Leo sprang up. He felt that he paled.
"I see, my son," triumphed the old man, "that such names fill us with disgust. But I can't help it. Now the affair took another aspect. I forgot my apple turnover. I tore my gown and bands from the pegs, packed the church plate, jumped into the carriage, and was off like the wind. 'Fellow, tell me exactly what has happened,' I asked. He didn't know; All he knew was that the master had been carried into the house, covered with blood, at six o'clock that morning, and now it had come to the last rites.... 'When did the doctor arrive, fellow?' 'The doctor was there,' said he. 'What, at six o'clock in the morning?' 'Yes, your reverence.' ... Fritzchen, that seemed to me suspicious. I get there. House and yard as still as the grave. No one even to open the door to me. At last a servant-girl came.... Corridor, parlour, salon--all quiet and empty.... 'Does he still live?' 'Yes.' ... 'What happened?' 'He fought a duel.' ... 'Ah! indeed.' ... I enter the bedroom.... You know that room, Fritzchen? A lamp hangs there from the ceiling with a blue shade. Fritzchen, a blue shade. Wasn't it blue, Fritzchen?... Emptiness here too.... 'Where is he, in God's name?' ... 'There,' some one says.... And I hear death-rattles coming from the canopied bed.... 'Where is the doctor?' 'They have fetched him away to a confinement. He'll soon be back.' 'And where is the lady of the house?' 'She has shut herself upstairs in the spare room,' says my informant.... I draw the curtains aside.... There he lies, swimming in blood.... The stream flows from his nose and mouth.... And he looks at me with eyes glazing, and makes a sign to me to wipe it away, so that he may speak."
"Stop!" groaned Leo.
"Yes.... I don't doubt it would suit your ticket if I stopped. Health, Fritzchen!"
"I implore you not to go on."
"I dare say you are right, Fritzchen. It's hardly the subject for a convivial entertainment, eh? How did I hap on it? Through the devil, of course. You see, Fritzchen, that evening whenhetold me the story of you and her, I could hear her running about overhead I cried tears of blood for your soul, Fritzchen. For you were dearer to me than my own flesh and blood. But to-day I can't cry, Fritzchen, because I have drunk too much wine. You must forgive me, Fritzchen."
He tried to raise his fat fingers deprecatingly to Leo, but the great bulldog jowl dropped on his breast with a dull wheezing sound in his throat. He had fallen asleep.
Leo bowed his head in his hands, and stared across at him with burning, starting eyes.
"Thus grimly does the joke end," thought he, "that I permitted myself to play off on my conscience."
He shuddered. He fancied he too saw the glazing eyes of the dying man fixed on him, and heard the rattles in his throat--the man whose last curse had been for him. And the woman who had raved and ramped about in the locked guest-chamber above, who left her husband to die alone and forsaken like a dog, because she dared not approach him with her guilt-stained body. He could almost hear her sobs and whimperings coming through the ceiling.... And all that--all was his--hisdoing.
"It will drive me mad!" he cried, jumping to his feet.
He longed for the sound of a human voice, but only the snores of the drunken old man fell on his ear. He would have given anything to have some one to whom he could go to shriek out the torments in his breast; but he had no one--no one but that woman who had sinned with him.
"Now I understand why she clings to me," he thought; "and perhaps soon she will be as necessary to me as I to her."
He remembered the Leo Sellenthin of scarcely four weeks earlier. And he came before him as a complete stranger. What had happened in the meanwhile? He didn't know.
Restlessly, with his folded hands pressed against his brow, he ran up and down the room, while the old pastor slept the sleep of the just.
After the formal reconciliation between the two neighbouring families, Leo had the Uhlenfelde ferry station, which had of late fallen into disuse, quickly repaired. The old boat, which seemed to be now hardly watertight, was replaced by a new one, and the bathing-house, drawn up almost on to the dyke as a precaution against the coming floods, was converted into a shelter, so that the waiting groom and horses could bait there, when he should perchance, deep in conversation with his friend, have overstayed the hour of his return. And also, if he suddenly took it into his head to slip over to Uhlenfelde, there would be no necessity to make his movements known at the house. He would only have to put up his horse in the shelter and take the key, till the boat brought him back to the solitary spot, where there was no fear of incursions from spies and eavesdroppers.
This occurred to him the day after the pastor's visit, as he took his way over the turnip-fields to Uhlenfelde. It was not so much longing for his friend's society that drew him constantly thither, as a torturing uneasiness and a hungry desire to know that all was going well there.
To-day, when he entered the courtyard, he saw Felicitas standing at one of the castle windows, nodding and smiling at him.
"I must try, by hook or by crook, to get a private word with her," he thought, and returned her greeting with a wave of the hand.
"The master has driven in to Münsterberg," said the groom, who appeared from the coach-house. "It is the sessions to-day."
He muttered an oath. The confounded old priest had put out his calculations, and he had forgotten the day of the month. And over there Felicitas was still standing at the window smiling. To sneak away now would be the action of a coward.
His heart beat quicker as he ascended the steps to the house. Since that day of the meeting on the island he had never been alone with her. She received him in the garden salon, the glass doors of which were partially closed to keep out the autumnal chilliness. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and did not cease smiling. This smile, in which melancholy, irony, and forgiveness were mingled, seemed to have been learnt by heart.
"It almost looks as if you were afraid of me, my friend," she said, as she hesitatingly offered him her hand.
"In all my life I have never feared death or devil," he said, forcing himself into a swaggering tone. "And certainly I have never been afraid of you."
"But you run away from me and avoid me whenever you can. I wouldn't mind betting that your coming to-day is a mistake. Had you remembered that Ulrich would not be at home ...?"
"Ah!" he interposed with a click of his tongue.
"But you can be quite easy in your mind. I won't bite you. No, I don't bite." And she showed the whole of her white set of teeth as she laughed.
He thought, "Thank God! she isn't fretting." And a feeling of satisfaction came back.
"You'll stay a few minutes, I hope," she said lightly. "I'll try and make up for Ulrich."
That sounded modest and ingenuous enough. He bowed assent.
"Then let us go to my room," she said; "there we shan't be disturbed."
