The Spanish nature is contagious, thought Hans Eitelfritz, tossing on
his couch in Ulrich’s tent. What a queer fellow the gay young lad has
become! Sighs are cheap with him, and every word costs a ducat. He is
worthy all honor as a soldier. If they make him Eletto, it will be worth
while to join the free army.
Ulrich had briefly told the lansquenet, how he had obtained the name
of Navarrete and how he had come from Madrid and Lepanto to the
Netherlands. Then he went to rest, but he could not sleep.
He had found his mother again. He now possessed the best gift Ruth
had asked him to beseech of the “word.” The soldier’s sweetheart, the
faithless wife, the companion of his rival, whom only yesterday he had
avoided, the fortune-teller, the camp-sibyl, was the woman who had given
him birth. He, who thought he had preserved his honor stainless, whose
hand grasped the sword if another looked askance at him, was the child
of one, at whom every respectable woman had the right to point her
finger. All these thoughts darted through his brain; but strangely
enough, they melted like morning mists when the sun rises, before the
feeling of joy that he had his mother again.
Her image did not rise before his memory in Zorrillo’s tent, but framed
by balsams and wall-flowers. His vivid imagination made her twenty years
younger, and how beautiful she still was, how winningly she could glance
and smile. Every appreciative word, all the praises of the sibyl’s
beauty, good sense and kindness, which he had heard in the camp, came
back freshly to his mind, and he would fain have started up to throw
himself on her bosom, call her his mother, hear her give him all the
sweet, pet names, which sounded so tender from her lips, and feel
the caress of her soft hands. How rich the solitary man felt, how
surpassingly rich! He had been entirely alone, deserted even by his
mother! Now he was so no longer, and pleasant dreams blended with his
ambitious plans, like golden threads in dark cloth.
When power was once his, he would build her a beautiful, cosy nest with
his share of the booty. She must leave Zorrillo, leave him to-morrow.
The little nest should belong to her and him alone, entirely alone, and
when his soul longed for peace, love, and quiet, he would rest there
with her, recall with her the days of his childhood, cherish and care
for her, make her forget all her sins and sufferings, and enjoy to the
full the happiness of having her again, calling a loving mother’s heart
his own.
At every breath he drew he felt freer and gayer. Suddenly there was a
rustling at the tent-door. He seized his two-handed sword, but did not
raise it, for a beloved voice he recognized, called softly: “Ulrich,
Ulrich, it is I!”
He started up, hastily threw on his doublet, rushed towards her, clasped
her in his arms, and let her stroke his curls, kiss his cheeks and eyes,
as in the old happy days. Then he drew her into the tent, whispering
“Softly, softly, the snorer yonder is the German.”
She followed him, leaned against him, and raised his hand to her lips;
he felt them grow wet with tears. They had not yet said anything to each
other, except how happy, how glad, how thankful they were to have each
other again; then a sentinel passed, and she started up, exclaiming
anxiously: “So late, so late; Zorrillo will be waiting!”
“Zorrillo!” cried Ulrich scornfully, “you have been a long time with
him. If they give me the power....”
“They will choose you, child, they shall choose you,” she hastily
interrupted. “Oh, God! oh, God! perhaps this will bring you misfortune
instead of blessing; but you desire it! Count Mannsfeld is coming
tomorrow; Zorrillo knows it. He will bring a pardon for all; promotions
too, but no money yet.”
“Oh, ho!” cried Ulrich, “that may decide the matter.”
“Perhaps so, you deserve to command them. You were born for some special
purpose, and your card always turns up so strangely. Eletto! It sounds
proud and grand, but many have been ruined by it....”
“Because power was too hard for them.”
“It must serve you. You are strong. A child of good fortune. Folly! I
will not fear. You have probably fared well in life. Ah, my lamb, I have
done little for you, but one thing I did unceasingly: I prayed for you,
poor boy, morning and night; have you noticed, have you felt it?”
He drew her to his heart again, but she released herself from his
embrace, saying: “To-morrow, Ulrich; Zorrillo....”
