Evening came, and Hertha roamed about as if she were walking in her sleep. When the bell sounded for supper, she felt she would rather creep away and hide somewhere in the wainscot than face him. But in her perplexed and limp condition she made no resistance when Elly came to drag her to the table.
He was in his place, and gave her a friendly nod as usual, but to-day his smile seemed to her expressionless and stony. How different he looked to her eyes from what he had ever looked before!
If fire had shot out of his mouth, she would have hardly been surprised. He seemed now to be really the demoniac person that she had once pictured in her foolish fancies, though what had then filled her with longing dreams now inspired her with dread and horror. From time to time she gave him a shy glance.
"How can any one sit there quietly," thought she, "concealing such awful secrets in his breast?"
He had become very silent lately. Grandmamma gave out that he was working himself to death. The grim line between his brows seemed to grow deeper day by day.
Hertha believed now that she knew the cause of that line. She almost wished it might kill him, for she hated him, and the sin that made him suffer was abhorrent to her.
She abhorred herself too, for the condition of hate and jealousy into which she had worked herself up seemed to her undignified and vulgar.
"If only I knew what I ought to do," she thought, "so that I needn't be ashamed. I must pray," she concluded finally, "and then perhaps I shall find out the right path to take."
Willingly would she have run out there and then into the dark garden to be alone with God, but the rain still poured down in torrents.
At bed-time Elly vexed her with absurd questions about what one should do if a lover came at midnight to run away with one. The childish chatter of her bosom friend filled her with mistrust of herself. "Perhaps I am as silly as she is," she mused, and because she didn't want to think of foolish things, she preferred not to think at all, and turned on her side and fell asleep.
In the middle of the night she woke up. The rain seemed to have left off, but a gale had risen, which rattled the shutters, and whistled and moaned through the keyholes. "Didn't I intend to pray and meditate?" Hertha asked, as she settled herself snugly amongst the pillows. She felt joyously excited at having cheated sleep, for even her troubles could not do more than increase and deepen in her the feeling of infinite zest in mere existence.
She folded her hands, but could not compose herself to pray, for her soul was whirled and tossed on the wings of sublime ideas and lofty resolves. Gradually the chaos cleared, and out of it rose in triumphant purity one solitary resolution.
She would renounce. Renounce all dreams of happiness, all hopes. Renounce all the empty little pleasures with which thoughtlessly she had been wont to deck her youth; renounce all the glittering tinsel of worldliness. Calm and noble, she would sacrifice herself to her neighbours' needs, death at her heart and a smile on her lips. Yes, so it should be. And shedding tears of sweet satisfaction, she floated into the realms of sleep once more.
In the morning, when she opened her eyes, sunshine greeted them. What had passed in the night seemed to her now as a God-sent dream, a miracle worked by Heaven to save her soul from despair.
She kissed Elly with redoubled vigour, and exhausted herself in performing little services for others, for this harmonised best with her present angelic mood.
Only during breakfast, as she met Leo's eyes, was she conscious of the bitterness which she thought she had conquered for ever, waking in her again.
This recurrence made her anxious and uneasy. "My resolution is too weak," she thought, "to be able to withstand the temptations of the world; I must strengthen and sanctify it by a solemn vow, so that it will be a positive sin if I fail again."
Nevertheless, though she racked her brains, she could devise no method holy and awful enough to endow her with sufficient power of resistance.
At last, in a flash, what she was seeking came to her. She would row over to the Isle of Friendship, the home of all gloomy mysteries. There before the blood-sprinkled sacrificial stone she would kneel in prayer, and at the same time open a vein of her arm and utter a vow over the flowing bloody so that her yearning and hate might be silenced for ever.
The hours went by in sacred expectation. Soon after the vesper coffee, she slipped out with the key of the bathing-house in her pocket The wind swept across the wide meadow flats, and above her the sun, blood-red, was half hidden by a ragged fringe of stormy clouds. The grassy path had been saturated by the rain, and more than once her feet stuck fast in the boggy ground, which oozed and gurgled as she set them free. But, without looking back, she hurried on. Like a phantasmagoria the rich half-submerged pastures melted behind her. The tall sheaves bent before the wind; all the flowers which in the past summer days had made so fair a border to the meadow path, lay on the ground broken and smirched in a liquidmêlée.
As she came in sight of the shining surface of the stream stretching into the distance, she started, for to-day it was swollen to twice its usual breadth, and the current much swifter. The heavy rains of the last few days were responsible. The boats had been drawn up almost on to the top of the dyke, and water was hissing from the foot of the reeds along which one could generally walk with tolerably dry feet. It was uncanny to hear the dry dark heads of the bulrushes, whipped by wind and wet, sighing and rattling as they struck against each other. For a moment she had almost a mind to retire from the foolhardy enterprise. But the next her old daring defiance took possession of her anew.
"If I am in earnest about my vow," she said to herself, "no bodily danger should stand in my way."
She loosened the chain of the boat, which slid down the declivity of the dyke nearly of its own accord. In the bathing-house she found the right oars, and put off into the stream.
