CHAPTER VI.

EMANCIPATION OF THE FLESH.

On the evening of this eventful day, Professor Herbert, before going to the Moellners', entered a splendid boudoir in a retired villa on the outskirts of the city. The entire room formed a tent of crimson damask shot with gold and gathered in huge folds to a rosette in the centre of the ceiling. Around the walls were ranged low Turkish divans of the same material. The floor was covered with crimson-plush rugs as thick and soft as mossy turf. Turkish pipes and costly weapons of all kinds,--shields, swords, pistols, and daggers,--adorned the walls. In the background of the apartment slender columns supported a canopy above a lounge, before which was spread a lion's skin, with the head carefully preserved. Upon the floor beside it stood an elegant apparatus for smoking opium. A riding-whip, the handle set with diamonds, lay upon a table of bronze and malachite. A Chinese salver, heaped with cigars, was upon a low stand beside the lounge. Upon a polished marble pedestal in the centre of the room stood a bronze of the Farnese bull, and to the right and left of the lounge were placed bronzes of the horse-tamers of the Monte Cavallo at Rome. The rich hangings of the walls were draped over candelabra holding lamps of ground glass.

The smoke of a cigar was circling in blue rings around the room, that was far more fit for a Turkish pasha than for a lady. And yet it was the abode of a lady, and it was the smoke from her cigar that encircled Herbert upon his entrance.

At first he only saw, resting on the lion's skin, two beautiful little feet in Russian slippers embroidered with pearls. The drapery of the canopy above the lounge concealed the rest of the figure. He advanced a few steps, and there, stretched comfortably upon the swelling cushions, reclined a woman beside whom all other works of nature were but journey-work,--such a woman as appears in the world now and then to cast utterly into the shade all that men have hitherto deemed beautiful. Herbert stood dazzled and blinded by the apparition before him. He was dressed in his new coat, and had an elegant cane in his hand, that was covered by a glove, upon which his wife had that morning employed her skill. But what was he, in all his elegance, by the side of this woman! He stood there dumb "in the consciousness of his nothingness." What could he be to her, or what could he give her? She was the woman of her race! She must mate with the man of her race, as the last giantess in the Nibelungen Lied could love only the last giant. Was he in his fine new coat this man of men,--the Siegfried to conquer this Brunhilda? Ah, he was but too conscious that he was nothing but a poor weakling, whose only strength lay in his passionate admiration of her!

"Aha, here comes our little Philister," said the fair Brunhilda in broken German with a yawn, holding out her soft hand to him and drawing him down upon the lounge beside her like a child. Herbert sank into the luxurious cushions, that almost met, like waves, above him. The position did not at all suit his stiff, erect bearing, which was entirely wanting in the graceful suppleness of the born aristocrat who lolls with ease upon silken cushions. Such a seat would become a man in loose flowing costume, with an opium-pipe between his lips, and ready when wearied to fall asleep with his head pillowed upon the lady's lap. Poor Herbert was not one of these favourites of Fortune. He sat there stiff and wooden as a broken-jointed doll,--his pointed knees emerging from his downy nest, and his tight-fitting clothes stretched almost to their destruction by his unusual posture. He timidly placed his hat upon the stand beside him, and envied it its loftier position.

"How now, my learned gentleman?" the lady began again. "What! dumb? What is the matter now?--what ails you?--domestic misery? Pardon! I mean conjugal bliss."

"That is my constant trouble, dearest countess," Herbert replied, "although its dust never cleaves to my wings when I am with you. It is not that that worries me to-day. My Penthesilea----"

The countess laughed loudly, and puffed out a cloud of smoke to the ceiling. "Here it comes! It is either his wife or his Penthesilea that teases him! I hope both may rest in eternal peace before long, for an unhappy husband and a tragedy are as much out of place in this boudoir as the fragrance of eau de Cologne or chamomile-tea--those horrid accompaniments of a sick-room!"

"And yet it was you, fairest countess, that inspired me to embalm in classic verse that bold Amazon of antiquity."

"That may be, and yet, my good fellow, believe me, Penthesilea herself would have considered it a terrible bore to have to read of her glory in a German tragedy. Come; don't be offended Have a cigar. Do you want fire to light it? Here; I will give you more than you need." And, with a laugh, she leaned towards him and lighted his cigar by her own.

"You know you can do whatever you please with me," said Herbert, making a feeble attempt to twist his legs into a more comfortable position. "But take care not to go too far!"

"Oho! my Herr Professor would fain mount his high horse?"

"No, only take a higher seat," said Herbert involuntarily.

"Well, then, sit on this ottoman, you wooden German with no sense of Oriental ease. There! will that do? When you really wish to mount a high horse, I pray you take mine. How often I have placed my Ali at your disposal! Do let me enjoy the delight of once seeing you on horseback! Will you not? Oh, it would be delightful!"

"Thanks! thanks! I would do all that you desire,--even go to the death for you,--but it is rather too much to ask me to make a laughing-stock of myself."

"Well, then, just take one walk with me, arm-in-arm. Oh, what a face of alarm my honourable gentleman puts on! He will go to the death for me, but not across the street. Ah, what a glorious hero for a tragedy he looks now! Hush! I know just what you would say,--wife, sister, cousins, aunts, good name, reputation as professor,--'great dread,' as Holy Writ hath it, would 'fall on all!' Every coffee-cup and tea-cup in the city of N---- would rattle abroad the startling news that Professor Herbert had been seen escorting the wild countess across the street. But it is all _en regle_ to slip around here in the twilight, and kiss my hands and feet, and then, at your evening party afterwards, shrug your shoulders at the mention of my name. For shame, Herbert! you are a cowardly fellow, fit for nothing but to be a _messager d'amour_ between myself and Moellner."

"Countess," said Herbert menacingly, "do not goad me too far, or you will repent it! You know my passion for you--know that I would dare all for a single kiss from your lips; but you leave me thirsty at the fountain's brink,--hungry beside a spread table,--and you heap me with scorn. No living man could endure such treatment!"

"Well, then, _point d'argent, point de Suisse_," cried the countess. "For every piece of good news of Moellner that you bring me, you shall have a kiss. For the sake of that man I would hold an asp to my breast! Why should I refuse a kiss to a German Philister like yourself? But you must first taste all the torment of rejected love, that you may make all the more haste to put an end to mine."

"This is a poor prospect for me, countess; for I hardly think I shall ever be able to bring you good news. All that I can do is to bring you news of him; and if you refuse to reward the bad, as well as the good, my lips shall be sealed--you must seek another confidant."

He rose, as if to go; but she took his hand, and looked beseechingly at him with her large, lustrous eyes.

"Herbert!"

The poor professor could not withstand that look, nor the tone in which she uttered that one word. He sank upon the lion-skin at her feet, and pressed his lips upon the pearls and silk of her embroidered slipper.

"See, now, you are not as unkind as you would have me believe you," she said, looking down upon him with a contemptuous smile, that he, fortunately, did not perceive.

"Oh, have some compassion upon me," he moaned. "I am most miserable! My home is a scene of ceaseless complaint. A wife disfigured and crippled by disease, so that she fills my soul with aversion, and, whenever I need rest from the thousand annoyances of my profession, only adds to their number. Then I am overwhelmed by vexations of every kind,--my talents are slighted,--whatever I attempt fails. And then this contrast when I come to you! Before me here lies all that is fairest and loveliest that earth has to offer; but the delight that I feel in beholding it is an insidious poison, eating into my very life,--for nothing--nothing of all this splendour is mine. I stand like a boy before the Christmas-tree that has been decked for another,--I am here only to light the lights upon the tree, that another may behold his bliss; and when I have induced that other to appreciate and take possession of his wealth, then--then I must turn and go empty away! Oh, it is dreadful!" He buried his face in the lion's mane, and, by the motion of his shoulders, he was plainly weeping.

The countess looked down upon him with the compassion that one feels for a singed moth. Had it been possible, she would have crushed him beneath her foot for very pity,--just as we put an end to the insect's sufferings; but, as it was not possible, and as, moreover, she had need of the man, she raised him graciously, and again seated him upon the cushions beside her. "You shall not go away empty-handed, my good fellow. I told you before I will make you a rich man. If you only bring Moellner to my side, my banker shall give you, as long as I live----"

"Countess!" he exclaimed, "do not carry your scorn of me too far. I am sunk low enough, it is true, since I thus chaffer and bargain with you to sell you my assistance for a single kiss. For this single caress I would resign my life! The thought of you is the madness that robs me of sleep at night, makes me hesitate and stammer when I stand before my pupils in the lecture-room, and prevents me from enjoying the food that I eat. A single kiss from you is more bliss than such a wretched man as I should hope to enjoy. But I am not yet sunk so low as to hire myself out for money, and although you may hold me in contempt, you shall at least pay some respect to the position of German professor, which I have the honour to hold!"

The countess was silent for awhile, struck by his words. But such embarrassment could last but a moment with a woman conscious of the power to atone by a smile for the grossest insult. "Come here! Forgive me! I have erred, but I repent."

"Oh, light of my life!" cried Herbert, seizing her offered hand, and pressing it to his breast. "Forgive--forgive you? With what unnumbered pains would I not purchase the joy of such a request! The only thing I cannot forgive you is that such a woman as you should love this Moellner."

"Indeed!--and why?"

"Because he is not worthy of you. Look you,--were you to give yourself to an emperor or a king, I could bear it without a murmur. Crowned heads are entitled to the costliest of earth's treasures,--how could I covet what kings alone could win? But that one of my own class should call you his,--one with no special claim of birth, culture, or intellect,--with nothing that I too do not myself possess, except a physique that is his in common with any prize-fighter,--the thought is madness!"

A dark flush coloured the beautiful woman's brow. "I have not even acknowledged to myself why I love this Moellner. I never hold myself responsible for my impulses--every passion bears its divine credentials in itself. But you have just revealed to me what so enraptures me in this Moellner. Yes! it is nothing else than what we admire as the highest attribute of humanity--a noble, genuine manhood. I think I have read in some poet, 'Take him for all in all, he was a man!' But this man is more; he is what I have never in my life seen before,--a virtuous man. This, my good little professor, is his charm, his advantage over monarchs even,--enabling him to buy what is his now and forever,--my heart! Oh, there can be no more exquisite flower in the garden of Paradise than this which I hope to pluck--the devotion of this virtuous man. It is the bliss of Eve when she breathed the first kiss upon the lips of the first man and marked his first blush!"

The beautiful woman, speaking more to herself than to the miserable man by her side, leaned back upon her lounge and exclaimed with a heavy sigh, "Oh, what a divine office for a woman--to teach a man like this to love!"

Herbert reflected for a moment. He had been playing the traitor here, and, in the hope of winning Johannes for his sister, had never said anything to him in favour of this woman. He had deceived her with falsehoods, that he might be retained as her confidant as long as possible, and perhaps profit by her waning interest in his colleague. But now all his hopes and plans were ruined. Moellner loved the Hartwich, and was lost for Elsa,--who might, at all events, be avenged of her hated rival by means of the countess. The all-conquering charms of the Worronska should subdue Moellner, and he, Herbert, would receive--all that was left for him in the general shipwreck--the gratitude at least of the countess.

He began at last, after a severe inward conflict. "I have a communication for you, but it will make you angry. I cannot, however, feel justified as your friend in withholding it from you."

"Well?" inquired the Amazon, lighting a fresh cigar.

"I have discovered that Moellner is in love."

The countess started, and looked at Herbert as if in a dream. The smoke from the freshly-lighted cigar issued in a cloud from her half-opened lips, and she looked like a beautiful fiend breathing fire.

"Whom does he love?" she asked, her eyes flaming as if she would force the name from Herbert before his lips could find time to utter it.

"Have you ever heard of a learned woman called Hartwich?"

"Yes, yes! she too is emancipated."

"True, but not at all after your fashion, countess," Herbert corrected her, maliciously enjoying the torture to which the haughty woman was put. "You are emancipated for the sake of pleasure--she is emancipated for the sake of principle. She is a rare person, and fills Moellner with admiration of her genius!"

"Well, and it is she?" she cried, stamping her little foot upon the soft carpet.

"He is in love with her!"

