Part 45 (1/2)
CHAPTER IX.
When the carriage stopped on the open s.p.a.ce before the door, surrounded by trees, and covered with dry brown leaves as with a carpet, Oldenburg appeared up stairs on a gallery, which divided the two stories and ran around the whole house. The next moment he was down at the door and shook Oswald heartily by the hand.
”There you are,” he said. ”I was almost afraid you would have done like most people, who, when they have once been in my company, do not care to renew the experiment.”
”I do not know, baron, whether you show yourself to most people as you did to me,” said Oswald; ”if that is so, then I have at least a different taste from most people.”
”Really, a salam in _optima forma_,” said Oldenburg, smiling; ”a couple of old gray-bearded sons of Mohammed could not do it better. Nothing is wanting but that we should now kiss the tips of our fingers. But come into the house; we'll be more-comfortable there.”
They stepped into a small hall, from which they reached, by means of an easy, wide staircase, a larger hall in the upper story, which was lighted from above. From here they went into a large, quite high room; a gla.s.s door opened upon the broad gallery, which afforded an uninterrupted view upon the sea, and seemed to overhang the steep precipice, although there was still a distance of about thirty yards between it and the brink. Below was the surf howling between the s.h.i.+ngle and huge blocks of stone.
The view from this elevated point out upon the blue, boundless sea, and upon the high white chalk-cliffs, which stretched far to the left, and ended finally in a cape crowned with the beech forest of Grenwitz, was indescribably grand, and Oswald could not suppress a loud cry of admiration.
”Well,” said Oldenburg, leaning over the railing of the gallery by Oswald's side, ”was it not a good idea of my worthy grandfather's to build a house at this point, which, by the way, is one of the highest in the whole island. I recall the old gentleman yet, with his long snow-white beard, and can see him even now sitting here on this gallery, and looking out with his dying eye upon the sea, like the king of Thule. He revered it as a grandson reveres his grandmother, and loved it as a young man loves the idol of his heart. I wish he could have bequeathed to me, beside his size, also his capacity of enjoying the beauties of nature. Unfortunately I have missed inheriting that.”
”Are you in earnest?” asked Oswald.
”Certainly,” said Oldenburg. ”I have often enough regretted it in travelling, and been heartily ashamed of my aesthetic stupidity, which kept me from feeling anything at places where others would make summersets for pleasure or weep sentimental tears. I tried in vain to do like the English misses and sob: Beautiful, very fine indeed! I read in vain in Byron and Lamartine till I knew them nearly by heart,--it was all in vain. I never could do more than poor Werther, who saw in nature but a well-varnished picture; and a couple of beggar-boys, who fought in the sand by the sea-sh.o.r.e, or a poor fellah turning his heavy water-wheel, were more interesting to me than the Gulf of Naples and the Nile. I delight in men and the manners of men,--Nature is beyond me.”
”But why do you exile yourself into this solitude? Why do you, who could so easily afford it, not rather live on the _Boulevard des Capucines_, or in Pall-Mall, London, than on this northern sh.o.r.e?”
”For the same reason that the falcon is made to fast twenty-four hours, before he is taken out on the gazelle-hunt,--to sharpen my hunger after my favorite dish. When I have lived here a few weeks my senses become fresh again and susceptible, and the sight of man's busy life has its old charms for me once more.”
”And how much longer do you expect to stay here?”
”I do not know yet. My Solitude--this is the name my grandfather gave this place--pleases me this time better than usual. I have led an odd sort of life for the last few years, and seen so many children of Adam of various races and degrees of civilization that at last they all looked alike to me, an evidence that my senses had become dull and a new fast was necessary. You and Czika must see to it that I do not starve altogether.”
”And where is our little foundling?”
”Somewhere on the heath, where she lies down in the blooming broom and stares at the sky; or on the beach, where she climbs about among the rocks and claps her hands with delight if a wave wets her bare feet.
She has not been persuaded yet to put on shoes; I leave her in perfect freedom since she declared, on the second day of her stay here, when I refused to let her run out in the most inclement weather: Czika dies if she cannot go in the rain!”
”Does she pine after her mother?”
”Do you really think that brown woman, whom I at least saw only in pa.s.sing, is her mother?”
”Certainly! The likeness between Czika and the Brown Countess is unmistakable.”
”From whom have I heard that expression before?” said Oldenburg, thoughtfully; ”probably from you the other day, but it sounded so familiar to me. Does the name come from you?”
”No; from Frau von Berkow,” said Oswald, fixing his eye upon Oldenburg.
”Ah, indeed!” said the baron.
This was the first time that Melitta's name was mentioned by the two men, and it was characteristic enough, that at once a pause occurred in the conversation.
”On what occasion did Frau von Berkow make the acquaintance of the gypsy?” asked the baron, after a little while.
Oswald told him in a few words the story of the Brown Countess, as he had heard it from Melitta.