During this time the soul of the theological candidate, Johannes
Unwirrsch of Kröppel Street, was in an extraordinary state. He stood in
the centre of the life for which he had longed so much; he had stepped
down and the great roar had dissolved into single voices and tones
and the voices that he heard around him were more harsh and evil than
loving. He felt less satisfied than ever and was obliged to confess to
himself that he had not as yet acquired an understanding of this world.
Once for all he belonged to those happily unhappy natures who have to
solve every contradiction that meets them. It was simply that he had
that hunger for the symmetry and harmony of all things which so few
people understand, which is so hard to satisfy and is never completely
satisfied except in death.

In addition to all his other troubles Hans had much ado to defend
himself against the charm that Kleophea exercised over him.

Franziska was quieter than ever. In the meantime the signs of returning
spring multiplied. Dr. Théophile Stein paid his first visit to the
Privy Councillor's tutor and was very winning and very amiable. He
listened to every noise in the house, asked all sorts of questions
about the tutor's life there, asked about the architecture of the
house; the position and furnishings of the rooms on the first floor,
about the pictures on the walls and the service in the kitchen. He was
not uninterested in the sympathies of the Privy Councillor's wife and
still less so in her antipathies. He asked for detailed information
about Aimé as well as about the master of the house. At last he had
finished, inwardly shut up his note-book and succeeded by a clever
winding-up in convincing poor Hans that he had only asked all these
questions out of interest in the fate and present life of the companion
of his youth.

Mrs. Götz had of course heard of the visit and, at the dinner table,
asked about this Dr. Stein, who was much talked of in town at the
moment, and who was said to be very gifted and much traveled. At
that Hans began to speak out of the fullness of his heart and told
everything about Moses Freudenstein that he could tell. He praised his
kind heart, clever head and scholarliness and unfortunately did not
notice what a start the lieutenant's Fränzchen gave when she learnt who
had that day been in the house in which she had sought protection.

Hans said nothing of the merry French orphan as, when he was on the
point of leaving, Dr. Stein had modestly and laughingly begged him
not to mention her. The following day Franziska did not appear at the
table; she was not well. She was obliged to keep her bed for a whole
week and, for the first time Hans had the opportunity of noticing what
a gap her absence made. Suddenly the idea came into his mind that his
speech at the table about Moses Freudenstein might be the cause of the
poor child's illness and this thought sent all the blood rushing to
his heart so violently that he was scarcely able to breathe. The same
morning the mistress of the house sent for him to come to her room
where he found his friend Théophile Stein, _alias_ Moses Freudenstein,
sitting beside Mrs. Götz, opposite Kleophea, with little Aimé on his
knee. Another older man was sitting there too.

"Oh, here he is--the hunger pastor!" exclaimed Dr. Stein, thus giving
our Hans his title officially. "Wake up, Johannes, it is I in the
flesh."

Dr. Stein spoke easily and with polish and Dr. Blüthemüller, lecturer
on esthetics, made very fine, but quite academic speeches, about the
art of living beautifully.

After he had emptied his horn of plenty the lady of the house opened
hers. With sighing pathos she gave her views on the way to find
Christian, esthetic peace in God. She raved about the way of the saints
of God, and about old Italian pictures of virgins looking up to heaven,
of martyrs and donors.

Full of perfidy Dr. Stein asked the friend of his youth whether he had
seen the pictures of which Mrs. Götz spoke. Hans had seen them, but
unfortunately he said what he thought about them, thereby incurring the
displeasure of the lady of the house. Dr. Stein then entertained the
little circle with an excellent discussion of the Pre-Raphaelites and
showed his erudition, experience in art, and knowledge of the world
to the most brilliant advantage. He illumined all sides of life with
clever remarks; and in the great art of polishing up the mediocre, or
even silly remarks of those from whom he wanted to obtain something and
then giving them back their property with a bow, he was past-master. He
knew how all kinds of fish were caught and began by catching Mrs. Privy
Councillor Götz, _née_ von Lichtenhahn, but while he was pulling his
catch ashore he did not lose sight of the golden scales and purple fins
that still flashed about free in the water.

As Dr. Théophile Stein had expected, Hans knocked at his door several
times, to call him to account, but received no answer or else was told
that Dr. Stein was not at home.

When the lieutenant's Fränzchen came out of her little room again she
had become even quieter than before and although her behavior to the
rest of the household was as usual it made Hans feel the more deeply
and painfully that she was not the same to him as she had been. He
knew the reason well and yet was unable to ask whether what Moses
Freudenstein had said about her father was true. He watched her with
strained anxiety and never failed to hear her softest footstep nor a
single tone of her sweet voice.

To the same degree that the brilliant Kleophea lost her influence over
him Franziska won hers.

Dr. Théophile Stein repeated his visit without Professor Blüthemüller,
and Hans was not invited again to be present in the drawing room. Dr.
Stein did not blush when Franziska came into the room and, at the sight
of him, suddenly started and turned pale. He retained his composure
when he was introduced to her and merely spoke coolly of already having
had the pleasure of meeting Fräulein Götz in Paris. This declaration
caused Mrs. Götz and her husband much surprise and astonishment.

After Franziska had left the room Mrs. Götz asked for an explanation
of this curious circumstance and Dr. Stein expatiated on how sorry he
was to have recalled to Fräulein Götz such painful memories. He went
on to tell his tale, and he was a good story-teller; and his sonorous
voice was well-fitted tenderly to emphasize all tragic nuances. It was
the same tale that Hans had heard but adapted to another audience. This
time he took a most sympathetic interest in this family misfortune and
was able thoroughly to understand what Mrs. Götz must have suffered on
account of her brother-in-law's wretched life and death.

After a time Kleophea came skipping into the room. She brought sunshine
with her and youthful spirits; her eyes shone, her red lips laughed,
she scarcely touched the floor with her feet. She greeted Dr. Stein
with enchanting irony; she was just in the mood to hurt the feelings of
her fellowmen with small, perfidious insinuations and expressed a great
thirst for knowledge in regard to certain Mosaic customs and laws. Dr.
Théophile was more than equal to her. He talked about the Jews with
dramatic pathos, he knew how to make the best use of the heroes and
martyrs his race had produced. He even succeeded in making of Kleophea
a close and attentive listener.

He was able to leave with a humbly proud bow and to be satisfied with
the success of his visit. He was now what he wanted to be--a friend of
the family. From now on, without suffering any detriment to his bodily
or spiritual welfare, he could receive the visits of Candidate Hans
Unwirrsch.

Spring had come in all its beauty, but it did not bring Hans Unwirrsch
the consolation he had hoped. The lower he sank in the favor and
esteem of the Privy Councillor's wife the less she left him to
himself. And Fränzchen, Fränzchen Götz? What had she to do with his
great hunger for knowledge, for the world and life? What had she to
do with his disappointments? In everything she penetrated into the
innermost recesses of his heart. It was impossible to think of Auntie
Schlotterbeck, or even of Uncle Grünebaum without Franziska, Lieutenant
Rudolf Götz's niece. She sat in the low, dark room in Neustadt and
in the magically shining glass globe, she sat in the sunshine in the
Neustadt cemetery beside his mother's and father's grave.

The great sea of the world had tried to roll between them but it did
not separate them; they greeted each other in silence, in silence they
took their places beside each other; the poisonous shade of the son
of Samuel Freudenstein, the second-hand dealer of Kröppel Street, lay
between them.

Hans again sought out Dr. Théophile and for the second time he met the
French orphan who owed so much to Théophile. This time she passed him
with lowered head. She no longer skipped and laughed but leant heavily
on the banister and her head was sunk very low. She looked very pale
and had lost much of her former elegance.

Théophile answered all the questions that Hans put to him and allowed
himself to be catechized but the manner in which he justified himself
left much for an honest and pious nature to desire. Finally he
confessed quite openly that it was his intention to become a councillor
in the cabinet of his Majesty, the King, and to try to win the
affection and later the little hand of Kleophea Götz.

From now on Dr. Stein came to the house of the Privy Councillor's wife
daily, and daily she received him with a more cordial smile. He read
with the ladies of the house, he drove with them, and there were many
people in the city who envied Mrs. Götz this interesting acquaintance,
for the doctor was a man whose reputation was growing mightily. It
could be heard growing. He gave lectures before a select audience
of both sexes on "The Rights and Duties of Human Society" and the
exclusive, elegant fraction of humanity for whom these lectures were
prepared was much pleased with them. They delighted Mrs. Götz, but the
objections that Kleophea raised gave the doctor the desired opportunity
to throw a hundred shining nooses about her rebellious self. He talked
to her in a very different way from what he did to her mother. He spoke
of things which might give him a claim to a "world of sighs." He used
his descent and gloomy youth to good advantage and was elegiac. He was
wisely silent as to how easy his father had made his way in the world;
he had overcome all obstacles through the strength of his own manhood
and courage. He wore his shirt collar _à la_ Byron and insinuated that
he--"lord of himself; that heritage of woe!"--had not always trodden
the straight path, that there were depths, dark, unfathomable depths in
his bosom into which he could not look without becoming giddy. It was
night within him but he had not yet lost his hunger for the light and
that was the only reason that he was still able to mix with the living
without being crippled by the burden of existence.

Never in all her life had Kleophea been as silent as she became at this
time.

No change had taken place in Fränzchen's relations with Hans.
Lieutenant Rudolf still did not appear.

In order not to worry the old people at home Hans had always written
them that he was well off, very well off. But he was not well off! He
could not get out of the magic circle that fate had drawn around him.
He felt that the time was not far distant when he would hate Moses
Freudenstein, when he would love Franziska Götz and he was constantly
fleeing from his own thoughts. Poor Hans Unwirrsch was far from being
well off. Gradually he began to feel physically ill, suffered from
dizziness and headache and became more melancholy from day to day. He
no longer had any hunger for anything except to open his whole heart to
Fränzchen.

One Saturday afternoon Candidate Unwirrsch received a package from
Neustadt containing two presents and letters from Auntie Schlotterbeck
and Uncle Grünebaum. His uncle complained that things were going
miserably with him, that he was growing older every day, that his
digestion refused to work, that his eyes had gone back on him and
that he had sat down on his spectacles the day before yesterday. The
"Red Ram" had changed hands and had lost its attractiveness and even
politics were no longer what they used to be.

Auntie Schlotterbeck wrote full of solicitude for Hans' welfare and
warned him again and again against Moses Freudenstein, who was a bad
man, as old Esther and Professor Fackler too declared. When Hans had
done reading these letters he had to hold his head with both hands; it
seemed to him to be bursting. He wanted to open the window but could
not;----he was ill, so ill that all his painful feelings dissolved into
the nothingness of unconsciousness and then passed over into delirium.

Hans Unwirrsch had inflammation of the brain and for several days was
near death; but he saw visions during this illness which were not
bought too dear by all the pain that he suffered. Dr. Théophile Stein
was among them.

It was on the second day after the fever had broken out. Théophile was
alone with the sick man and believed himself unobserved. At Mrs. Götz's
desire he had come to see "what the young man was doing." Hans' mind
was all confusion but his delirious fantasies were interrupted by
strange moments of clearness. Théophile was very curious, as we know,
and liked to poke about in other people's things and affairs, nor did
he think it indiscreet to look into drawers that stood open and at
unsealed letters that lay there. He took Auntie Schlotterbeck's letter
during the perusal of which the illness had overtaken Hans and read,
first with pleasure and then with his teeth on his lower lip, what she
had written about him. "Absurdly original!" he said, "but still the
duffer might become an inconvenience; it will be best to get him out of
the house. Look out for yourself, my dear Hans!" He went over to the
sick man's bed. So utterly out of his mind did he believe poor Hans
to be that he thought it quite unnecessary to lay any restraint upon
himself. But he was mistaken: Hans saw clearly, quite clearly, horribly
clearly. Between life and death, consciousness and unconsciousness,
knowledge came to him in a flash. He saw Théophile's eyes shining
like those of an evil spirit rejoicing in his misfortune. All the
heartlessness of him whom he had once called his friend was revealed
in those eyes, in that smile. For the first time in his life Hans felt
what hatred is. He wanted to shriek aloud and jump up but he could only
reach the other with his eyes. Théophile Stein started; he smiled no
more; Hans sank again into the delirium of fever but he took with him
the certainty that he had gained an irreconcilable enemy.

When he again came to himself many a day had passed. He saw two other
figures beside his bed of pain. At the foot sat Privy Councillor
Götz, tired and careworn, and beside him stood Franziska--Fränzchen,
sympathetic and gentle and with tears in her eyes. And Fränzchen had
no idea how distinctly the sick man saw at that moment. She took no
pains whatever to control her features. And she started very much,
did Fränzchen, and blushed hotly when she suddenly noticed that Hans
was awake and could see. Hans closed his eyes and when he opened them
again--he could not tell just how long after that was--these two
figures also were no longer there.

But the sun had risen in Hans Unwirrsch's soul; he knew that he should
not die, and knew something much more important than that. There was
great rejoicing in his hungry soul and it did not matter a bit that his
senses left him once more; everything was now right.

Eventually the day came when the tutor, very lean and somewhat dizzy,
went downstairs into the drawing room to thank Mrs. Götz and Kleophea
for all their kindness. On the following day the mistress of the house
had a second interview with the candidate and expressed the desire that
the arrangement between them should come to an end by Christmas Day.
She gave it as her opinion that Mr. Unwirrsch's influence on her son
could not be regarded as entirely beneficial.

