Chapter I (4)

The baron started up as if he had been stung by a serpent, angrily shaking off all the hands outstretched to help him. Wrath at the interference of his brother, who had hitherto had only a seat and no voice at this table, seemed to have suddenly restored all his haughty strength.

"You have the effrontery to still plead for her?" he shouted with flashing eyes. "You even knew her intention, and not only concealed it but helped her forget all modesty and honor and go out into the wide world like a wanton?"

"I forbid any imputations upon my honor, Achatz!" replied the other, meeting his brother's wrathful glance with cold contempt. "I have not seen Luise since yesterday noon. Just before dinner to-day I received a farewell letter from her, in which she informs me that she can no longer endure to live in this house, and will seek her happiness at her own peril. The other reasons she adds in justification of her step concern no one save myself."

"Then she did not tell you that she has determined to follow a certain Herr Spielberg, a strolling actor, and, if he will graciously consent, to become his wife? The wife of an adventurer who pursues a godless calling, and whom I ought to have had hunted out of the court-yard by the dogs, instead of giving him any hearing at all!"

"She told me that also, Brother Achatz, and it sincerely grieves me; for, though I believe this gentleman to be a reputable artist, I doubt whether she will ever become at home and happy in this sphere. But from what we know of her she will carry out her purpose, and if you should now institute a pursuit it will only cause a tremendous scandal and gain nothing; the family honor will be far more sullied than if we keep quiet and let the grass grow over the affair. That matters have gone so far, Brother Achatz, some one else will have to answer for at the Day of Judgment."

The two men measured each other with a look of most unfraternal hatred. The old baroness gazed up at her husband with a pleading quiver of her withered lips, whose words were not audible to me. But he hastily shook himself free, as she laid a hand on his arm, and advanced a step toward his brother.

"Do you mean to say," he asked, grinding his teeth, "that I am to blame because this mangy sheep has strayed from our fold and is devoured by the wolf? True, she has always rebelled against the strict rule of obedience, against both human and divine law. But, if any one in this house has helped to strengthen her in her obstinacy and arrogance, it is you, you, and no one else. Can you deny it?"

"I am not disposed to allow myself to be examined like a criminal," replied Joachim with sarcastic coolness. "If I were malicious, I would let you say the most senseless things in your helpless rage. But, as we bear the same name and I pity your blindness, Brother Achatz, and moreover we are not alone, so that I might tell you my whole opinion to your face, I will simply warn you. If you use violence and drag the matter before the courts, you may hear things far more damaging to the honor of our family than the news that the Canoness Luise has followed a strolling actor and made an unequal marriage by wedding him. I have nothing more to say. May the meal do you all good!"

He bowed to his sister-in-law, walked quietly to the antlers on which he had hung his hat, and left the room.

His last words had a magical effect upon the baron, who bowed his head on his breast and stood for a time as if lost in thought. Not until the servant entered and announced that the carriage was ready and the horse saddled did he rouse himself, and, with an imperious gesture that indicated they were no longer wanted, he walked without a glance at any one, with slow, heavy steps, to his room.

The roast meat, which meantime had grown cold, was left untouched on the table. The mistress of the house, after remaining for a time lost in sorrowful thought, followed her husband; the children, completely puzzled, had withdrawn into a window-niche. When the Frenchwoman, with a disagreeable smile intended to be amiable, addressed a remark to me containing the words _horreur_ and _deplorable_, I made a very uncourteous gesture, as though brushing off a buzzing hornet, and hurried into the park after Uncle Joachim.

* * * * *

I found him where I sought him, but his surroundings looked very different from usual on the cozy Sunday afternoons.

Nothing was in order in the room, which had never seemed to me so shabby and unhomelike; the fly-specks had not been washed from the glass over the engravings, and the coffee-service was not on the table. Diana was lying in the middle of the unmade bed, and only lifted her head from her fore-paws to yawn at me. Her master, who usually dressed himself very carefully for this coffee-hour, was pacing up and down with folded arms, in his shirtsleeves, and slippers down at the heel, smoking his short pipe as fiercely as if he meant, in defiance of the sunshine streaming through the little window, to intrench himself behind an impenetrable cloud.

"Pardon me if I disturb you," I said, as he stopped and glared angrily at me as though I were a total stranger; "but I can not bear to stay alone with my own thoughts among people who either make scornful comments on the misfortune in private or openly exult over it. And altogether--I can't yet believe it. Tell me honestly, Herr Baron; do _you_ believe it? Do _you_ understand it?"

