Chapter VI: Part ONE: A Poet in the Making (5)

They walked through the courtyard gate silently. He wished to touch her arm, to help her across the step of the portal, but he was keenly conscious of diffidence and barely touched her elbow, quickly letting it go.

He grew more loquacious after they had covered some distance. He was telling her how much he admired the French and that he had loved them from his early childhood.

“My father hates the Germans,” said she with a nervous laugh. “He would like to go back to France but mother died last year and he has many debts in the city. As soon as he pays his obligations we’ll go back home.”

Albert insisted that one must hate no one.

“But you can’t love everybody.”

He agreed that one could not love everybody.

They were now passing through a main thoroughfare, encountering more pedestrians.

“_Guten Abend, Herr Zorn_,” a cordial voice addressed Albert.

He turned and saw little Aaron Hirsch, accompanied by his lean little wife. Aaron was walking in front, his hands behind, letting his gnarled cane drag over the sidewalk, his wife lagging half a step behind.

On his return home Albert made no light. He liked the darkness. His headache was gone, his bitterness departed, but he was sleepless. Eugenie’s presence had filled him with a pacifying joy. Something had stimulated him without irritation.

He soon found himself comparing Eugenie with Hilda and the difference in the atmosphere of their respective presences. Hilda was German, German to the core in spite of her Semitic blood. Her keen sense of caste, her haughty manner because of her father’s wealth, her materialistic outlook upon life, her lack of self-abandon—all the well-defined traits of the wealthy German, were easily discernible in her. Albert felt all this as he contemplated his beloved, and yet he was drawn to her. But her attraction for him was tantalizing, and made him restive, while that of Eugenie was free from this. Eugenie’s presence filled him with a pacifying joy, without irritation; it made him conscious of her charm without combative influences. He vaguely wondered if a man could love two women at the same time. Why not? One could love two children with the same devotion at the same time. And then one unexpectedly comes across an exotic flower—with the perfume and color of the tropics—and yet loves none the less the rose and the lily. If one loves the rose is there any reason why he could not at the same time love the lily? As he prepared to retire a fugitive memory flitted across his brain. Eugenie had said something about blue eyes. He was conscious of disappointment. For while his eyes appeared blue they were really greenish. He wondered if Eugenie was equally fond of greenish eyes.

When he was in bed, lapsing into sleep, Eugenie’s face was before him, and he remembered her laugh. Hilda never laughed so freely, so whole-heartedly; there was always restraint in her laughter as there was restraint felt in everything about her. He thought of warbling of a canary, the voice flowing joyously into the air. And he also liked the dancing sunshine in her eyes when she laughed. Every time her upper lip rose he felt a strong desire to kiss her on the mouth. And that hand of hers—those long, soft, cool, yet clinging, fingers! His last semi-conscious thought was of those clinging fingers . . .

XI.

“That was a pretty girl you walked with last evening,” Aaron Hirsch remarked, and, rolling his large gray eyes, emitted a cackle, “It takes a poet to know what is what—hey?”

This magpie repeated the same remark to Albert’s “esteemed uncle.” He only phrased it a little differently.

“Your esteemed nephew is rapidly learning the ways of Hamburg,” Aaron said to the banker, with a cringing, ingratiating laugh. “If you had seen him stroll along Beckerstrasse with a brunette on his arm you would have imagined him a born Hamburger.”

Leopold Zorn grew angry and sent Aaron about his business. A few minutes later he called him back.

“I meant no harm, Herr Banquier,” Aaron was making obsequious apologies. “May the Lord so help me, I meant no offense to your esteemed nephew. Far be it from me to even hint at any offense to the most remote relative of my benefactor. No, indeed. The girl he walked with was no hussy on the Jungfernstieg. She is a most respectable girl. That she is, Herr Banquier; I happen to know her father. I sold him a lottery ticket last year and he won fifty marks at the first drawing. A very honorable man is M’sieu Charaux—a relative of the widow Rodbertus—a very fine woman with whom your esteemed nephew is lodging. Indeed, the girl is a real lady—what people in your high social station would call a _Mademoiselle_. You need have no fear about your esteemed nephew—no, indeed; I keep my eye on him all the time. Blood certainly will tell. He is a well-behaved young man—a chip off the old block, as the saying goes.”

Admonishing Aaron not to discuss his nephew, the banker told him to keep his eye on the young man.

“That I will, sir,” Hirsch assured his patron.

XII.

Opening the door of his lodging a few days later Albert noticed Eugenie talking with Frau Rodbertus. They were in the little parlor. He wondered what they were always talking about, this young girl and that middle aged woman. He wished to walk past them, up the stairs, to his room, but the parlor door was open and he could not pass unnoticed. Besides, he was lonesome and liked to talk to them—to Eugenie. There was something about her that always caused his lonesomeness to disappear. With her he felt at home. She made him forget Hilda.

Eugenie was seated close to Frau Rodbertus, leaning affectionately against the older woman, the candle light flickering on a table close by.

They soon laughingly began to talk of love. Albert called it a malady, which, he declared, was in some cases incurable. The widow laughed indulgently, with the tolerance of older people for the sweet nonsense of the young. Eugenie’s eyes were serious and she vouchsafed no comment.

Frau Rodbertus was to have escorted Eugenie home but Albert would not hear of it.

