Buch lesen: «The Lost Manuscript: A Novel»

PART I

"A noble human life does not end on earth with death. It continues in the minds and the deeds of friends, as well as in the thoughts and the activity of the nation."

PUBLISHERS' PREFACE

Gustav Freytag has expressed the central idea of his novel The Lost Manuscript in the motto which he has written for the American edition:

"A noble human life does not end on earth with death. It continues in the minds and the deeds of friends, as well as in the thoughts and the activity of the nation."

This idea of the continuity and preservation of soul-life permeates the whole work. It meets us at every hand. We observe the professor in his study, ever eager to fathom the thoughts of the great thinkers of the past and imbuing his students with their lofty spirit. We sympathize with the heroine of this novel, the strong, pious Saxon maiden, in her religious and intellectual development; we behold her soul enlarging under the influence of unusual and trying situations; we watch her mentally growing amid the new ideas crowding in upon her. We enjoy the droll characterizations of the half-educated, of Mrs. Rollmaus and the servants, in whose minds the mysteries of soul-life appear in the shape of superstitious notions. And we see, again, the consequences of wrong-doing, of errors, and of mistakes continuing like a heavy curse, depressing the mind and hindering its freedom. And this last provokes a wholesome reaction and is finally conquered by unshirking courage in honest spiritual combat.

Illustrations of psychical laws showing the connections and continuity of the threads in the warp and woof of human soul-life, are found indeed in all the works of Gustav Freytag. The great novelist anticipated the results that have of late been established by the experiments of modern psychology. He says in his Autobiographical Reminiscences:

"What a man's own life accomplishes in the formation of his character, and the extent to which it fully develops his native capacities, we observe and estimate even in the best cases only with imperfect knowledge. But still more difficult is it to determine and comprehend what the living have acquired in the way of advancement and hindrance from their parents and ancestors; for the threads are not always visible that bind the existence of the present to the souls of generations past; and even where they are discernible, their power and influence are scarcely to be calculated. Only we notice that the force with which they operate is not equally strong in every life, and that sometimes it is too powerful and terrible.

"It is well that from us men usually remains concealed, what is inheritance from the remote past, and what the independent acquisition of our own existence; since our life would become full of anxiety and misery, if we, as continuations of the men of the past, had perpetually to reckon with the blessings and curses which former times leave hanging over the problems of our own existence. But it is indeed a joyous labor, at times, by a retrospective glance into the past, to bring into fullest consciousness the fact that many of our successes and achievements have only been made possible through the possessions that have come to us from the lives of our parents, and through that also which the previous ancestral life of our family has accomplished and produced for us."

Is not this a revival of the old idea of the transmigration of souls? To be sure, the soul is not a material thing made of an invisible and airy substance, fluttering about after death and entering into another body. There are no material migrations of soul taking place, however tenuous the substance of the soul might be imagined to be. The memories of the present, our recollection of our past existence, depend on the fact that the living matter which is constantly replacing itself in us by other living matter, like the water in a wave rolling on the surface of the sea, always assumes the same form. It is the form that is constantly reproducing. In this sense, man (that is his soul) is the product of education. The soul of the future man stands in the same relation to our soul as the future edition of a book, revised and enlarged, stands to its present edition.¹ One man impresses his modes of thought, his habits, his methods of action, his ideals upon his fellow men, and thus implants his very soul into their lives. In this sense a transmigration of souls is taking place constantly, and he who opens his eyes will see it. No one has given plainer examples of this truth in the pleasant shape of novelistic narration, than Gustav Freytag.

The Lost Manuscript is in more than one respect a representative work, incorporating the spirit of the times. It is interesting from its descriptions of University circles, of country life, and of the vanity fair at the smaller princely courts of Germany. Yet these interesting descriptions gain in value, because we are taught by the author to comprehend the secret laws that rule the growth of, and determine the hidden interconnections between, the souls of men.

The plot of The Lost Manuscript. Gustav Freytag briefly characterizes as follows:

"In the upright soul of a German scholar, through the wish to discover something of great worth for knowledge, are cast juggling shadows, which, like as moonlight distorts the forms in the landscape, disturb the order of his life, and are at last overcome only through painful experiences."

