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BY
of childish awe she surveyed the weird surroundings of Leroux's studio.
"Everything was new, strange, and astounding, to
the Ana-Capri maiden: the numberless canvases that
leant against the lower part of the walls, the worm-eaten
tapestries that covered their upper portions, the
yataghans, the shields, the chain-mail that hung on
them, the pictures on the easel, the casts, the masks,
the anatomical écorchés that filled all spaces, the hollow
suit of armour that shone in one dark corner, the
skeleton with a pipe in its mouth that filled another;
and, more horrific than all, the lay-figure which, in its
silk dress and ringlets, she mistook for the lady of the
house, and which elicited a little scream from her as
she noticed its vacant stare and oddly twisted fingers.
Then there was the portrait of the Cardinal that would
stare at her, move to which side she would; the gorgeous
Persian cat that sprang loudly purring on its master's
shoulders; the brilliant and clamorous macaw, and the
dreadful little black monkey, that, shocking to relate,
had caught her by the silk train, for which it received
a caning. All this, and much more, filled her with
speechless amazement.
"But before she had time to grow a little more
accustomed to these wonders, she was hurried off by
Margutta?, Raoul's factotum and housekeeper, to the
room that for the present was allotted her. During
her absence, ever more anxiously did Raoul and myself
discuss the problem of what was to be done with her.
I had given my friend a hasty sketch of all that you
know already, and though demurring at first to the
resolution I had taken, he was quite willing to help me
on finding me fixed in my resolution. After a few minutes he exclaimed: 'I have it! There's a priest I know, who has often sat to me, he frequents a café not far from here; many's the bottle we've emptied and the song we've sung together. He is a little rakish, I won't deny, too fond of double-entendres and good living: still a priest is a priest; I'll ask him how to set about this marriage business. We'll keep him in the dark about that convent escapade of your bella donna; but as long as we're fairly married according to the rules of the Church, I suppose we need have no further apprehension of pursuit or detection, as Mademoiselle Antonella had taken no vows, and was therefore free to leave. However, I don't think the Signor Curato will ask many questions. But tell us, mon vieux--for I can hardly make you out--are you in bitter earnest? Do you love her--I mean head over ears?'
"'By all means seek out the priest at once,' I cried;
'I am in earnest. I know I am doing what is wild
and reckless; I know that this is but a simple contadina
of Capri, but I love her--I love her as madly as though
she were Queen of Naples. Between her and me there
exist occult, magnetic affinities; for me she has got
into this strait; she has entered a convent, and run
away from it, and I could no more abandon her now,
or be her ruin, than I could at this moment abandon
the hopes of life itself, with all its prospects of gratified
ambition. I don't understand the laws of this singular,
unprogressive country, but I will marry her this hour,
if they will permit it, and,arrange all else afterwards.'
"Raoul slightly raised his eyebrows, and rolled up a
cigarette. His cat pricked up her ears as the rustling
of a silk dress was again heard along the corridor, and Antonella, refreshed and resplendent, with her black, lustrous plaits newly arranged, came sweeping into the room in her long black skirt, whose dark lines brought into strong relief her embroidered chemise, her 'mat' ivory shoulders, and grandly moulded arms. Raoul, assiduously placing a chair for her at the breakfast-table, which had been laid out by this time, whispered in French: 'How maddeningly those corals on the faded red handkerchief bring out her flesh-tints. I already see her hung in next year's "Salon," with a crowd of my despairing rivals beneath her!'
"'Softly, softly, friend,' I answered in the same
tongue; 'you have to catch the Signor Curato first.'
"'I will, I will!' cried Raoul, jumping up enthusiastically,
as he hastily gulped down the remainder
of his chocolate; then smilingly kissing his hand to
Antonella, he skipped out of the room.
"He returned ere long bursting with his good news;
for he entered into his friends' affairs with about the
same zest with which he would begin a new picture.
Taking me aside, he informed me that the priest whom
he had consulted was ready to marry us himself this
very morning if I liked, although it would be a
disciplinary offence on his part--a consideration which he
waived on hearing he would be well rewarded for it.
'I dare say,' he went on, 'twenty-five scudi will appear
ample payment to him. If your finances are exhausted
I have the money all ready for you; at least you'll be
at no expense for a wedding garment or banquet.'
"When the priest arrived, we accordingly received
the nuptial benediction in the studio, after very scant
ceremony, Raoul and his housekeeper being the witnesses.
"After discussion with my friend, it was decided that
it would be positively ruinous to my prospects to
acknowledge the peasant girl Antonella openly as my
wife for the present; and that my best plan would be
to place her with some lady who might help in forming
her manners and developing her mind.
"Such a person I remembered my former landlady to
be, the widow of an impoverished Cavaliere, who had
left her for sole property a small palazzo in the
'Trastevere.' There in some top rooms she lived and
held state by herself, the rest being let out in
apartments, mostly to hard-up characters such as I had
been myself.
"This lady--for lady she was in every sense of the
word--I thought might be willing to carry out my views
with respect to Antonella. She was fairly well educated,
spoke French, and yet was poor enough to make it likely
that she would gladly avail herself of such an addition
to her income. Moreover, I judged that my visits would
not attract attention in the quiet, out-of-the-way
neighbourhood where she lived.
"As I expected, Signora di Volterra readily fell in
with my views. 'Your wife shall be as safe with me
as in her mother's lap,' she said; 'and as to education,
I flatter myself that though my poor dear Cavaliere
was only third under-secretary to the Santo Padre's
confessor, yet the Di Volterras have ever known the
business and duties of the nobility.'
"When Antonella was introduced to her, she seized
her fervidly in her arms, said she was the daughter
that she and the Cavaliere had always longed for; and with a look at me, observed that with such eyes she would not be long without admirers when I introduced her into society; ending by inviting her to put away her bonnet and things in the room allotted to her. My wife turned round, pouted her lips at me, and disappeared with her chaperon."
"Good God! you are a married
man, then!" he exclaimed as his,
friend made a pause in his story,
looking at him with knitted brows; and then he began
whistling as though to relieve his mind.
Just then the watchman passed down the street,
droning out in a monotonous voice--
"Good folk, the Minster bell strikes two,
May Christ the Lord watch over you."
Sontheim, seeing that his friend still remained silent,
remarked more calmly: "Well, I suppose there's more
behind it than meets the eye! No one that I know
of has ever heard of this wife of yours. From what
I can make out, she'd the spirit of twenty unbroken
fillies in her, and you can't surely have kept her in
durance vile with that old Di Volterra up to the present hour!"
Emanuel laughed rather sardonically; then he said,
shrugging his shoulders, "You shall hear in due time
how well I kept her shut up there, and what a docile
wife I found her! In the meantime she did not show
much docility as a pupil, though she possessed all sorts
of natural talents, but she was incorrigibly lazy and
pleasure loving. Some things, it is true, she learned
at once and as by instinct, such as to drape and wear
a shawl in the last new fashion, to speak pure Roman,
and to behave like a lady. On discovering, for example,
that finely shaped aid trimmed nails were considered a
sign of high breeding, she actually devoted three hours
every morning to paring and polishing hers; and in
spite of my teazing, persevered till she had eradicated
all traces of plebeian origin from her long, shapely hands.
"Reading, writing, and arithmetic, however, were
profoundly distasteful to her; but as soon as she found
them to be necessary accomplishments to a person in
society, she arduously prosecuted their study by original
processes of her own. For instance, I have known her
secrete notes from fashionable ladies, and use them as
models for her own caligraphy, despising the more
rounded commonplace characters of her instructress;
by this means, with the aid of gilt-edged, scented notepaper
and golden sand, she used to send me billets-doux
that would in no wise have been a disgrace to me if left
lying about.
"For some time after we were married her great
delight was to go out walking with me through the
streets of Rome, and I indulged her in this fancy as
much as I could and dared. I soon discovered, however, that the grand monuments of antiquity and the historical associations of the Eternal City possessed no attractions for her. How should they? you will perhaps say, considering she knew next to nothing of their past history. Still, in many of the Italians, quite as uncultivated as herself, there seems a kind of inborn, hereditary instinct for these things.
"No; what she liked was going to the Corso, and the
evening walks on the Pincio, decked out in her finest
clothes, and watching the people of wealth and title
drive by in their carriages, who stared at her in turn.
But, afraid of the notice she attracted, I was forced to
check a taste which, though harmless enough in itself,
incurred too much risk under the circumstances.
"Our first memorable quarrel, I remember, arose
when I told her that I was not a Marchese or Milord,
as she seemed to think, with nothing to do but waste
his time in showing off his wife to the world on the
Corso; but a hard-worked musician, bound to strain
every nerve for some years to come to place her in the
position he wished to see her in.
"You will remember that Raoul had stipulated that
he should be allowed to paint Antonella, and under the
circumstances I could of course refuse him nothing.
He had set his heart on painting a picture of the
dance amidst the ruins--had actually gone to Capri
to make some studies on the spot itself, and was now
all on fire to begin his subject with such a splendid
model for his central figure.
"Antonella's delight on finding that she was to be
painted knew no bounds; Signora di Volterra, on the
other hand, looked, or pretended to look, scandalized. But the impetuous girl paid small heed to what she called her owlish humours, and began trying on all her dresses by turns before she was ready to start.
"She always naturally fell into the most graceful
attitudes, and Raoul's only difficulty, on our reaching the
studio, was which selection he should make from among
this wealth of posture. She put up with this troublesome
and apparently interminable trial with the utmost
complacency, but grew restive when he had at last
fixed on the right position and she found that she was
henceforth expected to remain motionless.
"Raoul, like a skilled veteran, did not at first inform
her of the many hours she would be required to sit, and
she kept continually turning her head the wrong way,
and inquiring if he did not think that a better view of
it, or if he had not yet done. But by degrees, what
with sweetmeats, and blandishments, and his amusing
stories, she got, as it were, surprised into sitting properly;
perhaps also philosophically making up her mind that
one must suffer for the privilege of future greatness as
a beauty.
"Later on, when I found the sittings so much more
numerous than I had expected--for these great artists
often work out their conceptions at immense toil to
themselves--I would play to them on my violin, and we would
pass our time in a sort of blissful intoxication of blended
art, friendship, and love. This would only be interrupted
at moments when things went wrong with Raoul's
painting, when, after rushing back to look at his work
from a distance, he would curse himself for a fool, and
tear his wild locks, and fiercely wipe out what he had
done with his paint rag. At such times my wife would stare at him as though he were mad, and then burst into peals of laughter, and I would fiddle away with desperate energy to drown his exclamations, and rail at him for his wastefulness; or, again, when the mood seized me I would pull out my roll of music-paper and begin composing, when we all three became as silent as mice. But frequently I had to go off to concerts, or to give lessons, which were now, however, chiefly to marchionesses and bankers' wives, leaving Raoul and my wife together in a fervour of confidence in their affection and honour.
"Antonella had the faculty of getting her own way with
everybody. With the Signora di Volterra, who was, I
feared, a lazy instructress, she did as she liked; me, of
course, she twisted round her little finger; and now
came Raoul's turn. He had promised me not to let
her be seen by any one, but on the many occasions
when he was called into the adjoining room to speak
to important visitors she had managed in one way or
another to bring herself to their notice. It seems that
one or two of Raoul's rich patrons, connoisseurs of art
and men of fashion, had caught glimpses of Antonella
in the corridor of the house, opportunities which I now
imagine she must herself have sought for. These now
began whispering amongst each other of the magnificent
beauty of this artist's mysterious model.
"To my no small annoyance, I myself heard the
Princess Tortonia rallying my friend at her house about
the model he so sedulously kept all to himself--so all
unlike the beings they saw grouped on the steps of
the Trinity di Monte. I had found out, indeed, that
one morning when Raoul had been unexpectedly called away, she had been discovered amiably chatting with several of his male friends on his return.
"The picture for which she had been sitting was
now finished, and attracted a great deal of attention;
and although my wife herself had now begun dabbling
in colours and babbling of turning artist, I insisted for
many reasons on her discontinuance of her visits to the
studio, and resuming her prearranged mode of life and
occupations.
"Although she apparently acquiesced in this decision,
I began to notice a great change in her temper and
manner to myself. We had now been married over a
year. The season had been a very unhealthy one; my
chief supporters had left Rome in a panic, there were
no concerts going on, and financially speaking I was
anything but flourishing.
"It is true I was beginning to make a great name,
but a large income does not invariably keep pace with
that.
"Antonella, already irritated at the imposed restrictions,
would evince by degrees considerable impatience,
nay, contempt, on my refusing her certain expensive
trifles or expeditions that she had set her heart on.
"On one occasion, indeed, she was so exceedingly
unreasonable, that, forgetting my wonted forbearance,
I roundly taxed her with her extravagance and love of
amusement; when, to my astonishment, she poured out
on me such a torrent of invective, mingled with
complaints and accusations, that for the moment I was
utterly taken aback.
"Feverishly pacing up and down the room she cried:
'You wish to keep me hidden away, I see; to deny me all the privileges of my station, my position as your wife. Ah, how do I know that I am your wife at all! What could a poor girl like me do to protect herself from treachery and shame? Unhappy me! I see it all now; the holy hermit was right when he said you were luring me to destruction--it was a mock marriage into which you entrapped me! Fool! Idiot! I see it all! That is why I am stowed away with the old dolt on this top-floor; that is why you tell me you have no money, and go to all the grand people alone, so that no one should hear of my miserable, miserable story! Oh, my poor mother, God was good to you to take you to Himself before you knew what had become of your wretched Tolla. We were honest people always, and now they would point their finger at me in Ana-Capri; the girls would titter and turn their backs upon me. He is ashamed of you, they would say; would he be ashamed of his lawful wife? No, no, I will not stand it; I was an honest girl. I will go to the Santo Padre and tell him of the foul trick played upon me; he will see me righted, he will not let me be ground down to the dust!
"'Ah me, but he will know that I ran away from
the convent, wretched girl that I am, and punish me
perhaps! It was wicked, oh, very wicked of me; but
it was your fault, yes, your fault--you have been my
ruin! My soul will go to perdition, and all through you!
you! you!'
"The last words came half-stifled through her
clenched teeth, while she was pointing her finger at
me. Her features worked more and more convulsively,
and then, with a succession of gurgling moans, she
suddenly, before I could catch her, fell backwards like a log, and, to my horror, remained quite rigid and deathlike.
"I lifted her on to the sofa, called her by a thousand
tender names, rushed into the next room for a jug of
cold water, bathed her face and rubbed her temples--but
all to no purpose; and at last, thoroughly frightened,
I rang the bell furiously, and on the Signora's appearance
bade her watch by my wife's side while I rushed
out for a doctor.
"Though half beside myself, I remembered the
address of a rising young medical man, whom I found in,
and brought back with me. On the way, I informed
him of the death-like state in which I had left my wife,
and of the extraordinary circumstances under which I
had first seen her.
"By this time we had reached our destination, and
in another moment the doctor was feeling Tolla's pulse,
and examining the pupils of her eyes. She lay in the
same awful immobility in which I had left her. But
my worst fears were allayed by the cool, business-like
manner in which he ordered her head to be laid low,
and her clothes to be loosened, saying: 'Don't be
alarmed! You must leave her perfectly quiet; she will
come to herself presently. She has one of those nervous
temperaments that would be specially affected by such
an accident as you have described. I remember that
similar cases often came within my father's cognizance
while in practice at Taranto. I have it on his authority
that this affection is not merely the superstition
ordinarily represented, but that for some occult reason
the inhabitants of those parts are liable to this hysterical
disorder on being bitten by the tarantula; and he attributed the beneficial effect produced by the tarantella music to the perspiration incident to the violent dancing, a view he found corroborated when in Russia with the Grande Armée, where the peasants use their vapour-bath as a cure for hydrophobia. But I should not advise your playing to her again in this manner, as it will only tend to renew the impression produced on the nerves; and you must try to make her forget it.'
"Then surveying her beautiful countenance with
about as much animation as though she were a wax
figure, he added that, with her highly excitable nature,
I must try by all means to keep her amused, and then
took his leave.
"When Antonella at last came to herself, everything
was forgotten in the joy of seeing her well again. She
appeared unconscious of the scene that had led to her
trance. She was more captivating than ever; and to
celebrate our reconciliation I took her to Tivoli, and
we spent the day there in all manner of lover-like follies
and playful pranks.
"For a little while everything went charmingly.
She now resumed her visits to the studio, which I was
henceforth afraid to interfere with; and there, while
sitting or painting under his direction, she now often
met patrons and visitors of Raoul's.
"By and by I noticed that she began to alternate
more than hitherto between fits of strange excitability
and utter languor, which again gave place to the wildest
caprices. She coquetted, with the men that came to
see my friend, took to smoking cigarettes at times, and
in certain moods ignored me altogether. But if on such
occasions I flew into a violent rage, and gave vent to spurts of jealousy, all at once, by a curious revulsion, she would manifest the most extravagant love for me; and no matter how angry I felt, if she looked at me with that seductive smile of hers, showing the milk-white teeth, it was all up with me again."
"One afternoon, towards the end of March, I had
come in, and was twanging the mandolin, as was my
wont, while Raoul and Tolla worked away with most
meritorious seriousness.
"One by one three gentlemen had dropped in to take
leave, as it happened, for after a winter residence at
Rome they were all going back to their respective
countries. There was the French banker, Raoul's
intimate and self-constituted agent; a Russian Count
Ogotshki, reputed of immense wealth--a grey-haired,
pale-eyed, paternal sort of man--with high cheek-bones,
weak chin, and of exceedingly courtly manners; and an
English M.P., in a grey tweed suit of irreproachable
cut, who spoke the most wonderful Anglo-French, only
seasoned rather too plentifully with 'Oh uee!'
"Tolla, in some occult fashion of her own, had by
this time picked up French, in which she rattled on
with most commendable self-assurance and facility.
"'You should have seen the crowd round you in the
salon,' said the French banker, M. G----, looking
benignantly at Tolla. 'Had you been there yourself,
you would have been the toast of all Paris, and the
lioness of the Bois de Boulogne. I heard Madame
Agadeau say, if that girl were her daughter she should
be covered with diamonds; as she considered these
Italian peasants of a higher and nobler race than us
Gauls.'
"'I have a picture of an Italian peasant-woman by
Williams,' remarked the M.P. sententiously; 'a woman
of Sorrento with a goat. But what is singular is that
both are precisely similar to a woman with a goat that
a friend of mine had of him thirty years before; and yet
a goat will not live thirty years though the woman might.
But I say to him, if you would only borrow some of
Robert's, and your splendid models to----'
"'Mr. Williams is too polite to wish to interfere
with our models; and, moreover, after painting a goat for twenty years he may well do it de chic.'
"'I know what that is,' said the M.P., 'it is what
our sailors put in their cheeks.'
"'Yes,' retorted Raoul, 'and is usually associated
with blague; and he began shouting out in operatic
tones--
'Debit de tabac des manufa ....
Des manufa ...
Debit de tabac des manufa ...
Des manufa ...
Tures royales
Tures royaux.' ....
"All this time the Count said little or nothing, but
sat smoking his cigarette and watching Tolla painting.
Suddenly turning to Raoul, he pointed to the picture of
'The Dance among the Ruins,' and said--
"'So the Duchess of D---- has been beforehand with
me in that. It seems my destiny always to play second
fiddle. I was born a day too late, and have never been
able to make it up since. You dislike making replicas,
I believe?'
"'Ah, we have no time for that now,' said the
banker, pompously; 'but there's the "Silk-spinner of
Ana-Capri," mademoiselle is in that also.'
"All this time Raoul uttered not a word, but went
on with his 'Debit de tabac.'
"'But of course that is mine,' exclaimed the Count,
eagerly; 'I always looked upon it as such--and as
many others of yours as you will let me take back to
Russia, for the matter of that.' (The banker looked
slightly astonished.) 'I am sure England has had more
than her share already of mademoiselle's effigies--but
that was not exactly what I meant,' he said, tugging at his grey moustache and smoking more vigorously than before.
"'In truth, for the last year our M. Leroux has
painted no one else,' here put in the Englishman; 'as
indeed who would, who had once beheld this enchanting
profile. You should paint her as Circe, M. Leroux; I
for one should be proud to figure as one of her pigs!'
"While he was speaking Antonella had looked about
her once or twice, and there was something strangely
intoxicating in the glance of her eye and the smile on
her lips, as she cried, 'Oh, I would rather paint you as
St. Anthony; our hermit at Ana-Capri had a picture
of the saint--but now that I think of it, it was not
unlike the Count here. I will paint you, Count,' she said,
as if the idea had just struck her; then casting down
her eyes with a charming air of modesty, 'that is, if
you will sit to such a tyro as myself, when you might
have great artists like M. Raoul to do justice to your
air de grand seigneur.'
"One might almost have fancied that the Count,
elderly and case-hardened though he was, blushed a
little at this; but before he could muster his wits to do
justice to this offer, our English M.P. broke in with--
'And will you not deign to paint me, too, fair artist? if
not as the saint, why stick me in as the demon tempting
him.'
"Antonella laughed gaily, and looking from one to the
other of the three elderly gentlemen, said: 'Messieurs,
you all look so extremely amiable that I, as a good
Catholic, should consider it sacrilege to invest the devil
with your attribute; but yonder sits M. Sturm, whose
scowl would not ill-become the arch-fiend himself!' and with a low, provoking laugh, she pointed her brush at me, who, sick of this vain chatter, had sat far back in the embrasure of the huge studio window, dividing my time between teazing the monkey and twanging the mandolin; but now, losing all patience, I began violently striking it, shouting out the jeering carnival tune, 'Au clair de la lune.'
"Raoul, who, while painting away, had occasionally
joined the conversation with a laugh or witticism
here quickly put in with an air of mock-injury--
"'Every one of the present company, I see, is to
have the distinction of sitting to the most peerless of
painters--saint or devil matters little--only I have
proved such a bore of a teacher that I am to be cut
out altogether it seems. Won't you, at least, let me
play second demon in your "Temptation of St. Anthony?"
or stay, rather let me put you in myself, for
I am sure the arch-tempter could never devise a bait
more fatal than those eyes!'
How they sparkled at that moment! There was
something almost insolently triumphant about her
person just then, which seemed to radiate beauty as
a star does light. All the men present succumbed more
or less to its influence; I only felt it as an insult to me
in the jealous rage that gripped me within.
"'No, no! the temptation would be too irresistible,'
here interposed the gallant Frenchman; 'St. Anthony
never was so sorely tried.'
"The Count, who seemed to have been following up
a train of thoughts of his own, now remarked: 'I'd
sooner be painted as St. Nicholas--he is my country's
patron saint; and I would be represented as showering gifts on a fair maiden.'
"Their conversation appeared to me to be growing
more and more insipid, and while twanging loudly on
the mandolin, I remarked: 'For the matter of that,
Antonella, you'll make us what you'll make us; but I,
for my part, have little ambition to sit for either pig or
devil.'
"'No, you had better sit for a bear in your present
mood,' said Tolla, smiling; 'and the monkey, to whom
so much of your attention is devoted, shall play the
fiddle to you--sha'n't you, Jacko?'
"Raoul, slightly raising his eyebrows, looked at his
watch, and put down his palette; and the three gentlemen,
with smiles and sweet parting speeches to Antonella,
now bowed themselves out.
"Raoul, who had an engagement, departed immediately
afterwards; and left alone with Antonella, I
said brutally, 'What devil has seized you, to go on
tormenting me as you have been doing? Don't you
know that I hate those foolish banterings with stolid
bankers and thick-sculled Russians?'
"Antonella, for all answer, broke into a defiant laugh,
that stung me beyond endurance.
"'What is the meaning of this?' I cried, going close
up to her, and looking fixedly in her eyes. 'Do you
take me for a fool, your humble servant, madame?'
"She twirled herself round on her heel, and again
broke into her unendurable laugh. 'Tut, tut, fool or
not,' she said, insolently, 'at least you shall not befool
me.'
"For the moment I felt an almost overpowering
inclination to seize and shake the devil out of her; but I mastered myself with a strong effort, and said in a cold, significant voice, 'Antonella, this is a strange tone to adopt towards your husband. Do you consider that I fail towards you in aught?'
"'Husband!' she sneered. 'A fine husband! who
keeps his wife in a top-floor, and lets her want for half
the necessaries of life!'
"'Are you mad, or what?' I cried. 'Have I not
explained my position to you from the beginning? Did
you not acquiesce in my decision? If you want me to
provide those luxuries for you which madame now calls
the necessaries of life, suffer me to act in a manner
which will be conducive to that end. To acknowledge
you openly now, before my position is more firmly
secured, will retard what you so ardently desire. We
are both, it seems, ambitious; but,' I added, bitterly,
'in what different ways! In another year or two, if
I----'
"'Another year or two!' exclaimed Antonella,
stamping on the floor; 'that's what you said at the
first, and I'm already tired of----' but she stopped
abruptly.
"'Tired of what?'--I snapped her up now, in a
concentrated rage--'tired of my love, I suppose; because,
forsooth, my lady can't ride in her carriage, and be
smothered in diamonds as those drivelling bankers
propose! Tired, indeed! Is it so long since you had
to spin the silk just good enough now for you to trail
in the dust! You surely ought to know what toil
means. And do I not toil for you? While dressing
yourself, or coquetting with half a dozen men at a time,
now forms your one occupation, am I not slaving away for you day and night?'
"'Fiddling and dancing attendance on the great, you
mean! Toiling you call that! Why cannot you make
money like your friend Raoul, if you are as clever as
you would have me think?' she asked, contemptuously.
'But it's all castles in the air with you, and promises--with
that endless music-writing which never brings
in anything that I can see, but prevents you ever taking
me out, of course.'
"A sort of numb despair was creeping over me at
her words: an impassable gulf seemed yawning
between us. What could ever heal speech such as this?
"'They tell me,' she went on, scarcely heeding me,
but looking at herself in the glass and arranging her
hair, 'that a woman like me ought to have the wealth
of Golconda at her feet!'
"'Who tells you?' I hissed, half beside myself,
seizing her by the wrist. 'You shall tell me who tells
you!'
"Jealousy, love, anger, despair, were almost turning
my brain.
"'Why, every man who sees me!' she laughed out,
but her colour deepened, and there was a defiant flash
in her eyes.
"'You shall tell me!' I repeated, and there must
have been something in the tone of my voice, in the
look of my eyes, that terrified her, for suddenly, without
previous warning, she burst into wild tears and sobs,
and hiding her face between her hands, dropped down
on the nearest sofa. But for once I did not heed her
tears. I had let go her wrist again, and was pacing up
and down the studio, muttering to myself, and feeling as though we were divided for ever. Was there then anything in common between this woman and myself? And the anger I felt against her so worked within me, that I was tempted to dash my brains out on the wall I was leaning against.
"Louder and louder grew the sobs, and finding I
paid no attention to them, Tolla, to my utter amazement,
suddenly flung herself at my feet, and seizing
my hand she moaned plaintively--
"'How hard you are on a poor girl who loves you,
Emanuele! Do not look so strangely at me. I am
your Tolla! What did I say just now? I have
forgotten. Will you not forgive me?' And looking at
me with a beseeching grace which swept away all sense
of alienation, she sighed softly--'Did I not risk my
here and hereafter because I loved you so?'
"Strange inconsistency! she was not lying when she
spoke thus. And there was delirium in the passion
this behaviour inspired me with. I pressed her to my
heart; I covered her with kisses; I promised she should
star it yet in all the capitals of Europe with me! I
painted our future to her in the most glowing colours,
and this picture so enchanted me that, putting my arm
round her waist, I waltzed her madly round the room,
almost lifting her off the floor at times, till we sank
down at last, quite giddy and out of breath, on the first
seat that came in our way; where, laughing like the
veriest children, and pelting each other with his sofa
cushions, Raoul found us on his return. In the wildest
of spirits we all went out together into the glorious
Roman sunlight and balmy air."
"On the following afternoon, more
light-hearted than usual, having
recently finished the composition of a particularly difficult
piece for the violin, I made my way to the Signora
di Volterra. On the previous evening Tolla, under the
influence of our reconciliation, had said of her own
accord, and with many caresses, that she would not
frequent Raoul's studio as constantly as heretofore,
but paint in her own room.
"She had long coveted a certain exquisite necklace
of pink coral cameos, which, had belonged to a Russian
princess, and which happened to be on sale at a certain
dealer's. In my present elated state, and having made
a good sum by the copyright of my new work, I spent
the whole of my gains on this truly artistic trinket.
As I hurried along, I pictured to myself Tolla's delight and her smile, and the look of her glorious eyes, and her cajoling words, when I should clasp the necklace round her throat.
"I reflected that, all things considered, it would be
better, shortly, to make the fact of our marriage public;
and though, like a dark shadow, the thought swept
over me that it was wealth that she seemed to crave
above everything, I put the thought aside again as
being in all likelihood probably only a childish whim of
hers.
"'Tolla, Tolla!' I cried, as I ran up the stairs,
expecting to see her come to meet me. I opened the
door of her sitting-room. 'Tolla, are you making yourself
fine for a walk on the Pincio?' said I, in a bantering
tone; going towards her bedroom. 'Look, here's something
towards beautifying the beautiful--something that
you've long wished for;' and I looked behind the window-curtains,
seeing that once or twice before she had playfully
hidden herself on hearing my footsteps, and enjoyed
my mystification.
"But no, she was not there. She must be sitting with
Signora di Volterra, though such of late had not been
her habit, and I knocked at the latter's door.
"'Come in,' called the Signora, in a drowsy voice;
and on entering I saw that she was alone, and that I
had just disturbed her in a nap.
"'I had thought to find my wife with you, as she is
not in her own rooms,' I said. 'I am afraid I have
disturbed you.'
"'Your wife!' said the Signora, rubbing her eyes in
drowsy astonishment; 'your wife with me!'
"'Well,' I said, with an impatient laugh, 'considering
she lives with you, is there anything astonishing
in that? Has she gone out on some errand or other,
and do you know in what direction? because I will go
to meet her.'
"'Eh, Dio mio,' cried the woman, now thoroughly
roused, and opening her sleepy eyes to the widest;
'why, she went out quite early this morning to go
with you, Signor, on a little expedition to Albano. She
didn't think she'd be home till to-morrow.'
"'Gone to Albano!--' I repeated, blankly. 'Gone
with me to Albano.'
"'Didn't she say Albano, Concetta?' she called out
to the servant in the kitchen, who thereupon showed
her frowsy head at the half-opened door.
"'Yes, yes, Signora,' she replied, 'I heard her saying
she was going to meet the Signor, her husband; and I
watched her as she went down the street and stepped
into a carriage at the left-hand corner, Signora.'
"I felt a chill creep from my heart through the
marrow of my bones, but I only said quite calmly in a
matter-of-fact tone, 'Thanks, that will do;' and
muttering, 'Gone to Albano!--' again retreated to Tolla's
room. I shut the door very softly, as though there
was some one somewhere who might be disturbed by
it. Then I stood quite still, gazing vacantly about me,
with the same icy sensations running through me. I
heard the ticking of the clock, loud and fast, loud and
fast; I heard the clatter of horses' hoofs drawing near
and nearer from a long way off, and then again faint
and fainter in the distance; I heard a Hebrew clothesman
crying over and over again, in a nasal voice, 'Roba,
roba vecch!'--and I could not have told whether minutes or hours rolled by as those sounds, still repeating themselves, struck upon my ear with preternatural distinctness, and I listened as if there were nothing to do in the world but to stand there listening to them. But suddenly I became conscious of a burning, consuming thirst. Mechanically I walked to the table, poured myself out a tumbler of water, and emptied it at a draught. Then I looked about me as though I had just awakened from a deep sleep, and with a noiseless step, as though it were I that had committed some crime, hurried from one room to the other.
"I tossed all her dresses about as though she might
be in one of them; tore open the wardrobe, pulled
out the drawers, tumbled everything upside down in
savage haste. All at once I came upon an old faded
red handkerchief, the same she had worn over her
bosom when I had known her first; it seemed to melt
the heart within me, and I pressed it to my lips and
kissed it, as though it could feel my kisses. Then with
a great cry flinging myself on the bed, I wept--wept
as I hope I may never weep again.
"Those tears brought no relief; each one seemed
to sear me as it fell. Suddenly, as I tossed about in
my anguish, I felt a scrap of paper under my face on
the pillow; and there, pinned to it, was a note in my
wife's handwriting. With avidity I tore it off, and with
eyes blinded with tears, and almost frantic in my impatience,
I painfully deciphered the hurried scrawl--
"'I must leave you. No one knows about us; no one need know now. I will never come back to you. Do not come after me.
TOLLA.'
"That was all! Clenching the paper in my hand
as though it were a sentient thing I could crush and
annihilate, I threw myself off the bed with an imprecation;
rushing swiftly down the stairs, out of the house,
along the streets, on and on, as though I were following
in some shadowy track, till I was far out of Rome.
A storm of conflicting passions tore me asunder. I
would dog them to the ends of the earth, wherever they
might be, shoot both, and myself after! Nothing should
deter, nothing stop me, till I had been avenged on them.
Then suddenly, as in a kind of vision, I seemed to see
her whom I had loved clasp my knees--then reel back,
with blood, red blood, staining the grass, staining my
hands, staining everything between me and heaven;
and the voice of her mother smote me like a sword as
she wailed, 'Murderer, give me back my child!'
"I stopped, shivering, in my headlong course, with a
horrible fear in my veins; indeed, the agony which I
now endured through my own imagination, went a long
way to deaden my feelings. I was humbled and impotent,
as unfit to act as to forgive; and I looked about
me scared, dazed, bewildered. Whither was I going?
what would I do? Slowly I retraced my steps again,
with a great change at my heart.
"Quite late at night I got to Raoul's studio, and,
utterly worn out, dropped into a chair, muttering
'Antonella.' It was doubtful whether I was trying to
ask a question, or impart information.
"'Antonella?' repeated Raoul, looking at me with
deep concern.
"I could get no other word out of my parched throat,
but silently held out her note to him, and remained
motionless, staring on the floor, He went pacing up and down the room with the paper in his hand, muttering and swearing. Neither of us spoke again for a long time.
"'What is the meaning of it? I thought she was
madly attached to you,' said Raoul, at length, topping
still in front of me; and then, as I made no sign, he
asked, 'Shall I go after her? Shall I make inquiries?
What can I do for you?'
"This I only negatived by signs, and my head and
hands dropped as if they had no power left in them.
"After a long interval, Raoul said, 'Have you any
notion who it is she's gone off with?' Then, as I made
no answer, he added--'Perhaps it's as well she is gone.
Luckily no one knows you were married, and if you
take my advice you will let her go in silence; depend
upon it you never could have done anything with that
girl.'
"'I'll do with her in such fashion that I'll kill her
and her paramour,' I cried, starting up as about to rush
off, being again stung to madness by Raoul's mention of
our marriage. But Raoul interposed, and gently slipping
his arm round my heck said, 'There now, don't
excite yourself, mon vieux; fellows with a mission like
you and me don't go mad about a woman.'
"I seemed to acquiesce, and seated myself again, but
began sobbing like a child. No one unless he has
experienced this kind of desertion can perhaps ever
know the deep sense of humiliation it carries with it to
a man.
"Raoul had seated himself opposite to me in a helpless
way, as though he were quite at the end of his
eloquence. At last he said very tenderly, 'You suffer very much.'
"'To be betrayed by her I loved so dearly,' I
murmured, amid unmanly sobs.
"'If it's from this house she was led astray, the
man shall have to do with me, cried Raoul, striking
his breast. 'But who can it be? So many of them
have been leaving these last few days. Fool that I
was to have her to paint! Can you ever forgive me
for my share in this sad business, Emanuel?'
"But here I broke in: 'Whoever's to blame I know
that thou art the soul of honour, and would'st never in
ought have acquiesced in this dire treachery. 'But it is
enough. I have wept tears that disgrace me. Could
she come back now the past could never be replaced.
