Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

Although the two boarders and the nephew were quite sufficiently wearisome in their enamored state, she was not bored; she was only conscious of herself and of the incense of sacrifice which arose under her nostrils and seemed to invigorate her. The three men were alike indifferent to her; they were only the vessels in which the incense was burnt.

After such an evening she was gay and strong as a young goddess. The next day she was indefatigably at work, imposed even more respect than usual on her people, and felt exceedingly well.

On Saturday evenings the Kirsten girls had a way of strolling up with their friends; but it was not long before first one and then another came with them, whom they had met on the way and did not know how to shake off. This annoyed Röse and Marie very much. "These people are in the way," they said--"we like to be by ourselves." But Beate Rauchfuss said, "Oh, let them come--it doesn't make any difference."

"Of course they all run after you, because they think there's something to get," said Röse. "You'd better tell them you don't mean to have anything to say to them. What do you want of _them_? You've got _us_!"

The old Sperbers began to be overburdened by the multitude of young people who developed a desire to visit them; and the nephew in particular grew tired of it. So they decided to give Beate Frau Kummerfelden's old friend, the Raven-mother, as a chaperon. She was quite capable of keeping ten suitors in their proper place, and was useful for anything; she could watch the dead and the sick--then why not for once the beauty of a young girl?

She was the widow of the tinsmith Lange; she had married all her children, and so was ready to come to the service of her friends and acquaintances. She was even to be called upon for poetical effusions for special occasions; under the great Saint Christopher's cloak that she wore winter and summer alike beat a feeling heart, and a noble soul dwelt in the big strong body.

She was only too glad to go up to the Ettersberg as Beate's chaperon. It was the beginning of winter when they sent for her. For some time she had been wishing for something of the sort. Up there on the fine farm she would be very comfortable. When the snow lay on the ground, she would not have far to go to find her little pensioners, the ravens, whom she was accustomed to provide with food when the fields were snow-covered.

She came up to the Rauchfuss farm at the beginning of November. "By spring we'll be having a wedding," old Sperber had said to her. "I don't know why this girl, who ought for all reasons to choose a husband nicely and quietly, should be such a burning hay-rick! And the rascal likes it; just as a drinker enjoys his wine, so she enjoys the lovesighs of all these asses. Ah, there you are--the sins of the fathers upon the children, unto the third and fourth generation!" Old Sperber looked very black; he was displeased with Herr Rauchfuss's Tubby.

"What foolishness is this?" he said to her. "Down in the town a girl takes what she can get and is thankful--but you make everything that's got legs trudge all this long way up the hill. You know, you ought to be ashamed of yourself. A girl ought to have more discretion."

At this the girl laughed rather haughtily. Her heart was still free, and simply running over with the happiness of earth. No matter what was said to her, she heard only half of it. She seemed to have wrapped herself up in a sort of chrysalis. Her soul was round as a ball, without any angles on which cares could be hung, or cracks into which they could insinuate themselves--a fair ball of crystal, with light shining all about and through it.

It is a wonderful thing, the perfect egoism of early youth, the way it has no ears for the words of reason and wisdom, and only half an ear for anything else. Like a distant noise and bustle sound the world's doings amid the undisturbed content of self-centred youth and beauty.

But quite respectable personages came wandering all the long way up the hill. Herr Oehmchen and Herr Leinhose were indefatigable. With them came not seldom the young widow with the heart-shaped face, in the wise conviction that the dangerous maiden could at worst take only one of her well-nourished boarders from her, and that it would pay her to keep on good terms with both.

Besides these a courtier often came up, a man who had in the neighborhood of Weimar a rather heavily mortgaged estate. But he had also faultless manners, an extraordinarily small head and aristocratic hands. He could look back upon a long line of ancestors, who had all nibbled away something of his property and his personality; there was little of either left, and it was extremely sensible of him to think of supplementing them. He was superior to all the others when it came to a question of form, and so made a great impression on them. They considered him a dangerous rival, and rejoiced when he was obliged to stay in his town house--for he went to court--when they had anything on like a sleigh-ride or a dance; in fact, they arranged such things if possible on days when they knew he would have to be absent.

Dances, musical evenings, masked balls, sewing-circles were abundant that winter in Weimar, and the pretty Rauchfuss girl was asked to everything--now it was one paying attention to her, now another. She had plenty of cavaliers: all the marriageable merchants' sons of the town, young lawyers--in brief, the wooers recruited themselves from the entire circle of the townspeople, and even beyond it. The hunt was on, and every one joined it who could.

She loved dancing. It seemed to her the most glorious thing in the world to forget herself, to let herself dissolve in music and motion. She distinguished her suitors only by their ability as dancers; as to their intellectual capacity, which indeed was not specially noticeable in any of them, she easily confused them. She herself was without any instinct of the chase or desire for conquest, simply contented and happy in herself.

So the time passed on. The impatience of the aspirants might well have seemed to her like a flood rising to her very lips, threatening and terrifying her, or like a row of insistent creditors, with herself sitting in her little room in peace and letting them knock and call as loud as they would. She did not realize the impatience of the hunters; they seemed all so foreign, so far off to her.

