Part 27 (2/2)
”I don't understand, since you are such intimate friends, why you should not know!”
”I believe, Countess, if we people of Ammergau have any good quality, it is discretion. We do not ask even the most intimate friend anything which he does not confide to us.”
Madeleine von Wildenau lowered her eyes in confusion. After a short struggle she said with deadly sternness and bitterness: ”You were right this morning--the man must be left _in his sphere_. Come, let us go back!” A glance from Ludwig's eyes pierced her to the heart. She turned back toward the village. But Freyer had already seen her and overtook her with the speed of thought.
”Why, Countess, you here? And”--his eyes, fierce with pain, rested enquiringly on hers as he perceived their cold expression, ”and you were going to leave me without a word of greeting? Were you ashamed to speak to the poor peasant who was mowing his gra.s.s? Or did my dress shock you?” He was so perfectly artless that he did not even interpret her indignation correctly, but attributed it to an entirely different cause. This did not escape the keen intuition of a woman so thoroughly versed in affairs of the heart. But when a drop of the venom of jealousy has entered the blood, it requires some time ere it is absorbed, even though the cause of the mischief has long been removed.
This is an old experience, as well as the fact that, this process once over, repentance is all the sweeter, love the more pa.s.sionate. But the poor simple-hearted peasant, in his artlessness, could not perceive all this. He was merely ashamed of standing before the countess in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves and hurriedly endeavored, with trembling fingers, to fasten his collar which he had opened while at work, baring his throat and chest. It seemed as if the hot blood could be heard pulsing against the walls of his arched chest, like the low murmur of the sea. The labor, the increasing heat of the sun, and the excitement of the countess' presence had quickened the usually calm flow of his blood till it fairly seethed in his veins, glowing in roseate life through the ascetic pallor of the skin, while the swelling veins stood forth in a thousand beautiful waving lines like springs welling from white stone. Both stood steeped in the fervid warmth, one absorbing, the other reflecting it.
But with the cruelty of love, which seeks to measure the strength of responsive pa.s.sion by the very pain it has the power to inflict, the beautiful woman curbed the fire kindled in her own pulses and said carelessly: ”We have interrupted your tete-a-tete, we will make amends by retiring.”
”Countess!” he exclaimed with a look which seemed to say: ”Is it possible that you can be so unjust! My _Mother_, Mary, was with me, she brought her son something to refresh him at his work, why should you interrupt us?”
The simple words, which to her had so subtle a double meaning, explained everything and Madeleine von Wildenau felt, with deep embarra.s.sment, that he understood her and that she must appear very petty in his eyes.
Ludwig Gross drew out his watch. ”Excuse me, it is nine o'clock; I must go to my drawing-school.” He bowed and left them, without shaking hands with the countess as usual. She felt it as a rebuke, and a voice in her heart said: ”You must become a far better woman ere you are worthy of this man.”
”Would not you like to know Mary? May I introduce her to you?” asked Freyer, when they were alone.
”Oh, it is not necessary.”
”Why, how can you love the son and not care for the mother?”
”She is _not_ your mother,” replied the countess.
”And _I_ am not the Christ. Why does the illusion affect me, and not Mary?”
”Because it was perfect in you, but not in her.”
”Then there is still more reason to know her, that her personality may complete what her personation lacked.”
The countess cast a gloomy look at the tall maiden, who meanwhile had taken the scythe and was doing Freyer's work.
”She seems to be very devoted to you,” she said suspiciously.
”Yes, thank Heaven, we are loyal friends.”
”I suppose you call each other thou.”
”Yes, all the Ammergau people do that, when they have been schoolmates.”
”That is a strange custom. Is it practised by those in both high and low stations?”
”There are neither high nor low stations among us. We all stand on the same footing, Countess. The fact that one is richer, another poorer, that one can do more for education and external appearances than his neighbor makes no difference with us and, if it did, it would be an honor for me to be permitted to address Anastasia with the familiar thou, for she and the whole Gross family are far above me. Even in your sense of the word, Countess, the burgomaster is an aristocrat, no child of nature like myself, but a man familiar with social usages and thoroughly well educated.”
”Well, then,” cried the countess, ”why don't you marry the lady, if she possesses such superior advantages?”
”Marry?” Freyer started back as if instead of Madeleine's beautiful face he had suddenly beheld some hideous vision, ”I have never thought of it!”
”Why not?”
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