Bitter as it is, it must be borne in silence.'"
"Soon after this I left Rome. The place had
become hateful to me. I had besides got my first
regular engagement at Vienna. It was then that I
began to be popular in Germany, which for musical
culture is, of course, far ahead of other countries. I
did not stay long, however, in my native country,
although two cities, Carlsruhe and Weimar, offered me
engagements for the season.
"A demon of restlessness possessed me. I hurried
from country to country. Wherever I went my stay
was a triumph. Germany, England, Russia, America, were visited in turn. Money poured in, fame increased, but where was the happiness that should have accompanied them! The one being for whom I craved, and for whom I had chiefly craved this great success, was lost to me; and what was worse, had deserted, basely and cruelly deserted me. It was torture to think of. For to lose what we love by death sanctifies grief--then we may find some consolation even in our tears; but in such a loss as mine our very sorrow turns to shame, and the tears that should relieve seem to disgrace us. Thus the envenomed grief rankled in me; and yet, strange to say, the more it rankled, the greater my agony, the higher the spirit of music raised me on her wings, and my very torture seemed a cause of endless delight to the public."
"Hark!" said Sontheim, "there's the Minster bell
actually striking three o'clock! How the night is
passing; but your story is so engrossing that one loses
all count of time. What an experience to have undergone,
my poor friend. But as Racine has it, 'Aucun
chemin de fleurs ne conduit à la gloire'--and glory you
certainly have achieved; no doubt those great emotions
serve to fertilize the imagination."
Emanuel seemed hardly to hear him; he had buried
his head in his hands, and appeared to be silently
absorbed in the past.
The moon had long since set, but there was now a
faint tinge of dawn, making the stars look more remote
as though slowly departing. A little breeze had sprung
up, and went shivering and rustling through the leaves; and had the summer not been at its height this might have been chilling instead of delightfully refreshing. Suddenly on the stillness there broke the twitter of a bird--then all was quiet again.
Sontheim, who had left off smoking for the last
few minutes, said reflectively: "I verily believe that
one enjoys existence more and more as one gets older.
This morning now makes me feel quite lyrical, and
as glad as the little songster we have just heard. For
the life of me I cannot help quoting a poem though
it is of my own manufacture--
"Now God be praised for my delight
In His creation's goodly shows;
Meseems its beauty on my sight
With each revolving season grows.
This joy, which old age cannot tame,
May still burn clear for many a day,
Unless a gust put out the flame
Long ere the taper's burnt away."
This poem still producing no response from his
friend, the philosophic professor once more withdrew,
and reappeared with fresh bottles, one of which he
uncorked. Emanuel still refused everything but a
glass of water. "You are like one of the gods themselves,"
said Sontheim, filling his pipe afresh, and
resettling himself in his chair: "you seem above our
common wants. But pray go on now, I should like to
hear about some of your triumphs. Your music is so
new that it was not likely to become popular all at
once."
"Well, as to that," said Emanuel, "it would be too
long a story, but certainly if I met with enthusiasm
there was also no want of the most virulent opposition,
especially in Paris, where I now arrived after about seven
year of this erratic existence. The French capital, of
course, is the goal of a musician's career. It is there
alone we can now receive that cachet which ensures us
a permanent European reputation."
"Yes, unfortunately it is so at present," sighed
Sontheim; "but wait till we are a united Germany--then
it is we who shall dispense the laurel crown as
well as supply the wearers of it. But now I must not
interrupt you again."
"Well, I had been about a month in Paris, and was
preparing to give a great concert. I was more than
usually excited and agitated. Life there, with its
brilliant society, its grand entertainments, its convivialities,
luxuries, and dissipations of all kinds, is something
so swift and tumultuous that you are swept along by it
as on a resistless current.
"I was divided between this social whirl--which even
had I so wished I could not dare neglect--and the
thousand and one preparations which were necessary
for the success of my undertaking.
"The new or German school, it is true, idolized me;
but there was a strong cabal against me formed by the
old French faction. I was reviled, not only as artist,
but in my private character. My name was trailed in
the mud; outrageous stories were bruited about, and
in some of the comic papers I was held up to public
ridicule. The most absurd rumour invented by these
infernal Parisians was, that having strangled my wife
in her own hair I had been incarcerated for years--whence all my skill as a virtuoso.
"You may imagine how all this served to exasperate
my naturally irritable temperament. I seemed to have
lost the faculty of sleep, and after passing half my
nights at assemblies or with boon companions, I used
to spend the other half pacing the streets of the capital
to appease my excitement.
"At last arrived the day of the concert, which was
to be given at the Salle Hertz. No pains had been
spared by my adherents to make it an unquestionable
success; still I knew that my enemies were busily
working against me in secret, and, the public is like
a woman, you know--it is impossible to predict what
turn it is going to take next.
"The Salle Hertz was crowded when I arrived; but
whether with friends or detractors I knew not. Cries
proceeded from the entrance lobbies, owing to the pushing
and crushing of the throng. The best places had
been all taken for weeks beforehand. People sat in the
narrow passages leading to the different parts of the
hall, many having even managed to perch themselves
on the steps of the platform. It was frightfully hot
when I took my place there.
"Never since the beginning of my career had I felt
so nervously excited. One side of me was burning
hot, while the other was cold as ice. My throat and
mouth were parched as with fever. All those faces
swayed in front of me in a blurred, indistinct cloud
alive with a thousand eyes; and all those thousand eyes
focussed upon me emitted curious magnetic vibrations
like little arrows flying in my direction.
"In this feverish condition I took up my instrument,
and in the short interval before my bow fell on the
strings with that first thrilling energy of sound which
rivets our audience, the silence was so intense that the
motion of a fan, even a sigh, might have been heard.
"The orchestra hung upon the movements of my
bow with an enthusiasm of obedience; for a time they
and I seemed to move with the unity of one existence.
We were giving my fifth Concerto, since so celebrated in
the first part, which is vivace in D minor--but, by-the-bye,
you don't understand this.
"The public listened with the most absorbed and
edifying attention; but at the first short break in my
own individual part, as soon as they saw my bow drop
when the orchestra were carrying on the motive, the
inimical clique began their preconcerted efforts to
annihilate me. Owing, however, to defection in their
own ranks through changes of opinion, or to the
formidable opposition displayed by the general public, this
attempt became indistinguishable in the general enthusiasm.
In despite of all etiquette murmurs of approbation
were heard, which soon grew into a perfect storm
of clapping and applause. The orchestra played the
louder, and laughed at each other in their efforts to
drown the roar of applause by a still louder instrumental
roar.
"I now felt at home again, as with my dear Viennese
or my enthusiastic Russian audiences. The rest of
the piece went off in a sort of rhythmic balance of
mutual confidence between public and musicians.
"Further details about the progress of this concert,
important as they were to me, would not interest you.
Enough that it carried everything before it, quelled all opposition; it was an unparalleled success, in short.
"I now came on for the final piece, which was my
Tarantella, of course. For this, though not really one
of my best considered from a musician's point of view,
always remained the popular favourite. It has all the
freshness and go of a first work, and certainly bears the
impress of the fantastic circumstances to which it owed
its birth.
"Well, I had got to that part in the piece where, as
the tempo quickened--the whole scene always lived
before me as I played--Antonella of old had begun her
swift convulsive movements, when the profound stillness
that reigned in the Salle Hertz was broken by a
low, convulsive sobbing.
"I had noticed that this particular tarantella of mine
sometimes wrought upon women of highly nervous
organizations to this pitch, and therefore thought
nothing of it, but went on with my playing. But the
sobbing, which had ceased for awhile, seemed to grow
louder and more irrepressible; there was an unusual
stir and hubbub in the orchestra stalls to the left, and
looking up I saw--with an indescribable pang I saw--the
woman who had betrayed and forsaken me,
magnificent in beauty and wealth, the centre of anxious
attentions, her head thrown back, her dark, mysterious
eyes fixed upon me.
"The turbulent emotions which leaped to life in me
again at sight of this vision, it would be impossible to
describe. To fling down my bow, jump from the platform,
rush towards her--what for I knew not--was my
first distinct impulse.
"But a virtuoso on the boards is like a general at
the head of his troops--he dare no more desert his post
than the latter could. My heart gave a kind of bound
like a caged tiger, but I remained immovable, and my
arm went on playing as though nothing had happened.
All this time I acutely saw, felt, and suffered--I might
say--the presence of the woman whose heart had once,
and never again might beat against my own.
"Her sobs had ceased now, and she was turning to
livid pallor; her white hands, glittering with rings,
clutched at the air; and once or twice I fancied she
showed an impulse to break from the restraint that
encircled her, and launch forth into her old dancing
frenzy. But as compassionate hands were fanning and
sprinkling her with scent, she now went into one of
those death-like trances that I remembered only too
well. Still I went on playing vivace vivacissimo, the
glee of my music sounding perfectly diabolical to me
as I saw them carrying her, like a dead and rigid body,
through the dense throng which, awe-stricken, made
way for the bearers.
"For all that I played on to the end--the end that
was never coming, it seemed to my tortured feelings.
When it did come I almost flung down my beloved old
Stradivarius, as I automatically bowed to the audience,
that clapped, shouted, stamped, wept, laughed, seeming
indeed to have gone clean mad with delight, and burst
into such a clamour that, much against my will, I had
to turn back as I was hastening away, when they rose
to their feet like one man. Then I felt arms embracing
me, and hands shaking me by the hand, and some
one kissing me on the cheek, while a torrent of congratulations
were poured into my ear. Vainly trying to get free, I cried out in desperation at last, 'Pray, pray let me go; I have a friend who's dying, I tell you!'
"Released at length, I hurried through a passage,
and, I don't exactly know how, found my way to the
door through which she had disappeared into a small
kind of waiting-room, with its unavoidable red velvet
sofa. On it, with closed eyes and a face of unearthly
pallor, the demon-angel of my existence lay stretched
like a corpse, in the long, stiff folds of her white brocade
dress; with the mass of her long black, now disordered,
hair shed all about her. Seeing her in this state, my
heart yearned relentingly as towards one dead. Could
I turn and fly from her presence, and leave her thus?--and,
yet, should I not!
"Only a few of the puzzled and frightened concert-room
attendants, having exhausted all sorts of remedies,
were still standing about her now. They believed some
one had gone for a doctor, but no one of them seemed to
consider himself responsible. Thereupon I told them
that I knew this lady; that she did not want the doctor;
that they should go and call her carriage. Although
they assured me that there was none, I bade them go
and look for it again.
"In the impulse of the moment everything was
forgotten but that she lay there seemingly lifeless, alone
and forsaken for aught I knew, left to the care of
mercenary attendants, with no hand to succour, no eye to
watch over her. I could not deliberate--deliberation, I
fear, is not my forte--but when the attendants returned
after a fruitless search, I ordered a voiture de place; and
then taking the insensible woman in my arms, I carried
her into it, telling the man to drive to my apartment in the Rue de Rivoli.
"On reaching home, with the assistance of my servant
I carried her, still unconscious, to my rooms on the
entresol; and hardly knowing how to act, or what to do
next, I bade my valet to keep himself in readiness if
wanted.
"Who was she? What was she? She who had
been my wife, and the life of my life at one time--now
here, an unknown stranger to me!
"The unmistakable perfection of her Parisian attire,
which had none of the garishness of hastily acquired
meretricious wealth, seemed indicative of rank and high
station; yet here she lay, to all appearances quite
forlorn and unattended.
"While I stood there, looking at her beautiful figure
in its helpless abandonment, with a sudden return of
the old passionate feeling warring with my sense of
self-respect and outraged honour, I confess to you that
I wished she might never waken again from her deathlike
trance.
"Had she expired then, expired seemingly from the
poignancy of emotion which my playing had called up
in her, must I not have forgotten, forgiven all! Had
she not come there perchance drawn as by some
magnetic, overmastering force? At these thoughts my heart
relented within me. And while gazing on her pallid
features, oblivious of everything, my eyes grew wet with
unaccustomed tears. Yes, had she died then, the mute
majesty of death would have wiped out her guilt from
my memory, to have left there alone the image of my
incomparable Capri maiden.
"But all at once, even as I thought thus, there
passed a slight tremor over her whole frame, like the
sudden ruffling of a wind-swept lake. Slowly she opened
her eyes, and mistily as yet their gaze dwelt upon me.
Then her lips quivered, and softly, scarcely audibly,
she sighed, 'Emanuele.'
"The well-known sound of my name thus pronounced
by her gave me a kind of electric commotion. I started
to my feet and away from her.
"'Emanuele,' she sighed, a little louder than before,
'Emanuele, dove sono? Was it all a dream? Are you
with me still?'
"I approached a step nearer, and our eyes met. With
her returning life, returned upon me the full consciousness
of her treachery; then I vehemently put out my
hand as though to thrust her far, far away from me.
'No, not a dream,' I said, in a strangled voice; 'you
must be dreaming now, Madame ----?'
"'Oh, not that--not that from you!' she cried.
"But seeing me move to the door, as I said in a
voice I tried to render as hard as possible, 'Now that
Madame has recovered, perhaps she will say where it is
she wishes to be conveyed to,' she suddenly sprang to
her feet, and with my hand already on the door handle
I felt two soft arms clasping me round the neck, and a
warm cheek laid against mine and her kisses on my
lips as she murmured--
"'Through all, through everything, I was yet true to
you.'
"Heigho, my friend," sighed Emanuel, after a
considerable pause--abruptly breaking into a jaunty laugh;
then in a blasé tone he added, "Let us laugh and love
while we may, for the night cometh when no man can do so! To escape the Sirens we should keep well out of arm's reach of their enchantments.
"Was it not shameful to fall in love with one's own
wife over again?"
"I never heard so extraordinary a story," cried
Sontheim, excitedly. "Go on! Who on earth was
she?"
The clock of the Minster here struck four. Emanuel's
face looked strangely haggard in the pure, clear morning
light. He tossed off a tumbler of water, and then said--
"I went to see her again next day. Five minutes
before the time appointed I stood in front of the Porte
Cochère of the hotel Mortemar.--Despise me, Sontheim,
I give you leave!
"A sedate-looking powdered footman answered the
bell, and I handed him my card in silence, as I did not
know under what name to ask for her. But he merely
said 'Madame la Comtesse would receive me,' as he
led the way to the compact, elegant house standing between courtyard and garden.
"Somewhat surprised I followed the domestic, and
was ushered into a dim, richly-scented, heavily-draped
boudoir.
"With the consummate grace of a lady of the highest
'ton,' Madame, la Comtesse half rose from the causeuse
on which she was languidly reclining, and held out
the tips of her fingers, glittering with rings, as the
domestic retired.
"'Not my Capri girl,' I half muttered, 'but her
double perhaps!' And I sat down, almost embarrassed,
I swear.
"'All the world is talking about you and nothing
else!' said she, with perfect self-possession, playing
with one of her rings. 'Do you know that all the
ladies are dying to make your acquaintance? Indeed
it is a privilege to have you coming here in this way,
sans façon.'
"I was utterly aghast! The calm assurance of her
manner literally took my breath away. If she had
forgotten all our antecedents, nay, the very meeting
last night, she could not have looked or spoken more
unconcernedly. I grew furious, but kept my countenance.
She should not fool me to the top of her bent!
"'How well you act!' I said, clapping my hands
and bowing admiringly. 'Had Madame vouchsafed to
go on the stage, I make no doubt her fame would
completely have eclipsed mine. But pardon my rudeness.
There is no need for Madame to become famous in
order that all the men should be dying to make her
acquaintance."
"'How charming it is not to be taken au grand sérieux,
she cried, and her dazzling eyes laughed out more than
her mouth did. 'But Monsieur is spoilt with all his
triumphs, I see, and expects us to bow down to his
genus. Allow me to throw my modicum of homage at
your feet as I could not clap you yesterday,' she said,
with her enigmatic smile; and taking a half-blown
rose from some she wore fastened in a knot on her white
dress, she for an instant put it to her lips, then with a
sudden indescribable look that seemed to mount to my
brain like a sweet narcotic, she flung it at my feet.
"I stooped and picked up the rose, but that was all.
"'You do not prize what others would go mad after,'
she said, pouting and pulling another of her roses to
pieces. You are----'
"'What?' I exclaimed savagely.
"She looked into my eyes, and then all at once, as
though struck with dismay, clasped her hands, crying--'Ah,
you will not betray me! Say you will not betray
me, Emanuele!"
"'Not take a leaf out of your book, in fact,
Madame!' I rejoined, in the same bitter tone.
"Did I love, did I hate this woman? It was difficult
to tell, so strange a conflict raged within me.
"'You know I have always loved you, none but you!'
she exclaimed passionately, with all her languor gone,
as she rose and made a step towards me.
"'That is why you left me some four years ago or
so,' I remarked; 'but Madame la Comtesse has no
doubt forgotten that little episode. She sees in me
now the great virtuoso--then, it is true, I was but a
struggling fiddler.'
"Rage and contempt were violently struggling with
the unreasoning passion that again threatened to
master my better self.
"'Ah, I was a fool, though I meant for the best,'
she cried, impatiently; and then with glowing emotion--'You
do not know, you can never know, Emanuele,
how bitterly I have repented it,' and she again advanced
a little nearer.
"'Not a fool, though this may be a fool's paradise, at
any rate for me!' I remarked, looking around me
significantly.
"'Ah, you were always hard, and cruel, and cold,'
she cried; 'but if I am the unfeeling thing you would
make me out, say why, why did your music almost kill
me yesterday?' she asked, tremulously.
"'Oh, Antonella! Antonella!' burst from me almost
in despite of myself; 'I should like to kill us both and
have done with this shameful situation!' and had there
been a knife or dagger about just then, I think I should
have verified some of the dreadful stories that were
afloat about me.
"'I would rather be killed than despised by you,' she
sobbed, pointing to her throat, and looking at me with
swimming eyes.
"She had once again triumphed over me! She had
broken through the artificial barriers I had vainly
tried to erect between us. Indeed, she had grown in
all the secrets of allurement, in all the sorceries of
love. And I--I--got still more entangled with the
woman who was my wife, but bore some other man's
name."
"She had beguiled me into believing
that if she were no longer mine, at least
she was free from other ties. How she had come by
her Countess-ship I did not care to inquire. I quaffed
the poisoned cup of pleasure she held to my lips and
drained it feverishly; but I was not happy--I never was
so miserable in all my life, I believe.
From some innate perversity of nature she now
developed an ardour of passion for me far different
from her feelings when she might have loved me
innocently. When I, in my excess of self-disgust, at times
tried to be brutal to her--for my feelings, too, had
undergone a complete revolution--she seemed to love
me all the more.
"It is true I was now a celebrity; great people
prized my greatness; fair ladies vied with each other for my presence, and lavished their smiles and what not upon me, Forgive me--this sounds like foppery, but it is not; one soon gets to prize these things at their true value.
"None of these 'Grandes Dames' ever felt the soul
of music as that dreamy, heavenly god-child of yours!
She herself is music, indeed! But I beg her pardon
for mentioning her dear name in such company as this!
"It was neither the musician nor his music--it was
the musician's fame that Antonella adored.
"Sometimes I could hardly believe her the same
the 'Tolla' of Rome and Capri: the same with the
petted model of Raoul's studio, or the short-skirted
peasant girl dancing in the ruins of Tiberius.
"She had certainly developed since then, if not in
actual beauty, at least in grace, and in all those indefinable
witcheries and mysteries of dress and manner that
charm us men even more. In my own despite I felt all
that charm only too acutely, and yet hated myself for
feeling it. There was something of provocation in the
way she would wear her laces, or a sprig of damask
roses; and the scents about her resembled subtle
combinations of harmony.
"And then how brilliantly had she not learned to
discourse--on all the topics of the day, or of nothings,
which often amounts to the same? From the picture
of the year at the 'Salon,' to the latest attempt upon
Louis Philippe, or some new-fledged socialistic Utopia
of Cabet or Proudhon--nothing came amiss to her;
and all subjects possessed about equal advantages in
showing off to admiring listeners.
"I confess I often forgot to listen to what she was
saying, lost in admiration, as in the old times, of the
delicious curves of her lips while speaking. I had thus
passed rather more than a week, seeing her daily, in
a frame of mind which possibly resembled that of an
opium-eater's dreams. All action of the will held in
abeyance, all recollection of the past or forethought for
the future annulled. Held by the magic darkness of
her eyes, the world with its imperative claims and duties
was expunged, obliterated.
"This state of things could not last, of course. But it
happened to be the beginning of June, a time when the
fashionable world of Paris disperses to the country or
the sea-side.
"One afternoon when I went at the usual hour to
see Antonella, I noticed an unwonted stir and commotion
about the place. On being admitted, I was told that
Madame la Comtesse was on the point of leaving Paris,
but would see me for a few minutes, if I would wait
for her, in her boudoir.
"I was quite taken by surprise. She had not hinted
at a journey yesterday.
"Moodily I threw myself into a chair. Five minutes
passed. 'Will she never come!' I muttered impatiently,
and I began tossing the knick-knacks on the table about.
"The door opened abruptly, and the Countess, with
a certain white look, almost as though she had seen a
ghost, glided swiftly towards me, and, putting her hands
on my shoulders, said in her most caressing tones--
"'We must part for a little while, my love, for I go
out of town for a few days, but will write to you
immediately on my return.'
"Why, you look, my dear, as though you had just
had a visit from the defunct Count--that soi-disant
husband of yours,' I said, ironically. 'I hope he did
not indulge in useless recriminations!'
"'Hush, hush!' she cried, quite taken aback;'what
do you mean by defunct?'
"'Alive, then!' I cried. 'Your----'
"For a moment I felt as though I could rush upon
the man that instant and fight him to the death. Then
I burst into a long, immoderate fit of laughter.
"'It is stifling here,' I cried, and then I threw open
the window and the persienne.
"Why should I fight that unhappy man, thought I,
the next instant. He certainly had the worst of it; and
there was something too ridiculous in the situation.
God forbid I should make it public!
"Antonella, seeing that I remained doggedly at the
window--having, indeed, come to the conclusion that
the sudden journey was all a hoax--cried imperiously--
"'Go! go! Do you wish to--to----'
"'I have no objection whatever to meeting Monsieur
le Comte--perhaps you will kindly acquaint me now
with his name as well as your own.'
"There was a loud ringing of bells, and the sound of
a heavy travelling equipage was heard rumbling across
the courtyard. I was still standing by the window.
Suddenly I felt myself pulled backwards with the
energy of desperation. Antonella was in a towering
rage; but it became her superbly.
"'Do not put yourself out so!' said I, quietly,
shrugging my shoulders; 'I shall be charmed to
make the Count's acquaintance.'
"'But it is--it is--Ogotshki!' she gasped. 'I only
heard from him this--you--he will----'
"'Be delighted, no doubt, as you yourself were, to
renew his acquaintance with a person now so celebrated
as myself.'
"'You will not----' she cried, and there was a
dangerous gleam in her eyes.
"'Calm yourself! I will not compromise Madame
la Comtesse Ogotshki,' I said, with great composure.
"She now, by a consummate effort of will, regained
an almost unnatural calm. Without looking at me
she left the room. She met the Count below, and
remained absent about five minutes. Presently she
returned, hanging on his arm in the most natural
manner while gaily talking to him.
"'Wenceslaw, here is an old friend of ours,' she said
graciously, introducing us; 'you remember him, no
doubt, as one of the little coterie that used to assemble
in M. Leroux's studio. He happened to call in just
before your arrival, and I begged him to stay a minute,
and see you. I daresay the furore which his concert
created here may even have reached your idyllic retreat
at Ems.'
"There was an imperceptible movement of the
Count's eyebrows, which no one but myself would
probably have noticed; then he held out his hand
most affably to me and said--
"'Very glad to see you--very charmed indeed, M.
Sturm! Are you making a long stay in Paris? And
how is your friend, M. Leroux? He does not often
brighten our Paris with his presence!'
"The Count, I thought, had aged very much since I
had last seen him that memorable, never-to-be-forgotten day.
"And here was I face to face with the man that had
done me the greatest injury that they say, in ordinary
parlance, one man can do to another. It is true that
perhaps from his point of view he might say as much
of me; but here we sat amicably together, and for
some ten minutes kept up a trivial kind of conversation,
during which I learnt that the Count had been taking
the waters at Ems for some chronic disease or other,
but had found his nerves so irritated by the cure that
he came away without stopping the full term fixed
upon.
"Having discussed the Ems waters, music, the
threatening aspect of the political horizon, I took my
leave, after accepting an invitation to dine there on the
following Tuesday. The state of mind in which I left
the house is indescribable. But I determined to go
back, for the sake of appearances. The daring of this
woman in ever having permitted us two to meet was
stupendous! But now I feared nothing so much as
the ridicule of a disclosure."
From the arbour close by the house where Emanuel
was sitting, he dreamily surveyed the stretch of neighbouring
gardens, all lit up and sparkling in the dew
and early sunlight. An unwonted sensation of well-being
crept over him as little puffs of air, smelling of
sweetbriar and honeysuckle, played about his temples.
The leaves and grass, slightly shivering now and then,
looked as though they had just risen from a bath.
Here and there from the fresh-lit fires of neighbouring
chimneys blue smoke began to rise straight up to the
cloudless sky: two white-winged pigeons darted across
it, while from a dove-cot near, the loud yet mellow
"rooke-te-koo" of others was heard. A cock was crowing
his loudest in honour of his majesty the Sun, and another somewhere in the distance responded to it like an echo.
The glad singing of birds all together filled the air
with an indistinct musical murmur, and now and then
some human voices, such as the milkmaid's cry,
blended not unpleasantly with these rural sounds.
Sontheim now returned and resumed his old seat.
A neighbour, as round as an egg, with a long china
pipe hanging from his mouth, gave them a husky "good
morning" as he toddled down his garden path to dig at
his potatoes.
"Don't let us lose any more time," said Sontheim,
eagerly, for Emanuel, lost in thought, was tracing all
manner of figures in the sand with a light cane; "you
had just accepted an invitation to dinner, and I want
to hear what came of it."
"Oh, nothing came of that," said Emanuel; plucking
a spray of honeysuckle, smelling at it, and sticking
it in his button-hole.
"I don't know whether any one had got wind of the
affair by this time; but at any rate these things do not
usually get reported to the husband, especially in Paris.
"The dinner was a grand affair; everybody who was
somebody had been raked together at this the beginning
of the dull time of year.
"I was lionized. Antonella outdid even herself--all
cobweb laces and rubies: nothing could surpass the
fascinating elegance of this woman at the head of her
table; and the Count followed suit in this three-handed
game.
"'I am so glad'--said the latter, coming up to me in
the drawing-room, now that the imperious conversationalists of his dinner-table allowed him to edge in a word--'that I at last have an opportunity of thanking you, M. Sturm, for the kindness you showed my wife at Rome.'
"I bowed silent acquiescence.
"'She told me all about it long ago,' he went on, in
his courteously drawling tones: 'how she, an orphan,
was forced into a convent by hard-hearted relatives,
and half driven out of her mind there; how gallantly
M. Leroux, who had made her acquaintance while
painting at Capri, and you, M. Sturm, rescued her at
great peril to yourselves. How you both placed her
with a poor but well-connected Roman lady, and paid
for her education there; when your friend, discovering
her turn for painting, set about making an artist of her,
only unfortunately that my own appearance at this
juncture diverted the fair pupil's gifts into another
channel.'
"He laughed rather feebly at what I suppose was
meant for a joke. I wondered whether the poor old
man was credulous enough to be taken in by so palpable
an untruth, or whether he merely wished to make me
believe that he believed it.
"However, I don't think he was deep enough for that.
Unlike most of the Russian nobles I have come across,
usually so full of cunning, dissimulation, and astuteness,
he seemed to be curiously gullible, while in a certain
slackness of moral fibre he again bore a strong resemblance
to them.
"But it was easy to see that he was completely
subjugated by Antonella's beauty and subtle fascination.
I think, had she chosen, she might at last have made him believe that the moon was made of cream cheese.
"You see she had so many arrows in her quiver. If
her charms for once missed their aim, she could always,
in extremity, resort to that extraordinary hysterical
condition, so nearly resembling death, that no man with
the slighest feeling for her in his heart could possibly
resist the mute appeal.
"But I am wandering from the point. Well, the
Count further complimented me on what he was pleased
to term such noble conduct on the part of two young
men; while I, quite overcome by this new version of my
story, could only murmur some words in deprecation.
"The Count, apparently in perfect good faith, went
on to say: 'Perhaps you may have thought my conduct,
on the other hand, less commendable at the time.
But the fact is'--he hesitated for a moment--'I was
so taken with her that I thought it best to carry her
off, quite out of reach of two such attractive young
men!' he smiled with self-satisfaction at his own acuteness.
'In fact my wife had hinted at the state of M.
Leroux's feelings towards her, and considering the
excitability of his temper I thought it best to take her
for a time to some outlying estate of mine in Russia.
She wrote to you both from there, but we were never
honoured with a reply from either of you gentlemen.'
"'Oh, I believe we both left Rome almost immediately
after you did, Count,' I hastened to put in.
"'Ah, that accounts for your silence,' he replied.
'I hope M. Leroux has long ago forgiven me;' then,
with a rather vacuous smile, 'You know, M. Sturm,
you artists are all so wrapt in your art that you cannot
possibly care for a woman as we ordinary mortals do.'
He was moving away, but turning round again, said
blandly, 'While you are staying in Paris, I hope that
you will make yourself quite at home here.'
"Indeed I was making myself quite at home!
Presently, to oblige my hosts, I played some trifles on
the violin. Whilst I did so, Antonella was leaning
with her back against a glass-door leading into the
conservatory. I could only see her in profile. She was
exceedingly pale, and her dark eyes, full of smouldering
passion, were gazing straight in front of her. Her
pose was superb; she held a cactus flower in her clasped
hands, but now and then, with a nervous action, pulled
out one of its petals.
"When I had ceased; she came up to me for the first
time that evening, and, after a few words, said, with
that strange, subtle smiling of hers, 'The Count was
talking to you for a long time; may one know, sir, what
it was all about?'
"I quite understood her, however. She knew
perfectly what effect she had produced upon me just now;
even the cactus flower had not been there by mere
accident. She thought she would wind me round her
little finger again.
"'It was all about your powers of original invention,
Madame, which ought certainly to have secured you a
foremost place among----'
"'Among--among whom, sir, pray?' she asked,
looking tauntingly at me.
"'That I must allow Madame to find out at her
leisure,' I said, and abruptly took my leave.
"My leave for good, I vowed, as I threw myself back
in the carriage. It was too intolerable--too disintegrating
to one's whole moral nature! This coil of deceit
and the ignoble figure I played in it filled me with
loathing. Now that I knew that the weak-minded,
uxorious Count was really amongst the living, I would
not set my foot in the house again, since I had saved
appearances by my visit. In order to keep my resolution,
I avoided all the streets that led near the Count's
hotel, as though in my own despite I might get within
the radius of the siren's attraction and be drawn afresh
within its irresistible current. I was occupied in the
meanwhile in winding up my affairs in Paris, previous
to my starting for New York."
"She caught sight of me before I could make my
escape, had I had the will as well as the wish.
"'Here is the very man we were speaking of,' she
said, coming towards me with her long, swaying walk
that, like everything else about her, had an indescribable
grace. She was all sweetness, all amiability. 'Madame
de G---- was just telling me how much she wished
to make your acquaintance, M. Sturm. She raves
about your Concerto in D minor, which I unfortunately
missed the other evening at your concert, coming in
late as I did; for I happened to be at the soirée of
some friends with whom I had come up from the
country that day, But when I heard of your concert, nothing could stay me, and in spite of my friends' assurances of the impossibility of procuring a seat, I came off all by myself, and fortunately for me golden arguments prevailed, and one of the attendants made a place for me.'
"'What charming enthusiasm!' cried the other lady.
'I remember now seeing you come in----'
"'Ah, yes,' said Antonella, looking at me significantly,
'but you did not see me carried out again fainting,
all owing to M. Sturm's Tarantella--for the heat had
nothing to do with it. But here comes the carriage;
let us drive you back to Paris, Monsieur.'
'"I could not summon resolution enough to refuse.
'Suddenly turning round, she cried, with the most
taunting of little smiles: 'Succès! Succès!'
"I looked at her in astonishment; did she so cynically
proclaim her triumph! But I found the subject of her
exclamation was a small Maltese poodle, who now
scrambled into the carriage.
"'Having followed her friend into the carriage, the
Countess motioned to me to take the seat opposite, and
placed the little brute in her lap.
"'Poor little Succès,' she said, looking at me while
pressing her red lips on its fluffy white head.
"'Succès, Succès!'--it echoed mockingly in my ears.
But I inwardly set my teeth against the enchantress.
I felt sullen as a captive dragged along in an Imperator's
triumphal procession.
"Madame de G---- was put down at her door, after
profuse invitations to me to her town and country
house thenceforth and for ever.
"'Home,' said the Countess to the bearded chasseur,
as he put his head in at the door.
"I let myself drift with the tide--which means that
I allowed Antonella to carry me off at her will.
"Again the huge chasseur stood by the door, and I
found myself handing the Countess out of her carriage.
We entered the house together, and went into her
boudoir.
"'Emanuele,' she said, when we were alone, lightly
laying her hand on mine, 'what makes you look so
sad? Why are you so silent? Is it because it's so
long since you have been to see me?' and she looked
at me languidly and sighed.
"For some reason or other the look, the tone, brought
vividly before me the hour at Capri when, sitting on
the Sirens' rock, she had looked at me with her dark
eyes swimming in tears. No other woman's beauty
ever thrilled my senses as hers did; but my heart had
no longer any part in it.
"'It is,' I said slowly, making a strong effort to
master my unmanly weakness, for I felt all my resotion
melting again like snow before her glance--'it is,
that I am where I am.'
"For a minute or two she was, or else affected to be,
struck dumb by this sudden new light thrown on my
feelings. Indignation seemed contending with another
passion--I hardly know what name to give it; then with
trembling lips she said: 'You--you--you are----' but
suddenly, with a rapid change of tone and manner quite
astonishing, she continued mockingly--'a German,
Emanuele, a German! And Germans, we know, are
not exactly pre-eminent for tact.'
"It was bewitchingly coquettish. These swift
transitions from one emotion to another were of the highest
effect. But I was becoming inured to them, and the
enjoyment they afforded me resembled that inspired by
a great actress's oft-repeated part.
"'Madame la Comtesse speaks truly,' I replied.
Politeness is not our forte. The virtue we Germans
prize above all others is--faithfulness.'
"Antonella simply ignored my answer with most
unmistakable tact.
"'This dark frown between the eyebrows does not
become you, Emanuele,' she said archly, and leaning
over to me she passed the tips of her fingers across my
forehead. 'Let me smooth out your naughty wrinkles
and make you happy, spoilt child that you are; for
the Count is gone to a dinner at the "Trois Frères," and
will be home late.'
"She poured out a glass of iced punch, sipped a few
drops and held it to my lips; then putting it down, she
began softly humming my Tarantella, and twirling round
and round me in that old, swift, fantastic way.
"I sat looking at her under a sort of spell. Her
eyes were glittering under her dark, heavy hair, her
heart palpitating wildly, when suddenly, as though
spent with her exertions, she alighted on my knees.
"'Maëstro,' she murmured, in the old Capri voice and dialect.
"I believe there are certain impressions that stamp
themselves on the brain till they become part of its
very tissue. This old word spoken in the old voice
brought all the old feelings back with a rush like
a torrent.
"'Oh, Tolla!' I sighed, as she began kissing my
hair and my eyes. Suddenly I pushed her far from me,
sprang to my feet, and cried with an ungovernable
outburst of pent-up disgust, 'Away, away! This must
not, shall not go on! Never again will I enter this
house to become a party to such treachery and the fool
of your caprices. A deceived deceiver! What a position,
ye gods! What a depth to have sunk to! What
shame to be inflicting and to endure! Rest satisfied
with yourself, Madame! You have destroyed all
self-respect in me. I hate myself for having loved you!