To take one of these strangers into her house, to have him always about, to be obliged to see him every day, seemed a thing so distasteful and impossible that the thought did not even trouble her. But she dreamed of wonders--of one whom she would long to love. She felt something strong, great and good in herself, and realized at the same time her ignorance and her limitations. Her longing for freedom was also a longing for breadth, a desire to escape from all that was narrow, a will to grow.

Hitherto no one had offered her the bread of life; and she was hungry. Her beauty had in it something sleeping, something strong, that yearned to be active in this world and beyond; but no one offered to nourish this wonderful thing. What they offered her was no royal, soul-strengthening food; it was but ordinary, every-day diet, on which she would pine away and starve.

Yes ... she dreamed long, amidst all her suitors, of an awakening compared with which the life which these others called into being in her was but a deep, dull sleep.

The Raven-mother took delight in observing that the fortress she was set to guard showed no signs of surrendering; for so the comfortable existence up at the Rauchfuss farm might prolong itself a while longer.

On Sunday afternoons and evenings they had the most of their visitors. Then came the suitors, the Kirsten girls with their friends, the pretty young widow, and often the good Kummerfelden, who took great delight in listening to the irrational chatter of the amorous youths.

"These men-creatures are enough to drive one mad when they're in love," she said once to the Raven-mother. "The bird sings his prettiest songs to his mate and finds the nicest things to tell her; but men, with the exception of a few, who immediately print their pretty phrases, talk miserable rubbish. It positively makes my hair stand on end when I think that they used to do exactly the same in my day, and I didn't take it in ill part. They are only really clever when they're driven into a corner and can't help themselves; it must be a fearful strain on them."

"Yes," said the Raven-mother, "it's as if they thought that a fresh girl like that could only be caught by extraordinary nonsense--to be sure, she laughs at their foolishness; but I tell you she's a cool head all the same."

"And she's right," said Frau Kummerfelden.

But the talk of two old women is a dry affair. In the spring twilight they were sitting by the window in the great living-room; the young people were playing forfeits. In the next room the table was laid for supper.

They had passed a good many merry Sunday afternoons and evenings with the object of all this devotion, harmless, amusing hours, in which the suitors forgot what had brought them there and enjoyed themselves just like other people. But tonight there seemed to be a sort of spring fever in the air. Outside a cold, persistent rain could be heard falling, in spite of the new leaves on the trees. In the chicken-house the fowls were clucking in a Sunday afternoon ennui. The wretched rain had interfered with the usual Sunday occupations of the men and maids. Footsteps dragged across the yard in whose very sound discontent and boredom could be detected. The raindrops beat against the window-panes, or when the wind dropped, came down like a soft gray curtain.

The little town of Weimar, with all its distinguished men, lay hidden in mist and equally bored at the foot of the long slope of the Ettersberg, looking like any other little country town in the rain--comfortless and desolate'. In the midst of the loneliness and the spring rain, sounded now and then the note of a thrush, crying for the sun.

The Kirsten girls and their comrades had slipped up in spite of rain and mud, because they hoped that on such a day the amorous youths, the donkeys, as they called them, would stay at home. But the same thought had struck others. Each had hoped not to find the rest and to be able to show off his own personality; and all had been disappointed.

The object of their devotion was in anything but a good mood. A sort of disgust had seized her as all the dripping, commonplace figures divested themselves of their outer garments at the door with much noise and snorting. The stable-girl had to clean off their muddy boots, or, in case they had brought another pair to change, take the wet ones away to dry them at the stove.

Each one that came in seemed to make a great deal more noise than there was any need of. To the young girl they all seemed like blustering husbands; she too would rather have been alone with the Kirsten girls and their friends. Today all these strange men oppressed her, each of them coming with the hope of remaining at home there, master of all. They seemed positively shameless to her. A heavy sadness came upon her. She thought of her mother's marriage, of the quiet woman's hard-working life, of her loneliness, of the indifference she had to bear, of the warm, sorrowful embraces she had for her child.

"A pretty situation!" The young girl grew full of anger and disgust. "Has one of these men who come here given me anything that I didn't know all about? They are tiresome! If I were to take one of them, he'd soon forget to notice that I was beautiful. What is there left, then?"

They played at forfeits, the restless, discontented thoughts of them all making the very air of the room heavy. At supper, too, it was not so lively as at other times. The hostess was silent, not beaming as usual with the consciousness of her youth and beauty.

For the first time since she awoke to the carefree joy of budding youth, the ball of crystal that was her soul seemed stained and darkened; it no longer swam in the sunlight, shot through and through by the rays.

About nine o'clock, when the rain was coming down in torrents, and it had been proposed that the Kirsten girls should spend the night with Beate, their three comrades and Frau Kummerfelden at the Sperbers', while the suitors would have to accustom themselves gradually to the idea of going out into the wind and wet, there came a loud ring at the gate of the courtyard.

"For heaven's sake!" cried the Raven-mother. The rest sat in silent wonder; their number was complete--who could it be?

