The Children of the World Part 48

"Thank you," replied Mohr, putting on his hat. "The cigarette is just finished. I knew we should come to an understanding. _Intelligenti panca._ You're too polite; you need not so courteously open the door for me. I know the rule of all ghosts and spirits, that they must go out the same way they came in. There! And now success to you devoutness."

Without vouchsafing another glance to his conquered foe, he walked pa.s.sed him with the calmest possible expression of countenance, while Lorinser, trembling from head to foot with pa.s.sion, stood beside the door with clenched lists and slammed it violently behind his enemy.

When Mohr was going down stairs, he fancied he heard a low groan of fury, such as might be uttered by a wild beast that has fallen into a pit. An expression of bitter loathing pa.s.sed over his stern face, and his underlip curled with scorn. When he again stood in the cold dark street, he paused, drew a long breath, extended his muscular arms as if to throw off an unendurable burden, and for a moment closed his eyes.

"Where shall I go now?" escaped his lips. "Wither turn to regain what is lost? No, not lost forever! If I'm forced to search the earth to its remotest confines I shall find her, I must, I _will_ find her. Poor, poor woman! I will give you peace, so far as is possible for men to know peace against devils!"

He walked on a few steps, absorbed in deep thought, then paused suddenly and pa.s.sed his hand across his brow. "Good Heavens! I had nearly forgotten it while occupied with all this baseness; Edwin and Leah receive their friends to-night! I'll go there. I must see some good people, to restore my faith in humanity."

And whistling the adagio from the symphony in C. minor--his invariable remedy when he wanted to drive a bitter taste from his tongue--he turned toward the zaunkonig's little house.

BOOK V.

CHAPTER I.

At the moment when after a lapse of four years we resume the thread of our story, we find Edwin sitting at the open window of a hotel, attired in a costume very similar to the one which he wore when we made his acquaintance on a certain moonlight night. Again he wears an unpretending grey summer suit, with a black tie fastened loosely around his neck, and a straw hat, which, despite the changing fashions, is in shape nearly identical to one worn long before, lies on the table, adorned with a fresh bouquet of heather blossoms. Even his features show no trace of the four years that have pa.s.sed; indeed he might now be taken for a younger man, his cheeks are slightly bronzed by the air and sun, the line between the brows has disappeared, the restless glance has vanished. He has just completed a long letter, and now lays down the pen to feast his eyes a moment on the forest clad heights, which, rise behind the trim little city. The time is twilight of a warm summer evening; the air, as usual after the crimson light of sunset has faded, is full of tremulous, translucent brightness; a silver grey sky which merges into white, and relieves the eyes by forming a background to the ma.s.ses of tree tops and the mountain ridges upon whose crest is uplifted the lofty tower of the old church, like a black silhouette against a sheet of silver paper. In the foreground a few faint local colors and hundreds of individual details fill out the picture. The railway station only separated from the hotel by the wide street, swarms with people; but it is Sunday and as if in deference to the day there is no noisy bustle, no goods loaded and unloaded, and only persons traveling for pleasure seem to be waiting for the next train, which is to leave in an hour.

Meantime it rapidly grew dark. Edwin is compelled to move nearer the window, in order to read, and we, as old friends, may be permitted to look over his shoulder and see what he has written to his Leah.

"My Beloved Wife:

"_I have been here just two hours, during which time I have slept as soundly as I ever did at midnight. It was a foolish whim of mine, the desire to reach this place to-day; for to do so I was compelled to walk in the heat of the noonday sun. I might have known Mohr would not tear himself away from his home one instant before the term began, and of course I have not found him here and may be obliged to wait several days. However, his dilatoriness has procured me the pleasure of strolling through this mountain region by moonlight, which I have done for the last four stages of my journey. Dearest, it was unspeakably delightful, to leave at moon-rise the hot rooms where I had spent the day and then walk through the silent woods, which grew cooler and cooler, until when the moon was about to set I reached some cosy nest which was ready to receive me. To be sure he who wants to write a hand-book of travel, must manage differently; the moon is the poet that transfigures all things, but it is after the style of Eichendorff, who with his rustling tree tops, flashing streams, and distant baying of dogs always conjures up the same dreamy mood; so that at last it makes no difference where we wander, whether in Italy or the Thuringian forest. For me, who only wanted to thoroughly shake off the school dust and forget everything that could remind me of the agreement of triangles and the theory of parallelograms, this twilight mood was exactly the right one, in which all forms blend together and I as it were returned with a living body into the Infinite. 'Give my soul full freedom'--how often I've repeated the words! How often I've thought of and pitied you, because, as a woman, you can never enjoy the strange, sweet wondrous delight, which I inhaled in full draughts with the night breeze. The spell can only work in perfect solitude. The ear must hear but one footstep, when the night reveals its secrets and there rises that wierd vibrating hum, a noise like that our earth might make, moving through the grooves of s.p.a.ce. It is like a fairy dream, dearest, to look up to the stars and become absorbed in the measureless silent enigmas; the countless 'burning questions,' which nevertheless burn only the souls of dreamers and night wanderers. And amid the depression caused by the loneliness of the world it was a grand feeling of triumph the consciousness of loving and being loved, that though fallen in the deepest abysses we are never really given over solitary and hopeless, to the spectres of night, since we can raise above us a shield our pure, honest purpose, our strength and love of good, and feel ourselves allied to all our struggling brothers, and throughout all this journey you were always by my side, beloved, and on the other walked our Balder, often in such bodily presence, that I actually saw your eyes sparkle, and thought I distinctly heard your voice as it sounds when you steal behind me and whisper in my ear: 'do I disturb you?'_

