Part 26

Leo felt signs already of the enervating stupefaction which always took possession of his brain in this atmosphere. It began like a slight pressure on the temples, spreading to his forehead, and finally encompassing his whole head with iron spans.

Felicitas buried her face in the hollow of her supporting arm and remained motionless.

"Good God! What ails you?" he demanded.

She raised her head slightly, and smiled at him hopelessly.

"What ails me, Leo? I wish that I had never been born. That's all."

"A pious wish, at least," he answered, with an unsuccessful attempt to sneer. "Now tell me frankly, Lizzie," he exhorted, "why do you rave against yourself like this? There is no sense in it. Tell me--why?"

"Because I am learning to repent."

A spasm shot through him, as if he were about to make an effort to protest against the word, but he no longer had the power. The life that he had been leading for the last two months had been nothing but a vain struggle against self-reproach and repentance. Hence the wrecking of his whole character. He got up, and in silence paced with unsteady steps the rosy, dimly lighted boudoir. Then he came close to her and leant against the edge of her chair.

She looked up at him with plaintive eyes; then, sighing deeply, pressed her face against his arm.

He would have drawn back, but he did not wish her to see that he thought this contact less harmless than she did.

"Leo, I suffer unspeakable agony," she whispered.

He drew his arm away from her abruptly, and sat down opposite her.

"So all the happiness you are giving Ulrich," he asked, "is nothing but a delusion and a sham?"

"Do you expect me to make it a reality?"

"I expect nothing. I only wish--I ..." He could not go on. His thoughts moved tardily, clumsily. He only knew that her astonished, resentful question had not displeased him so much as it ought to have done.

"The promise I made you," she continued, "I have honestly kept to the best of my ability. I have tried to be a good housewife, worthy of him, a wife of whom he need not be ashamed. But the penance I have imposed on myself is terrible. I suffer tortures that no man can have any idea of."

"And do you imagine that I am lying on a bed of roses?" he responded.

"You! What do you want?"

Then he burst forth. "I? Ah, woman, little do you know what I endure. I am in torment; I appear to myself polluted from head to foot. I scarcely know how to look honest people in the face. I think every one is pointing the finger of scorn at me. If it goes on like this, I must go out of my mind. Isn't that bad enough?"

She let her eyes rest on him full of curiosity.... Something like stealthy joy shone in them, for since the long, long ago he had never poured out to her such confidences, from the depths of his being.

"Can I help you?" she murmured.

He laughed stridently.

"Oh, please, Leo!"

"Don't talk of your helping," he answered; "help from your side would be only a fresh crime. Besides, how could you? Only one person can help me, and that is Ulrich."

"For God's sake!" she cried out, "you are not thinking of----"

"Calm yourself," he made answer. "I know what I owe you. We two are yoked together.... We are both bound to hold our tongues; that is an understood thing."

There was a pause. Then Felicitas asked in a trembling voice--

"Can you pray, Leo?"

He gazed at her in shocked amazement. "Pray, indeed! It's well for those who can. But I have sneaked out of the Almighty's way, like my dog Leo sneaks out of my way when he has torn a fowl to pieces."

"You ought to try," she said, with her most pious expression "It has done wonders for me lately.... I confide all my yearning to the merciful ear of the Saviour, and----"

"Yearning? Yearning for what?" he asked.

She smiled in confusion. "Really, you ought to pray," she repeated.

"Indeed!"

"Perhaps our Lord is only inflicting this trial on us as a test of our faith, and we shall come through it glorified. It may be that it is part of His system of salvation to----"

"Tell me," he broke in, aghast, "have you been calling on Brenckenberg?"

"God forbid!" she cried. "I am horribly afraid of him."

"Or perhaps on Johanna?"

"No," she answered, colouring; "Johanna has been to see me."

"Ah, indeed."

"Don't be so hard. I bless the day that led me to her arms, for she has shown me the way to the Cross."

"How often has she been here?"

"Three times."

"And you have made yourself over to her body and soul?"

She shook her head with a smile. "I have only done that for one person in the world," she said. "There is much that I cannot speak of to her, but her influence has been of infinite benefit to me."