He took Eugenie’s arm carelessly, without any timidity, without even feeling the tremor of her arm as he touched it. Eugenie was silent as they walked through the dark quiet streets. Presently her hand touched his, and he clasped it, feeling the fingers moist and cool, and he playfully straightened her fingers one by one without resistance from her. Her fingers were slender and soft, and he was conscious of a strong desire to carry them to his lips.

She did not permit him to take her all the way home. “You know my father is very strict and would be horrified if he knew I allowed you to walk home with me in the evening.”

They stopped a few doors from her house. She lived in a dark narrow street devoid of street lamps.

“You are so sympathetic,” he was saying to her, referring to her attitude rather than her words. She had extended her hand to him but he was in no haste to part. He could see her eyes in the dark. They were fixed upon his face sympathetically, and they were so close to each other.

Suddenly—he never could recall how it came about—his hands began to creep along her arms—they crept slowly, barely touching her sleeves, from the wrists upward—until the tips of his sensitive fingers felt the contact of her slender shoulders—he felt their smooth roundness, the yielding softness of the velvet garment over them—and then his arms entwined her. When their lips met she caught her breath with an involuntary little gasp—half sob, half cry, and clung to him grippingly for a moment but soon rested in his arms, scarcely breathing, with the stillness of death. For a bare second he was frightened. He could not hear her breathe.

“Eugenie,” he whispered. He now held her at arm’s length and peered into her face, but it was so dark that he could only see her dilated eyes. She was just staring at him, mystified at the first kiss from a man’s lips. “Eugenie,” he whispered again, but he only heard her catching her breath in response. He bent forward and kissed her moist slender fingers and bade her good night. Her fingers clung to him as they parted, almost drawing him back. “Good night,” he repeated. Her reply was no louder than her breathing.

They parted.

He walked away a few steps, turned around, and halted. He saw a shadow moving toward her house. When he saw the door open he walked away as fast as his legs could carry him, as if he were speeding away from a scene of crime. He also entered his room stealthily. And when in bed he tried to understand what had happened. It all seemed like a dream. He tried to persuade himself it was a dream. He was in love with Hilda. He was sure Hilda was the only one he loved. Then his mind recalled the scene of the reapers. Was he like the driver, that beast-like peasant? He sighed. He found himself pitying Eugenie—that sweet, gentle, trusting Eugenie—and despising himself. He hated himself. His eyelids were soon wet with tears, an unbearable pain in his breast. The thought of Eugenie wrung his heart; it gnawed at his brain. Albert was easily given to tears, and they now flowed freely. He wept for Eugenie. She was so pure, so beautiful, so tender, so sympathetic, and he treated her as if—as if she were a reaper in the fields!

What was pounding in his ears so clamorously? The dashing waves by the sea . . . the driver was kissing Hilda . . . What surprised him was that the sight did not shock him and he looked on and laughed; he was not even jealous; there was no resentment in his heart. He laughed and told Frau Rodbertus not to mind it—Frau Rodbertus, in her long gown and slippers, was seated in his lap and calling him sweetheart, and he was married to the widow . . . As he was trying to recall when he had married her Hilda and Eugenie came in, arm in arm. But how they were dressed! Barefooted, with short skirts of unbleached linen and loose blouses, like the reapers; and then Uncle Leopold—it was Uncle Leopold but he wore a beard like Aaron Hirsch—rushed in and waved a stick at him—the stick looked like an axle . . .

He stirred and said to himself he did not know why he could not fall asleep, then stirred again, opened his eyes and beheld day-light. He leaned out of bed, reached for his watch on a chair close by, and jumped out. He had overslept.

XIII.

Eugenie’s image persisted in intruding upon him. In fact, he found himself thinking more of Eugenie than of Hilda; there was more tenderness in his heart when thinking of Eugenie than when thinking of Hilda. And every time he glanced at that omnipresent Aaron Hirsch—Aaron Hirsch had again seen him with Eugenie—he thought of Eugenie. Aaron had said nothing to him about her but he could read something in his rolling, roguish eyes. While copying entries into the ledger he did it mechanically, his mind wandering in other regions. He was visualizing those sweet moments with Eugenie in the dark street and experiencing the sensation over again.

A few days later Albert was summoned to his uncle’s private room. Albert was in a grave mood because of the return of a few poems which he had sent to an editor at Munich.

He found Uncle Leopold at his secretary, austere and domineering.

“Take a seat.” He said this in a commanding tone.

Albert sat down, feeling the worthlessness of life more keenly.

“I have something of the gravest importance to say to you,” Uncle Leopold commenced, his eyes averted. He then paused.

Albert caught his breath and waited.

“It’s about your general conduct,” he snapped. “They tell me awful things about you.”

“I’ll try to be careful about my work in the bank,” Albert said contritely. For the moment Albert’s pride was gone. His pride would always sink with the rejection of his manuscripts.

“I don’t care so much about your work,” the banker said with an irritable wave of his hand. “These mistakes can be corrected. It’s your life mistakes. No one but yourself can correct those.”

The banker again paused. Albert looked at his uncle puzzled. He could not fathom the cause of the present complaint.

“You have been seen in bad company,” the banker resumed in a more serious tone. “The nephew of Leopold Zorn must not bee seen running around with dissolute women.”

“Uncle Leopold—that’s not true—it’s a base falsehood—I have kept company with no bad women—” he burst out indignantly, tears springing to his eyes. “Some one has been slandering me. I spend all my evenings reading and writing, save for a stroll now and then—someone has been lying to you.”

