Part 2

From her pale face it could be read that she did not see the slightest pleasure in being the wife of a governor, ambassador, or minister. Her hand grew limp and cold in his, she evaded his caresses, and every time that evening that his glance met hers, her eyes were filled with tears. Her exaggerated aversion to the world disquieted him, without seeming to him other than a symptom of diseased nerves; he thought that his loving patience must vanquish it, and when the next morning his servant brought him a letter from Elsa, he admired the strange, energetic, large letters of the address, and played with it, firmly convinced that it could not contain anything important. It contained the following:

"Above all things, many, many thanks for the sympathizing friendship which you have always showed to us, my father and me. Never should I have allowed myself to be persuaded into an engagement with you. I should be a lamentable wife for you. I will not hinder you in your career, and I cannot live in the world even for your sake. Therefore I give you back your word. I wish you all joy and happiness in the world, and as to me, when you have become a great man, keep a little friendly remembrance of the spring of '70. Elsa."

What could he do but rush over to Traunberg, overwhelm her with tender reproaches, represent to her subtly and incontrovertibly that her shyness was morbid, her yielding to this mood fairly wrong.

"Am I then nothing to you?" he finally cried, vexedly.

Then she raised her large eyes, eyes such as Raphael has painted in the sweet face of the little John, as he kneels near the sleeping child Jesus, his God and his King.

"I believe you love a quite different person from me--you do not know me!" she whispered, shaking her head.

And Erwin flushed crimson and was ashamed of his brutal egoism. He kissed her hands, he would torment her no longer--but he could not give her up.

He gave her eight days to consider it--all that remained of his vacation.

But he did not gain a step during these eight days.

With a heavy heart and hoarse voice he took leave. She smiled.

And yet he never felt more plainly that she loved him. Her love was that emotion which is above earthly considerations, which is capable of the most painful sacrifices, the most complete renunciation, although, or perhaps because she scarcely thought of marriage; in a word, it was the love of a very young girl.

It did not resemble his in the slightest. How shallow his life in Vienna and his career now seemed to him; how unattractive, how far away and vague his aim, and even if he did attain all for which he strove.

The justifications of a true, warm, longing love are always quite incontrovertible for him whom it guides.

Elsa stood before the park, under one of the black lindens. It was summer, the lindens bloomed, and a dreamy hum of bees pervaded their gnarled branches. Elsa looked through the clear summer air in the direction in which Castle Steinbach shone white above the wooded valley. Then she heard a step--she looked around. It was Erwin, thin, in spite of the flush of heat, looking very badly, but with sparkling eyes.

"Where do you come from?" cried she, trembling with surprise, with happiness.

"From the castle, where I sought you in vain. Your father did not know where you were."

"He was asleep--did you wake him?"

"Very possibly, but I had no time to reproach myself! Oh, Elsa, are you not in the least glad to see me? I have resigned--I cannot live without you!"

She stood there with loudly beating heart, and embarrassed smile, like a surprised child before a Christmas tree.

"You pay a high price for a miserable little thing," murmured she, and fairly wept.

"Happiness desires to be paid dearly for--it seems to me a small one!" whispered he.

Thereupon she was silent for a moment, looked at him anxiously, solemnly; was it possible that he clung to her, such a weak, insignificant creature? Then suddenly, with her lovely look of embarrassment, she threw both arms around him. "Oh you----" she cried, and paused because she found no word that in her opinion was great and splendid enough for him. "How I will love you!"

It was a risky experiment, to tear himself away from his customary occupation and society, and wish to pass the rest of his life at the side of a nervous misanthropical wife.

How did it succeed?

He had feared having too little to do, had provided himself with books, quite like a diplomat sent to Japan. To his astonished delight, he soon found not only how much there was to occupy him but how much he could accomplish with the income from Steinbach, which he had been accustomed to estimate at two or three per cent., and which now daily increased; for the many lives around him whose weal and woe he held in his hands, from the overseer and farmers to the day-laborers, and then Elsa!

How beautiful she grew after he had slowly kissed away the deep sadness from her face--and how lovely! The frivolous love of pleasure and gayety which is considered normal in young women never developed in her; she always remained quiet, but a dreamy happiness shone continually in her eyes, she was so blissfully happy.

What a charming companion! She rode with the endurance and indifferent courage of a man, read everything, was interested in everything, noticed everything, spoke of the most forgotten historical characters as if she had met them yesterday. She rather spurred him on than dragged him down.

Instead of, as he had feared, growing rusty in the country, he had time for making good much that he had neglected. She went on long journeys with him, but at home associated as little as possible with her neighbors. In these years Elsa was apparently one of the happiest women in the world.

She was only sad when she thought of Felix.

Her father, shortly after her marriage, blessing her a thousandfold, had died in her arms. Felix had returned to his home.

III.

The two brothers-in-law sit alone in the circle of light which a garden lamp throws in a corner of the garden shaded by elder trees. Dinner is long over, they have ceased laughing at Litzi's childish pranks and remarks; she has become sleepy, and Elsa has taken her away to lay her in her pretty little white bed. The two men, meanwhile, are smoking their cigars in the open air.

"Erwin, do you happen to know these Harfinks?" Felix asks his brother-in-law quite suddenly, in the embarrassed tone of a humiliated, bored man, and with the slightly husky voice which distinguishes all generations of indulgent and effeminate races.

The "certain Lanzberg" is indisputably of an attractive appearance--the beauty of his sister in a man--and yet softer. All the lines of his face are rounder, less decided; the features of a faultless regularity, the eyes still bluer, and yet the whole face lacks Elsa's lovely, evident peace; the eyes are always weary and half closed; his full lips wear a suffering, tormented expression, and the light brown color of his complexion, in its natural color like Elsa's, is nevertheless ashy in comparison to her healthy pallor, and furrowed with little wrinkles.

"Do you know these Harfinks?" he asks, softly.

"Harfink fitted up my sugar factory," replies Erwin, and glances closely at his brother-in-law. "In consequence I have met him several times. Recently, in Marienbad, he reminded me of our acquaintance, and introduced me to his wife and daughter."

"Strange man!" says Felix, shaking his head.

"Yes, strange, silly! His wife is repulsive, both are very ordinary."

"Yes, both," repeats Felix, and with the toe of his boot draws figures in the sand. "But the daughter?"

"Well, the daughter?" Erwin glances still more attentively at his brother-in-law's face.

"She is very well educated," murmurs the latter, indistinctly.

"Her education was probably acquired in a very noble boarding-school," remarks Erwin, dryly. "During the ten minutes of our acquaintance, she used the word 'aristocratic' three times, and twice complained that society in the Kursaal was so mixed. Besides that, she found the country monotonous, the weather dull, the music '_agacante_,' and concluded by saying, one rails at Marienbad and yet it was tiresome everywhere, for her friend Laure de Lonsigny wrote her quite desperate letters from Luchon."

Felix has flushed more and more deeply during this pitiless account. "Poor girl, how embarrassed she must have been," says he, excusingly.

"Embarrassed?" Erwin shrugged his shoulders. "She had a great deal of self-possession."

"Is not a certain kind of self-possession only a form of embarrassment?" asked Felix, shyly.

But Erwin evidently has no inclination to be lenient to Linda's faults. He suspects the approach of something which must shatter Felix's undermined existence, and seeks a means of meeting it.

"You, perhaps, do not even think her pretty," says Felix, vexedly, hesitating.

"Pretty, no; but dazzlingly beautiful. It is a pity that she has parents who, with all their perversity, are yet so respectable," says Erwin with unmistakable emphasis.

Then Felix bursts out: "It is not only horrible, but absolutely indecent to speak of a girl with whom, by your own account, you have spoken for scarcely ten minutes, in such a repulsive manner." And as his brother-in-law, astonished at such an unusual outbreak from Felix, yet looks at him without the slightest harshness or coldness, the "certain Lanzberg" grows red and murmurs, "Pardon that I ventured to reprove you."

Erwin clenches his fist and opens it again with the gesture of a man who has conquered a painful excitement.

