Friedrich Spielhagen

“ Good evening, doctor; where do you come from? I suppose I am at the end of my life. Where is Baron Oldenburg? Give me your hand. You have been very kind to me. Doctor, must I die? Yes?--tell me, I am no coward; I knew it yesterday already; must I die? Then, Oswald, one more request; bend over me, I will whisper it in your ear."
Oswald did as he was asked.
He rose and went to the door. Oldenburg had followed him.
"I know what Bruno wants. He has asked for her a hundred times. I will call her. It is the last prayer of a dying man." ”

“ You do not know what a charming boy Julius is. I have been there seven years now, and if he has given me a single unpleasant hour, a single minute even, my name is not Anastasius Bemperlein. And then--Frau von Berkow--you do not know her."
Oswald turned his face, for he felt how the blood rose in his cheeks.
"You have no idea what an angel of goodness that lady is! What do I not owe her--all! Before I came to Berkow, I knew just as much of the air and the sun, of everything that is beautiful on earth, as a mole. ”

“ A storm rose in Oswald's heart. He might have thrown himself instantly at Melitta's feet to cry out: Do I not love you, Melitta? How can you ask my opinion about a man whom you have loved, whom you perhaps still love? But he checked himself and said, with apparent calmness:
"It is the head of a man who recalls to me Tasso's words:
'And if all the gods united
To bring him gifts to the cradle,
The Graces, alas! were not there.'
This man can never be happy, because he will never desire to be happy."
"And that is why this man will drop out of my life as this leaf drops out of my album. ”

“ He shoots the horse that he likes no longer, and he breaks the vow that becomes a burden to him. What he has promised you is an old song; he sings it as a bird whistles his air, without thinking what he does. What he has promised you he has promised a hundred others, who perhaps were no better than he is.'--'Stop,' said Miss Marie, vehemently, 'I cannot and must not listen to you any longer.' And then she added, smiling: 'You will soon see, my good woman, how you have wronged my Harald--how you have wronged Baron Harald.'--'Your Harald?' I said, 'poor child! He'll never be your Harald. ”

“ If I should not return, Melitta, you must send for your bust, which I ordered from young Goldoni in Rome. It is in my study at Cona; or would you like to have it at once?"
"No," said Melitta, "you had better keep it. Your unbounded kindness deserves a better reward than cold marble."
"Or marble coldness?" asked Oldenburg, smiling.
"That I do not give you, Oldenburg," said Melitta, with warmth; "really not. I love you as one would love a brother who is a few years older, who stands somewhat in the place of a father, and to whom one looks up with cheerful respect and gratitude. ”

“ I tried my best not to hate the fortunate man, I met him with cordiality and took him by the hand, I tried to win his confidence and his affection, not to betray him and you, but because I felt that your happiness was dearer to me than everything else, and that the man whom you loved must either be loved by me too, or die by my hand!"
"You are terrible, Oldenburg," cried Melitta, half rising from her chair; "it seems I cannot hide the secret of the innermost recesses of my soul from you."
"I am not terrible," said the baron, "I am only in the way, that is the privilege of a friend. ”

“ Here is the red rose Xenobia once more, but in the morning dew of sweetest innocence. The red rose has no doubt long since faded and withered amid the storms of life, and even if I had kept it at that time--what would the world, the cold, impudent, slandering world have said of the romantic love of a baron and a zingarella! I was too young then, and could not have defended my poor wife against the world: now I am a man, and have to protect a child only, a foundling. I shall give the gypsy whatever she may ask, and my warmest, sincerest thanks into the bargain. ”

“ It was but a dream, and rested her head again in her hand.
"Melitta--it is I."
This time she had not dreamt. She started up with a cry of joy, to the door, to meet Oswald. She wound her arms around his neck, she felt his burning lips again and again on her own; she laid her head on his bosom; she looked through her tears up at him and said: "See, Oswald, I was just thinking of you. I said to myself: If he loves you he will come, he will surely be here to-day, and if he does not come, he does not love you! Oswald, you do love me--don't you? ”

“ Suddenly he heard the cracking of a whip and the grating of wheels on the gravel before the great portal of the château. The baron was riding off with the boys.
Oswald walked hurriedly up and down in his room.
"Why must I see that fearful vision just to-day? Must Bruno die, die before me, in order that I may love Melitta? Is it impossible to love a boy and a beloved one at the same time, and with equal fervor? Is the heart of man so small that one sentiment must crowd out another to find room there? and is faithlessness a law of nature?" ”

