He walked home through the park. The feeble glimmer of the mill-lights
which accompanied him for a few steps of the way vanished behind him,
and he went on alone in the black darkness. It was not the keen breeze
sweeping by him, nor the few snow-flakes touching his cheek like some
fluttering bird of night, but the memory of the last few hours, and his
excited fancy, that made him shiver as if with bitter cold. That very
afternoon he had left his well-furnished table, and along this path,
where now the pebbles beneath his tread grated discordantly, he had
walked, secure, as he thought, in the protection of his lucky star; and
now, after so short a time, it would almost seem as if he, Councillor
Roemer, whose sensitive nerves would not allow him to witness the
suffering even of a brute, had been partly guilty of the death of a
fellow-creature. Surely the gods, impatient of a mortal lot without a
thorn, had envied him, and had thus burdened his conscience that there
might be some infusion of gall in the clear stream of his
prosperity,--and all for nothing. He could be reproached with nothing
but silence; and whom could his silence injure? No one,--no one in the
wide world! Basta! no more of this. He turned into the broad linden
avenue that led directly to the villa. A brilliant stream of light was
issuing from the windows and glass doors of the lower suite of rooms. A
life of luxury and enjoyment reached out white, rounded arms to him from
those rooms, beckoning him away from the dark night and all his anxiety.
He breathed more freely, threw off the evil influence of the last hours,
and let it vanish with the sound of the mill-stream that was dying away
in the distance.
There, around the Frau President Urach's tea-table and card-tables a
numerous evening company was assembled. The large, low panes of glass,
and the bronze tracery of the balustrade of the balcony outside,
permitted an excellent view from without of the interior. The bright
pictures on the walls, the heavy portieres of violet velvet, the
chandeliers of gilded bronze with their gas-lights shining through
pearly glass shades, stood out in relief against the surrounding
blackness of the winter night like a scene upon some fairy stage. A
sudden gust of wind swept down the avenue, tossing snowflakes and dry
linden-leaves madly against the balcony, but the hurly-burly had no
effect upon the dignified repose reigning within: there was not even a
motion of the airy lace curtains; the fire alone flickering upon the
marble hearth might blaze more brightly for an instant when breathed
upon by the blast down the chimney.
The man outside looked in with a sensation of trembling delight upon the
group assembled there. Not that he saw there fair and dark curls,
slender women and girls to enchant his eye. No; the fairy heralds of
spring painted on the ceiling extended their rosy flower-filled palms
above matronly caps, gray hair, and bald heads; but then the names of
their owners!--officers of high rank, pensioned maids of honour, and
members of the ministry sat at the card-tables, or, leaning back in the
velvet lounging-chairs, chatted by the warm fireside. The arrogant old
councillor of medicine, Von Baer, was there too. As he dealt the cards,
sparks of light flashed from the jewels upon his hands,--all gifts from
loyal personages. And these people were in his house, Councillor
Roemer's house; the ruby wine sparkling in the goblets was from his
cellar, and the fresh, fragrant strawberries which liveried footmen were
handing about in crystal saucers had been bought with his money. Frau
President Urach was his deceased wife's grandmother, and did the honours
in the house of the widower, with unlimited command of his means.
The councillor walked around to the western side of the house. Here
only two windows on the ground-floor were illuminated; a hanging lamp
between the crimson curtains of one of them gleamed out into the
darkness, bathing in rosy light the white limbs of a marble nymph by a
fountain in the grove. Herr Roemer shook his head as he entered; then,
giving his overcoat to a servant, he opened the door of the
red-curtained apartment. The room was all red,--hangings, furniture,
even the carpet was of the same dark crimson hue. Beneath the hanging
lamp stood a writing-table of peculiar Chinese form, with golden
arabesques covering its fine black lacquer; it was made for use in the
fullest sense of the word; open books, sheets of writing-paper, and
newspapers were scattered over it, with a manuscript, across which a
pencil was lying, beside a small silver salver holding a goblet half
full of a strong, dark-red wine. It was a room where flowers would not
have flourished nor birds have sung. In each of the four corners stood
a black marble pedestal, each supporting a bust of the same material,
which brought into harsh relief the features it portrayed; book-shelves
lined the long wall, harmonizing in colour and decoration with the
writing-table, and containing finely-bound modern books as well as
parchment-covered folios, and piles of pamphlets. It almost seemed as
if the deep uniform crimson of the hangings and carpet had been chosen
as the only fitting frame for the severe style in which the room was
furnished.
