"For what?"
"Because he's possessed, not only with his mania about persecution, which makes a man just as happy as if he believes himself an unappreciated genius, but because he has a demon that drives him about, speaks from his lips, hides within him, and keeps him warm—while I, a mere husk without kernel or substance—foh!"
"And our artist?" asked Edwin after a pause. "Did she not wish to enjoy either the honor or the pleasure?"
"It's late," replied Mohr, looking at his watch, "too late to open a second bottle, I'll seek my virgin couch."
"He evades us," laughed Edwin, turning to Balder. "She has disappointed his expectations. Ah! Heinz, I could have told you that before; this muse is not a beauty. Her fingers promise more than her features give."
"Talk about what you understand. Philosopher," replied Mohr, seizing his hat. "Let her be what she likes and look as she chooses: she's a whole hearted woman."
"Did you receive satisfactory proofs of that in three minutes?"
"Probably. At least it's a fresh proof that I can accomplish nothing whole, and even in a stupid prank don't go beyond the most pitiful half-way measures. It's actually crushing. I wish you a good nights' rest——"
When he had gone and the brothers were at last alone, Edwin confessed his day's adventures. Balder too might have had many things to tell, but not a word in relation to the birthday festival crossed his lips. And yet he was secretly reproaching himself for having a secret from his brother.
This night they fell asleep earlier, though Balder did not close his eyes until the shutting of a well known little window in the front buildings told him that Reginchen had returned from her excursion in safety.
Several of the verses he had written in the afternoon again passed through his mind, and softly repeating them he lulled himself to sleep with his own melodies.
CHAPTER XI.
––––––––
When Marquard paid his usual visit to the "tun" the following morning, he found everything in the household exactly the same as usual. In spite of the late hour at which Reginchen returned from the country, she had been at the pump at six o'clock, and an hour after carried the brothers their blue milk and cleared up the room, but without talking much; for kindly as Edwin treated her, she felt a great awe of him and became terribly embarrassed at his most innocent jest.
The brothers also, according to old habit, had begun their day very silently. When the doctor entered, Balder was sitting at his turning lathe, making a set of ivory chess-men. Marquard talked to him for some time with apparent unconcern, asked about one thing and another and felt his pulse, but gave no prescription, except that he must drink the wine regularly.
But on the stairs, when Edwin was accompanying him down, he suddenly turned and said in a low tone: "You must not let the lad go on so. This stooping and keeping shut up in the house won't do, he will weaken his chest over that confounded turning lathe. If I were in your place, I should assert my authority."
"In my place," sighed Edwin, shrugging his shoulders. "My dear fellow, if you were in my place, that is, not a physician, but a philosopher, you would know that there is no authority which can transform a man's nature. Have I not tried every stratagem to get him out? When I attacked him on his weakest, or rather his strongest side, his brotherly love, and represented how dull it was for me to go out without him, you ought to have seen the efforts he made to be a gay companion, in order to cheer my walks and rides. But I know him too well. I saw how he suffered from the noise and bustle of the streets, and even when we once drove to Tegel, he was only comfortable while we were alone. When we arrived, we found a crowd of school girls playing graces, various mothers and aunts knitting, several pairs of lovers, in short the usual Berlin pleasure seekers. As soon as possible he urged me to return. You must know that it annoys him when people stare at him, and he is exposed to this more frequently than any one else; he attracts attention everywhere by his beauty and his lameness, and moreover because he has an expression in his eyes unlike any other mortal."
"I wish he were less peculiar; we should keep him longer."
Edwin stopped, seized Marquard's arm and whispered: "you fear—"
"Nothing—and everything. His texture is so delicate, a fly might tear it. But possibly it is more tenacious than we think," he added, as he felt Edwin's hand tremble on his arm.
"The wine you sent did him good," he said. "I thank you; it was a kind, philanthropic thought. I can not wish him different from what he is now. He would no longer be the same, if he had the nerves and muscles of a groom. And would he be happier? You don't know how happy he is, what a boundless capacity he has for transfiguring all the poverty around us by the wealth of his own soul, transmuting common dust into gold. If I gave him no cause for anxiety, he would have scarcely anything to desire."
"I have a word to say to you about yourself too, Philosopher. I alluded to it a short time ago in your room, but Balder was present, who is just like a girl; there are certain things which cannot be mentioned before him. Listen man, this disorder of your nerves is entirely your own fault; it's a sin and shame for you to permit that sponge, the brain, to exhaust the best strength of the rest of your organization. How can there be any balance of power? I tell you your whole trouble is to be cured in one way."
"You may be right, Fritz," replied Edwin quietly, as they crossed the courtyard. "But you see it's the same with this medicine, as with the one you just prescribed for Balder. We have not the natures to take it, and if we should force ourselves to do so, the disease would attack a more vital spot."
"Nature, nature!" burst forth the doctor, looking almost fiercely at his friend through his gold spectacles. "I'll answer for it, my son, that your excellent nature, which you have tormented so long with your cursed abstract idealism, that it no longer ventures to grumble—would instantly recuperate and grow merry again, if you would only for once dismount from the high horse of speculation and rely upon your own good common sense. Deuce take it! A healthy fellow like you living on locusts and wild honey, like the hermits in the Theban deserts, and if a woman passes by your cave, exclaiming: Apage, Satanas! I had trouble with you even at the university. But now you seem to wish to continue this course, until nature, so shamefully abused for the sake of mere mind, is overstrained and fairly crazed with impatience."
"A very clever pathological lecture," replied Edwin smiling. "I will request the continuation in our next; there is always something to be learned. But for all that, Fritz, you wont get a kuppel'pelz[3] from me."
"Nonsense! Who's talking about any such thing? But if I, with my constantly increasing practice, can find time for little romances, in which the mind has employment—"
"And also the heart, my boy."
"Well, the heart too, for aught I care, though that muscle is greatly overestimated, and with all your sentimentality, only fit for a dangerous hypertrophy. I'm now on the track of a little witch—"
"A fair Helen or Galatea?"
"Aristocratic, my son, and unfortunately very unapproachable—so far. But what am I thinking about? You must have already made her acquaintance."
"I?"
"Didn't you sit beside her in the box, day before yesterday? At least the doorkeeper told me she always took the same place."
Edwin turned pale.
"I have a faint recollection of it," he replied. "Didn't she sit very far front, and have brown hair, a very fair complexion, blue eyes—"
"Black or brown, my son. But we must mean the same person—and I,