Part 66 (1/2)
”Do you really think, sir,” said the princess, trembling with rage and secret fear, ”there is a particle of truth in the whole thing, and that I would be caught in such an ill-made snare? That I do not see what it all means? That you have only thought of this impudent invention because I am unwilling to waste the rest of my fortune upon your mad dissipation?”
”Really, Alexandrina. Hearing you speak so, one might actually believe your conscience was as clean as my gloves. Why, you are blinded by anger, my dearest! Please observe, this letter contains things of which I have no idea, nor can have an idea, _e. g._, the name of the good man in question. You know I have never been so happy as to hear yet whose blood flows in the veins of my son” (the count's teeth were glittering in a perfectly frightful manner); ”and besides, you have an infallible means to ascertain the genuineness of this letter. Send for the writer!
Twenty-one years will hardly have changed him so much that you should not recognize him.”
”You think I am not going to do that? You are mistaken. I insist upon your bringing me this man of straw, with whom you wish to frighten me.
Give me the letter.”
”_Avec le plus grand plaisir!_” replied the count ”There! But, Alexandrina, I hope the interview will take place in my presence, or I shall not be able to contain myself for jealousy.”
”Devil!”
”Oh, my angel! Do you call the man so to whom you owe so much?”
”Owe so much? to you? I, who picked you up from the gutter?”
”But I have given you my good name.”
”Good name! A name dragged through every mean vice, and every blackest sin----”
”And yet good enough for the friend and----”
”Have a care!”
”Why? The heavens are high, and the czar is afar off. But you are quite right in demanding that too much importance should not be attached to this connection. The whole world knows pretty well that, in some respects, no rank or position came amiss to you.”
”That goes too far. I----”
”Keep quiet, _ma chere_! I hear a carriage coming. No doubt, our dear ones. We must give them an example of conjugal love.”
It was perhaps two hours later. Helen was wandering restlessly up and down in her superb room. Nadeska had left her, and the baroness, fatigued by the journey, had retired to her chamber. Helen could not sleep. Her soul was oppressed by an indescribable anxiety, which was all the more painful because so vague. She felt in the midst of all the splendor by which she was surrounded like a child in an enchanted castle, where in every corner into which the light does not penetrate fully, and behind every silk curtain gently waving in a current of air, some unspeakable horror might be lurking. Was this the realization of her proudest hopes? She could not get rid of the impression made upon her by her reception in the salon of the princess. She still felt her icy-cold lips on her forehead; she still saw the repulsive, impudent smile of the count and the dark frown of the prince. It was an uncomfortable spirit that dwelt in this house. And she had surrendered herself to this spirit; she had sacrificed to it her freedom, her young girl's dreams, her future! And what was she to gain in return! High rank, great wealth--how little all that seemed to her at this moment!
How willingly she would have given it all up for the mere shadow of the unspeakable happiness she had enjoyed last summer, when she stepped from her cool apartments into the golden morning light of the park, and slowly sauntered about between the bright flowers, expecting at every turn around a shrub or a bosquet to meet Oswald! How far, how irrecoverably far, this was lying behind her! As far as the paradise of her childish years, which no longing of ours, no return of spring, can bring back to us! She was quite surprised, herself, that all her thoughts were wandering back to-day to Grenwitz; that a thousand little scenes, which she thought she had long forgotten, came back to her now: a walk with Bruno and Oswald through the fields when the evening sun was hanging low, like a huge ball of fire, near the horizon, and bright lights were playing fitfully over the golden grain, while the larks were jubilant high above them in the deep blue of the heavens. And again, one hot afternoon, when she had fallen asleep on a bench in a shady avenue in the garden, tired by the monotonous humming and whizzing of insects, she awoke at the moment when somebody--it was Bruno--was placing a wreath of dark-red roses on her head, while a few steps from them, somebody else--it was Oswald--was peeping from behind a tree. And ever it was Bruno and Oswald who gave life to the idyllic picture--Elysian forms in Elysian fields. Oh, were not both dead? Helen had suffered indescribably when Oswald's elopement with Emily had become the common gossip of Grunwald; for only now, when a whole world parted him from her, she felt how dear this man had been to her. She tried, it is true, to master her pa.s.sion and to be reconciled to her fate, which she had after all brought upon herself. But she caught herself only too frequently comparing her betrothed with Oswald, a comparison which invariably resulted in the conviction that the former lacked everything which had made Oswald so attractive: the graceful, elegant carriage, the bright and yet so tender eyes, the deep voice with its gentle music, the ever-changing and ever-interesting expression of his face. She had never felt as deeply as this evening how little her heart had to say to her betrothed. She recollected with a shudder that when the drums had beat in the streets, when the war of the excited mult.i.tude had been heard from afar, and the prince had started up to hasten to his post, she had felt only that this gave her a good opportunity to retire to her rooms.
And the poor girl's heart grew heavier and her eyes dimmer. She thought she was thoroughly wretched; she pitied herself that she was so alone and had no one to share her sorrow. But had she not prepared her isolation herself? Had she not repelled good people, who had come to her with open hearts, by her cool politeness? How she now wished for good old Miss Bear; for clever, cordial Sophie Roban! But was not Sophie in town? Might she not look up the friend whom she had so sadly neglected during the last days in Grunwald? Helen clung to this thought, while she hid her beautiful face in the silken cus.h.i.+ons;--proud Helen! who looked as if she could go on her path, lonely, like a bright star, unconcerned about the doings of poor men far down in their humble huts!
