Quisisana; or, Rest at Last
by Friedrich Spielhagen · English · Gutenberg #34764 · 518,754 chars · public domain (US)
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Title: Quisisana; or, Rest at Last
Author: Friedrich Spielhagen
Translator: H. E. Goldschmidt
Release date: December 27, 2010 [eBook #34764]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/34764
Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUISISANA; OR, REST AT LAST ***
Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by the Web Archive
Transcriber's Note:
1. Page scan source:
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031341906
2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].
Q U I S I S A N A
OR
REST AT LAST
From the German of F. Spielhagen
BY
H. E. GOLDSCHMIDT
ONLY TRANSLATION SANCTIONED BY THE AUTHOR AND BY
THE INTERNATIONAL LITERARY ASSOCIATION
NEW YORK:
JAMES B. MILLAR & CO., PUBLISHERS.
1885.
TROW'S
PRINTING AND BOOKBINDING COMPANY,
NEW YORK.
QUISISANA.
I.
"Why have you roused me, Konski?"
"You were lying on your left side again, sir," the servant, who held
his master clasped by the shoulder, replied, as he completed the task
of restoring him to a sitting posture on the sofa; "and you have been
drinking champagne at dinner, more than a bottle, John says, and that
surely is ..."
Konski broke off abruptly, and turned again to the travelling boxes,
one of which was already unlocked; he commenced to arrange its contents
in the chest of drawers, and went on, apparently talking to himself
rather than to his master--
"I am merely doing what the doctor has insisted upon. Only last night,
in Berlin, as I was showing him to the door, he said: 'Konski, when
your master is lying on his left side and begins then to moan, rouse
him, rouse him at once, be it day or night. I take the responsibility.
And, Konski, no champagne; not for the next six weeks, anyhow, and best
not at all. And when you have once got into Italy, then plenty of water
to be mixed with the wine, Konski, and ...'"
"And now oblige me by holding your tongue."
Bertram had remained sitting on the sofa, his hand pressed to his brow;
he now rose rapidly and strode impatiently about the room, casting
every now and then an angry glance at his valet. Then he stepped to one
of the windows. The sun must be setting now. The high wooded hills
yonder still shone forth in sunny splendour, but the terrace gardens
sloping towards the valley, and the valley itself, with the village
within, lay already in deepest shadow. The picturesque view, the
graceful charm of which he was wont to appreciate so heartily, had no
charm to-day for his dulled brain. Konski was quite right; the
champagne which he had to-day taken for the first time since his
illness, in direct defiance of the doctors injunctions, had not agreed
with him. Well, he had taken champagne because his throat had got
unbearably dry from much talking, and he had talked so much because the
frequent pauses in the dinner conversation were making him nervous. The
whole thing had been a positive bore; the genial host, the fair hostess
had surely fallen off, changed sadly for the worse during the last
three years. Or ... could he possibly have changed himself? Did he
really begin to grow old? If you get seriously ill at fifty, you are
apt to go downhill with startling rapidity!
This had been the second emphatic _memento mori_--after an interval of
twenty years! The first--the first had been her work. Aye, and she had
kissed him a thousand times, and had vowed deathless fidelity yonder on
the mountain-slope, where the giant oak still lifted its mighty crown
of foliage above the bronze-coloured leafy roof of the beeches. Why the
deuce did they always give him these rooms? He'd better ask Hildegard
this very evening for other rooms--at once, before that blockhead
Konski had unpacked everything.
"Leave these things alone," he exclaimed, turning round from the
window; "I do not intend to remain in these rooms. I do not intend to
stay here at all, I think. We shall probably be off to-morrow."
Konski, who was already deep in the recesses of box number two,
believed he had not heard aright. He lifted his head out of the box and
looked in amazement at his master.
"To-morrow, sir? I thought we were to stay a week at the least."
"Do what I bid you."
Konski replaced, the shirts which he was holding in the portmanteau and
rose hastily from his knees. His master was evidently in a very bad
temper; "but that kind of thing never lasts long with him," Konski was
saying to himself, "and then the champagne ..."
Aloud he said--
"You can be sure, sir, that there won't be much trouble about the
officers who are going to be quartered here. I know all about it from
Mamsell Christine. Only a colonel, a major, a couple of captains, and
some six lieutenants or so, and perhaps a surgeon-major. None of our
princes, and certainly none of theirs. A mere handful for a large place
like this; they'll be lost, like currants in a bun. And you can remain
in these rooms, where we always have been, and you'll see none of them,
for I don't suppose they'll have this blessed man[oe]vre in the garden
below."
"I do not know at, all what you want with your everlasting
man[oe]vres," Bertram exclaimed angrily.
He had gone back, to the open window, through which there came a strong
current of air. Konski went and closed the door of the adjoining room,
then stepped up to within a certain respectful distance of his master,
and said modestly, lowering his voice--
"I beg your pardon, sir, but what does it matter, after all, if Miss
really comes ..."
"What do you mean?" Bertram said without turning round. "What has that
to do with my going or staying? Why should the little one not come?"
Konski rubbed up his stiff black hair with a certain sly smile, and
said--
"Not Miss Erna; the other lady--who is never allowed to come when you
are here."
"Lydia? Fraeulein von Aschhof? Are you mad?"
Bertram turned round with the rapidity of lightning, and now uttered
these words in a rough tone, whilst his eyes, generally so gentle,
shone out in great anger. Konski was frightened; but his curiosity was
greater than his terror. He would gladly have at last learned the real
truth about the young lady who was not allowed to come when his master
came on a visit to Rinstedt, and whom he had therefore never yet seen,
although in the course of years he had accompanied his master half a
dozen times. But he was once more doomed to disappointment; his master
had suddenly become perfectly calm again, or at least preserved the
appearance of perfect calmness, and now asked in his usual voice--
"From whom have you got your information? Of course from Mamsell
Christine?"
"From Mamsell Christine, of course," Konski made answer.
"And she got it from My Lady?"
"From her Ladyship direct."
"And when is the lady expected to arrive?"
"This very evening, along with Miss Erna; and there will also come a
Baron Lutter or Lotter--I could not quite make the name out; they
pronounce things so queerly here in Thuringia."
"Well, well!"
Bertram now remembered that Hildegard, his hostess, had at table
mentioned more than once the name of the Baron von Lotter-Vippach. Of
Lydia, too, although he made it a point never to be drawn into
conversation about her, she had again and again commenced to speak;
clearly, as he perceived now, with the intention of preparing him to
some extent for the intended surprise. But My Lady had reckoned without
her host. This was a downright want of consideration; nay, worse, it
was a breach of good faith. There was no reason why he should put up
with it, and he did not mean to put up with it.
"Where's the master? and where is My Lady?" he asked aloud.
"The master has ridden over to the coal mines; her Ladyship has gone
into the village. They left word that they would be back before you
were awake again; and you had not lain down on your left ..."
"That'll do. Into the village, did you say? Give me my hat."
"Please take your overcoat too, sir," said Konski; "there's a nasty
mist rising from the valley, sir; and the doctor, he did say that if
you caught cold now, sir ..."
Bertram had put his hat on, and waived the proffered garment back. In
the doorway he turned, and said--
"Do not trouble about the boxes. We leave again in an hour. And one
thing more. If you say one word to Mamsell Christine, or to anybody in
the house, now or later--you understand me--and I hear of it--we
part--for all that."
He had left. Konski was now standing by the open window scratching his
head, and the very next minute he saw him striding swiftly down the
garden.
"Upon my word!" he murmured; "who'd think that six weeks ago he lay at
the point of death?--And off this evening again--an hour hence! Not if
I knows it. First, I must settle my little business with Christine, and
that is not to be done all at once. Christine says that at that time
the Fraeulein would have nothing to say to him. I can't make it out.
Twenty years ago he must have been a very handsome fellow; why, he is
so almost still. Nor was he a poor man even then, though, of course, he
has inherited lots since. I am devilish keen about seeing the old maid.
One thing is sure and certain, she will arrive this very evening."
Then he cast one dubious look at the boxes. Perhaps it was taking
needless pains to unpack them.
"But, but--he'll surely think better of it--he is not the one to run
away from any woman, even if she should number forty years or
thereabout; and--and ..."
And so the faithful Konski, after having given a most incredulous shake
of the head, set to work, and continued to unpack his master's
travelling boxes.
II.
Meanwhile Bertram, had already crossed the bridge which spanned the
brook at the bottom of the garden terrace, and was hurrying along to
the village along the line of meadows. His hostess, Hildegard, had said
at dinner that she meant to-day, like every Thursday afternoon, to
visit her newly-founded Kindergarten; so he thought there would be no
difficulty in finding her. He had been a frequent visitor at Rinstedt,
and knew every lane in the village; and the Kindergarten, they said,
was on the main road, not far from the parsonage. Well, and what did he
mean to say to Hildegard when he met her? First, of course, make sure
of the facts. But there was little need for that. Konski was a smart
fellow, who was not likely to have made a mistake; and then he was on
such excellent terms with the omniscient Mamsell Christine! He would
ask her what had induced her to break through the agreement to which
she had now adhered for the last twenty years. And yet--what a needless
question! Why, women are never consistent! And in such things they
always like to assist each other and work into each other's hands, even
if they are by no means specially fond of each other. And now it seemed
as if there were special fondness between these two. His beautiful
hostess had, quite contrary to her wont, sung Lydia's praises in every
possible variety of way! And then, take the fact that she had sent her
own daughter to Lydia's _pension_, and had left the girl there in the
small _Residenz_ for three years. Poor Erna! Fancy her for three years
under the care of that crazy woman! Poor Erna--the beautiful creature
with the great, deep, blue eyes! That should never have happened. It
was a positive insult to him. He had urged every argument against it;
had found out a supremely suitable place in Berlin for her; had offered
to undertake careful personal supervision; had urged them to confide
the child to his care, to give the child an opportunity of seeing
something of life under its larger, nobler aspect. And they had said
yes to everything; had thanked him so very much for his exertions, his
kindness; and at the last moment they had contentedly plumped back into
the beloved mire and stagnant waters of the pettiness of life in the
small _Residenz_. To be sure, My Lady herself had been brought up in
that social quagmire, and still cherished with plaintive delight
recollections of bygone splendour, and mourned in secret over her own
hard fate which had not permitted her, like Lydia, to sun herself all
the days of her life in the immediate rays of princely favour, but had
doomed her to marry a man who was not nobly born--a man rich enough,
forsooth, but bearing the unaristocratic name of Bermer, and having
friends of similarly unaristocratic names, to whom, for all that, one
had to be civil. Yes, a real Baron--a Baron von Lotter-Vippach--would,
of course, be infinitely preferable! And fancy her, fancy My Lady
forcing the Baron's company upon him after he had expressly urged that,
being only half convalescent, he needed perfect repose; and would, if
they were to have company in the house, rather in the meanwhile deny
himself the delight of seeing his old friends, and would come to them
in spring instead on his return from Italy!
Yes, something like this he would say to his beautiful hostess, in
perfect calmness and good temper, of course, only tinged with a touch
of finest irony.... And this new building by his side--why, it must
surely be the Kindergarten!
So it was. But the girl who was in charge of the children who were
playing on the garden-plot in front of the building, said to him, in
answer to his question, that My Lady had left half an hour ago; had
gone to the parsonage, she thought. A couple of boys who were running
about told him My Lady had gone to the village-mayor along with the
parson.
The mayor's farm was situated at the opposite end of the village.
Bertram started off in that direction, but before he had got half way
he bethought himself that the parson would probably walk back with
Hildegard, and that in that case he would of course have no opportunity
of speaking plainly to her. So he turned back, determined to wait for
her near the parsonage, which she was bound to pass on her way home.
And yet, how could he wait? He could not tell whether he would have
time left to carry out his intended flight; nay, every moment brought
Lydia nearer, every moment he must expect to see the carriage whirl her
past him where he stood. What? was he to stand here like this, and be
compelled to bow to her? Never! To the left a narrow lane led direct to
the forest, which, higher up, almost bordered on the mansion-house.
This road back was somewhat longer than the one he had come by, and was
steeper too; but anyhow it was much shorter than the carriage-drive,
for that branched off from the high road in the main valley at the
entrance to the side valley, thus intersecting the whole length of the
village, and ultimately wound its long serpentine road up the high hill
crowned by his friend's stately mansion. This way he would gain an
advance of a good half-hour anyhow. It was to be hoped that his friend
and host, Otto Bermer, had meanwhile returned from the coal mines; they
lay in the opposite direction. He'd make a clean breast of it to Otto,
and make Otto take his farewell compliments to My Lady. Poor Otto! "The
grey mare was the better horse," no doubt; and poor Otto would not
relish the task; but what was to be done? And did not he, Bertram,
anyhow enjoy the doubtful reputation of being selfishness incarnate!
Well, then, this done, they would swiftly get some conveyance or other
ready for him. If required, Konski could stay behind with boxes and
such-like impedimenta; and in two or three hours' driving, first
through the forest, to avoid the danger of meeting her, then along the
high road, he would reach Fichtenau. He was fond of Fichtenau. There he
would rest in that evergreen dale for a few days, and recover from the
fatigue of the journey and from this day's manifold annoyances. Anyhow,
he would have escaped from Lydia, have broken away from the snare which
those women had set for him! He owed this satisfaction to himself, and
perhaps the reflection would smooth the rough forest path he had now
entered upon.
For it was rough, was that path; much more so than he remembered it
being formerly. Much rougher and much steeper too; in fact, most,
most--abominably steep. Never mind; by following the tiny brooklet
which was murmuring in the glen by his side, and which fell into the
big brook in the valley below, he must speedily reach the little bridge
leading to the opposite side; and then a smooth, or at least a fairly
smooth, path would lead him on to the mansion.
What on earth could she have to do, she and the parson, at the mayor's?
Something, probably, about getting appropriate quarters for those who
were coming to the man[oe]vres; to be sure, My Lady, never idle, must
needs take an interest in everything! Or perchance it was some
charitable purpose, something for the sick, for the poor; in the
pursuit of such noble aims My Lady never spared herself now, that is
never since Royalty had set the example, and made it fashionable! And
anyhow, it was hardly polite, in one so uniformly polite as My Lady, to
leave the house and walk right away to the far end of the village with
one guest already in the house, and with other guests expected every
minute. Possibly--possibly My Lady was not unwilling to avoid the one
guest; and the others, to be sure, must needs drive past the mayor's
house. What more natural than, in such a case, to enter the carriage
that brought the new guests; whilst driving with them through the
village, what more simple than to give a confidential hint or two, just
the merest suggestion, as to the treatment of the bird which she had
captured--oh, so cleverly! No, no, My Lady--not captured yet ... not
yet!
But where was the little bridge? It ought to have appeared long ere
this. What! Climb down the steep glen, get your feet wet in the brook
below, and climb up again the opposite side? Perish the thought! Why,
everything seemed to go against him to-day!
At last. And a broad new bridge too. And pair fully rustic, with
elaborate rustic ornaments of curiously entwined and intertwisted tree
branches. And, worst of all, such a confounded bit higher up the stream
than where the old bridge had been.
And the path on the opposite side, too; new, new like the bridge, new
and fashionable, a regular promenade path; belonging, no doubt, to the
elaborate system of paths which his noble and beautiful hostess had for
years woven, like a complicated network, through the woods around. Of
course, like Charlotte in the "Elective Affinities," the fair
chatelaine must needs have that passion for beautifying everything;
like Charlotte, but not, oh dear! no, with any tender _penchant_ for
her husband's well-born friends. Well, well! He himself had never
doubted the unapproachable virtue of My Lady: what if she now, tried
her gentle hand ever so little at this, surely it was only the outcome
of the excessive goodness of her chaste, and cool, and philanthropic
heart.... Heart! ... And oh the wretched pain, the horrid, horrid
sensation in my own heart. Who the mischief could be philanthropical if
he felt like this? Perhaps this insane running and climbing has brought
on a relapse. The story might then close where it began, and fair Lydia
would come just in the nick of time to see that when people talk of a
broken heart, they are not necessarily talking nonsense.... What
rubbish, though! If my heart breaks, it will be because it has got some
organic fault, and because I took champagne when I should not have done
so.
He had dropped upon a bench by, the wayside, and there he crouched,
almost bent double, pressing his handkerchief to his mouth, to prevent
his moans from being heard in the silence of the darkening woods.
The attack passed away. Gradually the agonising pains grew less. With
the physical anguish much of the fierce passion into which he had
worked himself passed away too. In its stead he felt a terrible
heaviness, a dull languor in all his limbs, and there was a sort of
stupor about his brain.
Supposing it had given way, he mused. Fancy, sitting alone here in the
wood, a dead man, for goodness knows how long, and then terrifying a
poor wretch who chanced to pass this way first! This was not a pleasing
thought. But this anyhow would have been the worst. Death in itself he
did not dread. Why should he? Death was but the end of life. And life?
His life? If he could say that his living harmed no one, except perhaps
poor Konski whom he sometimes tormented by his wayward moods--yet, on
the other hand, it gladdened no one, least of all himself. The few poor
students or struggling artists would have their allowances paid out to
them for the time fixed, whether he lived on or not, and a few public
institutions were welcome to divide the residue between them. All that
would be settled in the shortest and most business-like manner. Never a
tear would be shed by any human being, unless perchance by old Konski.
But no; it was impossible to think of the good, easy-going fellow in
tears.
He was sitting at the foot of a spreading beech tree. A crow, perched
on the top, uttered a shriek.
Bertram looked up with a grim smile. "Patience!" he said.
But it was not on his account that the crow had uttered that cry, but
probably because somebody was approaching. He saw a lady coming down
the side-path which led from the forest direct to his bench. Again,
this convulsive pain at the heart! But he forced himself to look again;
and no, it was not Lydia. Lydia was taller, and her blonde hair was of
ashen hue; this lady's hair was dark, very dark. And the style of
walking, too, was different, very different: an easy, even, step,
making it appear as if she were floating down the somewhat steep path,
although he could see the movement of the feet beneath the light summer
dress. And now she had come quite close to him. She gave a little
start, for, gazing up to the shrieking crow, she had not noticed him,
and he had sprung up somewhat abruptly from the bench. But in a moment
she was collected again, and the flush faded as quickly from her cheek
as it had spread.
"Is, it possible?--Erna!"
"Uncle Bertram!"
There was something wondrously melodious in the voice, but not the
slightest trace of the glad emotion which he himself had experienced
which he himself had experienced on seeing his darling. His heart
contracted; he would fain have said: "You were wont to give me a
different reception;" but he blushed to face the young beauty as a
beggar, and letting, go her hands, he only said--
"You did not expect to find me here?"
"How could I?" was her reply.
"To be sure!" thought Bertram. "How could she? What a silly question of
mine!"
He knew not what next to say, and, in some embarrassment, he stood
silent. The crow above had been silent during the last half-minute or
so, and now commenced to croak, abominably. Both had involuntarily
gazed up; now they were, walking silently side by side along the path.
III.
The evening was closing in around them. Through the thick undergrowth
of wood which bordered the path on both sides but little light could
penetrate; overhead the leafy crowns of the beeches interlaced and
formed an almost continuous roof. At a certain abrupt declivity a few
rough steps had been placed.
"Will you take my arm. Uncle Bertram?" said Erna. It was the first word
spoken between them since, several minutes ago, minutes which had
weighed like lead upon Bertram, they had left the bench under the beech
tree.
"I was just going to put the same question to you," he replied.
"Thanks," said Erna. "I know every step here; but you--and then, you
have been ill."
This might, of course, have been meant in all friendliness; but there
was a coldness about the tone, something like giving alms, Bertram
thought.
"Have been," he made answer; "but quite well again--quite well."
"I understand you are going to Italy for the winter--for the sake of
your health."
"I am going to Italy because I hope I shall be rather less bored in
Rome than in Berlin--that is all."
"And suppose you are bored in Rome too?"
"You mean, bores are bored everywhere?"
"No, I do not mean that; indeed, it would have been most disagreeable
on my part had I meant anything of the kind. I only wanted to know
where people go to from Rome, if they desire still to travel on. To
Naples, I should say?"
"To be sure. To Naples, to Capri! In Capri there stands amidst orange
groves, with sublimest view of the blue infinity of the ocean, a fair
white hostelry, embowered in roses, Quisisana. Years ago I was there,
and I have longed ever since to be back again. _Qui si sana!_ What a
sound of comfort, of promise! _Qui si sana!_ Here one gets well! Even
those who ate fairly well, physically, have something to recover from.
