 |
STEIN.
The unfortunate man! His delusion is returning.
PASTOR (after an anxious pause, during which the FORESTER has not taken his eyes from the PASTOR'S face).
I hear nothing. That is your own heavy breathing that you hear.
FORESTER (begins to collapse again).
My own heavy breathing that I hear—
[Summons up courage, opens the door.]
My eyes deceive me? Where she is not, there I see her; and where she is, there I do not see her. Pastor, for God's sake, tell me: "There lives Mary."
[He has convulsively clutched the PASTOR'S arm.]
PASTOR.
I do not see her. The bed there is untouched, the windows open—your wife—
FORESTER (rushes into the room).
Woman! Woman! Poor, poor woman!
SCENE VII
SOPHY, like a ghost; can hardly stand or speak; dragged in forcibly by the FORESTER.
FORESTER.
Where is my child?
ANDREW.
Mother, what ails you?
[He supports her on one side, the PASTOR on the other.]
SOPHY.
Andrew! At least one!
FORESTER (shakes her).
My child! My child! Where is my child?
SOPHY (with repulsion, but faintly).
Leave me, you—
FORESTER.
My Mary!
SOPHY.
To the Dell—you—
FORESTER.
Creature, you lie!
SOPHY.
To Robert—
FORESTER.
Yes, she met me—in the fog—as I was coming—
SOPHY.
That was William.
FORESTER.
It was Mary, woman; Mary!
PASTOR.
She cannot answer any more. She has fainted.
STEIN.
Take her away from the madman!
FORESTER.
You mean to say that I—my own child—
ANDREW.
Mother! Mother!
[He and the PASTOR are busy about her, at the table to the right.]
STEIN (who in the meantime is trying to keep the FORESTER away from her).
Hands off, you madman!
FORESTER.
Madman? God grant that I am!
[A knock is heard; he steps back in horror and stretches out his hands toward the door, as if warding off something.]
Nonsense! What do you want, the whole lot of you? Why, that is Mary. She is standing outside, and does not dare to come in, because she ran out in the night. She hasn't the courage. I am severe—oh, I am severe! Silly wench!
[Stands up straight.]
Come what may!
[He rushes toward the door; before he reaches it, another knock is heard; he steps back again horrified and powerless.]
The raging fever has seized me—nothing else. These are the symptoms—chattering of the teeth and chills along the spine. Elderberry-tea—a night or two of perspiration! What has the knocking to do with my fever? Why does not some one open, some one call her in? Why are you all so pale and tongueless? Has some one told a fairy-tale, and are you afraid? My Mary was a living fairy-tale—she is-she is, I mean to say. That Mary could be dead—but she would not give me such pain! She knows that I cannot live without my Mary. Do you hear her giggling outside? Now she will come skipping in and hold her hands over my eyes, as she is accustomed to do, and I must not spoil her fun. Oh, it is—[Attempts to laugh, but sobs.]—a—[Beside himself.]—After all, it has to be! Come in!
[Attempts to go to the door, but with eyes closed sinks into a chair on the left.]
SCENE VIII
ROBERT, WILLIAM, then two men with a covered stretcher, which they put down. The men go away.
STEIN.
Robert!
[Going toward him.]
Do you see, Ulrich? He lives!
ROBERT (embracing him, pale and distracted).
Father! Father!
STEIN.
What has happened to you?
ROBERT.
Would that the murderer had killed me! Father Ulrich, be a man!
FORESTER (making a supreme effort to collect his energies).
Go on! I will see whether I am a man.
[ROBERT removes the covering.]
STEIN.
Great God!
SOPHY (who, supported by ANDREW and the PASTOR, has fallen upon her knees by the stretcher).
Mary!
ANDREW.
Oh, God! It is Mary!
STEIN.
How did this happen? Explain it, Robert.
PASTOR.
It is dreadfully clear to me.
ROBERT (with difficulty maintaining his self-possession).
She was praying: "God, let me belong only to my father." I was about to say to her: "Mary, you are going to give me up?" Then she rushed upon me, as if she wished to protect me with her own body, made a sign and called in the direction of the forest. I saw no one; I did not understand her; I was about to ask: "What is the matter, Mary?" when—the report of a gun—she sank down in my arms; I threw myself over her; a bullet had penetrated her heart.
SOPHY.
That was her dream.
STEIN (holds ROBERT in his embrace, almost simultaneously).
She died for you!
FORESTER.
She saw me aim at him, and ran purposely into the course of my bullet. I wanted to judge and—have judged myself. Crime and punishment at the same moment! I was praying: "God have mercy on his poor soul!" I prayed for myself, and the owls screeched Amen, and meant me!
ROBERT (recoils, horrified).
Almighty God—he himself!—
STEIN.
You did not do it consciously. A fearful madness urged you against your will.
PASTOR.
Do not be so obstinate, man; God does not measure the deed according to a superficial standard. Innocence and crime are at the extreme poles of human nature. But often it is merely a quicker pulse that separates the innocent from the criminal.
FORESTER.
Give me words of life instead of your cobwebs of the brain—no If and no But. Tell me something, so that I must believe it! Your words do not convince me. Why do you offer consolation to my head? Offer consolation to my heart, if you can. Can you with your consolation restore my child to life, so that she will rush into my arms? In that case keep on consoling me. Every word that fails to restore my child to life slays her once more.
STEIN.
Flee to America; I will procure passports for you; all my money is yours. Your wife and your children are mine!
FORESTER.
Do you hear, Andrew, what that man there is saying? He wants to give you money. Buy a hand-organ with it. Go about to the fairs, and sing of the old murderer who shot his child—for no reason, for no reason at all in the world. You need no picture. Take the old woman there along with you. No painter can paint the story as it stands written upon her face. Praise the child. Represent her more beautiful than she was—if you can—as you imagine the most beautiful angel, and then say: "And yet she was a thousand times more beautiful!" And represent the old murderer so that people will shed a waterfall of tears for the child, and that every street-urchin will shake his fist at the old fellow. And he who hears this story and does not give you with chattering teeth his last penny, though he had ten starving children at home, and does not pray to God for the child and curse the old murderer that shot her, must have a heart like the old murderer's who committed the deed. Do not say: "The man was honest throughout his life and avoided evil and believed in a God, and did not permit the least taint upon his honor." If you do, they will not believe you. Say: He looked like a wolf; do not say: His beard was white when he committed the crime. If you do, no one will give you anything; none will believe that one can be so old and yet such an abandoned villain. And on the lower part of your organ have a picture painted—how the old murderer blows out his brains and walks as a ghost during the night—and on the spot where the crime was perpetrated he sits moaning at midnight with his fiery eyes and white beard—and there no breeze wafts coolness, and there no dew falls and no rain—there grow poisonous weeds—the spot is accursed like himself—and the animal that accidentally strays there bellows with fear—and man is shaken as with the ague. And have an angel painted from whose mouth proceeds a scroll on which is written: "There sits he whom God has marked. Abel was a man, and Cain was only his brother; but this was a child, and he that slew her was her father. For Cain, there is still a hope of salvation, but for the old murderer of his child, none—none—none!" Oh! Some comfort! Some comfort! Only a shadow of comfort! For this I would give my salvation, if I had any hope of salvation. I will ask God whether there is any comfort for me!
[He takes the Bible and reads, at first trembling in every limb, with panting breath.]
"And he that killeth any—"
PASTOR.
No further, Ulrich. Let me show you words of life, words of humanity: "'As I live,' saith the Lord God, 'I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but that the wicked turn from his way and live.'"
FORESTER (who keeps a firm hold of the Bible, and breaks away from the PASTOR, almost simultaneously).
Leave me alone, you inhuman creatures, with your humanity!
[He continues reading. With every word his manner becomes more calm and certain, the sound of his voice stronger.]
"And he that killeth any man shall surely be put to death."
[Lays down the Bible.]
STEIN.
Does he find solace in these words?
PASTOR.
Let him have such comfort as consoles him.
FORESTER (takes up the Bible again; his manner assumes an expression of joyousness).
That is certainty, that is promise, that convinces me—no But and no If. "And he that killeth a man shall surely be put to death." That means: Then it is expiated, then it is wiped out, and he is pure once more.
[Puts on his hat and buttons his coat.]
I am going before the magistrate.
[About to go.]
STEIN.
And you think they are going to put you to death?
[FORESTER stops and turns around.]
PASTOR.
People more guilty than you have been pardoned.
FORESTER.
Pardoned to be imprisoned—hey? Like Leutner? He—Indeed, they don't judge right in those courts, not as it is written here. I know very well—but—never mind!—All right!—
[Takes his gun.]
STEIN.
What do you intend to do?
FORESTER.
Nothing, I must take along the rifle with which the deed was done. O, they are particular about that! Farewell, Andrew, William. Take good care of your mother.
[Shakes hands with everybody.]
