The Children of the World Part 1

The Children of the World.

by Paul Heyse.

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

A few years ago, in the Dorotheen-stra.s.se, in the midst of the Latin Quarter of Berlin, whose quiet, student-like appearance threatens to become effaced by the growing elegance of the capital, a small, narrow, unpretending two-story house, stood humbly, as if intimidated, between its broad-shouldered neighbors, though every year it received a washing of a delicate pink hue, and recently had even had a new lightning-rod affixed to its ancient gable roof. The owner, an honest master shoemaker, had in the course of time acc.u.mulated money enough to have comfortably established himself in a new and far more elegant dwelling, but he had experienced beneath this sharply sloping roof, all the blessings of his life and though a man by no means given to sentimental weaknesses, he would have thought it base ingrat.i.tude to turn his back, without good reason, upon the old witnesses and protectors of his happiness. He had, at one time or another, laid his head in almost every corner, from the little attic chamber, where, as a poor dunce of an apprentice, he had, many a night, been unable to close his eyes on account of the pattering raindrops, to the best room on the first story, where stood his nuptial couch, when, after a long and faithful apprenticeship, he brought home, as head journeyman, the daughter of his dead master. But he was far too economical to permit himself to occupy these aristocratic quarters longer than six months, preferring to live in the second story, una.s.suming as it was--the little house having a front of but three windows--and there, two children had grown up about him. These first-floor apartments were rented to a childless old couple, to whom the owner would not have given notice to quit on any account; for in the white-haired old man he honored a once famous tenor, whom in his youth, he had heard and admired; while the little withered old woman, his wife, had, in her time, been a no less celebrated actress. They had already been pensioned twelve years, and, without song or noise of any kind, spent their quiet days in their tiny rooms, adorned with faded laurel-wreaths and pictures of their famous colleagues. These celebrities, according to the ideas of the proprietor, gave to his little house a certain artistic reputation, and if there were customers in the shop at noon when the old couple returned from their walk, he never failed to direct attention to them and with boastful a.s.surance to revive the fame of the two forgotten and very shrivelled great personages.

On the ground floor was the shop, over which a black sign bore the inscription in gilt letters: "Boot & Shoe Making Done by Gottfried Feyertag." The shoemaker had ordered the large brown boot and red slipper, which had originally been painted on the right and left side, to be effaced, because it annoyed him to see them, when they no longer represented the fashion. He kept up with the times in his trade, and could not possibly alter his sign at every change of style. The shop, he generally left to the management of his wife he himself spending most of the day in the workroom, where he kept a sharp eye on his four or five journeymen. A narrow entry led past the shop into a small, well-kept courtyard, in whose centre stood a tall acacia-tree, three quarters of which had died for want of air and sunlight, so that only its topmost branches were still adorned with a few pale green, consumptive-looking leaves, which every autumn turned yellow some weeks before any other foliage. Here, in one corner, beside the pump, an arbor had been erected by the head journeyman, for the daughter of the house, when a school-girl; it consisted of a few small poles roughly nailed together, and now overgrown with bean-vines, which bloomed most dutifully every summer, but in the best years never produced more than a handful of stunted pods. A little bed along the so-called sunny side of the house contained all sorts of plants that seek the shade, and thrive luxuriantly around cisterns and cellars; and in midsummer, when the sun actually sent a few rays into the courtyard at noonday, the little spot really looked quite gay, especially if the fair-haired Reginchen, now a young girl of seventeen, were seated there reading--if it chanced to be a Sunday--some tale of robbers from a book obtained at a circulating library.

A grey, neglected back building, only united to the front house by the bare adjoining walls, had also two stories, with three windows looking out upon this courtyard; and a steep, ruinous staircase, which creaked and groaned at every step, led past the ground floor, where the workshop and journeymen's sleeping-rooms were situated, to the rooms above. On the night when our story begins, this place was suffocatingly hot. It was one of those evenings late in summer, when not a breath of air was stirring no dew was falling, and when only the dust, which had risen during the day, floated down in light invisible clouds, oppressing with mountainous weight every breathing creature. A slender young man, in a straw hat and grey summer clothes, softly opened the door of the house, walked along the narrow entry on tip-toe, and then crossed the stones with which the courtyard was paved. He could not help seizing the pump-handle and cooling his burning face and hands with the water, which to be sure was none of the freshest. But the noise did not disturb any one; at least nothing stirred below or above.

