Read Ebook: Through Night to Light: A Novel by Spielhagen Friedrich Schele De Vere M Maximilian Translator

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Ebook has 3230 lines and 210946 words, and 65 pages

Moved by this apprehension Doctor Braun had postponed the visit to Fichtenau till the end of their journey, instead of going there at first, as Oswald had wished. He had hoped that the frequent intercourse with other men, the beneficent influence of a journey through a beautiful country, brilliant in all the glory of autumn, would bring Oswald back to calmer and more reasonable views of life, and enable him to meet Berger, if not with the superiority of this calmness, at least without danger for himself.

Now Franz saw himself deceived in his hopes. He was by no means pleased with Oswald's excited manner, and would have liked best to turn back, if that had still been possible. He sat casting now and then an anxious glance at Oswald, who, throwing himself back in his corner, looked with fixed eyes upon the little town below, and he determined at least to shorten the visit as much as possible, and to prevent his friend's being alone with Berger while they were there together.

The sun had already set for half an hour behind the broad back of the well-wooded hill, which embraces Fichtenau on the western side, when the carriage left the mountains and rolled down into the plain in which the town is situated. The wearied horses enjoyed the level ground and the easier motion of the carriage, and hastened to meet their good supper of oats. They seemed to gather new strength from the shrill notes of a clarinet which were heard high above the unfailing roll of a big drum, from the midst of a close circle of men on the commons near the town-gate, who surrounded a band of rope-dancers. The road passed close by the place, and as the crowd of curious people had overflowed upon the turnpike, the driver saw himself compelled to drive more slowly, and at last to stop altogether, as the people were not willing, in spite of his scolding and cursing, to give up their vantage ground, and persisted in remaining on the spot, from which they could comfortably look down upon the performance.

The good people thought it naturally quite hard to be disturbed just then, as the wandering artists were at that moment engaged in performing their masterpiece, with which they always wound up the evening's work, so as to dismiss the audience with the most favorable impression.

They had stretched a rope from the little circus to the top of a tall but broad-branched oak-tree which stood upon the common, smaller ropes ran on both sides down to the ground, and were there held fast by stout boys, who had volunteered to perform that service for the sake of High Art. The increased shrillness of the clarinet and the growing thunder of the big drum announced the coming of the great moment when the famous acrobat, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, called the Flying Pigeon, would have the honor to perform, with permission of the authorities, his great feat, admired by all the potentates of Asia and Europe, viz., to fetch down a flag fastened to the top of a steeple four hundred feet high, on the extraordinary path of a single rope, and moreover walking backwards all the time, a feat which he hoped the nobility and the highly cultivated public of Fichtenau would not fail duly to appreciate.

The tower, four hundred feet high, of which the placards at all the street corners had spoken, had changed, it is true, into an oak of perhaps forty feet in height, and the enemies and rivals of the Flying Pigeon--and what great artist is without enemies?--insisted upon it that this change in the programme diminished not only the danger but also the interest of the daring feat. But it was not Mr. John Cotterby's fault, surely, that in the Thirty Years' War the Imperialists had shot to pieces the steeple of the little church on the public square of Fichtenau, which was then held by the Swedes. Nor was he to be blamed if the paternal government had now for two hundred years annually determined to rebuild the steeple, but never accomplished it yet. What could he do, Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, if, for want of better times to come, the church on the square was to this day without a steeple? Certainly, if the conscience of the Flying Pigeon was as innocent of every other crime as of this, he could perform his great feat, even with the change of the programme, unblushingly before the potentates of Europe and Asia, and the nobility and highly cultivated public of Fichtenau.

And without blushing--unless the carmine of his rouge should be interpreted as the flush of modesty--the Flying Pigeon now presented himself upon a little scaffolding, hung with soiled linen sheets, to begin his journey heavenward, accompanied by desperate efforts of the clarinet and the big drum, which were at that solemn moment reinforced by the tinkling of a triangle and the squeaking of a tuneless fiddle. He was a handsome, well-made man, and quite young; his dark curly hair was confined by a narrow band of brass, and his whole costume consisted of a suit of stockinet which had long lost its first color of innocent white, and a jacket of the same material, to which on the shoulders two wings had been fastened, which, however, had evidently performed such very hard service that they had lost many a feather on previous occasions.

