The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

The bell rang, the servant entered, and received an order.

Magister Knips appeared before the Sovereign; his cheeks were flushed, and vehement excitement worked in his features.

"Have you read the memorial which Professor Werner has written concerning the manuscript?" asked the Sovereign, carelessly. "What is your opinion of it?"

"It is a prodigious, astounding account, Most Gracious Prince and Sovereign. I may well say that I feel this discovery in all my limbs. If the manuscript should be found, the fame attending the discovery will be imperishable; it would be discussed in the preface of every edition in which the question of the manuscript occurred, to the end of the world; it would raise the learned man to whose lot this greatest earthly good fortune should fall, high above his fellow mortals. Your exalted Highness also, according to Act 22, § 127, of the law of the country, would undoubtedly have the first right to the discovered treasure, and his Highness would be hailed among all people as the protector of a new era of knowledge concerning the Romans."

The Sovereign listened with satisfaction to the enthusiasm of the Magister, who in his excitement forgot his humble bearing, and pathetically stretched out his arm in the direction in which he saw the radiant crown hovering above the head of the Sovereign.

"All this would occur if one found the treasure," said the Sovereign; "but it is not yet found."

Knips collapsed.

"Undoubtedly it is presumptuous to think that such a happiness could fall to the lot of any human being, yet it would be a sin to doubt its possibility."

"Professor Werner seems to attach much value to the discovery," rejoined the Sovereign, indifferently.

"He could not be a man of sterling judgment who did not feel the importance of this gain as much as does your Highness's most humble servant and slave."

The Sovereign interrupted the speaker.

"Mr. Von Weidegg has proposed to you to remain in my service. Have you agreed to do so?"

"With the feelings of a rescued man," exclaimed Knips, "who ventures to lay at your Highness's feet thanks and blessing with unbounded veneration."

"Have you already engaged yourself?"

"In the most binding way."

"Good," said the Sovereign, stopping the stream of the Magister's respectful assurances by a motion of his hand. "It has been reported to me, Magister that you have a special good fortune in finding such rarities-good fortune," repeated the Sovereign, "or what comes to the same thing, skill. Do you seriously believe that these indistinct traces will lead to the lost treasure?"

"Who can now maintain that such a discovery is impossible?" cried the Magister. "If I might be allowed, with the deepest respect, to express my views, which burst forth from my heart like a cry of joy, it is, I dare not say probable, but yet not improbable, that an accident might lead to it. Yet if I may venture respectfully to express my experience, which perhaps is only a superstition, if the manuscript be found, it will not be found where one expects, but somewhere else. Hitherto whenever in my humble existence I have had the good fortune of making a discovery-I mention only the Italian Homer of 1848-it has always been contrary to all anticipations; and what your most exalted Grace calls my skill is-if I must explain the secret of my good fortune-really nothing but the circumstance that I have generally sought where, according to human probability, no treasure could be supposed to lie."

"The views which you entertain are certainly not solacing for an impatient person," said the Sovereign, "for that may last a long time."

"Generations may pass away," replied Knips, "but the present and the future will search until the manuscript be found."

"That is but poor comfort," said the Sovereign, laughing; "and I confess, Magister, you disappoint by these words the lively expectation which I cherished, that your dexterity and skill would soon obtain for me the pleasure of seeing the book in the hands of the Professor-the book itself, or at least some palpable proof of its existence. I am a layman in all these things, and can form no judgment of the importance which you attach to the discovery. To me at present it is only to play off a joke, or-to repeat the words which you lately used with respect to your miniatures-only for the sake of raillery."

The expression and manner of the Magister altered gradually, as if under the spell of an enchanter; he shrank into himself, laid his head on his shoulder, and looked with a terrified eagerness at the Sovereign.

"In short, I wish that Mr. Werner should soon be put upon a certain trace of the manuscript, if it is not possible to obtain the manuscript itself."

Knips remained silent, staring at the speaker.

"I desire you," continued the Sovereign, emphatically, "to employ the talent you have already shown for this object. Your help must, of course, remain my secret, for I should like Mr. Werner to have the pleasure of making the discovery himself."

