At about eight o'clock of the same day, Goswyn von Sydow, who had lately been transferred to Berlin, where he was acting as adjutant to an exalted personage, issued from the low door of a small house in a side-street where he had attended the baptism of the first-born son of one of his early friends, a young fellow of decided talent, who had married a girl without a fortune, and who did not at all regret his choice. The home was modest enough, but was so unmistakably the abode of the truest happiness that Sydow could not but envy his friend his lot in life. How pleasant it had all been!
He lighted a cigar, but held it idly between his fingers without smoking it, and reflected upon his own requirements in a wife,--requirements which one woman alone could fulfil, and she----
Could he forget his pride, and try his fortune once more? His heart throbbed. No! under the circumstances, he could not. He never could forget that he had been taunted with Erika's wealth. Even if he could win her love, their marriage would begin with a discord.
If she were but poor!
The blood tingled rapturously in his veins at the thought of how, if trial or misfortune should befall her, he might take her to his arms and soothe and cheer her, making her rich with his devotion and tenderness. He suddenly stood still, as if some obstacle lay in his path. Had he really been capable of selfishly invoking trouble and trial upon Erika's head? He looked about him like one awaking from a dream.
Just at his elbow a young woman glided out of a large house with several doors. He scarcely noticed her at first, but all at once he drew a long breath. How strange that he should perceive that peculiar fragrance, the rare perfume used by his sister-in-law, Dorothea! He could have sworn that Dorothea was near. He looked around: there was no one to be seen save the girl who had just slipped by him, a poorly-clad girl carrying a bundle.
He had not fairly looked at her before, but now--it was strange--in the distance she resembled his sister-in-law: it was certainly she.
He was on the point of hurrying after her to make sure, but second thoughts told him that it really mattered nothing to him whether it were she or not: it was not his part to play the spy upon her.
He turned and walked back in the opposite direction, that he might not see her. As he passed the house whence she had come, a man muffled in furs issued from the same door-way. The two men looked each other in the face. Goswyn recognized Orbanoff.
For a moment each maintained what seemed an embarrassed silence. The Russian was the first to recover himself. "Mais bon soir," he exclaimed, with great cordiality. "Je ne vous remettais pas."
Goswyn touched his cap and passed on. He no longer doubted.
The next morning Dorothea von Sydow awaked, after a sound refreshing sleep, with a very light heart. She was free! All had gone well. She had first regaled Orbanoff with a frightfully jealous scene to spare his vanity, but in the end they had resolved upon a separationà l'aimable, and the Princess Dorothea had then made merry, declaring that their love should have a gay funeral; whereupon she had partaken of the champagne supper that had been prepared for her, had chatted gaily with Orbanoff, had listened to his stories, and they had parted forever with a laugh.
Now she was sitting by the fire in her dressing-room, comfortably ensconced in an arm-chair, dressed in a gray dressing-gown trimmed with fur, looking excessively pretty, and sipping chocolate from an exquisite cup of Berlin porcelain. "Thank God, it is over!" she said to herself again and again.
But, superficial as she was, she could not quite convince herself that her relations with Orbanoff were of no more consequence than a bad dream.
She felt no remorse, but a gnawing discontent: she would have given much to be able to obliterate her worse than folly. She sighed; then she yawned.
She still longed for her husband and Kossnitz: she would leave Berlin this very evening for Silesia and surprise him. How delighted he would be! She clapped her hands like a child. Suddenly--it was intolerable--again she was conscious of that gnawing discontent. Could she never forget? And all for what she had never cared for in the least. She thrust both her hands among her short curls and began to sob violently. Just then the door of the room opened; a tall, broad-shouldered man with a kindly, florid face entered. She looked up, startled as by a thunderclap. The new arrival gazed at her tearful face, and, hastening towards her, exclaimed, "My dear little Thea, what in heaven's name is the matter?"
She clasped her arms about his neck as she had never done before. He pressed his lips to hers.
Goswyn was sitting at his writing-table,--an enormous piece of furniture, somewhat in disarray,--trying to read. But it would not do; and at last he gave it up. He was distressed, disgusted beyond measure, at his discovery with regard to Dorothea. The Sydows had hitherto prided themselves upon the purity of their women as upon the honour of their men. Nothing like that which he had discovered had ever happened in the family. He had suspected the mischief before; since yesterday he had been sure.
Must he look calmly on? What else could he do? To open his brother's eyes, to play the accuser, was impossible. Yes, he must look on calmly. He clinched his fist. At that moment he heard a familiar deep voice outside the room, questioning his servant. "Otto! What is he doing in Berlin?" he asked himself; "and he seems in a merry mood." He sprang up. The door opened, and Otto rushed in, rough, clumsy as usual, but beaming with happiness. He laid his broad hand upon his brother's shoulder, and cried,--
"How are you, old fellow? Why, you look down in the dumps. Anything gone wrong?"
