"Well, I believe that is so," answered the doctor, "and I know I ought to read her letters now and then to you and the boys; but somehow it always happens----"

And the doctor made another dive into his breast-pocket, then, as if in desperation, crammed his battered hat upon his large bald head, and hurried off, leaving me once more in absolute uncertainty as to what really were the contents of Paula's letters, which he was always rummaging his pockets for without ever finding.

That their contents had, directly or indirectly, some reference to me, was not to be doubted; for what other reason could the doctor have had in concealing these letters from me so carefully? But my conjectures could penetrate no further than this; and I was obliged to admit to myself, with deep grief, that I could no longer understand Paula. And I also could not avoid the thought that she was herself responsible for this, and that it was the result of her own conduct, if my dearest friend, my sister, as she had so often called herself, had become a stranger and a riddle to me. And why? I did not know, nor could I fathom the cause. Was it a fault in me that I once loved her with all the strength of my young, buoyant, confiding soul? That after she had so often, under such different circ.u.mstances, and in so many ways, rejected my love, I had become like a ship torn from its anchor and driven rudderless upon a rough sea? Was it a fault that even in my love for Hermine, I could not forget her, though I knew that she would remain forever distant from me, and that I had in future only to look up to her as to the high inaccessible stars? Must I pay so heavy a penalty for what was as natural to me as to breathe? Must she on this account exclude me from the council of her heart, in which I had before been so proud of my place; and forbid my partic.i.p.ation in her hopes, her plans, her wishes, her triumphs, and perhaps her disappointments?

Must she for this deny the cordial interest which she had once felt for me, and deny it at a time when all my friends crowded around to help me with word and deed, and when she had nothing for me but two or three lines which she wrote from Rome, containing scarcely anything but the expression of a sympathy which in such cases is felt by mere acquaintances?

I had become a stranger to her, that was plain; or I should have heard her sweet consoling voice in the dark hours that followed Hermine's death. And she had grown a stranger to me: I scarcely knew more of her than did the indifferent crowd that stood before her pictures at the exhibition. I knew as little as they why she, whose fresh venturous power had charmed and astonished every one in her first pictures, now for a long time seemed only to take pleasure in melancholy themes--in views in the most desolate parts of the Campagna, where sad-featured peasants watched their goats among the ruins of long-past splendor; in scenes upon the Calabrian coast where a burning sun glowed pitilessly between the bare pointed rocks, and the solitude and desertion seemed to sink into the beholder's soul. How did the choice of such subjects, and the strangely serious, even gloomy coloring, agree with the cheerful frame of mind which, according to the doctor's report, she continually enjoyed?

"Only one who is deeply unhappy can paint thus," I once heard a lady dressed in mourning remark to her companion, as they stood before one of these pictures.

"Of late her pictures have shown a great falling-off," said a critic whose judgment carried great weight in the city. "Such pictures please, because they flatter a certain leaning towards pessimism which belongs to most men of our time; but all largeness of conception and treatment is wanting. I might say here is an egotistic sorrow which is forcibly imposed upon nature. The execution, too, leaves much to be desired: look here, and here"--and the critic pointed to several places which he p.r.o.nounced weak. "But her younger brother is a genius indeed," he went on. "Have you seen his _aquarelles_? Heavens! what fire and what life!

And he is still little more than a boy they say. He will be at the top of the tree before long, mind my words."

It seemed that the public did not altogether agree with the critic in his estimation of Paula's talents; at all events they fairly fought for her pictures, and paid the highest prices for them. I, for my part, did not trust myself to form a judgment, and in fact I had none; I only knew that if Paula enjoyed such unbroken happiness and cheerfulness as the doctor reported, she gave this cheerfulness the strangest expression in the world.

The conversation in which the doctor informed me that Paula and her mother were staying at Meran, took place in February, nearly two years after my misfortunes. In the beginning of the summer I heard again from him that she was making sketching excursions in the Salzkammergut and Tyrol, and somewhat later, that she would pa.s.s the latter part of the summer in Thuringen.

"She keeps coming nearer, nearer, all the time," said the doctor; "will you not now undertake your long-planned trip to England?"

"It seems," said I, looking straight into the doctor's spectacles, "that you think I ought to celebrate Paula's return by my own absence."

"I do not see how you arrive at this singular conclusion," said the doctor.

"Nor do I see how otherwise to interpret your suggestion that I should go away when Paula comes."

"Your wits are certainly wandering," he answered.

A few weeks later he surprised me with the news that he thought of taking a journey the next morning to J., the Thuringian town in which Paula was staying. Her health seemed to be not so good as he could wish, though it was true her letters were as cheerful as usual--here the doctor made a motion toward his breast-pocket--but he would rather see her for himself; it was but a "cat's jump," and he thought of returning the next day.