A slight aversion came over him at the thought of the boudoir, with its feminine ornaments and luxury, and its heavily perfumed air which half stifled him.
"Or perhaps you would rather stay here?" she asked, divining with quick instinct the ground of his hesitation.
"If it's all the same to you, I would rather."
She spread out her hands--a little gesture which was meant to convey that her only wish was to do what he wished.
There was a short silence. The late September sunshine filled the spacious room with warm-toned hues. Autumnally lazy flies buzzed and fell about on the window panes. No other sound disturbed the afternoon peacefulness, which seemed almost too sabbatical, too slumbrous, for this guilty pair.
Felicitas leaned back in a corner of the lounge, and with a sigh of deep content said, "Thank God."
"Why do you thank God?" he asked.
"That at last I have got you for once all to myself."
"You have got something to be proud of," he said ironically.
"Now, now, Leo!" she remonstrated, smiling. "You don't believe half you say. Sitting opposite each other like this it is quite unnecessary to draw the filmiest veil over our souls, or to hide a corner of them from one another. And that does one good, especially when one has had to go through life telling so many lies. Ah! I have so longed for truth. It is a kind of platonic affair, you see, that may be calmly permitted, because it is quite safe to lead to no harm--and this makes me quite happy. At least I need not try to appear better than I am toyou.... As for you ... you sacrifice yourself for my sake, I know, by sitting like this with me, and you have struggled against it. But you hate me--hate me!"
"I? Hate you? Nonsense!"
"You can't deny it, my friend. Still, I can put up with it--your great, grand hate, for I know that there is a little drop of friendship mixed with it. We two--ah, my God!--we two really ought to be able to have splendid times together. We have outlived our love, and that is a delightful state of things--when one cares for a man and yet doesn't want to love him."
She nestled herself in the cushions as if she were stretching limbs tired from the heat and burden of the day's work, in the well-earned repose of a cool bed.
"I might even go so far, my friend, as to say," she continued, moistening the corners of her mouth with her tongue, "that the present relations between you and me are the most desirable that can exist between a man and a woman."
He laughed almost against his will. How comical she was in her irresponsiblenaïvété. Perhaps it wasn't right to take her too seriously after all. One must listen to her patiently, as one listened to the chatter of a child and smiled.
"I am in earnest," she went on. "Thousands who have studied human nature have said that love is nothing but a sort of war. The woman dislikes the man's desire, yet would dislike still more to forego it. The man is enraged at the woman's resistance, yet can't endure her not to resist and give herself to him without a struggle. How stupid it all is! and how vulgar! Not till it is all over, not till nothing remains but the memory of a few dreamy hours of bliss----"
"And repentance," he interrupted gloomily.
She gave him a horrified look. "You are cruel," she whispered, twirling a bow of her dress round her forefinger.
"I only wish to remind you," he replied, "that all is not as it ought to be between us."
"As if I didn't know it!" she sighed.
"You talk," he went on, "just as if we were heathens, artists, or Bohemians. That doesn't do. We are made of different material. Our blood may be hot too, it is true. Opportunity may turn us into thieves before we know it, but we have always a skeleton in the cupboard in the shape of our infernal protestant conscience----"
"Don't talk of conscience, I entreat you."
"And a certain residuum of what is called sense of duty."
"Ah! why embitter the first confidential hour we are passing together?" she murmured faintly.
"We have no confidential hours to pass together," he answered roughly.
She folded her hands. "My God, I know it, I know all. What I said just now was said to force my own conscience into trying to cheer you.... What good can come of filling each other's ears with lamentations?"
He was silent. How everything was reversed since that morning on the island! She now defended the standpoint that he had then taken up, while he let himself be swayed by consciousness of sin as she had done then. A few minutes before he had feared nothing so much as to hear her lament, now he himself was driving her to it.
"You are right, Lizzie," he said, "we must quietly contain ourselves, and spare each other reproaches, for old sins can't be undone. But the devil take us if we forget the object for which we have entered into this new alliance."
"How, in God's name, could we forget it?" she cried, putting her hands before her face.
He breathed a sigh of relief. Now that their mutual purity of motive had been solemnly attested on both sides afresh, he need no longer be so much on his guard, and might without suspicion and self-reproach give himself up to the charm of this dreadedtête-à-tête.
And indeed it was not without its charm.
Here was a sympathetic echo to those thoughts which for months had tormented him, growing harder and more frequent day by day, bound up, as it were, with every experience, meeting, and memory, and yet remaining unspoken, so that their weight on his overburdened heart had been well-nigh unbearable. Out of this pair of blue swimming eyes his own guilt looked at him confidingly, softened and cleared by the woman's grace. No harsh judgments blared from those soft lips, and when they whisperingly alluded to a sin which had better have remained unmentioned, they did so with a mild self-accusation that in itself was for him forgiveness. That was comforting--ay, it was comforting. He leaned back in his chair with a murmur of satisfaction, and asked if he might light a cigar.
"You know you may do anything you like," she replied, and rose to fetch him a tray and matches.
"Are you going to wait on me?" he exclaimed, springing up.
"Yes; let me. I like it, and you know it's not the first time," she said, with her melancholy smile.
He watched her as she glided gracefully across the room in her pale-blue lounge-gown. The loose lace sleeves swept out from the upper part of the rounded arms and fell in transparent little folds against the corset, the stiff whalebone lines of which were visible through the thin dress, shooting upwards like rays into the full contour of her breast, where a satin bow gently vibrated. The figure, in its ripeness and soft outlines, seemed expressive of an exquisite repose, gained after passion had burnt low and peace had been prayed and fought for. There was nothing of the Magdalene in it, only her sad, always veiled eyes knew how to sing with the best effect the song of sweet sin and bitter repentance.
She sank into her seat again, and gazed out on the park, lost in dreams. The rapidly sinking sun flooded the room with a purple glow, and painted arabesques of gold upon the walls.
Leo, occupied with his cigar, let his eyes, follow the rings of smoke as they encroached on the sunlight's domain and were transformed into clear flame-edged blue.
"You are a great deal alone now, I suppose?" he asked, by way of setting the conversation going again.