Concerning the invention of the plot as well as of the characters of The Lost Manuscript, the following account from Gustav Freytag's Reminiscences will be of interest:

"In this story I depicted circles of life that were familiar to me since student days: the agricultural life of the country and the University life of the city. The reader will, I trust, discover in the characterizations of the work, that I have drawn cheerfully and unrestrainedly from this life at large. In the figures of the academical world he would seek in vain for special models, since Mr. and Mrs. Struvelius, Raschke, and others are types to whom in every German University single personalities will correspond. In the character of Professor Werner my friend Haupt has been recognized. But one can find in it only so much of the manner and method of Haupt, as a poet dares to take up of the being of a real man without interfering with the freedom of artistic creation, and without offending him through lack of delicacy. Haupt himself perceived with pleasure a certain remote resemblance, and of this connection with the romance he gave expression in his own way; having on several occasions, when sending me the prospectus of his Berlin lectures on the Latin historiographer Ammianus, good-humoredly signed himself 'Magister Knips,' which latter personage plays a sorrowful part in the story, and is only prevented from hanging himself by the thought of his professional researches in the Latin author mentioned.

"Some years before the appearance of my 'Debit and Credit' Haupt had unexpectedly requested me to write a novel. This accorded at that time with secret designs of mine, and I promised him. To The Lost Manuscript he contributed, however, in quite another manner. For as we were once sitting alone with one another at Leipsic, before he was called to Berlin, he disclosed to me in the greatest confidence, that somewhere in a small Westphalian town in the loft of an old house, lay the remains of a convent library. It was very possible that among them there was hidden a manuscript of the lost Decades of Livy. The master of this treasure, however, was, as Haupt had learned, a surly and quite inaccessible gentleman. Thereupon I put forward the proposition to travel together to the mysterious house, move the old fellow's heart, hoodwink him, and, in case of extreme necessity, drink him under the table, to secure the precious treasure. As Haupt had some confidence in my powers of seduction when joined with a good glass, he declared himself agreeable therewith, and we reveled in and developed to the fullest extent the pleasure we had in prospect of enlarging the tomes of the Roman historian for a grateful posterity. Nothing came of the affair; but the remembrance of the intended trip greatly helped me in developing the action of the novel.

"In Leipsic I had lived a short time on the street nearest the Rosenthal with a hatmaker, who manufactured straw hats. Near to him, as it chanced, was another well-known firm, which administered to the same need of the male sex by felt-hats. This accident suggested the invention of the families Hummel and Hahn, although here also neither the characters nor the hostilities of the two families are copied from real life. Only the incident is made use of, that my landlord took particular pleasure in decorating his garden by ever new inventions: the White Muse, the Chinese lanterns, and the summer-house by the road, I have taken from his little garden. Moreover, two characters of his household, – the very ones which, by reason of their mythical character, have given offence, are exact copies of reality; namely, the dogs Fighthahn and Spitehahn. These my landlord had bought at an auction somewhere to act as warders of his property; they excited through their currish behavior the indignation of the whole street, until they were poisoned by an exasperated neighbor. Fighthahn died. Spitehahn survived and, after that time, was quite as bristly and misanthropical as he is portrayed in the novel, so that finally in consequence of the perpetration of numberless misdeeds his owner was obliged to banish him forever to rural life."

The novel, as is the case with every work of prominence and influence, did not escape criticism, even among the friends of the author. In his Autobiographical Reminiscences, Gustav Freytag refers to the fact. He says:

"The Lost Manuscript met with disapproval from many intimate critics of mine. The sombre coloring of the last volume gave offence. It was much objected that the religious struggles and the spiritual development of the heroine Ilse were not placed in the foreground, and again that Felix Werner was not more severely punished for the neglect of his duty towards his wife. But the insanity of the Sovereign was especially objectionable, and it was claimed that in our time such a figure was no longer possible. My friends were wrong in this criticism. The Sovereign and his son the Hereditary Prince were also taken as types. The former represents the perverted development of an earlier generation which had sprung up from the ruin of Napoleonic times; the latter the restriction and narrowness of life in the petty principalities that then made up the German nation."

