Baron Bruno.

by Louisa Morgan.

Baron Bruno was the Prime Minister of the Hereditary Grand Duke of Rumpel Stiltzein. Besides being Prime Minister, he was the cleverest man in the kingdom. This is saying a good deal, for were there not (besides all the men of science, the physicians, the literati, and the great philosophers of the day) the General-in-Chief of the Grand-Ducal army, Prince Edlerkopf; the great High Almoner, Herr von Pfenig; and also the accomplished Graf von Wild Kranz, the most able lawyer and the politest man about court? So humble and gentle, indeed, were his manners, that strangers sometimes took it upon themselves to dispute the opinion of their modest neighbour. But such hardy persons seldom repeated the experiment after Wild Kranz had completely overturned their arguments in his quiet, hesitating tone, with a shrewd glance of enjoyment twinkling in his small wary eye; and woe to the man who a second time opposed his will or challenged his decision.

Very different was Baron Bruno. Impetuous, fiery, and caustic, gifted with inexhaustible memory, and br.i.m.m.i.n.g over with barbed sarcasm, he was often misunderstood and disliked in the outer world, but invariably beloved by those who knew him intimately.

Pfenig and Edlerkopf were devoted friends, as well as ministers at court. They had been educated together, and while Edlerkopf lent to the counsels of state the aid of wise and deliberate judgment and the weight of his n.o.bly impartial character, Pfenig was the most wonderful manager of the public purse, and could not only calculate the incoming revenue within a hairsbreadth, but could also regulate government expenditure so exactly as to keep all departments amply supplied, and yet preserve a due regard to economy.

You may well imagine that with four ministers such as these the Grand Duke had little difficulty in maintaining peace and contentment in his beautiful kingdom of Rumpel Stiltzein; and that from every side artisans, labourers, and mechanics flocked to the small domain, within whose narrow boundaries prosperity sat enthroned. To add to his happiness, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess became the proud mother of twin children, the spirited handsome Prince Bertrand and the lovely gentle Princess Berta. They were now in their tenth year, and seemed only born to give pleasure and hope to their parents and to the whole princ.i.p.ality.

Edlerkopf, Wild Kranz and Pfenig were all married, but Bruno had a solitary home; and no one without ocular demonstration would have believed in what a shabby den this great statesman pa.s.sed much of his time. In his town-house he had magnificent saloons, where all that was fair and choice delighted his guests; but near the roof of this dwelling, and far above the haunts of men, there, like the eagle, Bruno had his eyrie, where, with ill-concealed impatience, he would hardly even permit the cleaning incursions of his maids, and few and far between were the footsteps that trod those time-worn boards. Here the Baron sat surrounded by dusty piles of books, now poring intently over the records of the past, now eagerly scanning the papers of the day, now striding up and down the narrow chamber, composing his speech for the Reichstag, or dashing off answers to his numerous correspondents.

There also at the threshold would pause the faithful messengers who bore from minister to minister the secret boxes of state papers, and waited to obtain from each his signature before proceeding on their rounds.

A few steps and a small door led from the sanctuary which I have described to the roof. Here Bruno had a little observatory on one side fitted up with a revolving cupola; so that when he sat in the centre of this round miniature house he could turn his telescope, without himself moving, upon any part of the heavens, and seek with keen unfaltering eye the verification of calculations he had made, or diligently mark the alteration and movement among the visible planets. But the rest of the roof was a free uncovered s.p.a.ce, upon which a comfortable chair and rug, generally kept within the observatory, to be safe from the wear and tear of the elements, were often placed. From this lonely elevated seat the Baron would then study the myriads of stars with his own unaided and unerring vision, until they became to him dear and well-known companions.

During such silent hours of the night, when all around teemed with nature's glorious presence, Bruno indulged in long soliloquies.

