"I have attracted you by a Play--for you were a child, and children are taught by games. But when one method of instruction is exhausted it is cast aside and exchanged for a higher one, that the child may ripen to maturity." Thus spoke the voice of the Heavenly Teacher to the countess as, absorbed in her grief, she drove through the dusk of a wintry morning. She almost wondered, as she gazed out into the grey dawn, that the day-star was not weary of pursuing its course. Aye, the mysterious voice spoke the truth: the play was over, that method of instruction was exhausted, but she did not yet feel ready for a sterner one and trembled at the thought of it.
Instead of the divine Kindergarten instructor, came the gloomy teacher death, forcing the attention of the refractory pupil by the first pitiless blow upon her own flesh and blood! Day was dawning--in nature as well as in her own soul, but the sun shone upon a winding sheet, outside as well as in, a world dead in the clasp of winter. Where was the day when the redeeming love for which she hoped would appear to her in the spring garden? Woe to all who believed in spring. Their best gift was a cold winter sunlight on snow-covered graves.
The corpse of her spring dream was lying on the laughing shores of the Riviera.
The God whom she sought was very different from the one she intended to banish from her heart. The new teacher seized her hand with bony fingers and forced her to look closely at the God whom she herself had created, and whom she now upbraided with having deceived her. "What kind of God would this creature of your imagination be?" rang in her ears with pitiless mockery. Aye, she had believed Him to be the Jupiter who loved mortal women, only in the course of the ages he had changed his name and now appeared as Christ. But she was now forced to learn that He was no offspring of the sensual fancy of the nations, but a contrast to every natural tendency and desire--atrueGod, not a creation of mankind. Were it not so, men would have invented a more complaisant one. Must not that be a divine power which, in opposition to all human, all earthly passions, with neither splendor, nor power, with the most insignificant means has established an empire throughout the world? Aye, she recognized with reverent awe that this was a God, though unlike the one whom she sought, Christ was not Jupiter--and Freyer was not Christ. Thelattercannot be clasped in the arms, does not yield to earthly yearning, no matter how fervently devout. Spirit as He is, He vanishes, even where He reveals Himself in material form, and whoever thinks to grasp Him, holds but the poor doll, whom He gave for a momentary support to the childish mind, which seeks solely what is tangible!
Mary Magdalene was permitted to serve and anoint Him when He walked on earth in human form, but when she tried to clasp the risen Lord the "noli me tangere" thundered in her ears, and God withdrew from mortal touch. In Mary Magdalene, however, the love kindled by the visible Master was strong enough to burn on for the invisible One--she no longer sought Him among the living, but went into solitude and lived for the vanished Christ. But the countess had not advanced so far. What "God of Love" was this, who imposed conditions which made the warm blood freeze, killed the warm life-pulses? What possession was this, which could only be obtained by renunciation, what joy that could be attained solely by mortification? Her passionate nature could not comprehend this contradiction. She longed to clasp His knees and wipe His feet with her hair, at least that, nothing more, only that--she would be modest! But not even that was allowed her.
This was the great impulse of religious materialism, in which divinity and humanity met, the Magdalene element in the history of the conversion of mankind, which attracted souls like that of Madeleine von Wildenau, made them feel for an instant the bliss of the immediate presence of God, and then left them disappointed and alone until they perceived that in that one instant wings have grown--strong enough to bear them up to Heaven, if they once learned to use them.
Thus quivering and forsaken, the heart of the modern Magdalene lay on the earth when the firstnoli me tangereechoed in her ears. She had never known that there were things which could not be had, and now that she wanted a God and could not obtain Him, she murmured like a child which longs in vain for the stars until it attains a higher consciousness of ownership than lies in mere personal possession, the feeling which in quiet contemplation of the starry firmament fills us with the proud consciousness: "This is yours!"
Everything is ours--and nothing, according to our view of it. To expand our breasts with its mighty thoughts--to merge ourselves in it and revel in the whirling dance of the atoms,in that sensethe universe is ours. But absorb and contain it we cannot; in that way it does not belong to us. It is the same with God. Greatness cannot enter littleness--the small must be absorbed by the great; but its power of possession lies in the very fact that it can do this and still retain its own nature. How long will it last, and what will it cost, ere the impatient child attains the peace of this realization?
In the faint glimmer of the dawn the countess drove past a little church in the suburbs of Munich. It was the hour for early mass. A few sleepy, shivering old women, closely muffled, were shuffling over the snow in big felt shoes toward the open door. A dim ray of light streamed out, no organ notes, no festal display lured worshippers, for it was a "low mass." It was cold and gloomy outside, songless within. Yet the countess suddenly stopped the carriage.
