Through Night to Light Part 24

"According to this variation it was not the pupil, but the teacher, whom the young lady looked upon with favor; and the broken arm of the baron was not the effect of a fall, but of a pistol ball, which was applied to his aforesaid extremity in the presence of witnesses, and according to all the rules of art."

"Well, and which reading do you prefer?"

"Of course the latter, my brave Knight of La Mancha. Here, Oswald--n.o.body hears us in these halls, sacred to friendship and love--fill your gla.s.s and drink! Drink it to the last drop of silvery foam! Her health!--the health of the only one, the sweet, the fair, the beautiful one, with the blueish-black hair and the dark sea-deep eyes!

Drink! I say, by the bones of the eleven thousand virgins at Cologne!

Drink! How, n.o.ble Don, are you ashamed to confess the lady of your overflowing heart? and to deny her before me--me, the wise Merlin, who can hear the gra.s.s grow and the eyes sigh? Have I not heard the sighing of your beautiful eyes in those sunny days which are no more, when you and she, two children of a rare kind, played innocently under the rose-bushes and thought that no one saw you, not even the Creator of heaven and earth who gave you the warm breath with which you playfully whispered to each other the sweet mysteries of love? And did I not hear how serpents' tongues hissed around you? Did I not see with what intense hatred basilisk eyes glared at you? Oh, I have seen and heard all that, and I knew before that it would come thus, but I said nothing; for speech is silver, but silence is gold, and he who meddles with love affairs would do better to go and sit down in a bed of nettles."

"Tell me, Timm, have you--have you seen her since she has come to Grunwald?"

"I have seen her, my master!--not once, but many times, by the side of other fair beauties, among whom she looked like the rose of Sharon amid dandelions, gliding over the pavement of Grunwald, through dismal streets; and the paving-stones in the streets and the bricks in the houses received speech, and they spoke and sang: Blessed art thou among women!"

"She is at Miss Bear's house, is she not?" Oswald asked, who thought it would be folly to try and conceal his attachment from a man of such sharp observation as Albert.

"Yes, she is at the She Bear's--this pearl of an argus-eyed female.

There she dwells, and sits at the window and sees the clouds drift over the tops of the poplars; and if you pa.s.s by there at noon, between twelve and one, you can see her sit there yourself, as I have seen her every time I have pa.s.sed there at that hour. And always she raised her beautiful eyes, and always she looked at me inquiringly: Can you bring me no news of him--of him, the only man I love dearly? Why, Oswald, I--a prosy old fogy--I speak in verses whenever I think of the maid; and you, who are a poet, mean to deny that you love her with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind? Fie upon you; you do not deserve that I take so much trouble about you--that I have thought of you these last weeks more frequently than you have done during the whole time. But ingrat.i.tude is the reward of the world, and--Carole, another bottle!--I shall hereafter not trouble myself about you and your fate any further."

Timm rested his head in his hand, as Oswald had been doing these last ten minutes. A pause followed, while bald-headed Charles placed a new bottle of champagne into the wine-cooler, turned it round a few times in the ice, and then left them again as noiselessly as he had come.

This sudden transition from exuberant hilarity into such melancholy silence, in an elastic nature like Surveyor Timm's, was somewhat too sudden to be perfectly natural. Oswald, however, was too busy with his own thoughts to notice this. He thought Timm was sincere, and he was flattered by the lively interest which he had excited in a man whom he had heretofore looked upon as altogether frivolous and selfish. He filled his own gla.s.s and Albert's from the new bottle, and said,

"I am not ungrateful, Timm; I am really not so; and least of all in this case. And if I have heretofore not put full faith in your friendship, it was only because I felt how little I had deserved it.

Let us have another gla.s.s together! You know you must not be exacting with a melancholy man like myself!"

"Well, I should think I knew that," said Timm, with his usual merry laugh, pushing back the long fair hair that had fallen down upon his forehead, and emptying his gla.s.s at a single draught. "And I have often wondered how a man like yourself, who has a right to enjoy life more than any one else, can look upon the world in a way which seems only fit for sick canary birds and like invalids. I should say nothing if you had never commenced to enjoy it from mere bashfulness, or if you had wasted your strength in enjoyment; but as neither the one nor the other is evidently the case with you--as you are not an enthusiastic saint nor a worn-out roue--as you suffer neither from an exuberance of strength nor from too great weakness, I really cannot tell what is the matter with you, except one thing."

"And what is that?"

Mr. Timm rested his elbows on the table, and the smooth face in his white hands, and smiled craftily at Oswald.

