The Romance of the Canoness Part 21

My slumber was so sound that I was first roused by a very loud knocking at my door. When I opened it, Kunigunde was standing outside, and requested me to come down to Frau Luise. "Has your master returned?" I asked the faithful creature.

"Of course. But not until nearly nine o'clock, when my mistress had gone out to make some purchases. He seemed to know that she was not at home, for he did not even ask for her, but shut himself up in her room for a while, and then went away without leaving any message. But I saw a letter lying on the table, which the mistress read as soon as she came in, and then sent me up to you."

The good old woman was evidently troubled, and, in spite of having gone to rest so early, seemed to have heard enough of the nocturnal scene to pity her honored mistress.

When, following close at her heels, I entered Frau Luise's room, I found her sitting on the sofa beside a table, with the letter lying open before her.

She nodded to me with an absent look, and said in an expressionless tone: "Sit down and read this, Johannes; the end has come."

I took the sheet and hastily glanced over it. The letter was not short, and was written precisely in Spielberg's usual style, lofty, adorned with rhetorical ornaments, interspersed here and there with a quotation from Schiller. He saw that by yesterday's occurrence--of which, though without any evil intent, he had been the cause--he had forfeited even the last remnant of her love. So it would be better for him to go voluntarily into exile, and not return until he could meet her with new renown and in an a.s.sured position. True, what are the hopes, the wishes on which man relies? But he trusted to his star. She would lose all trace of him for a time, but he hoped he should afterward be able to repay her for what she had suffered through him. He closed by thanking her for her generous tolerance of his weaknesses. Genius was no easy companion for a life-pilgrimage--and similar high-sounding words.

In a postscript, he begged her to pardon him for having appropriated, in order to execute his plan, the reserve fund she had so carefully saved. He left in exchange, at her free disposal, the whole _fundus instructus_, scenes, costumes, requisites, and theatrical library; she might either sell them or continue the business. In the latter case, Cousin Johannes would a.s.sist her.

Then followed a pathetic farewell, another quotation, and the signature, with an elaborate flourish: "Ever your own Konstantin."

I probably looked like a person who, while eating raspberries, suddenly bites a wasp. For, as I silently laid down the letter, she said soothingly: "It has moved me very little. This must have happened sooner or later, and it is fortunate that it came now. Believe me, I feel perfectly calm, and am sincerely grateful to him for not having sought a personal interview. I am like a person recovering from a severe, insidious disease, a little weak, it is true, but I shall no longer be terrified by the hideous visions with which the fever tortured my brain."

"What do you intend to do?" I asked at last.

"My duty, so far as I can. True, I am as poor as a church-mouse. But the others must not suffer."

"Frau Luise," I said, "I know that you were formerly too proud to summon your guardian to give an account of his management of your property. But now, in such necessity--"

She smiled bitterly. "Too proud? My dear friend, I should not have been too proud even at that time to claim my rights. But, as you know, where there is nothing, even the Emperor cannot a.s.sert his rights, far less a poor Canoness who eloped with an actor. My uncle squandered the last s.h.i.+lling of my mother's property. Would you have me turn him out of house and home by appealing to the law? But let us say no more about these detestable things. Fortunately I paid the members of the company their monthly salary only a few days ago. As the business is now broken up, they are in a pitiable plight, for where can they obtain a new engagement in midsummer? So the _fundus instructus_ must be sold as quickly and as profitably as possible, and meantime be p.a.w.ned. You will do me this one last favor, dear Johannes. I have another little plan, too. Why do you look at me so wonderingly? Surely you did not suppose that all this would find me unprepared. I have long expected something of the sort. Weak as he is--but we will not speak of him."

She now explained her intention of obtaining, by means of a concert in the theater, a considerable sum for the benefit of the orphaned company, which, bereft of the manager and "the others," could give no more performances. By these "others" she meant Daniel and Victorine.

While out of doors she had met an actor, who excitedly asked whether she knew that the couple had just gone on board an English merchant vessel lying in the harbor. He did not say that the manager was with them, but the wife did not doubt it for an instant, and therefore knew what she should find when she returned to the house again.

She would herself appear and sing at the concert, she continued. She knew that there would be a full house, for her misfortune, of course, was now in everybody's mouth, and, as she had always kept out of sight, curiosity and perhaps a better feeling would urge many to see and hear the woman who had led so strange a life, and must now reap what she had sown. She did not fear the eyes of strangers. It was a misfortune that her heart had prompted her to entrust her life to the keeping of one who was unworthy, but neither a disgrace nor a crime. So she would appear, with head erect, before a cold, malicious world, and not a note would falter in her throat.

