Hanging moss

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B Y THE SAME A UTHOR.

LACE. A Berlin Romance. i2mo. Paper, 50 cents ; cloth, 75 cents.

“ A powerful romance, ... It is impossible to resist the fascination of Herr Lindau’s story.” — Binghamton Republican.

“The story is one of more than ordinary power, the plot well considered and closely knit.” — New Orleans Times-Democrat.

“ The romance Is a strangely original one. ... It is dramatically written, and its chief tragedy is wrought with artistic vigor. Throughout the story the final crisis is apparent, yet there is no lo.ss of interest in the foreknowledge that the ‘ Lamoral ’ is to work its dreadful curse.” — Brooklyn 7imes.

“ The principal characters move in the higher circles, and |hey are drawn with artistic skill and distinctness, while life in Berlin generally is portrayed with rare vigor and accuracy. The novel is one that will be successful in this country, for it takes the American reader into really new fields of fiction.” — Boston Saturday Evening Gazette.

D. APPLETON & CO., Publishers, New York.

PAUL 'a^INDAU

AUTHOR OF LACE

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN

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'> 0 ^' 26 1892 )

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NEW YORK

D. APPLETON AND COMPANY

Copyright, 1892,

By D. APPLETON AND COMPANY.

Electrotyped and Printed AT THE Appleton Press, U. S. A

HANGING MOSS.

Chapter I

Felix Welsheim was the architect of his own fortunes. Of this fact he was very proud, and to all who wished to hear his story, and to many who did not, he was fond of relating how in the mad year of 1848, when only a lad of fifteen years, he had come to the great city of Berlin, his shoes ragged and torn, and his only capital six good groschen ; how he began his business career as errand-boy in the house of E. Tillmann & Sons, an old-established firm held in high respect in the business world. At that time the head of the house was Ewald Tillmann, the grandson of the founder of the firm, which had sustained its honourable reputation since the end of the previous century.

The worthy Tillmann took a fancy to Felix, and recognised in him an active and wide-awake boy. As an experiment he gave him a commis-

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sion far exceeding the demands usually made upon an errand-boy, and, when this was fulfilled to his entire satisfaction, he called Felix into his office one morning and informed him that he would take him into the business as an apprentice, continuing his salary as a special favour — under the condition that no one in the office should hear of it. Ten years later Mr. Tillmann was able to send his protegi to the Exchange to transact business for the house, and Felix Welsheim showed such a decided business talent, operated with such prudence and success, not only for his employer but also for himself, that four years later, when Tillmann angrily reproached him one day with speculating on his own responsibility, and of having culpably used to his own advantage a business secret divulged to him in strictest confidence, Felix assumed an air of most righteous indignation, and broke off all connection with his benefactor on the spot.

He had long waited for this day. In the early part of the year 1858 his name appeared in the Commercial Register as the head of a banking and commission business. Fortune favoured all his important undertakings.

In midsummer of 1866, at the breaking out of the Austro-Prussian War, when a temporary de-

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pression occurred in all securities, he stretched his credit to the utmost, so as to speculate largely in real estate — with brilliant success. Felix Welsheim was now looked upon as a man of means, but in reality he was much richer than people supposed. He gave up his cosy, modest dwelling in the Krausen Strasse and hired an apartment on the first floor of a fine new building in the Victoria Strasse. None of his friends and acquaintances supposed for a moment that he would lead his solitary bachelor life for any length of time in his new quarters, and the supposition that he was on the lookout for a wife was confirmed when he began gradually to withdraw from all convivialities at the Linden Restaurant, and to break off his connection with a third-rate actress from a fourthrate theatre, with whom he had often been seen, and when in the following winter he made his appearance at all the fashionable affairs.

‘‘ Welsheim is coming,” the hostess would whisper meaningly to the mothers of marriageable daughters, certain of producing a pleasant impression by this announcement.