"It must be a large manuscript," stammered out Knips.

"I fear," replied the Sovereign, carelessly, "it must long have been torn to pieces. It is not impossible that some scattered leaves may have been preserved somewhere."

The Magister stood thunderstruck.

"It is difficult to satisfy the Professor."

"So much the greater will be your merit and reward."

Knips remained silent, in a state of terror.

"Has your confidence vanished, Magister?" said the Sovereign, ironically. "It is not the first time that you have succeeded in such a discovery." He approached closer to the little man. "I know something of former trials of your dexterity, and I have no doubt of the comprehensiveness of your talent."

Knips started, but still he remained speechless.

"For the rest, I am contented with your activity," continued the Sovereign, in a changed voice. "I do not doubt that you will in many ways know how to make yourself useful to the officials of my Court, and thereby consult your own future interest."

"What high honor!" said Knips, pitifully, drawing out his pocket-handkerchief.

"As regards the lost manuscript," continued the Sovereign, "the stay of Mr. Werner will, I fear, be only temporary. The task of pursuing the investigations in our country would, in that event, fall upon you."

Knips raised his head, and a ray of pleasure passed over his troubled face.

"If the manuscript is, in fact, as valuable as the learned gentlemen seem to think, then in case, after the departure of the Professor, there is still something to discover, you will have found with us an occupation which is especially suited to you."

"This prospect is the highest and most honorable which my life can attain to," replied Knips, more courageously.

"Good," said the Sovereign; "endeavor to deserve this claim, and try first what your dexterity can do."

"I will take pains to serve your Highness," replied the Magister, his eyes cast on the ground.

Knips left the private apartment. The little man, who now descended the staircase, looked very different from the happy Magister who a few minutes before had ascended it. His pale face was bent forward, and his eyes wandered furtively over the faces of the servants, who watched him inquisitively. He seized his hat mechanically, and he, the Magister, put it on his head while still in the royal castle. He went out into the court; the storm swept through the streets, whirled the dust round him, and blew his coat-tails forward.

"He drives me on; how can I withstand him?" murmured Knips. "Shall I return to my proof-sheets in that cold room? Shall I all my life depend on the favor of professors, always in anxiety lest an accident should betray to these learned men that I once overreached them and derided them?

"But here I pass a pleasant life, and have opportunities of being the cleverest among the ignorant and making myself indispensable to them! I am so already; the Sovereign has shown himself to me as one comrade does to another, and he can, if I do as he wishes, as little part from me as the parchment from the writing on it."

He wiped the cold sweat from his brow.

"I myself will find the manuscript," he continued, more confidently. "Jacobi Knipsii sollertia inventum. I know the great secret, and I will search day by day where only a wood-louse can creep or a spider hang its web. Then it will be for me to decide whether I shall take the Professor as an assistant to edit it, or another. Perhaps I will take him and he will be thankful to me. He will hardly find the treasure, he is too dignified to listen and to spy out where the chests are concealed."

The Magister hastened his steps; the wind whistled in sharp tones behind him, – it tore from the trees the dry leaves of the last year, and scattered them on the hat of the little man. The dust whirled more rapidly round him; it covered the dark Court dress with a pale grey coating, it pursued and enveloped him, so that the foliage of the trees and the figures of men disappeared from his sight, and he hastened onward wrapped in a cloud of dust and dead leaves. Again he raised his pocket-handkerchief, sighed, and wiped the perspiration from his temples.

CHAPTER XXXI.

HUMMEL'S TRIUMPH

There was a lowering sultriness in nature, and also in the busy world of men. The barometer fell suddenly; thunder and hail coursed over the country; confidence was gone, stocks became worthless paper; lamentation followed arrogance; water stood in the streets; and the straw hats disappeared as if wafted away by the storm.

Whoever in these changing times might wish to observe Mr. Hummel in a good-humored frame of mind must do so in the afternoon before three o'clock, when he opened his garden door and seated himself near the hedge. During this hour he gave audience to benevolent thoughts; he listened to the striking of the city clock, and regulated his watch; he read the daily paper, counted the regular promenaders, who daily walked at the same hour to the wood and back again to the city, and he accosted his acquaintances and received their greetings. These acquaintances were for the most part householders, hard-headed men, members of the city commissions, and councillors.

