Several minutes have passed--to the duke a world of happiness--to the countess of misery. The duke bent over the beautiful trembling form to clasp her in his arms for the first time.
"Have I won you at last--my long-sought love?" he exclaimed, rapturously. "Do you now perceive what your dispensations of Providence mean? The shrewdness and persistence of a single man who knows what he wants, has baffled them, and driven all the heroes of signs and wonders from the field! Do you now believe what I said just now: that we are our own Providence?"
"That will appear in due time, do not exalt yourself and do not blaspheme, God might punish your arrogance!" she said faintly, slipping gently from his embrace.
"Madeleine--no betrothal kiss--after these weary years of waiting and hoping."
"I amstillFreyer's wife," she said, evasively--"not until I am parted from him."
"You are right! I will not steal my bride's first kiss from another. I thank you for honoring my future right in his." His lips touched her brow with a calm, friendly caress. Then he rose: "It is time to go, I have not a moment to lose." He glanced at the clock: "Seven! I will make my preparations at once and set out for Prankenberg to-morrow."
"What do you wish to do?"
"First of all to see what is recorded in the church register, and to ascertain what kind of a man the Catholic pastor is, that I may form some idea of what the Wildenaus have discovered and how much proof they have obtained. Then we can judge how far we must dissimulate with these gentlemen until your relation with Freyer can be dissolved without any violent outbreak or without being compelled to use any undue haste. I will also go to Barnheim and quietly prepare everything there for our marriage. The more quickly all these business matters are settled, the sooner our betrothal can be announced. And that I am ardently longing to be at last permitted to call you mine, you will--I hope, understand?"
"But my relation with Freyer must first be arranged," said the countess, evasively. "We cannot dispose of him like an ordinary business matter. He is a man of heart and mind--we must remember that I could not be happy for an hour, if I knew that he was miserable."
"Yet you have left him alone for weeks and months without any pangs of conscience," said the duke with a shade of sternness.
"It was notI, but the force of circumstances. What happens nowIshall do--and must bear the responsibility. Help me to provide that it is not too heavy." Her face wore a lofty, beautiful expression as she spoke, and deeply moved, he raised her hand to his lips.
"Certainly, Madeleine! We will show him every consideration and do everything as forbearingly as possible. But remember that, as I just respectedhisrights, you must now guardmine, and that every hour in which you retain this relation to him longer than necessary--is treason toboth. It cannot suit your taste to play such a part--so do not lose a moment in renouncing it."
"Certainly--you are right."
"Will you be strong--will you have the power to do what is unavoidable--and do it soon?"
"I have always been able to do what I desired--I can do this also."
The duke took her hand and gazed long and earnestly into her eyes. "Madeleine--I do not ask: do you love me? I ask only: do you believe that youwilllove me?"
The profound modesty of this question touched her heart with indescribable melancholy, and in overflowing gratitude for such great love, which gave all and asked nothing, she bowed her head: "Yes--I do believe it."
The duke's usual readiness of speech deserted him--he had no words to express the happiness of this moment.
What was that? Voices in the ante-room. The noise sounded like a dispute. Then some one knocked violently at the door.
"Come in!" cried the countess, with a strange thrill of fear. The footman entered hurriedly with an excited face. "A gentleman, he calls himself 'Steward Freyer,' is there, is following close at my heels--he would not be refused admittance." He pointed backward to where Freyer already appeared.
The countess seemed turned to stone. "Request the steward to wait a moment!" she said at last, with the imperiousness of the mistress.
The man stepped back, and they saw him close the door almost by force.
"Do not carry matters too far," said the duke; "he seems to be very much excited--such people should not be irritated. Admit him before he forces the door and makes a scandal in the presence of the servant. He comes just at the right time--in this mood it will be easy for you to dismiss him. So end the matter! But becalm, have no scene--shall I remain at hand?"
"No--I am not afraid--it would be ignoble to permit you to listen to him. Trust me, and leave me to my fate."
At this time the voices again grew louder, then the door was violently thrown open. Freyer stood within the room.
"What does this mean--am I assaulted in my own house?" cried the countess, rebelling against this act of violence.
Freyer stood trembling from head to foot; they could hear his teeth chatter: "I merely wished to ask whether it was the Countess Wildenau's desire that I should be insulted by her servant."
"Certainly not!" replied the countess with dignity. "If my servant insulted you, you shall have satisfaction--only I wish you had asked it in a less unseemly way."
The duke quietly took his hat and kissed the countess' hand: "Restez calme!" Then he passed out, saluting Freyer with that aristocratic courtesy which at once irritates and disarms.