"I am going into the church a moment," she said, tottering forward with uncertain steps, for she was exhausted both physically and mentally. The old women eyed her malignantly, as if asking: "What do you want among poor ugly crones who drag their crooked limbs out of bed so early to go to their Saviour, because later they must do the work of their little homes and cannot get away? What brings you to share with us the bitter bread of poverty, the bread of the poor in spirit, with which our Saviour fed the five thousand and will feed thousands and tens of thousands more from eternity to eternity? Of what use to you are the crumbs scattered here for a few beggars?"
She felt ashamed as she moved in her long velvet train and costly fur cloak past the cowering figures redolent of the musty straw beds and close sleeping rooms whence they had come, and read these questions on the wrinkled faces peering from under woollen hoods and caps, as if she, the rich woman, had come to take something from the poor. She had gone forward to the empty front benches near the altar, where the timid common people do not venture to sit, but--she knew not why--as she was about to kneel there, she suddenly felt that she could not cut off a view of any part of the altar from the people behind, deprive them of anything to which she had no right, and turning she went back to the last seat. There, behind a trembling old man in a shabby woollen blouse, who could scarcely bend his stiff knees and sat coughing and gasping, and a consumptive woman, who was passing the beads of her rosary between thin, crooked fingers, she knelt down. She was more at ease now--she felt that she had no rights here, that she was the least among the lowliest.
The church was still dark, it had not yet been lighted, the sacristan was obliged to be saving--every one knew that. The faint ray which streamed through the door came from the candle ends brought by the congregation, who set them in front of the praying-desks to read their prayer-books. The first person was compelled to use a match, the others lighted their candles from his and were glad to be able to save the matches. It was a silent agreement, which every one knew. Here and there a tiny light glowed brightly--ever and anon in some dark corner the slight snap of a match was heard and directly after a column or the image of some saint emerged from the wavering shadows, now fainter, now more distinct, according as the light flashed up and down, till it burned clearly. Then the nave grew bright and the breath of the congregation rose through the cold church over the little flames like clouds of incense. The high-altar alone still lay veiled in darkness. The light of a wax-candle on the bench in front shone brightly into the countess' eyes. The woman in the three-cornered kerchief with the sunken temples and bony hands glanced back and gazed mournfully, almost reproachfully, into her face and at her rich fur cloak. Madeleine von Wildenau was ashamed of her beauty, ashamed that she wore furs while the woman in front of her scarcely had her shoulders covered. She felt burdened, she almost wanted to excuse herself. If she were poor also--she would have no cause to be ashamed. She gently drew out her purse and slipped the contents into the woman's hand. The latter drew back startled, she could not believe, could not understand that she was really to take it, that the lady was in earnest.
"May God reward you! I'll pray for you a thousand times!" she whispered, and a great, unutterable emotion filled the countess' soul as she met the poor woman's grateful glance. Then the kneeling crone nudged her neighbor, the coughing, stammering old man, and pressed a gold coin into his hand.
"There's something for you! You're poor and needy too."
The latter looked at the woman, who was a stranger, as though she were an apparition from another world. "Why, what is this?" he murmured with difficulty.
"The lady behind gave it to me," said the woman, pointing backward with her thumb.
The old man nodded to the lady, as well as his stiff neck would permit, and the woman did not notice that he ought to have thanked her, as the money was given to her and she had voluntarily shared it with him.
Countess Wildenau experienced a strange emotion of satisfaction as if now, for the first time, she had a right here, and with the gift she had purchased her share of the "bread of poverty."
At last there was a movement near the high altar. A sleepy alcolyte shuffled in, made his reverence before it and lighted a candle, which would not burn because he did not wait till the wax, which was stiffened by the cold, had melted. While he was lighting the second, the first went out and he was obliged to begin his task anew. The wand wavered to and fro a long time in the boy's numb hands, but at last the altar was lighted, the boy bowed again, and went down the stone steps into the vestry-room. This was ordinary prose, but the devout worshippers did not perceive it. They all knew the wondrous spell of fire, with which the Catholic church consecrates candles and gives their light the power to scatter the princes of darkness, and rejoiced in the victorious rays from which the evil spirits fled, they saw their gliding shadows dart in wild haste through the church and the sleepy boy who had wrought the miracle by means of his lighter disappear.The light shines, no matter who kindles it. The poor dark souls, illumined by no ray of earthly hope, eagerly absorbed its cheering rays and so long as the consecrated candles burned, the ghosts of care, discord, envy, and all the other demons of poverty were spell-bound! Now the priest entered, clad in his white robes, accompanied by two attendants.
