Minna/Book 3, Chapter 5
Mr. and Mrs. Hertz had now returned from the country. We had each of us visited them in turn; then they wanted to see us both one afternoon to coffee, according to our Rathener custom. The old man was obliged to keep quiet in the evening. Coughing and pains in the chest continued to worry him; he was only able to get up in the middle of the day, and even this was rather the result of an obstinate determination not to give in than because he felt the better for being out of bed, where the doctor wished to keep him.
Mrs. Hertz was rather distressed about him, and thought that it would really be better if we waited for a week or so, but the old man would not hear it of: "But why? Not for my sake, as if I am not able to see anybody! Of course they must come to-morrow, but I will send them away when I get tired. For now I usually get tired a little earlier in the evening," he explained to me.
So, towards four o'clock on the day after we had heard the "Valkyrie," we started into the heart of the Alstadt, where one still sees with pleasure the old Rococo houses, with their irregular roofs and twisted shell ornaments, and the miniature palaces in Baroc style with pilaster-striped façades ornamented with medallions in which were to be seen images of Mars and Athene adorned with helmets and perukes. Between these plainer houses are to be found, in a rather indefinite style but of a thoroughly German character; their cosy bay-windows making a row of cupboards along the street and forming at the corners hexagonal projections tapering down to fine points—inverted cones, scaled like pineapples and ending in a big knob beneath. Several of these houses have stucco ornaments of flower garlands, or draperies made of stone, hanging down from their windows; now and then, too, one comes upon a frieze with enormously stout angels, so thick with paint that at a casual glance one might take the whole thing for a piece of natura morte of cabbages, apples, and big branches.
In such a corner house, where four streets met, the old couple lived on the first floor. There was an everlasting rumble of large covered country carts, goods wagons from the railway station, and all sorts of business vehicles, and it was evidently this noise of a busy traffic which pleased the old Königsberg merchant, and made him prefer this situation to a more airy but duller quarter.
The coffee-table was laid in Hertz's study, where he preferred to be. He rarely came into the drawing-room, but liked his wife to take her needlework in to him. It was a middle-sized room with old mahogany furniture, among which no comfortable chairs were to be found, but an armchair had now been moved in from the drawing-room.
Against one wall stood an ordinary writing-table with eight fragile legs, a tobacco table, and a bookcase; just opposite was a desk of the same kind as the one beside which Kant was painted (the old colour print again presided in its usual place over the writing-table). On each side of the desk hung a couple of valuable oil paintings, life-size portraits of Beethoven and Frederick the Great in their youth. Over it were placed some daguerreotype pictures, on which, however, one could never discover anything but some shining metal spots.
Behind the glass doors of the bookcase there was no show of any special binding, but the outwardly homely-looking company, which displayed sulky, leather-covered backs and torn or dirty bits of cardboard, consisted only of original editions, among which—on the middle shelf—were many of Goethe's and all Schiller's works, from Zwoote verbesserte Auflage, of The Robbers with the lion rampant as vignette, and the inscription, "In tirannos," to a William Tell with a dedication written by Schiller himself. Several of these books we got out, not so much for curiosity's sake, for it was not the first time that the bookcase had been opened for us, but because we knew it always pleased the old man.
Minna was also privileged to unlock a drawer in the writing-table and reveal the most precious of all the treasures; it was a snuff-box which Schiller had sent to Kant, a rather big, circular-shaped box, on the cover of which was painted a beautifully designed miniature copy of the Schiller portrait by Graff. Hertz found in it a resemblance to my most unworthy self—especially in the long neck and nose, a discovery which made Minna so delighted that she kissed him.
It began to rain, and suddenly became as dusk in the room as if it was the hour of twilight. The bluish spirit flame which licked round the copper kettle shone on the old man's white beard and on his moist under-lip while he talked—slowly lisping and interrupted by coughing—about life in Riga, where he had been instructed in mercantile business for two or three years. In the Exchange an old-fashioned custom ordained that the bankrupt had to sit on a sort of stool of repentance, while a doom bell was sounded, a sort of moral execution.
