The large room at the Warnow Inn, filled with the smoke of bad tobacco and the odour of stale beer and spirits, was crowded with the noisy waggoners who had arrived that morning, and who had been joined in the course of the afternoon by two or three drovers, who also thought it pleasanter to remain here. The landlord stood near, snuffing the tallow-candles and bawling even louder than his guests, for he must be the best judge whether a railway from Golm direct by Wissow Head to Ahlbeck, without passing by Warnow, were a folly or not. And the Count, who had ridden in that afternoon, would pull a long face when he saw what havoc had been made; but if a man wouldn't hear reason anyhow, he must suffer for it. There were terrible doings at Ahlbeck, he heard, and murder and fighting too; it served the Ahlbeck people well right, they had been bragging enough lately about their railway station, and their harbour, and their fine hotels; they might draw in their horns again now!
The landlord was so loud and eager in his talk, that he never noticed his wife come in and take the keys of the best rooms upstairs from the board on the door, while the maid took the two brass candlesticks from the cupboard, into which she put candles, and then lighted them and ran after her mistress. He only turned round when some one touched him on the shoulder and asked where he could put up his horses, the ostler said there was no more room.
"No more there is," said the landlord; "where do you come from?"
"From Neuenfähr; the gentlefolks I brought are upstairs now."
"Who are they?" asked the landlord. "Don't know; a young gentleman and a young lady; something out of the common I should think. I couldn't drive quick enough for 'em; but how's a man to drive fast in this weather? We came a foot's pace. Two horses or one made no difference. A one-horse carriage that was behind us might easily have got ahead. It must have been a Warnow trap, it turned to the right as we came to the village."
"Jochen Katzenow," said the landlord, "was at Neuenfähr this morning; he's got a devil of a horse! Well, come along; we'll see what can be done; but I don't think we can manage it."
The Neuenfähr man followed the landlord into the hall, where they encountered the gentleman whom he had brought, who took the landlord on one side and spoke to him in an under-tone.
"They won't have done in a hurry," thought the driver, and so went out, unharnessed his horses, and, leaving the carriage standing for the time, led them under the overhanging roof of a barn, where they would be sheltered at any rate from the worst of the storm. He had just spread some horse-cloths over the smoking animals when the gentleman left the house and came up to him.
"I shall probably not remain long here," said the gentleman; "perhaps not more than an hour, and then shall continue our journey."
"Where to, sir?"
"To Prora, or back to Neuenfähr; I do not know yet."
"It can't be done, sir."
"Why not?"
"The horses couldn't do it."
"I know better what horses can do; I will give you my orders by-and-by."
The Neuenfähr man was irritated at the imperious tone in which the gentleman spoke to him, but he did not venture to contradict him. The gentleman, who now wore a greatcoat with metal buttons--during the drive he had worn a plain overcoat--turned up the collar as he passed round the shed towards the street. The light from the tap-room fell full upon his face.
"Aha!" said the Neuenfähr man; "I thought as much. One doesn't forget these things, however long one has been in the reserve. Where the devil is the Lieutenant going to?"
Ottomar had obtained full directions from the landlord, and indeed the road which led straight down through the village could not be mistaken. He walked slowly, and often stood still; sometimes because the storm which met him full would not allow him to continue, and sometimes because he had to try and recollect what he wanted to do at the castle. His head was confused with the long drive in an open carriage through this fearful storm, and his heart felt dead within him; he felt as if he had not energy left to tell the villain to his face that he was a villain. Besides, it ought to be, it must be done in his aunt's presence, if the scoundrel were not to be able to deny everything afterwards, and entangle his aunt again in his web of lies as he had entangled them all. Or was it all an arranged plot between him and his aunt! It looked suspicious that she should have left the castle so early to-day, when he must have been expected to come to call the villain to account. She had gone with Elsa, it was true; but might not the affection which she seemed to bestow upon Elsa--in secret, like all the rest of these dark mysteries--be affection after the pattern of Giraldi's? Perhaps his aunt had undertaken to allure and befool Elsa as Giraldi had done by him; and they had both fallen into the snare, and the crafty fowlers were laughing at their foolish prey. Poor Elsa! who had also no doubt put her faith in these fair promises, and now would have to try how she could get on as the wife of a Superintendent of Pilots with a few hundred thalers, and her home in that miserable fishing hamlet. "That was not what had been looked forward to for her, poor Elsa! That was to have been our inheritance, the castle by the sea, as we called it when we used to lay plans for our future; we were to live there together, you in one wing and I in the other; and when you married the prince and I the princess we were to draw lots which should have it to themselves; we could not continue together because of all the suite.
"And now, my dearest and best of sisters, you are far from me, waiting for your lover who is out in the storm, perhaps, to save the precious lives of a few herring-fishers; and I----"
At the spot where the road, leaving behind it the first houses in the village, turned downwards through a narrow gorge which led to the hollow whence it again began to rise towards the castle, he sat down upon a stone which projected from the extreme edge of the gorge towards the hollow, and was only held in its hazardous position by the roots of a magnificent fir-tree, which must once have stood much farther from the edge, and which now creaked and groaned as it bent backwards under the pressure of the gale, as if trying to avoid falling into the depths.
