The Children of the World Part 36

"He has--? You've received him here--allowed him to visit you more than once?"

"Why shouldn't I? If you should see him, you would understand that no one can be less dangerous than this adorer. You know how fire-proof I am; why I could spend a hundred years with such a lover, and my heart would never beat one bit the faster! To be sure, at first, when, Heaven knows how, he found me out and entered unannounced, I was extremely angry at the intrusion and received him so coldly that he remained standing at the door like a penitent and could not utter a word of the apology which he had prepared. I said things to which no one else would have submitted quietly. But he--at first he seemed utterly crushed, and then he suddenly threw himself at my feet and faltered out that he was a lost man, if I would not have compa.s.sion on him; that he had done everything to prove how honorable his intentions were; he had forced his mother, a very proud lady, to consent to receive me as her daughter-in-law; his aristocratic relatives had caused him a great deal of trouble, but he had at last succeeded in removing every obstacle from the way, and now I rejected him and refused him all hope. And then, still kneeling at my feet, he poured forth such a torrent of vows and protestations, that I really didn't know whether to laugh at or to pity him."

"Toinette! And you allowed him the hope--"

"I? If you think that you don't know me! When I found the torrent of words continued, all desire either to laugh or pity vanished, and I very positively and curtly declared that I had not the slightest inclination to become his wife, that if this would cause him unhappiness, I was very sorry, but that I could not accept the proposals of the first eccentric man I met, at the expense of my whole life. This was my final answer."

"And he still has the effrontery to annoy you? And you were yielding enough--"

"Unfortunately, my friend, I'm much more kind-hearted than you suppose.

The first time he returned after this, as I thought, final dismissal, you could not have helped laughing yourself at the penitent manner, in which he sneaked into the room after little Jean. I received him only on the condition that not a word should be said about admiration, love, or marriage. As for the rest why should I, a ci-devant d.u.c.h.ess, deny myself so cheap a pleasure as keeping a count for my court fool? I was so lonely, so out of spirits. And as I said before, you can't imagine anything more comical than his face and manner. He actually has no face at all; when he's not here, it's impossible to remember how he really looks, his countenance is exactly like those on the tailor's fas.h.i.+on plates, his nose straight up and down, his month straight across, and his whiskers just such as grow on the faces of I don't know how many young n.o.blemen. But now imagine this commonplace physiognomy beautified by perpetual lines of grief, or rather by the attempt to look utterly miserable, and you must perceive that there could be no more amusing contrast. I abuse him as much as I can, say the most impertinent things, refuse to even allow him to kiss the tip of my slipper, but have never succeeded in rousing him from his devout submission and adoration, I shouldn't be the daughter of a poor ballet-dancer and a vain, idle, tolerably desperate creature, if such an aristocratic slave didn't divert me."

"And how long do you propose to continue this delightful game?" asked Edwin, in a somewhat irritated tone.

Instead of answering, Toinette opened a box and took out several large photographs. "These are views of his castle," said she. "Here, as it appears on the heights above the forests; here's the courtyard, with the carriage waiting and the young count's saddle-horse standing close by--I call him young, although one never thinks of his age, for can a man who never really experiences anything grow old?--And here are three views of the interior: the dining-hall, the conservatory, and the boudoir for the young countess. It can't be denied that he, or at least his upholsterer, has good taste, but the master of the house is an unwelcome addition to all this magnificence. I told him so to his face.

His only answer was a sigh."

"And how long is this proceeding to continue?" Edwin repeated.

Toinette threw the photographs back into the box and rose from the sofa. "You jealous friend; why should you desire to disgust me with this innocent pleasure in the evening of my life. Haven't you looked into my strong box? I do not wish to spend my days in gloom before the last thaler is exhausted."

"And then?"

"Then? I thought we had agreed that we are superfluous in the world, when we can no longer be useful nor give pleasure to ourselves or others."

"And have you already gone so far?"

"Exactly so far. That is, I should, as he says, not only make my count happy but enable him really to live, if I would give myself to him. But I ask you, what kind of a life would it be for us both! A quicker, plainer, more unequivocal suicide would be preferable. And besides for whom could and should I live? True, I believe you're an honest and sincere friend, but haven't even you during the last few weeks, managed to do very well without me? And would you be able to enjoy the little pleasure my existence affords you, if you should see that I was dragging out the most miserable days, under a burden of deprivations and petty cares, which would crush my whole nature and at last destroy me?" She had uttered the last words with increasing agitation, pacing restlessly up and down the room. It had grown dark. Little Jean knocked and asked whether his mistress wanted lights. "No," she answered curtly. The boy noiselessly retired.

"Toinette," said Edwin, "will you listen five minutes, without interrupting me?"

