On a wooded height, hidden in the heart of the forests of the Bavarian highlands, stood an ancient hunting castle, the property of the Wildenau family. A steep mountain path led up to it, and at its feet, like a stone sea, stretched the wide, dry bed of a river, a Griess, as it was called in that locality. Only a few persons knew the way; to the careless glance the path seemed wholly impassable.
Bare, rugged cliffs towered like a wall around the hunting castle on its mossy height, harmonizing in melancholy fashion with the white sea of stone below, which formed a harsh foreground to the dreary scene. Ever and anon a stag emerged from the woods, crossing the Griess with elastic tread, the brown silhouette of its antlers sharply relieved against the colorless monotony of the landscape. The hind came forward from the opposite side, slowly, reluctantly, with nostrils vibrating. The report of a rifle echoed from beyond the river bed, the antlers drooped, the royal creature fell upon its knees, then rolled over on its back; its huge antlers, flung backward in the death agony, were thrust deep down among the loose pebbles. The hind had fled, the poacher seized his prey--a slender rill of blood trickled noiselessly through the stones, then everything was once more silent and lifeless.
This was the hiding-place where, for seven years, Countess Wildenau had hidden the treasury filched from the cross--the rock sepulchre in which she intended to keep the God whom the world believed dead. Built close against the cliff, half concealed by an overhanging precipice, the castle seemed to be set in a niche. Shut out from the sunshine by the projecting crag which cast its shadow over it even at noonday, it was so cold and damp that the moisture trickled down the walls of the building, and, moreover, was surrounded by that strange atmosphere of wet moss and rotting mushrooms which awakens so strange a feeling when, after a hot walk, we pause to rest in the cool courtyard of some ruined castle, where our feet sink into wet masses of mouldering brown leaves which for decades no busy hand has swept away. It seems as if the sun desired to associate with human beings. Where no mortal eyes behold its rays, it ceases to shine. It does not deem it worth while to penetrate the heaps of withered leaves, or the tangle of wild vines and bushes, or the veil of cobwebs and lime-dust which, in the course of time, accumulates in heaps in the masonry of a deserted dwelling.
As we see by a child's appearance whether or not it has a loving mother, so the aspect of a house reveals whether or not it is dear to its owner, and as a neglected child drags out a joyless existence, so a neglected house gradually becomes cold and inhospitable.
This was the case with the deserted little hunting seat. No foot had crossed its threshold within the memory of man. What could the Countess Wildenau do with it? It was so remote, so far from all the paths of travel, so hidden in the woods that it would not even afford a fine view. It stood as an outpost on the chart containing the location of the Wildenau estates. It had never entered the owner's mind to seek it out in this--far less in reality.
Every year an architect was sent there to superintend the most necessary repairs, because it was not fitting for a Wildenau to let one of these family castles go to ruin. This was all that was done to preserve the building. The garden gradually ran to waste, and became so blended with the forest that the boughs of the trees beat against the windows of the edifice and barred out like a green hedge the last straggling sunbeams. A castle for a Sleeping Beauty, but without the sleeping princess. Then Fate willed that a blissful secret in its owner's breast demanded just such a hiding-place in which to dream the strangest fantasy ever imagined by woman since Danæ rested in the embrace of Jove.
Madeleine von Wildenau sought and found this forgotten spot in her chart, and, with the energy bestowed by the habit of being able to accomplish whatever we desire, she discovered a secret ford through the Griess, known only to a trustworthy old driver, and no one was aware of Countess Wildenau's residence when she vanished from society for days. There were rumors of a romantic adventure or a religious ecstacy into which the Ammergau Passion Play had transported her years before. She had set off upon her journey to the Promised Land directly after, and as no sea is so wide, no mountain so lofty, that gossip cannot find its way over them, it even made its way from the Holy Sepulchre to the drawing rooms of the capital.
A gentleman, an acquaintance of so-and-so, had gone to the Orient, and in Jerusalem, at the Holy Sepulchre, met a veiled lady, who was no other than Countess Wildenau. There would have been nothing specially remarkable in that. But at the lady's side knelt a gentleman who bore so remarkable a resemblance to the pictures of Christ that one might have believed it was the Risen Lord Himself who, dissatisfied with heaven, had returned repentant to His deserted resting-place.
How interesting! The imagination of society, thirsting for romance, naturally seized upon this bit of news with much eagerness.
Who could the gentleman with the head of Christ be, save the Ammergau Christ? This agreed with the sudden interruption of the Passion Play that summer, on account of the illness of the Christ--as the people of Ammergau said, who perfectly understood how to keep their secrets from the outside world.
But as they committed the imprudence of occasionally sending their daughters to the city, one and another of these secrets of the community, more or less distorted, escaped through the dressing-rooms of the mistresses of these Ammergau maids.
Thus here and there a flickering ray fell upon the Ammergau catastrophe: The Christ was not ill--he had vanished--run away--with a lady of high rank. What a scandal! Then lo! one day Countess Wildenau appeared--after a journey of three years in the east--somewhat absentminded, a little disposed to assume religious airs, but without any genuine piety. Religion is not to be obtained by an indulgence of religious-erotic rapture with its sweet delusions--it can be obtained only by the hard labor of daily self-sacrifice, of which a nature like Madeleine von Wildenau's has no knowledge.
So she returned, somewhat changed--yet only so far as that her own ego, which the world did not know, was even more potential than before.
