CHAPTER XX.
DR. NORDSTEDT
Spring had come, and life in Eichhof had developed into just what Bernhard had foreseen. He had taken an active part in a new railway enterprise which was to bring his secluded estates more into contact with the world and to connect a great Russian branch-line with a German trunk-line. By degrees he had become a prime mover in this scheme, and when he returned to Eichhof every moment of his time and every thought of his mind were put under requisition. He had to go to Russia, and backwards and forwards to and from Berlin; guests of every social rank came to Eichhof in the interests of the new railway, a prominent banking-house had to be induced to join in the scheme, and there were all kinds of foreseen and unforeseen obstacles to be overcome. And Bernhard was wanted everywhere. A great work was to be undertaken, one that would be of immense benefit to his section of the country, and the less satisfaction Bernhard took in his home-life the more did he devote himself to these outside interests, that were to be, as he thought, so productive of good. It was natural that Julutta Wronsky should understand and sympathize with him in these interests more than Thea possibly could. The time was past when Thea, for love of him, would interest herself in subjects that else would never have occupied her thoughts. And, besides, she was so very far from well that she no longer refused to heed the advice of the physician, who urged her to try change of air and scene at one of the well-known baths.
So she made ready for the journey, upon which her little son was to be her only companion and consolation. Yes, her only consolation, for except in her boy's laughing eyes she could see no brightness anywhere. At Schönthal, Frau von Rosen had been seriously ill, and when she began to recover her disease settled in her eyes, so that at the end of a few weeks her sight was almost entirely gone. It was a sad picture, that of one who had been so active now so entirely helpless, and Herr von Rosen and Alma vied with each other in devotion to the invalid. Care for her mother helped Alma to conceal and to overcome her grief for Lothar far more easily than would otherwise have been the case. She had no time to think of it, – the present claimed all her powers of mind and body, and the past retreated into a dim distance. While Thea was preparing for her journey, her mother was about to travel also; but while Thea's goal was a mountain watering-place, Frau von Rosen was going to Berlin to consult Walter's friend, Dr. Nordstedt. He advised her to place herself entirely under his care for a while, and accordingly Frau von Rosen and Alma were soon established in two quiet rooms in a wing of the Nordstedt mansion, the windows of which looked out upon the blossoming fruit-trees and green grass-plats of the pleasant garden. Soon this prospect was shut out from one of the rooms by blue curtains, for Frau von Rosen was to undergo an operation which would decide whether she should henceforth dwell in perpetual night or once more look upon the light of day and the faces of those whom she loved. They were weary days that Alma now passed beside her mother's couch, hovering between fear and hope. Herr von Rosen left them immediately after the operation, for pressing business at home prevented him from awaiting the final decision, and Walter Eichhof and Adela Hohenstein were the only friends from home who came now and then to ask after Frau von Rosen and to chat awhile with Alma. Oddly enough, the two had never met upon any of their visits; 'fortunately,' Walter said, 'unfortunately,' Adela thought, although not for worlds would she have uttered the word aloud. At last after days of prolonged anxiety the bandage could be removed from the invalid's eyes, and Dr. Nordstedt pronounced the operation entirely successful. That was the first happy day that Alma had known since Lothar's death. A smile transfigured for a moment Dr. Nordstedt's grave face as he announced the glad tidings to Alma, and tears glittered in the girl's eyes as she held out both hands to him, and, forgetting all her shyness, cried, "Ah, how I thank you, Dr. Nordstedt! If I only had some way in which to show you how grateful I am!"
He held her little white hands in a firm clasp for an instant, and replied, "Such moments are the bright spots in a physician's life, Fräulein von Rosen, and they atone for many a gloomy day."
