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Chapter XXIII
Hans Unwirrsch grew hot and cold by turns as Henrietta Trublet told her story. It was his misfortune that even the most ordinary things excited him so and that it was so difficult for him to look upon any such incidents as ridiculous or insignificant. He sat there stupefied until the French girl suddenly jumped up, stamped her foot passionately and cried:
"Oh, he 'as treated me badly, but I vill revenge myself ven I can. I vill interfere, I vill, if it is ze last hour. And I vill go to her – I vill! I vill tell ze beautiful Mademoiselle who he is —le juif! le misérable! He shall not 'ave his vill – "
"Kleophea!" cried Hans. "Good God, yes, yes, to be sure! Oh, tell me, do you know about that? My head swims – I, we, you must go to her, she must know this. No, no, and again, no, she shall not fall into his hands; we must save her, even if it is against her own will."
"I did know zat he vas running after ze beautiful young lady, zere in ze house by ze park; I vas much jealous of her —pauvre petite. I 'ave stood before her vindow and laughed, O mon Dieu, and my heart 'as bled. It vas very bad, it vas very vicked —pauvre cœur, I vill save her from zis man! Venez, monsieur le curé."
The evening was cold and dark, the beautiful weather was all gone and the wind began to move the mists above the ponds and to shake the twigs. It began to groan and sigh as on the day when Hans had gone from the university to his mother's deathbed. It rustled in the distance and whistled nearby, far away the lights and lanterns among the trees seemed to be thrown back and forth like the boughs. The fiery reflection of the great city on the dark sky was like the breath of the terrible, final abyss.
Now, indeed, the pleasure-seeking throng had long since dispersed; rich and poor had crept out of sight; the shadow-like forms that still slunk about the paths of the park were not to be trusted; it was well to avoid them if possible. From a distant pleasure resort the wind brought the sound of dance music, in fragments. Henriette Trublet walked close to Hans' side and he gave her his arm as she, exhausted by his hasty step, fell behind. More and more frequently and brighter the gas lanterns shone through the trees – there was the street, and there Privy Councillor Götz's house.
The two wanderers halted a moment.
Only a single window was lighted.
"Zat is not her light! Zat is not her room!" said the French girl.
Hans Unwirrsch shook his head; he could not utter Franziska's name in this company. Oh that lighted window in the wild, restless, dark night! Peace and rest; – God's blessing on Fränzchen! The candidate gazed reverently at the dim glow above them and then gently took hold of the hand of the poor girl who had again stepped away from his side as they came out of the gloom of the trees.
"Come, pauvre enfant, – we are going on a good errand!" he said.
They walked through the little garden and Hans rang the doorbell. They had to wait some time before it pleased Jean to open the door. At last he came and was much amazed to see the tutor's companion, and still more so at the emphasis with which Hans put an end to his expressions of amazement.
"Is Miss Götz at home?"
Jean stared, stared and remained silent; but a moment later the candidate had seized him by the shoulder-strap.
"Why don't you answer me? Announce me at once to Miss Götz – Miss Kleophea!"
This unheard-of audacity caused the elegant youth to lose his usual insolent balance for a few moments; and when he regained it at last his indignation knew no bounds. And the housekeeper appeared and the ladies' maid; the little kitchen maid looked shyly round a corner in the background; poor Henriette drew back as far as possible from the light of the hall lamp into the darkness. Hans, almost ready to die with annoyance and excitement at all these impudent, doubtful glances, repeated his request for Kleophea in a raised voice. At that moment Franziska Götz leaned over the banisters. She carried her small lamp in her hand.
"Miss Kleophea is not at home," snapped Jean. "Moreover I protest – "
"Malheur à elle!" exclaimed the French girl.
"Oh Mr. Unwirrsch, what has happened? What has happened to my cousin?" cried Fränzchen coming down.
"Isn't she at home? We must speak to her; – Good God, where has she gone?"
"She did not say; she left the house at dusk."
"Then you must hear, you must tell us what to do. Perhaps it is even better so."
Franziska too looked wonderingly at the stranger, then she said:
"If I can be of use to you – to my cousin; – Oh, she is going to faint!"
The French girl shook her head.