Freyer stepped close to the countess, his eyes wandered restlessly, his whole appearance was startling: "Everything in the world has its limit, even patience--mine is exhausted. Tell me, are you my wife--you who stand here in this gay masquerade of laces and pearls--are you the mourning mother of a dead child? Is this my wife who decks herself for another, shuts herself up with another, or at least gives orders not to be disturbed--who has her lackeys keep her wedded husband at bay outside with blows--and deems it unseemly if the last remnant of manly dignity in his soul rebels and he demands satisfaction from his wife. Where is the man, I ask, who would not be frenzied? Where is the woman, I ask, who once loved me? Is it you, who desert, betray, make me contemptible to myself and others? Where--where--in the wide world is there a man so deceived, so trampled under foot, as I am by you? Have you any answer to this, woman?"
The countess turned deadly pale, terror almost stifled her. For the first time, she beheld the Gorgon, popular fury, in his face and while turning to stone the thought came to her: "Would you livewith that?" Horror stole over her--she did not know whether her feeling was fear or loathing, she only knew that she must fly from the "turbid waves" ever rolling nearer.
There is no armor more impenetrable than the coldness of a dead feeling. Madeleine von Wildenau armed herself with it. "Tell me, if you please, how you came here, what you desire, and what put you into such excitement."
"What--merciful Heaven, do you still ask? I came here to learn where you were now, to what address I could write, as you made no reply to my announcement of Josepha's death--and I wished to say that I could no longer endure this life! While talking with the servant at the door, old Martin passed and told me that you were here. I wanted to say one last word to you--I went upstairs, found the footman, and asked, entreated him to announce me, or at least to inquire when I could speak to you! You had a visitor and could not be disturbed, was his scornful answer. Then the consciousness of my just rights awoke within me, and Icommandedhim to announce me. You refused to receive me: 'I must wait'--I--must wait in the ante-room while you, as I saw through the half-opened door, were whispering familiarly with you former suitor! Then I forgot everything and approached the door--the servant tried to prevent me, I flung him aside, and then--he dealt me a blow in the face--that face which you had once likened to the countenance of your God--he, your servant. If I had not had sufficient self-control at the moment to say to myself that the lackey was only your tool--I should have torn him to pieces with my own hands, as I should now tear you, if you were not a woman and sacred to me, even in your sin."
"I sincerely regret what has happened and do not blame you for making me--at least indirectly responsible. I will dismiss the servant, of course--although he has the excuse that you provoked him, and that he did not know you."
"Yes, he certainly cannot know me, when I am never permitted to appear."
"No matter, he should not venture to treat even astrangerso, and therefore must be punished with dismissal."
"Because he should not venture to treat even astrangerso?" Freyer laughed sadly, bitterly: "I thank you, keep your servant--I will renounce this satisfaction."
"I do not know what else you desire."
"You do not know? Oh, Heaven, had this happened earlier, what would your feelings have been! Do you remember your emotion in the Passion Play, when I received only thesemblanceof a blow upon the cheek? Did it not, as you said, strike your own heart? How should you feel when you saw it in reality? Oh, tears should have streamed down your cheeks with grief for the poor deserted husband, who the only time he crossed your threshold, was insulted by your lackey. If you still retained one spark of love for me, you would feel that a single kiss pressed compassionately on my cheek to efface the brand would be a greater satisfaction than the dismissal of a servant whom you would have sacrificed to any stranger. But that is over, we no longer understand each other!"
The countess struggled a moment between pity and repugnance. But at the thought of pressing her lips to the face her servant's hand had struck, loathing overwhelmed her and she turned away.
"Yes, turn your back upon me--for should you look me in the eyes now, you would be forced to lower your own and blush with shame."
"I beg you to consider that I am not accustomed to such outbreaks, and shall be compelled to close the conversation, if your manner does not assume a form more in accord with the standard of my circle."
"Yes, I understand! You dread the element you have unchained? A peasant was very well, by way of variety, was he not? He loved differently, more ardently, more fiercely than your smooth city gentlemen. The strength and the impetuosity of the untutored man were not too rude when I bore you through the flaming forest, and caught the falling branches which threatened to crush you--then you did not fear me, you did not thrust me back within the limits of your social forms; on the contrary, you rejoiced that the world still contained power and might, and felt yourself a Titaness. Why have you suddenly become so weak-nerved, and cannot endure this might--because it has turned against you?"
"No," said the countess, with a flash of deadly hatred in her fathomless grey eyes: "Not on that account--but because at that time I believed you to be different from what you really are. Then I believed I beheld a God, now I perceive that it was a--" She paused.
"Go on--put no constraint on yourself--now you perceive that it was apeasant."
"You just called yourself by that name."
