they that are above
have ends in everything.
a lame man was standing on the bridge that crosses the neuer pregel from the kant strasse—which is the centre of the city of konigsberg—to the island known as the kneiphof. this bridge is called the kramer brucke, and may be described as the heart of the town. from it on either hand diverge the narrow streets that run along the river bank, busy with commerce, crowded with the narrow sleighs that carry wood from the pregel up into the town.
the wider streets—such as the kant strasse, running downhill from the royal castle to the river, and the kneiphof'sche langgasse, leading southward to the brandenburg gate and the great world—must needs make use of the kramer brucke. here, it may be said, every man in the town must sooner or later pass in the execution of his daily business, whether he go about it on foot or in a sleigh with a pair of horses. here the idler and those grave professors from the university, which was still mourning the death of the aged kant, nearly always passed in their thoughtful and conscientious promenades.
here this lame man, a cobbler by trade, plying his quiet calling in a house in the neuer markt, where the lime-trees grow close to the upper windows, had patiently kept watch for three days. he was, like many lame men, of an abnormal width and weight. he had a large, square, dogged face, which seemed to promise that he would wait there till the crack of doom rather than abandon a quest.
it was very cold—mid-winter within a few miles of the frozen baltic on the very verge of russia, at that point where old europe stretches a long arm out into the unknown. the cobbler was wrapped in a sheepskin coat, which stood out all round him with the stiffness of wood, so that he seemed to be living inside a box. to keep himself warm he occasionally limped across from end to end of the bridge, but never went farther. at times he leant his arms on the stone wall at the kant strasse end of the bridge, and looked down into the lower fish market, where women from pillau and the baltic shores—mere bundles of clothes—stood over their baskets of fish frozen hard like sticks. it was a silent market. one cannot haggle long when a minute's exposure to the air will give a frost-bite to the end of the nose. the would-be purchaser can scarcely make an effective bargain through a fringe of icicles that rattle against his lips if he open them.
the pregel had been frozen for three months, with only the one temporary thaw in november which cost napoleon so many thousands at his broken bridge across the beresina. though no water had flowed beneath this bridge, many strange feet had passed across it.
it had vibrated beneath napoleon's heavy carriage, under the lumbering guns that macdonald took northward to blockade riga. within the last few weeks it had given passage to the last of the retreating army, a mere handful of heartsick fugitives. macdonald with his staff had been ignominiously driven across it by the cossacks who followed hard after them, the great marshal still wild with rage at the defection of yorck and the prussian contingent.
and now the cossacks on their spare and ill-tempered horses passed to and fro, wild men under an untamed leader whose heart was hardened to stone by bereavement. the cobbler looked at them with a countenance of wood. it was hard to say whether he preferred them to the french, or was indifferent to one as to the other. he looked at their boots with professional disdain. for all men must look at the world from their own standpoint and consider mankind in the light of their own interests. thus those who live on the greed or the vanity, or batten on the charity of their neighbour, learn to watch the lips.
the cobbler, by reason of looking at the lower end of men, attracted little attention from the passer-by. he who has his eyes on the ground passes unheeded. for the surest way of awakening interest is to appear interested. it would seem that this cobbler was waiting for a pair of boots not made in konigsberg. and on the third day his expressionless black eyes lighted on feet not shod in poland, or france, or germany, nor yet in square-toed russia.
the owner of these far-travelled boots was a lightly-built dark-faced man, with eyes quietly ubiquitous. he caught the interested glance of the cobbler, and turned to look at him again with the uneasiness that is bred of war. the cobbler instantly hobbled towards him.
“will you help a poor man?” he said.
“why should i?” was the answer, with one hand already half out of its thick glove. “you are not hungry; you have never been starved in your life.”
the german was quick enough, but it was not quite the prussian german.
the cobbler looked at the speaker slowly.
“an englishman?” he asked.
and the other nodded.
“come this way.”
the cobbler hobbled towards the kneiphof, where the streets are quiet, and the englishman followed him. at the corner of the kohl markt he turned and looked, not at the man, but at his boots.
“you are a sailor?” he said.
“yes.”
“i was told to look for an english sailor—louis d'arragon.”
“then you have found me,” was the reply.
still the cobbler hesitated.
“how am i to know it?” he asked suspiciously.
“can you read?” asked d'arragon. “i can prove who i am—if i want to. but i am not sure that i want to.”
“oh! it is only a letter—of no importance. some private business of your own. it comes from dantzig—written by one whose name begins with 'b.'”