But she came alone! Where had she left her pallid Christ? All inquiries were futile. What could be said? There was no proof of anything--and besides; proven or not--what charge would have overthrown Countess Wildenau? That would have been an achievement for which even her foes lacked perseverance?
It is very amusing when a person's moral ruin can be effected by a word carelessly uttered! But when the labor of producing proof is associated with it, people grow good-natured from sheer indolence--let the victim go, and seek an easier prey.
This was the case with the Countess Wildenau! Her position remained as unshaken as ever, nay the charm of her person exerted an influence even more potent than before. Was it her long absence, or had she grown younger? No matter--she had gained a touch of womanly sweetness which rendered her irresistible.
In what secret mine of the human heart and feeling had she garnered the rays which glittered in her eyes like hidden treasures on which the light of day falls for the first time?
When a woman conceals in her heart a secret joy men flock around her, with instinctive jealousy, all the more closely, they would fain dispute the sweet right of possession with the invisible rival. This is a trait of human nature. But one of the number did so consciously, not from a jealous instinct but with the full, intense resolve of unswerving fidelity--the prince! With quiet caution, and the wise self-control peculiar to him, he steadily pursued his aim. Not with professions of love; he was only too well aware that love is no weapon against love! On the contrary, he chose a different way, that of cold reason.
"So long as she is aglow with love, she will be proof against any other feeling--she must first be cooled to the freezing-point, then the chilled bird can be clasped carefully to the breast and given new warmth."
It would be long ere that point was reached--but he knew how to wait!
Meanwhile he drew the Countess into a whirl of the most fascinating amusements.
No word, no look betrayed the still hopeful lover! With the manner of one who had relinquished all claims, but was too thoroughly a man of the world to avoid an interesting woman because he had failed to win her heart, he again sought her society after her return. Had he betrayed the slightest sign of emotion, he would have been repulsive in her present mood. But the perfect frankness and unconcern with which he played the "old friend" and nothing more, made his presence a comfort, nay even a necessity of life! So he became her inseparable companion--her shadow, and by the influence of his high position stifled every breath of slander, which floated from Ammergau to injure his beautiful friend.
During the first months after her return she had the whim--as she called it--of retiring from society and spending more time upon her estates. But the wise caution of the prince prevented it.
"For Heaven's sake, don't do that. Will you give free play to the rumors about your Ammergau episode and the pilgrimage to Jerusalem connected with it, by withdrawing into solitude and thus leaving the field to your slanderers, that they may disport at will in the deserted scenes of your former splendor?"
"This," he argued, "is the very time when you must take your old position in society, or you will be--pardon my frankness--a fallen star."
The Countess evidently shrank from the thought.
"Or--have you some castle in the air whose delights outweigh the world in your eyes?" he asked with relentless insistence:
This time the Countess flushed to the fair curls which clustered around her forehead.
Since that time the drawing-rooms of the Wildenau palace had again been filled with the fragrance of roses--lighted, and adorned with glowing Oriental magnificence, and the motley tide of society, amid vivacious chatter, flooded the spacious apartments. Glittering with diamonds, intoxicated by the charm of her own beauty whose power she had not tested for years, the Countess was the centre of all this splendor--while in the lonely hunting-seat beyond the pathless Griess, the solitary man whom she had banished thither vainly awaited--his wife.
The leaves in the forest were turning brown for the sixth time since their return from Jerusalem, the autumn gale was sweeping fresh heaps of withered leaves to add to the piles towering like walls around the deserted building, the height was constantly growing colder and more dreary, the drawing-rooms below were continually growing warmer, the Palace Wildenau, with its Persian hangings and rugs and cosy nooks behind gay screens daily became more thronged with guests. People drew their chairs nearer and nearer the blazing fire on the hearth, which cast a rosy light upon pallid faces and made weary eyes sparkle with a simulated glow of passion. The intimate friends of the Countess Wildenau, reclining in comfortable armchairs, were gathered in a group, the gentlemen resting after the fatigues of hunting--or the autumn manœuvres, the ladies after the first receptions and balls of the season, which are the more exhausting before habit again asserts its sway, to say nothing of the question of toilettes, always so trying to the nerves at these early balls.
What is to be done at such times? It is certainly depressing to commence the season with last year's clothes, and one cannot get new ones because nobody knows what styles the winter will bring? Parisian novelties have not come. So one must wear an unassuming toilette of no special style in which one feels uncomfortable and casts aside afterwards, because one receives from Paris something entirely different from what was expected!
So the ladies chatted and Countess Wildenau entered eagerly into the discussion. She understood and sympathized with these woes, though now, as the ladies said, she really could not "chime in" since she had a store of valuable Oriental stuffs and embroideries, which would supply a store of "exclusive" toilettes for years. Only people of inferior position were compelled to follow the fashions--great ladies set them and the costliness of the material prevented the garments from appearing too fantastic. A Countess Wildenau could allow herself such bizarre costumes. She had a right to set the fashions and people would gladly follow her if they could, but two requirements were lacking, on one side the taste--on the other the purse. The Countess charmingly waived her friends' envious compliments; but her thoughts were not on the theme they were discussing; her eyes wandered to a crayon picture hanging beside the mantel-piece, the picture of a boy who had the marvellous beauty of one of Raphael's cherubs.
"What child is that?" asked one of the ladies who had followed her glance.
"Don't you recognize it?" replied the Countess with a dreamy smile. "It is the Christ in the picture of the Sistine Madonna."