Freyer stood as though a thunder-bolt had struck him. He seemed to be struggling for breath. "Yes," he said at last in a low tone, "I did call myself by that name, but--youshould not have done so--not you!" He grasped the back of a chair to steady himself.
"It is your own fault," said the countess, coldly. "But--will you not sit down? We have only a few words to say to each other. You have in this moment stripped off the mask of Christus and torn the last illusion from my heart. I can no longer see in the person who stood before me so disfigured by fury the image of the Redeemer."
"Was not the Christ also angry, when He saw the moneychangers in the temple? And you, you bartered the most sacred treasures of your heart and mine for paltry-pelf and useless baubles--but I must not be angry! Scarcely a year ago, by the bedside of our sick child, you reproached me with being unable to cease playing the Christ--now--I have not kept up the part! But it does not matter, whatever I might be, I should no longer please you, for thelovewhich rendered the peasant a God is lacking. Yet one thing I must add; if now, after nine years marriage with you, I am still rough and a peasant, the reproach does not fall on me alone. You might have raised, ennobled me, my soul was in your keeping"--tears suddenly filled his eyes: "Woman, what have you done with my soul?"
He sank into a chair, his strength was exhausted. Madeleine von Wildenau made no reply, the reproach struck home. She had never taken the trouble to develop his powers, to expand his intellectual faculties. After his poetical charm was exhausted--she flung him aside like a book whose contents she had read.
"You knew my history. I had told you that I grew up in the meadow with the horses and had gained the little I knew by my own longing. I would have been deeply grateful, if you had released me from the ban of ignorance and quenched the yearning which those who are half educated always feel for the treasures of culture, of which they know a little, just enough to show them what they lack. But whenever I sought to discuss such subjects with you, you impatiently made me feel my shortcomings, and this shamed and intimidated me. So I constantly deteriorated in my lonely life--grew more savage, instead of more cultivated. Do you know what is the hardest punishment which can be inflicted upon criminals? Solitary confinement. It can be imposed for a short time only, because they gomad. Since the child and Josepha died, I have been one of those unfortunates, and you--did not even write me a line, had no word for me! I felt that my mind was gradually becoming darkened! Woman, even if you had power over life and death--you must not murder my soul, you have no right to that--even the law slays the body only, not the soul. And where it imposes the death penalty, it provides that the torture shall be shortened as much as possible. You are more cruel than the law--for you destroy your victim slowly--intellectually and physically."
"Terrible!" murmured the countess.
"Ay, it is terrible! You worldlings come and entice and sigh and kiss the hem of our robes, as long as the delusion of your excited imagination lasts, and your delusion infects us till we at last believe ourselves that we are gods--and then you thrust us headlong into the depths. Here you strew the miasma of the mania for greatness and vanity, yonder money and the seeds of avarice--there again you wished to sow your culture, tear us from our ignorance, and but half complete your work. Then you wonder because we become misshapen, sham, artificial creatures, comedians, speculators, misunderstood geniuses--everything in the world except true children of Ammergau!" He wiped his forehead, as if it were bleeding from the scratches of thorns. "I was a type of my people when, still a simple shepherd boy, I was brought from my herd to act the Christ, when in timid amazement, I suddenly felt stirring within me powers of which I had never dreamed--and I am so once more in my wretchedness, my mental conflicts, my marred life. I shall be so at last in my defeat or victory--as God is gracious to me. And since everything has deserted me--since I saw Josepha, the last thing left me of Ammergau, lying in her coffin--since then it has seemed as if from her grave, and that of all my happiness, my home, my betrayed, abandoned home, once more rose before me, and I felt a strange yearning for the soil to which I have a right, the earth where I belong. Ah, only when the outside world abandons us do we know what home is! Unfortunately I forgot it long enough, while I believed that you loved and needed me. Now that I know that you no longer care for me--the matter is very different! Like a true peasant, I believed that I had only duties, no rights, but in my loneliness I have pondered over many things, and so at last perceived that you, too, had duties and expected more from me than I can honorably endure! That I bore itso longgave you a right to despise me, for the husband who sits angrily in a corner and sees his wife daily betray, deny, and mock him--deserves no better fate. So I have come to ask what you intend and to tell you my resolve."
"What do you desire?"
"That you will go with me to Ammergau, that you will cast aside the wealth, distinction, and splendor which I was not permitted to share with you, and in exchange accept with me my scanty earnings, my simplicity, my honest, plebeian name. For, poor and humble as I am, I am not so contemptible in the eyes of Him, who bestowed upon me the dignity and honor of personating His divine Son, that you need feel ashamed to be my wife in the true Christian meaning."