“No, the source of this information is quite reliable,” the banker continued in a milder tone, the tears in his nephew’s eyes instantly softening his feelings. “You were seen on Bleicherstrasse with a girl of questionable character.”

“That’s false, Uncle Leopold . . utterly false . .” tears stifled his speech.

He then remembered Eugenie and felt he had to defend her honor.

“I have never associated with any women here except with one of the purest souls I have ever known—as pure as my own mother—as pure as my sister—as pure—” He was about to add Hilda’s name but checked himself.

“One cannot be too discriminating,” Uncle Leopold said in a conciliatory tone, as if willing to let bygones be bygones, “but you must be more careful in the future. The walls have ears and the streets a thousand eyes. The nephew of Leopold Zorn must avoid all suspicion.”

“And the uncle of Albert Zorn ought not to lend ear to malicious tongues,” flared up the nephew, rising from his seat indignantly.

The false accusation and the insinuation against Eugenie’s character brought back his innate pride. His unshakable confidence in himself returned. There was insolence on the young man’s face.

Uncle Leopold caught the sudden change in his nephew’s face and smiled. He resented Albert’s impudent manner, but at the same time admired the young man’s fearlessness. He remembered the letter his wife had received from Albert in which he thanked her for her hospitality. Aunt Betty had expressed great admiration for the style of his language.

When the interview was over the banker rose from his seat and escorted Albert out of the door, his hand resting kindly on the young man’s shoulder.

EUGENIE.

I.

Dreary months followed. Aside from the great disappointment the climate contributed to his misery. The damp autumn, the cold early winter days, the northern winds were not to his taste. He was a child of sunshine, not a child of the mild sunshine of the Acropolis, as he thought he was, but of the burning rays baking the plains of Jehosophat, and the scorching heat of Jericho. Protest though he might, he was a child of Canaan. And everything around him was bleak and cold and dismal, and his heart was burning with a fire of its own, the blood in his veins seething tumultuously. He wrote much to give expression to his turbulent thoughts, walked much to dissipate his restlessness, and people called him an idler, a _Gassenjunge_! He did not care. He shunned people. He only wished to be a spectator of the passing show of life, and when the procession provoked laughter in him he laughed with the tears rolling down his cheeks. For there was pity in his laughter, but those around him only heard the laughter with no ear for the pitiful undertone.

Albert always hated Prussianism—he had learned to hate it in his childhood—and Prussianism was the spirit of Hamburg of that day. Brought up in a Rhenish town under French occupation it was inevitable that a boy with such keen sensibilities should perceive the difference between Prussian ponderousness and vulgarity and French sprightliness and delicacy. His present environment brought back to him his earlier perceptions.

Albert found himself pondering on Goethe and Lessing. In Goethe he saw the Spinoza of poetry. He understood what Herder meant when he said, “I wish that Goethe would for once take some other Latin book in hand besides that of Spinoza.”

The more he pondered on Goethe and Lessing and Spinoza the more he revolted against the Philistinism of his environment His unrequited love added bitterness. He saw the faults of the people around him with the eyes of an enemy.

And there was hatred all around him. Lessing’s preachments against hatred had made no impression upon his people. Indeed, they had erected monuments to his memory but went on hating more than ever. They wanted none of Lessing’s tolerance, none of the Pantheistic harmony of Goethe. They wanted strife. Not the strife that begets liberty—liberty of mind and body—but the strife that begets religious bigotry. Albert wanted to continue, and combine, the noble work of Lessing and Goethe. He wanted to teach his countrymen the truth of Lessing and the harmony of Goethe, but he was as yet too young to know that the reward for such efforts are loose stones during one’s life and stones cemented into the shape of a monument when loose stones can no longer do any harm.

He found himself like a nightingale in a crow’s nest. Every time he began to sing the crows caw-cawed; and the masses have always understood the caw-caw better than the song of the nightingale.

He was no philosopher content with metaphysical speculations. He was no Spinoza to be content to grind lenses and subsist on a penny’s worth of Dutch bread and raisins. Unlike the philosopher’s passion for abstract truth, truth was meaningless to Albert unless it colored human life. His asceticism was not that of the monk wilfully denying himself the pleasures of the body but rather that of the pleasure-seeking maiden who silently broods in her chamber because she was left out of a festivity. The world to him was a playground, and he wished to do part of the playing.

Of late he had tried to get his first poems published in book form but the publishers could see no merit in them. The verses were too simple to strike the publishers as extraordinary; and though Goethe had given them a lesson in simplicity the Germans were still too bombastic to appreciate any writing unless tumid. Albert felt that as soon as his poems were published the world would be at his feet. He had been to see a publisher who was specializing in books that provoked the censor, but as yet there was nothing in Albert’s poems to provoke any one except a lovesick maiden.

One day he decided to have his poems published at any cost, and show his uncle—and Hilda—that he was no mere clerk. But where could he get the money? He only received a salary sufficient for his board and lodgings. Besides, he did not know how to economize. He soon thought of the lottery, the living hope, and the despair, of his father’s existence. Perhaps he might win—somebody won at every drawing! One night he dreamt that he played the lottery and won. He thought this a good omen and the following morning gambled away his last _Pfennig_.

II.

Eager to have some of his poems published, and finding no publisher to risk his imprint, he sent a few verses to _Hamburg’s Waechter_, a newly founded periodical, whose secret aim was Jew-baiting.

