The Adventures of Elizabeth in Rugen Part 22

'I have no doubt whatever that this was the place,' he remarked, 'and Kluver was correct in his conjecture.'

'Now what is the use,' I said, sitting down on the moss beside him, 'of talking to me like that when I don't know the beginning? Who is Kluver?

And what did he conjecture?'

His eyes suddenly flashed out of their dream, and he smiled and patted my hand. 'Why, it is the little cousin,' he said, looking pleased.

'It is. May I ask what you are doing here?'

'Doing? Agreeing with Kluver that this is undoubtedly the spot.'

'What spot?'

'Tacitus describes it so accurately that there can be no reasonable doubt.'

'Oh--Tacitus. I thought Kluver had something to do with Charlotte. Where is Charlotte?'

'Conceive the procession of the G.o.ddess Nerthus, or Hertha, mother of the earth, pa.s.sing through these sacred groves on the way to bless her children. Her car is covered, so that no eye shall behold her. The priest alone, walking by the side, is permitted to touch it. Wherever she pa.s.ses holyday is kept. Arms are laid aside. Peace reigns absolute.

No man may seek to slay his brother while she who blesses all alike is pa.s.sing among her children. Then, when she has once more been carried to her temple, in this water thou here seest, in this very lake, her car and its draperies are cleansed by slaves, who, after performing their office, are themselves thrown into the water and left to perish; for they had laid hands on that which was holy, and even to-day, when we are half-hearted in the defence of our adorations and rarely set up altars in our souls, that is a dangerous thing to do.'

'Dear Professor,' I said, 'it is perfectly sweet of you to tell me about the G.o.ddess Nerthus, but would you mind, before you go any further, telling me where Charlotte is? When I last saw you you were whirling after her in a waggonette. Did you ever catch her?'

He looked at me a moment, then gave the bulging pocket of his waterproof a sounding slap. 'Little cousin,' he said, 'in me thou beholdest a dreamer of dreams, an unpractical greybeard, a venerable sheep's-head.

Never, I suppose, shall I learn to remember, unaided, those occurrences that I fain would not forget. Therefore I a.s.sist myself by making notes of them to which I can refer. Unfortunately it seldom happens that I remember to refer. Thou, however, hast reminded me of them. I will now seek them out.' And he dragged different articles from the bulging pocket, laying them carefully on the moss beside him in tidy rows. But the fact of only one of the two handkerchiefs being there nearly put him off the track, so much and so long did he marvel where its fellow could be; also the sight of his extra pair of socks reminded him of the urgent need they were in of mending, and he broke off his search for the note-book to hold each up in turn to me and eloquently lament. _'Nein, nein, was fur Socken!'_ he moaned, with a final shake of the head as he spread them out too on the moss.

'Yes, they are very bad,' I agreed for the tenth time.

'Bad! They are emblematic.'

'Will you let me mend them? Or rather,' I hastily added, 'cause them to be mended?' For my aversion to needles is at least as great as Charlotte's.

'No, no--what is the use? There are cupboards full of socks like them in Bonn, skeletons of that which once was socks, mere outlines filled in with holes.'

'And all are emblematic?'

'Every single one.' But this time he looked at me with a twinkle in his eye.

'I don't think,' I said, 'that I'd let my soul be ruffled by a sock. If it offended me I'd throw it away and buy some more.'

'Behold wisdom,' cried the Professor gaily, 'proceeding from the mouth of an intellectual suckling!' And without more ado he flung both the socks into the Hertha See. There they lay, like strange flowers of yellow wool, motionless on the face of the mystic waters.

'And now the note-book?' I asked; for he had relapsed into immobility, and was watching the socks with abstracted eyes.

'_Ach_ yes--the note-book.'

Being heavy, it was at the very bottom of what was more like a sack in size than a pocket; but once he had run his glance over the latest entries he began very volubly to tell me what he had been doing all night. It had been an even busier night than mine. Charlotte, he explained, had left Sa.s.snitz by the Berlin train, and had taken a ticket for Berlin, as he ascertained at the booking-office, a few minutes before he took his. He arrived at the very last moment, yet as he jumped into the just departing train he caught sight of her sitting in a ladies' compartment. She also caught sight of him. 'I therefore gave a sigh of satisfaction,' he continued, 'lit my pipe, and, contemplating the evening heavens from the window, happy in the thought of being so near my little wife, I fell into an abstraction.'

I shook my head. 'These abstractions. Professor,' I observed, 'are inconvenient things to fall into. What had happened by the time you fell out again?'

'I found that I had emerged from my compartment and was standing on the ferry that takes the train across the water to Stralsund. The ancient city rose in venerable majesty----'

'Never mind the ancient city, dearest Professor. Look at your notes again--what was Charlotte doing?'

