The Children of the World Part 12

"My dear sir," interrupted Edwin, "your daughter deserved to win the wager for her penetration. I _am_ somewhat weary and absent-minded, my head is revenging itself because I have racked my brains too often, and the injuries it received cannot be quickly healed. In fact, if it were not for you and your daughter, I should be wiser to defer our lessons till a more favorable time. But if you prefer--"

"Leah! Leah!" cried the little artist, darting forward into the house.

"Where are you?"

The young girl was just coming out of the studio, in the same plain brown dress she had worn the day before. Her black eyes greeted Edwin with a quiet, almost wondering glance.

"I hear, Fraulein," he said in a jesting tone, "that you have lost a wager on my account. You thought I would not come again, and as people usually believe what they desire--"

She gazed at him with a look, that entreated him to spare her embarra.s.sment.

"It's true," she said blus.h.i.+ng, "and I'm very much frightened to think that I must confess to some one _how_ ignorant and bewildered I am. I was so anxious last night, that I could scarcely sleep."

"Than we must relieve you as quickly as possible," he answered smiling.

"I will make any wager that you will sleep admirably to-night."

"Do you also know what is the forfeit of our bet?" cried the artist merrily rubbing his hands: "the loser was to paint you something, you may rejoice that you will have a picture by Leah, instead of one of my wretched daubs. You see virtue is its own reward."

They had entered the studio, which to-day seemed far more neatly arranged. Instead of the desk with its painting apparatus, a table containing only writing materials and a portfolio, stood at Leah's window. But there was a fresh bouquet of flowers on the sill, tall dahlias and asters whose bright colors mingled as if they wished to conceal the dull grey of the bare wall outside.

"We thought you would be more undisturbed here, than in the sitting room on the other side of the entry. Well; and so the hedge-sparrow is turned out of his nest by his unfilial off-spring!" said the old man, gently stroking the young girl's cheek. "My dear Herr Doctor, believe me: one may fare badly with spoiled children, but the real tyrants are the good, well behaved ones. It's a worse slavery than that of the most henpecked husband. Well, adieu, child, and be industrious; meantime I will make some studies from the back of the house near the stable as I have long intended. It's just the right light."

He kissed her on the forehead and left the teacher alone with his pupil.

When at the end of an hour he returned, he heard Edwin's deep, musical voice, and would gladly have listened a moment to learn the subject under discussion, but such a course was repugnant to his delicacy, and besides he hoped to hear how the lesson had pa.s.sed off from the young girl herself.

Edwin rose as the little man entered. "Have I remained too long?" he asked. "I hope Fraulein Leah will bear witness that I have not tired her."

Leah said nothing. She was standing before the little table like a person just roused from a dream. The portfolio was unopened, the pen had not been dipped into the ink.

Edwin asked whether he could not see the sketches. "No, no," replied the little artist, "they are only for myself. And to-day in particular I have worked with my eyes, rather than my hand. I will only tell you,"

he added, smiling mysteriously; "that I am attempting something which will probably exceed my powers. I have long been anxious to make a picture of our lagune. You cannot imagine what charms of coloring the old muddy, dirty ca.n.a.l often displays, of course in a favorable light.

I have also been experimenting with a little foreground I shall need, nay which will form the princ.i.p.al part of the picture, for I shall not succeed very well with the water. A week ago one of the wood piles was removed, which has stood for years directly in my way, since it obstructed the best view of the wall and quay. And see, that has revealed a fence, before which the prettiest weeds grow so luxuriantly, that I shall have scarcely any alteration to make. If I succeed, it will be my best picture, and may perhaps mark a new era in my development."

He rubbed his hands contentedly and went up to his daughter. "I hope, child, you have not become such a learned woman, that you forgot to offer the Herr Doctor any refreshment. You really have forgotten? Then I will do so at once--we have a bottle of excellent port wine in the house--a present from our good friend, the professor's widow. By the way, dear Doctor, I wanted to ask you something: you must do me the favor to pay her a visit. We are so much indebted to her for Leah's education--she was really a little piqued because I engaged a teacher for the child without first introducing him to her. The best woman in the world, and in many respects, that is in church history and the positive divinity, exceptionally well educated. You will not regret taking the short walk--she lives in Louisenstra.s.se--if I accompany you--"

"With pleasure, dear Herr Konig," replied Edwin. "But let me make the acquaintance of the giver before I taste her gift. Fraulein Leah has learned to-day, that a Greek philosopher believed that the earth rose from the water, so for to-day I will take only a gla.s.s of water. Next time we will see whether there is truth in wine."

Leah brought the gla.s.s of water, but was so silent, that her father before going away, asked anxiously if she were ill. "I never felt better," she replied with a radiant glance from her beautiful, calm eyes.

Shaking his head, the little man went out, accompanied by Edwin, who took leave of his pupil with a cordial pressure of the hand.