The editor of this journal, one Karl Trummer, was one of those pen-patriots who abound in every land in times of great strife and who sell their pens to the highest bidder. After every war there is a feeling present that the bloodshed was useless, and every faction blames the other. In spite of Hegel’s saying that the only thing man learns from history is that he learns nothing from history, certain pen-patriots have learned that laying the blame at the door of one class satisfies all other classes—the same class that bore the brunt when wells were poisoned, when the Black Plague raged, when famine swept the land, when reason dethroned the idols of antiquity. The Jew has always been an atoning scapegoat.

Little thinking of the policy of this journal—thinking only of having some of his verses appear in print—and though concealing his identity under an ingenious pseudonym, the authorship of these ballads was soon learned, and Albert found himself more disliked than ever. He was regarded with contempt by the Jews and with indifference by his non-Jewish friends. And in order to make him feel the sting of their hatred the Jews belittled his talents. That _Gassenjunge_ a _poet_! they sneered. His language was so simple that a child—“even a maid servant”—could understand it! How, really, could one be a poet who could be understood by everybody?

Embittered he isolated himself altogether. He was in his room night after night, reading, writing, thinking. He paid no attention to Dame Gossip and her wagging tongue. Too many thoughts crowded his brain, too many conflicting opinions. For he read books on all sorts of subjects—poetry, philosophy, theology, tales, legends—and he never read passively. He either praised or condemned. And the books he read not only imparted to him the knowledge of the authors but, like narcotics, stimulated the intuitive knowledge within him.

When he casually did meet people he voiced his convictions too freely. He was still of an age when impressions were easily made and for the time they seemed indelible. He was impetuous, ardent, argumentative. He was witty and people liked to listen to him even though they hated him for his utterances. And when his convictions changed—as the convictions of liberal minds and those of sincere purpose must change—he gave frank expression to these changes. People called him fickle and thought him flippant, failing to realize the struggles of a soul in its efforts to adjust itself. He was likewise vacillating in his literary attempts. Before he fully developed one poetic theme another rushed upon him and he halted the latter for still another.

His presence in the bank had finally become a source of annoyance. Martin Elfenbein could hardly contain himself. In spite of frequent warnings Albert came and went whenever he pleased. Yet, no one dared discharge him.

At last the inevitable happened. He was advised that his services were no longer needed in the bank. No one was happier than Albert. He was glad to be rid of this place, no matter what the outcome might be.

But before long Uncle Leopold had established his nephew in a new business. Albert was conscious of his importance when he beheld the sign:

ALBERT ZORN
KOMMISSIONGESCHAEFT

He was now a full fledged merchant, and he could come and go as he pleased without being eyed by that hateful Martin Elfenbein. And he did not owe a _Pfennig_ for his stock of goods. His quick-tempered but generous uncle, after reprimanding him for his past transgressions, had filled up the shop with cloth wares and told him everything was his providing he attended to business and managed to replenish the shelves with the money taken in.

The novelty of the thing stimulated his energies for a while. Besides, the odor of the bolts of new cloth, the color of the chintzes, the haggling of the customers amused him. At first everything amused him and appealed to his sense of humor. The manners and faces of the agents who came to sell goods, the people who came to purchase, were an inexhaustible source of fun to him. Human faces and figures always suggested to him various species of animals or grotesque subjects. In one he saw the face of an airedale, in another that of a rabbit, a bulldog, a calf, or some ludicrous physiognomy. The forms of other customers seemed to him to resemble numerical figures. As a result there was a never-dying smile on his face and something akin to mockery in his perpetually narrowed eyes. At times, however, he would forget his merchandise and indulge in conversation foreign to his business. All sorts of news was afloat in the air in those days—strange rumors from France, from Austria, from England and scores of new movements in Germany—and Albert gave free reign to his tongue. He made comments, coined epigrams, gave expression to cynical remarks, which were repeated in the Pavilions and, expatiated upon, were carried to his uncle.

Leopold Zorn had ordered Aaron Hirsch to keep his eye on his incorrigible nephew and make reports of the young man’s conduct, and while endeavoring to shield Albert, Aaron had “a wife and seven children” and had to do his duty.

Aaron’s reports were not encouraging. Not infrequently when Aaron called he found no one at the shop, the door unlocked, the proprietor away at the Swiss Pavilion. Aaron played pranks upon Albert and carried off numerous articles, which were undetected by the owner, until their return by the sly Hirsch.

What Albert could not understand was the unsolvable riddle at the end of six months; he had neither money nor merchandise and no one owed him anything! He put the problem up to Aaron but instead of explaining the situation Aaron laughed until tears rolled down his bearded cheeks.

“It’s a great mystery,” Albert said with mock gravity. “Perhaps a Kabbalist might be able to bring Elisha back to life, and the prophet, who could fill barrels of oil from an empty jug, might stretch a yard of velveteen into a thousand bolts.”

When laughter subsided Albert produced a few sheets from his breast pocket and read a few of his latest verses.

“Ah! if I could put these on the shelves!” he sighed.

III.

As most people in sorrow and affliction turn to prayer Albert turned to love. He could be without friends, he could endure mental anguish, but he could not bear life without love.