Why, life itself--what is it but a long disease, and death its only
cure?"
Another pause. He had intended that there should be no new break in
their conversation and yet the very words he had just uttered, still
under the impulse of the invalid's peevish humour, were little likely
to induce the beautiful and taciturn girl by his side to talk. He
wanted to make heir talk. It never occurred to him that her silence was
due to a lack of ideas, or even to shyness. Quite the reverse. She
interested him more and more every moment, and he was strongly
impressed that he was dealing with a girl of marked individuality,
reposing securely in her own strength. Of her whom he had known and
loved as a child, and whose image he had cherished in fondest, truest
memory, never a trace!
"You know, Uncle Bertram, that you are going to see Fraeulein von
Aschhof--Aunt Lydia--to-night?" she resumed abruptly.
Bertram started. That name--from her, fair, chaste lips--had a doubly
hateful sound.
"I know," he answered; "not from your parents, but I know."
"They will have shrunk from telling you," Erna continued. "Mamma was
most reluctant to sanction Aunt Lydia's coming; but Aunt Lydia begged
so very hard to be allowed to see you once more, and she thought that
now, when you have been so very, very ill, and when you are going away
for such a long time, you might be in gentler mood. And yet she was
afraid to encounter you. She grew so nervous as we were driving along,
that I believe she was uncommonly near getting out and leaving us to
continue the journey without her. At last I could scarcely bear to
witness her uneasiness any longer, and I felt considerable relief when
I got out myself in order to walk across the hill--from Fischbach,
don't you know--and as I was coming along, I was debating whether, if I
reached home before them, I might not beg you to be a little friendly
towards auntie. You ... but I am not sure whether to go on ..."
"I beg you will do so."
"I only wanted to add: you owe it to her."
"Do I?"
"I should think so; for her only fault has been that she has loved you
and still loves you, and you ..."
"My dear child, I beg you will go on without any shyness. I am anxious,
very anxious, you should do so."
"And you ... left her, after you had been engaged for a whole year!"
"And then I wrote her a letter of renunciation, did I not? And the poor
forsaken one, in her despair, engaged herself within four-and-twenty
hours to Count Finkenburg, who had long been vainly suing for her hand?
And the old gentleman was so enchanted that scarce a week after he died
from rapture and paralysis combined, without even having time to
remember his fair bride in his will! Was it not so?"
"Let us change the topic, Uncle Bertram," Erna replied. "I hear from
your words and from your tone that you are excited, and I now feel
doubly how awkward I was in turning our talk, for auntie's sake, to a
subject I ought to know nothing of, and which I certainly should never
have mentioned."
"I cannot let you off like that, alas! my child," Bertram said in
reply. "I must still ask you from whom your information is derived.
From Fraeulein von Aschhof, of course?"
"I cannot find it unnatural," Erna said, "if Aunt Lydia, in the
excitement she has laboured under ever since your visit here was
announced, and since she determined to see you again, has unburdened
her overflowing heart to me, and has told me all which--or the greater
part of which--I knew or guessed. And she has urgently entreated me not
to repeat a word of this to you, and I am sure she is convinced that I
would do nothing of the kind. But I gave her no promise, for I have
always been very fond of you, Uncle Bertram, very, very fond; and I was
so sorry that you ... that I now could no longer be fond of you. I have
always in my heart taken your side, when they were saying that you were
cold and selfish, and cared for nobody but yourself. I have always
thought: he has never found any one worthy of him! And now I know all,
I should like to say: perhaps Aunt Lydia was not worthy of him either;
she has many qualities which I do not like at all--but she would surely
have turned out differently if you had not betr ... had not forsaken
her. How can a girl remain good, if she is forsaken by the man she
loves! How can she, if her heart is easily touched, become aught but a
coquette, and assume manners that people will laugh and jeer at; or, if
she be proud, and ashamed of her misfortune, she must needs grow cold
and heartless, and full of contempt for all men, nay, for all mankind!"
The calm, low voice had remained the same to the very last word, but in
striking contrast to that calm and that self-control there was the
passionate gleam of the great dark eyes, which now looked up to Bertram
with wondrous firmness, such as the ancients may have imagined the gaze
of the gods--"whose eyelids quiver not, like those of mortals."
The narrow path had widened to a glade; there they stood for a few
moments gazing in each other's eyes; and Bertram felt the fascination
of that wondrous firmness, felt, too, that no consideration could
condemn him to stand before those eyes as a contemptible wretch, and
that, at any cost, he must tear to pieces the dark curtain which
unscrupulous lies had woven and spread between her and him.
He took her arm, as though to make sure that she would not escape from
him, and, striding swiftly along, and almost dragging her with him, he
said--
"And now hear me, too, and despise me, if you still can do so after you
have heard me! Forsaken, did you say, forsaken and betrayed? Yea,
verily! But she it was who practised the treachery--most infamous, most
horrible treachery, with never the shadow of an excuse for it, if
indeed anything ever can excuse treachery. I loved her--I will not say
more than ever man did love--I know not how other men love--I only,
know, that I loved her with the best and purest strength, of my heart.
I was no longer a youth when, at your parents' wedding, I made the
acquaintance of your mother's friend. I was almost thirty years
of age, and was living, as you know, in Leipzig as a mere private
scholar--_Privat-Gelehrter_ they call it. I had planned my scheme of
study on a very great scale, and, being very much, in earnest about
science and art, as indeed about all things I take up, I was wont to
devote years to tasks which other men, with less time or more genius,
accomplish in as many months. Moreover, I had what I required for the
expenses of living, perhaps even a little more--I, am not given to
paying attention to that kind of thing. Now everything became changed
at once. I loved her, I fancied myself loved in return. We had met here
again, and, more than once, and had become engaged, though at first,
and at my own special request, in all secrecy. I comprehended that a
man engaged to so high-born and gifted, a girl as Lydia von Aschhof,
must needs be something better than a mere obscure private scholar, and
I readily 'pulled myself together,' determined to reach my goal. Some
time, of course, was required before my great work could be completed.
Some time; too much for her patience. Perhaps she doubted its ultimate
success. Perhaps she cared naught for the success, notwithstanding the
enthusiasm which she pretended to feel for my efforts, notwithstanding
her being so very kind as to assure me a thousand times that my genius,
my talent, had made her my captive, and would hold her my captive, yea,
though a crown were laid at her feet. As it turned out, no princely
crown was needed; only a plain coronet--and one surmounting a grey,
decrepit head into the bargain. Oh! she wrote me a most touching, most
generous letter of renunciation. 'I am but hindering you in your lofty
striving; an artist, a scholar must be free, unshackled; your fame is
more to me than my love,' and so on, and so on. Two or three pages
more, high-sounding phrases in daintiest handwriting, concluding, of
course, with the announcement of her new engagement, by which, as by a
_fait accompli_, she must needs assist her wavering heart.
"The letter was written from here, from Rinstedt. I hurried to the
railway; at the last station I got hold of a vehicle. When we got to
Fischbach, the poor overdriven steeds could not get on any further. By
the shortest, steepest path I climbed to the top of the Hirschstein,
the hill you have just come by; here, on the top, I fell down like one
dead. I gathered myself together again, and staggered on, on, until I
reached your father's house. She must have had some foreboding that I
would not submit to this in all patience; she had left your father's
house an hour before, driving to Fichtenau, taking the road by which it
was impossible for me to come. Afterwards I came to be grateful to her
for her circumspection and her precaution, for I think I must have been
simply raving mad; and it was well for both of us that my power was
broken, that I could not pursue the fair fugitive, but had to remain
here, a burden on your parents, sick unto death, given up by the
doctors, until some six or eight weeks' after, I surprised them all by
recovering, enabled to live on as best one can with a sorely wounded
heart--and a heart injured, not in the physical sense alone. What good,
do you think, did it do me whilst I was struggling with death here, and
afterwards dragged myself on crutches through the terrace-gardens, that
my work had appeared, had taken the world by storm, and made me, once
for all, what they call a famous man? What good that, just at that time
a childless old miser of an uncle took it into his head to die, and
that, in default of other heirs, his whole huge fortune fell to me? I
had had enough of the lying and cheating of humanity. Fame, love--I
cared no longer for these things. I became what I am, what my
acquaintances know me to be, what they have called me to you--a cold
egotist. What if for all that I do not cross my hands idly in my lap
but work on, and now and again utter a word of freedom which others,
less independent, might lack the courage to utter; or if I start and
encourage works of general utility; or if here and there I help some
lame dog over a stile; these things I surely do not for the love of the
Lord, nay, solely, so as not to lose that modicum of self-respect which
belongs to the indispensable stock-in-trade of a discreet egotist. And
talking of self-respect, dear, I begin to perceive with pain that I am
lessening the aforesaid modicum considerably in telling you all this.
For, in affairs of the hearts a gentleman should always spare the lady
the utterance of the first word and leave her the last, and if she
asserts that he is Don Giovanni and she Donna Elvira, why, he has but
to bow and thank her for assigning so brilliant a part to him. And now,
my dear child, now try to be fond of your garrulous old uncle once
more, will you not?"
The girl made no reply. A feeling of shame had gradually stolen over
Bertram as he spoke, and he had tried in vain to weaken it by
concluding with a semi-humorous turn. Now this feeling grew intensified
by Erna's silence. How had, it been possible for him to forget himself
so far as to reveal to a young girl, one almost a child still, one
without comprehension for such sad, ugly, painful experiences, the
deepest secret of his heart--a secret which he had trained himself to
pass by, as it were, with his own face turned away? And he had told of
this, to a girl who stood to the object of his vehement denunciation in
the peculiarly tender and delicate relation of pupil! How mean, how
ignoble of him! He had acted like a raw, immature lad! He wished
himself a thousand miles away; he cursed his want of determination,
inasmuch as he might have left the place abruptly an hour ago, and thus
have escaped all this horrible confusion. Now he must needs depart at
once, this very evening, if possible without seeing, without speaking
to, a soul; most certainly without entering upon any explanation
whatever. He had just tasted the delight of such explanations, and it
would be long before he lost the bitter after-taste of them!...
They were quite cleat of the wood now, and were approaching--walking
across some meadow land--a tiny gate in the thick old wall, which led
to the courtyard.
Suddenly Erna said, "And you have told nobody all this?"
"No," he answered; and it cost him a curious struggle to get the one
brief word--out.
They passed through the tiny gate; it was almost dark in the yard now.
Before the entrance to the house stood a large open travelling
carriage; servants were removing the belongings of the travellers who
had already alighted. Through the main gate, on the opposite side, a
cart, laden with the heavier articles of luggage, was entering.
"Uncle Bertram," whispered Erna.
Just as they were about to cross the threshold of the tiny gate she had
seized his hand with gentle pressure. He had involuntarily stopped.
Again she was gazing up at him, but not now, as before in the wood,
with a stern expression. Was it a reflection of the radiance of the
young moon, just then rising above the gloom which was enfolding the
buildings around--or could it be tears that glistened in the great
eyes?
"You want to leave us, Uncle Bertram?"
"Who told you so?"
"It matters not. You want to leave us?"
"Yes."
"Stay! Pray, stay--for my sake!"
She dropped the hand which she had clasped until now, and hurried
across the yard to the mansion-house, while he ascended the stairs to
the side wing where his own rooms were situated, his whole soul full of
the image of this wondrous girl, whose words, whose looks, had so
potent a spell over him, that he no longer seemed to have a will of his
own as against hers.
IV.
His master's long absence had at length commenced to disquiet faithful
Konski considerably. True, he knew from his ten years' experience that
he need not pay much attention to any orders that master gave him when
in a state of great excitement; and, of course, the later it grew, the
more improbable it became that the departure, although announced, would
really take place; but then, supposing some accident had happened to
him? The doctor in Berlin had most strongly urged him to take every
possible precaution lest, during the first few weeks anyhow, his master
should over-exert himself in any way--and master had hurried down those
terrace steps like one possessed! And all on account of this infernal
old maid who was never allowed to visit at this house when they, master
and he, were here! Oh, why had he not held his silly tongue, and not
brought the great news at once to his master!
He would have liked hurrying after him into the village, but dared not
leave his post. And now their host came in and inquired for master, and
seemed greatly concerned when Konski, to soothe his own anxiety as it
were, hinted that his master had not been over pleased when told that
additional guests were expected; and Konski added, as a sort of
conjecture of his own, that he had probably gone out for a walk, so as
to avoid having to be present at their reception. And meanwhile My Lady
had returned and had sent for him, and Konski had to repeat to her
Ladyship--for whom he entertained the most confounded respect--what he
had already told her Ladyship's husband; and her Ladyship had looked so
hard at him with those piercing brown eyes of hers, that he was jolly
glad when he was back at his post of observation at the lobby-window,
whence he could survey the whole extensive court-yard. And there--an
open carriage was just entering it; only two people in it--a lady and a
gentleman--thank Heaven, one lady only! In the gathering twilight
Konski could not distinguish, the lady's features or figure, but, if
there was only one lady, why, who could it be but dear Miss Erna? And
from her, master was not likely to run away; and all was well now, if
only he himself were safely back.
The door below was opened. Konski heard his master's step upon the
stairs and hurried to meet him, joyfully telling him all that he had
observed; and did master know already that Miss Erna was the only lady
who had arrived?
His master had thrown himself into an arm-chair in the sitting-room,
where careful Konski had already lighted a liberal supply of candles,
and was staring hard in front of him, passing at intervals his hands
over brow and eyes. Suddenly he sat bold upright and said:
"What did you say?"
Poor Konski had said nothing at all during the last few minutes, but
inquired now whether his master would not dress for supper; he thought
it was getting quite late enough.
Bertram rose and passed into the adjoining bedroom where Konski had
laid out such a costume as he deemed appropriate for the occasion. He
lent him the necessary aid, and marvelled greatly that his master, who
was wont to talk to him during the process of dressing more than at any
other time, did not say a single word to-night. Another curious thing
was this: quite contrary to his custom, the master looked hard at
himself in the mirror again and again, and, strangest sight of all, he
pulled and twisted his moustache about! However, seeing that master,
though looking very grave, did not appear either annoyed or angry,
Konski was quite satisfied. To-night then, anyhow, their departure need
not be provided for.
There was a knock at the door. Their host entered as hurriedly as was
consistent with his being so very stout.
"Thank Heaven that you are here!" he exclaimed, shaking both his
friend's hands again and again, as though he had been 'long looked-for,
come at last!' "Thank Heaven; we have been quite frightened about you.
Hildegard was very angry that I had left you alone. I said to her,
'Why, he is not a child, requiring to be watched at every step;' that
is to say, I did not actually say so in so many words. I ... thought
so. My wife is terribly nervous to-day. I had told her at once ..."
Here he noticed the servant's presence, and in some embarrassment broke
off abruptly. Bertram having now completed his toilet, the two
gentlemen left the room together. As they were walking through the long
passage which led to the main building, his host put one arm round his
friend's slender waist and said confidentially, lowering his voice by
way of precaution--
"I had told Hildegard at once that you would be annoyed; at least I did
not say so in so many words, but I--hinted it, for, you know, my wife
cannot beat contradiction; and I soon found out that the two women,
between them, had determined that the meeting should take place. Now
Erna tells me--she is a darling, is she not? a little peculiar, a
little odd, but always good to me; how nice that you met on the
hills--well, Erna tells me that you were not particularly angry that
Lydia had accompanied her; that is to say, Erna does not know anything
of the old stories, or has only heard some vague rumours that you
cannot bear each other, or that you cannot bear Lydia. Never mind, it's
all the same now; only tell me that you are not particularly angry."
"I was at first, but I am so no longer."
"That's all I ask for. And after all, old chap, well, misunderstandings
and all that sort of thing! But the blame is sure to be yours, or
almost entirely yours. Why, it's always the man who is to blame, eh? I
should know that much, having been married these twenty years!"
He laughed. Bertram, to change the conversation, asked where the others
were.
"The ladies are on the verandah; the Baron was still in his room when I
came away."
"By the by," Bertram asked, "who is this Baron? You were talking about
him once or twice at table, but I confess I hardly listened."
"Lotter?" his friend said. "Look here; you'll like him immensely.
Stunning fellow, Lotter. Has read every mortal thing; plays the piano;
paints--portraits, landscapes, anything you like. Has come home to do
some painting; studies at our academy, don't you know?--and is a
constant guest at Court, of course."
"Does he belong to these parts?"
"Oh; dear no! hails from Wuertemberg. A very, very old family;
Lotter-Vippach. His father was a General, I believe; his uncle a
Minister of State; that sort of thing, don't you know? He has been in
the army himself; was in the '70 campaign. But he is a bit of a rover.
Has been up and about a good deal; in Algiers, South America; that,
sort of thing. I pressed him to come and stay here during the
man[oe]vres, to help me to do the honours, as I never was in the army
myself. He is awfully anxious to make your acquaintance; has read all
your works and--and--but where on earth are our ladies? I'll go and
look. You stop where you are; do not come out bareheaded."
The last words had already been spoken in the garden saloon, the great
French windows of which, leading to the verandah, stood wide open. His
host had hurried off to look for the ladies, and Bertram, left alone,
strode up and down in the large, half-darkened room. Had he not,
perhaps, yielded all too readily to Erna's command? If obedience was to
be easy to him, nay, if it was to be at all possible for him, she ought
to have stayed by his side. And now her very image was gone from his
inner eye, and its place had been taken by her whom he had once so
passionately loved, as if twenty years had not gone by since he last
saw her, as if she had only passed a minute ago with her beautiful
friend and hostess into the garden, thence to return immediately under
some pretext or other, to rush to his embrace, to shower hot,
passionate kisses upon him--here, in this very saloon, as she had so
often, so often done--here, where the faint fragrance of violets still
seemed to float, that she was so fond of, and which in those days he
was ever associating with her presence!
He was standing in the semi-darkness, his back turned to the verandah;
a gentle rustling sound was coming up the steps. He turned. Framed in
by one of the doors against the brighter background of the evening sky,
appeared the shadowy outline of a lady, lingering a moment or two on
the threshold, then hastening with raised arms towards him, as he stood
motionless, spellbound.
Before he could prevent it, she had sunk on her knees before him, had
seized his hands which he was involuntarily stretching forth to lift
her up, and now she was pressing them to her bosom, to her lips. A
dense cloud of violet perfume came floating up to him.
"Mercy, Charles, mercy!"
"I entreat you, My Lady, ... for Heaven's sake ..."
He had been barely able to stammer out these words; he felt the most
acute physical anguish at his heart; cold beads of perspiration stood
upon his forehead; ice-cold were the hands which Lydia had held till
then, and which now she dropped, terrified, rising as she did so from
the ground.
"My Lady!" she murmured, "My Lady ... Ah, I knew it!"
The convulsive pain at his heart had ceased now; it beat on, but
slowly, heavily; even so his anger and pain were giving way to
compassion.
"Let bygones be bygones," he said.
"If it were possible!" whispered Lydia.
"It must be possible."
She knew from his gentle but firm tone that, for the moment, she dare
go no farther; and though she had to confess to herself that she had
been deceived in her fond hope of reconquering his affections by one
grand assault at starting, something was secured anyhow, and something
desirable and even necessary--a fairly satisfactory footing when they
met in society.
"The dear voice!" she whispered; "the old, dear, gentle voice! But ...
those hard, cruel words! Yet I have no right to complain, and I will
not lament; it must, indeed, be possible!"
Much to his relief Bertram was spared the necessity of replying, for
his host and hostess were just then coming in from the garden,
accompanied by Erna and Baron Lotter. At the same moment a servant
opened the folding-door which led to the dining-room; the two gentlemen
were introduced to each other; the Baron offered his arm to the lady of
the house, Lydia was clinging to the master, and thus Erna fell to
Bertram's share. They were lingering a little behind the rest.
"How good you are!" whispered Erna.
"Am I?" he made answer. "I feel most contemptible."
V.
In very truth the feeling that he had done wrong in thus opening his
heart to Erna had come back in renewed strength to Bertram, since he
had to admit to himself that he had emphatically broken his own dictum
that bygones were to be bygones. The past was no longer a secret
between those concerned; and what would henceforth happen--each word,
each look which they exchanged, all, all would have a sense, a meaning
for somebody else--for the beautiful girl who was so grave beyond her
years, the girl with the great, still, godlike eyes.
Thus Bertram was profoundly in earnest when he declined to accept
Erna's praise; but, anyhow, he hoped that the worst was over now.
