Carl Werner an imaginative story; with other tales of imagination |
 | CONRADE WEICKHOFF |
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 | Carl Werner |  |
CONRADE WEICKHOFF
1. I.
It was the easiest thing in the world for Rodolph
Steinmyer to become enamored of the fair Bertha,
the only daughter of the Baron Staremberg. It
was not so easy a matter to obtain the approval of
the proud old baron. Rodolph was noble, of excellent
family; but what is nobility without money?
This was the question with the baron — the leading
question in every reference which he made to
the pretensions of Rodolph to his daughter's hand.
Would nobility, merely, keep a castle, find retainers,
man the walls against the enemy, or even —
not to descend too hurriedly — furnish the table
and provide the daily cheer? Manifestly, it could
not; and so the noble lineage of Rodolph Steinmyer
did not go far toward commending him in
the sight of the sturdy father of his sweetheart. It
in society, and rendered necessary those
shows of place and pretension, which could never
be expected of one not of high birth; and which,
in the event of Rodolph becoming his son-in-law,
would only have the effect of adding an encumbrance
of great amount to his own already encumbered
establishment. The baron was quite as
poor as he was proud; and this probably was, in
all respects, a very proper consideration. It was
necessary that Bertha should re-establish the old
house. The castle wanted repairs; and Bertha's
eyes were looked to, whenever it became a question
how money should be raised for the purpose.
The castle wanted furniture; and Bertha's lips, it
was thought, might do much toward fitting it up.
Bertha's beauties, in short, were the only treasures
to which the old baron could possibly refer, whenever
he contemplated any of the many difficult,
but absolutely necessary, expenditures of his household.
To throw them away upon a beggar — to
give Bertha to Rodolph, was, therefore, a matter
entirely out of the question. It is true, the baron
knew well enough how fondly the two loved each
other; but what of that? Is the love of a young
girl to be considered, even for a moment, in opposition
It would be exceedingly foolish to suppose so.
2. II.
Bertha thought otherwise. She loved Rodolph
very much; quite as much, indeed, as he loved
her. They seemed formed entirely for each other;
and never were two young, thoughtless hearts, so
mutually devoted. Day after day did their eyes
meet, and their thoughts mingle; and day after
day increased their mutual dependence with their
passion. It is true, Rodolph was poor, but Bertha
never thought of that. His garments were none
of the best, but they were worn by Rodolph. His
castle was old, unfurnished, untenanted, and he
had no cattle. But then, she never felt any wants
when with Rodolph, and she never thought of any
want but himself, when he was absent. It was
well for her, perhaps, that she had a papa who was
more thoughtful. The baron's consideration amply
atoned for the daughter's thoughtlessness. If
she thought only of Rodolph — he thought nothing
of Rodolph. If she thought nothing of the
possessions of her lover — the old baron considered
the subject, on all sides, was amply investigated.
3. III.
It was not the good fortune of Bertha to know
any thing of her father's concern in this matter,
until long after he had gravely considered it. But
one day there came a new wooer to the castle of
Staremberg. This was a bachelor baron, whom
Bertha had never seen before, and who dwelt in
a noble palace at some little distance. She, poor
girl, never dreamed of the object of his visit; but
Rodolph was a little more suspicious. He no
sooner heard of it than he set off, post haste, for Staremberg
castle. He came in a desperate hurry,
determined to put his affaire du cœur to a final
issue. His manner indicated no little excitement.
He thrust aside, one after another, the sluggish
retainers, in a most unaccustomed and most unbecoming
manner; and even the bachelor baron,
himself, Baron Brickelewacksikow, — whose name
the reader will please remember in future, without
requiring us to write it — happening to stand bolt
upright in the very passage through which the
youth was pushing his headlong way, was tumbled
of his knees and shoulders, and the discomfiture
of his spirit. Rodolph was evidently in a
hurry.
4. IV.
In the presence of the Baron and Baroness Staremberg,
Bertha very judiciously being absent,
the youthful Rodolph found himself much sooner
than he expected. He certainly felt, as he looked
upon their distinct faces, that he need not have
been in such an exceeding hurry. The old baron
looked quite as grim as the Saracen that his grandfather
slew in the fifth crusade, the reeking head
of whom was painted in gigantic lines upon the
trembling tapestry before them; the baroness, if
possible, more outrageously grim, and not a whit
less unhandsome than her liege lord, sat like a
stone fortress of exceeding strength and dimensions,
upright in his way. She looked impenetrable
as a dozen dungeons. Rodolph was no
longer in a hurry. He really began to wonder
what he had come for; he certainly had not the
gift of languages at that moment, and would — if
he had known any thing about that burning and
the world for only half an hour's preliminary conversation
with the Reverend Edward Irving.
5. V.
The conference was sooner ended than began.
It was a desperate necessity; and, with a violent
effort, Rodolph contrived to find his parts of speech,
though he still stammered and stuttered most annoyingly.
But when he had said his say, and the
obtuse senses of his two arbiters had at length appreciated
his object, there was a joint burst of astonishment,
almost amounting to horror, from
their several lips, at the atrocious insolence of his
demand:
“What! do you, Rodolph Steinmyer, dare to
ask of me in marriage the hand of lady Bertha of
Staremberg?” exclaimed the baron.
“My daughter!” shrieked the baroness, in a
fit of holy horror.
“Presumption!” exclaimed the baron.
“Blasphemy!” groaned the baroness. And
they looked to one another, and they looked to
the confounded youth, and they looked to the
heavens and to the earth, and then they turned
to know if they had heard him rightly.
They were willing to believe that they might have
misunderstood him.
6. VI.
But the youth had plucked up courage during
the brief and sudden progress of their indignation.
With an air of greater resolution than before, he
repeated his demand; and was just about to give
sundry good reasons why he should be considered
the properest person in the world to take charge
of a maiden so young and interesting as Bertha of
Staremberg, when the baron, with more coolness
and composure — perhaps, too, with something
more of condescension in his manner — proceeded
to interrupt him:
“Say no more, Rodolph; say no more. You
are a good youth, and I knew your father. He
was my most intimate friend, and I loved him very
much — very much, Rodolph. I love you too,
Rodolph; you are a good youth, but you cannot
have Bertha.”
“No; you cannot have my daughter,” cried the
old lady.
“No; you cannot have our daughter,” said the
baron.
“I am shocked,” said the baroness, “that you
ever thought that you could have my daughter.”
“It is, indeed, very surprising, Rodolph, that
you should have fallen into such an error,” said
the baron; “but now that I have explained it, I
trust that you will give up such a foolish, such an
extravagant idea.”
“Such an audacious — such an impious idea —
my daughter!” exclaimed Lady Staremberg, with
an echo to her husband like that of Killarney.
“Never!” exclaimed the youth, with a voice of
thunder. “Never! Give up Bertha? Better
tell me to give up life.”
“Ay, and that might be advisable, when there's
no money. Life, without money, is but a baggage
wagon, on a long march, without stores or
provisions,” very coolly responded the baron;
“Bertha you can never have, unless your castle is
manned, and repaired, and furnished, and you can
show me wealth like that of baron — the baron
with the big name — to whom, if he is pleased to
accept her, I propose to give her hand. Produce
proofs of wealth like his, Rodolph, and, as I loved
your father and love you, I shall give you a decided
preference.”
The youth, muttering curses, hurried away in
despair, bent upon carrying up his appeal to a
gentler, if not a higher court.
7. VII.
Rodolph flew instantly to Bertha, with a degree
of impatience that might have seemed less than
respectful, but that it was duly mixed up with a
sufficient share of tenderness; he unfolded his
cause of difficulty, related his love at length, recounted
the scene with her parents, and resolutely
declared that he neither would nor could live without
her. The poor girl was sufficiently over-whelmed
with the novel character of her situation.
She had never deliberated much upon the condition
of her heart, which, like a gipsey's child, had
been allowed all along to do just what it pleased;
and the sudden and unaccustomed contraction of
all its liberties, just now threatened it, had an effect
not less paralyzing on her than it was maddening
to him. She knew not how to consider her affliction,
or in which way to turn first. It was now,
for the first time, that Rodolph had declared himself;
the words were strangely new to her ears,
but somehow they came naturally enough, and as
responded to them; and, certainly, she loved the
youth quite as much as it was possible for her, and
proper for a young maiden of seventeen, to love.
The strength of her attachment to the youth became
fully evident to herself, when she understood
the intention of her parents to give her to the baron
with a long name. She confessed how much
she loved him; shed a world of tears; showed by
look, word, and action, that she was miserable at
the thought of marrying another; and when the
youth, flattered with these manifestations, was bold
enough to propose that she should avail herself of
the present opportunity to change the air of her
father's castle for that of his own, which he assured
her was far more likely to be beneficial to her
health, to his great surprise, she flatly refused him.
Bertha was a good child; and the holy law which
teaches us to love father and mother, in order that
our days may be long in the land, was not less a
feeling and an instinct in her heart, than a principle
in her mind. Her soul was too pure, too secure
in its natural whiteness, to permit even love
to obtain a triumph over its sense of duty.
8. VIII.
Rodolph was in despair. Never was lover
more eloquent and impassioned.
“And you will not, Bertha?”
“I dare not, Rodolph.”
“What! you will consent to this sacrifice. You
will let them bind you to that old dotard, whom
you hate. You will let them tear you from the
arms of the man you profess to love —”
“Whom I do love, Rodolph,” was the gentle
chiding.
