The Serapion Brethren Volume I Part 47

"How could it be otherwise?" Friedrich cried. "Yes, yes; she will be yours. How could I, most wretched of creatures, ever hope for such bliss!"

"My brother!" said Reinhold, "you forget that Rosa has by no means yet confirmed what wily Master Martin fancies he has seen. It is true she has always been very charming and kindly with me; but that is not exactly how a loving heart displays itself. Promise me, my brother, to keep yourself quiet for three days more, and work in the shop as usual.

I might go back again there now, too; but since I have been busy at this picture, that miserable handicraft sickens me inexpressibly. I _cannot_ take a hammer in my hand again, come what will! On the third day I will tell you distinctly how matters stand between me and Rosa.

If I should really be the fortunate man to whom she has given her heart, you may depart; and you will learn that time heals the very deepest wounds."

Friedrich promised to abide his destiny.

On the third day (Friedrich had carefully shunned the sight of Rosa) his heart trembled with fear and anxious expectation. He crept about the workshop like one in a dream, and his awkwardness was such as to give Master Martin occasion to scold angrily, in a way unusual with him. Taking things all round, something seemed to have come to the master which had taken away all satisfaction from him. He talked much of wicked artfulness and ingrat.i.tude, without further explaining what he was driving at. When evening came at length, and Friedrich was going back to town, near the city-gate he saw a man on horseback meeting him, whom he at once knew to be Reinhold. As soon as this latter caught sight of him he cried out: "Ha, ha! here you are!--just as I wished!"

He got off his horse, threw the reins on his arm, and took his friend by the hand: "Let us stroll along together for a while," he said; "I can tell you now how my love-affair has turned out."

Friedrich noticed that Reinhold was dressed as he had been when they first met, and that the horse had a valise on him. Reinhold was looking rather pale and troubled. "Good-luck to you, brother-heart!" he cried, somewhat wildly. "You can go on hammering l.u.s.tily away at your casks, for I am clearing out of your way. I have just said good-bye to the lovely Rosa, and worthy old Martin."

"What!" cried Friedrich, who felt a kind of electric shock go through him. "You are going away! when Master Martin wants you for a son-in-law, and when Rosa loves you?"

"Dear brother," answered Reinhold, "that is what your jealousy has led you to imagine. It has turned out that Rosa would have married me, from mere filial obedience, but that there is not a single spark of affection for me in that ice-cold heart of hers. Ha, ha! I should have been a celebrated cooper! Shaven hoops on week-days with my apprentices, and taken my worthy housekeeper-wife on Sundays to St.

Catherine's or St. Sebald's to service, and then to the meadow in the evening, one year after another, all my life long."

"Well, you needn't jest over the simple, innocent life of the good townspeople," cried Friedrich, interrupting Reinhold in his laughter.

"It's not Rosa's fault if she does not really love you. You are so angry--so wild!"

"You are right," said Reinhold; "it is only my stupid way of behaving like a spoilt child when I feel annoyed. You will understand that I told Rosa of my love for her, and of her father's good-will. The tears streamed from her eyes; her hand trembled in mine; she turned away her face, and said, 'Of course I must do as my father wishes.' That was enough. This strange vexation of mine cannot but have enabled you to read my inmost heart. You see that my efforts to gain Rosa were the result of a deception, which my mistaken feeling had prepared for itself. As soon as I had finished her portrait, my heart was at rest; and I often felt, in an inexplicable manner, as though Rosa had really been the picture, and the picture the real Rosa. The mean, wretched, mechanical handicraft grew detestable to me; the common style of life, and the whole business of having to get myself made a Master-Cooper, and marry, depressed me so that I felt as if I were going to be immured in a prison and chained to a block. How could that heavenly child whom I have worn in my heart--_as_ I have worn her in my heart--ever become my wife? Ah, no! she must for ever be resplendent in the master-works which my soul shall engender; in eternal youth, delightsomeness, and beauty. Oh, how I long to be working at them! How could I ever sever myself from my heavenly calling! Soon shall I bathe once more in thy fervid vapours, glorious land! home of all the arts!"

The friends had reached the point where the road which Reinhold meant to follow turned sharp off to the left. "Here we part!" he cried. He pressed Friedrich warmly to his heart, sprang into the saddle, and galloped away.

Friedrich gazed after him, in silence, and then crept home, filled with the strangest thoughts.

HOW FRIEDRICH WAS DRIVEN OUT FROM MASTER MARTIN'S WORKSHOP.