How greatly he was mistaken in this, came most painfully home to him
with the first stolen glimpse which he ventured to take of Lydia's face
in the pitiless radiance of the bright candles which shone upon the
round table in the dining-room, where he sat opposite her. Was that
really ... Lydia? Or had some mischievous imp, by cruel witchcraft, put
a caricature of herself in her place, and changed the picture of the
bright and gifted girl, overflowing with jest and fun, with humour and
wit; the girl with the somewhat irregular but most piquant features,
with the big, light-blue, mischievous eyes, fresh and rosy of colour,
with wild, fluttering, blonde locks, into the picture of an aging
coquette, for ever pouting her thin lips, even when she laughed, so as
to hide her false teeth; now lowering, now lifting her eyelids, like an
actress, in vain endeavouring to give some light to her eyes--a light
as treacherous as the all too bright pinkiness of the lean cheek, the
all too dark carmine of the ears, adorned though they were with
sparkling diamonds? An ugly old woman, who now let the gold embroidered
white silk shawl glide from the scraggy shoulders, only to draw it up
again immediately and attempt a more picturesque drapery--which was not
a success, so that the game had to be renewed forthwith!
And he had once loved this painted, dressed-up, revoltingly coquettish
person; had loved her with the best, purest strength of his heart, as,
but a little while ago, he had assured Erna with passionate eagerness.
It was horrible! Would Erna believe that yonder withered shrub had ever
blossomed in vernal brightness and beauty? How could she believe it,
when she looked at the friend of Lydia's youth, her own mother, whose
majestic beauty was barely touched by Time in his flight? Her great
brown eyes had lost none of their velvety softness, her raven hair
still shone in undimmed splendour. And if the difference in appearance,
in manner, was now so great between the two ladies, must it not always
have existed? And must not the taste of a man, whose feelings could at
any time have led him so far astray, have been at all times most
lamentable?
And if the pitiless brightness had brought so terrible a discovery to
him, how would he himself appear before Erna's searching gaze? Had not
some horrible change taken place with him too? Why, these twenty years
had altered Erna's father, who at college had been rightly surnamed
'The Beauty,' into an excessively stout gentleman, with a somewhat
bloated countenance, and a mighty skull, which was getting painfully
bald in the region of the temples! And he himself had never been
distinguished for personal attraction; true, his hair was as dark as
ever; and, before supper, in the glass, he had thought that he saw a
pale and grave, but not a worn, face. But then the complaisant mirror
of vanity might make one fancy one saw all sorts of things. No doubt
Lydia had just such a mirror in her room!
Bertram felt more and more sad at heart. He no longer dared lift his
eyes, but kept them fixed upon the plates, which the servants changed
without his having tasted any of the dishes to which he helped himself
mechanically. So he sat on, scarcely hearing a word of the
conversation, which was principally carried on by Lydia and the Baron.
Apparently they were talking about some Court affairs, and very amusing
and piquant they would appear to be. Anyhow, there was much laughter,
chiefly on the part of Lydia and the Baron, and My Lady held up her
hand once or twice, and reminded the two of the respect due to the
Grand Ducal family. Then the conversation touched upon the approaching
man[oe]vres, and the Baron proclaimed his minute knowledge of every
detail, and endeavoured to explain to the ladies, with the help of
spoons and forks and what not, the original positions both of the
attacking party and the attacked, and duly weighed the various events
which might or must occur, according whether the commanding officers
did or did not take certain steps. Under any circumstances, the
decisive portion of the sham-fight must come off in the immediate
neighbourhood of Rinstedt itself, if not in Rinstedt itself;
unfortunately, the ground being singularly unsuitable for cavalry, the
ultimate issue would lie between artillery and infantry. He himself,
said the Baron, having formerly been a cavalry officer, was very sorry
for that; but, anyhow, the ladies, could look forward to a glorious
sight. What, a pity, he added, that in spite of his having so many
friends in the army, he did not chance to have any personal
acquaintances among the officers of this particular regiment.
"Well, I know a number of them," said the host. "The 99th were
stationed at Erfurt until a twelvemonth ago. I used to meet the
officers over and over again out shooting."
"Then," said the Baron, turning to Lydia, "you must know some of them
too. They are sure to have attended some of our Court balls."
"Of course," the lady replied; "and they were also in the habit of
coming over in shoals to the play; but who is to distinguish one red
collar from another? Not I! I love plain, quiet, civilian colours. Ask
Erna; she is sure to know. She spent six weeks last summer with her
Aunt Adelheid in Erfurt, and there the officers, are constantly coming
and going. Is it not so, Erna?"
"You are forgetting," said Erna, "that aunt was in mourning at the
time. Of course there were no parties then."
"But still," the Baron observed, "people go to a house without being
actually bidden to parties, inspire of the family being in mourning, if
there are six marriageable daughters in it, as is the case in your
aunt's house."
"Possibly; then my power of discriminating between different red
collars is not more strongly developed than Aunt Lydia's; anyhow, I do
not remember any one of the gentlemen."
This was uttered in such a stern tone, as of one who would decline to
pursue the subject, that Bertram looked up involuntarily. Her dainty
features were perfectly composed, but the blue eyes, which she was
bending upon him, not upon her interlocutor the Baron, seemed to have a
deeper radiance than that of suppressed annoyance. This was the first
time that their looks had met across the table, and a curious thrill
passed through his frame. He felt the hot blood surging to his temples;
and to mask his growing embarrassment, he asked who was in command of
the regiment in question.
"Colonel von Waldor," the Baron replied promptly.
"I knew an officer of that name," said Bertram, "long ago, in Berlin;
at that time he had been told off to the Military Academy of that town.
For some years I kept up a correspondence with him, but somehow I lost
sight of him afterwards. But I rather think that was not his regiment?"
"No," replied the Baron. "You are quite right; he used to be in the
210th. He got the colonelcy of the 99th about a year ago. He made quite
a name for himself in the '70 campaign."
"Even at the time I recall, my friend was considered a very smart
officer," said Bertram.
"No doubt, no doubt," replied the Baron; "it must be the same man. As
far as I know, there are not two Waldors in the army, at least not
among regimental commanders, for I think I know all their names by
heart. Your Colonel is a queer fish, anyhow."
"What is a 'queer fish'?" asked Lydia, touching the Baron's arm with
her fan.
He laughed, and said: "Well, that question is more easily asked than
answered."
"Then, pray, do not answer it at all," said Hildegard, the hostess,
glancing at her daughter Erna.
"Why not, my Lady?" the Baron exclaimed. "It is harmless enough to let
the facts speak, and it is a fact that Waldor who--I do not know him
personally, but Dr. Bertram will assuredly confirm my statement--was
known throughout the army not only on account of his gallantry, but
also on account of his manly beauty, and who had consequently broken
countless hearts, is still a bachelor."
"You say 'consequently,'" exclaimed Lydia, "and consequently you think
very meanly of our sex."
"How so?"
"Well, you seem to assume that manly beauty suffices to touch--or, as
you are pleased to call it, to break--female hearts. Alas, my dear
Baron, how little do you know our sex!"
"I beg a thousand pardons--but I really said nothing of the kind. Venus
and Mars--the alliance of valour and beauty, you know--your poets know
something of this. Why, there is a poet here among us--let him speak up
for me!"
With these last words the Baron had turned to Bertram; his tone and the
accompanying gesture had something insultingly patronising about them;
in fact, in Bertram's eye the whole demeanour of the young man,
almost a giant in stature, was saturated with an arrogant sort of
self-complacency, which seemed to take unanimous applause for granted.
Nevertheless he replied with calm politeness:
"I neither consider myself a poet, nor am I, to the best of my
knowledge, considered one by anybody who has read the few miserable
trifles in verse which I published years ago."
"I protest against this most emphatically," exclaimed Lydia. "I have
read those 'miserable trifles in verse,' as you call them--what a
horrible expression. I know them by heart, and I consider the author to
be a poet--a poet by grace divine."
"I am extremely obliged to you," replied Bertram. "However, surely what
a man is born for is wont to announce itself, sooner or later, in a
man's own heart. With me that voice is absolutely silent; and,
therefore, I might surely claim the right of refusing to give the
evidence required of me. But not being specially qualified, and being
absolutely impartial, I would fain warn my friends not to repose
overmuch confidence in poets on that particular point. Anxious for the
applause of the many, as their trade seems to demand, they accommodate
themselves but too readily to the taste of the many, who, as we all
know, like very children, seize eagerly upon anything bright,
glistening, motley-coloured. Therefore, why should they not picture the
heroine as beautiful beyond compare, the hero as valorous beyond
comparison, and heap any number of additional titles to fame upon their
blessed heads! Whether one quality does not perchance exclude another,
whether the measure dealt out does not, anyhow, exceed all that is
reasonably possible--dear, dear, there are few who'll ask that
question; and if any one does, why, then, he is a pedant, and for
pedants the heroes of romance have no existence, any more than real
heroes have for their valets."
"Oh! you scoffer--you wretch!" exclaimed Lydia. "Why, you will prove
next that beauty, that valour, that every virtue in the world, belongs
to the region of romance. What a terrible thing scepticism is! But our
friend was ever thus. Did I not say a short while ago: Hildegard, I
cannot believe that he has changed; he cannot change! And behold, he
is exactly what he always was!"
"Well, that's coming it pretty strong, seeing it's twenty years since
..."
The corpulent host had laughingly given utterance to these words, then,
feeling his wife's dark eyes bent upon him in stern disapproval, he
broke off abruptly with Ahem! poured some wine into his own glass,
which was but half emptied, and then wanted to know why the gentlemen
present were not doing justice to the wine that night.
Bertram, wishing to relieve his friends in their evident embarrassment,
came to the rescue, saying, with smiling, easy politeness: "Fraeulein
von Aschhof only proves by her kind assertion of my immutability, that
she is indeed looking upon the world and mankind with a poetical eye.
But let us remember this--the poets themselves allow only the fair sex
to participate in the pleasing prerogative of the calmly careless ever
youthful gods; and the poets may venture on this deception, because the
listener is willing to be deceived. 'Breathes there a man with soul so
dead,' who ever ventured to count up the years of an Antigone, an
Iphigenia, a Helena? They are what they were--else they are not. But,
even the poet's flattering arts cannot keep the man from aging; and if
the poet would grant perennial youth to a man, he must needs let him
die in his youth--like Achilles."
"I protest against this theory," Lydia exclaimed eagerly. "I assert
that heroes age as little as heroines."
"Even that," Bertram replied with a smile, "would not help me, seeing
that I am no hero, assuming even that you were right. But I may be
permitted to indulge in some humble doubt. At best the hero of the
Odyssey appears distinctly as a man of mature age,--to put it
mildly,--and Pallas Athene must practise upon him her divine art of
beautifying before she ventures to introduce him among the Phaeaci."
The Baron was meanwhile playing with his spoons and forks again; he was
evidently annoyed at having been so long kept out of the conversation.
Bertram went on as though he did not notice it at all; he very surely
was not speaking for that fellow's sake. He only cared to clear himself
in Erna's eyes from any suspicion that he, like the aged coquette
opposite him, was laying claim to a juvenility which had gone by for
ever; and seeing those eyes steadily bent upon him, he took heart of
grace, and went on in the same tone of easy, good-humoured banter--
"Goeethe, a modern, and in this case a tragic, poet too, in his
Nausicaan fragments, wisely forebore to bring in that art of
beautifying, which is only lawful for the epic poet in his antique
naivety, and in order to bridge over the mighty difference and distance
of years, and to change the evidently improbable into something at
least credible, he takes refuge in illusion, causing it to arise from
the child's very heart, like a fog enveloping those pure eyes, that
clear mind--
'That man must ever be a youthful man,
Who is well-pleasing to a maiden's eyes.'[1]
Thus the aged nurse, taking the unspoken words, as it were, from
Nausicaa's chaste lips. A touching saying, touching, like children's
belief in the omnipotence of their parents! And about that
youthfulness, which exists nowhere except in the glorious dreams of a
young, inexperienced, generous soul, well, Goethe has told us something
with exquisite humour, not, as true humour indeed never is, without a
touch of melancholy, in the novelette of the man of fifty. Poor old
Major! I have always been heartily sorry for him. Remember how he begs
the services of the valet (skilled in the use of cosmetics) from his
friend the great actor; how that adroit official uses his balm, and his
stays, and his wadding for the aged gentleman, and yet cannot save the
diseased front tooth, and certainly cannot keep fair Hilarie from
falling vehemently in love with young Flavio, solely because she sees
him in raptures with the clever widow, solely because in Flavio's
raptures she beholds for the first time a representation of genuine,
ardent, youthful passion. All this is as true as it is charming, as
charming as it is melancholy, at least for the reader who is in a
position to test the hero's experiences and sentiments by his own
sentiments and experiences."
"Of course; 'there's no fool like an old fool,' and I suppose that
really is the final outcome of the whole business," said the Baron.
"How dare you talk of things you know nothing about, you prosaic
individual?" exclaimed Lydia, bringing her fan down upon the giant's
arm. "There is no talk of old people here. A man of fifty is not old,
he is in the prime of life, and is often ten times younger than your
used-up so-called young gentlemen. But I must really say something for
Goethe against our 'learned friend.' Yes, yes, my friend, I know the
novelette well; I read it aloud to the Court barely a week ago. Who
bids you take a comedy in that tragic way?--for the novelette in
question is a comedy--a 'Comedy of Errors.' Hilarie fancies she is in
love with the uncle, and really loves Flavio; Flavio fancies himself in
love with the young widow, whilst really he loves Hilarie; and how the
Major--well, I think the final scene at the inn proves emphatically
that he had only turned his feelings to--to--to--the wrong address, if
I may venture upon the expression; and that he and the clever widow
subsequently became a happy pair is perfectly clear to me. Or, do you
think not?"
A warning glance flashed from Hildegard's dark eyes. Lydia positively
blushed through her layers of paint. She had shown her hand too
plainly!
Bertram struggled successfully against a strong inclination to smile;
nay, curiously enough, something like pity for her indiscretion stirred
within him. He went on--
"To be sure, you are right, right, above all, in calling the novelette
a comedy. How little Goethe cared to have a tragic conflict is evident
from the fact that he chose circumstances as favourable as possible for
a happy conclusion, and that he from the very beginning secured a line
of retreat for every one concerned. The Major is the uncle of Hilarie,
the only daughter of his widowed mother, and he has doubtless acted the
part of father to her--has, up till now, loved her as his own child.
His rival, in whose favour he resigns his claims, is his own only son,
to whom he is also very much attached, and with whom he is on excellent
terms, whom he in fact treats like a comrade. Again, behind Hilarie, as
she vanishes from him, stands as it were the young widow; and in her
arms the Major will speedily forget the small humiliation. And lastly,
and this seems to me to be the chief point, Goeethe has wisely avoided
to introduce the one element whereby he would have been enabled, nay
compelled, to turn the comedy into tragedy; he has ... but I beg pardon
of our fair hostess for being so garrulous. To be sure, it is high time
we rose from table!"
Truly enough, the turn which the conversation had taken had, for Erna's
sake, been unwelcome to her mother. So she seized the opportunity and
rose from table. Erna, who had sat without turning her gaze from
Bertram, took a deep breath, like some one who is being recalled from
deep dreams to the consciousness of present realities, and followed the
example of the others. She and Bertram were the last couple that left
the dining-room on their return to the garden-saloon, which had
meanwhile been lighted up, and Bertram thought she was walking very
slowly--on purpose.
"What was the one element, Uncle Bertram?" she asked.
"What one element?"
He knew what she meant; but he had broken off at table, because he
himself dreaded the utterance of the word. So he delayed his reply, and
just then his host appeared, bringing cigars: the gentlemen might smoke
on the verandah, whilst Lydia would give them some music.
"You remember, Charles, do you not," he went on, "the _sonata
pathetique_--that used to be your favourite piece? And Lydia has
practised it often since, I think."
Lydia was ready. Bertram, however, begged to be excused from remaining.
He felt, he said, after all, tired with the day's journey, and it was
but the charm of their company which had made him forget that he was
still a convalescent. He barely gave Hildegard time to draw him aside,
and to say to him in a whisper--
"You really are most amiable. How good of you to take it so kindly. I
had not at dinner to-day courage enough to make my confession. Indeed I
have to confess, to say much to you--to-morrow ..."
"To-morrow be it, fair friend," said Bertram, kissing the lady's hand,
bowing to the rest, and making hastily for the door. He had not reached
it before Erna was by his side.
"You used to say good-night to me less formally."
He did not venture to press a kiss on the proffered brow, but only took
her hand.
The great grave eyes gazed at him as though they would fain read what
was passing in his inmost soul.
"Good-night, dear child," he said hurriedly.
"Good-night," she replied slowly, letting his hot, trembling hand glide
out of her own cool little one.
"It is lucky," said Bertram to himself, after he had dismissed Konski,
and as he stood alone by the open window in his bedroom, "it is very
lucky, indeed, that it is not very easy to read what is passing in
somebody else's soul. She would have found queer reading!"
He leaned out of the window and gazed into the darkness. Not a breath
of air. From the garden below the fragrance of mignonette was wafted
up; the brook murmured aloud; a thin white veil was spread over the
valley, with here and there a dim speck of light. The sky was
cloudless, of deep blue, almost black colour; the moon looked like a
mass of gold, and one solitary star near it shone forth in red
splendour.
Bertram recalled just such a night, long years ago, when a friend, the
assistant-astronomer, had given Erna's father and himself the
opportunity of witnessing, from the Bonn Observatory, the transit of
that same star--Aldebaran--through the moon! Afterwards he had
accompanied Otto back to Poppelsdorf, and Otto had in his turn walked
back with him to the Pfoertchen in Bonn; and so backward and forward,
all through the mild summer's night, until the light of morning had
come, and the birds were beginning to twitter in the leafy crowns of
the chestnut trees. And they had been raving of friendship and love--of
the love they both, most fraternally, cherished for one and the same
black-eyed beauty, the daughter of one of their professors, and they
had both been sublimely happy, all their misery notwithstanding, for
the black-eyed one was known to love another--"Great Heaven, how long,
how long ago? A generation, and more. And now ...?"
"Now," he went on, "you are about to fall in love with the daughter
of the same man whom then you rivalled in absurdly exaggerated,
donkey-like phantasies--with a girl of eighteen, whose father you could
be. And this time you would not get off with raving incoherently for a
night of two, and with scribbling a few mediocre sonnets! Be
reasonable, old man. Let it go--let it go! You know full well you can
have no abiding place here, any more than the horseman in the
Piccolomini. Behind you, too, as you ride along, crouches the lean
companion and clasps you in his bony arms, and every now and again taps
at your heart, to test if it is still stupid enough to throb for a
beauteous maiden who is seated by the window among wallflowers and
rosemary.
"And behind the curtain stands her lover, and bends across her, that
he, too, may look upon the mad horseman, who is stretching out his neck
to see his darling. And the clumsy fellow with the bull's neck wrinkles
his silly brow, twirls his mustachio, strokes his beard, mutters _Mort
de ma vie!_ and shakes his coarse fist. But she pouts, and giggles and
bursts out laughing, and falls on the neck of the jealous one ...
"No, no; it cannot be! You only want to hear from her lips that it
cannot be. And then--away, away--ride out of the gate--to swift,
honourable death. And God's blessing on thee, thou gentle, lovely, and
beloved child!"
He closed the window gently, and so to bed; to bed, but not to sleep.
He could not find that repose he stood so much in need of. The brook
murmured so loudly, or was it the hot bloody surging to his temples?
And was he about to sink into slumber, he would start up again
immediately; he seemed again, to be holding her by the hand, and she
bent her forehead to be kissed by him.
"No--no! Lead me not into temptation! Do not ask me what the one thing
is! I would not say it, even, if--what God forbid!--it were so. I will
not let you beguile me into a tragedy, any more than from one comedy
into another."
VI.
This thought, which had at length quieted Bertram's, wildly tumultuous
spirits, was also his first, when late next morning he awoke from deep
and dreamless slumbers--neither tragedy nor comedy! Calm and clear
observation, as best becomes a solitary individual who has done with
life; who neither hopes nor fears anything from Fate for himself;
maintaining a benevolent interest in the fate of others, where
benevolence is merited and interest is justified; cherishing throughout
the conviction that, after all, every one makes or mars his own life;
that interference and advice are rarely of much use, and generally
distinctly hurtful; and that, even under the most favourable
circumstances, the task of mediator is ever, of all tasks, the most
thankless.
