The Lost Manuscript: A Novel

Raschke greeted them, called his wife, begged them to sit down, and quite forgot that he was in his Turkish dressing-gown.

"We come with one wish," began Flaminia, solemnly. "It is with respect to our colleague Werner. My husband will impart to you what has moved us both deeply."

Raschke started up from his chair. Struvelius, whose emotion was only visible in his bristly hair, began: "We were called yesterday to the police-station. When the brother of Magister Knips fled to America, his things were taken possession of on the application of petty creditors, and as the greater portion of his effects were at his mother's house, they were taken away from there. Amongst them were utensils and portfolios which evidently did not belong to the fugitive, but to his brother; one of those portfolios contained tracings after the style of manuscripts, unfinished attempts to imitate old writings, and written parchment sheets. The officials had been surprised at these, and requested me to inspect them. It appeared upon closer observation that the Magister had long been occupied in acquiring the skill of imitating the characters of the Middle Ages. And from the fragments I have found in the portfolio, there can be no doubt that he has other forgeries in his collection, some of which answer exactly to that parchment strip."

"That is enough, Struvelius," began his wife. "Now let me speak. You may imagine, dear colleague, that Werner at once occurred to us, and that we were greatly alarmed lest the husband of our friend should get into trouble through the deceiver. I asked Struvelius to write Professor Werner, but he preferred to inform him through you. This method also appeared most satisfactory to me."

Raschke, without saying a word, took off his dressing-gown, and ran in his shirt-sleeves about the room, searching in all the corners. At last he found his hat, which he put on.

"What are you about, Raschke!" exclaimed his wife.

"Why do you ask?" he said, hastily; "there is no time for delay. I beg your pardon, Mrs. Struvelius," he said observing his sleeves, and again put on his dressing-gown, but in his excitement he still kept on his hat, and thus attired, seated himself opposite his friends. Bertha, at a sign from her mother, gently took his hat off.

"A quick decision is necessary in this case," he repeated.

"There is no reason," continued Struvelius, "for withholding the property of the Magister from his mother; but, meanwhile, they would willingly allow you an inspection of the writings."

"That I do not wish," exclaimed Raschke; "it would spoil the day for me. Your judgment, Struvelius, satisfies me."

There was some further excited interchange of views, and the visitors left. Again Raschke rushed stormily about, so that the skirts of his dressing-gown flew over the chairs.

"Dear Aurelia, do not be frightened; I have made up my mind. I shall set out to-morrow."

Mrs. Raschke clasped her hands together.

"What are you thinking of, Raschke?"

"It is necessary," he said. "I despair of shaking the firm views of Werner by letter. My duty is to try whether persuasive words and detailed representations will have greater effect. I must know in what relation my friend stands to the Magister. From certain intimations of the Doctor, I fear the worst from the activity of the forger. I have a short vacation before me, and I cannot employ it better."

"But, Raschke, you wish to travel!" asked his wife, reproachfully. "How can you engage in such an undertaking?"

"You mistake me, Aurelia; in our city I sometimes do lose my bearings, but in foreign parts I always find my way."

"Because you have never yet been alone in foreign parts," replied the prudent wife.

Raschke approached her, and raised his hand warningly.

"Aurelia, it is for our friend, and one must pay no regard to trifles."

"You will never get there," rejoined his wife, with sad foreboding.

"It is much easier to speed through half the world in a secure vessel than to go on two legs through our streets; half acquaintances are the most unreliable."

"Then the money for the journey, Raschke?" whispered Mrs. Aurelia, in a low voice, that the children might not hear.

"You have in your linen cupboard an old black savings-box," replied Raschke, slily. "Do you think I know nothing of it?"

"What I have collected in that is for a new dress-coat."

"You wish to take away from me my old one?" asked Raschke, indignantly; "it is well that I have made the discovery. I would now travel to the capital even if I had no occasion for it. Out with the box!"

Mrs. Aurelia went slowly, brought the savings-box, and with silent reproach, put it into his hands. The Professor tossed the money, together with the box, into his breeches' pocket, threw his arm round his wife, and kissed her on the forehead.

