Chapter VIII: Section II (2)

"And yet,' said Severin, 'you ascribe this deep, heart-breaking sorrow to some trumpery, every-day cause! No, no! she has a secret passion, most likely against her parents' will. All her hopes depended upon some one event which to-day was to decide. It has all turned out amiss! hope's star has set for ever, all earthly happiness is a thing of the past! Didn't you see the heart-breaking look of deep, inconsolable sorrow with which she sent the fragments of the fatal letter fluttering away on the breeze, like Ophelia with her straw flowers, or Emilia Galotti with her roses? I could have wept tears of blood when the wind whirled away those words of death, as in bitter, sneering mockery! Is there no comfort on earth? Does the world contain no more hope or consolation for that most lovely, interesting young creature?'

"'Bravo, Severin,' said Alexander, 'you're fairly afloat and under way, now! you've got your tragedy fairly in hand! No, no! we'll leave her some hope still, some prospect of happiness in this world; and I believe she hasn't many misgivings on the subject herself. She seems to be pretty composed and comfortable in her mind. See how carefully she's putting her new white gloves down on the tablecloth, and how quietly and daintily she's dipping her cake in her tea. See, she's nodding at the old fellow as he puts a tiny droplet of rum into the cup. The boy's munching away at the bread-and-butter. Plump! goes a fid of it into his tea, which splashes up in his face. The old folks are laughing, and so's the young lady, she's actually shaking with laughter.'

"'Ah!' said Severin, 'that's just the terrible part of it; to be obliged to pretend to be interested in every day matters when the heart is breaking. Indeed, it's easier to laugh, then, than to seem indifferent.'

"'I do beg, Severin,' said Marzell, 'that you'll be quiet for a little. If we keep on looking at her in this way we shall get so terribly interested in her that we shan't see the end of it. Let's talk about something else.'

"Alexander agreed, and they set to work to carry on a conversation, lightsomely fluttering from topic to topic. In this they were so far successful that they talked about utterly trivial matters with a great expenditure of noise. But everything they said had such a strange character and peculiar tone, never in the least appropriate to the subject, that the words seemed to be mere cyphers with some hidden, mysterious meaning. They determined to celebrate this day of their reunion with a bowl of cold punch; and at the third glass of it they fell weeping into each other's arms. The young lady rose, went to the railing above the stream, and stood there pensively gazing at the clouds.

'Swift-sailing cloudlets
Borne by the breezes,'

quoted Marzell, in accents of gentle sorrow. But Severin banged his glass on the table, and spoke of a battle-field which he had seen by the light of a full-moon, and of the pale corpses that had gazed at him with eyes instinct with life.

"'God be about us!' cried Alexander. 'What's the matter with you, brother?'

"The girl sat down again at the table. With one impulse the three fellows jumped up and ran a sort of race to the rail she had been leaning on. Alexander depassed the other two by a powerful leap over a couple of chairs, leant upon the spot where the girl had been standing, and stuck to it like a leech, though the other two tried to shove him away, on pretext of embracing him affectionately. Severin spoke with great solemnity of the clouds and the way they were floating, and described, louder than was necessary, their shapes and figures. Marzell, without listening to him, compared Bellevue to a Roman villa; and, although he had just come back by way of Switzerland, said the flat, bare, ugly country, with the lightning-conductors on the powder-magazines--which he called 'masts surmounted by gleaming stars'--was beautiful and romantic. Alexander contented himself with saying it was a lovely evening, and the Webersche Zelt a charming spot.

"The family seemed to be preparing for a move. The old gentleman knocked the ashes out of his pipe, the young lady put away her knitting, and the boy sought--and called for--his cap, which, after a little, the busy house poodle (who had been playing with it) brought and laid down at his feet, and then stood looking up in his face, eager to be of further service, and anxious to set about it at once (after the nature of his kind). The friends' conversation subsided in tone. The family bowed civilly to them as they passed, on which they, ducking their heads faster and further than the occasion demanded, banged them all three together with a resounding thwack. Ere they recovered from this, the family had gone. Then they slunk, in gloomy silence, back to their cold punch, which they found miserable. The imagery of the clouds paled into cold darksome mist; Bellevue was Bellevue again, each lightning-conductor a lightning-conductor, and the Webersche Zelt a common refreshment shop. And, as there was hardly anybody else left in the place, an unpleasant chill began to be perceptible, the very pipes wouldn't keep alight; and the friends crept away, in a conversation which only flared up for a moment now and then, like a burnt-out candle. Severin left the others while they were still in the Thiergarten, as he lived in it at the other end; and Marzell, turning off at the Friedrich Strasse, left Alexander to wend his way to his distant dwelling, and the society of his 'walking' aunt. It was on account of the distance at which they lived from one another that they had chosen a public place for their meetings, where they might see each other on particular days of the week. They came, however, more for the sake of keeping their promise than from any strong desire to see each other. They found it impossible to hit back again upon the old confidential tone which had formerly prevailed among them. Each of them seemed to have something on his mind which destroyed all enjoyment and freedom, and which he felt bound to keep to himself like some dark and dangerous secret. In a very short time Severin suddenly disappeared from Berlin altogether. Soon after that, Alexander complained, in a highly despairing manner, that he had applied unsuccessfully for an extension of his leave, and would be obliged to go away before he had settled all the legal business connected with his heritage affairs, and say good-bye to his nice, comfortable house.