Now a desperate struggle began, even before she had got clear of the reeds; the current caught the little craft and drove it into the thickest part of the sedge, so that the keel was set as fast on unbroken rushes as on a sandbank. Here it was impossible to strike out with the oars, and only by pushing herself off with her hands from one clump of bulrushes to another did she at length get into open water. The boat was instantly caught by a couple of eddies and spun round in a circle. Clenching her teeth, Hertha steered herself with the handle of the oar. Her chest expanded, the blood hammered in her veins, a feverish vapour swam before her eyes. With every stroke of the oars she felt a portion of her life's strength flow out. But what did it matter? The boat was being mastered; it was making progress.
And by degrees the tumult in her blood subsided; the muscles, instead of slackening, became hard as steel. She dared look round and measure the distance she had come. The Isle of Friendship greeted her with its masses of golden-brown foliage, from which whirled swarms of falling leaves. A cry of hopeful longing escaped her breast; but she must look out, or another eddy would catch the boat. Ten minutes might have passed, when two withered leaves fluttered over her head and sank like tired birds of passage swimming on to the water.
She gave a deep sigh of satisfaction, for she knew that these leaves were envoys that the Isle of Friendship had sent to meet her. And now when she looked round she found that she was within the shadow of its willows.
One more bitter fight with the current, and with a last far-reaching stroke of the oars she shot into the little bay, whose sandy landing-place was quite under water, so that the boat was able to drift right in amongst the alder roots. With a rapid movement she slung the chain round the strongest of the stumps, fastened it firmly, and swung herself, by clinging to an overhanging branch, on to the steep slippery bank.
For a moment she crouched down on the drenched grass to recover breath, and looked at her blistered palms, which were bleeding. She wiped the blood away with her tongue, and laughed. Then she threw a frightened glance into the thicket where ruddy sunlight lay on the yellow leaves.
The brook which ran down to the river tossed dirty grey rainwater over the slimy stones, between which were heaped stacks of dead damp leaves. The tongues of fern growing along the edge of the water were nipped and shrivelled up, and they looked as they stood there like little wrinkled old women in their blurred brown rags. Not far off were a greasy company of toadstools spreading their smooth copula-shaped heads, delicately fluted underneath. They shone as if they had been rolling in butter.
In disgust at these rotting excrescences of damp weather, Hertha strode over them and struck into the thick of the thorny shrubs, which sorely thwarted her progress. Everywhere brambles, hung with raindrops like chains of pearls, switched her in the face, and her footmarks on the swampy moss, into which she sank, became glittering pools as she walked on.
It was a path along which the enchanted princesses of fairy tale might have wandered; but she was not in the least afraid, and when she saw a cluster of blue-black sloeberries glistening at her feet, she stooped and gathered them carefully in the palm of her hand.
At last the clearing lay before her, bathed in the purple rays of the sinking sun. She paused, filled with reverent awe, and looked round her.
The evening shadows had gathered over the little temple, and the wind-tossed branches scattered upon it their burden of fading leaves. There was a sighing and moaning in the air, as if the whole army of spirits with whom the legends of the neighbourhood populated the wood were assembled on this very spot. And there on the edge of the boscage was the old sacrificial stone, standing like an altar ready for a new offering of blood.
A cold shiver began to creep over her, but she suppressed it quickly. Let those who were cowards or who had guilty consciences be afraid. She stood still in front of the temple of friendship, and gazed up in astonishment at the sandstone figures.
"Which of the two is meant for Leo?" she wondered, and for the first time she fully realised the great wrong which was being done the man called Ulrich. The thought made her uneasy, and the longer she dwelt on it the blacker were the depths of depravity that it seemed to reach.
She turned her back, for she could no longer bear the sight of the two friends with their arms twined round each other. "One is a liar," she murmured to herself; and she felt just then as if all truth and good faith had vanished from the world--as if even yonder sun was a monstrous blood-red lie.
"No, no," she thought further; "it is impossible. He must have told him, and have said, 'I love your wife, but it is of no consequence. I only want to see her now and then, and listen to her voice--nothing more.'"
Of course, that was how it was. It couldn't--simply couldn't be otherwise. And she herself wanted nothing more than to seehimsometimes, and to win a friendly word from him. Truly she had wanted more--once. She had wanted to marry him.... At least, a short time ago she had. But now, of course, that was all over and done with. She had renounced him.
Her heart swelled. She ran round the old stone several times, then sat down on top of it and cried bitterly.
As she folded her hands to pray she saw the blood gushing forth. "How stupid I was this morning," she thought, "when I thought that I should have to open one of my veins on this stone, as if I couldn't pour out my heart's blood for him without doing that."
And tucking her feet beneath her body, she began to pray out loud, while the tears rolled into her mouth.
"Dear God, it is all over now.... My hopes and my happiness are wrecked. Therefore I beseech Thee from the bottom of my heart to give me strength at least to make others happy. And if I renounce, let me do so without envy, anger, or bitterness. Endow me with that true Christian humility and gentleness that Elly has in such a high degree, so that I may curb my dreadfully hot temper, and not say horrid things to those I love. And above all, I pray Thee for one thing: if he loves her, spare him the endless suffering that I endure because of him. Let him be as happy as it is possible for him to be in his unhappy love. And especially guard him from playing the liar to Ulrich, so that I need not be ashamed unto death for him. Take Frau Felicitas too under your protection, and let all men, whether they be good or bad, enjoy Thy grace so that at last they shall all come to eternal bliss. Amen!"
