Problematic Characters Part 43

"He went past the servants to his room without saying a word. When he was in the door, he turned around and beckoned to me.

"He was walking up and down in the room; at last he stopped before me, and said, with a hollow voice: 'Did Marie ever tell you she would take her own life?'--'No,' I said. 'Was she particularly sad of late?'--'Yes.'

"Again he walked up and down, with uneven steps, and murmuring unintelligible words. Then he stopped once more before me. 'And if she has taken her life, I am her murderer,' he said.--'Who else?'

"He started as if a knife had been thrust in his heart. 'It cannot be,'

he said, 'it would be too fearful.'

"I knew the anguish he was feeling at that moment; but I also knew that the proud man would rather know her dead than belonging to anybody else, and besides, I had promised secrecy. Thus I remained silent, and waited to see what he would do.

"He ordered me to ring and send for all the servants. They came.

"'Those of you who are tired may go to bed,' he said; 'those who are willing to search on with me shall have whatever they may ask.'

"All expressed themselves willing to help him, not for the sake of the reward, but because any way none of them would have been able to sleep from excitement.

"He ordered all the lights to be brought that could be found, and now they commenced the search once more--below in the cellars, through all the rooms down stairs and up stairs, in the garrets, up into the old tower,--Harald always ahead, searching every nook and corner, with his eyes everywhere, giving his orders with a firm voice, indefatigable, till morning broke.

"Now the women were sent to bed, but the men followed him still, as many as could stand it. With these he searched the shrubbery, the garden, from the fosse to the drawbridge, and the fosse itself. It was raining that day as fast as it could come down, and the servants were nearly exhausted; but Harald, for the first time in his life, I believe, spoke to them kindly, and besought them not to give it up, and promised them a mint of money. Thus they stood it till noon; but then they had to give it up. Now Harald took the others, who had rested in the mean while, and with these he went out on the moor near Fashwitz, and into the forest of Berkow, and down to the sea-sh.o.r.e.

"Towards evening they came back, dripping with rain and the moor-water, in which they had been wading about for hours. The men were so tired they slept as they walked, but Harald's strength was unbroken. He told me to bring a few bottles of wine, and while he poured them down his throat he said to me, 'Listen, old one; I do not believe she has drowned herself. It would be too horrible; it would drive me mad. She cannot have intended to avenge herself on me so cruelly; she was too good for that, and she was too fond of me. Did she ever tell you that she would leave me? Did she ever speak to you of a man who was at all times ready to receive her at his house?'

"I thought I ought to leave Harald some little hope, and said:

"'Yes, Maria has often told me so, especially of late.'

"'You see,' he said, and put the gla.s.s out of which he had been drinking, so violently down on the table that it broke into pieces; 'now the hounds scent the track. Now we'll have a regular fox-chase.'

"He pulled the bell-rope till the handle came off. 'Order horses!' he cried to old Jake, who came in, 'instantly!'

"I begged him to sleep at least a few hours, for I saw that his eyes were burning with fever, and he trembled in all his limbs.

"'Pshaw!' he said, 'I sleep? I have other things to do than to sleep. I do not know how long I shall be away, old one, but I shall either bring her back or,--will you make haste!' he cried into the hall; 'I'll teach you how to hurry, you scamps!'

"And he went off without having changed his clothes, even. He stayed away four weeks; no one knew where he had been. One evening he came back. The first question he asked me was: 'Have you heard from her?'--He looked so pale and haggard that I hardly knew him again. His eyes had sunk deep into his head and were burning like coals of fire.

'I did not find her,' he said, when we were alone in the room; 'give me wine, old one; I must drown the h.e.l.lish fire that burns within me in wine.'

"I pitied the unhappy man; for I felt now only how very dearly I loved him. I told him all I knew about Maria's flight. Contrary to my expectation, he remained quite calm! 'It amounts all to the same,' he said, 'whether she is dead or not. She is dead for me; she could not help herself; she had to leave me; she was too proud to suffer herself to be treated like a dog,--I have treated her like a dog, worse than a dog,--wretch that I am!'

"He beat his forehead with his closed hand; then he threw himself into an arm-chair, put his head in his hands and sobbed. 'And yet I loved her! And I love her still! Oh my G.o.d, my G.o.d!'

"It was a fearful sight to see wild Harald weep! I lifted up his head; he put it against my bosom and wept, as he had often wept there when he was a boy. I begged him to calm himself. I told him what Marie's last words had been: 'I forgive him all!'

"'And if she has forgiven me, I shall never forgive myself,' he cried.

'Go to bed, old one; we will talk about it tomorrow.'

"But when old Jake came into his room next morning, Harald was lying in high fever. That lasted seven days, seven terrible days. Then it was all over with Harald Grenwitz!"

The old woman paused, smoothed the sock she was knitting over her knee, folded it up and said:

"Well, young master, now you go home. I have to look after the children, who are sleeping in the other room on Jake's bed. It does not rain just now, but it is going to rain worse. Therefore don't stop on the way. Good-by!"

