The Lost Manuscript Part 9

"They are not such simpletons as they look," said the host, pacing to and fro. "What he said of the great fire was right," he repeated, "and that about our little governments was also right. The younger would have made a good schoolmaster; and as for the tall one, by heaven it is a shame that he has not worn jack-boots these four years; he would be a clever inspector. Good-night, Ilse."

"Good-night, father." The daughter rose and followed her father to the door. "Do the strangers remain here to-morrow, father?"

"Hum," said the host, meditating. "They will remain for dinner at all events; I will show them over the farm. See that you have something nice for dinner."

"Father, the Professor has never in his life eaten roast pig," said the daughter.

"Ilse, what are you thinking of? My pig for the sake of Tacitus!"

exclaimed the Proprietor. "No, I cannot stand that; be content with your poultry. Stop! Just hand me the volume of the encyclopedia lettered T, I want to read up about that fellow."

"Here, father; I know where it is."

"See! See!" said the father, "just like Mrs. Rollmaus. Good-night."

The Doctor looked through the window into the dark court. Sleep and peace lay over the wide s.p.a.ce; from a distance sounded the tread of the watchman who went his rounds through the homestead, and then the suppressed howl of the farm dog.

"Here we are," he said, at last, "two genuine adventurers in the enemy's fortress. Whether we shall carry anything away from it, is very doubtful," he continued, looking significantly at his friend, with a smile.

"It is doubtful," said the Professor, measuring the room with long strides.

"What is the matter with you, Felix?" asked Fritz, anxiously, after a pause; "you are very absentminded, which is not usually your way."

The Professor stood still.

"I have nothing to tell you. I have strong but confused feelings, which I am trying to control. I fear I have this day received an impression against which a sensible man should guard himself. Ask me nothing further, Fritz," he continued, pressing his hand vehemently. "I do not feel unhappy."

Fritz, deeply troubled, placed himself on his bed, and looked for a boot-jack.

"How does our host please you?" he asked, in a low tone, and, in order to appear unconcerned, tapping with his foot on the floor.

"A worthy man," answered the Professor, again stopping, "but his manner is different from what we are accustomed to."

"He is of old Saxon origin," the Doctor proceeded, "broad shoulders, giant height, open countenance, solidity in every movement. The children also are of the same type," he continued; "the daughter is somewhat of a Thusnelda."

"The similitude does not apply," rejoined the Professor, roughly, continuing his walk.

Fritz drew off the second boot in a slightly discordant mood.

"How does the eldest boy please you? He has the bright hair of his sister."

"No comparison," said the Professor, again laconically.

Fritz placed both boots before the bed, and himself upon it, and said with decision:

"I am ready to respect your humor, even when I cannot quite understand it; but I beg you to take into consideration that we have forced ourselves on the hospitality of these people, and that we ought not to take advantage of it beyond to morrow morning."

"Fritz," cried the Professor, with deep feeling, "you are my dear, true friend; have patience with me to-day!" So saying, he turned round, and breaking off the conversation, approached the window.

Fritz was almost beside himself with anxiety. This n.o.ble man, so confident in all he wrote, so full of deliberation, and so firm in decision, even with regard to the obscurest pa.s.sages--and now some emotion was working in him which shook his whole being. How could this man be so disturbed? He could look back with majestic clearness on a past of many thousand years, and now he was standing at a window looking at a cow-stable, and something like a sigh sounded through the room. And what was to come of it? These thoughts occupied incessantly the Doctor's mind.

Long did the Professor pace up and down the room; Fritz feigned to sleep, but kept peeping from under the bedclothes at his excited friend. At last the Professor extinguished the light and threw himself on his bed. Soon his deep breathing showed that beneficent nature had softened the pulses of that beating heart. But the Doctor's anxiety held its ground more pertinaciously. From time to time he raised his head from his pillow, searched for his spectacles on the nearest chair, without which he could not see the Professor, and spied through them at the other bed, again took off his spectacles, and lay down on the pillow with a gentle sigh. This act of friends.h.i.+p he repeated many times, till at last he fell into a deep sleep, shortly before the sparrows sang their morning song in the vine-arbor beneath.

_CHAPTER V_.

AMONG HERDS AND SHEAVES.

The friends on awakening heard the clock in the courtyard striking, the wagons rolling before the window, and the bells of the herds tinkling.

For a moment they looked bewildered at the walls of the strange room, and through the window out on the sunny garden. While the Doctor wrote his memoranda and packed up his bundle, the Professor walked out. The daily work had long begun; the men with their teams were gone to the field; the Inspector hastened busily about the open barns; encircled by the dogs, the bleating sheep thronged before the stable.

