Chapter VI (2)

Of course meanwhile woman had entered his existence. But in what a manner! Light relations with actresses, which merely occupied his senses and left no trace in his life except some considerable sums in the account book which his faithful family steward kept with great accuracy; fleeting flirtations with society ladies, which soon became intolerable because he merely found incomparably greater demands, but otherwise nothing more than with his actresses, toward whom he need use no ceremony. This was all. A great, deep love would have given his life happiness and purpose; but it did not dawn for him. Was it because he did not meet the right woman? Was it because he did not come out of himself sufficiently? was he, as it were, too much walled in by his indifference to discover, behind the reserve of maidenly timidity, faint emotions by which his own feelings might have been kindled? Enough, he passed woman by, without seeing in her aught save a toy. By accident, or to be more accurate, through the jealousy of another interest which believed itself threatened, he discovered a cleverly woven intrigue to lure him into a marriage with a princess who, though neither especially beautiful nor wealthy, was yet very pretty, and this so roused his distrust that henceforth he saw in the favour of matrons and in the smiles of young ladies only speculations upon his revenue of two millions and his title of prince, and acquired a positive abhorrence of the circles in which people marry.

Once he had a meeting which narrowly escaped making a deeper impression. On a journey from the Black Forest to Norderney the prince, who cared nothing for aristocratic isolation, occupied the same compartment with a young girl from Mayence, who was going to the same place. She was remarkably beautiful, charming, gay, and brilliant, and exerted a powerful attraction over the prince. He was extremely attentive to her during the trip, while she remained pleasantly indifferent and appeared to care nothing for him.

Perhaps this very indifference stimulated him, and he continued his attentions at the North Sea watering place, where he maintained the incognito of Herr von Gerau, the beautiful girl, who was at once surrounded by other young gentlemen, only learning from him that he was a land-owner. She accepted his daily gifts of flowers, it is true, but otherwise showed no more favour to him than to the rest of her suitors. Indeed, she paid even less consideration to the prince than to the others, which greatly depressed him. Then it happened that a very exalted personage who was a friend of Prince Louis came to Norderney. The latter was obliged to pay him a ceremonious visit on which he wore his uniform, and now could no longer conceal his rank and name. The Mayence beauty saw him in his handsome blue uniform coat, and learned that very day the identity of her admirer. Her manner to him altered as if by magic. She had eyes for him alone, distinguished him by a cordiality which justified the boldest hopes and, by her tender looks and smiles, seemed to be imploring forgiveness for not having perceived his value sooner. Prince Louis noticed this sudden change and felt the deepest shame.

For two days good and evil fought a hard battle in his soul. His innate nobility of character urged him not to profit by his advantage, to withdraw from a person whom he had discovered to be so superficial. His bitter contempt for women whispered to carry the relation which had assumed a frivolous turn, to the doubtful end. Baseness triumphed over nobility, and let any man of twenty-four who feels that he is guiltless cast the first stone at the prince. But his evil genius farther instigated him to do something very odious. After a poetic hour, in which the Mayence beauty, amid fervid kisses, had asked whether he, her beloved one, would now be hers forever, he sent her a package which contained--his uniform, and a costly pin in the shape of a crown, accompanied by a little note stating that he gave, for her perpetual possession, all that she had loved in him.

The remembrance of this unpardonably unchivalrous act often tortured him afterwards, but his repentance by no means took the form of greater respect for women. On the contrary, he became more and more a convert to Don Juan's love--philosophy, and allowed only the millionaire and Prince Etc. to sue for favour, while the sceptical Louis grew wholly averse to the fair sex.

From early youth, he had secretly written lyric poetry, and his productions, which, it is true, were imitative rather than original, were pleasant to read and correct in form. He sent some under his own name to great weekly periodicals, and they not only appeared at once but he obtained the most flattering requests for more contributions. This afforded him much gratification, but again only for a brief time. Under the influence of his suspicious spirit of investigation, he sent several poems, with an unpretending assumed signature, to other papers. He either received no reply or curt rejections in the editors' letter-box. So he was done with that too.

He tried the "naive" life of pleasure, as he called it. With small success. Gaming soon ceased to attract him, for at the roulette table in Monaco he loathed the companionship of old professional gamblers with their gallows-bird faces, and of bedizened Paris courtesans, and at his club in Berlin or Baden, where he played only with respectable people, the stakes were never high enough to permit even the largest possible gain or loss to excite him. The pleasures of the epicure afforded him more satisfaction, and his table was famous among his peers. He soon wearied of wine; the discomfort caused by intoxication seemed to him too large a price to pay for the enjoyment of drinking. This caused his guests to banter him about his moderation, and allude to the historic drinking-horn of gigantic size, which, as the chronicles of the House attested, his ancestors used to drain at their banquets, though in those days the Burgundy was far from its present perfection, and Canary had not yet been invented. His companions' enthusiasm for drinking at last disgusted him with entertaining, and he gradually lost his taste for choice dinners also.

Once, while living on his Silesian estates, whose extent was equal to a small kingdom, he became ill, and was obliged to send for the district physician. This man, who afterwards obtained a world-wide reputation, was then young, unknown, and apparently an ordinary country doctor. The prince, however, soon perceived that he was far superior to his circumstances and position, and placed himself upon a very confidential footing with him. One day he complained of the desolation and monotony of his life and asked, in a tone between jest and earnest, what he should do with himself.

