Through Night to Light Part 25

The Clemens family is in grand gala, and awaits the guests who are to come. The Clemens family consists of four persons: father, mother, and two grown daughters. Rector Clemens is a man of fifty years, who must have been very handsome in his youth, and who may still pa.s.s for very good-looking. He wears his curly brown hair very long, and, contrary to all fas.h.i.+on, his collar turned down _a la Byron_ over a loosely-tied handkerchief, which gives him, in connection with a somewhat vague softness of his features, an ideal, not to say an effeminate expression. He is fully conscious of the soft character of his appearance, and does all he can to heighten the effect. His speech is soft, his voice is soft, his movements are soft. "I am called Clemens, and I try to do honor to my name," he is accustomed to say, modestly, whenever anybody compliments him on the "perfect humanity" of his manner and his appearance. "Humanity" is his pet word. The learned world knows him as the author of a moral philosophical work "Purification of Man towards Perfect Humanity;" and the public at large through his dramatic poem, "John at Patmos," which has appeared in a second edition in the bookstores of the University of Grunwald, and bears the motto, "_h.o.m.o sum, nihil humani mihi alienum puto_."

Mrs. Rector Clemens is, at least in her outward appearance, a perfect contrast to her husband. Her figure rises far beyond the ordinary size, and is broad and strong. The features of her face are proportionately heavy and ma.s.sive; her voice is a tolerably deep ba.s.s, and her movements and manners remind you forcibly of a vessel rolling in a trough of the sea. She is indeed the daughter of a captain of a mail steamer, and has made in her young days twice the voyage to the Indies.

It is hard to understand why her etherealizing husband with his enthusiasm for Hogarth's line of beauty, should have chosen her above all others, and the only explanation is to be found in that mysterious affinity which unites the strong and the weak, the stern and the gentle. The contrast between the two characters, however, does not appear quite so striking upon closer observation. The husband has succeeded in lending short wings to the somewhat clumsy psyche of his wife. He has talked to her so much about true humanity, that she is determined to become aesthetic in spite of her colossal size, and to be refined in spite of her defective education. She reads a good deal, although she does not understand it all; and she is the founder and manager of a dramatic club, although she has never been able to distinguish very clearly between a dative and an accusative.

The two Misses Clemens are eighteen and nineteen years old, and enjoy the beautiful old German names of Thusnelda and Fredegunda. The latter resembles her mother, Thusnelda her father, but the difference in character, which the common longing after humanity has nearly effaced in the parents, is still very perceptible in the daughters. They quarrel very frequently, are almost always of different opinions, and resemble each other only in one point--the very high opinion they entertain of themselves.

"It seems to me our dear guests keep us waiting rather long," said Rector Clemens, looking at his watch for the twelfth time in the last twelve minutes, as he nervously walked up and down in the room.

"I cannot comprehend why the good people don't come," said Mrs. Rector Clemens, sitting down for a moment on the sofa and wiping her heated brow with her handkerchief. "I had asked Doctor Stein expressly to be sure to come before seven, because I wanted to read his part over with him."

"Will he be able to read the Captain?" said Miss Fredegunda Clemens from the adjoining room, where she was busy with her dress before a mirror.

"He'll read it at least as well as Broadfoot," replied Miss Thusnelda in an irritated tone.

"But, children, surely you are not going to quarrel now," said the mother, trying to appease them.

"Fredegunda cannot stop teasing me," said Thusnelda.

"And you are always trying to be better than everybody else," said Fredegunda, appearing in the door.

"For heaven's sake, children, I pray you, keep quiet," cries Doctor Clemens, with imploring voice, raising his hands as if in prayer; "I hear somebody in the pa.s.sage."

The door was really opened at that moment by a maid, and in walk Professor Snellius, Mrs. Professor Snellius, and Miss Ida Snellius.

