Part 33

She pressed her forehead against the bowed head of the kneeling man, sobbing bitterly, and clung to his shoulders. And so they cried together and would not be comforted. When at last they lifted their heads they looked into each other's eyes, astonished and questioning. Was he this man? Was she this woman? It seemed as if their common sorrow had made them new creatures, and linked them as one for all time in guilt and the wretched consequence of their sin. She smiled at him inconsolably, but at the same time she was almost happy.

"Lizzie, we are lost," he murmured.

"Yes, we are lost," she said, still smiling, and then he left her.

XXXIV

On the first Sunday of the New Year, Ulrich alighted at the station at Muensterberg, after seeing the grave close over his step-son. He had decided, after long consideration, to have the boy buried in the place where he died, and if his wife felt herself equal to the strain, to have the body removed later to be interred in the family vault of the Rhadens at Fichtkampen.

Felicitas had not spared him any of the details of her despair, illness, and attempted suicide, and had painted all in the darkest colours. She had too much to conceal to be able to express her grief simply and sincerely. The task lay before her of excusing herself, as far as was possible, of any blame in her child's death, and of presenting the whole unhappy affair to Ulrich and the world and to herself, tricked out in the guise of romance.

Above all, it had never occurred to her to spare her husband. The letters she had written him from her bed with a feverish hand were full of endless laments that they had ever sent the boy so far away to school, which strengthened the pangs of remorse that already tortured his sensitive soul.

With the instinct of self-preservation, she had tried to shunt the responsibility for what had happened on Ulrich's shoulders, in the same way as she had blamed Leo as an accomplice, so that Ulrich's easily disturbed conscience began to accuse him of being the cause of all the misery.

"She was only like an irresponsible child," he said to himself, "following the whim of the moment. I ought to have thought of that and have remained firm in opposing her, even when it was the fate of her own flesh and blood that she was deciding upon."

And then, what was worst of all was, that she had done it for him and him alone. So that he might continue to enjoy the friendship of the man who bore on him the stain of having killed the child's father, that child had been sent into banishment to meet his death. A sacrifice so cruel and unnatural had, as it was bound to be, been avenged, and, as things had shaped themselves, it had all been of no avail. The object for which the stupendous sacrifice had been made was not attained.

For he could no longer shut his eyes to the fact that he was losing his friend, his boyhood's comrade and well-beloved who, ever since he could remember, had been first in his thoughts, who had been his pride and glory and rock of strength, who seemed to embody all the health and physical power that fate had denied to himself.

He no longer understood him. The laws that governed his emotions were strange to him, and what once had seemed to him like a perfect, rushing harmony of Mother Nature's, now was like a shrieking confusion of discordant notes.

Whether it was himself who had changed so much, or the other, he couldn't say; he was only clear on one point, that every fresh utterance of Leo's estranged and hurt him.

No one knew better than his friend how dear the small step-son had been to his heart; but on the day of the funeral he had got a letter from Leo so stiffly and frigidly expressed, that it might have been the conventional condolences of an absolute stranger.

It was indeed a melancholy home-coming for Ulrich. No one met him at the station. But the station-master, who recognised the baron as he flashed his lantern upon him, helped him out of the railway-carriage, and spoke a few words of respectful sympathy.

The old coachman, Wilhelm, seated on the box, wiped away his tears at his master's approach, and when he laid his hand on his shoulder and said to him in a low voice, "Ah, Wilhelm, we shall not see our boy again," he nearly let the reins slip out of his weather-beaten hands from emotion.

Ulrich had brought back with him Paulchen's trunks and play boxes, and these were piled high on the back seat of the sleigh. Among them were the two big Christmas parcels of toys which the little fellow had looked out for so expectantly on Christmas Eve, and gone in search of. They had been delivered the next day by the pleased postman.

The sleigh glided on through the moonless night. On the plain the whiteness of the snow made a faint glimmer; the poplars bordering the road emerged in blurred outline one after the other out of the dark. Ulrich fancied that from behind each tree Paulchen must appear and call to him, "Take me home. I am afraid; so afraid. Take me home, please."

Then came the long bridge which had been Paulchen's delight. It was a hundred and fifty paces in length, and had balustrades of black and white palings, on which he had always said that he wanted to climb when he was "big enough." Underneath the bridge, where it was often dry enough to walk, there was an echo, and when a carriage passed overhead it was like the rolling of thunder.

And a little further on was the chief wonder of the road, a windmill that stood on a roof. Think of it! a windmill high up on a roof! Forlornly it spread its snowy wings now, like the ghost of a giant stretching its arms into the grey night sky.

