This story the Doctor had written and caused to be printed especially for Laura, so that no one else could have the book.

Laura carried the book to her private room, looked with pride on her name in print, and repeatedly read the foolish little story. She walked to and fro reflecting; and when she thus considered her relations with Fritz Hahn, she could not feel easy in her conscience. From her childhood she had been under obligations to him; he had always been good and kind to her; and she, and still more her father, had always caused him vexation. She thought penitently of all the past, up to the cat's paws; the indefinite feeling she had concerning the "_Philopena_"

was now clear to her; she could not be as unembarra.s.sed as she ought to be, nor as indifferent as she would wish, because she was always under the heavy burden of obligation. "I must come to an understanding with him. Ah! but there is a barrier between him and me,--my father's commands." She revolved in her mind how, without acting against his commands, she could give the Doctor some pleasure. She had ventured something of the kind with the orange-tree; if she could devise anything that would remain unknown to those over the way there would be no danger; no tender relations and no friendship would arise from it, which her father might wish to avoid. She hastened down to Ilse, saying, "My obligations to the Doctor oppress me more than I can express; it is insupportable to feel myself always in his debt. Now I have bethought me of something which will bring this state of things to a conclusion."

"Take good care," replied Ilse, "that the affair is really brought to a conclusion that will stand in the future."

Laura went at once to the Professor, whom she found in his study, and asked in a merry voice if he could not aid her in playing a joke upon her kindhearted, yet unmanageable, neighbor. "He collects all sorts of antiquities," she said, "and I should like to get him something rare that he would like. But n.o.body must know that I have anything to do with it, himself least of all."

The Professor promised to think of something.

Some time afterwards he placed in Laura's hands a small torn volume, that looked reduced to a pitiful state. "They are single copies of old popular songs," said he, "that at some time or other have been bound together. I hit upon them by a lucky accident. The little book is valuable; to the amateur its worth is beyond proportion greater than the price. Do not be disturbed at its bad appearance. Fritz Will take out the separate songs, and arrange them in order in his collection. I am convinced you could not make him a present that would please him better."

"He shall have it," said Laura, contented, "but he shall suffer for it nevertheless."

It was a fine collection: there were some very rare pieces among them, an entirely unknown edition of the ballad of the unfortunate Knight Tanhauser, the ballad of the Robber Toss Bowl, and a great many other charming selections. Laura carried the book upstairs, and carefully cut the thread of the bound sheets, which held them loosely together. She then sat down to her writing-table, and commenced an anonymous correspondence, which was made necessary by her father's tyranny, writing the following in a disguised hand: "Dear Doctor, an unknown person sends you this song for your collection; he has thirty more like these, which are intended for you, but only on certain conditions.

First, you are to preserve towards every one, whoever it may be, inviolate secrecy in the matter. Secondly, you are to send for every poem another written by yourself, on any subject, addressed to O. W., at the Post-office. Thirdly, if you are willing to agree to this compact, walk past No. 10 Park street, with a flower in your b.u.t.ton-hole, about three o'clock in the afternoon on one of the next three days. The sender will be exceedingly gratified if you will enter into this pleasantry. Truly Yours N. N." The song of Robber Toss Bowl was enclosed with this letter.

It was five minutes after nine by the Doctor's watch, which was confirmed by later investigations, when this letter was brought into his room; the barometer was rising; light, feathery clouds fleeted across the sky, and the moon's pale crescent shone forth from among them. The Doctor opened the letter, the green-tinted paper of which contrasted with the old printed sheet, yellow with age, that accompanied it. He unfolded the yellow sheet hastily, and read:

"Stortebecker und G.o.decke Michael, De rowten alle beede."

"G.o.decke Michael and Toks Bowl, Knight, They fought all day and they fought all night."

