Problematic Characters Part 50

"We shall buy for it a little house."

"Of course."

"I shall give lessons in French."

"Of course."

"And you will be industrious and work."

"_Comme un forcat_--oh, it is going to be a charming life," and Mr.

Timm seized the little Frenchwoman around the waist and waltzed her around in the bower in which they were chatting.

"I must go in now, to give the servants their supper," said Marguerite, withdrawing herself.

"Then run, you little monkey, and come back again as soon as you can,"

said Mr. Timm.

He looked after her as she ran away. "Stupid little woman," he said; "really thinks I am going to marry her. What a fool I should be--for three hundred dollars! Formerly I lost as much at play in a night. It is grand, what these girls fancy; and yet this one is not as stupid as she looks, and seems to have studied the great Goethe, in spite of her horrible jargon, to some advantage: 'Yield to no thief, but with the ring on your finger.' Hm, hm! I shall have to buy her a wedding-ring, after all! The three hundred dollars would not be so bad! These abominations of creditors! Not even here they leave me alone."

Mr. Timm felt in his breast pocket and drew from it several letters of suspicious appearance, which he carefully unfolded and perused, after having ensconced himself in the corner of the bench. His face, generally merry enough, grew darker and darker. "Upon my word," he growled, "these fellows are becoming insolent. If I could satisfy the roaring lions with a couple of hundreds they might be silent, at least for a while."

"Hm, hm! The three hundred dollars which little Marguerite has in the Savings Bank would be very convenient. It would, after all, be better for her to be poor. For, of course, every sensible man can see that I am not going to fulfil my promise to marry her unless I am forced to do so. If I am under moral obligations only, I fear I am not quite safe to her; but if I should be under pecuniary obligations to her, her chances are decidedly better. I can make her believe I will invest her money where she can obtain a better interest, or some such thing. When the stupid little things are in love they'll believe anything. And can she invest her money better than in the purchase of a handsome fellow for her husband, who would otherwise not think of marrying her? _Me Herculem!_ I feel quite raised in my estimation by the thought, to become a benefactor of the poor little girl. I must see at once what I can do with her. If she refuses, I shall have to respect her for her wisdom, but I won't be able to love her any more."

Albert rose and slowly walked up to the chateau, his hands folded behind his back, as was his habit when his ingenious brain was busy with the solution of a problem. Marguerite was busy in the lower regions near the kitchen, and Albert went up to his room, in order to give a few more moments undisturbed to his great purpose.

He bent over the paper which was stretched out on his drawing-board, and on which he had done nothing since the departure of the family, that is, for a whole week.

"If that goes on so, Anna Maria will marvel at the progress I have made," he said; "it is really amazing what a superb talent for idleness I have, or, to express it more elegantly, for the _dolce far niente_.

There are evidently in life enchanted lazzaroni, as there are enchanted princes, and I am unmistakably such an enchanted son of sunny Naples, who has been changed into a surveyor, compelled to eat his bread in the sweat of his face. But how did it come about, I wonder, that I have thus given way to my natural disposition for a whole week? Is little Marguerite alone to blame for it? Hardly! Oh yes! Now I remember! I want a map from the archive-room, and asked for the key a week ago. I must go and get that map, or, by my burning love for little Marguerite, this unfinished plat will remain a fragment for all eternity."

Albert went into the archive-room, a large apartment on the ground floor of the old castle. The walls were covered, from the ceiling to the floor, with receptacles full of old yellow doc.u.ments and papers of every kind, many of which were extremely old and would have been of very great interest to the antiquarian. While he was looking among these archives for the old map, a small bundle of letters fell into his hand, which he would have hurled back, in all probability, into its ancient home, like so many others, if his curiosity had not been excited by the address on the outside: "For Baron Harald Grenwitz, at Grenwitz." As excessive discretion was by no means one of Mr. Timm's most prominent qualities, he broke unceremoniously the red tape with which the letters had been bound together, and began to read one after another--an occupation which proved so deeply interesting that he forgot everything else, and did not even hear a carriage, which stopped at the great portal, and caused no small sensation in the chateau.

CHAPTER XII.

Oswald had spent the week which had elapsed since the departure of the family in the solitude of a fisherman's village, not far from Berkow, where he had been entirely cut off from all intercourse with the world.

