A Divided Heart and Other Stories Part 9

"Certainly. These are all views from Rothenburg. I thought you knew it, my lady, as you did not ask."

"Rothenburg? Where is it?"

"Oh, on the Tauber, not many hours' journey from here. But really, do you not know it? Have you never even heard the name?"

"You must pardon my ignorance," she replied, with a slight smile, "as I am not a German. But I have been with Germans very often, and confess to you, I never heard the name of Rothenburg on the--how was it?--on the Tauber?--until now."

He laughed, losing his timidity at once as he realized his advantage over this elegant woman on such an important point.

"Pardon me," he said, "for having behaved to you as all Rothenburgers do to strangers, even though my cradle did not stand on the banks of the Tauber. We are all so infatuated with our city, that we can scarcely imagine how our feeling appears to people who know nothing of Rothenburg. When I went there for the first time nine years ago, I myself knew little more of the old 'imperial' town than that it stood, like Jerusalem, upon a high plateau rising from the river valley; was even yet fortified with walls and towers as for the last half-thousand years; and had the honor, once upon a time, to count the founder of my race among its citizens. Permit me to introduce myself to you: my name is Hans Doppler."

He bowed smilingly, looking at her as if he expected that this name would arouse in her a joyful excitement, somewhat as if he had confided that his name was Hans Columbus or Gutenberg. But her expression did not change in the least.

"Doppler," he continued, somewhat hesitatingly, "is merely the new version of the name Toppler, and was introduced during the last century in the collateral line to which I belong. Yet it is authentically certain that the founder of our family was no less a person than the great burgomaster of Rothenburg, Heinrich Toppler, of whom you have undoubtedly heard."

She shook her head, evidently amused by his nave confidence.

"I regret that my historical knowledge is just as defective as my geographical. But what did your ancestor do, that it is a disgrace not to know of him?"

"Do not fear, my lady," said he, now laughing at his own pretensions, "that from mere family pride I would bore you with a piece of Rothenburg history. That pride has good reason to be humbled; for I myself, as you see me, have nothing at all to govern in my ancestral home; but, for that very reason, I need not expect to be imprisoned and delivered up to death from hunger or poison by my fellow-citizens, as my ancestor was, after he had increased the good old town's military renown. A horrible end, was it not, my lady? A fine return for so many brave deeds! And all because of a mere slander. He was said to have lost the town to a certain prince in a game of dice; but not a word of it was true. In the ancient language, Doppler, to be sure, meant dice, and in our family arms--"

He stopped suddenly, for it seemed to him that the lady's delicate nostrils were trembling in the effort to conceal a yawn. Somewhat mortified, he turned his attention to his aquarelles, and arranged them in the portfolio which he was still holding in his hand.

"And how did it happen," she then asked, "that you inherited this unjustly murdered man's estate? Did they wish to repay to you the wrong they did your ancestor?"

"You err, my lady," he said, "if you believe that Rothenburg would feel any honor about having a Doppler once more among them, or would allow this honor to cost them anything. When I, as I told you, merely curious to see the old fortress, strolled through the ancient gateway nine years ago, not a person there knew me, and even when I mentioned my name, they made little fuss about it. Indeed, as I was born in Nuremberg, and no longer have the T in my name, they greatly doubted that I really belonged to them. But, as the poet says, the history of the world is the final judgment; and what the magistrate of Rothenburg neglected to do--that is, to meet me ceremoniously, surrender to me for my sole possession the houses which the great burgomaster had owned, and support me for my lifetime as a living part of the city--fate, or providence, whichever you wish, did in another way.

"I came to Rothenburg merely to make a few studies and to take a look at the old-fashioned nest, and I found there my life's happiness and a warm, new nest of my own, to which I am now returning."

"May I know how it happened?"

"Why not, if it interests you at all. My parents sent me to the academy at Munich. They were not rich, but yet their means were sufficient to educate me suitably and to allow me to go through all the cla.s.ses. I wished to become a landscape painter, and, after finishing school, to travel in Italy for several years. When I became twenty-one years of age I felt impelled, before undertaking the great art-journey, to visit my good mother at Nuremberg--father had been dead for some time.