"Nearly always," she answered.
"What do you do with yourself, all day long?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Are you active in the housekeeping line?"
She pouted. "Yes; but it bores me."
"And--and ... visitors leave you in peace?"
She flushed to her neck. "What visitors?"
"You know ... the youths."
She smiled, apparently deeply ashamed. "Why do you remind me of that?" she rebuked him. "I shudder when I think of the way in which only a short time ago I sought my pleasures. Oh, Leo, how different I feel, how much better and purer, since you came into my life again!"
"I can't say the same for myself," he thought, remembering what he had gone through; but he felt flattered, nevertheless, at being recognised as a good angel.
"I cling to you," Felicitas went on, "with all the best instincts of my nature, for I know that you are the one person who can help me. And when I wrestle with my torture ..."
"Now she's going to be tragic," he thought. But her tragedy was no longer so fatal as it had once seemed. If he could not echo her way of expressing things, he understood only too well the mood which prompted her so to express herself.
"And now I say," Felicitas continued, "all the evil spirits and goblins of hell may attack me; I have got him, he is there; he will stand by me and not desert me, and so hope and peace have dawned in my soul once more."
She sighed, and, digging both her fists into the cushions, she sat there and gazed at him with parted lips, craving for succour, while her mass of fair curls fell about her ears like a confusion of writhing serpents.
"Of course," she continued, "I relied much on you. But when I wanted you most, you did not come. You went away. Oh, Leo, how cruel you have been to me! No, no! I won't hurt you. You are good, good as an angel. You have even forgiven me for forcing my way into Halewitz a second time. It's true, isn't it, you have forgiven me? And I have dared, too, to beard Johanna, to ameliorate her hate for you and me. Why, then, do you shun me? Why may I not call on you when it is all darkness and night within me, and the ghost of the slain----"
He trembled. The ghastly picture that the old pastor's drunken phantasy had invoked rose before his mental vision.
"Does he haunt you too?" he murmured, between his clenched teeth.
"Don't ask.... I must be silent.... It is better for you and for me not to speak of it.... Then how could you have borne to stay away from me, if you had known----"
"Known what?"
"Another time, I'll tell you," she said imploringly. "Another time, when I feel miserable, not now, when I'm happy and breathe freely, because I am so safe with you beside me. Let me enjoy this hour to the full. Look at the sun melting into those red clouds. Doesn't it look as if it were weeping over us tears of blood?"
He grunted, for the simile seemed to him extravagantly poetic.
"Oh, why did we ever meet?" she murmured, turning her face up to the setting sun, so that it became suffused with a rosy glow. She sighed, but the sigh lost itself in a smile.
"As we are on the subject," he said, feeling that the conversation had taken a dangerous turn, but at a loss how to change it into another channel, "meeting had nothing to do with it. For a year or more we had associated without any harm coming of it, despite the old boy-and-girl flirtation behind us. We should have been more careful to keep our inclinations in hand, that's all. Rhaden left us too much alone. We had too many opportunities of strolling in the park after dark, and sitting in shady nooks. That's what did it ... that's what did it."
Half lying on the cushions, she propped her chin in her hands.
"I wonder how the idea first came into our heads?" she asked dreamily.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Can one say afterwards how such things happen?" he said. "It's like fever; no one knows how he gets it."
"I remember, though, how it began," she whispered, still gazing at the sun. "It was a July evening. Rhaden had something to do in the town.... We were in the arbour, under the cut cypresses. You have got one like it at Halewitz. Do you remember the arbour?"
Why did she ask? Till their dying hour, they were both bound to remember the place that had been the temple of their happiness and the origin of their damnation.
"It was dark all round us; we could scarcely see each other. Your cigar had gone out ... you wanted a light. .. I said, 'Let me help you,' and as I held the burning match to the end of your cigar, and you drew in the flame with a deep breath, you raised your hand and stroked my hand which held the match, three times, and just as it flickered up for the last time, our eyes met ... and then I knew ... knew that it would happen."
"You knew it already?"
She nodded; and as if it were the fading radiance of their past and vanished joy, the reflection of the sun, which had now sunk beneath the horizon, lay purple and mysterious on her face.
"We women are quick to discern that sort of thing," said she; "before you men know exactly what it is you want, we feel it drawing near. It is like a warm draught of air blowing against us. Many of us don't know what it is to feel well except in such an air."
"If you noticed so much, why weren't you on your guard?" he asked sternly.
"What is the use of guarding against the decree of fate?" she said, piously clasping her hands.
"Why didn't you drive me away? Why did you allow me to come back?"
"Because I was so glad that you came back."
"Yes, yes ... forgive me ... you are right. It is I who ought to have known, and to have fled away, miles away. It was not your fault ... it was mine."
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Leo," she begged. "Things came as they were bound to come. We were both defenceless then. Do you still remember how, after the match was gone out, it was all dark in the arbour, and we were both quite, quite silent? For a long time I heard nothing but your breathing, short and hard.... You must tell me, Leo, what were you thinking about during those minutes?"
He would have cried out, "Leave me in peace with your questions," but only too vividly did the picture rise before his eyes of that sultry purple July night which was the beginning of all the mischief.
"What was I thinking about?" he murmured. "I don't know that I thought at all.... At least, I can't recall anything that I thought. But when we stood up and walked to the house, I remember that I asked myself, 'Why was it her shoulder felt so warm against my arm?' ... I put it down to the hot summer air.... But when I was in bed, I still felt your shoulder against my arm that I recollect perfectly to-day."
Felicitas looked at him, smiling. But in the midst of her smile she broke into convulsive weeping. She threw back her head, stretched herself out full length on the cushions, her whole body shaken by her violent sobs. One of her shoes slipped off and fell clattering on the floor.
Leo, shocked and deeply moved, got up and came to her side.
"Why ... why," she sobbed, "why must it have been so? Now I am wretched and abandoned, and you are wretched too, and the others. Oh, Jesus, have pity!"
"Do--do be reasonable," he urged, trying to conceal his fear by harshness.
"Yes, yes--tell me what to do.... I will obey and do all you command."
"You must calm yourself first. Suppose some one came in." His glance wandered uneasily to the door.