"Nothing," Goswyn declared, doing his best to look delighted.
"Is everything all right?"
"Everything."
"That's as it should be. I suppose you are surprised to see me drop down from the skies in this fashion."
"I am indeed."
"'Tis quite a story. But I say, Gos, how comfortable you are here!" and he began to stride to and fro in the bachelor apartment; "although you don't waste much time or money in decoration, old fellow: not a pretty woman on the walls. H'm! my room looked rather different in my bachelor days. What have you done with your gallery of beauties, Gos?"
"I bequeathed all my youthful follies to my cousin Brock, who got his lieutenancy six weeks ago," said Goswyn, to whom his brother's chatter was especially distasteful to-day.
"H'm! h'm! you're right: you're getting quite too old for such nonsense." And Otto stooped to examine two or three photographs that adorned his brother's writing-table. "That's a capital picture of old Countess Lenzdorff," he exclaimed,--"capital! Here is our father when he was young,--I look like him,--and here is Uncle Goswyn, our famous hero, killed in a duel at thirty years of age. They say old Countess Lenzdorff was in love with him. As if she could ever have been in love! And you look like him: our mother always said so. Oh, here is our mother!" He took the faded picture, in its old-fashioned frame, to the window to examine it. "This is the best picture there is of her," he said. "Think of your ever being that pretty little rogue in a white frock in her arms, and I that boy in breeches by her side! Comical, but very attractive, such a picture of a young mother with her children. How she clasps you in her arms! She always loved you best. Where did you get this picture?"
"My mother gave it to me when I was quite young. She brought it to me when she came to see me in my first garrison, shortly before her death," said Goswyn.
"I remember; you had been wounded in your first duel."
"Yes; she came to nurse me."
"Ah, you've a deal on your conscience. No one would believe you were worse than I; but"--with a look at the picture--"I'd give a great deal for such a little fellow as that." And he put the picture back in its place with a care that was unlike him, and that touched Goswyn.
With his usual want of tact, Otto proceeded to efface the pleasant impression he had produced. "Have you no picture of the Lenzdorff girl?" he asked, looking round the room.
"I may have one somewhere," Goswyn replied, evasively. Indeed, he had a charming picture of her in the first bloom of her maiden loveliness; but he kept it behind lock and key, that no profane eye might rest upon his treasure.
"What a tone you take!" Otto rejoined. "Why, she was a flame of yours. A capital girl, only rather too full of crotchets: she was always a little too high up in the sky for me, but she would have suited you. I cannot understand why you did not seize your chance----"
"Now you are going too far," Goswyn said, with some irritation. "Do not pretend that you do not know that Erika Lenzdorff rejected me."
"What!" exclaimed Otto, in some dismay. "True, I remember hearing something of the kind; but that was a hundred years ago. Forgive me, Gos: the 'no' of a girl of eighteen who looks at one as the young Countess looked at you ought not to be taken seriously. Why don't you try your luck a second time? You cannot attach any importance to that intermezzo with the Englishman! Why, you are made for each other; and she is quite wealthy, too----"
"Otto, for God's sake stop marching up and down the room like a lion in a cage," cried Goswyn, unable to bear it any longer; "do sit down like a reasonable creature and tell me how you come to appear so unexpectedly in Berlin."
Otto lit a cigar and obediently seated himself in an arm-chair opposite his brother. "'Tis quite a story," he began, just as he had a quarter of an hour before.
"You've told me that already."
"Now, don't be so impatient. I know I am rather slow at explanations. You see, Gos, of late matters have not gone quite right between Thea and myself. There is sure to be fault on both sides in such cases: I could not be satisfied with the stupid life here in town, and she did not care for Silesia, so we agreed that I should stay at home, while she diverted herself for a while in town, and perhaps she would come back to me and be more contented in the end. I know that certain people disapproved of my course; but I had my reasons. There's no good in fretting a nervous horse: better give it the rein. But the time seemed long to me, she wrote so seldom and her letters were so incoherent. In short,"--he suddenly began to be embarrassed,--"I got some foolish notions into my head, and so, without letting her know, I appeared in Berlin this morning. And how do you think I found poor Thea? Sitting crying by the fire. Just think of it, Gos! Of course I was frightened, and did all that I could to comfort her, and when she was calm I asked her what was the matter. Homesickness, Gos! Yes, a longing for the old home and for the clumsy bear who is, after all, nearer to her than any other human being. She reproached me for neglecting her,--said I had not even expressed a wish in my letters to see her, and she was just on the point of starting for Kossnitz; and she was jealous too,--poor little goose! In short, there were all sorts of a misunderstanding, and the end of it all was that she begged me--begged me like a child--to carry her back to Kossnitz. I wish you could have heard her describe our life together there! She would not hear of my going a few days before to make ready for her, but clung to me as if we had been but just married. What is the matter with you, Gos?" for his brother had walked to a window, where he stood with his back turned to Otto, looking out.