"'But I thought you found it so uncanny to live in,' said Marzell. 'Isn't it pleasant to get away from the sound of your aunt "walking" every night at twelve o'clock?'

"'Oh,' said Alexander, 'she's given that up some time ago; and I can assure you that I regularly long for household ease and quietness, and I shall most likely apply for my retirement almost at once, so as to devote myself to art and literature altogether.'

"Indeed, Alexander was obliged to go away within a very few days. Soon after that, the war broke out again, and Marzell had to rejoin the army. So that the three friends were once more separated, almost before they could be said to have met, in the proper sense of the word.

"Two years afterwards, when Whit Monday came round in due course, Marzell, who had come back a second time from field service, was standing leaning over the old balustrade, in the Webersche Zelt, and revolving many things in his mind. Somebody tapped him on the shoulder, and when he looked round, lo! Alexander and Severin were both there.

"'See how one comes across one's friends!' cried Alexander, joyfully. 'I was strolling along to keep an engagement, thinking of anything rather than of seeing either of you here. Close past me goes a figure; I couldn't believe my eyes, but it was Severin. I called to him; he turned round, and was just as glad to see me as I was to meet him. I asked him to come to my house, but he said he had an irresistible desire to come here, so I gave up my engagement, and came here too. His presentiment was right, you see; we have found you here!'

"'The truth is,' said Severin, 'that I felt quite certain I should find _you_ here, and I hardly knew how to keep my patience till you came.'

"'Don't you think Severin looks remarkably well?' said Marzell; 'he has quite got rid of that sickly pallor he used to have, and there are none of those nasty cloud shadows which used to be upon his brow.'

"'I may say just the same of you, dear Marzell,' said Severin; 'for, though you didn't look so seedy as I did--and I really was very far from nourishing, either in body or mind--still, the strange depression and perturbation of spirit you were in had so completely got the upper hand with you, that it had turned your bright young face into the likeness of a crabbed old gentleman's. I suspect both of us have passed through a good deal of purifying purgatorial fire; and Alexander looks as if he had done the same, for he had lost all his good-spirits towards the end, and put on a damned medicine face, where one might read, "a tablespoonful every hour." Whether it was the aunt that was at the bottom of it, or, as I shrewdly suspect, something else, I don't know; at all events, he seems to be a new man now, as well as we.'

"'You're quite right,' said Marzell; 'and, the more I look at the fellow, the more clearly I see what wonders a comfortable income can work here below. Had he ever such rosy cheeks?--such a rounded chin? Don't these sweetly-smiling lips say, "The roast-beef was superior, and the burgundy first quality"?'

"Severin laughed.

"'Observe,' said Marzell, taking Alexander by the arms and turning him round, 'what superfine cloth his coat's made of! Look at the dazzling whiteness of his linen!--that splendid gold chain with about seven hundred seals! Tell us, lad, how you have managed to turn out such a terrific swell? It's so unlike what you used to be. One might almost have said of you, quoting Sir John Falstaff, that you might be wrapped in an eel-skin; and now you're getting almost pudgy. What does it all mean?'

"'Well,' said Alexander, blushing a little, 'have you got anything more to say about me? You know I took my retirement a year ago, and am leading a happy, comfortable life?'

"'The fact is,' said Severin, who had not been listening much to what Marzell was saying, but had been standing lost in thought, 'we parted in a strange sort of fashion; not at all as old friends should.'

"'You, in particular,' said Alexander, 'for you went off without saying a word to either of us.'

"'Ah!' said Severin, 'I was in the height of a phase of most extraordinary folly just then, and so were you, and Marzell, too, for----'

"He suddenly stopped, and the three looked at one another with sparkling eyes, like people all struck at once by the same idea, like an electric shock. While Severin had been speaking, they had been going along arm-in-arm, and they now found they were at the very table where the beautiful creature who had turned all their heads two years before had been sitting that day. What their eyes all said was, 'There! there is the place where she was sitting!' There was a strong feeling as if she were coming back again. Marzell was beginning to move out the chairs. However, they went on, and Alexander had a table set out on the spot where they themselves had been sitting that eventful Whit Monday. The coffee had come; but neither of them had spoken a word, and Alexander seemed the most embarrassed of the three. The waiter stood waiting for his money. He looked in amazement from one of these speechless customers to another; he rubbed his hands; he coughed; at last he said, in a feebly voice:

"'Shall I bring some rum, gentlemen?'

"On which they looked in each other's faces, and burst out into fits of extravagant laughter.

"Oh, Lord!' cried the waiter, starting back a couple of paces, 'they're all off their heads!'

