Part 37 (1/2)
When the baroness rose an hour later and folded up her work, the Italian journey was a settled matter. Felix was, if his condition did not grow worse, to start in a few days. ”You know, dear Felix,” said Anna Maria, ”I am in favor of doing promptly what has to be done. And here there is danger in delay; besides, I should forever reproach myself bitterly if I had not done whatever was in my feeble power to avert this threatening danger from you.”
She offered him kindly her bony hand, and Felix kissed it reverently.
Anna Maria then left the room.
”The old dragon,” grumbled Felix, sinking back exhausted; ”what can have gotten into her head to make her all of a sudden so liberal? How lucky I did not tell her how much that rascal Timm is asking for! She will have to hear it one of these days; but not before I am down in Italy. Oh! my arm! I must submit to a regular cure; and, after all, every man is his own nearest neighbor.”
”The foolish fellow,” thought Anna Maria, as she slowly walked back to her room through the long pa.s.sages; ”it is hard that I have to go to such fearful expense after having paid so much for him already. But it cannot be helped. He must leave the house, and this is the most respectable and the least noisy way to get rid of him.”
The explanation of the generosity of the baroness was very simple. The ambitious thought that her daughter had at least as much prospect to become the wife of the prince as any other lady, had been so much encouraged last night during the party that it had grown up into a well-built plan. The prince had distinguished Helen in the most flattering manner. He had not only against all rules, danced twice with her, but he had, besides, borrowed her from her regular partner as often as an opportunity offered; he had led her to supper, and during the whole evening not lost sight of her for a moment; he had, finally, spoken in the most exalted terms of the incomparable beauty of the young baroness to the Countess Grieben, who had reported his words five minutes later to the baroness. All this was the more striking as the cool reserve with which that grand seigneur generally received all the homage offered him by the provincial n.o.bility had already become proverbial. What was poor Felix in comparison with this proud eagle? A poor crow, plucked bare by misfortune and countless creditors. And especially now since the physicians began to shake their heads ominously, and when the baroness asked them upon their consciences, answered: they would give the young baron six months, unless a miracle took place! What was Felix when he ceased to be the presumptive heir to the entailed estates? Nothing!--less than nothing; a very expensive pensioner on the bounty of the family, whose only merit was that he would in all probability not draw that pension long! No, no! That sun had set in mist and fogs; now a more brilliant, a more powerful sun must give its light. It was worth while to become the mother-in-law of His Highness Prince Waldenberg. Then the obstinate, intolerably obstinate old husband might die today or to-morrow, and the executors were welcome to add the revenues from the estates, which now belonged to her, to the princ.i.p.al. She had laid aside enough, thanks to her wise economy; and then there was the very respectable sum of Harald's legacy, which that impudent fellow, Timm, would no longer dare to trouble her about. And suppose even that the baron should leave Helen the greater part of his fortune, which seemed very probable, the grat.i.tude of a princely son-in-law to whom she had given so beautiful a wife, and of a daughter to whom she had given a princely husband, was in itself a capital that must bring ample interest.
Strange! from the moment in which this brilliant perspective had opened for Helen she had no longer felt any resentment against the rebellious child. Even her pride, of which she had so bitterly complained, now appeared to her eyes as a merit in the girl. Was not this very haughtiness, together with the beauty which it served to bring out more strikingly, that feature which had evidently decided the prince to give the preference to her daughter over other young ladies like that very beautiful but blond and sentimental Miss Nadelitz, and even over pretty, coquettish Emily Cloten, and graceful, intriguing Hortense Barnewitz? For the past two days the baroness had actually felt some affection for her daughter--her beautiful, brilliant daughter--who, by her prudent management had secured the bright dazzling prospect of becoming Princess Waldenberg-Malikowsky, Countess of Letbus!