"There is no help for either of us," said Ottomar, "it has all crumbled away bit by bit; and we are hanging with our roots in the air. The stone that would gladly have held us up cannot do it; rather the reverse. And if there come one great storm, such as this, we must both fall. I wish to God we lay there, and that you would fall upon my head and kill me, and that the flood would come and wash us out to sea, and no one should know how we came to our end."
And she? She, whom he had just left in the miserable, dreary inn-room, she, whose kisses he still felt upon his lips, and who, as he went out at the door--thinking, no doubt, that he could not see her--threw herself upon the sofa, and leaning her head upon the back covered her face with her hands, weeping he was certain. For what? for her miserable fate that bound her to a man weaker than herself. She was strong, she would endure it all, come what would. But what could come for her? She had repeated to him a hundred times on the road, that he was not to trouble himself any more about that miserable money; that her father was far too proud to refuse her entreaty, the first she had made to him since she could remember, the last that she would ever make to him. And she had written to her father from Neuenfähr, where they had had to wait half an hour for the carriage. "The thing is done," she had said, as she stroked his hair from his forehead as a mother might have done to her boy, who had been playing truant from school.
She was the stronger; but then what did she lose? her father?--she seemed never to have really loved him; her comfortable life in her beautiful luxurious home?--what does a girl know of the things that make up her life!--her art? that she could carry with her everywhere; had she not said with a smile, "It will support us both." Of course! she would have to support him now, the disgraced soldier!
The fir-tree, against which he leaned, creaked and groaned like some tormented creature; Ottomar could feel how the roots heaved and twisted, and the soil showered down the steep gorge, while in the branches the wind whistled and howled and crackled like grape-shot or musketry fire, and from the sea came a roar and thunder as if from an endless line of batteries, whose fire was incessantly kept up.
"It would have been so simple then," said Ottomar; "my father would have paid my few debts and would have been proud of me, instead of sending me a pistol now, as if I did not know as well as he that it is all over for Ottomar von Werben; and Elsa would have often and lovingly talked of her brother, who fell at Vionville. Dear Elsa, how I should like to see her once more!"
He had learned from the landlord that the carriage with the two ladies, if they returned this evening as the driver had told him, must pass this way, it being the only road still practicable; the shorter road through the lower ground was no longer passable. Ottomar wondered what the man meant by the lower ground. The situation was so entirely different from what he had heard described; the sea seemed to be breaking immediately behind the castle, though in the wet, grey mist which was driving in his face he could no longer distinguish individual objects. The castle itself, which must surely be close under his feet, seemed to be a mile off; he could hardly have seen it sometimes, if lights had not been constantly flickering in the windows. In the indistinct masses of building to the left of the castle, which must belong to the farm, lights also glimmered occasionally, shifting their places as if people were running about with lanterns; and once or twice he fancied that he heard men's voices and the lowing of cattle. It might be all a delusion of his senses, which were beginning to fail him, as he sat there unsheltered from the raging storm which was freezing the very marrow of his bones. He must go on, if he were not to die here like a straggler behind a hedge on the roadside.
And yet he remained; but through his bewildered brain wilder and more confused images chased each other. There was a Christmas-tree with lighted candles, and he and Elsa came to the door hand-in-hand, and their father and mother stood at the table, on which there were dolls for Elsa, and helmet and sword and sabretache for him, and he threw himself joyfully into his father's arms, who lifted him high in the air and kissed him. Then the Christmas-tree changed into a lofty pine, and the crest of the pine was a blazing chandelier, under which he was dancing with Carla, in defiance of the Count, who looked on with furious glances, while the double bass boomed, and the violins squeaked, and the dancing couples whirled in and out: Tettritz with Emilie von Fischbach, that tall Wartenberg with little Fräulein von Strummin. Then it was a bivouac fire with the trumpets sounding to the attack at Vionville, against the batteries which thundered in return, and he called laughingly to Tettritz and Wartenberg, "Now, gentlemen, a bullet through the heart, or the cross on the breast!" and set spurs to his charger, which dashed straight forward with a wild neigh. Ottomar started to his feet and looked round him in bewilderment. Where was he? at his feet there foamed and hissed a broad eddying stream, and now he heard distinctly a horse neighing--close by him--in the hollow way, at the edge of which he stood, and below him was a carriage which was being backed by the resisting horses against the bank.
With one spring he was behind the carriage and helping the coachman to turn the snorting horses; there was just room left.
"Where are the ladies!"
He had seen that the carriage was empty.
"They got out--above--in such a hurry, by the causeway in the meadows to the park. Oh, Lord! oh, Lord! if only they can get across it! Lord have mercy upon us!"
A wave of the stream which had broken through between the hill and the castle, and which the coachman had nearly driven into, poured into the hollow way, and eddied up under the horses' feet, who could no longer be restrained but dashed up the road, the coachman running by them, having fortunately caught up the reins, and doing his best to stop them.
Ottomar had only understood so much from the coachman's confused words, made almost unintelligible by the storm, as to gather that Elsa was in danger. What was this causeway? Where was it? He ran after the coachman, calling and shouting to him, but the man did not hear.