So the drive continued till the demesne of Uhlenfelde came in sight. Here there seemed scarcely an inch of land that was not sanctified by some association with the dead boy. How gloomy and desolate were the wide fields! They looked as if a bright day could never dawn again to bathe them in sunshine; as if eternal winter had settled on the world.

He looked forward to the prospect that awaited him with shuddering. He dreaded alike his work and his leisure.

Then he thought of Felicitas, and was ashamed of thinking so much of his own feelings. The task before him was to coax with gentle patience and tactful caution, a despairing woman, slowly back to the ordinary walks of life.

A burst of compassionate love for her gushed forth from his soul. He felt as if she and Leo were a legacy left to him by the poor little fellow who had died so tragically.

Yes, with Leo too he must try and set things right. He would go to him, look him straight in the eyes, clasp his hand; and say--

"Man, speak out, and over the dead tell me honestly, what is the barrier that has grown up between you and me?"

The sleigh turned through the courtyard gateway. The servants and labourers lined the drive in black groups, and in silent sympathy bared their heads. All had foregone their beer, and none had spent the sabbath hours of repose at home with wife and child, because they all wished by their presence there to show him how they felt for him in his bereavement.

The sleigh drew up. His heart beat faster, for he feared Felicitas would come out to meet him; but she did not come. She was waiting for him in her corner-boudoir, standing erect by the writing-table. Her deep mourning-dress made her look taller. She appeared to him almost majestic, or was it her sorrow which invested her in his eyes with majesty? yet the expression of the haggard eyes, which looked bigger than ever because her face had grown so thin, was not one of sorrow. Rather did it appear to be anxiety and horror that gazed out of them, as if she feared being surprised in a defenceless position.

"Lizzie," he stammered, holding out his arms to her.

She dropped her lids, and leant against the wall for support. He drew her head to his breast and led her to an easy-chair, murmuring over her, softly, words of comfort. All the love with which his heart was overflowing he lavished upon her. He spoke of their belonging to each other more completely than ever before, of the sacred hallowing influence the death of the innocent child would have upon both their lives. He promised to give her for the future boundless confidence, most fervent trusty and tenderest consideration; all, indeed, that he had given her for years, which for years she had accepted with smiling indifference, and without heeding the giver.

So soon as it dawned on her that he was not in the least disposed to make her responsible and call her to account, her nervous rigidity relaxed; she slid on to the carpet, and, burying her head on his knees, sobbed bitterly.

He went on speaking to her in the same soothing, gentle tone. She wrung her hands, and beat her forehead. For an instant her maternal grief, which in spite of everything was strong within her, had full sway without any _arriere pense_ interrupting it. But her expressions were so wildly exaggerated, that soon even her grief became artificial, and the last remnant of pure and noble sentiment she had possessed was destroyed.

Gradually she grew calmer, and she let her arms fall to her sides. A lassitude that was almost pleasant overcame her. She let him raise her and lay her on the couch. She felt the burning desire that children feel after a whipping--to be pitied and consoled.

"Oh, Ulrich," she murmured, "what I have suffered!"

He started. A sense of disappointment suddenly damped his sympathy. Surely at this hour her first words should not have been words of pity for herself.

He said nothing; but his eyes wandered about the room as if he were pondering on some new experience. Supper was announced. The officials who generally sat at table with them had tactfully begged to be excused to-night. Husband and wife were alone.

The tea-kettle hummed, and the bronze hanging-lamp shed a soft lustre on the snowy damask and gleaming silver.

Felicitas busied herself about his creature-comforts, acting on an impulse to pay off the gigantic debt she owed him with the small coin of little kindnesses and attentions. She prepared his sardines in his favourite way, cut him the thinnest bread-and-butter, and poured two spoonfuls of rum in his tea--a pick-me-up he was obliged sometimes to resort to. She put a cushion at his back, and drew the shade low over the lamp, so that his "poor tired eyes" should not be dazzled.

He watched her in painful amazement. He would have preferred satisfying his hunger to-night silently and unobserved, like a dog, and not to have been reminded that there were such things as dainty living and tit-bits in the world.

"How can she think of these trifling matters, when a few moments ago she was idling on the floor in despair?" he asked himself.

With a fine instinct she divined what was passing in his mind, and changing her tack, began again to give a harrowing account of her own sufferings.

"No, Ulrich," she said, "you can't conceive what torture it was to me to think of you alone at his grave: not to be there to help you, and stand by you. But it could not be helped. The doctor gave strict orders that I was not to attempt the journey; besides, I was very ill; a little more and you would not have found me alive."

She paused, expecting him to question her about the attempted suicide; but as he was silent she led the conversation round to it herself.

"Are you still angry with me, dearest?" she asked.

"Why should I be angry?"