A deathlike stillness reigned throughout the church. In a low, almost inaudible whisper he read the Latin text, which no one understood, but whose meaning every one knew, even the countess.
Everything which gives an impulse to the independent activity of the soul produces more effect than what is received in a complete form. During the incomprehensible muttering, the countess had time to recall the whole mighty drama to which it referred better and more vividly than any distinct prosaic theological essay could have described it. Again she experienced all the horrors of the Passion, as she had done in the Passion Play--only this time invisibly, instead of visibly--spiritually instead of materially--"Noli me tangere!"
The priest stooped and kissed the altar, it meant the Judas kiss. "Can you kiss those lips and not fall down to worship?" cried a voice in the countess' heart, as it had done nine years before, and a nameless longing seized upon her for the divine contact which had fallen to the traitor's lot--but "Noli me tangere" rang in the ears of the penitent Magdalene. Before her stood an altar and a priest, not Christ nor Judas, and the kiss she envied was imprinted upon white linen, not the Saviour's lips. She pressed her hands upon her heart and a few bitter tears oozed from beneath her drooping lashes. She was like the blind princess in Henrik Hertz' wonderful poem, who, when she suddenly obtained her sight, no longer knew herself among the objects which she had formerly recognized only by touch, and fancied that she had lost everything which was dear and familiar--because she had gained a new sense which she knew not how to use--ahigherone than that of her groping finger tips. Then in her fear she turned to theinvisibleworld and recognizeditonly, it alone had not changed with outward phenomena because alike to the blind and those who had sight it revealed itself only to themind. It was the same with the countess. The world which she could touch with her fingers had vanished and before her newly awakened sense lay a boundless space filled with strange forms, which all seemed so unattainably distant; one only remained the same: the God whom she hadneverseen. And now when everything once familiar and near was transformed and removed to a vast distance, when everything appeared under a wholly different guise, it was He to whom her heart, accustomed to blindness, sought and found the way.
The priest was completely absorbed in his prayer-book. What he beheld the others felt with mysterious awe. It was like looking through a telescope into a strange world, while those who were not permitted to do so stood by and imagined what the former beheld.
The Sursum corda fell slowly from the lips of the priest. The bell sounded. "Christ is present!" The congregation, as if dazzled, bowed their faces and crossed themselves in the presence of the marvel that Heaven itself vouchsafed to descend to their unworthy selves. Again the bell sounded for the transformation, and perfect silence followed--while the miracle was being wrought by which God entered the mouths of mortals to be the bread of life to mankind.
This was the bread of the poor and simple-hearted, whose crumbs the Countess Wildenau had that day stolen and was eating with secret shame.
The mass was over, the priest pronounced the benediction and withdrew to the vestry-room. The people put out their bits of wax candles--clouds of light smoke filled the church. It was like Christmas Eve, after the children have gone to bed and the candles on the tree are extinguished--but their hearts are still full of Christmas joy. The countess knew not why the thought entered her mind, but she suddenly recollected that Christmas was close at hand and she no longer had any child on whom she could bestow gifts. True, she had never done this herself, but always left Josepha to attend to the matter. This year, however, she had thought she would do it, now it was too late. Suddenly she saw a child's eyes gazing happily at a lighted tree and below it a manger, with the same eyes sparkling back. The whole world, heaven and earth were glittering with children's beaming eyes, but the most beautiful of all--those of her own boy, were closed--no grateful glance smiled upon her amid the universal joy, for her there was no Christmas, for it was the mother's day, and she wasnota mother. "Child in the manger, bend down to the sinner who mourns neglected love at Thy feet." Sinking on the kneeling bench, she sobbed bitterly. It was dark and silent. The congregation had gone, the candles on the altar had been extinguished as fast as possible--the ever-burning lamp cast dull red rays upon the altar, dawn was glimmering through the frost-covered window panes. All was still--only in the distance the cocks were crowing. Again she remembered that evening when her father came and she had knelt with Freyer in the church before the Pieta, until the crowing of the cock reminded her how easy it was to betray love and fidelity. Rising wearily from her knees, she dragged herself to a Pieta above a side altar, and pressed her lips upon the wounds of the divine body. She gazed to see if the eyes would not once more open, but it remained rigid and lifeless, this time no echo answered the mute pleading of the warm lips. No second miracle was wrought for her, the hand which guided her had been withdrawn, and like the poorest and most humble mortal she was forced to grope her way wearily along the arid path of tradition;--it was just, she had deserved nothing better, and the great discovery which came to her that day was that this path also led to God.
