Poor Felix! There he sat, his head resting on the table, all his thoughts in the past, when suddenly a little voice roused him from his dull brooding. Gery, whose little hand could not reach the doorknob, banged at the door outside, and screamed, "Papa! papa!" Felix rose and admitted him.
The child was crying, and his left cheek was red and swollen.
"Papa, mamma slapped me, and said she could not bear me," complained the little fellow.
"She struck you because you are the son of 'the certain Lanzberg,'" murmured Felix with fearful bitterness. "Perhaps others will also make you do penance for that yet!"
The gulf which malicious fortune and Elsa's overwrought nerves had opened between the two married people had not lessened, but on the contrary had daily become deeper, colder, and broader.
Erwin found no explanation for his wife's changed manner; after some time he ceased to seek one. His was no brooding nature, and had no time to become one. That Elsa could be jealous of Linda any more than of a pretty work of art or an amusing book which unsuitably claimed a great deal of his attention, Erwin had never understood.
"Poor Elsa, she is worried about Felix," he said to himself; "she will come to her senses again," and for several days he kept away from her, to give her time to calm herself. But three, four days passed, and she still had the same pale face and stiff manner. Then he tried a different plan, and once when they chanced to be alone together--it happened very seldom--he laid his hand under her chin and began: "Well, mouse----"
But she did not lean her cheek against his hand as formerly when she was remorseful, neither did she resist his caress, as when she was refractory, but simply tolerated him as if she were a statue of stone or bronze. And she looked at him so coldly that all the loving words which he had in readiness faded from his memory and his hand sank down from her chin.
He turned away from her with impatience and irritation. It was not the first time that she had been unjust and capricious to him. Her only fault was an easily awakened irritability; but formerly her vexation had been of short duration, and her bad mood had soon dissolved into the most remorseful tenderness.
She had never begged his forgiveness after she had made a scene. Her proud obstinacy was not capable of that; she was not one of those sympathetic, dependent women who like to make little blunders so as to be able to coquet with their charming penitence. No! But an anxious, half-suppressed smile hesitated on her lips, when he returned to her several hours after the vexatious scene, and he could see by the book which she was reading, by the gown which she had put on, by the dinner which was ordered, how she had thought of him during his absence.
But her manner now was of a quite different kind.
What could he think but that her love for him had become less; that with Elsa, as with all good mothers, her children had gradually won the precedence in her heart, and there was nothing to do for it. And Erwin smiled peculiarly, shrugged his shoulders, for the first few days felt painfully wounded, and finally began to accustom himself to the situation. He hunted a great deal, and also occasionally rode to Traunberg, where he was always sure of a hearty reception, often met gay society, and from whence he brought back the comfortable conviction that he had the best influence over a lovable but superficial human being.
Now, after Elsa had barricaded herself on all sides with diligence and pains and praiseworthy energy, against happiness, she was terrified at her own work, and she would gladly have annihilated it, but she now lacked the power. Erwin had become distant; formerly she would have silently slipped her hand into his and with that all would have been said, he would have understood. But now, now she no longer dared; she was as shy and embarrassed as a bride. That it was hateful, yes, fairly inexcusable to suspect a man who in all the different situations of his life had acted so severely honorably as Erwin, of such disgraceful conduct as her jealousy suggested to her, she knew, but----
"The Lanzberg shadow has fallen upon my happiness," she sometimes thought sadly; "it must come so," but in the next moment she said, "No, it must not come so. I--I myself am to blame that it has come; why did I send him away from me on our wedding-day, from silly, childish obstinacy? If I believed in danger for him, I should have tried doubly hard to chain him to me; instead of this I have done everything to make myself disagreeable to him, only because my pride did not consider a threatened happiness worth defence. If what I feared now happens, then----" but here her thoughts paused. "That cannot be," she murmured impatiently; "It is not possible." Then suddenly she thought of her brother, who in his time had stood almost as high in her respect as Erwin, and who in one instant had sunken, oh, so deeply!
"If that were possible, then everything is possible in this world," she decided, sternly.
One day after another passed--a cloud had shown itself in her sky so small and transparent that a single sunbeam would have sufficed to kiss it away; but the cloud had grown larger, and now covered the whole sky so that it could not even be seen.
An unpleasant accident contributed to embitter Elsa's feelings completely.
