Essential Novelists - Paul Heyse. Paul HeyseЧитать онлайн книгу.

      THE FOLLOWING DAY WAS cloudy and dismal. When at the appointed hour Edwin arrived at the Thiergarten, he found it completely deserted. The autumn rain was trickling drearily down, the trees, which had hitherto still retained something of their summer aspect, now hung their heads and seemed to realize that the sunny illusion could no more be retained than their yellow leaves which were beaten down by the rain drops. Very dreary looked the gold-fish pond, its surface bestrewn with withered foliage, through which here and there a spot of deeper crimson betokened the presence of some fish that snapped at a water-fly and then indignantly retreated to the bottom again. Even the statue of Venus looked as mournful in the falling rain as if she were reflecting with horror that the time would soon come when a mantle of snow would rest on her bare shoulders, and a crow, pecking at her diadem, scream the harsh song of the Northern winter into her ear.

      "She will not come," Edwin said to himself, after pacing up and down once or twice under his umbrella. "The weather is too disagreeable. Besides, perhaps she knows the contents of the Count's letter only too well, and it was merely a gentle way of getting rid of me. Then—what am I to do then. Did she expect me in that case, to open the letter and read what she could not tell me?"—He drew the note from his pocket and again glanced at the address: "'Mademoiselle Antoinette Marchand.' No, if she does not come, has not the courage to come—the fish yonder shall keep the secret."

      At this moment a carriage rolled along the avenue and stopped before the open space at the end of the pond. The striped waistcoat swung himself down from the box, and out sprang the beautiful girl, wrapped in a long black silk cloak, with the hood drawn over her head like a nun, looking, with her sparkling eyes and slightly flushed cheeks, more lovely than ever. She nodded to Edwin from the distance and smiled so frankly that all his doubts suddenly vanished, and he secretly begged her pardon for them.

      "I've kept you waiting," she said, as she hung lightly on his arm. "But my coachman made me wait. I suppose he did not think the weather suitable for driving. However, I am here now, and it's all the better that it rains; no one will disturb us; I shall not be interrupted in my confession and my 'wise friend's' moralizing and head-shaking will have no hindrance."

      "Have I ever shown a decided inclination that way?"

      "No, but I fear when you know me better—! True, it is said: 'that which can be comprehended can be forgiven.' But how are you to understand me? Hitherto you have taken me for heaven knows who, at any rate, for some very peculiar person, with good reasons for keeping her incognito. Now when you learn how simply everything can be explained, won't you think it your duty to guide me back to the paths of wisdom and self-sacrifice, which will lead me straight to an early grave? If I had not seen this conclusion foreshadowed so plainly, how gladly I'd have told you long ago what you're now to hear for the first time!"

      "Try me and see whether I'm not less stern than my vocation," he forced himself to reply in a jesting tone. "I, like you, am no adept in self-denial, where I feel that I have to assert a natural right, and therefore I lack the first requisites of a moralist. What a foolish awe you have of a poor private tutor! I know professors of philosophy who have done the most absurd things."

      "No, no, no!" she said earnestly, gazing down at the wet gravel, over which she was lightly walking. "You don't understand it. You and I are made of very different material. Can you understand why the little fish are better off down in that dark water, than if you bade them to the most luxurious couch of lilies and rose leaves? Every creature lives in its own element, and perishes in an alien one. Don't you see, that I too can philosophize?"

      She paused, and for some time walked thoughtfully beside him, while the solemn boy following some twenty paces behind under a large umbrella, trod carefully in the dainty footprints made by his young mistress. The carriage waited in the avenue beyond.

      At last she paused a moment, looked him full in the face with a mischievous expression in her large dark eyes, and said: "Before I betray to whom you have given your arm, Won't you tell me what you have taken me for?"

      "I would not hesitate a moment," he answered smiling, "but indeed you wrong me. Because I have confessed myself a philosopher, you believe me foolish enough always to fancy things different from what they appear. Thank God, I understand my own interests better. I'm glad when I encounter something which banishes thought, and allows me to dream, as when I listen to beautiful music, enjoy a spring day, or the fragrance of clusters of roses. My thoughts—why should I deny it?—have been very much engrossed by you, perhaps more than was well. But the idea of imputing any blame to you has never occurred to me."

      She laughed. "You're only evading the question. But no matter what good or evil qualities you have attributed to me: I am neither an aristocratic lady, nor an adventuress, but the very prosaic child of 'poor but honest parents.' Do you remember, in your boyhood, hearing of a ballet dancer on the Berlin stage called Marchand? But how should you? My father—he was a Frenchman—was still in the prime of life, when he had an unlucky fall from a flying trapeze, which forever shut him out from the field of his art, with all its joys and honors. He took this so much to heart, that he never wished to see or hear of the theatre, and voluntarily retired into exile in a miserable little abode in the Mark. Here he married my mother, and had three daughters beside the oldest, myself. One died young, but the two others married worthy burghers and became happy wives. Things did not prosper so well with me unfortunately. I never was like the others, and my good mother had a great deal of trouble with me. Perhaps she'd have been more successful in teaching me if she'd shown me more love, but though possessing the kindest heart in the world, she was always cold, stern and formal to me, and as my father only spoiled me the more, you can imagine what sort of training I received. I once heard it whispered that I was not my mother's child. But although in such a small place nothing remains a secret, and everybody knows his neighbors' business by heart, I never discovered what was meant by the hasty words, and almost believe it was only said in explanation of my mother's coldness, which was noticed even by strangers. Perhaps she was jealous of the love my father lavished upon me; for her aversion increased with years, in exact proportion as I grew prettier and my father petted me more. Besides, none of my sisters were like me. You ought to have known my father, in order to be able to understand and forgive him for idolizing me. When a very young man, he had gone through the best dancing school in Paris, and the impressions made by the last brilliant days of the Empire never left him. He always wore pumps and a white cravat, and when he felt particularly happy, told us tales of Paris, the entertainments he had witnessed at court—of course only from a corner of the gallery—the duchesses and marquises to whom he had given lessons, their beauty, grace, and the luxury that surrounded them, concluding usually with a heavy sigh, as he looked around our miserable room: 'Ils sont passés, ces jours de fête!"

      "This always affected my mother unpleasantly, and my sisters listened to these constantly repeated tales without any special pleasure. They had very little imagination, and were completely absorbed in the petty cares and joys of the present; but these fairy like descriptions so filled my mind, that the wretched reality of my life became more and more distasteful to me. I dreamed of nothing but magnificence and splendor, a luxurious existence