perfect woman in the arms of the all-powerful--in the arms of a
beneficent master and loving husband."
"You are probably married, sir knight," observed Bona roguishly, "by
this image in particular striking your fancy?"
"Not yet," replied Tausdorf, colouring.
"But already promised and bound by indissoluble chains," interrupted
Rasselwitz, to whom this brief conversation grew much too animated.
"You have become so rapidly acquainted with the knight, fair Bona, that
I must hasten to inform you, you are talking with the Herr
Sparrenberger von Tausdorf, the betrothed of the Frau von Netz; and now
take your place, my old friend, that the noble wine may not grow vapid,
and pledge me to the health of your fair intended."
"I regret to-day, for the first time, that I have for ever renounced
wine," said Bona, while the knights touched their glasses. "A toast to
the health of so noble a lady would be well in place now."
"You know my Althea?" asked Tausdorf.
"No," replied Bona with lovely frankness; "but I have heard so much
good of you, sir knight, that I believe you could have chosen none but
a noble being for the companion of your life."
"Pray, lady," said Rasselwitz, breaking in upon them with
vexation,--"did you not tell me to-day that you had a relation in
Prague, of whom you had long heard nothing? Herr Tausdorf lived there a
considerable time, and perhaps will be able to give you satisfaction."
"I thank you, dear Rasselwitz, for reminding me of it," replied Bona;
"but it has already grown dark," she continued, looking round; "we had
better order a light at the gardener's."
"Admirable!" muttered Rasselwitz; "she sends me away that she may be
alone with him in the dark;"--and he hurried off with the speed of an
arrow, to be back so much the sooner. In Tausdorf the same idea was
stirring; but when he secretly asked himself the question, whether he
did or did not like it, he could obtain no decided answer.
After all, the fears of the one and the imaginings of the other were
alike idle. The fair Bona kept at her old distance from Tausdorf, and
entered into the most indifferent talk in the world with him, inquiring
after a multitude of Prague ladies, whom he, indeed, knew by name, but
of whom he could give no farther information. In addition to this,
as Tausdorf could hear, she was playing with the silver lids of the
wine-flagons, as the hands are accustomed to do when the mind is
absent. This was all but an annoyance to the knight, and if he had not
found some pleasure in listening to the melodious voice of the
questioner, he would have experienced a real tediousness even in the
familiar darkness and in the neighbourhood of such a captivating
creature.
At length Rasselwitz appeared with the gardener, who hung a large
mirror-lamp of Venetian glass upon a branch of the oleander, and again
retired. The glasses were filled afresh, while Bona wound about the
good Tausdorf with the finest arts of conversation, and contrived to
flatter him so sweetly, and at the same time to inspire him with such
respect, that he was unable to break from the magic circle, although
his correctness of feeling warned him betimes to fly from the danger
before he was lost in it.
During this delightful talk, the wine, like a balmy oil, glided down
the knights' throats, sweet and powerful; but its effects were
manifested in the two with a very striking difference. While Rasselwitz
grew continually sulkier and charier of his words, and at last became
downright sleepy, Tausdorf's spirits were more and more awakened and
joyful. A flippant coquetry, at other times hateful to him and foreign
to his disposition, now prevailed in his manners to the fair stranger,
who knew how to turn the well-polished diamond of her spirit so nimbly
to and fro, that from its hundred points the flashes struck blindingly
upon Tausdorf's eyes, and flung into shadow the image of the lovely,
but simple and grave Althea. To complete the impression which she had
visibly made upon him, the Circe, at a fitting turn of the
conversation, took up a harp which lay beside her, and sang,
accompanying herself a lullaby to her heart, than which nothing could
be sweeter or more alluring. While now Tausdorf kindled more and more
at her burning looks, the soft tones of her song, instead of the heart
which should have been lulled, soothed the good Rasselwitz into a sound
slumber. The knight considered the sleeper with approving eyes, and
then cast them, full of voluptuous desire, on the fair stranger.
"Cease, beautiful siren!" he exclaimed at last, seizing her white hand,
and holding it firmly upon the strings; "your magic song disturbs me in
my gazing on you. A woman, created for love, as you are, cannot lull
her heart to sleep without committing a deadly sin against my sex."
