It was intolerable. I jumped on my feet. "The weapons I would use in reply to such remarks I cannot address to you, Herr Professor.
Therefore, excuse me."
He sent out quick spirts of smoke rolling into big volumes. "Nay, my good young Englishman, but on the other hand you have not answered me.
And hear me: yes, you have shown us a representation of freedom. True.
But you are content with it in a world that moves by computation some considerable sum upwards of sixty thousand miles an hour."
"Not on a fresh journey--a recurring course!" said I.
"Good!" he applauded, and I was flattered.
"I grant you the physical ill.u.s.tration," the Professor continued, and with a warm gaze on me, I thought. "The mind journeys somewhat in that way, and we in our old Germany hold that the mind advances notwithstanding. Astronomers condescending to earthly philosophy may admit that advance in the physical universe is computable, though not perceptible. Some--whither we tend, sh.e.l.l and spirit. You English, fighting your little battles of domestic policy, and sneering at us for flying at higher game, you unimpressionable English, who won"t believe in the existence of aims that don"t drop on the ground before your eyes, and squat and stare at you, you a.s.sert that man"s labour is completed when the poor are kept from crying out. Now my question is, have you a scheme of life consonant with the spirit of modern philosophy--with the views of intelligent, moral, humane human beings of this period? Or are you one of your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions in gymnastics--for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas. Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with your a.s.sistance than without it."
We were deep in the night. I had not a single idea ready for delivery. I could have told him, that wishing was a good thing, excess of tobacco a bad, moderation in speech one of the outward evidences of wisdom; but Ottilia"s master in the Humanities exacted civility from me.
"Indeed," I said, "I have few thoughts to communicate at present, Herr Professor. My German will fail me as soon as I quit common ground. I love my country, and I do not reckon it as perfect. We are swillers, possibly gluttons; we have a large prosperous middle cla.s.s; many good men are to be found in it."
His discharges of smoke grew stifling. My advocacy was certainly of a miserable sort.
"Yes, Herr Professor, on my way when a boy to this very place I met a thorough good man."
Here I related the tale of my encounter with Captain Welsh.
Dr. Julius nodded rapidly for continuations. Further! further!
He refused to dig at the mine within me, and seemed to expect it to unbosom its riches by explosion.
"Well, Herr Professor, we have conquered India, and hold it as no other people could."
"Vide the articles in the last file of English newspapers!" said he.
"Suppose we boast of it."
"Can you?" he simulated wonderment.
"Why, surely it"s something!"
"Something for non-commissioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen.
However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on."
"I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of ideas..."
"Supporting a non-celibate clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your social tree: you would resemble Laoc.o.o.n in the throes, if one could imagine you anything of a heroic figure. Forward."
In desperation I exclaimed, "It "s useless! I have not thought at all.
I have been barely educated. I only know that I do desire with all my heart to know more, to be of some service."
"Now we are at the bottom, then!" said he.
But I cried, "Stay; let me beg you to tell me what you meant by calling me a most fortunate, or a most unfortunate young man."
He chuckled over his pipe-stem, "Aha!"
"How am I one or the other?"
"By the weight of what you carry in your head."
"How by the weight?"
He shot a keen look at me. "The case, I suspect, is singular, and does not often happen to a youth. You are fortunate if you have a solid and adventurous mind: most unfortunate if you are a mere sensational whipster. There "s an explanation that covers the whole. I am as much in the dark as you are. I do not say which of us two has the convex eye."
Protesting that I was unable to read riddles, though the heat of the one in hand made my frame glow, I entreated to have explicit words. He might be in Ottilia"s confidence, probing me--why not? Any question he chose to put to me, I said, I was ready to answer.
"But it"s the questioner who unmasks," said he.
"Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it."
"Look within, and avoid lying."
He stood up. "My nights," he remarked, "are not commonly wasted in this manner. We Germans use the night for work."
After a struggle to fling myself on his mercy and win his aid or counsel, I took his hand respectfully, and holding it, said, "I am unable to speak out. I would if it involved myself alone."
"Yes, yes, I comprehend; your country breeds honourable men, chivalrous youngsters," he replied. "It "s not enough--not enough. I want to see a mental force, energy of brain. If you had that, you might look as high as you liked for the match for it, with my consent. Do you hear? What I won"t have is, flat robbery! Mark me, Germany or England, it "s one to me if I see vital powers in the field running to a grand career. It "s a fine field over there. As well there as here, then! But better here than there if it "s to be a wasp"s life. Do you understand me?"
