Problematic Characters Part 55

"Thus he asked me yesterday, when we met the third time at the same hour and the same place on the great wall, and had exchanged the same phrases about the weather, if it would not be better hereafter to say simply: 'As yesterday,' unless the weather should have changed. We should thus avoid meeting in silence, which was always painful for people staying at the same house, and yet reduce the cost of conversation to a minimum, a saving which was not unimportant even for the cleverest among us--and an ironical bow. That was pretty strong; but, as I tell you, he says these things with such a quiet smile that it is hard to tell whether he is in earnest or not. They all seem to have a certain respect for him here, even mamma. But with Bruno he stands on a very peculiar footing, and it is really a beautiful sight to see them saunter through the garden, arm in arm, not at all like tutor and pupil, but rather like two intimate friends, a real Orestes and Pylades. This touching friends.h.i.+p, however, does not prevent Bruno from playing at being my knight on every occasion. The boy reads in my eyes what I want, or rather he guesses it and knows it even without my looking at him. At times this almost frightens me. When I think during the promenade: I might as well lay aside my shawl! Bruno is sure to say: Shall I carry your shawl, Helen? At table he sits at my side, and only hands me what I like; the other dishes he lets pa.s.s, and says: I know you don't eat that, Helen! He is a darling of a boy, although that name hardly suits him, for he will soon be sixteen, and he is tall and strong like a youthful Achilles. I believe he would go through the fire for me; into the water he jumped only yesterday for my sake. We were walking in the evening on the wall, and the wind blew my straw hat into the moat. My poor hat! I cried. Do you want it? asked Bruno.--Why, of course, I said--but only jesting, for I knew the moat is quite deep, and at that place it was some twenty feet wide. The hat was floating towards the middle. Bruno was down the wall in an instant, and into the water. I was frightened, and I believe I actually cried out. Don't be troubled, said Mr. Stein, fortunately no one else was present,--Bruno swims like a Newfoundland dog, and even if he should not return, he would have died like a knight in the service of the fair. That is always a consolation.--Fortunately, Bruno came swimming back after two or three anxious minutes. Mr. Stein helped him on sh.o.r.e, and then they went off laughing, and left me quite alone--a touching picture, no doubt, with the soaked hat in my hand. But Mr. Stein seems to be quite offended at me for having exposed his pet to such danger. At least he did not appear this morning at the promenade; at table he was quite monosyllabic, and begged me to excuse him from the lesson in literature, which he gives me twice a week, because he had 'a headache.' This fortunately did not prevent him from standing out in the garden, in the broiling afternoon sun, for half an hour or more, as I noticed from my window. He remained there almost immovable, with folded arms, staring into the basin of a fountain, from which a Naiad looked smiling down upon him.--He is a strange kind of a saint...."

The young lady had no doubt intended to state nothing but the truth in this letter, which evidently revealed more of her innermost soul than she probably supposed, but as to the reason for Oswald's sombre and absent-minded ways she was nevertheless mistaken.

CHAPTER III.

It was the evening of the same day on which Helen was watching Oswald near the fountain of the Naiad, from her window, that in a room of the Hotel Bellevue, at N., a place celebrated on account of Doctor Birkenhain's famous asylum for insane persons, a lady and a gentleman were sitting near a door opening upon a balcony. Twilight had come; guests were returning, dust-covered, from their afternoon excursions; from time to time a carriage rolled by, in which beautiful ladies were sitting, comfortably reclining on soft cus.h.i.+ons. Then the street became more quiet, and over the gardens rose the evening star in the saffron-colored sky. The lady in the balcony door sat with her eyes fixed on the star; the gentleman, who sat further back in the room, looked at her. Both had not spoken a word for the last half-hour; now the gentleman rose, came close up to the lady's chair, and said in a low tone:

"I must go, Melitta."

"When will you call to-morrow?"

"I shall not come again to-morrow; I shall leave N. this very evening."

"But you promised to stay as long as possible, that is, till the appointment with the Brown Countess forced you to return?"

"I meant to do so, but it is useless. I have had a long conversation to-day with Doctor Birkenhain; he thinks it impossible that Berkow will awake again before he dies. And suppose he should be roused, what does it help him if I am present? The other day I came in twice, and what did he want? Nothing--to ask me if the testament was securely kept!

That was all!"

"But he might change his last will----"

"No. At the time when he wrote his last will, before myself and old Baumann, he was still in possession of his mind, though sick and feeble; he made you his sole heir, as he was bound to do. He knew he owed you at least that sign of repentance. He meant to say by that: I am not quite as bad as you thought me; I see at least that I have made you very unhappy, and I would try to undo what I have done, if it were in my power."

"Let us drop that subject!" said Melitta, rising and leaning over the railing of the balcony to look down into the dark street. Then she came back into the room and said:

"Do you go straight back to Cona?"

"No, I mean to spend the time that is left me by going up the Rhine; perhaps I shall come back here on my return."

"Then leave Czika here, will you? As a pledge that you do come back."

"Do you really wish it, Melitta?"

"You have once more been very kind to me."

"Then it is simply from grat.i.tude?"

"And--friends.h.i.+p."

"Farewell, Melitta!"

"Happy journey, Oldenburg!"

The baron went slowly towards the door; there he stopped, and came back once more to say:

"Have you always been convinced that I was your friend, Melitta?"

"Yes."

"Have you always been convinced that I loved you?"

