The Progressionists, and Angela. Part 16

"You are right--I am ruined," said the laborer listlessly. "I couldn't bring myself to write Shund's name because he reduced my brother-in-law to beggary--this is what made me select the yellow ticket."

"You are a fool. Were Mr. Schwefel to recommend the devil, your duty would be to vote for the devil. What need you care who is on the ticket? You have only to write the names on the ticket--nothing more than that. Do you think progress would nominate men that are unfit--men who would not promote the interests of the state, who would not further the cause of humanity, civilization, and liberty? You are a fool for not voting for what is best for yourself."

"I am sorry now, but it's too late." sighed Leicht. "I wouldn't have thought, either, that Mr. Schwefel would get angry because a man wanted to vote to the best of his judgment."

"There you are prating sillily again. Best of your judgment!--you mustn't have any judgment. Leave it to others to judge; they have more brains, more sense, more knowledge than you. Progress does the thinking: our place is to blindly follow its directions."

"But, Mr. Spitzkopf, mine is only the vote of a poor man; and what matters such a vote?"

"There is your want of sense again. We are living in a state that enjoys liberty. We are living in an age of intelligence, of moral advancement, of civilization and knowledge, in a word, we are living in an age of progress; and in an age of this sort the vote of a poor man is worth as much as that of a rich man."

"If only I had it to do over! I would give my right hand to have it to do over!"

"You can repair the mischief if you want."

"Instruct me how, Mr. Spitzkopf; please tell me how!"

"Very well, I will do my best. As you acted from thoughtlessness and no bad intention, doubtless Mr. Schwefel will suffer himself to be propitiated. Go down into the court, and wait till I come. I shall get you another ticket; you will then vote for progress, and all will be satisfactory."

"I am a thousand times obliged to you, Mr. Spitzkopf--a thousand times obliged!"

The agent went back to the hall. Leicht descended to the courtyard, where he found a ring of timid operators like himself surrounding the st.u.r.dy Holt. They were talking in an undertone. As often as a progressionist drew near, their conversation was hushed altogether.

Holt's voice alone resounded loudly through the court, and his huge strong hands were cutting the air in animated gesticulations.

"This is not a free election; it is one of compulsion and violence,"

cried he. "Every factoryman is compelled to vote as his employer dictates, and should he refuse the employer discharges him from the work. Is not this most despicable tyranny! And these very tyrants of progress are perpetually prating about liberty, independence, civilization! That's a precious sort of liberty indeed!"

"A man belonging to the ultramontane party cannot walk the streets to-day without being hooted and insulted," said another. "Even up yonder in the hall, those gentlemen who are considered so cultivated stick their heads together and laugh scornfully when one of us draws near."

"That's so--that's so, I have myself seen it," cried Holt. "Those well-bred gentlemen show their teeth like ferocious dogs whenever they see a yellow ticket or an ultramontane. I say, Leicht, has anything happened you? You look wretched!" Leicht drew near and related what had occurred. The honest Holt's eyes gleamed like coals of fire.

"There's another piece of tyranny for you," cried he. "Leicht, my poor fellow, I fancy I see in you a slave of Schwefel's. From dawn till late you are compelled to toil for the curmudgeon, Sundays not excepted.

Your church is the factory, your religion working in straw, and your G.o.d is your sovereign master Schwefel. You are ruining your health amid the stench of brimstone, and not so much as the liberty of voting as you think fit is allowed you. It's just as I tell you--you factorymen are slaves. How strangely things go on in the world! In America slavery has been abolished; but lo! here in Europe it is blooming as freshly as trees in the month of May. But mark my word, friends, the fruit is deadly; and when once it will have ripened, the great G.o.d of heaven will shake it from the trees, and the generation that planted the trees will have to eat the bitter fruit."

Leicht shunned the society of the ultramontanes and stole away.

Presently Spitzkopf appeared with the ticket.

"Your ticket is filled out. Come and sign your name to it." Schwefel was again standing near the entrance, and he again beckoned the laborer to approach. "I am pacified. You may now continue working for me."

Carl and Seraphin returned to the Palais Greifmann. Louise received them with numerous questions. The banker related what had pa.s.sed; Gerlach strode restlessly through the apartment.

"The most curious spectacle must have been yourself," said the young lady. "Just fancy you on the rostrum at the 'Key of Heaven'! And very likely the ungrateful ultramontanes would not so much as applaud."

"Beg pardon, they did, miss!" a.s.sured Seraphin. "They applauded and cried bravo."

"Really? Then I am proud of a brother whose maiden speech produced such marvellous effects. May be we shall read of it in the daily paper.

Everybody will be surprised to hear of the banker Greifmann making a speech at the 'Key of Heaven.'" Carl perceived the irony and stroked his forehead.

"But what can you be pondering over, Mr. Seraphin?" cried she to him.

"Since returning from the turmoil of the election, you seem unable to keep quiet." He seated himself at her side, and was soon under the spell of her magical attractions.

"My head is dizzy and my brain confused," said he. "On every hand I see nothing but revolt against moral obligation, sacrilegious disregard of the most sacred rights of man. The hubbub still resounds in my ears, and my imagination still sees those fat men at the table with their slaveholder look--the white slaves doing their masters' bidding--the completest subjugation in an age of enlightenment--all this presents itself to me in the most repulsive and lamentable guise."

"You must drive those horrible phantoms from your mind," replied Louise.

"They are not phantoms, but the most fearful reality."

"They are phantoms, Mr. Seraphin, so far as your feelings exaggerate the evils. Those factory serfs have no reason to complain. There is nothing to be done but to put up with a situation that has spontaneously developed itself. It is useless to grow impatient because difference of rank between masters and servants is an unavoidable evil upon earth." A servant entered to call them to dinner.

