Part 17

Thus cudgelling his brain, carefully weighing every reason for and against it, Bertram kept viewing his position, and all the while the weary moments seemed to creep slowly, slowly by, and each succeeding one weighed more and more heavily upon his soul. And yet, would he not perchance learn all too soon, that his bold attempt to take the place of Erna's lover, and thus to guard their new-born happiness, which was already so much endangered, against a new and most serious peril, had failed, and that he himself had missed this most excellent opportunity of dying? He was doomed to go on living this life of his, which had lost its savour and had no longer any meaning for him! Half an hour had already gone by; they might have finished their consultation long ere this, for there was little enough to consult about--unless it was the other duel!

In the court-yard, whence the noise of the departing carriages and divers shouts had been ascending, silence began to prevail. Bertram could master his impatience no longer; he stepped across the corridor and went to one of the windows looking out upon the court-yard which the expected lieutenant would have to cross. Presently he heard a swift, elastic step upon the stairs; he hastened to meet his hurrying visitor, and cried, holding out his hand to him--

"Is everything settled?"

"Everything."

"Thank Heaven!" Bertram had all but said; he just managed to change it into a polite, "Thank, you so much!"

He kept Kurt's hand in his own as he led him into his room. He made him sit upon the sofa, and seated himself by his side. Kurt thought that one could not welcome a dear friend, the bringer of the most pleasant news, with greater warmth and delight. This feeling was still more strengthened when his singular host presently sprang up again, and fetched from his stock of provisions for the journey a bottle of wine, which he proceeded to uncork; next he brought some glasses, and even a small box of cigars. Although no smoker himself, he said, he always had some cigars by him for his friends.

He filled the glasses, and held out his own to Kurt.

"May everything turn out as we wish!"

"With all my heart!" replied the young officer.

Kurt said these words with a deep, almost melancholy gravity; which contrasted strangely with the gladsome excitement of the older man; Kurt's lips barely touched the wine, whilst Bertram drained his glass hurriedly, greedily, and instantly refilled it.

"I have fasted almost all day," he said, as if by way of excuse. "A festive entertainment always puts me out and takes away my appetite. But now, please, tell me--do they agree to everything?"

Kurt reported with military brevity and precision. The only difficulty had been to fix the time, as the Baron had at first asserted that he could not delay his departure beyond noon on the following day at the latest; ultimately, however, he had agreed to the meeting coming off at six o'clock in the afternoon. The place was to be a certain spot in the great forest, almost exactly midway between Rinstedt and the town, by the banks of a little lake. It would be easy to move thence to a still more remote portion of the wood, in case the man[oe]vres should have brought any one to the neighbourhood, which, in its normal state, is absolutely deserted.

"I remember the place exactly from former walks," Bertram said.

"Capital," replied the young man, "for that removes another difficulty--namely, how you were to find your way to it from the town. The spot suits me singularly well, because we shall probably bivouac not a mile from it. I forgot to mention that I have already secured the services of our very skilful staff-surgeon, and that Herr von Busche will provide a carriage. Lastly, for the sake of keeping the whole affair secret, it seemed desirable that the Herr Baron should not go straight from here to the meeting. So, under pretext of wishing to make to-morrow an excursion to the scene of the man[oe]vres in company with Herr von Busche, of returning here at night, and leaving definitely on the day following, he has sent word asking his host and hostess to excuse him until to-morrow evening, and even now he is driving with Herr von Busche to the ranger's house, where he is to pass the night."

"Excellent! excellent!" exclaimed Bertram. "Everything is arranged most thoughtfully and carefully. I thank you very much. Herr von Busche appears to have been perfectly willing to facilitate all arrangements?"

"He was charming," replied Kurt; "nay, more, he told me quite openly that he was doing the Herr Baron this service most reluctantly, very much against his own will indeed, and only in deference to the traditional courtesy in such matters, and that he would give a good deal, if it lay in his power to settle the whole affair amicably. I confess I fully sympathise with him in the last point. It was a most painful thought for us both that a man like you should risk his life against a Baron Lotter, who, it seems, does not enjoy any one's special sympathy; and all the chances are against you, too."

"Why all the chances?"

"Herr von Busche said that your opponent was one of the best pistol-shots that he knew, unerring of aim, and steady of eye and hand. Herr von Busche, of course, has never seen you practise, but he fears, and so do I, that ..."

"That I am a miserable shot?" exclaimed Bertram smilingly. "Out with it! Yes, yes, you gentlemen have little confidence in us bookworms for this sort of thing. But fortunately you are mistaken. I am more or less out of practice, I admit; but I can shoot a little, and at such a short distance too!"

"I am delighted to hear you say so," replied Kurt. "And yet I would like to ask you if there is no possibility of bringing about an amicable settlement. It is not by any means too late yet. Herr von Busche quite agrees with me in this. Only, as we are both absolutely ignorant of the real cause ..."

