PART TWO

A FIGHTER IN THE MAKING

THE SALON.

I.

Some cities are like affected women. In their desire to appear original, without possessing any originality, they ape the mannerism of one, the gait of another, the gestures of a third, striking poses not their own.

While Paris, for example, has always been her natural self, with her vices and virtues, her elegance and tawdriness, her brilliance and superficial glitter, which spring from her native appetites; while London, likewise, is always herself, as is Vienna and Munich and Venice and Florence and Rome; Berlin, of all great cities, has never been her real self. With the subtle artifices of the poseur she has always imitated her envied rivals and at the same time ridiculed those whose manners she simulated. Her lurking jealousy has always decided her model. It is a safe prophecy that within a decade Berlin will pattern her life after New York and will at the same time raise her voice in derision against the materialism of the great American Metropolis.

Berlin a century ago, no different from Berlin of today, had broad avenues, beautiful public gardens, spacious boulevards, gaudy palaces, luxurious homes, busy restaurants, noisy cafés, all immaculately kept with the orderliness of an army on parade, and with a palpable newness that made one feel that the city and all her gardens, avenues, boulevards, palaces, were laid out by cord and line, chiefly after the design of an individual, without the least indication of the character or ideas of the inhabitants.

During the Napoleonic wars, especially after Blücher’s hospitality in the British capital, Berlin had become London-mad and copied her life openly, but no sooner was the treaty of Paris concluded, and Napoleon’s threatening shadow was definitely removed, than Berlin struck her former pose. She again wished to vie with her hated rival, Paris. _Salons_ were formed, art circles sprang into being, the Prussian began to scoff in Voltairean style, simulated French wit, and presented plays of flagrant immorality which to the Berliner seemed quite Parisian.

Superficial imitation, however, frequently brings about changes of a deeper nature. With the adoption of foreign fashions came foreign ideas. The spirit of revolt which had been smouldering in Paris—soon to break out in roaring flames—had also permeated the _Kaiserstadt_. French ideals had sifted in and Young Germany was awaking.

But whenever, and wherever, people fight for freedom the brave and the strong perish that the cowardly and the weak may live. Officialdom is ever ready to forgive the offenses of the truckler. At this period, however, even the weaklings sought an outlet for their aroused feelings—in polemics that did not disturb the Prussian officials. Religion, philosophy, romanticism, were safe substitutes. At no epoch in the history of Germany did the land abound in so many cults and sects as during the last two decades of the reign of that weak and good-natured king, Frederic William the Third. There were the Kantians, who discarded all miracles and regarded Christianity as a mere philosophic doctrine; the Hegelians, who were pantheistic yet clung to the romantic life story of Jesus; the followers of Schleiermacher, who swung between Pantheism and Rationalism, without touching either; and then there were the unadulterated romanticists, who followed—without clear understanding—Fichte, Schlegel and Schelling.

The vortex of all great discussions was the salon of Rahel Varnhagen von Ense. Her house at No. 20 Friedrichstrasse was the Mecca of all people of note and her “at home” was sought with eagerness. Not to have known Rahel reflected upon one’s intellectual standing. And Karl August Varnhagen von Ense was modest enough not to resent being known as Rahel’s husband. His admiration for his wife’s personality equalled his great love for her.

Rahel was as enigmatic and as paradoxical as the race from which she sprang. With her, as with her race, the unexpected happened. The daughter of a wealthy merchant and bearing the name of Rachel Levin at a period when a Jewish name was the greatest social handicap in Berlin, she had risen to a secure place in society. Princes courted her, artists sought her counsel, men of letters craved her opinion. No less a personage than Wolfgang von Goethe, at the very zenith of his fame, sent in his card. Unlike her social rival, Henrietta Herz, it was not physical beauty nor fascinating coquetry that helped her win her position in society. Rather plain looking, save for her brilliant black eyes, and small of stature, she possessed that indefinable charm which is even more attractive than beauty; and although she had already reached her fiftieth year her slender figure gave her a girlish appearance.

With the tact of a clever hostess she engaged one guest in conversation while her ears caught the drift of the talk of another.

“Rahel has discovered a new poetic genius,” her husband was saying.

His smile was not that of banter but rather of triumph. There was pride in his small featured countenance.

A little man, with a large head and an ugly sharp face, was laughing blandly, as an echo to von Ense’s remark.

“I see you are sceptical about new poetic geniuses, Pastor Schleiermacher,” resumed von Ense.

“No,” said the little man, still laughing, “but I thought that with Herr von Goethe still alive Frau Varnhagen would admit of no other poetic genius.”

Rahel, who was giving her attention to one of Hegel’s discourses—Hegel was always delivering discourses, even in drawingrooms—caught the gist of Schleiermacher’s ironic remark and her smiling eyes seemed to say, “Wait until Professor Hegel gets through with his monologue and you shall get your deserts.”

However, the opportunity had not yet come. Professor Hegel was still laboring to complete his sentence in his strong Swabian accent, speaking haltingly, with jerking gestures, and, swaying his body awkwardly, he continued:

“As I was saying, when I think a thought, for instance, I am not thinking my own thought but only part of the universal thought of all human intelligence, and while the thought strikes me as my own it is only the thought of the universe I am thinking, and when I think of God, or rather of the absolute, the idea of the consciousness of one, I am only thinking as part of the whole which is God—in other words, my consciousness of this thought and the opposite of this very thought are one and the same thing, both being the same consciousness of an integral whole——”

Rahel welcomed the guests while giving part of her mind to Hegel, who was laboring through the labyrinth of his thoughts, seeking a way out. Fortunately Hegel minded no intrusions nor interruptions, and with his shoulders stooped, his prematurely aged, wrinkled countenance undergoing the visible contortions of a twitching pair, proceeded:

“In other words, though directed _an sich_, concerning and pertaining to one’s self as an incomplete and imperfect existence—such thought, as I have clearly demonstrated, is different and yet identical, all forming complementary parts of a whole, as segments make up a circle, and yet without a circle there can be no segments——”

“Clearly so,” struck in the hostess.

“Yes, Pastor Schleiermacher,” she turned her keen eyes upon the little savant, “I have discovered a new poetic genius. Venus may shine even though the greater lustre is that of Jupiter.”

She wished him to know that she had overheard his pleasantly about the bard of Weimar.

“Who is this new genius—a Berliner?”

Several other faces turned upon the hostess.

“No, a recent arrival. He hails originally from the Rhineland but he has just come from Goettingen, a student of Jurisprudence——”

“With no past?”

“All future,” laughed Rahel. “Yes, he has something pelled from Goettingen——”

“Then there is indeed hope for him,” struck in Gubitz, editor of the “_Gesellschafter_.”

“I expect him here this evening,” Rahel soon added seriously. “He has real talent. He promised to bring a few of his poems and I may induce him to read them to us.”

When Rahel praised the most critical paused to consider. She had been the first to proclaim Goethe’s supremacy when to the literary world at large he was still “only one of the poets.”

Soon Albert was announced and every one divined that he was the object of Rahel’s admiration. Even Hegel, who was still elucidating his trend of thought, raised his eyes to get a glimpse of the newcomer.

Dressed in a velvet frock coat and frilled shirt, with lace falling over his white, beautifully shaped hands, with a broad laid-down collar, he looked taller than he actually was. In his face was boyishness with something indefinable about the deep corners of his mouth that already spoke of world-weariness, and the peculiar twinkle in his narrowed eyes accentuated the suggestion of cynicism.

Rahel, with the _savoir faire_ of the hostess of a celebrated salon, made a special effort to put the young man at his ease. She realized that in spite of his innate pride—the pride she well understood—the gathering of so many notables, so many years his seniors, embarrassed him. She meant to be his patroness. Inwardly she was already proud of him. She was not displeased with the manner in which he met the brilliant assemblage. She could see he was not over-modest but she was enough of a student of human nature to know that while true genius may understand its own limitations it is never humble enough to reveal them to others. Again, she was pleased because he did not betray his Semitic lineage. She had not yet outlived her secret wish to obliterate her racial past, though in her heart of hearts—deeper than she permitted herself to penetrate—she was proud that he was of her race.

She kept close to him all evening, eagerly watching over him lest he might make some _faux pas_ and put himself in a wrong light before the critical audience. She was conscious of his youth and of his readiness of speech, and knew the prejudice of elders against a talkative young man, no matter how scintillating. For after a momentary constraint Albert joined in the conversation with his wonted recklessness and offered opinions that might be construed as presumptive in a man of his age. And she was particularly glad that he had made a favorable impression upon Gublitz. The editor was not as pedantic as most of the coterie and possessed enough of cynicism himself to appreciate the young poet’s bitter tongue. She was counting on the editor of the “_Gesellschafter_” to be of service to her protégé.

Though she urged him to read a few of his poems she was pleased when Albert declined, and she was still more gratified when he handed her a packet for her personal perusal.

II.

Albert left Rahel’s salon elated. Rahel was a revelation to him. In the past two years he had met learned Professors at Bonn and Goettingen, and had met a few charming women, but had as yet never met a person of either sex that combined the erudition of pedants with the ease engendered by good social breeding.

What particularly drew him towards her was her naturalness; her freedom of sham, her uncompromising truthfulness. And what was rarest of all, she was innocent of all prejudices. She could sympathize with those whose opinions were diametrically opposed to her own. Inner suffering is very often the most effective instructor of tolerance. The only thing she despised and for which she showed no sympathy, was correct mediocrity—Philistinism. At last Albert Zorn had found a kindred spirit.

His experiences of the past two years had prepared him for this friendship. He had read a great deal, thought profoundly, and suffered no little since he left Hamburg. Embittered by his unrequited love he had fled from the _Schacherstadt_ as from a nightmare, and at first found Bonn very much to his liking. Not only was the atmosphere of learning alluring after the sordid commercialism of Hamburg, but the town on the Rhine, with its picturesque surrounding, reawakened in him the sentiments of his boyhood. And here, too, was the friend of his boyhood, Christian Lutz, also another old classmate. Indeed, at first it seemed like old times. He was again sauntering along the banks of his beloved river, dreaming fanciful dreams; he persuaded himself that he had obliterated the rankling memories of that hateful city, the cradle of his great sorrows.

And though already twenty-two he flung himself into the college life with boyish ardor. He became a member of the _Burschenschaft_, joined the Round Table of a young literary coterie, and participated in the students’ pastimes, such as fencing and dueling, and only refrained from smoking and drinking because of his precarious health. Save for his narrowed dreamy eyes and peculiar restlessness, he appeared as a typical “_flotter Bursch_”. He wore a black coat, a red cap, and across his breast shone the colors of the _Burschenschaft_, a band of black, red and gold.

The _Burschenschaft_ was more than a mere student fraternity, with _camaraderie_ as its objective. It claimed idealistic aims. Its leaders spoke of a United Germany, they prattled of Neo-Hellenism—the Neo-Hellenism of Goethe and Winckelmann—they orated about Romanticism—“_Die Welt wird Traum, der Traum wird Welt_.”——

But much as they indulged in fine speeches their real aims were visionary—_Schwärmerei_—rather than practical. It was only the Prussian Government that took them seriously. The assassination of Kotzebue by a fanatic student had aroused the authorities to drastic action. Students had been expelled, professors incarcerated, the members of the _Burschenschaft_ were under police surveillance. And the open antagonism of the Government fanned the smouldering embers of revolt in the breasts of the young dreamers who despised Prussian tyranny.

Albert joined the _Burschenschaft_ at this critical moment, and brought to it all the zeal of a new convert. Hitherto he had given but little thought to political strife, his being had been immersed in romantic sentiments of the heart, but in this league he beheld the means to a great end. To him the _Burschenschaft_ stood for the contending force against Prussianism. And when one night the students marched to the Kreuzberg, back of the town, where by the glow of flaming torches and bonfires they voiced their undying loyalty to the great cause, Albert Zorn was one of the most fervid. It was his first taste of action. His, innate love of liberty flared up and took the place of his erstwhile sentimentality.

Through the carelessness of a fellow student, who had written a report of this torch parade to an editor, the authorities learned of this march and at once cited the offenders to appear before the _Universitätsrichter_ (college judge). In the protocol it was charged that not only was the _Burschenschaft_ greeted with “_Lebe hoch!_” but a seditious speech was made which ended with the following ominous words: “Brothers, a great burden rests upon our shoulders. We must free the oppressed Fatherland!” And out of the 216 members of the _Burschenschaft_ only Albert Zorn and three others were singled out for chastisement. True, he was not severely punished but the accusation and the proceeding of the trial were enough to deepen his hatred for Prussian rule, and to dampen his ardor for Bonn. Moreover, this unexpected jolt brought clarity to his vision. His temporary illusion was gone. He saw the futility of the _Burschenschaft_; its members had not displayed such courage at the trial as to arouse his admiration. He saw in their endeavors nothing but sound and empty phrases. He had mistaken the boyish circle for a manly organization.

In addition to his disillusions came the crushing disappointments as regards Christian Lutz. Albert was grieved at the change in his boyhood friend. The son of a Prussian official, he began to reveal his inner self. The leopard could not change his spots. Instead of the buoyant youngster that he had been in former years, Christian was now a stolid young man and frowned upon all liberal views. Albert felt that Christian was regarding him with the eyes of a Prussian official, for which function he was preparing himself. And Christian had also lost interest in literature. He regarded Albert’s poetic flights as mere child’s play, unbecoming a serious minded student.