"Speak. I would rather listen, than talk myself. My thoughts, when uttered aloud, have such a strange sound, that an icy s.h.i.+ver thrills me. Speak, speak!"

"You've reached a point where you can neither stand still nor go on, I mean in the direction you have adopted. There's apparently but one other course: to plunge into the abyss. But that's only the impulse of despair, and you've no right to despair. Couldn't you first try to turn back, take some other direction and see how far you could proceed? You believe me to be a sincere friend; I also believe in my friends.h.i.+p for you, although with all my honesty of purpose, I cannot think solely of your fate, but also a little of my own, when I aspire to be something more than your friend. Don't be startled. I know I should speak a language you would not understand, if I told you of the deep, unconquerable, and ever increasing pa.s.sion, which from the first hour of our meeting has taken entire possession of me and with which you will bear witness, that I've never troubled you until to-day. I don't envy the count the part he plays, but it would be just as foolish, to maintain total silence in regard to this love that exists and demands to a.s.sert its rights in so solemn an hour. I know enough of your life to be able to cheer myself with the thought that no one stands nearer to you than I. Is it so utterly insane to cherish the hope, that I might in time become still dearer, that you might find it worth while to continue to live, if you should share your life with me, belong to me and find your happiness in mine? Dear Toinette, I'll not praise myself: but all whom I have ever loved will bear witness that I'm to be trusted. In other respects you know me; from the first I have always appeared what I am, never either in a moral or intellectual sense, have visited you in borrowed attire. If I did not know, that despite your unfortunate love of display, you possess a soul, true, simple and incorruptable, I should not be such a fool as to offer myself to you.

All I possess has belonged to you from the first hour of our acquaintance, and I believe it will be enough to support you without too many deprivations; the pa.s.sion I feel has first made me aware what a treasure of love I have, enough for the most exacting heart, and so I do not speak to you as a beggar. Whatever you give me, I can outweigh, even if a miracle should happen--your heart at last awake to me, and all that nature has lavished upon you be merged into the best gift--the power to love.

"This probably surprises you," he continued after a pause, during which she sat motionless on a chair by the door, her face expressionless and immobile. "I too have been taken by surprise, although for months I have told myself that this hour must come, for in spite of your peculiar situation and the amusing game you are playing with the count, (Ah, Toinette it does not seem so absurd to me!) I should scarcely have said what I have to-day, but simply continued to do my duty as a mere friend, had not something occurred which unchains my tongue. A professors.h.i.+p has been offered me. It's not only that I must go away and therefore leave you behind--my whole future is secured. You know I have no ducal aspirations. You have seen our tun and can understand that he who has so long climbed that steep staircase without a murmur, would not consider it a necessity of life to drive in his own carriage through miles of woodland to an ancestral castle. Yet I should never have expected you to climb to your heaven-upon-earth by means of such a tottering Jacob's ladder. Now matters are different, and though my means are still limited, my life on the whole will be quite endurable.

My brother, of course, would be the third in the alliance--" At this moment little Jean entered and announced the arrival of the count.

Toinette did not seem to hear him, but when the boy repeated his words, she said: "I cannot see him! Say I am not well!" The lad went out, and they heard an eager voice in the entry talking with him, then the door closed and soon after a carriage rolled away from the house. The room was perfectly still. Toinette remained seated in the chair by the wall, and Edwin on the sofa. He rose, and standing by the table seemed to be searching for some word that might loosen her heart and tongue.

"I understand your silence, Toinette," he said at last "You're too honest to hold forth hopes to me or to yourself in which you have no faith. Hitherto you've liked me because I made no claims upon you. Now I've confessed that I want all or nothing, and therefore have suddenly become a stranger to you, an unpleasant monitor, from whom you must defend yourself. Oh! Toinette, I feel what I've risked and perhaps lost, but I couldn't help it; I owed this confession to you and to myself; for the life I have hitherto led with you would if continued consume and destroy me, and the sacrifice would not even have afforded you pleasure, you're not vain and selfish enough for that. Why aren't you, Toinette? Why are you this wondrous mystery, whose incompleteness becomes a torture to itself? If you were a coquette, who found in human sacrifices and in her triumphs compensation for all the profound joys which can only rise from a deep heart, I should almost be grateful for it; it would be easier for me to put an end to everything between us.

But no, send me away, tell me nothing more, I know what your silence means, and I know that no words of mine can awake a feeling which nature has not made possible to you." He moved, as if to leave the room, but his feet refused to obey his bidding; he could only walk to the window and stand there clasping with both hands the fastening of the sash, and pressing his forehead against the pane. Just at that moment, the young girl began to speak in a low, almost timid voice:

"Are you angry, my dear friend, because I have so mutely listened to all this, to all your kind, earnest words, which I do not deserve, for which I cannot even thank you as I ought? For you'll not believe how much grief it causes me, that you are so kind, and I--I remain as I am.