Utterly confused and benumbed Hans staggered back to his room only able
to murmur the name "Franziska."]

CHAPTER XXII

Much had changed for the worse during the illness of Candidate
Unwirrsch. It was only slowly that he came to realize how the
conditions in the house of the Privy Councillor Götz had shifted and
become more complicated; but at the first glance he saw with a start
that autumn had come. The lawn and the paths under the trees of the
park were already covered with fallen leaves; the park itself began to
look like a ragged rug with many moths in it; it might almost have been
regarded as fortunate that Hans had no time to think about this.

Dr. Théophile Stein had won a complete victory over the beautiful
and spirited girl, Kleophea. She loved this man with all the passion
of which a nature like hers was capable. It required very delicate
perception to discern the fire that glowed beneath a soil so gay with
flowers, but it was there and for the moment it made the garden bloom
with even greater brilliance;--it was very sad, it was a matter for
tears!

Since Hans had been on his feet again the Privy Councillor had become
as unapproachable to him as he had formerly been; his wife had spoken
and he--submitted to this higher power. Hans realized that this man
could not avert the danger that threatened his house and that no
warning could help, perhaps might even do harm and make the matter
worse. So cleverly had Théophile prepared his way with the Privy
Councillor's wife that not the slightest assistance was to be looked
for in that direction; and Kleophea, proud, magnificent Kleophea would
have repulsed with the deepest scorn any attempt to interfere in these,
her most private, intimate affairs. She had laughed too often with
Théophile at the "Hunger Pastor" to allow herself to be warned by the
latter. Duplicity and impudent egoism, lamentable weakness, obstinate
stupidity and pharisaical arrogance, frivolity, conceit, exuberant
wantonness, scorn and mockery on all sides;--it was indeed a world to
make one hunger, hunger for innocence, for loyalty, for gentleness, for
love.

Oh, Fränzchen, Fränzchen Götz, what a sweet, gentle light surrounded
your chaste figure in the midst of this grimacing throng! Where else
could peace, refuge and rest be found but with you? Oh, Fränzchen,
Fränzchen, how could it be that you caused poor Hans such strange pain?
How could it be that you had to bear such strange pain on his account?
How could you both torment each other so and moreover entirely against
the will and the good intentions of Lieutenant Rudolf Götz?

Alas, Lieutenant Rudolf had no place in the council of Providence
either, he was often hard pressed enough himself; destiny takes its own
course and every time of trial must come to an end in its own way in
this hungry turmoil of life.

[Illustration: THE STORK'S VISIT

_From the Painting by Karl Spitzweg_

PERMISSION FRANZ HANFSTAENGL, N.Y.]

Since the tutor had recovered, Fränzchen no longer avoided him so
shyly. The more power Dr. Théophile Stein acquired in the house, the
more the poor niece realized that the relation between the doctor and
the good Hans could not be altogether as she had at first imagined,
and not without justification. On the day on which her aunt gave the
candidate notice that his services as preceptor would not be much
longer needed, Fränzchen sat in her room and wept tears of joy and
murmured her mother's name as such poor, orphaned little things do when
they meet with a great unexpected piece of happiness. And then she
dried her tears and laughed in the midst of her last sob and into her
damp handkerchief.

"Oh, thank you, thank you, my dear Uncle Rudolf! Do you see--no,
yes--thank you, thank you!"

Then she came down to take her place at the luncheon table and although
the mental atmosphere during this meal was even more oppressive than
usual and her aunt made more maliciously pointed remarks than ever,
still, Fränzchen's dear little heart had not beat so free and light for
a long, long time. And Candidate Unwirrsch seemed to feel that in a
moment. He too looked at the people about him with less embarrassment
and more cheerfulness; their doings and sayings no longer had their
former bad influence on him; Fränzchen Götz no longer avoided his eyes,
and he could breathe freely.

It could not be otherwise;--what had dragged on so long in monotonous
unpleasantness had at last to show itself in all its nakedness and
disconsolateness. The crisis was near at hand, and if, for the present,
the evil went on without tangible, outward manifestations, yet the
electric shock which was to throw the quiet, elegant household of the
Privy Councillor into the greatest possible confusion and to make it
the topic of conversation all over the town, could not fail to come.
The threatening fist was clenched and struck menacingly at the door to
put an end not only to all delusions, but to peaceful sleep as well.

After the long, dreary rain, a few days followed at the beginning of
October, when nature seemed to regret her bad humor and to endeavor
to make up for it by being doubly amiable. The sun broke through the
clouds, for thirty-six short hours the year showed itself in its
matronly beauty and whoever could and would make use of the blessed
moment had to hasten; for it is, after all, but seldom that such a
change of heart is entirely to be trusted.

The lady of the house commanded her lord to get leave for one or two
days and carried him and her precious Aimé off to the not too distant
country house of some friends who most probably rejoiced exceedingly
over the long announced visit.

Kleophea had refused to be carried off; she thoroughly hated the
country, and the agricultural family to whom her parents were going
perhaps even more. And if she had little fondness for the beauties of
nature she had just as little taste for the marriageable eldest son of
that worthy family, who succeeded only in boring the beautiful girl to
death with his shining, healthy, but unfortunately somewhat protruding
eyes, and his unsuccessful attempts at conversation. Kleophea Götz,
who was not accustomed to give any account of her whims and moods, of
her comings and goings, stayed at home, saw her parents drive away
with a sigh of satisfaction, suffered all the afternoon with a nervous
headache, declined to see Dr. Théophile and in the evening, with a
family of _her_ acquaintance, went to the opera where she could not
decline to see Dr. Théophile. She came home with a violent headache and
locked herself in her room after having, strangely enough, given her
cousin a kiss and called her a "poor, good child." She must really have
passed a very restless night, for the next morning she appeared very
late and very exhausted and nervous. When Fränzchen sympathetically
called her attention to the sunshine she declared that she didn't
care about it and called her cousin a "dull little thing who had no
will of her own except to suffer." At the same time she began to
cry, but a moment later sat down at the piano to lose herself in a
succession of the most piercing arias. Toward noon she became almost
recklessly cheerful and at lunch she challenged Hans to confess that
at the beginning of their acquaintance he had been terribly in love
with her but that his simple uprightness had gradually found a more
suitable object of admiration and so had turned to "gentle Fränzchen."
Her cheeks were very hot and she laughed very loudly at the confusion
into which she threw her companions. She spoke of her mother with very
unfilial shrugs of the shoulders, called her father a "poor worm" and
her brother a "worm" without any qualifying adjective. She begged her
cousin to confess that this house had been a "hell" to her and asked
the tutor to say frankly that he knew of more comfortable places in
which "to breathe." She was indescribably sharp to the butler and
finally drove him out of the room only to confess that she was a very
"naughty girl" and that Franziska was a "poor darling." She drank to
Hans and Fränzchen and begged them to be indulgent with her. Then her
indisposition came on once more and she bolted herself again into her
room. Toward five o'clock, when it was already getting dusk, she went
out.

All the afternoon Hans sat at his window unable to make up his mind to
do anything sensible. He opened a book, laid it down again however,
filled his pipe, which he had unearthed from the bottom of his trunk,
with secret trembling, but it soon went out again as if it too knew
that no smoking was allowed in that house. As usual he looked down on
the throng of passing riders, pedestrians and carriages and tried to
concentrate his attention on the old organ-grinder with the fierce
moustache and the Waterloo medal; but he did not succeed well even in
that. Everything drew him back again and again into the house itself
and an irresistible power compelled him to listen to the faintest
sounds in the corridors and on the stairs.

Her light footstep?... No, no, it was only a maid creeping by who,
together with the much-belaced Jean, had received orders to keep a
sharp eye on the tutor and on Miss Franziska so that they might later
give a report of any incident that occurred.

Her sweet voice?... Foolishness; it was an old woman outside in the
avenue offering smoked herrings to those who liked them.

Oh, if sighs could improve the world it would have become incapable
of further improvement long since. Oh, how often and how deeply did
Candidate Unwirrsch sigh on that unblessed afternoon! He gazed at the
door of his room and thought of all those pleasant nursery tales in
which the fairy, invoked or not invoked, always appears at the right
moment. When she did not come and he had told himself a hundred times
that he was a fool he went back to the window for the fiftieth time to
gaze down again at the merry life below. He laid his forehead against
the window pane and stood there long in that position; but suddenly he
jumped back and looked out again more sharply. A shadow glided through
the gay throng, a black, pale shadow. From underneath the trees a
poorly clad, emaciated young woman came out and walked in front of the
Privy Councillor's house, where she stopped, looking up at its windows.
Hans recognized this woman, although he had only seen her twice and
although she had changed very much since then.

It was the little French girl, once so merry, whom he had met in Dr.
Stein's rooms and it was as if in sorrowful helplessness her eyes
were seeking him, Hans Unwirrsch. A strange feeling of anxiety came
over him;--he had taken his hat and was already on the stairs before
he could explain these feelings to himself. He went out of the house,
passed quickly round the fountain and the lawn and crossed the driveway
to the trees of the park; but the black shadow had vanished and Hans
looked about for it in vain. Had his imagination led him astray again?
He stood a moment in doubt; but the sun was shining, the air was so
refreshing,--he did not return to the house but went slowly on under
the trees. Soon, of course, he forsook the broad promenades where most
of the people were walking. He sought the lonely, winding paths among
the bushes, the paths on which all those are most frequently found who
walk with bent heads and have a way of standing still for no particular
reason. But on that day scarcely any path was altogether deserted.
Everyone was out of doors--everyone. There were the people who had
dined and those who had dined too well and those who had not dined at
all. There were the people who were able to drive and those who were
obliged to go on crutches. There were the would-be-old children who
thought it beneath their dignity any longer to jump through a hoop
and the childish old men who would gladly have done so but could not
and instead of that sent admiring glances after the young girls that
passed. It was very difficult to find an unoccupied bench. In the seats
which everyone could see sat people who had nothing to conceal, or
perhaps even something to show, while the seats in the hidden nooks
were occupied by loving couples or people who were ashamed of their
shabby clothes; and when finally Hans did find an empty bench a badly
spelt notice on the back of it frightened him away. Scribbled in pencil
were the words:

"As I can't stand it no longer on account of Louise I am going to
America and if Berger of Coblenz comes here and reeds this here notice
it would be friendly of him if he would break the news to my folks in
Bell Lane so they wont make no fuss about it and keep supper waiting
for me."

Now there was indeed no real reason why Candidate Unwirrsch should take
it to heart if the ne'er-do-weel ran off and Berger of Coblenz broke
the news in Bell Lane;--but he did so nevertheless. After thinking for
some time whether it was not his own duty to ask in Bell Lane whether
Berger had been there and whether the old parents were not still
waiting supper for their lost son, Hans jumped up to look for another
seat. He could not endure it on that bench any longer.

A short path led him to those romantic expanses of water, those greasy
green canals which adorn the more remote part of the park and which
must fill with delight the hearts of all lovers of the microscope and
infusoria; they certainly every spring provide whole Pharoanic armies
of frogs with all they need for joyful and melodious existence.

There he found a place where no loving couples would sit down, a
bench in front of a deep pool out of which more than one corpse had
been dragged before this, a thoroughly hidden bench, in a thoroughly
damp and dank place, a bench which was not so easy to find even at
this season when so many trees and bushes were already losing their
leaves. It suddenly came into view at a turn of the narrow path round a
dense, thorny clump of shrubbery, just before it ended at the water's
edge; and nothing was lacking to complete the miserable, melancholy
impression but a black post with a black arm pointing into the
stagnant, swampy pool.

With bent head Hans followed the narrow path and stepped out from
behind the shrubbery to stand suddenly still, amazed and startled;
close before him on the half-rotten bench sat the figure that he was
seeking against his own will, the figure that had drawn him out of
Councillor Götz's house,--the shadow of the little French girl who
once, in Théophile's room, had laughed so merrily at his embarrassment.

It was she undoubtedly, and yet scarcely anything remained of her
former appearance. She seemed to be ill, very ill, she still wore
gloves but they were torn, as were her once so dainty little shoes.
The shawl which she had wrapped round her shivering body was worn
and faded;--alas, she was altogether the poor little cricket of her
compatriot Monsieur Jean de la Fontaine!

And she recognized Hans Unwirrsch immediately, for she rose quickly,
drew her shawl together and hastily reached for the handkerchief that
lay on the bench beside her. With fearful, somewhat theatrical anger
she looked at Candidate Unwirrsch.

"_Ah, ce monsieur!_"

She tried to pass him but he stepped in front of her and calmly met the
contemptuous glance of her black eyes.

"_Monsieur_, your friend is a _canaille_!" she cried, clenching her
fist. "Let me past--vill you?"

"I beg your pardon," said Hans Unwirrsch gently and sadly. "Dr.
Théophile Stein is not my friend. Now won't you listen to me?"

"I vill not hear you more! I vill not see you more! I vill not see
nozing of ze world more, but _ma figure_ in zis water 'ere!"

This was spoken with such vehemence, such wildness, that Hans
involuntarily caught her arm to prevent her jumping into the pool; but
she tore herself away, laughed bitterly and then covered her face with
both hands and began to cry as bitterly.

"Do let me tell you," exclaimed Hans, "you have spoken hard words to
me, you have troubled me very much. I am not conscious of any guilty
act toward you and I will help you if I can;--I repeat, I am not Dr.
Stein's friend;--I am no longer his friend!"

Slowly she let her hands fall and looked again into Hans' eyes.