Encouraging applause greeted the artist and drowned easily the hissing of the opposition; he bowed gracefully all around, with an air which is only found among circus riders, rope-dancers, and other members of that airy guild, while other mortals in vain endeavor to imitate it, and thus to rob them of their exclusive secret. But the applause ceased suddenly, when to the astonishment of the whole audience a huge, shapeless figure was seen climbing after the courteous artist upon the platform, and presenting him, after a hearty slap upon the place between the Icarus wings, with a long slip of paper! The white nightcap, the large blue apron, but above all the enormous, deep-red nose, left no one who was learned in such matters long in doubt as to the nature of the man; they saw at once in him the owner of a beer-shop, or something of the kind, and in the paper an unpaid bill.

The artist would not have been a true artist if he had not been deeply embarrassed by this sudden intrusion of stern reality upon the bright regions of art. There followed a pretty pantomime; the Flying Pigeon shrugged his shoulders and pointed at the place in his stockinet where people with trousers of larger dimensions indulge in pockets, in order to express his very evident inability to pay, and seemed to implore the landlord with much wringing of hands and plaintive gesticulating to have patience. The latter replied, however, as it seemed, only by making fearful faces and by striking his hand with his closed fist, and thus made it very clear that he was inexorably hard-hearted.

The highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country looked upon the scene as a very serious affair, and showed their amazement and deep interest in every feature. But the excitement rose to a painful intensity when next, upon a sign from the red-nosed landlord, two fellows with huge moustaches, in blue coats and black tri-cornered hats, came climbing up on the stage, and filled the hearts of the innocent spectators with horror as they raised their arms upon the bidding of injured Justice, and, seizing the unlucky artist with fearful grimaces and gesticulations, bound his impecunious hands behind his winged back.

And now, at this most painful moment in the earthly career of an artist, it was to be shown that the great god Apollo knows how to lead his saints wonderfully out of troubles and trials, and to secure to them the well-earned apotheosis, if not in this vale of tears, at least in heavenly regions.

For, from the thickest of the oak-tree, where the rope had been fastened to a mighty branch, there suddenly appeared the figure of a lovely genius, winged like the Flying Pigeon, with a wreath on the hair and a bright banner in the right hand. This was evidently the flag which Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, usually fetched down from a steeple four hundred feet high, and which he saw himself on this day forced, for want of a suitable tower, to bring down from heaven itself. For was not the winged genius one of the heavenly choirs?

When the messenger from Olympus showed himself so opportunely, the servants of earthly Justice and the wine-colored dispenser of abominable beverages were, as in duty bound, seized with sudden terror. They abandoned their victim and fell with all the signs of deep contrition upon their knees, while the Flying Pigeon relieved himself of his fetters and began to ascend the narrow path that leads to heaven, with all the swiftness and agility which had won such honor for his name and reputation. When he had gone up half-way he knelt down before the heavenly apparition, who had beckoned him on with unceasing waving of the flag, rose to his full height and made there, far above the earth and all earthly fear, a gesture towards his conscience-stricken pursuers, which is universally understood upon the earth. Loud applause and cheerful laughter accompanied the humorous artist up to the very heavens, where the genius handed him the flag, crowned him with the wreath, and then disappeared once more in the branches. Mr. John Cotterby then returned to the stage, where the constables had in the meantime learnt to appreciate the value of the ideal and of the divine nature of art, and now received him with deep bows, while the red-nosed landlord yielded to the impulse of the moment, and with most praiseworthy repentance tore the enormous bill from end to end, thus giving the spectators a comforting assurance that the Flying Pigeon was, at least for the present, safe against all attacks upon his freedom.

The performance was at an end. The generous landlord, who now appeared in the character of manager of the company of artists, alone remained behind on the stage, and in his epilogue promised the nobility and highly-cultivated public of Fichtenau and the surrounding country on the next day a far more splendid representation. The audience dispersed very suddenly, for a suspicious ringing of money on tin plates reminded them suddenly of a duty which the ungrateful among the spectators did not hold themselves bound to perform, while many grateful admirers regretted deeply their inability to prove their gratitude.

Nevertheless the majority of those unable to pay were still honest enough to allow the unwelcome plate to come quite near to them, and those who were not kept by honesty remained from curiosity to find out how the genius who dwelt in the branches of oak-trees might look when seen near by. For it was Apollo's own messenger who deigned to make the collection for the benefit of his children upon earth.

The cunning director could not have made a better choice. The genius--it was hard to tell whether it was a boy or a girl--had a pair of magnificent brown eyes, which looked with such bewitching modesty and so imploringly into every face that the purses opened together with the hearts. Kindly words followed the child everywhere, and one or the other of the well-to-do citizens seemed to think himself entitled by his gift of a few cents to pinch the brown cheeks; but the genius appeared by no means disposed to appreciate the caress.