“Zorrillo, always Zorrillo,” he repeated, his blood boiling angrily.
“You are mine and, if you love me, you will leave him.”
“I cannot, Ulrich, it will not do. He is kind, you will yet be friends.”
“We, we? On the day of judgment, nay, not even then! Are you more firmly
bound to yon smooth fellow, than to my honest father? There stands
something in the darkness, it is good steel, and if needful will cut the
tie asunder.”
“Ulrich, Ulrich!” wailed Flora, raising her hands beseechingly. “Not
that, not that; it must not be. He is kind and sensible, and loves me
fondly. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Ulrich! The mother has glided to her son at
night, as if she were following forbidden paths. Oh, this is indeed a
punishment. I know how heavily I have sinned, I deserve whatever may
befall me; but you, you must not make me more wretched, than I already
am. Your father, he... if he were still alive, for your sake I would
crawl to him on my knees, and say: ‘Here I am, forgive me’--but he is
dead. Pasquale, Zorrillo lives; do not think me a vain, deluded woman;
Zorrillo cannot bear to have me leave him....”
“And my father? He bore it. But do you know how? Shall I describe his
life to you?”
“No, no! Oh, child, how you torture me! I know how I sinned against your
father, the thought does not cease to torture me, for he truly loved me,
and I loved him, too, loved him tenderly. But I cannot keep quiet a
long time, and cast down my eyes, like the women there, it is not in
my blood; and Adam shut me up in a cage and for many years let me see
nothing except himself, and the cold, stupid city in the ravine by the
forest. One day a fierce longing came upon me, I could not help going
forth--forth into the wide world, no matter with whom or whither. The
soldier only needed to hint and I fell.--I did not stay with him long,
he was a windy braggart; but I was faithful to Captain Grandgagnage and
accompanied the wild fellow with the Walloons through every land, until
he was shot. Then ten years ago, I joined Zorrillo; he is my friend,
he shares my feelings, I am necessary to his existence. Do not laugh,
Ulrich; I well know that youth lies behind me, that I am old, yet
Pasquale loves me; since I have had him, I have been more content and,
Holy Virgin! now--I love him in return. Oh, Heaven! Oh, Heaven! Why is
it so? This heart, this miserable heart, still throbs as fast as it did
twenty years ago.”
“You will not leave him?”
“No, no, I love him, and I know why. Every one calls him a brave man,
yet they only half know him; no one knows him wholly as I do. No one
else is so good, so generous. You must let me speak! Do you suppose I
ever forgot you? Never, never! But you have always been to me the dear
little boy; I never thought of you as a man, and since I could not have
you and longed so greatly for you, for a child, I opened my heart to
the soldiers’ orphans, the little creature you saw in the tent is one of
these poor things, I have often had two or three such babies at the same
time. It would have been an abomination to Grandgagnage, but Zorrillo
rejoices in my love for children, and I have given what the Walloon
bequeathed me and his own booty to the soldiers’ widows and the little
naked babies in the camp. He was satisfied, for whatever I do pleases
him. I will not, cannot leave him!”
She paused, hiding her face in her hands, but Ulrich paced to and fro,
violently agitated. At last he said firmly: “Yet you must part from him.
He or I! I will have nothing to do with the lover of my father’s wife.
I am Adam’s son, and will be constant to him. Ah, mother, I have been
deprived of you so long. You can tend strangers’ orphaned children, yet
you make your own son an orphan. Will you do this? No, a thousand times,
no, you cannot! Do not weep so, you must not weep! Hear me, hear me! For
my sake, leave this Spaniard! You will not repent it. I have just been
dreaming of the nest I will build for you. There I will cherish and care
for you, and you shall keep as many orphan children as you choose.
Leave him, mother, you must leave him for the sake of your child, your
Ulrich!”
“Oh, God! oh, God!” she sobbed. “I will try, yes, I will try.... My
child, my dear child!”
Ulrich clasped her closely in his arms, kissed her hair, and said,
softly: “I know, I know, you need love, and you shall find it with me.”