Stein, Pastor, Robert, Sophy—she has fainted. God will soon let her come after me. Bury my child. Have the bells ring; lay her bridal wreath upon her coffin. O, I am an old woman! When we meet again I shall be a murderer no longer.
[Makes with his hand a sign of farewell.]
STEIN.
You want—
FORESTER (turns around at the door).
My sight—and then—[Points upward to heaven.]—to meet my child.
[Exit. Short pause, during which the others look after him with surprise and emotion.]
STEIN (seized with a sudden apprehension).
If the other barrel is still loaded—quick—after him—
[Outside the door a shot is heard.]
Too late! I suspected it!
ANDREW, WILLIAM (rushing out).
Father!
ROBERT (in the open door, rooted to the spot through horror and pain at what he sees).
He has his right!
STEIN (also at the door).
A second time his own judge!
PASTOR (stepping to the others).
May God do unto him according to his faith.
[Exeunt.]
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 7: Translation of the King James version.]
BETWEEN HEAVEN AND EARTH (1856)
By OTTO LUDWIG
TRANSLATED AND CONDENSED BY MURIEL ALMON
The little garden lies between the dwelling-house and the slate shed; whoever goes from one to the other must pass it. As you go from the house to the shed it is on your left; on the right there is a yard with a woodshed and a stable, separated from the neighboring house by a trellis-fence. Every morning the house opens twelve green shutters onto one of the busiest streets of the town, the shed opens a large gray door on a back street; the roses on the bushes that have been trained to grow like trees in the little garden can look out into the lane which connects its two larger sisters. On the other side of the lane stands a tall house which, in elegant seclusion, does not deign to bestow a glance on the smaller one. Its eyes are open only to the doings of the main street; if you look nearer at its closed eyes facing the narrow street, you soon see the reason for its eternal sleep—they are only a sham, painted on the outer wall.
Not all sides of the house that belongs to the little garden look as decorative as the one on the main street. There, a pale rose-colored tint contrasts not too sharply with the green window-shutters and the blue slate roof. The weather side of the house, on the narrow street, looks as if it were clad in an armor of slate from top to toe; the other gable-end joins directly on to the row of houses of which it is the beginning or the end; at the back, however, it is an example of the proverb that everything has its weak point. There, an upstairs piazza has been built onto the house, not unlike half a crown of thorns. Supported by roughly-hewn wooden posts it runs along the upper story and expands toward the left into a little room. There is no direct entrance to it from the upper story of the house. To reach the "gallery chamber" from there one must leave the house by the back door, walk perhaps six steps along the wall, past the dog-kennel, to the wooden stairs, resembling those of a henhouse, and after climbing these must wander the whole length of the piazza to the left.
If all the structures are not equally ornamental and if piazza, stable and shed stand out noticeably against the dwelling-house, yet there is nowhere lacking a quality which adorns more than beauty of form and shining ornamentation. Extreme cleanliness smiles at the observer from the most hidden corners. In the little garden it reaches such a pitch that it hardly dares to smile. The garden does not look as if it were cleaned with a hoe and broom; it looks as if it had been brushed. The little beds that stand out so sharply against the yellow gravel of the walks look, not as if they had been dug by a cord, but as if they were drawn on the ground with a ruler and compasses, the box edging has the air of being daily attended to by the most accurate barber in town with comb and razor. And yet the blue coat which, if one stands on the piazza, one may see twice daily stepping into the little garden and every day at exactly the same minute, is still more neatly kept than the garden. When, after doing various pieces of work, the old gentleman leaves the garden again—and every day he goes at the same minute, just as punctually as he comes—the white apron over his blue coat shines with such unblemished whiteness that it is really incomprehensible why the old gentleman should have put it on. When he moves about among the tall rose-bushes which seem to have taken the old gentleman's bearing for a model, each of his steps is like the other, none is longer or fails to keep the regularity of his tempo. If one looks at him closer as he stands thus in the middle of his creation, one sees that he has merely copied externally that of which nature has created the model in himself. The regularity of the different parts of his tall figure seems to have been as accurately measured as the beds of the little garden. When nature formed him, her countenance must have borne the same expression of conscientiousness as the old man's face—an expression which, because of its strength, would appear to be obstinacy if an expression of loving gentleness, indeed almost of dreamy enthusiasm, were not mixed with it. And even now nature seems to watch over him with the same care that his eye shows when it looks over his little garden. His hair, cut short at the back and twisted above his brow into a so-called "corkscrew-curl," is of the same unblemished whiteness that is shown by his neckerchief, waistcoat, collar and the apron over his buttoned-up coat. Here, in his little garden, he completes the finished picture that it presents; away from home his appearance and personality must appear a little odd. His hat still has the high pointed crown, his blue overcoat the narrow collar and padded shoulders of a long vanished fashion. These offer opportunities enough for bad jokes; but no one makes them. It is as if there were an invisible something emanating from the stately figure that prevents the rise of flippant thoughts.
When the older inhabitants of the town, meeting Herr Nettenmair, pause in their conversation to greet him respectfully, it is not alone the magic something that has this effect. They know what it is that they respect in the old gentleman; when he has passed, their eyes follow him as they stand, still in silence, until he has disappeared round the corner; then it may well be that a hand is raised and an extended forefinger tells more eloquently than lips could of a long life adorned with all the virtues of a good citizen and untarnished by a single misdeed. He is never seen in a public place, unless indeed something relating to the common welfare is to be discussed or started. The recreation which he allows himself he seeks in his little garden. At other times he sits over his ledgers or stands in the shed superintending the loading and unloading of the slate which comes from his own quarry and which he sells all over the country and far beyond its borders. A widowed sister-in-law looks after his house for him and her sons manage the business of slating which is connected with the trade in slate and is scarcely inferior to it in size. It is their uncle's spirit, the spirit of orderliness, of conscientiousness to the point of obstinacy, that rests upon the nephews and gains and keeps for them such confidence that they are sent for from far away wherever a slater is needed to roof a new building or to make extensive repairs to an old one.
It is a peculiar life that goes on in the house with the green window-shutters. The sister-in-law, still a beautiful woman, little younger than the master of the house, treats him with a kind of silent respect, or even veneration. And her sons do the same. The old gentleman shows his sister-in-law a respectful consideration, a sort of chivalry that has something touching in its grave reserve; toward his nephews he displays the fondness of a father. Yet even there something lies between them that lends to their whole intercourse something of considerate formality.
The sabbath-like peace that now spreads its wings above the most strenuous activity of the dwellers in the house did not always hover there. There was a time when bitter sorrow that came from stolen happiness, and wild desires divided its inmates, when even the menace of murder cast its shadow into the house; when despair at self-created misery wandered, wringing its hands in the still night, from the back door, up the stairs and along the piazza and down again by the path between the little garden and the stable-yard to the shed, creeping restlessly to the front again and again to the back.
What, at that time, made the hearts in the house swell to the bursting-point, what went on in the shadowed souls and issued from them in part, in the self-forgetfulness of fear, or became a deed, a deed of desperation—all that may pass through the memory of the man with whom we have been occupied. It is thirty-one years today since he returned to his home town from a long absence. So we turn back the thirty-one years and find a young man instead of the old one whom we leave. He is tall, but not so strong; and, like the old man, he wears his brown hair cut short at the back and brushed into a "corkscrew-curl" above his high white forehead. The sternness of the old man does not yet appear in his face, and the scar of mental pain endured has not yet been stamped upon his good-humored expression. Yet he is far from showing the light-hearted carelessness usually belonging to his age and the easy-going manners that are so frequently habitual with the traveling journeyman. The high road still leads him through the dense woods; but from the town, far down below, the sound of St. George's bells rises up to the height, as impossible to restrain as a mother flying to the loved child that comes toward her. Home! How much lies in this one short syllable! What swells within the human heart when the voice of home, the tone of the bells, calls a welcome to him who is returning from abroad, the tone that called the child to church, the boy to his confirmation and his first communion, that spoke to him every hour! In the idea of home, all our good angels embrace one another.
Tears gathered in our young wanderer's serious and yet kindly eyes. If he had not been ashamed he would have sobbed aloud. He felt as if he had only dreamed his sojourn away from home and, now that he was awake, could scarcely remember the dream; as if he had only dreamed that he had grown to be a man while abroad; as if it had always seemed to him in his dreams that he was only dreaming abroad in order, when he should wake up at home, to be able to tell about it. It might have been noticed that, in spite of all this inward agitation of the moment, he did not fail to see the cobweb that the breeze from home laid as a greeting against his coat collar, and that he carefully dried his tears so that they might not fall on his neckerchief, and that he removed the last, tiniest scraps of the silver thread with the most persistent patience before he gave himself up to his feeling for home with his whole soul. And even his attachment to his home was in part only an expression of his obstinate need of cleanliness which made him regard everything alien that threatened to fly against him as dirt; and this need in turn sprang from the warmth of feeling with which he embraced everything that stood in closer relation to his personality. The clothes on his body were a piece of home to him, from which he must ward off everything strange.