While thus absorbed in contemplation, a voice suddenly startled her so that she almost fainted: "What does this mean, Countess? You here at early mass, in a court-train! Are you going to write romances--or live them? I have often asked you the question, but never with so much justification as now!" Prince Emil was standing before her. She could almost have shrieked aloud in her delight. "Prince--my dear Prince!"
"Unfortunately, Prince no longer, but Duke of Metten-Barnheim, in which character I again lay myself at your feet and beg for a continuation of your favor!" said the prince with a touch of humor. Raising her from her knees, he led her into the little corridor of the church. "My father," he went on, "feels so well at Cannes that he wants to spend his old age there in peace, and summoned me by telegram to sign the abdication documents and take the burden of government upon my young shoulders. I was just coming from the station and, as I drove by, saw your carriage waiting before this poor temple. I stopped and obtained with difficulty from the half frozen coachman information concerning the place where his mistress was seeking compensation from the ennui of a court entertainment! A romantic episode, indeed! A beautiful woman in court dress, weeping and doing penance at six o'clock in the morning, among beggars and cripples in a little church in the suburbs. A swearing coachman and two horses stiff from the cold waiting outside, and lastly a faithful knight, who comes just at the right time to prevent a moral suicide and save a pair of valuable horses--what more can be desired in our time, in the way of romance?"
"Prince--pardon me, Duke, your mockery hurts me."
"Yes, I suppose so, you are far too wearied, to understand humor. Come, I will take you to the carriage. There, lean on me, you are ill,machère Madeleine, you cannot go on in this way. What--you will take holy water, into which Heaven knows who has dipped his fingers. Well, to the pure all things are pure. Fortunately the doubtful fluid is frozen!"
Talking on in this way he led her out into the open air. A keen morning wind from the mountains was sweeping through the streets and cut the countess' tear-stained face. She involuntarily hid it on the duke's breast. The latter put his arm gently around her and lifted her into the carriage. His own coachman was waiting near, but the duke looked at her beseechingly. "May I go with you? I cannot possibly leave you in this state."
The countess nodded. He motioned to his servant to drive home and entered the Wildenau equipage. "First of all, Madeleine," he said, warming her cold hands in his, "tell me:Areyou already a saint--or do you wish tobecomeone? Whence dates this last caprice of my adored friend?"
"No saint, Duke--neither now, nor ever, only a deeply humbled, contrite heart, which would fain fly from this world!"
"But is this world so unlovely that one would fain try Heaven, while there are people who can be relied on under any circumstances!"
"Yes" replied the countess bitterly, but the sweetness of the true warmth of feeling revealed through her friend's humor was reviving and strengthening to her brain and heart. In his society it seemed as if there was neither pain nor woe on earth, as if all gloomy spirits must flee from his unruffled calmness. His apparent coldness produced the effect of champagne frappé, which, ice-cold when drunk, warms the whole frame.
"Oh, thank Heaven, that you are here--I have missed you sorely," she said from the depths of her soul. "Oh, my friend, what is to be done--I am helpless without you!"
"So much the better for me, if I am indispensable to you--you know that is the goal of my desires! But dearest friend--you are suffering and I cannot aid you because I do not know the difficulty! What avail is a physician, who cures only the symptoms, not the disease. You are simply bungling about on your own responsibility and every one knows that is the worst thing a sick person can do. Consumptives use the hunger-cure, anæmics resort to blood letting. You, my dear Madeleine, I think, do the same thing. Mortification, when your vital strength is waning, moral blood-letting, while the heart needs food and warmth. What kind of cure is it to be up all night long and wander about in cold churches, with the thermometer marking below freezing, early in the morning. I should advise you to edit a book on the physiology of the nerves. You are like the man in the fairy-tale who wanted to learn to shiver." An involuntary smile hovered about the countess' lips.
"Duke--your humor is beginning to conquer. No doubt you are right in many things, but you do not know the state of my mind. My life is destroyed, the axe is laid at the root, happiness, honor--all are lost."
"For Heaven's sake, what has happened to thus overwhelm you?" asked the duke, still in the most cheerful mood.
She could not tell him the truth and pleaded some incident at court as an excuse. Then in a few words she told him of the queen's displeasure, the malice of her enemies, her imperilled position.