CHAPTER XI.
The excitement in town grew daily. In vain were troops ma.s.sed by whole brigades, and held ready day and night in their barracks; in vain every a.s.sembly was dispersed with the bayonet, and the loudest criers arrested. Every day brought new and more serious disturbances. The a.s.semblages of the people, especially on the large public squares near the palace, became more formidable; the threatening cries and whistlings and cheers of the ma.s.ses were heard more frequently; and the soldiers, maddened by their incessant duties, could less and less resist the terribly provoking irritation. Paving stones on one side, and drawn swords on the other, encountered each other daily and hourly.
The number of more or less seriously wounded persons which were carried to the public hospitals had become considerable. The last evening had been especially fearful. A detachment of cuira.s.siers of the guards, galloping forward with loose reins and drawn swords, had driven a large crowd of people into one of the smaller streets that opened upon the square near the palace, and at the other end a picket of dragoons prevented escape. There ensued a scene of fearful confusion and consternation in the crowd, thus hemmed in on both sides, while the men were forcing their horses pitilessly into the thickest, striking right and left with their heavy swords. The howl of anguish of women and children, mingled with the cries of rage of the men, and the curses of the soldiers, while imprecations and threats came down from the windows of the houses, where peaceful men were frightened at their quiet work.
The commotion quickly spread further and further, and even in remote parts of the city groups were formed in the streets, when the report came that the imperial city on the Danube, generally looked upon as thoughtless and frivolous, had had a complete revolution, and that the oldest master of diplomacy, the cunning ruler of a whole generation of men, had at last been driven from the scene of his triumphs. A thousand cheers arose when the good news was proclaimed, and the great results which a month before would have been looked upon as impossible, were made known in detail. They asked one another why they should submit any longer to misrule and ill-treatment by a privileged caste, if it required but a firm resolve to establish freedom and equality among them.
While thus even the most indifferent were gradually drawn into the whirlpool of the revolution, one man sat in apathetic calmness in his room, unconcerned about what was going on around him.
When Oswald returned the night before, after wandering aimlessly through the crowded streets, and found his room empty and Emily's letter on the table, he had laughed out so loud that an old lady who had been living next door for twelve years was frightened out of her first slumbers. Then he had thrown himself on the sofa. He was too wearied and exhausted to be able to sleep. But after a while he started up with a cry. He had dreamt that he was walking with Emily arm in arm by the side of a precipice, whispering of love and caressing her hand, and suddenly she had fallen away from his side down into the deep, from rock to rock into fearful abysses, from which now cries for help and groans of anguish were rising up to him. Oswald tried in vain to shake off the horrible image; it had imprinted itself too deeply on his over-excited mind. He would have sought rest and oblivion in sleep, but he felt no longer tired. A thousand thoughts and images were chasing each other wildly through his head, and he found himself unable to lay the weird ghosts. He could only look on. Scenes of former days ran into events of recent date, and the fat gentleman who had been in their coupe from the last station suddenly changed into the public crier of his native town, whose big bell he had followed often as a boy.
Oswald made a violent effort to rouse himself. He rang the bell and ordered the fire to be rekindled. Then he sat down before the blaze and recalled the first evenings at Paris, as they were sitting in their modest lodgings in the fifth story of a house in the Quartier Latin before the fire-place, and congratulated each other that at last they were ”at home.” They had tried to make each other forget their troubles and anxieties by jesting and caressing, and forming a hundred bright plans for the future. But the golden, hopeful future had become a dark, comfortless present; the jests had ceased, and the caresses had become colder and colder. And then came evenings when Oswald came home out of sorts and out of temper, having in vain called upon publishers who ”could not avail themselves of” his ma.n.u.scripts; when he found Emily in tears, and had to tell himself that he and he only was responsible for these tears. Then came wretched scenes, when regret at their own folly sought concealment under reproaches and accusations of fickleness and heartlessness, and the tender little flower of love was ruthlessly trodden under foot in the fierce encounter. And yet it had always been Emily who, good-natured and light-hearted as she was, and full of tender love for Oswald, had offered her hand to make peace. ”I do not reproach you,” she had often said; ”I should be perfectly happy if I could but see you happy. But to see you unhappy, and unhappy through my fault, that makes me wretched.” Had she spoken the truth? Oswald had then doubted it; now an inner voice told him that it was so, and that she would never have left him if he had not driven her from him. He took the letter he had found on the table and stared at the ”Dear, dear Oswald!” written by Emily's trembling hand, and then marked out by another hand, and the two stains on the paper--the trace of tears she had wept at parting with him. Oswald dropped the letter into the fire, and groaned aloud as he saw how eagerly it seized the paper and consumed it, and the hot draft carried away the black ashes. So there was an end of that also.
And as he sat staring into the smouldering embers, his head resting in his hand, the fever spirits began their mad dance once more. Faces of marvellous beauty looked at him with large, loving eyes, and then changed in a moment into grinning negro grimaces; Rector Clemens and Professor Snellius came walking solemnly in grave converse and broke it off abruptly to dance a wild Mazurka; Melitta, Helen, and Emily floated by on a rosy cloud which changed into dismal rain, and the three witches of Macbeth were shaking their snaky locks. Thus the whole wearisome night pa.s.sed away. When twilight began to peep in at the windows the spirits grew paler and paler. Oswald opened a window and let the cool morning air play around his heated temples. This refreshed him somewhat. But as the streets began to become more lively he closed the window again and let down the curtains; he wanted to see and to hear nothing of life, for he hated life.