"Give your life a purpose, Prince," replied Dr. Backer, "strive for something."

Prince Louis smiled scornfully.

"For what shall I strive? Everything to which the rest of you aspire, which you are struggling with your best powers to attain, I already possess! Money? I cannot spend half my income unless I light my cigars with hundred-thaler notes, or wish to bore a hole through the earth. Women's favour? My visiting cards will obtain more than is desirable for me. Honours? At six and twenty years old, I have the grand cross of the highest orders, and have the precedence of every one except a few princes of the blood. Power? Listen, my dear Doctor: I really believe that if it suited my pleasure I could shoot a slater off the roof, and the affair would have no unpleasant results. Fame and immortality? My name is perhaps somewhat better known than Goethe's. Wherever I desire to appear, I am far more of a lion than the greatest poet and scholar, and every Prince Hochstein is sure of two lines in the encyclopaedia and larger historical works, even if he has done nothing except to be born and to die at a reasonable age. So, for what should I strive?"

"For satisfaction with yourself," replied Dr. Backer, "and that you will find only when you earn what you inherited from your ancestors, in order to possess it, as Father Goethe says."

Satisfaction with himself--certainly! But to attain it is the greatest art of life. The prince might gain it if he devoted himself earnestly, not merely in a half-absent dilettante fashion, to some art, science, or useful avocation. Only it required a self-discipline of which, unfortunately, he was incapable. In all pursuits requiring dexterity, all sciences, the first steps are laborious, wearisome, and apparently thankless, and the Canaan which they promise is reached only after weary wandering through the desert. Prince Louis did not possess the self-denial requisite for it. So he continued his life devoted to purely external things and meanwhile was as much bored as Jonah in the whale. He undertook long journeys and disappeared for six months, during which he hunted tigers in India and hippopotami in the Blue Nile. When he returned home and was questioned at the club about his experiences and whether he had been entertained, he answered with a shrug of the shoulders.

"Entertained? As if one could be in this vale of tears! There really is nothing remarkable about a tiger-hunt. The danger and excitement concern the poor devils of Hindoos, who rouse the game. I sat in my howdah on a very quiet elephant and fired as if I were shooting at a target. Buy some big cats from Asia or Africa, put them into a cage in your park, and shoot till you kill them. It is about the same thing. True, the scenic effects are less glaring, there are fewer supernumeraries, and there is not so much shrieking and struggling on the stage. But that seems to me rather an advantage, and one doesn't have the heat and the snakes."

His hearers laughed, and an old gentleman remarked:

"You have mental colour-blindness, my dear Prince, and I should not like to have you guide the engine of my life-train."

He had hit the mark. Prince Louis saw life uniformly grey. How infinitely true are Schiller's words:

"Each mortal heart some wish, some hope, some fear,
Linked with the morrow's dawn, must cherish here
To bear the troubles with which earth is rife,
The dull montony [Transcriber's note: monotony?] of daily life."

But Prince Louis wished, hoped, feared nothing, and when he thought of the future he beheld it in the form of a drowsy monster, yawning noisily. He longed like a languishing lover for some excitement, pursued it to the end of the world, but did not succeed in finding it.

He was just on the eve of going to Norway to hunt reindeer, when the war of 1870 broke out. In 1866 he had been in Africa and did not hear of the events of the summer until everything was over. This time he asked permission to join his regiment, the first dragoon-guards, which of course was granted. To tell the truth, he was influenced less by patriotism and enthusiasm than, in addition to propriety, the hope that military life would afford him new sensations.

Had he deceived himself this time also? It almost seemed so; for, during the fortnight which he had spent in the enemy's country, he had as yet experienced nothing unusual. When a person is attended by two capable servants, and has an unlimited amount of money at his disposal, he need suffer no discomfort even in the field, especially during a victorious advance, and as yet there had been no opportunity for individual deeds of heroism, or perilous adventures.

Thus he had again relapsed into a half-listless mood, while, as we have just seen him, he stood among his comrades in front of his regiment smoking his cigarette. Now, however, the French appeared to be advancing from the other side of the ravine. Their batteries came nearer, their shells began to fly across the gorge and strike behind the German cannon. One burst amid the division of infantry, killing and wounding several soldiers. Another demolished a gun and made havoc among those who served it. The short sharp whistle of bullets even began to mingle with the peculiar shrill wailing sound of the sugarloaf shot, and on the plateau beyond, slender lines of infantry, diverging very far apart, could be seen moving swiftly onward. They ran forward, flung themselves down, there was a succession of sudden flashes, little clouds of white smoke rose, a confusing medley of sharp, rattling reports followed, contrasting disagreeably with the deep, rolling thunder of the artillery; then the men were on their feet again, rushing on, no longer in a perfectly straight line, some in advance, others a little behind, with their faces turned towards the sun, beneath whose rays the red breeches flamed in a vivid, bloody hue, and buttons, bayonets, all polished bits of metal alternately flashed and vanished.

