"Come into the fresh air, Ella!" said Hugo, standing suddenly beside
her. "That was torture of the rack."
He drew her hand within his arm, and led her down by the nearest way
into the street. Only here, in the cool, sharp night air did Ella
appear to regain consciousness; she threw back her veil and drew a long
breath, as if she had been nearly suffocated.
"If I had dreamed that my warning would have brought you here, I should
have withheld it." continued Hugo, reproachfully. "Ella, for heaven's
sake, what an unfortunate idea!"
The young wife drew her hand away from his arm. The reproach seemed to
pain her.
"I wanted to see her for once," replied she softly.
"Without being seen yourself?" added the Captain. "I knew that the
moment I recognised you, therefore I said nothing to Reinhold, but I
felt as if standing on hot coals here below, while the criticising
group above was holding forth before your place of refuge, and giving
free course to their amiable remarks and opinions. I can fancy pretty
well what you had to listen to."
During the last words he had hailed a cabman, told the street and
number of house, and helped his sister-in-law into the carriage; but as
he showed signs of taking a seat beside her, she declined his doing so,
quietly but firmly.
"Thanks, I shall go alone."
"On no account!" cried Hugo, almost excitedly. "You are much agitated,
almost fainting; it would be unpardonable to leave you alone in this
state."
"You are not responsible for what becomes of me," said Ella, with
uncontrolled bitterness, "and to others--it does not matter. Let me
drive home alone, Hugo, I beseech you."
Her eyes looked at him entreatingly through their veil of tears. The
Captain did not say another word; he shut the door obediently, and
stepped back; but he watched the carriage as it rolled away until it
was out of sight.
It was long past midnight when Reinhold returned, and, without entering
his house, he went at once to his garden room. The house and
outbuildings lay still and dark; nothing was moving around, all who
lived and worked here were accustomed to be occupied in the daytime,
and required the night for undisturbed repose. It was fortunate that
the garden-house lay so distant and isolated, otherwise his companions
and neighbours would have been much less patient with the young
composer, who could not refrain, however late he might return home,
from always seeking his piano, and often morning's dawn surprised him
at his musical phantasies.
It was a quiet, moonlight, but sharp raw northern spring night. In the
dawning light, the walls and gables which enclosed the garden looked
even more gloomy and prison-like than by day; the canal appeared darker
in the pale moon's rays, which trembled over it, and the bare leafless
trees and shrubs seemed to tremble and shudder in the cold night wind,
which passed mercilessly over them. It was already April, and yet the
first buds were hardly to be seen. "This miserable spring, with its
tardy growth and bloom, its dreary rainy days and cold winds!" Reinhold
had heard these words spoken a few hours since, and then such a glowing
description followed of endless spring, which blossoms forth as by
magic in the gardens of the south, those sunny days, with ever blue
sky, and the thousandfold glorious colours of the earth; the moonlight
nights full of orange perfume and notes of song. The young man must
indeed have head and heart still full of this picture; he looked more
contemptuously than usual on the poor bare surroundings, and
impatiently pushed aside a branch of elderberry whose newly opening
brown buds touched his forehead. He had no more feeling for the gifts
of this miserable spring, and no more pleasure in growing and living as
miserably as these blossoms, ever fighting with frost and wind. Out
into freedom, that was the only thought which now filled his mind.
Reinhold opened the door of the garden room and started back with
sudden alarm. A few seconds elapsed before he recognised his wife in
the figure leaning against the piano standing out clearly in the
moonlight as it fell through the window.
"Is it you, Ella?" he cried at last, entering quickly. "What is it?
What has happened?"
She made a movement of denial. "Nothing, I was only waiting for you."
"Here? and at this hour?" asked Reinhold, extremely distantly. "What
has entered your head?"
"I hardly ever see you now," was the soft response, "at least only at
table in my parents' presence, and I wished to speak to you alone."
She had lighted the lamp at these words, and placed it upon the table.