In the clear light of these contemplations and of the delicious morning
which was resting in sunny radiance above the lovely landscape, last
night's scenes appeared to Bertram like the confused darkness of a
feverish dream; nay, he derived some comfort from the thought that he
probably had been ill, and was therefore only partly responsible for
his extraordinary demeanour. Still, he was gravely responsible for one
thing--he ought sooner to have become conscious of his condition. He
might well thank his stars that in his excited state he had not behaved
even more strangely; above all, that to-day, for the first time since
his last long and severe illness, he felt as fresh and strong as in his
best days. Assuredly with the morning all things seemed to have become
better--much better than he could have expected--than he deserved!
The master's disposition was singularly serene, and he gave it a most
friendly expression in the course of his toilet, showing himself ready
for a friendly gossip with Konski; but Konski, strange, to say, was out
of temper, and refused to be gossiped with.
At last Bertram said: "What ails you? If you are displeased, at what I
said yesterday about our speedy departure, you may calm yourself. We
still remain here for the whole time we had originally arranged. I see
you have unpacked already."
"We may leave to-day, for aught I care!" grumbled Konski.
"What's up now? Out with it, Konski! You know I cannot bear sour looks.
Anything in connection with Mamsell Christine?"
"Of course it is!" replied Konski; "and I wonder who's to keep from
sour looks under these circumstances! I had written to her that this
was to be my last trip with you, and when we returned from Italy in
March we might go and be spliced. I did not want to tell you at all,
but don't you see, sir, one gets older every year, and it has to be
some time or other, and ..."
"And now you wish to marry at once, and I am to give you your
discharge?"
"Marry at once, indeed!" sniffed Konski; "she won't marry at all
now--leastways, not me--and that, after we have been engaged these
five years! But there is no trusting them women, and especially the old
ones! She is five and forty years of age, she is,--a year older than I
am myself; and now she's going to marry a young greenhorn of five and
twenty!"
It was some time before Konski, generally so calm and patient, could
explain in detail to his master how badly he had been treated.
According to his account, Mamsell Christine had written the tenderest
letters to him until a few weeks ago, and had declared herself
agreeable to all his suggestions and proposals; and now it appeared
from the statements of the other servants whom he had cross-questioned,
and whose evidence the faithless one could not but corroborate, that
she had been "carrying on" for a long while with one Peter Weissenborn,
who had formerly been head-gardener at Rinstedt, and who had been
settled in the neighbouring town for the last six months, and who was
now, it was said, likely to be appointed one of the Court gardeners,
thanks to the protection of the Herr Baron. The Herr Baron, Konski went
on, had also induced My Lady to give Mamsell Christine leave to quit
her service at any time without formal notice; and, indeed, the
servants all said, that the way to get My Lady's consent to anything,
was to get the Herr Baron on your side; that made success quite
certain. And My Lady was said to be quite in favour of this marriage
between Christine and the future Court gardener. In that case she would
always have two of her former servants at hand when she came to town,
and that was likely to be an event of frequent occurrence now; if,
indeed, she did not go to live there altogether, as some of the
servants asserted--Aurora, for instance--My Lady's maid, who was her
second favourite, next to Christine.
Bertram endeavoured to comfort the poor fellow. He pointed out to him
that he should be glad to be rid of a person who had evidently never
meant honestly by him, and who would in all probability have been as
faithless in marriage as she had now proved before. This conviction led
him to reject any wish there might exist to get the matter rectified
again, as was done sometimes, and in much higher social circles too;
otherwise he would have been willing to use his influence with My Lady,
which presumably would have been at least as telling as that of the
Herr Baron.
Konski shook his head. "I am extremely obliged to you, sir," said he.
"I am quite content if you will still keep me on, after I have proved
myself to be such a thorough ass. And, as far as talking to her
Ladyship goes, that would be in vain--the Herr Baron is cock of the
walk there. I could tell you a good deal more about that, but I know
you do not like that sort of thing!"
Bertram was startled. The man's last remark could have but one meaning,
and the image of the girl among the wallflowers and with the jealous
lover, emerged in singular distinctness from last night's feverish
phantasies. He would fain have for once broken through his rule of
never going out of his way to listen to the gossip of kitchen and
servants' hall, but, as Konski did not volunteer any further remarks,
he was ashamed to put any direct questions. Just at that moment, too,
there came a knock, and a servant brought a message from her Ladyship.
She had learned that the Herr Doctor had risen, and might she request
the Herr Doctor's' company on the verandah to tea?
Bertram lost no time in following the invitation. Hildegard, who had
been sitting in a shaded corner of the verandah at the deserted
breakfast-table, came forward to meet him. As she moved towards him
with well-balanced step, he could not but recall last night's talk
about the never-changing beauty of a poet's heroine. He gazed upon the
lofty figure in its youthful slimness, the clear, deep colouring of the
incomparably beautiful countenance, the blue-black splendour of the
ample hair, smooth at the temples, and crowning the glorious head with
a dense braid.
There was a smile on her dainty lips, and if deepened a little as she
saw her guest's speaking eyes bent upon her in undisguised admiration.
She was making tender inquiries about the state of his health, leading
him the while to the table and making him sit beside her, with the
kettle bubbling in front of them.
"Otto," she said, "is, as usual, somewhere about the estate. The Baron
is painting a portion of the village from the bottom terrace, and Lydia
is, I believe, keeping him company with a book. Erna, you will probably
find later on in her favourite place, under the big plantain tree. I
have sent them all away, because I so long to have a comfortable
confidential chat with you. Yesterday we did not manage to have one.
And first of all, dear friend, accept my hearty thanks for having so
kindly pardoned a breach of confidence of which I--not from choice--had
been guilty. Nay, do not refuse the expression of my gratitude. I saw
how hard you found it to appear unconscious and serene; I thank you all
the more. But I knew that with your wonted cleverness you would at once
find the only correct point of view--that of pity. Whatever has been
done and sinned between the two of you,--she is the one to be pitied. A
poor girl, growing old, even if she is in favour at Court; and although
the Grand Ducal family could not be kinder, yet all this cannot satisfy
the cravings of her eager mind--but I perceive that this is a painful
topic for you!"
"It is not painful for me," replied Bertram; "or at least only so far
as the description of a dissatisfied, unquiet soul must ever be painful
for us, if it is hopelessly out of our power to bring satisfaction and
peace to it."
"I understand you," said Hildegard; "and you will understand me when I
beg of you not quite to rob the poor soul in question of its utterly
foolish hopes to which it clings, alas! with incredible tenacity. You
can do this so easily: you need but be amiable and, courteous to her,
as you are to everybody--no more, but, to be sure, no less--do you
consent?"
"I will try, since you wish it--on one condition!"
"And this condition?"
"I have come to the following determination--indeed, it is a matter of
course for me. In the drama of human life I will not henceforth ever
again leave, my well-won place in the stalls, and under no
circumstances will I take a part on the stage itself--no tragic
part--and still less a comic one!"
"From the latter," replied his fair hostess with a smile, "you are
safe under any circumstances, through your own cleverness; from the
former----"
"Through my age."
"I meant to say, also through your cleverness; or, if you prefer it,
through the cool, unimpassioned frame of mind which you have grown
into, and which I often envy you!"
Bertram looked up in amazement, and then quickly busied himself with
his tea-cup. Hildegard, to envy him his coolness! Hildegard, who had
ever appeared to him the very embodiment of conscious equanimity!
"You may be surprised to hear this from me," she continued; "but must
we not all, sooner or later, learn the lesson of resignation? And my
time surely has come. Indeed, it has been so all my life. What have not
I had to resign in the course of my life! Or do you think that the
husband's wealth can blind the wife, if she be proud, to the
consciousness that she is not loved as she longs, and as, may be, she
deserves to be loved?"
Bertram knew these phrases from of old; but he said to himself that
to-day particularly he must make the best of everything, so he
exclaimed--
"Is it possible, my friend, that you still cherish this hypochondriacal
fear which you have given utterance to before, but from which I deemed
you cured long ago? How can you complain of a deficiency in love, when
your husband positively adores you? You can utter no wish, simply
because what you could wish for is already fulfilled. Or you need but
have a wish, and it is forthwith fulfilled."
"You are pleading for the friend of your youth," she made answer,
raising her dark eyebrows. "Do not forget this: I am bringing no charge
against him. I am resigned. Were I to die to-day, what would his loss
come to? What would he miss?"
"The brightness of his life," Bertram replied gallantly.
"As if he cared for the brightness of his life!" said his wife. "Is it
so? Does he share one of my fancies, my harmless _penchants_? Does he
not vainly strive to appear interested in the things of beauty with
which I love to surround, myself and to decorate our dwelling? Did he
not consent wit evident repugnance to have the mansion-house restored
in a style befitting a whilom princely residence--to let me seek out
and renew the old, tangled paths through the Park? Does he support me
in my humane undertakings? Have I not had to beg the few thousand
thalers from him that I required for my Kindergarten and for my
poorhouse? Why, he lives solely for his porcelain factory, his sugar
refinery, his coal-mines, his new railway project! I say again: I have
accepted all this as inevitable, and as a matter of course, as long as
I alone was concerned, as long as I alone suffered. But, indeed, to
bring Erna into this life of trivialities, to leave the dear child in a
sphere where she sees nothing, hears nothing, that could give the
slightest nourishment to head or heart, where anything and everything
revolves round Mammon, is sacrificed to Mammon--that is beyond me,
beyond my strength!"
"Then, if I understand you aright, you wish, to get Erna married?"
Through the soft, velvety radiance of the deep-brown eyes flashed
something like a deeper light. The question was evidently not
expected--at least not yet--but the next moment already her eyes had
resumed their customary expression, and she forced those beautiful lips
to smile, as she said, in a tone of gentle reproach--
"Let us express it rather less egotistically. I should like Erna to
find a husband worthy of her."
"A most natural wish too! One which every mother cherishes for a
grown-up daughter. And as an old friend of the family I heartily join
in the wish, and do not for a moment doubt that we shall readily agree
as to what we shall expect her husband to be."
"I am not so sure on that point."
"Let us try anyhow. Firstly, he should be noble!"
"That is not your conviction."
"Then let it be a concession. If people wish to come to an
understanding they must be prepared to make concessions."
"This concession I accept gladly. Go on, please."
"He should not be a scholar by profession; but have a good--a man of
the world's--education, and a taste for the fine arts. In fact, we want
a cavalier, of course, in the best sense of the word."
"Agreed."
"He need not be wealthy. In fact, it would be preferable that he had no
fortune, he would in that case be all the more indebted to Erna."
"Most true!"
"He should not be a landed proprietor, or at least not a man who feels
it a duty and an absolute necessity to live in the country and devote
himself to agriculture. Best of all, he should have no definite
calling, or, anyhow, only one which did not impose difficult and
troublesome duties; say a position which should have it as a natural
consequence that the man in question moved in the best society, and
even came occasionally into pleasant contact with Court circles."
"Best of friends, how strangely skilled you are in reading a mother's
heart!"
"Let me, then, look to the very bottom of it, where possibly the name
of the individual in question is already written. If I read the
characters correctly, they form the name ..."
"Now I am truly keen to know."
"Baron Kuno von Lotter-Vippach."
"Lydia has told you!"
"No. Neither Fraeulein von Aschhof nor any one else has spoken to me, I
give you my word of honour."
"But it is most strange ..."
"Why so strange? Am I not a very old friend, to whom you have many a
time talked on most important topics, and whom you have many a time
honoured with your most intimate confidence?"
"Then it is all the better, all the more deserving of my gratitude;
and I thank you heartily, sincerely ..."
She had seized both his hands; her beautiful countenance, now lighted
up with a flush of gladness, had never been more beautiful; yet to
Bertram it appeared like some hideous mask.
"I cannot accept your thanks," he said, withdrawing his hands with
slight and very hurried pressure. "I could but do so honestly, if I
shared those wishes of yours which I have guessed. That is not quite
the case. The impression which Baron Lotter made upon me yesterday was
not specially favourable; to be quite open, the impression was
unfavourable."
"That," Hildegard replied eagerly, "leaves me very calm. You men
seldom like each other at a first encounter, and at a second you find
one another charming. In the Baron's case no second encounter has even
been necessary; he overflows with your praises; he calls you the
cleverest and most amiable of men; he is charmed to have made your
acquaintance; and I am convinced that you, too, my friend, will soon
modify your judgment--I should almost like to say your prejudice--once
you come to know the Baron better. He is somewhat spoiled, like all
very handsome men; somewhat conceited, if you like; but at bottom very
modest, easily led, good as gold. He will please you, believe me, and
more than please you! You will come to esteem and love him!"
"Is the more important question, to me the most important, already
settled? Does Erna think as favourably of the Baron? Does she love him?
For that he loves her, I must, I suppose, assume."
"That is beyond all doubt," Hildegard made answer; "as for Erna, I hope
so, I believe so; anyhow she does not express herself unfavourably
about him, and that, with Erna, means a good deal, for she is not at
all easily pleased, and is not accustomed to conceal her dislike, if
dislike there be. It is of course difficult to form a correct opinion
of Erna's sentiments; doubly difficult for me, because she has
been so long from home, and we are not always in accord in our
views and tendencies. Again, in Lydia she has never placed full
confidence--which, by the by, I can scarcely wonder at. I only know one
being whom she thoroughly trusts--and you dear friend, are the one!"
"I?"
"Are you surprised to hear this? Surely not? Has not the child always
been so fond of Uncle Bertram, that we, her parents, might have grown
jealous? Has she not ever been your favourite? If she is so no longer,
for goodness sake do not let the poor girl see it. She would be
inconsolable."
"Now, you are laughing at me."
"Indeed, I am not. Ask Lydia. That Lydia often speaks of you, you will
find natural enough, and that now and again a word of bitterness slips
in, you will find pardonable. Erna does not pardon it. In her eyes you
are once and for good raised above all reproach. You are, as it were,
her ideal. It is a downright case of infatuation, and it goes so far
that she once assured us, with all a child's gravity--she was still
almost a child--that if ever she married, Uncle Bertram must be her
husband and she got quite angry when Lydia and I laughed at her."
The beautiful lady smiled, and Bertram succeeded in forcing a smile
too.
"How very funny," he said; "but then very young girls are proverbially
prone to conceive infatuation for some one or other of their masters,
and I think, in Lydia's eyes, I have always been one of her
instructors, in literature and what not. Poor girls! they give their
affections to old Mentor, but they mean young Telemachus. Well, and
there is apparently a young Telemachus on the stage already, if you
have seen aright."
"Just to decide that point," replied Hildegard, "Mentor must not yet
resign his functions. On the contrary, I must entreat him most urgently
to help the mother with his clear vision and his advice, and to use his
old influence with the daughter. I may rely upon this, my trusty
friend, may I not?"
She held out her hand to him with these words. He raised it
deferentially to his lips and said--
"You may rest convinced that Erna's well-being is dearer to me than
anything else in the world."
Hildegard had wished and had expected another, a more definite, answer.
It was still doubtful whether she had really acquired an ally in him.
However, the main point was gained; she had taken the initiative, had
represented the affair from her own point of view, had appealed to
Bertram's friendship, had asked for his assistance, had given him a
proof of her confidence, which he would doubtless accept as
unconditional. This sort of thing is always flattering to a man, always
makes him feel indebted. Of course, a woman must flatter a man if she
would make him feel indebted.
Just then it was anyhow impossible to obtain a more definite assurance
from Bertram, for the Baron and Lydia were ascending the main steps of
the terrace; the Baron, in his temporary capacity as artist, clad in a
costume of brown velvet, and a straw hat with a stupendously broad
brim, and Lydia in such a grotesquely fantastic morning costume as to
suggest the idea that she had been acting as model for some wonderful
sketch of the artist. And indeed she did figure upon the canvas, but
only as a bit of the foreground, which represented a portion of the
terrace, across which you looked down into the valley and at the
village, with the wooded hills rising behind. The Baron was evidently
much pleased with his work, although he declared again and again not to
have half finished it; it was not fair, he added, to apply to a hasty
sketch the same standard of judgment as to a regular studio picture, in
which everything would of course turn out quite different. This,
Bertram could not but think, would be most desirable, but hardly very
probable. This so-called sketch was evidently a picture which had
already been touched and retouched, some portions had been painted over
two, even three times, and divers desultory dilettante endeavours had
failed to bring anything like harmony into the composition.
Nevertheless he politely agreed with the ladies' words of praise, which
flowed freely from Hildegard's lips, while Lydia, as was her wont,
launched out in extravagant eulogy: wonderful, was it not, what
progress the Herr Baron made day by day? At last there was once more a
painter with a mission for historical landscapes on a grand scale! The
resemblance of his genius to that of a Rottmann, a Preller--became more
and more apparent. Nor did she alone think so. Only the other day, at
Court, when they were talking of the pupils at the Academy of Arts, and
some one mentioned the Baron's name, Princess Amelia said, and said
with marked emphasis, "No pupil he, ladies, nay, a master, and a great
master! The Baron is a distinct acquisition for our School of Arts; he
represents a triumph!"
"Yes, it is true; the august lady is very graciously disposed towards
me," asserted the Baron, stroking his natty beard. "I wonder what she
will say to my new sketches."
Fortunately for Bertram, who was planning his escape under some pretext
or other from this painful scene, his host now came up to greet his
friend, and to ask if he felt strong enough and was inclined to go for
a little drive with him; only to the porcelain factory, they would be
back in an hour. Bertram declared his readiness.
"The Baron would surely like to go with you," said Hildegard,
exchanging glances with her husband; "but I fear there is barely
comfortable room even for two in your little trap."
The Baron hastened to assure her that he could not go, anyhow, as he
had promised Miss Erna to try the accompaniment to some new songs with
her.
Hildegard asked Bertram if he would not, before starting, say good
morning to Erna, who would be hurt if he left without having done so.
They called for Erna in vain. It seemed to Bertram that Hildegard only
wished to find time enough to beckon him aside, and to whisper to him
that he need not conceal from her husband what they had been discussing
in reference to Erna. On the contrary, she was anxious to learn Otto's
opinion of the whole matter; he would probably speak with less reserve
to his friend than, alas! to her, and that Bertram would take her side
she felt sure now.
"But Erna is not coming, I see," she exclaimed aloud; "I will not keep
you gentlemen any longer. _Au revoir_--an hour hence."
VII.
The little trap was so light, and the road was in such good condition,
that the friends were able to drive at a very fair pace, in spite of
the not inconsiderable gradient. Soon they passed into the wood.
The easy, comfortable motion, the perfect beauty of the morning, the
fact that the friends were for the first time in undisturbed
companionship--all seemed to favour a confidential exchange of
thoughts. Yet both men were silent, and barely exchanged a word or two
on indifferent topics. At last Otto said, after he had taken a stolen
side-glance or two of his friend--
"What do you think, Charles--shall we walk a bit? The road now will be
virtually level for some distance."
Bertram nodded assent. The carriage stopped. Otto bade the man drive
slowly on in front of them, in the direction of the factory.
"You never can be sure," he began, as they were striding along the
well-kept footpath by the side of the road, "that these beggars do not
hear more than they should; and I particularly want to ask you
something. Tell me--but quite honestly, mind--how do you like the
Baron?"
"Let us come to the point at once," replied Bertram; "I have had a talk
with your wife."
"Oh! indeed!" exclaimed Otto, hiding his embarrassment as best he could
by bursting out laughing, and abruptly leaving off again. "That is to
say, I rather thought you would. I should like to have done the same--I
mean had a talk with you--yesterday, in fact; but my wife told me not
to ... and, don't you know, the ladies always claim precedence."
"Very well; then let me commence at the point where my conversation
with your wife came to an end--with the question which she either could
not or would not answer when I pressed her, and which seems to me of
paramount importance--Does Erna love the Baron? Have you, between you,
or have you yourself, any proof of--any support of this? Have you made
any observation from which you could conclude such a thing?"
"Look here, old man," said Otto, "you are asking a lot at once. I can't
follow you. Proof--support--observation! Good Heaven! Who can look into
a girl's head and heart? She has said nothing to me, and rather than
ask her--ask her--it's such a queer question to ask, and possibly one
might only do harm by it, and learn nothing in the long run, or at
least not the truth. Of course she is fond enough of me, and has
confidence in me. Heaven knows how fond I am of her! but father and
daughter, you know--or rather you do not know, for you never had a
daughter--that's a curious business!"