On the evening of that day Alma stood at the open window of her room, looking out into the starry June night. The leaves of the trees whispered gently in the evening breeze, and the garden lay silent and dark below her, while beyond the gardens and court-yard that surrounded the Nordstedt mansion there was the glimmer of distant gas-lights, and the street-noises fell upon her ear like a muffled hum. Alma was so grateful that she longed to be happy and glad, and yet precisely at this time, when she was relieved from her weight of care and could breathe freely, she felt doubly lonely in the strange great city. She seemed to herself to be upon a lonely island in the midst of a roaring ocean. As she stood thus looking out, she thought of that winter night in Eichhof when she had stood at the window gazing thus. Lothar's image, which her recent care had banished to the background of her thoughts, arose vividly before her, and she was conscious of a painful yearning for her home. She clasped her hands against the window-frame, and leaned her head upon them. The air was sultry; she had loosened her fair hair, and it fell down about her shoulders, as she remained thus lost in thoughts of the past. Suddenly the door was opened, and a woman with a lighted candle entered the room. It was the nurse to whose care Frau von Rosen was specially intrusted.
"Good gracious, Fräulein dear, you are in pitch darkness!" she exclaimed, putting the candle on the table, "and with the window open too! Have you closed the door, that your mother may not feel the draught?"
"Indeed I have, Marianne," Alma replied, half turning round. "My mother is asleep, and I came here to get a little fresh air."
"Yes, yes, you ought to have more fresh air, Fräulein dear; the Herr Doctor always says you ought to walk in the garden every day. The Herr Doctor is not at all pleased to see you grow so pale here. He looks at you, – yes, just as he always does at people with whom he is not satisfied, and for whom he would like to prescribe. No offence, Fräulein, but he does; such a sad look, and yet so kind. Good gracious! I know the look well enough. And he has, perhaps, a particular reason for it in your case."
Alma was only lending half an ear to the woman's chatter, and it was more out of kindness than from interest that she asked, "Indeed? How so?"
Marianne put on an air of mystery. "Ah, you see, 'tis a long story. You look like somebody," she replied.
"Indeed?"
"Somebody who is dead; of course it was a woman," Marianne chattered on. "She had braids just like yours. Now your hair is down, I can see that she had the very same. And she had blue eyes, too, and was so like you in some way, I cannot exactly tell how; but as soon as you came you reminded me of her, and our doctor saw it too, – I knew that in a moment, for I know him well."
"Well, and who was this other?" Alma asked, with more interest.
Marianne sighed, and then told Alma of the unfortunate young woman whom her doctor had once intrusted to her care. "And only think, Fräulein dear, the woman had once been so rich that she did not know what to do with her money, and-but this is a secret; I only happen to know it because my husband, who is dead, was once a footman in her house. Only since you look so like her I'll tell it to you. Well, our doctor loved this woman dearly when she was a girl. But he was very young, and the girl's parents, and the girl herself, perhaps, thought he was not rich enough for her. At all events, she wouldn't marry him, and that's the only reason why he has never married, although now he might choose a wife where he would and thank you, too. But he cannot forget his Hedwig. And when he found her so sick and miserable, and got me to nurse her, and then at last when she died, any one could see how fond he was of her. Our doctor is an angel to all sick people, but then-then he was something more."
Alma listened now with keen interest, and was almost sorry when Marianne had finished arranging her room for the night and was obliged to attend to some other patients.
"Yes, yes, Fräulein dear, the best of men must have trials. Well, good-night."
And the nurse left the room, and Alma was again alone at the window. And so this calm, grave Dr. Nordstedt had also lived through his romance. He had lost his love, and lost her so cruelly! "Poor man!" Alma whispered, thinking of what she had just heard. Then she heard footsteps on the garden gravel path below her window. She leaned out, and saw a tall, manly figure slowly walking towards the house. She hurriedly withdrew, as though fearing that the doctor might suspect that she was thinking of him and that she knew his secret. Still, she no longer felt lonely as before; it was a certain consolation to her to reflect that in the heart of the man walking alone beneath the trees on this sultry evening there might perhaps be thoughts similar to her own.
From this day it was not gratitude solely that prompted her to observe the doctor with greater interest than hitherto. There seemed a certain resemblance between his fate and her own. She thought she could understand him; and when he paced the garden to and fro alone in the evening, and she stood alone at her window, she thought that surely there was some mysterious sympathy between them.
