When, soon after, Edwin returned home, passed Christiane's door, behind which he heard loud, eager voices, and climbed the dark stairs, he was glad that neither Mohr's nor Franzelius' voice could be distinguished in the "tun." He was longing for an hour alone with his brother, and therefore the surprise was all the more unwelcome when he found Balder with his usual companions. Mohr was sitting opposite him before the chess board, which they had placed on one corner of the turning lathe, to take advantage of the last fading daylight. He had set a bottle of Rhine wine--a small stock of which he had stored in the cellar of the house, that he might not drink at the brothers' expense--on the window sill, and seemed so absorbed by the wine, the game, and the smoke of his cigarette, that he scarcely noticed Edwin's entrance. Franzelius was sitting in the middle of the room astride a chair on whose back he had clasped his broad hands, and rested his chin, while his gloomy eyes stared intently at the bust of Demosthenes on the book case. He, too, scarcely turned his head toward the new comer, and the greeting he vouchsafed him sounded more like the growl of a watch dog, than any human tone.

Edwin was no more disposed to talk. He stood behind his brother's chair a moment, stroked his thick hair several times, and then went to his desk, where he apparently began to read the newspapers. Once, however, he turned toward the chess players and said: "It would probably be better, Heinrich, if you would sacrifice your tobacco, which smells horribly, on the altar of friendship. The time for open windows is over, and Balder has already coughed three times."

Mohr instantly opened the window and tossed the cigarette into the courtyard.

Then all four were silent, until Balder rose saying: "A wooden king can't be expected to be checkmated more than five times. Besides, it's a hopeless task to play with you. You're a master of the art."

"Then I am good for something!" laughed Mohr scornfully as he tossed the little pieces Balder had turned into the box. "Master of an art in which persons of the least brains are often the greatest virtuosos. Nay, it is still a question whether a talent for chess is not a sort of disease, a hypertrophy of the power of conbination. You see, Edwin, I, for instance--if this organ were in a normal state--should have made more progress in my play. I plan the finest chess problems through five acts, and when I afterwards examine them narrowly, they are mere wooden figures, no living creatures. Basta! I vow not to touch knight or bishop for a month, until I have arranged my comedy."

He emptied his glass and then slowly poured the remainder of the wine from the bottle into it. "Good evening, Edwin," said he. "We've not had the pleasure of seeing you in the 'tun,' for a long time. Even to-day your thoughts seem to be far away--like our worthy philanthropist's, who has not spoken ten words since he's been here."

The printer rose from his seat with a violent jerk, passed both hands through his bushy hair and said: "It's true: I'm perfectly aware that I've long been a tiresome guest here. Therefore--and for one other reason--I hope our feelings are still the same--"

"What fancy have you taken into your head now?" said Edwin, still absorbed in his newspaper.

Balder had limped up to Franzelius and grasped his hand. "I was going to ask you, Reinhold," he said in an undertone, "to come some day in the morning; you will then find me alone, and I should like to say something about your last essay--"

The other turned away. "No," he muttered, "it's better so, wiser to put an end to this once for all. I'm glad Edwin is here too. I wanted to say it before, but you were so absorbed in the game: I shall take leave of you to-day--for an indefinite time--"

"Fools call it forever," quoted Mohr. "What devil has taken possession of you, Caius Franzelius? Do you want to found a colony of workmen among the red-skins on the Schultze--Delitz'schen principles? Or are you going to the Salt Lake of Utah, to disgust the Mormons with their immortality! Or--stop, now I have it--he can't endure the sight of a man who drinks Rhine wine, while the camels in the desert of Sahara often cannot get even muddy water."

The printer seemed about to make some angry reply. Edwin anticipated him.

"You don't know what you are doing," said he. "If you part from old friends, you must have some good reasons for doing so, for they are wares that are not to be bought in every market. It would be kinder, Franzel, to inform us of these reasons. Who knows whether they're so well grounded, as you imagine."

