Problematic Characters Part 60

"Have you twisted your foot, dearest cousin?" asked Felix.

"Why?"

"Because you sit so still, and are in such awful humor," replied Felix, laughing, and went to join the others, without giving a sign that he had been hurt by Helen's manner.

"Will you not join the company, doctor?" asked Helen, on whose cheeks the excitement of the last little scene was still glowing, while the others began the somewhat steep path which led down to the beach.

"Do you wish to be alone?"

"Oh, no! on the contrary, I am glad you mean to stay. After the very witty conversation at dinner, and since, I feel the want of talking sense for a little while. You have not told me yet whether I have hurt your feelings unwittingly, by some thoughtless word, perhaps?"

"No, not in the least. But I received some news night before last which has distressed me deeply.... Do you remember a Professor Berger, whom you met at Ostend three years ago?"

"Oh, very well! He is not so easily forgotten. I can see him now before me, with his magnificent eyes under the heavy eyebrows, and always something clever on his lips. What of him? He is not dead?"

"No, worse--than that--he is insane!"

"For G.o.d's sake! Professor Berger? The very picture of a clear and lofty mind. How can that be? Did you tell papa and mamma?"

"No, and I beg you will not tell them; I could not bear just now to hear the matter discussed."

"You were very fond of the professor?"

"He was my best, perhaps my only friend."

"How I pity you!" said Helen, and she showed very clearly in her beautiful face the sympathy she felt. "Such a loss must be terrible.

And you are here quite alone with your grief, and no one to sympathize with your suffering?"

"I have been accustomed to that all my life."

"Have you no parents, no near relatives?"

"My mother died when I was an infant; my father died many years ago; I never had brother or sister, nor have I ever known any relatives of mine."

Helen was silent, drawing lines in the sand with the point of her sun-shade.

Suddenly she raised her head and said, in a tone that sounded half like complaint and half like defiance:

"Do you know that one may have parents and brothers--yes! and even relatives, and yet be quite alone, and feel very lonely! And you are, after all, well off, for you are a man; you can act for yourself, while----"

The young girl broke off here, as if she was afraid of being carried away by her feelings. She rose and went a few steps beyond Oswald, close to the edge of the precipice. It was a wondrously beautiful picture, this proud, tall figure on the bright background of the golden evening sky, which surrounded her glorious head as with a halo, while the sea-breeze was playing with her dark curls. And to Oswald she looked like a good angel, dropping kind, sympathizing words in his sickened heart, like soft rain falling upon a withered flower. And now, for the first time, he recollected his conversation with the doctor as they returned from the village. It was true, then! This sweet, this glorious creature was to be sold, to be sold like Melitta! She had said so herself. He had just heard it from her own lips! She was standing alone in the world; she could not act for herself; and yet she had still sympathy and comfort for him, she who stood in such need of sympathy and consolation herself. To protect the weak and the helpless is man's right and duty--there would probably have been few adventures into which Oswald would not have plunged without hesitation for the sake of the fair sufferer. He did not remember that the knight's first duty is to be faithful to the lady of his heart, and that to break a lance for another, at the risk of losing her, speaks neither of wisdom nor of generosity.

Suddenly a cry arose from the beach, where the others had in the mean time arrived, and as Helen, who was quite free from vertigo, stepped to the very brink and bent over the abyss, a second cry was heard, still more piercing and more anxious.

"For Heaven's sake," cried Helen; "what can have happened? I thought I heard Bruno's voice. Let us make haste and get down."

The two young people were quickly down, although the path which led down in zigzag on the chalk cliff was steep and dangerous. When they reached the beach, out of breath, they saw Bruno fainting and lying in Albert's arms, while the others were standing around helpless.

"Fetch some water, quick!" said Oswald, taking the boy, untying his neckerchief and unb.u.t.toning his clothes. n.o.body had thought of it.

"How did it happen?" asked Helen, taking Bruno's cold hands in her own, and gazing anxiously in his fair, pale face.

"None of us know how," said the baroness.

"Perhaps an attack of vertigo," suggested Felix.

In the mean time water had been brought, and Oswald had washed the boy's forehead and temples and chest. Helen remembered that she had a flacon of Cologne in her pocket, and helped Oswald in his efforts to revive the boy. He soon came to himself again. He opened slowly his large eyes, and his first glance fell upon Helen, who was bending over him.

"Are you dead, quite dead?" he murmured, closing his eyes again.

They thought he had lost his mind.

"Collect yourself, Bruno," said Helen, pa.s.sing her hand lightly over the boy's brow and eyes.

Bruno seized the hand and pressed it firmly upon his eyes, while two big tears came oozing out from between the closed lids; then he raised himself, with Oswald's a.s.sistance.

"I am quite right again," he said; "have I really been fainting? How long have I been so?"

"Only a little while," replied Oswald, wiping Bruno's face with his handkerchief and setting his clothes in order again.

"You have really frightened us; what in the world was the matter?"

asked the baroness.

"I do not know," replied the boy, whose pale cheeks suddenly flashed in deep purple glow; "it came very suddenly. Thank you, thank you, I think I can get on very well if Mr. Stein will help me."

"We'll go back," said the baroness. "How provoking that every little pleasure must be spoilt by some mishap or other."

They made their way slowly up again, and returned, out of temper, through the forest. Felix, who was afraid of taking cold, urged them to make haste; Oswald remarked, dryly, he did not wish to detain the company, and would follow slowly with Bruno. Helen declared her intention to stay with Bruno; and the old baron, who had exhibited throughout very warm, but very useless sympathy, proposed that the company should divide into a vanguard and a rearguard; he meant himself to stay with the latter.

"You will catch cold, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness; "I think you'd better come with us."

"No, I prefer staying with the others," said the old baron, with an earnestness which surprised all of them, and himself perhaps most.

He gave his arm to his daughter, but remained near Oswald and Bruno, chatting with them leisurely, as he liked to do, and inquiring from time to time how the boy came on.

"I am quite well, quite well," said Bruno, again and again; but Oswald felt that he leaned heavily on his arm, and that his hands were cold.

Thus they reached the house, one by one. The old baron disappeared, wis.h.i.+ng Bruno a speedy recovery, while Oswald carried the boy at once to his room and sent him to bed.

"You are worse, Bruno, than you wish to confess," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed; "you have your old pain, have not you?"

"Yes," said Bruno, and his teeth chattered, and cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.

Oswald hastened to use the same remedy as before; and he succeeded in this case also in relieving the patient, at least as far as the pain was concerned.

"Will you not tell _me_, Bruno, what brought on the attack?" asked Oswald.

"Oh yes!" said the boy. "I only did not like to tell while the others were present, because they would have laughed at me. I had stayed behind a little, and a projecting rock hid the others from my sight I thought I could overtake them at any moment, and so I was walking on slowly, often looking upward. Suddenly I saw Helen come so close to the edge of the precipice, which there comes down a hundred feet or more, that it looked as if she must fall if she moved ever so little. I cried out in my anxiety--then she came still nearer, actually bending over, and everything turned around me well, you know the rest. But there is Malte coming. Goodnight, Oswald."