Problematic Characters Part 81

"No," said Melitta, "you had better keep it. Your unbounded kindness deserves a better reward than cold marble."

"Or marble coldness?" asked Oldenburg, smiling.

"That I do not give you, Oldenburg," said Melitta, with warmth; "really not. I love you as one would love a brother who is a few years older, who stands somewhat in the place of a father, and to whom one looks up with cheerful respect and grat.i.tude. It is our fate, that you must needs love me in a different way, and that I cannot love you in any other way."

"It is our fate, indeed, Melitta, and now let us say nothing more about it. Against fate nothing can be done. We can only bow our head, and accept the laurel wreath or the death-blow in silence. I might have learnt that in these last days, if I had not known it before. And now, Melitta, since you yourself have called me a brother, let me speak to you like a brother. May I?"

"Yes," said Melitta, who had lowered her head at these last words of Oldenburg's, after a short pause, and in a low voice.

"Overcome your love for Oswald! I cannot advise you to pull out the arrow by one single effort, because I fear the wound might bleed till you die; but do not resist the effect of time, which is almost as powerful as almighty Fate. After a few weeks, or a few months, you will think more calmly about it; will you promise me, like a good sister, not to look upon these calmer and wiser thoughts as a sin against your love?"

"Yes."

"For, Melitta, he is lost to you, even if he should overcome this last pa.s.sion of his. His mad hunt after an Ideal, which he cannot find anywhere upon earth, because it only lives in his imagination, will lead him to another and another love. He will ever think: This is what you have been looking for in vain; and he will ever discover the illusion, until he will take at last, in his bitterest disappointment, a step which will relieve him of all further care for this wretched world. These last days have brought him much nearer to this unavoidable end."

"How are matters at Grenwitz?"

"Felix is out of danger, although at first he was given up. But he will, in all probability, be an invalid for life--a heavy punishment for one who has so long 'enjoyed the sweetness of flowers and broken every flower.' Oswald's ball missed its aim only by a hair's breadth.

Felix owes his life to Bruno's death. Oswald did not say a word during the whole duel; his face remained unchanged, only when Felix fell a kind of smile pa.s.sed over his features; he looked the very image of perfect composure, and only the close observer could have noticed that it was the snow on a volcano, and that from time to time a feverish tremor ran through his limbs. He bore himself in the whole affair with consummate tact, and even the host of adversaries had to acknowledge that Cloten actually said, in his admiration, he was very sorry the man was not born n.o.ble."

"And Helen?"

"Helen left, a few hours after the duel, with her father for Grunwald.

I believe they are going to keep the girl there for a time, in a kind of honorable exile, till they have brought about a reconciliation with her mother. In the mean time the good woman is simply beside herself, and would have moved heaven and earth, and the police besides, to destroy Oswald, if Cloten and others had not told her that Felix had given the first provocation, and that a duel was simply unavoidable."

"And--Oswald?"

"I thought he had written to you?"

"Yes, but nothing about his plans for the future."

"Nor do I know anything about them. We have not exchanged three words with each other. I only know that he has been staying with Doctor Braun in town, to await what would come of the duel. I am glad he has chosen so well. His new friend, Braun, seems to be a man of as much character and cleverness as of goodness of heart. G.o.d grant that he may be a wiser Mentor for our Telemachus than I have been able to be, with the best will in the world. But now I must go, Melitta. Else my Almansor will beat his hoofs to powder. Have you anything more to do here?"

"No," said Melitta, "we can go."

"Will you often come to this place?"

"Hardly. I only wished to see if my orders had been attended to. You know, best of all, that the deceased, whom I came to see, has not been alive for me for long years, and, properly speaking, never."

"Then let us go, Melitta."

The baron took the arm of the young widow, and led her down the avenue.

They did not say another word. Old Baumann opened the door of the carriage. Oldenburg helped Melitta in and stood a moment, hat in hand, by the open carriage. When the horses were about to start, Melitta gave him her hand; he pressed it to his lips. He remained motionless for a few moments, and looked after the carriage as it rolled away. Then he beckoned to his groom, mounted Almansor, and rode off at full speed in the opposite direction.

Two men had been watching this last scene, who had come into the graveyard at the very moment when Melitta and Oldenburg left through the gate opposite. They had placed a couple of wreaths on a new grave near the gate, on the side of the n.o.bles. They were Oswald and Doctor Braun; both in travelling costume. They stood, arm in arm, on the steps of the church, and thus witnessed the parting scene between Oldenburg and Melitta. When the baron kissed Melitta's hand, an ironical smile pa.s.sed over Oswald's pale, sunken face.

"Let us make haste to get away from here," he said. "I feel as if the ground were burning under my feet."

"I am ready," said the doctor. "If you had followed my advice you would have left here long ago, and if you follow my advice now, you will never return here. Our journey will give you back to yourself. You have lost much, but nothing that cannot be regained. You have despised reason and science, man's highest power, and yet you can never hope for happiness except by such help, for,--you recollect the words of your favorite poet:

'----what Amor has taken from us Apollo only can restore: Peace, happiness, and harmony, And pure and powerful aspirations--'

Come--let the dead bury the dead! You must begin a new life now!"

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 1: "Ill.u.s.trirte Zeitung," Leipzig, 9th February, 1867.

"Bibliothek der deutchen Cla.s.siker." Hildburghausen. Band xxix, p.

683.]

[Footnote 2: Curtis's "_Nile Notes of a Howadji_," 1857; Emerson's "_English Traits_," 1857; a volume of American Poems, 1859; sec. ed., 1865: Roscoe's "_Lorenzo di Medici_," 1859, etc.]

[Footnote 3: Since the above was in type we have become acquainted with some charming "Novellen" by Spielhagen, but lately published, of which, however, we cannot now speak. (His later works are: "The Fair American Ladies," "Hans and Grete," "The Village Coquette;" his latest, and perhaps most remarkable work, "Hammer and Anvil," has just been completed. He also lately published two volumes of "Critical Essays,"

which are highly praised by the German reviewers. Two of the essays are devoted to careful and appreciative criticisms of the American poets Bryant and Poe.)]

[Footnote 4: "_Die von Hohenstein_ is by some considered to be superior to _Problematic Characters_; not so romantic and poetic, but equally rich in psychological truth, and more concentrated in form, more crystallized."]