Of late many things had troubled him. His father was making preparations to leave Gunsdorf and his mother’s letters lacked the usual ring of cheer. His sister, too, seemed weary of the life in her native town and frankly hinted that she would welcome a change. He had gradually become estranged from Uncle Leopold’s house and from the class of people that visited there and shunned all other associations, save the dilettantes in the Swiss Pavilions who sat all day drinking beer and talking grandiloquently of art and literature. But before long he tired of these, too. He fathomed their depth. He was lonely and craved affection, and his thoughts turned to Eugenie. He had not seen her for some time, as her father had moved to a farm about five miles from Hamburg, and her visits at Frau Rodbertus’ were rare. He now yearned for Eugenie and reproached himself for his neglect of her in the past. He knew Eugenie had loved him and wondered if she still loved him.

One summer day he took a stroll on the road between Winterlude and Ohlsdorf. He was going to find her and yet sauntered along the road as if he were just walking aimlessly for the sheer pleasure of movement. It was a warm day and the road was white with dust. A dog barked. Albert turned around and saw a large dog harnessed to a small cart, barking as he pulled his load. Alongside the cart, on which stood a large empty milk can, was a girl, with a kerchief overhead arranged in the shape of a hood. The girl turned around when the dog began to bark, glanced in Albert’s direction, and proceeded on her way. The next moment she turned in his direction again and he saw a pair of large brown eyes under the hood-like kerchief. His heart fluttered, noisy crickets chattered in a nearby field. A bird called from a clump of bushes not far off. The muffled beats of flails came from a barn close to the roadside. The girl did not turn her head but plodded on alongside the little cart. Soon the road forked off to the left and the girl turned her head again toward him.

“Eugenie,” he called.

The dog emitted a loud, hollow bark and the empty can rattled against the sides of the little cart.

The girl hesitated, paused, and turned around, the dog hurrying ahead of her toward the farmhouse.

“Eugenie!”

Albert’s voice was jubilant, ringing with surprise, as if the meeting was wholly accidental.

With a quick movement of her left hand she jerked off the handkerchief, facing him with dilated eyes in which was a strange light.

She did not extend her hand to him.

“Frau Rodbertus had told me you were on a farm,” he broke the silence, intimating that it was not chance that had brought him here.

A softer light stole over her face, her protruding lip curled upward, disclosing her longish white teeth.

“I haven’t seen Frau Rodbertus in months,” Eugenie said, standing before him with her arms hanging on either side of her, the kerchief in her left hand.

Albert studied her a moment. The freedom of bygone days was gone. He felt constraint and sensed her constraint.

The dog had reached the gate of the farmhouse and stopped, barking, his head turned in the direction of Eugenie.

“You see, he is scolding me for lagging behind,” she said, indulging in a spontaneous smile.

“He is scolding you for your failure to offer hospitality to the weary wayfarer,” Albert answered in kind.

They both laughed.

“All wayfarers, weary or otherwise, are welcome at our house,” she said, turning into the passage that led to the farmhouse.

When they reached the house, Eugenie’s father, with rake in hand, was cleaning up the rubbish in front of the house. He was a little man, with a round face, a small tuft of hair under his lower lip, and a soft look in his round eyes such as only Frenchmen possess. He halted and glanced up suspiciously at the young man who followed his daughter into the yard. M. Chauraux was suspicious of all Germans, in spite of his sojourn there for many years.

Eugenic introduced Albert to her father, who acknowledged the introduction grudgingly. He showed only such cordiality as his native manners and politeness compelled, mumbling a few words in broken German.

“The gentleman speaks French, papa,” Eugenie struck in cheerfully, “and he loves the Emperor as much as you do.”

The Frenchman’s eyes turned with a bright flicker and, forgetting that he had just shaken hands with the stranger, clasped his hand once more. Then a mist appeared in the little man’s eyes and he sighed, muttering under his breath, “The Emperor!”

“No one loves the Emperor more than I do,” returned Albert.

“Have you ever seen him?” There was ecstasy on the Frenchman’s face.

“I see him now—I see him all the time—” cried Albert with boyish rapture. “I see him seated on a small white horse, holding the reins in one hand and gently stroking the horse’s neck with the other, riding slowly along the linden-flanked lane of the Hofgarten in my native town—Ah, the Emperor!” Mist also appeared in Albert’s eyes.

Saddened silence. Two speechless individuals with drooping heads. The Emperor was a captive on a barren island far removed from his worshippers.

Eugenie did not think of the Emperor. She was too happy to think of anything save of the cordiality between her father and Albert. Her father was very strict and never permitted her to form any friendship with young men. When the “time” would come he would find the proper “parti” for her, was his way of thinking. And he guarded jealously the most trivial flirtation on her part. He knew nothing of what had passed between his daughter and this young man beyond the fact that he was a lodger whom his daughter had once met at his relative’s home and that he happened to meet Eugenie on a chance stroll in this vicinity.

It was about two o’clock and Albert was invited to have a meal with them. There were very few words exchanged between Albert and Eugenie. All the talk was between her father and Albert—about the Emperor.

M. Chauraux did not mind his daughter’s accompanying the young man for a little distance. They had had a bottle of Burgundy between them and the young man admired the Emperor. The Frenchman had become quite loquacious and invited Albert to come again—any time whenever he could spare an hour from his business. Who could tell? The young man talked so well, seemed so prosperous, and loved the Emperor so much!—Who could tell? He might be a proper _parti_.

M. Chauraux’s regard for Albert increased when, several days later, the young man read to him a poem about Napoleon. The Frenchman did not quite grasp the verses in German but when Albert gave him the substance of it in French and then read the original to him, with unshed tears in his eyes, he even understood the German.