"I thank you, Edwin," replied the other in a faltering voice. "I'm glad it's not a matter of entire indifference to you whether or not our intercourse is given up, little pleasure as it has afforded during the last few weeks. As for my reasons--"

"I'm quite ready to forsake this locality, if unrestrained intercourse is desired," said Mohr quietly, rising.

"There's nothing personal to be said," replied the gloomy visitor. "The fact that we do not understand each other--unpleasant as it often is to be the butt of your frivolous jests--could not induce me to remain away from the 'tun' entirely. The matter is far more serious; to tell the whole story in a few words: I've decided to publish a newspaper, which is to acknowledge and defend my principles more plainly and openly than my fugitive sheets have hitherto done. It is to appear twice a week under the name of: 'The Tribune of the People.' I thank you for the nick-name, Mohr, which I have now made a title of honor. The prospectus will break with the last remnants of superstition and traditional delusions, and as the rich have good reasons for preserving these traditions, since they stir up the water in which they want to fish, it will appeal expressly to the poor and miserable. I have recognized this as my life task, for which I am ready to make every sacrifice--even the hardest."

As he uttered these words he looked at Balder, but instantly averted his eyes and pretended to be searching for his cap.

The brothers were silent, but Mohr went up to him, laid both hands on his shoulders, and said: "Franzel, although you don't like me, you must allow me before these witnesses to declare my respect for you. I envy you such a life task, although I consider it perfect folly. At least change the title. Your readers will hardly be sufficiently well versed in Roman history, to distinguish the difference between tribune and tribunal. Besides, why should we lose the pleasure of your society on that account? I will even offer to be a coworker: in case you, as I hope, issue a feuilleton, I should not be disinclined to write a few brilliant aphorisms--"

"Cease this jesting!" Edwin indignantly interrupted. "Franzel, what does this mean? Because you're going to establish a newspaper, must we clasp hands in an eternal farewell? You may do what you cannot leave undone. Are we our brother's keeper? Or have we hitherto found fault with all your sayings, to which we could not assent?"

"No," replied the printer, as he thrust his huge hands into his pockets. "But that's the very reason; you must be as safe in the future as you have been in the past, so far as it depends upon me. Unfortunately, I'm only too well aware that we shall no longer agree as well on many subjects, as we have done hitherto. But I'm determined to burn my ships; there shall be no more evasions, no half-way measures. The people at the helm cannot endure them. There will be trouble, they will use their usual coarse means--arrests, searching of houses, seizure of papers, watching for conspirators. I do not want to subject you--for I go nowhere else so often--"

"They can seal up all my papers," said Mohr dryly. "The mediocrity of talent, to which they all bear culpable witness, is at least not dangerous to the state. On the contrary, the less genius one possesses, the more useful he is as a tax-paying individual, a sheep in the flock."

Franzelius seized his cap.

"You will do us no harm," said Balder. "Let us take the risk. What could they find here? As I know Edwin--"

"I too would see them enter with the greatest composure," observed Edwin smiling. "No, Franzel, your fears are visionary so far as we are concerned. Can you not, in case of necessity, even swear that I have no tendencies toward socialism, but on the contrary am an incorrigible aristocrat, for which you have often reproached me?"

"And if they question you about your catechism, will you deny it? Will you deny that our principles are the same, and that we only differ in opinion as to whether the times are yet fully ripe for them? You are silent; now you see--"

"Scientific convictions are somewhat different from public speaking, and the police, thank God, no longer meddle with the freedom of thought of a private tutor of philosophy. But since we have come to this point--once more and, as it seems, for the last time: do you take me for a coward, Franzel?"

"You! How can you even--"

"Or do you not believe that I would be drawn and quartered, rather than deny my convictions? Well then, if you think me a man of whose friendship you have no cause to be ashamed, let me tell you this: what you are about to do, appears to me little more judicious, than if you wanted to set before an infant that had not yet cut its teeth, a roast chicken instead of its mother's milk or some of Liebig's preparations, with which it had hitherto appeased its hunger. If any one attempted to do that to my child, I should certainly forbid him the house, or at least endeavor to make his premature diet harmless."