She repeated the "Amen" three times, and asked herself if there was any enemy or evil-doer for whom she had forgotten to pray, but none occurred to her.
Her heart was now so overflowing with love and forgiveness that she didn't know how she could be thankful enough.
The sun had gone down. A last red glow of light touched the corners of the temple, and gilded the blue-black autumn clouds that gathered in threatening masses on the horizon. Hertha climbed down from the stone, ate the blackberries which she had put down beside her, and thought of her journey home with some anxiety.
A bird of prey flew across the river with a thundering flap of its wings, and then soared as straight as a dart towards the clouds. Its plumage seemed to flash. The wind shook the grasses. All at once it grew dark.
"Farewell," said Hertha, looking back at the pair of friends. "I'll come again in the spring."
Suddenly she started in terror. She heard a crackling and snapping of twigs among the bushes, which drew nearer and nearer.
"A robber," thought Hertha, and laid her hand on her beating heart.
Erect she stood there, turning a courageous face to the approaching danger.
The figure of a man came in view on the edge of the clearing. Hertha felt her blood run cold. It was Leo. He hurried towards her with his firm stride. The veins stood out on his forehead; his eyes flashed fire.
"What are you doing here?" he demanded.
She was silent and bit her lips, feeling all her meekness depart at one blow.
"Have you taken leave of your senses? Didn't I forbid you to row here alone, and the stream swollen too."
Hertha began to boil inwardly. Was this the reward of her renunciation? But "have patience, be silent," a voice cried within her.
"It's a marvel that you haven't been carried away," he scolded on, all his anxiety for her turning into wrath. "When I forbid a thing, I have my reasons for doing so, but the devil himself seems to drive you into disobedience, girl. I am not at all inclined to go on a wild-goose chase after you again, I can tell you!"
Ah! that was hard. He scorned that hour which lived in her memory as the most sacred she had known. It was more than hard; it was brutal!
At this moment she hated him so that she felt as if she was almost swooning from the intensity of her emotions. All--all that she had just sworn was forgotten, and with a smile of icy contempt, hardly knowing what she said, she answered--
"You can order and forbid as much as you like. But he who is not honest and does not keep his word himself, can scarcely expect that others will respect and obey him."
The words were spoken. They could not be recalled. Reeling a step forwards, he stared at her dully.
"What--what does that mean?" Every drop of blood had forsaken his face.
"You must know perfectly well what it means;" and she turned to go.
He would have liked to shake her, to question her, and force her to speak. But he had not the courage. It seemed to him that from the lips of this child he had been condemned.
In silence they walked to the landing-place; in silence he rowed her over the stream; in silence they parted. Two who, because they belonged to each other, determined to go through life as enemies.
The reconciliation of the two women removed the last obstacle that stood in the way of Leo resuming his old relations with his friend. Nevertheless, things remained as they were.
Leo did his utmost to deceive himself, and yet every fresh meeting afforded him little else but anxiety and nervous oppression of spirit! When he searched his heart honestly, he could not wonder that it was so. Formerly, when he had reviewed his position with an untroubled glance he had taken for granted that the ghost of the past should stand between him and his friend, unless the whole naked, shameless truth should be brought to the light of day and confessed But that such a confession would be an impossible villainy seemed equally to be taken for granted. So there thus remained no other choice but to perpetrate a not less grave, though less ruinous villainy,i.e. to act a lie--the same crooked, cringing, smiling lie, day after day, in the house of the unsuspecting man, and to betray the master and well-beloved at every cock-crow afresh. To keep away now was out of the question. He could in no way have justified such a course. In these short and rainy autumn days it was no longer possible to avoid Felicitas, and he was obliged to own to himself that he no longer wished to avoid her. Those understanding looks which one hour he abhorred consoled him the next, for they were eloquent of sympathy and gratitude.
He would even have liked to be oftener alone with her. For although such interviews meant an amalgam of shame, remorse, slackness, and cynicism, they necessitated no lying. One spoke the truth without restraint, however abominable the subject one talked on might be.
But what was worst of all was the uncertainty about Ulrich's attitude towards him. For a long time he had not been sure how to interpret it. He kept vigilant watch on his friend's ever-varying expression, as if to ascertain whether he had guessed anything since they last met, and so the flow of easy and natural converse dried up in his throat. Whatever he did, he was tormented by the probability of Ulrich having gathered from his intercourse with Felicitas some hint that roused his suspicions; he might, by the process of putting two and two together, and by recalling and comparing incidents, be drawing conclusions and nearing the discovery of the hideous truth. So absorbed was he by the idea, that sometimes it seemed to him almost inconceivable that Ulrich should not have drawn such conclusions, and there were certain hours when he firmly believed that his friend's geniality was a mere mask, which he assumed to draw him into a trap.
He measured anxiously the warmth of each hand-shake with which Ulrich welcomed him, and if he noticed that his eyes were resting on him thoughtfully, his blood would mount hotly to his brow, and the figure of his friend swim before him in a mist.
One evening, in the middle of October, Ulrich received him at the portico with the words--
"Come into my study; I want to have a talk with you."
The tone in which he said this was one of suspicious solemnity, and Leo felt his heart sink. He was almost convinced now that the hour of explanation had sounded.
"I'll put a bullet through my brain before I confess," he thought, while Ulrich closed the door behind them.