He stood still a few moments and allowed the air to dry the moisture, gazing meantime at the windows of the upper story, which reflected the bright moonlight. Only one was open, and a large white cat lay on the sill, apparently asleep. The windows in the first story were all open, and a faint light stole out and illumined part of the trunk of the acacia with a pale red glow.

There was nothing remarkable in all this. Moreover, the thoughts of the lonely watcher beside the pump seemed to be far away from the narrow, oppressive courtyard, in some fairy garden, for, with a happy smile he sat down on a little stool in the bean arbor, and pulled to pieces a withered leaf, upon which he had first pressed his lips. From the open windows of the workshop in front of him he heard the loud snoring of one of the journeymen, who had found the room in the rear too close, and another seemed to be talking in his sleep. A smell of fresh leather, cobbler's thread, and varnish, penetrated to his retreat, and these odors, in connection with those coa.r.s.e natural sounds, would have disgusted any one else with this Midsummer Night's Dream. But the youth in the straw hat could not seem to make up his mind to exchange the hard seat under the scanty foliage for his usual bed. He had removed his hat and leaned back against the wall, whose damp surface was pleasant to his burning head. He gazed through the roof of poles at the small patch of sky visible between the walls, and began to count the stars. The topmost branches of the acacia gleamed in the moonlight, as if coated with silver, and the opposite wall, as far as it was touched by the pale light, glittered as if covered with thin ice or h.o.a.rfrost.

"Ah!" said the lonely man in the arbor, "life is still worth the trouble! True, its brightest gift, fair as yonder stars, is as unattainable as they--but what does that matter? Does not what we are permitted to admire, what we can not forget, belong to us as much, nay more, than if we had it in a chest and had lost the key?" The striking of a clock in a neighboring steeple roused him from this half-conscious, dreamy soliloquy. "One!" he said to himself. "It is time to think of going to sleep. If Balder should have kept awake to watch for me, though I expressly forbade it--"

He rose hastily and entered the house. When he had groped his way cautiously up the rickety stairs and reached the landing on the first story, he perceived to his astonishment that the door which led into the rooms stood half open. A small dark ante-chamber led into a larger apartment, lighted by a sleepy little lamp. On the sofa behind the table lay a female figure, still completely dressed, absorbed in a book. The light fell upon a sharply cut, sullen face, past its first youth, with very dark hair and heavy brows, to which an expression of power and defiance lent a certain charm. The reader's thick locks had become unbound, and she wore a plain summer dress of calico, which left her shoulders and arms bare. Not the slightest change of countenance betrayed that she had heard the sound of the loiterer's footsteps, and when he paused a moment in the entry and looked through the door, she did not even raise her eyes from her book, or push back the hair which had fallen over her forehead.

"Are you still up, Fraulein Christiane?" he said at last, advancing to the threshold of the ante-room.

"As you see, Herr Doctor," she replied in a deep voice, without being in the least disturbed. "The heat--and perhaps also this book--will not permit me to sleep. I was so absorbed that I did not even hear you come in. Besides, it is quite time to go to sleep. Good night."

"May I be permitted to ask, Fraulein, what book it is that will not let you sleep?" he said, still in the dark entry.

"Why not?" was the reply, after some little hesitation. "Besides, you have a special right to do so, for it is your book. The proprietor of the house, Meister Feyertag, borrowed it of you several weeks ago, and yesterday told me so much about it, that I begged it of him for a day.

Now I can not leave it."

He laughed, and stepped within the room. "So the wicked rat-catcher, to whose pipe all the men and women now dance, even though they often declare his tunes horrible, has seized upon you also. You have certainly just read the chapter on women, whose most striking portions our worthy host daily quotes to his wife; and though it makes you angry, you can not drive it out of your mind. The old sinner knows how to begin: he hasn't read Gothe for nothing.

"'Doch wem gar nichts dran gelegen Scheinet ob er reizt und ruhrt, Der beleidigt, der verfuhrt!"