The force of artillery was too weak to risk an advance. The colonel who commanded the batteries ordered some shrapnels to be thrown among the advancing lines of French infantry, and was about to move his cannon a little farther back, when an aide dashed up from the right and reported that he had ridden on in advance of the 38th brigade of infantry, one regiment was close behind him, the other was marching as rapidly as possible, and would soon arrive. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" shouted artillerymen, infantry, and dragoons at the top of their voices. "Hurrah! Hurrah!" came back from the distance, and a regiment of infantry, headed by a colonel and a general, advanced at a rapid march in broad, deep columns from the poplar-bordered road across the pathless meadow. The group of officers exchanged greetings with the new arrivals, the general received reports, quickly made himself acquainted with the situation of affairs, and issued orders, signals echoed, in an instant the masses of infantry separated, lines of riflemen darted forward and hurried to the edge of the ravine, down whose slope they were seen running a few minutes later. A second and third rank followed at a short distance, and, almost ere one was aware of it, the whole regiment had poured down into the hollow.

This was the Third Westphalian regiment. It had passed so near the group of dragoon officers that Prince Louis could have distinguished every figure, every face. The poor fellows had been on their feet fourteen hours, marching steadily under the scorching August sun. A thick gray crust of dust, which perspiration had converted into an ugly mask, covered their fresh young faces. The uniforms bore marks of the clay in the various camping grounds where they had halted for a short rest. But nothing now revealed the mortal weariness of the band of heroes. Their eyes, reddened by the heat, blazed with the enthusiasm for battle, their parched throats once more gained power to shout "Hurrah!" with the full strength of their voices; their feet, which but a few minutes ago had dragged along the dusty highway with painful effort, now moved lightly and elastically, it seemed as though the whole regiment had been invigorated by some stimulating drink as it inarched into the line of fire.

The batteries roared above their heads at the French with twofold zeal, "Hurrah, Hurrah!" rose from a thousand throats in the bottom of the ravine, one could hear the roll of the drums sounding the march, and loud shouts and cries. Prince Louis watched the assailants, whose foremost ranks were already climbing the hill on the opposite side.

"Poor fellows!" he thought, "there they go to death as joyously as if it were a kirmess dance. They will shout hurrah till they are hoarse or a bullet silences them. Of what are they thinking? Probably of nothing. A blind impulse to conquer urges them on. And what does victory mean to each individual? What advantage will it be to him? How will it benefit his earthly fate, if he escapes death on the battlefield? The renown of the German name? For me perhaps it has a value. Yet it is not absolutely certain. My uniform will possibly derive a prouder lustre; but I wear it so seldom! If I go to Japan next year, perhaps the Mikado will receive me with more distinction than if I belonged to a conquered nation. Yet whether we mow down the French or they us, I think I shall always receive the same treatment at the Paris Jockey Club and the Nice Cercle de la Mediterranee. So much for me. But these obscure people below--what do they care about military fame and the power of a victorious native land? They will notice nothing of it in their villages. The tax-collector and the gendarme will be just what they were before, and that is all they see of their native country, yet they are filled with enthusiasm. The fact exists. It is as clear as noonday. We owe this to the writers who have given such beautiful pictures of our native land and military renown, and to the schoolmasters, who have instilled their words into the souls of the people. Marvellous power of language, which can incite a prosaic peasant lad to sacrifice life joyfully for an abstract idea, a fancy."

These were his thoughts,--it can neither be denied nor palliated. But while they darted clearly and swiftly through his brain, he felt a mental agitation which surprised and bewildered him. It was a strange perplexity; he felt ashamed and embarrassed; it seemed as though he had uttered his thoughts aloud, and a group of people with grave, noble faces had listened, and were now gazing at him in silence, but with mingled compassion and contempt. From inaccessible depths of his soul, into which his sober, critical, mocking reason did not shine, a mysterious voice appeared to rise, imperiously commanding his scepticism to be silent. "I am right!" reason ventured to murmur. "You are wrong!" thundered the voice from the depths. "I will not consciously permit myself to be made giddy by the dizziness of romantic self-deception!" answered reason--but now Prince Louis felt as though some stranger, from whom he must turn indignantly, was uttering the words.

The Third Westphalian covered the opposite ascent. The foremost ranks were already at the top and paused a moment, for a murderous fire greeted the first heads which appeared, and several men, mortally wounded, rolled down again. But the rest pressed on, using both hands and feet to climb the hill, whose ascent would have been mere sport for fresh youths, skilled in gymnastic exercises, but which must have seemed terribly steep to harassed, exhausted troops. As they worked their way upward with the utmost zeal, evidently striving to excel one another, Prince Louis thought of some stanzas in the Winter Tale of his favorite author, Heine:

"That lovable, worthy Westphalian race,
I ever have loved it extremely,
A nation so firm, so faithful, so true,
Ne'er given to boasting unseemly.
How proudly they stood with their lionlike hearts
In the noble science of fencing"--[1]

And with their "lion-like hearts" they reached the crest of the hill and, summoning all their remaining breath, dashed forward. But the French, comparatively unwearied and, roused to the highest pitch of combativeness by the appearance of the enemy directly in their front, threw themselves upon them in greatly superior numbers, and after a close fight, which by the front ranks of both forces was actually conducted in certain places with steel weapons, forced them back to the ravine. It was impossible to make a stand there, the poor Westphalians were obliged to wheel, and tumbled heels over head down the slope again, not without leaving a number of killed and wounded. The French were close behind and reached the bottom of the gorge almost at the same time. The Westphalians attempted to climb up the opposite side again, and then those who were left behind witnessed a heart-rending spectacle. The German soldiers were so utterly exhausted that their limbs could not carry them up the ascent, gentle as it was. They sank down in throngs as though paralysed, the muskets dropped from their nerveless hands, which no longer obeyed their will, and the French could seize hundreds of them and lead them away as prisoners, while many fell on the way and were left lying on the ground by the foe.