The driver had been on the point of leaving as soon as the crowd allowed him to pass, but Franz and Oswald, who had followed the drama of the artist's earthly career and his apotheosis with great interest, and now and then with hearty laughter, ordered him to stop till the genius should have made his way through the dense crowd to the carriage. They had not to wait long, for a travelling carriage with two gentlemen inside was surely worth more than a dozen of poor citizens of Fichtenau.

Franz was looking for some small change in his purse when he was startled by a loud exclamation.

"What is the matter?" he asked, looking wonderingly up at Oswald, who had jumped up and uttered the cry.

Oswald did not reply, but leaped with a single bound out of the carriage, and hurried to meet the genius, who no sooner recognized the young man than he dropped the plate with all the silver and copper coins, and fell into his arms.

"Czika, is it really you?"

"Yes, man with the blue eye," replied the child, eagerly and affectionately, still hanging on his neck; but then suddenly tearing herself away and anxiously looking toward the carriage:

"Is the other one there also?"

"No, Czika," said Oswald, knowing very well that the other of whom she spoke was Oldenburg. "But are you quite alone?"

"No, mother is with me; mother does not leave the Czika. Come and help me to collect the money again." And the child stooped down to pick up the coins that were half hid in the dust.

"Oldenburg's child among rope-dancers," said Oswald to himself, mechanically obeying the child's injunction and unconscious of what he was doing, kneeling down and picking up here and there the scattered pennies.

The highly-cultivated public thought this meeting of an apparently great personage with a rope-dancer's child, and their warm embrace, more remarkable than anything they had seen that evening. Young and old they crowded around them, forming a close circle, and apparently determined not to leave the place till they had solved the mystery of this extraordinary meeting.

Franz, who had witnessed the scene from the carriage, had scarcely been less amazed than the crowd. Very soon, however, he recollected the mysterious reports about a gypsy girl whom Baron Oldenburg was said to have harbored at his lonely house for several weeks, until she had escaped from him one fine day, and, with that rapidity of combination which is often found in strong heads, he at once concluded that Oswald, who no doubt was in the baron's secret, had recognized the gypsy girl in the beautiful genius. His next thought was to shorten the scene, for Oswald's sake mainly, and in order to diminish as far as possible the sensation which it had already produced. He jumped, therefore, from the carriage, hastened to Oswald, and said,

"Let us go on! At least till the crowd has dispersed."

At the same moment the director of the company, who had also observed the scene from the stage, on which he had harangued the public, pushed his way through the assembly. His curiosity to know what was going on, and his indignation at seeing the important business of collection interrupted at the critical moment, had made him forget that he still wore the costume of the red-nosed landlord, and that he, therefore, ought not to have mingled with the people unless he wished to sacrifice the dignity of his art. Franz was justly afraid that the tragi-comic scene might become decidedly disagreeable if that personage should join them, and therefore anticipated his questions by meeting him before he came near, and whispering to him in a tone just loud enough to be heard by the bystanders,

"I am a physician, sir. This young man is rather eccentric. You understand. Here is something in compensation for the loss he may have caused you."

The man considered this explanation, which was given in a very solemn manner, perfectly satisfactory, since the possible loss was amply made up by the two silver dollars which Franz had slipped into his hand. He smiled cunningly, and said, pulling off his night-cap and bowing low,

"Understand, understand, your excellency. Only pray get him away quickly, so that the Czika can go on with the collection."

"Where are you staying?" inquired Franz.

"At the Green Hat, your excellency. Your excellency will rejoice a poor artist's soul if you will bestow upon him your gracious patronage."

"Well, well," said Franz, and then turning to Oswald, who had risen in the meantime,

"I pray you, Oswald, let us go on now. I know where these people are staying; you can go and see them some other time."

Oswald, who had recovered from his first overwhelming astonishment at finding Czika in such company, now saw very clearly the extraordinary character of his position, and knew too well how sensible his friend's advice was to neglect it any longer.

The Czika had shown the wonderful self-control which this remarkable child never lost but for a few moments, and was going on with the collection as if nothing had happened. She did not even cast a glance at Oswald as he went back to the carriage, almost forced to do so by Franz.

The carriage drove off. The crowd had quickly seized upon the fable of Oswald's insanity, which Franz had invented with such admirable presence of mind, and dispersed all the more rapidly as the increasing coolness of the evening air reminded them forcibly of the warm supper that awaited them in their warm rooms at home.

