Reinhold

“ He persuaded himself that Reinhold had formerly loved Rosa; that this love had brought him back to Nuremberg, to master Martin's house; and the narration of the friendly rivalry of the two painters, for the golden laurel, appeared to him an emblem of the love rivalry of which Rosa was to be the prize. All of Reinhold's words came back to his remembrance, and took an entirely different sense from what he had ever attached to them. "Between two friends," exclaimed he, "there can exist neither hate nor envy. ”

“ At sight of this man, who with the innocence of a child seemed able to go about the world either not seeing, or at least not caring for its dangers, Reinhold quite recovered his usual temper, and hailed with joy the appearance of this more cheerful addition to the party. The sculptor on his side was attracted by the powerful-looking man, the frank open countenance, clear blue eyes, and curly brown beard; his own small, restless, rather red eyes constantly turned in that direction, and he addressed his conversation mostly to him. ”

“ The Baroness got out of the carriage and came towards the lovers. Elsa dropped Reinhold's arm and hastened towards her aunt. Her impetuous embrace told all that was necessary. As Reinhold stepped forward, the Baroness held out her hand to him, and said in an agitated voice, "You bring me my dear child--and yourself. I thank you doubly."
Reinhold kissed the trembling hand. "There is no time to make speeches," he said, "and your kind heart knows what I feel. God bless you!"
"And you also, my Reinhold," cried Elsa, throwing her arms round him; "God bless you! Good luck and joy be with you!" ”

“ I should have been a celebrated cooper! Shaven hoops on week-days with my apprentices, and taken my worthy housekeeper-wife on Sundays to St. Catherine's or St. Sebald's to service, and then to the meadow in the evening, one year after another, all my life long."
"Well, you needn't jest over the simple, innocent life of the good townspeople," cried Friedrich, interrupting Reinhold in his laughter. "It's not Rosa's fault if she does not really love you. You are so angry--so wild!"
"You are right," said Reinhold; "it is only my stupid way of behaving like a spoilt child when I feel annoyed. ”

“ Only the thoughtless one, the adventurer, cannot recover from having looked too deeply into a pair of blue eyes. I cannot come, Reinhold, not yet! You know the word which I passed to your wife; it still banishes me from your threshold. Heaven knows how long I must wander about on the sea without seeing you again; but if the recollections do not still weigh my heart down as at the beginning, yet they will not leave me. My 'Ellida,' lies in the harbour ready to sail once more, and to-morrow she will fly out afar again with her captain. So farewell, Reinhold! ”

“ He who came after him and reaped his glory, and after whom the new world was named, was a miserable thief unfit to tie the other's shoes."
"Now really!" exclaimed Reinhold, unable to resist a smile, "I do not believe that there is another man in the world who would speak like that of Bismarck."
"Very possibly," replied Uncle Ernst; "I believe that there is not another man in the whole world who hates him as I do." ”

“ The train stopped. Reinhold took his things out of the net. He could not collect them all at once. When he turned round Herr von Werben had already jumped out, Reinhold saw him once hastily threading the crowd, and then lost sight of him as he let his eyes wander till they caught sight of a man who was standing at some little distance. The stately, broad-shouldered figure, the pose of the head held up so proudly, while turning to right and to left as he looked about him, the thick beard, almost entirely grey--how could he have doubted his recognising that face at the first glance! ”

“ When Reinhold is quite recovered again, tell him what has driven me away from being near him and you. I do not wish to stand before my brother as a hypocrite, and I should have confessed it to him myself long since, only that I still dreaded the excitement for him of such an acknowledgment; he has become only much too irritable on every point which concerns you. Tell him that Hugo could not stay--not one hour longer--and that he had given you his word not to return again until he could appear before his brother's wife as he ought. ”