The landscape shone in the light of a cloudless sky. The mist hovered over the earth, subduing the clear light of the morning sun, blending it with a delicate grey. The houses and trees still cast long shadows, the coolness of the dewy night still lingered in shady places, and the soft, light breeze fanned the cheeks of the Scholar, now with the warmth of the early daylight, now with the refres.h.i.+ng breath of night.

He walked about the buildings and the farmyard in order to acquaint himself with the place, of which henceforth he was to have mingled recollections in his soul. The persons who dwelt here had with some hesitation disclosed their life to him, and much in their simple pastoral existence appeared to him pleasing and attractive. The influences that here produced activity and energy could everywhere be seen. The tasks for each one and the duties for each day grew in the soil of the farm and the surrounding country. Their views of life and of the world were all in accordance with their surroundings. He felt keenly how worthily and happily men could live whose life was so firmly interwoven with nature and the primitive necessities of man. But for himself his life was regulated by other influences, was actuated by the thousand impressions of ancient and modern times, and not unfrequently by the forms and circ.u.mstances of the distant past. For a man's doings in life are more to him than the pa.s.sing labor of the day, and all that he has done continues to work within him as a living principle. The naturalist, whose desire for rare plants impels him to the towering mountain-top, whence return is impossible; the soldier, whose recollection of the excitement of old battles impels him into new combats--these are both led by the power of thoughts which their past lives have made a part of their being. Man, it is true, is not the slave of what he has done, if he has not stooped to a lower level; his will is free, he chooses as he likes, and casts off what he does not care to preserve; but the forms and ideas that have entered into his soul work on and guide him unceasingly; he has often to guard himself against their mastery, but in a thousand cases he joyfully follows their gentle guidance. All that was and all that is continues far beyond his mere earthly existence in every new being into which it penetrates. It may influence millions, for ages--enn.o.bling, elevating, or degrading individuals and nations. Thus the spirits of the past, the forces of nature, even our own actions and thoughts become an inalienable, component part of the soul, influencing our lives. The learned man smiled as he thus thought how the strange, old reminiscences of thousands of years had brought him among these country people, and how differently the different activity and occupation of the man who ruled here, had shaped his mind and judgment.

Amid these thoughts the lowing of the cattle sounded softly from the stalls. Looking up, he saw a number of maids carrying full milk-pails to the dairy. Behind them went Ilse, in a simple morning dress; her fair hair shone in the sun like spun gold, and her step was brisk and vigorous like the early morn. The Professor felt shy about approaching her; his eyes followed her thoughtfully; she also was one of the forms that henceforth was to live within him, the ideal of his dreams--perhaps of his wishes. For how long? and how powerfully? He did not realize that his Roman emperors were to aid in answering this question within the next hour.

The proprietor came across the farm-yard and, greeting the Professor, invited him to take a short walk into the fields. As the two walked together--both able men, and yet so different in face and figure, in mind and manners--many would have noted the contrast with deep interest, and Ilse not last among them. But no one that did not have the eyes of a treasure-seeker or exorcist could perceive how different were the invisible retinues of tiny spirits that flitted round the temples and shoulders of each,--comparable to swarms of countless birds or bees. The spirits that attended the farmer were in homely working garb, blue blouses and fluttering bandanas, among them a few forms in the misty robes of Faith, Hope, and Charity. On the other hand, round the Professor swarmed an invisible throng of foreign phantoms with togas, and antique helmets, in purple robes and Greek chlamys, athletes also--some with bundles of rods and winged hats. The little retinue of the Proprietor flew incessantly over the fields and back again; the swarm round the Professor remained steadily by him. At last the proprietor stopped at one particular field; he looked at it with great delight, and mentioned that he had here succeeded by deep ploughing in growing green lupines, then newly introduced into cultivation. The Professor seemed surprised; among his spirit-retinue there arose a confused stir; one of the small antique spirits flew to the nearest clod of earth and fastened thereto a delicate web which it had spun from the head of the Professor. Whereupon the Professor told his companion how deep ploughing for green lupines had been the custom of the Romans, and how rejoiced he was that now after more than a thousand years this old discovery had been brought to light again in our farming. They then spoke of the change in agriculture, and the Professor mentioned how striking it was that three hundred years after the beginning of our era, the corn exchanges at the harbors of the Black Sea and Asia Minor were so similar to those of Hamburg and London in modern days, while at present other agricultural produce was princ.i.p.ally cultivated in the East. Finally, he told him of a grain tariff that was imposed by a Roman emperor, and that unfortunately the price of wheat and barley, the two products on which then depended other prices and duties, were effaced from the stone tablet that had been preserved. And he explained why this loss was so much to be lamented. Then the heart of the host began to expand, and he a.s.sured the Professor that the fact need not be lamented, for the lost value might be fixed from the price of the remaining products bearing straw and husk, because the prices of all agricultural produce taken as a whole bore a firm and ancient ratio among each other. He gave this relation of their productive value in figures, and the Professor discovered with joyful astonishment that they agreed with the tariff of his old Emperor Diocletian.