There was no doubt it was the original low German text of the famous ballad, which had hitherto been lost to the world, that lay bodily before him. He was as pleased as a child with a Christmas-box. Then he read the letter, and when he came to the end, he read it again. He laughed. It was clearly all a roguish jest. But from whom? His thoughts turned first to Laura, but she had only the evening before treated him with cold contempt. Ilse was not to be thought of, and such playful mischief was very unlike the Professor. What did the house No. 10 mean?

The young actress who lived there was said to be a very charming and enterprising young lady. Was it possible she could have any knowledge of folk-songs, and, the Doctor could not help thinking, a tender feeling for himself? The good Fritz chanced to step before the mirror for a moment, and he at once uttered an inward protest against the possibility of such an idea, and, laughing, he went back to his writing-table and to his popular song. He could not enter into the pleasantry, that was clear, but it was a pity. He laid the Robber Toss Bowl aside, and returned to his work. After a time, however, he took it up again. This valuable contribution had been sent to him, at all events, without any humiliating condition; perhaps he might be allowed to keep it. He opened a portfolio of old folk-songs, and placed it in its order as if it had been his own. Having laid the treasure in its proper place, he restored the portfolio to the bookshelf, and thought, it is a matter of indifference where the sheet lies.

In this way the Doctor argued with himself till after dinner. Shortly before three o'clock he came to a decision. If it was only the joke of an intimate acquaintance, he would not spoil it; and if there had been some other motive, it must soon come to light. Meanwhile, he might keep the doc.u.ment, but he would not treat it as his own possession till the right of the sender and his object was clear. He must, in the first place, communicate this view of the case to his unknown friend. After he had made the necessary compromise between his conscience and his love of collecting, he fetched a flower out of his father's conservatory, placed it in his b.u.t.ton-hole, and walked out into the street. He looked suspiciously at the windows of the hostile house, but Laura was not to be seen, for she had hid behind the curtains, and snapped her fingers at the success of her jest when she saw the flower in his b.u.t.tonhole. The Doctor was embarra.s.sed when he came in front of the house appointed. The situation was humiliating, and he repented of his covetousness. He looked at the window of the lower story, and behold! the young actress was standing close to it. He looked at her intelligent countenance and attractive features, took off his hat courteously, and was weak enough to blush; the young lady returned the civility tendered by the well-known son of the neighboring house. The Doctor continued his walk some distance beyond; there appeared to him something strange in this adventure. The presence and greeting of the actress at the window certainly did not appear to be accidental. He could not get rid of his perplexity; only one thing was quite clear to him, he was for the present in possession of the ballad of the Robber Toss Bowl.

As his qualms of conscience did not cease, he debated with himself for two days whether he should enter upon any further interchange of letters; on the third he silenced his remaining scruples. Thirty ballads, very old editions--the temptation was overpowering! He looked up his own attempts in rhyme,--effusions of his own lyrical period,--examined and cast them aside. At last he found an innocent romance which in no manner exposed him; he copied it, and accompanied it by a few lines in which he made it a condition that he should consider himself only the guardian of the songs.

Some days afterwards he received a second packet; it was a priceless monastery ditty, in which the virtues of roast Martinmas goose were celebrated. It was accompanied by a note which contained the encouraging words: "Not bad; keep on."

Again Laura's figure rose before his eyes, and he laughed right heartily at the Martinmas goose. This also was an old edition of which there was no record. This time he selected an ode to Spring from his poems and addressed it, as directed, to O. W.

The Professor was astonished that the Doctor kept silence about the book of ballads, and expressed this to Ilse, who was partly in the secret.

"He is bound not to speak," she said; "she treats him badly. But as it is he, there is no danger in the joke for the bold girl."

