Through Night to Light Part 44

"Hallo! Baumann!"

At the sound of this voice the face of the old man clears up, as when a ray of sunlight pa.s.ses over a rough Alpine landscape. It is the same voice, at least the same tone of voice, which has warmed the old man's heart now for a quarter of a century and longer. He rests both his elbows on the window-sill and looks down upon the handsome uplifted face of the boy with the light-brown, hearty eyes.

"What is the matter, young gentleman?"

"Wont you take a ride with me, Baumann?"

The old man casts a glance of inquiry at the sky, where dark, heavy clouds are hanging low, looks down again, and says:

"It looks threatening, sir. I think we shall have rain, and perhaps snow, in half an hour; that is more than _vraisemblable_."

"Why, Baumann, you always have something to say," says the handsome boy, grumbling; "the pony is getting stiff from standing so long, and I should like so much to take a ride."

"Well, well," says the old man; "we were only yesterday all the way to Cona."

"That is a great thing! Three miles! And the doctor says I ought to ride every day."

"Oh, if the doctor says so, I presume we must do it," replied Baumann, who has only been waiting for a good pretext to give way without dishonor. "I will just open the windows in the parlor here, and then I'll come down. In the meantime go ask the baroness, and say good-by to her."

"Yes; but make haste."

"Well, well," says the old man, and his gray head disappears from the window.

The boy hurries back into the house, but his mother is not to be found in the "garden-room," where she commonly sits; nor in the "red-room"

adjoining, to which she retires when she wishes to be alone. The boy hurries from the garden-room--leaving the door, of course, wide open--into the garden, and down the long walk between the clipped yews of the terrace. As he does not find his mother here, and yet is in such a very great hurry, he considers whether he has not done all that could be done. He hesitates for a moment, and is just about to turn back, when it occurs to him that Baumann is sure to ask him, sometime during their ride: Young gentleman, did you say good-by to the baroness? and that he would be ashamed to have to say, No! He jumps with one leap down the steps which lead to the terrace and runs deeper into the garden, calling out from time to time: "Mamma! Mamma!"

"Here!" replies suddenly a female voice quite near; and as he turns quickly round a bush, which has been so well sheltered by old linden-trees that it has almost all its leaves yet, he nearly rushes into his mother's arms:

"What is the matter, wild one?" says Melitta, placing her hands upon the boy's shoulders.

"We are going to ride out," says the boy, who is in such a hurry that he can hardly speak.

"But the sky looks very threatening."

"Oh, Baumann says--no, Baumann says the same. But I am _so_ anxious to ride! Please, dear mamma, please!"

"If it were not so late," said Melitta, looking at her watch, "I should like to go with you."

"Oh pray, mamma, do that another time. You would have to change your dress, and then it may really commence snowing, and then we can't go at all."

"You may be right," replied Melitta, unconsciously smiling at the boy's nave egotism. "Then make haste and get away. But put on an overcoat."

She kisses the boy on his red lips, and the boy runs away delighted.

Five minutes later old Baumann has himself saddled the boy's pony--he never allows the grooms to saddle either the pony or Melitta's horse--and the two gallop out of the main gate into the bare fields.

When the boy had left her, Melitta resumed her walk in the avenues between the cunningly-trimmed hedges of beech-trees and the yew-pyramids. They were the same avenues through which she had walked arm in arm with Oswald on a beautiful summer afternoon when the sun was sending down red rays through the green foliage above upon the flower-beds in all their splendor. How the scene had changed since then? Where are the red rays of the sun now? where the green leaves?

and where the bright flowers? Is this the same earth that exhaled a soft, balsamic breath, like the kiss of a loved one? the same earth which shone in its wedding garment? which embraced the high sky like a bride in the light of countless stars? And she, herself--she had changed almost as much; but in her, summer has not changed into winter.

She has altered, but surely not for the worse.

As she now turns round, having reached the end of the long walk, and is coming up again in the pale light of the autumnal evening, she can be better seen than before. How graceful and light her step is! How delicately slender her figure appears as she now draws the silk shawl closer around her sloping shoulders and wraps it around her arms! How prettily the black fichu which she has tied over her head, fastening it under the chin, frames the lovely oval of her fair face! And how much more clearly the expression of goodness of heart, which always made the handsome face so attractive, strikes the observer now! And yet the soft brown eyes look so much graver! the charming mouth, whose red lips formerly looked as if they were made only to kiss and to laugh, is now firm and resolute. It looks as if the beautiful and n.o.ble psyche of the woman had freed itself of all that formerly held it in chains, and was now free from the mists of pa.s.sionate thoughts, lighting up the sweet, kindly face in all its n.o.bility and beauty as the chaste light of the moon lights up a soft, warm summer night.

