Part 30 (1/2)
Hartmut stepped slowly back a few steps.
”Lost,” he repeated in bitter tone. ”That is probably what you think.
You may be at rest, my dear madam. I will never approach you again; one has no desire to hear such words a second time. You stand so proud and firm upon your watch tower of virtue and judge so severely. You have no conception what a wild, desperate life can make of a man who goes through the world without home or family. You are right. I believed in nothing in the heavens above or on the earth beneath--until this hour.”
There was something in his tone and in his whole bearing which disarmed Adelheid.
She felt she had no cause to fear a further explosion of pa.s.sion, and her voice grew milder as she answered:
”I judge no one, but I belong heart and soul to another world, with other laws than yours. I am the daughter of a father whom I dearly loved, who, all his life long, trod but one path, the earnest, rigid path of duty. Upon this he raised himself from poverty and privation to wealth and honor, and he taught his children to follow in the same way, and it is this thought which has been my s.h.i.+eld and protection in this hard hour. I could not endure it if I were compelled to lower my eyes before the n.o.ble image which my memory holds. Your father is no longer alive?”
There followed a long, oppressive pause. Hartmut did not answer, but his head sank under the words of whose crus.h.i.+ng significance the questioner had no knowledge, while his eyes seemed to pierce the ground.
”No,” he said at last, slowly.
”But you have the memory of him and of your mother?”
”My mother!” Rojanow broke forth wildly now. ”Do not speak of her, in this hour--do not speak to me of my mother.”
It was an alarming cry, a mixture of boundless bitterness, with reproach and despair. In it the mother was sentenced by her son, he felt her memory was but a desecration of this hour.
Adelheid did not understand him, she only saw that she had touched on a point which admitted of no discussion, but she also saw that the man who stood before her with his deep, dark glance, with his tone of despair, was another than he who had stood there a quarter of an hour before. It was a dark, fathomless mystery upon which she gazed, but she had no longer any fear.
”Let us end this interview,” she said, earnestly. ”You will seek no second one, I believe that; but one word more before we part. You are a poet. I have felt that in spite of everything, as I have learned to know your work. But poets are teachers of mankind, and can lead to good or to ill. The wild flame of your 'Arivana' springs from a life which you, yourself, seem to hate. Look yonder,” and she pointed to the distant heavens inflamed now with the lightning's play. ”Those are also flaming brands, but their beginnings are from above and they point out another way--and now farewell!”
Long after she had disappeared, Hartmut stood on the same spot as if rooted to the ground. He had answered no word, made no comment, only gazed where she had pointed, with fixed, hopeless eyes.
Flash after flash of lightning was now rending the heavens and the whole landscape was enveloped in a lurid glare which reflected itself in that little sheet of water so like the Burgsdorf fish pond; the long reeds and gra.s.ses swayed and bent above the water and the mist from the meadow rose above it all.
Under just such long, waving gra.s.s the boy had lain long ago and dreamed of the day when he should mount like the falcon from which his race had taken their name, always higher and higher into boundless freedom toward the sun, and now on a similar spot the sentence had fallen upon him like a judgment from heaven, and the will-o'-the-wisp on this lowering autumn night seemed in its spectral flashes to dance over the grave of false hopes and falser aspirations. The falcon had not mounted to the skies, the earth had held him fast. He had felt for some time that the intoxicating cup of freedom and of life which his mother's hand had poured for him was poisoned; there were for him no cherished memories to guard--he dare not venture to think of his father.
Darker and darker grew the heavens with their heavy, storm laden clouds, and wilder and fiercer was the struggle between those giant figures which were riven at every flash only to come together again with greater fury, and brighter and more vivid grew that mighty flame as it mounted higher and higher in the inky firmament.
CHAPTER X.
The winter gaieties had fairly begun in the South-German capital, and in the exclusive court circle the artistic element played a prominent part.
The duke, who loved and fostered art, took great pride in being accounted its patron, and strove to make his capital an intellectual and artistic centre. The young poet who had been received so favorably by the court, and whose first great work was soon to be produced at the court theatre, was an object of great interest to the little world. It was an almost unheard of feat for a Roumanian to write in the German tongue, even though it was admitted that, in this instance, the writer had received his education in Germany. Here, as at Rodeck, he was the bosom friend and guest of Prince Adelsberg, and many strange and wonderful stories were related of this friends.h.i.+p. But Hartmut's personality, above all else, created for him an enviable position no matter where he turned. The young, handsome and genial stranger, surrounded as he was with a halo of romance and mystery, had only to appear to have all eyes turned upon him.
Soon after the return of the court to the city, the rehearsals for ”Arivana” began, and its author and Prince Egon had the matter in charge.
The latter entered so enthusiastically into the spirit of it all, that he made the lives of the director and theatre attaches miserable with his many and contradictory suggestions concerning the setting of the drama, a matter about which, it is unnecessary to add, they were much more capable of directing than he. At first they could not get an actress to suit them, but they finally secured the services of a young and favorite opera-singer named Marietta Volkmar.
The preparations for the performance, which they had intended originally to bring out late in the season, were now hurried forward with all speed, for royal visitors were expected at court, and the duke was most anxious that this weird and poetical drama with its Indian setting should be presented before them. Unusual honors to the poet were prophesied as a result of this spectacle.
Such was the condition of affairs when Herbert von Wallmoden returned to the court, and he was, naturally, painfully surprised.
He had asked his wife casually, while inquiring for others, whether the prince's Roumanian friend had yet left Furstenstein, and she had answered in the negative. He had not expected Hartmut to leave at once, for the latter had declared most positively he would not. But Wallmoden imagined he would think it all well over, and when Prince Adelsberg left Rodeck that would end the whole matter. Under no circ.u.mstances would Rojanow appear by the prince's side at the capital where the amba.s.sador had threatened to denounce him at once.
But Baron von Wallmoden did not understand the unyielding defiance of this man, who had indeed dared much. Now, upon his return from the north, he found this ”adventurer” established on a very sure footing, in close intercourse with the court and society of the capital. It would be a most embarra.s.sing matter to explain everything at this late day, when all were on the _qui vive_ of expectation, and when the duke was so deeply interested both in the new drama and in its author. It would make a very painful impression in all circles. The experienced diplomat did not disguise from himself the fact that the duke would complain, and with reason, that all this exposure should have been made on the first day of the stranger's appearance rather than at this inopportune time.