"You too accuse him whom you have just mentioned? Tell me what part of
his guilt I must take upon myself!" said Hans, softly, and she--she
looked him over from head to foot and then,--it was so strange--and
then a slight smile crossed her sick, sorrowful features.

"You are not 'is friend?" she asked.

"Not any longer, and it is a great sorrow to me."

Now the French girl took the candidate's hand and her fingers were like
iron.

"_Monsieur le curé_, I am a poor girl and all alone in a strange
countree. I am ill, and I am not _honnête_. I 'ave 'ad a leetle
child, but it is dead;--I am all left alone in a strange countree!
Oh, _Monsieur_, 'e is a bad, vicked man and if you are not 'is friend
forgive me vat I 'ave said--_je n'ai plus rien à dire_."

Hans could not understand her broken German well, nor her quick French
at all, but her gestures and her expression enabled him to comprehend
her. He led her back to the bench and she let him keep her hand when
he sat down beside her and talked to her gently and soothingly. It was
five o'clock, the sun sank behind the trees, a white mist rose from
the ponds; it was cold and gray--it was the hour when the beautiful
Kleophea Götz left her father's house.

Hans told the French girl as well as he could all that was necessary
about his relation to Dr. Stein and then gradually he learnt the sad
story of her life and the evil part that Moses Freudenstein of Kröppel
Street had played in it.

Henriette Trublet was not made to keep a perfectly straight course
through life and in this respect it was probable that Dr. Théophile
had altered her fate but little. She carried an adventurous little
head on her shoulders and lived only in the present. She had been a
dressmaker's apprentice in Paris and there Théophile had met and won
her. She had not really loved him but he had pleased her, and his
Parisian friends and the way in which he enjoyed life appealed to her.
She was the scintillating streamer on a very gay, bright wreath and
when, as usually happens, the latter broke and Dr. Théophile had gone
back to Germany she soon began to long for him. She had heard all sorts
of marvelous tales of poor good _Allemagne_. The people there were so
honest and so musical and so blond;--to be sure, they probably were
also a little backward in civilization and somewhat simple; but still
they were much better than tall silly Englishmen. And they bought all
their hats and caps and their artificial flowers and their champagne
in Paris--those good Germans; and any pretty, clever child of _Belle
France_ must be able to make her fortune there among them in spite of
the fog, ice and snow, in spite of all the wolves and polar bears, Erl
kings, nixies and other monsters. One morning Henriette arrived at
the Strassburg railway station with a leather trunk and a tremendous
number of boxes of all shapes and sizes,--and she found pleasant
traveling companions to the Rhine too--_allons enfants de la patrie_,
onward to Homburg, Baden-Baden and so on--_où le drapeau_, _là est la
France_, _ubi bene_, _ibi patria!_ And one fine morning Dr. Théophile
Stein heard a gentle tapping at his door and a soft giggle outside it;
Henriette Trublet had found him again.

So far this was all very well and neither could reproach the other
with anything; but from then on under other skies their relation was
changed. Poor Henriette, deserted, helpless and not knowing what to
do found herself entirely delivered over to Théophile; she became a
despised, abused plaything and the light, gay bloom that had covered
her frivolous butterfly wings was soon rubbed off and blown away. Dr.
Stein had a reputation to sustain now and if he was weak enough not
to be able to thrust the poor little Parisian away from him he had
sufficient strength to hold her down low enough so that she was obliged
to serve and obey him without being in any way able to interfere with
his plans and hopes. It was his fault and owing to his intrigues that
she was prevented from making use of her skilful hands. Only when she
was entirely dependent on him could he exert complete tyranny over her.
When he grew tired of her, he believed her much too broken to harm him,
and so with no further thought he closed his door to her and left her
to her fate. Her child was born in the hospital toward the middle of
September and died on the second of October. It was an evil place, this
bench beside the stagnant green pool, where, on the fourth of October
Candidate Unwirrsch found poor Henriette Trublet sitting.

_Traître--va!_

CHAPTER XXIII

Hans Unwirrsch grew hot and cold by turns as Henrietta Trublet told her
story. It was his misfortune that even the most ordinary things excited
him so and that it was so difficult for him to look upon any such
incidents as ridiculous or insignificant. He sat there stupefied until
the French girl suddenly jumped up, stamped her foot passionately and
cried:

"Oh, he 'as treated me badly, but I vill revenge myself ven I can. I
vill interfere, I vill, if it is ze last hour. And I vill go to her--I
vill! I vill tell ze beautiful _Mademoiselle_ who he is--_le juif! le
misérable!_ He shall not 'ave his vill----"

"Kleophea!" cried Hans. "Good God, yes, yes, to be sure! Oh, tell me,
do you know about that? My head swims--I, we, you must go to her, she
must know this. No, no, and again, no, she shall not fall into his
hands; we must save her, even if it is against her own will."

"I did know zat he vas running after ze beautiful young lady, zere in
ze house by ze park; I vas much jealous of her--_pauvre petite_. I 'ave
stood before her vindow and laughed, _O mon Dieu_, and my heart 'as
bled. It vas very bad, it vas very vicked--_pauvre coeur_, I vill save
her from zis man! _Venez, monsieur le curé._"

The evening was cold and dark, the beautiful weather was all gone
and the wind began to move the mists above the ponds and to shake
the twigs. It began to groan and sigh as on the day when Hans had
gone from the university to his mother's deathbed. It rustled in the
distance and whistled nearby, far away the lights and lanterns among
the trees seemed to be thrown back and forth like the boughs. The fiery
reflection of the great city on the dark sky was like the breath of the
terrible, final abyss.

Now, indeed, the pleasure-seeking throng had long since dispersed; rich
and poor had crept out of sight; the shadow-like forms that still slunk
about the paths of the park were not to be trusted; it was well to
avoid them if possible. From a distant pleasure resort the wind brought
the sound of dance music, in fragments. Henriette Trublet walked close
to Hans' side and he gave her his arm as she, exhausted by his hasty
step, fell behind. More and more frequently and brighter the gas
lanterns shone through the trees--there was the street, and there Privy
Councillor Götz's house.

The two wanderers halted a moment.

Only a single window was lighted.

"Zat is not her light! Zat is not her room!" said the French girl.

Hans Unwirrsch shook his head; he could not utter Franziska's name in
this company. Oh that lighted window in the wild, restless, dark night!
Peace and rest;--God's blessing on Fränzchen! The candidate gazed
reverently at the dim glow above them and then gently took hold of the
hand of the poor girl who had again stepped away from his side as they
came out of the gloom of the trees.

"Come, _pauvre enfant_,--we are going on a good errand!" he said.

They walked through the little garden and Hans rang the doorbell. They
had to wait some time before it pleased Jean to open the door. At last
he came and was much amazed to see the tutor's companion, and still
more so at the emphasis with which Hans put an end to his expressions
of amazement.

"Is Miss Götz at home?"

Jean stared, stared and remained silent; but a moment later the
candidate had seized him by the shoulder-strap.

"Why don't you answer me? Announce me at once to Miss Götz--Miss
Kleophea!"

This unheard-of audacity caused the elegant youth to lose his usual
insolent balance for a few moments; and when he regained it at last
his indignation knew no bounds. And the housekeeper appeared and the
ladies' maid; the little kitchen maid looked shyly round a corner in
the background; poor Henriette drew back as far as possible from the
light of the hall lamp into the darkness. Hans, almost ready to die
with annoyance and excitement at all these impudent, doubtful glances,
repeated his request for Kleophea in a raised voice. At that moment
Franziska Götz leaned over the banisters. She carried her small lamp in
her hand.

"Miss Kleophea is not at home," snapped Jean. "Moreover I protest----"

"_Malheur à elle!_" exclaimed the French girl.

"Oh Mr. Unwirrsch, what has happened? What has happened to my cousin?"
cried Fränzchen coming down.

"Isn't she at home? We must speak to her;--Good God, where has she
gone?"

"She did not say; she left the house at dusk."

"Then you must hear, you must tell us what to do. Perhaps it is even
better so."

Franziska too looked wonderingly at the stranger, then she said:

"If I can be of use to you--to my cousin;--Oh, she is going to faint!"

The French girl shook her head.

"No, no, it vill pass quick--_ce n'est rien!_"

"Come up to my room. What has happened? What have you to tell me? Oh,
how pale you are,--lean on my arm."

The French girl shook her head again, she retreated timidly before the
quiet, gracious, innocent figure and turned to Hans.

"If ze ozer is not here, what 'ave I to do in zis house? You tell her,
_monsieur le curé_. I vill not enter in zis house, I vill go."

"No, no--stay, Miss Henriette," cried Hans, but the stranger drew her
shawl closer about her and held out her hand to Hans.

"_Adieu, monsieur le curé_, you are honest man." She turned toward
Fränzchen, bowed her head and whispered slowly and softly, "_Priez pour
moi!--Vous!_"

Franziska laid her hand on her shoulder.

"I do not want to let you go away like this. You are unhappy--and ill;
and you bring evil tidings to this house. Come, lean on my arm; oh
come, Mr. Unwirrsch;--Kleophea will certainly come back soon."

Gently Fränzchen led the poor little French girl upstairs and beckoned
to Hans to follow, while the servants put their heads together, sneered
and shrugged their shoulders.

For the first time Hans entered the room which Franziska occupied
in her uncle's house and his heart trembled much as he crossed the
threshold.

It was like a dream. The moaning wind outside the windows, the rustling
and creaking of the trees, was not all this just as it had been when,
at the Post-horn in Windheim, Fränzchen's sweet face first appeared out
of the darkness, and, for the first time, Lieutenant Rudolf Götz called
Dr. Moses Freudenstein a scoundrel?

What a long time lay between the present anxious evening and that one!

Who was the pale, haggard stranger in the cheap, shabby dress and
shawl? How came she here, in this house? What had she to do with
Fränzchen and what house was this?

Where was the friend of his youth? Where was Moses Freudenstein of
Kröppel Street?

It was, as if the weird, pitiless, cold wind outside gave an answer to
all these questions.

"Woe to you, struggle as you may, ours is the triumph! Ours is the
triumph over spring, over youth, over faithfulness and innocence.
Transitoriness and egoism are your masters! Struggle as you may, it
gives us joy to watch you struggle! The only faithfulness, innocence,
eternity is in--us!"

And again darkness looked threateningly in at the window as if it had
swallowed up every other light and as if, of all the brightness and
brilliance in the world, Fränzchen's little lamp alone were left. Hans
Unwirrsch stood in the narrow circle of light shed by this lamp with
the feeling that here alone there was still refuge in every distress,
satisfaction for all hunger, comfort for all pain. He scarcely dared to
breathe.

An open book and some sewing lay on the table;--Fränzchen had just
risen from that chair and now the strange, abandoned young woman sat
there,--it could not be reality, it must be a delusion, one of the
feverish delusions that had visited him lately.

No, no, that was Fränzchen's soft, sweet voice and Fränzchen had laid
her hand on the shoulder of the poor girl who, with hidden face, was
trembling and sobbing. Fränzchen Götz spoke in good, Parisian French to
poor Henriette Trublet, but still Hans, who knew the language only from
books, knew what she said. And the stranger raised her tearful eyes at
the first sound of her mother tongue, listened with all her soul and
then kissed Fränzchen's hand.

Speaking in her mother tongue she told her sad story for the second
time.

As she went on Franziska looked more and more anxiously at Hans; she
gripped the table against which she was leaning with a trembling hand
and when the Parisian had finished she cried:

"Oh, Mr. Unwirrsch, and Kleophea? Kleophea! Where is Kleophea? If only
she would come--now, now!"

She went to the window and opened it. The wind caught the sash and
nearly tore it from her hand, the lamp flared with the wild gust; the
gas flames at the edge of the park were blown about in their glass
globes, throwing red, uncertain flickering lights on the street,
but the street was empty and a carriage the sound of which seemed
unbearably long in approaching, drove by without stopping.

"And her father, her mother! What is to be done, oh, what is to be
done, Mr. Unwirrsch?"

Hans looked at his watch.

"It is nine," he said. "Calm yourself, Miss Franziska. She certainly
will not stay out much longer; we must be patient and wait, that is all
we can do."

Fränzchen had turned to the stranger; in spite of her anxiety and
excitement she still had comfort enough for poor Henriette. She spoke
to her softly and Henriette kissed her hand again and again. Hans stood
at the window and listened to the soft words of the two women and to
the loud voice of the gale. Now and then a figure passed through the
flickering light of the gas lanterns, several more carriages drove by,
but still Kleophea Götz did not come.

Franziska replenished the fire in the stove. She opened the door and
asked the housekeeper, whose eye and ear had been taking turns at the
keyhole for some time, to bring some tea and something to eat for the
hungry, half fainting stranger. The farther the night advanced the
greater did her anxiety become.

Henriette Trublet ate and drank eagerly, looked once more round the
room with fixed, glassy eyes and then her head sank forward on her
breast--she had fallen asleep.

It was the sleep of complete exhaustion.

"Poor, unfortunate girl!" sighed Franziska. "What a night! What a
terrible night!"

She put her arm round the sleeping girl to keep her from falling; her
locks touched the sinner's brow; and if Hans Unwirrsch had lived to be
a thousand years old he would never have been able to forget the scene.

She looked across to him.

"Oh, please help me, let us lay her down on the divan! Listen--what is
she saying?"

Henriette murmured in her sleep,--perhaps her mother's name--perhaps
that of her patron saint. She did not feel it when Hans picked her up
in his arms and carried her to the little sofa where Fränzchen arranged
the cushions for her and covered her with a cloak and shawl.

