Hertz was buried three days later in "Der weite Kirchhof."
I do not know whether the Jews in Dresden do not keep strictly to the Mosaic churchyard, or whether this unorthodox family had long before left the synagogue. At the—time I did not think about it; I thought of nothing,—indeed I hardly realised anything. Therefore I have no idea whether an address was given, or whether it was a Jewish Rabbi or Christian priest who performed the ceremony; if an eye-witness insisted that it was a Dervish or a Druid, it would be all the same to me. The whole thing stands to me as a bewildered dream. I remember that the giant Italian poplars rustled heavily and soothingly, and that some little birds twittered in the sharp cool sunlight. And then I see, a little in front of me to the right, Minna's black-draped form. It was for me, for her also I should think, not so much the dear old friend we buried, as our own short and happy life together,—our love. At the gate of the churchyard we pressed each other's hands firmly and long, the last time for many years.
Minna had told Mrs. Hertz everything.
"You have acted rightly," said the old lady to me the following day. "And poor Minna! She anyhow thinks she has acted for the best. But it pains me dreadfully, and not least for her sake."
I heard from her that Stephensen was going to Denmark in a few days in order to prepare everything, and that Minna was soon to follow. With regard to myself—I only thought of getting away. My uncle had no objection to my immediate arrival, and a week after old Hertz's death I was ready to start.
Mrs. Hertz presented me at parting with the little original manuscript of Heine's poems. How truly and bitterly it now suited my case! And still it was so precious to me. I have kept it as a treasure, the unattainableness of which had brought English collectors to despair.
········
Year after year passed in almost constant, strenuous work. It followed naturally that at first I hardly saw anybody except the workmen at the factory and the employees, and later on it became a custom that pleased me. I got on well enough with my uncle, though I never became very intimate with him. He was pleased with my capacity for work. After two or three years he feared that I should exaggerate it, be "a business bachelor," as he called it. He tried to persuade me to take some part in social life: a man in such a position ought to form ties.
Little by little I gave in, and gradually changed my habits.
There was neither talk of cavalcades in Hyde Park nor holidays spent in country-seats, but I made the acquaintance of some nice middle-class families, almost all well-to-do factory owners. The young ladies were not heiresses of millions, but no less beautiful for that (those who were beautiful), and none of them would go into matrimony empty-handed. I had, however, another ideal in my heart, and my coolness often irritated my comrades, who considered it humbug.
At last I became acquainted with a young girl, who made a certain impression on me, and who, so my uncle assured me, was not indifferent to me, an assertion that certainly greatly flattered me. She was the only child of the owner of a cloth-factory, who was more than well-to-do, at least after Danish ideas. She showed me much kindness, though only in a social sort of way. I was not quite sure that my uncle was right in supposing that should be able to win her heart and hand, but I thought that there was a possibility of it. At any rate I partly wished to do so, and began to pass on to less "social" terms.
It was just after Christmas, the fourth since I had left Dresden.
One evening it happened that, at a concert, I was introduced by a friend to a German musician who might have been a year or so older than I, perhaps even more.
He had played a violin Cavatina, it was a small, half-private concert; his appearances at grand concerts were very rare, though I think he was talented enough to do so. He made an ample income by giving lessons in both the violin and the piano. In his appearance there was something distinguished and something rather indolent.
It happened that we walked home together. The German was very talkative, making great game of the good English people's musical ability, and told several anecdotes with a good deal of humour, amongst others one about a rich young lady who had come to him in order to learn to play "The Moonlight Sonata" (of course the first movement) in the course of eight days, although she had never touched the piano before!
We went into a restaurant to have supper, and asked for some ale.
"Your good health," I said, and drank to him. "What an excellent drink it is!"
"Well enough in its way," the German murmured, and brushed a few drops off his moustache. "But still, I say, I wish I was sitting in 'Drei Raben' with a good glass of Spaten-Bräu in front of me, as I have done so many excellent times at this hour of the day."
"So you know Dresden?" It flew out of me. Drei Raben! The whole scene with Stephensen stood quite vividly before me.
The German laughed a little.
"I should think so, but I didn't know that you had been there. For long?"