"Alexander calmed him by paying for the coffee, and, when he had gone, Severin began:

"'What I was just going to say, we have all represented in pantomime; and the denouement, with the "moral" of the story as well, were expressed by that hearty burst of laughter of ours. This day two years ago, we all fell into a condition of the most egregious folly; we're ashamed of it now, and completely cured.'

"'The fact was,' said Marzell, 'that that exquisitely beautiful creature turned all our heads to a frightful extent.'

"'Exquisitely beautiful!' said Alexander; 'exquisitely beautiful, indeed! But,' he continued, with a little dash of anxiety in his tone, 'you say, Marzell, that we are all quite cured of our folly--_id est_, of our having lost our hearts to that girl whom we none of us knew anything about. Now let me ask you one thing. If she were to come back here again to-day, and sit down in her old place, shouldn't we fall back into the old folly again, just as we did before?'

"'For my part,' said Severin, 'I'm quite certain, beyond the possibility of any mistake about it, that I am most thoroughly cured of it.'

"'And so am I," said Marzell, quite as unmistakeably. Nobody was ever made such a thorough ass of as I was, when I came to a closer acquaintance with that incomparable lady.'

"'"Closer acquaintance?--incomparable lady?"' interrupted Alexander eagerly.

"'Well, yes,' said Marzell; 'it's impossible to deny the fact that that adventure of ours here, which I might almost call a novelette in one volume, was followed in my case by a regular screaming farce.'

"'My luck was no better,' said Severin. 'Only, if your novelette was in one volume, and your farce in one act, all I played in was a little duodecimo sheet, and a single scene.'

"During this, Alexander's face had got red as fire; the perspiration stood on his forehead; his breath came short and quick, he ran his hands through his curly hair; in short, he showed every symptom of the greatest excitement, and was so clearly unable to retain any control over himself that Marzell cried:

"What on earth's the matter with you, my dear fellow? What are you getting into such a state of mind about?'

"He's simply over head and ears in love still with the lady whom we've given up,' said Severin, laughing, 'and he doesn't believe us, doesn't think it possible we can have had our little romances or novelettes; at all events, he's getting infernally jealous. And I'm sure he may save himself the trouble. I was most abominably treated, at all events.'

"So was I, in a way,' said Marzell, 'and I give you my word that the spark which fell into my heart that Whit Monday has gone out most completely, beyond the possibility of ever being kindled again. So you may be as deeply in love with the lady as ever you like!'

"'So you may as far as I'm concerned too,' said Severin.

"Alexander, now quite reassured again, laughed very heartily, and said:

"'You were right about me, to a certain extent, though you're partly on a wrong scent, too. So just listen a moment. It is quite true that, when I remembered that eventful afternoon, that lovely girl, in all her marvellous attractiveness, came so vividly to my mind's eye that I fancied I could hear her beautiful voice, and touch her white, delicate hand as she held it out to me. I felt as though it was to her alone that I could devote the whole affection of my heart and being, and as if I never could be happy without her! Now, supposing this to be true, just think what a terrible thing it would be!'

"'What for? Why on earth?' cried Severin and Marzell, both together.

"'Because I have been married for the last year,' answered Alexander quietly.

"You married, for the last year?' the friends cried, clapping their hands, and then shouting with laughter. 'Who is it? Is she nice-looking? Rich, poor, young, old: how, when, what, where?'

"Alexander stopped his ears. 'I beg of you,' he cried imploringly, as he leant his left hand on the table, and with the right (on the little finger whereof the betrothal ring glittered, beside a chrysophrase) took the spoon and stirred his coffee. 'I implore you to spare me all these questions, and, if you would do me a real favour, tell me what happened to you after our adventure here with the lady.'

"'Ay! ay! brother!' said Marzell; 'it strikes me you haven't made a very good job of it. It isn't Falter's little witch, is it?'

"'If you have any real regard for me,' said Alexander, 'please don't badger me with questions, but let me hear about your own adventures.'

"'It's the ghost's doing,' said Severin. 'He felt himself compelled to add some wife or another to his collection of pots and pans and plate and household linen. So there he sits, with a heart torn with regret and forbidden love; though that flourishing exterior of his doesn't quite seem to suit that theory either. What does the aunt, of the stomach drops, say to it all?'

"'She is highly satisfied,' said Alexander. 'But oh! if you have any real commiseration for me, if you don't want to embitter for ever this occasion of our meeting again after all this time, do, for Heaven's sake, leave off your damnable questions, and begin your stories.'

"They saw that Alexander was so terribly in earnest, that it would be cruelty to keep him on tenter-hooks any longer. So Marzell at once began his part of the tale, as follows:

"'We all admit and know that, this day two years ago, a very pretty girl turned all our heads at the first glance; that we conducted ourselves as young asses do in such circumstances, and couldn't shake off the insanity which had come upon us. Night and day, wherever I went, that girl's image haunted me. She went with me to the War Office, into the Secretary of State's private sanctum; she came to meet me out of his writing-table, and confused all my finely turned official periods with her beautiful eyes, so that people asked me, with melancholy faces, if the old wound in my head was troubling me again. To see her again was my goal, the object of all my restless efforts. 1 ran from one street to another like a letter-carrier, from morning till night. I looked up at all the well-to-do people's windows, all in vain. Every afternoon I used to come to the Webersche Zelt here.'

