L'Arrabiata and Other Tales Part 23

"A pretty Robinson you would make, to be sure, spoiled boy that you are!"

"Why?--have I not all I want here with me?"

"Yes, till we come to the bottom of the basket, and have emptied our one bottle; after that perhaps we might do battle to the poor swans, and prey upon their eggs; and then the comedy would be over, and the tragedy would begin. I read one, once, about a Count Ugolino, whom they threw into a deep dungeon, with his children, to be starved to death.

But I don't think I should like to see it acted; still less, to take a part in it."

He kept his eyes fixed on the little gla.s.s she had brought with her, and had now filled for him.

"What man cares to sate his body," he murmured, "if his soul be famished? I should prefer the reverse; should not you?"

"I don't think I always understand you now--you sometimes say odd things."

"Drink out of this same gla.s.s then; and then, you know, you will be able to guess my thoughts." He held it towards her; his whole face was glowing, his eyes avoided hers, as they looked at him with surprised enquiry. She took the gla.s.s, but held it in her hand, without drinking.

"I wish it could really help one to guess them. There is a certain young man of my acquaintance, who used to have no secrets from me, and of late he has been a mystery with seven seals; but I doubt if the truth be really in this wine. I rather think----"

She stopped short, for a sudden perception began to dawn on her mind, though she could hardly trust herself to admit it. He had raised his eyes now, and was looking at her with wrapt gaze.

"Helen," he said, "when a man feels choking it is too late to ask him what strangles him? All I know is, that I shall have to go away, and leave you--"

"Go away! why, what are you thinking of?"

"You may well ask," he said, in a tone of desperation, without venturing to look up. "I only know too well, I cannot live without you."

His words thrilled to her very marrow, she held the winegla.s.s unconsciously, without seeing how she was spilling the wine.

"That is not what I meant," she said. "What makes you talk so strangely?"

She would have risen, but he seized her hand so eagerly, that she dropped the gla.s.s.

"Do not go," he cried. "Oh! stay and listen to me! You must. I must talk so, because it is what I feel, and you must hear it, or it will kill me. All this time I have felt as if my heart were dead within me.

To me there is nothing in the whole wide world but you. If this island were to float away, and carry us away where n.o.body could reach us, you know you would be mine and I yours to all eternity--you cannot deny that; and therefore what difference should the world make to us? Can all the talking and the gossipping in the world, make us one jot more happy or one jot more wretched? You have n.o.body to consider; I am what I always was--a penniless, homeless orphan; for if I have a father living, I have no desire to see him. Why should we go back to those people? We might cross the seas together; to any wilderness, where there is n.o.body to ask for baptismal certificates, or parish registers; and there we might be all in all to each other and be happy, and then we might afford to laugh at a world that would have grudged us our happiness."

He held her hand tight between both his own, while the words fell from his lips in burning haste, and his devouring eyes were fastened on her downcast lashes, or watching the quivering of her parted lips.

She could not speak; her brain was reeling, and her ears ringing. She could not distinguish every word, but his meaning went straight to her heart.

"Helen!" he cried, and dropping her hand, he caught her all trembling to his heart; lifting her from the ground, and covering her face with pa.s.sionate kisses.

The intoxication that had so carried him away lasted but a second. With a violent effort, she tore herself from his arms, and stood breathless, facing him with flaming eyes. "No more!" she said. "Not another word!

thank G.o.d rather, that I have sense enough left for both, to take your words for what they are, for the vagaries of an idle brain. Were I so foolish as to take this nonsense for downright earnest, you should never look upon my face again. But even a mother's indulgence has its bounds, and if ever you are seized with such another fit of madness in my presence, the last word will have been spoken between us two. I shall take good care, however, that you do not so easily forget yourself again. Hitherto I have forgiven many things; I trusted to the natural candour of your disposition. But I am afraid you are not much better than most young men of your age. I am sorry to believe it of you, both for yourself and me. But it serves me right, for supposing that ten years could be enough to know a man; even when one has brought him up oneself!"

He stood before her without being able to utter a single word. If the earth had opened and swallowed him up, it would have been a relief to him. In the tumult of his ideas, he tried in vain to make her words agree with all that he had seen and heard within the last few days; had he ventured to look at her, he might have had some suspicion of the struggle in her soul, while she was uttering those annihilating words.

"The rain is over;" she said after a pause, in a tone of complete indifference, "I must go."

He prepared to follow her.

"I can find my way without you;" she said; "now that I know that the plank is safe. Good-bye, Walter, you can send the basket by one of the boys."

She stopped on the threshold of the hut. "See how suddenly all the leaves have burst their buds," she said, and her voice had completely recovered its tranquil tone. "Everything in nature has its season; we can change nothing, and prevent nothing. Give me your hand, dear boy. I am not going to leave you to mope by yourself, because you have just given me another proof that you are but a child, and a dreamer of childish dreams. I am not a bit angry with you now; so let us make haste and forget all those ugly pa.s.sionate words we said. By-and-by you will laugh at them as I do now. And when you come home this evening, I hope you will bring us your own bright face again, and the best resolutions henceforth, to honour and obey your own little mother, that your days may be--as the fourth commandment says. Bless you, my son."

