Part 16

The cordial had invigorated and refreshed me, and I no longer felt inclined to sleep. Neither to all appearance did Heinzel, who sat in an easy soldierly attitude upon his end of the log, gazing at the fire and smoking in silence. It occurred to me as a good opportunity to learn if my suspicions were well-founded, and if he had not once been something better than a private dragoon in the service of her Catholic majesty. We were alone, with the exception of one soldier, who lay at length, and apparently asleep, upon the other side of the fire, closely wrapped in his red cloak, whose collar partially concealed his face.

"Who is that?" said I to Heinzel.

The German rose from his seat, walked round the fire, and drew the cloak collar a little aside, disclosing a set of features of mild and agreeable expression. The man was not asleep, or else the touching of his cloak awakened him, for I saw the firelight glance upon his eyes; but he said nothing, and Heinzel returned to his place.

"It is Franz Schmidt."

I knew this young man well, although he belonged to a different squadron, as an exceedingly clean well-behaved soldier, and one of the most daring fellows that ever threw leg over saddle. In fact, from the colonel downwards, no man was better known than Schmidt. He was a splendid horseman, and had attracted notice upon almost the first day he joined, by a feat of equitation. There was a horse which had nearly broken the heart of the riding-master, and the bones of every man who had mounted him. The brute would go pretty quietly in the riding-school, but as soon as he got into the ranks, he took offence at something or other--whether the numerous society, the waving of pennons, or the sounds of the trumpet, it was impossible to decide--and started off at the top of his speed, kicking and capering, and playing every imaginable prank. The rough-riders had all tried him, but could make nothing of him. Still, as he was a showy young horse, the colonel was loath to have him cast; when one day, as we went out to drill, and Beelzebub, as the men had baptised the refractory beast, had just given one of the best horsemen in the regiment a severe fall, Schmidt volunteered to mount him. His offer was accepted. He was in the saddle in a second; but before his right foot was in the stirrup, or his lance in the bucket, the demon was off with him, over a stiff wall and a broad ditch, and across a dangerous country, at a slapping pace. Schmidt rode beautifully. Nothing could stir him from his saddle; he endured the buck-leaps and other wilful eccentricities of his headstrong steed with perfect indifference, and amused himself, as he flew over the country, by going through the lance-exercise, in the most perfect manner I ever beheld. At last he got the horse in hand, and circled him in a large heavy field, till the sweat ran off his hide in streams; then he trotted quietly back to the column. From that hour he rode the beast, which became one of the best and most docile chargers in the corps. Beelzebub had found his master, and knew it.

The attention Schmidt drew upon himself by this incident, was sustained by subsequent peculiarities in his conduct. The captain of his troop wished to have him made a corporal; but he refused the grade, although he might be well assured it would lead to higher ones. He preferred serving as a private soldier, and did his duty admirably, but was more popular with his officers than with his comrades, on account of his reserved manner, and of the little disposition he showed to share the sports or revels of the latter. Before the enemy he was fearless almost to a fault, exposing his life for the mere pleasure, as it seemed, of doing so, whenever the opportunity offered. He did not cotton much, as the phrase goes, with any one, but in his more sociable moments, and when their squadrons happened to be together, he was more frequently seen with Heinzel than with any body else. In manner he was very mild and quiet, exceedingly silent, and would sometimes pass whole days without opening his lips, save to answer to his name at roll-call.

To return, however, to Master Heinzel. I was resolved to learn something of his history, and, by way of drawing him out, began to speak to him of his native country, generally the best topic to open a German's heart, and make him communicative. Heinzel gave into the snare, and gradually I brought him to talk of himself. I asked him if he had been a soldier in his own country--thinking it possible he might be a deserter, from some German service; but his reply was contradictory of this notion.

"All my service has been in Spain, sir," he said; "and it is not two years since I first put on a soldier's coat, although in one sense, I may say, I was born in the army. For I first saw light on the disastrous day of Wagram, and my father, an Austrian grenadier, was killed at the bridge of Znaym. My mother, a sutler, was wounded in the breast by a spent ball whilst supporting his head, and trying to recall the life that had fled for ever; and although she thought little of the hurt at the time, it occasioned her death a few months afterwards."

"A melancholy start in the world," I remarked. "The regiment should have adopted and made a soldier of the child born within sound of cannon, and deprived of both father and mother by the chances of war."

