The Children of the World Part 41

"Arrested and imprisoned. The police officers have extended their motherly arm toward him and taken the erring child. We needn't pity him. He's very well satisfied. My phenological science told me long ago that he has _la bosse du martyr_.

"But the occasion, the pretext?"

"The disturbance of a public act of worship. Your reverend colleague, Edwin, drove straight from the churchyard to the police headquarters, to complain of the atheistical opposition he had encountered. Franzel was doubtless already prominent in their books among the powers hostile to repose and order, so they took advantage of the opportunity to keep him quiet for a time. They can't do much to him, and a few weeks imprisonment is a more merciful punishment for G.o.dless heretics, than the wood piles of former days. I'm only afraid it will make him still more obstinate."

"And he's right!" cried Edwin, as he started up and began to pace up and down the room in feverish haste. "They want an open battle, they challenge it themselves, and there will be no peace until it has been fairly fought. How often, in this very spot, I've agreed with Franzel that we ought not to discuss anything, except with those who hold similar views, for certainly the truth will not be spread by arousing superst.i.tion and folly against it. But we ought at least to retain our right to go our own way, and much as people prattle about liberty of conscience, when the matter becomes serious, the liberty is only for those who think they have rented the public conscience; and we, in the belief that the more sensible people have already yielded, are constantly stopping half way. We submit ourselves to listen to unmeaning formulas repeated at the most important epochs of our lives; when a child is given to us, a tie formed for life, a loved one restored to earth, a stranger whose every word we would fain oppose, utters that which wearies if it does not anger us. I've endured it like a thousand others, and said to myself: it's no worse than to sign yourself at the close of a letter 'with respect and esteem,' when you feel neither; it is a mere form which can only bind those who find in it a substance. But I now see whither this carelessness leads. Instead of declining all priestly gabble, I paid no more attention while this warder of Zion was slandering Balder's dust, than if the wind had been blowing through the leafless branches, and was only roused from my reverie by our faithful friend's eloquent defense. If he had remained silent, I verily believe I should have been stupid enough to let the zealot talk on, just as once, when I undertook to be G.o.dfather, I weakly said 'yes,' when asked if I would strengthen the child in the faith that Jesus Christ descended into h.e.l.l and rose from the dead on the third day. And now our poor champion must atone for the cowardice and false shame we have all shown in not honestly and thoroughly renouncing ancient abuses. No, I'll go and tell these gentlemen--"

"You'll be kind enough not to attempt to escape from my care," said Marquard quietly, as he seized the agitated man by the arm. "As for our scapegoat, I hope to set him free immediately. I am blessed with various connections, and fondly as conservative circles cherish the deceptions of a high church patterned after the English, they can't wholly shake off a secret fear of the free-thinkers, and are the first to counsel half way measures and compromises as long as possible. But you, my son, will now take an hour's walk, accompanied by Mohr, in the course of which you'll converse on the most shallow and insignificant subjects--"

He was interrupted by the old maid-servant, who came in to deliver a letter. A deep flush crimsoned Edwin's pale face as he recognized the handwriting, "Excuse me," said he, "if I glance it over."

He went to the window, and they soon heard him laugh aloud. "Good news?" asked Mohr, who was absently playing with the leaves of the palms.

"Excellent! And it comes just at the right time. I'll set out on my journey this very day, for you're right, Fritz, the air of this city doesn't agree with me. I must beg you Heinrich, to take my farewell messages to the little house on the lagune and to Frau Valentin.

I--whether I ever set foot in the tun again, or trouble one of you to send my movables after me--at any rate, I'll write as soon as I know how matters stand where I am going, and whether I shall remain. And now--perhaps you'll excuse me--the train leaves in two hours, and I still have all my arrangements to make."

"We yield to force," said Marquard dryly, "and I dispense with all the formalities of leave taking the more willingly, as I'm sure all this is mere bustle, and we shall not get rid of you so quickly."

He was not mistaken. Two hours after, Edwin still sat as unprepared for traveling as before, gazing at the letter which lay open before him, as if he expected to discover some other meaning in the lines, than that which the words conveyed. They ran as follows:

"My Dear Friend!

"_The time has expired, the three days have pa.s.sed without my seeing you again, I had scarcely hoped that the disclosure I made to you through your brother--give my kindest regards to him; I envy you the happiness of possessing such a relative--that any word from me could produce any impression upon you since I can retract nothing, cannot deceive you and myself._

"_I have ceased to desire to exist and have exhausted my means to do so. You know that with me both amount to very much the same thing. I cannot understand how people can remain attached to a life, whose conditions are limited to simple existence. And yet--I must suffer more than I yet suffer, physical and spiritual hunger must gnaw still more sharply, ere I can bring myself to try the last resource. Meantime the pain is dull, and sometimes blended with the hope that it may not last forever. So I wish to try whether I shall be better amid entirely new surroundings. The old countess has invited me to spend some time at her castle; she came for me in person, and little as I like her, I have still less reason to be over fastidious. When you read these lines I shall be on the way._

"_I can scarcely ask you to write to me. But if you do not prefer to utterly forget me, pity me more than you condemn. I shall never cease to remember you._

"Toinette."