'Hans,' said she, 'before you make your pilgrimage to Rome, you ought to take a trip to the place where the roots of our family tree stood before they were torn up and transplanted here from eastern Franconia.'

She was a worthy old patrician, my good mother, and laid great stress on grand genealogical expressions. Well, there was nothing to hinder; I took my pilgrim's staff in hand and set out slowly toward the west, sketching industriously on the way; for this German landscape of ours was already far dearer to me than the unknown scenes of the south. Now, since you have looked through the portfolio, you may perhaps comprehend that the German Jerusalem impressed me strongly, and that I did not have hands and eyes enough to note all the remarkable things. But there was something in Rothenburg which won my approval even more than its dear antiquity; namely--I shall not treat you to any detailed love story--at one of the weekly b.a.l.l.s given by the so-called 'Harmonic Society,' I became acquainted with the young daughter of a fine old citizen who had formerly been an alderman. She was full three years younger than I, and--I may surely say so--the prettiest child in the whole town. After the second waltz I knew my own mind well enough, but, unfortunately, neither hers nor her father's. And so it might have been a very sorrowful story, and the descendant of the great Toppler might, like him, have pined away in chains in this old 'imperial' town, if the before-mentioned fate had not interfered, and allowed me to cast a lucky throw with my family dice. In three days I was satisfied that the maiden liked me; and in three weeks, that the father would overlook my extreme youth and former misdoings, for he too--G.o.d knows why--had taken a foolish liking to me. It was especially pleasing to his Rothenburg heart that my name was Doppler, and that I knew how to paint the beautiful ruined walls, the wonderful turrets and strange fountains, of the old fortress. So, after a short year of probation, he gave me the hand of his only child, under the condition, to be sure, that I should leave her in her old home during his lifetime, and should devote my art princ.i.p.ally to the glorification of his beloved town. You comprehend, my lady, that I did not struggle much against this. My father-in-law was not only a reputable man, who owned house and gardens, vineyards and farm lands, but the best soul in the world as well, and never failed to see a joke except when some one praised other ancient towns unduly, or placed Nuremberg or Augsburg above the 'Pearl of the Valley.' He lived with us for four years; and whenever I sold any picture of Rothenburg at a foreign exhibition, he always brought a flask of Tauber wine from the cellar and drank my health. When he finally died, I myself was altogether too much at home in the primitive, angular old house to think of moving. Then, too, there was no lack of commissions and work just commenced. But if the old man had lived to see my colored prints published, I believe he would have lost his reason for joy."

Becoming silent after this long narrative of his short life, he looked out of the window into the ever-deepening darkness, and lost himself in quiet revery. It finally occurred to him that the stranger had not said one syllable in reply; and at the same time he felt her eyes steadily regarding him from her dusky corner. "I am afraid," he said, "that after all, I have wearied you with these petty stories. But you yourself drew them from me, and if you knew--"

"You are greatly in error," she interrupted. "If I remain silent, it is merely because I am pondering a riddle."

"A riddle? That I have given you?"

"Yes, you, Herr Hans Doppler. I am asking myself, how I can reconcile the artist whom I recognize from this portfolio, with the staid, home-loving man--you have children too?"

"Four, my lady--two boys and two little girls."

"Well then--with the young husband and father who has settled down in his monotonous, commonplace happiness as in a snail-sh.e.l.l, and at most takes an occasional journey to Nuremberg--your drawings show unusual talent, for that you can take my word. I have seen the work of Hilderbrandt and Werner, and the whole Roman aquarelle club, and a.s.sure you yours would make a sensation among them. So much freedom and spirited ease, with such grace in the landscapes and _staff.a.ge_! And then to think that this unusual talent is doomed for the next thirty or forty years to no other expression than an endless variation of the towers, balconies, vaulted doors, and gabled roofs of a medieval nest which appears in our world like an excavated German Pompeii--But pardon me this criticism of your plan of life. I am not fitted to criticise it. However, as you wish to know the subject of my meditation, it was this problem: can a n.o.ble, liberal, artistic soul be so completely filled by commonplace family happiness? It must certainly be possible.