Thus some time passed, and at last Frau von Rosen was allowed to leave her room. When she spent an hour for the first time in an arbour in the garden, Herr von Hohenstein and his daughter came to wish their old friend joy in her restoration to health, and to inform her at the same time that Herr von Hohenstein had purchased a country-house with a little land, and that they were to occupy it the ensuing week. The house was in the vicinity of one of the larger cities of their native province, and Adela was enthusiastic in her praises of its lovely situation, while her head was filled with plans for gardens of roses, asparagus-beds, dove-cotes, and chicken-yards. Herr von Hohenstein, who had entirely recovered his health, although he was greatly changed and found his memory often defective, so that he was obliged to turn to Adela for aid, agreed to everything, and spoke of employing his leisure in the quiet of the country, if his strength admitted of it, in collecting his varied experience on the subject of the breeding of horses, and in publishing it for the use and enlightenment of posterity. Adela had taken a pencil out of her pocket, and was just about to draw a ground-plan of her future home on a leaf of her note-book for Alma, when a shadow fell upon her paper, and a familiar voice that had not fallen upon her ears for a long time bade 'good-morning' to the little circle in the arbour. Adela started up and confronted Walter Eichhof. Perhaps each was at first inclined, so unexpected was this meeting, to run away; but Adela was imprisoned in the arbour, and Dr. Nordstedt's broad shoulders appeared just behind Walter. As there was no way of avoiding each other, they each had recourse to the same line of conduct; Walter devoted himself to the Rosens, and Adela found inexhaustible matter for conversation with Dr. Nordstedt in his establishment and his methods of treatment, in which she expressed the greatest interest. Both Walter and Adela, however, took occasion to scan each other furtively, and at times replied rather vaguely to remarks addressed to them, from an anxiety on the part of each to hear what the other was saying. At last Dr. Nordstedt expressed a fear lest so much conversation around her might fatigue Frau von Rosen, and proposed that she should be left for a while with the Baron von Hohenstein, while he conducted Walter and the young ladies through the garden, and the establishment in which Fräulein von Hohenstein expressed such an interest.
Adela immediately declared herself ready to go, and, as Walter was standing by Alma's side, it fell to Dr. Nordstedt to conduct Fräulein von Hohenstein. He showed them through various rooms in the house, and told them how they had been enlarged to their present size from small beginnings, until he had ended by adding the present spacious wings to the original mansion. The waiting-rooms were filled with all kinds of costly objets d'art, mementos from grateful patients from near and far. Adela, who had chattered fast enough at first, gradually became silent, and looked up with a kind of awe at the tall, serious man who had made himself what he was. Then she cast a stolen glance at Walter. He was right to be proud of this friend, she thought, and then she wondered whether Walter possessed sufficient energy and industry to be like him. She could not but observe meanwhile that in the course of the last year Walter had grown far more manly, and at last she arrived at the conclusion that she never should suspect either Walter or Dr. Nordstedt of being doctors if she had not known about them. The image of a 'doctor' in her mind was inseparably connected with a large pair of spectacles and a strong odour of ether, – both attributes of the family physician at Rollin, and of a certain professor who had been called in at the time of her father's illness. They had hitherto been the only representatives of the medical profession known to her.
"Fräulein Alma would like to see your study," Walter suddenly said to Nordstedt, who turned to the girl with a smile, and said, -
"You have seen it already, Fräulein von Rosen. It is the little room I showed you where I performed my first successful operation. When one wishes to work, any decoration around one has a disturbing influence, I think; and then, too, I like old places, and so I stayed there with my books."
"For the first time I cannot agree with you," cried Adela. "Whoever has any taste for the beautiful must like to see it around him."
Nordstedt laughed. "You are right," he rejoined; "but beauty incites me either to enjoyment or to dreamy revery, and neither is any assistance to hard work."
"But, lest the ladies should think you a scorner of the beautiful, you must open your music-room for us," said Walter.
This Nordstedt did with pleasure. He certainly was much more talkative and less reserved than usual to-day. Walter wondered whether Adela's gay humour had wrought this change. Although he was firmly convinced that he himself had entirely ceased to think of Adela, he found this suspicion far from agreeable.
As they entered the music-room both the girls uttered an exclamation of delight. The furniture, the hangings, the pictures on the walls, all gave evidence of genuine taste and a fine artistic perception.
"Yes, the requirements of art differ from those of labour," said Nordstedt. "Art gives beauty and must have beauty."