Now the road turned; the mountain ridge which had closed it in up to this point was now left behind to one side and the top of a spire appeared above the young growth. It was the top of St. George's steeple. The young wanderer paused. Natural as it was that the highest building of the town should become visible to him before the others, the tender meaning with which his fancy imbued the fact made him forget that it was so. The slate roof of the church and steeple needed repairs. This work had been given to his father; and it was the reason, or at least the pretext, for his father's calling him back home sooner than he had intended. Perhaps tomorrow he would begin his part of the work. There, above the wide arch through which he saw the bells moving, the steeple door had been placed. There the two beams would have to be pushed out to bear the ladder on which he should climb up to the broach-post to fasten to it the rope of the contrivance in which he would make his airy circuit of the roof. And as it was his nature to bind the cords of his heart to the objects with which his work brought him in touch, he saw a greeting in the sudden appearance of the spire and involuntarily reached out toward it as if he would press a hand offered him in friendship. Then the thought of the work quickened his step, till a clearing in the wood and his arrival on the highest slope of the mountain showed him his whole home town lying at his feet.
Again he stopped. There stood his father's house with the slate shed behind it, not far from it the house where she had lived at the time he went away. Now she lived in his father's house, was his father's daughter, his brother's wife; and from now on he was to live in the same house with her and to see her daily as his sister-in-law. His heart beat harder at the thought of her. But it did not allow any of the hopes which had formerly been bound up with her memory to rise. His affection had become that of a brother for a sister, and what moved him now was more like anxiety. He knew that she thought of him with dislike. She was the only one in his father's whole house who looked forward to his coming with displeasure. How had this all come about? Had there not been a time when she seemed to be fond of him, when she had apparently liked to meet him as much as she later avoided him? Down below there, in front of the town, the shooting-house stood surrounded by gardens. How much bigger the trees round the house had grown since he had waved his last greeting to it from this height! Shortly before he had stood there under that acacia—it had been a beautiful spring evening, the most beautiful he thought he had ever known—at the Whitsuntide shooting. Within all the other young people were dancing; he walked happily round outside the house in which he knew her to be dancing. Even now he still felt embarrassed with girls and women and did not know how to talk to them; at that time he had felt even more so. How dearly he would have loved to tell her—how much he had to tell her, when he was alone, and how well he knew how to say it; and if chance ordained that he met her alone (it was wonderful how busy chance seemed to be in arranging such meetings) the thought that now the moment had come drove all the blood to his heart, the words from his tongue back into their hiding-place in the depths of his soul. Thus it had been when, her cheeks still glowing from the dance, she had come out of the house alone. She seemed to be concerned only with getting cool; she fanned herself with her white scarf, but her cheeks only grew the redder. He felt that she had seen him, that she expected him to come nearer; and it was the knowledge that he understood her that dyed her cheeks redder—that drove her, as he hesitated, back again into the hall. Perhaps, too, she had heard a third person coming. His brother came out of another door of the hall. He had seen the two standing silently opposite each other, perhaps had also seen the girl's blush. "Are you looking for Beate?" asked our hero to hide his embarrassment. "No," answered his brother, "she is not at the dance—and it's just as well. Nothing can come of it, after all; I must get another—and until I find one, Bohemian beer is my sweetheart."
There was something wild in his brother's speech. Our hero looked at him amazed and at the same time disturbed. "Why can nothing come of it?" he asked. "And what is the matter with you?"
"Oh, yes, you think I ought to be like you, pious and patient so long as there is no thread on your coat. But I am another kind of fellow, and if anybody upsets my calculations I have to let off steam. Why can nothing come of it? Because the old man in the blue coat won't have it."
"Father called you into the little garden yesterday—"
"Yes, and raised his white eyebrows, which are drawn with a ruler, an inch and a half. 'I thought it was so. You are going with Beate, the collector's daughter. That comes to an end today!'"
"Is it possible? And why?"
"Did you ever know old Blue-coat to give any 'why'? And did you ever ask him 'But why, father?' He didn't say so, but I know why it has to come to an end with me and Beate. I've been expecting it the whole week; whenever he raised his hand I thought he was pointing to the little garden and was ready to follow him like a poor sinner. That is the place where he gives his cabinet orders. The collector is said not to be in very good circumstances. There is some gossip about his spending more than his pay. And—well, you are a quill-driver, too, like old Blue-coat. But what can the girl do? Or I? Well, the affair must stop—but I'm sorry about the girl, and I must see how I can forget her. I must drink or get another one."
Our hero was accustomed to his brother's manner; he knew that the words were not intended to be as wild as they sounded, and his brother was showing his love and respect for their father by the fact of his obedience; still our hero would have liked to see them shown in speech as well as in action. It seemed to Apollonius as if there were something unclean on his brother's soul and involuntarily he stroked the other's coat collar several times with his hand as if he could brush it off him from outside. Dust had collected on the collar during the dance; when he had removed it he felt as if he had really removed what had troubled him.
The subject of their conversation changed. They began to speak of the girl who had just been out, fanning herself to get cool; Apollonius certainly did not know that he was responsible for this. Just as the girl was the goal to which all his lines of thought led, so, too, when once he began to speak of her he could not escape from his theme. He forgot his brother so completely that at last he was really talking to himself. His brother now seemed for the first time to perceive all the beautiful and good things in her that the hero lauded with unconscious eloquence. He agreed with more and more enthusiasm until he broke into a wild laugh which roused the hero from his self-forgetfulness and dyed his cheeks as red as those of the girl had been a short time before.
"And so you slink about round the hall where she is dancing with others, and if she shows herself you haven't the heart to draw her into conversation. Wait, I will be your ambassador. From now on she shall dance no turn except with me, so that no one else shall cross your plans. I know how to get on with girls. Let me take your part for you."
Our hero was frightened at the thought that the girl should learn that very day what he felt for her. Besides, he was ashamed of his own embarrassed and awkward behavior to her, and of what she must think of him when she knew that he needed a mediator. He had already raised his hand to stop his brother when the appearance of the girl herself caused everything else to grow dark to him. Quietly and alone, as before, she stepped out of the door. Beneath the scarf with which she had fanned herself she seemed to glance furtively about her. Again he saw her cheeks grow redder. Had she seen him? But she turned her face in the opposite direction. She seemed to be looking for something in the grass in front of her. He saw her pick a little flower, lay it on a bench and, after she had stood for a time as if in doubt whether she should pick it up again or not, with quick decision turn again to the door. A half involuntary movement of her arm seemed to tell him to take it, that it was picked for him. Once more a wave of red rushed up over her face to her dark brown hair, and the haste with which she disappeared in the door seemed intended to prevent a regret which might give rise to anxiety as to how her conduct would be understood.
The brother, who seemed not to have noticed anything of all this, had continued to speak in his lively, vehement fashion; his words were lost; our hero would have had to have had two lives in order to hear them, for all the one he possessed was in his eyes. Now he saw his brother rushing away toward the hall. He thought of detaining him, but it was too late. In vain he hurried after him up to the door. There the flower absorbed him again which the girl had left lying for some finder, for a happy one, if he found it for whom it was intended. And while his lips continued to call softly and mechanically to his brother, who no longer heard him, to keep silence, he was inwardly asking himself: "Was it really I for whom she laid the flower here? Did she lay it here for any one?" His heart answered both questions with a happy "Yes," while at the same time the thing that his brother intended to do troubled him.
If it was a sign of love from her and for him, then it was the last.
Twice he glanced surreptitiously into the hall when the door was opened; he saw her dancing with his brother and then, when they were resting after the dance, he saw his brother talking persuasively to her in his hasty way. "Now he is talking of me," he thought, his whole face burning. He rushed into the shade of the bushes when she left the hall. His brother took her home. He followed them at as great a distance as he thought necessary to prevent her seeing him. When his brother came back from accompanying her he stepped away from the door. He felt naked with shame. His brother had noticed him nevertheless. He said: "She won't hear of you yet; I don't know whether she means it, or whether it is just airs. I shall meet her again. No tree falls at one stroke. But I must confess, you have good taste. I don't know where my eyes have been up to now. She's away ahead of Beate; and that's saying a good deal!"
From then on his brother had danced untiringly with Walter's Christiane and spoken for Apollonius and always, after he had taken her home, he came and gave our hero an account of his efforts on his behalf. For a long time he was uncertain whether it was only affectation, or whether she really looked with disfavor on our hero. He repeated conscientiously what he had said in our hero's praise, and how she had answered his questions and assurances. He still had hope after our hero had already given it up. And her behavior toward the latter would have compelled him to realize that he could expect no return of his affection, even if he had not known what answers she gave his brother. She avoided him wherever she saw him as assiduously as she had formerly seemed to seek him. And had it really been he whom she had sought before, if indeed she had sought any one?
A hundred times his brother urged him to waylay her and press his own suit. He exerted all his inventive power to procure him an opportunity of speaking to her alone. Our hero refused to be urged or to accept his offers. After all, it was useless. All that he might accomplish would be to make her still more angry.