He gazed before him meditatively.

She rose and came close to his chair. "Do you know, Leo," she said, with a dreamy smile, "it would be so nice if we prayed together."

"What do you mean?"

She was embarrassed. "I mean, if we took our common trouble to the Father...."

"Heavens! You think that would improve matters?"

She sighed. "It would be so beautiful," she whispered.

"How do you propose to do it?" he asked. "Shall we kneel down side by side on the carpet?"

She half laughed, and flushed deeper. "You are a heathen," she pouted, sitting down again, "and scoff at the most sacred things."

"Make your mind easy, dear child," he said seriously. "I have long ago lost the humour for scoffing."

"Well, then, you can at least pray for me, as I pray for you."

"Do you really do that?" he asked, while a feeling of gratitude stirred gently within him.

She nodded shamefacedly, and cast her eyes on her lap. "It is the utmost I can do," she murmured.

Again there was silence. Their eyes met and rested in each other's depths. A sweet, silent sympathy seemed to hover between them like a mysterious vapour. At this moment Leo did not feel the chafing of his chains. The thoughts of both went back to their past.

"We were too happy," breathed Felicitas, "that is why we must suffer so much now."

He did not answer. After the manner of man, he retained less grateful remembrances than she did of the bliss that had been theirs.

She became doubtful "Or perhaps you were not happy?" she asked.

He nodded, for, against his will, he was falling a victim to old memories.

She gazed at him with fixed eyes, her hands pressed hard against her forehead.

"Why did things turn out so?" she whispered. "Why could we not be strong, and resist the temptation?"

"Why? There is no 'why' in the matter. We were young and hot-headed and foolish, and we thought of nothing.... I, for my part, wonder now how I could have seemed so sagacious to myself, and not cried out to the whole world, 'See, what a dog I am. I have an affair with a woman ... a married woman!'"

"But at first, in the beginning ... how did you feel?" she asked.

"What? In the beginning?"

"When you ... first ... guessed my love."

"When ... ah, you mean that night?"

"Do you still remember it?" she asked, leaning over to him. A pink flame leapt up in her cheeks, her glance swam in dreamy reminiscence.

"How can such things be forgotten?" he replied, frowning and smiling at the same time. "One must carry them to the grave."

"And as you rode home ... that night ... what did you think about?"

"You are always asking what I thought," he answered, while visions of that hour mounted to his brain and made him hot "I rode on and on, as if I were drunk. Every moment I expected to fall out of the saddle. And when I came to my own meadows, I drew in the roan. You remember it was the old roan then, with the white feet. I tethered him to a meadow-hurdle, and flung myself on the grass. It must have been nearly two o'clock, but it was a very close, sultry night; just a streak of red dawn was already in the sky. There I lay, asking myself, 'Is it possible? Can you really have experienced it? Are there such hours to be lived on earth?' And the roan grazed all the time, and round about was the new-mown hay. That got into one's senses, ay, it was enough to drive one mad...."

A soft cry escaped her lips. She had thrown her head back over the side of the chair, the blue veins stood out on her throat, her breast heaved tumultuously, and, with both hands pressed to her heart, she lay gasping for breath.

"What is the matter with you?" he asked, in much concern, for he feared a repetition of that scene.

"Nothing--nothing. It is only my stupid heart, nothing else."

"Can't I get you anything?"

"Thank you. It will soon be better ... it is better now."

She sat up, and, as if to allay his fears, smiled mechanically into vacancy. Then she began to talk to herself, as if in a dream.

"And I ... I see it all before me still.... When you were gone ... I went to the window ... and listened ... to your footsteps in the garden; the horse neighed from the hedge ... it saw you coming ... and then there was a sound of hoofs, echoing softly ... and then all was quiet."

"And you had no qualms of conscience?"

She shook her head with a blissful smile, setting the waves and curls of her hair in motion so that they whipped her over cheek and throat. Then, recollecting how serious this question was, she knitted her brows and grasped her temples with both hands.