It struck eleven o'clock; Kleophea Götz had not come home yet.

"What a night! What a night!" murmured Fränzchen. "What shall we do?
What can we do?"

Suddenly she jumped up and put out both hands as if warding off
something.

"What if she should have gone away, never to come home again? What if
this evening she left her parents' house forever? Oh no, that is too
terrible a thought!"

"She can't have been so bereft of all reason, that is impossible!"
cried Hans. "That would be too terrible; it is impossible!"

"Oh, this deadly fear!" murmured Franziska. "Is that rain?"

It was rain. At first only a few scattered drops pattered against
the panes; but soon came the familiar sound of a drenching, pelting
downpour. The gale drove the rain in gusts across the country, the
broad park and the great city.

"In spite of everything, her mother would never have consented to an
alliance with this--this Dr. Stein," said Franziska. "It is true that
she likes to have him in her drawing room; but she is a proud woman
and thinks that she has already arranged quite a different future for
Kleophea. Shortly before she went away she spoke in her usual manner
of a brilliant match. Oh, it would indeed be the worst misfortune that
could happen if my cousin, with her contradictory spirit, had taken
such a step. Listen--there's another carriage--thank God, there she is!"

They listened again and a moment later Hans shook his head and
Fränzchen sank brokenly onto a chair; Henriette Trublet slept a deep
and sound sleep.

"She would be lost for her whole life!" said Hans to himself, but
Franziska heard the murmured words; she started, shuddered and nodded.

"She would be lost."

"That man would kill her, soul and body. Alas, that it is so and that I
should be the one to have to say it."

Again Fränzchen rose from her chair; she went up to Hans, she laid her
trembling hand on his arm and whispered scarcely audibly:

"Dear Mr. Unwirrsch, I have done you a great wrong. Can you forgive me?
Will you forgive me? I have done heavy, heavy penance for it. It has
cost me many, many tears and wakeful nights. Oh, forgive me for this
distress; forgive me for my uncle's sake."

Hans Unwirrsch staggered as he heard these words.

"Oh, Miss--Franziska," he stammered, "not you, it is not you who have
done me a wrong. We both have been caught in the confused whirl of
this world. Evil powers have played with us and we could not defend
ourselves against them! Is not that the clear and simple truth?"

"It is," said Fränzchen. "We have not been able to defend ourselves."

The rain poured down in streams; the wind shook the window like a wild
beast, but both wind and rain, and the darkness that added to their
terror might do and threaten and say their worst: from then on, even on
this night when Kleophea Götz did not return to her home, they scarcely
seemed dreadful or uncanny any longer. From then on the wind and the
rain and the night were blessings; no longer were they voices from the
abyss, proclaiming destruction--death and the reign of egoism.

It was long after midnight and still Kleophea had not come. Hans and
Fränzchen sat beside the sleeping stranger and talked to each other in
low tones. Ah, they had so much to say!

They did not speak of love,--they did not think of it at all. They
simply spoke of how they had lived; and everything that had seemed so
confused was now so easily untangled; and often a single word made
everything that had been so dark and threatening become light and
simple and consoling.

Franziska Götz talked of her father, and what the daughter told Hans of
him was very different from what Lieutenant Rudolf Götz had said and
even more so from what Dr. Théophile Stein had related. The daughter's
eyes shone as she told how proud and brave her father had been and
how on more than one battlefield he had shed his blood for freedom.
Fränzchen talked of her mother, how lovely and kind she had been, how
much anxiety, unrest and distress she had suffered in her eventful life
without ever complaining and how at last in the year 1836 she had died
a lingering death of consumption. Good little Fränzchen told how deeply
her mother's death had bowed her father and how he had really never
raised his head again joyfully after the funeral. She told how her good
Uncle Rudolf had come to that funeral, an old invalid soldier himself,
with a little bundle and a heavy, knobbed stick. She knew much to tell
of the curious household of the two brothers in Paris and of how so
many old warriors of all nations, Germans, Frenchmen, Poles, Italians,
and Americans came and went in the house and were all so kind to
Fränzchen. She told of the fencing lessons that the two brothers gave
and of how, in a yard outside the barrier, they had taught the young
pupils of the polytechnic school and the students of the Latin Quarter
how to shoot with pistols. She told of the gruff old retired soldiers
of the Old Guard who came to be such good friends with the two Germans
whom they had met at Katzbach, Leipzig and Waterloo, and sat with them
in their attic room smoking and drinking and telling stories like all
the rest.

Then with bent head she told how good Uncle Rudolf had at last grown
homesick for Germany; how he had gone away and then how evil times
followed; times full of misery and trouble, evil, evil days. In a
scarcely audible voice Franziska Götz told how life went worse and
worse with her father, how, one after another, the sources from which
he had drawn aid failed, and how more and more frequently he had sought
comfort in stupefying strong drink and of how, gradually, many bad,
false people had drawn close to him.

Finally Franziska Götz spoke in a low voice of Dr. Théophile, of how he
had lived in the same house with them and how he had tried in the most
abominable way to take advantage of her unhappy father's weakness. She
spoke of her unutterable loneliness, and Hans Unwirrsch bit his lips
and in imagination gripped the throat of Moses Freudenstein of Kröppel
Street with his two good fists to squeeze his soul out of his body.

Franziska told of her father's death and how in her greatest distress
Uncle Rudolf had come again to save her.

Franziska showed Hans a letter from Uncle Theodor and it was really
most remarkable how differently Privy Councillor Götz could write from
the way he looked and spoke.

Lieutenant Rudolf Götz was very poor and had no home to which he could
take his brother's orphan child; and now for the first time Hans learnt
how the good old man lived, how he roved about nomadically, actually
_omnia sua secum portans_ and settled down only in winter with some
one of his comrades in war of the same age as himself, preferably with
Colonel von Bullau in Grunzenow, far off on the shore of the Baltic.

Lieutenant Rudolf could only fetch the orphan from Paris, he could
not offer her a protecting roof. Here now was the letter from Uncle
Theodor which the Privy Councillor's wife had not dictated and which
had not been written under her eyes but only under cover of one of his
documents; and it was this letter which had led the lieutenant to bring
his niece to his brother's house.

"And on the way I was fortunate enough to meet you in the Post-horn in
Windheim," cried Hans. "I was going to my mother's deathbed and Mr.
Götz called Moses a scoundrel, and the gale--and you, oh Miss
Franziska ... Good God, and it is truth and reality that we are sitting
here and waiting for Miss Kleophea!"

They both started at the mention of that name and looked toward the
black windows on which the rain still poured down, which the wind still
shook. They had given up hoping for the return of the unhappy girl.

Henriette Trublet stirred in her sleep and fearfully called the name of
Théophile. Gently and with a merciful hand Franziska replaced the cloak
over the forsaken girl's shoulders and then sat down again.

They went on talking of the evening when they had first met and
Fränzchen told how much the candidate had pleased her Uncle Rudolf and
of how often he had spoken of him during their journey. Hans told about
his mother's death, of his Uncle Grünebaum and Auntie Schlotterbeck
and took the latter's last letter out of his pocket-book to show it to
Fränzchen. He told of how Dr. Théophile had read that letter while he,
Hans Unwirrsch, lay ill with fever; he told how a dreadful glance and
flash had shown him Dr. Théophile in all his malice and duplicity.

Fränzchen now unlocked a little box and showed the tutor a whole series
of letters from Uncle Rudolf--all of them nearly as illegible as Uncle
Grünebaum's epistles and the last few all written from Grunzenow on
the Baltic. Since summer the lieutenant had been lying, in great pain
with gout, in Colonel von Bullau's house in Grunzenow and Fränzchen
confessed with tears in her eyes that she had written her poor uncle
only joyful, cheerful and contented letters and that she could not have
written differently for anything in the world. At that Hans would have
liked to kiss her brave, soothing little hand again and again; but he
did not dare to, and it was better so. Angry at himself, however, he
deeply repented the doubtful blessings that at times he had called down
on the absent lieutenant's head. He regretted them deeply, especially
when he read the lieutenant's letters in which the old warrior
confessed plaintively that he would rather run away with the devil's
grandmother than ever again introduce and smuggle into his "gracious
sister-in-law's" house a tutor after his, though not after the devil's,
own heart.

"You won his whole heart that evening," said Fränzchen. "He talked of
you so much on our journey, and I--I did not forget you altogether
either in the years that followed. Oh, I had much time and great need
to think of all those who had treated me with friendliness. Oh, Mr.
Unwirrsch, we have neither of us been able to live happily in this
house, but still my lot was the harder to bear. I have often been
terribly, terribly hungry for a friendly face, a friendly word. I would
gladly have gone away to earn my own bread, but my aunt would not hear
of that. But you know all about it, Mr. Unwirrsch,--why should we say
any more about it? It is wrong too, to think only of ourselves at this
moment."

"It is not wrong," cried Hans with unaccustomed vehemence. "Oh, Miss
Franziska, we may certainly talk of ourselves in this hour; the hard,
cold world has thrust us back to the very core of our lives,--we may
talk of ourselves, in order to save ourselves. This night will pass, a
new day will come. What will it bring _us_? In all probability it will
plunge us into an entirely new state of things. How will it be tomorrow
in this house? I shall have to go; but you--you, Miss Franziska, what
will you have to do and suffer? How gloomy, how drearily bleak and dead
this house will be tomorrow! Any other existence would be blissful
compared with life in this house! Oh, Franziska--Miss Fränzchen,
write tomorrow to your uncle, to the lieutenant; or--or let me write
to him! Don't stay here; don't stay in this house; its atmosphere is
deadly--Oh, Fränzchen, Fränzchen, let me write to Lieutenant Götz!"

Franziska shook her head gently and said:

"I must stay. If I could not go before there is all the more reason
why I may not go now. I have not been happy in this house but still it
has given me shelter, and Uncle Theodor--Oh no, how could I leave poor
Uncle Theodor now? My head swims now, to be sure; but I must stay--I am
not mistaken, that is the right thing for me to do and I will not do
anything wrong. Dear friend, I must not write to Uncle Rudolf to take
me away from here, and you must not do so either. I know that that is
right."

Hans Unwirrsch dared to do it--he kissed the gentle, loyal little hand
that was stretched out to him so shyly and yet with such unconquerable
power. Hot tears ran down his cheeks.

Yes, she was right. She was always right. Blessings on her! On this
stormy night, this night of misery and ruin, she sat like a beautiful,
lovely miracle beside the foreign girl and laid her pure, innocent hand
on the latter's hot, feverish brow; yes, indeed, she was merciful and
of great kindness and she would have to remain in this desolate house;
that was certainly right!

It was long past two o'clock.

"Let us part now, dear friend," said Fränzchen. "She has not come
home,--she has taken her destiny into her own hands; may God have mercy
on her and protect her on her way. Let us part now, dear friend; I will
watch over this poor girl here and tomorrow morning we will talk over
the rest."

"Tomorrow morning," said Hans. "It seems to me as if this night would
never come to an end. I am afraid of the morning for, in spite of all
my doubts, I know that it will come. Oh, Miss Fränzchen, it has been a
long and yet a short, short night. It has been terrible and yet full of
sweetness. God bless you, Franziska. Oh, what shall I say to you,--how
shall we be when the new day has come?"

Franziska lowered her head and gave Hans Unwirrsch her hand in silence.
They parted from each other troubled and blissful. They could not yet
quite grasp the blessing which this dark, weird night had brought them
both. They parted, and their hearts beat loudly.

SUMMARY OF CHAPTERS XXIV TO XXXIII

[The morning came shrouded in gray mist. Hans and Fränzchen stepped to
the windows shivering. They had not slept; they drew long breaths and
greeted the gray light thankfully. They were no longer alone;--Hans and
Fränzchen had gained a great, great deal in the night in which Kleophea
Götz had left her home.

At seven o'clock the French girl waked from her deathlike slumber and
began to cry violently. Fränzchen spoke to her soothingly and then
began to talk earnestly and urgently of the future. Sobbingly Henriette
replied that she wanted to go home to her own country and to be good
and work hard and make her own living according to God's will. And
Fränzchen Götz put all her worldly treasures into the girl's hands and
then--_monsieur le curé_ knocked at the door and added his father's
venerable and curious watch to what Franziska had given, as well as a
purse containing five hard thalers and a few small coins.

At eight o'clock Henriette Trublet stepped out again from the Privy
Councillor's house accompanied by Hans and Franziska as far as the
garden gate. At parting she raised her lowered head and said: "The good
God vill reward you for vat you have done for me. I vill zink of you
alvays and alvays. I vill go and I vill not tire. I vill seek zem and
find. _Malheur à lui!_"

Then she disappeared in the thick fog. The postman came up hurriedly
and handed Hans a letter from Kleophea addressed to her father.

Hans quietly beckoned to the man-servant: "We have a message to go
immediately to your master. How long will you need to take a letter
there?" Jean thought that with good horses he could get there by one
o'clock. At nine he drove away with a package containing Kleophea's
letter and another from Franziska;--by four o'clock the parents could
be home. They came between three and four.