"So did I! So did I!' cried Severin and Alexander.

"'I used to see you,' said Marzell, 'but I kept carefully out of your way.'

"That's exactly what we did, too,' they all cried _in tutti_.' Oh, what infernal donkeys!'

"'It was no use,' said Marzell. 'But I had neither peace nor rest. The very idea that she was in love with somebody else already, that I could but perish in hopeless misery, even if ever I succeeded in making her acquaintance; that I should only then clearly find out the extent of my misery, to wit, her inconsolable regret for the man she had lost, her love for him, and her fidelity--I say, just this very idea was what fanned the fire within me to a terrific pitch of fury. The tragic pictures of her condition which Severin painted here for us came back to my mind, and, while I piled up all imaginable love-misfortunes on to her head, I seemed to myself to be the more unfortunate of the two. In my sleepless nights, and on lonely walks, I used to spin the wildest and most ingenious romances, in which, of course, the unknown lover and I myself played the leading parts. No scenes were too improbable to be introduced into these imaginary dramas of mine, and I was immensely delighted with myself in my character of the hero, resigned to suffer a hopeless passion. As I have said, I went all over the town, in the most senseless manner, searching for her who ruled my thoughts and my whole being. Very well; one forenoon, I found myself in the new street called "Green Street;" and, as I was strolling along there, deep in thought, a young gentleman stopped me, took off his hat politely, and asked if I could tell him where Mr. Asling, the Geheime Rath, lived in that street. I said I could not. But the name "Asling" struck me, somehow. "Asling? Asling?" I said to myself. Then, all at once I remembered that my romantic passion had so occupied my head that I had forgotten all about a letter for this very Mr. Asling, which a nephew of his (whom I had left, wounded, in hospital at Deutz) had given me to deliver to him. I determined to atone for this unpardonable oversight at once. I saw that a shopkeeper directed the young gentleman to a fine-looking house just over the way, and I followed him. I was shown into an anteroom, and the servant begged me to wait there a few minutes, his master being engaged with a strange gentleman. He left me alone there, and I was glancing carelessly at the engravings on the wall, when the door behind me opened, I turned round, and saw _her_! her very self, the beautiful creature whom we saw in the Thiergarten. I really cannot describe to you with any clearness what my feelings were, but I know I could scarcely breathe, couldn't utter a syllable, and felt ready to fall down at the angel's feet.'

"Ay, ay!' said Alexander, rather astonished; 'then you were really very seriously in love with her, old fellow?'

"'At all events,' continued Marzell, 'my feelings at that moment were those of the wildest devotion. My state of consternation and speechlessness must have been queer enough to see, for Pauline looked at me as if she were considerably alarmed; and as I couldn't utter a syllable, and she very naturally thought I must be either a bumpkin or a born idiot, she said at last, with a delicate smile of irony just fluttering over her lips, "You're waiting to see my father, are you not?" The bitter shame that I felt for myself gave me back complete self-control. I pulled myself together with an effort: I told her my name with a courteous bow, and explained the commission which I was entrusted with for the Geheime Rath. On this Pauline cried, loudly and joyfully:

"'"Oh, how delightful! News of my cousin? You have met him: you know him; you've spoken to him? I don't believe his letters. He always says he's almost well. Do, please, let me know the worst. He'll be lame for life, won't he, poor fellow?"'

"'I assured her, as I was quite justified in doing, that the bullet-wound which had nearly fractured his kneecap, though it certainly had been dangerous at one time, and though amputation had been talked of, was now so very much better that there was no more danger, and that, as he was a fine healthy young fellow, there was every prospect of his soon being able to leave off his crutches, which he had been obliged to use for a month or two.

"'As I got more accustomed to be actually looking at Pauline, to see her eyes, to be under the magic spell of her presence, and having got a little of my confidence back, from talking about these matters of fact, I took heart of grace, and told her all about the action where her cousin got wounded. We had both been in this action together, serving in the same battalion, as it happened. You know how one manages, in such a case, to give a pretty graphic and vivid account of things, and, indeed, is rather apt to get--more than is quite called for--into that emphatic and picturesque "manner" which never fails in its effect upon young women. Of course you will understand that I didn't dwell so much upon the disposition of the troops, the plan of attack, the "general idea" of the operations, the feigned attacks, masked batteries, debouching and development of the cavalry arm, etc., etc., as upon the minor incidents of a more personal kind, which are what really interest friends at home. Many an incident which I scarcely noticed when it happened put on quite an interesting and affecting appearance when I was telling her about it; and thus it came about that Pauline was sometimes pale from sorrow and alarm, and at other times smiling gently through her tears.

"'"Ah!" she said, "when I came in just now, and you were standing so still and so thoughtfully, looking at that picture of a battle, it must have been recalling some painful memory to your mind."

