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Title: The Sublime Jester
Author: Brudno, Ezra
Language: English
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Other works by the same author:
“The Fugitive”
“The Little Conscript”
“One of Us”
“The Tether”
“The Jugglers”
T H E
S U B L I M E J E S T E R
_“Calm is my soul, and clear,_
_like the mountains in the morning._
_But they think me cold,_
_and a mocker with terrible_
_jests.”_
_—Also Sprach Zarathustra_
_By_
E Z R A B R U D N O
New York
NICHOLAS L. BROWN
1924
Copyright, 1924
By
NICHOLAS L. BROWN
_All Rights Reserved_
Printed in U. S. A.
PART ONE: A Poet in the Making
Chapter One: The Heritage
” Two: Hedwiga
” Three: The Judengasse
” Four: A Nightingale in a Crow’s Nest
” Five: Hilda
” Six: Eugenie
PART TWO: A Fighter in the Making
Chapter One: The Salon
” Two: Miriam
” Three: The March to Calvary
” Four: Vagabondage
PART THREE: A Cynic in the Making
Chapter One: A Happy Exile
” Two: Marguerite
” Three: The Jest of the Gods
AUTHOR’S NOTE.
_In creating Albert Zorn, the central figure in this romance, I
have followed the life and career of Heinrich Heine. I have
chosen him not only because he singularly typifies the poet with
the “_Weltschmerz_” in his heart, nor because his was an
arresting personality, but because he is preeminently the symbol
of the spirit of his age and his people—the symbol of the
spirit of all ages and all peoples. For, whenever and wherever a
Samson arises, the smug, hypocritical, pharasaical Philistines
are ever ready to fetter him and put out his eyes—and often
there is a Delilah to betray him._
_E. B._
PART ONE
A POET IN THE MAKING
THE HERITAGE.
I.
Trivial as the incident was, Albert Zorn often recalled it in later
years and mused upon it even at an age when man no longer cherishes
memories of early boyhood. How could he forget it? At the time it was
momentous, overshadowing all else.
On his way to school that memorable morning he rambled dreamily through
the narrow streets of Gunsdorf, a thousand fantasies in his boyish
brain. It seemed as if Alladin’s lamp had been rubbed. He was to live in
a castle, instead of in the modest quarters back of his father’s humble
shop on Schmallgasse and wear a velvet coat and lacquered top-boots with
silver spurs! What else would his father do with all that money? From
what he had gleaned of his parents’ conversation they had received word
from Amsterdam that a kinsman had died there and left them a fortune
running into millions.
He was soon approaching the river near which was located the Franciscan
cloister that housed his school. The swiftly flowing stream came
tumbling down over rock and boulder and unseen rivulets gurgled
mysteriously beneath glacial crusts in shadowy places. For it was at the
beginning of April when there were still clinging remnants of the long
hoary winter. Albert sauntered slowly, wistfully, his daydreams,
stimulated by the sudden expectancy, commingling with the awakened
sentiments of spring.
“Good morning, Al—ber’,” that imp, Shorty Fritz, welcomed him as he
entered the classroom.
Albert’s air-castles were rudely shaken and his face grew livid. Fritz
had drawled his name in the screechy voice of Hans the ragman, who
wandered from door to door every morning, preceded by his donkey, which
he coaxed to greater celerity by the mystic cry that sounded like
“Al—ber’—Al—ber’”, the real meaning of which was only known to Hans
and the drudging beast.
Ignoring the tantalizing donkey-call, he walked up to his seat, dropped
his books and remained standing moodily, his small bluish eyes narrowed,
his long fair hair falling unevenly over his neck and forehead.
“O, Fritz, what’s the difference between Balaam’s ass and a zebra?” Long
Kunz, another classmate, called across the room.
“Balaam’s ass spoke Hebrew and the zebra speaks Zebrew,” returned Fritz
with mock gravity.
Albert was still busying himself with his books, swallowing lumps and
feigning indifference, but the allusions to his racial extraction
pierced him like a dagger. He had heard this witticism before and it had
never failed to lacerate his sensitive heart.
“Then what’s the difference between Hanse’s donkey and his namesake,
Al—ber’?”
“None that I can see,” was the retort.
Still the victim of these sallies refrained from combat. Though usually
not given to curbing his tongue—and his tongue was as sharp as that of
any one in the class—he would not bandy words with his arch-enemies
this morning. There was hope in the boy’s heart that the forthcoming
inheritance would soon liberate him from these surroundings altogether.
Presently Christian Lutz’s tender arm was around his shoulders.
Christian was his favorite classmate and always took his part in his
encounters with those vexatious youngsters. While Albert was the quicker
with his tongue, Christian was more ready with his fist.
“I have heard your father has become a millionaire,” Christian said.
“Who’s left him this fortune—your father’s father?”
“Not my father’s father,” laughed Albert, the remembrance of the
inheritance at once banishing the momentary bitterness from his heart.
“My father’s father had no fortune to leave—he was a poor little Jew,
with long whiskers as his only belongings.”
Though uttered in a soft, jocular voice, and only intended for
Christian’s ears, it reached those of Fritz.
“Ha—ha!” he tittered. “Did you hear that, boys? Al—ber’s grandfather
was a poor little Jew with long whiskers.”
“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”
“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”
“A poor little Jew with long whiskers!”
This refrain caught up by Long Kunz was accompanied by intermittent
beating of the desks with drum-like regularity.
In a moment the classroom was in a wild uproar. Whistling, catcalls,
imitations of braying asses, of squealing pigs, of crowing cocks, of
bleating sheep, of neighing horses filled the air. The boys scampered
and jumped and flung inkstands at the blackboard and kicked at the
chairs to Fritz’s rhythmic tune of “A poor little Jew with long
whiskers!”
“Silence!”
It was the intimidating voice of Father Scher.
The youngsters, frightened by the sudden entrance of the schoolmaster,
made a dash for their seats and in their mad rush capsized the benches
that came down with resounding crashes.
“Order!” shouted the schoolmaster.
Father Scher stood at his desk, his right arm raised menacingly, his
smooth face crimson with rage, his eyes fairly popping out of their
sockets, his saucer-like skull-cap shoved to the back of his shaven
head.
Ominous silence, terror in every countenance.
The priest’s eyes shifted from side to side, taking in the overturned
benches, the scattered text-books, the ink-bespattered blackboard.
“Who started this?”
No answer. The black-robed instructor took a step forward.
“Who started this?”
Restive shuffling of feet was the only response.
“I’ll flay the hide off everyone of you if you don’t tell me at once who
started this disorder,” the angered teacher cried.
“Al—ber! Al—ber!” Hanse’s voice came from outside. It sounded like a
voice in a deep forest. An irrepressible snicker ran through the room.
“Who did this—who did this?”
Scher was moving along the aisle, searching guilt in every countenance.
Reaching Albert he halted and glowered at him. There was still mist in
the boy’s eyes and his lips were twitching.
“So it’s you, is it? You know what to expect and are whimpering ahead of
time, hey? You are always the source of all mischief in the class.” His
steady eyes were peering at the boy’s agitated face. Then he added, “Now
if you didn’t start this, who did?”
The insinuation increased the bitterness in the boy’s heart. He was
biting the lining of his lip to hold his tears in check, but not a sound
escaped him.
“Won’t you answer me?” The master’s voice was threatening.
Much as he hated Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz his pride forbade him to
betray them.
Silently, grimly, the infuriated priest turned around and walked back
toward the blackboard, the swishing of his cassock striking against his
heels registering his measured, determined step. To the right of the
blackboard stood a large, heavy, gnarled yellowish stick, an ever
present warning to the class. Gripping the rattan firmly in his hand the
priest faced about and retraced his steps, presently standing in front
of Albert.
“Well, Albert?”
The instructor’s stormy blue eyes were riveted upon the boy and the
heavy cane was suspended in the air.
Albert only tightened his lips more firmly.
“Speak!”
Scher’s voice trembled with wrath.
A scarcely perceptible smile appeared on the lower part of the boy’s
face, which however did net escape the tantalized master.
Bang!
The stick came down with a crashing blow, but as Albert quickly turned
aside it struck the table nearby and broke.
Baffled by defeat Father Scher grew more angered and swung the broken
end of the cane up and down blindly, striking at his victim until he was
exhausted, panting audibly.
Brandishing the fragment in his hand for a final blow, he missed his aim
and his body swung around, sending his skull-cap to the floor. As he
stooped to pick up his headgear—his shaven crown exposed to the gaze of
the irreverent youngsters—the awed tension vanished and derisive
laughter broke loose. In spite of his pain Albert’s jeering voice
sounded louder than all the rest. His little eyes snapped diabolic
mockery in his glittering pupils. From the rear of the room came the
mimicking of a grunting sucking pig.
Confused and out of breath, Scher turned from side to side and his
rolling eyes finally focused upon the grimacing face of that ragamuffin,
Long Kunz.
“Take this!” the master aspirated and gave the boy a sharp cut. Kunz
emitted a shriek that rang throughout the cloister.
“I didn’t do anything,” he wailed, scratching the smarting spot on his
left shoulder—“it was he that started all the trouble.”
“Who is he?” demanded the instructor.
He brandished the cane, but without letting it fall on Kunz.
“Who is he?” he repeated.
“Al—ber’” Kunz mischievously piped up, drying his tears.
“So it is you—hey? I thought it couldn’t be anyone else.”
He turned upon Albert anew, the scorn of vengeance in his metallic
voice.
“He said his grandfather was a little Jew with long whiskers and made
everybody laugh,” added Kunz, seeking to curry the teacher’s favor.
“Hold your tongue!” Scher silenced the informer.
Then, again turning upon Albert, he grabbed him by his coat collar and
dragged him to the corner of the room, showering blows as he pulled the
boy after him.
“I only said this in jest to Christian and they began on me,” Albert
cried defiantly and broke away from the priest.
The master walked back to his desk, breathing hard and muttering
unintelligible syllables.
“Attention!” he presently called and rapped for order.
His blanched face, his piercing eyes, the skull-cap set awry on his
shaven crown, the lead-edged ruler in his hand, made the class realize
that he was no longer to be trifled with. There had been strange rumors
about the ferocity of the master, so when he gave the order to fall in
line for divine service every pupil had his left foot forward ready to
march.
Albert was the last in line. For although his mother had had him excused
from religious exercises, he always joined the class in the morning
prayers. Not that he prayed or participated in the singing of hymns, but
he loved the ceremonies of the cloister. There was something in the
smell pervading the old stone walls, in the reverberating tones of the
organ, in the soft light sifting in through the stained glass windows,
in the statuary and effigies—everything about the monastic church
filled him with mystery and with an indefinable sensuousness that, while
it repelled him, caught his fancy and stirred in his soul a longing he
was unable to fathom. The sound and color and scent and mystery of the
church aroused in him the same emotion he felt when reading about Greek
gods and goddesses. The chimes of the bells, the rich colors of the
clergy’s robes at high mass, the pealing organ and the melodies of the
choir—everything connected with the Franciscan cloister was so
different from his father’s church, which seemed so colorless and held
nothing to stir his imagination.
But no sooner did the chapel services commence than his mind began to
wander. The prayers were meaningless to him even at that early age. The
Catholic liturgy was distasteful to him. For boy that he was—scarcely
more than eleven—he had already reasoned on matters of faith, and he
had heard at home many a discussion about Voltaire and Rousseau, and of
Kant’s _Kritik der reinen Vernunft_, which was then debated in every
house of culture.
That morning more than on other mornings his brain was tortured by a
thousand cross-currents. So many ideas crowded in upon his wearied brain
that no single one was clear. They were all in confusion. The
inheritance, his classmates’ insults, the flogging—they all seemed fast
scudding clouds.
On his way out of school, Albert lagged behind under the high arches of
the cloister, rancor in his breast. Tears of mortification were in his
eyes.
He soon found himself before the tall image of the Christ which stood on
a high pedestal under these arches. It was carved of wood, the face
hideously distorted, the head hanging limply like a wilted sunflower,
and a smear of blood between the projecting ribs was intended as a
realistic touch. The morning sun, slanting under the vaults, fell upon
the nails driven through the palms and feet and enhanced the ghastly
figure. An unwelcome thought shot through the boy’s brain. No, no, he
could not believe it; he could not believe what Father Scher had told
the class about the Crucified. No, it could not be true. His people
could not have stabbed the man who wore the crown of thorns and driven
nails through his hand and feet. He knew his father and mother, who were
most tender-hearted, and his grandfather, Doctor Hollmann, and his Uncle
Joseph, both of whom had laid their lives down in their efforts to save
the people in the last plague.
“They are lying—they are lying,” he muttered under his breath, almost
sobbing—“all of them are lying—the priest and his books and Kunz and
Fritz. Only the likes of them could mock and spit and torment and then
put the blame upon others—”
He suddenly halted. He remembered the Hebrew school, which he attended
after the hours at the cloister.
“_Pokad—pokadto—pokadli_—” he began to mumble the conjugation of the
Hebrew verb he was then learning. Foreign as the language was to him he
learned it much more easily than “the language of the dead Romans”, or
even with greater facility than “the language of the Gods”, as he was
wont to call Greek.
The Hebrew school was in a narrow alley back of Schmallgasse. It was a
small square chamber which served as a school room by day and as a
living room for the teacher and his family at night. It had been
recently whitewashed—Passover was coming—and the Mizrach (a picture of
Jerusalem with the Wailing Wall in the foreground) hung conspicuously
upon the wall facing east—a tawny, fly-specked patch on a background of
bluish white. Save for a long rectangular table flanked by unpainted
wooden benches, and the teacher’s stool at the head of it, the room was
bare.
Although he often mimicked the long bearded teacher, there was gladness
in Albert’s heart, a gladness accompanied by a feeling of peace and
security, as he wended his way to this school. No one mocked him here,
no one imitated the ragman’s donkey-call. Here his very name gave him
added distinction. Here he was a little prince, whom everybody loved and
whose every flippant remark was carried from mouth to mouth, accompanied
by convulsive laughter.
When he entered the Hebrew school the class was chanting the Shir
H’Shirim, that exquisite lyric poem known as the Song of Songs. For it
was Friday, when the class sang the Song of Solomon in the quaint,
traditional melody of the Babylonians. The teacher, at the head of the
table, was swaying his body from side to side, leading his class in his
strangely tuneful sing-song.
Albert slid into his seat and joined in the chanting, though he
perceived the furtive glances of his classmates, denoting even greater
respects than ever. For they had all heard of the rumored inheritance.
“‘Look not upon me because I am black,’” they sang lustily from the
Hebrew text. “‘Because the sun hath looked upon me; my mother’s children
were angry with me and made me keeper of the vineyard, but my own
vineyard I have not kept.’”
While his lips were lisping the liquid syllables of the poetical
allegory his mind wandered to the sunny land of Canaan, the cradle of
his people.
A pause followed; the teacher emitted a soft “oi” and soon proceeded
with the next chapter.
“‘I am the rose of Sharon, the lily of the valley,’” the class struck up
in lively sing-song, “‘As the lily is among the thorns so is my love
among the daughters . . . Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples,
for I am lovesick. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and
gone.’”
His flitting fancy was not following the words, but the pictures they
conjured up in his brain. He was catching his breath, his spirits were
astir. There was languor in his being. His sorrows were gone, the
enchanting Song of Solomon caught his soul in its dulcet waves and
rocked him into a trance . . .
II.
The evening proved still more exciting for Albert. He remained seated
with rapt attention, listening to the talk of his elders. For relatives
had dropped in—Uncle Salomon and Aunt Braunelle and Aunt Hanna—and all
talked enthusiastically. His father, David, however, did most of the
talking. There was something of the gambler’s optimism in David Zorn. It
did not take much to make him over-sanguine. Pacing up and down the
room, he ran his fingers through his well-trimmed blond beard, and from
time to time paused to take a mouthful of Assmanshauser, his favorite
vintage, of which he had opened a bottle in celebration of the great
event.
The father’s feverish speech stirred the boy’s volatile imagination.
Albert became restless and, unobserved, left the house for the
Marktplatz, where he hoped to find a few loitering friends.
But the large square was deserted; not a single youngster in front of
the town-hall, not a pedestrian in sight. Even the squeaky-voiced vendor
of apple tarts had left his post in front of the bronze statue in the
centre of the Marktplatz. There was quiet everywhere, the quietness of a
town occupied by the enemy. For this was during the period when Gunsdorf
was occupied by Napoleon’s troops.
Albert made his way back through one of the dark streets and as he
turned a corner caught the sound of quick footsteps back of him. But
before he had time to think he was struck with a fishing rod, and above
the clatter of his fleeing assailant came the donkey-call in Shorty
Fritz’s familiar voice—“Al—ber’! Al—ber’!”.
Albert wandered back home, a great pain in his head. As he walked past
St. Andrew’s church, the pallor of the moon resting upon the Jesuit
saints in the shadowy niches, he turned his eyes away with a sense of
dread. There was venom in his heart. Somehow he blamed those sculptured
saints for his present sufferings. Strange feelings possessed him.
Melancholy enveloped his whole being. What if his father should bring
back millions from Amsterdam? Every Fritz and every Kunz would still run
after him and call: “Al—ber’”.
He entered his home stealthily as if he feared his mother might hear his
very thoughts, and when he retired he lay in bed, a prey to strange
fantasies. Soon, however, his roving thoughts, like twilight merging
into night, turned into a web of dreams . . .
The world was coming to an end. God was standing in a garden of colorful
flowers placed in the midst of waving wheat-fields, the marble bust of
the broken Grecian goddess in his grandfather’s garden glistening in the
sun. Then God rolled up the nodding flowers and waving grain stalks as
one rolls up a carpet and, after placing them in a huge wagon, lifted up
a great heap of apple blossoms and honeysuckle and piled them, too, into
the van.
“Yes, all this goes to Amsterdam,” God was saying to Albert’s father,
who was gathering armsful of golden leaves and loading them into the
large vehicle.
Then Uncle Salomon climbed a high ladder—it was the same ladder the
sexton climbed to trim the candles in the great chandelier—and took the
sun out of the sky. For a moment he held it in the hollow of his hands,
as the sexton often did when filling the large lamp with oil, while
Johann Traub, the tailor, who stood nearby, donned a white shroud.
It sounded strange to hear Johann speak Hebrew, for Albert knew the
tailor was dead and he had only spoken German, and he wondered if all
dead people spoke Hebrew. But then Uncle Salomon began to climb down the
ladder, with the sun under his arm, and it grew darker and darker—and
only a few stars, suspended from the sky by rainbow-colored ribbons,
were emitting bits of flashing light, and presently the gorgeous ribbons
broke and the stars dropped like live sparks flying out of a chimney on
a winter night . . .
“Everything packed?”
It was the voice of God, who was now seated on the box of the colossal
van, and lashing the fiery steeds, the van disappeared in a cloud of
silvery dust, leaving Albert behind in darkness and in tears. He peered
into space, but could see nothing—nothing but an endless stretch of
darkness. Finally he began to move aimlessly and wandered and wandered
until he reached a freshly dug grave. Leb, the grave-digger, with spade
in hand, was in the grave, digging deeper and deeper and singing
merrily: “Everybody is dead—everybody is dead!” he hummed in his
Westphalian dialect. Then he turned around and said, “Shove him in.”
There was no one else around but himself. Albert wondered to whom the
grave-digger was speaking. Presently he noticed a very aged woman, a
toothless hag. She stepped forward, holding the head of a man in her
apron. Harry shuddered at the sight of the decapitated head and wanted
to flee, but could not move. He stood paralyzed. He wanted to cry but
his voice was gone. Then the toothless hag flung the head into the
grave, gave a fiendish, blood-curdling laugh, and jumped in after it and
began to dance. She danced as he had often seen drunken peasants
dance—shaking her head from side to side and moving her legs wearily.
“Now I must run—they are coming,” the grave-digger exclaimed and
suddenly vanished.
Albert trembled in every limb. He was again alone, with nothing but the
open grave before him. The darkness around him seemed impenetrable. He
could not see an inch away. Only strange voices of invisible men reached
his ears, with the sound of autumn leaves in his ears. Then flashes of
lightning came and revealed to him a line of men, in single file, coming
through a gap in a ruined wall. He could not see the men’s faces but
they wore little crucifixes over their breasts and swayed ornamental
containers of frankincense such as he had seen in the Franciscan
cloister. The next moment a strange light appeared and he saw himself
surrounded by black robed priests, with mitres on their heads, and one
of them gave him a sharp cut with a fishing rod and jeered. “Your
inheritance!—your inheritance!”
“What’s the matter, Albert?—You gave such a shriek.”
He opened his eyes and beheld his mother at the foot of his bed.
“I had a dreadful dream—” he muttered.
“Always your dreams,” the mother said, smiling affectionately, as she
walked out of the room.
III.
Weeks of tantalizing suspense followed. The letters that arrived from
his father stirred Albert’s imagination. They seemed to come from
distant lands, far, far away. And the letters were full of adventurous
episodes: of nights spent in forests because of a broken axle, of weary
tramps because of the horse’s bleeding leg, of halts at the frontier,
and of numerous other perilous mishaps. “But,” as the optimistic David
Zorn put it, “the road to success is always paved with rough stones.”
His letter from Amsterdam was encouraging. No, he could not tell the
extent of the estate, but it was huge. The tone of his succeeding
letters, however, soon grew less and less reassuring, hinting at
intervening difficulties, and he finally announced that he would return
home without the millions as the matter was necessarily complicated and
he could carry on the rest of the negotiations through correspondence.
His father’s return without riches was a stunning blow to the youth. It
meant renewed drudgery and further contact with Father Scher and Kunz
and Fritz. True, his father had not yet abandoned hope—he never did
abandon hope—but Albert realized there were no prospects for a
castle—at least not for the present and no immediate relief from the
Franciscan school! Everything was the same as of old; no change, no
excitement, nothing but the same monotonous business of irregular verbs,
meaningless characters that stood for figures, the same blackboard and
alongside of it another yellow stick in place of the broken one with
whose every projecting knot and gnarl Albert was so familiar. It was a
disheartening scene to see his father alight from the post chaise
without a single bag of gold!
A few moments later came the great disappointment, the final blow. Like
the glad tidings, it came in the form of a letter from Holland one rainy
day in August. The humble shop in Schmallgasse was deserted save for
David who, as usual, was thoughtfully turning the leaves of his ledger
and jotting down some figures on the margin of a page. Zorn was
everlastingly balancing the book, and the more he balanced them the less
they balanced in his favor.
One of the saddest scenes of Albert’s early life took place on the
afternoon following his father’s departure for Hamburg, to get financial
assistance from his brother, Leopold Zorn, a banker.
The mother was alone in the little shop, alone with her thoughts. She
was not thinking of her husband’s reverses nor was she brooding over her
own deprivations. She was wondering what would become of Albert, what
would become of his promising gifts. For while she frequently complained
of his idleness and of his perverseness she was confident that talent
lay slumbering in the boy’s being. True, she had other children but her
heart and hopes were centered upon her first-born. No matter what might
become of the others, nothing must stand in Albert’s way.
A new idea struck her and the thought of it sent a gleam of sunshine to
her dark eyes. She had a pearl necklace of great value and diamond
earrings that might fetch a handsome price; at least sufficient to see
her son through _Gymnasium_ and the University. If she could not make a
banker of him, which was her cherished ambition, let him be a scholar.
But the next moment she remembered her husband. Adornment was his life.
He had often remonstrated against her aversion for wearing jewels.
After a space she saw a way out. Ludwig Grimm, the money-lender at the
Marktplatz, would advance her a considerable amount on her necklace. In
order to spare her husband’s feelings she would not tell him of this
until business had improved when she could redeem her valuables. No one
need know of this—not a soul—and she was sure Grimm would tell no one.
Albert came into the shop as his mother was about to leave on her secret
errand. The boy’s eyes were downcast, there was pallor in his cheeks.
For he, too, had done his share of brooding since the last ray of hope
of the heritage was gone.
“Mother,” he said abruptly, “I’ll take no more private lessons. I—”
“Albert!”
She had hired a music teacher to teach him the violin, and her present
ejaculation was the sudden outlet of her accumulated grief.
For a brief moment Albert weakened, his mother’s evident unhappiness
checked his flow of words, but he soon gained courage.
“Mother, dear, I’ll be no burden to you,” he burst out. “I know—I
understand—I won’t let you spend your last _groschen_ on me—”
“Albert!” she cried, reproach and grief mingled in her tone. “You won’t
break your mother’s heart. Since when have my children become a burden
to me?”
“But, mother dearest,” the boy begged, tears in his eyes, “I am old
enough to be apprenticed—”
“And give up all hope?—Albert!”
The mere intimation of surrender—giving up the chance of becoming a
great man, a scholar if not a banker—cut her to the very heart.
The boy trembled perceptibly. His mother had touched a vibrating chord
in his being. For every thought of his, every dream and fancy, was of
the future. And he was confident of the future; even more confident than
his mother; for every prophetic little Samuel hears the voice of God
before it reaches the ears of the blind Eli, though he may not at first
recognize the voice that calls him.
“Don’t worry, Albert dearest,” the mother sobbed, sunshine through her
tears, “the war will soon be over, business will improve, and you will
not be handicapped for want of money.”
* * * * *
Late that afternoon, in the dimmest twilight, she locked the shop on
Schmallgasse, walked down the narrow street, and turned into the
Marktplatz, an air of stealth in her movements. Frequently she glanced
this way and that, like a hunted criminal, and hugged a little packet to
her breast. When she reached Ludwig Grimm’s pawnshop she halted,
hesitated a moment, took a step backwards, halted again, and then, with
a sudden lurch forward, darted up the three stone steps that led to
Grimm’s and opened the door with a resolute jerk. . . . .
THE LORELEI.
I.
Nearly four years had passed in the life of the dreamy youth. They had
been turbulent, epoch-making years, years full of anguish and unabated
fear. Napoleon’s armies had swept South as far as the Mediterranean and
beyond, had also pushed their way East as far as the ancient capital of
Russia, the whole world breathlessly awaiting the ultimate fate of the
conqueror. For mingled with the fear of the invader was the conviction
that no matter how heroic, he must meet with defeat in the end. When
would the end come? The vanquished nations had hoped against hope, but
finally beheld a sign from Heaven in the devouring flames of Moscow. A
lull followed, the lull before an impeding storm. Spring had arrived,
and with it came the nervous tension of prolonged suspense. Foreboding
was in the air. The very elements foretold a terrific struggle.
Westphalia and all of northern Germany was visited by devastating
storms. On clear nights the superstitious saw in the heavens blood-red
stars in the shape of besoms with long handles—the unerring omen of
bloody battles! Everybody was certain that a gripping conflict between
God and the devil was at hand, but no one knew on which side was God and
on which the devil.
But what did it all matter to Albert Zorn? Nero fiddled while Rome was
burning; Goethe rhymed sweet lyrics and made love to Christiane Vulpius
while the enemy was at the gates of Weimar; on the very day that the
Battle of Jena was fought, Schlegel, the savant of Jena, unconcernedly
dispatched a manuscript to his publisher.
Albert was only thinking of his hero, the Emperor. Tears were in the
boy’s eyes as he listened to the reports of the Emperor’s flight from
the Russian steppes, mortification in his soul as he looked upon the
foot-weary, wan, hollow-eyed, bedraggled forms of the straggling
grenadiers, making their way home from the snowfields of Smolensk.
However, even the stirring news of lost battles, the flying rumors of
approaching clashes, the roar of death-dealing cannon, were to him mere
tales of adventure romantically told. Spring had come, the sun was
shining brilliantly, perfume was in the air, flowers were unfolding
treasures of gold and silver and dazzling rubies, the buds were
revealing depositories of emerald and opal and ermine, the nightingales
were singing of love and passion and death—adolescence’s holy
trinity—and the banks of the Rhine were re-echoing the mystic legends
of bygone days.
He had even failed to note the difference between his father’s brown
coat with a sheen of genteel shabbiness and his own clothes of good
quality and latest mode, and the disparity between his mother’s frocks,
antedating the French occupation, and those of his sister in the fashion
of the day.
His mind was occupied with other thoughts. He was aloof and alone. He
never had many friends but always had at least one devoted comrade, who
accompanied him on his rambles through the woods on the outskirts of the
city or lay with him outstretched on the grassy bank of the Rhine and
listened to his exuberant speeches. Christian Lutz was still his trusted
friend. Christian was to Albert what Jonathan was to that poetical
shepherd boy, David. Perhaps the Psalmist’s love for the son of King
Saul was likewise strengthened by the latter’s willingness to listen.
Albert poured into Christian’s ears all his secret hopes and tormenting
despair. Not infrequently the hopes and despair came almost at once. In
the midst of an outpouring of his poetic fervor despair would seize him.
One day he read a glowing account of Byron in a German periodical. The
author of “Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage” was only in the early twenties
and he, Albert, was already sixteen and had done nothing! Consumed with
burning envy he tossed on the grass in utter misery, tears rolling down
his pale cheeks. He called himself a vain coxcomb, a braggart without a
spark of talent. But presently his loyal friend began to contradict his
self-accusations. Christian reminded him of the drama in verse he was
planning, and after all one was not so very old at sixteen. Albert
remained quiet for a space, listening to his friend’s comforting,
pulling blades of grass by the roots and absently tearing them into tiny
bits. And finally he burst out impetuously, “I know, Christian, I know
I’ll be a great poet—I’ll write better than Wilhelm Müller, better
than—.” Becoming conscious of his boasting he checked himself and,
producing a few sheets from his breast pocket, began to read the verses
he had penned the evening before. And Christian was such an encouraging
listener! His enthusiasm was boundless. “Albert, these verses are as
beautiful as any of Uhland’s!” he exclaimed.
Albert blushed scarlet. He had thought that himself but dared not utter
such blasphemy. For to Albert at this stage of his life, Uhland was the
highest of all high. It was as if some second rate god of antiquity
boasted of a mightiness surpassing that of Zeus.
In moods like these he would steal out of the house, his visored cap
over his eyes, and wander aimlessly through the maze of crooked, narrow
streets, driven by irresistible impulses, until he would find himself on
the bank of his beloved river. Here there were a thousand objects to
dissipate his gloom. The gently flowing stream, the floating boats, the
changing tints of the sky, the little wildflowers turning their pretty
faces up to him like coquettish young maidens. And the ruins of the
castle on the bank of the Rhine abounded in mystery. He often paused,
pensively listening to the moaning and sighing of the wind-driven waves
against those ruins with a secret awe creeping into his being. Was that
the rustling of her silk dress—the dress of the “headless princess”, of
whom his nurse had told him in his childhood? But the headless princess
only came out of the ruins on moonlight nights! Perhaps they were the
stealthy footsteps of the fair young shepherd, looking longingly at the
battlements in hope of catching a glimpse of his beloved princess!
His eyes opened, and circles seemed to go round and round—circles of
fanciful colors like those he had often seen when pressing his eyes
against his pillows—and there was a strange surging in his blood,
tumult in his head. His heart filled with a thousand longings, a
thousand yearnings, yearnings and longings indefinite, inarticulate. He
was only conscious of an aching restlessness, of an irritating strife
within him . . .
Throwing himself upon the grassy bank, he would lie listlessly for a
time, blankly staring at the sky, only half-conscious of chirping birds
around him. Gradually, slowly, strands of thought would begin to
come—desultory, fugitive, disconnected fibres of thought, like flying
gossamer.
Sometimes other ambitions stirred his being. His mother had often spoken
of a military career for him. His mind would skip to Napoleon, the hero
he had worshipped ever since he could remember. He would see himself in
the role of a warrior, mounted upon a spirited little white horse, as he
had once seen Napoleon. His vivid imagination would behold the
battlefields, littered with bleeding men and horses, the cry of agony in
his ears . . .
No, no, not that! He could not bear the sight of blood, the shriek of
pain. He could not be a great warrior.
Again his fancy drifted. He recalled “The Life and Adventures of the
Ingenious Knight, Don Quixote de la Mancha,” which he had read and
reread with such delight. He would like to be a warrior without being
obliged to shed blood, a hero like Don Quixote. Presently the stories of
Quixote became fused with those he had heard of his great-uncle, Nathan
Hollmann, of whose travels and adventures his aunts had told him so many
grotesque tales and whose writings he had discovered in a dusty chest in
his grandfather’s attic. Like his great-uncle he would also be dressed
in an Asiatic costume and smoke a long Turkish pipe and speak Arabic and
travel all over “the seven seas” and through Morocco and Spain and the
deserts of Egypt and make a pilgrimage to the Holy City and perhaps,
like him, see a vision on Mount Moriah! From the fantastic image of his
great-uncle to a Sheik of the Bedouins was but a step. He visualized
himself traveling with long trains of caravans and robber bands,
scouring the dense forests of Arabia for victims (when Albert’s
imagination took flight it disregarded geography). The notion of a
robber chief appealed to him. The romantic scenes from “Die Räuber”
haunted him. Of course, he would not really rob people—he could not
think of taking anything away from anybody—but he would lead the robber
bands through the immense woods and—and in chorus—sing beautiful
songs, the echoes resounding through hill and dale . . .
Lying thus, his fancy at large, the arabesque tales about his
great-uncle eventually merged into those of the knight errant. Cervantes
and Don Quixote and his great-uncle became one and the same person, and
he himself, for the moment, was the reincarnation of them all. He wished
he could go away—far, far away—to Morocco, to Turkey, to the “dense
forests” of Arabia, and perchance be thrown into an underground dungeon,
penetrated only by the stray rays of the sun, mildew smells everywhere,
with clanking chains and great keys turning in rusty locks, with big fat
mice—beautiful, snow-white mice—darting back and forth, the turbulent
waters of a surrounding moat lapping against the prison walls darkened
with age. His imaginary confinement in the dungeon, however, did not
interfere with his adventurous travels. His imprisonment was
simultaneous with his roving with caravans of camels and donkeys and
dromedaries, and elephants whose tusks glistened in the blazing sun of
the Orient . . .
II.
His constant day-dreaming and the feeding of his imagination on poetry
and romance cost Albert much misery at the end of every semester. He
invariably failed in all studies except literature and philosophy.
On his arrival home one afternoon he found Father Schumacher engaged in
a serious conversation with his mother. Father Schumacher was a
picturesque figure, prematurely gray with a fine head set upon broad
shoulders and a pair of brown eyes that twinkled mirthfully. There was
something in his shrewd eyes that seemed to say, “I know all the
meanness and frailties of human nature, I know this earthly planet is no
paradise, but we are here and must make the best of it.” He was loved by
all regardless of creed. After the French had conquered the city and
reopened the Lyceum, he was named rector. The new ruler knew that Father
Schumacher could be trusted in spite of his German allegiance. He was
very learned and familiar with all the philosophies—from Socrates to
Kant—which he taught at the Lyceum without, however, interfering with
his loyalty to Rome.
The friendship between the former priest and Bessie Zorn ran back to the
time she was a little girl, when he was a classmate of her brother,
Joseph, and was almost a daily visitor at her father’s home. Since her
father’s death and her marriage to David, Father Schumacher was a
frequent visitor at the Zorn home, and of late Albert had been an added
attraction. The rector was very fond of the boy and often gave the
mother encouragement when her enthusiasm waned.
Albert was about to enter the living-room, where his mother and the
visitor were seated, when he overheard his mother saying, “Indeed, he is
quite a problem. If I could only keep him away from poetry and French
novels I could knock his poetic nonsense out of his head.”
“I’ve let him attend my class in philosophy,” the rector struck in.
“Perhaps that will put some reason into his head.”
“Yes, that might turn him into a Kantian,” laughed the mother, “and I
don’t know which is worse, a befogged Kantian or a beggarly rhymester.”
After the briefest pause she added, “I am going to get him a special
tutor for mathematics. He doesn’t seem to grasp any scientific
subject—I’d like him to study banking.”
“You’ll never make a banker of that boy,” he replied. “He isn’t cut out
for a mercantile career and you’ll but waste your efforts. Why don’t you
give him to the Church? I might be able to be of good service to you in
that direction. I know quite a few dignitaries in Rome.”
“I don’t think a priest’s robe would be becoming to Albert’s style of
beauty,” she said laughingly.
“Ah, you haven’t seen how chic the abbes in Rome wear their garb,” he
returned in a tone of levity.
“No, I am afraid this is out of the question.”
“It’s better to give him to Rome than to Greece,” the former priest
pressed his point symbolically. “It was the Church that saved the
Italian masters from idolatry. Don’t you think it would have been far
better for Voltaire, and mankind, if he had been won by the Church? I
know Albert, he needs the Church. He might carve for himself a glorious
career in Rome!”
“Personally I’d have him anything rather than a rhymester,” the mother
burst out passionately, without concealing her horror at such a
prospect.
“But with the present unrest what else is left for a gifted young man?”
proceeded the Jesuit. Then he added in a lower voice, “One day we are
Prussian, the next French, and we may be Russian some day, God only
knows. And while you know how free I am from prejudice, the boy’s faith
will be in his way. I hear that the Jews in Berlin have almost exhausted
the holy water of the baptismal font there.” He laughed indulgently as
he referred to the great number of conversions in the Prussian capital.
“No one knows better than you,” she presently said, “that you can’t make
a good Christian of a good Jew. The most you can do is to turn a bad Jew
into a worse Christian.”
They both laughed amicably.
“Honestly, I don’t believe Albert has a religious sense,” she added a
moment later. “Nothing is too sacred for him to make fun of.”
“That’s only the boy’s sense of humor,” he contradicted her. “He has
more religion than you think. Sentiments of any kind are impossible
without a religious sense, and Albert is full of sentiment—”
Albert’s entrance interrupted further conversation. Bowing, he walked up
to Father Schumacher and kissed his extended soft white hand.
The rector’s eyes now rested upon the boy’s face with renewed interest.
He was still thinking of his suggestion to the mother. Albert’s narrowed
eyes registered acute sensitiveness. The mother’s eyes also fell upon
her son as if she, too, had noticed the peculiar expression on his
countenance for the first time.
“What a pity he was not born a Catholic,” muttered the former priest as
Albert bowed out of the room.
When the rector was gone the mother took her son in hand. She did not
scold him—she never scolded him—she only tried to reason with him.
“Albert, dearest, what will become of you?” she pleaded.
He said nothing. He stood like an accused at the bar of justice, guilt
in his heart.
“How can you ever amount to anything unless you pass your
examinations—especially in mathematics?” she proceeded.
The unshed tears in the mother’s eyes overflowed. His eyes, too, began
to fill. He was not grieved because he had failed in mathematics but it
pained him to have his mother worried. He was silent. He had no words of
justification. Soon his chin began to quiver, his lips to twitch, and
his eyelashes trembled.
“Father’s business is going from bad to worse,” she resumed in a kind,
though plaintive, tone, “and what can one do without money? Everybody
thinks we are well-to-do, but we have hardly anything. If it weren’t for
Uncle Leopold we would have been on the point of starvation long before
this.”
Still not a word from Albert. Only hot tears burned his tender eyelids.
Suddenly, without a word, he flung his arms around his mother and kissed
her tear-stained cheeks. Indeed, henceforth he would apply himself to
mathematics and would study hard, day and night.
But before long he had again fallen from grace, despite his steadfast
efforts to please his mother. This realization did not dawn upon him
until toward the close of the following term. With a heart filled with
contrition he reviewed the past. Alas! he had spent most of his time on
poetry and novels and mythology but had scarcely given more than
fleeting glances to his other studies.
Conscious of guilt he sought to justify himself to himself. With such an
indulgent audience he had no difficulty in purging himself of all wrong.
What difference did it really make to him whether _a_ plus _b_ equaled
_x_ or sixteen? What was it to him that the sum of the interior angles
of a polygon equaled two right angles, taken as many times, less two, as
the figures had sides? Of what concern to him was the expedition of
Cyrus the Younger against his brother Artaxerxes thousands of years ago
when a greater expedition of a greater hero had so recently ended
disastrously! Why tax his brain with the Greek aorist and the Latin
grammar and the stilted speeches of Clearches? Ah, if he could only
become a great man without being compelled to learn these things!
But his mother had impressed upon him again and again that the road to
greatness lay through a labyrinth of angles and equations and
logarithms, with impediments consisting of irregular verbs of decayed
Romans, of dead Greeks, and of Hebrews who would not die!
III.
Sex, however, had not yet played a definite part in his existence. Once
when declaiming “Der Taucher” at a school celebration his roving eye
caught sight of the pretty daughter of a well known official in the
audience and he was so affected by her beauty that speech left him. The
teacher, back on the speaker’s platform, endeavored to prompt him,
thinking he had forgotten the lines, but to no purpose. Albert’s eyes
were riveted upon that beautiful vision and he could not proceed. Now
and then he had received other jolts of passion—the convulsive jolts of
adolescence—but he had brooded over them for short periods, cherished
them for a while, and finally dismissed them from his mind.
Thus several years had passed full of intermittent flitting fancies,
emotions that were meaningless to him.
One day a sudden change took place in him. Something had happened that
was fixed in his mind. He was conscious of sentiments and feelings that
were of the same nature that he had experienced before and yet were
different. Prior to this he could not define the strange longings of his
being, now they spoke to him in unmistakable terms; the voice was
tumultuous; he could not shut it out.
He was passing the Witch’s hut, which stood at the end of the town,
close by the Rhine. No one called her by her real name, Graettel, but
only by the name of the Witch. She gave potions to lovelorn maidens and
exorcised evil spirits from unclean bodies.
He suddenly stopped. For a bare second he imagined a mermaid had leaped
to the shore. Surely no mermaid had finer golden hair shimmering with
iridescent colors!
Filled with a sense of mystery, strangely mingled with slumbering
memories of the past, he took a step nearer the straw-thatched hovel but
at the sound of his footsteps the skein of golden hair was lifted as if
by an invisible hand and presently he beheld a pair of great dark eyes
peering at him. Again he thought it an optic illusion, but the sweet
murmurs of the Rhine were in his ears, a thousand legends of the ruins
of castles in his brain, the mermaids of folklore in his memory; a
forest singer was balancing himself on a bough of the large elm in front
of the hut, singing a melody of his own. Then a peal of laughter—the
musical laughter of a sweet girlish voice—and the apparition vanished.
Albert was breathing fast, his whole frame aquiver. The next moment he
took a step forward and remained standing at the open door. A glance
within revealed no change since he had visited here with his nurse in
his childhood, and there was but little change without.
He stood at the threshold and peered inside with increased curiosity,
seeing no one. It seemed empty save for an unpainted table and a few
backless chairs—the same as of old.
A warbling song—a folksong he used to hear in his childhood—reached
his ears. It was sung in a minor key, and that in suppressed tones. Soon
the melody ceased and the great dark eyes peeped out of the opening of a
partition, the body hidden from view.
“Hedwiga!” he cried and stepped inside.
A barefooted girl emerged, her head bent sideways, running a comb
through her long reddish golden tresses. She continued combing her hair
unconcernedly, a bewitching smile in her eyes.
“Hedwiga, how you have grown!” Albert cried gleefully, staring at her
tall, slender form, her thin skirt clinging to her legs “like the wet
drapery of a statue.”
Gathering her golden mane in her left hand she tossed it back and,
pulling a hair pin from between her lips, fastened it close to the
roots, the ends hanging loosely down over her shoulders.
“You have grown, too,” she presently said, looking at him with her large
candid eyes. Then she added, “I am already sixteen, going on seventeen.”
“So am I sixteen,” he caught his breath, thrilled at the thought of
being the same age as she. “Do you remember me?”
“You are Zippel’s boy (Zippel had been his nurse)—of course, I remember
you. Don’t you remember how we used to play in the yard while Aunt
Graettel and Zippel talked and talked and talked—”
“And do you remember how we used to play ‘Lost in the woods’?” he
reminded her, “and Zippel and your Aunt couldn’t find us, and we lay
hidden under the old broken boat, laughing and watching your Aunt and
Zippel through the cracks as they ran around and wrung their hands?”
They both laughed merrily. At every stage of life the preceding stage is
childhood, reminiscent of things to laugh at.
“Where have you been?” he soon asked her, settling down astride a
backless chair.
“With my grandfather near Freiburg—we lived near the Schwarzwald—but
he died and then grandma died and then I had nobody but Aunt
Graettel—she is my great-aunt—and she brought me here.”
She heaved a sigh, sadness coming over her face.
“Why didn’t you go to your mother?” he asked naively.
“I have no mother—I have no father either—they had died before I was
two—my father was killed by the thieves.—”
She was finishing her toilet as she spoke, having donned a flaming red
blouse, and halted for a moment absently, staring blankly in front of
her.
“Was your father a headman, too?”
She nodded, the sadness of her face deepening, and catching her breath
she said, “My father was a headman and his father and my grandfather’s
father, also my mother’s father. Aunt Graettel is my grandfather’s
sister.”
Albert gave an involuntary shudder. Zippel had told him so many gruesome
tales about headmen. They were all cursed and must cut off men’s heads
whether they wanted to or not. Nobody associated with headmen or their
children and, like a race apart, lived isolated and intermarried only
among themselves.
“Are you going to be here long?” he asked.
She was hooking her blouse, which fastened on the side, and her eyes
were downcast, following her nimble fingers.
“I have no other place to go to,” she presently replied. “And I am glad
my grandma died so I could come here.”
Albert again shuddered. He was not glad his grandmother had died.
“Did she beat you?”
“No, she didn’t beat me—I wouldn’t let anyone beat me—.” She turned
her eyes fiercely upon him as if he had threatened her. “But it was
with, those three old hags at their distaffs, drinking and quarreling
all the time—from morning till night—oh, I am glad they are all dead!”
“Your Aunt Graettel is good to you, isn’t she?” Albert’s voice was
sympathetic. He was glad Hedwiga was no more with those drinking
witches.
“She is very good to me. She is usually in town all day, and when she
gets back she always brings me something nice. And I sit on the bank,
down the slope, and watch the skiffs go by, and when nobody is around I
go swimming on the edge of the river—.”
Albert held his breath. In his imagination he followed her down the
slope and watched the skiffs go by and went swimming with her. He raised
his eyes to her and blushed scarlet. A flitting thought had sent a
quiver through his frame. She was now seated on a stool close to him. He
had become conscious of her bare feet and of her white throat and
slender shoulders. He wished to say something but his mouth was dry and
his throat was parched. He was swallowing lumps.
Hedwiga glanced at him and, as if divining his thoughts, also blushed.
To hide her passing thought she emitted a little laugh.
They were both silent for a moment and self-conscious. Then he raised
his eyes and stared at her boldly. She gave him a quick glance and began
to laugh again. Rising from his chair he wished to stretch out his hand
and touch her face—the tip of her slightly upturned nose and the
curving red of her lips.
He was soon standing at the door, going yet wishing he could stay. She,
too, was standing, her head a trifle inclined to one side.
“How tall you are!” he stammered.
This was not what he wished to say, but he mentally scanned her from
head to foot and the words leaped to his lips uninvited.
“I am not much taller than you,” she said.
And stepping up close to him she placed her shoulder against his.
What was it he felt at the contact with her shoulder? He recalled the
sensation again and again on his way home. It was as if the smooth
little hand of a babe were passing and repassing that spot; he
experienced a sensation of yielding to caresses; and yet this very
sensuousness had made him speechless. It occurred to him later that he
had not bidden her goodbye as they parted.
IV.
Albert’s mind was like a sponge thrown into water, absorbing while
seemingly inactive. Subconsciously he was studying every face, no matter
how often he had seen it; every object, however commonplace, aroused his
curiosity.
When he left Hedwiga his mind was a blank. He walked on blindly,
seemingly thoughtful but really thinking of nothing. He was conscious of
joy tempered by timidity—but without thinking of anything in
particular.
Nearing his home he began to think of her more specifically. She was a
living image. The image grew in vividness. His eyes almost closed
now—his eyelids had come together automatically—and all objects
disappeared save her form. Her slender figure and that clinging, draping
skirt around her legs; her loose hair of dazzling tints—red and gold
mixed with ochre—and those wonderful eyes of her—they looked at him so
piteously and yet so proudly. He was breathing fast, a warm glow was on
his face, his full lips parted. For the moment his mouth seemed
strikingly feminine—the mouth of a young woman alive to stirring
passion.
No, he was not conscious of sex; at least, not of the sex-consciousness
he had often experienced. Its rude call was absent. He could not define
the difference, but the strange desires he had felt at the sight of the
barefooted peasant girls working in the fields were wanting. All that he
desired at present was to go back to that hut—to the home of the Witch
so full of dread and mystery—and just sit and look at Hedwiga.
He told no one of his visit to the Free House, as the Witch’s hovel was
called. He did not even make mention of this to his sister, the keeper
of all his secrets, nor even to Christian, but he thought of Hedwiga
every minute.
After much day-dreaming Albert took a stroll in the direction of the
Witch’s house. He had not yet definitely decided to pay her another
call, but was sauntering aimlessly on the road leading to the Witch’s
house. Before long he found himself perilously near the hut. He first
caught sight of the elm tree. It was the same hour of the day he had
chanced by the first time. Without the calculation of the maturer lover
he vaguely hoped that he would again find her alone—perhaps again
drying her hair in the sun. His heart beat loudly as he approached the
little yard, covered with weeds and grass. The blistered front door was
shut.
He mounted the steps and paused on the slab at the threshold, trembling.
It was a hot afternoon, without a sound in the air. The old elm tree
with the overhanging branches and parched leaves seemed like an old
horse left standing unsheltered in the blazing sun. The Rhine flowed
noiselessly on, with broad folds of gray reflecting the patches of cloud
in the sky.
He felt certain that no one was in the hut, yet he knocked on the door
boldly. It gave him pleasure to knock on that door. Every rap sounded in
his ears as if he were voicing Hedwiga’s name loudly.
Suddenly the door opened and fear seized him. He did not know why sudden
fear had taken possession of him. Before him stood Hedwiga in the same
clinging skirt, ragged at the hem, the same flaming red blouse reaching
to her waist, her hair falling over her shoulders in long tresses. She
appeared to him like the West Indian quadroon he had once seen. He
forgot to greet her and only mumbled that it was a hot day.
She held the door open without saying a word. Unlike at their former
meeting she now seemed confused and her confusion was mingled with
timidity. The scorching heat was reflected in the iris of her eyes.
Without invitation he went in and sat down in the same backless chair.
“I keep the door closed because that keeps the heat out of the house,”
she said as she closed the door.
He was conscious of isolation, of aloneness with her. She was knitting,
and settling on her stool she continued to work, her eyes downcast.
“Why do you knit such heavy woolen stockings in the summer?” he asked,
watching the nimble movements of her long fingers, the frequent jerks of
her elbows, and the intermittent clicks of the needles.
“Why do squirrels store nuts in the summer?” she answered with a
counterquestion, and gave a little metallic laugh.
Suddenly she raised her eyes and looked at him for a bare second, her
lashes quivering, a faint blush on her cheeks.
He held his breath. The impulse he had felt the first time—the impulse
to touch the tip of her nose and the curving red of her lips—came upon
him overwhelmingly; her knees, outlined through her thin skirt, tempted
him. His eyes soon fell upon the hook where the skirt was fastened at
the waist. An impulse seized him to touch that, too. There seemed
something endearing about that hook.
He spent an awkward hour and called himself an idiot as he wended his
way home that afternoon. She was kindly enough to have manifested a
desire to have him stay longer, but he had suddenly risen and left.
As soon as he was out of the hut he wished to go back, and wondered what
had made him depart so abruptly, yet even as he wondered he pressed on
resolutely toward home.
“I thought your eyes were blue, but they are only green,” she had
remarked. A few minutes before she had said something about the
smallness of his eyes and the frailty of his body. He thought there was
a touch of mockery in her voice as she said that. And the idea of asking
him whether he liked songs!
He did not pity her any longer. On the former occasion she had appeared
humble, almost obsequious; today he scented pride. On his return home he
determined to dismiss her from his mind.
V.
He might have dismissed Hedwiga from his mind had not a kindhearted
gossip carried the report of his visit to his parents. Father and Mother
held council. They had not been much concerned about their son’s
religious belief, but the mother’s eye was ever vigilant as to his
morals.
“You had better talk to him,” David Zorn said. “He must stop these
visits. You can never tell what they might lead to at his tender age.”
Mrs. Zorn spent a troublesome night over this. She was alarmed but she
did not wish to seem too antagonistic. She knew the effect of antagonism
upon her impetuous, high-strung son. So she broached the subject with
seeming levity, with playfulness almost.
“But you know, Albert dear, a headman’s daughter is no company for
Doctor Hollman’s grandson,” she urged persuasively.
“The girl isn’t to blame because her father was a headman,” he returned.
“Why should she bear the sins of her fathers?”
The longer his mother argued the more reasons he found against her
arguments. It was unjust to make the poor girl an outcast because her
father had been an executioner, he insisted.
When he left his mother his heart was full of pity for the poor outcast.
He brooded over her unfortunate position. He could not dismiss her image
from his mind—the slender frame draped by that clinging skirt! His
imagination lent color to the misery of the child of the accursed. He
visualized her past. He saw her in the Black Forest surrounded by those
old, toothless hags, drinking and quarreling and whirring their spinning
wheels. He saw her ragged garments, her little bare feet curled under
her, her unkempt golden hair, her beautiful eyes. The picture of her as
a child was blended with that of the present day Hedwiga.
In his cogitation he soon found himself fighting for a principle. He did
not listen to the throbbing of his boyish heart, to the seething of the
blood of youth, which were propelling him toward the Free House with a
power of their own. He persuaded himself that it was his keen sense of
justice that forced him to defy his mother’s wishes.
It was summer time, the thrushes were singing, the roses were in bloom,
the call of flocks was heard over plain and meadow, the sunlight rested
on hill and dale; it way summer and the morning dew of love was on
Albert’s cheeks.
He called at the Witch’s again and again; and the more often he came the
more natural it seemed to be with her. The constraint had soon worn off
and they were children again—boy and girl. When Aunt Graettel was at
home he talked to her, and she told him many weird tales of her husband
and his coterie of headmen.