As the councillor entered, a lady who had evidently been walking to and
fro stood still. One might have thought that she too had just come in
covered with snow from the flurry without, so dazzlingly white did she
look upon the crimson carpet. It would have been difficult to say
whether the soft folds of her long cashmere robe were draped so loosely
about her waist and hips for the sake of convenience, or whether this
strange and becoming toilette were the result of careful study;
certainly the figure that stood out upon the crimson background was
noble in outline, and as purely white as an Iphigenia. The lady was
very beautiful, although no longer freshly young. She had a fine Roman
profile, and a delicate, supple frame, but her light hair was wanting in
thickness; it was cut short, and, smoothed away from the brow, curled in
soft, flimsy curls about the head and neck. She was Flora Mangold, a
sister-in-law of Councillor Roemer, the twin-sister of his deceased
wife. Her arms were lightly folded across her bosom, and she greeted
her brother-in-law with evident eagerness.
"Well, Flora, have you left the drawing-room?" he asked.
"Do you suppose I could stay beside grandmamma's tea-table, in the midst
of stockings and swaddling-clothes for poor children, and all that old
woman's gossip?" she replied, in a tone of irritation.
"But there are gentlemen there, too, Floss----"
"Greater gossips than the rest, in spite of their orders and
epaulettes!"
He laughed. "You are out of humour, ma chere," he said, sinking into an
arm-chair.
She threw back her head and pressed her folded hands to her breast.
"Moritz," she said, breathing hard, as if after a momentary struggle
with herself, "tell me the truth; did the castle miller die beneath
Bruck's knife?"
He started. "What an idea! No misfortune can be so black but that you
women----"
"I pray you make me an exception there, Moritz," she interrupted him,
haughtily.
"Well, with all due respect for your talent and remarkable powers of
mind, are you in fact any better than the rest?" He got up and paced
the room in great annoyance; this new view of the matter was startling
indeed. "Beneath Bruck's knife!" he repeated, in an agitated voice. "I
tell you the operation was performed before two o'clock, and the man
died scarcely two hours ago. Besides, I cannot imagine how you if all
others can venture to give utterance to such a thought so curtly and
coldly,--I might almost say, so pitilessly."
"I of all others," she said, with emphasis, as she pressed the carpet
with her foot; "I of all others, because I cannot endure to keep
anything hidden in the depths of my soul. I am too proud, too
unbending, to share and conceal the knowledge of wrong done by another,
let that other be whom he will. Do not think that I do not suffer! It
cuts me to the heart like a knife. But you have used the word
'pitilessly'; you could not better have confirmed my suspicions. Pity
for bungling in science is absurd, impossible; and you as well as I are
perfectly aware that Bruck's reputation as a physician has already
suffered from his entire failure in the case of Countess Wallendorf."
"Oh, of course nothing could induce that worthy lady to moderate her
appetite for pate de foie gras and champagne."
"That is what Bruck says; her relatives tell another story." She pressed
her palms upon her temples, as if her head ached violently. "Do you
know, Moritz, when the news of the miller's death arrived, I went out of
the house and ran hither and thither like one insane? Old Sommer was
well known to high and low: everybody was interested in the success of
the operation. Even if, as you say, he did not die immediately beneath
Bruck's knife, every one of medical knowledge will maintain, and justly,
that the further struggle with death was due to his strong constitution.
Can you, who have no medical knowledge, be better informed? Rather do
not deny that you are impressed with the same conviction! You have no
idea how pale you are with agitation."
At this moment a side-door opened, and Frau President Urach appeared
upon the threshold. In spite of her seventy years, she entered with an
elastic step; in spite of her seventy years, she looked a wonderfully
youthful grandmamma. She was not apparelled in the dress of old age; a
fichu of white lace was crossed upon her breast and knotted behind at
the waist. The overskirt of her pearl-gray silk gown was richly
trimmed. Her gray hair, still streaked here and there with its original
hue of shining gold, was puffed thickly above her brow, and above these
puffs she wore a veil-like scarf of white tulle, the long ends of which
concealed the throat and the neck just below the chin, where age so
surely sets its seal.
