Part 2

"Then a wild joy took possession of me, and stealthily I pressed him to me; something within me shouted joyously: 'Oh! how I would cherish and protect you; how I would kiss away the furrows misery has made in your brow, and the cares from your soul! How I would toil for you with all my young strength, and never rest till your eyes were fill of gladness, and your heart of sunshine. But to do that----'

"I glanced over at Martha. Yes, she lived, still lived. Her bosom rose and sank in short, quick sobs. She seemed more alive than ever.

"And suddenly there flamed before me, and it was as if I read written clearly on the wall the words:

"'If only she were to die!'

"'Yes, that was it, that was it. Oh! if only she were to die! Oh! if only she were to die!'"

We have only to read Jean Ricard's _S[oe]urs_, a novel lately published in Paris, and dealing with the same theme, to recognise how very far superior is Sudermann's treatment of it.

The volume of short tales entitled _Im Zwielicht_ is of a somewhat different character. Though coloured to some extent by the melancholy and "inevitableness" of the longer novels, those qualities are less intense, and we have lively touches of satire and brilliant flashes of wit that remind us of the sprightliness of French writers. The tales are told in the twilight by one or other of two friends, a man and a woman, between whom there exists merely an intellectual bond of sympathy and union. The stories laugh good-naturedly at narrow-mindedness and silly prejudice, an evil that Sudermann wisely recognises as existing everywhere, in the big city as in the small village. Women's social aspirations, their immense delight in entertaining celebrities, and their belief that in so doing they are moving in the stream of the world's history, are satirised with keenness and truth. He strikes a deeper note in the tale that sets forth the difficulties of friendship and love between a woman of mature years and a young man, a subject ably treated by Jean Richepin in his fine novel, Madame Andre, and it is very interesting to note the coincidence of view of the French and German writer. Perhaps Sudermann's views may help towards a satisfactory solution of that ever-recurring will-o'-the-wisp--platonic affection. His heroine declares that to turn friendship into love, or love into friendship, is impossible, because where such a transformation does take place, there must, in the first instance, have been either not friendship or not love. "From the day on which we reap love where we sowed friendship, the magic charm would be broken," she says, "Till then I was all and everything--then I should be merely one more." And again, "Love begins in the intoxication of the senses, and ends in the peace of calm friendship, that is marriage; the contrary is not forbidden, but it leads--to the desert."

In _Iolanthe's Hochzeit_, Sudermann proves himself the possessor of the humour that borders on pathos. The little story has no tendency, it preaches no sermon, Onkel Hanckel, "a good fellow (_ein guter Kerl_) by profession," relates how he had to live up to the title, and how, at the mature age of forty-seven, he became, almost against his will, engaged to a young girl. His feelings at the wedding ceremony, his horror and shyness at the notion of being left alone with his bride afterwards, form a most delightful piece of comedy. Puetz, a surly, grasping, miserly, rich old man; Lothar, a dashing young lieutenant of dragoons; the maiden sister; and Iolanthe herself--are portrayed with a quaint humour of which the earlier works gave little indication, while the vigour, simplicity, and directness of the narrative are as fine as ever. The East Prussian dialect lends the original a local colour that would be difficult to reproduce in a translation.

In his dramas Sudermann treats life very much from the same standpoint as Ibsen does. His characters talk a great deal, and do next to nothing. He wages war against shams, thinks people should live out their own lives and develop their individuality at all hazards. He presents abnormal types, men and women who would be abnormal anywhere, in civilised society or the reverse, and who must not be taken as representative of modern life. Each of the three dramas he has as yet given us presents a moral problem to the consideration of the spectators.