"Why, how very strange--if you had a son one might have thought it was his portrait, it resembles you so much."
"Do you notice it?" the Countess answered. "Yes, that was the opinion of the artist who copied the picture; he gave it to me as a surprise." She rose and took another little picture from the wall. "Look, this is a portrait of me when I was three years old--there really is some resemblance."
The ladies all assented, and the gentlemen, delighted to have an opportunity to interrupt the discussion of the fashions, came forward and noticed with astonishment the striking likeness between the girl and the boy.
"It is really the Christ child in the Sistine Madonna--very exquisitely painted!" said the prince.
"By the way, Cousin," cried a sharp, high voice, over Prince Emil's shoulder, a voice issuing from a pair of very thin lips shaded by a reddish moustache, "do you know that you have the very model of this picture on your own estates?"
The Countess, with a strangely abrupt, nervous movement, pushed the copy aside and hastily turned to replace her own portrait on the wall. The gentlemen tried to aid her, but she rejected all help, though she was not very skillful in her task, and consequently was compelled to keep her back turned to the group a long time.
"It is possible--I cannot remember," she replied, while still in this position. "I cannot know the children of all my tenants."
"Yes," the jarring voice persisted, "it is a boy who is roaming about near your little hunting-castle."
Madeleine von Wildenau grew ghastly pale.
"Apropos of that hunting box," the gentleman added--he was one of the disinherited Wildenaus--"you might let me have it, Cousin. I'll confess that I've recently been looking up the old rat's nest. Schlierheim will lease his preserves beyond the government forests, but only as far as your boundaries, and there is no house. My brother and I would hire them if we could have the old Wildenau hunting-box. We are ready to pay you the largest sum the thing is worth. You know it formerly belonged to our branch of the family, and your husband obtained it only forty years ago. At that time it was valueless to us, but now we should like to buy it again."
The Countess shivered and ordered more wood to be piled on the fire. She had unconsciously drawn nearer to Prince Emily as if seeking his protection. Her shoulder touched his. She was startlingly pale.
"The recollection of her husband always affects her in this way," the prince remarked.
"Well, we will discuss the matter some other time,belle cousine!" said Herr Wildenau, sipping a glass of Chartreuse which the servant offered.
Prince Emil's watchful gaze followed the little scene with the closest attention.
"Did you not intend to have the little castle put in order for your father's residence, as the city air does not agree with him in his present condition?" he said, with marked emphasis.
"Yes, certainly--I--we were speaking of it a short time ago," stammered the Countess. "Besides, I am fond of the little castle. I should not wish to sell it."
"Ah, you arefondof it. Pardon me--that is difficult to understand! I thought you set no value upon it--the whole place is so neglected."
"That is exactly what pleases me--I like to have it so," replied the Countess in an irritated tone. "It does not need to have everything in perfect order. It is a genuine forest idyl!"
"A forest idyl?" repeated the cousin. "H'm, Ah, yes! That's a different matter. Pardon me. Had I known it, I would not have alluded to the subject!" His keen gray eyes glittered with a peculiar light as he kissed her hand and took his leave.
The others thought they must now withdraw also, and the Countess detained no one--she was evidently very weary.
The prince also took leave--for the sake of etiquette--but he whispered, with an expression of friendly anxiety, "I will come back soon." And he kept his promise.
An hour had passed. Madeleine von Wildenau, her face still colorless, was reclining on a divan in a simple home costume.
Prince Emil's first glance sought the little table on which stood the crayon picture of the infant Christ--it had vanished.
The Countess followed his look and saw that he missed it--their eyes met. The prince took a chair and sat down by her side, as if she were an invalid who had just sustained a severe operation and required the utmost care. He himself was very pale. Gently arranging the pillows behind her, he gazed sympathizingly into her face.
"Why did you not tell me this before?" he murmured, almost inaudibly, after a pause. "All this should have been very differently managed!"
"Prince, how could I suppose that you were so generous--so noble"--she could not finish the sentence, her eyes fell, the beautiful woman's face crimsoned with shame.
He gazed earnestly at her, feeling at this moment the first great sorrow of his life, but also perceiving that he could not judge the exquisite creature who lay before him like a statue of the Magdalene carved by the most finished artist--because he could not help loving her in her sweet embarrassment more tenderly than ever.
"Madeleine," he said, softly, and his breath fanned her brow like a cooling breeze, "will you trust me? It will be easier for you."
She clasped his hand in her slender, transparent fingers, raising her eyes beseechingly to his with a look of the sweetest feminine weakness, like a young girl or an innocent child who is atoning for some trivial sin. "Let me keep my secret," she pleaded, with such touching embarrassment that it almost robbed the prince of his calmness.
"Very well," he said, controlling himself with difficulty. "I will ask no farther questions and will not strive to penetrate your secret. But if you ever need a friend--and I fear that may happen--pray commit no farther imprudences, and remember that, in me, you possess one who adds to a warm heart a sufficiently cool head to be able to act for you as this difficult situation requires! Farewell,chère amie! Secure a complete rest."
Without waiting for an answer, like the experienced physician, who merely prescribes for his patients without conversing with them about the matter, he disappeared.
The countess was ashamed--fairly oppressed by the generosity of his character. Would it have been better had she told him the truth?
Should she tell him that she was married? Married! Was she wedded? Could she be called a wife? She had played a farce with herself and Freyer, a farce in which, from her standpoint, she could not believe herself.