In bitterness I still loved you when you had basely
deserted me. It was an unreasoning, despicable love;
but it is over, all over now! Save your blandishments
for others; they have lost their effect on me. If you
must deceive, do so, but with me you shall not! Be
content that you have nothing to fear from me, and let
me go. I will be silent as the dead about the past;
but in the future our paths must cross never again.
Let me go.'
"I struggled to the door, for she had thrown her
arms round me exclaiming--
"'No, no! You shall not!'
"The demon of vanity that possessed her could not
abide, I believe, that any man should defy her fascinations.
"'I am your wife, after all,' she said, with rising
anger, then getting quite beside herself in her passion
when she saw me remaining unmoved. 'You shall
not! I will leave the Count--rank--station--the
world--all--all--and come with you! You are mine,
Emanuele. I will not let you go! I will not let you go!'
"'My wife!' I sneered--'my wife, you say! Beware
how you let Count Ogotshki hear that.'
"'I don't care who hears it,' she panted, in a livid
rage. 'I will tell him myself! You shall not defy
me!'
"'Take care, for God's sake take care!' I said.
'Some one may overhear you. Do you wish to be
ruined?'
"I saw she was working herself up to such a pitch
that she was utterly reckless. She no longer looked
the bewitching creature of a few instants before; a
demon of vindictiveness seemed to shoot from her
eyes; hatred, not love, now glistened there; even her
beautiful mouth was deformed by it. I did not know
what to do. The only thing was to soothe her, if
possible, and get off as quickly as I could.
"'Antonella,' I said, 'listen to me, Antonella.'
"'I will not let you go! I will not let you go!
You are mine, Emanuele!' she reiterated fiercely,
seizing me by the hands as though she would retain
me by force.
"I was perfectly cool, my pulse was calm; henceforth
she could never move me again. But I determined
to simulate a certain remains of the love that
was dead in order to get off for the present. So I
turned away from the door as if yielding to her.
"'Antonella,' I again said, as tenderly as I could,
'dear Antonella, calm yourself. Is it safe for me to be
seen here at this hour, when the Count may surprise
us at any moment?'
"'The Count! A nullity!' said Antonella,
contemptuously.
"'Has just had the pleasure of overhearing some
words probably not intended for him,' said the
grey-headed man, suddenly confronting us, in a veiled,
quavering voice, and with a curiously blank look in
his eyes.
"Antonella stared at him, turned deathly white, and
fell back heavily as if she had been shot. Those fits
of hers were certainly exceedingly convenient at times.
I almost envied her.
"'Madame la Comtesse is sometimes scarcely herself,'
I remarked coolly, wondering within myself how
much the old man had overheard, and what he must
think of the scene, if not cognizant of the whole situation.
He could hardly regard me in the light of a very
ardent lover.
"'I know not what you may think,' I continued,
seeing he still remained silent; 'but I am ready to give
you explanations whenever you may desire it.'
"'This is not the moment for explanations,' said the
Count, vaguely waving his hand in the direction of the
door as he went towards the Countess himself.
"'I shall remain in Paris some days longer than
was my intention in order that Monsieur le Comte may
know where to write to me,' I said, with that controlled
utterance which seizes every man by the throat when
he finds himself face to face with a deadly quarrel.
"Then I left the room without another look at the
woman who had blighted my existence.
"I waited a whole week, but no letter or message
arriving from the Count, I started on my voyage to
New York."
"Oh yes!" said Emanuel, getting
up and stretching his arms; "I assure
you not doomsday itself could have resuscitated my
love."
"Did you ever heat anything more about her?"
asked the Professor, with a certain anxiety in his tone.
"Such a creature is a psychological puzzle; one would
like to pursue her career to its close."
"Such a creature," said Emanuel, "is a mixture of
morbid passion, caprice, and boundless vanity, and
what may be its ultimate fate concerns me not at all,
I confess."
"Ah well," said Sontheim, "your feelings were too
deeply involved, of course, to be a dispassionate judge;
but I consider her a very curious problem. An arrested development somewhere, no doubt. The rudimentary conscience of a child, with a woman's full-blown perfections."
"You are a lenient judge, Leopold, at any rate where
the fair sex are concerned. For my own part I look at
it differently. But here comes breakfast. I am famishing,
I perceive, and the scent of the coffee ascends
gratefully to my nostrils."
When the tray had been set down on the table,
Emanuel threw himself on the victuals, and began
ravenously demolishing everything he could lay his
hands on.
Leopold, for once, did not develop an appetite equal
to that of his friend. His habitual joviality seemed
considerably abated.
"Well, you must see," cried Emanuel, eagerly, when
his hunger was somewhat appeased, "that I am not
really a married man--no one ought strictly to consider
me as such; perhaps it was not even a legal union,
from things that I have heard since. But, morally
speaking, there can be no doubt that I am free as air!"
"Hm, hm!" said Sontheim, "there's such a thing
as imprisoned air!"
"What is more," interposed Emanuel, impatiently,
"I have good reasons for supposing Antonella dead!"
"Ah!" exclaimed the Professor, with an air of relief,
"really dead! I wish you would tell me exactly all
that you still know or have heard concerning her."
"Certainly," replied his friend; "the remainder is
quickly told. After about nine months or so I found
myself again giving concerts in Paris, during the
winter and spring of the present year. There I came across my dear old friend Raoul again. Men of his stamp always worm out everything that is to be known in a place, and a good deal more too. At any rate, I found that a great deal of what I have been telling you was not only no secret to him, but that, on the contrary, he was able to give me a good deal of fresh information regarding the Count and Countess Ogotshki.
"The former, it appears, had had a slight stroke of
paralysis after the scene of which he had been a partial
witness. On his recovery; Antonella impressed her
husband with an idea that her own conduct, on that
occasion was pure hysteria induced by my music, and
that for virtue I was a worthy rival of Joseph of Egypt
himself.
"However, it seems, in spite of all her subtle arts, the
memory of the words he had heard rankled in the old
man's mind, and he once or twice reproached her with
them.
"Whereupon Antonella, incredible as it may sound,
informed the Count, in a fit of ungovernable temper, of
her previous marriage with me. Then terrified, I
suppose, at what she had done, she, as Raoul put it,
took the bit in her teeth, and ran off with her diamonds,
and her securities and all, leaving the old man, older
and more broken down than ever, to take refuge on his
estates in Russia.
"My friend had these details from the herculean
chasseur, who had turned model at this time. But
with all his inquisitiveness even Raoul had failed in
tracing the Countess's hiding-place. She had completely
disappeared."
"Completely disappeared!" muttered Sontheim,
owning deeply. "Strange, strange!"
"Well, nothing that this unaccountable creature
could do would ever take me by surprise. But enough
of her! Indeed, after the inquiries I have set on foot, I
have every reason to think that she must be dead! She
was not a woman to give up wealth, station, and all
the luxuries of life, for a whim of love or remorse; she
would have sought a reconciliation with her husband,
and he, like the foolish old man he was, would no
doubt have granted it. I think, therefore, that she
must be dead; and under the circumstances, I should
be a hypocrite if I did not feel it a relief. For if so, I
am free once more; my life's incubus is gone, and I
may love Mina. I do love Mina! she will be the
better angel of my life. Say, what do you think of it,
Leopold?"
As he uttered these words a sort of boyish radiance
lit up his features, different, indeed, from the sombre
and impatient expression his countenance had hitherto
worn.
Sontheim made no reply, but sat looking before him
with an air of profound perplexity.
After a pause Emanuel said again, with almost
pathetic gentleness--
"Well, Leopold, you do not seem to give me much
encouragement. I know nothing for certain, of course.
Are you afraid for your sweet god-child?"
Sontheim, however, seemed hardly to hear him. He
was now pacing up and down in front of the arbour,
looking unusually perturbed.
The slatternly servant at this moment came from the
house with a letter in her hand, and gave it to her master.
He opened it quickly, perused its contents, and
flushed with evident delight.
"It is from the Countess," he said after a while to
Emanuel, and began reading his letter over again.
"The Countess! what Countess?" cried his friend,
in a wondering tone.
"My Countess, not yours this time!" said Sontheim,
with a smirk. "I forgot for the moment that there
was another in the world. Look! does she not write
a charming letter?"
Emanuel took the letter, looked at it, stared at it,
stared at his friend, then looked at the letter again.
"This is Antonella's writing," he gasped.
Sontheim gave a kind of cry, reeled as a bullock
might struck with an axe; then calling out "Oh, oh!"
smote the table heavily with his elbows, and with his
face hidden by his hands sobbed like a woman.
Emanuel had started up and seized his friend by the
shoulders. At last the latter looked up with heavy red
eyes, and a countenance which showed what havoc
these few moments had wrought in him.
For a space the two men remained eyeing each other
in silence. Of speech there was no further need.
What could they say? Nothing. Each felt the
impossibility of the situation. The coil that seemed
to entwine them equally must be broken asunder
somehow.
Emanuel, grasping his friend's hands, wrung them
violently, and saying, "I am off--you will hear from
me," dashed out of the garden.
"Behind the hedge on yonder lea
Stands a goodly apple-tree;
A finch sits singing on a bough,
Singing, sweetly singing--"
She had been toiling in the sweat of
her brow ever since three o'clock that morning, it being
her quarterly washing-day--a day of dread to the whole
household; for if the weather misbehaved itself by any
chance, the storm overhead was as nothing to that
which raged in the circle of the Lichtenfelds. But the
sun was in a glorious humour this bright September
morning, and only playing at hide-and-seek with the clouds, in which it hid itself every now and then to burst forth with a more triumphant splendour.
Therefore the Professorinn was bustling about with
redoubled activity in a huge apron, tied over her tucked-up
skirts; now scolding the servant, who, standing over
an enormous tub in the corner, fed by the spout from
the roof, was rinsing out the clothes; now pouncing
unexpectedly on the hired washerwoman, who ever
since yesterday had been at work in boiling, beating,
and scrubbing the same.
Mina came forward languidly, and began assisting
her mother in hanging some of the wet clothes on the
lines, while others; half dried, had to make way for
them, as the boys tumultuously haled them off in
baskets to the bleaching field behind the garden.
There they not only dutifully obeyed their mother's
behest of spreading them out on the green grass in the
sun, but so zealous were they that they fought over one
of the sheets, which, disfigured with bootmarks, was at
last carried off by the incorrigible Hans, who, waving
it like a triumphal flag, came tearing down the garden
with it, Otto and Conrad dashing after him like hounds
after a hare.
"Mother, mother, I didn't do it!" shouted Hans,
displaying the sheet before her.
"Nor I"--"Nor I," panted Conrad and Otto,
simultaneously; for whatever his elder said, the other was
sure to repeat like an echo.
"Oh, these boys will be the death of me!" cried
Frau Lichtenfeld, snatching the sheet from Hans and
giving him a sounding box on the ear, which made him
take to his heels; and he and Wolf--who had been skulking behind the hedge in order to see how to shape his further course--disappeared for the rest of the day.
"What's the matter with the girl--you're as limp
as a wet rag?" suddenly cried Frau Lichtenfield in
an injured tone, facing round upon Mina. "You're
every bit as bad as those boys, only worse; they're
merry at least, but you look like a cat in a thunderstorm.
Oh, goodness me, there's Lulu at it again; she
will kill herself one of these days, I know she will,
with eating all the windfalls littering about the grass.
Do go, for heaven's sake, girl, and keep her and those
two mischievous ne'er-do-weel out of harm's way,
while I see to the linen; for you're no more good at it
than they are, I declare. I am sick of teaching you!"
Mina had already run off to where Lulu, standing
up to her knees in the long rank grass under their one
apple-tree, was digging her little teeth lustily into a
large green apple, and tightly clutching another still
bigger one with her disengaged hand. When Mina
gently but firmly forced her to yield up her treasures,
she set up a loud howl, and it was only after much
patient coaxing that the elder sister at last got her and
the boys to settle down on the grass under the tree, by
a promise to sing their favourite songs. But as each
of them immediately clamoured to have his own favourite,
Mina now hit upon the device of plucking three
blades of grass of differing lengths, and told them that
whoever drew the longest should have his choice first,
and so on.
Otto gained the prize, but as he always went by what
his brother said, he was rather puzzled.
"Sing, sing!" he said, gleefully; and then stopped
short, till Conrad, coming to the rescue, suggested the
"Cuckoo song." "The Cuckoo song!" said Otto, quite
unabashed, as though it had just occurred to him.
Mina, in a low, sweet voice that had an indefinably
plaintive ring, began singing--
"The cuckoo flies to the green grass,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
And when it rains he's wet, alas,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
The cuckoo has two golden feet,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
That's why forbidden love's so sweet,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
The cuckoo flies to the dark grove,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Why art so proud to-day, my love?
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
The cuckoo through thy window flies,
Cuckoo, cuckoo!
Oh love, take pity on my sighs,
Let me come too!"
They formed a picture which, for grouping, colour,
and background, was ready composed to an artist's
hand. Mina, in a pink-and-white cotton gown, with
her curly head slightly thrown back, and soft young
face a little paler than its wont, was leaning back
against the crabbed trunk of the old apple-tree--a low,
forked branch of which formed her seat--with her
hands idly crossed in her lap and a wistful, far-off look
in her clear brown eyes. Lulu, resting against her sister's knee, was looking intently up in her face, blue-eyed and open-mouthed, trying to follow the song with her babyish tones. The red-cheeked Otto, stretched full-length on the grass, with his chin propped by his two hands and his legs kicking the air behind him, listened in placid enjoyment to the song of his choice; while Conrad, sitting cross-legged like a tailor, divided his attention between whistling an accompaniment, and making a ladder of reeds for his beloved frog, which he kept by way of barometer.
Mina had no sooner done, than Conrad, whose turn
it was, shouted, "I want the song about the nun,
Mimi."
"What nun?" asked Mina.
"Oh, you know, you know--the one who won't drink
the red wine," said Conrad, eagerly.
"The one who won't drink the red wine," echoed
Otto.
"But that's such a long one," said Mina; "you'll get
tired of it before I've done."
"No, no," cried they all three; "begin, do begin!"
And Mina began half singing, half reciting that
quaint old ballad--
"I stood high on the mountains,
The vale lay deep below,
A little boat came gliding,
Wherein three earls I saw.
And of these three, the youngest
That therein did recline,
He bade me drink, and gave me once
A goblet of red wine.
Page 80
'O say why wouldst thou have me drink
Red wine from out thy glass?
Thou art a mighty earl, and I
Am but a lonely lass.
And though I am not rich, forsooth,
I hold mine honour dear,
And I will guard it till one come
Who is mine equal here.'
What drew he from his finger then?
A little golden ring;
"Let this to thee our token be
Thou sweet, thou bonnie thing!'
'What should I with this ring?--a lord
Ne'er weds with a poor lass!'
'O say that thou hast found it
Lost in the long green grass.
And art thou a poor maiden,
Hast neither goods nor gear;
Bethink thee of the true love
That is between us, dear.'
'Nought know I of any true love,
Nor yet of any man----"
"Now, Lulu, you must listen; she's going to be a
nun, and he's going to ride all over the world to find
her," cried Conrad, who wished the superior merits of
his own particular poem to be appreciated.
"The world is round!" put in Otto; tentatively.
"And is he going to ride all round it, Mimi?"
"How round is it?" lisped Lulu.
"As round as your eyes," said Conrad, impatiently;
"can't you wait till Mina's done before you begin
chattering, you little chatterbox?"
"Is't as round as this apple, Mina?" asked Otto,
thinking this a fair opportunity to pounce on one of the
forbidden fruit, and holding it in rather closer proximity
to his mouth than was necessary for purposes of
demonstration.
"Well, it's something that shape," said Mina, "but
more flattened at the poles; and it's green, too, mostly
with the fields and forests----"
"Oh, that isn't fair; that's like a geography lesson,"
said Conrad, discontentedly, "and other's given us a
holiday."
"Very well," said Mina, gently, "I'll go on, Conrad;
but I've forgotten where I left off."
"Where she's going to be a nun, you know!" cried
Conrad.
"What is a nun?" put in the irrepressible Lulu.
"Be quiet, Lulu, and you will hear; your turn will
come next. Do go on, Mina; we shall never get to the
end."
"'Nought know I of any true love,
Nor yet of any man;
I'll go into a cloister,
And there become a nun.'
'And goest thou to a cloister,
There to become a nun,
I'll fare the wide world over,
Until to thee I come.'
And scarce three months were over,
The earl's stout heart did quail--
He dreamed that his own sweetheart,
His love, had ta'en the veil
Page 82
Then spake he to his squire,
'Up, up, to horse and away!
We'll fare throughout the wide world,
There's much to see by the way.'
And when he to the cloister came,
So softly did he sing:
'Give me the youngest of the nuns,
The one you last let in!'
'No nun has been let in of late,
Nor out may any fare.'
'Then I will set your house on fire,
The Lord's fair house of prayer.'
Then forth she stepped towards him,
Clad in a snow-white gown--
They had cut off her long hair,
She was become a nun.
She bade the earl be welcome,
All in the strange countree:
'Who asked ye to come hither?
Who hath sent ye unto me?'
The earl felt sore ashamed;
Her speech aggrieved his soul,
Till many hot tears gathered,
And down his cheeks did roll.
She bade him drink, and offered him
Red wine out of a glass;
The glass it burst asunder,
And his heart it broke, alas!
With her sweet lips like harpsichords,
She tolled the funeral bell;
And from her nut-brown eyes the tears
The holy water fell."
"Mina, Mina, you're like the nun--why two tears are
running down your cheeks, and your eyes are brown
too!" cried Conrad, excitedly.
Mina gave a start as though suddenly recalled to
herself and surroundings. Six clear young eyes were
peering inquisitively into her face. She hastily brushed
her hand across her burning cheeks and smiled; but
the smile was a sorrier sight than the tears had been.
Where then had her thoughts been while her lips
were repeating that queer but touching old ballad?
Like the maiden in the song, she felt poor and forsaken,
while he was a great and mighty man who had the
whole world at his feet. Where was he now? So near
he had seemed who was now so far! She knew not
even what country he now abode in, but felt she would
have gone the wide world over, in sooth, only to see his
face once more; and then she felt ashamed of the idea,
and wondered whether she too might not enter a convent.
People still went into cloisters, and why not she? But
would she be able to pray all day as people did when
they became nuns? and she raised her eyes to the sky.
There across the blue, blue sky the clouds, like
shining puffed-out sails, went merrily drifting before
the wind; and as she looked up her whole soul seemed
to go out in the longing to be up and away--get away
from this dull, monotonous round which all at once
seemed to stifle her. It seemed to her that if she could
only go on, on, on, always on, that this strange new
something--pain was it, or what? she hardly knew--would
leave off hurting so. But to stay there, to see
the same things continually, things she had once loved--these
trees that were like old playfellows, these hills
that knew her most secret thoughts, this brook that had sung to her ever since she could remember, it was somehow as though she must hide from them, as though they must know how estranged she had become from all and everything here. Ah! if her beautiful friend the Countess were only still here, Mina thought, she would understand, and perhaps--perhaps--(her heart beat fast at the thought)--perhaps find out where he now was in the world, and what he was doing; for that was all she really wanted, of course. But, then, where was her friend? She did not know that either. Was that the way of the world, then--that people crossed your path who spoke and looked as though they held you dear as the very apple of their eye, and then passed out of sight again and became mere phantoms? Mina's sweet lips quivered and her head drooped low at the thought.
Yes, she had only once heard from the Countess since
her departure, and that was very, very long ago now.
To Mina, who was still half a child at heart, a year
seemed something interminably long, and the Countess
had already been gone half that time. It is true that
so many new emotions had crowded in upon Mina
of late that the image of her friend had been pushed
into the background; but not forgotten--it was not in
her nature to forget. In her little chamber under
the roof she had stored away hidden treasures that
other people would have thrown away as rubbish. All
sorts of things that she had cared for once upon a time
were religiously preserved there. Here she kept an old
pair of list slippers, very shabby, very much down at
heels; but that somehow, together with a long pipe that
she had managed to regain, reminded her more than anything else of her father as he lived and moved among them; here, laid between two pressed vine-leaves, was a yellow, wavy lock of Elfrida's hair; and a worm-eaten framed sampler worked by her grandmother in her youth, hung with other similar trifles amidst the ivy leaves.
"Oh, Mina, Mina!" cried Lulu, who had been
running about during the last few minutes, picking
dandelion puffs; "Mina, I've found the ring in the
grass!" and she came bounding towards her sister,
holding something in her little fat fingers that seemed
to emit sparks and flashes of light as she ran.
Mina started to her feet. The boys gathered round,
crying in a sceptical tone, "A ring, Lulu?"
But when Conrad fairly caught sight of the thing, he
said in rather an awestruck tone, "Why it's the earl's
ring!" "The earl's ring!" repeated Otto, and was
going to snatch it, but that Mina put him gently aside,
saying in a coaxing voice, "Lulu will give it to sister,
won't she?"
Lulu did not seem at all sure of that, however. She
resolutely kept hold of the ring, saying, "Lulu's ring
now she found it."
"But I will give you two great big rings of real
gingerbread for this which you can't eat," said Mina.
Lulu pricked up her ears at this. The temptation
was great. This ring could clearly not be eaten, she
saw, as she inspected it with her head on one side
considering the offer.
"'Tis only gold, Mina," she said; "I like gingerbread
best! And she gave her sister the ring, who took it
wondering How could it have come there? To whom did it belong? And as she asked herself the question her thoughts at once reverted to the magnificent woman of whom all things bright, costly, and beautiful, had seemed but an appendage.
"Fräulein Mina, here's a letter for you from foreign
parts, here is," cried the servant, holding a thin, blue-looking
one with a large black seal in her sodden hands.
Mina's heart fairly seemed to leap in her bosom and
then to be dead still. She turned red, and then white
as chalk, and her hand trembled so she could hardly
reach it out for the letter.
"Mina's sick!" cried Conrad. "Perhaps it's a
witch's ring, Mina, and will make you die as Schneewittchen
does, you know. I'll go and tell mother of it."
"Foolish boy!" said Mina, making a strong effort to
recover her usual manner, and smiling at him; "I'm
quite well, and if you'll go and play quietly by the
hedge there till dinner-time, you shall have rings of
gingerbread all three to-morrow."
They skipped off joyously, and Mina was at last left
alone with her letter. But she had to steady herself
against the trunk of the tree; she seemed to have
grown so weak all of a sudden. When she was
sufficiently recovered to look steadily at the handwriting,
a curious change took place in her manner.
She seemed to be both relieved and disappointed,
pleased and sorry, as she carefully undid the letter.
Glancing hastily over its contents, she murmured,
"How foolish I was to think she had forgotten me,
and she in such trouble, nursing her dying husband.
Oh how sorry I am! If I could only go to her and
comfort her a little, now that she is in such grief, my poor beautiful friend! Perhaps she will come back again by and by, but she doesn't say so. At any rate I can send back this ring, now that I know her address. I am sure it must be hers, and I will tell her----"
"Mina, Mina, the dinner's ready and mother's
angry!" shouted the children, as they tore down the
garden path towards the house, followed by their sister,
who, by way of keeping it safe for the present, put the
ring on her finger.
wilfulness and that way you have of sitting up of nights (I know your tricks), star-gazing or what not, for I take good care you have no more candle to waste than is enough to undress by."
Frau Lichtenfeld had by this time worked herself
up to such a pitch that her voice had risen to its
normal shrillness again as she continued in aggrieved
tones: "And as I was saying only yesterday to Frau
Scherer at the marketing--and a better market-woman
than myself that worthy lady said she would take her
oath upon never yet drew breath, for my whole winter's
supply of cabbages for pickling and preserving just cost
me--what do you think now? But I forget, you care
about the price of cabbages no more than the babe
unborn, though what you are to do when you have a house
of your own and lots of children, with little money and
less discretion, is quite past my comprehension. All
I know is, when it's too late you'll begin to think of
your poor mother's words--Elise Lichtenfeld 'geborene'
Duttenhofer, late widow of the highly respected,
universally lamented, Professor Lichtenfeld, as good a
wife, mother, and Hausfrau as it ever pleased God to
remove from the bosom of a bereaved family--which
I hope may be put on my tombstone, for I like things
done decently, though without extravagance. But as
I was saying--yes, let me see, as I was saying to
Frau Scherer, not enough that a poor widow like me
has six children to look after and settle in life; but
you, the eldest, must now take to ailing and pale
cheeks (just when everybody, too, had taken to praising
the fine colour you had), as if I didn't provide you
with plenty of wholesome food and wholesome advice
into the bargain. Ah, if only my father, the Medicinalrath (peace be with his memory), had not been removed to a better world, he would have set you to rights whether you liked it or not; and now that I think of it, he would no doubt have prescribed your rising at five every morning and walking to Mülhheim's Farm to drink molken. That's what you'd better do--though perhaps it's rather too late in the year. Well, we'll see; I'll ask the Frau Obertribunalprocurator's advice. Why, dear me, child, if that isn't four o'clock striking; but that's always the way--you will keep me talking, Mina, just when you know I ought to be going out."
With this final home-thrust the Frau Professorinn
wound up her eloquent monologue one afternoon about
a fortnight since the finding of the opal ring had
thrown the whole family Lichtenfeld into a state of
wild commotion. This had only been allayed when,
after much anxious consultation and precautions
innumerable, it had been despatched to the Countess,
together with a letter from Mina in answer to the one
recently received by her.
Poor Mina, who had patiently waited till the
irresistible flow of words should have spent itself,
nevertheless expressed her concern at the delay she had
occasioned her mother, who, kissing her brow, bade
her, with renewed gentleness of tone, get a little colour
in her cheeks by her return, and then went off hunting
for Lulu, who had spent a happy half-hour peering and
prying into all the pots and pans in the kitchen.
It was a wild, cloudy afternoon on which Mina was
thus left alone, and in her honour a fire had been lit
for the first time in the huge white porcelain stove
which occupied a large part of one side of the room, and where, if the flames Were unseen, you could now hear them crackling and sputtering amidst the damp wood.
It was unusually quiet in the house, and yet Mina
could not go to sleep, but lay restlessly twisting and tossing
about, when a knock at the door made her suddenly
start to her feet. Before she had even time to smooth
her ruffled hair a little, Sabina, with a broad grin,
announced Lieutenant Knapp, who, in his smart blue
uniform with white facings, halted midway in the room--as
though waiting for the word of command--and
looked the picture of blushing misery, as he stammered
something about "Very sorry--Frau Professorinn--hoped
to have the felicity----" and then collapsed
entirely; and for all that he was a soldier, looked
uncommonly as though he would like to turn tail and
beat a retreat.
"What could he want with her?" thought the
astonished Mina, as, taking pity on his evident embarrassment,
she begged him to be seated. And then, as he
persistently went on getting redder and redder in the
face, and did not hazard a single remark, while his
eyes seemed rooted to the floor, she kindly asked after
his family with a view to putting him at his ease.
The poor lieutenant, who was afflicted with a slight
stutter when anything made him nervous, now said
something in rather disjointed fashion about having
come to invite her mother and herself and the rest of
the family to the vintage festivities that were to be held
at his aunt's vineyard that day week, when a grand
display of fireworks and a dance were to wind up the
proceedings.
While enumerating these manifold attractions the
the young man--in his eagerness to put everything in the
rosiest light--gradually regained some portion of his
soldierly self-possession, and at last, ending with quite a
flourish, he ventured to raise his round, rather prominent
blue eyes to Mina's face, as he expressed a hope that
she would grace the festival with her presence.
But Mina, who felt in no mood for any gaieties
whatever, replied that she could of course make no
engagements in her mother's absence.
"Oh, my dear Fräulein Mina, I hope you will persuade
your honoured Frau Mamma to come to us,"
cried the lieutenant, who, now that he had once faced
the enemy, was losing his nervousness. "Indeed, I
will call again myself and convince her that we cannot
possibly do without you, Fräulein Mina--indeed we
cannot! Why, it would go off as flat as--as--champagne
without the foam to it, if we were to miss your
clear laugh and----" He was going to say "your bright
eyes," but the idea of daring to speak of her eyes to
her so overcame him that he felt a sensation like pins
and needles all over him; and when he further reflected
that here was his chance now--the chance he had so
often and so ardently desired, it was like being rubbed
over with pepper into the bargain.
For although possibly--as the German song has it--neither
fire nor coals burn half as fiercely as secret love
of which no one knows aught, yet what was that in
comparison to boldly facing the fire in the shape of
a maiden sitting before one with two clear, shining
eyes, the look of which went straight to a fellow's heart
somehow!
And so his secret popped out of him, just as a gun
will go off when a man's hand shakes a bit in its handling.
Something in the droop of the rosebud mouth did
it before he well knew what he was about. He had
risen to his feet now, and was standing in front of her,
his left hand nervously fumbling with the sword handle.
There was no mistaking his honest, manly tones as he
told the love he had long felt for her in secret, and
offering her his hand and heart asked beseechingly if
she could love him a little, ever so little, in return.
Mina was as startled as if a loaded gun had indeed
gone off close to her ear. She said piteously: "No,
no, pray don't! I can't help it, indeed I can't--but I
don't----" and she looked as wretched as if he had
taxed her with some dreadful crime in declaring his
love for her.
"But will you not think of it a little while before
you answer me?" pleaded the poor lover. "You are
still so young, Fräulein Mina; I have startled you, like
a fool, with my brusque proposal. Take time, take
time--only say," continued he, emphasizing the only,
"you will take time to consider it."
Mina shook her head sorrowfully, but only too
decisively, and holding out her hand to her rejected suitor,
said, in a voice as if she were trying to exculpate
herself: "I am so sorry--so sorry. What can I ever have
done to make you care for me, Lieutenant Knapp; but
forgive me if I have, for I--I cannot----" and although
the word "love you" stuck in her throat, there could
be no mistaking the distinct meaning her tone conveyed
this time.
The young lieutenant, looking at her yearningly, said:
"Tell me, tell me, is there some one else more fortunate whom I can never hope to take the place of?"
Mina, startled at the question, coloured violently, and
made some gesture of denial; but though she seemed
to be saying something, her voice now was so faint that
it was impossible for her suitor to guess at her meaning.
Although this could scarcely be called an answer,
even the leaden-witted young lieutenant comprehended
with a lover's intuitive perception that there was some
insuperable obstacle in the girl's mind to the realization
of his dearest wish; and turning very white, he seemed
to be trying to swallow something which his military
stock prevented from going down. Then pressing
Mina's hand with an air of the most submissive respect,
he merely added, "Ah, please don't grieve for me," and
went off like a criminal just sentenced.
Mina, when she heard the outer door shut, burst into
tears. She did not at all plume herself on her conquest,
or feel any of that glow of satisfied vanity so natural
to the feminine breast. What troubled her was the
idea that she might, and yet she knew not how, be in
some way responsible for his having fallen in love with
her; and then, as she pictured to herself this man's
hopes and dreams all shattered in an instant like a
child's house of cards, she felt a subtle pang, perhaps
not entirely due to sympathy with his disappointment.
By and by she dried her eyes and walked to the
window, which was at the back looking on to the
garden, and pressed her forehead against the cold panes
of glass, as though it were hot and aching. As she
moved across the room she seemed to have grown taller
within these last few months; her very eyes seemed to
have increased in size, that being due to her face having grown so much thinner and paler than it used to be; its expression too had greatly altered.
She stood there for a long time, with a strained yearning
in her eyes, looking out towards the dim horizon.
The autumnal wind, fitfully rising and ebbing amongst
the many-folded windings of the hills--moaned now far
off with sounds as piteous as the bleating of strayed
lambs, then again with howls as of a pack of wolves--went
rushing across country, smiting the fruit-tree tops
till their lashed and tossing branches seemed to yell
again. Mina, in a half-conscious sort of way, felt an
answering thrill to these forlorn, plaintive sounds,
though scarcely distinctly realizing what was passing
in the depths of her pure, yet passionate nature.
A look--a tone--a kindling smile--a broken sentence
or two--a pressure of the hand--things transitory as
the tints of a sunset that glorify the heavens and then
vanish as though they had never been! Ephemeral
nothings if you try to fix them in language, but which
by anticipation, may constitute a universe of subtle joy,
or throw a whole innocent existence into confusion and
entanglement.
Mina, in a wistful kind of abstraction, stood watching
the yellow and rust-coloured leaves, scampering in all
directions whenever a windy gust, flapping down among
the creaking boughs, stripped them and rocked them
to and fro. Myriads of leaves, as if endowed with
a ghostly life of their own, went fluttering from their
stems, soaring away high and yet higher, and circled in
the currents of upper air, till they abruptly dropped
with a dry, sepulchral sound, and lay on the discoloured
grass in melancholy heaps and patches, like blighted hopes and joys turned to pain.
What! were her hopes and joys already withered
ere youth itself was gone? Or what meant that clinging
sense of desolation and loss--that something that
had taken the joy out of her joys, and planted a sting
there instead--so that she never felt glad in the morning
that a new day had begun; but did what she had to
do in a spiritless, perfunctory fashion, wishing all the
while for night and sleep.
All at once, as she stood there alone and comfortless--looking
out on this drear, autumnal scene, her heart gave
a great bound and then seemed to cease beating. Whose
was the step, that footstep with the music in it, that
had struck on her ear? Fool that she was, she could
scarcely bear to turn round for fear of destroying this
illusion. Very slowly, almost like one afraid, she turned
her head just a little.
No, it was no illusion! It was he indeed who had
just entered the room; and what a contrast to the awkward,
stuttering, florid-looking young lieutenant who
had stood on almost the identical spot scarcely an
hour ago, was this tall, self-possessed man, with the
spiritual yet piercing glance, the sensitive, expressive
hands, and that undefinable enchantment of look and
manner sometimes an attribute of genius.
For a moment Emanuel lingered on the threshold,
then impulsively stretching out both his arms, he strode
towards her--for she seemed rooted to the spot; and
while his pale, keen features were suffused and kindling
with delight, he sighed rather than said, "My child,
my sweet child," as he gently took her hands in his.
Mina for the moment had lost all power of speech.
Instinctively she recoiled a step or two, and tried to
disengage her hands. There was something scared,
almost frightened, in her expression, as of a stag at
bay. For the tumultuous throbbing of her heart at
sight of this man, who disappeared, reappeared, and
might disappear again ignis fatuus like, flashed on her
the full truth of her utterly helpless love so forcibly,
that she, poor child, could almost have gasped for
breath, like an inexperienced swimmer who, for the
first time out of his depth, feels that he must now float
or sink irretrievably.
This scared look, this altered expression of her pale
face, the imperceptible shrinking when he had seized
her hands in his, did not escape Emanuel, who felt a
cold shudder run through him as he thought that she
might have heard all. But no, it could not be that Sontheim
had been false to his word, and betrayed his secret.
He looked at her silently, with a yearning tenderness
that Mina felt even to the tips of her fingers; then he
said very, very softly, "Mina! ah, do you know, do
you guess how I love you, Mina?"
Then pressing her hands against his breast, he
continued in a more and more eager and impassioned voice,
"Do you know that I have loved you since the day I
saw you in the wood, with those dear hands outstretched
as in supplication. Yes, Mina, dearest girl, I shall
always associate you in my thoughts with that delicious
day in April, full of the blossoming of flowers and the
singing of birds, when, after many years of wandering,
I revisited my birthplace, and found there what I
seemed to have searched for in vain throughout the
world. Ah, beloved! since that day you have never been absent from my heart. Say, say, why do you look so wistfully at me?" cried he, as with anxious fondness he gazed down into her limpid eyes, where tears and smiles seemed contending for mastery. "Many times the avowal of my love for you trembled on my lips, but--but----" He broke off abruptly, and after a pause almost humbly continued, "Ah, you do not know yourself as I know you; you do not know in your innocence what a jewel beyond price is a heart like yours; but I, Mina, I who know, feel like a thief almost in that I seek it! Yet without it, without you, this world, with all it can give of praise and pleasure, and fame and fortune, is but as a barren waste and a wilderness of thorns to me. Oh, I was so old, my child, old, and sick, and weary, till your sacred youth renewed my spirit as with the very dew of dawn. Yes, when I looked into your sunny eyes all the evil spirits by which I was once possessed seemed to be exorcised. You have given me a new life, a life that shall be devoted to your service, if you will let me. But oh, speak, tell me my sweet joy, do you love me a little too? Will you be mine, my very own, my dear love, my wife, Mina?"