_Die Ehre_ was first performed at the Lessing Theatre in Berlin, on November 27, 1889, and had an immense success. The dramatist ruthlessly and boldly draws aside the curtain from the false ideas of honour held by high and low alike, not only by the middle class and proletariat of Berlin, but by civilised men in general: such social conventions, according to Sudermann, tend to make money-getting the sole aim of the citizen, and help to undermine the peace and happiness of family life. The revelation is undoubtedly unpleasing, but all the same a great truth underlies it, and in the end of the play the virtuous are not sacrificed to the wicked. In the speeches of Count Trast, the good angel, the god from the machine of the drama, it is not perhaps altogether fanciful to see the beliefs and opinions of Sudermann himself. Trast's conclusion is that we shall do better to substitute duty for the many and varied sorts of honour recognised by society.

_Sodom's Ende_ is a startling play. Even the Berlin censorship required alterations before it could permit the production of the drama on the stage of the Lessing Theatre. It still contains one scene that would effectually prevent its performance in an English playhouse. The drama takes its name from the title of a picture painted by Willy Janowski, who bids fair to become a great artist. But he has fallen under the influence of Adah Barcinowski, a cold, heartless, pleasure-loving woman, the wife of a wealthy stockbroker. That connection and his own weak nature have ruined Willy mentally, morally, and physically. He ceases to work, leads a life of self-indulgence, heedless of the hurt he does to others. The character, unpleasing as it is, is consistently drawn by the dramatist, for even in the pangs of death Willy does not cease to note the artistic pose taken by the dead body of the girl he has injured and betrayed. Never, perhaps, has the worst side of that section of frivolous idle society we are accustomed to call "smart" been more ably painted: its foolish vapidity, its utter futility, and its elegant wickedness and sinfulness, are boldly displayed. Unfortunately men and women without conscience, without comprehension of duty, have always existed and still exist, but we doubt if their evil influence is as far-reaching and all-important as latter-day novelists and dramatists would have us believe.

In his latest play, _Heimat_, produced January 7, 1893, Sudermann takes for theme the duty owed by the child to the parent, and that due from parent to child. A high-spirited and talented girl, daughter of commonplace, conventional parents, to the scandal of all concerned, leaves her home to carve for herself a career in the world, and by reason of her fine voice becomes a celebrated singer. After an absence of many years chance brings her professionally to her native town, and a very natural desire is awakened in her to revisit her parents and her home. Her father, whose health had been destroyed through the effects of her former disobedience, wishes her to come back provided she renounces for ever the life she has been leading. This she has no desire to do, but for her father's sake she is not all unwilling to yield. When, however, she is further required to break with certain ties very dear to her, she refuses, and the father dies from the shock. Now when we carefully read the play, or see it acted by competent artists, it is clear that much might be said on both sides. But as there is nothing in the world more beautiful and holy than the tie that binds parent and child, so is the contemplation of conflict between them always unlovely. We grant that in the storm and stress of modern life such conflict is at times unavoidable, but it is scarcely the stuff of which works of art should be formed.

A new play, a comedy, _Schmetterling-Schlacht_ (Butterfly Battle), is to be produced shortly at the Hofburg Theatre in Vienna. Again a moral problem is to be presented to the consideration of the public. The three heroines, honest working girls, paint butterflies on fans for a living. Two of the girls, tired of being sweated, give up fan painting; they take to painting their faces instead, and practice other abominations. The third girl continues her work, and remains virtuous. The play chiefly consists of a series of discussions between the girls as to which way of life is preferable.

Like his contemporaries, Ibsen and Bjoernson, Zola and Tolstoi, Sudermann would transfer the sermon from the pulpit to the stage: he sets before us certain phases of life that have come under his notice in all their ugliness and brutality, and would have us forthwith leave the theatre sworn enemies of the evils he denounces. But his characters are contented to preach and discuss, they never feel that they are called upon to act. Thus they lack life and reality, we have little sympathy with them, and are never profoundly touched.

As a writer of fiction, however, Sudermann's high position is unassailable. He ranks with the great masters in all countries who have sought, and are still seeking, to set before us modern life in its manifold aspects, in its complexity and its difficulties, but who, unlike the more pronounced school of naturalists, remember Joubert's maxim that "fiction has no business to exist unless it is more beautiful than reality."