"Oh, I will be calm directly. Oh, Lord! Lord!"
"Felicitas."
He would have liked to shake her, but was afraid to touch her with his hands.
At the severity of his tone, she raised herself and wiped her face with limp hands.
"I am weak," she stammered; "please get me my flask from the next room."
He hurried away to do her bidding, for he was still consumed with anxiety that they might be surprised in their present situation. When he came back, she was lying motionless face downwards on the cushions. He called her name. Instead of answering, she pointed to the back of her head.
He sprinkled a few drops of the strongly scented liquid on her hair, and then wiped his damp hands quickly on his coat-sleeve. She turned round.
"Now my forehead," she whispered, with closed eyes.
He moistened her temples.
"How kind you are!" she whispered; and then went on, "one has to become as miserable as this to learn what true compassion is."
"Sit up now," he commanded.
"You are right," she replied, lifting wide eyes to his. "Our time is up. Ulrich may be back at any minute."
Ulrich! The blood flamed into his face. His friend's name fell painfully upon him like a whip.
"I must go at once!" he exclaimed.
"Won't you wait and see him?" she asked innocently.
He shook his head and set his teeth.
"But you'll come to-morrow, will you not ... to-morrow?"
He could do nothing but dumbly assent.
She bent over the edge of the sofa to look for the lost slipper, which was hidden somewhere in the wainscotting. When she sat upright, she was smiling again. The blue eyes had regained their wonted lustre, only on the round cheeks flashed in rosy drops the last traces of her tears.
"Are you angry with me?" she asked.
"Why angry?"
"Because I have made this foolish scene. But the burden of unshed tears was oppressing my soul.... And now that I have cried it away I feel more light-hearted and happier than I have done for months.... Oh, Leo ... let me thank you for the comfort you have given me!" And in her overflowing gratitude she caught his two giant hands in her soft little palms and tried to press them.
He hurriedly took his leave. It seemed as if something were hunting him from the spot. But ashamed of his haste, he turned once more at the door.
"Remember me to him," he said, looking steadily into her eyes. She nodded, and then bent her eyes on the floor.
When he had left the entrance hall, she climbed with languid steps to the top story, where from the corner balcony there was a view of the stream. She watched him hurrying thither, with her hands pressed against her forehead, and saw him unmoor the boat from the sandy bank and launch it with a mighty shove, while he jumped in and seized the oars before the fragile craft had time to drift an inch with the current. She took out her handkerchief in order to wave him farewell, but he did not look up, and the white wisp of cambric fluttered unseen in the twilight.
The boat became a shadow and disappeared. She shivered and thought of the boy, far away, at the cost of whose banishment she had purchased this hour. Then, listening cautiously at the door, she drew a letter from her pocket, and gazed with emotion at the laboriously penned characters, and read once more the incoherent words which had been distressing her since yesterday:--
"My Dearest Mamma,
"I am homesick and how long must I stay here and please tell me if I may come home for Christmas holydays all the other boys are going home for the holydays, but I am not a coward, no I am not a bit a coward, and when they beat me I bite my teeth together, and the bangingdoeshurt.... But if you think I Cry, I don't; no I only Cry when I am alone in the evening after prayers; that does'nt matter does it? And I pray for dear mamma and dear papa, that he may'nt be ill any longer, and I want Fido so dreadfully and how is the little mare I used to ride? You know dear mamma. I do hate being here and want to come home.
"It is 87 days to Christmas and I want a stamp-album, and scholar's 'Young Companion,' and a pistol that you shoot not with caps but there's a feather in it like an arrow and the cherry cakes that old Jetta bakes always. And I long to see old Jetta too. With kisses from
"Your loving son,
"Paulchen."
Felicitas crumpled the sheet in her hand in nervous irritation. "My God, my God, how will it end?" she murmured. Then, as if to escape from herself, she ran in from the balcony and paced up and down in the great empty attic.
"I can't, I mayn't, I won't think about it!" she cried. "Thousands of children have gone through the same, and outlived it. He will get over it too."
She shut the glass door, and, pressing her forehead against the panes, stared at the spot where a few minutes ago the boat had disappeared, and gradually her face cleared and took on an expression of dreamy tenderness.
Hertha had a sharp little nose, and she had made therewith a discovery, a discovery which in happier circumstances would not have signified much, but which in the troubled condition of affairs carried great weight.
As she sat at supper, which meal was unusually honoured that day by step-mamma's presence, she became aware of a peculiar perfume, the same which was indissolubly associated in her mind with the memory of a pale, sweetly smiling countenance, and a pair of big blue imploringly uplifted eyes.
This perfume had seemed to her the crowning distinction of graceful elegance. She had often tried to recall it, and as the finest scented soap gave no idea of it, she resolved that she would instantly procure it in four years and four months' time, when she came into possession of her fortune. And now, as if wafted by magic from Uhlenfelde, this perfume suddenly pervaded the supper-table. She sniffed it in inquiringly, and measured with her eyes one after the other, mamma, Elly, grandmamma, but missed out Leo.
Johanna, who sat stiffly at the table, immovable as a statue, making everybody else feel uncomfortable, gave her stepdaughter an astonished look.
Hertha saved herself by asking leave to hand round the dish of potato-chips which Christian had left in the lurch to attend to the cutlets. While she passed from one chair to another she sampled critically the immediate atmosphere round each. And, sure enough, when she came with the dish behind Leo's place, the insidious fragrance rose to her nostrils with threefold power.
But Leo did not like scents--on the contrary, only a short time ago, when Christian had thought it necessary in honour of the Sabbath to plaster his grey straggly locks with hair-oil, he had been told, with adonnerwetter! to go and put his head under the pump. Leo helped himself to potatoes without bestowing a glance on the waitress who handed them. He seemed distrait and surly, and instead of eating, toyed with his knife-rest. Mamma's presence truly might be responsible for his temper, but Hertha suspected other causes.
The conversation was confined to monosyllabic questions and answers. Grandmamma inquired how many geese were to be stuffed for liver and how many fattened?
"Do as you like," said Leo.