"Better for me if the regiment had, I dare say," replied Heinzel; "but somebody else adopted me, and by the time I was old enough to do something for myself, fighting was no longer in fashion. I might think myself lucky that I was not left to die by the road-side, for in those days soldiers' orphans were too plenty for one in a hundred to find a foster-father."

"And who acted as yours?"

"An elderly gentleman of Wurzburg, at whose door my mother, overcome by fatigue and sickness, one evening fell down. Incapacitated by ill-health from pursuing her former laborious and adventurous occupation, she had wandered that far on her way to Nassau, her native country. She never got there, but died at Wurzburg, and was buried at the charges of the excellent Ulrich Esch, who further smoothed her dying pillow by the promise that I should be cared for, and brought up as his child. Herr Esch had been a shopkeeper in Cologne, but having early amassed, by dint of industry and frugality, the moderate competency he coveted, he had retired from business, and settled down in a snug country-house in the suburbs of Wurzburg, where he fell in love and got married. Since then several years had elapsed, and the union, in other respects happy, had proved childless. It was a great vexation to the worthy man and to his meek sweet-tempered spouse, when they were finally compelled to admit the small probability of their ever being blessed with a family. Herr Esch tried to draw consolation from his pipe, his wife from her pet dogs and birds; but these were poor substitutes for the cheering presence of children, and more than once the pair had consulted together on the propriety of adopting a child. They still demurred, however, when my mother's arrival and subsequent death put an end to their indecision. The kind-hearted people received her into their house, and bestowed every care upon her, and, when she departed, they took me before the justice of peace, and formally adopted me as their child. For some months my situation was most enviable. True, that old Hannchen, the sour housekeeper, looked upon me with small favour, and was occasionally heard to mutter, when my presence gave her additional trouble, something about beggar's brats and foundlings. True also that Fido, the small white lapdog, viewed me with manifest jealousy, and that Mops, the big poodle, made felonious attempts to bite, which finally occasioned his banishment from the premises. I was too young to be sensible to these small outbreaks of envy, and my infancy glided happily away; when suddenly there was great jubilee in the house, and, after eight years of childless wedlock, Madame Esch presented her husband with a son. This event made a vast difference in my position and prospects, although I still had no reason to complain of my lot. My worthy foster-parents did their duty by me, and did not forget, in their gush of joy at the birth of a child to their old age, the claims of the orphan they had gathered up at their door. In due time I was sent to school, where, being extremely idle, I remained unusually late before I was held to have amassed a sufficient amount of learning to qualify me for a seat on a high stool in a Wurzburg counting-house. I was a desperately lazy dog, and a bit of a scapegrace, with a turn for making bad verses, and ridiculous ideas on the subject of liberty, both individual and national. My foster-father's intention was to establish me, after a certain period of probation, in a shop or small business of my own; but the accounts he got of me from my employers were so unsatisfactory, and one or two mad pranks I played caused so much scandal in the town, that he deferred the execution of his plan, and thinking that absence from home, and a strict taskmaster, might be beneficial, he started me off to Frankfort-on-the-Maine, where a clerk's place was ready for me in the office of the long-established and highly respectable firm of Schraube & Co."

Here Heinzel broke off the narrative strain into which he had insensibly fallen, and apologised for intruding upon me so commonplace a tale. But he had got into the vein, I saw, and was willing enough to go on; and, on my part, I was curious to hear his story out, although I had already assigned to it, in my mind, the not unnatural termination of flight from a severe employer, renunciation by the adoptive father, and consequent destitution and compulsory enlistment. I begged him to continue, and he did not need much pressing.

