E. Werner

“ Upon the German's face lay a white, motionless calm; his deep, dreamy nature was not one to break loose from a passion which had engraven itself in the profoundest depths of his heart, and had taken root there forever. He could neither conquer nor endure it; but the alternative he had chosen, had nothing in it base or humiliating. "He who falls by a stray bullet, dies also a hero's death," thought he, and there was something like inspiration in the glance he now turned to the park, where rays of light began to pierce the shadows among the trees--the moon had just risen in the East. ”

“ Who is Miss Forest? Tell us at once, Doctor!" echoed from all sides.
"Do not detain me, gentlemen!" cried the doctor excitedly. "I must go, for as it appears, a stupid error has been committed. Would you know who Miss Forest is? A relative of our first physician in B.; a young American lady, heiress to a million, twenty years old, beautiful as a picture, a meteor, which all B. admires and adores, and whose unhappy devotee I also confess myself to be. God be gracious to you Frederic, if you have been guilty of an incivility to her!" ”

“ But then as it were the brightest sunshine overspread Walter's face; his blue eyes gleamed with a passionate ardor, and lighted up with an infinite happiness; the whole nature of this man seemed all aglow with one mighty emotion;--the moment of reunion had betrayed all.
But other emotions were mirrored in Jane's eyes. She shrank back affrighted and deathly pale, and would have fallen, if Alison had not supported her. His arm held hers in an iron grasp, he pressed this arm against his breast, firmly and convulsively, but she felt it not. ”

“ There was a rustle in the shrubbery at the foot of the ruin, and Mr. Atkins, who again had been playing the spy, came to light. But this time, he neither disturbed the pair of lovers, nor brought them his congratulations.
His face expressed anything but good wishes as hastily and unremarked, he took the homeward way.
"A most preposterous, sentimental thing, love is here in Germany!" he growled. "Jane Forest was lost us to the moment she set foot on this poetic soil. It is shameful! And that accursed Rhine over yonder, with its romance, is answerable for all!" ”

“ Such wickedness would never enter the mind of a German Christian man or woman. I must help you through the outposts? Through our outposts? And to crown all, I am to give you the pass--word! You surely have no idea of war, or of what a soldier's duty really is!"
Jane stepped nearer to him and her voice sank to a low whisper.
"The life of your master is at stake; listen Frederic,--your master! A danger threatens him which does not come from the enemy, of which he has no suspicion, and which I alone know. He is lost, if I do not succeed in warning him. ”

“ Atkins gazed uneasily after him.
"Something terrible may happen. If they should chance to meet just now!--Foolishness!" he cried interrupting himself. "Just as if Henry were such a lunatic as to stake life, honor, and future for a mad jealous whim! If he were to meet this Fernow alone in the mean time, I would answer for nothing; but hero among his comrades, where discovery would be inevitable, and revenge sure--no, he would not venture it!"
He opened his door to listen if any sound came from Jane's chamber which lay opposite. ”

“ Jane did not dream what a fearful game she was playing at this moment, and she did not suffer herself to be warned by the low, hissing sound that again came from Henry's lips, as upon that evening, when he had listened to her conversation with Walter. His calmness quite deceived her.
"I doubt it, Miss Jane; your proposal is too German for that. With us, at home, one does not throw away a million to escape a marriage! Besides, I scarce believe that you clearly understand what it means for one like you, reared in the lap of riches, to be really poor!" ”

“ Here Doctor Stephen suddenly wheeled around, and with supreme astonishment gazed into his colleague's face. "An unhappy passion!" he cried. "For Heaven's sake, our professor has not fallen in love!"
Behrend bit his lips in vexation. "Oh, not at all! It only occurred to me as a mere supposition."
Doctor Stephen was not so easily satisfied. "You have hinted at the truth," he said, "now out with it; who is the professor in love with? How long since it happened? Why is the love unhappy? I hope it is no French woman. Are the hindrances on the side of family, national hatred, or what?" ”

“ If there is a man bullet-proof it is you! Do not take it ill of me, Walter, but your rushing to the front in all these battles, borders on insanity. Courage need not become reckless; but where excitement urges you on, you see and hear nothing. Your comrades all say this."
"And still there is not one among them, who a little while ago, would have owned that I possessed any courage at all," returned Fernow, with some bitterness.
"I know that," said the surgeon, frankly. "But to tell the truth you used to have little enough of the hero in you. ”