"No, no, it vill pass quick —ce n'est rien!"
"Come up to my room. What has happened? What have you to tell me? Oh, how pale you are, – lean on my arm."
The French girl shook her head again, she retreated timidly before the quiet, gracious, innocent figure and turned to Hans.
"If ze ozer is not here, what 'ave I to do in zis house? You tell her, monsieur le curé. I vill not enter in zis house, I vill go."
"No, no – stay, Miss Henriette," cried Hans, but the stranger drew her shawl closer about her and held out her hand to Hans.
"Adieu, monsieur le curé, you are honest man." She turned toward Fränzchen, bowed her head and whispered slowly and softly, "Priez pour moi! – Vous!"
Franziska laid her hand on her shoulder.
"I do not want to let you go away like this. You are unhappy – and ill; and you bring evil tidings to this house. Come, lean on my arm; oh come, Mr. Unwirrsch; – Kleophea will certainly come back soon."
Gently Fränzchen led the poor little French girl upstairs and beckoned to Hans to follow, while the servants put their heads together, sneered and shrugged their shoulders.
For the first time Hans entered the room which Franziska occupied in her uncle's house and his heart trembled much as he crossed the threshold.
It was like a dream. The moaning wind outside the windows, the rustling and creaking of the trees, was not all this just as it had been when, at the Post-horn in Windheim, Fränzchen's sweet face first appeared out of the darkness, and, for the first time, Lieutenant Rudolf Götz called Dr. Moses Freudenstein a scoundrel?
What a long time lay between the present anxious evening and that one!
Who was the pale, haggard stranger in the cheap, shabby dress and shawl? How came she here, in this house? What had she to do with Fränzchen and what house was this?
Where was the friend of his youth? Where was Moses Freudenstein of Kröppel Street?
It was, as if the weird, pitiless, cold wind outside gave an answer to all these questions.
"Woe to you, struggle as you may, ours is the triumph! Ours is the triumph over spring, over youth, over faithfulness and innocence. Transitoriness and egoism are your masters! Struggle as you may, it gives us joy to watch you struggle! The only faithfulness, innocence, eternity is in – us!"
And again darkness looked threateningly in at the window as if it had swallowed up every other light and as if, of all the brightness and brilliance in the world, Fränzchen's little lamp alone were left. Hans Unwirrsch stood in the narrow circle of light shed by this lamp with the feeling that here alone there was still refuge in every distress, satisfaction for all hunger, comfort for all pain. He scarcely dared to breathe.
An open book and some sewing lay on the table; – Fränzchen had just risen from that chair and now the strange, abandoned young woman sat there, – it could not be reality, it must be a delusion, one of the feverish delusions that had visited him lately.
No, no, that was Fränzchen's soft, sweet voice and Fränzchen had laid her hand on the shoulder of the poor girl who, with hidden face, was trembling and sobbing. Fränzchen Götz spoke in good, Parisian French to poor Henriette Trublet, but still Hans, who knew the language only from books, knew what she said. And the stranger raised her tearful eyes at the first sound of her mother tongue, listened with all her soul and then kissed Fränzchen's hand.
Speaking in her mother tongue she told her sad story for the second time.
As she went on Franziska looked more and more anxiously at Hans; she gripped the table against which she was leaning with a trembling hand and when the Parisian had finished she cried:
"Oh, Mr. Unwirrsch, and Kleophea? Kleophea! Where is Kleophea? If only she would come – now, now!"
She went to the window and opened it. The wind caught the sash and nearly tore it from her hand, the lamp flared with the wild gust; the gas flames at the edge of the park were blown about in their glass globes, throwing red, uncertain flickering lights on the street, but the street was empty and a carriage the sound of which seemed unbearably long in approaching, drove by without stopping.
"And her father, her mother! What is to be done, oh, what is to be done, Mr. Unwirrsch?"
Hans looked at his watch.
"It is nine," he said. "Calm yourself, Miss Franziska. She certainly will not stay out much longer; we must be patient and wait, that is all we can do."