On their flight from Ammergau they had hastened to Prankenberg, surprised the old pastor in his room, and with Josepha and a coachman who had grown gray in the service of the Wildenau family for witnesses, declared in the presence of the priest that they took each other for husband and wife.
The old gentleman, in his surprise and perplexity, knew not what course to pursue. The countess appealed to the rite of the Tridentine Council, according to which she and Freyer, after this declaration, were man and wife, even without a wedding ceremony or permission to marry in another diocese. Then the loyal pastor, who had grown gray in the service of the Prankenbergs, as well as of his church, could do nothing except acknowledge the fact, declare the marriage valid, and give them the marriage certificate.
So at the breakfast-table, over the priest's smoking coffee, the bond had been formed which the good pastor was afterwards to enter in the church register as a marriage. But even this outward proof of the marriage between the widowed Countess Wildenau and the Ammergau wood-carver Freyer was removed, for the countess had been right in distrusting her father and believing that his advice concerning the secret marriage was but a stratagem of war to deter her from taking any public step.
On returning from the priest's, her carriage dashed by Prince von Prankenberg's.
Ten minutes after the prince rushed like a tempest into the room of the peaceful old pastor, and succeeded in preventing the entry of the "scandal," as he called it, in the church register. So the proofs of the fact were limited to the marriage certificate in the husband's hands and the two witnesses, Josepha and Martin, the coachman--a chain, it is true, which bound Madeleine von Wildenau, yet which was always in her power.
What was this marriage? How would a man like the prince regard it? Would it not wear a totally different aspect in the eyes of the sceptic and experienced man of the world than in those of the simple-hearted peasant who believed that everything which glittered was gold? Was such a marriage, which permitted the exercise of none of the rights and duties which elevate it into a moral institution, better than an illegal relation? Nay, rather worse, for it perpetrated a robbery of God--it was an illegal relation which had stolen a sacred name!
But--what did this mean? To-day, for the first time, she felt as if fate might give the matter the moral importance which she did not willingly accord it--as if the Deity whose name she had abused might take her at her word and compel her to turn jest into earnest.
Her better nature frankly confessed that this would be only moral justice! To this great truth she bowed her head as the full ears bend before the approaching hail storm.
Spite of the chill autumn evening, there was an incomprehensible sultriness in the air of the room.
Something in the brief conversation with Herr Wildenau and especially in the manner in which the prince, with his keen penetration, understood the episode, startled the Countess and aroused her fears.
Why had Herr Wildenau gone to the little hunting-box? How had he seen the child?
Yet how could she herself have been so imprudent as to display the picture? And still--it was the infant Christ of Raphael. Could she not even have one of Raphael's heads in her drawing-room without danger that some one would discover a suspicious resemblance!
She sprang from the cushions indignantly, drawing herself up to her full height. Who was she? What did she dread?
"Anything but cowardice, Madeleine," she cried out to herself. "Woe betide you, if your resolution fails, you are lost! If you do not look the brute gossip steadily in the eye, if so much as an eye-lash quivers, it will rend you. Do not be cowardly, Madeleine, have no scruples, they will betray you, will make your glance timid, your bearing uncertain, send a flush to your brow at every chance word. But"--she sank back among her cushions--"but unfortunately this very day the misfortune has happened, all these people may go away and say that they saw the Countess Wildenau blush and grow confused--and why?--Because a child was mentioned--"
She shuddered and cowered--a moan of pain escaped her lips!
"Yet you exist, my child--I cannot put you out of the world--and no mother ever had such a son. And I, instead of being permitted to be proud of you, must feel ashamed.
"Oh, God, thou gavest me every blessing: the man I loved, a beautiful child--all earthly power and splendor--yet no contentment, no happiness! What do I lack?" She sat a long time absorbed in gloomy thought, then suddenly the cause became clear. She lacked the moral balance of service and counter-service.
That was the reason all her happiness was but theft, and she was forced, like a thief, to enjoy it in fear and secrecy. Her maternal happiness was theft--for Josepha, the stranger, filled a mother's place to the boy, and when she herself pressed him to her heart she was stealing a love she had not earned. Her conjugal happiness was a theft, for so long as she retained her fortune, she was not permitted to marry! That was the curse! Wherever she looked, wherever she saw herself, she was always the recipient, the petitioner--and what did she bestow in return? Where did she make any sacrifice? Nothing--and nowhere! Egotism was apparent in everything. To enjoy all--possess all, even what was forbidden and sacrifice nothing, must finally render her a thief--in her own eyes, in those of God, and who knows, perhaps also in those of men, should her secret ever be discovered!
"Woe betide you, unhappy woman--have you not the strength to resign one for the other? Would you rather live in fear of the betrayer than voluntarily relinquish your stolen goods? Then do not think yourself noble or lofty--do not deem yourself worthy of the grace for which you long!"
She hid her face in the cushions of the divan, fairly quivering under the burden of her self-accusation.
"I beg your pardon, your Highness, I only wanted to ask what evening toilette you desired."
Madeleine von Wildenau started up. "If you would only cease this stealing about on tip-toe!" she angrily exclaimed. "I beg pardon, I knocked twice and thought I did not hear your 'come in.'"
"Walk so that you can be heard--I don't like to have my servants glide about like spies, remember that!"
"At Princess Hohenstein's we were all obliged to wear felt slippers. Her Highness could not endure any noise."
"Well I have better nerves than Princess Hohenstein."--
"And apparently a worse conscience," muttered the maid, who had not failed to notice her mistress' confusion.