_August_, 1894.

THE WISH.

I.

In the old doctor's bedroom a cheerful fire was flickering. He himself still lay a-bed, quite penetrated by the delightful sensation of a man who knows his life's work is completed. When one has been sitting half a century through, for twelve long hours every day, in the rumbling conveyance of a country doctor, thumped and bumped along over stones and lumps of clay, one may now and again lie in bed till daylight, especially when one knows one's work is safe in younger hands.

He stretched and straightened his stiff old limbs, and once more buried in the pillows his weather-beaten, yellowish-grey face, covered with white stubble like granite with Iceland moss. But habit, that austere mistress, who had for so many years driven him forth from his bed before dawn, whether it was necessary or not, would not let him rest even now.

He sighed, he yawned, he abused his laziness, and then reached for the bell standing on the little table at his bedside.

His housekeeper, an equally grey, tumble-down specimen of humanity, appeared on the threshold.

"What time is it, Frau Liebetreu?" he called out to her.

Since the day on which the young assistant arrived in Gromowo, the old Black Forest clock hanging at the doctor's bedside, and whose rattling alarum had often unpleasantly jarred upon his morning slumbers, was no longer wound up. "So that I know that my life too henceforth stands still," as he was wont to say.

"A quarter to eight, doctor," the old woman answered, beginning meanwhile to busy herself about the stove.

"For shame! for shame!" cried he, raising himself up, "what a lazybones I am getting to be! I say, have any letters come?"

"Yes, a few by post, and one that young Mr. Hellinger brought himself two hours ago."

"Two hours ago! Why, it was dark yet at that time!"

"Yes; he said he had to drive out to the manor farm, and could wait no longer. Yesterday evening, too, when you were at the 'Black Eagle,' sir, he called, and sat here for about two hours."

"Why didn't you send for me?" cried the doctor, in the blustering tone of voice of old, good-natured grumblers.

"Well, and hadn't he forbidden us to do so?" cried his housekeeper, in exactly the same tone of voice, which seemed, however, more an echo of her master's manner than personal defiance. "He was sitting in the study till ten o'clock--or rather he was not sitting, he raced about like a madman, and laughed and talked to himself--I hardly knew the calm, quiet man again; and then I brought him beer--six bottles--he drained them all; and I had to drink with him. As I tell you, he was quite beside himself."

"Ah, indeed, indeed," muttered the old man smiling to himself with satisfaction. "I should say Olga had something to do with that. Perhaps after all she----. Well, do you intend bringing me my letters to-day, or not?" he suddenly shouted, as if he were goodness knows how wild, but his face laughed the while. And when his housekeeper had grumblingly done his bidding, he drew out with a sure hand from the little heap of letters one without a stamp, not deigning to look at the others at all. His hands trembled with happy excitement as he unfolded the paper; and he read, while his grey face beamed with pleasure:

"Dear old Uncle,--You shall be the first to know it. If only I had you with me, that I might press your dear old hands and tell you face to face what is in my heart! I do not realise it yet--my head whirls when I think of it! Uncle, you were at my side in the days of darkest trouble, helping and protecting. You were the only one to take Martha's part when all--even my parents turned their backs on her with coldness and suspicion.

"You could not save her for me, uncle--the Lord asked her back of me. But when, at the bedside of my dead wife, my reason threatened to give way, you took my poor head between your hands and spoke to me--as a preacher speaks. And you were right. Of course I do not believe that I can ever quite revive and become again as I was before the cares of existence and my longing for Martha made my head dull and heavy; for even Martha--even my wife--could not accomplish that in the three years of our quiet happiness. But life seems about to give me whatever it has left for me yet of joy and peace. You know, uncle, how in the midst of my sorrow for my dead wife, I learnt to love her sister. Cousin Olga, more and more. I confessed all to you, and sought comfort with you when tortured by self-reproach at the thought that I was breaking my troth to my wife already in the year of mourning. And you said to me at that time: 'If the dead woman might seek a second mother for her child, whom else would she choose but the sister whom, next to you, she loved best in the world?' I was startled to the very depths of my soul, for I should never have dared to raise my eyes to her. But you never ceased to encourage me, until, a week ago, I took heart and begged her to share my fortunes.