Only to me, as I am accustomed to absolute freedom of existence, to boundless liberty, it is incomprehensible that you, scarcely thirty years old--"

"You are right," he interrupted, his frank, youthful face suddenly clouding. "You have expressed something which I often said to myself at first, but always thrust back again into a secret corner of my heart.

Do you really find that my drawings show power for something greater and better? At the best I would fall far short of a great artist!

Meanwhile, you know Schiller's poem, 'Pegasus in Harness.' A horse that suffers itself to be harnessed to the plough, even though it may be of good blood, proves that it has no wings. But perhaps it might have served for something better than ploughing. And yet, if you knew--if only you knew my Christel and the children!"

"I do not for an instant doubt that you have a charming wife and lovely children, Herr Hans Doppler; and nothing is farther from my thoughts than to render you suspicious of your domestic happiness. But that you, being so young, can regard it as final, as something never to be interrupted, never to be laid aside even temporarily for the sake of a higher aim--and you were even on the way to the beloved land of art, and had certainly heard and seen enough of it at the academy to have some presentiment of the joys awaiting you there--and nevertheless--"

"Oh, my lady!" he cried, suddenly starting up as if the narrow _coupe_ had become too close and prison-like for him, "you are repeating my own thoughts! How often in the night, especially in clear spring nights, when I have awakened and heard my dear wife's quiet breathing near me; while the children were lying asleep in the neighboring room, and the moonlight was moving so weirdly and quietly over the low walls; and the ancient clock, which the old man wound so regularly, and which dates from the Thirty Years' War, was ticking drowsily to and fro--how often I have been forced to spring out of bed and look down into the valley through the little window with the round pane! And when I have seen the Tauber flowing along in its narrow bed as hastily as if it could not escape too soon from its restraining banks and throw itself into the Main, and with it into the Rhine, and thence into the ocean--how much I have suffered, as I ground my teeth together and slunk back to bed tired and saddened, I have never told a human soul. It seemed the blackest ingrat.i.tude against the kind fate which had dealt with me so gently. But the day after I could never touch a brush; and if I saw in a paper the word Rome or Naples, the blood rushed to my head as though I were some deserter caught on the road, and dragged handcuffed back to his barracks."

He thrust his hand through his curly hair, and fell back in his seat.

She had regarded him during his excited speech with a keen, fixed look, and, for the first time, his face interested her. The innocent, youthful expression had disappeared; his clear, beautifully formed eyes blazed; and his slender figure, in spite of the common black coat, gained something animated, almost heroic, as well beseemed the descendant of the "great burgomaster."

"I understand your mood," said the stranger, composedly taking a cigarette from a small silver box and lighting it with a waxen taper, "but just so much the less do I comprehend your action. To be sure, I myself have always been accustomed to do only what satisfies my nature's deepest needs. I acknowledge no chains. Either they are too weak, and I break them; or they are too strong, and strangle me. To remain in them alive is for me an impossibility. Do you smoke? Do not be embarra.s.sed. You see, I set the example."

He shook his head, thanked her, and became all attention.

"As I said," continued the lady, blowing the smoke slowly before her with her beautiful, expressive lips, "I have no right to criticise your plan of life. But you must allow me to wonder how a man can complain of a difficulty rather than help himself out of it, especially where it would be so easy. Do you fear that your wife would be untrue to you if you should take an art journey?"

"Christel? Untrue to me?" In spite of his gloominess he laughed aloud.

"Pardon!" she said calmly; "I forgot that she is a German, and, moreover, a Rothenburg woman. But just so much less do I comprehend why you condemn yourself to a lifetime of such work; representing only the church and _klimperthor_, or, as it is called--"

"_Klingerthor_, my lady."