"Frankfort is a famous place for Jews," continued Heinzel, "and Jews are notoriously sharp men of business; but the entire synagogue might have been searched in vain for a more thorough Hebrew in character and practice than that very Christian merchant, Herr Johann Schraube. He was one of those persons who seem sent into the world for the express purpose of making themselves as disagreeable as possible. A little, bandy-legged, ill-made man, with small ferret's eyes, and a countenance expressive of unbounded obstinacy and self-conceit; he had a pleasant way of repeating his own words when he ought to have listened to the answer, was never known to smile except when he had made somebody miserable, or to grant a favour till he had surlily refused it at least half-a-dozen times. His way of speaking was like the snap of a dog. Every body about him hated and feared him; his wife and children, his servants, his clerks, and even his partner, a tall strapping fellow who could have crushed him with his foot like a weasel, but who, nevertheless, literally trembled in presence of the concentrated bile of his amiable associate. I anticipated a pleasant time of it under the rule of such a domestic tyrant, especially as it had been arranged that I was to live in the house. Accordingly, a bed-chamber was allotted to me. I took my meals, with some others of the clerks, at the lower end of the family dinner-table, and passed ten hours a-day in writing letters and making out accounts. My scanty moments of relaxation I was fain to pass either out of doors or reading in the counting-house; for although nominally treated as one of the family, I could see that my presence in the common sitting-room, was any thing but welcome to Schraube and his circle. Altogether I led a dog's life, and I make no doubt I should have deserted my blotting book and fled back to Wurzburg, had I not found one consolation amongst all these disagreeables. Herr Schraube had a daughter of the name of Jacqueline--a beautiful girl, with golden curls and laughing eyes, gay and lively, but coquettish and somewhat satirical. With this young lady I fell in love, and spoiled innumerable quires of post paper in scribbling bad poetry in praise of her charms. But it was long before I dared to offer her my rhymes; and, in the meantime, she had no suspicion of my flame. How could she possibly suspect that her father's new clerk, of whose existence she was scarcely conscious, save from seeing him twice or thrice a-day at the furthest extremity of the dining-table, would dare to lift his eyes to her with thoughts of love. She had no lack of more eligible adorers; and, although she encouraged none of them, there was one shambling lout of a fellow, with round shoulders and a sodden countenance, whom her father particularly favoured, because he was exceedingly rich, and whose addresses he insisted on her admitting. Like every body else, she stood in much awe of old Schraube; but her repugnance to this suitor gave her courage to resist his will, and, for some time, the matter remained in a sort of undecided state; stupid Gottlieb coming continually to the house, encouraged and made much of by the father, but snubbed and turned into ridicule by the vivacious and petulant daughter, both of whom, probably, trusted that time would change each other's determination.

"Such was the state of things when, one evening as I sat in the counting-house hard at work at an invoice, a servant came in and said that Miss Jacqueline wished to speak to me. A summons to appear at the Pope's footstool would not have surprised me more than this message from a young lad who had long occupied my thoughts, but had never seemed in the least to heed me. Since I had been in the house, we had not exchanged words half-a-dozen times, and what could be the reason of this sudden notice? Without waiting to reflect, however, I hurried to her presence. She was seated at her piano, with a quantity of music scattered about; and her first words dissipated the romantic dreams I had begun to indulge on my way from the counting-house to the drawing-room. She had heard I was clever with my pen, and she had a piece of music to copy. Would I oblige her by doing it? Although I had never attempted such a thing, I unhesitatingly accepted the task, overjoyed at what I flattered myself might lead to intimacy. I sat up all that night, labouring at the song, and after spoiling two or three copies, succeeded in producing one to my satisfaction. Jacqueline was delighted with it,--thanked me repeatedly,--spoke so kindly, and smiled so sweetly that my head was almost turned, and I ventured to kiss her hand. She seemed rather surprised and amused than angry, but took no particular notice, and dismissed me with another piece of music to copy. This was done with equal despatch and correctness, and procured me another interview with Jacqueline, and a third similar task. Thenceforward the supply of work was pretty regular, and took up all my leisure time, and often a good part of my nights. But in such service I was far from grudging toil, or lamenting loss of sleep. Nearly every day I found means of seeing Jacqueline, either to return music, to ask a question about an illegible bar, or on some similar pretext. She was too much accustomed to admiration not at once to detect my sentiments. Apparently they gave her no offence; at any rate she showed no marks of displeasure when, after a short time, I ventured to substitute, for the words of a song I copied, some couplets of my own which, although doubtless more fervent in style than meritorious as poetry, could not leave her in doubt of my feelings towards her. I even thought, upon our next meeting at the dinner-table, after she had received this effusion, that her cheek was tinged with a blush when I caught her bright blue eye. With such encouragement I continued to poetise at a furious rate, sometimes substituting my verses for those of songs, at others writing them out upon delicate pink paper, with a border of lyres and myrtles, and conveying them to her in the folds of the music. She never spoke to me of them, but neither did she return them; and I was satisfied with this passive acceptance of my homage. Thus we went on for some time, I sighing and she smiling; until at last I could no longer restrain my feelings, but fell at her feet and confessed my love. A trifling but significant circumstance impelled me to this decisive step. Going into the sitting-room one afternoon, I beheld her standing at the window, engaged in the childish occupation of breathing on the glass and scribbling with her finger upon the clouded surface. So absorbed was she in this pastime that I approached her closely before she seemed aware of my presence, and was able to read over her shoulder what she wrote upon the pane. To my inexpressible delight, I distinguished the initials of my name. Just then she turned her head, gave a faint coquettish scream, and hurriedly smeared the characters with her hand. My heart beat quick with joyful surprise; I was too agitated to speak, but, laying down the music I carried, I hurried to my apartment to meditate in solitude on what had passed. I beheld my dearest dreams approaching realisation. I could no longer doubt that Jacqueline loved me; and although I was but her father's clerk, and he was reputed very wealthy, yet she was one of many children--my kind foster parent had promised to establish me in business--and, that done, there would be no very great impropriety in my offering myself as Herr Schraube's son-in-law. Upon the strength of these reflections, the next time I found myself alone with Jacqueline, I made my declaration. Thrice bitter was the disenchantment of that moment. Her first words swept away my visions of happiness as summarily as her fingers had effaced the letters upon the tarnished glass. But the glass remained uninjured, whilst my heart was bruised and almost broken by the shock it now sustained. My avowal of love was received with affected surprise, and with cold and cutting scorn. In an instant the castle of cards, which for weeks and months I had built and decorated with flowers of love and fancy, fell with a crash, and left no trace of its existence save the desolation its ruin caused. I had been the victim of an arrant coquette, whose coquetry, however, I now believe, sprang rather from utter want of thought than innate badness of heart. Her arch looks, her friendly words, her wreathed smiles, the very initials on the window, were so many limed twigs, set for a silly bird. Jacqueline had all the while been acting. But what was comedy to her was deep tragedy to me. I fled from her presence, my heart full, my cheeks burning, my pulse throbbing with indignation. And as I meditated, in the silence of my chamber, upon my own folly and her cruel coquetry, I felt my fond love turn into furious hate, and I vowed to be revenged. How, I knew not, but my will was so strong that I was certain of finding a way. Unfortunately, an opportunity speedily offered itself.