The next day Master Martin was labouring away at the Bishop of Bamberg's cask, in moody silence; and Friedrich too, who was now only feeling fully what he had lost in Reinhold, was not capable of a word, far less of a song. At last Martin threw down his hammer, folded his arms, and said in a low voice:

"So Reinhold has gone too! He was a great, celebrated painter, and merely making a fool of me with his coopering. If I had but had the slightest inkling of that when he came to my house with you, and seemed so handy and clever, shouldn't I just have shown him the door! Such an open, honest-looking face! and yet all deceit and falsehood! Well! he is gone; but _you_ are going to stick to me and the craft with truth and honour. When you get to be a doughty Master-Cooper--and if Rosa takes a fancy to you--well! you know what I mean, and can try if you can gain her liking." With which he took up his hammer, and went busily on with his work. Friedrich could not quite explain to himself why it was that Master Martin's words pained his heart--why some strange, anxious dread arose in him, darkening every shimmer of hope. Rosa came to the workshop, for the first time for long, but she was deeply thoughtful, and (as Friedrich remarked to his sorrow) her eyes were red from weeping. "She has been crying about _him_; she loves him;" a voice in his heart said; and he did not dare to raise his glance to her whom he loved so unutterably.

The cask was finished; and then, and only then, Master Martin, as he contemplated that highly successful piece of work, grew cheerful and light-hearted once more. "Ay, my lad," he said, slapping Friedrich on the shoulder, "it is a settled matter that, if you can turn out a right good master-piece, and win Rosa's good will, my son-in-law you shall be. After that you can join the Coopers' Guild, and gain much renown."

At this time Master Martin's commissions so acc.u.mulated that he had to hire two new journeymen, capital workmen, but rough fellows, who had picked up many evil habits during their long years of travel, as journey-men away from home. In place of the old merry talk, the jokes, and the pretty singing which used to go on in the workshop, nothing was to be heard there now but obscene ditties. Rosa avoided the place, so that Friedrich only saw her at long intervals, and when he then looked at her with melancholy longing, and sighed out, "Ah! dearest Rosa! if I could but talk with you again! if you would only be kindly with me as you used to be when Reinhold was here!" she would cast her eyes bashfully down, and murmur, "Have you anything to say to me, dear Friedrich?" But he would stand transfixed and speechless. The lucky moment would pa.s.s, as quick as lightning which flashes in the evening sky, and has vanished ere one has noticed it almost.

Master Martin was now all insistence that Friedrich should set to work on his "Master-piece." He had himself chosen, in his workshop, the finest, cleanest, most flawless timber, which had been stored there for over five years, and had not a vein or a streak in it; and n.o.body was to give Friedrich the slightest hand in the job except old Valentine.

More and more intensely disgusted with the whole thing as Friedrich now was, on account of those brutes of journeymen, the thought that all his future life hung upon this piece of work almost stifled him. The strange sense of dread and anxiety which had developed itself in him when Master Martin had lauded his faithful devotion to the craft, took shape, now, more and more clearly. He felt convinced that he would come to the most utter and shameful failure in an occupation completely repugnant to his whole nature, filled as it was with the love of his own art. Reinhold, and Rosa's portrait he could not drive out of his mind; at the same time, his own branch of Art shone upon him in the brightest splendour. Often, when the terrible sense of the full wretchedness of the trade he was engaged in was like to overpower him as he was working at it, he would pretend to be unwell, and hurry off to the church of St. Sebald, where he would gaze for hours at Peter Fischer's marvellous monument, and then cry out, like one enchanted, "Oh, Father of Heaven!--to conceive, to execute such a work as that--could there be anything on earth more glorious!" and then when he had to go back to his staves and hoops, and remember that by means of them, only, Rosa was to be won, the very devil's glowing talons seemed to touch his heart, and he felt as if he must perish in the terrible misery of it all. Reinhold often appeared to him in dreams, bringing to him lovely designs, in which Rosa was worked in, and displayed now as a flower, now as a beautifully winged angel. But there was always a something wanting. Reinhold had forgotten to put a _heart_ in Rosa's image; and that he added himself. _Then_ all the flowers and leaves of the design seemed to begin moving and singing, and breathing out the most delicious odours; and the n.o.ble metals reflected Rosa's form as in a gleaming mirror, seeming to stretch her longing arms to her lover--but the image would vanish in dim vapour, and the beautiful Rosa, herself, seemed to be clasping him to her loving heart, all blissful desire. His feelings towards the miserable coopering work grew more and more terribly unendurable, and he went for aid and consolation (as well as for advice) to his old master, Johannes Holzschuer. This master allowed Friedrich to set about a little piece of work, for which an idea had occurred to him, and for the carrying out of which, and providing himself with the necessary gold and silver, he had saved up the wages which Master Martin gave him, for many a day.