"Bring her back with you," I said; "perhaps she would like to stay awhile here again."

The doctor looked at me fixedly.

"I would very gladly do you and her the pleasure of being absent when she returns," I continued; "but I really can not now well leave the works for any length of time; and perhaps it will be sufficient if you tell her, doctor, that I have suffered much in the last twelve months, and also learned much; for example, to use your own expression, my friend, to live with half a heart. Will you tell her that?"

I had done my best to speak as firmly as possible, but could not prevent my voice from trembling a little at the last words, and my hand also trembled, which the doctor held fast between both his own small and delicate hands, while he looked steadfastly into my face through his round spectacle-gla.s.ses.

"Will you?" I repeated, a little confused.

"I certainly will not!" exclaimed the doctor, suddenly dropping my hand, pushing me back into the chair from which I had risen, and walking in an agitated manner up and down the room; then suddenly stopping before me, he crowed in his shrillest tones:

"I certainly will not! I am sick of this game of hide-and-seek, and out it must come, happen what may. Do you know, sir, or do you not know, that Paula loves you? Do you know, or do you not know, that she has loved you for ten years? that she has loved you from the hour when you saved her father from the axe of that murderous scoundrel--I can't remember his name. That with this love for you she has grown from the half child you first knew her, to womanhood? and that from that time there has been no hour of her life when she has not loved you, and certainly most of all at the times when she has seemed to love you least--for example at the time when you, you brainless mammoth, were fancying she was captivated by Arthur, who was tormenting her about you, and asking whether it was right and fair for the daughter of a prison-superintendent to make an inexperienced young man, condemned to only seven years' imprisonment, a prisoner for life? Have you any idea what it cost the poor girl to conceal her love from you? What it cost her to play the part of a sister and only a sister towards you, that you might remain unfettered to grasp boldly at whatever was highest and fairest in the world, and be able to mount the ladder upon whose topmost round the high-spirited girl wished to see the man she loved?

What it cost her to send you to Zehrendorf to win the bride she had destined for you? What it cost her to turn a smiling face upon your happiness! And finally, what, it cost her not to hasten to you in your misfortunes, not to be able to say to you: 'Here, take my life, my soul--all, all is yours?' I ask you for the last time, do you know this, sir, or do you not?" In his excitement the doctor's voice had reached a pitch from which all tuning down was impossible. He did not even make the attempt, but instead, tore off his spectacles, stared angrily at me with his sparkling brown eyes, put on his gla.s.ses again, crammed his hat upon his flushed skull until it covered his ears, turned abruptly upon his heel and made for the door.

In two strides I overtook him.

"Doctor," I said, catching him by the arm, "how would it do if you let me go to-morrow in your place?"

"Do whatever you like!" he cried, running out of the room and banging the door behind him.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

There come days in our lives which we afterwards remember as some blessed dream which knows nothing of earthly sufferings or earthly restrictions, in which we soar as on the pinions of eagles, strong and high above all the little pitiful obstacles that otherwise so lamentably hamper our feet.

Of such dream-like beauty was the day on which I took the most memorable journey of my life: a wonderful summer day, whose glorious brightness was not marred by the smallest cloud, and yet palpitating in a mild balmy air that played around my cheeks and brow, while the train whirled in rattling speed through the lovely Thuringian country. It was the first journey I had made in my life, at least the first that was not a business trip, and the first also that took me from my northern home into the sunny plains of Middle Germany. The novelty of the scenery probably helped to make everything appear to me doubly graceful and lovely: I could not satiate myself with gazing at the soft undulating lines of the hills; at the sharply-defined crags whose summits were crowned with ruined fortresses and ancient keeps, and whose feet were laved by the clear water of winding rivers; at the flowing meadow-lands in which lines of trees with foliage of brightest green marked the courses of the streams; at the cities and towns that lay so peacefully in the valley, and at the little villages that nestled so cosily among the trees. It was not Sunday, but all these things wore a Sunday look, even the men who were working alone in the fields and stopped to look as the train rushed by, or those gathered in the neat stations where we stopped. It was as if everybody was travelling only for pleasure, and that even taking farewell was not painful on such a lovely day. And then the meetings of friends--the happy faces, the hand-shaking and kissing and embracing! Every one of these scenes I watched with the liveliest interest, and always with a feeling of emotion, as if I had a portion in it myself.

Thus I arrived in the afternoon at E., where I quitted the railroad and engaged a carriage from a number that were at the station to take me the remaining distance. We soon left the level land and entered a valley through which the road to "the forest" ran in many windings between hills on either side. The journey lasted several hours, and the sun was already declining as we slowly toiled up a mountain the steepest of all, "but the last," said the driver. We had both descended and were walking on either side the large and powerful horses, and keeping the flies off them with pine branches.