With a heavenly smile, in which, however, lurked a strange glance, Bona
looked at him, and her hand returned a gentle pressure. Then casting a
look of inquiry at the sleeping Rasselwitz, she on a sudden sighed out
softly and anxiously--"Oh, heavens!"
"What is the matter, noble lady?" cried Tausdorf, starting up, and
caught her in his arms as she fell.
"A sickly oppression which will soon pass over," stammered Bona, while
her bosom heaved mightily against his breast. "Help me up to my
chamber, dear Tausdorf."
Alarmed, anxious, thrilled through by strange forebodings, he obeyed
her mandate; and half gliding, half carried, the lady reached her room
with the knight. A dull lamp burnt on a table by the bed, around which
flowed curtains of green silk, flinging a secret mysterious shadow. He
let her down softly on the couch, and would have withdrawn, to call the
maid to her assistance, but she raised herself up again, and winding
her fair arms about his neck, murmured softly--"Dear man!"--and her
kisses quivered on his lips like a kindling flash of lightning.
"Fairest creature!" he stammered, in the double intoxication of wine
and passion. Wildly throbbed his pulses as if they would burst their
veins,--and the lamp went out.
* * * * *
It was towards the morning when Tausdorf awoke from a heavy slumber.
When on opening his eyes he found the sleeping Bona by his side, his
recollection returned with the consciousness, and he sprang up in
horror.
"Then it was not merely a wild dream," he exclaimed painfully. "How
could I so forget myself! Never shall I forgive myself this error!"
He paced up and down the room with vehemence for a time, and then
paused before the fair sleeper.
"The sin is beautiful which has seduced me from the right path; but
that does not excuse a man from whom principles are to be expected, and
who has taken upon himself important duties. Poor Althea! is this the
reward of your love and truth? I never could have believed that to be
possible which now rises to my revolted senses in disgusting reality.
Ah! let no one boast of his virtue! It is often the prey of the most
involuntary accident!--Of _accident_?--Was indeed all that happened to
me yesterday no more than accident? I can answer for myself--my soul
was pure when I entered this house; and not till I was allured by the
siren's song, and the voluptuous spirits of the wine had painted her
fair form in glowing colours, not till then was the evil passion
kindled in me. Could a few glasses have changed me so much? Could they
have lighted up the wild glow that raged in my veins, and the dregs of
which still lie heavy on my head and heart? The advances too of the
stranger and her feigned sickness, which tightened the noose about my
neck,--at the bottom of all this is some secret plan which I must
unravel."
He left the room quickly, and soon returned with horror in his looks,
and in his hands two half-full goblets, which he placed on the table by
the bed, and had already raised his arm to wake the sleeper. At this
moment the first sunbeams flamed through the darkness of the green
curtains, and cast a warm glow upon her lovely features. Bona opened
her eyes, which immediately sought and found her beloved, and rested
upon him with bewitching tenderness; but she soon perceived the cold
disdain that flashed from his, and she started up from the bed in
terror.
"For heaven's sake," she exclaimed, "what has happened to you? What do
you mean by these fierce looks?"
"To ask you how we so soon became familiar with each other--how you so
soon succeeded in seducing an honourable knight into disgraceful
infidelity towards the mistress of his heart."
"This is a common injustice of you men to lay on the weaker sex the
blame of the evil caused by your sensuality, that you may afterwards
despise your victim, and so have a pretence for denying all
satisfaction."
"You are right, but it does not apply here. We will not, however, say
any more about which of us is the victim; only I must know whether some
hellish arts were not employed in the adventures of last night, and
therefore you must give me an account of these goblets."
"Gracious heavens! I am lost!" exclaimed Bona, without looking at the
goblets, and clasping her hands together. Tausdorf went on:--
"This, with the white sediment at the bottom, stood before Rasselwitz,
who still lies motionless on the seat, bound up in a death-like
slumber. This, with the black dregs, I emptied, and I can now well
explain the ebullition which threw me into your arms. Strumpet! have we
drank poison at your hands?"
The beautiful sinner started up proudly, glanced at the knight with
noble anger, and exclaimed, "Contemptible suspicion!" and snatched at
the goblet with intent to empty it; but Tausdorf put back her hand--
"No! I would not place any soul before the judgment-seat ere the
Creator calls for it."
He took the goblet from the table, and having flung it out of the
window, walked up and down the room in silence; Bona wept.
