Hammer and Anvil Part 43

"But while I was declaiming you kept on smiling, as if you would have said: 'But you are dishonest.' Do you see, that is just my vexation.

With this wretched bringing-up of ours, one is filled so with honest notions that one cannot be a scoundrel, however good his intentions, but has to keep honest, in spite of his better insight. And if we cannot get over this, how can women?"

The doctor looked fixedly in the direction in which Paula had disappeared, and then took off his great, round spectacles, the gla.s.ses of which seemed to have become dim.

"You must not abuse the women, doctor," I said. "Fraulein Duff----"

"Has made me a formal proposal," said Doctor Snellius, hastily putting on his spectacles, "and here comes somebody who will make you one.

Beware of this Greek in uniform."

The doctor clapped his hat upon his head and hurried away, without returning the very friendly salute with which Arthur approached us from a side path.

"I am glad that he is gone," said Arthur, coming to my side and taking my arm just as in old times; "I have something to say to you, or rather I have something to beg of you; my father has already done it, it is true; but it can do no harm if I repeat it. You know what I mean."

"Yes," I answered.

"I behaved like a fool, I know," the ensign continued; "but you must really not think too hardly of me. I thought it was due to this thing here----" and he gave his sword a kind of toss with his left leg.

"Arthur," I said, stopping and withdrawing my arm, "I am not quite so clever as you, but you must not consider me an absolute fool. You separated yourself from me, long before you had that toasting-iron at your side. You did it because you had no further use for me, because it suited your purpose to join the hue and cry against me, because--"

"Well, yes," interrupted Arthur, "I don't deny it. I was in such an infernally dependent position that I had to howl with the wolves. If I had spoken out my real feelings, Lederer would have surely plucked me at the Easter Examination, and my uncle would never have paid for my ensign's outfit."

"And now," I said, "it seems the wind blows from another quarter, and we must trim our sails accordingly."

"Oh, hang it!" said Arthur, laughing, "you must not bring a fellow to book in that way. I often say things that I cannot maintain. You always knew that was a weakness of mine, and yet you used to like me. I have not changed, and why are you angry with me all at once? You may believe that I am still the same, notwithstanding my new caparison, which, by the way, I am not likely to wear so very much longer. It cost no end of trouble to get me the appointment; the colonel told me himself that he only did it out of regard for my uncle, who was his comrade in the war for freedom, and that on this account he would shut his eyes a little to his duty, and take no notice of the reports that were afloat about my father. But even as it is I am not out of the woods yet. Papa's affairs are in such a frightful condition that no creditor is willing to give him the least delay; and unless things now take a favorable turn, he is ruined, and I of course with him; my name will be struck off the list of candidates for promotion."

"What is this favorable turn to consist in?" I asked.

"Well, I don't precisely know myself," Arthur replied, decapitating some weeds with the scabbard of his sword. "Uncle Commerzienrath has to pay over to papa his share of the inheritance, left by my grandfather, which papa has never received; and also what is coming to us from Uncle Malte's estate. But the old Judas will pay nothing; he says papa has been paid already five and ten times over. As I said, I don't understand it; I only know that I never received a _groschen_ of cash from my uncle, and I even envy my servant-fellow, who at least has enough to eat."

I took a side look at my old friend; he did look extremely pale and thin. My own appet.i.te had long since recovered its vigor, and not to have enough to eat, struck me as a most serious misfortune.

"Poor fellow!" I said, and took his arm again, which I had previously let go.

"But that is the least," continued Arthur, in a querulous tone. "'Your father is always running in debt,' the colonel said; 'as soon as I see that you are following in his footsteps, we shall have to part.' But I ask you now, how with a couple of groschen a day can one avoid running into debt? To-morrow I have to meet a little note which a villain of a Jew swindled me out of. I spoke of it to papa and to mamma, and they both say they have not money enough to take them home, not to speak of giving me any. I must get out of the sc.r.a.pe as best I can. Very well; I will get out of it, but in another way."

And the ensign whistled softly, and a.s.sumed a look of gloomy desperation.

"How much do you need, Arthur!" I asked.

"A mere trifle--twenty-five _thalers_."

"I will give it to you."

"You?"