Sometimes he pondered curiously over the strange difference between himself and his colleagues. He well knew that, when weary with the lengthened debates and vitiated air of the Reichstag (which often extended its sittings till long after midnight), Pfenig and Edlerkopf hastened home to their faithful wives, and derived from their society a pleasure little short of bliss; and found endless interest in watching and fostering the mental and physical growth of their children; while Wild Kranz, though often delayed in his law chambers till near daybreak, (the keenest and hardest lawyer of his day,) considered no happiness like the sacred domestic felicity he also experienced when surrounded by his family. When these and other similar reflections weighed on Bruno's mind, he would lift his piercing eyes heavenward, and, shrugging his shoulders, murmur, half aloud: "O, ye stars! ye are wife and children to me. As I gaze alone on you by night, I feel a secret satisfaction surpa.s.sing the keenest emotions experienced by these weak dreamers in their so-called felicity. O, immortal heavens!

enfold me in your vast s.p.a.ce, and teach a finite mortal to comprehend in faint measure your infinite beauty and eternal unswerving laws."

Bruno's fervid nature suffered no chill from such midnight exposure; his iron frame was proof against fatigue; his restless intellect but seldom needed or courted repose.

It was a hot night in July, worried and jaded, after a wearisome debate in the Reichstag, the Baron walked through the empty streets. The latest revellers were already housed, a strange hush hung over the noisy, populous city, and refreshing breezes blew on his burning brow, as he at length reached his home, and ascended to his upper chamber.

With a sigh of contentment he stepped on the roof, and prepared to enjoy his well-earned repose. Throwing himself into his easy-chair, and drawing his soft rug across his feet, he became absorbed in the contemplation of the firmament above.

As the night wore on, thoughts, till now strangers to him, took possession of his mind. A new yearning for companionship awoke in his world-wearied bosom. In vague, uneasy discontent with his solitary condition, he turned restlessly from side to side, and at length exclaimed aloud: "To you, distant stars! I nightly offer the homage of a constant worshipper; would that you in return could give me to know the spell of love, and teach me what it is that inspires the painter, the poet, and the lover."

Hardly had the thought crossed his mind, or the half-uttered words risen to his lips, when a meteor fell swiftly rushing from the stars on which he gazed. He strove to follow it with his eye, but was dazzled by the blinding flash of light. For a moment fire seemed to surround him.

When the bright glow became less intense, lo! upon the roof near at hand, where that vivid ray had fallen, shone a shimmering shape. The dreamer started from his chair. Bewildered and entranced, he deemed her the creature of his imagination; and surely mortal eye had never beheld a form so fair. In trailing garments of palest azure there stood the perfect ideal of a poet's dream. From her hair gleamed a faint effulgence, and her deep tender eyes sent a strange thrill to the philosopher's heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE DREAMER STARTED FROM HIS CHAIR.

P. 8.]

The burden of many years fell from Bruno; the ardour of youth rushed through his veins; ambition, politics, calculations, all disappeared like fallen leaves before the autumn wind; and in agitated tones he besought his beautiful visitant to tell him whence she came.

"Son of earth!" replied the fair unknown, "thou hast watched and loved our stars for long years. We in our turn have known thee, and have guarded thee and thy fortunes in many a time of danger. Thou wouldest know the spell of love. It is even now awakening within thy rugged breast; but beware! Thou hast disbelieved in immortality, and doubted the eternal power of our great Creator. We love thee! we yearn to save thy soul! We long to soften thee through human affection; that when thy poor earth is no more, thou mayst find an everlasting home, where

'Infinite day excludes the night, And pleasures banish pain.'

I--Alcyone, sent by my sisters--I am here to speed thine upward way."

Bruno, spell-bound, eagerly listened. Deeply enamoured of the lovely messenger, he succeeded in winning from the fair denizen of the stars her consent to remain with him on one condition. She stipulated that she should be permitted every month to spend the evening hours of this self-same night entirely alone beneath the canopy of heaven, without interruption or intrusion, for her life depended on the due observance of this time of "retreat."

She also added, falteringly, that if her faith were once doubted she must quit for ever the pleasant paths of human fellowship, and be claimed again by her immortal sisters. The Baron gladly vowed to keep what seemed to him such wondrously simple promises by which to gain so peerless a bride. The time pa.s.sed swiftly as these arrangements were made, and ere long the first streaks of daylight appeared in the east.

Alcyone, faint and weary, was conducted to a chamber for rest and repose; and the Baron aroused his servants and informed them that he was about to be married.

In the country of Rumpel Stiltzein it was customary to celebrate marriages in the evening; there were therefore still available a good many hours for the requisite preparations.