“Oh! Bertha, how can you consent to this?
How can you submit to be made a thing of barter;
of a mercenary love of wealth? Think, my beloved,
of the long years before us both — years of
bliss or years of blight, simply as you shall decree
at this moment. Can you hesitate if you love?
Can you hesitate if you think? It cannot be very
long before father and mother will both depart;
and then, — dear Bertha, — where then will be
your consolation? Nowhere, but in the bosom of
a kindred love. You cannot hesitate. You owe
it to me, to yourself, to all; to your promises and
pledges of the past; to your hopes of the future;
to him, having a love for me? how can he believe
it, even should you falsely declare it? It is a
higher duty which you owe to heaven — infinitely
beyond that due to your parents — to speak the
truth always, and more particularly where the affections,
our most valuable wealth, are so deeply
interested. Say to me, then, that you will be
mine. Fly with me now. In another hour the
opportunity may be lost, and never return to us
again. In another hour, dearest Bertha, tyranny,
which is the foe to love, may sacrifice us both on
the altar of worldly interest. We shall be torn
apart, and separated for ever.”
Rodolph was eloquent, but the maiden was
most firm. To the young mind, taught properly,
there is no consideration so revolting as the disobedience
of a child; and it must have been the
worst of all parental oppression, that of actual violence,
which could have made Bertha of Staremberg
take any step in opposition to the will of her
father. She sighed and sorrowed unaffectedly;
repeated her vows of love to Rodolph, and promised
him eternal faith; but the youth was not to
be satisfied after this fashion. He renewed his solicitations;
and it was only when he had exhausted
all his arguments, entreaties, and breath together,
arms, and rushing forth from the castle of
Staremberg in a fit of despair, hastened furiously
to a neighboring wood, in a paroxysm which
seemed to promise the most desperate results.
9. IX.
Rodolph sought the wood of the Black Forest
in no enviable temper. He buried himself in its
deepest recesses; for his thoughts were dark like
its own glooms, and horrible, like the numerous
spectral images by which tradition had tenanted
them. He was of a quick and irritable disposition;
and he had not been sufficiently tempered
by the vicissitudes of life to bear meekly and quietly
with any contradiction. The opposition of
Bertha's parents was bad enough; but he had
never anticipated any from herself. That she
should refuse at first was to be expected; but that
she should continue to deny to the last, was no
less unreasonable than unmaidenlike; and with
half a resolution to do what he was about to do,
in her despite, as well as in his own despair, he
drew the long keen hunter's knife from his girdle,
elevated its blade sufficiently in air to make the
would have found its sheath in his heart, when,
just in the nick of time, his arm was arrested by a
grasp from behind. He turned fiercely upon the
unwelcome intruder, and shrank back in horror
from the glance that met his own. Whom did he
see? What did he see? Was it real, or was it
only the spectre of his old comrade, the gallant
Conrade Weickhoff, who was reported to have
perished at sea full three years before?
“Conrade Weickhoff!” exclaimed the youth,
half in horror, half in inquiry.
“Rodolph Steinmyer,” was the response of the
stranger, who smiled in the most natural manner
in the world as he pronounced the name.
“Are you my friend Conrade?” demanded
Rodolph.
“More like, than you are to Rodolph Steinmyer,”
was the reply.
“And living?”
“Did you not feel my grasp? Was it so light
that you have need to ask the question?”
“Whence came you, Conrade? Where have
you been? They said that you were drowned at
sea; and they have mourned for you as one no
longer of earth.”
A wild laugh, and a bright sarcastic twinkle of
the new comer gave to the rapid inquiries
of the youth. He seemed to chuckle pleasantly
at the idea of being a dead man; and there was
something exceedingly irreverent — so Rodolph
thought — in the manner of his ancient comrade,
while dwelling upon this topic. But Conrade
was always a wild fellow, whom nobody could
manage, and who was reported, indeed, to have
given himself over to studies and practices of diabolism.
So general was the opinion among his friends,
that when the news came of his death by sea, the
remark was frequent among them, that the devil
had reason to congratulate himself upon the acquisition
of a new companion, so much after the fashion
of his own heart.
10. X.
The first surprise being over, and Rodolph being
now satisfied that it was Conrade himself — a
person of very substantial flesh and blood, and no
ghost — that stood before him, the conversation
naturally turned upon the desperate act which
Rodolph had been about to commit, when his
friend so opportunely interrupted him.
“What could have persuaded you to this, Rodolph?
what motive for this rashness?” was the
demand of Conrade.
The youth told his story, and Conrade chuckled
so heartily that the lover grew indignant.
“Why, what the d—l do you find in it to laugh
at?” he demanded fiercely.
“Be not rash,” said the other; “and, I pray
you, take not your neighbor's name in vain. The
devil may be much nearer to you than you imagine.
If I laugh, I mean no offence, you may be
sure. I only laugh at the folly of love, which so
beguiles and misleads men of otherwise very excellent
understanding. Did you hope to get the
girl by cutting your throat?”
“Not to get her, surely; but to live without her
would be worse than death.”
“Perhaps so; but I think not. Life is comfortable,
always provided you have enough of it;
and that a man may always have, if he will look
for it where it may be found. But what do you
intend now to do? I have kept you from death
once; when I turn my back, you will whip out
your cold steel again, and try the thing over, and
it may be, another time I shall come a moment or
two too late.”
“Perhaps,” said Rodolph, with some phlegm.
“Perhaps is no answer to a friend,” said the
other, taking his hand affectionately. “Be more
like yourself; let old times begin again. Let us
once more be true friends to each other; for, believe
me, Rodolph, though time has been between
us, and we have been so long separated, I feel toward
you as ever.”
Rodolph could not reply, but he returned the
gentle squeeze of his friend's hand, and the tears
filled his eyes.
“You weep, Rodolph, and I am answered,”
said the other. “I see you have the same heart
as of old. I, too, have been left unchanged in all
my trials. We are again friends.”
They embraced affectionately, and after a little
interval given up to the renewal of former pledges,
after the picturesque and sentimental manner common,
even at that early period, among the German
youth, they again began to discourse about
the purposed deed of Rodolph, and the causes
which had led to it. A few moments were passed
by Conrade in silence; then, abruptly speaking,
he demanded:
“And you are required to man your castle, refit
and repair it, and altogether exhibit resources
such as the baron with a long name?”
The youth sighed forth a melancholy affirmative.
“You shall do it,” said the other.
Rodolph looked up angrily, as if he had been
laughed at.
“You shall do it.”
“How?”
“I will help you to fortune.”
“You?”
“Yes — I — Conrade Weickhoff. It shall be
the first proof which I will give you that my friendship
for you is the same that it ever was. I am able
to do what I promise. I am able to give you the
means to go forth as proudly as your baron with a
long name, and to exhibit wealth even more extensive.
We shall satisfy Bertha's parents, and
you shall have the maiden without delay.”
Rodolph looked on his friend in silent wonderment.
He thought him dreaming. He knew
that Conrade's family had been quite as destitute
as his own. Where could he have got his new
ability to do what he promised. He must surely
be mad, thought Rodolph; but when he looked
at Conrade, never did face seem more confident
and earnest. The expression of his countenance
was conclusive.
“Speak out,” said Rodolph, impetuously; “tell
and torture me no longer with a hope so extravagant
as to seem desperate and foolish. Let me
hear upon what you build, that I may know whether
it be worth while to live for it or not.”
“It is always worth one's while to live, so long
as there are maidens like Bertha Staremberg to
live with. I know the maiden; she is a heaven
in herself; and were it not, dear Rodolph, for my
friendship, I should certainly seek her love on my
own account.”
“Ha!” said Rodolph, furiously.
But the other checked him in his paroxysm.
“Fear nothing, I am not your rival. I will
help you to Bertha; the means are even now in
your own power, and I will disclose them to you.
But come apart with me to some pleasant place,
where we may sit while talking. There is, or
should be, an old abbey in this neighborhood,
where I have often rambled. The grave stone of
an armed knight shall yield us a pleasant seat, and
then we can talk more freely. I hate fatigue;
and standing up when one can sit, is like submitting
to bondage when one can fly. The sense of
restraint is, of all others, the most hateful to me;
and, when I can help, I will have none of it.
Come.”
11. XI.
They went to a spot more secluded in the forest,
and there they found an old abbey church, which
Rodolph did not remember ever to have seen before.
With every spot of it, however, his companion
seemed familiar; he talked of this family burial
place and of that, and began to give a long
history of the knight whose crossed legs in marble
they were then sitting upon, and he might
have gone into details of a thousand years — for
he betrayed a strange familiarity with past events
— had not Rodolph, with a more selfish object,
hurriedly interrupted him. Conrade laughed
heartily at the impatience of his companion, and
his pale features were full of a pleasantly satirical
expression, and his eyes danced with a wild, strange
glare, as he looked quizzingly upon the feverish
restlessness of the lover; but he saw that it would
not do to tax the youth's temper too far, and so
he proceeded quietly to his purposed explanation.
“You have heard of the late Count Oberfeldt
of Manfrein?” he demanded.
“The late Count Oberfeldt? What! is he
dead?” responded Rodolph.
“Died last night,” was the reply.
“Why, he was quite well — I saw him on the
edge of the forest, riding with a stranger, only
two days ago. He must have died suddenly.”
“Quite — as suddenly as a sharp knife, such as
that you were about to use an hour ago, could
carry him off, hurriedly applied to the carotid.”
“Murdered?”