"But I have already told you that an old feud is about to be settled," Bertram interrupted him somewhat impatiently. "The momentary cause--by the way, a small lesson in good manners which I gave the Baron--is of no consequence at all."

"So Herr von Busche, too, had been told by his client, and we agreed to accept this as sufficient, considering that a man like you would not act in such an affair except with due deliberation, and that we younger men must respect your motives, even if we regret that they are not communicated to us."

"I thank you both all the more for the sacrifice which you are making for me," exclaimed Bertram, holding out his hand to Kurt.

"Then I will say good-bye; you will be in need of rest."

Kurt had risen; Bertram retained him.

"Stay a little longer," he said, "if you are not too tired. I am not fatigued at all. To-morrow's meeting is not weighing upon my mind in the slightest; nay, more, I am as sure of my good fortune as ever Caesar was of his; and I hope, confidently, that we two shall meet many a time again in the land of the living. Yet one should not claim from the future what the present offers, and therefore let me, at this present moment, touch upon a matter which concerns you very specially, and which I have, Heaven knows, much more at heart than this wretched business over which we have already wasted far too much precious time."

A deep blush burned upon the young officer's cheeks; his dark eyes now evaded the bright light of those great blue orbs, whose extraordinary brilliancy and beauty he had already repeatedly admired in the course of their previous conversation.

"You know what I wish to speak about?" Bertram asked next; and again the young man was struck by the complete harmony of the ring of that voice and of the radiance of those eyes.

"I think I do," he replied, almost in a whisper.

"Then you will know, too, the sort of relation in which I stand to Erna?"

Kurt still dared not look up. He nodded his assent.

"But you cannot know," continued Bertram, "how very intimate this relation is--so much so, that I cannot find quite an appropriate name for it. I should say that of a father towards a most beloved child, if there did not mingle with my feelings for her a touch which--perhaps you will understand me--I would call chivalrous tenderness. This touch may perhaps occur in other cases too, I mean between a real father and daughter--I am sorry to say I never had a daughter of my own--and I only mention this element, because it helps me to understand why Erna, who otherwise confides in me unconditionally, has kept her love a secret from me. Perhaps it was solely an outcome of the long interval of time during which we had not met; in such cases a kind of estrangement is apt to occur, which, to be sure, once overcome, is wont to be followed by a greater cordiality. But above all, the poor darling deemed herself rejected, betrayed. Her happiness she would gladly have let her paternal friend share; unhappiness always seals the lips of the proud; and yet I know that more than once the secret was trembling upon those sweet lips of hers, and that had she overcome her shy shrinking, she would have spared herself--and spared you, my friend--much suffering; and the palms in the winter garden would, an hour ago, have waved their magnificent heads above two happy, blissful souls, and not above two young fools who, from sheer love, were tearing each other's hearts to pieces!"

Kurt gave a quick quiver, and all but jumped from the sofa; but Bertram's eyes shone forth in glorious radiance, and a smile of infinite tenderness played about his mouth. A strange thrill passed through the young man's heart, as though he were in the presence of something unapproachably lofty, something which imperatively demanded humble submission and confiding obedience. So he lowered his eyes, which had flashed indignantly for a moment, and said, scarcely above his breath--

"I thank Heaven that He led you to that spot."

"And I," replied Bertram, taking both the young man's hands and pressing them heartily, "I thank you for that word which sets me free from all restraint, and takes away the last remnant of shrinking shyness. Who, indeed, would not shrink, feel awe-struck, when it comes to touching those tender threads that spin themselves from heart to heart, until, God willing, they become united in a woof so strong that death itself cannot rend, it? What God joins, let no man put asunder; what God puts asunder, let no man try to join! What has come between you two is sheer misunderstanding, provoked by extraordinary circumstances, which would have puzzled even older and more experienced people, and in which you young, passionate, inconsiderate folk knew not what to do. And being so thoughtless and helpless, you have assuredly committed mistakes, mistakes on either side, and the demon of pride--'by that sin fell the angels'--will have gloated over it all. Not to enable me to register and chronicle your mutual faults, but only in order that, being taught by the past, we may look the future more clearly in the face, just tell me how it all came about? When did you make Erna's acquaintance? Was it not in her aunt's house in Erfurt?"

