The Children of the World Part 63

"Come. Compose yourself. Turn your eyes away from that glorified face--it moves you too deeply. Oh! dearest Leah, you're not the first who has learned from the dead, what we owe to the living. I've sat in this very chair through many an hour of bitter conflict, when I knew not what to do; and when it has sometimes happened that my dear wife and I did not agree, we came quietly up here, first I, and ere long she, and we soon saw clearly what we ought to do. You know yourself, dear friend, every thing in life is not as plain as a sum in arithmetic, where we only need to write down the fraction that is left over. Therefore we must question our dead, our immortal ones, and they will not leave us long in doubt about the answer."

He had taken both her hands, and was gazing down at her with a look of the tenderest love. She suddenly rose and threw her arms around his neck. "Dear--true--only friend," was all she could falter amid her sobs.

After a time some one knocked gently at the door, and Reginchen's voice said that her father was going and wanted to take leave of Reinhold. As there was no sound from the attic room, the little wife then opened the door and timidly entered.

Reinhold gently released himself from Leah, who was still clinging to him in violent agitation. "Do you take charge of her now," he said to Reginchen, "we shall keep her."

"I knew it, Reinhold," replied the little wife, smiling through her tears; "you don't talk often, but when you do speak, you can move mountains. Has he turned your heart, you naughty woman, when you wouldn't be touched by my fondest words? Now I find her here on the most affectionate terms with my own husband, and must get jealous of my only friend forsooth, in my old age."

Long after Reinhold had left the house and was on his way to the railway station with his father-in-law, who understood nothing about the matter, the two friends remained clasped in each other's arms, Leah seated in the lap of Reginchen, who often pressed her to her heart with almost motherly tenderness. They said nothing, but leaned their heads against each other and looked up to the bracket from which the dead man's gentle face gazed down upon them in pure and calm majesty.

CHAPTER VII.

Meantime the two friends had spent their day in a somewhat grave mood.

It was easy to say and sing:

"How joyous he, who leaves his home, To wander at his will,"

but difficult to realize it. After Mohr had sung all the verses in his best style, and Edwin at the conclusion had only remarked absently, that the air was very gay--a recognition the composer's husband did not consider sufficiently warm--they walked on for an hour without speaking, except in monosyllables. "You'll forgive my old uncivil habit, Heinz," Edwin had said. "The morning hour to me has gold in its mouth, and silence is golden."

"Hm!" muttered Mohr, "I don't know what we two should have to say to each other."

Nor did aught of importance occur to him in the second or third hour.

The day was hot, the road through the forest cool and pleasant, but as it led into the mountains, both men, who were usually such st.u.r.dy pedestrians, seemed to find every step a burden.

The sun blazed hotly down, as they climbed a height overgrown with low bushes, from which the ruins of a stately castle overlooked a broad extent of country. They had hoped to find an inn here, but the little house which had formerly been used for that purpose, was deserted, and the tiny garden full of weeds and robbed of its summer fruits; only the well was still ready to do its duty. When they had partially quenched their thirst, they stretched themselves on the turf under the shadow of the ruined barbican, and Mohr began to make a cigarette.

"If we could only have a rubber of whist or a game of piquet," he sighed.

"In broad daylight, here on the green gra.s.s?" replied Edwin smiling.

"Incorrigible sinner."

Mohr looked askance at him and shrugged his shoulders. "My worthy saint," he growled, "how often have I told you that this is one of your limitations; you've no taste for play. But just wait till you've written your book, completed your system. Then you'll have satisfied your soul's longing, and your eyes will be opened to the fact that a sensible man can take even play seriously."

"'There's often a deep meaning in children's games:' a wise man said that."