The broken peace of the Clemens family is immediately restored. They receive the new-comers as heartily as people who have worked their way to genuine humanity are apt to welcome their friends.

Professor Snellius, teacher of the first form and con-rector, a man of some forty years, aspired, like Rector Clemens, and perhaps even more energetically, to the ideal, and was perhaps even more favored in these efforts by his outward appearance. While the beauty of Rector Clemens had something vague about it, the character imprinted on the clear features of Professor Snellius was unmistakable; even the most malicious critic could not have denied that he bore a more than pa.s.sing resemblance to his favorite poet, Schiller. His admirers found in him the same boldly-curved nose, with the electric spasms around the nostrils, the same earnestness, the same majesty, the same tall form, which, however, was not dressed in ideal costume, but yielded so far to the demands of the time as to submit to a plain black suit, in which the painful neatness is interrupted only by the spotless white of a somewhat tight cravat. Professor Snellius is a pedagogue in the fullest sense of the word. His erudition is literally overwhelming. He teaches all the modern languages, Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Sanscrit, and is not quite unacquainted even with Chinese, which he reads in his leisure hours. He is enthusiastic about the young and his vocation as a teacher of the young. He has proclaimed his views on this most important task, and his propositions how to solve its problems in the best manner, in his voluminous work: "History of Education among the West Asiatic Nations prior to the times of Rhamses the Great." The motto of this work, and at the same time the professor's own motto, is: "Through struggle to victory!" Professor Snellius looks soberly upon life, and stammers a little whenever he becomes excited, as very frequently happens to him, about the want of ideal enthusiasm in his pupils, or about any other of his favorite subjects.

Mrs. Professor Snellius is a little lady who would be insignificant if she were not the wife of such a very great scholar. Miss Ida Snellius is an exceedingly tall and exceedingly awkward girl of sixteen, who looks marvellously like her father, and has the reputation of having inherited largely the erudition of her father. She likes to converse with highly-educated gentlemen--with others she does not speak at all--of comparative philology, and of Wilhelm von Humboldt, and is reported to have read through the twelve volumes of her father's famous work. This report, however, is so monstrous, that its truth may well be doubted.

The long-drawn salutations between the families Clemens and Snellius had not yet come to an end, when the door opened once more to admit Dr.

Kubel with wife and daughter. Kubel teaches the third form, and is a round, jovial little man, with a smoothly-shaven face, and white, well-kept hands--so round and so jovial that our days no longer produce the like, and that they were found only in the peaceful, stagnant waters of the period from the Congress of Vienna to the year 1848, in out-of-the-way colleges and other quiet districts of quiet Germany. His voice is loud and squeaking, and reminds you, as the figure of the man himself does, of the harmless dwellers in mora.s.ses. His erudition is not remarkable. Scoffers maintain that his only merit as a philologist consists in his having a very pretty daughter. Mary Kubel is indeed a very pretty, brown-eyed girl, ever cheerful and ready to laugh, who is unspeakably despised by the Misses Snellius and Clemens; by the former because she has once confounded Alexander and William von Humboldt; and by the latter because she has no idea of reading dramatic compositions.

To-day she especially roused the indignation of Thusnelda and Fredegunda, because she arrived at the same time with the two doctors, Winimer and Broadfoot, and therefore has the appearance of having them in her train. Now Thusnelda and Fredegunda are accustomed to claim the attentions of these two gentlemen as their own exclusive right, and that not without reason, for Mr. Winimer has already worn a lock of Thusnelda's hair near his heart for about six months, and exhibits it in sentimental moments to his intimate friends, threatening them with fearful disgrace if they should ever, ever betray him; and Mr.

Broadfoot has lost at least a dozen philippines, and, some say, his heart with them, to Fredegunda, during the six months since he received his appointment at the college. Doctor Winimer is a slender young man of medium size, whose tact in the intercourse with the fair s.e.x is a proverb among his colleagues, and who is always in more or less nervous excitement--thanks, no doubt, to the many delicate relations in which he stands, and of which he speaks in mysterious terms. Doctor Broadfoot is a gentleman whom a stranger might take for a butcher, and who is the continual b.u.t.t of his friends, on account of his enormous hands and feet, and his ordinary manners.