And everything in this room was beautiful. From the grand piano to the smallest footstool, all was perfect of its kind. Adela's admiration was loudly expressed, Alma's was silent. But whenever she lifted her eyes they were sure to encounter Nordstedt's glance seeking hers. "Do you love music?" he asked, suddenly stepping to her side.
"Dearly!" she replied.
He went to the piano, and played one of Mendelssohn's Songs without Words. Walter stood at a window, looking very grave. Nordstedt never played before strangers. What had come over him to-day? And how devoutly Adela was listening! Walter wished he had not come here to-day, and the brighter his friend's face grew the gloomier he felt.
The song that Nordstedt had chosen was one of those brief melancholy strains that suggest a lament. When he had finished, Alma said, "That song is one of my favourites. It is so fervent, and yet so sad. It sounds as if one were thinking of some one loved and lost-"
Nordstedt turned upon her one brief questioning glance of surprise. Alma blushed, fearing that she had said too much. But Adela, who generally said whatever came into her head without reflecting, exclaimed, as she looked admiringly at Nordstedt, "Why, you can do everything! You give me an entirely different idea of doctors from any I have ever had before!"
Scarcely had the words left her lips when she, too, blushed crimson to the roots of her hair, for she remembered that Walter heard what she said. She was glad that Nordstedt proposed returning to Frau von Rosen, who ought now to be taken to her room. Without waiting for the escort of the two gentlemen, she took Alma's arm, and ran, rather than walked, along the corridor into the garden, while the young men silently followed them. Nordstedt's face was bright with a smile, but Walter was annoyed and discontented with himself, with Adela, with everybody. He was more startled than pleased when Adela offered him her hand at parting and said, softly, "It has given me great pleasure to see you again." He replied only by a low, formal bow. He wandered about the loneliest streets on this evening until ten o'clock, and at last closed his door behind him and threw himself upon his lounge, saying, "And yet I wish I had not seen her again!"
CHAPTER XXI.
SUMMER DAYS
Broad sunlight lay upon the comfortable mansion of Schönthal. Frau von Rosen was better than she had been for years, but she was still obliged to spare her eyes, and so Alma had undertaken to advise Dr. Nordstedt from time to time of the condition of his patient. The less there was to tell of her, however, the more there always seemed to be to say. Nordstedt was now looked upon by the whole family more as a friend than as a physician, and, busy as he might be, he always found time to answer Alma's letters. As Walter was to spend his summer holidays at Schönthal, Herr von Rosen invited Dr. Nordstedt to pay them a visit at the same time.
"But, papa, what are you thinking of? He never will come," said Alma.
Nevertheless he came.
"What a pity it is that Thea has not yet come home!" said Alma. "She would be so much pleased with Dr. Nordstedt, and he would like her so much."
Frau von Rosen gazed thoughtfully at her daughter. How did she know so well whom Dr. Nordstedt would like? She began to shake her head, but not for long, for Nordstedt had grown dear to her, and she only glanced shyly now and then at her husband, wondering if the same thoughts that had occurred to her had been suggested to him also, and what he would say. But it really was all his fault. Why had he invited the doctor to the house?
One evening Herr von Rosen said to her, "We are thought to be people of very advanced ideas, mamma. Do you not think we should justify the opinion entertained of us if we chanced some day to marry our daughter to a man of the people?"
"It seems to me," she replied, "that everything would depend upon who the man was, and what confidence we could repose in him."
"Aha! Then, in principle, you would not be opposed to such a match? Of course, I am only discussing such things in general."
"In general, then, I have no objection to the bourgeoisie, although I once thought I could favour none save sons-in-law of rank. But what is the use of growing older if one grows no wiser?"
Then there was a pause, which was ended by Herr von Rosen's saying, "Alma certainly never would have been happy with Lothar Eichhof."
Frau von Rosen sighed. She laid her hand on her husband's shoulder, and said, softly, "Do you think Thea is happy?"
"Ah! her letters have struck you too?"
"Not only that, but she has now been three months away from Eichhof. It was all very well for her to go to the baths, but to visit my sister afterward and stay there so long, – I cannot understand it. Mountain air is good for the child, she says. Possibly; but Eichhof air would be equally good for him. And we so seldom see anything of Bernhard-"
"Bernhard has a great deal to do at present."