The countess uttered a sigh of relief. "You anticipate me," she answered, blushing. "I see that you feel the untenableness of our relation. Your ultimatum is a proof that you will have strength to do what is inevitable, and I have delayed so long only from consideration for you. For--you know as well as I that I could never assent to your demand. It will be a sacred duty, so long as you live, to see that you want for nothing, but we mustpart."
Freyer turned pale. "Part? We must part--for ever?"
"Yes."
"Merciful Heaven--is nothing sacred to you, not even the bond of marriage?"
"You know that I am a Rationalist, and do not believe in dogmas; as such I hold that every marriage can be dissolved whenever the moral conditions under which it was formed prove false. Unfortunately this is the case with us. You did not learn to accommodate yourself to the circumstances, and you never will--the conflict has increased till it is unendurable, we cannot understand each other, so our marriage-bond is spiritually sundered. Why should we maintain its outward semblance? I have lost through you nine years of my life, sacrificed to you the duties imposed by my rank, by renouncing marriage with a man of equal station. Matters have now progressed so far that I shall be ruined if you do not release me! Will you nevertheless cross my path and thrust yourself into my sphere?"
"Oh God--this too!" cried Freyer in the deepest anguish. "When have I thrust myself into your sphere? How, where, have I crossed your path? During the whole period of my marriage I have lived alone on the solitary mountain peak as your servant. Have I boasted of my position as your husband? I waited patiently until every few weeks, and later, every few months, you came to me. I disdained all the gifts of your lavish generosity, it was my pride to work for you in return for the morsel of food I ate. I asked nothing from your wealth, your position, took no heed, like others, of the splendor of your establishment. I wanted nothing from you save the immortal part. I was the poorest, the most insignificant of all your servants! My sole possession was your love, and that I was forced to conceal from every inquisitive eye, like a theft, in order to avoid the scorn of my fellow-citizens and all who could not understand the relation in which I stood to you. But this disgrace also I bore in silence, when a word would have vindicated me--bore it, that I might not drag you down from your brilliant position to mine--and you call that thrusting myself into your sphere? I will grant that I gradually became morose and embittered and by my ill-temper and reproaches deterred you more and more from coming, but I am only human and was forced to bear things beyond human endurance. The intention was good, though the execution might have been faulty. I lost your love--I lost my child--I lost my faithful companion, Josepha, yet I bore all in silence! I saw you revelling in the whirl of fashionable society, saw you admired by others and forget me, but I bore it--because I loved you a thousand times better than myself and did not wish to cause you pain. I often thought of secretly vanishing from your life, like a shadow which did not belong there. But the inviolability of the marriage-bond held me, and I wished to try once more, by the power of the vow you swore at the altar, to lead you back to your duty, for I cannot dissolve the sacrament which unites us, and which you voluntarily accepted with me. If it does not bindyou--it still bindsme! I am your husband, and shall remain so; ifyoubreak the bond you must answer for it to God; as for me, I shall keep it--unto death!"
"That would be a needless sacrifice, which neither church nor state would require. I will not release myself and leave you bound. You argue from a mistaken belief that we were legally married--it is time to explain the error, both on your account and mine. You speak of a vow which I made you before the altar, pray remember that we have never stood before one."
"Never?" muttered Freyer, and the vein on his forehead swelled with anger.
"Was the breakfast-table of the Prankenberg pastor an altar?"
"No, but wherever two human beings stand before a priest in the name of God, there is a viewless altar."
"Those are subjective Catholic opinions which I do not understand--I do not consider myself married, and you need not do so either."
"Not married? Do you know what you are saying?"
"What Imustsay, to looseyourbonds as well asmine."
"Good Heavens, what will it avail if you loose my bonds and at the same time cut an artery so that I bleed to death? No, no, you cannot be so cruel. You cannot be in earnest. Omnipotent Father--you did not say it, take back the words. Lord, forgive her, she does not know what she is doing! Oh, take back those words--I will not believe that my wife, my dear wife, can be so wicked!"
"Moderate your expressions! I guarantee my standpoint; ask whom you choose, you will hear that we are not married!"
Freyer rushed up to her and seized her by the shoulders, shaking her as a tempest shakes a young birch-tree. "Not married--do you know then what you are!" He waited vainly for an answer, he seemed fairly crazed. "Shall I tell you, shall I? Then for nine years you were a----"
"Do not finish!" shrieked the countess, wrenching herself with a desperate effort from the terrible embrace and hurling him from her.
