The Undying Past Part 16

Elly supposed, with sobs, that it must be it.

But as he looked as if he were going to wrench open the envelope, Hertha considered it her duty to interfere.

"You surely will not be so unchivalrous," she said, "as to pry into other people's secrets."

"I shall certainly be so unchivalrous," he responded, and tore the envelope open.

"For shame," said Hertha, and turned away.

But he read aloud, "'The Smiling Stars,' serenade composed for and dedicated to Fraulein Elly von Sellenthin, as a token of his esteem and regard, by Kurt Brenckenberg. _Cand. phil._"

Whereupon he gave a little whistle and slowly ripped the beautiful verses into tiny fragments, which he scattered at his weeping sister's feet.

"Let that be a lesson to you," he said, knitting his thick brows, "and if I find out anything of the sort has happened again it will be a bad look-out for you."

"We may go now, I hope?" asked Hertha, as she scanned him sideways from under downcast lids.

"Yes, you may go," he replied. "There's only one thing more to say: for the future there will be no more underhand dealings here. Do you understand?"

Hertha shrugged her shoulders and turned to go. She had done with this rude man, for ever.

Elly, who was again leading the pug by the blue ribbon, followed in sobs.

When Leo was alone he laughed out loud.

"What depths of innocence!" he said to himself, and thought of the women-folk he had met and dropped abroad, who were now separated from him by the ocean. And then he thought of another, whose life was not divided from his by the sea, but who must be considered as dropped none the less.

He then turned to sample the books in which he had found the two young girls so absorbed.

Besides the above-mentioned "Adventures of Isabella," the famous library contained "The History of Great Courtizans," from the French of Henry de k.o.c.k; "The Secrets of Madame du Barry," in yellow paper covers at sixpence; "Practical Introduction to the Gastronomic Art for Gourmets;" "Guide through Nocturnal Berlin; or, How Bachelors Amuse Themselves;" "Sunday Magazine for Christian Families," year 1841; "The Future of the Threshing Machine in German Agriculture;" "Pious Helen;"

"A Miser's Picture Book;" "Short and Simple Introduction to Steam Threshing," in German doggerel; "Report of the Construction of a Railway from Florchingen to Kirchheim;" "Guide to the Waxworks;"

"Yearly Report of the Sisterhood at Kaiserswerth, with a Supplementary Catalogue;" "The Molock; or, Dangers of Horse-racing." The last item was a mantrap in the form of a book, labelled "Dr. Qualm's Collected Works." Inside was nothing but a forgotten cigar.

Leo contemplated the pile of yellow ragged literature, and shook his head.

"Such is about the average standard of culture of us all," he thought to himself.

Then his uncle's library was pitched into the stove, with the exception of "Dr. Qualm's Collected Works," which was to be filled afresh and handed over to Christian to be carefully studied.

IX

The student of philosophy, Kurt Brenckenberg, strolled between the borders of the parsonage garden at Wengern and enjoyed the early freshness of the sunny sabbath morning. He had slept late, shaved, curled his moustache, and felt his mind full of sublime idealism and his heart full of longing for a fair mistress. He also congratulated himself on the heroic fort.i.tude with which he had thrown off the effects of the last night's carousal.

He smoked his cigar in a self-satisfied humour, waiting till his sister should have finished ironing his shirt-collar, which she seemed to have taken an endless time over.

"I shall be obliged to make a row about it," he said to himself.

Service in the parental establishment left much to be desired. When the things came from the wash they were not fit to be seen. There was not a trace in them of the stiffness and glaze which are the artistic triumphs of the professional laundress. He who knew what was due to himself as a corps-student felt it his duty not to neglect his personal appearance, but to keep up the dignity of his "badges" daily and hourly in face of the country b.u.mpkins.

The eldest of nine olive branches, which had sprung from the nuptials of old Pastor Brenckenberg, he had gone to the University in his nineteenth year, it was vaguely reported, to study the dead and Oriental tongues. Nothing more definite was ever gleaned about the calling he had chosen, for he did not consider it seemly to discuss such trivialities. He left that sort of thing to the "swats," as he himself put it. It was quite undeniably certain, however, that he had fought fourteen duels, and had been "gashed" nine times; that he had been concerned in two scandals and a _praemisses praemittendis_ intrigue; and that he had cultivated the drinking of beer to a fine art. Neither could it be disputed that he had been captain of two _elite_ student clubs, _i.e_., the Westphalians and the Normans. He boasted, therefore, the t.i.tle after his name, Guestphaliae (XX), Normanneaque (X), and thus he figured on the bills of exchange and promissory notes which his father received periodically, accompanied by a polite request for payment, till that worthy declared it must now stop, and that the young lardy-da would not get a bra.s.s farthing more out of him. He had remained firm, and his mother's tears and intercession for her darling had been in vain.

One fine day at the beginning of February, in consequence of the paternal hardness of heart, the son and heir arrived at the parsonage and announced his intention of staying there for the present. In the admiring eyes of his mother he blazed out as the possessor of a light, braided suit, the coat of which was very narrow, and the trousers very wide; of ribbons and badges denoting the colours of his corps; an ivory scarf pin in the shape of the corps monogram; a gold bangle with a sham thaler representing St. George and the dragon--also bearing the corps monogram attached to it; a swagger walking-stick, on the k.n.o.b of which the monogram was engraved; a note-book full of the eternal monogram, and a purse which contained no silver except the monogram on the clasp.

For the rest, his trunk had little else in it save a book of students'

drinking-songs, bound in calf, a few bills of exchange, a broken meerschaum cigar-holder, and a whole pile of dirty, ragged linen, marked above his name with the monogram in shot floss silk.