The American public will perhaps feel the strength of the criticism to which Gustav Freytag in the passage quoted refers, more strongly than the European friends of the Author. We at least have felt it, and believe that almost all the citizens of the New World will feel it. Nevertheless, considering all in all, we confess that Gustav Freytag was fully justified in preserving these traces of the national soul-life of Germany. For they form an important link in the development of German thought, and have cast dark shadows as well as rays of sunlight over the aspirations of scientific progress; now disturbing it by the vanity and egotism of these petty sovereigns, now promoting it by an enthusiastic protection of the ideal treasures of the nation.

The Lost Manuscript teaches us an object-lesson respecting the unity of human soul-life. Under the masterly treatment of Gustav Freytag's ingenious pen, we become aware of the invisible threads that interconnect our thoughts and the actions prompted by our thoughts. We observe the after-effects of our ideas and our deeds. Ideas live and develop not alone in single individuals, but from generation to generation. They escape death and partake of that life which knows no death: they are immortal.

Gustav Freytag, it is true, did not write his novel with the intention of teaching psychology or preaching ethics. But the impartial description of life does teach ethics, and every poet is a psychologist in the sense that he portrays human souls. In a letter to the publisher, Gustav Freytag says:

"… The essential thing with the poet was not the teachings that may be drawn from the book, but the joyful creating of characters and events which become possible and intelligible through the persons depicted. The details he worked into artistic unity under the impulsion of a poetical idea.

"But I may now also express to you how great my pleasure is at the agreement that exists between the ethical contents of the story (The Lost Manuscript) and the world-conception (Weltanchauung) which you labor to disseminate…" (Translated from the German.)

The laws that govern the warp and woof of soul-life in its evolution hold good everywhere, also among us. We also have inherited curses and blessings from the past; our present is surrounded with dangers, and our future is full of bright hopes, the fulfilment of which mainly depends upon our own efforts in realizing our ideals.

CONTENTS:

CHAPTER I.

A Discovery

CHAPTER II.

The Hostile Neighbors

CHAPTER III.

A Fool's Errand

CHAPTER IV.

The Old House

CHAPTER V.

Among Herds and Sheaves

CHAPTER VI.

A Learned Lady from the Country

CHAPTER VII.

New Hostilities

CHAPTER VIII.

Tacitus Again

CHAPTER IX.

Ilse

CHAPTER X.

The Wooing.

CHAPTER XI.

Spitehahn

CHAPTER XII.

The Departure from the Estate

CHAPTER XIII.

The First Greetings of the City

CHAPTER XIV.

A Day of Visits

CHAPTER XV.

Among the Learned

CHAPTER XVI.

The Professors' Ball

CHAPTER XVII.

The Deception of Mr. Hummel

CHAPTER XVIII.

Cloudlets

CHAPTER XIX.

The Illness

CHAPTER XX.

A Court Matter

CHAPTER I.
A DISCOVERY

It is late evening in the forest-park of our town. Softly the foliage murmurs in the warm summer air and the chirping of the crickets in the distant meadows is heard far in among the trees.

Through the tree-tops a pale light falls down upon the forest-path and upon the dark undergrowth of bush and shrubbery. The moon sprinkles the pathway with shimmering spots, and kindles strange lights in the mass of leaves and branches. Here, the blue streaks of light pour down from the tree-trunks like streams of burning spirits; there, in the hollow, the broad fern-branches gleam from out the darkness in colors of emerald gold, and over the pathway the withered boughs tower like huge whitened antlers. But between and beneath, impenetrable, Stygian gloom. Round-faced moon in heaven, thine attempts to light this wood of ours are feeble, sickly, and capricious. Pray keep thy scanty light upon the highway leading to the city; throw thy faded beams not so crookedly before us, for at the left the ground slopes precipitately into morass and water.