Hans Unwirrsch stood at the window and saw the Privy Councillor's
mud-bespattered carriage driving up. In the house, doors were opened
and slammed; the carriage stopped, and servants rushed out, Jean
jumped down to open the door. Privy Councillor Götz stepped out first
followed by his wife, deeply veiled; she led her boy by the hand and
went into the house with a quick, noisy tread without paying any
attention to her niece who had hurried up. As he stood in front of
the door the Councillor swayed for a moment as if overcome by sudden
dizziness; he pushed Jean's arm away and gripped Franziska's hand.
Leaning on her he went slowly and unsteadily up the steps. Thus he met
Hans, past whom his wife had also swept like a tempest. He gave the
tutor his hand, which trembled as with fever. And as at that moment his
wife's bell rang sharply through the house, he grasped Fränzchen's arm
more tightly and whispered: "My poor child, poor Kleophea! It could not
have ended differently--poor Kleophea!"

With tears in his eyes Hans Unwirrsch stood at the foot of the stairs
and watched Fränzchen as she supported and led the broken man.

It was nine o'clock on the morning of the sixth of October and it was
raining so hard that all the dogs let their ears droop and put their
tails between their legs. At the corner of Grinse Street appeared the
unhappy individual who was hunting for lodgings in such weather, Mr.
Johannes Unwirrsch, candidate for the ministry, from Kröppel Street
in Neustadt. It was by no means pleasant to be turned out of doors in
such weather but in Grinse Street he found what he was seeking--an
attic room at a remarkably low price and he moved in on the spot
without making use of his right to remain in the house of Mrs. Privy
Councillor Götz till the end of the year. He fetched his belongings and
settled himself in his new quarters. If the feeling of being his own
master was not altogether without a tinge of melancholy it was still
most refreshing. When Hans sank down on a chair in front of his table
a feeling of comfort came over him such as he had not known since his
student days.

The bell that rang so shrilly through the house as Kleophea's father
staggered to his room gave the household very definite information
as to the mother's mood. Paroxysms and faints had been the first
consequence of Kleophea's letter; during the drive to town Mrs. Götz
had sat in the corner of the carriage in a state of brooding apathy;
on her arrival at home her passion had broken out into a wild fury.
Mrs. Privy Councillor Götz raged; and it was dangerous to go near her.
It was not her daughter's fate, but the _éclat_ which the dreadful
event would make, doubtless was already making, that almost drove the
mother mad. She shrieked at the tutor that it was his fault that the
disgraceful traitor, Dr. Stein, the Jew, had ever come into the house.
She gave him all the blame for the horrible scandal. Hans defended
himself to the best of his ability but it was impossible to maintain
any position of right where this woman was concerned. Utterly exhausted
he went up to his room to pack his trunk: he was to leave the house the
very next morning.

At eight o'clock the next day the Privy Councillor sent for him.
Kleophea's father had become a weak, sick man. With surprising,
heartfelt emotion he took the candidate's hand, expressed regret that
he had to leave, thanked him for the faithful service that he had
wanted to do his son, and for not having left before, as well as for
the manner in which he had represented the house. He informed Hans that
Kleophea had gone to Paris and that he had written to give her his
blessing on her marriage. He had not been able to do otherwise. As soon
as Dr. Stein should have explained his puzzling intentions more clearly
he would have to treat with his wife, as all their property was hers.

Fränzchen slipped into the room, embraced her afflicted uncle with
tears and promised to stay with him and to hold fast to him. She smiled
through her tears and her uncle kissed the little hand that lay between
his dry, cold fingers.

Then they talked of the candidate's plans, the Privy Councillor paid
him the vast sum owing him for the last term and Hans was glad that
Fränzchen was thus able to see that, in spite of his dismissal, he
would not yet be exposed to a miserable death from starvation. He
declared that he intended to spend the winter in the city as a free man
and--to write a book.

Hans left the house gladly, but he parted from these two people with a
very heavy heart.

After Hans had taken possession of his room and his trunk had received
its place in the corner, he bolted the door and counted out on the
table the fabulous sum of one hundred and twenty-five thalers. Every
piece of silver turned into one of the stones with which he built his
castle in the air and the notes did beautifully for the roof. It was
an indescribable pleasure to go out in the rain and purchase a bottle
of ink, half a ream of writing paper and the pens necessary for the
literary work.

He soon recognized, however, that he could not sit down at once
to begin the manuscript of the "Book of Hunger." Now that he was
physically at rest the tumult in his soul began and the ghosts, once
roused, made a mockery of all attempts to lay them. For three days Hans
remained locked in his room, thought over the gain and the loss of the
past year and arrived at the result that the gain exceeded the loss. On
the evening of the third day the weather improved and he went out to
get some fresh air. Naturally his way led him to Park Street past the
house of the Privy Councillor. It looked unutterably dead and lifeless
to Hans. Shivering, he hurried home and tried to begin his manuscript,
but after a good hour he laid the first page of his "book" aside with
no mark on it but three crosses that he had drawn. The next morning he
wrote one page, but tore it up again in the evening. On the twentieth
of October he tore up the first sheet of the manuscript and found
himself in a mood which did not justify "high hopes for the future." He
also counted his supply of money and gradually the conviction dawned in
his mind that one of the main wings of his castle in the air was near
collapse and that the foundation of the building was insecure.

On the twenty-first of October the postman brought him a letter
which upset him completely and made the completion of the manuscript
altogether questionable. For the second time Uncle Nik'las Grünebaum
called him to a deathbed, this time to that of faithful Auntie
Schlotterbeck. At five the next morning Hans was on his way to
Neustadt, that is to say, at this early hour, some time before the
departure of his train, he stood shivering in front of the iron garden
gate in Park Street, taking dumb leave of the Privy Councillor's house.
Fränzchen still slept and dreamt. In her dream she heard a noise like
that of the sea and some one whom she did not recognize in her dream,
said it was the sea.

The following morning Hans arrived in Neustadt. He had made the last
part of the way on foot. Now he stood in front of the door of his house
and stared into the hall and saw four candles burning round a coffin.
Auntie Schlotterbeck was dead and had left greetings and many messages
for him with Uncle Grünebaum. The coffin had been closed that morning
and the funeral was to be at four in the afternoon. Everything had gone
on as it should and still Hans could not comprehend that it must be so.

There was Uncle Grünebaum. At first he did not recognize his nephew;
he had become a decrepit, half childish old man, sat in the corner and
whined and asked for Auntie. It was only gradually that he came to a
clearer consciousness of the events of the last few days.

Auntie Schlotterbeck had passed away gently and without pain after
impressing on Uncle Grünebaum to tell Hans that she had loved him very,
very much, that he had always been in her thoughts, that he could never
leave her thoughts and that in her eternal life she would pray for him
that it might go well with him in his life on earth. Moreover, she had
said to tell him that the thing about which he was now worrying would
end well though she could not say in what way.

A remarkable number of people accompanied Auntie Schlotterbeck to the
grave and Hans led Uncle Grünebaum directly behind the hearse. After
the funeral many came to shake hands with the mourners.

When Johannes and his uncle were once more at home Uncle Grünebaum sat
down in Auntie Schlotterbeck's armchair and went to sleep with grief
and fatigue.

For the first time Hans was left to himself and sat looking about in
the room. His father's glass globe was in its place and the rays of the
evening sun fell upon it. In the dusk Uncle Grünebaum suddenly rose
up out of his chair, called all shoemakers together in a strangely
uncanny voice, took farewell of Hans, greeted Auntie Schlotterbeck and
collapsed as he spoke the words: "Amen, the boot is finished." He had
followed Auntie Schlotterbeck.

And again Hans stood on God's acre, but this time he was quite alone.
The few who had followed the hearse had dispersed. Beneath the mounds
lay the guardians of his youth and he would have liked to go down after
them into the depths.

But out of the gloom and the depression that surrounded him there came
a gentle figure. This figure held him back and for her sake he said
that his time was not yet come.

A schoolfellow who had studied law settled the matter of Hans' property
for him. The house in Kröppel Street was put up at auction, the
movables were sold; he kept nothing but the glass globe. The day came
when Hans Unwirrsch had nothing more to do in his native town. The
attorney accompanied him to the post-house, saw him drive away and a
quarter of an hour later thought of him no more.

Hans arrived in Grinse Street in the middle of the night and the next
morning the landlady gave him Colonel von Bullau's card which he had
left there for the candidate with a message asking him to go to the
"Green Tree" where he would learn more.

Hans appeared at the "Green Tree" before breakfast, only to hear that
Colonel von Bullau was no longer there, that the landlord knew nothing,
and that he had better come again in the evening when the other
gentlemen would be there. He did so and was greeted with a "Hullo!" by
half a dozen "slayers of nine." From the captain he learned that he
was ordered to Grunzenow, to Comrade Götz, that the colonel had wanted
to take him with him at once and had been not a little put out at not
finding him in his burrow. They were to send him on. He might do a good
deed for Comrade Götz, who seemed to be tied to his chair and to be in
great distress on account of the little girl, his niece, whom he had
brought from Paris a few years before.

To Grunzenow, to Grunzenow! All Hans' exhaustion had disappeared. Yes,
that was the right thing, to go to Grunzenow, to Lieutenant Rudolf.
There advice and help were to be had; that was the starting point from
which to untangle all these knots. The "Hunger Pastor" had not been so
light-hearted for a long time as in this hour.

The same evening he told his landlady of his intended journey. He also
made a vain attempt to see the Privy Councillor. Jean answered him
insolently, his master was not at home. The card which he left did not
reach its destination either.

This time the candidate's way was northeasterly and however fast the
wheels of the cars went round they did not take hungry Hans forward
quickly enough. He longed with too great a longing for Grunzenow and
the gouty old "beggar lieutenant." Toward the end of the second day he
reached a small town in a bleak, unfruitful, heather-covered region.
Why it should have been called Freudenstadt was more than anyone had
been able to discover. This was as far as the "Post" went with which
Hans had traveled since the morning. Hans was able to get a carriage
from the landlord of the "Polish Buck" where Colonel von Bullau
sometimes came, but he walked the last part of the way, toward the sea.
Louder and louder sounded the voice of the sea. He climbed one more
hill and it lay before him spread out in the pale evening light and the
fog swallowed up the horizon and rolled across the water to the bleak
shore on which, farther down below to the right, the lights in the
cottage windows of Grunzenow gleamed red.

Hans had not imagined the sea thus. In his dreams it had appeared
to him in broad daylight, immeasurable, shining with the greatest
brilliance known on earth;--and now this too was different, but still
he was so overpowered that he had to press his hand to his heart and
his breath choked him.

Hans was met at the big gate of the castle of Grunzenow, in which it
looked barbarous enough, by Colonel von Bullau, who took him across a
rather extensive court, up a broad stairway and with one push of his
hand landed him in the middle of the apartment where Lieutenant Götz
and an aged, clerical gentleman were sitting at a table covered with
glasses and cards.

The lieutenant had changed very much, he had grown much older in the
short time. His legs were packed up in cushions and covers and his left
foot rested heavily on a low footstool. Impatiently he asked for news
of his child, his Fränzchen. The colonel introduced the candidate to
the vicar, Pastor Josias Tillenius. Old Josias' step was firm; his eyes
were still keen and clear, his face was rather reddish to be sure, but
his hair was the whiter on that account. He was a real seamen's pastor
and well able to stand a good gale; he was in thorough keeping with the
seasoned colonel and Lieutenant Rudolf. They were a curious trio and
the housekeeping too was odd and mad enough.

[Illustration: THE LOVER OF CACTI

_Permission Franz Hanfstaengl_ KARL SPITZWEG]

The lieutenant reproached Hans bitterly for not having taken care of
Fränzchen, for having let the wolf into the house and then, after
the Jew had made off with Kleophea, for not having made a stand but
allowing himself to be driven away, and for having shaken the dust
off his feet. Hans defended himself like a man, declared that the
lieutenant had thrown him into all the confusion and trouble, had
expected him to play a part without telling him what it was, had never
explained why he had spoken so harshly of Hans' boyhood companion. He
went on to say that the lieutenant was wholly to blame and that his
niece must have thought him, the tutor, as deceitful and hypocritical
as Moses Freudenstein. The lieutenant had made Hans wretched and
unhappy beyond measure and was not entitled to ask the latter for more
justification than he himself was ready to give. In this speech Hans
Unwirrsch of Kröppel Street showed that he had not spent his years of
apprenticeship in vain. The three had laid aside their clay pipes and
stared at the speaker as if they were looking at something perfectly
new.

The lieutenant gave a deep-drawn sigh, took Hans' hand and said that he
would gladly ask his forgiveness if he had unknowingly done him wrong.
He asked him to tell him the next day exactly how life had gone with
him in his brother's house. Deeply touched Hans clasped the trembling
hand. He had still so much to say to the old man. He had to tell him
that he must thank him on his knees for all the trouble, care, all
the discord, grief and pain that he had laid upon his soul. He had to
tell him that he, the hungry Hans Unwirrsch, had to thank him, the
faithful old Eckart, Rudolf Götz, for his finest, noblest hunger, his
finest, noblest longing. He had so much to tell him about himself and
Fränzchen, but it could not be done then; the right moment had not yet
come.

Weeks now passed in which Candidate Unwirrsch became better acquainted
with the sea, the village of Grunzenow, Colonel von Bullau and Pastor
Josias Tillenius, and in which he had to answer hundreds and hundreds
of questions put to him by Lieutenant Rudolf Götz. Colonel von Bullau
showed him the scenery of the wild region; Pastor Tillenius taught him
to know the people who inhabited this arid, unfruitful soil, who lived
solely on what they could wrest from the grasp of the sea, and whom
the constant, hard, dangerous struggle with the grim and changeable
moods of that element had made so serious, silent, harsh and enduring.
It almost seemed like a dream to the candidate that he had wanted to
write a "Book of Hunger" surrounded by the atmosphere and brilliance
of green meadows and hopeful cornfields. Now he stood in an entirely
different world, where to be a pastor would indeed be to "preach in the
wilderness" and the hard ground beneath his feet gave forth an entirely
different tone from that of the sacred soil of Neustadt or the hardwood
floors and the pavements of the great city.