"For two years. I went to the Polytechnic. It's now four years since I left."
"H'm. I was there two years before. Played with Lauterbach.… That was something different to London. What an opera! Oh yes, yes!"
He strummed with his fingers on the table, and glanced dreamily in front of him.
"Waiter, Johannisberger Schloss! With the German remembrance German wine!"
"The golden days of youth, artist life," I thought. "He also clings to his Dresden memories; but oh, what could they be compared with mine!"
The wine came; he poured it out. "A glass for our Elbe Florentine days!" We clinked glasses, emptied them, and stared long and silently in front of us.
"I suppose you also came often to Renner, in 'Drei Raben,' I mean?" he asked in a distrait tone.
"No, I have only been there once. Perhaps you lived in the neighbourhood?"
"Yes, quite close by."
"Where?" I asked at once, for my heart was beating furiously.
"Perhaps you remember a little street—Seilergasse."
"Seilergasse!" I repeated, and stared at him.
He smiled.
"Perhaps you also lived there? What a funny coincidence!"
"No, I did not exactly live there, but I went there very often. I knew a family there."
"I see! Well, well.… In these little streets everybody knows one another. Perhaps you have by chance heard about the people with whom I lodged; the landlord was a teacher at a public school."
"Jagemann?" I exclaimed.
The musician just raised a full glass to his lips, and spilt it so that the golden drops ran down the lapel of his coat.
"Yes, it was with them I lived," he said, and wiped himself carefully.
I now knew who my companion was. It was her first, half-childish love, the musician to whom Stephensen had seen her give the farewell kiss.
"And it was those people I used to visit," I said; "at least—Jagemann was dead—it was madam and the daughter I went to see."
"Minna—she was a lovely girl!"
We both stared down our glasses, as if we, with Heine, saw everything there—
"But most of all the face of my loved one,
That angel-head on the Rhenish wine's gold ground."
"Do you know if she—Minna Jagemann—whether she since has got married?" he asked at last.
I told him that she had married a Danish painter, made some remarks about his position and circumstances, and related the little I had heard of them from acquaintances; that she had had a daughter, who had died about a year ago.
The musician sat silently opposite to me, often emptying his glass and not always remembering to fill mine—he had ordered another bottle, and dedicated it with a glass to "Die schöne Jagemann." I also was silent. "Wir schwiegen uns aus" (We exhausted our silence), as Schumann once is supposed to have said.
When I was in bed on that night I realised that, in a moral lethargy, I had been on the brink of committing a dishonourable and foolish act, though no one would have called it the first, and all would have called it wise. From that day I ceased to visit the house of the owner of the cloth-factory.
My uncle reproached me for my fickleness. I complained of home-sickness, and told him that I wanted to visit my old friends. A week after I was in Copenhagen.
········
My acquaintances in Denmark were not many, and none of them associated directly with the Stephensens. But, thanks to the gossips of our capital, I heard a good deal about them at second or third hand. There could hardly be anything remarkable in my asking about the fate of a Dresden acquaintance in Denmark; and if some people suspected a deeper interest, I did not care much what they thought. I wanted to know the real truth.
The usual opinion was that they lived happily together—it was a love-marriage, affection from youth, perhaps first love. Others said that his flirtations—a sharp tongue called them liaisons—could hardly escape her knowledge, and that she seemed to be rather passionate and impetuous. On the contrary, some insisted, she was gentle but silly. "Silly!" several explained, "she can sparkle with original thoughts, but this habit is not aways agreeable to every one; she has a very critical eye for the faults of others." "Anyhow, she's interesting," said an elderly man. "But she's without interests," remarked a young journalist. A lady, however, who lived in the flat above the Stephensens stated that she was at any rate a passionate lover of music, as she usually played half the day. This astonished everybody, as in society she had never been known to touch the piano, and she was rarely seen at concerts. Her appearance was almost unanimously admired.
I had been nearly a fortnight in Copenhagen, and still had not caught a glimpse of her. Should I simply go and call upon her? I considered this question for the hundredth and which time God only knows, when rather late one evening I entered Café à Porta. In the outer room there were only a few visitors. Looking round in order to choose a place, I heard from a side-room a voice that could not be mistaken: it was Stephensen's, only a degree more lispingly sweet than formerly. I placed myself as quietly as possible where I could best overlook the adjoining room.