What is she thinking of as she now comes slowly down the walk, her eyes fixed upon the ground? First of all, probably, of her son, who is recovering his full rosy cheeks, and growing up so strong and so hearty, just as Doctor Birkenhain has predicted. She has written to Doctor Birkenhain to-day to congratulate him and herself on the fulfilment of his prophecy. Then as she pa.s.ses a little niche in the hedge where a low bench is still leaning against a small table--it must have escaped the eyes of old Baumann--she stops for a moment. On this bench she sat on that eventful summer afternoon with Oswald, when they had watched two white b.u.t.terflies who were hovering on their delicate wings over the flower forests of the parterre and caught each other and chased each other and then rose into the blue ether, embracing each other, then parting again to flutter hither and thither into the green wilderness. "Will those b.u.t.terflies ever meet again in life?" she had asked Oswald; and he had answered: "That may happen, but whether they meet with the same delight, that is another question." She had not seen Oswald again since the first night when she left for Fichtenau. If she should meet him again! She started at the idea, for she felt that she wished it. Had she not loved him very, very much? Had she not been unspeakably happy with him? But no! Prudence and pride commanded her to forget the faithless man who knew only how to conquer but not how to preserve his conquests.

She crossed her hands more firmly across her bosom, and her face looked almost dark, as she went on; but soon it brightened up again, and now she laughs to herself. What is it? She cannot help it. She must think of the expression in Oldenburg's face as she said the other night, when the weather was so terrible and he was just rising to say good-by and to ride home, "Had you not better stay over night, Adalbert?" and he had cast one sharp glance at her, and then refused the invitation with a certain haste and embarra.s.sment. Oldenburg, whose morality was constantly decried so bitterly; who had the reputation of having had countless _liaisons dangereuses_ in his life; so carefully anxious, so tenderly concerned, for the good repute of a widow! Why did he treat her so differently from all other women, of whom he got tired so soon?

Will he come to-night? The hour has pa.s.sed at which the hoof of his Almansor is commonly heard on the pavement of the yard. The young widow looks anxiously up to the dark clouds, which are threatening more and more, and from which now a few scattered snow-flakes begin to drop silently, the first of the season, but melting in a few moments on the black ground. If Julius only would not ride too far! But old Baumann is with him, and that ought to be enough for the most anxious heart.

Perhaps they have gone over to Cona and will return with Oldenburg, who has forgotten the hour over his books. They will be half-frozen when they come; it would be better to get tea ready for them.

Melitta hastened back to the house and ordered supper, and sent for the lamp, for it is quite dark now, and she would like to look a little at Oldenburg's diary. He had read to her not long ago some of his notes about his travels in Egypt, and as he could not finish them that night he had left the book and asked her to read it for herself; and as she laughingly reminded him of the danger of letting a lady read his diary, he had replied: "In that book, as in my heart, there in nothing that you may not know." On the contrary, he had desired she should read it all; he did not wish to appear better or different from what he was.

That was speaking boldly; and, Melitta soon became convinced, acting boldly. For there were strange things recorded in these sketches, thrown off with a daring hand. Here the traveller's glance had rested on the voluptuous charms of dancing Ghawazees. There half-naked Indian women are standing by the sh.o.r.e turning the creaking wheel of the Sakyee in the burning heat of the sun. There, on the market-place of Asyut, black slaves are crouching, who had but yesterday come down from Darfoor on the large Nile boats. But amid all these sketches not one single trait of frivolous sensuality! He describes the dancing of these children of the Sun with the calm words of a professional critic. When he sees the poor woman at the waterworks, he curses the tyrannical government which forces even helpless women to work for cruel taxes, and in the slave market at Asyut his heart is heavy with grief that man should permit the image of G.o.d to sink to the level of a brute, or even below! "Sorrow! sorrow!" he cries; "such as man cannot imagine--and the most sorrowful is that when we see such degradation we begin to despair of man himself, for we cannot help acknowledging to ourselves that beneath the civilized sentiments that s.h.i.+ne on the surface, deep down in the darkness of our heart the same fearful pa.s.sions are slumbering, which here crop out in all their shameless nakedness, merely because they may do so with impunity under this burning sun." And thus he shows everywhere the deep, serious mind with which the traveller observes the manners of men abroad. The same deep love with which he ever makes the cause of humanity his own, so that it seems altogether incomprehensible how this man could ever be looked upon as an eccentric oddity and a frivolous _roue_. There is no lack even of statistical tables, reflections on political economy, and other evidences of a mind not only bold and deep, but also learned and most industrious. And between these are verses, especially on the first pages of the diary, which are evidently of a much earlier date than the sketches from Egypt; at least this is clear to those who, like the fair reader that night, are sufficiently familiar with the author's life to recollect the different events which have occasioned one or the other poem.

