Part 18 (1/2)
He turns and looks at her. How charming she is! With the arch condescension of a princess certain of victory, she laughs in his face and whispers,--
”Are you not beginning to be sorry that you said such hateful things to me the other day?”
He has grown paler still; his eyes alone seem blazing in his head. For a while he leaves her question unanswered, devouring her lovely, laughing face with his gaze; then, suddenly seizing her almost roughly by both wrists, he exclaims,--
”And are you not beginning to be sorry that you gave me cause to do so?”
At this question, imprudent as it is, considering the circ.u.mstances, Zdena hangs her golden head, and whispers, very softly, ”Yes.”
It is cold and gloomy in the hall; the two suits of armour cast long dark-gray shadows upon the black-and-white-tiled floor; two huge bluebottle flies are buzzing on the frame of an old portrait, and a large moth with transparent wings and a velvet body is b.u.mping its head against the ceiling, whether for amus.e.m.e.nt or in despair it is impossible to say.
Zdena trembles all over; she knows that she has said something conclusive, something that she cannot recall. She is conscious of having performed a difficult task, and she expects her reward.
Something very sweet, something most delicious, is at hand. He must clasp her in his arms, as on that evening in Vienna. Ah, it is useless to try to deceive herself,--she cannot live without him. But he stands as if turned to stone, ashy pale, with a look of horror.
A door opens. Paula Harfink enters the hall, tall, portly, handsome after her fas.h.i.+on, in a flowered Pompadour gown, evidently equipped for a walk, wearing a pair of buckskin gloves and a garden-hat trimmed with red poppies and yellow gauze.
”Ah! have you been waiting for me up-stairs, Harry?” she asks; then, perceiving Zdena, she adds, ”A visitor!--a welcome visitor!”
To Zdena's amazement and terror, she finds herself tenderly embraced by Paula, who, looking archly from one to the other of the cousins, asks, ”Shall we wait until Sunday for the grand surprise, Harry? Let your cousin guess. Come, Baroness Zdena, what is the news at Dobrotschau?”
For one moment Zdena feels as if a dagger were plunged into her heart and turned around in the wound; then she recovers her composure and smiles, a little contemptuously, perhaps even haughtily, but naturally and with grace.
”Oh, it is not very difficult to guess,” she says. ”What is the news?
Why, a betrothal. You have my best wishes, Baroness; and you too, Harry,--I wish you every happiness!”
CHAPTER IX.
AN ENCOUNTER.
No one can bear pain with such heroic equanimity as can a woman when her pride or her sense of dignity is aroused. Full twenty minutes have elapsed since the light has been darkened in Zdena's sky, her thought of the future embittered, and every joy blotted out of her existence.
During these twenty minutes she has talked and laughed; has walked in the park with Paula and Harry; has pointed out to the betrothed couple the comically human physiognomy of a large pansy in a flower-bed; has looked on while Paula, plucking a marguerite, proceeds, with an arch look at Harry, to consult that old-fas.h.i.+oned oracle, picking off the petals one by one, with, ”He loves me, he loves me not.” Yes, when urged to partake of some refreshment, she has even delicately pared and cut up with a silver knife a large peach, although she could not swallow a mouthful of it. How could she, when she felt as if an iron hand were throttling her!
And now she is in the carriage again, driving towards home. As she drove off she had a last glimpse of Paula and Harry standing side by side in the picturesque court-yard before the castle, beside the fountain, that vies with the lindens in murmuring its old tales,--tales that no longer interest any one. They stood there together,--Paula waving her hand and calling parting words after the visitor; Harry stiff and mute, lifting his cap. Then Paula put her hand upon his arm to go back into the castle with him,--him, her lover, her property!
And Zdena is alone at last. The pain in her heart is becoming torture.
Her breath comes short and quick. At the same time she has the restless, impatient sensation which is experienced by all who are unaccustomed to painful emotion, before they can bring themselves to believe in the new and terrible trouble in which they find themselves,--a sensation of being called upon to shake off some burden unjustly imposed. But the burden can neither be s.h.i.+fted nor shaken off.
Her consciousness is the burden, the burden of which she cannot be rid except with life itself. Life,--it has often seemed to her too short; and, in spite of all her transitory girlish discontent, she has sometimes railed at fate for according to mankind so few years in which to enjoy this lovely, sunny, laughing world. But now her brief earthly future stretches out endlessly before her,--an eternity in which joy is dead and everything black and gloomy.
”Good G.o.d! will this torture last forever?” she asks herself. No, it is not possible that such pain can last long: she will forget it, she must! It seems to her that she can at least be rid of some of it if she can only weep her fill in solitude. Yes, she must cry it out before she goes back to Zirkow, before she meets again the keen, kindly eyes that would fain pry into her very soul.
Meanwhile, she has told the coachman to drive to Komaritz. The carriage rolls through the long village. The air tastes of straw and hay; the rhythmic beat of the thrashers' flails resounds from the peasants'
small barns. Zdena stops her ears; she cannot bear the noise,--the noise and the garish, cruel light. At last the village lies behind her.
The sound of flails is still heard in the distance; to Zdena they seem to be beating the summer to death with clubs.
The carriage drives on, drives towards the forest. On the edge of the wood stands a red-and-white signpost, the two indexes of which point in opposite directions through the depths of the leafy thicket: one pathway is tolerably smooth, and leads to Komaritz; the other, starting from the same point, is rough, and leads to Zirkow.