Meanwhile a great bustle rose. The Eighth Westphalian regiment had just come up and, while the batteries moved rapidly back toward the village in the rear, the former, led by the general in person, dashed down into the ravine to the aid of their sorely imperilled companions. The French recoiled before the shock and a large number of the prisoners were recaptured. Yet the first assault did not succeed in dislodging the foe; the French obstinately maintained their position at the foot of the opposite height, and when attacked there, amid great loss, with the bayonet, retired step by step up the scarf and again made a stand at its top. A double flank movement of the Westphalians, however, compelled them to retire somewhat quickly, and the latter, stimulated by the sight, pressed after them cheering.

But this favourable turn did not last long. During the struggle for the possession of the valley, the foe had not remained inactive. New masses of infantry were brought up, and in the distance cavalry appeared, moving slowly forward.

Prince Louis had watched the course of the battle with increasing excitement, feeling his heart alternately beat joyously with twofold rapidity and then contract in pain till it seemed to stop. The situation now seemed to him critical and, glancing around, he found the same feeling expressed in the looks and faces of the other officers. But the colonel had already beckoned to his orderly and sprung into the saddle. The trumpets sounded the first signal, a sudden movement ran through the ranks of the dragoons, in an instant all were in the saddle, sabre-sheaths clanked against stirrups, the chains and bars of the bits rattled as the horses tossed their heads, then there was a second blare of trumpets, a shrill neighing, a loud snorting, the pawing and stamping of hoofs, swords flew from their sheaths, and the troop of horsemen was in motion.

Prince Louis looked at his watch--it was half-past six o'clock. As, at the head of the first squadron, he rode a short distance behind the colonel, the aides of the regiment, and the trumpeters, a strange mood which he had never before experienced came over him. The painful excitement and quivering impatience, which, during the last half-hour, had made his veins throb to his finger-tips, merged into a joyous consciousness of purposeful activity, which restored his calmness. Now he no longer reflected and criticised. It seemed as if the doubting spirit had been driven out of him and he was obeying eagerly, confidently, and devoutly as a child a command which filled his whole being with an overwhelming desire to press forward. This man, so proud of his personality, who had always sought his happiness in the unrestricted exercise of his individuality, now felt his ego shrivel until it was imperceptible. He was only a tiny stone in a piece of mosaic, which formed a noble masterpiece only as a whole. A mighty power, call it a law of nature or the will, whose manifestation is the history of the world, had entered into and taken complete possession of him. It was not he who now directed his fate, it was decided by some unknown being outside of him. Had he been the most remarkable human being on earth, a Newton, a Goethe, nay, the Saviour Himself, he would now have weighed no more in the balance than the nameless Brandenberg farm-hand by his side, he would now have had in the mechanism of the world only the value of a dozen screws or rivets. And, strangely enough, this merging of his individuality into a whole, as a crystal of sugar dissolves in water, awakened neither discomfort nor regret. On the contrary, it was an unknown delight, which pervaded his whole frame and sent a little shiver of pleasure down his spine. He felt himself a very small personage, and yet, at the same time, a very great one, who had far outstripped the bounds of his individuality. It seemed as though he was borne helplessly on by a mighty power, and the thought entered his mind that Ganymede must have had similar sensations when he flew heavenward between the rustling pinions of the eagle. He was now experiencing the deep and mighty emotion for which he had always longed, and he had obtained it by emerging from his selfish seclusion and finding a point of connection with all mankind.

The regiment went down the slope at a walk, describing a wide curve, partly to make the descent more easily, partly to avoid the dead and wounded lying in heaps upon the ground at the bottom of the declivity. Now the horses climbed the other side in a slanting line and reached the meadow beyond. At a signal from the trumpets, the regiment formed in two divisions which trotted forward, offering a wide front, still keeping obliquely to the left for a time, past the cheering Westphalians, and finally rushing straight upon the foe.

The thunder of the artillery in front ceased and echoed only from the distance at the right. From the opposite direction a regiment of cuirassiers came to meet the dragoons. A few hundred yards separated the front ranks of the two, and the trumpets of both regiments could be heard at the same time. The order to attack was given, and with frantic haste, the lines dashed over the resonant clay soil, which was absolutely free from dust.