Was it not well to have suffered those pangs of
heartsickness, that aching void, to be thus warmed and
penetrated through and through with such deep, sweet,
unutterable bliss! Mina could make no answer; weeping
for joy, she fell upon his breast and hid her glowing face
there. And when she gently freed herself from his arms,
they stood almost breathless, holding each other's hands,
and looked at each other, minutes, hours, ages, it might
have been--for the heart dates by emotions, not years.
These private and particular confidences in the ears
of some dozen or so of women, were, indeed, the sole
outlet for the good woman's bursting sensations on this
occasion. For say what she would she found her future
son-in-law sternly opposed to the German custom of a
betrothal ceremony, to which relatives and friends are
officially invited, and liberally supplied with wine and
every description of fancy-cake.
When Mina's mother proposed the performance of
this rite to Emanuel, on the first occasion of his dining
there en famille after his engagement, he fairly jumped
off his seat, and cried with whimsical horror--
"No, no, my dear, kind, good lady, ask anything in
the world of me for the gift of such a daughter, but not
that--that would drive me distracted!" Then turning
to Mina, with an infusion of sly mischief in his tone, he
said: "Unless, indeed, my lady fair should expressly
state that such were her gracious wishes and commands:
for should I not have to let myself be flayed alive if she
so ordered it?"
Mina blushed--she had a terrible trick of blushing,
especially when as now so many pairs of inquisitive
eyes were all fixed on her; the very servant even, as
she cleared away the soup-tureen and put the hot roast
goose, stuffed with chesnuts, on the table, giving her
a wink on the sly, as much as to say that she knew all
about it, bless her heart. Luckily for her self-possession,
the carving of that succulent bird just then began
to engross all Frau Lichtenfeld's attention; and the
boys, too, while intently watching that cunning operation,
were for the moment diverted from their efforts
at fathoming in what the manners and customs of an
engaged sister differed from one not engaged. Indeed, Wolfgang seemed to expect some outward visible transformation to take place in a person under such circumstances, and to be eagerly on the watch for it. But at any rate, Mina, relieved for the moment from so much oppressive attention, ventured to look at Emanuel as she replied in so low a voice that it escaped her mother's notice--
"Indeed, I would so much rather not have any one
invited--it makes me tremble to think of it. But you.
will come with me to grandmother's very soon, won't you?
I want so much to tell her myself, and you to be there too,
for I know how fond she is of you. Often and often has she
talked to me about you, and the strange things you said
and did as a boy, when I never thought that----" but
here she faltered in embarrassment, for although she
could talk fluently enough when at her ease, her position
was still so new, so overwhelmingly new, happy and
wonderful, that it was only when left alone with her
lover that she occasionally became her genuine self,
and forgetting her shyness, broke into spontaneous
confidences, affording sudden glimpses into her exquisite
nature.
Presently all that remained of the substantial goose--which
for some weeks past had been assiduously fed and
fattened by Frau Lichtenfeld's own hands--was a little
heap of picked and polished bones; and these being
removed made way for a smoking pile of "Dampfnudeln"
and stewed pears, which elicited a simultaneous
"Oh" of admiration from Lulu and Otto. For the
good widow, although a strict economist, was by no
means miserly, but prided herself on the excellence of
her fare--superintended and often prepared by her own hands--especially when as now she entertained a guest at her table. After having liberally helped every one all round, and aimed a sly dart at her eldest daughter to the effect that, for her part, she did not see why people should slight good victuals, when they had only the trouble to lift the knife and fork to their lips and swallow them, she once more began her attack on her future son-in-law: first of all, however, complimenting him on his splendid appetite, which she averred she had seldom seen equalled--she having three times helped him to goose.
"Why, such fare as you have placed before me," said
Emanuel, laughingly, "would make a dying man's
mouth water; and you have just hit on one of my
favourite dishes, too. The goose is a glorious bird,
and I think, considering its manifold services to
mankind--from saving the Capitol, to furnishing him with
the means of immortality--he deserves to have his
praises chanted as well as any nightingale or lark
amongst them. For the matter of that, dear Frau Lichtenfeld,
I must really, after partaking of this goose of
yours, exhale my satisfaction in a Rondo or Caprice, or
something of that sort."
The widow, highly gratified with the compliment to
her cookery, now suggested that something neat in the
way of cards should at once be printed and sent to their
acquaintances, by way of informing them of the engagement.
But to this Emanuel showed himself equally
averse; indeed, if he could he would have kept his
engagement a family secret till the wedding-day itself,
but with such a tongue as Frau Lichtenfeld's that was
a simple impossibility. And he had to submit with such stoicism as he could muster to the infliction of furnishing for the present the most exciting topic of conversation to the inhabitants of the town.
However, Frau Lichtenfeld found some compensation
in reflecting that the wedding-day had been fixed for
some day before the close of the old year; and the
delicious preoccupation with Mina's outfit, from the
ribbons of her best Sunday bonnet, to the buckles on
her house-shoes, threw all less-engrossing subjects of
consideration into the background. Even her daughter's
somewhat lukewarm interest in a matter so weighty as
the trimming of her black silk dress with gimp, or frills of
its own material, did not damp her enthusiasm. With
a huge bunch of keys jingling at her side, and Lulu as
usual hanging on to her apron-strings, she stood one
morning before the old worm-eaten walnut press on the
landing--a solid piece of furniture, and her particular
pride, as having been in the family of the Duttenhofers
long before the Lichtenfelds had probably either a local
habitation or a name. This press (not devoid of a
certain mustiness of smell, as became a very venerable
piece of furniture) she now unlocked, and as she pulled
out shelf after shelf, the goodly stores of sheets, towels,
table-cloths, napkins, and underclothing of every description,
seemed to indicate an unexpected degree of wealth.
For Frau Lichtenfeld's weak side--the one extravagance
which she secretly indulged in--was to have a
great store of fine linen, enough to last the whole family
for a good three months at least without so much as
the need of a pocket handkerchief having to be washed.
Here now were a dozen chemises, tied together with
a narrow pink silk ribbon, which she had put by for Mina's trousseau when the latter was still toddling about in short frocks. But her chief subject of pride were half a dozen batiste handkerchiefs--now of a deep yellow tone from age--with a delicate embroidery of flowers for a border, which she had had for her own outfit, but always shirked using as being altogether too exquisite in texture for her station in life.
As she fingered them now, however, she was
revolving in her mind whether they would not be the
very thing for the wife of such a very great musician--one
who was actually going to a reception at the
Grand Duke's, and seemed hail-brother-well-met with
his highness's whole family. Yes, that thought decided
her, and she took the handkerchiefs but of their covering
of soft tissue paper, resolving, not without some natural
regrets, to pick out her own initials and substitute her
daughter's instead.
While thus busily overhauling her treasures of linen,
the door of the landing opened with a ring, and Frau
Scherer and Fräulein von Griesbach--burning for further
details of everything concerning the grand match her
daughter was about to make--came unannounced on
Frau Lichtenfeld.
"Ah, my dear Frau Professorinn," cried Frau Scherer,
looking admiringly at the well-filled press, "we can
imagine why you are pulling out this goodly store of linen!
And pray where is your sweet child--I am dying to
congratulate her and to see how the 'brautstand' becomes
her."
"Yes," Fräulein von Griesbach chimed in, "I confess
to a little curiosity on that point myself, though I am
not given to curiosity as a rule; but indeed it seems but yesterday, honoured Frau Professorinn--does it not?--that our Mina might almost have been considered as somewhat of a hoyden--if I might venture to say so--hardly quite mature, quite discreet enough, for the serious responsibilities involved by married life."
"Ah, my dear high-born Fräulein, to be sure Mina
is scarcely yet out of the tadpole stage, but that's a
fault will mend with time, never fear; and men are so
odd in their notions, you know, that they take up with
raw girls like that when, but for the asking, they might
have women of the maturest mien and manners."
"But where, in the meanwhile, is the dear love herself,
Frau Professorinn?" interposed Frau Scherer, "that I
may hasten to embrace her; for I assure you I have
thought of nothing else since I heard of it--that's the
fact. To think that such celebrity, a man who goes
into the highest circles, and so genteel-looking too
(between ourselves, but for heaven's sake let it go no
farther, my dear Frau Lichtenfeld, I am told that
Princess Stephanie is almost off her head about him--quite
a second Leonora, they say); and to think that
he should have picked out our Minchen, of all girls,
it's amazing, truly! But as--dear, dear, who was it
now? Let me see--no--yes--I think it is Goethe
who says, that in love it's all a lottery as to who
shall draw the great prize and who the blank--isn't it,
now?"
"Well, well," said Frau Lichtenfeld, "as far as my
experience goes, you're not very far out there, Frau
Scherer. If a housewife now were to buy her pig or
potatoes with as little care and forethought as people
bestow on the choosing of partners, why, she'd be sold and swindled right and left; and serve her right, too, for a lazy slut. But that's what I say, all the care and prudence in the world mightn't answer better in the long run after all than this startling, buzzy like style of dashing into matrimony; and once we're caught in the scrape, why we must make the best of it, as I tell Mina--though for aught she heeds or hears, I might as well be dumb and she deaf, I tell her. But there, the sky hangs full of fiddles for her as yet; still, something may stick in the end and turn up when wanted, I hope; for that I will say, I've never spared either myself or my words when it's been for the good of my children, though it's little thanks you ever get from them, Fräulein von Griesbach."
"Oh yes, honoured Frau Professorinn," replied that
lady, with a pulling up of the thin corners of her mouth,
which did duty for a smile, "I can quite believe, indeed
I can, the fearful trouble your children must give you;
and I never see those two boys, Wolfgang and Hans,
tearing down the street, as if a mad dog were after
them, but I feel that some dreadful calamity will overtake
them one of these days, they look so wild, reckless,
so----"
"No, no, my dear Fräulein, there you mistake, there
you entirely mistake. I warrant there's not a better
lad going, nor a more sensible, than my Wolf, though I
say it who shouldn't, perhaps. Boys will be boys, you
know; but he's a downright good, practical lad, with
no nonsense in him, if you only get at the right side
of him--the very image of his maternal grandfather, the
Medicinalrath Duttenhofer."
"Dear, dear, do you say so!" exclaimed Fräulein
von Griesbach, with a lifting of her scant eyebrows. "Of
course you know best, and I only remember your revered,
highly-respected father when he attended my mother in
her last illness; but I see not the faintest likeness to
that truly able physician, with his shrewd, penetrating
glance. It rather seems, if I may venture to have an
opinion in such a matter, that----"
"Oh, and how do you do, Frau Obertribunalprocurator?
You find us all here in full conclave, you see; but I must
really beg a thousand pardons for keeping you on the
landing all this time," cried Frau Lichtenfeld, advancing
to shake hands with the new arrival.
"But then, it's such a very cosy one, with this nice
broad seat here, and those nasturtiums trained up the
window, that I prefer it to any of the rooms, if I may
venture to say so, especially when the sun shines in as
pleasantly as now," said that portly, good-natured lady,
sitting down beside the other visitors; and without
further preliminaries she pulled a long stocking from the
reticule which she carried, and began knitting vigorously.
"And where's the little pretty one?" she asked; "I've
expressly come to have a sight of her, as she does not
deign to come near me!"
"Yes, that's what we've all come for," put in Frau
Scherer; "but, bless you, we poor humdrum people
are quite below the notice of Frau Emanuel Sturm that
is to be! She will have people of quite another sort
to associate with now!"
"But Herr Sturm is here just now," said Frau
Lichtenfeld a little nervously, as she locked the press
again; "they are in the garden, I believe, and he
expects to monopolize her when he's here, I can tell you, and glowers so if ever you go near to put in a sensible word or two about things. But then, as I was saying to Therese only yesterday, there's such an air about him, and he is so spoilt, that it's best to let him have his way and not meddle with him. But, bless me, great though they say he is, he's more like a big child, for all I can see; wants everything on the instant he takes a thing in his head--for all the world like Otto; and if by any chance Mina should just be trying on a dress when he looks in, and he is kept waiting a little (do my lord good, too, I say!), you hear him calling her all over the house--'Mina!--Mina!--Mina!--are you going to keep me for ever, Mina!'--till it's quite distracting-like. But you must come into my room and see the presents he's already been giving her, more fit for a princess than a girl of her station: such a cloak, trimmed with sable's tails--would you believe it!--to go travelling about with, for he is going to take her all over the world. Think of that--not that there's so much in travelling to my mind----"
"There I quite agree with you," said Fräulein von
Griesbach. "I hold with the good old saw that says,
'Stay in thy country and earn thy bread honestly.'
These rolling stones gather no moss----"
"Just what I say," exclaimed Frau Lichtenfeld,
without giving her friend time to finish--"just what I
say, my dear Fräulein, and the only time I ever left my
birthplace was when Heinrich took me to Switzerland
for our honeymoon; and, bless you, if we didn't get
honey enough to eat and to spare too; everyday they
gave it us for breakfast--would you believe? But I don't
hold with such extravagance, and it was quite a trouble to me at that time that it is such sticky, dripping stuff, or I would have tucked it away in my pocket and brought it home with me. And it's past all belief the way they'll charge you for candles in those hotels--robbers' nests, I call them, that took every bit of pleasure clean away for my part: the only comfort was that I brought quite five pounds of candles away with me, and sugar enough to last me for half a year. But as to those mountains now, and those horrible breakneck paths that Heinrich took me along, why, I flatly told him at the time I thought he had taken me there to murder me outright! Herr Jesus, they made your head spin round like a top to look down some of them. There was just one pretty thing that I saw though--yes, I remember it as if it had been yesterday; such a fresh green meadow as it was--at Andermatt, that was the name--so sweet, too, after that frightful St. Gotthardt, and I at once said to Heinrich, 'Oh, what a capital bleaching-ground that would make, wouldn't it? If only we could take it home with us!' But he had no sense, poor man, as I then discovered, and only laughed like a ninny. Well, but as I was saying--as soon as he can get hold of her he'll spend every hour in that back garden with her, or in the fields behind it."
"Severe masters have short reigns," said Fräulein
von Griesbach, in a half-aside; and then in a louder
voice she asked insinuatingly, "and do you think it
quite prudent to let them be so much alone together,
honoured Frau Professorinn? Well, and what does
your brother say to the match, Frau Scherer? As
her godfather and nearest male protector he ought to
have been the first to have been consulted, I should have thought."
"I hope he may have got my letter with the news,"
answered Frau Scherer; "but you know" (looking
about her very cautiously and sinking her voice almost
to a whisper) "he is so full of secrets and mysteries of
late--I only hope no harm may come of it--and he's
been in twenty places at once, it seems, and even I, his
own flesh and blood, haven't known half the time where
to write to him; though he's been last heard of at
Frankfort. But, indeed; 'tis strange the change that's
come over him of late."
"Such a friendly and amusing man as he always was,"
sighed Fräulein von Griesbach; "why, he might have
made you laugh in the face of the toothache itself."
They say talk of the d---- and he is sure to appear.
Scarcely had the absent Professor's name been mentioned
than the door opened again, and, behold, in
walked that individual in person with the indispensable
pipe in his mouth.
Frau Scherer threw up her hands in astonishment,
and all the ladies were not a little surprised at this
unexpected visitor.
"Why, Leopold, you have never come straight here
after your journey?" said his sister, looking at his
dusty boots and that general air of unwashed and
unshorn griminess which a long night-journey usually
gives to a person.
Her brother grunted something without directly
replying, and after shaking hands with her and the
other ladies, asked abruptly whether Herr Sturm
happened perhaps to be about the premises just then.
The widow thought to herself that she had always
considered him a bear, but not quite such an icy one;
and Frau Scherer in vain tried, by means of significant
winks and signs and nudges, to remind him of the fact
that he had not addressed a word of congratulation or
otherwise to their friend; but Fräulein von Griesbach
gave a kind of a sniff as though she scented some
mischief afar off, such as in her wisdom she had always
predicted. All these different signs, however, were lost
upon Sontheim, who only repeated his query rather
more gruffly than before.
As she was slowly pacing up down the path, with
the dead leaves rustling under her light tread, and the
morning dew like a fine silver spray dashed all along
the grass, she wondered within herself whether she
had ever really lived before now; whether she could
ever grow worthy of this great bliss which made the
heaven bluer, and added a lustre to the very sun
himself.
Mina's happiness humbled her. It seemed so little
she had to give in return for these splendid gifts of
intellect and genius which the famous musician lavished
upon her. For must not innocence remain an eternal
mystery to itself, or cease to be such?
Unconscious of herself, lost in ecstatic contemplation
of him she loved, Mina resembled those Hindoo devotees
whose personality is entirely absorbed in the light of
deity. She was bewildered with delight at the thought
of passing a long life at this beloved man's side.
Indeed, the emotion which his presence caused her was
almost oppressive in its intensity; but now he was not
here she could freely yield herself up to the full tide of
her love. She could picture his form, and that trick of
the long, nervous fingers dashing back his rebellious
hair, and the sudden sunlight of the smile when he
looked at her, and every lingering inflection of that
voice to which her pulses vibrated like the strings of
his own violin.
And then how her heart beat as she heard his quick
step, and saw him hurrying along with the eager hands
that were always stretched out on catching sight of her.
"Ah, sweetheart," he said, after holding her in a
long embrace, "I am glad I find you here; there is so
much that I want to talk to you about and settle as to
the future, you know."
And after imparting this information, he did nothing
of the kind whatsoever.
Future, past, what were they but idle words--empty
imaginings--unsubstantial shadows: was not the all
in all of existence this golden now--this palpitating
present in which they looked at each other in long-tranced
silences, more eloquent than any speech--in
which their fingers interwined--in which a sigh, a
half-articulate word was overfull of the heart's desire;
but their lips only rarely met--Mina had wept so sorely
the first time her lover had kissed her.
By and by they went and sat down on a garden seat
under the pear-tree in the shadow of the house.
Around about, on the trees, in the grass, there
was a red-golden glimmer of leaves, for the rich
yet subdued glow of the autumnal sun was steeping
hills and fields and every nestling dell and corner in a
somnolent splendour, in which the earth seemed almost
to hold her breath for a space lest she should break the
spell, and the whole gorgeous fabric suddenly crumble
into dust and ashes.
There was absolute stillness, only at intervals might
be heard the thump of a late over-ripe pear as it fell
bursting on the grass.
Yet, though there was no wind, long shining threads
of fairy gossamer went continually floating up through
the clear air higher and higher, some getting enmeshed
about the twigs, and branches, while the thin cloud-strips
in the sky above looked only like a closer web
of the same ethereal texture.
"The people about here," said Mina, as Emanuel
was playfully extracting one of these wandering films
that had got tangled in her hair, "call these threads
'Muttergottesgarn'--Mother of God's yarn, which
she spun for the baby-linen of the infant Jesus, and
they believe that every year at this season some of the
superfluous threads are blown about in commemoration
of this blessed event."
"Why the people about here," remarked Emanuel,
smiling, "might furnish a whole bevy of poets with
fancies and quaint conceits--at least to judge from all
the pretty things you tell me, sweetest; but as to that,
we musicians too might catch many an inspiration
from the beautiful, sad cadences of the folk-songs here. Why, yesterday evening I actually followed a small knot of vintagers far into the country, they had such fine voices, and were singing in capital time too. One of the songs was quite new to me; I can only remember a few words, however, but they were as beautiful as the tune itself;" and he sang--
"'Say, Kathleen dear, what comfort for my sighs.'"
"Oh," cried Mina, vivaciously, "I know it well, it is
one of Hebel's poems; they are sometimes rather
obscure because of the Alemmanic dialect, but I
understand it a little. This is how it goes--is it not
touching?--
"'Say, Kathleen dear, what comfort for my sighs
Is in pied flowers, or bees with honeyed thighs?
Wert thou but kind, if in the deepest shaft--
Where never bee yet hummed, or flow'ret laughed--
And thou with me, I were in Paradise.'"
"Why, darling! said Emanuel, fondly, "that little
head of yours is quite a treasure-house of folk-songs
and sayings. What a memory you must have!"
"Oh no," said Mina, "mother says that I am the
most forgetful person alive; it is only because I love
these songs and the people they spring from--like
flowers, don't you think?--that they stick to me so, just
as the scent of the violets will cling to your hands long
after you have put them away. But tell me, will you
really turn the song into one of your own beautiful
melodies?"
"After hearing it repeated by those sweet little lips
of yours, it would be strange if it didn't turn into the
sweetest song I ever wrote. You shall see if I do not make it worthy of the muse that inspired it."
"Ah," said Mina, looking up with smiling awe, "I
do so wonder when I think how glorious melodies like
that can ever be produced! And then it has come
into my head that you must be exactly like my ear
Granny's bees; for you know they get a little sip here
and a little sip there, and then--who can tell how?--you
find it all at once changed into cunningly-fashioned
cells, full of the clear, golden honey. And you too"--she
added, blushing--"you too,I suppose, get hold of
the sounds that are all about us; but how you build
them up into those intricate harmonies that are such a
labyrinth of tones, and yet with such perfect order in
the plan--what a mystery that is to me!"
"You sweet little speculative elf you," said Emanuel,
fondly, "it is not to you alone that the laws which
govern what we choose to call the 'creation' of works
of art have been a puzzle; why it's a stumbling-block
to many of your philosophers, though they are much
given to flatter themselves that if only they can invent
big-sounding phrases enough, they've clinched the
matter satisfactorily.
"But as to what art is--whether it is, according
to Plato's notion, the bodying forth of the archetype
inherent in the soul; or the image or spectrum
of the Cosmos mirrored in the mind with such
superadded magic as there is in the reflection of a
landscape in stilled waters; or yet a third something,
an immaculate conception, a form begotten on the
material universe by the brooding spirit of man--whether
it is one, or none, or all of these mixed
together, I will not venture to say. Theories are all very well, no doubt, but rather superfluous when you're concerned with the arduous practice of art itself: such is my theory, at any rate--but then I'm only a fiddler after all, and hardly know Aristotle from Plato, to my shame be it confessed."
"But," interposed Mina quickly, flushing with pride,
as not tolerating any abuse of her love, though it were
by her lover himself--"but you are such a very great
genius! And do you know what my father one day
said that genius was like? I remember well, because
I always had such a longing to see some one or other
of those great men who had written the poems I loved,
or the more heavenly music that makes one feel almost
as though it gave one wings to fly away with like a
bird! And oh, if I had ever thought then that I was
going--" she whispered with naive, girlish enthusiasm.
Emanuel, taking the words out of her mouth, said,
looking at her with deprecating tenderness: "If you
had ever thought that you were going to have such a
good-for-nothing fellow saddled on you for life, perhaps
you would have repented of your desire. For I fear,
Mina, we creatures of the fitful fancy are like those
dazzling dragon-flies flashing through the air, which
yet turn out commonplace enough when you've caught
them. But what about your father, Mina? How I
wish I had known him! His image has taken such a
hold of my imagination somehow. You were going to
tell me something he had said, sweetheart!"
"But I don't know that I am able to quite convey
his meaning," answered Mina, doubtfully; "perhaps
you will laugh if I tell you. He said he was sure the
squirrel mentioned in the 'Edda' was a symbol of genius; for that it was the topmost thing flitting on the topmost bough of Yggdrasil, the tree of life, yet knew the secrets of the serpent secretly gnawing at its roots and the Norns' decree as they watered them."
"Not a bad definition, truly," said Emanuel,
musingly; "from him, too, I might have had an
account of that wild, visionary northern mythology
which I suspect might furnish some magnificent
subjects for musical treatment. There is that lovely myth
of Balder, for example;, I only vaguely remember it,
but how well its suggestive symbolism would lend itself
to the composition of a symphony."
"Oh," said Mina, "that story from the 'Edda' my
father used to tell me, and that other one too, my
favourite, about Iduna, the goddess whose eyes were as
blue as the blossoming flax. It was about her being
the keeper of the apples which grew in Gladheim,
where the glad gods lived who every day ate of these
apples, the secret of their eternal youth. But the giant
Thiassi carried off Iduna, and when the gods could no
longer get the apples they grew old and older, their
beautiful locks turned grey, their brows got wrinkled,
and the gladness that had dwelt in Gladheim forsook
their eyes; and when the gods felt old age creeping
through their veins they were ready to give up anything
for the ransom of Iduna. The poor gods! Oh, it must
be dreadful to grow old; and yet," she added, pondering,
"there's grandmother--she is very, very old, you know--but
she said when I told her this story once, that
there was an apple which, if only we would eat thereof
every day, would keep the heart's eternal youth."
"Oh, what apple was that, sweet?" said Emanuel,
"that I may see about getting some before age overtakes
me quite."
Mina grew very red as she said, "The love-apple,
she called it; but, you know--I don't think--she didn't
mean exactly----"
"Yes, yes, she did mean exactly," said Emanuel,
pressing Mina with a sudden impulse to his heart--and
then looking round, as though suddenly recollecting
himself and the eyes that might be peering at them.
"Oh," he said, imitating Mina's manner, "you know
it's too dreadful to grow old--and I was growing very,
very old, not quite blear-eyed, perhaps, but with the
grey hairs coming like tares among the wheat, till my
own Iduna here gave me to eat of the apple of love,
and I grew young again--almost as young as herself;
and will she see now," he said, boyishly flinging himself
on the grass at her feet, "whether the grey hairs have
melted at her glance as snow in the sunshine?"
Then, with that swift transition of mood so characteristic
of the man, he added with pathetic earnestness,
raising his head and carrying Mina's hand to his lips,
"Ah, my love, when I recall the frame of mind with
which I came here, its desolation, its fierce unrest, the
self-scorn eating into my heart; when I recall----No,
no," he said, as a sudden gloom clouded his features--"let
me not recall ..."
But what so swift, irrepressible, instantaneous, as
thought? A sudden remembrance can cast its
momentary chill over the sunniest hour. For the
memories of deeds done beyond recall do not,
unfortunately, lie still as the dead in their quiet graves, but
rise, ghost-like and unnaturally vivid, when wrought-up emotion is at its highest tension. Perhaps at the very time the spirit aspires to a new life that shall be purer and loftier than the old, conscience rears itself like a snake that is trodden on, and exacts atonement for wrong-doing long past. Such returns of the conscience upon itself may torture like the touch of hot iron; and the nobler the nature was originally, the keener in proportion these pangs will probably be.
At that moment Emanuel felt a violent compunction,
a strong prompting to reveal his whole past to Mina
and let her be the arbitrator of his fate. But, no! an
intolerable sense of shame withheld him, for with the
finer susceptibilities awakened in him by her radiant
purity of nature, he shrank at the thought of what, seen
through her eyes, now appeared to him a defiled past,
a past which she must never know, never suspect, never
dream of. Good heavens! how could she ever
understand?--and there was a sudden faltering as though he
might yet bring dire anguish to this girl whose soul
was opening out to him slowly as the wind-flower or
morning glory opens to the sun.
And then he cursed himself for a fool. There could
come no harm to her now; she was safe enough.
Could he not give the girl all that women most
desire in life, name and fame, and the dazzling rewards
thereof? What if there were some things that could
not bear being looked into by such eyes as hers:
such there were in all men's lives. And he passed his
hand impatiently across his brow as though he would
have obliterated every impression of the past.
The sudden change in his expression had not escaped
Mina's loving ken. Without understanding its cause she too, with instinctive sympathy, felt a sudden clouding over of her happiness. There came an unaccountable yearning over her to entreat his full confidence--to ask that whatever trouble might weigh on him, he would share with her: how far sweeter to divide his pains with him than even his pleasures! But girlish timidity and awe got the better of her impulse. Would he think she could understand him, young and inexperienced as she was? But in time he might see--love maketh very wise the heart.
Emanuel abruptly raised his eyes to Mina, seized
both her hands in his, and placed them on his head, as
though there might be purification in their touch. The
moment was past--the supreme moment when their
two destinies hung upon the word that was never
spoken!
What a charming picture they made under the old
pear-tree there, leaning towards each other with that
love-light in their eyes, and the golden sunshine as it
fell through the golden leaves making a glory of Mina's
hair; while Emanuel, who had now completely regained
his usual buoyancy, was saying--
"But tell me, sweetheart, will you really like rushing
about the world with me in this will-o'-the-wisp fashion.
For you know, Mina, I mean to lug you about with me
everywhere; and then, who knows, you may get
homesick; these hills may come haunting your sleep--a
feeling I only experienced once while giving a concert, but that once was enough, for I came straight back here. True, it may have been this fate here that drew me!" he added, with a beaming smile at her.
"But where you are it will be home!" answered
Mina, and then recurring to that poem of Hegel's, she
murmured in a low, moving voice--
"If in the deepest shaft--
Where never bee yet hummed, or flow'ret laughed--
And thou with me, I were in Paradise."
At the thrilling sincerity of her accent and the
intensity of the look, Emanuel felt a slight tremor creeping
over his frame, and taking her head between both his
hands he kissed her very reverently on the drooping
eyelids.
The Professor beholding this uttered a suppressed
oath or groan (it was difficult for his companion to tell
which), and she made sure now that the poor man was
going out of his mind, as she had predicted with more
or less emphasis for these six months past. Should he,
indeed, suddenly break out into raving madness, what
a comfort to know that dear Herr Sturm was at hand!
While such were the thoughts rapidly passing through
the widow's mind Sontheim went forward, and brought
his hand so heavily down on the musician's shoulder
that he turned round with a startled exclamation. It
felt like the detective's grip who has secured his culprit.
"Halloo," he cried, shaking the hand which he
grasped off his shoulder, "is it you, mein lieber! Why
you steal upon one like a thief in the night--and now I
look at you, you have the guilty air of one too. What
dark haunts have you been prowling in that you come back to your friends with such a scowl? But never mind, we will cheer you up--won't we, Mina? We will suffer no one to be wretched in our presence, you'll see, Leopold, while we have such boundless happiness ourselves!"
His friend's incredible coolness and self-possession
so staggered Sontheim that he was at an utter loss for
words. He could do nothing but stare at him.
What!--when with a word of his he could unmask
him there and then as the false, unprincipled traitor he
was! What, when he knew that he had stolen this innocent
girl's heart under false pretences, and that her good
name would be blasted, no doubt--he could stand there
calm, smiling, utterly unmoved, till it was he himself
who felt like the culprit!
Mina gazed at her kind old friend and godfather in
silent bewilderment. He had as yet addressed no word,
taken no notice of her whatever: at such a time that
seemed strange, unaccountable!
"Well," said Emanuel, lightly, seeing that Sontheim
still kept silent, with a heavy scowl on his brow which
he could not or would not disguise--"well, you might
have said a word of congratulation to me under the
circumstances, my friend--though in Mina's case you
may think it's but a bad bargain at the best. But
come, I'll go with you; no doubt you have some bad
news preying on your mind."
Sontheim, with visible constraint, said a few lame
words to Mina, which, whatever their purport, sounded
rather like a condolence than a congratulation; and all
the time he looked so painfully ill-at-ease that Emanuel
quickly picking up his round felt hat from the grass, whispered as he pressed Mina's hands, "I shall look in early to-morrow morning, darling; but now I must go and see what's the matter with our bear!"
Sontheim looked furtively at Mina with a world of
compassion in his eyes. Should he ever again see her
thus radiant with youth and happiness? or the next
time they met, would she be like a rose which the storm
has broken over-night? For though generally sanguine
in his estimate of men and things, the Professor could
not divest himself of an impression that this girl, with
all her brightness, belonged to the class of tragic
characters--to those, namely, who at the first violent
collision of the heart with destiny founder like some
goodly vessel striking on a hidden rock.
But he only grunted a scant good-bye as he went off
with Emanuel, who turned quickly back at the street-door
under pretence of having forgotten something.
It was only to say good-bye once more.
Sontheim was no sooner in the street than, unable to
contain himself any longer, he burst out with--
"No, I could never have believed it! I knew that
you were as weak as water where women are concerned,
but not--not that you were treacherous, dishonourable
not, in short, that you were a----"
"Stop," cried Emanuel, passionately; "do not utter
words that even from his oldest friend a man cannot
calmly listen to. Listen! I should have written to
you before taking the leap, no doubt; but how was
one to let you know when no one could tell where the
devil you were? and so in my impetuosity--but no
matter now--I am free!"
"Free," repeated Sontheim, with a look of sudden
terror, "how free?"
"Yes, yes," cried the other vehemently, "you shall
hear all about it man; but for heaven's sake don't look
so scared. Didn't I mean to tell you all about it before
ever speaking to them! But where were you? How
was one to write to you? I heard something about
revolutionary propaganda, secret conspiracy--heaven
knows what! Was it my fault that you were skulking
in unknown taverns and cellars throughout Germany?"
Emanuel by this time had worked himself up into a
fine passion, and from accused was turning accuser.
They had now reached Sontheim's dwelling, who,
unlocking the door of his study with rather an unsteady
hand, entered with Emanuel.
Everything there were exactly as the Professor had
left it, down to a nosegay of monthly roses shrivelled to
a mere repulsive skeleton of its former self; only the
dust lay thicker than ever on the confused litter of
books and papers.
In spite of his painful anxiety Leopold Sontheim
filled himself a fresh pipe, and divesting himself of his
coat and boots, donned once again the cherished old
dressing-gown and slippers.
"Ah," said Emanuel, suppressing a smile, "the old
Adam still sticks to you, I see, in spite of everything;"
and he seated himself on the edge of the only chair that
was not quite encumbered with books.
"But you have not told me yet," said Sontheim--and
his voice shook a little as his hand had done--"how it
happens that you are free."
"Well, you shall hear all about it, if you will only
give me time," replied Emanuel, throwing some of the books on the floor. "On that terrible morning, Leopold, which neither of us can forget, I resolved on one thing once for all. If I could not untie the accursed bonds, they should be cut asunder somehow.
"As I walked from your house to the station, I hesitated
between starting for Paris, St. Petersburgh, or
Rome. What was to be done had to be done quickly
too. I was due at the musical festival at Leipzig in
August, and in Birmingham in September. On my
way a bright thought struck me. I would seek out
Raoul, who was somewhere in Italy: there is no one
like him to help a fellow in trouble, you know; and
with his endless resource--who could tell?--he might
get me out of the toils again!
"So I went straight off to Venice, where I heard he
was, but he had left again; and I followed him to
Mantua and Florence; and at last, after all, found him
back in the old studio at Rome.
"I confess to a queer sensation when I re-entered
that well-known place again, which I had last seen--well,
never mind.
"And now, having found Raoul, I made a clean
breast of it. He is a trump, that fellow. His advice
was that we should hunt up the priest who had married
me under the late Pope, ten years ago--the priest who
had been so liberally bribed, you remember; and he
begged me not to move in the matter at all, but to let
him make the necessary inquiries.
"He had quite lost sight of this priest for a long
time now, and it tool him some days, therefore, to
come upon his traces again. As it happened, he and
Raoul himself would now be the only living witnesses of this marriage, as Margutta, the housekeeper, had died some years before.
"One day my friend burst into the room, whistling
his favourite air with such gusto, that I knew he was
the bearer of some good intelligence to me before he
had time to exclaim: 'Let me congratulate you, mon
cher; you're no more married than I am!"
"How so? how so?" cried the Professor, breathlessly.
"Well, Sontheim, to make a long story short, that
priest--then locked up in a convent for grievous
disciplinary offences--had no more business to perform that
ceremony than you yourself would have had. For it
seems, according to the laws of Rome, a marriage is
invalid if not performed by the priest of the parish in
which one of the parties is residing, or one endowed by
him with the faculty, as the phrase is.