“With you!” she repeated, sobbing. Then releasing herself from his
embrace she hurried to the feverish woman, at whose summons she had left
her tent.
As morning dawned, she returned home and found Zorrillo still awake.
He enquired about her patient, and told her he had given the child
something to drink while she was away.
Flora could not help weeping bitterly again, and Zorrillo, noticing it,
exclaimed chidingly: “Each has his own griefs to bear, it is not wise to
take strangers’ troubles so deeply to heart.”
“Strangers’ troubles,” she repeated, mournfully, and went to rest.
White-haired woman, why have you remained so young? All the cares and
sorrows of youth and age are torturing you at the same time! One love
is fighting a mortal battle with another in your breast. Which will
conquer?
She knows, she knew it ere she entered the tent. The mother fled from
the child, but she cannot abandon her new-found son. Oh, maternal love,
thou dost hover in radiant bliss far above the clouds, and amid choirs
of angels! Oh, maternal heart, thou dost bleed pierced with swords, more
full of sorrows than any other!
Poor, poor Florette! On this July morning she was enduring superhuman
tortures, all the sins she had committed arrayed themselves against her,
shrieking into her ear that she was a lost woman, and there could be no
pardon for her either in this world or the next. Yet!--the clouds drift
by, birds of passage migrate, the musician wanders singing from land
to land, finds love, and remorselessly strips off light fetters to seek
others. His child imitates the father, who had followed the example
of his, the same thing occurring back to their remotest ancestors!
But eternal justice? Will it measure the fluttering leaf by the same
standard as the firmly-rooted plant?
When Zorrillo saw Flora by the daylight, he said, kindly: “You have been
weeping?”
“Yes,” she answered, fixing her eyes on the ground. He thought she was
anxious, as on a former occasion, lest his election to the office of
Eletto might prove his ruin, so he drew her towards him, exclaiming
“Have no fear, Bonita. If they choose me, and Mannsfeld comes, as he
promised, the play will end this very day. I hope, even at the twelfth
hour, they will listen to reason, and allow themselves to be guided into
the right course. If they make the young madcap Eletto--his head will be
at stake, not mine. Are you ill? How you look, child! Surely, surely you
must be suffering; you shall not go out at night to nurse sick people
again!”
The words came from an anxious heart, and sounded warm and gentle.
They penetrated Florette’s inmost soul, and overwhelmed with passionate
emotion she clasped his hands, kissed them, and exclaimed, softly
“Thanks, thanks, Pasquale, for your love, for all. I will never, never
forget it, whatever happens! Go, go; the drum is beating again.”
Zorrillo fancied she was uttering mere feverish ravings, and begged her
to calm herself; then he left the tent, and went to the place where the
election was to be held.
As soon as Flora was alone, she threw herself on her knees before the
Madonna’s picture, but knew not whether it would be right to pray that
her son might obtain an office, which had proved the ruin of so many;
and when she besought the Virgin to give her strength to leave her
lover, it seemed to her like treason to Pasquale.
Her thoughts grew confused, and she could not pray. Her mobile mind
wandered swiftly from lofty to petty things; she seized the cards to see
whether fate would unite her to Zorrillo or to Ulrich, and the red ten,
which represented herself, lay close beside the green knave, Pasquale.
She angrily threw them down, determined, in spite of the oracle, to
follow her son.
Meantime in the camp drums beat, fifes screamed shrilly, trumpets
blared, and the shouts and voices of the assembled soldiers sounded like
the distant roar of the surf.
A fresh burst of military music rang out, and now Florette started to
her feet and listened. It seemed as if she heard Ulrich’s voice, and the
rapid throbbing of her heart almost stopped her breath. She must go out,
she must see and hear what was passing. Hastily pushing the white hair
back from her brow, she threw a veil over it, and hurried through the
camp to the spot where the election was taking place.
The soldiers all knew her and made way for her. The leaders of the
mutineers were standing on the wall of earth between the field-pieces,
and amid the foremost rank, nay, in front of them all, her son was
addressing the crowd.