"And that is--what, Timm?"

"Ten thousand dollars annual income." Oswald laughed.

"A very prosaic remedy for contempt of the world."

"But a very radical one, and in your case infallible."

"Why exactly in my case?"

Timm filled the gla.s.ses once more, lighted a fresh cigar, and said:

"Heine, you know, divides men in two cla.s.ses: fat Grecians and lean Nazarenes. I have found this distinction as acute as true. The former believe in Our Lady of Melos, the latter worship the Virgin Dolorosa.

The former enjoy the good things of life in cheerful happiness; the latter prefer a grumbling resignation and meditative asceticism. In order that both cla.s.ses should be right, that the Grecians should be able to live well and the Nazarenes pray well, the former must have an abundance of money, and the latter must be poor, very poor indeed."

"Before you go on with your exposition, Timm, tell me first to which of the two cla.s.ses you belong yourself."

"To both, or to neither of the two, as you choose. I have the good digestion, the sound teeth, the fine perception--in a word, the desire and the capacity to enjoy which belongs to the Grecians; but I have also the tenacity and frugality necessary to the Nazarenes for the practice of their peculiar virtues. I have the invaluable talent of the camel to be able to thirst a long time without losing heart or appet.i.te; on the contrary, abstinence only serves in my case to sharpen the appet.i.te and to season the next drink more attractively. When I have travelled through the desert, and--as just now, for instance--the branches of mimosas and the fans of palm-trees wave over me, and the icy-cold well--as just now, for instance, from the bottle--I meant to say, from the rock--foams and purls--then I bend my long camel's neck and drink and drink and drink, and bless the dry, brown desert which has led me to such a delicious well."

And Mr. Timm poured down a full gla.s.s of champagne with the hasty eagerness of a traveller whose tongue is glued to the palate.

Oswald watched the exulting companion who sat opposite to him with a peculiar sense of pleasure, not unmixed with envy. How sharp and bold, and yet how fine and intelligent, were the features in this smooth, almost boyish face! How well that haughty superciliousness suited him, which played around his delicate nostrils and curved the sharply-accented red lips! How the words flew from these lips, swift as feathered arrows, each one of which hits the bull's-eye! What a sovereign contempt for mere phrases, for any kind of ornament, for all those rags with which hypocrites and fools try to cover their nakedness! How eloquent the whole bearing of the man, his head thrown boldly back, as he blew the smoke of his cigar from him, or as he took the bottle from the cooler, shook it, and filled again and again his empty gla.s.s to overflowing! How light the burden of life seemed to be to this man, light as to the lion who leaps with the colt in his teeth swiftly over hedges and ditches!

Oswald was not inclined at that moment to cast a glance into the bottomless abyss of selfishness which lay concealed under the surface of this humor, dancing about in merry waves. The time and the place were not favorable to such an a.n.a.lysis. He felt down here, in this deep, quiet cellar, with its dim, mysterious light of two small candles, as if he were thousands of miles away from the rest of the world. He had come here to drink himself into oblivion; he had succeeded in his wishes. His brow was all aglow, as he followed the example of his companion and poured down gla.s.s after gla.s.s. He had not felt so free and so happy for a long time as he did at that moment.

"As for you, now, n.o.ble knight," continued Timm, "you are a Grecian, without the means of being so at all times, and without the gift of simply transferring the time during which you cannot be so to the account of the future. Instead of doing that, you play the Nazarene, and feel just as happy during the time as the eagle whose wings and claws have been clipped, and who wears a chain around his foot. The exuberant strength, which you cannot employ outwardly, turns within and checks the normal growth of your nature, which has once for all been intended for enjoyment. This is not the first time I call your attention to this contradiction in you. Do you recollect what I told yon already at Grenwitz? You hate the n.o.bles, you hate the rich, you hate the powerful, because the ten fingers of our hands itch with a desire to be n.o.ble and rich and powerful yourself. Do not talk to me of your moral humbug of the n.o.bility of mind, the wealth of a pure heart, and the power of truth! All that is mere stuff for those who know what merchandise is sold in the market of life. Pshaw! what has a man like you to do with poverty--a man of your youth, your charms, your pretty face--for, by heaven, Oswald, you are a handsome fellow, a man whom the women embrace without his asking, A man of thoroughly aristocratic tastes and tendencies! It is simply ridiculous! You ought not to be a poor schoolmaster, but a wealthy baron, like those Grenwitz people with whom, by the way, you have a most striking resemblance; then you could enjoy life, and afterwards blow out your brains with some show of reason; then you could marry the fair Helen; could do, in a word, or not do whatever you liked! That is why I say again: you want an income of ten thousand dollars. I wish I could get it for you, I would do it, and were I to take them I know not where."