But the winter went by, and spring and summer, and Welsheim had not yet found among the daughters of the land the fair one he sought. At last, in the autumn, he met a young girl at Scar-

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borough who pleased him exceedingly, and to whom he paid most assiduous court.

She was Miss Leonie Delponte, of Holland birth but Portuguese descent, and. the daughter of a well-to-do merchant of Amsterdam. She was now twenty years old, and her mother had carefully instilled into her mind the necessity of making a brilliant marriage. For the last three years she had been taken to the fashionable baths, to che Riviera, and to Paris; and nothing in the way of display had been omitted in order to capture the expectant millionaire or nobleman of ancient family — but till now without avail. For some time a distinct feeling of uneasiness had seized both mother and daughter, and accordingly, when Felix Welsheim approached the Delponte family he received an exceptionally gracious reception. As Mrs. Delponte perceived that the young German banker would undoubtedly propose to her Leonie within the next few days, she wired at once to her husband in Amsterdam to make thorough inquiries in Berlin. The result was gratifying, and Leonie received permission to accept Mr. Welsheim’s wooing with correctly lowered lids, and blushingly to refer him to mamma at the proper time. The affair took its regular course. At the beginning of October, 1868, the engage-

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ment of Miss Leonie Delponte to Mr. Felix Welsheim was announced.

In the middle of December the wedding took place, and at the end of January, 1869, the young couple, having spent their honeymoon in Cannes and Nice, came to Berlin.

Leonie made no little stir in Berlin society. She was undoubtedly, if not the loveliest, certainly one of the most elegant and piquant, of all the young women of the capital. Her small head, with its heavy dark hair, was finely set ; her shoulders, her neck, her arms, roused the admiration of the men, and consequently the envy of the women. She dressed witft a certain originality, yet simply and in perfect good taste. But her greatest charm lay in her remarkable eyes. They were neither excessively large nor even beautiful, but there was a singular questioning look in their depths ; their fleeting, far-away glance lighted for an instant on persons and things, then passed quickly on and seemed to lose itself in empty air.

Leonie was something of a coquette. She was '"a brilliant conversationalist, and, as she upheld the most daring opinions with astonishing boldness, she soon earned the reputation of a clever woman. She talked with the assurance of a queen on all

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subjects, possible and impossible, and invariably said the opposite of what others said.

Unsuccessful plays she found charming, works of art which made a sensation she declared to be bungling atrocities, and in the perpetrator of some most brutal deed who met his just deserts she pitied the martyr to social prejudice.

Leonie unquestionably possessed one great advantage over the women who were her social equals. She was more broad-minded. She had seen and heard more and knew better how to adopt that charming unaffectedness in social intercourse than did most of her kind. At the time when Berlin was still in swaddling clothes, Leonie was one of the few, perhaps the only one, who had known how to draw a circle about her which bore some resemblance to the cosmopolitan salon. With an inborn tact, fostered by good training, she knew how to establish a delightful unanimity between the widely varied elements accustomed to meet at her house informally on Tuesday evenings.

Each young man, whether he belonged to the diplomatic corps or the army, or was wedded to literature or art, or played a part in commerce or on the Exchange, imagined himself to be specially favoured by his charming hostess, and believed with some reason that he dared read, in a quickly

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intercepted glance of those dreamy eyes, something like an assent to an unspoken question.

During the Franco-Prussian War Welsheim had trebled his fortune. He was now one of the notable figures on the Berlin Exchange. His intimacy with people who were in the position to be well informed on the political situation was well known, and when he held forth on the great topics of the day he was always surrounded by a crowd of eager listeners. On these occasions he assumed an air of great importance, wrinkled his forehead into deep lines, thrust his hands in his pockets, and slowly tilted backwards and forwards on his heels and toes. It was not necessary for his jokes to be good, for them to go the rounds during business hours and to take their way later up the Burgstrasse, to the Thiergarten. In a word, Welsheim had become an important man in the financial world. Beginners felt flattered when he spoke to them, and he himself looked down with smiling superiority upon old Tillmann, whom he had long ago outstripped.