"You are my own dear wife," he exclaimed; "and now there must be no delay. Bring me Plato and Spinoza."

Plato was the silk cap, and Spinoza the thick cloak of the Professor. These treasures of the house were so called because they had been bought with the money earned by two books on those philosophers. The impression which the works had made on the learned world had been very great, but the remuneration very small. A commotion arose among the children, for in winter these beautiful articles were sometimes brought out for a Sunday walk. The little troop ran with their mother to fetch them.

"Be sure and bring them back, Raschke. I am so afraid you will lose one of them."

"As I have told you, Aurelia, in traveling you may depend upon me."

"I will write a few lines to Werner; he must take care that you keep them both. I will put the letter in your coat pocket, if you will only give it to him."

"Why not?" exclaimed Raschke, courageously.

The following morning Mrs. Aurelia accompanied her husband to the point from which the coach started and took care that he came to the right place.

"If you were only safely home again!" she said, piteously.

Raschke kissed her gallantly, and seated himself on his traveling-bag.

"The seats are remarkably high," he cried out, with his legs dangling. His traveling companions laughed, and he said, civilly, "I beg the gentlemen to excuse me."

The lamps burned, and the moon shone through the white mist on the walls of the Pavilion when the Professor returned there. No ray of light fell from the windows. The house stood gloomy and abandoned, and a blue phosphorescence seemed to glimmer above it. The door was closed; the lackey had disappeared. The Scholar pulled the bell. At last some one came down the stairs. Gabriel appeared, and gave vent to a cry of joy when he saw his master before him.

"How is my wife?" asked the Professor.

"Mrs. Werner is not at home," replied Gabriel, shyly. He beckoned his master into the room: there he gave him Ilse's letter. The Professor read the lines, and held them in his hands as if stunned. This also was a manuscript which he had found. It informed him that his wife had gone from him: every word went like a dagger to his heart. When he looked at Gabriel he perceived that he did not yet know all. The servant told him what had happened. The Scholar pushed the chair from him; his limbs trembled as in a fever.

"We will leave this house immediately," he said, faintly; "collect all the things."

Like a Romish priest who prays in secret devotion to his God, he had veiled his head from the sounds which sought to penetrate his soul from the outward world. He had closed his ears and eyes to the figures that moved about him. Now fate had torn the veil from his head.

"Mr. Hummel would not depart before your arrival," continued Gabriel; "he is in great haste."

"I shall go to his inn; follow me," said the Professor; "but first mention at the castle that I have departed."

He turned away and left the house. As he passed by the castle, he cast a wild look on the windows of the room which the Sovereign inhabited. "He is not returned yet; patience," he murmured. He then went, as if in a state of stupor, to the inn. He ordered a room, and inquired after his landlord. Immediately afterwards Mr. Hummel entered.

"Good news," began the latter, in his softest tone; "a messenger from the Crown Inspector brings me the report that they have all made a safe journey. It must have been a matter of caution that there is no letter for you."

"It was indeed a matter of caution," repeated the Scholar, and his head sank heavily on his breast.

Mr. Hummel seated himself close to him, and whispered in his ear. At the last words the Professor sprang up in terror, and a groan sounded through the room.

"A man is not a screech owl," declared Mr. Hummel, pacifyingly; "and it would be unjust to expect of him that he should be able to distinguish in the darkness the head from the tail of a rat; but every householder knows that there are also worthless contrivances of architecture. These intimations I make to you only, to no one else. I sent my card a few days ago to your father-in-law. Little Fritz Hahn has, in your absence, become a Doctor Faustus, who will carry off my poor child under his fiend's cloak to Bielstein. May I announce your arrival there?"

"Say," replied the Scholar, gloomily, "that I will come as soon as I have settled matters here."

He held Mr. Hummel firmly by the hand, as if he did not like to part from the confidant of his wife, and led him down to the hall. New travelers had arrived there, and a little gentleman in a cloak and a beautiful silk traveling-cap, turned, without looking from under a large umbrella, to the Professor, and said:

"I should be much obliged if you would show me to a room, waiter. Am I in the right place here?"