But Laura was happy in her game of chess with masked moves. She put the Doctor's poem carefully into her private alb.u.m, and she thought that the Hahn poetry was not so bad after all; nay, it was admirable. But even more gratifying to her sportiveness than the correspondence, was the thought that the Doctor was to be forced into a little affair of sentiment with the actress. When she met him again at Ilse's, and one of those present was extolling the talent of the young lady, she spoke without embarra.s.sment, and without turning to the Doctor, of the curious whims of the actress, that once, when an admirer, whom she did not like, had proposed to serenade her, she had placed her little dog at the window with a night-cap on, and that she had a decided preference for the company of strolling apprentices, and could converse with them in the most masterly way in the dialect of her province.

The unsuspecting Doctor began to reflect. Was it then really the actress who, without his knowing it, was in correspondence with him?

This gave Fritz a certain tacit respect for the lady.

Once when Laura was sitting with her mother at the play watching the actress, she perceived Fritz Hahn in the box opposite. She observed that he was looking fixedly through his opera-gla.s.s at the stage, and sometimes broke out in loud applause. She had evidently succeeded in putting him upon the wrong track.

Meanwhile he discovered that the unknown correspondent knew more than how to write addresses. Laura had looked through the songs and studied the text of the old poem of the Knight Tanhauser, who had lingered with Venus in the mountain, and she sent the ballad with the following lines:--

"While reading through this song I was overcome with emotion and horror at the meaning of the old poetry. What, in the opinion of the poet, became of the soul of poor Tanhauser? He had broken away from Venus, and had returned penitent to the Christian faith; and when the stern Pope said to him, 'It is as little possible for you to be saved as for the staff that I hold in my hand to turn green,' he returned to Venus and her mountain in proud despair. But afterwards the staff in the hands of the Pope did turn green, and it was in vain that he sent his messengers to fetch the knight back. What was the singer's view of Tanhauser's return to evil? Would the 'Eternal love and mercy' still forgive the poor man, although he had for the second time surrendered himself up to the temptress? Was the old poet so liberal-minded that he considered the return to the heathen woman as pardonable? Or is Tanhauser now, in his eyes, eternally lost? and was the green staff only to show that the Pope was to bear the blame? I should be glad to hear your explanation of this. I think the poem very beautiful and touching, and, when one thoroughly enters into its spirit, there is powerful poetry in the simple words. But I feel much disturbed about the fate of Tanhauser. Your N. N."

The Doctor answered immediately:

"It is sometimes difficult, from the deep feeling and terse expressions of olden poetry, to understand the fundamental idea of the poet; and most difficult of all in a poem which has been handed down for centuries by popular tradition, and in which changes in the words and meaning must certainly have taken place. The first idea of the song, that mortals dwell in the mountains with the old heathen G.o.ds rests on a notion which originated in ancient times. The idea that the G.o.d of Christians is more merciful than his representative on earth has been rooted in Germany since the time of the Hohenstaufens. One may refer the origin of the poem to that period. It probably attained the form in which it is now handed down to us, about the middle of the fifteenth century, when the opposition to the hierarchy in Germany was general, both among high and low. The grand idea of this opposition was that the priests cannot forgive sins, and that only repentance, atonement, and elevation of the heart to G.o.d can avail. The copy which you have so kindly sent me, is of the early period of Luther, but we know that the song is older, and we possess various texts, in some of which it is more prominently set forth that Tanhauser after his second fall might still trust in the divine mercy. But undoubtedly in the text you have sent me the singer considers poor Tanhauser as lost if he did not liberate himself from the power of Venus, but that he might be saved if he did. According to popular tradition he remained with her. The great and elevating thought that man may shake off the trammels of past sin may be discovered in this poem, the poetical value of which I place as high as you do."