"'A red-hot dart seemed to go through my heart at this. I suppose I must have turned as red as blood.

"'"What I was thinking of," I said, "was probably the happiest moment of my life, though at that moment I received a mortal wound."

"'"But you've quite got over it, have you not?" she asked with much anxious sympathy. "I suppose some bullet struck you at the moment of victory?"

"'I felt a good deal of an ass; but I suppressed this feeling to the best of my power, and without looking up, but fixing my eyes on the ground like some naughty schoolboy who has just been having a blowing up, I said in a feeble voice:

"'"I have had the pleasure of seeing you before."

"'Then the conversation went on in most edifying fashion, Pauline saying:

"'"Oh, really, I didn't know!"

"'"Yes," I went on; "it was such magnificent spring weather, and I was enjoying it with two friends of mine, whom I hadn't seen for several years."

"'"Ah! that must have been very nice," she said.

"'"I saw you, Miss Asling," I said.

"'"Did you really?" she answered. Oh, that must have been in the Thiergarten."

"'"Yes," said I; "one Whit Monday, in the Webersche Zelt."

"'"Yes, yes; quite right," cried Pauline. "I was there with my father and mother. There was a great crowd of people. I enjoyed it immensely. But I don't remember seeing you."

"My former state of idiocy came back upon me in full force, and I was on the point of saying something very absurd, when the Geheime Rath came in, to whom Pauline announced with much joy that I had brought a letter from her cousin. The old gentleman was charmed, and cried:

"'"What! a letter from Leopold! He's alive, then? How's his wound getting on? When will he be able to be moved?"

"'And with that he took me by the lapels of the coat, and led me into his own room. Pauline followed; he called for breakfast, and asked endless questions. In short, I had to stay two good hours, and when at last I tore myself away with much difficulty (for Pauline sat close beside me, and kept looking me in the eyes with childlike unconstraint), he put his arm about my shoulders and begged me to come in as often as I could--at breakfast-time, for preference.

"'I was now (as often happens in field service) right in the thick of the fire, without expecting it. If I were to detail to you the tortures that I underwent; how I often, as if impelled by some irresistible power, rushed away to that house which appeared to me a place so fatal to my peace; how I used to drop the bell-handle, without ringing it, and go home, then go back again, wander round and round the house, and at last go bursting into it, like a moth which can't keep away from the candle which is to burn it to a cinder, verily you would laugh, because you anticipate my admission that at that time I was deliberately making myself an ass of the very first water. Nearly every evening when I went I found a number of people there, and I must say that I never was so happy as I was on these occasions, and in that house; notwithstanding that, in the character of my own "daemon" or warning angel, I mentally gave myself constant digs in the ribs, and cried into my own ears, "You're a lost man! It's all up with you."

"Every night I went home more hopelessly in love and more intensely miserable. I soon felt convinced, from Pauline's happy, untroubled behaviour, that any thing like an unhappy love-affair on her part was quite out of the question; and frequent allusions of the guests clearly pointed to the fact that she was engaged, and would soon be married. There was a great amount of pleasant, jovial fun and merriment about the whole circle. It was quite a peculiarity of that house; and Asling himself--a fine, vigorous, jolly fellow, in first-rate health and well-to-do circumstances--was the leading spirit in all this. Often there seemed to be schemes of fun and mystification, on an extensive scale, on the _tapis_, which I, as a comparative outsider, not knowing the persons and circumstances, wasn't admitted to share in. There was generally great laughter and amusement going on among the _habitues_ over these affairs. I remember that one time when, after a long struggle with myself, I had yielded to the temptation and gone in rather late, I found the old gentleman and Pauline sitting in one of the windows with a group of young ladies round them. The old gentleman was reading something out to them; and when he had finished there was a ringing burst of laughter. To my astonishment he had a big nightcap in his hand, with an enormous bunch of carnations stuck on to it; this, after saying a word or two more, he put on his head, and nodded out of the window with it several times, moving his head up and down, at which they all burst out laughing again tremendously.'

"'Damnation! damnation!' cried Severin, getting up from his chair, and walking about.

"'What's the matter with you?' cried the other two anxiously.

"'Nothing! oh, nothing!' he said; 'I'm all right. Go on, my dear fellow, go on, that's all. Let's hear the rest of it.'

"He repeated this request, not without laughing bitterly within himself. Marzell went on:

"'I don't know whether it was from my having been a comrade of his nephew, or because the curious state I always was in on account of my continual condition of excitement endowed me with some odd interest in his eyes. But at all events the old gentleman soon took a great liking to me, and I should have been utterly blind had I not observed that Pauline evidently cared much more for me than for any of the other fellows who came about her.'

"'Really! really!' said Alexander, in a tone of anxiety.

"'There could be no doubt about it,' continued Marzell, and no wonder that I should have got nearer to her liking; because, like any girl with a head on her shoulders, she couldn't, with her delicate tact, help hearing in every thing that I said (or did) a full-choired hymn in praise of her marvellous attractiveness, my deepest devotion to that whole nature of hers, instinct with the most passionate fervour. She would often let her hand remain in mine for minutes, she would return my gentle pressure, and, once, when the girls were all waltzing to the rather wheezy old piano, she came into my arm, and I felt her bosom rising and falling, and her sweet breath on my cheek. I was beside myself. Fire burned on my lips. I should have kissed her in a minute.'

