Through Night to Light Part 23

This had the effect that the clerk looked upon him as a stranger in the fullest sense of the word, and treated him as such, presenting to him at once the large book in which he was to enter his name. "Mr.

Drostein? Thank you!... Doctor O. Stein? Ah! I beg pardon; thought it was all one name. Are you going to honor us with your presence for any length of time, sir? No? Much life in town just now: theatre, horse-fair, student's ball.... Doctor Braun? Know him very well, practices in the house since the privy councillor has been paralyzed.

Was here to-day.... Where he lives? Quite near here. Post street, second house on the right, close by the privy councillor's. Are you going to order supper, sir? No appet.i.te? sorry to hear it! Very fine fresh oysters! Natives! Anything else? water to drink? Pitcher of water? Directly, sir, you shall have it at once!"

An uncomfortable-looking room; two lighted candles on the table before the sofa; a trunk on a low trestle; a hat-box on the chair close by; all around silence, when the step of the waiter is no longer heard in the long, narrow pa.s.sage. Oswald did not think the situation calculated to cheer up a melancholy man. He made haste to leave the room and the house.

It had been his first intention to call on Franz, the only one in Grunwald from whom he could be sure of receiving a hearty welcome--a friend's reception; but he soon abandoned the plan and wandered aimless and purposeless through the streets. He had never felt at home in Grunwald; but yet he had not found the town looking so utterly strange to him, even in the first days of his former residence here. Was it only the effect of his melancholy humor? Was it the dark, misty evening? He did not recognize the streets--the squares through which he used to walk so often; and when he thought he recalled one or the other feature, it was only like something seen in a dream, where we confound the near and the far chaotically in some great unknown distance. At last he found himself in one of the streets leading down to the harbor.

Here he was more at home, for the harbor with its crowd of boats and s.h.i.+ps, its smell of the sea and of tar, its monotonous sailors' songs, and its ceaseless hammering and knocking and sawing, had ever been his favorite part of the town, and the almost daily end of his walks.

But to-night everything was deserted and death-like, even in this the only lively portion of the old Hanse town, every other part of which looked as if it had been fast asleep for centuries, and was at best murmuring in a half dream something about its past glory and power.

Here and there a light was visible through a cabin window, now and then a dog barked on the deck of a vessel, or a sailor's hoa.r.s.e call was heard; otherwise all was silence and darkness.

He walked upon the wharf that stretched far into the sea, and along which vessel lay by vessel, out to the uttermost point. Here he stood for some time, sunk in silent meditation, and looked with folded arms out into the darkness which rested on the waters, and listened to the low, monotonous splas.h.i.+ng of the waves which were all the time kissing and caressing the ma.s.sive blocks of the breakwater. Was this his dearly-beloved sea, on which his dreams and his hopes had so often taken wings in company with countless gulls? Was this the dark abyss, in which his hopes and dreams had been irretrievably swallowed up for all eternity, like the treasure of a s.h.i.+pwrecked vessel?

Beyond, on the other side of the black waste of waters, lay the island, so near and yet so far off, like the time which he had spent there--the short span of time that held all he had ever known of happiness and peace in this life. A ferry-boat, which came from the island across, sailed close by the outer end of the wharf on which he was standing. He heard the measured dip of the heavy oars as they struck the waters, and the peculiar low screeching which they cause as they rub against the gunwale; he heard the confused voices of the pa.s.sengers; he could even, as they came nearer, distinguish single words; he thought he heard Helen's name. Perhaps it was only an illusion, or an echo in his own heart; but it struck him with peculiar force, and all of a sudden a desire overcame him to seek out the house where, as he knew, the fair maid was staying at the time.

He went back into the town; he crossed the market-place. He stopped before the house where Berger had lived. There was no light in the windows. He could see by the light of a street-lamp that the green blinds were closed, as in a house whose owner had died. From the steeple of St. Nicholas the solemn music of a choral was heard, in which, according to an ancient custom, Grunwald bids every evening at nine o'clock farewell to the day that has gone by. Ordinarily the organist only sends four men up to sing; but on days when a citizen of distinction has been gathered to his fathers, he sends half, or the whole of the choir, according to the desire of the survivors, who wish to give an expression to their grief in this extraordinary manner.

