"I can only say," said Charlotte, even slower, louder, and more weightily, "that one should, before all things, be human, and that one has no right whatever to turn one"s back on the smallest request of a fellow-creature."
Hardly had she said it, hardly had the bishop"s wife had time to open her mouth and stare in stoniest astonishment, hardly had I had time to follow her petrified gaze, than an old man in a long waterproof garment with a green felt hat set askew on his venerable head, came nimbly up behind Charlotte, and bending down to her unsuspecting ear shouted into it the amazing monosyllable "Bo!"
THE SEVENTH DAY--_Continued_
AT STUBBENKAMMER
I believe I have somewhere remarked that Charlotte was not the kind of person one could ever tickle. She was also the last person in the world to whom most people would want to say Bo. The effect on her of this Bo was alarming. She started up as though she had been struck, and then stood as one turned to stone.
Brosy jumped up as if to protect her.
Mrs. Harvey-Browne looked really frightened, and gasped "It is the old man again--an escaped lunatic--how very unpleasant!"
"No, no," I hurriedly explained, "it is the Professor."
"_The Professor?_ What, never the _Professor?_ What, _the_ Professor?
Brosy--Brosy"--she leaned over and seized his coat in an agony of haste--"never breathe it"s the old man I"ve been talking about--never breathe it--it"s Professor Nieberlein himself!"
"_What?_" exclaimed Brosy, flushing all over his face.
But the Professor took no notice of any of us, for he was diligently kissing Charlotte. He kissed her first on one cheek, then he kissed her on the other cheek, then he pulled her ears, then he tickled her under the chin, and he beamed upon her all the while with such an uninterrupted radiance that the coldest heart must have glowed only to see it.
"So here I meet thee, little treasure?" he cried. "Here once more thy twitter falls upon my ears? I knew at once thy little chirp. I heard it above all the drinking noises. "Come, come," I said to myself, "if that is not the little Lot!" And chirping the self-same tune I know of old, in the beautiful English tongue: Turn not your back on a creature, turn not your back. Only on the old husband one turns the pretty back--what?
Fie, fie, the naughty little Lot!"
I protest I never saw a stranger sight than this of Charlotte being toyed with. And the rigidity of her!
"How _charming_ the simple German ways are," cried Mrs. Harvey-Browne in a great flutter to me while the toying was going on. She was so torn by horror at what she had said and by rapture at meeting the Professor, that she hardly knew what she was doing. "It really does one good to be given a peep at genuine family emotions. Delightful Professor. You heard what he said to the Duke after he had gone all the way to Bonn on purpose to see him? And my dear Frau X., _such_ a Duke!" And she whispered the name in my ear as though it were altogether too great to be said aloud.
I conceded by a nod that he was a very superior duke; but what the Professor said to him I never heard, for at that moment Charlotte dropped back into her chair and the Professor immediately scrambled (I fear there is no other word, he did scramble) into the next one to her, which was Brosy"s.
"Will you kindly present me?" said Brosy to Charlotte, standing reverential and bare-headed before the great man.
"Ah, I know you, my young friend, already," said the Professor genially.
"We have just been admiring Nature together."
At this the bishop"s wife blushed, deeply, thoroughly, a thing I suppose she had not done for years, and cast a supplicating look at Charlotte, who sat rigid with her eyes on her plate. Brosy blushed too and bowed profoundly. "I cannot tell you, sir, how greatly honoured I feel at being allowed to make your acquaintance," he said.
"Tut, tut," said the Professor. "Lottchen, present me to these ladies."
What, he did not remember me? What, after the memorable evening in Berlin? I know of few things more wholly grievous than to have a celebrated connection who forgets he has ever seen you.
"I must apologise to you, madam," he said to the bishop"s wife, for taking a seat at your table after all."
"Oh, Professor----" murmured Mrs. Harvey-Browne.
"But you will perhaps forgive my joining a party of which my wife is a member."
"Oh, Professor, do pray believe----"
"I know a Brown," he continued; "in England there is a Brown I know. He is of a great skill in card-tricks. Hold--I know another Brown--nay, I know several. Relations, no doubt, of yours, madam?"
"No, sir, our name is _Harvey_-Browne."
