Problematic Characters Part 41

"You may be as ironical as you choose. I insist upon it, you would do just as these mad barons have done before, in spite of your pretended aversion, which you perhaps only cherish like the dog that is put into traces to pull a wheelbarrow, and snarls at the dog that is running about free."

"But what in heaven's name makes you think so? What justifies your presumption?"

"My profound though superficial studies of physiognomy," replied Albert. "I have been an adept in that science from my boyhood, perhaps even a martyr, for my excessive zeal in pursuing that study often earned me a terrible whipping at school. Instead of listening attentively, I used to draw the cleverest caricatures of the sparrows, the monkeys, sheep, and other heads all around me; for I need not tell you that the best way to find out the character of a face or a figure is to try to caricature it. Now, if I bring out the melancholy feature in your face with special emphasis, it becomes the veritable face of a Grenwitz, sad, and yet irresistibly sensual,--the very face which a poor innocent maiden would lose her soul for. I will be hanged if you are not going to be the luckiest man alive, as far as women are concerned--unless you have been so already."

"And if I a.s.sure you of the contrary?"

"Then Baron Harald was not the rat-catcher of Hameln, but a night-watchman, and he did not die from his excessive fondness of wine and women, but from over-study; then little Marguerite--who is by the way a really charming girl, and not unnaturally reserved--told me a story when she said she hated you, which in our language means: I am desperately in love with him; then report has lied when it couples your name with that of another lady, fairer and of far higher pretensions than poor little Marguerite."

"What do you mean?" asked Oswald, feeling that the blood was rus.h.i.+ng to his face.

"Nothing, _mon prince_, nothing," replied Albert, laughing; "is it absolutely necessary always to mean something when we say something? I was only to beat the bush to see if the birds would fly out. For one needs no gla.s.ses such as I have to wear, nor the knowledge of a Lavater, to see that the weather is not alone to be blamed for your melancholy. Whenever one of us is melancholy, a pair of black or blue eyes is invariably at the bottom of it. Now I do not ascribe it to Miss Marguerite's pretty black eyes, for I have seen the sovereign indifference with which you treat the poor child; so it must be another pair of eyes, and consequently, if that is so, these eyes must belong to somebody, and if that is so----"

"Enough, enough!" said Oswald, laughing at the merry jingling talk of his companion in spite of his melancholy state of mind; "you will presently prove that I am the man in the moon, and about to plunge head over heels into the great ether from love for a fair princess who lives on the star Sirius."

"Why not?" asked Albert "I am the wise Merlin; I know all the whims a man can have in his head; I hear a report, which I may have started myself, long before it comes near me, and I prophesy that if we do not reach some shelter before five minutes have pa.s.sed, we shall be washed clean as we never were before."

The two men were on an open field between the forest and the tenants'

cottages belonging to Grenwitz. Albert's prophecy seemed to be on the point of being fulfilled. The dark heavy ma.s.ses sank lower and lower, so that it looked almost like night at the early afternoon hour; a few big drops came pattering down.

"_Sauve qui peut_," cried Albert. "What do you say, dottore, shall we have a little race to that cottage?"

"Well!" said Oswald.

"Ah! That was in the nick of time," said Albert, when they were safe under the projecting roof of the hut, and shook himself like a dog. "My coat might have been benefited by the was.h.i.+ng, but I prefer being here.

How it rains! Shall we go in and see the interior of this palazzo, dottore, or do you think the old woman there, who is looking at us from the little window, is the same old witch who has conjured up this abominable weather?"

"Good-day, Mother Claus," said Oswald, recognizing his old friend whom he had met on his way to church.

"Many thanks, young master," said Mother Claus, and nodded kindly. "I expected you. Just come in, and the other one too, if he is your friend."

"Well, now--what does that mean?" asked Albert, surprised.

"Just follow me," replied Oswald. "You shall make the acquaintance of a remarkable old woman."

And, not without stooping low, they entered through the door into the hut.

CHAPTER VII.

"Walk in here," said Mother Claus, seizing Oswald by the hand and drawing him from the dark pa.s.sage into a little room with one window, opposite to the larger room on the other side, into which Oswald, aided by the steward, had carried the sick servant the other day. She did not trouble herself about Albert, as if she knew that the young man possessed a talent for finding his way in the dark. "I have looked for you; for I know from of old that you love to run about in such weather, to cool your hot youthful blood. Are you quite wet through again, as usually? Well, not so badly this time! There, sit down in the easy-chair. None of you have ever sat there since the day on which Baron Oscar died in it, forty-three years ago."

"Not a particular recommendation for superst.i.tious minds," said Albert, seating himself on a large wooden chest in the background of the room, while the old woman was pus.h.i.+ng Oswald into the easy-chair and sat down at his feet on a footstool; "but honor to whom honor is due. You look quite grand, doctor, on that single gala-piece of furniture in this otherwise very plain room, especially in the Rembrandt light that falls on you, and with the old woman, Murillo fas.h.i.+on, at your feet, like a banished king who seeks shelter with an old fairy in the forest, while his faithful squire sits modestly in the background. I really believe our race has tired me, and I could sleep a few moments. Wake me, dottore, when it stops raining--" and Albert stretched himself full length on the old chest, put his hands under his head, and, in spite of the uncomfortable position, he seemed to have fallen asleep after a few minutes, while the monotonous ticking of the old cuckoo clock in the corner, and the dripping of the falling rain, alone interrupted the profound silence in the little room.