He mentioned the name of the city; the Professor took the gentleman's traveling-bag from him, seized him by the arm without saying a word, and took him rapidly up the stairs.

"Very polite," exclaimed Raschke, "I thank you sincerely, but I am not at all tired; my only wish is to speak to Professor Werner. Can you arrange for an audience with him?"

Werner opened his room, took off his hat, and embraced him.

"My dear colleague," cried Raschke, "I am the most fortunate traveler in the world: usually a pilgrim on the highroad is contented if no misfortune happens to him, but I have met in the carriage with modest and thoughtful men. The conductor on changing carriages carried my cap after me, and some one kindly accompanied me to this house; and now when, for the first time, I stand on my own feet, I find myself in the arms of him whom I came to see. It is a pleasure to travel, colleague: at every mile-stone one observes how good and warm-hearted the people are among whom we live. We are fools that we do not deliver our lectures in carriages; the anxieties of our wives are unjustifiable; a man can manage by himself."

Thus did Raschke exult.

"Who lives in this room-I or you?"

"You may remain with me or have the adjacent room, as you please," replied Werner.

"Then with you; for I wish to be without you, my friend, as little as possible."

"You come to a man who is in need of consolation," said the Scholar. "My wife is with her father; I am alone," he added, with faltering voice.

"You look to me like a traveler who draws his cloak around him in bad weather," exclaimed Raschke; "therefore what I bring you will at any rate not disturb you in cheerful repose. My business as messenger is to lower a human soul in your eyes; that is hard for us both."

"I have to-day experienced what would shatter the foundations of the strongest structure. There can be but little that would shock me now: I am composed enough to listen."

Raschke seated himself by him and told his story. He fidgeted about on the sofa, slapped his friend on the knee, stroked his arm, and begged for composure.

Again was a veil drawn from the head of the seeker, who had believed himself to be speaking alone with his God. The Scholar was silent, and did not flinch.

"This is fearful, friend?" he said, at last.

With that he broke off, and the whole evening he did not say a word about the Magister.

The following morning the Professors sat together in Werner's room. Werner at last threw the two parchment sheets on the table.

"With these at least the Magister has had nothing to do. I myself fetched them out of the old rubbish: there lies the missal on the chest. It demands great self-control for me to look at that dearly-bought acquisition."

Raschke examined the parchment.

"Highly valuable," he exclaimed, "if it is genuine, as it appears." He hastened to the chest and examined the missal. "Probably the initial letters of the book will afford some evidence as to whether the missal was used in the cloister of Rossau," he said. "I regret that my knowledge of monastic customs does not extend to this test."

He opened the chest and took up the contents. Of the absence of mind which usually disturbed him nothing was to be observed: he looked round with sharp eyes, as if he were searching the dark words of a philosopher.

"Very remarkable," he exclaimed. "Only one thing surprises me. Has the chest been cleaned out?"

"No," replied Werner, irritably.

"The three companions of a century's repose are wanting-dust, cobwebs, and grubs; yet there ought to have been something on the inside of the lid or on the bottom, for the chest has crevices which allow of the entrance of insects."

He rummaged again, and examined the bottom.

"Under a splinter of wood there hangs a bit of paper."

He drew out a tiny piece of paper, and a deep shadow passed over his noble features.

"Dear friend, compose yourself, and be prepared for an unwelcome discovery. On this fragment there are only six printed words, but they are the characters of our time: it is a piece of one of our newspapers, and one of the six words is a name well known in the politics of our day."

He laid the bit of paper on the table. Werner stared at it without saying a word; his countenance was changed; it seemed as if one hour had done the work of twenty years of care.

"The things were unpacked by me and again put back; it is possible that the paper may have fallen in."

"It is possible," replied Raschke.

The Professor jumped up, and sought in great haste for his pocket copy of Tacitus.

"Here is the reading of the Florentine manuscript, comparison with the parchment sheets will throw light on it." He compared some sentences. "It appears an accurate copy," he said, "too accurate-awkwardly accurate."

