"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,"
began Cornelia. "With almost all persons this impulse, like their other good and bad qualities, exerts an influence upon their lives; they lie and deceive in personal intercourse. But there are exceptions, among those in whom this propensity to deceive is decomposed by Heaven knows what process of intellectual chemistry, and becomes objective; that is, forms a power of acting entirely apart from the subject. This power seeks an independent form, and finds it in art, wherein it develops the highest, most artistic structure, and those in whom such a process has been completed are artists, especially actors. Then if the commonplace man can satisfy that strange and undeniable propensity towards falsehood only in real life, in the actor it is to a certain extent _guided_ into a higher, loftier region, and he becomes in reality truer and more natural than many who are only considered honest because they are too awkward to feign."
"Your explanation is logical," replied _Heinrich_, "but you cannot carry it into practical execution. Opportunity makes thieves, a capability for falsehood tempts to falsehood. Even the actor will not disdain to obtain an advantage at the expense of truth, and the temptation is all the greater the more he is convinced that the deception will be successful. Nay, I can even imagine that there must be a charm to him in making use of his histrionic skill, not only upon the stage, but off the boards, and I have seen celebrated actors who could not help perpetually performing a part."
Cornelia reflected a moment, and then said, calmly: "There are such instances, of course, but I do not call such people artists; there are two distinct cla.s.ses of men who bear that name. If this talent we have just mentioned is coupled with more or less mental capacity, the union produces more or less brilliant _performers_; if, however, there is a counterpoise of the great qualities of the soul and heart, it produces _artists_. The performer, it is true, employs the talents at his command in life as well as in art; he knows no higher object than effect. He deceives in life as well as in art when it will make an effect, and in both is true to the same purpose. As he has neither character nor heart, he is neither good nor bad upon principle; he simply turns his talents to his own profit where and as he can. It is this cla.s.s of people who have in many respects degraded the position of artists. The artist, on the contrary, perceives and seeks something far higher than effect! Like all men of n.o.ble aims, he, too, has an ideal towards which he unselfishly struggles--truth. If he seeks this in his art, often even at the expense of the applause so indispensable to the actor, if he is so conscientious in the realm of illusion, why should he not be equally so in the domain of reality? The power of transforming his whole nature at will he considers as a gift bestowed to serve the holy purpose of art, and would no more turn it to his own advantage than the honorable citizen would obtain an illegal profit from an accidental or fairly won supremacy over others. A keener, more active, sensitive faculty, and the habit of an elevated manner of expression, may give him a peculiar, "exaggerated," perhaps "affected"
appearance,--words with which the commonplace man so eagerly points out what he does not understand; but you will acknowledge that a person may be affected and yet possess true, genuine feelings; as, on the other hand, the falsest and most designing men often appear the most artless."
"Certainly," said _Heinrich_.
"You see," continued Cornelia, "that as from the worst and most different materials the brightest, purest flame can be produced, so art transfigures deception with the highest manifestations. Thus in real artists falsehood aspires towards truth! The highest object of his performance is the union of both, and the triumph of falsehood becomes in him a triumph of truth!"
Cornelia glanced gayly upwards towards the jets of gas in the chandelier. In her enthusiastic defense she had involuntarily raised her voice, and did not notice that every one was looking at her. When she paused, all shouted a hearty bravo. _Heinrich_ sat motionless, with his head resting on his hand, gazing earnestly at her; he could not smile and applaud with the others,--he was asking himself, "Do I deserve this woman?"
The supper was over; he started up and approached her as the company prepared to take leave. "Cornelia, Prison Fairy, you have opened a new world to me. My mind is so full of all I have heard from you that I cannot speak. Only tell me whether I may come again tomorrow?"
"Certainly, Herr Baron."
"Oh, do not be so formal, Prison Fairy! Let me hear my name from your lips as you bid me farewell, that I may hold it dearer; or my baptismal name. Ah, Cornelia, I should like to hear how it sounded if you would say Good-night, _Heinrich_.""