I replied, "I think I do, if I may dare to"; and catching breath: "Herr Professor, dear friend, forgive my boldness; grant me time to try me; don"t judge of me at once; take me for your pupil--am I presumptuous in asking it?--make of me what you will, what you can; examine me; you may find there"s more in me than I or anybody may know. I have thoughts and aims, feeble at present--Good G.o.d! I see nothing for me but a choice of the two--"most unfortunate" seems likeliest. You read at a glance that I had no other choice. Rather the extremes!--I would rather grasp the limits of life and be swung to the pits below, be the most unfortunate of human beings, than never to have aimed at a star. You laugh at me? An Englishman must be horribly in earnest to talk as I do now. But it is a star!" (The image of Ottilia sprang fountain-like into blue night heavens before my eyes memorably.) "She," was my next word. I swallowed it, and with a burning face, pet.i.tioned for help in my studies.
To such sight as I had at that instant he appeared laughing outrageously. It was a composed smile "Right," he said; "you shall have help in a settled course. Certain Professors, friends of mine, at your University, will see you through it. Aim your head at a star--your head!--and even if you miss it you don"t fall. It"s that light dancer, that gambler, the heart in you, my good young man, which aims itself at inaccessible heights, and has the fall--somewhat icy to reflect on! Give that organ full play and you may make sure of a handful of dust. Do you hear? It"s a mind that wins a mind. That is why I warn you of being most unfortunate if you are a sensational whipster. Good-night Shut my door fast that I may not have the trouble to rise."
I left him with the warm lamplight falling on his forehead, and books piled and sloped, shut and open; an enviable picture to one in my condition. The peacefulness it indicated made scholarship seem beautiful, attainable, I hoped. I had the sense to tell myself that it would give me unrotting grain, though it should fail of being a practicable road to my bright star; and when I spurned at consolations for failure, I could still delight to think that she shone over these harvests and the reapers.
CHAPTER x.x.x. A SUMMER STORM, AND LOVE
The foregoing conversations with Ottilia and her teacher, hard as they were for pa.s.sion to digest, grew luminous on a relapsing heart. Without apprehending either their exact purport or the characters of the speakers, I was transformed by them from a state of craving to one of intense quietude. I thought neither of winning her, nor of aiming to win her, but of a foothold on the heights she gazed at reverently. And if, sometimes, seeing and hearing her, I thought, Oh, rarest soul! the wish was, that brother and sisterhood of spirit might be ours. My other eager thirstful self I shook off like a thing worn out. Men in my confidence would have supposed me more rational: I was simply possessed.
My desire was to go into harness, buried in books, and for recreation to chase visions of original ideas for benefiting mankind. A clear-wined friend at my elbow, my dear Temple, perhaps, could have hit on the track of all this mental vagueness, but it is doubtful that he would have pushed me out of the strange mood, half stupor, half the folding-in of pa.s.sion; it was such magical happiness. Not to be awake, yet vividly sensible; to lie calm and reflect, and only to reflect; be satisfied with each succeeding hour and the privations of the hour, and, as if in the depths of a smooth water, to gather fold over patient fold of the submerged self, safe from wounds; the happiness was not n.o.ble, but it breathed and was harmless, and it gave me rest when the alternative was folly and bitterness.
Visitors were coming to the palace to meet the prince, on his return with my father from England. I went back to the University, jealous of the invasion of my ecstatic calm by new faces, and jealous when there of the privileges those new faces would enjoy; and then, how my recent deadness of life cried out against me as worse than a spendthrift, a destroyer! a nerveless absorbent of the bliss showered on me--the light of her morning presence when, just before embracing, she made her obeisance to the margravine, and kindly saluted me, and stooped her forehead for the baroness to kiss it; her gestures and her voice; her figure on horseback, with old Warhead following, and I meeting her but once!--her walk with the Professor, listening to his instructions; I used to see them walking up and down the cypress path of the villa garden, her ear given to him wholly as she continued her grave step, and he shuffling and treading out of his line across hers, or on the path-borders, and never apologizing, nor she noticing it. At night she sang, sometimes mountain ditties to the accompaniment of the zither, leaning on the table and sweeping the wires between s.n.a.t.c.hes of talk.
Nothing haunted me so much as those tones of, her zither, which were little louder than summer gnats when fireflies are at their brightest and storm impends.
My father brought horses from England, and a couple of English grooms, and so busy an air of cheerfulness, that I had, like a sick invalid, to beg him to keep away from me and prolong unlimitedly his visit to Sarkeld; the rather so, as he said he had now become indispensable to the prince besides the margravine. "Only no more bronze statues!" I adjured him. He nodded. He had hired Count Fretzel"s chateau, in the immediate neighbourhood, and was absolutely independent, he said. His lawyers were busy procuring evidence. He had impressed Prince Ernest with a due appreciation of the wealth of a young English gentleman, by taking him over my grandfather"s mine.
"And, Richie, we have advanced him a trifle of thousands for the working of this coal discovery of his. In six weeks our schooner yacht will be in the Elbe to offer him entertainment. He graciously deigns to accept a couple of English hunters at our hands; we shall improve his breed of horses, I suspect. Now, Richie, have I done well? I flatter myself I have been attentive to your interests, have I not?"
He hung waiting for confidential communications on my part, but did not press for them; he preserved an unvarying delicacy in that respect.