"Were you at Uhlenfelde to-day?" Johanna asked suddenly.
Hertha sat erect on thequi vive. Ah, what would he say?
"No," was the short, sharp rejoinder. He did not like to be cross-examined, least of all by Johanna, who showed no disinclination to play the spy on him.
He was still wondering himself how the falsehood had escaped his lips when he glanced down the table and met Hertha's large shining eyes, which were fixed on him shocked and reproachful.
"The little one is getting uneasy," he thought; and as he was anxious to be alone, he rose and left the table, with a "Gesegneter Mahlzeit."
Every one looked after him.
"What can ail him?" asked grandmamma, referring to the food he had scarcely touched.
"He has had a lot of trouble with the foaling," put in Hertha, acting on an impulse, dimly felt, that it was her place to stand up for him.
She was quite sure that she hated him; but, all the same, whatever he did was no business of anybody else's. After supper she rushed into the dusky garden. She felt as if something had happened within her and without, the existence of which, up till now, she had not dreamed. She didn't know what it was, or what to call it, but that it was nothing good was proved by the anger which stormed in her breast at the thought of it. What did it mean if the beautiful woman had really poured some of her perfume on to his coat? But no, that wasn't the question. Why had he degraded himself by telling a lie? He, the haughty Leo, who had so loftily disdained her humble love! Why had he made a secret of this visit to Uhlenfelde, when, as a rule, he came from there openly, bringing messages of greeting from his friend?
Of course this beauty was a thousand times more beautiful than she was, and much cleverer, no doubt. It did not need much self-abasement to accord her the superiority. But the great insoluble problem, the stumbling-block to all her conjectures, was that she was a married woman. If only she had not been, then he could have been in love with her; but as it was, how could he? Women were loved by their husbands, that was what they married for, but by no one else in the world. Otherwise you might as well fall in love with Uncle Kutowski, or the dog, Leo, who at this moment was rubbing his damp nose against her sleeve, full of consolatory affection.
Shivering in the chill autumn wind, and yet with burning cheeks, she ran up and down the dew-spangled paths, where rustling dry leaves whirled before her like startled animals. She heard Leo's voice coming from the yard, raised to a scolding pitch, as he inspected the ploughs by lantern-light. Leo, the dog, answered with a joyous bay, and bounded off twice, but returned to her in the end.
"You are better than your master," she whispered, burying her face in his mane; and she decided that to-day, if possible, she would get to the bottom of this question about married people being beloved by some one to whom they weren't married.
First of all she sought information in her library. "The Lamplighter," to begin with, then "Goldelse," and "Barefeet." These were the maturist novels that she possessed. The writings of Clara Cron and Otilie Wildemuth were as yet not even to be thought of. She couldn't find any reference to the problem that bothered her, not even a hint that it existed. So she turned from fiction to the classics. Schiller--Amalia was a young girl--Luise (now she was coming to it, perhaps) a married woman--Queen of Spain, of course. But in this case it was clear as daylight that you couldn't believe the poet; for to be in love with your stepmother was a thing which could only happen in the world of imagination, that world in which genius, detached from earth and intoxicated with inspiration, roams at large. She hadn't written for nothing a German composition two years ago on "Genius and Reality," in which this question had been exhaustively dealt with. Those beautiful phrases, "genius detached from earth," and "intoxicated with inspiration," were quotations from it.
"Why are you rummaging so amongst the books?" asked Elly, who was already in bed, and before falling asleep, enjoying herself by stretching the counterpane tight between her teeth and feet, and pretending to play the banjo on it. As she alternately tightened and slackened her hold on the linen, it produced sounds, high and low, which distantly resembled those of a stringed instrument.
Hertha considered whether she should demean herself so far as to ask advice from this child. But, in her dire necessity, she did not long demur.
"Look here, Mouse," she said, sitting down by the head of the bed, "I want to ask you something. You are in love with a man, aren't you?"
"Oh yes," replied Elly, playing with her fingers.
"And you are quite sure that this man loves you too?"
"Why do you sayman?" asked Elly. "Kurt is my ideal. Before it was Benno, and before that Alfred, but now it is Kurt. But, all the same, I don't think of him as a man."
"What is he, then?"
"Why, ayoungman."
"Well, young man, if you like. Certainly, he is not my idea of a man." And her eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. Did she not know what a proper manoughtto be like? "Do you think, Mouse, that any man, or young man--it doesn't matter which--could love a married woman?"
"Of course ... quite easily," answered Elly, in her superb serenity.
Hertha smiled surreptitiously at such denseness. "No, Mouse, you don't understand," she said. "I don't mean the woman who is his wife, but the woman who is married to some one else."
"That's what I mean too."
"And it seems to you quite natural?"
"Really, I should not have thought you so inexperienced," said the little lady. "One's bound to know such things. In old days it was much worse. The man who was a brave knightalwaysloved the wife of some one else. To love his own would have been thought ridiculous.... It is all in König's 'Unabridged History of Literature.'"
Hertha had become very thoughtful. "Ah! the olden times," she said, with a faint smile. "It's no good talking of them. They tilted at tournaments then, and killed each other with their lances for fun!"
"And to-day," said Elly in a whisper, raising herself in bed with the wide eyes of a child reading a fairy tale, "to-day they shoot each other dead with pistols for a joke instead."
Hertha felt a stab at her hearty and the little rosy daughter of Eve went on.
"I should think it lovely to have such an unhappy affair when married.... For, you know, most of the romantic love stories are of this kind."
"Who told you so?"
"Don't you remember what Käthi Graffenstein said about her aunt?"
"Pah!" cried Hertha. "Whatevershesaid about it would sure to be a lie."
The conversation ceased at this point, for, after Elly letting fall the much-hated name, Hertha refused to talk any more. But long after the light had been put out she lay awake pondering, and tried by various experimental thoughts to penetrate the veil which hung between her childlike outlook and life. The next afternoon she approached, with faltering step, kind grandmamma, whose wooden knitting-needles were busily employed on one of her favourite Shetland wool shawls.
"Have you an uneasy conscience?" asked grandmamma, who thought she knew what she wanted.
"God forbid! I only wish to know, am I properly grown up, or am I not?"