“ Reinhold moved to his uncle's side.
"What are you waiting for?" asked Uncle Ernst, "what do you want?"
From the group of malcontents who had now clustered thickly together, a man stepped forward, not one of the three; a young man who would have been handsome if his youthful countenance had not been marred and distorted already by evil passions. His pale, bold eyes had a watery look, as if he were already too much addicted to the bottle. ”

“ He spoke with all the ardour of a long suppressed emotion, but also with the noble, immovable confidence of a man, to whom the beloved one is elevated above all doubt, and the language was sufficiently plain; it pressed urgently for a decision, from which the wife shrank back tremblingly.
"Yes, indeed Eleonore, you must decide," said Reinhold, now taking up the word. His voice all at once sounded unnaturally calm, but the glance which hung openly on his wife with an expression as if in the next moment the fiat of life or death should fall from her lips, showed better how it was with him. ”

“ Reinhold inspects her work and the studio.]
"But now I am afraid you will spoil me so thoroughly [Pg 72] that I shall find it difficult to get back into my simple life," said Reinhold, as he sped on at the side of Ferdinande in his uncle's equipage through the Thiergartenstrasse to the Brandenburgerthor.
"Why do we have horses and a carriage if we are not to use them?" inquired Ferdinande. ”

“ Ella kissed her boy's forehead tenderly, while Reinhold drew her and the child to himself. They had held him very indissolubly, these fetters, which once, in youthful infatuation, he had burst and broken, until he learnt to feel yonder in the life so ardently longed for, amidst all the dreamed-of treasures, that he had left the best at home; until the longing for the past awoke, and forced its way powerfully and irresistibly; until he could obtain once more, fighting through sin and the horrors of death, that which he himself had thrust from him--his wife and child ”

“ Reinhold jumped up.
"It is coming faster than I thought; we have not a moment to lose."
"What are you going to do?"
"Take you back."
"That you must not do; you must remain at your post of duty; on that account you did not go to Warnow today; how could you now go so far, when the peril is so much nearer? No, no, dear; do not look at me with such concern! I must learn to live without fear, and I am going to do it; I have determined to do it. No more fear from this moment on, not even of men! I can no longer live without you, and you can no longer live without me. ”

“ Do all sit in breathless silence when I rise to speak? Do all tremble when I frown? Do all shrink when I raise my voice? Do all give way when I threaten to desert them? Is there an army at my back if I stamp my foot? Bah! my name is Schmidt, and there is an end of it."
"No, no, uncle!" exclaimed Reinhold, "there is not an end of it; you have only shown that we must do in small matters what he does in great ones. Even the great Bismarck knows how to trim his sails and tack when it is necessary, and does it very skilfully so far as I can understand. We must take example even from our enemies. ”

“ You sail to the West Indies, your brother and Eleonore will also leave; I go back to H----, a most pleasant solitude which awaits me there at home! Herr Reinhold certainly was gracious enough to promise me that I should see his wife and child from time to time. From time to time! As if that could satisfy me, after having had her about me every moment for years. Of course, now the husband and father must decide about it! I am convinced he will never let her leave him for a week; he is just as overwhelming in his tenderness as he once was in his carelessness. ”

“ Have you ever nursed children on your knees, and secretly found all your happiness in their laughing eyes, and then seen how those eyes ceased to laugh at you, how they looked shyly past you and turned away, eyes and hearts both? To know such things a man must have experienced them."
"At the worst you can only be speaking of Philip," said Reinhold, "and even there you take too gloomy a view; but Ferdinanda! And even if all is not as it should be, is it not partly your own fault, my dear uncle? A girl's heart needs sunshine, constant sunshine! ”

“ Reinhold made a half-impatient movement. "Folly. I have become accustomed to it for long; and besides, you do not understand it, Hugo."
"Possibly. At any rate I do not require to deaden my feelings."
Reinhold started up. A glance of burning anger met his brother, who attempted to pierce so far into his innermost thoughts, and who continued, quite unmoved--
"It is only a means of deadening your feelings which you struggle for day after day, which you seek everywhere without finding. Give up this life, I entreat you. You will ruin yourself, body and mind, by it; you must succumb to it at last." ”