"Perhaps it's another one coming over from the Sperbers'," said Röse.

"Heaven forbid!" said Beate. She was thinking, "It will be no life at all if I marry one of these--it would be a hopeless business." And she felt again the strength of her longing, hungry young soul, which yearned to grow and yet no one would give it its food.

She was lost in these thoughts, in her new strange pain, when the stable-girl came in out of breath and said, "I've just let in a strange gentleman, who asks leave to wait a little while till the weather's not so bad. He's come across country, he says."

"Well," said the Raven-mother, "is he a proper sort of a person?"

"Oh yes!" The stable-girl brought her hand down on her thigh in emphatic assurance. "He's certainly a gentleman, even if he is wet through." All laughed loudly. The sudden burst of laughter rose up as unexpectedly as a covey of birds startled by a pedestrian in a quiet stubble-field.

Before it had died away, Beate said to the girl, "Bring him in and do what you can for him."

The Raven-mother also rose, saying, "We'll have a look at him. Didn't he give his name?"

"Engraver Kosch, he said three times--and how he said it!" answered the sturdy girl, grinning. "And he said other things too ... that he came from White of Egg, he said, and Ashes or ... I don't know what all else." The girl rubbed her arms and kept on grinning. "I was to tell you that, he said. He was brewed and baked, he said just the same way as the people up here."

The courtier jumped up, crying, "We can't have him in here--he's a lunatic! It's quite impossible, my dear Mamsell Rauchfuss."

Beate smiled. "If he's brewed and baked in the same way as all of us, why not?"

"Because that's foolishness," said the Sperbers' nephew.

"Foolish?" said the much-courted one, laughing. "Are we then from White of Egg?"

"But, my dear Mamsell," said Herr von Mengersen, "these are things ..."

"And he said more ... other kinds of things," said the maid, laughing.

"Be quiet!" commanded the courtier.

"No, no," said the girl, "I wasn't going to say anything. That was just for us."

"Go!" cried the courtier, stretching out his long, soft hands as if to ward off some danger. "Remember that there are young ladies present."

"Leave the room, you stupid creature!" growled the Sperbers' nephew. "Off with you!"

Still grinning, the maid disappeared. Beate laughed. It seemed as if fresh air had come into the room. She drew a long breath. How much merrier and more amusing were the farm men and maids among themselves than her suitors! What sort of things had she herself heard among them? They were not strong on ceremony, and said what they thought.

The Raven-mother came back into the room. "Quite a respectable man," she said with some excitement; "yes, really."

"Is he coming in, then?" cried the Kirsten girls.

And with that he came in, making so low a bow at the door that his long hair fell over his forehead. He stood there modestly--rather poorly dressed, thin, and not specially well cared for. When he raised his head again, he showed a pale, irregular face, looking on the company with sharp gray eyes. His mouth was large and sensible, partly covered by a somewhat bristling, colorless moustache.

He took his place at the table pleasantly enough. He was not a society man, but he seemed to have taken the resolution not to be put out of countenance. His whole person seemed to be permeated by a uniform will. He did not make the impression of having suffered too severely from the weather; he had simply emerged from the storm, like a pike from the water, in gray, unobtrusive apparel. In contrast to him the others all looked over-dressed, hung about with foreign stuffs and incongruous patches--all except the three queens, whose youth and beauty penetrated their clothes with a powerful and living harmony.

He took a seat by Beate. There was a general silence.

"Mr. Engraver," said the Raven-mother, "please help yourself."

"Mr. Engraver?" said the stranger with a peculiar intonation. "Why not, for example, Mr. Walker, Mr. Eater, Mr. Drinker, or Mr. Sleeper? Or ... no, that's enough!" He put the question with great calmness.

"Well ..." said the Raven-mother.

"Yes, of course," said the stranger, "but how do you know that I spend more time, or spend it more pleasantly in scratching on copper than in sleeping or feeding--pardon, eating?"

"Well," said the Raven-mother, "it's customary to call a man according to his most respectable occupation."

"Respectable? I find it, for example, quite respectable to lie on one's stomach on a hot summer day in the field, in front of a mouse-hole and observe the daily occupations of the little gray mistress of the domain. That way one comes nearer to the soul of the world than by engraving what any fool has chosen to smear on canvas. Ah yes ... our respectable professions!"

"Well, but ..." said the Raven-mother, considerably disconcerted, looking around at the other faces. She saw a merry twinkle in the eyes of old Frau Kummerfelden. The Kirsten girls looked very roguish, because they had got launched on a good laugh and had not yet been able to give it free course. Their young comrades gazed with interest on the man who had emerged like a pike from the floods. The suitors looked extremely impatient. Beate's eyes were fastened longingly on the stranger, as if he were cutting the bread of life for her. To be sure, it seemed rather crusty and brittle--but there was something there that had a nourishing flavor.

