Judith Trachtenberg Part 15

"You know it will be useless; that he will never forgive the Christian."

"I must try," she answered. "I owe it both to myself and to him. My father shall not think of your wife as a dishonored and light-minded creature. If he chases the Countess Baranowski from his doors, then at least my conscience will be clear."

In vain he tried to dissuade her, without giving some plausible reason.

Finally he conceived an idea which might avail. "The Countess Baranowski must not run a risk of being chased from any door," he declared. "You owe that to me." The effect of this speech was such that he repeated it, urging her to have regard for the honor of his name.

She wept bitterly. "This is worth more to you than the peace of my soul." Yet she submitted, only begging permission to send a letter to her father. A few hours after she brought the letter, praying him, on his word of honor, to send it.

"My word of honor!" he repeated, with pale lips. A few seconds after she had left the room he watched the letter shrivelling up in the fire, and he asked himself, "In what do I differ from those creatures I despise?"

But, away, away! was his one desire, until he was in the carriage.

Learning caution by the words of Wroblewski, he chose a way that took him out of the province quickly, going through Southern Hungary to Fiume, and thence by steamer to Ancona. What comforts money could secure they had. A courier travelled in advance, caring for everything.

But, nevertheless, it was a dreary journey, over snowy roads and through barren, thinly populated mountainous districts, and no amount of money could make the miserable inns comfortable.

The travelling was slow, not only because of the almost impa.s.sable roads, but also because of Judith's state of health. She was so weak and pale, and her thin face looked so tired and sad. "If we were only at Klausenberg!" she kept sighing. He had told her this was the place where they could first expect letters from home. When they were there, how could he comfort her for not having a letter from her father?

Wroblewski wrote that Raphael had begun an action for abduction, and had bribed the judges to extraordinary energy. He hoped to pacify them, but it would demand great sacrifices. The count sent him the sum he demanded, but asked himself, nervously, "Will it do any good?"

At the commencement of the journey he had a.s.sumed the name of Count Nogile; quite a proper name, as it was one of the minor t.i.tles of the Baranowskis. He gave orders to his attendants, however, never to betray his new name to Judith or his old one to strangers. Accidentally, Judith discovered it during their stay in Klausenberg, and inquired the reason. To her surprise, he had no answer ready, and he was not accustomed to lying. Her anxiety was very apparent, and at length he said: "You shall know all. We hoped in vain for a letter from your relatives; but they are angry, and are prosecuting me for having made you my wife while you are still under age. The punishment will not be heavy, but you cannot wonder if I wish to avoid it for the sake of all."

Again she believed him; her tears proved it, and her despairing cry, "Then we must be homeless forever."

He rea.s.sured her by saying that such would be the case only until her people's anger was pacified, which he hoped would be soon.

"Perhaps G.o.d will be merciful!" she answered. "How dreadful would be my lot, and how could I endure life, if I knew you had sacrificed home, peace, and happiness for me!"

This plaint cut him to the heart even more than her suspicions. She was speaking the truth, and it was all his own fault. Again, there was the necessity of lying, daily and hourly, and the incessant dread of discovery. Once during their journey they were overtaken by a snow-storm, and forced to seek shelter in a castle by the wayside, where they were kindly welcomed by the proprietress, an old Hungarian aristocrat.

"What is your name?" she asked Judith, in the course of conversation after supper. Judith blushed deeply.

"Nogile," she stammered.

"I know that," said the old lady; "I meant your Christian name." Judith became confused, and she looked at Agenor for help.

"But, Judith," he exclaimed, with a forced laugh; "surely you know your own name."

When they were alone she burst into tears. "Alas!" she sobbed, "I am not sure of my name. You always call me Judith, but the priest baptized me Marie, and so I fancied I must give this name to strangers, and yet I was in doubt."

This confession affected him more than her tears, and pity filled his heart--pity for her and pity for himself.

At that time he had been able to master his emotions; and as he had thought the shadows must flee when the farce was over, so he had expected, when they quitted gloomy Borky, great things from Italy. He had spent some months there when a gay young officer. The country was, in his memory, a paradise of light and joy; surely there must be an end of sorrow when once they were there.

This time hope did not entirely deceive him. They went to Florence first, and rented one of the splendid villas before the Porta del Prato; and the mild air of the South invigorated Judith to such an extent that her cheeks grew more rosy, her eyes brighter, and hours came when she laughed and jested as befitted one of her years. This reacted on Agenor, and he, too, was happier, or seemed to be; and when they went, to Fiesole one beautiful day she fell on his neck, and blus.h.i.+ngly confided to him a great secret. He rejoiced, because he loved her, and because he desired, from the bottom of his heart, she should have that new, pure delight which would bind her to life with strongest chains.

Now he could read Wroblewski's letters, which came more and more frequently--always containing dark, mysterious hints at dangers threatened by Raphael, or complaints that Tondka was growing unblus.h.i.+ng in his demands--with lighter heart. He knew the man as an extortioner, who made a mole-hill into a mountain; but this painful story might be hushed up with money, and he was wealthy, though perhaps not so wealthy as he thought.

His position became more difficult at the beginning of summer, when travellers began to come north from Rome and Naples, and when every now and again he saw a well-known face in the street or in the chestnut avenues, generally one of the Galician n.o.bles or an old army comrade.

Married gentlemen, who drove by in dignified state with wives and daughters by their side, stared at him curiously, but without sign of recognition. The only ones who greeted him were either bachelors or husbands whose wives were not with them. The number of acquaintances kept increasing, and his position became more and more uncomfortable, although he delayed his departure because Judith liked the place and required rest.