The only one I knew of the lively party within was Minna, whom I saw almost in profile perdu, hardly half a dozen paces from me. Stephensen apparently was sitting on a corner sofa, of which I could only see a little of the farthest end. A smiling blonde leaned her arm upon it, and evidently conversed with him; her face had a certain vulgar beauty; every minute she laid her head on one side, so that the reddish hair touched her half-bare shoulder, which peeped through a broad insertion of black lace. The laughing glances that she constantly flashed towards the hidden corner, whence Stephensen's voice sounded, proved that she was—I will not say exactly jubilant—but rather in a condition of electric illumination. One of the gentleman addressed her by a name which I had already heard in gossip connected with Stephensen's. Minna sat leaning back and seemed to be looking down in front of her, but it was evident that she was constantly watching them.
The waiter came up to me to take my order. I was in a dilemma, as I feared that my voice would at once be recognised by Minna. But just then the whole party, with the exception of Minna, began to laugh in the boisterous manner that usually follows a story more vulgar than witty, and under cover of this noise I gave my order without disclosing myself. One of the gentlemen—very likely I should have known the famous name, which I do not doubt was in his possession, had I not been such a newcomer—expressed indignation on behalf of the party at Minna's reserve. "Why do you sit like a stick amongst us, Mrs. Stephensen? Take things more lightly, and don't be a German Philistine.… Remember you are amongst artists.… Empty your glass."—"I am only tired," Minna said.—"Then you must just drink."—"But I don't care for champagne."—"Ah, ha! Too French, too light and spirituous, it is not for you. But Rhenish wine, that you surely like?… Ah, I thought so! Very well! Waiter!" The waiter flew in.—"No more of this foolery, please!" she said, half angry and half amused.—"Really not? I mustn't?"—"No, but I thank you for your kindness.… Only let me sit and look after myself; I am so tired, and have a headache."—"You do not want to go home already, I suppose?" Stephensen's voice sounded, this time very morose. Minna did not answer, but yawned in her handkerchief; she leaned back and looked down sideways. She really appeared as if she was tired, not with an acute but with a chronic fatigue. Her face, of which I had by this time obtained a better view, was almost unchanged, only the cheeks were a little less full. I had remarked that she spoke surprisingly pure Danish, the foreign accent was very slight.
The conversation round her now grew very lively. It centred on aestheticism, if one could call it so. Names such as Ibsen, Zola, Dostoevsky, Wagner, Berlioz, Millais, Bastien-Lepage, even such scientific ones as Darwin and Mill, almost buzzed round one's head. In spite of this medley I was not so very much surprised, as during my short stay I had become acquainted with the general tone. At first it had certainly made a great impression upon me. Good gracious! what must not those people have read and heard, such an education and insight, and so many interests! But soon I grew more critical; I perceived that those who talked most were least interested, and that many who "aestheticised" most loudly did not go even so deeply as I myself, who in these years had been too occupied with business to be "up-to-date," and who, through residence in England, had been reading the works of very different authors from those who were fashionable in Denmark. I even had a suspicion that the good Stephensen himself was no adept in literature, though he grew more and more talkative; very likely he wished to sparkle before the blonde, who really seemed to be on the point of fainting with admiration. The gentleman who had wanted to order the Rhenish wine for Minna, a big man with a glorious fair beard, excited him to a constantly growing exaggerated radicalism, and altogether seemed to fool the whole company.
Stephensen's eloquent sentences at last degenerated to an absolute harangue about the art of the future. He flung about apothegms like "the democratic formulae in art," "a scientific illustration of life, in contradiction to the decorative luxury," and finished up with something to the effect that the brush in the true artist's hand ought to be a probe in the wound of society.
"Then my advice is that they should first be thoroughly washed," the fair-bearded man suggested.