He had taken off his hat and was scratching his head in his perplexity.
Bertram understood that he was not likely to get anything out of him
that way. After a pause Bertram said--
"Well, let us assume--although, to say the truth, I find it very hard
to do so--let us assume that Erna does love this man. Would you then be
able to say Yea and Amen with a good conscience? In other words, are
you convinced that the man would make Erna happy? That he has, anyhow,
the qualities which according to human reasoning and experience, render
her happiness at least possible? That he is a man of honour, of fit and
upright disposition;--in a word, that he is a gentleman?"
"A gentleman!" exclaimed Otto in amazement "Why, good Heaven!--a man
belonging to such a family--bearing such a name--a constant guest at
Court--invited to every ball, every evening party there; besides
joining their private circle, once or twice every week--why, he must be
a gentleman!"
"The deuce he must!" exclaimed Bertram angrily. "If you have no better
guarantee than Court balls and such like humbug!"
"But what more would you have?" said Otto. "What more would any one
have? If that is no guarantee I wonder what you would call one. I have
it as a matter of certainty from Lydia, that his nomination as
Chamberlain is made out, is lying ready for signature in the Grand
Duke's cabinet; and Lydia ought to know, for, between you and me, she,
with the help of our Court Marshal, an old friend of Lotter's father,
has been urging the matter strongly at Court. Lotter is very grateful
to her, and says quite frankly, that but for her he might have had to
wait much longer; and I think that is, a trait in his favour--although
I am convinced--but you must please not give any indication that you
know--although I am convinced that Lydia has not tried her hardest for
Lotter's own sake, but to conciliate my wife, who is bent upon seeing
her future son-in-law hold some Court appointment. And the reason why
Lydia had to keep in my wife's good graces is not far to seek; and, old
fellow, she has had her way at last, and is allowed to sojourn once
more under the same roof with you. You see: _manus manum lavat._"
"So I see, indeed," laughed Bertram. "And now Hildegard must again keep
me in good-humour, that I, in my turn, may keep you in good-humour. It
were strange indeed, if, under these circumstances, we were not, all of
us, in the very best humour!"
"This hardly seems to be your case as yet," said Otto, "your laughter
notwithstanding."
"Nor, I hope, yours either," exclaimed Bertram.
"Why do you hope so?"
Bertram made no answer. His Heart was full of sorrow and wrath. He saw
that the whole affair was arranged--among the two women anyhow--and the
easy-going henpecked husband by his side would be sure to say yes to
everything, had probably done so already, and this was but the second
scene this morning in a nicely-arranged comedy, with all the parts
carefully distributed beforehand. Evidently the drive had but one
object--to give Otto an opportunity of saying his part. And he,
himself?--Why, barely an hour ago he had solemnly protested to the fair
stage-manager that never more would he act again! And she had listened
to his solemn protest without laughing in his face! Well, well; there
might yet be a chance of interpreting some passage in a way that the
clever lady had not thought of!
Otto broke the silence, after they had been walking side by side for
some little time, by saying somewhat humbly--
"You are angry with me!"
"What right could I have to be so?" replied Bertram. "I am no relation
of yours. I am nothing but a friend; and, as such, I have no right
whatever. It is only my duty to give an honest answer if you consult me
on a matter of importance. And there is properly no consultation in
this case. You are not in need of any advice; you, her parents, are
resolved. Nothing is wanting, but the merest trifle--Erna's consent.
And, as that is sure to be given in good time, the whole thing is
clearly settled, and we may as well talk of something else."
"No, no!" exclaimed Otto, "nothing is settled; and the matter is by no
means clear--clear--not in my mind, anyhow; and Hildegard has not the
faintest conception how things really stand. She thinks it is only my
want of resolution that ... And because she knows how much I value your
judgment--if I could only tell you everything ..."
"But you cannot, and you would be, sorry for it afterwards. Therefore,
you had better not try."
"But I must at length tell some one, and there is no one else in the
world whom I could say it to. Listen: I ... I ..."
A kind of spasm passed over the full, round, good-humoured face; the
blue eyes, which he kept rigidly fixed upon his friend, seemed to
struggle against rising tears.
"I--I am ruined!"
He had just managed to pronounce these words hoarsely; then he broke,
down and sunk upon a log of wood which was lying by the roadside.
Bertram had, at first to struggle against the terrible notion that his
friend had suddenly gone mad. But his look, though one of utter
despair, was not that of a madman.
"What is this you say, Otto? Impossible, impossible!" he said, sitting
down upon the log by the side of his friend, who seemed bereft of all
strength. "Go on, anyhow, that I may judge what it comes to. I am quite
convinced--beforehand that it comes to nothing at all. But speak, for
goodness sake, speak!"
Otto nodded assent, and murmured--
"Yes, yes, I will speak. Come to nothing, forsooth! I have seen it
coming--for a long time past--for the last four years at least--ever
since I started, in addition to all the other things, that confounded
sugar refinery. We made it a Company; but I hold all the shares myself
now--I could not bear to ruin the poor beggars who, trusting in me,
had taken up the rest. This has cost me untold money; and the whole
thing was a failure, and the building is ready to be pulled down
again--would already have been pulled down if that, again, did not
require money. Besides, a thousand acres of my best soil planted with
beetroot--food for the pigs now. And yonder is that porcelain factory,
year by year a balance on the wrong side; and then the mines--yes, yes,
formerly, but not now ..."
There had been one long series of enterprises, each of which had turned
out more unsatisfactory, and, in the long run, more ruinous than the
other; and with increasing swiftness they had swallowed up ever bigger
sums, and had now at length given at least a most severe shock to a
very considerable fortune. This much Bertram gathered clearly from the
statements of his friend, although he only understood a small part of
the technical and mercantile details.
"But how on earth," he exclaimed, "could a quiet, sensible man like
yourself ever dream of venturing on this 'inclined plane'? How could
you graft one reckless, foolhardy speculation upon another; neglect,
ruin those splendid estates, the legacy of your fathers; stake your
peace of mind, your happiness? And if it had been a question of
yourself only! But your child--your wife ..."
He paused abruptly.
"Poor chap!" he murmured. "I think I understand after all--poor, good
chap!"
He was pressing Otto's hand warmly. Their eyes met. His unhappy friend
was smiling, and a most melancholy smile it was.
"To be sure, to be sure," he said; "I did not want it cried from the
house-tops; I knew you would find the reason. I myself--dear, dear--I
would not have cared to increase my gains. I should have been more than
satisfied with the estates and the mines, or with the estates alone, if
the mines ceased to yield a profit. You know how as a young man I used
to be quite ashamed of having so much money, never a farthing of which
I had earned, when I saw how my betters had to toil and moil. And I
knew too that I was not good enough for her--that it was great
condescension on her part to marry me at all--that I must needs ever
be in her debt. From the very commencement I let her have her own
way--she should never be able to say that I, the _bourgeois_
proprietor's son, was ignorant of what befitted and became a beautiful
young lady of high degree. I even--don't laugh at me, man--even tried
to procure a patent of nobility, she wished it so very much; and I have
made many a sacrifice with that object. This whole, ill-starred
porcelain factory, for instance--I had been told that at Court they
would like me to establish one, and indeed they buy here what they
require, though, to be sure, only for kitchen and servants' hall--and
there was many another thing besides. And then she wanted the terraces
and the park and the mansion-house restored--in the true style, I think
they call it--and she takes delight in all this, trumpery rubbish of
dim old mirrors, and shaky old chairs, and worm-eaten old cabinets, and
coffee-coloured, pictures, and abominable old pots and pans; and I,
great God! would willingly buy the whole world for her--lay it at her
feet--if only she would love me a little in return. But--you see,
Charles, it has all been in vain--quite in vain!"
The big man had buried his face in his hands, and was sobbing like a
child. Bertram's soul was filled with pity. The wretched weakness of
his friend in reference to his beautiful and beloved, but cold,
unloving wife, and its mournful consequences--he now understood it all
too well not to be ready to pardon--to a certain extent. But that,
husband and wife must settle, must bear, among them--only Erna should
not be dragged to ruin, should not also be sacrificed to her mother's
unbounded selfishness. And perhaps this was the one bright spot in the
dark picture which his friend had drawn of his position.
"You have not endeavoured to give the Baron a clear view of your
situation?" he asked.
"For goodness sake--no; certainly not," exclaimed Otto, rising in
terror from his stooping position. "Anything but that!"
"And yet you will have to do so as soon as he formally asks Erna's hand
from you."
"How can I tell him the truth? He would withdraw immediately."
"Otto, are you not ashamed of yourself? And you would really give Erna
to such a cur?"
"What am I to do?"
"What you are simply obliged to do as a man of honour, not to say as a
father!"
"And he'll talk about it--here, in the town, at Court--and everything,
everything depends upon my credit remaining unquestioned, at least a
little longer. If the projected railway is made to pass through here in
lieu of through the valley below, it would be done mainly on account of
my establishments, my factories, and what not. And in that case I am
saved--nay, I must needs grow wealthier than ever I have been. But the
ultimate granting of the concession--our local Parliament
notwithstanding--rests with the Government; and Lotter, with his divers
relations, his well-known influence ..."
He paused, then resumed in a somewhat less confident tone--
"If, therefore, I do not reveal everything to him at present--and, by
the by, there is no need for it yet--I am not acting dishonestly, but
in everybody's interest. You will grant me this much."
"To be sure," replied Bertram. "I only fear you will not be able to
continue this profitable silence for any length of time. For any
day it may happen that the young people come to an understanding,
and--to-morrow, perhaps, or this very day--they may come and ask for
your blessing."
"It would kill me!"
"It would, anyhow, be extremely awkward! Therefore, I beg to make the
following proposal to you. I am already authorised by your wife to
sound Erna; I now ask you to give me the same commission; and you will
tell your wife that you have spoken to me about it. Thus you will both
have placed the matter into my hands as it were. Now I shall find Erna
either distinctly favourable to your plan, or else distinctly
unfavourable, or undecided. In the latter case, I will try to confirm
her in that state of mind; and would prove to your wife that to advance
with inconsiderate rashness must needs be risking, and, probably,
spoiling everything. But even if Erna, really loves the Baron, or, on
the other hand, if she is satisfied in her own mind that he is not the
man who corresponds to her ideal--all girls create such an ideal for
themselves--well, I think I have influence enough with her--or, in case
of need, I possess diplomatic talent enough, to get the ultimate
decision put off one way or the other. For how long--we shall judge by
and by, once you and I are so far agreed."
"My dear boy, I put myself entirely in your hands. I'll not take a step
without you. Gracious me--what a lucky thing that you have come! I do
not know what would have become of me, and of the whole business."
He shook and pressed both his friend's hands in the excess of his
gratitude, looked upon his situation already in a much more hopeful
light, turned the conversation again to the new railway and to the
stupendous chances which would come to him in case the decision was
favourable, and that it would be so, he suddenly assumed to be
probable, nay, certain. He never noticed that Bertram had made the
little carriage turn which was waiting for them at the end of the wood,
and that now they were driving back the way they had come. The
suggested inspection of the factory had only been a pretext for having
an undisturbed hour with Bertram.
His friend was now sitting in silence by his side. Otto kept on talking
to him, lowering his voice on account of the driver's presence. Bertram
hardly heard what he said. He hardly saw, either--or if he saw, it was
like in a dream--the golden lights flash down through the top of the
giant firs, and play around the brown stems and along the mossy ground;
he saw but as in a dream the lovely vistas which opened here and there,
giving glimpses of loveliest landscape beauty in the valley far below.
His busy mind was working and modelling away at the part in the family
drama which had, after all, been forced upon him, and which he had not
dared to decline--for Erna's sake.
VIII.
For Erna's sake! How often he repeated that phrase to himself in the
course of the day! He wanted nothing for himself. What, indeed, could
he have wanted for himself? Nothing more than a man who should see a
child lost, in danger, among a crowd of carriages, and who should bound
to the spot and carry the child away to some place of safety; nothing
more than a wanderer, who sees a fellow-traveller start upon a road of
which he knows of old the insecure state, and who warns the heedless
man to take some other road instead. One does so because it is one's
duty as a human being; one does so because one's heart urges one to do
it, because one cannot help doing it.
Yes, a man acts and speaks in such situations as he would hardly act or
speak for his own sake. He is more courageous or more anxious than he
would be, if his own weal or woe were at stake. One grows beyond one's
self, or else sinks beneath one's own everyday moral level.
"And the latter is meanwhile my case," said Bertram to himself, as he
played his part with due zeal, and, as he thought, with great success.
It was a natural consequence, of that part that he lectured Hildegard
(after the event), because she had not yesterday taken him at once into
her confidence; that he exchanged with his friend Otto looks of the
completest accord and understanding; that he used with Lydia--to her
evident delight--a tone of mingled melancholy and fun, which appeared
half to express and half to hide a deeper emotion; and that with the
Baron he completely dropped his calm manner of the day preceding. How
else could he form an opinion of the man? And how could he be a
faithful counsellor to Erna without having formed an opinion?
So he examined the Baron's portfolio with patient attention, whilst
that nobleman turned over the leaves and gave explanations. The
collection would have been a priceless treasure if the quality had
corresponded with the quantity. There were sketches from almost every
country in Europe; the northern coast of Africa, too--Algiers,
Tunis--was largely represented. And then the painter's talent
embraced all styles and kinds of painting:--landscape, architecture,
still-life, portraiture--nothing had escaped the unwearied brush,
nothing had appeared too difficult. On the contrary, there were the
most unlikely effects of light and shade, the oddest scenes, the most
_risque_ situations, involving the wildest inroads on the laws of
perspective and the most reckless foreshortening--and the daring
sketcher seemed positively to have revelled in these. And yet Bertram
had to confess to himself that a not inconsiderable talent, which, with
patient and careful schooling, might have borne beautiful fruit, had
been recklessly wasted--and, indeed, generally recklessness did seem to
him to be the Baron's leading characteristic. Anyhow, the painter's
fluent comments on his own sketches quite corresponded to the reckless
style of painting. Everywhere his ideas, good ones and bad ones, and
some really original ones, were clothed in the same hurried, flurried,
sometimes absurd form, showing a ready, but never a profound insight
into human relations, into manners and customs of nations; much, but
most desultory reading; extensive, and yet scattered knowledge. The man
spoke as he painted, and painted as he played music. Reckless,
superficial, inconstant, like his work and his talk, will and must his
love be too, thought Bertram.
Could love like that lastingly suffice for Erna? It seemed impossible.
But is there such a word as impossible in connection with the magic
world of the human heart? Are not the natures of truly noble women at
times visited by irresistible and undying passion for wavering,
unstable, yes, even for morally worthless men? Does it not well-nigh
seem to have all the stability of a law of nature, that totally opposed
characters, all inward resistance notwithstanding, feel drawn to and
fascinated by each other?
Was this fatal fascination visible in Erna?
Bertram kept his attention unconsciously fixed on that one decisive
point, but without being able to come to any definite result. True, he
had to confess to himself that even a still keener observer would have
vainly tried his hand at the task. Erna joined to-day even less
directly than on the previous day in the general conversation; nay
more, he thought he noticed what had not been the case yesterday, or
what had at least escaped him then, that her gaze, usually so firm,
seemed at times fixed on vacancy, then again appeared directed inward,
anyhow was not dwelling on her surroundings--a symptom which by no
means pleased the observer, because from it one might surely conclude
that there existed a deeper sentiment, one which absorbed her inner
life. And this sentiment was not likely to be one of aversion to the
Baron, to whom she talked more, in her own calm way, than to anybody
else; with whom she played music two or three times during the day; and
with whom she played chess after supper in her own grave, attentive
manner. Hildegard came and explained all these details to Bertram ...
"Believe me," she said, "I know Erna. Mind, my words of this morning.
She may be long in confessing her preference for any man, but if she
were to dislike any one, he would find it out pretty soon."
"I fear that I am experiencing something of the sort," Bertram replied.
"How so?"
"Have you not noticed that she has not said three words to me all the
evening?"
"Insatiable man! Are you not satisfied with Lydia who is ransacking her
repertory for your sake? Would you have all womankind at your feet? I
shall warn Lotter against you as against his worst rival."
"Do not destroy our budding friendship. But, joking apart, can there be
a rival?"
"What are you thinking of? And if there were, I should be sure to know
it through Lydia, who, like all elderly girls, is apt to err on the
side of seeing too much rather than too little. Moreover, we two, Lydia
and I, have never lost sight of the child, and in Erfurth, where, it is
true, she went alone once or twice during the last few years, she was
always in the company of my sister and her six girls, and I never heard
a word, nor the slightest hint. One of the girls, Agatha, the third,
Erna's bosom friend, is coming here, by the way, in a day or two; and a
good, modest, sensible girl she is, though not as pretty as the rest.
But you surely remember Agatha? Well, I'll question her a little when
she comes, but I know beforehand that she will not have anything to
tell. Oh, you'd better concentrate your jealousy upon Lotter!"
Hildegard surely felt very certain of her ground, else she would not
have jested--a rare occurrence with her. Bertram took up a similar
tone, and during the game of whist to which he and Otto soon afterwards
sat down with the two older ladies, he was remarkably merry and
talkative.
But two hours later Konski found him all the more gloomy and taciturn,
and so silent that he did not even reply to the "good-night, sir," of
that faithful servitor.
"It's the old one," soliloquised Konski, as he meditatively brushed his
master's boots in his own little room, "who is bothering him. 'Dear Mr.
Konski,' here, 'My good Mr. Konski,' there--I know what she is after.
And then, to give me a whole dollar! And she has not any to spare, I
can see that much, in spite of her grand airs and her trimmings. And
she to rule the roast for master and me! Not if we knows it! And now
we'll both marry; and marry smart young ones too! And may the devil fly
away with all old women!"
IX.
For this morning, after breakfast, a general expedition had been
planned--a drive to a certain eminence, from which the Baron was
desirous of expounding to them all the arrangements for the forthcoming
man[oe]vres. Bertram had at the last moment made an excuse: much to his
regret, he sent Konski to say, that he had forgotten to write some
really important letters, and must needs stay at home to do so now.
Would the others, please, on no account give up their drive for his
sake.
"At first they would not go without you, sir," Konski reported; "but I
got them to do it, and they are getting the horses ready now; the
ladies are to drive, the gentlemen will go on horseback. So you may
stay quietly in bed and try to get another hour's sleep. I am afraid,
sir, you have had another awful night!"
And indeed it had been a worse night for Bertram than the preceding
one, and this time the morning had not improved him. That he had to
admit to himself when, after having first vainly endeavoured to follow
the faithful servant's advice, he had at length risen in very low
spirits and dressed, trying whether a stroll along the terrace
garden-walk would cool his fevered brow and refresh his weary heart.
He had no right to be wearied. He was bound, when they came back, to
meet them merrily and serenely; that belonged to his part. How could
they give their confidence to one who appeared to have none in himself,
in his own strength, his own courage?
And he would need all his courage to look, if it could be done, deeper
than hitherto into Erna's eyes, into Erna's heart: and he would need
all his strength if that look were to confirm what, yesterday, he had
deemed impossible, but what, during the awful night, had come to appear
to him as thoroughly possible, nay, as probable. If it were so, then
the whole elaborate plan which he had yesterday confided to his friend,
had therewith fallen to the ground. Otto's embarrassments were scarcely
as great as he had represented them; and even if he had not, according
to his wont, exaggerated things, what would be the use of delaying the
decision? On the contrary, the more swiftly it came, the better for
all. If the Baron was a man of honour; he would not withdraw on
learning that the maiden of his choice was not wealthy; if he had
influence at Court, if this influence really amounted to something
considerable, he would now try all the more to use it for his future
father-in-law. They might then make their own arrangements, as best
they could; and they would make arrangements; sacrifice some things on
both sides, give up some hopes. What would one not sacrifice, what
would one not give up, if one loved from one's very heart? But to have
to look on at such hearty love, love delighting in sacrifice--never! To
run away would be cowardly, no doubt. But then valour, like honesty, is
appropriate only when it is needed, and when it will be of some use. He
would have to think beforehand of some suitable pretext which should
render a sudden departure possible.
Thus lost in mournful thought, Bertram was pacing backward and forward
along the terrace-walk, now past sunny espaliers, along which ruddy
grapes were already commencing to shine through the dense clusters of
vine-leaves, anon between rows of beeches, which were entwined overhead
and formed dusky arbour-like groves.