As Giraldi moved with restless steps up and down the deserted rooms of the castle, there was added to the grey spectres of fear and anxiety which lurked around and followed him, another, that as the twilight deepened grew and grew, and seemed to come nearer and nearer with every movement of the minute-hand of the watch that he never put down. Not merely seemed. He could see it advancing from the windows which looked towards the sea, from the roof of the round tower to which he had made the old servant show him the way; he could see the tide advancing like storming columns which, step by step, slowly but irresistibly, gained ground, following up the skirmishers, which as soon as the main body reached them were swallowed up in it. Over there, where an hour ago he had seen a narrow line of water running through the lower ground--it was the brook, the old servant said--the foaming waves of a broad gulf were now tossing; there, straight before him, where, to right and left of the little farmyard, he had seen half an hour before dark masses of water in the hollows which he had at first taken for large ponds, was a great lake out of which the farm appeared like a little island. And ten minutes later the foaming lake had joined the gulf, and if this went on for another half hour we should have the flood up here, and not a mouse could creep out of house or courtyard--so said Herr Damberg.
This was said in the courtyard itself. Giraldi had seen the farmer there from the window of the dining-room, and had gone out to question the man.
"For you see," said Herr Damberg, "there is rising ground certainly between us and Pölitz's farm, which reaches from the Golmberg almost up to the brook right across the hollow; but behind it--towards us--the ground sinks again pretty rapidly, to the height opposite where the village stands, and between which and us again is the lowest part of all. If the flood rises above that higher ground which has checked it as yet the hollow will be filled to the brim like a basin; and I shall think myself lucky if it does not get into my stables and barns, particularly those on the park side, for that will go too. It is very fortunate that the ladies are away; what could they do here? I told Frau von Wallbach too that she had better go up to the village, but she won't. My goodness! there goes another roof!"
The farmer rushed off to the endangered building, from whose thatched roof the gale had torn off whole bales of straw and whirled them like chaff over the courtyard. The terrified farm-servants came running up from all sides, while the farmer grumbled that they had better keep their wits about them now; what was to happen later if they had lost their senses already?
Giraldi looked at his watch, it wanted twenty minutes to six. François, who had returned half an hour before, had sworn that he was convinced that madame would start immediately after him. The road was not so bad as he had thought; they might very well be at the castle at six o'clock.
Giraldi went into the house to question François once more. François was not to be found; some one had seen him a short time before go through the garden-door towards the park, with a cloak round him.
"The fellow is prudent," said Giraldi to himself; "he has got his money and takes himself off. I am in the same position, I ought to follow his wise example."
He must come to a decision; if Valerie came too late, or not at all, he would find himself in about half an hour face to face with the General, who must have heard this morning at any rate--perhaps from Ottomar himself--of the affair of the bills, and, his suspicions once aroused, would certainly make inquiries, and learn from the banker, to whom he would of course apply first, that the Warnow money had been withdrawn, from the bank. Elsa's telegram too! All these things coming together would rouse the most sluggish of men, how much more one so active and energetic! And yet everything was not lost, everything might still be won, was won already, if Valerie were on his side; the half million of mortgage money, which he had withdrawn from Lübbener's yesterday, belonged to her by rights; and for himself, without overstepping by one hair's breadth the powers given him by the other trustees, he could withdraw the half million of purchase-money from Haselow, and keep it in his desk, or carry it on his person if he did not think it secure elsewhere; but Valerie must give her consent--she must, she must, she must!
He cried it aloud, stamping his foot on the wet ground, while in the branches of the trees overhead the wind whistled and howled, and louder and louder grew the roar of the sea breaking against the barrier which it only needed to surmount to fill the hollow like a basin. Even the park would be swept away then.
He hardly knew why he had entered the park; perhaps to look for François, perhaps because he had been told that from the balcony of the summer-house in the south corner a long stretch of the road to Wissow over the hills could be seen. If indeed in the darkness, which seemed deepening at every moment, anything could be seen at a distance! And where was this south corner? As if between the brambles of these rustling hedges, and in the gloom of these creaking boughs, a man could find his way as one would between the laurel bushes and the pines of the Monte Pincio!
In this howling northern wilderness the image of the Eternal City stood suddenly before his mind, as he had seen it that night when, for the first time after years of separation, he saw Valerie again--by no effort of his, against all expectation or hope--at a fête given by the French Embassy in the enchanted gardens of the Villa Medici. There, when a jealous husband had carried away his beautiful wife only too soon, he himself had left the festive crowd, and ascended the stone steps in the shade of the evergreen oaks till the lights of the festival below him had been lost and the sounds had died away; there, in the darkness and silence which surrounded him, he had mused as he went yet farther and higher, and reached the Belvedere, where his beloved Rome, bathed in moonshine, lay at his feet; there he had sworn by St. Peter's, on whose gigantic dome streams of soft golden light were pouring down from the blue heavens, that the love of this fair northern woman should be the golden stepping-stone to his power, which he, the layman, in the service of St. Peter's, and yet free--free as an eagle here above the world--would extend over the whole earth. It had taken him longer than he had then hoped--much too long; he had held fast to his once formed plans with too obstinate tenacity; he might have attained more brilliant results, quicker and more surely, by other ways such as had a thousand times offered themselves; but it was the star of his fate which he had followed, in which he had always trusted, and would trust still when--at the last moment--everything seemed to conspire against him to snatch his prey from him, the fruit of the arduous labour of so many years, the noble fortune which he carried about him close to his body, as if it were a part of himself, as it was indeed a part of his life which he would give up only with that life.
