Problematic Characters Part 35

"Is he your friend?"

"No."

"But he will be?"

"Perhaps."

"Is he a good man?"

"I think so."

"Do you remember the evening on the edge of the water, sir?"

"Yes, Isabel."

"Could you find the place again?"

"I believe I could. Why?"

"Will you bring the dark man to that place when the full moon stands in the heavens as it does now? Oh say yes! I beseech you by your love to the beautiful, kind lady, by the bones of your mother, say yes!"

The gypsy was kneeling once more before Oswald, and looked, with folded hands, imploringly up to him.

"Get up, Isabel," said the young man, "I will do what you wish, if I can."

The gypsy seized his hands, as he stretched them out to help her get up, and kissed them with pa.s.sionate grat.i.tude. Then she started up, hastened across the road toward the forest, and had the next moment disappeared in the dense underwood, through which she sped with the strength and the swiftness of a deer.

Before Oswald could recover from the speechless astonishment which the conduct of the Brown Countess had caused him, he heard the rolling of the carriage, which returned as swiftly as it had left. But before the wagon had reached the trees, behind which it had before disappeared, it suddenly stopped, and the baron appeared, bareheaded, and carrying little Czika on his arm.

"We have hunted, we have caught," he called out from afar. "The cowardly wolves let the fair booty go as soon as they saw us in pursuit, and escaped in haste.--There, little Ganymede, now see if your feet will carry you again."

The baron let the child glide down. "But what has become of the mother, or whoever that brown woman was?" he asked, surprised to find Oswald alone.

Oswald told him, in a few words, what had happened during his absence.

"Well, that is not so bad," said the baron; "the thing becomes more and more romantic. Full moon, edge of lake, gypsy women, cunning of Egypt, and two simple German boys, who are cheated! What are we to do with little Czika, as you call the little princess?--for I am sure she is a king's daughter, stolen from the cradle----"

"If we do not wish to leave her on the high-road, we shall have to take her with us, I suppose."

"But will the child go with us? Listen, little Czika, will you go with me?"

"Yes, sir!" said the child, who had so far shown no sign of apprehension, fear, or anxiety.

"Hm!" said the baron, "here I have an adopted child without asking for it!"

He had become very serious of a sudden. He stroked Czika's bluish-black curls and her fine brow, and looked at her steadily.

"How beautiful the child is," he murmured, "how very beautiful! And how it has grown!--Come with me, little Czika, you shall be happy at my house, very happy; I will love you more than your mother, who has left you so basely, has ever loved you."

"Mother has not left Czika," said the child, quietly looking up at the baron; "mother is where Czika is; mother is everywhere."

Turning away from the two gentlemen, she put her little hands to her mouth, and sent a cry into the silent forest exactly like the call of a hungry young falcon.

The child inclined her head on one side and listened; the baron and Oswald instinctively held their breath.

There came from the forest, but evidently from a great distance, the answer; the clear, wild cry of the old falcon when he has spied out his quarry far down below him.

"You see, sir," said the child, "mother does not leave Czika; if you wish to take Czika with you, Czika will go with you."

"Well, then, come, young falcon," said the baron, taking the child by the hand. "Come, doctor! I believe Charles has mended the strap which broke just around the corner. There he is. All right again, Charles?"

"Yes, sir."

The gentlemen got in and took the child between them.

"Go on," said the baron. "Let them trot out."

They soon came upon the wide heath which extends from Fashwitz to Grenwitz, the same heath on which Oswald had met the old woman from the village. It wanted yet half an hour to sunrise. On the eastern sky a series of purple streaks rose one above the other. The air came cool from the sea across the damp moor.

The little Czika had come up close to the baron and was fast asleep.

"How thinly the child is dressed," said the latter; "it will take cold in the fresh morning air!"

He rose, pulled off his overcoat, wrapped it around the little one, took her in his lap, and rested her head on his bosom.

"So, so!" he said, kindly! and then to Oswald, who had been silent, meditating on the enigmatical character of the man by his side:

"I look to you a little crazy, doctor, eh?"

"No," said the other, looking up, "not in the least."

"That is because you suffer of the same disease as I do; what makes others speechless with amazement appears to us perfectly natural; and what the good people and bad musicians consider a matter of course, seems to us nothing less than fabulous. You will, for instance, readily believe that I have met this same child now for the third time in my life, and that I am superst.i.tious enough to see in this threefold meeting much more than a mere accident. Besides, like Wallenstein, I believe in no accident."

"And where and when do you think you have seen Czika?"