Having reached the end of one of these groves, he paused as one
terrified. In front of him, on the platform where the terrace widened,
Erna was seated beneath the great plantain tree which overshadowed the
whole place with its broad branches. An open volume lay upon the
round table before her; she was writing busily, bending over a
blotting-book. The graceful form, the finely-chiselled features, stood
out in clearest profile against the green terrace above her. In this
subdued light the dainty cheek seemed even paler than usual; and as she
now paused, pen in hand, lifting a long eyelash and glancing
meditatively up at the leafy roof above, the great eyes shone like
those of an inspired Muse.
"One draught before I pass onward--on the shadeless remainder of my
dreary road," Bertram muttered to himself.
He might have stepped back without being noticed, but he did not do so;
his motionless eyes clung to the beautiful picture before him, as one
perishing of thirst might gaze upon a brimming cup, when, lo! she
turned.
"Uncle Bertram!"
She had said it quite calmly, and now, slowly, she laid down her pen
and closed her blotting-book, rising at the same time and holding out
her hand to him as he came up.
"I felt that somebody, was looking at me."
"And you wished, to remain unseen, or at least undisturbed. But could I
have guessed that I should find you here? Why are you not away with the
others?"
A smile flitted over her face.
"I had important letters to write, too."
"Well, you have written, anyhow."
"And have you not? For shame. If you make any excuses you should
yourself take them in earnest; then you will come to fancy afterwards
that the excuses were really valid."
"I'll remember this in future. But what makes you tell me to my face
that my important letters were but an excuse?"
"I thought that you did not care to go; and I think I know the reason
why."
"Indeed! I am curious to hear it from you."
"I will tell you. I wanted to say so last night already, for then I
noticed quite well how gladly you would have made an excuse, only you
could not at the moment think of a suitable one; but I could not have
said what I wished to say in a few words, and so I determined to try
and have an undisturbed talk with you. Shall we not sit down?"
They sat dawn, Erna with her blotting-book before her, Bertram on the
seat opposite. Her large eyes were lifted up to him. But a minute
before he had greatly longed to be able to see deep, deep into these
eyes, right to the innermost recess of her soul; and now, when it could
be, when it was to be, he shrank from it, he wished the time deferred.
He would in any case learn the secret all too soon.
"Uncle Bertram, I wanted to tell you that ..."
The dark eyelids had closed after all; well, she anyhow did not see the
breathless excitement with which he hung upon her lips. In his mind he
heard already the words--"that--I engaged myself last night to be
married to the Baron." The pause she made--of a second or two--seemed
to him an eternity.
"My dear child," he said in a voice well-nigh inaudible ...
"That ... you shall not for my sake lay upon yourself a burden which
you can no longer bear."
The large eyes were gazing firmly at him again, while he bent his own
in deadly confusion.
He murmured--
"I--I do not understand you."
"You are too good to wish to understand me; but the excess of your
goodness weighs me down and frightens me. I know that you are fond of
me, that you do it only because you love me. But I love you too, Uncle
Bertram, love you very much, more than formerly, when I did not really
know you, did not at all understand you. I am no longer a child, and
therefore you should not treat me like a spoiled child and do what I
ask, especially when I see that I ask for something to which I had no
right. I had no right to ask--I should not have entreated you to be
kind to Aunt Lydia. And now I beg of you not to be so any longer, or to
the same extent. I cannot bear it. She has harmed you as terribly, as
terribly as only an evil heart can harm a good one. And she to be
allowed to take your hand, look into your eyes, jest with you, as if
nothing had occurred! If this had happened to me, I would not tolerate
it--never, never!"
Her voice quivered, her lips trembled; the pale cheek was flushed now,
the great eyes were flashing. She said she had not known him, had not
understood him--and he? What had he known of her? of the strength of
feeling of that heart of hers which had seemed to him to beat in such
steady measure? His gaze was fastened on her now in raptured amazement,
like the gaze of a mortal to whom something divine is being revealed.
But next moment the wondrous girl had conquered that passionate
impulse, her features regained their usual expression, and she went on,
calmly enough--
"And you, Uncle Bertram, should not tolerate it either--you, least of
all. You cannot lie, cannot play the hypocrite. Let others do so; it
befits you ill, it is unworthy of you. I cannot, will not see anything
unworthy in you. I will have one human being whom I can believe and
trust unconditionally. This one you are, you must be; is it not so,
Uncle Bertram?"
She held out her hand to him across the table. He could not refuse it,
and yet, as he touched those slender fingers, something thrilled
through him as though he had been guilty of some act of desecration.
"You think me too good, too great," he said. "I can only reply, I will
try to deserve your confidence."
"And I will give you an opportunity at once. I am not contented with
myself either. I too--for the sake of others, to please papa and mamma
who seemed greatly to wish it--have been kinder to somebody than at
heart I felt justified in being, and I must henceforth change my
conduct towards him."
"He has proposed to you?"
"Proposed? To me?"
A scornful smile played round her exquisite lips.
"I beg your pardon, dear Erna. He was so remarkably assiduous in his
attentions to you yesterday. You admit yourself that you have been
kinder to him than now you care to have been, and he strikes me as
being one of those men who grasp the whole hand the moment you hold out
your little finger to them. And moreover, I know that your parents
encourage him much, and he is surely aware of that too. Thus my
question was not wholly groundless; still, I beg your pardon."
"And indeed you need it in this case, Uncle Bertram. Or, have I perhaps
behaved so childishly that even a clever man like you could deem such a
thing possible?"
"No, no; pray, try to forget what I said without thinking, or take it
for a proof that I was right, that I am neither so good nor so clever
as you thought."
The words sounded diffident, almost submissive, but his heart was
swelling with proud delight, and the songsters perched above in the
shady recesses of the big plantain tree seemed to have been silent till
now, and to be then commencing all at once to twitter and sing and make
sweetest melody; and from the terraces beneath there was wafted up to
them in fragrant cloudlets the perfume of carnation and mignonette.
What a beautiful, divinely beautiful morning it was!
"Henceforth," said Erna, "we will be open to each other, and then such
misunderstandings will not occur again. This one, truly, should make me
blush. The Baron is the very last man in whom I could take the very
slightest interest. I find nearly everything he says stupid and silly,
and if a fairly good idea turns up, as it does every now and then, it
is impossible to enjoy it, for the question is sure to obtrude itself:
'What nonsense will he talk next?' I am only now making his
acquaintance; he, it is true, has been often here before, but in my
absence; and in town, when he came, as he sometimes did, to see Aunt
Lydia, I always avoided having to meet him."
"You have met few young men yet?"
"And those few have not made me anxious to meet any more."
"This sounds very hard; but, to say the truth, you are not the first
girl whom I have heard talk like this."
"My only wonder is that all do not talk, or, at least, think like this.
My own idea is, that men are naturally selfish, frivolous, and vain,
and only become with advancing years good, and noble, and amiable, and
this applies only to the few exceptions; for I suppose the bulk remain
as they were."
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly. And that is why, the night before last, I could not agree
with you at all when you asserted that a young girl could not love a
much older man, or was at least committing an act of folly if she did
so, which, to her sorrow, she was bound to realise sooner or later, and
therefore the sooner the better. Nor is it at all this consideration
which makes Hilarie change, and which throws her into the arms of that
youth who is behaving so childishly and insanely, that Flavio;--there
is quite a different reason for it."
"Then you know the novelette?"
"No; I only read it now; and I had to hunt a long time for it, until I
found it in the _Wanderjahre_. The book is lying there. And now I also
understand the 'one element,' which you said the night before last
that Goethe had excluded, or had not made use of--which is the right
expression in this case?--because otherwise the comedy would have been
turned into a tragedy."
"And this 'one element,' what is it?"
"The fact that her uncle is not in love with her at all. Was not that
it?"
"To be sure. I only wonder at your having found it out."
"And my only wonder is that Hilarie did not discover it sooner. She
must have been very blind not to have seen that her uncle returns--or
rather does not return--her love from sheer kindliness of disposition;
that at best his _penchant_ is but the faintest reflex of her
passionate love. Look at this passage: 'You are making me the happiest
man beneath the sun! Exclaiming this, he fell at her feet.' How feeble,
how strained! And it contents her, makes her happy. I should have been
ashamed of the whole business."
"You must make some allowance for the spirit of the time, for the
manner and expression of the period; in that case, these things do not
look or sound quite as bad. But now for the other side of the medal:
You hold that Hilarie did truly love her uncle, and would have remained
faithful to her love, in spite of any number of Flavios, if her passion
had been returned?"
"Most certainly!"
"Well, be it so. He loves, loves passionately. Enter Flavio, loving,
loving passionately, too. The father perceives it. He sees that his own
love would seal the doom of the son whom he loves. Moreover, he is
sure--if he is not a conceited fool, but a man of heart and head, he
must be sure--that Hilarie would undoubtedly, return his son's passion,
if he, the father, the uncle, did not unfortunately stand between them;
that the girl's love for the young man, and _vice versa_, is the only
natural--that means, the only right thing; that therefore Hilarie
cannot truly love him; that her love rather, if it be not absolutely
unnatural, is anyhow an error, an aberration, from which she shall and
must turn. Given these things, am I wrong in asserting that then,
indeed, the comedy changes to tragedy--a tragedy the secret and silent
stage of which, I admit, will be solely ... the elderly man's heart? Do
you not agree with me?"
"I must, I think; if I have first granted your suppositions and
assumptions, particularly this: that a girl's love for a man much older
than herself must needs in every case be an error, an aberration. But
then, again, I do not see why the elderly man's love for the girl does
not also tend to self-deception, to a fact which he, being more
far-sighted, clever, experienced; is bound to realise all the sooner.
And then, where is your tragedy?"
Once more the great eyes flashed, the dainty lips quivered, an angry
cloud lay on her brow. There was a wild voice in his heart crying:
"Where?--here, here--for I love, I love thee! and it is impossible that
into thy maiden heart, there should ever fall one spark of the wild
conflagration raging here." But he succeeded this time, too, in
subduing the tumult in his heart, and he said smilingly--
"I hoped, nay, I knew that you would make this objection, which is
absolutely correct, and which helps the Master to regain that absolute
sovereignty and undeviating correctness in matters of the heart in
which I, wantonly, tried to argue Goethe was deficient. Of course, so
the matter stands, turn and twist it as you will--Hilarie's love is an
illusion; or, more correctly, it is a foreshadowing of that true and
genuine passion which she will feel one day. The Major's love is a
reminiscence of what his heart once, in the bygone days of his far-away
youth, was glowing with, and what it never again will glow with now.
Anything of a warmer feeling that haply still survives, may be
sufficient for a sensible, reasonable marriage, with the clever widow,
in whose sentiments towards him again reminiscence acts the part of a
kindly mediator, and ... but surely ... why, they are back already!
Shall we go and meet them?"
From the verandah Lotter's loud voice was heard. Lydia, too, was
calling out; she was calling Erna. Bertram had risen, glad of the
interruption; he felt his strength very nearly exhausted. He was
resting his hand on the back of her chair, lest Erna, if they shook
hands, should feel how his hand trembled. But Erna was gazing straight
before her with a very gloomy expression of countenance.
"I should like to finish my letter first," she said.
"Then I will disturb you no longer."
He had gone; had gone without offering her his hand. Erna sat for a
while without looking up; then she re-opened her blotting-book, and
read the last page she had written:--
"I see him always, absent or present; I see his noble, pale
countenance, the deep, thoughtful eyes, that mouth which can jest so
delicately, and which yet (for me) quivers so often in sorrow for a
wasted life, a lost happiness. For me! The others never see it; how
should they? To them he is the cold-hearted egotist, the bitter jester,
who believes in nothing, least of all in love. To be sure--once
betrayed as he has been--alas! Agatha, that is the very thing which
draws me irresistibly to him. I can now gaze deep, deep into his noble
heart, can feel all the pangs that have torn it, and must be tearing it
again now in the presence of the viper who--oh, I do hate her! ... And
he manages to be quite friendly in his demeanour to her, because I
asked him to, before I knew all the circumstances. But he shall do so
no longer. I cannot bear it, when he turns his good, truthful eyes to
me, as though he would ask: 'Is it right thus?' No, it is wrong, a
thousand times wrong! But is it not wrong, too, that I should be
allowed to read in his heart, and he not in mine? Shall I tell him ...
all? It is ever on my lips, but then ... no. I should not be ashamed in
his presence, he is so kind, and he would understand me! Resting on his
protecting arm he would let me shed the last of those hot, angry tears,
which will yet persist in sometimes rising to my eyes, and which I
brush away indignantly; and I would gratefully accept his mercy, but on
one condition only, that I may go on resting on that arm, that he would
permit me to love, to serve him, to-day and for ever, as his friend,
his daughter, his slave! ... Shall I tell him?"
Erna gave a bitter smile, and took the sheet of paper in both her hands
in order to tear it in pieces. Then she laid it down again, and seized
her pen once more.
"She who has written this is a conceited little fool, and deserves
exemplary punishment for her conceit, and the said punishment is to
consist in her sending these lines to her granny, in order to receive
by return of post the requisite scolding, even if granny, and this is
an urgently repeated request, is coming here the day after to-morrow.
For between granny and me there shall not be said one word on this
subject, and even less about the other thing and the other one; and
now, dearest granny ..."
"Ah, there is Miss Erna!" exclaimed the Baron, issuing with Lydia from
the terrace walk.
"We have been looking everywhere for you," said Lydia. "Heavens! how
the child has flushed and heated herself over her writing! To Agatha,
of course!"
"Ah, if one could read the letter!" exclaimed the Baron.
"There is nothing about you in it, I can give you that assurance, if it
will set your mind at ease," said Erna, closing her blotting-book with
the unfinished letter in it, and rising.
X.
"Have you availed, yourself of the opportunity to talk to Erna?"
Hildegard asked Bertram as soon as they were alone.
Bertram had expected this question, and had sought and found time to
prepare his answer to it. His first impulse has been to taste the full
delights of triumph, and to assure Hildegard, in strict accordance with
the actual truth, that the Baron need never expect to gain Erna's
affection. But then he considered that so brusque a revelation, would,
without the slightest doubt, cause the proud lady to burst forth into a
tempest of indignation, would bring Erna into a disagreeable position,
and possibly involve her in extremely awkward scenes. Her feeble father
would be no support to her whatever--on the contrary, he wished the
decision to be put off as long as possible. And, lastly, he saw now
quite clearly that Hildegard's pressing invitation to make a lengthened
stay had had the very definite aim to secure in him, as in a very
influential friend, an ally in the execution of her plans. Now he had
failed in his diplomatic mission, and though they would not openly
deprive him of his confidential position, they would very surely not
consult him again. Future events would then occur behind his back, and
the sooner he went away the better for them. And was he to go now? He
felt as though he could as readily bid farewell to life and light.
And so his answer came to be nothing but an adroit evasion. He had, he
said, done his best, and Erna had met him in the heartiest and most
confiding manner. But on this very ground he considered himself
justified in stating that there was at present no trace of any definite
_penchant_ for the Baron on Erna's part, and that he could only advise
them all to possess their souls in patience, to bide their time, and to
hope for the best from the gradual, but all the more sure, influence of
daily intercourse.
The apparent genuineness of conviction with which all this was
expressed deceived Hildegard completely. Her assumption that Erna took
a special interest in the Baron was chiefly founded on Lydia's
assertions, and Lydia, poor soul, was for ever weaving matrimonial
projects, was much addicted to exaggeration, and to the making of
molehills into mountains, and would, in this particular case, to get
into Hildegard's good graces and maintain herself there, amply confirm
anything she might be desirous of hearing. Now, when Hildegard was for
the moment looking at things through friend Bertram's clearer and, as
she thought, perfectly unprejudiced eyes, she was bound to admit the
justice of his observations; indeed, in Erna's manner to the Baron
there was very little indication of anything like a warmer sentiment,
so little in fact, that the varying ways in which she treated him might
almost seem matters of congratulation. Bertram asked himself why
Hildegard did not give up a project which looked so very unlike
fulfilment, since Erna, in all the charm of her young beauty, would
assuredly have no lack of suitors, while her mother, not having the
slightest suspicion of her husband's awkward financial situation, must
needs, as indeed she did in her matrimonial plans in reference to Erna,
reckon wealth among the attractions. There seemed to be something
self-contradictory here, anyhow it was passing strange; and yet, as he
went on meditating, he thought he had found the key to the enigma. Fair
Hildegard herself was most pleasantly impressed by the Baron's striking
appearance and confident manner, and was much flattered by the homage
he paid to her beauty, her cleverness, her kindness, a homage to which,
he gave even in company a very perceptible, and in their not infrequent
_tete-a-tetes_ probably even a more emphatic expression. And then the
circumstance which, by the by, the Baron by no means concealed, that,
to use his own words, he was as poor as a church mouse, she looked upon
as a distinct point in his favour.
"Herein," she said to Bertram, "I see the finger of a just and
compensating Fate. I know, my friend, that you are too wise and
enlightened not to pardon an aristocratic fancy of mine, namely, that
it is best if the aristocracy marry among themselves, and the
_bourgeoisie_, for whom I have the greatest respect, also among
themselves. Well, I, being a very poor lady with a long pedigree--for,
indeed, the traditions of our family are reckoned by centuries--have
had to break with these traditions, and was in this way the first to
contract a _bourgeois_ alliance. I do not complain of my lot; it was my
lot, and there's an end of it; but I have never ceased to pray to God
that my only daughter might be granted a different fate. And if a
family, which is still older than mine, is enabled to resume its
rightful position in the world, I really do not know what better I
could wish, assuming always that Erna, as would doubtless be the case,
gets a husband who loves her, and who--not to reckon his little
cavalier's foibles, in reference to which a wise woman will be
judiciously blind, knowing that this kind of thing is sure to stop of
its own accord--is in every way worthy of her love."
"And whom," added Bertram mentally, "I hope to bring as completely
under my control as my husband."
He was convinced that this thought was the leading one in the
calculations of the selfish lady, in spite of the great care with which
she endeavoured to avoid even the faintest appearance of any egotistic
motive. Even as she was fond of representing her life as one long chain
of sacrifices made by her on behalf of others, so she would now appear
prepared to give up her own comfort for Erna's sake. Of course, she
explained, it would not be possible to leave the poor child alone in
town, among indifferent strangers; and she and Otto must in consequence
make up their minds to spend the winter there in future. This, to be
sure, would necessitate the purchase of a house of their own in town;
but the question of expense was not to be taken into consideration
where the happiness of their child was concerned; and, by a lucky
accident, there happened to be for sale, and at quite a reasonable
price, a newly-erected villa close to the Park, surrounded by a pretty
garden, and roomy enough to enable them all, parents and children, to
live comfortably together. And it would be quite feasible and not
very expensive either, to build a studio for the Baron, she added.
Perhaps Bertram would not mind driving to town with Otto, to look
at the house? When? Why not to-day? Otto, as usual, could not make
up his mind, although it would be an excellent investment, even
supposing--supposing--but no, that case was not likely to occur, the
momentary, somewhat unfavourable, aspect of things notwithstanding.
"For in this, too, my friend," she said, in concluding her
explanations, "you will agree with me: the more carefully we prepare
all things needful, and thus show the child, as it were, an image of
the safe and sure and peaceful happiness awaiting her, the more swiftly
and fondly her fancy will busy itself with that image, and from the
fair image to the fairer reality--_il n'y a qu'un pas_. But first we
must settle about the villa. There will be no difficulty if you speak
seriously to Otto."
"I promise," replied Bertram.
The incident was most opportune, he thought. Here Otto, already
harassed on all sides, was threatened, with huge additional
expenditure, before which even his fatal readiness to yield must needs
pause at length, as before an absolutely insuperable obstacle. The
consequences were clear. He could not simply meet his wife's request by
a refusal. There must be a full explanation between husband and wife;
there would be a fearful storm, but it had to come, it was absolutely
required to clear the sultry atmosphere, to disentangle the wretchedly
involved situation. Hildegard's frivolous scheme would burst like a
soap-bubble, and at one stroke Erna would be freed from an importunate
suitor, and her father from an unworthy and intolerable position.
Yesterday already he had been determined to stand by his friend through
all the anxieties, embarrassments, and perils which were bound to
ensue. To-day his heart beat anxiously, eager as he was to face those
perils, for every peril cleared out of her path and victoriously
conquered, was a trophy laid at her feet, hers, for whom he would have
willingly shed his heart's blood drop by drop.