"Yes, I will finish, and you deserve that the whole world should hear and point the finger of scorn at you. I ought to shout to all the winds of Heaven that the Countess Wildenau, who is too proud to be called a poor man's wife, was not too proud to be his----"
"Traitor, ungrateful, dishonorable traitor! Is this your return for my love? Take a knife and thrust it into my heart, it would be more seemly than to threaten me with degradation!" She drew herself up to her full height and raised her hand as if to take an oath: "Accursed be the hour I raised you from the dust to my side. Curses on the false humanity which strove to efface the distinctions of rank, curses on the murmur of 'the eternal rights of man' which removes the fetters from brutishness, that it may set its foot upon the neck of culture! It is like the child which opens the door to the whining wolf to be torn to pieces by the brute. Yes, take yourself out of my life, gloomy shadow which I conjured from those seething depths in which ruin is wrought for us--take yourself away, you have no longer any part in me!--Your right is doubly, trebly forfeited, your spell is broken, your strength recoils from the shield of a noble spirit, under whose protection I stand. Dare to lay hands on me again and--you will insult the betrothed bride of the Duke of Barnheim and must account to him."
A cry--a heavy fall--Freyer lay senseless.
The countess timidly stroked the pallid face--a strange memory stole over her--thus he lay prostrate on the ground when he was nailed to the cross. She could not help looking at him again and again: Oh, that all this should be a lie! Those features--that noble brow, on which the majesty of suffering was throned--the very image of the Saviour! Yet only an image, a mask! She looked away, she would gaze no longer, she would not again fall a victim to the old delusion--she would not let herself be softened by the wonderful, delusive face! But what was she to do? If she called her servants, she would be the talk of the whole city on the morrow. She must aid him, try to restore him to consciousness alone. Yet if she now roused him from the merciful stupor, if the grief and rage which had overwhelmed him should break forth again--would he not murder her? Was it strange that she remained so calm in the presence of this thought? A contemptuous indifference to death had taken possession of her. "If he kills me, he has a right to do so."
She was too lofty to shun punishment which she had deserved, though it were her death. So she awaited her fate.
She brought a little bottle filled with a pungent essence from her sleeping-room, and poured a few drops into his mouth. It was long ere he gave any sign of life--it seemed as though the soul was reluctant to awake, as if it would not return to consciousness. At last he opened his eyes;--they rested as coldly on the little trembling hand which was busied about him as if he had never clasped it, never kissed it, never pressed it to his throbbing heart. The storm had spent its fury--he was calm!
The countess had again been mistaken in him, as usual--his conduct was always unlike her anticipations. He rose as quickly as his strength permitted, passed his hand over his disordered hair, and looked for his hat: "I beg your pardon for having startled you--forget this scene, which I might have spared you and myself, had I known what I do now. I deeply lament that the error which clouded your life has lasted so long!"
"Yes," she said, and the words fell from her lips with the sharp sound of a diamond cutting glass: "Yes, it was notworthit!"
Freyer turned and gave her one last look--she felt it through her lowered lids. She had sunk on the sofa and fixed her eyes on the ground. A death-like chill ran through her limbs--she waited in her position as if paralysed. All was still for a moment, then she heard a light step cross the soft carpet of the room--and when she looked up, the door had closed behind Joseph Freyer.
The night had passed, day was shining through the closed curtains--but Countess Wildenau still sat in the same spot where Freyer had left her. Yes, he had gone "silently, noiselessly as a shadow"--perhaps vanished from her life, as he had said! She did not know what she felt, she would fain have relieved her stupor by tears, but she dared not weep--why should she? Everything was proceeding exactly as she wished. True, she had been harsh, too severe and harsh, and words had been uttered by both which neither could forgive the other! Yet it was to be expected that the bond between them would not be sundered without a storm--why was her heart so heavy, as if some misfortune had happened--greater than aught which could befall her. Tears! What would the duke think? It would be an injustice to him. And it was not true that she felt anything; she had no emotion whatever, neither for the vanished man nor for the duke! Honor--honor was the only thing which could still be saved! But--his sudden silence when she mentioned her betrothal to the duke--his going thus, without a farewell--without a word! He despised her--she was no longer worthy of him. That was the cause of his sudden calmness. There was a crushing grandeur and dignity in this calmness after the outbursts of fierce despair. The latter expressed a conflict, the former a victory--andshewas vanquished, hers was the shame, the pangs of conscience, and a strange, inexplicable grief.
So she sat pondering all night long, always imagining that she had seen what she had not witnessed, the last look he had fixed upon her, and then--his noiseless walk through the room. It seemed as though time had stopped at that moment, and she was compelled, all through the night, to experience thatoneinstant!