"Well, then, all this trashy masonry and commonplace Gothic rubbish, as if there were no Colosseum, no baths of Caracalla, no theatre at Taormina! And what vegetation, what luxuriant growths there are among the ruins of those old temples; what pines and cypresses, what distant glimpses of ocean and mountains! Believe me, I myself, although I am not yet an old woman, would have been dead and buried long ago if I had not escaped from narrow, maddeningly lifeless surroundings, and found salvation in that land of beauty and freedom."

"Madame is not married?"

She threw the glowing cigarette stump out of the window, pressed her regular, little white teeth together an instant, and then said, in an indescribably indifferent voice--

"My husband, the General, was governor of a moderately large fortress in the interior of Russia, and naturally could not accompany me. Then, too, at his age, it would have been hard for him to forego his home comforts. So we decided to arrange a rendezvous somewhere on the frontier for every two years, and since then each has lived much more contentedly.

"I well know," she continued, as he looked at her with some disapproval, "that this conception of married happiness is revolting to sentimental German prejudices. But, believe me, in many respects, we barbarians are in advance of your highly refined civilization; and we make up for our lack of political liberty by our greater social freedom. If you were a Russian, you would have emanc.i.p.ated yourself long ago, and followed the lead of your Tauber, though in the opposite direction. And what would you have lost by it? When you returned in a year or two as a well-developed artist, would you not find your house on the same spot, your wife as domestic and youthful as ever, your children, perhaps half a head taller, but as clean and pretty as you left them?"

"You are right! It is only too true," he stammered, pushing his hands nervously through his hair. "Oh, if I had but seen it so clearly before!"

"Before? A young man like you, not yet beyond thirty! But I see it now; you are too fond of the flesh-pots of Rothenburg. You are right; remain at home and earn an honest living. The proposition which I was just about to make would appear to you less rational than if I commanded you to travel in a desert and hunt tigers and crocodiles, instead of landscape motives."

She flung the sharp-pointed dart at him with so much quiet grace that he felt at once charmed and wounded.

"No, my lady," he cried, "you must tell me the proposition you had in mind. Although it is only a short time since I had the good fortune to make your acquaintance, I can nevertheless a.s.sure you that your appearance, each of your words, has made a deep and lasting impression on me. It is, to be plain, as if a complete change were going on in me, and these hours with you--"

He reddened and became silent. She noticed it, and came to his aid, although she was apparently looking beyond him.

"My proposition," she said, "will not by any means suffice to make an entirely different man of you, but only to release the true one from his narrow sh.e.l.l. I am now going to Wurzburg to visit a sick friend.

After staying with her for two days, I shall return on this same road, making no halt before Genoa, where I shall take pa.s.sage on a steamer bound for Palermo; for as yet I have not seen Sicily.

"Now, what Goethe has written in his 'Italian Journey' about his companion, the artist Kniep, whom he engaged to sketch any wayside scene which pleased his fancy, has always filled me with envy. I am no great poet, and no rich princess. Yet I am not so poor but that I too may grant myself such a travelling companion. Of course we now have photography. But to you at least I need not explain how much better it is to have an artistic hand at disposal than any photographic apparatus whatever. I also thought it would be well for you to be introduced into this paradise by some one who understands the language perfectly and is no novice in the art of travelling. You would be entirely free to remain with me as long or short a time as you pleased. The first sentence of our compact should read: Freedom even to inconsiderateness.

And if, on the return, you should wish to linger at Rome or Florence, the means for doing so--"

"Oh, my lady," he broke in, excitedly, "I would not think of trespa.s.sing on your kindness and generosity under any condition. I can well afford to spend a year in the south, and if I perceive in your proposal a sign from heaven, it is only because your suggestion, the prospect of seeing all these world wonders in your company, makes the determination so much easier. For that I shall be unceasingly grateful to you. It is indeed just as you say; my wife, my dear children--in fact, I shall offend them less than I now imagine. Christel is so intelligent, so self-reliant, she herself, when I explain it to her--or better, if you could say it to her as you have to me--truly, after Wurzburg you must--I cannot expect you to take a trip to Rothenburg--whoever has seen the Colosseum and the baths of Caracalla must regard our modest, commonplace, medieval--"