"Ah, my dear, I can easily see that you do not believe that to be the only reason. I often lie awake thinking of it all. I cannot comprehend it."
"Wait until Thea comes home. She is a clever woman, and she loves Bernhard; she will make matters all right again. You remember how she behaved about his agricultural interests. At all events, we must know nothing until we are told. Not even a parent should interfere between man and wife."
Frau von Rosen assented. "But yet it is hard," she rejoined; "and if anything has estranged them from each other, be sure it is the result of the grand state in which they are obliged to live. Love is more likely to nourish amid simple, comfortable surroundings."
The next day the family and their guests were taking their coffee when the post-bag was brought in. There was a general distribution of letters and newspapers, and among the former was a thick envelope for Alma from Adela Hohenstein.
There had been a brisk correspondence carried on of late between the two girls, and Alma was as familiar with Adela's quiet life in her country home as was Adela with Alma's walks and rides with her guests, and even with the conversations carried on among them.
"It is very charming here," Adela wrote. "My plants and my animals flourish finely. Papa is contented, and we love each other dearly. But-you see there is a but-it is very quiet. The people about us are strangers to us, and those whom we know are far away. I go to walk just when you do, but I am quite alone. Since my Fidèle died I have not even a dog, for the one I have now is too stupid to care to go with me. While I walk, papa writes his book, which, however, between ourselves, will not come to anything, because poor papa has forgotten so much. But it gives him pleasure, and so I let him believe that it will be good, and go to walk alone. And sometimes I am quite low in my mind and could envy you your guests. Not Walter, of course, but Dr. Nordstedt is so nice; and even Walter is a human being, and an old acquaintance besides. Papa, too, thinks-but then he had better write you himself what he thinks. I only want to tell you that I am no longer so seriously angry with Walter as I told you I was in Berlin. I have been thinking about it since I have been so much alone, and I have reflected that it is folly to be angry with any one for as long as I have been vexed with Walter. To be sure, you do not know the cause I had for anger, and I certainly had good cause; but nevertheless I am angry with him no longer, and he need not refuse papa's invitation on my account. You may tell him so."
Alma read this strange letter twice, and just as she finished it Herr von Rosen said, "Baron Hohenstein has written to me, Dr. Nordstedt, asking whether you and Walter will not stop and pay him a little visit on your way home. He says he has received so much hospitality in your house that he should like to requite it. You will go directly past his retreat, and-"
"Don't decide against this plan; I have something to tell you from Adela," Alma whispered to Walter, who was just opening his lips to declare that the visit would be impossible.
Dr. Nordstedt read the Freiherr's kind invitation, and then declared, with a glance at Walter, the state of whose mind he guessed, although he knew nothing of it positively, that he felt inclined to go. After breakfast Alma took occasion to deliver Adela's message to Walter. The young man hesitated at first whether to rejoice or be vexed. Adela was no longer angry with him! As if she had ever had any cause to be so. He had laid his heart at her feet, and she had thrust it from her. The bitterest moments of his life he had experienced upon her account. No human being had ever so grieved and wounded him as she had done. And now she sent him word that she was no longer angry with him. What a confusion of ideas there must be in that fair curly head! But in spite of his vexation his heart beat faster, and there was a joyous light in his eyes. Was not a desire to see him again at the bottom of her message? Did she not say "I am no longer angry with you" only because pride and mortification kept her from saying, "Do not be angry with me any longer"? Of what avail was it that he had so often convinced himself that he would forget her, – nay, that he had forgotten her? Her image was more vividly distinct than ever in his mind, and in spite of all his self-remonstrances he was delighted at the thought of this visit, and counted the days that must elapse before it could begin.