Hans came to be a daily visitor in the pastor's house. He found old
Josias closely veiled in tobacco smoke, well wrapped up in his dressing
gown, eagerly looking through ancient folios for ancient theology so
as to keep up with the current. The old man had seen and lived through
much in his youth as he had gone out as an army chaplain against the
French in 1793. Bullau and Tillenius had lain together in front of many
a camp fire; later they sat with each other at an indoor fireside.
The owner of the castle felt just as comfortable sitting by the stove
in the pastor's house as the pastor felt at the castle fireside, and
the nomadic Lieutenant Götz completed the trio and the comfort, and
he was very much missed when his restless blood drove him abroad. In
the course of the pastor's long life and ministry he had gradually
built up, without suspecting it, his own theology, his own system as
regarded views of the world and of God and there were things in it
which caused the candidate to look up, often with emotion, often with
astonishment, very often with amazement. It was as if he were looking
into a mirror when Hans Unwirrsch looked into the life of this aged man
whose colleagues farther back in the rich fertile country called him
the "Hunger Pastor," thus giving him in earnest the same name that Dr.
Théophile Stein, in Mrs. Götz's drawing room, had once bestowed in fun
on the friend of his youth.

On the nineteenth of December Lieutenant Götz read in the paper
that Privy Councillor Götz had died of a shock on the tenth. His
excitement and agitation on Fränzchen's account were great. At Colonel
von Bullau's urgent suggestion Hans was sent to bring the child to
Grunzenow after he had confessed that he loved Fränzchen and would
cling to her as to nothing else in the world.

At first Lieutenant Rudolf had not known whether to laugh or to cry,
to bless or to curse. But the pastor had laid his hand on his shoulder
and said: "I should simply let him go and fetch his Fränzchen; he
shall be my assistant in the 'Hunger parish'; their children shall
keep our graves green." At parting the old man drew Hans' attention
to the peculiar conditions under which one had to labor in the parish
of Grunzenow; he pointed out to him that he must be patient and stout
of heart who on this dreary shore, where even one's sermons had to
echo the voices of the sea, would be a true shepherd for the lonely
fisherfolk, and that only the holiest hunger for love could make a man
strong enough for that place on earth. And Hans, who had given his
heart to Fränzchen Götz, now gave his soul to the hungry shores of
Grunzenow.

On the evening of the second day of his journey Hans reached the city.
He went first to the house in Park Street but not a single window was
lighted. Full of agitation he sought the "slayers of nine" in the
"Green Tree" and from them he learnt that Franziska Götz was no longer
in her aunt's house; she had left it or had had to leave it on the day
of her uncle's funeral. The widow with her little boy had retired to
the house of a very old and very pious relative and there was a rumor
that she was much dissatisfied with the world and not in the best of
humor. We cannot describe how the candidate spent the rest of this
night.

Nevertheless he rang the bell in Park Street early the next morning,
but the house remained dumb and dead. Only the postman came with a
letter from Kleophea which he dropped back into his leather bag with a
shrug of the shoulders. It was addressed to Kleophea's father and bore
the postmark, Paris.

At police headquarters Hans learnt that Franziska Götz now lived at 34
Annen Street, fourth floor, with a widow named Brandauer, a laundress.

A quarter of an hour later he was sitting in silence beside Fränzchen,
with both of her hands in his and the most important thing had been
said: he had even kissed the girl. They had so much to say to each
other that could not be told in a day or a week or a month. Fränzchen
related that on the third day after Kleophea's flight her mother had
come out of her apartments again, had forbidden anyone to mention her
daughter's name in her hearing and in full sight of the household had
torn up the letter Kleophea had written just after she left. She had
done with her child forever.

Kleophea had written to Fränzchen and parts of her letter sounded
forced and embarrassed; she begged her to kiss Papa and to tell him
that she thought of him "so much, so much." She did not speak of her
mother once and there was no mention of Dr. Stein till just at the end.

Franziska too had written with a bleeding heart to Kleophea about her
father and mother and asked her cousin never to forget in case of need
that Fränzchen was still there to feel with her, to suffer with her, to
comfort and if possible to help.

Then they talked of Uncle Theodor's death. On the ninth of December at
eight o'clock in the morning Jean had found his master fully dressed
in his black frock coat, with his white tie, sitting at his writing
table, dead. On the table under his cold hand which in its cold grasp
still held the pen lay a sheet of paper on which were the words: "I
forgive----" Death had overtaken him before he could write whom and
what he forgave.

It was a miracle of miracles to sit thus hand in hand high up in Annen
Street at Mrs. Brandauer's, while it began to snow again. In spite
of the fresh graves, in spite of poor Kleophea, Hans and Fränzchen
became more and more permeated with the secure calm of happiness. Frau
Brandauer asked Hans to stay to dinner and it turned out that there
was nothing to prevent Fränzchen from following Hans to Grunzenow the
next day on the noon train. And at that hour next day they were really
sitting side by side in the train.

It was the twenty-fourth of December. That was the right day on which
to be hurrying toward home. The post-coach and the way to Freudenstadt
were, in truth, enchanted. There at the door of the old post-house
stood Colonel von Bullau and welcomed with a hurrah the child of
Lieutenant Rudolf's heart, his darling, his pet, Fränzchen Götz. An
opulent lunch was waiting in the "Polish Buck" and then with a joyful
hurrah off they went over the smooth course to Grunzenow. In the castle
they had "let in the womenfolk" who had ruled for three days with
torrents of water and broomsticks. Now everything was ready. A gigantic
snowman stood in the court and kept watch in front of a portal of honor
made of evergreens and bearing a transparency that bade Fränzchen and
Candidate Unwirrsch welcome. The little room in the vicarage which
the future assistant Hans Unwirrsch was to occupy had also been swept
and scrubbed and arranged for him. Then came the hour when all the
Christmas trees in Germany blazed with light--the right hour in which
to move into a new life with joy-filled, grateful hearts. The gate of
the castle of Grunzenow stood wide open. Grimly the lanterns burned in
the eyes and mouth of the snowman--welcome! shouted the triumphal arch
in fiery letters--welcome! roared the rough voices of the servants. The
cannon crashed, the dogs barked--Lieutenant Rudolf Götz held his child
in his arms and nearly crushed and smothered her.

There was the grand old hall of the house of Grunzenow! The tile stoves
radiated heat,--an enormous Christmas tree shone in the light of a
hundred wax candles--Christmas, Christmas! The house of Grunzenow had
not seen such a Christmas for a hundred years.

Fränzchen Götz sat under the Christmas tree surrounded by the three old
men, and it was a pretty scene; Hans Unwirrsch smiled, but he smiled
through tears. If next morning he should not wake in Grinse Street the
circle of his happiness would be complete.]

CHAPTER XXXIV

It was the sea and not the great city that roared beneath Hans
Unwirrsch's windows next morning; but at first he would not believe it.
Long before he awoke the sound of the sea penetrated his slumber and
he dreamt curious things. All night long he had had to defend himself
against the strange seething and roaring that rose in the distance and,
swelling as it approached, threatened to suffocate him. All night long
he fought against this mysterious something, this tumult of thousands
and thousands of voices in which his own voice died away as feebly as
the voice of a child crying for help in the midst of a wild tornado. It
was like being set free when he finally awoke and could no longer doubt
that he heard the sea and not the noise of the world through which the
course of his life had led him.

After he fully realized that he was under the roof of the vicarage in
Grunzenow and not in Grinse Street, or, indeed, in the house in Park
Street, he lay for some time with half-closed eyes and gave himself
up to the rapturous feeling of certain happiness and the sweetly
melancholy thoughts and memories that are always so inseparably bound
up with that feeling. The moment that shows a man what he has gained
also teaches him to realize what he has lost most clearly. How many
faithful hearts and warm hands we always miss in our happiest hours!

It was still quite dark when Hans awoke, only the snow brightened the
night a little. Hans did not need to offer the shades of the dead a
draught of blood to give them voices; he did not need to call them,
they came voluntarily;--and he gave an account of himself to them on
this Christmas morning.

A bent, lean man with a mild, earnestly cheerful face stood before his
mental vision--Master Anton Unwirrsch, who had had such intense hunger
for the light and who wanted to complete in his son his life, his
wishes and hopes. "Oh Father," said Johannes, "I have traveled the path
that you showed me and have labored hard to grasp the truth. I have
erred much and despondency and faintheartedness have often taken hold
of me--I have not been able to advance with steady steps. The world
has been to me too great a wonder for me to be able to catch boldly
and carelessly at its veils and coverings as others do;--it seemed to
me too serious and solemn for me to be able to meet it with smiles as
others do. Oh Father, any man that comes out of such a lowly house as
ours cannot be blamed if he traverses the first part of his way with
shyness and hesitation, if he is dazzled by trifles, if deceptive
mirages confuse him, if a will o' the wisp leads him astray. Father,
whoever comes out from under such a low roof as ours must have a strong
heart in good and in evil so that, after the first few steps upward, he
does not turn back and continue his dark life in the depths. Even the
first knowledge and experience that he gains serve only to destroy the
harmony of his being; they do not make him happy. In addition to all
other doubts they awaken in him doubt of himself. Oh Father, Father, it
is hard to be a true man and to give to everything its proper measure;
but whoever is born in the depths with this yearning is more likely
to attain it than those who awake to life halfway up the slope and to
whom both height and depth remain equally unknown and indifferent.
The liberators of mankind rise from the depths; and just as springs
come from deep down in the earth to make the land fruitful so too the
soil of humanity is eternally refreshed from the depths. Oh, Father,
man has nothing better than this painful aspiration for the heights!
Without it he remains forever of the earth, earthy; in this aspiration
and by means of it he raises himself above all serfdom to the dust;
in it he extends his hand to all heavenly powers, however little he
may attain; in it he stands though it be on the tiniest spot of earth,
in the narrowest circle, as the ruler of the most unlimited region,
as the ruler of himself. Doubt too is gain in his life and pain is
ennobling--often more ennobling than happiness, than joy. Father, I
have gone my way in unrest; but I have found the truth, I have learnt
to distinguish the sham from the genuine, the semblance from the
reality. I no longer fear the things of the world; for love stands at
my side;--Father, bless your son on his future way and ask for him that
the hunger which has guided him till now may never leave him as long as
he lives."

Hans talked to all his dead on that dark Christmas morning before the
dawn came. They passed him in a long procession and he thanked each
for whatever he had received from him on his life's way. It was no
wonder that his mother, little Sophie, the charity school teacher Karl
Silberlöffel, Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Nikolaus Grünebaum should
pass by and nod to him smiling; but it was almost a wonder how many
other people came forth out of the darkness to claim their part in his
growth and development. It was a wonder how many places had contributed
to the forming of his mind, how far back lay the point of departure of
every emotion of his soul. In those moments Hans realized for the first
time how rich his life had been, what wealth he was taking with him out
of the sunken world of his youth, out of the sunken world of Neustadt
which Auntie Schlotterbeck and Uncle Grünebaum had taken with them into
their graves, out of the sunken world of his "years of wandering" into
his new life in Grunzenow on the Baltic. Ever new, ever changing scenes
and figures rose up and passed by until at last the church bell of
Grunzenow began to ring.

The bell of Grunzenow, his new home! The bell for the Christmas
service! Hans Unwirrsch sat upright in bed and listened;--his heart
beat loud and all his pulses throbbed! All his blood rushed to his
heart and brain--Oh Fränzchen, Fränzchen!

All the feelings of his childhood had wakened in the man's breast.
Before he went downstairs he knelt and hid his face in his hands for
some minutes; he did not hear the door open behind him.

In his long, black clerical gown old Josias entered the room and
softly set down the light he carried beside the candidate's lamp. He
stood motionless as long as the little bell rang, as long as Johannes
Unwirrsch knelt beside his bed. When the bell ceased and his young
companion raised his head again he laid his hand on his shoulder and
said with feeling as he bent down to him:

"It is a happy sign to be awakened by such ringing to new work, new
cares, new life. My dear, dear son, be welcome in this poor and yet so
rich, so narrow and yet so limitless field of endeavor. God give you
strength and His blessing on this shore, among these cabins, under this
roof. God keep you in your happiness and bless you in your sorrow!"

The bell was ringing a second time as Hans, at the aged pastor's
side, mounted the steps which behind the pastor's house led up to the
churchyard of the village. The way to the church lay directly through
this churchyard and the two clergymen stopped among the white graves
and black crosses, which all wore caps of snow, to look back on the
village. The sea sounded in the darkness but in the village nearly
every window was lighted and many people were moving on the road
leading to the church. The fisherfolk came out of their cottages, up
to their church--the aged, men, women, and children. They came with
lanterns and lights and if the grown people, the elders, in passing by
greeted their pastor with cordial veneration, almost every child came
up to give him its hand; and he knew them all by name, knew the short
little stories of their lives and had a special word of endearment for
nearly every one. From time to time one of the grown people loitered on
the way or turned sidewise to set down his lantern and bend over one
of the snow-covered graves; then the pastor of Grunzenow stood at the
mourners' side and spoke softly to them, and the stars smiled in the
black winter sky and it seemed as if the sea softened its roaring.