The court of the Grand Duke was considerably agitated by the unexpected news. Strange rumours were set afloat regarding the newly-elected bride. The Prime Minister's answer to all inquiries was the same. He let it be understood that the Lady Alcyone was an orphan relative lately committed to his charge; that she had suddenly arrived from the country the evening before, when he came to the conclusion that the best way of taking care of her would be to marry her, and having gained the lady's consent, all was well.

It is true that Bruno had a private interview with his Prince; but as it was held with closed doors, the substance of their conversation is unknown. The only thing certain is, that the Grand Duke himself consented to give away the bride.

Edlerkopf, Pfenig and Wild Kranz, with their wives and families, and all the chief members of the court promised to attend at the ceremony, and great were the rejoicings that the solitary philosopher was about to enjoy the sweet pleasures of home life. All rejoiced, because they believed the change would be for the Baron's happiness; but there was one dissentient mind. The Countess Olga von Dunkelherz, one of the ladies-in-waiting on the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, was a spinster of a certain age, and of undisputed ability; celebrated for her witty tongue and smart sayings. She was not displeased when rumour coupled her name with that of the Prime Minister, and when the courtiers rallied her about the Baron's attentions. The truth was that Bruno had never for a moment regarded her in the light of his future Baroness; her manners wanted the repose and softness which to him const.i.tuted a woman's chief charm.

In spite of her masterly intellect, her conversation often bored him.

For in his moments of relaxation he turned to the fair and softer s.e.x for sympathy and recreation, not to involve his wearied brain in arguments about the last geological discovery, or the newest theory of electricity.

But as he remained single, and they were constantly together, the Countess Olga had insensibly grown to regard him as her own property.

Imagine therefore her astonishment and her displeasure when the Grand d.u.c.h.ess, summoning her ladies to her apartment, gave them instructions to lay out her state robes, and prepare for a grand court ceremonial, as Baron Bruno's wedding was to take place that very evening within the palace.

All was bustle and confusion; but the labours of the court cook were something superhuman. It required, indeed, the utmost efforts of genius and industry combined to produce so splendid a feast at such short notice. It is only due, however, to Francabelli's reputation as first _chef_ of the Grand Duchy, if not of the world at large, to record that the execution of his designs was on this occasion carried out with peculiar success.

At last the nuptial hour approached, and excited curiosity was gratified by the sight of the bride, as she was led slowly through the palace by the Grand Duke. Her wondrous beauty amazed every one, as also the radiant simplicity of her attire. She wore her robes of flowing azure, and over her forehead there sparkled a gem of extraordinary brilliancy, which seemed absolutely to blaze with light.

As Alcyone advanced towards the altar, Baron Bruno, clad in his splendid court uniform, embroidered with gold, and covered with decorations, stepped forth to meet her, and the wedding ceremony was soon completed. The priest dipped his hand in the holy water and sprinkled some over bride and groom during his final benediction; as he did so, the Countess Olga, who stood near with her royal mistress, rushed forward, exclaiming, "She is a witch! she is a witch! the holy water has scared her!" All eyes turned instantly on Alcyone, who shuddered visibly, and would have fallen to the ground where she knelt had not her husband's strong arm encircled and held her up. A mortal pallor overspread her fair countenance, and, strange to relate, the glittering gem on her forehead became opaque, and was clouded over with a dim moisture. By the aid of strong perfumes she gradually revived, but was thoroughly shaken and overcome. Baron Bruno, therefore, craving the indulgence of the Grand Duke, begged permission to retire at once with his bride, and entreated that their absence should not be allowed to cast a shadow over the rejoicings at court.

Now Bombastes, the Grand Duke, though of a choleric temperament, was still at heart a man of just and keen perception. He perceived that the newly-made baroness was indisputably overfatigued, and that it was only natural her bridegroom should wish to take every care of her. He instantly, therefore, granted his Prime Minister's request, and calling the other great officers of state around him, invoked their aid to carry on the court revels with due spirit and merriment; at the same time adding, in an undertone, that he trusted his faithful servant had not undone himself by marrying an unknown beauty without parents, relations, or antecedents!