For a long time she had been urged by her heart to show Erwin some little attention, and she ransacked her brains to think of something which could please him, and yet would not be a too direct reminder of her love. At last it occurred to her to have a photograph taken for him of Baby, who with her childish coquetries had gradually become dearer and dearer to her father's heart.
She put the frock which Erwin liked best upon the little creature herself, one which showed off Baby's charms most advantageously. She kissed and smoothed the child's short curls, and hung a golden heart on a thin chain round her neck, of which the vain rogue was not a little proud, and tugged at it with both little fists to admire it, or put it in her mouth. Then Elsa ordered the carriage and drove over to Marienbad with Baby. Baby made the most attentive observations from the lap of her mamma; from time to time she stretched out her hand for some object which especially pleased her or was new to her, and gave a little clear joyous cry, or uttered some of those disconnected syllables which have significance for a mother's ear only.
The novelty of the situation at the photographer's impressed her; the first attempt did not succeed. The photographer remarked that if the Baroness would hold the child herself, it would perhaps be better. Elsa replied blushingly that she did not wish to appear in the picture.
But Baby would not have it otherwise. Now the trial succeeded admirably. The photographer showed the negative in which Baby's delicate face, with the solemn, staring eyes, and the shy, smiling mouth could plainly be recognized. Elsa nodded with satisfaction, but begged that he would wash out her figure. Then the old photographer--he knew Elsa from her childhood--surveyed his work with the look of an artist, and said, "Ah, Baroness, it would be a shame for the pretty picture. Has the Baroness one of the last photographs which I took of her as a bride? It is just the same face."
And Elsa let him have his way; involuntarily the delight with which he held the dim negative against his rough coat-sleeve amused her, and she even stole a glance in the mirror, the first glance for a long time, and thought that although somewhat pale and thin, she did not look so very old and faded as she had thought. She rejoiced at this discovery, and rejoiced that her richly embroidered black gown was so becoming, and rejoiced over Baby's picture, and looked forward to the moment when she should take it to Erwin.
When she now got into the carriage waiting below with Baby, and the servant closed the door, the child suddenly almost sprang out of her mother's lap, and stretched out her little arms, and cried in a clear, bell-like voice, "Papa! Papa!" As Baby's vocabulary is still very limited, and she had recently bestowed the title of Papa upon Litza's pony, Elsa glanced somewhat sceptically in the direction in which the child's arm pointed, but really saw Erwin about to enter a jeweller's shop.
Linda Lanzberg was on his arm!
Elsa grew deathly pale. When the carriage, as upon entering she had directed, stopped before a toy store, she did not alight, but ordered, "Home!"
All reconciling feelings toward Erwin changed into a condition of boundless excitement; for the moment she felt a kind of hatred for him. When at dinner he asked, "Elsa, were not you in Marienbad to-day? It seemed to me that I saw the carriage pass when I was in Stein's," she answered, coldly, "I was there. I had something to attend to. And did you buy anything of Stein?" she then asked, as if casually. "Will he mention Linda?" she thought, but he replied half laughingly, "A pink coral necklace for the little one. To-morrow is, if I am not mistaken, her christening day." In fact Baby had been named after the Countess Dey, the sensible name, Marie.
This explanation did not relieve Elsa in the slightest. The most innocent significance which she could ascribe to his presence there with Linda was that he had asked her advice in the choice of an ornament for the child. It did not occur to her that he could have met Linda in Marienbad quite accidentally. The rest of the evening she was in a hopelessly bad humor. Every word that Erwin spoke pained her, his manner of laying a pair of scissors on the table vexed her. With that, fever shone in her eyes and burned in her cheeks. The kiss which every evening he imprinted upon her forehead had long become a conventional ceremony, but to-day she wished to evade this formality. She disappeared from the drawing-room immediately after tea, upon some pretext, and did not return again.
The next day was a holiday, Baby's christening day, the day after Juanita's visit to Traunberg.
Most exceptionally, this time Erwin did not appear at breakfast, and when Elsa asked after him, the word was, "The Baron breakfasted in his own room, and had then gone away."
About half-past eleven, as Elsa sat in the nursery, weary and languid, holding Baby on her lap, the door opened and Erwin entered. Baby stretched out her little hands joyously, but Elsa's eyes grew gloomy and she struck the child's hand reprovingly. Erwin grew deathly pale, pale as she had never seen him before.
