Through Night to Light Part 39

"How so?"

"That school! A single hour in the wretched treadmill spoils my temper for the other twenty-three hours of the day. Rather a sweeper in the streets than a teacher."

"I knew beforehand the thing would not suit you." said Franz, with his kindly, warm smile; "but, Oswald, you know habit is a great thing; and then, pray, consider, every profession requires self-denial and sacrifices, even the sweeper's profession. Good-by, Oswald; I have to call here. Do, pray, come and see us soon: I have something important to tell you."

Franz entered the house of his patient, and Oswald walked on.

"Self-denial--sacrifices!" he murmured; "that sounds very beautiful from the lips of one who is happy in his vocation. There is nothing more intensely disagreeable than to be lectured in such general phrases, which suit our position about as well as a blow upon the eye.

Timm is right: Franz is a tiresome pedant."

Involuntarily he turned into the street that led to his friend's lodgings. Albert lived under the shadow of the church of St. Bridget, in the house of the s.e.xton, Toby Goodheart, a man who stood in the odor of very special sanct.i.ty, so that n.o.body could comprehend why the very unholy tenant should have chosen such a landlord, and still less how the two had been able to get along so well for many years.

Albert was at home. He was lying on a sofa, reading. The fragrance of a fine Havana cigar filled the room which formed a suitable frame for the occupant in its reckless disorder.

"Ah, here you are, '_Pompei, meorum prime sodalium_,'" he said, throwing down his book as Oswald entered, and rising. "I was just thinking of you, and wondering whether you like Horace as much when you interpret him from your desk to your boys as I enjoy him here on my sofa with a good cigar between my teeth. Isn't he a famous fellow? I always think of him as a small man with a bald head, a promise of a paunch, bright black eyes and large kissable lips, who lounges, his hands crossed behind him, through the streets of Rome, casting sheep's eyes at a pretty girl on his left and flinging a sarcasm at a citizen on his right, and whose whole moral code is contained in the words: 'Hurrah for Falernian wine and pretty girls! To live without them is not worth while!' Am I right?"

"I rather think you are."

"Oh heavens! What a sepulchral voice. What is the matter now? Have you a note to take up?"

"This wretched college!"

"Oh, is that all? Send it to the Evil One, who invented them all!"

"'_Mais il faut vivre_,' as the tailor told M. de Talleyrand."

"'_Je n'en vois pas la necessite_,' as M. de Talleyrand replied; at least not the necessity to live as you do."

"How shall I live then? I have about three hundred dollars; when they are at an end--and that may be very soon--I must either work or make an end of myself too!"

"Don't be such a fool! A man like you, who has a thousand ways to make his fortune!"

"For instance?"

"For instance, by marrying the little Grenwitz, who seems to me to wish nothing more eagerly."

"That is easier said than done."

"Perhaps not, if you take the right road."

"And which is that?"

"Force them to give you the girl, whether they will or not."

"What do you mean by your riddle?"

"You are very hard of comprehension to-day."

Albert leaned back in his sofa-corner and blew, as he loved to do, ring after ring in the air. Oswald was absorbed in thought. He considered whether he ought to confide to Timm the secret of the rendezvous to which he had been invited for to-night. At last he said, almost against his own conviction,

"I received a curious note from Primula to-day; I should like to see if you can make more of it than I can."

"Let us hear," replied Albert, lost in admiration of a huge blue ring which he had just accomplished.

Oswald read him the address to the young eagle, and the mysterious postscript. Albert started up from the sofa.

"Oswald, you are the luckiest dog alive!" he cried. "Why, the thing is evident. The young lady can be n.o.body else but the little Grenwitz. The girl has indeed ten times more sense and pluck than her chaste lover, who understands so little of the great art of seizing fortune by the hem of her garment. In good earnest, Oswald, the cards have been dealt so well for you, it could not be better. Of course, it will not be quite so easy to take the fortress. The Jager has evidently said more than she was authorized to say; but never mind that--you have the outworks, and if you do not get on soon it is your own fault. When are you to be at Primula's house?"