How he had got there he hardly knew himself.

Since Melitta had been so suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed away from him, he had been seized with boundless indifference for everything that was not in some way connected with her. She filled his whole soul. In this apathy he had parted even with Bruno quite easily. He acceded to the wishes of the baroness all the more readily, as he longed for solitude in his present frame of mind. Thus he said yes to everything, and when he saw the carriage start with the family inside, he felt as if he had been relieved of a heavy burden. He hurriedly said good-by to Mr. Timm and Marguerite, who remained at home, and flinging a light knapsack, which dated still from his university years, upon his back, he wandered gayly out at the door, like the hero in a fairy tale, without knowing where he was going, or where he was to rest his weary head that night.

The sun was burning hot; Oswald remembered that it would be fresh and cool in the forest. He turned off the road, and soon the pine-trees were rustling overhead. The low whispering of the thousand green leaves lulled him into sweet reveries. Dreamily he wandered on till he suddenly came out upon the clearing where Melitta's chapel stood, under the shelter of a broad, branching beech-tree that counted many hundred years.

The door of the cottage was locked, the green blinds were closed, the steps and the veranda carefully swept, as directed by the strict regulations of old Baumann, who was now ruling supreme. He sat down outside, lost in thought and resting his head in his hand. In the branches of the beech-tree overhead, a little bird was twittering his monotonous song in ever-repeated melancholy.... How lonely he felt--how lonely and forsaken! Like a child which on its way back to beloved parents has lost its way on the great heath. Here, at this very place, he had been seated, the night before the party, with Melitta; she had rested her head on his shoulder and her lips had whispered the sweetest, most precious words of love. Now all was silent--so silent that he could hear the beating of his own heart. Longing thoughts of the absent one pa.s.sed through his soul, as birds in their flight to the South pa.s.s through the blue ether.

A ray of the sun, which made its way, hot and piercing, through the foliage, admonished him that it was time to go on. He was not in a hurry, it is true. It was an early hour of the afternoon, and he was likely to find some place or other where he might stay over night. Thus he sauntered through the forest on a path which he had not trod before, and which led him, before he was aware of it, down to the beach. Now he followed the strand, sometimes high up on a bluff, if the sea washed the foot of the chalk cliffs so as to leave no path; at other times on the clean s.h.i.+ngle of the narrow beach. Here and there a brook came rus.h.i.+ng out from the interior of the island, breaking its way through the tall ramparts, and covering by its moisture the whole dell with an almost Southern vegetation. But, with the exception of these few green oases, the eye saw nothing but bare rocks, sterile sand, the monstrous blue ocean, and here and there a white summer-cloud immovable on the blue sky, while below a lonely sail would dot the wide expanse. And with this monotonous view harmonized the monotonous music of the breakers, interrupted at times by the cry of a gull or the melancholy piping of a sandpiper.

The monotony of these lines, these hues, these sounds, would have been intolerable for a heavy, fresh mind, but it suited Oswald's state of mind. There are hours when we welcome rainy weather or a dismal landscape as old friends, on whose faces we can read their sympathy with our sorrow; hours when suns.h.i.+ne and birds' songs and the merry purling of a lively brook appear to us like an insult. Oswald's melancholy mood harmonized with this sober mood of nature that seemed to ignore happiness and joy, but knew all the more of the sorrows and sufferings of life. Did not the sudden cry, the shrill piping of the seamen sound like plaintive notes? Did it not sound as if the sea was perpetually murmuring the confused riddle of life in half insane tones, as the waves were breaking unceasingly and in monotonous accents against the strand? And his own life appeared to him as aimless and hapless as his wandering about among the rocks on the sh.o.r.e. Was it any better than the mark he made on the hard sand which the next wave washed away forever? Why was he born? why did he cause so much grief and pain to himself and others, if it was all to end in nothing? And if fortune really for once seems to smile, it is but for a moment; it is but an illusion which a wicked fairy summons up from the inhospitable, restless sea, to sink us the next instant in its unfathomable depth, just as we fancy we are reaching the sh.o.r.e, with its waving palm-trees and gorgeous palaces.