"In those days," she said dully, "I had no notion of what conscience meant; in those days I let my sinful happiness carry me along joyously to the edge of an abyss without reflecting. That night, in my ecstasy, I tore my clothes from my body...."

Suddenly she paused, shocked at herself. Her fingers, which had been fumbling at her throat, had caught in the cloud of lace. With a thin, long-drawn, tearing sound some thread of the delicate fabric collapsed. She smiled at him in dismay. Then she quickly turned the situation off with a jest.

"That is a pity," she said. "It is real old Flemish."

Daintily she knotted the ends together again. "Is that all right?" she asked.

He did not answer.

A fresh silence took paralysing possession of the pair. Their glance wandered away, as if they no longer dared meet one another's eyes. She, with flushed cheeks, gazed at the toe of her embroidered Turkish slipper, which with its gold arabesques shone forth from the hem of her blue cashmere gown. He gnawed his moustache, and stared up at the ceiling. The oil in the two lamps hissed and hummed. With a subdued murmur the wind caressed the windowpanes in passing. The clock ticked melodiously; it was a sound like a rain-drop falling at regular intervals on the strings of a harp.

Leo felt a speechless fury boiling within him. He wanted to move, but could not stir. At last he made a violent effort to regain his manliness.

"Why do we grope about in the past?" he asked, jumping to his feet. "It can lead to no good."

"It helps us to forget the misery of the present. Isn't that some good?" she replied.

He did not contradict her, and turned to go. But in parting he caught hold of her in a sudden spasm of rage, shook her hither and thither, and, burying his fingers in the elastic flesh of her upper arm, he bent down and muttered in her ear--

"You are right ... We _will_ pray."

XXVII

The beginning of winter found everything the same as usual at the Parsonage. The Candidate had not succeeded in raising the money for the continuation of his studies. He therefore was preparing calmly to spend the winter term under the paternal roof.

He decided to employ the many hours of leisure which stretched before him, in settling on authorship as his calling in life, and to write an epoch-making work, which would raise him with one bound to the highest pinnacle of fame. The work was to be of a scientific character, and to give shape and method to the floating chaotic ideas of modernity.

A public career lay open to him also. All you had to do to be elected to the Reichstag, was to sit down and write a few social pamphlets on prostitution, or the duel question; and if the ministry did not see its way after that to give you an appointment, you must become active in opposition, not that miserable half-hearted opposition of abortive Liberalism, but the firebrand kind of Lassalles, which bore upon it the imprint of genius, and left plenty of time over for love adventures.

Altogether it had been easier for an Oswald Stein. In those days, as an adherent of the Sturm and Drang party, one knew what to be at. To cut a path for freedom from the barricades, and then get hewn down by the truncheons of tyranny. But since the seventies there had been no tyrants; and people no longer stirred up revolutions. It was considered neither gentlemanly nor "modern."

The only consolation that he found in this whirling chaos of emotions was love. For Kurt loved and was beloved! The blessed knowledge had been conveyed to him in a gilt-edged note sealed by a rosebud, the sort of stationery affected by very young ladies. One day at the end of September it had been delivered to him by the goose-herd at the farm and had run as follows--

"Dear Herr Kandidat,

"The song 'Smiling Stars,' which you dedicated to me, is quite charming. Unfortunately my brother took it away from me before I got hold of it. I must warn you against my brother, for he is very angry with you; and I am rather afraid he may challenge you. That would be so awful, I think it would kill me. I beg of you, therefore, not to send me any more poems; or if you do, please don't address them to Halewitz. On the road between Halewitz and Wengern there are some milestones with figures on them. The stone that I mean has the figures 24 on it. Will you please bury your poems in the earth behind the stone, and as a sign that you have buried them make a little cross out of twigs, and stick it up in front of the stone. Then I should know directly when I come by. And I entreat you to keep this a secret till your dying day, for I am strictly watched. Even Hertha keeps a look-out on me--ah, it is dreadful.

"With kind regards,

"Yours sincerely,

"E. V. S.

"P.S.--Please do it soon."

This was the beginning of a lively correspondence between Elly and the Candidate, which was conducted partly in verse and partly in prose, and left nothing to be desired in fire and ardour.