He held the manuscript searchingly towards the light; he poured a drop of water on the corner of the parchment and wiped it with a towel; the next moment he flung towel and parchment to the ground, and clasped his hands over his face. Raschke seized the leaves, and looked at the damaged corner.

"It is true," he exclaimed, sorrowfully; "a writing that had been on the parchment six hundred years would leave other traces on the material."

He paced hastily up and down, his hands in his coat pocket, rubbed his face with the towel, and, perceiving his mistake, threw it away from him.

"I only know of one word for this," he exclaimed-"a word that men unwillingly allow to pass their lips-and that word is villainy!"

"It was a piece of vile and rascally knavery," exclaimed Werner, in a strong voice.

"Here let us stop, friend," begged Raschke; "we know that a deception has been intended; we know that the attempt has been made lately; and when we compare the place of the discovery and your presence here, we may assume as a fact, without doing injustice to any one, that the trick was intended to deceive you. Of the person who has practiced it we have only suspicion, well-grounded suspicion, but no certainty."

"We will make it certainty," explained Werner, "before the day becomes many hours older."

"Undoubtedly," replied Raschke, "this certainty must be obtained, for suspicion ought not to continue in the hearts of men; it destroys all ideas and thoughts. But the ultimate question remains: For what object was the deceit practiced? Was it the willfulness of a knave? If so, the wickedness of it is not, to an honorable mind, thereby lessened; yet it is not the worst kind of turpitude. But if it was deliberate malice with intent to injure you, then it deserves the severest condemnation. On what terms are you with the Magister?"

"It was deliberate malice to injure a man, body and soul," replied the Professor, with solemn earnestness; "but the doer was only the tool-the idea was that of another."

"Hold," cried Raschke, again, "no further; this also is only suspicion."

"It is only suspicion," repeated the Professor; "therefore I seek for certainty. When I wished to go to the country castle I was detained from day to day under trivial pretexts; the Magister was absent not long ago for a day from the work which was entrusted to him; he excused himself on the score of illness, and as he was profuse in his excuses I was struck by a shyness in his manner. There was a wish to keep me here for reasons which you, in your sphere of feelings, can scarcely understand. It was hoped to attain this object by exciting the fanatical zeal with which I was afflicted, without entirely contenting it. Such is my suspicion, friend; and I feel myself miserable, more miserable than I have ever been in my life."

He threw himself on the sofa, and again concealed his face.

Raschke approached him, and said, softly:

"Does it distress you so much, Werner, that you have been deceived?"

"I have confided, and deceived confidence gives pain; but in my sorrow I feel not only for myself, but for the destruction of another who belongs to us."

Raschke nodded his head. He again paced vehemently about the room, and looked angrily at the chest. Werner rose and rang the bell.

"I wish to speak to Magister Knips," he said, to Gabriel, who entered. "I must beg him to take the trouble of coming here as soon as possible."

"How will you speak to him?" asked Raschke, stepping anxiously before his friend.

"I need so much consideration myself," replied Werner, "that you need not fear my violence. I also have been laboring under a disease, and I know that I have to speak to one who is more diseased than I."

"You are not diseased," exclaimed Raschke, "only shocked, as I am. You will say what is necessary to him, for the rest you will leave him to his own conscience."

"I will only say what is necessary," repeated the Professor, mechanically.

Gabriel returned, and reported that the Magister would call when he left the Museum in the evening.

"How did the Magister take the message?" asked Raschke.

"He appeared alarmed when I told him that the Professor was stopping at the inn."

The Professor had ensconced himself in a corner, but the philosopher left him no rest; he kept talking to him about the occurrences at the University, and compelled him to take part by frequent questions. At last he expressed a wish to take a walk, to which the Professor unwillingly consented.

Werner led him through the gate of the city; as they walked along he briefly answered the lively talk of his friend. When they came to the inn from which Ilse had got into the carriage of the Crown Inspector, the Scholar began, with hoarse voice:

"This is the road along which my wife escaped from the city. I came early this morning along this same road, and at every step I felt what is the deepest humiliation to man."

