Through Night to Light Part 4

"Yes."

"Your name?"

Oswald gave his name.

The man looked at a table, on which the names of those who were to be admitted seemed to be written; then he put his head out again, and said through the small window,

"Go straight across the court to the main entrance; there ring again!"

The gate opened, and closed again when Oswald had entered. He went towards the house across the large court-yard, which was covered with gravel and adorned here and there with groups of trees and shrubberies.

On a bench under one of the trees, amidst a group of several persons, sat a young man remarkably well dressed. When Oswald pa.s.sed him he rose very politely, and taking off his hat and making a deep bow, said,

"I surely have the honor of addressing the Emperor of Fez and Morocco?"

As Oswald answered No! to the strange question, the young man shook his head sadly, and looking at Oswald with a vacant stare, he added,

"It is very remarkable! the emperor had promised me solemnly to come for me this summer; and now the summer is nearly gone and the emperor has not come yet. I shall have to wait till next summer. But then he will be here most certainly. Don't you think so?"

"I do not doubt it for a moment," replied Oswald. A faint ray of joy flashed across the pale face of the unfortunate man. He bowed again, put on his hat, and went back to his seat on the bench.

Oswald went to the front door, rang the bell, and a servant who appeared at the summons opened the door for him and showed him into a parlor. Then he took his name, and begged him to wait a few moments.

Doctor Birkenhain would be in directly.

It was a handsome, lofty apartment. A few excellent oil-paintings hung on the walls; antique heads and busts stood about on brackets, the Apollo Belvedere, the Zeus of Otricoli, the Ludovisi Juno; upon the centre-tables lay books and portfolios with engravings. All breathed the highest kind of enjoyment, and nothing reminded the visitor that he was in a house of disease and death.

After a few minutes the door opened and Doctor Birkenhain entered.

Oswald had of course formed to himself some idea of the man who had recently become so very important to him, and was grievously disappointed when he found that there was not a feature of his portrait in the man before him. He had imagined Doctor Birkenhain to be a venerable old man, full of dignity and gravity, and now he found himself standing before a man little older than himself--he had surely not pa.s.sed his thirtieth year--tall and thin, with spare, light-brown hair and carefully-trimmed moustache and beard, a pale face of a sickly, sallow color, a lofty brow, and large light-blue eyes, in which one could instantly see that they were accustomed to read the hearts of men, and whose intense piercing sharpness became after awhile almost unbearable.

Doctor Birkenhain greeted Oswald with due politeness, and then expressed his regret that he should have been deprived of the pleasure of making Doctor Braun's acquaintance, whom he had wished to congratulate upon having secured to himself a place among the first physicians of Germany by his admirable treatise on typhus. Then he added:

"I have looked forward to your visit with the greatest interest, because I hope great things for Berger from the effect of your meeting with him. I know through Mr. Bemperlein, and also from Berger's own lips, that you are the most intimate friend, and, so to speak, the favorite, of the unfortunate man--that you were so at least before the breaking out of his disease. If anything can succeed in reviving once more the interest in life which has been almost entirely extinguished in Berger, it is love--not the universal love of mankind, which is only another kind of egotism, but the special love for a single individual, with whose joys and sorrows he can heartily sympathize. Love is the most vigorous of all feelings; it resists annihilation better than any other and outlives all others. The greatest psychologist who ever lived, and to whom we physicians are deeply indebted, Shakespeare, makes Lear say to the fool shortly before insanity overwhelms him: 'I have one part in my heart that's sorry yet for thee.' This one part of the heart is the sound part, where the cure must begin, and so it is with Berger. I beg, therefore, you will try to interest Berger by all means in your own fate. Tell him all about your plans and purposes, your hopes and your wishes--about your joys and your sorrows; speak to him especially of your griefs, if you have any--and you will pardon such an indiscretion in a physician--I think your confidences will be particularly ample in that direction. You smile! Well, perhaps I am mistaken, and what I thought I read in your face is the result of mere bodily uneasiness, and not of mental suffering; but, however that may be, do not conceal from Berger the shady side, and even the night side of your life. On the contrary, complain--and the more impressively, the more painfully, you can do that, the better--only mourn and grieve like a sick man, who longs after health like an imprisoned bird that yearns after freedom. The sufferings of those we love are a thousand times more touching to us than our own, and the burden which Berger hardly feels in his own case will appear to him unbearable when he sees it on the shoulders of one who is dear to him. For, I repeat it, that is the only way to approach such a man. He is too deep a thinker, too subtle a philosopher, not to be clad in impenetrable armor against all reasoning. If you prove to him the dignity and usefulness of life, he meets you with ten arguments which prove the contrary; and if you split a hair, he splits each half over again. On the other hand, you need not fear that he will involve you, as formerly, in long philosophic discussions. The science which was once his delight, is now a horror to him; he will hear nothing of it and see nothing. And now, one thing more: how long do you propose staying in Fichtenau?"

"Four or five days at most."

"Very well; I was just about to ask you not to extend your visit beyond that. The purpose is to make a deep impression upon Berger; and after the pleasure he will feel at seeing you again, he must experience the pain of parting so soon. Perhaps we may thus lure him back into the world, from which he now turns away in disgust."

"Has Berger been made aware of my arrival?"

"No. I wished to profit even by the surprise. I shall not go with you, so that there maybe nothing to diminish the surprise. You can tell me afterwards how he received you. He generally takes about this time a walk in the mountains, which he occasionally extends into the night. I give him perfect liberty, as any restraint would only be injurious. You know, besides, that his coming here was his own wish and resolution. Go with him when he takes his walk; heart opens to heart more readily under the great dome of heaven than under the ceiling of a room."

"One thing more," continued Doctor Birkenhain, as they were rising.