"Now, our club is nearly a.s.sembled," says Rector Clemens, rubbing his hands softly and raising his voice moderately. "Our dear guests alone have not come yet."

"Our guests, dear _collega_?" says Professor Snellius. "I thought the question was in the singularis of _hospes_?"

"_Minime!_" smiled the rector. "I have prepared a dual, yes, I may say a plural of surprises for you to-night, gentlemen and ladies. There will be two new guests here, besides our new colleague, of whom I expect great things for our social intercourse. Can you guess who they are?"

"But, Moritz, it was to be a surprise!" says Mrs. Clemens, in a reproachful tone.

"I think, my dear, it is better to prepare the club beforehand. Is it not our wish to receive the persons in question, not only as our guests for to-night, but to win them permanently over for our little club; and for that purpose, you know, we must have the consent of all the members, according to the regulations which you have prepared yourself."

"Who is it, rector." asked Doctor Winimer. "You torture us."

"A gentleman whose name has a good sound in the republic of letters, and a lady who will be of special interest for you, _Collega_ Winimer, in your capacity as lyric poet?"

"A lady?" cried Mr. Winimer, pa.s.sing his hand through his carefully-arranged hair, his pride and his ornament, a gesture for which he receives his punishment immediately in a reproving glance from the lady whose lock he wears upon his heart.

"Yes; a lady, a highly-gifted lyric talent."

"No doubt, Primula; I mean Mrs. Professor Jager!" cries Mr. Winimer.

"You have guessed it; the poetess of the 'Cornflowers' and the interpreter of the fragments of Chrysophilos, will appear to-night as stars, and, we hope, be willing to accept a permanent engagement hereafter," said Rector Clemens, with his softest smile.

A long-drawn, unisonous "Ah!" of astonishment, testified to the interest felt by the company in this announcement.

"I had another reason, besides, why I invited Mr. and Mrs. Jager to-night," continues the rector; "it was, so to say, a consideration of humanity for our new colleague, Doctor Stein. He is an entire stranger in our circle, and seems to be remarkably shy, embarra.s.sed, and little accustomed to move in larger circles. Mr. and Mrs. Jager, he told me himself this morning, are old acquaintances of his--from the time when he was a tutor, I believe--and he will no doubt be glad to meet to-night among so many strange or nearly strange faces, at least a few old friends."

"This delicate attention does you honor, _collega_," says Professor Snellius, pressing the rector's hand, and displaying in the act the elegiac feature near the nostrils.

"But I think, Mrs. Clemens, the parts have all been distributed," says Doctor Winimer, who is to read "Max," and is all the more opposed to any change of programme, as his beloved Thusnelda reads the "Thekla,"

and he has spent four weeks' arduous study upon learning his part.

"I have given Doctor Stein the Captain, who was not yet given out,"

says Mrs. Clemens, in the tone of one not accustomed to contradiction, and allowing no opposition. "That is a very nice part, and he can show to-night whether he can read or not. I should have liked, to be sure, to read it over with him, but he must look but for himself now. As to Mr. and Mrs. Jager, I have given them the Devereux and MacDonald, who were still vacant."

"But, my dear Mrs. Clemens," squeaked Doctor Kubel, "do you really think those parts are quite suitable for our new friends at their first debut?"

"Why not, dear doctor?" asks the manager, with a frown of impatience.

"I only think they will hardly like it particularly to make their first appearance among us as murderers," says Doctor Kubel.

The lady manager, whose brow has become darker and darker as her jocose guest speaks, is about to reply, but is prevented from doing so, for the door opens at that moment in order to admit Mr. and Mrs. Professor (ex-pastor) Jager into the room.