When Laura received this answer,--Gabriel was again her confidential messenger,--she jumped up with joy from her writing-table. She had with Ilse grieved over poor Tanhauser, and given her friend a copy of the poem; now she ran down to her with the Doctor's letter, proud that, by means of a childish joke, at which Ilse had shaken her head, she had entered into a learned discussion. From this day the secret correspondence attained an importance for both Laura and Fritz which they had little thought of in the beginning; for Laura now ventured, when she could not satisfy herself on any subject, or took a secret interest in anything, to impart to her neighbor thoughts which hitherto had been confined to her writing-table, and the Doctor discovered with astonishment and pleasure a female mind of strong and original cast, which sought to obtain clear views from him, and unfolded itself to him with unusual confidence. These feelings might be discovered in his poems, which were no longer taken out of the portfolio, but a.s.sumed a more personal character. Laura's eyes moistened as she read the pages in which he expressed in verse his anxiety and impatience to become acquainted with his unknown correspondent. The feeling evinced in his lines was so pure, and one saw in them the good and refined character of the man so clearly that one could not fail to place full confidence in him. The old popular songs, in the first instance the main object, became gradually only the accompaniments of the secret correspondence, and the wings of Laura's enthusiastic soul soared over golden clouds, whilst Mr. Hummel growled below and Mr. Hahn suspiciously awaited fresh attacks from the enemy.

But this poetical relation with the neighbor's son, which had been established by Laura's enterprising spirit, was exposed to the same danger that threatens all poetic moods--of being at any moment destroyed by rude reality. The Doctor was never to know that she was his correspondent,--the daughter of the enemy whom he daily met, the childish girl who quarreled with him in Ilse's room about bread and b.u.t.ter and almonds. When they met, he was always as before the Doctor with the spectacles, and she the little snappish Hummel, who had more of her father's ill manners than Gabriel would admit. The sulking and teasing between them went on every day as formerly. Nevertheless, it was inevitable that a warm feeling should sometimes beam in Laura's eyes, and that the friendly disposition with which she really regarded the Doctor should sometimes be betrayed in a pa.s.sing word. Fritz, therefore, labored under an uncertainty over which he secretly laughed, but which, nevertheless, tormented him. When he received the well-disguised handwriting he always saw Laura before him; but when he met his neighbor at his friend's she succeeded, by mocking remarks and shy reserve, in perplexing him again. Necessity compelled her to this coquetry, but it acted upon him each time like a cold blast; and then it struck him, it can not be Laura,--is it the actress?

There was general astonishment at the tea-table when the Doctor once hinted that he had been invited to a masked ball, and was not averse to attending the noisy gathering. The ball was given by a large circle of distinguished citizens, to which Mr. Hummel belonged. The peculiarity of this party was that the chief actors of the city were admitted as welcome guests. As the Doctor had hitherto never shown any inclination for this kind of social entertainment, the Professor was astonished.

Laura alone guessed the cause, but all received the announcement of this unusual intended dissipation with silent pleasure.

Mr. Hummel was not of the opinion that a masked ball was the place where the worth of a German citizen was shown to greatest advantage. He had unwillingly yielded to the coaxing of the ladies in his family, and was now seen standing among the masks in the ball-room. He had thrown the little black domino carelessly about his back like a priest's mantle; his hat was pressed down over his eyes; the silk fringe of the mask overshadowed his face on all sides, which was as unmistakable as a full moon behind thin clouds. He looked mockingly on the throng of masks that streamed past him, somewhat less comfortable and more silent than they would have been without masks and colored coats. Obnoxious to him more than all were the harlequins scattered about, who, at the beginning of the festival, affected an extravagance of conduct which was not natural to them. Mr. Hummel had good eyes, but it happened to him, as to others, that he was not able to recognize every one who was masked. All the world knew him, however. Some one tugged at his clothes.

"How is your dog Spitehahn?" asked a gentleman in rococo dress, bowing to him.

Hummel bowed in return. "Thanks for your kind inquiry. I would have brought him for a bite of the calves of your legs if you had been provided with that article."

"Does this kind of a Hummel-bee sting?" asked a green domino, in a falsetto voice.

"Spare your remarks," replied Hummel, angrily; "your voice is fast changing into a woman's. I quite pity your family."

He moved on.

"Will you buy a pack of hareskins, brother Hummel?" asked a wandering pedlar.