His furtive gaze wandered searchingly along the massive black shelves and cupboards which lined the small room, and from which the gold of the bookbindings cast a soft shimmer. Here, amidst periodicals and political pamphlets, microscopes and specimens, his friend spent his leisure; here he robbed his nights of sleep in ceaseless and indefatigable study. Leo felt as if he must make sure of a weapon, but in this peaceful little kingdom there was nothing of the kind in evidence. Silently he sat down, and confronted his friend with mute hostility.
Ulrich's long figure dropped into the black leather-covered chair at the writing-table, and he pushed the lamp with green shade out of the circuit of his elbow.
"Now listen," he began. "The question that I am going to ask has become unavoidable, for we can't go on like this. Something is wrong with you ... No; don't contradict me. We have known each other as long as we can remember, but I have never seen you like this before."
Leo choked back his answer with a hoarse laugh.
"Shall I enumerate all the changes in you on my fingers?" continued Ulrich. "I think it is hardly necessary. At all events, you are concealing something from me, and I have been wondering for a long time what it can be. I have made a note of every possibility, and weighed each according to a strictly logical system. I have weeded out the most nonsensical, and now two eventualities have remained. The first is need of money."
Leo would have hastily agreed, so as to leave no room for the second supposition, but he foresaw what the consequences would be, and was silent.
Ulrich's eyes rested on him in burning solicitude. He tugged at his thin beard, awaiting an answer, shook his head, and then continued. "But I say to myself that my light-hearted comrade of old would never let himself be depressed by such cares, ... and, besides, it would be a breach of faith of the worst sort if he was uneasy for a minute about money, so long as my cheque-book contains in it an unwritten page. It's true, I hope, that you would never do me such a wrong?"
"No, no!" exclaimed Leo, and looked as if he were about to seize his friend's hand, but his courage failed him.
"You'll swear it?"
"Yes, of course! I swear it," he replied. One falsehood more or less signified little now. He knew that he would rather cut off his right hand than take a single farthing from the hand that now lay cold and gentle in his.
"And then I say to myself," went on Ulrich, "a man who was born to laugh and be merry doesn't become moody and despondent for nothing. If it's not debts that prey on him, it is guilt."
Leo passed his hand over his forehead and withdrew it damp. "And what may the guilt be?" he asked, trying to laugh.
"Yes, I have asked myself that question too. What can it be, when he is afraid to speak of it to me? And I have argued further, it must be something that he fears to pain me by confessing, otherwise his silence would have no motive. It must be, therefore, something in which I am myself concerned."
Leo, half risen, clung to the arms of his chair. He was extremely upset.
"I am as transparent as glass to him," he thought. Only Ulrich's friendly, almost mournful calmness still remained a riddle to him. And this calmness restrained him, else would he have sought before to save himself from what was coming.
"I set myself the task of inquiring into the past," Ulrich continued. "I ransacked your life back to its earliest youth. I found scrapes, and even intrigues, in plenty; but of actual wrong-doing nothing till ... up to----"
"What?"
"Your duel with Rhaden."
Leo felt a sensation of something to which he had been clinging giving way within him. With a tired sigh he sank against the back of the chair.
Ulrich leaned over and put his hand on his knee. "Don't try to hide it from me any more," he said. "I see too plainly that I have hit the mark. You would be made of stone and iron if the sight of her who was once his wife did not perpetually remind you of the fact that it is no light or ordinary matter to shoot down like a wild beast, some one who has injured ouramour propre, or to let ourselves be so shot down."
"What could I do?" stammered Leo again, without a conception of what his friend was driving at.
"A reconciliation ought to have been patched up. That is to say, don't misunderstand me, I am not blaming you. It would not become me to do so, as I myself was more to blame than you."
"Youto blame!"
"Undoubtedly. I was the mediator. I should also have been the peacemaker. And to this day it's a mystery to me that I couldn't manage to avert the consequences of that foolish dispute.... I made bad use of my official opportunity. Rhaden should have been compelled to recall the expression 'unfair,' for it's clear that he only let it escape him in the excitement of the moment. I have judged myself severely enough. I will confess to you that I ask myself sometimes, 'Were you justified in marrying the wife of a man in whose death you had a hand?' Scruples, perhaps of a somewhat pedantic conscience, and only you have the right to reproach me for it."
"Reproach! I?" exclaimed Leo, who at last slowly grasped that this abstruse dreamer, with his punctilious sense of justice, was trying to fasten on himself a guilty responsibility out of his altogether fairy-like version of the facts. Ah, if he only knew!
"Yes, my dear boy," Uhich went on, "don't conceal from me what you think of my conduct, from false sentiments. I am guilty, and I alone. This house should be as much your home as Halewitz. And I ought not to have allowed even the most insane love to prevail upon me to bring a wife here who would so constantly remind you of that untoward event. Not that she knows or wishes it. For she has so thoroughly forgiven you that sometimes I wonder how such a power of forgiving and forgetting can exist on earth. It appears to me like unfaithfulness to the father of her child, and above all"--a faint flush passed over his face, and he turned away to master his emotion--"above all it seems a wrong to the child himself. You see that all this brooding reflection has made me both bitter and unjust, for, after all, I am only reproaching her with her devotion to me and her desire to promote my happiness. Alone through the completeness of her pardon has it been possible for me to stand before you in any other light than as a traitor to our friendship, although God knows I have enough for which to claim your forbearance."