Oh! you're right, it is becoming a torture to me, this defect in my nature. It's like a spell. I've read of a girl apparently dead, who lay in her coffin, surrounded by friends who were pouring forth their love and sorrow, while she, with all her efforts, could not stir or hold out her hand to her weeping friends, and say: 'I'm still alive. I love you and will not leave you.' It's the same with me. Nothing ever caused me so much pain as that you now wish to leave me, because you desire from me that which I cannot give. And yet I should think I was committing a crime against you, if I sought to restrain you. I could expect anyone else to be satisfied with what I can give, be it little or much. But you--I want you to have all you desire and need; you're worthy of something better than to be weighted through life by such an unhappy creature as I. My dear friend, if I were not perfectly sure that you would repent it, that I should make you unhappy and in so doing go to destruction myself, believe me, I would not hesitate a moment, even if I felt I should be miserable, You've become so dear to me that I would gladly forget myself to help you. But we must not deceive ourselves; it's impossible! You're too sensitive to be able to endure happiness at the expense of another." Then, after a pause she continued: "And yet you're perfectly right, all this must have been uttered some day. But it's inexpressibly sad that it should come so! Is there no help? When we've parted now--is there no hope, that we may again meet in life, if I still have a life before me, and clasp each other's hands like two faithful old friends? Must the parting be for ever?"

He turned and with a secret tremor, saw that she had risen and softly approached him. Her face looked out from the gloom with a touchingly mournful expression; she stood like a child pleading for forgiveness, with her arms hanging at her side and her head bent so low that her hair fell over her temples. "Edwin," she said softly, extending her hand and raising her eyes to his. His heart was burning with love and anguish. "Oh! Toinette," he cried, "farewell, farewell! Not a word more. All is said, the sentence of death is uttered!" Mournfully she held out her arms to him; he clasped her to his breast, pressed his lips to her soft hair, felt for an instant her breath on his neck, then tore himself away and rushed like a madman out of the room.

CHAPTER XIV.

It was a singular coincidence that on the very same day and almost at the self-same hour another of the friends placed the decision of his happiness or misery in a woman's hands, and received no more consoling reply, nay was rejected in still more mysterious language than Edwin.

It happened thus. Mohr had gone to the little house on the lagune, as indeed he did every day, to inquire about Fraulein Christiane's health.

Neither he or any other man had seen her since the night of the accident; for she had positively refused even to receive Marquard, who had saved her life. She sat in the small room behind the kitchen, which the old maid-servant had given up to her; the single grated window looked out upon the ca.n.a.l and the bare, blackened chimney. Here she bolted herself in and opened the door only at Leah's knock, but remained mute even to her kindly inquiries, and during the first day sat like a statue on the stool by the window, with her eyes intently fixed upon the sullen waters below. It seemed as if she considered herself in a self-chosen prison, separated from the world for life. She touched none of the food her nurse brought, except a little soup and bread, and the only time she had spoken was on the third day, when she asked for some work. Since that time sitting always in the same place, she had sewed from early morning until late at night, mended underclothing, hemmed handkerchiefs, and answered all the young girl's timid entreaties and questions only by a pressure of the hand and a gloomy shake of the head.

The same cheerless report was all that could be given today. The night before, Leah had glided into the kitchen, listened at the door of the room, and heard the poor thing moving restlessly to and fro, perhaps to warm herself, for it was cold and she had refused to have a fire lighted in the little stove. She had often groaned like one suffering the deepest pain, and vainly striving to repress any manifestation of it. Midnight was long past before all was still.

"What will happen if G.o.d in his mercy does not perform a miracle and let a ray of his love and peace illumine the poor darkened soul!"

exclaimed the little artist, with a deep sigh. "Oh! my child, don't you see I was right in saying that all earthly paths lead to darkness and error, unless we humbly strive to seize G.o.d's hand and walk by his side? This poor lost life! G.o.d forgive me, but I can scarcely help agreeing with the Herr Doctor: who can tell whether it was well for her, that we took so much trouble to recall her to existence?"

Leah was standing beside her painting table, with her pale face bent toward the floor. She made no reply. Her heart was so heavy with her own griefs and those of others, that had it not been for her father, she would fain have wished herself out of the world.

"My honored friends," said Mohr, rising from his chair, where puffing huge clouds of smoke from his cigarette he had sat for some time absorbed in thought, "I too am of the opinion that something must be done; we have given the mercy of G.o.d ample time to work a miracle.