She was not alone. At her side there entered a creature most strange in
appearance, evidently stunted in growth, not ill proportioned in figure,
but extremely small, and very thin. This insignificant body was crowned
by the strongly-developed head of a young lady of perhaps twenty-four
years of age. The three women now in the room had a strong family
resemblance in their features; the close relationship between
grandmother and grandchildren was evident, but the noble, regular
profile of the youngest of the three was too long for perfect beauty,
and the chin was too broad and decisively prominent. She had a sickly
complexion, and her lips were bluish in hue. In her fair hair was
twisted a flame-coloured velvet ribbon, and she was in very elegant full
dress, save that by her side, where other ladies wear a chatelaine, she
carried a small oval osier basket lined with little cushions of blue
satin, among which sat a canary-bird.
"No, Henriette!" cried Flora, impatiently, as the little bird left his
nest and flew about her head, "that I will not have. You must leave
your menagerie outside."
"Pray now, Flora,--Jack has neither elephants' feet nor horns on his
head; he cannot harm you," the little lady replied, indifferently.
"Come, Jacky, come!" she called; and the bird, after flying around the
ceiling, dutifully came and perched upon the forefinger she held out for
him.
Flora turned away with a shrug. "I cannot understand you or your
guests, grandmamma," she said, sharply. "How can you tolerate
Henriette's childish nonsense? Before long she will set up her
pigeon-cote and daws'-nests in your drawing-room."
"And why not, Flora?" laughed the little lady, showing a row of small,
sharp teeth. "They all tolerate you, going about everywhere with a pen
behind your ear, your pockets crammed with bookish stuff, and----"
"Henriette!" the Frau President sternly interrupted her. In her bearing
there was great dignity, and as she graciously gave her hand in greeting
to the councillor, an unmistakable air of condescension mingled with the
kindliness of her manner.
"I have just heard of your return, my dear Moritz; must we wait any
longer for you?" she asked, in a gentle voice that was still musical.
Ten minutes previously he had come home, resolved to don his evening
dress immediately. Now he replied, with hesitation, "Dearest
grandmamma, I must beg you to excuse me this evening. The event at the
mill----"
"True, it is very sad; but how can it affect us? I really cannot see
how to excuse you to my friends."
"They can hardly be so dull of comprehension, those worthy people, as
not to understand that Kitty's grand-papa has died?" Henriette remarked,
looking back over her shoulder from where she was standing in front of
the book-shelves, apparently reading assiduously the titles of the
books.
"Henriette, I pray you spare me your pert observations," the Frau
President said. "You can, if you choose, tone down your flame-coloured
head-dress, for Kitty is your step-sister; but with regard to Moritz and
myself, the connection is so slight that we need take no conventional
notice of the death, deplore it as we may. And, for Bruck's sake, the
less said about it the better."
"Good heavens, are you all determined to be so unjust to the doctor?"
cried the councillor, in despair. "No blame--not the smallest--can be
attached to him; he brought all his skill, all his scientific knowledge,
to bear----"
"My dear Moritz, you should hear what my old friend Doctor von Baer has
to say upon that point," the Frau President said, in interruption,
lightly tapping him upon the shoulder and making a significant motion of
her head towards Flora, who had gone to her writing-table.
"Oh, do not mind me, grandmamma! Do you think me so blind and deaf as
not to know what Baer's opinion is?" the beautiful girl exclaimed, with
bitterness. "Bruck has, besides, condemned himself: he has not ventured
to come near me this evening."
Hitherto Henriette had been standing with her back towards the rest.
Now she turned round; a burning blush suddenly coloured her sallow cheek
and as quickly faded. Her eyes were wonderfully fine, revealing depths
of passionate feeling. They glowed like stars as she turned them, with a
mixture of shy terror and positive hatred, upon her sister's
countenance.
"Your last accusation he will refute in person; he will shortly be here,
Flora," said the councillor, evidently relieved. "He will tell you
himself that he has been driven hard indeed, to-day. You know how many
patients he has seriously ill in town,--among them the poor little Lenz
girl, who cannot live until morning."
The lady laughed a low, bitter laugh. "Is she going to die? Really,
Moritz? Well, Baer, too, came here to me before going to grandmamma; he
spoke of the child, whom he saw yesterday, and thought not very ill; he
feared, however, that Bruck was upon a false track. Baer is an
authority----"
"Yes, an authority filled with envy," said Henriette, in a clear,
ringing voice. She had hastily approached, and laid her hand upon her
brother-in-law's arm. "Give up trying to convince Flora, Moritz. You
must see that she is determined to find her lover guilty."
"Determined? 'Tis false! I would give half that I possess to regard
Bruck as I did in the beginning of our engagement,--with the same proud
trust and confidence," Flora exclaimed, passionately. "But since the
death of the Countess Wallendorf I have been a silent prey to doubt and
mistrust; now I doubt no more: I am convinced. I know nothing, it is
true, of that feminine weakness that loves without ever asking, 'Is he
whom I love worthy my devotion?' I am ambitious, wildly ambitious; I
care not who knows it. Without that mainspring I too might saunter along
the broad highway of the commonplace like the weak and indolent of my
sex. God forbid such a fate for me! How an aspiring and intellectual
woman can pass her life quietly and composedly, linked to an
insignificant husband, has always been incomprehensible to me; I should
writhe beneath the shame of such a position."
"Oh, indeed! would it so shame you? Well, well, I suppose it would
require more courage than is needed to hold forth to a roomful of
students upon aesthetics and what not," Henriette said, with a smile
full of malice.
Flora cast a contemptuous glance at her sister. "Hiss, little viper, if
you will. What can you know of my ideal?" she said, with a shrug. "But
you are right in thinking I should be more at home in the lecture-room
than by the side of a man who has stamped himself a bungler in his
profession; I could not endure such chains."
"That is your affair, my child," the Frau President coolly remarked,
while the councillor looked up in dismay. "You must remember that no
one forced you to fetter yourself thus."
"I know that perfectly well, grandmamma; I know, too, that you would
greatly have preferred that I should become the wife of the Chamberlain
von Stetten, physical and financial bankrupt though he be. I grant you,
also, that I refuse to allow myself to be influenced or led by others,
since I know best what best beseems me.
"There, too, you are your own mistress," her grandmother rejoined, with
frigid dignity; "only remember one thing,--you will find in me a
determined opponent to anything like a public scandal. You surely know
me well enough to be aware that I would far rather endure great personal
annoyance than give any occasion for gossip. I reside here with you,
and take upon myself the duties of mistress of the house with pleasure,
but I must in return exact an unconditional respect for my name and
position; I will not have society whispering and tattling about our
affairs."
The councillor turned hastily away. He went to a window, pulled aside
the curtain, and gazed out into the night. The wind, which had
gradually risen to a tempest, rattled at the window-frame, and in the
red light cast upon the bare, tossing branches outside, by the lamp
hanging in the other window, the crimsoned snow-flakes whirled madly
hither and thither like the tormenting thoughts in his own brain. He
had a short time before debated in his mind whether he should not
explain matters fully, at least to Flora; now he knew that she was the
last person to whom he could speak upon the subject, if he did not wish
that the whisper and tattle of society should drive the Frau President
from his house. No; he saw clearly that his ambitious sister-in-law
would publish his confession far and wide, less from solicitude for her
lover than from a desire to prove that her heart, or rather her head,
could not have been mistaken in its choice.
Meanwhile, Henriette turned a face of anger and scorn towards her
grandmother. "It is solely to avoid furnishing gossip for society,
then, that you would have my sister bear herself blameless? She can
easily satisfy you. You will instantly acquit her if she can cover her
breach of faith with a silken mantle. But indeed you need not be so
sensitive upon the subject of scandal, grandmamma: those living in the
world as we do, soon find out that society regards many a sinner of rank
and wealth much as it does an old piece of valuable porcelain,--the more
patched the more precious."
"I must request you to pass the remainder of the evening in your own
room, Henriette," the Frau President said, now seriously angry. "In
your present mood, I cannot permit you to return to the drawing-room."