"You talk so, because you don't know the people," Franzelius burst forth, "They are no longer children, their teeth are cut, and their eyes open; where this is not the case, we will help them, offer hard food that they may cut their teeth on it, instead of cooking the traditional children's porridge, perpetually lulling them to sleep with baby talk, when they are grown men, and the leading strings of guardians--"

"Don't get angry unnecessarily!" Edwin interrupted. "Who of us wishes to check the natural growth of the mind, instead of aiding it according to its powers? But what you have in view, is a forced, premature culture, your demagogical enthusiasm is a hot house, and that is why I repeat: make no useless sacrifices, which must not only ruin yourself, but many of your foster children. You cannot carve an Apollo from every block of wood; not every one who ties on a leather apron and earns his bread by the sweat of his brow, will be able to grasp the idea of the fall of man which a follower of Kant or Spinoza can form. Why, when there are so many crying wants of a coarser nature to be satisfied, do you desire to create needs for our less gifted brothers? Why show them what they lack, when, after they have with difficulty learned to feel their needs, you can only give them such very doubtful assistance? You aim to produce an artificial thirst, and then all you can offer them to assuage it, is a pear; for the fountains that flow for us, will, as matters now appear, long remain sealed to them."

"Edwin is right!" exclaimed Mohr, speaking for the first time without his sarcastic curl of the lip. "The people are asleep, dreaming all sorts of things, and Franzelius Gracchus goes about like Macbeth, and murders sleep. I've never understood how anybody can be so inhuman as to rouse a person who is slumbering. But that's the preaching of these humanitarians! You're just as selfish as the priests. For the sake of making the people see, you drum them out of bed at three o'clock in the morning."

"And suppose they are grateful to us for it? Suppose a nightmare has oppressed or bad dreams tormented them?" exclaimed the printer vehemently. "And that's just the case with the people. Their sleep under the night cap of superstition is no longer so sound and refreshing as it was a hundred years ago. All sorts of voices have startled them, and now they are slumbering in the dusk of morning and do not know whether it is time to rise. But why do I talk of this to you? You don't understand the times, you've never felt the pulse throbs of humanity stir your heart, with all your knowledge and good, intentions, you're--"

"Say no more, Franzel," whispered Balder. "You're excited; why should we utter angry words in the parting hour,--if you really intend to take leave of us? That we shall meet again, and before much time has passed, I'm perfectly sure."

"You--I will never lose you!" murmured the deeply agitated enthusiast, in a tone audible only to Balder. "You're right," he added aloud. "It's sad enough to feel that our paths must diverge. We should not make the inevitable unnecessarily difficult. Farewell, Edwin. I could almost envy you the power of keeping to yourself what you consider an intellectual possession; for to be sure, 'he who is foolish enough not to guard his own heart'--but--it's useless: alus inserviendo consumor. Adieu, Mohr. With you--"

He was about to add something, but thought better of it and left the room. On reaching the entry he paused a moment, as if waiting for some one. He was not disappointed. Balder followed him, on the pretext that he had something more to say. But he only pressed his hand in silence, then threw his arms around his neck, hastily released him again, and Franzelius stumbled down the stairs, like a man whose head is heavy or whose eyes are closed.

"He's obeying his evil genius!" said Edwin, shaking his head. "I've seen the fit coming and vainly endeavored to stay it. But water will flow down hill."

Balder's farewell to Franzelius in the stairwell

Balder's farewell to Franzelius in the stairwell.

"It will soon come to a level and remain stagnant for some time," muttered Mohr. "I'm sorry for the poor fellow! Believe me, Edwin, it was always disagreeable to me to be continually compelled to make fun of him. At heart I not only respected, but liked him. He has exactly what I lack, and because he is not ambitious of distinction, he is indifferent to his own worth. He takes himself just as he is--I believe if he thought he was a superior person liable to be admired in society, he would indignantly ostracise himself."