'Charlotte? She had entirely escaped my memory, so great was the pleasure excited in my breast by the contemplation of the starlit scene before me. But glancing away from the ma.s.sive towers of Stralsund, my eye fell on the word "_Frauen_" on the window of the ladies' carriage.

Instantly remembering Charlotte, I clambered up eager to speak to her.

The compartment was empty.'

'She too was contemplating the starlit scene from the deck of the ferry?'

'She was not.'

'Were there no bags in the carriage?'

'Not a bag.'

'What had become of her?'

'She had left the train; and I'll tell thee how. At Bergen, our only stopping-place, we crossed a train returning to Sa.s.snitz. Plentiful applications of drink-money to officials revealed the fact that she had changed into this train.'

'Not very clever,' I thought.

'No, no,' said the Professor, as if he had heard me thinking. 'The little Lot's cleverness invariably falls just short of the demands made upon it. At critical moments, when the choice lies between the substance and the shadow, I have observed she unfailingly chooses the shadow. This comical life she leads, what is it but a pursuit of shadows?

However----' And he stopped short, not caring, I suppose, to discuss his wife.

'Where do you think she is now?'

'I conjecture not far from here. I arrived at Sa.s.snitz at one o'clock this morning by the Swedish boat-train. I was told that a lady answering her description had got out there at eleven, taken a fly, and driven into the town. I walked out here to speak with thee, and was only waiting for the breakfast-hour to seek thee out, for she will not, being so near thee, omit to join thee.'

'You must be perfectly exhausted.'

'What I most wish for is breakfast.'

'Then let us go and see if we can't get some. Gertrud will be up by now, and can produce coffee at the shortest notice.'

'Who is Gertrud? Another dear little cousin? If it be so, lead me, I pray thee, at once to Gertrud.'

I laughed, and explaining Gertrud to him helped him pack his pocket again. Then we started for the hotel full of hope, each thinking that if Charlotte were not already there she would very soon turn up.

But Charlotte was not there, nor did she, though we loitered over our coffee till we ended by being as late as the latest tourist, turn up.

'She is certain to come during the day,' said the Professor.

I told him I had arranged to go to Glowe that day, a little place farther along the coast; and he said he would, in that case, engage my vacant pavilion-bedroom for himself and stay that night at Stubbenkammer. 'She is certain to come here,' he repeated; 'and I will not lose her a second time.'

'You won't like the pavilion,' I remarked.

About eleven, there being still no signs of Charlotte, I set out on foot on the first stage of my journey to Glowe, sending the carriage round by road to meet me at Lohme, the place where I meant to stop for lunch, and going myself along the footpath down on the sh.o.r.e. The Professor, who was a great walker and extraordinarily active for his years, came with me part of the way. He intended, he said, to go into Sa.s.snitz that afternoon if Charlotte did not appear before then and make inquiries, and meanwhile he would walk a little with me; so we started very gaily down the same zigzag path up which I had crawled dripping a few hours before. At the bottom of the ravine the sh.o.r.e-path from Stubbenkammer to Lohme begins. It is a continuation of the lovely path from Sa.s.snitz, but, less steep, it keeps closer to the beach. It is a white chalk path running along the foot of cliffs clothed with moss and every kind of wild-flower and fern. Ma.s.ses of the leaves of lilies of the valley show what it must look like in May, and on the day we walked there the s.p.a.ce between the twisted beech trunks--twisted into the strangest contortions under the lash of winter storms--was blue with wild campanula.

What a walk that was. The sea lay close to our feet in great green and blue streaks; the leaves of the beeches on our left seemed carved in gold, they shone so motionless against the sky; and the Professor was so gay, so certain that he was going to find Charlotte, that he almost danced instead of walking. He talked to me, there is no doubt, as he might have talked to quite a little child--of erudition there was not a sign, of wisdom in Brosy's sense not a word; but what of that? The happy result was that I understood him, and I know we were very merry. If I were Charlotte nothing would induce me to stir from the side of a good-natured man who could make me laugh. Why, what a quality in a husband, how precious and how rare. Think of living with a person who looks at the world with the kindliest amused eyes. Imagine having a perpetual spring of pleasant mirth in one's own house, babbling coolly of refres.h.i.+ng things on days when life is dusty. Must not wholesomeness pervade the very cellars and lumber-rooms of such a home? Well, I meant to do all in my power to persuade Charlotte to go into the home again.

How delightful to be the means of doing the dear old man beside me a good turn! Meanwhile he walked along happily, all unconscious that I was meditating good turns, perhaps happy for that very reason, and full of confidence in his ability to catch and to keep Charlotte. 'Where she goes I go with her,' he said. 'I now have my summer leisure and can devote myself entirely to her.'