Thus it came about that Friedrich, who was so very pale that there was but too much reason to believe (as he gave out) that he was suffering from strongly-marked consumptive symptoms, scarcely ever went to Master Martin's workshop, and that months elapsed without his having made the very slightest progress with his master-piece, the great two-fudder cask. Master Martin pressed him to work at least at much as his strength would permit him, and Friedrich was at length compelled to go once more to the hateful cutting-block, and take the broad-axe in hand again. As he was working, Master Martin came up and looked at the staves he had been finishing. He grew red in the face, and cried out--

"Why, Friedrich! what do you call this? A nice job and a half! Are those staves turned out by a journeyman trying to pa.s.s as master, or by an apprentice-boy who has only been a day or two in the shop! Bethink yourself, man; what demon has entered itself into you? My beautiful oak timber! The great masterpiece indeed! Clumsy, careless, goose!"

Overcome by all the h.e.l.lish torments which were burning in his heart, Friedrich could contain himself no longer. He sent the broad-axe flying with all his force, and cried, "Master, it's all over! If it costs me my life--if I perish in misery unnamed, I cannot go on labouring at this wretched handicraft another minute. I am drawn to my own glorious Art with a power which I cannot withstand. Alas! I love your Rosa unutterably--as no other on earth can love her. It is for her sake alone that I have gone through with this abominable work in this place.

I know I have lost her now. I shall soon die of grief for her. But I cannot help it. I must go back to my own glorious Art, to my own dear master, Johannes Holzschuer, whom I deserted so basely."

Master Martin's eyes shone like flaming tapers. Scarce able to articulate for anger, he stammered out--

"What! you too! lies and cheatery! impose on _me_--talk of a 'miserable handicraft!' Out of my sight, you shameless scoundrel--get out from here!" with which he took Friedrich by the shoulders and chucked him out of the workshop.

The derisive laughter of the other journeymen and the apprentices followed him. But old Valentine folded his hands, looked thoughtfully at the ground, and said, "I always saw that good fellow had something very different in his head from casks."

Frau Martha cried a great deal, and her children lamented over Friedrich, who used to play with them, and bring them many a nice piece of sweet-stuff.

CONCLUSION.

Notwithstanding Master Martin's anger with Reinhold and Friedrich, he could not but admit that, with them, all happiness and joy had fled from the workshop. His new journeymen caused him nothing but vexation and annoyance every day. He had to give himself trouble over every trifling detail of the work, and had difficulty in getting the very smallest matter done as he wished it. Wholly worn out with the worries of the day, he would often sigh, "Ah, Reinhold! ah, Friedrich! how I wish you had not deceived me so shamefully! Oh that you had only gone on being doughty coopers, and not turned out to be something else!"

This went so far, that he often thought of giving up business altogether.

He was sitting one evening in a gloomy frame of mind of this description, when Herr Jacobus Paumgartner, and with him Master Johannes Holzschuer, came in unexpectedly. He felt sure their visit related to Friedrich, and in fact Paumgartner soon led the conversation to the subject of him, and Master Holzschuer began to extol him in every possible way, stating his opinion that with Friedrich's talents and diligence he would not only become a first-cla.s.s goldsmith, but actually tread in Peter Fischer's footsteps as a modeller of eminence.

Then Herr Paumgartner set to work to vehemently inveigh against the undeserved treatment that the poor fellow had received from Master Martin, and they both of them urged the latter that, if Friedrich should turn out a goldsmith and modeller, he should give him Rosa to wife, provided she should be really fond of him. Master Martin allowed them both to finish what they had to say; then he took off his cap and answered with a smile, "Worthy sirs, you speak strongly in favour of the lad, who has--all the same--deceived me in a shameful manner. I forgive him that, however, but you must not expect me to alter my firm decision, on his account. It is not the slightest use asking me to give him my Rosa--completely out of the question."

Just then, Rosa came in, pale as death, with eyes red from crying, and, in silence, placed gla.s.ses and wine on the table.

"Very well!" said Holzschuer; "then I suppose I shall be obliged to let Friedrich have his way, and leave this place altogether. He has just finished a beautiful piece of workmanship at my atelier, which--if you will allow him, Master Martin--he wishes to offer to Rosa as a I; Bake.

I have got it with me; look at it."