This important and dictatorial man in his business circle shrank to a mere nonentity in his own household. Leonie had never looked up to him, and it seemed perfectly natural to her that she should rule him. She alone settled all important lO

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and unimportant questions, without brooking any attempt at interference, and much less any opposition. She decided the sending out of invitations and the acceptance or refusal of those, received, the theatre night, the summer resort, the household arrangements. Felix had no voice in the matter. At times, when he was puzzled, and meekly asked an explanation with a certain helplessness which was in ludicrous contrast to the self-assured manner of the business man, she laughingly cut short any further discussion with the words, “Mon ami, cela ne te regaj;de pas” — for in such cases Leonie was always in the habit of using French.

Among the young men who never failed to appear regularly every Tuesday at Mrs. Welsheim’s receptions, the young author. Dr. Hugo Hall, seemed most to please the taste of his hostess. Dr. Hall was first introduced to Welsheim in 1872. At that time the young author was twenty-nine years old. He had originally gone deeply into the natural sciences, botany in particular. The success of a little volume of poems had induced him to put aside his studies and to devote himself entirely to literature. He enjoyed the reputation of possessing unusual talent — genius, in fact — although he had as yet done nothing to deserve this

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II reputation. The sketches which he had published made some sensation on account of their bizarre^ paradoxical form, but they affected one like the tortured utterances of a morbid mind. But those who believed in Hall’s greatness attached little importance to these trifles. They declared that Hall had other arrows in his quiver, and the world would be amazed when he launched them. Dr. Hall’s prospective work, about which none could tell whether it was to be written in prose or poetry, was to be a novel or a drama, was already famous before a line was written.

Mrs. Welsheim had done more than any one else to produce this impression. The author’s prospective fame was not a little advanced by his personality. Hall was indeed a striking-looking man — tall, broad-shouldered, easy and graceful in his bearing. He had more the appearance of a southerner. He wore his hair and soft brown beard closely clipped. The smooth, high arched forehead inclosed no ordinary intellect. The finely shaped mouth, with the full lips, betrayed a sensuous nature. The big brown eyes changed expression constantly as he talked, and made an eloquent commentary on his words. Hall pleased all women, and unless all signs were at fault, Leonie in particular. He was quite aware of the

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pleasing impression he produced on the weaker sex, and was openly anxious to retain ^this power. Although things went none too well with him, and he was tormented with constant money troubles, he spent as much on his clothes as the best-known men of the world. As soon as he found himself in the society of women he took up any rdle occasion required, and his mobile face assumed to order the expression of the deep thinker, the pessimist, the desperate flirt, or the utter fool.

At their first meeting, Leonie had made an unusual impression upon him, and she herself — who was accustomed to strengthen each young man in the delusion that she favoured him above all others, and was more attracted to him than she ought to be — had taken a more lively interest in Hugo Hall's melancholy and yet passionate eyes than she was willing to admit even to herself.

After the first unavoidable trivialities of a new acquaintance they had scarcely spoken together five minutes when they discovered simultaneously that they were equally skilled opponents in the subtle art of drawing-room skirmishing. Both had the instinctive feeling that their acquaintance would not be limited to a mere superficial bandying of words ; that an unseen power was forcing

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them fatally towards each other, and both recoiled before it. Both were exasperated at each other without any apparent cause.