"What could be the matter?" Goswyn forced himself to reply.
"Then why do you stand looking out of the window as if you took not the least interest in what I am telling you?"
"Forgive me: there is a crowd in the street about a horse that has fallen down."
"Very well: if every broken-down hack in the street can interest you more than what is next my heart, there is no use in my talking. But I know what it is; you were always unjust to Thea; you never understood her. Adieu!" And Otto took his hat and walked towards the door.
Goswyn conquered himself. What affair was it of his if his brother was happy in an illusion? he ought to do all that he could to prevent his eyes from being opened.
He laid his hand upon Otto's arm and said, kindly, "Forgive me, Otto; you must not take it ill if such a confirmed old bachelor as I does not share as he should in your happiness; it all seems so foreign to such a life as mine."
Otto's brow cleared. "I was silly," he confessed. "I ought not to have been so irritable. Poor Gos! But indeed I should rejoice from my heart if you could marry. There is nothing like it in the world. You need not frown: I never will mention the subject to any one else."
"Yes, yes, Otto. And when are you going home?"
"To-morrow. We are going to spend a few weeks at Kossnitz, and then we are to take a trip together. I came to ask you if you would not lunch with us to-day, that we might see something of you in comfort. This room of yours is decidedly cold. Do you never have it any warmer? Dorothea especially begs you to come,--at one o'clock."
"Indeed! does Dorothea want me?"
"Gos!"
"I will come. I have one or two things to attend to, but I will be with you in half an hour." And the brothers parted.
A few hours have passed. Goswyn had appeared punctually at lunch, and had done his best not to be a spoil-sport. They were now sitting by the fire in the littlesalonin which they had taken coffee, Goswyn and his brother. The early twilight began to make itself felt, but no object was as yet indistinct.
Dorothea had gone out to inform her aunt Brock of her projected departure and to ask her to make a few farewell calls for her. She had met Goswyn with such gay indifference that he had been puzzled indeed, and had finally begun to believe that he had been mistaken,--that the person whom he had supposed to be Dorothea Sydow was not she at all.
Something had happened in her life, however; of that he was convinced. Never had Dorothea been so simply charming. She gave him her hand in token of reconciliation, alluded, not without regret, to her defective education, told an anecdote or two with much grace and in a softened tone of voice, and clung to Otto like an ailing child.
"We are going to begin all over again,--all over again," she repeated, adding, "And when Gos has forgotten what a bad creature I used to be, and that he could not bear me, he will come and see us at Kossnitz: won't you, Gos? You shall see how pleasant I will make it for you there. You have absolutely hated me; or perhaps you thought me not worth hating,--you only detested me as one detests a caterpillar or a spider. I confess, I hated you. I always felt as if I ought to be ashamed in your presence; and that is not a pleasant sensation." She laughed, the old giggling silvery laugh, but there was a pathetic tone in it as she brushed away the tears from her eyes, and left the room, to return in a few moments, fresh and smiling, equipped for her walk. She kissed her husband by way of farewell, and held out her hand to Goswyn. "Shall I find you here when I return, Gos?" she asked, just before the door closed behind her.
"There is no one like her!" murmured Otto. "And to think that I could ever fancy a bachelor existence a pleasant one! But all is different now." The good fellow's eyes were moist as he passed his hand over them.
Shortly afterwards they heard a ring at the outside door. "Some visitor,--the deuce!" growled Otto. Goswyn looked about for his sabre, which he had stood in a corner.
But it was no visitor. Dorothea's maid entered. "A package has come for her Excellency," she announced. "Perhaps the Herr Baron will sign the receipt."
"Give it to me, Jenny."
Sydow signed it, and then said, "And give me the package. I will hand it to your mistress."
The maid gave it to him: it was a thick sealed envelope.
A dreadful suspicion flashed upon Goswyn's mind: in an instant he guessed the truth. What if it should occur to his brother to open the envelope? Apparently he had no thought of doing so: he simply laid it upon Dorothea's writing-table, a pretty, useless piece of furniture, much carved and decorated. Goswyn felt relieved. He suddenly became garrulous, talked of the latest political complication, told the last story of the intense piety of the Countess Waldersee, as narrated by the Prince at a recent supper-party, and described the four magnificent horses sent by the Sultan to the Emperor.