The young poet declaimed his verses with passionate abandon, music in his voice, tears in his eyes. The eyes of M. Chauraux, too, were clouded, the tuft of hair under his lower lip quivered, and he shook his head and sighed and murmured “_Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen!_”

M. Chauraux wiped a tear away. Who could tell? This young man, though not French, certainly loved the Emperor, and was evidently not averse to Eugenie—yes, he might be a proper _parti_ for Eugenie.

One day, when Eugenie came into the house, having escorted Albert down the road, her father was seated at the table—there was only one table and one room which served as dining and living room—his arms resting upon it, as was his wont; his bushy eyebrows frowning as if he were working on a hard puzzle; his eyes staring in front; his short, stubby fingers drumming absently upon the table. He glanced at his daughter and noticed the expression of exultation on her face.

“A talented young man, hein?” said the father, without removing his arms from the table, and looking directly at her.

“Yes, he is,” Eugenie replied demurely, as was becoming a virtuous girl when her father makes reference to a young man.

“Very talented—very,” he repeated and turned in the direction of the window to his left. “Not a bad sort.”

Eugenie was silent and began busying herself with some household duties.

“_Mein Kaiser, mein Kaiser gefangen!_” hummed M. Chauraux, nodding his head sorrowfully and lightly tapping the table with the tips of his fingers.

“He might make a good husband for some nice girl,” the father said apropos of nothing a little later.

Eugenie was scouring a copper kettle and her head lowered as she applied herself to the utensil with more determination, without making any comment.

A girl should not be too frivolous, mused M. Chauraux, but still Eugenie ought not to be that bashful. She could at least encourage the young man, he said to himself, and take a little interest in him when he comes to the house. So far the conversations in the house were invariably carried on between the men, and always about the Emperor.

“You are past eighteen, my child,” he presently addressed his daughter, “and if the right young man would come along I should like to see you married.”

He rose from the table and came close to her. Eugenie, her face reddening, did not raise her eyes.

“You like Monsieur Zorn—hein?”

The scouring sound was the only reply.

M. Chauraux was puzzled. He could not quite reconcile her blushes with her silence. She never did care for the German young men, he said to himself.

“He is so different from the other Germans,” the father pursued the same object, flattering himself on his ingenious probing.

“Yes, he is different.”

M. Chauraux walked out of the house in a reflective mood. When a girl thinks a young man different from other young men she might be in love with him. Yes, he might be a good _parti_.

IV.

Weeks passed on, happy weeks for Albert. His stock was dwindling, so was his money, but what did he care? M. Chauraux made no objections to his frequent visits at the farm and at intervals Eugenie, on the pretext of visiting her relative, came to the city and met Albert. Eugenie, too, was happy. They were now avowed lovers, and nothing else mattered. The fact that her love was clandestine added zest to her passion. For while her father approved of Albert as a suitor properly chaperoned by himself, she realized what would happen if he learned of their intimacy in his absence. And when Albert and Eugenie were alone they never discussed the future. The present was enough for them.

But Albert’s happiness never did continue long.

One day Aaron Hirsch—the faithful Aaron—entered the private office of his master, with a woe-begone expression on his countenance and emitted a half-stifled sigh.

“Herr Banquier,” he addressed the banker, with a wave of his hands, “something must be done before it’s too late—I mean about your esteemed nephew. I have kept my eye on him as I was bidden but now I am obliged to bring to you a matter of grave importance.”

“What is the young scamp up to now?”

“A young scamp he is not, Herr Banquier.” Aaron gave a soft laugh and rubbed his hands obsequiously. “But a young man is a young man and his mind naturally turns to girls as the sunflower turns to the sun.” He emitted a cackle and wiped his lips with the palm of his right hand.

“What is it?” Mr. Zorn was impatient.

“It’s still the matter I spoke to you about some time ago. The Frenchman’s daughter. Well, Herr Banquier, a young man is a young man and a girl is a girl—a—you see—a—it might be too late—” He gave a helpless shrug of his shoulders.

“Does her father know of this?”

“This is what I have come to tell you, Herr Banquier. The other day I drove down to Monsieur Chauraux’ farm on the pretext of selling him a lottery ticket and incidentally pumped him about his daughter’s relations with your worthy nephew. He thinks the young man is going to marry his daughter—”

“Why didn’t you tell him Albert is living on my charity?” burst out Leopold Zorn.

“Yes, Herr Banquier, I did hint to him that the young man has nothing beyond that his philanthropic uncle sees fit to give him. Perhaps I should have alluded to the difference in their religions.” Aaron looked up at his master inquiringly.

“Religion or no religion, the scamp has no intention of marrying her. Go and tell him that.”

“I hope it’s not too late.”

“Then don’t stand jabbering here. Go over at once and see the Frenchman again.”

“Yes, Herr Banquier, I know where I can get a vehicle and can go at once—I hope it’s not too late—I saw him with her at the Swiss Pavilion yesterday—Yes, Herr Banquier, I can get a vehicle around the corner and go at once,” Aaron repeated as he humbly bowed out of the banker’s presence.

A few days later Albert approached the farmhouse with bouncing joy in his heart. He had told Eugenie at their last rendezvous in the city what time he would get to the farm and she was to meet him at a little grove about half a mile from the house. Eugenie was still feigning bashfulness in her father’s presence.