"Later, Baby," he murmured somewhat hoarsely, and left the room. But Baby began to cry bitterly, and would not stay in her mother's lap.
After lunch, during which Erwin did not address another word to Elsa, she heard him down in the garden, talking and playing with the little one; she heard Baby's soft happy laugh; she went to the window, stretched out her head, and saw him swinging the child in the air. When Baby was finally weary of play, she laid her little arm around her father's neck, and leaned her delicate flower-like face against his sun-browned cheeks.
Elsa's head ached; she burned with fever from head to foot, every nerve quivered and her thoughts were gloomy. Slowly she dragged herself up and down, finally seated herself with hands clasping her temples, upon a divan. She was losing consciousness when suddenly she started up and listened. She heard Erwin's horse pawing the ground in front of the house. Where was he going so suddenly? She roused herself, and holding to the walls, crept slowly down-stairs. Then, hidden by the turn of the stairs, in the shadow of the hall, she heard Erwin's voice:
"If the Baroness asks for me, Martin, tell her that you do not know where I am; in no case shall she wait dinner for me," said he, quickly and softly.
With that he mounted his horse and rode away at a rapid pace.
Where? Elsa's heart stopped beating. Had anything happened?
She crossed the hall--she would force old Martin to speak; but he had gone also. Then something on the floor rattled, a gray paper which the hem of her dress had touched; she stooped for it--it lay there crumpled as if it had just fallen from a violent hand. She committed no voluntary indiscretion, she only looked at it as one scrutinizes a paper to see whether one shall pick it up or throw it away. It was not her fault that, thanks to the writing, which was as plain as print, at the first glance her eyes had comprehended the whole contents.
Dear Erwin:Come soon--to-day, now--at once--I expect you.Linda.
Dear Erwin:
Come soon--to-day, now--at once--I expect you.
Linda.
She took the note, carried it to Erwin's room, and laid it conscientiously upon his writing-desk. Then her knees trembled, and she had to sit down. Not that he had received the note surprised her. What fault was it of his if Linda wrote foolish notes? But what she did not understand, what remained absolutely incomprehensible to her was the fact that he had taken his valet into his confidence, that he had not been ashamed to make him his confidant. Had she not heard wrong? Had he gone to Traunberg? Now, when the facts spoke strongest against him, she weighed most justly the probabilities for and against his fault; she had acted imprudently towards him, and since the birth of the last child, devoting herself entirely to her maternal duties, had neglected him. He had borne this with goodness and patience; then Linda had suddenly appeared, with her dazzling beauty, her picturesque elegance, her coquettish heartlessness.
For hours Elsa sat there and waited. At five o'clock she sat down to dinner; immediately after this she left the dining-room--she had no more control over herself.
"It is all possible," she cried, giving way, desperate; her breath came heavily and so feverish that it burned her lips--black clouds swam before her eyes.
She looked at the clock. What kept him away from home so long--with her? Another fifteen minutes passed--he must be with her. She could no longer endure her distrustful suspense--she would go to Traunberg.
She ordered the carriage. On the way she started at every sound, at every shadow, everywhere she saw him and her.
A fearful dread of the certainty came over her; at the last moment she clung to uncertainty.
She wished to return, but she was ashamed of displaying such inconsequence before the servants, and just then the carriage drove through the iron gate into the Traunberg park. The lackey in the vestibule announced that the Baroness was not at home.
Elsa sighed with relief; if Linda were not home, she could receive no guests, and Erwin could not be there. That she could have denied herself did not occur to her.
It was pleasant to her to enjoy Traunberg once more, without Parisian anecdotes and Frenchchansonnettes--without Linda.
All was as if dead; it reminded her of the old Traunberg, where she had lived in loving solitude with her father. She did not think of returning at once; the great tension of her nerves had suddenly given way to vague dreaminess--the danger was not over but postponed.
She went out into the garden; her heart grew more and more heavy, and her step slow. Her dress caught upon a branch. It seemed to her that a warning hand held her back. In mysterious dread of choosing the very gloomy path which lay before her, she took another. Her heart beat rapidly, she stood still, resolved to return. Between the trunks of the lindens, the water of the large pond which bounded one side of the Traunberg park shone in the sunset glow. With the gentle murmur of the water mingled the regular strokes of oars. Elsa stood still, she listened. Who could it be? Linda was not home. Elsa glanced at the pond. In a little boat she saw two figures, one, Linda, leaning back in the end of the little skiff, flowers in her hair and in her lap, one hand in the water, an evil light in her eyes, something luxuriantly melancholy in her whole form. Opposite her, with his back to Elsa, sat a man, slender, broad-shouldered, in a light summer suit, with close-cropped hair of that striking light blond which shines like molten gold in the sunlight.