Leonie, who only made malicious remarks about people when they were absent, was especially charming towards all her guests. But it seemed an impossibility for her to say a single friendly word to Hugo. She was cutting, sarcas^ tic, almost rude. Hugo, though spoiled by kindness, was not in the least discomposed by such treatment. He acted as though he had expected it, and seemed to find it quite in the order of things. He only attracted the young woman all the more by his coolness and feigned indifference. She was seriously provoked, and left him with intentional rudeness. ^‘You are really too young and not yet famous enough to smile in such a superior way,” she said, as her blue eyes scanned his, Then she turned her back upon him, and, slowly fanning herself, went towards a group of chattering guests. In their midst she soon recovered her tone of charming affal)ility. Although she apparently took no further notice of the author whom she had snubbed so ungraciously, she thought of no one but him, and he alone in the crowded rooms seemed a living being to her; all others were but as shadows and phantoms. And when for a time

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she lost sight of him, and reflected that he had taken his departure without bidding ' her good night, a strange uneasiness came over her. She abruptly broke off the conversation in which she was taking part, pleading the duties of a hostess, and went in search of him.

Hugo had intended slipping quietly out of the house whose mistress had been so provokingly uncivil to him, but he had stayed, for stay he must. He had persuaded himself that he could not afford Mrs. Welsheim the triumph of having driven him from the field at the first encounter. But, in truth, triumph or defeat had nothing to do with it. He felt himself held in Leonie’s presence ; whether she treated him well or ill it mattered not, the principal thing was that he was near her, could see her and hear her. He saw how all faces brightened, as if by the reflection of her peculiar charm, when she approached the various groups with her bewitching smile. He admired the beautiful, slender figure, the loveliness of the rounded throat and the dazzling neck, and the wonderful mass of soft dark hair with its little coquettish curls, and he quite forgot that he bore any grudge against Leonie herself. He was filled with a longing to be more to her than other men ; he had also a certain proud premonition of success.

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Just then he noticed that Leonie was advancing through the rooms with that peculiar smile and address which conveys an unspoken desire not to be detained in conversation, and was letting her gaze wander slowly and systematically through the rooms. She had not yet seen him in the shadow of a recess behind a tall mass of flowers, and he still had time to assume the position and to take on the expression which seemed the most effective and fitting. He decided 6n a careless, languid air of superiority and an expression of unruffled calm. Suddenly she caught sight of him. Their eyes met only for the immeasurable space of a second, but both stood transfixed, with throbbing hearts. Then she passed on, serene and smiling, as before, and said to a young lady who stood near her: “ Where did you get those lovely gardenias ? I shall certainly change my florist. For six months he has sent me nothing but miserable things on wires ! " The lady gave her her florist’s address, recommending him highly. Leonie thanked her with effusion. She had not heard a word. As if she could think of gardenias and flowers on wires, or any other way, at this moment ! She did not speak one word to Hugo Hall.

Only, as he came to take leave of her, one

of the last guests, towards two in the morn- 2 i6

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ing, she said, and this time with unfeigned friendliness :

“We shall see you soon again ? ”

“ As soon as you will permit me — next Tuesday, if it will not be too presumptuous.”

“ Oh, that is much too long a time to wait ! By that time the opinion that you must have of me will be too firmly rooted, and I am anxious that you should learn to know me better.”

“ I already think the very best of you, but of course it would be the greatest honour and pleasure to me—”

“ Are you engaged for to - morrow evening ? ”

“ If I may to-morrow, no.”

“ Then come to the theatre with us. There has been so much said in favour of the new play. Liedke, Ehrhartt, and old Doering must be very fine. Have you seen the premilre ? ”

“ No, not yet.”

“ Then 1 may count on you ? I will send you the ticket to-morrow noon. We shall be alone — with my husband — ”

“You are too kind. Until to-morrow, then — ”

“Until to-morrow — ”

She held out her hand from which she had been drawing her glove as they talked. He raised the

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slender fingers to his lips, and respectfully took his leave.

When, soon after, the last guest had left, and Welsheim wished his wife good night, kissing her on the forehead, Leonie said :

“ I want a box for the theatre to-morrow night.” Welsheim looked up in astonishment.

“ Why, this morning when I asked you, you said — ”

“This morning I had no desire for one, but now I wish it, dear Felix.”