“ Keep your indignation to yourself, I see that your whole nature rises in arms at the very thought. You dared not propose it to him, but you have to me!" Here the self-mastery ended, and the old, uncontrollable passion broke forth fearfully from its depths.--"You have dared make this proposal to me! You suppose that I would take part in such an infamous transaction! You dare treat Henry Alison as if he were an extortioner, whose word and honor were to be sold for dollars! Jane Forest, by Heaven you shall answer to me for this insult!"
Jane drew back, she gazed at him in consternation. ”

“ Jane's lips quivered in bitterest sorrow. "He paid dearly enough for it," she said; "he had to buy it with his life-blood. If I had not been near him in that hour he might have come back healthy and merry with the others; my rescue was his destruction. I bring only sorrow to all that love me; I had to give death to my brother; I had to make Henry wretched--keep far from me, Professor Fernow, I can give you no happiness!" ”

“ In loud, heart-rending sobs broke at last the rigid pride with which she had hitherto looked down upon all not her equals in intellect and position; broke the icy strong hardness of her nature, and with it, that masculine strength of will her father had awakened and fostered in her. She wept now as a woman weeps in hopeless anguish and despair, when she sees all waver and fall into nothingness around her. Jane Forest had not been one to be bent--she must be broken. ”

“ Alison laughed bitterly. "We cannot? You seem to forget that we are not of one origin. According to your German sentimentality, we ought now to fall into each other's arms, and swear eternal friendship. I am constituted otherwise; if I hate, I hate until my last breath; and I hate you, Lieutenant Fernow, because you have robbed me of the one dearest to me in the whole world. Do not believe that I release you from your promise to meet me at the end of the war, or that I will then spare you; do not believe that Jane Forest can ever belong to you. ”

“ Upon a low, rocky plateau at the entrance of the defile, close by the foot of a giant fir-tree, stood Henry Alison. He had gained some distance upon his rival, and had found the path clear. Nothing of all the wild excitement that ruled there an hour later, now disturbed the silence. Insuperable obstacles often arise in the way of duty and rescue, while crime unrestrained, goes on its way, as if guarded by demoniac powers.
Atkins' words had proved true. Now that Henry's uncontrollable nature had burst its barriers, it knew no limits. ”

“ Frederic, deeply wounded, wiped the tears from his eyes, and at length, comprehending the full meaning of the reproach, he cried excitedly:
"Do you think, Herr Doctor, that I am afraid? It is a real delight to me to take the musket on my shoulder, and go to war. But my poor master! This is going to cost him his life, even before he meets the enemy."
"Well, that is by no means certain," said the doctor, while Frau Stephen, who was entirely of Frederic's opinion, pressed her handkerchief to her eyes. "Perhaps he will hold out better than we all think. ”

“ Fernow said all this lucidly and calmly. His manner had nothing of the perturbation of a man who, scarce ten minutes before, had come from an interview which had blighted his whole future. He spoke more gravely and deliberately than usual, and a gloomy calm lay upon his features; the calmness of one who has made a fixed decision. This was no time to lament over a lost love, a lost happiness; he had found a remedy, the speediest, most infallible of all.
The officers had listened in intense excitement; but the major's brow remained clouded. ”

“ She felt that only in moments of the highest inspiration or of the highest exasperation, was he capable of these, and as it was beyond her power to inspire him, she resolved to exasperate him.
"I wonder so much the more, Professor Fernow, that you have guarded this susceptibility in so extraordinary a way; but really, in dreaming and poetizing, the Germans were always in advance of us."
"In two things which stand infinitely low in your esteem!"
"I, at least, am of the opinion that man was created for deeds and not for dreams! This poetizing is only listless dreaming." ”

“ In moments of excitement and inspiration such natures do and dare all; as soon as the incitement is wanting, they sink back again into their dreaming. Life in its every-day dress is nothing to them, simply because they do not understand it."
"And a delightful thing it must be to dream away one's life," cried the doctor excitedly pacing up and down.
"Sensible men like you and me, Doctor Behrend, haven't the least idea of the nonsensical things that haunt such a learned, poetic head as Walter Fernow's." ”

