E. Werner - A Hero of the Pen

"Expostulate!" cried the old lady, angrily; "as if anyone could succeed in that with Jane; whenever I venture a slight hint as to this or any other of her independent proceedings, I receive this invariable reply: 'Dear aunt, please leave all such matters to my discretion;' and not another word am I allowed to say."

The doctor shrugged his shoulders. "And do you really believe I should succeed any better?" he asked.

"But half the city is already talking about the freedom of this girl" cried the Frau Doctor, excitedly, "Everybody thinks us accountable for it all, and everybody is wondering why we allow her to go on as she does."

"Is that really so?" returned the doctor with stoical calmness. "Well, then, I only wish that all these people who are criticising us, could have Jane Forest in their houses a single week just to test their own authority. They would soon get tired enough of trying to control her. Jane, with her bluntless, and our professor up there with his gentleness, are two obstinate mortals, with whom all B. can do nothing. And so the only thing you and I can do about it, wife, is just let them both have their own way."

The doctor was right. Miss Forest troubled herself very little as to whether the people of B. thought her solitary wandering proper or not. Not that she had any especial inclination for solitary dreamy roamings, but she wished to become acquainted with the environs of the town; and as, after Atkin's departure, she found no one she thought worthy to accompany her, she went alone.

One day, after a longer walk than usual, which took her some hours' distance from B., she ascended the Ruènberg, from whose summit there was a view of an ancient castle. Wearied with the long walk, she sat down upon a relic of the old wall, and leaning against the rock, gazed far out into the landscape. The misty veil which, on the day of her arrival, had so densely enveloped all, had now lifted, and the beauties then hidden from her view, now bathed in golden sunlight, lay outspread at her feet.

She leaned farther back into the shadow of the wall. This German landscape had an unwonted effect upon her; around it hovered a something which at sight of the grandest natural scenery she had never experienced, a breath of melancholy, of longing, of home-sickness. Home-sickness! She had never understood the word, not even when she had seen her mother die of the malady,–not even when it had so overpowered her father in his dying hour. Now, when she trod the soil, to which she, a stranger in all else, still belonged by the sacred right of birth, there rose within her soul, dimly and mysteriously, as it were a distant, half sunken remembrance of that early childhood, when her father had not watched over her education, but had confided it entirely to her mother, who, with old songs and legends, had awakened in the child that longing which later the father's influence had so entirely obliterated or changed into bitterness.

It was a strange, almost uncanny feeling for Jane; and she knew the very moment when it began. Not at sight of a magnificent prospect like this, not at the rich landscape-pictures of a tour up the Rhine, which she had a little while before made with her uncle and Atkins, had this feeling first awakened. No, it was amid the swaying mists of that country road, at the edge of that willow hedge, from whose buds the first green of spring burst forth, when that gray veil enveloped all around, and only the murmur of the river broke through the silence; then it had for the first time awakened, and, in an unaccountable manner, it always attached itself to the form of the man who had at that time stood near her. Jane thought only seldom, and always with a sort of aversion, of that meeting. In spite of the ludicrousness of the hero, there lay in it something of that romance, which the matter-of-fact daughter of Forest so much despised; and now, just as she was about to repel the intrusive and ever-recurring remembrance, this became impossible;–she caught the sound of an advancing footstep, and Professor Fernow himself came around the angle of the wall.

For a moment, Jane almost lost her presence of mind at the sudden apparition which so peculiarly responded to her thoughts; but the professor seemed really frightened at so unexpected a sight of her. He started back, and made a movement to turn around, but all at once, the impoliteness of such a step seemed to dawn upon him; after a moment's hesitation, he bowed silently, and walked to the other side of the wall, where he took his stand as far as possible from the young lady; and still, from the narrowness of the space, they were none too far apart.

It was the first time since their meeting upon the suburban highway, that they had found themselves alone together. Their casual and unavoidable meetings in the house and garden had always been signalized by the professor with a shy bow, which Jane had coolly returned; they had both shunned all conversation, and it seemed that they would preserve the usual silence to-day. The professor had arrived, exhausted, and out of breath; neither the weariness of the long pathway, nor the exertion of climbing, which he had so conscientiously undertaken in response to his physician's order for moderate exercise in the open air, had sufficed to redden his cheeks, upon which lay the same ashy pallor they had worn that afternoon; and the deep lines on the young man's forehead, the dark rings around the eyes,–all these only too well confirmed what Jane had often heard from her uncle, that the professor was working himself to death, that his days were numbered.

And still,–her thoughts must keep reverting to that moment when he had stood with her before the flooded pathway. Those had not been the arms of a consumptive which had so vigorously lifted her, so easily and safely carried her; and that quick flush of excitement at her question of his strength, had been anything but an indication of illness. She could not resolve the contradiction between that moment and the usually delicate appearance of the young man, which today was more plainly than ever revealed to her eyes.

"Do you often climb the Ruènberg, Mr. Fernow?" began the young lady at last, for the obstinate silence of the professor left her no choice but to open the conversation, and she had heard enough of this eccentric man to be aware that nothing offensive lay in his silence.

At the sound of her voice he turned hastily around, and it seemed as if he made an effort to retain in her presence, his usual dreamy, absent manner.

"It is the most beautiful place in the environs of B. I visit it as often as my time permits."

"And that is perhaps very seldom?"

"It is so, and especially this summer, when I must dedicate all my strength to an arduous work."

"Are you writing another learned work?" asked Jane in a slightly ironical tone.

"A scientific one," returned the professor with an emphasis that equalled the irony.

Jane's lips curled in derision.

"You think perhaps, Miss Forest, that this is both a thankless and fruitless effort," he said, with some bitterness.

She shrugged her shoulders. "I must confess that I have none too great reverence for book-learning, and that I cannot at all comprehend how one can lay his whole life, a free-will offering upon the altar of science, and write books which, like yours, Professor Fernow, are of interest only to the learned, and which to the rest of mankind, must always remain dead, fruitless and valueless."

This was another specimen of Jane's horrible frankness, which had so often thrown her uncle into despair; but the professor seemed neither surprised nor wounded. He fixed his large melancholy eyes on the young lady's face. She already half regretted having begun the conversation, for if she could better hold her ground before these eyes than at that first interview, they still called forth that torturing, anxious sensation she could not control.