"I can't stand by any longer and see you growing thinner and paler all the time," said his brother one evening, after he had reported how unsuccessfully he had spoken for him again that day. "You must go away from here for a while; that will have good results for you in two ways. When I tell her that it is on her account that you have gone out into the world, perhaps she will turn. Believe me, I know the long-haired tribe, and I know how to treat them. You must write her a touching letter for good-by; I will deliver it, and I'll manage to soften her heart. And if it can't be accomplished, it will do you good to be away from here where everything reminds you of her, for a year—or several years. And finally, strange places will make another man of you, who will know better how to get round the apron-wearers. You must learn to dance; that's already half the battle. And anyway, the old Blue-coat has been asked by his cousin in Cologne to send one of us to him; I read it the other day in a letter that had fallen out of his pocket. Just tell him that you have gathered something of the sort from several things he has said lately and that you are ready to go if he wants you to. Or let me do that. You are too honest."
And he really did arrange it. It is a question whether our hero would have been able voluntarily to make up his mind to leave home. He could not understand how any one could live anywhere else but in his home town; to him it had always seemed like a fairy tale that there were other towns and people living in them. He had not imagined the life and doings of these people as real, like those of the inhabitants of his home, but as a kind of shadow-play that existed only for the looker-on, not for the shadows themselves. His brother, who knew how to treat the old man, led the conversation up to the cousin in Cologne as if by chance, and was clever enough to interpret the suggestions that Herr Nettenmair made in his diplomatic way as preliminary hints and connect them with others that referred to our hero. After frequent conversations he seemed to take it as the express desire of the old man that Apollonius should go to his cousin in Cologne. This put the idea into the old man's mind and, as it passed for his own, he brooded over it in his own way. There was little work to do at the time, and there seemed to be no prospect of its increasing materially for some time. A pair of hands could be spared; if they remained in the business all the workers would be condemned to semi-idleness. The old man could stand nothing as little as what he called dawdling. The only thing that was lacking was that our hero should resist. He knew nothing of his brother's plans. The latter had wisely not initiated him into them, because he knew him too well to expect his support in a matter that he would have rejected as both underhand and disrespectful to his father.
"You want to send Apollonius to Cologne," said his brother to the old man one afternoon; "but will he want to go? I don't think so. You will have to send me out on my travels. Apollonius won't go—at least not today, nor tomorrow."
That was enough. That very evening the old man beckoned our hero to follow him into the little garden. He stopped in front of the old pear-tree and, removing a little twig that was growing out of its trunk, said: "Tomorrow you will go to your cousin in Cologne."
With a rapid movement he turned toward his son, and saw with astonishment that Apollonius nodded his head obediently. It seemed almost to displease him that he should have no self-will to break. Did he think that the poor boy was nursing defiant thoughts, even if he did not express them, and did he want to break down even the defiance of thoughts? "You pack your knapsack this very day, do you hear?" he shouted at him.
"Yes, father," said Apollonius.
"You start tomorrow at sunrise." After he had seemed to try almost to force a defiant answer, he may have regretted his anger. He made a gesture of dismissal; Apollonius went obediently. The old man followed him, and several times he came up to the brothers' room with milder sternness to remind his son, who was packing, of this and that which he was not to forget.
And the last of four strokes was just ringing out from the tower of St. George's when the door of the house with the green shutters opened, and our young wanderer stepped out, accompanied by his brother. At the same spot where he now stood looking down on the town lying below him, his brother had taken farewell of him, and he had looked after him a long, long time. "Perhaps I can win her for you after all," his brother had said; "and then I'll write you so at once. And if you can't get her, she isn't the only one in the world. I can tell you, you are as good-looking a fellow as any; and if you'll only lay aside your stupid way you can get on with any of them. Once for all, things are so that the girls can't court us—and I shouldn't even want one that threw herself at my head of her own accord. And what can a lively girl do with a dreamer? Our cousin in Cologne is said to have a couple of pretty daughters. And now, good-by. I will deliver your letter today." With that his brother had left him.
"Yes," said Apollonius to himself as he looked after him. "He is right. Not because of my cousin's daughters, or any other girl, no matter how pretty she might be. If I had been different perhaps I need not have had to go away now. Was it I for whom she laid the flower there at the Whitsuntide shooting? Did she want to meet me then, and before then? Who knows how hard it has become for her! And having done all that in vain must she not have felt ashamed? Oh, she is right not to want to have anything more to do with me. I must learn to be different."
And this resolution had been no bloomless bud. His cousin's house in Cologne did not encourage dreaming of any kind. Apollonius found an entirely different family life there from that in his own home. His old cousin was as full of life as the youngest member of the family. Loneliness was impossible. A lively sense of the ridiculous [Blank Page] prevented the growth of any kind of peculiarity. Every one had to be on his guard; no one could let himself go.
Apollonius could not have avoided growing to be another man, even if he had not wanted to change; and he recognized clearly that it was a piece of good fortune that had led him to his cousin. He lost more and more of his dreaminess; before long his cousin could put the most difficult task into the young man's hands and he would complete it, without the aid of another's advice, so satisfactorily that his cousin was obliged to confess to himself that even he would not have begun the matter more thoroughly, carried it on more energetically, finished it more speedily and happily. Soon the youth was able to form his own opinion of the way in which the business at home had been carried on. He was obliged to acknowledge that it had not been the most practical way, in fact, that some of his father's orders could not but be called wrong-headed; then he reproached himself bitterly for his unfilial criticism, endeavored to justify his father's actions to himself, and, if he found that impossible, forced himself to believe that the old man must have had his good reasons and it could only be that he himself was too limited in knowledge to be able to guess them.
Letters came from his brother. In the first one he wrote that he was now clear in his mind about the girl to this extent, that her harshness toward Apollonius was due to her fondness for another whom he could not bring her to name. In the next, one in which he scarcely spoke of the girl, Apollonius read between the lines a certain pity for himself, the reason for which he knew not how to find. The third gave this reason only too clearly. His brother himself was the object of the girl's secret affection. She had given him various signs of this, after he had renounced his former sweetheart in accordance with his father's will. He had suspected nothing of this; and when he had approached her as a suitor on his brother's behalf, shame and the conviction that he himself did not love her had sealed her lips.
Now Apollonius realized with pain that he had been mistaken when he believed that those dumb signs had been meant for him. He wondered that he had not seen that he was in error at the time. Had not his brother been as near to her as he when she laid down the flower which the wrong man found? And when she had met him alone so intentionally unintentionally—indeed, when he called to mind the moments that dominated his dreams—she had sought his brother, that was why she had been so startled to meet him, that was why she had fled every time as soon as she had recognized him, as soon as she found him whom she was not seeking. She did not talk to him, but she could joke for a quarter of an hour at a time with his brother.
These thoughts characterized hours, days and weeks of pain that lay deep within him, but his cousin's confidence which he had to reward by living up to it, the healing effect of busy and purposeful work, the manliness which both these things had already ripened in him, all held their own in the struggle and came out of it strengthened.
A later letter which he received from his brother announced that old Walther had discovered the inclination of the girl's heart and that he and the old gentleman in the blue coat had decided that Apollonius' brother should marry the girl. The old gentleman's "should" was a "must;" Apollonius knew that as well as his brother. The girl's affection had touched his brother; she was beautiful and good; should he oppose his father's will for Apollonius' sake, for the sake of a love that was without hope? Being certain of Apollonius' consent beforehand, he had resigned himself to the decree of heaven.
Throughout the first half of the following letter, in which he announced his marriage, this pious mood echoed. After many cordial words of comfort came his brother's apology, or rather justification, for having allowed two years to elapse between this letter and the last one. Then followed a description of his domestic happiness; his young wife who still clung to him with all the fire of her girlish love, had borne him a girl and a boy. In the mean time his father had been afflicted by an ailment of the eyes, and had grown constantly less able to conduct the business alone in his sovereign manner. This had made him grow odder and odder. After he had left the reins in his son's hands for a time, the old imperative desire to rule, intensified by the monotony of enforced idleness, had caused him to rouse himself once more. Finally, however, he had been obliged to realize that things could not go on in his way. To subordinate himself to another merely as an advisory assistant, and particularly when the other was his own son who until recently had carried out his commands without being consulted and without any will of his own, this proved to be impossible for the old man. He found occupation in the little garden. There he could remove the old, think of something new, and again make room for something newer; and he did so. Ruling unrestrictedly in the little green realm in which from now on no "why" might be heard, where, beside the law of nature, only one other governed and that his will, he forgot or seemed to forget that he had formerly borne a mightier sceptre.