"Well ... half and half," suggested grandmamma, giving her a smiling scrutiny over her spectacles.
Hertha drew a deep breath. She had entered on a daring enterprise, she knew, but, at all costs, she must clear up this matter.
"I mean that I shall probably soon be married, and I----"
"You!" exclaimed grandmamma, in deadly terror.
The unhappy child had evidently come to break to her the proposal of some saucy youth in the neighbourhood.
"Of course ...," continued Hertha, mouthing her words, ... "of course ... with all my money I am not likely to be an old maid."
Grandmamma caught hold of her hands. "Child, whom have you got in your mind?" she cried, beginning to perspire with anxiety.
Hertha blushed to the roots of her hair. "I? ... nobody," she stuttered, struggling to maintain a nonchalant tone.
"You are talking indefinitely?"
"Yes ... of course ... indefinitely."
Grandmamma ventured to breathe more freely again, and determined forthwith that she would talk seriously to Leo that very day, and warn him that the "gold fish" might be snapped up, by some one else under his very eyes, if he did not look out.
"And ... now let me hear what you want to know."
"I want to know ... about love ... after marriage."
Grandmamma, who was used to these sort of questions, though lately they had been less frequent than of old, replied lightly, "It's the same after as before."
"Yes ... I know. But if there's another ... to whom one is not married ..."
"Gracious!what?" Grandmamma let her glasses fall off her nose in sheer horrified amazement. "What other?"
Hertha felt a sudden collapse of her heart-strings. She had to make energetic demands on her courage to be able to proceed.
"Can't it happen, dear grandmamma, that some one who isn't married to us, can get into his head ..."
"Hertha," interrupted the old lady, "look me straight in the eyes and tell me if you have been reading a forbidden book."
"How could I, grandmamma?"
"What are you reading now?"
"Oh, a yarn that Meta Podewyl lent me."
"We say story, not yarn. Who wrote it?"
"Felix Dahn."
"And what is it about?"
"I hardly know. Some one is always being stabbed dead by some one else. Some of them come to life again, and some of them are buried. There's no harm in that."
"No, certainly there is no harm in that," thought grandmamma; and then she said, "Don't come to me with such stupid questions again, child ... you are too young by far to understand such things. And now give me a kiss, and take your crochet."
So another plan had failed. Yet Hertha went on wondering how she was to solve the dark mystery with which her jealous heart was so blindly grappling.
The same day at dinner Leo made the unexpected proposal of rowing her and Elly over to the Isle of Friendship. He knew how long Hertha had cherished the wish to see with her own eyes the romantic spot, and thought that by giving her her desire he would improve the relations between them, which, he didn't know why, seemed to grow more strained from day to day.
But Hertha slightly curled her lips and remarked, "Many thanks; when I care to visit the island, I will row myself over."
"You'll try again?" he laughed.
"Yes, why not? There are two boats there now, and you can't want more than one at a time when you happen to be visiting Uhlenfelde."
There was something in her pronunciation of the last few words which vexed and irritated him.
"Nevertheless, my dear child," he replied, "I must ask you kindly to refrain from any more mad escapades; there really is no necessity for you periodically to rouse the neighbourhood."
"I promise you that I shall give you no further ground for complaint on that score," she made answer with quivering lips.
He nodded, immediately pacified, and grandmamma changed the topic to household matters.
Towards sunset, when Leo mounted his mare, Hertha, watching him from the garden, felt all the annoyance and antagonism of the evening before awake in her again. She would have liked to throw herself on the grass and tear up the sod with her fingers.
It was true that he rode out in the direction of Wengern, but Hertha had little doubt that he intended to make adétourthe quicker to reach the stream.
"Oh, if only I knew whether that could be so!" she thought, and gnashed her teeth.
Then she was seized with a brilliant idea.
Meta Podewyl, who had been transformed these four months into a sedate Frau von Sembritzky, used to be her confidential friend before her engagement. They had exchanged all sorts of promises and sealed their vow of friendship with endless kisses.
The first who, etc., should be the first to, etc.
But, as things had turned out, there had been no talk on either side of these promises being fulfilled, for the intimate relations between her and Meta had ceased, as most girls' friendships do in the early days of betrothal. And although she had followed the fortunate girl to the altar as her bridesmaid, she had long ago seemed to have vanished into an unknown far-away world to which she lacked a passport.
But now her happiness and peace of mind were at stake, and only Meta could help her.
In the evening, at bed-time, she said to Elly, "If I ask you to-morrow to drive over with me to see Meta, you must say 'No.' You understand?" The Mouse did not understand in the least, but submitted as usual with an inclination of her little fair head, and fell asleep.
The next day it rained, and as Hertha had no closed carriage at her command, she stayed at home. Two more wet days followed, in which Hertha's devouring curiosity had to rest unsatisfied. But when a fourth dawned hopelessly grey, with rain pattering on the windows, she resolved to pocket her pride and petition Leo, through the medium of grandmamma, for horse and carriage.
"Why these roundabout dealings, Hertha?" he said, as they met at table. "I should have thought you knew that the conveyances are as much at your disposal as any one else's."
At two o'clock that afternoon the carriage stood at the door, and she drove off in pouring rain.
She was lucky in the hour she had chosen. Meta's husband had gone into Münsterberg, and mamma-in-law, who made the young couple happy by her presence in the house, was suffering from a bilious attack.
So she found Meta alone in her bedroom, with its heavy satin curtains, its dainty muslin covers, its comfortable low sofa, and lamp with emerald-green shade, and all the thousand and one pretty knickknacks, and mysterious articles which betoken a recently accomplished matrimonial union, and seem to invite a cosy confidential chat.
Still, the reception accorded Hertha by her old chum was not altogether encouraging. She rose languidly from the rocking-chair in which she had been reclining, looking very delicate and fragile, and with a faint smile extended a cold thin hand, on which the wide hoop of her wedding-ring seemed conspicuously to inspire respect. A book bound in brown and gold slid from her lap on to the floor.
Hertha took in at a first glance how much Meta's young fresh-coloured little face had changed during the months since her marriage. Her nose had sharpened, and her full lips were pale, and the different way in which her hair was dressed made her quite a stranger.