“ But, my dear child, it will be very difficult. Since last night’s success, every seat in the house has been taken — ”

“ You will find ways and means,” smiled Leonie. “ I have the utmost confidence in you.”

“ I will do all I can, but I cannot promise.”

“I have no fear. I have heard so much about the play to-day — ” ^

“ Yes, yes; I will do all I can.”

“ By the way,” said Leonie carelessly, already turned towards the door, “ the young doctor whom Ringstetter brought here, the author— what is his name ? ”

“ Dr. Hall.”

“Yes. I have asked Dr. Hall to go with us. You know his address, and you will have the kindi8

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ness to send him the ticket in the* course of the afternoon. Good night again.”

The following day, at the Exchange, Welsheim secured a box at three times its value, and sent the ticket to Dr. Hugo 'Hall, at Mrs. Councillor Brener’s, Brtider Strasse.

Chapter II

Six months had passed since that evening which Leonie Welsheim and Hugo Hall — with the obliging co-operation of Mr. Felix Welsheim — had spent together at the theatre. It was in April of 1873 that Dr. Ringstetter, the equally malicious and clever retailer of all unpleasant stories, told Mrs. Welsheim that her young prot^gd was only awaiting the success of his play on which he had been working assiduously since his acquaintance with Leonie, to marry hi^ landlady’s daughter, a Miss Martha Breuer, to whom he had been engaged for over a year.

Louis had at first taken the intelligence as a somewhat tasteless joke. But Ringstetter gave such a mass of details, which seemed so thoroughly credible, that she could no longer doubt the truth of the startling news. She affected an extravagant gaiety, found the story too amusing, too ridiculous, and laughed so violently that Ringstetter’s suspicions regarding the intimacy which

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had arisen between the two were considerably strengthened.

She asked indifferently about the young girl — but not indifferently enough to deceive the sharpsighted Ringstetter — and learned that her name was Martha Breuer ; that she was the daughter of a Mrs. Councillor Breuer, n^e Tillmann, a poor widow who eked out her scanty pension by taking lodgers, and even then had scarcely enough to provide herself and her sickly child with the bare necessaries of life. Hugo Hall had already lived more than five years at Mrs. Breuer’s. The pale Martha, with her great blue eyes of unnatural brilliancy, and her transparent skin through which the veins in the temples could be plainly seen, had touched and charmed him. He had passed many hours in the widow’s small sitting-room, had read his poems to Martha, who had listened to his words with glowing eyes, and, without his being able to say exactly how he had come to do it, he had asked for Martha’s hand, and had afterwards persuaded himself that he was in love with her.

Martha had been no less surprised at the offer than he was at making it. Brought up from childhood in suffering and poverty, she had lived quietly and hopelessly within herself ; it had never occurred to her that she was a woman who might

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be loved. She had almost no associates, she had never been wooed, and when she incidentally heard a remark concerning this or that young man, she only smiled, for she had nothing to say. She seldom left her mother, who continually bemoaned a needy widow’s sad lot and the injustice of fortune, and she secretly worked, as far as her strength permitted, for a large embroidery firm, to add a few groschen to her mother’s slender income. She considered herself utterly unattractive — without reason ; for she was a simple, modest, lovable child, even a very pretty girl when one looked at her more closely. But one had to look at her very closely — even her beauty was modest and retiring. The wealth of beautiful blonde hair,' which seemed to suck up the greater parir of the delicate girl’s strength, was scarcely to be seen to advantage in its simple arrangement. Only when she laughed — and her laugh came seldom — did one see the brilliant white teeth. She was of middle height, thin, and at eighteen was still undeveloped as a child. It was some time before it became clear to her what Dr. Hall — who until then had been to her only the tenant of the large room — meant by his proposal. When the first long kiss which Hugo pressed on her small mouth brought enlightenment — the first kiss, which she returned with closed