To-day he was sitting at the open door, looking proudly at the opposite house, in which some secret commotion was perceptible; he examined the passersby, and returned with dignity the bows and greetings of the citizens. The first acquaintance was Mr. Wenzel, a gentleman of means, and his sponsor, who for many years had taken a constitutional every day, summer and winter, through the meadows to get into perspiration. It was the one steady business of his life, and he talked of little else.

"Good day, Hummel."

"Good day, Wenzel. Any success to-day?" asked Mr. Hummel.

"Pretty fair, only it took a long time," said Mr. Wenzel, "but I must not stop. I only wanted to ask you how things are going with him over the way?"

"Why that?" asked Hummel, annoyed.

"Do you not know that his book-keeper has disappeared?"

"What!" exclaimed Mr. Hummel.

"They say he has speculated on the stock exchange, and escaped to America. But I must be off; good day."

Mr. Wenzel hastily departed.

Mr. Hummel remained in a state of great astonishment. He heard the voice of the city-councillor calling out:

"Good day, Mr. Hummel-a warm day-90 degrees in the shade. Have you heard?" he said, pointing with his stick to the neighboring house.

"Nothing," cried Hummel; "one lives in this place like in a prison. Whether it is fire, pestilence, or the arrival of high personages, it is only by pure accident one hears of it. What is all this about the absconding book-keeper?"

"It appears that your neighbor placed too much confidence in the man, and he has secretly used the name of his employer in some mad speculations, and fled last night. They say it is to the amount of forty thousand."

"Then Hahn is ruined," said Hummel, "irredeemably. I am not surprised at it; the fellow has always been impractical."

"Perhaps things are not so bad," said the councillor, as he left him.

Mr. Hummel remained alone with his thoughts. "Naturally." He said to himself, "It was inevitable. In everything, high-flown-houses, windows, and garden fancies-never any rest; the man is gone out like a candle."

He forgot the passers-by, and moved backwards and forwards on his main walk, looking sometimes with curiosity at the hostile house. "Out like a candle," he repeated, with the satisfaction of a tragic actor who endeavors to give the most terrific expression to the telling words of his rôle. He had vexed himself half a century about that man; before his disposition to corpulency had begun, he had despised this man's ways and business. This feeling had been his daily entertainment; it was one of his daily necessities, like his boot-jack and his green boat. Now the hour was come when fate paid off the man over the way for having injured Mr. Hummel by his presence in life. Hummel looked at the house and shrugged his shoulders; the man who had placed that deformed structure before his eyes was now in danger of being driven out of it. He looked at the temple and the muse; this toy of the poor devil would soon be torn down by some stranger. Hummel went to the sitting-room; there also he walked up and down, and told his wife of Mr. Hahn's misfortune in short sentences. He observed, out of the corners of his eyes, that Mrs. Philippine hastened, nervously, to the sofa, and frequently clasped her hands; and that Laura rushed into the next room, and could not refrain from bursting into tears; and he repeated, with dreadful satisfaction, the terrible words: "He has gone out like a candle."

He behaved in the same way at the factory; he paced slowly up and down the warehouse, looked majestically on a heap of hareskins, took one of the finest hats out of a bandbox, held it towards the window, gave it a stroke with the brush, and muttered again: "It's all up with him." To-day his book-keeper, for the first time in his life, was late at his desk: he had heard of the misfortune on his way; he related it in an excited manner to his principal, and finally maliciously repeated the unfortunate words: "It's all up with him." Hummel gave him a piercing look, and snorted so that the timid heart of the clerk sank within him.

"Do you wish also to become manager of my business like that runaway? I thank you for this proof of your confidence. I have no use for such bandit-like proceedings; I am my own manager, sir, and I object to every kind of secret dealing behind my back."

"But, Mr. Hummel, I have carried on no secret dealings."