Otto sat with his back to the ominous packet. It did not escape Goswyn that he became very monosyllabic and did not show much interest in his brother's conversation.
"If she would only return!" Goswyn thought to himself. He was convinced that the packet contained Dorothea's letters to Orbanoff. He had not been mistaken the previous evening: it had been Dorothea who had passed him, evidently returning to her home from a last interview. The affair, odious as it was, was at an end: Dorothea was relieved that it was so. She was not fitted to engage in a dangerous intrigue.
Suddenly Otto began to sniff, as if perceiving some odour in the air. "'Tis odd," he said. "Don't you perceive a peculiar fragrance? If it were not too silly, I should say that it smells like Dorothea."
"That would not be odd," his brother rejoined, "since she left the room only half an hour ago."
"But I did not perceive it before," Otto said; and then, with sudden irritability, turning towards the writing-table, he added, "It is that confounded packet!"
"It probably contains something of Dorothea's which she has accidentally left at a friend's."
But Otto had taken the packet from the table. He turned it over. "I know the seal,--a die with the mottova banque: it is Orbanoff's seal!" His breath came quick. "What can Orbanoff have sent her?"
"Probably some political treatise. I do not see how it can interest you," said Goswyn.
Once more Otto turned the packet over in his hands. He seemed about to lay it down on the writing-table again; then, at the last moment, before Goswyn could bethink himself, he opened it hastily. About a dozen short notes, in Dorothea's childish handwriting, fell out, then a note of Orbanoff's. Otto's eyes were riveted upon it with a glassy stare; he could not yet comprehend. Then with a sudden cry he crushed the note together, tossed it to Goswyn, and buried his face in his hands.
A dull, brooding silence followed. Goswyn held the note in his hand, without reading it: it was not for him to pry curiously into his brother's anguish and disgrace.
After a while Otto raised his head. "What have you to say?" he exclaimed, bitterly. "That such another idiot as I does not live upon the earth? Say it! Ah, you have not read the note, Goswyn. Why do you look at me so? Could you have known---- Oh, my God! my God!" The strong man buried his face in his hands again, and sobbed hoarsely.
Goswyn was terribly distressed. He had never known his brother to weep since his childhood. He would far rather have had him fall into a fury. But no; he was weeping: the sense of disgrace was drowned in agony.
Before long he collected himself, ashamed of his weakness, and there was the quiet of despair in the face he lifted to Goswyn.
"You knew it--since when?"
"I know nothing," Goswyn replied.
"No, you know nothing,--good God! who ever knows anything in such affairs?--but you suspected, did you not?"
Goswyn was silent.
"Perhaps you can tell me how many people in Berlin--suspect it?"
Goswyn bit his lip. What reply could he make? after a while he began: "Otto, I would have given anything in the world to prevent you from learning it."
"Indeed!" Otto interrupted him. "You would have let me go through life grinning amiably, ridiculously, with a stain on my name at which people would point contemptuously, and you never would have told me of that stain? Goswyn!" He started up; Goswyn also arose, and the brothers confronted each other beside the hearth, upon which the fire had fallen into glowing embers and ashes.
"I ought certainly to have given Dorothea opportunity to expiate her fault. She was in the right path," said Goswyn. "The result of her frivolity had caused her a panic of terror: the entire affair had been a burden to her from the beginning, as you can see by her relief that it is at an end. One must take her as she is. All this has less significance for Dorothea than for any other woman whom I know. It has not entered into her soul. It has left nothing behind it but a horror of it all from beginning to end."
Otto looked suspiciously at his brother. Was this Goswyn who talked thus?--Goswyn the strict,--Goswyn, so uncompromising where honour was concerned?
Yes, it was Goswyn; there was no denying it.
"And you think that I should--I should--forgive?" murmured Otto, hoarsely, as if ashamed to utter the words.
"If you can so far conquer yourself."
Otto stooped and picked up the letters that had fallen upon the floor. He glanced through one of them. "There is not much tenderness in these lines, I must say." And he dropped at his side the hand holding the packet.
"One piece of advice I must give you," said Goswyn, with a coldness in his tone which he could not quite disguise. "If you forgive, you must have the strength of soul to forgive absolutely. If you forgive, throw those letters into the fire: Dorothea must never learn that you know anything."
"Yes," Otto said, dully. Suddenly he went close to Goswyn, and, looking him full in the eye, said, between his teeth, "Would you forgive?"
Goswyn started. He had no answer ready. "I--I never should have married Dorothea," he said, evasively.
