Kuno Francke - The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Volume 11

She had leaned back against the cushions, just touching the front seat with the point of one of her shoes. Reinhold's glance glided almost shyly along the beautiful figure, whose splendid lines were brought out advantageously by an elegant autumn costume. He thought he had just discovered for the first time how beautiful his cousin was, and he considered it very natural that she should attract the attention of the motley throng with which the promenade teemed, and that many a cavalier who dashed by them turned in his saddle to look back at her. Ferdinande seemed not to take any notice of it; her large eyes looked down, or straight ahead, or glanced up with a dreamy, languid expression to the tops of the trees, which, likewise dreamy and languid, appeared to drink in the mild warmth of the autumn sun without stirring. Perhaps it was this association of ideas that caused Reinhold to ask himself how old the beautiful girl was; and he was a little astonished when he calculated that she could not be far from twenty-four. In his recollection she had always appeared as a tall, somewhat lank young thing, that was just about to unfold into a flower – but, to be sure, ten years had gone since that. Cousin Philip – at that time likewise a tall, thin young fellow – must already be in the beginning of his thirties.

A two-wheeled cabriolet came up behind them and passed them. On the high front seat sat a tall, stately, broad-shouldered gentleman, clad with most precise and somewhat studied elegance, as it appeared to Reinhold, who, with hands encased in light kid gloves, drove a fine high-stepping black steed, while the small groom with folded arms sat in the low rear seat. The gentleman had just been obliged to turn out for a carriage coming from the opposite direction, and his attention had been directed to the other side; now – at the distance of some carriage lengths – he turned upon his seat and waved a cordial greeting with his hand and whip, while Ferdinande, in her careless way, answered with a nod of her head.

"Who was that gentleman?" asked Reinhold.

"My brother Philip."

"How strange!"

"Why so?"

"I was just thinking of him."

"That happens so often – and particularly in a large city, and at an hour when everybody is on the go. I shall not be surprised if we meet him again at the Exhibition. Philip is a great lover of pictures, and is not bad himself at drawing and painting. There, he is stopping – I thought he would – Philip understands the proprieties."

At the next moment they were side by side with the cabriolet.

"Good morning, Ferdinande! Good morning, Reinhold! Stunning hit that I strike you on the first day! Wretched pun, Ferdinande – eh? Looks fine, our cousin, with his brown face and beard – but he doesn't need to be ashamed of the lady at his side – eh? Where are you going – to the Exhibition? That's fine! We'll meet there. – My nag acts like crazy today. – Au revoir!"

With the tip of his whip he touched the black horse, which was already beginning to rear in the traces, and sped off, nodding back once more over his broad shoulders.

"I should not have recognized Philip again," said Reinhold. "He doesn't resemble you – I mean Uncle and you – at all."

In fact, a greater contrast is scarcely conceivable than that between the broad, ruddy, beardless, clean-shaven face of the young man, with his closely clipped hair, and the splendid face of Uncle Ernst, with its deep furrows and heavy growth of gray hair and beard, or the stately pallor and aristocratic beauty of Ferdinande.

"Lucky for him!" cried Ferdinande.

"Lucky?"

"He is, as he appears, a man of his time; we are medieval ghosts. For that reason he moves about as a ghost among us – but it is not his fault."

"Then you are on his side in the rupture between him and Uncle?"

"The rest of us at home are never asked for our opinion; you must take note of that for the future."

"Also for the present," thought Reinhold, as Ferdinande sank back among the cushions.

"Ghosts are never one's favorite company, much less on such a beautiful sunny day. There are so many good happy people – sweet little Cilli, for example – and – of whom one thinks, him he meets!" As if wishing to make up in all haste for what he had foolishly neglected in the morning, he now tried to direct his thoughts to her whose image he believed he had forever in his soul, but which would not now appear. – "The throng is to blame for it," he said impatiently.

They were in the worst of the jam now, to be sure. A regiment was marching down Friedrichstrasse across the Linden with the band playing. The throng of pedestrians pressed back on both sides, particularly on that from which they came; in the midst of them mounted and unmounted policemen were striving with persuasion and force to maintain order and keep back the throng which now and then gave audible expression to their indignation.

The annoying delay seemed to make Ferdinande impatient, too; she looked at her watch. – "Already half-past twelve – we are losing the best part of the time." At last the rear of the battalion came along, while the van of the next battalion, with the band playing, came out of Friedrichstrasse again, and the throng of people pressed on with a rush through the small space in wild confusion. – "On! On! Johann!" cried Ferdinande, with an impatience which Reinhold could explain only by the anxiety which she felt. They got out of one crowd only to get into another.

In the first large square room of the Exhibition – the so-called clock room – a throng of spectators stood so closely jammed together that Reinhold, who had Ferdinande's arm, saw no possibility of advance. "There are not so many people in the side rooms," said Ferdinande, "but we must stand it a little while here; there are always good pictures here; let us separate – we can then move more freely. What do you think of this beautiful Andreas Achenbach? Isn't it charming, wonderful! In his best and noblest style! Sky and sea – all in gray, and yet – how sharply the individual details are brought out! And how well he knows how to enliven the apparent monotony by means of the red flag there on the mast at the stern of the steamer, and by the flickering lights on the planks of the bridge wet with spray here at the bow – masterful! Simply masterful!"

Reinhold had listened with great pleasure to Ferdinande's enthusiastic description. "Here she can speak!" he thought; "well, to be sure, she is an artist! You can see all that too, but not its significance, and you wouldn't be able to explain why it is so beautiful."

He stood there, wrapped in contemplation of the picture. – "What manœuvre would the captain make next? He would doubtless have to tack again to get before the wind, but for that he was already a ship's length or so too near the bridge – a devilish ticklish manœuvre."

He turned to communicate his observation to Ferdinande, and just missed addressing a fat little old lady, who had taken Ferdinande's place and was eagerly gazing through her lorgnette, in company with a score of other ladies and gentlemen standing closely together in a semicircle. Reinhold made a few vain efforts to escape this imprisonment and to get to Ferdinande, whom he saw at a distance speaking with some ladies, so absorbed that she did not turn even once, and had evidently forgotten him. – Another advantage of freedom of movement – you can also make use of that! – A picture nearby had attracted his attention – another sea view by Hans Gude, as the catalogue said – which pleased him almost better than the other. To the left, where the sea was open, lay a large steamer at anchor. On the shore, which curved around in a large bend, in the distance among the dunes, were a few fisher huts, with smoke rising from the chimneys. Between the village and the ship a boat was passing, while another, almost entirely in the foreground, was sailing toward the shore. The evening sky above the dunes was covered with such thick clouds that the smoke could hardly be distinguished from the sky; only on the extreme western horizon, above the wide open sea, appeared a narrow muddy streak. The night was likely to be stormy, and even now a stiff breeze was blowing; the flags of the steamer were fluttering straight out and there was a heavy surf on the bare beach in the foreground. Reinhold could not take his eyes from the picture. Thus it was, almost exactly, on that evening when he steered the boat from the steamer to the shore. There in the bow lay the two servants, huddled together; here sat the President, with one hand on the gunwale of the boat and the other clutching the seat, not daring to pull up the blanket which had slipped from his knees; here the General with the collar of his mantle turned up, his cap pulled down over his face, staring gloomily into the distance; and here, close by the man at the helm, she sat – looking out so boldly over the green waste of water, and the surf breaking before them; looking up so freely and joyously with her dear brown eyes at the man at the helm! – Reinhold no longer thought of the pressing throng about him, he had forgotten Ferdinande, he no longer saw the picture; he saw only the dear brown eyes!