The stranger's nose had a peculiar shape. It was a nose that seemed somehow rather lonely in the middle of the face with its prominences and depressions. Oh, quite a respectable nose, if one did not make too many claims for beauty on its behalf. It had, as it were, broken away from its companion features; but it seemed somehow to have great affinity and sympathy with the inner being of the stranger. There was something pugnacious about his manner of expressing himself, about his whole bearing and every gesture he made.

"May one ask," began little Madame Kummerfelden, in her charming flowered dress and from under her big cap, "where the gentleman has come from, and where he is purposing to go?"

"I was purposing to pay a visit to your town down there and see your old man."

"The Duke--"

"No."

"His Excellency?" said Frau Kummerfelden in a very polished tone which she enjoyed producing. She knew well how to speak to and of people of rank.

"His Excellency!" said the stranger harshly. "That's the end of it--now you've spoiled the whole thing for me. Now I might just as well turn round and go back the way I came. I come from the Harz country, from one of the many little unknown corners of the earth; and since I'd passed my life among the animals that are called men in those parts, I wanted just once to see the real man who said 'The whole misery of humanity seizes upon me'--and other things like that. I knew it--but now I hear it. 'His Excellency!' Wonderful! And how beautifully you said it, my dear lady. One could see him standing stiffly before one. And I wanted to go in and take him by the hand and say, 'God, I thank Thee that for once Thou hast created something rational, so that people may believe in Thee with a good conscience--for most of Thine images here on earth--well, I don't want to be disrespectful, but really ...!' No, what I was wanting doesn't fit in with bows and ante-chambers. He ought to walk perfectly naked, your 'Excellency,' under grand, lofty trees, on the solemn bare ground!"

"You seem, my dear sir," said the courtier in measured tones, "to have a peculiar conception of his Excellency. It is not the easiest thing in the world to get an audience with him."

"And I don't want one!" said the engraver roughly. "To me at home, in my solitude, he is a wonderful friend whom one loves--as only a lonely man can love a wonderful friend. No, no, you may keep your 'Excellency!'"

Ernst von Schiller, the friend of the Kirsten girls, said, modestly, but enthusiastically: "He pervades all the relations of life--he is stronger than all. The son of well-to-do parents, growing up in a large city, becoming a lawyer, then holding office and rank in narrow little Weimar, becoming a courtier, and always in comfortable circumstances--is there a worse road for genius to travel? And yet he has remained clear-sighted, penetrating, deep, full of kindness--he has never grown dull and heavy."

"Ah ...!" said the engraver passionately. "Who says that? Have you seen him sitting among the poor and miserable? Have you seen him struggling--striving with the powers of life--fighting his way out of darkness? Do you know anything of those mighty forces that press thought out of a man as the winepress squeezes the juice from the grapes? One year without money--one single year without money, without followers--and your 'Excellency' would have become alive as God is alive. There would never have been such a miracle seen on earth. He would have redeemed the world, if he had been inflamed to the very marrow; if he had sat among the wretched, among those who see the world on the side that is in shadow. Ah, to have stood for a little while where they stand who stretch out their arms to their fellow-beings for help, to have wandered for awhile through cities and villages face to face with winter, without knowing where to find shelter or food, to have known a few good comrades among those on whom respectable people spit ...! But now ... I'll put my hand in the fire to show how sure I am ... I might go to his door and knock, and cry, 'Open, brother! One comes that loves you. He comes from the world that has given you your strength, your insight, your greatness, your wonderful goodness. Open to him, as it says in the Song of Solomon ...' He wouldn't even say, as it goes on there, 'I have washed my feet--how shall I defile them?' If my luck was good, I shouldn't even be let in to where his Excellency could hear my voice! Well, all right!"

"But, my good sir," said the courtier, "what would become of his Excellency if he undertook to receive everybody who passed through the town? Only think!"

"I am not everybody!" said the engraver, and stared at the table before him as if he were looking upon the most moving sights. Perhaps he saw himself, his innermost being, his past, all the facts and events that he knew and that concerned no one else.

Beate Rauchfuss felt as if some one who belonged to her had come home. She would not have been surprised if the visitor had said to her, "Well, how is it? Have I changed much in all this time? I hope you will understand me as well as you used to." She spoke no word, or as good as none. If she had let herself go, she would have had to pour out her whole heart to him.

This was a man--a live man. She knew it. None of the people of her acquaintance, it seemed to her, had ever been so much alive. They were all lulled into a stupor by habit becoming second nature. Her father? She half suspected that he might have been alive, if he had chosen. But it hadn't suited him to, and he had drunk to stupefy himself. It was no doubt from him that she inherited the longing to be alive and to live among the living. She could not take her eyes from the keen, alert face, and she felt a stream of life and power flowing to her from him.

But he scarcely noticed her, and went on arguing in his curt, pugnacious way with the suitors, who looked at him as if he were some mad animal.

When the party began to break up, she said to the Raven-mother firmly and audibly, so that they all heard it, "Herr Kosch will stay here. It is too late now for him to go down into Weimar to find an inn. Have the guest-room got ready for him."

These words forced themselves out of her very soul. She seemed to have to lift a ton's weight to speak them. She would not give him up!