"I really believe you were capable of doing it, Timm."

"Why not? And if it were only from curiosity to see how you would act in such a case towards your old friend."

"I would do with the mammon, you may rest a.s.sured of that, as I did when I was a boy with the cherries people gave me--I would share it with my friends."

Albert looked fixedly at Oswald, as he said these words with flushed cheek and raised voice. Suddenly he said, as if awaking from a dream:

"I am a curious fellow, Oswald; as sceptical as a heathen, and yet as fond of all sorts of omens as an old woman. As I was sitting here alone eating my oysters, I said to myself: you happen to have a few dollars in your pocket and you would like to spend them with a friend. And then there occurred to me, as to Wallenstein, the question: who of all those whom I meet here evening after evening meant it best and most honestly?

and that it should be the one who would first enter at the door. But, strange enough, contrary to all the customs of the place, not one of them came. Instead of that, you came--you, of whom I had not thought at all. Oswald, I do not know how you think about such matters, and it may be that my request will offend you, but I should like to drink with you to our future, our intimate friendship. What do you say?"

"With all my heart!" cried Oswald. "There is just one more gla.s.s for each of us in the bottle."

"And no one shall ever drink again out of this gla.s.s!" cried Albert, and threw the empty gla.s.s on the floor.

Oswald did the same; but the noise of the breaking gla.s.ses sounded shrill and painful to his ear, like the laughter of delighted demons.

Bald Charles, who had sat behind his counter at the other end of the hall, nodding, started up when he heard the noise, and came gliding up, drunk with sleep, thinking they had called him.

"How is it, Oswald," cried Timm; "I think we had better have another bottle. We shall not meet again as young as we are now."

"No," said Oswald; "let us be content. My head burns. And I have to call, to-morrow, on Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry. What is to pay?"

"Stop!" cried Mr. Timm, holding Oswald's arm. "Mine is the helmet, and it belongs to me! Carole, if you accept a red cent from this gentleman, I break this empty bottle on your bald skull! Come! Make yourself paid out of this rag for to-night and for the last nights; and what remains over, why you can buy yourself on the way a wig with it, my Carole!"

With these words Timm had drawn a twenty-five dollar note from a bulky parcel which he took from his coat-pocket, and handed it to the waiter, who seemed to be not a little astonished at this sudden wealth in the hands of one of his very worst customers. At least he grinned in a very peculiar manner as he took the note, while Mr. Timm put back the package with an air of perfect indifference, and tilting his hat on his head, sang:

"I am the last of guests to-night, Come show me out of the house!

And we wish each other good-night, I take a kiss from my little mouse!"

They were standing outside in the street. The mist had disappeared entirely, and the moon was shining brightly on the dark sky. The lamps had gone out, and deep shadows alternated with broad streaks of light in the narrow streets between the high gable-ends. A watchman standing at the corner with his long spear and antediluvian horn, called out the twelfth hour. Nothing else was to be seen in the death-like streets through which Oswald and Albert were now walking home, arm in arm, as it became such good and intimate friends: Oswald unusually heated and excited, Albert as cool and fresh as if he had been drinking nothing but water in the city cellars at Grunwald. They talked over the members of the town council and of the college on whom Oswald had to wait the next day, and Oswald's career at the college especially, which Albert declared was a fabulous idea, such as no one could have conceived but a Knight of La Mancha. Thus they reached the door of the hotel, then they wished each other good night. Oswald went in; Albert lounged down the main street, his hands in his pockets. But suddenly he stopped and seemed to meditate for a while. Then he turned into a by-street and vanished in a labyrinth of lanes and courts, formed by rheumatic little cottages, whose exterior did not belie the reputation enjoyed by this part of the town.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The official dwelling of the rector of the college, Doctor Moritz Clemens, was shining to-night in unwonted splendor. They had not only removed the covers from all the sofas, sofa-cushions, and chairs, in the best room and the sitting-room, so that the luxurious light of two lamps and half a dozen stearine candles poured in floods over the displayed magnificence; but even the rector's study, on one side, and the sitting-room and chamber of the two daughters, on the other side, had been changed into salons by removing the writing-table in the one, and the beds in the other, while each was lighted up with a lamp and three candles. The aromatic fragrance which always rises when incense is strewn on the hot-plate of the stove, perfumed all the rooms, and sufficed in itself to produce a festive excitement in every well-regulated mind.