Part 42 (1/2)
There lay the ”infant Christ,” a boy six or seven years old with silken curls and ma.s.sive brows, beneath whose shadow the closed eyes were concealed by dark-lashed lids. A single ray from the hanging lamp fell upon the forehead of the little Raphael, and showed the soft brows knit as if with unconscious pain.
The child was not happy--or not well--or both. He breathed heavily in his sleep, and there was a slight nervous twitching about the delicately moulded nostrils.
”He has evidently lost flesh since I was last here!” said the countess anxiously.
Freyer remained silent.
”What do you think?” asked the mother.
”What can I think? You have not seen the boy for so _long_ that you can judge whether he has altered far better than I.”
”Joseph!” The beautiful woman drew herself up, and a look of genuine sorrow rested upon the pale, irritated countenance of her husband.
”Whenever I come, I find nothing save bitterness and cutting words--open and secret reproaches. This is too much. Not even to-day, when I find my child ill, do you spare the mother's anxious heart. This is more than I can endure, it is ign.o.ble, unchivalrous.”
”Pardon me,” replied her husband in a low tone, ”I could not suppose that a mother who deserts her child for months could possibly possess so tender a nature that she would instantly grow anxious over a slight illness or a change in his appearance. I am a plain man, and cannot understand such contradictions!”
”Yes, from your standpoint you are right--in your eyes I must seem a monster of heartlessness. I almost do in my own. Yet, precisely because the reproach appears merited it cuts me so deeply, that is why it would be generous and n.o.ble to spare me! Oh! Freyer, what has become of the great divine love which once forgave my every fault?”
”It is where you have banished it, buried in the depths of my heart, as I am buried among these lonely mountains, silent and forgotten.”
The countess, shaking her head, gazed earnestly at him. ”Joseph, you see that I am suffering. You must see that it would be a solace to rest in your love, and you are ungenerous enough to humble my bowed head still more.”
”I have no wish to humble you. But we can be generous only to those who need it. I see in the haughty Countess Wildenau a person who can exercise generosity, but not require it.”
”Because you do not look into the depths of my heart, tortured with agonies of unrest and self-accusation?” As she spoke tears sprang to her eyes, and she involuntarily thought of the faithful, shrewd friend at home whose delicate power of perception had that very day spared her the utterance of a single word, and at one glance perceived all the helplessness of her situation.
True, the _latter_ was a man of the world whom the tinsel and glitter which surrounded her no longer had power to dazzle, and who was therefore aware how poor and wretched one can be in the midst of external magnificence.
The _former_--a man of humble birth, with the childish idea of the value of material things current among the common people, could not imagine that a person might be surrounded by splendor and luxury, play a brilliant part in society, and yet be unhappy and need consideration.
But, however, she might apologize for him, the very excuses lowered him still more in her eyes! Each of these conflicts seemed to widen the gulf between them instead of bridging it.
Such scenes, which always reminded her afresh of his lowly origin, did him more injury in her eyes than either of them suspected at the moment. They were not mere ebullitions of anger, which yielded to equally sudden reactions--they were not phases of pa.s.sion, but the result of cool deliberation from the standpoint of the educated woman, which ended in hopeless disappointment.
The continual refrain: ”You do not understand me!” with which the countess closed such discussions expressed the utter hopelessness of their mutual relations.
”You wonder that I come so rarely!” she said bitterly. ”And yet it is you alone who are to blame--nay, you have even kept me from the bedside of my child.”
”Indeed?” Freyer with difficulty suppressed his rising wrath. ”This, too!”
”Yes, how can you expect me to come gladly, when I always encounter scenes like these? How often, when I could at last escape from the thousand demands of society, and hurried hither with a soul thirsting for love, have you repulsed me with your perpetual reproaches which you make only because you have no idea of my relations and the claims of the fas.h.i.+onable world. So, at last, when I longed to come here to my husband and my child, dread of the unpleasant scenes which shadow your image, held me back, and I preferred to conjure before me at home the Freyer whom I once loved and always should love, if you did not yourself destroy the n.o.ble image. With _that_ Freyer I have sweet intercourse by my lonely fireside--with _him_ I obtain comfort and peace, if I avoid _this_ Freyer with his petty sensitiveness, his constant readiness to take umbrage.” A mournful smile illumined her face as she approached him; ”You see that when I think of the Freyer of whom I have just spoken--the Freyer of my imagination--my heart overflows and my eyes grow dim! Do you no longer know that Freyer? Can you not tell me where I shall find him again if I seek him very, _very_ earnestly?”
Freyer opened his arms and pointed to his heart: ”Here, here, you can find him, if you desire--come, my beloved, loved beyond all things earthly, come to the heart which is only sick and sensitive from longing for you.”
In blissful forgetfulness she threw herself upon his breast, completely overwhelmed by another wave of the old illusion, losing herself entirely in his ardent embrace.
”Oh, my dear wife!” he murmured in her ear, ”I know that I am irritable and unjust! But you do not suspect the torment to which you condemn me.
Banished from your presence, far from my home, torn from my native soil, and not yet rooted in yours. What life is this? My untrained reason is not capable of creating a philosophy which could solve this mystery. Why must these things be? I am married, yet not married. I am your husband, yet you are not my wife. I have committed no crime, yet am a prisoner, am not a dishonored man--yet am a despised one who must conceal himself in order not to bring shame upon his wife!
”So the years pa.s.sed and life flits by!” You come often, but--I might almost say only to make me taste once more the joys of the heaven from which I am banished.