Melitta was silent.

"No? Never, at any time?" asked the baron, in a low voice.

"Let us bury the past!"

"No, Melitta, let us speak of it. I may not find another such opportunity in my life. No, no! For our old friends.h.i.+p, or whatever you call it, is dead, since I was fool enough to let you see that I loved you--and there is no bridge to span that abyss. For the moment we are united by common distress; as soon as I leave this room we shall be strangers again to each other. Melitta, by our former friends.h.i.+p, by the memory of our common youth and its happiness, tell me, did you never believe that I loved you?"

"I do not know----"

"That is hard," said the baron, "that is hard." He sank into a chair, leaned his arm on the back, and hid his face in his hand.

He rose again, walked up and down with long strides, crossing his arms on his breast, and said, as if speaking to himself: "Why should men complain, who love and are loved again, if they are cheated out of their hopes in one way or another? Why do they complain who love and are not loved again, but at least have the consolation of seeing that their grief is respected, and that others pity their suffering? No--to love, as a son of earth can love, with all his soul, with every drop of blood in his veins, and then to learn--not that he is not loved again--pshaw, that is nothing--but that he is looked upon as a pretender, a mere trifler--ha, ha, ha!--that is real bliss such as is dealt out to the poor devils who are undergoing torture."

"And if I cannot believe that you love me, who is to blame for it? Who arranged that scene in the garden of the village Serra di Falco? You or I?"

"What?" said the baron, stopping suddenly, "are you really such a novice in love that I must give you an explanation of that farce? Do you really think that I--who do not easily overlook anything--had not long since seen you behind the myrtle hedge before I sank at Hortense's feet and invoked the sun, which had set long ago, and the moon, that was not s.h.i.+ning, and the stars, that knew better, to witness my burning pa.s.sion? Could you take that for a moment in earnest?"

"What else?"

"It was an allegory. I wished to show you: See, that is what you will have left if you refuse me. You force me, who wish to wors.h.i.+p a saint, to seek forgetfulness in the arms of a----. Melitta, Melitta, confess!

You knew perfectly well it was a farce, but you found it convenient to take it in earnest. You wished to get rid of me, and even at the price of a misunderstanding!"

"And if that had been my wish--suppose it was my wish--is not the gentleman's duty to honor the lady's will, especially if he loves that lady?"

"And did I not honor it? Did I not leave that very night at a word, at a mere sign? Have I not wandered about for three years, like Ahasuerus, in foreign countries, and have I not, after my return, avoided every opportunity to meet you, because I apprehended a misfortune? Was it my will which made us meet at the ball at Barnewitz? Was it my desire which brought us here together? No, Melitta, you cannot complain of me.

I have kept my love for you concealed in my bosom for long, long years,--for I have loved you ever since I could think; since I knew that the song of nightingales and suns.h.i.+ne and the roaring of the waves are precious things,--and if I was fool enough to forget for a moment how hopeless my pa.s.sion was, I have paid dearly for my folly. I knew as a boy already, that you loved your horse and your dog better than me, and yet I checked my pride, and yet I humbled myself again and again before you, I who never yet in all my life could utter a request to human being!"

The baron continued his restless wandering through the room for a time, and after some silence he paused again before Melitta and said:

"I humbled myself still more. I saw the woman whom my soul yearned for as Dives did for a drop of water beloved by another; I saw her return him a love for which I would have thanked G.o.d on my knees a thousand times--and I did not stir! I tried my best not to hate the fortunate man, I met him with cordiality and took him by the hand, I tried to win his confidence and his affection, not to betray him and you, but because I felt that your happiness was dearer to me than everything else, and that the man whom you loved must either be loved by me too, or die by my hand!"

"You are terrible, Oldenburg," cried Melitta, half rising from her chair; "it seems I cannot hide the secret of the innermost recesses of my soul from you."

"I am not terrible," said the baron, "I am only in the way, that is the privilege of a friend. Do not think I have obtained your secret by stealth! I have only kept my eyes open, that is all! Or do you think we do not at last learn to understand the faintest vibration in the face which we constantly see when we are awake, and, alas! but too often also in our dreams? And when we have at last abandoned all hope of being loved, we wish at least to be sure that he who is more fortunate is not unworthy of his good luck."

"Oldenburg!"

"He is not unworthy, but--I am your friend, Melitta! He is not quite worthy of you. He has many good and n.o.ble qualities, I know; but his character has not been steeled in the thrice sacred fire of misfortune, and thus he cannot appreciate good fortune. He is marvellously susceptible for all that is beautiful and graceful, and so he adores you; but this very susceptibility for all that is beautiful makes it very difficult for him not to forget a fair and lovely object for the sake of one that is fairer and lovelier. He cannot be constant. He is a poet, and the poet's love is the ideal. He is capable of pus.h.i.+ng aside a precious jewel with contempt, if his sharp eye should notice the smallest flaw; he seizes whatever the earth offers him with eagerness, and casts it aside because it is of the earth; and even if it were divine he would despise it if it had but a remnant of earthy matter about it."

"You tell me only, Oldenburg, what I have told myself a hundred and a thousand times."

"I know I do. You cannot find it difficult to understand such characters, for they are akin to your own. But you are a woman, and women do not go to the same extreme. You are, after all, willing to submit at last, in spite of long resistance, and then you are proud of your chains; man may boast of them for a time, as long as they are new, but after a while he throws them aside. And so it will be here."