"Nonsense!" he growled. "Believe what? 'Long hair and short wits'--that's all we need know to marvel at nothing one of _that_ sex does, even if she were the best of them all. Have you come, too, to fill my ears with lamentations? I have enough to do to swallow my own bile."

He began to puff out the smoke again, and resumed his walk as if he had said enough to induce me to beat a discreet retreat.

But I did not stir.

"Oh, Herr Baron, don't send me away without any comfort, any explanation. You know more about the matter than any other person; you said you had known this--this Herr Spielberg. Do you really believe that she has followed him, that--that she has not merely suggested the horrible idea of becoming his wife as a threat, an alarm-shot, but will seriously persist in it?"

Again he stopped, then with grim earnestness said: "Do you not yet know her well enough to be aware that she never jests about serious matters, and that, when she has once made up her mind, a legion of angels or fiends could not divert her from her purpose. I've seen it coming a long time, not exactly this, for no sensible person could imagine such a folly, but some dangerous escapade, merely to escape from this oppressive, poisonous atmosphere into the free air, and, had it not been for her aunt, the martyr, who must now endure to the end, she would have gone away as soon as she became of age, at least to her chapter, where, it is true, she would have found all sorts of hypocrisy that did not suit her, but at any rate she could have planned her life according to her own inclination. She only remained for the sake of her aunt, and to be able to occasionally lay a bunch of flowers beside the old baroness's plate. Now that scoundrel Kasimir has severed with his riding-whip the tie that bound her here, as if it were a cobweb, she has dropped everything as if she were called upon to answer for the honor of the whole family, and questioned only the bewildered heart and obstinate conscience which persuaded her that this folly was a noble sacrifice. I could tear my hair out by the roots because I was not present, and heard nothing about the matter until early this morning, when Liborius told me that so and so had occurred yesterday, and that he saw the young lady set off gayly on her walk at dawn this morning but thought nothing of it. She appeared just the same as she usually did when walking, and he would never have dreamed of her committing so extraordinary an act. But _I_ should have noticed something and opposed it with might and main. _Nom d'un nom!_"--this was the French oath he used when excessively angry--"I believe, if I could not have conquered her obstinacy, I would have gone with her and twisted the neck of the man into whose arms she wanted to throw herself, ere I would have allowed him to rob me of my darling and drag her into misery."

He again smoked furiously. Diana sprang howling from the bed and ran up to him, but was banished into a corner by a kick.

"But how can you explain her taking refuge with this stranger, confiding to him her person, her honor, her whole life, merely because he was treated here in her presence as a vagabond? So proud as she always was, so pure, and so well aware of what she ought and must do in order not to blush for herself?"

Uncle Joachim gave me a side-glance from his half-shut eyes. "Herr Weissbrod," he said, "you are an honest fellow, and you revered my niece as if she were a saint. I can tell you how all this agrees. As a future pastor, you must know what is to be expected of women, the best of whom are often the most perplexing. You see, three years ago, this Spiegelberg, or Spielberg, as he now calls himself, had the insolence to write her a letter, which she did not answer. But a girl like her does not willingly remain in debt for anything. What she has done now is the reply to that old letter."

I stared at him with dilated eyes.

"Yes," he continued, "what _is_ to be, _will_ be. I thought then the matter was ended once for all, but the proof of the pudding is in the eating! That devil of a fellow, with his dove-like eyes, was more cunning than I. At that time he was living in Berlin, at the same hotel where I had gone with Luise, a respectable second-rate house in Mohrenstrasse, for our means did not allow us to go to the Hotel du Nord or Meinhardt's. She noticed the black-haired gentleman who sat opposite to us at the table, and talked so well, and he did not seem a bad fellow to me either. I inquired who he was. An actor, I was told, who played at the Royal Theatre. 'We must go there once, uncle,' she said, 'as a matter of courtesy,' and I was weak enough not to say no. What could I ever refuse her? Especially with her love for the stage. So we saw him act, and he did not play his part badly; and, as the women were crazy over him, he had a great success. I have forgotten the play, I never had much fancy for the theatre; everything always seemed to me bombastic and exaggerated, and the most touching passages moved me less than when my Diana gets a thorn into her paw and whines. But he seemed to please Luise greatly. So I was obliged to go with her three or four times, when Herr Constantin Spielberg's name was on the bills. Well, no great misfortune could have come from that. The worst of it was that Luise caught fire from the flashing sparks he scattered around him when he stood on the stage in his romantic costumes and assumed the most melting tones of love. 'Luise,' I said, jestingly, 'you must not forget that Herr Spielberg did not compose the works of Schiller or Goethe, but simply acts them. Still, he did not need to declame; when he was merely sitting at the hotel table, talking about the weather, she listened as though he was expounding the gospel. And there was something in his voice that might well turn a young girl's head--she was twenty-one, but she had never been in love--and even when he was not behind the footlights he could look as honest and innocent as a pastor's son or you yourself, Sir Tutor.

