Saint Michael

"Hans is much the handsomer and more attractive," the lady rejoined, very decidedly. "Michael has neither of these qualities."

"Granted, in the eyes of you ladies, that is! On the other hand, he has an earnestness and solidity of character by which our harum-scarum Hans might well take example. It is no small distinction for so young an officer to be ordered for service on the general's staff. He surprised me yesterday with this piece of information, while Hans will have some difficulty in getting his diploma."

"That's not the poor boy's fault," his sister-in-law declared. "He has never had more than a half-hearted interest in the profession that has been forced upon him. It cost my poor sister many a secret tear to have you insist so inexorably upon his burying his talent."

"And you whole rivers of them," the Professor added, with a sneer. "You all made my life wretched combining with the boy against me, until I issued my mandate, which he was forced to obey."

"With despair in his heart. In destroying his hope of an artistic career you deprived him of his ideal,–of all the poesy of his young life."

"Don't mention Poesy, I entreat," Wehlau interrupted her. "I am on the worst of terms with that lady for all the mischief she does and the heads she turns. I set my son straight, I rejoice to say, in time. I have not noticed any despair about him. Moreover, he has not a particle of talent for it."

"Good-morning, papa!" called a gay young voice, and the subject of the conversation appeared in the door-way.

Hans Wehlau junior was a slender and very handsome young fellow of twenty-four, with nothing in his exterior to suggest the dignity of the future professor. His straw hat, before he removed it, sat jauntily upon his thick, light brown hair, and his very becoming summer suit, with a 'turn-down' shirt collar, had an artistic, rather than a learned, air. His fresh, youthful face was lit up by a pair of laughing blue eyes, and altogether there was something so attractive and endearing about him that the Professor's evident paternal pride was very easy to understand.

"Well, Head-over-heels, here you are!" he said, gayly. "I have been preparing your aunt for the turmoil that you carry with you wherever you go."

"On the contrary, sir, I have grown monstrously sedate," Hans declared, illustrating his assertion by putting his arm around the waist of his aunt, who had just innocently set down her basket of keys, and waltzing with her around the room in spite of her struggles.

"Let me alone, you unmannerly boy!" she said, out of breath, when at last he released her with a profound bow.

"Forgive me, aunt, but it was the suitable preface to my errand. The kitchen department urgently requires your presence; and, as I like to make myself useful in a house, I offered to inform you of it."

Her nephew's zeal in this respect seemed rather suspicious to the mistress of the house, who asked, "What were you doing in the kitchen?"

"Good heavens! I was only paying my respects to old Gretel."

"Indeed? And young Leni was not there?"

"Oh, I had her presented to me, as I had not seen her before. It was my duty as one of the family. My tastes are very domestic."

"My dear Hans," the Frau Burgomeisterin said, with decision, "I take no interest in your domestic tastes, and if I find them leading you into the kitchen, the doors will be locked in your face; remember that." She nodded to her brother-in-law, and sailed majestically out of the room.

"Take care, take care!" said the Professor. "Favourite as you are with your aunt, there are certain points upon which she will have no jesting; and she is right. At all events, her mind must now be set at rest with regard to your despair, as she calls it. She clings obstinately to the idea that you are unhappy in your profession."

"No, sir, I am not at all unhappy," the young man asserted, seating himself astride of a chair and looking cheerfully about him.

"I never supposed you were. Such youthful nonsense is sure to vanish of itself as soon as one is occupied with graver matters."

"Of course, papa," Hans assented, occupying himself for the time with rocking his chair to and fro, a proceeding which appeared to afford him great gratification.

"And these graver matters are comprised in science," Wehlau continued, with emphasis. "Unfortunately, I have of late–those chairs are not made to ride upon, Hans; such school-boy tricks are very unbecoming in a future doctor–I have of late had too little time to examine you thoroughly in your studies. The voluminous work which I have just completed has, as you know, absorbed all my attention. But now I am free, and we can make up for our delay."

"Of course, papa," said Hans, who had taken the paternal admonition to heart, and had left the chair, but was now seated on the corner of a table, swinging his feet.

Fortunately, the Professor, whose back was turned to him, did not see this, so the father continued to arrange some papers upon his study-table, and went on calmly: "Your student days are past, and I hope they have carried with them all your nonsense. I depend upon greater seriousness, now that we are to begin scientific study in earnest. Be diligent, Hans; you will be grateful to me one of these days when you succeed me as professor."

"Of course, papa," the obedient son observed for the third time; but as at the moment his father turned and cast an irritated glance at him, he jumped lightly from the table.

"Will you never have done with these school-boy pranks? Pray try to take example by Michael; you never see him conduct himself so."

"No, indeed," Hans laughed merrily. "The Herr Lieutenant is the embodiment of military discipline at all times. Always in position, his coat buttoned up to the throat. Who would have thought it when he came to us first, a shy, awkward boy, staring about him at the world and mankind as at something monstrous? I had to take him under my wing perpetually."

"I imagine he very soon outgrew any wing of yours," the Professor said, sarcastically.

"More's the pity. The case is reversed now, and he orders me about. But confess, papa, that at first you despaired of making a human being of Michael."

