Part 33 (1/2)
The unsuspecting pair came nearer. The lady, evidently exhausted, was really almost carried by her companion. It was too dark for the prince to see distinctly, but her head seemed to be resting on the peasant's breast. An interesting pair of lovers! But they drew nearer, the prince could not believe his eyes, it _was_ his daughter, leaning on a peasant's arm. There was an involuntary cry of horror from both as Countess Wildenau stood face to face with her haughty father. The blood fairly congealed in Madeleine's veins, her cheeks blanched till their pallor glimmered through the gloom! Yet the habit of maintaining social forms did not desert her: ”Oh, what a surprise! Good evening, Papa!”
Her soul had retreated to the inmost depths of her being, and she was but a puppet moving and speaking by rule.
Freyer raised his hat in a farewell salute.
”Are you going?” she said with an expressionless glance. ”I suppose I cannot ask you to rest a little while? Farewell, Herr Freyer, and many thanks.”
How strange! Did it not seem as if a c.o.c.k crowed?
Freyer bowed silently and walked on, ”Adieu!” said the prince without lifting his hat. For an instant he considered whether he could possibly offer his aim to a lady in _such_ attire, but at last resolved to do so--she was his daughter, and this was not exactly the right moment to quarrel with her. So, struggling with his indignation and disgust, he escorted her, holding his arm very far out as though he might be soiled by the contact, through the house into her room. The Gross sisters, with trembling hands, brought in lights and hastily vanished. Madeleine von Wildenau stood in the centre of the room, like an automaton whose machinery had run down. The prince took a candle from the table and threw its light full upon her face. ”Pardon me, I must ascertain whether this lady, who looks as if she had just jumped out of a gipsy-cart, is really my daughter? Yes, it is actually she!” he exclaimed in a tone intended to be humorous, but which was merely brutal. ”So I find the Countess Wildenau in _this_ guise--ragged, worn, with neither hat nor gloves, wandering about with peasants! It is incredible!”
The countess sank into a chair without a word. Her father's large, stern features were flushed with a wrath which he could scarcely control.
”Have you gone out of fas.h.i.+on so completely that you must seek your society in such circles as these, _ma fille_? Could no cavalier be found to escort the Countess Wildenau that she must strike up an intimacy with one of the comedians in the Pa.s.sion Play?”
”An intimacy? Papa, this is an insult!” exclaimed the countess angrily, for though it was true, she felt that on his lips and in _his_ meaning it was such! Again a c.o.c.k crowed at this unwonted hour.
”Well _ma chere_, when a lady is caught half embraced by such a man, the inference is inevitable.”
”Dear me, I was so exhausted that I could scarcely stand,” replied the countess, softly, as if the c.o.c.ks might hear: ”We were caught by the storm and the man was obliged to support me. I should think, however, that the Countess Wildenau's position was too high for such suspicions.”
”Well, well, I heard in Munich certain rumors about your long stay here which accorded admirably with the romantic personage who has just left you. My imaginative daughter always had strange fancies, and as you seem able to endure the peasant odor--I am somewhat more sensitive to it ...”
”Papa!” cried the countess, frantic with shame. ”I beg you not to speak in that way of people whom I esteem.”
”Aha!” said the prince with a short laugh, ”Your anger speaks plainly enough. I will make no further allusion to these delicate relations.”
The countess remained silent a moment, struggling with her emotions.
Should she confess all--should she betray the mystery of the ”G.o.d in man?” Reveal it to this frivolous, prosaic man from whose mockery, even in her childhood, she had carefully concealed every n.o.bler feeling--disclose to him her most sacred possession, the miracle of her life? No, it would be desecration. ”I _have_ no delicate relations! I scarcely know these people--I am interested in this Freyer as the representative of the Christ--he is nothing more to me.”
The cede crowed for the third time.
”What was that? I am continually hearing c.o.c.ks crow to-night. Did you hear nothing?” asked the countess.
”Not the slightest sound! Have you hallucinations?” asked the prince: ”The c.o.c.ks are all asleep at this hour.”
She knew it--the sound was but the echo of her own conscience. She thought of the words Freyer had uttered that day upon the mountain, and his large eyes gazed mournfully, yet forgivingly at her. Now she knew why Peter was pardoned! He would not suffer the G.o.d in whom he could not force men to believe to be profaned--so he concealed Him in his heart. He knew that the bond which united him to Christ and the work which he was appointed to do for Him was greater than the cheap martyrdom of an acknowledgment of Him to the dull ears of a handful of men and maid-servants! It was no lie when he said: ”I know not the man”--for he really did _not_ know the Christ whom _they_ meant. He was denying--not _Christ_, but the _criminal_, whom they believed Him to be. It was the same with the countess. She was not ashamed of the man she loved, only of the person her father saw in him and, as she could not explain to the prince what Joseph Freyer was to her, she denied him entirely. But even as Peter mourned as a heavy sin the brief moment in which he faithlessly separated from his beloved Master, she, too, now felt a keen pang, as though a wound was bleeding in her heart, and tears streamed from her eyes.
”You are nervous, _ma fille_! It isn't worth while. Tears for the sake of that worthy villager?” said the prince, with a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders. ”Listen, _ma chere_, I believe it would be better for you to marry.”
”Papa!” exclaimed the countess indignantly.
The prince laughed: ”No offence, when women like you begin to be sentimental--it is time for them to marry! You were widowed too young--it was a misfortune for you.”
”A misfortune? May G.o.d forgive you the sneer and me the words--it was a misfortune that Wildenau lived so long--nay more: that I ever became his wife, and you, Papa, ought never to remind me of it.”
”Why not?”
”Because I might forget that you _are_ my father--as _you_ forget it when you sold me to that greybeard?”
”Sold? What an expression, _chere enfant_! Is this the result of your study of peasant life here? I congratulate you on the enlargement of your vocabulary. This is the grat.i.tude of a daughter for whom the most brilliant match in the whole circle of aristocratic families was selected.”