"I am delighted to see you," she said, just as one dowager receives another when she pays her a formal visit. In fact, Hertha felt intimidated.
"What were you reading?" she asked, picking up the brown-and-gold book from the floor.
The little wife blushed hotly, and hurriedly took the book out of her hand, but not before Hertha had deciphered the gold letters on the back: "Ammon's Duties of Mothers."
"I never!" said Hertha. "May you read that?"
"I must read it," replied the young wife, with a slightly ironical twist of her mouth.
Hertha burned on the spot to gallop through the remarkable volume. She would have liked above all things to have laid it on her lap and asked her friend to leave her in peace for an hour or two. But she was too embarrassed to give any hint of her wishes.
"What shall we have with our coffee?" asked Meta, momentarily anxious to display her authority as mistress of the house. "Meringues, jam pancakes, or apple-fritters?"
"Can you really order anything you like?" asked Hertha, full of admiring envy. At this moment she could almost have made up her mind to accept a husband who was not Leo.
"Naturally I can order what I like," replied her friend, with a melancholy little shake of the head. Bui; she might have truthfully added, "That is, when Hans's mamma has a bilious attack."
"Well, then, I should like apple-fritters best!" exclaimed Hertha, with a sigh of relief, for now they seemed to be getting a more human footing.
As she threw her hat and cloak in a corner, she caught sight of a pair of pouter pigeons fluttering from the ceiling, holding a corner of the bed-canopy in their half-open bills.
"Oh, how perfectly heavenly!" she cried. "If I were married and might have everything I wanted, I would hang a gold cage up there with a nightingale in it, to sing me to sleep every night."
Her friend made no answer, but she smiled. And this smile, indulgent and sad, in which there lay worlds of profound knowledge, told Hertha that she had said something extraordinarily stupid. She rubbed her nose in her confusion, then drew herself erect again, for it seemed to her necessary to recapture her dignity.
A further survey of the room revealed new wonders at every turn. On the toilette table, which, like the bed, had a canopy of silken gauze draped above it, was an array of brushes, bottles, round and square boxes, all made of the same lapis lazuli glass.
She took out stoppers and lifted covers enviously. In one of the boxes she found a powder-puff. It was the first time in all her young life that she had held a powder-puff in her hand.
"May you powder too?" she asked.
Meta shook her head, laughing. "I might if I liked," she said, "but I don't."
Hertha felt a burning desire to guide the white soft ball of down over her face, but forebore from exposing her vanity before her friend.
"I suppose that you are very, very happy?" she asked.
"Thank God, yes," replied her friend, in a tone of solemn seriousness which Hertha couldn't understand, because she had always thought happiness was a laughing matter, and only unhappiness a subject that required to be treated seriously.
Her eyes began to wander round the room again, for she was keenly anxious to discover all the curiosities it contained. Suddenly she gave a start, for there in a corner she alighted on a row of high button-boots, of dimensions so enormous that no woman's feet could have filled them.
"How do they come there?" she asked timidly.
"They are Hans's Wellingtons," replied Meta, in a matter-of-course tone, which crushed her afresh.
It seemed to her as if the Wellingtons grew visibly to a still more gigantic size, and formed an insurmountable barrier between her and her friend. She began at the same time to resent the reserve with which Meta continued to behave towards her.... The days when they had sat in corners together and giggled and tittered while they crunched peppermint bull's-eyes out of a bag that lay across their laps, and now and then flipped each other behind the ear, seemed gone for ever.
"She, too, is going to prove faithless," thought Hertha, and her heart flamed up within her, as it always did at anything which recalled the fleeting vision of treacherous Käthi Greiffenstein.
But that had nothing to do with her mission. Most undoubtedly any one who was on such familiar and intimate terms with a man's Wellingtons, must be able to enlighten her with regard to the mystery she was so eager to have explained. But she didn't dare yet throw out any hints of her thirst for knowledge. They talked of one thing and another, Meta maintaining her gentle smile and reticent manner. After about half an hour, she rose and explained with a sigh that she must go and inquire how mamma was--if her visitor would excuse her.
And Hertha was left alone. How could she make use of the time? For she had settled in her mind that she would make use of it, only she was undecided between duties of mothers and the powder-puff. At last, after a short but sharp struggle, the powder-puff gained the day. Her eyes guiltily fixed on the door, she snatched the little implement, and with a trembling, hasty movement, dabbed it over her forehead and cheeks. Then she ventured to take a nervous glance at herself in the mirror, and what she saw frightened her.... It was the face of a corpse!
Now she knew how she would look when she lay in her coffin with a wreath of myrtle on her hair and with roses in her marble hands--so pale, so beautiful!
She let her head fall as far back as possible on her neck, and dropped her lids so low that only a misty slit between her lashes was left for her to see through. Both her neck and the back of her head began to ache, but she did not stir.
"Had I been one quarter so fair in my lifetime," she thought, "as I am in death, he would not have disdained my love." A sweet longing to shed tears came over her, but she did not give way to it for fear of disfiguring her snow-white cheeks with brown channels.
"If he saw me like this," she went on, talking to herself, "he would be bound to repent his coldness.... While every one else was asleep, he would come on tiptoe to stand by my bier ... he would throw himself on his knees and cover my rigid face with passionate kisses."
She shuddered. The fire-light from the inn hearth on that never-to-be-forgotten summer evening flickered before her. "And suppose I only appeared to be dead and wasn't really," she went on, "or that his newly awakened love had the power of bringing me to life again. If I opened my eyes and stretched out my arms and drew him to me in full forgiveness."
And as she instinctively spread out those forgiving arms, she felt so much life and movement in her that the illusion of being dead vanished.
"What a pity!" she thought. "All that is beautiful passes like a dream."
She set to work at once to remove the powder from her face. With a handkerchief rolled into a ball she rubbed and scrubbed cheeks, forehead, and nose; and the harder she rubbed, the greater became her fear that she might not be able to wipe off all traces of her misdoing. Her heart beat loudly. She seemed to herself like a criminal on the verge of being discovered. At the sound of footsteps in the corridor, she let the handkerchief fall and retired to the most shadowy corner of the room behind the bed-curtains, where she pretended to be engrossed in the study of a picture.
