Chapter 6

"How earnestly and gravely you take every thing," replied Rasselwitz--"nay gloomily too! For my part, it is precisely when I got to the pinnacle that I should feel most eager to live on, because it is then that life is gayest. When one is gone, the best pleasure is over; and in good truth we shall always be dead long enough afterwards."

"In the ten years of experience, which I have beyond you, lies the difference of our views. Throughout nature nothing stands still. He who does not go forward goes backward. From the summit the road only leads down again, and every retracing of our steps has something disconsolate about it, which I would willingly buy off with a few years of existence."

He turned about to depart, but Rasselwitz held him back:--"I cannot let you go thus; you may, perhaps, have got over your accident, but you still look pale, and the evening wind blows cursedly cool from the mountains. Let us first, therefore, if agreeable to you, empty a flask of tokay against the bad air, and then I will myself accompany you home again."

"You gentlemen can't do without the wine-cup," said Tausdorf jestingly. "If, however, it is really to be but a single flask, I am contented."

They went accordingly into the larger greenhouse, where at the end, under an oleander-tree, a little table was neatly set out, covered with a crimson silk cloth. Upon this was a dish of foreign salad between two handsome flasks with handles, semi-transparent and edged with silver, and two glass goblets, ready filled, in which the tokay sparkled like blood in the last rays of the setting sun. By the table sat Bona in all the fulness of her charms, seeming to enjoy with silent transport the splendour of the evening heavens, whose crimson fire gave all the glory of a seraph to her head and face.

"We interrupt here," said Tausdorf to Rasselwitz, struck by her appearance, "and must seek some other place."

"You do not interrupt me, gentlemen," said Bona, rising with graceful kindness. "A woman, who knows how to maintain her female dignity, has no occasion to be afraid of men. But perhaps you wish to have a private conversation with your companion, in which case I give way to you, although I should have willingly enjoyed this splendid evening for a quarter of an hour longer."

"You love then the charms of nature?" asked Tausdorf, whose sympathy had been won by the first words of the stranger, and who now thought no more of going.

"What being of head and heart but must love them?" replied Bona warmly. "Nature ever reflects herself, and yet is ever new, nor has any mortal hitherto succeeded in imitating the least of her wonders: so has she gone on for centuries, silent and beautiful, clear and sublime, benevolent in creating and maintaining as in destroying."

"Nature," said Tausdorf with warmth, "has always seemed to me like a perfect woman in the arms of the all-powerful--in the arms of a beneficent master and loving husband."

"You are probably married, sir knight," observed Bona roguishly, "by this image in particular striking your fancy?"

"Not yet," replied Tausdorf, colouring.

"But already promised and bound by indissoluble chains," interrupted Rasselwitz, to whom this brief conversation grew much too animated. "You have become so rapidly acquainted with the knight, fair Bona, that I must hasten to inform you, you are talking with the Herr Sparrenberger von Tausdorf, the betrothed of the Frau von Netz; and now take your place, my old friend, that the noble wine may not grow vapid, and pledge me to the health of your fair intended."

"I regret to-day, for the first time, that I have for ever renounced wine," said Bona, while the knights touched their glasses. "A toast to the health of so noble a lady would be well in place now."

"You know my Althea?" asked Tausdorf.

"No," replied Bona with lovely frankness; "but I have heard so much good of you, sir knight, that I believe you could have chosen none but a noble being for the companion of your life."

"Pray, lady," said Rasselwitz, breaking in upon them with vexation,--"did you not tell me to-day that you had a relation in Prague, of whom you had long heard nothing? Herr Tausdorf lived there a considerable time, and perhaps will be able to give you satisfaction."

"I thank you, dear Rasselwitz, for reminding me of it," replied Bona; "but it has already grown dark," she continued, looking round; "we had better order a light at the gardener's."

"Admirable!" muttered Rasselwitz; "she sends me away that she may be alone with him in the dark;"--and he hurried off with the speed of an arrow, to be back so much the sooner. In Tausdorf the same idea was stirring; but when he secretly asked himself the question, whether he did or did not like it, he could obtain no decided answer.