It was like a scene from the legends of the Norse gods. The cuirassiers, riding straight toward the westering sun, glittered and flashed with fairy-like radiance, their shining sword-blades looked like tongues of fire, their cuirasses and helmets blazed as if they were at a white heat, their whole van was steeped in dazzling light, as though surrounded by a halo. The German dragoons had the sun directly on their backs. The long black shadows of the horses and riders dashed over the ground before them, as if the cruel shadows of death were preceding the living against the proud cuirassiers. Now the ranks met with a terrible crash. The supernaturally majestic scene was transformed in an instant into a horrible, formless chaos. Overthrown by the force of the shock, horses and riders rolled upon the earth. Masterless steeds dashed wildly in every direction, revolvers snapped, sword-blades clashed, the horses uttered short, harsh screams, the Frenchmen fought amid oaths and exclamations, the Germans, with clinched teeth, dealt blows around them, swords were buried in the bodies of enemies, without their owners clearly seeing what they were doing, single pairs of foes, hacking furiously at each other, were suddenly separated by a movement of their horses and brought in front of new antagonists, only to find themselves the next moment again in a dense throng, thigh pressing against thigh, arms firmly pinioned, panting into each other's faces, while the rearing horses tried to bite one another. This frenzied medley lasted perhaps two, perhaps three, minutes. In spite of the irregular swaying to and fro of the mass, the dragoons had constantly advanced, and now the cuirassiers suddenly wheeled their horses and, bending low in their saddles, dashed off in a stretching gallop. An exultant "Hurrah!" burst like a peal of thunder from the breasts of the terribly excited dragoons, and their steeds, with the blood dripping from their torn flanks, their chests covered with flakes of foam, continued their victorious race, while on the field behind lay hundreds of French and Germans, dead and wounded.

Signals, shouts, and the waving of sabres gradually slackened the onward rush of the conquerors and brought them to a halt on the brink of a narrow stream. It seemed to Prince Louis like waking from a dream, as he patted the neck of his gallant horse and, panting for breath, gazed around him. On the opposite side batteries were seen moving rapidly away, the remnants of the cuirassier regiment were following the artillery, and in the distance, on both sides, columns of infantry were hurrying back, not without pouring upon the dragoons, during the retreat, an irregular and ineffective fire.

"Strange," said a very young lieutenant beside the prince, showing him his sword, "half the blade is covered with blood, and cannot have received the stain except in a Frenchman's body. Yet I cannot recall how it happened."

Prince Louis was about to answer, when he suddenly received a tremendous thrust in the breast, as if dealt by the hand of an invisible giant or the tip of a bull's horn, and, with a low cry, he pressed his hand upon the painful spot. He withdrew it stained with blood, and could just grasp the thought that a bullet had pierced him ere his senses failed.

When he regained his consciousness, he found himself lying on the trampled turf with his head resting on a saddle. His coat was unbuttoned and a number of his comrades were busying themselves about him. He felt no pain, only an inexpressible weariness and a strange, almost indescribable feeling, something like an internal trickling, which appeared to be rising into his throat and forced him to struggle for breath like a drowning man.

"How do you feel, Prince?" asked the lieutenant-colonel, bending anxiously over him.

"I feel," he answered softly, "as if I ought to shout: Long live the king! Long live our native land!" Then, after a brief pause, he added almost inaudibly, while a barely perceptible smile flickered over his white lips: "But I certainly am not at a public meeting."

These were his last words.

[1] English translation.

THE ART OF GROWING OLD.

Baron Robert von Linden was standing between the panels of his triple mirror. The sunlight of a bright May morning was streaming upon him through the lofty window so brilliantly that it made the places which it illumined almost transparent. He put his face very close to the crystal surface, so that it nearly touched and he was obliged to hold his breath in order not to dim it, examining his reflected image a long time, with a scrutiny which at once seeks and fears discoveries, looked at himself in front, then from the side, changed the light, sometimes bringing his face under the full radiance of the sunshine, sometimes receiving it at different angles or shading himself slightly with his hand. At last, sighing heavily, he stepped back, laid the tortoise-shell comb and ivory brush on the marble washstand, sank into the arm-chair standing in the corner, and bowed his head on his breast, while his arms hung at full length as if nerveless.

Alas! the hour when he made his morning toilet was no longer a happy one for Baron Robert. He dreaded the inexorable mirror, and yet self-torturing curiosity impelled him to inspect his face with the keen observation of a Holbein. Not even the least deterioration in his appearance escaped his search and scrutiny. He perceived and examined all the ravages which life had made in his exterior: the lines crossing the brow, the little wrinkles extending from the corners of the eyes toward the temples, the deep ones, as well as those which seemed, as it were, lightly sketched with a faint stroke to be more strongly marked later, and which were now visible only in a side-light, the creased appearance of the lower eyelids and the space between the inner corners of the eyes and the bridge of the nose, the granulated condition of the smoothly shaven cheeks, which resembled the peel of ripe oranges or fine Morocco leather; the flabbiness of the narrow strip of skin between the edge of the beard and the ears, which looked as if it had been lightly powdered with greyish-yellow dust; the pallor near the cheek-bone, which was as colourless and withered as a dead tea-rose leaf. He counted the white hairs already visible on the temples--he pulled out the ones in the moustache--let the sunbeams play over his hair and, turning and bending his head, saw that it was growing thinner and, from the brow to the crown, showed the smooth scalp shining through. The investigation lasted a long while, he performed it with cruel thoroughness, locking himself into his room meanwhile, since he would not allow even his valet to be a witness of the painful discoveries of which he believed that he alone was aware.

Perhaps he was not mistaken in this comforting supposition. His appearance as a whole was still handsome and stately. Time had not marred the lines of his slender figure, no increase of flesh enlarged his girth, no weakness made his shoulders droop and rounded his back, and when dressed with exquisite taste, and carrying his head proudly erect, he walked with a light, elastic step through the streets or across the carpet of a drawing-room, he would have been taken at a distance, or if one was a little near-sighted, not only for a handsome man, but even for one still young.