She still wore the dark silk dress which she had on at the theatre this
evening; it was certainly plain and unornamented, but not so coarse and
unbecoming as her usual house dress. Also her never failing cap had
disappeared, and now, that it was missing, could be seen for the first
time what a singular wealth was hidden beneath it. The fair hair, of
which at other times only a narrow strip was visible, could hardly be
confined in the heavy plaits which showed themselves in all their
splendid abundance; but this natural ornament, which any other woman
would have displayed, was in her case hidden carefully day after day,
until chance disclosed it, and yet it appeared to give her head quite a
different mould.
As usual, Reinhold had no eyes for it; he hardly looked at his young
wife, and only listened slightly and abstractedly to her words. There
was not even the slightest trace of reproach in them, but he must have
felt something of the sort lay there as he said impatiently--
"You know I am occupied on all possible sides. My new composition which
was completed a few weeks since, was brought out publicly to-night for
the first time--"
"I know it," interrupted Ella. "I was in the theatre."
Reinhold seemed taken aback. "You were in the theatre?" asked he
quickly and sharply. "With whom? At whose instigation?"
"I was there alone--I wished--" she stopped, and continued
hesitatingly; "I too wished to hear your music for once, of which all
the world speaks and I alone do not know."
Her husband was silent and looked enquiringly at her. The young wife
did not understand the art of deceiving, and an untruth would not pass
her lips. She stood before him, deadly pale, trembling in all her
limbs; no especially keen sight was required to guess the truth, and
Reinhold did so at once.
"And only for this reason you went?" said he slowly at last. "Will you
deceive me with this excuse, or yourself, perhaps? I see the report has
found its way to you already! You wished to see with your own eyes,
naturally. How could I think it would be spared me and you?"
Ella looked up. There was again the darkly lowering brow she was always
accustomed to in her husband, the look of gloomy melancholy, the
expression of defiant, suppressed suffering, no longer a breath of
that beaming triumph which had lighted up his features a few hours
before--that was when away, far from his own people; only the shadow
remained for home.
"Why do you not answer?" he began afresh. "Do you think I should be
coward enough to deny the truth? If I have been silent towards you so
far, it was done to spare you; now that you know it, I will render
account. You have been told of the young actress, to whom I owe the
first incitement to work, my first success, and to-day's triumph. God
knows how the connection between us has been represented to you, and
naturally you look upon it as a crime worthy of death."
"No, but as a misfortune."
The tone of these words would surely have disarmed any one; even
Reinhold's irritation could not resist it. He came nearer to her and
took her hand.
"Poor child!" said he, pitifully. "It certainly was no happiness what
your father's will decided for you. You, more than any other, required
a husband who would work and strive from day to day in the quiet
routine of daily life without even having a wish to step beyond it, and
fate has chained you to a man whom it draws powerfully to another
course. You are right; that is a misfortune for us both."
"That is to say, I am one for you," added the young wife, sadly. "She
will, perhaps, know better how to bring you happiness."
Reinhold let her hand fall and stepped back. "You are mistaken," he
replied, almost rudely, "and quite misconstrue the connection between
Signora Biancona and myself. It has been purely ideal from the
beginning, and is so still at this moment. Whoever told you differently
is a liar."
At the first words, Ella seemed to breathe more easily, but at the
following her heart contracted as if with cramp. She knew her husband
was incapable of speaking a falsehood, least of all at such a moment,
and he told her the connection was spiritual. That it was so still she
did not doubt, but how long would it be so? This evening, in the
theatre, she had seen the flash of those demon-like eyes, which nothing
could resist; had seen how that woman, in her part, had run through the
whole scale of feelings to the greatest passion; how this passion
carried away the audience to a perfect storm of approbation; and she
could easily tell herself that if it had pleased the Italian so far
only to be the gracious goddess whose hand had led the young composer
into the realms of art, the hour was sure to come in which she would
wish to be more to him.
"I love Beatrice," continued Reinhold, with a cruelty of which he
seemed to have no real conception; "but this love does not injure nor
wound any of your rights. It only concerns music, as whose embodied
genius she met me, concerns the best and highest in my life, the
ideal--"
"And what is left for your wife, then?" interrupted Ella.