"_Ach so_. I understood Brown. So it is Harvey. Yes, yes; Harvey made the excellent sauce. I eat it daily with my fish. Madam, a public benefactor."
"Sir, we are not related. We are the Harvey-Brownes."
"What, you are both Harveys and Browns, and yet not related to either Browns or Harveys? Nay, but that is a problem to split the head."
"My husband is the Bishop of Babbacombe. Perhaps you have heard of him.
Professor. He too is literary. He annotates."
"In any case, madam, his wife speaks admirable German," said the Professor, with a little bow. "And this lady?" he asked, turning to me.
"Why, I am Charlotte"s cousin," I said, no longer able to hide my affliction at the rapid way in which he had forgotten me, "and accordingly yours. Do you not remember I met you last winter in Berlin at a party at the Hofmeyers?"
"Of course--of course. That is to say, I fear, of course not. I have no memory at all for things of importance. But one can never have too many little cousins, can one, young man? Sit thee down next to me--then shall I be indeed a happy man, with my little wife on one side and my little cousin on the other. So--now we are comfortable; and when my coffee comes I shall ask for nothing more. Young man, when you marry, see to it that your wife has many nice little cousins. It is very important. As for my not remembering thee," he went on, putting one arm round the back of my chair, while the other was round the back of Charlotte"s, "be not offended, for I tell thee that the day after I married my Lot here, I fell into so great an abstraction that I started for a walking tour in the Alps with some friends I met, and for an entire week she pa.s.sed from my mind. It was at Lucerne. So completely did she pa.s.s from it that I omitted to tell her I was going or bid her farewell. I went. Dost thou remember, Lottchen? I came to myself on the top of Pilatus a week after our wedding day. "What ails thee, man?" said my comrades, for I was disturbed. "I must go down at once," I cried; "I have forgotten something." "Bah! you do not need your umbrella up here," they said, for they knew I forget it much. "It is not my umbrella that I have left behind," I cried, "it is my wife." They were surprised, for I had forgotten to tell them I had a wife. And when I got down to Lucerne, there was the poor Lot quite offended." And he pulled her nearest ear and laughed till his spectacles grew dim.
"Delightful," whispered Mrs. Harvey-Browne to her son. "So natural."
Her son never took his eyes off the Professor, ready to pounce on the first word of wisdom and a.s.similate it, as a hungry cat might sit ready for the mouse that unaccountably delays.
"Ah yes," sighed the Professor, stretching out his legs under the table and stirring the coffee the waiter had set before him, "never forget, young man, that the only truly important thing in life is women. Little round, soft women. Little purring p.u.s.s.y-cats. Eh, Lot? Some of them will not always purr, will they, little Lot? Some of them mew much, some of them scratch, some of them have days when they will only wave their naughty little tails in anger. But all are soft and pleasant, and add much grace to the fireside."
"How true," murmured Mrs. Harvey-Browne in a rapture, "how very, very true. So, so different from Nietzsche."
"What, thou art silent, little treasure?" he continued, pinching Charlotte"s cheek." Thou lovest not the image of the little cats?"
"No," said Charlotte; and the word was jerked up red-hot from an interior manifestly molten.
"Well, then, pa.s.s me those strawberries that blink so pleasantly from their bed of green, and while I eat pour out of thy dear heart all that it contains concerning p.u.s.s.ies, which interest thee greatly as I well know, and all else that it contains and has contained since last I saw thee. For it is long since I heard thy voice, and I have missed thee much. Art thou not my dearest wife?"
Clearly it was time for me to get up and remove the Harvey-Brownes out of earshot. I prepared to do so, but at the first movement the arm along the back of the chair slid down and gripped hold of me.
"Not so restless, not so restless, little cousin," said the Professor, smiling rosily. "Did I not tell thee I am happy so? And wilt thou mar the happiness of a good old man?"
"But you have Charlotte, and you must wish to talk to her----"
"Certainly do I wish it. But talking to Charlotte excludeth not the encircling of Elizabeth. And have I not two arms?"
"I want to go and show Mrs. Harvey-Browne the view from the cliff," I said, appalled at the thought of what Charlotte, when she did begin to speak, would probably say.
"Tut, tut," said the Professor, gripping me tighter, "we are very well so. The contemplation of virtuous happiness is at least as edifying for this lady as the contemplation of water from a cliff."