He said this to himself when, after a few minutes of discouragement, he rose from the arm-chair, hastily completed his toilet, and again looked at the whole effect in the mirror, this time not close at hand, but from a distance of several paces.

Some one knocked at the door. "The doctor," said the servant's voice.

"I'm coming," replied Baron Robert, hastening to open the door and enter the adjoining drawing-room, where Dr. Thiel was awaiting him. He came regularly one morning every week to see the baron before the latter went out; for Baron Robert was a little anxious about his health, and liked to be told by the physician, who was also his friend, that certain trifling symptoms--great thirst on a hot day, slight fatigue after a ball, a little heaviness in his limbs after a long walk, were of no importance.

"Well, how are you to-day?" cried Dr. Thiel, rising to meet him.

"Fairly well," replied Linden, clasping both his hands.

"Yet, surely you look rather downcast?" asked the physician.

"For good reasons," answered Linden sighing.

"What is the matter now? Have you no appetite after eating? Do you feel more tired at midnight than in the morning?"

"Don't ridicule me. You don't know what day this is."

Thiel looked at him inquiringly.

"My birthday," said Linden mournfully.

"Why, to be sure," cried Thiel, "let me see, what one is it?"

"No number," interrupted Linden quickly, covering his friend's mouth with his hand.

"You're worse than a coquette," remarked Thiel, pushing his hand away. He had had "an old coquette" on the tip of his tongue, but suppressed the adjective. "A man can speak of his age without regret, when he is only in the mid-forties."

"Not yet the middle, I beg of you," Linden eagerly protested, "I am forty-four years old to-day."

Thiel smiled. "Well, I wish you many happy----"

Linden did not let him finish. "Happiness! Happiness! Is there any happiness after youth is over?"

"Everything depends upon what is meant by happiness."

Linden did not seem to hear what Thiel was saying, but pursued his own train of thought. "How futile your science is! You find a bacillus here, a ptomain there. What use is that to me? None! Teach me how to keep young forever, then I shall have some respect for your staring into your beloved microscope. The ancients alone were right in that, as in everything else. To die young. In undiminished vigour. The gods can bestow no greater happiness. What is there to seek in life when youth has fled?"

"Nothing, of course, if, like a drone, we have but a single task in existence: to live. A drone must die, when it has performed its mission. I am not at all blind to the beauty of the butterfly, which lets its magnificent velvet wings glisten in the sunshine throughout a long summer day, and has no organs for receiving nourishment, but does nothing except hover around flowers and the females of his species, wooing and loving, and dies in the evening without ever waking from his ecstasy of delight. It is the same thing with the flower. It blooms, exhales its fragrance, displays beautiful forms and colours merely for the purpose of propagation, withering quickly when that purpose is attained. The butterfly and the flower are both beautiful. Yet, after all, they are inferior forms of life, and man is higher, though he does not exhale fragrance and usually possesses no velvet wings."

"Is it so absolutely certain that man is superior? For my part I envy the butterfly and the flower, which perish in the full glory of youth, beauty, and love. That is the way I have always imagined an existence worth living. A dazzling display of fireworks. A sudden flashing, flaming, crackling, and detonating amid the darkness. A triumphant ascent of glittering balls and serpents, before whose splendid hues the stars of heaven pale. At every rain of fire and explosion, a rapturous, ah! and a thunder of applause from the gaping Philistines, who are in a tumult of ecstasy at the sight, and thus, without cessation, have flash follow flash, and report report, in a continual increase of magnificence, until the closing piece on whose marvellous splendour darkness must fall with no transition. That is life. That is happiness. But the rockets must always be fully charged. Otherwise they will not fly upward amid universal admiration to the stars, but fizz a little, hop up with ridiculous effort, fall plump, and go out pitifully in a malodorous smoke. A dismal end."

Robert was silent a moment, evidently pursuing his picture in his mind. Then, as if it were the final result of his train of thought, he added:

"Yes, Doctor, if you could only put a fresh charge into a half-exploded rocket."

The doctor smiled.

"To remain always young, we need only do at every age what harmonises with it."

Linden looked disappointed. But Thiel, without allowing himself to be disturbed by it, continued:

"Are you not young at twenty? Well, play with a humming-top in the streets at that age, and every one who passes will exclaim: 'What an old clown! Aren't you ashamed of yourself?' At fifty you consider yourself old. If, at fifty, you are a commander-in-chief or a chancellor, everybody will say: 'So young a general; a minister so young!'"

Linden rose and went to the window. Thiel followed, laid his hand on his shoulder, looked him directly in the eye, and said very earnestly:

"Believe me, dear Baron Linden, that is the secret of perpetual youth--there is no other. A man in the forties is not old--unless he cannot resolve to give up the conceits of a page."

"Always the same song!" Linden impatiently exclaimed. "Must I renounce love?"

"Yes," replied Thiel firmly.

"I must voluntarily renounce happiness?"

"In your case love is not always synonymous with happiness," said Thiel with a significant smile.

"You are particularly agreeable to-day," remarked Linden sullenly.