“That sword cut off more than a hundred heads,” she pointed to a large,
shining sabre standing in a corner.
Albert shuddered at the sight of the bloody weapon.
“My husband could always tell beforehand when he would be called upon to
perform his work,” the Witch added proudly. “When the sword quivered and
emitted a strange sound my husband knew some thief’s head was to come
off.”
But most of the time he found Hedwiga alone and he soon discovered that
she could sing beautiful songs of loving knights and beloved princesses
and shepherds on the hills.
While the cannons were roaring at Waterloo and crushing the armies of
the Emperor he worshipped, Albert Zorn was seated in the little hut on
the Rhine, listening to Hedwiga’s melodies; and intoxicated with love
rushed to translate his sentiments into sweet rhymes.
Thus the summer passed, and winter came. He had left the Lyceum and was
now attending the Realschule. His mother was steadfast in her resolution
to make a banker of him. She saw great possibilities in the financial
world as soon as the terms of peace were definitely settled. For
Napoleon had already been decisively beaten and the rulers of the other
nations were holding a momentous conference.
One afternoon he found Hedwiga in a strange mood. It was midwinter, the
river asleep under blankets of the softest down, the long arms of the
large elm tree covered with the whitest fleece, and inside the hut the
cozy, stuffy warmth of a low ceiling, crackling logs in an open oven and
flames wrapped in dense smoke, rolling into the flue with a roaring
glare. Hedwiga was seated opposite the fire, her left elbow on her knee,
her chin in the open palm of her hand, her cheeks and eyes aglow,
warbling a weird song.
Albert was silent. He had had a strange dream about her the night before
and her present preoccupation reminded him of the dream. He thought he
had seen her before in precisely the same environments and in the same
pose. His imagination often played him pranks of this sort.
With eyes narrowed, he watched the light in her eyes, the contour of her
cheeks, the shadowy white of her throat and the slight movement of her
breasts. Yes, he knew the song she was humming. Zippel used to sing it
to him in his childhood.
Hedwiga’s eyes closed and her red lips trembled. Then silence; no sound
save that of the roaring fire.
“_Ich will küssen_—” he chimed in, finishing the stanza.
He paused and looked yearningly at her red lips, which were slightly
parted against the dazzling white of her teeth.
Hedwiga opened her great dark eyes, turned them upon him teasingly, and
suddenly jumped up from her low seat; and dashing across the room seized
the shining sword—the sword that had cut off a hundred heads—and
brandishing it in the air whirled around and sang again of the Great
Otilje and his shining sword, pointing the deadly weapon at his breast
every time she faced him.
“Hedwiga!”
But her wild song drowned his whispered murmurs. There was provoking
defiance in her roguish eyes, almost a trace of malevolence in her face
as she came close to him, barely touching him, and then swung away in
her mad dance with the glittering blade.
“Hedwiga!”
But she would not pause. She continued whirling around and warbling this
odd song. Once or twice he tried to seize her as she brushed past him,
but she gracefully evaded him. He finally leaped from his seat and flung
his arms around her.
“Don’t—take care!—” she cried, panting, holding the sword in front of
her.
But he clung to her recklessly and, the sword having dropped from her
hand, pressed his lips against her feverish mouth.
She turned her head this way and that to escape his kisses, gurgling
laughter in her throat, but was overpowered by his impetuosity,
gradually yielding, listlessly turning her face to his, her parted
burning lips seeking his . . .
Entwined they sat, the fire of their beings leaping into a common flame.
Soon tears overflowed her eyes—she did not know why she was crying but
in her heart was dread mingled with inexpressible joy—and presently his
tears streamed down his pale cheeks.
A strand of her hair loosened and touched his face. He begged for this
lock of hair. He swore he would carry it to his dying day—“Yes, to my
dying day,” he repeated again and again.
A new light appeared in her eyes, and suddenly freeing herself she cut
the golden lock with the fallen blade.
He took it from her and kissed it tenderly and murmured reverently,
“Until the last beat of my heart—.”
VI.
He left her that day with a feeling that this was all a dream, a
bewitching dream. When he returned home he flung his arms around his
sister and laughed and cried and uttered a babble of foolish words. He
muttered rhythmic verses that sprang to his lips. At last he understood
love. He had made the great discovery.
His sister shared his ecstasy without knowing the cause. She knew Albert
was sentimental. She had often seen him act madly when reciting his
songs to her. This was her secret. That her brother had other secrets
was unknown to her.
Having exhausted the exuberance of his feelings upon his sister he
rushed out of the house in quest of Christian Lutz. He felt that with
Christian he could talk more freely.
He did not tell Christian at once of Hedwiga but talked of love and
death. He was just raving as Christian had often heard him rave about
flowers and the Rhine. He recited a ballad he had composed about an
imaginary maiden with golden locks and lips as red as rubies and a face
as blessedly sweet as the lily and the roses. He knew Hedwiga’s hair was
red, and only golden when the sun rested upon it, but he would not think
of red hair—it was always golden. Besides, it did not sound so
well—“_Ihr rotes Haar_”—No, it would not do; it would not ring as well
as “_Ihr goldenes Haar_”. Besides, the only color that was really
beautiful was golden; and the ever docile, acquiescing Christian
concurred in this. A short time before, when Albert discussed a Spanish
Donna, who was to figure in his great tragedy, and had gone into
raptures about the lustre of bluish-black hair, Christian had just as
readily, and whole-heartedly, admitted that raven hair was the most
beautiful in the world.
While Albert did not at first mention the name of his beloved, he talked
so much of golden hair, of a small mouth with red curving lips, of a
slender figure and clinging garments, of features more nobly chiseled
than those of Niobe’s daughters, of a certain hut on the bank of the
Rhine—the quaintest hut in the world—of innocent children who must
suffer for their father’s sins, and of a thousand other things that
Christian could not help but recognize the identity of the goddess his
friend was worshipping; and when finally, in a moment of great secrecy,
Albert whispered her lovely name—the loveliest name in creation and the
most melodious—Christian feigned such great surprise that Albert felt
flattered at the word picture he had given of her.
Mrs. Zorn had been watching the progress of her son’s infatuation with
anxious, yet amused, vigilance. She had always regarded romanticism as
mere froth, easily dissipated by the strong currents of reason. When her
husband told her again and again of the repeated rumors that had reached
him she only smiled. What was the calf-love of a youth of sixteen?
Besides, though she had drifted from the creed of her forefathers, the
centuries of segregation, the self-discipline, the enforced chastity of
her people had not only subdued but almost eradicated the romantic
instinct from her heart. The Ghetto had eaten itself into the very flesh
of the Jewish woman of those days and seared her passions. Hemmed in as
if a cordon had been thrown around her, all self-expression denied, her
intense romantic love, like a rushing current dammed on one side, turned
into another course and spent itself on filial devotion, conjugal
affection, domestic tenderness. Persecution, like the fire that purifies
gold and also brings forth dross, often ennobles the soul even while it
degrades the body.
Towards the end of that winter, however, Mrs. Zorn began to realize that
something had to be done to end her son’s foolish infatuation. Albert
was neglecting his studies more than ever and had become more subject to
nervous headaches, walked too much, brooded too much, and took to
reading poetry more assiduously. She began to fear her dream of making a
banker of him might not be realized. Her husband had suggested that he
be apprenticed to a banker in Frankfort, a friend of his.
The next day she broached the subject rather abruptly. She meant to
impress upon Albert the folly of his ways.
“Albert, I have something of the gravest importance to say to you.”
She paused. She wished to prepare him for the solemn occasion. There was
no one in the house. She had purposely timed the interview so that she
could speak to him alone.
“What is it, mother?”
“I hate to speak of it, but I wonder if you appreciate at what sacrifice
your father has kept you at school—“. Whenever she wished to impress
him she always spoke of his father, never of herself. “He has denied you
nothing—has given you a good home, good clothes—while he denied
himself almost everything.”
She turned her eyes away. Albert drooped his head, tears appearing in
his eyes. Her evident sorrow pained him.
“I’ll be glad to quit school and go to work,” he said promptly. “I don’t
want to be a burden to you.”
“No, you don’t understand me, Albert. No good parents ever find their
children burdensome. These burdens are pleasures—. I wouldn’t speak of
this if you—if you—”
She faltered. She could not find fitting words to clothe her present
thoughts. She wished to reprimand him without hurting his feelings.
He threw his arms around his mother’s neck, hot tears streaming down his
cheeks.
“I’ll go to work, mother dear—I’ll learn a trade—I’ll do anything to
lighten your burdens.” He kissed her hysterically.
“It’s not that. We don’t mind that in the least. The war is over and
father will resume business. But we have decided to apprentice you to a
banker in Frankfort. He is a good friend of father’s and will give you
every opportunity of learning the business.”
She paused, slyly watching the expression on his face. She feared his
temper—all the Zorns had such violent tempers!
“I should love to go to Frankfort,” he cried joyfully.
The mother heaved a sigh of relief.
VII.
The prospect of the journey to Frankfort filled Albert with boyish glee.
He was not thinking of his career—he did not clearly think of
anything—he was happy because of the prospective change in his life. He
had often heard his father tell of his visits to that beautiful
city—the “_Weltstadt_”, his father had called it—the city where kings
were once crowned and where his king, the great Goethe, was born—of the
wonderful Fair, of the Roemer, of the Zeil. Albert had never seen a
large city and was restive with anticipation.
He was in high spirits. His mother had never seen him so animated, so
boyishly happy. He romped and danced and sang like a joyous child. His
excitement was so great that he could neither read nor write nor talk
coherently. He paced up and down the house, rambled through the streets,
restless with eagerness.
In the meanwhile the winter was drawing to a close. Hedwiga, alone in
that overheated hovel, sat knitting and brooding and thinking of Albert.
He was the first ray of sunshine in her desolate life. He had often
spoken to her of things she did not understand but that made him even
more alluring. Only at rare moments she caught flashes, like that of
meeting clouds, and then darkness again. She had heard her aunt prattle
about love which had always been meaningless to her. But Albert’s sweet
amorous words she understood. When she looked at his half-closed eyes,
at his dishevelled hair, at his sensitive lips, she became more
restless—she often quivered—and craved his touch, and yet when his
hands came in contact with her arms she trembled with shrinking
fear—shrinking and yet yielding. After he had kissed her that
afternoon, in the warm dusk of the hut, her fear was gone. She longed
for his arrival, to be seized in his arms, to have his lips against
hers. Even in his absence her lips quivered as she thought of him and
her eyes closed. He had a peculiar way of placing the tips of his
sensitive fingers upon her shoulders, barely touching them, as if he
were fingering the strings of a violin, and gazing into her face
pensively, almost mysteriously, and then letting his fingers glide over
her thinly covered arms—sending a delicious shiver through her whole
being—and slowly, creepingly, letting them slide until they reached her
wrists, then her hands, then her moist fingers, which almost
involuntarily, helplessly became entwined with his, her eyes staring
blindly, upward, at his face. No one could whisper such sweet little
secrets in her memory. The tears that often sprang to her eyes were
never bitter; she felt happier when they came.
Her aunt had of late been alarmed about her. She seemed to have grown
thinner, with a peculiar flush in her cheeks. When Aunt Graettel at
first made some veiled reference to her health, she laughed merrily and
said she had never felt as well as now. One day Aunt Graettel overheard
a stifled cough and told her niece that it might be best to have that
Zorn boy stop his visits and she forthwith prepared a concoction of
herbs. Hedwiga shoved the tonic away with a fierceness the Witch had
never suspected in her and said if Albert stopped coming she would throw
herself into the river.
But Albert’s joy at the approach of his journey was so great that he
failed to notice the peculiar lustre in the girl’s eyes. He was bubbling
over with delight. Did she not think it was wonderful? He was going to
the _Weltstadt_, where mere were theatres and picture galleries and a
great library and cafés and grand boulevards and—and he stopped for
want of words. Did she not think it was wonderful?
“And there are so many pretty girls in Frankfort?” she returned, with a
sad smile and a strange glitter in her eyes.
No, he swore he was not thinking of girls. Besides, no one was as pretty
as his Lorelei, his Hedwiga.
“You are not crying?”
He shrank back half a step and looked puzzled.
No, she was not crying. She wiped her tears away and was smiling. And
presently he was reading a poem he had written the other night. He
recited the verses—they were meant for her . . .
No, no, she did not wish to cry, but her tears flowed against her will.
He stowed the verses away and was consoling her. Wouldn’t it be
wonderful when he came back after he had seen the world! His arms were
stealing around her, her lips yielded so willingly, her tears flowed so
freely! Tears beget tears, and soon his emotions stirred. He did not
know why, but his tears flowed, too, mingling with hers and, with heart
beating against heart, the fires of youth blazed in one
conflagration—_Dann schlagen zusammen die Flammen_!
She was soon sobbing as if her heart would break.
“Why do you cry?” he asked.
She did not know why she was sobbing. There was really no occasion for
grief. Was he not going to Frankfort to see the world—the great,
wonderful world?
“Just think, _liebste_! No more dry text books, no more mathematics, no
more stupid lessons in accounting, no more school! Just think of freedom
all day and all night, and I shall be able to read and read and read and
walk and walk through the boulevards and write—Oh, Hedwiga!” He pressed
her to his breast with frantic ecstasy. “I’ll write wonderful tragedies
and songs and I will—”
Words failed to express all his hopes and plans and desires. He was
dizzy from the flood of thoughts that rushed upon him.
She was sobbing no longer. Her hands limply in her lap, her tear-stained
face composed, her shoulders relaxed and stooped forward, she stared
blankly in front of her, looking without seeing, her great eyes wide
open and full of heart-rending sadness.
“Will you write to me?”
“Will I write to you? As often as the post will carry my letters. I’ll
tell you all about the wonderful things in Frankfort. By the way, father
said the streets in Frankfort are lighted at night—light enough to
read—rows of great lanterns in the streets! Wouldn’t you like to see
Frankfort?”
A sob was her only reply.
“But you will come to Frankfort. I’ll be in the banking business there,
and I will send for you, sweetheart mine.”
VIII.
Soon the winter was gone. Men and women came to the sun’s aid with
hatchet and pick-axe, hacking and chopping and chipping the frozen mass,
glittering diamonds flying in the air and catching the genial rays of
the early spring sun. There was joy in every heart and even greater joy
in Albert’s breast. As soon as all the ice was gone and the road dried
his father was to take him to Frankfort. His heart thrilled at the sound
of the running waters, washing away the last traces of the hoary winter.
He helped clear away the ice in the shadowy part of the yard which the
sunbeams could not reach. He desired to hasten the arrival of spring,
the day on which he could start on the great journey.
On the evening before his departure he and Christian took their last
stroll. It was early in the evening, a young moon in the sky, the scents
of spring in the air, from afar the rumbling sound of the awakening
Rhine, and the gurgling of running waters. Two shadows, so clearly
outlined on the ground, preceded them like bodyguards; one was taller
than the other. The streets were dark save for the moonlight and the
occasional glimmer from a window.
Albert’s voice, like the running waters, never ceased. He was talking of
Frankfort, of his journey, of his future. While he knew he was to be
apprenticed to a banker, the duties of such apprenticeship were not
clear in his mind. He made the duties fit his dreams.
They had now reached the river, which had spread, as it always did at
this time of the year, and had risen higher, and was flowing with
increased speed. There was a glow like a milky-way along the midstream
where the moonbeams rested lightly upon the rippling waters.
Albert halted his speech and his step. The river claimed his attention.
He was not far from the cloister where the stream chattered noisily
among the rocks and purred like a cat further down where there was a
very narrow, low waterfall, descending like a huge corkscrew. For the
moment Albert forgot everything, even Frankfort. The vast shadow of the
Franciscan monastery, the moonlight above it, the rushing river, the
earth-and-water scent in the air—they all overwhelmed him. It all found
expression in a contraction of his eyelids and in an exultant cry of
“Ah! Christian!”
His husky cry echoed in Christian’s heart. Albert was going far, far
away—Frankfort seemed to Christian at an endless distance and the
memories of their close friendship crowded in upon him. His association
with Albert had made the boyish years so wonderful. Hardly a day but he
had walked and talked with Albert, and listened to his strange chatter;
and when they were alone Albert was full of mirth and pranks and
laughter. Albert had such a peculiar way of making fun of people. And
every book he read he discussed with Christian, though at times
Christian could scarcely follow his comrade.
“Ah, Albert!” he echoed and rested his hand upon his friend’s arm.
There were tears in Christian’s eyes.
They remained standing silently for a moment, silhouetted in the
moonlight against the vast shadow of the cloister. Then with a
simultaneous impulse they were clasped in each other’s arms.
“Will you remember me when you become a great man?”
“Ah! Christian! Can I ever forget you!”
“Albert!”
“Christian!”
IX.
At last the eventful morning arrived. Albert had not slept a wink the
night before. Too many tumultuous thoughts had kept him awake. He had
called on Hedwiga the day before and her tears filled him with anguish.
So he spent wakeful hours in composing a poem on the pain of parting and
felt relieved.
Today everything was forgotten. For in front of the house stood a
vehicle, bedded with hay, and two horses with fodder-bags over their
heads, and inside the house his mother was packing his father’s large
folding leather valise, and his sister and his little brothers, were
watching with inquisitive, curious eyes. Albert was too restive to watch
the packing. From time to time he stepped to the window and stole a peep
at the horses outside, a strange joy in his heart, and walked back with
his hands in the pockets of his new coat.
“Mama is crying,” piped up his little brother who stood close to his
mother and followed her every move and insisted upon helping her,
carrying a shirt from a chair nearby. Albert turned his head and glanced
at his mother; she was brushing something from her cheek. His father was
in the shop, making a few entries in his ledger and giving another look
at his balance.
Soon Uncle Salomon arrived, and Aunt Braunelle and Aunt Hanna and Father
Schumacher, with his long pipe in one hand and his silver-headed cane in
the other.
“I hope you’ll become another Rothschild,” Schumacher said as he clasped
the youth’s hand, an irrepressible smile on his fine face.
Mrs. Zorn overheard this and became more intent on forcing some
handkerchiefs into the corner of the traveling bag; there was a touch of
obstinacy around her mouth as she smoothed the bulging packet of linen.
The hour had come. Albert was seated in the hooded coach by the side of
his father, the coachman on the box, a long whip in his hand. Mrs. Zorn
rushed up to embrace her son once more. His sister reminded him to write
to her all about the Roemer and the Zeil, and his little brother called
to his father to remind him of the whistle “with three holes” he had
promised. David Zorn murmured something, the coachman snapped his whip,
and the coach started off with a rattle and clatter over the
cobblestones.
Then everything moved before Albert’s eyes. Schmallgasse, the
Marktplatz, the big bronze statue of Jan Wilhelm, the Great Elector, the
Franciscan cloister, the domes of the churches, the Hofgarten—like a
flowing river, everything seemed to move before him and away from him
. . .
The vehicle lurched and they turned into the main road. Albert stuck out
his head to catch a last glimpse of the disappearing town. The road ran
along elevated ground and he saw in the distance only a mass of crowded
red roofs and a few rising towers against the sunny sky. There was
nothing clear in his mind; nothing but confusion. For he was already
beginning to feel lonesome, his life-associations falling away like
crumbling walls. His father was silent, absent-mindedly stroking his
blond beard and clearing his throat from time to time.
The Rhine Road was finally struck. It followed the bank of the river and
was only a short distance from the shore. The horses snorted and
quickened their steps unbidden by the driver, the dull thump-thump of
their hoofs on the sandy ground was music to Albert’s ears. Wafts of
fresh air—the cool, moist air of spring—came from the winding river; a
bird was twittering in the branches of a nearby willow; a calf was
lowing afar off unseen; a tethered colt galloped in a circle; expanses
of green and brown flew before his eyes; and the sky was pale blue with
endless bars of gray scarcely discernible and blended with the more
colorful texture around them. Now and then glimpses of the Rhine came
into view through the clumps of vines, and Albert was dimly conscious of
links between himself and Gunsdorf. The farther away he traveled from
his native place the more endearing it became and the less alluring the
city of his destination.
Presently his erstwhile enthusiasm for Frankfort was gone. He did not
even think of it. He thought of nothing. He only felt a peculiar
sensation in his heart, a sensation akin to pain, a feeling of
loneliness possessed him. Unconsciously he moved closer to his father,
who was now dozing. He felt dreadfully alone, and soon well-defined
memories of Gunsdorf began to make inroads into his mind. His sister,
his mother, Christian, Hedwiga. His mind was now centered upon Hedwiga.
He let his head rest against the truss of hay back of him. His eyes
closed. There was a strange longing in his heart. He stretched his hand
and imagined he was touching the back of her neck, feeling her shudder
as his fingers played with the soft down close to her ears. His lips
moved as if he were tasting a savory dish. He sensed the sweet fragrance
of her lips. . .
He turned quickly to the right. A girl’s voice was calling “Goodbye.”
For a bare second he was deluded into believing it was Hedwiga’s voice.
But when he craned his neck and peeped outside he beheld a farmhouse, a
fence, an open wicker gate, a barefooted girl with a thin skirt
fluttering in the air, a few strands of flaxen hair flying; a hand
shading smiling eyes. By her side was a little boy waving his hand. . .
He leaned back and watched the stretches of field with a keener zest and
listened languorously to the steady trot-trot of the horses, to the
jingle of the harness. Everything was moving and there was a low hum in
his ears and he felt the warmth of the covers around him and a strange
vagueness before him . . .
THE JUDENGASSE.
I.
“Who is there?”
Albert rubbed his eyes. The voice sounded as if it were coming through a
tunnel, muffled yet rumbling. There were other noises in his ears,
stamping and pounding and shuffling of feet. And there was darkness
around him, the darkness of black night.
“A traveler,” called another voice.
This voice was familiar to him. He remembered the voice of Bandy-legged
Schultz—the name by which the coachman was best known in Gunsdorf—and
that brought to his mind the memory of his departure from his native
town, the long tedious journey, the stops at various taverns. He felt
weary and every muscle ached. He wished he were at the end of the
journey. And what dreams he had had since he left Schmallgasse!
“_Verdammte Juden!_ You are too late. The gates are closed.”
A shudder ran through the lad’s frame. He was now sure he was dreaming
and buried his face into the cushion in the corner of the coach.
“Here, Schultz!”
It was his father who was speaking. He saw through half-closed eyes his
father handing the coachman a silver coin. The driver jumped off the box
and approached a high wall in front of him. Albert could not make out
what the barrier was except that it was high and it cast a great black
shadow, revealing in the foreground a little house, and beyond it a
gleam of the moon, half hidden, as if balancing itself on the high wall.
Schultz knocked on the pane of a tiny window. He used the silver coin as
a knocker. Then silence—ominous silence. Albert felt that his father
was holding his breath and he, too, caught his breath and sensed the
mystery around him.
“The lazy louts are asleep,” the coachman murmured.
David Zorn passed his hand over his head and emitted a grim grunt.
The coachman knocked again with the silver coin.
“Open the door—a traveler wants admittance!” he bellowed angrily.
There was a stirring inside the little house and a thud as of one
rolling off a bench.
“The devil take the Jews! _Tausend Donner Sakrament!_ They don’t give a
fellow a moment’s rest even on Easter Eve!”
A gruff voice was heard within, a clatter of a bolt—of a heavy iron
hasp—the clanking of chains—the grating of a key in a lock, the
creaking of hinges, two tall gates swinging open slowly, and Albert
beheld a bit of sky above the horses’ heads. The sky appeared narrow and
high, as if seen from a deep trench.
A short, heavy-set man, with a mustache the color of dry sand and the
stiffness of bristle, appeared at the opening; between the swinging
gates. He held a lantern in his hand, the yellow glare of the tallow
candle inside fell grotesquely over his patched jerkin and
saffron-colored hose.
Schultz put the silver coin into the hand of the man with the lantern.
The man put the money into his pocket and mumbled, “Don’t you know any
better than to come so long after the gates closed!”
He was stretching his arms and yawning. His jaws opened and closed
sleepily as he spoke.
“We are coming a long way,” the driver explained. “Couldn’t figure on
the exact hour.”
“How many Jews have you?”
“Just one.”
The guard walked up to the wagon, raised his lantern, and strained his
eyes.
“Huh! What do you call this, a suckling?” pointing at Albert, who stared
around him in bewilderment.
“He is the gentleman’s son,” explained the coachman.
“You didn’t bring his cradle along—Huh! When a Jew reaches the age of
twelve he is just as much of one for poll tax as he will be at
seventy-five. We call it two Jews—huh! One Jew, he says! You can’t fool
me!”
“How much is it?” Zorn opened his purse, the guard holding the lantern
to help him see the contents.
“One Jew one _Thaler_, two Jews two _Thalers_—simple arithmetic,”
snickered the guard.
Zorn paid the price in silence.
“How about a few _Pfennige_ for _Trinkgeld_—what do you say? I could
have kept you waiting here all night. And tomorrow is Easter.”
Zorn handed him a few more coins and cleared his throat as if something
was choking him.
Schultz led the horses by the bridles a few steps. There was another
guardhouse inside the gates.
“Dovidle, stick your nose out—a couple of Jews for Easter,” the guard
called in a piping, mimicking, sneering voice, and pounded on the
casement.
A door opened and out came a little man.
The little man greeted Zorn kindly, extending his hand. “You must have
come a great distance or you would have known better than to come so
late.”
“Since when have they re-established the Ghetto?” asked Zorn
tremblingly.
“As soon as they chased the French out,” replied Dovidle in a saddened,
low voice. “Yes, they have hemmed us in again;” the little man sighed.
“They are at their old tricks again, fleecing and torturing our poor
people. Oh, God, will there ever be an end?”
Albert trembled in every limb, a piercing pain shot through his head. He
had read of the miserable Ghettoes, which were abolished as soon as
Napoleon’s troops occupied the Rhenish provinces, but he had never
thought of himself as belonging to a segregated people. He had long
forgotten the taunts of Long Kunz and Shorty Fritz. In his native city
he had never thought, and was never reminded, of his ancestry. His
parents’ indifference to creed had made him almost forget it himself.
The driver soon mounted the box, clacked his tongue, and moved on.
They proceeded slowly through a long, narrow street —it seemed to
Albert interminably long and exceedingly narrow—the buildings on either
side high and close together. It was dark—depressingly dark—with an
occasional candle light peeping through a window. Not infrequently there
was the sound of footsteps which was quickly drowned by the heavier
tread of the horses. A door opened now and then—dabs of yellow against
a black curtain—a slam, and silence again . . .
II.
Although warned not to wander alone through the streets outside the
Judengasse, Albert’s curiosity got the better of him. No sooner was his
father gone to see the banker, to whom Albert was to be apprenticed,
than the boy left the tavern. He followed the long stream of people
toward the gate at the end of the Judengasse. There were three gates in
the enclosure, but this gate led to the Wollgraben, beyond which was the
Fair.
He rambled aimlessly staring around him. He was proceeding along the
banks of the Main, which was thronged with a thousand noisy traders,
small vessels of antiquated design slowly moving to the accompaniment of
the quaint cries of the steersmen. The tumult was deafening. Porters
with high loads on their heads crying at the jostling crowd to make way;
trundling bales, chests, caskets: yells of warning for the passersby to
stand back: quarreling, half-naked boatmen; scolding red-coated
officials, leaping from vessel to vessel on their tours of inspection:
rattling of chains, plunging of anchors . . .
Presently he stood before the Roemer, the old Senate house, from which
gaudy streamers were flying, its high gables bedecked with shields and
banners; all around laughing, guffawing, merry-making. For today
Frankfort was celebrating its independence once more, its independence
from the enemy.
Carried along with the jubilant throng he soon paused at the sight of a
curious procession. Mountebanks blowing trumpets, jugglers performing
deft tricks, fencing masters displaying their agility in mock duels, a
band marching and drumming and fifing, followed by girls clad in
fantastic colors—yellow and black and green astride long sticks in the
fashion of children playing horse, wiggling their high hips and heavy
legs in the manner of Spanish dancers. Then came a column of bareheaded,
barefooted chanting monks, wax tapers in the hands of some, while others
carried effigies and tall banners on which were painted bearded apostles
and smooth shaven saints, and great silver crucifixes against a
background of jet black drapery . . .
Suddenly there was a hush. The chanting of the monks ceased; the shrill
voices of the dancing girls died in the distance; the noises of the
merry-makers halted. Not a sound—nothing but the soft swinging of
censers. Hark! a silver bell tinkled. Instantly all were on their knees
with bowed heads.
Fear possessed Albert. Though accustomed to Catholic ceremonies from
childhood he would not kneel. And without looking to the right or left
he hurried back as fast as his legs could carry him to the high walls of
the Judengasse.
III.
In youth experiences produce impressions, at a maturer age they generate
thought. Albert’s mind had the peculiarity of both, youth and maturity.
Impressions and thoughts came to him almost simultaneously.
The humiliation of his present surroundings made him shrink with a
sensitiveness he could not define. He had thought the Ghetto belonged to
the dark ages. He did not yet realize that there was but a step between
the Dark Ages and any Age. The bitterness of his soul crowded out every
other thought, every other feeling. The jubilee he had witnessed was to
him the rejoicing of the sporting Philistines around the chained Samson.
On his return to the tavern he threw himself upon his bed, his hands
clasped under his head, his face toward the ceiling, tortured by a
thousand conflicting thoughts. The back of his head was burning, and
there was a pain in his eyes, the harbinger of one of his nervous
headaches.
He tossed and turned. He felt as if the ceiling were coming down on him,
as if the walls were pressing together, the very air seemed suffocating.
Incoherently the morning scenes flitted through his mind—white robed
priests—white—the symbol of truth and purity—the crucifix moulded of
silver against a black background—another symbol—the images of saints,
their eyes turned heavenward—Ah, that was too much for the impulsive,
poetic youth, who never had to search for the truth, to whom truth came
flying. He was writhing with pain, the mortifying pain of helplessness.
No, he was not helpless, he was saying to himself. Socrates was not
helpless; Spinoza was not helpless; Lessing was not helpless. Every one
must carry his torch as well as his cross. Yes, he would make his torch
flare so that it would dispel the darkness around him. A strange
ambition seized him. He did not want to be a poet. He did not want to be
a money changer. He wanted to be a warrior to help mankind free itself
from its own enslavement. Nor did he crave earthly pleasures. For the
moment he was an old man satiated with the pleasures and pains of life.
Then came over him the sweeping melancholy of blossoming youth. The
heavens opened before him and he caught a glimpse of eternity. Yes, he
might fight—live and fight for the truth.
How strong the sun was shining in his eyes! Its rays were coming through
a window opposite his bed. He turned his face to the wall, away from the
light. Patches of pink and yellow and purple floated before his eyes in
the shape of lotus flowers, and around them large golden wheels
revolved, emitting diamond sparks, with the sound of a waterfall in his
ears . . . No, it was not the sound of rushing water. It was a musical
sound . . .
He soon recognized the tune. It was Allegri’s Miserere . . . and the
light of an oblique column of sun dust was in his eyes . . He turned and
noticed the strong sunlight falling upon the wooden image of the
Christ—the wooden image that stood under those arches in the Franciscan
cloister. It was the same figure, the same bleeding Christ with a broad
gash between the ribs, the same smear of blood. The figure was nodding
its head—it was beckoning to him—but he could not budge. The figure
then began to move toward him, and the palms, instead of nailed to the
cross, were unfastened and turned heavenward, and the head, instead of
drooping, was thrown back, with derisive laughter on the sorrowful
face—Yes, the figure was laughing, a strange, mocking laugh that made
him shudder, and the laughter blended weirdly with the dying notes of
the Miserere—
“Are you asleep, Albert?”
His father’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.
“No, I haven’t slept—I am just resting—” Albert mumbled and rose to a
sitting posture.
“Herr Rindskopf assured me there is a great opportunity for you in his
bank,” Zorn was saying cheerfully. “And he is a fine man to work for,
Rindskopf is.”
Albert listened to his father as if in a dream, as if only remotely
interested in the subject.
IV.
The following day was Friday, the busiest in the Judengasse. Zorn had
made all arrangements with Rindskopf, but owing to the Sabbath he was
obliged to remain here until Sunday. And this was the Sabbath of
Sabbaths. It was the Saturday before the Passover—Shabbos H’godol—the
Great Sabbath. Albert welcomed his father’s suggestion to accompany him
to the synagogue that evening. Everything about him seemed so strange
and quaint.
It was beginning to grow dusk when father and son started for the house
of worship. The air was cool and refreshing, and the sinking sun was
behind the high walls of the quarter. All men, and some women, were on
their way to the courtyard which enclosed the House of God. The
erstwhile grimacing faces, on which was written abject misery, were now
serene, carefree, spiritual—
“In der Dämmerungstunde, plötzlich,
Weicht der Zauber und der Hund
Wird aufs neu ein menschlich Wesen—”
Some walked hurriedly, as if belated, others strolled in pairs,
leisurely, exchanging a few words of week day interest, but peace,
almost unearthly peace, everywhere. The long Judengasse was quiet, with
an air of restful melancholy about it, the melancholy and rest of a
plaintive song sung in a minor key. Not a horse stirred, not the creak
of a wheel; the voice of traffic was hushed. Nothing but footsteps of
those wending their way to prayers. Here and there one caught a glimpse
of a table in a courtyard, its legs upward like a horse on its back, and
other articles of household furniture, cleansed and scoured and left to
dry and air until the morning before the holiday, when everything must
be clean and free from every crumb of leavened bread.
Albert had never seen such a large house of prayer. It was hundreds of
years old, and within its lofty walls many a tear had been shed—nay,
rivulets had flowed from Israel’s eyes—and sometimes not unmixed with
blood. For this synagogue had housed those who fled from massacres, from
flames, from swords. Barricaded behind the tall doors, maidens sought
shelter from ravishers, children from untimely death, old women from
slaughter. Thrice this House of God had been defiled by Preachers of
Brotherly Love; thrice the torch of fanaticism had scorched its portals.
Like a man bent in sorrow, this edifice betrayed the scars of
persecution. The Old Synagogue of Frankfort looked solemn, sad,
awe-inspiring.
Albert felt the solemnity and the sadness of the old house of worship.
It was vast and lofty. Many brass chandeliers with scores of wax candles
were suspended from the high arched ceiling, snapping and flickering
every time the great door swung open. Rows of high desks, made specially
for repose of the prayer books, filled the front part, while the rear
was devoid of all obstruction and reserved as standing room for the poor
who held no pews. The nearer the row to the wall facing East the higher
the rank of its occupants. For the Judengasse was never democratic. Its
spirit was aristocratic. All had their ranks, and one could classify
them according to the rows of the pews. In the very rear were the
humblest—the water-carriers, the cobblers, the blacksmiths, the
tailors—then came the small traders, and gradually the guilds rose
higher and higher until they reached the row against the Wall facing
East, where the dignitaries sat, the learned and the rich.
Zorn and his son were the guests of the dignitary whose pew was next to
that of the Rabbi, a zealot, the descendant of a long line of rabbis.
Albert looked around with unconcealed bewilderment. For although he had
scoffed at, and mimicked, the gestures of the zealots and mocked at
their dogma and forms, he was now conscious of reverence. Even the
Rabbi’s curly locks, dangling over his ears, his untrimmed beard, his
long silk gabardine, his knickerbockers and white stockings, the
mitre-like black fur cap on his head, his broad white linen collar—none
of these provoked mockery in the youth. The figure before him conjured a
Velasquez he had once seen in Prince Joachim’s gallery in his native
town. He only saw in the visage before him the pure white skin shining
through the scanty youthful beard, spirituality in the large pupils of
his grayish blue eyes. While the prayers had not yet begun, the Rabbi,
his face turned to the wall, was lost in devotion, swaying his body
rapturously—sighing and praying and snapping his fingers in divine
forgetfulness.
A resounding blow upon the altar was a signal for silence. All murmurs
hushed. An irrepressible cough here and there accentuated the sudden
stillness.
“_Lecho Daudi likras Kallo_,” the cantor in his lyric tenor trolled the
first verse of a symbolic hymn composed by Salomo Alkabiz many centuries
ago. After the manner of the Song of Songs, the Sabbath is compared to a
Princess, with whom Israel is enamoured and whom he is wooing.
The rabbi, his face still turned to the wall, breathed every syllable as
if he were in a trance, rolled his eyes heavenward in sublime ecstasy,
spread his arms as if opening them for his beloved, a new light shining
upon his countenance, glowing with the ardor of a lover, as he softly
murmured,
“_Lecho daudi likras Kallo,_
_Pnei Shabbos Nekablo._”
Friday evening is the hour of betrothal of the Princess Sabbath to her
lover Israel, but the Judengasse sighed even as it chanted this ditty.
Now the whole assemblage swayed like a forest in a storm—one could hear
the soughing of the trees—responding with renewed ecstasy—
“_Lecho daudi likras Kallo,_
_Pnei Shabbos Nekablo;_”
and the sweet tenor picked up the refrain in the next quatrain and
melted with song.
Albert did not join in the services, though his father held the prayer
book before him. His eyes wandered. The flickering cathedral candles in
front of the singing cantor cast a strange glamor over his bearded face
and over his blue-black and white-striped robe; the dazzling gold and
silver threads in the brocade curtain over the ark shimmered in the
scintillating light of the _Ner-Tomid_.
Albert soon found himself in the midst of the great stream leaving the
synagogue. The stream moved exceedingly slow. When one leaves the House
of God one must not make God feel that he runs away from Him, just as
one must hurry on the way to the synagogue in order to show anxiety to
get to His presence. The ancient worshippers of Jehovah knew every whim
and caprice of their Lord. They knew His appetite for the fat of lamb
and veal and His relish for oil and frankincense—the rising smoke of
all offerings was perfume to His nostrils. So, eager to please their
Maker, they sauntered through the Judengasse with deliberate ease—there
was pronounced luxurious relaxation in their movements—in pairs, in
threes, in small groups, preceded by their children, moving shadows on
the moon-lit ground. Albert walked along musing. There was mockery and
reverence in his heart; the reverence and mockery were blended, as he
caught snatches of conversation from the throng.
V.
For a brief period Albert was blind to all else save the romantic beauty
of his environment. He did not even brood over the humiliation of being
segregated. All Frankfort was then composed of segregated
groups—hostile camps—towns within towns, fortresses within fortresses,
every period of the distant past, clear back to the feudal days,
indelibly stamped upon the inhabitants. His imagination was aglow with
romance. Indeed the theme for a poem, a heroic poem—a poem to vie with
the Odyssey—was born in his fantastic brain. In this epic he would tell
the glorious story of Israel in the same manner as Virgil had told of
Augustus and of the Romans. His hero was to be a descendant of Don
Abarbanel, from the branch of David, and a fugitive from the Spanish
Inquisition. Yes, he visualised his hero—he was a young man with
greenish blue eyes and light brown hair, with poetic aspirations, and
the heroine—
But with the beginning of his apprenticeship the subject lost all glamor
for him. He found the banking business disappointing and the Judengasse
disheartening. He had imagined a bank was—well, he did not clearly know
what a bank was like except that money flowed from it like milk and
honey in the promised land, and with money one could buy so many
beautiful things. For aside from thought and feeling Albert was still
childishly unpractical.
Rindskopf’s bank was a sombre room with a dingy little chamber in the
rear, in which stood a large iron box and was fastened with three locks.
He had soon become dreadfully lonesome and homesick for Gunsdorf—the
Gunsdorf he had been so glad to leave only a few weeks before. He longed
for Schmallgasse, for the Marktplatz, for the Hofgarten, for Father
Rhine, for Hedwiga. He had never known how much he loved his native
town. How had he ever wished to depart from it, he asked himself again
and again in his loneliness. He had already seen the house where Goethe
was born, had again visited the Roemer and the Zeil and Sachsenhausen,
and found nothing new any longer.
All his thoughts again turned to Hedwiga. He had despatched two letters
of glowing passion and tenderness but had received no answer. So he
stayed up late at night, writing heart-rending verses about a maiden
with golden hair, who chanted as she sewed a shroud for her lover . . .
The banker had put Albert to copying letters and filling in draft blanks
and the youth found the task irksome. At the end of the second week his
work was done so mechanically and with such eloquent distaste that his
employer, seated at his writing desk a short distance away shook his
head and murmured, “_Der Junge hat kein Talent zum Geschaeft_.”
No, the young man had no talent for business. Adolf Rindskopf would have
sent him away but David Zorn was his friend and he must endure his
friend’s son a little longer. Besides, Albert wrote a very neat hand,
with a flourish which Adolf secretly envied. When he wrote to
Berlin—_die Kaiserstadt_—he was anxious to make an impression on his
correspondent. Yes, Albert’s penmanship was beautiful.
But one day while Albert was seated at the long table copying a letter
and thinking of other things, the postman came in. Albert looked up
eagerly. Although he had already given up hope of hearing from Hedwiga,
the postman revived his anxiety. But no letter for him. So he watched
Rindskopf from the corner of his eye. He loved to watch Rindskopf open
his mail. Rindskopf approached this task as a gourmand attacks a
palatable dish. His eyes dilated, his bulky stolid body stirred
restlessly in his chair, his lips twitched, avidity in every gesture.
Then he took the large ivory paper-cutter in one hand, and with the
other tapped the edge of the envelope against his desk and, raising it
on a level with his eyes, screwed one eye almost tight as he fixed the
other at the upper end, which he held against the light, and ripped it
open with the utmost care for fear of touching the contents.
“_Tausend Donner Sakrament!_” Adolf suddenly exclaimed and jumped up
from the chair, with the enclosure of the envelope in his hand.
Albert poised his pen, an amused smile on his boyish countenance.
Rindskopf’s face was flushed, his mustache twitched, his paw-like hands
trembled.
“_Ach, du lieber Gott!_” he called upon the Almighty to witness his
distress, and rushed up to Albert.
“You’ll bring ruination on me—what? Where is your head—what do you—”
He was so enraged that coherent speech would not come.
Albert’s face changed color. He paled a trifle and was terrified.
“This is a fine piece of business,” Rindskopf soon regained his
voice—“What did you do with that bill of exchange?”
This strange demand puzzled poor Albert. He stared fretfully at his
employer.
“What did you do with that bill of exchange I gave you the other day to
forward to Berlin?” Rindskopf repeated, panting.
“—I—I enclosed it in the letter—as you told me—” Albert stammered.
Adolf’s eyes were dancing over the letter in his hand. Presently he was
reading its contents aloud. “‘My dear Herr Rindskopf:
“‘In Frankfort, the birthplace of Goethe, love-songs may be called bills
of exchange, but in our prosaic city of Berlin we mean precisely what we
say. We have tried to cash the enclosed but without success; perhaps you
can do better with it in your home town—’”
Rindskopf had caught the facetious tone of the letter and burst out in
enraged laughter.
“Fine business I call this!” he cried as he continued reading the ironic
reply, accentuating every syllable, contempt in his voice: “‘We are
therefore returning your amorous ditty, much as we appreciate your
romantic sentiments, and beg to send us instead a plain, matter-of-fact
bill of exchange.’”
Adolf was beside himself. He called Albert a good-for-nothing, cursed
the day he had let the boy enter the bank, swore that his wife had
warned him against taking Zorn’s son into his house.
He then raised the returned enclosure to his eyes and began to read—
The money-changer was shaking with scornful laughter as he read on.
Albert was quivering, tears rushed to his eyes. It was not the mistake
that vexed him but Rindskopf’s mocking voice. These verses were intended
for the envelope addressed to Hedwiga!
Albert leaped forward and snatched the verses from Adolf’s hand.
“Where is my bill of exchange?” shouted Adolf.
Albert was not interested in the bill of exchange. His heavenly lyrics
had been defiled! Their recital by Rindskopf was a piercing dagger in
his heart.
“You are nothing but an ignorant boor!” Albert shouted back, striking a
pose of sublime impudence. “What is your miserable bill of exchange
compared with my poem—huh! Your _Thalers_! You ought to feel honored
that you, an ignoramus, have a poet in your employ!”
Rindskopf shrank back, stunned. Such insolence from his apprentice!
Before Adolf recovered his wits Albert had put on his hat and with a
look of unspeakable contempt strutted out of the place.
VI.
Albert’s conduct was a severe blow to his parents. Rindskopf had written
to the elder Zorn and described the disgraceful scene to its minutest
detail. “I could see from the very first day,” wrote Rindskopf, “that
your son has no bent for business, but on your account I had endured him
as long as I possibly could.”
The father made a hurried trip to Frankfort and tried to reason with
Albert. He told him of the deplorable state of his finances and that
further schooling was out of the question; and there was nothing for him
to do at home.
The father had another friend in Frankfort, Veitel Scheps, who was a
wholesale grocer and an importer of fruits from Italy. Veitel was
willing to give the young man a chance to learn his trade.
Veitel was a little man, nothing but skin and bones, with a grizzly
little beard, the end of which he was in the habit of chewing wistfully.
Veitel seemed always absent-minded. There was a strange light in his big
brown eyes. He was nearly sixty, but there was the fire of youth in his
eyes. He received his friend’s son kindly and assigned to him the
easiest work in his warehouse. He also housed him in his own home, and
his wife, being childless, bestowed on Albert maternal tenderness.
For a short time everything went well. Albert liked Veitel and his place
of business. The warehouse was sunless, filled with bales of dried
fruits, casks of wine, boxes of oranges and lemons and dates, permeated
with the pleasant odors of figs and raisins and the delicacies of the
Italian soil. Albert’s task was to take down the numbers of the
shipments and the quantities that came in and went out.
He loved to lose himself in the rear of the large storehouse, where
there were narrow passages stacked with boxes and sacks and crates of
wafting fragrance. The scents were inspiring. He had just read Goethe’s
“_Briefe aus Italien_” and visualized the graphic descriptions of the
great master. At times he would move listlessly through those darkened
passages, conjuring visions of the land “_wo die Citronen blühen_.”
Meandering through these fruit-smelling passages he often imagined
himself under the blue skies of Italy. A spear of sunshine stealing in
through the crack of a dust-covered window pane enhanced the illusion.
That was the glorious light of Italian skies shining upon the sun-baked
lanes of Capri. It was not the creaking of the ungreased wheels of
Franz’s wheelbarrow—Franz was the peasant lad trundling heavy-laden
boxes—that he heard but the twittering of birds in the green foliage of
Sorrento. A horse was neighing outside. Albert’s breast heaved with
sensuous joy. For to his ears it was the braying of a donkey clambering
up the narrow cliff road to Salerno.
“Albert!—Albert!” someone was calling, but he only heard the distant
echoes from his wonderland. Leaning against a column of casks he paused
and wrote verses that had been running through his head for days—
“Albert—Albert Zorn!”
The voice became impatient, irritable, anger in the tone. It was the
voice of Veitel.
“Franz is waiting for the numbers!” he cried.
Albert tried hard to remember on which errand he had been sent.
Presently the agitated Veitel was before him. The wagon was outside and
had to be loaded for the boat sailing for Coblenz and Albert stood
there, staring at him like an idiot!
Veitel took a step back. The young man must have lost his wits. His wife
had told him the boy had been acting queerly, always as if in dreamland.
For a moment Veitel was baffled. Perhaps he ought to run back for help.
One could not tell what a maniac might do! The wife of a friend of his
had been stabbed by a maid servant under similar circumstances, he
recalled. She, too, had acted queerly—the maid servant had been
melancholy—and suddenly, while she was peeling potatoes, she stabbed
her mistress with her paring knife!
“Are you not feeling well, Albert?” Veitel’s tone was now soft,
sympathetic, cautious.
He was moving back step by step, coaxing the young maniac to follow him.
As soon as he emerged into the open Veitel gained courage.
“Where is the list?” he pleaded.
Albert shuddered. He could not free his mind from the illusion. He was
still under the blue skies of Italy.
“Where are the numbers?” Veitel demanded.
“The numbers—what numbers?” Albert’s voice was somnolent. “Just a
moment!”
He had not finished writing the last two verses and was afraid they
might escape his memory, so while Veitel scolded he put the sheet of
paper against a box nearby and scribbled the end of his ballad. He then
looked up with clearer vision in his eyes.
“Didn’t you take the numbers down for the Coblenz shipment? Franz is
waiting for them.”
“O, yes, the numbers;” and he rushed back to execute the order, Veitel
staring at large.
“No, the boy has no talent for business,” Veitel confirmed Rindskopf’s
opinion, and wrote a lengthy letter to his friend David Zorn.
This time the father made no trip to Frankfort. Instead he sent Albert
money for the homeward journey.
VII.
He returned home downhearted. He felt the cheerlessness of his
home-coming. The very excessive tenderness of his mother, the
over-affectionate embrace of his sister, accentuated his failure. He
felt the kindliness accorded the afflicted, the solace given to people
in trouble. And although there was defiance in his bearing he felt
keenly the disappointment on the faces of his family.
Nobody spoke of his future. Even his father—always full of plans—only
cleared his throat, passed his hand lightly over his fine beard, and
murmured “We’ll see”, whenever his wife broached the subject.
So Albert drifted. In his present state of mental confusion he postponed
calling on Hedwiga from day to day. He stayed at home and read, walked
the streets and mused, lay stretched on the river bank and pondered all
sorts of things. He also spent much time writing, chiefly verses, which
he clandestinely sent to editors who would not have them.
He wandered about the streets, along the river bank, like a liberated
prisoner. No, he was not thinking of the Judengasse, of its tragedy, of
its quaint traditions; he would not sing of the glory, and the tragedy,
of Israel. He was emancipated, a true son of the Rhineland. He would
sing of the shattered ruins on the banks of the Rhine peopled with
golden legends, of beautiful Hedwiga, of fair Katherine, of pretty
Gertrude. No, no, he was no descendant of Miram and David, he was no
compatriot of Isaiah and Yehudah H’Levi, no fellow-sufferer of the
dwellers of the Ghetto. The cradle of his forefathers had stood in
Greece, her Gods were his Gods, the great unconquered world his world.
And it was summer again. The sun was cooling its burning rays in the
liquid silver of the gently flowing Rhine, a thousand echoes shouted
greetings from the vine-clad shores, the mossy boulders called and
beckoned to him to lie down and dream of things eternal!
All his slumbering romantic sentiments reawakened and with them came his
longing for Hedwiga, his Lorelei.
On the morning he went to see her the sun was blazing in the skies and
the road was dusty. His heart was pounding with joy as he left the
narrow little streets of the town and struck out in the road that led to
the Free House. No serious thought intruded upon his mind at present; he
was carefree. The image of the slender girl with the golden locks was
dancing before his eyes. He strode along jauntily, joyously,
expectantly. The hut loomed up in the distance. He first caught sight of
the large elm tree, and there was a fluttering in his breast.
Hedwiga! He saw her clinging skirt, her great black eyes, her bare feet,
her beautiful throat.
What was this? A cart at the door! The two little windows of the hut
wide open, and likewise the door; people moving about inside—a hearse!
It must be the Witch. There was a pang of sorrow in his heart, but then
she was old, and the old must die.
He entered the hut. Only three old women and a man; the women with
hanging heads stood round a wooden box and the man held a board in his
hands.
Where was Hedwiga?
The man waved the board in the direction of the box.
The morning sun cast a strange pallor over the dead face in the coffin.
Albert trembled from head to foot and a flood of tears rolled down his
wan cheeks.
The man looked at the youth without sadness. The three women, too,
glanced at him puzzled.
Yes, the Witch had died two weeks before and now her niece was dead.
They did not know what the girl died of—how could anyone tell what a
person died of! The soul left the body and all was ended. There was a
grimacing smile on the face of the woman who answered Albert’s
questions. Maybe it was the evil spirits—who could tell?
He bent over the coffin for some silent moments. He stared blankly at
the white shroud, at the waxen face, at the closed eyes . . .
Then the man and the three women carried the coffin to the cart outside,
and the cart started and moved away slowly, the wheels creaking,
crunching the clods of the dry mud . . .
A NIGHTINGALE IN A CROW’S NEST.
I.
“_Es küsst sich so süsse der Busen der Zweiten_
_Als kaum sich der Busen der Ersten geküsst._”
Goethe.
What youth, what poetic youth, could not say this with equal truth if he
would, had he the candor of the great bard of Weimar? Albert Zorn had
more than candor; the public was his priest to whom he confessed more
than he sinned. He never concealed the fact that to him woman was an
antidote to woman. And love was such a wonderful inspiration for
melodious verses! At times he could not tell which he loved most, the
melodious verses or the woman who inspired them.
Had he already forgotten Hedwiga with that waxen face and white shroud?
Indeed not; he sang of her in the most tragic refrains and dedicated to
her memory a dream picture—_ein Traumbild_—and when he read it over
and over, again and again, his heart almost broke and burning tears
bedewed his flushed cheeks. But even as he wept for Hedwiga he yearned
for some other pretty maiden to take her place in his heart.
He had changed considerably during this listless year. He had grown
taller, his hair was longer and fell unevenly over his coat collar, and
his sparkling eyes were even more narrowed, as if to hide from the
people around him how much he could see; there was also something
indefinable about the deep corners of his large mouth that seemed
provoking. He carried a cane and brandished it dreamily as he strolled
through the lime-tree lane in the Hofgarten, where there were always
pretty girls in gay colors “like bright tulips planted along the flowery
paths.”
The year seemed interminably long. Without school attendance, without
any definite hours allotted to study or work, without any occupation, he
was fancy free. He read whatever books suited his taste and gave
expression to whatever ideas flitted through his brains. And after the
ecstasy of composition would come despair, the despair that must come to
the artist striving after perfection of expression, when he would regard
his songs and dream-pictures as mere drivel. What would become of him!
True, Christian was ever ready with his solace—the greatness of many
had remained unrecognized for a time, he reminded Albert—but that did
not console the young poet. Ah, he was a worthless fellow—what would
become of him!
Then he would shut himself up in his room, without wishing to see any
one. He would be weighed down by his grief, the grief of his conflicting
emotions and thoughts. He would reveal himself to himself and hate
himself. He had already passed his eighteenth year and nothing had
happened. What would become of him?