The sexton of Grunzenow was pulling the bell-rope for the third time
when again a larger group of people entered the churchyard gate and it
was Grips who carried the lantern ahead of them. Colonel von Bullau led
Fränzchen at the head of his following in knightly fashion and, when
Hans Unwirrsch stood before him and Grips raised his lantern to light
the meeting, he said:

"This is the way a man looks who cannot say how happy he is. Here, my
young friend, here you have your maiden; I wish you joyful holidays and
much pleasure."

Hand in hand Hans and Fränzchen along with the other people of
Grunzenow, went into the little church, where the sexton was already
sitting in front of the organ. As they walked the short distance
Franziska could not tell her betrothed nor Hans his future bride how
they felt; but each knew it, nevertheless. Yet Fränzchen brought him
a heartfelt greeting from Uncle Rudolf who sat at home under the
Christmas tree with his pipe and had his Christmas thoughts as well as
everyone else.

There were certainly a hundred lights illuminating the little church;
no one had put out his little lamp on entering and the gathering of
this community on the shore of the sea was wonderfully solemn.

Candidate Unwirrsch with his betrothed and Colonel von Bullau sat down
on one of the front benches close to the altar and pulpit and, joining
in the gruff chorus of fishermen's voices, sang the old Christmas
hymn through to the end; until, as the last tones of the organ and
the singing died away, the Reverend Josias Tillenius went up into
his pulpit to preach his Christmas sermon; until all the sunburnt,
weather-beaten and wind-seared faces of the men, all the women's
earnest faces and the children's eyes were raised to their faithful
and venerable adviser and comforter. And not one of the famous and
popular speakers whom Hans had heard in the great city, not one of
the celebrated professors who had given him such good precepts at the
university could have spoken more fittingly than did the aged vicar of
the hunger parish of Grunzenow, to whom the library of his predecessors
had remained a perplexing maze, and the modern science of theology a
book with seven seals.

His greeting to his congregation was that of the angels than which
there is no more beautiful one in the world: "Glory to God in the
highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men." Then he wished them
all happiness on that holy festival, the young and the old, the aged
and the children; and he was right when he once said to Hans Unwirrsch
that it was a strange thing for a pastor if his sermons had to echo the
voices of the sea. He spoke of the good and the evil that had come to
pass since that day had been celebrated a year before; he spoke of what
might come before the bells rang for another Christmas. He had a word
for those who were mourning and for those to whom joy had been given.
Unlike his brother pastors farther inland who, like him, were now
standing in their pulpits, he could not draw his similes from the work
of the tiller of the soil; he could not speak of sowing and blossoming,
reaping and fading;--it was the sea that sounded in his words.

He spoke of those members of his parish who were now in foreign parts,
of whom it was not known whether they were alive or dead: the earth,
from the north pole to the south pole, had to find a place in his
sermon. He spoke of those from whom nothing had been heard for a long
time, whose places by the fireside had been vacant for years, called
two weeping mothers by name and comforted them with the promise that no
one, no one, could be lost, however wide the world, as it was written
that God held the sea in the hollow of his hand. He spoke of the great
Christmas tree of eternity under which all the people on earth would be
gathered in days to come.

Hans Unwirrsch thought of the sermons of hunger which he had tried
to write in Grinse Street, by the publication of which he had hoped
to make a name for himself and to touch and uplift thousands. Now he
bowed his head before this old man's discourse which was certainly not
ready for publication and yet penetrated to the inmost hearts of his
auditors. Fränzchen, at his side, wept, from time to time; Colonel von
Bullau cleared his throat very noticeably and mumbled something in his
gray beard; the fisher folk sighed and sobbed;--Candidate Unwirrsch had
no more time to go on thinking about his manuscript and Grinse Street.

Reverend Josias Tillenius had drawn near to the Christmas tree of every
cottage in his village; now he suddenly stood in the shade of the
tree of universal history through the branches of which the star of
the annunciation shone down on the manger in Bethlehem. In a simple,
impressive manner he told his congregation what things on earth were
like when the angels brought down their greeting from heaven. He told
about the city of Rome and the Roman Emperor Augustus, about the proud
temples, the proud sages, warriors and poets. He spoke of how at that
time the sun, moon and stars went on their way as blessedly as on the
day when he was speaking, how the earth bore its fruits and the sea
gave up its treasures. He told how human affairs were then ordered very
much as now: how tribute was asked and given, how the lakes, rivers and
sea were covered with the ships, how the country roads were full of
wanderers and the marketplaces were full of merchants. He spoke of how
then, even as in their own day, the wealth of the nations was carried
back and forth, and then--then he spoke of the great hunger of the
world.

The beautiful figures of the gods in the magnificent temples were
false images that had no life. The priests who served them laughed at
them and at the people who knelt before them, but the sages and the
wise were ashamed of both gods and priests. The world had become a
chaos without strength and stay. Man could not find peace either in his
heart or in his house or out in the market-place. In the Roman Empire
humanity had become lost in itself, it lay in chains beneath the purple
mantle that covered its bruised and bleeding limbs; the sky was dark
above it and the radiance of its golden diadem was but the livid light
of the night of death. In spite of life's magnificence and commotion,
the earth had come to be without form and void as before the creation.
Pastor Josias Tillenius said this in words which his people understood.
No one dared stir; only the quicker breathing of the listeners was
heard and when Margarethe Jörenson, a great-grandmother of nearly a
hundred years, the only person who slept in that assembly and who,
according to a former order of the pastor's must not be awakened under
any circumstances, let her big hymn-book slip from her lap and fall to
the floor, a sudden shock passed through every heart and the hardened
men of the sea started.

"Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, good will toward men!"
It was as if these words broke the spell that lay upon the people of
Grunzenow as they had once broken the fetters of all mankind.

The star of redemption stood above the stable in Bethlehem; the Saviour
had been born into the world of hunger; the man of sorrows, the son
of man, the son of God who was to take the sin of man upon him, had
appeared, and the poor shepherds came running from the field, not to
be followed till later by the kings and the wise men, to greet the
child in the manger, this child which came just in time to be included
in the census of the population of the Roman Empire which the Emperor
Augustus had ordered. Now the time was fulfilled and the kingdom of God
had come. Hungry mankind stretched out its hands for the "bread that
comes from heaven and gives life to the world." The heaven above which
had been so dark and drear opened above the children of the earth: all
the nations saw the great light,--humanity tore the crown from its
humiliated head and threw the purple mantle from its shoulders. It was
no longer ashamed of its bleeding wounds, its bruised and fettered
limbs,--it knelt and listened. "Truth!" was the jubilant cry from the
rising of the sun, and from the going down thereof the joyful answer
was "Freedom!" "Love!" sang the angels about the hut in which Mary,
she of the house of David, and Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth,
showed the shepherds the child that had been born in the night. And now
Pastor Josias Tillenius showed it to the children of the village; for
the festival of Christmas is the true festival for the young to whom
the sublime Easter Day can bear no message until the first great grief
has touched their souls. And as the old preacher was thus speaking of
Christmas to the children the new day dawned. Its first pale light was
seen through the windows of the little church and the lanterns and wax
candles grew dim before the rosy glow that suffused the winter sky.
Again the organ pealed, the congregation of Grunzenow sang the final
verse of the Christmas hymn, the service was over.

Hans and Fränzchen stood in the churchyard beside the preacher and the
old Colonel and all the people of Grunzenow who passed them on the way
down again into the village nodded to them or came up to shake hands
and welcome them to their midst. The sky grew redder and redder, the
lights of the village disappeared in the dawn as had the lights in
the church. The organ ceased, the sexton too came, smiling shyly, to
congratulate Candidate Unwirrsch. The day came but the voice of the sea
did not die away.

The last inhabitants of the village had gone; Pastor Josias Tillenius
looked at the betrothed couple and then said:

"Come, Colonel, you will have to lend me your arm as usual. The young
people will be able to find their way alone, I am sure."

Colonel von Bullau looked at Hans and Fränzchen and drew his old
friend's hand through his arm.

And now the pastor and Colonel von Bullau had left the churchyard
like the rest of the people. Hans and his betrothed stood alone among
the snow-covered graves. They stood and held each other in a close
embrace. The same thought occurred to them both at the same moment,
that the time would come when they, too, should lie there in the little
churchyard and sleep; but they smiled and did not wish themselves away.

Labor and love! this was the thought that thrilled their hearts and
they knew that they had been given both. The day came up clear from the
east; the fog parted above the sea,--the sea sang of freedom, the sun
sang of truth; and the world did not belong to Dr. Théophile Stein, who
had once been Moses Freudenstein: Johannes and Franziska stood over the
graves of the poor little village of Grunzenow and in their love they
feared neither life nor death.

CHAPTER XXXV

                            _Autumn!_

    To the loftiest heights
    I wished to soar,
    Each nethermost depth
    I hoped to explore.
    Things near and far
    I craved to behold,
    Each mystic secret
    I fain would unfold.
    A boundless roaming,
    A hope unwaning
    An endless seeking,
    A never-attaining--
          Such was my life.

    But now, oh wonder!
    It has been done,
    A blissful dream
    I now have won.
    From a narrow circle,
    Why should I depart?
    I hold life's fullness
    Confined in my heart.
    Soft veils of azure
    Sank down from above.
    A magic circle
    Of heavenly love
          Now is my life.

These rhymes, together with disconnected sentences in prose, fragments
of thought of all kinds, bits of Greek and Hebrew script and other
scribbled notes, were all on one and the same page. And this page lay
on the writing table of Assistant Pastor Unwirrsch, and Assistant
Pastor Unwirrsch sat in front of it, rested his forehead in his hand
and looked through the open window at the sea which glistened beneath
the veiled sunlight and on which little white dots--the sails of the
fishing boats of Grunzenow--glided back and forth.

Autumn!

On Christmas morning of the year before Hans and Fränzchen had gone
down from the mist-covered churchyard into a quiet, happy time of
labor and love. Under the loving touch of the young girl life had
changed very much for the better in the Grunzenow mansion and soon the
uncouth people of the village would have gone through fire and water
for their young lady. The old gentlemen in the picture frames did not
turn their darkened visages to the wall; a little more and Grips would
now have declared that they were laughing just as if their ladies were
not hanging beside them. Grips had fallen under Fränzchen's spell as
had every inhabitant of the village and castle; the spell was cast
upon him, as he said, and to his praise we must say that he endured
this sorcery with grim cheerfulness and that he never lost more of his
martial gravity than when he heard the young lady's voice in pleading
or thanks, or when her little hand beckoned.

If the servants had thus succumbed to the magic influence it can
easily be imagined how easy "the child" made the existence of the
Colonel and her uncle. Once more Colonel von Bullau had "not thought
it would be like that;" he was happy and only a little jealous of the
lieutenant who was more than happy. It was touching to see and to feel
how tenderly the two old soldiers treated the girl, how one tried to
surpass the other in consideration and attention and how the "pet" had
to protest to prevent them from carrying the whole Grunzenow mansion
to another place on her account. The Colonel's head hummed and buzzed
with the most wonderful plans and suggestions for making the neglected
place into a Paradise; every night something occurred to him and every
morning he came out with something which was not always as highly
practical, pleasant and easily carried out as he imagined. Grips, the
ingenious man and factotum, had never stood as high in his master's
esteem as now. Every few minutes demands were made upon his talent for
painting, cabinet making, gardening and the art of decoration; Colonel
von Bullau himself developed a sense of color and painted the most
impossible things with the gayest colors possible. Never before had his
castle been so much his home; it made him forget not only the Polish
Buck in Freudenstadt, but even the "slayers of nine" in their corner.

Lieutenant Rudolf's fur boots were carried up to the smoke house so
that they might be protected from moths, the wheel chair was trundled
into the storeroom, the gout took its departure and went to stay with
people who were more worthy of its visit. The lieutenant marched about
as briskly as a youth and enjoyed his Fränzchen and enjoyed his life;
the cheerful present made it easy for him to forget all the trouble of
the past. He had mourned for his brother and at the same time rejoiced
in his release; of Kleophea he seldom spoke but when he did so it was
never with hatred but with pity and gentle excuses. Only when the
names of his sister-in-law and Théophile were mentioned did he fly
into a rage and snort with wrath, anger and contempt; but the widow
of the Privy Councillor Götz, _née_ von Lichtenhahn, and Dr. Stein
were not often spoken of in Grunzenow. The old gentleman's feelings
and utterances in respect to his niece's fiancé were very changeable
at first and it was not until the season of long days came that they
became confirmed in equable good humor. If he was a little jealous of
the Colonel he was very jealous indeed of poor Hans. The smiling god
who had so splendidly followed suit when the sly old man had so subtly
put his card into the game, certainly smiled once more at the psychic
process through which Lieutenant Rudolf now passed. His unlimited
amazement was followed by long-winded doubting astonishment at himself
and the world; his wise recognition that what is done cannot be undone
was followed by the usual philosophic attempts to see the matter in
the right and best light possible. It was not until about the time of
the vernal equinox that Uncle Rudolf reached the same point in his
argumentations as Uncle Grünebaum in similar cases, namely that he did
not hesitate boldly to maintain to himself and the world that he had
brought Candidate Hans Unwirrsch from Kohlenau and introduced him into
his brother's house for the very purpose that he might fall in love
with Fränzchen and Fränzchen with him. While climbing in this way the
ladder of victory over himself, his cheerfulness and contentment grew
so much with the growing days of the young year that when the longest
day came it would have been as impossible for them to increase further
as it was for the days themselves.

