Part 63 (1/2)

”I cannot tell you,” said Melitta; ”do you know, Oldenburg?”

”No; I lost him at the meeting at the Booths from my arm, and could not find him again in the crowd. I am quite sure, however, that he will yet come.”

”Problematic characters!” repeated Franz, who had been so absorbed in his thoughts that he had not heard the last words. ”Do you know, baron, that when I heard that expression of Goethe's the first time it was in connection with your name, and from the lips of a man who was once very dear to me, and in whom you also, as far as I know, once took a very lively interest? You need not beat the devil's tattoo on the table, Bemperlein; I know that you, who are generally as gentle as a lamb, have talked yourself into a most unchristian hatred against Oswald Stein, and I only mention our former friend because he, as well as his teacher, Berger, appeared to me always as a type of such problematic characters.”

As Franz had not the least suspicion of Oswald's former relations to Melitta, to Oldenburg, and to Bemperlein, he did not notice the blush which suddenly spread over Melitta's cheeks so that she bent low over her work in order to conceal it; and the vehemence with which Bemperlein exclaimed: ”I should think, Franz, that man does not deserve being mentioned here,” only excited his opposition.

”Do you too think so, baron?” he said, turning to Oldenburg; ”would you relentlessly condemn a man whose greatest misfortune it probably was to have been born in these days?”

”No,” said Oldenburg, calmly and solemnly; ”I have not yet forgotten the old word, that we must not judge if we do not wish to be judged. I have always sincerely admired the brilliant talents which nature has lavished upon that man, and I have as sincerely regretted that a mind so richly endowed should, like a luxuriant tree, bear only sterile blossoms, which can produce no fruit whatever.”

While Oldenburg spoke thus his eyes had been steadily fixed on Melitta, who had raised her face once more and now looked as eagerly up to him as if she wished to read him to the bottom of his soul. Franz was still too warmly interested in Oswald to be really satisfied by Oldenburg's words. He replied, therefore, in his earnest, hearty manner:

”I was sure you would judge Stein fairly. I have heard Stein himself quote you too often not to know how fully you understood the peculiar condition of his mind, and your intimacy with Berger was a guaranty for me that you are a physician for the sick, and not for the healthy, who, Bemperlein, need no physician. Berger and Stein are two characters strikingly alike in talents and temper. How else could they have formed so close a friends.h.i.+p, with their great difference in age?--a friends.h.i.+p which, I fear, has contributed more than anything else to develop in Oswald those eccentricities which sooner or later must lead him to insanity or suicide.”

”But don't you see, Franz,” said Bemperlein, who was always particularly tenacious in matters connected with Oswald, ”that Berger has successfully rid himself of the alp of his disease, which was evidently more bodily than mental, and has thus shown that there is a very different energy in him from Stein?”

”Do not praise the day before the evening comes!” replied Franz. ”I desire, of course, as anxiously as either of you, the complete recovery of Professor Berger; but I am bound to say, as a medical man, that I do not consider a relapse yet out of question. And if I am not mistaken, Bemperlein, you mentioned only last night that my father-in-law had expressed himself in the same manner?”

”But would not that be fearful?” said Melitta.

”I do not say, madame, that it will be so; I only say it may be so.”

”Have you lately noticed anything peculiar in Berger?” asked Melitta, turning to Oldenburg.

”Yes!” said the latter, after some hesitation. ”I cannot deny that his manner has seemed to me lately much more excited than before. Since the revolution in February, in which, you know, he took an active part, he seems to be undermined by a kind of feverish impatience, which often reminds me of the restlessness of a lion who walks growling up and down behind the bars of his cage. Minutes seem to grow into hours to him, and hours into days. I have told him in vain that the history of great ideas counts only by thousands of years. 'I have no time,' is his invariable answer. 'If you had, like myself, wandered forty years through the desert, you would comprehend the longing of the weary pilgrim to breathe at last the air of the promised land. This delaying and deferring, this hesitating and halting, will cause me to despair.'

But, gentlemen, what is that?”

All listened. From afar off there came a low but steady sound, louder than the rattling of carriages.

”That is the beating to arms!” said Oldenburg, and his cheeks flushed up. ”I know the sound; I heard it just so on the evening of the twenty-third of February, along the _Boulevard des Capucins_.”

Oldenburg had hardly said these words, and they were all rising to go to the window, when the door was hastily opened, and a man rushed in, whom they found it difficult to recognize as Berger. His long gray hair hung in matted locks around his head; his face and beard were covered with blood, which seemed to come from a wound in his forehead; his coat was torn to pieces, as if sharp instruments had cut and pierced it in different places. His eyes were glowing, his breath came with an effort, as he stepped close up to the table and, gazing at the company, said, in a hoa.r.s.e voice,

”Up! up! You sit and talk, while without your brothers and your sisters are murdered! Up! up! With these our bare hands we will turn aside their bayonets and strangle these executioners.”

”He is fainting,” cried Franz, seizing Berger, who had already while he was yet speaking begun to sway to and fro, and now broke down completely.

The men ran up and carried their fainting friend to a sofa.

”Some cologne, madame,” said Franz; ”thank you. Do not be afraid; it amounts to nothing this time, but I fear for the future.”

They all stood around the patient, whose breathing became more quiet in proportion as the beating of the drums became more subdued in the streets.

CHAPTER IX.

While the small company in Frau von Berkow's rooms in the second story had been so suddenly and so terribly startled, there was a young lady sitting quietly in a room a story higher, who had only arrived at the house a few hours before with her husband (at least they took the young man who had accompanied her to be her husband). As the luggage was marked ”Paris,” and the gentleman had spoken French to the lady, the people of the house took it for granted that they were French, especially as the hotel was always full of French travellers. Mrs.