"The devil thank you for that," roared out Hummel, in his fiercest bass. "There is no more confidence on earth: nothing is firm; the holiest relations are unscrupulously violated; one can no longer trust one's friends; now even one's enemies make off. At night you lie down to sleep quietly as a German, and in the morning you wake up as a Frenchman; and if you sigh for your German coffee, your hostess brings a dish of Parisian spinach to your bed. I should be glad to learn of you on what spot of this earth we are now settled."

"In Valley Row, Mr. Hummel."

"There the last remains of our good genius spoke out. Look through the window. What stands there?" pointing to the neighboring house.

"Park Street, Mr. Hummel."

"Indeed?" asked Hummel, ironically. "Since primeval times, since your ancestors sat on the trees here nibbling beechmast, this place has been called Valley Row. In this valley I laid the foundations of my house, and enclosed in the wall an inscription for later excavators: 'Henry Hummel, No. 1.' Now the machinations of yonder extinguished straw-man have upset this truth. In spite of my protest in court, we have become transformed into park denizens by a police ordinance. Scarcely has this happened, when that man's book-keeper transforms himself into an American. Do you believe that Knips, junior, this salamander, would have ventured on this misdeed if his own principal had not set him the example? There you have the consequences of everlasting changes and improvements. For twenty years we have gone on together, but I believe now you are capable of throwing up your place and entering into another business. Bah, sir! you ought to be ashamed of your century."

It was a sorrowful day for the Hahn family. The master of the house had gone to his office in the city at the usual hour in the morning, and had awaited his book-keeper in vain. When at last he sent to the young man's dwelling, the porter brought back word that the former had departed, and left a letter on his table for Mr. Hahn. Hahn read the letter, and sank down upon his desk with sudden terror. He had always carried on his business like an honest tradesman. He had begun with small means, and had become a well to do man by his own energy; but he had confided his money matters more to his clever clerk than was prudent. The young man had grown up under his eyes, and had gradually, by his pliant, zealous service, won full confidence, and had shortly before been granted the right of signing the name of the firm to financial obligations. The new manager had succumbed to the temptations of these turbulent times and had, unknown to his principal, ventured on rash speculations. In the letter he made open confession. He had stolen a small sum for his flight: but Mr. Hahn would on the following day have to meet his losses to the amount of about twenty thousand thalers. The thunder-bolt fell from a clear heaven into the peaceful life of the merchant. Mr. Hahn sent for his son. The doctor hastened to the police-office, to his solicitor, and to his business friends, and returned again to the office to comfort his father, who sat as if paralyzed before his desk, hopelessly looking into the future.

Dinner-time came, when Mr. Hahn must impart his misfortune to his wife, and there was lamentation within the house. Mrs. Hahn went distractedly through the rooms, and Dorothy wrung her hands and cried. In the afternoon the Doctor again hastened to his acquaintances and to money-lenders; but during this week there was a panic, every one mistrusted the other. Money was scarce, and the Doctor found nothing but sympathy, and complaints of the fearful times. The flight of the book-keeper made even confidential friends suspicious as to the extent of the obligations of the firm. Even by a mortgage on the house, with the greatest sacrifice, no sufficient sum could be obtained. The danger was more threatening every hour, the anguish greater. Towards evening the Doctor returned home to his parents after his last fruitless expedition. To his father he had shown a cheerful countenance, and comforted him bravely; but the thought was incessantly present to his mind, that this misfortune would divide him utterly from his loved one. Now he sat weary and alone in the dark sitting-room, and looked towards the lighted windows of the neighboring houses.

He well knew that one friend would not fail his father in distress. But the Professor was at a distance, and any help he could give would be insufficient; at the best it would come too late. There were only a few hours before the decisive moment. The intervening time, one of rest for all others, was one of endless torture to his father, in which he contemplated, with staring eyes and feverish pulse, a hundred-fold the bitterness of the ensuing day, and the son was terrified at the effect which the dreadful strain would have on the sensitive nature of his father.

There was a slight rustle in the dark room-a light figure stood beside the Doctor. Laura seized his hand and held it fast within hers. She bent down to him, and looked in his sorrowful countenance. "I have felt the anxiety of these hours. I can no longer bear solitude," she said, gently. "Is there, no help?"