He looked at his watch--he could no longer distinguish the numbers on the dial-plate; he sounded the repeater--he could not hear the faint stroke through the roaring of the storm which crashed and howled around him. He would count five minutes more; if she did not come then--so be it!
And there was the summer-house for which he had been looking so long, a wooden erection on four slender columns, to which a narrow steep staircase led up, at the extreme edge of the park, some ten or twelve feet above the enclosing hedge, high enough as he could see from the balcony to overlook the ground outside between the park and the hill; a long trough-shaped bit of ground, some fifty or a hundred yards broad, through which, from the hill to the park, a dark winding causeway led, formed apparently of large stones arranged at even distances to facilitate the crossing of the low-lying meadow-land.
He examined the position narrowly. In the meadow-land below he could see larger and smaller pools of what must be water already accumulated there; but the stone pathway was decidedly passable. In the comparative lightness of his post of observation he could see his watch now; it wanted ten minutes to six, and there was not a moment to be lost. He would go back through the park to the castle and find out if Valerie had arrived, or perhaps the General. Then, if necessary, back through the park over the causeway to the village; he would hunt up a carriage of some sort, and then--to the devil with this miserable country of barbarians, he would leave it for ever!
He glanced once again over the hills without, along whose edge he ought to have seen the carriage coming. Folly! who could have distinguished anything there now, when over all a dark veil had spread itself which was growing more dense at every moment! Even the stepping-stones in the meadow were hardly visible, he should have trouble in finding them; the dark line waved up and down, the stones seemed in movement. Something was really moving there--that was not the stones. There were people there--women--two--coming across the stones--she, no doubt, with that detested girl--no matter! she was coming, obedient as ever! to tell him that she would obey him in future as she had always obeyed him! What else should she come for? For fear of him? For love of her newly-found son? no matter!--no matter!--she was coming!
He would not need now to steal away like a thief with the stolen treasure; he might lift his head proudly, he who always and everywhere was master of the position which his ruling spirit had created. He rushed down the steep steps, through the beech avenue, where it was almost completely dark, to the little door which he had noticed before at the entrance to the avenue, and at which he supposed the causeway must end. And at the moment when with a powerful effort he shook the locked or warped door from its rusty hinges, they stood without.
Valerie started back with a shudder, as she so suddenly saw before her the terrible man, who seemed to belong to the darkness and the raging elements. But he had already caught her hand and drawn her into the path, while Elsa, at her aunt's entreating "Let me be alone with him!" unwillingly obeyed her, and remained standing at the shattered door, following with her keen eyes their retreating figures through the dark pathway, ready and determined to hasten to the poor woman's assistance; straining her ear through the rustling and crackling of the bushes, and the roaring and creaking of the trees, and the raging and howling all round her, for any cry for help.
She stood there gazing, listening--for some fearful minutes, of which she could have counted each second by the beating of her heart. Now she could see them both walking quickly up and down at the lower end of the path; she thought she could catch a few broken words in Italian--an entreating "Il nostro figlio" from him--a passionate "Giammai! giammai!" from her. Then again the wild raving of the storm and the tide drowned every sound; the figures vanished into the darkness. She could bear her anxiety no longer, she hurried down the path--past something that glided by her--past him, the traitor! the murderer!
She shrieked it aloud, "Traitor! murderer!" The wild scream sounded no louder than an infant's cry. She rushed down the path to the summer-house, crying: "Aunt! aunt!" though she expected to find nothing but a dead body. There--at the foot of the stairs--was her aunt, her dear aunt!
She crouched on the lower steps of the staircase, and lifted upon her knees the fallen form, from whose icy forehead a warm stream trickled. But she still lived! she had attempted to press with her slender fingers the hand which had grasped hers; and now, now! thank heaven! there came a few low words, which Elsa, bending low over her, tried to catch.
"Do not be alarmed! It is nothing--a fall against the railing as he flung, me from him; free--Elsa, free!--free!"
Her head sank again on Elsa's bosom, but her heart still beat; it was only a swoon, the result of the terror and loss of blood; she tried to rise and sank back again.
Elsa did not lose her courage; as she bound up the wounded forehead with her own and her aunt's handkerchief and a strip torn from her dress--she had had plenty of practice in the hospitals during the war--she considered whether she should try to carry the slender figure to the castle, or whether it would be better to hasten home alone and procure assistance. She would lose a great deal of time either way; but in the first case she would remain with the sufferer, and need not leave her alone in this terrible situation, without, perhaps, being able to make her understand that it was necessary to leave her.
Still she decided upon the second alternative as the safer. The bandage was arranged; she was just about to raise her aunt gently from her lap and arrange her as comfortable a couch as possible, when through the bushes, through the hedges, between the trees, there came upon her what seemed like thousands and thousands of serpents, whose hissing sounded even through the howling of the storm, with a strange and horrible noise that made Elsa's blood run chill. For a moment she listened breathlessly, and then with a wild shriek started to her feet, snatching up her aunt, and with the strength of despair dragging her up the steps to save the helpless woman and herself from the flood which had broken over the park. She had hardly reached the last step before the water was pouring through the lower ones, and seeming to be everywhere at once, foaming and roaring through the hedge which ran from the summer-house to the castle, as if over a weir, rushing into the hollow, which was no longer a valley but the bed of a broad stream whose waters, pouring in from either side, met with a crash like thunder, throwing up jets of water to the balcony, over the edge of which Elsa leant with a shudder.
A bench ran round the inner side of the balcony. Elsa laid her aunt here, who was falling from one fainting fit into another, after wrapping her up as warmly as possible, for the greater part with her own clothes.
And there she sat, with the poor thing's head again in her lap, as the storm howled and the flood roared around her, and shook the frail slender wooden edifice in every joint of its worm-eaten planks, praying that God would send some one to them--the only man who could save them in their fearful need.
As Ottomar's steps died away upon the creaking stairs and across the hall, Ferdinanda sprang up, and wringing her hands, paced two or three times up and down the little room; then she threw herself down again as Ottomar had last seen her--her face in her hands, her head leaning against the back of the sofa. But she had not cried then, neither did she cry now; she had no tears to shed; she had no hope left, no wish save one--to die for him since she could not live for him, since her life could only be a burden and a torment to him. Why had she not believed his brother officer, with the clear brow and keen, pitiful eyes, who had said to her:
"You deceive yourself, my dear young lady! Your flight with Ottomar is no deliverance for him from his difficulties, but another complication, and that the most fatal. The worst point for Ottomar is the terrible wound to his honour as an officer. Appearances at least must be saved here, and this is still possible according to the arrangements I have made. At the best his life can only be half a life, one which I do not know how he will bear. I doubt even if he can bear it; but in such a case as this one may perhaps stifle one's better judgment. There can be no doubt, however, that if you now fly with him, and the circumstance becomes known--as it must be--there will be no longer any possibility for us, his friends, to save even appearances. That an officer should be forced to retire from the service on account of debts, that his betrothal should on this account be broken off, that he should even in his delicate position neglect to call to account the gossips and scandal-bearers--all this may occur, does occur unfortunately only too often. But at the same time, forgive me for saying so, the door is open wide for scandal. A man who at such a moment can think of anything but of saving what still is possible out of the shipwreck of his honour, or, if there is nothing left to save, of giving up with dignity perhaps even life itself--who instead of this drags down with him another person whom he professes to love, a stainless woman, a lady who has always been highly respected--that man has thrown away every claim to sympathy or fellow-feeling. Ottomar himself must see this sooner or later. This journey of his to Warnow is, in my eyes, absolute folly. What does he mean to do there? Call Giraldi to account? The Italian will answer, 'You are no child, you must have known what you were about.' Call out the Count? For what cause, when he travels with you? But let him go if he will, only alone! only not with you! I conjure you, not with you! Believe me, the love in whose power you trust to save Ottomar from all his difficulties will prove itself absolutely impotent, even worse; it will finally break down the remains of the strength which Ottomar might otherwise still possess. For his sake--if you will not think of yourself--do not go with him!"
Strange, when he had drawn her on one side at the last moment, while Ottomar and Bertalda in the next room were arranging a few last things, and spoken to her thus--hastily, yet so clearly--his words had passed by her like an empty sound; she had hardly known what he was speaking of; and now it all came back upon her memory word for word! It was all coming true already, word for word! All-powerful love! Good heavens, what a mockery! What answer had he had for the pictures of the future which she had painted for him in colours whose glow was drawn from her overflowing heart, but a sad, gloomy smile, or monosyllabic absent words, evidently only spoken because he must say something, while his spirit was weighed down with the burden of his thoughts about his angry father, his pitiful or scornful brother officers, and of the possibility of forcing a duel upon Herr von Wallbach or Count Golm. His very caresses when, with a heart full of unutterable fear, she put her arms round him--as a mother round her child whom she is carrying from the flames--his very caresses made her shiver as she thought, "He treats me like a love-sick girl, who must be humoured, like a mistress whom he has taken on his journey, and from whom he wishes to hide that he is weary of her before their first station is passed."
She! she! who had once dreamed that her love was an inexhaustible spring, and had blamed herself that she had been so chary with it, and had turned away her suitor from her door, had left him without in the barren wilderness of life to despair and perish without her! She who had been so proud! so proud, because she knew that she had boundless wealth to give; that her love was like the storm now raging without, throwing down all that was not stronger than itself--like the flood rushing by, destroying, devouring all that did not rise into the clouds!
That had been her fear all this time, that he too, even he, would never quite understand her; there would always remain a gaping breach between the real and the ideal, and she ought not therefore to sacrifice the ideal, however yearningly her heart might throb, however stormily the warm blood might rush through her veins. She had but this one best thing to lose, to be for ever after poorer than the poorest beggar, she for whom inexorable experience had once for all destroyed the fair dream of so many years--that of being an artist by the grace of God!
How she had fought! how she had struggled through so many weary days, so many wakeful nights passed in gloomy brooding, in writhing despair! days and nights whose terrors would long since have brought even her strength low, if his beloved, fascinating image had not flitted through her feverish morning dreams, alluring her on to other weary days, to other tortured nights.
It was no longer his image now, it was himself; no longer fascinating, but still beloved as ever!
And oh, how dearly loved! more than ever! immeasurably more in his helpless misery than in his brighter days.
If she could only help him! For herself she had no wish, no desires; God was her witness! And if to-night she lay in his arms, and he in hers, she could think of it without one more heart-beat, without for a moment losing the despairing thought that weighed down her heart: "He will breathe no new strength, no new life from my kisses! He will rise from his bridal couch a weary, broken-down man!" How could she maintain strength and courage to live--no longer for herself alone--for both of them now?
If not strength and courage to live, then at least to die!
If she could die for him! could say to him with her dying lips: "See, death is bliss and joy to me, if I can hope that from this hour you will despise life, and because you despise it, will live a noble and beautiful life, like one who lives only that he may die nobly and gloriously!"
But to his weak soul even this would be no spur, no check, only one more dark shadow amongst all the dark shadows that had fallen upon his path; and upon that gloomy path he would wander feebly on, inactive, inglorious, to an early and an inglorious grave! Thus she lay, sunk in the depth of her grief, heedless of the howling of the storm, which perpetually shook the house from roof to cellar; deaf to the noisy uproar of the drunken guests just under her room, hardly raising her head as her landlady now came in. The landlady came to ask her ladyship--as the gentlefolks must mean to spend the night here now--how she would like to have the beds arranged in the next room; but at the strange expression of the beautiful pale face, which raised itself from the sofa and looked at her so oddly, the question died away on the tip of her tongue, and she only succeeded in bringing out her second question: whether she should make a cup of tea for her ladyship? Her ladyship did not seem to understand the question; at any rate she did not answer, and the landlady thought to herself, "She will ring if she wants anything," and went into the bedroom with the candle which she had in her hand, half closing the door--which always took several efforts to shut it--so as not to disturb her ladyship, and then took the candle to the windows, to see if they were properly fastened. One of them was not, the upper bolt had stuck fast, and as she pulled up the lower one, the wind blowing through the narrow opening put the candle out, which she had set upon the window-sill. "I can find my way, however," thought the landlady, and turned in the dim light towards the beds, but stopped as she came near the door, and heard the lady give a faint cry. "Good gracious!" thought the landlady, "it is almost worse with these fine people than it is with us." For the gentleman, who had come in again, had begun to speak at once, not loudly but evidently warmly. "What could be the matter between the two young people?" thought the landlady, and glided on tiptoe to the door. But she could understand nothing, whether of the many words spoken by the gentleman, or the few interposed by the lady; and then it struck the landlady that it was not the gentleman's clear voice, and that they were neither of them speaking German; and she put her eye to the keyhole, and to her astonishment and terror saw an absolutely strange man standing by the lady in the next room, who as she looked let his brown cloak fall from his shoulders without noticing it, while he violently gesticulated with both arms, and talked faster, and louder and louder, in his incomprehensible jargon--like a madman, thought the terrified landlady.
"I will not turn back," cried Antonio, "after I have run almost all the way like a dog after his owner who has been carried away by robbers, and the rest of the way have been lying crouched in the straw in a cart like a beast led to slaughter. I will no longer be a dog, I will no longer suffer worse than a beast. I know all now--all--all! how he was faithless to you, the dishonourable coward, that he might go to another, and again from her to you, and lay at your door whimpering for mercy while they settled it for him--his mistress and that accursed Giraldi, whose neck I will wring when and wherever I meet him again, so surely as my name is Antonio Michele! I know all--all--all! And that you will give your fair self to him, as you have given him your soul already!"
The miserable man could not understand the half-scornful, half-melancholy smile which curled the beautiful girl's proud lips.
"Do not laugh!" he shrieked, "or I will kill you!" And then, as she half rose, not from fear, but to repel the maniac: "Forgive me! oh, forgive me! I kill you!--you who are my all, the light and joy of my life; for whom I would let myself be torn in pieces, limb from limb! for whom I would give every drop of my heart's blood, if you would only allow me to kiss the hem of your garment, to kiss the ground upon which you have trod! How often--how often have I done it without your knowledge--in your studio, the spot where your fair foot has stood, the tool which your dear hand has touched! I ask for so little; I will wait for years--as I have waited for years--and will never weary of serving you, of worshipping you, like the blessed Madonna, till the day comes when you will listen to my prayers!"
He had fallen on his knees in the place where he stood, his wild eyes, his quivering hands raised to her.
"Rise!" said she. "You do not know what you say, nor to whom you say it. I can give you nothing; I have nothing to give. I am so poor, so poor--far poorer than you!"
She was wandering about the little room and wringing her hands, passing by the kneeling man, who, as her dress touched his glowing face, sprang to his feet as though moved by an electric shock.
"I am not poor," he cried; "I am the son of a prince; and more than a prince--I am Michael Angelo; and a greater than Michael Angelo! I see them coming in moving crowds, singing hymns in praise of the immortal Antonio; bearing flowers, twining garlands, to adorn and encircle the wonderful creations of the divine Antonio! Do you hear? do you hear! There! there!"
From the broad village street there rose up the confused, tumultuous cry of the people, who had been alarmed at the news of the advancing flood, and were hastening to the scene of the catastrophe; from the tower of the neighbouring church there rang out, broken by the storm, the clang of the bells, now threateningly near, and again in trembling distance.
"Do you hear!" cried the maniac. "Do you hear?"
He stood with outstretched arm, smiling; his eyes, lighted with joy and triumph, fixed upon Ferdinanda, who gazed in terror at him.
Suddenly the smile changed to a fearful grimace, his eyes glared with deadly hatred, his outstretched arm was withdrawn with a shudder, his hand convulsively clutched at his breast, as immediately under the window a voice rose, clear and commanding, above the raging of the storm and the shouts of the crowd:
"A rope, a strong rope--the longest that you have got! And thinner cord--as much as possible. There are some people there already! I shall be there before you!"
A hasty step, taking three or four stairs at once, came up the creaking staircase. The maniac laughed wildly.
The landlady, too, had heard the clear voice below, and the hasty step on the stairs. There would be an accident, for sure, if the gentleman came in now, when that strange, disagreeable man was with the lady! She burst into the room at the moment when the gentleman opened the door on the other side.
Uttering a howl of rage, and brandishing high his stiletto, Antonio rushed upon him. But Ferdinanda had thrown herself between them before Ottomar could cross the threshold, shielding her lover with outspread arms, offering her own bosom to the fatal thrust, and falling without a groan into Ottomar's arms, as the murderer fled past them in cowardly, mad flight at sight of the crime that he had never intended, and that had broken through the night of his insanity as if by a flash of lightning--fled down the stairs, through the crowd below, who had been summoned by the clang of the alarm-bell and the cries of terror of the hasty passers-by from the tap-room and all parts of the house, and who now drew back in terror from the stranger with the wild black hair, brandishing a knife in his hand--out into the village street, overthrowing all that came in his way in the confused, shrieking, shouting crowd without--out into the howling darkness! And "Murder, murder!" "Stop him!" "Stop the murderer!" rang through the house.
"Heavens and earth!" cried the Neuenfähr man, "I must go in here! One moment, sir!" and he ran into the house.
The gentleman who was just getting into the carriage drew back, and stamped his foot furiously.
"Is hell itself let loose against me?" he cried, and gnashed his teeth.
As he had made his way cautiously through the darkness a few minutes before to the inn, of which he had taken note as he drove through the village in the afternoon, and where he hoped to find some vehicle to convey him farther, he had met the Neuenfähr driver, who was just harnessing his horses again, for which the landlord, with the best of goodwill, could find no stable-room, at any rate not before a part of the outhouse was cleared out.
"The horses will catch cold," the man had said to himself; "the best thing after all will be to drive back."
He was still busying himself in the dark over the harness, which had got twisted, when some one who suddenly appeared beside him asked:
"Will you give me a lift, my man?"
"Where to, sir?"
"To Neuenfähr."
"What will you pay, sir?"
"Anything you like."
"Get in, sir!" said the Neuenfähr man, delighted to find that instead of taking his carriage back this long distance empty, he had found a passenger who would pay him anything he liked to ask. He would not take him for nothing, but he must see about this alarm of murder.
"He will not come back in a hurry," muttered the gentleman; "and I shall run the risk of meeting him again; it is almost a miracle that he did not see me."
He had been standing close to Ottomar as the latter gave his orders to the people, and, to give more authority to his words, mentioned his name, and that it was his aunt and sister who were in danger, and that there was not a moment to lose or it would be too late.
The stranger moved farther into the shadow of the barn before which the carriage stood. He would make sure of not being seen in any case. But just then the Neuenfähr man came back in a state of great excitement.
The young lady had been stabbed and killed, whom he had brought here with the young gentleman! Heavens and earth, if he had known that it was Herr von Werben! and that the beautiful young lady, his wife, would so soon be murdered by a foreign vagabond--the same no doubt whom he had seen hanging about in Neuenfähr, when he drew up at the inn by the bridge--a young fellow with black hair and black eyes; and he had noticed the black hair again as the fellow rushed out of the house--plainly--he could swear to it. The fellow might attack them on the road; he was not afraid for himself--he did not fear the devil; but if the gentleman preferred to remain here--
In his excitement the brandy he had been drinking before had got into the man's head; he would have willingly remained; he was evidently a person of importance here, and the gentleman had quite staggered back when he spoke of the foreign vagabond, and had muttered something in his black beard which he did not understand.
"Shall we remain here, sir?"
"No, no, no! Drive on! I will give you double what you ask!"
So saying he sprang into the carnage. The Neuenfähr man had meant to ask five thalers, now he would not do it under ten, and so he should get twenty.
For that one might leave even a murder behind one!
"Make way there! Make way!" cried the Neuenfähr man with an oath, cracking his whip loudly over the heads of the dark figures who were running towards him down the village street, and more than one of whom he nearly ran over.
For twenty thalers it was worth while running over somebody--in the dark too!
In the darkness and the storm! It really was worse than before, though then it had been bad enough, and he had said a dozen times, "We had better stop at Faschwitz, sir;" and then as they came to Grausewitz, "We had better stop at Grausewitz, sir;" but the young gentleman--Herr von Werben--had always called out, "Drive on, drive on! Farther, farther!" If he had only known that half an hour later the lady would have been dead as a door-nail! and he had taken the horse-cloths too to cover her feet, here in this very place!
The fact seemed so important to the Neuenfähr man that he stopped to show the gentleman the very spot, and to breathe his horses a little too, for they could hardly make way at all against the storm. To the right of the road was a steep clay bank some five or six feet high, at whose edge stood two or three willows wildly tossed about by the wind; to the left was level marshy ground reaching down to the sea, which must be about a mile or so off, although they could hear it roaring as if it were close by the roadside.
"On, on!" cried the gentleman.
"Are you in such a hurry, too?" said the Neuenfähr man, and grumbled something about commercial travellers, who were not officers so far as he knew, and need not snap up an old soldier of the reserve in that way; but he whipped his horses up again, when suddenly the gentleman, who had been standing up behind him in the carriage, clutched his shoulder with his right hand, and pointing with the other to the left, cried: "There, that way!"
"Where to?" said the driver.
"No matter where! That way!"
"We can pass it," said the Neuenfähr man, thinking only that the gentleman was afraid that in the narrow road they could not get out of the way of a carriage which had just appeared coming towards them through the grey mist, and might still be a few hundred yards from them.
The gentleman caught him by both shoulders.
"Confound it!" cried the Neuenfähr man. "Are you mad?"
"I will give you a hundred thalers!"
"I'll not be drowned for a hundred thalers!"
"Two hundred!"
"All right!" cried the driver, and whipped up his horses as he turned them to the left from the sandy road down to the marshes. The water oozed up under their feet, but then came firmer ground again. It might not be so bad after all; and two hundred thalers! He called to his horses, and whipped them up again.
They dashed forward as if the devil were behind them; he could hardly keep them in hand. And meanwhile he had gone much farther than he had intended; he had meant only to turn off a little way from the road, and then come back to it again. But when he looked round, the road and the trees had alike disappeared, as if all had been wiped out with a wet sponge. And from the thick, dark atmosphere the mist was falling so that he could not tell at last whether he ought to go straight on, or turn to right or left. Neither could he trust his ears. Along the road the roaring of the sea had been on his left hand, then in front of him; now there was such an infernal din all round him--could they be already so near the sea?
The fumes of the brandy suddenly vanished from the Neuenfähr man, and instead of them a terrible fear took possession of him. Who was the mysterious passenger who was sitting behind him in the carriage, and who had promised him two hundred thalers if he would avoid the other carriage which was coming towards them? Was he an accomplice of the foreign vagabond? He had just the same black eyes and black hair, and a long black beard too, and just such a curious foreign accent! Was it the devil himself to whom he had sold his miserable soul for two hundred thalers, and who had meant to wring his neck just now when he took him by the shoulders, and who had enticed him out into the marshes this fearful night to make an end of him in the storm and mist? And there were his wife and children at Neuenfähr! "Good Lord! good Lord!" groaned the man. "Only let me get out of this! I will never do it again, so help me God! Oh Lord! oh Lord!"
The carriage was driving through water; the man could hear it splashing against the wheels. He flogged his horses madly; they reared and kicked, but did not move a step forward.
With one bound the man was off the box beside his horses. There was only one means of safety now--to unharness them and dash forward at their full speed. He had said nothing; the thing spoke for itself. He had thought, too, that the man in the carriage would help him. He had just got the second horse out, and raised his head, when--his hair stood on end, as if all that had passed before were child's play to what he saw now! There had been only one person in the carriage, and now there were two; and the two were taking each other by the throat, and were struggling and shouting together--one of them, his passenger, as if he were asking for mercy, and the other yelling like the very devil himself--and the other was the murderer of that afternoon.
The Neuenfähr man saw no more. With a desperate spring, he threw himself on to the near horse, and dashed away, the other horse galloping beside him. The water splashed over him, and then he was up to his waist in water, and then up to his neck and the horses swimming; and again he had dry land under him, and got on to firm ground, and the horses stopped because they could go no farther, and the one on which he sat had trembled so that he had nearly fallen off. And he looked round to see what had happened and where he was.
He was on rising ground, and before him lay a village. It could only be Faschwitz; but Faschwitz was two or three miles in a straight line from the sea, and there behind him, from where he came--it was a little clearer now, so that he could see some little distance--was the open sea, rising in fearful waves, which roared and foamed, as they rolled farther and farther--who could tell how far inland?
"They have been drowned like kittens, and my beautiful new carriage. May the----"
But the Neuenfähr man felt as if he could not swear just then.
He dismounted, took the horses by the bridle, and led them, almost exhausted, at a foot's pace into Faschwitz, his own knees trembling at every step.