"My dear Herr Doctor," said he when they were in the open air, "is it not strange that a father cannot understand his own child? Certainly every human being is a fresh marvel from the hand of G.o.d. This is not like our other experiences, which are only a copy of our own natures and enlighten us in regard to ourselves, our strength or weakness. Only the great masters can have a similar feeling, when from the breath of divine art something new appears, which resembles nothing in the world, and surprises the artist himself. I believe that Raphael, when his Sistine Madonna was completed, did not understand her much better than I do my daughter. Yes, yes, my dear friend, these are transcendent mysteries; we can only pray and thank G.o.d that we are considered worthy to experience them."

CHAPTER XII.

The Frau Professorin Valentin lived in a pretty new house, and occupied large neat rooms, which however, to an artistic eye, with all their tidiness had a somewhat gloomy, cheerless air. She received Edwin in the largest and plainest of all; the little artist had not accompanied him upstairs, he wanted to deliver a few engraved blocks to the person who had ordered them. The stately, fair-haired woman must have been remarkably pretty in by-gone years, and even now, though considerably over forty, her bright eyes and white teeth possessed a youthful charm, especially when she laughed. She was sitting with five or six seamtresses among mountains of calico and linen, from which she was cutting children's dresses and underclothes. She received her visitor like an expected guest, and ushered him into a smaller apartment, her real home, as she called it, which was fitted up with a writing table, book cases, a flower stand, and all sorts of pretty trifles. Over the sofa hung the portrait of a hypochondriacal rascal looking man with grey hair, from whose wrinkled brow and compressed lips it was easy to perceive that the care of his digestion had been the princ.i.p.al occupation of his life.

"My late husband," said the lady, as if introducing Edwin and the picture to each other. "I have been a widow ten years, but you will find everything here just as it was in his life time, this room (she opened a door to allow Edwin to look in) was his study, and contains his whole library, though as he was a mathematician, I can read none of his books. But they were his pets and his pride, and I think that picture would fall from the wall if one should ever get into a stranger's hands. If I had my way, the sooner I got the horrible things out of the house the better I should like it. They cost me tears enough when he could use them."

"Tears?"

"Yes, Herr Doctor, you're a learned man too, I hope you will do better some day and not say like my late husband: 'first my books, and then my wife.' And yet he married me for love and not mathematics. But after two or three years, although I had not grown exactly ugly, he found those horrid triangles and hexangles, and the queer plus and minus signs, far more attractive than the blue eyes and round cheeks of his young wife. Well, I do not complain, I had foreseen it and knew what I was doing."

"But aside from this jealousy, which you share with so many women, you must have enjoyed a great deal of happiness in these rooms, or you would not have so religiously kept them in the same condition."

The widow looked at him with a searching side glance, as if she wanted to ascertain whether he was not too young to be trusted with any confidential disclosures. His honest face, and frank, open bearing, untinged by any shade of intrusiveness, seemed to please her. He was quite different from the other young literati, whom she had seen with her husband. Her quick, womanly penetration enabled her to perceive at once, that she was in the presence of one of those rare men, who are really as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves.

"You're still a young man, my dear Herr Doctor," she replied without the least sarcasm in her tone; "I don't know whether you have yet had the experience that certain natures are exceptions to the general rule, and do _not_ pursue happiness, but become their own tormentors.

Although very young when my dead husband offered me his hand, I was wise enough to know that I should not find what is called happiness with him. He who is to render another happy, must be capable of happiness himself. My poor Valentin was the most wretched self-tormentor that can be imagined, and without knowing it or wis.h.i.+ng to do so, he tortured every one around him. I calculated upon this with mathematical certainty, as I now tell you. And yet I preferred him to all others, for he gave me a task, a constant, daily and hourly work to perform in myself, and taxed all my strength, which is very great and always longs to overcome every obstacle. Now nothing is more difficult than to conquer one's self; I was then a spoiled, petted creature, every one loved me, I coquetted with old and young, with my own heart, nay, G.o.d forgive me, with our Lord Himself. How it happened that my eyes were suddenly opened and I said to myself: 'You're a silly doll, you will ruin an immortal soul if this continues--' is too long a story. Enough, that as my heart had remained steadfast and honest, I resolved to try my fate with a very peevish or unhappy man. It will probably be no indiscretion, if I tell you that my dear old friend Konig was my suitor at the same time; we still joke about the fact that I was his first love. When you become better acquainted with this man, you will confess that it would be difficult to find a happier person or a more loving Christian. If I had become his wife, I should have lived in Paradise. But this was exactly what I did not desire. I felt that to be treasured all my life by such an excellent man, would finally have spoiled me. Well, with Valentin I often had more of the contrary than was agreeable; but I have never regretted it. And now sit down by me, Herr Doctor, and tell me a little about my foster child, Leah."

"I tell you, Madame? Nay, it would greatly interest me to learn from _you_ something about the childhood and early education of my pupil, who seems to be somewhat reserved."

A sorrowful smile flitted over the lady's pleasant, cheerful face. "If I could answer that question satisfactorily, you would hardly be sitting beside me now," she replied. "But excuse me a moment, I'm wanted in the other room."