After all, the fears of the one and the imaginings of the other were alike idle. The fair Bona kept at her old distance from Tausdorf, and entered into the most indifferent talk in the world with him, inquiring after a multitude of Prague ladies, whom he, indeed, knew by name, but of whom he could give no farther information. In addition to this, as Tausdorf could hear, she was playing with the silver lids of the wine-flagons, as the hands are accustomed to do when the mind is absent. This was all but an annoyance to the knight, and if he had not found some pleasure in listening to the melodious voice of the questioner, he would have experienced a real tediousness even in the familiar darkness and in the neighbourhood of such a captivating creature.

At length Rasselwitz appeared with the gardener, who hung a large mirror-lamp of Venetian glass upon a branch of the oleander, and again retired. The glasses were filled afresh, while Bona wound about the good Tausdorf with the finest arts of conversation, and contrived to flatter him so sweetly, and at the same time to inspire him with such respect, that he was unable to break from the magic circle, although his correctness of feeling warned him betimes to fly from the danger before he was lost in it.

During this delightful talk, the wine, like a balmy oil, glided down the knights' throats, sweet and powerful; but its effects were manifested in the two with a very striking difference. While Rasselwitz grew continually sulkier and charier of his words, and at last became downright sleepy, Tausdorf's spirits were more and more awakened and joyful. A flippant coquetry, at other times hateful to him and foreign to his disposition, now prevailed in his manners to the fair stranger, who knew how to turn the well-polished diamond of her spirit so nimbly to and fro, that from its hundred points the flashes struck blindingly upon Tausdorf's eyes, and flung into shadow the image of the lovely, but simple and grave Althea. To complete the impression which she had visibly made upon him, the Circe, at a fitting turn of the conversation, took up a harp which lay beside her, and sang, accompanying herself a lullaby to her heart, than which nothing could be sweeter or more alluring. While now Tausdorf kindled more and more at her burning looks, the soft tones of her song, instead of the heart which should have been lulled, soothed the good Rasselwitz into a sound slumber. The knight considered the sleeper with approving eyes, and then cast them, full of voluptuous desire, on the fair stranger.

"Cease, beautiful siren!" he exclaimed at last, seizing her white hand, and holding it firmly upon the strings; "your magic song disturbs me in my gazing on you. A woman, created for love, as you are, cannot lull her heart to sleep without committing a deadly sin against my sex."

With a heavenly smile, in which, however, lurked a strange glance, Bona looked at him, and her hand returned a gentle pressure. Then casting a look of inquiry at the sleeping Rasselwitz, she on a sudden sighed out softly and anxiously--"Oh, heavens!"

"What is the matter, noble lady?" cried Tausdorf, starting up, and caught her in his arms as she fell.

"A sickly oppression which will soon pass over," stammered Bona, while her bosom heaved mightily against his breast. "Help me up to my chamber, dear Tausdorf."

Alarmed, anxious, thrilled through by strange forebodings, he obeyed her mandate; and half gliding, half carried, the lady reached her room with the knight. A dull lamp burnt on a table by the bed, around which flowed curtains of green silk, flinging a secret mysterious shadow. He let her down softly on the couch, and would have withdrawn, to call the maid to her assistance, but she raised herself up again, and winding her fair arms about his neck, murmured softly--"Dear man!"--and her kisses quivered on his lips like a kindling flash of lightning.

"Fairest creature!" he stammered, in the double intoxication of wine and passion. Wildly throbbed his pulses as if they would burst their veins,--and the lamp went out.

* * * * *

It was towards the morning when Tausdorf awoke from a heavy slumber. When on opening his eyes he found the sleeping Bona by his side, his recollection returned with the consciousness, and he sprang up in horror.

"Then it was not merely a wild dream," he exclaimed painfully. "How could I so forget myself! Never shall I forgive myself this error!"

He paced up and down the room with vehemence for a time, and then paused before the fair sleeper.