"Mamma is asleep," said Meta, coming in, "and coffee is ready."
"Oh, is it?" replied Hertha, in confusion. She would have given worlds to be able to stay in that dark corner, but of course it was not possible.
On the way to the dining-room she gave her cheeks a few more vigorous rubs, and then gallantly faced the light. She fancied that the old mamselle, who greeted her with a smile as she brought in the coffee, was mocking at her secretly; and when Meta's glance rested on her for more than a second, she could hold out no longer, and burying her hotly blushing face on her shoulder, she confessed her crime.
Meta smiled and kissed her, saying, "Never mind. We all do that some time in our lives."
"You too?" asked Hertha, daring to breathe freely again.
Meta nodded, and as mamma's going off to sleep had put her in a more cheerful humour, she added the confession that on the second morning of her wedded life, she had hardly had the patience to wait for Hans to go out of the room before flouring her face, so eager had she been to operate with the new powder-puff.
"But one soon gets over that sort of thing," she went on, with a thoughtful, hard look in her eyes.
Now the ice was really broken, and when the apple fritters arrived, frizzling crisply in their juice, Hertha thought the atmosphere was favourable for her great question. Still she struggled twice with herself before she was sure that she could combine the right moment with the right words. For she felt that her friend's new smile did not mean joking.
"There's one thing I want to ask you," she began, in a careless, casual sort of tone, though there was a choking sensation in her throat. "Wives love their husbands ... that's taken for granted; but do you think it's possible that wives ... can be ... loved by men--men who are not their husbands?"
Her friend didn't smile this time, but laughed outright, and Hertha felt a stone fall from her heart. Here was some one who was not going to be shocked, she thought.
"How funny you are," Meta said. "No one can prevent people loving whom they choose."
"I know.... But a man, don't you see, ought not----"
"No; heoughtnot, but often does."
"Does any one else loveyou, then?"
Meta coloured. She looked into space. Perhaps she was thinking of the man who had first captured her maiden fancy.
"I don't ask," she said. "It is more than enough that I please Hans; and, of course, I shouldn't allow anything of the kind."
"Then it isn't allowed?"
"Of course not, when they tell you so straight out."
"What? Do they ever tell it?"
"Often. It happens if the man is a very bold lover."
"Good gracious!" exclaimed Hertha, in horror. "If such a thing happened to me, I should show him the door pretty quick."
Then she became suddenly silent. She was asking herself the question, "What mighthehave said to her? What might she have answered?"
"Would it be possible," she inquired again eagerly, "for there to be women ... who--who wouldn't mind?"
"Oh yes," replied Meta.
"Who in the end might return such a bold man's love?"
"Yes; even that."
The world seemed to spin round in Hertha's brain, and with all the energy of innocence she cried, "Meta, I won't believe it!"
"There is a good deal that you would not believe, that I now know to be facts."
"Tell me, tell me. What, please?"
"No; most of it can't be told," said her friend, guardedly. "Not to any one, at least, who is not married."
Hertha thought of the vow they had once exchanged, but an undefinable feeling of shyness stopped her from reminding the forgetful Meta of it.
"All I can tell you," she continued, "is that things are very different from what we girls think they are. Do you remember, for instance, how all our heads were turned once about your uncle?"
"Which uncle?" asked Hertha.
"Leo Sellenthin," replied Meta, glancing sideways.
Hertha sighed. She was only too willing to forget the relationship which gave him authority over her. And then, all at once, her heart seemed to stand still, for she understood that the next minute would be pregnant for her with revelation. She was to hear something terrible.
"Do you know what people said after that duel, when he shot Herr von Rhaden dead?"
"No," she murmured.
"They said that he and Felicitas were in love with each other, and that Rhaden found it out. Good Heavens! What is the matter?"
Hertha, with parted lips and dilated eyes, had raised her hands as if to ward off the blow that was about to fall on her.
"For goodness' sake, calm yourself!" cried Meta, stroking her face with both hands. "It was only gossip. Of course, it's not true, and no one believes it now."
"Why is it not true?"
"Because, if it were, Ulrich Kletzingk, who is his bosom friend and knows all about him, would not have married her."
"But if he hadn't known?"
"Then Leo would have confessed it to him before the marriage."
"But, suppose he had not confessed?"
"He would have been absolutely obliged to do it. If he hadn't, Leo would have behaved shabbily to his friend."
Hertha scarcely comprehended, but one thing was clear, and flamed like a torch of certainty through all this night of riddles: "They had been in love ... they loved each other still ... they would always love each other."
After this, she was indifferent to what she and Meta talked about. A yellow mist lay before her eyes, and Meta's voice sounded as if it came from a long way off, and fell on her ear without meaning. She answered, not knowing what she answered.
"How shall I get away?" she kept asking herself, and thought with horror of the time, that for decency's sake she must still stay. But her deliverance was nearer than she expected, although the manner in which it was effected filled her with new terror.
Meta, in the middle of her chatter, turned suddenly pale, gasped for breath, and then tumbled off her chair in a dead faint. Hertha rushed to her with a cry of alarm, seized the water-jug, and poured a stream of water on her face. Meta made a low gurgling sound, breathed heavily through her nose, and then came to herself again.
"Lord have mercy!" cried Hertha, kissing the wet forehead of the reviving girl. "I will go and tell them to send for the doctor at once."
But her friend stopped her. "No, don't go," she said, calmly raising herself. "You can't understand, but it must happen."
"To be married is like being in another world," thought Hertha, startled, "where fainting dead away is quite an everyday event."
Then she reflected how gladly she would have fainted a hundred times a day for the sake of one who despised and spurned her.
"I will go home at once; you ought to rest," she murmured, controlling her excitement with difficulty, and her friend did not press her to stay.
An hour later, when she appeared in the living-room at Halewitz, grandmamma exclaimed, horrified--
"What is the matter with you, child? You are as pale as death."
"Oh, it's nothing, grandmamma," she replied, and tried to laugh. "I have been such a goose as to powder myself."