"Ulrich, I can't stand this!" cried Leo, jumping to his feet.
"What can't you stand?" replied the other, in the tolerant, considerate tone in which people speak to impetuous, headstrong children. "My willingness to take half the burden of your trouble on my own shoulders? I tell you it belongs to me, old boy. It is my privilege, and I demand it. And if there was such a thing as rendering accounts in friendship, I would say that I stand so deep in your debt that I don't see how a tolerable balance can ever be restored. Don't snort, and stride about the room at that mad pace. You know I hate it. There, now, drop all superfluous considerations out of regard for me, and be open with me in future. We two get on best when we tell each other everything, even when it hurts; anything better than sparing each other's feelings by setting up a barrier of shy reserve."
Leo made an inarticulate exclamation, and stood in front of his friend, with his shoulders squared. At that moment he resolved to tell all. A hunger for truth worked so powerfully in his soul that he would have thought it cheaply purchased at the price of death itself.
But almost immediately after, a voice cried within him, "It would be madness, and it may lead to murder."
So he fell back silently into his armchair. The twilight which reigned in the neighbourhood of the lamp-shade prevented his agitation from being visible, otherwise it must have betrayed him.
"And one thing more, my boy," Ulrich went on again. "For a long time I have had something to thank you for, which has been weighing heavily on my mind."
"Still thanking me!" thought Leo, with an outbreak of unholy humour which was next door to despair.
"You ought to know it, because I am sure that it will give you pleasure. You have been the good angel of my house. No, don't deny it. It's a fact. It looks as if you know devilish well how to manage women. Then it is almost incredible how Felicitas has changed for the better since you have been coming here frequently. You would not look at me in such astonishment, if you knew what she had been before. All that folly with the boys of the neighbourhood is past and over. Not long ago I referred to it in joke, and she threw her arms round my neck and implored me with tears in her eyes never to speak of it. She lives a domestic life, and tries to interest and busy herself in the house. Her fantastic vagaries have entirely vanished. She has given up crying for no cause. She is much more composed and dignified in her views, and doesn't live now on nothing but marmalade and Madeira; and what is my chief solace of all--I won't keep it from you, for you will rejoice in her happiness, knowing how unhappy I was--she no longer locks my door."
A spasm of repulsion shot through Leo's breast, which he attributed to shame at this undeserved confidence, and tried to combat. Then something like a genuine feeling of happiness dawned in his soul. He drew a deep breath, and pressed his friend's hand. After all there had been no foundation for his anxiety. While he had been suffering and wrestling with himself, his object unknown to himself, had been fulfilled. Perhaps things were not so bad as they had seemed; ... perhaps there was still hope, even for him too.
The soothing effect of this conversation lasted several days, and then went off completely. His friend's blind trust became torture to him. Much as he had feared his suspicion, now an atom of uncertainty would have seemed a positive consolation, and have placed his crime within the range of human possibilities. Amongst the premises which Ulrich, according to his own words, had rejected as untenable, Leo's love for Felicitas had in all probability found a place. His friend could not easily have overlooked it in his logical inquiry, but the pure nobility of his unsuspicious heart had at once annihilated the evidence which his acutely reasoning mind had built up.
There were moments when he could almost have hated him for this. Had Ulrich been more mistrustful before his marriage, the whole ill-omened business might have turned out differently.
The more he thought over the change in Lizzie, and the new relations with her which at first had promised so happily, the more disquieted he became inwardly. If it was true that she no longer cared for him, how was the powerful influence that he exercised over her to be accounted for?
He dared not follow the line of argument further, but his thoughts hovered about the dangerous ground, as wild beasts prowl round a night-fire.
His only comfort in these troubles was the management of the estate. He felt that if there was any salvation for him, he must find it in work. He would work till all his muscles relaxed, and he came near death's door. And of work to be done, there was enough in all conscience.
October is a heavy month in the districts where beet-root is cultivated. The process of harvest demands the severest vigilance, for the labourers, in order to make more rapid progress, are fond of tearing the roots out of the ground and freeing them of the clinging earth by beating them violently together. Two cardinal errors, because the slightest flaw in the root lowers its sugar-producing value. The next stage of moving the crop as quickly as possible to the nearest export station is attended with even more labour and trouble.
In the small hours of the morning, long before the first gleam of dawn had crept across the level landscape, what had been dug out of the earth the day before was smartened up and piled on to the waggons, which in slow procession journeyed to Münsterberg, where the beet-roots were packed for the railway transit. It was a long and difficult route; especially the crossing of the river was apt to involve a thousand delays and mishaps, whereby much precious time was lost. And Leo did not shirk the arduous task of superintending the transit in person, a task which the most conscientious of bailiffs would willingly have shunted on to the shoulders of others. So there was much jeering astonishment in the district at the unheard-of spectacle of a high-born landed proprietor appearing on the scene before six o'clock in the morning. Those were fine, strenuous days, with a satisfying record of countless duties achieved.
At five minutes to three the watchman's pole tapped on his window-pane, a dreadful moment, but how could it be helped? On the stroke of three the shutters must be opened as a sign to the watchman that he was up, otherwise that official had orders to hunt his master out of bed with a douche of cold water. Twenty minutes later he was in the saddle.