"'The devil! the devil!' roared Alexander, jumping up like a man possessed, and grabbing hold of his hair with both hands.

"'For shame! for shame! remember you're a married man,' said Severin, pushing him back into his chair again. 'I'll be hanged if you're not daft about Pauline at this moment, married though you be. Think shame of yourself, wretched Benedict, with your neck fast in the yoke.'

"'Well! go on with your story,' said Alexander, in an inconsolable tone, 'we shall hear of fine goings on, I can see.'

"From what I have told you,' continued Marzell, 'you can form some idea of my state of mind. I was torn by a thousand passions, and worked myself up to the highest pitch of heroism. I made up my mind that I would quaff the brimming cup of poison, and then go and breathe out what was left to me of life far, far away from the beloved one. In other words, I meant to tell her I loved her, and then avoid her, till the wedding day, at all events; for then I meant to do as the heroes in so many novels do, that is, look on at the ceremony concealed behind a pillar in the church, and after the fatal "yes" fall down at full length, with a tremendous crash, senseless on the floor; be carried out by the sympathizing spectators, and so forth. Possessed with this idea, I went to the house earlier than usual one day, like a man out of his mind. I found Pauline alone in the drawing-room, and, before she had time to be frightened at my agitated condition, I fell at her feet, seized her hands, pressed them to my heart, vowed that I loved her to distraction, and, pouring out a flood of tears, said I was the most miserable of mankind, doomed to a cruel death, as she had given her heart and promised her hand to another, before we had met. Pauline let me rage out what I had to say; then, with a charming smile, she made me rise and sit down by her on the sofa, and then she asked me, in a voice of gentle concern:

"'"What's the matter with you? Please calm yourself, dear Mr. Marzell, you're in a state which terrifies me."

"'I repeated all I had said before, more coherently however. Then Pauline said:

"'"But how did you ever get it in your head that I'm in love with anybody, or engaged to be married? There's not a word of truth in either the one story or the other, I can assure you."

"'I maintained, on the other hand, that I had been quite certain ever since the first moment I had set eyes on her that she was in love; and as she kept pressing me to explain more clearly, I told her the whole story of that first Monday of ours in the Webersche Zelt. Scarcely had I finished it when Pauline got up and danced about the room with shouts of laughter, crying:

"'"Oh! good gracious! It's too delicious altogether! Well! what dreams! what ludicrous absurdities to take in one's head! Oh! I never heard anything like it! it's really beyond everything!"

"'I sat nonplussed; Pauline came back to me, took me by the hands, and shook me by them, as one does to rouse a person from a deep sleep.

"'"Now please to listen to what I'm going to tell you," she said, trying hard, but not very successfully, to restrain her laughter. "The young man whom you took for a messenger of love was a shopman from Bramigk, the draper's; the note he gave me was from Bramigk himself. He, like the most charming and courteous of shopkeepers as he is, had promised to get me a hat from Paris (I had admired the pattern when I saw it), and to let me know as soon as it arrived. I wanted it particularly to wear the evening of that Whit Monday when we were all in the Webersche Zelt. I wanted to put it on to go to a singing tea in; you know what we call a singing tea here? A place where people sing in order to drink tea, and drink tea for the purpose of singing. Very well! The hat had come, but it was so badly made that it had to be all altered before I could wear it. This was the fatal news that made me shed a tear or two. I didn't want my father to see that it had made me cry, but he soon found out what I was vexed about, and chaffed me unmercifully on the subject. You know I have a habit of holding my handkerchief to my face, as I did that day, when anything annoys me?"

"Pauline burst out laughing again. But a bitter frost seemed to go through my veins and marrow, and a voice within me seemed to cry, "Wretched, shallow, disgusting dress-worshipper!"

"'Come, come!' interrupted Alexander, 'that's terribly severe, and not true of her. I call it going too far.... However, let's hear the rest of your story.'

"'My feelings,' said Marzell, 'I really cannot describe to you. I had awakened from the mocking dream in which some wicked demon had held me enthralled. I felt, now, that I had never really been in love with Pauline, but had only been the sport of some incomprehensible self-mystification. I could scarcely find a syllable to say; my whole body shook and trembled with rage and vexation. When Pauline, in alarm, asked what was the matter with me, I pretended that I was taken suddenly unwell, and I fled, like a hunted deer, out of the house for ever. As I was crossing the square of the Gendarmerie, I saw a body of volunteers falling in to march off and join the army. This showed me clearly the course I ought to adopt, for the calming of my mind, and to forget this miserable business. Instead of going home, I went off and enrolled myself for service in the field. Everything was arranged in a couple of hours' time. I ran home, put on my uniform, packed my knapsack, took my musket and bayonet, and went to hand over to the charge of my landlady what things I was going to leave behind. While I was talking to her, I heard some commotion going on on the stairs outside.