“No; he committed suicide.”
“Is it possible? He was always a bad man!”
remarked Rodolph, quite thoughtlessly and innocently.
“Ahem!” responded the other. “Bad or good,
I say not. He was a wild, irregular, strange sort
of person, whose pleasures and pursuits differed
materially from those of the rest of the world. It
is not for us to say whether he was right or wrong
in their adoption. His accountability is not to
us, and so far the subject is foreign to our discourse.
You knew him, Rodolph?”
The question was answered affirmatively.
“You know that his wealth was great?”
“Yes.”
“A dozen different castles — fine domains every
where — well provided; retainers in abundance;
good wines and wealth in profusion. These were
his, and, strange to say, though living a profligate
“Stranger still,” remarked Rodolph, “that,
having them in possession, he should voluntarily
have given them up.”
“Perhaps not. Satiety is a worse death than
the knife. It is the death of that necessary provocative,
without which life must always stagnate.
Wise men pray that they should never have all
their desires satisfied. Oberfeldt was not a wise
man. His desires were narrowed to his animal
propensities, and he was unfortunate enough to
grasp and gain all that he desired. They tired him
out in the end, and grew into a fatigue, so he cut
the carotid, and got rid of them.”
“The d—l has him!” said Rodolph, coolly.
“That's none of our business,” said the other,
warmly; “and let me advise you, that to speak
of persons with whom our own acquaintance is
imperfect, is not always to do them justice. You
may discover that truth for yourself in time; for
the present, let us talk of your own affairs, and
then of Oberfeldt's, so far as they may concern
you.”
“But how can the affairs of Oberfeldt concern
me? I see not that,” said Rodolph, impatiently.
“But you shall see, when you have heard. The
are, if you desire it, one of his legatees.”
“If I desire it!” exclaimed Rodolph, hastily;
“speak out, my friend. Wealth to me is every
thing at this moment; and though I see not why
Oberfeldt should have left me any of his, I am not
unwilling to avail myself of his bequest. I should
not reject one from the d—l himself.”
“You are only too accommodating,” said the
other, gravely. “But hear. You are one of his
heirs, if you desire it. He was a singular creature,
and has made a singular disposition of his
property. He has left it subject to division,
among any dozen men who will pledge themselves
to follow his example —”
“What! cut their throats?”
“Even so; but after a peculiar plan. He does
not desire them to cut their throats on the instant,
or together. He requires only one amateur at a
time. Once a year, the anniversary of his own
suicide, is to be celebrated by a selection from
among his followers — his college, as he calls them
— and the martyr is to be chosen by lot.”
“Monstrous idea!” said Rodolph.
“Very!” responded the other.
“And what then?” said Rodolph.
“Why, only this,” was the reply; “I have determined
Oberfeldt's will. I will become one of his devisees.
I will get one of his fine castles. I will
get his manors and retainers, his stock and his
treasure. I will take all that the bequest bestows.
I am fond of money, for its power and its purposes.
I have none of my own. It matters not to
me whether I die by my own hand, the hand of
my enemy, or the worst of all hands, that of starvation.
Life is not life, unless for what it yields
us. I do not deprive myself of life, if I lose nothing
when I perish; and at present I have nothing
to lose. I go to-night, with others, to Manfrien
castle. I swear to the performance of all the
conditions exacted by the will; I jump into my
new possessions, and hasten to their enjoyment.
I will begin to live from that hour; heretofore I
have not lived — it is high time that I should. I
counsel you to do likewise. Go with me to-night;
swear with me to the conditions; avail
yourself of the wealth they give you, and be happy
while you may.”
“Great heaven!” exclaimed the other: “How
can you advise me thus, Conrade? how can you
determine thus yourself? What! pledge myself
to commit suicide?”
“What were you but just now about to do,”
demanded the other, with a sneer, “when I came
present plan worse? Is it not better; far better,
in all respects? You get something now for the
commission of the act, when, before, you could
have derived no advantage from it. You get the
very wealth you wanted; you get the woman you
love, who else would be lost to you for ever. Can
you hesitate?”
Rodolph bent down his head. It sank on his
bosom despondingly. The thick drops of perspiration
stood upon his brow, for a great mental
strife was going on within.
“Think,” said the tempter, “think what you
will gain — wealth, Bertha. Think what you
will lose — Bertha, wealth — all that would be
worth living for.”
Rodolph was silent; the other continued:
“And she will be the victim, not less than
yourself; the old baron with the long name will
bear her off in triumph. She will be immured in
his castle; her arms will enfold him in their embraces;
his coarse lips will riot upon the sweet innocence
of hers; he —”
“No more — no more,” exclaimed the desperate
youth, tossing his hands toward heaven; “I
will go with you to-night; I will swear to the
conditions. Bertha shall be mine, and mine only.
should be the bride of another.”
12. XII.
That night the ceremonial was an awful one in
the great hall of Oberfeldt's castle. The body of
the suicide lay in state in the centre of the apartment,
which was illuminated with an intense glare,
shooting out from strangely large torches, borne
up by sable figures standing in its many niches
and embrasures. The corpse presented a sight
horried from its wounds, and hellish from it expression.
The head had been nearly severed from
the shoulders, by the desperate stroke which the
deceased had given himself. The eyes were unclosed;
the lids seemed to have been drawn in
under the brows, and the whites gleamed out with
a meteoric lustre, through the filmy humidity with
which death had wrapped them. The testamentary
document lay upon the breast of the deceased.
His hand, still grasping the fatal knife, with
all the bloody traces of the deed yet upon it, rested
upon the paper. Around him stood the persons
who were prepared to avail themselves of the
dreadful advantages of the will before them. Their
and his friend. The lover looked upon
the scene with horror; but he had nerved himself
to the deed. He gazed vacantly upon his associates;
and his passing scrutiny did not serve to
reconcile him in any great degree to the step
which he was about to take. With the exception
of his friend Weickhoff, he saw none among the
assembled college before him who had any claim
to gentility. They were either debauchees, or
gamblers, spendthrifts, and wretches who fasten
themselves as a disease upon society, and contribute
to the corruption of that body upon which
they are engrafted. But he had no time for reflection.
Weickhoff led the way, and by his audacity
evidently controlled the rest. He drew the
document from the grasp of the suicide, and without
the pause of a second, dashed down his signature
in bloody characters at the foot of the conditional
pledge which followed the testament, and
to which its reference was special, and done after
the most approved legal requisitions of those ages.
The example was soon followed by the rest; and
signature after signature appeared upon the fatal
sheet, until Rodolph was the only one left who
had yet to sign. He lingered, and a light touch
of a finger pressed upon his wrist. It went like
up in a tremor, and his eyes met those of Weickhoff.
What a glance did they encounter! So
bright, so cold; so ironical, yet so conciliating;
such a sneer, yet such a smile. There was a mad
prompter in the heart of the youth at that moment,
and he rushed forward to the body of the dead
man; he clutched the pen in his fingers, and began
writing the letters of his name after the rest. As
he wrote, to his great horror and suprise, the same
letters, as he severally wrote than, appeared one
after the other in a blank space in the body of the
instrument above. A sickness seized upon his
heart; but he desperately proceeded. The deed
was done — the name written — the contract was
completed; and, in the next moment, he felt himself
clasped in the arms of Weickhoff.
“Now, indeed, Rodolph, my friend, you are
mine,” was the exclamation of his comrade. What
a strength seemed in the nerves of Weickhoff!
The embrace nearly stifled him; and yet Weickhoff
was slender in the extreme; pale, even to
wanness; and with a general air of feebleness,
which looked rather like disease than stength or
life. Had Rodolph been asked the question before,
he wonld have unhesitatingly said that his
own were infinitely greater than the physical powers
in his grasp. But Weickhoff had been a traveller,
and Rodolph naturally enough concluded
that he had acquired hardihood by trial and adventure.
13. XIII.
Revelry of all sorts, indulgences the most wild,
excesses the most licentious, followed the conclusion
of the dreadful ceremonial in the castle of
Oberfeldt. A luxurious banquet was prepared,
and every temptation of gross and festering debauch,
common to that era, was provided and
partaken of by that melancholy circle of uncongenial
confederates. The terms of the will were
read to them by Conrade, who took a leading part
in their festivities. But, though of appalling and
curious nature, there was but one of all the college
that heeded its conditions. That was Rodolph.
He listened in a vague sort of consciousness.
His feelings and thoughts were too various
and crowded to suffer him to think correctly; and
the emotions with which he felt himself seized, were
rather those of a young, unsophisticated heart,
finding itself, for the first time, in a novel and
in analyzing it. Conrade discovered this, and
plied all his arts, which were neither mean nor
few, in order to dissipate the lover's melancholy.
He succeeded in part. He dwelt with ridicule
upon the passages of the will which seemed most
to have impressed the youth; then adroitly painting
the happiness which must follow the possession
of the fortune, in giving Bertha to his arms, he
had the satisfaction to discover that, by degrees,
the moody apprehensions of the youth wore rapidly
away. But still Rodolph could not relish
the associates around him, and with whom he found
himself, by his own act, associated in so strange a
brotherhood. Men he would have been ashamed
to know before, he now found himself connected
with in life and death. That death, too, now that
he was in the possession of the means of life,
seemed to have acquired terrors which it had not
some few hours ago. He had never asked himself
the difference of situation and mind between
the desperately hopeless man, and him to whom
the world is full of hope and promise. He was
yet to learn this difference. The glozing lips of
the tempter had persuaded him too readily to believe
that suicide at one moment and at another
was the same thing to the same person, and he had
entirely true. There are times when it is not difficult
to part with life — alas! how often is it the
case that we would rather give up heaven itself
than lose it!