Fie, thou traitor! Plump in the swamp and the wayfarer's shoe behind! But that might have been expected. Deceit and treachery are thy favorite pastimes, thou wayward freak of heaven. People wonder now that men of primitive times made a God of thee. The Grecian girl once called thee Selene, and wreathed thy cup with purple poppies, by thy magic to lure back the faithless lover to her door. But that is now all over. We have science and phosphorus, and thou hast degenerated into a wretched old Juggler. A Juggler! And people show thee too much consideration, to treat thee as a thing of life even. What art thou, anyhow? A ball of burnt out slag, blistered, airless, colorless, waterless. A ball? Why our scientists know that thou art not even round-caught in a lie again! We people on the earth have pulled thee out of shape. In truth thou art pointed, thou hast a wretched and unsymmetrical figure. Thou'rt a sort of big turnip that dances about us in perennial slavery-nothing more.

The wood opens. Between the wayfarer and the city extends a broad stretch of lawn, and in the centre a large pond. Welcome, thou dale of verdure! Well-kept paths of gravel lead over the forest meadow; here and there a clump of waving undergrowth is seen, and beneath it a garden-bench. Here the well-to-do citizen sits of an afternoon, and resting his hands upon the bamboo-cane that he carries, looks proudly over upon the towers of his loved city.

Is the meadow, too, transformed to-day? A swelling expanse of water seems to lie before the wayfarer; it seethes and bubbles and plays about his feet, in endless masses of mist, as far as the eye can reach. What army of hobgoblins do lave their garments here! They flutter from trees, they course through the air, faint in outline, now dissolving, now intermingling. Higher the dim, dark figures soar. They float above the wayfarer's head. The gloomy mass of forest disappears. The very vault of heaven itself is lost in the misty darkness, and every visible outline sinks in the chaos of paling light and floating shapelessness. The solid earth still stays beneath the feet of our traveler, and yet he moves on, separated from all actual earthly forms, amid glimmering bodiless shadows. Here and there, the floating illusions again gather. Slowly the phantoms of air sweep through the veil that encompasses our wayfarer. Now the bent figure of a woman in prayer presses forward, broken with sorrow; now a troop in long, waving robes appears, as of Roman Senators, with emperor, halo-encircled, at their head. But halo and head dissolve, and the huge shadow glides, headless and ghostly, by.

Mist of a watery meadow, who hath so bewitched thee? Who else but that aged trickster of heaven, the moon, the mischief-maker moon.

Retreat, illusory shadows! The low-ground is passed. Lighted windows shine before the wayfarer. Two stately houses loom up at the city's outskirts. Here dwell two men-taxpayers, active workers. They wrap themselves, at night, in warm blankets, and not in thy watery tapestries, Moon, woven of misty drops that trickle from beard and hair. They have their whims and their virtues, and estimate thy value, O Moon, exactly in proportion to the gas saved by thy light.

A lamp, placed close to the window, shines from one of the upper rooms in the house on the left hand. Here lives Professor Felix Werner, a learned philologist, still a young man, who has already gained a reputation. He sits at his study table and examines old, faded manuscripts-an attractive looking man of medium size, with dark, curly hair falling over a massive bead; there is nothing paltry about him. Clear, honest eyes shine from under the dark eyebrows; the nose is slightly arched; the muscles of the mouth are strongly developed, as might be expected of the popular teacher of young students. Just now a soft smile spreads over it, and his cheeks redden either from his work or from inward emotion.

The Professor suddenly left his work and paced restlessly up and down the room. He then approached a window which looked out on the neighboring house, placed two large books on the window sill, laid a small one upon them, and thus produced a figure which resembled a Greek π, and which, from the light shining behind became visible to the eye in the house opposite. After he had arranged this signal, he hastened back to the table and again bent over his book.

The servant entered gently to remove the supper, which had been placed on a side table. Finding the food untouched, he looked with displeasure at the Professor, and for a long while remained standing behind the vacant chair. At length, assuming a military attitude, he said, "Professor, you have forgotten your supper."

"Clear the table, Gabriel," said the Professor.

Gabriel showed no disposition to move. "Professor, you should at least eat a bit of cold meat. Nothing can come of nothing," he added, kindly.

"It is not right that you should come in and disturb me."

Gabriel took the plate and carried it to his master. "Pray, Professor, take at least a few mouthfuls."

"Give it to me then," said he, and began to eat.