And he stayed.

When all had gone, she had a few short moments alone with him in the living-room. He stood with his back to the window and looked about the room. "What will these gentlemen say to your entertaining a chance stranger here? And what do _you_ think of it?"

"I? I think that it is too late for you to find lodgings down in Weimar."

"Oh," he said, "I'm not a princess. I'd have crept into any hole that offered me shelter."

She gazed at him in silence, and blushed a rosy red. There was something of merry mockery in the glance that he fixed on her. "Ah ... women ... women!" he said lightly.

It was as if something had seized her by the throat and strangled her. "That is a man who has been through a great deal," she thought to herself; and she remembered the men's tales about women that she had heard in the servants' hall. "What does he think of me?" Hot tears rose to her eyes. She took a step forward, and tried to speak, but found no words. "I know ..." she said, and could get no further.

"What do you know, child? What should a pretty child like you know?"

She grew deadly pale. "Oh, speak to me as you spoke to the young men! Speak to me as if I were a human being!" There was something beseeching in her voice, and something shy and awkward. She went on hurriedly, like one who has much to say and condenses a great deal into a few words, "Give me your hand, and say quite simply, 'It is good of you to want to keep me here.'"

"Queer little thing!" said the stranger as if to himself, with a cool smile. "What?" His eyes took on a bolder expression.

The girl questioned him in deep excitement: "Have you never met a kind, simple woman, or a girl ...?"

He broke in: "Kind ones there are a-plenty, fair lady."

"No," she said, more calmly now, "I mean a woman who said to you, 'Speak to me as to a human being--tell me what you know and what you think. I need something for my soul to live on!'"

"No," he said, "I have never met one like that. When I have talked to one as to a human being, she always began to yawn."

"Really?" said the girl sadly. "Or is it that it happened two or three times as you say, and then you frightened all the rest?"

"It may be. But it's not a question of much importance."

"Why not!" she asked excitedly.

"Because the most that could come out of it would be a silly love-story, Mamsell--the same old silly story."

"That is sad," said the girl. "God looks into my heart," she went on simply. "Yes, I wanted to keep you here because I felt that you could say some living words to me. I wanted to hear you say them. But now you are not the sort of man I thought ... Do you think that the men you saw here tonight are cleverer than I am? And do you suppose that a single one of them understood what you were saying? I could see in their faces that they thought you were half crazy. Good night!" she said quietly, turning from him and going through the door.

"The devil!" he thought. "A clever little bluestocking--and good looking! Well, we'll see ... Even a few miles from his Excellency wonderful specimens are growing."

When the Raven-mother had conducted him to his room, he came to the conclusion, as he stood by the snow-white bed, that he had not fallen badly. The big farm, the roomy house, the pretty girl whom he had found surrounded by her suitors and her friends--and her love-sickness, that she concealed so amusingly ... She had struck him as uncommonly beautiful at the first glance, and he had thought, "There she sits, and will no doubt choose of all these polite gentlemen the politest and the richest and the stupidest!" That her choice might fall on him never entered into his dreams; and so he had not considered her worthy of any special notice. He had so far emancipated himself from the tyranny of small circumstances that he was able to lead a life according to his own sweet will. He had learned to restrict himself to the most modest manner of existence, and knew no luxuries except the freedom to think and act as he chose, and from time to time to drink a glass of good wine--he liked that, and thought it beseemed a German. His whole temperament made such a supply of strength from without almost necessary from time to time. His passion to worm himself into the things of this world was so violent that it was naturally followed by spells of exhaustion which had to be relieved. Women played a small, almost comic, and not very exalted part in his life. He looked upon them compassionately as very imperfect, morbid creatures. In his love-affairs he had not been specially fastidious. His mother had been a downtrodden little woman, who had never understood him; his sister full of provincial pettiness. So he had no very high opinion of the sex. Incidentally he considered horses also as particularly stupid animals, and was capable of flying into a temper when a horse-lover tried to prove the contrary. All his views were very deeply rooted in him, and he could be very irritable when any one questioned them.

"Well, it would be an odd chance if, in this out-of-the-way place that I could hardly see for rain and fog, I should have tumbled into a love-affair!" he said to himself; and with that he laid his head on the pillow. "Too bad that such a pretty creature should have a bee in her bonnet! I wonder how it comes about ... She looks healthy enough otherwise."

The next thing he knew was a smiling spring morning; the storm had at last spent its rage. The Kirsten girls had gone down very early to the town with their comrades, promising to come up again as soon as possible. Beate had had breakfast with them, and was now strolling about the garden; but she scarcely heeded the young splendor of spring about her. The thought of the guest in the spare room made her heart beat. Yes ... she ought not to have done it. She ought not to have plucked up courage and said, "Herr Kosch will stay here."

Meantime Herr Kosch was roaming about the courtyard and stables, and finally, coming into the garden, he spied his young hostess. "Well," he said to himself, "suppose we make an exception, and see how long it will be before she begins the yawning game. It'll be worth the trouble, after all."