"You are mistaken," she replied, now sitting erect, so that her face was shaded by the green screen on the lamp. "True, I have read the chapter, but it made no _special_ impression upon me, either favorable or otherwise It is a caricature, very like, and yet utterly false. He seems to have known only the portion of our s.e.x called 'females': 'tell me with whom you a.s.sociate,' etc. Well, we are used to that. But where I have become inspired with a great respect for him, is from the chapter ent.i.tled 'The Sorrows of the World.' I could, at almost every sentence, make a note or quote an example from what I have myself experienced or witnessed in others. And I also know why, notwithstanding this, we like to read it; because he relates it without a murmur, so calmly and in such a matter-of-course manner, that we see it would be foolish to complain of it, or to hope for anything better for our poor miserable selves, than is bestowed upon a whole world. You must lend me his other books."

"My dear Fraulein," he replied, "we will discuss the question further some other time. You must not suppose that I am one of the professors of philosophy who wish to silence this singular man. It is a pity that he is not still alive to be asked the various and numerous questions, from which he carefully retired to his sybarite seclusion in the Swan, at Frankfort-on-the-Main. But be that as it may, it is too warm to-night to philosophize. Throw Schopenhauer aside, Fraulein, and play something for me,--the Moonlight Sonata, or any sweet, pensive harmony.

I should like to cleanse my ears from the ballet-music to which I have been compelled to listen."

"You! listen to ballet-music?"

"Yes; it sounds ridiculous, but nevertheless it is true. How did it come about? You know, at least by sight, our tyrant, the so-called medical counsellor, my university friend and physician in ordinary. He comes up to our hen-roost every day. Well, I have overworked myself a little this summer, finishing a prize essay,--a haste that was most unnecessary, since with my heresies I am safe from academical honors.

However, I gained the _second_ premium,--a heavy head, with such rebellious nerves that my state almost borders on a disordered brain, or one of the mild forms of lunacy. A journey, or a few weeks on the Rhigi, would be the best cure. But our physician in ordinary, for excellent reasons, prescribed no such luxurious remedy. It would be much cheaper, he thought, to let the manufactory of thought rest for a while. He proposed to me to play cards, make a collection of beetles, train a poodle, or fall in love. Unfortunately I had neither inclination nor talent for any of these very simple and undoubtedly efficacious remedies. So, early this morning, he brought me a ticket to the opera-house: he always has acquaintances before and behind the scenes. A new ballet was to be performed, to hear and see which would repay even an old habitue, let alone a whimsical fellow like myself, who had not entered a theatre for ten years. Well, I could not escape the experiment. He who has a doctor for a friend must occasionally submit to try new remedies, and a ballet is better than a silver tube in one's stomach."

He smiled,--a half-satisfied, half-mysterious smile.

"Play me the Moonlight Sonata," he asked again. "Life is beautiful, Fraulein Christiane, in spite of all the sorrows of the world. What lovely roses you have in that vase! Permit me--"

He took a small bouquet, which was standing on the table, and pressed it against his face. The full-blown flowers suddenly fell apart, and the leaves covered the book.

"Oh! dear," said he, coloring with embarra.s.sment, "I have done a fine thing now. Will you forgive me, dear Fraulein?"

"Certainly, Herr Doctor, if you will be reasonable now, and go up stairs to sleep off your intoxication. For you are in a condition--You must know how it happened."

"I? I did not know--"

"Any better than to ask me to play for you at half-past two o'clock in the morning! We shall wake the people in the house, and others can see us,--me from the opposite windows. And besides--"

She had risen, and now repressed the rest of the words that were on her lips. After pacing several times up and down the heated room, which contained little furniture except her bed, her piano, and a bookcase, she pushed back her hair from her brow and shoulders, and folding her bare arms across her chest, stood quietly at the window. A sigh heaved the breast which had learned to keep a strict guard over its thoughts and feelings. In this att.i.tude she waited, with apparent calmness, for him to take his leave.