"The sin is beautiful which has seduced me from the right path; but that does not excuse a man from whom principles are to be expected, and who has taken upon himself important duties. Poor Althea! is this the reward of your love and truth? I never could have believed that to be possible which now rises to my revolted senses in disgusting reality. Ah! let no one boast of his virtue! It is often the prey of the most involuntary accident!--Of _accident_?--Was indeed all that happened to me yesterday no more than accident? I can answer for myself--my soul was pure when I entered this house; and not till I was allured by the siren's song, and the voluptuous spirits of the wine had painted her fair form in glowing colours, not till then was the evil passion kindled in me. Could a few glasses have changed me so much? Could they have lighted up the wild glow that raged in my veins, and the dregs of which still lie heavy on my head and heart? The advances too of the stranger and her feigned sickness, which tightened the noose about my neck,--at the bottom of all this is some secret plan which I must unravel."

He left the room quickly, and soon returned with horror in his looks, and in his hands two half-full goblets, which he placed on the table by the bed, and had already raised his arm to wake the sleeper. At this moment the first sunbeams flamed through the darkness of the green curtains, and cast a warm glow upon her lovely features. Bona opened her eyes, which immediately sought and found her beloved, and rested upon him with bewitching tenderness; but she soon perceived the cold disdain that flashed from his, and she started up from the bed in terror.

"For heaven's sake," she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? What do you mean by these fierce looks?"

"To ask you how we so soon became familiar with each other--how you so soon succeeded in seducing an honourable knight into disgraceful infidelity towards the mistress of his heart."

"This is a common injustice of you men to lay on the weaker sex the blame of the evil caused by your sensuality, that you may afterwards despise your victim, and so have a pretence for denying all satisfaction."

"You are right, but it does not apply here. We will not, however, say any more about which of us is the victim; only I must know whether some hellish arts were not employed in the adventures of last night, and therefore you must give me an account of these goblets."

"Gracious heavens! I am lost!" exclaimed Bona, without looking at the goblets, and clasping her hands together. Tausdorf went on:--

"This, with the white sediment at the bottom, stood before Rasselwitz, who still lies motionless on the seat, bound up in a death-like slumber. This, with the black dregs, I emptied, and I can now well explain the ebullition which threw me into your arms. Strumpet! have we drank poison at your hands?"

The beautiful sinner started up proudly, glanced at the knight with noble anger, and exclaimed, "Contemptible suspicion!" and snatched at the goblet with intent to empty it; but Tausdorf put back her hand--

"No! I would not place any soul before the judgment-seat ere the Creator calls for it."

He took the goblet from the table, and having flung it out of the window, walked up and down the room in silence; Bona wept.

"You would drink of it?" he continued. "There was then no poison in the goblet? But what else? For, by heaven, all is not right with this wine."

Bona hid her face in the pillows of the bed, and was silent.

"A love-draught, perhaps, for the chosen victim of your desires, and an opiate for the troublesome witness--is it not so?"

Bona started as if a blow had struck her heart, and was still silent.

"In the name of heaven, woman, what made you seek out me in particular? You are fair enough, unfortunately, to be able to dispense with such means with thousands of my sex. Why must you fling into my breast the scorpion--which must poison the peace of my future days?"

"I loved you, as I now abhor you," was hollowly murmured from beneath the pillows.

"Profane not the sacred word," retorted Tausdorf indignantly; "I cannot, besides, rest contented with this answer. What you did yesterday, the way in which you prepared and accomplished it, the danger to which you exposed yourself if discovered, all this points to something very different. You had some great, and, as my warning angel tells me, some terrible, design upon me, and that it is which you must confess this very hour."

At this Bona started up with wild looks, and her long auburn locks hung down in disorder, like so many living snakes, about her fair pale face, and gave it the convulsed appearance of a raging Medusa. "Kill me," she cried, defyingly, "or accuse me at the tribunal as a poisoner--I am silent."