So it came about that he talked to her as to one of his own kind, as he would have talked with his comrades over the familiar table in the tavern of an evening--although he had never got further with them than to be considered an eccentric, possibly dangerous fellow: on two very different grounds, first because they didn't understand him, and then ... he went easily for this reason into a passion.

So now he took from his young hostess's heart the weight that he had put there the previous evening by his mocking and contemptuous manner. He let himself go, spoke after his own manner, and gave up the jesting, playful tone which he always had ready for women. She listened to him with silent attention, no matter what he talked about. The wide leaps his mind took did not seem to weary her in the following. To his astonishment, she did not yawn once. "She must be very much in love," he said to himself.

To her, among other things, he said: "I'm glad you've got your garden so wild and natural--nothing clipped and trimmed, no rectangles, circles, or other geometrical figures, from which one deduces at once that one has to do with men of a very low grade of intelligence. To take delight in squares and circles is a bad sign. Who wants to have intercourse with cave-men? No--you've got a very decent garden that betrays nothing."

"But I know," said Beate, "that people have lived here who got no great pleasure out of life. If my mother had been happier, I believe she would have laid out a few tulip-beds--which might have been round or square, as the notion took her."

"Yes--well," said the engraver, "one must allow people to be happy in their own way. But it's a horrible way. Just think--a poor devil wants to create something in the joy of his heart; and he scratches like a chicken in the earth, longish or oval, until he makes a bed, and is proud and happy. That's the way life is--all a miserable fraud. There's eating--and most people understand how to do that fairly well--but outside of that there's little except scratching up the earth. Have you, for example, ever thought anything, my pretty young lady? I don't mean whether it's going to be fine today, or whether to accept Müller or Meier, or whether the blue dress is more becoming to you than the pink one, or whether there is an eternal life or not. I mean, did a real light ever break upon you about anything, contrary to the opinion of the rest of the world? And did this new light give you such immeasurable joy that you wanted to do a war-dance with cries of triumph!"

"No, Herr Kosch, I have never had such a joy," said the girl.

"You see, Mamsell," he laughed--"and you wanted to talk with me!"

"Is what people _do_ nothing in your eyes?" she asked, anxious to know what he thought on this point.

"What people do? What do you mean?"

"I mean if some one takes care of a person and comforts him in his dying hour, or if a mother sacrifices herself to her children."

"No, no," he cried passionately--"all those things are mere details. Thought, thought is what counts! Knowledge is the only thing that makes a man. Then only is he glad and strong--when he's learned how to think for himself. Then only is he alive!"

She was intoxicated with his words, and the tenderest feeling which can spring up in a human heart came to life in her. She, with her so much younger soul, stretched out her hands to his, longing to love it and to care for it. She hardly understood him as yet; but she was full of a mother's feeling for his soul, thinking and studying how to help him. The glances her suitors had cast at him hurt her to remember. They did not understand him; they did not even realize that he was a living man.

It was remarkable, the way she pierced searchingly into his mind, longingly, acutely, gravely and sincerely. He appeared to himself a man with considerable self-respect, a solitary, tried, and well-tempered character. And he thought, "She's a pretty creature. It's too bad--why does she bother her head with thoughts which are of no use to a woman!" He was a little impatient with her.

The habit of solitude had laid its hand heavily upon him; and now he was not conscious how a young, hardly awakened spirit sought, anxiously and full of friendship, to approach his soul. Her senses were still asleep. It was something not of the earth that he was going through without realizing it. If he had understood it, who knows whether the thick skin which had formed on him through renunciation and struggle would have allowed him to feel it?

He could not help realizing that chance had brought him to the most important decision of his life; for he could no longer doubt that he had won complete mastery over the heart of the loving girl. He had never thought of bettering his condition; he had never even wished such a thing, for a life without needs is a happy life, good for body and soul. He loved his freedom; he was exactly what he wanted to be.

And yet fate seemed to intend that he should burden himself with a wife, with duties to others than himself, and with the comforts which he had hitherto neglected. He meant not to defend himself, but to let the thing develop as it would, whatever were the consequences.

On this day he strolled down to Weimar, which had been the goal of his pilgrimage, in order to tread the streets and roads which the old man was accustomed to walk. He went to the theatre, and came back to the Ettersberg and the farm late in the evening. The whole place was asleep; only the Raven-mother came to bring him some supper.

So he wandered about the next day also. Beate was not to be seen. The Raven-mother told him that he was always welcome at meal-times, but was not to put any constraint on himself.

"A sly little creature, that pretty hostess of mine!" he said to himself. In the afternoon he met her, but outside the garden. It struck him that she did not blush, but simply looked pleased. Her whole being had something free and light about it. Her crown of red hair glowed in the afternoon sun; she had the freedom and the happiness of summer.

Herr Kosch could not help feeling that he had contributed but little to this beautiful light-heartedness. After all, he was not well acquainted with the circumstances of these people; and he had had his first sight of the much courted one in the midst of her suitors. The affectionate disposition which she had shown toward him that evening seemed to him no longer so indisputable.