Gabriel made use of the time during which his master unavoidably paused in his intellectual occupation, to offer a respectful admonition. "My late Captain thought much of a good supper."

"But now you have changed into the civil service," answered the Professor, laughing.

"It is not right," continued Gabriel, pertinaciously, "that I should eat the roast that I bring for you."

"I hope you are now satisfied," answered the Professor, pushing the plate back to him.

Gabriel shrugged his shoulders. "You have at least done your best. The Doctor was not at home."

"So it appears. See to it that the front-door remains open."

Gabriel turned about and went away with the plate.

The scholar was again alone. The golden light of the lamp fell on his countenance and on the books which lay around him; the white pages rustled under his hand; and his features worked with strong excitement.

There was a knock at the door; the expected visitor entered.

"Good evening, Fritz," said the Professor to his visitor; "sit in my chair, and look here."

The guest, a man of slender form, with delicate features, and wearing spectacles, seated himself at the bidding of his friend, and seized a little book which lay in the middle of a number of open volumes of every age and size. With the eye of a connoisseur he examined the first cover-discolored parchment, upon which were written old church hymns with the accompanying music. He cast a searching glance on the inside of the binding, and inspected the strips of parchment by which the poorly-preserved back of the book was joined to the cover. He then examined the first page of the contents, on which, in faded characters, was written, "The Life of the Holy Hildegard." "The handwriting is that of a writer of the fifteenth century," he exclaimed, and looked inquiringly at his friend.

"It is not on that account that I show you the old book. Look further. The Life is followed by prayers, a number of recipes and household regulations, written in various hands, even before the time of Luther. I had bought this manuscript for you, thinking you might perhaps find material for your legends and popular superstitions. But on looking through it, I met with the following passage on one of the last pages, and I cannot yet part with the volume. It seems that the book has been used in a monastery by many generations of monks to note down memoranda, for on this page there is a catalogue of all the church treasures of the Monastery of Rossau. It was a poverty-stricken cloister; the inventory is either small or incomplete. It was made by an ignorant monk, and, as the writing testifies, about the year 1500. See, here are entered church-utensils and a few ecclesiastical vestments; and further on some theological manuscripts of the monastery, of no importance to us, but amongst them the following title: 'Das alt ungehür puoch von ussfahrt des swigers.'"

The Doctor examined the words with curiosity. "That sounds like the title of a tale of chivalry. And what do the words themselves mean! 'The old, immense book of the exit or departure of the swiger.' Does swiger here mean son-in-law or a tacit man?"

"Let us try to solve the riddle," continued the Professor, with sparkling eyes, pointing with his finger to the same page. "A later hand has added in Latin, 'This book is Latin, almost illegible; it begins with the words lacrimas et signa, and ends with the words-here concludes the history-actorum-thirtieth book.' Now guess."

The Doctor looked at the excited features of his friend. "Do not keep me in suspense. The first words sound very promising, but they are not a title; some pages in the beginning may be deficient."

"Just so," answered the Professor, with satisfaction. "We may assume that one or two pages are missing. In the fifth chapter of the Annals of Tacitus there are the words lacrimas et signa."

The Doctor sprang up, and a flush of joy overspread his face.

"Sit down," continued the Professor, forcing his friend back into the chair. "The old title of the Annals of Tacitus, when translated, appears literally 'Tacitus, beginning with the death of the divine Augustus.' Well, an ignorant monk deciphered perhaps the first Latin words of the title, 'Taciti ab excessu,' and endeavored to translate it into German; he was pleased to know that tacitus meant schweigsam (silent), but had never heard of the Roman historian, and rendered it in these words, literally, as 'From the exit of the tacit man.'"

"Excellent!" exclaimed the Doctor. "And the monk, delighted with the successful translation, wrote the title on the manuscript? Glorious! the manuscript was a Tacitus."

"Hear further," proceeded the Professor. "In the third and fourth century A. D., both the great works of Tacitus, the 'Annals' and 'History,' were united in a collection under the title, 'Thirty Books of History.' For this we have other ancient testimony. Look here!"