"_As I said before, I deprived myself of all this, when the fancy seized me to come hither in the day time. Now in order to a.s.sure myself of your presence, I must take up my pen which will not lend wings to my thoughts, after my hot walk in the dog days. But if I keep silence longer, I fear you may take some jealous fancy and imagine Frau Christiane to be the cause, and that, instead of the moonlight, in which I stagger intoxicated with the beauty of nature, perhaps the moonlight sonata, which to be sure I have recently heard with fresh delight, has gone to my head. No, dear Wisdom, on this point you can be as much at ease as you were four years ago; nay, more so, for even your old and at that time not wholly to be rejected hypothesis, that your dear husband's extreme loneliness had made a fatal impression upon the unoccupied mind of our artist, has proved, on a nearer inspection of the facts and circ.u.mstances, entirely untenable. You must erase this conquest from the list of my victories, which thereby is considerably diminished. That we heard nothing of our friends for years, that they did not even inform us of their marriage and only remembered the old friendship a short time ago, arose from entirely different reasons--concerning which I have promised to keep silence, even to you, although to do so will be difficult enough. I have so accustomed myself to sharing everything with you, not keeping in my mind and heart even the smallest 'arriere-boutique,' as Montaigne calls it, closed to you, that I should have preferred not to learn, the strange circ.u.mstances through which these two people have found each other, at the cost of being compelled to conceal them from you, my beloved keeper of the Great Seal, especially as I know that this time, too, we should have agreed in our judgment and feelings._

"_Oh! dearest! the hour in which our old friend broke at last the seal of the dark secret he had kept so long, because he could not endure that there should be a mystery between us, the way in which he told the unspeakable secret, how he conquered hopeless despair by his deep, earnest love--never, never will the smallest syllable of this confession vanish from my memory. How these two mortals have battled for their happiness, nay how bravely they must still daily defend themselves against the ghosts of the past! Never have I heard a more touching story than the account of his ceaseless quest of the lost one, after he had at last found her in the most sequestered corner of the world, his unwearied persistency, which nothing could rebuff, to make her again accustomed to the light of day, the vital warmth of her profession and his faithful love. For the first time I have learned to thoroughly know this strange man, and understand how he was able to accomplish the tremendous task of saving for the second time, this apparently lost life. How much I should like to show you my old friend, as I know him, one of the best, n.o.blest, and most unselfish heroes, I have ever met. For do not suppose that, blinded by his pa.s.sion, without a struggle and only keeping the object of possessing her before his eyes--but enough, I'm on the way to say more than I am permitted to utter. Let this hint be sufficient for you, dear heart, and promise me never to allude to it again, nor even, if it's possible, to strive to discover what is concealed behind it. Have I not myself given you a beautiful example of how we can stifle even the most lawful curiosity, by not even inquiring what motives you could have for not accompanying me on this vacation's journey, and refraining at your request from all meditations upon whether the point in question was a grand cleaning festival, a new carpet in our study, or some other unsuspected and thoughtful expenditure of the traveling expenses you have saved?_

"_But to return to Mohr and his young happiness, I would never have believed it possible that he could have changed so much for the better, as during the last few years._

"_He was waiting for me at the railway station, holding in his arms a little boy about three years old, who smiled brightly at me with his wise black eyes. Not until we were out of the crowd and the child could be placed without danger on his own feet, did his father have his arms at liberty to embrace me. Then we walked slowly and silently along the road that led toward the little city, Mohr kept his eyes steadily fixed upon his boy, and only now and then cast a side glance at me, as if he wanted to ask if I had ever seen such a child. 'You must know,' he said at last, 'he has no other nurse than I, and he will not feel the lack.