A small village which lay before Oswald was hid in the innermost recesses of a little bay, surrounded on all sides by tall chalk cliffs, except only a small opening towards the sea. There the water was as smooth and silent as a pond in a garden. A few huts lay near the beach; others followed the banks of the brook, which here fell into the sea, after having washed its way through the deep and wide dell. Little gardens, adorned with bright sh.e.l.ls, were before the doors; on the pa.s.sages within, seen through the open entrance, and strewn with white sand, nets were hanging on long poles; a couple of red-cheeked boys were busy tarring a new boat, and before one of the larger cottages sat three women knitting nets.

Oswald went up to them, and as they looked up with curiosity when they heard his footstep, he asked them if he might be permitted to rest a little there, and if they could get him a gla.s.s of water and a piece of bread.

"Stine," said the oldest of the three women--a matron of stately proportions, and an exceedingly good-natured, sunburnt face--to one of the two young girls by her side, "get up and give the gentleman your seat. Don't you see he is tired and hungry? Go into the house and bring out what we have. Sit down, sir. You are, no doubt, a painter?"

"Why should I be a painter?" asked Oswald, taking the proffered seat.

"Well, no man in his senses would climb about in such a heat; it is only people who are not quite right there (pointing with her forefinger at her forehead) that do so. Well, never mind, Mr. Painter, I have had one of your companions to stay with me here, who stayed two weeks; and if you are as steady and orderly as he was, you may stay also with Mother Carsten; but you must not bedaub the walls, I tell you that at once."

Oswald could not help smiling as he saw himself thus unceremoniously transformed into a travelling landscape painter. How? Should he accept the harmless part which chance seemed to allot to him? He was perfectly indifferent as to the place where he might stay; all he wanted was solitude, and could he find deeper solitude than here in this secluded bay, among these simple-hearted, good-natured people, who would not mind it if he should spend half his days climbing about among the rocks? And then he was near Berkow, from which he did not wish to go far, since he had arranged it with Melitta, that if her absence should be unexpectedly protracted, old Baumann would take charge of their correspondence.

"Then you would let me stay here a few days?" he asked.

"Yes, but you must not bedaub the walls," said Mother Carsten.

"I promise I will not do that," said Oswald, smiling.

"Then you can stay as long as you choose. That is right, Stine, move the table closer up to the gentleman; and look here, get some of the old Cognac which Claus brought from England; pure water does no good in this unreasonable heat."

Oswald had been staying nearly a week in the village, and he had never repented for a moment his acceptance of Mother Carsten's invitation. He enjoyed her highest favor. He had not made a line on the white-washed walls of his little bedroom; he always had a kindly word for everybody, even for the immensely old and almost crazy father of Mother Carsten, who sat all day long in his easy-chair, staring at the sun and at the sea, if his weary old eyes did not close in sleep, as was generally the case. Mother Carsten said Oswald was as "orderly and staid" a man as his predecessor, but that he was still less "right here,"--and the forefinger went up to the forehead again,--than the other one. Mother Carsten was induced to make such a strange remark by the fact that Oswald not only did not cover the walls of his bedroom with charcoal sketches of s.h.i.+ps under sail, with cliffs around which the gulls were fluttering, and with original faces of weather-beaten sailors, as his predecessor had done, but that he did not draw or paint at all, but simply ran about all day long on the strand, or pulled himself all alone in a small boat so far out into the offing that they could hardly make him out in the distance! How he could amuse himself all the time.

Mother Carsten could not divine; she would have probably thought it as mysterious as ever if she had seen Oswald, as soon as he was alone, draw a letter from his pocket which an old, odd-looking man had handed to him several days before, and read it over and over again, as if he had not long since known every word and every letter by heart. The odd-looking old man, who rode one of those high-legged, long-necked horses that Claus had seen in England, was, of course, no one else but old Baumann on Brownlock. Oswald had sent him word, the day after his arrival at the village, that he intended for the present to stay there, and the same information had been sent to Grenwitz. The next day already had brought him a letter from his beloved. It contained only a few words, hastily written on the journey, just before retiring, in a small town of Central Germany--a few words, confused and sad, but sweet and precious, like kisses from beloved lips at the moment of wedding.