Fränzchen had turned to the stranger; in spite of her anxiety and excitement she still had comfort enough for poor Henriette. She spoke to her softly and Henriette kissed her hand again and again. Hans stood at the window and listened to the soft words of the two women and to the loud voice of the gale. Now and then a figure passed through the flickering light of the gas lanterns, several more carriages drove by, but still Kleophea Götz did not come.
Franziska replenished the fire in the stove. She opened the door and asked the housekeeper, whose eye and ear had been taking turns at the keyhole for some time, to bring some tea and something to eat for the hungry, half fainting stranger. The farther the night advanced the greater did her anxiety become.
Henriette Trublet ate and drank eagerly, looked once more round the room with fixed, glassy eyes and then her head sank forward on her breast – she had fallen asleep.
It was the sleep of complete exhaustion.
"Poor, unfortunate girl!" sighed Franziska. "What a night! What a terrible night!"
She put her arm round the sleeping girl to keep her from falling; her locks touched the sinner's brow; and if Hans Unwirrsch had lived to be a thousand years old he would never have been able to forget the scene.
She looked across to him.
"Oh, please help me, let us lay her down on the divan! Listen – what is she saying?"
Henriette murmured in her sleep, – perhaps her mother's name – perhaps that of her patron saint. She did not feel it when Hans picked her up in his arms and carried her to the little sofa where Fränzchen arranged the cushions for her and covered her with a cloak and shawl.
It struck eleven o'clock; Kleophea Götz had not come home yet.
"What a night! What a night!" murmured Fränzchen. "What shall we do? What can we do?"
Suddenly she jumped up and put out both hands as if warding off something.
"What if she should have gone away, never to come home again? What if this evening she left her parents' house forever? Oh no, that is too terrible a thought!"
"She can't have been so bereft of all reason, that is impossible!" cried Hans. "That would be too terrible; it is impossible!"
"Oh, this deadly fear!" murmured Franziska. "Is that rain?"
It was rain. At first only a few scattered drops pattered against the panes; but soon came the familiar sound of a drenching, pelting downpour. The gale drove the rain in gusts across the country, the broad park and the great city.
"In spite of everything, her mother would never have consented to an alliance with this – this Dr. Stein," said Franziska. "It is true that she likes to have him in her drawing room; but she is a proud woman and thinks that she has already arranged quite a different future for Kleophea. Shortly before she went away she spoke in her usual manner of a brilliant match. Oh, it would indeed be the worst misfortune that could happen if my cousin, with her contradictory spirit, had taken such a step. Listen – there's another carriage – thank God, there she is!"
They listened again and a moment later Hans shook his head and Fränzchen sank brokenly onto a chair; Henriette Trublet slept a deep and sound sleep.
"She would be lost for her whole life!" said Hans to himself, but Franziska heard the murmured words; she started, shuddered and nodded.
"She would be lost."
"That man would kill her, soul and body. Alas, that it is so and that I should be the one to have to say it."
Again Fränzchen rose from her chair; she went up to Hans, she laid her trembling hand on his arm and whispered scarcely audibly:
"Dear Mr. Unwirrsch, I have done you a great wrong. Can you forgive me? Will you forgive me? I have done heavy, heavy penance for it. It has cost me many, many tears and wakeful nights. Oh, forgive me for this distress; forgive me for my uncle's sake."
Hans Unwirrsch staggered as he heard these words.
"Oh, Miss – Franziska," he stammered, "not you, it is not you who have done me a wrong. We both have been caught in the confused whirl of this world. Evil powers have played with us and we could not defend ourselves against them! Is not that the clear and simple truth?"
"It is," said Fränzchen. "We have not been able to defend ourselves."
The rain poured down in streams; the wind shook the window like a wild beast, but both wind and rain, and the darkness that added to their terror might do and threaten and say their worst: from then on, even on this night when Kleophea Götz did not return to her home, they scarcely seemed dreadful or uncanny any longer. From then on the wind and the rain and the night were blessings; no longer were they voices from the abyss, proclaiming destruction – death and the reign of egoism.
It was long after midnight and still Kleophea had not come. Hans and Fränzchen sat beside the sleeping stranger and talked to each other in low tones. Ah, they had so much to say!
They did not speak of love, – they did not think of it at all. They simply spoke of how they had lived; and everything that had seemed so confused was now so easily untangled; and often a single word made everything that had been so dark and threatening become light and simple and consoling.