Tausdorf could not refrain from shuddering as her figure stood up thus before him, like some horrid spectre,--that figure which but a few hours since had appeared so kind and graceful: he turned away from her, and at length said--

"You understand us German knights badly, in thinking us capable of such wretched measures. If you do not choose to unburthen your heart by a frank confession of your evil intentions, persist then in your obduracy. I leave you to your conscience; and however late may come the moment in which you hear its voice, yet the moment will come. If in such an hour you repent of the evil you have already done me, and of that which you yet purpose, may heaven not remember against you your heavy sin in abusing the fair body it has given you--abusing it as a bait for vice, and to the destruction of the souls of your fellow-creatures. I for my part forgive you now as becomes a Christian; but we never see each other again."

He went. With the rolling eyes of a lioness, whose prey has escaped, Bona watched after him.

"So then, this sin has been in vain. I have not even earned the fruits of the evil harvest. My machines have been in play to no purpose. The awkward footsteps of this rough man have crushed to pieces the artificial wheelwork. Let it go. I meant it better with you than you deserved. The assailant has always the advantage, because he can choose time and place. If you will not be set upon my victim, he must be set upon you, that self-defence may force the sword of vengeance into your hand. May you both perish in it!"

The old gardener thrust his head in at the door with a crafty, inquiring laugh. Bona called out to him--"I am alone, Sylvester. What is Rasselwitz doing?"

"Awake at last!" replied the gardener, coming into the room. "He complained of head-ache, begged of me to excuse him to you, and tottered off. But in his place some one else has come again--Mr. Christopher Friend, splendidly tricked out, and dressed in sky-blue velvet, waits below in the green-house, and begs for a morning audience."

"So early?" asked Bona, surprised. "What can he want?"

"He inquired of me so circumstantially about your fortune," replied the gardener, "and looked withal so smart and gay, and made such little twinkling eyes, that I think in a short time you may expect proposals of marriage."

Bona smiled scornfully. After a brief consideration she replied--"He does indeed mistake, but he comes in good time. Beg of him to excuse me till I am dressed."

"Number three, in so short a period!" said the gardener smirking. "If this goes on, you'll soon draw after you the core of the Schweidnitz male population, as Punch does the children with his trumpet."

"Think you so?" rejoined Bona, with self-satisfaction.

"And yet," continued the old man, "you don't altogether understand it. You entice the birds in a masterly way, but you forget to pluck them, which yet is the principal part of the business. With the exception of the easy fool of a Spaniard, your love-affairs have brought you in marvellously little. The handsome pagan courtesans of the old time were much wiser. Though you may not exactly wish to build pyramids of the oblations of your adorers, yet a comfortable house for a refuge to your old age is in truth not to be despised."

"I hope never to be old to need it," said Bona hastily.

"But don't reckon without your host," rejoined the gardener. "The quantum of wealth from the new world, left you by Don Alonzo, has melted away confoundedly in the old world, as must naturally be the case with your passion for appearing as a rich heiress. If this is to last long, you will be forced to sell the rich jewels with which you blind the eyes of people. What then is to become of you if you do not betimes think of some new acquisition?"

"He who follows _much_ at once," replied Bona, "attains _nothing_. I follow _one_ object only, but that one I follow so stedfastly, with such inflexible purpose, that I _must_ gain it, and when I have gained it, I need nothing more in this world."

"And this _one_?" asked the gardener with sly importunity.

"I pay you as my servant, not as my confessor," replied Bona with angry pride, and pointed to the door.

"Good troth, a princess has been spoiled in you," muttered the old man; "but there is no helping one who will not be advised."

So saying he went. Bona laid her hand upon her forehead, and looked down gloomily in earnest meditation.

"The poison of Althea's refusal is still rankling in this Christopher," she said, after a long pause, "and the brothers are not friends. If the one were to perish through the other, that might at last reach the stony heart of Erasmus, and, conquered or conquer, still my victims would fall. The vindictive spirit of his adversaries is my pledge for that. Francis, think of your reckoning on the other side. The avenger of blood is already breathing within these walls."

She went up to a great mirror between the windows to arrange her hair. The sun, veiled in mist, cast a red light through the panes, and shone in wondrous way upon the fair and angry features, so that they seemed to glow with an inward fire. At the first look in the glass Bona started back in horror.

