CHAPTER XXIX

AN EVENING WITH DR. JULIUS VON KARSTEG

In my perplexity, I thought of the Professor's saying: 'A most fortunate

or a most unfortunate young man.' These words began to strike me as

having a prophetic depth that I had not fathomed. I felt myself fast

becoming bound in every limb, every branch of my soul. Ottilia met me

smiling. She moved free as air. She could pursue her studies, and argue

and discuss and quote, keep unclouded eyes, and laugh and play, and be

her whole living self, unfettered, as if the pressure of my hand implied

nothing. Perhaps for that reason I had her pardon. 'My friend, not that!'

Her imperishably delicious English rang me awake, and lulled me asleep.

Was it not too securely friendly? Or was it not her natural voice to the

best beloved, bidding him respect her, that we might meet with the

sanction of her trained discretion? The Professor would invite me to his

room after the 'sleep well' of the ladies, and I sat with him much like

his pipe-bowl, which burned bright a moment at one sturdy puff, but

generally gave out smoke in fantastical wreaths. He told me frankly he

had a poor idea of my erudition. My fancifulness he commended as

something to be turned to use in writing stories. 'Give me time, and I'll

do better things,' I groaned. He rarely spoke of the princess; with grave

affection always when he did. He was evidently observing me

comprehensively. The result was beyond my guessing.

One night he asked me what my scheme of life was.

On the point of improvizing one of an impressive character, I stopped and

confessed: 'I have so many that I may say I have none.' Expecting

reproof, I begged him not to think the worse of me for that.

'Quite otherwise,' said he. 'I have never cared to read deliberately in

the book you open to me, my good young man.'

'The book, Herr Professor?'

'Collect your wits. We will call it Shakespeare's book; or Gothe's, in

the minor issues. No, not minor, but a narrower volume. You were about to

give me the answer of a hypocrite. Was it not so?'

I admitted it, feeling that it was easily to have been perceived. He was

elated.

'Good. Then I apprehend that you wait for the shifting of a tide to carry

you on?'

'I try to strengthen my mind.'

'So I hear,' said he dryly.

'Well, as far as your schools of teaching will allow.'

'That is, you read and commit to memory, like other young scholars.

Whereunto? Have you no aim? You have, or I am told you are to have,

fabulous wealth--a dragon's heap. You are one of the main drainpipes of

English gold. What is your object? To spend it?'

'I shall hope to do good with it.'

'To do good! There is hardly a prince or millionaire, in history or

alive, who has not in his young days hugged that notion. Pleasure swarms,

he has the pick of his market. You English live for pleasure.'

'We are the hardest workers in the world.'

'That you may live for pleasure! Deny it!'

He puffed his tobacco-smoke zealously, and resumed:

'Yes, you work hard for money. You eat and drink, and boast of your

exercises: they sharpen your appetites. So goes the round. We strive, we

fail; you are our frog-chorus of critics, and you suppose that your

brekek-koax affects us. I say we strive and fail, but we strive on, while

you remain in a past age, and are proud of it. You reproach us with lack

of common sense, as if the belly were its seat. Now I ask you whether you

have a scheme of life, that I may know whether you are to be another of

those huge human pumpkins called rich men, who cover your country and

drain its blood and intellect--those impoverishers of nature! Here we

have our princes; but they are rulers, they are responsible, they have

their tasks, and if they also run to gourds, the scandal punishes them

and their order, all in seasonable time. They stand eminent. Do you mark

me? They are not a community, and are not--bad enough! bad enough!--but

they are not protected by laws in their right to do nothing for what they

receive. That system is an invention of the commercial genius and the

English.'

'We have our aristocracy, Herr Professor.'

'Your nobles are nothing but rich men inflated with empty traditions of

insufferable, because unwarrantable, pride, and drawing, substance from

alliances with the merchant class. Are they your leaders? Do they lead

you in Letters? in the Arts? ay, or in Government? No, not, I am

informed, not even in military service! and there our titled witlings do

manage to hold up their brainless pates. You are all in one mass,

struggling in the stream to get out and lie and wallow and belch on the

banks. You work so hard that you have all but one aim, and that is

fatness and ease!'