Autumn!--In the verses which stand at the head of this chapter Hans
has really said everything that he could say about his _vita nuova_ on
the shores of the Baltic; but even if he now no longer "departed from
a narrow circle," still, it was not a narrow life. He had longed so
much for real, thorough work; now he had his full share of it and did
his duty as a true man should. After the most reverend chief consistory
and the government had approved his appointment as assistant pastor,
the aged Tillenius smilingly loaded a good part of his official burden
upon Hans' back and the latter had never taken any load upon himself
more readily. Although he came from inland the sea-faring folk were
satisfied with his sermons and grew to love him. He baptized the first
child, laid the first body in the earth and married the first couple
and it was very seldom that Pastor Josias Tillenius had to tell him
that neither he, himself, nor the people of Grunzenow had understood
him, their Assistant Pastor.

He had never experienced such a spring and such a summer as in this
first blessed year of his life in Grunzenow. All the glories of a dream
did not equal the reality of those golden days of love and hope on the
shore of the Baltic. He looked into life clearly and courageously;
whatever indecision and instability nature and fate had laid in his
character he sought to thrust away from him with a manly will. All he
had to thank fortune for he sought to deserve and more than deserve
by faithful endeavor and earnest striving. The indefinite hunger
of his youth had now become the quiet, deliberate, steady endeavor
that, active in millions, keeps mankind in its course and leads it
on. Johannes Unwirrsch had learnt to know life, both its good and its
evil side. Now all the circles through which he had wandered with all
their figures, charming and terrible, had sunk into the past; he stood
in the middle of a sphere which his activity was to fill. It was not
indifferent to him that no tie bound him to his home town any longer,
that he could bring nothing with him from Kröppel Street into his new
life but sweet, melancholy remembrance and the shining glass globe
which had formerly hung above his father's table. This glass globe now
threw its brilliance on the life which Master Anton Unwirrsch had built
up in his dreams of the true life on earth; but no generation extends
far enough into the coming generations to see fulfilled its ideals
which by that time are seldom the only ones.

Autumn!

The days of spring and of summer were past; but the autumn sun shone
as lovely as ever and land and sea rejoiced in it. Nevertheless the
Assistant Pastor at the open window had the right to disregard it in
spite of all its glory; it was the seventh of September and on the next
day, the eighth, a Sunday, his wedding was to take place. He had not
made those rhymes in the moment in which he scribbled them down among
the other fragments of thought.

Pastor Tillenius had chosen and fixed the wedding day; with art and
diplomacy Pastor Tillenius had cajoled Uncle Rudolf and Colonel von
Bullau into giving their consent and had held them to their promise
when the two old gentlemen had wanted to take it back and not give up
"their girl." Pastor Tillenius, backed by the apostolic principle: a
bishop must be the husband of one wife--had held the field against the
two obstinate, stubborn old soldiers. It was settled that Fränzchen was
to leave the Grunzenow mansion and move to the vicarage;--Fränzchen
herself had also given her consent and after all that was the most
important thing.

Autumn! What was all the rapture of spring and summer compared with
the bliss that autumn promised to give? It seemed as if all the birds
of passage must stay to join in the celebration of the wedding and the
honeymoon.

After the Grunzenow household had once resigned itself to the
inevitable, it took infinite pleasure in the necessity and threw itself
into the preparations for the festive day with an eagerness that
surpassed everything. The Colonel was in a mild fever day and night,
the lieutenant in a similar condition; but great indeed was Grips, the
man for everything.

Who can find praise enough for the man's dexterous hand? Now it boxed
the ears of a too stupid stable-boy; now, with deliberation, it drove
in a nail on which to hang a self-twined garland. Grips had learnt
something during his campaigns.

The village was stirring too. Old and young wanted to do their part
toward making the eighth of September a day to be remembered in the
annals of Grunzenow. For weeks beforehand the women and girls were
busy, for weeks the sexton, who was teaching the children the wedding
cantata, slept badly with inward excitement and too vivid dreams of
success and glory, of failure, disgrace and shame.

Pastor Josias Tillenius composed his wedding address and as he gave to
it the most beautiful although the saddest memories of his own life,
and all of his good, full, old heart, it turned out admirably without
being written down or learnt by heart.

On the seventh of September all the preparations were ended: meat and
drink were not lacking in the Grunzenow house; the columns and pillars
were festooned, the doors stood open to let the wedding joy in and the
bride out.

    "Soft veils of azure
    Sank down from above.
    A magic circle
    Of heavenly love
          Now is my life,"

these were the words that the bridegroom had written on the bescribbled
page in his study in the vicarage. Everything was ready and Fränzchen
softly laid her hand on Hans' shoulder, glanced smilingly at the paper
in front of him and led him out of the house to her favorite spot on
the seashore.

It was a height where, between stones and the shifting sands of the
dunes, low bushes and a few taller trees, curiously torn by the wind,
struggled with laborious persistency to wring their existence from the
hard soil, to defend it against the drifting sand and the storms. It
was a lonely spot where one could hold communion with land and sea,
with the clouds and gulls, with one's own thoughts. There Grips had
built Fränzchen a simple seat and there, on the eve of the wedding, sat
Hans Unwirrsch and Franziska Götz and spoke of their own fate and of
Kleophea and watched the sun go down.

They spoke much of Kleophea while they looked at the sea above which
the fog had closed in after the beautiful brilliant day. Poor Kleophea
had entirely disappeared; no answer had come to any of the letters that
Fränzchen had written in the course of the year. They knew nothing of
her--it was so strange that just on this evening her image should keep
ever rising before them anew, that their thoughts would not remain
centred on their own happiness. Hans and Franziska did not know that
the ship that bore Kleophea Stein was gliding along behind the gray
fog that was rising on the waves. They did not know that Kleophea was
at sea when, on the following day Pastor Josias Tillenius joined their
hands for time and eternity!

On the eighth of September the sun would not come out from behind the
clouds all day. On the evening before it had gone down, as the sea-folk
say, "in a bag" and that meant dull weather for the next few days. It
was a sultry day on which not a breath of air stirred, on which the
same sad gray covered heaven and earth, on which one might have wished
for a heavy shower if it had not been a wedding day.

It did not rain on Fränzchen's bridal wreath, it did not rain on Pastor
Tillenius's excellent words, it did not rain on the grim emotion of
Uncle Rudolf and Colonel von Bullau, it did not rain on the jubilance
of the mansion and the village of Grunzenow. Johannes Unwirrsch and
Franziska Götz gave each other their hands as they had already given
each other their hearts; after the pastor's address Lieutenant Götz
made a speech at the table and, following the peal of the organ and the
sexton's cantata, came the musicians from Freudenstadt whom Colonel
von Bullau had had fetched in a farm wagon to play merry dance music.
The Colonel entertained the whole village in his castle and as _Major
domus_ and _arbiter elegantiarum_ Grips did not show himself as he was
but as what he could be: amiable, obliging, tender toward the fair,
courteous toward the strong sex.

They danced in the great hall and there was endless applause when the
Colonel opened the ball with the young bride. It was a pleasure to look
into the Lieutenant's radiant eyes; it was a pleasure to watch Pastor
Josias Tillenius talking to Mother Jörenson; and it was a particular
pleasure to see how the Assistant Pastor and bridegroom Hans Unwirrsch
fell a victim to the dizzy goddess Terpsichore and to use an expression
of the experienced seamen who were present, "lurched and pitched"
through the room. The oldest people, even the great-grandmother
Margarethe Jörenson could not remember another such day; the enjoyment
rose from moment to moment and carried old and young with it; half
confused the bridal couple that with difficulty had found refuge in a
quiet corner, looked at the tumult.

"Fire at sea!" Who shouted that? Where had that cry come from?

"Fire at sea! Fire at sea!"--the words went through the festive throng
like an electric shock. The music broke off, the dancers stopped as if
spellbound; those who were at the refreshment tables sprang from their
chairs and the Malayan song that the old one-armed first boatswain
Stephen Groote was singing to a small appreciative circle, was
smothered in his throat.

Hans and Fränzchen too had jumped up although at first they did not
grasp the reason of the panic-like fear. The Colonel pushed his way
through the room towards the door followed by the majority of his male
guests. Those who remained behind ran about excitedly or to the windows
that looked out on the sea. Franziska seized Pastor Tillenius's arm.

"Oh, for God's sake, what is it? What has happened?"

"There, there! Truly! Oh God have mercy on them!" cried the old man who
had thrown open the window and was pointing to the water. "A ship on
fire--there, there!"

The young couple's eyes followed the trembling hand; their hearts stood
still with terrible fear--

"There! There!"

It had grown to be half dusk and the transition from the gray light of
the day had been so unnoticeable that not one of the joyful wedding
guests had thought of it. There was still no breeze to stir the haze
that hung above land and sea and completely veiled the horizon; only
those who lived on the shore could know what the red glow out there
meant; the hearts of the two children of the inland only beat the
harder because of the unknown terror.

A burning ship! Hundreds of people in the most horrible danger of
death! Their senses swam at the thought, at the hundred fearful scenes
that passed through their minds.

The Grunzenow mansion was emptied of its guests; even the women rushed
through the corridors and hurried down to the shore. When Pastor Josias
Tillenius, Hans and Fränzchen arrived at the boat landing they found
the fishermen as well as Colonel von Bullau, the Lieutenant and the
farm hands hard at work getting ready to start, while the women ran
hither and thither in feverish excitement pointing and gesticulating
toward the glow in the northwest and screaming. Hans Unwirrsch took
his place among the men and pulled and pushed with the others; the old
pastor sought to bring the women to reason or at least to calm them,
and his assistant's bride helped him to the best of her ability. In a
happy moment the wind from the south, a true angel of God, unfolded its
wings and filled the sails of the boats of Grunzenow; only the oldest
men, the women and the children remained behind on the shore while the
younger men sailed out to bring help. In the first boat to leave the
shore were the Colonel and the Assistant Pastor; Lieutenant Rudolf
Götz had sunk down completely exhausted and his niece knelt beside him
and held his white head in her lap;--but the fearful brilliance in the
distance grew more and more distinct.

"It's a steamer, or they couldn't make such headway against the wind,"
cried one of the old seamen who had had to stay behind.

"They are trying to run her ashore!" said another.

All sorts of guesses as to the course of the vessel were made. Some
thought she was from Stettin on her way to Stockholm but there were
many who were sure that was not so. Others thought it was the St.
Petersburg packet on her trip from Lübeck to Kronstadt. This view was
shared by the majority, among them Pastor Tillenius.

The boats of Grunzenow had long disappeared in the increasing darkness.
Fuel was gathered on the shore and a tremendous fire kindled and on
the shore itself as well as in the cottages preparations were made in
case the people from the burning ship should be brought home by the men
of Grunzenow.

"God bless you, my child, courageous little heart," said Pastor Josias
pressing Fränzchen's hand. "Your wedding day is having a bad end but
you are just made for the wife of a pastor of fishermen. You are
fulfilling your first duties with honor; God bless you and give you a
long, helpful, brave life!"

Lieutenant Götz was sitting on a boat that was turned upside down; his
old enemy was at him again, he held his foot in both hands and clenched
his teeth with pain.

"Yes, yes, old chap," he cried. "Here we cripples sit in the sand and
gape. Take me in your cloak, Fränzchen, carry me home and give me some
bread and sop! Sapperment, and Bullau is two years older than I!"

A scream from the crowd interrupted the Lieutenant's lamentations. The
reflection of the fire on the sea lost its brilliance rather rapidly
and suddenly went out altogether. A deep silence followed the cry
of fright; all remarks that were made now were spoken in the lowest
whisper. It was as if no one dared to breathe aloud any more.

"They are saved or--lost!" said the old pastor at length, took off his
cap and folded his hands. He repeated the prayer for the shipwrecked,
and men, women and children prayed fervently with him; and yet the
fathers of these old men who were now praying had claimed the right of
salvage in all its abominableness and had practised it.

An hour of deathly anxiety passed, then lights appeared again in the
darkness on the sea. They were the torches of the returning boats and
now everyone who still had any voice left cried out again. After half
an hour of the most painful expectation the first boat, filled to
overflowing, slid up to the landing.

"Saved! Saved! Sauvé! Sauvé!" rang the shout in German and French.
In half-mad ecstasy the first of those saved sank down and laughing
and crying convulsively, they kissed the earth, embraced and kissed
the people of Grunzenow who came up to them busily offering them all
possible refreshment and help.

Colonel von Bullau and the Assistant Pastor were not in this first
boat; but it was now learnt that the burnt vessel was the "Adelaide"
from Havre de Grâce bound for St. Petersburg with a cargo of French
wines and a few passengers. The excitement was still too great,
however, for details of the fire to be asked and given.

The men of Grunzenow had brought sixty-four unfortunate people ashore,
some of them injured; only the last fishing boat was still to come with
the Colonel and Hans Unwirrsch.

"They are bringing the captain and the women" was the answer Fränzchen
received to her anxious questions. "They must be here soon now, nothing
has happened to them."

Franziska Unwirrsch pressed her hand to her heart and turned back to
her duties. She had to act as interpreter for the French crew and the
village of Grunzenow. She moved about in the confused, wild tumult like
an angel bringing help and comfort; Uncle Rudolf, who had also not
quite forgotten his French, had lost his head to a much greater extent
than had his niece.

She was just kneeling beside a bearded, half-naked Provençal sailor who
had broken both legs when renewed shouting announced the arrival of the
last boat. In his pain the Provençal held her hands so tightly that she