It was early autumn, heaps of dead leaves in the grove. Albert pondered at her absence. On other occasions he had found her standing near a silver birch waiting for him or concealed in a clump of underbrush playing hide and seek with him. He loved those tantalizing moments, running this way and that, punctuated by her silver laughter, and when he would catch her, panting and out of breath, he would clasp her in his arms and kiss her throat and lips and hair. The partly denuded trees now disclosed her absence at a glance. He stood still and waited. Then he stepped out in the open and looked down the road but she was not in sight. His eagerness made him nervous. She had never failed in their appointments. When he had approached the grove blissful expectancy was in his breast, and the disappointment was doubly provoking. Then fear possessed him. She might be ill.

After a space he strode toward her home. It was a one-story, straw-thatched cottage, and as he entered the little yard he looked at once at the door and at the two little windows on either side. No one seemed around.

Albert rapped on the door. He heard a voice within. It was M. Chauraux’s voice; his voice in anger.

He rapped again.

Silence.

Albert’s heart throbbed with misgivings.

Again he knocked.

The door soon opened with a rapid movement, M. Chauraux on the threshold with a forbidding look in his round brown eyes.

Albert greeted him with his usual cordiality but with a fast-beating heart.

M. Chauraux’s eyes moved from side to side, the tuft under his lower lip projecting ominously.

“Is—is Mademoiselle Eugenia unwell?” Albert stammered.

M. Chauraux stepped forward and closed the door behind him.

“I can’t allow you to see Eugenie any more,” said the irate father brusquely.

“But——”

“I want no arguments,” M. Chauraux resumed harshly. “And no letters—they won’t be delivered to her—no more clandestine rendezvous—you hear? I have had enough trouble with the police and want no controversy with your banker uncle.”

And without further explanation he entered the house and slammed the door.

Albert walked away, and reaching the gate turned around and looked at the window but he only saw the reflection of the gray autumn sky in the panes. He turned into the road and walked slowly back, with measured steps, striking with his cane at the wilted leaves on the ground and at the little stones by the wayside. Was there ever an Adam who was not driven out of the Garden of Eden on some pretext or other, Albert mused bitterly. What was his alleged sin? He could not tell, he could not divine. What had suddenly turned M. Chauraux against him? Albert could not account. He did not doubt Eugenie’s love. When he reached the grove he paused. Every tree, every grassy spot was full of sweet memories. He sighed. Sweet memories belong to old age, they are the white mile-stones long passed and glistening in the distance. For the moment he felt aged, an unfortunate Atlas, with the world of sorrows on his back——

“_Ich Unglücksel’ger Atlas! eine Welt,_
_Die ganze Welt der Schmerzen, muss ich tragen._”

Yes, he felt as if the whole world of sorrows was on his back, bearing the unbearable, with a mortifying pain in his heart. He had insisted upon either eternal bliss or endless misery—no compromise—and since eternal bliss was denied him misery was the only alternative. He settled upon a tree stump nearby lost in brooding reflections. He felt the weight of life heavily upon him, it was crushing him. He could not think of life without the sweetness of love, and that seemed to have been taken away from him for ever. All events seem final to youth.

Time was passing. He could not tear himself away from this place, from where he could see the straw-thatched roof in the midst of a cluster of leafless trees. He could see the path daily trodden by her feet, the underbrush that touched her skirt. How could he go on living without the lustre of her eyes, without the clinging contact of her hands, without the sweet warmth of her breath?

Before he realized darkness had come and the moon and stars appeared. He had never seen the lights of heaven look down so sadly. Were they, too, lovelorn?

With sudden determination he rose and walked back to the farmhouse, nothing definite in his mind. The gate was ajar and there was no light in the house, the pallor of the moon falling upon the window-panes. The window to the left was her window, a few feet away from her bed. Here he stood, gazing lovingly upward. He rose on his tip-toes and his face was on a level with the bottom pane. He gently tapped on the glass but no one stirred within.

“Eugenie,” he murmured, “Eugenie!”

No one appeared at the window, no one but the moonlight over his shoulder.

He removed his diamond ring—his mother’s heirloom—and scratched on the pane before him, “_Moi je n’existe que pour vous aimer_.”

He paused, a sad smile on his face, and turned to the road.

A peasant was driving by. Albert asked for a lift. “Hop in,” said the peasant hospitably, “I am going all the way to the city.”

An hour later Albert was on the Jungfernstieg. The lane was crowded with promenaders, the moon seemed to shine more cheerily here, the stars twinkled brighter. With his head lifted there was abandon in his gait. Girls walked past him with luring glances but he only smiled and walked on. Presently he was in front of the Apollo Hall, ablaze with a thousand candles, astir with a thousand voices. The Apollo was a gay place. The blowing of trumpets reached his ears, the rattling of drums, the sounds that stir the blood of youth. His steps halted.

“Do come in for old times’ sake!”

Some one had arrested his arm.

And from the Apollo came the blowing of trumpets, the rattling of drums, the sounds that stir the blood of youth . . .

V.

Winter had come and gone. A bleak day in March. Wind, sleet, a drab sky.