It was a few hours later. The evening had come completely. The mountains of Fichtenau were wrapped in their double veils of night and mist; on the dark sky a few lonely stars peeped here and there through the drifting clouds. The narrow streets of the little town were deserted; lights, however, were shining from the windows of the low, simple houses. People were sitting around the stove after their frugal suppers, and the husband told his wife, who for good reasons had not been able to venture into a crowd, what wonderful feats of strength, agility, and skill he had seen outside of the town on the great meadow; how an insane gentleman had driven up with his physician , and how he had embraced the pretty gypsy girl, who was going around with the plate, before all the people. The old, half-deaf grandmother, who was nodding in her arm-chair near the stove, and only heard half of what he was saying, remarked,

"Yes, yes! gypsies are the devil's children; everybody knows that. My sainted great-grandfather lent a hand when five of them were burned on the great meadow."

There was great feasting that night in the Green Hat, a low drover's inn near the gates of the town, and not far from the great meadow. The Green Hat was also the headquarters of all wandering rope-dancers, and therefore a most attractive place for all lovers of art among the people of Fichtenau.

The long table in the public room, which was filled with tobacco smokers, could scarcely hold the number of guests, although they were sitting closely enough on the hard benches. At the upper end, especially, the crowd was great, for there the artists sat and drank in the full consciousness of their dignity and the hearty enjoyment of a free treat. The director, Mr. Caspar Schmenckel, from Vienna, presided as a matter of course. He had laid aside all the insignia of the last part he had played, except a few patches of rouge which still adorned his bloated face; he had taken off his nightcap and the blue-checked apron, together with the pillow with which it was stuffed. He appeared now in the comfortable and elegant costume of a gentleman who has relieved himself of his coat and waistcoat, and who forgets, in the consciousness of his artistic fame and of his broad, richly-embroidered suspenders, that his linen is not of the cleanest. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, who sat on the right hand of his lord and master, had been compelled to make a greater alteration in his toilette, especially since the artistic wardrobe boasted only of a single suit of stockinet, and it was therefore of the utmost importance for him to do all that could be done in order to preserve its delicate whiteness. Mr. John Cotterby, of Egypt, wore a short, gray coat with green trimmings, and would have looked, all in all, far more like a handsome Tyrolese than the son of the land of mystery through which the Nile rolls its waves, if the narrow brass band which still confined his dark locks, and the broken German which he composed most artistically for the occasion, had not vouched for his mystic descent. There were two other artists sitting a little further down the table; one a modest, silent, tall man, who took his craft in earnest, and meditated deeply how he might introduce a new feature in his far-famed performance, the Gigantic Cask; the other, the clown of the company, a round, odd-looking creature, who produced a new grimace at every glass which he drank with a new guest, and thus proved the immense stock of those valuable commodities which he owned, since this process of touching glasses occurred on an average every five minutes.

Mr. Casper Schmenckel, director, etc., had been a fine-looking man until the abundance of his potations had injured the fair symmetry of his person, and he loved to recall the many gallant adventures of which he had been the hero, and in which even great ladies, whose eyes had been well pleased with the gigantic proportions of the Hercules, played a prominent part. When Mr. Schmenckel had emptied his third glass he was apt to become eloquent about this heroic age of his life, and tonight he had already more than doubled the mysterious number which loosened the chaste seal on his lips. The young men who pressed around him glass in hand would have fared better, probably, as far as their morals were concerned, if they had not honored the Green Hat on that particular evening with their presence.

Mr. Schmenckel's fancy was exuberant, and where ordinary eyes saw but a number of midges dancing in the air, his rolling orbs beheld a host of elephants. He calculated with incredible boldness upon the credulity of his listeners; above all he endeavored to surround himself and the members of his company with a nimbus of adventurous glory. The accident on the great meadow, which had brought the madman and the Czika into contact with each other, was far too useful for such a purpose not to be fully employed by Mr. Schmenckel. It is true the gypsy and her child had joined his troop quite accidentally a few days ago, as they were making their way across the mountains towards Fichtenau, and Mr. Schmenckel knew as little of their former history as any one in the company; but his imagination was only the more perfectly free to rove at random, and he invented a magnificent story in order to satisfy the curiosity of the guests, who continually came back to the beautiful child and the gypsy woman who had appeared as a dancer in the first part of the performance.

"Yes, you see," said Director Schmenckel, "that is a very mysterious story, and I should be quite ready to tell you all about it, but it is so very incredible."

Mr. Schmenckel dived with his red nose into his beer and slowly absorbed the remaining half, while his eyes twinkled with delight as he looked by turns through the swollen lids at one and the other of his friends.

"Tell us, tell us, Director!" cried half a dozen voices.

"Another bumper for the Director!" cried another half dozen.

When he said Egypt all eyes turned to Mr. John Cotterby, who leaned back in his chair and smiled mysteriously.

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