14. XIV.
At a late hour the college separated. The sitting
was broken up, and the several members prepared
to retire to the spoils and possessions which
the will of Oberfeldt had assigned then. The
dangers and conditions of that will; the pledges
of terror which they had made — filled as they
were with wine and frolic, and gloating on the vast
wealth placed within their enjoyment — gave them
but little concern. Their next celebration was
required to be held at the same place, on the same
night of the ensuing year. A year was secured
to them of licentious and unrestrained enjoyment;
and to most of them a new world of happiness
was opened upon them by this heretofore unknown
privilege. They gave themselves but little concern
about the one of their number who must be
chosen for the next year's sacrifice. It was enough
that they had a bond of fate for that period of time.
so in reference to the hour of their death. They
could lose but little, as life had never fairly been
possessed by any among them.
The thoughts of Rodolph troubled him more
greatly on this subject; but the presence of Conrade,
who clung to his friend, and employed his
mind and fancy by a continual reference to Bertha
Staremberg, served to keep them down and
to restrain them. They did not separate as did
the rest.
“I will attend you,” said Conrade; “you must
instantly seek Bertha, or you may be too late.
Your baron with the long name may be in a hurry,
and Staremberg has shown you that he does
not hold you of sufficient importance, though he
loved your father so very much, to wait any very
long time for his son. Your retainers, I see, are
ready; and Oberfeldt, like a hospitable man, has
provided handsomely for his friends. These
dresses are very rich. Follow my example.”
In an instant Conrade Weickhoff arrayed himself
in a splendid suit, that lay on the table before
him, which was covered with the richest dresses of
every pattern and size. Without pause for reflection,
Rodolph did the same, and they were soon
equipped. In the court below fine horses were
single out a noble barb for himself, while designating
another for his friend. They were soon
mounted, and the morning sun found them scouring
over the space which separated the two castles of
Oberfeldt and Staremberg.
15. XV.
You should have seen Rodolph Steinmyer and
his friend Conrade Weickhoff, on their fine black
chargers, come prancing into the courtyard of
Staremberg. You should have seen the consternation
of all the spectators. The baron with the
long name stood aghast; but a moment before he
had been certain of his prey, of which he now felt
exceedingly doubtful. Staremberg looked wild,
but not dissatisfied; while his lady, dazzled by the
guady trappings of the horses and their riders,
could only lift up her skinny hands, and exclaim:
“My eyes! my eyes!”
To make a long story short, the presence of
Rodolph became very agreeable to the father and
mother, no less than to the daughter. They were
delighted with him, and his horses, and his friends,
and his retainers, and every thing that was his.
always had loved Rodolph as he had loved his
father. It was only a strange obliquity of understanding
on the youth's part that kept him from
making the discovery. The old lady had all
along desired that Rodolph should be the choice
of her daughter; it was only a proper feeling of
maternal pride that had prompted her to say the
contrary. It was strange how naturally and well
all old difficulties were smoothed and explained
away; and Rodolph, good youth! only wondered
at his own dullness, at not having seen things
in their proper light before.
“My son,” exclaimed the dear old baroness, in
a fit of enthusiastic fondness, “the desire of my
heart is now realized; I can go down to the
grave in peace, since you are to be the husband of
my daughter.”
Conrade Weickhoff chuckled irreverently and
loud. The baron with the long name expostulated;
but Staremberg told him bluntly that he
had never loved his father as he had loved the
father of Rodolph; a speech which the bachelor
knight took in high dudgeon, but without receiving
any redress for it. That night a wild, practical
joke which Conrade Weickhoff played oft
upon him, sent him away half dead with affright,
on smoothly after this; no difficulties stood in the
way, all parties were satisfied, and the marriage
followed as soon as circumstances would permit.
In the arms of the lovely Bertha, Rodolph almost
forgot the dreadful ceremonial which he had witnessed,
and of which he had partaken, at the castle
of Oberfeldt.
16. XVI.
But he was not allowed to forget so readily.
His friend Conrade Weickhoff, like a true friend,
kept him in memory of his honorable engagements.
During the honeymoon, however, Conrade
most strangely kept aloof from the dwelling
of the lovers; and, for that brief period, it may
safely be affirmed that never was dwelling more
favored by the sunshine of happiness. The two,
thus united, seemed only to live for one another;
and such was the warmth and strength of their
mutual attachment, that the most casual or close
observer must have seen that their future joy, if it
depended only upon themselves, must be unalloyed
and permanent. Alas! it did not depend
entirely upon themselves. The alloy was
say, was the first to administer it. A month
had passed, or more, when Conrade suddenly
made his appearanee. Will it be believed, that
Rodolph was pained to see him? So it was. The
presence of his friend brought with it the recollection
of the dreadful engagement which he had
made, and to which he had seduced him. He
sickened at his sight, and turned away. But his
aversion was not seen by Conrade; at least, the
latter did not seem to see it. He resolutely approached,
and took the hand of Rodolph in his
own, and addressed him in the soothing and sweet
language of friendship. But even the tones of his
voice, so soft and pleasant to his ear, and the
words of good faith which Conrade uttered, were
all neutralized by a strange, taunting laugh, a
suppressed chuckle, which his friend of late had
most unaccountably adopted.
“D—n that strange laugh which you have,”
said Rodolph, abruptly; “I do not like it; it
goes like a cold wind into my bones. Where the
d—l did you pick it up?”
“You do not like it, then?” said the other, and
he laughed again, more unpleasantly than ever.
“Like it, Conrade! How should I? It is the
strangest, most annoying chuckle I ever heard in
take up some better habit.”
Conrade was obliging enough.
“I will try to rid myself of it,” said he, “since
it annoys you, though the effort will be a hard
one. It is so natural to me.”
“Natural to you!” exclaimed Rodolph; “why,
I do not remember to have ever heard it before
you went to sea?”
“Perhaps not; it is a foreign acquisition, no
doubt, and not the less natural for being so. The
journey through life is chiefly taken that we may
pick up our nature as we go along. Our nature
is not born with us, as foolish people imagine.
We choose it from a variety, as we choose our
dresses; and our happiness depends very much
upon the sort of stuff and color we make choice
of. Perhaps, if you observe closely, you will see
that the most fickle people are those who have a
variety — the most fortunate those who have but
one. It is my error to have chosen some that do
not sit graciously; that laugh, for example, which
you do not like. My smile pleases you better,
I doubt not?”
And Conrade, as he spoke, turned his glance
upon the face of Rodolph, with an expression
which was even more annoying to the youth than
was about to say so to his companion, but the
fear of being thought querulous, and his own increasing
consciousness of a state of nervous excitability,
determined him to say nothing.
“I am feverish, I think, this evening, Conrade,”
he said to his friend; “do you not think
so?”
He extended his hand as he spoke; but when
the fingers of Conrade pressed the wrist, it seemed
to him that he was chilled as by an ague. He
withdrew his arm instantly, and looked with astonishment
upon his comrade, whose smile, like
that of a basilisk, was fixed upon him.
“You are disordered,” said Conrade, a moment
after, with a show of concern in his countenance.
“You should take medicine. I will ride over to
Oberfeldt's castle, and get you something. He
had a fine laboratory, and made his own chemicals.”
“God forbid!” exclaimed Rodolph; “Nothing
from that d—nable place, in heaven's name.”
“We will not speak of the absent,” responded
the other gravely. “But let us to the castle;
some wine will cheer us both, and, possibly, put
you in better health and spirits.”
17. XVII.
“Rodolph, dear Rodolph!” said Bertha one
day to her husband, standing at the castle entrance,
and looking forth upon the retreating
figure of Conrade Weickhoff, who had just left
them; “there is something about the baron Weickhoff
that is very annoying to me. I do not like
him, Rodolph.”
“He is my friend, Bertha,” responded Rodolph,
with a gravity that seemed to rebuke her no less
than his language.
“I know it, dear Rodolph, and I try to like
him, because he is your friend; but forgive me,
dear Rodolph, when I tell you that all my efforts
are in vain. I cannot like him; I do not feel at
ease in his presence.”
The youth looked curiously upon the blooming
and blushing woman of his heart, and, strange to
say, he loved her the more because she could not
tolerate his friend. He dared not speak out his
feelings and thoughts, however, for there was between
the two a manifest contradiction which he
had sought, but vainly, to reconcile. In his own
estimation, Conrade had ever been his friend. In
the very possession of his wife and present happiness
was owing entirely to Conrade. Should
he oppose to these substantial services the capriciousness
of taste which found fault with a look, a
glance, or a ridiculous chuckle? Nothing could
be more idle or unjust in the eye of reason and
good sense; yet, in his heart, that glance and
chuckle were more than enough to counterbalance
all the substantial services which his friend had
rendered him.
“And what is there, dear Bertha, in Conrade
Weickhoff that displeases you?”
“He is so cold,” said she, innocently.
“Indeed!” exclaimed the other, not altogether
so well pleased with his wife, and rather more
pleased with his friend. “Indeed — cold — in
what manner, Bertha?”