But what was there for him to do? His father’s business was worthless;
he did not care for his grandfather’s profession, though he had
entertained it for a while since Schiller, too, had been a physician;
and jurisprudence—well, he had no taste for that. Besides, a university
career meant a great expenditure of money and he knew it was beyond his
parents’ means.
At last the father wrote to his brother, Leopold, and asked for his
advice. Leopold told him to send the young man to Hamburg. He would find
a place for him.
II.
Albert arrived in Hamburg on a warm day late in June. He was dusty,
hungry, tired. Travel by chaise to Hamburg was very fatiguing. And to
add to his discomfiture when he reached his uncle’s town he found the
shutters closed and the doors boarded, the family having departed for
their summer home. Why had not his uncle given him specific instructions
how to get to him? He was vexed and stormed at the coachman. A neighbor
finally furnished his uncle’s business address. Everybody knew the
location of Leopold Zorn’s bank.
Albert’s irritation increased at finding Uncle Leopold away.
“Was I not expected?” he demanded.
The pompous man, whom he addressed, smiled—haughtily, Albert
thought—and turned away from him as if he were a tailor’s apprentice
delivering a garment.
“Aaron, Herr Zorn’s nephew is over there,” the pompous man called—“that
boy with the valise at the door—”
“That boy with the valise at the door!” Albert felt wroth enough to turn
around and go back home with the same chaise. Huh! that boy with the
valise at the door.
Presently his anger turned to laughter. A short, broad, middle-aged man,
with sunken cheeks which were rounded by a growth of a beard streaked
with gray, approached him. He seemed to lurch forward, rubbed his right
hand against his greenish coat, and extended the usual greetings to him.
His was a short, fat little hand, moist and clinging.
“Yes, my child,” he addressed Albert patronizingly, though not
unrespectfully, smacking his lips after every few words as if feeling
the taste of his utterance—“Yes, my child, your esteemed uncle has
given me instructions to look after your wants. Ah, that uncle of
yours,—a heart of gold!—yes, my child, pure gold, sifted gold—gold,
as the Bible says, that comes from Ophir. God grant that we have a few
more the likes of him; yes, my child, pure gold without a speck of
dross. ‘Aaron,’ says he to me—‘Aaron Hirsch,’ says he, ‘my nephew will
drop in one of these days during my absence and I want you to take good
care of him and find him respectable lodgings.’ ‘Herr Banquier,’ says I
to him, ‘you need not worry on that score, Aaron Hirsch will take good
care of his benefactor’s nephew.’ Indeed, my child, I have just the
place for you—yes, sir, just the place—the very best place—in fact.
The widow Rodbertus on the Grosse Bleichenstrasse has a room overlooking
a garden with two large windows. No back-hall bedroom for the nephew of
the great banker, says I to myself.” Aaron laughed unctuously. “And it
is not far from here either. Just a step as we say in Hamburg. Let me
have the valise—it’s too heavy for you. I can carry it with my little
finger.”
Aaron’s speech grew in fluency as they proceeded on the way to Widow
Rodbertus, though “his little finger” had soon grown tired and he was
forced to rest his valise on the sidewalk now and then.
He plodded on, his speech uninterrupted in spite of the encumbrance.
“You see, I am a trusted clerk in your esteemed uncle’s bank,” he said
when they had reached Grosse Bleichenstrasse and, lowering his voice, he
added, “but as a side line I sell lottery tickets. S—sh! Your esteemed
uncle warned me not to sell any tickets to anyone in his employ or to
any of the bank’s customers.”
“There is honor among thieves—hey? Only one robbery at a time,” Albert
struck in.
Aaron suddenly let the valise drop to the pavement, and, with his hands
at his sides, burst into convulsive laughter.
“That’s a good one—I must tell it to your esteemed uncle.” Then
reverting to a more serious tone he said cautiously, “I sold your father
the very first lottery ticket he ever purchased—ask him if I tell you a
lie. And he came within three numbers of the Grand Prize. Just think of
it—within three numbers! If the man drawing the lottery had just moved
his hand a tiny bit further down—just a wee, wee bit—your father would
have been the recipient of two hundred thousand marks! And do you think
I’d have asked your father for a single _pfennig_ for having been his
good angel—no, no, not a _pfennig_, not a _groschen_, not even a
thank-you! No, my child, not Aaron Hirsch! I wouldn’t have asked your
good father for a pinch of snuff.”
But they were soon inside, Aaron introducing the young man to Widow
Rodbertus as the nephew of the “great banker” and Madame Rodbertus to
Albert as the kindest soul that ever drew breath.
III.
When he found himself in his room free from Aaron’s chatter he grew sad
again, the sadness of disappointment gripped him. Not a word of welcome
from his uncle. And that fat pompous man in the bank—he had puffed and
sputtered like a porpoise—that man called him a boy!—had not even
introduced himself or said a friendly word to him! The thought burned in
his brain; his heart was filled with bitterness. He was received like a
poor relation—He! Albert Zorn, who was soon to make the world talk of
him as they were now talking of Byron! Ah! that haughty man in the bank
had looked at him as if he were an errand boy! He, Albert Zorn, with
scores of lyrics in his valise and the first draft of a tragedy that
would vie with Schiller’s “Wallenstein”, with “Childe Harold”! That
red-faced, pompous man, proud of his purse—a mere money-bag! Huh! “That
boy with the valise at the door”!
He paced up and down the room and finally paused before the window
overlooking the garden. The garden of Aaron’s vision was a little
courtyard with a pine tree in the center, encircled by meagre little
shrubs. For a moment he stood gazing upon the lonely tree absently.
Aside from the few stunted shrubs around it there was not a shade of
green in sight. He soon felt a kinship with the tree. It was
symbolical—like the fir tree before him he stood alone on the barren
heights of the north, wrapt in a white coverlet of ice and snow, and
dreaming of a palm tree in distant sunny lands . . .
His disappointment awakened in him crushing melancholy. Lonely and in
silent sorrow on the scorching rock precipice! Tears trickled down his
cheeks, though he was not conscious of them. Never had he felt so
lonesome, so forsaken, the ground under him so barren and cold; and
never had his heart so yearned for the warmth of the sun . . .
A door opened somewhere. It sounded loud in the quiet courtyard. The
window before him was open and he leaned dreamily forward. He heard the
voice of Frau Rodbertus on the threshold, escorting someone to the door.
Another voice reached his ears—a silvery voice, the voice of a young
girl, with the music of feminine sweetness in it. Sudden joy leaped into
his heart. He did not feel so lonesome now. He felt as if a tender hand
was soothing his irritated nerves; the sweet murmur of a brooklet was in
his ears. He leaned a trifle forward. A young girl, with a green parasol
in her hand, was taking a step at a time backwards, and talking to Frau
Rodbertus. He found himself studying the girl’s face and figure, a
strange tingling in his blood. A girl with soft brown eyes—that looked
large and dark—black hair and a dainty yet vigorous little body. As she
kept retreating he became conscious of the movement of her feet—there
was something deliciously sweet, almost rhythmical, about her tripping
movements, and about the swaying of her skirt.
“_Au revoir!_” The girl was taking leave of Frau Rodbertus in the soft
accent of the French, not in that harsh voice of the German when
interspersing French words in their conversation.
“_Au revoir!_”
The portal closed, the door downstairs was slammed. A feeling of
delicious cheer in Albert’s being. The ground under his feet was no more
barren and cold; he no longer thought of his uncle’s neglect, of that
pompous man in the bank. He was dreaming of sunny lands . . . He again
paced up and down the room but with throbbing joy in his heart.
He soon rushed to the little oak table at the window and sat down, as if
something was propelling him to quick action. Volatile thoughts played
hide and seek with his brain. He leaned back, his sensitive lips parted
slightly, as of a person in a fever, his half-closed eyes as if in
stupor. “Sweet eyes—blessedly sweet brown eyes,” he murmured. The tips
of his delicate fingers moved slowly as if he were caressing a smooth
cheek, his heart was pulsating in short, panting beats, and removing a
sheet of paper from his breast pocket, as if in a dream, scribbled a
line or two, murmured the words over and over, again and again,
unearthly bliss stealing over his countenance . . .
IV.
Two days later his uncle returned from his summer home. Aaron Hirsch led
him to the banker’s private office. Bowing and curtseying the unctuous
Hirsch explained to his master how punctiliously he had carried out his
orders and what wonderful lodgings he had procured for his nephew.
Leopold Zorn smiled benignly and was very solicitous in his inquiries
about Albert’s father, his mother, and every one of the children.
The banker was of medium height but, seated, looked tall. He held his
head erect, his high collar (cut low in front for the freedom of his
longish smooth shaven chin) pressing against his closely cropped
side-whiskers, which were once brown but now somewhat faded, with
streaks of gray. There was a pleasant twinkle in his eyes, but it was
the twinkle of the quick-tempered which can change to flashing fury upon
the least provocation.
The uncle studied his nephew as he tried to draw him out in
conversation, and felt disappointed. David had given him to understand
that Albert was bright but he could detect no brightness in the young
man. The boy was more like his father, a ne’er-do-well, passed through
the banker’s mind; nothing of his mother. Furthermore, he was annoyed at
the young man’s constant twirling of his walking stick. He felt that
this conceited youth was not sufficiently impressed with his uncle’s
importance. Callers at his private office did not sit with their legs
crossed, twirling their canes. The banker’s annoyance was growing. He
thought best to make the young man understand his place at the outset.
“I shall be glad to find employment for you here,” he said with a show
of impressiveness and a knot appearing in his left eyebrow, “and if you
show the proper spirit and industry you will have a chance to rise. But
you must dismiss all nonsense from your mind (David had told him that
Albert was fooling his time away on verses). You must give your
undivided attention to business if you hope to make anything of
yourself; and”—he cleared his throat and turned his eyes aside—“you
must show the proper respect for your elders.”
Albert listened but was unable to concentrate on what his uncle was
saying. Instead, his mind dwelt upon his uncle’s physiognomy. He liked
the straight nose—rather broad at the bottom—and the well shaped
mouth. He also liked his grayish hair parted on the side. The tone of
his voice displeased him. There was a ring of haughtiness in it.
The next moment, however, his feeling warmed toward his uncle. Leopold
mistook his nephew’s preoccupied silence for submission and instantly
regretted his harshness. Leopold was quick-tempered but keenly conscious
of his failing. Kind hearted to a fault it hurt him to think he was
unduly severe with his brother’s son. He softened instantly and
endeavored to make amends.
“I know you’ll like Hamburg. It is a city of great opportunities,” he
said tenderly.
Albert’s face saddened. He realized the opportunities his uncle had in
mind had a different meaning from those in his own.
“Don’t be so downhearted, Albert.” Uncle Leopold’s voice was now jovial,
kindly, a pleasing smile in his eyes. He touched Albert’s knee as if to
buoy him up. “Your work here won’t be hard. Are you short of money?”
He opened his wallet and handed him several bills.
Leopold touched the silver bell on his secretary and Hirsch appeared.
“Tell Herr Elfenbein to come in,” he ordered.
A stout red-faced man, with fleshy eyelids, a long gold watch chain
resting on his spherical abdomen, like a sleeping snake on a sunny rock,
presently appeared at the door. It was the pompous man Albert saw on the
day of his arrival.
“Martin, this is my nephew—David’s son—this is Herr Elfenbein,
Albert—”
Martin extended a lax hand.
“Albert has had a good education and writes a fine hand,” Uncle Leopold
added, “and I’ll place him in your care. But don’t spare the rod.” The
banker’s face was writhing in smiles as he said this and then laughed
jovially. “I think Albert needs a little discipline—hey? What do you
say, Albert?”
“Don’t worry, we won’t spare him,” returned Elfenbein, smiling.
And indeed Martin Elfenbein did not spare him. Martin was a hard
taskmaster and gave orders in a surly voice, devoid of human warmth.
Albert began where he had left off at Rindskopf’s—copying letters,
filling in exchange blanks, and other uncongenial labors.
He grew morose and kept to himself. Even poetry had lost all interest
for him. He picked up a volume by Goethe, by Lessing, by Schiller, but
their song received no response from his soul. Was his imagination
becoming barren? He tried to express his despair but even in this he
failed. His mind was a blank. No new thoughts, no fresh sentiments,
nothing but stagnation.
One morning his uncle invited him to his country home and at once his
slumbering sentiments reawakened. The hope of meeting his cousin Hilda,
whose memory he had cherished since she visited Gunsdorf two years ago,
changed his depressing gloom to buoyant cheer. His muse had suddenly
returned. He was full of song and merriment.
HILDA.
I.
The sight of Hilda seemed to Albert like a dream come true. Instead of
the girl of his fancy, however, he was met by a young lady with the
poise of one accustomed to drawing room manners. The girl of his memory
was an unsophisticated young girl of fifteen. And while she was cordial,
her cordiality lacked the intimacy he had hoped for.
His inner chafing made him regard everybody around him with misgiving.
With the hypersensitiveness of the dreamer he divined disparagement in
the glances of the smartly dressed people around him. He felt himself an
outsider, a mere poor relative. He wished to flee, and would have fled
but for the presence of his cousin.
But the more friendliness shown him the more restless he became. It was
not friendliness he wanted. He craved affection, not merely the formal
friendship of a host. And the people about him treated him as a guest,
yet differently from the other guests who were visiting the banker at
the time. The other guests were a lively group and indulged in dances,
games, and amusing pastimes, none of which engaged his interest. His
aunt encouraged him and gave him veiled hints about the amenities of
society and etiquette, and this exasperated him still more.
So instead of joining the gay circle he would repair to the seashore, a
short distance away, and spend hours watching the tide, with tumult in
his brain and bitterness in his breast.
One day at sunset he found himself alone on the seashore, a creeping,
soothing melancholy stealing over him. There were horizontal bars in the
west resembling a rustic fence, one plank of which was jagged and
broken, with tatters of gold and silver streaming from it, as if the sun
in its flight had forced its way through this barrier, leaving behind
fragments of its gorgeous raiment. For a while he sat and gazed with
rapture in his heart. He sat crouched like a Japanese Buddha, his eyes
screwed up, his elbows upon his knees, his head between his hands.
He yielded to the scene before him sensuously, his whole being immersed
in it. He gave himself to the fight and sounds as a voluptuary gives
himself to lust. He was scarcely conscious that he was thinking of Hilda
instead of the sunset. He thought she had been paying no attention to
him. And yet there was something about her that gave him hope . . .
Footsteps down the poplar lane. His heart beat fast. He knew they were
her footsteps; and she was alone. Had she seen him? She turned quickly
around and walked back. She walked rapidly with the unsteady gait of
fright.
“She hates me,” he murmured to himself. Perhaps? There was again a
flutter of hope. He had read a great number of romances and began to
reason, as if reason ever helped a lover solve the great problem. But he
reasoned both ways with equal conviction. She-loves-me and
she-loves-me-not are reached by the same route. He found his place of
vantage less enticing. The sunset and the restless sea lacked the
romantic interest of a moment before. His mind drifted in other
directions. He thought of his uncle, of his aunt, of the guests. Why did
he find himself out of joint with people around him? What was there that
made him rebellious in their midst? Why did he feel their faults so
keenly, so glaringly? Why was he not in sympathy with them? He had felt
out of place in Gunsdorf, in the Judengasse, and now he was feeling out
of place at his uncle’s house. His thoughts, his tastes, his
inclinations, his aspirations, were all Hellenic—there was not a
vestige of the Hebraic in him, he concluded. He did not yet realize that
these vagaries, this very world-weariness—the _Weltschmerz_—was
Hebraic, that what he thought emanated from the Acropolis, came from
Mount Carmel and from the plains of Sharon.
In the evening he found himself alone in his room, the silence of the
summer night around him. He was thought-weary. He had blown out the
candle and welcomed the darkness. A nightingale was singing somewhere in
the grove. He pushed the window further open. He caught the distant
sound of the waves breaking on the cliffs; it was the sweeping sound of
contending forces. A fire-fly was flitting around—intermittent
pin-pricks in the dark curtain before him. His fatiguing thoughts had
fled. His brain was a blank. He was only a child of the senses. Peace
gathered within him, the sweet peace of night and of silence. Emotions
possessed him—no, not emotions which stir conflict but those that
instill a conscious soothing, a slumbering sensuousness. He leaned back
in his chair by the window, unseeing, unthinking.
Gradually—in faint outline—the image of Hilda was before him . . .
There had been dancing earlier in the evening and he now saw Hilda
waltzing around the room, her firm little feet moving nimbly, a twinkle
in her roguish eyes as she flitted by and glanced over her partner’s
shoulder toward where he was seated. Confound it, why had he never
learned to dance!
He recalled the last time he had made an effort to learn to dance and
laughed at himself. He could now hear that little Frenchman count _un,
deux, trois—un, deux, trois_. The Frenchman shook his head and told him
he had no rhythm in his soul! If he had told him he had no rhythm in his
feet he could have forgiven him. Albert was in a rage and the French
dancing-master ran for his life, and later told everybody that Herr Zorn
was quite mad, quite insane.
Yes, he ought to learn to dance. He must learn the amenities of the
young, as Aunt Betty had hinted. In some ways he acted like a
middle-aged man—this was what Aunt Betty had said smilingly. Perhaps
this was the reason Hilda was acting so peculiarly in his presence, he
said to himself; she treated him as if he were middle-aged. He was too
agitated to sit still . . .
He jumped up from his seat and walked across the dark room. No, no, he
could not be like the others—he could not—those shallow-brained
parrots, repeating the same phrases, the same platitudes, the same inane
compliments to ladies—he could not bear these smug Philistines! But
Hilda——
A bird was singing. Yes, it was the melting notes of the nightingale. He
was again seated by the window, thoughtless, a delicious sensuousness
filling his whole being, his eyes resting on the shadow of the trees in
the light of the stars, the tranquility of the night possessed him . . .
II.
He arose quite happy the next morning, boyishly happy. He wrote a few
verses and felt happier still. Then he read his lines over and the music
of his own words made him jubilant. Dissatisfaction with his composition
never came to him until the day after; on the same day he was always
happy, always pleased with himself——
And his mood seemed contagious. Aunt Betty smiled upon him and Hilda,
too, suddenly seemed attentive. She even suggested a walk with him, and
on the way through the garden stooped to pluck a rose for him and then
plucked another, the stem of which she held between her teeth, the red
flower drooping over her chin. He found himself talking to her without
timidity, without constraint, and she, too, laughed and recalled little
pranks he played on her when she visited Gunsdorf. He reminded her that
she had been a little girl then, her hair like a loose skein of silk
hanging down her back and even remembered the color of her dress and the
ribbon she had worn in her hair. His voice seemed to caress every
garment of hers as he dwelt in detail upon her dress in those days and
her attire now. She blushed as her eyes met his. She felt as if he had
actually passed his hand over her dress as he contrasted her former
short dresses with her present long skirt. He kept at a respectful
distance from her but once or twice his sleeve came in contact with her
sleeve and he consciously shrank back half a step, and she was strangely
conscious of the momentary touch.
He talked freely, bubbling over. He was alone with her, just she and he.
He felt for a moment that there was nobody else on earth but the two of
them. And they were walking through the narrow paths, high hedges on
either side, the sunlight sifting through like the finest silvery
powder, birds twittering and chirping everywhere. At times she walked
ahead of him—when the path was too narrow for them to walk side by
side—the bit of neck between her coiled hair and the collar of her
dress a delicious magnet, her elastic yet vigorous step music to his
ears. He was deploring the fact that so few people in Hamburg were
interested in poetry. She agreed with him and that irritated him without
knowing why and he became cynical.
“The people in Hamburg care more for beer and _sauerkraut_ than for
Lessing and Goethe,” he was saying. “They lack romance—” Then he tossed
his head, with a spiteful smile on his lips, and added, “When Cupid
darted his arrow at the Hamburg women he struck them in the stomach
instead of the heart.”
Hilda walked on in silence. His witticism displeased her. He had made a
few slurring remarks about Hamburgers before. They were walking side by
side and he noticed the slight change in her face. She did not seem as
friendly as before.
“I was not referring to all Hamburgers,” he said in a jesting tone
emphasizing the _all_.
He wished to make some allusion to herself but could not. She suddenly
seemed so distant. He thought he detected anger in her eyes. Then he
attempted playfulness, but that seemed to annoy her still more. Women
were a capricious lot, he concluded. He was beginning to understand
women, he was persuading himself, without realizing that to understand
them was the surest means of being disliked by them.
When they returned to the house they found the family on the veranda.
Hilda rushed up to her mother as if she had lost her way and at last
found it. He again felt awkward.
He went to his room and finished the poem that he had begun the day
before and copied it in a neat hand and again went in search of Hilda.
He found her seated on the ground under a tree with a book in her lap.
He approached her without timidity and at first stood by her chatting,
then sat down beside her. Albert was a good talker when he had a
definite subject but lacked the art of polite social conversation. He
was at his best when attacking or praising someone or something. The
book in her hand was a peg on which to hang conversation, and he made an
attempt to look at it.
“Is the book so bad that you would not have anyone see it?” he teased
her as she declined to show it to him.
“No, it’s a good book,”—still holding it behind her as if to prevent
him from seizing it.
“By whom was it written?”
She shook her head negatively, a faint smile in her eyes.
“What’s the name?”
Her head again shook from side to side.
“What’s it about?”
“You are too young to know.” She laughed softly, her eyes contracting.
“Let’s talk of something more interesting—Rudolph, for instance.”
(Rudolph was one of the young men of whom Albert was jealous.)
She gave a short mischievous laugh.
He looked at her earnestly. He wondered why she was teasing him about
Rudolph. Her mobile features underwent expressions he could not
understand. Then he turned to her suddenly, with self-pity in his voice,
and said, “Why do you dislike me so much, Hilda?”
And before she had a chance to reply he added petulantly, “Everybody
here dislikes me—everybody!”
There was the peevishness of the vexed child in his voice, with a lump
of emotion in his throat.
Although he had not clearly thought of this before, no sooner had the
words escaped him than he believed them. He felt himself hated by all
around him.
Her attitude toward him changed instantly. Leaning forward, with the
book replaced in her lap so he could see it was “Herman and Dorothea”,
she said, “Oh, Albert, you only imagine things. Mother is very fond of
you, and so is father, only they don’t think you apply yourself to
business assiduously enough.”
Her beautiful sea-green eyes rested on his face sympathetically. She
looked at him as if to convince him she was not merely saying this to
soothe him.
“I know, I know, they all think me an idler, a good-for-nothing, a
worthless fellow.” His words came precipitately, passionately. “They
can’t see any good in anyone unless he is immersed in business—nothing
counts but business success. All I hear is money, money, money
everywhere!” He raised his hands as if he meant to shut out the sight of
money. “It rings in my ears from morning till night—it rings all over
Hamburg. It’s deafening—money! Nothing else interests anybody. Neither
literature nor music nor art of any sort. Money seems an end in itself.
Ah! It’s maddening—maddening! I am made to feel every moment that God
created all the beauty in the world—the green trees and the blooming
flowers and the foamy waves—and women’s beautiful eyes and their
luxuriant hair and their crimson lips (he was looking at her
yearningly)—with only one end in the scheme of creation—money! Oh, I
am disgusted with everything——.”
“You are morbid, Albert,” she said, looking straight at him and noting
the despondency in his dreamy countenance. Then she smiled and added,
“You are a Werther without a Charlotte.”
He felt the sting of her remark. To him her flippant retort was full of
meaning.
“Even you hate me,” he burst out.
He turned his face away.
“What makes you say such things?” she demanded.
“I can see it. You don’t act toward me as you do toward—” he tossed his
head without completing the sentence.
“As I do toward Rudolph,” she finished it for him with a light laugh.
Then she gazed at him for a moment and, shaking her head, said, “You
silly boy.”
“I don’t blame you—Rudolph is a shrewd business man and I am only a
clerk in your father’s bank—”
“So you think I am in love with Rudolph—”
“I know you hate me—”
“Why should I hate you?”
Her sparring with him cheered him even though his face was still sad. He
was happy to hear her contradict him. They soon drifted to “Herman and
Dorothea” and he began to talk of Goethe. He wished to read her the poem
he had just finished but he wondered if she would divine who had
inspired it. He persuaded himself he did not want her to know this. And
while he was battling with the idea his hand traveled to his pocket and
he withdrew the neatly copied verses.
He watched her face eagerly as her eyes wandered over the sheet. She
seemed to be reading every line over and over in order to grasp their
meaning.
He had hoped she would make some allusion to the subject described. He
had also hoped she might ask him for permission to keep the poem, but
not a word. Her eyes only contracted a bit, a faint deepening of color
on her cheeks, and she had suddenly again grown distant. He felt as if
she had unexpectedly stretched out her arm and forbade him to come near
her. He was conscious of the awkwardness of her silence. Her lips were
closed tightly as she would not open them for fear a word might drop.
“You think poetry mere drivel, don’t you?” he said as he awkwardly
replaced the poem into his pocket.
Her eyelashes rose, a silent look, but without a responsive syllable.
“At least you think _my_ poetry is drivel,” he soon added.
There was the faintest smile playing around her lips. Her silence and
smile seemed to him a challenge. His dormant pride, his sublime
confidence in his powers, suddenly made him boastful. There was fire in
his eyes.
“You just wait and I’ll show you all that my poems are no drivel. I’ll
make my songs ring throughout the land. Every man, woman, and child
shall read them. You may all laugh at me now—and Rudolph may jest about
me—but I’ll make them all listen to me some day—”
He looked at her face but could read nothing in it. The next moment he
became conscious of his boasting and felt ashamed of his utterances.
“Oh, I am a fool,” he burst out as if talking to himself. “You think me
a braggart, don’t you?” He touched her hand and looked beseechingly at
her.
She looked at him intently for a bare second.
“I am very unhappy,—I’ve always been unhappy. I am a little child
crying for the moon, and the moon is so far, far away and doesn’t even
know that a poor child is crying for it.”
There were unshed tears in his eyes.
“Why do you make yourself so unhappy?” she asked and stirred, with a
frown on her pretty face.
But he did not answer. He noticed the approach of Uncle Leopold and Aunt
Betty.
“Why so serious?” Aunt Betty asked, smiling and at the same time
studying Hilda’s face.
“We were discussing poetry,” she answered, rising.
III.
Albert appeared at dinner and vanished immediately after that. He
scarcely spoke a word during the meal. But this was not unusual. Dinner
in this household was served with such elaborate ceremony—waiters and
butlers and many courses—that the stiffness of it all robbed him of
speech. Aunt Betty noticed his glance in Hilda’s direction once or twice
but her daughter ignored her cousin entirely. The mother heaved a sigh
of relief. She had been unduly alarmed.
What the watchful mother failed to observe was that as they rose from
the table and were passing to the adjoining room Albert dashed across to
Hilda and mumbled something in a panting voice and left abruptly. She
paled but did not turn to see whither he had gone.
She joined her family but after a while chose a secluded place,
apparently reading. She turned the pages of her book as if she were
perusing them without seeing a word before her. She seemed vexed and
perplexed and now and then jerked her head as if shaking off an
intruding thought. Finally she walked up to her room and closed the door
resolutely as if she had made a decision and given emphatic expression
to it. She then threw herself on her bed and lay for a time, staring at
the ceiling.
“Seven o’clock near Klopstock’s grave,” she murmured to herself.
Shortly after that she walked down stairs and remained standing in the
doorway over the veranda and walked slowly, deliberately, down the broad
stone steps, pausing and lingering a while on every step, like a playful
child, and looking at her feet as she moved them. When she reached the
pebbled path of the winding walk she played with the little stones with
the tip of her dainty slipper as if there were not a single thought
passing through her mind. Presently she was standing before the
marble-walled well in the centre of the garden and looked curiously at
the carved figures on the outside as if she had never seen them before.
Dimly she remembered that Albert had spoken of them the other day—they
were mythological figures and he had explained them to her. She recalled
his face and the manner in which he looked at her as he spoke of the
beautiful goddesses of Greece.
She was soon out of sight of the beautiful mansion on the hill,
sauntering down the slope that led to the seashore. Along the Elbe was a
cliff-walk that led to a promontory on which was the grave of him who
sang of The Messiah.
The sun was going down but it was still long before sunset in this
northern clime. There was a golden haze in the air, with hoards of
mosquitoes and tiny insects in column formation flitting about like a
dancing procession. Klopstock’s grave was west of the Zorn villa, where
the sun was sliding down the curving horizon and making the
many-branched linden tree over the tomb look like a burnished bush.
There was tumult in her brain and her heart was beating irregularly. A
number of limes she halted and half-turned, as if she were attempting to
twist herself loose from the embrace of some invisible being, but soon
again she proceeded on her way.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he said as he came running toward her.
His teeth were almost chattering, his voice was strained.
“I shouldn’t have come—I know I shouldn’t,” she was saying, scarcely
glancing at him.
“Why do you despise me so?—”
He touched her hand which she withdrew quickly and put it back of her
like an angered child.
“You don’t know how miserable I feel—Hilda—.” His voice was plaintive,
pleading. “I know you detest me—You don’t even care for my poems, the
echoes of my heart. Oh, Hilda—just a word—”
“You make me so unhappy,” she interrupted him. He thought he saw anger
in her eyes.
“I am so sorry if my love makes you unhappy.” His voice was now
penitent, humble, beseeching. “But I can’t help it, Hilda. We don’t will
love—love wills us. I understand. I am not blaming you—you can’t help
hating me as I can’t help loving you. I am not as dull as you think. I
understand—Some girl might love me and I mightn’t care for her—”
Her eyes dilated; a pallor crept over her cheeks.
“Is that girl in Hamburg?” There was naiveté in her tone.
“There is no other girl. No one is in love with me. I was only
explaining how nature works. One loves and the beloved loves another—”
“I am sure you have a girl in mind. Who is she?”
“I swear to you there is no one—”
“I am sure from the way you said it there is someone—anyhow, you
wouldn’t tell me even if there were—”
“I would tell you the truth—I wouldn’t be ashamed to tell you if
someone were in love with me. Oh, a long time ago—I was a youngster
then.”
“Is she still in love with you?”
He waved his arms in despair.
“Oh, no, she is dead—But I am not thinking of anyone but you—”
“What did the other girl look like? Was she light or dark?”
“Oh, why speak of her—she is dead, I tell you—” he spoke impatiently.
“You must still be thinking of her or you wouldn’t remember her now. I
am sure you are in love with her still—was she pretty?”
He was beside himself.
“I tell you she is dead—” There was exasperation in his tone.
“And you mean to tell me you never had a love affair since then?”
She was drawing an 8 on the ground with the tip of her slipper.
“Of course I have never loved anyone as I love you.”
“Then you did love her!”
“I might have had a boyish fancy—I wrote a poem about her—”
“And some day you’ll write a poem about me and all will be ended.”
“Hilda, why do you torture me so?—”
He clasped her hand and kissed it. She withdrew her hand and said he
must not do this.
“I know I shouldn’t have come here—I know I shouldn’t—some one might
have seen us—”
“And what if they did?”
“Oh, Albert, you don’t understand—”
He was about to seize her hand again but she ran down the path.
IV.
When Hilda had suddenly left him he remained at Klopstock’s grave until
the stars appeared. He found the grave symbolic. The grave was the only
place for a poet, he mused in despair—yes, a silent grave under a shady
tree, the roar of the sea in the distance, the silence of fields around.
Ah! the serenity and the beauty of lying still without surging blood,
without agitated nerves, wrapt in a white shroud in the bosom of the
cool earth, in peace, with no sound save the swaying of the branches and
the chance song of a bird! The burden of youth was oppressing him, the
presentiments of sorrows to come were in his heart. For the moment he
wished he were dead—dead at the feet of the silent poet who had sung so
gloriously of the Redeemer. He remained standing before the grave in sad
contemplation of his plight. In vain had he consoled himself that Hilda
loved him. She was just playing with him, he mused bitterly.
He presently fancied himself dead, stretched on the grass alongside the
hillock which held the dust of the great poet, Hilda standing over his
corpse and weeping. There was a touch of joy in his fantasy. Hilda
weeping over his dead body!
He had no recollection of returning to his room. He was dimly conscious
of trying to fall asleep when Klopstock opened the door softly and
tripped in. Klopstock was wrapt in a white shroud and his face was of a
deathly pallor. His face seemed so feminine, and the eyelashes drooped
like Hilda’s. Klopstock then waved an arm and exclaimed—
“Seven times the thund’rous strokes had rent the veil,
When now the voice of God in gentle tone
Was heard descending: ‘God is love,’ it spoke;
‘Love, ere the worlds or their inhabitants
To life were called’——”
Klopstock wept as he recited these immortal lines and his copious tears
dropped on Albert’s brow and curled into the corners of his mouth. A
poet’s tears were saltier than those of ordinary mortals, Albert was
saying to himself as he felt the taste of the drops. He wondered what
Rudolph was doing there. For it was not Klopstock but Rudolph standing
at the foot of his bed. Rudolph was pulling Hilda by the arm and she was
laughing—everybody was laughing, and the orchestra was playing at the
Swiss pavilion on the Jungfernstieg. Strange that instead of the
musicians it was the linden tree—the linden tree over Klopstock’s
grave—that stood in the middle of the musicians’ platform. To the right
of the tree was an open coffin, the lid lying alongside of it. Somebody
was reading a prayer—he could not tell whether it was in Latin or in
Hebrew—yes, it was Aaron Hirsch reading from a prayer book, tears
coursing down his bearded face.
“You are dead, Albert Zorn—you are dead—you are dead,” Hirsch was
saying. Then he felt himself lifted into the coffin, the coffin was
lowered, clods of earth falling upon the lid—thud! thud! thud!—he was
choking—he was trying to get his breath . . .
When he awoke he remembered that he was to leave for Hamburg early that
morning. Yes, somebody was knocking at his door. He dressed quickly, for
he knew his uncle was an impatient man, and rushed downstairs, where he
found him pacing up and down the drawingroom, a cigar between his teeth.
He seemed angry, and when Albert bade him good morning he grunted. Soon
Aunt Betty appeared, and told him to go to the dining-room and have his
breakfast as they had already had theirs. The rest of the family had not
yet risen.
Aunt Betty was kinder than visual. Before leaving she was very
solicitous and kissed him affectionately.
Soon the carriage rolled away along the road lined with poplars, the
rising sun shining cheerily, birds carolling merrily, the horses
whipping their tails in high spirits . . .
V.
At present Hamburg seemed to Albert even more prosaic than ever. He felt
more lonesome, everybody bored him. As the master hums so do the
hirelings sing. Everyone in the bank treated him as if he did not belong
there, and the little courtesy he received was perfunctory, and out of
respect for his uncle. They had no regard for a young man who wrote
poetry and talked philosophy. Aaron Hirsch was the only one who showed
him proper respect, but even he looked around as if afraid to be caught
talking familiarly with the young idler.
On the day of his return from his uncle’s villa, Aaron clasped his hand
and held it rather affectionately for a moment or so.
“I’ll bet you had a wonderful time. Isn’t the villa wonderful! Salomon
in all his glory never had a finer palace. And the grounds!” He shrugged
his shoulders with an expression of the inexpressible. “It made me think
of the Garden of Eden. And that stream running through the woods back of
the mansion—It’s just like the river Hiddekel in the Bible! Yes, sir, a
veritable Garden of Eden, with no beguiling serpent to cause trouble in
the family—”
Aaron laughed a loud “Hi-hi” and “Ho-ho!” but he presently checked
himself, with a serious grimace on his face.
“You don’t seem very happy—” He eyed him scrutinizingly. “Perhaps there
was a beguiling serpent after all.” He emitted a forced little laugh.
“There is a beguiling serpent in every Garden of Eden,” replied Albert
in a jesting tone.
Hirsch then began to talk of other things.
“I should like to take you to the Reform Temple,” he was saying, “where
all the aristocrats go. I? No, I don’t belong there. I am an
old-fashioned Jew, and orthodoxy is good enough for the likes of me. And
to tell the truth—” he moved closer to Albert and lowered his voice as
if he were about to confide a secret—“I don’t care much for this
hocus-pocus reform. If I want to pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac and
Jacob, I need no groaning organ or chanting choir to carry my prayers to
heaven. No, not me. Whenever I visit the Reform synagogue I am reminded
of the time the Prussian King was here last winter. There was so much
parading and drumming and shooting of cannon in his honor that when he
addressed the people no one could hear a word he said. Yes, my child, I
am an old-fashioned Jew. I love my Hebrew prayers with all their
trimmings as I love my _Chalet_ cooked in the old way—I prefer it to
the best _Rost-Braten_ prepared by your uncle’s chef. When I want to
pray I wrap myself in my _talis_ and pray. I don’t care for the
Protestant hymns Judaised. I prefer a heart-to-heart talk with my God in
the language we both understand—God and I—and no elocutionary
nonsense. I mean no offense, God forbid—no, no, I know my place and
mean no criticism of my betters. Your esteemed uncle belongs to the
Reformers, and I get my bread and butter from him. Indeed, I do not mean
to criticize my superiors, but when I get to the Temple I get the
shivers, so help me God! There is no warmth in it. Doctor Kley, the
preacher, is afraid to make a gesture with his arms for fear he might be
mistaken for a Jew—” Hirsch bleated long and juicily—“and the
congregation sit as if they are afraid to stir and awaken God from His
slumber. A hearty prayer for me! The God of Israel never cared for
Hamburg manners.”
“Why don’t you try and convert my uncle?” Albert goaded him on.
“I convert your uncle? There are too many conversions already; and far
be it from me—a common, everyday man—to proselyte. Aaron Hirsch knows
when to talk and when to hold his tongue.”
“Why not turn Christian and be done with it?” asked Albert, hiding an
inner chuckle.
Aaron placed the index finger at his elongated nose and, glancing at the
young man sideways, his head slightly inclined to one side, said,
“Christianity, my child, is no better than Judaism. There is Catholicism
for instance—I went into a Catholic church the other day and the
sadness of it all and the flickering of candles and the smell of incense
made me feel that God had just died and had not been embalmed soon
enough. No, no, my child, a living, cheerful God for Aaron Hirsch!”
“How about the Protestant religion?”
“That’s a little better, I own. I visited the Old Protestant Church only
last year. No crosses, no effigies, no incense, no smell of the
dead—honestly, if they left Jesus out of their ritual I might be
tempted to let the Protestants join our synagogue.”
Albert found Hirsch stimulating. As in the case of books Albert did not
find Hirsch valuable for his own sake but for his jabber that aroused
new thoughts in his brain.
After business hours he could not remain in his room and yet would
accept no invitations to call upon those who desired to show him
hospitality. He often left his room in self-defense against Frau
Rodbertus’ monologues. She was tall and flat, her hair parted in the
middle, a gown sweeping to the floor and only betraying the tips of her
slippers. Her face was always in repose, her lips pouting, as if she
were ready to be painted at any moment. She habitually had her hands
clasped in front of her, even when standing, and when in action (she
never stopped talking) she slightly moved her head from side to side
with the coquetry of a young girl on her first introduction to a
presentable young man. Albert had no difficulties in finding out that
the pretty girl he saw at her house on the day of his arrival was the
daughter of a French emigré, a relation of hers.
Although, as directed by his uncle, Aaron volunteered to show him the
city, Albert preferred to make his own discoveries. He tramped the
streets, dropped into cafés, studied the people about him and when
bed-time came was exhausted and irritated. There was no variety of types
here to arouse his lively imagination. Big, rotund men with red faces,
and insipid flaxen haired youths with expressionless eyes and duel
scars; stout, dull women, and flighty girls who flaunted their sex in
the face of every passerby on the Jungfernstieg.
He would return to his room overwhelmed by a feeling of sordidness. No
new thoughts, no fresh sentiments, nothing but stagnation. He was in
despair. He feared the poet in him had suddenly died. An alarming
thought raced through his brain one evening. Was the ambition of his
youth a vain dream? He picked up a volume of Goethe, of Lessing, of
Klopstock, but they received no response from his soul; they did not
thrill him; their beauty was meaningless to him; their imageries evoked
no visions in his mind. A terrible fear possessed him. Was he becoming
sterile? Was his imagination barren? He tried to express his present
despair but even that failed him. His mind was a blank. He felt like a
singer who suddenly finds his voice failing. He had not yet learned that
beauty often springs from sorrow, that despair often begets ecstasy.
VI.
As time went on he felt more lonesome, more isolated, more bored. He was
invited to places but he found the people uninteresting. He was only
enlarging his gallery of faces. They were all discussing the same
subjects, repeating the same gossip, rehashing the same anecdotes. He
was young, imaginative, and craved novelty; and he was too young to know
that in his day, no different from the day of the King Solomon, there
was nothing new under the sun. He had yet to learn that whatever new
there is in life is in one’s own mind and that there are but few people
in any generation who have mind enough to see it.
And what seemed to others complicated was so simple to him. People
blabbed about religion, fought over theology, hated each other because
of sect, as if these were vital principles of life while to him they
were mere playthings, playthings for children. He could not grasp what
the struggle was about. Though considered irreligious he loved the Bible
and loved God as Spinoza had loved Him, as all people of real intellect
loved Him. No other book was as precious to him as the Bible—he had
read it over and over and was still reading it with refreshing joy, and
its poetry, its allegories, its legends, its fables and parables, and
its inundating beauty captivated his soul—but he found nothing
mysterious in it except the mystery there was in all things beautiful.
To him who sees clearly all things are simple. What were the Jesuits and
the Lutherans and the Mendelsohnians and the Talmudists and the Kantians
and the Fichteans—what were they all fighting over? Did any one really
believe that God created the universe in six days? he asked himself time
and again. Did any sane person earnestly claim the serpent myth to have
been a real fact? Did any one earnestly believe the hundreds of
allegories scattered throughout the Great Book to be actual happenings?
Did any one believe in the historical parts in the Bible any more than
in Persian or Grecian myths? Did any one entertain faith in the
immaculate conception? Of course, he knew the ignorant and superstitious
believed in fetishes, but he could not fully comprehend that the
so-called enlightened sincerely believed in all these. He looked into
his own mind and believed he understood all minds. He judged all minds
by his own. At times, in his wanderings through the streets, brandishing
his cane and smiling cynically, he said to himself that either he was an
imbecile and did not possess the ordinary faculties of a human being or
the world was peopled with idiots. There could be no compromise between
the two; either he saw clearly or the millions of struggling bigots saw
the truth. With the sublime self-assurance of youth he knew he was right
and laughed pitifully at the erring souls around him. Yes, he understood
Voltaire. Who would not laugh at the sight of an army of children
dressed up in clothes of grown men and women? Who would not scoff at the
prattling babes imitating the language of their elders? The children
must have some things to play with or to fight over, he mused. Religion
or War? Since the sound of cannon had ceased, the children of men now
engaged with other playthings. When everything else fails religion
supplies the demand for a universal plaything. War and Religion—he
almost preferred the former. The ugly spectacle of Hamburg’s
factionalism disgusted him. And whenever strife is ripe—he beheld all
history at a glance—after every great war, after every economic
upheaval, after every revolution, people turned against his race. He now
understood why his people were called chosen.
His thoughts soon turned to Greece as one tired of a long winter in the
north turns to the sunny south. Greece of old was the sunshine in his
dreary existence. He could not understand the petty strife of the
theology of his day but he grasped the meaning of Old Greece. The one
was sordid prose, the other idyllic poetry. Prose must speak in exact
terms, poetry may be fantastic. He yearned for deities rising from ocean
waves, for a god on Olympus, for goddesses with harps and rainbows and
vessels of nectar. The gods of Hamburg savoured of incense and garlic.
Hilda was to him what the deities were to the Old Greeks, an object of
adoration. She was his Venus, a composite of all things beautiful, his
illusion. In his present state she was the only drop of sweetness in his
bitter cup. All his innate beauty-worship, and all his vision, was
centered upon her. What attributes were not hers his fancy supplied. And
the more hopeless his romantic fancy had become the more he craved her
love—he loved to run after the retreating horizon. At times he would
become vexed and swear that he would love her no more. Twice he had sent
her poems and she had not even acknowledged them, yet he would send her
another poem. It was a sweet lyric, the offspring of pure ecstasy. It
had leaped into being like a bud bursting into bloom. For days he had
hummed it to himself—stroked the petals—and finally dispatched it to
her. He wanted her to know his great sorrow. He was sure she would
understand him now. But like its predecessors, it remained
unacknowledged and unanswered.
A few days later on his return from the midday meal, Aaron Hirsch came
up to him, his perspiring face basking in a sunny smile. “I suppose you
have dined with the family today.”
His voice was ingratiating. Albert looked puzzled.
“Were you not invited? Your esteemed aunt was here and your lovely
cousin, Fräulein Hilda, and, I heard your esteemed uncle say they were
going to have a little family dinner.”
Aaron clasped his little beard as if he were shaking hands with a dear
friend as he proceeded, “Perhaps I should not have told you this, but
you know it hurts me—yes, it hurts me to see you unappreciated. Of
course, I did not dare say all there was on my mind but one day I said
to your esteemed uncle—‘Herr Banquier’, says I, ‘that nephew of yours
will yet do you great honor’, says I—these are the very words I said. I
hate to flatter you but I told him a thing or two about you that did you
no harm, for I know there are others—I’ll mention no names—there are
others who whisper other things in your esteemed uncle’s ear.” And with
a hushing movement of his hand he added, “You know the saying, ‘An ox
has a long tongue but cannot speak.’ One must guard his bread and
butter—I have a wife and seven children!” With a finger at his lips he
made a helpless grimace.
Albert’s face clouded. He did not discuss his personal affairs with
Aaron, though he often encouraged the little man’s monologues. Aaron
appealed to his sense of humor. His expressions, his gestures, his
comments, were mirth-provoking. Today he made no rejoinder. He wanted
Hirsch to leave him alone. His aunt and Hilda visited the bank and had
not taken the trouble to see him—Hilda, to whom he had sent his finest
lyrics only a few days ago!
He rose from his work and, without saying a word to anyone, left the
bank. He overheard Mr. Elfenbein mumble something about his idleness but
he did not care. A thousand needles were pricking at the base of his
brain. He could not stand still. With cane in hand he sauntered along
the Jungfernstieg, listlessly watched the swans in the Alster basin, and
finally landed in the Swiss Pavilion, Hamburg’s most festive café.
VII.
When he next visited his uncle’s summer home and met Hilda he sought in
vain for a trace of self-consciousness in her countenance. She received
him as cordially and as calmly as Aunt Betty. She inquired about his
progress at the bank, whether he had made friends at Hamburg, quite
indifferently. She smilingly “hoped” that his impressions of “the vulgar
Hamburgers”—a phrase he had used—had changed. He scented a challenge
in this remark and rushed to prove the assertion.
The conversation was soon interrupted. Aunt Betty joined them. And she
usually managed to be around whenever Albert talked to Hilda.
One afternoon he spied Hilda alone.
He had been wandering around from ennui. He was almost sorry that he had
come here. He found life here as monotonous as in Hamburg; at times even
more so. There was here too much enforced etiquette and formality to
suit his independent spirit. Here he was not himself. His uncle, his
aunt, the guests—this time there were a few dignitaries, officials and
such—everyone was so proper, the talk was so stereotyped, that he found
himself in a state of boredom. Hilda was the only person to relieve the
monotony, but she seemed hedged about on all sides. Boldly he made for
where she was seated.
He felt that she knew of his approach, but she gave no sign, except that
she appeared more absent minded than usual.
“Why do you avoid me, Hilda?” he begged. He did not realize that unto
the lover that begs nothing shall be given.
“It’s best that I should.”
She was looking away from him. She was seated as if posing, her left
elbow on her knee.
“Hilda, don’t my verses mean anything to you?”
“I like your rhymes very much—I have often wondered how you could think
of all those rhymes—”
He was beside himself. So that was all his verses meant to her. They
were well rhymed! They were mere beads strung on a string—not even a
rosary!
“Why did you not write to me?—why didn’t you at least acknowledge the
receipt of my poems?” There was a cry of humiliation in his voice.
She was silent for a moment. She knitted her brows as if studying how to
put her thoughts into words. Then her face darkened; animation suddenly
leaped into her sea-green eyes.
“And I have thought of you every moment,” he continued in a plaintive,
reproachful tone, “and dreamed of you—and day-dreamed of you—” There
was a spiteful smile around his lips as he added, “In my day-dreaming
you could not shun me—you couldn’t push me away. You see, there is some
advantage in being an imaginative poet even though you despise him—”
The color was rising in her face, her breast heaved. His words were like
the suggestive passages in the novels she was forbidden to read but
which she had read clandestinely.
“You must not say these things to me,” she presently said, catching her
breath, her cheeks burning.
“Why shouldn’t I? I love you. I do not care who knows it. I lie awake in
the darkness of my room visualizing your presence close to me. You can’t
forbid my loving you—”
There were unshed tears in his half-closed eyes. There were tears in his
voice. It was his vision, his words of despair, that brought the tears.
“How can you talk this way, Albert.”
Her voice was soft, caressing; there was tenderness—a soothing
tenderness—in the manner she pronounced his name. “You know, it is—”
she paused as if she could not utter what was in her mind—“You know
it’s impossible—”
“Why impossible?” His voice changed quickly and he spoke rapidly,
impulsively. “Impossible because I am a poor poet, because I have no
gold to offer you, because—” He checked himself.
She was pensively silent, which gave him hope. On their way to the house
she seemed more solicitous about the things that interested him.
That evening Aunt Betty was more demonstrative in her hospitality to
him. She prevailed upon him to stay a few days longer, and he saw in
this, too, a hopeful sign, He saw connection between her attitude and
his talk with Hilda.
He spent a hilarious evening. He was his old self again, the loveable,
witty boy whom the family had met in Gunsdorf a few years ago. Before he
went to bed he wrote letters home. One to his mother, telling her of the
wonderful time he was having at Uncle Leopold’s villa, and begging her
to thank Aunt Betty for her many kindnesses to him; another to his
sister, in which he guardedly told her of Hilda’s beauty and loveliness;
and still another to his devoted friend, Christian Lutz. To him he
poured out his whole heart. He told him of his great passion for Hilda,
of the unmistakable signs of reciprocity, of his great happiness.
“Tell it not in Gath,” he wound up his letter in Biblical phraseology,
“I am in love—madly in love. As the lily is among the thorns, so is my
beloved among the daughters of Hamburg. Her lips are like a thread of
scarlet and her neck—no, it is not like the tower David builded for an
armory; it is white and firm; neither long nor short, a slender pedestal
for the prettiest Grecian head. I charge you, ye son of Gunsdorf, by the
roses of Sharon, by the lilies of the valley, that ye stir not my love
till she pleases. Christian, dear, I feel like a drunken god intoxicated
with the elixir of love, bidding all the angels of the heavenly choir to
join me in singing ‘Hallelujah’. Hamburg does not seem as sordid as it
did at first. If my present spirit continues I may even learn to love
the sons of Hammonia. But don’t grow jealous. I shall never stop loving
my Christian. You were my first love.”
“Yes, my good Christian, I feel like a good natured, maudlin sot,
bursting with song. I should like to fling my arms around everybody’s
neck and shower kisses upon every one in sight. I should like to hug the
whole universe and bedew it with my tears of joy. For I have good reason
to believe Hilda loves me.”
VIII.
He left more than elated. Unlike on the occasion of his first visit
Hilda now treated him with manifest kindness. On the morning of his
departure she let him kiss her hand without protest and he gazed into
her calm clear eyes without embarrassment.
On his way back to the city he recalled every little incident, raked up
every triviality—symptoms of her love, he called them—and with all the
inductions and deductions of logic adduced conclusively that Hilda was
as much in love with him as he was with her.
There was a mishap on the way. An axle broke and delayed the homeward
journey several hours. The accident did not disturb him. He rather
welcomed it. He was alone and while the driver went to the nearest
village to get the axle repaired Albert stretched himself at the edge of
a field of ripening grain and watched the colorful patches in the sky.
In spots the clouds seemed piled upon one another, a heap of them, with
protruding ends trimmed with saffron and jade, and some were like huge
rugged castles, with many turrets. Soon his eyes were fixed upon one to
the left. It was a long stretch of watery green with a number of peaks
and lower down there appeared to be a row of windows. Yes, it looked
like his uncle’s villa. In the foreground was the broad terrace, back of
it the long doors and French windows, and farther back, higher up, was
the roof. The last window to the right belonged to Hilda’s room. He
gazed upon it intently and was conscious of a peculiar pleasurable
feeling. And there, farther down, near the horizon was a cloud in the
shape of the marble well, with sphinxes engraved on the side, and those
streaks of light were like the poplars along the path leading to the
beach. For a moment he was superstitious. That was a sign from heaven.
He saw good omens in everything about him. A lark was rising, trilling
short, sweet notes in his flight toward the clouds. The lark was
himself.
Two young peasant women were walking past him with scythes and sickles
slung over their shoulders. They were barefooted, bareheaded, with short
skirts of unbleached linen and loose shirts that looked like, blouses.
They glanced at him lying on his back, then looked at each other, and
burst out laughing. The older one said something to the younger of the
two who answered with a resounding slap on the older one’s back, and
they both roared with laughter once more. He was conjuring up the image
of Hilda when the last peal of laughter broke the spell. He looked
around. The peasant girls halted in the adjoining field for work.
Soon they began to sing a peasant love song. Albert sat up and could see
their movements through the ripe grain stalks in front of him—their
coarse sunburnt faces, their naked feet with their splaying toes—their
sickles making rhythmical music as they swished against the falling
grain. He was vexed with himself for watching them—for permitting his
thoughts to dwell upon them. He felt it a sacrilege to think of them and
Hilda at the same time. Presently Hilda’s image faded, the clouds in the
sky were nothing but meaningless vapor, and the blood in his heart was
surging rapidly. He shuddered. He could not take his eyes off the
stooped peasant girl, the younger one, who was only a hundred yards away
from him. Ugly thoughts raced through his brain. Strange appetites
stirred within him. He would dismiss them but he could not. She was
singing a love song; and presently the other joined in. They were
singing a peasant harvest song, laughing at the same time—
_“Bäuerlein, Bauerlein, tick! tick! tack!_
_Ei, wie ist denn der Geschmack_
_Von dem Korn und von dem Kern,_
_Dass ich’s unterscheiden lern’?_
_Bäuerlein, Bauerlein, spricht und lacht,_
_Finklein nimm dich nur in acht,_
_Dass ich, wenn ich dresch’ und klopf’_
_Dich nicht treff, auf deinen Kopf!”_
It was the younger of the two that was singing in a mimicking voice, the
older one humming after her. The younger one was a girl of about
seventeen—the same age as Hilda—but was sturdier, her neck was like
“the tower of David builded for an armory,” her squinting eyes full of
mischief.