"You know she refused me.

"She grew deathly pale--then gave me her hand, and standing up rigidly said to me: 'Put it from your thoughts, Robert, for I can never be your wife.' Then I slunk away, and thought to myself, 'It serves you right for your presumption.' And now, to-day----. Uncle, I cannot put it on paper!--my hand fails me. This happiness is too great--it came so unexpectedly, it almost overpowers me! To-morrow, uncle--to-morrow I will tell you all.

"I have to go out early to the manor farm. At mid-day I shall return, and then forthwith shall undertake the dreaded visit to my parents. My mother suspects nothing as yet. Her plans have once again been frustrated, and Olga will have to suffer heavily enough for it. I fear she may even turn her out of the house. If only I had her already under my own roof!

"It is three o'clock in the morning. Enough for to-day. Your grateful and happy

"Robert Hellinger."

The old doctor wiped a tear from his cheek.

"The dear boy," he murmured. "How his emotions crowd each other in his over-heated brain; and how simple, how honest everything is to the last jot! In truth, he deserves you, my brave, proud girl; he is the only one to whom I do not grudge you. And now I will put you to the test, and see if you too put confidence in your old uncle. Straightway I will do it."

Laughing and growling he burrowed with his head in the pillows. And then he suddenly shouted with a voice resounding through the house like thunder:

"Confound it, where are my trousers?"

The trousers were brought, and five minutes later the old man stood quite ready before his glass, all except his greyish-yellow wig.

"My hat, cloak, stick!" he shouted out into the corridor.

"But the breakfast," the old woman shouted back, if possible louder still, from the kitchen.

"Well, then, hurry up," he blustered. "Before I have read these letters I must have it here."

With an impatient oath he set to work upon the little heap that had so far been lying unnoticed on the pedestal. Offers of wine--profitable investments--a poor, blind father with a new-born infant--and then suddenly he stopped short, while once more a satisfied smile overspread his features.

"Upon my word! I should not have expected this," he growled, contentedly. "She, too, could not rest without confiding her happiness to her old uncle. That is nice of you, children! You shall have your reward for this."

With the same happy haste with which he had opened Hellinger's letter, he tore this envelope asunder.

But hardly had he commenced reading when with a low moaning cry he staggered back two paces, like one who has been dealt a treacherous blow. His grey face became ashy pale; his eyes started from their sockets, and like claws his old withered fingers clutched the fluttering paper.

When his housekeeper brought in the coffee, she found her master sitting as stiff as a log in the corner of the sofa, his forehead covered with great drops of perspiration, and staring with fixed lustreless eyes at the paper which his hands still held as if in a cramp.

"Gracious heavens, doctor!" she cried, and let the tray drop clattering on to the table. Her lamentations brought him back to consciousness. He asked for water, and drank two long eager draughts, wetted his forehead and temples with the remainder, and signed to his housekeeper to leave him.

Hereupon he bolted the door, picked up the letter from the floor, and read with trembling, choking voice:

"My dear, my Fatherly Friend,--When you read these lines I shall have ceased to live. The draughts of morphium which you gave me when I had forgotten how to sleep after Martha's death were carefully collected and kept by me; I trust they will be powerful enough to give me peace.

"You who have watched over me like a second father, you shall be the only one to learn why I have decided to take this terrible step. In long winter nights, when the storm shook my gable-roof and I could not sleep, I wrote down everything that has been tormenting me for so long, and will not let me be at rest till I fall asleep for ever. On my bookshelf, hidden behind some volumes of Heine, you will find a blue exercise-book. Take it with you, without letting the others notice. And when you have read all, go out to my grave and there say a prayer for my soul.