"May I ask once more about the evening toilette?"
"Street costume--I shall not go to the theatre, I will drive out to the estates. Order Martin to have the carriage ready."
The maid withdrew.
The countess felt as if she were in a fever--must that inquisitive maid see her in such a condition? It seemed as though she was surrounded like a hunted animal, as though eyes were everywhere watching her.
There was something in the woman's look which had irritated her. Oh, God, had matters gone so far--must she fear the glance of her own maid?
Up and away to nature and her child, to her poor neglected husband on the cliff.
Her heart grew heavy at the thought that the time since she had last visited the deserted man could soon be counted by months.
Herinterestin the simple-hearted son of nature was beginning to wane, she could not deny it. Woe betide her ifloveshould also grow cold; if that should happen, then--she realized it with horror--she would have no excuse for the whole sensuous--supersensuous episode, which had perilled both her honor and her existence!
The stars were already twinkling above the Griess, here and there one looked as if impaled on a giant flagstaff, as they sparkled just above the tops of the lofty firs or the sharp pinnacles of the crags. Countless shooting stars glided hither and thither like loving glances seeking one another.
The night was breathing in long regular inhalations. Every five minutes her sleeping breath rustled the tree-tops.
Four horses drawing a small calash whose wheels were covered with rubber glided across the Griess as noiselessly as a spectral equipage. The animals knew the way, and their fiery spirit urged them forward without the aid of shout or lash, though the mountain grew steeper and steeper till the black walls of the hunting seat at last became visible in the glimmering star-light.
Josepha was standing at the window of the little sitting-room upstairs:
"I think the countess is coming." At a table, by the lamp, bending over a book, sat "thesteward."
He evidently had not heard the words, for he did not look up from the volume and it seemed as if the gloomy shadow above his eyes grew darker still.
"Joseph, the countess is coming!" cried Josepha in a louder tone.
"You are deceiving yourself again, as usual," he replied in the wonderful voice which gave special importance to the simplest words, as when a large, musical bell is rung for some trivial cause.
"No, this time it really is she," Josepha insisted.
"I don't believe it."
Josepha shook her head. "You must receive her."
"She is not coming on my account, it is only to see the child."
"ThenIwill go. Oh, Heaven, what a life!" sighed Josepha, going out upon the green moss-covered steps of the half ruined stone stairs where the carriage had just stopped.
"Is that you, Josepha?" asked the countess, in a disappointed tone, "where--where is Freyer?"
"He is within, your Highness, he would not believe that your Highness was really coming!"
The countess understood the bitter meaning of the words.
"I did not come to endure ill-temper!" she murmured. "Is the boy asleep?"
"Yes, we have taken him into the sitting-room, he is coughing again and his head is burning, so I wanted to have him in a warmer room."
"Isn't it warm here?"
"Since the funnel fell out, we cannot heat these rooms; Freyer tried to fit it in, but it smokes constantly. I wrote to your Highness last month asking what should be done. Freyer, too, reported a fortnight ago that the stove ought to be repaired, and the child moved to other apartments before the cold weather set in if Your Highness approved, but--we have had no answer. Now the little boy is ill--it is beginning to be very cold."
Madeleine von Waldenau bit her lips. Yes, it was true, the letters had been written--and in the whirl of society and visits she had forgotten them.
Now the child was ill--through her fault. She entered the sitting-room. Freyer stood waiting for her in a half defiant, half submissive attitude--half master, half servant.
The bearing was unlovely, like everything that comes from a false position. It displeased the countess and injured Freyer, though she had herself placed him in this situation. It made him appear awkward and clownish.
When, with careless hand, we have damaged a work of art and perceive that instead of improving we have marred it, we do not blame ourselves, but the botched object, and the innocent object must suffer because we have spoiled our own pleasure in it. It is the same with the work of art of creation--a human being.
There are some natures which can never leave things undisturbed, but seek to gain a creative share in everything by attempts at shaping and when convinced that it would have been better had they left the work untouched, they see in the imperfect essay, not their own want of skill, but the inflexibility of the material, pronounce it not worth the labor bestowed--and cast it aside.
The countess had one of these natures, so unconsciously cruel in their artistic experiments, and her marred object was--Freyer.
Therefore his bearing did not, could not please her, and she allowed a glance of annoyance to rest upon him, which did not escape his notice. Passing him, she went to their son's bed.
There lay the "infant Christ," a boy six or seven years old with silken curls and massive brows, beneath whose shadow the closed eyes were concealed by dark-lashed lids. A single ray from the hanging lamp fell upon the forehead of the little Raphael, and showed the soft brows knit as if with unconscious pain.
The child was not happy--or not well--or both. He breathed heavily in his sleep, and there was a slight nervous twitching about the delicately moulded nostrils.
"He has evidently lost flesh since I was last here!" said the countess anxiously.
Freyer remained silent.
"What do you think?" asked the mother.
"What can I think? You have not seen the boy for solongthat you can judge whether he has altered far better than I."
"Joseph!" The beautiful woman drew herself up, and a look of genuine sorrow rested upon the pale, irritated countenance of her husband. "Whenever I come, I find nothing save bitterness and cutting words--open and secret reproaches. This is too much. Not even to-day, when I find my child ill, do you spare the mother's anxious heart. This is more than I can endure, it is ignoble, unchivalrous."