At first Christiane did not believe I had the necessary qualifications for his attendant, and also thought I should probably have something better to do. But now she has discovered that this is my real vocation.

We must take ourselves as we are. Your old friend, Heinrich Mohr, who used to imagine that he was something in himself, something out of the common order, a poet, a musician--the devil knows what--has now come to the knowledge, that he's only a transition point, an intermediate step between the Mohrs who were still more insignificant and commonplace, and this little Mohr, who will be greater than all of us, the head and flower of the whole stock. What in me was only impulse, desire, presentiment and desperation, will in him become fulfillment. You laugh, my dear fellow_, '(_I was not laughing at all_)' _but first you must learn to know him. To be sure he doesn't inherit from his papa alone; his best qualities may have descended to him from his mother: her strong will, to risk all for all. The elements of a great artist perhaps exist in me too; but criticism, conceit and suspicion kept them forever apart. Well, it is no disgrace to bow to a law of nature.

Raphael's father was a miserable dauber, the elder Mozart played his part in the orchestra very badly, and Beethoven's papa too, was by no means a shining light. It's very possible that it was uncomfortable enough for these worthy men to produce nothing remarkable, till they perceived that they had the honor of being transition points, only the retorts as it were, in which nature brewed the elixir of life, which under the name of their sons were to rejuvenate and bless the world?_

"_While saying these words, he gazed at the little boy who was trotting along very quietly beside the gutter, eating a cake, with a look through whose tenderness gleamed a shade of respect, which would have been laughable, if it were not so touching to see it in our old friend._

"'_What's his talent?' I asked at last._

"_'We're not yet clear about it,' he answered gravely. 'Like every unusually gifted person he has more than one eminent talent, and we allow them all to develop together. His memory and his musical ear are wonderful. Besides, he has a power of language of which many a boy of six need not be ashamed, and his perception of form and color is beyond all belief. You think me one of those fathers who are crazed by blind partiality; I can't blame you for it, nor will I attack your unbelief with a succession of tricks to display his genius; we take care not to spoil so delicate and rich a nature by training it for a prodigy. As you see him there, eating his cake and bounding merrily about in the sunlight, we leave him entirely to himself, and my whole method of education consists in not telling or teaching him anything, until he asks for information. In ten years, we'll talk about him again.'_

"_'And Christiane?' I asked._

"_'You'll not recognize her,' he said laughing softly, like a person already rejoicing in another's antic.i.p.ated astonishment. 'I know you've never understood why, from our first meeting, I didn't think her homely; you laughed at me when I said her face was only clouded by sorrow and calamity, and that when this dark varnish was removed a pleasing picture would appear. Well, "who laughs last laughs best."

You'll see her and judge for yourself, whether the process of regeneration has not been thoroughly completed in her. It's no wonder either; for how she is appreciated, loved, honored! I may say the whole musical life of our city revolves around her. You've come just at the right time; the Cecilia Society she organized, gives an open air concert to-night; first "Winter and Spring" from the "Seasons" then a time for chat followed by some of Mendelssohn's quartettes. I make myself useful in my way, by playing accompaniments, distributing the parts, and often growling a little in baritone. With us, the women's voices are the best, Christiane's method of instruction has already produced its effect upon them. But we need tenors and ba.s.ses.

Addressing the partic.i.p.ants at athletic sports, shooting matches, and workmen's picnics, ruins the voice; everybody thinks he shows his patriotism by shouting, and then can't control his tones when they are required for more delicate use. Well, we must put up with the shadows too. We're living in a provincial town.'_

"_All this was said with such a radiant face that I saw he would not have exchanged places with any band leader in Vienna or Berlin. I now noticed that the trick which was so peculiar to him, drawing his under lip awry and showing his white upper teeth, had entirely disappeared.

He could laugh with his mouth wide open like a child._

"_But the author of the comedy 'I am, I, and rely on myself' was still so much like himself, that he didn't ask a question about how I had fared, how my wife looks, and how our little city suits us. But this omission was most amply compensated for by Frau Christiane, who met us just outside the city, a few paces from her charming little house, which is situated among gardens and meadows just beyond the gate. After the first embarra.s.sment always engendered by seeing old faces again, she seemed perfectly at ease, her first question was about you, then I was obliged to tell her about father and his marriage with Frau Valentin, and next of our neighbor Franzelius and his little wife, and so we were soon perfectly comfortable. My attention was attracted by her quiet, gentle manner, which had a shade of suppressed humility, especially when she turned toward her husband, for whose slightest gesture she seemed to be on the alert. Only when the conversation turned upon art, especially in the domain of music, the old harsh strength of our strange friend flashed out like fire beneath ashes.