He remained silent, struck dumb. This question, simple as it was,
sounded nevertheless peculiar from the lips of his wife, deemed so
stupid. It was a matter of course, that she should be satisfied with
what still remained--the name she bore and the child, whose mother she
was. Strange to say, she did not appear inclined to understand this,
and Reinhold became quite silent at the quiet but yet annihilating
reproach of the question.
The wife rested her hand on the piano. She was visibly fighting with
the fear she had always cherished for her husband, whose mental
superiority she felt deeply, without, at the same time, ever venturing
on an attempt to raise herself to him. In the knowledge that he stood
so high above her, she had ever placed herself completely under him,
without ever attaining anything by it excepting toleration, which
almost amounted to contempt.
Now that he loved another, the toleration ceased; the contempt
remained--she felt that plainly in his confession, which he made so
quietly, so positively; his love for the beautiful singer "neither
injured nor wounded any of her rights." She had indeed no right to his
spiritual life. And she should keep firm hold of that man now, when the
love of a beautiful, universally admired actress, when the magical
charm of Italy, when a future full of renown and glory beckoned to him,
she, who had nothing to give excepting herself--Ella was conscious for
the first time of the impossibility of the task which had been
appointed to her.
"I know you have never belonged to us, never loved any of us," she
said, with quiet resignation. "I have always felt it; it has only
become clear to me since I was your wife, and then it was too late. But
I am it now, and if you forsake me and the child, you will give us up
for the sake of another."
"Who says so?" cried Reinhold, with anger, which exonerated him from
the suspicion that such a thought had really entered his mind.
"Forsake? Give up you and the child? Never!"
The young wife fixed her eyes enquiringly upon him, as if she did not
understand him.
"But you said just now you loved Beatrice Biancona?"
"Yes, but--"
"But! Then you must choose between her and us."
"You suddenly develope most unusual determination," cried Reinhold,
roused. "I must? And if I will not do it? If I consider this ideal
artist love quite compatible with my duties, if--"
"If you follow her to Italy," completed Ella.
"Then you know that already?" cried the young man, passionately. "You
seem to be so perfectly informed, that it only remains for me to
confirm the news others have been so kind as to tell you. It is
certainly my intention to continue my studies in Italy, and if I should
meet Signora Biancona there--if her vicinity give me fresh inspiration
to compose--her hand open me the door to the world of art, I shall not
be fool enough to reject all this, just because it is my fate to
possess a--wife!"
Ella shuddered at the unsparing hardness of the last words.
"Are you so ashamed of your wife?" she asked, softly.
"Ella, I beg you--"
"Are you so ashamed of me?" repeated the poor wife, apparently calmly;
but there was a strange, nervous, trembling inflection in her voice.
Reinhold turned away.
"Do not be childish, Ella," he replied, impatiently. "Do you think it
is good or elevating for a man, when he returns home after his first
success, there to find complaints, reproaches, in short, all the
wretched prose of domestic life? So far you have spared me it, and
should do the same in future. Otherwise you might discover that I am
not the patient sort of husband who would allow such scenes to take
place without resistance."
Only a single glance at the young wife was required to recognise the
boundless injustice of this reproach. She stood there, not like the
accuser, but like the condemned; indeed she felt that in this hour the
verdict was spoken upon her marriage and her life.
"I know well that I have never been anything to you," said she, with
trembling voice, "never could be anything to you, and if I only were
concerned, I would let you go without a word, without a petition. But
the child is still between us, and therefore"--she stopped a moment,
and breathed heavily----"therefore you can comprehend that the mother
should pray once more for you to remain with us."
The petition came out shyly, hesitatingly; in it could be heard the
effort it cost her to make it to the husband, in whose heart no chord
throbbed for her, and yet in the last words there rang such a touching,
frightened entreaty, that his ear could not remain quite deaf. He
turned to her again.
"I cannot stay, Ella," he replied, more mildly than before, but still
with cool decision. "My future depends on it. You cannot conceive what
lies in that word for me. You cannot accompany me with the child.