"Pardon me," replied her husband in a low tone, "I could not suppose that a mother who deserts her child for months could possibly possess so tender a nature that she would instantly grow anxious over a slight illness or a change in his appearance. I am a plain man, and cannot understand such contradictions!"
"Yes, from your standpoint you are right--in your eyes I must seem a monster of heartlessness. I almost do in my own. Yet, precisely because the reproach appears merited it cuts me so deeply, that is why it would be generous and noble to spare me! Oh! Freyer, what has become of the great divine love which once forgave my every fault?"
"It is where you have banished it, buried in the depths of my heart, as I am buried among these lonely mountains, silent and forgotten."
The countess, shaking her head, gazed earnestly at him. "Joseph, you see that I am suffering. You must see that it would be a solace to rest in your love, and you are ungenerous enough to humble my bowed head still more."
"I have no wish to humble you. But we can be generous only to those who need it. I see in the haughty Countess Wildenau a person who can exercise generosity, but not require it."
"Because you do not look into the depths of my heart, tortured with agonies of unrest and self-accusation?" As she spoke tears sprang to her eyes, and she involuntarily thought of the faithful, shrewd friend at home whose delicate power of perception had that very day spared her the utterance of a single word, and at one glance perceived all the helplessness of her situation.
True, thelatterwas a man of the world whom the tinsel and glitter which surrounded her no longer had power to dazzle, and who was therefore aware how poor and wretched one can be in the midst of external magnificence.
Theformer--a man of humble birth, with the childish idea of the value of material things current among the common people, could not imagine that a person might be surrounded by splendor and luxury, play a brilliant part in society, and yet be unhappy and need consideration.
But, however, she might apologize for him, the very excuses lowered him still more in her eyes! Each of these conflicts seemed to widen the gulf between them instead of bridging it.
Such scenes, which always reminded her afresh of his lowly origin, did him more injury in her eyes than either of them suspected at the moment. They were not mere ebullitions of anger, which yielded to equally sudden reactions--they were not phases of passion, but the result of cool deliberation from the standpoint of the educated woman, which ended in hopeless disappointment.
The continual refrain: "You do not understand me!" with which the countess closed such discussions expressed the utter hopelessness of their mutual relations.
"You wonder that I come so rarely!" she said bitterly. "And yet it is you alone who are to blame--nay, you have even kept me from the bedside of my child."
"Indeed?" Freyer with difficulty suppressed his rising wrath. "This, too!"
"Yes, how can you expect me to come gladly, when I always encounter scenes like these? How often, when I could at last escape from the thousand demands of society, and hurried hither with a soul thirsting for love, have you repulsed me with your perpetual reproaches which you make only because you have no idea of my relations and the claims of the fashionable world. So, at last, when I longed to come here to my husband and my child, dread of the unpleasant scenes which shadow your image, held me back, and I preferred to conjure before me at home the Freyer whom I once loved and always should love, if you did not yourself destroy the noble image. WiththatFreyer I have sweet intercourse by my lonely fireside--withhimI obtain comfort and peace, if I avoidthisFreyer with his petty sensitiveness, his constant readiness to take umbrage." A mournful smile illumined her face as she approached him; "You see that when I think of the Freyer of whom I have just spoken--the Freyer of my imagination--my heart overflows and my eyes grow dim! Do you no longer know that Freyer? Can you not tell me where I shall find him again if I seek him very,veryearnestly?"
Freyer opened his arms and pointed to his heart: "Here, here, you can find him, if you desire--come, my beloved, loved beyond all things earthly, come to the heart which is only sick and sensitive from longing for you."
In blissful forgetfulness she threw herself upon his breast, completely overwhelmed by another wave of the old illusion, losing herself entirely in his ardent embrace.
"Oh, my dear wife!" he murmured in her ear, "I know that I am irritable and unjust! But you do not suspect the torment to which you condemn me. Banished from your presence, far from my home, torn from my native soil, and not yet rooted in yours. What life is this? My untrained reason is not capable of creating a philosophy which could solve this mystery. Why must these things be? I am married, yet not married. I am your husband, yet you are not my wife. I have committed no crime, yet am a prisoner, am not a dishonored man--yet am a despised one who must conceal himself in order not to bring shame upon his wife!
"So the years passed and life flits by!" You come often, but--I might almost say only to make me taste once more the joys of the heaven from which I am banished.
"Ah, it is more cruel than all the tortures of bell, for the condemned souls are not occasionally transferred to Heaven only to be again thrust forth and suffer a thousandfold. Even the avenging God is not so pitiless."
The countess, overwhelmed by this heavy charge, let her head sink upon her husband's breast.
"See, my wife," he continued in a gentle, subdued tone, whose magic filled her heart with that mournful pleasure with which we listen to a beautiful dirge even beside the corpse of the object of our dearest love. "In your circles people probably have sufficient self-control to suppress a great sorrow. I know that I only weary and annoy you by my constant complaints, and that you will at last prefer to avoid me entirely rather than expose yourself to them!
"I know this--yet I cannot do otherwise. I was not trained to dissimulation--self-control, as you call it--I cannot laugh when my heart is bleeding or utter sweet words when my soul is full of bitterness. I do not understand what compulsion could prevent you, a free, rich woman, from coming to the husband whom you love, and I cannot believe that you could not come if you longed to do so--that is why I so often doubt your love.