Mother Claus had taken up her knitting and was at work as busily as the other day at a tiny child's sock, busily, busily, that the needles clinked merrily. Only from time to time she would look up at Oswald and nod kindly, as if she was glad that he was sitting so comfortably in the soft old armchair, here in the cosey room, while the rain came down pitilessly outside.

"Is it not a good chair, young master?" she said, laying down her knitting for a moment, and putting her right hand on Oswald's knee.

"The baroness gave it to me after the baron died. She could not bear to look at it, she said; for it reminded her always of the moment when they brought him in, after he had fallen with Wodan, and put him into that chair; and Harald came running in and cried, when he saw his father so pale and disfigured, and she, too, was running about in the room and wringing her hands, and I stood by the baron and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. I had no time for crying then, but I knew I would have time enough afterwards."

"And how old was Baron Harald when his father died?" asked Oswald.

"Ten years," answered Mother Claus, "and it would have been better for him if he had died too--for him and many others."

The old woman had taken up her knitting again, which had been lying idle in her lap, and was knitting more busily than ever, as if she wanted to make up for lost time.

"Yes, yes," she said; "it would have been better. Then he was a beautiful, innocent boy, with rosy cheeks and violet eyes, and when he died----"

The old woman paused--the needles clinked and the rain beat against the panes.

"Well," said Oswald, "and when he died----"

"Then he was a bad man, and it was a bad death. I alone know it, for I alone was with the poor man when death seized him with the iron hand.

Then they struggled with each other, strong Harald and strong Death, and it was a horrible sight, so horrible that all the others ran away; but I would not abandon him in his last hour, for he was, after all, Oscar's son, and I had borne him in my arms when he was an innocent babe, and rocked him on my knees. So I held on and prayed, while he swore and cursed G.o.d, till Death struck him on the heart, and he cried out aloud and fell back on his pillow. Then it was all over with him, and his poor soul was at rest."

"And had the baron no friend who might have stood by him in his last hour?"

"Friends enough, and men among them who were not afraid of a death-bed; but they were afraid of Harald; he would have strangled and torn to pieces any one who would have come to him at that hour. I only wish they had come, one after the other; there was not one among them but deserved to have his neck twisted."

"And who were these sad friends?"

"First, Baron Barnewitz, not the one at Sullitz, who is still alive,--he is a good man and harms no one,--but he at Smittow, who afterwards lost all his money at play to Baron Berkow, and then sold him his daughter to pay his debts."

"Melitta!" groaned Oswald, and his hands seized nervously the back of his chair.

"What ails you, young master?" asked the old woman.

"Nothing, nothing," murmured Oswald, with a supernatural effort to overcome a mingled feeling of horror, pity, hatred, and revenge, which arose in his heart when he saw the image of his beloved one thus dragged through the mire of vulgar pa.s.sions.--Melitta sold, sold by her own father, to a man who did not love her, whom she only married to save her father from disgrace! Oswald felt that such a thought would madden him if he followed it out, and at the same time he was afraid that cunning Mr. Timm, of whose profound slumbers he was by no means quite convinced, in spite of an occasional snore from the great chest, might notice his emotion. He forced himself, therefore, to sit still and to ask, with apparent calmness:

"Was Baron Berkow one of Harald's friends? Was he not too young at that time?"

"He was the youngest," said Mother Claus, "and the best too. He did what he saw the others did, without thinking whether it was right or wrong. He was not as powerful as the others. When he drank one bottle, Harald drank three, and yet Harald remained master of himself and Berkow fell under the table."

"Was he a handsome man?" asked Oswald.

"Not as handsome as Harald, and far less so than you are, young master.

He was smaller and weaklier than either of you, and Harald could have mastered six like him. But then there was far and near no one as bold and as strong as Harald. He could stop the wildest horse running at full speed, and make it as gentle and obedient as a dog, and he always jumped in the saddle without touching the stirrup. They told wonderful stories of his gigantic strength, but it was just as I tell you. When he was angry--and he was very often angry--he would break a heavy oaken chair or table as if it were gla.s.s. Then the veins on his forehead would swell like thick branches, and white foam would froth at his mouth, so that it was a horrible sight; but when he laughed and was in good humor, you could not help loving him again. Then he could be so sweet, and say such nice things; no one would have thought him such a bad man. For bad he was, after all; whatever pleased him he must have, cost what it might, and if everything else should perish."

"Were you all that time up at the castle?"

"Why do you speak so politely to me, young master? You never did it before, I am sure. Yes, I was up at the castle. You know my husband was dead, and the boys were dead, and the girls, and I was the only one who looked a little after things up there since the death of the baroness.

I did not like to stay there, Heaven knows, for Castle Grenwitz was no better than Sodom and Gomorrah. Every day came friends, and often half a dozen other visitors besides, and then playing and drinking till late in the morning."

"Did ladies ever come to the castle?"

"No, even the boldest were afraid of these wild men. And most of them were not married then, like Baron Berkow; or their wives had died, like Baron Barnewitz, and thus they could carry it on undisturbed. There never were any women there I would speak of, except one, except one----"