"Woa!" cried the driver; the horses stopped.

We had reached the summit, and stopped to let the horses blow a little.

"That is our pride," said the man, as I looked with astonishment at a primeval and gigantic oak which grew here in an open s.p.a.ce in the heart of the pine forest, and spread its gnarled and weather-beaten boughs far up against the blue sky.

"That is a great curiosity," he went on. "People come from miles and miles to see that tree; and it has been painted I don't know how often.

Not many days ago a young lady, who has been staying with us a few weeks, came here and made a picture of it. I drove her here myself; I often drive her about."

Absorbed in my own thoughts. .h.i.therto, I had, contrary to my usual custom, spoken but little with the man, and indeed scarcely noticed him, and now it seemed as if he and I were old acquaintances, and had the most intimate interests in common. I asked him the young lady's name; not that I had any doubt that it was Paula, and yet it was a sort of shock to me when he p.r.o.nounced it, and from his lips it sounded strangely. And now the man, who seemed to have been awaiting his opportunity, became very communicative, and told me, while we crossed the back of the mountain and descended in a rattling trot, a mult.i.tude of things about the charming young lady; and the old lady her mother, who was blind, but who recognized people at once by the voice; and about the old man, with the hooked nose and long gray moustache and curly white hair, who was really only their servant, but the ladies treated him as one of themselves; and yesterday a young gentleman had arrived, with a sunburnt face and bright brown eyes and long brown hair, who was the young lady's brother, and a painter too.

The carriage was clattering over the rough pavement of the little town, and the talkative fellow was still chattering about Paula and the rest.

I had told him that I had come on purpose to see that lady, and that he must put me down at the inn at which he told me she was staying.

The carriage stopped. The head-waiter with two small myrmidons rushed out; two boys who saw a chance of their services being called into requisition as guides came up to have a look at the strange gentleman.

Concealing my agitation, I asked the head-waiter if I could have a room, and if either of the guests was at home.

I could have a room, he said, but neither of the guests was at home: the lady and the young gentleman had gone out for a walk, and the young lady had started for the mountains with Herr Sussmilch early in the afternoon: she went into the mountains every afternoon: she painted up there, and hardly ever came back until after sundown.

"Do you know the place?"

"Certainly; perfectly well: this boy here has carried the lady's things there often enough. Say, Carl, you know where the lady goes to paint?"

"To be sure," said the boy. "Shall I take the gentleman there?"

"Yes," I said, and turned to start at once.

"You need not be in any hurry, sir," the attentive headwaiter called after me; "you will reach the place in half an hour."

My little guide ran on ahead, and I followed him along the main street of the little town, planted with lindens, with groups of travellers seated here and there before the doors, and reached the fields upon which still lay the golden evening light, and then entered the cool twilight of the woods. We pursued the wide road which ascended the mountains by a steep acclivity for the most part, but occasionally ran along small level glades, and was elsewhere inclosed on both sides by the tall forest trees. It was wonderfully quiet in the cool pines: no breeze stirred, scarcely was the silence broken at rare intervals by the chirp of a bird: the blue sky looked down from above, and I felt as if the path climbed up to heaven.

No one met us on the way; only when we were almost at the summit and had turned to the right from the main road into the wood and reached an open s.p.a.ce where stood a sort of hunting-lodge, I saw a couple of men who were sitting upon benches with mugs of beer in their hands. Out of the wood, directly opposite the spot at which we had entered the clearing, came a man followed by a boy carrying an easel and other painter's apparatus. I recognized the sergeant at once; and my little guide said that the boy who was carrying the things was his brother Hans, and that they were coming from the place where the lady used to paint. This place was only five minutes walk distant, and we had only to follow the way by which the sergeant and Hans had just come.

My old friend, who was talking in a rather animated manner to the boy, who probably was not carrying the things carefully enough to please him, had not observed me, and I was glad of it, for I felt that I was not in a frame of mind to talk with him. So I gave my guide a sign to wait for me; and crossed the clearing towards the path he had pointed out.

It was a broad path, overgrown with short green gra.s.s upon which the foot fell noiselessly, and the pines on both sides were of such growth that their branches almost entirely roofed it in, so that only here and there the red sunset glow pierced to the green twilight. It gradually but continually ascended, and I walked on, not even conscious that I was walking or moving my limbs, as one ascends heights in a dream. A breathless expectation, a joyful fear possessed me wholly. Thus might an immortal spirit feel which is about to enter the presence of its judge, and with all its timid hesitation, knows still that this judge is mercy itself.