Problematic Characters Part 66

Oldenburg lifted the child in his arms and pressed her to his bosom.

Oswald felt he ought to leave the three alone, and went back into the wood. There he sat down near the edge. It was the same place where he had been lying the other day dreaming such glorious things of Melitta, and where he had afterwards heard Czika play the lute, while the Brown Countess was busy with the fire, and sang with her deep, sonorous voice the Hungarian melody. What changes had taken place since that day! How much he had lost and won since! Then his heart beat high with expectation; now his soul was filled with sadness and grief. Why had she made him so indescribably happy if her love was, after all, but the sovereign whim of a moment, only an amusing play to fill up a vacant day? Had he not all the time felt in his soul that she, the haughty aristocrat, would drop him again sooner or later? Had he not, the very first time when he heard Oldenburg's name mentioned, recognized in that man almost instinctively his rival? And he had to confess now that that man possessed everything calculated to kindle a heroic pa.s.sion in a great lady. Rank and riches, eminent talents, the courage of a knight without fear or reproach, and just enough of the character of a man of the world to captivate the fancy of a woman whose heart is not absolutely pure.

And how attractive even his weariness of the world was, and his air of suffering! One would imagine, hearing him complain as he did, that he was on the point of going into the desert, to live there on locusts.

Now he will probably take the gypsy to his solitude, to while away the hours till Melitta returns....

Oswald increased thus wilfully his own troubles of mind. The new pa.s.sion which inflamed his imagination made him deaf to the voice of his conscience, blind to the evident proofs of the utter groundlessness of his a.s.sertions. He had an indistinct consciousness of his own weariness and exhaustion; he felt sick at heart, and perfectly unable to come to any clear conclusions about himself. He pressed his face into his hands, to see nothing, to hear nothing....

A hand, which touched his shoulder, aroused him from his revery. It was Oldenburg. The baron was alone. The fire of the piled-up wood blazed up fitfully, and was on the point of expiring. The moon, half covered by drifting gray clouds, twinkled ghastly in the dark water of the pool.

The wind was whispering and wailing through the long reeds near the sh.o.r.e.

"Where is Czika?" asked Oswald.

"Gone," replied the baron. "Let us go. It is late."

"Is she not coming back?"

"I do not know."

"And you have allowed this child, your child, to follow the wild gypsy woman into the wide world?"

"What could I do? Is she not her child a thousand times more than mine?

Has she not borne it amid pains, fed it, sheltered it many, many years, in rain and in suns.h.i.+ne, in need and in poverty, in the dark woods and on the open highway? Has she not begged and robbed and done worse things than that perhaps for her child? What have I done for my child?

Nothing! Nothing but to stamp the mother as a thief before the eyes of a mob of n.o.bles, nothing but to drive her from me like a lost dog, for the sake of a wretched coquette! No! No! I have no right to the child!"

While the baron was speaking he pushed with his foot the half-consumed, glowing firebrands into the pool, so that they turned black one by one.

"Why did the Brown Countess wish to see you, then? Why did she manage to put the child into your hands? Why did she herself appoint this rendezvous?"

"She wished to see once more the beloved of her youth, the only man she had ever really loved. She wished to put his child into his hands and then dive back into the darkness of the woods. But she cannot live without the child, and the child cannot live without her. I had to let them go both!"

"But why not take them both with you to Cona?"

"Shall I chain the falcon? The falcon is happy only in the immeasurable ether on high; he dies in the foul air of our houses. Come! It is high time for us civilized men to go to bed!"

The baron pushed the last firebrand into the water; the men turned to go.

From between the hurriedly drifting clouds the moon was peeping blear-eyed at the dark water of the pool, and the long reeds that grew near the edges whispered: Here is a pleasant resting-place for all the sorrows of earth!

CHAPTER X.

"Well! That embarra.s.sment is luckily over!" said Albert, pus.h.i.+ng a parcel of bank-notes into a bulky, worn-out pocket-book, which contained among other things a number of mercantile communications, unanswered yet in spite of their ancient date. "After all, she is a nice little woman; not over-bright--but that is in this case only an additional virtue. I really think I could deny my nature and marry the little Samaritan. Perhaps it would not be so bad. Who knows? There may, after all, be somewhere within me the germ of a most excellent steady citizen, which only needs the warmth of a domestic hearth to sprout merrily. The thing is problematic, I admit, but not impossible, for all that I see myself walking soberly of a Sunday, by the side of my wife, through the fields, listening to the quarrels among the sparrows and the complaints of my better half against the extortionate bills of butchers and bakers, while before us walk two young citizens of the world who bear a slight resemblance to myself, and behind us, in a little wagon drawn by a maid of all works, a shrill little voice is heard, which furnishes unmistakable evidence of my wife's admirable qualities! Oh!..."

Albert groaned as if he had sprained his foot on a real stone during this imaginary promenade. He started up from the sofa, and walked thoughtfully up and down in the room, folding his hands behind his back. "The plats are ready," he said, stopping before his drawing-board; "Anna Maria has paid me; I have nothing more to do here, and the baroness' question, when I thought I would leave, was clear enough. How I hate this proud, good-for-nothing race--all of them, not one excepted, not even the beautiful, high-nosed Helen, who always looks at me with such cool contempt in her big, cold eyes; and least of all my n.o.ble friend Felix, who I think would be delighted if he could cut me out with Marguerite. If I could but play you all a good trick, that you should think of me your life long! If I could, for instance, discover the heir to Stantow and Baerwalde in the person of--Ah! There is the rub! In whose person?"