"As far as conventionalities are concerned, I certainly did. He had learned more, far more, than I had supposed. My brother had been an excellent teacher to him, and when he was once aroused, he applied himself with such unwearied diligence and interest that I often wondered at the strength of character shown in divesting himself of all his childish, dreamy ways."

"Yes, Michael was always your favourite," Hans said, discontentedly. "You never put any force upon him, but agreed instantly to his desire to be a soldier, while I–"

"It was a very different thing," his father interrupted him. "As matters stand, Michael was forced to shape his future and his mode of life himself, and with his temperament he is best fitted for a soldier. The reckless dash at a goal without a glance either to the right or to the left, the stern law of duty, the despotic subduing of antagonistic qualities beneath the iron yoke of discipline, all accord perfectly with his character, and he will inevitably rise in the army. You, on the other hand, must reap what I have sown, and therefore abide in my domain; your life is conveniently arranged for you."

The young man's air betrayed but a small degree of satisfaction with this arrangement; but he suddenly started up and exclaimed, gayly, "Here comes Michael!"

Ten years are a long time in a human existence, and they seem doubly long when they occur at the season when a man develops most rapidly; in Michael's case the change wrought by the years bordered on the marvellous. The former foster-son of Wolfram the forester and the young officer were two different individuals, who had not a characteristic in common.

Handsome, Michael Rodenberg certainly was not,–in that respect he was far behind Hans Wehlau,–but he was one who could never pass unnoticed. His tall, muscular figure seemed created to wear a uniform and to gird on a sword. It had exchanged all the awkwardness of the boy for the erect carriage of the soldier. His fair, close curls had lost none of their luxuriance, but they were carefully arranged, and the bearded face, if it could lay no claim to beauty, was interesting enough without it. All that was boyish in it had vanished, the strong, resolute head was that of ripe manhood,–a manhood too early ripened, perchance, for the countenance expressed at times a degree of gravity which was almost sternness, and which does not belong to youth.

In the eyes, too, there was none of the old dreamy look; their gaze had grown keen and firm, but they never had learned to sparkle with the joyous inspiration of youth. There was something chilling in them, as indeed in the whole air of the young man, which only at intervals, in conversation, was animated by a genial glow. Yet, as he stood there, erect, firm, resolute, he was the ideal of a soldier from head to heel.

"In uniform?" asked the Professor, surprised, as Michael bade him good-morning. "Have you an official visit to pay here?"

"After a fashion, yes; I must go over to Elmsdorf. The former chief of my regiment, Colonel von Reval, since he resigned, has always spent the summer and autumn at his country-seat there. He probably thinks that I have been here some time, for I found upon my arrival yesterday a few lines from him inviting me to Elmsdorf. My aunt will, I hope, excuse me; the colonel has been very kind to me."

"You were always his special favourite," Hans remarked. "When he returned at the close of the Danish war, he came to see papa to congratulate him upon having so distinguished a son. I was furious at the time, for as I had heard nothing for weeks except songs of praise in your honour, with animadversions upon my insignificance, your doughty deeds were deeply annoying to me."

"Most certainly no one ever congratulated me upon possessing you, at least during your university course," Wehlau observed, sharply. "Moreover, we expected you here last week; why did you come so late?"

"On Michael's account; he could not get leave until he had accompanied his regiment into quarters after being on special duty. When I went to his quarters to find him, I had a piece of luck–"

"As usual!" the Professor interjected.

"Yes. I had made up my mind to spend a week in that dull provincial town, but on my arrival I heard that Michael was three miles away, in a gay little watering-place, near which his regiment was exercising. Of course I hurried after him, with a blessing upon the wisdom of the military authorities. The Herr Lieutenant was indeed head over ears in strict attention to duty, and quite deaf and blind to all else, even to an acquaintance for which every other officer of his corps envied him, and of which he would not take the least advantage. No one else could gain admission at Countess Steinrück's; she was very much of an invalid."

The Professor was evidently struck by the name, and cast a keen glance at Michael. "Countess Steinrück?"

"Of Berkheim. You know her, papa; for, as she herself told me, you were often at her father-in-law's when you were a young physician, and at her request you went to her when her husband was dying. She is very grateful yet to you for doing so."

"Of course I know her; but how did you make her acquaintance, Michael?"

"By accident," was the laconic reply.

"It was certainly by no fault of his," Hans said, in a mocking tone that plainly betrayed his ignorance of the part played in Michael's life by the name of Steinrück. "I must tell you the story in detail, papa; it begins very romantically. Well, Michael was sitting in the forest,–that is, he was in command of his men there and ordering them to fire,–when a carriage came driving along a road in the distance. The horses were frightened by the firing and ran away; the coachman lost his reins, and the danger was imminent, when from the dim forest near by a gallant knight rushed to the rescue, stopped the horses, tore open the carriage door, and lifted out the fainting ladies–"

"Stick to the truth, Hans," the young officer interposed, with some irritation. "Neither the danger nor the heroism was as great as you describe. I merely saw that the horses were frightened, and ran up to avert an accident; but the brutes stopped as soon as I caught hold of their bridles, and the ladies sat still in the carriage. No need of any poetical exaggeration."

"Nor of such prosaic treatment of facts," Hans retorted. "I heard the story from the Countess herself, and she persists quite as obstinately in saying that you saved her life as you persist in denying having done so."