Elsa started back--it was surely Erwin--she turned away, she would see no more--but no--it seemed to her that she must call after him--there--the little row-boat had reached the small island covered with roses which was in the middle of the lake. In the gray-white August twilight she saw the two figures turn into the overgrown thicket of the island--they disappeared behind the bushes as if immersed in shadow.
Elsa was as if paralyzed by a kind of gloomy numbness; a fearful excitement overcame her--she must go--where she did not know, only far, far away from the accursed spot.
She did not think of ordering her carriage, of driving home. She scarcely thought of anything, only moved mechanically on, and instinctively took the path to Steinbach, as an animal wounded unto death seeks its hole to die in.
She groped before her with her hands, she blinked as if blinded by a terrible light, she hit blindly against the trees as she passed, like a bat--she saw nothing but two light figures disappearing amid gloomy shadow. She hurried on and on--at first very rapidly--it seemed to her that she could fly, but she was mistaken. The unrest which raged within her was that of fever, of over-exhaustion, not of unused strength. Soon her feet felt like lead, and a heavy weight seemed resting upon her breast; she dragged herself wearily on like one in a bad dream, who wishes to flee from some monster and cannot. The more weary her body became, the more clear what had really frightened her became to her.
"He and Linda," she murmured to herself, "he and my brother's wife." And with a desperate smile, a smile which condemned faith, hope and love to death, she added, "Yes, everything is possible in this world!"
How good he had formerly been, how loving! The loveliest moments of her married life came to her mind with the sad charm of the irrevocably lost. On she tottered, in her wide-open eyes the wild look which seeks nothing more, which looks away from everything, the look of a being who has seen happiness die. "I was happy," she murmured to herself with unspeakable bitterness.
But soon the poisonous breath of doubt tainted the happiness which had been also. How did she know how false it might have been, whether she had not merely been "considerately deceived"?
Then it seems as if a frost falls upon her loveliest recollections, even upon those which until now she has treasured in the most secret corner of her heart. The past is desecrated--she has nothing more.
She does not think of her children--in this moments he has forgotten that she has children.
Slowly she drags herself through the wood, the same path which she had taken with Erwin before. Over her head the trees sing in melancholy peace their old song. Elsa can scarcely proceed; now the wood lies behind her, before her the dew on the meadow sparkles in the gray twilight, the colors are all dead--she shudders--here is the spot where he had carried her over that evening when for the first time she had been apprehensive for her happiness. Here he had put his arms round her and clasped her tightly to him and called her his treasure. She trembles in her whole body, then she gives a short gasping cry and sinks to the ground. She sobs, she has forgotten everything, she exists only in the feeling of weeping, of wishing convulsively to throw off a weight which oppresses her chest, and behind her the primeval forest still sings its melancholy peaceful song.
How long she lies there she does not know; she does not notice either that the gray evening darkens to black night, does not notice that the dew falls heavier and heavier, that its cool dampness steals through her light gown to her weakened frame.
While Elsa lay so despairingly at the edge of the forest, two riders came slowly towards Steinbach--Sempaly and Erwin. They returned from a farm at some distance from, but belonging to Steinbach, which together with a part of the adjacent village had been burned this afternoon.
Before them the castle of Steinbach, with its windows shining peacefully in the moonlight, between the shady trees; around them sweet fragrance and peaceful stillness; behind them a village, for the greater part in ashes, deserted ruins blackened with soot, as if clad in deepest mourning, animated by a few bent figures which could no longer speak from pain and fright, yes, could scarcely even complain more, and anxiously, with trembling hands, sought in the soaked heaps of ashes, in which fire still smouldered, for some pitiful remnant of their annihilated possessions. They rode through the park gate, their clothes were drenched and smelled of smoke and soot.
When Sempaly heard of the breaking out of the fire, he had ridden from Iwanow to Billwitz, and had then joined Erwin honestly in the wildest confusion of the fire, and now accompanied him home.