"I must really seem a very singular person," he said, in a frank, honest tone. "We have lived in the same house for months, and the only use I have made of this vicinity, was by my first and only visit, when I begged you not to play during certain hours, which I had selected for study. Now I enter your room in the middle of the night, and take the liberties of an old acquaintance. Forgive me, on account of my disordered brain, dear Fraulein, and--may you have a good night's rest."

He bent his head slightly, and left the room.

As soon as she heard him go up stairs, she hurried into the little ante-chamber, closed the outer door, bolted it, and then stood still a short time, listening, with her trembling body pressed close against the door, and her hands clenched on the latch. He walked slowly up a few steps, and then paused again, as if he had suddenly become absorbed in some dreamy thought. She shuddered, sighed heavily, and tottered back into the sitting-room. Her dress seemed too tight for her, for she slipped out of it like a b.u.t.terfly from its chrysalis, and then in the airiest night costume, sat down at the open piano. It was an old, much-worn instrument, of very poor tone, and as she ran her slender fingers lightly over the keys, it sounded in the entry outside like the distant music of a harp.

The young man had just reached the topmost stair when he heard it.

"There! she is playing the sonata, after all," he said to himself. "A strange, obstinate person. What can she have suffered from fate?

To-morrow I will take more notice of her. It's a pity she is so ugly, and yet--what does it matter? There is a charm in her finger-tips. What wonderful music!"

He stood still a moment listening to the familiar tones, which seemed to express all the familiar thoughts that had been wandering in a confused chaos through his mind. Suddenly he heard a voice from within.

"Is that you, Edwin?"

"Of course it is I," he replied.

The next instant he had opened the door and entered the room which was brightly lighted by the moonbeams.

CHAPTER II.

This room, termed by its occupants' friends "the tun," was a large three-windowed apartment, with walls painted light grey, a floor scoured snow white, and over the windows instead of curtains, three narrow green calico lambrequins of the simplest pattern. A desk stood at the right-hand window, a small turning-lathe at the left, and in the s.p.a.ces between the cas.e.m.e.nts two tall bookcases; there were two beds placed against the wall, several cane chairs and small chests made of white wood, and finally, a low, smoky ceiling, which here and there showed large cracks, and threatened to fall. But the room, spite of its simplicity, had an aristocratic air from the presence of two copperplate engravings of Raphael's paintings, framed in plain brown wood, that hung over the beds, and two antique busts on the bookcases,--one a head of Aristotle, the other the gloomy-eyed, stern-browed Demosthenes. Even the low stove was adorned with a piece of sculpture at which no one is ever weary of gazing--the mask of Michael Angelo's young prisoner, who, with closed lids, lets his beautiful head sink on his shoulder as if weary of torture and longing for sleep. Here, however, the moonlight did not reach: it merely fell obliquely across the bed placed against the wall.

On this bed, with his eyes fixed upon the door, lay a young man, whose pale features, almost feminine in their delicacy, were framed in a wreath of thick, fair locks. It was difficult to guess his age from his countenance, since the boyish expression of mirth that dwelt about his mouth contrasted strangely with the mature beauties of the finely cut features. He was wrapped in a light quilt, and a book lay open on the chair beside him. When Edwin entered, he slowly rose and held out a white delicately formed hand.

"Well," said he, "was it very fine? Has it done you good?"

"Good evening, Balder," replied Edwin, "or rather, good morning! You see I do everything thoroughly, even rioting at night. But I see I must not leave you alone again, child. I really believe you have been reading by moonlight."

A deep flush crimsoned the face of the rec.u.mbent youth. "Don't be angry," said he in a clear, musical voice. "I could not sleep; and, as the lamp had burned out and the room was so bright,--but now tell me About it. Has the remedy already produced an effect?"

"To-morrow you shall hear as much as you wish, but not a syllable now, to punish you for your carelessness in spoiling your eyes and heating your head. Do you know that your forehead is burning again?" And he pa.s.sed his hand tenderly over the soft hair. "I will complain of you to the physician in ordinary. And you don't seem to have touched your supper; there is the plate with your bread and b.u.t.ter."

"I wasn't hungry," replied the youth, letting his head fall gently back on the pillow. "Besides, I thought if you came home late, and, after the unusual excitement, might perhaps feel inclined to eat something."