"I owe you the truth. It is a professional and, at the same time, a friendly duty," said Thiel, rising to go. Linden parted from him with a silent clasp of the hand.

"Renounce love! No. That he really could not do. Love was the sole purpose of his life which, without it, would seem as cold and gloomy as a grave."

He was a chosen vessel of pleasure, and apparently destined by nature to be borne through life in women's arms, handsome, captivating, a flash of passion in his tender eyes, his lips yearning for kisses, regarded by the men with wrath and envy, by the women with glowing cheeks and bewildered hearts. When barely a youth, a page of the Grand Duchess, his attractive person and winning grace turned the heads of all the ladies of the court, and it was rumoured that a princess had been his first teacher in the arts of love and, even after decades had passed, still grieved over their memory. As the Hereditary Grand Duke's adjutant, he had scarcely anything to do except to continue to compose his long love-poem, and add verse after verse. At thirty he resigned from active service, which had never been active for him, and became manager of the court stage. His brief love-conflicts and easy victories now had another scene for display. After the society of the court the dramatic arts: dancing, singing, acting without choice, or rather with the choice indued by the desire for beauty, and--change. The years elapsed like a series of pictures from the fairy-tale of Prince Charming. They formed a frieze of bewitching groups in all the attitudes which express wooing and granting, languishing and triumphing. Each year was a Decameron, each month a sensuous Florentine tale, with a woman's name for title and contents. What a retrospect! His past life resembled a dream whose details blended indistinctly with one another, leaving only a confused recollection of sighs, kisses, and tears, melting eyes, half-parted lips, and loosened tresses, a memory as deliciously soft as a warm, perfumed bath, in whose caressing waters, in a chamber lit by a rose-hued lamp, one almost dissolves, and yields with thoughts half merging into slumber.

But the dream seemed to be drawing to a close. Of late a cold hand had touched Baron Robert, at first considerately, then more and more imperiously, to rouse him. He could no longer shut his eyes and ears to the signs and warnings: for they daily became plainer and more frequent, not merely in his mirror, but also in the unintentionally cruel words of the world, that other still more inconsiderate mirror. The pretty ingenue of his theatre, one of his last conquests, had recently after a private supper, while sitting on his knee and stroking his face, said to him with overflowing tenderness:

"What a wonderfully handsome man you must have been!"

He had thrust her from him like a viper with so hasty a movement that the poor girl hardly knew what had happened. She did not suspect that she had thrust a dagger into the heart of the man she loved. At balls, young girls now, after a rapid waltz, whispered, blushing: "I am afraid you are tired," and in the German other partners, who were neither so handsome nor so elegant as he, but young and lively, attracted more attention from the ladies and obtained more favours. And had not a young attache a short time ago, in reply to the remark that he preferred a sensible conversation with experienced men to any other social pleasure, said with thoughtless impertinence; "Of course, at your age--" He would have boxed his ears, if any lady had been within hearing.

Such frank expressions, which even sensitive people did not avoid, because they did not yet deem him in need of forbearance, caused a degree of depression which, on some days, became actual melancholy. Then he sought a consoling self-deception in memory, and lost himself in dreams of the past, as a proud, brave nation, which has suffered defeat, takes refuge in the history of its former victories, to sustain itself. Shut into his study for hours he again lived over his triumphs, surrounded by their testimonials. He placed before him pictures of himself, taken at different ages. This bewitching page with his smooth, merry face, clad in dainty knee-breeches with bows and a silk doublet, this handsome lieutenant with the downy moustache and the bold, laughing glance, were images of him; he had looked thus, perhaps even better; for he remembered that the likeness, when taken, did not satisfy him, and that everybody thought he was really far handsomer. He opened secret drawers, which exhaled an ungodly perfume, very faint, almost imperceptible, like a faded, ghostly odour, yet which excited the nerves in a peculiar way, and somewhat quickened the pulsation of the heart. These were the archives of the history of his own heart. There lay in piles packages of letters, methodically tied with coloured ribbons, withered flowers, whose leaves fell from the corona if touched ever so lightly, faded bows, torn laces, which still seemed to palpitate under the rude grasp of a hand rummaging among them, paper German favours, from which the gloss and gilding had peeled, other shapeless, disconnected bits of tinsel which were incomprehensible unless one knew the memory associated with them, and among the strange, motley chaos, the most personal mementoes: women's hair smooth, curled, braided, long, and short, arranged by a true eye, with scandalously cool composure, upon a pale lilac varnished board, in a wonderful scale of colours, from the highest pitch, the fair locks of the Englishwoman, resembling a delicate halo, through almost imperceptible gradations to the deep, shining blue-black of the Sicilian, and portraits in every form which fashion has devised during the last twenty-five years, and from which the eternal feminine looked, lured, and smiled in a hundred charming embodiments. A circle of spectres rose from these drawers and whirled around him, stretching white arms toward him and fixing upon him tearful or glowing eyes. All these cheeks had flushed beneath his kisses, all these bosoms had been pressed to his own, all these tresses his trembling fingers had smoothed, surely he might call himself happier than most mortals, since so much of love's bliss had filled all the hours of his existence.