“He seems to have lost all human sensibilities,”
was her reply. “When he speaks, it is only to
sneer at his neighbors. Does he hear of any virtues
which they possess, he is sure to know and to
speak of their defects and foibles. He laughs,
too, at sacred things — at age and character —
and does not seem to relish the respect which
others show to them. Then that strange, horrid
laugh, which he has; and sometimes, when you
with a staring sort of contempt, which puts me,
for all the world, in mind of the Mephistopheles
whom you remember to have seen upon the tapestry
in the old hall at Staremberg, where he tempts
our ancestor, the Teuton, on the brow of the Harz.
He sometimes frightens me to look at him, and
my blood is chilled when he speaks to me, or
laughs. I cannot like him, I'm afraid.”
“Nor I,” thought Rodolph, but he did not say
it. The words of Bertha saddened him more than
ever, though he loved her the more when he found
how large was the degree of sympathy between
them. A common aversion is not unfrequently
the occasion of a common love.
18. XVIII.
“Your wife does not like me, Rodolph,” said
Conrade to the former, one day, some time after
this interview. “I am too blunt; I speak out
my mind too freely, and so offend her. She has
been brought up by that old beldam, your mother-in-law
of Staremberg — forgive me, Rodolph, if
I cannot speak very affectionately of her — and
has imbibed many of those antiquated, stiff notions,
I am a plain man, and can't bend myself
to conciliate people of his temper. You must
take me as you find me, or not at all. I know I
have my faults; I am neither very amiable nor
very handsome. I have seen the world, and,
thanks to Oberfeldt, I am quite too independent
to find it necessary to play the hypocrite, and give
men credit for qualities which they have not.
Your wife loves not ascetics, and I am too much
of one to please her. Better, therefore, that I
should cease to trouble you with my visits. Now
and then I may look in upon you, and I need not
say how ready I am, with the old feeling, to serve
you whenever you need me. In such case, all that
you need do, is to visit me. I shall always rejoice
to see one so dear to me.”
Rodolph tried to explain for, and to excuse his
wife; an error of judgment, which a wise husband
will never commit.
“You mistake Bertha entirely, my dear Conrade;
you do her injustice. Her reserve is natural
to her, and she meets every body as she
meets you.”
“No, no, Rodolph, I know better. The difference
is marked between her reception of me and
others.”
“By heaven, Conrade, but it shall not be so.
such.”
Strangely contradictory were the thoughts and
feelings of Rodolph on this occasion. Conscious
himself of a changed temper toward his friend, he
sought to hide the alteration from scrutiny by a
show of proper indignation toward his innocent
wife; and he fumed and foamed for ten minutes
in violent speech accordingly.
“Nay, be not angry, Rodolph,” said his companion,
in a style of soothing which was exceedingly
annoying.
“I will be angry, Conrade. I have reason to
be angry. My wife do injustice to my friend! I
will be angry!”
A sarcastic smile played over the lips of Conrade
at this insincere ebullition. Well he knew
that Rodolph's aversion was not less strong than
that of Bertha's; but he took especial care to
conceal his conviction on this subject. Rodolph,
in the mean while, hurried to Bertha's chamber,
leaving Conrade in the hall. He had worked
himself into a petty sort of fury, by repeating
Conrade's language to himself as he went through
the passages, and he was in no small tempest when
he came into her presence. The fury of his first
assault astounded her, and she could not reply,
of Conrade peeping through the opened door of
the apartment. A new emotion — a sudden
strength, which seemed supernatural — possessed
her on the instant. She darted from her seat,
threw herself before the little family altar that
stood by the bedside, and prayed aloud to heaven.
The practical rebuke was felt by her husband.
He sank down before the altar beside her, and
their mutual hands were clasped in prayer. When
she looked round to the door of the apartment,
the face of Conrade Weickhoff was no longer to
be seen.
19. XIX.
A month had passed before Conrade again
visited Rodolph. In that period a change had
taken place in the dwelling of the latter. Bertha
and her young husband were happier than ever.
She was “as women wish to be, who love their
lords.” Her heart was light now, like that of a
bird in spring. He, too, though troubled sometimes
with serious thoughts, was yet conscious
of an intenser satisfaction than his heart had
ever known before. Conrade beheld this at
usual. His temper seemed to be subdued. He
was even conciliatory, though reserved; and, in
the flush of her heart's tide of joyful emotions,
Bertha half forgot her old hostility. She even
smiled freely upon, and talked with the ancient
friend of her husband; the whole world, at that
moment, seeming to her young and delighted
spirits, full of associations which were all good
and beautiful.
Conrade congratulated Rodolph upon the
grateful prospect before him, and in a manner
which was far less disagreeable than usual. He
spent the day pleasantly enough with his friend;
but left the castle after sunset, alleging a pressing
necessity for his presence elsewhere. On leaving,
however, he amply made amends to himself for
his own forbearance. His last words, at parting,
left a sting that rankled dreadfully in the bosom
of the youth. The words were simple enough,
and seemed only a passing inquiry.
“What month is this, Rodolph?” said he, as
it were unconsciously, while mounting his sable
steed.
“July,” was the stammered reply.
“July!” Conrade seemed to muse a while;
then speaking as follows, he rode away:
“I shall not see you for some time, Rodolph;
not, I think, before November. Then I must see
you, you know.”
Big drops stood upon the brow of Rodolph;
he rushed to the gloomiest chamber of his castle,
and he felt not that night the caresses of his wife.
Well did he understand the significant, yet simple
language of his friend. The fifth of November
was the first anniversary after the self-murder of
Oberfeldt.
20. XX.
It came too rapidly — that dreadful month.
We need not try, we should fail utterly, to describe
the agony of Rodolph, at its approach. It was a
madness — that subdued sort of madness in which,
while the faculties of mind all struggle in confusion,
there is still a sufficient consciousness of its
own impotence and utter despair, to restrain it
from any vain and idle ebullition. In a few days
the flesh seemed to have fallen from his bones;
his eyes were lustreless, yet full of a feverish glare,
like those of Weickhoff, and seemed shooting out
from their sockets. His very limbs seemed palsied,
and refused their offices. He was incapable
of soul under which he labored. The pregnancy
of Bertha had advanced greatly. A few days,
and he might be a father; and she, as this thought
came to her mind, she clung to her husband with
all the strength of a new-born passion, and, burying
her head in his bosom, dwelt fondly upon the
blessing which was at hand. How more than
sweet was life at that moment! How dreadful
the idea of death, as an appointed prospect in the
vista of time! How much more dreadful the
strong probability of that death, so near, and so
terrible, which the coming anniversary announced!
Wonder not that he thrust the one most beloved
of all from his arms, when these awful images
assailed him. Wonder not that he rushed away
from her embrace to the deepest cell of his castle,
and threw himself in utter abandonment of soul
upon the cold and clammy pavement.
The night came — a night of exceeding beauty.
Rodolph moved through his dwelling like a blind
man. He tottered in his mental incertitude, not
less than in his body's debility. He was about to
visit his wife in her chamber, when he was conscious
that some one stood suddenly beside him.
He looked round, and it was Conrade Weickhoff.
“The hour is late, Rodolph,” said Conrade,
saddled in the court. We must keep our engagements.”
“God of heaven! Conrade,” exclaimed the
youth, “how can you speak of this accursed business
so coolly?”
“Why not? I had long since prepared my
mind for it,” said the other, “and so, I presume,
had you.”
“No — no! — The thought is dreadful!”
“Nor will it be less so by poring over it. But
why should this thought be so dreadful to you
now? You are only in the same situation in which
I found you a year ago, even should it fall to your
lot to perish. Then, only for my hand, you would
have done that, the image of which now so dreadfully
affrights you. I see not the substantial
difference.”
But there was a substantial difference, and Rodolph
saw and felt it. How desolate was he then
— how hopeless — how desperate in love and
fortune — with how little to live for! Now —
what had he not, in possession, calculated to make
him in love with life — what sweet ties — what
ministering affections — what hopes — what joys,
what desires and delights! He reproached his
friend bitterly, as he thought upon these things.
“Would that I had never seen you, Conrade,”
he exclaimed, bitterly.
“I should have been spared this language,
then,” said the other, with a tone of reproach,
which had its effect upon the sensitive mind of the
hearer. Rodolph was too much of a dependant
upon his friend to quarrel with him; and begging
his forgiveness, he inquired into some trifling particulars
connected with the coming proceedings at
the castle of Oberfeldt.
“The chances are no more against you, Rodolph,
than against myself and all the rest. It all
depends on fortune. Your good luck has always
been conspicuous; it will not fail you now.”
“True, true,” said the other, musingly, and
with renewed hope; but a moment after, his brow
became clouded again.
“But it must come some day or other, Conrade
— next year or the next.”
“Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.
Death itself must come some day or other, and
with this greater disadvantage, that you have no
specified time for preparation. The Oberfeldt
contract takes nobody by surprise. But the lot
may never fall to you, Rodolph.”
“How? — it must some day or other.”
“No! our college is never less. For every
member to fill his place, from applicants who are
always sufficiently numerous. The new comer
shares the chances with you precisely as did the
old; and as luck's all, it may be that it shall
never fall to you to perish by your own hand;
and you may die, in a ripe old age, after the
fashion of the most quiet abbot, in all the odor of
sanctity, and with all the comfortings of a full
household around you.”
The gamester's hope consoled and strengthened
Rodolph.
“I will be ready in a moment,” said he.
“Where are you going?”
“But for a moment — I would see Bertha.”
“Better not; you will only mingle useless
tears.”
“I must go!” said Rodolph, firmly; “I must
tell her that I am about to ride forth for an hour
or two, or she will be alarmed.”