Some one tapped lightly on the door, and the maid entered with a haggard face. "I only wanted to ask," she said, in a weary, faint tone, "whether I might go to bed a little while. I have waited all night long for Your Highness to ring--"
"Why, have you been waiting for me?" said the countess, rising slowly from the sofa. "I did not know it was so late. What time is it?"
"Nearly six o'clock. But Your Highness looks so pale! Will you not permit me to put you to bed?"
"Yes, my good Nannie, take me to my bedroom. I cannot walk, my feet are numb."
"You should lie down at once and try to get warm. You are as cold as ice!" And the maid, really alarmed by the helplessness of her usually haughty mistress, helped the drooping figure to her room.
The countess allowed herself to be undressed without resistance, sitting on the edge of the bed as if paralysed and waiting for the maid to lift her in. "I thank you," she said in a more gentle tone than the woman had ever heard from her lips, as the maid voluntarily rubbed the soles of her feet. Her head instantly sank upon the pillows, which bore a large embroidered monogram, surmounted by a coronet. When her feet at last grew warm, she seemed to fall asleep, and the maid left the room. But Madeleine von Wildenau was not asleep, she was merely exhausted, and, while her body rested, she constantly beheldoneimage, feltonegrief.
The maid had determined not to rouse her mistress, and left her undisturbed.
At last, late in the morning, the weary woman sank into an uneasy slumber, whence she did not wake until the sun was high in the heavens.
When she opened her eyes, she felt as if she was paralysed in every limb, but attributed this to the terrible impressions of the previous day, which would have shaken even the strongest nature.
She rang the bell for the maid and rose. She walked slowly, it is true, and with great effort--but shedidwalk. After she had been dressed and her breakfast was served she wrote:
"The footman Franz is dismissed for rude treatment of the steward Freyer, and is not to appear in my presence again. The intendant is to settle the matter of wages.
"Countess Wildenau."
Another servant now brought in a letter on a silver tray.
The countess' hand trembled as she took it--the envelope was one of those commonly used by Freyer, but the writing was not his.
"Is any one waiting for an answer?" she asked in a hollow tone.
"No, Your Highness, it was brought by a Griess woodcutter."
The countess opened the letter--it was from the maid-servant at the hunting castle, and contained only the news that the steward had left suddenly and the servants did not know what to do.
The countess sat motionless for a moment unable to utter a word. Everything seemed whirling around her in a dizzy circle, she saw nothing save dimly, as if through a veil, the servant clearing away the breakfast.
"Let old Martin put the horses in the carriage," she said, hoarsely, at last.
How the minutes passed before she entered it--how it was possible for her to assume, in the presence of the maid, the quiet bearing of the mistress of the estate, who "must see that things were going on right," she did not know. Now she sat with compressed lips, holding her breath that she might seem calm in her own eyes. What will she find on the height? Two graves of the past, and the empty abode of a former happiness. She fancied that a dark wing brushed by the carriage window, as if the death angel were flying by with the cup of wormwood of which Freyer had once spoken!
She had a horror of the deserted house, the spectres of solitude and grief, which the vanished man might have left behind. When a house is dead, it must be closed by the last survivor, and this is always a sorrowful task. But if he himself has driven love forth, he will cross the deserted threshold with a lagging step, for the ghost of his own act will stare at him everywhere from the silent rooms.
Evening had closed in, and the shadows of the mountain were already gathering around the house, from whose windows no loving eye greeted her. The carriage stopped. No one came to meet her--everything was lifeless and deserted. Her heart sank as she alighted.
"Martin--drive to the stable and see if you can find the maid servant," said the countess in a low tone, as if afraid of rousing some shape of horror. Martin did not utter a word, his good natured face was unusually grave as he drove off around the house in the direction of the stables.
The countess stood alone before the locked door. The evening wind swept through the trees and shook the boughs of the pines. A few broken branches swayed and nodded like crippled arms; they were the ones from which Freyer had taken the evergreen for the child's coffin. At that time they were stiff with ice, now the sap, softened by the Spring rain, was dripping from them. Did she understand what the boughs were trying to tell her? Were her cheeks wet by the rain or by tears? She did not know. She only felt unutterably deserted. She stood on the moss-grown steps, shut out from her own house, and no voice answered her call.
A cross towered above the tree-tops, it was on the steeple of the old chapel where they both lay--Josepha and the child. A bird of prey soared aloft from it and then vanished in the neighboring grove to shield its plumage from the rain. It had its nest there.
Now all was still again--as if dead, only the cloud rising above the wood poured its contents on the Spring earth. At last footsteps approached. It was the girl bringing the keys.
"I beg the countess' pardon--I did not expect Your Highness so late, I was in the stable unlocking the door," she said. Then she handed her the bunch of keys. "This one with the label is the key of the steward's room, he made me promise not to give it to anybody except the countess, if she should come again."