They only seldom exchanged a word. They were both weary from the help they had rendered, and saddened by the thought of how little they had been able to help. When they reached the castle, Sempaly was about to turn off towards Iwanow, but Erwin held him back. "Take tea with us, Rudi," said he.
"In these clothes?" replied Sempaly, glancing at his soiled clothes; then he added, "Well, Snowdrop will be considerate," and dismounted.
He had really from the first intended to remain at Steinbach, and looked forward to relating to Elsa, while fresh, all the little heroic deeds by which Erwin had distinguished himself during the fire. He felt a kind of indebtedness to Erwin on account of the hateful suspicion which for a moment he had cherished against him, and which to-day, when he once more thoroughly recognized Erwin's nobility, seemed to him foolish and inexcusable.
Erwin asked for his wife; the servant informed him that she was not yet back from Traunberg.
"Has a second message come from Traunberg?" asked Erwin, surprised.
The valet glanced at the servant. "No!" It was certain that no second messenger came from Traunberg.
Erwin and Sempaly went out again in the black shadows of the mild August moonlight night. "What does she seek in Traunberg?" murmured Erwin, aloud, ponderingly.
"Did she know that you were at the fire?" asked Sempaly, with sudden inspiration.
"I think not. I expressly requested the servants not to tell her where I went," replied Erwin. "What in all the world did she go to Traunberg for?"
Then Scirocco looked at him peculiarly. "You," said he.
"Me?" Erwin did not yet comprehend the situation.
But Sempaly stamped his foot impatiently. "Are you stupid, Garzin?" cried he. "Do you not see what everybody sees, that your wife is consumed with jealousy of her sister-in-law?"
"My wife jealous of my sister-in-law? Sempaly--you----" Erwin had burst out very violently at first, now he was suddenly silent. He called to mind Elsa's strange manner of late, much that was enigmatical was explained. He did not understand that he had been so obtuse.
They had walked somewhat further into the park; then a low cry of pain vibrated through the painful stillness of the night. Erwin listened with beating heart. Once more it penetrated to him, somewhat louder. A cold shudder ran over him. He hurried toward the meadow from which the sound came. With sight sharpened by excitement he surveyed the gray dewy field. There at the edge of the wood he saw something white gleaming in the twilight, a misty spot which in the gloom he had almost taken for a thick cluster of immortelles. His anxiety drove him a few steps further. "Elsa!" cried he, and stretched his arms out to her.
Then she raised her head, and rested her large, feverish, shining eyes upon him. "I forgive you," cried she with failing voice, and starting back from him. "I forgive you, but go--go--leave me."
His eyes met hers.
"You have nothing to forgive me," said he gravely, almost sternly. "But if you promise solemnly, very solemnly, to be very much ashamed of yourself I will forgive you."
She stared at him without understanding, confused, stupefied; then he took hold of her dress; he was frightened to feel how cold and wet it was.
"For God's sake!" cried he, violently, and with efficacious inconsiderateness, "before everything else see that you take off these wet things; there is time enough to speak of your mad freak later." With that he picked her up and carried her across, as he had done on the day of Linda's arrival.
She did not resist him. At first she did not even know what had happened to her; then, when near the castle, she suddenly heard a gentle voice, kindly and reprovingly, as one speaks to an imprudent child, "Why, Snowdrop!" she looked around; this sudden exclamation recalled her to reality, which had been far from her confused mind. "How comes Sempaly here?" she asked, hastily.
"We were at the fire in Billwitz together," said Erwin, without standing still. "He returned with me."
"Fire--Billwitz----" murmured Elsa, then she trembled violently and burst into a flood of tears of relief.
A little later Elsa lay in her pretty white bed feverish and hoarse, but with a light heart, and her soul full of a sweet mixture of remorse, happiness and shame. Erwin sat near her, and tried to be angry with her, and yet was only worried. But Scirocco had found that this was not the evening to take tea in Steinbach, and had gone away.