“ Reinhold had seated himself at the piano, and let his hands glide mechanically over the notes, while he answered with perfect indifference--
"I never trouble myself about Ella's toilet, and I believe it would be useless to try and enforce any alterations there. What does it matter to me?"
"What it matters to you how your wife looks?" repeated the Captain, as he seized some sheets of music on the table, and turned them over lightly, "a charming question from a young husband! You used to have a sense of beauty, too easily aroused, and I could almost fear--what is this then? ”

“ With these words Frederick was about to depart, when Reinhold stopped him. "Thou shalt not leave us," said he, with affectionate entreaty; "for all may turn otherwise than thou thinkest here, and I will no longer hide from thee the secret of my life. Thou hast already seen that I was not born to follow the trade of a cooper, and the sight of this picture may prove to thee that I am not in the last rank among painters. In my tenderest youth, I travelled through Italy to study the masterpieces of the great masters. My talents, developed by a natural inclination, made rapid progress. ”

“ Reinhold smiled. "Time has left no marks upon you, Doctor; you still preserve your old role. Every third word you utter, is one of sarcasm."
"Pretty well," said "Welding, shrugging his shoulders, and turning to Ella, who greeted the old friend heartily as she stretched out her hand to him.
"Well, how do you find our Eleonore?" cried the Consul, triumphantly. "Does she not bloom like a rose? And the 'little one' has become so big that we must soon seek another designation for him." ”

“ Signora Biancona is about to return to her home, and Reinhold explained to me just now that he must and will continue his studies in Italy. Do you comprehend the connection?"
Ella started. Now, for the first time, a desperate fear broke through the stolid calm of her nature.
"No, no!" she cried, as if beside herself, "He cannot! he dare not. We are married!"
"He dare not?" repeated Hugo. "You know men but little, and your own husband least of all. Do not trust too much to the right which the Church gave you; even this power has its limits, and I fear Reinhold already stands beyond them. ”

“ And when he looks you through and through with his bright glances--no, it's more than you can endure. And yet there's something so strange and peculiar in his character, it quite makes me shiver at times, and makes me quite afraid of him. When Reinhold is working in the shop, I should think Herr Martin, when he tells him to do this or do that, must always feel as I should if anybody were to put a bright pan in my kitchen all glittering with gold and precious stones, and should bid me use it like any ordinary common pan--why, I should hardly dare to touch it at all. ”

“ All are fighting for him; he cannot tear himself away."
"Hugo appears to have conquered the whole house in the course of a single week," remarked Reinhold ironically.
"We do that everywhere," said Jonas, full of self-consciousness, and appeared inclined to add more about those conquests, when he was interrupted by his master's entrance, who greeted his brother in the most cheerful humour.
"Good morning, Reinhold! Now Jonas, what are you staying here for? You are wanted in the house. I promised my aunt that you should help at the dinner to-day. Go at once to the kitchen!" ”

“ What could Reinhold have meant by "circumstances!"
"We shall never get to the bottom of it," said Meta at last; "the circumstances are just the circumstances that you are called Elsa von Werben and he is called Reinhold Schmidt, and that you are a wealthy heiress and might if you pleased marry the richest and most distinguished man, and that he is poor; and wife of the Superintendent of Pilots certainly does not sound so well as baroness or countess. ”

“ We poor artists! Might I ask you for a piece of sugar, Herr Schmidt?"
Reinhold could hardly help laughing. The appearance, manners, and speech of this bearded, partially bald-headed little sculptor, his cheerfulness, friendliness, and ease, all formed such a marvellous contrast to the rather stiff and irritable tone of the former occupants of the table. And now he was asking Uncle Ernst for a bit of sugar! It seemed rather like asking a lion to dance! But the lion did what he was asked, and did it amiably, with a kindly smile such as was seldom seen on that stern face. ”