"I fear, none."

She stroked his curly hair with her hand.

"You have chosen it as your lot to despise what others so anxiously desire. The light of the sun, which illumines your brow, should never be darkened by earthly cares. Be proud, Fritz; you have never had cause to be more so than at this hour, for such a misfortune cannot rob you of anything that is worth a pang."

"My poor father!" cried Fritz.

"Yet your father is happy," continued Laura, "for he has brought up a son to whom it is scarcely a sacrifice to be deprived of what appears to other men the highest happiness. For whom had your dear parents amassed money but for you? Now you may show them how free and great you rise above these anxieties for perishable metal."

"If I feel the misfortune of this day to my own life," said the Doctor, "it is only for the sake of another."

"If it could comfort you, my friend," exclaimed Laura, with an outburst of feeling, "I will tell you today that I hold true to you, whatever may happen."

"Dear Laura!" cried the Doctor.

Her voice sang softly in his ear like a bird:

"I am glad, Fritz, that you care for me."

Fritz laid his cheek tenderly on her hand.

"I will endeavor not to be unworthy of you," continued Laura. "I have long tried in secret all that I, a poor maiden, can do, to free myself from the trivial follies that trouble our life. I have considered fully how one can keep house with very little, and I no longer spend money on useless dress and such rubbish. I am anxious also to earn something. I give lessons, Fritz, and people are satisfied with me. One requires little to live upon, I have found that out. I have no greater pleasure in my room than the thought of making myself independent. That is what I have wished to express briefly to you to-day. One thing more, Fritz; if I do not see you, I always think of and care about you."

Fritz stretched out his arms towards her, but she withdrew herself from him, nodded to him once more at the door, then flew swiftly across the street back to her attic room.

There she stood in the dark with beating heart; a pale ray of light gleamed through the window and lighted up the shepherd pair on the inkstand, so that they seemed to hover illuminated in the air. This day Laura did not think of her secret diary, she looked towards the window where her loved one sat, and again tears gushed from her eyes; but she composed herself with quick decision, fetched a light and a jug of water from the kitchen, collected her lace collars and cuffs and soaked them in a basin-she could do all this herself too. It was another little saving, it might sometime be of use to Fritz.

Mr. Hummel closed his office and continued to rove about. The door of Laura's room opened, the daughter shrank within herself when she saw her father cross the threshold solemnly, like a messenger of Fate. Hummel moved towards his daughter and looked sharply at her weeping eyes.

"On account of him over the way, I suppose." Laura hid her face in her hands, again her sorrow overpowered her.

"There you have your little bells," he grumbled in a low tone. "There you have your pocket-handkerchiefs and your Indians. It is all over with the people there." He slapped her on the shoulder with his large hand. "Be quiet. We are not responsible for his ruin; your pocket-handkerchiefs prove nothing."

It became dark; Hummel walked up and down the street between the two houses, looking at the hostile dwelling from the park side, where it was less accessible to him, and his broad face assumed a triumphant smile. At last he discovered an acquaintance who was hastening out of it, and followed him.

"What is the state of the case?" he asked, seizing the arm of the other. "Can he save himself?"

His business friend shrugged his shoulders.

"It cannot remain a secret," he said, and explained the situation and danger of the adversary.

"Will he be able to procure money to meet it?"

The other again shrugged his shoulders.

"Hardly to-morrow. Money is not to be had at any price. The man is of course worth more; the business is good, and the house unencumbered."

"The house is not worth twenty thousand," interposed Hummel.

"No matter; in a sound state of the money market he would bear the blow without danger, now I fear the worst."

"I have said it, he has gone out like a candle," muttered Hummel, and abruptly turned his steps towards his house.

In the Doctor's room father and son were sitting over letters and accounts, the light of the lamp shone on the gilded titles of the books against the wall, and the portfolios containing the treasures industriously collected by the Doctor from all corners of the world, and bound up and placed here in grand array-now they were again to be dispersed. The son was endeavoring to inspire his despairing father with courage.