To-day all the voices were fully represented--the deceased must have been a man of very uncommon importance.

Oswald listened till the last note had died away. He thought of death, and the Great Mystery which the grave does not solve, but makes only darker, and how happy the men are, after all, who find their trust in believing in a Saviour and a Redeemer.

The long-drawn summons of the sentinel before the main-guard awaked him from his dreams. The squeaking voice of a youthful hero gave the command: "Carry arms! Ground arms! Helmets off for prayer!" Piety by order--effusions of heart, according to the paragraph of the regulations! In a well ordered state everything must go by rule.

"Why," said Oswald to himself, while he was walking towards the town-gate, "why are you not a pedant among pedants, since fate does not permit you to be a Roman among Romans? Why do you kick against the p.r.i.c.ks to which all the cattle patiently submit? You might be as well off as the others. After all, it may not be so bad a thing to sit, as Berger used to call it, in the easy-chair of an office; the night-cap of a sinecure may protect one against many an attack of rheumatism--the effect of a draught in this windy outside world; and he who has a virtuous wife lives twice as long; and when he is compelled to die, like everybody else, they play and sing from the steeple, that the whole town hears it and prays for the peace of his soul."

Above him it rustled in the tall trees with which the street was lined that led to the suburb and to Miss Bear's boarding-school. The evening breeze has torn the dense veil of fog, and the crescent of the increasing moon was dancing through the clouds in their spectral flight. A horseman galloped past him towards town. The horse snorted; sparks flew. A moment later, and the noise was scarcely audible, and soon ceased altogether. "Somebody, I dare say, who rides for the doctor; a husband, perhaps, whose wife is taken ill; a father, whose son is lying on his death-bed." Oswald thought of the night when Bruno died, and of his fearful ride across the heath from Grenwitz to Fashwitz. If Bruno had only lived! Oswald thought everything would have happened differently then. It seemed to him as if the death of the boy alone had made him so miserably poor--as if he could have challenged a world in arms, with him by his side. With him and good fortune! no sacrifice would have been too great for Bruno's sake; not even the sacrifice of his love for Helen. He would have willingly and cheerfully given the fair girl to Bruno--but to him alone, in the world. Given?

What had he to give--he the beggar?

Now he was standing before the house he had come to see, and supported himself against the iron railing of the garden. There was not a window lighted up in the whole house. The inmates had probably all retired to rest. He thought of the summer nights when he had stood looking by the hour at the open window with the curtains lowered, from which the music of a piano was wafted to him through the soft, silent air; and hours afterwards, long after the light had vanished behind the red curtains and the music had ceased, and he had still wandered up and down between the flower-beds and under the tall beech-trees, sometimes till the first purple streak of morning-dawn appeared on the eastern horizon, and the birds in the thick bushes began dreamily to twitter above him.

A breath of wind rushed through the two tall poplar-trees on both sides of the lofty portal and whispered mysteriously in the dry leaves, a window-shutter flapped in the house, a dog in a neighboring house began to bark.

Oswald s.h.i.+vered as if he had a fever. The momentary excitement after his long journey in the stage-coach had pa.s.sed away; he felt tired and sick. He b.u.t.toned up his overcoat and turned to go back into the city.

A carriage came rapidly towards him. A horseman with a lantern in his hand galloped before it--probably the same who before had galloped madly through the dark night into town.

Could it be Doctor Braun, who was going away? The thought that he might possibly not find his friend at home, awakened in Oswald the desire to see him and to talk to him. In a few minutes--for the distances in Grunwald are not considerable--he stood before the house which the waiter had told him was Doctor Braun's house. The girl who opened the door said her master was at the privy councillor's, adding that he spent all his evenings there. Here Oswald was told that Bemperlein was in the sitting-room--Bemperlein, the only one, with the exception of old Baumann, who knew his relations to Frau von Berkow--the only one whom he feared to meet; whose reproachful glance, in case he should not yet have been informed of the most recent events, must be painful to him.