Night and silence still reigned in the castle, only Christian, who despite the burden of years would not relinquish the service of himself mixing the "Gnädiger Herr's" warm cognac, stood with lamp and taper in the doorway, and greeted him with a tremulous "Good morning."
Then followed a smart gallop to the fields, where the work-people already nervously awaited him. Their lanterns flashing out of the darkness showed him the way. A sonorous morning greeting, returned by a chorus of voices; a rapid survey of the waggons; a fewdonner wetters! in addition--for in German country places no workman feels at home unless he is sworn at--and then, amidst a tremendous din, the procession of waggons heavily, but withal adroitly, got under way.
Half an hour later, they drew up at the Wengern ferry. The black river lay there in the darkness, yawning and gurgling like a huge monster gifted with invisible and destructive life. Over it the wind whistled and sighed, although not a twig stirred on the plains. The ferry-raft oscillated, the horses neighed anxiously, confused cries and words of command rang out through the air. The heavily loaded waggons rumbled, amidst the cracking of whips and rattling harness, down the precipitous decline of the dyke, as if they were bound to roll headlong into the abyss. They got on to the shaking landing-stage, where the bar brought the horses to a halt, and these swerved to one side in their nervousness, and tried to bite each other's flanks. The ferry could take ten at a time, the rest had to wait for the second journey. A curious feeling of panic seized Leo every time the rope slackened and the pulleys began to work. He rode up and down the bank and watched the fleet embark. It seemed to glide into space, and was swallowed up in darkness. Only the reflection of the lanterns made trembling threads of light across the black water. On the other side of the ferry the train divided, for it would have been a waste of time for the first relay to await the second.
When the last waggon had crossed, Leo's enjoyment began. He loosened the curb, in order to gallop the quicker after the receding carts. His limbs, numb from cold or wet, thawed, a tingling sensation of welcome warmth pervaded his body and winged his thoughts. So long as the race lasted, all trouble was forgotten. The early morning cramp of worry--a symptom which once had been unknown to his robust physique--grew less, and finally disappeared. The first suggestion of light that lay on the earth--dreamy and full of promise--found for a few moments a reflection in his soul.
With the rosy dawn, the first waggon made its entry into Münsterberg, and drew up at the station shed, near which was the great pair of scales. A tedious hour of wrangling and counting followed. Then he turned his face towards home. And in the castle dining-room, when grandmamma called the children to coffee, Leo made his appearance, too.
Sometimes he was covered with dust, sometimes drenched with rain. With clattering of spurs, and amidst barking of dogs, he would come into the room, and with a weary "Good morning," hurl his cap into a corner.
His day's work only began now in earnest, and when he entered his bedroom at night, he dropped into a chair as if felled by a sudden blow. Often he could scarcely find the strength to undress, and two or three times the pitiless pole had tapped and surprised him still sitting at his table, with flushed face and smoking lamp.
There was little time left for visits to Uhlenfelde, and Leo felt happy at having a valid pretext for excusing himself. Yet it seemed to him scarcely right to avoid meeting Felicitas alone. She might ask why he had been untrue to his word? She had a certain claim to his society, and he began, too, to be devoured with a longing to see and converse with her without Ulrich being present. He hoped for a favourable opportunity, such as the last had been, but it did not occur. So he counted, with a beating heart, the hours till he should be certain of Ulrich's absence, and meanwhile he stayed at home.
Then came an evening when the representatives of the Agricultural Association were holding their monthly meeting in Münsterberg, and he, no longer able to restrain himself, started with a kind of sad defiance for Uhlenfelde.
It was dark when he landed on the opposite bank. The wind was boisterous and cold, and he felt half frozen. Old Minna met him in the vestibule, the factotum of the old love intrigue, whose mediating offices he recalled with a shudder.
She explained to him, blinking and nodding, that the gracious little mistress wasn't well; that the gracious little mistress was suffering from cramp of the heart, but, nevertheless, the gracious one would receive him.
The familiarity with which the toothless, clapping mouth smirked up at him was revolting, and still more revolting was it that he found himself smiling back at her. But it was necessary to keep on good terms with her. Was she not an accomplice?
Shuddering, he hardly knew whether from cold or excitement, he paced up and down between the pillars. It was some time before the old hag returned.
The gracious little mistress had been lying down, but begged him to wait a few minutes. She would make her toilette as quickly as possible, that was to say, not completely, because such old friends needn't stand on ceremony with each other.
Leo compressed his lips. Had she chosen to be more explicit still, he must have endured it.
In Lizzie's sanctum, two lamps with rose-coloured shades were burning. Cushions and rugs were scattered about in confusion on the couch, as if some one had a moment before disturbed them by hastily jumping up. An open book lay face downwards on the carpet. He picked it up. The title was "The Golden Road to Virtue: Experiences of a Sinner."
He began to turn over the leaves haphazard. In the highly coloured style of a tract, a newly converted sinner related her marvellous rescue from vice with a sort of coquettish fervour, which made him fancy he saw the play of uplifted eyes with which this drawing-room Magdalene sought to lure the Saviour, like another lover, into her net. But from Leo, the Goth who since his school-days had read the very worst literature, even such trash as this wrung a certain unwilling respect.
"She is doing her best according to her lights," he thought, and laid the book down with care. Yes, she was in earnest.