The Professor found well-known passages, and placed them before his friend. "And, again, at the end of the manuscript record there were these words: 'Here ends the Thirtieth Book of the History.' There remains, therefore, no doubt that this manuscript was a Tacitus. And looking at the thing as a whole, the following appears to have been the case. There was, at the time of the Reformation, a manuscript of Tacitus in the Monastery of Rossau, the beginning of which was missing. It was old and injured by time, and almost illegible to the eyes of the monks."

"There must have been something peculiar attaching to the book," interrupted the Doctor, "for the monk designates it by the expression, 'Ungeheuer,' which conveys the meaning of strange, monstrous."

"It is true," agreed the Professor. "We may assume that some monastic tradition which has attached to the book, or an old prohibition to read it, or, more probably, the unusual aspect of its cover, or its size, has given rise to this expression. The manuscript contains both the historical works of Tacitus, the books of which were numbered consecutively. And we," he added, in his excitement throwing the book which he held in his hand on the table, "we no longer possess this manuscript. Neither of the historical works of the great Roman have been preserved in its entirety; for the sum of all the gaps would fully equal one-half of what has come down to us."

The Professor's friend paced the room hurriedly. "This is one of the discoveries that quicken the blood in one's veins. Gone and lost forever! It is exasperating to think how nearly such a precious treasure of antiquity was preserved to us. It has escaped fire, devastation, and the perils of cruel war; it was still in existence when the dawn of a new civilization burst upon us, happily concealed and unheeded, in the German monastery, not many miles from the great high road along which the humanists wandered, with visions of Roman glory in their minds, seeking after every relic of the Roman times. Universities flourished in the immediate vicinity; and how easily could one of the friars of Rossau have informed the students of their treasure. It seems incomprehensible that not one of the many scholars of the country should have obtained information concerning the book, and pointed out to the monks the value of such a memorial. But, instead of this, it is possible that some contemporary of Erasmus and Melanchthon, some poor monk, sold the manuscript to a book-binder, and strips of it may still adhere to some old book-cover. But, even in this case, the discovery is important. Evidently this little book has occasioned you much painful pleasure."

The Professor clasped the hand of his friend, and each looked into the honest countenance of the other. "Let us assume," concluded the Doctor, sorrowfully, "that the old hereditary enemy of preserved treasures, fire, had consumed the manuscript-is it not childish that we should feel the loss as if it had occurred today?"

"Who tells us that the manuscript is irretrievably lost?" rejoined the Professor, with suppressed emotion. "Once more consult the book; it can tell us also of the fate of the manuscript."

The Doctor rushed to the table, and seized the little book of the Holy Hildegard.

"Here, after the catalogue," said the Professor, showing him the last page of the book, "there is still more."

The Doctor fixed his eyes on the page. Latin characters without meaning or break were written in seven successive lines; under them was a name-F. Tobias Bachhuber.

"Compare these letters with the Latin annotation under the title of the mysterious manuscript. It is undoubtedly the same hand, firm characters of the seventeenth century; compare the 's,' 'r,' and 'f.'"

"It is the same hand!" exclaimed the Doctor with satisfaction.

"These unmeaning letters are a cipher, such as was used in the seventeenth century. In that case it is easily solved; each letter is exchanged with the one that follows. On this bit of paper I have put together the Latin words. The translation is, 'On the approach of the ferocious Swedes, in order to withdraw the treasures of our monastery from the search of these roaring devils, I have deposited them all in a dry, hollow place in the Manor of Bielstein.' The day Quasimodogeniti 37-that is on the 19th April, 1637. What do you say now, Fritz? It appears from this that in the time of the Thirty Years' War the manuscript had not been burned, for Frater Tobias Bachhuber-blest be his memory! – had at that time vouchsafed to look upon it with some consideration, and as in the record he had favored it with an especial remark, he probably did not leave it behind in his flight. The mysterious manuscript was thus in the Monastery of Rossau till 1637, and the friar, in the April of that year, concealed it and other goods from the Swedes in a hollow and dry spot in Manor Bielstein."

"Now the matter becomes serious!" cried the Doctor.

"Yes, it is serious, my friend; it is not impossible that the manuscript may still lie concealed somewhere."

"And Manor Bielstein?"