"Because I acted so wickedly, and, in the first shock of my grief, doubted God and His mercy, so that I believed it was impossible to go on living. Ah, Ulrich, if you knew the state I was in then, you would, I am sure, forgive me."

"I have nothing to forgive, Felicitas."

"But you say it so severely, Ulrich. I know, of course, that I have committed a great sin, that one ought to endure patiently any misery God inflicts on us; but I was so alone, so utterly alone--you away, no one to turn to. First, I thought of throwing myself in the river. That would have been the quickest; but the river was frozen. Next, I thought I would roam about the fields and freeze to death--and I did stay out half one night, and it didn't kill me, and so I came home, and snatched up some poison--the first that came to hand--and drank, drank. It was like liquid fire in my throat, and I saw dancing suns before my eyes, and then I fell, and I don't know what happened afterwards. Do you see, Uli, what a terrible time your poor little wife has gone through?"

In her longing to hear him console her, she began to cry once more. But the desired consolation was not forthcoming.

"Ah! how much better it would have been," she lamented further, "if I had never awoke. What is life? Nothing but sorrow, wretchedness, and misunderstanding. When one's heart is torn, one is always most alone. Ah, Uli! for you, too, it would have been best. Would you have mourned for me a little?"

He did not answer. He looked at her, and looked again, and she turned him to stone. He had been waiting for the bitter cry of maternal anguish. But she talked of herself, and only of herself. His eyes beheld her in her fair loveliness, rocking herself to and fro on her chair. The rounded curves of her slender figure were set off by the close-fitting mourning-gown. Her masses of curly golden hair shone like a halo above her forehead and small rosy ears. The perpetual smile, half-melancholy, half-injured, on the small face, seemed to say that she would like to smile all death and pain out of existence. He was conscious of a slight repulsion as he examined her, and was ashamed of it the next moment. Why was he suddenly become so embittered? Had he not always known that patience was very necessary in dealing with this fair, light creature?

And in a voice more of reproach than blame, he said, "Have you no questions to ask about the boy, Felicitas?"

She held out her hands in horrified entreaty.

"Not to-day, dearest," she implored. "Not to-day. It would excite us both too much. I have pictured it all a thousand times over. All the dreadful scenes have floated before my eyes by night and day, and I am tired, oh, so tired, I crave for sleep--for one real good long sleep--and never to wake again How beautiful that would be!"

Shutting her eyes, she laid herself across the arm of the chair, so that her full creamy throat dimpled over the tight folds of black chiffon that encircled it.

Again he had to struggle with a feeling of disgust; but with a quiet determination, characteristic of his methodical nature, he adhered to his purpose of giving her an account of Paul's last hours.

"Our feelings ought not to make cowards of us, Lizzie," he said. "I know you must have suffered much. I should have known it, even if you had not told me. But it is in vain to try and spare yourself this. Our thoughts will always be returning to it, and not till you have drunk your cup of sorrow to the dregs can you hope to get any truly refreshing rest."

"Very well, speak, then," she said, cowering together, as if resigning herself to her fate. "Tell me what you like."

But when he saw the terror with which she contemplated hearing his story, the words froze on his lips, and he felt as if he could never impart to her the painful and sacred impressions that were so fresh in his memory. He had expected that she would have drunk in all with passionate eagerness, and would have questioned him about every minute that he had passed by Paul's deathbed, till she was in complete possession of the whole scene. Instead, she shrank from it, in a vulgar fear of her nerves being upset.

Unmotherly, almost inhuman, did her conduct appear. Now, he felt that to speak of the child's quiet, pathetic death to the mother, would be profanation. Though there had been no tie of blood between them, he had belonged to him in life and in death. This woman from whose womb he had sprung, this smiling, frightened woman, who only thought of her own discomfort, and wished to be pitied for herself, had become a stranger--a stranger to her child, and a stranger to him. He saw, with horror, the gulf that she set between him and her, which no seductive charm, no flattering little speeches, could ever bridge again.

"Perhaps you are right, Felicitas," he said coldly. "We will leave it for the present; it may be too sad a subject and too exciting for you."

"Ah, how good you are!" she whispered gratefully; "you can feel for your poor, heart-broken wife."

And as she had often done when she wanted to bewitch him with a cheap endearment, she stretched over to him and pillowed her head against his arm, looking into his face with ecstatically uplifted eyes.

He submitted passively, and glanced down in cold astonishment on the pale, pretty features on which an almost coquettish smile was now playing. In a flash he seemed to see through the thousand machinations with which, for years, she had chained him to her chariot-wheel: the allurements with which she had awakened desires within him without any intention of satisfying them, and the extravagant caprices, obeying which had weakened his will and degraded his intellect. The whole tissue, woven of laughing selfishness and self-seeking affability and mock _naivete_, now fell away, showing the being he had humbly worshipped in her naked unreality and insincerity.