When she entered the room, he noticed at once the dark rims which pain had left round her eyes, and the paleness of her lips.
And yet she had never seemed to him more beautiful. She wore a careless artisticnegligéeof blue cashmere, bordered with creamy lace, which accumulated on her breast into a filmy cloud. Her hair, only simply dressed, curled in countless small rings over brow and cheeks, and was massed on the crown of her head into a knot of curls, which was surrounded by a double circlet of gold. Leo remembered to have seen such heads in picture-galleries, bathed in golden tints and standing out in relief against a purple half-light, as if emerging from some background of mystery.
"You have been suffering?" he exclaimed, extending both hands towards her.
"I? Who told you so?" she replied, with a tired smile, as she sank into an easy-chair.
"Minna told me."
Instead of answering, she lifted her eyebrows languidly, and stretched out a limp hand for a cushion to support her neck. She must have just been scenting herself, for her person exhaled the opoponax perfume more overpoweringly than ever.
Leo felt signs already of the enervating stupefaction which always took possession of his brain in this atmosphere. It began like a slight pressure on the temples, spreading to his forehead, and finally encompassing his whole head with iron spans.
Felicitas buried her face in the hollow of her supporting arm and remained motionless.
"Good God! What ails you?" he demanded.
She raised her head slightly, and smiled at him hopelessly.
"What ails me, Leo? I wish that I had never been born. That's all."
"A pious wish, at least," he answered, with an unsuccessful attempt to sneer. "Now tell me frankly, Lizzie," he exhorted, "why do you rave against yourself like this? There is no sense in it. Tell me--why?"
"Because I am learning to repent."
A spasm shot through him, as if he were about to make an effort to protest against the word, but he no longer had the power. The life that he had been leading for the last two months had been nothing but a vain struggle against self-reproach and repentance. Hence the wrecking of his whole character. He got up, and in silence paced with unsteady steps the rosy, dimly lighted boudoir. Then he came close to her and leant against the edge of her chair.
She looked up at him with plaintive eyes; then, sighing deeply, pressed her face against his arm.
He would have drawn back, but he did not wish her to see that he thought this contact less harmless than she did.
"Leo, I suffer unspeakable agony," she whispered.
He drew his arm away from her abruptly, and sat down opposite her.
"So all the happiness you are giving Ulrich," he asked, "is nothing but a delusion and a sham?"
"Do you expect me to make it a reality?"
"I expect nothing. I only wish--I ..." He could not go on. His thoughts moved tardily, clumsily. He only knew that her astonished, resentful question had not displeased him so much as it ought to have done.
"The promise I made you," she continued, "I have honestly kept to the best of my ability. I have tried to be a good housewife, worthy of him, a wife of whom he need not be ashamed. But the penance I have imposed on myself is terrible. I suffer tortures that no man can have any idea of."
"And do you imagine that I am lying on a bed of roses?" he responded.
"You! What do you want?"
Then he burst forth. "I? Ah, woman, little do you know what I endure. I am in torment; I appear to myself polluted from head to foot. I scarcely know how to look honest people in the face. I think every one is pointing the finger of scorn at me. If it goes on like this, I must go out of my mind. Isn't that bad enough?"
She let her eyes rest on him full of curiosity.... Something like stealthy joy shone in them, for since the long, long ago he had never poured out to her such confidences, from the depths of his being.
"Can I help you?" she murmured.
He laughed stridently.
"Oh, please, Leo!"
"Don't talk of your helping," he answered; "help from your side would be only a fresh crime. Besides, how could you? Only one person can help me, and that is Ulrich."
"For God's sake!" she cried out, "you are not thinking of----"
"Calm yourself," he made answer. "I know what I owe you. We two are yoked together.... We are both bound to hold our tongues; that is an understood thing."
There was a pause. Then Felicitas asked in a trembling voice--
"Can you pray, Leo?"
He gazed at her in shocked amazement. "Pray, indeed! It's well for those who can. But I have sneaked out of the Almighty's way, like my dog Leo sneaks out of my way when he has torn a fowl to pieces."
"You ought to try," she said, with her most pious expression "It has done wonders for me lately.... I confide all my yearning to the merciful ear of the Saviour, and----"
"Yearning? Yearning for what?" he asked.
She smiled in confusion. "Really, you ought to pray," she repeated.
"Indeed!"
"Perhaps our Lord is only inflicting this trial on us as a test of our faith, and we shall come through it glorified. It may be that it is part of His system of salvation to----"
"Tell me," he broke in, aghast, "have you been calling on Brenckenberg?"
"God forbid!" she cried. "I am horribly afraid of him."
"Or perhaps on Johanna?"
"No," she answered, colouring; "Johanna has been to see me."
"Ah, indeed."
"Don't be so hard. I bless the day that led me to her arms, for she has shown me the way to the Cross."
"How often has she been here?"
"Three times."
"And you have made yourself over to her body and soul?"
She shook her head with a smile. "I have only done that for one person in the world," she said. "There is much that I cannot speak of to her, but her influence has been of infinite benefit to me."
He gazed before him meditatively.
She rose and came close to his chair. "Do you know, Leo," she said, with a dreamy smile, "it would be so nice if we prayed together."
"What do you mean?"
She was embarrassed. "I mean, if we took our common trouble to the Father...."
"Heavens! You think that would improve matters?"