The three ministers, Edlerkopf, Pfenig, and Wild Kranz, with their wives and children, joined heart and soul in the gaieties of the evening. The children, with their friends Prince Bertrand and Princess Berta, were, as a great treat, allowed to sit up to supper, and had a small side-table to themselves. Here old Donnerfuss, the head butler, kept them well supplied with all they demanded, and they behaved with decorum for a considerable time. At length, wearied with the protracted courses, and finding it impossible to eat any more, the thoughtless boys amused themselves by sticking burrs on the footmen's silken calves as they pa.s.sed to and fro. These naughty children had purposely provided themselves with a quant.i.ty of these instruments of torture, in hopes of finding some use for them during the dull state supper. For some time they pursued their fun unnoticed during the general bustle, and quite undisturbed by the muttered maledictions of their victims. At last Bombastes, having an observant eye, became aware of some interruption in the serving of the dinner. Looking round the hall, he noticed on every side agitated footmen carefully examining their lower extremities. In a voice of thunder he demanded of the Lord Chamberlain an explanation of such unprecedented behaviour. The Lord Chamberlain called up the High Steward of the Household, who, in his turn, required Donnerfuss to explain this breach of discipline. Thereupon the fifty red-faced footmen, seeing all eyes turned upon them, at once resumed their duties, regardless of p.r.i.c.king sensations about the leg and unseemly excrescences upon the otherwise fair white proportions of their well-filled stockings. Donnerfuss, in a frightened whisper, revealed the truth to the High Steward, and he, in his turn, narrated the mischievous exploit of the boys to the Lord High Chamberlain.

Bombastes now impatiently beckoned the latter to his Grand-ducal chair, and insisted upon hearing the whole root of the matter. Sanftschriften, who was himself a parent, and naturally kind-hearted, tried to soften down the affair; but as Bombastes listened, his large, round, prominent eyes seemed as if they would absolutely start from his head at the recital of this outrage on decorum. He sternly commanded the culprits to retire to bed; and, glancing wrathfully at Edlerkopf, Pfenig, and Wild Kranz (who sat quaking in their shoes), he added further: "As to the well-brought-up sons of these great n.o.blemen, their domestic life is beyond the control of their poor sovereign; but for the next month I give orders that no dessert of any kind shall pa.s.s the lips of Prince Bertrand, who has thus misbehaved himself in so shameful and public a manner." Princess Berta and the other little girls, distressed at the disgrace of their playmates, rose also at once from the table, and accompanied them from the hall. Thus it came to pa.s.s that the court children had no very pleasant a.s.sociations with the day of Baron Bruno's wedding. Indeed, you may be very certain that the three ministers gave their sons the same punishment as Prince Bertrand; and therefore for a whole month the boys had good reason to remember the marriage feast, as their tutors, governesses, and nurses, were strictly enjoined to carry out the Grand Duke's peremptory edict. Princess Berta and the other small girls, tender and soft-hearted as little maidens ever should be, did their best to alleviate the punishment of their playmates by voluntarily depriving themselves of all sweet things for the same period, which, I am sure you will agree with me, required much self-denial, on the part of those dessert-loving damsels, and was no small proof of affection.

In the meantime Bruno had taken his bride to a small cottage he owned on the borders of a wide and gloomy forest. Here they pa.s.sed the few days which, by the indulgence of his royal master, Bruno was enabled to spare from the affairs of state. When they were alone together, his wife expressed to him her conviction that some ill-disposed person had tampered with the holy water, so as to affect that which was sprinkled over them. She had also felt during the ceremony the near presence of an anti-pathetic and malign influence. Alcyone furthermore explained to her husband that the gem on her forehead was a talisman, which paled and grew dim on the approach of danger, or when exposed to poison. The Baron at once remembered the dull appearance presented by the jewel when the holy water fell near it, but he also became unreasonably vexed when his bride refused to loosen it, even for one moment, from her hair, to permit him to examine it in his hand.

He gradually grew to regard its brilliance with a certain amount of suspicion, and more than once, when the gentle Alcyone laid her head upon his shoulder, he felt as if a fiery eye shone guardian over her and watched unsleepingly his every movement. When in his vexation Bruno allowed himself to speak harshly for the first time to his young wife, Alcyone tearfully deprecated his displeasure. She a.s.sured him her life was bound up in her talisman, and that if she parted with it, for ever so brief a s.p.a.ce, she must at once return to the regions whence she came. After this explanation Bruno rarely referred to the disputed point, but it is not too much to say that the lurid ray of the strange gem often in their happiest moments sent a sudden thrill to his heart's core, and gave a feeling of insecurity to his most private hours of retirement.