“barlasch,” suggested d'arragon quietly, as he took from his pocket a paper which he unfolded and held beneath the eyes of the cobbler. it was a passport written in three languages. if the man could read, he was not anxious to boast of an accomplishment so far above his station; but he glanced at the paper, not without a practised skill, to seize the essential parts of it.
“yes, that is the name,” he said, searching in his pockets. “the letter is an open one. here it is.”
in passing the letter, the man made a scarcely perceptible movement of the hand which might have been a signal.
“no,” said d'arragon, “i do not belong to the tugendbund or to any other secret society. we have need of no such associations in my country.”
the cobbler laughed, not without embarrassment.
“you have a quick eye,” he said. “it is a great country, england. i have seen the river full of english ships before napoleon chased you off the seas.”
d'arragon smiled as he unfolded the letter.
“he has not done it yet,” he said, with that spirit which enables mariners of the anglo-saxon race to be amused when there is a talk of supremacy on the high seas. he read the letter carefully, and his face hardened.
“i was instructed,” said the cobbler, “to give you the letter, and at the same time to inform you that any assistance or facilities you may require will be forth-coming; besides...” he broke off and pointed with his thick, leather-stained finger, “that writing is not the writing of him who signs.”
“he who signs cannot write at all.”
“that writing,” went on the cobbler, “is a passport in any german state. he who carries a letter written in that hand can live and travel free anywhere from here to the rhine or the danube.”
“then i am lucky in possessing a powerful friend,” said d'arragon, “for i know who wrote this letter. i think i may say he is a friend of mine.”
“i am sure of it. i have already been told so,” said the cobbler. “have you a lodging in konigsberg? no? then you can lodge in my house.”
without awaiting a reply, which he seemed to consider a foregone conclusion, he limped down the kohl markt towards the steps leading to the river, which in winter is a thoroughfare.
“i live in the neuer markt,” he said breathlessly, as he laboured onwards. “i have waited for you three days on that bridge. where have you been all this time?”
“avoiding the french,” replied d'arragon curtly. respecting his own affairs he was reticent, as commanders and other lonely men must always be. they walked side by side on the dusty and trodden ice without further speech. at the steps from the river to neuer markt, d'arragon gave the lame man his hand, and glanced a second time at the fingers which clasped his own. they had not been born to toil, but had had it thrust upon them.
they crossed the neuer markt together, and went into that house where the linden grows so close as to obscure the windows. and the lodging offered to louis was the room in which charles darragon had slept in his wet clothes six months earlier. so small is the world in which we live, and so narrow are the circles drawn by fate around human existence and endeavour.
the cobbler having shown his visitor the room, and pointed out its advantages, was turning to go when d'arragon, who was laying aside his fur coat, seemed to catch his attention, and he paused on the threshold.
“there is french blood in your veins,” he said abruptly.
“yes—a little.”
“so. i thought there must be. you reminded me—it was odd, the way you laid aside your coat—reminded me of a frenchman who lodged here for one night. he was like you, too, in build and face. he was a spy, if you please—one of the french emperor's secret police. i was new at the work then, but still i suspected there was something wrong about him. i took his boots—a pretext of mending them. i locked him in. he got out of that window, if you please, without his boots. he followed me, and learnt much that he was not meant to know. i have since heard it from others. he did the emperor a great service—that man. he saved his life, i think, from assassination in dantzig. and he did me an ill turn—but it was my own carelessness. i thought to make a thaler by lodging him, and he was tricking me all the while.”
“what was his name?” asked d'arragon.
“oh—i forgot the name he gave. it was a false one. he was disguised as a common soldier—and he was in reality an officer of the staff. but i know the name of the officer to whom he wrote his report of his night's lodging here—his colleague in the secret police, it would seem.”
“ah!” said d'arragon, busying himself with his haversack.
“it was de casimir—a polish name. and in the last two days i have heard of him. he has accepted the emperor's amnesty. he has married a beautiful woman, and is living like a prince at cracow. all this since the siege of dantzig began. in time of war there is no moment to lose, eh?”
“and the other? he who slept in this room. has he passed through konigsberg again?”
“no, that he has not. if he had, i should have seen him. you can believe me, i wanted to see him. i was at my place on the bridge all the time—while the french occupied konigsberg—when the last of them hurried away a month ago with the cossacks close behind. no. i should have seen him, and known him. he is not on this side of the niemen, that fine young gentleman. now, what can i do to help you to-morrow?”
“you can help me on the way to vilna,” answered d'arragon.
“you will never get there.”
“i will try,” said the sailor.