The first step towards this lofty goal was of course a full reconciliation with Helen. The catastrophe at Grenwitz had taught her to respect an adversary who was able to act with so much firmness in spite of her youth. Henceforth she would see if she could not succeed better with love and kindness; and how could she better prove this love and kindness than by recalling the disobedient and yet cherished child from her banishment back again (if only Felix would go quickly!) to the paternal house, to the dear parents who impatiently expected their beloved daughter! She had immediately begun this great work of reconciliation; this very day she hoped to finish the preliminaries.
It was a late hour on that day. The windows in Miss Bear's boarding-school had been darkened for two hours, except one which looked upon the garden in the rear. He who could have watched this window from the garden, or from the public park which adjoined the garden--and there was really a young man leaning against the trunk of a beech-tree whose eyes were incessantly directed through the dense darkness towards the lighted window--might have seen that the light came from a lamp which was standing quite near it on an escritoire, and that the occupant of the room was sitting at the escritoire writing or reading; it could not be distinguished.
The occupant of the room was Helen Grenwitz. She was writing eagerly, with burning cheeks, as young ladies who have no confidant but a friend hundreds of miles away are apt to write:
”You quiet, prudent girl, with your quiet, prudent blue eyes! Ah, who could pa.s.s through life as you do, ever true to one's self! Who could have your peace of soul, in which everything is reflected, as in a deep still lake, in clear colors and sharp outlines! Whatever you think right to-day, you think so to-morrow; what you like to-day, you will not dislike to-morrow. The standard by which you measure men is, though severe, unchangeably the same; he who does not come up to it is, to your mind, not your equal, and you treat him accordingly, to-morrow as to-day, and every other day, with that mild kindness for which I have so often envied you. With me, alas! everything is different--so very different! My heart is a storm-tossed ocean, and the images of life tremble in it, changing and restless, and troubling me like so many spectres. On the surface, to be sure--well, there all is apparently calm; at least people say so, and I feel so; but down below!--there it seethes and boils; there are wishes growing up which I dare scarcely confess to myself; there thoughts are rising that frighten me; there a longing is forever blooming--a longing of which I have often told you, and alas! never in words equal to what I really feel, and which you always sent back into the realm of dreams. Is it possible that you were right? that the pa.s.sion which is glowing within me is never to be cooled? that the voice which often calls from the depth of my soul in every still night, as just now, full of complaint, of yearning, of despair--that this voice is never to find an echo? My brow is burning, my eyes are blinded, my heart beats impatiently! What do you want, restless, wild heart!--Love? Yes! Power, and honor, and distinction?
Yes! But how, if you cannot have all at once; if you must sacrifice the one or the other!--how then? Which are you willing to give up? Love?
No! High rank? No! Oh no!... Well then! beat on restless and unsatisfied, and trouble me without pity, till this hand and this head shall be tired of counting your feverish pulsations!
”I see you looking at me expectantly, with your soft, blue eyes; I see your lips trembling with the question: What is the matter, dearest? Oh, dearest darling, _you_ are to tell me! For some time now, I have not known myself any longer.
”I wrote you that I saw Mr. S. accidentally from my window, and that I wished very much to see him alone. My wish was to be fulfilled the same day. I met him at Miss R's, and as my servant did not come for me, he accompanied me home. We had a conversation on the way which affected me deeply, as it turned on Bruno, and I had, at last, an opportunity of thanking Mr. S., as I had so long desired to do. I was deeply moved when he took leave of me at the door. The charm which this man has always had for me, and which I can only shake off when I do not see or hear anything of him, had become once more all-powerful in his presence. I felt it; and yet, just on that account--you know me--I did not avoid seeing him again, although I might easily have done so.