"Bring a light--it is growing dark," replied the countess, entering the sitting-room.
"I hope Your Highness will excuse it," said the girl. "Everything is still just as it was left after the funerals of Josepha and the child. Herr Freyer wouldn't allow me to clear anything away." She left the room to get a lamp. There lay the dry pine branches, there stood the crucifix with the candles, which had burned low in their sockets.Thisfor weeks had been his sole companionship. Poor, forsaken one! cried a voice in the countess' heart, and a shudder ran through her limbs as she saw on the sofa a black pall left from Josepha's funeral. It seemed as if it were Josepha herself lying there, as if the black form must rise at her entrance and approach threateningly. Horror seized her, and she hurried out to meet the girl who was coming with a light. The steward's room was one story higher, adjoining her own apartments. She went up the stairs with an uncertain tread, leaving the girl below. She needed no witness for what she expected to find there.
She thrust the key into the lock with a trembling hand and opened the door. Sorrowful duty! Wherever she turned in this house of mourning, she was under the ban of her own guilt. Wherever she entered one of the empty rooms, it seemed as if whispering, wailing spirits separated and crept into the corners--to watch until the moment came when they could rush forth as an avenging army.
At her entrance the movement was communicated through all the boards of the old floor until it really seemed as if viewless feet were walking by her side. For a moment she stood still, holding her breath--she had never before noticed this effect of her own steps, she had never been herealone. Her sleeping-room was beside her husband's--the door stood open--he must have been in there to bid farewell before going away. She moved hesitatingly a few steps forward and cast a timid glance within. The two beds, standing side by side, looked like two coffins. She felt as if she beheld her own corpse lying there--the corpse of the former Countess Wildenau, Freyer's wife. The woman standing here now was a different person--and her murderess! Yet she grieved for her and still felt her griefs and her death-struggle. She hastily closed and bolted the door--as if the dead woman within might come out and call her to an account.
Then she turned her dragging steps toward Freyer's writing-desk, for that is always the tabernacle where a lonely soul conceals its secrets. And--there lay a large envelope bearing the address: "To the Countess Wildenau. To be opened by her own hands!"
She placed the lamp on the table, and sat down to read. She no longer dreaded the ghosts of her own acts--hewas with her and though he had raged yesterday in the madness of his anguish--he would protect her!
She opened the envelope. Two papers fell into her hands. Her marriage certificate and a paper in Freyer's writing. The lamp burned unsteadily and smoked, or were her eyes dim? Now she no longer saw the mistakes in writing, now she saw between the clumsy characters a noble, grieving soul which had gazed at her yesterday from a pair of dark eyes--for the last time! Clasping her hands over the sheet, she leaned her head upon them like a penitent Magdalene upon the gospel. It was to her also a gospel--of pain and love. It ran as follows:
"Countess:
"I bid you an affectionate farewell, and enclose the marriage certificate, that you may have no fear of my causing you any annoyance by it--
"Everything else which I owe to your kindness I restore, as I can make no farther use of it. I am sincerely sorry that you were disappointed in me--I told you that I was not He whom I personated, but a poor, plain man, but you would not believe it, and made the experiment with me. It was a great misfortune for both. For you can never be happy, on account of the sin you wish to commit against me. I will pray God to release you from me--in a way which will spare you from taking this heavy sin upon you--but I have still one act of penance to perform toward my home, to which I have been faithless, that it may still forgive me in this life. I hear that the Passion Play cannot be performed in Ammergau next summer, because there is no Christus--that would be terrible for our poor parish! I will try whether I can help them out of the difficulty if they will receive me and not repulse me as befits the renegade." (Here the writing was blurred by tears) "Only wait, for the welfare of your own soul, until the performances are over, and I have done my duty to the community. Then God will be merciful and open a way for us all.
"Your grateful
"Joseph Freyer.
"Postscript:--If it is possible, forgive me for all I did to offend you yesterday."
There, in brief, untutored words was depicted the martyrdom of a soul, which had passed through the school of suffering to the utmost perfection! The most eloquent, polished description of his feelings would have had less power to touch the countess' heart than these simple, trite expressions--she herself could not have explained why it was the helplessness of the uncultured man who had trusted to her generosity, which spoke from these lines with an unconscious reproach, which pierced deeper than any complaint. And she had no answer to this reproach, save the tears which now flowed constantly from her eyes.
Laying her head upon the page, she wept--at last wept.
