Part 15 (1/2)
”Good heavens! Here they stand, kissing each other, while we have been waiting for them so impatiently!” cried T----.
”We humbly beg pardon for having had no one to escort us to the table,”
laughed Cornelia. ”We were consoling each other for the misfortune.”
”How malicious you are again! We were so sure that you would be escorted to the table by your lucky Herr von Ottmar that we did not even look for you,” said T----, apologetically.
”And you were not mistaken in your belief, sir,” said _Heinrich's_ voice.
He went up to Cornelia and offered her his arm. T---- stood petrified with astonishment. There was nothing left for him to do except to turn to Hedwig. _Heinrich_ led Cornelia to her place, and then went back to Veronica. Cornelia sat opposite to him, and on his right and left hand were the fairest and brightest young girls in the whole circle. Many mothers and fathers looked towards them with almost imperceptible hopes, but everything fell into the lap of the one who neither hoped nor desired anything. _Heinrich's_ interest was centred in Cornelia alone.
”You see, my dear Herr von Ottmar,” Veronica began, ”I have tried to make amends to you for being obliged to take an old lady to the table.
My most charming young ladies are around you.”
”You would give me far greater pleasure if you would permit me to spend my evenings with you and your adopted daughter, for I must confess that I prefer you to all other ladies, be they ever so charming,” he whispered.
”Oh, that you shall certainly do!” exclaimed Veronica, in delight.
”Come as often as you please. You will be a welcome guest.”
”I thank you,” replied _Heinrich_.
Meantime, Cornelia had been conversing with the extremely polite old gentleman, and _Heinrich_ now asked who this eccentric person was.
With gay humor she described his peculiarities, and in a low tone related how, on festival occasions and during public speeches, he often disturbed the bystanders by repeating the words half under his breath, and supplying the bows omitted by the orator; how he always most dutifully repeated the last words said to him; how he invariably removed his hat when he saw two persons salute each other in the street, etc. etc.
”Do you know,” she said, at last, ”I think this proceeds from an excess of benevolence and sympathy! It must be the same feeling that prompts the mother who hears her daughter say a pretty thing to put on precisely the same expression. The mother enters into her child's situation so earnestly that she involuntarily imitates all her looks and gestures; nay, I once saw an actress, starring with her daughter, so carried away by the latter's playing that she unconsciously imitated her darling, and almost merged her own part in her child's. What is this except an excess of sympathy for the beloved being?”
She then, in a most masterly manner, imitated the different mothers and the tragic scene of the two ladies upon the stage, so that those around burst into shouts of laughter.
Yet the gayer the others became the more serious _Heinrich_ looked: and she asked, with mingled surprise and anxiety, why they all had so little success in amusing him.
”Oh, you do not know how happy I am!” he replied; ”but I am reflecting about something. I see you develop so many different traits and talents that I am bewildered. When I have at last succeeded in harmonizing one of your changeful moods with your whole character, before I am aware of it a new picture appears before me, which I must again incorporate with the whole. You keep me in a perpetual mental excitement, and it seems as if I were compelled to sketch the different waves upon the sea-sh.o.r.e. Scarcely have I fixed my eyes upon one ere it is already swallowed up in another, and I am constantly raising my eyes again to sketch the whole as it spreads before me in its infinite majesty.”
He gazed at her with so strange an expression that she looked down as if dazzled.
”Oh, what are you making me?” she said, in confusion. ”I am a very simple person, who am merry with the mirthful and serious with the grave. If I am different from others in any way it is because I am always natural. Thousands feel as keenly, change their moods as frequently, as I; but it is not noticed in them, because they have accustomed themselves to a uniform etiquette, an unvarying manner. I have often envied such persons, for they know how to give themselves the stamp of a finished individuality far better than natures like mine, which are sometimes thought gay, sometimes melancholy, now good and then bad, or not at all what they seem, which are sometimes too little, sometimes too much, trusted, and rarely or never understood.”
”Oh, Cornelia!” cried one of the guests, the famous actor N----, across the table. ”Do you mean to say that we don't understand you?”
”No, certainly not,” replied Cornelia. ”I had princ.i.p.ally in view those whom I consider different from myself. You understand me because you resemble me, and are all, more or less, artist natures!”
”Do you mean that all artist natures are as truthful as yourself?”
asked _Heinrich_, doubtfully.
”Certainly; when I trust a man it is the artist, especially those who represent things.”
”I am curious to know upon what you found that idea,” murmured _Heinrich_, in a low tone. ”The actor certainly practices dissimulation as his profession.”
”Oh, do not say that! You will surely admit that in every man there is an impulse towards truth and falsehood, as well as good and evil,”