Hammer and Anvil Part 62

"You are a gay fellow, baron."

"I can return the compliment, if it is one."

And the two young men separated, laughing.

I breathed deeply. "Thank heaven!" I murmured. "Thank heaven that it was an actress and not Constance von Zehren. I would not meet her on the arm of such a fop and hear a pair of such fellows speak of her thus."

It did not, in the first moments of my surprise, occur to me that I had only to follow the lady in order to catch another look at her; and now, as I hastily traversed the rooms she was no longer to be seen. Again I breathed deeply, with a sensation of relief, when I had convinced myself of the inutility of further search, and said to myself: "It is better that I should not see this Fraulein Bellini again." And while I said this I felt my heart beat violently, and my eyes still wandered searching through the crowd. They were strange recollections which the face, at once known and unknown, of this lady, had awakened within me; recollections from a time in which the impressions once received remained forever.

These memories did not leave me until I traversed the long streets of the city, many of them new to me, on my way to Paula's residence, which I had the doctor carefully describe to me the previous day. Being Sunday, the shops and stores were closed, but the streets were still full of life. It was a clear, cold forenoon in the beginning of December. A little snow had fallen in the night, just enough to give a silvery glitter to the roofs and bring into handsome relief the projections and ornaments of the facades. Numerous pedestrians hastened along the streets; showy horses in handsome carriages pawed vigorously upon the frosty pavement, and even the wretched jades in the rickety _droschkies_ trotted rather better than usual. The sight of this cheerful life scattered the evil dreams that had tried to master my soul, I felt myself so young and strong in the midst of a vast, powerful stream which drove me along but did not overpower me. All was new, fair, and rich; who could know to what glorious sh.o.r.es the current would bear me? And even now I saw a fair harbor and a beloved form beckoning to me, and I hastened my steps until I arrived, out of breath, at a large, handsome house in one of the most fashionable suburbs, and, on asking the porter if Frau von Zehren was at home, was shown up two flights of stairs.

"But the ladies are not at home," said the man.

"No one?"

"One of the young gentlemen may be."

"I will see."

"Can I take any message?"

"No; I wish to see them."

The porter closed his window, not without a sort of suspicious look at the tall stranger, who did not appear to be a gentleman of fashion, and I hurried up the two carpeted flights of stairs, and drawing a deep breath I pulled the bell over which was a bra.s.s plate with the name "Frau von Zehren," and under it "Paula von Zehren."

"Which of the boys shall I see?" I asked myself, and in fancy I saw the friendly faces of Benno, Kurt, and Oscar, at the door; but a step approached which could belong to neither of the boys. The door was opened and the old furrowed brown face of the sergeant looked at me inquisitively out of its clear blue eyes.

"Good day, sergeant."

The sergeant in his surprise very nearly let fall the bunch of brushes he had in his hand.

"Thunder and lightning, are we here at last? Won't the _gnadige Frau_ and the young gentlemen be glad!--and the young lady too! Come in!"

And he pulled me in and closed the door behind us, and then led me into a room in which the furniture greeted me as old acquaintances.

The old man pressed my hands, exclaiming over and over:

"How splendid we are looking! I believe we are bigger than ever. And how we must have been working to make our hands so hard! We have had hard times, eh? But we have held up bravely, that is the main thing.

How long since we got out of that cursed hole?"

Thus the sergeant questioned me, and pushed me into an easy-chair; and he was quite indignant when I told him that I had already been over two weeks in the city.

"It is not possible!" he cried. "Two weeks without coming to us, and we have been expecting you every day! It is not possible! It is enough to turn a man into a bear with seven senses!"

"Every one for himself first, old friend," I said. "Suppose I had come here first of all, and Fraulein Paula had asked what the tall George was going to do?"

The sergeant scratched his curly gray head. "To be sure, to be sure!"

he said. "Self is the man. With a woman or a girl, of course, it is quite different; and so one had to bring them away at once that they might have some one to rely on on the way, and here, upon first moving in, some one to look after things; for women are women and men are men.

Am I not right?"