He would not lie to himself; a power more overwhelming was drawing him
to that peasant girl with the sickle, every movement of hers was another
tug at his passions . . .
He rose to his feet and stretched himself. The sun was hot and the air
was dry and the peasant girl—she had just straightened a bit, with the
sickle in hand, brushing a few strands of hair from her face, and was
about to bend down again when she caught his eye. She glanced at him
slyly with her squinting eyes. Her companion was now at the other end of
the field working industriously. Albert looked at her boldly, the blood
in his heart pumping furiously . . .
The driver with the axle appeared in the distance. Albert shrank a step,
trembling in every limb. He again threw himself on the ground. He would
not be caught by the driver looking at the reaper. An undefinable
shyness seized him. Lying on his belly, his head slightly raised, he was
awaiting the approaching driver. He soon heard his footsteps in the
distance—slow, deliberate steps coming nearer. The footsteps suddenly
halted. Albert saw the driver near the reaper. He heard voices, low
voices, of the driver and the girl.
“I’ll cut you—look out. I’ll cut you.”
It was the girl’s voice he heard. Albert peered through the stalks of
grain, he saw without being seen, his blood rushing to his head. He
heard a chuckle, the sickle dropped from her hand. She feigned to cry
for help but in a voice he could scarcely hear; the other reaper worked
steadily on at the other end of the field. The driver and the peasant
girl were now hidden in the tall grain . . .
The driver soon returned to his horses, grazing by the wayside. He was a
stocky man in the early thirties, with a red face and a forehead
bloodlessly white from the pressure of his cap. His face was now of a
deeper red, his eyes seemed bloodshot, and he was panting.
He busied himself with the cart.
“Oh, but she is strong,” he said, half to himself. Albert was watching
the driver adjust the axle.
“Who is she?” asked Albert.
“Do I know? From the neighborhood!”
He emitted a little laugh and proceeded with his work.
Presently he and the driver were in the cart, the wheels creaking, the
horses plodding along the road.
The peasant girl waved her sickle, the driver waved his whip, the horse
started off at a livelier trot in a cloud of dust.
Albert leaned back in his seat, lost in thought. He was puzzled. He knew
the driver had a wife and five children, yet passing a girl he had never
seen before and desiring her he made her his without courting, without
brooding, without dreaming and musing, without being troubled about the
scheme of things. They loved, they hated, they killed (if their king
told them to) and begot others like themselves.
He looked at the driver as if he had beheld him for the first time. The
peasant’s face was now calm, its natural red, his bluish eyes had
cleared; they were no longer bloodshot; he was looking blankly in front
of him, with whip in hand, was looking over the horse’s head. He had
evidently forgotten about the reaper. She was no more to him than the
field of rye in which she worked, no more than the bread he had eaten
that morning, the glass of beer he had drunk the day before.
Albert’s heart was filled with envy, envy of the peasant. He envied him
because he was so unlike himself, always thinking, always speculating on
what was right and what was wrong. Albert wondered if he could make a
peasant of himself and stop thinking and brooding. His thoughts drifted,
he thought of Elfenbein, of Rudolph, of the chattering Hirsch and of
scores of other men and women he knew. None of them were like the
driver, and he could not be like any of them either. He thought of his
uncle—a shrewd banker, a charitable man, a noble soul—no, he could not
be like him either. He thought of his own father—kind and weak and
listless—no, he was different. A flock of migrating birds were over his
head—a path of black dots against the blue sky; a cow by the wayside
stretched her broad neck, parted her jaws, and emitted a hoarse
“moo—oo!” The woods in the distance answered “Moo—oo!”; the horse
clinked his hoofs against a chance stone in the sandy road . . .
Without knowing why, Albert’s heart was filled with sadness. He sighed
audibly. He was depressed because he was unlike anybody and because he
knew he could not be like anybody else. God had made him different, had
made him a misfit, a round peg in a square hole. His thoughts wandered.
No, he did not wish to be like anybody else. Yet he was vexed. He felt
dreadfully alone. Had he not been afraid of the driver’s ridicule he
would have wept aloud—because—because he was unlike anyone and did not
want to be like anyone else. If only Hilda had loved him! It suddenly
flashed upon his mind that she did not love him.
IX.
But the next week he was again hopeful, even confident, of Hilda’s love.
He had written to her and she had answered him. Rejoicing!
His hopes were rising quickly. If only he could make her appreciate his
poems! He felt that she disliked his verses. She did not seem to
understand that the poems he had shown her were inspired by her and were
meant for her eyes alone.
One day he felt the fateful moment had come. He was again at his uncle’s
villa. It was early October, the family was preparing to leave for their
city home. It was a gloomy day, gray clouds in the sky, winds chasing
withered leaves against tree trunks and fences. Yet there was joy in his
heart. Hilda had praised one of his poems. He hung upon her words as if
they had emanated from the lips of the greatest critic.
“If you only knew how many more beautiful poems you could inspire me to
write,” he was saying enthusiastically, with plaintive begging in his
voice.
“How?”
She said this absently, between two numbers of embroidery stitches she
was counting.
“By promising that you’ll marry me some day.”
She seemed caught unawares. She dropped a few stitches and seemed
annoyed.
Her head moved from side to side without looking up. She seemed very
busy with her needle.
“Can’t you even give me hope—in the distant future?”
The color in her cheek was rising.
“You mustn’t think of me, Albert,” she said, without raising her eyes.
“It’s impossible.” The last few words were spoken under her breath,
scarcely audible.
Silence. He did not plead, he made no attempt at persuasion. There was
the finality of death in her tone.
He returned to the city in a state of utter hopelessness. Conquest was
denied everywhere.
He imputed to her a thousand motives for rejecting him; he blamed his
uncle; he saw his aunt at the bottom of it. His sorrow deepened as the
days passed. He sat in his room and brooded and then wandered through
the streets like a restless vagrant. He was telling himself he would
never survive this blow, and out of his poignant pain and the anguish of
his soul sprang verses of despair.
His agony had become unendurable. Nothing mattered now. He did not care
whether he pleased his uncle; he did not care whether he stayed at the
bank or was dismissed. His sorrow was unbearable. He had to talk, to
some one about it. He finally unbosomed himself to his friend,
Christian. It was nearly midnight, his tallow candle sputtering.
X.
Having finished the letter he left his room. He meant to take a stroll,
as he often did late at night when despair seized him.
On his way out, Frau Rodbertus greeted him cheerily, “_Guten Abend_.”
“_Guten Abend_,” he returned sulkily, and was about to pass her.
“_Bon soir_,” another voice called.
He paused. He recognized the voice of Eugenie Chauraux, the girl of whom
he had caught a glimpse on the first day of his arrival here. He had
since met her a number of times. She was a frequent visitor at Frau
Rodbertus’. He had often admired her luminous brown eyes and black hair
and her beautiful hands. Her hands particularly attracted him. They were
not small but owing to her long fingers they seemed like small palm
leaves, and they appeared peculiarly soothing when shaking hands with
her; in spite of her warm clasp her hand was cooling.
Eugenie always talked French to him. She had told him she was glad to
find one who spoke her native tongue so well and that she detested the
French spoken by most Germans. Albert was not averse to flattery. He had
often remained chatting with her while the sly widow would steal out of
the room and leave “the children” alone. Frau Rodbertus was childless
and was very fond of Eugenie. She was also fond of her lodger. She
mothered him, and he liked to be mothered. She would frequently scold
him for his peevishness in a gentle, motherly tone and would cater to hi
whims. At times he would act towards her as if she were his mother. If
his handkerchiefs were not easily found in the proper place, or when he
forgot to send his linen to the washerwoman, or if an expected letter
had not come, he would storm like a spoiled child as if Frau Rodbertus
were to blame, and she would laugh or scold him with maternal good
nature.
She was sentimental, and when she learned that Albert wrote poetry she
became even more solicitous and obliging. She had the tenderness and
delicacy of a French woman. Her voice was soft, almost soothing, and
when she would pucker her lips and turn upon him her large dark eyes he
would at once become docile. And while he had determined to keep his
poetic aspirations to himself—he had been warned by his uncle that
publicity of this fact might hurt him in his standing as a young
business man—he frequently forgot his resolution and spoke of his
_Lieder_ to her. He even recited some of them to her. He had found in
her an enthusiastic audience, almost as enthusiastic as Christian. And
though he had abjured her not to divulge his secret he knew that she had
spoken of his verses to Eugenie. The girl never made mention of it but
he felt that she knew.
“_Bon soir, Mademoiselle_,” he said to Eugenie and was about to proceed.
Eugenie’s face was turned upwards, the candle light through the open
door catching the light of her eyes. Albert hesitated in his step.
“It’s too hot to walk, Herr Zorn” said Frau Rodbertus.
“Just for a stroll and then to bed.”
“It’s too early for bed,” Frau Rodbertus said laughingly.
Eugenie’s eyes were upon him.
Albert sat down on the threshold next to Eugenie.
After a space Frau Rodbertus asked Eugenie to play something.
“It’s terribly hot, and too late,” pleaded Eugenie.
“It is never too hot nor too late for music,” coaxed Frau Rodbertus.
When Albert joined in the request, Eugenie rose promptly and in rising
supported her palm against Albert’s knee. He was pleasantly conscious of
the contact of her hand. As he rose to follow her into the house his
erstwhile loneliness was robbed of its sadness. Without analyzing
himself he felt the genial warmth of these two as contrasted to the
frigid kindness of his relatives. The former were human, stripped of all
artifice, the latter formal, studied, cultivated.
Albert had no trained ear for music but his knowledge of melody, like
all knowledge that came to him, was intuitive. And although his
preference for music was limited to vocal and the violin—the
staccato-like notes of the piano never appealed to him—he had a keen
appreciation of all music.
Eugenie played with feeling, her slender body swaying with the rhythm of
the music, casting a shadow in the room which was brightened by only one
candle. Albert found himself making mental notes of everything about
her. Her body swayed with the pliancy of a sapling. The irregular
features of her face blended into a harmony of their own. Her fine
eyebrows sloped at the ends abruptly like Japanese eyes, her nose rather
narrow which made it seem longer than it was, and the middle of her
upper lip protruded like a half opened bud. When she opened her mouth it
was the upper lip that rose with a sudden jerk upward, disclosing
longish white teeth. Her laughter—for her faintest smile was a musical
laugh—was confined to her eyes; sparks of sunshine danced in the iris.
He soon forgot all about his vexing thoughts. He had no thoughts. Seated
indolently, with eyes almost closed, he yielded to the pleasure of the
moment. He was half-dreaming, the music but vague, distant echoes in his
ears. And Eugenie played selection after selection, without being urged,
without even being asked. She seemed eager to play, to go on with the
galloping of her emotions, like a frightened horse that goes tearing
wildly through the streets. She never turned her eyes either way but sat
bent over the keys, breathing fast as she played.
Frau Rodbertus, her arms folded, watched the girl’s glowing cheeks. She
understood Eugenie. She had not yet forgotten her own youth, and those
heavenly moments when one’s blood courses like sparkling Burgundy. She
sat in the shadow, sat and sighed softly as she remembered those
blissful moments of her own life, never, never to come back. No, she was
not envious. The profligate liberality of the drunkard was in her heart.
She soon tiptoed out of the room and into the courtyard, unnoticed by
either Eugenie or Albert, and when the last note had died away, she
breathed softly, her very being in suspense.
Eugenie at last rose from the piano and stretched her arms as if she
were alone in the room: She barely looked in Albert’s direction.
“You play beautifully,” he murmured.
She remained standing in the darkened part of the room, beyond the
circle of the dim candle-light, her fingers clasped in front of her,
without moving.
He made another remark but that, too, remained unanswered. A few more
silent moments. Neither moved. Albert was watching her silhouette, astir
with semi-conscious feelings.
She soon passed him silently, her dress barely brushing his clothes. He
rose and followed her in silence. Frau Rodbertus was not outside. The
little courtyard was deserted—nothing but the lonely pine-tree in the
centre casting an almost invisible shadow in the darkness. Not a sound
anywhere. A voice from the street accentuated the stillness of the
enclosed courtyard.
Eugenie re-seated herself on the door-step and Albert followed her
example as if he were mimicking her. They heard footsteps inside the
house, through the open door,—the soft, pattering, slippered footsteps
of Frau Rodbertus—and soon the glimmer of the candle-light was gone.
Albert became more conscious of Eugenie’s nearness, of the torpid heat,
of the intense darkness. Presently his eyes penetrated the darkness and
he saw the outline of Eugenie’s face, loose strands of her hair breaking
the curved lines. They sat for a few moments like bashful children
brought together for the first time and left alone.
“It’s getting late—I must go home,” she soon said and rose abruptly.
He became conscious of his heart-beats. He did not rise. Something
checked his voice.
She went into the house and he heard her calling “Good night” to Frau
Rodbertus, who answered that she was coming down to accompany her home.
Albert jumped up and said he would see her home. Eugenie rushed up the
stairs and some words were exchanged between her and Frau Rodbertus and
she soon came down and accepted his proffered escort.
They walked through the courtyard gate silently. He wished to touch her
arm, to help her across the step of the portal, but he was keenly
conscious of diffidence and barely touched her elbow, quickly letting it
go.
He grew more loquacious after they had covered some distance. He was
telling her how much he admired the French and that he had loved them
from his early childhood.
“My father hates the Germans,” said she with a nervous laugh. “He would
like to go back to France but mother died last year and he has many
debts in the city. As soon as he pays his obligations we’ll go back
home.”
Albert insisted that one must hate no one.
“But you can’t love everybody.”
He agreed that one could not love everybody.
They were now passing through a main thoroughfare, encountering more
pedestrians.
“_Guten Abend, Herr Zorn_,” a cordial voice addressed Albert.
He turned and saw little Aaron Hirsch, accompanied by his lean little
wife. Aaron was walking in front, his hands behind, letting his gnarled
cane drag over the sidewalk, his wife lagging half a step behind.
On his return home Albert made no light. He liked the darkness. His
headache was gone, his bitterness departed, but he was sleepless.
Eugenie’s presence had filled him with a pacifying joy. Something had
stimulated him without irritation.
He soon found himself comparing Eugenie with Hilda and the difference in
the atmosphere of their respective presences. Hilda was German, German
to the core in spite of her Semitic blood. Her keen sense of caste, her
haughty manner because of her father’s wealth, her materialistic outlook
upon life, her lack of self-abandon—all the well-defined traits of the
wealthy German, were easily discernible in her. Albert felt all this as
he contemplated his beloved, and yet he was drawn to her. But her
attraction for him was tantalizing, and made him restive, while that of
Eugenie was free from this. Eugenie’s presence filled him with a
pacifying joy, without irritation; it made him conscious of her charm
without combative influences. He vaguely wondered if a man could love
two women at the same time. Why not? One could love two children with
the same devotion at the same time. And then one unexpectedly comes
across an exotic flower—with the perfume and color of the tropics—and
yet loves none the less the rose and the lily. If one loves the rose is
there any reason why he could not at the same time love the lily? As he
prepared to retire a fugitive memory flitted across his brain. Eugenie
had said something about blue eyes. He was conscious of disappointment.
For while his eyes appeared blue they were really greenish. He wondered
if Eugenie was equally fond of greenish eyes.
When he was in bed, lapsing into sleep, Eugenie’s face was before him,
and he remembered her laugh. Hilda never laughed so freely, so
whole-heartedly; there was always restraint in her laughter as there was
restraint felt in everything about her. He thought of warbling of a
canary, the voice flowing joyously into the air. And he also liked the
dancing sunshine in her eyes when she laughed. Every time her upper lip
rose he felt a strong desire to kiss her on the mouth. And that hand of
hers—those long, soft, cool, yet clinging, fingers! His last
semi-conscious thought was of those clinging fingers . . .
XI.
“That was a pretty girl you walked with last evening,” Aaron Hirsch
remarked, and, rolling his large gray eyes, emitted a cackle, “It takes
a poet to know what is what—hey?”
This magpie repeated the same remark to Albert’s “esteemed uncle.” He
only phrased it a little differently.
“Your esteemed nephew is rapidly learning the ways of Hamburg,” Aaron
said to the banker, with a cringing, ingratiating laugh. “If you had
seen him stroll along Beckerstrasse with a brunette on his arm you would
have imagined him a born Hamburger.”
Leopold Zorn grew angry and sent Aaron about his business. A few minutes
later he called him back.
“I meant no harm, Herr Banquier,” Aaron was making obsequious apologies.
“May the Lord so help me, I meant no offense to your esteemed nephew.
Far be it from me to even hint at any offense to the most remote
relative of my benefactor. No, indeed. The girl he walked with was no
hussy on the Jungfernstieg. She is a most respectable girl. That she is,
Herr Banquier; I happen to know her father. I sold him a lottery ticket
last year and he won fifty marks at the first drawing. A very honorable
man is M’sieu Charaux—a relative of the widow Rodbertus—a very fine
woman with whom your esteemed nephew is lodging. Indeed, the girl is a
real lady—what people in your high social station would call a
_Mademoiselle_. You need have no fear about your esteemed nephew—no,
indeed; I keep my eye on him all the time. Blood certainly will tell. He
is a well-behaved young man—a chip off the old block, as the saying
goes.”
Admonishing Aaron not to discuss his nephew, the banker told him to keep
his eye on the young man.
“That I will, sir,” Hirsch assured his patron.
XII.
Opening the door of his lodging a few days later Albert noticed Eugenie
talking with Frau Rodbertus. They were in the little parlor. He wondered
what they were always talking about, this young girl and that middle
aged woman. He wished to walk past them, up the stairs, to his room, but
the parlor door was open and he could not pass unnoticed. Besides, he
was lonesome and liked to talk to them—to Eugenie. There was something
about her that always caused his lonesomeness to disappear. With her he
felt at home. She made him forget Hilda.
Eugenie was seated close to Frau Rodbertus, leaning affectionately
against the older woman, the candle light flickering on a table close
by.
They soon laughingly began to talk of love. Albert called it a malady,
which, he declared, was in some cases incurable. The widow laughed
indulgently, with the tolerance of older people for the sweet nonsense
of the young. Eugenie’s eyes were serious and she vouchsafed no comment.
Frau Rodbertus was to have escorted Eugenie home but Albert would not
hear of it.
He took Eugenie’s arm carelessly, without any timidity, without even
feeling the tremor of her arm as he touched it. Eugenie was silent as
they walked through the dark quiet streets. Presently her hand touched
his, and he clasped it, feeling the fingers moist and cool, and he
playfully straightened her fingers one by one without resistance from
her. Her fingers were slender and soft, and he was conscious of a strong
desire to carry them to his lips.
She did not permit him to take her all the way home. “You know my father
is very strict and would be horrified if he knew I allowed you to walk
home with me in the evening.”
They stopped a few doors from her house. She lived in a dark narrow
street devoid of street lamps.
“You are so sympathetic,” he was saying to her, referring to her
attitude rather than her words. She had extended her hand to him but he
was in no haste to part. He could see her eyes in the dark. They were
fixed upon his face sympathetically, and they were so close to each
other.
Suddenly—he never could recall how it came about—his hands began to
creep along her arms—they crept slowly, barely touching her sleeves,
from the wrists upward—until the tips of his sensitive fingers felt the
contact of her slender shoulders—he felt their smooth roundness, the
yielding softness of the velvet garment over them—and then his arms
entwined her. When their lips met she caught her breath with an
involuntary little gasp—half sob, half cry, and clung to him grippingly
for a moment but soon rested in his arms, scarcely breathing, with the
stillness of death. For a bare second he was frightened. He could not
hear her breathe.
“Eugenie,” he whispered. He now held her at arm’s length and peered into
her face, but it was so dark that he could only see her dilated eyes.
She was just staring at him, mystified at the first kiss from a man’s
lips. “Eugenie,” he whispered again, but he only heard her catching her
breath in response. He bent forward and kissed her moist slender fingers
and bade her good night. Her fingers clung to him as they parted, almost
drawing him back. “Good night,” he repeated. Her reply was no louder
than her breathing.
They parted.
He walked away a few steps, turned around, and halted. He saw a shadow
moving toward her house. When he saw the door open he walked away as
fast as his legs could carry him, as if he were speeding away from a
scene of crime. He also entered his room stealthily. And when in bed he
tried to understand what had happened. It all seemed like a dream. He
tried to persuade himself it was a dream. He was in love with Hilda. He
was sure Hilda was the only one he loved. Then his mind recalled the
scene of the reapers. Was he like the driver, that beast-like peasant?
He sighed. He found himself pitying Eugenie—that sweet, gentle,
trusting Eugenie—and despising himself. He hated himself. His eyelids
were soon wet with tears, an unbearable pain in his breast. The thought
of Eugenie wrung his heart; it gnawed at his brain. Albert was easily
given to tears, and they now flowed freely. He wept for Eugenie. She was
so pure, so beautiful, so tender, so sympathetic, and he treated her as
if—as if she were a reaper in the fields!
What was pounding in his ears so clamorously? The dashing waves by the
sea . . . the driver was kissing Hilda . . . What surprised him was that
the sight did not shock him and he looked on and laughed; he was not
even jealous; there was no resentment in his heart. He laughed and told
Frau Rodbertus not to mind it—Frau Rodbertus, in her long gown and
slippers, was seated in his lap and calling him sweetheart, and he was
married to the widow . . . As he was trying to recall when he had
married her Hilda and Eugenie came in, arm in arm. But how they were
dressed! Barefooted, with short skirts of unbleached linen and loose
blouses, like the reapers; and then Uncle Leopold—it was Uncle Leopold
but he wore a beard like Aaron Hirsch—rushed in and waved a stick at
him—the stick looked like an axle . . .
He stirred and said to himself he did not know why he could not fall
asleep, then stirred again, opened his eyes and beheld day-light. He
leaned out of bed, reached for his watch on a chair close by, and jumped
out. He had overslept.
XIII.
Eugenie’s image persisted in intruding upon him. In fact, he found
himself thinking more of Eugenie than of Hilda; there was more
tenderness in his heart when thinking of Eugenie than when thinking of
Hilda. And every time he glanced at that omnipresent Aaron Hirsch—Aaron
Hirsch had again seen him with Eugenie—he thought of Eugenie. Aaron had
said nothing to him about her but he could read something in his
rolling, roguish eyes. While copying entries into the ledger he did it
mechanically, his mind wandering in other regions. He was visualizing
those sweet moments with Eugenie in the dark street and experiencing the
sensation over again.
A few days later Albert was summoned to his uncle’s private room. Albert
was in a grave mood because of the return of a few poems which he had
sent to an editor at Munich.
He found Uncle Leopold at his secretary, austere and domineering.
“Take a seat.” He said this in a commanding tone.
Albert sat down, feeling the worthlessness of life more keenly.
“I have something of the gravest importance to say to you,” Uncle
Leopold commenced, his eyes averted. He then paused.
Albert caught his breath and waited.
“It’s about your general conduct,” he snapped. “They tell me awful
things about you.”
“I’ll try to be careful about my work in the bank,” Albert said
contritely. For the moment Albert’s pride was gone. His pride would
always sink with the rejection of his manuscripts.
“I don’t care so much about your work,” the banker said with an
irritable wave of his hand. “These mistakes can be corrected. It’s your
life mistakes. No one but yourself can correct those.”
The banker again paused. Albert looked at his uncle puzzled. He could
not fathom the cause of the present complaint.
“You have been seen in bad company,” the banker resumed in a more
serious tone. “The nephew of Leopold Zorn must not bee seen running
around with dissolute women.”
“Uncle Leopold—that’s not true—it’s a base falsehood—I have kept
company with no bad women—” he burst out indignantly, tears springing
to his eyes. “Some one has been slandering me. I spend all my evenings
reading and writing, save for a stroll now and then—someone has been
lying to you.”
“No, the source of this information is quite reliable,” the banker
continued in a milder tone, the tears in his nephew’s eyes instantly
softening his feelings. “You were seen on Bleicherstrasse with a girl of
questionable character.”
“That’s false, Uncle Leopold . . utterly false . .” tears stifled his
speech.
He then remembered Eugenie and felt he had to defend her honor.
“I have never associated with any women here except with one of the
purest souls I have ever known—as pure as my own mother—as pure as my
sister—as pure—” He was about to add Hilda’s name but checked himself.
“One cannot be too discriminating,” Uncle Leopold said in a conciliatory
tone, as if willing to let bygones be bygones, “but you must be more
careful in the future. The walls have ears and the streets a thousand
eyes. The nephew of Leopold Zorn must avoid all suspicion.”
“And the uncle of Albert Zorn ought not to lend ear to malicious
tongues,” flared up the nephew, rising from his seat indignantly.
The false accusation and the insinuation against Eugenie’s character
brought back his innate pride. His unshakable confidence in himself
returned. There was insolence on the young man’s face.
Uncle Leopold caught the sudden change in his nephew’s face and smiled.
He resented Albert’s impudent manner, but at the same time admired the
young man’s fearlessness. He remembered the letter his wife had received
from Albert in which he thanked her for her hospitality. Aunt Betty had
expressed great admiration for the style of his language.
When the interview was over the banker rose from his seat and escorted
Albert out of the door, his hand resting kindly on the young man’s
shoulder.
EUGENIE.
I.
Dreary months followed. Aside from the great disappointment the climate
contributed to his misery. The damp autumn, the cold early winter days,
the northern winds were not to his taste. He was a child of sunshine,
not a child of the mild sunshine of the Acropolis, as he thought he was,
but of the burning rays baking the plains of Jehosophat, and the
scorching heat of Jericho. Protest though he might, he was a child of
Canaan. And everything around him was bleak and cold and dismal, and his
heart was burning with a fire of its own, the blood in his veins
seething tumultuously. He wrote much to give expression to his turbulent
thoughts, walked much to dissipate his restlessness, and people called
him an idler, a _Gassenjunge_! He did not care. He shunned people. He
only wished to be a spectator of the passing show of life, and when the
procession provoked laughter in him he laughed with the tears rolling
down his cheeks. For there was pity in his laughter, but those around
him only heard the laughter with no ear for the pitiful undertone.
Albert always hated Prussianism—he had learned to hate it in his
childhood—and Prussianism was the spirit of Hamburg of that day.
Brought up in a Rhenish town under French occupation it was inevitable
that a boy with such keen sensibilities should perceive the difference
between Prussian ponderousness and vulgarity and French sprightliness
and delicacy. His present environment brought back to him his earlier
perceptions.
Albert found himself pondering on Goethe and Lessing. In Goethe he saw
the Spinoza of poetry. He understood what Herder meant when he said, “I
wish that Goethe would for once take some other Latin book in hand
besides that of Spinoza.”
The more he pondered on Goethe and Lessing and Spinoza the more he
revolted against the Philistinism of his environment His unrequited love
added bitterness. He saw the faults of the people around him with the
eyes of an enemy.
And there was hatred all around him. Lessing’s preachments against
hatred had made no impression upon his people. Indeed, they had erected
monuments to his memory but went on hating more than ever. They wanted
none of Lessing’s tolerance, none of the Pantheistic harmony of Goethe.
They wanted strife. Not the strife that begets liberty—liberty of mind
and body—but the strife that begets religious bigotry. Albert wanted to
continue, and combine, the noble work of Lessing and Goethe. He wanted
to teach his countrymen the truth of Lessing and the harmony of Goethe,
but he was as yet too young to know that the reward for such efforts are
loose stones during one’s life and stones cemented into the shape of a
monument when loose stones can no longer do any harm.
He found himself like a nightingale in a crow’s nest. Every time he
began to sing the crows caw-cawed; and the masses have always understood
the caw-caw better than the song of the nightingale.
He was no philosopher content with metaphysical speculations. He was no
Spinoza to be content to grind lenses and subsist on a penny’s worth of
Dutch bread and raisins. Unlike the philosopher’s passion for abstract
truth, truth was meaningless to Albert unless it colored human life. His
asceticism was not that of the monk wilfully denying himself the
pleasures of the body but rather that of the pleasure-seeking maiden who
silently broods in her chamber because she was left out of a festivity.
The world to him was a playground, and he wished to do part of the
playing.
Of late he had tried to get his first poems published in book form but
the publishers could see no merit in them. The verses were too simple to
strike the publishers as extraordinary; and though Goethe had given them
a lesson in simplicity the Germans were still too bombastic to
appreciate any writing unless tumid. Albert felt that as soon as his
poems were published the world would be at his feet. He had been to see
a publisher who was specializing in books that provoked the censor, but
as yet there was nothing in Albert’s poems to provoke any one except a
lovesick maiden.
One day he decided to have his poems published at any cost, and show his
uncle—and Hilda—that he was no mere clerk. But where could he get the
money? He only received a salary sufficient for his board and lodgings.
Besides, he did not know how to economize. He soon thought of the
lottery, the living hope, and the despair, of his father’s existence.
Perhaps he might win—somebody won at every drawing! One night he dreamt
that he played the lottery and won. He thought this a good omen and the
following morning gambled away his last _Pfennig_.
II.
Eager to have some of his poems published, and finding no publisher to
risk his imprint, he sent a few verses to _Hamburg’s Waechter_, a newly
founded periodical, whose secret aim was Jew-baiting.
The editor of this journal, one Karl Trummer, was one of those
pen-patriots who abound in every land in times of great strife and who
sell their pens to the highest bidder. After every war there is a
feeling present that the bloodshed was useless, and every faction blames
the other. In spite of Hegel’s saying that the only thing man learns
from history is that he learns nothing from history, certain
pen-patriots have learned that laying the blame at the door of one class
satisfies all other classes—the same class that bore the brunt when
wells were poisoned, when the Black Plague raged, when famine swept the
land, when reason dethroned the idols of antiquity. The Jew has always
been an atoning scapegoat.
Little thinking of the policy of this journal—thinking only of having
some of his verses appear in print—and though concealing his identity
under an ingenious pseudonym, the authorship of these ballads was soon
learned, and Albert found himself more disliked than ever. He was
regarded with contempt by the Jews and with indifference by his
non-Jewish friends. And in order to make him feel the sting of their
hatred the Jews belittled his talents. That _Gassenjunge_ a _poet_! they
sneered. His language was so simple that a child—“even a maid
servant”—could understand it! How, really, could one be a poet who
could be understood by everybody?
Embittered he isolated himself altogether. He was in his room night
after night, reading, writing, thinking. He paid no attention to Dame
Gossip and her wagging tongue. Too many thoughts crowded his brain, too
many conflicting opinions. For he read books on all sorts of
subjects—poetry, philosophy, theology, tales, legends—and he never
read passively. He either praised or condemned. And the books he read
not only imparted to him the knowledge of the authors but, like
narcotics, stimulated the intuitive knowledge within him.
When he casually did meet people he voiced his convictions too freely.
He was still of an age when impressions were easily made and for the
time they seemed indelible. He was impetuous, ardent, argumentative. He
was witty and people liked to listen to him even though they hated him
for his utterances. And when his convictions changed—as the convictions
of liberal minds and those of sincere purpose must change—he gave frank
expression to these changes. People called him fickle and thought him
flippant, failing to realize the struggles of a soul in its efforts to
adjust itself. He was likewise vacillating in his literary attempts.
Before he fully developed one poetic theme another rushed upon him and
he halted the latter for still another.
His presence in the bank had finally become a source of annoyance.
Martin Elfenbein could hardly contain himself. In spite of frequent
warnings Albert came and went whenever he pleased. Yet, no one dared
discharge him.
At last the inevitable happened. He was advised that his services were
no longer needed in the bank. No one was happier than Albert. He was
glad to be rid of this place, no matter what the outcome might be.
But before long Uncle Leopold had established his nephew in a new
business. Albert was conscious of his importance when he beheld the
sign:
ALBERT ZORN
KOMMISSIONGESCHAEFT
He was now a full fledged merchant, and he could come and go as he
pleased without being eyed by that hateful Martin Elfenbein. And he did
not owe a _Pfennig_ for his stock of goods. His quick-tempered but
generous uncle, after reprimanding him for his past transgressions, had
filled up the shop with cloth wares and told him everything was his
providing he attended to business and managed to replenish the shelves
with the money taken in.
The novelty of the thing stimulated his energies for a while. Besides,
the odor of the bolts of new cloth, the color of the chintzes, the
haggling of the customers amused him. At first everything amused him and
appealed to his sense of humor. The manners and faces of the agents who
came to sell goods, the people who came to purchase, were an
inexhaustible source of fun to him. Human faces and figures always
suggested to him various species of animals or grotesque subjects. In
one he saw the face of an airedale, in another that of a rabbit, a
bulldog, a calf, or some ludicrous physiognomy. The forms of other
customers seemed to him to resemble numerical figures. As a result there
was a never-dying smile on his face and something akin to mockery in his
perpetually narrowed eyes. At times, however, he would forget his
merchandise and indulge in conversation foreign to his business. All
sorts of news was afloat in the air in those days—strange rumors from
France, from Austria, from England and scores of new movements in
Germany—and Albert gave free reign to his tongue. He made comments,
coined epigrams, gave expression to cynical remarks, which were repeated
in the Pavilions and, expatiated upon, were carried to his uncle.
Leopold Zorn had ordered Aaron Hirsch to keep his eye on his
incorrigible nephew and make reports of the young man’s conduct, and
while endeavoring to shield Albert, Aaron had “a wife and seven
children” and had to do his duty.
Aaron’s reports were not encouraging. Not infrequently when Aaron called
he found no one at the shop, the door unlocked, the proprietor away at
the Swiss Pavilion. Aaron played pranks upon Albert and carried off
numerous articles, which were undetected by the owner, until their
return by the sly Hirsch.
What Albert could not understand was the unsolvable riddle at the end of
six months; he had neither money nor merchandise and no one owed him
anything! He put the problem up to Aaron but instead of explaining the
situation Aaron laughed until tears rolled down his bearded cheeks.
“It’s a great mystery,” Albert said with mock gravity. “Perhaps a
Kabbalist might be able to bring Elisha back to life, and the prophet,
who could fill barrels of oil from an empty jug, might stretch a yard of
velveteen into a thousand bolts.”
When laughter subsided Albert produced a few sheets from his breast
pocket and read a few of his latest verses.
“Ah! if I could put these on the shelves!” he sighed.
III.
As most people in sorrow and affliction turn to prayer Albert turned to
love. He could be without friends, he could endure mental anguish, but
he could not bear life without love.
Of late many things had troubled him. His father was making preparations
to leave Gunsdorf and his mother’s letters lacked the usual ring of
cheer. His sister, too, seemed weary of the life in her native town and
frankly hinted that she would welcome a change. He had gradually become
estranged from Uncle Leopold’s house and from the class of people that
visited there and shunned all other associations, save the dilettantes
in the Swiss Pavilions who sat all day drinking beer and talking
grandiloquently of art and literature. But before long he tired of
these, too. He fathomed their depth. He was lonely and craved affection,
and his thoughts turned to Eugenie. He had not seen her for some time,
as her father had moved to a farm about five miles from Hamburg, and her
visits at Frau Rodbertus’ were rare. He now yearned for Eugenie and
reproached himself for his neglect of her in the past. He knew Eugenie
had loved him and wondered if she still loved him.
One summer day he took a stroll on the road between Winterlude and
Ohlsdorf. He was going to find her and yet sauntered along the road as
if he were just walking aimlessly for the sheer pleasure of movement. It
was a warm day and the road was white with dust. A dog barked. Albert
turned around and saw a large dog harnessed to a small cart, barking as
he pulled his load. Alongside the cart, on which stood a large empty
milk can, was a girl, with a kerchief overhead arranged in the shape of
a hood. The girl turned around when the dog began to bark, glanced in
Albert’s direction, and proceeded on her way. The next moment she turned
in his direction again and he saw a pair of large brown eyes under the
hood-like kerchief. His heart fluttered, noisy crickets chattered in a
nearby field. A bird called from a clump of bushes not far off. The
muffled beats of flails came from a barn close to the roadside. The girl
did not turn her head but plodded on alongside the little cart. Soon the
road forked off to the left and the girl turned her head again toward
him.
“Eugenie,” he called.
The dog emitted a loud, hollow bark and the empty can rattled against
the sides of the little cart.
The girl hesitated, paused, and turned around, the dog hurrying ahead of
her toward the farmhouse.
“Eugenie!”
Albert’s voice was jubilant, ringing with surprise, as if the meeting
was wholly accidental.
With a quick movement of her left hand she jerked off the handkerchief,
facing him with dilated eyes in which was a strange light.
She did not extend her hand to him.
“Frau Rodbertus had told me you were on a farm,” he broke the silence,
intimating that it was not chance that had brought him here.
A softer light stole over her face, her protruding lip curled upward,
disclosing her longish white teeth.
“I haven’t seen Frau Rodbertus in months,” Eugenie said, standing before
him with her arms hanging on either side of her, the kerchief in her
left hand.
Albert studied her a moment. The freedom of bygone days was gone. He
felt constraint and sensed her constraint.
The dog had reached the gate of the farmhouse and stopped, barking, his
head turned in the direction of Eugenie.
“You see, he is scolding me for lagging behind,” she said, indulging in
a spontaneous smile.
“He is scolding you for your failure to offer hospitality to the weary
wayfarer,” Albert answered in kind.
They both laughed.
“All wayfarers, weary or otherwise, are welcome at our house,” she said,
turning into the passage that led to the farmhouse.
When they reached the house, Eugenie’s father, with rake in hand, was
cleaning up the rubbish in front of the house. He was a little man, with
a round face, a small tuft of hair under his lower lip, and a soft look
in his round eyes such as only Frenchmen possess. He halted and glanced
up suspiciously at the young man who followed his daughter into the
yard. M. Chauraux was suspicious of all Germans, in spite of his sojourn
there for many years.
Eugenic introduced Albert to her father, who acknowledged the
introduction grudgingly. He showed only such cordiality as his native
manners and politeness compelled, mumbling a few words in broken German.
“The gentleman speaks French, papa,” Eugenie struck in cheerfully, “and
he loves the Emperor as much as you do.”
The Frenchman’s eyes turned with a bright flicker and, forgetting that
he had just shaken hands with the stranger, clasped his hand once more.
Then a mist appeared in the little man’s eyes and he sighed, muttering
under his breath, “The Emperor!”
“No one loves the Emperor more than I do,” returned Albert.
“Have you ever seen him?” There was ecstasy on the Frenchman’s face.
“I see him now—I see him all the time—” cried Albert with boyish
rapture. “I see him seated on a small white horse, holding the reins in
one hand and gently stroking the horse’s neck with the other, riding
slowly along the linden-flanked lane of the Hofgarten in my native
town—Ah, the Emperor!” Mist also appeared in Albert’s eyes.
Saddened silence. Two speechless individuals with drooping heads. The
Emperor was a captive on a barren island far removed from his
worshippers.
Eugenie did not think of the Emperor. She was too happy to think of
anything save of the cordiality between her father and Albert. Her
father was very strict and never permitted her to form any friendship
with young men. When the “time” would come he would find the proper
“parti” for her, was his way of thinking. And he guarded jealously the
most trivial flirtation on her part. He knew nothing of what had passed
between his daughter and this young man beyond the fact that he was a
lodger whom his daughter had once met at his relative’s home and that he
happened to meet Eugenie on a chance stroll in this vicinity.
It was about two o’clock and Albert was invited to have a meal with
them. There were very few words exchanged between Albert and Eugenie.
All the talk was between her father and Albert—about the Emperor.
M. Chauraux did not mind his daughter’s accompanying the young man for a
little distance. They had had a bottle of Burgundy between them and the
young man admired the Emperor. The Frenchman had become quite loquacious
and invited Albert to come again—any time whenever he could spare an
hour from his business. Who could tell? The young man talked so well,
seemed so prosperous, and loved the Emperor so much!—Who could tell? He
might be a proper _parti_.
M. Chauraux’s regard for Albert increased when, several days later, the
young man read to him a poem about Napoleon. The Frenchman did not quite
grasp the verses in German but when Albert gave him the substance of it
in French and then read the original to him, with unshed tears in his
eyes, he even understood the German.
The young poet declaimed his verses with passionate abandon, music in
his voice, tears in his eyes. The eyes of M. Chauraux, too, were
clouded, the tuft of hair under his lower lip quivered, and he shook his
head and sighed and murmured “_Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen!_”
M. Chauraux wiped a tear away. Who could tell? This young man, though
not French, certainly loved the Emperor, and was evidently not averse to
Eugenie—yes, he might be a proper _parti_ for Eugenie.
One day, when Eugenie came into the house, having escorted Albert down
the road, her father was seated at the table—there was only one table
and one room which served as dining and living room—his arms resting
upon it, as was his wont; his bushy eyebrows frowning as if he were
working on a hard puzzle; his eyes staring in front; his short, stubby
fingers drumming absently upon the table. He glanced at his daughter and
noticed the expression of exultation on her face.
“A talented young man, hein?” said the father, without removing his arms
from the table, and looking directly at her.
“Yes, he is,” Eugenie replied demurely, as was becoming a virtuous girl
when her father makes reference to a young man.
“Very talented—very,” he repeated and turned in the direction of the
window to his left. “Not a bad sort.”
Eugenie was silent and began busying herself with some household duties.
“_Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen!_” hummed M. Chauraux, nodding his
head sorrowfully and lightly tapping the table with the tips of his
fingers.
“He might make a good husband for some nice girl,” the father said
apropos of nothing a little later.
Eugenie was scouring a copper kettle and her head lowered as she applied
herself to the utensil with more determination, without making any
comment.
A girl should not be too frivolous, mused M. Chauraux, but still Eugenie
ought not to be that bashful. She could at least encourage the young
man, he said to himself, and take a little interest in him when he comes
to the house. So far the conversations in the house were invariably
carried on between the men, and always about the Emperor.
“You are past eighteen, my child,” he presently addressed his daughter,
“and if the right young man would come along I should like to see you
married.”
He rose from the table and came close to her. Eugenie, her face
reddening, did not raise her eyes.
“You like Monsieur Zorn—hein?”
The scouring sound was the only reply.
M. Chauraux was puzzled. He could not quite reconcile her blushes with
her silence. She never did care for the German young men, he said to
himself.
“He is so different from the other Germans,” the father pursued the same
object, flattering himself on his ingenious probing.
“Yes, he is different.”
M. Chauraux walked out of the house in a reflective mood. When a girl
thinks a young man different from other young men she might be in love
with him. Yes, he might be a good _parti_.
IV.
Weeks passed on, happy weeks for Albert. His stock was dwindling, so was
his money, but what did he care? M. Chauraux made no objections to his
frequent visits at the farm and at intervals Eugenie, on the pretext of
visiting her relative, came to the city and met Albert. Eugenie, too,
was happy. They were now avowed lovers, and nothing else mattered. The
fact that her love was clandestine added zest to her passion. For while
her father approved of Albert as a suitor properly chaperoned by
himself, she realized what would happen if he learned of their intimacy
in his absence. And when Albert and Eugenie were alone they never
discussed the future. The present was enough for them.
But Albert’s happiness never did continue long.
One day Aaron Hirsch—the faithful Aaron—entered the private office of
his master, with a woe-begone expression on his countenance and emitted
a half-stifled sigh.
“Herr Banquier,” he addressed the banker, with a wave of his hands,
“something must be done before it’s too late—I mean about your esteemed
nephew. I have kept my eye on him as I was bidden but now I am obliged
to bring to you a matter of grave importance.”
“What is the young scamp up to now?”
“A young scamp he is not, Herr Banquier.” Aaron gave a soft laugh and
rubbed his hands obsequiously. “But a young man is a young man and his
mind naturally turns to girls as the sunflower turns to the sun.” He
emitted a cackle and wiped his lips with the palm of his right hand.
“What is it?” Mr. Zorn was impatient.
“It’s still the matter I spoke to you about some time ago. The
Frenchman’s daughter. Well, Herr Banquier, a young man is a young man
and a girl is a girl—a—you see—a—it might be too late—” He gave a
helpless shrug of his shoulders.
“Does her father know of this?”
“This is what I have come to tell you, Herr Banquier. The other day I
drove down to Monsieur Chauraux’ farm on the pretext of selling him a
lottery ticket and incidentally pumped him about his daughter’s
relations with your worthy nephew. He thinks the young man is going to
marry his daughter—”
“Why didn’t you tell him Albert is living on my charity?” burst out
Leopold Zorn.
“Yes, Herr Banquier, I did hint to him that the young man has nothing
beyond that his philanthropic uncle sees fit to give him. Perhaps I
should have alluded to the difference in their religions.” Aaron looked
up at his master inquiringly.
“Religion or no religion, the scamp has no intention of marrying her. Go
and tell him that.”
“I hope it’s not too late.”
“Then don’t stand jabbering here. Go over at once and see the Frenchman
again.”
“Yes, Herr Banquier, I know where I can get a vehicle and can go at
once—I hope it’s not too late—I saw him with her at the Swiss Pavilion
yesterday—Yes, Herr Banquier, I can get a vehicle around the corner and
go at once,” Aaron repeated as he humbly bowed out of the banker’s
presence.
A few days later Albert approached the farmhouse with bouncing joy in
his heart. He had told Eugenie at their last rendezvous in the city what
time he would get to the farm and she was to meet him at a little grove
about half a mile from the house. Eugenie was still feigning bashfulness
in her father’s presence.
It was early autumn, heaps of dead leaves in the grove. Albert pondered
at her absence. On other occasions he had found her standing near a
silver birch waiting for him or concealed in a clump of underbrush
playing hide and seek with him. He loved those tantalizing moments,
running this way and that, punctuated by her silver laughter, and when
he would catch her, panting and out of breath, he would clasp her in his
arms and kiss her throat and lips and hair. The partly denuded trees now
disclosed her absence at a glance. He stood still and waited. Then he
stepped out in the open and looked down the road but she was not in
sight. His eagerness made him nervous. She had never failed in their
appointments. When he had approached the grove blissful expectancy was
in his breast, and the disappointment was doubly provoking. Then fear
possessed him. She might be ill.
After a space he strode toward her home. It was a one-story,
straw-thatched cottage, and as he entered the little yard he looked at
once at the door and at the two little windows on either side. No one
seemed around.
Albert rapped on the door. He heard a voice within. It was M. Chauraux’s
voice; his voice in anger.
He rapped again.
Silence.
Albert’s heart throbbed with misgivings.
Again he knocked.
The door soon opened with a rapid movement, M. Chauraux on the threshold
with a forbidding look in his round brown eyes.
Albert greeted him with his usual cordiality but with a fast-beating
heart.
M. Chauraux’s eyes moved from side to side, the tuft under his lower lip
projecting ominously.
“Is—is Mademoiselle Eugenia unwell?” Albert stammered.
M. Chauraux stepped forward and closed the door behind him.
“I can’t allow you to see Eugenie any more,” said the irate father
brusquely.
“But——”
“I want no arguments,” M. Chauraux resumed harshly. “And no
letters—they won’t be delivered to her—no more clandestine
rendezvous—you hear? I have had enough trouble with the police and want
no controversy with your banker uncle.”
And without further explanation he entered the house and slammed the
door.
Albert walked away, and reaching the gate turned around and looked at
the window but he only saw the reflection of the gray autumn sky in the
panes. He turned into the road and walked slowly back, with measured
steps, striking with his cane at the wilted leaves on the ground and at
the little stones by the wayside. Was there ever an Adam who was not
driven out of the Garden of Eden on some pretext or other, Albert mused
bitterly. What was his alleged sin? He could not tell, he could not
divine. What had suddenly turned M. Chauraux against him? Albert could
not account. He did not doubt Eugenie’s love. When he reached the grove
he paused. Every tree, every grassy spot was full of sweet memories. He
sighed. Sweet memories belong to old age, they are the white mile-stones
long passed and glistening in the distance. For the moment he felt aged,
an unfortunate Atlas, with the world of sorrows on his back——
“_Ich Unglücksel’ger Atlas! eine Welt,_
_Die ganze Welt der Schmerzen, muss ich tragen._”
Yes, he felt as if the whole world of sorrows was on his back, bearing
the unbearable, with a mortifying pain in his heart. He had insisted
upon either eternal bliss or endless misery—no compromise—and since
eternal bliss was denied him misery was the only alternative. He settled
upon a tree stump nearby lost in brooding reflections. He felt the
weight of life heavily upon him, it was crushing him. He could not think
of life without the sweetness of love, and that seemed to have been
taken away from him for ever. All events seem final to youth.
Time was passing. He could not tear himself away from this place, from
where he could see the straw-thatched roof in the midst of a cluster of
leafless trees. He could see the path daily trodden by her feet, the
underbrush that touched her skirt. How could he go on living without the
lustre of her eyes, without the clinging contact of her hands, without
the sweet warmth of her breath?
Before he realized darkness had come and the moon and stars appeared. He
had never seen the lights of heaven look down so sadly. Were they, too,
lovelorn?
With sudden determination he rose and walked back to the farmhouse,
nothing definite in his mind. The gate was ajar and there was no light
in the house, the pallor of the moon falling upon the window-panes. The
window to the left was her window, a few feet away from her bed. Here he
stood, gazing lovingly upward. He rose on his tip-toes and his face was
on a level with the bottom pane. He gently tapped on the glass but no
one stirred within.
“Eugenie,” he murmured, “Eugenie!”
No one appeared at the window, no one but the moonlight over his
shoulder.
He removed his diamond ring—his mother’s heirloom—and scratched on the
pane before him, “_Moi je n’existe que pour vous aimer_.”
He paused, a sad smile on his face, and turned to the road.
A peasant was driving by. Albert asked for a lift. “Hop in,” said the
peasant hospitably, “I am going all the way to the city.”
An hour later Albert was on the Jungfernstieg. The lane was crowded with
promenaders, the moon seemed to shine more cheerily here, the stars
twinkled brighter. With his head lifted there was abandon in his gait.
Girls walked past him with luring glances but he only smiled and walked
on. Presently he was in front of the Apollo Hall, ablaze with a thousand
candles, astir with a thousand voices. The Apollo was a gay place. The
blowing of trumpets reached his ears, the rattling of drums, the sounds
that stir the blood of youth. His steps halted.
“Do come in for old times’ sake!”
Some one had arrested his arm.
And from the Apollo came the blowing of trumpets, the rattling of drums,
the sounds that stir the blood of youth . . .
V.
Winter had come and gone. A bleak day in March. Wind, sleet, a drab sky.
In a little shop in Beckerstrasse, in Hamburg, a young man, with pale
cheeks and light brown hair and narrowed eyes, was seated before a
little table heaped with bills, invoices, and dunning letters. Some of
these reminders of indebtedness, were unfolded before him, others were
on a spindle, and still others were unopened. Why open letters when one
knows their contents? With hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets, his
legs extended under the table, the pale young man looked forlorn. He
seemed at once reckless and bewildered, sorrowful and carefree. There
was mist in his eyes. The postman had just handed him a letter from his
father. Not a line from his mother. “How did it all happen?”—was the
import of his father’s letter. How did it all happen? Figures had always
been the bane of Albert’s existence and to answer this question one must
deal with figures. A bitter smile suddenly appeared on his sensitive
lips, and his eyes narrowed still more—mere fine lines of indefinable
color. How did it all happen? A memory from his school days flitted
across his brain and his smile was bitter no longer. “When you grow up,”
his mathematics teacher had told him, “you’ll have to have some one else
to count your money for you, or you won’t have any.” And striking him
with a lead-edged ruler the teacher had made the announcement emphatic.
The young man threw his head back and laughed as he remembered the
incident. Soon he forgot his father’s letter and that vexing question,
forgot the bills and invoices, and his mind lingered upon his early
school days. He had always hated those school days, but now there was a
yearning in his heart for the teachers and text-books and for—yes, even
for the lead-edged ruler and gnarled stick. What if some stupid monk had
struck him with a ruler or cane? Those were happy days, when one was not
worried about paying bills and about letters that demanded how it had
happened! He sighed deeply and stretched his arms yawningly upward.
“Those were happy days,” he repeated to himself.
His eyes dropped upon his father’s letters before him. He became
irritable and vexed. He had thrashed it out with his uncle and now his
father had started all over again. “What will become of you, Albert?”
his father had added. “You are already in your twenty-second year and
have failed in everything—in everything. You have not only brought ruin
upon yourself but also upon your poor old father. For I am getting old,
Albert, and instead of my supporting you, you should take care of me.
And at my age I am now obliged to leave here and start over again at
some other town. I can read between the lines of your uncle’s letter
that your conduct in other respects has not been irreproachable.”
He pushed the letter away from himself. He was growing angry with his
father, with his mother, with his uncle. Why had they pressed business
upon him? They had known he had no taste for business. What right had
they now to complain?
He rose from his seat and paced the floor. He did not blame himself any
longer.
He locked the door. With the door locked he felt secure from disturbers.
Then, taking out a few sheets from his breast pocket began to scan an
uncompleted poem. Presently he replaced the sheets, uninvited thoughts
intruded upon him. His erstwhile cynical look faded. His eyes closed and
he heaved a sigh. The thought of his family moving away from Gunsdorf
pained him. His family had lived in Gunsdorf all their lives, and now
they must move to a little village. He blamed Nature for all their
misery. Who knows, he mused, Kant may be right. There was no guiding
Providence. How could there be with so many rascals inheriting the
earth? What a stupid world to believe in a guiding Providence! Or was
Providence stupid?——
The door rattled, the lock was tormented, but he hated to turn around to
see who the disturber was. Everything around him was so misguided, he
mused.