Kurt's opinion of himself rose tremendously under its influence. Oswald Stein now had the advantage of him in nothing. In case Melitta--that was to say, Felicitas--persisted in scorning him, at least the little fair girl, who was so madly in love with him, still remained. He had forgotten her name in the book, but he would call her "Elly" for the nonce.

Elly's sentimental scrawls provided him with enough amusement to kill time. They alternated between poetic gush, such as one finds in novels, and comical outbursts of alarm. "Myrtle wreaths," "the song of the nightingale," and "starlit spheres," were phrases as numerous as "stabs of conscience," "suicide and desperation." Twice already she had implored him to end the correspondence, and to set her free; but there was always a fresh communication behind the milestone.

Kurt was amply employed in consoling and encouraging her, and forecasting the golden time when they would be united for ever. Seriously he had no hopes of anything of the kind happening. It was not likely the proud clod of a squire would be so good-natured and accommodating as to lay his still half-baby youngest sister in Kurt's arms; and it would be derogatory for a man of his talent and prospects to take her without leave, and hamper himself with an unprofitable bride. He had difficulties enough to contend with without that.

His old father (set up to it, probably) was beginning to cast a disapproving eye on his son's manner of life, and veiled allusions concerning "the lilies of the field," and "loaves and fishes," made him feel very uncomfortable. One day in the middle of October the bomb burst.

Kurt, who had reposed till eleven in bed, feeling the necessity of a little light refreshment before the midday meal, went on a foraging expedition to the cupboard, the place where one would naturally expect to find a miscellaneous assortment of ham, pickled eels, cold roast veal, cold fried potatoes, and mashed turnips. He was interrupted in the business of choosing between these dainties by the old pastor, who laid a heavy hand on his shoulder, and asked whether he intended to make it his vocation for the rest of his life to eat up all the remains of the family meals.

Kurt assumed the air of an offended prince. "A man must live," he replied loftily, "or do you wish to imply----"

"Come to my study," broke in the old man.

"Very well," said Kurt, wiping his mouth. "You are my father, so I must obey you." And he made a sign to show that he bowed to the paternal authority.

"Come, now, we will speak in plain language, my boy," the old fellow began, sinking into his shabby, cushioned chair. "In all my days I have never come across such a cursed jackanapes as you are. You drink like a fish, swagger and bully like a sergeant-major--all very well, and most pleasing to me. But do you think that you can go on loafing _infinitum_?"

Kurt controlled his resentment with difficulty.

"I don't understand, father," he said, "how you can call it loafing. Periods of inactive development are as necessary to the mind as the winter-time of hibernating is to Nature. While I am to all appearances idle, I work incessantly at my individuality. I cultivate my manhood; my personality is maturing. That is worth more than any book learning."

"Very well, my son," the old man replied. "Don't be discouraged. Keep up your calm impudence, and the rest will take care of itself. But, I tell you, for all that the world is a big place. Go and mature your personality somewhere else, and find another hunting-ground for your fads."

"Certainly I would, with pleasure, papa," Kurt replied, "if I had the necessary funds."

"The two months' salary the Baron von Kletzingk gave you would have been enough to live on for a whole term if you had not squandered it. You know that you needn't expect a farthing from me. Get the money as best you can, but remember, in eight days you clear out of this!"

"All right," Kurt replied with dignity, getting up. "I will go to ruin on the king's highway. But it seems a pity, just as my nature has taken a start, and I begin to be conscious of unsuspected springs of energy within me. But we won't speak about it further. The door of my father's house is to be shut on me--and with justice. Your long-suffering has been boundless, father. I thank you, and I will at once try and raise a little money. Farewell!" And he left the room.

The old man looked after him, shaking his head. "What a young scamp it is!" he said, full of admiration. "I was just such another."

Kurt, filled with bitter feelings, climbed up to the attic. He threw himself on his bed to reflect on his position, and also to await the dinner hour. There was baked ham with dumplings for dinner,--a dish which could be cooked in no university town so excellently as in the parental house. It was sad that the ham came to an end so soon, and that his father announced there would before long be one less to feed at the table.