"See that I am laid to rest at Martha's side.

"I loved her dearly. It is she who is calling me to her.

"You will understand all when you have read my story. Perhaps you know more of my secret than I suspect. I suppose I must have spoken evil words during the delirium of my illness, else why should you have sent away my relations from my bedside?

"Did you shudder at the things that my wretched tongue brought to light?

"Do you pity me? Do you despise me? No, surely you do not despise me; or how could you have bestowed so much love upon me? And now read. Everything is set down there. It was not originally intended for you. I meant to send it after many years--when we young ones too should have grown old--to the man to whom my whole being belongs, so that he might know why I once denied myself to him.

"Things have gone differently. To-day, in a moment of forgetfulness, I threw myself upon his neck. Too late I comprehended that now escape from him was no longer possible. But, rather than be his, I will seek death.

"And I have yet another request in my heart. It is the request of one about to die--if you can, I know you will fulfil it.

"Keep secret from the world, and especially from the man I love, that I took my own life. Let him believe that my happiness killed me. I shall destroy everything that might point to suicide; there will only be indications that I died of syncope or apoplexy.

"From the depths of my heart I implore you to grant me this one last favour. I die gladly and have no fear. It is so long since I slept well, that I have need of rest.

"Olga Bremer."

The old man felt himself in a state of utter helplessness.

He staggered, clenched his fists, beat his brow, and then once more he fell back in his chair.

"This is madness, utter madness," he groaned, wiping the cold perspiration from his forehead. "Child, what were you thinking of? What could cloud your reason like this? My poor, poor, darling child?"

Then he once more jumped up and groped with trembling fingers for his hat and cloak.

"To help! To help!" He must wrest this victim even yet from death's hand! That was what absorbed his whole mind at present. For a moment the thought came to him that perhaps after all she had not carried out her serious intention, but he dismissed it forthwith. He must have had a different knowledge of her character, to credit her with a feeling of fear or a failing of energy.

But possibly the dose she had taken was too small, perhaps the long period of time--for it was more than a year since Martha died in child-bed, and it was then he had given her the sleeping draughts--perhaps the long period of time that had elapsed since then had weakened the efficacy of the poison. Yes, yes, it was so; it must be so! When badly preserved, morphia decomposes and becomes ineffectual.

So forward to the rescue! To save what can be saved!

He ran about the room in search of something: he hardly knew what he was seeking. Then once more he grasped the letter.

"And what do you ask of me? Child, child, do you think it is such a light matter to perjure one's self? To throw aside like rotten eggs the duties to which one has been faithful for half a century? Child, you do not realise what you are asking of an honest man!" He Held the paper up close to his eyes, and once more read the passage: "It is the request of one about to die.... From the depths of my heart I implore you to grant me this one last favour."

Heavy tears rolled down his weather-beaten cheeks.

"It cannot be, child, it cannot be done, however well you may know how to plead. And even if I wished to do it, I should betray myself. I am an old, weak wreck; I no longer have such control over my features. They would notice it at the first glance. But so that you may not have asked it--of your old uncle--in vain--I will--at least attempt it--for your own sake and Robert's sake you must first of all be saved. Confound it all, old fellow, for once more in your life be a man you must save her--you must--must--must!"

And as quickly as his stiff old legs would carry him, he rushed out--past his housekeeper, who stood listening at the keyhole--out into the wintry morning air which a cold drizzling mist filled with damp, prickling crystals.

II.

A very picture of perfect serenity and peace of mind the couple Hellinger senr. made, as they sat at the breakfast-table. Out of the spout of the brass coffee-machine on the brightly-polished body of which the fire-flames produced a purple reflection, there rose up thin, bluish steam which sank down towards the table in little clouds, cast a film over the silver sugar-basin and wreathed the coffee-cups with delicate, tiny dewdrops.