"But this scamp of a priest, eager for his bribe you
see, played us a trick which we should never have
discovered had things gone differently; so what a model
told Raoul years ago seems true enough--that for
ten pauls you could get a priest to marry you to your
own grandmother, only you must not meddle with the
laws of succession afterwards.
"Well, you see I am free! You remember the letter
you showed me that morning; I noted the address there
given, and the mention of the Count's gradual sinking,
so I plucked up heart of grace and made the last
communication I trust ever to have to address to
that--that----"
Never mind," said Sontheim; "go on, go on."
"Well, I wrote a succinct statement, with Raoul's
approval, informing Madame that as to that little
marriage business of ours we had hitherto been under a
misapprehension, and that she was not a bigamist, but,
as good luck would have it, quite decently married to
her present husband; and that, therefore, to set her
mind at rest in case of disputes as to questions of
inheritance, her right could not be disputed."
"Yes, yes!" cried Sontheim, and took a long breath,
like one off whose breast a load has suddenly been
taken. "And so now," he said, slowly, with the faintest
interrogation possible in his tone, "you really mean to
marry that child Mina?"
"What do you mean by 'really mean to marry?'"
cried Emanuel, testily. "Of course I mean to marry
her; but perhaps," said he, with a sudden humility of
look and accent, "perhaps you think that that dear
angel is too good for such a scamp as myself. It is
true there is one disgraceful, shocking episode in my
life; heaven knows I would have wiped it out with my
blood, had the opportunity been given me; but,
Sontheim, there are things that are like a madness in the
brain--we are scarcely at all times responsible for them.
But what's the use of trying to extenuate what must
always remain intolerable."
Sontheim here interposed warmly: "There now, you
are always in extremes! I consider, whatever may be
said, that you have been more sinned against than
sinning. And then, when one reflects on the temptation
you have had!" Here the Professor shifted uneasily
about in his chair. "At all events, treachery did not
originate with you. How can a poor devil of a man
help himself when destiny throws such a bait as that in his path."
There was something in his friend's tone that made
Emanuel raise his eyebrows.
"As to Mina," continued Sontheim, "I have nothing
to urge against the match now, you may be sure.
Indeed, though she is a dear, good little soul, I think
she's in luck's way to get a man like you, at the meridian
of fame, for husband;" and he added jocosely,
"one whom all the ladies go mad after, if report says
true!"
Emanuel, who had been strumming impatiently on
the table during this speech, here burst out, with a
slight laugh, "There's a proverb about pearls, you
know, Leopold. Never mind, we won't quarrel about
trifles when the chief thing's settled once for all. But,
by the way, you will of course never breathe a syllable
of all this to Mina. Heaven only knows what effect it
might have upon her; and in any case it would take
the bloom off her love were she to know of this. She
is so young! Years hence, perhaps, I may tell her all
about it. Promise me you'll never mention it to her,
Leopold."
"Oh no, upon my word, she shall hear nothing from
me," cried Sontheim; and to emphasize his promise he
shook hands with his friend across the table.
"Of course you'll give her away, Leopold?" said
Emanuel.
"Naturally! But is the wedding to be soon, then?"
asked Sontheim.
"Yes, yes," said the musician; "it should be
tomorrow if I had my will. I hate putting these sort of
things off; but there's that notable mother, you know, she's crazed about gowns and ribbons, and a lot of fiddle-faddle of that kind--as if a man wanted to set up in the drapery line when he takes a wife unto himself! But she's inexorable about it; says the trousseau can't possibly be ready till the middle of November. Thank heaven, Mina has no nonsense of that sort about her; but of course she wouldn't be the Mina she is if she had: she wouldn't be my love at all, but a commonplace creature who cannot dissociate the most solemn acts of life from frippery! No, she would go with me to the altar in that faded green print in which I first saw and fell in love with her, bless the darling; but filial affection will not let her run counter to her mother's hobby. However, the upshot of it is," he added, gloomily, "that we can't now get married till the end of December."
"Well, well," said Sontheim, with a smile, "that
isn't so far off, after all, considering October is drawing
to its close."
"Unfortunately," replied Emanuel, "in another
fortnight I must be off on the grind again. I have to
give concerts at Vienna, Berlin, Breslau, Prague,
Munich, and I shudder to enumerate what other places
besides. I want to make a good big sum of money, so
as to live merrily with my love! I expect to return
just in time for the wedding, or a day before at the
utmost.
"But now I must be off, for I have promised to play
at the Grand Duke's to-night. He is staying at
Ludwigslust, and has taken a craze about me, just when
it's confoundedly inconvenient. But what can one do?
we musicians cannot afford to offend crowned heads as you do, Leopold. However,it has yielded me one little satisfaction; for the Grand Duke discovering what a fancy I had taken to that Rococo Pavilion in the Palace Gardens, very courteously placed it at my disposal during my stay here, though it is connected with some romantic episode in his father's history, owing to which it has been carefully kept in its original state."
"Oh yes," said Sontheim; "some melancholy and
discreditable story there is, I remember, about an
Italian singer who, rumour says, drowned herself in
the Venus Pond, as it is called. Did I not come upon
you there one evening----"
"In the flagrant act of making love to Mina, you
mean," said Emanuel. "Ah, what an expression your
face then had! Let me tell you, you wouldn't do for a
courtier, my friend--nor even, I fear," he added, with a
knowing glance at Sontheim, "for a very successful
conspirator, for you always show so exactly what your
feelings of the moment are. By the way, what is the
meaning of certain mysterious rumours that have
reached me? Do you seriously contemplate, Hercules-like,
to demolish that German Hydra of the thirty-six
crowned heads? No, no, my friend, the attempt is
hopeless; should you cut off one of them you will see it
immediately replaced by another! But 'ware your own,
Sontheim; there's a storm brewing--I can sniff it in the
air far off; there'll be sorry work done, I fear!"
The Professor did not immediately reply, but
ruminatingly puffed away at his pipe with more than usual
energy. The fact was that he had only this very morning
returned from Leipsic, having hurried back owing
to his sister's letter, which contained the news of his god-daughter's engagement to his friend Emanuel Sturm. At the latter city he had, indeed, been in secret communication with Robert Blum, and republicans of like convictions. For after the demolition of certain hopes which he had secretly cherished Professor Sontheim could settle to his books no longer. A fever seemed to rage in his veins, and the burly man would now and then grasp his short bull-like neck as though he felt some one throttling him.
Ardent patriot he had always been, though hitherto
too much of a book-worm to concern himself practically
with politics, especially at a time when the thing
itself scarcely existed in the German fatherland. But
just at this period--a year or two before the Revolution
of 1848 was transmitted like an electric current from
one part of the continent to the other--a growing
disaffection with the present condition of misgovernment
broke out in the many sub-states of the unwieldy
Empire; and the problem of the situation was, how to
establish any conceited action amongst the republican
members of so many petty and disjointed sovereignties.
Now Sontheim, at one of the secret tavern meetings
where republicans used to address each other till long
after midnight through dense clouds of tobacco smoke,
had offered to start on a confidential mission to various
principalities of the Bund, in order to sound and
bring about an understanding between the different
leaders. There was the less fear of rousing the
suspicion of government from the fact of his having
hitherto kept so much aloof from all participation in
revolutionary agitation; although now he at once
assumed a prominent position, owing to his strong will, his encyclopædic knowledge, and a certain brutal directness of speech and action when himself roused, which acted like a pair of bellows in fanning into flame the smouldering passion of his auditory. So he was dubbed the "Red Sontheim," in compliment to the fiery complexion of his politics as well as his hair.
When thus interrogated by the musician, therefore,
he kept silent for a time, being somewhat taken aback
at the question, as hardly knowing what answer to
make to an intimate who was yet the friend--or at least
on terms of apparent friendship with the very princes
whom evening after evening he denounced as leeches,
cut-purses, and assassins of the people.
Presently looking sharply at Emanuel, he said
hesitatingly: "When one is hand-in-glove with so many
princesses and grand dukes, I fear opinions on some
subjects must be considerably warped and handicapped;
but what has put those notions about me into your
head?"
"Oh," said the violinist, smiling a little scornfully,
"I don't want to pump you! Don't tell me anything
if you'd sooner not. Though surely," he added with a
momentary frown, "you would never suspect me of
babbling to you to these same princesses! I see a little
deeper into a millstone than perhaps you may give me
credit for; at all events, knocking about the world as I
do, not with closed eyes exactly, I apprehend the new
spirit that is abroad: an unfledged spirit it is, helplessly
sprawling at present, but it will grow to a gigantic size,
and transform the face of Europe one of these days--but
not in our time, Sontheim, not in our time. Why
don't you know I'm revolutionary at bottom? but it all goes into music with me; only the crowned Midas' don't see it. And why should I enlighten them, pray? for till the people shall have become our peers we must still have princes for patrons. There's my profession of faith, but I don't want yours, Sontheim; on the whole, it will be better you should keep your counsel, especially as I am staying in Grand Duke Ludwig's pavilion."
The Professor, who had risen, laid his hand with a
certain rough affection on his friend's shoulder. "My
dear Emanuel," he said, "there's nothing I would not
trust you with as far as I am concerned; but to tell you
the truth, certain matters in which I am implicated are
not my own to divulge. You guess truly that I am of
late plighted to a cause which I consider of paramount
importance to our poor, divided, down-trodden people.
However, I am a patriot even before being a republican!
What I desire above all things is to see the patched,
many-coloured coat of our poor enslaved nation entire
again; to see it strong, indivisible, instead of a
laughing-stock to the world. But there'll be an earthquake
ere long that will shake their rotten thrones, and then
we shall cease to prate of being Würtembergians, or
Saxons, or Badenser, or Prussians, and pride ourselves
on being Germans, and Germans only."
The musician shook his head as he answered: "You
won't achieve it with conspiracies and revolutions, take
my word for it. You will find your want of unity a fatal
impediment; each state, should there be a revolution,
will waste its fire by going off at the wrong moment
and will then be gagged and bound more tightly than
before. Ah, I fear, I fear----"
"But," cried Sontheim, interrupting him eagerly,
"that's the very mission on which I----" and then he
stopped abruptly, as being on the point of disclosing a
secret which he had bound himself by oath to keep.
"Well," said Emanuel, smiling as he rose, "I won't
stay longer, or in spite of myself I might worm some
of your secrets from your keeping. You know where
I'm staying, and I suppose your republicanism will not
prevent your coming to see me there."
Yes, it was a day of lull; a truce between conflicting
elemental forces; and the tired earth, with half her
bravery gone, desisted from the passionate struggle for
her vanishing glories, and only sighed for peace.
And peace there was far away yonder, where the
hills melted into the horizon in a soft gradation of grey
in grey; and peace down in the valley where the steep-roofed
town lay faintly visible through the frail folds
of the pallid wavering mist; and peace in the cottage
here on the hill-side, where no living creature was
stirring on this Sunday afternoon save old Dame
Lichtenfeld, and her older raven, who kept solemnly
hopping backwards and forwards, as though he had
been entrusted with the care of the premises. For
his mistress, arrayed in her best Sunday gown and
frilled white cap, was for once taking her ease in the
well-worn brown-leather arm-chair; the same capacious
chair where successive generations of babies had
been crooned to sleep in her arms, no doubt.
Now, however, that. there were no babies, she had
still got her flowers; for on the sill, outside the small
diamond-paned window, there yet lingered a few pale
Michaelmas-daisies and marigolds, which always
blossomed there later than in any other spot, and from
time to time she would pass her lean bony fingers very
gently over their petals, as though they could feel her
touch; from time to time even she would mutter some
words, seemingly half addressed to them.
To this solitary woman, indeed, there existed no very
distinct demarcation between herself and the animals
and plants which lived around her, and had now for
more than twenty years been the closest companions of
her old age. A well-spring of love there was in her, constantly overflowing into everything animate and inanimate that surrounded her, which again, although only a reflection from herself, returned back to its source like something from without.
All at once, however, this settled calm was disturbed
by a low, blithe sound as of talking and laughter; then
there came a pattering of footsteps on the dry leaves,
and the click of the garden gate swung quickly back
on its hinges; then the steps and the voices ceased
again, and a person with sharp ears might have heard
something which sounded suspiciously like a kiss. But
the old lady, whose senses were slightly blunted, did
not hear any of these things, so that all at once she
was almost dazed and dazzled with the life, light, and
happiness that seemed literally to stream into the low,
dim apartment, as Emanuel and Mina entered it
together.
"Why, children!" she cried, rising, not without
some difficulty, to her feet, and then she looked from
Emanuel's keen, beaming features to Mina's bashful,
blushing face.
"Oh, Granny," murmured the latter, but she got no
further, and dropping her long spray of crimson berries,
she threw her arms round the old lady's neck, her rose-red
face vanishing completely beneath the starched
frills of that enormous mob-cap.
Grandmother and grandchild held each other in a
long embrace. With the piercing intuition of a loving
heart, the former had indeed divined Mina's secret
before the girl herself had suspected it. And,
unknown to any one, she had hoped and feared, and
prayed, and watched over her favourite as much as it was possible for her under the circumstances.
So she said, when she had at length freed herself
from Mina's embrace, stretching out her hand to
Emanuel, while her eyes were dim with tears, "Bless
thee, my boy; thou hast fulfilled the wish nearest my
heart! Now truly I shall depart in peace."
"Come, little mother, do not be a kill-joy for once
in your life, and that just when we mean to set about
living in good earnest. Why, what's eighty or thereabouts
when one is an evergreen like you?" said
Emanuel, as he suddenly seized her round the waist
and, almost lifting her off the ground in his mad way,
imprinted two or three hearty kisses on her shrunken
cheeks before he would let her go.
They all laughed, and then he went on, "You know
you are coming to live with us, you and your raven to
hoot; and see if you don't dandle yet another generation
on your knees before you have done with us, little
mother."
"No, no, my children," she answered; "when one is
as old as I am, one has struck one's roots too deep into
the soil to bear transplanting, though it were into a
very bower of Eden. This plot of ground, and all
around as far as you can see--that valley where my
loved ones lie, and the hills over there behind which
the sun goes down, even as we, children dear, go down
into our graves to rise again into glory everlasting--all
this, not to speak of my bees and flowers, has become
part and parcel of this old life now; and when I go from
here, 'tis that I'll have gone to my long rest."
The old lady said this in a low, inward voice, speaking
to herself, seeming almost to have forgotten her guests, till recalled to the present by Mina, who, perched on one of the arms of the huge easy-chair, with her chin propped on the top, heaved a deep sigh as she said, "Oh, Granny, I pictured to myself how glad we should make you----"
"Forgive me, my pet, forgive me," cried her grandmother,
taking the small hand that had been stroking
her cheek with much the same tender gesture with
which she herself had stroked the flowers; "it was
the depth of my gladness that made me speak as I
did, because I felt I could cease from troubling now,
But you don't understand--how should either of you
understand? But tell me, children, tell me, are you
very happy? Ah, my boy, I am glad you will have some
one to love you and take care of you. Yes, you look
different already, not hunted-like and bitter as you did;
and by and by, when you know her better, you will see
what Minchen is--just like the sweetbriar that fills the
air for ever so far round, and yet you can hardly tell
where the sweetness comes from.
"Ah, love one another well, my children, for believe
me, who have long outlived man's allotted span of years,
and borne some of his heaviest trials--believe me, there's
but one thing here below with which to overcome all
the ills that flesh is heir to; one blessed thing which
will keep our hearts from breaking in the hour of affliction,
and the spirit from vain boastfulness if good
fortune be allotted it; one sweet thing that will make
us feel the kindred that's all the world over--love, you
know, and always love; children dear.
"But here I am preaching to you like an old dolt,
as if you didn't know all about love, bless you, far better than your mummy of a grandmother. And I dare say, poor things, you are famishing after that climb up the hill; so now I'll just go into the kitchen and get you something to eat and drink, for Susan has gone to the wake."
But Mina would not hear of her grandmother putting
herself about; and protesting that she knew exactly
where the things were put, and what to get ready, she
disappeared with a happy nod and smile.
While she was very busy in that neatest of pink-washed
kitchens, her grandmother said to Emanuel,
"Make her very happy, my boy; she is a tender plant,
and needs love as much as my muscatel grapes do the
sunshine, but she will repay it a thousandfold too."
"Ah," he replied, "I know well what she is, little
mother; one hasn't knocked about the world as I have
without getting to know one's fellow-creatures rather
better than is quite pleasant always: they are a
ramshackle lot on the whole--a vain, grasping, double-faced,
self-seeking lot. Nay, nay, do not look so shocked; it is
because I know the world so well that I prize at its full
worth this sweet girl, whose nature is as limpid as
a stream of clear water, in which you may count the
very pebbles at the bottom."
"Yes, yes," she said, nodding her head, "she's like
her father, and like her grandfather--my dear, dear
husband that was. He, too, had a heart without guile;
and so truthful he was, he couldn't understand people
were ever otherwise, but believed always everything
that any one told him. And that doesn't answer in business,
you know, Emanuel, and so they swindled him;
and one man--a friend he called himself, the false-hearted knave--got him to lend him more money than he could spare, and then went off to America and never paid a groschen, and that was the ruin of my dear, dear Hans: for then he became bankrupt, and though he paid off every kreuzer he owed, he never got over it, for his heart was broken--though he would always hide it from me. How it all comes back now, oh so vividly, the day we came up to live here in the little summer-house, on that cold March day; and there was no stove here, either, to light a fire in, and the water running down the walls, and all the children crying with cold and hunger, and Hans trying to comfort them, when it was he, poor heart, who wanted the comfort most. Ah me, ah me!
"So when I used to think how it had fared with poor
Hans--and with my poor Heinrich, too, for he never
throve, though he was such a great scholar, they said--you
see I couldn't help being afraid for my Mina, for
she's like the apple of my eye to me, and her mother
has no right understanding of that child; and then she
made such great friends too, in that warm, confiding
way she has, with a very noble lady, I believe, and a
very beautiful too--but, but----" and she shook her
head dubiously, "when I looked at her eyes it gave me
a shiver--there was something so uncanny inside of
them. But now," she said, looking up at Emanuel
with a happy face, "now it is well! Haven't I known
you since you were that high? and though you have
been away in the wide world, and perhaps had to have
dealings with those who were not upright and honest,
they can't have changed your heart for you,Emanuel;
and you will take care of her, you will take care of the child when I am gone, God bless you!"
She uttered the last words almost in a supplicating
voice; and Emanuel, deeply moved, answered as he
pressed her hand: "I will watch over her as the better
angel of my life--but let me go now, and see what
she is about so long."
"No, no, my boy, you stop here," said Mina's grandmother,
shaking her finger at him, "or the child will
spill the soup, for she's not very apt at those things as
it is. But I'll just go and give a look round myself,
for my old hands haven't quite forgotten their cunning
yet."
So saying, she walked out of the room, holding on
a little by the wall as she went, and found Mina very
busy in the kitchen putting the plates, queer-handled
knives, and two-pronged forks on a tray. But instead
of further bestirring themselves about these things, the
old woman and the young one took to hugging and
kissing each other, and to laugh a little and to cry a
little with caressing ejaculations in between, as if they
were regularly demented with joy--in fact, they had it
regularly out, so to speak.
But a strange thing happened presently. Mina at
last went back carrying the tray, leaving her grandmother
mixing her pancakes in a saucepan; and an
unconscionable time did the girl spend laying the cloth,
with the assistance of Emanuel, who insisted on all
sorts of interludes, and between the placing of every
spoon did a little spooning on his own account. But
presently the cuckoo popped out of the cuckoo-clock
and loudly proclaimed that it was two.
Mina, recalled all at once to a sense of time, exclaimed,
"Dear, what a long, long time Granny has been in the
kitchen; why, she must be inventing some new dish to
surprise you with!"
"Oh, I know what she is about," said Emanuel, with
a saucy laugh; "she thinks I want you all to myself,
sweetheart."
"But we must go and fetch her at once," exclaimed
Mina; "why, it is such a long time past her dinner-hour."
So they went together into the kitchen--but the old
lady was not there; neither did she answer when they
called her. Then, to their unutterable surprise, they
caught sight of her through the window, rambling up
the path which led up the vineyard.
"Granny, Granny!" called Mina, rushing out of the
house, followed by Emanuel.
They had quickly overtaken her, and Mina, seizing
her by the arm, said, a little out of breath, "Why,
Granny, you were not thinking to find any grapes left
on the vines at this time, were you?"
"No, no, Annerle dear; it was the door of the sitting-room
I was looking for, to be sure," she said, calmly.
Mina, utterly taken aback, stared at her in a bewildered
way, as she now walked unconcernedly back with
them, seeming perfectly well too.
"And has Hans returned from the town yet?" she
asked. "Is it all over? Have they sold everything?
Well, we must meet him with smiling faces; we must
not let him think we are fretting, children. No, no,
don't cry; it will break his heart to see you crying so.
And as long as there's no shame, what matter, I say
And we shall make a living by the bees yet--see if we don't; and there's no misfortune if we only hold together, children!"
Mina was trembling now, and large tears were gathering
in her eyes.
Emanuel whispered softly to her: "The excitement
of this afternoon has been too much for her. But be
quite natural with her, dearest; look as though you
took everything for granted. It may be a sudden weakness
which will pass when she has eaten something,
for she seems well otherwise. We can do nothing
else."
Mina, after this, tried hard to keep her self-control;
but she looked very anxious and pale as she dished up
the dinner, which she could not touch herself, though
she made a pretence of doing so.
Her grandmother, however, partook of the soup and
meat, all the while asking, after people that had been
lying in the churchyard these thirty years and more;
and sometimes she would address Mina as her daughter
Annerle, and sometimes as her daughter's daughter,
Elfrida; and she spoke of long-past events as though
they had happened a few hours back.
Emanuel and Mina did not know what to do. They
spoke to her, and she spoke to them; but she saw them
through a veil of shifting memories, in which their faces
were being mysteriously exchanged and confounded
with other faces--like those cloud-shapes, undergoing
continual transformation even as you are looking at
them. She was not delirious or mad by any means,
only part of her brain seemed suddenly to have given
way; the present being obliterated, the impressions of
the past alone suddenly standing out with unnatural or preternatural distinctness.
"Yes, yes," she said, "and so you are going to be
married?"
Mina looked up quickly, thinking that her grandmother
was coming back to reality at last.
"It is to be quite soon too," she put in hastily, as
though to keep her grandmother to the point. "When
do you think, now?"
"Why, child, as if I didn't know that," she answered,
nodding her head. "Is not the wedding-dress ready
and the bridal wreath prepared? Will not the bridegroom
be here soon?"
"Oh, Granny," said Mina, persisting, "I do so wish
you could come and see all the fine things that mother
is getting for me. You wouldn't know me again in
them."
Her grandmother made no direct reply to this; but
Presently she said, "Well, it is getting late; I am a
little tired, I should like to go to sleep."
So Emanuel, giving her his arm, supported her to
the arm-chair, in which she lay back, closing her eyes.
Mina now drew her lover into the porch, and begged
him to go for a doctor, with a white, piteous face.
"My darling," he said, "no doctor can do any good
here--your grandmother is not ill; but of course I will
go at once to please you. But will you not be frightened
to be left alone here, under the circumstances? I cannot
be back before evening, you know."
"Frightened--oh no! Why should I be frightened?"
cried Mina. "Granny will wake up presently, and be
quite herself again; don't you think so?"
"Certainly, certainly, darling," said Emanuel; and
after considering a moment, seeing that there was
nothing else to be done, he hurried off at once, after
tenderly embracing his betrothed.
Mina remained for some time standing in the porch,
watching Emanuel go down the hill at his quick, swinging
pace. At the turning into the wood he looked round
and waved his hat.
Then she went back into the house, and sat down on
a stool at her grandmother's feet. She was sleeping
very peacefully.
There was no sound but the loud ticking of the
clock. Yes, and now a robin-redbreast trilled out a
glad, homely little song, as her alit on the window-sill,
where there were always crumbs for him in the wintertime.
For now the sun broke through the clouds; they
swung back like the wings of a colossal portal, and he
gleamed in parting glory over leagues upon leagues of
mist-enshrouded land. Suddenly a breeze sprang up,
and swept the mists, like so many cobwebs, from off the
face of valley and hill-side; then a faint pink glow
gradually suffused cloud after cloud, right up to the
zenith. But high in the east stood the full-moon, white
and spectral, facing the sunset. Long flights of crows,
filling the air with their thick, husky croaking, went
flapping ponderously across the valley from east to
west.
When the level sunbeams struck on the humble
casement, till each pane of glass flashed and burned
again, the red chequer-work being reflected on the wall
opposite, Mina, to her great relief, saw her grandmother
open her eyes. With a long, thirsty look, as though she were drinking in the light, her gaze dwelt on the glowing orb already half submerged; and when it suddenly went down, and her marigolds closed their petals, she turned her face away with a long sigh, and leant back in her chair again.
"Can I get you anything, Granny dear?" asked
Mina, very gently; "a glass of milk--or shall I make you
a nice hot cup of coffee? or say, what would you like?"
A faint smile lit up the aged face, and she put her
tremulous hands on Mina's head, as though to invoke
a blessing on her; but she only said, almost in a
whisper, "Well, it is getting late; I am a little tired,
I should like to go to sleep;" and she closed her eyes.
It was getting dark and cold now, and Mina presently
fetched a knitted counterpane to cover her grandmother
with, who was sound asleep again. She then put some
more wood on the fire, drew the curtain, and lit the
small oil-lamp; and sitting down on the stool, with her
back resting against her grandmother's knees, she went
to sleep too.
By and by, however, she woke with a start, and an
unaccountable sense of cold. Some noise had disturbed
her; but she found it was only the raven, who was
uneasily scraping the floor with one foot, with a hoarse,
unearthly croaking such as he but rarely uttered.
"Well, you poor old miser of a Mugin," she said;
"and can't it remember then at all where it hid that
toothsome tit-bit away! but never mind, Mina will
give it another."
Mugin treated the remark with cold disdain, and
scraped away all the harder.
Mina now rose to her feet, stretching her arms, for
her cramped position had made them quite stiff.
"I never knew Granny sleep like this before," she
said; and then she bent over her and said in a low
voice, so as not to startle her, "Why, Granny, wake
up!" and she took one of her hands in her own. But
she dropped it with a low, startled cry, and it fell back
like a stone.
"Granny, Granny!" cried Mina; and she shook her
grandmother violently by the shoulders. "Wake up,
wake up--you have slept over long, grandmother."
But the tired lids never unclosed, only the head
drooped forward helplessly.
"Emanuel, Emanuel!" Mina called out wildly, as
she rushed to the door and threw it open; and her cry
echoed far through the dark, silent night.
Then she ran back to the chair: it was all a mistake,
she must have been dreaming; and she clasped her
grandmother in her arms. As she did so, her heart
gave an instinctive shudder--she knew that she was
alone with the dead.
Alone with the dead all alone, on the lonely hill-side,
in the dark night--it was an awful thought! Mina
buried her head in her hands and wept; but the love
that she had borne the dead woman cast out her fear.
She did not know how long it was before the sound
of footsteps roused her from her silent weeping.
When Emanuel returned at last with the doctor, and
saw the pale, tear-stained face, he knew how it was.
The two men almost forced her out of the room; but
when the doctor had gone back to it, Emanuel said--
"We should not grieve, my love--we should rather
be thankful that so sweet a soul has passed so sweetly
away. Why, it was sympathy with your happiness
that was too much for the old heart! Remember what
a long, long life she had had, and let us pray that ours,
if not as long, may be as kindly a one!"
And what an inborn passion in the tiniest mortal, as
well as in the very greatest amongst men, is this that
he shall make something after his own image!
To become even as one of the gods themselves, and
create a world in little; to produce on a small scale a
copy of the great order of things; or, better still, a corrected and revised version of the same--an "edition de luxe" in short, with all the mistakes eliminated, and copious foot-notes annexed in elucidation of obscure passages in the original text.
And this playing of children, ay, or of kittens or
puppies, is it not a kind of rudimentary art? Or art
itself, what is it but the highest kind of play? The
imagination having ceased to minister to the mere
needs of the body, making a lofty sport of life itself;
and by compressing its varied manifestations within a
narrow compass, giving it that completeness of form,
that perfection, which man seeks in vain to grasp in
the labyrinthine profusion of existence with which
nature astounds, bewilders, and dazzles him by turns!
These children, however, though they were German
children, were not yet given to theorize about their
enjoyments, but simply enjoyed themselves and asked
no questions. And there was no doubt that they
thoroughly did enjoy what they were about. For were
they not at that instant glowing with the inspiration of
the poet, the painter, the sculptor, all in one? bodying
forth their conception of beauty in the most ideal of
all matter, matter heaven-descended that very morning,
and with only one drawback to it, a serious one
perhaps--that of being even more frail than the bloom
on beauty's cheek itself.
But what of that? Thee young artificers did not vex
themselves as yet with questions as to the possible durability
of their work; they were far too much engrossed
in the workmanship itself, in the delicious sensation
of seeing something being shaped under their hands.
Wolfgang was the master-spirit: he kneaded and
patted and modelled away with his thumb and forefinger,
after Hans, his assistant on this occasion, had
built up the figure in the rough, as though he had
passed all his life in a sculptor's studio, and seen him
manipulating the wet clay; while Conrad and Otto,
approving themselves docile pupils for once, brought
the fresh snow as it was wanted; and even Lulu, who,
with much puffing and panting, carried a tiny handful
now and then, was treated with amiable condescension.
"But what sort of eyes will you give her, Wolf?"
asked Hans, standing at a little distance and regarding
their handiwork with great self-complacency, while his
brother, working away at the nose, was trying to model
it as well as he could after that Grecian pattern which
he had learned, in the drawing-class. "Shall I get you
charcoal--I like black eyes best, don't you? And
won't they look splendid with her white face! Why,
it'll make Minchen jealous to see her, for she hasn't
got such coal-black eyes, or such a white skin either."
The boys were so absorbed in their handiwork that
they were quite startled at the explosion of laughter
which followed on this remark.
"Oh, Herr Sturm, Herr Sturm has come back!"
shouted Otto and Lulu, bounding across the snow
towards Emanuel. He and his betrothed had been
standing there unobserved for some minutes watching
the growth of the snow-maiden.
After many greetings and kisses had been exchanged,
for he was a great favourite with the children, he said
banteringly: "So you think, do you, that Mina will be
jealous of this lovely effigy, this moon-faced maiden,
who will have the blackest eyes ever seen in anybody's head yet!"
"No, no," said Wolfgang, scornfully, "I'm not
thinking of charcoal--it's such a common dodge that!"
Then, turning to Lulu with an unusually coaxing tone of
voice, he said, "But I know who's going to let me have
two of those round blue beads that she has round her
neck, like a little good fellow that she is."
Lulu's underlip drooped considerably at mention of
her darling blue beads, and she sidled nearer to the
musician, thinking he would shield her from those more
violent measures that her brothers were wont to resort
to when gentler means had failed.
"But, boys, study your model a little more closely
before putting in the finishing touches," said Emanuel,
gaily, as he placed Mina next to the snow image that
was now finished all save the eyes. "I wouldn't
exchange, Hans, though yours is certainly a
heaven-descended bride."
It was an odd contrast, this snow-image and the
blooming young girl, who looked more exquisitely lovely
than usual just then.
She had left off her mourning for her grandmother,
and wore a soft cloud-blue merino, with a waistband
confined by a magnificent enamelled buckle, one of the
many gifts of her intended; her neck was covered with
a salmon-coloured china-crape fichu with long fringes,
but her pretty, girlish arms were perfectly bare, in spite
of the five degrees Reaumur. The keen air and her
over-brimming happiness had heightened those soft,
ever-changing carnations of her face, that came and
went like the flush on an evening cloud, while the
bright sunshine, catching the loose, curling rings that clustered so luxuriantly about her temples, gave them a glow as of red copper--but the shining of her eyes was beyond all description.
"Eh, Wolf, where will you get such another pair of
eyes?" asked Emanuel; "I think to match them
you'll have to clamber up that mythical beanstalk, you
know, and steal a pair of the golden Pleiades themselves;
or maybe, if you only utter the proper incantation,
a couple of shooting stars will lodge themselves in her
head of their own accord. But in the meanwhile
perhaps these will do as a makeshift," he said, unfastening
a pair of turquoise shirt-studs which, with his fine taste,
he would have scorned to have worn had they not been
the gift of a Viennese imperial princess; and he stuck
them in himself.
The snow-bride now stood forth complete, and the
children, delighted with the general effect, clapped their
hands and began gleefully dancing round her in a ring.
Emanuel and Mina laughingly joined them, and the
former improvised the following lines, which he sang
to a tune of his own--
"Snow-bride, Snow-bride,
Raised in an hour,
Fairer than a flower;
Wouldst thou abide,
Beware the sun's power!
The moon is for the bride,
Its silver is her dower;
But the flame-god, the pride
Of the tall sunflower,
Will melt thee in an hour!"
Emanuel had only returned on the preceding evening,
and this was a Tuesday, the day before Christmas. He
had been absent nearly two months, giving from fifty
to sixty concerts within that short space of time. His
tour through Germany had resembled a triumphal
progress; and especially in Vienna, where he had gained
his first great success, the enthusiasm reached a pitch
bordering on frenzy. In their transports of admiration
the people vied with each other as to who should split
the greatest number of kid gloves in his honour, and
his portrait was to be bought in every imaginable and
unimaginable shape, even to figuring on cheap
pocket-handkerchiefs or on gingerbread.
Being but a mortal after all, he looked rather fatigued
after his musical campaign, and said half-laughingly to
Sontheim, "Many such victories, and I am undone."
He was already bound to appear in London at one of
the Philharmonic Concerts on the 8th of January, 1847,
so that he had stipulated the marriage should take
place on Christmas Day itself, in order that he might
have about a fortnight he could call his own for the
honeymoon.
In spite of the confusion into which the preparations
for the impending wedding had thrown the family,
Emanuel had managed, by hook or by crook, to get
Mina all to himself in a quiet corner for a few hours
that morning, though every now and then she was
pounced upon by her mother, who was flaring all over
the place that day.
And the dinner was dished up, and the children all
came in with sparkling eyes, in high feather at the
success of their morning's work. After dinner in walked
Professor Sontheim and his sister, to have a last look at Mina before the eventful morrow. Frau Scherer was immediately carried off by Frau Lichtenfeld to inspect the dresses, and the presents, and the preparations for the wedding breakfast, and all the thousand and one things which so important an event brings with it. All hope of further privacy for that day was clearly at an end.
"And where will you be off to to-morrow, you
people?" inquired Sontheim, after having presented his
god-daughter with a complete set of her father's philological
and mythological works, which on this occasion
appeared for the first time nicely bound in a collected
form, presenting quite a respectable appearance This
attention to a neglected scholar's researches afforded
Mina more genuine pleasure than the costliest gift
would have done.
"Oh," cried Emanuel, "would I could carry Mina
off with me this minute without further ado! All this
fuss irritates and worries me more than I can say;
when we have got safely over to-morrow a load. will be
taken off my mind. I have still to go to Ludwigslust
this afternoon, as I promised the Grand Duke I would
play there for an hour; then I dare say I shall have to
be sitting up half the night to finish a fantasia for the
violin which was advertised for Christmas, and for
which my publishers are clamouring."
Frau Lichtenfeld, who had returned, pricked up her
ears at this, exclaiming: "Sit up half the night, Herr
Sturm! And to-morrow your wedding! Why you
will not be fit to be married--and it oughtn't to be
allowed, ought it, my dear Frau Scherer?"
"Ah," sighed the latter, casting a deeply sentimental
look at Emanuel, "no doubt Herr Sturm is in the first
instance wedded to his art, and finds the celestial bride
more exacting than any mortal maiden!"