The n.o.ble pair have not left the "lowly roof" and the "country fields"

behind them without a change which might possibly escape the careless observer, but which the sharper eye would at once discern in many a characteristic symptom. Professor Jager knows but too well the use which the mask of humility, of modesty, and unpretending simplicity has rendered Pastor Jager, to lay it aside now when he has barely reached half of his ambitious end. He has only aired it a little, and he who has eyes to see, can at times very clearly discern underneath, his true face, marked with the double impress of the scholar's conceit and the priest's pride. Mrs. Jager affords the same sight, only translated into childish and foolish words. The author of the "Cornflowers" has the air of a person who expects every moment an effusion of overwhelming praise, and is quite determined to deprecate it. If the appearance of the professor reminds one of the well-known wolf in sheep's clothes, and one cannot very well feel quite safe in his neighborhood, his wife's appearance recalls the familiar crow, who thought herself Juno's own bird, and it requires an effort to remain serious. The change in the outward appearance is less perceptible; the interpreter of Chrysophilos has exchanged his plain gla.s.ses in horn for a pair of gold spectacles, and Primula wears in her golden hair a few artistic imitations of those blue flowers that have furnished her with a t.i.tle for her poems. Both hold in their hands a copy of Wallenstein, full of joyous antic.i.p.ations, hoping to carry off the honors of the evening by their masterly declamation, and without the most remote suspicion of the mortal insult which is to be inflicted upon their pride during the next ten minutes.

Full of hope and free of suspicion they enter the room, welcome the "highly-honored landlord and landlady," and greet the younger gentlemen of the college, who are formally introduced. This is the first large party at which they appear since their triumphant return to Grunwald.

Rector Clemens is known for the intelligent and interesting company he has at his house; he surpa.s.ses in this the other professors of the university even, unless it be Privy Councillor Roban, whose parties, however, do not consume half as much poetical sentiment. Mr. and Mrs.

Jager are determined that this circle shall soon be only the nebular preparation for the brilliant light of their own superiority.

"Ah! my worthy friend," says Professor Jager, after having saluted Clemens and Snellius, to Doctor Kubel, under whom he has been sitting as pupil, pressing the fat, white hands with great warmth; "how delighted I am to meet you, my highly esteemed teacher, and to see you in such excellent health! Indeed, one might say of you as of Wallenstein, that the swift years have pa.s.sed over your brown hair without leaving a trace. Indeed, indeed, _mens sana in corpore sano_. I learnt that from you, but you have practised what you taught, Doctor Winimer, I rejoice exceedingly to make your personal acquaintance; both myself and my wife have known you long and held you dear, through your charming 'Mayflowers.' Permit me to present you to my wife; I should like to see the Cornflowers and the Mayflowers bound up in a bouquet, ha, ha, ha! Doctor Broadfoot, I am happy to meet a man of science, of your great merit. Your admirable monographs on Origens and Eusebius have rendered me essential service in writing my Fragments. I am glad to be able, at last, to thank you in person."

While Professor Jager was thus making the round, winding snake-like through the circle of the gentlemen. Primula flitted sylph-like through the circle of ladies. She had, like the "maiden from afar," a gift for every one. She pays a compliment to the elder ladies. She envies Thusnelda and Fredegunda their "charming, highly-poetical" names; she congratulates Ida Snellius on her progress in Portuguese, and pats Mary Kubel on the blus.h.i.+ng cheeks and calls her a dear, sweet child.

"But our colleague comes really a little too late," says Rector Clemens, looking at his watch. "I think, Augusta, we might have tea."

"Whom do you expect, my dear sir?" asks Professor Jager of the rector.

"Whose foot did not yet cross this threshold?" asks Primula, who is full of reminiscences of Wallenstein, of the lady manager.

At the very moment, when the professor and his wife are about to answer these questions, the door opens and Oswald's tall form appears in the frame.