At the end of the second semester Albert again found himself alone and aloof, walking, brooding, planning, sick at heart. Everybody and everything had suddenly changed, only he was the same, the same dreamer, dreaming of things that were not coming true.

Discouraged he left Bonn and went to Goettingen. However, it did not take him long to realize the fallacy of the change. Instead of the picturesque scenery of the former town the environments of Goettingen were commonplace and instead of the romantic spirit of the Bonn University the air in this “learned nest” was charged with pedantry; everybody was bent on “grinding”, with scholarship as its shibboleth. And what was more irritating to the democratic son of the Rhineland was the predominant element of the Hannoverian _Junker_ aristocracy; the superciliousness and the boorishness of these tyrannical fledglings goaded him on to voicing his contempt for the whole breed. Always outspoken, always blunt, always showing his likes and dislikes too plainly, he made no secret of his opinions. As a result he had quickly gained a reputation for wit but at the expense of popularity. The historian Sartorius, one of Albert’s professors at Goettingen and an ardent admirer of his talents, lauded the young poet’s verses which were shown him, but added, “_Indessen, man wird Sie nicht lieben_.” No, they neither loved his songs nor himself at Goettingen.

Before long he was again called before the _Universitätsrichter_. A charge was lodged against him that he had challenged one of the students, a nobleman, to a duel, against the rules of the University. He admitted the charge and justified his act because his opponent had questioned his veracity. But the college judge would not recognize such a defense.

So after a summer of study and foot-journeys with a knapsack on his back he came to Berlin.

III.

Berlin thrilled him at first. Keen observer though he was, he mistook her superficial dazzle for a deeper brilliancy. He was still looking at the world with the eyes of a rustic. The opera, the galleries, the fine avenues, the gay cafés, the _salons_—everything about him engaged his interest and furnished food for his vivid imagination. Furthermore, though still a law student, he was received in society as a promising young poet and as such many doors of distinguished men and women were open to him.

At last the fates were kind to him, he thought. His health had improved, he had a circle of friends and admirers, he was writing new poems, getting old ones published, had finished a poetical drama, and had hopes of seeing it presented on the stage. And Rahel’s house had become his second home. He did not wait for her “at home” but came and went as he pleased. She read and criticised every line he wrote, and her severest censure never hurt his feelings. Very frequently her husband was also invited to pass critical judgment on Zorn’s verses. Dinners and teas with brilliant people, late evenings at Lutter and Wegner’s—the café where the young literary talent of Berlin congregated to discuss the latest book, the latest play, the latest musical composition. Conversation was to him like reading: it stimulated his own thoughts. And when he was not reading or arguing he was strolling along _Unter den Linden_, swinging his cane, his eyes narrowed, his chest thrust forward, gathering impressions. When fatigued from walking he dropped in at Café Josty, famed for its _Kaffee mit Sahne_.

To be sure, moments of sorrow were not lacking even in those happy days. His father’s financial condition had grown worse and then came the crushing blow that Hilda was betrothed—that she had preferred an everyday business man to a poet by the grace of God! Besides, he was always short of a few _Louis d’or_ for which he would rob Peter to pay Paul, and he was ever perplexed as to where his money had gone. Uncle Leopold’s stipend came punctually on the first of the month, and according to his calculations should see him through till the first of the next, but somehow it never lasted more than a week. Ah, if he could only catch up and start with a clean slate the next month! Every month he would take a vow to be more regular in his habits, more methodical—never, never would he be inveigled into a game of Pharo—but then at the end of the week he found himself with but one _Thaler_ in his pocket, with three more weeks before the first of the next month, and he would then hasten to one of his friends to borrow enough to tide him over the difficult period. Then, again there were other sorrows. Albert had collected a number of his poems and wished to publish them in book form but he was still unable to find a publisher. “The bats!” he would mutter under his breath, “I turn the sun upon them and they see it not.” Rahel was the only one who saw the light. It was heartbreaking. Byron at his age was already famous and he—“Oh, the blind bats!”

One day a would-be friend came knocking at his door. It was late on a cold January morning and he was still in bed. He had awakened earlier in the morning but a few stray thoughts tormented him so he turned over and tried to forget them in sleep. Fortunately nothing but a headache disturbed his sleep. Grief had the opposite effect on him. The day before had been a very trying one. He had lost a few Louis d’or at Pharo, had a quarrel with one of his comrades at Lutter and Wegner’s, and had received an unpleasant letter from his parents. So he had stayed up late the night before writing verses on the cruelty of fate.

As he turned in his bed a thought flashed across his brain that eternal sleep was the greatest gift of the gods—Death! No rejected manuscripts, no unrequited love, no debts, no asinine critics, no Hegels and Schleiermachers, no Jews and Christians, no Prussian censors—death surely was bliss, he determined and buried his head in his pillow. He recalled that when he awoke he was in a very pleasant dream, and hoped to pick up the golden threads of that fantastic web. He wondered what had awakened him. It must have been the sounds outside. Friedrichstrasse was becoming noisy, he was saying to himself, and he ought to change his lodgings where his pleasant dreams would not be interrupted. He was trying to bring back the vanished phantom. He sometimes went back to sleep and resumed the dream at the point left off, like a story given in instalments.

Confound that noise outside! Albert was vexed with Friedrichstrasse, with the mob that never respected the sensibilities of a poet, with those clattering hoofs—why could not such heavy treading beasts have rubber hoofs? Rubber—a Pharo wheel—a girl’s face—the girl was beating a drum—it was deafening . . .

He rose with a sudden start and blasphemous ejaculations.

“Who is there? What do you want?” he demanded in a high pitched voice.

He remembered that he had forgotten to bolt his door, so he shouted again, “Open the door and tell me what you want!”

“A man wants to see you—”

“This early? What does he want? Who is he?”

“I told him you were asleep but he would not leave. He said he must see you; and, besides, he said you had no business to be asleep at eleven o’clock—”

“What business is that of his?” Albert shouted. “Tell the impudent fool I won’t see him—”

The landlady laughed blandly. She knew her lodger, and there was but a step between his uncontrollable wrath and overflowing tenderness.

His features softened. Hegel’s lectures came punctually at two and he did not want to miss that. It was not so much that he wished to hear what the philosopher had to say—Hegel had been repeating the same thing in the past ten lectures—but he loved to watch the Professor’s grotesque movements and the peculiar contortions of his wrinkled face. A classmate next to him was making interesting caricatures of the Professor while he was lecturing.

“Who is this fellow?” Albert asked in a modulated voice. “Has he no name at all?”

“He said he was a genius and was sure you’d appreciate him—and he looks like a genius.”

“You have probably misunderstood him,” laughed Albert. “He must have said he wanted to see the genius. Alright, let him come in.”

The landlady shrugged her shoulders and closed the door.

He was about to throw himself back on his bed when she reappeared, followed by the stranger.

“Look at the damn thing!” the intruder burst out, without a word of introduction. “No publisher would have it. I showed it to the editor of the “_Gesellschafter_” but he only shook his head and said ‘Show it to Albert Zorn.’ So here it is!”

With that he flung a packet of papers on the bed.

Albert reached for the manuscript, then glanced at his visitor.

“So your name is Krebsfleisch?”

“Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch” the stranger corrected him, with a sullen expression on his high cheekbones and short, receding chin. His brow was like a dome and his eyelids were heavy, with bovine eyes protruding.

“Before long everybody in the land—princes and paupers—will know who Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch is!” he added. “The world is as yet too stupid to recognize my genius. I was told you might understand me—But you can’t be a poet and have that fine fur coat!”

Krebsfleisch suddenly checked himself, his bulging eyes turned in the direction of an open clothes-closet, where Zorn’s clothes were hanging. He crossed the room and patted the fur as if it were a purring cat.

Albert’s mouth tightened with a humorous smile on his lips. There was a mischievous twinkle in his narrowed eyes. He could not decide whether his visitor was an escaped lunatic or had not recovered from a night’s drinking. He wore a short, tattered coat, baggy patched trousers, and his hairy breast was seen through his unbuttoned shirt. His headgear was a cross between an old-fashioned high silk hat and the present day derby.

“Why don’t you read it?” he presently accosted Albert. “Some day you’d be glad to tell your friends that the great poet Johann Friedrich Krebsfleisch had given you the chance of reading his great epic in manuscript.” Then he added, as if soliloquising, “Every genius is a John the Baptist crying in the wilderness. Years later people wake up and try to catch the echo.”

Albert undid the package and glanced at the title page.

“Since Schiller died no one has produced a tragedy worthy of the name. At last you have one before you,” Krebsfleisch struck in.

“Have you published anything?”

“The idiots can’t see my genius—yet. And the finest quality of my genius is hunger. Yes, I am a genius by the grace of god. No one has ever known hunger in all its stages as I have.”

He moved his jaws, his eyes wandering around the room.

A knock at the door and a maid entered with a tray of steaming coffee and several rolls and butter.

Krebsfleisch stared at the food avidly.

“You must be a millionaire,” he said, sitting down at the foot of the bed. “A fur coat, a warm room, steaming coffee in the morning. Are you a poet or a publisher?”

“Just a poetic genius like yourself,” laughed Albert.

Krebsfleisch looked suspiciously at his host. There was something in Albert’s voice that was always puzzling. One could never tell whether he was jesting or was in earnest.

“You can’t possibly drink all this coffee alone?” said the visitor.

“No, I ordered enough for both of us,” responded Albert seriously. And he removed the cup from the saucer and filled them both to the brim.

“Which would you rather have, the cup or the saucer?” he asked.

Krebsfleisch’s bulging eyes skipped from one to the other, with a peculiar glitter.

“I always drink my coffee from a saucer,” he finally replied, and taking hold of it with both hands carried it to his lips.

“You may have all the bread and butter—I don’t care for any this morning,” Albert said nonchalantly.

Krebsfleisch stared at Zorn incredulously. How was it possible that one did not care for bread and butter! Overlooking the knife he spread the butter on a slice of bread with his finger and began to devour it ravenously.

“That’s how my mother used to spread butter on my bread.” His words were half drowned in the fullness of his mouth!

A moment later he sighed. “Those were happy days in my native village! My mother had a cow and there was always bread and butter and cheese in our house, but she insisted she must make an educated man of me. It serves her right. I have eaten her out of house and all. She inherited silver spoons from her father—her father was a _Beamter_—and I have devoured them all. The ladle goes for this semester’s tuition.”

Albert heaved a sigh. He had devoured his mother’s pearls and his grandfather had consumed a prayer-book with silver clasps during his last term at the medical school. There was now a bond of sympathy between the two. There was mist in Albert’s eyes. He caught his breath but could not speak. His first impulse was to have fun with the queer stranger but instead sympathy filled his heart.

“There is a pair of trousers I don’t need,” Albert said presently. He was too sensitive to make the offer directly.

“Yes, they might fit me,” Krebsfleisch glanced at the pantaloons thrown over a chair by the bed. Then he stood up and measured the length of the legs against his. “Perhaps a little tight around the calves, but they’ll do.”

A few coppers jingled in the trouser-pockets. There was a questioning look in his eyes.

“Yes, the contents goes with the trousers,” said Albert with seeming absentmindedness.

Krebsfleisch at once removed his own tattered trousers unceremoniously and pulled on those offered him.

“Your father must be very rich,” he was saying as he was stretching the waist line to fit his rotundity.

“Very, very rich,” stammered Albert with a sad smile on his face.

“And you never go hungry—not for a single day?”

“No, not for mortal food,” Zorn intoned wistfully.

“The other day,” Krebsfleisch said in a plaintive tone, “I did some copying for a rich idiot who took i a notion into his head that he had a new theory about the universe. He paid me four silver Thalers! Yes, sir, I had four silver Thalers in the hollow of my hand and was on my way to Jagor’s to have a real spread—_Braten_ and white bread and a bottle of wine—and invited two friends for the feast. On the way to the restaurant I met a fellow-student and we dropped into Lutter and Wegner’s for a drink. I don’t know how it happened but we both got drunk and when night came the four Thalers were gone. One of the students, who had been invited to the spread, waited for me at Jagor’s until midnight, and then he challenged me—that fool! Must I lose my life in addition to the loss of my four Thalers? I have no more chance of a dinner at Jagor’s,” he ended with an audible sigh. “Rich idiots with new theories do not grow on trees.”

He rose and stretched his arms, with a downward look at his tightly fitting trousers.

“Can you perchance spare a top coat to cover this misfit?”

Yes, Albert had a top coat. It was hanging on a peg in the open closet.

“A fur coat and a top coat! You are not related to the Rothschilds?”

“Just distantly—the same as to the Prophets and to some of the Apostles.”

The jest was lost on Krebsfleisch.

Later in the day Albert hunted up a friend and borrowed five Louis d’or and then went to 20 Friedrichstrasse, where he announced to Frau Varnhagen von Ense that he had discovered a kindred spirit in the form of a starving genius.

IV.