While the men were carrying on this desultory conversation, a mischievous wide-awake spirit, probably the Emperor Diocletian himself, flew from the Professor, made his way through the peasant spirits of the proprietor, placed himself in his purple robe on the head of the master, stamped with his little feet on his skull; and impressed the farmer with the belief that the Professor was a sensible and worthy man, who might give him further information on the value and price of agricultural produce. It also pleased the Proprietor much that he could give the learned gentleman instruction in his own department.

When, at the end of an hour, the two strollers returned to the house, the Proprietor stopped at the door and said with some solemnity to the Professor, "When I brought you here yesterday, I little knew whom I had with me. It grieves me that I greeted so inhospitably a man like you.

Your acquaintance has become a pleasure to me; it is rare to meet with a person with whom one can speak about everything as one can with you.

As you are traveling for recreation, pray be pleased to pa.s.s some time with us simple folk--the longer the better. It is indeed not a season when a country host can make the house agreeable to his guests, so you must be content. If you wish to work, and require books, you may have them brought here; and pray observe whether the Romans had winter barley which was lighter than ours. Do me the honor of accepting my invitation." So saying, he cordially extended his hand to his guest.

The Professor's countenance beamed with delight; he eagerly clasped the hand of his friendly host. "If you are willing to keep me and my friend a few days longer, I accept your invitation with all my heart. I must tell you that the insight into a new circle of human interests is most valuable to me, but still more so the kindness with which you have treated us."

"Settled!" exclaimed the Proprietor, cheerfully; "now we will call your friend."

The Doctor opened his door. When the Proprietor warmly repeated the invitation to him, he looked for a moment earnestly at his friend, and when the latter gave him a friendly nod, he also accepted for the few days which were still free before the promised visit to his relatives.

Thus it happened that the Emperor Diocletian, fifteen hundred years after he had unvoluntarily left the world, exercised his tyrannical power over the Professor and Proprietor. Whether there were other ancient powers actively working in secret, is not ascertained.

Ilse listened silently to her father's information that the gentlemen would be his guests some time longer, but her look fell so bright and warm on the strangers that they rejoiced in being welcomed by her also.

From this hour they were introduced into the household as old acquaintances, and both, though they had never lived in the country, felt it indispensable, and as if they had returned to a home in which years before they had once bustled about. It was a busy life there, and yet, even when work was most pressing and earnest, there was a cheerful repose about it. Without much ado they all worked in unison. The daylight was the supreme patron, who, at its rise, called to work, and when extinguished, gave rest to weary limbs; the laborers looked up to the sky to measure their hours of work, and the sun and the clouds influenced their frame of mind, sometimes inducing comfort and sometimes anxiety. Slowly and gently, as nature draws the blossoms out of the earth and matures the fruits, did the feelings of these men grow into blossoms and fruits. In peaceful relations the workers pa.s.sed their lives. Small impressions, such as a few kind words or a friendly look, sufficed to entwine a firm bond round these various natures--a bond woven with invisible threads; but which attained a strength sufficient to last through a whole life.

The friends also felt the influence of the peace, daily activity, and small events of the country. Only when they looked toward the old house and thought of the hope which had led them hither, did something of the disquiet come over them which children feel when expecting a Christmas-box; and the quiet work of their fancy threw a brilliant light over all that belonged to the house, even down to the barking Nero, who, as early as the second day, expressed by the vehement wagging of his tail, his wish to be taken into their fellows.h.i.+p at table.

The Doctor did not fail to remark how strongly his friend was attracted by this quiet life, and with what tact he adapted himself to the inhabitants of the house. The Proprietor, before he rode to the distant part of the farm, brought him some agricultural books, and spoke to him of the different varieties of grain, and the Professor answered him modestly, as became a young gentleman in top-boots, and immersed himself forthwith in these new interests. Also between Ilse and the Professor there was an evident understanding, the cause of which occasioned the Doctor some disquiet. When the Professor spoke to her, it was with deep respect, both in voice and look, and Ilse always turned by preference to him, and was quietly but incessantly endeavoring to give him pleasure. When at table he picked up her handkerchief, he handed it to her with a respectful bow as to a princess. When she handed him his cup he looked as happy as if he had discovered the secret meaning of some difficult pa.s.sage in an author.