But his brother's following letters were not so full of the business and of the odd old gentleman as they were of the festivities of the shooting society of the home town and of a club which had been formed to keep its pleasures separate from those of the lower classes. In all the descriptions of bird and target shooting, concerts and balls of which he and his young wife appeared as the centre, shone the utmost gratification of the writer's vanity. Only in a postscript to the last letter did he mention the more serious fact that the town wanted to have repairs made to the tower and roof of St. George's, and that the work had been entrusted to him. The old gentleman in the blue coat urged him to ask Apollonius to return to his home town and the business. It was his brother's opinion that Apollonius would not care to leave the life in Cologne of which he had become fond for such a trifling matter. The repairs could be completed in a short time with the present working force. There were only a few damaged places on the tower and roof. Moreover, apart from his wife's dislike of Apollonius which he had continued to combat in vain, it would be a useless torture to his brother to refresh in his mind all that he must be glad to have forgotten. He would easily find an excuse for refusing to obey a command which only oddity had suggested. The conclusion of the letter contained a teasing insinuation of a relation between our hero and his cousin's youngest daughter, of which his home town was talking. His brother sent his regards to her as his future sister-in-law.
Although no such relation existed, Apollonius acknowledged to himself that it was only for him to call it into being. He knew that he could become his cousin's son-in-law if he wished. The girl was pretty, good, and fond of him, as was her sister. But he looked on her only as a sister; he had never felt a wish that she might be more to him. He believed he had conquered his love for Christiane; he did not know that after all it was only she that stood between him and his cousin's daughter, as she would have stood between him and any other woman. When he learned that Christiane loved his brother, he had taken from his breast the little metal box in which he had carried the flower ever since the evening when he had picked it up in the mistaken belief that it had been laid there for him. When Christiane became his brother's wife, he packed up the box with the flower and sent it to him. He could not throw away what had once been dear to him—but he might no longer possess it. Only he had a right to the flower for whom it had been intended, to whom belonged the hand which had bestowed it.
His father called him back; he must obey. But it was more than mere obedience that awoke in him. He not only went; he went gladly. His father's words conveyed to him a permission rather than an order. When the spring sun penetrates into a room that has been uninhabited and closed for the winter we see that what has lain on the floor like dry mummies was really sleeping life. Now it moves and stretches itself and becomes a buzzing cloud and swarms up jubilantly into the golden ray. Not his father alone, every house in his home-town, every hill, every garden about it, every tree within it, called him. His brother, his sister—this was the name he gave Christiane—called him. Yet, she did not call him. She felt a dislike of him, a dislike so strong that for six years his brother had struggled in vain to overcome it. He felt as if he must go home on that account if on no other; he must show her that he did not deserve her dislike, that he was worthy to be her brother. He wrote this to his brother in the letter which announced his intention to obey and named the day on which they might expect him. He was able to assure him that recollections of the time that was gone would not torture him, that his brother's anxiety was groundless.
It had come to that—the thought of her did not awaken any of the old hopes. When he looked down from the height he asked himself: "Shall I succeed in becoming a brother to her who is now my sister?"
He has arrived at the door of the paternal home. In vain he has scanned the windows, seeking for some familiar face. Now a thickset man in a black coat comes rushing out. He dashes out so hastily, embraces him so wildly, presses him so close to his white waistcoat, lays his cheek so near his cheek and keeps it there so long that one must choose to believe either that he loves his brother to the utmost or—that he does not want him to look into his eyes. But at last he has to let go of him; he takes him by the right arm and draws him into the door.
"It's fine that you've come! It's grand that you've come! It really wasn't necessary—simply an idea of the old man's, and he has nothing more to say about the business. But it really is splendid of you; I'm only sorry that you're making your betrothed's eyes red for nothing." He said the words "your betrothed" so distinctly and in such a loud tone that they could be heard and understood in the living room. Apollonius searched his brother's face with moist eyes, as if to check off, point by point, whether everything was still there that had been so dear to him. His brother did nothing to help him; he looked only at what lay between Apollonius' chin and toes.
"Father wanted it," said Apollonius easily; "and what you say of a betrothed—"
His brother interrupted him; he laughed loudly in his old manner, so that even if Apollonius had gone on speaking he could not have been understood. "That's all right! That's all right! And once more, it's splendid that you've come to visit us, and we won't let you go for a fortnight at least, whether you want to or not. Don't mind her," he added softly, pointing through the doorway with his right hand while he opened the door with his left.
The young wife was standing at a cupboard with the contents of which she was busy, her back toward the door. She turned, in an embarrassed and not quite friendly manner, and only toward her husband. Her brother-in-law could still see nothing but a part of her right cheek, with a burning blush upon it. Whatever other criticism might be made of her behavior, an unmistakable honesty showed itself in it, an incapability of pretending to be otherwise than she was. She stood there as if she were preparing herself to hear an expected insult. Apollonius went up to her and took her hand, which at first she seemed to want to draw away and then allowed to lie motionless in his. He was glad to greet his sister-in-law. He begged her not to be displeased at his coming and hoped by earnest endeavor to conquer the unmistakable dislike that she felt for him.
* * * * *
However considerate and courteous were the terms in which he clothed his pleading and hope, yet he expressed both only in thought. That everything was just as he had imagined it and yet so entirely different robbed him of all ease and courage.
His brother put a welcome end to the painful pause, for his wife did not utter a syllable in reply. He pointed to the children. They were still crowding, unconfused by all that oppressed their elders and which they did not notice or understand, about their new uncle; and he was glad of the opportunity to bend down to them and to have to answer a thousand questions.
"They're a forward brood," said their father. He pointed to the children, but he looked furtively at his wife. "For all that I'm surprised to see how soon you have become acquainted—and intimate at once," he added. Perchance he continued his last remark in thought: "it seems that you know how to become intimate quickly and to make others intimate with you!" A shade as of anxiety spread over his red face. But his anxiety was not about the children; otherwise he would have looked at the children and not at his wife.
Apollonius was talking more and more eagerly to the children. He had failed to hear the remark or he did not want to let the angry woman know whose face he carried so vividly within him. He would have recognized the little ones, if they had met him by chance, as his brother's children by their resemblance to their mother. But the question how they had become so quickly intimate with him ought to have been put to old Valentine. It was he who had been continually telling them about the uncle who was soon coming to see them—perhaps only so as to be able to talk with some one about what he liked to talk of so much. The brother and the sister-in-law avoided such conversations, and the father did not make himself familiar enough with the old fellow to talk with him about matters which might give him an excuse to drop into any kind of intimacy. Old Valentine would also have been able to say that the children had not met their uncle just by chance. They had come to find him. Old Valentine had thought of how love that has waited long hurries to meet thousands of homecomers; it had hurt him to think that his favorite alone should fail to find any greeting before he knocked at his father's door.
Apollonius suddenly ceased speaking. He was shocked to think that his embarrassment had caused him to forget his father. His brother understood his start and said with relief: "He's in the little garden." Apollonius jumped up and hurried out.
There, among his beds, crouched the figure of the old gentleman. He was still following old Valentine's shears with his critical hands as the servant slipped along on his knees before him. He found many an inequality which the fellow had to remove at once. It was no wonder. Twice every minute old Valentine thought: "Now he's coming!" And when he thought thus the shears cut crookedly right into the bog. And the old gentleman would have growled in quite another manner if the same thought had not made uncertain the hand that was now his eye.
Apollonius stood before his father and could not speak for pain. He had long known that his father was blind and had often pictured him to himself in sorrowful thought. At such times he had seen him looking as usual, only with a shield over his eyes. He had thought of him sitting or leaning on old Valentine, but never as he now saw him, the tall figure helpless as a child, the trembling and uncertain hands feeling their way. Now he knew for the first time what it meant to be blind.
Valentine laid the shears down and laughed or cried on his knees; it could not be said what he did. The old gentleman first inclined his head to one side as if listening, then he pulled himself together. Apollonius saw that his father felt his blindness to be something of which he must be ashamed. He saw how the old man exerted himself to avoid every movement that might recall the fact that he was blind. The old gentleman felt that the new-comer was somewhere near him. But where? On which side? Apollonius understood that his father felt this uncertainty with shame, and forced himself to cry with a voice that almost failed him. "Father! Dear father!" He dropped on his knees beside the old man and wanted to throw both arms around him. His father made a motion which seemed to beg for forbearance, though it was only intended to keep the young man away from him. Apollonius threw the arms his father had refused around his own breast to hold the pain there which, if it had risen and crossed his lips, would have betrayed to his father how deeply he felt the latter's misery. The same consideration made old Valentine turn his involuntary motion to help the old gentleman to stand upright, into a movement to pick up the shears which lay between him and his master. He too wanted to hide from the son what could not be hidden, so faithfully and deeply had he learned to live in the father's feelings.
The old gentleman had risen and held out his hand to his son much as if the latter had been absent as many days as he had been years. "You must be tired and hungry! I am somewhat troubled with my eyes—but it is of no consequence. As regards the business, talk to Fritz. I have given it up. I want to have peace. But that is not the real reason; young people must become independent some time. It makes them more eager to work."