The choice wavered between him and Zorrillo. Ulrich had already been
speaking a long time. His cheeks were glowing and he looked so handsome,
so noble, in his golden helmet, from beneath which floated his thick,
fair locks, that her heart swelled with joy, and as the night
grows brighter when the black clouds are torn asunder and the moon
victoriously appears, grief and pain were suddenly irradiated by
maternal love and pride.
Now he drew his tall figure up still higher, exclaiming: “Others are
readier and bolder with the tongue than I, but I can speak with the
sword as well as any one.”
Then raising the heavy two-handed sword, which others laboriously
managed with both hands, he swung it around his head, using only his
right hand, in swift circles, until it fairly whistled through the air.
The soldiers shouted exultingly as they beheld the feat, and when he had
lowered the weapon and silence was restored, he continued, defiantly,
while his breath came quick and short: “And where do the talkers, the
parleyers seek to lead us? To cringe like dogs, who lick their masters’
feet, before the men who cheat us. Count Mannsfeld will come to-day; I
know it, and I have also learned that he will bring everything except
what is our due, what we need, what we intend to demand, what we require
for our bare feet, our ragged bodies; money, money he has not to offer!
This is so, I swear it; if not, stand forth, you parleyers, and give
me the lie! Have you inclination or courage to give the lie to
Navarrete?--You are silent!--But we will speak! We will not suffer
ourselves to be mocked and put off! What we demand is fair pay for good
work. Whoever has patience, can wait. Mine is exhausted.
“We are His Majesty’s obedient servants and wish to remain so. As soon
as he keeps his bargain, he can rely upon us; but when he breaks it, we
are bound to no one but ourselves, and Santiago! we are not the weaker
party. We need money, and if His Majesty lacks ducats, a city where we
can find what we want. Money or a city, a city or money! The demand
is just, and if you elect me, I will stand by it, and not shrink if
it rouses murmuring behind me or against me. Whoever has a brave heart
under his armor, let him follow me; whoever wishes to creep after
Zorrillo, can do so. Elect me, friends, and I will get you more than we
need, with honor and fame to boot. Saint Jacob and the Madonna will aid
us. Long live the king!”
“Long live the king! Long live Navarrete! Navarrete! Hurrah for
Navarrete!” echoed loudly, impetuously from a thousand bearded lips.
Zorrillo had no opportunity to speak again. The election was made.
Ulrich was chosen Eletto.
As if on wings, he went from man to man, shaking hands with his
comrades. Power, power, the highest prize on earth, was attained, was
his! The whole throng, soldiers, tyros, women, girls and children,
crowded around him, shouting his name; whoever wore a hat or cap, tossed
it in the air, whoever had a kerchief, waved it. Drums beat, trumpets
sounded, and the gunner ordered all the field-pieces to be discharged,
for the choice pleased him.
Ulrich stood, as if intoxicated, amid the shouts, shrieks of joy,
military music, and thunder of the cannon. He raised his helmet, waved
salutations to the crowd, and strove to speak, but the uproar drowned
his words.
After the election Florette slipped quietly away; first to the empty
tent then to the sick woman who needed her care.
The Eletto had no time to think of his mother; for scarcely had he given
a solemn oath of loyalty to his comrades and received theirs, when Count
Mannsfeld appeared.
The general was received with every honor. He knew Navarrete, and the
latter entered into negotiations with the manly dignity natural to
him; but the count really had nothing but promises to offer, and the
insurgents would not give up their demand: “Money or a city!”
The nobleman reminded them of their oath of allegiance, made lavish
use of kind words, threats and warnings, but the Eletto remained firm.
Mannsfeld perceived that he had come in vain; the only concession he
could obtain from Navarrete was, that some prudent man among the leaders
should accompany him to Brussels, to explain the condition of the
regiments to the council of state there, and receive fresh proposals.
Then the count suggested that Zorrillo should be entrusted with the
mission, and the Eletto ordered the quartermaster to prepare for
departure at once. An hour after the general left the camp with Flora’s
lover in his train.