Problematic Characters Part 10

"That is beautiful," said Oswald. "That is genuine lyric poetry, such as we find but rarely in our day. Not the hot-house poetry, which begins with reminiscences of Heine, strikes then a few of Lenau's accords, and ends with a blast after Freiligrath's manner. What deep genuine feeling there is in these stanzas! and yet such energy of language. A fellow dark as sin, that is simple but beautiful; that you have learnt from Goethe."

"You are really too kind, dear friend," said Primula, highly pleased.

"Indeed you make me blush by your liberal praise. But, pray be candid, and tell me if you do not think that the whole is, after all, a little too idealistic for our modern taste?"

"Perhaps for our realists, who certainly go too far in their demands, and whose desire to make everything perfectly natural will probably lead them ere long, when Faust is played, to bring a real poodle on the stage, and to make him howl and yell by pinching his tail. But I am sure you could satisfy even those gentlemen if you wished to do so."

"What do you think of this poem?" asked the poetess, "On my Rooster?"

Oswald leant back in his corner.

"Like Richard Duke of Normandy My hero fought most bravely, All trembled when they heard his crow: c.o.c.kadoodledoo!"

"That is nave!" said Oswald.

"Is it not?" said Primula.

"He never stirred late at night But in the morning early bright The cattle woke, when they heard his crow: c.o.c.kadoodledoo!

"He spared no pains for his lady love, For her he scratched below, above, She heard with ecstasy his crow: c.o.c.kadoodledoo!

"Of genius boasts my hero not, And poetry did not fall to his lot, Yet do I love indeed his crow: c.o.c.kadoodledoo!"

"Well, what do you say, dear friend?"

"What can I say," replied Oswald, "except that you have fully accomplished your purpose. The hearer imagines he is in the poultry-yard. The notes you strike are the very notes of nature; they come from the heart of things. The poem is a little gem of the realistic school of our day. But now, gifted lady, one more request: However much it may enhance the value of a poem to hear it from the eloquent lips of the poetess herself--I should not like the impression which the last stanzas have produced to be effaced by another poem; whatever else there may be in store for me, this is your highest triumph."

"Only one more you must allow me to read. It forms, so to speak, a trilogy with the other two, a summary of all that I have learnt by close study of nature. May I begin?"

"I pray you will."

"To A Maybug lying on his Back."

"Oh thou Bacchante of a merry night of May!

Hast thou indulged in nectar of the flowers, Hast thou enjoyed the fragrance of the bowers, From evening until early break of day?

Hast thou forgotten, ah! that life is short?

That all below is destined for the silent grave, Where lies the beauty now and all the brave, The far renowned, the great of ev'ry sort?

I read with awe thy sad and solemn mien, Where doubtful rhymes alone are written.

Alas! thy life was but an idle, glist'ning sheen, By those thou lovedst thou art smitten, Thou bug of May, thou image of false love!"

The fair reader ended. Oswald appeared to be plunged in silent delight; Primula sat expectant, when suddenly the rolling of a carriage was heard, which soon after stopped at the house.

"Oh mistress, oh mistress!" cried the parlor-maid, in a tone of great anxiety.

Oswald felt relieved. Here was a visitor, and the reading, he hoped, was brought to an end. Perhaps this even gave him an opportunity to end his visit.

"It is the Pluggens family, dear Gustava," said the minister, who had reconnoitred the new arrival through the garden-hedge. "The lady herself, and her two daughters. Could you make a little haste." ...

"Excuse me, my dearest friend," said the poetess, hurriedly closing the book; "but you know: as often as we attempt to take a bolder flight----"

"Oh mistress, oh mistress!" cried the voice with increasing anxiety from the garden-gate.

"I am coming," replied the poetess, in great perturbation, and hastened on the sunny walk toward the house.

"Shall we not too----" suggested the minister.

"Excuse me, I pray, but I shall have to go," said Oswald, interrupting him.

"But why, my dear sir? The lady is a most excellent person, and the daughters, although not very beautiful----"

"And were they as fair as angels, I should have to deny myself the pleasure of seeing them. Good-by! Good-by! Pray make my excuses to Mrs.

Jager. That gate there is open, is it not? _Au revoir._"

And so Oswald hurried towards the gate. The minister had far too good an opinion of himself and his Primula to ascribe the "dear friend's"

precipitate flight to any other reason than his shyness and his reluctance to meet this high and n.o.ble family, to whom he was unknown.

Oswald, in the mean time, made his way down the village street and out into the open fields, and did not relax his steps until he was safe under the fine old trees behind which, as he knew, was hid the estate of Melitta.

CHAPTER XI.

The forest path, on which Oswald was walking merrily, seemed to be little frequented by foot-pa.s.sengers, and still less by vehicles. It must have been nearly impa.s.sable in winter; but now, in midsummer, it was all the brighter and really romantic. The ditches on either side were badly kept, and every now and then the gra.s.s and the broad plantain would creep all the way across from side to side, and in many places the tall beeches and old oak-trees formed a dense canopy overhead. The farther Oswald penetrated into this leafy wilderness the quieter the forest became, so quiet and almost lifeless that he stopped the song which he had begun in his joyous happiness, as if he feared to disturb the forest in its slumbers.