"I understand," Otto said, in the same hoarse whisper. "You never would have forgiven; but it is all right for stupid Otto."
Again there was a distressing pause. Otto had turned away from his brother, with an inarticulate exclamation of pain. Goswyn gave him some moments in which to recover himself; then, laying his hand on his brother's arm, he said, "Do not take it so ill of me, Otto; I have no doubt I talk foolishly. I cannot decide; I am confused."
"No wonder," groaned Otto. "The position is a novel one for you: there has never been anything like it in our family. Oh, God!" he struck his forehead with his clinched fist; "I cannot believe it! I used to be jealous at times, but of no special person. Never, never could I have believed,--never!"
"Otto."
"What?"
"Since you cannot bring yourself to forgive----"
"Since I cannot bring myself to forgive----" Otto repeated, with bowed head.
"You must at least look the matter boldly in the face and decide what to do."
"Decide--what--to do----"
"Are you going to procure a divorce?"
Otto stood motionless. Goswyn laid his hand upon his shoulder; Otto shrank from his touch. "Leave me, Gos!" he gasped. "I beg you, go!"
The clock on Dorothea's writing-table struck: the tone was almost like that of Dorothea's voice. Goswyn looked round. Six o'clock. At seven he was invited to dine with a great personage,--an invitation tantamount to a command: he could not be absent. It was high time for him to go home to dress, but he could not bear to leave Otto alone.
"I must go," he said, "but I entreat you to come with me; you must not see Dorothea just now, and the fresh air will do you good and clear your thoughts."
"Why should they be clearer than they are?" Otto said, wearily and with intense bitterness. "I see more than you think. But go,--go: in a few minutes she will be here, and it would be more terrible to me than I can tell you to see her before you. No need to say more: I know that you will stand by me through thick and thin! There, give me your hand. I will do nothing unworthy of us, I promise you. Now go!"
Goswyn had gone, but Dorothea had not yet returned. Otto sat alone beside the dying fire. He could not comprehend what had befallen him. He must rid himself of this terrible oppression, but how? Some way must be found,--some solution of the problem: he sought for it in vain.
"Forgive!" The word rang in his ears, and his cheeks burned. How had Goswyn dared to suggest such a thing? No, it was impossible. Be divorced,--have her name dragged in the mire, and his shame published in all the newspapers? He stamped his foot. "No! no!"
What then?
He could challenge Orbanoff, and send Dorothea adrift in the world, a wife, not divorced, but separated from her husband. This was what the world would expect of him. He shivered as with fever. Send her adrift into the world without protection, without support, without moral strength, beautiful as she was,--expose her to insult from women, to sneering homage from men: she would sink to the lowest depths, not from depravity, but from despair. He wiped the moisture from his forehead. That would be the correct thing to do,--only---- Suddenly a sound that was half laughter, half sob, burst from his lips: he knew perfectly well that, while she lived, sooner or later the moment would come when he could no longer endure life without her; and then--then he should follow her, Heaven only knew whither, and take her in his arms, even were she far, far more lost than now.
And again there rang through his soul, "Forgive!" and again his whole being revolted. The packet of letters which he had thrust into his breast weighed him down. It was all very well for Goswyn to say that Dorothea must never know that the packet had fallen into his hands. Why, she would ask for it. Ah,--he bit his lip,--he could not think of it! He could not forgive!
His burden grew heavier every moment. On a sudden he felt very tired,--overcome with drowsiness. What was that? The rustle of a gown. The door opened. Framed by the folds of the portière, indistinct in the gathering twilight, appeared Dorothea's tall, lithe figure.
She had come, and he had determined upon nothing,--nothing.
He did not stir.
"Gos not here?" she asked, in her high, twittering voice. He tried to summon up his anger against her; he told himself that he ought to strike her,--kill her. But he was as if paralyzed; he could not stir; he trembled in every limb. She did not perceive it, and she could not distinguish his features in the darkness.
"So much the better!" she exclaimed. "I am so glad of a quiet cosy evening with you. Do you want to please me, Otto? Come with me now to Uhl's and dine, and then let us go to the theatre. Will you?"
She came up to him. He had arisen, and the fresh sweetness of her feminine nature seemed to envelop him. She put both her hands on his shoulders and nestled close to him. "Will you?" she murmured again.
He put his arms around her and kissed her twice as he never had kissed her before, with a tenderness in which there was a mixture of rage and glowing, frantic passion. Twice he kissed her, and then he suddenly became aware of what he was doing. He thrust her away.
"What is the matter?" she asked, startled.
"Nothing."
"But something is the matter."
"I tell you no!" He hurled the words in her face as it were, and stamped his foot. "Go--get ready!"