Balder re-entered the room and they talked of other things; Mohr inquired about the private lessons Edwin was giving the young hedge-princess, as Leah was called in the "tun." But Edwin, whose thoughts were entirely engrossed with the confession his mysterious friend had promised to make on the morrow, gave very absent replies: he was explaining the history of philosophy from his own books. He told her without any oratorical flourishes, how the secret of the universe had been differently reflected in various human brains, how thoughtful minds had endeavored to interpret it and expressed the inexpressible in formulas more and more profound. "I have now come to ideology," he concluded, "which to one who possesses so deep an intellect as this girl, can afford a great deal of pleasure, and be comprehended without much difficulty. I'm amazed to see what progress she makes in Aristotle. Yet, after all, it only confirms the proposition that where a real need exists, the organs for it are formed, as the feeling of hunger always asserts itself when a creature possesses a stomach. It's a pleasure to see this girl listen. She has long languished for knowledge, now she fairly revives like a thirsty plant in the summer rain."

"Congratulate the Frau Doctorin," laughed Mohr.

The brothers' eyes involuntarily met.

"We're now just coming to Plato," Edwin forced himself to answer in a jesting tone. "Whether my pupil, in spite of her studies of hedges and lagunes, has sufficiently elevated thoughts to develop a taste for our 'tun' philosophy, I greatly doubt."

Meantime Franzelius, walking slowly down stairs, as if every step cost him a fresh resolution, had just reached the front of the house. When he came to the glass door that led into the shop, he suddenly stopped.

In the chair behind the show window, where Madame Feyertag was usually enthroned, sat Reginchen. It was already very dark in this corner, for the gas in the shop was usually not lighted in summer, and September, according to the Feyertag calendar, belonged to the summer months; yet notwithstanding this, the printer had perceived at the first glance who it was that sat in the corner knitting a stocking.

He seemed to struggle with himself a moment, then softly opened the door and with a: "Good evening, FrÄulein Reginchen!" entered the shop.

"Oh! dear, how you frightened me!" cried the young girl, starting from her seat.

"I beg your pardon," stammered Franzelius, "I ought to have knocked. But I have so many things to think of--sit still, Fraulein Reginchen, I--I only wanted--I came--"

He clutched his cap convulsively in one hand, and was brushing the brim with his elbow.

"My mother has gone out," said Reginchen, to make a little conversation. "But father is still in the work room. If you want to speak to him--"

"Oh no--but allow me--" He picked up the knitting she had dropped, but in so doing let his cap fall, and as she now stooped for it, their heads came in contact somewhat violently. He blushed crimson, but she burst into a merry laugh.

"That's owing to the short days," said she. "But father is anxious to save the gas. I drop so many stitches!"

Then both were silent again.

At last the printer, pausing before the case of ladies' shoes and gazing into it as intently, as if he were endeavoring to count each individual pair, said:

"You're fortunate, FrÄulein Reginchen. You can stay in this house. I--I must--from to-day I shall--"

"Are you going away on a journey, Herr Franzelius?"

"No, FrÄulein Reginchen, or rather yes!--it amounts to the same thing. I--I'm glad I've met you--I should like--I didn't want to leave without a farewell--"

"Are you going away for long?"

"No one can tell--perhaps I shall never return. FrÄulein Reginchen, I cannot hope--you know I--I have always revered you--"

She laughed again in her merry childish way; but if the shop had not been so dark and he had looked at her, he would probably have noticed the deep blush that suffused her face. "Oh gracious!" she exclaimed. "Revered! No one ever did that before. A stupid creature like me, who can't do anything and doesn't understand anything, as mother tells me every day--"

"You don't know your own worth, Reginchen, and that's the best proof of it--I mean that it's no false worth. But excuse me for telling you this so bluntly: It's the first--and last time. And of course you--if I don't come back--will never give me another thought."

The prudent child seemed to know that silence is sometimes the best answer. She coughed several times, and then said: "Where are you going?"

"Wherever the winds and waves carry me!" he replied with sorrowful pathos, and then paced heavily up and down the shop.

"So you're going to sea! Dear me, how frightened I should be! Do you know, Herr Franzelius, I shall tremble every time that the east wind blows and the window panes rattle and the gas lights flicker--and you'll be on the angry sea--"

"Will you really do that, FrÄulein Reginchen?" he asked hastily, pausing before her. "If you were in earnest--but no, why should you give yourself useless anxiety about a man who can never--to be sure, I--it will be a real cordial on my journey--and I wanted to say something else: I should like to take a keepsake to remember you and this hour."