"One laughs at such old symbolic customs and finds them barbaric," he said, "but perhaps they have also had something good in them. How distinctly I remember the day when Moses Meyer had to stop his payments. He was chief in one of the two richest Jewish commercial firms, and had ruined himself by rivalry with Wolff—they had always been enemies. There was a dreadful uproar on the Exchange, some were malicious, but the Jews were all very down-hearted. 'Will Wolff come?' was asked everywhere, but most of the people thought that after all he would not witness the humiliation of his rival. It struck twelve, the hour at which the ceremony was to take place; the chairman was just going to ring the bell, when Wolff's landau drew up at a gallop, and Wolff rushed into the hall and shouted breathlessly: 'The bell is not to ring; Meyer is not to take the bankrupt chair.' He had at the last minute, surely after a hard fight, decided to supply his rival with the necessary amount in order to prevent the Jewish congregation from being humiliated; and the two old men cried in each other's arms."
We stared in astonishment at this old man, who seemed at this moment still more venerable, on account of his remembrances of a time that had such a far-off and patriarchal character.
With what pious meditation did we regard some dust and pebbles in a bottle, earth from the Holy Land, which an old Jew from Riga, who had made the pilgrimage to Jerusalem on foot, had brought home in a pocket-handkerchief.
From such Jewish tales the conversation gradually diverged to the Jews' share in liberal-minded literature and centred principally on Heine.
As soon as the coffee-table was cleared Hertz had his Heine portfolio taken out. It contained many letters both to and from the poet, some proof-sheets, and a few small manuscripts. I took up one of the proofs and, as it was still very dark at the table, I went to the window in order to make out a very much erased portion.
I accidentally looked down on the street corner and started. It seemed to me that the slim, very fashionably dressed man with pointed and well-twisted fair beard, who was passing by, looked like Axel Stephensen. But no, this man was taller and older than the Danish painter, and as he took off his hat to an acquaintance I even saw that he was bald.
My feeling of alarm vanished.
At the same instant Hertz started with his feeble, husky voice to read aloud from a manuscript sheet—
"Once more from that fond heart I'm driven
Which I so dearly love, so madly;"
Minna and I exchanged a meaning look; she grew pale, and her pallor showed out still more clearly in the stormy light, which seemed to penetrate through an ashen rain, so dirty and yellow was it.
"It is a beautiful poem," said Hertz; "do you know it?"
"Yes, we know it."
"Oh, they are reading Heine together, the young hearts," Mrs. Hertz exclaimed. "A beautiful time!"
Soon after we took our leave.
We went towards "Grosser Garten."
The rain had stopped. After we had walked a little, Minna exclaimed—
"How strange that he should have the manuscript of just that poem!"
"Yes, a strange coincidence!"
"There is not such a thing as chance."[1]
But as we were half-way up the lovely plane avenue which runs across the fields between the city and "Grosser Garten," it flashed into my mind that the rings which we had ordered were promised us without fail for this afternoon.
We at once agreed to go back, though it took us right into the quarter of the town from which we had come. It was not one of the larger goldsmiths, but a workshop on the second or third floor, of which Minna knew. The rings were ready, and the old woman who gave them to us bestowed them with many congratulations and blessings, to which she also added many regards to Minna's "mamma."
The distress, or rather despondency, which had taken possession of us since that unfortunate poem had been mentioned, gave way to the golden magic of the engagement rings. The weather had changed to the most beautiful sunshine, and we decided to enjoy it on the terrace near by.
The terrace was swarming with people, as is always the case at this hour in fine summer weather. We heard sounds of the concert in Wienergarten on the other side of the river; it was the finale of the Valkyrie, and we stood still and listened. Distance blotted out the defects in the execution. "The renunciation," during which Wotan kisses away the godlike power of Brynhilde, so that the long swooning sleep falls upon her, came clearly over to us in its melancholy rise and fall.
"I heard this very thing on the evening I decided to spend my holiday at Rathen," I said.
"A blessed evening it has been for me," answered Minna," though I at that time had no notion of it. It is strange to think how quite an unknown human being's decision can so completely alter one's whole life. Therefore I do not believe in chance in such things."
"It has been a blessing for both of us," I exclaimed, "and blessed be the place. I will now show you where I sat, over there, outside the little Café Torniamenti, between the columns. Do you see, just there where the gentleman, no, not the old one, but the one who is now getting up and is paying the waiter"
I felt myself kept back by a sudden grip on my arm.
Minna had stopped and stared—But, good God, with what an expression upon her face! She was not pale, but her eyes were unnaturally open—Macbeth might have looked on Banquo's ghost in that way when the courtier showed him to his seat.
I followed this look to the spot to which I had myself directed it.
The gentleman, who had paid the waiter, looked towards us and quickly raised his high silk hat.
- ↑ "Es giebt Keinen Zufall!"—Wallenstein, Schiller.