She had not expected too much of her own powers. When she appeared on the stage, in a plain black dress, with a little black veil wound around her golden braids, and every eye in the densely-crowded house was fixed upon her, I saw--I was sitting at the piano to play her accompaniments--her face flush for a moment. But its natural hue instantly returned, and she sang her aria from Orpheus, several melodies from Iphigenia in Tauris, and Mignon's song composed by Beethoven, with such power and simple beauty that it seemed as if the tempests of life which had stirred the inmost depths of her soul had only served to bring the flower of her art to still more superb development.

The effect was so profound and overwhelming that a storm of applause, such as had never greeted even the finest scenes of the great actor, shook the theater.

She bowed modestly, with a sad smile that won every heart. When, in the waiting-room, I congratulated her, her face clouded. "Hush," she whispered hurriedly. "Would you tell the victim, about to be offered as a sacrifice, that the garlands are becoming?"

The other parts of the programme, two comic soliloquies by Laban, and some of Schiller's ballads recited by our _ingenue_, were well received. When I accompanied Frau Luise home, I held in the box under my arm a very large sum received from the evening's entertainment.

When we reached her room, I wished to give her the money. "No," she replied, "henceforth you must be the treasurer. I shall make but one stipulation--that you do not entirely forget yourself, but share equally with the rest. With foolish generosity you have spent all your savings in order to retain a laborious situation here, for which you received neither thanks nor payment. What do you intend to do now?"

"That will depend upon you, Frau Luise."

Her eyes sought the floor, then, raising them to mine with an indescribably tender glance, she said:

"No, my friend, we part this very day, this very hour. You need have no anxiety about me. I shall not pine away and die. You know that I am very strong, or how could I have endured everything?--and, as I am no longer a Canoness, I must not shrink from a little labor. But you must try to return to the life from which your friends.h.i.+p for me has torn you. Promise me that, after you have attended to the last details of business here, you will go back to your old profession, if not as a clergyman, as a teacher, or in some scholarly occupation. I will watch your course from a distance. You will promise, will you not?"

"Frau Luise," I stammered, "do you wish to banish me? Do you not know--"

"I know all, my friend; you need not add another word. And I also know that I love you with all my heart, and therefore it is better for us to part. A woman whose husband has vanished is not free to choose--surely you understand that. And I will suffer no stain upon my name. You will remain my friend, as I am yours. And to seal this, I will now, in bidding you farewell, affectionately embrace you and give you a sister's kiss. Your lips, my faithful friend, shall restore the purity of mine, which yesterday were desecrated by a scoundrel."

With these words, she embraced me, and for one brief, blissful moment her warm lips pressed mine in a pure and tender caress. Then, with a low "Farewell, my friend," she gently pushed me out of the door.

The next morning, when I woke from sorrowful dreams, and was hurriedly dressing, some one knocked at my door. Kunigunde entered and, with many tears, told me that her mistress had driven away at dawn in a hired carriage, telling n.o.body her destination, and leaving for me a farewell and a little package.

It was a sealed paper. When I opened it, out fell the gold chain on which she used to wear around her neck the locket containing her mother's picture.

III.

Several weeks have pa.s.sed since I wrote the last lines. When I laid the sheet in the portfolio--a music portfolio Frau Luise had left, and in which I usually kept some of the airs from Gluck's operas arranged for the piano--I was startled by the bulk of the MS., and asked myself: "Will any one have patience to read all this? And why should you add to it?"

Ah, if you were a professional author, and, instead of a truthful narrative of the life of the woman so dear to you, could transform her fate into a genuine romance, skillfully blending fact and fiction, or if you at least possessed the gift of describing these experiences in hues so fresh and vivid that no one could help finding her as charming as she is to you! But you are only a clumsy, simple chronicler of events, and the man for whom you intend these records will smile at the _labor improbus_ you have bestowed on so superfluous a work and at your innocent idea that you were thereby doing him a favor.

Well, I then thought, even if you are only pleasing yourself by again conjuring up your old joys and sorrows, what harm is there in that? He can let the avalanche of MS. you hurl into his house roll quietly aside with the others the mail brings to importune him. Who compels him to do more than cast a compa.s.sionate glance at it?

But, if he forgives the lonely man his volubility, and eats through this biographical mountain, as Klas Avenstak ate through the hill of pancakes, he must expect that I shall not defraud him of the end, especially as the early close the G.o.ds decreed to Luise's life was spiced with much that was sweet, to compensate for many bitter things in her previous destiny.

So I will summon courage to again take up my pen, endeavoring, however, to be as brief as possible, especially in the incidents which concern my insignificant self.