He was decidedly the possessor of what people call luck with women. "They like," he told himself, "what is unusual. A dark fellow like me, firm and energetic, with irregular features, and a bearing a trifle mysterious and suggestive of the werewolf--that's what takes with these romantic creatures. They are proud of such a lover--as a lover; but a husband they choose out of other stuff. He must be reliable--a good, solid member of society." Herr Kosch had had some experience; and he decided to be simply polite.

So they walked along together. The grass was fragrantly springing in all its green abundance from the soil, and waved a perfume in the May breeze soft as silk. The leaves of the beech-trees at the edge of the wood were still folded together like tender green butterflies on the branches. The trees out in the open had their full outlines. The lime-trees were like their own leaves, standing up like great green hearts. All this Herr Kosch pointed out.

"Yes, like hearts," she answered, smiling. "I've often noticed that each tree is like its own leaf. Have you ever heard the tops of the trees whispering to each other. They often make gestures like old women, bowing with discretion and dignity; again, one sees them talking together like children, and other times like serious men."

"You're a child of the country," he said--"a child of the country! Be glad of it."

Now, he thought, she would begin to tell him something of her life, of her parents, of her childhood--that she was tired of the country, or that she loved it. "They all do that; they talk of themselves and their memories as soon as they begin to get a little tamer. They're shut up within themselves, in a narrow circle. Nothing has grown but their selves. A man doesn't speak of his growing-process; he speaks of what he has become, what the world is to get from him. No, these womenfolks are a bore!"

To his astonishment, his dissatisfied astonishment, she was rather silent and did not talk about herself. "I have been trying to understand," she said after awhile, "how it happens that you are full of thoughts, and all the other people I know and I myself have none."

"Oh," he said, "dear Mamsell, it is simply because you have not loved life warmly enough."

"Not warmly enough--?" she said thoughtfully.

"Yes," he said, "that's the explanation. You people take everything in such a cool, such a proper way. You never come to the boiling-point, and so there are no thoughts. When you are young, you are just young--without the bliss, the glow, the blessed consuming consciousness. Young people ought to be positively drunk with happy thoughts! If I were a girl and had such a wonderful head of red hair, and limbs of perfect, rounded beauty--by the Lord above! I should run about joyously, in full consciousness of my powers, letting not a single hour of the day be lost. I should taste my youth with all its feelings and thoughts, its sins and its glories. And when old age came on, I should throw myself on the ground and rage and moan and tear my clothes and strew ashes upon my head, and die of grief. But you others, because you don't think and don't know, you are able to live through a dull, proper youth and a comfortable old age. If people knew what a thing youth is, there'd be no holding the world. All that was young would be brewing and fermenting to such a point that no ruler in the world would be able to keep it down."

"Then the world doesn't seem to be made for thinking?" asked the girl seriously.

"No," he answered passionately. "If everybody thought, instead of only one in hundreds of thousands, it would be an impossible place. Just imagine, fair lady, what would happen if women began to think! It's inconceivable. The greatest revolution in history would break out; a volcanic eruption would convulse society. It's quite right--only the few are supposed to think. There must be dead bodies without will, to live mechanically, to do mechanically what they are told. A thinking world--no, thank you! No, Mamsell, we'll stick to the old system."

So they walked along through the splendor of spring, until music sounded in their ears. "Where does it come from?" asked the engraver.

"From Rödchen," said she, absent-mindedly.

"Let us go there. Dance-music ... I shouldn't mind ... among the peasant-folk ... How would it be?"

"These are not peasants," she said. "They're Weimar people who come out to amuse themselves in the woods. I wonder what's going on ..."

"We'll go and see," he answered. So they went down a narrow path through the thick woods. The music sounded more clearly amidst the May green. And now they stood near the forester's low house, and saw the long gray benches set all about, and people dancing under the trees in the last rays of the sun. Beate greeted the forester's family, and introduced her guest to them.

"Who are all these people?" asked Herr Kosch.

"Oh, nothing but a bowling party."

"Would they allow us to join their dance?"

Herr Kosch led his fair hostess to the board-floored dancing-place under the trees, threw his arm about her, and drew her in among the other couples. He danced in a way that was like his whole nature, passionately, irregularly, and yet with power and skill, and found that his partner fitted him wonderfully. She danced with a perfect comprehension of his way of dancing. This pleased him not a little. Before this, when he had had occasion to dance, he had been much annoyed by finding in the dance the same conflict as in life, resistance instead of adaptation. But this time he found a singular pleasure in it, as it were an assertion of himself. Like a good strong wine the delight ran through his body. He felt himself free and unfettered as he seldom did--himself, without a struggle.

Now his partner was out of breath, though he was far from exhausted. She tottered, and there was something unrhythmic in her movements that disturbed him. Exhausted, she drew him out of the crowd of dancers, and sank faintly almost into the arms of a short, stout gentleman.

He laughed good-naturedly. "Yes, my pretty child, I've been looking on for some time--but why must girls dance at such a tremendous rate?" The engraver saw his partner grow more and more confused--more than he would have thought a chance contact should have accounted for. "Oh, pardon!" he heard her say. "Pardon, your Royal Highness, for my awkwardness!"