"A keepsake?"--she involuntarily glanced at her knitting work, at which he too was looking intently. "I'm just at the heel," she said, "and I suppose you'll not wait till it's done."

"No, FrÄulein Reginchen," he replied, "don't think me so presuming as to ask for such a gift--your own handiwork--so unceremoniously. But--if I could find any of your father's work--but I've an ugly foot, which is hard to fit with ready made boots--"

"I could take your measure."

"Yes, you might do that; but no, Reginchen, in the first place I would not accept such a service from you--"

"I would do it willingly, besides, I'm accustomed to it."

"No, no! A creature like you, and such an unlucky mortal as I--but if I could find a pair already made--"

He looked around the walls, sighed, passed his hand through his hair, seemingly endeavoring to avoid her glance.

"You have not the smallest foot in the world," said the girl, looking at his coarse boots with the eye of an connoisseur. "If it were only as long in proportion as it's wide. But it's so short beyond the instep, it would be hard--"

"Won't it? Two elephants' feet!" said the printer laughing bitterly. "We men of the people, who don't tread as often as we're trodden upon, didn't need to have such big feet. But it's no matter. Who knows when our turn will come. Well, FrÄulein Reginchen, if you can't--"

"Wait," she exclaimed, starting up and opening the show window, "I think I can find something for you; that is, if you can use jack-boots. But as you're going to sea--"

--"At least through fire and water.--Show me the jack-boots, Fraulein Reginchen."

He sat down on a low stool and watched her, as she nimbly leaned forward into the show window, dislodged with considerable difficulty two huge boots paraded there as models, and placed them in the shop. During this operation he again sighed, as if suffering. While, assisted by Reginchen, he tried on the boots, which fitted admirably, that is were much too large, he did not utter a syllable; but when with his feet cased in the huge polished coverings he stood before her as if rooted to the floor, he drew out his blue checked pocket handkerchief, wiped his forehead, and slowly replacing it, said: "Ask your father to send me the bill with the old boots. And now, Fraulein Reginchen, one thing more: take care of my friends up stairs as before--especially Balder. He--perhaps you don't know it--won't live to be very old; at least while he is here, let him know only love and kindness--"

He turned away because his voice failed, and furtively wiped his eyes with his cap.

"Good Heavens!" cried the young girl in terror, "what are you saying? Herr Walter--"

"Hush!" replied Franzelius putting his broad fore-finger on his lip. "You're a kind hearted, sensible girl--you'll keep it to yourself Oh! Fraulein Reginchen, if it were not for that, if it were not for many things--of which you have no suspicion--Heaven knows I--I would make no secret of my feelings, and tell you--but no! Love him, Reginchen, as much as you can. Will it be hard for you to love Balder?"

Again she made no reply. The question seemed to her a dangerous one. He was looking at her with a strange expression of anxiety and love; suddenly he caught both her hands in his huge palm, clasped them so closely that she with difficulty restrained a cry of terror, and burst forth: "If there is such a thing as an angel, you are one. Farewell. Think--forget--you have never had a better friend than I! I only wanted to bid you farewell--Fraulein Reginchen!"

He tore himself away and tramped out of the shop in his gigantic boots as hastily as if he feared to remain longer, lest spite of these firm pillars, he might lose his centre of gravity and fall at the feet of the shoemaker's little daughter.

Reginchen looked after him through the show window. Often as she had laughed at him, she could not do so to-day, she was much more ready to cry. No one had ever spoken to her so before. She had longed perceived that he liked her, and even prided herself a little upon that fact, because she thought he must be unusually learned, as he was always occupied in printing. But that he "revered" her, that he thought her almost an angel--! And what did he mean in speaking so about Herr Walter?

She sat down again in her chair in the corner. "I'll commence to-night to knit a pair of stockings for him to take on his journey," she thought. "If only I can get them done! His feet are so awfully big."