“Open the door!”
It was the voice of that magpie, Aaron Hirsch. He was fond of Aaron and
jumped up to open the door.
“You can’t do business with the door locked,” laughed Aaron.
“Just as much as with the door open,” Albert replied in a challenging
voice.
Aaron laughed good naturedly, unbuttoning his coat, heaved a long drawn
sigh, and asked, “How is business?”
“An ingenious question? Oh, business is wonderful—simply
wonderful—can’t you see? I have sold every bit of my stock——”
Aaron laughed.
“What’s the good word from Uncle Leopold?——”
“I am coming on no mission from him,” Aaron rejoined, shrugging his
shoulders as if the mere thought of it was foreign to him.
“Aaron Hirsch, for this falsehood you’ll have to fast two Mondays and
two Thursdays, and at that I am sure on the Day of Judgment, when you’ll
begin to tell all the good deeds you had done in this world, a seraph
will rush in, clapping his wings, and will halt your entering through
the gates of heaven because you had lied to a poor innocent earthly
poet.”
“You are too good to hold this against me,” laughed Aaron.
“No, I won’t. No sooner will that denouncing seraph have spoken when I
will gallop in on a fiery steed and say, ‘Lord of Hosts, poor Aaron only
lied because he wished to preserve a wife and seven children from
starvation.’ Whereupon the Lord of Hosts will brush the seraph aside and
say, ‘Let him in. It’s no sin to lie for one’s wife and seven children,’
and will praise you before the sun, the moon and all the shining stars,
and will appoint you an angel of the First Grade, with the right to wear
wings of the color of the Swiss Guards.”
Aaron “hi-hi’d,” and “ha-ha’d” and “ho-ho’d” and ended with a shriek of
uncontrollable laughter.
“If you’ll permit me to light my pipe,” Hirsch said a moment later, as
he stuck the bowl of his pipe into the mouth of his leather pouch, “I’ll
tell you the truth, though I have given my word to your uncle not to
tell you this. But remember, your uncle must not know that I told you
or——”
“I understand, your wife and seven children—”
“Well, sir,” continued Hirsch, “your esteemed uncle has instructed me to
find out the exact amount of your indebtedness and how much you owe for
your board and lodging. And he wants you to come and see him tomorrow
before noon—but not a word of what I told you about paying your debts.”
VI.
Hirsch soon left and Albert was again alone. He dreaded the meeting with
his uncle. If he could only check himself and let his uncle’s storm blow
over, but he insisted upon arguing, trying to convince his uncle that
he, Albert, and not the banker, was right. A gleam of hope appeared on
the horizon. Uncle Leopold had hinted at paying him a stipend if he
would go to the university of Bonn or Goettingen and continue his
studies.
What studies? What profession would suit him? His first thought was of
medicine, the career of his grandfather and of his Uncle Joseph, but he
hated medicine. Besides, Albert was not blind to his shortcomings. An
exact science was not for him. Anatomy, Materia Medica, Physiology,
Chemistry—his head began to ache at the very thought of committing
formulas and definitions to memory. What other profession was open to
him? He smiled as he recalled Father Schumacher’s advice to his mother.
Yes, student life in Rome appealed to him. The robe of the priest might
even be becoming to him. He visualized himself in the black robe of the
priesthood and a humorous smile spread over his countenance. He had read
the “Decameron” and had also heard not a few delectable yarns about
priests. And he recalled the pretty face of a nun with downcast demure
eyes. And the blue skies of Italy and the dark skinned maidens of
Tuscany—many fantasies leaped into his brain, alluring fantasies. The
priesthood seemed to him an ideal career for a poet. He always loved
mythology, and, after all, he continued in the same musing vein,
Catholicism was the new mythology. The Immaculate Conception, the
Virgin, the Man God, the Crucifixion, the Altar, the Incense—mythology
of another age. What difference did it make whether God is one, Three or
a Million? The Children of Men must have toys to play with, and one is
as good as another. Toys never last long. The children play with them a
while, destroy them, and cry for more toys, which, in turn, are broken
and replaced by others. The Persians found amusement in one kind of toy,
the Jews in another, the Greeks in still another, and then the Romans,
and so on until the end of time. Conversion? Albert laughed as this term
passed through his mind. It had always been so odious to the Jews, and
was also odious to him, but now he laughed at the thought of it.
The day drew to a close. He rose, put on his hat and topcoat, locked the
shop, and walked aimlessly along the streets, still musing and thinking.
His thoughts were soon arrested by the procession of _Judenhetzers_
singing an obscene song. His idle musing stopped.
All thoughts fled from his mind. He felt as if some one had suddenly
gripped at his heart and wrung every drop of blood from it. And he, too,
moved along, the very poignant pain propelling him onward. People in the
procession saw him but no one took him for one of the Chosen. His blond
hair and proud bearing saved him from personal molestation.
The following morning found Albert in bed, suffering from a painful
headache, needles pricking at the base of his brain. The good Frau
Rodbertus applied compresses to his head and attended him with maternal
tenderness.
“Too much reading and writing, Herr Zorn,” she spoke solicitously and
passed her hand soothingly over his disheveled hair and feverish brow.
“_Nein, liebe Frau Rodbertus, zu viel Christliche Liebe_, (too much
Christian love),” he murmured, a strange smile stealing over his wan
features.
Frau Rodbertus smiled, too. She took him literally and, waving an
admonishing finger at him with scolding playfulness said, “The girls
will be your ruination if you don’t take better care of yourself.”
VII.
Later in the day he penned the following letter to Christian:
“My dear Christian:
“It seems I never write to you unless I am either in the seventh heaven
or in the depths of hell. However, just now I may be only in purgatory.
Who knows? But today I am angry, cross, furious; my wits are in
mourning; the wings of my fancy are clipped. I am a blind Samson in the
midst of jeering Philistines, with no pillars to pull down on my
enemies. I have wound up my _immense_ business, or rather it has wound
me up. Please don’t laugh. I have risen in the world. Very few have
achieved the state of bankruptcy at my time of life. It’s quite a
distinction, you must own. Well, you always did prophesy greatness for
me. But my good uncle has paid all my obligations so my fame as a
bankrupt won’t be of long duration.
“What a life I have led the past twelve months? God and Satan strove for
my soul and in the conflict tore it to shreds. My inner life has been
continuous brooding over the depths of the world of dreams, my outer
life wild, cynical, dissolute, hateful. Yes, _amice_, at last I
understand heaven and hell—with special emphasis on the latter. I am
sure when I die I shall be appointed chief guide in hell, for I am
familiar with every road and byway of the subterranean region, and could
teach Dante a thing or two. Of course, my good Christian will have no
occasion to meet me in Gehenna. I am sure Saint Peter will open the
gates of heaven for you at the first glimpse of your benevolent
countenance, but, then, I will interrupt the saintly doorkeeper and ask
permission to show you _my_ dominion first. Who can tell, you may be
just in time to see Lilith and her bevy of sporting witches go bathing
in the Styx, and I give you my word you shall not be hurried.
“But I do have good news for you. I shall soon leave for Cuxhaven, where
the doctors assure me the sea baths will restore my health, which has
not been of the best. And the thought of leaving this hateful city
already makes me feel refreshed. I detest this place and the
people—everybody, everybody. I am sick at heart. You can readily
understand my state of feelings that aside from my own grief—the grief
of my many dismal failures—my blood is boiling within me at the memory
of an ugly spectacle I witnessed the other night. It is too painful to
speak of it; the iron has entered my soul; everything within me has
turned to gall. The ‘Baptised traders’ here have launched a fierce
attack against the _Un-Baptised_. The irony of it! The pot calls the
kettle black. Those hideous cowards! You know me well enough that I am
no more blind to the shortcomings of the Jews than any Christian, but
when I see those selfish, cruel monsters revive the barbarism of the
Middle Ages my heart cries in anguish. Those barbarians! In one breath
they boast that they surpass the English in commerce, the French in art,
the Greeks in philosophy, the Romans in warfare, and in the very next
breath clamor that unless the progress of the Jews is checked the Teuton
will be exterminated! Those miserable cowards! Twenty millions of these
superior beings afraid of a handful of Jews! It would be laughable were
it not so tragic! But I can’t speak of it, I can’t think of it—
“But wait, the day of reckoning will come. Before they have shaved my
locks and put my eyes out I will tie firebrands to the tails of these
foxes—you remember the story of Samson and the Philistines?—Yes, I
will smite them hip and thigh, but not with the jawbone of an ass; a
goose quill is my weapon.
“Did I say I was unhappy? I am to leave this cursed city, which holds
for me nothing but the bitterest memories. So I will go to Bonn.
“O, what a comedy life is!—But enough!
From the depths I call to Thee, Oh, Lord!
Albert”
VIII.
A mid-April day, rather warm for the season. The sunbeams were playing
around the slender spire of the Petrithurm at Hamburg, with sparkling
flashes at the bluish surfaces of the calm waters of the Alster.
At the curb before one of the houses on Grosse Bleichenstrasse stood a
blinking horse, harnessed to a cart, a driver fidgeting with whip and
reins. Soon the portal of the courtyard opened and from it emerged a
strapped black leather valise, then a little squatty man, then a slender
young man of medium height with small greenish eyes and light brown
hair, carrying a cane and an umbrella in one hand and in the other a
small bundle.
The older man placed the valise in the cart, the younger one threw in
the bundle, umbrella and cane; the two clasped hands.
There was a mist in the prominent eyes of the older man. There was a
faint smile on the large mouth of the younger, a smile pregnant with
sadness.
“Goodbye, _mein lieber Herr Zorn_,” murmured the older man.
There was emotion in his voice, tenderness in his tone, sorrow on his
face.
“Adieu,” muttered the young man; an involuntary sigh escaped his lips.
Their hands remained clasped.
“I hope success will meet you wherever you turn,” the older resumed
affectionately. “I hope your enemies will have no occasion to
rejoice——”
A smile again appeared on the young man’s pale face, a cynical smile
that only touched the iris of his eyes and the corners of his mouth.
“Don’t worry, _lieber Hirsch_. _Sie werden noch von mir hören!_” (You
will hear from me yet!)
A sympathetic pressure of their hands and they both smiled.
The young man jumped into the vehicle, the driver slightly rose in his
seat and clacked his tongue, the horses moved.
“Goodbye,” the man called from the curb.
“Goodbye,” called back the young man from the moving cart and waved his
hand . . .
PART TWO
A FIGHTER IN THE MAKING
THE SALON.
I.
Some cities are like affected women. In their desire to appear original,
without possessing any originality, they ape the mannerism of one, the
gait of another, the gestures of a third, striking poses not their own.
While Paris, for example, has always been her natural self, with her
vices and virtues, her elegance and tawdriness, her brilliance and
superficial glitter, which spring from her native appetites; while
London, likewise, is always herself, as is Vienna and Munich and Venice
and Florence and Rome; Berlin, of all great cities, has never been her
real self. With the subtle artifices of the poseur she has always
imitated her envied rivals and at the same time ridiculed those whose
manners she simulated. Her lurking jealousy has always decided her
model. It is a safe prophecy that within a decade Berlin will pattern
her life after New York and will at the same time raise her voice in
derision against the materialism of the great American Metropolis.
Berlin a century ago, no different from Berlin of today, had broad
avenues, beautiful public gardens, spacious boulevards, gaudy palaces,
luxurious homes, busy restaurants, noisy cafés, all immaculately kept
with the orderliness of an army on parade, and with a palpable newness
that made one feel that the city and all her gardens, avenues,
boulevards, palaces, were laid out by cord and line, chiefly after the
design of an individual, without the least indication of the character
or ideas of the inhabitants.
During the Napoleonic wars, especially after Blücher’s hospitality in
the British capital, Berlin had become London-mad and copied her life
openly, but no sooner was the treaty of Paris concluded, and Napoleon’s
threatening shadow was definitely removed, than Berlin struck her former
pose. She again wished to vie with her hated rival, Paris. _Salons_ were
formed, art circles sprang into being, the Prussian began to scoff in
Voltairean style, simulated French wit, and presented plays of flagrant
immorality which to the Berliner seemed quite Parisian.
Superficial imitation, however, frequently brings about changes of a
deeper nature. With the adoption of foreign fashions came foreign ideas.
The spirit of revolt which had been smouldering in Paris—soon to break
out in roaring flames—had also permeated the _Kaiserstadt_. French
ideals had sifted in and Young Germany was awaking.
But whenever, and wherever, people fight for freedom the brave and the
strong perish that the cowardly and the weak may live. Officialdom is
ever ready to forgive the offenses of the truckler. At this period,
however, even the weaklings sought an outlet for their aroused
feelings—in polemics that did not disturb the Prussian officials.
Religion, philosophy, romanticism, were safe substitutes. At no epoch in
the history of Germany did the land abound in so many cults and sects as
during the last two decades of the reign of that weak and good-natured
king, Frederic William the Third. There were the Kantians, who discarded
all miracles and regarded Christianity as a mere philosophic doctrine;
the Hegelians, who were pantheistic yet clung to the romantic life story
of Jesus; the followers of Schleiermacher, who swung between Pantheism
and Rationalism, without touching either; and then there were the
unadulterated romanticists, who followed—without clear
understanding—Fichte, Schlegel and Schelling.
The vortex of all great discussions was the salon of Rahel Varnhagen von
Ense. Her house at No. 20 Friedrichstrasse was the Mecca of all people
of note and her “at home” was sought with eagerness. Not to have known
Rahel reflected upon one’s intellectual standing. And Karl August
Varnhagen von Ense was modest enough not to resent being known as
Rahel’s husband. His admiration for his wife’s personality equalled his
great love for her.
Rahel was as enigmatic and as paradoxical as the race from which she
sprang. With her, as with her race, the unexpected happened. The
daughter of a wealthy merchant and bearing the name of Rachel Levin at a
period when a Jewish name was the greatest social handicap in Berlin,
she had risen to a secure place in society. Princes courted her, artists
sought her counsel, men of letters craved her opinion. No less a
personage than Wolfgang von Goethe, at the very zenith of his fame, sent
in his card. Unlike her social rival, Henrietta Herz, it was not
physical beauty nor fascinating coquetry that helped her win her
position in society. Rather plain looking, save for her brilliant black
eyes, and small of stature, she possessed that indefinable charm which
is even more attractive than beauty; and although she had already
reached her fiftieth year her slender figure gave her a girlish
appearance.
With the tact of a clever hostess she engaged one guest in conversation
while her ears caught the drift of the talk of another.
“Rahel has discovered a new poetic genius,” her husband was saying.
His smile was not that of banter but rather of triumph. There was pride
in his small featured countenance.
A little man, with a large head and an ugly sharp face, was laughing
blandly, as an echo to von Ense’s remark.
“I see you are sceptical about new poetic geniuses, Pastor
Schleiermacher,” resumed von Ense.
“No,” said the little man, still laughing, “but I thought that with Herr
von Goethe still alive Frau Varnhagen would admit of no other poetic
genius.”
Rahel, who was giving her attention to one of Hegel’s discourses—Hegel
was always delivering discourses, even in drawingrooms—caught the gist
of Schleiermacher’s ironic remark and her smiling eyes seemed to say,
“Wait until Professor Hegel gets through with his monologue and you
shall get your deserts.”
However, the opportunity had not yet come. Professor Hegel was still
laboring to complete his sentence in his strong Swabian accent, speaking
haltingly, with jerking gestures, and, swaying his body awkwardly, he
continued:
“As I was saying, when I think a thought, for instance, I am not
thinking my own thought but only part of the universal thought of all
human intelligence, and while the thought strikes me as my own it is
only the thought of the universe I am thinking, and when I think of God,
or rather of the absolute, the idea of the consciousness of one, I am
only thinking as part of the whole which is God—in other words, my
consciousness of this thought and the opposite of this very thought are
one and the same thing, both being the same consciousness of an integral
whole——”
Rahel welcomed the guests while giving part of her mind to Hegel, who
was laboring through the labyrinth of his thoughts, seeking a way out.
Fortunately Hegel minded no intrusions nor interruptions, and with his
shoulders stooped, his prematurely aged, wrinkled countenance undergoing
the visible contortions of a twitching pair, proceeded:
“In other words, though directed _an sich_, concerning and pertaining to
one’s self as an incomplete and imperfect existence—such thought, as I
have clearly demonstrated, is different and yet identical, all forming
complementary parts of a whole, as segments make up a circle, and yet
without a circle there can be no segments——”
“Clearly so,” struck in the hostess.
“Yes, Pastor Schleiermacher,” she turned her keen eyes upon the little
savant, “I have discovered a new poetic genius. Venus may shine even
though the greater lustre is that of Jupiter.”
She wished him to know that she had overheard his pleasantly about the
bard of Weimar.
“Who is this new genius—a Berliner?”
Several other faces turned upon the hostess.
“No, a recent arrival. He hails originally from the Rhineland but he has
just come from Goettingen, a student of Jurisprudence——”
“With no past?”
“All future,” laughed Rahel. “Yes, he has something pelled from
Goettingen——”
“Then there is indeed hope for him,” struck in Gubitz, editor of the
“_Gesellschafter_.”
“I expect him here this evening,” Rahel soon added seriously. “He has
real talent. He promised to bring a few of his poems and I may induce
him to read them to us.”
When Rahel praised the most critical paused to consider. She had been
the first to proclaim Goethe’s supremacy when to the literary world at
large he was still “only one of the poets.”
Soon Albert was announced and every one divined that he was the object
of Rahel’s admiration. Even Hegel, who was still elucidating his trend
of thought, raised his eyes to get a glimpse of the newcomer.
Dressed in a velvet frock coat and frilled shirt, with lace falling over
his white, beautifully shaped hands, with a broad laid-down collar, he
looked taller than he actually was. In his face was boyishness with
something indefinable about the deep corners of his mouth that already
spoke of world-weariness, and the peculiar twinkle in his narrowed eyes
accentuated the suggestion of cynicism.
Rahel, with the _savoir faire_ of the hostess of a celebrated salon,
made a special effort to put the young man at his ease. She realized
that in spite of his innate pride—the pride she well understood—the
gathering of so many notables, so many years his seniors, embarrassed
him. She meant to be his patroness. Inwardly she was already proud of
him. She was not displeased with the manner in which he met the
brilliant assemblage. She could see he was not over-modest but she was
enough of a student of human nature to know that while true genius may
understand its own limitations it is never humble enough to reveal them
to others. Again, she was pleased because he did not betray his Semitic
lineage. She had not yet outlived her secret wish to obliterate her
racial past, though in her heart of hearts—deeper than she permitted
herself to penetrate—she was proud that he was of her race.
She kept close to him all evening, eagerly watching over him lest he
might make some _faux pas_ and put himself in a wrong light before the
critical audience. She was conscious of his youth and of his readiness
of speech, and knew the prejudice of elders against a talkative young
man, no matter how scintillating. For after a momentary constraint
Albert joined in the conversation with his wonted recklessness and
offered opinions that might be construed as presumptive in a man of his
age. And she was particularly glad that he had made a favorable
impression upon Gublitz. The editor was not as pedantic as most of the
coterie and possessed enough of cynicism himself to appreciate the young
poet’s bitter tongue. She was counting on the editor of the
“_Gesellschafter_” to be of service to her protégé.
Though she urged him to read a few of his poems she was pleased when
Albert declined, and she was still more gratified when he handed her a
packet for her personal perusal.
II.
Albert left Rahel’s salon elated. Rahel was a revelation to him. In the
past two years he had met learned Professors at Bonn and Goettingen, and
had met a few charming women, but had as yet never met a person of
either sex that combined the erudition of pedants with the ease
engendered by good social breeding.
What particularly drew him towards her was her naturalness; her freedom
of sham, her uncompromising truthfulness. And what was rarest of all,
she was innocent of all prejudices. She could sympathize with those
whose opinions were diametrically opposed to her own. Inner suffering is
very often the most effective instructor of tolerance. The only thing
she despised and for which she showed no sympathy, was correct
mediocrity—Philistinism. At last Albert Zorn had found a kindred
spirit.
His experiences of the past two years had prepared him for this
friendship. He had read a great deal, thought profoundly, and suffered
no little since he left Hamburg. Embittered by his unrequited love he
had fled from the _Schacherstadt_ as from a nightmare, and at first
found Bonn very much to his liking. Not only was the atmosphere of
learning alluring after the sordid commercialism of Hamburg, but the
town on the Rhine, with its picturesque surrounding, reawakened in him
the sentiments of his boyhood. And here, too, was the friend of his
boyhood, Christian Lutz, also another old classmate. Indeed, at first it
seemed like old times. He was again sauntering along the banks of his
beloved river, dreaming fanciful dreams; he persuaded himself that he
had obliterated the rankling memories of that hateful city, the cradle
of his great sorrows.
And though already twenty-two he flung himself into the college life
with boyish ardor. He became a member of the _Burschenschaft_, joined
the Round Table of a young literary coterie, and participated in the
students’ pastimes, such as fencing and dueling, and only refrained from
smoking and drinking because of his precarious health. Save for his
narrowed dreamy eyes and peculiar restlessness, he appeared as a typical
“_flotter Bursch_”. He wore a black coat, a red cap, and across his
breast shone the colors of the _Burschenschaft_, a band of black, red
and gold.
The _Burschenschaft_ was more than a mere student fraternity, with
_camaraderie_ as its objective. It claimed idealistic aims. Its leaders
spoke of a United Germany, they prattled of Neo-Hellenism—the
Neo-Hellenism of Goethe and Winckelmann—they orated about
Romanticism—“_Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt_.”——
But much as they indulged in fine speeches their real aims were
visionary—_Schwärmerei_—rather than practical. It was only the
Prussian Government that took them seriously. The assassination of
Kotzebue by a fanatic student had aroused the authorities to drastic
action. Students had been expelled, professors incarcerated, the members
of the _Burschenschaft_ were under police surveillance. And the open
antagonism of the Government fanned the smouldering embers of revolt in
the breasts of the young dreamers who despised Prussian tyranny.
Albert joined the _Burschenschaft_ at this critical moment, and brought
to it all the zeal of a new convert. Hitherto he had given but little
thought to political strife, his being had been immersed in romantic
sentiments of the heart, but in this league he beheld the means to a
great end. To him the _Burschenschaft_ stood for the contending force
against Prussianism. And when one night the students marched to the
Kreuzberg, back of the town, where by the glow of flaming torches and
bonfires they voiced their undying loyalty to the great cause, Albert
Zorn was one of the most fervid. It was his first taste of action. His,
innate love of liberty flared up and took the place of his erstwhile
sentimentality.
Through the carelessness of a fellow student, who had written a report
of this torch parade to an editor, the authorities learned of this march
and at once cited the offenders to appear before the
_Universitätsrichter_ (college judge). In the protocol it was charged
that not only was the _Burschenschaft_ greeted with “_Lebe hoch!_” but a
seditious speech was made which ended with the following ominous words:
“Brothers, a great burden rests upon our shoulders. We must free the
oppressed Fatherland!” And out of the 216 members of the
_Burschenschaft_ only Albert Zorn and three others were singled out for
chastisement. True, he was not severely punished but the accusation and
the proceeding of the trial were enough to deepen his hatred for
Prussian rule, and to dampen his ardor for Bonn. Moreover, this
unexpected jolt brought clarity to his vision. His temporary illusion
was gone. He saw the futility of the _Burschenschaft_; its members had
not displayed such courage at the trial as to arouse his admiration. He
saw in their endeavors nothing but sound and empty phrases. He had
mistaken the boyish circle for a manly organization.
In addition to his disillusions came the crushing disappointments as
regards Christian Lutz. Albert was grieved at the change in his boyhood
friend. The son of a Prussian official, he began to reveal his inner
self. The leopard could not change his spots. Instead of the buoyant
youngster that he had been in former years, Christian was now a stolid
young man and frowned upon all liberal views. Albert felt that Christian
was regarding him with the eyes of a Prussian official, for which
function he was preparing himself. And Christian had also lost interest
in literature. He regarded Albert’s poetic flights as mere child’s play,
unbecoming a serious minded student.
At the end of the second semester Albert again found himself alone and
aloof, walking, brooding, planning, sick at heart. Everybody and
everything had suddenly changed, only he was the same, the same dreamer,
dreaming of things that were not coming true.
Discouraged he left Bonn and went to Goettingen. However, it did not
take him long to realize the fallacy of the change. Instead of the
picturesque scenery of the former town the environments of Goettingen
were commonplace and instead of the romantic spirit of the Bonn
University the air in this “learned nest” was charged with pedantry;
everybody was bent on “grinding”, with scholarship as its shibboleth.
And what was more irritating to the democratic son of the Rhineland was
the predominant element of the Hannoverian _Junker_ aristocracy; the
superciliousness and the boorishness of these tyrannical fledglings
goaded him on to voicing his contempt for the whole breed. Always
outspoken, always blunt, always showing his likes and dislikes too
plainly, he made no secret of his opinions. As a result he had quickly
gained a reputation for wit but at the expense of popularity. The
historian Sartorius, one of Albert’s professors at Goettingen and an
ardent admirer of his talents, lauded the young poet’s verses which were
shown him, but added, “_Indessen, man wird Sie nicht lieben_.” No, they
neither loved his songs nor himself at Goettingen.
Before long he was again called before the _Universitätsrichter_. A
charge was lodged against him that he had challenged one of the
students, a nobleman, to a duel, against the rules of the University. He
admitted the charge and justified his act because his opponent had
questioned his veracity. But the college judge would not recognize such
a defense.
So after a summer of study and foot-journeys with a knapsack on his back
he came to Berlin.
III.
Berlin thrilled him at first. Keen observer though he was, he mistook
her superficial dazzle for a deeper brilliancy. He was still looking at
the world with the eyes of a rustic. The opera, the galleries, the fine
avenues, the gay cafés, the _salons_—everything about him engaged his
interest and furnished food for his vivid imagination. Furthermore,
though still a law student, he was received in society as a promising
young poet and as such many doors of distinguished men and women were
open to him.
At last the fates were kind to him, he thought. His health had improved,
he had a circle of friends and admirers, he was writing new poems,
getting old ones published, had finished a poetical drama, and had hopes
of seeing it presented on the stage. And Rahel’s house had become his
second home. He did not wait for her “at home” but came and went as he
pleased. She read and criticised every line he wrote, and her severest
censure never hurt his feelings. Very frequently her husband was also
invited to pass critical judgment on Zorn’s verses. Dinners and teas
with brilliant people, late evenings at Lutter and Wegner’s—the café
where the young literary talent of Berlin congregated to discuss the
latest book, the latest play, the latest musical composition.
Conversation was to him like reading: it stimulated his own thoughts.
And when he was not reading or arguing he was strolling along _Unter den
Linden_, swinging his cane, his eyes narrowed, his chest thrust forward,
gathering impressions. When fatigued from walking he dropped in at Café
Josty, famed for its _Kaffee mit Sahne_.
To be sure, moments of sorrow were not lacking even in those happy days.
His father’s financial condition had grown worse and then came the
crushing blow that Hilda was betrothed—that she had preferred an
everyday business man to a poet by the grace of God! Besides, he was
always short of a few _Louis d’or_ for which he would rob Peter to pay
Paul, and he was ever perplexed as to where his money had gone. Uncle
Leopold’s stipend came punctually on the first of the month, and
according to his calculations should see him through till the first of
the next, but somehow it never lasted more than a week. Ah, if he could
only catch up and start with a clean slate the next month! Every month
he would take a vow to be more regular in his habits, more
methodical—never, never would he be inveigled into a game of Pharo—but
then at the end of the week he found himself with but one _Thaler_ in
his pocket, with three more weeks before the first of the next month,
and he would then hasten to one of his friends to borrow enough to tide
him over the difficult period. Then, again there were other sorrows.
Albert had collected a number of his poems and wished to publish them in
book form but he was still unable to find a publisher. “The bats!” he
would mutter under his breath, “I turn the sun upon them and they see it
not.” Rahel was the only one who saw the light. It was heartbreaking.
Byron at his age was already famous and he—“Oh, the blind bats!”
One day a would-be friend came knocking at his door. It was late on a
cold January morning and he was still in bed. He had awakened earlier in
the morning but a few stray thoughts tormented him so he turned over and
tried to forget them in sleep. Fortunately nothing but a headache
disturbed his sleep. Grief had the opposite effect on him. The day
before had been a very trying one. He had lost a few Louis d’or at
Pharo, had a quarrel with one of his comrades at Lutter and Wegner’s,
and had received an unpleasant letter from his parents. So he had stayed
up late the night before writing verses on the cruelty of fate.
As he turned in his bed a thought flashed across his brain that eternal
sleep was the greatest gift of the gods—Death! No rejected manuscripts,
no unrequited love, no debts, no asinine critics, no Hegels and
Schleiermachers, no Jews and Christians, no Prussian censors—death
surely was bliss, he determined and buried his head in his pillow. He
recalled that when he awoke he was in a very pleasant dream, and hoped
to pick up the golden threads of that fantastic web. He wondered what
had awakened him. It must have been the sounds outside. Friedrichstrasse
was becoming noisy, he was saying to himself, and he ought to change his
lodgings where his pleasant dreams would not be interrupted. He was
trying to bring back the vanished phantom. He sometimes went back to
sleep and resumed the dream at the point left off, like a story given in
instalments.
Confound that noise outside! Albert was vexed with Friedrichstrasse,
with the mob that never respected the sensibilities of a poet, with
those clattering hoofs—why could not such heavy treading beasts have
rubber hoofs? Rubber—a Pharo wheel—a girl’s face—the girl was beating
a drum—it was deafening . . .
He rose with a sudden start and blasphemous ejaculations.
“Who is there? What do you want?” he demanded in a high pitched voice.
He remembered that he had forgotten to bolt his door, so he shouted
again, “Open the door and tell me what you want!”
“A man wants to see you—”
“This early? What does he want? Who is he?”
“I told him you were asleep but he would not leave. He said he must see
you; and, besides, he said you had no business to be asleep at eleven
o’clock—”
“What business is that of his?” Albert shouted. “Tell the impudent fool
I won’t see him—”
The landlady laughed blandly. She knew her lodger, and there was but a
step between his uncontrollable wrath and overflowing tenderness.
His features softened. Hegel’s lectures came punctually at two and he
did not want to miss that. It was not so much that he wished to hear
what the philosopher had to say—Hegel had been repeating the same thing
in the past ten lectures—but he loved to watch the Professor’s
grotesque movements and the peculiar contortions of his wrinkled face. A
classmate next to him was making interesting caricatures of the
Professor while he was lecturing.
“Who is this fellow?” Albert asked in a modulated voice. “Has he no name
at all?”
“He said he was a genius and was sure you’d appreciate him—and he looks
like a genius.”
“You have probably misunderstood him,” laughed Albert. “He must have
said he wanted to see the genius. Alright, let him come in.”
The landlady shrugged her shoulders and closed the door.
He was about to throw himself back on his bed when she reappeared,
followed by the stranger.
“Look at the damn thing!” the intruder burst out, without a word of
introduction. “No publisher would have it. I showed it to the editor of
the “_Gesellschafter_” but he only shook his head and said ‘Show it to
Albert Zorn.’ So here it is!”
With that he flung a packet of papers on the bed.
Albert reached for the manuscript, then glanced at his visitor.
“So your name is Krebsfleisch?”
“Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch” the stranger corrected him, with a
sullen expression on his high cheekbones and short, receding chin. His
brow was like a dome and his eyelids were heavy, with bovine eyes
protruding.
“Before long everybody in the land—princes and paupers—will know who
Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch is!” he added. “The world is as yet too
stupid to recognize my genius. I was told you might understand me—But
you can’t be a poet and have that fine fur coat!”
Krebsfleisch suddenly checked himself, his bulging eyes turned in the
direction of an open clothes-closet, where Zorn’s clothes were hanging.
He crossed the room and patted the fur as if it were a purring cat.
Albert’s mouth tightened with a humorous smile on his lips. There was a
mischievous twinkle in his narrowed eyes. He could not decide whether
his visitor was an escaped lunatic or had not recovered from a night’s
drinking. He wore a short, tattered coat, baggy patched trousers, and
his hairy breast was seen through his unbuttoned shirt. His headgear was
a cross between an old-fashioned high silk hat and the present day
derby.
“Why don’t you read it?” he presently accosted Albert. “Some day you’d
be glad to tell your friends that the great poet Johann Friedrich
Krebsfleisch had given you the chance of reading his great epic in
manuscript.” Then he added, as if soliloquising, “Every genius is a John
the Baptist crying in the wilderness. Years later people wake up and try
to catch the echo.”
Albert undid the package and glanced at the title page.
“Since Schiller died no one has produced a tragedy worthy of the name.
At last you have one before you,” Krebsfleisch struck in.
“Have you published anything?”
“The idiots can’t see my genius—yet. And the finest quality of my
genius is hunger. Yes, I am a genius by the grace of god. No one has
ever known hunger in all its stages as I have.”
He moved his jaws, his eyes wandering around the room.
A knock at the door and a maid entered with a tray of steaming coffee
and several rolls and butter.
Krebsfleisch stared at the food avidly.
“You must be a millionaire,” he said, sitting down at the foot of the
bed. “A fur coat, a warm room, steaming coffee in the morning. Are you a
poet or a publisher?”
“Just a poetic genius like yourself,” laughed Albert.
Krebsfleisch looked suspiciously at his host. There was something in
Albert’s voice that was always puzzling. One could never tell whether he
was jesting or was in earnest.
“You can’t possibly drink all this coffee alone?” said the visitor.
“No, I ordered enough for both of us,” responded Albert seriously. And
he removed the cup from the saucer and filled them both to the brim.
“Which would you rather have, the cup or the saucer?” he asked.
Krebsfleisch’s bulging eyes skipped from one to the other, with a
peculiar glitter.
“I always drink my coffee from a saucer,” he finally replied, and taking
hold of it with both hands carried it to his lips.
“You may have all the bread and butter—I don’t care for any this
morning,” Albert said nonchalantly.
Krebsfleisch stared at Zorn incredulously. How was it possible that one
did not care for bread and butter! Overlooking the knife he spread the
butter on a slice of bread with his finger and began to devour it
ravenously.
“That’s how my mother used to spread butter on my bread.” His words were
half drowned in the fullness of his mouth!
A moment later he sighed. “Those were happy days in my native village!
My mother had a cow and there was always bread and butter and cheese in
our house, but she insisted she must make an educated man of me. It
serves her right. I have eaten her out of house and all. She inherited
silver spoons from her father—her father was a _Beamter_—and I have
devoured them all. The ladle goes for this semester’s tuition.”
Albert heaved a sigh. He had devoured his mother’s pearls and his
grandfather had consumed a prayer-book with silver clasps during his
last term at the medical school. There was now a bond of sympathy
between the two. There was mist in Albert’s eyes. He caught his breath
but could not speak. His first impulse was to have fun with the queer
stranger but instead sympathy filled his heart.
“There is a pair of trousers I don’t need,” Albert said presently. He
was too sensitive to make the offer directly.
“Yes, they might fit me,” Krebsfleisch glanced at the pantaloons thrown
over a chair by the bed. Then he stood up and measured the length of the
legs against his. “Perhaps a little tight around the calves, but they’ll
do.”
A few coppers jingled in the trouser-pockets. There was a questioning
look in his eyes.
“Yes, the contents goes with the trousers,” said Albert with seeming
absentmindedness.
Krebsfleisch at once removed his own tattered trousers unceremoniously
and pulled on those offered him.
“Your father must be very rich,” he was saying as he was stretching the
waist line to fit his rotundity.
“Very, very rich,” stammered Albert with a sad smile on his face.
“And you never go hungry—not for a single day?”
“No, not for mortal food,” Zorn intoned wistfully.
“The other day,” Krebsfleisch said in a plaintive tone, “I did some
copying for a rich idiot who took i a notion into his head that he had a
new theory about the universe. He paid me four silver Thalers! Yes, sir,
I had four silver Thalers in the hollow of my hand and was on my way to
Jagor’s to have a real spread—_Braten_ and white bread and a bottle of
wine—and invited two friends for the feast. On the way to the
restaurant I met a fellow-student and we dropped into Lutter and
Wegner’s for a drink. I don’t know how it happened but we both got drunk
and when night came the four Thalers were gone. One of the students, who
had been invited to the spread, waited for me at Jagor’s until midnight,
and then he challenged me—that fool! Must I lose my life in addition to
the loss of my four Thalers? I have no more chance of a dinner at
Jagor’s,” he ended with an audible sigh. “Rich idiots with new theories
do not grow on trees.”
He rose and stretched his arms, with a downward look at his tightly
fitting trousers.
“Can you perchance spare a top coat to cover this misfit?”
Yes, Albert had a top coat. It was hanging on a peg in the open closet.
“A fur coat and a top coat! You are not related to the Rothschilds?”
“Just distantly—the same as to the Prophets and to some of the
Apostles.”
The jest was lost on Krebsfleisch.
Later in the day Albert hunted up a friend and borrowed five Louis d’or
and then went to 20 Friedrichstrasse, where he announced to Frau
Varnhagen von Ense that he had discovered a kindred spirit in the form
of a starving genius.
IV.
Months passed. Albert began to tire of Berlin. Every phase of the city’s
life, like the pages of a book conned too often, bored him. He yearned
for idealism, for truth, and because he could find neither he began to
scoff and blaspheme. Here, as elsewhere, sham and falsehood ruled life.
Politics, religion, literature, philosophy—a veritable Tower of Babel,
where no one understood the other and all were bent on building
something colossal, eternal. When he had first arrived here his zeal for
so many things was kindled, now it was waning, cooling, dying. He
suffered the pain of lost illusions, and that at an age when most people
commence to have illusions. Despite his keen mind he had not yet learned
that no one can see truth and live—peacefully. And he not only saw the
truth but he was unwise enough to shout it from the housetops. He always
took the world into his confidence, without realizing that one who gives
the world his confidence gets none in return.
The scales were falling off his eyes. The Salon, the literary
Bohemians—he saw the sham and sickly sentimentality of it all!
The Salon was but a nest of chattering parrots, where one repeated the
phrases and syllogisms dropped by Goethe, by Herder, by Hegel, by
Schelling. If these parrots had at least croaked their own tunes!
He was still attending the Round Table at Lutter and Wegner’s on
Charlottenstrasse, where the rising young poets were having heated
debates on literary topics. Every one of them had his shoulders in
readiness for the mantle of the Prophet of Weimar to fall upon him and
every one thought everybody else a mere pretender. And when they were
most animated, stimulated by drink and smoke, Albert sat in a corner,
neither drinking nor smoking, a strange gleam in his narrowed eyes, and
from time to time sent a shaft of irony or an arrow of wit through their
web of fancy phrases. When he did argue his colleagues scented arrogance
in his statements. He had an unfortunate manner of belittling his
opponents’ assertions and brushing them aside with a scoffing jest. They
were talking of romanticism as if the period was only beginning while he
was speaking of it as if it had ended. They persuaded themselves that
dreams were realities while he only wished to clothe the sordidness of
life in the garb of romance. When he persisted they could not see the
difference.
He was also at variance with them on political issues. They spoke of the
radical democracy of Ludwig Börne while he believed in a democracy of
Government based on justice, with an aristocracy of achievement in all
walks of life. When Krebsfleisch accused Albert of aristocratic
tendencies he retorted that he had more respect for an industrious
aristocrat than for a coarse, drunken, lazy plebian poet who abused the
nobility at Lutter and Wegner’s and then went to his lodgings to write a
cringing, begging letter to a son of the nobility. Krebsfleisch was
silenced but had become Albert’s mortal enemy. Without direct accusation
Albert had revealed Krebsfleisch to himself. When people told him that
Krebsfleisch was slandering him he only smiled and said Krebsfleisch was
a genius and geniuses never had any sense of gratitude.
He again found himself almost alone, strolling along _Unter den Linden_,
visiting cafés, reading, thinking suffering from headaches, and when in
the throes of pain writing love songs. He wrote love songs because he
craved love and had it not. When he had no one to love he was dreaming
of love.
MIRIAM.
I.
At the end of that semester he was seized with a passion for work and
decided to stay in Berlin the following summer vacation and devote all
his time to the execution of his literary plans. His head was full of
literary schemes. He again applied himself to another revision of his
poetic drama; dashed off a tragedy; penned more _Lieder_; and also
sketched a weird romance with Venice as a background. He had just read
Hoffmann’s “Die Elixiere des Teufels”, and was so influenced by its
mystic charm that he was revolving in his brain the plot of a tale with
witches and spirits. He meant to take the world by storm and attack it
from many angles.
But the fates always interfered with him, not only in his plans, the
affairs of the heart but also in his literary pursuits. One day an
admirer sought his acquaintance and became a worshipping friend. And he
was a friend worth having. He was the sort of person Albert needed. He
was a nobleman from Posen, a count with a genuine love for poetry;
sympathetic, generous, young, handsome and entertained liberal religious
views, though a Catholic by birth. Besides, he was an accomplished
musician and had composed music for a few of Albert’s songs. Eager for
recognition, chafing from the public’s neglect, the count’s praise was
an infusion of new courage. And the more the count praised his verses,
the higher he rose in the author’s estimation. The count had become the
“worthiest of mortals”, “a flower of purity”, the “embodiment of all
that was good and noble”.
Albert talked of the count to his friends, to his acquaintances, to
strangers, and could not even resist the temptation of utilizing the
count’s given name in his verses. Impetuous, influenced to love and hate
at first sight, the count had won him completely. And what was even more
precious in this nobleman, he possessed originality and wit—rare
faculties among Albert’s ponderous Berlin friends. So when the count
invited him to his estate near Gnesen, Albert forgot his resolutions for
an industrious summer and accompanied him to Posen.
He found his surroundings there a veritable poet’s dream. A palatial
villa surrounded by extensive woods, luxuriant gardens, hundreds of
acres of fertile fields, with a great forest back of the estate, a water
mill, and all that the heart could crave. Nor were coquettish maidens
wanting.
One day he met with a real adventure. He was alone, wandering through
the narrow filthy streets of Gnesen, the town close by. The little town
presented a strange sight to him. It looked medieval. Unpaved, without
sidewalks, pulverized mud in the streets, the houses of heavy logs,
unpainted, and straw-thatched and black with age, with grotesque looking
people in the doorways or seated on earthen stoops extending across the
whole front of the house. The peasants wore the national costume of
unbleached linen coats without sleeves, with a colored girdle fastened
around the waist, and trousers tucked in top-boots.
It was near sunset, the sun was sinking in a mist of gold and indigo and
lustrous copper, the cows were returning from pasture through the main
street to the resounding pistol-like echoes of the shepherd’s long whip
and to his exasperating shouts of “Whoa!”
Albert strolled along aimlessly, listening to the unintelligible jabber
of the people around him, only now and then catching a word of their
jargon.
He soon reached the market-place. It was deserted. Now and then a door
opened, and a bar of a raucous song was heard. Then silence. A drunken
peasant, lying on his back in the dust near a dram shop, was hiccoughing
a love song, but soon his voice was hushed, too. Silence again. The last
rays of the dying sun rested like a halo around the head of the Christ
upon the tall black crucifix in the centre of the market place. Albert
was about to turn in the direction of his host’s villa when his
attention was arrested by a girl, who emerged from a narrow passageway
that branched off the market place. In her hand was a large jug and she
was on her way to the Marktbrunnen. He recalled a scene in Mesopotamia,
in the city of Nahor. The scene appeared to him as if he had actually
seen it in his childhood. It was distant but vivid. He visualized all
Biblical scenes. This damsel too, was “very fair to look upon, and she
went down to the well.” But it was harder to draw the water here than in
Mesopotamia of old. The well was very deep and the frame above the
ground was of round logs, which were mossy and wet and dripping, and
there were puddles of water between the stones around the well. At a
straight line from the centre of the well a perpendicular heavy pole was
suspended from a long beam high above, and to the bottom of the
suspended pole was attached an iron-hooped pail, which one was obliged
to lower into the deep well, plunge it into the black looking water, and
then with the aid of the balancing beam, bring up the pail.
Albert approached the well as the girl had gripped the pole and began to
lower it while the beam above was creaking resistance. He remained
standing across the well, looking straight at this Rebekah, but she
seemed unconscious of his presence.
“May I help you?”
A scarcely perceptible frown on her dark face was the only response and
the grip on the pole tightened. In Gnesen young men offered no
assistance to girls at the well. A deep gurgle from the depths, a
frog-like grunt, and soon the pail was balanced on the top log of the
well. As she filled her jug and turned to leave her eyes never betrayed
the least knowledge that a young man was eagerly watching every move and
gesture of hers; only the brown of her cheeks seemed of a deeper warmth
and her gait lacked the ease which had marked her steps on her way to
the well.
Following at a respectable distance he soon found himself in an uneven,
unpaved, open space, to the right of which was an edifice of
unmistakable character—the simplicity of structure, the indefinable
gloom hovering over it, the long arched windows, told him that this was
a house of prayer—and to the left was a row of dingy houses, with high
stoops.
The girl cut diagonally across the large courtyard, mounted a high
wooden porch, and when she entered the house closed the door with a slam
that resounded throughout the square. Albert stood and looked at the two
windows for a while. No face appeared at either of them.
He took a step nearer the house which the girl had entered. It was a
humble hut, a one-story affair painted by Mother Nature in drab colors
with streaks of black rot and dabs of yellow, where the decay was dry
and worm-eaten and crumbling powder.
That evening the gay assemblage at the count’s lost interest for Albert.
His friend teased him about his sudden fit of melancholy and made
guesses as to whose darted arrows had pierced the poet’s heart. The
count was certain it was the flaxen haired Katinka to whom Albert had
read his verses earlier in the day; and he rather liked his guest’s
sudden fit of melancholy. Since he had a lion under his roof he wanted
him to roar.
The next day Albert was again at the _Marktbrunnen_ but he saw only
shambling men and slovenly women come to draw water. He could think of
no means of reaching the object of his search. His brain was very active
but he had no mind for scheming; neither in real life nor in literary
plots. He could only add color to reality, invent he could not.
In his present restlessness he turned to literature. He was planning a
descriptive essay on Poland and discussed with his host the status of
the peasantry. When he touched upon the condition of the Polish Jews,
the count said, “The Jews of Gnesen count me as their best friend.”
He spoke rather tenderly, almost affectionately, of “his Jews”.
“You might follow in the footsteps of Casimir the Great and take a
Jewish Esther for your wife,” jested Albert.
“The Jewish Esther of Gnesen would spurn a Casimir the Great,” laughed
the Count. “I have carried on flirtations with many a Jewish innkeeper’s
daughter but Miriam is adamant.”
“Who is Miriam?”
“The rabbi’s daughter. She is the prettiest and sweetest girl I have
ever laid my eyes on.”
After a space he added, “By the way, I always pay my respects to the
rabbi when I come here in the summer and I should like you to meet him.
We have quite a time in understanding each other. He speaks almost no
Polish and my German is beyond him, so Miriam often acts as our
interpreter.”
A few days later the count’s carriage stopped before a dilapidated
little house near the synagogue. Albert was with the count and his heart
beat tumultuously as he recognized the high wooden porch. They were soon
knocking at the door.
People in Gnesen did not usually knock on people’s doors. They just
opened them and walked in.
They knocked again and again without response until the beadle, who
happened to pass by, saw the dignitary at the rabbi’s door and hurried
to the rear of the house, pushed the door open unceremoniously, and
burst out, “Miriam, _der Graf_!”
Miriam was bent over a copper pot which she was polishing.
Miriam dropped the pot and, rushing up to her father, exclaimed, “_Der
Graf!_”
The rabbi, with a velvet skull-cap on his head, deep creases in his
high, broad forehead, was swaying his body and pondering over some
knotty problem in the Talmud.
“_Der Graf?_” he asked as if suddenly awakened from a profound sleep.
“Quick, fetch me my Sabbath coat.”
The next moment the rabbi, arrayed in his long silk Sabbath caftan, with
a large round fur cap on his head, stood at the open door, courtesying
and welcoming the _Graf_. And while the rigid laws of the Polish Jewry
forbade such familiarity between the opposite sexes Miriam clasped the
count’s extended hand and also shook hands with his companion. Albert
looked fixedly at Miriam but beyond a pretty blush could detect no
recognition of their former meeting.
In introducing his friend, the count mentioned the fact that Albert was
a poet, but that made no impression upon the rabbi. The rabbi considered
it a sin to waste ink and paper on anything save a Biblical or Talmudic
treatise or upon songs glorifying the Almighty.
Miriam soon withdrew to the adjoining room, but the door between the
rooms was open and Albert stole glances into the next chamber. She was
paying no attention to his glances. Her eyes were downcast, though her
face was turned toward him. Only once, when Albert used a Hebrew word in
addressing her father, did she raise her eyes inquiringly and then
dropped them quickly as if she were displeased at something.
Albert expected a sign of cordiality when he informed the rabbi that
they were of the same race but instead he felt increased coldness—the
hospitality was now only extended to the _Graf_.
When they rose to leave Miriam stepped into the room and bade them
goodbye. Albert wondered if she understood that the second meeting was
not wholly accidental. He was determined that she should understand
this.
II.
Love teaches subterfuge. The young poet soon found a pretext to pay
another visit at the home of the rabbi. He was taking notes for an
article on Poland and came to the rabbi for first hand information.
This time the rabbi seemed more cordial. The absence of the count made
Albert, too, feel more at ease. They discussed the misery of the Jews in
Poland more freely. Besides, Albert quoted a few Biblical verses and
that seemed a welcome password. When he repeated some of the eloquent
phrases of Zunz on the martyrdom of Israel and spoke with poetic feeling
of Jewish antiquity the rabbi’s eyes glowed with a strange light and
there was a warmth on his bearded countenance.
After the next visit Albert was at his wit’s end. He was making rapid
progress with the rabbi but not with his daughter. A glance, a blush, a
rapid movement of the lashes, but no communication. Jewish daughters in
Gnesen did not chat with young men callers. But luck is usually on the
side of lovers. When he called again the rabbi was away.
“I wished to ask your father about something concerning the Jews in
Poland,” he was stammering, eyeing with delight the changing tints in
her cheeks. “Perhaps I could write to him about it.”
“My father doesn’t read German,” Miriam said, catching her breath as if
apologizing for his ignorance.
“Do you?”
“Yes,” and she again caught her breath.
Her mother stood at a respectful distance, pride in her eyes. It was
through her tolerance that Miriam had learned to read and write German
unbeknown to her father.
Albert’s eyes sparkled. A thought sped through his brain. Producing a
slip of paper he wrote: “Like King Saul I came here to look for the
asses and found a kingdom. Dare I hope that you might meet me at two
o’clock tomorrow afternoon inside the second gate of Dzyalin? Until
tomorrow.
Albert Zorn.”
“See if you can read my handwriting,” he said as he handed her the note.
She read it, blushed scarlet, grew confused, and raised her eyelashes
with a helpless look on her face. He did not offer to shake hands with
her, having become confused himself, and left the house.
III.
Dzyalin, the count’s estate was half an hour’s walk from the heart of
the Gnesen. On Saturdays and summer evenings the gates were open and the
town people were allowed to promenade through the wooded paths and the
tree-lined winding alleys. The grounds were entered through a narrow
portal and after passing the spacious courtyard, around which were
located several imposing homes of the manager and his assistants, there
was a tall iron gate which led to two broad shaded lanes. The one to the
right led to the count’s castle and the one turning left was open to the
public. The latter extended over more than a mile, rows of Lombardy
poplars on either side, like sentinels on guard, and came to a sudden
halt at the dam, which held the streams in check for the water mill. For
farther left was a narrow river, beyond which spread the count’s
vegetable gardens and grain fields.
Albert was at the designated spot ahead of time, and when he spied her
in the distance he ran toward her with an extended hand but she
overlooked it and remained standing stock still, pale, shy, trembling.
Her cheeks looked almost bloodless for a moment and her eyes, which he
had thought were jet black, were of a sapphire blue and devoid of all
animation. A dark cashmere shawl, which had covered her head, had
slipped to her shoulders, and the tassels at the ends were gathered in
her clasped hands, with an expression of stunned fright on her face.
“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he mumbled.
She drew a long breath, her hands clinching the tassels in her hands,
and a film of mist appeared in her dark-blue eyes.
“Some one might see me,” she muttered in a fretful voice and a frown of
agony appeared on her countenance.
They moved back of the row of poplars, where the ground sloped toward
the river, screened by shrubs and bushy willows.
He soon made her forget her fears. He began to ask her questions about
the people in Gnesen, about herself, but she would not talk about
herself. She wanted him to tell her about Berlin, of which she had heard
so much. She sighed. She was tired of Gnesen and the people here. There
was nothing new in Gnesen. The same gloom day after day, week after
week, year after year. Ah, for a glimpse of Berlin!
He made attempts to console her. Her naiveté, her ignorance of the
world, her simplicity, her artlessness, her evident truthfulness charmed
him. She had never been outside the little town, and she was in her
eighteenth year. She entertained strange notions of what a large city
was like, and wished she could go to one—she would go anywhere to
escape the tedium of Gnesen.
They were now seated in the screening shade of a clump of willows on one
side and on the other were the bushy shrubs through which one caught
only intermittent glimpses of the flowing stream below. Now and then
were heard the quaint songs of the peasant women in the fields—Polish
folk songs—the piping of a swineherd in the distance, the barking of a
dog, the shrill drilling sound of the locust. He sat on the ground
opposite Miriam, listening to her wistfully, catching the enchanting
melodies around him, and looking, with narrowed eyes, at the beautiful
maiden before him. There was an exhaling purity about her. Sheltered by
her mother’s rigorous virtue she was like a soft-colored wild flower
surrounded by high woods, never scorched by the burning rays of the sun,
never harassed by gusts of cold winds. As he looked at her appealing
dark-blue eyes with those exquisite long black eyelashes, her rich black
hair combed straight back from her low, square forehead, and the
faintest dimple in her chin, there was a strange sentiment in his heart.