"I have about so much in the cashier's hands here; and if it falls a little short, he will give me credit."

"Will you really do that, you dear good old George?" cried Arthur, seizing both my hands and shaking them again and again.

"But don't make such a fuss about it," I said, trying with very mixed feelings to escape the ensign's rather too exuberant grat.i.tude.

CHAPTER XII.

The two brothers Von Zehren, with the commerzienrath, were occupied for an hour the next morning in a conference which was the object of this family gathering. The session must have been a lively one. The room in which they were was just above the office, and although the house was solidly built, I had more than once heard the shrill voice of the commerzienrath. I felt a sort of disquiet, as if my own fortunes were the matter at stake. Had I not been, by the strangest combination of circ.u.mstances, held as it were perforce in connection with this family?

I had taken an active part, as a friend and confident, in the most important events connected with it; and my own fate had been entirely determined by these events and my relation to various members of the family. If Arthur had not wanted to have me with him at the oyster-feast on board the _Penguin_ that morning--if I had not met the Wild Zehren at Pinnow's that evening after the scene with my father--if----

"The gentlemen upstairs would like to see us," said Sergeant Sussmilch, thrusting his gray head in at the door.

"Well!" said I, laying the pen from my hand, not without a little quickening of my pulse.

"Well, what?" asked the sergeant, coming in and latching the door after him.

"Well, I had hoped that they would not want me," I said, getting down from my stool with a sigh.

"Want you for what?" asked the veteran, stroking his long moustache and looking at me half angrily.

"It is a long story," I answered, adjusting my necktie at the great inkstand on the table, which offered me a very distorted reflection of myself.

"Which one need not tell an old bear with seven senses, as he would not be able to understand it," answered the sergeant, with a little irritation in his tone.

"I will tell you another time," I said.

At this moment, in the upper room, two voices were raised so high, and two chairs were simultaneously pushed back with so much violence, that the sergeant and I gave each other an expressive look. The sergeant came close to me and said in a confidential hollow tone:

"Fling both those fellows down the steps, and when they get down to me, I will pitch them out of the house."

"We'll see about it," I answered, shaking the hand of the old Cerberus, who had growled these last words apparently from the pit of his stomach.

When I opened the door of the room upstairs, a peculiar spectacle was presented to my gaze. The superintendent alone, of the three gentlemen, sat at the round table, covered with papers of all sorts. The commerzienrath stood with one hand resting upon the back of his chair, and with the other gesticulating vehemently at the steuerrath, who, like one who is eager to speak, and whose adversary will not let him get in a word, stamped about the room, stood still, raised his hand, tried to speak, then shrugged his shoulders and stamped about the room again. No one appeared to notice my entrance but the superintendent, who beckoned me to him, and then called the commerzienrath's attention to my presence, but it did not interrupt his harangue.

"And so," he went on, "I am to lie out of my money for eighteen years, not receiving a _groschen_ of interest, to have such chicanery played on me at last! You are a man of honor, Herr Superintendent; a man of honor, I say; and in the whole matter, from the beginning until now, have behaved as n.o.bly as possible, but that gentleman there----" and he pointed his clumsy finger at the steuerrath with an energetic gesture, as if there had been any possibility of mistaking the person meant--"that gentleman, your brother and my brother-in-law, seems to have a very peculiar way of looking at money-transactions. Oh yes, it would suit me exactly to have my goods paid for two or three times over, only there happen to stand certain pa.s.sages in the law of the country----"

"Brother-in-law!" exclaimed the steuerrath, taking a stride towards the speaker, and raising his hand in a threatening manner.

The commerzienrath sprang with great agility behind a chair, and cried: "Do you expect to intimidate me? I stand under the protection of the law----"

"Don't scream so, Herr Commerzienrath," I said, laying my hand upon his right shoulder, and forcing him down into his chair.

I had noticed that the superintendent's pale cheeks were growing redder and redder at every word of the furious man, and the marks of pain under his eyes were becoming more and more apparent.

The commerzienrath rubbed his shoulder, looked at me with an expression of astonishment, and was silent, just as a screaming child suddenly stops its crying when something very extraordinary happens to it.

The superintendent smiled, and availing himself of the sudden pause, said: