CHAPTER III.

GRIM DEATH.

They held each other firmly embraced, heart to heart. All sorrow and sadness were forgotten; they were oblivious of the whole world, and of all that was going on around them. They did not see old Trude standing near by, with folded hands, her face radiant with delight; they did not see her follow Mr. Ebenstreit, who had glided noiselessly out of the room. They did not hear the door creak on its hinges, as she closed it behind her, and left them alone and unobserved in the silent chamber. And, though the two had remained, though hundreds and hundreds of eyes had been fastened on them inquiringly, what would they have cared? They would, nevertheless, have still been alone with love, with happiness, and with the joy of reunion.

Her head still rested on his breast; he still pressed her to his heart. "Marie, the dream of my whole life is now fulfilled; I hold you in my arms, you are mine! The restless wanderer has at last crossed the threshold of the promised land, and love and peace bid him welcome."

"Yes, my Philip," she murmured, softly, "love and peace bid him welcome. Pain has left us for evermore, and we shall be happy!"

"Yes, happy, Marie! Look up, darling, that I may read love in your dear eyes!"

With his hand he attempted to raise her head, but she only pressed it the more firmly to his breast.

"No, Philip, let my head still rest on your bosom; let me dream on for a little while."

"Marie, I have yearned to see these dear eyes for two long years; look up, my darling!"

"Not yet, Philip," she whispered, entwining her arms more closely around her lover, her countenance still hid in his bosom. "Let me first tell you something, Philip! I have been ill, very ill, and it was thought I would die. If you should find me a little changed, a little pale, my beloved, it will only be because I have not yet quite recovered, but am only steadily improving. Remember this, and do not be alarmed. Look at me! Welcome, welcome, my Philip!"

When she raised her head, a radiant expression of happiness rested on her features; her lips were crimson, her eyes shone lustrously, and the death-roses on her cheeks burned brightly. Death had, perhaps, been touched by the supreme happiness of these two beings, who had been wandering under a thunder-cloud of sorrow for long years, and who now fondly believed that they had at last found a refuge from the storms of life, and a balsam for all pain. Death, who comes from God, had, perhaps, been moved with divine pity, and had lain concealed behind these flushed cheeks and crimson lips, permitting joy to illumine Marie's countenance with a last golden ray of the setting sun, and to give her for a brief moment the appearance of health and strength.

Philip, at least, did not see the grim messenger; he was deceived by these death-roses, by this ray of sunshine. He had expected to find Marie in a much worse condition. Gedicke's letter had carried the conviction to his heart that he would find her in a hopeless, in a dying condition, and that nothing buoyed her up, and withheld her from the clutches of the grave, but her longing to see him once more. Now she stood before him with rosy cheeks, with a bright smile on her lips, and with eyes that sparkled with joy.

"Marie, my jewel, my longed-for happiness, how lovely, how beautiful you are! Why speak of illness and of pale cheeks! I see nothing of all this; I see you healthy, happy, and beautiful--as beautiful as when I often saw you in my dreams in the long nights of the past--as beautiful as I have ever conceived you to be when standing before the Madonnas of Raphael and Giulio Romano in Rome and Florence. 'Gaze at me with your dark eyes,' I said to them. 'You would ask me whether I admire and adore you. True, you are lovely, but I know a Marie who is lovelier and purer than you all! I know a Marie whose eyes are radiant with the light of womanhood, purity, and virtue. She is not so coquettish as you are, Maria della Ledia; her eyes are not so dreamy as yours, Maria di Fuligno. But they are resplendent with holy love, and noble thoughts dwell on her chaste brow!' And now I have thee, and now will I hold thee, my Marie, and nothing can separate us more!"

"No," she said, thoughtfully, "nothing henceforth can now separate us but death!"

"Death has nothing to do with us, my darling. We shall live, and live a joyous, happy life!"

"Yes, live, live!" she cried, in such longing, passionate tones, and with so sad an expression of countenance, that Moritz's heart quaked. It seemed to him as though a string had broken on the harp on which she had just begun to play the joyous song of life and of love, and at this moment he saw grim death peering forth from behind the roses on her cheeks, and the smile on her crimson lips.

"Come, my darling, let us be seated. There is your throne, and here at your feet lies he who adores you, looking up at his Madonna, at his Marie, with ecstacy."

He bore her tenderly to the arm-chair, and then seated himself at her feet. He looked up at her with an expression of deep devotion, his folded hands resting on her lap. She bowed down over him and stroked with her pale little hand his black, curly hair, and the broad forehead she had once seen so gloomy and clouded, and which was now as clear and serene as the heaven in her own breast.

"I have thee at last once more, thou star of my life! When I regard thee, I feel that life is, indeed, beautiful, and that one hour of bliss is not too dearly purchased with long years of suffering and want. We paid dearly, Philip, but now we have the longed-for happiness. We have it and will hold it fast; nothing on earth shall tear it from us?"

"No, nothing on earth, my beloved! Like Odysseus, I have now returned from my wanderings through life, and here I lie at the feet of my Penelopeia; like him, I have driven off the suitors who aspired to the favor of my fair one. Was it not a suitor, who slipped out at the door when I entered?"

"A suitor of the past," replied Marie, smiling. "Did you not recognize him?"

"Have I ever known him? But what do we care, now that he has gone! I am not compelled to drive him off, nor yet to hang old Trude as a go-between, as Odysseus did the old woman of whom Homer tells us."

Philip and Marie both laughed. It was the innocent childlike laughter with which happiness illumines even the gravest countenances, and which permits those who have been sorely tried, and have suffered greatly, to find the innocence of youth and the smile of childhood again on the threshold of paradise regained.

"Marie, how beautiful you are when you laugh! Then it seems as though all these years of sorrow had not been--as though we had only been dreaming, and now awake to find that we are again in the little room under the roof. You are once more my charming young scholar, and Professor Moritz has just come to give Miss von Leuthen a lesson in the Italian language. Yes, that is it, we are still the same; and see! there lie the flowers on your table, just as they were when old Trude conducted me to your room to give you your first lesson."

He took a handful of flowers from the table and held them between his folded hands. "You dear flowers! She is your god and your goddess! Like God she made you of nothing, and, like the goddess Flora, she strews you over the pathway of humanity; but to-day you shall receive the most glorious reward for your existence--to-day you shall adorn her, my fair Flora!"

He sprang up, seized whole handfuls of violets, pinks, lilies, and forget-me-nots, and strewed them over Marie's head, in her lap, and all over and about her.

"Let me strew your path with flowers for the future, my darling. May your tender little feet never more be wounded by the sharp stones! may you never again be compelled to journey over rough roads! Flowers shall spring up beneath your footsteps, and I will be the gardener who cultivates them."

"You are my heaven-flower yourself, my imperial lily," said she, extending her hands. He took them in his, pressed them to his lips, and then resumed his former seat at her feet.

"How handsome you are, Philip, and how strong you look, tanned by the sun of Italy and steeled by the combat with life! Misfortune has made a hero of you, my beloved. You are taller and prouder than you were."

"And are you not a heroine, Marie, a victorious heroine?"

"A victorious heroine!" she said, sadly. "A heroine who is struggling with death! Do not look at me with such consternation, Philip--I am well. It is only that joy and surprise have made me feel a little weak. You do not find that I look ill, and therefore I am not ill; you say I will recover, and therefore I will recover. Tell me once more that I am not ill, that I will recover!"

"You will recover; you will bloom again in happiness and joy."

"You say these words in a sad voice, as though you did not believe them yourself! But I will not die; no, I will not! I am too young; I have not lived long enough. Life still owes me so much happiness. I will not die! I will live--live!"

She uttered this in loud tones of anguish, as though Life were an armed warrior to whom she appealed to defend her against Death, who was approaching her with a murderous dagger in his bony hand. But Life had no longer a weapon with which to defend her; it timidly recoiled before the king who is mightier than the King of Life, and whose sceptre is a scythe with which he mows down humanity as the reaper harvests the grain of the fields.

"Philip, my Philip," cried Marie, her countenance quivering with pain, "remain with me, my beloved! It is growing so dark, and--There, how my breast pains me again! Alas, you have scattered flowers at my feet, but the thorns have remained in my heart! And they pain so terribly! it is growing dark--dark!--Trude!"

The old woman, who had been waiting at the threshold with the humility of a faithful dog, threw the door open and rushed forward to her darling, who lay in the arm-chair, with closed eyes, pale and motionless, her head resting on Moritz's arm.

"Trude, call the physician!" cried he, in dismay. "Run for assistance! Run! run! She must not die! She shall not leave me! O God, Thou canst not desire to tear her from me! Thou permittedst me to hear her voice when in Rome, when widely separated from her, and I answered this call and flew here on the wings of the wind. It cannot be Thy will that I am to be surrounded by eternal silence--that I am never more to hear this dear voice!--Help me, Trude! Why do you not call the physician?"

"It is useless, dear sir, useless," whispered Trude, whose tears were still flowing in torrents. "All the physicians say that her case is hopeless; they told me that this would occur, and that all would then be at an end. But perhaps this is only a swoon; perhaps we can awaken her once more."

Was it the strengthening essence with which Trude rubbed her forehead, the strong musk-drops which she poured between Marie's parted lips, or was it the imploring voice in which Moritz called her name, and conjured her not to leave him?--Marie opened her eyes and cast a look of ineffable tenderness at the pale, horror-stricken countenance of her lover, who was again kneeling at her feet, his arms clasped convulsively around her person, as if in a last despairing effort to withhold her from the King of Terrors, who had already stretched out his skeleton arm to grasp his victim.

"I am dying, Philip!" murmured Marie, in low tones, and her voice resounded on his ear like the last expiring notes of an Æolian harp. "It is useless to deceive you longer; the truth is evident, and we must both bear it as we best may."

"Marie, I cannot, cannot bear it!" he sobbed, burying his countenance in her lap. "God is merciful; He will take pity on me, on my agony, on my love! God will grant you recovery!"

"The only recovery God vouchsafes me is at hand," whispered Marie. "Recovery is death! I have felt it approaching for many, many days--in the long, fearful nights I have lain awake struggling with this thought, unable to comprehend it, and doubting God's mercy and goodness. My defiant heart refused to submit humbly to God's will, and still continued to entreat a little more life, a little happiness, of Him who is inexorable, and upon whose ear the wail of man strikes in as low tones as the last breath of the insect we tread under foot. I comprehended, finally, that all complaints were useless--that nothing remained but to submit, to humble myself, to thank God for each hour of life as for a gracious boon, and to consider each ray of sunshine shed on my existence as a proof of His goodness. I have conquered myself; my stubborn heart has been softened, and no longer rebels against the hand of the Almighty, to whom men are as worms, and as the grain of sand to the mighty glacier that touches the clouds. You, too, must be gentle and submissive, my Philip. Learn to submit to the eternal laws of God!"

"No, I cannot," said he, in heart-rending tones; "I cannot be submissive. My heart is rebellious; in my anguish I could tear it from my breast when I see you suffer!"

"I am not suffering, Philip," said she, her countenance radiant with a heavenly smile. "All pain has now left me, and I feel as though I floated in a rosy cloud, high above all earthly sorrow. From this height I see how paltry all earthly sorrows are, and how little they deserve a single tear. Here below, all is paltry and insignificant--above, all is great and sublime. Oh, Philip, how sweet it will be to meet you once more up there! In blissful embrace, our spirits will soar from star to star, and the glories of all worlds and the mysteries of all creations will be made manifest to us, and our life will be bliss and joy unending! The cloud is soaring higher and higher! Philip, I see thee no longer!"

"But I see thee, my darling," cried Philip, despairingly, as he clasped her sinking head between his hands, and covered it with tears and kisses. "Do not leave me, Marie; stay with me, thou sole delight of my life! Do not leave me alone in the world."

His imploring voice had that divine power which, as we are told by the Greeks, breathed life into stone, and transformed a cold, marble statue into a warm, loving woman. His imploring voice recalled the spirit of the loving woman to the body already clasped in the chilly embrace of death.

"You shall not be solitary, Philip," she murmured; "it is so sad to have to struggle alone through life. I must go, Philip, but you shall not be left alone."

"But I will be if you leave me, Marie; therefore stay! Oh, stay!"

"I cannot, Philip," gasped Marie, in low tones. "You must place another at your side! Another must fill my place. Hear my last wish, my last prayer, Philip. Take a wife, marry!"

"Impossible, Marie, you cannot be so cruel as to desire this."

"I have thought of this a great deal, have struggled with my own heart, and am now convinced that you must do so. You must have a wife at your side who loves you. Swear that you will seek such a wife. Swear this, and accord me a last joy on earth."

She raised her hand once more, and her dying gaze was fastened on him imploringly. He could not resist it; he clasped the pale fingers in his quivering, burning hands, and swore that he would do as she bade him.

A faint smile flitted over her countenance, and her eyes sought out the faithful old woman, who had loved her like a mother, and who found it no longer necessary to conceal her tears, as she had been doing for many months, in holy and heroic deception.

"Trude," whispered Marie, "you have heard his vow, and you must remind him of it, and see that he keeps it, and marries within the year. Kiss me, Trude, and swear that you will do so!"

Old Trude had no other words than her tears, no other vow than the kiss which her trembling lips pressed on her darling's brow, already covered with that cold, ominous perspiration which gathers, like the morning dew of another world, on the countenances of those who stand on the threshold of the grave, and is symbolical of the new life to which they will awaken on high.

"Philip, my beloved, you too must kiss me!" whispered Marie, in eager tones. "Kiss me! Hold me fast! Drive death, grim, fearful death, away!"

He kissed her, entwined his arms around her, and pressed her to his bosom. Trude stretched out her arms imploringly into empty space, as if to ward off "grim death!"

But he is king of kings, and claims as his own all who live on earth!

Silence reigned in the little chamber. Holy is the hour of separation--holy the moment in which the immortal soul is torn from its earthly abode, and this holy moment must not be desecrated with lamentations and tears!

After a long interval, the heart-rending cry of a man, and the low wail of a woman broke in upon the stillness.--Marie had died, but a smile still rested on her lips.