The wave of laughter for some time overpowered the discussion, but Stephensen's hollow talk kept afloat like a cork. Minna lifted her eyes and looked at him. Was it possible that she was imposed upon by this bosh? I thought. The expression in her averted eyes I could not see. But then, with eyes half-lowered, she turned her head in more than profile, and I grew almost terrified by the smile of cold disgust that played round her lips, and the annoyance that darkened the brows and shone from her eyes. Thus she had looked at him, and had turned away because she felt that the expression of her feelings was too evident. Little she realised that she turned her face to one who could read its language line by line like his mother tongue, while the others, at most, could only make out a few words of those which are the same in all languages. "Weakling," whispered these firm lips; "Liar, fraud!" this open forehead cried out; "Faithless!" exclaimed those clear eyes, which could look so tenderly and now stared so hard; but the whole hard-set face sighed: "And he was the love of my youth!"
"But Raphael!" a youthful individual of the party objected, "one cannot quite in that way"
"Bah, Raphael!—'distance lends enchantment,'" the big good-natured man with the fair beard said loudly. "The distance of hundreds of years, that's what makes it. Just let Stephensen be stored for two hundred years, then you will see what kind of fellow he will turn out."
"Yes, but," the blonde exclaimed, "then all this that we now … our art … would also be antiquated, just like the old one is in our days?"
"Oh, logic!" the fair beard shouted, "your name is simplicitas profana! Indeed, madam! everything is relative! Even our great Stephensen is not quite absolute, therefore beware, don't take him too much au serieux!"
"You with your irony," Stephensen said. "Yes, let everything be relative, but we"
He was then brought to silence, even he, by a laughter that seemed to freeze the whole party, and which I can never forget. It was Minna who laughed. She got up, held her handkerchief to her mouth, and burst out again as she turned from the party.
"What is there to laugh about in such a way?" Stephensen said, and his voice was extremely irritable.
"Nein, es ist zu drollig!" (No, it's too funny), Minna murmured. At the same minute her eyes passed over me, but if they stopped, it was only for such an atom of time that it was not possible for me to decide whether she had seen and recognised me. She slowly went towards the adjoining empty room, where the gas had already been turned off.
"Where are you going to?" Stephensen asked.
"I feel suffocated in here," she answered, and disappeared in the dark space. I heard her open a window.
The indefatigable Stephensen started again. Directly afterwards, the robust bearded man got up and went into the dark room. I put on my fur coat, for I also felt suffocated. While I paid the waiter, a strong manly voice called from the inner room: "Waiter! A glass of water."
Shortly afterwards the bearded man rejoined the party:
"Now, enough of your foolery, Stephensen. Your little wife is unwell, and upon my word she's worth more than the whole of your 'art of the future'!"
········
The following day I had a letter from my uncle in which he asked me when I could tear myself away from Denmark to go to Stockholm and St. Petersburg, where he had business friends with whom he wanted me to become acquainted.
Yes, I could tear myself away from Denmark, I had seen quite enough; help I could not. Run away from the place I could, but not from the miserable impression that I had received; it haunted me day and night. Only the sea-sickness in the Bay of Bothnia had sufficient elemental power to conquer it for one night. In St. Petersburg I remained for about a month, drove in a Troika on the Neva, and was every second night at parties till three in the morning. I regretted that my heart was not free, so that I might have lost it to one of these Russian ladies.
It was quite natural that before I returned to England I should visit some factories in Germany. In the course of these visits I went to Saxony, and Dresden attracted me irresistibly; I made the excuse that I wanted to look over the "Art School of Industry," and form a connexion with its manager.
On the way I visited Immanuel Hertz in Leipzig. He was married to a brawny Jewess, who had presented him with several children. Into his nature had come something more restless; otherwise he was the same gentle fellow. Tears came into his eyes when he spoke of his mother, who had lived with him and had died six months before, a fact which he had already written to tell me. She was buried in Dresden by the side of her husband.
"And Minna?" he asked. "We had a letter from her when mother died, but in that she spoke so little of herself. Have you seen her?"
"Only in passing; she did not notice me."
"H'm! Do you think she is happy?"
"I suppose she is, that is to say, she has had sorrows—lost a child."
"Yes, at that time she wrote to mother! Oh yes, it must be dreadful for a mother!" Then he started speaking of a Liberal newspaper of which he was half-owner, and about the opposition to Bismarck.