She looked back affectionately at him, and waved her hand to say good-bye, and then she walked steadily over the plank, with her light elastic step, and turned into one of the paths that led through the wood on the other side.

As long as she was to be seen, Walter looked after her; then he flung himself on the gra.s.s, with his face to the ground, in an agony of shame and grief, and self-reproach. He did not know that as soon as she was out of sight, her brave heart failed her; she stopped, and leaning her head against the stem of a young tree, she too relieved herself by a flood of tears.

The day was fading into twilight; in the Meister's room it had grown too dark for him to do anything until the lamp was brought. Putting by the watercolor sketch of Naples and Mount Vesuvius, in which he had been making some alterations in the foreground with a piece of chalk, he was just about to exchange his favorite old dressing gown with the sheepskin, for a more appropriate garment for an evening walk, when the door was opened noiselessly, and Helen came in, with a serene countenance, and an unfaltering voice that belied all her agitations of the morning.

"Good evening, brother. I have been longer away than I expected. I had a little piece of business to do on my way home, that should have been settled long ago--Christel has been taking good care of you, I hope?

How have you been? better?"

The unusual friendliness of her manner took him by surprise, and stopped the reproaches that had been ready on his lips. "How does the gallery get on?" he asked, instead of answering. "You will have been standing chattering there so long, that there will not have been much work done."

"I left the gallery about twelve o'clock;" she said with a faint blush.

"If I had not gone astray among the woods, and done that business on my way back, I should have been here ever so long ago. After all, it would not so much signify, if the work were to last a few days longer. The grounds are hardly planned, and the gallery will certainly be finished in a week. Have you heard whether that a.s.sistant is to be counted on?"

"Not yet, why do you ask?"

She took a chair and seated herself with her back to the light. "I will tell you why," she said. "I have been thinking over what you said the other day, and I begin to see that you were right, when you said it was time for Walter to be sent from home; I know him too well, not to see that for him, it would be waste of time and talents, to go on plodding as he is doing now, in this narrow sphere of action. If he is ever to attain the fall development of which he is capable, we must transplant him to a more congenial soil. However, I am aware that you would find it hard to keep him in a strange place, unless he were to earn his own livelihood by his present trade; and that would be hard on him, for he takes no pleasure in it, and will take still less, if you send him among strangers."

She paused, for her voice was failing her; he stood at the other window, looking away from her, and drawing upon the vapoury panes with his finger.

"Brother-in-law," she began again: "I have just done a thing without your knowledge, that I hope you will approve of, as it is for Walter's good. As I was walking home just now, I thought over all those long years we have lived together, and I confess I have not been so friendly with you as I should have been, to make our lives pleasanter to both. I am sorry for it now. There were some things I never could forget, although they were past and over, and we know that no one human being has any right to judge another.

"With regard to Walter, I have not so much to reproach myself. I did my duty by him, as far as I saw it; and I see that I would not be doing it now, if I were to keep him at home, merely because I find it hard to part from him. So it occurred to me, as the best plan for us all, that I could give him an independence, by making him my heir, as a mother should her only son. Don't mistake me, I am not thinking of dying--only of making my will; and as women are ignorant in such matters, as soon as I had made up my mind, I went straight to the proper authority, Dr. Hansen, and asked him what would be the surest way of making a will--not only with a sound mind, but a sound body--and of laying down the burthen of one's thalers in the most legal form."

"You spoke to Hansen about this?"

"I did; and found him quite willing to a.s.sist me. I had a deed of gift drawn up, which he will bring this evening, written out in proper form.

I also begged him to join you, as trustee for the management of the property, and to provide for Walter's wants until he becomes of age. I hope you will not object to this."

"Helen!"--cried the Meister--"and you yourself?"

"Don't imagine I could forget myself," she said merrily. "I took good care to keep enough for my own livelihood; especially as I mean to look out for a situation in some respectable family where there is an orphan to bring up. I have been in a good school for that you know."

"And when you are old, and feel loath to be dependent upon strangers, though you may think it so easy now?"

"I should not be forlorn or forsaken even then," she said very earnestly. "I shall find a home for my old age in my dear Walter's house, and I hope his young wife will never turn me from the door." A long silence ensued.

"You don't seem to be entirely satisfied with my plan, brother," she began again. "But it really is the best plan for all of us. When your son is taken off your hands, you will be able to do what you have wished for all your life. You can sell this house and garden, give up the business, and go to Italy for a year or two. In that lovely Italy you rave about, you would soon shake off your horrid rheumatisms, that torment you so. And one fine day, Walter would cross the Alps and join you, when he finished his studies; and then you could shew him all those marvels of Art and Nature you are always yearning after, and you would be happy both together--and I--"

Her voice faltered, she could not continue. The Meister turned from the window,--and, in an instant,--for she was too unsuspecting to prevent him, he had flung himself upon his knees before her, as though he had lost his senses. He hid his rough grey head upon her lap, smothering the strange sounds that fell from his lips; stammering and sobbing in wordless protestation.

"Don't, brother;" she whispered, in a trembling voice, bending over him; "come to your senses, and hear me out. I have a favor to ask of you in return, that you may not feel inclined to grant me, and in case you should refuse it, the whole plan falls to the ground."