"Oh, then it's Karl August that she almost bumped into!" thought Herr Kosch. To be sure, there by the house stood the hunting-coach which he had seen in pictures. His eyes eagerly sought further. Quite near him he caught sight of a dignified old gentleman in a dark-gray coat, a snowy white neckerchief about his throat in which a reddish-yellow stone glowed, his hat in his hand, his hair like a well-arranged gray mist above his lofty forehead, which rose in lines pure as the dome of a temple--and those eyes! He had danced himself up to the very goal of his pilgrimage.

But he did not go up to this man and say, "Brother!" He just stood and stared. "God in heaven, what a man!" he murmured to himself. "He has built up his manhood like a throne. He stands alone among them all--they are simply wiped out by his presence."

The engraver saw his friend, for whom he had so longed in his lonely hours, standing now at an immense distance from him. "Yes--a man must build such a wall about him if he means to create and express himself as _he_ has. No--he has nothing to do or to seek among the wretched. What a plebeian I am that I couldn't understand this!"

Then he saw the prince take Beate Rauchfuss, whose beauty dazzled Kosch at this moment, so great and strong was it, and lead her with a smile to the distinguished old man, saying, "This is the red-haired beauty from the Rauchfuss farm, who crossed our path so often as a wild youngster when we used to make excursions up to the Ettersberg. Our hills produce such wonders."

The girl bowed before the dignified old man and kissed his hand respectfully. He patted her auburn hair softly. "Happy man for whom this sunny head shall shine! Joy and love beam in her eyes." He turned to his princely friend. "What an ocean of beneficent happiness lies in the young creatures of the earth!"

"If it only didn't dribble away in such cursed little drops!" growled the prince, raising his blunt nose and beckoning to the coach to draw near.

"Ah, but from another point of view that means watering the earth! Have no care, pretty child--whichever way it comes!"

The grave, distinguished man followed his prince into the coach, and both waved a farewell to the pretty girl, who made the deep curtesy she had learned so thoroughly from Frau Kummerfelden. Every girl in Weimar who had ever been to the old actress's sewing-classes understood how to make a proper court reverence; "for," said the good woman, "in a little town like this, where there are so many princes both of the blood and of the intellect, a certain _savoir vivre_ should prevail, even in the streets." In things of this kind she was a past mistress.

The engraver had stood as if under a spell; his meeting with his "brother," the old master, had come and gone. But he had played no part in it. He looked at his rough, sinewy hands. "Those are hands for you!" he cried in his heart. "To gain nothing but a halfway-decent suit of clothes, four shirts, two pairs of shoes, and a miserable hole to live in, they have become as rough and lined as if they had conquered a world. _He_ has conquered a world--and his hands, at his age, have remained soft, moved by the soul. Ah, plebeian, you won't go and knock at his window! But the girl whom he caressed with his eyes and passed his hand over her hair--this little goose--!" He grasped angrily at Beate's hand. "Let us go, Mamsell," he cried--"let us go!"

And amidst all the still May greenness, under the shelter of the tender shrubs, he caught the startled girl to him, kissed her and buried his face in the glory of her hair, which his "brother" had stroked and the perfume of whose young life intoxicated him. "Into thy hands, O Lord ...!" he almost sobbed.

She had fallen suddenly into such a storm of hot caresses that her breath failed her as if a hailstorm were beating down on her. She pushed him away, and at the same time nestled closer to him.

"Do you love me, then? Do you love me?" she asked him, trembling and shaken.

"Do I love you? For heaven's sake, would not any one love anything so young and wonderful when he sees it and feels it? What do you think? Skin and hair with the scent of May in them!"

She freed herself from his arms and walked silently by his side for a little way. "Do you love me?" she asked again, as shaken and distraught as he was. "Do you know me? Do you know what I want in life?"

"You want me!" he said passionately.

She wanted to speak, she tried--tried--tried, but her excitement was too great. "Do you wish to be my friend?" she said at last, anxiously.

"Yes--of course I do!" he answered.

"Will you teach me how to think? I want to be as much alive as you are."

"Silly child!" He would have taken her in his arms again; but she kept him off with passionate refusal.

"I love you because you are different from the others, and so that you may speak to me as to a friend, as to a human being."

"And don't I, then?"

"I don't want to live my life asleep all the time, do you hear?"

"What a strange little woman-thing you are! There's a time for kissing, and a time for everything, you babe!"

"Life is what I long for!" she cried, trembling with the uncertainty of what it was she wanted.

"Life? Love _is_ life!"

"No, no! To understand--that is life. If I join my life to yours, I want to be alive, and not dead and dumb as my mother was."

"You have queer notions. Do you suppose, then, that people can learn how to think as they learn any other trade f I tell you, what you've got to do is to love life--I'll make it my business to see that you love it!"

"I shouldn't like to be cast off," she said with a kind of bitterness, "when you thought I was no longer beautiful. I should run away from you if you deceived me and were no longer my friend."