Part 47 (1/2)

”Let me first go in alone. I shall be back directly.”

After a few minutes, during which Oldenburg had walked up and down in the room, his arms crossed on his breast and his eyes fixed on the ground, Melitta reappeared in the door.

”Come!”

Oldenburg followed her through the red-room into a half-dark room--Melitta's chamber. It was the first time in his life that he saw it; and, as she led him by the hand to the door, the thought pa.s.sed through his head, what a strange circ.u.mstance it was that admitted him to this room. At the door on the opposite side Melitta stopped, and whispered: ”She is in there.”

They went in. It was a large, very magnificent apartment, filled with rococo furniture, which belonged to the guest-chambers of the great house. Heavy curtains of yellow silk darkened the windows, the sofa and the chairs were covered with the same material, and the light of the fire that was burning in the grate was reflected here and there by the highly-polished floor of inlaid wood. The mantel-piece was supported by two little Amors, and on it stood an ormolu clock, representing the entrance to a grotto, guarded by genii and b.u.t.terflies, from which a man with a scythe came forth whenever the hour struck. Paintings in the taste of the rococo period, full of sheep, shepherds, and shepherdesses, adorned the room, in heavy gilt frames. A ma.s.sive l.u.s.tre with gla.s.s crystals hung from the ceiling, and played in the fitful light which filled the room in all the colors of the rainbow. And in the midst of all this splendor, in an immense tent-bed, the silk curtains of which were drawn back, lay upon snowy pillows a poor woman, sick unto death, who had first seen the light of the stars in distant Hungary behind a hedge, and who had spent her nights through all her life in barns and stables, and still more frequently under the open sky, on the heath, or in the woods, beneath the lofty vaults of ancient beech-trees. Her large eyes, s.h.i.+ning with feverishness, wandered restlessly over all the costly objects that surrounded her, and ever and anon remained fixed for a while on her child, as if this were the only point where her troubled spirit could rest in peace. Czika was standing by her bed, dressed in the fantastic gay costume which she commonly wore, even outside of the stage, in the interest of art. Her beautiful face looked more serious and careworn than usual. She did not take her eyes from her mother. She showed evidently that she knew perfectly well what all this meant; that she saw death in the yellow hue of her mother's brown cheeks, in the pallor of her red lips, and in the cold drops of perspiration which were bedewing her painfully-corrugated brow.

Near a small table, close by the bed, stood old Baumann. He was very busy preparing a cooling drink, and he hardly looked up from his occupation when Melitta and Oldenburg very quietly entered the room.

But the sharp ear of the sick woman had heard them. A faint smile of satisfaction pa.s.sed over her wrinkled face. She beckoned them to her.

As they approached the bed, Czika came to stand between them. This seemed to please Xen.o.bia. Her smile became brighter, then it vanished, and she said, in broken German:

”Put your hands on Czika's head.”

Oldenburg and Melitta did so. Oldenburg's hand trembled as it touched the soft hair on the fair young head.

”And give me the other hand!”

Xen.o.bia took their hands, and when she saw the chain formed in this manner, she murmured something which the others did not understand, and which might have been a curse or a blessing, or both, for the expression of her face changed at every word.

Then she said:

”Swear that you will not abandon the Czika!”

”We swear!” said Oldenburg; while Melitta, unable to utter a word, only moved her lips.

Xen.o.bia let go their hands, in order to cross her own hands on her bosom.

”Now leave Xen.o.bia alone,” she said, in a very low tone of voice; ”only Czika is to stay, and the old man.”

Oldenburg and Melitta looked at each other, and then at the old man, who came up with the cooling drink. He nodded his venerable gray head, as if he meant to say: ”Do what she asks.”

Oldenburg did not dare refuse. He took Melitta's hand and led her out of the room. The clock on the mantel-piece began to strike. The man with the scythe was slowly coming out of his cave.

They went back into the garden-room. Neither said a word. Oldenburg threw himself into an arm-chair near the fire, and glared with troubled looks at the coals. Suddenly he felt Melitta's hand on his shoulder.

”Adalbert!”

He looked up at her with a questioning look.

”You will not leave, I am sure?”

”If you wish it--no!”

”And you will wait in patience till--you can see the bottom of my heart?”