"You would drink of it?" he continued. "There was then no poison in the
goblet? But what else? For, by heaven, all is not right with this
wine."
Bona hid her face in the pillows of the bed, and was silent.
"A love-draught, perhaps, for the chosen victim of your desires, and an
opiate for the troublesome witness--is it not so?"
Bona started as if a blow had struck her heart, and was still silent.
"In the name of heaven, woman, what made you seek out me in particular?
You are fair enough, unfortunately, to be able to dispense with such
means with thousands of my sex. Why must you fling into my breast the
scorpion--which must poison the peace of my future days?"
"I loved you, as I now abhor you," was hollowly murmured from beneath
the pillows.
"Profane not the sacred word," retorted Tausdorf indignantly; "I
cannot, besides, rest contented with this answer. What you did
yesterday, the way in which you prepared and accomplished it, the
danger to which you exposed yourself if discovered, all this points to
something very different. You had some great, and, as my warning angel
tells me, some terrible, design upon me, and that it is which you must
confess this very hour."
At this Bona started up with wild looks, and her long auburn locks hung
down in disorder, like so many living snakes, about her fair pale face,
and gave it the convulsed appearance of a raging Medusa. "Kill me," she
cried, defyingly, "or accuse me at the tribunal as a poisoner--I am
silent."
Tausdorf could not refrain from shuddering as her figure stood up thus
before him, like some horrid spectre,--that figure which but a few
hours since had appeared so kind and graceful: he turned away from her,
and at length said--
"You understand us German knights badly, in thinking us capable of such
wretched measures. If you do not choose to unburthen your heart by a
frank confession of your evil intentions, persist then in your
obduracy. I leave you to your conscience; and however late may come the
moment in which you hear its voice, yet the moment will come. If in
such an hour you repent of the evil you have already done me, and of
that which you yet purpose, may heaven not remember against you your
heavy sin in abusing the fair body it has given you--abusing it
as a bait for vice, and to the destruction of the souls of your
fellow-creatures. I for my part forgive you now as becomes a Christian;
but we never see each other again."
He went. With the rolling eyes of a lioness, whose prey has escaped,
Bona watched after him.
"So then, this sin has been in vain. I have not even earned the fruits
of the evil harvest. My machines have been in play to no purpose. The
awkward footsteps of this rough man have crushed to pieces the
artificial wheelwork. Let it go. I meant it better with you than you
deserved. The assailant has always the advantage, because he can choose
time and place. If you will not be set upon my victim, he must be set
upon you, that self-defence may force the sword of vengeance into your
hand. May you both perish in it!"
The old gardener thrust his head in at the door with a crafty,
inquiring laugh. Bona called out to him--"I am alone, Sylvester. What
is Rasselwitz doing?"
"Awake at last!" replied the gardener, coming into the room. "He
complained of head-ache, begged of me to excuse him to you, and
tottered off. But in his place some one else has come again--Mr.
Christopher Friend, splendidly tricked out, and dressed in sky-blue
velvet, waits below in the green-house, and begs for a morning
audience."
"So early?" asked Bona, surprised. "What can he want?"
"He inquired of me so circumstantially about your fortune," replied the
gardener, "and looked withal so smart and gay, and made such little
twinkling eyes, that I think in a short time you may expect proposals
of marriage."
Bona smiled scornfully. After a brief consideration she replied--"He
does indeed mistake, but he comes in good time. Beg of him to excuse me
till I am dressed."
"Number three, in so short a period!" said the gardener smirking. "If
this goes on, you'll soon draw after you the core of the Schweidnitz
male population, as Punch does the children with his trumpet."
"Think you so?" rejoined Bona, with self-satisfaction.
"And yet," continued the old man, "you don't altogether understand it.
You entice the birds in a masterly way, but you forget to pluck them,
which yet is the principal part of the business. With the exception of
the easy fool of a Spaniard, your love-affairs have brought you in
marvellously little. The handsome pagan courtesans of the old time were
much wiser. Though you may not exactly wish to build pyramids of the
oblations of your adorers, yet a comfortable house for a refuge to your
old age is in truth not to be despised."
"I hope never to be old to need it," said Bona hastily.