Therefore I will say nothing of the state of mind in which I spent the first few days after my friend's secret departure. Fortunately I had a number of disagreeable affairs on my hands, was forced to attend to the questions, complaints, business, and reproaches of the deserted company of actors, undertake the distribution of the money and provide for the sale of the _fundus_, which latter affair was settled more quickly and profitably than I had feared. Frau Luise's destination was as little known as the distant sh.o.r.e to which the great artist had shaped his course. So I took a sorrowful leave of my colleagues, who, with the exception of the three oldest members, Laban, Gottlieb Schonicke, and the good prompter, who grieved sincerely for the vanished woman, seemed to be tolerably consoled by the considerable sum that fell to the share of each, and, as I was far too sad at heart and dull of brain to form any sensible plan for the future, I sent my trunk to my native town, strapped my knapsack on my back, and wandered through Pomerania and the Mark to my old home. I believe that during those eight or ten days I did not have one sensible thought, for the Orpheus aria constantly rang in my ears:

"Alas, I have lost her, All my happiness is o'er!"

It will be considered perfectly natural that the news of my return excited no special rejoicing in the small provincial town, and no one felt impelled to kill a fatted calf to do honor to the Prodigal Son. At first I kept out of the way as much as possible, since wherever I appeared I was stared at as though I were some wild animal just escaped from a menagerie, or, still worse, shunned with evident fear of contagion, being regarded as a dangerous sinner who, lured by the l.u.s.t of the world and the flesh, had exchanged the preacher's calling for a dissipated vagabond life among jugglers and strollers.

One old friend, however, who meantime had become princ.i.p.al of the highest public school, treated me with his old cordiality, listened sympathizingly to the account of my fate, and, as I was absolutely penniless, offered me temporary shelter in an attic room in his little house. Ere long, spite of my antecedents, he succeeded in getting me the position of teacher of singing to the three lower cla.s.ses, as the old chorister was daily growing deafer. When he became wholly incapable of further service, the three upper cla.s.ses were also transferred to me, and, after having conscientiously done my duty for several years, and meanwhile showed by my irreproachable conduct that I was not the Don Juan and demon of darkness rumor had p.r.o.nounced me, I was advanced--partly in consequence of the services of my dead father, whose memory was still honored--to the position of teacher of geography and history, in which I was often reminded of the time when I had related the same beautiful stories to my little pupil and his haughty sister.

My kind fellow-citizens had pardoned my past--nay, with the feminine portion of the population, it merely helped to surround the commonplace fellow I was and am with that halo of impiety which is usually more attractive to the weaker s.e.x than the most beautiful aureola of unsullied virtue. Many very estimable mothers of marriageable daughters greeted me in the street with an encouraging glance--nay, there was no lack of efforts to tempt me to their houses, especially after a small legacy, which I inherited very unexpectedly, enabled me, with my modest salary as a teacher, to establish a quiet home of my own. Even my friend and present colleague gave me numerous well-meant hints--Heaven would rather provide for two than for one, and so would the fathers of the city. But I answered all such admonitions with a smile and a shrug of the shoulders. How could I have been such a scoundrel as to deceive an innocent, unsuspecting girl by letting her suppose a heart free which had long been firmly bound?

The ten years I spent in this way were joyless and desolate enough. I had lost my taste even for the society of men; foolish political discussions and standing local jests had no interest for me, and I had never cared for any game of cards except the one with which such beloved memories were a.s.sociated. So I spent the evenings in my lonely room, and used the money I saved from gambling and drinking for the purchase of books, though the volumes were wholly different in character from those I had inherited from my dear father. Besides the newest philosophical works, I ordered novels by English authors, among whom Thackeray was my special favorite, while d.i.c.kens seemed to me a sentimental mannerist, striving for effect, who had no correct ideas of women. But I will leave this part of my life and hasten on to the main subject.

One Wednesday afternoon in March--I had no school, but a furious snow-storm prevented my taking my usual walk into the country--some one knocked at my door, and an old woman, on whom I had never set eyes before, hobbled into the room. She was almost out of breath, for, as she said, she had come from the alms-house at the opposite end of the town, and the wind had almost blown her away. She drew from the folds of her thick shawl a crumpled note, in which was scribbled in pencil:

"If you have not yet forgotten your old friend, dear Johannes, give her the pleasure of a visit. She has been ill for a fortnight, and is permitted to sit up to-day for the first time. The messenger knows where she is to be found.

Luise."

I will not attempt to describe the tempest of feeling those few words awakened in my soul. For a moment the room and all it contained whirled around me, and I should not have been surprised had the old woman suddenly thrown off her patched clothing and stood before me in the guise of a beautiful fairy.

With trembling haste I hurried on my coat, seized my hat and cane, and went out into the street ere I asked if this were really true, and how she had happened to serve the lady as a messenger.