"No, Herr von Ottmar, I cannot; you are still too great a stranger."
_Heinrich_ bit his lips as if deeply abashed, and said, with a low bow, "Pardon me, Fraulein, I was indiscreet."
Cornelia held out her hand and looked at him with all her winning charm of manner. "No, no, Herr von Ottmar, I did not wish to cause you pain.
I promise you that ere I sleep I will say in thought, "Good-night, _Heinrich_!" Does that satisfy you?"
_Heinrich_ kissed her hand in a transport of delight. "Thanks, lovely creature! And now good-night, my fairy; send me a pleasant dream."
Veronica approached: he took leave of her; the departing guests pressed him back, and, waving a farewell to Cornelia, he left the house. When he reached the street he raised his hat from his head to allow the night wind to cool his burning brow; and now he was _Henri_ again, for he knew he was expected by a beautiful woman who had followed him home from his last journey, and hitherto held his senses in her chains. He mechanically obeyed the force of old habit and turned his steps towards her residence. But when he stood before the house behind whose lighted windows the glittering daughter of sin awaited him in dreams heavy with forebodings, a strange, incomprehensible feeling overpowered him.
Cornelia"s pure, wonderful charms appeared so vividly before his soul that he turned with repugnance from the desecrated image that allured him. He perceived that no one had any power of attraction except Cornelia, and that nothing could satisfy his longing for her. He went home, and that very night wrote a farewell letter to his purchased love, and freed himself from his unworthy chains.
A ray of light fell through the heavy silken curtains of Veronica"s bed, and waked the sleeper. She looked around and saw Cornelia, who, with a lamp in her hand, was noiselessly gliding through the chamber towards the door of the salon. "What do you want there, child?" asked Veronica; "why are you still dressed? I had already fallen asleep."
Cornelia started. "I forgot something," she replied, and slipped out of the room. When she returned through Veronica"s chamber she carried a portfolio in her hand.
"What have you there?" asked Veronica.
"Don"t be angry with me for waking you, dear," said Cornelia, kissing the white, aged brow, "I only wanted to read Hedwig"s essay again; it was left in the parlor."
When she had closed the door of her pleasant bedroom behind her, she took Ottmar"s portrait from the portfolio, placed it on a reading-desk, sat down before it, and, shielding her eyes with both hands, rested her arms on the table, and became absorbed in studying the mysterious head.
The more she looked at it the more beautiful she found it. "How simple those lines are, and yet how rich, how infinitely expressive! Oh, who could decipher the mute language of that ardent mouth, whose kiss still burns upon my hand? How can people kiss so with such delicate lips? It is not the lips that kiss, it is his heart, which lies between them; that is why his caress is so soft, so warm; that is why it penetrates to the inmost soul. And when he speaks they are again only the beautiful, slender banks over which the flood of feeling streams! And those eyes,--oh, they reveal all the wonders of the soul! He might err, nay, he might even be shattered by life, but the look that shines in his eyes is divine; it will raise him above his lower nature, and everything else. And I,--I will aid him; I will join the good genius that floats above the darkness of his soul like the Spirit of G.o.d over chaos, and teach him to perceive his own greatness, his ideal strength."
She sat long, absorbed in thought; but, by degrees, it seemed as if the pictured head moved to and fro, the eyes turned, the lips parted and closed again. She gazed and made the light burn brighter; in vain.
Nature a.s.serted her rights, sleep was casting her deceptive veil over her weary head. She rose, removed the flowers from her hair, and released her lovely form from its clinging drapery. Again and again her eyes rested upon the drawing. She paused. "How you look at me, as if you were alive! as if I ought to be confused! Stop, wait! You shall not see me undress." So saying, she hastily placed the picture in the writing-table, went to bed, extinguished the light, and nestled comfortably among the pillows. "Good-night, _Heinrich_."
XI.