"And do you take this so tragically?" The prince laughed aloud: "Pardon me,chère amie--but one can't help laughing! A woman like you to despair because a few stiff old court sycophants look askance at you, and the queen does not understand you which, with the dispositions you both have, was precisely what might have been expected. It is too comical! It is entirely my own fault--I ought to have considered it--but I expected you to show more feminine craft and diplomacy. That you disdained to employ the petty arts which render one aPersona grataat court is only an honor to you, and if a few fops presumed to adopt an insolent manner to you, they shall receive a lesson which will teach them thatyourhonor ismine! Nay, it ought to amuse you, to feign death awhile and see how the mice will all come out and dance around you to scatter again when the lioness awakes. Do you talk of destroyed happiness and roots to which the axe is laid? Oh, women--women! You can despair over a plaything! For this position at court could never be aught save a toy to you!"
"But to retire thus in shame and disgrace--wouldyouendure it--if it should happen to you? Ought not a woman to be as sensitive concerning her honor as a man?"
"I don't think your honor will suffer, because the restraint of court life does not suit you! Or is it because you do not understand the queen? Why, surely persons are not always sympathetic and avoid one another without any regret; does the fact become so fateful because one of you wears a crown? In that case I beg you to remember that a crown is hovering over your head also--a crown that is ready to descend whenever that head will receive it, and that you will then be in a position to address Her Majesty as 'chère cousine!' You, a Princess von Prankenberg, a Countess Wildenau, fly like a rebuked child at an ungracious glance from the queen and her court into a corner of a church?" He shook his head. "There must be something else. What is it? I shall never learn, but you cannot deceive me!"
The countess was greatly disconcerted. She tried to find another plausible pretext for her mood and, like all natures to whom deception is not natural, said precisely what betrayed her: "I am anxious about the Wildenaus--they are only watching for the moment when they can compromise me unpunished, and if the queen withdraws her favor, they need show me no farther consideration."
The duke frowned. "Ah! ah!"--he said slowly, under his breath: "What do you fear from the Wildenaus, how can they compromise you?"
The countess, startled, kept silence. She saw that she had betrayed herself.
"Madeleine"--he spoke calmly and firmly--"everything must now be clearly understood between us. What connection was there between Wildenau and that mysterious boy? I must know, for I see that that is the quarter whence the danger which you fear is threatening you, and I must know how to avert it--you have just heard thatyourhonor ismine.' There was a shade of sternness in his tone, the sternness of an resolve to take this weak, wavering woman under his protection.
"The child"--she faltered, trembling from head to foot--"ah, no--there is nothing more to be feared from him--he is dead!"
"Dead?" asked the duke gently. "Since when?"
"Since yesterday!" And the proud countess, sobbing uncontrollably, sank upon his breast.
A long silence followed.
The duke passed his arm around her and let her weep her fill. "My poor Madeleine--I understand everything." An indescribable emotion filled the hearts of both. Not another word was exchanged.
The carriage rolled up to the entrance of the Wildenau palace. Her little cold hands clasped his beseechingly.
"Do not desert me!" she whispered hurriedly.
"Less than ever!" he replied gravely and firmly.
"Her Highness is ill!" he said to the servants who came hurrying out and helped the tottering woman up the steps. She entered the boudoir, where the duke himself removed her cloak. It was a singular sight--the haughty figure in full evening dress, adorned with jewels, in the light of the dawning day--like some beautiful spirit of the night, left behind by her companions who had fled from the first sunbeams, and now stood terrified, vainly striving to conceal herself in darkness. "Poor wandering sprite, where is the home your tearful eyes are seeking?" said the prince, overwhelmed by pity as he saw the grief-worn face. "Yes, Madeleine, you are too beautiful for the broad glare of day. Such visions suit the veil of evening--the magical lustre of drawing-rooms! By day one feels as if the night had been robbed of an elf, who having lost her wings by the morning light was compelled to stay among common mortals." Carried away by an outburst of feeling, he approached her with open arms. A strange conflict of emotion was seething in her breast. She had longed for him, as for the culture she had despised--she felt that she could not live without him, that without him she could not exorcise the spirits she had conjured up to destroy her, her ear listened with rapture to the expression of love in cultured language, but when he strove to approach her--it seemed as if that unapproachable something which had cried "Noli me tangere!" had established its throne in her own heart since she had knelt among the beggars early that morning, and now, in spite of herself, cried in its solemn dignity from her lips the "Noli me tangere" to another.
And, without words, the duke understood it, respected her mute denial, and reverently drew back a step.
"Do you not wish to change your dress, you are utterly exhausted. If it will be a comfort to you to have me stay, I will wait till you have regained your strength. Then I will beg permission to breakfast with you!" he said with his wonted calmness.
