Part 37 (2/2)
”The tone in which he had uttered these words cut me to the heart. When he was a few yards off, I could not bear it any longer. I called his name. The next moment he was again by my side.
”'Mr. S.,' I said, 'I beg your pardon. I was frightened I did not know what I was saying.'
”'No, no!' he replied. 'You were quite right. It is not an accident which has made us meet here. At least not on my side. I saw you enter the park; I followed you; I did not lose sight of you for an instant.'
”'And do you often come here?' I inquired, as we began to walk back the dark avenue.
”'Yes,' he replied; 'the unhappy find in darkness and solitude their most suitable companions.'
”I did not have the courage to ask him why he was unhappy; we went on side by side in deep silence. I hastened my steps, for the old charm was creeping over me and I was determined to escape. A few minutes brought us to the iron gate which leads from the garden into the park.
Among the shrubbery and under the tall trees it was quite dark. My heart beat as if it would burst. I was determined, should it cost me my life, to reject his love, if he should begin to speak of love; and still I wished him to speak; I was angry because he did not speak. The few seconds seemed to be an eternity--an eternity of fear and hope. We were standing at the gate. Oswald opened it. I thanked him, and wished him good-night. He only answered by a silent bow. When the gate fell behind me into the latch I started like a prisoner who hears close behind him the door of the cell which parts him forever from life. At first I felt like stretching my hand after him through the grating and telling him--I know not what; but I checked myself and went, without looking back, rapidly up to the house; and when I had reached my room I threw myself on the sofa, and wept bitterly, bitterly--as I had never wept before in my life--as I did not think Helen Grenwitz would ever be able to weep!
”But then I rose and swore I would overcome this weakness, which was so humiliating, at any risk and sacrifice. My pride, I felt it, is my only property--the bright weapon which makes me, when I hold it in my hand, the equal of any adversary, even of my mother! I thought with trembling of the moment when I should feel humiliated before myself after having humiliated myself before others; when I should no longer be able to look boldly into her cold, stern eyes. I knew--I knew with absolute certainty--that that moment would be the last of my life.
”And thus I went to bed; but sleep would not come. I was lying there, my hands crossed on my bosom, and I repeated to myself over and over again what I had sworn; and whenever my heart became heavy--ah, so heavy! from an unspeakable sense of wretchedness--then I put the point of my dagger upon my disobedient, rebellious heart, and it became quiet again and humble! It felt, so to say, that it had no hope of victory in a battle between pride and love. At last I fell asleep and dreamed I was reconciled to my mother. She covered me with kisses and with jewels; but the kisses were icy, and the jewels chilled me to the marrow of my bones. Yet I suffered it to be done, and she took me by the hand and led me through dark pa.s.sages into the brilliantly-lighted interior of a church which was full of people. The eyes of all these people were fixed upon me. Then it was suddenly no longer my mother who held my hand, but a tall, strange man in a uniform dazzling with gold and diamonds. I could not see his face, for he held it always aside.
Thus we approached the altar; a priest was standing on the steps. The organ sounded, and song filled the high vaults. Above the priest hung a large wooden crucifix, such as we have hanging in the chapel at Grenwitz, which always filled me with horror when I was a child. The same horror overcame me now; for while the priest was speaking, the image was continually shaking its head; and when I examined it more accurately it bore Oswald's features, but disfigured and deadly pale, and in the side of the body my dagger was sticking up to the hilt, and black drops of blood were trickling down one by one. Then it opened its lips and cried aloud--a fearful, yelling cry--and the cry scattered the crowd, the vaults came down with a crash, and the man by my side changed into a skeleton. I tried in vain to escape from its hold.
It seized me with its bony arms and went down with me into dark depths--faster, faster, till I awoke with horror! The dismal autumn morning was looking into my room, but I thought I still heard the trumpets, and it took me some time before I could make out that they were the melancholy strains of a military band which escorted a funeral past our house to the graveyard near by.
”I tried to smile at my ridiculous dream, and I succeeded; because I _willed_ it; because I was determined not to allow empty fancies of an excited imagination to influence my decision. Besides, I could now, when I was calm again, readily explain how the dream had come about.
The night before I had seen Oswald take leave of me, suffering greatly; on this very day I was to meet my mother once more after a long, long interval. My father had brought about this interview. He wished me to be at a party which they proposed to give, and I could not refuse my good father this request.
”I went there in the morning at the time for visiting. The meeting was less painful than I had expected, I found fortunately a crowd of visitors there--the Clotens, Barnewitz, etc.; also an officer--a Prince Waldenberg--a remarkably stately, proud man, but not handsome. He had, of course, introduced himself to me, and asked me to give him a waltz for the next night. Soon afterwards the visitors left, and I also.