"Besides, everybody in the hotel liked him, and no one had anything to say against him. It was reported that he supported an old blind mother, etc. But, knowing Luise as I did, the longer this state of things lasted the less I was pleased, and I gently began to speak of departure, of course without making any allusion to my own private reason. Well, to cut the story short, one morning my niece came to me with a letter in her hand: 'Just think, uncle, what I have received'--and gave it to me to read. We had no secrets from each other. It was a declaration of love from our opposite neighbor in due form--that is, in the Schiller and Goethe style, only not in verse, closing with a simple honorable offer of marriage. _Nom d'un nom!_ This was too much for me. I allowed her the choice whether I should give the bold fellow a verbal answer, such as his insolence deserved, or we should set off _stante pede_, without bidding him farewell.

"After some consideration she decided in favor of the latter. But when we were on our way she said, 'Uncle, I was too hasty. He will always think me an arrogant fool. I ought to have answered him myself.' 'And what would you have said?' 'That I felt honored by his proposal, but was under the guardianship of my uncle, who would never consent to this alliance.' 'The deuce!' I cried; 'that would have been almost the same thing as a declaration of love.' 'What then?' she asked, quietly. 'Is there anything degrading in loving a noble man, merely because he belongs to a class against which people in our circle are unjustly prejudiced?' 'Well, this beats the Old Nick!' I thought, but did not say one word, for I knew that fire is only fanned by blowing upon it, and thought, 'It will die away into ashes when it has no food.' Now you see what a confoundedly clever prophet I was."

During Uncle Joachim's story, I had sat in the chair Fraeulein Luise usually occupied, and patiently endured everything like a person who is crossing the fields in a pouring rain without an umbrella, and feels that he is drenched to the skin and can be no worse off. Every spark of hope had vanished; I knew that she would never turn back from the path she had entered; and, even if it were possible, she would be too proud to desire to do so. But man is so constituted that, though I foresaw all the misery of the future, for I did not trust the handsome face of the man to whom she had fled, and I knew by this step she had forfeited her right to be received into her chapter in case of need, in short, though I saw nothing in prospect for her save trouble and grief--the bitterest thing of all to me was to find my own dreams and wishes, which hitherto I had never acknowledged to myself, shattered at one blow. The most frantic jealousy of the happy man, who had won the bride forever unattainable to me, burned in my miserable soul, now suddenly bankrupt; and, when it flashed upon my mind that I had even been her accomplice by deferring the discovery of her flight as long as possible through my organ-music, I felt so utterly wretched that I suddenly burst into Boyish sobbing, in which offended vanity, wounded love, and grief for the uncertain fate of the woman so dear to me, bore an equal share.

Just at that moment I felt Uncle Joachim's hand press heavily on my shoulder.

"Hold up your head and don't flinch, my friend," he said, in a voice that was by no means firm. "We can't change the matter now, so we must let it go. But we must always repeat to ourselves one thing: whatever folly a woman like her may commit, she will not allow herself to succumb to it. She may lose the right scent once, like Diana, but she'll find it again--I feel no anxiety on that score. The only people who will surfer and can get no amends are ourselves--or rather, I mean, my own insignificant self. You are a young man, still have life before you, and--which I can't say of myself--are a devout Christian. But an old fellow like me, who is robbed of his only plaything--deuce take it! It will be a dog's life!"

He had put on his coat and now whistled to Diana. "Excuse me, Herr Candidate, I have some business to attend to. Stay quietly here till your eyes are dry. I'm disgusted with the old barrack, since we can expect no more pound-cake here."

He went out, carrying his gun upside down and followed by Diana, whose ears drooped mournfully, as if she shared her master's mood.