He came a step nearer his son. He seemed to be carrying on a struggle within himself. He wanted to say something which no one should hear except his son. But he was silent. Why did he suppress what he wanted to say? Did it concern the business, or the honor of the house? And did he know or suspect that the one who was now responsible for both in his place was standing leaning against the gate of the little garden and could hear what he said to the new-comer, or, if he spoke secretly to him, could at least see that he did so? Was this why he had had Apollonius called home from abroad? And did the expression of a "why" now still seem to him incompatible with his position?
It was a curious party at the midday meal. The old gentleman dined alone in his little room as usual. The children too had been sent away, and did not come in again until after the meal. The young wife was more in the kitchen or elsewhere out of the room than at the table; and if she did once sit down there for a few minutes, she was as dumb as she had been when Apollonius greeted her; the resentful cloud did not pass from her forehead. Fritz was accustomed to his father's condition, which pierced Apollonius' heart with the keenness of new-felt pain. He talked only of the old man's oddities; old Blue-coat did not know what he wanted himself, and made life needlessly unpleasant for himself and all the others in the house. If Apollonius began to talk of the business, of the repairs to be made to the roof of St. George's, his brother spoke of pleasures with which he was glad to be able to make his brother's stay with him more agreeable—and he always mentioned this stay as he would a passing visit. When Apollonius told him he had not come to enjoy himself but to work, he laughed as if it were an incomparable joke that Apollonius should want to help to do nothing, and showed that he understood wit, however dry might be its expression. Then, when his wife had gone out of the room, he asked about his brother's understanding with his cousin's daughter, and then laughed again at his brother wag, in whom no one would recognize the old dreamer.
After dinner the children came in again, and with them more life and easy familiarity. While the old conditions still confronted Apollonius as new and strange, to the children what was new had already become old and familiar. All the afternoon Fritz, and apparently his wife too, were occupied only with a ball that was to be given. Fritz forgot more and more whatever might have caused him uneasiness, in thinking of the impression that he, as the chief person, would make on the new-comer at the festivity, and made use of the time till it should begin in giving him a foretaste of the affair by means of tales and hints dropped of the honor and attention shown him on such occasions by the most prominent citizens. He became noticeably more cheerful, and walked more and more proudly up and down the room. The creaking of his well-polished shoes said for the present, before the guests at the ball could do so: "Ah, there he is! Ah, there he is!" And when at intervals he jingled the money in his trousers-pockets all the corners of the hall rang with: "Now the fun will begin! Now the fun will begin!" And thither among those who were welcoming the guests—but he was no longer walking, he was gliding, swimming on the music—every dance was a jubilant overture on the name Nettenmair—he felt no floor, no feet, no legs beneath him, he scarcely still felt young Frau Nettenmair swimming along beside him, hanging to his right fin, the most beautiful among the beautiful, just as he was the most jovial among the jovial, the thumb on the hand of the ball.
And two hours later cries of "There he is!" really did ring from all sides and all the corners shouted: "Now the fun will begin!" Wherever they passed chairs were offered them. No hand was shaken as often and as long as that of jovial Fritz Nettenmair, no member of the company had so much sincere praise poured into his ears as he. But then, how agreeable he was! How condescendingly he accepted all this deserved homage! How witty he showed himself; how pleasantly he laughed! And not at his own jokes alone—there was no art in that; they were so brilliant that he had to laugh even if he didn't want to—he laughed at others too, little as they deserved it, compared with his. There were people, to be sure, who paid little attention to him, but he did not notice them; and those who showed it more plainly were "Philistines, everyday fellows, insignificant people," as he whispered to his brother with contemptuous pity. It was quite peculiar: everyone's greater or lesser importance as a man and a citizen could be measured with perfect exactitude by the degree of his admiration for Fritz Nettenmair.
When the dancing began Fritz drew his brother into a room at the side. "You must dance," he said. "My wife would turn you down, and that would be unpleasant for me. I will bring you a partner who is firm on her feet and can keep you in time. Pluck up heart, boy, even if it doesn't go smoothly all at once."
In the excitement of vanity Fritz Nettenmair had forgotten six years. His brother was still to him the dreamer of old whom he forced to dance at times for his pleasure. Now, when, paying no attention to his refusal, he led the girl to Apollonius, the latter resigned himself so as not to appear impolite.
Fritz Nettenmair was the best-natured fellow in the world as long as he knew himself to be the sole object of the general admiration. In such a mood he could perform deeds of sacrifice for those who threw his brilliance into the shade. So it was now. As he sat among the important people, treating them to champagne, and read in his wife's eyes the gratification with which she saw him overwhelmed with honors, a feeling crept over him as if he had forgiven his brother a great wrong, and he felt himself to be an extraordinarily noble man, who deserved all these marks of honor and who yet with wonderful modesty condescended to allow himself to be touched by them. He saw that his brother was no longer the dreamer of old; but he forgave him that too. All eyes were directed toward the handsome dancer and his skilful carriage. Fritz teased his wife, and, in the certainty that he must far outshine his brother, he felt the additional gratification of forgiving any amount of wrong that Apollonius had never done him.
But, oh the ungrateful one! He would not allow himself to be outshone. Fritz Nettenmair danced jovially, as one who is at home in the world and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; his brother was a stiff figure in comparison. He did not keep time with his head, nor, if the step was made with the left foot on the down beat, throw the upper part of his body to the right and vice versa; he did not now and again, with the boldness of a genius, slide across the hall and outdistance other couples. He danced neither jovially nor as one who is familiar with the world and knows how to treat the species that wears long hair and aprons; yet all eyes remained fixed on him, and Fritz Nettenmair outdid himself in vain.
It was the dullest ball that Fritz Nettenmair had ever experienced; it could not have been more so if Fritz Nettenmair had stayed at home. Fritz Nettenmair proclaimed the fact with mighty oaths, and the important people who had drunk his champagne agreed with him in his opinion, as they always did.
Some of the important women expressed to Frau Nettenmair their righteous and friendly indignation at her brother-in-law. That he had not asked his sister-in-law for the first dance betrayed an unpardonable disparagement of her. Frau Nettenmair, who felt the universal wrong done to her husband as deeply as if it had been done to herself, said that her brother-in-law had long known that she would only have turned him down if he had. But still Apollonius was only admired and honored more and more, and consequently the ball only became still duller. It became so dull, in fact, that Fritz Nettenmair left with his wife at an hour when as a rule he was only just beginning to be really jovial. Nevertheless he heaped coals of fire on his ungrateful brother's head. He asked the girl in his brother's name to allow Apollonius to accompany her home. Then he went out of the little room at the side into the hall again to his wife, and with her left the house, to the unfeigned despair of the important people, who were still thirsty for champagne.
After he had performed his enforced knightly service for his lady, Apollonius found the door of the paternal home open and all its inmates already asleep. At least there was no light to be seen anywhere and everything was still. His brother had assigned to him the little room at the left of the second-story piazza. Fortunately for Apollonius, the six years had not altered the house as they had its inmates. He went softly through the back door, past Moldau who growled in a friendly way and whose rough neck he stroked full of gratitude for this sign of constancy, mounted the stairs, walked the length of the piazza and found a bed in his little room. But before he undressed he still sat for a long time on the chair by the window and compared what he had found with what he had left. Before he lay down for the night he had determined on his future course of action. The next morning he must learn what he was to do here, his relation to his father's house must be clearly settled. If there was no work for him, he would be on his way back to Cologne before the day was over.
He was up with the sun; but he had long to wait before it pleased his brother to rise from his couch. He made use of the time to take a walk to St. George's; he wanted to see for himself what was to be done there. When he came back again he met his brother and a gentleman with him who were just about to leave the living room. Apollonius knew the gentleman as the inspector of buildings from the town council. They greeted each other. They had already spoken to each other the day before at the ball, where the gentleman had not proved himself to be a prominent man and citizen, but, on the contrary, had joined the Philistines, everyday fellows, and insignificant people. Apparently he was not displeased to meet Apollonius just now. After the customary exchange of courtesies he explained the purpose of his presence. A final conference of experts was to take place that morning to consider what was to be done to the roof of the church and the tower, so that the result could be reported at a meeting of the council in the afternoon and a decision reached. Fritz Nettenmair and the inspector were on the way to St. George's, where they knew that the rest of the experts were already assembled.
Fritz, as he said, did not want to trouble his visitor by making him participate in business in which he was not concerned; just as little—but he did not say this—did he want to leave him alone at home. He asked him to be at the house in the woods, from which he would fetch him to go for a walk. Apollonius assured him quite easily that he would rather be present at the meeting; and when the inspector went so far as to ask him to go with him as another expert, no pretext could be found on which this could be prevented. Perhaps Fritz Nettenmair had a suspicion that he would soon have a great deal more to forgive the newcomer.