She remained long in this attitude. A sorrowful peace surrounded her, nothing stirred within or without, the spirits seemed reconciled by what they now beheld. The dead Countess Wildenau in the next room had risen noiselessly, she was no longer there! She was flying far--far beyond the mountains--seeking--seeking the lost husband, the poor, innocent husband, who had resigned for her sake all that constitutes human happiness and human dignity, anxious for one thing only, her deliverance from what, in his childlike view of religion, he could not fail to consider a heavy, unforgivable sin! She was flying through a broad portal in the air--it was the rainbow formed of the tears of love shed by sundered human hearts for thousands of years. Even so looked the rainbow, which had arched above her head when she stood on the peak with the royal son of the mountains, high above the embers of the forest, through which he had borne her, ruling the flames. They had spared him--butshehad had no pity--they had crouched at his feet like fiery lions before their tamer, but the woman for whom he had fought trampled on him. Yet above them arched the rainbow, the symbol of peace and reconciliation, and underthisshe had made the oath which she now intended to break. The dead Countess Wildenau, however, saw the gleaming bow again, and was soaring through it to her husband, for she had no further knowledge of earthly things, she knew only the old, long denied, all-conquering love!
Suddenly the clock on the writing-table began to strike, the penitent dreamer started. It was striking nine. The clock was still going--he had wound it. It was a gift from her. He had left all her gifts, he wrote. That would be terrible. Surely he had not gone without any means? The key of the writing-table was in the lock. She opened the drawer. There lay all his papers, books, the rest of the housekeeping money, and accounts, all in the most conscientious order, and beside them--oh, that she must see it--a little purse containing his savings and a savings-bank book, which she herself had once jestingly pressed upon him. The little book was wrapped in paper, on which was written: "To keep the graves of my dear ones in Countess Wildenau's chapel."
"Oh, you great, noble heart, which I never understood!" sobbed the guilty woman, restoring the little volume to its place.
But she could not rest, she must search on and on, she must know whether he had left her as a beggar? Against the wall beside the writing-table, stood a costly old armoire, richly ornamented, which had seen many generations of the Prankenbergs come and pass away. Madeleine von Wildenau turned the lock with an effort--there hung all his clothing, just as he had received it from her or purchased it with his own wages; nothing was missing save the poor little coat, hat and cane, with which he had left Ammergau with the owner of a fortune numbering millions. He had wandered forth again as poor as he had come.
Sinking on her knees, she buried her face, overwhelmed with grief and shame, in her clasped hands.
"Freyer, Freyer, I did not want this--not this!" Now the long repressed grief which she had inflicted upon herself burst forth unrestrained. Here she could shriek it out; here no one heard her. "Oh, that you should leave me thus--unreconciled, without a farewell, with an aching heart--not even protected from want! And I let you go without one kind word--I did not even return your last glance. Was it possible that I could do it?"
The old Prankenberg lion on the coat of arms on the armoire had doubtless seen many mourners scan the garments whose owners rested under the sod--but no one of all the women of that failing race had wept so bitterly over the contents of the armoire--as this last of her name.
The candle had burned low in the socket, a star glinting through the torn clouds shone through the uncurtained windows. Beyond the forest the first flashes of spring lightning darted to and fro.
Madeleine von Wildenau rose and stood for a while in the middle of the room, pondering. What did she want here? She had nothing more to find in the empty house. The dead Countess Wildenau was once more sleeping in the adjoining room, and the living one no longer belonged to herself. Was it, could it be true, that she had thrust out the peaceful inmate of this house? Thrust him forever from the modest home she had established for him? "Husband, father of my child, where are you?" No answer! He was no longer hers! He had risen from the humiliation she inflicted upon him, he had stripped off the robe of servitude, and gone forth, scorning her and all else--a poor but free man!
She must return to the slavery of her own guilt and of prosaic existence, while he went farther and farther away, like a vanishing star. She felt that her strength was failing, she must go, or she would sink dying in this place of woe--alone without aid or care.
She folded the marriage certificate and Freyer's letter together, and without another glance around the room--the ghost of her awakened conscience was stirring again, she took the dying candle and hurried down. The steps again creaked behind her, as though some one was following her downstairs. She had ordered the carriage at nine, it must have been waiting a long time. Her foot faltered at the door of the sitting-room, but she passed on--it was impossible for her to enter it again--she called--but the maid-servant had gone to her work in the stables--nothing save her own trembling voice echoed back through the passages. She went out. The carriage was standing at the side of the house. The rain had ceased, the forest was slumbering and all the creatures which animated it by day with it.
The countess locked the door. "Now interweave your boughs and shut it in!" she said to the briers and pines which stood closely around it. "Spread out your branches and compass it with an impenetrable hedge that no one may find it. The Sleeping Beauty who slumbers here--nothing must ever rouse!"