He could not guess that all she said and did at the moment was a kind of veiled apology, for in her mania to excuse her past faults she had revealed herself to him in her true colours. He saw all that was hollow and vain and false in her, without understanding why she prevaricated and lied. They sat on together for another hour. The table was cleared, but the spirit-lamp still hummed. The antique Dutch clock in the corner kept up its solemn and deliberate tick. Now and then a shower of snow-flakes whirled against the window and the sashes rattled gently. A profound, dreamful peace seemed to have descended on the apartment, a peace well ordained to bring healing to two wounded hearts.

Felicitas, all unsuspecting, yet inwardly anxious, continued to make herself charming and amiable. She spoke of the sympathy shown her by friends and neighbours, the countless letters of condolence which she had received, the many callers she had refused to see. She even made plans for the future, and promised all sorts of wonderful things to comfort and distract him. He listened with grave courteous attention; and in every word he found confirmation of his new reading of her character. His eyes wandered round the room. He saw the lights and shadows dancing on the walls; the dear old objects amidst which he had been brought up, which he would have bequeathed to his step-son; so soon as he could have legally adopted him. He listened to the ticking of the clock and all the familiar sounds which in peaceful evening hours are the music of happy homes.

But now everything seemed different, everything was strange, unreal, almost disquieting.

"Away!" a voice cried within him. "Flee from this house which is no longer yours." And when the watchmen whistled outside the hour of ten, he rose. His torture had lasted long enough. She offered her forehead to be kissed with a weary sigh, but he bowed low and kissed her hand instead.

"And you really aren't angry with me?" she asked in a whisper, her conscience stirring again.

He shook his head, smiling. The scorn which had taken possession of his soul made him composed and frigid. He left her, and as the door closed behind him she threw up her hands and exclaimed--

"Thank God!"

The next morning Ulrich explained to his wife that urgent business called him to Koenigsberg, where the committee for the Agricultural Exhibition was holding its meetings, and it was uncertain whether he would return to Uhlenfelde before the opening of the Reichstag.

Felicitas was at first a little taken aback, then readily acquiesced.

The parting of husband and wife was friendly but undemonstrative. Felicitas indeed regarded the separation so much in the light of a deliverance that she forgot to act a part.

When the sleigh reached the top of the dyke, Ulrich halted, and took a long look across at Halewitz, whose hoary old castle seemed to nod a greeting at him amidst its snow-covered barns and out-buildings. Though his heart cried out for his friend, he was afraid to meet him, afraid that if he did the last precious thing left to him on earth might slip through his fingers.

XXXV

In these days Leo became an _habitue_ of the Prussian Crown. He was received there with open arms by a jovial company, according to whose standard he was a thoroughly "decent chap," being capable of drinking as hard as most.

The handful of Uhlan officers could talk big, but when it came to putting their prowess to the test by a genuine prolonged carousal, they could not be depended on, and dropped out of the ranks before the struggle had really half begun. The truth was that the colonel in command had strict orders to guard against any excesses, lest the demoralising civilian influence should bring the mixed garrison into disrepute.

The citizens were, on the whole, a famous crew, and as often in debt and in drink as befitted old corps students. One, it was true, held himself aloof, because he was a Jew and feared baiting. But his place was filled by a newspaper reporter, likewise a Jew, who adopted opposite tactics, and, with the plasticity of his race, had become the most convivial of the party and the wildest of a wild lot.

The circle was sometimes joined by a couple of landed proprietors, unable to put in a regular appearance owing to their wives and the distance of their homes, and whose presence, when they did come to drink away dull hours, added to the gaiety of the topers.

As beer and red wine were considered little stronger than innocent ditch-water, a particularly piquant kind of punch was the beverage chosen, by means of which the object desired was most quickly accomplished. This was an appalling mixture of cognac and port-wine, with sugar added, and it was carried to the table piping hot. The man had never been met with yet who could hold out against the peculiar effects of this devilish concoction. And every time that the punch was brewing on the kitchen fire, the waiters and ostlers received orders to hold themselves in readiness to act the part of good Samaritan to the guests.

Nevertheless, the milieu of the Prussian Crown was a little too steady and staid for some tastes. Certain respectable worthies came there to read the newspapers, have a game of cribbage or chess, and their request for quiet had perforce to be regarded.

Another drawback was the lack of female society. At other resorts in Muensterberg, where the more plebeian revellers sought their distractions with indifferent beer and good grog, were to be found ladies with whom one could chat behind the bar.