And while Elsa with touching conscientiousness now confessed all the particulars of her hideous mistrust and her obstinate jealousy, and upon Erwin's lips, at first closed sternly, a smile had become more and more plain, Linda sat in her boudoir with scornfully curved lips and angry, staring eyes, which thirsted for spite. She wore a white gown, whose hem was slightly soiled, only as if it had perhaps brushed the dew from a flowerbed. On her breast rested a bunch of dark red roses. Some of them were withered, and others began to fade, others still to fall, and the red petals strewed her gown. To her excited gaze they seemed like drops of blood. She shuddered at sight of them; she shuddered to-day at everything, even at herself. Her whole being rose against the huge wrong which had been done her--the wrong which forced her to be wicked. That there was another outlet for her she did not acknowledge; that it was beautiful to forgive, she did not understand; that one has duties even toward those who have sinned against one, she did not believe.
She railed against the system of the world, and her affairs in particular. The only man whom she had ever loved, so at least it seemed to her in her dramatic, gloomy excitement, this man had despised her.
After she had been enlightened as to Felix's past, she had immediately written that letter to Erwin which had caused so much painful confusion in Steinbach.
She had wished to sink into his compassionate arms, and had relied upon the demoniac charm of her beauty. She fancied that after the disgrace which she had suffered from, she had a right to sin. As answer to her note, she had received the following lines:
Dear Linda:I am very sorry that, on account of urgent business, I cannot come to-day. I hope it is a question of nothing important.E. Garzin.
Dear Linda:
I am very sorry that, on account of urgent business, I cannot come to-day. I hope it is a question of nothing important.
E. Garzin.
She loved him, and he wrote to her in this tone! She grew crimson for perhaps the first time in her life when she read the lines--but not with shame, with anger.
Pistach came during her wildest excitement. He had won the game.
Now he had gone; she was alone again!
She buried her face in her hands; she sobbed convulsively. The roses on her breast fell one after the other, and the blood-red petals slid down to the soiled hem of her white gown.
The next day Linda and Count Kamenz had disappeared!
The whole country round about was horrified and dismayed at the affair; only one laughed in his sleeve: Eugene von Rhoeden. The last obstacle to his plans had been removed. Countess Elli blushed crimson when he took leave of Iwanow. He found opportunity to press a kiss upon her hand. A white handkerchief waved after him from one of the castle windows, as he drove in an open phaeton from Iwanow to the railway station.
By her fantastic walk from Traunberg to Steinbach, Elsa had brought on inflammation of the lungs. She convalesced so slowly that the physician whom Erwin consulted advised a long sojourn in the south. At first she could not resolve to leave her unhappy brother, and only went after he had promised to follow her as soon as possible to San Remo, where she would pass the winter with Erwin and the children.
She left in the middle of September. Felix did not keep his promise. "As soon as possible" was capable of such varied conceptions.
September, with its variegated foliage, and the long, tender farewell of the sunbeams vanished, and October came. The leaves withered, blood-red or pale-yellow they fell from the branches sadly and submissively, like all hopeless ones, and November followed October, and came in with an important bluster, like a lackey sent on before to make room for his master. He tore the last leaves from the branches, and sometimes tore away the branches with them, and he kissed the last roses dead and annihilated the unblossomed buds, covered the heavens with mournful clouds, blew so chill and poisonously in the face of the sun that he also sickened, and looked almost as pale as the moon.
And at length all was desolate, all ready--the earth strewn with dead leaves and withered flowers for the solemn reception of the new-comer. Coldly and gravely winter entered his kingdom, the bare trees shivered a last time, and crackled one more sigh, and all is still--dead! The angels in heaven shook their wings, thicker and thicker fell the white down.
January was long past and Felix still in Traunberg. After the last fearful blow which had fallen upon him he never rallied. Since Linda's flight he never left the park, seldom the castle, often scarcely left his room.
There were days on which he would not even allow his little son admission, and other days on which he would allow no servant to wait upon him, because it was unbearable for him to even meet the eyes of a servant. On all faces he thought he could discover mocking, criticising expressions.
When his overseers came to him to desire his signature or to ask his wishes concerning important business, with his hot, nervous hands he fumbled over the papers which were placed before him, read two or three lines, murmured something, and signed his name. The questions which were put to him he always answered with the same, "As you will," and then drummed impatiently upon the top of his writing-desk and glanced irritably at the door.
He neglected his attire, his beard grew long; he did not even care for cleanliness. Often for days he ate nothing, always very little; but, on the other hand, he was always thirsty, and--drank. But the strongest spirits had ceased to procure relief for him. He no longer forgot; never more!