Perhaps that mercy is held in abeyance; perhaps G.o.d is waiting to see whether we will not ourselves move in the matter and a.s.sail the difficulty with our poor human powers. And to do this, I at least, a tolerably obstinate heathen,--no offense, Herr Konig--am fully resolved."

"What are you going to do?" asked Leah, looking up in alarm.

Mohr stretched his herculean frame, as he was in the habit of doing, when after long consideration he had formed some definite resolution.

For a moment his muscular arms almost touched the ceiling, then he buried his hands in his bushy hair and said, half closing his eyes and drawing his mouth awry:

"This Marquard may understand his trade well enough, so far as the body is concerned, but rubbing the limbs is not all that can be done. The soul, which has been just as much benumbed by the accident, must also be warmed by spiritual friction and moral mustard plasters; for in its desperation it is still freezing in its death-like torpor, while the body is already rejoicing in the flow of the thawed blood. I'll go in and apply to this apparently dead soul, some of the restoratives we ought to have tried long ago."

"She will not admit you," said Leah with a sorrowful shake of the head, "and even if--have I not done everything in my power, by kind words and the most sincere good will--"

"Certainly, my dear Fraulein, but that's just it: you've handled her with gloves. I--now, I will try a ruder way. Devil take it! no offense, Herr Konig, but really the evil one, if there is such a person, would laugh in his sleeve and with good reason, if we let this poor soul, which we've toiled so hard to s.n.a.t.c.h from his clutches, fall back into them for want of aid. Here it's force against force, and a little cunning into the bargain; if you'll knock, Fraulein Leah, and say you want to come in and then let me step before you--such an innocent stratagem will never be imputed to you as a sin."

"I fear it will be useless," replied Leah, "even if it does actual harm. At least I--but perhaps I don't understand." She went out, and Mohr, with awkwardly feigned liveliness, followed her on tip-toe as if bent upon some mischievous prank. Yet the hands he pa.s.sed through his hair trembled. When Leah knocked at the chamber door, a scarcely audible voice within asked: "Who's there?"

"I, dear Christiane," replied the young girl, "and I wanted to ask if you would allow--here is--"

At this moment the bolt was drawn back, and Mohr, without the slightest ceremony, pa.s.sed Leah and entered the half open door.

"Here's some one else," he said finis.h.i.+ng Leah's sentence, "who would like to inquire about Fraulein Christiane's health. Pardon an old friend, that cannot endure to be always shut out by locks and bolts. By _Styx_, my honored friend, you've not chosen the most cheerful quarters. This dark cage is uncommonly well adapted to give the blues."

Christiane was speechless. At the entrance of Mohr, who instantly closed the door behind him, she had started violently and fled to the grated window, where she stood motionless, with her arms folded over her breast and her eyes cast down; she almost seemed to be asleep. The jesting tone died on his lips, as he saw the death-like pallor of her face and the expression of hopeless suffering that dwelt about her mouth and eyes. As he approached nearer and tried to take her hand, she drew still closer to the window, sank into the chair which stood beside it, and with averted face and shuddering limbs motioned him away. An inexpressible compa.s.sion took possession of him.

"Fraulein Christiane," he said when he partially recovered from the shock of such a meeting, "my visit is unwelcome to you; I'm sincerely sorry, but the reasons for my intrusion are far too grave for me to take leave of you at once, as well-bred people usually do under such circ.u.mstances. The more quietly you listen, the sooner you'll get rid of me. Will you listen?"

"No!" at last burst hoa.r.s.ely from her scarcely-parted lips. "Go--leave me--I've nothing to hear or say!"

"Allow me to doubt that," he answered with apparent composure. "For in the first place you are ill. The wisest sick people don't know what's good for them, they are in a certain sense irresponsible beings.

Whether you have anything to say to me, I do not know, but I, have a great deal to say to you. To begin without circ.u.mlocution: I know you're angry with me, because I prevented you from accomplis.h.i.+ng your purpose and turning you back on this world, which for some unknown reason, you wished to quit. Do you know why I took this liberty? Not from common philanthropy. I should beware of grabbing the coat tail of the first person I might see making the leap. No, my dear Fraulein, what I did for you I did from common selfishness; for if you were no longer in this world, it would lose it charms for me, like a quartette from which the first violin was missing. Pardon the not very clever comparison, but while your face is so ungraciously averted, I'm glad if I can even patch my sentences together, without making any pretensions to style." She still remained silent, with her forehead pressed against the bare wall and her hands convulsively clasped.

"I don't know for what you have taken me so far," he continued in a smothered voice, as he leaned, against one of the bed posts and secretly wiped his forehead, although the room was by no means warm.