"Doubtless, Sussmilch, doubtless. So you have been here, of course, ever since?"

"Of course," said the old man, who had taken a seat opposite to me, but sat upon the extreme edge of the chair, as if to show that he knew how to keep within the bounds himself had fixed. "And apart from other things, can they ever get on without my head?"

"And without your hands?"

"Not of so much consequence, though they come into play sometimes too,"

the old man replied, arranging the brushes between his fingers, "but the head" and he thoughtfully shook this interesting and important part of his person.

"I have just seen it at the exhibition," I said, a light suddenly flashing upon me in regard to the part the old man's head really played in the family arrangements.

"Does pretty well, don't it?" said the sergeant; "but the monk is better still."

"Who?"

"The monk. To be sure n.o.body knows what we are painting. But you must see it."

The old man sprang up with youthful alacrity and led me into a large and high apartment adjoining, which was Paula's studio. Sketches and designs of all kinds were hanging and leaning upon the walls, with heads, arms, and legs in plaster, a couple of sets of ancient armor, a lay figure draped with a long white mantle, and near the window, which reached to the ceiling, an easel with a picture from which the sergeant removed the covering.

"Here's the place to stand," he said. "Is not that splendid?"

"Splendid indeed!" I exclaimed.

"Was I not right that my head is quite another thing here?" said the old man, pointing proudly to the work. The scene was from _Nathan the Wise_, and represented the monk about to sound the intentions of the templar. Both figures stood out clear and plastic, with such animation in their looks that one might almost catch the words from their lips; the grand simplicity in the good weather-beaten face of the pious brother who had once been a squire, and had many a valiant lord and accomplished many a hard service, none of which had ever been so hard to him as this commission of the patriarch. On the other side the templar, young and slender, his head thrown defiantly back, his lips compressed with an expression of discontent, and his blue eyes bent upon the poor monk. In the middle distance a portion of Nathan's house, and the palms that surround the Holy Tomb; behind these the domes and slender minarets of Jerusalem, with the haughty crescent sharply defined against the southern sky, where the eye lost itself with delight in the immeasurable distance.

"The young gentleman has something from us; here, for instance, and here," said the sergeant, pointing with his finger at the eyes and mouth of the templar, and then looking again at me; "but I said at once that it is not so good as King Richard; by far not so good," and the old man shook his head gravely.

"But the Fraulein cannot paint me always," I said; "that would at last become too monotonous. With you it is different: such a head as yours is not to be met with again."

"Yes," said the sergeant. "It is curious: one never believed it; in fact one hardly knew he had a head; but that's the way they all talk that come here, and they want me in all their studios; and Fraulein Paula did lend me once or twice, but in the other pictures one looks like a bear with seven senses, and don't know himself again."

"And how is she?" I asked.

"Oh, well enough, if we did not have to work so much; but from morning, as soon as it is light enough, until evening when it is too dark to tell one color from another, working here in the studio, or copying in the museum--no bear could stand it, let alone such a good young lady who has not yet got over her father's death, and secretly weeps for it every day. It is a real pity."

The old man turned away, laid the brushes in the box, and pa.s.sed the back of his hand quickly over his eyes.

I stood with folded arms before the picture, which no longer pleased me when I thought that she worked on it unresting from morning till night, while grief for the loss of her beloved father still dimmed her eyes.

It would be a great thing to have fifty thousand _thalers_ and be able to say: "You shall not have so hard a life of it; you shall not lose your beautiful eyes like your poor mother."

"How is Frau von Zehren?" I asked.

"Well enough in health," answered the sergeant, moving back the easel; "but she has scarcely a glimpse of light; and the doctor, who ought to know best, told her, when she asked him, that there was no hope that she would ever see again."

"And Benno and the others?"

A bright gleam pa.s.sed over the old man's brown face,

"Ah," said he, "there we have our pleasure, and with each one more than the other, Benno has been a student now for a month, and Kurt will soon enter. Yes, we are happy in these. And our youngster too! He is going to be a painter, and has begun of course upon my head, and not done so badly for his fifteen years. Look for yourself, if it is not----"