Emily Cloten--I have often written to you about her--congratulated me, as she drove me back to my boarding-school in her carriage, on my 'conquest.' I told her I had no fondness for conquests which were so easily made. '_Chacun a son gout_,' she answered, laughing. 'I, for my part, think that what we do not catch on the wing is not worth catching. My motto is always: _l'amour ou la vie_. It is true I am a swallow, and live on midges. Royal eagles, like yourself, must have n.o.bler prey: a prey which at need can defend itself. The princely quarry is too proud for me, I confess. But for you--_e'est autre chose_. Like and like, you know.'
”The frivolous words of the talkative woman had roused my curiosity. I resolved to examine the prince more closely during the party. In the humor in which I was I liked the idea of measuring my pride against the pride of another. Had I not sworn never again to admit softer feelings to my heart? Thus it was a kind of comfort to me that there were other people in the world who thought about it as I did.
”My mother received me on the evening of the next day with a kindness which, to say the least, I had not deserved. It was evidently her intention to show me that she intended a genuine reconciliation. She kissed my forehead, took me by the hand and led me to the ladies, who likewise overwhelmed me with civility. It looked as if the whole festivity was arranged only for my sake, as if I was the centre of the whole. Wherever I sat or stood I had a circle of gentlemen and ladies around me, like a queen.
”It was the first time since I had left Grenwitz that I could again move among my equals in fine, well-lighted rooms. I felt, more clearly than I had ever felt it before, that this was the only sphere in which I could move freely, that this was the only air I could breathe with comfort; in fine, that I was born to rule and not to serve. It seemed to me all of a sudden not so very difficult after all to keep the vow which I had burnt in that night into my heart with glowing tears. I only smiled at the fancies of a girl at boarding-school. And with a smile I received the homage which was profusely laid at my feet.
”Among those around me was also Prince Waldenberg. I did not need to inquire after his family and circ.u.mstances. Everybody was eager to furnish me with information. He is a native of Russia, and immensely rich. His mother's estates--she is Princess Letbus--lie in various parts of Russia; he is Prince Waldenberg through his mother, who comes of that family. Since he has succeeded to the estates, he has left the Russian service for our service. His father is a Count Malikowsky. Both parents are still alive, and he is their only child. You see, dear Mary, here appears in my letters for the first time a real grandee, who is the equal of your dukes and marquises; and while the prince's black eyes, however far he was from me, were all the time looking at me, I was thinking of you, whether I would see an encouraging smile in your eyes if you were here, and you would say, 'He is worthy of you!' I hoped you would, for the appearance and the manner of the prince is as lofty as his rank. I noticed with heartfelt shame how sorry our own young men looked by his side, and how they all tried in vain to copy his way of walking and his carriage. He spoke several times very eagerly with me. One of his sayings I remember, because it came from my own heart. I asked him why he, who has thousands and thousands of serfs, was serving in the army like our young n.o.blemen, who had nothing in the world but their swords? 'Because I am too proud,' he replied, 'to wish to rule where I am not fully ent.i.tled to rule.' 'How so, highness?' I am not sovereign; my ancestors were sovereign; I have to pay for the weakness of my ancestors.' 'Would you not have given up the sovereignty?' 'Never,' he said, and this was the only time that I saw a kind of genuine emotion in his cold, proud face; 'never! a thousand times rather my life. But,' he added after a short pause, 'I know somebody who also would rather die than be humbled.' 'And who can that be?' 'You yourself, Miss Helen.'
”The party did not end till late at night. Papa sent me home in our carriage. Mamma promised to return my visit the next day; that was to-day. She really came this forenoon. She was again exceedingly kind, paid me many compliments about my conduct last night, and expressed her desire to have me back again at the house, just as my father also wishes it. However, she left it entirely to me, whether I would come back at all, and when. 'You did not exactly have your free will when you went away,' she said; 'I want, therefore, at least to be perfectly sure that your coming back is quite voluntary.'
”'And cousin Felix?' 'He leaves in a few days for Italy. I shall of course not expect you to stay with him under the same roof.'
”Certainly, even if my mother does not mean it honestly, she has at least found the right way to my heart. I am half decided to do what she and papa want me to do.”
The young girl had, as it will happen, felt all the changes of her own heart which she described in her letter, once more in their full strength. The tormenting conflict between love and ambition, the desire to read clearly her own heart, had put the pen into her hand, and she had at last obtained in the process of writing that peace which had been so far from her when she began her letter.
She was leaning back in her chair with folded arms, and was looking fixedly before her as in a dream. She listened mechanically to the modulations of the night-wind in the poplar-trees before the window, through which she heard occasionally the low thunder of the ocean as it dashed against the sh.o.r.e. This music recalled to her the earliest recollections of her childhood, and with them very different sensations from those of which she had been writing. Suddenly she started and listened breathlessly towards the window. Through the mournful sounds of the wind she heard the singing of a soft, deep voice. At first she fancied it was a trick of her excited imagination, but as she listened more attentively, she distinguished the words. The voice sang:
”Thy face, alas! so fair and dear, I saw it in my dreams quite near.
It was so angel-like, so sweet, And yet with pain and grief replete, The lips alone, they are still red, But soon they will be pale and dead.”
Then the wind became louder again and silenced the voice; then it began once more distinctly:
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