What the Swallow Sang Part 4

"Certainly not, but--"

"Allow me to explain my opinion by some statistics. I am descended from a very long-lived family. My grandfather--he could not tell either the place or time of his birth positively--must have been more than a hundred years old when he died, blind and crippled, it is true, but with his mental powers almost entirely unimpaired. My father was ninety. I, who no longer needed to toil and moil for myself, was able six years ago, when in my fiftieth year, to marry, and thus I have the expectation of seeing my little family, even if an addition should be bestowed upon us, grow up to maturity, supposing that I attain my eightieth year, to which, as you will admit, I have on the father's side the most well-founded t.i.tle."

Herr Wollnow rested his broad shoulders comfortably against the back of his chair, and pa.s.sed his hands over his high forehead and thick black hair, in which Gotthold could not yet perceive the smallest thread of gray. "That is," said he, "if I understand you rightly, marriage ought to be in the first place arranged for the welfare of the children, and therefore it is only necessary to consider the signs of the times in and for which the children are born."

"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow; "in the first place, I might almost say in the first and last."

"And the husband and wife?"

"Ought and will find their pleasure in their love for their children, their joy in the new fresh world which surrounds them, as well as a sufficient compensation for all lost illusions, and a reward for the anxieties and deprivations which necessarily spring from this love and joy."

"And their own love, the love which brought them together, which induced them to make this particular choice out of the countless mult.i.tude of possibilities--the love which ever increases and must continue to increase until it finally illumines every thought, heightens every feeling, warms every drop of blood--would you take this from marriage, or consider it as something which may or may not exist?

Never! 'Love is everywhere, except in h.e.l.l,' says Wolfram von Eschenbach. I know not whether he is right, but I do know that a marriage where there is no love, nay, where love does not exist as I understand it, is in my eyes a h.e.l.l."

Gotthold had spoken with a pa.s.sion which, eagerly as he strove to suppress it, had not escaped the keen ears of his host.

"Let us change the subject," he said kindly, "and try another upon which we shall certainly find it easier to agree."

"No, let us keep to this," replied Gotthold; "upon so important a subject I am anxious to hear the opinion of a man whose judgment and character I prize so highly--the full opinion; for I am sure you have still much to say."

"Certainly," replied Herr Wollnow hesitatingly; "a great deal, but I fear very little that will please you, as you now think of marriage. I say as you now think, and beg you not to misunderstand me; for you, who have grown up among romantic traditions, and, as an artist, are perhaps especially disposed to take an ideal view of human affairs, can probably not be induced to give up your preconceived opinion except by your own experience. But no matter; I should need to be far less firmly convinced of the justice of my own opinion than I am, or to esteem my opponent less than I do if I allowed your last proposition to pa.s.s without contradiction. You said that without love, as you so eloquently described it, marriage would be a h.e.l.l; I a.s.sert that this very love, or rather the unrealized dream of this love, makes a h.e.l.l of many, far too many marriages."

"Unrealized," said Gotthold; "oh! yes, that is just what causes the unhappiness."

"An unavoidable one, or at least in many cases not to be avoided. You will admit that most marriages must commence with this illusion, which is more or less vivid according to the nature and imaginative power of the dreamer. There are so few persons who do not desire to be specially rewarded for paying their debts to nature and society. When they perceive that the question of marriage concerns a very different object from the realization of their dreams, and that this object is the more easily attained the less they give themselves up to fancies, the majority, of course, will at first rub their eyes in some little perplexity, but no longer take the affair tragically, but as it is; and these are the marriages which I--with all due respect for humanity, which certainly consists of average mortals--call average marriages, and which in Germany, England, America, nay, even in France and Italy, wherever I have wandered in the civilized world, I have always found as much alike as two eggs. It is, take it all in all, very dry, but very healthful prose; there is much modest quiet happiness, and of course also much, very much sorrow; but none which would not befall a human being as such. I mean the frail, easily injured creature at last doomed to death--and very little which results from the marriage. But this misery is found in overwhelming measure when people wish to realize, nay to transform into a still more brilliant reality, the dream they have enjoyed as lovers. How many heart-breaking conflicts, how many vain struggles, how much strength wasted which was greatly needed for far more important purposes, how much senseless and useless cruelty towards one's self and others! You see I speak only of those who take life earnestly, not of the mult.i.tudes of stupid people who are incapable of any moral idea, nor of the, if possible, still greater number of frivolous natures; who snap their fingers at all morality."

