Part 71 (1/2)
Scarcely had she reached her boudoir when she heard the lower bell ring--then footsteps, a familiar voice--some one knocked as he had done ten years ago in the Gross House; but the man whom he then brought, nothing would ever bring again.
She did not speak, her voice failed, but she opened the door herself--Ludwig Gross stood before her. Both gazed at each other a long time in silence. Both were struggling for composure and for words, and from the cheeks of both every drop of blood had vanished. The countess held out her hand, but he did not seem to see it. She pointed to a chair, and said in a hollow tone: ”Sit down,” at the same time sinking upon a divan opposite.
”I will not disturb you long, Your Highness!” Ludwig answered, seating himself a long distance off.
”If you disturbed me, I should not have received you.”
Ludwig felt the reproof conveyed in the words for the hostility of his manner, but he could not help it.
”Perhaps Your Highness remembers a certain Freyer?”
”Herr Gross, that question is an insult, but I admit that, from your standpoint, you have a right to ask it. At any rate, Freyer did not commission you to do so.”
”No, Countess, for he does not know that I am here; if he did, he would have prevented it. I beg your pardon, if I perform my mission somewhat clumsily! I know it is unseemly to meddle with relations of which one is ignorant, for Freyer's reserve allowed me no insight into these. But here there is danger in delay, and where a human life is at stake, every other consideration must be silent. I have never been able to learn any particulars from Freyer. I only know that he was away nine years, as it was rumored, with you, and that he returned a beggar!”
”That, Herr Gross, is no fault of mine.”
”Not that, Countess, but it must be _your_ fault alone which has caused relations so unnatural that Freyer was ashamed to accept from you even the well-earned payment for his labor.”
”You are right there, Herr Gross.”
”And that would be the least, Countess, but he has returned, not only a beggar, but a lost man.”
”Ludwig!”
”Yes, Countess. That is the reason I determined, after consulting with the burgomaster, to come here and talk with you, if you will allow it.”
”Speak, for Heaven's sake; what has befallen him?”
”Freyer is ill, Countess.”
”But, how can that be? He is acting the Christus every week and delighting the world?”
”Yes, that is just it! He acts, as a candle burns down while it s.h.i.+nes--it is no longer the phosph.o.r.escence of genius, it is a light which feeds on his own life and consumes it.”
”Merciful G.o.d!”
”And he _wishes_ to die--that is unmistakable--that is why it is so hard to aid him. He will heed no counsel, follow no advice of the physician, do nothing which might benefit him. Now matters have gone so far that the doctor told us yesterday he might fall dead upon the stage at any hour--and we ought not to allow him to go on playing! But he cannot be prevented. He desires nothing more than death.”
”What is the matter?” asked the pale lips of the countess.
”A severe case of heart disease, Countess, which might be arrested for several years by means of careful nursing, perfect rest, and strengthening food; but he has no means to obtain the better nourishment his condition requires, because he is too proud to be a burden on any one, and he lacks the ease of mind necessary to relieve his heart. Nursing is out of the question--he occupies, having given his own home to the poor when he left Ammergau, as you know, a miserable, damp room in a wretched tavern, just outside the village, and wanders about the mountains day and night. Of course speedy death is inevitable--hastened, moreover, by the exertions demanded by his part.”
Ludwig Gross rose. ”I do not know how you estimate the value of a poor man's life, Countess,” he said bitterly--”I have merely done my duty by informing you of my friend's condition. The rest I must leave to you.”
”Great Heaven! What shall I do! He rejects everything I offer. Perhaps you do not know that I gave him a fortune and he refused it.”
Ludwig Gross fixed an annihilating glance upon her. ”If you know no other way of rendering aid here save by _money_--I have nothing more to say.”
He bowed slightly and left the room without waiting for an answer.