The following day I went, as usual, to the Polytechnic. But before going I wrote to my uncle.
I visited the Hertzes after dinner, in order to be able to give my friend some information about his father's condition. The old man was in bed; he coughed and had a little fever.
Hertz inquired at once for Minna, and asked why she had not come.
"We thought you were inseparable," Mrs. Hertz added.
It was a good thing that the yellow Venetian blinds were down; otherwise the distress caused by her words would have been evident. I felt that I changed colour, and that a sudden spasm of pain had taken away my breath. In as indifferent a manner as I could assume I said where she had gone, and gave them her love.
The old people seemed very astonished that she had gone away so suddenly without saying good-bye. "And the day before yesterday she had known nothing about it!"
"She only had the letter yesterday," I said. "Her cousin wished so much that she should come at once, she was not well—depression, I think."
"Yes, then I can imagine she had to go," Mrs. Hertz said; "Minna is always so kind when any one is ill."
"What a pity it should be just now," Hertz complained. "I had looked forward to her coming in these days, she might have played to me. The drawing-room door could have been left ajar, she plays so beautifully."
I hurried to get away from this dangerous subject, and told them about my uncle's letter, which called me to England much earlier than I had expected.
"Already, in the course of the month!" Hertz exclaimed. "Yes, Dresden is just like an hotel, where one comes in and the other goes out. Only such old folks as we are stick, till one fine day we are buried here. Last year the painter Hoym moved to Berlin, and Professor Grimm, who was a very learned Kantian, went to Hamburg a couple of years ago.… Well, you are young and had to start work one time or another."
"But there is one for whom that time in Dresden means a lot," Mrs. Hertz remarked.
"Yes, poor Minna" Hertz was seized by a fit of that dry cough which every now and then interrupted the conversation.
"I have not yet said anything to her, the thought of having to leave her has already made me quite desperate. I have been very doubtful whether I ought not to try to make my uncle give up this plan."
"No, no, dear Fenger," the old man said eagerly, stretching out his hand—"don't do that. Work cannot be controlled, controlled by our inclinations.… First duty, work the sooner the better. Man's love works—woman's abides."
"You must not talk so much, it strains you," Mrs. Hertz told her husband. "But it is like that, we two old ones have known it too, once upon a time.… Don't worry too much over it. Minna is a sensible girl and a faithful soul, she will also have confidence in you.… Be sure she will get through the waiting time more easily than you now imagine."
"I hope so, dear Mrs. Hertz. At the same time I believe that you always had a calmer mind and more balanced temperament than Minna, and therefore in your youth suffered less from such a separation."
"Yes, that's true," said Hertz,—"for Minna, it will be more difficult.… But we must all struggle, each one with his burden, and it is well for everybody that it should be so."
"Anyhow it is not in those kind of struggles that one succumbs," said Mrs. Hertz cheerfully. "I do not think one need even fear a wound, and the hardships one is sure to get over. And of one thing you may be certain, we shall be all we can to the dear girl, and as far as an old couple like ourselves can help her she won't be in need of friends."
"I could never wish better friends for her, and it is the greatest consolation to me that she has here a second home, where she will always be understood, and where the dear remembrances we have together will be treasured."
I got up and gave Hertz my hand.
"Now you must rest and not be tempted to speak. I wish I could play to you. When I get home I shall write to your son, and then I can give him fresh news."
"Yes, give him my love, and tell him not to worry. I mean that he is such a loving son, but you see for yourself it is nothing serious."
Mrs. Hertz nodded, with her calm, habitual smile.
"It is good of you to think at once of writing to Immanuel. Now, you will not see each other for a long time, and he is so fond of you. You must look him up on your way."
"I had already decided to do so.… Good-bye!"
During this conversation, I had momentarily forgotten the dreadful uncertainty in which my love was involved. But though this consciousness now returned with full force, the danger seemed less, and I was more inclined to take a brighter view of the future than I had been since my interview with Minna. This kind Philemon and Baucis couple were so intimately interwoven in the peaceful idyll of our love, that it needed only this meeting to refresh its colours and infuse them with a life-like light that drove away all fear of an impending tragic shadow. I had found them true friends, still possessed with the same confidence in our mutual happiness as before, and at a moment when this happiness was, I knew, in peril; and I considered this confidence to be still more valuable, because it rested upon ignorance, a circumstance that would, surely enough, have diminished its value in other people's eyes. But I just needed a support that had not even felt the shock. "Their confidence is not destined to meet with disappointment," I said to myself, "all will turn out for the best,—old Hertz shall not die, and I shall not lose Minna."
This conclusion was not exactly logical. But even had it been so, at this visit to the sick-bed I might, had I been less occupied by my own fate, have remarked many signs to fill me with fear that a stronger Disputant—the strongest of all—would say, "Nego majorem."