Conrade chuckled, but did not seek farther to
restrain his friend. The parting between Rodolph
and his wife — he suffering all the agony of his
situation, yet under the necessity of hiding it from
her; and she full of all the tenderness of a wife,
so soon to become a mother — was a trying one
to him, and a sweetly tearful one to her.
“God bless you, dear Rodolph, and return
you soon.”
He hurried away, and the two friends were
soon mounted upon their fierce and coal-black
steeds. They employed neither whip nor spur,
yet they flew over the space between the two
castles, before Rodolph conceived himself to be
fairly on the road.
21. XXI.
They arrived late, but still in season. It was
yet half an hour to twelve, and Rodolph had
sufficient time to survey the assembly. What a
motley crew! A full year had passed since he
had seen them, and yet, on most of them, what a
change had that time brought about! Dissipation
had done its work. Unaccustomed resources
had brought unaccustomed indulgence. The
wallow of the beast had swallowed up the spirit
of the man; and degradation had succeeded to
licentiousness, with the unerring rapidity of an
upward flying spark. Rodolph, who, in the arms
of a faithful and pure wife, had kept, to a certain
extent at least, the original whiteness of his soul,
turned from them in disgust. Their foul and
him. Conrade, on the contrary, whose mental
and moral man was infinitely more flexible, caroused
and clamored with them most freely after
their own fashion. He did not seem to dislike, but
rather appeared desirous of promoting their excesses.
The wine cup was freely plied, and yet
Rodolph could see that, while filling for others,
his friend himself drank nothing. Yet his laugh
— that strange laugh — was among the loudest,
and his words had sway over the boisterous group
of turbulents that gathered in a mass around him.
Suddenly, the heavily swinging bell, in the
tower overhead, thundered out the hour. The
heart of Rodolph died away within him. His
bones were chilled — his blood frozen — his knees
tottered feebly beneath the burden of his own
weight. The eyes of Conrade were upon him —
his words were in his ears —
“Rodolph?”
Cold sweat stood in massive drops upon the
youth's forehead, and his lips parted feebly in a
vain effort at a hurried prayer. The wild chuckle
of his friend at this moment drove away the
pleading minister at heaven's gates; and desperately
seizing his arm, Conrade led the way for the
ceremonial.
22. XXII.
Demoniac, indeed, had been the taste which fitted
up that apartment. Grotesque images stood
glaring around upon them from the swaying and
swinging tapestry. Sable shafts and columns,
broken and cragged, seemed to glide about the
walls. Gloomy and dark draperies hung over
the doors and windows, fringed with flame-like
edges; and sprinkled drops of blood, like a rain
shower, as they entered the hall of doom, fell upon
their dresses. Rodolph clung to the arm of his
friend, even as an infant in a sudden terror clings
to that of a mother or a nurse. He was almost
lifeless in his accumulating fears and fancies. But
that laugh of Conrade, annoying as it was at every
other period, had now the effect of reassuring him.
It had in it a sort of scorn of all these objects of
dread — so Rodolph thought — which re-nerved
the apprehensive youth; and boldly they walked
forward together. The board of death was spread
— the board upon which Oberfeldt had slain himself.
The outlines of his bloody form were printed
his successor was doomed to lie. And who was
that successor? That was the question which
Rodolph propounded momentarily to himself:
“Who? who?”
There was no long time for deliberation. Conrade
led the way. There was a strange cry of
assembled voices from a neighboring apartment,
seemingly from cells beneath the stone floor upon
which they stood. It was like laughter, and yet
Rodolph distinguished now and then a shriek in
the dreadful chorus which followed it. Faint notes
of music — the sudden clang of a trumpet — and
then the rapid rushing and the crash of closing
doors, as if a sudden tempest raged without —
these were the sounds and images which accompanied
the act, in which the fraternity now engaged,
of drawing for the fatal lot.
Blindly, madly, stupidly, and reeling like a
drunken man, Rodolph, under the guidance of his
friend's arm, approached the table, and the massive
iron vase, from which the billet was to be taken.
Desperately was his arm thrust forward into its
fatal jaws. His fingers felt about its bottom, and
he drew forth the card. He knew not what he
had drawn; he dared not look upon it. He believed
his doom to be written.
A signal announced the ceremony to be over—
around the vase, and the several members of the
college advanced with the lots which they had
drawn.
“Give yourselves no trouble, my friends,” exclaimed
one, whose voice Rodolph instantly recognised
to be that of Conrade. “You need not
examine your billets, since mine tells me what
yours must be. I have the good fortune to be
chosen successor to our great founder. It is for
me to set you an example in following that of
Oberfeldt. The billet of death has fallen to my
lot.” And, as he spoke, he displayed the fearful and
blood-written scroll loftily in the sight of the rest.
23. XXIII.
Rodolph was speechless with varying emotions.
His own safety; the loss of his friend; the composure
with which Conrade announced his doom,
and prepared himself for it; all oppressed him
with the strangest sensations. Conrade again
spoke:
“I go to prepare. In the adjoining chamber,
agreeable to the directions of Oberfeldt, lies the
knife and the garment which are to prepare me for
seek to fill my place. From one of these it is for
me to choose. Fear not, my friends, that I shall
choose one unworthy to associate with you. My
pride is, that my successor shall be worthy of me.”
With these words he left the hall. He returned
in a few moments, bringing with him another, of
whose face, though Rodolph knew him not, he did
not seem altogether ignorant. Conrade was robed
for death; and the double-edged knife, with
which Oberfeldt had slain himself, smeared still
with the purple blood of the preceding victim,
was uplifted in his hand.
“This is my successor,” exclaimed Conrade.
“He is named Hans Busacher; you will swear
him upon my body, as you have each of you
sworn upon that of Oberfeldt.”
With these words he prepared to mount the
throne of death, when his eyes met those of Rodolph,
which were full of irrepressible tears.
He whispered in the youth's ears:
“Rodolph, the hour which takes me from life,
gives a double life to you. Busacher tells me
that you are a father. Hurrying by your castle,
the intelligence reached him from a domestic. A
fine son links you now more than ever to Bertha
and to life.”
Without waiting for reply, the intrepid Conrade
leaped upon the table. He gave but a single look
and parting nod to the assembly; then, drawing
the keen edge of the knife with a heavy hand over
his throat, his eyes were fixed, a second after, in
the dim haze and utter insensibility of death.
Silence was among the rest, but a heavy groan
burst from Rodolph, drowned, however, in a burst
of shrieks and yells, from the cells below, which
were appalling. But there was little time allowed
for speculation upon these matters. The uninitiate
now advanced to the table, and each member
crowded round to repeat the terms of the oath to
Hans Busacher which he was required to take.
He did not shrink, though he had gazed upon the
awful event which had just taken place. With
one hand upon the body of Conrade, the fingers
of the other grasped the pen, and signed the instrument;
and Rodolph saw, ever as Busacher
wrote, that the name of Conrade faded from the
body of the instrument above, while that of Busacher,
letter by letter, rose visibly in its place.
The ceremony over, he rushed from the horrible
connexion, and was soon blessed with the sight of
that dear pledge of love, of which Weickhoff, in
the moment of death, had informed him.
24. XXIV.
The escape from his present danger was a new
life to Rodolph. In just proportion to his former
extreme apprehensions, was his feeling of security
now. He did not, for the present, trouble himself
with thoughts of the future. There was time
enough, month after month, in the long, sweet year
before him. His thoughts were all due to his wife
and child; to the beautiful boy, in whose infant
lineaments Bertha had already clearly traced out
all the features of the father's face. The days, the
weeks, flew rapidly by in the freshness of so new
and pure a pleasure. Joy vainly spread forth his
witcheries, to delay the feet of time. Months had
now elapsed, and a cloud began to gather upon
the brow of Rodolph, a cloud which even the
caresses of his wife and infant failed at all times
to disperse.
One day Bertha said to her husband — her child
being in her arms, and she being within those of
Rodolph —
“Dearest, I am sad to see you so. Wherefore
is it? Why are you gloomy? And you groan,
Rodolph, oh, so deeply in your sleep, as if you
Rodolph. Share it with me, dear husband. If
I cannot soothe, I can better assist you to endure
it.”
How freely, how joyfully would he have revealed
to her, if he had dared, the awful secret that
was harrowing up his soul. Better if he had done
so; but he was not sufficiently assured of that
mighty strength which is in the bosom of a woman
who loves devotedly, and he doubted her ability
to bear the horrible recital of what he knew and
dreaded. She implored him in vain; he evaded
and denied, until she grew unhappy, as she saw
that he did evade.
At another time she said:
“Dear Rodolph, you do not pray with me now,
as you were wont to do. When we were first
wedded, it was so sweet to kneel with you, and
pray together, each night before we slept, and
confess to each other our mutual errors and unkindnesses.
Now, dear Rodolph, I pray alone.
Wherefore is it, Rodolph? Ah, husband, shall we
not again pray together? Shall we not kneel to-night,
and renew our former custom?”
He looked at her with the desperate fondness of
a dying man — so fondly, so earnestly, so despairingly.
He folded his arms around her; he pressed
promised her that their prayers should be once
more united.
That evening, when they had sought their
chamber, she proceeded to exact the fulfilment of
his pledge. She led him to the altar, and they
kneeled together, and the pure hearted woman
began to pray aloud. Rodolph was silent, or
strove vainly to utter a corresponding prayer. On
a sudden, he started up with a wild shriek; he
thrust his eyes in his palms, and fled from the
apartment; and that night he came not again to
the expecting arms of his wife. He had seen the
face of Conrade Weickhoff peering from behind
the altar upon him; that horrible grin upon his
lips, and a glare from his eyes that seemed satanic.