Months passed. Albert began to tire of Berlin. Every phase of the city’s life, like the pages of a book conned too often, bored him. He yearned for idealism, for truth, and because he could find neither he began to scoff and blaspheme. Here, as elsewhere, sham and falsehood ruled life. Politics, religion, literature, philosophy—a veritable Tower of Babel, where no one understood the other and all were bent on building something colossal, eternal. When he had first arrived here his zeal for so many things was kindled, now it was waning, cooling, dying. He suffered the pain of lost illusions, and that at an age when most people commence to have illusions. Despite his keen mind he had not yet learned that no one can see truth and live—peacefully. And he not only saw the truth but he was unwise enough to shout it from the housetops. He always took the world into his confidence, without realizing that one who gives the world his confidence gets none in return.

The scales were falling off his eyes. The Salon, the literary Bohemians—he saw the sham and sickly sentimentality of it all!

The Salon was but a nest of chattering parrots, where one repeated the phrases and syllogisms dropped by Goethe, by Herder, by Hegel, by Schelling. If these parrots had at least croaked their own tunes!

He was still attending the Round Table at Lutter and Wegner’s on Charlottenstrasse, where the rising young poets were having heated debates on literary topics. Every one of them had his shoulders in readiness for the mantle of the Prophet of Weimar to fall upon him and every one thought everybody else a mere pretender. And when they were most animated, stimulated by drink and smoke, Albert sat in a corner, neither drinking nor smoking, a strange gleam in his narrowed eyes, and from time to time sent a shaft of irony or an arrow of wit through their web of fancy phrases. When he did argue his colleagues scented arrogance in his statements. He had an unfortunate manner of belittling his opponents’ assertions and brushing them aside with a scoffing jest. They were talking of romanticism as if the period was only beginning while he was speaking of it as if it had ended. They persuaded themselves that dreams were realities while he only wished to clothe the sordidness of life in the garb of romance. When he persisted they could not see the difference.

He was also at variance with them on political issues. They spoke of the radical democracy of Ludwig Börne while he believed in a democracy of Government based on justice, with an aristocracy of achievement in all walks of life. When Krebsfleisch accused Albert of aristocratic tendencies he retorted that he had more respect for an industrious aristocrat than for a coarse, drunken, lazy plebian poet who abused the nobility at Lutter and Wegner’s and then went to his lodgings to write a cringing, begging letter to a son of the nobility. Krebsfleisch was silenced but had become Albert’s mortal enemy. Without direct accusation Albert had revealed Krebsfleisch to himself. When people told him that Krebsfleisch was slandering him he only smiled and said Krebsfleisch was a genius and geniuses never had any sense of gratitude.

He again found himself almost alone, strolling along _Unter den Linden_, visiting cafés, reading, thinking suffering from headaches, and when in the throes of pain writing love songs. He wrote love songs because he craved love and had it not. When he had no one to love he was dreaming of love.

MIRIAM.

I.

At the end of that semester he was seized with a passion for work and decided to stay in Berlin the following summer vacation and devote all his time to the execution of his literary plans. His head was full of literary schemes. He again applied himself to another revision of his poetic drama; dashed off a tragedy; penned more _Lieder_; and also sketched a weird romance with Venice as a background. He had just read Hoffmann’s “Die Elixiere des Teufels”, and was so influenced by its mystic charm that he was revolving in his brain the plot of a tale with witches and spirits. He meant to take the world by storm and attack it from many angles.

But the fates always interfered with him, not only in his plans, the affairs of the heart but also in his literary pursuits. One day an admirer sought his acquaintance and became a worshipping friend. And he was a friend worth having. He was the sort of person Albert needed. He was a nobleman from Posen, a count with a genuine love for poetry; sympathetic, generous, young, handsome and entertained liberal religious views, though a Catholic by birth. Besides, he was an accomplished musician and had composed music for a few of Albert’s songs. Eager for recognition, chafing from the public’s neglect, the count’s praise was an infusion of new courage. And the more the count praised his verses, the higher he rose in the author’s estimation. The count had become the “worthiest of mortals”, “a flower of purity”, the “embodiment of all that was good and noble”.

Albert talked of the count to his friends, to his acquaintances, to strangers, and could not even resist the temptation of utilizing the count’s given name in his verses. Impetuous, influenced to love and hate at first sight, the count had won him completely. And what was even more precious in this nobleman, he possessed originality and wit—rare faculties among Albert’s ponderous Berlin friends. So when the count invited him to his estate near Gnesen, Albert forgot his resolutions for an industrious summer and accompanied him to Posen.

He found his surroundings there a veritable poet’s dream. A palatial villa surrounded by extensive woods, luxuriant gardens, hundreds of acres of fertile fields, with a great forest back of the estate, a water mill, and all that the heart could crave. Nor were coquettish maidens wanting.

One day he met with a real adventure. He was alone, wandering through the narrow filthy streets of Gnesen, the town close by. The little town presented a strange sight to him. It looked medieval. Unpaved, without sidewalks, pulverized mud in the streets, the houses of heavy logs, unpainted, and straw-thatched and black with age, with grotesque looking people in the doorways or seated on earthen stoops extending across the whole front of the house. The peasants wore the national costume of unbleached linen coats without sleeves, with a colored girdle fastened around the waist, and trousers tucked in top-boots.

It was near sunset, the sun was sinking in a mist of gold and indigo and lustrous copper, the cows were returning from pasture through the main street to the resounding pistol-like echoes of the shepherd’s long whip and to his exasperating shouts of “Whoa!”

Albert strolled along aimlessly, listening to the unintelligible jabber of the people around him, only now and then catching a word of their jargon.

He soon reached the market-place. It was deserted. Now and then a door opened, and a bar of a raucous song was heard. Then silence. A drunken peasant, lying on his back in the dust near a dram shop, was hiccoughing a love song, but soon his voice was hushed, too. Silence again. The last rays of the dying sun rested like a halo around the head of the Christ upon the tall black crucifix in the centre of the market place. Albert was about to turn in the direction of his host’s villa when his attention was arrested by a girl, who emerged from a narrow passageway that branched off the market place. In her hand was a large jug and she was on her way to the Marktbrunnen. He recalled a scene in Mesopotamia, in the city of Nahor. The scene appeared to him as if he had actually seen it in his childhood. It was distant but vivid. He visualized all Biblical scenes. This damsel too, was “very fair to look upon, and she went down to the well.” But it was harder to draw the water here than in Mesopotamia of old. The well was very deep and the frame above the ground was of round logs, which were mossy and wet and dripping, and there were puddles of water between the stones around the well. At a straight line from the centre of the well a perpendicular heavy pole was suspended from a long beam high above, and to the bottom of the suspended pole was attached an iron-hooped pail, which one was obliged to lower into the deep well, plunge it into the black looking water, and then with the aid of the balancing beam, bring up the pail.

Albert approached the well as the girl had gripped the pole and began to lower it while the beam above was creaking resistance. He remained standing across the well, looking straight at this Rebekah, but she seemed unconscious of his presence.

“May I help you?”

A scarcely perceptible frown on her dark face was the only response and the grip on the pole tightened. In Gnesen young men offered no assistance to girls at the well. A deep gurgle from the depths, a frog-like grunt, and soon the pail was balanced on the top log of the well. As she filled her jug and turned to leave her eyes never betrayed the least knowledge that a young man was eagerly watching every move and gesture of hers; only the brown of her cheeks seemed of a deeper warmth and her gait lacked the ease which had marked her steps on her way to the well.

Following at a respectable distance he soon found himself in an uneven, unpaved, open space, to the right of which was an edifice of unmistakable character—the simplicity of structure, the indefinable gloom hovering over it, the long arched windows, told him that this was a house of prayer—and to the left was a row of dingy houses, with high stoops.

The girl cut diagonally across the large courtyard, mounted a high wooden porch, and when she entered the house closed the door with a slam that resounded throughout the square. Albert stood and looked at the two windows for a while. No face appeared at either of them.

He took a step nearer the house which the girl had entered. It was a humble hut, a one-story affair painted by Mother Nature in drab colors with streaks of black rot and dabs of yellow, where the decay was dry and worm-eaten and crumbling powder.

That evening the gay assemblage at the count’s lost interest for Albert. His friend teased him about his sudden fit of melancholy and made guesses as to whose darted arrows had pierced the poet’s heart. The count was certain it was the flaxen haired Katinka to whom Albert had read his verses earlier in the day; and he rather liked his guest’s sudden fit of melancholy. Since he had a lion under his roof he wanted him to roar.

The next day Albert was again at the _Marktbrunnen_ but he saw only shambling men and slovenly women come to draw water. He could think of no means of reaching the object of his search. His brain was very active but he had no mind for scheming; neither in real life nor in literary plots. He could only add color to reality, invent he could not.

In his present restlessness he turned to literature. He was planning a descriptive essay on Poland and discussed with his host the status of the peasantry. When he touched upon the condition of the Polish Jews, the count said, “The Jews of Gnesen count me as their best friend.”

He spoke rather tenderly, almost affectionately, of “his Jews”.

“You might follow in the footsteps of Casimir the Great and take a Jewish Esther for your wife,” jested Albert.

“The Jewish Esther of Gnesen would spurn a Casimir the Great,” laughed the Count. “I have carried on flirtations with many a Jewish innkeeper’s daughter but Miriam is adamant.”

“Who is Miriam?”

“The rabbi’s daughter. She is the prettiest and sweetest girl I have ever laid my eyes on.”

After a space he added, “By the way, I always pay my respects to the rabbi when I come here in the summer and I should like you to meet him. We have quite a time in understanding each other. He speaks almost no Polish and my German is beyond him, so Miriam often acts as our interpreter.”

A few days later the count’s carriage stopped before a dilapidated little house near the synagogue. Albert was with the count and his heart beat tumultuously as he recognized the high wooden porch. They were soon knocking at the door.

People in Gnesen did not usually knock on people’s doors. They just opened them and walked in.

They knocked again and again without response until the beadle, who happened to pass by, saw the dignitary at the rabbi’s door and hurried to the rear of the house, pushed the door open unceremoniously, and burst out, “Miriam, _der Graf_!”

Miriam was bent over a copper pot which she was polishing.

Miriam dropped the pot and, rushing up to her father, exclaimed, “_Der Graf!_”

The rabbi, with a velvet skull-cap on his head, deep creases in his high, broad forehead, was swaying his body and pondering over some knotty problem in the Talmud.

“_Der Graf?_” he asked as if suddenly awakened from a profound sleep. “Quick, fetch me my Sabbath coat.”

The next moment the rabbi, arrayed in his long silk Sabbath caftan, with a large round fur cap on his head, stood at the open door, courtesying and welcoming the _Graf_. And while the rigid laws of the Polish Jewry forbade such familiarity between the opposite sexes Miriam clasped the count’s extended hand and also shook hands with his companion. Albert looked fixedly at Miriam but beyond a pretty blush could detect no recognition of their former meeting.

In introducing his friend, the count mentioned the fact that Albert was a poet, but that made no impression upon the rabbi. The rabbi considered it a sin to waste ink and paper on anything save a Biblical or Talmudic treatise or upon songs glorifying the Almighty.

Miriam soon withdrew to the adjoining room, but the door between the rooms was open and Albert stole glances into the next chamber. She was paying no attention to his glances. Her eyes were downcast, though her face was turned toward him. Only once, when Albert used a Hebrew word in addressing her father, did she raise her eyes inquiringly and then dropped them quickly as if she were displeased at something.

Albert expected a sign of cordiality when he informed the rabbi that they were of the same race but instead he felt increased coldness—the hospitality was now only extended to the _Graf_.

When they rose to leave Miriam stepped into the room and bade them goodbye. Albert wondered if she understood that the second meeting was not wholly accidental. He was determined that she should understand this.

II.

Love teaches subterfuge. The young poet soon found a pretext to pay another visit at the home of the rabbi. He was taking notes for an article on Poland and came to the rabbi for first hand information.

This time the rabbi seemed more cordial. The absence of the count made Albert, too, feel more at ease. They discussed the misery of the Jews in Poland more freely. Besides, Albert quoted a few Biblical verses and that seemed a welcome password. When he repeated some of the eloquent phrases of Zunz on the martyrdom of Israel and spoke with poetic feeling of Jewish antiquity the rabbi’s eyes glowed with a strange light and there was a warmth on his bearded countenance.

After the next visit Albert was at his wit’s end. He was making rapid progress with the rabbi but not with his daughter. A glance, a blush, a rapid movement of the lashes, but no communication. Jewish daughters in Gnesen did not chat with young men callers. But luck is usually on the side of lovers. When he called again the rabbi was away.

“I wished to ask your father about something concerning the Jews in Poland,” he was stammering, eyeing with delight the changing tints in her cheeks. “Perhaps I could write to him about it.”

“My father doesn’t read German,” Miriam said, catching her breath as if apologizing for his ignorance.

“Do you?”

“Yes,” and she again caught her breath.

Her mother stood at a respectful distance, pride in her eyes. It was through her tolerance that Miriam had learned to read and write German unbeknown to her father.

Albert’s eyes sparkled. A thought sped through his brain. Producing a slip of paper he wrote: “Like King Saul I came here to look for the asses and found a kingdom. Dare I hope that you might meet me at two o’clock tomorrow afternoon inside the second gate of Dzyalin? Until tomorrow.

Albert Zorn.”

“See if you can read my handwriting,” he said as he handed her the note.

She read it, blushed scarlet, grew confused, and raised her eyelashes with a helpless look on her face. He did not offer to shake hands with her, having become confused himself, and left the house.