Then in the evening, when he sat with the father in the garden and Ilse came behind them from the house, his countenance brightened up, though he had not yet seen her. When she distributed to the children their supper, and was obliged to scold little Franz for being naughty, the Professor suddenly looked as dismal as if he himself were a boy whom the displeasure of his sister was to improve. These observations set the Doctor a-thinking.

Furthermore, when, shortly after study-time Hans proposed to the Doctor to play a friendly game of blind-man's-buff, Fritz a.s.sumed, as a matter of course, that the Professor would in the meantime converse with the father in the arbor, and he never dreamed of asking anything so extravagant of his learned friend as to join in the game. How astonished then was he when Ilse, having folded the handkerchief, approached the Professor, requested him to be blinded first, and he, the Professor, looked quite happy at the idea, offered his head gently--like a lamb to the sacrifice--to be covered, and allowed himself to be led by Ilse into the midst of the circle of little rompers. Noisily did the swarm circle round the Professor; the impudent children pulled him by the flaps of his coat, even Ilse contrived to lay hold of a b.u.t.ton and draw him gently by it. This put him in a state of excitement; he felt about with his hands, and minded no attacks of the a.s.saulting children, only seeking to seize the fair offender; and when he did not succeed, he kept poking about with his sticks and groping like the blind singer Demodokus to catch a Phaeacian. Now, at last, he hit exactly upon Ilse, but she pa.s.sed the end of the stick to her sister, and Clara whistled on it, but he exclaimed, "Fraulein Ilse!" She was delighted that he had guessed wrong, and he looked much puzzled.

Other games followed, in all of which the Professor showed such dexterity that the children were quite enchanted, though Franz called out indignantly that he did not strike Ilse hard enough when he had the knotted handkerchief. Ilse, however, took the handkerchief, and, much to the Scholar's astonishment and delight, struck him heartily over the shoulders.

The Doctor joined in the sports, and looked with pleasure at the movements of the wild maidens in the games; and when Ilse stood by a tree and laid hold of a branch with her hand in order to support herself, her glowing face wreathed by the leaves of the nut-tree, she looked so lovely and happy that the Doctor was also enchanted.

In such a baccha.n.a.lian mood it was not to be wondered at that the Professor at last called upon Hans to run a race twice around the square. Amidst the shouts of the children Hans lost the race, because he had as he st.u.r.dily maintained the inner side of the square, but the others scouted at any such excuse. As the runners dashed up to the arbor. Ilse handed to the Professor his great coat, which she had meanwhile fetched from the coat-rack in the hall. "It is late, you must not take cold while with us." It was not at all late, but he put on the coat at once, b.u.t.toned it up from top to bottom, and, with a look of satisfaction, shook his opponent Hans by the shoulder. Afterwards they all sat down again in the arbor, in order to cool themselves. Here, at the vociferous demands of the little ones, a thaler was pa.s.sed round while a song was sung, and the more observant part of the family loudly declared that the thaler had twice fallen to the ground between Ilse and the Professor, because they had not pa.s.sed it firmly enough into each other's hands. By this game the love of song was awakened among the young people, and great and small sang together as loud as they could, such songs as had become familiar to them--"On the Cool Banks of the Saal," "Song of the Cloak," and the catch of "The Bells of Capernaum," After that Ilse and Clara, at the request of the Doctor, sang a folk-song, very simple and unadorned, and perhaps on that account the melancholy style touched the heart, so that after the song all were quiet, and the strangers appeared much moved till the Proprietor called upon the guests to contribute their share. The Professor, recovering from his emotion, began immediately to sing, in a rich-toned ba.s.s, "In a deep, damp cellar I sat," so that the boys in their enthusiasm drank up the remains of their gla.s.ses of milk and clinked them on the table. Again the company broke out into a chorus; they began the dear old song, "What is the German Fatherland," so far as they knew the verses, and in conclusion they attempted "Lutzow's Wild Charge." The Doctor, as an experienced chorus-singer, carried the melody beautifully through the most difficult pa.s.sages, and the refrain sounded wonderfully in the calm evening air; the tones pa.s.sed along the vine arbor and wall, and over the top of the fruit trees up to the thicket of the nearest hill, and came back from thence as an echo.