"I know it," replied Gotthold; "but why should not earnest, honorable human beings, when they become conscious of their mistakes, seek to cast out the errors that have crept into the score of their lives while there is time?"

"In what way?"

"By restoring each other's freedom."

"Freedom? What freedom? The liberty of chaining themselves again as soon as possible, of making another choice at once if, as is usually the case, they have not previously done so; a new choice which will probably prove no wiser, no more circ.u.mspect, than the first? Consider, we are speaking of earnest, honorable human beings! Well, they doubtless went earnestly and honorably to work in making their first choice, and if, in spite of all their earnestness, they went astray where they could choose freely and without embarra.s.sment, they certainly would the second time, when burdened by the weight of self-created suffering, blinded by a treacherous pa.s.sion. If a new clerk begins the first calculation I allow him to make on an entirely false principle, I may not send him away, but I never intrust any important matter to him again without watching him. And--while there is time--did you say? When is there time? Perhaps never, if two people have belonged to each other body and soul--for earnest, honorable people will give their souls to each other--perhaps never, and certainly not after; and here I come back to the point from whence I started--after the bond which thereby becomes a hallowed one has been blessed with children. Believe me, I could make many other remarks upon this subject: the chasm that severs the parents goes through the hearts of the children; they will feel the gulf painfully sooner or later, and never wholly cease to suffer from it, if--which to be sure is not always the case--they have hearts."

"And will not a child's heart be torn," cried Gotthold, painfully agitated, "will it not bleed at the thought of its parents who have lived together in torment, and wasted away in this torture?"

"They would not have wasted away," replied Herr Wollnow, "if they had come to an understanding with each other in my acceptation of the term; if they had always said to each other, and kept faithfully in their hearts the thought: for our children's sakes we must not despond, must bear our sorrows, must sacredly keep the ledger of our lives, and, if any error has actually crept in, calculate and calculate until we have found it. Who in the world should be responsible for the result except the person to whom the book was intrusted? And then there is also a bankruptcy from which the unfortunate sufferer comes forth impoverished, perhaps a beggar, with nothing to cover his nakedness except the consciousness: you have done your duty, met your obligations. Woe to him who cannot think this of his parents: well for him who can think and say so; who by their graves can weep sorrowful but sweet tears, and pa.s.s on in peace."

Gotthold's head was resting on his hand. Let us have peace, he had said to his father's shade, and sorrowful but sweet tears had fallen from his eyes upon his mother's grave. Would they have been less sweet if she had left the father who could not make her happy, if she had sought and perhaps found joy in another's arms?

Herr Wollnow's dark eyes rested upon his guest's n.o.ble features, now shadowed by gloom and doubt, with an expression of mingled compa.s.sion and severity. Had he said too much, or not enough? Should he be silent, or ought he to say more, and tell the young man who so closely resembled his mother, and yet had so much of his father's character, the history of his parents?

Just then the door-bell rang, and at the same moment his wife's voice sounded from the entry. She was a woman to quickly inspire other and gayer thoughts in men's minds, even if the conversation had taken a grave and critical turn.

CHAPTER IV.

"I beg you to excuse me a thousand, thousand times," cried Fran Wollnow from the threshold of the door.

"That makes two thousand," said her husband, who with his guest had risen to meet her.

"You shan't always reckon up everything, you bad man."

"But take no notice of anything--"

"And you shan't always interrupt me and spoil my prettiest speeches. I had thought of the most charming things to say to our guest."

"Perhaps they begin with good evening?"

"Why, of course; good evening, and welcome, you are most heartily welcome," said Frau Wollnow, extending two plump little hands to Gotthold, and looking up into his face with the most eager curiosity in her brown eyes. "Dear me, how you have grown, and how much you have improved!"

Gotthold could not return the compliment. Ottilie Blaustein seemed to him to have grown much stouter, but neither taller nor handsomer than when he last saw her. Nevertheless the plump, somewhat flushed face beamed with mirth and good-nature, and it was by no means difficult for him to respond to the cordial greeting of his old acquaintance with no less warmth. She begged the gentlemen to sit down again; she would, with their permission, take a seat with them, and beg for a gla.s.s of wine, for she had been obliged to talk so much that evening that she was very thirsty. Then she instantly started up again, and asked her husband in a half whisper whether he had already showed it to him, in reply to which mysterious question Herr Wollnow smilingly shook his stately head. "I would not spoil your pleasure," said he.