'Pardon me, Herr Professor,' I interposed, 'I see your drift. Still I

think we are the only people on earth who have shown mankind a

representation of freedom. And as to our aristocracy, I must, with due

deference to you, maintain that it is widely respected.'

I could not conceive why he went on worrying me in this manner with his

jealous outburst of Continental bile.

'Widely!' he repeated. 'It is widely respected; and you respect it: and

why do you respect it?'

'We have illustrious names in our aristocracy.'

'We beat you in illustrious names and in the age of the lines, my good

young man.'

'But not in a race of nobles who have stood for the country's liberties.'

'So long as it imperilled their own! Any longer?'

'Well, they have known how to yield. They have helped to build our

Constitution.'

'Reverence their ancestors, then! The worse for such descendants. But you

have touched the exact stamp of the English mind:--it is, to accept

whatsoever is bequeathed it, without inquiry whether there is any change

in the matter. Nobles in very fact you would not let them be if they

could. Nobles in name, with a remote recommendation to posterity--that

suits you!'

He sat himself up to stuff a fresh bowl of tobacco, while he pursued:

'Yes, yes: you worship your aristocracy. It is notorious. You have a sort

of sagacity. I am not prepared to contest the statement that you have a

political instinct. Here it is chiefly social. You worship your so-called

aristocracy perforce in order to preserve an ideal of contrast to the

vulgarity of the nation.'

This was downright insolence.

It was intolerable. I jumped on my feet. 'The weapons I would use in

reply to such remarks I cannot address to you, Herr Professor. Therefore,

excuse me.'

He sent out quick spirts of smoke rolling into big volumes. 'Nay, my good

young Englishman, but on the other hand you have not answered me. And

hear me: yes, you have shown us a representation of freedom. True. But

you are content with it in a world that moves by computation some

considerable sum upwards of sixty thousand miles an hour.'

'Not on a fresh journey--a recurring course!' said I.

'Good!' he applauded, and I was flattered.

'I grant you the physical illustration,' the Professor continued, and

with a warm gaze on me, I thought. 'The mind journeys somewhat in that

way, and we in our old Germany hold that the mind advances

notwithstanding. Astronomers condescending to earthly philosophy may

admit that advance in the physical universe is computable, though not

perceptible. Some--whither we tend, shell and spirit. You English,

fighting your little battles of domestic policy, and sneering at us for

flying at higher game, you unimpressionable English, who won't believe in

the existence of aims that don't drop on the ground before your eyes, and

squat and stare at you, you assert that man's labour is completed when

the poor are kept from crying out. Now my question is, have you a scheme

of life consonant with the spirit of modern philosophy--with the views of

intelligent, moral, humane human beings of this period? Or are you one of

your robust English brotherhood worthy of a Caligula in his prime, lions

in gymnastics--for a time; sheep always in the dominions of mind; and all

of one pattern, all in a rut! Favour me with an outline of your ideas.

Pour them out pell-mell, intelligibly or not, no matter. I undertake to

catch you somewhere. I mean to know you, hark you, rather with your

assistance than without it.'

We were deep in the night. I had not a single idea ready for delivery. I

could have told him, that wishing was a good thing, excess of tobacco a

bad, moderation in speech one of the outward evidences of wisdom; but

Ottilia's master in the Humanities exacted civility from me.

'Indeed,' I said, 'I have few thoughts to communicate at present, Herr

Professor. My German will fail me as soon as I quit common ground. I love

my country, and I do not reckon it as perfect. We are swillers, possibly

gluttons; we have a large prosperous middle class; many good men are to

be found in it.'

His discharges of smoke grew stifling. My advocacy was certainly of a

miserable sort.

'Yes, Herr Professor, on my way when a boy to this very place I met a

thorough good man.'

Here I related the tale of my encounter with Captain Welsh.

Dr. Julius nodded rapidly for continuations. Further! further!

He refused to dig at the mine within me, and seemed to expect it to

unbosom its riches by explosion.

'Well, Herr Professor, we have conquered India, and hold it as no other

people could.'

'Vide the articles in the last file of English newspapers!' said he.

'Suppose we boast of it.'

'Can you?' he simulated wonderment.

'Why, surely it's something!'

'Something for non-commissioned officers to boast of; not for statesmen.

However, say that you are fit to govern Asiatics. Go on.'

'I would endeavour to equalize ranks at home, encourage the growth of

ideas . . .'

