Part 32 (1/2)
CHAPTER VI.
The world of spirits is a favourite topic with your aristocratic dilettanti, and every Austrian family _qui se respecte_ has its spectre.
The Zinsenburgs have their White Lady, the Truyns their magnificent four-in-hand, which, as the fore-runner of any terrible domestic calamity, rattles past the windows of the Truynburg in the Bohemian forest--no one knows whither or whence.--The Kamenz family have only a black hand that inscribes weird characters of fire on the walls; the Lodrins have their blind woman who is heard laughing when disgrace or misfortune threatens the family. Of all the family spectres in Bohemia this laughing, blind woman is the most grisly. Her origin dates from dim antiquity. The legend runs that in the eleventh or twelfth century a knight, Wolf von Lodrin, married in accordance with a family arrangement, but with no love on the bride's part, a beautiful and n.o.ble maiden. Inflamed with pa.s.sion for her, and finding it impossible to win her affection, in an evil hour, and in a fit of devilish rage, he struck her across the face with his riding-whip, and blindness followed the blow. Overcome by horror at what he had done the knight fell into a brooding melancholy, and at last killed himself. When his blind widow was told of it, she laughed; she herself lived to be a hundred years old, but after the knight's suicide she never spoke a single word,--only every time that any calamity befell the family, or one of its sons suffered disgrace she could be heard laughing. It was this blind spectre that still haunted Tornow. Formerly she had been seen frequently, it was said, a tall figure in grey, with a black bandage over her eyes, and an uncanny smile upon her pale lips, and the apparition always preceded some dire family misfortune. Her laugh had last been heard the day before Oswald's birth, wherefore it was feared that either the mother or the child would die, or that the Countess would give birth to some monster. But when a beautiful boy was born, and the mother recovered after her confinement much sooner than had been predicted, the blind Ca.s.sandra rather fell into disrepute, especially as both the Count and Countess set their faces against any belief in her existence, the Count because of his devout religious faith, and the Countess because she was too enlightened to encourage any such superst.i.tion.
Oswald had never bestowed much thought upon the spectre, merely smiling in a superior way when it was mentioned, but in the present excited, irritated state of his nerves even the superst.i.tious gossip of his old servants made an impression upon him. During the rest of the evening, however, he put forth all his force to obliterate the impression that his irritability at the whist-table had made upon Truyn and Pistasch.
And he succeeded; but when, after all the guests had departed, he retired to his room for the night his strength was exhausted. The old torture a.s.sailed him, only it was even keener and more agonizing than that which he had brought with him from Prague. He tossed his head from side to side on his pillow in feverish sleeplessness. Endowed from boyhood with that faultless courage which is rather a matter of temperament than of education, to-night for the first time in his life he was thrilled with a vague dread. Every noise, however slight, made him catch his breath with a suffocating sense of oppression.
At last his eyes closed in troubled and restless sleep, but his anguish pursued him in his dreams. He seemed to be lying upon a meadow of emerald green, with bright flowers blooming all around, and gay b.u.t.terflies fluttering here and there, while above him arched the cloudless blue, lit up by golden suns.h.i.+ne. Suddenly he felt the earth beneath him move, and he began slowly to sink into it. Overcome with horror he tried to arise, but the more he tried the deeper he sank into what was loathsome, slimy mud. He awoke, bathed in cold perspiration, gasping for breath, his heart beating wildly.
He gazed around; everything wore a weird unwonted look in the half-light of the summer night that encircled every object with a halo of grey mist. Through the open windows the heavy, sultry air floated in and out. He listened,--everywhere was silence, all nature lay as under the ban of an evil spell. Then a stir broke the silence,--did something rustle softly?--he seemed to hear the very wings of the night-moths fluttering above the flowers. His father's death mask glared white through the gloom; it grew longer and longer as if fain to descend from where it hung---- What was that----? a low chuckle seemed to sound behind the very wall beside him! The bodiless shadows floated hither and thither and suddenly grouped themselves in one spot; a tall grey figure with bandaged eyes and white lips drawn into a scornful smile stood leaning against the wall--it moved! It glided to his bed; uttering a cry he grasped at it; it vanished and he fell back on his pillow.
A few minutes afterward a light step approached his door, the latch was cautiously lifted, and his mother in a long white dressing-gown, holding a lighted candle in a little flat candlestick, entered. Her bedroom was just beneath his, and she had heard his cry. ”Ossi!” she called gently.
”Yes, mother!”
”What was the matter?”
”I had a bad dream.”
She lit the candles upon his table and leaned over him, scanning his features, startled by their ghastly pallor. ”What is the matter with you, Ossi?--I cannot endure any longer to see you silently suffering such pain and distress.”
”Nothing,” he said dully--”nothing.”
”Nothing! Can you--will you say that to me,--to me, your mother! A while ago, when you returned from Prague, I thought you changed, but you soon recovered; yet all last evening I was conscious that you were tormented by some secret anguish. For G.o.d's sake, tell me what it is.”
As she spoke she stroked his arms soothingly from the shoulder downwards. ”If you only knew what torture it is to me to see you suffer without being able to help you, or at least to share your pain with you!”
The nameless magic of her presence affected him more powerfully than ever--her tender caress produced in him the delightful, languid sensation of convalescence. For a moment he half-resolved to tell her everything, that she might once for all allay his pain. But his cheek flushed,--how could he?--no, he must master it of himself. He pressed both her hands to his lips.--”Do not ask me, mother, I pray you,” he murmured, ”how often must I repeat that I cannot, try as I may, tell you everything.”
The Countess gravely shook her head. ”That excuse does not satisfy me; I can understand that it is easier to speak of certain things to a father than to a mother, but don't you know that never since your boyhood have I tried to keep you in leading-strings? When did I ever play the spy upon your actions, or meddle with what did not concern a mother?”
”Never, mother dear, so long as I was well and happy,” he a.s.sented, involuntarily adopting a tone of tender raillery, ”but, if I happened to hang my head,--oh, then, you were sometimes very indiscreet.”
”A son who is ill or unhappy is always about two years old for his mother,” she said. ”Come now, confess; I am an old woman, you can speak out before me. I am convinced that your exaggerated conscientiousness is leading you to magnify some very commonplace affair;--an old love sc.r.a.pe is perhaps casting a shadow over your betrothal....”
”You are mistaken, mamma, there is nothing to trouble me in my past; it is all as if it had never been.”
”Well, then, what troubles you?”
For a moment he did not speak, then he said in a low tone rather hastily, ”A wretched nervousness--sorry fancies! Can you believe it?--just before you came in, I saw plainly, as plainly as I see you, the laughing blind woman come towards me!”
”Are you beginning to suffer from the Lodrin hallucinations?” the Countess exclaimed.
The 'Lodrin hallucinations,'--she uttered the words carelessly, without reflection. His soul drank them in thirstily.
”Apparently, mamma, but I shall get rid of them, I shall certainly get rid of them,” he replied in a clear, joyous voice.