He had sent his answer back by Baumann, and was now looking daily for another and a fuller letter with an impatience which was by no means altogether joyous.

All minds busy with ideals are apt to complain that nothing here below is perfectly pure, and that often as we strive to ascend into brighter and purer regions, a painful burden of earthy matter drags us soon down again to the eternal level.

Oswald also had frequently suffered from this difficulty; it had spoilt many of his pleasures, it had made him dislike many good people and bad musicians, it threatened even now to become fatal to his love. Not long ago he had made the terrible discovery in his own heart that treachery was lurking there when he thought it altogether filled with love. He had excused himself, it is true, as to the scene in the bay-window at Barnewitz, by saying: I was beside myself; I did not know what I was doing--but can jealousy ever be an excuse for faithlessness? And then: Was that jealousy at least perfectly dead now? Had it not blazed up again in bright flames when he found Melitta's image behind the curtain in the baron's room? Had he not listened to Melitta's recital with breathless apprehension, ever fearing lest now a fact might come out which would after all confirm his suspicions about that man--lest she might, after all, have loved this remarkable man, perhaps without knowing it herself? Had she not said: "I thought I loved him!" And at the very moment when her story had reached the catastrophe which was to explain everything, even her evident antipathy to Oldenburg at this time--just then a message is brought of such a strange and weird nature that it ends in upsetting Oswald's overwrought mind! It was not enough, that he had in Baron Oldenburg a rival facing him in bodily presence; he must now encounter, besides, a husband, or at least the ghost of a husband, who rises from a night of insanity that has lasted seven years, to beckon her to his dying bed--her, his beloved, his Melitta!

Oswald felt as if his own mind would give way were he to follow out this thought. He had so completely forgotten that Melitta had ever been married, that she had ever lain in the arms of another man, it mattered little whether she had loved him or not--that she had ever accepted his caresses--he crushed her letter, he could have cried aloud with pain, he felt like das.h.i.+ng his head against the rocky cliffs. Why this poison in the cup of his love? Why must the pure garments of his angel be dragged through the mire of vulgar life? Why must a foul worm have been gnawing at the beautiful flower? And if she were only free now! But even when the night of insanity was to be swallowed up in the night of death, she would not be free yet. She is the mother of her child, of his child, and this consideration, forgotten for the moment, will resume its place in the foreground, and she will have to give me up!

And yet, why should it not be so? Can I, the enthusiast for liberty, ever marry the aristocrat? Can I dream of intruding upon a cla.s.s of men who will ever look at me askant? No! No! Rather live like these poor fishermen, who must earn their daily bread at the risk of their lives in their strife with the cruel ocean.

Thus Oswald's mind was wandering restlessly about in a labyrinth of painful doubts as he himself was wandering among the cliffs on the lonely sh.o.r.e, and who knows where this constant brooding on painful riddles might have led him in the end, if an event had not occurred which forced him unexpectedly, and very much against his will, to return to that society which he hated so bitterly.

CHAPTER XIII.

For when he returned on the next following day, towards evening, from a long absence to the village, he found a carriage and two horses standing before the door of Mother Carsten's cottage. This was so very unusual an event in this secluded part of the world, that Oswald at once presumed something extraordinary must have happened. Women and children, and the few men who were not out fis.h.i.+ng, stood staring around the carriage and the door of the cottage. They wanted to know if Stephen, Mother Carsten's father, was really going to die this time, or whether the young doctor whom Mother Carsten had sent for a few hours ago, would once more save him in spite of his fearful cough.

This was what Oswald learned when he came in their midst. They stood there with troubled faces, and were very talkative, contrary to their usual habit. For Father Stephen was the patriarch of the village, honored by all, even by Oswald, who, forgetful of his incognito, at once hastened into the house and the sitting-room. The white-haired old man sat there pale and languid, but apparently out of danger--thanks to the opportune a.s.sistance of Doctor Braun, who was just trying to escape from the expressions of grat.i.tude with which he was overwhelmed by Mother Carsten, her daughters, and half a dozen other women.

"Welcome!" he said to Oswald, as the latter entered, "Welcome indeed, for I have a commission for you; will you permit me to deliver it at once, as my time is short?"

The doctor took Oswald unceremoniously by the arm and led him out of the house.