Through Night to Light Part 22

"Because I would not know what to do with the money."

"Exactly so. Am I right?"

"Perfectly. But now tell me why said lady must necessarily have brown hair and brown eyes?"

"As far as I recollect, I have only spoken of dark hair and dark eyes; but if you have a decided preference for brown, Bemperlein----"

"Preferences" said Bemperlein, almost anxiously "I have a preference!

What do you mean?"

"Bemperlein, you blus.h.!.+ That is a very suspicious sign. Do not you think so too, Franz?"

"Very suspicious," replied Franz. "I propose that the accused be examined most rigorously, and persuaded by every available means to make an open and full confession."

"Yes, he must confess! he shall confess!" cried the overjoyous girl, clapping her hands; "he shall give an account of that treacherous redness on his cheeks. Accused! I ask you, upon your conscience, do you know a lady with brown hair and brown eyes?"

"But how can you ask me that, Miss Sophie?" replied Mr. Bemperlein, blus.h.i.+ng deeper than before.

"Let your words be Yea, yea! or Nay, nay! accused, and nothing else!"

"Well then, I have!" said Bemperlein, laughing.

"And when you spoke of brown hair and brown eyes, did you think of this lady?"

"Yes!" replied Bemperlein, after some hesitation.

"Now we have him! He has thought of her! He has thought of her!" cried Miss Sophie, and laughed with delight.

"But who is _she_?" asked Franz.

"We shall learn that presently. Accused! does she live in this city?"

"Yes."

"Franz, take that down: she lives in the city. Accused! do you see her frequently?"

"No."

"Then, have you seen her to-day?"

"But, Miss So----"

"No subterfuges! Have you seen her to-day?"

"Well, I see I shall fare better by confessing everything at once,"

said Mr. Bemperlein, who in spite of all his efforts to appear unconcerned had become more and more embarra.s.sed. "Hear, then, oh severe judge, and you, grave a.s.sistant judge, with your diabolic smile, the strange story which has happened to me to-day, and which seems to be specially intended to lead me from one trouble to another."

"Tell us, Bemperlein; tell us!" cried Sophie. "The affair begins to look romantic."

"Well, then, you know, Miss Sophie, that the Grenwitz family has come to town to-day."

"We are aware of that. Go on, accused!"

"But you do not know that the baroness wrote to me immediately after her arrival, and asked me to call on her in the course of the day. She said she had to confer with me on a matter of the utmost importance."

"The affairs of the baroness are always of the utmost importance," said Franz.

"That I knew; and therefore I did not exactly hasten to pay my visit.

Towards evening, however, just before I came here, I went to the house."

"Well, and what was the great trifle?"

"I never found it out, for I was not fortunate enough to be admitted.

In the house-door I met Mr. Timm, who was in such a hurry that he nearly ran over me, and he had barely time to say to me 'What on earth are you doing here, Bemperlein?' In the ante-chamber to which the servant had shown me I found Mademoiselle Marguerite."

"Has she brown eyes, Bemperlein?"

"She has brown eyes. Miss Sophie; very fine brown eyes; which appeared to me at that moment all the brighter as they were filled with tears."

"Oh," said Miss Sophie, unconsciously dropping her gay tone; "why so?"

"Do I know it? I had entered without knocking, as I did not expect there would be anybody inside. When I came in, the young lady, who had been sitting with her head on a table and sobbing, jumped up and did her best to hide her tears. When I asked if I could see the baroness, she replied that she would go and see. But she did not go, at least not beyond the nearest door, where she stopped and again broke out into tears. You may imagine how embarra.s.sed I was. I cannot see anybody weep, much less so young, poor, and helpless a creature as Mademoiselle Marguerite. I went up to her, took her hand--upon my word I could not help it--and said--what else could I say?--'why do you cry, Mademoiselle?' Her tears flowed only the faster. I repeated my question again and again. '_Je suis si malheureuse!_' was all she could utter amid her sobs. That was all I heard. I pitied the poor child, with all my heart. I asked if I could help her. She shook her head. I tried to comfort her, and said whatever can be said in such a state of things.

Gradually she calmed down, dried her eyes, pressed my hand, and said, '_Oh, que vous etes bon!_' Then she stepped out at the door. I was as wise as before. After a few minutes there came, in her place, Baron Felix, to tell me that his aunt was exceedingly sorry not to be able to see me to-night. She was too much fatigued from the journey. I might call again in the morning. As Baron Felix also seemed to be in a great hurry, I took my leave very quickly. When I was in the door he called after me, 'Apropos, Mr. Bemperlein, do you happen to know when Doctor Stein will be back again?' 'I believe in a few days,' I replied, and left. There you have my romantic story."

"Which is full of suggestions," said Franz. "For instance, I should like to know myself when Oswald will be back. He ought to be here by this time."

At that moment a maid came in, to hand him a card.

"Is the gentleman still there?" asked Franz, rising quickly.

"No, sir. He asked if you were alone? I told him, 'No, Mr. Bemperlein was in the room.' Then he said he would call again, and left."

"Who was it?" asked Sophie.

"Oswald!" replied Franz. "What a pity! I should have liked to see him."

CHAPTER XVI.

Oswald had reached Grunwald a few hours ago. The early autumn evening was coming on apace, as he approached the old town on the turnpike--for this part of the Prussian Vendee was then not yet in possession of a railway. The high towers rose dimly like Ossian's giant bodies in the floating gray mist; mists hung low upon the meadows between the causeway and the sea, and mists hovered over the wide waters between the island and the firm land.

Oswald wrapped himself, s.h.i.+vering, more closely in his cloak, and fell back in the corner of the coupe. What was he to do in Grunwald? What did he want in Grunwald? He did not know it himself. Even the low trees by the wayside, bent by the northeast storms, which slipped by in wearying monotony as he drove on, did not know it; the raw-boned stage horses, dripping with wet and trotting mechanically along with drooping heads, did not know it; even the old, bearded guard, who was pulling out the list of pa.s.sengers for the hundredth time, from sheer weariness, and was conning it over once more, even he did not know it.

n.o.body knew it, unless it was the crow, which had delayed too long in the woods and was now flying lonely and sadly above the stage-coach towards town, and vanished in the mist. And the trees danced by, more like spectres than ever; and the horses shook more impatiently the heavy collars, and the mist rolled up in closer and darker ma.s.ses, and through the close and dark mist a few lights become visible; and now the coach rolls across the drawbridge, through the narrow town-gate, into the narrow, ill-paved, tortuous street, and stops before the post-office. The sudden quiet after many hours' shaking, jolting, and rattling, is indescribably sweet for one who reaches the end of his journey, but indescribably painful for him whose journey has no end, or for whom the end is not the desired goal. He would rather the jolting, shaking, and rattling should begin once more and carry him further and further away from all men into eternal night.

But he is now in a civilized city among civilized men, who have no sympathy with eccentricities of any kind, and who hold to the opinion that a gentleman who arrives in Grunwald by the express stage-coach at the appointed hour, half-past seven o'clock, is bound to give the guard a fee, to ask him respectfully to pick out from the other boxes and trunks his own trunk and hat-box, marked in legible letters with a "Doctor Stein, pa.s.senger for Grunwald," and then to send these things by a porter to the Hotel St. Petersburg. Here Doctor Stein thought he would be kindly remembered from the time when he studied and pa.s.sed his examination here under the auspices of Professor Berger, and used to drink many a bottle of wine at said hotel in company with the latter; but now n.o.body knew him, for the old landlord had died several months ago, and the new landlord had engaged new waiters.