She lingered for a moment, and then left the room. He looked after her.
Goswyn's state of mind was indescribable. He hastily changed his uniform and made ready for the dinner. His nerves were quivering with a dread that he could not explain. "He never can bring himself to get a divorce," he said to himself; "and if he forgives----"
Disgust seemed fairly to choke him; he took shame to himself for having suggested such a course to Otto for a moment. He had no right to despise Otto. The old family affection for his brother revived in him in full force.
As soon as he was dressed he belied his usual Spartan habits by sending for a droschky. It would give him time to stop for a moment at Dorothea's lodgings to see what was going on there. The monotonous jogging of the vehicle soothed his nerves: his thoughts began to stray. As it turned into Moltke Street the droschky moderated its speed, and at the same instant a dull sound as of the excited voices of a crowd struck upon his ear. He looked out of the carriage window, upon a close throng of human beings. The vehicle stopped; he sprang out.
There was a crowd before the house occupied by his sister-in-law. Shoulder to shoulder men were pushing eagerly forward. A smothered murmur made itself heard; now and then a cynical speech fell distinctly on the ear, or a burst of laughter that died away without an echo, mingled with the curses of coachmen who could not make their way through the mass of humanity crowding there in the pale March twilight, through which the glare of the lanterns shone yellow and dreary. At first he could not get to the house; but the crowd soon made way for his officer's uniform.
He rang the bell loudly. Some time passed before the door was opened for him. Measures had evidently been taken to baffle the curiosity of the crowd.
The door of Dorothea's apartments, however, was open. He hurried onward, finding at first no one to detain him or to give him any information.
In the cosy little room, now brilliantly lighted, where he had left his brother, stood Dorothea, evidently dressed to go out, in a gray gown, and a bonnet trimmed with pale pink roses, her cheeks ashy pale, her face hard and set in a frightful, unnatural smile.
"What has happened?" cried Goswyn.
She tried to reply, but the words would not come. The smile grew broader, and her eyes glowed. Her face recalled to him the evening at the Countess Brock's, when she looked around after her song and found herself the only woman in the room.
One or two persons had made their way into the room. Goswyn ordered them out, with an imperious air of command. "Where is he?" he asked, hoarsely. She pointed mutely to a door. He entered. It was her sleeping-room, airy, bright, luxurious; and there, at the foot of the bed, lay a dark figure, face downward, with outstretched arms.
Two officials, one of whom was writing something in a note-book, were in the room.
The servant told him it had been entirely unexpected. When her Excellency came home, she had exchanged a few words with the Herr Baron, and had then gone to dress for the theatre. The Herr Baron had gone into the other room to write a note, and then--while her Excellency was in thesalonputting on her gloves they had heard--a shot. Her Excellency had been the first to find him.
On the table lay two notes, one to Goswyn, the other to Dorothea.
The contents of Dorothea's Goswyn never knew: in his own note there was nothing save
"Dear Gos,--
"I have forgiven.
"Otto."
Yes, he had forgiven, but his life had paid the forfeit.
The news of Otto von Sydow's sudden tragic death produced a profound impression upon old Countess Lenzdorff.
She immediately wrote a long letter to Goswyn,--eight pages of affectionate and sincere sympathy. Erika said very little about the matter, but she looked forward eagerly to Goswyn's reply.
When it came it was dry, almost formal,--the reply of a man crushed to the earth, who is not wont to discourse about his emotions and is shy of expressing himself with regard to them.
Thus the Countess Lenzdorff understood it. Her sympathy for the young officer increased after reading his brief note. Erika, on the other hand, after perusing the epistle, which her grandmother handed to her with a sigh, showed an unaccountable degree of irritability.
"Surely he might have written you more cordially!" she exclaimed. "Such a letter as this means nothing! It is simply a receipt for your sympathy,--nothing more."