"But don't reckon without your host," rejoined the gardener. "The
quantum of wealth from the new world, left you by Don Alonzo, has
melted away confoundedly in the old world, as must naturally be the
case with your passion for appearing as a rich heiress. If this is to
last long, you will be forced to sell the rich jewels with which you
blind the eyes of people. What then is to become of you if you do not
betimes think of some new acquisition?"
"He who follows _much_ at once," replied Bona, "attains _nothing_. I
follow _one_ object only, but that one I follow so stedfastly, with
such inflexible purpose, that I _must_ gain it, and when I have gained
it, I need nothing more in this world."
"And this _one_?" asked the gardener with sly importunity.
"I pay you as my servant, not as my confessor," replied Bona with angry
pride, and pointed to the door.
"Good troth, a princess has been spoiled in you," muttered the old man;
"but there is no helping one who will not be advised."
So saying he went. Bona laid her hand upon her forehead, and looked
down gloomily in earnest meditation.
"The poison of Althea's refusal is still rankling in this Christopher,"
she said, after a long pause, "and the brothers are not friends. If the
one were to perish through the other, that might at last reach the
stony heart of Erasmus, and, conquered or conquer, still my victims
would fall. The vindictive spirit of his adversaries is my pledge for
that. Francis, think of your reckoning on the other side. The avenger
of blood is already breathing within these walls."
She went up to a great mirror between the windows to arrange her hair.
The sun, veiled in mist, cast a red light through the panes, and shone
in wondrous way upon the fair and angry features, so that they seemed
to glow with an inward fire. At the first look in the glass Bona
started back in horror.
"Are the old tales of my childhood coming back upon me?" she exclaimed
with fixed gaze. "It was, indeed, as if an evil spirit grinned at me
from the mirror."
But by degrees she came to her recollection, and began to chide her
folly with a laugh, though her lips were still quivering--"Fool, it was
yourself. Revenge never beautifies a female face; that I might have
well known."
And with firm step the strong-minded woman went up again to the glass,
and looked in it defyingly, as if to challenge forth the monster that
was hid behind its crystal. Although her hands trembled in arranging
her locks, she yet accomplished the task with her eyes stedfastly fixed
upon the mirror.
"Now, then," she cried with a horrid laugh, "I am armed. Hold
yourselves in readiness, my beloved! The Norna is sitting at her task,
and with sharp-edged swords weaves the bloody web of the decisive
combat. Up! to complete the work!"
She turned hastily to the door, which even then opened. Christopher
Friend, whose tender impatience would not suffer him to remain any
longer below, walked in, and with a sweet smile the beautiful fury
stepped forward to meet him.
* * * * *
In Althea's rooms at Tausdorf, silent and anxious, expecting the return
of his intended bride. Meantime, at a little table, sat Henry, looking
over a large volume of copper-plates, which, according to its title,
depicted "The strange Forms of the Metamorphoses of the ingenious
heathen Poet, Ovid."
"The insupportable Latin!" cried the boy, stamping with his feet; and
then jumping up to Tausdorf with the folio, he said, "Pray, now, help
me out of this difficulty. The stupid pictures are so singular that it
makes one quite curious to learn what they mean; and when one looks
after the explanation, the fool of an engraver has written Latin
underneath."
"Do not find fault with the engraver," said Tausdorf; "he with justice
believed that such pictures were not fit for a boy who does not yet
understand Latin."
"But you told us lately that you understood it a little," persevered
the boy, "so translate me the subscription. I should like to know what
the mad picture means. Only look, now, there stands a stately knight in
a circle of dead men's bones and strange signs, holding a goblet in his
hand, and a beautiful woman touches him with a wand, and a mist spreads
over the country, and the knight has already got a horrid snout, as if
he were just being changed into an abominable beast, and below is
written:
"In turpes abiere feras quicunque biberunt
Dulcia Circaea pocula mixtu manu."
"Pray, now, tell me what it means?"
And Tausdorf, confused, translated it: "All were turned into vile brutes
who drank of the sweet cup that was mixed by the hand of Circe."
"Now I am as wise as before," rejoined the boy. "Who was this Circe?
She is right handsome here in the picture; but then she looks at the
poor knights with such hateful eyes that I can't bear her."
"She was a wicked enchantress of the old heathen time," said Tausdorf.
"To all voyagers who visited her island, she offered a rich draught,
and when they drank of it, she touched them with her magic rod, and
they became beasts."