He had a piano brought to his room, although he had almost never played before, and now strummed on it continually. Strange modulations sprang from beneath his stiff, unpractised fingers. He purposely sought the shrillest dissonances, which seemed to do him good. Again and again he struck the same piercing chord and never found a resolution for it.
He always began to play so as to drown the madrilèna, which rang in his ears so often and so unbearably distinctly, and every time he ended by groping over the keys for the melody of this same madrilèna. Each tone went through his heart like the stab of a dagger, his forehead was covered with sweat, and with a long sigh he closed the piano.
Intercourse with his child became of a strange nature. He indeed frequently overwhelmed the little one with passionate tenderness, but the games, the caressing teasing, which had formerly occupied them when together, and which had so delighted the boy, had ceased. Gery grew shy, pale and nervous. More and more often the fear of injuring the child by his presence crept over Felix.
Erwin, who came from San Remo once during the winter, in order, as he said, to look after the house, was frightened at the confusion which, as he soon noticed, existed in Felix's business matters, as well as the terrible change in his whole appearance.
Compassionately and kindly he urged his brother-in-law to accompany him to Italy, in order, as he had promised, to spend some time, together with Gery, with his sister.
But Felix trembled visibly when it was a question of his leaving Traunberg, and going to a place where he must meet other people, were it only in the most passing way. Erwin promised him perfect quiet and seclusion from all intercourse with strangers--in vain.
"Leave me," Felix repeated again and again; "leave me, I must be alone."
Erwin ceased his pleadings, discouraged. Elsa's health did not permit her stay in the south to be shortened, so that her presence might alleviate her brother's painful condition.
For one moment Erwin suspected a positive mental derangement in his brother-in-law, but soon convinced himself of the falsity of this opinion.
The balance of his accounts was correct; as soon as his attention was excited he decided correctly, never made a mistake in a reckoning, and made no disconnected remarks. Only, exhausted as he was, everything concerning present affairs irritated him indescribably. The train of his thought flowed always backward. His mind rested continually upon that spot in the past where his happiness lay buried with his honor.
He passed almost the whole of his time in living over again his life from the first meeting with Juanita to the signing of the fatal note. His memory, strangely faithful, and sharpened by practice, revived again and again new particulars of the Juanita period, with the distinctness of hallucinations.
On a mild, sunny April day Elsa appeared in Traunberg, restored to health, more beautiful than ever, and with eyes radiant with happiness. She was shocked when she perceived her brother; what she saw was so much worse than what Erwin had considerately prepared her for. But Felix's misery only increased the tenderness of her sympathy. She spoke of the tender, intimate intercourse which should now exist between the two families, and said that Baby was now large enough for a playmate for her cousin; and Baby who, chubby-cheeked and gay, with great laughing eyes and tiny mouth with a drolly serious expression, sat on her mamma's knee, stretched out her fat little arms and said, "Where Gery?"
Then the nurse--Gery's Frenchbonnehad not been able to endure the winter solitude of Traunberg, and had long since left--brought the child. She had smoothed down his curly hair with a horrible, strong-smelling pomade, and had hidden his pretty little form in a heavy cloth costume, suitable for much older children. He looked pale, was awkward, and clung anxiously to his father. When he gradually lost his shyness through Elsa's soft voice and caressing manner, and approached her and answered her questions, she noticed that he had adopted the common broad accent of the nurse.
It did not escape Felix's morbidly sharpened glance, that behind the pleasant smile with which Elsa met the child, surprise and compassion were hidden.
"You probably find that he has changed for the worse?" he asked suddenly, gazing sharply at her. "What will you? Everything about me goes to ruin."
When Elsa, after urgently and most tenderly begging Felix and his boy to come soon to Steinbach, had driven away, Felix took his boy on his knees, and kissed him passionately, murmuring again and again, "Poor child, poor branded child!"
An unpleasant habit, common to most human beings living very much alone, he had adopted of late, that of talking to himself. The words which most frequently escaped him, which he probably repeated a dozen times, were, "The certain Lanzberg," and while he said that, his voice and his face expressed all the shades of bitterness, mockery and despair.
And one evening, three or four days after Elsa's visit, Gery crept shyly up to him, and laying his little hand anxiously upon his father's arm, he asked in his gentle, somewhat sad little voice, "What is that, 'the certain Lanzberg'?"
Felix started; he gave a long-piercing gaze into the innocent eyes of the child, then he pushed him violently away and hurried out of the room.