Besides this being quite impossible in a tour undertaken for study, you
would soon be very miserable in a foreign country whose language you do
not understand, in circumstances and surroundings for which you are
quite unsuited. You must, indeed, now accustom yourself to measure me
and my life with another measure than that of narrow-minded prejudice
and middle-class contracted ideas. You can stay here with the little
one, under your parents' protection; at latest I shall return in a
year. You must resign yourself to this separation."
He spoke calmly, even pleasantly; but every word was an icy rejection,
an impatient shaking off of the irksome bond. Hugo was right; he lay
already too firmly under the influence of his passion to listen to any
other voice--it was too late. A cold, pitiless, "You must resign
yourself," was the only answer to that touching prayer.
Ella drew herself up with a determination at other times quite foreign
to her, and there was also a strange sound in her voice; there lay in
it something of the pride of a wife, who, trampled upon and kept down
for years, at last revolts when extremities are resorted to.
"To the separation, yes," replied she, firmly. "I am powerless against
it. But not to your return, Reinhold. If you go now, go with her,
notwithstanding my prayers, notwithstanding our child, so do it. But
then, go for ever!"
"Will you make conditions?" roared Reinhold, passionately. "Have I not
borne the yoke which your father's so-called kindness forced upon me
for years, which embittered my childhood, destroyed my youth, and now,
at the threshold of man's estate, compels me to conquer, only by means
of endless struggles, what every one requires as his natural right,
free decision for himself? You all have kept me apart from everything
that by others is called freedom and happiness; have bound me to a
hated sphere in life with all possible fetters, and now think
yourselves sure of your property. But at last the hour has come for me
when it begins to dawn, and if it penetrates like lightning to my soul,
and shows in flaming clearness the goal, and the reward at the goal,
then one awakes out of the dream of long years, and finds oneself--in
chains."
It was an outbreak of the wildest passion, most burning hatred, which
welled forth without restraint, without asking if it were poured over
the guilty or the innocent. That is the horrible fiendishness of
passion, that it turns its hatred against everything which it
encounters, even if this hatred meet the nearest, most sacred--if it
even meet bonds voluntarily made.
A long pause, still as death, followed. Reinhold, overpowered by
excitement, had thrown himself on a seat and covered his eyes with his
hands. Ella still stood on the same spot as before; she did not speak
or move; even the tremor which, during the conversation, had so often
passed through her, had ceased. Thus passed a few moments, until at
last she approached her husband slowly.
"You will leave me the child, though?" said she, with quivering lips.
"To you it would only be a burden in your new life, and I have nothing
else in the world."
Reinhold looked up, and then sprang suddenly from his seat. It was not
the words which moved him so strangely, not the deadly, fixed calm of
her face; it was the look which was so unexpectedly and astoundingly
unveiled before him as before his brother. For the first time he saw in
his wife's face "the beautiful fairy-tale blue eyes" which he had so
often admired in his boy, without ever asking whence they came; and
these eyes, large and full, were now directed towards him. No tear
stood in them, neither any more beseeching; but an expression for which
he never gave Ella credit, an expression before which his eyes sank to
the ground.
"Ella," said he, uncertainly, "if I was too furious--What is it, Ella?"
He tried to take her hand; she drew it back.
"Nothing. When do you intend leaving?"
"I do not know," answered Reinhold, more and more struck. "In a few
days--or weeks--there is no hurry."
"I will inform my parents. Good-night." She turned to go. He made a
hasty step after her as if to detain her. Ella remained.
"You have misunderstood me."
The young wife drew herself up firmly and proudly. She appeared all at
once to have become a different person. This tone and carriage, Ella
Almbach had never known.
"The 'fetters' shall not press upon you any longer, Reinhold. You can
attain your object unhindered, and your--prize. Good-night."
She opened the door quickly and went out. The moonlight fell brightly
on the slight figure in the darkness, upon the sad pale face and the
blond plaits. In the next moment she had disappeared. Reinhold stood
alone.