"Yes indeed, and a philosopher by trade ought to be the last to scoff at it. A game of whist, my dear fellow, is life in miniature, where one has more luck than judgment, another more judgment than luck, a third who holds the best trumps doesn't know what to do with them, while the fourth, who would probably have made the most of them, loses the cards at last by his partner's awkwardness, at the utmost counting only his honors. I never take a hand at cards, without a certain feeling of solemnity, as if we then compelled fate, which usually only allows herself to be seen through a rift in the clouds, to sit down close beside us and show her real colors. What, on the contrary, is a melodrama, comedy, or tragedy, at which fate is separated from us by the orchestra and prompter's box, and we can lose nothing except our admission fee and faith in a new development of the German stage?

Instead of the 'stage,' we ought to talk of 'the cards' that parody the world."

"A fine world, in which there are only knaves, kings, and queens, with the exception of a few insignificant mutes; and all this for a few penitents! No, my dear fellow, as I lack an appreciation of money, even more than an appreciation of play--"

Mohr puffed huge clouds of smoke into the air. "If you only say that, to avoid being compelled to acknowledge that I'm right, I'll forgive you," he said calmly. "But if you really made such a worthless remark in earnest, I pity you. You're generally clever, Edwin, or rather you think it worth while, when we're talking together, not only to pour out pure wine for me, but, as I'm a connoisseur, your best brands. Shall I tell you why, at this moment, you don't care a straw what you say?

Because, for the last three hours, I've only rejoiced in your bodily presence, your soul has been far away."

"And where has it taken up its abode, omniscient friend?"

"Hm! do you see the telegraph poles, which appear between the pines yonder, and show that iron rails run through the forest beneath them?

If, for a few hours, you follow toward the East the wires which are scarcely visible from here, in the direction from whence we have just come, your worthy body will reach the spot where your honored soul is at the present moment, and which it has not left five minutes today."

"You maybe right, my dear fellow," replied Edwin gravely. "I confess I've been thinking all the morning, whether it was not ridiculous nonsense to leave my little wife again, and without even a farewell kiss. She cannot feel happy, and I'm very miserable, while you, poor martyr to friendship, must be bored with me, whether you like it or not. No"--and he sprang to his feet with sudden resolution--"we must not carry anything too far, even want of consideration for our friends.

Do you think I don't know that by following the telegraph wire toward the _West_, we shall in a few hours reach the spot where your heart dwells, though your mind, even if not in its most brilliant mood, may be beside me."

"Pray leave my insignificant self entirely out of the question. The matter under discussion is what's best for you, and with all due deference to Frau Leah's worldly wisdom, I think she made a mistake this time."

"Do you think so too?" cried Edwin with beaming eyes. "Well, my Socratic fiend has been saying the same thing, but the habit of respecting superior wisdom--no, I'll emanc.i.p.ate myself, I frankly declare that this distasteful bodily exercise, while the soul remains immovable in one spot, is unworthy of a sensible man and does more harm than good; in a word, I absolve you from the painful duty of acting as bear leader, and will go back at full speed, until I see the smoke of my own chimney."

"Stop," exclaimed Mohr, throwing his cigarette over the precipice.

"Praiseworthy as this hasty resolution appears, for this day you belong to me; in the first place, because it will be salutary for your wife to do without you again for a whole day, and secondly, because neither at my home, nor during these last few days of travel, have we said anything about your work. That book my friend, must eventually be written. I should like to know how far you have progressed with the system, or whether the old step-mother, Mathematics, has so maltreated the tender little soul. Psychology, which cannot live without fancy, that we must despair of its attaining any further growth. Who knows when we shall see each other again. That we shall not write very frequently is unfortunately more than probable, and besides, now-a-days, letters contain nothing of any real importance. So be kind enough to sit down beside me again and submit to an examination. Or still better, let us drag ourselves to the next village, breakfast, and then begin."

They did so. Mohr was well aware that next to the gentle but powerful magic of Leah's presence, nothing could be so soothing to his friend's agitated soul, as to resolve to do what in his modesty he had always deferred, collect the work of the last few years in a large volume.