For the first time, the countess sprang up from her lounge, and stood before Herbert in all the majesty of her person. Her gold-embroidered Turkish robe hung in heavy folds around her. Her dark hair fell in loosened masses upon her shoulders. The glitter of her long diamond ear-rings betrayed the tremor that agitated her whole frame. Her low, classic brow, with its bold, strongly-marked eyebrows,--her mouth, shaped like a bow, with lips parted,--her firm, massive throat,--the whole figure, so powerfully and yet so perfectly formed,--all suggested the Niobe, only the passion that swayed her was rage, not suffering. "Is this true? Is it really true? I must hear all."

Herbert told her all that he had seen and heard.

The countess was silent for one moment, as if paralyzed by astonishment. Then she muttered, as if to herself, a few broken words that Herbert could not understand, but at last her rage overflowed her lips and reached his ears.

"There is a first time for everything. This is the first time that a man honoured by my notice has loved another." She strode up and down the room so hurriedly that the flame of the lamps flickered as she passed them. She threw her cigar into the fireplace. "Must I endure it? I? Oh, cursed be the day when the count came here for his health! For this I have spent my months of widowhood since his death, in this hole, away from all the enchantments of the world, even timidly waiting and hoping like a bride,--no society about me but my horses, dogs, and--you! For this, for this,--that I might learn that there lives a man who can withstand me. The lesson, it is true, was well worth the trouble!"

She struck her forehead. "Oh that I had never gone to that lecture! then I might never, perhaps, have seen him. Why did I not stay away? What do I care about physiology, anatomy, or whatever the trash is called? I heard this Moellner was distinguished among his fellows, and curiosity impelled me to go. Fool that I was, to imagine that he saw me there and admired me as I did him!" She stood still, and involuntarily lost herself in thought "Ye gods! how glorious the man was that evening! The brow, the hair, the eyes, were all of Jove himself. I felt myself blush like a girl of sixteen, when I met his eye. And such grace, such dignity! His voice, too,--melodious as a deep-toned bell. I did not understand what he said; but there was no need, his voice was such harmony that no words were wanting to the charm. It was a symphony,--no, finer still, for that we only hear, and in him the delight of sight was added. The movements of those lips--how inimitable! And then his smile!" She paused,--her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled. It was a delight to her to lay bare her heart for once, careless as to what were the feelings of her auditor.

"And if that voice is so enchanting when it discourses upon dry, unmeaning topics, what must it be when it comes overflowing from his heart!" She leaned against the pedestal of one of the bronzes, and covered her eyes with her hand.

Herbert sat as if upon the rack,--he could not speak,--his voice denied him utterance.

"No man has seemed to me worthy of a glance since I saw him first. Bound by no vow, no duty, no right, I have still been true to him. Since loving him, I have first known a sense of what the moralist would call decorous reserve. For a woman who for the first time truly loves is in the first bloom of youth, whether she be sixteen or thirty. I was a wife before I was a woman, and the spring, that I had never known before, began to breathe around me beneath the magic influence of that man,--the maiden blossom of my life, crushed in the germ, budded anew. Oh, what would I not have been to him! I, with the experience of ripened womanhood and the first love of a girl! And scorned! I, for whose smile monarchs have contended, scorned by a simple German philosopher! Oh, it stings, it stings!"

And she hid her face again.

Herbert timidly approached her and touched her shoulder lightly with a trembling hand. "Would that I could console you!"

She shrank from his touch as if a reptile had stung her.

"What consolation can you give me, except the relief that I have in pouring out my soul before you?"

She moved away, and again strode restlessly to and fro like a caged lioness. "Fool, fool that I was! How could I suppose that the interest he took in my husband's case was due to my attractions? It was inspired by a hateful disease,--for this he came hither, and I thought he came for my sake! Oh, fie, fie! I stayed for love of him by that terrible sick-bed, and he had eyes only for the sick man,--he never even saw me standing beside him. Is he man, or devil?"

"Oh, no," Herbert interrupted her, with malice, "he is only--a German philosopher."