Meantime Mohr had brought a bottle of wine into the pretty honeysuckle covered arbor of their little garden, and now smoking a cigar, sat at the table, while his eyes constantly wandered from his wife to the little boy playing near. 'Did I say too much?' he asked triumphantly, when she was at last called away to give a singing lesson to the Burgermaster's daughter; I was not obliged to use any special self-constraint, not to disturb my old friend in his happy illusions; for the sunlight of happiness although it could not transform our shade loving plant into a blooming rose, has brightened the stern, gloomy face so much, that no one will ever fear it; often at one of her husband's droll ideas, or when the child came bounding up to her with a question, so sweet a smile flitted over her mouth, that one almost forgot her mustache. Her eyes were noticeable enough in old times and happiness has given them a soft, soul-full light. She dresses, so far as I understand such matters, by no means in a rustic fashion, but in extremely modest colors, and without any ornaments. That the people value her highly and know how to prize her talents, I had ample opportunity to notice in the evening at the concert, which all the city attended._

"_Much might be told of this concert, but I was most glad to see how Mohr had altered; his satirical vein was entirely lacking, I'm still too weary from to-day's walk for a minute description, so I must reserve this genre picture for a verbal report, I'll only mention one episode, which shows the tender relations in which our friends stand toward each other. While Father Hayden was being played, in which Christiane did herself great credit, Mohr sat on a bench in the garden, with the boy beside him, who, after a liberal supply of fruit and bread and b.u.t.ter listened very quietly. It had grown tolerably late, and in the pause before the quartette began, the 'sand man' appeared. As the maid-servant was no where to be seen, Papa Mohr took the child in his arms and carried it home, where he stayed until he had put it to bed and given it into the charge of the negligent servant. When he again entered the garden, to enjoy the remainder of the programme, he stood still in astonishment and could scarcely believe his ears. Was that Mendelssohn? No. But what was it? It seemed so familiar--and yet--it could not be what he thought. Yet what else could it be? Yes, it was a quartette which he had himself composed years ago and locked up in a large box with other unsuccessful attempts, including the 'Sinfonia Ironica.' And now he heard it sung before the whole audience, and sung so well, that its conclusion was hailed with frantic applause and shouts of 'Da Capo,' although it had only appeared as a modest supplement to Hayden and Mendelssohn. Who would have suspected Frau Christiane to be capable of such a trick? And especially that, in reply to the numerous questions about the composer, she would be bold enough to name her own husband! But the applause now burst forth like a storm, and I could see how popular our old ci-devant mocker and man-hater was, among his fellow citizens. It was most charming of all, to see him approaching his wife, publicly embrace her and then scold her for having betrayed his youthful errors, while she took advantage of the successful stratagem to tell him what talents he really possessed, and what she had always admired and valued in him._

"_This last however occurred when I was alone with them, for when the concert was over we had an after piece in the honey-suckle arbor. How we wished you were with us, my dear little wife! The surprise that awaits me at home, must be something very charming, if it's to compensate for your absence that evening--_

"_I remained with them all the next day, and during this long time never once heard our friend utter the word 'envy,' in which he once so luxuriated. Balder was right, when, he said Mohr's envy was only a mutilated love. Since he has known the beautiful, healthful feeling in its full development, he has dropped his philosophy of envy, for the foreign element which still remained in his enn.o.bled envy--that he did not feel the goodness, beauty, and lovableness in others to be his--disappeared as a matter of course, when he would have had to envy flesh of his flesh and bone of his bone, in a dear child._

"_They did not want to let me go so soon. But as the room they gave me faced the south, it was so unendurably hot at night that I woke in the morning with a dull headache, so I honestly and obstinately insisted that they should put themselves to no farther trouble, but let me go to the hotel. To this they objected, because such a change of quarters would excite so much comment in the little city, so we at last adopted the middle course, that I should walk through the mountains a few days alone and meet Heinrich here. He, too, has been ordered by his physician to take more exercise, but could never make up his mind to part from his boy, and even now I'm not quite sure of his keeping his promise. I shall wait for him until to-morrow evening; but I almost fear a letter will come instead, in which he will declare nocturnal pedestrian excursions with an old friend to be incompatible with the duties of a nurse._