When Kurt had composed himself a little, he went the round of neighbouring estates to see what was to be done in the money line.

"How brutal it is," he thought, "that a man's fine ambitions should be chased away by sordid cares!" And while he plodded along the rain-drenched country roads, it became clearer than ever that pessimism was the only philosophy of life worthy of consideration. He resolved to air his views in some great work which should take the form either of "Childe Harold" or "The Philosophy of the Unknown."

Grey clouds raced over the sky, the wind whistled across the furrows, and ravens circled weirdly above the dung-hills. Everything was vast and dreary, like his mood.

The proceeds of his first day's crusade was a ten-mark piece, lent by the newly appointed bailiff at Ellernthal--a novel of Zola's, also lent, and a fit of the blues.

The second day he fared no better, and on the third there seemed to be little doubt that his credit for ten miles round had been exhausted. Now he became so utterly disconsolate that he thought of taking his life. But the same day he received a gilt-edged note, which bore a certain family resemblance to Elly's missives, only there was no rosebud. The signature was Hertha von Prachwitz.

"She too?" he thought, and an indescribable feeling of satisfaction ran through his veins.

Hertha urgently requested an interview of ten minutes with him, and named as a place of meeting the churchyard at Wengern, and the hour six in the evening.

"One knows pretty well what those urgent interviews mean," he thought, twisting his moustache with a smile. After all, any one who was invited to a rendezvous with countesses need not despair.

To dodge those who might spy on his movements, he took a longish walk towards evening, from which he tried to return unobserved, for the churchyard was only a few steps distant from the parsonage.

On the stroke of six he emerged from the shadow of the church porch, and saw Hertha's figure darkly silhouetted in the late twilight as she sat waiting on a tombstone. His heart beat riotously in delighted anticipation. He approached her with his hat in his hand. "What a fascination and charm there must be about my person," he reflected, "if even this haughty highflyer succumbs to it!"

Hertha shot up at sight of him. She wore her old grey cloak, and had drawn the hood over her head and tied it under the chin. She was painfully excited. Her hands clasped the grave railings convulsively. Her eyes flashed in the darkness.

"You will think that this is a strange proceeding, Herr Kandidat," she said, in a trembling voice.

"Oh no, not at all," he assured her with a gallant bow.

"Ordinarily," she went on, "girls like me are not in the habit of appointing to meet people...."

She halted. There was something in her tone which made him feel a trifle less triumphant; it was almost as if she would have said, "people of your position."

"Wait a bit," he thought; "I'll soon bring her down."

"But your stupid conduct to my cousin," she continued, "compels me to speak very seriously to you."

Kurt felt very much as if a bucket of cold water had been hurled at him. It was evident what had happened. Elly had told tales, and Hertha, whether jealous or not, had made up her mind to put obstacles in his way.

"I beg pardon, countess," he said, raising his hand in dignified protest. "This is a matter of a very private nature. I don't know how far and by what means you have gained the confidence of your cousin Fraeulein Elly, and I, for my part, cannot flatter myself that I have your confidence; therefore, if you will allow me----"

He raised his hat as a sign that he desired to end the conversation.

"Listen to me, if you please, Herr Kandidat," said Hertha, and her eyes flashed wrathfully. "If you adopt this tone towards me, it will be the worse for you."

"You talk in riddles," he replied, with a smirk.

"I am ready to express myself as plainly as you like," said Hertha. "I have run over here secretly, and at great risk, and you thought of going away and leaving me in the lurch like a naughty schoolboy."

In his most cavalier style he begged her pardon, and submitted to hear what was coming.

"Why don't you leave my cousin alone?" asked Hertha, measuring him with a scornful eye from head to toe.

"I love Fraeulein Elly," he replied, "and I will annihilate all who thwart my love."

"Don't be so impertinent, Herr Kandidat. No one will believe you."

"They shall be made to believe," he said; "when two young hearts love, who shall come between them?"

Hertha shrugged her shoulders. "Elly does not love you, Herr Kandidat," she said.

"I happen to possess proofs to the contrary," he replied, with another polite bow.