For in these hot afternoon hours the forest a.s.suredly does slumber. The green ocean of leaves no longer moves in swelling waves; quiet and immovable it drinks in the heat of the sun. Scarcely a leaf rustles here and there in one of the trees. Perhaps the little noise awakens another sleeping neighbor, and they whisper and tell the disturber of their peace that this is not the hour for chatting, and then they fall to dreaming again. The birds are hid in the thickest foliage and await the cool of the evening. The tiny mothers doze on their nest over their half-fledged young, and papa sits near by on a branch, his little head snugly ensconced under his wing, and sleeps, tired as he is with his early rising, his indefatigable singing all day long, and his busy hunting after worms and midges. They know that now is the good time for them, and dance merrily in the red rays of the sun, which slip stealthily through the branches, or they creep and hurry, and hasten through the warm, soft moss. Deep silence! But suddenly there arises a hoa.r.s.e peculiar cry, in short, rapidly uttered notes, which sound like the voice of anger. That is the hawk, the robber of the forest. He is a wicked fellow, whom his bad conscience rarely allows to sleep, and that is the reason why his cry is so sharp and hoa.r.s.e, as he is drawing high up in the blue air, proudly and lonely, his wide mysterious circle above his realm, the peaceful sea of leaves.

A curly-headed boy, who was watching his geese near the edge of the forest, had told Oswald that the road to Berkow was only about half an hour long, and could not well be missed. Of course he had taken it for granted, in giving his information, that the traveller would mind his way and not go astray. But as Oswald had not attended to the road, but, as was his habit, rather to everything else, as he had preferred leaping the ditches on either side every now and then, and rushing into the sacred halls of the beautiful forest, with their mighty pillars and lofty domes, he had long since lost his way. He had, indeed, for some time followed a narrow footpath, which led nowhere in particular, and only tempted him to penetrate deeper and deeper into the forest.

Oswald stopped and listened; he thought he might hear the voice of a human being, or the blows of an axe; but he heard nothing but the cry of the hawk and the beating of his own heart. He called out merrily: "Which is the way to Berkow, O hawk?" and the echo answered as merrily: Hawk!

At last it became lighter between the trees. He fancied he saw the end of the forest. But instead of that he only stepped out upon a clearing, which was almost entirely occupied by a small lake, covered with reeds and rushes. Walking along the edge, he frightened a loving couple of summer ducks, who rose from the reeds and flew with wild haste across the mora.s.s towards the wood. Then again deep silence!

"Wait and watch," said Oswald, to himself. "In the mean time I will rest a little, for I begin to feel rather tired."

He hung his straw hat upon a branch, spread his handkerchief over a moss-covered root of a secular beech-tree, and stretched himself comfortably on the soft heather.

"This place is made to sleep in," he said to himself, dreamily following with his eye the dragon-flies, who now shot like arrows across the dark waters and now stood as if spell-bound. "Who knows but this may be an enchanted wood, a fragment of forgotten romance, a little remnant of the grand old forests of which we read in legends and fairy tales; a portion perhaps of that forest in which the count lived, who, every time when his notes became due and he could not pay them, sold one of his daughters--a way of paying old debts which they say has not yet gone entirely out of fashion. And he who falls asleep in this forest, as I fancy I shall presently do myself, has to sleep on for a few hundred years, and when he wakes up once more his beard is snow-white and hanging down to the belt. Then he is justly astonished at himself, and asks the first peasant he meets with where the way to Berkow is!"--"Berkow," replies the man, politely; "never heard of such a place."--"I mean the chateau in the forest, where Melitta lives."--"Melitta? But, my dear sir, that's an old fairy tale."--"A fairy tale?"--"Why certainly! My old grandmamma has told it me I know not how often." Many, many hundred years ago there was a great forest standing in this country; and in the forest lived a fairy, and her name was Melitta. She had the most beautiful dark-brown eyes, such as the children of men are never known to have, and a voice sweet as honey, and that is why the people called her Melitta. She was the most beautiful and sweetest of fairies in the world; but she had one little weakness; from time to time she would allure a young man into this forest and make him lose his way amid the tall oaks and beeches, each one of which was exactly like the next one. Then she rejoiced. And when she wanted to set a poor fellow wandering in this way, she mounted her horse Bella--for this fairy had nothing but what was beautiful around her--and travelled far and wide, till she found a stupid man. For she liked stupid men the best. Then she charmed him with her beauty, with her soft, teasing, bewitching ways and her honey-sweet voice; and in order to make the enchantment lasting, she gave him something--perhaps a rose. If he was stupid enough to accept that, he had to wander the very next day into the forest, whether he would or not. Then, of course, he lost his way, and ran to and fro and round about, till at last he would lie down to sleep at the foot of an old beech-tree. And when he is lying there watching the dragon-flies as they try to catch each other, and looking at the water, and listening to the whispers in the rushes, and the low murmurs in the branches above, he hears low voices saying----"Melitta, are you never coming? Get down from Bella.

Do you not see that I am chained to this place? Oh, you darling, you sweetest, you most lovely of women! Melitta, sweet one! a kiss, one single kiss! And you are going, going now--but what is that? Away, brown witch! No, no--you are not Melitta."

Oswald raised himself on his elbow and stared, drunk with sleep, into the brown face that was bending over him. "What do you want?"

"No harm done, my dear young gentleman! Saw the young gentleman lying there; did not know if dead or asleep. 'Tis dangerous to sleep in the forest so near the swamp, if one is not accustomed to it from childhood up."