The Lost Manuscript Part 107

"Everything is magnificent," said Hummel; "the development of the family, their curly heads, the flowers, the cattle, and the domestic arrangements. Compared to the business of H. Hummel, it is like a gourd to a cuc.u.mber. Everything capacious and abundant, only to my taste there is too much straw."

Ilse was called aside by her father. "The Prince is preparing to depart. He has expressed a wish to speak to you first. Will you see him?"

"Not to-day. To-day belongs to you and our guest, but to-morrow," said Ilse.

On the morning of the day following, Professor Raschke entered his friend's room prepared for the journey.

"Has the Magister disappeared?" he asked, anxiously.

"He has done what he was obliged to do," replied Werner, gloomily.

"Whatever his future life and fortune may be, we have done with him."

Raschke looked anxiously on the furrowed countenance of his colleague.

"I should like to see you on the road to your wife, and better still, with her on the road back to us."

"Have no doubt, friend, that I shall seek both roads as soon as I have a right to do so."

"Ilse counts the hours till your return," said Raschke, in still greater anxiety; "she will not be at rest till she has fast hold of her loved one."

"My wife has long been deprived of rest while she was with me," said the Scholar, "I have not understood how to defend her. I have exposed her to the claws of wild beasts. She has found from strangers the protection that her own husband refused her. The indifference of her husband has wounded her in that point which it is most difficult for a woman to forgive. I have become a mere, impotent dreamer," he exclaimed, "unworthy of the devotion of this pure soul, and I feel what a man never should feel--ashamed to meet my excellent wife again." He turned his face away.

"This feeling is too high-strained, and the reproaches that you angrily make yourself are too severe. You have been deceived by the cunning prevarication of a worldly wise man. You yourself have expressed that it is ingloriously easy to deceive us in things in which we are not cleverer than children. Werner, once more I entreat of you to depart with me immediately, even though by another road."

"No," replied the Scholar, decidedly; "I have all my life long been clear in my relations with other men. I cannot do things by halves. If I feel a liking, the pressure of my hand and the confidence that I give does not leave a moment's doubt of the state of my heart. If I must give up my relation to any one, I must have the reckoning fully closed.

I cannot leave this place as a fugitive."

"Who demands that?" asked Raschke. "You only go like a man who turns his eyes away from a hateful worm that crawls before him on the ground."

"If the worm has injured the man, it is his duty to guard others from the danger of like injury, and if he cannot guard others, he ought to clear his own path.

"But if he incurs new danger in the attempt?

"Yet he must do what he can to satisfy himself," exclaimed Werner. "I will not allow myself to be robbed of the rights that I have against another. I am called upon by the insult to my wife; I am called upon by the ruined life of a scholar, whom we both lament. Say no more to me.

Friend, my self-respect has been severely wounded, and with reason. I feel my weakness with a bitterness that is the just punishment for the pride with which I have looked upon the life of others. I have written to Struvelius, and begged his pardon for having so arrogantly treated him in the uncertainty that once disturbed his life. Here is my letter to our colleague. I beg you to give it to him, and to tell him that when we meet again I wish to have no words upon the past, only he must know how bitterly I have atoned for having been severe with him. But, however much patience and consideration I may require from others, I should lose the last thing that gives me courage to live, if I went from here without coming to a reckoning with the lord of that castle. I am no man of the world who has learnt to conceal his anger beneath courtly words."

"He who seeks to call a man to account," exclaimed Raschke, "should have the means of getting firm hold of his opponent, otherwise what should be satisfaction may become a new humiliation."

"To have sought this satisfaction to the utmost," replied Werner, "is in itself a satisfaction."

"Werner," said his colleague, "I hope that your anger and indignation will not draw you into the thoughtless vindictiveness of the weak fools who call a brutal playing with one's own life and that of others satisfaction."

"He is a prince," said the Professor, with a gloomy smile; "I wear no spurs, and the last use I made of my bullet mould was to crack nuts with it. How can you so mistake me? But there are things which must be expressed. There is a healing power in words; if not for him who listens to them, yet for him who speaks. I must tell him what I demand of him. He shall feel how my words are forced down into his joyless heart. My speaking out will make me free."

"He will refuse to hear you," exclaimed Raschke.

"I will do my best to speak to him."

"He has many means of preventing you."

"Let him use them at his peril, for he will thereby deprive himself of the advantage of hearing me without witnesses."

"He will set all the machinery that his high position affords him in motion against you; he will use his power recklessly to restrain you."

"I am no bawling soothsayer who will attack Caesar in the open street, to warn him of the Ides of March. My knowledge of what will humble him before himself and his contemporaries, is my weapon. I a.s.sure you he will give me opportunity to use it as I will."

"He is going away," said Raschke, anxiously.

"Where can he go to that I cannot follow him?"

"The apprehension that you will excite in him will drive him to some dark deed."

"Let him do his worst; I must do what will give me peace."

"Werner!" cried Raschke, raising his hands, "I ought not to leave you in this position, and yet you make your friend feel how powerless his honest counsel is against your stubborn will."

The Professor went up to him and embraced him. "Farewell, Raschke. As high as any man can stand in the esteem of another, you stand in mine.

Do not be angry if, in this case, I follow more the impulse of my own nature than the mild wisdom of yours. Give my greeting to your wife and children."

Raschke pa.s.sed his hands over his eyes, drew on his coat, and put the letter to Struvelius in his pocket. In doing so he found another letter, took it out, and read the address. "A letter from my wife to you," he said; "How did it come into my pocket!"

Werner opened it; again a slight smile pa.s.sed over his face. "Mrs.

Aurelia begs me to take care of you. The charge comes at the right moment. I will accompany you to your place of departure; we will not forget the cap or cloak."

The Professor conducted his friend to the conveyance; they spoke together, up to the last moment, of the lectures which both wished to give in the approaching term. "Remember my letter to Struvelius," were Werner's last words, when his friend was seated in the carriage.

"I shall think of it whenever I think of you," said Raschke, stretching out his hand from the carriage.

The Professor went to the castle for a last conversation with the man who had called him to his capital. The household received him with embarra.s.sed looks. "The Sovereign is just starting on a journey, and will not return for some days; we do not know where he is going," said the Intendant, with concern. The Professor, nevertheless, desired him to announce him to the Sovereign, his request was urgent; the servant brought as an answer that his master could not be spoken to before his return; the Professor might impart his wishes to one of the aides-de-camp.

Werner hastened to the adjacent house of the Lord High Steward. He was taken into the library, and gave a fleeting glance at the faded carpet, the old hangings, which were covered with engravings in dark frames, and on the large bookshelves, with gla.s.s doors, lined within, as if the possessor wished to conceal what he read from the eyes of strangers.

The High Steward entered hastily.

"I seek for an interview with the Sovereign before his departure,"

began the Professor, "I beg of your Excellence to procure me this audience."

"Pardon my asking you your object," said the High Steward. "Do you wish again to speak to a sufferer concerning his disease?"

"The diseased man administers a high office, and has the power and rights of a healthy one; he is answerable to his fellow-men for his deeds. I consider it a duty not to go from here without informing him that he is no longer in a condition to perform the duties of his position."

The Lord High Steward looked with astonishment at the Scholar.

"Do you insist on this interview?"

"What I have learned since my return here from the country compels me to do so; I must seek this interview by every possible means in my power, whatever may be the consequences."

"Even the consequences to yourself?"