"It is the little rift within the lute That by and by will make the music mute, And, ever widening, slowly silence all.

"The little rift within the lover's lute, Or little pitted speck in garnered fruit, That rotting inwards slowly moulders all."

I have already hinted that Bruno was of a sceptical turn of mind.

Possessed of rare intellectual powers, he had studied metaphysics to such an extent, and become so thoroughly master of the strange theories propounded by the deep-thinking German philosophers of the day, that he could not bend himself to the simplicity of that religion which only demands the faith of a little child; he disbelieved the immortality of the soul, and professed to doubt the existence of a future state.

But though he and his bride widely differed in faith, yet day by day she became more and more endeared to him, by the lovely nature of her mind no less than by the graces of her person. Her exceeding humility and true-hearted simplicity showed to him in a new light those religious duties at which in less peaceful days he was wont to cavil.

Well would it have been for both could their lives have been thus spent far from the busy world, in the calm retreat, where for the first time the gray-haired man recalled soft prayers which a mother's lips (long since silent and cold) had murmured over his infant head.

But the calls of duty had to be obeyed, and ere long the prime minister and his bride returned to Aronsberg, to take their place at court and in society, and to have endless fetes and receptions given in their honour. Here Alcyone's gentle una.s.suming manners, added to her great beauty, made her a universal favourite. The malicious Grafin von Dunkelherz, however, disseminated strange stories concerning the new Baroness, and aroused the suspicions of those who were already perhaps somewhat jealous of the many charms united in the fair person of the young stranger.

Amid the series of festivities given in honour of the newly-married couple, it was observed that whenever a storm of thunder and lightning broke over the neighbourhood Alcyone was painfully agitated. Wherever she and her husband might be, she implored him to convey her home as soon as possible; the electric influence so entirely overcame her that more than once she seemed completely gone--so utterly did she lose colour and consciousness--so deadly pale did she become. To Bruno's impetuous nature this unfortunate tendency proved a serious annoyance.

He considered that by a little firm exercise of moral courage his wife could have retained her senses. Often after conveying her home and reappearing alone (by her earnest request) at some state banquet, he would be universally rallied about her captiousness, and even made to see (owing to Olga's kind offices) that his friends considered the whole affair in a somewhat mysterious light. It will be remembered that Alcyone stipulated for one night of retirement every month, when, undisturbed and alone, she spent long solitary hours upon the roof. She entreated Bruno, by all his affection for her, neither to approach the place himself nor to suffer any one else to intrude upon her privacy.

Somehow or other this circ.u.mstance, with numerous additions, became bruited abroad, and it was whispered that the Baron's wife was in regular communication with demons. Bribed and listening servants heard voices of no earthly _timbre_, speaking in an unknown language. More they were unable to say, for Bruno as yet kept faithful guard over his wife's hours of mystic retreat.

At last, however, the time approached when the sittings of the Reichstag terminated, and when all who could forsook the dusty purlieus of the town for the mountains, the sea, or their country dwellings.

People began to be too busy making their own plans to attend to those of their neighbours, and Bruno retired once more with his Baroness to Tieftraume Forest. There in their small cottage, with its low long veranda covered with creepers, they spent weeks--nay, months--of uninterrupted happiness. On one side of their home patches of wild moorland were beautifully interspersed with cultivated oases of garden.

Towards the east rose the dark ma.s.ses of the pine forest, giving with their sombre colouring an ever-fresh beauty to the foreground of lovely flowering shrubs. Pa.s.sing through tangled ma.s.ses of bramble and fern, the path led by bare gray rocks and tufts of purple heather to some ivy-covered bower; or you came upon some exquisite smooth-shaven little lawn, jewelled in bright patterns of many coloured flowers, and adding brilliance and perfume to the scene.

Here Alcyone and her husband wandered together, or, perhaps descending the steps at the end of their garden, stood on the brink of the little river Naecken, which tumbled and hurried through its narrow rocky channel, thus dividing them from the forest. Lower down the streamlet formed a small lake, on which a boat was kept, and where Bruno was wont to row his wife, and try to teach her unskilful hand to guide the oar.

He laid these lines beside her one morning towards the end of their country sojourn when, fresh and fair as Aurora herself, she took her place at their morning meal:--

[Ill.u.s.tration: BARON BRUNO AND ALCYONE.

P. 22.]