Fancy his terror and his indignation when, driving to town with Otto
later in the day, he found his friend more removed than ever from any
manly resolve.
"The purchase of this villa, dear me--why, if Hildegard cares for it so
much--would, after all, be a comparative trifle--really. And then, what
I told you yesterday regarding my situation, why, dear me, you know me
well enough, old man, to ... to know how I am influenced by passing
moods. That makes me look at all things accordingly; things are either
black or white to me. And yesterday, why, I had a black, a very black
mood. To be sure, my factories are not a success, and, indeed, may now
and again involve a loss. But, then, look at those fields, and think of
the crop we'll have; and with such a prospect I can afford to leave
myself a very fair margin, the more so as the harvest in Russia and in
Hungary promises to be very bad--so the reports say--and in that case
we shall make no end of money. And then--look here--just you read his
paragraph in the paper about the railway question. Eh--and the
paragraph, I feel sure, is from the pen of the President of our own
local Parliament, who is, by the by, a great friend of mine, and has
for years been my lawyer. Well, what do you say now?"
"I say," replied Bertram gravely, "that things are exactly in the
position which you described yesterday. Your friend here clearly
represents only his own, or, if you like, your views and wishes; and
will, moreover, naturally put some pressure upon Government, by
representing it as impossible for them to decide differently from your
wishes and hopes."
"But the Government--which means the Court--is already more than half
won over. Lotter assures me...."
"For Heaven's sake! leave him out of the business."
"Oh, of course, of course; if you are so prejudiced against him that
you refuse him even the common credibility which you allow otherwise to
everybody!"
"There is no question here of credibility or incredibility," exclaimed
Bertram indignantly; "but the thing is this: you are mistaking your
illusions and hopes for realities and facts; you are voluntarily
blinding yourself lest you see the abyss into which you are about to
plunge. And mind this: by your miserable hesitation you are really
accelerating the coming of the dreaded moment; nay, you render it only
the more dreadful. There is still time; this very day you can go and
say to your wife: I have met with losses, terrible losses, and we must
needs retrench, and therefore.... Why, man, you will let it come to
this, that you must confess to her: We have nothing further to lose;
all is gone! Think of this, friend, I entreat you. Your boat is
overloaded; away with the ballast which all but sinks it now; overboard
with it all! Were it a question of yourself alone, you would be manly
enough not to hesitate; and with wife and child on board, whose ruin is
certain unless you act at once, you ... cannot, will not act!"
Otto would say neither yea nor nay. Bertram was silent in his despair.
What would come of it all?
And so they arrived in town, having hardly exchanged a word more. They
looked over the villa, and again hardly a word was exchanged; just an
indifferent remark here and there, nothing more. Otto was apparently
annoyed at something, but Bertram saw well enough that this appearance
of annoyance was but assumed to hide his irresolution.
"I know, I know," Otto said at last grumpily, "we are not likely to
agree as it is. Had we not better call together upon my lawyer and hear
his opinion about the whole business? He is, moreover, on your side, in
politics, and will be delighted to make your acquaintance."
Bertram seized eagerly upon so sensible a proposal, and to the lawyer's
they drove accordingly; but when they had got to the door, Otto
remembered that he had to do some commission for Hildegard: he even
explained--
"About those officers who are going to be quartered upon us, don't you
know?--extra provisions and that kind of thing. She can never, she
thinks, have too much on hand, in case.... Well, well, it's her nature
to ..."
And so the broad-shouldered figure of his friend passed down the lonely
sunlit street; and Bertram added, speaking to himself, this comment,
"And your nature is ... to do things by halves only, unless you mean,
in this case, to throw the whole responsibility upon my shoulders."
And in this view his friend's lawyer completely confirmed him.
"Look here," said the latter to Bertram, when, after a hearty, mutual
welcome, the two had swiftly grown to be confidential with each other,
"you may take my word for this, he is most anxious we should have a
perfectly unrestrained talk about his affairs, and has backed out of
being present simply to avoid having to hear all the disagreeable
things we could not spare him; moreover, he might oppose to you and to
me, separately, a certain resistance which he would not have the
courage to do if he, found us confronting him together. Under these
circumstances I do not consider it indiscreet, but I think I am acting
according to the wishes, and I know I am acting in the interest of our
common friend, if I now add a few words of explanation to what you know
already; then, indeed, you will be thoroughly acquainted with the state
of his affairs."
The lawyer then proceeded to describe Otto's position in detail; and to
his amazement Bertram found his own conception confirmed throughout.
Why, even his own image of the ballast which required to be heaved
overboard to set the ship once more afloat, figured in the exposition.
To be sure, Bertram now learned for the first time how weighty that
ballast really was. Thus, to give but one example, Otto had never
mentioned, had not even hinted at the fact that Hildegard's elder
sister, the widow of the late Secret Counsellor von Palm, and her whole
family, lived entirely upon Otto's bounty. "And that," said the lawyer,
"is an awful item! For the lady in question is, in every respect, a
true sister of your friend's wife. She thinks that death and the end of
all things must needs be at hand, if she and hers cannot live on a very
grand scale indeed. And then her house in Erfurth is a sort of
gathering-place for all who, by rank or position, may aspire to the
honour of appearing in such sublime surroundings; half-pay general
officers and colonels galore--and the little town was ever full of
them--and, of course, the whole number of officers actually on
duty in the garrison, and so on, and so on. The girls--and there is
half-a-dozen of them--are as bad as their mother, always excepting one
dear, sensible creature--not one of the pretty ones, though--whom, I
understand, you are about to meet in Rinstedt. Well, if the daughters
are extravagant, the two sons--both, as you know, in the army, go on as
though their uncle's cashbox had no bottom to it. Three times, four
times, already he has paid the debts of those young men, whom, by the
by, he cannot bear at all, and this, and all this, simply _in majorem
gloriam Hildegardis_, his well-beloved wife, a lady of such an old
family that the scions thereof cannot, of course, be measured by the
same standard as common mortals."
"And do you not perceive any way of escape from this vicious circle our
friend is wandering in?" Bertram asked.
"Only the one you have already pointed to," the lawyer made answer.
"But how the deuce can you advise a man who will not be advised, or
rather, who accepts all the advice you give him and never acts upon it
for all that ...? And there is one thing yet in which you have, too,
judged aright. It is by no means too late yet! If he give up those
factories of his which will never pay, even if--and on that his whole
hope is now centred--the new line of rails passes straight through his
estates, and if he meets My Lady with a _sic voleo, sic jubeo_, and if,
with one determined cut, he severs the boundlessly costly train from My
Lady's garment, leaving it, for all that, a very respectable garment,
he would be enabled to discharge his other liabilities gradually, or at
once if somebody would, at fair interest, lend him a biggish capital.
This, of course, times being bad, will not be very easy to manage, more
particularly if people begin to talk about his being embarrassed."
"And how large, think you, should that capital be?"
"I think that I could settle everything if I had a hundred thousand
thalers at my disposal, without there being any formal arrangement with
his creditors, or even a voluntary surrender."
"In that case I beg to put the sum mentioned at your disposal."
The lawyer looked up in amazement.
"I had no idea that you were so wealthy," he said simply.
"It does not represent half my fortune. Anyhow, I am not running any
risk."
"No, to be sure," replied the lawyer; "I should be able to secure you
against any loss; the rate of interest, as I observed before, would be
low. But I may tell you beforehand that your generous offer will be
refused. I know our friend. He would rather borrow from the most
unscrupulous cut-throat of a usurer than from you, for whom he has, as
I know, the profoundest respect. For, though you may be the best of
friends, you are not his brother, not his cousin, not a kinsman at all.
If you could say to him, you owe it to our family to do so--such an
appeal to the family honour, which he holds in the highest esteem, he
would comprehend much better. But as it is, his very pride, or his
vanity rather--for vanity is distinctly his ruling passion--will be
hurt; he will appear to be immensely grateful to you, will say that you
are his good angel, and--will not accept a farthing from you, as long
as he sees, or fancies he sees, any other way out. He may possibly come
to his senses when his last hope, the railway, proves illusory. I
fear--I am a keen promoter of the project myself, but on different
grounds--I fear that will occur presently. Meanwhile, try your luck, or
his rather, by all means. But I repeat, you will not succeed with the
mere appeal to your friendship."
Bertram, as previously arranged, then called for his friend, and as
they drove home together he made his attempt The lawyer's prophecy was
literally fulfilled. Otto overflowed in expressions of the greatest
gratitude for an offer so thoroughly characteristic of his generous
friend, and which, for the sake of their long friendship, he would
unconditionally accept--if there were any occasion for it. But that,
thank goodness, was not the case.
And then came the wretched old story which Bertram knew by heart
already, and to which, for all that, he now listened; not, as before,
with disgust, but with an odd feeling of anxiety and doubt. To be sure,
mere friendship was not sufficient. He would have required another
title, one giving the right to demand what now he begged for in vain.
Should he venture upon the word that was trembling on his lips, and
that yet was ever beating a cowardly retreat to the tremulous heart?
Cowardly? No! It would have been cowardice, miserable cowardice, if he
had spoken it; cowardice, trying to take by miserable money-bribes a
fortress invincible to valour and high courage; cowardice and treason,
treason to the sanctity of a love which had hitherto been unselfish and
as pure as the heart of the great waters. If things came to the worst,
if it was a question of guarding the beloved child against common want,
she would be noble enough not to refuse the helping hand of a
protecting friend. But woe to him if that hand were not unsullied; if
even the shadow of a suspicion of selfishness fell upon it!
And as they thus drove homewards, with the evening darkening around
them, he fixed his eye on high, where now the heavenly lights were
appearing in ever-increasing numbers, with ever-growing splendour; and
he reverently repeated to himself the poet's great saying of the stars
above, in whose majestic beauty man should rejoice without coveting
their possession.
XI.
But no poet's word could henceforth stay the wild conflagration which
raged in his heart; and every thought by which his mind strove to
obtain rest and clearness proved a faint-hearted hireling soldier that
takes the first opportunity of deserting to the ranks of the more
potent foe. In vain did he recall the arguments by which, in a certain
memorable conversation, he had tried to refute Erna's assertions--it
had been a lie, a lie--or, at best, mere theoretical twaddle. His love
a reminiscence merely? And of what, pray? Perhaps of that mournful
aberration when his heart, his thirty years notwithstanding, was
still full of faith and devoid of experience? Or of the coquettish
phantom-fights and ugly caricatures of passion with which a heart that
has ceased to believe, in love, endeavours to deceive itself regarding
its own needs? Thee, he exclaimed, thee I have always loved. My whole
life has been one unbroken longing for thee; and when now at length I
have reached the land of promise, am I solely to see it, bless God, and
die? I am no longer weary of life. Nay, life has never yet appeared so
fair to me, and never yet have I so felt the desire and the power to
enjoy it. Die we must; die, however empty life may have been; but oh,
how better far to die in the full bliss of love! No, no! If I love her,
my only reminiscence is one of weary deserts traversed until I reached
her: if she could love me, her love should be no mere mirage of an
oasis in the future; palms should rustle above her fair head, silvery
brooks should run at her feet. Love surely has this potent spell: it
can create a paradise on earth!
And from these fairy dreams of future bliss he was startled by the
thought that Erna's heart must have already once received some mighty
impression. For it was surely passing strange that she knew so well how
to interpret some of the mysterious symbols in the book of passion;
that she evidently liked to read in that book. But since all his
cautious questioning led to no result, since she spoke of the few young
men whom she seemed to know at all either with indifference, or even,
as in the case of her two cousins, with a perceptible touch of irony,
he could not but conclude that his suspicion was unfounded, and he
became more and more familiar with a fond hope, from which he at first
recoiled as from a temptation to sheer madness.
But he still had the full use of his senses, and they, had never been
so acute as now. How was he to explain that her voice, whenever she
turned to him, and particularly when they were alone, was quite
different from its usual tone--softer, deeper, more intense? How was he
to explain that she--surely without being aware of it--kept sometimes,
at table, if he happened to speak eagerly, her gaze fixed upon him for
several minutes--that strange, fixed gaze which he had never before met
from any human eye, and which reminded him again and again of the gaze
of the gods,--
"Whose eyelids quiver not like those of mortals;"
and then when he ceased to, speak she was like one awakening from a
dream, drawing a long breath, which caused her maiden bosom to rise and
sink!
Nor were other promising tokens wanting. He had, for good reasons of
his own, disregarded Erna's request to be henceforth less kind to
Lydia; nay, he had doubled his attentions and courtesies, not only
towards the coquettish lady, but towards the Baron too. It seemed so
easy now to pardon, to show indulgence, to look at all things from the
best and most amiable point of view; and politeness is a veil behind
which one may hide so much. At first he had been prepared for
opposition or serious displeasure on the part of the proud, self-willed
girl; but nothing of the kind occurred; she either seemed not to notice
his disobedience, or actually to approve of it; and once or twice, when
he somewhat overdid his part, a meaning smile played about her mouth.
Nay, more, she followed, though with evident hesitation, his example;
she no longer met Lydia's fantastic exaggerations with short and sharp
replies, or with that frigid non-recognition which is more cutting than
direct blame: she continued, as on the first evening or two, to sing
and play with the Baron; she even suffered herself to be put into the
famous terrace picture, and was patient enough to sit to him for a
couple of hours, in which the Baron, with his brush, was constantly
taking one step forward and two backward, as it were; while he vowed
again and again that this was the most grateful, but also the most
difficult, task which he had ever undertaken in his life.
And there was yet one thing more which had struck him as peculiarly
strange and important. Erna was accustomed to repeat her interlocutors'
names frequently in the course of conversation, and to add them, even
to quite trivial phrases or questions. From the first days of his
visit he still recalled with delight her sweet "How are you, Uncle
Bertram?"--"Yes, Uncle Bertram"--"No, Uncle Bertram." But sweeter,
sweeter far it seemed to him that he now no longer heard it--no, not
once--that her conversation now was plain yea and nay, as enjoined in
Holy Writ, and quite in accordance with the wild wish of his heart.
Hilarie, too, had surely ceased to call her lover--Uncle. Poor Major!
But it served him right, after all, for it was not youth so much that
he lacked, as the courage and force of genuine passion.
"That man must ever be a youthful man
Who is well-pleasing to a maiden's eyes!"
And he does please her well, because she feels with the unerring
instinct of true love that he can and will give love for love.
And as though he would force Fate to grant him all, because he was
staking his all upon it, he looked on with a happy smile, whilst the
fire of his great love burned up with increasing vehemence with every
day, with every hour, spreading around and engulfing his entire being.
He was proud that he could no longer feel anything else, think of
anything else, but always her, and her alone. If she was away, how
empty, how barren did the whole world seem! With what painful
impatience did he await the moment when he should behold her again; and
when he beheld her again, it seemed as though he had never beheld her
before--as though the Creator had but just uttered the command: "Let
there be light!" and as though the world lay before him in all the dewy
freshness and brightness of the morn of creation.
Then, when the torment of delight became overpowering, he fled from
her, to dream, often for hours, in the solitude of the forest, in lone,
rocky caves, or on sunny summits--to listen in the deep silence around
for the echoing of her sweet voice within his heart, to whisper her
loved name to the discreet herbs and trees; to hear that name in the
murmur of the brooks, in the rustling of the breezes, in every note of
the birds' songs; to see her fair image smiling down upon him from
among the dainty white cloudlets that flecked the deep-blue sky, or
gazing at him with musing gravity from the dusky shadows of the
towering trees, gazing with those great, still, potent, godlike orbs.
That those orbs were now smiling more rarely, that they were fuller of
gravest thought, often gazing with a certain sweet fixity of intensest
concentration, he had not failed to observe, and he had not interpreted
it as a symptom unfavourable to himself; how should, how could it be
otherwise, if there fell into her young soul even the faintest reflex
of the bright radiancy that was filling his own to its deepest depths?
But he had not failed to observe either, and this he knew not how to
explain, that this musing gravity from which his own love in its
hopefulness drew sweetest sustenance--like a bee from the chalice of a
budding blossom--was turning to a gloomy indignation, which not only
was for ever veiling the beloved eyes, but was not unfrequently
enfolding the fair face with its fine, energetic features in darkest
night, luridly illumined by wrathful flashes.
This startling change had occurred quite suddenly, coincident,
strangely enough, with the day, almost with the hour, of Agatha's
arrival.
XII.
On the occasion of former visits at Rinstedt Bertram had repeatedly
seen Agatha, and had always been on the best of terms with the ever
equally pleasant, amiable child. Now, of course she had, like Erna,
developed during the last few years into a maiden, though one could not
say that she had gained by the process of metamorphosis. The blonde
hair now was almost red, freckles abounded unpleasantly on brow and
cheek, and an awkward tendency to one side had become an undoubted
lurch; so that, taking all these things together, one might indeed be
tempted to take the nickname "Granny," which Erna had bestowed upon her
cousin and bosom friend, not in its moral meaning alone. But the bright
blue eyes had faithfully preserved the old, dear expression; nay, even
more openly than of old, there spoke out of them a heart full of
kindliest goodwill to all men, desirous of riving in peace and
friendship with all men, and seeming not so much to loathe as simply
not to comprehend the evil emotions and passions of the human heart.
So gentle a creature, made but for sympathy in joy or in sorrow, could
scarcely have found the requisite courage to destroy even the
commonplace illusions of a commonplace heart, and would most likely
have recoiled from the mere attempt to lay violent hands upon a heart
like Erna's, deviating as it did so greatly from the humdrum, everyday
pattern. And, again, Bertram had to drop the suspicion which at first
had come to him in his perplexity; to wit, that Agatha had, whether in
carelessness or intentionally, blabbed about something confided to her
by Erna. Such a thing would have been in downright contradiction to the
character of the girl, who was as clever as she was good; and, lastly,
that he himself should have betrayed his feelings to the rest--that was
absolutely impossible. He was only too painfully conscious of having
from the very first moment put a most careful guard on his conduct, of
having weighed his every word, controlled his every smile and look: of
course he had! Why, he recoiled in horror from the very thought that
Erna might discover his great secret; it was certain that she had not
discovered it, and how could others have done so?
But why should they, again, not have seen, and seen in envy,
uncharitableness, and terror, what it was the utmost delight to him to
see? Though he, in the full consciousness of his love, in the anxious
doubt as to whether that love was not a folly, a crime even, had put
the utmost restraint upon himself, yet Erna had assuredly not been
equally careful in expressing her feelings, whose real significance she
might guess at, though most assuredly she could not measure it. Why,
the most harmless and innocent things in the attentions she was
spoiling him with, the many kindly little offices which she did for him
without any fuss, _en passant_, as it were--all these things might have
been malevolently criticised and viciously explained, suspicion being
once aroused one way or the other!
And that such must be the case he could scarcely doubt any longer, when
he submitted the demeanour of the others towards him during the last
few days to a subsequent examination. Thus, in the light of newly-won
knowledge, sundry things stood out in a very marked way, which, under
other circumstances, he would either not have heeded, or anyhow have
interpreted differently. His beautiful hostess, who used to avail
herself of every tete-a-tete with him to turn their talk to Erna and
the Baron, had not resumed her favourite topic of conversation; and, on
the other hand, Lydia now manifested infinite interest in Erna, and
never wearied of starting contemplative talks in reference to the
qualities of her former pupil, wondering how one should represent to
oneself the future of such a singular being as likely to develop
itself. The Baron had still, on each Occasion when Bertram and he had
met, overflowed with civility, but had yet tormented him less often
with challenges to billiard-matches and to contests in pistol-shooting,
but had on the other hand undertaken more frequent solitary shooting
expeditions--neither Bertram nor Otto, their host, cared for shooting,
as it happened--and had extended them farther too. Otto himself had
certainly and most clearly avoided him. At first he had thought that
Otto did it to avoid new and painful discussions in reference to his
financial position, but Bertram now assumed that it was done lest Otto
should distinctly show that he was angry with his friend for Erna's
sake, or, what--with his natural weak readiness to yield--came
virtually to the same thing, that he had been bidden by the ruling
spirit to be angry with Bertram.