Her grandmother shook her head, and tried to set her right. But Erika would not listen. She had greatly changed of late: her state of mind was growing more and more distressing. She ate and slept but little. Her sentiment was searching for a new stay; her life lacked a purpose. At any risk she would gladly have fled from the chill brilliance which characterized her grandmother's philosophy of life to take refuge in some inspiration of the heart, even although it might perhaps lead her astray. Religion had been taken from her, and even the sacred nimbus of morality had been frayed by her grandmother's cynicism. When her God had been taken from her she had at first wept hot, bitter tears, but she had aroused herself anew, and faith had been born within her in a transfigured form: it was no longer the conventional belief, expressed in worn-out formulas, with which the multitude satisfy themselves in view of the mysteries of creation, but an apprehension, however faulty, of an order of affairs, incomprehensible to her finite intellect, lifting her above that part of us which is of the earth, earthy,--a faith which may bring with it but little consolation, but which is certainly elevating. When her grandmother first attacked in her presence what she called the 'by God's grace principle' of morality, and coldly proved that all morals culminated in a number of laws not founded in nature,--nay, even at variance with nature,--which had been illogically framed by society for its preservation, she did not weep, but her whole being was poisoned by a discontent which she could not away with. If her grandmother had had the least idea of the effect upon the girl of her cold reasoning, she would have kept to herself the aphorisms which she was so fond of handing about like little delicately-prepared tidbits. Her nature, however, was a thoroughly sound and rather cold one, which took no pleasure in overwrought emotion, and which was absolutely free from the devouring thirst which glowed in Erika's soul. How could she understand the young creature, or know how to protect her from herself?
But if, on the one hand, the old Countess had but a poor opinion of mankind, on the other it was impossible for her to forego society. Although she had promised Erika to resist its temptations in Venice, she not only yielded to them herself, but did all that she could to induce the girl to accompany her. Her efforts were, however, of no avail, in view of Erika's misanthropic and unamiable mood; and thus it came to pass that society witnessed the unusual spectacle of a venerable matron of seventy appearing with indefatigable enjoyment at one afternoon tea after another, while her beautiful young grand-daughter at home confused her mind with the study of metaphysical works or visited the poor abroad. This last had of late been her favourite occupation: she had a long list of beneficiaries, whom she befriended with enthusiastic zeal, and of whom she had learned from the kindly hostess at the hotel and from the doctor when he came to visit his patients there.
It was on a cloudy afternoon towards the end of March, after her grandmother had parted from her with a sigh of compassion, that Erika set out on foot, as was her wont, to visit a poor music-teacher.
The way to the modest lodgings where Fräulein Horst resided led Erika far from the busy Riva by a narrow alley to the quiet Piazza San Zacharie, where grass was growing between the stones. Thence the road grew more difficult to find, and it was not without some pride that she threaded accurately the labyrinth of narrow streets and reached the small dwelling in question without having been obliged to inquire her way.
She found the poor woman in bed in a wretchedly-furnished room. A table beside her served to hold her various bottles of medicine, and a green screen before the window shut out the light. In the midst of this poverty the music-teacher lay reading "Consuelo," and--was happy.
A wave of compassion--a compassion that brought the tears to her eyes--overwhelmed Erika. She leaned over the invalid and kissed her throbbing temples. Then, with the graceful kindliness which characterized her in the presence of sickness or misery, she adorned the room with the flowers she had with her, cleared away the grim witnesses from the table, had a cup of tea made and brought, and set out various little dainties from her basket, talking the while so cheerfully that the invalid forgot her pain. The poor music-teacher followed her every movement in a kind of ecstasy; at last, taking the girl's hand and pressing her feverish lips upon it, she exclaimed, "How could I ever dream that the beautiful Countess Lenzdorff, whom I have admired at the theatre and at concerts, would ever come to drink a cup of tea with me! Ah, what a pleasure it is!"
"I am so glad," Erika replied, stroking the thin hand held out to her. "I will come often, since you really like to have me."
"One never ought to despair, while life lasts," said the sick woman. "Just now I received a letter from an old school-mate, Sophy Lange. When she was a poor girl she fell in love with a gentleman. Of course their union was not to be thought of. Now, after many years, she writes me that she has reached the goal of her desires: she is married,--she is his wife,--and she is almost crazy with delight."
"Sophy Lange!" Erika cried, with peculiar interest. "That was the name of our governess. She must be forty years old."
"About that," the woman replied, smiling to herself. "A truly loving heart keeps young even at forty years of age."
"And what is her husband's name?" asked Erika, smitten by a strange suspicion.
"Baron Strachinsky," replied Fräulein Horst. "He is of ancient Polish lineage, not very wealthy, but dear Sophy does not mind that, for a rich old gentleman whom she took care of during his ten-years' illness has left her all his property."
"And she is happy?" Erika asked, in a kind of terror.
"Oh, how happy! I am so glad!--so glad! A little romance is so refreshing in these prosaic days. They met each other again on the Rigi, at sunrise,--just think, Countess! and Sophy is not at all pretty,--only dear and kind. Now they are in Naples; but she tells me that in the course of the spring she and her husband may come to Venice. She has had a hard life, but at last--at last--it is good to hear of so happy an end to her troubles."
At this point an attack of coughing interrupted her. Ah, how terrible it was! The handkerchief she held to her lips was crimsoned. Erika did all that she could for her, supported her in her arms, and bade her take courage. When the invalid was more comfortable, she left her, promising to come again on the morrow.