"I can do something with the letters I have, but not much. As yet I cannot even frighten excellent Anna Maria with them. If I could only have a chance of examining that big chest of Mother Claus'! It is a fixed idea of mine that there must be something to be gotten there. But I have in vain reconnoitred the whole house; I have in vain watched it by day and by night, to find a moment when the old witch should leave it for a moment--she sits there like a toad in the rock.--_Apropos_ of that amiable young man! I thought of making him the Pretender, _nolens volens_, for he is too stupidly honest to look at the whole thing as a merry, and at the same time profitable, masquerade. It is wonderful how honest people are when they have all they want! The best way to get rid of thieves would be to pension every one of them. And this Stein is not even so lucky as that. He cannot have any money--why else would he plague himself with these boys? He would be just the man to spend a fortune handsomely. And so far everything seems to fit exactly. He has the requisite age; he has told me himself that he has never known his mother, or--his father excepted--any other relative. And, besides that, he has a striking likeness to the older line of the Grenwitz family. I only wish I were he, that is to say, with my brains added to what he has ..."

A timid knock at the door interrupted Albert's meditations. As upon his "Come in!" no one entered, he went to open the door. A little peasant boy, fair-haired and bare-footed, stood there, looking at him with his stupid eyes wide open.

"Whom do you want, my boy?"

"Are you the candidate here?"

"To be sure!" said Albert, always ready for any fun or joke.

"Mother Claus sends me----"

"Who?"

"Mother Claus sends me----"

"Come in, little one," said Albert, taking the boy by the hand and locking the door when they were both inside.

"What does Mother Claus want of me?"

"Mother Claus is dying, and sends me to tell the candidate to come and see her."

The boy breathed deep when he had relieved himself of the fearful burden of his message. Albert took up his cap.

"I'll come directly. You run on and tell her I am coming directly. And look here: If anybody in the house asks you whom you come from, just say you have delivered your message. Here is a groschen, and now make haste to get home again."

The boy scampered off, proud of Albert's generous present, and of course utterly forgetful of the order to run home. When he had reached the courtyard, he sat quietly down on the fountain of the Naiad, to decide at leisure whether he should buy at once the whole world, or for the present only a bullfinch, which another boy had offered him that morning.

He might have been sitting there a quarter of an hour when he fell fast asleep, tired as he was from running about all day. Thus Oswald found him when he returned from a lonely walk. As the sight of the ragged sleeping boy on the edge of the fountain looked picturesque, he walked up to him. The boy started up and rubbed his eyes in bewilderment.

"How do you get here, boy?" asked Oswald.

"Mother Claus sent me!" said the boy, not knowing at that moment whether he had delivered his message or not.

"What is the matter with Mother Claus?" asked Oswald, who at once suspected that something must have happened to his old friend.

"Mother Claus sends me," repeated the boy; "she is dying, and sends me to tell the candidate to come and see her!"

Oswald did not stop to hear more. He thought of the poor old woman, in whom he had from the beginning taken so warm an interest, now lying on her deathbed, perhaps alone, helpless, and no kind hand to smooth her pillow--and he hurried as fast as he could through the small gate on the road that led to the tenants' cottages, taking the same road on which Albert had pa.s.sed a quarter of an hour before....

Albert had slipped through the small gate and the garden as soon as the boy was out of sight. No one had seen him leave the chateau. The family had gone out, and he thought Oswald was in his room.

"_Fortes fortuna juvat_," he thought as he was running along under the willow trees. "They are all out in the fields now. The old woman could not have died at a more suitable hour. I only hope she is dead when I get there, for I do not want to have to explain...."

He had reached the village in a few minutes, but he avoided the main street, running along the little gardens behind the cottages, till he came to Mother Claus' hut. Here he jumped over a low fence and entered through the open back door into the pa.s.sage. He listened. Nothing was stirring. He only heard the ticking of the large Black Forest clock in Jake's room, and from the village street the laughter of a couple of children--Mother Claus' foster-children--who were wrestling in the sand to enjoy the evening sun.

"Now I hope to heavens there won't be some benevolent soul in the room," murmured Albert, cautiously pus.h.i.+ng open the door which led into the old woman's room.

He entered on tip-toe. It was quite dark in the low, small chamber.

Albert's first glance fell upon the chest, which was safe in its place in the corner; his next upon the old woman. She was sitting in the large arm-chair, "in which Baron Oscar had died." She had dressed herself in her Sunday costume, her oaken stick was by her side--one might have imagined she had been ready to go to Fashwitz to church, and had fallen asleep a little before undertaking the long, long journey.

"Is that you, young master?" she said, with trembling voice, and raising her head with the snow-white hair to look at the door. "Come nearer, quite near, that I may touch you. Where are you? It is all dark around me; I cannot see you. Is not the moon s.h.i.+ning through the trees?