These were curiously mixed feelings which were roused within him by his
recognition of the new position he so suddenly found himself in. He
said to himself that the things which caused anxiety and terror to his
adversaries were for himself objects of joy and triumph, and
constituted the clearest proof that he had not only dreamed a dream of
rapturous delight. And to be sure, his love could not for ever remain
in the far-off regions of starry splendour; it was bound some time to
approach this earth, to become visible to the dull, mole-like eyes of
these men. But then again, putting himself in the place of these
others, and examining himself and his love, as these others were
undoubtedly doing, he would hear anew, and this time from the lips of
unjust accusers, the old evil questions which he thought had long ago
been done with, to wit--Is your longing and your desire really and
truly free from every vestige of selfishness, from every frivolous
admixture? Has the satisfaction of your own vanity, inasmuch as you may
prove that you, a man of fifty, are able to win the love of such a
youthful, and, in every respect, such a highly-favoured and gifted
girl, against the wishes of her own parents, before her who had once
spurned your love, in the presence and to the shame and discomfiture of
so much more likely a rival--have these considerations nothing, nothing
whatever to do with your love?
And supposing he were to allow himself to be urged by pressure on the
part of his foes to make a declaration before the right time; or
supposing there never had been and never would be such a time at
all--supposing he and all of them had blundered;--supposing Erna's
heart knew nought of love, and rejected his love, amazed, terrified,
insulted--what then? Ye Heavens above! what then? Where was then that
line of retreat which Goethe had so wisely secured for his hero?
He realised it to be one of those horribly hideous contradictions of
human life that, while before his inner eye the possibilities of his
future fate concentrated themselves as in a focus, he was busied before
the mirror in exchanging the cravat which Konski had put out for him
for the early dinner, for another (the first dressing-bell having just
rung), in reference to which Erna had once said that it suited him
particularly well.
He stepped, annoyed, from the mirror to the open window. There came
floating through the balmy, sunny air a gossamer thread and fixed
itself on his shoulder. He sighed wearily, he felt unutterably sad.
There was always one line of retreat open, and that was--Death. Perhaps
his life was really hanging on as slight a thread as this bit of
gossamer. But then, was not his love for that very reason both madness
and sacrilege? Was that love which at bottom thought, after all, of
itself only, and thought not first and last of this? Could one,
according to human judgment, really undertake the guarantee for the
well-being of those whom one ... made believe one loved? Whether, for
her, weal would not swiftly change to woe, whence, even though time and
that youthful vigour which refuses to be crushed were to heal the
grievous wounds, there could never again blossom forth a full, whole
happiness? And thus, and for this reason, to have henceforth, like
humdrum everyday folks, to dread death, when he had already again and
again looked into his hollow eyes!
There was some noise behind him, and he started in terror. It was only
Konski who had come back bearing a letter. The post which was due in
the morning had arrived now, and there had been lots of letters for the
other ladies and gentlemen too, and some of them would seem to be
mighty important, for My Lady had given orders to put dinner back half
an hour, so the Herr Doctor could anyhow read his letter in peace.
Konski had gone away again, and Bertram held the letter still unopened
in his hand. How odd that his physician and friend should write to him
just now--that the busiest of men should so swiftly reply to his own
letter, in which, on the second day of his visit, he had, as requested,
given news of his state of health, a letter which really called for no
reply at all. Was his friend now going to tell him that he ... was
doomed to speedy death? Well, the letter could not have come at a more
opportune moment.
With trembling hand he broke the seal and read this--
"Dearest Friend,--Laugh if you like. On reading your letter a second
time--your letters are not, like most others, consigned to the
waste-paper basket--I have even more strongly the same impression which
the first perusal had given me; namely, that, possibly unknown to
yourself, there is to be read between the lines of your letter a
question, which can be answered only by omniscient Fate and by 'Yours
Truly;' and which, seeing Fate is not altogether to be relied upon in
this respect, Yours Truly has the honour and likewise the great
pleasure of answering herewith. Reduced to its simplest formula, then,
the question comes to this: May I marry? Seeing that you do not laugh,
but, on the contrary, look extremely grave, I will not keep you
needlessly on the tenter-hooks of expectation, but will reduce my
reply, too, to the simplest form, viz.:--Yes, best of friends, you may
marry, in spite of your late serious attack; nay, oddly enough, all the
more because of it. For although even before your illness I had no
doubt that your curiously powerful nature would for years continue to
hold its own against the severe damage done (to deny or reason away the
existence of which was unfortunately impossible), I now have hardly any
misgiving in that respect. For your last illness was simply and solely
a remarkably energetic attempt at self-help on the part of nature, and
the attempt has all but succeeded. What remains to be done to complete
the cure is but little, and that this little be done as swiftly and
thoroughly as possible, you can yourself greatly help. How so? Well, by
marrying! You, having always been over-conscientious and abnormally
scrupulous, having ever lived but for ideal aims and for the benefit of
other folk, should now at length begin to live for yourself, should now
at length find that quiet happiness which you so richly deserve, and be
happy in that happiness; though, to be sure, for the last condition
more good sense is required than what the majority of mankind have been
ready to employ. You, my good friend, have that amount of sense.
_Ergo_--marry for goodness' sake, marry for your own good, marry for
the good of those whom you love, and, lastly, marry with my full
consent, without which I know you would not do it at all.
"But now, seeing that you are too accustomed to suffering of some sort
to be able to dispense with it altogether, I owe you a fresh supply to
make up for what I am depriving you of, and I am going to saddle you
with one of the most awful kinds of suffering a free man can be
tormented with in these hard and distressing times--you must stand for
Parliament. There is no help for it; we must have you in the
_Reichstag_. Good old S. can bear the burthen no longer; he is going to
retire. I should have insisted upon it on medical grounds if he had not
at length come to see himself that there was no help for it. He is done
for, and doomed to speedy death. And you, who are vigorously advancing
to complete restoration of health, shall and must take his place--by
order of the Electoral Committee, who met at a late hour last night and
ultimately came to a unanimous conclusion on the subject, all, finally,
voting for you! There is no reason why I should keep back the fact
that, to begin with, O. and B. were opposed to it, and so were a few
others, asserting that you could be of greater use to the common cause
as an outsider. They went on arguing that your absolutely independent
position within the party had hitherto enabled you, and would continue
to enable you, to ventilate certain grievances which really require to
be ventilated, and which it is impossible for ourselves, sitting as
members of the _Reichstag_, to bring forward, because, sitting there,
we must pay a certain regard to ... what not. This great and invaluable
activity of yours, they wisely contended, would be rendered absolutely
barren by your entering the serried ranks of a definite political
phalanx within the House itself. Right they are, I know well enough,
none better; for I have, as you know, always maintained the same view.
But, for all that, you must stand. The need is imperative. We have,
alas! none but you; and therefore our arguments prevailed: and the
requisition I am now forwarding to you in the name of our common party
is, as aforesaid, unanimous. Knowing you as well as I do, and knowing
therefore with what a struggle you make up your mind, ever determined
to adhere unswervingly to a resolution you have once arrived at, I'll
give you three days to think it over. Perhaps you'll talk it over with
our friend G. in W., whose acquaintance you have probably made ere
this; not to get him to appeal to your conscience--small need for that
in your case--but because an old veteran like him may be able, from the
fulness of his experience, to give you some hint or other which may be
of use to you in your candidature. It is very probable that you may
have to appear speedily in the arena. The Government would appear to
feel very confident of success, and will not delay the election. Four
weeks hence everything may be settled. That would leave you another
month before the meeting of Parliament to recover from the fatigue of
the electioneering campaign. The Italian trip will have to be given up,
it is true. But no one can serve two masters; and as for the mistress,
if my conjecture be correct, I do not dread her jealousy. If it were
permitted to harbour any doubt whether you have chosen wisely, or if
there were any need to apply a special test, there could be no surer
touchstone than this. The true gold of a genuine woman's love never
shines more brightly than when a sacrifice has to be made for the sake
of letting a man's worth stand out clearly. Commend me cordially to the
fair unknown, and accept my own affectionate greetings."
The second dinner-bell had rung, and Bertram still sat staring at the
letter. Could this be true? It looked like witchcraft. By what
wonderful ingenuity had his friend rightly interpreted the state of his
heart, judging from hints which were not intended to be hints at all?
Well, if it was a miracle, it was a very auspicious one--one that could
only have had its origin in the great strength of truest friendship.
Impossible for the tempter to have assumed the guise of the best and
noblest of men!
He pressed the letter to his lips, and gazed upward to the blue sky.
And, lo! as he moved, the gossamer thread floated away from his
shoulder, away into the sunny afar.
With glowing eye he followed its flight.
"Right, right! Fly and float with it, ye cowardly thoughts of retreat!
Who fears not death has already half won the battle!"
XIII.
Below, in the garden saloon, Bertram found only Otto and the Baron, who
abruptly stopped an eager conversation as Bertram entered. Otto looked
greatly embarrassed; the Baron gave him one angry look, then turned
away to the young ladies, who were walking on the verandah.
"I seem to have disturbed you," said Bertram.
"Don't be annoyed," replied Otto. "The Baron had, last night already,
disagreeable news from home, which is confirmed to-day, and will compel
him to travel back; and just now, in this time of tension, he wishes of
course--it is extremely awkward ..."
"In one word, he has officially asked you for your daughter's hand?"
"Not exactly officially; we really do not know about Erna. You had
undertaken to put us _au courant_, to advise and help us, and now you
are not helping us at all, and--and my wife is rather annoyed with you
on this ground."
"So I have observed; and therefore, to make up for previous omissions,
I'll give you my advice now: get rid of him as quickly as possible, and
spare Erna the humiliation of having to refuse the fellow."
"Humiliation? The fellow? How oddly you talk!"
"I talk how I feel. He is unworthy of Erna, absolutely."
"So you say; but why?"
Bertram made no answer. What good could it do now to have a dispute
with Otto about the worthiness or unworthiness of the Baron?
"You see," said Otto triumphantly, "you have no real reason to give!"
Then, seeing his friend look extremely grave, he went on--"I know of
course that you mean well by Erna, by me, by all of us. Perhaps you are
right, too, at least in this--that Erna may say: No. If she does, well,
then there is an end of it, and Hildegard and he may see how they can
best put up with it. If only it had not happened just now. I have my
head quite full enough as it is--all these officers coming to be
quartered here to-morrow, then the final debate on the railway
question, and then I just remember that I have also to redeem
to-morrow a certain mortgage, not much, only five thousand thalers, but
it happens most inopportunely, I wanted to talk to you about it before,
but I did not like to disturb you in your rooms; perhaps after dinner,
or to-night sometime--there is my wife coming, for God's sake no fuss,
I entreat you!"
Hildegard entered, Lydia followed soon after, the young ladies and the
Baron came in from the verandah, and they all went to dinner.
Conversation somehow flagged; every one was busy with his own thoughts,
and, if one were to judge by looks, these thoughts did not seem to be
pleasant ones, except in Hildegard's case. She kept smiling
mysteriously to herself, and at last, when there had been a pause of
some little duration, she held up a couple of letters which she had
laid by the side of her plate, and said--
"It is really too bad; here, I am sitting with quite a treasury of most
interesting surprises, and none of you take the trouble to show the
slightest symptom of curiosity. It would really serve you right if I
were not to say a word to you; but I will be gracious, as usual, and
let you participate in my joy. First, then, your mother, Agatha, has
after all yielded to my entreaties. It is most kind of her. She has a
big party to-morrow, too; some twenty officers, she says, and can ill
spare any of the girls. Still, she understands that I have even greater
need of them in our solitude, if the crowd of uniforms is not to become
intolerably monotonous--_enfin_, she'll send Louise and Augusta. They
will arrive to-day; so we shall really be able to have a dance to
morrow evening, if we invite the girls from the parsonage and a few
others. Well, what do you say?"
Erna made no reply; she seemed hardly to have listened. Agatha said--
"You are very kind, aunt," but it did not sound hearty.
"Is that all?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Of course I am kind, far too kind
to you ungrateful _blasee_ girls, who cannot rise to enthusiasm even
with the prospect of a dance! But you, Baron?"
"I envy the gentlemen," replied he, "who will benefit by your kindness;
I myself, as you are aware, will scarcely be able to participate in
it."
Hildegard raised her eyebrows.
"I thought," she said, "that the matter was settled. Your relations may
see how they can best do without you. I wish to hear nothing more upon
the subject. This is my ultimatum, and I beg you will respect it."
The Baron bowed, and muttered something about _force majeure_.
Hildegard paid no heed to it; she had already taken up the second
letter.
"I must beforehand apologise for my bad French accent. The letter is
from the Residenz, and I ought to mention ..."
"From Princess Amelia?" the Baron asked eagerly.
"Not from our gracious Princess," replied Hildegard with a courteous
smile, "but from a princess, for all that."
"Perhaps you would translate it?" suggested Otto timidly.
"Very well," replied his wife. "I was thinking of doing so anyhow, for
I know you pretend that you do not understand French. Well, then--
"Madam,--Will you pardon a perfect stranger who ventures to request a
favour which it is usual to grant only to one's friends, or to duly
accredited persons--the favour of being your guest for a short time?
You are amazed, madam; but why do you own a mansion whose classic style
of architecture and whose internal fittings are the marvel of the land?
Why does every one who can judge, laud you as unsurpassed in the
horticultural art? I travel through Germany chiefly with the object of
studying all that is best and most beautiful in these things, in order
to try and imitate it upon my estates in Livadia. I shall not, as I
said, trouble you long; only a day or two. To-morrow and the day after,
if I may, for I can unfortunately not dispose differently of my time.
And as regards the inconvenience I must needs cause you, I will try to
reduce it to a minimum. A gardener or forester to pilot me about
outside, a steward to show me some of the things inside, a little
corner by your fireside, a little place at your table, a little chamber
to sleep in; that is all! True, already too much, if I reflect; but one
should not reflect, if one is the thorough egotist who has the honour
of remaining, Madam, your obedient servant,--Princess Alexandra
Paulovna ..."
Hildegard looked up from her letter, and said with a smile--
"I cannot make out the surname."
She passed the letter to Bertram, who was sitting on her right.
"Well," said the Baron, on her left, "she would seem to be a Russian,
anyhow."
"No doubt of that. Well, my friend?"
"No," replied Bertram, "I cannot make it out."
"Will you allow me?" said the Baron.
Bertram handed the letter back to Hildegard, who passed it on to the
Baron.
"Why," he exclaimed, "it is quite plain, Bo--Bo!" He paused.
"Bo, Bo, Bo!" laughed Lydia. "Let me try."
But Lydia failed too; the note was passed round the table; Otto and
Agatha tried and failed; Erna passed it on to Bertram without casting
one glance at it.
"Will you not try?" asked Bertram.
"No."
She uttered this so sharply that Bertram looked up terrified.
"How very unkind," said her mother.
Bertram had the same impression at first, but he knew Erna too well;
there was assuredly something else going on in her mind, something
which had tried to find expression in the abrupt No. She was very pale,
and had pressed her teeth against her under lip, whilst her eyes looked
gloomily and fixedly straight in front of her. One might have expected
her to burst into a flood of tears the next moment. To turn the
attention of the rest from her, and also to overcome his own feelings
of uneasiness, he began once more diligently to spell away at the
signature, and suddenly exclaimed--
"I have got it, I think--Volinzov--Alexandra Paulovna Volinzov!"
"Let me see, please?" exclaimed Hildegard. "Really, Volinzov; and quite
plain too. How blind we have been! Dear me, Herr Baron, what is the
matter with you?"
"I beg a thousand pardons," said the Baron from behind his
handkerchief, which he held pressed to his face, rising from the table
as he spoke, and swiftly withdrawing from the room.
Hildegard looked sadly after his retreating figure.
"Poor fellow!" she said, "I am so sorry. He is in a terrible state of
excitement. And now, in addition, this home news--if I only knew what
it is all about, but he is discretion personified."
Bertram, still pondering over Erna's strange demeanour, had almost
mechanically cast his eye over the whole letter, and only became
conscious of this on coming to a passage which he did not remember
having heard in Hildegard's translation.
"Here," he said, "is one line, my fair friend, which has escaped you,
and which yet strikes me as important. Listen: 'thorough egotist who
has the courage to follow her letter at once, and has the honour,' &c."
"Impossible!" exclaimed Hildegard.
"There it stands; see for yourself. You passed from the last line but
two on to the last."
"Oh dear! oh dear!" exclaimed the hostess. "She will be wanting to
dine of course; and that is not the worst, but all the rooms will be
occupied by to-morrow afternoon."
"The officers must do with a little less accommodation," said Otto. "It
will be all right."
"No, it will not be all right," said his wife, "if each of them is to
have a room of his own; and we cannot put less than two each at the
disposal of the two Majors and the Colonel."
"Let me help you in your embarrassment," said Bertram. "You know, I
originally intended leaving early to-morrow, let us adhere to the old
plan; the more so, because I have just received a letter which
necessitates my very speedy return to Berlin."
"That is an excuse," exclaimed his friend.
"No excuse, my dear fellow; you may see the letter yourself. But I may
as well say what it is about. I have been selected by my political
friends for a forthcoming vacancy in the _Reichstag_."
"But you will surely not stand?"
"Indeed, I mean to do so."
"And your Italian trip?"
"Postponed to some future day."
"But your illness?"
"Thanks to your excellent nursing, I never felt better in my life."
"But it's quite out of the question!" cried Otto. "I cannot let you.
It would be downright ..."
In thus urging his friend to stay, Otto was simply following the
dictates of his own good-natured heart, without any reference to his
own special interests; now it suddenly occurred to him that his wife
had that very morning called Bertram's presence a positive misfortune,
and had accused him of standing--the one obstacle--between herself and
the execution of her favourite plan.
So he broke off abruptly, casting a sheepish, embarrassed look at his
wife.
Hildegard blushed to the very temples. Now she was obliged to urge him
to stay, if everything she had been settling during the last few days
in secret with Lydia and the Baron, and at last with her husband too,
was not to lie like an open book before Bertram, and unless there was
to be a real rupture, which, of course, it was desirable to avoid as
long as possible. In order to conceal the true reason of her blush, she
seized, as though obeying some uncontrollable impulse, both his hands,
and said--
"I am almost speechless with amazement, my friend! Otto is quite right;
the thing is impossible, it would be downright--abominable--that is
what you were going to say, is it not, dear Otto? You cannot, must not
leave us now. In a few days, if it really must be, well and good; but
not now. I have--quite apart from our own feelings--revelled in the
thought of the pleasant surprise it will be for Herr von Waldor to meet
here, upon the threshold of a strange house, an old friend of his own.
And if old friendship cannot exercise a spell over you, are you not
allured by the prospect of meeting the mysterious Russian, whose name
you alone were able to decipher, and who will not care to converse with
any one except yourself, once she has heard how beautifully you speak
French? But come--Otto, Lydia, Agatha--help me to entreat our friend to
stay."
In the general excitement, every one had risen from table, dinner being
finished anyhow, and now they were talking on the verandah. The Baron
had reappeared too, but was keeping at some little distance; he
evidently had not quite recovered from his attack. Those to whom
Hildegard had appealed by name hastened to comply with her request, and
were all urging Bertram to remain. He never heard them at all; he did
not even see them; he had eyes for Erna only.
Erna, as though she had no interest whatever in the matter under
discussion, had stepped down from the verandah to one of the
flower-plots on the lawn. Suddenly she turned, retraced her steps
slowly, ascended the verandah again, and approached him. Her cheeks--so
pale but a short time ago--were flushed now; there was a light in those
large eyes, and a defiant smile played round her dainty lips. She
fastened a beautiful red rose, just about to unfold, in his buttonhole.
"I prayed you the night you came--I pray you again: Stay! stay--for my
sake! Come, Agatha!"
She had seized her cousin by the hand, and drawn her away into the
garden; Bertram had stepped into the billiard-room, and was knocking
the balls about; the others looked at each other, amazed, embarrassed,
frightened, scornful. But, greatly though their various feelings
desired expression and exchange, and opportune though the occasion
might appear, there was no chance in the meantime. For the very next
moment the sound of a post-horn was heard coming from the great
courtyard, and announced, to Hildegard's terror, that Princess Volinzov
had interpreted her own letter literally, and had really followed it
without delay.
XIV.
The sunny brightness of the day was suddenly interrupted by a
thunderstorm, and the evening closed in dark and stormy. Up from the
valley and down from the wooded hills thick grey mists came rolling
along, and violent showers of rain ensued. It was chilly and
disagreeable; and the "corner by the fireside," referred to in the
letter of the Princess, seemed no longer to be a mere phrase, but to
embody a very natural wish, and one which Hildegard took care to
fulfil, by ha
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