He was conscious of a desire to rest his hands upon her bowed
head—barely touching it—as did the Jews of old, and murmur a prayer
and a blessing that God may guard her sweet purity.
“You ought to be glad to be away from large cities,” he endeavored to
cheer her. “Here you have treasures Berlin could never give you.”
He halted. A finch dropped a few sweet notes and sailed away, and then
the chattering crickets accentuated the silence around them.
“Ah! you don’t understand—you don’t understand—” she was saying,
sadness spreading over her face.
She was playing with the tassels of her cashmere shawl absent-mindedly.
She could not explain what he did not understand, for she did not quite
fully understand herself beyond the fact that she was weary of Gnesen.
Life in Gnesen was a perpetual “You must not.” Being a rabbi’s daughter
more things were forbidden her than other girls. And the sudden
appearance of this elegantly dressed young man, with his intent eyes
upon her, his charming voice and pure German speech, made her conscious
of her circumscribed, narrow, drab existence with all its dinginess.
Strange feelings had been stirring in her the past year or two but they
only made her restless, without revealing to her, her inner desires.
Recently she had overheard her mother complain that her father was not
active enough to procure a husband for their daughter and the rabbi
murmured that “the good Lord would provide.” Miriam trembled at the
thought of marriage; a repulsive feeling came over her at the mere
mention of it. Marriage in Gnesen meant shaving off her beautiful
tresses and exchanging them for the detestable wig; it meant—she
shuddered—the drudgery of married life in poverty.
On the day she caught a glimpse of Albert at the well she went home with
her heart a-flutter. He was so unlike the young men in Gnesen. She had
not thought he belonged to her people but his dreamy, intent look had
not escaped her despite her seeming inattentiveness. No one had looked
at her in the manner of this stranger.
The evening of their first meeting she remained seated on the steps of
the porch, with her elbows on her knees, her pensive face between her
hands, musing; at times her breasts heaved, though she knew not why. Her
musing was interrupted by the approach of her father and Shloma, the
marriage-broker. The two were conversing in a low confidential tone. She
knew the topic of their conversation. The day before her father had been
telling her mother that Shloma was proposing a suitable young man for
Miriam. He mentioned his name. Miriam trembled. She had never spoken
with the young man but she knew him by sight, an ungainly young man.
When her father and the marriage-broker came near the porch Miriam went
into the house and retired. She spent a troubled night, with a heart
full of sorrow, and in the back of her brain was the picture of a young
man, slender, handsomely dressed, with light-brown hair, and eyes that
made her heart flutter.
When she beheld the stranger in the company of the count her heart stood
still for a second and the blood rushed to her face. To Miriam the day
of miracles had not yet passed. All her life she had heard of nothing
but miracles. Her dreams were not of knights and princes but of the
thousands of miracles God had performed for her people.
After Albert and the count had left Miriam threw her cashmere shawl over
her head and took a long walk, to the very end of the town. She was not
thinking of the stranger. She was not thinking of anything. Only her
head was thumping and she was restless.
During Albert’s next visit Miriam sat in the adjoining room and drank in
every word, every syllable. She loved to listen to his voice, to his
pure German, and frequently blushed at the comical attempts of her
father to make his patois sound Germanic. She hoped the young man would
come again.
Then the miracle happened. The young man called when her father was away
and he handed her that note. She cherished the scrap of paper and
secretly read it over again and again. She did not hesitate about going
to meet him but she trembled with fear. In her innocence the thought
that she was running any risk never occurred to her until she had
reached the meeting place.
On her departure from their first secret meeting she readily agreed to
come the following day. She wanted to hear more of the great city where
the streets were paved and lit by lamps at night. She naively asked him
what street he lived on and when he told her she asked him to put the
address on a piece of paper. Then she made a new discovery; the houses
in Berlin were numbered! In Gnesen the houses needed no numbers. One
knew the occupants of all the houses and instead of numbers, there were
little descriptive signs over the doors, indicating what each owner must
furnish in case of fire. The picture of a ladder was above the door of
one house, that of an axe over another, and there were sketches—not
very graphic—of long hooks and pails and besoms, and, in fact, of all
the instruments of the Gnesen fire brigade.
During one of their clandestine meetings Albert remained seated on the
ground, his hands around his knee, staring at her as if she were a work
of art which aroused his innermost admiration.
Tears of ecstasy were in his eyes as he continued looking at her in
silence.
The past three years Albert had learned considerably about the lure of
sex—sensuality was no longer an unsolved mystery to him—but though
Miriam drew him toward her with a thousand invisible chains he was
conscious of an inner fear—the fear of touching a sacred
shrine—whenever he touched her cashmere shawl or passed his hand, ever
so lightly, over her sleeves, or when he clasped her hand in parting.
Miriam looked up at him and for a moment let her eyes rest upon his
sensitive face. She did not understand the meaning of the mist in his
eyes but she was conscious of an overwhelming desire to touch him, to
let her hand rest upon his.
This was the first touch of romance in the young girl’s life, the first
conscious awakening of the mysterious being within her. It was the first
tiny opening of the bursting bud, the first petal catching the light of
the sun, though its warmth had long before penetrated it. She thought of
nothing save the irresistible sweetness of sitting under the willow tree
with this young stranger. He seemed a mystery to her, part of the
mystery of the great world, of which she knew nothing. The boundaries of
her world were the bluish tree tops on the horizon to the left of Gnesen
and the dome of the cathedral to the right. And it was midsummer and the
Fearful Days—as the group of holidays at the end of summer were
symbolically named—were soon at hand. Sadness! sadness! sadness! as if
life in Gnesen was not sad enough without fasts, without heart-rending
lamentations, without wailing and praying and torturing of the flesh.
“I can’t meet you tomorrow,” she said one day as they parted.
“And why not?” he inquired eagerly.
“Don’t you know what tomorrow is?”
He shook his head.
A strange expression stole over her face. Her eyes contracted, there was
a deep dent between her eyebrows, and she stared at him as if sudden
fear possessed her.
“So it is not true,” she muttered in a husky voice, “that you are a
Jew.”
Albert threw his head back and laughed.
“Too much of a Jew, Miriam—too much of one to be left in peace.” The
sunny smile now vanished from his eyes, the deep corners of his mouth
drooped and twitched, the wing of melancholy brushed his flushed cheeks.
“Why do you doubt it?” He again made an attempt at smiling.
“You couldn’t be a Jew without knowing that tomorrow is a Jewish
holiday!”
He looked puzzled at her. He did not observe Jewish holidays.
However, she soon yielded and promised to come.
The next day they were seated in their secluded place, Albert reciting a
song he had written the night before. He told her that if he had not met
her the song would not have been written.
There were tears in his eyes; he uttered the last verse in a whisper
almost, and then silence. The day was hot, without the slightest breeze;
nothing stirred, not even the drooping feather-like boughs of the willow
overhead.
Suddenly the sound of footsteps behind them arrested their attention. A
tall, red-bearded, round-faced man was staring at them as if frightened
by an apparition. He was Getzel the Beadle.
Miriam leaped up and like a frightened deer, sped through the bushes
before Albert had fully realized what had happened.
He waited but she did not return. He called at the same place the next
day and the next but she did not appear. Each new love was a first love
to him, only it lashed his soul with greater fury. Ah! the shades of the
past, they were nothing more than a memory to him now. The wilted flower
of yesterday is always forgotten when the perfume of the living one is
wafted into our nostrils. No one was like Miriam. There never was any
other woman as sweet as Miriam. His whole being yearned for her.
Hedwiga, Hilda, Eugenie—they were all fancies—but Miriam—everything
swam before his feverish eyes as he thought of her. Nothing in life
mattered any more—nothing! He tried to see her at her home—to tell her
parents of his love for their daughter, but the rabbi, like Eugenie’s
father, shut the door in his face.
He suddenly awoke from his poet’s dream. He saw nothing but abject
misery around him. He could no longer share in his host’s gayety.
IV.
He curtailed his visit and returned to Berlin heavy of heart, saddened
beyond endurance. His short-lived romance intensified his bitterness
against the rulers of Poland. He hurried to Rahel. He knew no one would
understand his present woe as well as that all-wise woman. She was not
only his literary critic but also his priestess, to whom he confessed
everything. And with that sage smile on her refined intellectual
features she knew how to console, how to tender sympathy, and listened
with genuine concern.
He buried himself in work again but he could not forget his love for
Miriam and with it came the depressing memory of Poland. All his innate
slumbering passions for justice, for liberty, were aroused to a white
heat. Unlike Balaam of old, he had gone to Poland to bless and returned
cursing. Why should he care for personal friendships? Why think of
selfish advantage? Why consider what a hypocritical society might call
poor manners? Like the seers of old he was bidden to speak, and he
seized his pen and told the truth as he saw it regardless of all
consequences.
This essay was the first gun that he fired in the liberation of the
_Junker_-ridden people. For his caustic utterances not only revealed the
tyranny of the Polish nobles but also silhouetted the hideous forms of
the _Junkers_; the censor who had pruned away every trace of humor from
the article, unwittingly failed to strike out a sentence fraught with
danger.
His first political pronouncement proved a veritable boomerang. It was
too daring, too pointed, too truthful. He learned that even in letters,
no less than in the drawingroom, truth must be masked, if not altogether
suppressed. His acquaintances of rank looked at him askance, his Polish
friend and patron shunned him, Prussian officials took notice of him.
Even Rahel, herself a passionate lover of truth and no friend of
_Junkerdom_, advised caution. And when she tried to give him the wisdom
of her experience, he only grew peevish and said he was no diplomat and
did not wish to be one, and that truth was to be his only guide in life.
He found himself at odds with everybody. He had anticipated applause but
instead met with hostility and condemnation.
His cultured Jewish friends, too, took offense at this essay. In
speaking of the pitiful conditions of his co-racials in Poland he spoke
disparagingly of the elegantly dressed Berliners. He had ironically made
a comparison between the exterior of the ungainly Polish Jew, with a
heart beating for freedom, and the elegant Berliner, whose head was
filled with the silly romanticism of the period, with nothing but vanity
in his heart.
V.
One winter evening as he was brooding over his sad plight his landlady
informed him that some one wanted to see him.
“I don’t want to see anybody—leave me alone!” he finally cried
irritably.
“I’ve tried to send her away but she insists on seeing you—she has come
all the way from Poland to see you,” came the landlady’s voice through
the closed door.
He jumped up from his bed. He could not even guess who this intruder
might be but the word Poland was magic to him, and it was a “she”!
Perhaps it was an admirer from that fateful land. The hope of an admirer
stirred romance in his soul. He wondered which of his scattered songs
had found an echo in the heart of a Polish admirer. Yes, he was becoming
famous! The stray children of his brain were traveling far. He opened
the door with a flush of joy on his face.
He rushed downstairs to the sitting-room, dimly lighted by a tallow
candle. By the door stood a slender girl shivering with cold. He took a
step closer to her.
“Miriam!” he cried.
She rushed up to him, tears welling in her luminous dark-blue eyes.
“How did you get here?”
His joy and confusion were bewildering.
“I had your address so I came here,” she murmured in the tone of a
helpless child.
He made her sit down and tell him how she had happened to leave Gnesen.
The Beadle had told her father about her and also communicated the
scandal to the rest of the community. A committee called on her father
and urged that she be sent away from town lest the other girls might be
contaminated. The father had almost yielded when his wife prevailed upon
him to allow the disgraced daughter to remain at home. But there was no
more chance of getting Miriam married. Who would have her now? Life had
become unbearable for the poor girl. However, the resourceful
marriage-broker had soon found a way out of the dilemma. He knew of a
young man, a drover’s son, in a village nearby, who was willing to have
Miriam in spite of the stigma. When Miriam was told of the match she
seemed indifferent. But two days after the betrothal—it was on a
Saturday morning when her parents were at services—Miriam went to her
mother’s bed, lifted the heavy feather-bed, and removed from underneath
a little packet which contained the family savings for her dowry and
trousseau, and unobserved made her way out of town. After many days of
travel by foot and by coach, she reached her destination, clutching in
her hand the address that Albert had scribbled on a piece of paper.
“And at last I’m near you,” she said with a heaving sigh as she
concluded her simple narrative, her eyes turning appealingly upon her
perplexed lover.
Albert at once thought of Rahel. He must go to her and place his
predicament before her. He was helpless.
Rahel was not only helpful but magnanimous. She received Miriam into her
home, clothed her in dresses that were then in vogue, and shared the
thrill of romance. Though she had often bandied Albert about his
peculiar notions of feminine beauty she was forced to admit that Miriam
was adorable. In her Berlin attire no one would have taken her for a
native of Gnesen. Her innate modesty, her truthfulness, her sweet
temper, her want of city mannerisms, fascinated the woman of the world
surfeited with the artifices of society.
At first even Frau Varnhagen, with all her bitter experiences of her
younger days, did not think of the consequences of the present
situation. She only thought of the poor girl’s plight, of the poet’s
love, of the sweet romance acted before her eyes. To her it was an idyll
of rare charm.
But before long the sordid facts stared her in the face. When she spoke
of this to the lover he saw no problem in it at all.
“Why, I love her as I’ve never loved anybody in the world,” he burst out
impulsively.
Rahel, leaning back in her _fauteil_, her hand thoughtfully raised to
her temple, looked enviously at the dreamy youth. She caught the rapture
of his soul. To love, and be loved, like this!
“But, my dear Zorn, what good will come of her indefinite stay here—to
what end?”
“Why, I’ll marry her, of course, I’ll marry her,” he spoke impulsively.
Frau Varnhagen leaned forward and smiled indulgently. She wondered if he
ever would grow up. He was already twenty-five and in many ways a mere
child.
“One needs money to support a wife—love alone is not enough.” She
paused. She would not intimate that he was living on the charity of his
uncle and that he was heavily in debt to many of his friends. Then she
added, “It’ll be several years before either your pen or your
jurisprudence will crystallize into _Louis d’ors_. What will become of
this beautiful flower in the meantime—what will become of Miriam?”
But while Frau Varnhagen was attempting to put reason into the poet’s
mind she directed the course of the fates more successfully. She called
the count and counselled with him. Shortly thereafter, the rabbi came to
Berlin and the count interceded between father and daughter; and before
Albert was aware Miriam had disappeared.
Poor Albert Zorn! What were _Werther’s Leiden_ compared with his?
Werther had only sorrows of love to bear, but he, indeed, like another
Atlas, was bending under the weight of a whole globe of sorrows. The
_Weltschmerz_ was gnawing at his heart. The furies of a thousand storms
were lashing him at once. Disappointment everywhere! No appreciative
public, no one would look at his poetic drama, at his tragedy; his essay
on Poland had only provoked his enemies without a word of praise from
his friends; and his love-dream—the sweetest dream of life—shattered.
And, then, the _Judenhetze_ was corroding his heart. Like Frau
Varnhagen, he wished to dismiss the memory of his birth but he could
not. Rahel was a philosopher, not a poet, her life was dominated by
willpower, but he was only mere gossamer driven by the cruel winds. He
could reason even more clearly than Rahel, but reason did not calm his
sensitive nerves, did not quiet his raging blood.
He had grown weary of Berlin. He wanted to flee. Everybody here reminded
him of his unbearable sorrows. He was weary of Prussia and Prussianism
and wished he could leave the land of his birth. Like one suffering from
defective lungs, he blamed the air for his hard breathing. The present
air was stifling him. He had intimated to his uncle that he wished to
leave Germany and go to England or America or France but Uncle Leopold
would not listen to such a proposition. Uncle Leopold felt that since he
was paying the fiddler it was his privilege to dictate the dances. The
banker felt that jurisprudence was the only hope for his incorrigible
nephew.
However, he decided to leave Berlin. Here he could not give his
undivided attention to his studies because of many diversions. He
realized that while he was a law student he was giving too much time to
Hegel’s lectures on philosophy and to the reading of _belles lettres_.
He would never complete his law course that way. Yes, he must return to
that “scholarly hole” of Goettingen, though he shuddered as he
remembered that college town.
He left Berlin with no regrets in his heart.
THE MARCH TO CALVARY.
I.
Even the wisest often fail to realize that one cannot escape one’s
shadow. Albert Zorn imagined that ennui was in Berlin but it was only in
his own soul.
He found Goettingen as depressing as before. The college town was
covered with snow, the students seemed grim and serious, the professors
cold, and he found but few of his old friends. He arrived here as a
prodigal son, misgivings in his heart. He recalled the _Abschiedskarten_
he had sent to the members of the faculty a few years before, after his
suspension. He now realized that the mockery, witty as it might have
been, that those _Abschiedskarten_ contained had not endeared him to his
old instructors. And the students seemed so sulky. Prussian tyranny had
conquered and killed every manifestation of free speech. The
_Burschenschaft_ and the _Turngemeinde_—the two most significant
fraternities—were but names. The students not only feared their own
utterances but even the unguarded speech of their friends. And they had
not forgotten Albert’s unguarded tongue.
But while the dullness of the place depressed him he welcomed the quiet
of his lodging house on the Rothenstrasse. He gave himself to the study
of the law, and “corpus juris” was his “pillow”. He had no difficulty in
hushing the muse’s voice, for the muse sang not. For a time he passed a
prosaic existence, and while he frequently shuddered at the thought he
again wondered if his light had not burned out. His verses scarcely
stirred in him more than memories. And when he made attempts at writing
he was conscious of the effort, of the lack of spontaneity, and dropped
it. Was he a Samson with his locks shorn? He stirred and often went to
the Rathskeller to drown his sorrow, but unable to bear drink he turned
to the library.
Soon March drew to an end, the winter was gone, the thawing season
began. Everything within him was thawing, too. His blood suddenly began
to course warmer; there was agitation in his breast; his nerves seemed
on fire. A chance acquaintanceship had inspired him to write a few lyric
stanzas. He laughed like a mocking satan. Indeed his light had not yet
burned out! It had just commenced to burn and would soon redden the sky
with its rising flames. Let his enemies in Berlin and Hamburg sneer!
What did he care? He had nothing but contempt for the multitude anyhow.
They should see! He flung the law books aside and took up an unfinished
poem. Byron’s recent death stimulated his energies. Byron was the only
man to whom he felt a close kinship, and the poet’s death affected him
deeply. He must take Byron’s place; he would be Germany’s Byron.
Spurred by these thoughts and feelings his dullness fled; his
imagination was again volatile; his tongue was once more caustic. He was
again seen in the beer cellars, arguing, jesting, making sport in his
whimsical manner. The students again gathered around him and goaded him
on to saying bitter things about their professors, their pedantic
colleagues, the Prussian officials. He had the gift of caricature in
words. He became his old self again. He was the very life of all student
affairs, and at their frequent duels he was either a second or umpire.
He was a Byron with a vengeance. He once more took up fencing and fought
a duel or two.
Ah! they should see—his enemies at Berlin and Hamburg. They might call
him a Jew, but what of that? He became heroic. Race pride swelled in his
breast. He was of the race “of which Gods are kneaded”, of the race that
needed no apologies, even in his day. Who was there in Germany to take
the place of the great who had passed? The Teuton gods were dead!
Lessing was gone, so was Schiller, and Goethe, like King David in his
old age, “got no heat”; this old Jupiter was no more hurling
thunderbolts; his arm was even too feeble to fling pebbles. Who were to
take the places of these gods? A number of _Schmetterlinge_—mere
butterflies—waving their colorful wings in the sunshine and hovering
around the blossoming shrubs, with an old bumble bee here and there,
without sting, without honey, buzzing around a rosebush. Yes, who were
to take the place of the dead heroes? Who was to take Goethe’s place?
His blood warmed at the thought. The mantle of this great bard must fall
on his own shoulders. Nay more, he would undo many of the things the
great Romanticist had done. He would be to his generation what Goethe
had been to his. Indeed, he would even go farther than Goethe. Goethe
was self-centered, content with his own pleasure, playing with the
beautiful thoughts as a juggler plays with balls, but he would give his
life and genius to Germany. Goethe never loved the Germans, he mused,
but he would liberate the Teutonic mind from its self-imposed
imprisonment. Ay, indeed, he would wield a weapon mightier than the
sword in the cause of liberty! Let his enemies rave——
But with Albert Zorn there was even less than a step from the sublime to
the ridiculous. The next moment he laughed at his own heroics. He
understood the heroics of those that smarted under the whips of
injustice. The irony of his own situation struck him forcibly. He was
humorous and great enough to laugh at himself. Did he not feel a secret
pride when his admirers told him that there was not a trace of the
Semite in his face; that his nose, though longish, was Grecian? No,
Albert could not deceive himself. He saw the tragi-comedy of it all. To
be heroic in one’s thoughts was one thing and to be heroic in one’s
actions quite a different matter.
But here at Goettingen his fellow-students never reminded him of his
birth, and even the professors had accepted the prodigal son rather
graciously. And he had a circle of admirers among the literary guild. To
be sure, there was petty jealousy among them, but they did not disturb
him. Talent must expect jealousy, he reflected soothingly; only the
feeble and the dead arouse no jealousy.
Indeed, Albert was now his true self. He pursued his studies regularly,
read much, and, as a diversion, made love to a pretty damsel or argued
heatedly with a few of his fellow-students. The problems that occupied
his mind while at Berlin troubled him no longer. When summer vacation
came, instead of spending it with his parents, he took journeys on foot,
with a knapsack on his back, through the Hartz Mountains, visiting Halle
and Jena and Gotha and Eisenach, and making mental notes of the
beautiful scenery around him and of the people with whom he came in
contact. He also paid a visit to Goethe, and found, to his astonishment,
that this Jupiter “understood German”—though he was prompted to address
the god in Greek—so in his confusion he told him that the plums on the
way from Jena to Weimar were very, very delicious . . .
II.
After the summer vacation he returned to Goettingen refreshed and
encouraged. On his pilgrimage he had learned that while he was still
unknown, many of his songs were gaining popularity. In one of the
taverns a pretty waitress hummed one of his love songs.
Everything now moved so smoothly; the professors were so kind to him,
the dean of the Faculty had invited him to his home and expressed
admiration for his ballads—he had compared them to Goethe’s—and the
old inner struggles had left him entirely. In a friendly talk the Dean
had hinted that there was a great future for him if—the learned
gentleman was kind and sensitive and hesitated—“if”—he stammered
again.
“If I were not a Jew,” Albert came to the rescue, an ironic smile on his
face.
“Yes,” the kindly man intoned. “You see,” he continued, “sooner or later
all these disabilities will disappear but in the meanwhile your—your
nominal faith is in the way.” He knew Albert’s faith was but nominal.
Albert dwelt on this remark but rather objectively. He only thought
subjectively when he suffered deeply. Of late nothing stirred his
depths. He followed the lectures of the Goettingen Solons, made merry
with the students, was praised for his wit and his verses, and wrote but
little; in fact, he had written almost nothing in the past nine months.
And then a letter came from Uncle Leopold with a bill of exchange for
his support. The letter irritated him even though the money enclosed
afforded him immediate relief. There was something between the lines of
his uncle’s letter that intimated that a young man who passed his
twenty-seventh year should be self-sustaining. This letter was the first
real cause of irritation in months. He had heard that his uncle gave
away tens of thousands of _Thalers_ to charity and he begrudged his poor
nephew a few marks! Yes, he must rid himself of his uncle’s bounty—and
rid himself at any cost.
He grew morose and thoughtful and applied himself at once to his studies
preparatory for his Doctor’s degree and to the writing of a series of
travel sketches. He burned the candle at both ends. He would show his
rich uncle that he could get along without him. He felt particularly
hopeful because he had received a nattering letter from the Minister of
Justice in Bavaria, who was also a poet. The fates had turned their
bright faces upon him. Like Goethe he would obtain a government
position, and thus made independent, would pursue the muses. His brain
was feverish, his whole being on fire. He felt the approach of a severe
headache—from studying and thinking and writing—but he did not care.
His dreams were coming true, and the fire of the gods burned luminously.
He felt inspired as he penned his sketches. Never before had writing
come to him so spontaneously, so free from effort. Again and again the
hint dropped by the Dean recurred to him. It no longer offended him nor
did the memory of it arouse antagonism within him. Why suffer because of
mere formalism? What was it but formalism to him? His faith was only
nominal, as the Dean had put it. In what respect was he a Jew? vaguely
passed through his mind. He was more Greek than Jew. Certainly the
Jewish faith had no tangible meaning to him. Nothing but dogmatism! Why
should this meaningless dogmatism stand between him and independence?
One day he woke with a sudden determination. He must not hesitate any
longer. He could hope for no assistance from his parents—his mother’s
letter a few days before had made that plain enough—and he could not
bear the humiliation of further dependence upon his uncle. He was
irritable that morning but that was because of his ceaseless work the
past few months. He was nervous from too much thinking. No, he must not
let this thing trouble him any longer. He laughed grimly to himself. He
would change his religion—change non-belief in one for non-belief in
another! He laughed but not without bitterness. The next moment the
humor of it awakened curiosity. He was to be baptised! He had already
talked to a clergyman about his conversion, and noticed with amusement
the glow on the good clergyman’s face—the glow on the face of an angler
at sensing a nibble. Albert thought of this and laughed to himself. The
clergyman suggested a new name for the newly born child—John Baptist
Zorn! Albert stood before the open window in his room, looking dreamily
in front of him——
It was morning, the sun was shining gloriously upon the Wender Tower,
serious-faced students on their way to lectures, a woman with an armful
of provisions for breakfast, two flaxen-haired children playing horse,
and he was going to have his name changed that day! There was a flutter
in his heart and he laughed nervously. The comedy of life struck him
forcibly—all life was but a jest of the gods, and he himself was one of
the jesters! “John Baptist Zorn!” he murmured to himself, and laughed
hysterically. Tears appeared in his eyes. Oh, God, what a comedy life
was!
He started to carry out his resolution but suddenly paused. He blushed
in the privacy of his room. No, he would not go through this farce. No,
no, he could not be false to himself. He did not care for the opinion of
others—why should he care for the opinion of the imbeciles to whom not
religion but theology mattered, to whom religion was not the
consciousness of the glory of the universe and its Creator, but mere
heathen ceremonies?—Indeed, it was not the opinion of the masses but he
feared his inner self. No, he would not go through with this
contemptible farce.
He sat down on his bed, a throbbing at his temples. He was fatigued, a
pain in his head, weary of life. He heaved a sigh. His eyes rested on
his clothes. They were shabby. His uncle’s stipend had not been
sufficient to afford him new clothes and allow him the elegance to which
he had been accustomed. Besides, he was so impractical and never did
know how his money slipped from between his fingers. In a month the
degree of Doctor of Laws was to be conferred upon him. To what purpose?
To what purpose had he spent so much valuable time on the dry study of
the law? It had a definite meaning for the other students, his friends
at the university. Many of them would at once obtain government
appointments—there was one awaiting his friend Christian Lutz; another
friend, a poet, had already procured a lucrative appointment—and others
would follow their careers as lawyers—they all would use their
vocations as a means of subsistence in this complex system of civilized
life. But of what use would it be to him? A bitter laugh escaped him. In
a month he would be addressed as Doctor Zorn! A title would be conferred
on him—to what purpose? He was a Jew and under the Prussian law could
not hold office, nor could he practice his profession. Ah, the irony of
it! He was still in Egypt under the Pharaohs. Straw was not given him
and the tale of bricks had to be delivered!
He jumped out of his bed, stretched his arms, and gnashed his teeth.
Jest for jest! Let the foolish angler have his catch!
VAGABONDAGE.
I.
The greatest jest in life is that but few see the jest, and these few
find it at their own expense.
Albert left the Lutheran clergyman stunned. The ceremony of the baptism,
the seriousness of the God-fearing clergyman—these were all a dream but
vaguely remembered. Sincerity always found an echo in his heart, no
matter how much he differed from the other’s convictions, and the
evident conscientiousness of the pious pastor who had performed the
ceremony impressed him. It impressed him as if he had witnessed the
conversion of a person other than himself. He viewed things from so many
different angles that the same object often assumed different shapes,
depending upon his mood at the time he viewed it. His mind, like concave
and convex mirrors, at times, reflected odd shapes. One moment he was
calm and accepted the baptism as a definite change in his views of life,
the next he cowered before his perfidy; and then, again, he laughed at
the whole thing as if it were a _Kinderspiel_. He wished he could always
regard it so. He felt more at peace with himself when the baptism
appeared as a mere boyish prank. After all, the sublime and the
ridiculous are but viewpoints.
However, he walked through the Wender Gate with a sneaking feeling in
his heart. He returned to his lodgings shamefaced. The deed was done;
the faltering of years had culminated into action. There was no going
back. No matter what he might do or think nothing could undo this act.
Was it really such an important step? He shuddered. He tried to persuade
himself that it was but a triviality, a matter of no moment, a mere
empty ceremony, but there was a flutter in his heart, a fine
perspiration on his pensive countenance. Why should he not have done it?
He asked himself almost angrily, as if refuting an accusation. Was he
not a German like other Germans? And he always did admire Luther. It was
really most fitting that a liberal minded man like himself should follow
in the footsteps of the great Luther. He dwelt upon the noble virtues of
the great reformer with a keen sense of satisfaction. He visualized the
mental struggles of the champions of religious freedom. He felt that he
was helping the Man of Worms nail the edict upon the church doors. And
he certainly had no reason to regret the affiliation with the great Son
of Galilee. He drew a breath of defiance. The lives of all great men
were the stories of revolt.
He was mentally fatigued and wished he could stop thinking. One of his
nervous headaches was coming on. He must not torture his brain any
longer. He must give himself to his studies. In about three weeks he
must deliver a discourse on jurisprudence in order to obtain his coveted
degree. Jurisprudence!—that accursed study, that pseudo-scientific
jugglery, that system of Roman casuistry!—why had he spent three of his
fairest, most blooming years on subjects so repugnant to him? One link
of thought brought another, an endless chain. If he had not studied law
he would not have bent his knee to the cross. He was a martyr yesterday,
today a villainous coward! _Gestern noch ein Held gewesen—Ist man heute
schon ein Schurke!_
O, the misery of involuntary thoughts forcing an entrance into one’s
brain! He was tired of the whole business. He wanted to laugh, to jest,
to invoke his sense of humor. His sense of humor had always been such an
outlet for his feelings. He could always laugh away the most serious
things in life. And this was not even serious—how the clergyman had
rolled his eyes as he offered a prayer for the newborn soul of the
convert—some day he would give a humorous description of it in a
poem—no, he would describe it in a novel. What was he thinking of? O,
yes, the clergyman’s solemnity. For a moment this struck him ludicrously
and he burst into laughter. But enough—enough! His head was splitting,
a thousand needles were pricking back of his eyeballs, and he was weary,
weary unto death. He must stop thinking. He must . . . The whole thing
was not worth thinking about . . .
In order to banish these torturing thoughts he began to think of his
friend Gustav Moses in Berlin. The thought of Moses always had a
soothing effect on him—that great soul! Moses was a sanctuary, a holy
shrine, in whose presence all things and beings were pure. Though he was
no expounder of new theories, no source of new philosophies, Moses
always brought Spinoza to Albert’s mind. There was something of that
great philosopher’s simplicity and goodness and purity in Moses. He must
write to him and unbosom himself to his precious friend. Moses would
understand. Moses understood so many things most people did not
comprehend. Yet when he sat down with a quill in his hand sudden shame
overwhelmed him. Why was he ashamed? Why should he not discuss this
fully with Moses? He had committed many follies and had never hesitated
to speak of them to Moses. Besides, Moses, too, had just gone through
this ceremony. But to his friend it was an ideal—the conversion of all
the Jews as a means of helping humanity—but to himself—no, Albert
could not deceive himself. He had not knelt to the cross because of an
ideal. He had done it for the same reason that thousands of others had
done it, for the same reason that Edward Gans had done it. Oh!—a groan
escaped his breast. Only the day before he had written a scathing
denunciation of those cowards who were deserting the sinking ship. And
now he himself had done it!
He began to write. He forced all other thoughts away.
“Dear Gustav:
“Will I ever grow up? I am still half a child, with all the reflections
of maturity mirroring in my being—manhood, old age, godliness, caprice,
profligacy, and what not. And just like a child I can’t make up my mind
whether to laugh or cry; I can cry and laugh at the same time. O,
Gustav, I can’t make up my mind whether I am a lion or a monkey in this
great menagerie: I roar one moment and chatter foolishly and wag my tail
the next.
“I sat down to write you a long letter, covering many, many sheets full
of profound thoughts and instructive wisdom, with many notations on the
Book of Life, but I have just returned from a comic play which was so
funny that I can not yet check my laughter and can not put myself into a
serious frame of mind. There was a clown in the play—dressed like a
clown, acting like a clown, and while he was going through his
manoeuvres burning tears were coursing down his painted cheeks. I was
the clown in the play. So look for no logic in the acts of a clown.
“I love you—Forget everything else.
Albert.”
II.
Ah! he would not acknowledge that he had made a mistake. He sought to
justify his act. Not to others but to himself. Since his conversion,
life had run smoother for him, he said to himself when he had obtained
his degree. The Dean had spoken eloquently of his poetry as he presented
the degree to him, and the other members of the faculty overlooked much
of his ignorance of legal lore. No one knew better than he that the
least of his knowledge was the knowledge of the law, and he felt a deep
sense of gratitude for the faculty’s leniency. He felt confident that
the worst was over. He would settle down as a government official, or a
professor at some university, or at least as a lawyer, and live a
well-regulated life, without the aid of his uncle. Yes, he would marry,
too. He was about twenty-eight years old and ought not to fritter his
life away.
But he would not permit himself to think of his conversion. The
exertions which preceded his private and public discourses anent the
taking of his degree, his assiduous study of an uncongenial subject, his
inner conflicts, fatigued him almost beyond endurance. He looked at his
reflection in a mirror and felt even more exhausted. He could see
fatigue in every line in his face. There were rings under his eyes; his
cheeks had thinned; there was a roving restlessness in his eyes. In his
present state he was not fit for literary work though he was bent on
completing his book which he had commenced.
There was no question of hard work at present. His nerves were shattered
and his headaches were becoming more and more painful. So he wrote to
Uncle Leopold, and the generous man, hopeful that his scapegrace nephew
would at last settle down, dispatched him a liberal allowance by return
mail for a vacation, not without a veiled admonition, however, not to
squander the money “on other things.”
He went at once to Nordernay for sea baths and followed the orders of
his physician to think of nothing. He also indulged in some pastimes.
Among the sea bathers there were a number of attractive young women who
had read a few of his songs, and their flattery was not displeasing to
him. Though he knew his weakness, he easily yielded to flattery.
Soon his headaches disappeared, healthier color came to his cheeks,
frivolous thoughts were again sporting in his brain. Nor was he averse
to the furtive glances of strangers as he walked restlessly up and down
the beach, dreaming of strange legends that the tossing waves conjured
up in his fancy. He felt the thrill of fame, the tumultuous waves making
divine music in his ears. And sauntering along the shore in the
twilight—the level dunes behind him, before him the seeming endless
raging ocean—with all its mystery and tragic beauty, the huge dome of
the heavens above him, his imagination took flight and soared to
ethereal heights. Noble thoughts filled his brain, compassionate
sentiments crowded his breast, and he made resolutions! He would give
his life for humanity and, in giving it, would melt the hearts of men
with song.
On the shore were sharpshooters aiming at sea-gulls in their flight. He
did not enjoy this pastime. His ancestors were no hunters; rather they
were of the hunted. His blood revolted at firing at the harmless,
innocent creatures.
He recalled his boyhood days when he chanced upon a group of urchins who
had brought down a nest from the top branches of a tree by well-aimed
missiles. He emptied all his pocket money into the fists of the urchins
to bribe them to liberate the featherless baby birds. He knew that the
enemies of his ancestors had called them cowards because they could not
bear the shedding of blood. His mind wandered. A shot was fired, a
sea-gull dropped, a shout of admiration from the onlookers on the shore.
Perhaps the fallen bird was a mother of poor little gulls still
unfledged, lying in their sandy nests and waiting for their mother to
bring them food. No, he would not give his life to this sort of
achievement—killing was not in his blood! Rather would he devote his
life to helping people live, live in greater freedom, physical and
spiritual.
His mind drifted, and his thoughts soon brought him to dwell on
Christian Lutz’s life and his own. He had just run into Christian, who
was here on his honeymoon. To a certain point their lives had run
parallel. First at the Franciscan school, at the Lyceum, at Goettingen,
at Berlin and—there it stopped. Christian was now married, with a
government position affording him a livelihood, while he—Albert—was
nowhere. Always promises—one friend had promised him to intercede with
one of the influential men in Berlin to get him a position with the
government—but there were nothing but promises in sight. He really did
not know himself what would best suit him. He liked the idea of a
professorship. He had many ideas about literature and philosophy and
felt that he could teach something to the young at the university. But
then a government position—a magistrate or judge—would likewise please
him. He loved the Germans even though he detested the Prussian
government—he always felt that individually the Germans possessed noble
virtues, but collectively they were Prussian—and he felt that as a
magistrate, or in any capacity as a public official, he could deal out
justice tempered with kindness. But so far only promises . . .
III.
Still waiting for the promises to be fulfilled he returned to his
parents for a while, made a short stop at Berlin, and went again to
Hamburg in the early winter. Every time he returned to Hamburg it was
with mingled feelings of regret and expectancy. This time he hoped that
the Hamburgers would appreciate him. He was no longer Leopold Zorn’s
nephew but Doctor Zorn and a poet of repute. Even his enemies admitted
that he had genius for lyric verse. And he had just made arrangements to
have his first book of travel published, and the publisher had said he
might consider the publication of a collection of his scattered songs
that had appeared in various periodicals. True, the publisher had
promised no pay for the poems but Albert felt confident that it would
bring him renown; and the Hamburgers would no longer regard him as a
mere idler. This time he meant to be dignified. He would enter in no
controversies with his critics.
Before long, however, he realized that it was useless for him to settle
down there. Uncle Leopold had made this clear to him at a stormy meeting
between the two. But he had no other place to go to.
He found himself a veritable Ishmael—his hand against every man and
every man’s against him. His political views were now well defined and
he dipped his pen in gall and continued writing. He would write a second
volume of his travels and avenge himself on his enemies, little
understanding that the fruit of vengeance is never love. What corroded
his heart most was the dawning knowledge that he had made a blunder that
could never be rectified; that all the waters of the Jordan and of the
North Sea could not wash away the few drops sprinkled upon him by the
Lutheran Clergyman. Yet he would not acknowledge that it was a blunder.
Peevishly he said to himself that he was glad he was separated from the
people who had never befriended him, who had never given him the least
encouragement.
More strife, more bitterness, more vexation of soul! Could he ever live
in peace! The world had let Goethe sing in peace, and Goethe was as
creedless as he. The world knew that Goethe was a pagan and he made no
secret of it. Why was he, Albert Zorn, persecuted on every side? His
book was well received—and was favorably compared with that of the
great Goethe; his songs were being hummed from Leipzig to Hamburg; his
wit was on every tongue, his enemies squirmed under his ironic fire; his
heart was beating with love for every creature that lived; and yet why
were the snakes hissing from every ambush? The Jesuits had at last found
in him a target for all their poisonous arrows—as if he had been the
first man in Germany to utter liberal views! Ah, the injustice of it
all! They had chosen him for their target though he had always cherished
a romantic love for the Church of Rome; they hunted him only because he
was more vulnerable, because he was born a Jew!
His blood was on fire. And he had crawled on his knees to the Cross! Was
he to cower and let them heap hot cinders upon his head because he was
related to the Prophets? No, not he; the Jews had bowed their heads to
their tormentors long enough. He was no long-bearded Isaac swaying over
the Talmud, with an “oi” under his breath; no Rothschild in his counting
house, with Kings as pawns! He was a poet, sweet melody in his heart; a
critic of life and manners, a mighty instrument in his hand—they shall
have thrust for thrust, stab for stab. He would seek for no mercy, he
would not whine for justice, he would fight for his rights.
But his boasting was only to conceal the rankling in his breast. His
poetry or his prose had not been attacked, but his person. No, he was
not ashamed of his lineage—had he been devoid of a sense of humor he
would have even bragged of it—but after he had knelt at the font, after
he had gone more than half way to eradicate all differences between
himself and the Teutons, to be called a Jew! The iron entered his soul!
He swept all admonition aside, he would not listen to the counsel of his
friends. He was sharpening his arrows and dipping them in poison. His
enemies had miscalculated. They thought he could only write love songs.
He would make the dogs yelp before the expiring convulsion came! If
Teutonia resorted to calling names his ancestors had once pitched their
tents by the river Jordan, where calling names was an art.
Yet he hated the conflict. Why must they poison the honey in his heart?
Why must they force the sting? He wanted to flee from Germany—flee from
Germany and sing instead of “caw-caw” with the rest of the crows at
home.
IV.
In moments of revolt Albert always thought of leaving his fatherland
forever, but then his love for the land that gave him birth would
return—his innate fondness of the people about him would possess him,
the memories of his childhood on the banks of the Rhine would hold him
with chains of steel. He saw every fault in his compatriots, but the
faults seemed so glaring to him, and stirred him so deeply, because he
loved the people. But what people ever learned that it is its critics,
not its flatterers, who love it most sincerely?
He now found himself torn by a thousand conflicts. The censor was most
annoying—one could hardly give expression to one’s thoughts—and
disobedience meant damp prisons; the officials were arrogant; and the
land was full of Cant, Cult, and Culture. One could hardly breathe for
want of free air in Germany. In order to divert the people from the
tyranny of the nobles and Prussian officialdom the government encouraged
orthodoxy on one hand and heterodoxy on the other. “Let the children
play hard and forget other foolishness”, has always been the motto of
tyrannical governments. Hegelism, Schlegelism, Schellingism,
anti-Semitism—in short, anything to engage the public mind and coerce
it into submission to the tyrant’s will.
Albert thirsted for freedom. True, his biting irony often escaped the
scrutinising eye of the stupid censor—his thoughts emanated properly
censored from his brain, he jested—but he craved a moment’s respite.
For a time he had again retired to Hamburg and buried himself in work.
More songs, the publication of another book, planning new themes,
pondering new subjects, ever yearning for love.
One day he received a call to edit a political journal. He was thrilled.
He wished to awaken Young Germany; Old Germany, he realized, was
hopeless. He meant to speak freely, come what might. He wished to enroll
himself among the warriors for the liberation of humanity. On his
arrival in Munich he was made to feel that his renown was growing; that,
in fact, he was already famous. His name was known, his songs were on
everyone’s lips, his epigrams were frequently quoted. He had learned
with a keen sense of pleasure that while his first two books had made
him many enemies they had also enlarged his circle of admirers.
He felt that the time was ripe for the emancipation of the German mind.
Every great mind miscalculates the minds of the people about him. He
either underestimates or overestimates them; or rather he underestimates
some of its qualities and overestimates others. Albert was no exception
to this rule. While he was convinced that when “asses wish to abuse one
another they call each other men” he attributed to the masses—stupider
than asses—an intelligence and vision equal to his own. He jumped at
the conclusion that the masses would get his viewpoint once it was
presented to them. And because his clarity of vision enabled him to see
the sham, superstition, and hypocrisy of the prevalent fetishes that
passed for creeds, and of the tyrannies that passed for government, he
imagined that others would see these great evils as soon as they were
revealed to them.
The reception accorded his books deceived him. He mistook the people’s
laughter for applause. He failed to see that only a handful understood
him and sympathized with him. Only the chosen few understood that when
one dips his pen in gall his own heart very often brims over with love.
The vast majority only laughed at his mordant irony, called him a
scoffer and an atheist, and hated him. When a friend had whispered in
his ear “Look out for the Jesuits,” Albert only laughed. He thought it
was for them to look out for him. He knew no fear.
V.
The reception given him on his arrival at Munich assured him that his
friend was wrong. He had no cause to fear the Jesuits.
But the Jesuits in Munich were watching him. He was their sworn enemy,
and the report that he would direct the policy of a new journal roused
their ire. Munich was then the centre of Jesuitical activities. Ever
since their return to Germany, after the fall of Napoleon, they had been
hatching plots, creating dissension among the masses, shaping policies
for their own selfish ends. They were seeking to rehabilitate
themselves. They could not afford to pass in silence the caustic attacks
of the jesting Albert Zorn.
Before long, however, he grew tired of political strife. He was again
soul-weary. He craved the solitude of the mountains, he longed for the
golden mist of the southern heavens, he yearned for the warmth of the
sunny climes. A thousand mysterious voices called to him from the land
of orange blossoms and echoed in his heart melodiously. He longed for a
peep at Italy. Ah, Italy! Italy! When the great God kneaded the earth
into shape and set the human insects into motion—the whole swarm of
human insects—he allotted the Caucasian steppes to the Tartars, Prussia
to the Pedants, to the Hunters he gave the British Isle, France to the
gay in spirit, but Italy,—Italy!—the great God breathed upon that
colorful spot lovingly, kissed it, and was about to reserve it for his
favorites among the angels when he changed His mind and assigned it as a
haven for the soul-weary! Alas! with the confusion of the Tower of Babel
many a Tartar wandered from his homeland and many a poet strayed from
his designated abode.
He wandered through Italy—through Livorno, Bagni di Lucca, Florence,
Bologna, Venice—and he wandered among the ruins of antiquity, “a ruin
among ruins.” He jested and scoffed, worshipped and blasphemed, honey in
his heart. Poetic melodies, like birds of passage driven South, returned
to him; his heart once more glowed and beat tumultuously; the
nightingale again sang for him. The broken columns, the ruined towers,
the shattered classic images spoke to him in a language he understood.
He wanted to forget the past, to obliterate the insults heaped upon him
by his enemies. Italian skies inspire sweet dreams and make one forget
troubles. The promise of a chair at the University whispered hope. Yes,
he would give the rest of his life to champion the rights of the people.
While amusing himself at the Baths of Lucca he was laying plans for the
future. He had received a hopeful letter about the professorship. His
brain was brimming over with enthusiasm and joy. He would make all his
friends proud of him and he would not only repay them with gratitude but
also with service. And how gloriously his third book was coming along!
The volume was so spontaneous; it was writing itself. Humor and song
were flowing from his pen. Not a word of bitterness in this book, he
decided. No stings, nothing but the sweetest of honey. He intended to
have the third volume mirror the heavenly witchery of Italy and the
flowing love of his soul; no, not a word of bitterness. At the worst,
only a passage of fun-making at superstition but nothing—not a line—to
offend anyone’s sensibilities.
Ah, there was again spring in his heart! Sentiments of love and freedom,
like fresh roses, burst forth anew. Above him the rays of the brilliant
sun pierced the mist hanging over the mountains and “sucked at the
earth’s breast like a hungry suckling child.” He was again in the spring
of life, everything thawing, melting, sweet murmurs everywhere. He was
in love with life and every breathing creature.
And the arts of man were about him in abundance; the divine ecstasy of
generations long dead impressed on palace and ruin; ecstasy filled his
being to overflowing. No, not a tinge of bitterness in his heart, no
acrid irony in his brain, nothing but goodwill and happiness and the
effervescence of life.
VI.
But one day in November a gust of wind swept over him; a cold, damp,
bleak wind that blighted the blooming flowers in his heart and covered
the sun rays with a black cloud and filled his heart with sadness. No
more hope for a chair at a university, no prospect of a life of
contemplation and peace and song. The Jesuits had stronger influence
than his friends. And as if designing to annihilate him completely the
Jesuits had attacked him with all their forces.
His third volume was nearly completed when the latest affront reached
him. He had quite forgotten his Hebraic strain. In the land of Virgil,
with the echo of Homer from the neighboring shores, he thought himself
more Greek than Hebrew, but suddenly the evaporated fumes of his
smouldering agony were driven back into his heart. He was consumed by a
thirst for vengeance. Since his enemies would not let him forget his
Hebraism he would be like the God of the ancient Hebrews. No whining,
cowering for him! Even as the Macabees of old, his progenitors, he would
meet the enemy with piercing arrows and devastating rocks. He was no
preacher of love for those that hated him; hate for hate! There was
scornful laughter in his heart. His enemies—the Preachers of Love—had
hated even those who loved them!
He was then in Florence, that dreary November day, the skies
a-drizzling, thick mist screening the banks of the Arno, a severe cold
in his head. He had spent six weeks, rambling, dreaming, drinking from
the fountain of beauty. With all the quaint narrow streets, the art
treasures around him, the buildings mellowed with age, his imagination
astir with a thousand memories of antiquity, a thousand raptures to
enthrall his soul, his romantic love for Catholic mysticism returned,
the slumbering sensuous love he felt in his childhood. Even while he
smiled at the faded Madonnas and was provoked to laughter by the hideous
saints of early Tuscan conception his heart glowed with reverence and
deep emotion. But that day only rancor filled his heart.
He left his lodgings and wandered along the bank of the Arno, unmindful
of the cold and the pain in his head. The water of the flowing river did
not reflect the azure of the Italian skies. The drizzling rain had
stirred the placid surface and, like his heart, was turgid and muddy.
Nothing was beautiful around him now. All was grim. For not only woman’s
beauty but all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He wished to think
of other things—he said to himself he would dismiss the “filth and
stupidity” of the “congregation” at Munich—but his brain would admit no
other thought. But for his birthright—or was it his birth-curse?—he
would have been now on his way to assume the duties of a professor of
literature and devote the rest of his life to his beloved fatherland. He
shuddered, then a cynical smile appeared on his tightly closed mouth. He
remembered that morning at the Franciscan school, when he revealed to
Christian Lutz the fact that his father’s father had been a little Jew
with long whiskers. Every time the world recalled that revelation there
was a mob to jeer at him and a Father Scher to shower blows upon him!
He continued along the bank, one moment serious, his eyes closed, the
next moment a strange smile on his lips.
When he reached the Ponte Grazie and made his way across the little
stone bridge toward the Uffizi, his heart felt lightened. He saw the
sublime jest of life; everybody laughing at everybody else. The world
was a great lazaretto where every suffering inmate was laughing at the
infirmities of the other. Was he not himself a suffering patient mocking
the other patients? The irony of it all amused him and made him forget
the drizzling rain and the pain in his head.
Presently a priest passed him, a sorry spectacle of a man; pale,
emaciated, bent, his bony hands quivering, his lips muttering something.
The poor fellow had spent so much time in praying that his lips moved
even when not at prayer. What a face! All the pains and sorrows that
human flesh was heir to were mirrored in it. Albert’s heart was wrung
with pity; there was no mockery in his heart. No, he would not even
reply to the attacks of his enemies. Love those that hate you! He now
understood that sublime utterance. The great Jew of Galilee must have
understood the jest of life, and when one understands one can only pity,
not mock.
Then he passed an old church. A woman, her head and shoulders covered
with a black cashmere shawl, pulled open the heavy church door and
entered. He followed her in. The woman did not turn right or left but
walked up to the altar, knelt on the stone steps and began to pray. He
stood in the rear, his eyes gazing blankly in front of him. The church
was deserted, gloomy, a strange sombre light sifting in through the many
colored window-panes, leaving the long archways in twilight dimness; a
swinging oil lamp in front of the beautiful image of the Madonna
accentuated the nocturnal shadows beyond the reach of this glimmering
light. It was noiseless yet there sounded in his ears dying echoes. Now
and then a soft murmur came from somewhere as if the great organ, weary
of prolonged silence, emitted a soft sigh. A thousand invisible phantoms
seemed to people this empty, age-smelling church. The kneeling, praying
woman, the stone images of saints, the indefinable forms flitting here
and there back of the pillars, the murmuring from the side chapel, the
emaciated priests outside, the Jesuits at Munich, all the religious
controversies—Oh, God, what a travesty, what a jest! He wondered which
was the greater jest, the festive gods of Olympus, who went about their
business merrily and drank toasts from golden goblets and made love to
the goddesses and slew their rivals, or the solemn, abstemious gods
surrounded by shaven monks who fretfully cajoled and fawned upon their
Jupiter, sadly rolling their eyes, praying for favors.
He suddenly rushed out of the church and proceeded through a narrow
alley which afforded a short cut to the Uffizi. At present everything
appeared farcical to him; nothing was serious. Politics, religion, love,
spaghetti, literature, painting, the Seven Sins—or was it the Seven
Wonders?—amusing jests all! As he entered the _Palazzo degli Uffizi_,
walking past marble statues, Florentine tapestries, Satyrs, Wrestlers,
Fauns, Madonnas, Venuses, Popes, Cupids, the Flight from Egypt and the
Flight into Egypt, the _Weltschmerz_—the soul-weariness—of it all
seized him and almost choked him with Satanic laughter. At a glance he
beheld the Sublime Jesters of all ages!—Michael Angelo, Raphael,
Titian, Correggio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, da Vinci—the sublimest
jester of all—each one busy with the jest of life in his own way.
He traversed vestibules and corridors, lofty vaulted chambers and
frescoed palaces, and suddenly halted before a relief of the Sacrifice
of Iphigeneia and close beyond it the Martyrdom of St. Justina by Paul
Veronese. Were these jests, too?
He passed his hand over his eyes, then rubbed his forehead. Was he
insane or had the rest of the world lost their wits? again passed
through his mind. If he was sane the rest of the world could not be
sane. The rest of the world took all this seriously, almost
tragically—the Satyrs and the Fauns and the Madonnas and the
Martyrs—and did not see the jest of it all.
His eyes dimmed by fugitive thoughts, he walked without seeing anything
around him. He was feeling for the pillars, a prayer in his heart—O
Lord God, I pray Thee, strengthen me, O God, that I may be avenged of
the Philistines. The jeering laughter of the Philistines was in his
ears. Dagon, their god, towered over him; he felt the fetters of brass
against his flesh.
He returned to his lodging and plunged into work. He meant to jest but
his jesting now was bitter. He was avenging himself on the Philistines.
And no one ever avenged himself on the Philistines without falling with
them.
VII.
There is always an element of discontent in the desire to travel.
Contented people, like cattle in verdant pastures, remain on the
hillside, munching their food in peace and tranquility.