Doubtless he did say this to himself after such revelling in the past, but in his inmost heart he did not believe it. Don Juan does not peruse the list of the thousand and three himself. He leaves it to Leporello while he, without a glance at the older names, increases the succession. The day when the cavalier begins to study his list, his wisest course would be to burn it, for then it will no longer be a triumph, but a humiliation.

Robert von Linden felt this, but he would not admit it. On the contrary, he intentionally endeavoured to deceive himself. He who had been a Grand Seigneur of love, became a snob of love. He sank to the level of the irresistible travelling salesman who tells the tale of his successes in foreign taverns. He had always left drawing-room gossip to spread his reputation with its thousand tongues and, by the mere mention of his name, fill maids and matrons with an exciting mixture of timid fear and eager yearning, indignant pride and tender pity. Now a torturing anxiety beset him lest his great deeds might be forgotten, and he humbled himself to the character of bard of his own epic poem. He told his last conquests who, naturally, with self-torturing curiosity inquired about it, chapter after chapter of the romance of his heart, half-opened his famous drawers and permitted them to catch a glimpse of letters, likenesses, and locks of hair; he strove to soothe his self-esteem by showing what passions he had inspired, at the risk of having his fair listener, with a secret smile, imagine exaggeration where, in reality, he was merely boasting.

Such was his mental condition at this time. He had toilsomely erected a sort of sham paradise of stage scenery, in which he continued to play the character of the youthful lover, which he was scarcely entitled to continue in life, and now this luckless doctor, with a careless movement, had thrown down all the painted canvasses with their artificial scenes.

Thiel's brutal remark: "You must renounce love," was still echoing painfully in his soul when he entered the home of Frau von der Lehde, with whom according to old habit, he dined once a week.

Else von der Lehde was a year or two older than he. She had been maid of honor to the princess, when Robert was a page. She had loved him deeply, fervently, and received a little responsive affection in return. But that was already so far back in the past. It was a distant memory, suffused with the rosy light of dawn, associated with all the new, fresh feelings of her life, youth, the awakening of her heart, first love, jealousy, and torment. The little idyl, in its day, was noticed by every one, but people were disposed to regard it as harmless, and Else herself afterward strove to see it in the same light, though she was well aware of its real condition. Still, a beardless boy of eighteen could not seriously compromise a young lady of twenty, who had been in society three winters. He was so far from doing so, that the whispers and smiles of this society did not prevent her becoming the wife of President von der Lehde who, after fifteen years of wedded life, left her a childless widow in the most pleasant circumstances. Else had never ceased to be completely enthralled by Robert. During her husband's life-time, she had imagined that it was friendship, sisterly, almost maternal friendship. When Herr von der Lehde died, she no longer had any motive for playing a farce with her own conscience, and she told Robert plainly that she expected him now to marry her. He was very much surprised and even slightly amused. Thirty-three years old, at the zenith of his success, living actually in the midst of a flickering blaze of ardent love, he had the feeling that it was a very comical idea for a woman who was his elder, with whom for a decade and a half he had lived on terms of wholly unobjectionable friendship, and whom he had often unhesitatingly made the confidante of his love-affairs, suddenly to wish him to marry her. To return after the lapse of fifteen years to a dish which he had once tasted with the eagerness of a greedy boy! This was not to be expected. Love permits no Rip van Winkle adventures. It cannot be taken up where it was interrupted a generation before. Its drama, whether it is to close as comedy or tragedy, must be played without long intermissions in a continuous performance to the end, in order not to become intolerably tiresome and foolish.

Robert did not conceal this from Else, though he endeavoured to find softening expressions. But oratorical caution does not deceive a woman who is in love. Else was very unhappy over the rebuff. Her passion, however, was stronger than her pride, and she humbled herself to entreaties, persuasions, persistent pleading. Robert, to whom the situation was becoming extremely uncomfortable, ceased to call upon the irritated and excited woman and, as Mahomet showed himself unhesitatingly ready to come to the mountain when the mountain did not come to Mahomet, Robert refused to see his persecutor. For a time Frau von der Lehde was filled with the most bitter resentment against the man who disdained her. She had worked herself up into the idea that he owed her expiation, if not before the world, surely before her own conscience, and it seemed to her dishonourable that he should evade his duty. But her indignation did not last. She could no longer live without Robert, and as he quietly left her to sulk and did not make the slightest attempt to conciliate her, after several sleepless nights she one day wrote a little note in which she gently reproached him for so culpably neglecting her, and expressed the hope that he would dine with her the next day, and by his own observation, convince himself that her grief for his long absence was really injuring her looks. How wearily she had striven to prevent letting a tear fall upon the tinted paper, what heroic courage she had expended in finding sportive turns of speech, subdued, even mirthful expressions, could not be perceived in the little missive. Robert read it with distrust, but, in spite of the most cautious scrutiny, he did not find a single word whose vehemence could disquiet him, not a single letter which was nervously emphasized or written, or betrayed a trembling hand, so he accepted the invitation.

Frau von der Lehde made no mistake. Her self-control did not desert her a moment. She received Robert calmly and affectionately, as though nothing had occurred between them, the dinner passed delightfully in easy, gay conversation about all sorts of indifferent matters, and when he was leaving she held out both hands and said, looking directly into his eyes:

"Tuesday, at least, shall again be mine in future, shall it not?"

He kissed her hand, touched by such unselfish, faithful devotion.