One of the seamstresses had appeared in the doorway. Frau Valentin left Edwin, and he heard her in the next room giving orders and directions in her clear, positive manner. Then she returned.

"I always have my hands full," she began. "As I unfortunately no longer have any household cares, I willingly take as much of the work of the different clubs and societies to which I belong, as others wish to discard. Ah! Doctor, it affords a great deal of pleasure to have a crowd of deaf and dumb or neglected or orphaned children thank you for their warm, new clothes; yet a single child of one's own, who need not even be deaf and dumb or neglected, or even specially grateful, would bestow a very different kind of happiness. A subst.i.tute is never the thing itself. And that's the very reason why it makes me so sad, that the only child I could love almost as my own, avoids me so strangely; she's not cold or ungrateful, but I learn nothing about the best things that may be in her nature, and cannot impart the best of mine, since she does not know how to receive them."

"Are you speaking of my pupil?"

The Frau Professorin did not answer immediately; she sat in silence gazing into vacancy, with her pretty white hands folded in her lap.

"No one has ever caused me so much trouble," she continued, "and yet she has so much amiability, goodness, unselfishness, and independence. But that's just it, the one thing needful, the one thing lacking--you're a philosopher, my dear Doctor, but I hope not one of those whose knowledge has deprived them of faith. And this strange girl--it is not the pride of superior knowledge that makes her unbelieving; no one has a more modest opinion of her own acquirements.

But it's in the blood. You ought to have known her mother, whose character she has inherited, trait for trait. Nothing has ever been more mysterious to me, than how my old friend, the artist, who has such a living need of G.o.d, could be so happy with this woman, who made no secret of her want of religion, and once when I asked her the direct question, frankly acknowledged: 'that she really did not know whether there was any G.o.d at all.' She would not have denied it; but I never disclosed it, I don't know whether she made such confessions to her husband, but I almost think he would not have been puzzled by them; he loved her very dearly. And to be sure, no one could help loving her; I was unable to do so myself, long after I had given up trying to lead her to the light which has guided me through all the depths and shallows of this world. To be sure the fact that she was a Jewess, rendered it difficult for her to obtain a knowledge of the truth. But if she had only been a devout Jewess! I respect all genuine convictions. But she, on the contrary, confessed to me with the calmest possible face, that she knew no more of all the mysteries of life in her thirtieth year than she did in her tenth; she did not _understand_ either this world or the next, and had no desire to fathom their secrets; her beautiful, bright, thoughtless present, with her husband and child, was all sufficient. I fairly started when this was first uttered so plainly. What is this miserable twilight of our earthly existence, if no ray from above warms and brightens it until we reach the full light? And besides, hers was no shallow, sensual nature; or how would she have been able to value so highly, love so fondly, her delicate high-minded husband? But perhaps it was precisely because _he_ remained all his life as little understood by her, as she was by him, that they were so fondly attached to each other. Possibly she felt a secret longing for the peace of the children of G.o.d, and he, that desire to save which does not renounce the most darkened nature and ever seeks the lost! Besides, she was far from despising or jeering at anything others held sacred, and took it as a matter of course that her child should be educated in the religion of its father. As she herself had none, and probably sometimes felt a horror of this nothingness, she did not wish to sin against her daughter. But it was of no avail.

Nature is too powerful. I fear if the daughter were asked to answer a plain question upon her conscience, she would be found to believe little more of her catechism than her mother did."

The bell, which rang in the entry outside, interrupted the conversation. "Unfortunately we shall be interrupted," said the lady, hastily drying her eyes, which were wet with tears. "I requested you to call upon me, because as I said before, I love the child almost as fondly as if she were my own flesh and blood. You must tell me, dear Herr Doctor, what you are going to do with her, that I may be satisfied you will not make the evil still worse."

"I shall give her no religious instruction," replied Edwin, rising. "I am not a theologian. But the philosophy to which I devote myself, has led as many to a personal G.o.d as away from Him. No knowledge can replace or destroy the needs of the soul, from which all religion springs. My psychology can quietly let alone what philosophers term predestination, and I am the last who would wish to divert any human mind from the path that leads to peace--though it certainly is not my office to dabble in the business of the missionaries."

Frau Valentin looked at him intently as he uttered these words. "I do not fully understand you," she said, holding out her hand. "But this I do know; you are a good, sincere, warm-hearted man. You will do the child no harm, for that only comes from the wicked."

Just at this moment a maid entered and announced: "Herr Candidat Lorinser."

"How fortunate!" exclaimed the Fran Professorin, and then turned to Edwin. "Now you must stay a little longer. You will make an acquaintance that will interest you more than an old woman who only hopes to be a good Christian like thousands of others."

CHAPTER XIII.

"Don't be repelled by the first impression," she added in an undertone.

"I too was obliged to conquer a slight prejudice, but all trees do not have the same bark. This man's good qualities lie in the depths of his nature."