“ Then there had come a time when Aunt Berkow had for a while usurped the throne in his heart, becoming to him the personification of all that is highest and fairest in woman; when a kind word of Melitta, a simple: You dear boy! or a passing caress from her soft white hand could have sent him to brave every kind of deadly danger. It was just at the time when Oswald first came to Grenwitz, that this enthusiasm for Aunt Berkow had been at its highest. He had treated Melitta's son like a younger brother, as he was in the habit of treating the mother, in her youthful beauty, like an elder sister. ”

“ And how it has grown!--Come with me, little Czika, you shall be happy at my house, very happy; I will love you more than your mother, who has left you so basely, has ever loved you."
"Mother has not left Czika," said the child, quietly looking up at the baron; "mother is where Czika is; mother is everywhere."
Turning away from the two gentlemen, she put her little hands to her mouth, and sent a cry into the silent forest exactly like the call of a hungry young falcon.
The child inclined her head on one side and listened; the baron and Oswald instinctively held their breath. ”

“ You do not believe in it?" asked Oswald, astonished.
The old woman shook her head.
"You are quite young yet, Mr.--how was your name? Stein--yes--you are quite young yet, Mr. Stein; but when you have seen as many people die as I have, you too will no longer believe in it. When a man dies, he is dead--really dead. And then, at the resurrection, as they call it, what would become of all the people? In our village there is not a soul left of all who lived when I was young. And the others, who were born after me, they have grown old and they are dead too. ”

“ Losing my way afterwards in the forest, falling asleep on the edge of a swamp, dreaming there all kinds of sweet, foolish things, finding upon awaking a gypsy standing before me, who tells me my fortune, getting her boy to show me the right way, and finding upon arriving at your enchanted castle no one who could lead a stranger to the lady of the house, but an amiable dog, who listens as attentively as if he understood every word we say--do you not think that doing all this requires at least as much time as I have taken to tell it to you? ”

“ Whenever a venture, was to be risked, from which everybody shrank, when a runaway horse was to be checked, a cherry to be reached on the topmost branch of a tree, or a ditch to be leaped which seemed to be impassable--Bruno would undertake it at once; he trembled with eagerness, his cheeks burnt, he cast imploring glances at those he loved, and they could not refuse him. They let him go, for they knew he could do more than others. Such was Bruno: a youth rather than a boy, with a fire in his heart that could have warmed a world.
Thus he saw Helen. ”

“ Melitta, by our former friendship, by the memory of our common youth and its happiness, tell me, did you never believe that I loved you?"
"I do not know----"
"That is hard," said the baron, "that is hard." He sank into a chair, leaned his arm on the back, and hid his face in his hand.
He rose again, walked up and down with long strides, crossing his arms on his breast, and said, as if speaking to himself: "Why should men complain, who love and are loved again, if they are cheated out of their hopes in one way or another? ”

“ You cannot help me when I am sleeping?"
"But what am I to do down stairs?"
"You see, Oswald," said Bruno, "I should like to see Helen more than anything in this life. And I cannot do it. I have no strength in my limbs. But, if you see her, I shall feel as if I also had seen her. Please, please go down stairs! You need not speak to anybody; only, if you can manage it, tell Helen I send her my best, my very best love--and perhaps she will say something in reply, perhaps she will say: Give my love to Bruno! ”

“ These pleasant, and yet also painful recollections passed through Oswald's mind as he roved about in his leisure hours, wandering alone, or with his pupils, through the garden, the fields, and the forest, and daily growing fonder of life in the country. Often he would run down into the great garden early in the morning before the lessons commenced, and look into the dew-filled flowers and listen to the song of the birds, and then it appeared to him marvellous how anybody, how he himself, had ever been able to live in a city. ”

“ High up in the air a sea-eagle was drawing his majestic circles, higher and higher, till it appeared to Oswald's eye but a black moving point. But even the magnificent sight of the sea could not fill Oswald's heart to-day. The ocean is not as large and not as deep as the heart of man; and however he had formerly admired the music of the waves, he had heard a more marvellous music a few hours ago. He envied the eagle, however. "One beat of your powerful wings and you fly over forests and fields far off to Melitta's house." ”

“ There was a bevy of beauties there such as would have enchanted more thoughtful men than the baron was. The most beautiful and most lovely of all was, in the judgment of the gentlemen at least,--for the opinion of the ladies was very much divided on the subject,--beyond all doubt, Melitta. Her cheeks, generally rather pale, were slightly flushed from dancing, her eyes beamed with light and life, her slender elastic form moved along with marvellous grace in rhythmical change--thus she floated over the smooth parquet of the ball-room like the very Muse of the Dance. ”