III.

Dzyalin, the count’s estate was half an hour’s walk from the heart of the Gnesen. On Saturdays and summer evenings the gates were open and the town people were allowed to promenade through the wooded paths and the tree-lined winding alleys. The grounds were entered through a narrow portal and after passing the spacious courtyard, around which were located several imposing homes of the manager and his assistants, there was a tall iron gate which led to two broad shaded lanes. The one to the right led to the count’s castle and the one turning left was open to the public. The latter extended over more than a mile, rows of Lombardy poplars on either side, like sentinels on guard, and came to a sudden halt at the dam, which held the streams in check for the water mill. For farther left was a narrow river, beyond which spread the count’s vegetable gardens and grain fields.

Albert was at the designated spot ahead of time, and when he spied her in the distance he ran toward her with an extended hand but she overlooked it and remained standing stock still, pale, shy, trembling. Her cheeks looked almost bloodless for a moment and her eyes, which he had thought were jet black, were of a sapphire blue and devoid of all animation. A dark cashmere shawl, which had covered her head, had slipped to her shoulders, and the tassels at the ends were gathered in her clasped hands, with an expression of stunned fright on her face.

“I was afraid you wouldn’t come,” he mumbled.

She drew a long breath, her hands clinching the tassels in her hands, and a film of mist appeared in her dark-blue eyes.

“Some one might see me,” she muttered in a fretful voice and a frown of agony appeared on her countenance.

They moved back of the row of poplars, where the ground sloped toward the river, screened by shrubs and bushy willows.

He soon made her forget her fears. He began to ask her questions about the people in Gnesen, about herself, but she would not talk about herself. She wanted him to tell her about Berlin, of which she had heard so much. She sighed. She was tired of Gnesen and the people here. There was nothing new in Gnesen. The same gloom day after day, week after week, year after year. Ah, for a glimpse of Berlin!

He made attempts to console her. Her naiveté, her ignorance of the world, her simplicity, her artlessness, her evident truthfulness charmed him. She had never been outside the little town, and she was in her eighteenth year. She entertained strange notions of what a large city was like, and wished she could go to one—she would go anywhere to escape the tedium of Gnesen.

They were now seated in the screening shade of a clump of willows on one side and on the other were the bushy shrubs through which one caught only intermittent glimpses of the flowing stream below. Now and then were heard the quaint songs of the peasant women in the fields—Polish folk songs—the piping of a swineherd in the distance, the barking of a dog, the shrill drilling sound of the locust. He sat on the ground opposite Miriam, listening to her wistfully, catching the enchanting melodies around him, and looking, with narrowed eyes, at the beautiful maiden before him. There was an exhaling purity about her. Sheltered by her mother’s rigorous virtue she was like a soft-colored wild flower surrounded by high woods, never scorched by the burning rays of the sun, never harassed by gusts of cold winds. As he looked at her appealing dark-blue eyes with those exquisite long black eyelashes, her rich black hair combed straight back from her low, square forehead, and the faintest dimple in her chin, there was a strange sentiment in his heart. He was conscious of a desire to rest his hands upon her bowed head—barely touching it—as did the Jews of old, and murmur a prayer and a blessing that God may guard her sweet purity.

“You ought to be glad to be away from large cities,” he endeavored to cheer her. “Here you have treasures Berlin could never give you.”

He halted. A finch dropped a few sweet notes and sailed away, and then the chattering crickets accentuated the silence around them.

“Ah! you don’t understand—you don’t understand—” she was saying, sadness spreading over her face.

She was playing with the tassels of her cashmere shawl absent-mindedly. She could not explain what he did not understand, for she did not quite fully understand herself beyond the fact that she was weary of Gnesen. Life in Gnesen was a perpetual “You must not.” Being a rabbi’s daughter more things were forbidden her than other girls. And the sudden appearance of this elegantly dressed young man, with his intent eyes upon her, his charming voice and pure German speech, made her conscious of her circumscribed, narrow, drab existence with all its dinginess. Strange feelings had been stirring in her the past year or two but they only made her restless, without revealing to her, her inner desires. Recently she had overheard her mother complain that her father was not active enough to procure a husband for their daughter and the rabbi murmured that “the good Lord would provide.” Miriam trembled at the thought of marriage; a repulsive feeling came over her at the mere mention of it. Marriage in Gnesen meant shaving off her beautiful tresses and exchanging them for the detestable wig; it meant—she shuddered—the drudgery of married life in poverty.

On the day she caught a glimpse of Albert at the well she went home with her heart a-flutter. He was so unlike the young men in Gnesen. She had not thought he belonged to her people but his dreamy, intent look had not escaped her despite her seeming inattentiveness. No one had looked at her in the manner of this stranger.

The evening of their first meeting she remained seated on the steps of the porch, with her elbows on her knees, her pensive face between her hands, musing; at times her breasts heaved, though she knew not why. Her musing was interrupted by the approach of her father and Shloma, the marriage-broker. The two were conversing in a low confidential tone. She knew the topic of their conversation. The day before her father had been telling her mother that Shloma was proposing a suitable young man for Miriam. He mentioned his name. Miriam trembled. She had never spoken with the young man but she knew him by sight, an ungainly young man. When her father and the marriage-broker came near the porch Miriam went into the house and retired. She spent a troubled night, with a heart full of sorrow, and in the back of her brain was the picture of a young man, slender, handsomely dressed, with light-brown hair, and eyes that made her heart flutter.

When she beheld the stranger in the company of the count her heart stood still for a second and the blood rushed to her face. To Miriam the day of miracles had not yet passed. All her life she had heard of nothing but miracles. Her dreams were not of knights and princes but of the thousands of miracles God had performed for her people.

After Albert and the count had left Miriam threw her cashmere shawl over her head and took a long walk, to the very end of the town. She was not thinking of the stranger. She was not thinking of anything. Only her head was thumping and she was restless.

During Albert’s next visit Miriam sat in the adjoining room and drank in every word, every syllable. She loved to listen to his voice, to his pure German, and frequently blushed at the comical attempts of her father to make his patois sound Germanic. She hoped the young man would come again.

Then the miracle happened. The young man called when her father was away and he handed her that note. She cherished the scrap of paper and secretly read it over again and again. She did not hesitate about going to meet him but she trembled with fear. In her innocence the thought that she was running any risk never occurred to her until she had reached the meeting place.

On her departure from their first secret meeting she readily agreed to come the following day. She wanted to hear more of the great city where the streets were paved and lit by lamps at night. She naively asked him what street he lived on and when he told her she asked him to put the address on a piece of paper. Then she made a new discovery; the houses in Berlin were numbered! In Gnesen the houses needed no numbers. One knew the occupants of all the houses and instead of numbers, there were little descriptive signs over the doors, indicating what each owner must furnish in case of fire. The picture of a ladder was above the door of one house, that of an axe over another, and there were sketches—not very graphic—of long hooks and pails and besoms, and, in fact, of all the instruments of the Gnesen fire brigade.

During one of their clandestine meetings Albert remained seated on the ground, his hands around his knee, staring at her as if she were a work of art which aroused his innermost admiration.

Tears of ecstasy were in his eyes as he continued looking at her in silence.

The past three years Albert had learned considerably about the lure of sex—sensuality was no longer an unsolved mystery to him—but though Miriam drew him toward her with a thousand invisible chains he was conscious of an inner fear—the fear of touching a sacred shrine—whenever he touched her cashmere shawl or passed his hand, ever so lightly, over her sleeves, or when he clasped her hand in parting.

Miriam looked up at him and for a moment let her eyes rest upon his sensitive face. She did not understand the meaning of the mist in his eyes but she was conscious of an overwhelming desire to touch him, to let her hand rest upon his.

This was the first touch of romance in the young girl’s life, the first conscious awakening of the mysterious being within her. It was the first tiny opening of the bursting bud, the first petal catching the light of the sun, though its warmth had long before penetrated it. She thought of nothing save the irresistible sweetness of sitting under the willow tree with this young stranger. He seemed a mystery to her, part of the mystery of the great world, of which she knew nothing. The boundaries of her world were the bluish tree tops on the horizon to the left of Gnesen and the dome of the cathedral to the right. And it was midsummer and the Fearful Days—as the group of holidays at the end of summer were symbolically named—were soon at hand. Sadness! sadness! sadness! as if life in Gnesen was not sad enough without fasts, without heart-rending lamentations, without wailing and praying and torturing of the flesh.

“I can’t meet you tomorrow,” she said one day as they parted.

“And why not?” he inquired eagerly.

“Don’t you know what tomorrow is?”

He shook his head.

A strange expression stole over her face. Her eyes contracted, there was a deep dent between her eyebrows, and she stared at him as if sudden fear possessed her.

“So it is not true,” she muttered in a husky voice, “that you are a Jew.”

Albert threw his head back and laughed.

“Too much of a Jew, Miriam—too much of one to be left in peace.” The sunny smile now vanished from his eyes, the deep corners of his mouth drooped and twitched, the wing of melancholy brushed his flushed cheeks. “Why do you doubt it?” He again made an attempt at smiling.

“You couldn’t be a Jew without knowing that tomorrow is a Jewish holiday!”

He looked puzzled at her. He did not observe Jewish holidays.

However, she soon yielded and promised to come.

The next day they were seated in their secluded place, Albert reciting a song he had written the night before. He told her that if he had not met her the song would not have been written.

There were tears in his eyes; he uttered the last verse in a whisper almost, and then silence. The day was hot, without the slightest breeze; nothing stirred, not even the drooping feather-like boughs of the willow overhead.

Suddenly the sound of footsteps behind them arrested their attention. A tall, red-bearded, round-faced man was staring at them as if frightened by an apparition. He was Getzel the Beadle.

Miriam leaped up and like a frightened deer, sped through the bushes before Albert had fully realized what had happened.

He waited but she did not return. He called at the same place the next day and the next but she did not appear. Each new love was a first love to him, only it lashed his soul with greater fury. Ah! the shades of the past, they were nothing more than a memory to him now. The wilted flower of yesterday is always forgotten when the perfume of the living one is wafted into our nostrils. No one was like Miriam. There never was any other woman as sweet as Miriam. His whole being yearned for her. Hedwiga, Hilda, Eugenie—they were all fancies—but Miriam—everything swam before his feverish eyes as he thought of her. Nothing in life mattered any more—nothing! He tried to see her at her home—to tell her parents of his love for their daughter, but the rabbi, like Eugenie’s father, shut the door in his face.

He suddenly awoke from his poet’s dream. He saw nothing but abject misery around him. He could no longer share in his host’s gayety.

IV.

He curtailed his visit and returned to Berlin heavy of heart, saddened beyond endurance. His short-lived romance intensified his bitterness against the rulers of Poland. He hurried to Rahel. He knew no one would understand his present woe as well as that all-wise woman. She was not only his literary critic but also his priestess, to whom he confessed everything. And with that sage smile on her refined intellectual features she knew how to console, how to tender sympathy, and listened with genuine concern.

He buried himself in work again but he could not forget his love for Miriam and with it came the depressing memory of Poland. All his innate slumbering passions for justice, for liberty, were aroused to a white heat. Unlike Balaam of old, he had gone to Poland to bless and returned cursing. Why should he care for personal friendships? Why think of selfish advantage? Why consider what a hypocritical society might call poor manners? Like the seers of old he was bidden to speak, and he seized his pen and told the truth as he saw it regardless of all consequences.

This essay was the first gun that he fired in the liberation of the _Junker_-ridden people. For his caustic utterances not only revealed the tyranny of the Polish nobles but also silhouetted the hideous forms of the _Junkers_; the censor who had pruned away every trace of humor from the article, unwittingly failed to strike out a sentence fraught with danger.

His first political pronouncement proved a veritable boomerang. It was too daring, too pointed, too truthful. He learned that even in letters, no less than in the drawingroom, truth must be masked, if not altogether suppressed. His acquaintances of rank looked at him askance, his Polish friend and patron shunned him, Prussian officials took notice of him. Even Rahel, herself a passionate lover of truth and no friend of _Junkerdom_, advised caution. And when she tried to give him the wisdom of her experience, he only grew peevish and said he was no diplomat and did not wish to be one, and that truth was to be his only guide in life.

He found himself at odds with everybody. He had anticipated applause but instead met with hostility and condemnation.

His cultured Jewish friends, too, took offense at this essay. In speaking of the pitiful conditions of his co-racials in Poland he spoke disparagingly of the elegantly dressed Berliners. He had ironically made a comparison between the exterior of the ungainly Polish Jew, with a heart beating for freedom, and the elegant Berliner, whose head was filled with the silly romanticism of the period, with nothing but vanity in his heart.

V.

One winter evening as he was brooding over his sad plight his landlady informed him that some one wanted to see him.

“I don’t want to see anybody—leave me alone!” he finally cried irritably.

“I’ve tried to send her away but she insists on seeing you—she has come all the way from Poland to see you,” came the landlady’s voice through the closed door.

He jumped up from his bed. He could not even guess who this intruder might be but the word Poland was magic to him, and it was a “she”! Perhaps it was an admirer from that fateful land. The hope of an admirer stirred romance in his soul. He wondered which of his scattered songs had found an echo in the heart of a Polish admirer. Yes, he was becoming famous! The stray children of his brain were traveling far. He opened the door with a flush of joy on his face.