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eyes, and which burned on her delicate lips, and then left them cold as ice — a feeling of unspeakable content came over her. It was as though spring had burst forth in her heart, as if, of a sudden, her pure womanhood were freed from its prison. She felt herself a woman, and clung in passionate tenderness and grateful love to the man who had revealed to her the most marvellous secret of life. The sweet purity, the complete surrender of the girl had touched Hugo deeply. He imagined that by a kindly dispensation of Fate he had unwittingly found the woman destined for him — whom he loved, or would learn to love. And so the first part of the betrothal was bright and sunny. Martha was transformed. Her languid, tired manner had gained in life and precision, her pale cheeks were slightly flushed. She had become brighter and stronger. Hugo worked with more eagerness than formerly. He now had a goal before his eyes. He felt that he had undertaken serious duties, and it was his faithful endeavour to fulfil these duties.

Winter came. It was easy for Hugo to explain to his affianced wife, who believed him blindly, that as a writer who had chosen the modern life of a great city as his particular study, he must go into society, no matter, as he asserted, how much it bored him.

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It was equally a matter of course that Martha, whose very sober, modest attire taxed her mother’s inventive genius to the utmost, did not accompany him.

She stayed at homjg without a murmur, and smiled after him when he took leave of her in his dress suit and white tie which became him so well. Sometimes, indeed, a secret longing arose in her to share in some of the brilliant entertainments which, it seemed to her, Hugo spoke of altogether too contemptuously. But she was sensible enough to see that she longed for an impossibility. She comforted herself with the reflection that, when Hugo earned the well-deserved reward of his talents, everything would be different. She would wait patiently — yes, patiently. ^It must indeed be difficult to learn the life and ways of the favoured world in which her lover moved.

Hugo’s social duties constantly increased. He went out every evening, and did not return until late. She always heard him come in, heard the street door open and shut, and the turning of the key in the hall door.

Not until then did she sleep— often with a heavy heart.' But when he came in so late, why did Hugo invariably give, unasked, an earlier hour than the true one? Out of regard for her, of

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course. He was so kind ! And she needed some consideration now. For the fleeting roses which the spring-time of love had driven to her cheeks, the weary, sleepless nights had long since withered. Martha looked ghastly pale now, and the dark circles under her strangely brilliant eyes made them unnaturally large.

By mutual consent there was little said about the engagement. As circumstances did not as yet admit of their appearing together in public, the announcement would only lead to annoyance and troublesome questions. Hugo was plainly right : what did the indifferent world need to know of their happiness ?

But as a secret is difficult to keep, one and another had discovered that Hugo had already disposed of his hand and heart. He never mentioned it, however, and no one was sufficiently intimate with him to warrant speaking of it without invitation. His conduct in society would not have caused the keenest to suspect any engagement. He acted in the freest, most unhampered manner possible towards the pretty girls, and especially towards the prettiest young married women. Since he had been drawn into Mrs. Welsheim’s most intimate circle, such a suspicion seemed improbable in the extreme.

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Till now, Leonie, indeed, had suspected nothing, When Ringstetter told her the startling news, an entirely new sensation came over her, and she felt as though she had been plunged into a bath of icy water. A painful embarrassment forced her to lower her lids, in spite of her clear, high laughter. And when Ringstetter had taken his leave and she was alone, her face grew distorted and she suddenly looked ten years older. She took a few hasty steps and touched the bell. Her first impulse was to put on her hat, order the carriage, and seek the girl. That the story was true she had no doubt. It explained all that had been inexplicable before : Hugo’s sudden depression in the midst of the wildest spirits, his aversion to showing himself with her in public, his ambiguous words — in fact, all. She must see the girl, she must tell her — what must she, yes, what could she tell her ? How could she explain the extraordb nary and compromising visit to her and to him ?

“ It is nothing,” she said to the servant, who had appeared in the doorway.

John bowed and disappeared. Leonie seated herself on the low divan in the bow window and gazed through the delicate curtains at the grey branches, just beginning to take on a tinge of green. The blithe afternoon sunshine accorded