He produced a small silver goblet, beautifully and artistically ornamented all over, and handed it to Master Martin, who was a great admirer and "amateur" of such things. He took it, and looked at it on all sides with great admiration; in fact it would have been difficult to meet with a more beautiful piece of silver-work than this little vessel, where lovely vine-branches, with tendrils, interwoven with roses, were twining in all directions, whilst from among the grapes and the roses, beautiful angels were peeping, and others, embracing, graven inside it, on its gilt sides and bottom; so that when wine was poured into it, those angels seemed to hover up and down, in charming play.

"A very pretty thing indeed!" Master Martin said. "Beautiful work about it! I shall be glad to take it, if Friedrich will allow me to give him twice its worth in good gold pieces."

So saying, Master Martin filled the cup with wine, and set it to his lips.

Here the door opened gently, and Friedrich, with the deadly pain of parting for ever from her he loved best on earth in his white face, came in at it. As soon as Rosa saw him, she gave a bitter cry of "Oh, my own dearest Friedrich!" and threw herself half-fainting on his breast.

Master Martin set the cup down, and when he saw Rosa in Friedrich's arms, he opened wide eyes, as if he were seeing ghosts. Then he took up the cup again without a word, and looked down into it. "Rosa," he cried in a loud voice, rising from his chair, "do you really love Friedrich?"

"Ah!" said Rosa in a whisper, "I cannot hide it any longer--I love him as my life! My heart was broken when you sent him away."

"Take your wife to your heart then, Friedrich, Yes, yes, I say it--_your wife_," Master Martin cried out.

Paumgartner and Holzschuer looked at each other, lost in amazement; but Master Martin, holding the cup in his hands, went on, and said, "Oh Father of Heaven! has not everything turned out exactly as the old lady prophesied it should? 'A House resplendent and gleaming he shall to thy dwelling bring; streams of sweet savour flowing therein; beauteous angels sing full sweetly; he whom thy heart goeth forth to needless to ask of thy father, this is thy Bridegroom beloved!' Oh fool that I have been! this is the bright little House! here are the angels, the bridegroom! Aha! gentlemen, my friends and patrons--my son-in-law is found!"

Whosoever has at any time been under the spell of an evil dream, and thought he was lying in the deep, black darkness of the grave, and then has suddenly awakened in the bright spring-time, all perfume, sunshine and song, and she who is dearest to him on earth has come and put her arms about him, while he looked up into the heaven of her beautiful face--that person will understand how Friedrich felt--will comprehend the exuberance of his blissfulness. Unable to utter a word, he held Rosa fast in his arms as if he would never let her go, till she gently extricated herself from his embrace, and led him to her father. He then found words, and cried:

"Oh, dear master, is this really true, then? Do you give me Rosa for my wife, and may I go back to my own art?"

"Yes, yes, believe it!" answered Master Martin. "What else is there that I can do? You have fulfilled my mother's prophecy, and your masterpiece will never be finished."

Friedrich smiled, transfigured with happiness, and said: "No, dear master, you will allow me to finish my masterpiece, and then I will go back to my smelting-furnace. For I should enjoy finishing my cask, as my last piece of coopering-work."

"So let it be then, my dear, good son," cried Master Martin, with eyes sparkling with joy. "Finish your masterpiece, and then, for the wedding!"

Friedrich kept his word. He duly finished his two-fudder cask, and all the masters averred that it would be hard to meet with a prettier piece of work; at which Master Martin was highly delighted, and thought that, all things considered, heaven could scarcely have awarded him a better son-in-law.

The wedding-day had come at last. Friedrich's cask-masterpiece, full of n.o.ble wine, and garlanded with flowers, stood on the house-floor. The Masters of the craft, headed by Herr Paumgartner, duly arrived, with their wives, followed by the Master-Goldsmiths. The procession was just setting out from St. Sebald's church, where the wedding was to be, when a blast of trumpets sounded in the streets, and horses were neighing and stamping in front of Master Martin's house. He hastened to the balcony window, and there he saw Herr von Spangenberg drawing up, in front of the house, in festal array. A few yards behind him rode a young cavalier, a grand-looking young gentleman, on a spirited charger, with a sword at his side, and tall plumes waving in his barret-cap, which sparkled with jewels. At the cavalier's side Master Martin saw a most beautiful lady, also splendidly attired, and riding a palfrey as white as new-fallen snow. Pages and servants in fine liveries formed a circle about them. The trumpets ceased to sound, and old Baron von Spangenberg cried out, "Ha, ha! Master Martin. I am not come here on account of your cellar or your gold-ingots, but because it is Rosa's wedding-day. Will you let me come in, dear Master Martin?"