One day Herr von Rosen invited him to drive with him to Rollin, where he and Alma had long owed a visit. Dr. Nordstedt stayed with Frau von Rosen, and the three others set out upon a lovely afternoon. How strange were Walter's sensations upon seeing the fine old pile once more! The memories connected with it took more vivid shape in his mind. There were the two old lindens beside the court-yard gate stretching their leafy arms above the tall old wooden crucifix, and upon the other side was the ancient oak, in which the storks were wont to build. But between these unchanged trees two brand-new gothic gate-posts had lately been erected, and as the carriage rolled along the avenue Walter saw that the old house had been decorated with all kinds of turrets and bow-windows. The arbour of clematis had been replaced by a sloping terrace; the elder-bushes in front of the house had been exchanged for closely-trimmed acacias, and instead of the climbing roses, which had been killed by the various renovations, the shield and baronial crest of the Hohensteins were conspicuous between the windows of the upper story. A footman in elegant livery received the guests. The hall was redolent of fresh paint and new carpets, and the doors creaked upon their hinges, as though discontented with the new order of affairs, but no footstep could be heard upon the luxurious rugs and carpets. Hugo Hohenstein received them in the hall in his customary blasé but not inelegant manner. He conducted Alma to the drawing-room, and presented the party to his wife, who greeted them with a curtsey that was needlessly low, but maintained towards them generally an air of cool reserve, which finally had a paralyzing effect upon them all. The young hostess had perhaps not received a satisfactory amount of attention from her husband's acquaintances, and was fearful of compromising herself; at all events, she was evidently embarrassed, perfectly courteous but perfectly cold, so that when the gentlemen retired to smoke a cigar, Alma found it very difficult to carry on a conversation. She admired several treasures of art that were displayed on shelves and brackets, as well as the entire arrangement of the drawing-room. Frau von Hohenstein replied that it was all very simple, and that she was sure that Fräulein von Rosen was accustomed to a far greater degree of elegance. But something in her expression gave the lie to her words, and Alma's heart grew heavy, for she could not but remember, as these conventional phrases were being exchanged, the many delightful talks she had had with Adela in this very room.
"Walter's sensations were very similar to Alma's, while Hugo Hohenstein conducted the gentlemen through the gardens, where stiff flower-beds but poorly replaced the rose-hedges. The trees in the park, too, were much thinned, and part of the pond had been drained to give place to more trim flower-beds.
"When the pond was drained a ring was found," said Hugo, – "a golden ring, set with a blue or green stone. I have it now; and I should like to know how it came in the pond."
The blood mounted to Walter's cheeks, but he said nothing, until shortly afterwards, when he was shown the ring in the smoking-room. Then he could not refrain from remarking, "I think your sister, Fräulein Adela, used to wear that ring. If I am not mistaken, there is a date engraved upon it, – the date of your parents' betrothal-Ah! there it is: 'August 28, 1830.' Does that coincide with your knowledge on the subject?"
"To be sure! I never thought of that. Really, it is remarkable how stupid everything is when one comes to investigate it. Some interest attached to the ring so long as no one knew how it came in the pond. But now that we know all about it, it turns out to be perfectly commonplace."
"Would you like to see my collection of weapons?" he asked, after a while. "I have some rare pieces." He opened a cabinet and displayed its contents to his guests. "They really are fine, are they not?" he said. "I am thinking now of making an Egyptian collection. I intend going to Egypt; it is a fearful bore to stay at home forever."
"Ah!" said Herr von Rosen. "What does your lady wife say to that?"
Hugo von Hohenstein looked at his neighbour with undisguised astonishment, then he smiled with an air of superiority. "Mon Dieu!" he said, "we did not marry to be bored. My wife will probably visit a French watering-place, or something of the sort." He suppressed a slight yawn, and thought how impossible it was to be entertained by these gentilshommes campagnards, who, with their old-fashioned ideas, were really quite out of place in the modern world.
Herr von Rosen ordered his carriage.
"À propos, since you are shortly to pay my governor a visit, my dear Eichhof, why not take the ring with you?" said Hugo.
"Walter had already thought of doing so, but had not made up his mind how to propose it. He took the ring, and his heart beat fast. Fate willed that the ring he had cast away in anger should now be returned to him; he would accept the omen, – it was the talisman of his good fortune that he had thus regained. Therefore on the drive home to Schönthal he was in the gayest humour, while Herr von Rosen and Alma could not recover from the impression the visit had made upon them. They had had a fleeting glimpse of a modern fashionable marriage, and both were prompted to make a comparison which pained them.