"'"Ah! they're bringing him down," said the landlady, and opened the door. I saw Nettelmann, the madman, coming down between two keepers. He had on a lofty crown of gilt paper, and was carrying a long ruler, with a gilt apple on the top of it.

"'"He thinks he's King of Amboyna again, now," the landlady whispered, "and he's been doing such extraordinary things of late that his brother has had to have him taken to the asylum."

"'He recognized me; smiled down at me with proud benignity, and said, "Now that the Bulgarians have been vanquished by our trusty General Tellheim, we are returning to our capital."

"Though I wasn't making any attempt to speak to him, he motioned me to silence with a wave of his hand, and said:

"'Enough, enough! we are aware what you would say, good sir. No more! We are satisfied with you; you have done your duty. Accept this trifle as a mark of our favour and esteem."

"'With which he took two or three cloves from his waistcoat-pocket and put them into my hand. The men put him into a carriage which was waiting. The tears came to my eyes as I saw him driven off.

"'"I hope we soon shall see you back again, safe and sound, and covered with glory," said the landlady, shaking me warmly by the hand. With many a painful thought in my tormented breast, I ran out into the night, and soon came up with the party of my comrades, who were singing cheery soldier-songs as they marched along.'

"'Then,' said Alexander, 'you feel certain that your love for Pauline was a mere self-mystification?'

"'As sure as that I'm alive,' answered Marzell; 'and it won't require much knowledge of mankind to convince you that my rapid change of sentiment, when I found I hadn't a rival, would have been impossible otherwise. Moreover, I am seriously in love now; and although I laughed at the notion of your being married, because the idea of you in the capacity of Paterfamilias seems rather too funny, somehow (I hope you won't be vexed at my saying so), I am expecting very soon to lead a darling girl home as my bride, in a fairer land than ours.'

"'I'm very glad, and I give you my heartiest congratulations, my dear, dear old fellow,' said Alexander, quite delighted.

"'See how pleased he is that somebody else is going to follow his own absurd example,' said Severin. 'As far as I'm concerned, the idea of marriage fills me with absolute horror. However, I should like to tell you the adventure I had with Pauline; it will amuse you.'

"'Well, what had you to do with Pauline?' asked Alexander, in an irritable tone, 'We must hear that.'

"'It didn't amount to very much,' said Severin, 'compared to Marzell's long tale, with all its psychological remarks and illustrations. Mine is a very commonplace piece of fun. You know that, about this time two years ago, I was in a very strange condition altogether. Probably it was the state of my health, which was very queer at that time, which had converted me into a terribly sensitive, overstrung, fanciful spirit-seer. I was always floating on a boundless ocean of dreams and presentiments. I thought I understood the language of birds, like a Persian Mage. I heard voices in the rustling of the trees, sometimes of warning, sometimes of consolation. I saw my own image wandering in the clouds of the sky. Very well! It happened one day, when I was sitting in a lonely part of the Thiergarten on a bank of grass, that I got into a condition which I can only compare to that species of delirium which one often feels just when one is falling asleep. I seemed to be suddenly surrounded with the scent of a most delicious rose, but at the same time I became aware that this rose odour really was a beautiful being, whom I had long, though unconsciously, loved with the deepest and most passionate devotion. I strove to see her with my corporeal eyes; but it seemed to me that a great, dark-red carnation was laid on my brow, and the scent of this carnation burned away the rose perfume, as with a scorching ray, benumbing my senses so that a bitter sense of pain took possession of me, which strove to find expression in accents of wild anguish. Through the trees came sighing a sound like that when the evening wind touches the AEolian Harp with a gentle waft of its pinions, and breaks the spell which holds the music prisoned and sleeping within the strings. But this was not _my_ sound. It was that of the beautiful being who was stricken to death (as I was also) by the hostile contact of the carnation. If I may put this vision of mine into the form of an Indian myth, I might say that the rose and the carnation represented, for me, life and death; and all the absurdities which I said and perpetrated this day two years ago were chiefly due to the circumstance that in that beautiful creature, who was sitting in that chair there, and who has since assumed the corporeal form of Pauline Asling, I fancied I recognized her whose love had disclosed itself to me in the form of the rose perfume. You remember that I got away from you as soon as I could, leaving you in the Thiergarten. A sure presentiment told me that if I made an effort, and got quickly through the Leipzig gate, and then to Unter den Linden, I should meet the family, at the slow rate they were walking at, somewhere near the castle; so I ran as hard as I could; and I did meet them, very near the place where I had thought I should. I followed them at a little distance, and found out, that same evening, where the beautiful creature lived. You will probably laugh when I tell you that I thought I could scent a mysterious perfume of rose and carnation, actually in Green Street itself. For the rest, I conducted myself like some boy in a state of calf-love, who destroys the finest trees, contrary to the forest regulations, by carving interlaced initials on them, and carries about a withered petal, which the beloved has dropped, next his heart, wrapped in seven pieces of paper. That is, I used to pass under her window twelve, fifteen, or twenty times a-day; and if I saw her at it, I would stare at her, without any salutation, in a way which must have been funny enough. Heaven only knows how I arrived at the conviction that she understood me, and was fully conscious of the psychical influence which she had exerted on me in that flower-vision, and recognized in me him over whom the hostile carnation had cast a dark pall as he was striving to clasp her, who had thus risen as a planet of love in the depths of his being. That very day I sat down and wrote to her. I told her my vision; how I had then seen her at the Webersche Zelt, and known her as the being of my dream. I said I knew she fancied she loved another, and that in this connection something disastrous had come into her life. There could be no doubt, I said, that she, like me, had become aware of our intimate psychic relation, and our mutual devotion, in some dream-consciousness such as my own; though perhaps it was but now that my vision had clearly revealed to her all that had been slumbering in the depths of her nature; but, in order that this might come, joyfully and gladsomely, into actual life, so that I might approach her with a heart at rest, I implored her to be at the window the next day, at twelve o'clock, and, as an unmistakeable symbol of our happy love, to wear fresh-blown roses on her breast. Should she, however, be irresistibly drawn away from her _rapport_ with me, through hostile deception, by some other--if she rejected me without remead--I asked her to wear carnations instead of roses. The letter was probably a mad and senseless affair. That I am prepared to admit now. I sent it by such a trusty messenger that I knew it would reach the proper hands. Full of inward anxiety, and with a heavy heart, I went the next day at twelve o'clock to Green Street. I neared the house. I saw a white form at the window. My heart throbbed so that it almost burst my bosom. I came in front of the house. The old gentleman--he was the white figure--opened the window. He had a great white nightcap on, with a large bunch of carnations stuck in front of it. He nodded in a friendly way, so that the flowers waved and quivered; he wafted kisses of his hand at me, with the sweetest smiles. Just then I caught sight of Pauline, as well, peeping out from behind the curtains. She was laughing! I had been standing motionless, like a man under a spell; but when I saw her, I rushed away like a mad creature. There! you can understand, if you had any doubt about it before, that this cured me completely; but the shame of it would not let me rest. As Marzell did later, I went off at once to join the troops on active service, and nothing but the adversity of fate prevented us from meeting again.'