"And once, when I sank fainting in that room, what an arm supported me, strong as iron, and yet tender as the arm of a mother! He carried me like a child from the apartment. I held my breath, that nothing might arouse me from that enchanting dream. He laid me on a couch, saying, with icy composure, 'Allow me, madam, to call your maid. I must return to the patient.' My cheeks burned with mortification; for one moment I hated him, but when the door had closed behind him I revered him as a saint. I could have knelt at his feet, and, clasping his knees, bedewed his hands with penitential tears. But I restrained myself. I suddenly knew that this pure spirit could love nothing that he did not respect,--that I must first win that before I could hope for his love. I determined to begin a new life, to break with all the past. For no sacrifice would be too great to win the love of this man, and I sowed renunciation that I might reap delight. Fool that I was! I reap nothing but the reward of virtue!"

She laughed bitterly, and a violent burst of tears quenched the fire in her brain. She threw herself down upon the lion's skin, unconsciously representing the Ariadne.

"Loveliest of women!" murmured Herbert, intoxicated by the sight. "Is it not monstrous that such a woman should mourn over an unrequited love? Does he who could withstand such charms deserve the name of man? No, most certainly not. He is an overstrained pedant, the type of a German Philister, and if blind nature had not endowed him with the head of a Jove and the form of an athlete, the Countess Worronska would never have wasted a tear upon him!"

"Herbert, you shall not revile him! You cannot know how great he seems to me in thus coldly despising my beauty, as though he might choose amongst goddesses,--as though Olympus were around him, instead of this insignificant town filled with ugly, gossiping women. What a lofty ideal must have filled his fancy,--an ideal with which I could not compete! When he saw me first, he did not know this Hartwich. I remember how cold his eye was when he first saw me. He looked at me with the cool gaze of an anatomist. And it was always so. Whenever he visited my husband, he always treated me with the strictest formality. Always the same gentle, inviolable repose,--the same calm scrutiny that one accords to a fine picture, but not to a lovely woman. Oh, there is something overpowering, in all this, for a woman used to seeing all men at her feet!" She sank into a gloomy reverie. At last she seized Herbert's hand. "Herbert, who is she who has power to enchant this man? Is all contest with her useless? Must I resign all hope?"

Herbert, as if electrified by her touch, whispered scarcely audibly, "Will you grant me that kiss if I show you how to annihilate the Hartwich in Moellner's eyes?"

A pause ensued.

"It is my only price. Without it I am dumb."

"Well, take it, then!" cried the countess, driven to extremity; and she held up to him her lovely lips.

But, as Herbert approached her, with the expression of a jackal thirsting for his prey, disgust overpowered the haughty woman, and she thrust the slender man from her so violently that he fell to the ground. She was terrified,--perhaps her impetuosity had ruined everything. She went to him and held out her hand. "Stand up and forgive me."

Herbert stood up, pale as a ghost, with sunken, haggard eyes, and readjusted his dress, disordered by his fall. He wiped the cold drops from his brow with his handkerchief, and, without a word, took up his hat.

The countess regarded his proceedings with alarm. "Herbert," she said with a forced smile, "are you angry with me for being so rude?"

"Oh, no," he answered, in a hoarse, hollow tone.

She held out her hand, but he did not take it.

"Do not bear malice against me. I--I am too deeply wounded. I do not know what I am doing."

Herbert was silent. He shivered, as if with cold. His look--the expression of his eyes--alarmed the countess more and more.

"Now you will revenge yourself by not telling me how I can annihilate the Hartwich?"

"Why should I not tell you?" stammered Herbert, with blue lips. "I keep my promises." He fixed his eyes upon the countess. "Make the Hartwich your friend, and you will make her an object of aversion in Moellner's eyes."

The countess started; her terrible glance encountered Herbert's look of hate. They stood now opposed to each other,--enemies to the death,--the effeminate man and the masculine woman. She had offended him mortally, but Herbert's last thrust had gone home; and softly, lightly as an incorporeal shade, he passed from the room.

When the countess was alone, she fell upon her knees, as though utterly crushed.

"Thus outraged Virtue revenges herself! Artful hypocrite that she is! When I left her, she gave me no warning,--I sinned unpunished,--and now, when I would return to her repentant, she thrusts me from her with a remorseless 'Too late!' Too late!--my ships are burned behind me, and there is nothing left for me but to advance, or to repent,--Repent?" She writhed in despair. "No! O Heaven, take pity on me,--I am still too young and too fair for that!"