He could not remain much longer in Florence. He wanted to travel, to
move about. He went to Bologna, to Ferrara, to Padua, to Venice. But one
cannot escape his own shadow. He carried his griefs with him. He was
short of money but that mattered little to him. The memory of his gayety
at the Baths of Lucca, at Livorno, at Florence, was forgotten.
Innately sensual he sought to drive away his gloom (as he had often
done) by conjuring scenes of Florentine Nights and living over again
those blissful moments; Signora Francesca, with those dark brown eyes,
long, black lashes, rich black hair, and captivating body; Signora
Letitia—that temptress, with a throbbing bosom, who carried on
flirtations with half a dozen men at the same time; Matilda—that
virtuous flirt, who tried to conceal her sensuousness by constantly
talking about, and condemning, the sensuality of others; that
pink-cheeked English girl, whose face looked as if it were bedewed with
spray from the sea—No, these recollections brought no joy to his heart,
not even a momentary consolation, as they had done on other occasions.
He was seized with a morbid longing to wander, to wander everlastingly,
to run away from himself.
While at Venice he received a letter from his brother that his father
was very ill. He could read between the lines that it was a call to his
father’s death-bed. Somehow, this very sad news brought him relief. It
at once removed his restlessness. He was calm. He had suddenly become
philosophical, stoical. It was as if one of his veins had been opened to
relieve an intense pain. He left Italy and rushed back to his native
land where his father was dying.
The following three months he frittered away between Hamburg and Berlin.
His widowed mother had moved to Hamburg, and she begged him to stay
there but he detested the city. It held for him too many bitter
memories.
He finally decided to isolate himself. His action was that of the
storm-tossed woman of passion who finds refuge in a nunnery.
He went to Potsdam, where he could see only “_Himmel und Soldaten_”.
Potsdam in those days was not the suburb of Berlin that it is today.
There was neither Subway nor Elevated nor speedy surface trains to carry
one from _Unter den Linden_ to Sans Souci in half an hour. Then it was a
considerable distance from the Prussian capital.
In Potsdam he found himself truly isolated, far from friends and
diversions. And he had so many plans for work; the completion of another
book; a humorous book, poems, essays, a political treatise. Then, again,
here he was safe from his ever threatening peril—of falling in love. He
had barely escaped a strong attachment for the wife of a friend, but her
intellect had saved him.
He remained at Potsdam nearly six months, working feverishly on new
poems.
After a time he found his self-imposed imprisonment irksome. The
atmosphere in Potsdam was not to his liking either. The presence of
soldiers—_die Menschenfresser_—everywhere, the artificiality of the
gardens of San Souci, where the firs were “masked as orange trees” and
“so unnatural that they were almost human”—everything was unbearable
here.
VIII.
He longed for rest. He wished to escape from the tumults of life, from
the tumults of his passions. He was a poet and wished to withdraw to
bucolic quietude, indulge in pleasant reveries, and pipe sweet melodies.
With the Bible and Homer as his only companions he left his family and
friends and went to the seashore. He would forget that he had been the
editor of a political journal; he would forget that he had fought the
Knights of Darkness; he would forget all the skirmishes in which he had
engaged since his early youth. He would lie on the shore, listen to the
sporting waves, and watch the clouds overhead.
He wandered along the beach in the twilight, solemn stillness all around
him, the vault of heaven “like a Gothic church”, the stars above burning
and flickering like countless lamps, the sweep of the waves “like the
reverberations of a great organ”. At last he thought he had found
himself. Again he wanted to emulate Goethe. He wanted no political
strife, no controversial essays, no more ironic flings. Action was not
his sphere, politics not his handiwork. He was no Ludwig Börne. He was
neither agitator nor reformer. He was a literary artist and must let
politics and philosophy alone. He must devote the rest of his life to
the observation of nature and to the interpretation of it—that was the
thirst of his soul.
Yes, the quiet and peace of the seashore suited him. No one there to
engage him in polemics, no one to argue with. He had made the
acquaintance of a sea captain and at times listened to tales of the sea,
the sea that he loved “as much as his soul”. There were also two young
women, whose acquaintance he had made, but neither of them was young or
pretty enough to arouse his interest. He was jestingly frivolous with
them and they, in turn, lionized him and made him conscious of his fame.
Indeed, he had found himself at last. He was supremely happy. After a
few more weeks of rest and recuperation he would settle down to his
life-work.
One day he was seated in his room reading and dreaming. The house where
he lodged was situated on an elevation away from the shore, back of an
old church, and commanded a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance;
“_Zur schönen Aussicht_” the owner had named his cottage.
A knock on his door and his landlord, a fisherman, handed him a packet
of newspapers and a letter from Berlin. The letter contained nothing of
importance beyond literary gossip. He then tore the wrappers from the
newspapers and began scanning the narrow columns in a careless, casual
manner when he suddenly jumped from his seat, drew his breath, and
stared at the sheet before him as if convulsed. At first pallor appeared
in his cheeks, then they turned red, and his whole body quivered.
“A revolution!—a revolution!—a revolution, Herr Nikkels!”
Herr Nikkels, the fisherman, stared at the speaker with unconcealed
bewilderment. He had thought his lodger a little queer—always walking
up and down the seashore when not bathing, or pacing up and down the
floor of his room—but he had never seen him so agitated.
Albert raced up and down the room, the newspaper clutched in his hand, a
strange glow on his face.
“O, it’s wonderful! glorious!—at last it has come!” he cried.
“What has happened?” the fisherman, still staring, asked.
“Ah, my dear Nikkels, the greatest thing in the world has happened! They
are marching in Paris, with the tri-colored flag, singing the
Marseillaise. Oh, isn’t it wonderful!” Then stretching his arms upward,
“Oh, for a glimpse of Paris today.”
The fisherman drew at his pipe, shrugged his shoulders, and walked out.
“This fellow Zorn is quite crazy,” he confided to his wife a few moments
later.
Zorn was quite crazy that day. He did not take his prescribed sea-bath,
could not read, could not write, dodged every acquaintance on the beach,
rushed up and down the shore as if possessed.
Lafayette, the tri-colored flag, the Marseillaise! He could think of
nothing else. He was intoxicated, delirious. All his resolutions had
gone to the winds—all his resolutions for rest and quiet and peace; his
hunger for calm reveries and piping melodies was gone. He was aching for
strife, for the very vortex of strife. Ah, if he could whip his
countrymen into action and arouse them from their sluggish contentment,
perhaps they, too, would hoist the tri-colored flag and sing the
Marseillaise!
_Aux armes, citoyens!_
No piping melodies for him, no fantasies, no love ditties!
_Aux armes, citoyens! Aux armes!_
He would take the lyre into his hands and sing a battle song. He was no
Wolfgang von Goethe, playing with metrical verses while the enemy’s
cannons were roaring at the city gates! How differently the ocean waves
were galloping to the shore today! They were chanting the Marseillaise,
they were calling tumultuously:
“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_”
The whole ocean was aflame with the fire that was burning in his heart;
the mermaids were dancing with joy, giving a _thé dansant_ in honor of
the great event. No, no, no rest for him! He was a child of the
revolution, rebellion against all tyranny in his blood. He was what he
was and could be no other. He would wreathe his head with flowers for
the death-struggle to come. Ah, he would smite the pious hypocrites who
had crept into the holy of holies to defile it! He would hurl javelins
at the tyrants, with their armies of _Menschenfresser_, who were holding
mankind in fetters of steel! With words like flaming stars he would set
fire to the palaces of the oppressors and illumine the dingy huts of the
enslaved.
_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_
He was “all joy and song, all sword and flame.”
“And God said, let there be light!” The torch of the Revolution of July
had spread light to all the dark places. To Poland, to Spain, to
Britain, to Prussia. All eyes were turned to Paris. From there came the
light!
He left the seashore. He could no longer bear the rest and quiet of the
place. He went to Hamburg and restlessly watched developments. He could
think of nothing but the revolution. He also watched, with a sinking
heart, the renewed activities of the authorities. The censor had become
even more ruthless. More than half he had written was suppressed. His
publishers, the most daring in Germany, had dropped a hint of caution to
him. They had learned that the Prussian government had issued a warrant
for his arrest. The air of Hamburg was stifling. He wanted to breathe
free air. Yes, he must fight, and, if necessary, perish in the war of
human liberation. The dawn of a new religion—the religion of
freedom—was rising and he must consecrate himself as one of its
priests.
When he told Uncle Leopold of his intention to go to Paris the elderly
gentleman heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed, he would be happy to defray
all expenses for Albert’s stay in Paris as long as he pleased. To be a
namesake of Albert Zorn was no great comfort in these stirring days.
Leopold Zorn was no revolutionary. He was a law-abiding citizen, and as
a great banker he knew that even a tyrannical government was better than
a government convulsed.
Albert’s mother could not understand his desire to go to Paris. She had
never been outside of Germany, and Paris seemed very distant. What would
he do in Paris? Her fond hopes had been rudely shattered. Her poor
husband had died with ambitions unattained and now her beloved son, the
choice of her flock, was merely drifting, at an age when most men were
comfortably established. Of course, she had heard of the abdication of
Charles X and of the July Revolution in France, but what had these to do
with her son? She was growing old, she was complaining, and craved for
quiet and peace. Why go to Paris where there was so much excitement and
turmoil?
“How soon will you be back?” she asked of him eagerly.
He was taking leave of her, his arms enfolding her, his sister, with a
babe in her arms, standing close by.
“I can’t tell, mother dearest;” looking away wistfully.
“Do take good care of yourself and don’t get mixed up with bad company,”
she spoke beseechingly. “Uncle Leopold said——”
“Yes, I know, what Uncle Leopold always says,” he struck in impatiently,
with a cynical smile in the deep corners of his mouth. “Hold on to the
_Thalers_ and the rest will take care of itself.”
There was a melancholy smile on the mother’s benign face. Everything
Albert said sounded clever to her ears but she did not like to hear him
jest about Uncle Leopold. Leopold was very good to her indeed, as he had
always been in the past.
“What will you do in Paris?”
“March and sing the Marseillaise,” he said, laughing.
“Will you ever be serious?”
“It’s because I am too serious that I jest, my little mother.” He kissed
her on both cheeks.
The mother sighed; a tear was slowly rolling down her face.
Albert flung his arms around his mother, embraced his sister, kissed her
little son, and rushed out of the house. His tears and emotions were
choking him.
Outside the sun was shining brightly, light clouds in the sky. It was
the first of May, fresh, earth-scented odors in the air. A stolid
sluggish fellow, with a large, heavy basket on his head, walked past
Albert as he came out of his mother’s house. Albert looked after the
fellow and sighed. Will _Michel_ ever quicken his step? Ah, the poor
_Michel_! Albert’s heart was wrung with pain. Presently an officer
loomed up in the distance. Albert jumped into the vehicle that was
waiting for him at the curb.
“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes_!” he murmured to himself as the
vehicle rattled away.
PART THREE
A CYNIC IN THE MAKING
A HAPPY EXILE.
I.
A heavy load was lifted, the air seemed lighter, one could breathe
freely. The uprising in Paris was but short-lived, the bloody skirmish
had lasted two days and Louis Phillipe was once more safe on his throne,
reinforced by a new cabinet. The citizen-king—_le roi citoyen_—once
more made the people believe that he was the same Louis Phillipe who had
been in the habit of carrying an umbrella like any plain citizen, with a
modest round felt hat on his uncrowned head no different from one worn
by the masses. Peace was again restored. The red flag was again replaced
by the one of three colors; the shouts of “Long live the Republic” and
“Down with Louis Phillipe” had once more been hushed; the vicinity of
the Cloister St. Merry, where the zealous One Hundred Republicans had
fought and fallen, was quiet and deserted. The French capital always
lived from day to day and forgot the past. Barricades and booming cannon
one day, gay laughter and resplendent parades the next.
The genial sun of early summer was in the sky and all Paris seemed to
have turned out into the streets, into the public gardens, into the
parks; God, feeling bored in his celestial abode, “opened the window of
heaven and looked down on the Boulevards.” And the Boulevards were
amusing enough. The deathly clash of a few days ago was forgotten. There
was merriment in every face; smiling eyes beamed above the marble-topped
tables along the sidewalks in front of the busy cafés; from side streets
came the tremulous gurgling of hurdy-gurdies, the emotional tones of
chanting beggars, singing the latest, _La Parisienne_. Suddenly a
frantic, joyous shout rent the air; handkerchiefs waved, canes were
brandished—the variegated colors of a crowd in motion. An old man in a
phaeton passed. His white hair was covered with a brown wig; his kindly
eyes sparkled with youth in spite of his seventy-four years; he raised
his hat and bowed with military dignity and yet with the humility of the
very great.
“Vive le général LaFayette!”
The appearance of the hero of two hemispheres on the Boulevards always
had a soothing effect upon the masses. They felt that with this champion
of liberty still among them the rights of the people were preserved.
Amidst the jovial pedestrians that thronged the Grand Boulevards Albert
Zorn strolled pensively, his hands in his pockets, his dreamy, though
keen, eyes, narrowed inquisitively, his head thrown back, a smile of
triumph and joy on his smooth-shaven oval face. He was well dressed, in
light colored coat and trousers and a waistcoat of many bright hues, yet
his clothes hung on him as if he gave no care to his outward appearance.
Though well-built, with a body of medium height and a head proudly set
upon a solidly formed neck, he gave one the impression of shortness. It
was his legs rather than his body that were short. He walked with the
aimlessness of a student, of a dreamer who always seeks life in the
street rather than in the drawingroom. There was a touch of melancholy
in his eyes even when he smiled and a peculiar light shone from between
his narrowed eyelids—a shaft of sunlight emerging from a crevice. At
times he whistled as he walked and mumbled rhythmic words to himself.
There was the gait of conscious freedom in his step, the freedom
regained by a convict after long imprisonment. The gayety of the people
about him filled him with secret joy, the saluting ejaculations were
music in his ears. He was seeing history in the making and was alive to
the events of the day.
He rambled wistfully, as if carried along by the human tide, and not
infrequently was jostled by the people about him. He was tempted to get
into people’s way and hear the exclamations of apology and see the sunny
smiles on their faces. He loved the gleam of those velvety French eyes
and the melody of their light-hearted laughter. Though of a bluntly
frank nature himself he found the polite urbanity of the Parisians as
refreshing as the wafting fragrance from a greenhouse. He was keenly
conscious of the foreign atmosphere and fascinated by the people’s
manners. Some one had just touched his arm and apologized courteously,
and he lapsed into a revery of comparison between the people in his
native land and the people here. In his native land people dug each
other in the ribs without a suggestion of craving one’s pardon. Many
cycles of thought began to revolve in his brain. One led to another.
Then came straggling, disjointed fragments of thought—like loose
threads—that became snarled and were formed into a knotted coil. . . .
II.
Since the Revolution in Paris the whole tenor in Albert’s life had
changed. He had hung up his lyre and gripped the sword. The Revolution
had made him forget his resolution to devote the rest of his life to his
art. He had thrown himself into the maelstrom of political activities
and fought mercilessly. He had decided upon a mission in life. To write
sweet songs was not enough, he had determined. He must do his share in
the struggle for the liberation of man, mental as well as physical
liberation. He was fighting the _Junkers_ and the priests—the _Adel und
Pfaffenherrschaft_—with telling effect. The articles he had written
since he fled from Germany stirred the people at home even more than
while he was amongst them. Yes, he must fight for the liberation of man!
Instead of the Bible and Homer he was hugging to his breast Jean Jacques
Rousseau’s work. He realized that France was at present the cradle of
Liberty as Judea of old was the cradle of Faith.
How could he really sing with the rattling of prisoners’ chains in his
ears? The course of one’s life is fixed at one’s very birth, and strive
as one might the given course must be followed. Albert felt as if an
invisible hand was directing his course, a forceful, dominating hand.
Free will? There was no free will. He often thought of the allegory of
Jonah fleeing to Tarsish. Poor Jonah believed in free will but the whale
taught him a different lesson. “Arise, go unto Ninevah, that great city,
and preach unto it the preaching that I bid thee.” Everyone must preach
the preaching that is bidden him.
However, at times he turned to the Prophets and drank from the ever
fresh waters of their deep wells. And the Jesuits in Munich and the
_Junkers_ in Berlin were pointing to his blasphemy! So did the ancient
priests and the nobles of old Judea call their prophets scoffers and
blasphemers. It is ever thus, Albert Zorn mused with sublime contempt in
his heart, one must be crucified in order to save the world.
Would he ever be understood? He did not preach any definite doctrine to
attract adherents. He was no Börne, with set rules and formulas for the
emancipation of mankind; no self-centered Goethe to inspire romantic
cults. He was carrying on guerilla warfare, shooting at whosoever was
hostile to human progress. He understood the course of human progress
better than that fanatical Börne who dreamt of bringing about a
millennium with one leap. Human progress is gained by taking a leap
forward, then half a step backward, then forward again, until the goal
is reached. Reaction is as much a part of human progress as revolution.
Revolution is only a link in the chain of evolution. He dreaded
Communism, he despised Absolutism, he detested the mediocrity of
Republicanism, even more than Philistinism. He was concerned with the
freedom of the spirit even more than with the freedom of the body. Must
he go on being misunderstood? He did not care for the opinion of his
enemies—it did not matter to him that they charged him with want of
character—but it grieved him to learn that even his friends and
admirers failed to understand him. Only a few days before he had bared
his heart in a letter to a friend. Would any one ever understand his
inner struggles and strife? “We do not expect our friends to agree with
us but we expect them to understand the motives of our actions,” he
pleaded.
He could not deny that he had sipped from the sweetness of life since
his arrival in Paris. A new world was opened to him. At last he had
found himself free, breathing freely, moving about without restraint,
without the conscious restraint that Prussian tyranny had imposed upon
him. Not only the tangible shackles but even the invisible
fetters—those that make one’s inner consciousness cower—had fallen
away.
From the first day he stepped upon French soil no one reminded him, by
look or gesture or remotest insinuations, of the virtues, or vices, of
his forefathers. Having brought with him only a few letters of
introduction, and as yet wholly unknown to the reading public in France,
his poems and ready wit had quickly won him a large circle of friends
and admirers. He had already met Victor Hugo, George Sand, Adolph
Thiers, General LaFayette, and formed friendships with Balzac and
Gautier and Alexandre Dumas; and, as in Berlin, he had found here an
admirer who wished to be his patroness. She was a princess, who, while
she did not possess the brilliancy and depth of Frau Varnhagen, was a
woman of culture and had an innate appreciation of poetry. At her
_soirées_ one met not only the literary and artistic celebrities of the
day but also renowned statesmen and diplomats.
He was as famous here as in his native land. The _Revue des Deux Mondes_
was running a translation of his works, laudatory articles were written
about him, his correspondence from Paris had made a stir in Germany and
Austria, and his publishers were issuing new editions of his books.
Though he was spending freely, sufficient money was coming in to meet
his obligations. Indeed, fortune smiled upon him.
“_Vive le général LaFayette_!” the throngs around him roared again.
He had reached the Madaleine, which was then still under construction,
and crossing the street he walked back along the Grands Boulevards. Only
the day before he had talked with Balzac about the charm of wandering
through the crowded streets of Paris, watching the people and listening
to their talk. Albert found that he could think best as he wandered
along the crowded sidewalks.
He soon found himself again thinking of his Fatherland. He was always
thinking of his Fatherland. The soil of Germany was sacred to him, her
language was music to his ears. He loved Paris, loved the French, but
his heart beat for the land of the Rhine. He recalled a recent attack on
him in a German newspaper. He was attacked on all sides. The radicals
called him a traitor, the _Junkers_ called him a revolutionist. But he
did not mind. He was a little David with more than one smooth stone in
his pouch. He would yet slay the blustering Goliath. He would fight for
Young Germany in his own way!
However, the knowledge that he was being attacked by the radicals and
the _Junkers_ stirred his blood. At last the poor _Michel_ had stopped
snoring. He was stretching his clumsy arms. No more sweet lullabies for
the drowsy _Michel_, no more love songs, no dream ballads, no subtle
epigrams. He must speak to him more directly, in language he could not
misunderstand. He had scarcely more than unsheathed his sword. They
shall see!
MARGUERITE.
I.
Albert found time passing pleasantly and swiftly. Two more years had
passed and he was still living the life of a literary
journalist—visiting cafés, art galleries, places of amusement; dining
at the homes of the elite, visiting notables, frequenting fashionable
circles. He was trying to persuade himself that his was a happy
existence—fame in Germany and even greater renown in Paris, his health
fairly good save for an occasional headache, and his earnings
considerable—but he could not shut his ears to the small voice calling
from the very depth of his heart. It was a rebuking, reproachful voice,
which he could silence neither with a witty epigram nor with convincing
preachment. It was the voice of mocking Satan, with whom the more one
expostulates the more it mocks. He was already in his thirty-sixth year
and none of his great literary plans had come to fruition. He had been
bartering his talents for ducats. Had his fire gone out? He trembled. He
had hardly written a poem worthy of the name in the past two years.
True, he had not been idle and had fought for the liberation of his
compatriots, and studied and worked very industriously on criticism of
literature, religion, philosophy; but that, he said to himself, was not
his life work. Yes, even love was dead in his heart. Was he growing old?
Fear seized him. Goethe at thirty-six had only begun to love, and only
begun to live. His heart was beating with the rapidity of fear. When one
ceases to feel the lure of love one is nearing his grave, he mused. And
one morning he awakened to find two fingers of his left hand benumbed.
Alarmed he ran to a physician, a friend of his. The diagnosis was
terrifying. The two fingers were paralyzed. But he only emitted a bitter
laugh. “What a beneficent deity we have! God is reducing the strength of
my left hand that I may strike the harder with my right.”
He jested about his deformity but it struck terror at his heart. It was
not the fear of death but the fear of dying. He had seen death in all
its grimness, when the cholera raged in Paris the year before. No, it
was not death he feared but the approach of death. Indeed, he was
getting old and dying. Perspiration burst over him. He recalled that the
_Weltschmerz_ which had gripped him so mercilessly in his youth had
relaxed its hold on him since his arrival in Paris. And the
_Weltschmerz_ is the elixir of youth. Want of restlessness is want of
life-force.
He wanted no sympathy. He had promised Princess Pampini to call on her
that morning but he could not force himself to go to her. It was not
vanity because his fingers were crippled but he would not listen to
condolence.
As he thought of the princess a smile passed over his face. People were
gossiping about his being in love with her. He could no more be in love
with her than he could have been in love with Rahel. No, he could not be
in love with anybody any more . . . He sighed disconsolately. No wonder
the heights of Parnassus had been denied him in the past two years. Love
and song were no longer for him. . .
In despair he wandered through the streets, frequently touching and
fondling the numb fingers of his left hand with those of his right. He
sought to dissipate his sorrow in motion. Pretty women walked past him
but he glanced at them with trepidation. He saw their beauty but could
feel no inner thrill. Yes, the glow of life was fast ebbing away from
him. Youth and love and song were all dead in his heart.
He had reached the Porte St. Martin and turned into a side street. He
wished to be alone, in a street less frequented by the young and gay.
The sight of the young and gay around him was too tantalizing. He was
brooding. Such was the irony of life. No sooner had he begun to enjoy
life than life began to flee. Was not that the allegory of Moses on
Mount Nebo?
Like another Faust—nay, like another _Koheleth_, the Preacher—Albert
mused on the vanities and uselessness of life. It is only he whose eyes
penetrate behind the scenes of life that can scoff and cry _Havel
havolim_, vanity of vanities; and one’s eyes scarcely ever penetrate the
mystery of life until one is about ready to relinquish it. In the heart
of a forest one does not see the forest. “I have seen all the works that
are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of
spirit.”
Ah, indeed, every man must write his own Faust as he must brood over his
own Ecclesiastes! Albert had often said this to himself and friends, and
he now understood the full import of his saying. Like all true
humorists, he passed quickly from mirth to sadness. There was nothing in
life for him any longer, and it did not matter if he could only go to
his lodging, fall asleep, and never wake again.
He was making his way blindly through the quiet street, oblivious to
everything about him, when his ears caught the humming of a street song,
the snatch of a song which was then popular in Paris and played by every
hurdy-gurdy. He raised his eyes and beheld a young girl, perhaps
seventeen or eighteen years old, standing in the doorway of a little
shop, her hands stuck in the pockets of a white apron over her black
skirt. There was the gleam of a cheerful smile on her comely
countenance, and as he raised his eyes she stopped humming the song and
looked at him with the candor and shyness of a child.
He was about to continue his walk when he remembered that he needed a
pair of shoes, which were less costly on the side streets than on the
Boulevards. He halted, hesitated, took a step back, and entered the shoe
shop; the girl turned on her heel and followed him in.
Suddenly all his sadness fled, all his brooding thoughts vanished. He
was conscious of a thrill in his heart and of the sweetness of living.
The face before him was one mirroring youth and the ignorance of youth,
eyes that sparkled, seeing only the surface of life. And in every line
of her figure, in every movement of hers, was immaturity.
While he was examining a pair of shoes a heavy-set woman, with purple
cheeks, stuck her head through a door in the rear, and said something
about showing the gentleman the new style of footwear they had received
the day before. What was there in the girl’s voice that made something
within him vibrate?
He began to take off his left shoe.
“Not the left but the right, _monsieur_;” and she emitted a little laugh
with the unrestraint of a child.
He did as he was bidden, and felt a peculiar intimacy as the girl bent
down to help him slip on the new shoe. As she bent forward his eyes
rested on her lustrous black hair—wavy without being curly—combed back
from her low forehead.
He was thinking of Miriam, the girl of Gnesen. There was a striking
resemblance between the two, except that the girl before him had
somnolent black eyes while the iris in Miriam’s eyes were of a deep
dark-blue. There was the same lack of artifice in her speech, the same
touch of tenderness in her voice. Likewise was her face a book with
blank pages.
He lingered in the little shop even after he had made his purchase. Was
the woman who had spoken through the doorway her mother? No, she was an
aunt, for whom she was working. Her mother lived in the country, in a
little village near Nantes, and her mother had sent her to Paris to earn
her living. Was her mother poor? Yes, very, very poor.
“Where do you come from?” she presently questioned him with equal
candor, and looked up into his face without the least embarrassment.
“Where do you think?”
The deep corners of his large mouth drooped and there was a faint smile
on his oval face.
She straightened up, her hands now behind her, her eyes resting on his
light-brown hair, on his thoughtful face.
“From—from Normandy—all the men in Normandy are blond and have bluish
eyes——”
He laughed with frank amusement, the amusement a child’s talk provokes,
and told her his eyes only seemed blue but they were greenish.
“But a thing is only what it seems,” she said, with naive protest.
“I grant you it is good philosophy but not all philosophy is truth.”
There was a comical expression on his face as he uttered the last, and
she looked puzzled. A bit of shyness came over her.
“So you can’t guess where I come from,” he said, looking tenderly at
her. Then he added, as if speaking to himself, “I come from a country
where they wish I had come from another country, and if I had come from
another country they would have wished the same.”
He threw his head back and laughed but not without a touch of bitterness
in his tone.
She did not understand him. There was perplexity in the girl’s face. No
one had ever looked at her in this manner. There was something
beseeching in his half-closed eyes, something eloquently covetous, and
he gazed at her as if she were an inanimate thing, a picture or statue
of the masters in the Louvre.
His next question sounded still more puzzling. Was she always in the
shop? What a question! She was either in the shop or in the rear helping
with the housework. Her employer was not boarding her and paying her
mother ten francs a month for nothing!
As he was leaving he suddenly turned around and asked her name.
“Marguerite,” she told him. He said he would like to be her Faust.
She looked at him incomprehensively and said, “_Vous êtes drôle_.”
“You are not the only one who thinks me funny,” he replied.
She laughed.
He walked away with drooping head and lagging step.
II.
He was soon on Boulevard Strassbourg, a mere drop of spray in the human
tide. People were coming and going, chatting and laughing, the zest of
life everywhere. He, too, now felt the zest of life. He was no longer
feeling that the marrow of his life had dried up. There was spring in
his heart, the sap of renewed life was flowing through his veins; no, he
was not dying. He was humming to himself a few verses of an old song of
his, which had been set to music by an admirer.
Yes, sadness was creeping into his heart and enveloping his whole being,
but it was not the sadness that possessed him earlier in the day. It was
the sadness of longing, of woeful longing, the sadness of music in a
minor key, which thrilled him even as it kept tugging at his
heartstrings. Suddenly, oblivious of the people that were passing, he
paused, and, clenching his fists with joy vibrating through the whole
being, his face beaming with a strange light, he uttered, almost loud
enough to be heard by passersby, “I am myself again—love has returned!”
And love had returned. He was his old self again. Youth had come back.
His features had almost changed. There came a new softness in his eyes,
languor in his face, the dreaminess of his student days. He had not been
in love since Miriam had gone back to marry the drover’s son. He had
known friendship but not love.
He was not trying to argue himself out of his sudden passion for the
girl in the shoe shop; he was only explaining himself to himself. What
did it matter so long as love had again entered his heart, so long as he
was restless with the yearnings and longings of his student days, so
long as he felt the ache of blossoming youth! Indeed, what else
mattered!
He went to his room and wrote a poem. He had not been in the mood for
writing verse since his arrival in Paris, but now melody flowed from his
soul. He could think of nothing, of nobody, but Marguerite. And he lost
himself in reverie about her sweetly pouting lips, her well-formed nose,
her glistening white teeth, the faint dimples in her cheeks. There was
child-like beauty and sweetness in her face and speech, and it was that
child-like quality in her that had captivated his imagination and
passion.
He was too impetuous to lay plans. He could not lay siege to his
citadel. He would either win it by storm or go down to defeat in the
assault.
The next day he was again at the shoe shop without even the subtle
subterfuge of the lover. He offered no excuses, invented no pretences to
account for his call. He sat down and gazed at her rapturously and
called her Marguerite, and repeated the name again and again, lisping
it, murmuring it, echoing it as if it were a melodious term.
Marguerite at first laughed and told him he was foolish but by and by
new tints came into the pink of her cheeks and she smiled
confusedly—with the confusion of a child who does not know why it is
confused—and there came a shimmering heat in the lustrous pupils of her
eyes. Her heart beat tumultuously when he looked at her, and his words
seemed so caressing. Sometimes he gazed at her as if he did not see her
at all and then he would say, “How beautiful your voice sounds!” and
when he caught hold of an edge of her apron he fondled it as if he had
passed his hand over her bare skin.
One day he took hold of her fingers and kissed the tips of every one of
them. She never forgot that day. She thought she ought not to let him
kiss her fingers but she liked the sensation and yielded.
And when a few days later she found herself in his arms she feigned no
resistance. She craved the touch of his lips and of his tender embraces
and the endearing names he called her and had no objections to being his
Marguerite.
III.
At last the longing of his youth—the longing which he had dissipated in
dreams and song—were gratified. Marguerite was his. In her he saw the
fulfillment of the promises of Hedwiga, of Hilda, of Eugenie, of Miriam.
His soul was steeped in dreams, in imaginary romances, and he would not
part with his dreams even when love had become a reality. He had brought
to Marguerite all the pent-up passion that lay slumbering in his soul,
all which he would have lavished on Hedwiga, on Hilda, on Eugenie, on
Miriam. Realities are dreams to the poet as dreams are realities to him.
What was wanting in the guileless country girl his romantic imagination
supplied. What he had found especially fascinating about his beloved was
her want of sophistication. When he proposed that she come and live with
him in his two-room apartment she readily consented despite the protests
of her relatives.
Nor was he disillusioned after she had gone to live with him. He had no
illusions about her save her physical charms. He was sick at heart of
the artifice of the chatter of the women of the drawingroom, and enjoyed
the sweet naturalness of this woman child. And she obeyed his mandates.
She sat for hours knitting or eating bonbons without uttering a syllable
while he was absorbed in his writing. She did not know what he was
writing about, nor did she have sufficient curiosity to find out, and he
loved her for her silence. He thought the price of a woman who could
keep still for hours “far above rubies and precious ointment.”
His life would have been perfect could he have impressed the wisdom of
silence on Marguerite’s pet parrot, but he was soon reconciled to his
chatter since that was the parrot’s business. At least the parrot
prattled the only things he knew. Albert wished some of the savants of
his day would emulate the parrot’s example.
The love of Albert and Marguerite did not run smoothly, however. They
quarreled, and quarreled frequently, but then Albert knew he had an
uncontrollable temper and that she was sometimes unreasonable. And she
did not like those queer countrymen of his to intrude upon him so often.
But after each tilt he became more tender, more solicitous, and called
her a thousand more endearing names, and she nestled closer to him and
loved her Albert more than ever.
In the early stages of their love they had two serious ruptures. Each
time they parted she went back to her relatives and he went to the
seashore to mend his shattered nerves, but no sooner had he returned to
Paris than he went to the Philistines and demanded his wife, and, unlike
the people of Timnath, Marguerite’s aunt at once complied with his
demand and nothing disastrous happened. Lover and beloved went back to
their two room apartment, he to write and she to knit and eat bonbons
and to quarrel as of yore.
IV.
He was supremely happy—_Wie ein Fisch im Wasser_—in spite of his
slight deformity. He was industrious, had finished another volume of
poems and was making mental notes for a dramatic poem.
He was not fond of the German refugees in Paris. Now and then there came
a refugee of real worth—but most of them were without talent, without
any well defined idea of what they wanted, and only plumed themselves
with the title of revolutionaries. Paris in those days was a hotbed of
revolutionists; Mazzini with his carbonari, plotters from Portugal,
insurgents from Poland, assassins from Spain. Prussian spies were
abundant and very active, and the French government was secretly lending
a helping hand to rid Paris of these stirring elements. Louis Phillipe
had enough to contend with without foreign intriguers.
Albert was living quietly in a district inhabited by the genteel
poor—clerks, journalists, small shop-keepers, artists—and kept aloof
from his compatriots. But the news he was receiving from “home”—for he
never ceased thinking of Germany as his home—was disquieting. The news
came to him from various sources, but chiefly from pilgrims who were
coming to worship at his shrine. Every aspiring poet, every young writer
with an idea in his head, every agitator, came either to pay homage to
his genius or to see the poet in exile in order to give first-hand
information to their friends at home. Albert had the misfortune of
having had woven around him myths and legends that reflected upon his
morality. To the Germans he was a Don Juan. His flippant speech (often
only the flash of the moment), his witty epigrams (at times uttered for
the sheer love of wit), his blasphemy (rarely intended), gave credence
to all the shocking things his enemies told about him. Furthermore, his
imaginary love affairs narrated, and hinted at, in his poems were taken
too literally. His countrymen failed to realize that one actually given
to licentiousness rarely writes about it, never glorifies it in song and
rhapsodies; that one who yields to dissipation rarely indulges in sweet
day dreams about it. The Germans have always been too stolid, too
ponderous, too matter of fact to comprehend the subtlety of fine humor.
While an elephant can easily lift a log with his trunk he is quite
helpless with a feather.
V.
One day he was at work in his room, Marguerite and the parrot in the
other room, the door between them shut. Marguerite had found a way of
keeping the parrot quiet when Albert was at work. A family with small
children had recently moved in on the floor below and their noises were
irritating Albert beyond endurance, so Marguerite was taking pains to
keep the parrot quiet. She was feeding him bonbons and carrying on a
deaf-and-dumb conversation with the hook-nosed chatterer.
“You mustn’t make a sound,” she whispered in a soft lisp, as if talking
to a babe, and waved an admonishing finger. “Not the least bit of sound,
for we don’t want Albert to be angry, do we?”
The parrot buried his beak in the down under his left wing and muffled
his suppressed laughter.
“There goes the postman! That fool, he rings the doorbell as if the
house were on fire! Albert has told him a thousand times not to do it in
the morning as it disturbs his thoughts——”
The door soon opened with an abrupt jerk and Albert, in a long
_Schlafrock_ (lounging robe) appeared in the doorway. His hair
dishevelled, a look of unendurable annoyance on his face, his eyes
contracted and intense, he clenched his fists and almost shouted—“Can’t
you tell that fool to stop ringing? I can hear every bell in the
neighborhood when that imbecile makes his rounds. I was in the midst of
a sentence and, bah!—that fool comes along with his clamor and I forget
what I was going to say—my whole drift of thought is lost—just when my
writing was coming along so easily he comes along and kills my morning’s
work—that idiot!”
“I told him a number of times not to ring so loud,” Marguerite struck
in.
“You told him! You don’t think he is doing it to spite me! That postman
and the parrot are a pair!”
“The parrot! He never opened his month. He was as quiet as a mouse all
morning. You blame him for everything.—” Marguerite’s voice was
becoming lachrymose. “You hate him because I love him so. Poor dear!”
She nestled close to the parrot’s cage. “It is about time that both you
and I go—Albert loves neither of us any longer——”
Marguerite’s chin began to quiver, the dimples in her cheeks appeared
and disappeared, and presently the deluge. She dropped into a chair and
the tears soon flowed through her fingers, with which she covered her
eyes.
He rushed up to her with a gesture of helplessness.
“What are you crying about? It’s I who ought to cry—a fine morning’s
work gone because that stupid postman rings the doorbell as if he were a
Prussian officer. Am I blaming you?”
“If—you—loved—me—you—wouldn’t—talk—that—way—” Her words came
between sobs.
He strode across the room and waved his arms in despair. He gnashed his
teeth but said nothing.
“You see, you wouldn’t even deny it—you know you don’t love me any
longer. I know, I know, yesterday at the_ Café des Ambassadeurs_ with
those funny Germans of yours you sat at the table and talked of nothing
but the Princess Pompani. You think because I don’t understand German
you can talk of your other loves with impunity—but I understand what
_Prinzessin_ means—every minute it was _Prinzessin_ this and
_Prinzessin_ that—”
She lapsed into convulsive sobbing.
Suddenly he burst out laughing.
“Yes, you laugh because you have no heart and because you make me
suffer——”
The next moment he walked up to her, gently passed his hand over her
hair and tried to embrace her but she pushed him away——
“Don’t touch me—I know when you touch me you are thinking you are
passing your hands over the Princess—”
Albert was still laughing softly and trying to remove her hands from her
face.
“Don’t you come near me—don’t——”
He had succeeded in pulling her hands away from her face and in giving
her a grazing kiss on her lips.
“Aren’t you silly, my sweet little Nonette (one of his endearing
nicknames)”. “Look at me!” He was holding her face between his hands,
trying to make her look at him, but she tightened her eyelids and pulled
away from him.
“No, I won’t look at you until you stop loving that Princess——”
He laughed indulgently.
“What a child you are. You know I don’t love anybody but my sweet little
kitten with those dear little dimples”—he kissed her on both cheeks,
and catching her unawares, pressed a kiss on her mouth.
“Aren’t you silly?” he continued as he wiped her gathered tears. “Here I
am working so hard to get a little more money so that we may be able to
move away from this clattering neighborhood to a cozy little apartment
on Rue St. Honoré and you blame me for getting angry at that stupid
postman!”
“I told the _concierge_ only yesterday that unless she made the children
behave we would have to move.” Her voice sounded half reconciled but her
eyes were still averted from him.
“You sweet little monkey!”
He embraced her affectionately and she rested on his arms without
resistance.
“Ha—ha! Ha—ha!—Ha—ha!”
“Shut up, you fool!” she turned angrily upon the laughing parrot.
“No one is a fool who can laugh,” Albert said wistfully, with a sad
smile on his face. “Come on, let’s all laugh—Ha—ha! Ha—ha!” he
mimicked the parrot, and Marguerite presently joined in the laughter.
“I am nearly through with my book” he presently consoled her, “and I
think I can make that miserly publisher in Berlin advance me five
thousand francs on my royalties, and I have my eye on a beautiful
apartment on Rue St. Honoré overlooking a garden. I think I’ll be able
to buy you the earrings you saw in the display window the other day
and——”
There was a knock on the door and they both jumped up, Albert went to
the door.
The _concierge_ was standing with a packet of letters and newspapers.
Albert thanked the _concierge_ profusely, tipped her liberally, and
scanned the envelopes.
“Here is a letter from the publisher,” he exclaimed jubilantly. “I’ll
bet the rascal offers me only three thousand francs as an advance for my
next volume. He always likes to bargain. If I had asked for three
thousand he would have offered me one——”
“Why didn’t you ask him for ten, he might have then offered you five,”
she counselled.
“I didn’t want him to get apoplexy—” he laughed.
He tore the envelope and while removing the contents continued talking
half to himself, half to Marguerite.
“What a long letter—I know—he is telling me, I suppose, how much he
has lost on my other books. That rogue! He has grown rich on my sweat
and blood and is always whining how little there is in the publishing
business and throws me a pittance! Huh! What’s that!” His eyelids came
close together as he continued turning the pages and there was a deep
dent between his eyes. “The dogs!——”
“What’s the matter, my dear?” she looked up anxiously at Albert’s
agitated countenance.
For a moment he did not answer her. Then, with the loose sheets of the
letter in one hand, the large square envelope in the other, he paced up
and down the room, frowning, uncontrollable rage in his eyes.
“Those vultures are trying to wrest the very bread from my mouth, but
they shall see, I won’t sit idle either.” He still talked half to
himself, half to the puzzled Marguerite.
He suddenly remained standing stock still in the middle of the room, his
eyes barely open. Then, without saying a word, he rushed to the
adjoining room, put the sheets of manuscript in order and stowed them
safely into a drawer, exchanged his _Schlafrock_ for a more fitting coat
for the street, and was presently ready to leave, Marguerite following
him attentively, almost mutely, and helping him with his toilet. She
knew that something was irritating her Albert but he had often told her
she could not understand his inner disturbances so she did not press him
with further questions. But presently he volunteered enlightenment.
“They have forbidden my books in Prussia, and not only those I have
published but even those I might publish. The publisher says he can’t
send me a _sou_ under the circumstances, and that he, too, will be
ruined.”
The want of money was quite intelligible to Marguerite. She knew that
without money they could not move to the cozy little apartment on Rue
St. Honoré and she wouldn’t be able to get those coveted earrings.
“What’s the difference?” she soon consoled him, “you can write for the
French papers. The Germans are queer anyhow.”
For a bare second Marguerite’s stupidity and simplicity irritated him
but before his anger had gathered he glanced at her child-like face, her
doting eyes, clasped her in his arms and dashed out of the house.
“Yes, I’ll be back in time for dinner. We’ll go to the _Ambassadeurs_
tonight,” he comforted her as he closed the door.
VI.
The information that the German _Diet_ had prohibited the publication of
his books had so upset him that he could not think clearly. It seemed to
him that some sinister fate was always interfering with his work. At
first it was the parrot, who chattered volubly, and when he had trained
him to keep still in the morning, a whole brood of children moved in on
the floor below and insisted on doing all their crying during the hours
he had set aside for writing; and when by chance everyone was quiet it
usually happened that just then he was not in the mood for writing. He
thought it strange that all noises came when he was in the best of
moods. Yes, it must be the fates who were always pursuing him. This
morning everything had moved so smoothly. He had felt as if he had been
on wings, his thoughts came flying, and the expressions he wanted were
coming so spontaneously that he could scarcely write fast enough when
that idiot of a postman began his clamorous ringing! Well, the bad news
could have waited until his morning’s work was done! Ah! fate, cruel
fate, had been tormenting him from his very cradle!
He was walking down the street rather rapidly, his inner agitation
gaining momentum. It was early in December and the air was cold and
refreshing. He could not understand why the _Diet_ should have decreed
against his writings, especially now when he was preaching moderation.
Goethe’s and Lessing’s works had never been forbidden! Goethe had always
been anti-Christian, quite pagan, and Lessing was a veritable
iconoclast, and yet the government had never taken measures against
them! An unpleasant thought was intruding upon him. He tried to force
this unpleasant thought away. In the past six years he had banished this
unpleasant thought by sheer force whenever it sought admission into his
brain. His life in Paris would not permit him to dwell upon this
unpleasant thought. But now it took hold of him in spite of himself. The
Prussians would not forgive his Jewish blood! The mark of Cain was on
his brow! Genius or no genius, it did not matter. Ah, those narrow
minded tyrants! They shall see—the whole pack of them—he would smite
those Philistines hip and thigh!
As he proceeded on his walk he was mentally wording a reply to the
Prussian _Diet_. He felt himself a Luther standing before the King.
Indeed, like the man of Worms, he would not recant. He was smiting the
Philistines. He was not sparing them. His words were molten lead. He
would pour it red hot upon their stupid heads. He would avenge himself
on all of them—on the Aristocrats and the Democrats. They had both
combined to annihilate him but he would pull the temple down upon them.
Under the heat of composition his face brightened, his eyes were aglow,
his step became more elastic and rapid He was almost glad that this had
happened. His fire was kindled with greater fury.
But he soon remembered that his funds were exhausted. His uncle
Leopold’s quarter-annual stipend was two months away, the _Revue des
Deux Mondes_ had already advanced him for his next contribution, his
publisher would certainly not send him a _sou_ at present, and the four
hundred _Thaler_ he had borrowed from a friend were nearly gone. His
gait slackened, his countenance fell, the light was out of his eyes.
Yes, he must seek counsel. He must not act too rashly. His left hand was
troubling him and he was afraid the paralysis of his two fingers was
spreading. He must seek counsel.
He thought of a few influential friends, who were then in Paris. They
were admirers of his and, he was sure, would be glad to intercede for
him. But, no, he would ask no assistance from a Prussian. He would—the
thought of Princess Pampini came to him like a ray of light. She could
give him the right advice. If influence was needed she could use it. She
had powerful friends in Paris, men close to King Louis Philippe. Thiers
and Guizot were frequent callers at her home. And he soon remembered
that he had received a note from her, reproaching him for his absence
from her _soirées_. The thought of the princess cheered him. He directed
his steps toward Rue de Courcelles, her present dwelling.
VII.
On his way home from the visit with the Princess a flitting thought
disturbed him. Yes, the fates did combine against him. Why was he always
falling in love with stupid women? If only he had a life-companion like
the Princess! He needed some one to counsel him, to guide him.
Presently he was passing the jewelry shop where Marguerite had seen
those coveted earrings. He visualized her with those earrings. He could
see a hundred eyes gazing at her as she entered the _Café des
Ambassadeurs_ on his arm, with her beautiful flushed cheeks, vivacious
black eyes, and her exquisite little figure. She was beautiful—that
child! The next moment he was in the shop, before the jewelry counter,
holding the earrings on the palm of his hand, turning them this way and
that. Would the gentleman behind the counter lay them aside for a week?
He was sure he would have the money by that time. Yes, the gentleman
behind the counter was very affable and accommodating. “You see,
_monsieur_, I am putting them aside and will hold them for you until a
week from tomorrow—thank you, _monsieur_.”
Albert sped home exultantly. He was optimistic. He did not see clearly
how such a miracle could happen, how the money for the earrings would
come to him—_a thousand francs_!—but he had hopes. He was glad he had
talked with Princess Pampini. He would follow her advice and instead of
protesting just request the German government to reconsider the decree
against him; and then his publisher would advance him the five thousand
francs—three thousand, at least.
He ran up the three flights of stairs to his apartment with boyish glee
and, embracing Marguerite, whispered in her sweet little ear that he had
a great surprise in store for her. No; he could not tell her what it
was, but she must wait patiently a week, and tonight they would dine at
the _Café des Ambassadeurs_. He would order the same _menu_ they had
been served a week ago.
“Wasn’t that a fine meal, hein? A feast to be eaten on one’s knees!”
Albert’s eyes glowed with ecstasy as he recalled that dinner.
“You are the most wonderful lover in the world, my Albert,” Marguerite
threw her round warm arms around his neck and pressed him to her breast.
Presently he was seated at his desk writing his address to the _High
Diet_. He was checking his propensity to be bitter, cynical, satirical.
He repeated the words under his breath as he put them on paper, thinking
of Princess Pampini’s counsel.
When he had finished his long letter he felt as if a great burden had
been lifted. He read, and translated it, to Marguerite, who, with arms
folded and eyes staring blankly in front of her, listened attentively
but without hearing a word of it. She was wondering what surprise Albert
had in store for her next week.
VIII.
The miracle had happened. A week later Albert had the thousand francs
with which to purchase the earrings so much desired by his
dimple-cheeked Nonette. Though very rational in his beliefs, and having
scoffed so frequently at Biblical miracles, he experienced a secret
sense of awe and wonderment as he thought of the unexpected source of
this bounty. And it had come to him in the mysterious manner that
invariably ushers in miraculous events.
Six days after he had last visited the Princess Pampini a document,
bearing the government seal of the reign of King Louis Philippe, was
delivered to him in person. Albert’s heart was quivering with fright
when the official-looking paper was handed him. He had an innate dread
of official papers. He unfolded the contents of the sealed envelope with
trembling hands and to his amazement found an endorsed order for twelve
hundred francs. A brief note, signed by the Minister of Public
Instruction, accompanied the money order. The Minister expressed his
personal friendship and admiration for the poet.
“Marguerite! Marguerite! A letter from the king!” he cried jubilantly,
as he rushed to Marguerite who was trimming a hat.
She looked up incredulously. Albert was such a jester; one never knew
when to take him seriously.
He showed her the money order, pointing to the numerals, 1200.
“The king has sent this to me from his own treasury,” he added. “He read
my writings and likes them. And every three months he will send me an
additional twelve hundred francs.”
He threw his arms around her and kissed her.
“Now we’ll be able to move to Rue St. Honoré,” she reminded him.
“No, not yet. We must wait a little while. We must wait until I get the
remittance from my publisher. His heart will soften as soon as the
_Diet_ cancels its decree.”
“What will you do with the twelve hundred?”
“Don’t worry—I’ll know what to do with it——”
“I know, you’ll put it in the bank, you miser——”
Her countenance fell. Albert had been complaining of late of his
extravagances and regretting that he had saved nothing from his large
earnings during the past five years. He had told her that from now on he
would be very economical and lay something aside for a rainy day.
He was wistful. He was thinking of the earrings and wished to guard his
surprise.
“Will you put away all of it?”
Anger was gathering in her pretty face. Since the king had become his
friend she could not see why Albert should want to save any money after
this. She had hoped he would at least take her that evening to one of
the cafés.
“No, no, I won’t put it all away,” he said joyfully, fondling her.
“You are becoming stingy,” she said sullenly, and tried to disengage
herself from his embrace.
“You don’t call a man who tries to lay aside a few francs for a rainy
day, stingy—do you?”
Presently he was fully dressed and he dashed out of the house, the
happiest of mortals. He ran down the three flights of steps like a
little boy speeding to join his waiting playmates. And he kept running
thru the streets, seeing no one until he reached the jewelry shop.
He was soon back, with flushed face and panting, a nice little box in
his breast pocket. Marguerite was addressing the parrot when Albert
opened the door. She was telling the parrot that Albert was a great
_poète allemand_ and the sweetest lover in the world, even though he was
stingy at times. And the parrot laughed—“Ha—ha! Ha—ha! Ha—ha!”
“Close your eyes, my sweet monkey,” Albert commanded.
“You did not spend any money on a present for me, you extravagant boy!”
“Close your eyes and keep them closed until I count three!”
He kissed her and closed her eyes with the tips of his fingers.
“One—two—three!”
She opened her eyes upon a pair of sparkling earrings.
“Albert! You spendthrift!”
At seven-thirty the following evening the people seated against the
mirrored walls of the _Café des Ambassadeurs_ cast glances of
unconcealed admiration at the pretty woman on the arm of the renowned
_poète allemand_. There was pride in his keen eyes as he caught the
admiring glances and nodded almost triumphantly to his acquaintances. He
was quite exultant and carefree, with all the melody of the Song of
Songs in his heart.
IX.
Albert Zorn now found himself attacking, and attacked by, the
reactionaries in the Fatherland and the extreme radicals in Paris. At
last the _Junkers_ and the _Jacobines_ joined hands to down him, their
common foe. The pension granted by the king was the peg on which they
hung their calumnies. And helped by the Prussian _High Diet_ he was even
denied the right to defend himself against this fabricated charge of
disloyalty. However, this did not muzzle the valiant fighter. Screened
by a pseudonym he returned blow for blow. Before the censor had become
aware of his identity, his devastating irony was again felt in Germany.
And in spite of the growing paralysis of his left hand he worked
indefatigably. He penned poems, critical essays, satires, political
tracts, with the same spirit running through them all; the emancipation
of the enslaved Prussian mind from the influence of the _Junkers_.
One day a compatriot challenged him to a duel. His compatriot had taken
exception to an insinuation against a close friend of his in one of
Albert Zorn’s recent books. True, Albert did not believe in the barbaric
custom of duelling but he would not have any one charge him with
cowardice, moral or physical. Indeed, he was ready to meet his adversary
with any weapons he might choose.
The only thing that distressed him was Marguerite’s condition, should
the duel prove fatal to him.
“Marguerite!—Marguerite!——”
Albert was calling her from the adjoining room. It was twilight, the dim
twilight of a summer day. His voice sounded softer, more kindly than
ever.
Albert was in the living-room. It was a small room, with a white marble
mantle over the fireplace and a large mirror above it. The open windows
opposite were reflected in the mirror. He was seated, an elbow on the
arm of his chair, his cheek against the palm of his left hand, his legs
outstretched, wistfully thinking, a strange melancholy in his
half-closed eyes. His usual impatience was lacking.
Presently Marguerite appeared. She seemed unusually pretty. Her plump
figure had never looked so comely and her eyes never sparkled with more
vivacity. She paused for a moment coquettishly, inviting inspection.
Should she make a light? No, he did not care for a light. He could see
how beautiful she was even in the dim light of the setting sun.
He languidly stretched out his right hand and she came closer to him and
placed her hand in his. Ah! she knew how to humor her Albert when he was
in a melancholy mood, and her Albert was never more amiable and kind
than when in this mood. Though jocular he could not hide his melancholy
the past few days, and though he might think her a fool, and without
much brains, she understood every passing mood of his. No, indeed, all
his friends were telling her what a great man Albert was, and how subtle
and profound he was, but she knew better than any of them. She knew he
was as simple minded as a child. Albert often called her his child—a
lot he knew! It was he who needed mothering from his Marguerite.