At her side he gradually became more cheerful. The brightness of her eyes dispelled his depression, and her delicate arts put a spell upon his young, inexperienced heart. And when, at the end of the meal, they were sipping delicious wine, and her beautiful lips lisped the customary health, the subdued tenderness he had been feeling suddenly expanded into a strong pa.s.sion.

"After you will have done justice to your diary," said she at parting, "we shall take a drive, and then go to the opera."

Instead of going to his room, Seraphin went into the garden. He almost forgot the occurrences of the day in musing on the inexplicable behavior of Louise. Again she had not uttered a word of condemnation of the execrable doings of progress, and it grieved him deeply. A suspicion flitted across his mind that perhaps Louise was infected with the frivolous and pernicious spirit of the age, but he immediately stifled the terrible suggestion as he would have hastened to crush a viper that he might have seen on the path of the beautiful lady. He preferred to believe that she suppressed her feelings of disgust out of regard for his presence, that she wisely avoided pouring oil upon the flames of his own indignation. Had she not exerted herself to dispel his sombre reflections? He was thus espousing the side of pa.s.sion against the appalling truth that was beginning faintly to dawn upon his anxious mind.

But soon the spell was to be broken, and duty was to confront him with the alternative of either giving up Louise, or defying the stern demands of his conscience.

The brother and sister, thinking their guest engaged with his diary, walked into the garden. They directed their steps towards the arbor where Gerlach had seated himself.

He was only roused to consciousness of their proximity by the unusually loud and excited tone in which Louise spoke. He could not be mistaken; it was the young lady's voice--but oh! the import of her words. He looked through an opening in the foliage, and sat thunderstruck.

"You have been attempting to guide Gerlach's overexalted spirit into a more rational way of thinking, but the very opposite seems to be the result. Intercourse with the son of a strait-laced mother is infecting you with sympathy for ultramontanism. Your speech to-day," continued she caustically, "in yon obscure meeting is the subject of the talk of the town. I am afraid you have made yourself ridiculous in the minds of all cultivated people. The respectability of our family has suffered."

"Of our family?" echoed he, perplexed.

"We are compromitted," continued she with excitement. "You have given our enemies occasion to set us down for members of a party who stupidly oppose the onward march of civilization."

"Cease your philippic," broke in the brother angrily. "Bitterness is an unmerited return for my efforts to serve you."

"To serve me?"

"Yes, to serve you. The disturbing of that meeting made a very unfavorable impression on your intended. He scorned the noisy mob, and was roused by what, from his point of view, could not pa.s.s for anything better than unpardonable impudence. To me it might have been a matter of indifference whether your intended was pleased or displeased with the fearless conduct of progress. But as I knew both you and the family felt disposed to base the happiness of your life on his couple of millions, as moreover I feared my silence might be interpreted by the shortsighted young gentleman for complicity in progressionist ideas, I was forced to disown the disorderly proceeding. In so doing I have not derogated one iota from the spirit of the times; on the contrary, I have bound a heavy wreath about the brow of glorious humanity."

"But you have pardoned yourself too easily," proceeded she, unappeased.

"The very first word uttered by a Greifmann in that benighted a.s.sembly was a stain on the fair fame of our family. We shall be an object of contempt in every circle. 'The Greifmanns have turned ultramontanes because Gerlach would have refused the young lady's hand had they not changed their creed,' is what will be prated in society. A flood of derision and sarcasm will be let loose upon us. I an ultramontane?"

cried she, growing more fierce; "I caught in the meshes of religious fanaticism? I accept the Syllabus--believe in the Prophet of Nazareth?

Oh! I could sink into the earth on account of this disgrace! Did I for an instant doubt that Seraphin may be redeemed from superst.i.tion and fanaticism, I would renounce my union with him--I would spurn the tempting enjoyments of wealth, so much do I hate silly credulity."

Seraphin glanced at her through the gap in the foliage. Not six paces from him, with her face turned in his direction, stood the infuriate beauty. How changed her countenance! The features, habitually so delicate and bright, now looked absolutely hideous, the brows were fiercely knit, and hatred poured like streams of fire from her eyes.

Sentiments. .h.i.therto skilfully concealed had taken visible shape, ugly and repulsive to the view of the innocent youth. His n.o.ble spirit revolted at so much hypocrisy and falsehood. What occurred before him was at once so monstrous and so overwhelming that he did not for an instant consider that in case they entered the arbor he would be discovered. He was not discovered, however. Louise and Carl retraced their steps. For a short while the voice of Louise was still audible, then silence reigned in the garden.

Seraphin rose from his seat. There was a sad earnestness in his face, and the vanis.h.i.+ng traces of deep pain, which however were soon superseded by a n.o.ble indignation.

"I have beheld the genuine Louise, and I thank G.o.d for it. It is as I feared, Louise is a progressionist, an infidel that considers it disgraceful to believe in the Redeemer. Out upon such degeneracy! She hates light, and how hideous this hatred makes her. Not a feature was left of the charming, smiling, winning Louise. Good G.o.d! how horrible had her real character remained unknown until after we were married!

Chained for life to the bitter enemy of everything that I hold dear and venerate as holy--think of it! With eyes bandaged, I was but two paces from an abyss that resembles h.e.l.l--thank G.o.d! the bandage has fallen--I see the abyss, and shudder.

"'The ultramontane Seraphin'--'the fanatical Gerlach'--'the shortsighted Gerlach,' whose fortune the young lady covets that she may pa.s.s her life in enjoyment--a heartless girl, in whom there is not a spark of love for her intended husband--how base!