Debit and Credit Part 20

CHAPTER XIV.

Anton was now the most a.s.siduous of all the clerks in the office. Fink was seldom able to persuade him to accompany him out riding or to the shooting gallery, but, on the other hand, he made diligent use of his friend's book-shelves, and having, after arduous study, gained some insight into the mysteries of the English language, he was anxious to exercise his conversational powers upon Fink. But the latter proving a most irregular and careless master, Anton thought it best to put himself in the hands of a well-educated Englishman.

One day, looking up from his desk as the door opened, he saw, to his amazement, Veitel Itzig, his old Ostrau schoolfellow. Hitherto they had but seldom met, and whenever they did so, Anton had taken pains to look another way.

"How are you getting on?" asked he, coldly enough.

"Poorly," was the reply; "there is nothing to be made in our business. I was to give you this letter, and to inquire when Mr. Bernhard Ehrenthal may call upon you."

"Upon me!" said Anton, taking the letter and a card with it.

The letter was from his English master, asking whether he would join young Ehrenthal in a systematic course of some of the older English writers.

"Where does Mr. Bernhard Ehrenthal live?" asked Anton.

"At his father's," said Itzig, making a face. "He sits in his own room all the day long."

"I will call upon him," rejoined Anton; and Itzig took his departure.

Anton was not much inclined to agree to the proposal. The name of Ehrenthal did not stand high, and Itzig's appearance had not conferred any pleasant a.s.sociations upon it. But the ironical way in which he had mentioned his master's son, and something Anton had heard of him besides, determined him to take the matter at least into consideration.

Accordingly, one of the next days he mounted the dingy staircase, and was at once ushered into Bernhard's room, which was long and narrow, and filled with books great and small.

A young man came toward him with the uncertainty of manner that short-sight gives. He had fine features, a fragile frame, brown curling hair, and deep, expressive gray eyes. Anton mentioned the reason of his visit, and inquired the terms for the course. To his astonishment, young Ehrenthal did not know them, but said that, if Anton insisted upon sharing the expense, he would inquire. Our hero next asked whether Bernhard was in business with his father.

"Oh no," was the reply; "I have been at the University, and as it is not easy for a young man of my creed to get a government appointment, and I can live with my family, I occupy myself with my books." And, casting a loving glance at his book-shelves, he rose as if to introduce his guest to them.

Anton looked at their t.i.tles, and said, "They are too learned for me."

Bernhard smiled. "Through the Hebrew I have gone on to the other Asiatic languages. There is much beauty in them, and in their Old-World legends.

I am now engaged upon a translation from the Persian, and some day or other, when you have a few idle minutes, I should like to inflict a short specimen upon you."

Anton had the politeness to beg to hear it at once. It was one of those countless poems in which a votary of the grape compares his beloved to all fair things in heaven and earth. Its complicated structure impressed Anton a good deal, but he was somewhat amazed at Bernhard exclaiming, "Beautiful! is it not? I mean the thought, for I am unable to give the beauty of language;" and he looked inspired, like a man who drinks Schiraz wine, and kisses his Zuleika all day long.

"But must one drink in order to love?" said Anton; "with us the one is very possible without the other."

"With us, life is very commonplace."

"I do not think so," Anton replied, with fervor. "We have the sunshine and the roses, the joy in existence, the great pa.s.sions and strange destinies of which poets sing."

"Our present time is too cold and uniform," rejoined Bernhard.

"So I read in books, but I do not believe it. I think that whoever is discontented with our life would be so still more with life in Teheran or Calcutta, if he remained there long enough. It is only novelty that charms the traveler."

"But how poor in vivid sensations our civilized existence is," rejoined Bernhard. "I am sure you must often feel business very prosaic."

"That I deny," was the eager reply; "I know nothing so interesting as business. We live amid a many-colored web of countless threads, stretching across land and sea, and connecting man with man. When I place a sack of coffee in the scales, I am weaving an invisible link between the colonist's daughter in Brazil, who has plucked the beans, and the young mechanic who drinks it for his breakfast; and if I take up a stick of cinnamon, I seem to see, on the one side, the Malay who has rolled it up, and, on the other, the old woman of our suburb who grates it over her pudding."

"You have a lively imagination, and are happy in the utility of your calling. But if we seek for poetry, we must, like Byron, quit civilized countries to find it on the sea or in the desert."

"Not so," replied Anton, pertinaciously; "the merchant has just as poetical experiences as any pirate or Arab. There was a bankruptcy lately. Could you have witnessed the gloomy lull before the storm broke, the fearful despair of the husband, the high spirit of his wife, who insisted upon throwing in her own fortune to the last dollar to save his honor, you would not say that our calling is poor in pa.s.sion or emotion."