"Yes, I thank you!" she answered--with a two-fold meaning, and left the room with a bearing more dignified than the duke had ever seen, as though she had an invisible companion of whom she was proud.
The countess remained absent a long time, while the duke sat at the window of the boudoir gazing out into the frosty winter morning, but without seeing what was passing outside. Before him lay a shattered happiness, a marred destiny. The happiness was his, the destiny hers. "There is surely nothing weaker than a woman--even the strongest!" he thought, shaking his head mournfully. Ought we not to punish this personator of Christ, who used his mask to break into the citadel of our circle and steal what did not belong to him? Pshaw, how could the poor fellow help it if an eccentric woman out of ennui--ah, no, we should not think of it! But--what is to be done now? Shall I sacrifice this superb creature to an insipid prejudice, because she sacrificed herself and everything else to a childish delusion? Where is the man pure enough to condemn you because when you give, you give wholly, royally, and in your proud self-forgetfulness fling what others would outweigh with kingly crowns into the lap of a beggar who can offer you nothing in exchange, not even appreciation of your value--which he is too uncultured to perceive.
"Alas! such a woman--to be thrown away on such a man! And should I not save her? Should I weakly desert her--I, the only person who can forgive because I am the only one whounderstandsher?--No! It would be against all the logic of destiny and reason, were I to suffer such a life to be wrecked by this religious humbug. What is the use of my cool brain, if I lose my composurenow?Allons donc! I will bid defiance to fate and to every prejudice, clasp her in my arms, and destroy the divine farce!"
Such was the train of the duke's thoughts. But his pale face and joyless expression betrayed what he would not acknowledge to himself: that his happiness was shattered. He gathered up the fragments and tried to join them together--but with the secret grief with which we bear home some loved one who could not be witheld from a dangerous path, knowing that, though the broken limbs may be healed, he can never regain his former strength.
"So grave, Duke?" asked a voice which sent the blood to his heart. The countess had entered--her step unheard on the soft carpet.
He started up: "Madeleine--my poor Madeleine! I was thinking of you and your fate!"
"I have saddened you!" she said, clasping her hands penitently.
"Oh, no!" he drew the little hands down to his lips, and with a sorrowful smile kissed them.
"My cheerfulness can bear some strain--but the malapert must be permitted to be silent sometimes when there are serious matters to be considered."
"You are too noble to let me feel that you are suffering. Yet I see it--you would not be the man you are if you did not suffer to-day."
The duke bit his lips, it seemed as if he were struggling to repress a tear: "Pshaw--we won't be sentimental! You have wept enough to-day! The world must not see tear-stains on your face. Give me a cup of coffee--I do not belong to the chosen few whom a mortal emotion raises far above all the needs of their mortal husk."
The countess rang for breakfast.
The servant brought the dishes ordered into the boudoir, as the dining-room was not yet thoroughly heated. In the chimney-corner beside the blazing fire the coffee was already steaming in a silver urn over an alcohol lamp, filling the cosy room with its aroma and musical humming.
"How pleasant this is!" said the duke, throwing himself into an armchair beside the grave mistress of the house.
"I will pour it myself," she said to the servant who instantly withdrew. The countess was now simply dressed in black, without an ornament of any kind, and with her hair confined in a plain knot.
"What a contrast!" the duke remarked, smiling--"you alone are capable of such metamorphoses. Half an hour ago in a court costume, glittering with diamonds, an aching heart, and hands half frozen from being clasped in prayer in the chilled church, now a demure little housewife, peacefully watching the coffee steam in a cosy little room, waiting intently for the moment when the water will boil, as if there were no task in the whole world more important than that of making a good decoction."
A faint smile glided over the countess' face--she had nearly allowed the important moment to pass. Now she poured out the coffee, extinguished the spirit lamp, and handed her companion a cup of the steaming beverage.
"A thousand thanks! Ah, that's enough to brighten the most downcast mood! What comfort! Now let us enjoy an hour of innocent, genuine plebeian happiness. Ah--how fortunate the people are who live so every day. I should be the very man to enjoy such bliss!" His glance wandered swiftly to the countess' empty cup. "Aha! I thought so! A great sorrow must of course be observed by mortifying the body, in order to be sure to succumb to it. Well, then the guest must do the honors of the hostess! There, nowma chère Madeleinewill drink this, and dip this buscuit into it! One can accomplish that, even without an appetite. Who would wish to make heart and stomach identical!"
The countess, spite of her protestations, was forced to obey. She saw that the duke had asked for breakfast only to compel her to eat.