"The first time, four years ago, in England. I was riding with a couple of English friends in a distant part of Hyde Park. As we turned round a corner at full speed, a child was standing before us--a brown child, with big black eyes, raising its tiny hands imploringly. I scarcely noticed it, being engaged in an animated conversation. After we had gone on perhaps a hundred yards, I felt suddenly as if spirits were drawing me back. I cannot describe the sensation. I felt, however, as if my riding past the sweet, helpless creature had been a crime, which made me perfectly wretched. I turned round; I raced back to the place like a madman. The child was gone. I called after her; I searched the shrubbery all around; my friends aided me, in spite of my madness, as they called it; but all in vain.

"The next time, I saw the child in Egypt. It is now two years. We--I mean a small caravan of Nile travellers, who had met by accident,--were riding on our little donkeys through the narrow winding streets of Asqut. By the side of an open door, through which we could look into the silent shady court of a mosque, stood, in a niche in the wall, a child, older than that in Hyde Park, and younger than that here in my arms, but the same brown child, with the bluish-black curls, and the bright gazelle eyes. Again she stretched out her little hands towards the pa.s.sers-by, and called the cry you hear everywhere in Egypt: Bakshish! howadjee, bakshish! I saw the child, and yet I did not see it; for I was in those desperate fits of humor which occasionally overcome me, when eyes and ears are wide open, and yet neither see nor hear. As we turned round the next corner, I felt precisely the same sensation as in Hyde Park. I left my donkey; I ran back as fast as I could.--The niche was empty. The door leading to the mosque was open, as I said. The yard had on the other side a second door, which was also open, and which led upon one of the main streets, where, at this hour,--it was towards sunset,--men, camels, and donkeys were closely crowded together. The child was gone, and I returned to my companions with a heavy heart; as usual, they had explained my sudden disappearance by a.s.suming a fit of madness.--Do you think it possible that this child, which I first saw amid English mists, and next under the bright sky of Egypt, should cross my path a third time in a German beechwood?"

"And even if it were not the same child,--and, to tell the truth, I consider it highly improbable that it is the same,"--replied Oswald, "it would be the same to you. I believe in an eternal, ever-changing, ever-constant world-spirit. I believe that that lark which there rises from the heath, and wings its way singing to the sky, is the same lark which I followed, enchanted, as a boy, until it was lost in the blue ether even to my sharp eyes. I believe that all heroes are brethren, and that every sufferer is that neighbor whom heart and reason alike command us to love like unto ourselves.--It matters little whether this child is the same which you have twice sought in vain, it matters only that the appeals of the poor forlorn creature every time pierced through the triple bra.s.s around your bosom into your very heart.... You will pardon, I am sure, such language in a man who is so far inferior in experience and intelligence, and who draws courage to speak them only from the regard he feels for you, almost instinctively. And allow me to add one word: if you could make up your mind to love this child, it would be a gift to you more precious than Aladdin's marvellous lamp.

Love is everywhere except in h.e.l.l, says a deep word of one of the Minnesingers; it means, where there is no love, there is h.e.l.l. Love is the fragrance of that Blue Flower, which, as you said just now, fills the whole world, and you will find the Blue Flower, which you have sought in vain all your life long, in every being which you love with all your heart." A strange melancholy smile played around the baron's lips as Oswald spoke these words.

"You cannot solve the riddle," he said sadly, in a low voice; "for this very condition, that we must love with all our heart, if we wish to get rid of the torment which makes life a h.e.l.l, is the impossible thing.

Which of us can love with all his heart? We are all so driven, so weary, that we have no longer the strength nor the courage which true, real love requires. I mean that love which knows neither rest nor repose till it has made its own every thought of our mind, every sentiment of our heart, and every drop of our blood. If you are still young and ingenuous enough for such a love, I congratulate you! For my part, I can only repeat: I have given it up to find the Blue Flower, that wondrous flower which blooms only for the happy one who is still able to love with all his heart.--But here we are at the gates of Grenwitz, and must break off a conversation which I trust we shall very soon continue. Farewell, and come and inquire as soon as you can after the well-being of the little creature who is your protegee almost more than mine."

The carriage rolled off. Oswald followed it long with his eyes; then he crossed the bridge, bowing his head, and went up to the chateau. The sun had risen, and was flooding the gray walls with rosy lights; in the dewy garden the birds were singing their carols--but Oswald saw a dark gray veil drawn over the charming morning, for in his ear sounded yet the baron's words: Which of us is still able to love with all his heart? Which of us has yet a whole heart?