Winter Evening Tales Part 3

FRANZ MuLLER'S WIFE.

"Franz, good morning. Whose philosophy is it now? Hegel, Spinosa, Kant or Dugald Stewart?"

"None of them. I am reading _Faust_."

"Worse and worse. Better wrestle with philosophies than lose yourself in the clouds. At any rate, if the poets are to send the philosophers to the right about, stick to Shakespeare."

"He is too material. He can't get rid of men and women."

"They are a little better, I should think, than Mephisto. Come, Franz, condescend to cravats and kid gloves, and let us go and see my cousin Christine Stromberg."

"I do not know the young lady."

"Of course not. She has just returned from a Munich school. Her brother Max was at the Lyndons' great party, you remember?"

"I don't remember, Louis. In white cravats and black coats all men look alike."

"But you will go?"

"If you wish it, yes. There are some uncut reviews on the table: amuse yourself while I dress."

"Thanks, I have my cigar case. I will take a smoke and think of Christine."

For some reason quite beyond a.n.a.lysis, Franz did not like this speech.

He had never seen Christine Stromberg, but yet he half resented the careless use of her name. It fell upon some soul consciousness like a familiar and personal name, and yet he vainly recalled every phase of his life for any clew to this familiarity.

He was a handsome fellow, with large, clearly-cut features and gray, thoughtful eyes. In a conversation that interested him his face lighted up with a singularly beautiful animation, but usually it was as still and pa.s.sionless as if the soul was away on a dream or a visit. Even the regulation cravat and coat could not destroy his individuality, and Louis looked admiringly at him, and said, "You are still Franz Muller.

No one is just like you. I should think Cousin Christine will fall in love with you."

Again Franz's heart resented this speech. It had been waiting for love for many a year, but he could not jest or speculate about it. No one but the thoughtless, favored Louis ever dared to do it before Franz, and no one ever spoke lightly of women before him, for the worst of men are sensitive to the presence of a pure and lofty nature, and are generally willing to respect it.

Franz dreamed of women, but only of n.o.ble women, and even for those who fell below his ideal he had a thousand apologies and a world of pity. It was strange that such a man should have lived thirty years, and never have really loved any mortal woman. But his hour had come at last. As soon as he saw Christine Stromberg he loved her. A strange exaltation possessed him; his face was radiant; he talked and sung with a brilliancy that amazed even those most familiar with his rare exhibitions of such moods. And Christine seemed fascinated by his beauty and wit. The hours pa.s.sed like moments; and when the girl stood watching him down the moon-lit avenue, she almost trembled to remember what questions Franz's eyes had asked her and how strangely familiar the clasp of his hand and the sound of his voice had seemed to her.

"I wonder where I have seen him before," she murmured--"I wonder where it was?" and to this thought she slowly took off one by one her jewels, and brushed out her long black hair; nay, when she fell asleep, it was only to take it up again in dreams.

As for Franz, he was in far too ecstatic a mood to think of sleep. "One has too few of such G.o.dlike moments to steep them in unconsciousness,"

he said to himself. And so he sat smoking and thinking and watching the waning moon sink lower and lower, until it was no longer night, but dawning day.

"In a few hours now I can go and see Christine." At this point in his love he had no other thought. He was too happy to speculate on any probability as yet. It was sufficient at present to know that he had found his love, that she lived at a definite number on a definite avenue, and that in six or seven hours more he might see her again.

He chose the earlier number. It was just eleven o'clock when he rung Mr.

Stromberg's bell. Mrs. Stromberg pa.s.sed through the hall as he entered, and greeted him pleasantly. "Christine and I are just going to have breakfast," she said, in her jolly, hearty way. "Come in Mr. Muller, and have a cup of coffee with us."

Nothing could have delighted Franz so much. Christine was pouring it out as he entered the pretty breakfast parlor. How beautiful she looked in her long loose morning dress! How, bewitching were its numerous bows of pale ribbon! He had a sense of hunger immediately, and he knew that he made an excellent breakfast; but of what he ate or what he drank he had not the slightest conception.

A cup of coffee pa.s.sing through Christine's, hands necessarily suffered some wonderful change. It could not, and it did not, taste like ordinary coffee. In the same mysterious way chicken, eggs and rolls became sublimated. So they ate and laughed and chatted, and I am quite sure that Milton never imagined a meal in Eden half so delightful as that breakfast on the avenue.

When it was over, it came into Franz's heart to offer Christine a ride.

They were standing together among the flowers in the bay window, and the trees outside were in their first tender green, and the spring skies and the spring airs were full of happiness and hope. Christine was arranging and watering her lilies and pansies, and somehow in helping her Franz's hands and hers had lingered happily together. So now love gave to this mortal an immortal's confidence. He never thought of sighing and fearing and trembling. His soul had claimed Christine, and he firmly believed that sooner or later she would hear and understand what he had to say to her.

"Shall we ride?" he said, just touching her fingers, and looking at her with eyes and face glowing with a wonderful happiness.

