CHAPTER IX. (2)

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Leah was seated at the table in her little sitting room; before her was the tea urn, and a closed book but she seemed to have been occupied with neither, but entirely absorbed in her own thoughts. As the two men entered she started up, her first glance fell upon the stranger, and a look akin to disappointment flittered over her face. Had her ears deceived her and made her suppose that Edwin was accompanying her father?

She did not speak, but with downcast eyes listened to the report of the invalid's condition. Her father introduced his guest as a friend of her former teacher; she bowed in visible embarrassment. By degrees, however, as Mohr himself thawed out and began to talk about his university life with Edwin, she too became more at ease and performed the duties of hostess with the most winning grace. The guest was very much pleased with her, he even wondered that Edwin had never spoken of her personal appearance, which was really worth mentioning, though a sickly pallor made her seem older than her years, and her movements when she walked, were weary and languid. After she had poured out the tea, she took some sewing and sat down in an armchair at a little distance from the others, not far from the niche in which her mother's bust stood. A warm light animated the still features of the marble image, and Leah's transparently pale complexion, especially when her beautifully sparkling eyes were fixed on her work, made the semblance between the living woman and the dead marble so striking as to produce an almost uncomfortable impression upon the visitor. He again relapsed into his own gloomy cares and presentiments, and if the little artist had not continued the conversation with the most persistent cheerfulness, the mood that prevailed in the pleasant room would have become more and more dismal.

But with each passing moment the zaunkÖnig seemed to become more comfortable in his nest. When Mohr, out of courtesy, asked to see some of his work, he brought out of his studio with a diffidence with which, however, was blended an air of quiet satisfaction, a large portfolio, and began to spread the sketches before his guest. "These are old designs," said he. "When my wife was alive, I was in the habit while we sat together in the evening--the child yonder used to go to bed early--of scrawling my fancies on a sheet of paper. They were not so modest and tame as now, but took the boldest leaps and caricoles, as if they belonged to a great artist who possessed the ability to execute them. To be sure, even in those days, I knew that I was no Poussin or Claude Lorraine; but when alone, after toiling honestly all day as a mediocre artist, I would permit myself during the evening hours, to dream of what I would paint if I were one of those great geniuses. Now these fits come more rarely, and I'm slow to detain them. If I can't wholly reform, I merely sweep a bit of charcoal over the sheet for a time, and my sleeve effaces even the smallest trace."

Mohr turned over the drawings, which were on rather an exaggerated scale, and the way in which he expressed his opinion of one and another and detected the artistic idea in the often very imperfect lines, seemed to delight the little gentleman greatly. When the cuckoo clock struck eleven and the guest rose, with an apology for having already remained too long, the master of the house most cordially invited him to come again very soon, if their modest tea table had not seemed tedious. The portfolio, he added smiling, certainly should not appear again.

"My dear sir," replied Mohr, "I fear you would repent this philanthropic offer, if I availed myself of it. I have a vein of that 'shelterless, restless barbarian,' and I like you too well not to spare you a closer acquaintance with me. But no one can answer for himself. If my own society becomes unbearable even to myself, I shall come and beg to be allowed to sit quietly in this sofa corner for an hour. Your tea urn sings so melodiously that in listening to it one quite forgets what a discord usually prevails in this world."

He shook hands with the father and daughter and left the little house in a strange paradoxical mood. "What is it that we want?" he muttered to himself, as, insensible to the storm he stood beside the river, gazing down into its gloomy depths. "This man, to whom everything seems to work together for good, because as a well trained child of God, he believes in time and eternity; who is satisfied with everything, his mediocrity, his weakness, his skill and want of skill, who makes a virtue of every necessity, even the heart-sorrow of his only child,--does he deserve honor or detestation? Is not this yearning for God, which ennobles everything to him, and shows him a paradise behind every face, in reality only selfishness in disguise? Is not even this piety, viewed apart from intellectual blindness, a fondling of self at the expense of others? I, who enter this house for the first time, can scarcely see the lovely girl without compassion and indignation at her fate, and her own father, trusting that his dear God will again lead the stray sheep back to the fold when the wolf has once been made harmless, reconciles himself to see the beautiful, talented, patient creature waiting away because her proper nourishment is withheld from her. Really, we savages are the better men! If I should ever have a daughter--"

He did not finish the sentence. The wind suddenly dashed such a whirl of snow flakes into his face, that he was forced for a time to close his eyes and mouth and cling involuntarily to the railing. When he again looked around him, the storm seemed to have raged itself calm, the moon even cast a misty light through the black clouds, and for a moment revealed the houses on the opposite side of the canal, from which, as it was now almost midnight, only a few lights gleamed.