"There. You see that it can be done. I enjoy with a touch of emotion this coffee which your dear hands have prepared. If you would do the same with the cup I poured out what a sentimental breakfast it would be!" A ray of the old cheerfulness sparkled in the duke's eyes.
"Ah, I knew that with you alone I should find peace and cheer!" said the countess, brightening.
"So much the better." The duke lighted a cigarette and leaned comfortably back in his chair.
The countess ordered the coffee equipage to be removed and then sat down opposite to him with her hands clasped in her lap.
"The main point now, my dear Madeleine, if I may be allowed to speak of these things to you, is to release you from the cause of all the trouble--I need not name him. Of course I do not know how easy or how difficult this may be, because I am ignorant how far you are involved in this relation and unfortunately lack the long locks of the Christ, which would enable me successfully to play the part of the 'Good Shepherd,' who freed the imprisoned lamb from the thicket."
"As if it depended on that!" said the countess.
"Not at all? Oh, women, women! What will not a few raven locks do? The destiny of your lives turns upon just such trifles. Imagine that Ammergau Christus with close-cropped hair and a bristling red beard! Would that mask have suited the illusion to which you sacrificed yourself? Hardly!"
The countess made no reply, silenced by the pitiless truth, but at last she thought she must defend herself. "And the religious impression, the elevation, the enthusiasm--the revelations of the Passion Play, do you count these nothing?"
"Certainly not! I felt them myself, but, believe me, you would not have transferred them to the person, if the representative of Christ had worn a wig, and the next day had appeared before you with stiff, closely-cropped red hair."
The countess made a gesture of aversion.
"There, now you see the realist again. Yet, say what you will, a few locks of raven hair formed the net in which the haughty, clever Countess Wildenau was prisoned!"
"You may be right, the greatest picture consists of details, and may be spoiled by a single one. I will confess it--Yes! The harmony of the whole person, down to the most trifling detail, with the Christ tradition, enthralled me, and had the locks been wanting, the impression would not have been complete. But, however I may have been deceived in the image, I cannot let myself and him sink so low in your opinion as to permit you to believe that it was nothing save an ensnaring outward semblance which sealed my fate! Had not his spiritual nature completed the illusion--matters would never have gone so far."
"Yes, yes, I can imagine how it happened. You prompted the part, and he had skill enough to play to the prompter, as it is called in the parlance of the stage."
"'Skill' is not the right word, he was influenced precisely as I was."
"Ah! He probably would not have been so foolish as to refuse such a chance. A wealthy, beautiful woman--like you--"
"No, no, do not speak of him in that way. I cannot let that accusation rest upon him. He is not base! He is uncultured, has the narrow-minded views of a peasant, is sensitive and capricious, an unfortunate temperament, with which it is impossible to live happily--but I know no one in the world, to whom any ignoble thought is more alien."
The prince gazed at her admiringly. Tears were sparkling in her eyes. "I don't deny that I am bitterly disappointed in him--but though I love him no longer, I must not allow him to be insulted. He loved me and sacrificed his poor life for mine--that the compensation did not outweigh the price was no fault of his, and I ought not to make him responsible for it."
The duke became very thoughtful. The countess was silent, she had clasped her hands on her knee, and was gazing, deeply moved, into vacancy.
"You are a noble woman, Madeleine!" he said in a low tone. "I always ranked you high, but never higher than at this moment! I will never again wound your feelings. But however worthy of esteem Freyer may be, deeply as I pity the unfortunate man--you are my first consideration--and you cannot, must not continue in this relation. Throughout the whole system of the universe the lower existence must yield to the higher. You are the higher--therefore Freyer must be sacrificed! You are a philosopher--accept the results of your view of the world, be strong and resolve to do what is inevitable quickly. You yourself say that you no longer love him--whether you have ever done so, I will not venture to decide! If he is really what you describe him to be, he must feel this and--I believe, that he, too, is not to be envied. What kind of respite is this which you are granting the hapless man under the sword of the executioner. Pardon me, but I should term it torture. You feign, from motives of compassion, feelings you no longer have, and he feels the deception. So he is continually vibrating between the two extremes of fear and hope--a prey to the most torturing doubts. So you permit the victim whom you wish to kill to live, in order to destroy him slowly. You pity him--and for pity are cruel."
The countess cast a startled glance at him. "You are terribly truthful."