Alas, Christine could think of mamma, and of morning calls and of what people would say. But Franz overruled every scruple; he conquered mamma, and laughed at society; and before Christine had decided which of her costumes was most becoming, Franz was waiting at the door.

How they rattled up the avenue and through the park! How the green branches waved in triumph, and how the birds sang and gossiped about them! By the time they arrived at Mount St. Vincent they had forgotten they were mortal. Then the rest in the shady gallery, and the subsidence of love's exaltation into love's silent tender melancholy, were just as blissful.

They came slowly home, speaking only in glances and monosyllables, but just before they parted Franz said, "I have been waiting thirty years for you, Christine; to-day my life has blossomed."

And though Christine did not make any audible answer, he thought her blush sufficient; besides, she took the lilies from her throat and gave them to him.

Such a dream of love is given only to the few whom the G.o.ds favor. Franz must have stood high in their grace, for it lasted through many sweet weeks and months for him. He followed the Strombergs to Newport, and laid his whole life down at Christine's feet. There was no definite engagement between them, but every one understood that would come as surely as the end of the season.

Money matters and housekeeping must eventually intrude themselves, but the romance and charm of this one summer of life should be untouched.

And Franz was not anxious at all on this score. His father, a shrewd business man, had early seen that his son was a poet and a dreamer. "It is not the boy's fault," he said to his partner, "he gets it from his grandfather, who was always more out of this world than in it."

So he wisely allowed Franz to follow his natural tastes, and contented himself with carefully investing his fortune in such real estate and securities as he believed would insure a safe, if a slow increase. He had bought wisely, and Franz's income was a certain and handsome one, with a tendency rather to increase than decrease, and quite sufficient to maintain Christine in all the luxury to which she had been accustomed.

So when he returned to the city he intended to speak to Mr. Stromberg.

All he had should be Christine's and her father should settle the matter just as he thought best for his daughter. In a general way this was understood by all parties, and everyone seemed inclined to sympathize with the happy feeling which led the lovers to deprecate during these enchanted days any allusion which tended to dispel the exquisite charm of their young lives' idyl.

Perhaps it would have been better if they had remembered the ancient superst.i.tion and themselves done something to mar their perfect happiness. Polycrates offered his ring to avert the calamity sure to follow unmitigated pleasure or success, and Franz ought, perhaps, to have also made an effort to propitiate his envious Fate.

But he did not, and toward the very end of the season, when the October days had thrown a kind of still melancholy over the world that had been so green and gay, Franz's dream was rudely broken--broken by a Mr. James Barker Clarke, a bl.u.s.tering, vulgar man of fifty, worth _three millions_. In some way or other he seemed to have a great deal of influence over Mr. Stromberg, who paid him unqualified respect, and over Mrs. Stromberg, who seemed to fear him.

Mr. Stromberg's "private ledger" alone knew the whole secret; for of course money was at the foundation. Indeed, in these days, in all public and private troubles, it is proper to ask, not "Who is she?" but "How much is it?" Franz Muller and James Barker Clarke hated each other on sight. Still Franz had no idea at first that this ugly, uncouth man could ever be a rival to his own handsome person and pa.s.sionate affection.

In a few days, however, he was compelled to actually consider the possibility of such a thing. Mr. Stromberg had a.s.sumed an att.i.tude of such extreme politeness, and Mrs. Stromberg avoided him if possible, and if not possible, was constrained and unhappy in the familiar relations that she had accepted so happily all summer. As for Christine, she had constant headaches, and her eyes were often swollen and red with weeping.

At length, without notice, the family left Newport, and went to stay a month with some relative near Boston. A pitiful little note from Christine informed him of this fact; but as he received no information as to the locality of her relative's house, and no invitation to call, he was compelled for the present to do as Christine asked him--wait patiently for their return.

At first he got a few short tender notes, but they were evidently written in such sorrow that he was almost beside himself with grief and anger. When these ceased he went to Boston, and without difficulty found the house where Christine was staying. He was received at first very shyly by Mrs. Stromberg, but when Franz poured out his love and misery, the poor old lady wept bitterly, and moaned out that she could not help it, and Christine could not help it, and that they were all very miserable.

Finally she was persuaded to let him see Christine, "just for five minutes." The poor girl came to him, a shadow of her gay self, and, weeping in his arms, told him he must bid her good-by forever. The five minutes were lengthened into a long, terrible hour, and Franz went back to New York with the knowledge that in that hour his life had been broken in two for this life.

One night toward the close of November his friend Louis called. "Franz,"

he said, "have you heard that Christine Stromberg is to marry old Clarke?"

"Yes."

"No one can trust a woman. It is a shame of Christine."

"Louis, speak of what you know. Christine is an angel. If a woman appears to do wrong, there is probably some brute of a man behind her forcing her to do it."

"I thought she was to be your wife."

"She is my wife in soul and feeling. No one, thank G.o.d, can help that.