He rushed downstairs to the sitting-room, dimly lighted by a tallow candle. By the door stood a slender girl shivering with cold. He took a step closer to her.

“Miriam!” he cried.

She rushed up to him, tears welling in her luminous dark-blue eyes.

“How did you get here?”

His joy and confusion were bewildering.

“I had your address so I came here,” she murmured in the tone of a helpless child.

He made her sit down and tell him how she had happened to leave Gnesen.

The Beadle had told her father about her and also communicated the scandal to the rest of the community. A committee called on her father and urged that she be sent away from town lest the other girls might be contaminated. The father had almost yielded when his wife prevailed upon him to allow the disgraced daughter to remain at home. But there was no more chance of getting Miriam married. Who would have her now? Life had become unbearable for the poor girl. However, the resourceful marriage-broker had soon found a way out of the dilemma. He knew of a young man, a drover’s son, in a village nearby, who was willing to have Miriam in spite of the stigma. When Miriam was told of the match she seemed indifferent. But two days after the betrothal—it was on a Saturday morning when her parents were at services—Miriam went to her mother’s bed, lifted the heavy feather-bed, and removed from underneath a little packet which contained the family savings for her dowry and trousseau, and unobserved made her way out of town. After many days of travel by foot and by coach, she reached her destination, clutching in her hand the address that Albert had scribbled on a piece of paper.

“And at last I’m near you,” she said with a heaving sigh as she concluded her simple narrative, her eyes turning appealingly upon her perplexed lover.

Albert at once thought of Rahel. He must go to her and place his predicament before her. He was helpless.

Rahel was not only helpful but magnanimous. She received Miriam into her home, clothed her in dresses that were then in vogue, and shared the thrill of romance. Though she had often bandied Albert about his peculiar notions of feminine beauty she was forced to admit that Miriam was adorable. In her Berlin attire no one would have taken her for a native of Gnesen. Her innate modesty, her truthfulness, her sweet temper, her want of city mannerisms, fascinated the woman of the world surfeited with the artifices of society.

At first even Frau Varnhagen, with all her bitter experiences of her younger days, did not think of the consequences of the present situation. She only thought of the poor girl’s plight, of the poet’s love, of the sweet romance acted before her eyes. To her it was an idyll of rare charm.

But before long the sordid facts stared her in the face. When she spoke of this to the lover he saw no problem in it at all.

“Why, I love her as I’ve never loved anybody in the world,” he burst out impulsively.

Rahel, leaning back in her _fauteil_, her hand thoughtfully raised to her temple, looked enviously at the dreamy youth. She caught the rapture of his soul. To love, and be loved, like this!

“But, my dear Zorn, what good will come of her indefinite stay here—to what end?”

“Why, I’ll marry her, of course, I’ll marry her,” he spoke impulsively.

Frau Varnhagen leaned forward and smiled indulgently. She wondered if he ever would grow up. He was already twenty-five and in many ways a mere child.

“One needs money to support a wife—love alone is not enough.” She paused. She would not intimate that he was living on the charity of his uncle and that he was heavily in debt to many of his friends. Then she added, “It’ll be several years before either your pen or your jurisprudence will crystallize into _Louis d’ors_. What will become of this beautiful flower in the meantime—what will become of Miriam?”

But while Frau Varnhagen was attempting to put reason into the poet’s mind she directed the course of the fates more successfully. She called the count and counselled with him. Shortly thereafter, the rabbi came to Berlin and the count interceded between father and daughter; and before Albert was aware Miriam had disappeared.

Poor Albert Zorn! What were _Werther’s Leiden_ compared with his? Werther had only sorrows of love to bear, but he, indeed, like another Atlas, was bending under the weight of a whole globe of sorrows. The _Weltschmerz_ was gnawing at his heart. The furies of a thousand storms were lashing him at once. Disappointment everywhere! No appreciative public, no one would look at his poetic drama, at his tragedy; his essay on Poland had only provoked his enemies without a word of praise from his friends; and his love-dream—the sweetest dream of life—shattered. And, then, the _Judenhetze_ was corroding his heart. Like Frau Varnhagen, he wished to dismiss the memory of his birth but he could not. Rahel was a philosopher, not a poet, her life was dominated by willpower, but he was only mere gossamer driven by the cruel winds. He could reason even more clearly than Rahel, but reason did not calm his sensitive nerves, did not quiet his raging blood.

He had grown weary of Berlin. He wanted to flee. Everybody here reminded him of his unbearable sorrows. He was weary of Prussia and Prussianism and wished he could leave the land of his birth. Like one suffering from defective lungs, he blamed the air for his hard breathing. The present air was stifling him. He had intimated to his uncle that he wished to leave Germany and go to England or America or France but Uncle Leopold would not listen to such a proposition. Uncle Leopold felt that since he was paying the fiddler it was his privilege to dictate the dances. The banker felt that jurisprudence was the only hope for his incorrigible nephew.

However, he decided to leave Berlin. Here he could not give his undivided attention to his studies because of many diversions. He realized that while he was a law student he was giving too much time to Hegel’s lectures on philosophy and to the reading of _belles lettres_. He would never complete his law course that way. Yes, he must return to that “scholarly hole” of Goettingen, though he shuddered as he remembered that college town.

He left Berlin with no regrets in his heart.

THE MARCH TO CALVARY.

I.

Even the wisest often fail to realize that one cannot escape one’s shadow. Albert Zorn imagined that ennui was in Berlin but it was only in his own soul.

He found Goettingen as depressing as before. The college town was covered with snow, the students seemed grim and serious, the professors cold, and he found but few of his old friends. He arrived here as a prodigal son, misgivings in his heart. He recalled the _Abschiedskarten_ he had sent to the members of the faculty a few years before, after his suspension. He now realized that the mockery, witty as it might have been, that those _Abschiedskarten_ contained had not endeared him to his old instructors. And the students seemed so sulky. Prussian tyranny had conquered and killed every manifestation of free speech. The _Burschenschaft_ and the _Turngemeinde_—the two most significant fraternities—were but names. The students not only feared their own utterances but even the unguarded speech of their friends. And they had not forgotten Albert’s unguarded tongue.

But while the dullness of the place depressed him he welcomed the quiet of his lodging house on the Rothenstrasse. He gave himself to the study of the law, and “corpus juris” was his “pillow”. He had no difficulty in hushing the muse’s voice, for the muse sang not. For a time he passed a prosaic existence, and while he frequently shuddered at the thought he again wondered if his light had not burned out. His verses scarcely stirred in him more than memories. And when he made attempts at writing he was conscious of the effort, of the lack of spontaneity, and dropped it. Was he a Samson with his locks shorn? He stirred and often went to the Rathskeller to drown his sorrow, but unable to bear drink he turned to the library.

Soon March drew to an end, the winter was gone, the thawing season began. Everything within him was thawing, too. His blood suddenly began to course warmer; there was agitation in his breast; his nerves seemed on fire. A chance acquaintanceship had inspired him to write a few lyric stanzas. He laughed like a mocking satan. Indeed his light had not yet burned out! It had just commenced to burn and would soon redden the sky with its rising flames. Let his enemies in Berlin and Hamburg sneer! What did he care? He had nothing but contempt for the multitude anyhow. They should see! He flung the law books aside and took up an unfinished poem. Byron’s recent death stimulated his energies. Byron was the only man to whom he felt a close kinship, and the poet’s death affected him deeply. He must take Byron’s place; he would be Germany’s Byron.

Spurred by these thoughts and feelings his dullness fled; his imagination was again volatile; his tongue was once more caustic. He was again seen in the beer cellars, arguing, jesting, making sport in his whimsical manner. The students again gathered around him and goaded him on to saying bitter things about their professors, their pedantic colleagues, the Prussian officials. He had the gift of caricature in words. He became his old self again. He was the very life of all student affairs, and at their frequent duels he was either a second or umpire. He was a Byron with a vengeance. He once more took up fencing and fought a duel or two.

Ah! they should see—his enemies at Berlin and Hamburg. They might call him a Jew, but what of that? He became heroic. Race pride swelled in his breast. He was of the race “of which Gods are kneaded”, of the race that needed no apologies, even in his day. Who was there in Germany to take the place of the great who had passed? The Teuton gods were dead! Lessing was gone, so was Schiller, and Goethe, like King David in his old age, “got no heat”; this old Jupiter was no more hurling thunderbolts; his arm was even too feeble to fling pebbles. Who were to take the places of these gods? A number of _Schmetterlinge_—mere butterflies—waving their colorful wings in the sunshine and hovering around the blossoming shrubs, with an old bumble bee here and there, without sting, without honey, buzzing around a rosebush. Yes, who were to take the place of the dead heroes? Who was to take Goethe’s place? His blood warmed at the thought. The mantle of this great bard must fall on his own shoulders. Nay more, he would undo many of the things the great Romanticist had done. He would be to his generation what Goethe had been to his. Indeed, he would even go farther than Goethe. Goethe was self-centered, content with his own pleasure, playing with the beautiful thoughts as a juggler plays with balls, but he would give his life and genius to Germany. Goethe never loved the Germans, he mused, but he would liberate the Teutonic mind from its self-imposed imprisonment. Ay, indeed, he would wield a weapon mightier than the sword in the cause of liberty! Let his enemies rave——

But with Albert Zorn there was even less than a step from the sublime to the ridiculous. The next moment he laughed at his own heroics. He understood the heroics of those that smarted under the whips of injustice. The irony of his own situation struck him forcibly. He was humorous and great enough to laugh at himself. Did he not feel a secret pride when his admirers told him that there was not a trace of the Semite in his face; that his nose, though longish, was Grecian? No, Albert could not deceive himself. He saw the tragi-comedy of it all. To be heroic in one’s thoughts was one thing and to be heroic in one’s actions quite a different matter.

But here at Goettingen his fellow-students never reminded him of his birth, and even the professors had accepted the prodigal son rather graciously. And he had a circle of admirers among the literary guild. To be sure, there was petty jealousy among them, but they did not disturb him. Talent must expect jealousy, he reflected soothingly; only the feeble and the dead arouse no jealousy.

Indeed, Albert was now his true self. He pursued his studies regularly, read much, and, as a diversion, made love to a pretty damsel or argued heatedly with a few of his fellow-students. The problems that occupied his mind while at Berlin troubled him no longer. When summer vacation came, instead of spending it with his parents, he took journeys on foot, with a knapsack on his back, through the Hartz Mountains, visiting Halle and Jena and Gotha and Eisenach, and making mental notes of the beautiful scenery around him and of the people with whom he came in contact. He also paid a visit to Goethe, and found, to his astonishment, that this Jupiter “understood German”—though he was prompted to address the god in Greek—so in his confusion he told him that the plums on the way from Jena to Weimar were very, very delicious . . .

II.

After the summer vacation he returned to Goettingen refreshed and encouraged. On his pilgrimage he had learned that while he was still unknown, many of his songs were gaining popularity. In one of the taverns a pretty waitress hummed one of his love songs.

Everything now moved so smoothly; the professors were so kind to him, the dean of the Faculty had invited him to his home and expressed admiration for his ballads—he had compared them to Goethe’s—and the old inner struggles had left him entirely. In a friendly talk the Dean had hinted that there was a great future for him if—the learned gentleman was kind and sensitive and hesitated—“if”—he stammered again.

“If I were not a Jew,” Albert came to the rescue, an ironic smile on his face.

“Yes,” the kindly man intoned. “You see,” he continued, “sooner or later all these disabilities will disappear but in the meanwhile your—your nominal faith is in the way.” He knew Albert’s faith was but nominal.

Albert dwelt on this remark but rather objectively. He only thought subjectively when he suffered deeply. Of late nothing stirred his depths. He followed the lectures of the Goettingen Solons, made merry with the students, was praised for his wit and his verses, and wrote but little; in fact, he had written almost nothing in the past nine months.

And then a letter came from Uncle Leopold with a bill of exchange for his support. The letter irritated him even though the money enclosed afforded him immediate relief. There was something between the lines of his uncle’s letter that intimated that a young man who passed his twenty-seventh year should be self-sustaining. This letter was the first real cause of irritation in months. He had heard that his uncle gave away tens of thousands of _Thalers_ to charity and he begrudged his poor nephew a few marks! Yes, he must rid himself of his uncle’s bounty—and rid himself at any cost.

He grew morose and thoughtful and applied himself at once to his studies preparatory for his Doctor’s degree and to the writing of a series of travel sketches. He burned the candle at both ends. He would show his rich uncle that he could get along without him. He felt particularly hopeful because he had received a nattering letter from the Minister of Justice in Bavaria, who was also a poet. The fates had turned their bright faces upon him. Like Goethe he would obtain a government position, and thus made independent, would pursue the muses. His brain was feverish, his whole being on fire. He felt the approach of a severe headache—from studying and thinking and writing—but he did not care. His dreams were coming true, and the fire of the gods burned luminously. He felt inspired as he penned his sketches. Never before had writing come to him so spontaneously, so free from effort. Again and again the hint dropped by the Dean recurred to him. It no longer offended him nor did the memory of it arouse antagonism within him. Why suffer because of mere formalism? What was it but formalism to him? His faith was only nominal, as the Dean had put it. In what respect was he a Jew? vaguely passed through his mind. He was more Greek than Jew. Certainly the Jewish faith had no tangible meaning to him. Nothing but dogmatism! Why should this meaningless dogmatism stand between him and independence?