He only remembered, when he was in the street again, that his going away in such a manner must have appeared extraordinary, if not ridiculous. This disturbed him and made him feel worse than before. He would have liked best to hide himself in the lowest depth of the earth; to forget in sleep the misery of life. In sleep? Why not in wine, when sleep is not to be had? "The best of life is but intoxication," says Byron; and there where a solitary lamp s.h.i.+nes dimly between two stone pillars, is the entrance to the cellars of the old city hall. Down the long, broad staircase with the low steps, down into the bowels of the earth, where n.o.body cares for sentiments that make the heart heavy, and for thoughts that confuse the head!

CHAPTER XVII.

The city cellars of Grunwald cannot rival those of Bremen, but nevertheless they are very respectable cellars. The low, s.p.a.cious vaults stretch far under the city hall, and extend even below the market-place, on which it is situated. There are rooms enough that have in former days served as drinking rooms of every size, and may even to-day be used for larger and smaller companies, but what is most needed is wanting--the guests. The good old times, when Grunwald was wealthy and powerful, are no longer. Those who built these vaults and filled them with ringing of cups, with songs of cheerful converse--the honorable sober-minded burgesses with their broad shoulders, their full, well-trimmed beards, and the broad-swords by their sides--they sleep, all of them, sound, good sleep in the old graveyards, or under the huge slabs of stone with which the churches are paved, if they were members of the council, or otherwise great men, and there "await a blissful resurrection." Their grandchildren crowd together in dark, narrow chambers, and drink stale brown beer, instead of fiery, golden wine; many a one, whose ancestor went down these steps day by day, whenever the rosy summer evening was lying on the high gable roofs, or the storms of winter were careering through the dark, narrow streets, hardly knows how it looks down there in the city cellars.

Nevertheless they do not seem to be entirely deserted by the good people of Grunwald. The dim little lamp at the entrance burns night after night--often far into the small hours, sometimes till daybreak--and the solemn citizen who has been belated at some Christening feast or other great festivity, and now walks home with wife and daughter in the silent night through the deserted streets, and past the city cellars, often sees a dim light s.h.i.+ne through the unwashed windows, and hears perhaps low confused voices, which seem to rise from the bowels of the earth and make an uncanny impression at that hour and in that place.

But there are no gnomes carrying on their wicked doings below there, only gay companions, jovial, or at least not very pedantic fellows, who can fully appreciate the value of a good gla.s.s of wine, taken from a good cask, and enjoyed in good society. There are men who do not relish all of life so very heartily that they should not at times desire to wash the dusty, unpleasant taste down with a gla.s.s of wine; others who have neither chick nor child at home, and get tired at night among their silent books; still others who, wearied of the monotony of married life, want to have a merry night for once; and still others, who have quite accidentally found their way down the broad cellar-steps, and cannot very well get up again a few hours later, however broad the steps may be. There are young professional men, artists, actors--if there happen to be any in town--young literati, now and then a farmer from the neighborhood, or an official--these make the main ingredients of the public which is apt to a.s.semble every evening in the great vault to the left of the entrance, and sometimes, when they wish to be still more exclusive, in a smaller room on the other side of the building.

Oswald knew the place very well from his former residence here, although he had never reached the dignity of an habitue. He had been occasionally at the cellars with Berger, without taking much notice of the rest of the company that might be there. Thus the damp, cool air, filled with the peculiar odor of marvellously-ancient walls, and the fragrance of last year's wine, greeted him pleasantly, and he found without much trouble the way to the low door which opened into the drinking-hall.

Except the waiter, there happened to be at that moment n.o.body in the long, vaulted, and badly-lighted room, but a single guest, who sat with his back to the door, and did not allow himself to be disturbed in the least by Oswald's entrance. He was pleasantly engaged in discussing fresh oysters, and Oswald, who had taken his seat not far from him at one of the small round tables, noticed with some astonishment what a mountain of sh.e.l.ls the indefatigable worker had already acc.u.mulated.

And yet he did not look tired. At least he leaned only now and then back in his chair, in order to sip with evident satisfaction a gla.s.s of wine, and then renewed his labors with a zeal which certainly spoke as eloquently for the good quality of the oysters as for the excellency of the digestive powers of the consumer.

The last sh.e.l.l was dropping from the mountain, and the last drops were flowing from the bottle into the gla.s.s.