The next moment she was on his knees, her lips against his forehead, a
hand through his soft hair. He responded quickly to tenderness and
pressed his lips against her fingers. There was mist in his eyes. He had
been thinking very much of her the past few days; in fact, all his
thoughts were of her. He had just come from a notary and made his will,
leaving everything he possessed to her.
They were seated in silence for a short space, the clock on the mantle
ticking strange melodies. Albert often heard this French clock tick
German folk songs. He often wondered why Marguerite could not hear these
songs—the only one she could make out was _La Parisienne_, and even
this one only when Albert hummed it and used his hand as a baton.
“We are going to get married, Marguerite,” he suddenly announced.
Her hand gripped his involuntarily and for a few seconds she made no
sound. Her brain could not quite comprehend his statement. She had never
asked him to marry her legally and he had never spoken of it.
“Are you ill—What is troubling you?” she was almost breathless with
anxiety.
“No, my kitten,” he made an effort to talk in a light tone and encircled
her waist with his arm. “It has just occurred to me that in case
anything should happen to me—in case I die—you understand——”
“But what put dying into your head all of a sudden?” There was terror in
her voice.
“Nothing—nothing particularly—” he was forcing an indifferent
tone—“the thought occurred to me today as I was passing the Boulevard.
A horse slipped and fell and hurt a pedestrian. One thought brought
another—don’t you see, I was thinking an accident might happen to
me—what would become of you?”
Her eyes quickly filled with tears and there were tears in her voice.
She did not want her Albert to die and if he died she might as well die,
too. Marriage or no marriage, it made no difference to her. Many men had
flirted with her and tried to win her away from him—yes, even a few of
his friends—yes, all men were alike. Whenever they saw a pretty young
woman, they wanted to appropriate her, be she a friend’s wife or
mistress. No, indeed, it made no difference to her. She had gone to live
with him because she loved him and would never leave him, marriage or no
marriage.
“_Apprends donc_,” she was saying, “_que jamais je ne te quitterai, que
tu m’aimes on non, que tu m’epouses ou non, que tu me maltraites ou non,
jamais je ne te quitterai. Entends-tu bien? Jamais! jamais!_”
No, indeed, it made no difference to her, marriage or no marriage,
whether or not he loved her, whether or not he’d ever ill-treat her,
she’d never leave him—never! never! never! If he was proposing marriage
to her because perchance he was jealous for a moment and thought some
one might wean her away from him he need have no fear on that score.
He kissed her fingers in silence; there was ecstasy in his soul. He
remembered the speech of Ruth when Naomi counselled her return to her
people.
Presently Marguerite was sobbing on his breast. Her Albert was speaking
and acting strangely. Had he been to see a physician, who had told him
he could not live long? What did physicians know—indeed, what did they
know? Her Albert would outlive them all. And she would take care of her
Albert better than all the nurses in Paris and she would always be
faithful to him. Oh, her poor Albert! What had put such foolish thoughts
into his brain?
He cleared his throat, wiped the tears out of the corners of his eyes,
and spoke light-heartedly. No, he had seen no physician and his health
was good and he did not expect to die. He wanted to marry her for her
own sake; he wanted no one ever to cast reflections upon her
relationship with him. How would she be married—would she like to have
a religious marriage? Yes, indeed, he would marry her in any manner it
pleased her.
Since Albert insisted upon a legal bond, she wondered if he would mind
going with her to the priest at the church of St. Sulpice. She had been
“confessing” to him since she came to Paris.
“No, indeed, my kitten!” Albert’s voice was almost jubilant. “By all
means let us be married by a Catholic priest. When the Church of Rome
binds no one can tear asunder,” he added with a mysterious twinkle in
his eyes.
* * * * *
Eight days later Albert was brought home slightly wounded. The duel had
taken place in the Valley of St. Germain.
During his convalescence a friend dropped in.
“You have made thousands and thousands of friends,” the visitor was
saying enthusiastically.
“Ah, yes, I understand,” jested Albert, “Drawing blood—especially an
enemy’s blood—always relieves one’s pain. If I had been killed the kind
Jesuits would have named the day of the duel a Saint’s Day.”
Marguerite, who sat by his bedside, begged him to stop laughing, as the
physician had told her his constant laughing and joking irritated his
wound.
“The doctor is mistaken,” Albert retorted. “My joking and laughing
irritates the wounds of my enemies.”
THE JEST OF THE GODS.
I.
Youth lives in the future, middle age in the present, old age in the
past, but Albert Zorn, though still in his early middle life, and in the
greatest vigor of his mentality, found himself nursing memories of the
past. Instead of dwelling upon the present or the future he was now
constantly brooding over the blunders in the days gone by, living over
again the moments of ecstasy, and of passion, long vanished, musing upon
experiences that could never enter his life again. Never a man of
action—his battles were only strifes of ideas—he reached the stage
when no one would take up his challenges. For it was in the middle of
the nineteenth century when there came a lull in the struggle of ideas.
After every sharp world conflict there comes a momentary pause, a
lethargical rest, while man gathers strength for the next combat.
Recently there had been so many clashes of ideas, irreconcilable ideas,
that for the moment no one cared what the other thought.
In spite of his growing fame Albert was living in a modest quarter in
Paris, just he and his Marguerite, as simply as the humblest of workmen,
and worked indefatigably. He wrote poems, the finest fruits of his pen,
he discussed on philosophical themes, with keener insight than the
obtuse pedants who passed for philosophers; he made political
observations, with clearer vision than those whom the world called
statesmen. But his enemies—and all his antagonists were his
enemies—clamored loud enough to drown his voice. Being a radical among
the conservatives and a conservative among radicals his enemies had no
difficulty in confusing the masses as to the meaning of his words. The
enemies of clear thinking and right living have always seen to it that
the masses should fail to understand those that come to their aid. Ah,
the masses, he murmured under his breath, the masses have always
unwittingly stoned those who came to redeem them!
Spring came again, spring in Paris. The sky was clear and blue; blossoms
dazzled in the morning sunshine; delicious fragrance wafted from the
distant fields. Spring always brought melancholy thoughts to Albert’s
mind, and his thoughts this spring were even more melancholy. For
paralysis had spread from his left hand to the whole left side and he
could hardly move without acute pain. However, the more he suffered the
harder he worked because the intensity of creative word deadened his
pain, but when the effort was spent the reaction was all the greater.
One late afternoon he settled at an open window, with his eyes almost
closed, dreams of old songs in his brain. He was tired and, leaning in
an arm-chair, he rested, feeling as if an iron hoop was around his head
and through its tight embrace all his thoughts and ideas had been put to
sleep. Gradually all the sweet memories of the past—and even his past
great sorrows were now sweet memories to him—came back to him. He let
his mind wander . . .
A bird twittered under his window; a sparrow came hopping on his little
feet. He sighed and drew his breath painfully. He could not even hop
like the sparrow. It was years since he had walked the Boulevards, since
he had heard Paris laugh. Oh, Paris! he sighed and nodded his head
woefully. France was to him like a garden where all the beautiful
flowers of the world had been plucked to make one fine nosegay—Paris
was the nosegay. It seemed to him ages since the perfume of this nosegay
had reached his nostrils . . .
His thoughts drifted. He began to feel the ennui of his isolation. His
visitors had grown fewer and fewer and fewer. He realized that no one
cared to see one in misery. Presently his mind dwelt upon his last
glimpse of Parisian life. It seemed to him ages ago. Leaning back in his
cab he had watched the smiling grisettes in the doorways of the shops,
the coquettes on the pavement . . .
He again heaved a sigh and abruptly dismissed that pleasant memory.
There was rancor in his heart. People had called him a libertine, a Don
Juan . . . A bitter smile appeared on his bloodless lips. He a Don Juan!
He who had sung of romance and love! He frowned upon the injustice of
the world’s opinion. He could count on the fingers of one hand the
number of women he had ever loved . . .
He tossed his head, contempt on his face. He did not care what the
people were saying about him.
The next moment his wife’s laughter reached his ears. In the adjoining
room she was munching bonbons and reading a novel by Paul de Kock. He
shuddered. Ah, he should have married a woman who could understand him
. . .
He suddenly raised himself from his arm-chair, picked up his cane,
limped across the room, and was soon in the street. An overwhelming
desire to see the Boulevards again came upon him. He hailed a cab and
leaning back in the conveyance feasted his eyes upon the surging crowds
in the thoroughfares. Reaching the Madeleine he ordered the driver to
turn into Rue Royal, and then along the Tuillerie Gardens up to the
Louvre, when he ordered the coachman to halt and alighted. Half
paralyzed, half blind, leaning heavily upon his cane and dragging his
withered limbs, he proceeded to the palace of art.
It was late in the afternoon, the galleries were deserted, the glow of
the setting sun cast melancholy shadows over the plastic statues of
stone and granite wrought by the hands of the ancient Egyptians and long
forgotten Greeks. There was even vaster melancholy in his heart. The
gods and goddesses he worshipped in his youth seemed to be mocking
him—Bacchus and Apollo, Orpheus and the bearded, horny Pan—they all
seemed to jeer at him. He could not withhold a groan. He fathomed the
despair of Moses, the son of Amram, as he stood on the top of the Pisgah
and yearningly gazed at the land of Canaan—the land for which he had
fought that others might enter but he could not enter. That was the
irony of life, the jest of the gods. He, too, like Moses of old, had
dragged himself to the top of Pisgah to have his last glance at his
promised land!
A thousand sad thoughts flitted through his brain. He limped along the
vast halls and paused before Venus de Milo. A hectic flush came into his
face. He looked up at the armless goddess with the covetousness of a
virgin youth beholding a maiden of rare beauty. Settling down on the
cold stone bench in front of the statue, both of his hands resting on
the head of his cane, his half-blind eyes blurred with tears, he gazed
yearningly at the parted lips of her exquisite mouth. Was she just
smiling, or was she, too, smiling at him? His eyes closed for a moment,
with unbearable pain in his heart. Ah, if he could only die at this very
moment! he reflected. That would be a poetical, pagan, fitting death for
him. His whole life passed before him like a vision. All his life he had
worshipped beauty—the divine figure before him was the symbol of
beauty—her seductive, tantalizing, heavenly smile, her sweet sensuous
lips set his blood boiling. Tears rolled down his wan cheeks, his
enfeebled frame shook with grief and mortification. He must live
perforce and look on as the great, avenging, mocking God was finishing
his diabolic jest . . . .
He struggled to his feet and staggered through the vast corridors,
without turning his eyes in the direction of the artistic masterpieces
of all ages . . .
After that visit at the Louvre Albert was unable to leave his room. His
forebodings were prophetic. That palace of art—the Salle de la Venus de
Milo—was his Mount of Nebo, from which he had caught the last glimpse
of his promised land.
II.
One day Marguerite entered his room with the announcement that some one
wished to see him.
At first he made no reply. He lay stretched on a low couch with the
immobility of a corpse and his upper eyelids met the lower in two fine
pencilled lines like the eyes of the dead. His hair and beard, framing
skin of deathly pallor, were also lifeless. His beautifully shaped right
hand, thin almost to the point of transparency, rested limply on his
coverlet.
Marguerite repeated: “Albert, there is some one who wants to see you.”
His figure suddenly stirred as if convulsed.
“I suppose another countryman to view my remains and then go back to
Germany and lie about me!” A bitter smile appeared on his bloodless lips
as he uttered these words with an irritable sneer. “I am sick of all
visitors. They come here out of curiosity. The swine! What stories they
have fabricated about me. I want friends, not visitors. And friends come
only when one has something to give them!” He emitted a sigh. “Why
should they come?” he soon added more bitterly. “Who wants to see
misery!”
“This is a woman, Albert. She says she comes from Vienna——”
“From Vienna—she is perhaps bringing me word that the director of the
Royal theatre is to present one of my tragedies—he has promised me.
Send her in.”
The next instant the corner of his mouth twitched, the crease between
his eyes flattened, and digging his right elbow into the downy pillow
underneath him, he raised his right side to a half-sitting posture and
leaned against the prop of pillows at his head. A panting sigh betrayed
the great effort of raising himself.
Presently a girl of about twenty-two stepped in, and as she caught sight
of the half-blind, half-paralyzed figure her breathing almost stopped.
For a bare second she halted as if she meant to retreat, but her blue
eyes filled with tears and she whispered. “_Bon jour._”
“_Guten Morgen_,” he replied in German and extended his withered right
hand. “So you have come from Vienna,” he added without releasing her
hand. “Do you know my friend Loeb?”
The young woman stood speechless, leaning over the couch, realizing for
the first time that unless he lifted the paralyzed lid of his right eye
he saw nothing. Tears overflowed her eyes.
“I have not come direct from Vienna,” she faltered—“I haven’t been
there for some time, but—but I wanted some excuse to cross your
threshold—I lisped your songs before I could lisp my prayers—they were
my breviary—you have taught me the meaning of the beauty of life——”
Albert nodded his head as she uttered the last flattering words, a smile
of great satisfaction appeared on his face. The speaker’s girlish voice
attracted him; it was like a voice from his young life, the days of
love-making in Gunsdorf, Bonn and Goettingen. And the voice was such a
relief to him! He was tired of all the voices around him—of the
jabbering speech of his nurses, and of his wife—good souls all, but
God! what voices! It was years since he had heard a pleasing voice.
“Never mind why you came here,” he struck in, smiling, “I am happy that
you are here. Sit down and tell me who you are.”
She moved a chair nearer the couch and sat down.
“I can hardly tell you who I am—” she was nervously plucking at the
edges of the roll of music in her hands, her eyes filled with tears,
rested pitifully on the face that spoke of a thousand sufferings. To her
it was the face of the Christ—the suffering face of the Man of Sorrows;
the beard and the superfine, bloodless lips and the nose and the closed
eyes and the strange smile—there was something of the expression of
_Eli, Eli, lamah Zabachtani_ in that face.
“Come nearer, let me see what you look like.”
She moved her chair closer to the couch, and raising the right eyelid
with the tips of his fingers, he held it for a moment and looked at the
visitor, who hesitated to tell her name. He scented romance. The sweet
tantalization of youth was again in his blood. He was eager, pursuing,
impatient. The glimpse of her made him still more eager. He took in at a
glance her roguish blue eyes, so appealing yet so shrewd, her
light-brown hair, her slender figure—the slenderness, without the
suggestion of meagerness that always attracted him.
He pressed her for information about herself. She fenced cleverly. She
did not mean to tell him her history—she had never told her history to
any one.
“I’ll tell you the truth,” she was saying, trying to divert his mind
from her person. “I learned that your secretary had gone and since
French and German are almost equally my mother tongue, I thought I might
be of service to you.”
“No, no,” he shook his head, laughing, “one can no more have two mother
tongues than one can have two mothers. You are a Swabian—you can’t hide
it from me. I can tell a Swabian accent—I can never forget Hegel’s
accent and manner of pronouncing certain words—and a sweet Swabian
woman’s face.—Now, since I have paid you a compliment we are friends,
so you must tell me who you are.”
There was a moment’s silence. The visitor’s blue eyes shifted from side
to side, her inner indecision was betrayed in her mobile features.
“I once spent a whole day talking about you with a perfect stranger, a
man who happened to be a friend and admirer of yours—he thought I had
fallen in love with him.” She gave a roguish little laugh.
“Who was he?” There was boyish inquisitiveness in his voice.
“Heinrich Metzger.”
“So you are the Butterfly!” Albert exclaimed.
“Yes, I am the Butterfly,” she returned, laughing. “What did Herr
Metzger tell you about me?” She halted and a blush spread over her
cheeks. “I know; he told you he had met me on a train going from Paris
to Havre, and that I had fallen in love with him at first sight. Herr
Metzger thinks he is quite irresistible.”
Albert laughed cheerfully. No man is displeased at hearing a pretty
woman ridicule another man, even when the other happens to be a friend.
However, he protested.
“Metzger is a handsome fellow—a very fine chap—quite a lady-killer.”
“What else did he tell you?”
“Let me see. He was quite impressed with the mystery of your flitting
existence. You wouldn’t give him your name but you gave him your ring on
which there was a seal with the emblem of a butterfly—and you did fly
away. The next time he met you on the Strand in London, but you wouldn’t
recognize him. And then he found you in Paris. He thought you were a
mysterious person. He wished he were a novelist instead of a poet. He
could have written an interesting story about you.”
The girl laughed.
“In order to write the novel he would have to know the mystery,” she
said, her smiling face quickly changing to that of sadness, “and he
still knows nothing about me. He doesn’t even know my first name. O,
yes, he thinks my name is Margot.” Again she emitted a light-hearted
laugh. “He evidently doesn’t know the meaning of _Margot_ in French. I
had talked so much and so recklessly that day that I thought _Margot_ a
fitting name for myself. I was a regular _margot_—a real
chatterbox—that day—and all because we talked about you and he said he
had just visited you——”
Albert extended his hand. She let her hand rest in his and gazed
intensely at his face, which was now flushed and full of animation.
“I never hoped, I never dreamed, I’d come so close to you, the poet of
my dreams,” she murmured without withdrawing her hand from his.
“Do tell me who you are,” he begged.
“For the present call me Butterfly,” she said, rising. “I’ll call
again—if you’ll let me.”
He was clinging to her hand.
“You must come again!” he addressed her _du_ (thou) familiarly. “You
must!” he pressed her hand affectionately. “You shall be the last ray of
sunshine in my dark life. Ah, why didn’t you come before? My life of
late has been so dreary!”
There were tears in his voice. Tears gathered in her eyes, too. Then a
moment of silence. From the next room came the jarring laughter of his
wife. The parrot was repeating _au revoir_ again and again. From
outside, through the open door over the balcony, came the noise of the
street, the rattle of carriages, the jangling of a hurdy-gurdy——
“_Au revoir_,” she whispered.
He was still clinging to her hand, speechlessly. Bending over him she
kissed his forehead and rushed out of the house.
III.
He dropped on his pillows, a hectic flush on his bloodless cheeks. His
eyelids sealed, his right arm limply on the coverlet, he lay musing,
half dreaming. In this somnolent manner he often spent hours, conjuring
up sweet recollections, pleasing fantasies, and more often composed
lyrics.
Presently Marguerite stood before him. Her approaching steps irritated
him. Only the other day he had jested about the blessing of his growing
blindness—it spared him the sight of Marguerite getting fat! Fat women
had always offended his sense of beauty and even now he could not bear
the thought that his Marguerite—the slim pretty girl he had first
known—was tipping the scale at two hundred pounds. No wonder, that
spendthrift had of late thought of nothing but rich food and gaudy
clothes. And now while her Albert, nothwithstanding his paralysis, was
laboring all day with his pen to provide her wants, she was only
thinking of many course dinners and pretty dresses. He had pretended not
to notice this. He wished to banish unhappy broodings—his life was
unhappy enough without tormenting thoughts.
“Who was that girl?” she asked.
“Oh, some friend sent her here,” he replied perfunctorily. “In the
absence of my secretary she might be of some service to me. She is quite
proficient in both French and German.”
“She is quite chic—that girl——”
For a bare second he made no rejoinder. He seemed to hold his breath.
Then he said, with evident constraint, “Rather amiable—and bright.”
The next moment he heard her making her toilette preparatory to going
out. She was always going out, he was saying to himself with increased
irritability. In the past few years this thought frequently crossed his
mind, only to be brushed away by a counterthought of sympathy for his
poor wife, chained to a corpse. He pitied her, his martyr.
Presently as he heard her splashing in the next room, talking loudly to
the nurse, and laughing lustily, his irritation grew. He was vexed and
angry. He wondered whom she was going to meet. She usually stayed away
hours—sometimes almost the whole day—and when he pressed her for an
explanation she would burst in tears and say that after she had walked
blocks and blocks in order to save cabfare he ill-treated her; and then
he would call himself a brute and would reprimand her for her
niggardliness. No, he did not want his devoted wife to wear her legs off
for the sake of a couple of francs; for even though he was paralyzed he
was working and earning as much as many an able-bodied man, he added
boastfully.
This moment he was sure that she had always lied to him. She was having
secret rendezvous. No, no, he was not jealous. A paralyzed man, with a
wasted body, could hardly compete with half a million able-bodied men in
Paris! he would say to himself cynically. Ah! he did not care whom she
was going to meet if she only did not laugh so boisterously. He could
not bear that booming, loud laughter of hers coming now from the
adjoining room.
He was annoyed beyond words. No wonder the young visitor who had just
left had mistaken Marguerite for a servant.
The young Swabian girl had made a _faux pas_. She had referred to
Marguerite as his servant and when he had enlightened her she blundered
still worse. The woman who had opened the door for her looked so
ordinary, she had said, that she could not imagine her idol would have
chosen such a fat woman for his mate. No, he did not blame this young
girl for her blundering speech. Marguerite was an ordinary fat woman,
not the fit companion of a poet, who had always worshipped feminine
beauty.
He was glad Marguerite was going out, and would leave him in peace.
Between the parrot’s screeching and Marguerite’s laughter he did not
know which to choose, but when both were exercising their lungs life was
unbearable. He felt quite relieved when his wife, in swishing silk,
presently bade him _au revoir_ and slammed the door, leaving an odor of
cosmetics behind her.
He was again calm, frolicsome thoughts playing in the attic of his
brain. He was thinking of his mysterious visitor, the Butterfly. She was
charming. Her voice came back to him like a sweet chime. A delectable
sensation was rising within him. The voice of the sweetest romance was
calling to him. His chest heaved. She had been kind to Metzger and had
given him her ring as a souvenir because he was the friend of her poet,
and the deluded soul thought she was in love with him! A happy smile was
on his face. He was very fond of Metzger. Had he not said in print he,
Albert Zorn, aside from being the greatest living poet in the world, had
the kindest heart, the noblest soul? And Metzger was handsome. Even in
his days of bloom, Albert could not boast of such manly beauty as his
friend, Albert owned to himself. And this mysterious Swabian damsel had
always been in love, with him ever since she was a child, she had said!
All his pains disappeared. The romanticism of his youth was returning.
Indeed, his body was wasted but his spirit, his heart, was as young as
of yore! Real poets die young! Youth remains in their hearts even if
they reach the age of Methuselah! Yes, he was young again. The lure of
love was in his blood once more. The dying candle sent forth a leaping
flame.
He was soon feverish with anxiety, as feverish as when he waited for
Miriam under the willows near Gnesen. His fancy lent color to his vision
of this mysterious stranger. He had only a glimpse of her but the
impression of her face was indelible. With his eyes closed the picture
of her was most vivid.
He stirred and reached for the portfolio that contained his paper and
pencil—which always lay by his side. He rose higher on his pillows and,
gripping his long pencil, began to scrawl. He had always had a beautiful
handwriting but now he could only scratch long irregular letters. He was
glad that she had left him her address. Why had she left him her
address? Honey flowed in his veins. Did she hope he would write to her?
She was but womanly; wanted to be wooed by her lover . . .
“Lovable and charming Person:—” he scribbled hastily,
“I regret most keenly having seen so little of you on your first visit.
You left a most agreeable impression upon me, and I have the greatest
desire to see you again. Don’t stand on ceremony but come as soon as
possible—tomorrow if you can. I am ready to receive you at any time. I
should prefer that you come at four and stay until—as late as you
please. I am writing to you with my own hand, in spite of my poor
eyesight, because, as you know, I have no secretary whom I can trust.
The deafening noises around me cause me incessant pain, and your
sympathy has meant so much to me. Superstitious as I am, I imagine that
a good fairy has visited me in my hour of affliction. My hours of
affliction? No, if you are a good fairy this is an hour of bliss. Or
will you be a bad fairy? I must know this at once.
Your Albert Zorn.”
IV.
He forwarded the letter as soon as he had finished it and indulged in
speculations, sweet speculations. Would she come tomorrow at four? No,
she might not. Women were never as impulsive as men but more subtle.
Women possessed greater self-control; at least, they were not as
demonstrative as men; they knew how to hide their feelings. Indeed, he
had known the whims and caprices of women since he was sixteen! Women
loved to make men beg on their knees for that which they would eagerly
give without asking. Is it possible that this pretty young Swabian was
in love with him?—with him who was no longer a man but a spirit? He was
not even an aged Faust rejuvenated by love. What comedy life was playing
with him!
His dual vision—of experiencing sensations and contemplating them at
the same time—had never left him, since his impressionable youth.
Feverish youth was in his blood again. He recalled the touch of her
hand—how clinging her hand was, when he clasped it in his!—he had
experienced the same feeling as when he first touched the hand of—of
Hedwiga, of Hilda, or Eugenie, of Miriam, of—no, he could not think of
Marguerite now.
The next moment he grew self-analytical and serious. He was always
analyzing himself. Love did not change, he said to himself. The fire
that burned in his veins when he first met Marguerite was out. Yes, that
fire was now dead. As far as Marguerite was concerned there was winter
in his heart; white flakes had fallen on the sweet blossoms of yesterday
and blighted them. In their place new flowers had sprung, new perfumes,
the beginning of a new spring. Ah, he must seize his lyre and serenade
his awakened joys and sorrows! Indeed, joys and sorrows always went
together, like the rose and the thorn, like the sun and the clouds. His
harpstrings quivered with sweet, sad tones. The moonbeams again played
with the flower petals of verdant spring; the departed nightingales had
come floating from afar and were singing as sweetly as ever. Love was
dead, long live love!
Ah, he was young again! Songs flowed from his heart. He must not
philosophize. Love was eternal.
He would not think of his shrunken body, he would not dwell on his
wasted strength, new blood flowed in his veins.
V.
His good fairy came punctually at four. She tripped in like a fairy,
indeed, and leaned over him and kissed him on his forehead, while her
little hand rested in his. She, too seemed unconscious of the presence
of Marguerite in the adjoining room. She removed her wrap with a gesture
of determination—as if warding off an intruder—and settled down by his
couch, as if she meant to stay with him forever.
“Let me look at your sweet Swabian face,” he whispered and raised the
lifeless eyelid of his right eye. “You have a face of a Swabian
_Gelb-Vögelein_,” he breathed in her ear.
He was glad Marguerite had never learned German. He could now speak
freely with his Butterfly. And this was only the second time she had
been near him! He felt that he had always known her; everything about
her seemed strangely familiar to him; he felt as if he had met her in a
previous existence and now met her again after a lapse of many years;
and while his memory failed him as to her name and the place he had met
her, his feelings toward her were those of an old friend.
“You haven’t told me yet your right name,” he murmured, seeking her
hand, which she readily placed in his. “You elusive Butterfly!” He
emitted a soft laugh, “I never stopped thinking of you for a moment
since you left. I wondered if you were but a fairy of dreamland and
feared that I might wake at any moment and find you had vanished. What
is your name, fairy mine?”
“Call me Butterfly——”
“My Butterfly you shall always be, but what is your real name—who are
you? It seems to me I have known you for ages—I am beginning to believe
in the transmigration of souls—I feel that I met you before in a
different sphere——”
Her hand still resting in his she looked at his bloodless face
wistfully; she seemed absent minded, as if she had not heard his words,
and yet knew what he said.
“You are right, I know I met you before.” She was speaking in a hushed
voice, an expression on her pensive face as if she were under a hypnotic
influence; there was a strange glitter in her blue eyes. “When I was a
little girl—when I first read your poems—your words seemed familiar to
me as if I had heard them before. When I read your verses, I heard you
recite them to me—the voice I now hear was the voice I always heard.
When I told my mother about this she only laughed and patted me and said
I was an imaginative child. The older I grew the more convinced I was
that souls did migrate—that your soul and mine had loved each other
before and had been parted and that we were destined to meet again. I
always knew I’d meet you. When my mother brought me to Paris—I was
little then—I heard some one speak of you. I can recall the trembling
of my heart at the mention of your presence in Paris. But I was only a
child then. I felt like a young girl, as yet unfamiliar with her own
passions, suddenly awakened to the consciousness of male attraction. I
trembled every time I heard your name mentioned and yet never dared
learn of your whereabouts in this great Babel and see you in the flesh.
Sometimes I heard people speak of you in uncomplimentary terms—they
said you were immoral—and I felt mortified but I did not believe
anything evil of you. I could not believe it. I have always known
you—always! When I met Herr Metzger on the train he made some remark to
me in French, but I could see that he was German so I addressed him in
his language. He was piqued at first. People speaking a foreign language
are always piqued when you make them feel their adopted tongue is not
quite their own. We are all vain about it—even the great Albert Zorn!”
She gave a roguish little laugh and he pressed her hand tenderly without
venturing a retort. He had listened to her so attentively that he did
not wish to interrupt her speech.
“He thought I was flirting with him,” she continued with a gentle toss
of her well-poised head. “Herr Metzger is very vain about his physique.
Of course, he is good looking but he knows nothing about women—nothing!
I was alone in the compartment—just he and I—and the train was
speeding. During travel intimacies are quickly formed. Before long he
told me the history of his life—he told me everything about himself,
even of his love affairs, his conquests.” She chuckled. “He thought he
made me jealous when I teased him about his frankness. Mind you, I was
then only seventeen and he was a man already—years and years older than
I—and within half an hour he revealed himself to me completely while I
had told him nothing about myself—literally nothing! When he began to
probe he found all avenues closed. Then he began to boast—all men begin
to boast when they fear they have not made sufficient impression upon a
woman; they don’t realize that their boasting, like a frost in late
spring, nips the first buds. He was telling me what a great poet he was
and what the critics said of him, incidentally mentioning what you had
said of him. He must have noticed my sudden interest in him. He
misunderstood the reason. He boasted of friendship with you and I showed
still greater interest in him. He felt flattered. I wished to meet him
again when he returned here—I wanted to renew my acquaintance with such
a close friend of yours. I hoped to meet you through him. Was that mean
of me?”
Albert sighed and only pressed her small hand with his thin fingers.
Marguerite passed through the room, and the girl quickly withdrew her
hand. Marguerite paused to ask him if he minded her going to the theatre
that evening. She had not yet seen Scribe’s latest play. Albert said he
did not mind it at all. In fact, he wished she would go and get a little
fresh air. Would he mind if she took the nurse along and got dinner at
one of the restaurants? No, he did not mind this either. He had not felt
as well in years as at the present. Marguerite wabbled away, humming a
bar of the latest popular song.
“Go on. And then?” he turned to the girl by his couch.
“Then something dreadful happened to me.” She crossed her legs and
gripped her knee between her clasped hands. “My mother urged me to get
married. She was at the end of her string, she confided to me, with
tears in her eyes. She did not want me to repeat her blunder. She
thought I was too impetuous—she said she herself had been too impetuous
and ruined her whole life. I, too, might prove indiscreet if I fell in
love. She believed in the orthodox fashion of French marriages, a
husband chosen by the parents. She wished she had listened to her mother
when she was seventeen. Instead—instead she had a daughter on her hands
without a father to look after her. Men were all alike, she preached to
me, unless they were tied by legal fetters they flew away to warmer
climates when the air at home grew cold. This was a shocking revelation
to me. I had never known my father but my mother had never mentioned his
name so I thought he had died, I asked no further questions. I now
understood my mother’s tragedy—and mine. A few days later she
introduced me to a middle-aged Frenchman and told me he wished to marry
me. He was rich, she added, and would provide well for me. I made no
protests. I married him.”
She paused. There were tears in her eyes, there were tears in her voice.
The poet lay still, his bloodless lips compressed, his paralyzed eyelids
sealed. The clock on the mantel seemed to tick louder than ever. Through
the open glass door over the balcony came noises from the street;
rolling vehicles, snapping whips, floating laughter. The parrot was
calling “_Bon jour_” and then joined in the laughter outside.
“I thought I was quite worldly then,” she soon preceded; “at least,
quite sophisticated for a girl of seventeen. I had always mingled with
people older than myself and assimilated their maturity. I had traveled
considerably and my close association with my mother—who is a very
intellectual and cultured woman and was governess in her younger days in
one of the most influential aristocratic families in Germany—should
have given me an understanding of life. Yes, I thought I did understand
life much more than most girls of my age but I had soon learned that
seventeen is but seventeen; my knowledge of the world was too
superficial—it was like most conversations between pseudo-cultured
people—meaningless phrases that sound well and vapid platitudes that
pass for cleverness but contain not a grain of real sense. Stranger
still, while I was a precocious child, impetuous, passionate, with a
strong sex sense, I did not have the least intimation of the
relationship between the sexes. It doesn’t found credible, but it was
so. My inquisitiveness had never led me to probe the relationship of the
sexes. I found myself married to a native of Paris, a man twenty-six
years older than myself, a man to whom sex was an open book, one to whom
sex had only one meaning. No, I can’t quite make clear to you my
feelings when he first kissed me, when he ravished my body. Oh, it was
revolting!” She shuddered visibly. “I had had visions of sweetness, of
tenderness, of transporting passion, of ecstasy, and found—oh, I can’t
describe it—it is too horrible to dwell upon it.”
She paused, a sob in her throat. Albert’s hand was caressing hers
sympathetically, silently.
“I wonder if any man understands the difference between the passion of a
woman and that of a man!” She heaved a sigh, and there was agony in her
voice. She felt the tender grip of his hand and added smilingly, “Poets
sometimes do understand the difference, but then poets are feminine in
their instincts. A man may prefer one woman to another—just as he may
prefer champagne to claret—but when he can’t have his preference the
inferior is quite as agreeable. A woman is a woman. I am told even a man
as wise as Benjamin Franklin felt this about women. Of course, Franklin
was no poet. To a woman only her preference exists—the other are
_abscheulich_! The fact that many women submit to men they don’t love
proves nothing. In a society in which more than half of life is
artificial, forced, and the woman the weaker, she can’t help but submit.
But, oh! if man could but read the innermost secrets of woman’s heart!
Thousands of years of self-suppression have made women incapable of even
revealing themselves to themselves.
“Well, I found myself legally tied to a man whom I abhorred. His mere
presence was loathsome to me. When he touched me I was filled with
revulsion. Instead of a vivacious, highly sensitive girl that I had been
I had become a depressed, morbid woman. I could not even read your
songs—all beauty had become ugliness to me. I thought seriously of
ending my life. Many a time I carried carbolic acid to my lips and put
it away from me by sheer force. At times I raved like a maniac. My
husband showered gifts upon me—he gave me jewels and fine clothes—men
are always so stupid and imagine trinkets win affection—but that made
me hate him the more. He told me I ought to consult a physician but I
knew opiates could not cure me. How could a sordid business man, to whom
the acquisition of wealth was all that life offered, understand what
ailed me? One day he suggested travel. I welcomed it. I hoped new scenes
might take me away from myself. But it proved the reverse. It only made
me realize that there were fragrant woods and that I was confined in a
narrow little cage in a dingy attic. My husband was beside himself. When
we got to London he decided that I was insane. Perhaps I was. At least,
I acted like a lunatic. The excitement of the English metropolis had a
strange effect upon me. I had suddenly grown hilarious, pulled my
husband from music hall to music hall, from one jewelry shop to
another—and made him squander his hard-earned money as if I were his
mistress. It was then—on the Strand—that Metzger met me and spoke to
me but, to his amazement, I denied his acquaintance. I could not think
of the time when I read you poetry and was in love with the beauty of
life. But a few days later the reaction set in. I flung my jewels away,
I tore up my finery, I shrank from my distracted husband and wept.
“Days passed. He implored me, he beseeched me to be rational, but I was
hysterical. One day on the pretext of taking a drive to get fresh air,
he finally coaxed me to leave my room. The next thing I remember is that
he escorted me to a luxurious villa, where I was met by a fine looking
elderly gentleman, who talked to me as if I were a little child. That
amused me and I couldn’t help bursting into laughter. He patted my
shoulder and said I would be all right in time, and his strange actions
amused me still more although his French was enough to send one into
convulsions. Before I realized what was happening, I was locked in a
room, alone. The next day I discovered that my husband had placed me in
a private sanitorium. But, thank God, I was rid of my husband, I said to
myself; I was alone and free from his loathsome attentions. After a few
days’ rest I had a talk with the head physician—a very sane
individual—who was very sympathetic and kind. It did not take him long
to understand my case. He gave me the five hundred pounds my husband had
left with him for my care for three months and bade me God-speed. ‘Yes,
I understand—I understand,’ he kept murmuring sadly. ‘God help you,’ he
added in a prayerful tone.
“At last I was free. Instead of going back to my mother I went to
Vienna, where I had relatives. I was afraid my mother might try to bring
about a reconciliation with my husband. Before long I was myself again.
Besides the money left me by my husband I earned a good deal by giving
French lessons, and I lived economically. One day I made the
acquaintance of a musician, a composer—a dreamy sort of chap—who
seemed to be falling in love with me.
“He always carried a volume of your poems in his pocket or under his
arm. And how he recited your songs! The poor young man was lovelorn. He
thought he was in love with me but I knew he was intoxicated with love.
He was a poet. And he set some of your songs to music most charmingly. I
presume I encouraged his attentions and his visits—the poor young man
was so helpless, so child-like, and I was so eager to hear him hum your
songs—but when he began to make violent love to me I realized I had
gone too far with him. I told him I could not love him—I could not love
anybody—and that, besides, I was married. But I could not get rid of
him. He was the most helpless creature I have ever known and the most
sentimental. It was pitiful. I pitied him from the bottom of my heart
and gave him some financial assistance. He took it, but he was not a
parasite. He was just helpless. I then decided to return to Paris. I had
exacted a promise from my mother that she would not mention my husband’s
name. And I have been living with her ever since. I have never discussed
the source of her income but I know she has always received a monthly
stipend from a well known noble family in Germany—it may be from my
father—and her allowance is quite liberal.”
“_Armes Kind_,” Albert murmured affectionately.
She paused. Marguerite, overdressed and overperfumed—large hipped and
full-breasted, with rouged fleshy cheeks—came to bid Albert goodbye.
She leaned over him and kissed his forehead but he made no attempt to
raise his eyelid. He only murmured _au revoir_, and as he turned his
face to one side a deep sadness flitted across his cadaverous cheeks. As
Marguerite turned to leave, she turned around and gave the young girl a
quizzical look.
When the outside door closed the invalid stretched out his hand toward
his visitor and she replaced her hand into his.
“_Du letzte Blume meines larmoyanten Herbstes_,” he murmured, caressing
her hand.
A moment later he added, “You won’t leave me now, since you have at last
appeared, my last ray of sunshine. All my friends have left me—all—”
There was a checked sob in his breast.
“Never, never, never!—” There were tears in her voice.
“Don’t cry, _holdes Herz_, life is a comedy, and death its final scene.
Last night I dreamt I was dead and hugely enjoyed the ceremony of my
burial.”
He gave a soft laugh and his bloodless lips puckered like those of a
pouting child.
“They laid me in a gorgeous mausoleum of costly marble, and the walls
were bas reliefs of grotesque scenes, sacred and profane—all the
utterances of my whole life seemed illustrated on those walls. When they
lowered my coffin I began to laugh and could not stop laughing even when
they screwed on the lid. Then all of a sudden, as if by magic, I noticed
a dark-blue flower spring from the ground at the foot of my tomb. It
looked like a passion flower from which were suspended all the
instruments of torture used during the Inquisition in Spain. All at once
the passion flower assumed human form; it was a living being; it had the
sweet face of a charming young woman; a sweet, sad face, full of
tenderness and love, was leaning over my dead body. I stared in
amazement. It was your sweet countenance, _liebstes Kind_, and hot
burning tears were dripping from your eyes and falling upon my dead
face. Ah, these dreams! Since the earliest recollections of my childhood
I have always been dreaming—my days and nights were veritably different
existences. So, you see, I have really lived longer than most men. You
must multiply my age by two. I have long passed the century mark. Yes,
indeed, I am a centenarian.”
She leaned over him and kissed his emaciated hand in silence.
The next moment sadness appeared on his face. He turned his head and
muttered, “_Ach, das ist schrecklich! Ein Toter, lechzend nach den
lebendigsten Lebensgenüssen._ All my life I wished to write a Faust—a
Faust different from all the Fausts ever written, different also from
Goethe’s—but I never fully understood my Faust until now. The
conception of my Faust is a devout monk who had piously practiced
self-denial and the mortification of his body to such an extent that his
flesh shrivelled. Then Mephistopheles comes to tantalize him and brings
him a maiden of matchless beauty. The saintly monk falls from grace,
flings his life-long belief aside, and woos the fair Marguerite, who
returns his love, but the poor monk can play his tune on only one
string. Of all his earthly senses desire is the only one left him; a
thirst unquenchable. Like old Job, he curses the day on which he was
born even as he scraped himself with a potsherd to soothe his pain, but,
unlike the Man of Uz, Faust dies with a curse of God upon his lips,
without realizing that the great beauty-loving God has punished him for
his failure to listen to His Voice earlier in life. The wasted monk is
then taken to the region of the Styx, where other fools like himself are
baptised in waters of spouting flame and anointed with boiling oil and
sulphur, and after a period of purification is sent back to earth, fully
rejuvenated. In the second volume of my Faust I would sing of Paradise
Regained.”
Albert chuckled. The Butterfly now understood why the critics spoke of
him as the German Voltaire. No one could be at once so reverent and
blasphemous as Albert.
The sun was setting, the afternoon glow was gone, invisible shades of
darkness were descending upon the sick room; silence was round them.
Even the parrot was hushed.
“Ah, the first volume of my Faust I have already lived,” he sighed, “but
there won’t be a second volume.” Then, with a light laugh, “who can
tell, perhaps the life of Paradise Regained may yet be granted me, too.
I rather like the Buddhistic doctrine of Reincarnation. I may return to
earth as the crowned Sultan of Turkey.”
She caught the spirit of his levity and remarked, “From all reports you
have already lived the life of a Sultan—only uncrowned!”
“_Unsinn!_” There was scorn in his voice. All levity immediately fled
from him. “The world has taken me too literally. Alas! When I was in
earnest they thought I was jesting and when I jested they failed to
grasp my humor—the French are the only people who understand me. When I
meant to be a Socrates they mistook me for an Aristophanes and when I
played Aristophanes they charged me with trying to be a Socrates. I a
profligate! He who has lived the life of a profligate often writes
virtuous tracts. It is your priest, your morality-preaching Philistine,
your man wrapped in the pure white robe of piety, who is often the real
profligate. My life has been given to devotion—I have been a Carmelite,
locked in the cell of my dreams. I was a little Ishmael in the
wilderness of Beer Sheba dying of thirst. Ah! that consuming thirst, the
thirst of beauty that sears one’s soul—thirsting, thirsting—thirsting
to the end! I have always loved honorably, earnestly, with all the
senses God meant for love. Ah, love! There is nothing else in life worth
striving after. What else is there in life? Fame, riches,
achievements?—they are only coal burnt to clinkers. If I only had a
child on whom to lavish my love in my dying days!——”
A sigh, almost a groan, escaped his parted lips.
“Let me take the place of a child,” she pleaded in a whisper, tears
filling her eyes.
“Indeed you are my _allersüsstes Kind_.”
He was fondling her fingers tenderly. “The fates have been kind to me
after all to send you to me now, my good fairy.”
Dusk came, the invisible shades of twilight were thickening. With his
eyes sealed he felt the approach of night.
“Will you come tomorrow, my child?”
“I’ll come every tomorrow.”
“Until there will be no tomorrow—” He caught his breath as he completed
her thought.
VI.
The candle was burning fast; the wick was charred; the wax was all but
melted; the dying flame leaping upward from the depth of the overheated
sconce. Darkness, and yet again the candle flame shot up.
No one knew better than Albert that his life was spent, that the fire
within him was licking the last vestige of life-grease, that he was
emitting the last flicker. He did not wish to crepitate and flutter at
the end. Let a tongue of red flame be the last memory of the
extinguished light.
Save for the Butterfly and his faithful physician, Albert was quite
forsaken in his last days. But rarely did visitors drop in and now and
then a distant admirer—usually a woman of high rank—from Germany, from
England, from Russia, came to pay homage to his genius. His sister had
come and gone, but his good mother was obliged to stay away. The poor
woman was too old to make the journey. Besides, she was wondering why
her son, being the younger, did not make the trip to Hamburg. For he had
succeeded in keeping up the pious deception that he was only troubled
with his eyes and could therefore not write to her with his own hand.
The Butterfly came daily (except when he bade her stay away, because of
his excessive suffering) read to him, and attended to his
correspondence. She took the place of his secretary. In order not to
fatigue her he frequently paused and chatted. He loved to ramble, to
skip from subject to subject, to rake up the dead leaves of the past.
His mind constantly reverted to his youth, to reminiscences of Gunsdorf,
of Bonn, of Goettingen, to the days when love was in his blood instead
of in his brain. He knew he was deluding himself, yet found consolation
in the delusion. He persuaded himself that he was in love with the
mysterious stranger by his bedside—and what love is not a
self-persuading delusion?—and clothed her with all the charms of his
rich fantasy, permitted himself to be convinced that the love fever of
youth was in his veins.
Indeed, he babbled deliriously the sweet syllables of feverish youth:
“My sweetest kitten,” “Soul of my life,” “My maddening love”—red flares
from the dying candle! He was again under the warm skies of Italy, his
beloved Italy—Ah, Italy! he had hoped in vain to see it again—he was
living over again the Florentine Nights with their thousand charms; he
met again those black-eyed maidens of his fancy, those ethereal
creatures of his dreams—the dreams he invented.
In the young woman by his bedside all the beauties of his dreams were
blended. With his eyes sealed, his hand fondling her slender fingers, he
was playing the youth again—the make-believe youth. And when she failed
to come one day he was feverish with anguish and scrawled love notes to
her.
“My Good, All Gracious, Sweet Butterfly,” he wrote entreatingly, “come
and flutter your beautiful wings! I know one of Mendelsohn’s songs with
the refrain ‘Come Soon!’ This song is running continuously through my
head. ‘Come soon.’”
“I kiss both your dear little hands, not both at once, but one after the
other.”
And before there was time to hear from her he dispatched another note:
“My dear Girl:
“I am very ill and do not wish to see you today. But I hope that you’ll
be able to come tomorrow. Drop me a line if you can’t come before the
day after tomorrow.”
An hour later he scribbled another love note, his amorous fever
increasing, the restlessness of adolescence in his brain.
“My Dear, Gracious Kitten:
“No, I don’t want to see you tomorrow. I must see you today. Can’t you
come today—at once—upon receipt of this note? I am afraid I won’t be
able to see you tomorrow because I feel my headache is coming on. I must
see you this afternoon and feel the tender caress of your sweet hand,
the impress of your lips, the touch of your _Schwabengesicht_, and
listen to the sound of your voice. Ah! if I could press my precious
flower to my breast! But, alas! I am only a ghost, a spirit.
“But do come at once, my dear, sweet child, and let me kiss your dear
little hands and let my lips graze the strands of your fragrant hair.
Madly yours,
A. Z.”
He forwarded the last note as if it were of momentous import, and became
restive. Marguerite did not understand the cause of his restlessness and
irritated him by her constant inquiries. She detested the Butterfly. The
wife was suspicious of the intruder, and kept telling Albert that the
stranger must be a spy and he ought not to let her read and talk to him
and attend to his correspondence.
Yes, Marguerite was positive this Mademoiselle was a German spy and she
had roguish eyes and a coquettish look and was “as thin as a rail.” No,
no, she was not jealous of her—indeed, not! Marguerite’s fat chin
trembled as she emitted a little forced laugh She jealous of the
insignificant, plain German girl! It was laughable! While she,
Marguerite, may not be as pretty as she had been, but could still hold
her own——
“You remember, Albert, what you called me in those days? ‘My sweetest
little kitten,’ ‘My translucent sunbeam,’ ‘My fragrant wild flower;’
(Albert tossed his head with evident annoyance)—she emitted another
forced little laugh—“Indeed, even if I am not as pretty as I used to
be, a flat-chested little hussy like that German vixen could not make me
jealous, but I have warned you, and I am warning you again, that she is
a dangerous person. She is——”
“I have a terrible headache,” he pleaded, with a grimace on his face.
“You always get a terrible headache when I make mention of this little
German intriguer——”
“Can’t you get some other subject to talk about?” he groaned helplessly.
“Some other subject!—and that intriguing woman trying to steal your
love right under my nose! This is what I get for my years of devotion!
Go ahead and change your will—leave
everything—to—this—German—spy——”
She was sobbing, the parrot was calling “_au revoir_,” Mimi, the little
poodle, was barking in a falsetto voice, and Albert was beside himself.
At first he begged her to cease torturing him, then grew angry and
commanded her to stop, and finally was seized with a fit of convulsive
coughing which choked his breathing. Then the nurse appeared on the
scene and, with an angry look at Marguerite, took Albert in her
arms—his body was so wasted that it weighed no more than that of a
child—and laid him on the sofa, which was usually reserved for
visitors. The nurse’s arms seemed to have a strange soothing effect upon
the invalid. Covered with a white sheet he rested on the sofa until he
was himself again.
Marguerite, her arms folded, sat in a chair and wept silently. No, she
did not mean to irritate him; she loved her Albert as the apple of her
eye; she loved him as much as she did when he used to take her to the
opera and to the finest restaurants in Paris . . .
“Marguerite—Marguerite——”
She wept more quietly, her fat reel cheeks tear-stained.
“Marguerite, dearest!” His voice grew tender. “Come and sit by me.”
He drew his right hand from under the white sheet and extended it toward
her.
“My sweetest kitten—my fragrant wildflower—my poor faithful wife—”
His voice was husky now, tears of tenderness in his throat. “I have
always loved you as I loved no other—Come, my guardian angel——”
Presently Marguerite was beside him on the sofa, kissing his broad,
cadaverous forehead, pressing her lips against his lips that felt not,
and murmuring the endearing terms of years gone by . . .
VII.
Months had passed. It was winter, Parisian winter, the snowless,
penetrating winter of mid-February; and it was night, pitch dark, and
the hazy fog, like thick smoke, dimmed the street lamps on the Avenue,
even the stronger lights around the corner of the adjacent Champs
Elysées spread only a glow without illumination. There was the stillness
of a winter night everywhere, the stillness of a belated hour, long past
midnight, the stillness of a great city asleep.
In a room on the fifth story of a drab looking building, Albert was
struggling for breath. He had coughed so much that he had no more
strength to cough aloud, only his chest was heaving and the expression
on his emaciated face, resembling a grim grin, betrayed acute suffering,
the suffering beyond expression. He was propped up with pillows in a
reclining posture to ease his breathing, and from time to time he
hoisted his right shoulder as if to help his breathing. A candle light
on a nearby table cast a shadow in the room, and beyond the shadow sat
the woman attendant, dozing.
The clock on the white marble mantle struck the hour. Semi-consciously
the invalid counted the strokes—“One, two, three, four!”
The nurse jumped up, picked up a little bottle and spoon from the table,
and crossed the chamber toward the bed.
The invalid stirred and shook his head.
“But Monsieur Zorn, the Doctor will scold me if I don’t give you the
medicine punctually,” the nurse said.
“Be at ease! I’ll tell the doctor myself that I did not want to drink
it. Medicine does me no more good.”
She did not understand him, for the past two days he had been addressing
her in German, which was unknown to her beyond “_Ja_” and “_Nein_.”
However, she divined his meaning and put the medicine away with a kindly
smile.
He turned his head away and promptly forgot the attendant and the
medicine. The strokes of the clock were still dinning in his ears; they
sounded to him like church bells, like the strange sounds of psalters
and harps, like—his mind wandered—the bells of St. Lombard’s Church
were ringing and he was watching Christian Lutz jerk his forefingers in
and out of his ears. Christian said angels floated around the belfry
when the bells rang. Albert laughed. Angels never flew that low, he
insisted, but hovered around God’s throne; only pigeons flew around the
belfry. And that pug-nosed Fritz with his fishing rod screeched
“Al—ber!” . . .
Would that clock ever stop striking the hour? It was positively
deafening. He was glad Marguerite slept in a room at the furthest end of
the apartment, so she could not hear him cough at night, and now she
wouldn’t be disturbed by that crazy clock that was striking endlessly.
He wished to call the nurse to make her stop the clock but some one was
choking him—some one was gagging him—he could not make a sound! . . .
Presently he was lying on his back perfectly still . . . stretched at
full length on a mossy rock on the bank of the Rhine, watching the
fleecy clouds shaped like the ruins of a castle against patches of deep
blue . . . What bird was that singing so melodiously? No, it was not a
bird—it was the string instruments at the Swiss Pavilion on the
_Jungfernstieg_—the leader of the orchestra had a funny nose that
looked like a suckling pig’s snout, and it wiggled like one . . . And
Miriam was standing on a pedestal in front of the palace at Sans Souci.
Miriam had no arms and there was a strange smile on her lovely lips
. . . He was glad that he was all alone in the Louvre—not a soul around
. . . . He rose on his tip-toes and kissed those beautiful cool lips,
the moonlight shining over his left shoulder . . . His mother said he
must not kiss marble statues . . . His mother—poor mother—the old
house in Hamburg must be very cold in the winter . . . She was in tears
because her pearls were gone . . . He, too, was in tears and . . . his
sister was playing the piano . . . . Was the door bell ringing? Somebody
was coming to visit him. He began to count the mounting
footsteps—“forty-one, forty-two, forty-three, forty-four”—The
footsteps stopped. Someone must have called on the floor below . . .
Yes, people called on everybody but no one called on him . . . no one
. . . not even curiosity seekers . . .
Suddenly all melancholy thoughts left him and he breathed easier. He
felt no pain at all. Strange that all at once he was well again and he
was promenading indolently, dreamily along the Rhine. He was strolling,
swinging his cane and humming a song . . . No, he was flying . . . He
had never realized that one needed no wings to fly . . . He was flying
over the Hartz Mountains, over the dark firs of the Black Forest, over
the slender silver birches silhouetted in the moonlight, in his ears the
babbling of brooks, the laughter of girls, the song of the nightingale
. . . and he was sailing . . . sailing . . . sailing through the purest
air . . . .
_The End._
TRANSCRIBER NOTES
Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where
multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.
Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer
errors occur.
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