They found the rest of the meeting, two strange master-slaters and the official builders of the council, carpenter, masons, and tinsmiths, waiting for them at the tower-door. Several scaffoldings had already been fastened to the roof so that it could be examined; the conference took place in the church-loft nearest the largest of them. Apollonius stood modestly a few steps away in order to hear and, if he were asked, to speak. He had carefully examined the roof beforehand and formed his own opinion of the matter.
The two strange slaters stated that they thought extensive repairs were necessary. Fritz Nettenmair, on the contrary, was convinced that with a few patches which he enumerated, nothing more need be done for years. The builders, carpenter, masons and tinsmith eagerly agreed with him; all of them jovial and prominent men at yesterday's ball who conscientiously believed that if you drank a man's champagne, his was the opinion you must hold. The strange slaters knew very well that the Council feared the expense of more extensive repairs and had postponed those that had long been highly necessary from year to year. As, moreover, they had no prospect of being intrusted with the repairs themselves, they did not give themselves unnecessary trouble to aid in forcing upon Herr Fritz Nettenmair work and profit for which he himself seemed to care nothing at all. Hence in the course of the discussion they became more and more convinced that, whatever way you looked at the matter, Herr Fritz Nettenmair too was right. The inspector, a good man, perhaps grasped their motives and those of the prominent men. For a time he had listened in silence with a dissatisfied face, when he remembered Apollonius. He saw something in the latter's expression that seemed to correspond to his own opinion. "And what do you say?" he asked, turning to him.
Apollonius modestly came a step nearer.
"I wish you would look at the matter as carefully as possible," said the councilman.
Apollonius replied that he had already done so.
"I need not draw your attention to the fact that the matter is very important," continued the councilman.
Apollonius bowed. The councilman repressed what he had been about to say. With all its softness and mildness, such strict conscientiousness and obstinate honesty was expressed in the young man's countenance, that the councilman was almost ashamed of the admonition he had been on the point of giving him.
Apollonius began by stating the results of the examination he had made. He explained the condition of the places he had been able to test and what might be inferred from that as regarded the others. As the church accounts showed, no extensive repairs had been made to the church roof for eighty years. Even though the slate itself, if the material was good, might defy the elements for a long time yet, this was not true of the nails with which the slates were fastened to the lathing and planking. And wherever he had tested them he had found the nails either entirely destroyed or very nearly so.
It was unavoidably necessary to re-lay the entire slate covering and to replace with new material the rotten spots in the lathing and planking. Another winter would make the condition of the roof so much worse that there was nothing to be gained by postponing the repairs with the object of saving the interest, for, without greater loss, the repairs could at the most be delayed only till the next year. He led those assembled to places which might serve as samples. He did not draw the conclusion himself, but knew how to use the cleverness which he had learnt from his cousin to force his opponents to do that for him.
The councilman's confidence in and respect for our Apollonius grew visibly. During the rest of the discussion he appealed almost entirely to him and shook his hand cordially when the left the meeting. If the undertaking should receive the approval of the Council, which he now no longer doubted, he hoped that Apollonius would take an active part in it, and he requested him to write out a report as to the most practical method of beginning it. Apollonius thanked him modestly for his confidence, of which he would try to show himself worthy. As to his taking part in the work itself, he replied that his father, as the master, would have to decide.
"I'll go with you at once," said the councilman, "and speak to him."
Even though Fritz had conducted the business until now and was regarded and treated by the important people as the master, still he was not. The old man had let him become master just as little as he had formally made over the business to him; he wanted to reserve to himself a sovereign power of interference wherever he should find it necessary.
He heard the two approaching while still at a distance and groped his way to a bench in his arbor. There he was sitting when they entered. After greetings had passed the councilman asked after Herr Nettenmair's health.
"Thank you," replied the old gentleman, "I am somewhat troubled with my eyes—but it is of no consequence." He smiled as he spoke, and the councilman exchanged a glance with Apollonius that won the latter's whole soul. Then he told the old man the whole conference, and made Apollonius blush in his modesty so that it was long before his usual color came back. The old man pulled his shield lower down on his face, that no one might see the thoughts which were oddly struggling with one another there.
Any one who could have seen beneath the shield would have thought at first that the old gentleman was glad; the shade of suspicion with which he had received Apollonius the day before disappeared. He need not be afraid, then, that this son would make common cause with his brother against him! Indeed, a something appeared on his countenance that seemed to rejoice malignantly at the elder's humiliation. Perhaps he might have interfered, as was his way, with a laconic: "You will take my place from now on, Apollonius, do you hear?" if the councilman had not sung Apollonius' praise and if it had not been so well deserved.
"Yes," he said in his diplomatic manner of hiding his thoughts by only half expressing them; "yes, indeed, youth! he is young." "And yet so efficient already!" supplemented the councilman.
The old gentleman inclined his head. One who was interested, as was the councilman, might believe that he nodded. But he said: "It's the young men that are all-important today in the world!" Yes, he felt proud that his son was so efficient, ashamed that he himself was blind, glad that Fritz could now no longer do as he liked, that the honor of the home had gained one guardian more, afraid that the efficiency in which he rejoiced would make him himself superfluous. And he could do nothing to prevent it; he could do nothing more, he was nothing more. And as if Apollonius had expressed that, he rose stiffly erect, as if to show that his son was triumphing too early.
The councilman begged the old gentleman to keep his son at home during the time that the repairs were being made and to allow him to work at them. The old gentleman was silent for a time as if he were waiting for Apollonius to refuse to stay. Then he seemed to assume that Apollonius refused for, with his harsh brevity, he commanded: "You are to stay; do you hear?"
Apollonius went to his little room to unpack his things. He was still thus engaged when the news came that the town council had approved the repairs.
So it was settled: he was to stay. He was to be allowed to work for his beloved home and to apply what he had learnt while abroad.
After he had arranged all his things in his room, he at once set to work on the report which the councilman had requested. The repairs had been decided upon on his advice, he was concerned in them not alone as one of his father's "hands," as a mere workman; he felt that he had taken upon himself in addition a special moral obligation toward his home town; he must do everything in his power to fulfil it. He would not have needed such an incentive; even without it he would have done all that he could; he did not know himself well enough to know that.
In this exalted mood it appeared to him easy to overcome whatever threatened, on the part of his brother and his sister-in-law, to make his stay uncomfortable. After all, his brother wished him to go only on account of his sister-in-law's dislike of him and that could be conquered by enduring, honest effort. He had never offended his brother; he would willingly subordinate himself to him in the business. It did not occur to him that we can offend without knowing it or wishing to do so, in fact, that duty may command us to offend. It did not occur to him that his brother might have offended him. He did not know that one can also hate him whom one has offended, not only the offender.
Below, near the shed, a disagreeable-looking workman stood grinning in front of Fritz Nettenmair and said: "I understand some one at the first glance. Oh, yes, Herr Apollonius knows what he's about! But it's of no consequence. That won't last long!" Fritz Nettenmair gnawed his nails and ignored the gesture that was intended to excite him to ask what the fellow meant when he said, that would not last long. He went toward the living room and as he went he flew out quietly at somebody who was not there: "Uprightness? Knowledge of business, as that Philistine of an inspector says? I know why you're forcing your way in and insinuating yourself in here, you fluff-picker! Pretend to be as innocent as you like, I"—he made the gesture that meant: "I am one who know life and the species that wears long hair and aprons!" With this he turned toward the door, but his movement was not jovial, as usual.
How many people think they know the world, and know only themselves!
* * * * *
Between heaven and earth lies the slater's realm. Far below is the noisy tumult of the wanderers of the earth, high above are the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds in their vast course. For months, years, decades, this realm has no inhabitants but the restlessly fluttering race of cawing jackdaws. But one day the narrow door halfway up the tower-roof is opened; invisible hands push two scaffolding timbers out, part way into space. To the spectator below it looks as if they wanted to build a bridge of straws into the sky. The jackdaws have fled to the pommel of the steeple and to the weather-vane and look down from there, ruffling their feathers with fear. The timbers stand out only a few feet from the door and the invisible hands cease pushing. Then a hammering begins in the heart of the tower-loft. The sleeping owls start up and tumble staggeringly out of their scuttles into the open eye of the day. The jackdaws hear it with horror; the child of man below on the firm earth does not catch the sound, the clouds above on the sky pass over it untroubled. The pounding continues a long time; then it ceases and two or three short boards follow the timbers and are laid across them. Behind them appear a man's head and a pair of vigorous arms. One hand holds the nail, the other swings the hammer that strikes it until the boards are firmly nailed down. The "flying" scaffold is ready. Thus the builder calls it, for whom it may become a bridge to heaven, without his desiring it. Then from the scaffold the ladder is built and, if the tower roof is very high, ladder upon ladder. Nothing holds it together but iron hooks, nothing holds it firm but two pairs of hands on the scaffold and, at the top, the broach-post against which it leans. Once it is tied fast to the broach-post and at the bottom, the slater no longer sees any danger in mounting it, however anxious the dizzy man may feel down on the firm earth when he looks up and thinks the ladder made of match-wood glued together, like a child's Christmas toy. But before he has bound the ladder fast—and in order to do that he must climb it once—the slater may commend his poor soul to God. Then he is indeed between heaven and earth. He knows that the slightest shift of the ladder—and a single false step may shift it—will dash him helplessly down to certain death. Stop the clang of the bells beneath him, it may startle him! The spectators far below on the earth involuntarily clasp their hands breathlessly; the jackdaws, who have been driven from their last place of refuge by the ascending figure, caw as they flutter wildly round his head; only the clouds in the sky pursue their way above him, untouched. Only the clouds? No. The daring man on the ladder goes on as calmly as they. He is no vain dare-devil wantonly bent on making himself talked of; he goes his dangerous way in the course of his calling. He knows that the ladder is firm; he himself has built the scaffold, he knows that it is firm; he knows that his heart is strong and his tread sure. He does not look down where the earth holds out her green arms luringly, he does not look up where from the procession of clouds in the sky the fatal giddiness may drop down on his steady eye. The centre of the rungs is the pathway of his glance, and he stands on top. No heaven exists for him, no earth, nothing but the broach-post and the ladder which he ties together with his rope. The knot is made; the spectators breathe with relief and give utterance in all the streets to their admiration for the daring man and his doings high up between heaven and earth. For a week the children of the town play at being slaters.