"But why did the foolish people drink of it?"
"They knew not the evil consequences," replied Tausdorf, leaning his
heavy head in his hand, "or they had not done so."
"Ah! they should have been more on their guard with strange cunning
women," rejoined Henry. "You certainly would not have drank of it, Herr
Tausdorf!"
"Who knows, my child?" said Tausdorf, the innocent remark going to his
heart: "Perhaps I might."
"Wicked witch!" cried the boy, and threatened the picture with his
fist. "But did she not at last find her master?"
"Oh yes," said Tausdorf, turning over the leaf. "On this Ulysses was
depicted, holding his sword to the breast of the enchantress, without
fear of her powerful wand, or of the devil-masks that surrounded him,
grinning and menacing."
"Heaven be praised!" cried Henry; "there's a German subscription again.
He read,
"Ulysses compels her to disenchant his companions."
"That's right!" he cried--"who was Ulysses?"
"A Greek hero," replied Tausdorf. "The heathen god, Mercury, had
supplied him with a herb, called _moy_, that protected him against the
enchantment."
"Or he too had been metamorphosed?" asked Henry with vexation.
"No doubt," replied the knight mournfully. "He, whom God does not
uphold in the hour of temptation, falls, and falls deeply."
"But it is not all really true?" added the boy, after some reflection.
"There is a good wholesome truth in the story," returned Tausdorf;
"only the painter has veiled it in images. The beautiful, wicked Circe
is intended to prefigure the human passions, the impulse of the senses.
Whoever empties her cup, she robs him of reason, and makes him like the
beasts in the wood. Recollect, Henry, how you were wrath, not long ago,
with your play-fellow for some trifle, and screamed, and struck about
you, and would not be satisfied,--then you had become a little wild
beast in your anger."
"I will not do so again," said Henry, ashamed and kissed the knight's
hand.
"But what is the meaning of the herb moly, which protected the great
hero from this enchantress?"
"It is religion," replied Tausdorf, embracing the boy in deep emotion.
"If in every purpose you remember that God looks on; if you ask
yourself whether it would be acceptable to him; and if in the slightest
doubt of this you abandon it, then you have got the right talisman
against sin."
"I will be truly good, Herr Tausdorf; I will, indeed," said the boy,
and gently rested his auburn head against the knight's breast, when the
sound of horses' feet was heard before the window.
"That is my mother!" he shouted, wiping away his tears, and running out
of the room. Tausdorf started from his seat--"Air! the child has made
me warm with his questions. It is hard to teach good to others, when
one has to accuse one's self of evil. Oh Circe! Circe!"
Again he looked at the picture of Ulysses.
"With armed hand the hero broke the mighty spell which held his
companions prisoners. He did his duty. Have I too done mine? I have
redeemed myself from the magic circle, but is that enough? Should I not
have taken the power of evil from this woman, who seems to have come
here to weave the meshes for some net of mischief, heaven only knows
what? If I did not choose to denounce the creature, should I not at
least have called the attention of the council to her, that no one
might come to harm? Yet no. In what she has done she has only wronged
myself. The ill that my denunciation might cause her would be revenge,
and that does not become a man towards frail woman. Let her do as she
pleases, we are all in God's hand."
"My dear friend!" exclaimed Althea, who then entered, and immediately
let go of Henry's hand to fly into the arms of her intended husband.
The old Schindel followed. Tausdorf hastened to welcome him with the
knightly pledge, that he might not have at once to meet the look of his
bride, towards whom he knew his heart was not perfectly at ease.
"Are you quite recovered?" asked Althea affectionately; "you look pale,
as if you had slept but little last night."
This innocent appeal to the past night covered poor Tausdorf with a
burning blush, which, as an estimable rarity in a man of his age, gave
a double charm to his features. He turned away, however, to hide the
treacherous colour, and Schindel addressed his niece:
"Will it please you, niece, to give me an answer? The poor fool waits
below in the corner of the street, and stays for permission to come
up."
"You love to torment people, uncle. I have a deadly aversion to this
family, and of all of them, the avaricious, spiteful Christopher is the
most abhorrent to me."
"Shame! shame, niece! What good Christian would recollect an injury so
long? Know you not from the Scriptures, that you are to forgive your
brother seventy times, and again seven times seventy?"