Bernhard listened with downcast eyes, and Anton remarked that he seemed embarra.s.sed and distressed.

Changing the conversation, he proposed that they should both walk together to the English master, and make the final arrangements. They left the house like two old acquaintances; Anton surprised that Ehrenthal's son should be so little of a trader, Bernhard delighted to find a man with whom he could discuss his favorite subjects.

That evening he joined the family circle in a cheerful mood, and placing himself behind his sister, who was practicing a difficult piece on a costly piano, he kissed her ear. "Do not disturb me, Bernhard," said she; "I must get this piece perfect for the large party on Sunday, when I shall be asked to play."

"Of course you will be asked," said her mother. "There is no company that does not wish to hear Rosalie play. If you could only be persuaded to come with us, Bernhard--you are so clever and so learned. It was but the other day that Professor Starke, of the University, spoke of you to me in the highest terms. It is so pleasant for a mother to feel proud of her children! Why will you not join us? The society will be as good as any in the town."

"You know, mother, that I am not fond of strangers."

"And I desire that my son Bernhard should have his own way," cried Ehrenthal from a neighboring room, having chanced, during a pause in Rosalie's practice, to hear the last sentence, and now joining his family: "our Bernhard is not like other people, and his way is sure to be a good one. You look pale, my son," stroking his brown curls; "you study too much. Think of your health. The doctor recommended exercise.

Will you have a horse, my son Bernhard? I will get the most expensive horse in the town for you, if you like."

"Thank you, dear father; but it would give me no pleasure," and he gratefully pressed the hand of his father, who looked sorrowfully at his pale face.

"Do you always give Bernhard what he likes to eat? Get him some peaches, Sidonie; there are hot-house peaches to be had. You shall have any thing you like; you are my good son Bernhard, and my delight is in you."

"He will not have any thing of the kind," interposed his mother. "All his joy is in his books. Many a day he never asks for Rosalie and me. He reads too much, and that's why he looks like a man of sixty. Why will he not go with us on Sunday?"

"I will, if you like," said Bernhard, mournfully; adding soon after, "Do you know a young man of the name of Wohlfart, in Schroter's house?"

"No," said his father, decidedly.

"Perhaps you do, Rosalie. He is handsome and refined-looking; I think you must have met him."

"Hardly, if he is in an office."

"Our Rosalie dances chiefly with officers and artists," explained her mother.

"He is a clever and a delightful man," continued Bernhard; "I am going to study English with him, and rejoice to have made his acquaintance."

"He shall be invited," decreed Ehrenthal; "if he pleases our Bernhard, he shall be welcome to our house. Let us have a good dinner on Sunday, Sidonie, at two o'clock. He shall come to all our parties; Bernhard's friend shall be the friend of us all."

The mother gave her consent, and Rosalie began to ponder what dress she should wear, so as to make the greatest impression.

But whence came it to pa.s.s that Bernhard did not communicate to his family the subject of the conversation that had so much interested him?

that he soon relapsed into silence and returned to his study? that, when there, he bowed his head over his old ma.n.u.scripts, while large drops rolled down on them, erasing the much-prized characters un.o.bserved?

Whence came it that the young man, of whom his mother was so proud, whom his father so loved and honored, sat alone, shedding the bitterest tears that an honest man can, while in another part of the house Rosalie's white fingers were flying over the keys, practicing the difficult piece that was to astonish the next soiree? From that day dated a friendship between Anton and Bernhard which was a source of pleasure and profit to both. Anton described the studious youth to the free and easy Fink, and expressed his wish to bring about a meeting between the two by a tea-drinking in his rooms.

"If it amuses you, Tony," said Fink, shrugging his shoulders, "I will come; but I warn you that of all living characters I most dislike a book-worm. No one theorizes more presumptuously upon every possible subject, or makes a greater fool of himself when it comes to practice.

And, besides, a son of the worthy Ehrenthal! Don't be angry if I soon run away."

On the evening appointed, Bernhard sat on Anton's sofa in anxious expectation of the arrival of this well-known character, many wild anecdotes of whom had found their way even into his study.

At first Anton feared that the two would never suit. Two greater contrasts could hardly be imagined; the thin, transparent hand of Bernhard, and the healthy, muscular development of Fink; the bent form of the one, the elastic strength of the other; here, a deeply-lined face, with dreamy eyes; there, a proud set of features, lighted up by a glance like an eagle's--how could these possibly harmonize? But all turned out better than he had expected. Bernhard listened with much interest to what Fink had to say of foreign countries, and Anton did all he could to turn the conversation to subjects likely to bring out Bernhard.