"God bless you, Countess!" the poor woman murmured, faintly.
It was late, and it had begun to grow dark. Before leaving the house Erika had a short interview with the woman who rented the lodgings, and deposited with her a sum of money, that the poor music-teacher might be supplied with every comfort possible. Then, with a friendly nod, she departed.
Her heart felt lighter than it had done for some time, and it was not until she had started on her homeward way that she noticed the gathering gloom.
She was half inclined to summon a gondola, but decided that it was not worth the trouble; and, moreover, she detested the swampy odour of the lagoons. And just here the air was so sweet: a spring fragrance was wafted about her from the grassy deserted Campo.
"What mysteries people are!" the girl reflected, her thoughts reverting to her grandmother's comments upon the late elopement, with a lover, of the lovely young wife of an old German diplomat. "This is love,--Countess Ada on the one hand, poor Sophy on the other,--the one criminal, the other ridiculous. Good heavens!"
Around her breathed the sweet, drowsy air of spring; there was a distant sound of bells and of plashing water, and over all brooded something like a dim foreboding, an expectant yearning.
Erika suddenly awoke from her dreamy mood, to find that she had lost her way. She walked on to the nearest corner in hopes of finding it,--in vain! Not without a certain tremor, she resolved to go straight on: she could not but reach some familiar square or canal. She walked hurriedly, impatiently. The air was no longer fragrant, and she found herself in a narrow, poverty-stricken alley running between rows of tall, evil-looking, and ruinous houses, in which the windows showed like deep, hollow eyes. The gray mist was rising above the roofs, and the walls of the houses, as well as the stones underfoot, were slimy with moisture.
Erika had much ado to keep her footing, so slippery was the pathway. If she walked in the middle of the street she had to wade through mud and filth; and if she pressed near to the walls the green slime soiled her dress.
Darker and darker grew the night, when suddenly a rude noise broke the forlorn silence,--songs issuing from rough throats, mingled with the shrill, coarse laughter of women.
Poor Erika hastened her pace, but utter weariness so assailed her that she felt almost unable to stand upright. In an unlucky moment a drunken sailor staggered out of the wretched drinking-place whence the noise proceeded. He was a young, stalwart man, and before the girl could pass him he had stretched out his arms and barred her way.
Beside herself with terror, she screamed,--when, as if rising from the earth, a man stepped in front of her, seized the sailor by the collar, and flung him against the wall. She trembled in every limb with disgust and fear as she looked up at her rescuer, whose features she could barely distinguish, although she could see his eyes,--dark, compassionate eyes.
Where had she already seen those eyes? Before she could recall where, he said, lifting his hat, "You have evidently lost your way: will you tell me where you live, that I may guide you out of this labyrinth?" He spoke in English, but with a foreign accent: apparently he took her for an Englishwoman.
His proposal was an unusual one; and this seemed to strike him, for before she could reply he added, "Of course it is disagreeable to trust to a stranger's escort, but under the circumstances it is the only thing to do. I cannot leave you here without a protector: this is no place for a lady."
So dismayed was she by this knowledge that she could find no courteous word of thanks, and all she said in reply was to mention the name of her hotel.
"To the left," he said, motioning in the given direction. His voice, too, seemed familiar.
They passed together through the net-work of narrow streets and over a high arched bridge upon which a red lantern was burning and beneath which the sluggish water flowed slowly.
"Of whom does he remind me?" thought Erika. Suddenly her heart beat so as almost to deprive her of breath. Bayreuth--Lozoncyi!
And at the same moment she recalled also his fair companion.
Meanwhile, they had reached a large, airy square.
"Piazza San Zacharie. I know where I am now," she said, very coldly, as she took leave of him.
He stood still, evidently wounded by her tone, and looked after her with a frown.
Without thanking him, she hurried on. Suddenly she paused, unable to resist the impulse to look back. He was still standing looking after her. She half turned to retrace her steps and thank him, when indignation seemed to paralyze her. What had she to say to a man who without the least shame could appear in public with---- Without further hesitation she returned to the hotel.
She slept badly that night. Her teeth chattered with fear at the thought of her adventure. And then--then, in spite of herself, she was vexed that she had said no friendly word to Lozoncyi: he had deserved some such at her hands. What was his private life to her? She recalled the handsome half-starved lad whom she had fed beside the gurgling brook. She longed to see him again. Half asleep, she turned her head uneasily on her pillow. The plashing of the water beneath her window sounded like a low, trembling sigh, and the sigh became a song. Nearer and nearer it sounded, insinuatingly sweet,--a song of Tosti's then in fashion. She heard only the refrain: