The Lost Manuscript Part 35

"Your strictures in the _Cla.s.sical Gazette_ drew my attention to this, and early this morning, when I obtained the parchment, I carefully examined what had been rendered indistinct by the paste. So far as I may be permitted to have a judgment in such things, I now venture to share your opinion that a forgery has been perpetrated on this strip."

The Professor threw it aside.

"I regret that you have ever had anything to do with it, even though unintentionally; you have done a mischief, the painful effects of which you cannot fail to see. I am sorry for it on your own account. This unfortunate occurrence will throw a shadow over your life; and I would give much to be able to wipe it away. For we have known one another through much mutual work, Magister, and I have always felt a sympathy in your self-sacrificing activity in favor of others. In spite of your book-chaffering, which I do not approve of, and in spite of your waste of time in labors which might be done by less efficient persons, I have always considered you as a man whose extraordinary knowledge inspires respect."

The humble Magister raised his head, and a smile pa.s.sed over his face.

"I have always, Professor, considered you as the only one among my distinguished patrons, who has the right to tell me that I have learned too little; you are also, Professor, the one to whom I venture to confess that I have secretly never ceased to esteem myself as a man of learning. I hope that you will not deny me the testimony that I have always been a trustworthy and faithful laborer in that cause."

He fell back into his humble att.i.tude, as he continued:

"What has happened will be a lesson for me in future."

"I demand more of you. First, you must take the trouble of ascertaining through your acquaintance the hidden source from which this forgery has emanated, for it can scarcely be the accidental idea of an unscrupulous man; it is rather the work of an ill-directed industry, which in time will produce more evil. Further, it is your duty at once to deliver the parchment to Professor Struvelius, and impart to him your discovery.

You yourself will do well to be more cautious in future in the choice of the traders with whom you deal."

In these views Knips fully acquiesced and departed, whilst he imploringly besought the kind consideration of the Professor for the future.

"He has, I am certain, to some extent been concerned in the knavery,"

exclaimed the Doctor.

"No," rejoined the Professor. "His fault has been, that up to the last moment he cared more for his bargain than for the discovery of the truth."

In the afternoon Mrs. Struvelius said to Ilse:

"What we have succeeded in obtaining has been very painful to my husband. For it has convinced him that he was deceived, while others discovered the true state of the case. It is a cruel grief to a wife when she is the instrument of bringing about such humiliation to him she loves best. This sorrow I shall long continue to feel. Besides this, our husbands are so estranged from one another, that a long time will elapse, before their wounded feelings will admit of a reconciliation, or allow them to cherish for each other the respect which as colleagues they mutually owe. I hope, however, that the relations between you and me will not suffer. I have discovered the worth of your heart, and I beg of you--in spite of my unprepossessing manner, of which I am well aware--to accept the friendship which I feel for you."

As she walked slowly towards the door in her black dress. Ilse looked after her with a feeling of surprise, that the first impression made upon her by the learned lady should have been so quickly obliterated by other feelings.

In the next number of the _Cla.s.sical Gazette_ there appeared a short explanation by Professor Struvelius, in which he honorably acknowledged that he had been deceived, by undoubtedly a very expert deception, and that he must be grateful to the acuteness and friendly activity of his honored colleague who had contributed to the clearing up of the matter.

"This explanation has been written by his wife," said the obdurate Doctor.

"We may hope that the disagreeable affair has come to an end for all concerned in it," concluded the Professor with a light heart.

But the hopes even of a great scholar are not always fulfilled. This quarrel of the scepter-bearing princes of the University had not only introduced Ilse into a new position, but had brought another into notice.

On the evening of the decisive day that revealed the worthlessness of the parchment, Magister Knips sat shivering upon the floor in an unwarmed room of his poverty-stricken dwelling. Books lay in disorderly heaps on the shelves by the wall and on the floor, and he sat surrounded by them, like an ant-lion in his den. He shoved into a dark corner an old cigar chest of his brother's, which was filled with many small bottles and paint-pots, and laid the old books upon it. Then he placed the lamp on a stool near him, and with secret satisfaction took up one old book after another, examined the binding, read the t.i.tle and last page, stroked it caressingly with his hand, and then again laid it on the heap. At last he seized an old Italian edition of a Greek author with both hands, moved nearer to the lamp, and examined it leaf by leaf.

His mother called through the door:

"Leave your books and come from that cold room to your supper."

"This book has not been seen by any scholar for two hundred years.

They deny, mother, that it is even in existence; but I have it in my hands--it belongs to me! This is a treasure, mother."

"What good will your treasure do you, wretched boy?"

"But I have it, mother," said the Magister, looking up at the hard-featured woman; and his winking eyes glistened brightly. "To-day I have read some proof-sheets in which a man of note maintains that this volume which I hold here has never existed. He wishes the 'never existed' to be printed in italics, and I have so marked it for the compositor, though I know better."

"Are you coming?" called out the mother angrily. "Stop your work. Your beer is getting flat."

The Magister rose unwillingly, slipped out of the room with his felt shoes, and seating himself at the table helped himself to the scanty fare before him and without further ado began to eat.

"Mother," he said to the woman, who was watching his rapid meal, "I have some money remaining; if you want anything, buy it; but I will know how you spend it, and I will see that my brother does not again borrow anything from you, for it has been earned by hard work."

"Your brother will now pay all back, for Hahn has improved his position, and he has a good salary."

"That is not true," replied the Magister, looking sharply at his mother. "He has become too stylish to dwell with us now; but whenever he comes he always wants something of you, and you have always loved him more than me."

"Do not say so, my son," cried Mrs. Knips. "He is quite different; you are always industrious, quiet, and collected, and even as a small boy you began to save."

"I have obtained for myself what was dear to me," said the Magister, looking toward his room, "and I have found much."

"Ah, but what hardships you suffer for it, my poor child!" said the mother flatteringly.

"I take things as they come," answered the Magister, making a cheerful grimace. "I read proof-sheets, and I do much work for these learned men, who drive in carriages like people of distinction, and when I come to them they treat me like a Roman slave. No man knows how often I correct their stupid blunders, and the bad errors in their Latin. But I do not do it for all--only for those who have deserved well of me. I let the mistakes of the others remain, and I shrug my shoulders secretly at their empty heads. All is not gold that glitters," he said, holding his thin beer complacently up to the light, "and I alone know many things. I am always correcting their miserable ma.n.u.scripts, but do not correct their worst errors. I see how they torment themselves and the little they do know they pilfer from other books. One sees that every day, mother, and one laughs in secret at the course of the world."

And Magister Knips laughed at the world.

_CHAPTER XVII_.

THE DECEPTION OF MR. HUMMEL.

In the houses of the park there reigned peace, forbearance, and secret hope. Since the arrival of Ilse the old strife seemed to have ceased, and the hatchet to have been buried. It is true that Mr. Hummel's dog snarled and snapped at Mr. Hahn's cat and was boxed on the ear in return; and that Rothe, the porter, of A. C. Hahn, declared his contempt of the storekeeper of the factory of Mr. Hummel. But these little occurrences pa.s.sed away like inoffensive air-bubbles which rise in the place where there has been a whirlpool of enmity. The intercourse between the two houses flowed on like a clear brook, and forget-me-nots grew on its banks. If a misanthropical spell had penetrated the ground at the time when Madame Knips ruled there alone, it had now been expelled by female exorcists.

One morning, shortly before the fair, a book-seller's porter placed a pile of new books on the Doctor's writing-table; they were the advance copies of the first great work he had written. Fritz opened the book and gazed at the t.i.tle-page for a moment in quiet enjoyment; then he hastily seized his pen, wrote some affectionate words on the fly-leaf and carried it to his parents.

The book treated, in the words of Gabriel, of the old Aryans as well as of the old Germans; it entered into the life of our ancestors before the time in which they took the sensible resolution of making pretty nosegays on the Blocksberg and rinsing their drinking horns in Father Rhine. It was a very learned book, and so far as the knowledge of the writer reached, it revealed many secrets of antiquity.

It was not necessary for strangers to inform the father and mother of the importance of the book which Fritz now brought them. The mother kissed her son on the forehead, and could not control her emotion when she saw his name printed in such large and beautiful characters on the t.i.tle-page. Mr. Hahn took the book in his hands, and carried it into the garden. There he laid it on the table of the Chinese temple, read the dedication several times and took a turn or so about the pavilion, looking in again occasionally, in order to observe whether the style of building harmonized well with the book; then he cleared his throat in order to master his joyful emotions.

Not less was the pleasure in the study of the Professor; he went hastily through the book from beginning to end. "It is remarkable," he then said, much pleased, to Ilse, "how boldly and firmly Fritz grapples with the subject; and with a self-control, too, for which I should not have given him credit. There is much in it that is quite new to me. I am surprised that he should have concluded the work so quickly and quietly."

What the learned world thought of the Doctor's book may be known from many printed eulogies. It is more difficult to determine what effect it had in his own street. Mr. Hummel studied a detailed review of the work in his paper, not without audible remarks of disapprobation however; he hummed at the word Veda and grumbled at the name Humboldt, and he whistled through his teeth at the praise which was accorded to the deep learning of the author. When at the conclusion the reviewer formally thanked the Doctor in the name of science, and urgently recommended the work to all readers, Mr. Hummel's humming broke into the melody of the old Dessauer, and he threw the paper on the table. "I do not intend to buy it," was all that he vouchsafed to say to his wife and daughter.

But in the course of the day he cast an occasional glance at the corner of the hostile house where the Doctor's room was, and then again at the upper story of his own house, as if he wished to weigh the comparative merits of both the learned men and their abodes.

When Ilse told Laura her husband's opinion of the book, Laura colored a little, and replied, throwing back her head: "I hope it is so learned that we need not meddle with it." Yet this disinclination to meddle with the book did not prevent her some days later from borrowing the book from the Professor, upon the plea that she wished to show it to her mother. It was carried to her own little room, where it remained for a long time.

Among the other inhabitants of the street, the importance of the Hahn family--whose name had acquired such renown, and whose Fritz was praised so much in the papers--was greatly increased. The scales of popular favor sank decidedly on the side of this house, and even Mr.

Hummel found it expedient not to object to his family's speaking with moderate approbation of their neighbor's son. When Dorchen, as sometimes happened, met Gabriel in the streets, she even ventured to accompany him for a few minutes into the courtyard of the enemy, in spite of the growling of the dog and the sinister frowns of the master.

One warm evening in March she had said a few civil words to Gabriel in pa.s.sing and was tripping neatly across the street to her own house, with Gabriel looking after her full of admiration, when Mr. Hummel came out just in time to witness the last greeting.

"She is as pretty as a red-breast," said Gabriel to Mr. Hummel. The latter shook his head benevolently. "I well see, Gabriel, how the wind blows, and I say nothing, for it would be of no use. But one piece of good advice I will give you. You do not understand how to deal with women; you are not gruff enough with the girl. When I was young they trembled at the faintest movement of my handkerchief, and yet they swarmed about me like bees. This s.e.x must be intimidated and you'll spoil all by kindness. I think well of you Gabriel, and I give you this counsel therefore as a friend. Look you, there is Madame Hummel. She is a strong-willed woman, but I always keep her under restraint; if I didn't growl, she would. And, as there must be growling, it is more agreeable for me to do it myself."