“ The virtuous lady would have turned up her nose, she would have thought it unpardonable, if she had been told that young Count Grieben and Emily von Breesen had been left alone in a room for five minutes, but the surveyor, Albert Timm, and the housekeeper, Marguerite Hoger--good Heavens! what was the use troubling one's self about such people? that would have been asking too much! And Marguerite had not even a father or a mother to whom one might have been answerable--she had no relations whatever--how can one be expected to be responsible for a person who is standing quite alone in the world? ”

“ This melancholy weather harmonized with Oswald's state of mind. Since the day he had passed at Barnewitz a great change had taken place in him, which he could hardly explain himself. He felt as if suddenly a close veil had fallen on his eyes, which made everything look to him discolored and unattractive; he felt as if a hostile hand had mixed a drop of wormwood with his cup of life, from which he had recently drunk so eagerly. Even the image of the beautiful lady who was enthroned in the holiest of his heart seemed to have lost its magic power. ”

“ What these people discovered, Oswald's eye, sharpened a hundred-fold by love, could not overlook. He saw daily how the baron made every effort to win his fair cousin's love, how he brought into play all the skill he had acquired in a thousand intrigues on the smooth floor of brilliant salons in the capital, all the cleverness with which Nature had lavishly endowed him, and all the advantages he enjoyed as a near relative. He could not fail to see that the baroness sustained these efforts with wise discretion in every useful way, seconding Felix as indefatigably as ably. ”

“ You see, sir, that often made my heart bleed, and when I saw my mistress wander so lonely through the garden of an evening, I have often prayed to God to take poor Baron Berkow in mercy up into heaven, and to let my poor mistress be happy for once in her life, like other women who are not worthy to unloose the latchet of her shoes. The man need not be rich, for she has enough for both, if wealth there must be--but he ought to have a head and a heart of the right sort, and he ought to love her better than the apple of his eye. ”

“ Oswald laughed and talked as if in the best humor; here a reckless, bold word, there a delicate compliment here a satirical sneer, there a sentimental appeal. The ladies seemed entirely to have forgotten his low birth: he was such a capital, indefatigable dancer; so handsome a man, so skilful a flatterer. And if here and there an anxious mother scolded her noble daughter for her intimacy with that young man. Doctor Stein, the words fell, golden as they were, on sterile soil, and the girl consoled herself, in her noble conscience, by saying to herself: Well, it is only for to-night! ”

“ He forced himself, therefore, to sit still and to ask, with apparent calmness:
"Was Baron Berkow one of Harald's friends? Was he not too young at that time?"
"He was the youngest," said Mother Claus, "and the best too. He did what he saw the others did, without thinking whether it was right or wrong. He was not as powerful as the others. When he drank one bottle, Harald drank three, and yet Harald remained master of himself and Berkow fell under the table."
"Was he a handsome man?" asked Oswald.
"Not as handsome as Harald, and far less so than you are, young master. ”

“ On the table stood a burning lamp, the globe of which was covered with a red veil, so that the sacred image of Venus looked, in the rosy light, as if it were alive. Melitta was sitting at the foot of the statue near a table, turning her face toward Oswald. She had an open book before her, but she was evidently not reading; the delicate hand which supported her head was buried in the dark, abundant hair, and she seemed to be buried in thought. An inexpressibly touching expression, full of plaintive melancholy and of surpassing happiness, lay on her chaste, childlike features. ”

“ No, gentlemen, that will not do, really, that will not do! I propose that we make amends for our first blunder and treat the man, if he should ever show himself again among us, as he deserves--with the utmost contempt."
"'Pon honor!" said Grieben, "Cloten, is right I shall make the fellow acquainted with my hunting-whip."
"It is a pity he is not here, so that you could carry out your threat at once!" said Breesen, ironically.
"Quand on parle du loup," said Sylow; "there he is! And his Pylades, Oldenburg, as a matter of course, by his side." ”

“ And if fortune really for once seems to smile, it is but for a moment; it is but an illusion which a wicked fairy summons up from the inhospitable, restless sea, to sink us the next instant in its unfathomable depth, just as we fancy we are reaching the shore, with its waving palm-trees and gorgeous palaces.
A small village which lay before Oswald was hid in the innermost recesses of a little bay, surrounded on all sides by tall chalk cliffs, except only a small opening towards the sea. There the water was as smooth and silent as a pond in a garden. A few huts lay near the beach ”

“ How often had he listened to his marvellous eloquence, when he, suddenly leaving the world of logic, had entered upon a world of which all we know has been revealed to us by intuition; a world so fantastic, so fabulous, but also so divinely beautiful and pure, that Oswald forgot everything else, and fancied he was walking bodily about in this Fata Morgana, till the magician let the gorgeous image sink and vanish by a word of bitter contempt and wild despair! And now this noble mind, with all its wealth, was destroyed! This lofty intellect buried in the hideous night of insanity! ”