Franziska Götz talked of her father, and what the daughter told Hans of him was very different from what Lieutenant Rudolf Götz had said and even more so from what Dr. Théophile Stein had related. The daughter's eyes shone as she told how proud and brave her father had been and how on more than one battlefield he had shed his blood for freedom. Fränzchen talked of her mother, how lovely and kind she had been, how much anxiety, unrest and distress she had suffered in her eventful life without ever complaining and how at last in the year 1836 she had died a lingering death of consumption. Good little Fränzchen told how deeply her mother's death had bowed her father and how he had really never raised his head again joyfully after the funeral. She told how her good Uncle Rudolf had come to that funeral, an old invalid soldier himself, with a little bundle and a heavy, knobbed stick. She knew much to tell of the curious household of the two brothers in Paris and of how so many old warriors of all nations, Germans, Frenchmen, Poles, Italians, and Americans came and went in the house and were all so kind to Fränzchen. She told of the fencing lessons that the two brothers gave and of how, in a yard outside the barrier, they had taught the young pupils of the polytechnic school and the students of the Latin Quarter how to shoot with pistols. She told of the gruff old retired soldiers of the Old Guard who came to be such good friends with the two Germans whom they had met at Katzbach, Leipzig and Waterloo, and sat with them in their attic room smoking and drinking and telling stories like all the rest.
Then with bent head she told how good Uncle Rudolf had at last grown homesick for Germany; how he had gone away and then how evil times followed; times full of misery and trouble, evil, evil days. In a scarcely audible voice Franziska Götz told how life went worse and worse with her father, how, one after another, the sources from which he had drawn aid failed, and how more and more frequently he had sought comfort in stupefying strong drink and of how, gradually, many bad, false people had drawn close to him.
Finally Franziska Götz spoke in a low voice of Dr. Théophile, of how he had lived in the same house with them and how he had tried in the most abominable way to take advantage of her unhappy father's weakness. She spoke of her unutterable loneliness, and Hans Unwirrsch bit his lips and in imagination gripped the throat of Moses Freudenstein of Kröppel Street with his two good fists to squeeze his soul out of his body.
Franziska told of her father's death and how in her greatest distress Uncle Rudolf had come again to save her.
Franziska showed Hans a letter from Uncle Theodor and it was really most remarkable how differently Privy Councillor Götz could write from the way he looked and spoke.
Lieutenant Rudolf Götz was very poor and had no home to which he could take his brother's orphan child; and now for the first time Hans learnt how the good old man lived, how he roved about nomadically, actually omnia sua secum portans and settled down only in winter with some one of his comrades in war of the same age as himself, preferably with Colonel von Bullau in Grunzenow, far off on the shore of the Baltic.
Lieutenant Rudolf could only fetch the orphan from Paris, he could not offer her a protecting roof. Here now was the letter from Uncle Theodor which the Privy Councillor's wife had not dictated and which had not been written under her eyes but only under cover of one of his documents; and it was this letter which had led the lieutenant to bring his niece to his brother's house.
"And on the way I was fortunate enough to meet you in the Post-horn in Windheim," cried Hans. "I was going to my mother's deathbed and Mr. Götz called Moses a scoundrel, and the gale – and you, oh Miss Franziska … Good God, and it is truth and reality that we are sitting here and waiting for Miss Kleophea!"
They both started at the mention of that name and looked toward the black windows on which the rain still poured down, which the wind still shook. They had given up hoping for the return of the unhappy girl.
Henriette Trublet stirred in her sleep and fearfully called the name of Théophile. Gently and with a merciful hand Franziska replaced the cloak over the forsaken girl's shoulders and then sat down again.
They went on talking of the evening when they had first met and Fränzchen told how much the candidate had pleased her Uncle Rudolf and of how often he had spoken of him during their journey. Hans told about his mother's death, of his Uncle Grünebaum and Auntie Schlotterbeck and took the latter's last letter out of his pocket-book to show it to Fränzchen. He told of how Dr. Théophile had read that letter while he, Hans Unwirrsch, lay ill with fever; he told how a dreadful glance and flash had shown him Dr. Théophile in all his malice and duplicity.
