Part 27 (2/2)
Rojanow uttered the name softly, hesitatingly; but his eyes flamed up triumphantly, as he saw again the same slight quiver he had seen at his entrance. Slowly he approached a few steps, continuing: ”I heard the name for the first time upon India's soil, and it had a sweet foreign sound for me, which I retained for my heroine, and now I learn here that the abbreviation of a German name is just like it.”
”Of the name Adelaide--yes. I was always called so at home; but it is nothing peculiar that the same sounds return in different languages.”
The words sounded repellent, but the young wife did not lift her eyes; she gazed fixedly upon the flower with which her fingers toyed.
”Certainly not,” a.s.sented Hartmut; ”I only noticed it. It was no surprise, since all legends are repeated in all nations. They have a greater or less difference in appearance, but that which lives in them--the pa.s.sion, the happiness and joy of the people--that is the same everywhere.”
Adelaide shrugged her shoulders.
”I cannot argue about that with a poet, but I do believe that our German legends possess other features than the Indian dreams of myths.”
”Perhaps so, but if you look deeper you will find these features familiar. This Arivana myth, at least, has similar lines. The hero, a young priest who has consecrated body and soul to his deity--the sacred, burning fire--is overwhelmed by earthly love, with all its fervor and pa.s.sion, until his priestly vow perishes in its intensity.”
He stood quietly and respectfully before her, but his voice had a strangely suppressed sound, as if, hidden behind this narrative, there was another and secret meaning.
Suddenly the Baroness raised her eyes and directed them fully and seriously upon the face of the speaker. ”And--the end?”
”The end is death, as in most mystic legends. The breaking of the vow is discovered, and the guilty ones are sacrificed to the offended deity; the priest dies in the flames with the woman he loves.”
A short pause followed. Adelaide arose with a rapid movement. She apparently wished to break off the conversation.
”You are right; this legend has something familiar, if it were only the old doctrine of guilt and atonement.”
”Do you call that guilt, gracious lady?” Hartmut suddenly dropped the formal t.i.tle. ”Well, yes, by man it is called guilt, and they too punish it with death, without thinking that such punishment can be ecstasy. To perish in the flames after having tasted of the highest earthly happiness, and to embrace this happiness even in death--that is a glorious, divine death, worthy a long life of dull monotony. The eternal, undying right of love glows there like signs of flame in the sky, in spite of all laws of mankind. Do you not think such an end enviable?”
A slight paleness covered the face of the Baroness, but her voice was firm as she answered:
”No; enviable only is death for an exalted, holy duty--the sacrifice of a pure life. One can forgive sin, but one does not admire it.”
Hartmut bit his lips, and a threatening glance rested on the white figure which stood so solemn and unapproachable before him. Then he smiled.
”A hard judgment, which strikes my work also, for I have put my whole power into the glorification of this love and death. If the world judge like you---- Ah, permit me, gracious lady.”
He quickly approached the divan where she had been sitting, where, with her fan, the j.a.ponica also had been left.
”Thank you,” said Adelaide, stretching out her hand; but he gave her only the fan.
”Your pardon. While I was composing my Arivana on the veranda of a small house in India, this flower bloomed and glowed from its dark green foliage everywhere, and now it greets me here in the cold North.
May I keep this flower?”
Adelaide made a half reluctant gesture.
”No, why should you?”
”Why should I? For a remembrance of the severe opinion from the lips of a lady who bears the lovely name of my mystic heroine. You see, gracious lady, that the white j.a.ponica blooms here also, delicate, snowy flower; but unconsciously you broke the glowing red one, and poets are superst.i.tious. Leave me the flower as a token that my work, in spite of all, may find favor in your eyes after you learn to know it. You have no idea how much it means to me.”
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