Part 8 (1/2)
”I do not know how long this struggle might have lasted if a strange episode had not occurred, which decided it to my great astonishment quickly in my favor.
”While I was yet kneeling at Leonora's side, I suddenly heard somebody say behind me: '_Mais vraiment, c'est superbe!_' I rose, full of horror. Before me stood a young man elegantly dressed, who examined me through his eye-gla.s.s from head to foot and back again, and then repeated: '_Superbe! mademoiselle_, I congratulate you on this new conquest.'
”The young man was one of Leonora's friends, whose lavish liberality had procured for him the privilege of being looked upon by her as her only lover. He knew that Leonora was by no means rigorously faithful to him, and did not mind it much; but he did not like to meet his rivals at her house, which he had furnished at his own expense, and with princely magnificence.
”'I beg you will explain this scene, mademoiselle, he said, turning to Leonora, in a tone of insulting indifference, which drove all the blood from my cheeks to the heart.
”I was opening my lips to give him an insulting answer, when Leonora antic.i.p.ated me. As soon as she had seen the new comer she had risen, and stood now, pus.h.i.+ng me gently back, between him and myself.
”'This gentleman,' she said, pointing at me, 'has a right to be here.'
”'What right?'
”'The right of one who has been unfortunate enough to love me once.'
”'Ah, mademoiselle,' replied the young man, smiling ironically, 'the gentleman shares that misfortune with many others.'
”'Sir,' said I, 'whatever claims you may have upon mademoiselle, I have older claims, and I cannot allow you to insult a lady to whom I was once engaged in my presence.'
”'Ah,' said the young man; 'you were engaged to mademoiselle. It is not possible! and now, I dare say, you propose to marry her, after I'--with a glance at the furniture--'have had the folly to provide mademoiselle with a trousseau. Very well conceived, upon my word!'
”'Stop, sir!' cried Leonora, rising to her full height, 'enough has been said. You think you can control me, and insult me, because I have accepted your presents. Here, I return you all you have ever given me.
There, and there, and there!' and she tore with feverish excitement the gold bracelets and all the jewels she wore from her and threw them at the feet of the young man.
”The pa.s.sion with which she did this was too deep to be for a moment misinterpreted, and evidently made a great impression upon the dandy.
'I have had enough of this.' he said. 'I shall see you again, mademoiselle, here is my card, sir!' and he hastened to leave the room.
”'Come! come!' cried Leonora; 'not another moment will I stay here.
Rather at the bottom of the Seine than here!'
”'I took her at her word. I begged her to change her dress while I wrote in her name a few lines to the Marquis de Saintonges--this was the name of Leonora's lover--and placed the lodging, which he had rented for Leonora, and everything he had ever given her, once more at his disposal. We left the house, handed the keys to the porter, and gave the letter into the hands of a messenger, who promised to deliver it immediately, and a few hours afterwards I had settled all my affairs, said farewell to my friends, and the city was several miles behind us.
”Our journey was for the present not to be a very long one. A few stations beyond Paris, Leonora became so unwell, we had to stop in a little town. The physician who was called in was fortunately an able man, and told me that mademoiselle, my sister (for such Leonora appeared to be), was threatened with inflammation of the brain. His diagnosis was unfortunately but too correct. The very next day the terrible disease showed itself clearly. The poor sufferer raved in her delirium of the hot orgies in the _Jardin aux Lilas_ and of the cool shades in her native woods, of the Marquis de Saintonges, and other Paris acquaintances, and of myself, now appearing as her guardian angel, and now as an avenging demon, while I sat by her bedside and meditated on our strange position. During my eager pursuit of Leonora I had followed rather a blind impulse than very clear motives, and never, in all my dreams, had it occurred to me that we might be placed in a situation like that in which I now found myself. But amid all my troubles one thought rose high above all doubt: I must never again quit Leonora, if she should recover.
”After a little while symptoms appeared which gave us hope, and one fine morning the physician brought me the news that a crisis had taken place in the disease, and that Leonora was for the present out of danger. 'Nevertheless,' he added, with a very serious expression, 'I must not conceal it from you that, according to human calculations, your sister is not destined to survive this attack very long. I apprehend that her lungs are seriously affected; she must have been ill a long time before I saw her. I do not know your circ.u.mstances, and cannot tell, therefore, whether you will be able to follow my advice.
My advice is this: Go with your sister to a southern climate--to Italy; if you can, to Egypt. In a less genial climate mademoiselle would succ.u.mb in a very short time.'
”My resolution was instantly formed. I had nothing more to win and nothing to lose in Germany, where my political cure was to be completed by a prohibition to teach publicly during the next five years. My means had been nearly consumed during my long wanderings; there was only a small remnant left, but I might spend that sum just as well in Italy as elsewhere; besides, I hoped to derive abroad some advantages from my knowledge of languages; and, finally, I had no choice. I would have rather endured extreme suffering than to omit doing anything that could benefit Leonora. A few days later we were on our way to Italy.
”I settled down a few miles from Genoa, upon the coast of the glorious Mediterranean. I was fortunate enough to obtain a few lessons in the family of a rich Englishman, who had come to the place for the same reasons which brought me there, and thus I was relieved of all anxiety on the score of money. All the greater was my anxiety for Leonora.
”Our flight from Paris had been so sudden, and was for Leonora so entirely the result of a momentary impulse--her sickness, following immediately afterwards, had so completely broken down all her energies that she had willingly acceded to all my arrangements, and was only now coming to a clear understanding of our situation--I had not thought of it at first, and became aware of it only now through Leonora's manner towards me--that in this dependence on a man whom she had shamefully betrayed, and in the constant company of him before whom she would have loved to hide herself in the lowest depth, she suffered probably the severest punishment that could have been inflicted upon a person in whom the last spark of honor and self-respect was not extinguished.
Leonora did not hesitate to say so; but she added, 'the punishment is severe but just; it was the only way, perhaps, to teach me how grievously I had sinned against you.' While Leonora found thus a soothing comfort for her conscience in her deep repentance, I had in my unspeakable sorrow only one very modest consolation: to act towards Leonora as my conscience dictated. I was at liberty to drain the cup of sorrow to the very last drop. That was the fulfilment of all the precious happiness of which I had dreamt so much in the golden days of Fichtenau, and even later in the dark nights of my imprisonment in the fortress! This pale, feeble form--that walked slowly along the sea-coast in the evening sunlight, hanging on my arm and never lifting up the weary head--she by whose sick-bed I sat watching day after day, when sickness confined her in her room, and in whose broken heart it had become my duty to pour soothing balm, of which I stood so much in need myself--this was the girl whom I had chosen to be my wife, and in whom I had wors.h.i.+pped, full of bright hopes, the mother of my children.
Oh, Oswald! Oswald! the most fanatical optimist might have been appalled--the most orthodox soul might have been led to doubt if there were not after all a great deal of truth in Voltaire's a.s.sertion, that life was nothing but a _mauvaise plaisanterie_.
”And yet it was good for me to pa.s.s through this trial also. It was a bitter medicine; but it cured me thoroughly of that disease which others call joy of existence and pleasure in life.
”Leonora's humility in bearing her sufferings put me altogether to shame. In proportion as the disease was destroying her bodily form, the original beauty of her soul began to reappear. She had led a sinful life; when she died, she died like a saint.