Part 16 (1/2)

They heard the soldiers hurry down the steps; they heard the house door violently thrown open, and the officer announce in a loud voice to those of his soldiers who were waiting in the street, the lucky capture of the artilleryman.

A cry of triumph from the Austrians was the answer; then was heard the loud word of command from the officer, and the roll of the drum gradually receding in the distance until it was no longer audible.

Every thing was silent.

”Have mercy, Father in heaven have mercy! They are leading him to death!” cried Elise in a heart-rending tone, and she sank on her knees in prayer.

”The brave cannoneer is saved!” murmured Gotzkowsky in a low voice to himself, and he too folded his hands in prayer. Was it a prayer of grat.i.tude, or did it proceed from the despairing heart of a father?

His countenance had a bright and elevated expression; but as he turned his eyes down on his daughter, still on her knees, they darkened, and his features twitched convulsively and painfully. His anger had evaporated, and his heart was filled with boundless pity and love. He felt nothing but painful, sorrowful compa.s.sion for this young girl who lay deathly pale and trembling with suffering on the floor. His daughter was weeping, and his heart yearned toward her to forgive her every thing, to raise her up and comfort her.

Suddenly Elise started up from her knees and strode toward her father.

There was something solemn and imposing in her proud bearing, her extraordinary composure, which only imperfectly veiled her raging grief and pa.s.sionate excitement.

”Father,” said she solemnly, and her voice sounded hoa.r.s.e and cold, ”may G.o.d forgive you for what you have done! At this moment, when perhaps he is suffering death, I repeat it, I am innocent.”

This proud composure fell freezingly on Gotzkowsky's heart, and drove back all the milder forgiving impulses. He remembered only the shame and the injured honor of his daughter.

”You a.s.sert your innocence, and yet you had a man concealed in the night in your bedchamber!”

”And yet I am innocent, father!” cried Elise vehemently. ”Read it on my forehead, see it in my eyes, which do not fear to meet yours. I am innocent!”

And completely overpowered by the bitter and desperate anguish of her soul, she continued, still more excited, ”But how does all this concern you? It was not my honor that you were interested in; you did not seek to avenge that. You only wished to punish me for daring to a.s.sert my freedom and independence, for daring to love without having asked your leave. The rich man to whom all bend, whom all wors.h.i.+p as the priest of the powerful idol which rules the world, the rich man sees with dismay that there is one being not dazzled by his treasures who owns an independent life, a will of her own, and a heart that he cannot command. And because this being does not of her own accord how down before him he treads it in the dust, whether it be his own child or not.”

”Elise,” cried Gotzkowsky, shocked, ”Elise, are you mad? Do you know that you are speaking to your father?”

But her tortured heart did not notice this appeal; and only remembering that perhaps at this moment her lover was suffering death through her father's fault, she allowed herself to be carried away by the overpowering force of her grief. She met the flas.h.i.+ng eye of her father with a smile of contempt, and said, coldly: ”Oh yes, you may look at me. I do not fear your angry glances. I am free; you yourself have absolved me from any fear of you. You took from me my lover, and at the same time deprived yourself of your child.”

”O G.o.d!” cried Gotzkowsky in an undertone, ”have I deserved this, Father in heaven?” and he regarded his daughter with a touching expression.

But she was inexorable; sorrow had unseated her judgment, and ”Oh!”

cried she in a tone of triumph, ”now I will confess every thing to you, how I have suffered and what I have undergone.”

”Elise!” cried he painfully, ”have I not given you every thing your heart could desire?”

”Yes!” cried she, with a cruel laugh, ”you fulfilled all my wishes, and thereby made me poor in wishes, poor in enjoyment. You deprived me of the power of wis.h.i.+ng, for every thing was mine even before I could desire it. It was only necessary for me to stretch out my hand, and it belonged to me. Cheerless and solitary I stood amidst your wealth, and all that I touched was turned into hard gold. The rich man's daughter envied the beggar woman in the street, for she still had wishes, hopes, and privations.”

Gotzkowsky listened to her, without interrupting her by a word or even a sigh. Only now and then he raised his hand to his forehead, or cast a wandering, doubtful look at his daughter, as if to convince himself that all that was pa.s.sing was not a mad, bewildering dream, but painful, cruel reality.

But when Elise, breathless and trembling with excitement, stopped for a moment, and he no longer heard her cutting accents of reproach, he pressed both hands upon his breast, as if to suppress a wail over the annihilation of his whole life. ”O G.o.d!” muttered he in a low voice, ”this is unparalleled agony! This cuts into a father's heart!”

After a pause, Elise continued: ”I too was a beggar, and I hungered for the bread of your love.”

”Elise, oh, my child, do you not know then that I love you infinitely?”

But she did not perceive the loving, almost imploring looks which her father cast upon her. She could see and think only of herself and her own tormented heart.