She sighed. "It would be so beautiful," she whispered.
"How do you propose to do it?" he asked. "Shall we kneel down side by side on the carpet?"
She half laughed, and flushed deeper. "You are a heathen," she pouted, sitting down again, "and scoff at the most sacred things."
"Make your mind easy, dear child," he said seriously. "I have long ago lost the humour for scoffing."
"Well, then, you can at least pray for me, as I pray for you."
"Do you really do that?" he asked, while a feeling of gratitude stirred gently within him.
She nodded shamefacedly, and cast her eyes on her lap. "It is the utmost I can do," she murmured.
Again there was silence. Their eyes met and rested in each other's depths. A sweet, silent sympathy seemed to hover between them like a mysterious vapour. At this moment Leo did not feel the chafing of his chains. The thoughts of both went back to their past.
"We were too happy," breathed Felicitas, "that is why we must suffer so much now."
He did not answer. After the manner of man, he retained less grateful remembrances than she did of the bliss that had been theirs.
She became doubtful "Or perhaps you were not happy?" she asked.
He nodded, for, against his will, he was falling a victim to old memories.
She gazed at him with fixed eyes, her hands pressed hard against her forehead.
"Why did things turn out so?" she whispered. "Why could we not be strong, and resist the temptation?"
"Why? There is no 'why' in the matter. We were young and hot-headed and foolish, and we thought of nothing.... I, for my part, wonder now how I could have seemed so sagacious to myself, and not cried out to the whole world, 'See, what a dog I am. I have an affair with a woman ... a married woman!'"
"But at first, in the beginning ... how did you feel?" she asked.
"What? In the beginning?"
"When you ... first ... guessed my love."
"When ... ah, you mean that night?"
"Do you still remember it?" she asked, leaning over to him. A pink flame leapt up in her cheeks, her glance swam in dreamy reminiscence.
"How can such things be forgotten?" he replied, frowning and smiling at the same time. "One must carry them to the grave."
"And as you rode home ... that night ... what did you think about?"
"You are always asking what I thought," he answered, while visions of that hour mounted to his brain and made him hot "I rode on and on, as if I were drunk. Every moment I expected to fall out of the saddle. And when I came to my own meadows, I drew in the roan. You remember it was the old roan then, with the white feet. I tethered him to a meadow-hurdle, and flung myself on the grass. It must have been nearly two o'clock, but it was a very close, sultry night; just a streak of red dawn was already in the sky. There I lay, asking myself, 'Is it possible? Can you really have experienced it? Are there such hours to be lived on earth?' And the roan grazed all the time, and round about was the new-mown hay. That got into one's senses, ay, it was enough to drive one mad...."
A soft cry escaped her lips. She had thrown her head back over the side of the chair, the blue veins stood out on her throat, her breast heaved tumultuously, and, with both hands pressed to her heart, she lay gasping for breath.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked, in much concern, for he feared a repetition of that scene.
"Nothing--nothing. It is only my stupid heart, nothing else."
"Can't I get you anything?"
"Thank you. It will soon be better ... it is better now."
She sat up, and, as if to allay his fears, smiled mechanically into vacancy. Then she began to talk to herself, as if in a dream.
"And I ... I see it all before me still.... When you were gone ... I went to the window ... and listened ... to your footsteps in the garden; the horse neighed from the hedge ... it saw you coming ... and then there was a sound of hoofs, echoing softly ... and then all was quiet."
"And you had no qualms of conscience?"
She shook her head with a blissful smile, setting the waves and curls of her hair in motion so that they whipped her over cheek and throat. Then, recollecting how serious this question was, she knitted her brows and grasped her temples with both hands.
"In those days," she said dully, "I had no notion of what conscience meant; in those days I let my sinful happiness carry me along joyously to the edge of an abyss without reflecting. That night, in my ecstasy, I tore my clothes from my body...."
Suddenly she paused, shocked at herself. Her fingers, which had been fumbling at her throat, had caught in the cloud of lace. With a thin, long-drawn, tearing sound some thread of the delicate fabric collapsed. She smiled at him in dismay. Then she quickly turned the situation off with a jest.
"That is a pity," she said. "It is real old Flemish."
Daintily she knotted the ends together again. "Is that all right?" she asked.
He did not answer.
A fresh silence took paralysing possession of the pair. Their glance wandered away, as if they no longer dared meet one another's eyes. She, with flushed cheeks, gazed at the toe of her embroidered Turkish slipper, which with its gold arabesques shone forth from the hem of her blue cashmere gown. He gnawed his moustache, and stared up at the ceiling. The oil in the two lamps hissed and hummed. With a subdued murmur the wind caressed the windowpanes in passing. The clock ticked melodiously; it was a sound like a rain-drop falling at regular intervals on the strings of a harp.
Leo felt a speechless fury boiling within him. He wanted to move, but could not stir. At last he made a violent effort to regain his manliness.
"Why do we grope about in the past?" he asked, jumping to his feet. "It can lead to no good."
"It helps us to forget the misery of the present. Isn't that some good?" she replied.
He did not contradict her, and turned to go. But in parting he caught hold of her in a sudden spasm of rage, shook her hither and thither, and, burying his fingers in the elastic flesh of her upper arm, he bent down and muttered in her ear--
"You are right ... Wewillpray."