"Before her was light, and behind her darkness," exclaimed Raschke.

He talked of Ilse, and now thought of the commission which his children had given to their aunt.

Thus the afternoon passed. Werner again sat brooding in his room, when Gabriel announced the arrival of the Magister. Before Raschke hastened into the next room, he once more pressed the hand of the other, and, looking imploringly at him, said:

"Be calm, friend."

"I am calm," replied he.

Magister Knips had profited by the refining influence of the Court. His black suit had been made by a tailor who had the princely coat of arms above his workshop; his hair was free from feathers, and his vocabulary had been replenished with new expressions of respect. He now looked furtively and defiantly around him.

Werner measured the man as he entered with a steady look; if, before, he had had a doubt of the guilt of the Magister, he now recognized it. He turned away for a moment in order to struggle with his aversion.

"Examine this," he said, pointing with his finger to the parchment leaves.

Knips took a leaf in his hand, and the parchment trembled as he cast a shy glance upon it.

"It is another forgery," said the Professor; "the reading of the first Florentine manuscript, and even the peculiarities of its orthography, are copied with a careful accuracy which would have been impossible to any old transcriber. The writing, too, betrays itself to be recent."

The Magister laid the sheet down, and answered, with hesitation:

"It appears undoubtedly to be an imitation of an old script, as the Professor has already discovered."

"I found this work," continued the Scholar, "in the tower of the castle in the country, inserted in that torn missal, laid in that chest, and concealed among old furniture. And you, Magister, have prepared this leaf, and you have concealed it in this place. That is not all. Long before, in order to put me on a false track, you placed the register of a chest in the old records; you invented the figures 1 and 2 for the chests, and further, you yourself wrote the register in order to deceive me."

The Magister stood with lowered head, seeking for an answer. He did not know on what confession of others these deliberate assertions were grounded. Had the Castellan betrayed him? Had the Sovereign himself exposed him? Terror came over him, but he replied, doggedly:

"I did not do it."

"In vain do you seek to deceive me anew," continued the Scholar. "If I had not already sufficient ground to say to your face that you did this, your demeanor in the presence of this sheet would be ample evidence. No sound of astonishment, no word of horror at such an attempt at forgery escaped you. What true scholar would look upon such a thing and remain silent, if his own conscience did not close his mouth? What have I done to you, Magister, that you should inflict upon me this bitter anguish? Give me some excuse for your action. Have I ever injured you? Have I ever aroused in you secret ill-will against me? Any reason that will make this abomination comprehensible will be welcome to me; for I look with dismay on this depravation of a human soul."

"The Professor has never given me any ground for complaint," replied Knips, submissively.

"Nevertheless," said the Professor, "in cold blood, with indifference, with malicious levity, you have done your worst to me: it was wrong, very wrong, Magister."

"Perhaps it was only a jest," sighed the Magister; "perhaps it was only put in that way to him who prepared the writing. He only perhaps acted by the command of another, not by free choice, and not of his own will."

"What power on earth could command you to practice towards another so deliberate a piece of knavery?" asked the Professor, sorrowfully. "You yourself know right well what consequences this deception may have for myself and others."

Magister Knips was silent.

"I have done with you," continued the Scholar. "I shall say nothing of the plan which this falsehood was to serve nor make any further reproaches concerning the injury that you have practiced towards a man who trusted in your honor."

He threw the parchment under the table. Knips seized his hat silently to leave the room.

"Stop!" exclaimed the Professor; "do not move from the spot. I must be silent as to what you have endeavored to do personally against me. It is not so much on account of this manuscript that I have sent for you. But the man whom I see before me, on whom I look with an abhorrence that I have never yet felt, is something more than an unscrupulous tool in the service of a stranger; he is an unfaithful philologist, a traitor to learning, a forger, and deceiver in that in which only honorable men have a right to live, a cursed man, for whom there is no repentance and no mercy."

The Magister's hat fell to the ground.

"You wrote the parchment strip of Struvelius; the trader has informed against you in your native city. Your writings are confiscated and are in the hands of the police."