Such feelings often came over him in intercourse with his brother-in-law, although he felt great pity and much sympathy for the good, shy fellow; but his association with him was never wholly free, open, but always contained a tinge of sympathetic politeness, and there was never that warm abruptness which is a healthy symptom of manly friendship. Sad yielding on one side; on the other good-natured advances. This, after a half year's acquaintance, was the relation of the two brothers-in-law. One must--alas! it could not be otherwise--treat Felix as a precious but broken and only artificially mended cup of Sevres porcelain.

"Why does my opinion of the Harfinks interest you?" asks Erwin, now going straight to his object.

For a while there is perfect silence, only animated by the soft voices of the night, and the fluttering of a moth which has wandered behind the tall shade of the garden lamp and has been singed.

"Erwin!" cries Felix, his hands convulsively clasped, in his large feverish eyes a look such as Erwin had only once before seen, and then in a dying man's who suddenly longed to live. "Do you think that a man like me has a right to marry?"

"No!" sounded harshly and firmly.

It was not Erwin who answered. In the circle of light which the garden lamp shed amid the gray moonlight, a tall white form had placed itself opposite Felix, behind Erwin's chair.

"No!"

Erwin himself shudders; his wife seems uncanny. So beautiful, so pale, with such deathly tenderness, must have looked the angel when he drove the beings whom he loved out of Paradise.

Felix lets his head sink in his hands. Elsa bends over him and caresses him like a sick child. Erwin wishes to withdraw, but Felix calls him back. "Stay, there are no secrets between us. I should have never dared take the hand which you held out to me, had I not been convinced that you know---- Yes, Elsa," he continued, very bitterly, "you despise me, it was cowardly, it was unconscionable to even think of it, but if you knew what it is to be weary and alone, with no one on whom to lean for support! To have no one to whom one can be anything, for whom one can sacrifice oneself, to be perpetually condemned to think of oneself when thought is torment and loathing--to be sometimes permitted by pitying people to look on at happiness which awakes all the furies in one--yes, at first it was a comfort to me to flee to you, to breathe the same air with two happy people--but then--your beaming eyes, the little tendernesses of your child, even the alms of love which you gave me, all made my blood hot and me giddy. My God! I have injured no one but myself! Must I be condemned for life? Ten years is usually considered enough for a heavy crime, and I would gladly exchange these last ten years with any galley slave."

Since his return to his fatherland no one had heard him say so much; the gentle, quiet man is not to be recognized.

Elsa stands near him, white and sad, tears are in her eyes, but the severe expression of her mouth has not softened. Erwin is more moved than she. "Felix," says he, "you go too far. You must not marry the young Harfink; she is worldly and selfish, and would seek in a marriage with you only the satisfaction of her social vanity."

Felix laughs bitterly.

"But the world is large. You must find a girl who loves you for yourself, who will raise you above yourself, who----"

Felix's eyes rest on his brother-in-law, then they turn to Elsa.

"It is all of no use, Erwin;" he suddenly interrupts him and rises. "And even if I found what is not to be found, and even if an angel came down from heaven to console me, I must repulse her. I have no right to marry for the sake of the children who would bear my name. Ask Elsa for her opinion."

Elsa bows her head and is silent. He gives Erwin his hand, seizes his hat and, without having bid Elsa good-night, with the bearing of an offended man, takes a few hasty steps--then he turns, and as he sees Elsa still standing motionless, her face drawn with deepest misery, near the chair which he has left, he hurries back to her and takes her in his arms. "I was wrong to be angry, Elsa," murmurs he. "I know you must love me to have forgiven me. It may well be indifferent to him," with a half nod to Erwin. "I was not myself to-day; have patience with me."

The tears of the brother and sister mingle. Then Felix tears himself away.

"Will you come back to-morrow?" asks Elsa.

"Yes, to say farewell."

"My God! what are you going to do?"

"I am going away--it is better for me elsewhere--and you, you are very good to me, but----you do not need me."

With that he goes. Erwin accompanies him. Then he returns to his wife, whom he finds where he had left her. She is not one of those who for long yield themselves to the weak enjoyment of tears. Her eyes are dry again, but so indescribably sad and staring that Erwin would rather see them wet. He draws her on his knees and whispers a thousand calming words of tenderness to her, but she remains absent.

"So the young Harfink has robbed him of his senses?" she murmurs interrogatively.

"So it seems!"

"Poor Felix!--I was very hard to him--I dared not be otherwise. I fear, I fear it is all in vain--he will yield. You have the same thought!"

"To dissuade any obstinate man is hard, but sometimes at least successful--to dissuade a weak man is quite easy, but always unsuccessful," replies Erwin. "Nevertheless let us hope."

"Concerning Felix, hope fails," said Elsa. "O Erwin, Erwin, often it seems to me that father had no right to persuade him to live at that time!"

IV.

Felix rode home.

It was a moonlight night, but none of those which remind one of theatre scenery and silver-flecked green paint, such, as painted in oil, endanger all German art societies; the objects did not float in that universal green-black indistinctness; on the contrary, they stood out in sharp relief.

The tall poplars and the short bushy grass at the edge of the road, the yellow fields of grain with their dark piles of sheaves, the pale flowers in the ditches, the red and black roofs of a distant village sleeping between green lindens, a round church cupola and a cemetery with its low, white wall, and the dark rows of crosses and monuments--all could be seen plainly, only with somewhat faded colors, and over all was a misty veil like thin smoke, and a white light shone on the poplar leaves, rustling and turning in the night wind. The reapers were still working. Through the mild air sounded their song, hollow and monotonous, with the quiet sadness which characterizes Slavonian folk-songs. Their scythes sparkle in the moonlight; occasionally the pleasant face of a young woman, nodding to a youth, rises before Felix's eyes from the crowd of workers, irradiated by the mystic half light.

Felix watched them as he slowly rode on. He would gladly have been one of them, and would have taken upon himself all their burdens in exchange for the one he bore. He could have wished that the night had been less beautiful, that a dead, winter stillness had prevailed around him instead of this strange charm of the mild July moonlight.

The night wind, warm and gentle, caressed his face and his hands, and awakened the strangest longing in his heart. His head grew heated; the allurements with which his imagination tormented his despondent heart grew more and more intense.

The monotonous pace of his horse, the melancholy reaper's song lulled him not to sleep, but to that half slumber which produces dreams. He did not wholly lose the consciousness of motion; the open road, the trees, the wheat-fields, with everything, was mingled a light form; two large eyes sparkled half in sadness, half defiantly, and two full red lips smiled at him. An indescribable breath of youth and fresh life met him.

The yellow fields and the reapers have sunken into the earth--folk-song and the swing of the scythes have long sounded only like a vague murmur of waters to his distracted ear. His horse stumbles, a twig strikes him in the face, he starts.

The white dream-form has vanished, all is dark around him, a solemn, far-distant murmur breaks the stillness, and gigantic trees meet over the head of the solitary rider.

The horse trembles under him, then rears suddenly, and as he checks it he sees in the distance something low and black hurrying away in great leaps, sees there--there, close before him, a light figure which slowly rises from the ground.

He breathes heavily--for Heaven's sake is he still dreaming? That is surely she--Linda!

"Ah! Baron Lanzberg, you here? Thank God," cries she.

"You seem to have met with an unpleasant adventure," says Felix confusedly, coughs and springs from his horse without thinking what he is doing.

"A very unpleasant one," says she in her high, fresh, girlish voice. "That is what comes of insisting upon riding a donkey. We set out on foot, my brother and I, to the burned mill, to have the great enjoyment of seeing charred beams and skeletons of hens, and devouring black bread and sour milk, we---- Have you a weakness for sour milk, Baron?" looking up at him with a childish glance and smile.

"No, not exactly."