His mother, a worthy, hard-working and uneducated woman, was not a little perplexed at the constantly recurring hieroglyphic, but she was far too infatuated with her darling to think anything that he did ridiculous.

While he was thus displaying his splendours to the open-mouthed brothers and sisters, his father came in.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"It is impossible to go on studying without money," was the prompt reply.

"Come to my study."

The doting mother foresaw a scene. She hung on her husband's arm and stroked it coaxingly; but he shook her off with a rough exclamation.

A few minutes later two resounding boxes on the ear were heard coming from the study, and the outraged remonstrance of a virtuous youth.

"Father, I am a corps-student!"

Almost at the same moment he flew back into the family sitting-room and declared that he must go away again instantly. He had no home now, and his mother must pack his things.

The packing was quickly accomplished; but when evening came, Kurt Brenckenberg had not gone. The next morning, too, he appeared at the breakfast table. He did not vouchsafe his father a glance, and once more announced his determination to leave by the first train, as he had no home. So it went on for several days, and his father, who might be repenting his violence, let him alone.

When a week had pa.s.sed, he caught his son by the b.u.t.ton-hole, and said--

"As you intend to go away to-morrow we will have a farewell drink together to-day. Put on your cap and come along."

Kurt acquiesced, and two hours after midnight he played the part of the good Samaritan by bringing home his father, whose drunken state, within a circuit of six miles, no creature would have taken pity on. He made up a bed for him on the sofa, so that his spouse should not be disturbed in her slumbers. After this no more was said about his going away.

The relations between father and son became day by day more intimate.

Since his own offspring had beaten him at beer drinking, he had made no further attempt to a.s.sert his paternal authority, and allowed his son to come and go about the house at any hours he pleased. Only he could not give him money, for the n.o.ble youth's escapades had cleared him out of a year's income in advance. As he himself put it, there was scarcely a halfpenny left for the communion collection.

Through the winter Kurt Brenckenberg had lorded it, partly on the neighbouring estates, partly in his father's house, where he was dissatisfied with everything, and perpetually bullied and grumbled at his brothers and sisters. He drank, composed songs, made himself agreeable or arrogant according to the s.e.x of his a.s.sociates, borrowed where it was possible to borrow, and cut as elegant an appearance as was permitted by the increasing shabbiness of the last check suit supplied by Kessel and Munchmann of Unter-den-Linden, on credit to corps students. He got up private theatricals, contrived new figures for the cotillion, gave fencing lessons, and had understood on the whole how to make himself indispensable. Ladies gushed about him, but men rather avoided him, because if they so much as looked at him sideways, they were apt to be confronted with the disconcerting question, snapped out in tone of intimidation: "Will you give satisfaction?" Not that the st.u.r.dy young squires of the Hinterwald district were by any means cowards. On the contrary, they had proved often enough that they were ready where their honour was concerned to engage in any daring combat. It was only in the case of this little bristling fighting-c.o.c.k, whom they regarded scarcely as their equal by half, that they felt stiff and embarra.s.sed. Often as he boasted of his little adventures with pistols, he never gave a practical demonstration of anything of the sort. He it was who for the most part at the conclusion of the challenge formalities proved himself a model of wise moderation. But even this fact resulted in the increase of his reputation in the country-round, and made his pose as an irreconcilable combatant the more effective.

For his part he felt it inc.u.mbent on him to continue the _role_ of the celebrated Dr. Oswald Stein, who two generations earlier had turned the heads of all the rustic young Pomeranian rustics, and he made no secret that the ideal on which he modelled himself was the hero of "Problematical Natures." Accordingly he had entered on a sentimental love episode with the pretty daughter of Halewitz, and by the spring hoped at last to have found his Melitta. For it was at about this time that Ulrich von Kletzingk summoned him to Uhlenfelde to act as private tutor to his little stepson. The boy was delicate, and not to be overworked. So he had all the more leisure at his disposal in which to pay court to the beautiful fair-haired mistress of the castle. It was patent that she was a flirt. How otherwise would she have kept dangling about her all the cavaliers, young and old, of the neighbourhood? She also had some sense. For she did what she pleased, quite unconcerned by the gossip of friendly neighbours. And the famous duel had proved that she was in possession of an interesting past.

Nevertheless she had turned a deaf ear to his addresses. He had hardly dared hope for anything but indifference. He languished at her feet, despairing, full of worship and a desire to die for her; as the pages of olden times had loved their queens, so he revelled in this hopeless pa.s.sion.

It seemed sometimes almost as if his homage rather pleased her, as if she saw the necessity, as he did, for a little harmless romance with the tutor. No check was put on his poetical effusions; his sighs and half-intelligible speeches. He might, if he liked, break his neck in knightly service, or, above all, attempt great things in verse. He scattered his leaflets about the house and garden; sometimes he placed them under her knitting or in an uncut book. Yes, he had even had the temerity to put them under her pillow.

And in smiling silence she had ignored everything. Yet his unrequited pa.s.sion had not in the least altered his manner of life. He ate enough for three, and drank enough for a dozen. He consorted with the bailiffs, in the hopes that they might lend him money, and, after dark, he flirted with the dairymaids and farm-wenches in the stables, or under the elder-bushes by the water.

But this brilliant career, so rich in every sort of experience and sentiment, was doomed and drawing to its close. His first hint that it was so had been three days ago, when Baron von Kletzingk had informed him, that for the present his services must be dispensed with, his wife having emphatically expressed a wish to teach the boy herself for the next few weeks. This decision alone might not have counted for much, for Frau Felicitas changed her mind as often as a new idea came into her curly head; but what upset him most was an unpleasant change in her manner towards him which he had remarked several days previously.