“ I could not forgive my mother, that with a consciousness of all you had suffered there, she always clung to the fatherland, and made you and herself inexpressibly unhappy with that incurable homesickness."
"Be silent, Jane!" interrupted Forest passionately. "There are things which you do not understand, will never learn to understand! I met no consideration in your mother, that I confess; she indeed made me unhappy; and still, she gave me hours of happiness, such as you will never give your husband--never, Jane! ”

“ For a moment Doctor Stephen stood utterly dumb before this passionate outbreak of his amiable patient, then he said, in a tone of sincere astonishment.
"I believe that even you can be rough and violent!"
Fernow frowned and turned away.
"Well it was only a jest!" said the doctor apologetically. "I know that you and Jane stand half upon a war-footing; but you can become very angry now, professor! I notice that, for the last two months, you have not been the same person you used to be!" ”

“ The spring comes everywhere. In the storms and billows of the ocean, in the soft, aromatic breath of leafy forests; in raging, devastating freshets from the mountains, in the blossoming splendors and jubilant lark-songs of the plain;--but nowhere does it so smile as here, by the cradle of German romance, where a breath of poesy hovers overall. The spring glides through the Rhineland, laying lightly her hand in blessing upon field and vineyard; and the blessing becomes a consecration. She floats sun-kissed, over forest and rocky cliff, and glances smiling down from hoary castles, gray with age. ”

“ The designated path might certainly be nearer, and for a man passable in a case of necessity; but it was not at all suitable for a lady. It led over a swampy soil; through wet meadows, through dripping hedges, through fields and bushes, not only to the injury, but to the ruin of Jane's elegant mourning clothes, which had been designed for travelling, but for travelling in an extra post-chaise. ”

“ Do you know them so intimately?"
"I do."
"I really wonder, Professor Fernow," said Jane with cutting irony, "that, without having seen our landscapes, you are able to give so positive a verdict in regard to them. You appear to think our Mississippi region a desert, but you should at least know from your books, that the life which rules there is infinitely richer and grander than by your Rhine."
"An every-day life!" cried the professor growing still more excited; "a hive of bees in a restless struggle for success, a life directed but to the present moment! ”

“ Jane glanced at him somewhat scornfully. "But all this at least gives you a change," she said not without irony. "You found Germany so dull, past all endurance."
"Yes, I did find it so!" growled Atkins, "but I would rather endure the former dulness than be here among a crazy people, whose only praiseworthy virtues, humility and modesty, are now entirely discarded. Do you suppose that they now respect us foreigners, that they concern themselves at all about us? I am horribly neglected at my hotel; every care and attention is for the German officers. ”

“ In one thing at least this German professor had succeeded, a success no one had before achieved; he had broken through the icy coldness with which the young lady had thus far met all, and had brought to the surface an ardent glowing passionateless, which rose in arms against him. She hated this man, who had forced upon her the first humiliation; hated him with the whole energy of a proud, spoiled nature, which had deemed itself unapproachable, and now for the first time had found its master. ”

“ Frederic's death still threw its shadow over her life; the shadow would not lift, she could not overcome her remorseful sorrow. Something of the old hardness and bitterness again lay upon her features, and the anguish which thrilled through them and would scarce yield to control, only too well betrayed how serious she had been in those gloomy words before which at this moment, all hope, every dream of the future, sank into nothingness.
"Johanna!"
It was again that tone which once before in S. had wrought so mightily upon her heart, lifting it above all sorrow and all conflict ”

“ Atkins, who now, with an expression of mingled surprise and terror, cried:
"Professor Fernow!"
Henry trembled; this outcry gave him a certainty as to whose eyes they were which had beamed upon him from under the helmet. Every drop of blood vanished from the face of the young American; with one single glance he took in the whole appearance of the officer standing before him; a second flew back to the house where Jane still lingered. He seemed to comprehend something. ”

“ Jane smiled at this outbreak of bitterness, and calmly replied:
"You will have to make up your mind to recognize the new power, Mr. Atkins, difficult as it may be to you. Nothing can now be changed, and you will at last reconcile yourself to paying some homage to our newly awakened German genius in your own land." ”

“ I must confess that I have none too great reverence for book-learning, and that I cannot at all comprehend how one can lay his whole life, a free-will offering upon the altar of science, and write books which, like yours, Professor Fernow, are of interest only to the learned, and which to the rest of mankind, must always remain dead, fruitless and valueless. ”