"At seven."

"It is five now; we have two hours time. Come, let us consider the plan of operation with the help of a good gla.s.s of wine. Charles the Bald has an excellent hock, and you must drink of that bravely, so that you may show yourself strong and hearty in your enterprise and permit no trace of sickly hesitation to be seen. Come!"

CHAPTER VI.

Primula was sitting in her study before a table covered with new books, magazines, and papers. The door was open towards the reception-room, which was also lighted up. She had just finished a longer poem, which had to be sent this very evening to the editor of a literary journal, in the "correspondence" of which the following notice had appeared three times already: "P. V. in Gr. Great and gifted friend:--We await the promised MS. _impatiently_." There it was now, the promised MS., written with the heart's blood of the poetess! She had but just placed the last dot over the last i, and already it was to be sent away into the wide heartless world, before he who had inspired all these glowing stanza had ever seen a line of the poem! If he would only come early, so that she might read him at least a few stanzas before that young Baroness Cloten came, in whose presence that would of course be impossible!

There, listen! Was not that a ring at the bell? The door is open below ... A deep male voice ... It is he! it is he! Thanks be to you, oh gracious G.o.ds!

Primula blushed, cast a glance at the mirror that was hanging over her writing-table and pushed the fair curls from her blus.h.i.+ng face, seized a pen and began although there was no ink in the pen--to scribble with nervous eagerness on a blank sheet.

"Do I interrupt you?" asked the deep voice, close to her ear.

"Why, great heavens!" exclaimed the poetess, casting away the pen; "is it you, Oswald? I had not heard you come at all."

"You were kind enough, madame, to tell me in the most charming note that I have ever read----"

"You flatterer! If you praise thus the simple lines of this morning, what will you say of these verses which I have written this evening with glowing brow and beating heart, thinking of no one but yourself? I must read you at least the beginning. She will not be here so soon; perhaps not at all."

"But who is it?"

"Pray, take a seat. It has to go to the post-office in half an hour.

Listen! What do you think of this original metre, which seems to be worthy of our Freiligrath? The t.i.tle is, 'The lion at the Cape.'"

The Castalian Spring once opened was not to be checked. Oswald had to submit to his hard fate and allow himself to be flooded by a genuine deluge of wretched verses. Suddenly the door-bell rang again. The sound seemed to be but a signal for the poetess to read with double and treble rapidity, while she laid her hand upon her hearer's arm, as if to prevent him from escaping. There were only about thirty stanzas yet to be read, when a silk dress was heard rustling in the adjoining room, and suddenly the graceful figure of Emily Cloten was standing in the open door which led to the reception-room.

"I do not interrupt, I hope?" asked the young lady, with a half shy and half bold glance at Oswald; "I'd rather go away again."

"Oh no, no!" replied Primula, in a melancholy tone, putting down the MS. and rising; "not at all! I was just reading to my young friend Stein a few stanzas of a poem. Why, it is nearly half-past seven, and the papers must be at the post-office by eight! Dear Baroness Cloten, dear Mr. Stein, excuse me for the hundredth part of an instant. Stay here in the sitting-room, and I will be back as soon as I have sent off the parcel!"

The excited poetess pushed her guests unceremoniously into the next room, whispering at the same time to Oswald: "What a pity! Only a poet can feel it! The _last_ verses were by far the finest."

She dropped the curtain, partly to be undisturbed and partly not to disturb her friends, and Oswald and Emily stood gazing at each other--Oswald speechless from astonishment at this strange and unexpected solution of the mystery, and Emily also silent and embarra.s.sed in spite of her boldness and cleverness, but only for an instant. Immediately afterwards she raised her drooping lashes, smiled at Oswald from the corners of her large, gray eyes, and said hurriedly and in a whisper:

"You surely do not think it an accident which has brought us together here?"