Now, for the first time, while sketching the outlines to his sympathizing listener, Edwin felt that nothing essential was really lacking, that he only needed to go to work with a firm purpose and a good heart. Heinrich encouraged him in his resolve in every possible way.

"If you want to wait till you have nothing more to learn, before you begin to teach, you can write only posthumous books. I must preach very nearly the same sermon with which I yesterday converted a much more eccentric Christian; your head has reached its full growth, I think. It may be refurnished in one way or another; have a window cut here or there, but the foundations will not enlarge. And as it is tolerably s.p.a.cious and not ill planned, it will be useful for the world to know how it (the world, I mean,) is reflected in this head. For my part, I have a special interest in wishing the book to be written soon; in the first place, because it must be dedicated to me and our ex-tribune of the people; and secondly, because in my own unfruitfulness, it is a satisfaction to have friends who can make themselves talked about and accomplish something entire."

When, toward evening, they parted, and Mohr went to the station, to return to his wife and child, both, though without showing it except by a somewhat over-strained gayety, were very much agitated. They had again shared what binds human beings most closely to each other, pure, unselfish hours of grave meditation and quiet sympathy, in the contemplation of the eternal verities. And moreover they felt themselves bound more strongly to each other by a renewal of the old friendship which may, even when the thoughts are unlike, and the topmost branches as it were divide, forever entwine the roots of two lives.

It was already dark, when Edwin also set out by rail to return to the little city which he had left in the morning. The unconquerable longing for home had increased to an actual fever, during the hour he was obliged to wait at the station. When the train at last stopped in the town, which now contained his world, he sprang hastily out, looking neither to the right nor left, lest he should see some acquaintance who might detain him. He did not notice the two men who had been waiting for the arrival of the same train, Reinhold and Herr Feyertag, the latter, being as we know, about to return to Berlin. They, also, were too much engrossed in conversation, to heed the traveler in a suit of grey, who rushed blindly past them and instantly turned toward the city.

When at last, panting for breath and wiping the perspiration from his brow, he reached his house, he was surprised to find the windows dark, but instantly said to himself: "She's with Reginchen." The delay annoyed him, it had never entered his mind that he should not find her at home. He hastily entered resolved to send the maid-servant for her, for he felt unable to see others to-day, even though they might be his dearest friends. But when he opened the door of his room, the girl came toward him with a light.

"Herr Doctor!" she exclaimed, almost dropping the lamp in her surprise.

"Good gracious, to-day! And my mistress--"

"Where's my wife? At the next house, I suppose?"

"Preserve us! Gone away entirely, an hour ago--you must have met her at the railway station."

"At the station? What are you talking about, Kathrin? Where should she go--alone--without me--"

"She's gone to Berlin with Herr Feyertag, and she said she didn't know when she'd come back, but she'd write, and as the Herr Doctor wouldn't return for a week--"

"Gone? To Berlin?"

"Why yes, to see her father--and she made up her mind very suddenly.

Herr Feyertag said it would be a good opportunity, because he was going himself this evening, but my mistress would not hear of such a thing at first, but the other visitor had scarcely gone--"

"Another visitor? Who--don't make me drag the words out of you so--"

"But how should I know who it was? I never saw the lady in my life, she didn't tell her name, and I could not hear what she said to my mistress. She was very beautiful, and very elegantly dressed; after she'd gone the room smelt of violets a long time, and my mistress paced up and down, looking very pale and talking to herself. And then when I brought her dinner she didn't touch a mouthful, and I didn't dare to ask her any questions; she said nothing to me, except that she'd made up her mind to go to Berlin. So about twilight she went out with a little satchel, and didn't even allow me to go with her to the station.

When she'd gone, I felt very sad and anxious, though I didn't know why, and I was just going to bed--but what ails you, Herr Doctor? Shall I get you a gla.s.s of water?"

He had sunk down on the sofa and his eyes were closed as if a stroke of apoplexy had benumbed his brain.