"What should you love in me? I warned you that I cannot always move about with the crown of thorns and sceptre of reeds as Ecce Homo, and you now perceive that you were deceived in me, that I am only a poor, ordinary man, your inferior in education and intellect! And so long as I am not a real Ecce Homo--though that perhaps might happen--so long I am not what you need. But however poor and insignificant I may be--I am not without honor--and when I think that you only come occasionally, out of compassion, to bring the beggar the crumbs which your fine gentlemen have left me--then, I will speak frankly--then my pride rebels and I would rather starve than accept alms."
"And therefore you thrust back the loving wife when, with an overflowing heart, she stole away from the glittering circles of society to hasten to your side, therefore you were cold and stern, disdaining what the otherssought in vain!--For, however distant you may be, there has not been an hour of my life which you might not have witnessed--however free and independent of you I may stand, there is not a fibre in my heart which does not cling to you! Ah, if you could only understand this deep, sacred tie which binds the freest spirit to the husband, the father of my child. If I had wings to soar over every land and sea--I should ever be drawn back to you and would return as surely as 'the bird bound by the silken cord.' No one can part me from you exceptyou yourself. That you are not my equal in education, as you assert, does not sever us, but inferiority ofcharacterwould do so, for nothing butgreatnessattracts me--to find you base would be the death-knell of our love! Even the child would no longer be a bond between us, for to intellectual natures like mine the ties of blood are mere animal instincts, unless pervaded and transfigured by a loftier idea. The greatest peril which threatens our love is that your narrow views prevent your attaining the standpoint from which a woman like myself must be judged. I have great faults which need great indulgence and a superiority which is not alarmed by them. Unfortunately, my friend, you lack both. I have a great love for you--but you measure it by the contracted scales of your humdrum morality, and before this it vanishes because its dimensions far transcend it.--Where, where, my friend, is the grandeur, the freedom of the soul which I need?"
"Alas, your words are but too true," said Freyer, releasing her from his embrace. "Every word is a death sentence. You ask a grandeur which I do not possess and shall never obtain. I grew up in commonplace ideas, I have never seen any other life than that in which the husband and wife belonged together, the father and mother reared, tended, and watched their children together, and love in this close, tender companionship reached its highest goal. This idea of quiet domestic happiness embodied to me all the earthly bliss allotted by God to Christian husbands and wives. Of a love which is merely incidental, something in common with all the other interests of life, and which when it comes in conflict with them, must move aside and wait till it is permitted to assert itself again, of such a love I had no conception--at least, not in marriage! True, we know that in the dawn of love it is kept secret as something which must be hidden. But this is a state of restless torture, which we strive to end as soon as possible by a marriage. That such a condition of affairs would be possible in marriage would never have entered my mind, and say what you will, a--marriage like ours is little better than an illegal relation."
The countess started--she had had the same thought that very day.
"And I "--Freyer inexorably continued--"am little more than your lover! If you choose to be faithful to me, I shall be grateful, but do not ask the 'grandeur' as you call it, of my believing it. Whoever regards conjugal duties so lightly--whoever, like you, feels bound by no law 'which was only made for poor, ordinary people' will keep faith only--so long as it is agreeable to do so."
The countess, gazing into vacancy, vainly strove to find a reply.
"This seems very narrow, very ridiculous from your lofty standpoint. You see I shall always be rustic. It is a misfortune for you that you came to me. Why did you not remain in your own aristocratic circle--gentlemen of noble birth would have understood you far better than a poor, plain man like me. I tell myself so daily--it is the worm which gnaws at my life. Now you have the 'greatness' you desire, the only 'greatness' I can offer--that of the perception of our misery."
Madeleine nodded hopelessly. "Yes, we are in an evil strait. I despair more and more of restoring peace between us--for it would be possible only in case I could succeed in making you comprehend the necessity of the present certainly unnatural form of our marriage. Yet you cannot and will not see that a woman like me cannot live in poverty, that wealth, though it does not render me happy, is nevertheless indispensable, not on account of the money, but because with it honor, power, and distinction would be lost. You know that this would follow an acknowledgement of our marriage, and I would die rather than resign them. I was born to a station too lofty to be content in an humble sphere. Do you expect the eagle to descend to a linnet's nest and dwell there? It would die, for it can breathe only in the regions for which it was created."
"But the eagle should never have stooped to the linnet," said Freyer, gloomily.
"I believed that I should find in you a consort, aspiring enough to follow me to my heights, for the wings of your genius rustled with mighty strokes above me when you hung upon the cross. Oh, can one who, like you, has reached the height of the cross, sink to the Philistine narrowness of the ideas of the lower classes and thrust aside the foaming elixir of love, because it is not proffered in the usual wooden bowl of the daily performance of commonplace duties? It is incredible, but true. And lastly you threaten that I shall make you an Ecce Homo! If you were, it would be no fault of mine but because, even in daily life, you could not cease to play the Christ."
The countess had spoken with cutting sharpness and bitterness; it seemed as if the knife she turned against the man she loved must be piercing her own heart.
Freyer's breath came heavily, but no sound betrayed the anguish of the wound he had received. But the child, as if feeling, even in its sleep, that its mother was about to sunder, with a fatal blow, the chord of life uniting her to the father and itself, quivered in pain and flung its little hands into the air, as though to protect the mysterious bond whose filaments ran through its heart also.
"See, the child feels our strife and suffers from it!" said Freyer, and the unutterable pain in the words swept away all hardness, all defiance. The mother, with tearful eyes, sank down beside the bed of the suffering child--languishing under the discord between her and its father like a tender blossom beneath the warfare of the elements. "My child!" she said in a choking voice, "how thin your little hands have grown! What does this mean?"
