Minna/Book 2, Chapter 1
More in a dream than awake I wandered near the river bank for a long time. One reflection alone continually recurred to my mind with ever-increasing joy: she was not only free now, but had apparently always been so, and perhaps knew no more of heartache than I did. It was absurd of me to have been jealous of the good-looking workman in the smithy, but still more absurd to have indulged in the same feeling towards the visionary person called "The Danish Painter." No doubt the whole of this story was only family gossip gathered from an old aunt who, according to the schoolmaster, "was not quite what she ought to have been." In addition to which Minna herself had spoken often about these aunts and their foolish tittle-tattle.
She was to be mine. Was she not mine already? I still felt her kiss on my lips. But why had she left me so suddenly? Why did she not allow me to take her home? Girlish fancies! Who can comprehend them, and who would be without them?
It was already growing dusk. The after-glow of the evening sky dazzled the eye to such an extent that one could hardly judge the distances in the sombre foreground. A faint gleam of light still fell on the edges of the rocks above, and a grey cobweb seemed to stretch over the green meadows on the other side of the water.
I heard voices ahead, and saw a man and a boy coming towards me. The landlord and his son were returning from the quarry. When we were close to each other the boy ran towards me with something white in his hand.
"Here is your letter," he called out.
"My letter?"
"Yes, I suppose it is one you wanted to post," said the owner of the quarry, "for it is addressed to Denmark."
"I found it where you sat so long while the boring was going on," said Hans.
With an uncomfortable feeling I took the letter, which was quite moist.
In the fading twilight I had some difficulty in discovering that the blurred address on the letter was to "Axel Stephensen, Esq., Artist." I wanted to see once more if my suspicions of the handwriting were correct, but the light dazzled my eyes.
"Yes, it is all right, thank you. Good-bye."
There stood the name of "The Danish Painter." If I had suddenly seen a ghost my back could not have felt more icily cold.
Axel Stephensen, indeed! Of course I knew him. Who does not know our young artists, even the least famous of the celebrities! It was some small consolation to me that, at any rate, I had not to cope with a genius. I knew him, that is to say, I had met him once at a café; I also remembered a rather nice landscape of his in the academy; and I had from time to time heard him mentioned, though not always in the most flattering terms, for he was considered rather fast. But what struck me as a most remarkable coincidence was the fact that, on this very day I had received a letter, in which a cousin of mine had made some slangy insinuations about Axel Stephensen himself, to the effect that this Paris dandy was persistently carrying on with a young lady of our acquaintance, whose purse was more attractive than her looks, and whose portrait he had painted in so flattering a manner, that both the object of his attentions and her family were quite delighted. Unfortunately for the painter, the one to whom the portrait gave especial pleasure was its destined owner—a fully-fledged naval officer whose successful examination was now to be rewarded by the announcement of the engagement.
So Stephensen was the man who had played a not unimportant part in Minna's life! From what the schoolmaster had said, I understood that a couple of years must have passed since Minna had known him in Dresden, and yet they still wrote to each other. What could it mean but a kind of love, a secret understanding, or something of that sort? But on the other hand her confidence in me, her innocent coquetry, this kiss, which she willingly enough had allowed me to steal; how could one reconcile this with such an intimacy, except in a girl of a frivolous nature? The more I thought of these contradictions the more incomprehensible they appeared.
My reverie was at last interrupted by the bell-like sound of a chain-worked steamer.
It was quite dark.
The moon was indistinctly seen behind the fir-tops on a height on the other side of the river; its light did not yet reach down upon the water, and one could not see the ships, but the line of lanterns with their long reflections in the water moved on slowly, again reminding me of a procession of golden staves with big knobs, led by a ruby and emerald one.
This sight, which recalled so vividly our happy life by the river, made me still more depressed.
I went slowly home with the fatal letter in my hand.
As soon as I had lighted the lamp I began to look at it more closely. The moisture had loosened the gum so much that the envelope was only fastened in one single spot.
It would be the easiest thing in the world to open and to close it without being discovered.
This thought made me turn hot and cold; I threw it on the table in terror, and kept on walking round the room and glancing at it as I walked.
Suddenly I had the letter in my hand and was picking with my nail at the closed spot; but, as if it had only been done in a fit of abstraction, I quickly turned the letter over and eagerly examined the address.
If I had so far been able to doubt whether the handwriting was Minna's, my uncertainty quickly vanished.
But a certain circumstance occurred to me; both the address and the piece of prose by Goethe in the poetry-book had been written in the same reddish and rather muddy ink which I thought was very probably to be obtained from the Rathen grocer. If this was the case I was, without doubt, the cause of the insertion of that lovely fragment, and this thought made me regard the tiresome letter with greater equanimity.
I took a piece of notepaper and wrote to Minna that, this letter, which evidently she had lost, had been found and brought to me, but that I did not like to post it without her consent, as the address seemed to have suffered a good deal from the damp, and was so illegible that I thought she might prefer to have the letter returned to her.
I then put a big wrapper round the whole thing, addressed it, and went out at once to take it to the post-box at "Erbgericht." Thus I got rid of both temptation and annoyance.
Clear moonlight lay on the heights over the sleeping hamlet, of which only the roofs of a few houses were high enough for the moonbeams to shed their rays over the small window-panes. Far above these stood the crown of steep rocks, appearing closer and more than usually blended together in vague, shadowy shapes. The quarries shone in the distance, away over the bend of the river, and I could distinguish the spot where we had spent the day together.
This quiet, cool beauty calmed me, and its effect was soon enhanced by a deadly weariness which suddenly overtook me as I again began to climb up to my mountain-home.
More quickly than I had thought to be possible I went to sleep in expectation of "the things which were to come."