"Why, Pauline," exclaimed Frau Lichtenfeld, testily,
"what are you talking about? It's--it's--it's almost
like insinuating that Herr Sturm is a bigamist."
Emanuel started slightly, then broke into a merry
laugh, turning to Mina with, "Nay, I hope you and
she will love each other like the twin-sisters you are."
His betrothed only replied with a look of the fullest
comprehension, but her mother shook her head
discontentedly as she said--
"It's a bad habit, that sitting up of nights, Herr
Sturm--a sadly wasteful habit, howsoever you look at
it; and if Mina were only of my ways of thinking she
would leave you no peace till she had broken you of it,
for, as I could prove to you, it hastened the death of
her deceased----"
"But my dear Frau Professorinn," Frau Scherer said,
interrupting her, eager to vindicate a character for
æsthetic culture, "you don't take into consideration
what the throes of musical composition must be, and
that the artist, no doubt, needs the deep solitude of
midnight to gather these blooming flowers sprouting in
the gardens of----"
"Of course, of course," cried Frau Lichtenfeld,
impatiently, "I know what's what as well as other people--it's
like a dream, that's what it is! And I never was
more annoyed than one night on waking suddenly from a
dream so life-like that I thought to myself, 'Well now,
Elise Lichtenfeld, there's something to be made of that.'"
Sontheim, who had been turning over the leaves of
one of the books he had brought, here said bluntly,
raising his head--
"Wonder of wonders! you, too, set up for a dreamer
or a fashioner of dreams, my worthy old neighbour?
Well, that whets my curiosity! Let's hear whether
fat cows and lean cows have any part in your midnight
visions!"
"Oh, you know," replied the good woman, complacently,
"once I dreamed that I was making a pudding--quite
a new kind of pudding, and it smelt so very nice,
that if only Lulu had not woke me up just then--she
was cutting one of her back teeth and very fretful, poor
pet--I declare I could have mixed it in the exact
quantities. And the other day, why if I didn't dream that I
was trimming a bonnet for Mina; such a sweet, pretty
bonnet it was, the colour of the ribbons, and the shape
and the velvet--nothing could have been more genteel
if I had sent all the way to Paris for it. So when I
woke up I went out and bought everything to match
the dream; but ah, bless you, it wouldn't turn out
quite as lovely--though everybody who sees it says to
me, 'Why, my dear Frau Professorinn, where did you
get that charming, that most becoming of bonnets
from?' But you shall judge for yourselves, for my
daughter will travel in it to-morrow."
Emanuel, Sontheim, Frau Scherer, all laughed, and
begged for a sight of this dream-bonnet; only Mina
was so absorbed in her own sweet thoughts that she
had not heeded what was being said, till suddenly
admonished by her mother to hold up her chin for once
like a rational creature.
While in the act of tying on the broad, claret-coloured
strings, Frau Lichtenfeld suddenly started, ejaculating,
"Ach Gott! if there isn't Otto and Lulu howling now;
it will be the death of me, it will, if there's a mishap
to-day of all days in the year. What--what shall I do
if Lulu has broken her shin or dislocated her hip with
sliding on the ice, though I forbade her doing so!"
and with these words she scuttled wildly downstairs,
anxiously followed by the rest of the party.
When they got to the back door they heard Hans
saying dolefully, "Be quiet, will you, you little simpleton;
crying won't mend broken bones again, you know."
"There, there, I knew how it would be!" cried Frau
Lichtenfeld, in shrill dismay. "Mercy upon us, what's
broken? who's broken----?"
"It's her head," whispered Otto.
"Her head!" screamed Frau Lichtenfeld, as she
pounced down among them in wild affright; and seizing
the sobbing Lulu in her arms examined her all over as
she asked, "Where is it then, my precious pet? tell me,
where is it?"
"Oh," said Hans, in a tone of voice as if that would
have been but a small grievance, "nothing's the matter
with her--it's our snow-girl that's lost her head, don't
you see?"
"It's the wicked, wicked sun that's done it," said
Conrad, biting his nails with vexation.
"The wicked, wicked sun," echoed Otto, wrathfully,
looking up at the dazzling orb, who now in his noontide
glory reasserted some of his old power by making
breaches in winter's trenches; for the snow was thawing
here and dripping there from some of the projecting
spouts and most exposed twigs of trees. And thus it had happened that the snow-maiden, which the children had shaped with such pains and enthusiasm, was already minus her head.
While the elders of the party were joking about the
momentary confusion thus engendered, Frau Lichtenfeld,
with her usual practicality, darted on the shirt-studs
of the virtuoso amid the fallen snow, and restored
them to their owner, saying--
"Did any one ever hear of such reckless waste! A
Princess's gifts given to children, like sugar-plums!" and
she ordered them to be replaced in his shirt. He
submitted to this with the better grace as Mina herself
proceeded to do it.
In spite of the general merriment, a shade of
apprehension momentarily clouded Emanuel's mind, and
through his laughter it continued to obtrude itself.
For, like most men of that type, he had a strain of
superstition in his blood, and he felt a presage of evil
on seeing the effigy of his betrothed thus speedily
dissolving in the rays of the sun.
As he looked towards Mina he felt a yearning impulse
to seize her in his protecting arms, and carry her off
then and there to his little house in the park, and let
no one so much as look at her again. She was just
then administering consolation to her rueful brothers
and sister. It was charming to see her gathering them
about her, and on the spur of the moment inventing a
tale to divert their attention. As it is very short, it may
be given here as illustrating that quality of airy fancy
which was part of her nature.
"You must know," she said, addressing her little
circle of listeners, "that the sun and moon were once rivals courting the earth for their bride at the same time. And the sun, shaking uncounted gold in the earth's lap, promised to make her the envy of all her sister planets if she would lend a favouring ear to his suit. But when the moon saw the green-girdled earth dimpling with smiles through her crocuses and daffodils, while with white-lashed daisies she looked up at her fiery lover, he grew thinner and thinner, till with constant pining he came to be so mere a shadow that you could see the blue sky through his body.
"At this sad sight the earth felt a great pity come
over her for this poor, waning fellow, and would have
herself cut into halves by the aid of a sorceress so that
the sun and moon might each have part of her. But
ever since then there has been enmity between the sun
and the moon: and all that is strong, lusty, and resplendent,
sides with the sun; but everything fair, frail, and
fleeting follows in the footsteps of the wandering moon.
"So you see, dears, the snow, and all the fairy forms
fashioned by the frost-spirit in the pale moonbeams,
must hide from the fierce sun, or be shot through with
his burning arrows."
After Sontheim and his sister had taken leave, and
been accompanied by Frau Lichtenfeld to the front door,
Emanuel remained listening to Mina's little story with
the pleasure of a boy.
Aided by Wolf he had been quickly restoring the
snow-bride's head, making it even better than before,
to the delight of the children, who now, however, had
to go in to their milk and coffee, the lovers still lingering
in the garden loth to part.
"To-morrow at this time we shall be bowling along
the road to Avignon, my own one," said Emanuel,
pressing Mina to his heart as he bade her good-bye.
It's an age till to-morrow that I have to leave you,
but thenceforth we part no more."
The leave-taking in the garden was such a very
protracted affair, that Frau Lichtenfeld, popping her head
out of the window, loudly admonished Mina to come
into the house at once, or that she would catch her
death of cold before she was well married and all.
Reluctantly, with many mutual longing looks back,
Emanuel at last tore himself away, and Mina rejoined
her mother.
The snow-bride, left alone in the early gathering
twilight, became gradually tinged with a pale, pink glow, as
if warmed and kindled into a transient life of her own.
The lower part of the figure did not catch those rays,
and being perfectly without shadow amid the surrounding
snow, imparted to it an appearance of floating amid
air instead of standing on a solid base.
Sometimes the very commonest object will catch
from surrounding associations a beauty that does not
properly belong to it; and thus, in the fleeting of the
short winter sunset, this snow image, though but the
work of a few children, might have stood forth to the
poetic Germanic mind which originated the idea as the
symbol of an immaculate bride. Pride of an hour,
spotless bride of snow, will she linger even till her
prototype is a bride indeed--a delighted and delighting
bride? Or will they seek and find her no more
when to-morrow's sun shall brighten the world?
Symbol of human happiness, will she have vanished,
alas, as though she had never been? Softly it stole on us as though wafted from above, as snow is--a fair gift of the great gods themselves.
Unawares, under our hands it took unto itself a radiant
form, even unto the uttermost of the heart's desire.
Shall we, shall we still find it when we would take
it to our home to be unto us a daily joy, a perennial
delight; or will it have passed away, vanished without
a trace, even as the snow-image--the pride of an hour?
money wasn't kept in the connexion; but, with the usual luck of the Lichtenfelds, if Elfrida mustn't go into a decline just when it was whispered that her father had already arranged a brilliant match for her. Well, well, but as I was saying, Mina, though it may be a trifle early, it's the sleep before midnight that puts the best rouge on a girl's cheeks, you know. And there'll be nobody to disturb you again, for I must go out presently and do all my marketing for the christmas-tree still--for the children won't be balked of that; and instead of to-night they shall have it tomorrow when you're gone, so they must go to bed extra early, as Sabina has her hands quite full enough in the kitchen: so you wont be disturbed again if you go up now, and I'll call you early to-morrow morning."
Though it was in truth only half-past four in the
afternoon, Mina was at any rate quite willing to retire
to her own room. The day had been an exciting one
for her, and though young and strong, her nature was
so delicately strung, and vibrated so sensitively to
every influence, that of late she had sometimes shown
slight symptoms of an overwrought nervous system, so
that Emanuel had once or twice playfully called her
"his other violin."
She therefore bade her mother a more than usually
affectionate "good-night," saying that she felt in need
of rest and quiet, though she mightn't go to bed just
yet; and then she slipped away.
And once again--as on that afternoon in the sweet
spring-time when the swallows came home to their
nests, now choked up with the snow--Mina was all
alone in her chamber; that ivy-curtained maiden-chamber,
with its narrow bed and plain furniture, in which, though no flowers were now to be seen, there yet lingered a ghost of perfume as of the spirit of all sweet flowers dead.
Instead of sitting down to rest, however, Mina moved
about softly, now taking up this thing, now that--for
to her a thousand and one memories clung to these
heterogeneous knick-knacks and old, well-worn books,
that she handled so tenderly. For was she not bidding
good-bye to her girlhood, as it were, in this room which
was to be hers for the last time that night--for there,
spread out in state, lay the white bridal dress, with its
wreath of orange blossoms and costly lace veil.
And the world without,too, was white and spotless
even as the bridal dress that was to clothe the limbs of
the young bride.
There stood the old pear-tree, decked out in festive
wreaths as in her honour; but instead of a bridal
wreath of blossoms, his gnarled and twisted branches
were garlanded with the barren blossoms of the snow.
And all along the garden ways, and on the grass, and
far away to where the hills stood out with sharp-cut
outlines against the crystal clearness of the sky, lay the
immaculate snow, just touched with a faint ghostly
blue as of meandering veins.
For the last time, Mina scattered some bread-crumbs
on the window-ledge for the poor starving birds. Then
with a swelling heart, moved at once by a tender
retrospect and a blissful anticipation, she fell on her
knees by the bedside, and covering her face with her
hands, gathered her life as if it were a flower to give
into the hands of her beloved.
The divinest poems perchance are those that were
never penned, hardly whispered into a kindred ear.
"I think I am too happy!" sighed Mina, as her
whole soul went forth in an intense though voiceless
prayer, while dwelling on the new life that would dawn
for her, and which filled her at once with ecstasy and
dread. "What have I done, what shall I do to deserve
such happiness!" And still, while she longed for the
hour that should unite her for ever to the man she
loved, she again wished inconsistently that she could
postpone the day indefinitely.
For, strangely enough, happiness when it has reached
its utmost limit verges on pain; just as in pain when it
can go no further, there is a bitter-sweet residuum of
luxury which at once benumbs and intoxicates the brain.
While Mina was thus completely absorbed in devout
and rapturous thought, there came a knock at her door,
which she did not hear; but she quickly rose on being
startled by a footstep on the floor. Then she uttered a
little cry.
Was it, could it be her friend the Countess in the
flesh who stood there dimly discernible in the half-light
which still lingered owing to the reflection from
the bright snow without?
Mina stood for the moment rooted to the spot with
surprise; in the next, she had thrown her arms round
her friend's neck in her sweet, affectionate way, and
was kissing her with glad effusion. In her joy she
hardly noticed whether her kisses were returned or not.
"And is it you, is it really you?" she cried; "what a
wonderful coincidence you should return on this of all
days of the year!"
The Countess, freeing herself from her embrace,
said--
"You must really excuse my unceremonious
entrance, Mina; but as there was no one to answer the
bell anywhere about the premises, apparently, I had to
let myself in, and then walked straight up, as I knew
the place, thinking to find you here. For you don't
know how much I wanted to see you--indeed I only
arrived a few hours ago. But, Mina, I think you must
have grown, child. Why, you look quite beautiful!
And so they tell me you are going to be married! Is
it true?"
"Yes, to-morrow," answered Mina, with a sweet,
shy, and yet proud look; "do you know to whom, dear
Countess?"
"Ah, do you know to whom, Mina?" echoed the
latter in so low a voice that it was easy to misunderstand
her, fiddling with a ring on her finger, the very
opal ring which had been sent her by Mina a short time
back.
Mina opened her eyes to their widest for a moment,
and then she burst into that blithe, silvery laugh of
hers, gladder than any lark's song just now, as she
answered--
"I beg your pardon, I don't think I quite heard what
you said."
"To be sure, to be sure," murmured the visitor in
the same low voice, slipping the ring from her finger as
she asked, "Do you recognize that ring?"
"Recognize it," said Mina, "yes, of course I do; it's
the ring Lulu found in the grass and that we sent you,
thinking that no one but yourself could have been quite
so careless as to lose something so splendid, and precious, and costly as this is. And you never even acknowledged having received it, dear Countess--but then mother said that was so like the grand lady you were. Ah, I am very glad you have got it all right, at any rate."
"But suppose it doesn't belong to me at all, Mina
dear, what then?" asked her friend.
"Dear me, why to whom can it possibly belong?"
said Mina, half absently, as her thoughts strayed back
to Emanuel.
"Ah, do you know to whom?" asked the Countess,
in the same subdued voice in which she had hitherto
spoken; but there was something so significant in her
tone that Mina, shaking her head, looked at her with
puzzled eyes.
"Shall I tell you--would you like to know?" she
went on with the same insinuating softness; and then,
without waiting for a reply, she suddenly asked, "Is
that the wedding dress hanging there? Why, one
might take it for a ghost in this light. Couldn't you
let us have a candle, or a lamp, or something of that
sort, child?" she said, going close up to it, "for I
should like to see whether it's made after the latest
Paris fashion."
While Mina set light to the wick of the oil lamp, for
which she had herself last Christmas made a gaily-coloured
transparent shade, the Countess walked to the
window, threw it open, and, to Mina's surprise, who
remembered her detestation of cold, looked out on the
wintry landscape. While she did so, Mina fancied she
heard her humming snatches of a wild, fantastic tune
that she seemed to have heard before; but where, she could not recall.
"Ah, ah," muttered the Countess, as she closed the
window with a little shiver, and drawing a chair close
to the small black oven that stood in the corner, spread
out her hands towards it, "things come to pass strangely,
very strangely; to think that on that evening I might
have--but what a costly veil that looks from here, child,
do let me examine it near, for I have a passion for anything
in the shape of lace; from what I remember you
were not given to the indulgence of much finery once
upon a time, Mina."
As the latter brought her friend the lovely gossamer
texture of old blond-lace, she said, blushing--
"He gave it to me, you know."
"Why, it must have cost a small fortune!" cried
the Countess after looking at it, and then she carelessly
flung it on the back of her chair, with a certain furtive
gleaming of the eyes.
Mina was rather annoyed to see this dearly prized
gift treated so cavalierly, but without saying anything
she removed it gently and carefully folded it again; then
sitting down on the edge of her bed opposite to her
friend she said warmly--
"And did you really come all that long, long way,
in this weather, to be present at my wedding, dearest
Countess! I know you once said you would, but it
seems too, too kind--I can hardly believe it yet!"
"To be sure, to be sure, child," replied her friend,
"it is the wedding brought me here--what else should
it be? But can you guess who the little bird was that
first gave me an inkling of it?--for you know you never
sent me the news for all your protestations of undying friendship."
Mina looked a trifle guilty as she stammered--
"He couldn't bear it spoken about more than we could
possibly help; and knowing you to be in such trouble
too, I hardly liked intruding my happiness upon you at
such a time"--and she glanced at her visitor's sable
dress, and hardly knew how to express sympathy
concerning a loss about which she was so much in the dark.
The Countess, answering her look, said--
"Yes, I am in mourning for the man whose name I
bear; but let us not talk of funerals when a wedding is
at hand," she said, in a voice that grated strangely on
Mina's ear; "what I wanted to tell you was that the
little bird that whispered the first news of what was
brewing here was this identical ring."
"The ring!" echoed Mina, getting more and more
puzzled as she looked from the opal ring which the
Countess was holding to the light of the lamp to the
latter; "how is it possible?" Then shaking her head
with a sweet laugh she cried, "Ah, I see, you think I
am as big a child as ever, with my head full of nothing
but witches and fairies and stories of that sort; but you
know"--in a profoundly serious tone--"I have grown
so much, much older than I was when you were here.
What we feel and think, maybe, stretches time out to
such a great length, or dwarfs it to something quite
insignificant, and within these past months I have
come to know the two deepest things we can conceive
perhaps, love and--death."
At those last words Mina's eyes shone with a rapt,
inward light, almost as though her innocent gaze
fathomed mysteries that perplex the wisest.
"Death?" said the Countess, interrogatively, arching
her eyebrows, "that is a strange conjunction for a girl
like you to think of."
"Yes," said Mina, hardly heeding the interruption,
"my dear grandmother passed away from us in the
beginning of November, and no one but myself was
with her at the time. And to feel what was alive even
now stricken all at once into something that cannot
hear us or see us, what a shock, oh what a dreadful
shock that is!"
Then, as though suddenly recollecting herself, she
quickly got down from the bed, and coming to the side
of her friend, put her arm tenderly round her as she
said--
"But you, dearest lady--forgive me--what must have
been your feelings, when so natural a loss as mine was
still so affecting!"
But the Countess somewhat impatiently said--
"There, there, Mina, I am not sentimental; I don't
profess that there was any love lost between me and
the Count--at least on my side. But for a girl on the
eve of her marriage to talk of the death of her grandmother
could only happen in this fatherland of yours, I
believe, where you are all overflowing with what you
call gemüth. Well, I am glad of it, very glad; but we of
the passionate south love after a different fashion."
This cynical speech grated sorely upon Mina. She
could not somehow make the ideal which she had
fashioned of her friend tally any longer with her actual
presence. Who of the two was altered, then? Her
beauty was the only thing as magnificent as even her
imagination had pictured it.
Not meaning to let any imputation rest upon her
love, however, she said softly: "I don't think true love
makes us indifferent to other things. Since I have
known Em--him--I have loved everybody and everything
in the wide world better for his sake. I feel
sometimes as though, if I only could, I would shed my
very blood to make others as blest as I am."
"These are fine words, fine words, Mina," said the
Countess, with a slight sneer; "but why did you falter
just now when you were going to pronounce Emanuel's
name?"
Mina, with a resentful thrill, quickly raised her head,
flushing to the roots of her hair. She had never yet
been able to summon resolution enough to speak that
name of names to any third person; and here was a
woman who pronounced it with an accent--in a tone--as
if--
"Well, child," said the Countess, with a light laugh,
tapping Mina on the cheek, who, however, got up and
moved farther off, "why do you colour and look so
indignant? May no one even utter his name but yourself?
You forget, my dear, that he is a public man,
your beloved; and I dare say his Christian name
is as familiar to ladies' lips as his playing to their
ears."
Here the Countess laughed, apparently so tickled by
her own joke that it seemed she would never give over,
till the strange, mocking, hysterical fit sounded more
dreadful than the wildest sobbing could have done. At
last, as though by a violent effort, she stopped herself,
and rising from her seat began walking to and fro.
Mina, who had stood looking at her in a bewildered
manner, now said, with an indignant trembling in her voice, "I don't know what you mean, Countess?"
"Mean, child, mean!" cried the latter, getting more
and more hilarious and excited, as laying her hand on
Mina's arm she almost forced her to walk up and down
the room beside her. "What should it mean but that
I am sympathetically moved with the thoughts of this
wedding of yours? You are so cold, you don't understand
these violent emotions, you see."
But Mina, who just then caught sight of her gleaming
eyes, almost felt as if she would like to rush out of the
room, and fly for ever from her dearest friend. Then
again she upbraided herself for this pusillanimity.
They had thus taken a few steps in silence, when the
Countess, tightening her clasp of Mina's arm a little,
said: "I have wandered from my point again; I meant
to explain how this ring could whisper little things
about little people. Thereby hangs a tale, you see; and
your sending it to me was providential, no doubt."
On these last words she dwelt with lingering emphasis;
and then suddenly changing her tone to one almost
imperious, she said: "Mina, look at me; you are not
observant, I know; but have you never tried to guess
who I really was--where I came from--what country
I belonged to?"
Mina was indeed looking at her in wide-eyed
astonishment as she said: "Why should I try to guess where
you came from, Countess, when it was from Odessa
you told me, I remember well; and also that----"
"And did you really believe all those figments?"
cried the latter, disdainfully. "Had you no eyes of
your own, then, to find out my real nationality from a
thousand indications? Could you not see that I am South Italian, from the sole of my foot to the crown of my head? Bah, what matter! You saw me dance once, I believe!" and here she laughed more weirdly than before, and made a few steps as though she would launch forth once more into those intoxicating motions--still keeping hold of Mina's arm, however, who could not, without positive violence, now have freed herself from her grasp; "do you remember? One moonlight night it was, when I thought that I heard--nay, when I did hear--the fragment of a tune to which my feet must move, though I lay on my death-bed, I think."
Mina remembered the night well now, the night on
which the great musician had for the first time sung
under her window; but she suddenly shivered as though
a current of the cold night-air had streamed in upon
her.
"What I danced then, Mina, was the tarantella--his
tarantella; do you understand?"
"His tarantella," repeated Mina, mechanically. She
remembered dreamily that her betrothed was famous
for the composition and playing of a tarantella, which
he had always, almost angrily, refused to play to her,
however.
"Yes, his tarantella," said Antonella, walking, with
ever quicker steps, up and down the room; and clutching
the poor girl's arm so fiercely now, that she left
the blue marks of her fingers in her flesh.
"Once I, a peasant girl of Capri, was bitten by a
tarantula. It was in the ruins of Tiberius; and you
know that we ignorant peasant folk believe its bite to
be mortal, unless there is some one can play a tune to
us which will keep us spinning round and round till we drop down with the fatigue of it. We, there happened then to be a young violinist on the spot"--Mina's arm twitched slightly here--"a half-starving, unknown violinist, who then played a tarantella, composed on the spur of the moment, which saved my life and made his fame. And what was the consequence, dear Mina, do you think, of the young musician saving the young contadina's life?"
Antonella paused for a moment, and then went on
hurriedly: "Why, that they fell wildly, blindly in love
with each other! And this ring here, do you see--and
with a sudden jerk she threw it from her, when falling
on the floor it went spinning round and round for several
minutes like a top--why, the contadina gave it to her
lover, owing to a superstition about it, on the day they
got secretly married to one another!"
Mina gasped like one who is suffocating, and both
her hands went suddenly to her heart, as though she
had been stung there; but then wrenching her arm
abruptly away, she confronted the Countess with flashing
eyes, and cried--
"No, no! You lie!"
She was like a person transformed all at once; her
shrinking timidity, her girlish softness, were gone; like
some desperate animal at bay she faced the speaker,
and there was a superb thrill of passion and pride in
the nostrils as she panted, rather than said, even more
defiantly than before--
"You lie!"
"Softly, softly, though anger becomes you mightily,"
said Antonella, not without astonishment measuring
the girl, who eyed her unflinchingly, as though she would look her through and through and dare her to repeat her words.
"Not so meek as it would have one think," sneered
the Countess, "though it does speak of shedding its
blood for the happiness of people in general; but when
it comes to particulars that's quite another thing,
always. Let me tell you, my dear, that it is not polite
to give people the lie direct; and at any rate suffer me
to tell my tale in my own manner.
"I said we were married--but about that there's
a doubt, maybe! That was a slip of the tongue, or i
another kind of slip--never mind now; for I married--legally
or illegally, I don't know which--the Russian
prince who, while I was living with Emanuele, offered
me rank, lands, boundless wealth, everything in short
that I then thought in my vanity would make a woman
like me happy.
"Ah, Mina"--and she dropped her voice to one of soft
entreaty--"little did I then know what it is to have
sucked in a passion with tones that were powerful
enough to bring you back from the very brink of the
grave itself! Think me, if you will, wicked, and deceitful,
and treacherous, and a criminal, everything that's
bad under the sun--but one thing be sure of, that no
one can ever in this world love Emanuele as I love
him; nay, more, that he, too, never will, never can, by
any possibility, ever love another woman, in this world
as he loved me. Loved?--ah, still loves, and ever must,
I say!"
Mina was trembling all over now like a person in an
ague; but with desperate self-command she said, looking
the Countess once more full in the face, while her own was almost the colour of ashes, "Oh how unhappy you must have made him, then, if he loved you as you say, and yet you went from him!"
"Unhappy," repeated Antonella, "I believe you!
Did he not hunt me all over the world till he found me
again! But I, was I less unhappy, girl? Nay more,
more--the thought of Emanuele was like a thirst, a
very fever within me. It was in vain Count Ogotshki
took me to the gayest capitals in Europe, that I
frequented the highest society, that I dressed superbly,
that whatever wealth could offer was at my feet--still
I sickened and fell into long fits of death-like lethargy,
from which nothing but music, his music, could rouse
me. At last he succeeded in tracing me to Paris,
where we then resided. Shall I describe what followed?
The delirious passion, which he avowed to me nothing
could stifle----
"No, I will spare you! Mina, how shouldst thou
understand such passion as there is betwixt us? You
are but a child, nothing but a child, after all. You
suffer at present, but it will pass over; but I--this love
is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh, you see!
"Do you think he would ever have left me, child?
Never, Mina, never, had I not forced him at the last,
yea implored him on my knees, to leave me, for fear
of Count Ogotshki, who was beginning to have his
suspicions. Then, from wounded pride, anger, spite,
despair--well, no doubt you can guess the feelings
which might hurry him into sudden marriage with
another.
"There, read that! You know his handwriting!
Read--and ask yourself whether he ever wrote to you in such a strain."
And she placed a letter in Mina's hands. It was
one of those madly impassioned notes which he used to
send her at one time. And to Mina, when with her
burning eyes she could at last make out the letters, it
seemed, indeed, as though he had never written to her
in such a vein as this. She was too inexperienced to
distinguish between such passion and the true love
with which she had inspired and reclaimed him. A
kind of numbness was creeping over her faculties. The
will of the woman before her was gradually
overshadowing hers. For a moment as she read those
scorching words, jealousy, like a hot iron, entered her
inmost heart; for a moment she could have turned
upon the woman before her and rent her to pieces, but
she only convulsively wrung her hands together even
to soreness, and then, with a supreme effort over
herself, she at last said--each slow word wrung, as it were,
from her dry throat--
"Oh what--what--would you have--me do? I will
do--whatever--is best--for his happiness!"
"And can you doubt, child; can you doubt?"
whispered Antonella. "I am free now, remember; and
with the woman he has loved all his life, he will get,
besides, the wealth and station of a prince! Would
you deprive him of all that, because in a moment of
pique he chose to get engaged to you?"
"But," stammered Mina, throwing out her hands as
though she were groping in the dark, "it must rest
with Emanuel;" and with a glimmer of hope stealing
over her ashy countenance, she said, "He is free to
choose! Let nothing bind him to me if it is you he prefers; my happiness is as nothing in comparison with his. Go, go, let him know you are free--now--at once----"
"Fool," almost hissed the Countess, "fool or
hypocrite----" and then with a sudden change of voice to a
tenderness not quite assumed, "Forgive me, child,
forgive me, I am almost mad!
"But do you not see, can you not comprehend, that
Emanuele is a man of high honour--though once,
maybe, his passion for me was too strong even for that!
Do you think he will ever break his word to you of his
own accord, and at the eleventh hour, too! Little do
you know him then, it seems! Do you not see that
the very fact that he might marry infinitely more
advantageously now would deter him from such a step.
No, no; if you would act nobly you must give him up
freely, of your own accord--never let him know the
sacrifice it's been--never let him see you with such a
look as now----"
And then this woman flung herself all at once at the
feet of the girl, and, writhing on the ground, cried wildly:
"You used to say once that you loved me, Mina;
that there was nothing in the world you would not do
for me. Now the supreme hour has come--I am free
once more; and were he who is my all--ah, if you take
him from me, take my life too--say so, and----" With
a gesture quick as lightning she drew a small dagger
from her bosom, and brandishing it above her head,
cried: "Nay, turn not so deadly pale--what is it but a
prick after all! Only say so, and I swear, by all I hold
sacred, I swear that the moment I know I will plunge
this blade in my bosom, here before your eyes."
She looked almost mad. Mina, expecting every
moment to see the steel in her breast, flung herself
in a frenzy of fear on the arm of Antonella, who with
her wildly glittering eyes looked indeed capable of
committing any deed of violence.
But the latter, shaking her off, cried: "Promise,
promise that you will not part us, now that after long
years we may come together at last. Promise, or I
will never leave this room alive."
Mina, in a voice that was hardly articulate, said, or
rather breathed, "I promise," and her head drooped
forward as though life itself were forsaking her; then
she made a feeble sign with her hand as though to bid
the Countess leave her room.
But the latter, who had risen to her feet, now cried,
"Noble soul, I knew how you would act!" and
advanced a step as though she could have clasped the
girl in her arms, but that Mina, with an irrepressible
movement of abhorrence, turned her face to the wall.
Nevertheless, the Countess Ogotshki did not go yet.
She paced several times up and down the room in
silence, and then said: "I see that the sight of me is
intolerable to you now. I will not inflict my presence
upon you much longer--indeed there is no time to lose.
I have your promise, that suffices; for the rest you
must let me act, and trust yourself implicitly to my
guidance. Of course you must be gone from here
before a certain hour to-morrow."
Seeing Mina make a faint sign with her head, though
she did not turn round, she said, "Farewell! may we
meet again under happier auspices," and quietly walked
out of the room.
not by men or maid-servants bearing unwieldly lanterns in one hand, and capacious baskets crammed with toys and sweetmeats in the other; street boys d girls, yelling and screaming with pleasure, shot, one after another, like so many human cannon-balls along slides as smooth as glass, to the endangering not only of their own necks, but of that of every chance passer-by; and here and there the thoroughfare was half obstructed by casual stalls, where old women, by the light of a flickering tallow candle, haggled about the price of apples and gilt nuts, with faces like that of the weird sisters themselves.
These various hindrances served not a little to
exasperate the fine lady, all unused as she was to go about
on foot. At last she caught sight of a solitary vehicle
standing at a corner, its driver continually beating his
hands together, and stamping now with one foot now
with the other, after the manner of his kind, to keep
the blood from freezing in his veins. Hailing him
impatiently, she ordered herself to be driven to the hotel,
"Zum Englischen Hof," where she had put up on her
arrival.
Three or four officious waiters, loitering in vacant
self-importance about the brightly illumined entrance,
bestirred themselves with more than usual alacrity to
attend on the Countess as she stepped from the
conveyance.
She no sooner reached her private sitting-room than,
calling for pen, ink, and paper, she scrawled a few
hasty lines, and addressing them to Professor Sontheim,
directed her note to be taken there immediately by the
commissionnaire, with the injunction that should the
Professor be out he must inquire where he was to be found, and, wherever that might be, deliver the note safely into his hands.
Having settled this business, she went into her
bedroom and betook herself to the important business of
dressing, with the assistance of her maid, who found
her more than usually difficult to please; and who--pinning
one of the Countess's plaits a little too low
down the nape of the neck, instead of arranging it à la
Grecque, as she was told--received a sounding box on
the ear, which implied more vigour than her mistress
would usually have taken credit for.
So when Sontheim--who on receiving her note had
hastily donned his gala attire--arrived in a chaotic
state of mind, in which the most contradictory feelings
and wishes were wildly jumbled, and was ushered into
the private sitting-room of the Countess Ogotshki,
he found not a soul present except the little fluffed-out
lap-dog Succès, which barked at him rancorously,
although safely barricaded amongst furs on a divan.
To the Professor, coming from the frosty air outside,
it seemed almost suffocatingly hot on entering the
richly but gaudily furnished apartment, with the double
windows and heavy red damask curtains keeping out
every touch of cold, while two or three tall lamps covered
with shades diffused a subdued glow over everything.
When the folding-door presently swung open, and the
Countess came into the room with the slow, gliding
step peculiar to her, Leopold Sontheim was, as it were,
surprised afresh by the beauty of this woman, much as
he had dwelt upon it in absence.
The perfection of art had imparted a certain negligent
grace to her weeds--nay, to the very folds of the black lace, which enhancing the white statuesque contour of her throat and arms, looked as though mental preoccupation had excluded matters so trivial from her thoughts.
"Ah!" she said, in a voice so feeble as to be almost
inaudible, "Ah, my dear, dear friend, we meet again
under very trying circumstances."
Sontheim had risen to his feet and was looking at
her with all his eyes, and when she held out her hand
to him with a smile that had much of sorrow in it, he
seemed to forget to let it go again.
"It is truly comforting, dear friend, that you have
come to me in my distress," she continued. "I shall
look to you for aid, advice, counsel; your strong judgment
will--ah----" but here she broke down utterly,
and half supporting herself by a chair she, with the
assistance of Sontheim, sank down on a sofa, and her
head drooped amidst its cushions as though she had
no strength left to hold it up any longer.
The Professor, leaning over her in deep concern till
he almost touched her pale cheek, protested that she
should command his services, nay, his life, if only she
would tell him what it was she wished.
"Ah," sighed she in a whisper, gradually unclosing
her eyes, "I am faint, I have hardly breath left to
speak; the fatigues of this long, sudden journey--forgive
me, my friend--some Eau de Cologne, perhaps----"
The Professor had to put his ear quite close to the lady's
lips to catch what she was saying; at the last suggestion
he jumped up hastily and was going to ring the
bell, but that from a faint motion of her hand he understood
it to be close by, slung indeed from her bracelet in a richly-chased silver bottle. With fumbling hands, all unused to the fingering of such feminine articles, the Professor at last managed to unscrew the stopper and dash some of its contents, rather more than was quite pleasant perhaps, in the Countess's face, for a little rill went trickling by her ears down the back of her neck. However, it had the effect of considerably reviving her, and though she did not sit up, her voice had a little more strength than heretofore.
"Ah, Sontheim," she murmured, for the first time
fixing her eyes full upon him--and, strange to say, they
had lost none of their extraordinary brilliancy, in spite
of grief, weakness, and anxiety--"Ah, Sontheim, you
see in me a much-wronged woman!"
Sontheim was so much taken aback at this that for
the moment he did not know what to say, and therefore
held his tongue.
He had come there thinking to reproach this fair
demon for her double-dealing course; for her treachery
all round; and might he not awaken her remorse for the
past, and perhaps--who could tell? But the tables
were so completely turned upon him that he was fairly
nonplussed--not being anything of a man of the world--however
he might pride himself thereupon, but a
bookworm, a sentimentalist, a very enthusiast, in spite
of the flesh that encumbered him.
"But," continued the Countess, "I might have borne
everything in silence, I might have swallowed my tears,
had I not had a duty to perform--yes, a duty by that
sweet, darling child, whom, as you know, I loved from
the very first. Oh, it was providential, that!"