One day he woke with a sudden determination. He must not hesitate any longer. He could hope for no assistance from his parents—his mother’s letter a few days before had made that plain enough—and he could not bear the humiliation of further dependence upon his uncle. He was irritable that morning but that was because of his ceaseless work the past few months. He was nervous from too much thinking. No, he must not let this thing trouble him any longer. He laughed grimly to himself. He would change his religion—change non-belief in one for non-belief in another! He laughed but not without bitterness. The next moment the humor of it awakened curiosity. He was to be baptised! He had already talked to a clergyman about his conversion, and noticed with amusement the glow on the good clergyman’s face—the glow on the face of an angler at sensing a nibble. Albert thought of this and laughed to himself. The clergyman suggested a new name for the newly born child—John Baptist Zorn! Albert stood before the open window in his room, looking dreamily in front of him——

It was morning, the sun was shining gloriously upon the Wender Tower, serious-faced students on their way to lectures, a woman with an armful of provisions for breakfast, two flaxen-haired children playing horse, and he was going to have his name changed that day! There was a flutter in his heart and he laughed nervously. The comedy of life struck him forcibly—all life was but a jest of the gods, and he himself was one of the jesters! “John Baptist Zorn!” he murmured to himself, and laughed hysterically. Tears appeared in his eyes. Oh, God, what a comedy life was!

He started to carry out his resolution but suddenly paused. He blushed in the privacy of his room. No, he would not go through this farce. No, no, he could not be false to himself. He did not care for the opinion of others—why should he care for the opinion of the imbeciles to whom not religion but theology mattered, to whom religion was not the consciousness of the glory of the universe and its Creator, but mere heathen ceremonies?—Indeed, it was not the opinion of the masses but he feared his inner self. No, he would not go through with this contemptible farce.

He sat down on his bed, a throbbing at his temples. He was fatigued, a pain in his head, weary of life. He heaved a sigh. His eyes rested on his clothes. They were shabby. His uncle’s stipend had not been sufficient to afford him new clothes and allow him the elegance to which he had been accustomed. Besides, he was so impractical and never did know how his money slipped from between his fingers. In a month the degree of Doctor of Laws was to be conferred upon him. To what purpose?

To what purpose had he spent so much valuable time on the dry study of the law? It had a definite meaning for the other students, his friends at the university. Many of them would at once obtain government appointments—there was one awaiting his friend Christian Lutz; another friend, a poet, had already procured a lucrative appointment—and others would follow their careers as lawyers—they all would use their vocations as a means of subsistence in this complex system of civilized life. But of what use would it be to him? A bitter laugh escaped him. In a month he would be addressed as Doctor Zorn! A title would be conferred on him—to what purpose? He was a Jew and under the Prussian law could not hold office, nor could he practice his profession. Ah, the irony of it! He was still in Egypt under the Pharaohs. Straw was not given him and the tale of bricks had to be delivered!

He jumped out of his bed, stretched his arms, and gnashed his teeth. Jest for jest! Let the foolish angler have his catch!

VAGABONDAGE.

I.

The greatest jest in life is that but few see the jest, and these few find it at their own expense.

Albert left the Lutheran clergyman stunned. The ceremony of the baptism, the seriousness of the God-fearing clergyman—these were all a dream but vaguely remembered. Sincerity always found an echo in his heart, no matter how much he differed from the other’s convictions, and the evident conscientiousness of the pious pastor who had performed the ceremony impressed him. It impressed him as if he had witnessed the conversion of a person other than himself. He viewed things from so many different angles that the same object often assumed different shapes, depending upon his mood at the time he viewed it. His mind, like concave and convex mirrors, at times, reflected odd shapes. One moment he was calm and accepted the baptism as a definite change in his views of life, the next he cowered before his perfidy; and then, again, he laughed at the whole thing as if it were a _Kinderspiel_. He wished he could always regard it so. He felt more at peace with himself when the baptism appeared as a mere boyish prank. After all, the sublime and the ridiculous are but viewpoints.

However, he walked through the Wender Gate with a sneaking feeling in his heart. He returned to his lodgings shamefaced. The deed was done; the faltering of years had culminated into action. There was no going back. No matter what he might do or think nothing could undo this act.

Was it really such an important step? He shuddered. He tried to persuade himself that it was but a triviality, a matter of no moment, a mere empty ceremony, but there was a flutter in his heart, a fine perspiration on his pensive countenance. Why should he not have done it? He asked himself almost angrily, as if refuting an accusation. Was he not a German like other Germans? And he always did admire Luther. It was really most fitting that a liberal minded man like himself should follow in the footsteps of the great Luther. He dwelt upon the noble virtues of the great reformer with a keen sense of satisfaction. He visualized the mental struggles of the champions of religious freedom. He felt that he was helping the Man of Worms nail the edict upon the church doors. And he certainly had no reason to regret the affiliation with the great Son of Galilee. He drew a breath of defiance. The lives of all great men were the stories of revolt.

He was mentally fatigued and wished he could stop thinking. One of his nervous headaches was coming on. He must not torture his brain any longer. He must give himself to his studies. In about three weeks he must deliver a discourse on jurisprudence in order to obtain his coveted degree. Jurisprudence!—that accursed study, that pseudo-scientific jugglery, that system of Roman casuistry!—why had he spent three of his fairest, most blooming years on subjects so repugnant to him? One link of thought brought another, an endless chain. If he had not studied law he would not have bent his knee to the cross. He was a martyr yesterday, today a villainous coward! _Gestern noch ein Held gewesen—Ist man heute schon ein Schurke!_

O, the misery of involuntary thoughts forcing an entrance into one’s brain! He was tired of the whole business. He wanted to laugh, to jest, to invoke his sense of humor. His sense of humor had always been such an outlet for his feelings. He could always laugh away the most serious things in life. And this was not even serious—how the clergyman had rolled his eyes as he offered a prayer for the newborn soul of the convert—some day he would give a humorous description of it in a poem—no, he would describe it in a novel. What was he thinking of? O, yes, the clergyman’s solemnity. For a moment this struck him ludicrously and he burst into laughter. But enough—enough! His head was splitting, a thousand needles were pricking back of his eyeballs, and he was weary, weary unto death. He must stop thinking. He must . . . The whole thing was not worth thinking about . . .

In order to banish these torturing thoughts he began to think of his friend Gustav Moses in Berlin. The thought of Moses always had a soothing effect on him—that great soul! Moses was a sanctuary, a holy shrine, in whose presence all things and beings were pure. Though he was no expounder of new theories, no source of new philosophies, Moses always brought Spinoza to Albert’s mind. There was something of that great philosopher’s simplicity and goodness and purity in Moses. He must write to him and unbosom himself to his precious friend. Moses would understand. Moses understood so many things most people did not comprehend. Yet when he sat down with a quill in his hand sudden shame overwhelmed him. Why was he ashamed? Why should he not discuss this fully with Moses? He had committed many follies and had never hesitated to speak of them to Moses. Besides, Moses, too, had just gone through this ceremony. But to his friend it was an ideal—the conversion of all the Jews as a means of helping humanity—but to himself—no, Albert could not deceive himself. He had not knelt to the cross because of an ideal. He had done it for the same reason that thousands of others had done it, for the same reason that Edward Gans had done it. Oh!—a groan escaped his breast. Only the day before he had written a scathing denunciation of those cowards who were deserting the sinking ship. And now he himself had done it!

He began to write. He forced all other thoughts away.

“Dear Gustav:

“Will I ever grow up? I am still half a child, with all the reflections of maturity mirroring in my being—manhood, old age, godliness, caprice, profligacy, and what not. And just like a child I can’t make up my mind whether to laugh or cry; I can cry and laugh at the same time. O, Gustav, I can’t make up my mind whether I am a lion or a monkey in this great menagerie: I roar one moment and chatter foolishly and wag my tail the next.

“I sat down to write you a long letter, covering many, many sheets full of profound thoughts and instructive wisdom, with many notations on the Book of Life, but I have just returned from a comic play which was so funny that I can not yet check my laughter and can not put myself into a serious frame of mind. There was a clown in the play—dressed like a clown, acting like a clown, and while he was going through his manoeuvres burning tears were coursing down his painted cheeks. I was the clown in the play. So look for no logic in the acts of a clown.

“I love you—Forget everything else.

Albert.”

II.

Ah! he would not acknowledge that he had made a mistake. He sought to justify his act. Not to others but to himself. Since his conversion, life had run smoother for him, he said to himself when he had obtained his degree. The Dean had spoken eloquently of his poetry as he presented the degree to him, and the other members of the faculty overlooked much of his ignorance of legal lore. No one knew better than he that the least of his knowledge was the knowledge of the law, and he felt a deep sense of gratitude for the faculty’s leniency. He felt confident that the worst was over. He would settle down as a government official, or a professor at some university, or at least as a lawyer, and live a well-regulated life, without the aid of his uncle. Yes, he would marry, too. He was about twenty-eight years old and ought not to fritter his life away.

But he would not permit himself to think of his conversion. The exertions which preceded his private and public discourses anent the taking of his degree, his assiduous study of an uncongenial subject, his inner conflicts, fatigued him almost beyond endurance. He looked at his reflection in a mirror and felt even more exhausted. He could see fatigue in every line in his face. There were rings under his eyes; his cheeks had thinned; there was a roving restlessness in his eyes. In his present state he was not fit for literary work though he was bent on completing his book which he had commenced.

There was no question of hard work at present. His nerves were shattered and his headaches were becoming more and more painful. So he wrote to Uncle Leopold, and the generous man, hopeful that his scapegrace nephew would at last settle down, dispatched him a liberal allowance by return mail for a vacation, not without a veiled admonition, however, not to squander the money “on other things.”

He went at once to Nordernay for sea baths and followed the orders of his physician to think of nothing. He also indulged in some pastimes. Among the sea bathers there were a number of attractive young women who had read a few of his songs, and their flattery was not displeasing to him. Though he knew his weakness, he easily yielded to flattery.

Soon his headaches disappeared, healthier color came to his cheeks, frivolous thoughts were again sporting in his brain. Nor was he averse to the furtive glances of strangers as he walked restlessly up and down the beach, dreaming of strange legends that the tossing waves conjured up in his fancy. He felt the thrill of fame, the tumultuous waves making divine music in his ears. And sauntering along the shore in the twilight—the level dunes behind him, before him the seeming endless raging ocean—with all its mystery and tragic beauty, the huge dome of the heavens above him, his imagination took flight and soared to ethereal heights. Noble thoughts filled his brain, compassionate sentiments crowded his breast, and he made resolutions! He would give his life for humanity and, in giving it, would melt the hearts of men with song.

On the shore were sharpshooters aiming at sea-gulls in their flight. He did not enjoy this pastime. His ancestors were no hunters; rather they were of the hunted. His blood revolted at firing at the harmless, innocent creatures.

He recalled his boyhood days when he chanced upon a group of urchins who had brought down a nest from the top branches of a tree by well-aimed missiles. He emptied all his pocket money into the fists of the urchins to bribe them to liberate the featherless baby birds. He knew that the enemies of his ancestors had called them cowards because they could not bear the shedding of blood. His mind wandered. A shot was fired, a sea-gull dropped, a shout of admiration from the onlookers on the shore. Perhaps the fallen bird was a mother of poor little gulls still unfledged, lying in their sandy nests and waiting for their mother to bring them food. No, he would not give his life to this sort of achievement—killing was not in his blood! Rather would he devote his life to helping people live, live in greater freedom, physical and spiritual.

His mind drifted, and his thoughts soon brought him to dwell on Christian Lutz’s life and his own. He had just run into Christian, who was here on his honeymoon. To a certain point their lives had run parallel. First at the Franciscan school, at the Lyceum, at Goettingen, at Berlin and—there it stopped. Christian was now married, with a government position affording him a livelihood, while he—Albert—was nowhere. Always promises—one friend had promised him to intercede with one of the influential men in Berlin to get him a position with the government—but there were nothing but promises in sight. He really did not know himself what would best suit him. He liked the idea of a professorship. He had many ideas about literature and philosophy and felt that he could teach something to the young at the university. But then a government position—a magistrate or judge—would likewise please him. He loved the Germans even though he detested the Prussian government—he always felt that individually the Germans possessed noble virtues, but collectively they were Prussian—and he felt that as a magistrate, or in any capacity as a public official, he could deal out justice tempered with kindness. But so far only promises . . .

III.

Still waiting for the promises to be fulfilled he returned to his parents for a while, made a short stop at Berlin, and went again to Hamburg in the early winter. Every time he returned to Hamburg it was with mingled feelings of regret and expectancy. This time he hoped that the Hamburgers would appreciate him. He was no longer Leopold Zorn’s nephew but Doctor Zorn and a poet of repute. Even his enemies admitted that he had genius for lyric verse. And he had just made arrangements to have his first book of travel published, and the publisher had said he might consider the publication of a collection of his scattered songs that had appeared in various periodicals. True, the publisher had promised no pay for the poems but Albert felt confident that it would bring him renown; and the Hamburgers would no longer regard him as a mere idler. This time he meant to be dignified. He would enter in no controversies with his critics.