At noon, when kind Madame Feyertag went to the tun to interrupt his solitude, and ask if he wanted anything, he seemed perfectly calm, spoke of his speedy departure, thanked her for the love she had shown Balder, and made all sorts of arrangements, in case he should enter upon his duties as professor at once. He even ate a portion of the food brought up to him, but could not made up his mind to go, and the trunk he had brought down from the attic remained unpacked. Old Lore saw him wandering about his room late at night; his lamp was not extinguished until after midnight.

When Marquard called the following morning, he was not at all surprised to hear that the Herr Doctor had not yet gone. "He has a disease of the nerves called absence of will," he said to the shoe maker, "it's hard to reach, but I think if we can once get him on the way--"

At the door of the room he started violently. He heard Edwin's voice talking in a very strange tone on all sorts of matters. When he entered, he found his friend sitting on the bed with dilated eyes, holding the little bottle of violet perfume and Leah's plate, and striking them together like a tambourine and a drum stick. He did not recognize the new comer, and continued his discordant music, which he accompanied with confused, delirious words, and verses of Italian poetry--apparently from Dante. On the little table beside him lay a small copy of the Divina Comedia, and beside it Toinette's letter. The back of this was covered with writing in Edwin's small hand, which had probably been done just before the fever set in, and his friend in amazement read a singular improvisation in the style of the Inferno, whose echo must have excited the sick man. Although Balder had said that his brother was a poet, he had not been caught in such sins for years, and in his days of health, certainly would not have fallen into this fever for versifying. But as it sometimes happens in dreams or a state of somnambulism, that we suddenly practise with wonderful skill an art whose rudiments we have scarcely mastered, these lines had been written without an erasure, as if dictated by some other, and as even the worst verses were far superior to what Edwin usually acknowledged, and the cynical, over-excited tone of the whole was utterly foreign to his nature, Marquard looked upon them as a record of words uttered by a man possessed with a devil, and forced to repeat what the demon suggests. The verses ran as follows:

Methought that all my tasks were duly learned, And I prepared to turn my back on school.

Must I examined be, to show what rank I've earned?

Then pray begin to ask your questions o'er, For I am almost tempted to display Before you all my wisdom's scanty store.

Our life--whence comes it?--That we do not know.

And whither does it tend?--From dusk to night.

Its purpose?--Earth to teach us to forego.

Say, 'What is G.o.d?--That, G.o.d alone doth know.

And what is pleasure?--To be free from pain.

And pain?--To lack all pleasure here below.

Not always must we joy in self-denial.

We are too far removed from actual life, And to the ground 'twixt two beliefs will fall.

Well, in the first cla.s.s I have learned this truth, Which in the sixth I dimly did suspect, Hollow's the nut we have to crack, forsooth.

When scarcely from the nurse's arms escaped, We gnaw, till on it we have cracked our teeth.

By earnest zeal reward from toil is reaped.

To feel the pangs of hunger never stilled, Mocking us alway as dry husks we gnaw, In the delusion we are being filled.

Then, though of course the palate, without question, Is thereby fooled, the stomach's soothed, and we Our nap can take fearing no indigestion.

Naught save the carelessness that questions never, Goes satisfied away. It took the sh.e.l.ls For kernels, and thought ignorance clever.

It hopes, when shrinking from the pangs of death, That life's just opening, the best to come!

When its last sun doth fade, and fails its breath.

A brighter heavenly light will swiftly shine.

Good dreamers! After school there is no doubt That a pleasant vacation will be thine.

Next to the university, the student, When once the school examinations o'er, Will go, and with the change be well content.

From obscure toil and hours of study free Into this world we go; only again Quiet and insignificant to be.

No difference exists 'twixt old and young; nor Any trace of cheerful intercourse, No longer rings the cry "Excelsior!"

And say, are all these changing forms in quest Of this? This lavish outlay too! Oh fools!

Who in this world think "all is for the best."

To me, from whom its joys have pa.s.sed away, It seemeth like a dream of the great Pan, Sprung from his burning brain on some dog day.

_Dixi!_ Although thy brains thou'st often racked.

The matter is not yet so plain and smooth.

The aid of ripe experience thou hast lacked.

Not yet? A little longer turn the pages dreary, Conning the self same lesson? Said I not Of sitting on the school bench I was weary?

Loathsome the animal, whose monstrous jaws The food long since digested idly grinds, And grinds again, nor ever makes a pause.

No matter, still thou must remain to aid Thy weaker schoolmates on the lower forms, Till themes are all prepared and lessons said.

Why sullen looks and frowning brow display?

The hours of leisure may be occupied In scribbling rhymes, while schoolboy pranks you play And on the school room bench your name enscribe.

CHAPTER VI.