”Two evenings later I met him again, also at Miss R's. This time the servant was behind us as we went home, but as we spoke French--Mr. S.
speaks it beautifully; he told me he was half French by descent--our conversation was as free as if we had been alone. What the two days'
absence had set right, two hours' intercourse destroyed again, and I found out to my great humiliation--and I write it with blus.h.i.+ng cheeks--that the feeling which overcomes me when he is near is stronger than my pride. Not that he is so imposing by his lofty mind or by his male strength! Far from it. He does not resemble the ideal which I bear in my heart of the hero whom I might love; but there is something in the tone of his voice, in the glance of his large blue eyes, in his whole manner, which touches me unspeakably. And then--I mean to be candid with you--I know that he loves me, and, as it cannot be otherwise under the circ.u.mstances, loves me without hope, and that makes him dear to me, like the dagger with the bright Damascus blade and the golden handle which I, a girl of twelve, found in the armory at Grenwitz, and which I then took as a precious treasure to my room, and never have allowed to pa.s.s away again into other hands. I know--Oswald and the dagger--both belong to me; to me alone. It is so exquisitely sweet to be able to call something one's own of which n.o.body else knows anything, n.o.body suspects anything, and which is still sure to stand by us, and to a.s.sist us in extremity, when all others shall have abandoned us. Whenever I see Oswald's eyes fixed upon me I feel as if I were drawing the dagger half-way from the sheath and saw the blade glitter in the sunlight.
”But there is danger in this glittering. How often have I drawn out the weapon entirely, and, placing the sharp point upon my heart, said to myself: a slight pressure and you are no more! And there is danger in the presence of this man; a word from him, and he has ceased to live for me; and if I were weak enough to reply--I dare not think of it; I dare not think how near I have already been standing to the abyss.
”I have determined not to go any more to Miss R's, and I have carried out my determination. Day before yesterday, towards evening, when I was alone in the garden--the others were walking out as usually with Miss Bear as leader--I heard the roaring of the sea so distinctly that I felt an invincible desire to see my favorite element once more eye to eye. Our garden adjoins a public park which extends down to the sea-sh.o.r.e. It belongs to the city, and is, I am told, a popular promenade in the summer. In autumn, however, and especially in the evening, when it is damp and cool, I had never seen anybody in the wide avenues under the tall trees. I therefore, opened, the gate, which was not locked, and went into the park. It was darker there than in the garden; the evening breeze was sighing in the bare branches of the mighty beech-trees; the sea roared grandly. Beneath my feet the dry leaves were rustling; overhead two crows were cawing, unable to find rest on the storm-tossed branches. I wrapped myself closer in my shawl and went on. The darkness was coming on apace, and the cool, damp breath of the woods and the sea brought their old charm to bear upon me, as I had felt it so often in early childhood. I felt no fear; the happiness to be for once perfectly alone with myself and my thoughts--alone amid such surroundings, which entirely harmonized with my state of mind--did not allow such feelings to rise in me. I went on and on, as in a dream, till I came to the end of the avenue. There a small open square, almost entirely overshadowed by tall trees, looks in one direction towards the sea, which breaks almost directly upon the moderately high but steep sh.o.r.e. An iron railing runs along the edge.
There are benches here for the tired visitor, and for all who wish to enjoy the coolness of the place and the view over the sea. I was leaning on the railing and looking out upon the dark waste of waters, bright in its way amid the darkness, and I saw wave follow wave without rest and breaking into foam upon the smooth pebbles of the narrow beach. The thunder, which drowned every other noise, was like a nursery song for my stormy heart, and lulled me to dream wonderfully of happiness deep and boundless, like the deep, boundless sea, on whose fading horizon my eyes were hanging, and--would happiness else have any charms for me?--of fearful mysteries and unforeseen dangers.
”Suddenly a voice fell upon my ear from quite near by. I rose from my stooping position, and Mr. S. was standing before me.
”'I beg your pardon,' he said, 'if I interrupt you in pleasant dreams; but the accident which made me find you here at this hour is too remarkable to be looked upon as nothing more than a mere accident.'
”I was so surprised and frightened by this sudden meeting--and I suddenly saw how very improper the step was--that I replied coldly and sharply:
”'How do you mean, sir? I hope it is really an accident only which procures me at this moment the pleasure of your company?'
”He stepped back a step.
”'Pardon me, Miss Helen,' he said, 'I did not know you objected to my presence.'
”He bowed, and went away.