"Are the old tales of my childhood coming back upon me?" she exclaimed with fixed gaze. "It was, indeed, as if an evil spirit grinned at me from the mirror."

But by degrees she came to her recollection, and began to chide her folly with a laugh, though her lips were still quivering--"Fool, it was yourself. Revenge never beautifies a female face; that I might have well known."

And with firm step the strong-minded woman went up again to the glass, and looked in it defyingly, as if to challenge forth the monster that was hid behind its crystal. Although her hands trembled in arranging her locks, she yet accomplished the task with her eyes stedfastly fixed upon the mirror.

"Now, then," she cried with a horrid laugh, "I am armed. Hold yourselves in readiness, my beloved! The Norna is sitting at her task, and with sharp-edged swords weaves the bloody web of the decisive combat. Up! to complete the work!"

She turned hastily to the door, which even then opened. Christopher Friend, whose tender impatience would not suffer him to remain any longer below, walked in, and with a sweet smile the beautiful fury stepped forward to meet him.

* * * * *

In Althea's rooms at Tausdorf, silent and anxious, expecting the return of his intended bride. Meantime, at a little table, sat Henry, looking over a large volume of copper-plates, which, according to its title, depicted "The strange Forms of the Metamorphoses of the ingenious heathen Poet, Ovid."

"The insupportable Latin!" cried the boy, stamping with his feet; and then jumping up to Tausdorf with the folio, he said, "Pray, now, help me out of this difficulty. The stupid pictures are so singular that it makes one quite curious to learn what they mean; and when one looks after the explanation, the fool of an engraver has written Latin underneath."

"Do not find fault with the engraver," said Tausdorf; "he with justice believed that such pictures were not fit for a boy who does not yet understand Latin."

"But you told us lately that you understood it a little," persevered the boy, "so translate me the subscription. I should like to know what the mad picture means. Only look, now, there stands a stately knight in a circle of dead men's bones and strange signs, holding a goblet in his hand, and a beautiful woman touches him with a wand, and a mist spreads over the country, and the knight has already got a horrid snout, as if he were just being changed into an abominable beast, and below is written:

"In turpes abiere feras quicunque biberunt Dulcia Circæa pocula mixtu manu."

"Pray, now, tell me what it means?"

And Tausdorf, confused, translated it: "All were turned into vile brutes who drank of the sweet cup that was mixed by the hand of Circe."

"Now I am as wise as before," rejoined the boy. "Who was this Circe? She is right handsome here in the picture; but then she looks at the poor knights with such hateful eyes that I can't bear her."

"She was a wicked enchantress of the old heathen time," said Tausdorf. "To all voyagers who visited her island, she offered a rich draught, and when they drank of it, she touched them with her magic rod, and they became beasts."

"But why did the foolish people drink of it?"

"They knew not the evil consequences," replied Tausdorf, leaning his heavy head in his hand, "or they had not done so."

"Ah! they should have been more on their guard with strange cunning women," rejoined Henry. "You certainly would not have drank of it, Herr Tausdorf!"

"Who knows, my child?" said Tausdorf, the innocent remark going to his heart: "Perhaps I might."

"Wicked witch!" cried the boy, and threatened the picture with his fist. "But did she not at last find her master?"

"Oh yes," said Tausdorf, turning over the leaf. "On this Ulysses was depicted, holding his sword to the breast of the enchantress, without fear of her powerful wand, or of the devil-masks that surrounded him, grinning and menacing."

"Heaven be praised!" cried Henry; "there's a German subscription again. He read,

"Ulysses compels her to disenchant his companions."

"That's right!" he cried--"who was Ulysses?"

"A Greek hero," replied Tausdorf. "The heathen god, Mercury, had supplied him with a herb, called _moy_, that protected him against the enchantment."

"Or he too had been metamorphosed?" asked Henry with vexation.

"No doubt," replied the knight mournfully. "He, whom God does not uphold in the hour of temptation, falls, and falls deeply."

"But it is not all really true?" added the boy, after some reflection.