"You good Emil!" she exclaimed, hastily kissing her husband on the forehead, and then turned to Gotthold. "Come, I must give you a proof that you obliged no ungrateful person when you enabled the little Jewish girl to join the dance. See, I bought this in remembrance of you, and would have purchased it if it had been as worthless as it is valuable, and as dear as the price for which I obtained my treasure was nominal."

She had seized a candle, and now led Gotthold to the landscape which had already attracted his attention, even across the room. The latter started, and with difficulty suppressed an exclamation of surprise and pain.

"It is Dollan, isn't it?" said Ottilie.

Gotthold made no reply; he took the candle from the lady's hand, and held it so that the light fell upon the picture, which was hung rather too high. Yes, it was the very one into which he had painted his love and anguish, the picture of which he had just spoken to Herr Wollnow, that had been upon his easel on the evening which had made such a wonderful change in his life. To prove to himself that he had irrevocably broken all ties with his past, and must now begin a new phase of his life and struggles, he gave away the sketch and did not destroy the picture, but very prosaically presented it to an exhibition, from which it went to another, then to a third and fourth, and was finally sold, he did not know where or to whom, nor did he wish to know; it should disappear to him. And yet during all this time he had been unable to shake off the recollection of this picture. He could have painted it again from memory, but it would not have been the one hallowed by so much suffering. And he must find it again, here and now, when his soul was already so full of the magic fragrance which everything he saw and heard bore to him from the days when every breath that swept across his brow or fanned his cheek, exhaled the odor of pine trees, of the ocean, and of love.

"And how do you suppose I obtained it?" said Frau Wollnow; "and especially how do you suppose I found out it was yours; for you know we do not judge from the style, or at least I did not at that time.

But when people are to have a piece of good fortune! So I said to Cecilia Brandow, whom I--it is now six years ago, and I had just been married--met at the wool market in Sundin, I had almost said; but of course only the gentlemen went there, and we drove in with them on account of the exhibition, where I met her. We had so much to say, like any two friends who had not seen each other since they left boarding-school--you perhaps do not remember that Cecilia and I were in the same boarding-school at Sundin--or at least I had a great deal to say, for I found Cecilia very quiet. I believe she had lost her second child only a short time before. We were separated by the crowd, and I at last found her again in one of the most out-of-the-way rooms, standing alone before this picture with her eyes full of tears, which, as I came up, she tried to conceal."

"Good Heavens!" said I; "isn't that--"

"Yes," she replied; "and it is by him."

"By whom?"

"In a word, she had recognized it instantly, and would not admit that she was mistaken when I told her the 'G. W.' in the corner might be Heaven knows whom. You see I didn't understand much about pictures then--now when I--but your hand trembles, you cannot hold the candlestick any longer."

"Let me have the picture," said Gotthold; then perceiving that the husband and wife were looking at him in surprise, he added calmly, replacing the candlestick upon the table: "The painting is really not worthy to be hung among your other pictures, which are excellent. It is the work of a pupil, and moreover was painted from memory after a very hasty sketch, I will promise you another and better one of the same place, which I will make on the spot if you will--"

"Oh! that would be delightful, that would be splendid," exclaimed Frau Wollnow. "I will hold you to your promise: another, not a better one, you can't make it better, that is impossible; but to have a picture painted on the spot by the most celebrated landscape painter of the day will be a triumph of which I can boast all the rest of my life. Give me your hand upon it!" She held out both hands to Gotthold.

"Well," said Herr Wollnow, "the bargain is made, and now according to the good old custom we will seal it with a drink. You see, Herr Gotthold Weber, woman's wit surpa.s.ses priestly cunning. I might have preached a long time to induce you to remain here; my wife comes, and the timid bird is caught. Well, I am glad of it, heartily glad."

"And how delighted Cecilia will be," cried Frau Wollnow. "My poor Cecilia! she really needs something to divert her thoughts a little, and this will be so pleasant." Gotthold turned pale. When he made his over-hasty promise, the thought of thus creating a convenient pretext for seeing Cecilia again had certainly been farthest from his mind.

"I think we can spare our friend the trouble of the journey," said Herr Wollnow, "and you will be perfectly well satisfied with a copy."

"You certainly know that we are not talking about a copy, but a new, entirely new picture," exclaimed Ottilie. "But you understand nothing about it, my dear Emil, or he doesn't want to understand."

"I only do not want to send our friend away again immediately, but to keep him with us."