"As you please, grandmamma. Come, Jack, we will go with the greatest
pleasure," she said, smiling, smoothing with her cheek the bird's
plumage as it sat on her forefinger. "You hate those old court-ladies,
too; and you regularly peck at the great medical authority, Herr von
Baer, and nip his finger, you good little fellow, when he tries to coax
you with sugar. Good-night, grandmamma; good-night, Moritz." She
paused in her hasty departure, and turned back. "That strong-minded
lady there," she said, with cutting emphasis, "will probably pursue the
path which her dead father would have inexorably forbidden to her; while
he lived there was no chance for her boasted exercise of her own will.
He would never have allowed her to break her troth with an honourable
man."
She left the room with her head proudly erect, but, even as she crossed
the threshold, the tears which had been plainly audible in her voice as
she spoke the last words gushed from her eyes.
"Thank God, she has gone!" cried Flora. "What an amount of self-control
is required not to lose one's patience with her!"
"I never forget her invalid condition," the Frau President remarked, in
a reproving tone.
"And she is right, in a certain sense, Flora," the councillor ventured
to interpose.
"You may think as you choose upon that point, Moritz," the young lady
rejoined, coldly; "but I must earnestly entreat you not to make my task
more difficult by your interference. I am used, as I said just now, to
judge for myself in what concerns me, and I shall do so in this case.
And you may be perfectly easy,--you and grandmamma. I excessively
dislike any sudden and harsh measure, and I have a noiseless
ally,--time."
She took the goblet from the writing-table and moistened her pale lips
with a few drops of its contents, while the Frau President, without
further remonstrance, prepared to leave the room.
"Apropos, Moritz," she said, with her hand upon the knob of the door,
"what is to be done with Kitty now?"
"We must leave it to the will to decide all that," he replied, drawing a
long breath of relief. "I have no idea how the castle miller has
arranged matters. Kitty is his natural heir, but it is doubtful whether
he has left all his property to her; he always resented the fact that
her birth cost his daughter her life. In any case she must come here
for a while."
"Do not trouble yourself about that; she will not come; she is tied as
securely to-day to the apron-string of her detestable old governess as
she was during papa's lifetime," said Flora. "That is easy to see from
her letters."
"Well, perhaps it is better that she should stay where she is," the Frau
President remarked, with a shade of eagerness. "To be candid, I have no
great desire to shelter her beneath my wing and waste my time in
schooling her; it is very tiresome. I never really liked her; not
because she was the child of my daughter's successor,--that I have
always declared,--but she was altogether too much at home in the mill,
getting her clothes and hair covered with meal; and then she was a
self-willed little thing."
"A genuine 'child of the people,' and yet--papa's darling," Flora added,
with a bitter smile.
"Apparently, my dear, because she was his youngest child," said the Frau
President, who never permitted a suspicion, either in herself or in
others, that any one belonging to her could be slighted. "You were just
as much his darling at one time. Well, Moritz, are you coming?"
He hastily complied. As they left the room, Flora rang for her maid.
"I wish to retire to my dressing-room to write; take my
writing-materials and these papers there for me," she ordered. "Of
course I can see no one this evening."
The red glow was no longer seen outside the windows, but the brilliant
light from the drawing-room gleamed over the tempest-swept avenue until
long past midnight. The councillor was at one of the card-tables. Upon
his entrance every one received him with a kindly greeting or a warm
pressure of the hand, that fell like sunshine on his anxious, troubled
heart. Here, among these faces, stamped with the pride of noble birth or
official arrogance, his line of conduct seemed so perfectly justifiable
that he could hardly understand the tormenting scruples that assailed
him. Why expose one's self to hostile criticism when one is conscious
of entire innocence even in thought? And then such a low affair
altogether! All this delightful scandal which was now whispered about,
these stories over which each noble guest was glad to throw "a silken
mantle," concerned high-born errors; but what mercy could these people
show to one among them, not legitimately of them, accused of a vulgar
attempt to rob the castle miller's safe? He could, however, no longer
console himself with the idea that his silence harmed no one: it
threatened to sever two human souls united by a betrothal ring. Pshaw!
Flora was an eccentric creature. The next time some special distinction
was awarded to Bruck, which his great learning and ability made certain,
matters would be all right again. And with a glass of delicious punch
he drained down his last scruple.