"I must say that I am sorry for that man," the duke went on in his usual manner. "I think it is your duty to end this state of things. If he has a good, mentally sound character, he will conquer the blow and shape his life anew. But such a condition of uncertainty would unnerve the strongest nature. This cat and mouse sport is unworthy of you! You tried it with me ten years ago in a less painful way--I, knowing women, was equal to the game, so no harm was done, and I could well allow you the graceful little pastime. It is different with Freyer. A man of his stamp, who stakes his whole life upon a single feeling, takes the matter more tragically, and the catastrophe was inevitable. But must romance be carried to tragedy? See, my dear friend, that it is confined within its proper limits. Besides, you have already paid for it dearly enough--it has left an indelible impress upon your soul--borne a fruit which matured in suffering and you have buried with anguish because destiny itself, though with a stern hand, tried to efface the consequences of your error. Heed this portent, for your sake and his own! I speak in his behalf also. My aim is not only to win you, but to see the woman whom I have won worthy of herself and the high opinion I cherish of her."
The countess' features betrayed the most intense emotion. What should she do? Should she tell this noble man all--confess that she wasmarried. The hour that he discovered it, he would desert her. Must she lose him, her last support and consolation? No, she dared not. The drowning woman clung to him; she knew not what was to come of it--she only knew that she would be lost without him--and kept silence.
"Where is he? In the old hunting-box of which your cousin Wildenau spoke?" asked the duke after a long pause.
"Yes."
"As what?"
"As steward."
"Steward? H'm!"
The duke shook his head. "What a relation; you made the man you loved your servant, and believed that you could love him still? How little you knew yourself! Had you seen him on the mountains battling with wind and storm as a wood-cutter, a shepherd, but free, you might have continued to love him. But as 'the steward' at whom the servants look with one eye as their equal, with the other as their mistress' favorite--never! You placed him in a situation where he could not help despising himself--how could you respect him? But a woman like you no longer loves where she can no longer esteem!" He was silent a moment, then with sudden determination exclaimed: "Do you understand what I say now? Not free yourself from him--but freehimfromhimself! You have done the same thing as the giantess who carried the farmer and his plough home in her apron. Do you understand what a deep meaning underlies Chamisso's comical tale? The words with which the old giant ordered her to take her prize back to the spot where she found it, say everything: 'The peasant is no plaything.' Only in the sphere where a man naturally belongs is he of value, but this renders him too good for a toy. You have transplanted Freyer to a sphere in which he ceased to have any value to you and are now making him play a part there which I would not impose on my worst enemy."
"Yes, you are right."
"Finally we owe it to those who were once dear to us, not to make them ridiculous! Or do you believe that Freyer, if he had the choice, would not have pride enough to prefer the most cruel truth to a compassionate lie?"
"Certainly."
"And still more. We owe it to the law of truthfulness, under which we stand as moral beings, not to continue deliberately a deception which was perhaps unconsciously begun. When self-respect is lost--all is lost."
The duke rose: "It is time for me to go. Consider my advice, I can say nothing more in your interest and his."
"But what shall I do--how am I to find a gentle way--oh! Heaven, I don't know how to help myself."
"Do nothing at present, everything is still too fresh to venture upon any positive act--the wounds would bleed, and what ought to be severed would only grow together the more firmly. Go away for a time. You are out of favor with the queen. What is more natural than to go on a journey and sulk. To the so-called steward also, this must at present serve for a pretext to avoid a tragical parting scene."
"Go now! Now!--leave--you?" she whispered, blushing as she spoke.
"Madeleine," he said gently, drawing her hand to his breast. "How am I to interpret this blush? Is it the sign of a sweeter feeling, or embarrassment because circumstances have led you to say something which I might interpret differently from your intention?"
She bent her head, blushing still more deeply.
"Perhaps you do not know yourself--I will not torture you with questions, which your agitated heart cannot answer now. But if anything really does bind you to me, then--I would suggest your joining my father at Cannes. If even the faintest feeling of affection for me is stirring within you, you will understand that we could never be nearer to each other than while you were learning to be my old father's daughter! Will you?"
"Yes!" she whispered with rising tears, for ever more beautiful, ever purer rose before her a happiness which she had forfeited, of which she would no longer be worthy, even could she grasp it.
The duke, usually so sharp-sighted, could not guess the source of these tears; for the first time he was deceived and interpreted favorably an emotion aroused by the despairing perception that all was vain.
He gazed down at her with a ray of love shining in his clear blue eyes, and pressed a kiss on her drooping brow. Then raising his hand, he pointed upward. "Only have courage, and hold your head high. All will yet be well. Adieu!"
He moved away as proudly, calmly and firmly as if success was assured; he did not suspect that he was leaving a lost cause.