The same night Felix heard sobs outside his door, and as he opened it and looked out into the corridor, he discovered Gery, who stood there clad only in his little embroidered night-shirt, and barefoot.
"Papa, you did not say good-night to me. Papa, was I naughty?" sobbed the child, with the morbid nervous excitement which proved his solitary life.
Then Felix took him in his arms. It was a fresh spring night, and the child, who had stood for a long time outside, clad only in the thin night-shirt, shivered. Felix rubbed his little hands and feet warm. Then the nurse knocked at the door, seeking the child in anxious excitement.
But Gery would not hear of returning to the nursery. He clung to his father and pleaded, "Let me stay with you, papa." Then Felix sent the nurse away, and took him into his bed. The child fell asleep nestled tenderly against him, slept soundly and unbrokenly. Felix lay awake.
The opal-colored glow of the spring morning tinged the heavens, and Felix still was awake. He thought of old times, times which lay far back of the Juanita period; some jest over which he had laughed some twenty years ago occurred to him and pained him--he groaned; the child awoke; throwing his little arms around Felix's neck, he begged, coaxingly, "Dear papa, I sleep so well with you, let me always sleep with you." Then suddenly it flashed through Felix's mind, "Ah, if I could only die while he still loves me!" and suddenly the storm within him ceased--all became quiet within his heart, quiet as the grave.
They passed the day happily together, Felix and his son. Felix bathed and dressed the child himself, with a thousand jests and little teasing ways. Gery had not seen his papa so gay for a long time, and rubbed against him again and again, like a young dog or kitten.
The sky was blue, the earth white with blossoms, the first butterflies floated around the bushes. After lunch Felix drove with the child to Steinbach for the first time, in spite of Elsa's warm invitation.
How warm and bright everything was in Steinbach. It almost seemed to him that there was a different sun there from Traunberg. Litzi received a holiday, so she could play with her little cousin to her heart's delight. Baby gave the little fellow her greatest treasure, a pot of ripe strawberries, which she had to clasp with both little arms when she carried it to him.
Felix remained to dinner; they overwhelmed him with attentions, but still at heart he felt that Erwin and Elsa would have been happier and less constrained without him, which they would not, indeed, have admitted.
As they did not wish to separate Felix from his boy during the meal, as a great exception they installed Baby in her high-chair at the table also, between Erwin and Litzi, an honor of which she proved herself wholly worthy, as she watched the others eating with great seriousness without desiring anything for herself. Only toward the end a little misfortune befell her: in a moment of extravagant tenderness, she tried to embrace her mother across the table, overturned a beer-glass, and showed herself so surprised and ashamed at this accident, that Erwin had to take her on his knee and console her. Felix felt plainly that Erwin's calm, playful good-nature to the child did not in the least remind one of the stormy immoderate caresses with which he overwhelmed his own son sometimes.
After dessert, while the children played in the garden under Miss Sidney's care, and Felix sat somewhat apart with Elsa on a garden bench and watched them, Felix started suddenly.
"What is the matter, Felix?" asked his sister, anxiously.
He could not explain himself; he had heard the child laugh, and it had occurred to him how seldom the little one laughed at home--almost never.
"Elsa," he asked after a while, "the child is growing very nervous and timid with me; will you do me the kindness to keep him with you for a while?"
"Certainly, I will gladly keep the child," replied Elsa, "only you must promise me to visit him every day."
Then Felix said, with a strange gaze, lost in the distance, and which she often later remembered, "Yes, I will visit him every day if I can."
A short time after he took leave of Gery, who at first would not remain without his father, but grew quiet when Felix promised to visit him the next morning.
The next morning!
The carriage rolled away, and several minutes later Felix returned once more.
"Have you forgotten something, Felix?" asked Erwin, who stood before the portal of the castle, talking in a low voice.
"Yes, my revolver," replied Felix, uneasily and absently.
When Erwin wished to go into the castle to help his brother-in-law find it, the latter held him back. "Oh, it is of no importance," he stammered. "I will get it--to-morrow. Where are the children?"
"There," said Elsa, and in the distance, between the feathery green foliage, he saw the children at their play. They flew about and shouted like little gnomes, Gery the merriest of them all.
"I will not disturb him," murmured Felix, after he had watched the children for a long time, without approaching them.
He went.