One day a card was brought him--Baron Victor Oginski. It was one of the friends of his youth. He welcomed his old friend with delight, and Oginski returned the greeting cordially, though he said, gravely: "As you are travelling incognito, of course you wish to pa.s.s unnoticed; so even my desire to see you would not have made me so indiscreet as to have called upon you. But, as your friend, I felt it my duty. There is much gossip in the city about you and your companion."

"Whose business is it, I should like to know," cried Agenor, "how and in whose company I live?"

"n.o.body's," was the answer, "as long as there is no supposition of a way of life which throws a shadow on you. One knows your ideas as to the requirements of rank, and the origin of the lady is known.

Therefore, no one believes you are married to her; and they explain the circ.u.mstance of your servants designating her countess as a proof of your too punctilious delicacy. But when some lackey jeered at your servant Jan because of his credulity, he swore by all that was holy that he had himself witnessed baptism and marriage. Of course the story has been bruited about, and though as yet it is not credited fully, still many are doubtful, and I felt called upon, for the sake of our old friends.h.i.+p, to inquire for myself."

"Thank you for your good-will," replied Agenor, "but I must refuse any explanation."

"That is worse than an outright 'yes,'" said Oginski. "The affair remains accordingly a fit subject for gossip."

"I cannot help it."

Oginski took his hat. "Well, as your friend, I counsel you to go as soon as possible to some remote place, since you are unwilling to give an open answer."

Two days later Agenor followed this advice. It was the end of April, and his route lay through Milan to the lakes. There were color, odor, and beauty wherever his eye rested, but Italy was no longer the paradise he had pictured it. Under the influence of that conversation, he had directed that all his letters should be sent to his banking-house in Vienna, so that no one in Galicia should know his address. Indeed, he felt his humiliation so keenly that he left Bellagio after a very brief stay--although he had met no acquaintance there--for a small village seldom visited by tourists. At Iseo, on the lake of the same name, they paused; "for how long?" he asked himself in despair.

As week after week pa.s.sed quietly and without interruption, he pulled himself together, enough at least to hide his state of mind from Judith, though he did not entirely succeed. It was, however, not a mere reflection from his mind which caused her to pa.s.s whole days in gloomy brooding after their departure from Florence.

She did not weep, but this silent grief was deeper than the louder one, and her fever came again. The Austrian physician, who came from Brescia occasionally at Agenor's request, looked grave.

"I am afraid I cannot order your wife to be happy. Speak seriously with her. Perhaps she is afraid of her hour of trial; that is often the case with young wives."

Agenor hesitated some time before he asked her this question. She was silent, and it was only after repeated inquiries she said: "And if it were so, is it not natural for a woman, burdened by her father's curse, to tremble at the thought of the hour which is to make her a mother?"

He attempted to comfort her, and spoke of G.o.d's mercy.

"G.o.d?" she exclaimed, pa.s.sionately. "Yes! if I could speak to him, could implore him, could pray to him! But I cannot, Agenor. Formerly, when a grief oppressed me, a care or sorrow, I took my prayer-book and prayed to the G.o.d of my fathers. Now I have no prayer-book--"

"We have the same G.o.d, and forms are unimportant."

She shook her head gloomily. "I have said that myself, but it is of no use. How can I explain to you what goes around and around in my poor head? One must have a language to pray in. I have forgotten the old one, and do not know the new. You have taken me into many churches to admire the exquisite paintings and the loftiness of the ceilings, but you never asked how they affected me. I s.h.i.+vered when I stepped into those cool halls out of the suns.h.i.+ne; I s.h.i.+vered through and through.

It was so strange, so ghostly, how could I ever learn to pray in a church? Perhaps it would have been easier for me if I had been better instructed in your faith; but I cannot even make the sign of the cross, and if I could, how dare I do it? All I know about the Crucified One is that he was a renegade rabbi, for whose sake all my race, even to the present day, have to endure disgrace and persecution."

Agenor bowed his head, and said nothing. Now he understood that that baptism was not merely a sin against the G.o.d of his catechism, but a crime against a young, anxious, thirsting human soul. What could he say? how was he to console her? There was only one thing to which he could exhort her--her duty towards the tiny creature budding under her heart. When he mentioned that, the rigidity left her face, and the tears flowed again.

"Will the child be a pleasure to you?" she asked. "Will it never be a burden?"

When his lips answered for his heart, the effect was what he wished. "I will be strong," she promised. And she kept her word.

The days came again when she smiled and rejoiced in nature. He himself shook off his fear of the world so far as to take short excursions with her--to Brescia, to Lake Garda, and to Verona. In this city, in the Garden of the Franciscans, where they were expected to admire an old stone coffin, the Tomba di Giulietta, they pa.s.sed the pleasantest hour since that memorable day in Fiesole.

But it was to end sadly enough; for as they were wandering through the gardens containing the sarcophagus, Agenor suddenly started, and insisted on returning to the hotel, even on their departure from the city, urging as a plea that he was not well. But as Judith, a half-hour afterwards, looked on to the street, where her carriage was being made ready, she discovered the reason. A gentleman was speaking to Jan in Polish, who replied very curtly; the same gentleman she had seen, without paying much attention to him, in the garden.

She grew pale, but made no remark; but when, a day or two after, Agenor, observing her moodiness, proposed another excursion, she declined, saying, sarcastically: "It might make you unwell again.

Pardon me," she then sobbed, "I know you are not happy, either. You, who are so sought for at home, dare not go out abroad lest your fellow-countrymen should see you and tell that the Jewess is your wife.

I will not say that it is a disgrace, such as you regard it, but it is sufficient for me to know you are unhappy for my sake. How miserable that makes me!"

"Think of the child!" he begged. This was his last resource, and even that had now lost its effect.