"I thank you, brother," replied Hummel, fiercely; "you may let me have the a.s.s's skin that your wife tore from your face in your last quarrel."

"There's the rough felt of our city," cried, pertly, a little clown, as he gave Mr. Hummel a blow upon the stomach with his wand.

This was too much for Mr. Hummel: he seized the diminutive clown by the collar, took his wand away from him, and held the refractory little fellow on his knee. "Wait, my son," he cried; "you'll wish you had a rough felt in another place than on your head."

But a burly Turk caught him by the arm. "Sir, how can you dare to lay hold of my son in this manner?"

"Is this chattel yours?" returned Hummel, furiously; "your blotting-paper physiognomy is unknown to me. If you, as Turk, devote yourself to the rearing of ill-mannered buffoons, you must expect to see Turkish bamboo on their backs, that is a principle of international law. If you do not understand this you may come to me to-morrow morning at my office; I will make the thing clear to you, and hand over to you a bill for the watch-crystal that this creature from your harem has broken for me."

Thereupon he threw the clown into the arms of the Turk, and the wand on the ground, and clumsily made his way through the masks who surrounded him.

"There is not a human soul among them," he growled; "one feels like Robinson Crusoe among the savages." He moved about the ball-room utterly regardless of the white shoulders and bright eyes that danced about him, and again disappeared. At last he caught sight of two grey bats whom he thought he knew, for it appeared to him that the masks were his wife and daughter. He went up to them, but they avoided him and mixed in the throng. They were undoubtedly of his party, but they intended to remain unknown, and they knew that would be impossible if Mr. Hummel was with them. The forsaken man turned and went into the next room, seated himself in solitude at an empty table, took his mask off, ordered a bottle of wine, asked for the daily paper, and lighted a cigar.

"Pardon me, Mr. Hummel," said a little waiter; "no smoking here!"

"You too," replied Mr. Hummel, gloomily. "You see there _is_ smoking here. This is my way of masquerading. Matters are becoming wearisome.

Every vestige of humanity and all consideration for others is being trodden under foot to-day; and that is what they call a _bal masque_."

Meanwhile Laura slipped about among the masks, looking for the Doctor.

Fritz Hahn could easily be discovered by sharp eyes, for he wore his spectacles over his mask. He was standing in a blue domino, near an elegant lady in a red mantle. Laura pressed up to him. Fritz was writing something in the hand of the lady, most likely her name, for she nodded carelessly; then he wrote again in her hand, pointing to himself. Probably it was his own name, for the lady nodded, and Laura thought that she could see under her veil that she was laughing. Laura heard the Doctor speaking to the lady of a _role_ in which he had lately seen her on the stage, and he addressed her with the familiar "thou." That was, indeed, the privilege of a masquerade ball, but it was entirely unnecessary. The Doctor expressed his pleasure that in the balcony scene the lady had so well understood how to represent the glowing feeling of pa.s.sion in such difficult metre. The red mantle became attentive, and, turning to the Doctor, began to speak of the _role_ she had taken. The lady spoke for some time, and then Doctor Romeo would continue still longer. The actress stepped back some steps into the shadow of a pillar; the Doctor followed her, and Laura saw that the red mantle curtly answered some other male masks, and again turned to the Doctor. At last the actress seated herself quite behind the pillar, where she was little seen by strangers, and the Doctor stood near her, leaning against it, and continuing the conversation.

Laura, who had also placed herself near the pillar, heard how animated it was. The subject was pa.s.sion. Now it was not the pa.s.sion which one felt for the other, but that of the stage; but even that was more than a friend of the Doctor could approve of.

Laura stepped hastily forward, placed herself near Fritz Hahn, and raised her finger warningly. The Doctor looked astonished at the bat, and shrugged his shoulders. Then she seized his hand, and wrote his name in it. The Doctor made a bow, upon which she held out her hand.