25. XXV.
While it was yet early, he had a visit the next
morning from Hans Busacher, who had recently
become a neighbor, and was in possession of the
domains formerly belonging to Conrade Weickhoff.
Rodolph trembled and shuddered to behold
him, not only as his neighborhood reminded him
the face of Busacher very much like that of Conrade.
There was nothing offensive, however,
either in the person or the manners of the new visiter.
He was courteous and affable, seemed to
have always moved in the best society, and, in
every respect, might have been considered a very
model of gentility. There was, perhaps, something
of loftiness in his air, which some may have
regarded as stiffness, and he was essentially divested
of all those softer feelings which beguile
humanity with dreams. He was cold in the extreme,
if not a phlegmatic. Rodolph and himself
conversed for a good while on indifferent topics,
and the youth, who, wanting in decision of character,
himself needed some stronger spirit upon
whom to lean, began to be pleased with his visiter,
and was really grateful to him for having called.
When Busacher was about to go, Rodolph warmly
made his acknowledgments, and grasping the
hand of the former with a strong gripe, he begged
that he might again soon see him at the castle.
“I know not,” said the other, with composure,
“that I shall soon have that pleasure. This is
July. I go in a few days upon a journey to the
borders, where I have to make some arrangements
when I shall see you again, of course.”
The very language of Conrade a year before.
The visiter was gone; and, during the rest of that
day, unseen by wife or domestics, Rodolph tottered,
like a paralytic, through a dark gallery of his
dwelling.
26. XXVI.
Let us skip over the intervening period. Nothing
need be said in all this time of the increasing
mental agony of Rodolph. It will be sufficient
to know that his despair and suffering were
even greater than during the year before. Life
had grown dearer to him; he was bound to it by
new ties; and Bertha and his child grew lovelier
and more necessary to his heart, with every increase
of the doubt and the dread which were gathering
and groping there.
The night came, and, to his surprise, Hans Busacher
was again his visiter.
“I am but now returned from the borders,”
were his first words; “and knowing that your
course lay with mine to-night, I concluded to stop
in passing, and bear you company.”
“What an alteration in his voice!” said Rodolph
to himself. “I have certainly heard that
voice frequently before.”
Thus he mused as he looked upon his visiter,
and he shuddered with the strangest emotions. He
parted from Bertha, suppressing his grief as well
as he could, but full of the most painful presentiments.
“Come back soon, dear Rodolph,” she cried
to him entreatingly, and he promised her, but with
a choking accent.
The companions soon reached Oberfeldt castle,
and, one by one, the several members of the college
were soon assembled together. Let us not
dwell upon the preparatory display on this occasion.
We already know the rites and orgies
which were initial. We have already seen the
decorations of the dismal chamber, and the dreadful
hall. They were now the same. Rodolph
well remembered each fearful characteristic. The
same scene was renewed in all its parts; and, amid
crowding forms, and stimulated even into madness
by similar objects, sights, and sounds, as had attended
the proceedings of the previous anniversary,
he, with the rest, advanced to the iron vase.
They drew their billets in turn, and when Rodolph
was decreed to him in characters of blood.
27. XXVII.
His head swam — his heart sickened — he tottered
from the fearful board, and stammering out
his intention to the rest, passed into the adjoining
apartment, where he was to choose his successor,
and prepare for the execution of his doom.
“Poor fellow!” said one, “he does not seem
to like it.”
“No,” said another, “but better him than us.
It will always be a year too soon when the time
comes, and so no doubt he thinks it.”
“Wonder how he likes leaving his wife,” said
a third; “they say he is very fond of her.”
“Psha! is she fond of him? is the question.
She will have no loss; she's quite as lovely as
ever, and I will take some pains myself to console
her,” said a fourth, who was one of the most
self-complacent of the group. It is in this brutal
fashion that vice presumes to speak of the superior
virtue which it hates and fears. Little did
the pure minded Bertha at that moment imagine
that such as these were the associates of her husband.
some time in the hall, when some one remarked
upon the long absence of the victim:
“He stays long!”
“Yes; his choice is difficult. It is to be hoped
he brings us a proper man, a good fellow, not too
proud to know his friends and neighbors.”
“If he does,” said a third, “we should rejoice
in the exchange, for he will then give us a more
sociable and better fellow than himself.”
The delay of Rodolph to return, at length provoked
anxiety. He was sought for, and was nowhere
to be found. The successor was unchosen
— the fatal garment unassumed — the knife of
death unappropriated. The unhappy youth dared
not fulfil his pledges. Life was too sweet —
death too terrible — and scarcely enjoying the
one, or only destined to enjoy it in horrors, he had
yet fled from the utterly bereaving embraces of
the other. He had availed himself of the few
moments which were allotted to the victim for
solitary preparation, to hurry through a neighboring
passage, and regain the court-yard. There,
mounting his steed, he had fled with all desperation,
and a full half hour had elapsed after his
departure before his flight was discovered.
28. XXVIII.
There was a general hubbub among the collegiates
when the discovery was made. All was
confusion and uproar.
“The coward!” several of them exclaimed,
“thus to fly from death.”
“Dishonorable!” cried others, “not to meet his
engagements.” Some proposed to pursue and
put him to death; and this opinion was about to
be carried, when Hans Busacher, who had, in all
this time, preserved the profoundest silence, now
interposed as follows:
“We may not do as you propose, my friends;
we are bound by our contract to a different course.
What says the will of Oberfeldt on this subject?
and how, under his directions, are we to punish a
member who flies from his honorable pledge?
We are not to harm a hair of his head; we are
not to shed a drop of his blood; we are not to
break a limb of his body; we are not to abridge
a portion of his breath; but we are to do all —
we are to compel him to the performance of the
deed by a will and act of his own.”
“How can that be done?” was the general
them remembered any such requisitions in the
document.
“Does the will say so?” was the inquiry of one
and all.
“You shall see for yourselves,” was the reply.
They read, and, sure enough, there were plainly
written down the fatal requisitions. They were
aghast, and Hans Busacher smiled scornfully as
he beheld their confusion. After a brief pause,
he proceeded:
“Our task is not so difficult as you imagine.
Why does Rodolph Steinmyer fly from death?
Because he is in love with life! Why is he in
love with life? Because there are many things
in life which make it worthy of his love. What
do we, then, my friends? Evidently, we are to
deprive him of all those objects which make him
regardless of his honor. Our work begins from
this moment. Come all of you with me into the
private room of council. There let us confer together,
on the best plan for bringing our brother
back to the consideration of his duty.”
What they did, to what they pledged themselves,
and what they designed in that secret conference,
may not be said. They separated after
a brief interval; and the shade of Oberfeldt
yielding him any additional companion.
29. XXIX.
Let us follow the flight of the devoted Rodolph.
The poor youth fled madly to his home. In desperation,
upon the bosom of his wife he poured
forth the whole dreadful narrative. A silent horror
seized upon her. She was dumb; she was
stupified with dread. She knew of but one resource,
and she called upon God! She implored
her husband to kneel with her before the same
altar, and he did so; but when, like her, he strove
to call upon God, a wild yell arose from the floor
beneath him — a yell of fiendish derision — that
drowned all supplication. At the same moment,
a fierce implacable glare shot out from two eyes
behind the altar, that seemed like dim and baleful
stars, looking forth amidst the gloomy and sudden
gusts of September. Rodolph sank fainting upon
the floor, and Bertha, prostrating herself upon his
body, prayed fervently to heaven for the succor
and the safety of the doomed one!
The night passed — a night of horror. The
day came and passed — a day of increasing horror,
ways to the hopelessness of Rodolph.
“Let us fly,” said the devoted wife; “let us
fly, my Rodolph, into other countries. We shall
then be beyond the reach of these people. You
can then be at peace, and happy.”
He embraced her, and they determined upon
flight. In secrecy he prepared money and jewels
for use in a foreign land. His horses were in
readiness, a faithful retainer intrusted with the
secret only, and every arrangement was made
for a start at midnight. It came, and stealing
forth with his infant son in his arms, and his wife
clinging to his side, Rodolph, when all were
asleep, descended to the porch where the carriage
was in waiting. They entered the vehicle, and
departed; but as they drove through the portals,
they heard voices calling them back, and then a
chuckling laugh, which seemed like that of Conrade.
They reached a deep wood, when suddenly
the sky became overcast, and they could no longer
find their way. A storm of lightning came up,
and the horses grew frightened. Strange cries,
as of men in battle, reached their ears from the
distance, and as they drove forward desperately,
the horses sank back in terror from some object
which lay in their way. Provocations like these
alighted from the carriage, and approached the
object which had so alarmed the horses. The
distinct outline of a man's body, which seemed
lifeless, lay in the path. A groan reached his
ears. He stooped to the body, to feel if life were
yet in its bosom. The figure stretched up its
arms, as if to embrace him. At that moment, a
sharp flash of lightning showed him the face of
Conrade Weickhoff, the head nearly severed from
the body. He dashed down the bloody carcass;
leaped again into the vehicle; while shrieks of
demoniac laughter seemed to run and gather in
the air, pursuing all around him. With his own
hands, nerved by desperation, he drove the careering
horses over the carcass, and heedless of the
road, made his way forward.