Thus she recalls perfectly well how the baron, then a youth of perhaps nineteen, once walked with a young lady who was then perhaps fifteen, in the woods, after they had just eaten a philippine at table. He was to lose who first forgot to say _j'y pense_ when he took anything from the hand of the other. She had cunningly made a most beautiful bouquet, and when the young man admired the flowers, she had said with a bashful smile, "Would you like to have it, Adalbert?" And when he, blus.h.i.+ng at the unexpected favor, had taken the bouquet without saying a word, she had clapped her hands and cried out, "_J'y pense! j'y pense!_ I thought you would lose it!" That was a long time ago, and the ink with which the poem was written had faded considerably. The poem ran thus:

J'Y PENSE.

I know a little maid-- J'Y PENSE!

With eyes deep brown and staid-- J'Y PENSE!

Her hair in brown curls fell, Her laugh was like a silver bell-- J'Y PENSE!

It was a summer's day-- J'Y PENSE!

The wood in shadows lay-- J'Y PENSE!

I took the flowers from your hand, You laughed at me, the dreamer, and, J'Y PENSE! J'Y PENSE!

Oh, I forgot the word, J'Y PENSE!

Now sung by every chord, J'Y PENSE!

It takes my happiness and rest, Oh, maiden say and be ye blessed, J'Y PENSE!

Not all the poems are as nave and full of hope as this, but they are all addressed to the same person.

Later, the poems become rarer and make way for philosophical and political reflections. Only on one of the last pages there was written in a very bold hand, as if the soul of the writer had burnt with hope and love while he was writing the lines:

Yes, thou art mine! I have aroused to life Thy fair but cold and pallid face divine.

I gave thee life, and thus thou art now mine!

And I am thine! For all my mournful strife Would but be wandering in a wilderness Without thee, therefore I am thine!

The lady leaned back in her chair, let her hands fall into her lap, and looked for a time fixedly before her, absorbed in deep thought. Are these last verses true? "I gave thee life, and thus thou art now mine!"

I owe him more than I can tell; he sowed the golden seed of varied knowledge in my young mind; and if I can look higher than most of my s.e.x, if I have an interest in art and science, if I have a heart for the sick and the suffering--it is all his work. And who has ever faithfully stood by me in the strife of life, when no one else troubled himself about me? He, and always he! And yet, if I thus live through him only, do I therefore really belong to him? Melitta rested her head on her hands in order to be able the better to puzzle out this enigma, which, after all, the heart only can solve, and not the head. She does not succeed, therefore, any better now than before, and this only is clear to her, that Oldenburg has never been so near to her heart, and has never been so dear to her as now. But now for the reverse of the medal. "Therefore I am thine!" To be sure he has told me so a thousand times by words and by acts, but--but--is this love, which dates back to the first years of his boyhood, which, he says, he has carried within him through all the changes of his eventful life? is it more than an illusion, such as is not uncommon in fanciful men--one of those fixed ideas in which very obstinate minds take delight? Is it not, perhaps, the love of a Don Quixote, who seeks refuge in it when he is offended by the fearful prose of everyday life, so repugnant to a great and n.o.ble heart? Is it not but too probable that this mirage may look charming at a distance, but when seen near by, would quickly dissolve into ethereal vapor?

What can I be to him? Has he not n.o.bler ends to live for than to make a woman happy? Can so restless a mind ever restrict itself to the narrow limits of a family circle? May not what he now aims at as his highest happiness, soon become to him an intolerable chain?

Melitta sighs as she comes to this hard knot in her tissue. She has mechanically opened the book once more, and as she turns over the leaves she comes to a place which she has not noticed before:

"They say love is a mere luxury for men, but a necessity for women; a _pa.s.ser le temps_ for the former, a life's end for the latter. But often it is just the reverse! How often do idle, unoccupied women (I speak only of the wealthier cla.s.ses) look upon love as a mere article of luxury with so many others, while to the active industrious husband it is a pure refres.h.i.+ng element, which gives him ever new courage and ever new strength! To the laborer (and after all every man is a laborer, from the president of a cabinet to the president's bootmaker)--to the laborer, night is the reward of day, as Virgil says beautifully. And to this must be added: A woman, especially a beautiful woman, is overwhelmed with attentions from childhood up; wherever she goes, a hundred hands are ready to serve her. She is always surrounded by a whole court of flatterers and admirers. Is it not very natural that like all the great of the earth, she is likely to have her head turned? that the wors.h.i.+p of a single one cannot count for much with her? that love loses its value because of the abundance of the supply!