"I was not at all satisfied with my expedition," she continued, with the self-satisfied fluency of all young girls who are accustomed to have their chatter listened to for the sake of their pretty faces. "Not at all. Then I discovered two donkeys, one of them had a saddle like an arm-chair. Raimund must hire them. I left him no peace! His donkey goes splendidly, but mine! I cannot move him from the spot. I call to my brother, but he does not hear, he is singing college songs, thunders like a whole chorus and has ears for his own voice only. I do not love Raimund's singing, but as it gradually sounded further and further away, and finally ceased entirely, I had quite a curious sensation. Then my donkey threw back his ears, opened his mouth, and--here I lay. I am so glad that I met you."

The moonlight breaks through the green net-work of the woods, shines between the rushes, flowers and brambles of the ditch along the road, lights up Linda's face, the beautiful white face with the large dark eyes. Her hair is tumbled, she has lost her hat, her gown is torn, the affectation which usually conceals her inborn grace completely vanished.

"I do not know the way," says she, "and what will mamma think when Raimund comes home without me?"

After he has overcome his first fright, Felix tells himself that his dread of her charm must not prevent him from helping her. "If you will trust yourself to my guidance and will take this path across the fields, you can reach Marienbad in a half hour," he remarks, and tries to fasten his horse by the bridle to the low branch of an oak.

"Ah, it will inconvenience you so; if you will only point out the way----"

"You surely do not imagine that I could let you go alone, in the pitch-dark night? No." He smiles at her encouragingly. "What a child you still are, Miss Linda. Come."

He goes ahead, carefully pushing aside all branches for her. The air becomes more and more sultry, an enervating damp odor rises from the ground, in the tree-tops rustle wonderful melodies.

An intoxicating shudder runs over him at the thought of being alone with her in the great, silent, lonely woods. Then he becomes alarmed, quickens his steps, in order to run away from his thoughts and shorten the way.

Then a voice behind him calls laughingly and complainingly: "How you hurry--do not make fun of me, I am tired--one moment, only one moment!"

Linda stands there out of breath, heated, with half-closed eyes and half-opened mouth, her hair loosened by the rough caresses of the thicket, hanging over her shoulders.

How beautiful she is. Shall he offer her his arm? No, no, no!

He is one of those warm and weak natures in whom passion in one moment drowns everything, annihilates, crushes everything, intellect, honor and duty.

He has more conscience than others, but not that prudent, warning conscience, which withholds one from a wrong deed, but only that malicious, accusing one which points the finger, grins and hurls sly insults in the face after the deed is done.

"If you wish to spare your mother a fright, we must hurry," says Felix, with the last remnant of prudence which is left in him.

They go on. Before their feet opens an abyss, barely ten feet broad; in its depths filters a small thread of water which the moonlight colors a bluish silver. At the edge of the abyss, curiously looking down into it, bending deeply down to it, grows a bush of wild roses, covered thickly with white blossoms, trembling slightly, like a living being; with outstretched wings it vibrates over the depths, as if it hesitated between the longing to fly up to the sacred mystery of heaven, and the desire to plunge down into the alluring enigma of the abyss.

A small plank leads over it, slippery and tottering. Felix strides across it quickly and then looks around for Linda.

There, in the middle of the board, trembling, her teeth set in her lip, stands Linda, and cannot advance. "I am giddy!" she gasps.

There are few more attractive things in the world than a pretty, frightened woman.

Felix rushes up to her, takes her in his arms and carries her over. All is forgotten, he holds her closely to him, his lips lose themselves in her loosened hair, burn on her forehead, seek her mouth, but then he suddenly pauses. The enormity of his deed occurs to him.

"For Heaven's sake pardon me!" cries he. Whereupon she replies with a naive smile and tender glance:

"Pardon? Ah, I knew that you loved me."

"That indeed a blind man could have seen," murmurs he bitterly. "But, Linda, could you resolve to be my wife?"

"Could I resolve?" she murmurs with tender roguishness. "And why not?"

"In spite of my past?"

Past! The word has a romantic charm for her. It wakes in her an idea of baccaret and mabille, of a brilliantly squandered fortune, of ballet-dancers and duels. A "past" in her mind belongs to every true nobleman of a certain age.

"If your heart is now wholly mine, what does your past matter to me?" says she softly.

Then he kisses her hand. "Linda you are an angel," whispers he, and silent and happy, they finish their walk.