"It's time to go home," murmured the young man. "Every one in the boats below is already asleep. I wonder how a man feels who's born in the cabin of a boat on the Spree and dies there, after gazing for sixty years through his window into this Cloaca maxima!"

He had not walked a hundred paces along the bank of the river, when he saw on one of the largest boats, loaded with wood, a crowd of people pressing in excited but silent eagerness around a dark object on the deck. From time to time the rays of a ship's red lantern flashed over the group, revealing the broad faces of the fair haired men and women, who were standing around something lying at their feet, and seemed to be discussing what was to be done with it, but in suppressed voices, as if it were a matter of great importance to settle the affair among themselves.

On one of the boat landings, directly opposite to the scene, stood Mohr endeavoring to discover the cause of this nocturnal assemblage.

A woman's sharp voice suddenly became audible above the confused buzzing and murmuring.

"Let the wet lump bring us into trouble? No, indeed. We're too smart for that. That's the third charming gift this week. First the drunken harper, then the new born babe, and now--"

"Don't scream so, mother," said a sturdy young fellow, who had just snatched the lantern from his neighbor's hand and turned its light full on the face of the prostrate figure, "You'll bring the police upon us."

"That I will," cried the woman, "and at once. When we took that sewing girl out of the water last Easter, and I put her in my own bed and made a cup of tea to restore her to her senses--what did the wicked minx do? Stole six pairs of gloves from a shop the very same day, and because we'd had her with us, we too got nabbed by the police just as if we were receivers of stolen goods. And I'm to get myself into trouble again by my kindness to strangers! God forbid. Let the police take care of the whole brood of suicides. Carl, put on something warm and run as fast as you can, till you find a watchman. We've taken a strange woman out of the water, who was dead as a door nail, and the rest of it."

"Stop," suddenly cried a hoarse voice. All turned toward the landing and to their astonishment saw Mohr leap down the steps and rush across the narrow wooden bridge to the deck. The next instant he had snatched the lantern from the captain's hand and fallen on his knees beside the lifeless form. The light fell brightly on the pallid face, whose half parted lips seemed still quivering with the agony of departing life. The heavy eyebrows were painfully contracted, and only a narrow strip of the eyes gleamed under the wearily closed lids. This rigid, almost masculine countenance, had obtained in death an expression of gentle, child-like helplessness, which exerted a softening influence even on the rude minds of the sailors. Mohr dropped the lantern, which was extinguished in its fall. For an instant the deepest darkness prevailed on deck.

When the boatman's wife, who had been completely silenced by the sudden interruption, had lighted the lantern, Mohr started up.

"How long is it since you found this lady and drew her out of the water?" he asked.

"Not half an hour. But no one can tell how long she's been floating," said the man to whom the boat belonged. "I'd gone to sleep, and suddenly woke and remembered that I had left my new jacket on deck, and if the snow kept on it would be ruined by morning. As I went astern, I heard something strike the boat like a log of wood. The lady must have a hard skull or it would have been broken. Do you know her, sir?" Mohr made no reply. He had enough to do to collect his thoughts and decide upon what was to be done.

"Have you a litter?" he asked. "You can make three thalers by putting the lady on it and carrying her a hundred paces to a house where she will be received. I'll answer for the rest, and if the police should afterwards find out that you didn't give them notice of the affair, I'll take all the responsibility. But make haste, before it's too late!--There, lay her flat on her back and cover her with this cloak. And now forward--"

Not another word was spoken. His hasty, imperious manner, the promised reward and the prospect of getting rid of the disagreeable business, urged the sailors to the utmost speed. Two stout men lifted the motionless figure on a flat frame, which was used for unloading baskets of fruit, and fastened her firmly on it with a broad girdle. Her clothes and hair were still dripping with water, as she was raised and carefully carried up the steps of the landing. Then the bearers moved swiftly forward with their burden, while the others remained on the boats dividing the money among them. Mohr was the only one who followed the bier. He had not trusted himself to touch the lifeless body, but as it was raised he bent over the litter to keep it steady, and had brushed her hand with his cheek; its icy coldness froze the blood in his veins.

He ordered the bearers to stop before the artist's little house, but was obliged to ring the bell at the gate of the timber-yard a long time, before any one moved. How terribly long the moments were! Who could tell whether a hundred seconds more or less might not decide whether that motionless breast would ever again be heaved by the breath of life?

At last a door behind the wood pile opened, a flickering light appeared, and the zaunkÖnig's voice was heard asking: "what's the matter?" A very few words were enough to urge the kind-hearted little man to breathless haste. His trembling hands instantly opened the little door beside the gate, and without another syllable being uttered, the sad procession moved along the dark path to the little house.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           

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