Fränzchen now unlocked a little box and showed the tutor a whole series of letters from Uncle Rudolf – all of them nearly as illegible as Uncle Grünebaum's epistles and the last few all written from Grunzenow on the Baltic. Since summer the lieutenant had been lying, in great pain with gout, in Colonel von Bullau's house in Grunzenow and Fränzchen confessed with tears in her eyes that she had written her poor uncle only joyful, cheerful and contented letters and that she could not have written differently for anything in the world. At that Hans would have liked to kiss her brave, soothing little hand again and again; but he did not dare to, and it was better so. Angry at himself, however, he deeply repented the doubtful blessings that at times he had called down on the absent lieutenant's head. He regretted them deeply, especially when he read the lieutenant's letters in which the old warrior confessed plaintively that he would rather run away with the devil's grandmother than ever again introduce and smuggle into his "gracious sister-in-law's" house a tutor after his, though not after the devil's, own heart.
"You won his whole heart that evening," said Fränzchen. "He talked of you so much on our journey, and I – I did not forget you altogether either in the years that followed. Oh, I had much time and great need to think of all those who had treated me with friendliness. Oh, Mr. Unwirrsch, we have neither of us been able to live happily in this house, but still my lot was the harder to bear. I have often been terribly, terribly hungry for a friendly face, a friendly word. I would gladly have gone away to earn my own bread, but my aunt would not hear of that. But you know all about it, Mr. Unwirrsch, – why should we say any more about it? It is wrong too, to think only of ourselves at this moment."
"It is not wrong," cried Hans with unaccustomed vehemence. "Oh, Miss Franziska, we may certainly talk of ourselves in this hour; the hard, cold world has thrust us back to the very core of our lives, – we may talk of ourselves, in order to save ourselves. This night will pass, a new day will come. What will it bring us? In all probability it will plunge us into an entirely new state of things. How will it be tomorrow in this house? I shall have to go; but you – you, Miss Franziska, what will you have to do and suffer? How gloomy, how drearily bleak and dead this house will be tomorrow! Any other existence would be blissful compared with life in this house! Oh, Franziska – Miss Fränzchen, write tomorrow to your uncle, to the lieutenant; or – or let me write to him! Don't stay here; don't stay in this house; its atmosphere is deadly – Oh, Fränzchen, Fränzchen, let me write to Lieutenant Götz!"
Franziska shook her head gently and said:
"I must stay. If I could not go before there is all the more reason why I may not go now. I have not been happy in this house but still it has given me shelter, and Uncle Theodor – Oh no, how could I leave poor Uncle Theodor now? My head swims now, to be sure; but I must stay – I am not mistaken, that is the right thing for me to do and I will not do anything wrong. Dear friend, I must not write to Uncle Rudolf to take me away from here, and you must not do so either. I know that that is right."
Hans Unwirrsch dared to do it – he kissed the gentle, loyal little hand that was stretched out to him so shyly and yet with such unconquerable power. Hot tears ran down his cheeks.
Yes, she was right. She was always right. Blessings on her! On this stormy night, this night of misery and ruin, she sat like a beautiful, lovely miracle beside the foreign girl and laid her pure, innocent hand on the latter's hot, feverish brow; yes, indeed, she was merciful and of great kindness and she would have to remain in this desolate house; that was certainly right!
It was long past two o'clock.
"Let us part now, dear friend," said Fränzchen. "She has not come home, – she has taken her destiny into her own hands; may God have mercy on her and protect her on her way. Let us part now, dear friend; I will watch over this poor girl here and tomorrow morning we will talk over the rest."
"Tomorrow morning," said Hans. "It seems to me as if this night would never come to an end. I am afraid of the morning for, in spite of all my doubts, I know that it will come. Oh, Miss Fränzchen, it has been a long and yet a short, short night. It has been terrible and yet full of sweetness. God bless you, Franziska. Oh, what shall I say to you, – how shall we be when the new day has come?"
Franziska lowered her head and gave Hans Unwirrsch her hand in silence. They parted from each other troubled and blissful. They could not yet quite grasp the blessing which this dark, weird night had brought them both. They parted, and their hearts beat loudly.