Before long, however, he realized that it was useless for him to settle down there. Uncle Leopold had made this clear to him at a stormy meeting between the two. But he had no other place to go to.

He found himself a veritable Ishmael—his hand against every man and every man’s against him. His political views were now well defined and he dipped his pen in gall and continued writing. He would write a second volume of his travels and avenge himself on his enemies, little understanding that the fruit of vengeance is never love. What corroded his heart most was the dawning knowledge that he had made a blunder that could never be rectified; that all the waters of the Jordan and of the North Sea could not wash away the few drops sprinkled upon him by the Lutheran Clergyman. Yet he would not acknowledge that it was a blunder. Peevishly he said to himself that he was glad he was separated from the people who had never befriended him, who had never given him the least encouragement.

More strife, more bitterness, more vexation of soul! Could he ever live in peace! The world had let Goethe sing in peace, and Goethe was as creedless as he. The world knew that Goethe was a pagan and he made no secret of it. Why was he, Albert Zorn, persecuted on every side? His book was well received—and was favorably compared with that of the great Goethe; his songs were being hummed from Leipzig to Hamburg; his wit was on every tongue, his enemies squirmed under his ironic fire; his heart was beating with love for every creature that lived; and yet why were the snakes hissing from every ambush? The Jesuits had at last found in him a target for all their poisonous arrows—as if he had been the first man in Germany to utter liberal views! Ah, the injustice of it all! They had chosen him for their target though he had always cherished a romantic love for the Church of Rome; they hunted him only because he was more vulnerable, because he was born a Jew!

His blood was on fire. And he had crawled on his knees to the Cross! Was he to cower and let them heap hot cinders upon his head because he was related to the Prophets? No, not he; the Jews had bowed their heads to their tormentors long enough. He was no long-bearded Isaac swaying over the Talmud, with an “oi” under his breath; no Rothschild in his counting house, with Kings as pawns! He was a poet, sweet melody in his heart; a critic of life and manners, a mighty instrument in his hand—they shall have thrust for thrust, stab for stab. He would seek for no mercy, he would not whine for justice, he would fight for his rights.

But his boasting was only to conceal the rankling in his breast. His poetry or his prose had not been attacked, but his person. No, he was not ashamed of his lineage—had he been devoid of a sense of humor he would have even bragged of it—but after he had knelt at the font, after he had gone more than half way to eradicate all differences between himself and the Teutons, to be called a Jew! The iron entered his soul! He swept all admonition aside, he would not listen to the counsel of his friends. He was sharpening his arrows and dipping them in poison. His enemies had miscalculated. They thought he could only write love songs. He would make the dogs yelp before the expiring convulsion came! If Teutonia resorted to calling names his ancestors had once pitched their tents by the river Jordan, where calling names was an art.

Yet he hated the conflict. Why must they poison the honey in his heart? Why must they force the sting? He wanted to flee from Germany—flee from Germany and sing instead of “caw-caw” with the rest of the crows at home.

IV.

In moments of revolt Albert always thought of leaving his fatherland forever, but then his love for the land that gave him birth would return—his innate fondness of the people about him would possess him, the memories of his childhood on the banks of the Rhine would hold him with chains of steel. He saw every fault in his compatriots, but the faults seemed so glaring to him, and stirred him so deeply, because he loved the people. But what people ever learned that it is its critics, not its flatterers, who love it most sincerely?

He now found himself torn by a thousand conflicts. The censor was most annoying—one could hardly give expression to one’s thoughts—and disobedience meant damp prisons; the officials were arrogant; and the land was full of Cant, Cult, and Culture. One could hardly breathe for want of free air in Germany. In order to divert the people from the tyranny of the nobles and Prussian officialdom the government encouraged orthodoxy on one hand and heterodoxy on the other. “Let the children play hard and forget other foolishness”, has always been the motto of tyrannical governments. Hegelism, Schlegelism, Schellingism, anti-Semitism—in short, anything to engage the public mind and coerce it into submission to the tyrant’s will.

Albert thirsted for freedom. True, his biting irony often escaped the scrutinising eye of the stupid censor—his thoughts emanated properly censored from his brain, he jested—but he craved a moment’s respite. For a time he had again retired to Hamburg and buried himself in work. More songs, the publication of another book, planning new themes, pondering new subjects, ever yearning for love.

One day he received a call to edit a political journal. He was thrilled. He wished to awaken Young Germany; Old Germany, he realized, was hopeless. He meant to speak freely, come what might. He wished to enroll himself among the warriors for the liberation of humanity. On his arrival in Munich he was made to feel that his renown was growing; that, in fact, he was already famous. His name was known, his songs were on everyone’s lips, his epigrams were frequently quoted. He had learned with a keen sense of pleasure that while his first two books had made him many enemies they had also enlarged his circle of admirers.

He felt that the time was ripe for the emancipation of the German mind. Every great mind miscalculates the minds of the people about him. He either underestimates or overestimates them; or rather he underestimates some of its qualities and overestimates others. Albert was no exception to this rule. While he was convinced that when “asses wish to abuse one another they call each other men” he attributed to the masses—stupider than asses—an intelligence and vision equal to his own. He jumped at the conclusion that the masses would get his viewpoint once it was presented to them. And because his clarity of vision enabled him to see the sham, superstition, and hypocrisy of the prevalent fetishes that passed for creeds, and of the tyrannies that passed for government, he imagined that others would see these great evils as soon as they were revealed to them.

The reception accorded his books deceived him. He mistook the people’s laughter for applause. He failed to see that only a handful understood him and sympathized with him. Only the chosen few understood that when one dips his pen in gall his own heart very often brims over with love. The vast majority only laughed at his mordant irony, called him a scoffer and an atheist, and hated him. When a friend had whispered in his ear “Look out for the Jesuits,” Albert only laughed. He thought it was for them to look out for him. He knew no fear.

V.

The reception given him on his arrival at Munich assured him that his friend was wrong. He had no cause to fear the Jesuits.

But the Jesuits in Munich were watching him. He was their sworn enemy, and the report that he would direct the policy of a new journal roused their ire. Munich was then the centre of Jesuitical activities. Ever since their return to Germany, after the fall of Napoleon, they had been hatching plots, creating dissension among the masses, shaping policies for their own selfish ends. They were seeking to rehabilitate themselves. They could not afford to pass in silence the caustic attacks of the jesting Albert Zorn.

Before long, however, he grew tired of political strife. He was again soul-weary. He craved the solitude of the mountains, he longed for the golden mist of the southern heavens, he yearned for the warmth of the sunny climes. A thousand mysterious voices called to him from the land of orange blossoms and echoed in his heart melodiously. He longed for a peep at Italy. Ah, Italy! Italy! When the great God kneaded the earth into shape and set the human insects into motion—the whole swarm of human insects—he allotted the Caucasian steppes to the Tartars, Prussia to the Pedants, to the Hunters he gave the British Isle, France to the gay in spirit, but Italy,—Italy!—the great God breathed upon that colorful spot lovingly, kissed it, and was about to reserve it for his favorites among the angels when he changed His mind and assigned it as a haven for the soul-weary! Alas! with the confusion of the Tower of Babel many a Tartar wandered from his homeland and many a poet strayed from his designated abode.

He wandered through Italy—through Livorno, Bagni di Lucca, Florence, Bologna, Venice—and he wandered among the ruins of antiquity, “a ruin among ruins.” He jested and scoffed, worshipped and blasphemed, honey in his heart. Poetic melodies, like birds of passage driven South, returned to him; his heart once more glowed and beat tumultuously; the nightingale again sang for him. The broken columns, the ruined towers, the shattered classic images spoke to him in a language he understood.

He wanted to forget the past, to obliterate the insults heaped upon him by his enemies. Italian skies inspire sweet dreams and make one forget troubles. The promise of a chair at the University whispered hope. Yes, he would give the rest of his life to champion the rights of the people.

While amusing himself at the Baths of Lucca he was laying plans for the future. He had received a hopeful letter about the professorship. His brain was brimming over with enthusiasm and joy. He would make all his friends proud of him and he would not only repay them with gratitude but also with service. And how gloriously his third book was coming along! The volume was so spontaneous; it was writing itself. Humor and song were flowing from his pen. Not a word of bitterness in this book, he decided. No stings, nothing but the sweetest of honey. He intended to have the third volume mirror the heavenly witchery of Italy and the flowing love of his soul; no, not a word of bitterness. At the worst, only a passage of fun-making at superstition but nothing—not a line—to offend anyone’s sensibilities.

Ah, there was again spring in his heart! Sentiments of love and freedom, like fresh roses, burst forth anew. Above him the rays of the brilliant sun pierced the mist hanging over the mountains and “sucked at the earth’s breast like a hungry suckling child.” He was again in the spring of life, everything thawing, melting, sweet murmurs everywhere. He was in love with life and every breathing creature.

And the arts of man were about him in abundance; the divine ecstasy of generations long dead impressed on palace and ruin; ecstasy filled his being to overflowing. No, not a tinge of bitterness in his heart, no acrid irony in his brain, nothing but goodwill and happiness and the effervescence of life.

VI.

But one day in November a gust of wind swept over him; a cold, damp, bleak wind that blighted the blooming flowers in his heart and covered the sun rays with a black cloud and filled his heart with sadness. No more hope for a chair at a university, no prospect of a life of contemplation and peace and song. The Jesuits had stronger influence than his friends. And as if designing to annihilate him completely the Jesuits had attacked him with all their forces.

His third volume was nearly completed when the latest affront reached him. He had quite forgotten his Hebraic strain. In the land of Virgil, with the echo of Homer from the neighboring shores, he thought himself more Greek than Hebrew, but suddenly the evaporated fumes of his smouldering agony were driven back into his heart. He was consumed by a thirst for vengeance. Since his enemies would not let him forget his Hebraism he would be like the God of the ancient Hebrews. No whining, cowering for him! Even as the Macabees of old, his progenitors, he would meet the enemy with piercing arrows and devastating rocks. He was no preacher of love for those that hated him; hate for hate! There was scornful laughter in his heart. His enemies—the Preachers of Love—had hated even those who loved them!

He was then in Florence, that dreary November day, the skies a-drizzling, thick mist screening the banks of the Arno, a severe cold in his head. He had spent six weeks, rambling, dreaming, drinking from the fountain of beauty. With all the quaint narrow streets, the art treasures around him, the buildings mellowed with age, his imagination astir with a thousand memories of antiquity, a thousand raptures to enthrall his soul, his romantic love for Catholic mysticism returned, the slumbering sensuous love he felt in his childhood. Even while he smiled at the faded Madonnas and was provoked to laughter by the hideous saints of early Tuscan conception his heart glowed with reverence and deep emotion. But that day only rancor filled his heart.

He left his lodgings and wandered along the bank of the Arno, unmindful of the cold and the pain in his head. The water of the flowing river did not reflect the azure of the Italian skies. The drizzling rain had stirred the placid surface and, like his heart, was turgid and muddy. Nothing was beautiful around him now. All was grim. For not only woman’s beauty but all beauty is in the eyes of the beholder. He wished to think of other things—he said to himself he would dismiss the “filth and stupidity” of the “congregation” at Munich—but his brain would admit no other thought. But for his birthright—or was it his birth-curse?—he would have been now on his way to assume the duties of a professor of literature and devote the rest of his life to his beloved fatherland. He shuddered, then a cynical smile appeared on his tightly closed mouth. He remembered that morning at the Franciscan school, when he revealed to Christian Lutz the fact that his father’s father had been a little Jew with long whiskers. Every time the world recalled that revelation there was a mob to jeer at him and a Father Scher to shower blows upon him!

He continued along the bank, one moment serious, his eyes closed, the next moment a strange smile on his lips.

When he reached the Ponte Grazie and made his way across the little stone bridge toward the Uffizi, his heart felt lightened. He saw the sublime jest of life; everybody laughing at everybody else. The world was a great lazaretto where every suffering inmate was laughing at the infirmities of the other. Was he not himself a suffering patient mocking the other patients? The irony of it all amused him and made him forget the drizzling rain and the pain in his head.

Presently a priest passed him, a sorry spectacle of a man; pale, emaciated, bent, his bony hands quivering, his lips muttering something. The poor fellow had spent so much time in praying that his lips moved even when not at prayer. What a face! All the pains and sorrows that human flesh was heir to were mirrored in it. Albert’s heart was wrung with pity; there was no mockery in his heart. No, he would not even reply to the attacks of his enemies. Love those that hate you! He now understood that sublime utterance. The great Jew of Galilee must have understood the jest of life, and when one understands one can only pity, not mock.