But now the daring man begins his work indeed. He fetches up another rope and lays it as a rotary ring round the post below the pommel of the steeple. To this he fastens his tackle with three blocks, to the tackle the rings of his hanging seat. A board to sit on with two places cut out to allow his legs to hang down, and with a low, curved back, on either side boxes for slates, nails and tools; in front, between the places for his legs, a little anvil on which he hammers the slate to the shape he wants it with his slater's hammer; this apparatus, held by four strong cables which unite above to form two rings for the hooks of the tackle, is the hanging-seat as he calls it, the light craft in which he sails round the roof of the steeple high in the air. By means of the tackle he easily pulls himself up or lets himself down as high or as low as he likes; the ring above turns round the steeple with the tackle and hanging-seat in whichever direction he desires. A gentle kick against the roof sets the whole in motion, for him to stop where he pleases. Soon no one stands below any longer looking up; the slater at work is no longer any novelty. The children turn again to their old games. The jackdaws grow accustomed to him; they regard him as a bird, like themselves, only bigger, but peaceful, as they are; and the clouds in the sky have never troubled themselves about him from the beginning. The ladies envy him his view. Who can look out so freely across the green plain and see how mountains range themselves behind mountains, first green, then growing bluer and bluer to where the sky, even bluer than they, rests on the last ones! But he troubles himself as little about the mountains as the clouds trouble themselves about him. Day after day he works on with iron and claw-hammer, day after day he hammers slates and drives in nails, till he is done with hammering and nailing. One day man, tackle, ladder and scaffolding have disappeared. The removal of the ladder is just as dangerous as its setting up; but no one below folds his hands, no mouth extols the achievement of the man between heaven and earth. The crows wonder for a whole week and then it seems to them as if years ago they had dreamt of some odd bird. Far below the tumult of the wanderers of the earth still sounds, high above the wanderers of the sky, the silent clouds still continue in their vast course, but no one flies around the steep roof save the cawing swarm of jackdaws.
It was proposed to put the whole management of the repairs in Apollonius' hands. In order not to hurt his brother's feelings, he begged the council to arrange differently. He was so anxious not to hurt his brother that he did not even say why he asked this. His work in Cologne had accustomed him to act independently; he foresaw that his brother, as he had found him again, would be the cause of many a hindrance. He knew that he was taking a heavy burden upon himself when he promised the inspector that the work itself should not suffer by reason of the two-headed management. The honest man, who guessed Apollonius' purpose and only respected him the more on that account, obtained the consent of the council for him, and silently resolved that wherever it should be necessary he would take the part of his favorite and uphold the latter's orders against those of his brother.
It was a difficult task that Apollonius had set himself; it was much more difficult than he knew. His presence at home had not pleased his brother from the beginning; Apollonius attributed that to the influence of his sister-in-law; since then he had grown even more estranged from him—and no wonder! Apollonius had already become acquainted with his brother's vanity and greed for honor, and what had happened since then had made the latter feel himself slighted in favor of Apollonius. His sister-in-law's dislike Apollonius thought he could overcome in time by honest endeavor, his brother's injured greed of honor by outward subordination. If there was no further obstacle in the way, he might hope to perform the task, difficult as it seemed. But what lay between him and his brother was something different, very different, from what he thought; and that he did not know it only made it more dangerous. It was a suspicion, born of the consciousness of guilt. Whatever he did to clear the apparent obstacles out of the way could only increase the real one.
Apollonius soon saw that the system to which he had become accustomed in Cologne, the rapid and carefully planned cooeperation, did not exist here, nor even such methodical management as his father had formerly maintained. The slater had to wait for fifteen minutes and longer at a time for the slates; the tenders dawdled and had a good excuse for doing so in the slackness and laziness of the cutters and sorters. His brother laughed half compassionately at Apollonius' complaint. Such system as he demanded did not exist anywhere and was not even possible. In his own mind he made fun again of the dreamer who was so unpractical. And even if the system had been possible the work was done by the day. Wasted time was paid for just the same as that properly applied. And when Apollonius himself tried to put an end to the old method of jogging along, his brother saw in him again the time-server of the inspector and the council, while he saw himself as the straightforward man who disdained such tricks. He persuaded himself that Apollonius wanted to unseat him altogether, and had even worse intentions in his mind—in which, however, he should not succeed with all his cunning, although he had come home on purpose to do so. And still he thought the dreamer would make a fool of himself if he tried to carry out what he himself, who knew the world, could not succeed in doing;—he who was keener in action than even old Blue-coat had been in his day.
Fritz Nettenmair thought he was outdoing the old gentleman when he whistled still more shrilly on his fingers, coughed still more wrathfully and spat still more decisively. The qualities in the old gentleman that had really commanded respect, the consistency which, even where it degenerated into obstinacy, compelled esteem, the calm, self-contained dignity of a capable personality—these he failed to see. Not possessing them himself, he lacked also the desire to perceive them in others. Just as his figure was absolutely at variance with the bearing of the old gentleman which he sought artificially to assume, so too his lack of repose and inward stability constantly contradicted it. He seemed merely to have borrowed the old gentleman's diplomatic manner of speaking in order to show his own superficiality and emptiness. Then at times he would suddenly lapse from the stiff demeanor of the wearer of the blue coat into his own patronizing joviality and onto a plane where joking rubs out with dirty fingers the line between superior and subordinate as if it had never existed. Then when he forcibly jerked himself back just as suddenly into the person of authority, he did not regain the respect he had lost, he merely offended. To all this was added the fact that he knew himself to be excelled by some of his workmen, and in difficult cases was obliged to let them do as they liked.
Apollonius, on the contrary, had by nature and by virtue of the training that he had received at his cousin's what his brother lacked; he possessed dignity of personality, consistency to the point of obstinacy. His inward sureness made him authoritative; he did not have to exert himself to be so—he was raised above the necessity of demanding respect by visible effort which so seldom attains its purpose, indeed usually defeats it. And so he succeeded in doing what he wanted. Soon the work was being carried on in the most systematic order, and all those concerned seemed to feel contented under the change—all except Fritz Nettenmair. The rapid cooeperation that moved as on the track of an invisible necessity made the figure in the blue coat in which he felt himself so big, superfluous. Another reason for uneasiness was that the new system came from his brother; from him whom he already had so much to forgive and whom he wanted less and less to forgive. He did not know, or did not want to know, what charm a self-contained personality exercises, although he himself was obliged to acknowledge it against his will, and still less that he lacked this and that his brother possessed it. He had agreed in his own mind that his brother had used means which he was pleased to feel himself too noble to apply. In that way Apollonius had won the people away from him. The latter had no suspicion of what was going on in his brother's breast; he was on his guard against him, as one must be against cunning persons, for such enemies can only be defeated with their own weapons. The brotherly friendliness and respect with which Apollonius treated him was a mask behind which he thought he could certainly hide his sinister plans; he would pay him back and make him more easily harmless if he hid his watchfulness behind the same mask. Apollonius' good-natured willingness outwardly to subordinate himself to him appeared to his brother like derision in which the workmen, won over by the deceitful one, knowingly took part. In his sensitiveness, he himself resorted to the means that he assumed his brother employed. He was prevented from opposing him openly by the fact that Apollonius impressed him himself, even though he would not have acknowledged this to be the reason. He laid the blue coat of thunder aside and descended to the very lowest rung of his joviality. He began by hints and then gradually by words to show his sympathy with the workmen who groaned beneath the tyranny of a time-serving intruder, as he proved to them; as he had not the courage to incite them to open rebellion he sought to lead them to commit single petty acts of mutiny. He began to treat them to food and drink daily. They ate and drank, but remained as before in the course that Apollonius marked out for them. |
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