Looking at her in quite a bewildered fashion, the
Professor said: "I don't understand: I don't quite
understand----"
"Of course not, my friend. You may have heard--what
do I know? When men's passions are enlisted
in one cause they are not always quite scrupulous,
quite--what shall I say? I am but a poor, weak woman,
you know, and when a person of genius and such
imagination chooses to put things in one light----"
"Pardon me for interrupting you," said the Professor;
"I have known Emanuel from childhood, if it is of
him you are now----"
"Dearest friend, will you not even hear me out before
you judge?" said Countess Ogotshki, tremulously.
"It is to you I look for guidance; with your powerful
intellect, your penetrating judgment, your clear sense,
you are his match! But if you have judged already,
then I----" But she could not finish; she was so
overcome that she lay back half fainting, and Sontheim, in
deep concern, could do nothing but utter exclamations
of dismay, and confound himself in excuses and
entreaties to be forgiven, and fan and sprinkle her anew
with Eau de Cologne.
After the lapse of nearly ten minutes, she whispered,
"I am almost too exhausted to go on with what I had
to say, but perhaps if you were to ring for tea I might
get better by and by, and more capable of proceeding
with my painful task."
"Thé à la Russe" was presently served with caviare
and other delicacies, and while the waiter went in
and out of the room some ordinary conversation was
kept up, chiefly sustained by the lady, however, who
seemed to have herself more under control than her guest did.
When the things had been removed, Countess
Ogotshki suddenly laid her hand on Sontheim's arm,
and said, in a voice which the tea had evidently
rendered quite strong again, "You would not have
Mina Lichtenfeld ruined and dishonoured, would you?"
"By ----" cried Leopold Sontheim, only with difficulty
suppressing the oath that rose to his lips; then
suddenly looking full at his beautiful interlocutress and
changing his tone, "but my dear lady, forgive me if I
appear rude: are you or are, you not the Countess
Ogotshki?"
A very faint tinge of colour showed itself for an
instant on her pallid countenance, and then, instead
of answering, she burst into a passion of hysterical
weeping.
Under such circumstances it was difficult to pursue
inquiries, and Sontheim, distracted between the
unreasoning passion he felt for this seductive creature and
the claims of honour and friendship, was almost beside
himself. Seeing her in this state he could not help
putting his arm round her, and almost weeping himself
for very sympathy.
"You, indeed, you have a man's heart," she said at
length, wiping her eyes, and there was no mistaking
what the emphasis meant to imply; "and therefore I
will confide in you. You shall judge, you shall act for
me, only do not suffer innocence to be led astray--as
I was," she sighed; "I who was a poor, ignorant,
peasant girl, but honest, Herr Sontheim, honest--but
what am I now? If I have sinned, was I not more
sinned against? Am I married to Emanuel, or am I not? How can I tell? (Her voice was constantly interrupted by sobs as she said this.) It was when tortured by this doubt that I fled--fled with Count Ogotshki, surely I would never have done so had I not had hints thrown out to that effect. But here was a great, an honourable name offered to me; while there I was living in infamy--for I thought then they had tricked me, he and his friend, with this sham marriage."
C"No, no," said Sontheim, soothingly, "not tricked
you, but some blundering mistake, some flaw such as
may occur in these mixed marriages;" and again
stealing his arm round her waist, he added, "And after
all, now that it is all over, may it not have turned out
for the best, dearest Countess?" and he bent a little
forward, while his eyes glistened with excitement.
"Ah," she sighed, returning his look, and then
casting down her eyes, "as you say, things might have
turned out for the best, could I--dared I--indeed
consider myself free: for our tastes change, and now
that I know the world better there are qualities that
would have stronger attractions for me, sterling qualities
of character rather than talents, however brilliant.
But that is not to the point--for on receiving a certain
letter, of which you may or may not have heard, I
wrote to Rome for the opinion of a most upright,
honourable lawyer, and he, on going thoroughly into
the matter, assured me that he found it, on careful
investigation, to be a bonâ fide marriage according to
the laws of the Papal States; and so, and so--you
see!"
Leopold Sontheim, on hearing this, started up, and
his blood seemed all to have rushed to his head, from his strange look, as he cried: "Oh no--it cannot be--you must be mistaken--he would never----"
"Very well," said Antonella, as if exhausted with
talking, lying back languidly amidst the cushions, "I
have said--you must not--or, if you will, why let that
poor innocent darling drift into a position which will
ruin her reputation and break her heart--which will
leave it doubtful whether she is a mistress or a wife;
for at the best it is only a passing fancy such as he has
had before, and when the intoxication is over he will
come back to me as is his wont, for he never can give
me up, never, whatever he may say or do at this
moment!" And she drew herself proudly up with
flashing eyes, as much as to say, "Can there be a doubt
as to who of the two has the superior attractions, par
exemple?"
Leopold Sontheim was fairly staggered at the tone
of deep conviction with which all this was said.
What to think, what to say, what to do, was more
than he knew. The only conclusion he could arrive at
was that he must stop this marriage by hook or by
crook, at least till things were cleared up. And, then,
his own hopes and wishes were so deeply involved in
this matter! But a minute ago that look, those words,
had given him an access of pleasure such as he had
never yet experienced, and now he was once more
replunged into cold wretchedness; in this one minute
his very aspect was changed, his eyes looked bloodshot.
At last he said, turning to her abruptly, "Well, something
must be done--what is it that you wish? Is there
aught but suffering left for all of us?"
Antonella, again laying her hand on his arm, said,
mournfully glancing at her weeds: "For me, my
friend, my dear friend, there is nothing else! But
Mina, she is young, she will get over it; the great
thing is to get her out of his way, to hide her till the
first shock is over, and then--why, we shall see."
"But," said the Professor, blankly, "will she come?
What a scene it will be! Where shall I take her to?"
"There will be no scene," said the Countess; "she
knows everything, and is determined to break it off of
her own accord. She will let her mother know, no
doubt, that there is to be, can be, no wedding. So all
you have to do is to take my carriage and as many
horses as may be, and take her somewhere out of
harm's way."
"But had I not better go and explain to Emanuel
first? If things are as they now appear, I shall call
him out; but before that----"
"First get Mina out of the way," interrupted the
Countess, getting impatient, "and afterwards explain
at your leisure. You do not know the man; yet surely
you should from his playing! He is the very devil
when his passions are roused! He will carry her off
by sheer force, as he did me once. But when he has
had time to cool down one can reason with him. I
myself will write or go to him to-morrow before he
starts for church----"
"Well," said Sontheim, "time brings counsel! I
will take her away for the present. There's an old
abbey in the recesses of the Black Forest, quite solitary,
hidden amidst fir-trees and half shut in by a
stream, where some sisters of mercy reside at present----
I know one of them: Mina will be safe enough there."
"Yes, yes," said Antonella, "that is the very thing,
the peace of such an abode will soothe her. But give
me the address, I may have to communicate with her--who
knows?"
While Sontheim was doing so, she saw that his hand
was trembling like that of a drunken person.
"Will you start at once?" asked Antonella.
Sontheim, after a minute's silence, said: "No, no, I
could not take the child through such a freezing night
as this; it might kill her almost. Before daybreak
to-morrow will be time enough. Let her sleep in peace
to-night--if she can."
"Yes, let her sleep in peace," said the Countess;
"and I too, dear Sontheim, I too would rest a little,
for I have been travelling all through the night, though
it has been freezing."
Sontheim, in a wild fit of passion, suddenly seized
her in his arms and kissed her, and pressed her to his
heart in quite a delirious way, so that she could not,
if she would, have extricated herself. "Once, if never,
never again," he stammered at last, and then, without
daring to see what she would say, rushed out of the
room.
They say that the sharpest throb of agony is that of
the bird pierced in mid-flight by a bullet, which
contracts and stiffens the nerves while yet palpitating with
the intensity of life.
Such in kind is a great sorrow, if it unexpectedly
overtakes the young. Their very plenitude of existence lends
it an additional sting, a keener anguish; and to them
there is, or seems, no end to it--it is infinite as their sense
of time. Afterwards sorrow may become a habit like
other habits, and be borne with more or less good
grace; but at the first it strikes the heart as though it would crush it at one blow.
It was harrowing to see the change that had come
over the hapless child when she turned round at last.
Youth cannot suddenly turn to age, it is true, yet in
a few short hours, no more, such a change had come
over Mina's sweet face that, seeing her, one could have
imagined how she would look when she came to be
an old, old woman, so drawn and pinched were her
features; indeed, the flesh seemed to have shrunken on
her bones. Only her eyes had grown preternaturally
large, but the light had gone out of them--as the light
had gone out of the world for them; they were dry, and
dull, and vacant, as though seeing they yet did not see.
All at once, as if by accident, they alighted on the bridal
dress. Then with a sudden abruptness she drew her
hand across her forehead, as one who thinks that
perchance all this frightful anguish and misery have been
but a hideous dream, a loathsome nightmare, to be lifted
from the oppressed heart with the darkness of the night.
But no, the dream did not pass away--it was true,
all too true! She had been taken up as a makeshift by
one who preferred another--who had dallied with her
as one would with a child--who had taken her love as
one would pluck a flower--who had mocked her with
a semblance of passion when the reality had long ago
been spent on----. With a violent, irrepressible shuddering
she threw herself on the bed, and bit the bed-clothes
with her teeth; but there was no tear, no sob, only this
silent shuddering that now and then swept over her
whole frame.
Presently she raised herself again and stared round,
and all at once she cried out to the walls, as though they could understand and answer her--"No! no! no! It cannot be! It is a lie! He loves me: he said he loved me--I know, I feel that he does!" Then with a sudden impulse hurrying to the window, she threw it open, and called piteously into the wintry night, "Emanuel! Emanuel! Oh, come to me, Emanuel!" as though her cry of anguish must reach his ears.
But it rung out unheeded of the sleeping children,
of the bustling mother below. There was a dead,
unresponsive silence--he was not singing under her
window now! All at once she caught sight of the
spectral snow-bride that stood there instead, and
slammed the window to with a shudder.
She was roused now to the fullest realization of her
situation. The cold rush of air had acted upon her with
something like an electric shock. She tried to think
it all out now--to think what she must do--what was
right! Strangely enough, in all the agony of her mind
she had never yet reproached her lover--accused him
as the cause of it all; that woman, it was that woman.
Ah, and she was so beautiful! What was she but a
little insignificant thing in comparison. But she loved
him so. She would die for him, and more--she would
live in eternal misery so that he were but happy. But
if not happy--what then?
She would go to him; she would tell him so! But
no--that woman had said if he were to see her in
such grief he would never, never own to the real state
of his feelings. And there was that letter which she
had seen--never to her had he written such words
of fire; and she pressed her hands into her dry eyes as
though the words were literally still burning her there.
She would go far, far away--hide herself in some
dark wood; never come back to this place where the
children would point at her with their fingers to-morrow
as the false bride of their fairy-tales. The other
woman would be the bride now: she would take off her
mourning and don the white dress instead. Or was she
indeed his wife already? She had said so too--strange,
strange, very strange indeed!
But stop--let her think. Could no one help her,
advise her, find out everything, make her course plain,
help her to do what was right, what was best for him?
That was it!--of course, Sontheim, Professor Sontheim,
why had she not thought of him before? Her father's
old friend--he would not deceive her, he!
Mechanically she moved about, putting on her cloak,
tying on her bonnet as usual, and the gloves, too, were
not forgotten; but she thought not to protect herself
with extra wraps from the unusually severe cold that
had set in.
Softly, very softly, she crept downstairs, trembling
almost like a malefactor, and on the landing she delayed,
as though in doubt about something; then she peeped
in at the door of the family sitting-room, which stood
slightly ajar. The maid-of-all-work was cutting-out
yards and yards of green and yellow and crimson paper,
while Frau Lichtenfeld, standing on a chair, twined and
wreathed the strips about the dark-green branches, to
which she had already fastened the gilt nuts and Adam
and Eve apples which form such an indispensable
adjunct of this festival. She was just then rating
Sabina in her shrillest octaves as being "too wasteful
by half with that paper; just look at all the snippings
strewn about the floor--why it's as good as throwing a silver groschen out of window! But what's the odds to you so long as it's not your maw that suffers the dearth! Give here the scissors, I'll do it all myself; and go you and see after the gingerbread."
Mina started with a heavy sigh, and then stole down
the remaining flights of steps and out of the house.
The clock of the old Minster struck ten as she passed
into the cold frosty night. A great many people were
still abroad, and the roads were unusually light and
lively considering the lateness of the hour. Mina kept
as close as possible to the dark side of the houses, for
fear any one should recognize her.
Mina walked some way down the Silberstrasse, which
was as long as the town itself, one end terminating in
the fields and gardens near the Lichtenfelds' house, and
the other at the Grand Ducal gardens. Presently she
took the turning to the right, and after going down
several side-streets rang at Sontheim's door.
The slatternly servant who after some delay came
yawning to open it, answered her inquiries as to whether
Professor Sontheim was at home with a stare, and then
deigned to inform her that he and Frau Scherer were
both from home: the latter she knew had gone to the
Frau Obertribunalprocurator's, where there was a
Christmas party; but as to the former's whereabouts,
she was sure she couldn't say. "Perhaps he had gone
to the 'Wirhshaus' and might be he would be back
shortly, and might be he wouldn't come home till
morning," she said, still sullenly staring.
To the servant's still greater amazement the wretched
girl bade her tell the Professor that she would call
again. This the former promised to do if she should not be in bed and asleep by then, "for it wasn't just likely that she would sit up for him, not she!"
Feeling more heart-sick and helpless, if that were
possible, than before, Mina turned away from the house.
And then there came over her, like some unreasoning
blind hunger of the heart, the imperious craving to
look once more on the face, the beloved face, that she
might thenceforth never behold again save in dreams.
Yes, just to look on him once more! It seemed as if
that were the goal of her utmost desire--all that she
could conceive or think of now. Behind that the future
stretched a mere formless void.
If Sontheim told her it was even as that woman had
said, then "farewell, love, for ever farewell."
But there could be no wrong, no harm to any one, if
she just peeped through the window into the room she
knew; where he sat composing and playing this very
evening, while she----
Without giving herself time to think, drawn as it
were by invisible cords, she hurried blindly along the
thoroughfare, past the market-place and its Minster,
and the street grew more and more deserted as she
drew nearer the park. Only now and then a solitary
figure, with its vague shadow gliding weirdly across the
snow, passed rapidly by. Otherwise all traffic appeared
to have ceased.
But in all the windows of the street what a glow and
light there yet was. For in almost every house the
Christmas-tree was kindled, and the lights of the gaily
coloured tapers twinkled through the curtains.
Gay groups of children would stand there, and with
happy eyes blink up at the lights, and the bewildering wealth of presents, and the "Christkindchen" on the topmost twig in its shimmering golden dress and crown. Yea, she could almost see the people with their loved ones around them in those happy homes--as, indeed, she could hear their laughter ringing out. She might have called to them and they might have answered; but she, out here, belonged to the night and its shadows, as she stole on, now and then moaning unconsciously, "My love, my love, my lost love--oh!"
But when she came to the park, behold the gates
were locked! She had never contemplated such a
possibility. For a moment she remained blankly staring
at the iron-railing barring her progress; but she
was not so easily to be turned from her purpose. In
another instant she began clambering up the tall
ornamented bars, and as it was not so long ago since she
had left off climbing up the fruit-trees and swinging
herself for hours on one of their boughs, she accomplished
the feat without great difficulty--only that, she
grazed her left hand slightly at one of the foliated
scroll-works as she let herself down on the other side.
She was in the park now, the wide, white, desolate
park, where the grey Rococo Palace, with its empty
windows, seemed vacantly staring down the long, leafless
avenue, its ornamented roof and projecting lintels
covered with snow sparkling like crystal beneath the
glittering starlight sky.
How phantom-like, and unreal did it all look! But
then the whole world had grown unreal and phantom-like
to this forlorn child. To her bewildered brain
there seemed to be nothing solid above or beneath her;
for since love was a mockery, her whole moral being tossed and floundered helplessly like a ship cut adrift from its moorings. For the first time, too, she vaguely apprehended the terrible and sinister side of nature, and where she had hitherto only loved a universal mother, there met her now, in her direst need, but a pitiless indifference that added to her desolation, had it been possible.
Now and then the ghostly stillness was broken by a
sharp, sudden noise, when some branch or twig too
heavily laden broke with its weight of snow.
Thus she moved on, a little solitary figure, herself
like a ghost stealing through a ghostly world. The
air was almost as cutting as a sharpened razor, but as
though she were indeed a visitant from another sphere
she seemed to have grown unconscious of all sense
impressions. Only when she came in front of the pond,
now a sheet of ice, where the statues of Venus, with
the snow lying on their marble hair and shoulders,
looked forth from amid the shrouded rose-trees with a
ghostly glare, she involuntarily checked her course, as
the scene of that June evening flashed upon her memory
with a more than life-like vividness. Oh, yes! now she
understood the look and the action, and the muttered
"No more, no more, oh never more on me," which had
then for an instant jarred the rapture of the hour.
Her poor heart seemed to contract in her bosom with
the pain of it, and she looked up to the heavens as
though in a mute, instinctive appeal that help might
be given her from above and the strength to endure.
There, indeed, the infinite, unnumbered multitude of
the stars shone down on her in pitiless and supernatural
beauty. Like the unfurled standard of an angelic host, the milky way streamed right across the firmament, swarming, as it were, with lights of greater and lesser brilliancy, emitting some a mild lustre, some flickering restlessly as if blown hither and thither in a gale of wind, while others, mere phosphorescent sparks, seemed to vanish even as you looked at them. And there betwixt the glittering tree-tops, in the rear of the dancing stars, followed the thin form of the wasting moon.
Suddenly, close at her elbow, distinct as in life, she
heard her father's voice saying, "That is Orion."
Once when she was a little girl of five, the gentle,
abstracted scholar had called her attention to the sky,
and pointed out to her the three fiery stars of this
constellation. To the child, impossible to say why, this
name opened out a whole enchanted region of fancy.
And now grief, acting on her brain as a chemical on
secret writing, was bringing out in abnormal freshness
this thing so long ago obliterated.
But the voice, which seemed to have been outside of
herself, sounded so startling in the frightful stillness,
that Mina, uttering a low scream, fled down the avenue
towards the homely glimmering light of the Pavilion,
which she presently reached. Dreading the very cracking
of the snow, she ascended the shallow flight of steps
which led all round it, till the uppermost step brought
her on a level with the casement where she might look
in upon her love unsuspected, unheeded. Ah, even now
it was heaven to be so near him!
At that thought the heavy, icy grief suddenly gave
way, and her very heart seemed dissolving in a flood of
tears.
Emanuel, in an attitude of profound absorption was
sitting near a small table of carved rosewood; he had
apparently partly finished the composition of the piece
on which he was engaged, as it was littered by sheets
which seemed to have been flung there one after
another as they were done with. Some wax candles
in the meanwhile had burnt down to the socket without
attracting his attention, for now and then the expiring flame of one of them still flared up.
For Emanuel, like an experienced swimmer who
luxuriously abandons himself to the flux and reflux of
the element he loves, was floating in the spirit on those
rhythmically balanced waves of sound audible to him,
in the silence. He had just finished his fantasia. In
it he had striven to sum up, to focus, as it were, the
leading points of his inner experience; to give a final
expression to the past with its storm of headlong
passions, while indicating by a soft transition the
shining vista opening out into a future glorified by
love.
Suddenly, in his hasty way, he rose, walked to the
fireplace, and stirred the great logs till the blue-green
opalescent flames shot crackling and roaring up the
chimney. Then he took the violin from its case--placed
in the warmest corner, like the pet it was--and
went back to the table where his score lay.
He was evidently going to play over the piece in its
completed form; for he took some of the wax candles
from their sconces over the mantleshelf, and stuck
them over the still flaming remains in the candlesticks.
Mina could see him distinctly now. A radiance
almost like light seemed to stream from his visionary
eyes, and pale, thin features, as he began playing; for
all the time the idea of his love hovered like a spiritual
presence before his sight. Even this drifting back into
the past could not cloud or overshadow the vivifying
joy he felt.
At first he struck into a low, veiled prelude, stealing
upon the air, and indicating the youthful awakening to
life which as yet withdraws itself coyly into a semi-obscurity, only tenanted by the fairy forms of fancy. These sounds insinuated themselves on the ear with a delicacy, a tingling freshness, such as bluebells and hyacinths might emit, could the elves, indeed, set their bells a-ringing.
Mina almost forgot her sorrow! All the nerves in
her body seemed listening! It was as if his soul were
speaking to hers through the violin. Yea, that might
still be hers, that ecstasy of feeling his music pouring
through and through her in a flood of melody.
Then with a change he began striking the strings
and swift, sharp, piercing notes leapt from under his
fingers like sparks from the anvil when the iron glows
to its stubborn heart. A magnificent form seemed to
evolve itself and to wind once more through the mazes
of a fantastic dance, as the network of sound now
branched out in the most complicated harmonies; for
the old tarantella motive, with its weird trills, flitted in
and out of the long-drawn yearning sounds, which, as
by a miracle of execution, formed the dominant theme.
Here the music seemed the expression of that
implacable passion embodied by the ancients in their
"Venus Pandemos," which fevers the blood, hardens the
heart, and seems to drain the very sap of vitality out
of man; the passion which would drag him back, as it
were, into the chaos of those elemental forces from
which he has slowly, painfully worked his way up by
infinitesimal steps in the course of the centuries; the
passion which would defeat and mock and, laughing
his moral law to scorn, lead him a captive in the
triumph of Eros.
When Mina heard that clash and tumult, as of the
very sea of passion lashed into fury, and those tarantella
notes that with their irresistible sorceries all at
once brought the eyes of Antonella so vividly before
her, as though she saw them glittering through the
darkness, she feebly clutched at her heart and staggered.
It was not of her, but that other woman, he was thinking
then, even at that hour--his music said so plainer
than any words could. All doubt was over!
Strength suddenly forsook her, as if her very blood
were actually oozing from some physical wound.
Stunned and dazed with the overpowering emotions
that had crowded in upon her on that terrible day, she
let herself sink on the step on which she had hitherto
been standing, and her head drooped wearily back
against the door. She was scarcely concious now of
what it was that made her heart so heavy within her;
there was only an overwhelming sense of drowsiness
weighing her eyelids down like lead.
The violin now seemed to utter a kind of shrill cry
as of a thing in the last extremity of pain; and then
the tempo changed again to a very slow andante--a
weary dragging succession of staccato notes, as of
some wanderer, it might be, toiling alone along a bleak
highway, worn and deadly tired, a worn-out, forsaken
wanderer.
Tired--tired! Oh how those tones were chiming in
with the semi-conscious sensations of the prostrate
girl outside. They seemed almost to proceed from
within her own bosom, and the real and the illusory
began to get curiously blended and confused in her brain.
There was a pause of a minute or two, and then
followed a soft, rippling, gliding of the tune into an
entirely fresh movement. It was sweet as the dropping
of dew on parched-up pastures, or as the slumber which
now closed the eyelids of the unhappy girl. So
winningly tender and caressing were these honeyed sounds,
that a mouse actually stole from its hiding-place, as if
irresistibly drawn forth by the music, till it came quite
close to the violinist at last, where it remained some
little time with brightly peering eyes--till the fall of a
burning splinter on the hearth sent it scrambling back
to its hole.
Another form seemed gradually to detach itself from
the background of this magically tender adagio, an
etherially lovely form in which the virtuoso now
expressed the exquisite, regenerating sentiment in which
his whole heart was steeped that moment. Nothing
in music had ever given such divine expression to the
love which emancipates and exalts, to the love in which
the body itself becomes transfused with soul, or so
finely rendered the best moments of the best natures,
the supreme aspiration of man's heart towards ideal
beauty--which music, of all the arts, is best adequate to
interpret for us here.
Occasional fragments of these heavenly sounds still
came, borne like whiffs of fragrance, to the half-numbed
senses of the girl, and her soul seemed floating away,
far away, on them, till no sense of sorrow or separation
remained; but her very life--merged and melted in his--
seemed reuniting to its primitive essence, and to soar on the wings of music into an ocean of illimitable beatitude. Conscious no longer of where she was, reclined on the snow she slumbered as softly as on a bed of down--the snow, of which the children say, when its flakes come whirling to earth as they then did, that the Virgin Mary is shaking out her feather-bed.
And still the night grew cold and ever colder. A
cutting north-east wind occasionally swept through the
trees with a thin, sniffing sound, dislodging the snow
with which they were so heavily laden. Now and then
the stillness was broken as before by a sharp, sudden
noise, when some branch or twig snapped under its
burden, or when the body of some starved and frozen
sparrow tumbled dead from its perch.
Presently, however, a great wave of sound burst on
this silence. From the Gothic Minster, and from every
steeple and spire in the town, the bells pealed out,
clashing and clanging together far through the frosty
midnight the glad tidings of the breaking of Christmas
Day. And while the chimes still resounded, a lambent
star shot from the very zenith with a trail of fire, and
was engulphed in night.
There is a superstitious saying amongst the people of
those parts, that whenever a star shoots a virgin dies
somewhere on the earth.
Emanuel at length put down his violin, and throwing
himself into a chair, worn-out with his exertions, fell
asleep where he was.
So far she had indeed succeeded admirably in her
machinations. She had met with but little resistance,
and she doubted not that the power of her beauty would
exert its old witchcraft over Emanuel if she could only
get him all to herself once more.
The great thing was to get Mina safely out of his
way for the present. After all it was impossible that he should care so much, so very much, for a little half-fledged chick like that. Well, at any rate she would be harmless to-morrow--time would be gained--her own presence would soon serve to efface what impression had been made. Indeed, who could tell--coming upon him unawares might she not take him by storm? And perhaps--stranger things had been known to come to pass--if he was so set on being married to-morrow, why not wed her over again when everything was ready to hand?
And as to that child Mina, why she would look out
for a nice young man to console her for the loss of one
who wasn't at all fit for her. But if she should prove
refractory and refuse a good settlement in life, there
were ways and means--ways and means; people were
sometimes blind to their own best interests, and a little
gentle force--when one has lots of money at one's
back!
Like a spider balancing itself in the centre of its
web, now and again shooting out a cunning thread
where the meshes seem weakest, she was weaving,
weaving the most subtle of stories, wherewith to entrap
Emanuel on the morrow when she should come upon
him unawares. She had settled that she would go to
him quite early, as nothing told so much with these
impressionable, hare-brained men as a woman's actual
presence in the flesh. And her lips, her eyes flashed
into a smile of insolent triumph as she walked, with a
dancing step, closely up to the full-length looking-glass,
surveying herself from every side, now in profile, now
full face, now bending a little forward with a languished
air, now looking over her shoulder in the attitude which the ancients so often gave to their Venus.
And she seemed well pleased with the reflection which
met her gaze; for, after carrying on this kind of dumb
show for about half an hour, she threw a kiss at her
reflection in the glass, and then laughingly turned
away.
Could there, could there be the shadow of a doubt as
to what would be the result when, coming in her beauty,
backed up by an enormous fortune, she flung it all
down at the feet of the man for whom she felt this
quenchless desire!
Indeed, had not that been her intention from the
very first? Had she not risked much peril to herself
in order that some day Emanuel might reap the
benefit of her dubious conduct? Could self-sacrifice
go farther? Surely, surely he must understand it
now, if only she could once explain quietly that
from the first--when he might have considered her
most guilty--his welfare had been the chief mainspring
of her actions. Absorbed in these meditations, she
now passed into her bedroom, luxuriously leaning back
in a chair while the maid was undressing her.
But when her long, blue-black hair had been well
combed and brushed out, streaming like a dark veil
over her ivory shoulders and grandly moulded arms,
she said out loud, after being left alone, "What need,
what need of it all. I defy him not to love me!" and,
satisfied with that conviction, she laid her head on the
pillow and fell sound asleep.
Nor did she awake till, quite against her habits, she
was called according to orders before daybreak. As she
was being dressed she saw, to her great satisfaction, that she was looking splendid that morning, if indeed she could ever look anything else.
When the long process of attiring herself was at last
over, and she had donned a most bewitching fur cap
and pelisse, she stepped into a carriage, well warmed
throughout (not her own, however, for that she had
placed at Sontheim's disposal), and ordered herself to
be driven to the Pavilion in the Palace Gardens.
The heavy snow made it a tedious drive, though the
distance was but short in reality, and it was quite
early still when she stopped the carriage at some
little distance, not wishing to startle the unconscious
Emanuel by the sudden approach of a vehicle at this
unexpected hour.
But what was her surprise when she saw her own
carriage stopping in front of the pavilion and almost
blocking the passage. An uncontrollable fit of rage
and anger blazed up in her at this sight foreboding
the miscarriage of her schemes; but she crushed it
down again, and, boldly advancing to the door, glanced
hastily in before entering.
Good God! was it--could it be Emanuel lying there
on the floor with his arms twined and clinging round
something--somebody--on the low divan there, something
wrapped about in white, something quite still and
motionless!
Suddenly she started back with a quick thrill of
horror--she had caught sight of Mina's blanched,
unearthly face.
After standing there for a minute with staring eyes
she ran back, threw herself into her own carriage, and
ordered the coachman to drive back to the hotel with all speed.
Emanuel, with his habitual impatience, had got
dressed that self-same morning long before there was
the slightest occasion, and was starting for a ramble
in the grey whirling snow, of which since a boy he had
always been passionately fond, when he stumbled over
something lying across his very threshold.
Astonished that snow should be so hard and
unyielding, he bent down to examine the cause of the
obstruction, and with his hand began clearing it away
from whatever it was that obstructed his passage.
While doing so he was first startled by the sensation
of a woman's shoulder, though so caked with snow that
it was indistinguishable on this dim winter's morning;
next, shocked to find a woman's chesnut hair the
colour of Mina's; and then, O God! what mad
phantasmagoria was it that reeled before his straining
vision? What demon had invested this phantasmal
body with the form of Mina?
"Mina! Mina!" he shrieked wildly at last, and had
he not by this time been on his knees he would
probably have fallen like a senseless block himself.
The scream brought the servant to the door, who
arrived just in time to steady his master's tottering
frame. Looking in utter bewilderment at his convulsed
features, he at last said stupidly, "How could a beggar
have come to this lone place, and on such a night?"
And still holding his master, he stooped as though
about to examine and move the body.
But Emanuel seized him almost with the ferocity
of a wild beast, and then said in a strangled voice, "A doctor, a doctor--quick, a doctor!"
The servant stared for one instant in his master's
face, and then silently obeyed him, disappearing down
the avenue in the falling snow as fast as it would allow.
Emanuel, left alone with the motionless figure,
clutched hold of her in a semi-demented state, and
half carried, half dragged her into the room, with the
snow still clinging to her and dropping piecemeal all
about the place, as, kneeling down, he desposited his
burden on a low couch with the tenderness of a
mother.
With this one supreme effort, what remained to him
of clear reasoning seemed exhausted, and still on his
knees, he stared blankly about as though at his wit's
end. The servant was gone, the fire was out--the utter
helplessness of his situation came over him with
overwhelming force. He had not even sense enough left to
shut the door, through which the cold wind, mingling
with occasional snow-flakes, came drifting to the very
sofa where he had placed her. Suddenly throwing
himself down on the floor beside the snow-cold, angelic
form of her he loved; he clasped her in an immovable
embrace, he pressed his mouth to hers, he covered
her lips with burning kisses, and strained her against
his breast till it seemed that her slight form must have
been crushed in his arms.
Was not that the flutter of returning pulsation in
her frozen veins? Was not that the breath of reviving
warmth on her icy lips? It could not be but that the
passion of his love should send the hot life-blood once
more through her chill body. Yes, yes! was not this
the thrill of reawakening life as he cried, "Awake, love, awake, for this is our marriage morn!"
When the servant returned with a physician they
found him still in this position, his dark form stretched
beside the snow-figure of the bride, his tangled hair
mingling with her luxuriant curls matted with the
snow, which covered her in lumps except where,
between their two breasts, it was melting and trickling
down the floor.
The doctor, with his shrewd eyes, glanced at the
group before him, but with that wonderful professional
calm which never deserts the man of science, he said
nothing for a moment. He keenly scanned the maiden's
blanched features, and slightly raised his eyebrows on
recognizing them. Then, without disturbing Emanuel,
he touched one of her delicate hands: it was like
marble, and as rigid. He then, not without compassion,
shook the agonized lover by the shoulder and said:
"Come, come, my dear sir, you must please move
aside if I'm to be of any assistance. There's no time
to lose."
Then addressing the servant, who was standing in
the doorway shaking the snow from his clothes, he said:
"Have you any spirits in the place? Light a fire
directly in another room; hot blankets may be wanted
later."
Emanuel, without removing his arms, only half rose,
still keeping quite near, while his eyes remained fastened
on Mina's face as though, were he to remove them for
an instant, she might dissolve like the snow-figure of
yesterday. Then he whispered with almost a wandering
air: "Strange, strange! very strange indeed!"
This time the doctor, again turning to the musician
as he bent over the patient, said frankly, almost rudely:
"My dear sir, I must beg you to leave the room at
once; you understand, of course, that you cannot
remain here while I examine the young lady."
Emanuel, thus adjured, went reluctantly out of the
room, muttering, "Very strange--but life is returning!"
In the meanwhile Leopold Sontheim arrived.
According to his arrangement with the Countess he had
driven up to the Lichtenfelds, where, on arriving, he
found the household in a state of utter confusion and
wild dismay.
For when the early-stirring widow had gone up to
call her daughter, she had found the room empty and
the bed not slept in. Since then she had been distracted
by running from one room to another, wringing her
hands, and still searching in all most unlikely places,
while calling upon her daughter, till it was a wonder
she still had any voice left to call with. On hearing a
carriage driving up, therefore, she flew downstairs, and
as the Professor was rushing up they came into violent
collision.
"Mina will have explained everything," he said
hurriedly; "is she ready? There's no time to lose!"
"My daughter! where is my daughter?" cried the
widow, scarcely heeding him. "Give me back, give
me back my child!"
Sontheim retreated a step or two down the stairs--"What
do you mean? I don't understand!" he
exclaimed.
"What has he done with her, Sontheim, what has
he done with her?" screamed Frau Lichtenfeld, quite beside herself. "Oh, I always feared that these----"
"Do you mean that Mina is not in the house?"
asked Sontheim, sternly.
"Herr Gott, how should she," cried the weeping
mother, "when I've been hunting for her ever since
daylight in every cupboard and wardrobe! Wolf must
have missed you; I sent him----"
Sontheim stamped on the floor in a towering rage as
he cried: "He has found out that I know all, then, and
ran off with her----"
"Ran off with her, when he was to have been married
to my daughter this very morning--impossible!"
exclaimed Frau Lichtenfeld, incredulously.
The Professor in a few brief sentences then explained
how matters now appeared to him (for he no longer
doubted that Emanuel had meanly practised on his
credulity and good faith). While doing so he tried to
soften the blow as much as possible to the poor widow,
by saying that if she would leave matters with him he
yet hoped to be able to overtake the fugitives, and bring
her daughter back to her unharmed.
Frau Lichtenfeld, utterly thunderstruck, could only
find breath for once to say: "Go, go at once, for
heaven's sake, as you value our good name, and let us
keep it as quiet as we can!" And even before she had
finished the Professor had started off again.
He directed the coachman to drive to the Pavilion, in
the hope that he might come upon the traces of the
fugitives. On the way he was a prey to the most painful
reflections. He no longer entertained the shadow of a
doubt that everything which the Countess Ogotshki
had told him was the exact truth, and that Emanuel, finding that imposition would answer no longer, had taken the bit in his teeth, and carried Mina off--to what a fate, good God! Which ever way he looked there was equal bitterness. Emanuel, whom he had trusted and loved, had shamefully deceived him; Mina, who ought to have found a protector in himself, was, partly owing to his foolish gullibility, being carried off to her ruin; and the Countess, the beautiful, ravishing, irresistible Countess, who had proved less black than she had been painted--well, she was not, could not be a widow in that case!