In a little shop in Beckerstrasse, in Hamburg, a young man, with pale cheeks and light brown hair and narrowed eyes, was seated before a little table heaped with bills, invoices, and dunning letters. Some of these reminders of indebtedness, were unfolded before him, others were on a spindle, and still others were unopened. Why open letters when one knows their contents? With hands stuck in his trousers’ pockets, his legs extended under the table, the pale young man looked forlorn. He seemed at once reckless and bewildered, sorrowful and carefree. There was mist in his eyes. The postman had just handed him a letter from his father. Not a line from his mother. “How did it all happen?”—was the import of his father’s letter. How did it all happen? Figures had always been the bane of Albert’s existence and to answer this question one must deal with figures. A bitter smile suddenly appeared on his sensitive lips, and his eyes narrowed still more—mere fine lines of indefinable color. How did it all happen? A memory from his school days flitted across his brain and his smile was bitter no longer. “When you grow up,” his mathematics teacher had told him, “you’ll have to have some one else to count your money for you, or you won’t have any.” And striking him with a lead-edged ruler the teacher had made the announcement emphatic.

The young man threw his head back and laughed as he remembered the incident. Soon he forgot his father’s letter and that vexing question, forgot the bills and invoices, and his mind lingered upon his early school days. He had always hated those school days, but now there was a yearning in his heart for the teachers and text-books and for—yes, even for the lead-edged ruler and gnarled stick. What if some stupid monk had struck him with a ruler or cane? Those were happy days, when one was not worried about paying bills and about letters that demanded how it had happened! He sighed deeply and stretched his arms yawningly upward. “Those were happy days,” he repeated to himself.

His eyes dropped upon his father’s letters before him. He became irritable and vexed. He had thrashed it out with his uncle and now his father had started all over again. “What will become of you, Albert?” his father had added. “You are already in your twenty-second year and have failed in everything—in everything. You have not only brought ruin upon yourself but also upon your poor old father. For I am getting old, Albert, and instead of my supporting you, you should take care of me. And at my age I am now obliged to leave here and start over again at some other town. I can read between the lines of your uncle’s letter that your conduct in other respects has not been irreproachable.”

He pushed the letter away from himself. He was growing angry with his father, with his mother, with his uncle. Why had they pressed business upon him? They had known he had no taste for business. What right had they now to complain?

He rose from his seat and paced the floor. He did not blame himself any longer.

He locked the door. With the door locked he felt secure from disturbers. Then, taking out a few sheets from his breast pocket began to scan an uncompleted poem. Presently he replaced the sheets, uninvited thoughts intruded upon him. His erstwhile cynical look faded. His eyes closed and he heaved a sigh. The thought of his family moving away from Gunsdorf pained him. His family had lived in Gunsdorf all their lives, and now they must move to a little village. He blamed Nature for all their misery. Who knows, he mused, Kant may be right. There was no guiding Providence. How could there be with so many rascals inheriting the earth? What a stupid world to believe in a guiding Providence! Or was Providence stupid?——

The door rattled, the lock was tormented, but he hated to turn around to see who the disturber was. Everything around him was so misguided, he mused.

“Open the door!”

It was the voice of that magpie, Aaron Hirsch. He was fond of Aaron and jumped up to open the door.

“You can’t do business with the door locked,” laughed Aaron.

“Just as much as with the door open,” Albert replied in a challenging voice.

Aaron laughed good naturedly, unbuttoning his coat, heaved a long drawn sigh, and asked, “How is business?”

“An ingenious question? Oh, business is wonderful—simply wonderful—can’t you see? I have sold every bit of my stock——”

Aaron laughed.

“What’s the good word from Uncle Leopold?——”

“I am coming on no mission from him,” Aaron rejoined, shrugging his shoulders as if the mere thought of it was foreign to him.

“Aaron Hirsch, for this falsehood you’ll have to fast two Mondays and two Thursdays, and at that I am sure on the Day of Judgment, when you’ll begin to tell all the good deeds you had done in this world, a seraph will rush in, clapping his wings, and will halt your entering through the gates of heaven because you had lied to a poor innocent earthly poet.”

“You are too good to hold this against me,” laughed Aaron.

“No, I won’t. No sooner will that denouncing seraph have spoken when I will gallop in on a fiery steed and say, ‘Lord of Hosts, poor Aaron only lied because he wished to preserve a wife and seven children from starvation.’ Whereupon the Lord of Hosts will brush the seraph aside and say, ‘Let him in. It’s no sin to lie for one’s wife and seven children,’ and will praise you before the sun, the moon and all the shining stars, and will appoint you an angel of the First Grade, with the right to wear wings of the color of the Swiss Guards.”

Aaron “hi-hi’d,” and “ha-ha’d” and “ho-ho’d” and ended with a shriek of uncontrollable laughter.

“If you’ll permit me to light my pipe,” Hirsch said a moment later, as he stuck the bowl of his pipe into the mouth of his leather pouch, “I’ll tell you the truth, though I have given my word to your uncle not to tell you this. But remember, your uncle must not know that I told you or——”

“I understand, your wife and seven children—”

“Well, sir,” continued Hirsch, “your esteemed uncle has instructed me to find out the exact amount of your indebtedness and how much you owe for your board and lodging. And he wants you to come and see him tomorrow before noon—but not a word of what I told you about paying your debts.”

VI.

Hirsch soon left and Albert was again alone. He dreaded the meeting with his uncle. If he could only check himself and let his uncle’s storm blow over, but he insisted upon arguing, trying to convince his uncle that he, Albert, and not the banker, was right. A gleam of hope appeared on the horizon. Uncle Leopold had hinted at paying him a stipend if he would go to the university of Bonn or Goettingen and continue his studies.