"You will find Berger much changed in appearance; try to influence him in that direction also, though of course you will have to use your discretion. Such apparent trifles are of great importance; a missing glove-b.u.t.ton may make a dandy lose his composure, and we have a different temper in our dressing gown and in evening dress. Now let us go, if you like; I will show you the way to Berger's door."

The two gentlemen went from the reception room across the hall, with its tessellated floor, up the wide stone steps, through lofty, airy pa.s.sages.

They were met by several persons whom Oswald would not have taken for patients if Doctor Birkenhain had not told him so; they gave such sensible answers to the casual questions of the physician.

"This wing is for the slightly-affected patients," said Doctor Birkenhain; "as it is such fine weather most of them are in the garden or in the court-yard. How do you do, counsellor?"

"Thank you, doctor," replied an exceedingly corpulent, good-looking man, whom they met pa.s.sing with a watering-pot in his hand, "thank you, I should be perfectly well, if----"

The counsellor cast a glance at Oswald, and then came quite close to the doctor, whispering something in his ear, of which Oswald could only catch the words, "bundle of hay"--"in my side." "Oh, that matters very little," replied Birkenhain, in a tone full of confidence, which sounded as if it must have been inspiring to the greatest hypochondriac; "we'll soon settle that." The patient gratefully shook hands with his physician and went on, evidently quite comforted and delighted with the probable victory over his imaginary ailment.

"I wish Berger's case were as easy as that man's," said Doctor Birkenhain, as they were walking down the long pa.s.sage; "but pills and ointments have no effect on his complaint. Here we are; now you go to the end of the pa.s.sage, and the last door to the left is Berger's room.

I am very curious to hear what you will have to tell me. Will you dine with me to-morrow? I shall take great pleasure in presenting you to my wife. At three o'clock. Will you come? _Au revoir_, then!"

Doctor Birkenhain shook hands with Oswald and went into one of the rooms which they had pa.s.sed. Oswald went alone to the end of the pa.s.sage, full of the deep impression which the man who had just left him had made upon him, and at the same time very much troubled about the part which he was to play. He was to help Berger to recover his interest in life, and he had himself lost all such interest! Was he not of all men the least fitted for such a mission? And yet he had accepted it! He must fulfil it!

Oswald came to the door which had been pointed out to him. Upon the brown panel was something written in chalk, and evidently in Berger's hand:

"_Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate_."

Oswald shuddered as he read it. He remained standing undecided before the door, and it was some time before he could make up his mind to knock. He listened to hear if anything was stirring within; he heard nothing. At last he summoned courage and knocked with a strong hand. As no answer came, he knocked still louder; again no answer. A great fear overcame him; he hastily opened the door and entered the room.

CHAPTER VII.

Oswald need not have feared. Berger was sitting in the centre of the darkened room, all the curtains being closed, before a table covered with books. He was resting his head in both hands, and seemed to sleep, for he did not stir even when Oswald stepped up close to the table.

Oswald did not dare wake him. He remained standing by the table and looked at the poor sufferer, his eyes filling unconsciously with tears.

What havoc these few months had made with the face once so proud, so full of energy; the dark curling hair was grizzled; the ma.s.sive brow, hewn apparently out of the live granite, appeared even more powerful and imposing, thanks to the increased baldness at the temples. A full beard, formerly an aversion to Berger, now flowed, silver-gray, from cheek, lips, and chin, so that the end nearly touched the table. His hands, once so plump and carefully kept, had become so thin, so transparent! And what a costume! A blue smock-frock, instead of the black coat which was never allowed to show a particle of dust; a coa.r.s.e, ill-fitting s.h.i.+rt, instead of the fine, dazzling white linen upon which he formerly insisted. On the table a worn-out slouched hat and a stick, which had evidently not long ago formed part of a hedge of thorns, in place of the smooth silk hat from Paris, and the clouded cane with its gold head! If the outer man could change to such an extent, what a revolution must have taken place in the lowest depths of the soul!

Berger stirred. He raised his head, opened his eyes, and looked at Oswald. His eyes were deep and clear, and looked larger than usual; he did not start nor betray astonishment, wonder, or fear, at the unexpected sight.

"I had but just now dreamt of you, Oswald," he said, rising, with a low voice, from which all former sharpness and energy seemed to have departed.

Oswald could restrain himself no longer. He sobbed aloud and threw himself into Berger's arms. Now only, lying on the bosom of this man, he felt all his sufferings fully, as he thought; now only, in the arms of this man who had endured so much, he fancied he need not be ashamed any longer of the tears which his heart had bled when his eyes refused to weep.

Berger held him in his arms, as a father holds his son who comes home from a far country in which he has fed with the swine.

"Weep on," he said, "weep! Tears relieve a young, overflowing heart.

When I was as young as you, I wept as you do; now my eyes have forgotten how to weep."

"Berger, dear, dear Berger!"

"I knew I should see you again. I expected you long ago. I did not think you would stand it so long in the great desert outside. Weep on!

Tears are the price with which we buy our souls back again, when we find what a wretched bargain we had made before we knew better. Ere we give up life we have to learn that it is better not to live. Some learn that sooner, others later. Be glad that you are one of those who during the bitterness of the Sansara have already a foretaste of the sweetness of the Nirvana."

He left Oswald, and took his hat and cane from the table.

"Come!" he said.

Oswald was so deeply moved by this scene that the recollection of Berger's odd costume only suggested to him the conviction how utterly impossible it would be to speak to such a man of such things. He would as lief have reminded a mother who was weeping over the body of her child of some defect in her toilet, a bow out of place, or a ribbon which had come loose.

They pa.s.sed through the long pa.s.sages, down the broad stone staircase and out into the court-yard. As they went across the latter, the young man who was sitting on the bench came up to them and repeated the question which he had before asked of Oswald: