"YONDER YOU SEE THE PEAK OF THE ALTENBERG.'""YONDER YOU SEE THE PEAK OF THE ALTENBERG.'"
"Messieurs," said Sperver, trying to make himself heard above the noise of the storm, and pointing towards the horizon, "this is the lay of thecountry. If the day were clear, I would take you up to the signal-tower, where we could see the whole of the Black Forest, until it becomes lost to view in the distance; but as it is, I will do my best from here. Yonder you see the peak of the Altenberg, and further off, in the same line, just back of that white ridge, the WaldHorn, swept by the tempest. You must go straight towards the Wald Horn. There, if the snow permits, you will see from the top of the mitre-shaped rock that is called the Roche Fendue, three peaks: the Behrenkopf, the Geierstein, and the Triefels. It is by the last one, the furthest to the right, that you must make your way. A torrent divides the valley of the Rhethal, but it must be frozen over now. However, if it is impossible to proceed further, you will find on your left, as you climb the summit, a cavern half-way to the top, known as the Roche Creuse. You can pass the night there, and to-morrow, in all probability, when the wind has fallen, you will see the Wald Horn."
"Many thanks for your kindness."
"If you are fortunate enough to meet with a charcoal burner," continued Sperver, "he may be able to show you where the torrent can be forded, but I doubt if there is any such place at this season. Have a special care to keep around the base of the Behrenkopf, for if you get much to either side of it, the descent is impossible; there are precipices everywhere."
During these observations, I was watching Sperver, whose clear, ready speech accentuated each sentence with great precision, and I glanced occasionally at the Baron, who was listening with singular attention. No obstacle seemed to daunt him. His old servant appeared no less resolute than he.
Just as they were leaving the window, a ray of light broke through theclouds as the tempest seized the masses of snow and whirled them for an instant back upon each other like a floating drapery, and during this instant the three peaks behind the Altenberg were disclosed to view, serving to illustrate the details which Sperver had just given. Then the blizzard once more closed in.
"Good!" said the Baron; "I have seen my destination, and thanks to your instructions, I hope to reach it."
Sperver bowed without replying, and the young man and his servant, together with Offenloch, having saluted us, silently withdrew.
Gideon closed the window, and addressing himself to me: "The Old Nick must possess a man," he said, laughing, "to set out in such weather!I shouldn't have the heart to turn a wolf outdoors. I believe I have seen the young man's face before, and the old one's, too, if I could only think where. Let us drink! Your health, Gaston!"
I had gone over to the window, and as the Baron Zimmer and his servant climbed into their saddles in the middle of the courtyard, I saw, in spite of the snow that filled the air, a curtain slightly raised in the tower opposite, and the pale face of the Countess appear, glancing long and furtively at the young man.
"Ha, Gaston, what are you doing?" cried Sperver.
"Nothing. I am only looking at the strangers' horses."
"Oh, yes, the Wallachians! I sawthem in the stable this morning. They are fine creatures."
The horsemen departed at full speed. The curtain in the tower window dropped.
When I again saw Odile her expression was one of complete wretchedness; her swollen eyes told me that she had been weeping long, and her extreme pallor and weariness cut me to the heart.
"My dear mademoiselle," I said to her, with forced cheerfulness, "we must not be despondent. The turning-point of the malady must soon arrive, and this crisis safely passed, we may expect to see the Count in as good health as before."
She looked at me with an expression of gratitude for my wish to console her, but underlying it, I felt there was a quiet conviction to the contrary, and I realized the weakness of my position when I reflected that she might very probably be possessed of facts, unknown to me, which entirely disproved my words.
"At all events," she replied, after a pause of some moments, "it is grateful to know that there is some one who shares our anxieties and has the desire really at heart to mitigate them."
"You speak truly, mademoiselle," I returned. "I desire nothing so much as to see peace and contentment restored to this house, and I only wish that I possessed a thousandfold more power to accomplish it than I do. Butwhatever my skill is, it shall be devoted to this one end; and I shall not despair of success until all my efforts have proved unavailing."
I was surprised at my own warmth a moment after; but Odile's glance satisfied me that I had not transgressed the limits of that reserve with which she surrounded herself.
"And furthermore," I continued, encouraged by this fact to speak what I had for some time meditated, "if I might add the advice of a friend to that of the doctor, I should beg of you to spare yourself as much as possible in the matter of night watches and too unremitting a care of the Count, for a true woman's strength is exhausted long before her will, and you owe it to your friends as well as to yourselfto preserve the life which God has entrusted to you."
Odile lowered her eyes, then raised them; and as I approached and lifted to my lips the hand which she gave me, I surprised there a look which opened up to me a world of speculation.
I returned to my chamber, where I found an hour none too long to calm in a measure the exuberance of feeling to which my moments with Odile invariably gave rise.
Inclination made me quite as much concerned to spare Odile the suffering which her father's revolting harshness in his moments of delirium caused her, as to restore the Count to health, for after the morning's experience I felt that my pity for the sick man had, inspite of myself, largely given place to loathing; and I felt too, with Sperver, that I could throttle him as he continued to heap injuries upon his daughter's defenceless head.
However, there was but one way to alter the present condition of things and to establish a better one; namely, to effect the Count's cure, and I resolved that the best effort of my life should be expended here. Meanwhile I knew not where to begin. Medicines used otherwise than as opiates seemed lacking in the smallest efficacy. I saw nothing for it but to await developments.
To remonstrate with Odile in the matter of the vow which she had taken was clearly out of the question, though I was curious to see if any yielding onher part would effect the change in her father's condition which he averred it would.
And the reason of her absolute refusal to entertain even the thought of marriage? What could it be? She was not without feeling, a fact sufficiently demonstrated by her unswerving devotion to the Count. Nor did it seem to me that she could regard with disdain the fulfilment of that position which is the noblest aim and achievement of womankind, and which she was so eminently fitted by every circumstance of fortune to occupy and adorn. It could not be that there was any lack of understanding; for at times, when I surprised her glance resting upon me, I read in it a depth of sensibility that seemed almost unfathomable;and that its possessor was all kindness, in the strongest and best sense of the term, I was convinced. Of the answer to this riddle, it seemed then, I must forever remain in ignorance; but while any chance remained to solve it, I was determined to do so at all costs.
Meanwhile the Count's illness continued its course. All that Sperver had told me verified itself. Sometimes the Count, starting up and leaning on his elbow with outstretched neck and staring eyes, would mutter, "She is coming! She is coming!" Then Gideon would shake his head and climb the signal-tower; but in vain did he look to right and left: the Black Plague was nowhere to be seen.
After long reflection upon this strangemalady, I had finally persuaded myself that the Count was deranged. The singular influence which the old creature exerted upon his mind, his alternate periods of delirium and calm, all served to strengthen me in this opinion. "Unknown chains unite his fate with that of the Black Plague," I said to myself. "That woman may have been young and beautiful in the past; who knows?" and my imagination, once launched in this direction, soon built up a romance; but I was careful to mention nothing of my thoughts,—Sperver would never have forgiven me for entertaining suspicions of a relationship between his master and the hag.
During these anxious days, the one bright thing in my life was Odile's presence. Had it not been for this, Idoubt if I should longer have preserved any degree of hope.
I know not if I myself quite realized the extent of my growing affection for Odile, but certain it is that with each day her image became more and more identified with all that I held dearest in the world, and as I moved about the old Castle halls and chambers, the library, the drawing-room, the chapel, her fair figure and light step accompanied me in fancy, and I likened her to the delicate, fragrant rose, which in summer blossomed and waved from the rough interstices of the Castle's battlements.
Things were in this pass when one morning, at about eight o'clock, I was walking up and down in Hugh's Tower thinking of the Count's malady, the outcome of which I could foreseeno more clearly than before, and cudgelling my wits to determine what was next to be done. Suddenly I was roused from these cheerless reflections by three discreet taps on my door.
"Come in!"
The door opened, and Marie Lagoutte entered, dropping a low courtesy. The worthy woman's arrival annoyed me a good deal; I was on the point of asking her to leave me for the present, when an expression of unusual seriousness on her face aroused my curiosity. She had thrown a large red-and-green shawl over her shoulders, and stood with her lips pursed up and her eyes on the floor. It surprised me not a little to see her, after a moment, approach the door and open it again, apparently to make sure that no one had followed her.
"What does she want of me?" I asked myself. "What do all these precautions mean?" I was puzzled.
"Monsieur," she said at length, drawing nearer me, "I beg your pardon for disturbing you so early in the morning, but I have something important to tell you."
"Pray go on! What is it about?"
"It is about the Count."
"Ah!"
"Yes, monsieur; you probably know that I sat up with him last night."
"I know you did. Pray sit down!"
She seated herself in a chair opposite me, a big, leather-covered armchair, and I remarked with interest the energetic character of the face which had seemed to me only grotesque on the evening of my arrival at the Castle.
"Monsieur," she went on after a brief pause, fixing her dark eyes on me, "I must tell you first of all that I am not a timid woman. I have seen many things in my life,—things so terrible that nothing astonishes me any more. When any one has passed through Rossbach, Leuthen, and Zorndorf, he has left fear behind him on the road."
"You speak truly, madame!"
"I don't tell you this from a desire to boast, but only to convince you that I don't lose my wits at nothing, and that you may depend upon what I say when I tell you I have seen something."
"What the deuce can she have to tell me?" I said to myself.
"Well!" she continued; "last night, between nine and ten, just as I wasstarting up to bed, Offenloch came in and said to me:
"'Marie, you must sit up with the Count to-night.'
"I was surprised at this, and replied:
"'What! sit up with the Count! Isn't madame going to sit up with him herself?'
"'No; our mistress is ill, and you must take her place.'
"Ill, poor child! I was sure it would end that way, and I told her so a hundred times; but what can you do, monsieur? Young people never have any thought for the future,—and then, it was her own father, too. So I took my knitting, said good night to Toby, and went to the master's room. Sperver, who was waiting for me, wentoff to bed as soon as I came in, and I was left all alone."
Here the good woman paused, slowly breathed up a pinch of snuff, and seemed to be brushing up her memory. I had become attentive.
"At about half past ten," she continued, "I was knitting away beside the bed, and every now and then I raised the curtain to see how the Count was doing; he never stirred; he was sleeping like a child. All went well up to eleven o'clock; then I began to feel tired; when you are old, monsieur, do what you will, you fall asleep in spite of yourself; and then, too, I didn't think anything was going to happen. I said to myself, 'He will sleep like a top till morning!'
"Towards midnight the wind dieddown, and the big windows that had been rattling all the evening were quiet. I got up to see if anything was going on outside. The night was as black as a bottle of ink, and I went back to my armchair. I took another look at the sick man and I saw that he hadn't stirred; then I went on knitting. After a few minutes, I fell slowly, slowly to sleep. My chair was as soft as down and the room was very warm; I couldn't keep awake.
"I had been asleep about an hour, when a draught of cold air woke me. I opened my eyes, and what did I see? The long, middle window was wide open, the curtains were drawn, and the Count was standing upright on the window-sill!"
"The Count?"
"Yes."
"Impossible! He cannot move!"
"I couldn't believe my eyes; but, nevertheless, I saw him as plainly as I see you this minute. He held a torch in his hand, and the air was so still that its flame never wavered."
I stared at Marie Lagoutte, stupefied.
"At first," she went on, "when I saw the master in this extraordinary position, it made such an effect on me that I wanted to scream; but then I thought, 'Perhaps he is walking in his sleep; if you cry out and wake him he will fall and be dashed to pieces.' So I kept still and watched him, as you can fancy. He raised his torch slowly, and then he lowered it, and he did this three times, like a man making signals to some one; then he threw it down onto the ramparts, closed the window, and drew the curtains; he passed before me without appearing to see me, and got into bed again muttering Heaven knows what."
"Are you certain you saw all this, madame?"
"Perfectly!"
"It is strange!"
"Yes, I know it, but it is true! Goodness, how astonished I was for a moment! Then, when I saw him go back to bed again and cross his hands over his breast as if nothing had happened, I said to myself, 'Marie Anne, you have had a bad dream; that is the only explanation of it!' and I went over to the window. But the torch was still burning; it had fallen into a bush a little to the left of the third gate, and you couldsee it glowing like a spark. There was no denying it!"
Marie Lagoutte looked at me for some minutes without speaking.
"You can imagine, monsieur, that there was no more sleep for me that night. I was on tenter-hooks; every moment I thought I heard something behind my chair. I wasn't afraid, but I was uneasy; it worried me. This morning, at the first signs of day, I ran to wake up Offenloch, and I sent him to the Count's bedside. As I went along the corridor I noticed that the first torch on the right was missing from its ring. I went down the stairs, and I found it in the little path that leads to the Black Forest. See! here it is!"
And she took from under her apron the end of a torch, which she laidon the table. I was thunderstruck. How could this man, whom but the night before I had seen so weak and exhausted, have risen from his bed, walked to the window, and opened and closed the heavy sash? What did this midnight signal mean? Wide awake as I was, it seemed to me as if I, too, had witnessed the strange scene, and my thoughts reverted involuntarily to the Black Plague. I roused myself at last from introspection, and I saw Marie Lagoutte had risen and was about to depart.
"Madame," I said, as I moved with her to the door, "you have acted wisely in telling me this, and I thank you heartily for doing so. You have told no one else of this adventure?"
"No one, monsieur. Such thingsare only to be confided to the priest and doctor."
"Ah! I see you are a very sensible person."
These words were exchanged on my threshold. At this moment, Sperver appeared at the end of the gallery, followed by his friend Sebalt.
"Ho, Gaston!" he cried, hurrying up; "I have news for you!"
"Well, well!" I exclaimed; "more news. The Old Harry is most certainly taking a hand in our affairs."
Marie Lagoutte had disappeared. The steward and his comrade entered the Tower.
Sperver's face wore a look of supreme indignation; Sebalt's one of bitter irony. The master of the hounds, whose melancholy appearance had struck me during my first days at Nideck, was as thin as a rail; he wore a leather jacket fastened at the waist by a belt, from which hung a hunting-knife with a bone handle; long leather gaiters reached above his knees, and his horn hung at his elbow from a shoulder belt that went from right to left across his chest. On his head was a broad-brimmed hat with a heron'splume in the band, and his profile, terminating in a yellowish beard, suggested that of a goat.
"Yes," continued Sperver; "I have some news for you!"
He threw himself into a chair, burying his face in his hands, while Sebalt quietly drew his trumpet over his head and laid it on the table.
"Come, Sebalt," cried Gideon, "speak out!"
"The witch is roaming about the Castle."
This information would have failed to interest me had it not been for the interview with Marie Lagoutte; but now it made a deep impression upon me. There was some mysterious connection between the Lord of Nideck and this horrid creature, the nature ofwhich was an enigma to me. I felt that I must solve it at all costs.
"One moment, gentlemen! one moment!" I said to Sperver and his comrade; "first of all, I want to know where this Black Plague comes from."
Sperver stared at me in astonishment.
"Heaven only knows!" he cried.
"At precisely what time does she come within sight of Nideck?"
"I told you before! Just a week before Christmas every year."
"And she stays?"
"From a fortnight to three weeks."
"Is she ever seen except at that time, either going or coming?"
"No."
"Then we shall have to catch her!" I exclaimed. "This is not natural! Wemust find out what she wants, who she is, and where she comes from."
"Catch her!" said the master of the hounds, with an odd smile. "Catch her, indeed!" and he shook his head meaningly.
"My dear Gaston," began Sperver, "your suggestion is all well enough, but it is easier said than done. If I could send a bullet after her, that would be another matter, for I can always come within gunshot of her, but this the Count forbids; and as to taking her otherwise, you might as well try to catch a squirrel by the tail. Listen to Sebalt's story, and you shall see for yourself."
The person thus addressed, sitting on the end of the table with his legs crossed, looked at me and began:
"This morning, as I was coming down the Altenberg, I followed the hollow Nideck road. The snow was on a level with its edges. I was going along, thinking of nothing in particular, when a foot-track caught my eye; it was deep, and went straight across the path; the creature had come down one side of the bank and gone up on the other. It wasn't a hare's foot, for that makes hardly any mark in the snow; nor the cloven hoof of the wild boar, nor a wolf's paw either; it was a deep hole. I stopped and brushed away the snow that was collecting round it. It was the Black Plague's track!"
"How do you know that?"
"How do I know it? I know the old hag's footprint better than her figure, for I always go along with my eyeson the ground. I can recognize any one in the country around by his foot-tracks, and a child couldn't have mistaken this one."
"What was there about it so very different from any other?"
"It is no larger than your hand; it is finely shaped, the heel a trifle long, the outline clean, and the great toe lies close to the others, as if they were pressed into a slipper. It is a beautiful foot. Twenty years ago, monsieur, I should have fallen in love with such a foot! Every time I come across one like it, it makes a great impression on me. Heavens! how can such a foot belong to the Black Plague?" And the good fellow fixed his eyes on the floor with a dismal air.
"Well, Sebalt, go on!" said Sperver impatiently.
"To be sure! Well, I recognized the track, and I set out to follow it. I was in hopes of catching the witch in her den, but you shall hear what a dance she led me. I climbed up the roadside, only two gunshots from Nideck, and struck off into the bushes, keeping the trail always on my right; it ran along the edge of the Rhethal. Suddenly it jumped over the ditch into the woods. I kept on, but happening to glance a little to the left of it, I discovered another track that had been following the Black Plague's. I stopped; 'Could it be Sperver's? or Kasper Trumpf's? or any of the other people's?' I asked myself. I stooped over and examined it closely, and you can fancy my surprise when I saw that it belonged to nobody in this part of the country. I knowevery footprint from here to Tübingen, and it was none of these. The owner must have come from a distance. The boot—for it was a kind of soft, well-made boot, with a spur that left a little rowelled line in the snow behind it—instead of being rounded at the end, was square; the sole, thin and without nails, bent at every step. The pace was short and hurried, like that of a man from twenty to twenty-five. I noticed the stitches in the leather at this glance, and I have never seen finer."
"Who could it have been?"
Sperver shrugged his shoulders and remained silent.
"Who can have any object in following the old woman?" I asked, turning to Sperver.
"The devil himself, perhaps," he replied.
We sat for some minutes, each one busied with his own reflections.
"I started on again," pursued Sebalt finally; "the tracks led up the mountain side amongst the fir-trees, and then turned off around the base of the Roche Fendue. When I saw this, I said to myself, 'Ah! you old hag! If there was much game of your sort, the sport of hunting would go to the dogs. It would be better to work as a galley slave!' We came—the two tracks and I—to the top of the Schneeberg. The wind had swept here and the snow was up to my waist, but I must get on! I reached the banks of the Steinbach torrent and there the Black Plague's foot-prints ceased. I stopped, and saw that after having tried up and down, the gentleman's boots had taken the directionof the Tiefenbach. This was a bad sign. I looked at the opposite bank, but there was no sign of a track there. The witch had waded either up or down the stream, to break the scent. Where should I go? To right or left? In my uncertainty, by Jove, I came back to Nideck."
"You have forgotten to tell the doctor about her breakfast."
"To be sure, monsieur! At the foot of the Roche Fendue, I saw she had lighted a fire; the snow was black around it; and I laid my hand on the spot, thinking that if it were still warm the Plague could not be far away, but it was as cold as ice. I noticed a snare in the bushes close by."
"A snare?"
"Yes; it seems the old creatureknows how to manage traps. A hare had been caught in it; the impression of his body was still there where he had lain stretched out. The witch had lighted the fire to cook him; she knows a thing or two, you see!"
"Just to think," cried Sperver angrily, "that this old wretch should find meat to feed on, when so many honest people of our villages are starving for the want of a bit of bread! It infuriates me! If I only had her in my clutches—!"
He had no time to finish his sentence. The next moment, we were staring into each other's ashy faces, speechless and immovable. A howl—the howl of a wolf on a bitter winter's night—a cry that you must have heard to comprehend in the least, the agonizedplaint of the savage beast,—was echoing through the Castle, and seemed not far from us. It rose from below, so fearfully distinct that we fancied the wild animal just outside our door.
We often hear quoted, as the most terrible of sounds, the roar of the lion, as he rends the silence of approaching night in the immensity of the desert. But if the parched and burning sands of Africa have their voice, like the sound of the autumn tempest growling among the crags of the forest, so, too, have the vast, snowy plains of the North their characteristic cry, that accords so well with the dreary winter landscape, where all is sleeping, and not even a dead leaf rustles to disturb the perfect stillness; and this cry,—it is the howl of the wolf!
Rousing himself with difficulty, Sperver sprang from his chair, rushed to the window, and stared down at the foot of the Tower.
"Can a wolf have fallen into the moat?" he cried.
But the howls came from within the Castle. Then turning to us:
"Gaston! Sebalt!" he cried, "come on!"
We flew down the stairs four steps at a time, and rushed into the armory. Sperver drew his hunting-knife, and Sebalt followed his example; they preceded me along the gallery. The cries were guiding us towards the chamber of the sick man. Sperver spoke no more, and hurried his steps. I felt a shudder pass over me; something forewarned us that an abominable scenewas about to transpire before our eyes.
As we approached the Count's apartment, we found the whole household afoot—hunters, kennel-keepers, and scullions, running this way and that, and asking each other, "What is the matter? where are the cries coming from?" Without waiting for anything, we dashed into the corridor which led to the Count's chamber, and in the vestibule we encountered the good Marie Lagoutte, who alone had had the courage to proceed there before us. She was holding in her arms the young Countess, who had fainted, and was hurrying her away as rapidly as she could. So agitated was I at this pathetic sight that for the moment I forgot the Count, and I sprang forward to Odile's aid;but Marie Lagoutte begged me to hurry to the Count, as her mistress was only in a faint and would soon revive, when she would be terribly distressed if I were not at her father's bedside. Realizing that in spite of my preferences my first duty was to my patient, I reluctantly quitted them, and hastened to overtake my companions.
We reached the Count's room. The howls were coming from within.
"THEN HE WOULD RESUME HIS FRIGHTFUL CRIES.""THEN HE WOULD RESUME HIS FRIGHTFUL CRIES."
We stared at one another, trying in vain to explain the presence of sucha guest. Our ideas were in utter confusion. Sperver threw open the door, and with his hunting-knife tightly grasped, started to enter the room; but he paused on the threshold, motionless as a stone. I glanced over his shoulder, and the sight that presenteditself to my gaze froze the blood in my veins. The Count of Nideck, crouching on all-fours on the bed, his head bent forward and his eyes glowing fiercely, was uttering these terrible howls. He was the wolf! That low forehead, that long, pointed face, that bristling beard, that long, thin body, and those wasted limbs,—the expression, the cry, the attitude,—all bespoke the savage beast beneath a human mask. At times he would stop for a second to listen, and the tall curtains of the bed would tremble like leaves. Then he would resume his frightful cries.
Sperver, Sebalt, and I stood nailed to the floor; we held our breath. Suddenly the Count stopped; like the hunted animal that sniffs the breeze, he raised his head and listened. Far,far away beneath the lofty arches of the snow-clad pines, a cry was heard; feeble at first, it seemed to grow louder as it was prolonged, and soon it rose clear and strong above the roaring of the storm. It was the she-wolf answering its mate.
Sperver, turning towards me with livid face, his arm pointing to the mountain, cried:
"Listen, it is the witch!"
The Count, motionless, with raised head and extended neck, his mouth wide open, and eyeballs glowing like coals, seemed to understand the meaning of the distant voice, lost in the midst of the deserted gorges of the Black Forest, and a certain savage joy gleamed in his face. At this moment Sperver cried in a broken voice:
"Count of Nideck! What are you doing?"
The Count fell backwards as if thunderstruck. We rushed into the room to his assistance. The third attack had begun, and it was terrible to witness.
The Count of Nideck was in a dying condition. All that art might accomplish I had tried without avail, and at that moment, when life and death were struggling for the mastery, I was compelled to stand idly by and watch the sands of Time's hour-glass run out. Towards midnight, the Count seemed almost gone; his pulse beat feebly, and at times seemed to stop. Sometimes I thought the end was but the question of a few moments. At length, worn out with exhaustion and anxiety, I bid the weeping Sperver remainwith his master while I repaired to the Tower to snatch a few moments' sleep.
A bright fire was burning in my chamber. I threw myself on the bed without removing my clothes, and soon fell into a heavy, troubled slumber. I slept thus, with my face turned towards the fire, whose rays danced upon the polished flagstones. After an hour, the fire suddenly started up, and as it often happens, the flame, rising and falling momentarily, beat upon the walls its great red wings and tired my eyelids. Lost in a vague slumber, I half opened my eyes to see whence came these alternate lights and shadows, when I was brought wide awake by an appalling sight.
"I RAISED MYSELF ON MY ELBOW AND STARED FEARFULLY IN THE DIRECTION.""I RAISED MYSELF ON MY ELBOW AND STARED FEARFULLY IN THE DIRECTION."
At the further end of the hearth,hardly revealed by the light of a few glowing embers, a dark profile was dimly visible,—the profile of the Black Plague. At first, I thought it an hallucination, the natural offspring of my feverish thoughts. I raised myself on my elbow, and stared fearfully in the direction, real or fancied, of the image. It wasshe indeed! Calm and motionless she sat, her hands clasped about her knees, just as I had seen her in the snow, with her long, thin neck, sharp, hooked nose, and thin lips tightly closed,—and she was warmingherself before the fire.
I was horrified. How could the creature have got into my room? How could she have climbed the Tower, beneath which precipices yawned on every side? Everything that Sperver hadtold me concerning her mysterious power seemed no whit exaggerated. The vision of Lieverlé growling against the wall passed before me like a flash. I huddled close in the alcove, hardly daring to breathe, and watching this immovable silhouette as a mouse watches a cat from the bottom of its hole. The old woman stirred no more than the chimney-breast cut in the solid rock, and her lips moved as she mumbled inarticulate words.
My heart beat painfully fast, and my fear increased from moment to moment, as I gazed on the motionless figure amid the perfect silence. This lasted perhaps a quarter of an hour, when the fire catching a pine splinter, the flame leaped up and a few rays penetrated to the end of the room. This flash sufficedto show me the aged woman dressed in an old gown of purple brocade that shimmered violet and red in different lights, with a heavy bracelet on her left wrist and a gold arrow stuck through her thick, gray hair, which was coiled up on the back of her head. It was like an apparition of past ages.
Still, the Plague could have no hostile designs upon me, or she would have profited by my slumber to execute them. This thought was beginning to reassure me, when she suddenly got up and moved slowly towards my bed, holding in her hand a torch which she had just lighted at the fire. I now observed that her eyes were fixed and haggard. I made an effort to rise and cry out, but not a muscle of my body would obey my will, not a sound passed my lips,and the old witch, bending over me between the parted curtains, fixed her eyes on me with a strange smile. I tried to spring upon her and cry for help, but her glance paralyzed me as the snake's look charms the tiny bird. During this dumb contemplation, each second seemed to me an eternity. What was she about to do? I was prepared for anything. Suddenly she turned her head, listened, and then crossing the room with a rapid step, she opened the door. At last I had recovered a little courage; an effort of the will brought me to my feet, as if acted upon by an invisible spring, and I followed on the heels of the old woman, who with one hand was holding her torch above her head, and with the other kept the hall-door wide open.
I was about to seize her by the hair when, at the end of the long gallery, beneath the oval archway that opened upon the ramparts, I saw—the Count of Nideck! The Count of Nideck, whom I thought dying, clad in a huge wolf-skin, with its upper jaw projecting like a visor over his eyebrows, the claws resting on his shoulders, and the tail dragging behind him over the flagstones. He wore heavy boots, a silver clasp fastened the wolf-skin at his throat, and his expression, except for the dull, icy look in his eyes, bespoke the strong man born to command,—the master.
In the presence of such a personage my ideas became vague and confused. Flight was impossible. I had presence of mind enough left, however,to throw myself into an embrasure of the window.
The Count entered the chamber and fixed upon the old woman a rigid stare. They held a whispered conversation, of which I was able to hear nothing, but their gestures were full of meaning. The old hag pointed to the bed. They moved to the fireplace on tiptoe, and there in the shadow of the triforium the Black Plague unrolled a large bundle, grinning hideously meanwhile. Hardly had the Count caught sight of the sack, before he sprang to the bedside and disappeared between the curtains, which stirred in a strange fashion. I could only see one leg still resting on the floor, and the wolf's tail moving back and forth. They seemed to be enacting a mock murder scene.
Nothing could have been more horrible than this mute representation of such an act. The old creature approached the bed in turn, and spread out her sack on the floor beside it. The curtains still moved, and their shadows danced upon the walls. Then a great movement succeeded. The old creature and the Count together crowded the bed clothes into the sack, stamping them down with the haste of a dog scratching a hole in the earth, and the Lord of Nideck, throwing the shapeless bundle over his shoulder, started for the door. A sheet dragged behind him, and the old woman followed him with her torch. They crossed the court.
My knees trembled and almost refused to support my weight; a prayer rose involuntarily to my lips. Twominutes had not passed before I was on their footsteps, dragged along by a subtle, irresistible curiosity. I crossed the court at a run, and was about to enter the Gothic Tower, when I perceived a deep, narrow pit at my feet, and into its depths wound a staircase, down which I saw the hag's torch turning, turning about the stone baluster like a firefly, until it became lost in the distance.
I descended in turn the first steps of the staircase, guiding my course by the distant glimmer, when it suddenly disappeared. The old woman and the Count had reached the bottom of the precipice. Soon the steps ceased. I looked around me and discovered on my left hand a ray of moonlight that found its way into the pit through alow door, across the nettles and brambles laden with hoar-frost. I put aside these bushes, clearing away the snow with my feet, and found myself at the foot of Hugh's donjon-tower. Who would have supposed that such a hole led up to the Castle? Who had shown it to the old woman? I did not stop to answer these questions. The vast plain lay before me, flooded with a light almost equal to that of day. To the right stretched the dark extent of the Black Forest, with its perpendicular rocks, its gorges and ravines. The night air was still and bitter cold; I felt exalted by the keen atmosphere. My first glance was to discover the direction which the old woman and the Count had taken. Their tall, dark forms were moving slowly up the mountainside some two hundred paces in advance of me, and stood out against the background of the heavens studded with innumerable stars. I came close up to them at the bottom of the next ravine. The Count moved slowly on, the winding-sheet still dragging behind him. His attitude and movements, like those of his companion, were automatic in their precision.
On they went, some twenty paces before me, following the hollow road to the Altenberg, now in the shadow, now in the full light, for the moon was shining with surprising brilliancy. A few clouds followed her, and seemed as if stretching out their great arms to seize her; but she evaded them, and her rays, cold as a blade of steel, cut me to the heart.
I would gladly have turned back, but an invisible power impelled me to follow this funeral procession. Even to this hour, I still see in fancy the path that winds beneath the colonnades of the Black Forest. I hear the snow crunching beneath my step, and the fallen leaves rustling in the gently stirring north wind. I still see myself following those two silent figures, and I try in vain to explain to myself the mysterious impulse which caused me to dog their footsteps.
At last we reached the forest and proceeded amongst the naked beeches, the dark shadows of whose higher boughs intersected the lower branches and traced their outlines on the snow-covered path. Sometimes I fancied I heard some one behind me; I wouldturn quickly around, but could see nothing.
We gained at length the line of crags on the summit of the Altenberg, behind which the torrent of the Schneeberg rushes earlier in the year, but now there was only a mere thread of water slowly trickling beneath its thick covering of ice. The vast solitude no longer had its murmurs, its warblings, and its thunder; its oppressive stillness inspired fear. The Count and the old woman found a gap in the rocks, up which they mounted quickly and apparently without effort, while I was obliged to scramble up, clinging to the bushes in order to follow them.
Scarcely had I reached the top of the rock which forms a corner of the precipice, when I found myself within threeyards of them, and before me I saw a bottomless abyss. On the left hung the falls of the Schneeberg in sheets of ice. This resemblance to a wave leaping into the precipice, and bearing with it the neighboring trees, sucking up the underbrush and cleaving the ivys that follow on its crest without becoming uprooted; this appearance of mighty movement in the immovableness of death, and those two silent forms proceeding with their sinister work, all inspired me with indescribable terror. Nature herself seemed to share in my feelings.
The Count had laid down his burden; the old woman and he swung it for a moment above the precipice, then the long shroud floated over the edge, and the actors in this awful drama bent overto watch it as it fell. The long, white sheet, swelling upwards as it met the rising breath of the chasm, and then falling slowly and disappearing from sight, still floats before my eyes. I see it sinking like the swan shot far up in the sky, her wings spread out and head thrown back, falling to earth in the agony of death.
At this moment a cloud which had long been approaching the moon slowly veiled her in its bluish folds; complete darkness succeeded. After a little the moon appeared again through a rift in the clouds, and I saw the old woman seize the Count's hand and drag him along with dangerous speed down the mountain side. Then it became dark again, and I dared not risk a step lest I should fall headlong into an abyss.Once more the clouds parted. I looked about me and found myself alone on the high rock, knee-deep in snow. Seized with horror, I made my way cautiously down the steep declivity, and once on the plain I started to run towards the Castle, as much stunned as if I had shared in some dark crime.
As for the Lord of Nideck and the old woman, I had lost sight of them.
I wandered around the Castle, unable to find the opening through which I had come out on to the plain. So much anxiety and emotion began to tell upon my mind; I moved aimlessly along, asking myself with dread if madness were not playing a part in my fancies, unable to believe what I had seen, and yet alarmed at the clearness of my perceptions. The image of the master of Nideck waving his torch in the darkness, howling like a wolf, coolly accomplishing an imaginary crime, withoutomitting a gesture, a circumstance, not even the smallest detail, then escaping and committing to the abyss the secret of the murder, harassed my mind and hung over me like a nightmare. I ran breathless and distracted through the snow, not knowing in what direction to guide my steps.
As day approached, the cold became more intense. At last, exhausted, my legs feeling like lead, and my ears half frozen, I succeeded in discovering the iron grating, and I rang the bell with all my might. It was then about four o'clock in the morning. Knapwurst kept me waiting a terribly long time. His little lodge, built against the rock, just within the principal gate, remained quite silent; it seemed to me that the dwarf would never finish dressing, forI had fancied him in bed and soundly sleeping.
I rang again, and this time his grotesque figure emerged abruptly from his doorway, and he cried furiously:
"Who's there?"
"I! The Doctor!"
"Ah! that is another matter! I'll see whether you are telling the truth."
He went back into his lodge to get a lantern, crossed the outer court with the snow up to his middle, and staring at me through the grating:
"I beg your pardon, monsieur the doctor," he said; "I thought you were asleep up-stairs in Hugh's Tower. It was you ringing! Now I see why Sperver came to me at midnight to ask if any one had gone out. I said no, for I never saw you go out."
"But for Heaven's sake, Knapwurst, open the door! You can tell me all this later."
"Be patient for a moment, monsieur."
And the dwarf deliberately turned the lock and drew back the bolts, while I stood with my teeth chattering, and shivering from head to foot.
"You are cold, Doctor," observed the diminutive porter, "and you cannot get into the Castle. Sperver has fastened the inside door, I don't know why; he doesn't ordinarily; the grating is enough. Come into the lodge and warm yourself. You won't find my room much to boast of; properly speaking, it is nothing but a sty, but when you are cold you don't spend much time in looking about."
Without replying to his chatter I followed him as rapidly as possible, burning with impatience to learn what things were passing in the Castle, but seeing nothing for it but to wait till dawn.
We entered the lodge, and in spite of my state of complete frigidity, I could not help admiring the picturesque disorder of this species of nest. The slate roof leaned against the rock on one side, and on the other against a wall six to seven feet high, disclosing to view the blackened beams propped up against each other. The lodge consisted of a single room, furnished with a bed which the gnome did not take the trouble to make up very often, and two small dusty windows with hexagonal panes which the moon turned tomother-of-pearl with its pale rays. A large, square table occupied the middle of the room. How this massive oak table had ever been brought through the narrow doorway, it would have been difficult to explain. Upon a few shelves were arranged some old volumes and rolls of parchment, and on the table lay open an enormous tome with illuminated initial letters, bound in vellum, with a silver clasp and corners; it looked to me like a collection of old chronicles. Lastly, two armchairs, one covered with red leather and the other upholstered with a down cushion, and bearing the unmistakable impression of the dwarf's body, completed the furniture of the place.
I will not stop to describe the desk with its five or six pens, the tobaccojar, the pipes scattered variously about, the little, low, iron stove in one corner of the room, with its door standing open, red hot, and sending a shower of sparks from time to time on to the stone floor, and the spitting cat with her back arched and her paw lifted in defiance of me.
All these objects were veiled in that smoky amber light which rests the eye, and of which the old Flemish masters alone possessed the secret.
"So you went out last night, monsieur the doctor," Knapwurst said to me when we were comfortably seated, he before his volume and I with my hands stretched out before the fire.
"Yes, rather early. A woodcutter of the Black Forest needed my services; he had cut his left foot with an axe stroke."
This explanation appeared to satisfy the dwarf; he lighted his black pipe, which hung down over his chin.
"You don't smoke, monsieur?"
"Indeed I do!"
"Well, help yourself to a pipe! I was just here," he said, stretching his long, yellow hand over the page, "reading the chronicles of Hertzog when you rang."
I now understood why he had kept me standing so long in the cold.
"You waited to finish your chapter," I said smiling.
"Yes, monsieur," he admitted; and we laughed together.
"However, if I had known it was you, I should have put it off till another time," he added.
A silence of some minutes followed,during which I studied the truly remarkable physiognomy of the dwarf: those deep wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, those little squinting eyes, the broad, unshapely nose rounded at the end, and especially his swelling, double-storied forehead. I noticed in his face something of the expression of Socrates, and as I warmed myself before the crackling blaze, I reflected upon the strange fortunes of certain of us.
"Here is this dwarf," I said to myself, "this unsightly, stunted creature, exiled into a corner of Nideck like the cricket that sings beneath the hearthstone; this Knapwurst, who, in the midst of all these excitements, hunting-parties and gay cavalcades going and coming, the baying of hounds, stampingof horses, and winding of the hunters' horn, lives quietly alone, buried in his books, and thinking only of times long past, indifferent whether all is in songs or tears around him, whether it is spring, summer, or autumn that comes to peep in at him through his little dusty window panes, reanimating, warming or chilling the breast of Nature outside. While others are living, blessed with the hope and magic of love, striving to gratify ambition or avarice, plotting, coveting, and longing, he hopes for nothing, covets nothing, wishes nothing. He sits and smokes his pipe, and with his eyes fixed on the old parchment before him, he dreams and revels in things that no longer exist, perhaps never had any existence—what matters it to him—'Hertzog says this,''such a one has it differently,'—and he is happy. His parchment skin gets more and more wrinkled, his sharp elbows dig holes in the table, while his long fingers bury themselves in his cheeks, and his little gray eyes roam over Latin, Greek, and Etruscan characters. He goes into ecstasies, he licks his lips like a cat who has just lapped up a saucer of cream, and then he lies down on his cot, with his knees drawn up under the coverlid, and thinks he has passed the best possible kind of a day. O God of Heaven! Is it at the top or at the bottom of the ladder that we find the true application of your laws, and the accomplishment of the duties you have imposed?"
Meanwhile the snow was melting from my legs, and the grateful warmthof the stove restored my spirits. I felt reanimated in this atmosphere of tobacco smoke and resinous pine. Knapwurst laid his pipe on the table, and passing his hand once more across the folio:
"Monsieur de la Roche," he said in a grave tone that seemed to come from the bottom of his conscience, or if you prefer, from the depths of a twenty-five gallon cask, "here is the law and the prophets."
"How do you mean, Knapwurst?"
"Parchment, old parchment, is what I love. These old yellow leaves, eaten by worms, are all that is left us of times long gone by, from Charlemagne to our own day. The ancient families have disappeared, but the old parchments remain. Where would be the glory ofthe Hohenstauferns, the Liningens, the Nidecks, and so many other noble families, were it not for these? Where would be the fame of their title-rights, their deeds of arms, their heroic actions, their distant expeditions to the Holy Land, their ancient alliances and claims, and their conquests, did they not stand in these chronicles? These lofty barons, dukes, and princes would be as if they never existed—they and everything relating to them far and near.
"Their great castles, fortunes, and palaces crumble and fall, and their ruins serve as vague reminders. Of all this a single memorial remains,—the chronicles, the history, the songs of bards and minnesingers,—parchment alone is left to us!"
A brief silence followed, then Knapwurst resumed:
"And in those distant times, when brave knights went forth to war, disputing and fighting over a bit of forest, title, or a lesser matter yet, with what contempt did they look upon this wretched little scribe, this man of letters and mystery, clad in ratteen, his only weapon an ink bottle dangling at his belt, and the handle of his pen for a plume. How often they jeered him, crying, 'That fellow is an atom, a flea; he is good for nothing; he cannot even collect our taxes or manage our estates, while we fine chaps go out on our mounts with lance in hand, ready for anything that comes in our way!' Thus they talked when they saw the poor devil dragging along behind them,shivering in winter, sweating in summer, and growing feeble in his old age. Ah, well! this atom, this flea, has caused them to survive long after their castles have turned to dust and their arms have rusted away, and for my part I love these old parchments; I respect and revere them. Like ivy, they clothe the ruins and prevent the old walls from crumbling away and becoming entirely effaced."
Having given such expression to his thoughts, Knapwurst seemed grave, and reflecting upon these things his eyes filled with the tears of affectionate remembrance. The dwarf loved those who had tolerated and protected his ancestors. After all, he spoke the truth; there was profound good sense in his words. His warmth surprised me.
"Have you learned Latin, Knapwurst?" I asked him.
"Yes, monsieur," he replied, "I taught myself Latin and Greek. Old grammars were enough,—some of the Count's thrown into the ash-barrel; they fell into my hands and I devoured them. Some time after, the Lord of Nideck having chanced to hear me make some Latin quotation was surprised.
"'Who taught you Latin, Knapwurst?' he asked.
"'I taught myself, monseigneur.'
"He asked me some questions, which I answered pretty well.
"'By Jove!' he cried, 'Knapwurst knows more than I do! He shall keep my archives.'
"And he gave me the key to thearchive chamber. During the thirty years since then, I have read every page. Sometimes the Count, seeing me on my ladder, stops a minute and says to me:
"'Ha! ha! What are you doing up there, Knapwurst?'
"'I am reading the family records, monseigneur.'
"'And you enjoy it?'
"'Very much, monseigneur.'
"'Well, well! I am glad to hear it; if it weren't for you, Knapwurst, who would know of the glory of the Nidecks?' and he goes off laughing. I do as I please here!"
"He is a good master then?"
"Oh, monsieur, what a heart, and what kindness!" exclaimed the dwarf, clasping his hands. "He has but one fault."
"And what is that?"
"He has no ambition."
"How so?"
"Why, he could have attained to anything. A Nideck! One of the most illustrious families of Germany! Think of that, monsieur! He had only to choose; he might have been a minister or a field-marshal. But no! In his youth he retired from political life. With the exception of a campaign that he conducted in France, at the head of a regiment which he raised by his own exertions—with this exception, he has always lived far from noise and strife, simple and almost unknown, only interesting himself in his hunting."
These details were of the greatest interest to me. The conversation was taking, of its own accord, the directionthat I most wished, and I resolved to profit by my opportunity.
"The Count has never had any great passions in his life, then?" I asked.
"None, monsieur; and that is the pity, for noble passions make the renown of great families. It is a misfortune for the member of a noble race to be devoid of ambition. He allows his family to degenerate. I could cite many examples in proof of what I say. That which would be the pride of the tradesman's family, would be the ruin of the illustrious."
I was amazed; all my speculations regarding the Count's past life were fast being disproved.
"However, the Count has met with many reverses, has he not?"
"Of what nature?"
"He has lost his wife?"
"Yes, you are right; his wife was an angel. He married her for love; she was a daughter of one the oldest and noblest families of Alsace, but ruined by the Revolution. The Countess Odette was her husband's sole happiness. She died of a lingering illness that lasted over the space of five years; every means was resorted to to save her life. They travelled together in Italy, but she returned worse than she went, and succumbed some three weeks after their return. The Count came near dying himself of a broken heart. For two years he shut himself up and would see nobody. His dogs and horses were neglected. Time at length calmed his grief, but there has ever been something here." (The dwarf laid his fingeron his heart.) "You understand; it is a bleeding wound. Old wounds pain us in change of weather, and old griefs, too, when the flowers spring up above the tomb, and in autumn when the dead leaves cover the ground. The Count has never wished to marry again; his daughter is the sole object of his affection."
"So this marriage was always a happy one?"
"Happy? It was a blessing for everybody!"
I was silent. Evidently the Count had not committed, could not have committed, a crime. I was obliged to yield to the weight of evidence; but then that nocturnal scene, these strange relations with the Black Plague, that horrible pantomime and the remorse ina dream which forced the couple to betray their past—what did it all mean? I became lost in thought.
Knapwurst relighted his pipe and reached me one, which I accepted. The chill which had seized me had by this time passed away. I was experiencing that delicious period of inaction which follows the fatigue caused by unusual exertions, when, sprawled out in a big armchair in the chimney-corner and enveloped in a cloud of smoke, you abandon yourself to the pleasure of repose and listen to the blending of the cricket's chant with the unearthly singing of the green log on the hearth. We sat thus for a quarter of an hour.
"The Count sometimes gets angry with his daughter," I ventured to remark. Knapwurst started, and fixingon me a suspicious, almost hostile look, replied:
"I know, I know!"
I watched him with a sidelong glance, thinking that I might learn something new, but he added ironically:
"The towers of Nideck are high, and slander flies too low to reach them!"
"Undoubtedly; but it is a fact, nevertheless, is it not?"
"Yes; but this is a mere crotchet, an effect of his malady. Once the crisis is passed, all his affection for the Countess Odile returns. It is curious, monsieur, a lover of twenty years could not be more devoted, more affectionate than he. This young woman is his one joy and pride. Only fancy, no less than a dozen times I have seen him ride off to get her a dress, or flowers, or some liketrifle. He would not entrust this commission to any one, not even to his faithful Sperver. The Countess does not even dare to express a wish in his presence, lest he should commit some new extravagance. In a word, monsieur, I assure you that the Count of Nideck is the worthiest of men, the tenderest of fathers, and the best of masters. As for the poachers who ravaged his forests, the old Count Ludwig would have hanged them without mercy; but our Count tolerates them; he even makes them his gamekeepers. Take Sperver, for instance! If Count Ludwig was still alive, Sperver's bones would be clicking together like castanets, at the end of a rope, while as it is, he is the steward and man-of-affairs at the Castle."
My theories were fast falling to the ground. I rested my head between my hands and thought for a long time. Knapwurst, supposing that I was asleep, had resumed his reading. The gray dawn appeared through the tiny panes; the lamplight paled, and vague murmurs arose within the Castle. Suddenly footsteps sounded outside, some one passed before the window, the door opened abruptly, and Gideon appeared on the threshold.