A few schools of art have been formed here and there, but they have produced nothing that can be called artistic. The artists lack the proper faith, and without faith nothing great can be painted or sculptured or written'--when he said this he looked at me reprovingly--'Or written,' I repeated, abated, thinking of my unsuccessful efforts--'Or written,' he continued, 'and then the world has become so indifferent, and critics have become so very sharp and severe, that they have lost that nave simplicity and dreamy security without which, unfortunately--but now I must beg you to leave; the bell has been ringing for some time, and you are the very last.' He accompanied me to the entrance, showed me the door, and invited me with a stiff bow to walk out. I did so--the door closed with a crash and--I awoke.

"After that dream," continued Bemperlein, "I made no more efforts.

Without faith no sermon can be written, I said to myself, and even if one could be written it could not be delivered, at least not by a man like yourself, who has a little conscience left, and neither chick nor child, such as have tempted many an honest man to write and say things which he can only on that plea defend before G.o.d and the world. I felt clearly that I could not become a minister of the gospel, and I therefore wrote this morning to the patron of that church, thanking him for the honor he had done me, and declining his offer, because I had decided to accompany Julius to Grunwald. For, as I was writing the sentence, the idea occurred to me. I went at once to Frau von Berkow to tell her of my resolution, and she seemed to be delighted. Now, my dear sir, after you have had the goodness to listen to this long story of mine, pray tell me, what would you do in my place? Consider that I am already twenty-eight years old, and that I still have all my twenty-eight teeth. The wisdom-teeth have not yet appeared, perhaps because Nature has forgotten them, or because of a wise provision of Fate, which remembered how little I would often have to bite in this life."

"What I would do in your place," said Oswald, "if I were such a brave, conscientious, excellent----"

"Pray don't, my dear sir," said Bemperlein, blus.h.i.+ng all over.

"I say conscientious, excellent man? Well, that question can easily be answered. I would do what you have already done. I would cheerfully turn my back upon the paradise of nave thoughtlessness and harmless orthodoxy, after having, tasted of the tree of knowledge. I would not allow myself to be cooped up in that stall in which the hypocrites, the vile dogs in the sheeps' clothing of humility, are whining and howling so fearfully."

"Very well, very well!" said Mr. Bemperlein, rubbing his hands with delight, "and what would you do next, my dear sir?"

"Then," replied Oswald, "if I were you, I would remember what sufferings I had endured as a weak boy, and what industry and perseverance I had shown, simply in order to acquire a vast ma.s.s of knowledge which I am now glad to be able to forget again. I would remember this, I say, and now study a science which I should not wish to forget again, because I could be a pupil there without first fettering my reason, and because this science is fruitful for myself and fruitful for my fellow-beings."

"Excellent! excellent!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "Go on, go on!"

"In one word, I would devote myself," continued Oswald, "with all my strength to those sciences which you have already tried, and I would, for that purpose, return to Grunwald and enter my name once more as a student, but not in order to study Theology, but this time Medicine."

"The Medical Faculty in Grunwald is excellent," said Mr. Bemperlein.

"It is acknowledged to be one of the best in Germany," continued Oswald. "Then I would go to some other universities as long as the money lasts."

"Money like hay, money like hay," continued Mr. Bemperlein--"for six years a princely income and full board--I pray you, my dear sir, I have enough to live on for half a century."

"Then I would become a famous physician----"

"Do you know," said Bemperlein, standing still and looking back at the boys, in a whisper, "I have already poisoned some of Julius' rabbits secretly, and dissected them afterwards, and the frogs in the swamps behind our park have no reason to be friends of mine."

"Well done!" laughed Oswald. "And then I would marry."

"Really?" said Bemperlein.

"Well, of course, and--have a half-dozen little Bemperleins who would, after a while, all turn out great Bemperleins, bright, s.h.i.+ning lights in modern science."

"And the girls?" said Bemperlein, laughing.

"The girls will marry brave, truthful men, and thus help to bring on the good time when we shall have, 'Oh Liberty, sweet liberty!'"

"Yes, yes," cried Mr. Bemperlein, "so must it come. Thanks, a thousand thanks, my dear friend; you have scattered the last clouds of doubt by your encouraging words. Tomorrow I go with Julius to Grunwald."

"I will give you a letter of introduction to Professor Berger," said Oswald; "he is connected with all the great men in Natural Science."

He tore a leaf from his pocket-book, wrote a few lines to Berger, and gave it to Bemperlein.

"Thanks! many thanks!" said the latter, taking the note. "The acquaintance with such a man may become very useful to me."

"Most a.s.suredly. Speak quite candidly with him, without any reserve whatever, and then you may feel a.s.sured that he will not conceal from you anything that is in his heart. Perhaps he will advise you to go at once to a larger University, as, for instance, that at the capital. You must follow his advice."

"_Nous verrons! nous verrons!_" said Mr. Bemperlein. "But here we are at the park gate. Won't you come in?"

"No, no," replied Oswald, hastily. "I must get back to Grenwitz."

"Well, then, farewell! As soon as I have installed Julius in Grunwald, and as soon as I have obtained all the information I want from Berger, I shall be back again to take formal leave. In the mean time, farewell, my dear sir."

"Good-by, good-by!" said Oswald, pressing Bemperlein's hand, and then Julius', and taking Bruno back with him into the forest, as if an angel with a flaming sword was keeping watch at the park-gates of Berkow.