"Alexander laughed immoderately over the humorous old gentleman.

"'Then this,' said Marzell, 'was what he was after that time when I found him with the nightcap; and of course it was your letter that he was reading to the girls.'

"'Of course,' said Severin; 'and although I can see the absurdity of the thing now, and think the old gentleman was perfectly right, and feel really obliged to him for the drasticity and appropriateness of the dose of medicine he made me swallow, still that adventure of mine causes me the most intense annoyance, and, to this hour, I can't endure the sight of a carnation.'

"'Well,' said Marzell, 'we've both been pretty severely punished for our folly. Alexander, who doesn't seem to have fallen in love with Pauline till we had gone through with our share of the business, turns out to have been the wisest of the three: and, for that reason, he has kept clear of further absurdities, and has none to tell us about.'

"'But, at all events,' said Severin, 'he can tell us how he came by his wife.'

"Really, my dear old fellow,' said Alexander, 'there's very little to tell; except that I saw her, fell in love with her, and married her. But there's one thing connected with it which may interest you, because my aunt has to do with it.'

"'Well! well! tell us!' they both cried.

"'You will remember,' said Alexander, 'that at that time I left Berlin, and my house--uncanny though it was to me by reason of my aunt's "walking" in it at night--greatly against my will. The connection of all these matters was as follows. One fine morning, after T had been terribly disturbed the whole of the night by tappings and rappings in all directions--which came into the room where I was sleeping, this time--I was lying in the window seat, quite tired and exhausted, and excessively out of temper and annoyed with the whole affair. I was looking out into the street mechanically, when, right opposite, in the big house over the way, a window opened, and a most beautiful girl in a pretty morning dress looked out. Much as I had admired Pauline, I thought her whom I then saw more charming still. I couldn't withdraw my eyes from her. At last she looked down; she couldn't help seeing me. I made her a greeting, and she returned it with indescribable pleasantness of manner. I found out from Mistress Anne who the people who lived there were, and I made up my mind that I must make their acquaintance somehow, so as to get nearer to her. It was an odd thing that, as soon as my thoughts were occupied with this young lady, and I was wholly sunk in sweet love-dreams about her, all the supernatural noises connected with my aunt ceased. Mistress Anne, whom I made as much of as ever I could, and who had quite got over her dread of me, often told me a good deal about my aunt. She was inconsolable because the poor soul, who had led such a pious, and exemplary life, could find no rest in her grave, and she laid all the blame upon the man who had treated her so cruelly, and the insuperable disappointment she had suffered on her wedding day--that was to have been. I told her, with much joy, that I never heard anything at night now.

"'"Ah!" she cried, with tears in her voice, "if the Feast of the Invention of the Cross were only over!"

"'"What is there specially about the Feast of the Invention of the Cross?" I quickly asked.