"For some days I was stupefied by the severity of my disappointment. I went through my counting-house duties mechanically; wrote, moved, got up and lay down, with the dull regularity, almost with the unconsciousness, of an automaton. I avoided as much as possible the sight of Jacqueline, who, of course, took no notice of me, and studiously averted her eyes from me, as I thought, when we met at meals; perhaps some feeling of shame at the cruel part she had acted made her unwilling to encounter my gaze. My leisure time, although not very abundant, hung heavily upon my hands, now that I had no music to copy, no amorous sonnets to write. A fellow-clerk, observing my dulness and melancholy, frequently urged me to accompany him to a kind of club, held at a _kneipe_, or wine-house, where he was wont to pass his evenings. At last I suffered myself to be persuaded; and finding temporary oblivion of my misfortune in the fumes of canaster and Rhine wine, and in the boisterous mirth of a jovial noisy circle, I soon became a regular tavern-haunter; and, in order to pass part of the night, as well as the evening, over the bottle, I procured a key to the house-door, by means of which I was able to get in and out at hours that would have raised Herr Schraube's indignation to the very highest pitch, had he been aware of the practice.

"It chanced one night, or rather morning, as I ascended the steps, of mingled wood and brick, that led to the door of my employer's spacious but old-fashioned dwelling, that I dropped my key, and, owing to the extreme darkness, had difficulty in finding it. Whilst groping in the dusty corners of the stairs, my fingers suddenly encountered a small piece of paper protruding from a crack. I pulled it out; it was folded in the form of a note, and I took it up to my room. There was no address; but the contents did not leave me long in ignorance of the person for whom the epistle was intended. The first line contained the name of Jacqueline, which was repeated, coupled with innumerable tender epithets, in various parts of the billet-doux. It was signed by a certain Theodore, and contained the usual protestations of unbounded love and eternal fidelity, which, from time immemorial, lovers have made to their mistresses. Whoever the writer, he had evidently found favour with Jacqueline; for again and again he repeated how happy her love made him. Apparently, he was by no means so certain of the father's good-will, and had not yet ventured to approach him in the character of an aspirant to his daughter's hand; for he deplored the difficulties he foresaw in that quarter, and discussed the propriety of getting introduced to Herr Schraube, and seeking his consent. He begged Jacqueline to tell him when he might venture such a step. The letter did not refer to any previous ones, but seemed written in consequence of a verbal understanding; and the writer reminded his mistress of her promise to place her answers to his missives in the same place where she found these, twice in every week, upon appointed days, which were named.