Then he passed an old church. A woman, her head and shoulders covered with a black cashmere shawl, pulled open the heavy church door and entered. He followed her in. The woman did not turn right or left but walked up to the altar, knelt on the stone steps and began to pray. He stood in the rear, his eyes gazing blankly in front of him. The church was deserted, gloomy, a strange sombre light sifting in through the many colored window-panes, leaving the long archways in twilight dimness; a swinging oil lamp in front of the beautiful image of the Madonna accentuated the nocturnal shadows beyond the reach of this glimmering light. It was noiseless yet there sounded in his ears dying echoes. Now and then a soft murmur came from somewhere as if the great organ, weary of prolonged silence, emitted a soft sigh. A thousand invisible phantoms seemed to people this empty, age-smelling church. The kneeling, praying woman, the stone images of saints, the indefinable forms flitting here and there back of the pillars, the murmuring from the side chapel, the emaciated priests outside, the Jesuits at Munich, all the religious controversies—Oh, God, what a travesty, what a jest! He wondered which was the greater jest, the festive gods of Olympus, who went about their business merrily and drank toasts from golden goblets and made love to the goddesses and slew their rivals, or the solemn, abstemious gods surrounded by shaven monks who fretfully cajoled and fawned upon their Jupiter, sadly rolling their eyes, praying for favors.

He suddenly rushed out of the church and proceeded through a narrow alley which afforded a short cut to the Uffizi. At present everything appeared farcical to him; nothing was serious. Politics, religion, love, spaghetti, literature, painting, the Seven Sins—or was it the Seven Wonders?—amusing jests all! As he entered the _Palazzo degli Uffizi_, walking past marble statues, Florentine tapestries, Satyrs, Wrestlers, Fauns, Madonnas, Venuses, Popes, Cupids, the Flight from Egypt and the Flight into Egypt, the _Weltschmerz_—the soul-weariness—of it all seized him and almost choked him with Satanic laughter. At a glance he beheld the Sublime Jesters of all ages!—Michael Angelo, Raphael, Titian, Correggio, Botticelli, Fra Angelico, da Vinci—the sublimest jester of all—each one busy with the jest of life in his own way.

He traversed vestibules and corridors, lofty vaulted chambers and frescoed palaces, and suddenly halted before a relief of the Sacrifice of Iphigeneia and close beyond it the Martyrdom of St. Justina by Paul Veronese. Were these jests, too?

He passed his hand over his eyes, then rubbed his forehead. Was he insane or had the rest of the world lost their wits? again passed through his mind. If he was sane the rest of the world could not be sane. The rest of the world took all this seriously, almost tragically—the Satyrs and the Fauns and the Madonnas and the Martyrs—and did not see the jest of it all.

His eyes dimmed by fugitive thoughts, he walked without seeing anything around him. He was feeling for the pillars, a prayer in his heart—O Lord God, I pray Thee, strengthen me, O God, that I may be avenged of the Philistines. The jeering laughter of the Philistines was in his ears. Dagon, their god, towered over him; he felt the fetters of brass against his flesh.

He returned to his lodging and plunged into work. He meant to jest but his jesting now was bitter. He was avenging himself on the Philistines. And no one ever avenged himself on the Philistines without falling with them.

VII.

There is always an element of discontent in the desire to travel. Contented people, like cattle in verdant pastures, remain on the hillside, munching their food in peace and tranquility.

He could not remain much longer in Florence. He wanted to travel, to move about. He went to Bologna, to Ferrara, to Padua, to Venice. But one cannot escape his own shadow. He carried his griefs with him. He was short of money but that mattered little to him. The memory of his gayety at the Baths of Lucca, at Livorno, at Florence, was forgotten.

Innately sensual he sought to drive away his gloom (as he had often done) by conjuring scenes of Florentine Nights and living over again those blissful moments; Signora Francesca, with those dark brown eyes, long, black lashes, rich black hair, and captivating body; Signora Letitia—that temptress, with a throbbing bosom, who carried on flirtations with half a dozen men at the same time; Matilda—that virtuous flirt, who tried to conceal her sensuousness by constantly talking about, and condemning, the sensuality of others; that pink-cheeked English girl, whose face looked as if it were bedewed with spray from the sea—No, these recollections brought no joy to his heart, not even a momentary consolation, as they had done on other occasions. He was seized with a morbid longing to wander, to wander everlastingly, to run away from himself.

While at Venice he received a letter from his brother that his father was very ill. He could read between the lines that it was a call to his father’s death-bed. Somehow, this very sad news brought him relief. It at once removed his restlessness. He was calm. He had suddenly become philosophical, stoical. It was as if one of his veins had been opened to relieve an intense pain. He left Italy and rushed back to his native land where his father was dying.

The following three months he frittered away between Hamburg and Berlin. His widowed mother had moved to Hamburg, and she begged him to stay there but he detested the city. It held for him too many bitter memories.

He finally decided to isolate himself. His action was that of the storm-tossed woman of passion who finds refuge in a nunnery.

He went to Potsdam, where he could see only “_Himmel und Soldaten_”. Potsdam in those days was not the suburb of Berlin that it is today. There was neither Subway nor Elevated nor speedy surface trains to carry one from _Unter den Linden_ to Sans Souci in half an hour. Then it was a considerable distance from the Prussian capital.

In Potsdam he found himself truly isolated, far from friends and diversions. And he had so many plans for work; the completion of another book; a humorous book, poems, essays, a political treatise. Then, again, here he was safe from his ever threatening peril—of falling in love. He had barely escaped a strong attachment for the wife of a friend, but her intellect had saved him.

He remained at Potsdam nearly six months, working feverishly on new poems.

After a time he found his self-imposed imprisonment irksome. The atmosphere in Potsdam was not to his liking either. The presence of soldiers—_die Menschenfresser_—everywhere, the artificiality of the gardens of San Souci, where the firs were “masked as orange trees” and “so unnatural that they were almost human”—everything was unbearable here.

VIII.

He longed for rest. He wished to escape from the tumults of life, from the tumults of his passions. He was a poet and wished to withdraw to bucolic quietude, indulge in pleasant reveries, and pipe sweet melodies.

With the Bible and Homer as his only companions he left his family and friends and went to the seashore. He would forget that he had been the editor of a political journal; he would forget that he had fought the Knights of Darkness; he would forget all the skirmishes in which he had engaged since his early youth. He would lie on the shore, listen to the sporting waves, and watch the clouds overhead.

He wandered along the beach in the twilight, solemn stillness all around him, the vault of heaven “like a Gothic church”, the stars above burning and flickering like countless lamps, the sweep of the waves “like the reverberations of a great organ”. At last he thought he had found himself. Again he wanted to emulate Goethe. He wanted no political strife, no controversial essays, no more ironic flings. Action was not his sphere, politics not his handiwork. He was no Ludwig Börne. He was neither agitator nor reformer. He was a literary artist and must let politics and philosophy alone. He must devote the rest of his life to the observation of nature and to the interpretation of it—that was the thirst of his soul.

Yes, the quiet and peace of the seashore suited him. No one there to engage him in polemics, no one to argue with. He had made the acquaintance of a sea captain and at times listened to tales of the sea, the sea that he loved “as much as his soul”. There were also two young women, whose acquaintance he had made, but neither of them was young or pretty enough to arouse his interest. He was jestingly frivolous with them and they, in turn, lionized him and made him conscious of his fame. Indeed, he had found himself at last. He was supremely happy. After a few more weeks of rest and recuperation he would settle down to his life-work.

One day he was seated in his room reading and dreaming. The house where he lodged was situated on an elevation away from the shore, back of an old church, and commanded a beautiful view of the ocean in the distance; “_Zur schönen Aussicht_” the owner had named his cottage.

A knock on his door and his landlord, a fisherman, handed him a packet of newspapers and a letter from Berlin. The letter contained nothing of importance beyond literary gossip. He then tore the wrappers from the newspapers and began scanning the narrow columns in a careless, casual manner when he suddenly jumped from his seat, drew his breath, and stared at the sheet before him as if convulsed. At first pallor appeared in his cheeks, then they turned red, and his whole body quivered.

“A revolution!—a revolution!—a revolution, Herr Nikkels!”

Herr Nikkels, the fisherman, stared at the speaker with unconcealed bewilderment. He had thought his lodger a little queer—always walking up and down the seashore when not bathing, or pacing up and down the floor of his room—but he had never seen him so agitated.

Albert raced up and down the room, the newspaper clutched in his hand, a strange glow on his face.

“O, it’s wonderful! glorious!—at last it has come!” he cried.

“What has happened?” the fisherman, still staring, asked.

“Ah, my dear Nikkels, the greatest thing in the world has happened! They are marching in Paris, with the tri-colored flag, singing the Marseillaise. Oh, isn’t it wonderful!” Then stretching his arms upward, “Oh, for a glimpse of Paris today.”

The fisherman drew at his pipe, shrugged his shoulders, and walked out. “This fellow Zorn is quite crazy,” he confided to his wife a few moments later.

Zorn was quite crazy that day. He did not take his prescribed sea-bath, could not read, could not write, dodged every acquaintance on the beach, rushed up and down the shore as if possessed.

Lafayette, the tri-colored flag, the Marseillaise! He could think of nothing else. He was intoxicated, delirious. All his resolutions had gone to the winds—all his resolutions for rest and quiet and peace; his hunger for calm reveries and piping melodies was gone. He was aching for strife, for the very vortex of strife. Ah, if he could whip his countrymen into action and arouse them from their sluggish contentment, perhaps they, too, would hoist the tri-colored flag and sing the Marseillaise!

_Aux armes, citoyens!_

No piping melodies for him, no fantasies, no love ditties!

_Aux armes, citoyens! Aux armes!_

He would take the lyre into his hands and sing a battle song. He was no Wolfgang von Goethe, playing with metrical verses while the enemy’s cannons were roaring at the city gates! How differently the ocean waves were galloping to the shore today! They were chanting the Marseillaise, they were calling tumultuously:

“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_”

The whole ocean was aflame with the fire that was burning in his heart; the mermaids were dancing with joy, giving a _thé dansant_ in honor of the great event. No, no, no rest for him! He was a child of the revolution, rebellion against all tyranny in his blood. He was what he was and could be no other. He would wreathe his head with flowers for the death-struggle to come. Ah, he would smite the pious hypocrites who had crept into the holy of holies to defile it! He would hurl javelins at the tyrants, with their armies of _Menschenfresser_, who were holding mankind in fetters of steel! With words like flaming stars he would set fire to the palaces of the oppressors and illumine the dingy huts of the enslaved.

_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes!_

He was “all joy and song, all sword and flame.”

“And God said, let there be light!” The torch of the Revolution of July had spread light to all the dark places. To Poland, to Spain, to Britain, to Prussia. All eyes were turned to Paris. From there came the light!

He left the seashore. He could no longer bear the rest and quiet of the place. He went to Hamburg and restlessly watched developments. He could think of nothing but the revolution. He also watched, with a sinking heart, the renewed activities of the authorities. The censor had become even more ruthless. More than half he had written was suppressed. His publishers, the most daring in Germany, had dropped a hint of caution to him. They had learned that the Prussian government had issued a warrant for his arrest. The air of Hamburg was stifling. He wanted to breathe free air. Yes, he must fight, and, if necessary, perish in the war of human liberation. The dawn of a new religion—the religion of freedom—was rising and he must consecrate himself as one of its priests.

When he told Uncle Leopold of his intention to go to Paris the elderly gentleman heaved a sigh of relief. Indeed, he would be happy to defray all expenses for Albert’s stay in Paris as long as he pleased. To be a namesake of Albert Zorn was no great comfort in these stirring days. Leopold Zorn was no revolutionary. He was a law-abiding citizen, and as a great banker he knew that even a tyrannical government was better than a government convulsed.

Albert’s mother could not understand his desire to go to Paris. She had never been outside of Germany, and Paris seemed very distant. What would he do in Paris? Her fond hopes had been rudely shattered. Her poor husband had died with ambitions unattained and now her beloved son, the choice of her flock, was merely drifting, at an age when most men were comfortably established. Of course, she had heard of the abdication of Charles X and of the July Revolution in France, but what had these to do with her son? She was growing old, she was complaining, and craved for quiet and peace. Why go to Paris where there was so much excitement and turmoil?

“How soon will you be back?” she asked of him eagerly.

He was taking leave of her, his arms enfolding her, his sister, with a babe in her arms, standing close by.

“I can’t tell, mother dearest;” looking away wistfully.

“Do take good care of yourself and don’t get mixed up with bad company,” she spoke beseechingly. “Uncle Leopold said——”

“Yes, I know, what Uncle Leopold always says,” he struck in impatiently, with a cynical smile in the deep corners of his mouth. “Hold on to the _Thalers_ and the rest will take care of itself.”

There was a melancholy smile on the mother’s benign face. Everything Albert said sounded clever to her ears but she did not like to hear him jest about Uncle Leopold. Leopold was very good to her indeed, as he had always been in the past.

“What will you do in Paris?”

“March and sing the Marseillaise,” he said, laughing.

“Will you ever be serious?”

“It’s because I am too serious that I jest, my little mother.” He kissed her on both cheeks.

The mother sighed; a tear was slowly rolling down her face.

Albert flung his arms around his mother, embraced his sister, kissed her little son, and rushed out of the house. His tears and emotions were choking him.

Outside the sun was shining brightly, light clouds in the sky. It was the first of May, fresh, earth-scented odors in the air. A stolid sluggish fellow, with a large, heavy basket on his head, walked past Albert as he came out of his mother’s house. Albert looked after the fellow and sighed. Will _Michel_ ever quicken his step? Ah, the poor _Michel_! Albert’s heart was wrung with pain. Presently an officer loomed up in the distance. Albert jumped into the vehicle that was waiting for him at the curb.

“_Aux armes, citoyens, aux armes_!” he murmured to himself as the vehicle rattled away.