“Whither so fast?” cried a strange voice, in
front of him. “Would you cross the river in
such a freshet, when the bridge is swept away?
Turn, instantly, or you must perish.”
It was a sort of instinct that prompted the next
movement of Rodolph. The horses were wheeled
round, and, driving without an aim, he drove till
daylight. At dawn, the extensive and beautiful
domains of a fine castle lay before him.
“Where am I?” he demanded of a peasant.
“At the castle of Baron Rodolph of Steinmyer,”
was the reply.
Rodolph was again at home.
30. XXX.
There was a destiny in all this. Rodolph began
to perceive how desperate was the contest
before him. He devoted himself to meditation
upon the means of his escape, and for hours he
was absorbed in thought, to the exclusion of all
outward consciousness. At length he called to
him a faithful adherent:
“Claus,” he said, “you will take the lady
Bertha and her child to Staremberg castle. You
will begone instantly, and put yourself in readiness.”
He then sought Bertha, and told her his intention.
“Once secure at Staremberg, Bertha, and you
will not encumber my flight. You can follow me
when you hear of my safety in another land.
Take with you these jewels and this gold. They
will serve us at a future time, and bid defiance to
want.”
He opened the caskets as he spoke, but, instead
few rocks in an envelop. That envelop was a
bloody napkin, marked “Oberfeldt,” and having
on it a purple stain, which gave the idea of a
rudely impressed hand and dagger. The sight
almost blinded the horror-stricken youth. The
doom was gathering around him.
At length Bertha and the child, under the
guardianship of Claus, set forward upon the journey
to her father's castle of Staremberg. Rodolph
separated from her at the gate with many tears.
When they were gone, he mounted his steed, and
rode away gloomily into the forest. It was late
in the day when he determined to return. He
had meditated his plan thoroughly, and had, at
length, devised a scheme which, he flattered himself,
would enable him successfully to fly from his
persecutors. When he reached the edges of the
forest a bright blaze illuminated it, with a light
beyond that of day. He was bewildered by the
conflagration, and hurried forward. When he
had fully emerged from the obscurity of the woods,
he knew the extent of the evil. His fine palace
was in flames. He reached the gates, and found
all his retainers in consternation. The fire was a
mystery; nobody could account for it. While
he gazed upon the blazing ruins, he saw amid the
own. If he had not been well acquainted with
the hateful glare of those eyes, he was yet not
ignorant of the source of that fiendish laugh,
which rose high above the rock when the tottering
walls went down in a final crash. How much
less difficult did it now seem to Rodolph to die!
Suffering had already began to blunt sensibility.
31. XXXI.
Like an abandoned wretch, he rode over to
Staremberg castle. He could not depart without
seeing Bertha and his child. Their absence had
already half reconciled him to the worst. But
where were they? Neither baron nor baroness had
yet seen their daughter and grandson.
“Trifle not with me, I pray you,” cried Rodolph,
in his agony. “Bring me to them. I
am in no mood for sport; I cannot brook delay.”
When assured that they had not yet made their
appearance, with a mad yell he rushed away into
the forest. The retainers of Staremberg followed
in pursuit; and the old baron himself, who tenderly
loved his daughter, did not withhold himself
from the search which was instituted for her. It
the first tidings of his beloved. Midway between
his own and Staremberg castle, the carriage lay
overturned, and almost torn to pieces. The horses
were stiff dead, and yet there were no marks or
wounds upon them. They seemed literally to have
been blasted. The dead body of a man lay
stretched out before a portion of the vehicle,
wearing a dress like that of Claus, to whose custody
Bertha had been intrusted; but what was
the horror of Rodolph, on approaching the body,
to discover the features of his ancient comrade,
Conrade Weickhoff, once again visibly before him.
And the horrible image unclosed its eyes, and
glared upon him, as with a lustful longing, from
beneath the sickly glaze which still overspread the
rapidly decaying orbs.
The fear of death was no longer a fear with
Rodolph Steinmyer. The goods of life were
gone — the things which he had lived for, and
which had made life a province of delight superseding
the desire in his mind for any other, were
all gone. The wife and the child were torn from
him for ever — murdered, doubtlessly, by the
demon fingers of his foul associates, or the demon
agents of that awful being with whom, it was now
the fear of Rodolph, he had been commercing
however, he congratulated himself that, though
bargaining with the demon, he had sold him nothing
but his life — he had not traded away his
soul! Rodolph was not so subtle a casuist as the
devil! A yell of derisive laughter rose in the air
around him, the moment that his lips gave utterance
to the absurdity; and he distinctly beheld the
long, bony, and skinless fingers of Conrade Weickhoff
stretching up toward him from the carcass.
He rushed away from the dreadful place and
spectacle. Madness seemed to prompt his course,
and desperation gave him wings. But there was
method in his madness. His mind had reached
that stage of frenzy in which nothing can touch
it farther. He was now insensible to hope and
fear, as he was indifferent to life. One met him
in his flight, whom he saw not, but the voice of
Hans Busacher he knew.
“We go together,” said Hans.
“We do!” was the reply.
“You are waited for!” said the former.
“Who waits?” demanded Rodolph, fiercely.
A finger rested upon his wrist, and the touch
seemed to enfeeble him, while the other briefly replied
—
“Oberfeldt! — Weickhoff! — Bertha!”
“Ha! I am ready!” was the desperate, but
shuddering response; and they entered together
the gates of Oberfeldt castle, which immediately
closed heavily behind them. There was now no
escape for Rodolph, but he thought not of that.
32. XXXII.
Shouts received the fugitive — shouts of laughter,
of scorn, of encouragement and cheer, rang
in his senses. The members of the college were
all assembled, as if they had been waiting for,
and apprized of his coming. He looked round
the apartment, and noted their several faces. His
emotions were not such as they were when he had
previously met his colleagues. He had now no
fears. His limbs were firm — his muscles rigid
and inflexible — his nerves unshaken. Yet the
pomp of death around him was even more gloomily
grand than ever. The tapestry, that seemed
made up of gathering shadows, of mighty spectres,
and the awfulest forms, appeared to contract
momently around him. Huge torches, borne in
the hands of mute images, waved with a flaring
and smoky light, in dense niches of the apartment.
Faint tones of music, followed by an occasional
came to his senses; and more than once, as if
nearer at hand, the plainings of a child seemed to
assail him, as if from his own murdered innocent.
This fancy at once drove him forward to his purpose.
“I am ready,” he exclaimed to the confederates.
“Not so,” said Busacher; “you are to choose
your successor. The candidates await you.”
“Must I do this?” demanded Rodolph, shrinking
from the task of entailing his own dreadful
doom upon another.
“You must!” was the reply; and Busacher
led the victim to the chamber in which his preparations
were to be made. Many were the candidates
who were there, claiming the privileges of
eternal sorrow, in connexion with a momentary
indulgence. With eyes closed, Rodolph extended
his hands, determined to leave to fate that choice
which he was bent not to make himself. The person
he touched came forward, and Rodolph, when
he looked upon him, beheld a fair youth, even
younger than himself, in the man he had selected.
He would have amended his choice. He would have
taken one of the degraded and besotted candidates
whom a long familiarity with vice in all its forms had
of the future. But he was not allowed to do so,
nor would the infatuated youth, so chosen, himself
permit of any change. Bitterly, but too late, did
Rodolph deplore his error; but regrets were idle
at such a moment. He robed himself in the unhallowed
investiture of self-murder. He clutched
the bloody knife in his desperate hand. He led
his youthful successor into the hall of death. He
stood with him before its altar. A dreadful struggle
was going on within his bosom; for the good
angel of a guardian conscience had not yet entirely
given up its trust. But, when he beheld the
doubting and the sneering glances of those around
him, and when he thought of the wife and child
whom he had lost, he hesitated no longer. Fearlessly
he leaped upon the bloody board, and the
knife was uplifted. As he gave the fatal blow, a
shriek, a scream — the voice of a woman in a
deep agony — reached his ears, with the rushing
of feet from an adjoining chamber. He knew the
tones of that voice. They were those of Bertha.
Half conscious only, he strove to raise himself
from the bloody bier, and his eyes were turned in
the direction whence the sounds proceeded. The
tapestry was thrown aside, and his wife — her child
movements those of a love bordering upon madness
— rushed toward him where he lay. He
strove, in the agony of death — for the last sickness
was fast overcoming the life-tide at his heart
— to extend his arms to receive her; but, at that
moment, the form of Hans Busacher passed between
them.
“Keep me not back,” cried the wretched woman,
“he is mine — he is my husband.”
“He is mine!” cried Busacher, in a voice like
the falling of a torrent — so deep, so startling —
so sudden at the first. The dim eye of Rodolph
gazed up at the intruder, and the form of Busacher
seemed changed to that of Conrade Weickhoff.
There was the same scornful smile upon
his lips, and the ears of the dying man were conscious
of the same horrible, chuckling laugh,
which had characterized his friend. While he yet
looked in amaze, the figure seemed to grow and
to expand, and he was now aware that the dreadful
personage before him was about to assume another
aspect. While he watched with the last lingering
consciousness of life, and while the breath flickered
faintly, and was drawn unresistingly toward
the fearful presence which he watched, he beheld
the features change from those of Conrade, into a
for the first time, how completely he was the victim;
since, in place of him who had been his
friend, he saw, in the moment of his final agony,
the triumphant and stony glare which marks the
glance of the demon Mephistopheles, whose slave
he had become.
| Carl Werner | |