"Yes," replied Kurt; "and to know her and love her was one and the same thing; nay, I may say, without the slightest exaggeration, that she was one 'whom to look at was to love.' One evening, I saw her at a party. I had been visiting at the house for some time, and I think I was rather fond of Augusta von Palm, who is staying here now, and with dear Agatha I was on terms of heartiest friendship; but Agatha; wishing to give me a surprise, had not told me of Erna's visit. So I saw her quite unexpectedly among the other young ladies. It would be quite bootless for me to try and describe what went on in my heart. So, I thought afterwards, the men must have felt of whom the Bible tells us that they were held worthy of beholding some divine apparition. My breath failed me; all the others present seemed to vanish from my sight; I saw only her, or, properly speaking, not her, only her eyes. It seemed like a double stream of unearthly, transcendent light; and again it was a stream which bore me resistlessly onward and upward into realms of bliss, whereof but an hour before I had known nought, divined nought, and which yet were, I felt clearly, my true home, to which I was soon returning after much aimless wandering in far off regions."

The young man's voice quivered. He drained the glass which, before, his lips had scarcely touched. Bertram filled it afresh. Kurt never saw how his hand shook as he poured out the wine, nor observed how curiously veiled the voice was in which Bertram, breaking the pause, said--

"Strange, or perhaps less strange than highly gratifying, that at least for once I find, this kindling effect of Love's divine flash confirmed in reality, of which the poets of all times and in all climes have sung in praise. I am almost ashamed to confess that although I do not think I am a hopelessly prosaic individual, I have always thought this but a fond and fair dream."

"And it is a dream," Kurt made answer, "inasmuch as things real are most curiously shifted and changed in it, and as one can give scarcely a clearer account than a somnambulist, of what occurs and of what one does one's self. I do not remember how I got home that night; I have no idea whether it was several days after, or really on the day following, that, during a picnic in the country, I was strolling apart from the rest by her side through a leafy grove. The light of the dying sun was trembling among the trees, and a few subdued notes of birds' song were heard. Silence was all around; and in silence we passed on, side by side. Sometimes she stooped to gather a flower for the tiny bunch which she held in her hand, and once, as she stooped again, and I wished to anticipate her, our hands touched; and, startled, we both looked up, looked into each other's eyes, and the flowers dropped from her hands, and--well, it was just a dream, a brief and blissful dream. Who can tell the story of a dream?"

The young man had risen and gone to the window. Bertram kept his seat, leaning his head on his hands. When Kurt turned back to the table, he thought that the noble countenance which now looked up with a very sweet smile was paler than before.

"Pardon me," he said, "but I think I see that you are in need of rest; let me pause here. You know what happened next."

"Yes, but not quite how it happened," said Bertram in reply. "Please sit down by my side again, unless you are tired yourself. As for me, I am a regular old night-owl. How it happened, yes--how did Erna come to hear of your connection with the Princess? Some malevolent traitor must have been at work there."

"Would that it had been the case!" answered Kurt. "A traitor Erna's clear eyes would have speedily recognised as such. But the one who told her of it was a dear friend of my own, a fellow-officer, who in the course of a visit to our former garrison--our own regiment had meanwhile been transferred to Magdeburg--made Erna's acquaintance, without having the slightest conception of our relations. And as the conversation chanced to turn upon me, he babbled, under a promise of discretion, of the secret; and probably adorned and amplified matters, so as to let the enormous stroke of good luck which was supposed to be in store for me appear in its greatest splendour. As he was known to be on very intimate terms with me, as I had myself given him an introduction to the von Palms, and specially commended him to Erna, she had to believe that his romantic story was sheer truth; nay, the awful thought came to her that I had myself authorised my friend to make these communications, or, if this had been quite too infamous, she assumed at least that he had been commissioned by me to prepare her, and had solely blundered over his commission, so that I was personally responsible, if not for the manner, certainly for the matter. We corresponded, and with the connivance of Agatha, under cover of a correspondence of hers with an old school-friend in my present garrison; but Erna's next letter contained nothing but the question whether it was true that I had some relations or other with the Princess? The question thus put, I could not but answer in the affirmative, begging her at the same time, in connection with the subject, not to believe in what any one, except myself, might say. My request came somewhat late, but still did not fail to have its effect upon Erna's heart, which had assuredly opened with the greatest reluctance to the terrible suspicion, and which was now jubilant at being freed from it. She teased my friend about his fertile fancy which invented stories devoid of a particle of foundation, as she had since learned from a trustworthy source. Thus challenged, and piqued at being declared undeserving of credit, my friend stated that he had the knowledge, if not at first, at least at second hand, for his authority was my own Colonel, whose testimony Erna would surely not reject. Again he begged her to be discreet, but hinted pretty plainly that other fellow-officers were aware of it too, and had likewise learned it from the Colonel. And now for Erna the doubts which she thought she had vanquished turned to despair. She knew through me the very intimate terms on which Herr von Waldor and I stood, and indeed many a time I had called him to her my best and kindest friend, my protector and second father. Erna wrote another question. Did Herr von Waldor know my relations to the Princess? And again I had to answer in the affirmative, without being able to mention the suspicion which now--and now for the first time--rose within me, that Herr von Waldor might have purposely misrepresented those relations in his own interest--you know why. What need to continue to describe the wretched position in which I now was placed; how the net was tightened more closely and more fatally round me, so that I at last had given up all hope of ever being freed from it; all the more because Erna--as you heard yourself--repelled with such passionate indignation your mediation, which I was about to claim. I must confess, I cannot even guess why."

The dark eyes of the young man were raised inquiringly to Bertram, who did not at once reply to the questioning look. He had turned aside a little, and was busied refilling the glasses; he did not seem to notice that he was filling the second to overflowing, and that the wine was saturating the table-cloth.

"Dear me," he said, presently, "I beg your pardon; I was--thinking. Why, did you ask? Well, we settled already that, according to all experience, girls are not fond of confiding to their fathers the secrets of their hearts. They dread paternal jealousies, a paternal prejudice against the one who ventures to claim the little hand, which, as a matter of course, is far too precious even for the best of the best. But fear not! Erna shall find in me a friend, protector, and counsellor, who hopes to give the proof that one may love like a father without being blinded by a father's prejudices, and, above all, one who means more honestly by her than, I am sorry to say, Herr von Waldor does by you."

A dark shadow flitted over the young man's open countenance.

"I thank you," he said very gently, "I thank you from the bottom of my heart for so much goodness, and to deserve it will be the fairest task of my life. But pray do not condemn Herr von Waldor. It is impossible to measure him by the common standard. Contempt of death and greed of life, princely generosity and petty egotism, tenderest love and bitterest hatred--all these things lie side by side in his soul, and cross and re-cross each other in such a way that even to me (and I think I know him better than any one else) it is a perfect enigma. But if at times I cannot solve it all, if in this present case I cannot but see that he is willing--I must not say to sacrifice, but to stake--me and my happiness in the hope of gaining his own great stakes, then I need only remember what he has been to the orphaned boy, after he had carried my father, fatally wounded, upon his own shoulders out of the bloody struggle around the fortifications of Dueppel; how he, of all men the most impatient, has watched over me with a mother's loving patience when I have been ill; how he resumed his studies in order to be able to supervise and guide mine; how he paid my expenses when I was a cadet; how he equipped and helped the ensign, the young officer; how he pressed upon the poor young man of _bourgeois_ birth abundant help to enable him to hold his own in an expensive and aristocratic regiment; and how he thundered in his wrath when I refused to accept it any longer, as I had learned that he had himself to borrow the needful money at usurer's interest. Surely you will admit that one so deeply indebted to Herr von Waldor as I am, has lost the right, nay, more, the ability to struggle and resist, even if the hand which has done so much in the way of kindness weighs heavily, terribly so, upon him."

"I think I can follow you in your feelings," replied Bertram, "although Waldor is by no means thereby excused in my eyes; on the contrary, I adhere firmly to the Scriptural saying, that the right hand should not know what the left does; and I hold that he who claims gratitude has already his reward. Moreover, was the sacrifice really requisite, which Waldor expected from you, when he put you into this ominous position? From a moral point of view it is a matter of indifference; but I should like, if possible, to be enlightened on this point, which I have not hitherto understood."

"How things stand exactly," Kurt replied, "I can hardly say myself. I assume that the marriage-contract of the Princess contains certain conditions which deprive her of the greater part of her present fortune, if she contracts a new matrimonial alliance; or rather, would seem to deprive her, for a judicial interpretation of this dubious point is to be the result of the law-suit which is now reaching its final stage. Further, it may be assumed that the view of the Princess herself is the only correct one by all the laws of sound logic; but she fears--whether rightly or wrongly I know not--that the decision will be adverse to her if the authorities learn that her choice has fallen upon an alien."

"But you are an alien, too," objected Bertram.

Kurt shrugged his shoulders.

"An obscure lieutenant, not of noble birth, and Princess Volinzov! No one need imagine that they would have taken this _au serieux_, any more than a dozen other _liaisons_...."

He paused abruptly, blushing to the very roots of his hair.

"For shame!" he cried, "that was basely said. Let others sit in judgment upon the poor victim of a most abominable bad education and of most wretched circumstances. I dare not, I dare not feel for her aught, but admiration and gratitude, and renewed gratitude, for I know and have experienced in my own person that, through all the badness and baseness that have been crowding around her from her childhood, she has preserved the capacity for a great and heroic love, a love of which we men are scarcely ever, and of which among women only the best and noblest are, capable."

Only at the last words Kurt had again ventured to look up, and he swiftly lowered his eyes again. Bertram's great eyes shone in wondrous radiance, and a curious smile, half melancholy, half ironical, was hovering about his lips, as he slowly answered--

"To be sure! you are quite right. Only the noblest women! We men are egotistical scoundrels; that is our lordly privilege; and he who resigns it, deserves to be crucified with malefactors on either side."