"_I'll now close this letter, dearest. It's just the hour when I like best to wander alone through a strange town. Evening has closed in, but the inhabitants, to save oil and candles, prefer to sit outside the doors a little longer and watch the last rays of light as they fade away. The school children, too, their tasks all completed, play merrily in the open air, while the mother brings the youngest, clad in its night gown, out to the father who is sitting on a bench; taking the little thing in his lap he shows it the moon, the high church tower, and the stork's nest on the town hall, delighted to see it listen and open its eyes. Some day this gazing wondering child will become a stern, practical man, eager in the race for gold, thinking little of fairy tales, except on Sunday mornings, when they will perhaps sometimes recur to his memory. But I believe that many will carry a breath of childhood into old age, and this is far more likely to be the case in villages than in large towns away from the accustomed surroundings and amid strange scenes. I've often noticed how, as one's memory of home grows fainter, we become more contented in strange places and in a frequent change of abode. For one is oftentimes completely overwhelmed by the mystery of existence, as, on a summer evening we look with earnestness into the blue ether and find our gaze rivited by the first twinkle of a star; in our absorption we may become almost incredulous as to the existence of our own homes. And sometimes when far away from those who are dear to us, though still surrounded by a human crowd, one feels that there is no tie to bind him to any place but that where at evening the fire is kindled upon his own hearthstone, and where, after the labors and toils of the day, he can rest in the sacred atmosphere of peace and perfect love. I'm often obliged to pause and draw back when I pa.s.s a bright window, behind which a group of people are sitting around a smoking dish, lest I should enter unbidden, and say: 'Good evening! Don't you know me? I'm your brother!'--Oh!

dearest, those are poor fools, who say to themselves and others, 'we are strangers in the world.' Have we sprung from the lap of our mother earth and been nourished with her milk, and has our father, the sun, given light to our eyes and awakened our senses, only that we may wander about all our lives homeless waifs, with our heart-hunger unappeased? Only an idle, selfish, and perverse soul can turn reluctantly or arrogantly away from the pleasant place where it should live and labor, and which helpful toil should make so dear. And such hopeless people think, when the piece they perform becomes stupid and tiresome, and is hissed, that it is the fault of the scenes! To such should be said: 'Do your duty, play your part well, and these boards, which are your world, will not burn so quickly beneath your feet that when the need comes you cannot escape.'_

"_But whither am I wandering? Good night, my wife, dearest of human souls. When Mohr comes, I'll you where we decide to go. I hope to be able to persuade him that he owes you a visit. Believe me, if I were not ashamed to turn back so soon, I should be with you again to-morrow, or rather, as I do not see why I need be ashamed to find life dull and unprofitable without you--if to-morrow a letter arrives, instead of my friend, our doctor will shake his head in vain; for nothing shall prevent me from clasping you in my arms the following day._

"Edwin."

"_Remember me to our neighbors, Frau Reginchen's ears must have burned of late; I have been obliged to answer so many questions about her and her little ones._"

CHAPTER II.

Edwin had just finished the letter and risen from his seat, to take it himself to the post office, when there was a knock at his door; a familiar knock, but one which he had not heard for years.

Before he had time to say "come in," the door opened, and in the dark pa.s.sage appeared a round head with thin fair hair and a pair of gold spectacles. A portly, but active figure hastily entered. "It's he!"

exclaimed the friends in a breath, and the next instant Marquard and Edwin were clasped in each others arms.

"Wonder of wonders!" cried Edwin, as he drew his friend nearer the window. "Have you taken up the study of animal magnetism, that you discover me here? True, you were always a sort of repertory for all valuable knowledge, but as I don't know a soul in this place, haven't been outside these four walls, or even written my name in the visitors'

book--"

"The mystery will be solved in due time," interrupted Marquard with a grave face. "Come, let's sit down on this very thin couch and permit me to light one of my own cigars. I'm afraid I am not idealist enough, to find yours endurable. And now let's see and hear what these four years have made of you. You've not gained in flesh. Such a teacher of mathematics ought occasionally to pa.s.s beyond the rudiments of straight lines and angles. I, as you see, am approaching aldermanic proportions, and as Adeline is like-wise comfortably enlarging her natural boundaries, a consequence of our happy domestic life and the undisturbed harmony of souls--"

"Have you married her at last?"

"Not exactly according to form, but in point of fact it amounts to nearly the same thing. We've resolved never to part, unless it should seem advisable. Isn't the legitimate civil marriage merely a contract so long as the parties are suited, and doesn't Schiller say, 'beauty is freedom in necessity?' Well, that beauty exists in our alliance. We're both free but each finds it necessary to be with the other. The good creature has retired from the stage and adorns my loneliness with her housekeeping talents, besides secretly helping me in a scientific work."

"So the nightingale has also a talent for medicine?"

"Only the practical part of it. We're writing a cook book together, or rather a book on the art of eating. Brillat-Savarin is cla.s.sical, it is true, but only a child of his time."