"_Sic transit gloria mundi_," said the man; "nevertheless, we can easily renew this _gloria_. Carole, bring another dozen of these excellent dwellers in the deep, and half a bottle of this most praiseworthy hock."

Oswald listened. The voice was familiar to him; it reminded him of by-gone, happy days. That fresh, clear voice had refreshed and encouraged him more than once, as the wind does the prisoner blowing in through the open windows of his prison; it did not fail to-day to have the usual effect on his darkened mind. Of all men this was the one whose company was by far the most welcome to-night.

He rose, therefore, approached him, and greeted him with unusual animation.

"_Ah, dottore, dottore!_" exclaimed the oyster-eater, rising at once and seizing the proffered hand. "You here? Well, that is a most sensible notion of our stupid friend's accident. Carole, a whole bottle instead of half a bottle, and several dozen oysters instead of one."

"Am I really at this moment a _persona grata_ to you, Timm?" said Oswald, taking a seat by Albert's side.

"_Persona grata!_ at this moment!" cried Albert Timm. "Don Oswaldo! Don Oswaldo! I have missed you sadly, upon my word, ever since we parted at Grenwitz, and I am as delighted as a snow-bird to see you here again.

Where on earth have you been hiding all this time? I have inquired of everybody. Since when are you back?"

"Three hours ago."

"And, of course, you are hungry and thirsty, just as you were when you left the stage-coach; at least you look so. Carole, Carole! Why does the fellow not come? At last! Here, dottore, is food for a sound stomach, and drink for a sick heart! Here's your health! Welcome in Grunwald!"

And Mr. Timm's face smiled so kindly as he said these kind words that it would have looked like blackest ingrat.i.tude to doubt the sincerity of his sentiments.

Oswald at least was most pleasantly affected by this cordial reception of a man whose friends.h.i.+p he had never tried to win, whose amiable frankness he had often met with repulsive coldness, and he felt this all the more deeply as he had suffered a few moments before acutely from a sense of loneliness in the world.

"One service deserves another, Timm," he said, while the latter was filling the gla.s.ses again. "I can tell you that I am heartily glad to have met you the very first night I spend again in this town. Let us have another gla.s.s! Here's our good friends.h.i.+p!"

"With pleasure!" cried Mr. Timm, heartily grasping Oswald's proffered hand. "We will hold together honestly. Heaven knows this wretched old-fogy place does not have an abundance of men with whom one can hold together, or like to do it. But this league of two n.o.ble souls ought to be celebrated in a n.o.bler beverage. Carole! A bottle of champagne--Clicquot and _frappe_--else, by the bones of my fathers, the lightning of my wrath falls upon your bald pate. And now come, _dottore mio_, tell us something of your wanderings; or, rather, tell us that some other time; and let me know, first of all, for that is most interesting to me, has Fame told us falsely in making a most wonderful mixture of great and small things of the last scenes of your farce, your drama, or your tragedy at Grenwitz?"

"Before I can answer that," said Oswald, whom the oysters, the wine, Timm's company, and the whole atmosphere, were gradually putting into better humor, "I must know what it is Fame has reported."

"Do you really wish to know?"

"Certainly."

"Well, there were two readings; but you must not blame me, Stein, if I touch a sore place in your heart without knowing."

"But, Timm, do you think I am a child?"

"In some respects all men are children, and remain children, dottore, and you are no exception to the rule. Whatever flatters our self-love, goes down as easily as a rich oyster; whatever hurts our vanity, tastes like wormwood and quinine. _Eh bien!_ Some say you had favored an understanding between Bruno--what a pity, by the way, the poor boy had to bite the gra.s.s so young!--and Miss Helen; that Felix had come to you to hold you to an account about this in the name of the parents; that this had led to a difficulty between you, which had ended in a scuffle; that Felix had slipped, in his endeavor to turn you out of the house, and that he had broken his right--some say his left--arm, once; some say twice."

"The accursed rascal," murmured Oswald, between his teeth, hastily throwing an empty oyster-sh.e.l.l to the others.

"Did I not tell you I might annoy you, Oswald? Come, don't be a child, and wash your anger down in a gla.s.s of this famous wine. The other reading is not half so bitter."

"Let us hear!"