She pressed the boy's transparent little hands to her lips and when she looked up again two wonderful dark eyes were gazing at her from the child's pale face. Yes, those were the eyes of the infant Redeemer of the World in the picture of the Sistine Madonna, the eyes which mirror the foreboding of the misery of a world. It was the expression of Freyer's, but spiritualized, and as single sunbeams dance upon a dark flood, it seemed as if golden rays from his mother's sparkling orbs had leaped into his.
What a marvellous child! The mother's delicate beauty, blended with the deep earnestness of the father, steeped in the loveliness and transfiguration of Raphael. And she could wound the father of this boy with cruel words? She could scorn the wonderful soul of Freyer, which gazed at her in mute reproach from the eyes of the child, because the woe of the Redeemer had impressed upon it indelible traces; disdain it beside the bed of this boy, this pledge of a love whose supernatural power transformed the man into a god, to rest for a moment in a divine embrace? "Mother!" murmured the boy softly, as if in a waking dream; but Madeleine von Wildenau felt with rapture that he meanther, not Josepha. Then he closed his eyes again and slept on.
Kneeling at the son's bedside, she held out her hand to the father; it seemed as if a trembling ray of light entered her soul, reflected from the moment when he had formerly approached her in all the radiance of his power and beauty.
"Andweshould not love each other?" she said, while binning tears flowed down her cheeks. Freyer drew her from, the child's couch, clasping her in a close embrace. "My dove!" He could say no more, grief and love stifled his voice.
She threw her arms around his neck, as she had done when she made her penitent confession with such irresistible grace that he would have pardoned every mortal sin. "Forgive me, Joseph," she said softly, in order not to wake the boy who, even in sleep, turned his little head toward his parents, as a flower sways toward the sun. "I am a poor, weak woman; I myself suffer unutterably under the separation from you and the child; if you knew how I often feel--a rock would pity me! It is a miserable condition--nothing is mine, neither you, my son, nor my wealth, unless I sacrifice one for the other, and that I cannot resolve to do. Ah, have compassion, on my weakness. It is woman's way to bear the most unendurable condition rather than form an energetic resolve which might change it. I know that the right course would be for me to find courage to renounce the world and say: 'I am married, I will resign, as my husband's will requires, the Wildenau fortune; I will retire from the stage as a beggar--I will starve and work for my daily bread.' I often think how beautiful and noble this would be, and that perhaps we might be happy so--happier than we are now--if it were onlydone! But when I seriously face the thought, I feel that I cannot do it."
"Yet you told me in Ammergau," cried Freyer, "that it was only on your father's account that you could not acknowledge the marriage. Your father is now a paralytic, half-foolish old man, who cannot live long, then this reason will be removed."
"Yes, when we married itwashe who prevented me from announcing it; I wished to do so, and it would have been easy. But if I state the fact now, after having been secretly married eight years, during which I have illegally retained the property, I shall stamp myself a cheat. Take me to the summit of the Kofel and bid me leap down its thousand feet of cliff--I cannot, were it to purchase my eternal salvation. Hurl me down--I care not--but do not expect me voluntarily to take the plunge, it is impossible. Unless God sends an angel to bear me over the chasm on its wings, all pleading will be futile."
She pressed her cheek, burning with the fever of fear, tenderly against his: "Have pity on my weakness, forgive me! Ah, I know I am always talking about greatness--yet with me it exists only in the imagination. I am too base to be capable of what is really noble."
"You see me now, as God Himself beholds me. He will judge me--but it is the privilege of marital love to forgive. Will you not use this sweet right? Perhaps God will show me some expedient. Perhaps I shall succeed in making an agreement with the relatives or gaining the aid of the king, but for all this I must live in the world--in order to secure influence and scope for my plans. Will you have patience and forbearance with me till there is a change?"
"That will never be, any more than during the past eight years. But I will bear with you, poor wife; in spite ofeverythingI will trust your love, I will try to repress my discontent when you come and gratefully accept what you bestow, without remonstrance or fault-finding. I will bear it as long as I can. Perhaps--it will wear me out, then we shall both be released. I would have removed myself from the world long ago--but that would be a sin, and would not have benefited you. Your heart is too kind not to be wounded and the suicide's bloody shade would not have permitted you to enjoy your liberty."
"Oh, Heaven, what are you saying! My poor husband, is that your condition?" cried the countess, deeply stirred by the tragedy of these calmly uttered words. She shuddered at this glimpse of the dark depths of his fathomless soul and what, in her opinion, he might lack in broadness of view was now supplied by the extent of his suffering; at this moment he again interested her. Throwing herself on his breast, she overwhelmed him with caresses. She sought to console him, make him forget the bitterness of his grief by the magic potion of her love. She herself did not know that even now--carried away by a genuine emotion of compassion--she was yielding to the demoniac charm of trying upon his pain the power of her coquetry, which she had long since tested sufficiently uponhuman beings. But where she would undoubtedly have succeeded with men of cultivation, she failed with this child of nature, who instinctively felt that this sweet display of tenderness was not meant for him but was called forth by the struggle against a hostile element which she desired to bribe or conquer. His grief remained unchanged; it was too deeply rooted to be dispelled by the love-raptures of a moment. Yet the poor husband, languishing for the wife so ardently beloved, took the poisoned draught she offered, as the thirsting traveller in the desert puts his burning lips to the tainted pool whence he knows he is drinking death.