'Supporting a non-celibate clergy, and an intermingled aristocracy? Your

endeavours, my good young man, will lessen like those of the man who

employed a spade to uproot a rock. It wants blasting. Your married clergy

and merchandized aristocracy are coils: they are the ivy about your

social tree: you would resemble Laocoon in the throes, if one could

imagine you anything of a heroic figure. Forward.'

In desperation I exclaimed, 'It 's useless! I have not thought at all. I

have been barely educated. I only know that I do desire with all my heart

to know more, to be of some service.'

'Now we are at the bottom, then!' said he.

But I cried, 'Stay; let me beg you to tell me what you meant by calling

me a most fortunate, or a most unfortunate young man.'

He chuckled over his pipe-stem, 'Aha!'

'How am I one or the other?'

'By the weight of what you carry in your head.'

'How by the weight?'

He shot a keen look at me. 'The case, I suspect, is singular, and does

not often happen to a youth. You are fortunate if you have a solid and

adventurous mind: most unfortunate if you are a mere sensational

whipster. There 's an explanation that covers the whole. I am as much in

the dark as you are. I do not say which of us two has the convex eye.'

Protesting that I was unable to read riddles, though the heat of the one

in hand made my frame glow, I entreated to have explicit words. He might

be in Ottilia's confidence, probing me--why not? Any question he chose to

put to me, I said, I was ready to answer.

'But it's the questioner who unmasks,' said he.

'Are we masked, Herr Professor? I was not aware of it.'

'Look within, and avoid lying.'

He stood up. 'My nights,' he remarked, 'are not commonly wasted in this

manner. We Germans use the night for work.'

After a struggle to fling myself on his mercy and win his aid or counsel,

I took his hand respectfully, and holding it, said, 'I am unable to speak

out. I would if it involved myself alone.'

'Yes, yes, I comprehend; your country breeds honourable men, chivalrous

youngsters,' he replied. 'It 's not enough--not enough. I want to see a

mental force, energy of brain. If you had that, you might look as high as

you liked for the match for it, with my consent. Do you hear? What I

won't have is, flat robbery! Mark me, Germany or England, it 's one to me

if I see vital powers in the field running to a grand career. It 's a

fine field over there. As well there as here, then! But better here than

there if it 's to be a wasp's life. Do you understand me?'

I replied, 'I think I do, if I may dare to'; and catching breath: 'Herr

Professor, dear friend, forgive my boldness; grant me time to try me;

don't judge of me at once; take me for your pupil--am I presumptuous in

asking it?--make of me what you will, what you can; examine me; you may

find there's more in me than I or anybody may know. I have thoughts and

aims, feeble at present--Good God! I see nothing for me but a choice of

the two--"most unfortunate" seems likeliest. You read at a glance that I

had no other choice. Rather the extremes!--I would rather grasp the

limits of life and be swung to the pits below, be the most unfortunate of

human beings, than never to have aimed at a star. You laugh at me? An

Englishman must be horribly in earnest to talk as I do now. But it is a

star!' (The image of Ottilia sprang fountain-like into blue night heavens

before my eyes memorably.) 'She,' was my next word. I swallowed it, and

with a burning face, petitioned for help in my studies.

To such sight as I had at that instant he appeared laughing outrageously.

It was a composed smile 'Right,' he said; 'you shall have help in a

settled course. Certain Professors, friends of mine, at your University,

will see you through it. Aim your head at a star--your head!--and even if

you miss it you don't fall. It's that light dancer, that gambler, the

heart in you, my good young man, which aims itself at inaccessible

heights, and has the fall--somewhat icy to reflect on! Give that organ

full play and you may make sure of a handful of dust. Do you hear? It's a

mind that wins a mind. That is why I warn you of being most unfortunate

if you are a sensational whipster. Good-night Shut my door fast that I

may not have the trouble to rise.'

I left him with the warm lamplight falling on his forehead, and books

piled and sloped, shut and open; an enviable picture to one in my

condition. The peacefulness it indicated made scholarship seem beautiful,

attainable, I hoped. I had the sense to tell myself that it would give me

unrotting grain, though it should fail of being a practicable road to my

bright star; and when I spurned at consolations for failure, I could

still delight to think that she shone over these harvests and the

reapers.