"Come!" said Oswald to Albert, who had just risen from his hard couch and was yawning and stretching his arms. "It is high time, if we mean to reach the chateau in time for supper. Good-by, Mother Claus."

"Good-by, good-by, young master," said the old woman.

When the young men found themselves in the muddy village street, Albert pointed with his thumb over his shoulder at the hut they had just left, and said:

"Odd old lady that! Was not that a famous story, dottore?"

"You were not asleep, then?"

"Not a bit! At first I wanted to sleep, but you did not let me sleep, and then when she commenced the story about Baron Harald I could not sleep. But I remained quietly where I was, and snored from time to time to rea.s.sure the old lady, who evidently did not want anybody to hear it but her young master. Why does she always call you her young master, dottore?"

"I do not know," said Oswald.

"Or you do not mean to know," replied Albert; "well, no harm done. We must not wish to know everything. Why did Baron Harald want to know what had become of that pretty girl Marie? Without that quite superfluous curiosity he might have drunk his Burgundy to-day. Strange that a sensible man should have had such absurd romantic notions in his head! Can you understand it, dottore?"

"Well, perhaps I can," said Oswald; "but let us speak of something else."

"As you like it, my dear sir. What do you think of immortality?"

CHAPTER VIII.

On the following day the weather had cleared up. The morning sun had been hid behind thick mists, but a few hours later it had rent the gray veil, and was now pouring its golden light upon the refreshed earth. In the garden of the chateau all looked paradisiacally fresh and fragrant, as on the first day of creation. The flowers raised their heads again, and if here and there a few drops were still hanging in a calyx, they looked in the bright suns.h.i.+ne like sparkling tears of joy; the birds were singing with delight in the thick branches of the trees, and the little worms that had been waiting patiently in all the crevices, under the leaves and under the stones, came forth in restless activity.

And around the gray walls of the castle, which were now flooded with rosy light, swift swallows were flitting to and fro, and on the roof, in the gutters, between the stucco ornaments quarrelsome sparrows were resuming their difficulties. In the large hall, where the portraits of Grenwitz barons and baronesses were hanging on the walls in long rows, from the fabulous Sven down to the great-aunt of the baron, "as she had been at eighteen," and to Oscar, "who fell with Wodan," and Harald's, "who would have done better to weep himself to death at his father's coffin;"--the atoms were dancing about, as they rose from the old gala-furniture with the faded damask covers, in the three slanting bridges of light formed by the three arched windows.

Down stairs, in the breakfast-room, the baron and the baroness were enjoying their frugal meal. They looked ready for their journey, and Anna Maria had already put on her huge bonnet with wide projecting wings, as it had been worn some twenty years ago. The great travelling carriage was waiting at the door. The four heavy bays whisked their bobtails thoughtfully to and fro, and the silent coachman cracked his whip regularly every five minutes, from mere force of habit, and not to admonish his master to be in a hurry, for that would have been incompatible with the respect he owed them as well as with his phlegmatic nature.

"I knew it," said the baroness, offering her husband half a gla.s.s of Moselle wine,--"drink that, dear Grenwitz, it will give you strength for the journey,--I knew it. He refuses our kind offer because he is not very well! Ridiculous."

"He really looks as if he were not very well," said the old baron, "ever since we were at Barnewitz, and then it does not look quite well, it seems to me, that we should ask him to accompany us just when the carriage is at the door! We ought to have done it sooner, perhaps."

"I do not understand you, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness. "Don't you talk as if Mr. Stein was our equal! No wonder that the young man is running over with pride. To ask him a week ahead to pay a visit in the neighborhood! That would be nice! Why, we have not even mentioned our Heligoland journey to him!"

"I should have done so long ago, if you could only have come to some definite conclusion about it," said the old gentleman, scratching himself behind the ear.

"I have now formed my resolution," said the baroness, angrily; "formed this very moment. If he does not choose to accompany us on a little trip in the neighborhood for three days, if it gives him too much trouble to go with us when we take leave of our neighbors, who have all treated him with the utmost condescension, then he shows clearly that he does not mean to take leave, and so he may stay where he is."

"But, dear Anna Maria," said the baron, "that is, after all, not exactly the same thing; and then where is he to stay in the mean time, and how can we get along with the two boys quite alone?"

"I tell you, dear Grenwitz," replied the baroness, "I do not care where he stays. He likes generally to go his own way--let him go his own way in this case also. He can make a pedestrian tour through the island, or visit his friend Oldenburg, or at worst remain here, although that would, of course, be more inconvenient. Our journey is expensive enough, and he would only be a burden to us. He will, as usual, interest himself exclusively in Bruno's welfare, and leave Malte entirely on our hands. If he stays, Bruno will be compelled to be more with Malte, and as the question during vacation is only about a little supervision of the boys, I am willing to intrust them to John as readily, and perhaps rather than to Mr. Stein. Besides, if we bring Helen back with us, we would not have room for him in the carriage. No, no; let him stay here; I see my way clear now--quite clear."