By this time they drove up in front of the Pavilion.
The Professor, flushed with anger, and relieving himself
by a volley of the most terrific oaths, got out here to
make inquiries of any person whom he might discover
about the premises. Finding the door ajar, he walked
in without further ceremony. To his astonishment
the room was not empty as he had expected. A doctor,
whom he knew slightly, was violently rubbing the bare
feet of some one whose face he could not see owing to
the position of the sofa. But before he could approach
or make any further inquiries, Emanuel himself came
softly peering into the room; but oh, how strange, how
haggard was his look! On seeing Sontheim, he
apparently took his presence there as a matter of
course, and said in a wild, hasty whisper--
"Life is returning, Leopold, life is returning!"
Sontheim with quick strides moved to the side of
the couch. A groan escaped him on seeing his old
friend's daughter in such piteous plight the fair,
innocent child, so full of life and love but yesterday; the
little child that almost insensibly had turned into a maiden under his eyes! "What is it? what is it?" he asked the doctor in a husky whisper. "How came she here? Where was she found?" and he groaned again with a dim compunction that his reason hardly yet confirmed.
The doctor, glancing significantly at Emanuel and
then at him, begged the former to fetch him some
more snow, and the instant he had darted off he bent
towards Sontheim with the whisper: "Go, go, break
it to him gently--I can do nothing here; but how can
this have happened? Frau Lichtenfeld's daughter, is
it not? Wasn't she to have been married to-day?
What does it mean?"
Sontheim burst out: "Is it true? Do you mean
that she is dead? It cannot be--one does not die like
that! But yesterday she was in the bloom of health!"
"That may be," said the doctor quietly--"for you
see she has been frozen to death."
The Professor struck his fist against his forehead.
Something like a glimmering of the real state of the
case, of the desperation of the hapless child on hearing
what she must have heard, faintly dawned on him, and
he cursed himself for a fool on remembering how he
had wished to let her sleep in peace--sleep in peace,
indeed!
When Emanuel came rushing back with the snow,
and breathlessly inquired how she was going on,
Sontheim, grasping his arm, said: "I want a word
with you; Dr. Furka is doing all he can for her, you
see." And leading his friend into the next room he
closed the door, making a sign as much as to say that
he didn't want to be overheard. "In heaven's name, how has it happened?" he whispered.
Emanuel, shaking his head in a piteous manner, said
brokenly: "Good God! as if I knew! It's past all
comprehension! The dear angel out on such a
night--alone--in the cold--at my very threshold; it will
drive me mad to think of. But I must go back, I must
go back now; life is returning, she will be well soon."
"Wait a minute," said Sontheim, detaining him by
the arm; "you were not going to run off with her,
then?"
"Run off with her!" echoed Emanuel, "are you
going out of your mind too?"
"I mean because the Countess Ogotshki arrived
here yesterday, and might have----"
"Antonella!" hissed Emanuel, "Antonella here?"
"Yes, yes," cried Sontheim, "I thought you knew.
She was with Mina yesterday; she told her----"
"Oh, oh!" moaned Emanuel, in an agony of despair,
"then she has--ah--let me go--I will dash her brains
out--I will----"
He struggled violently to free his arm, but his friend
detained him by sheer force.
"Emanuel," he said, and there were tears in his
eyes, "wait a minute--oh, my friend--how shall I tell
you?--Mina is--is--dead."
Emanuel shrieked, even as he had done on first
finding his dear love in the snow, and bursting from
his friend's grasp he darted back into the room where
she lay, when again flinging himself on the floor beside
her, he took his snow-bride in his arms, looking a more
woeful spectacle than the corpse which he clasped.
Leopold Sontheim and Dr. Furka looked on with the
profoundest pity; and as grief, like love, seeks ever to
shroud itself in obscurity, these two stole out of the
room on tip-toe, leaving the unfortunate man alone
with her who was to have been his wife that day.
What consolation could avail? What comfort could
they offer?
It was by downright force that Dr.
Furka and Professor Sontheim
succeeded in extricating, the dead bride from her lover's
arms. He refused to believe that she was dead; and,
like one beside himself, threatened them should they
dare to bury her.
She looked indeed but as one that is sleeping. Her
lips were red, and there was a faint tinge of rose on her
snow-white cheeks, while her hair, as if with a life of
its own, fell in golden-brown ruffled locks about her
smooth temples and soft round throat. All her old
loveliness had come back to her, indeed with a something
beyond it. On her face seemed yet to linger faint
reflections of that divine harmony which had rocked
her spirit into its long sleep.
But when they had once carried her out of the house
Emanuel fell into a deadly stupor, and suffered them
to do anything they liked. For man cannot suffer
beyond a certain point; after that comes a blank, a
nothingness, an oblivion as of death itself, till his
energies be sufficiently restored to bear a renewal of
torture.
The thought, the maddening thought, which lent an
additional poignancy to Emanuel's anguish, when he
once more fully realized what had happened to him,
was the conviction that this tragic issue was in part
the outcome of his own conduct.
When in his reviving consciousness he conceived the
meeting between these two women, and how it must
have taken place and what might have been said between
them, he could have screamed aloud for pain and rage,
and he fiercely struck his head against the wall near
which he lay, as though he would have dashed his
brains out. This dastardly stab aimed with the skill of
a devil, was it not a murder? Yet what redress from
the law for the slaying of this sweetest soul?
He himself, was he not guilty too? Had he not
helped to bring about this catastrophe? Why, why
did he not tell her the truth, the whole truth, and
leave her to act according to her own delicate
perception of honour and right? Was he not a coward--a
common coward?
In the evening, when Dr. Furka and Sontheim
returned they found the musician seething in a fever; and
the former, after carefully examining his patient, seemed
alarmed at the symptoms.
He was a physician of high reputation, this Dr.
Furka, and even consulted by the Grand Ducal family itself, though his blunt, outspoken, and brusque, nay, at times, rude manners, did not recommend him much to the patronage of the aristocracy, who only called him in when compelled to do so. He had not the slightest pity or sympathy for the ailments and vapours of fine ladies; instead of making a good thing out of them, physicking and coddling them up to the top of their bent, he would shrug his shoulders, and, by way of a prescription, sarcastically suggest a course of scrubbing their own floors or washing their linen. It was even reported that one high-born young lady who suffered from a complication of nervous disorders, after trying every doctor in the town and calling in Dr. Furka as a last resource, could get nothing out of him for her trouble but a lecture. He had actually twitted her with her aches and pains in the most barbarous manner; and pointing to the yellow leaves outside--it happening to be autumn--asked what business she had at her age to have a complexion like them.
"But my advice," he had ended with, "you would
not take--namely, that you should leave off parading
a waspish waist and wafer-like boots, dancing till day-break
and nibbling sweetmeats in order to have no
appetite left for a hearty meal; so being no charlatan,
it only remains for me to wish your ladyship a very
good morning."
This was not the way to thrive in the world, it must
be admitted; but the patients whom Dr. Furka did
take in hand got on all the better, perhaps, for his not
getting on.
A middle-aged, under-sized man, Dr. Furka was of
thin but wiry make, with a determined, military sort of air. His head and face, too big for the rest of his body, were anything but handsome, reminding one of a shaggy skye-terrier; but this plainness was redeemed by a pair of deep-set, dark grey eyes which, overhung by black, sharply-cut eyebrows, seemed to pierce the person he might be looking at to the core. With these eyes he was now regarding the sick virtuoso, when he suddenly said--
"What strength there is in this weakness!" and he
took one of the thin hands and examined it admiringly.
It fidgeted nervously in his own. Turning to Sontheim,
he said--
"Do you know that this hand alone would tell me
how to deal with our patient; for human beings are in
truth like so many instruments--some very much out
of tune, I admit--but a physician to deserve the name
should know how to manipulate each according to its
construction. I won't disguise that this is a grave case,
Professor, a very grave case indeed, but I trust he may
weather it with such nervous power as this superb
hand here betokens: to be plain with you, I can do but
little, only soothe, only pour oil on these vexed,
overwrought nerves, that I could almost fancy I heard
vibrating in shrill discords. But what can have
brought about such a tragedy?"
Sontheim shuffled about uneasily, hardly knowing
what to say, or do, or think almost. Such knowledge
as he possessed he was chary of; to communicate it
now to any one could but occasion fresh evil.
Dr. Furka, keenly glancing at him, said: "A physician
ought frequently to know the whole story of his patient's
life to do him any radical good, though in this case it's not necessary; but I cannot help surmising this and that--another woman at the bottom of it all? Just the sort of man to set them by the ears! And that poor child! I never came across a sadder business in all my experience. I knew her well by sight too; she was always a pet of mine because she looked so natural, and fresh, and blithe; and I never saw such a clear eye in a human head, more like a seal's for that. But to our patient--the one thing he will need is good nursing and quiet."
Sontheim, who himself looked as harassed and feverish
as could be, here said that he himself would attend his
friend.
The doctor shook his head with a slight smile as he
replied: "No, no, Professor, forgive me for saying so,
but you won't do. Your pulse is over ninety at this
minute, I bet you; and what we want here, above
everything, is a cool, calm hand, and a presence that
shall act as a moderator. A professional nurse is
required, and with your permission I will send a person
who will prove more efficacious than all my medicaments."
Sontheim readily acquiesced, but expressed a hope
that there would be no objection to his spending part of
his time with his sick friend.
"None whatever, none whatever," answered the
physician, as he quickly wrote, or rather dashed off, a
prescription, and then took up his hat; "but do not
keep too close about him--be in the next room if you
will. I assure you the physical influence of one person,
or even body, upon another is a thing far too little taken
account of in medical science. You are too electrical, too electrical by half," he added, nodding his head as he took his departure.
The nurse recommended by Dr. Furka entered upon
her functions within an hour of his leaving. She was a
woman of about thirty, in the garb of a sister of mercy;
so fair that she might have passed for an Albino, and
so noiseless in her movements that she stole upon you
unawares, like a moonbeam almost. This lady, in her
scrupulously neat black dress, with her pale hair tightly
gathered under a small white cap, now began administering
to Emanuel a dose of the medicine that had
just arrived.
Sontheim, after exchanging a few words with her
about the patient, seeing his friend in such good hands,
now left him, in order to seek some rest himself.
Some days passed without any change for the better
in the musician's most precarious state.
It was terrible to see this man fighting with the
spectral delusions of fever. The teeming fancies of his
naturally imaginative brain seeming to turn upon and
rend him as the fabled hounds did Actæon.
In his delirium Mina and the snow-bride were being
constantly confounded, while the sun, assuming the
shape and aspect of a blood-red, bloated spider, shot
out flaming threads near and nearer towards the spot
where she stood, till the heated air grew thick and
suffocating like molten lead. Then, like another Atlas,
he would frantically exert himself to keep that burning
cobwebbed sky from falling down on the earth; but,
behold, his arms shrivelled up like blazing straw, and
before his very eyes he saw his lovely, snow-white love,
outshining the morning in fairness, melting, melting away, like a waxen image dissolving in flame.
But again and again this unwedded bride would
return. He would hear her knocking, knocking, knocking,
in the winter's night, piteously crying upon him to
unbar his door and let her in; and, behold, his feet had
turned to stone, and he could not move, oh he could
not move, frantic though his efforts were, as her faint
wail, like that of an outcast child crying in the night,
"Hast thou quite, quite forgotten me!" would reach his
ears.
Then suddenly she stood by his bedside without a
head, and the moon was shining through her diaphanous
form, and he could see the heart in her bosom like a
clock, and hear it ticking, ticking, ticking, through the
ghostly silence; but the hour-hands marked the pangs
his love had inflicted instead of time. Suddenly it
stopped, for the spring broke, and the head and face
and eyes of Antonella laughed at him with insolent
triumph from Mina's figure; and her compelling arms
choked even in enlacing him as she whispered, "Time
is over; now, love, let us love each other throughout
eternity;" and then he himself was metamorphosed
into a fly, struggling in the web that enmeshed him in
a living death.
The news of the wedding turned into a funeral, of
the mysteriously awful death of the intended bride, of
the precarious state of her betrothed, spread like wildfire
through the little town. Nothing could stem the
tide of gossip, nor the fabulous and wildly-conflicting
stories that were rife in all quarters.
No one, however, connected the Countess Ogotshki,
the wealthy Russian widow, who had been staying in the
hotel "Zum Englischen Hof," with the tragedy in the
Silberstrasse. No one had seen her enter or leave the
house on that Christmas Eve, and she went away on
the following day without stating the place of her
destination; so that Sontheim, who had rushed there in a
state of frantic distraction to gather further particulars
from her as to what had passed between herself and the
unhappy girl on that fatal evening of the twenty-fourth,
was completely baffled.
Owing to Emanuel's terrible state, he had found it
impossible to have any explanation on the matter--though
all explanations could avail nothing now; but
he felt morally convinced that matters had stood even
as his friend had represented them to him, though he
did not, or would not, admit to himself even yet, how
far the Countess Ogotshki might have been deluded or
deluding. But his state of mind for the present was
one of great wretchedness. He felt that he had
committed a piece of signal treachery, in that he had not
gone straight to his friend after the accusations that
had been made, and, in taxing him with them, given him
a chance of self-defence. In that case this terrible
catastrophe would never have occurred, in all human
probability. This reflection was acutely painful to the
Professor; indeed, his conscience whispered that had
he not been so blindly enamoured of this woman, he
would probably not have yielded such absolute credence
to what she had told him--and yet--and yet--he still
shrank from accusing her of having wilfully misled him
and Mina. He still hoped and longed that much might
be cleared up to her credit and his own as far as she was concerned, and lift this burden of self-reproach from his mind. In this state of gnawing uncertainty concerning her, joined to intense anxiety for his sick friend, and the envenomed grief for Mina's death, he had at present to remain.
Frau Lichtenfeld, when she had recovered from the
first violence of her grief, which being of a vociferous
nature spent itself all the more rapidly, put everything
down in a vague manner to the ill-luck of the Lichtenfelds
generally: it was like the bankruptcy and the rest
of it. And then, alas! or perhaps luckily for her, the
preoccupation with the necessary mourning to be
provided for a family of five, besides herself, acted as a
safety-valve for her feelings.
An inquiry had of course been instituted before
the proper Court, and in the report that was drawn
up, "found frozen" was the only explanation given.
Two days afterwards Mina Lichtenfeld, the child of
eighteen, was buried beside the grandmother of eighty-six.
Many were the ladies of rank and fashion (such as
the place contained) who drove up in their carriages to
inquire after the great musician's state of health. Every
day, at this unseasonable time of year, there arrived
splendid gifts of fruits and flowers, although it must be
confessed that the irritable doctor often threw the
latter out of the window, saying that they might as well
poison his patient at once as send those night-polluting
hothouse flowers.
Every morning there arrived amongst the
much abused nosegays one of unusual magnificence,
composed solely of roses. Oddly enough, it seemed as though they varied with the varying symptoms of the fever. When the malady was at its worst they were of a mortuary white, and as the severity of the illness diminished or augmented they changed from cream-colour to pale pink or crimson, as it were out of sympathy. No one could find out where they came from, but they must have cost the donor something like a small fortune.
One evening, about a fortnight after the terrible blow
his patient had sustained, Dr. Furka went away, and, to
Sontheim's great relief, pronounced Emanuel to be, as
he believed, out of all danger. He assured the Professor
that nature had made a colossal effort in conquering
the disease, and that though his friend might still ramble
in talk and see imaginary forms, there was no cause
for alarm, as his fancy was naturally more vivid than
that of ordinary people.
Sister Marie, who had hardly ever been out of the
sick-room, asked leave therefore to go on an errand for
a couple of hours, and Leopold Sontheim agreed to
stay in the adjoining apartment till her return. But
the wear and tear of constant anxiety, the watching at
night, and the hopeless passion, futile regret, and vague
surmises which he devoured in silence, had begun to tell
on the Professor too. So he threw himself on the sofa,
and fell unawares into a kind of doze.
Just as Sister Marie opened the front door, a tall,
imposing lady in deep mourning was coming up the
steps of the Pavilion, and asked the nurse how the
patient was. She then said, in low broken tones, that
she was a relative, who, although ill herself and en route
for Italy, had stopped on her way, and would give anything could she only see the sick man for half an hour. Sister Marie was not a little embarrassed as to what she ought to do--fearful lest the sick man should be excited, and yet unwilling to refuse a request the lady seemed to have so much at heart.
"He is asleep now," she said, in a hesitating voice.
"I would not wake him," replied the lady; "indeed
I would only look to see with my own eyes how my
cousin is, and then proceed on my journey, as I have no
time to lose."
"In that case," answered the nurse, "I have not the
heart to refuse you; but please, Madame, not to excite
him, as you care for your relative's life, for he has only
just turned the corner."
Thus, holding the door open for the lady to enter, she
went on her way.
With a hesitating, gliding step the stranger entered,
casting cautious glances around her, and then very
noiselessly she sat down, at the foot end of the bed, on
a chair that stood very much in shadow, for there was
only a dim lamp burning in the sick-room.
When, she caught sight of the sleeping man's face,
however, she could only with the utmost difficulty, apparently,
repress the hysterical sobbing that rose to her throat.
He looked indeed terribly emaciated--the bony framework
of his features showing through the drawn, sallow
skin, and his hair, his beautiful thickly clustering hair,
had grown quite grey. It was as if years and years had
passed over his head in those few weeks.
The horrified stare with which she looked at him
seemed to have magnetism in it, for the sleeper grew
restless, turned upon his pillow with a sigh, and quite unexpectedly opened his hollow eyes and stared upon her in his turn. He did not utter a sound, however; he evidently considered her as one of his fevered visions, and with a gesture of loathing he quickly covered his face with his hands.
Antonella started from her chair, and, falling on her
knees by the bedside, said faintly--
"Oh, forgive me, forgive me, Emanuele, I meant not
to do her any harm. Let me stay and take care of you!
Only say that you forgive me!" she sobbed.
"Is it--no, it cannot be--you would not--you dare not
show your face here!" cried Emanuel faintly, suddenly
rising up in bed and looking at her with wild eyes almost
starting from their sockets, still doubtful whether this
was the creature of his diseased brain, or a detested
reality. "It is all, all coming back," he then moaned,
striking his forehead; "the horror, the----"
"Hear me--only hear me! I am that Tolla, indeed,
whom you once loved," sobbed Antonella; "let me
explain, let me justify myself; do not condemn me
unheard--even a criminal has that right! Say, what
have I done? Could I know that you were going to
be married when I came to this place after the Count's
death? Remember I had been living here before--had
come here, indeed, because it was your birthplace and
had memories connected with you; and then I had made
a friend of her."
Emanuel, who had sunk back on the pillow overcome
with weakness, started up once more, and the
expression in his eyes would have frightened a more
timid woman from the room, for he looked as though
he would throttle her if he could. But she persisted in saying--"Nay, hear me, only hear me, Emanuele! I came to see her, ignorant that she was to be married to you; and in the surprise, the bitterness of the discovery, the secret escaped me in spite of myself--or I would never, never have breathed it to her, although I love you myself as no other woman can," she cried, moving a step nearer, as though to cast her arms round his neck; but he, with a frantic effort raising himself on one elbow, lifted his other arm with the strength of desperation and flung her from him like some poisonous creature, crying hoarsely, "Murderess, avaunt! However it has come to pass, before God, her blood is on your head! Oh, I could throttle the life out of you," he groaned, flinging his arms in the air and trying to rise, but falling back a second time on his pillow.
"Kill me! Kill me, if you like!" she exclaimed,
with gleaming eyes, coming near once more, and offering
him a dagger in her outstretched hand, while she
looked the picture of despair. "Death were better far
at your hands than such words as these--nay, if you
but bid me, I will kill myself--for without you,
Emanuele, life is worse than a thousand deaths. You,
you alone, are the desire of my eyes, and the breath of
my life, and my hope of hereafter; if I have sinned, it
has been for your sake, and for your sake I would be
damned eternally! Say, only say, that you will let me
stay with you--or if not--nay, look not daggers at me,
for this dagger shall accomplish what you wish!"
She raised the weapon in the air with a flourish,
then aimed it at her heart. Emanuel screamed feebly:
the door flew open, Sontheim burst into the room, and
striding up to Antonella, violently struck the blade out of her hands, muttering with a deep imprecation, "Will you kill him next?"
For a moment the two eyed each other in silence,
with all the intensity of concentrated rage.
Sontheim, who, with bated breath, had for some
time been an involuntary listener, could scarcely trust
himself to speak owing to the frightful revulsion of his
feelings.
His love had, indeed, in that short time, turned to
burning hatred; and on discovering how utterly he
had been this woman's dupe, he could only point to the
door in silence.
But she faced and braved him resolutely, even yet
determined to fight her ground inch by inch.
"He is mine!" she cried; "I have the best right to
be here--I am his wife."
But Emanuel, seized afresh with delirium, suddenly
threw himself out of bed, and in his white night-shirt,
with glaring eyes and lifted hand, came rushing towards
her, crying--
"Get thee behind me, Satan."
His gaunt appearance, attenuated frame, and grey,
shaggy hair, with the horror as of madness in his look
and accent, were so dreadful, that the woman fled,
screaming, out into the wintry night.
When Emanuel was quite recovered he visited the
grave of his dead bride, where, for the first time, his
sorrow vented itself in tears. There he ordered a tombstone
to be erected of the whitest marble, with nothing,
besides the name, but the word "Resurgam" to be
engraved on it in letters of gold; and violets to be
planted there, only white and purple violets, such as
she had held when first she gleamed upon him in the
vernal wood.
By and by the old round of his life had to be resumed
once more. The constant claims made by art on any
man devoted to its service, especially when that art is music, do not suffer him to yield himself up to sorrow, however strong and abiding that sorrow may be. It must sooner or later become as the muffled under-current of a constant flowing in of fresh effort, care, triumph, even delight--for without that there can be no creative work, or great performance of any kind; and yet beneath this luxuriant sprouting forth of new life a heart may lie in ruins.
Once more the celebrated virtuoso hurried from
capital to capital, from concert-room to concert-room,
and his advent wherever he appeared drove the multitude
half-wild with enthusiasm. His mastery of the
violin had, indeed, become something almost incredible
and savoured of morbidity. New chords, unknown
accents, secrets, and miracles of music, seemed to
spring into being under his fingers. And his very
appearance heightened the spell exercised by his art.
He resembled an apparition rather than a man, and
his long, snow-white, floating hair, bloodless face, and
haunted-looking eyes, riveted the attention before the
bow fell on the strings.
But what availed the enthusiasm of the multitude
when again and again one face and form would emerge
from among the crowd and poison the very air for him?
Wherever he might be--in Leipzig or London, Breslau
or Berlin, or Madrid, on the banks of the Neva or
those of the Danube--presently, as he played, his eyes,
amidst the indistinguishable throng, would light upon
a tall, lean woman, still conspicuous in her ruined
beauty, whose cheeks, as the months rolled by, grew
gradually more sunken and rouged, whose eyes gleamed
with ever unsteadier fire, and whose attire by degrees became tawdry even to shabbiness.
At last, the sight of this person filled the virtuoso
with such physical repulsion and anguish, that he
began to hate the concerts and musical festivals, at
which he knew beforehand that he should be
confronted by the colourless face, with the wavering eyes
constantly meeting his. This feeling became so
uncontrollable at last, that playing itself grew hateful to
him, and suddenly, to the amazement and vexation of
a world that idolized him, it was announced once for all
that Emanuel Sturm would never again appear in public.
The Countess Antonella Ogotshki from that day
forth sank ever lower in the social scale, till she
disappeared in the most disreputable circles in Paris, the
associate of gamblers and sharpers. The wealth for
which she had betrayed herself as well as the man she
loved, had not been suffered to remain long in her hands.
It is true that Count Wenceslaw Ogotshki, after
learning from his wife herself in a fit of ungovernable
rage that he had been doubly betrayed, was yet so
blindly enamoured and dishonourably weak, that
although slowly dying from the effects of the corroding
shame inflicted on him, he yet recalled her to his side,
forgave her, and when in a state of semi-dotage was so
overcome by her witcheries and the new version she
gave him then of her conduct, that on his death he
bequeathed to her the whole of his enormous property.
And all might have ended there happily enough for
the Countess had she but been able to bide quiet for a
year or two, and to wear her weeds with some decorum
or appearance of sorrow; for the will was too plain
and straightforward for her husband's relatives to dare dispute it.
But a demon possessed Antonella Ogotshki. The
more unattainable Emanuel Sturm's love became, the
more frantically did she desire it; vanity, caprice and
obstinacy, stubborn passion and a morbid, hysterical
temperament--over which so early in life the despotism
of this man's genius had, as it were, asserted itself--all
conspired to make it appear to her that the
goal in life was to reconquer and enslave him afresh.
But when, after getting back the fatal ring from
Mina and instituting secret inquiries, she found that
he thought to wed another, her fury knew no bounds;
nor would she at first have recoiled from murdering
one of the three. If she did not; the wish of her
heart at least assumed an outward form which bore
fruit.
Her movements at that time, however, could not be
kept a secret. Rumours got abroad, and her husband's
relatives, incensed at being defrauded of what they
considered their rightful inheritance, watched her only too
narrowly. She could not stir an inch, say a word,
write a letter, without its coming to their ears, for her
maid, who hated her, was a paid spy in their service.
They at last got wind of this early doubtful marriage
in Rome; they moved heaven and earth to prove it a
legal one, and as she herself had declared it to be such
to Leopold Sontheim, whose evidence was of great
importance, the Emperor of Russia pronounced a decree
of exile against her, confiscated her estates, and
deprived her of every rouble of the wealth she so dearly
prized.
Emanuel, when he retired from the world--for he did
so completely on giving up playing in public--bought
himself a half-dilapidated but noble Italian palazzo,
situated amidst the Volscian hills, not far from the
ruined town of Norba. A wilder, a more melancholy
site, it would have been difficult to fix upon perhaps
anywhere in the world; but it suited the musician's
mood, and there he lived secluded as a monk of old.
A rough path skirted by precipices led to his abode--perched
like an eagle's nest on the giddy verge which
terminated the ascent; and eagles, indeed, might often
be seen soaring majestically above these sublime and
solitary summits. From here an immense panorama
stretched out far below into a distance as remote as the
world which he had left behind him. His eye embraced
the encircling sea with its flower-like islands, and the
vast sweep of coast skirted by miles and miles of
dusky forest land, and the endlessly rolling verdure
of the Pontine marshes, gleaming with many a star-like
lake and silver stream, and dotted with the time-worn
towers and storied ruins of past centuries.
With the large fortune which the virtuoso had
amassed in the course of years, he was enabled to fit
up this old mansion as a palace of art in its way.
Pictures by old and new masters adorned the walls;
the modern French romantic school, Delaroche, Delacroix,
and his own friend Leroux, being especially well
represented, Oddly enough, owing to its want of colour
perhaps, he had a whimsical and most unpatriotic horror
of the last new Romano-German school of painting;
but his instinct was so subtle, that many of the sketches
of Renaissance or recent times which he then collected,
must since have become of almost priceless value. In the finely-proportioned hall and on the curved staircase, wood carvings and sculptured marbles alternated with orange and lemon trees, in tall pots of coloured Italian ware; and tapestries, whose half-faded colours, dear to the connoisseur--yet evinced their original boldness of design--decorated spaces of which the old frescoes were obliterated, and replaced or concealed the doors. The furniture, if neither abundant nor the most noticeable part of the collection, was still conspicuous for quaint variety and old-fashioned beauty, and was supplemented everywhere by musical instruments of every epoch and variety, from the most primitive flutes and bagpipes to gigantic lutes and delicate mandolins of exquisite Italian and Spanish workmanship, and pianos from the earliest virginals and spinets to the latest perfection of Broadwood, on which to try his chromatic effects; added to this was a library stocked with the rarest old music and with curious folk-songs, to which Emanuel was very partial, he having began collecting these himself in his many rambles amidst the wild recesses of the mountains he inhabited.
Two trusted male domestics, moving noiselessly about
their work, sufficed to keep this Patmos of art in
sufficient order. Nor was the musician utterly secluded
from human intercourse, though his door was strictly
guarded from the invasion of idle curiosity-mongers
and lion-hunters, who not unfrequently besieged it in
spite of the remoteness of the place. For having
disappeared from amidst the scene of his former triumphs
in the very zenith of his reputation, he had well-nigh
become a legendary character during his lifetime, and
in distant countries he was even said to have played two wives to death by his violin.
Tourists at all bitten with the musical mania,
especially if American, would lie in wait for hours to
get a sight of his face, or even of his back, being of
opinion, no doubt, that to see a celebrity even from
behind is a sop to curiosity. But if by any chance,
from some ambush or other, they could catch the
sound of his own inimitable violin playing, however
faintly a casual breeze might waft the sounds to them
from some upper window, their rapture would know no
bounds, and the report of what they had heard gradually
increased in proportion to the distance between them.
But to all true musicians and lovers of music, who
came to him from the most distant parts of the world,
Emanuel would still display his vaunted charm of
manner and the witchcraft of his bow.
Amongst others, his old friend Leopold Sontheim--who
had taken part in the Revolution of '48, but
after some years' imprisonment been pardoned--paid
him occasional visits during the summer months. Sontheim
was not yet married, though going on for fifty,
and one of the results of his last visit had been that
Emanuel determined to provide for the education and,
settlement in life of Frau Lichtenfeld's two youngest
sons, Conrad and Otto, who, according to Sontheim,
were clever lads--the former having a certain faint
resemblance to one who was no more, and both bent,
much to their mother's disgust and remonstrance, on
devoting themselves to the study of the natural sciences;
whereas Wolfgang and Hans, like true "mother sons,"
had evinced their common sense by giving up all thoughts
of such "breadless" studies, and began life as commercial travellers in a highly respectable mercantile firm. Lulu, too, walked dutifully in the maternal footsteps, and promised soon to bestow the blessings of her thrift and tongue (the latter being the only thing of which she was by no means thrifty) on Lieutenant Knapp, who had been promoted to the rank of captain, and who, it was to be hoped, would duly appreciate the blessing of her housewifely qualities.
The musician provided Sontheim with a letter of
credit to a banker in D----, empowering him to draw
such a sum or sums as would enable the two young
men to prosecute their studies at the University of
Heidelberg, which was then even more noted for its
courses in physiology and comparative anatomy than
for the slashes which its students bestowed on each
other's noses. Emanuel, moreover, promised to
befriend these two brothers in their career when they
should leave the university.
Dr. Furka, of whom the reader may perhaps have
occasion to hear again, had also found time to pay his
former patient a visit during Professor Sontheim's stay
there. While sitting together one moonlight evening
on the terrace overlooking the magnificent view
described above, the conversation happened to turn on
the primitive manners of the Italian peasant, when the
man of science could not resist this opportunity of
probing Emanuel concerning the Tarantismo or dancing
mania, in spite of having his toes trodden upon and
being frowned at by Sontheim.
The musician winced visibly at having his past
history touched upon; but once launched, and stimulated
by the influences of the hour, he confided to the doctor all his experience on this subject.
The latter, who had listened intently, after smoking
for some time in silence, said: "The only way in
which I can at all reconcile the extraordinary phenomenon,
of which you are probably the last authentic
witness, with the possibilities of nature, is, that what
you saw was nothing but one of the protean
manifestations of hysteria working on a survival of the
superstition common in Italy during the seventeenth
century. Since having my attention called to it, I
have been studying 'Ferdinando,' who in his time
wrote an exhaustive treatise on this subject, and I
myself think of including the results of these investigations
in a book on nervous affections which I have long
been meditating."
Emanuel, impressed by the doctor's peculiar insight
into the occult workings of the human machine, could
not help delicately hinting the surprise he felt at his
not having made a greater mark in his profession; but
Dr. Furka only shrugged his shoulders, saying, with a
short laugh: "Though I may understand a little more
than some do of the mechanism of human nature, I
cannot play on it, you see; no, I cannot play on it--and
that's the science of sciences, and the art of arts,
if you will. The fact is," he continued, "that, as often
as not, I have no patience with my patients, and then
I must out with it; or if not, my manner suffices! I
act on the reverse plan to hating the sin and loving
the sinner, for, while devoted to the study of a disease,
I half the time contemn the person who is its subject,
for I know well that were it not for self-indulgence,
sloth, greed, and drunkenness, and all such low sensualism, half the ailments by which we doctors live would vanish like smoke. Unfortunately these vices do not always exact retribution from the sinner chiefly concerned, but they will send in their unpaid bills even unto the third and fourth generation, as the Bible hath it.
"On the other hand, there are the sick that I almost
venerate, that I willingly would treat for nothing, if
necessary--such as the diseases incident on maternity,
and those maladies I dub heroic, to which the toilers of
the brain daily lay themselves open by a too constant
concentration of all the juices and nerve-forces on a
given point. Talk of Christian martyrs, indeed! Daily
around us there are young men who have as certainly
sacrificed their lives in a too ardent pursuit of an art
or a science as if they had gone to the stake. I could
name dozens to you, but indeed your own experience
must be much vaster than mine----"
"Oh yes," said the musician, with a sad smile, "I
could amply illustrate what you are saying from my
own profession alone. One in particular I remember, a
glorious French fellow he was, a boy almost, who fell
an early victim to the passion of music. He was
warned, told that he must give up his excessive study
and practice of the pianoforte, or die, in all probability.
He replied with utter insouciance, like Napoleon's old
guard, 'On meurt mais on ne se rend pas!'"
But the man who came to see Emanuel oftenest, and
ever was most welcome, was his old comrade Raoul
Leroux, now a close-shaven, dignified man of the
world, with grey moustache, and a tightly buttoned-up
black coat, with the rosette of the legion of honour so coveted by his younger rivals. He, indeed, was the only person ever fully admitted to Emanuel's confidence. Their common devotion to art, which though different in its manifestations is the same at root, bound them with the closest ties of fellowship, and the very opposition of their temperaments seemed to form a fresh bond between them. Towards Emanuel, indeed, Raoul sometimes manifested a care, a tenderness, such as no one else would have suspected in the gay, brilliant, energetic Frenchman, who now served as a link between the secluded musician and the select few who still obtained access to him--the Pope himself having been known to send complimentary messages on some of his latter compositions through the same channel.
For on ceasing to be a virtuoso, Emanuel, so far
from abandoning his art, devoted himself more
assiduously to the higher flights of composition. He
might be said to have struck out a new vein in a
certain dramatically-musical development of the symphony--and
there was an upward soaring, heaven-aspiring
quality in some of this later work, suggesting those
rapt Madonnas which the Italian painters loved to
depict as borne aloft on a cloud of love-illumined seraph
faces. Indeed, you might have thought yourself listening
to a picture of Raphael's, if a picture of Raphael
had sound in it.
This was Emanuel's musical rendering of her whose
loss had altered the current of his career. The
pure-hearted, angel-eyed child was not really dead to him;
she lived, she moved, she floated an adorable presence
athwart the woven chords and harmonies thrown off
in ever more transcendent beauty from the composer's brain. Death had crystallized her into his ideal: whereas, had she lived, the coarse and common place requirements of everyday existence might possibly have dispelled some of the tender bloom of his first feelings--he now loved in her the very fountain-head of his inspiration. It seemed to him as though her lovely soul had verily breathed its heavenly innocence into his compositions!
No, she could never pass away--for, like those gossamer
creatures of a summer's day, which we sometimes
marvel at seeing embalmed, with every fibre yet intact,
in the imperishable spar or amber--even thus the
quintessence of her being had passed into music:
music which at last altogether ceased to be the medium
of personal desire and became the purest expression of
the blended yearning of infinite human hearts, flame-like
aspiring towards that sublimation of love and
beauty and delight which has haunted our vision since
the dawning of man, and which the universal heart
expresses in the words--"I shall arise again!"
THE END.
UNWIN BROTHERS, THE GRESHAM PRESS, CHILWORTH AND LONDON.