* * * * *
"This house is miserable now," said the old bookkeeper in the office,
as he put his pen behind his ear, and closed the account book. "The
young master away for three days without giving any signs of his being
alive, without enquiring for wife or child. The Herr Captain does not
set his foot across the threshold; the principal goes about in such a
rage that one hardly dares to go near him; and young Frau Almbach looks
so wretched that one's heart aches to see her. Heaven knows how this
unhappy story will end."
"But how, then, did this disturbance come so suddenly?" asked the head
clerk, who also--it was the hour for closing the office--put his
writing aside and shut his desk.
The bookkeeper shrugged his shoulders. "Suddenly? I do not believe it
was unexpected by any of us. It has been smouldering in the family for
weeks and months; only the spark was wanting in all this inflammable
matter, and it came at last. Frau Almbach brought the news home from
some lady's party, and thus her husband learned what half the town knew
already, and what no one hears willingly, of his son-in-law. You know
our chief, and how he always looked upon all this artist business with
dislike; how he fought against it--and now this discovery! He sent for
the young master, and then there was such a scene--I heard part of it
in the next room. If Herr Reinhold had only behaved sensibly and given
in in this case when he really was not innocent, perhaps the affair
might have been set aside, instead of which he put on his most
obstinate manner, told his father-in-law to his face that he would not
remain a merchant, would go to Italy, would become a musician; he had
endured the slavery here long enough, and much more of the same kind.
The chief could not contain himself for rage; he forbade, threatened,
insulted at last, and then, of course, came the end. The young master
broke out so wildly that I thought something would happen. He stamped
his foot like a madman, and cried--'And if the whole world set itself
in opposition, it will still be. I will not be domineered over anyhow,
nor allow my thoughts and feelings to be prescribed for me.' And it
went on in this tone. An hour later he stormed out of the house, and
has not let himself be heard of since. God protect everyone from such
family scenes."
The old gentleman laid his pen aside, left his seat, and wished the
others good-night, while he prepared to leave the office. He had hardly
gone a few steps along the passage when he met Herr Almbach, who turned
in quickly from the street. The bookkeeper struck his hands together in
joyful alarm.
"Thank God that you, at least, are to be seen again, Herr Captain," he
cried. "We are indeed wretched in this house."
"Is the barometer still pointing to stormy?" asked Hugo, with a glance
at the upper story.
The bookkeeper sighed. "Stormy! Perhaps you will bring us sunshine."
"Hardly," said Hugo, seriously. "At this moment I am seeking Frau
Almbach. Is she at home?"
"Your aunt is out with the chief," said the former.
"Not she. I mean my sister-in-law."
"The young mistress? Oh dear, we have not seen her for three days. She
is sure to be upstairs in the nursery. She hardly leaves the little one
for a moment now."
"I will seek her," said Hugo, as with a rapid adieu he hastened
upstairs. "Good-evening."
The bookkeeper looked after him, shaking his head. He was not used to
the young Captain's passing him without some joke, some chaff; and he
had also remarked the cloud which to-day lay on the young man's usually
cheerful brow. He shook his head once more, and repeated his former
sigh, "God knows how the affair will end."
In the meanwhile Hugo had reached his sister-in-law's apartments.
"It is I, Ella," he said, entering. "Have I startled you?"
The young wife was alone; she sat by her boy's little bed. The rapid,
youthful steps outside, and the quick opening of the door, might well
have deceived her as to the comer. She had surely expected another. Her
painful start and the colour in her face, which suddenly gave way to
intense pallor, as she recognised her brother-in-law, showed this.
"My uncle carries his injustice so far as to forbid me the house also,"
continued the latter, as he came nearer. "He persists in thinking I had
some share in this unhappy breach. I hope, Ella, that you exonerate me
from it."
She hardly listened to the last words. "You bring me news from
Reinhold?" asked she quickly, with fleeting breath. "Where is he?"
"You surely did not expect that he would come himself," said the
Captain, evasively. "Whatever blame may be due to him in the whole
affair, the behaviour on my uncle's part was such that every one would
have rebelled against it. On this point I stand on his side, and
understand thoroughly that he went with the intention not to return. I
should have done the same."
"It was a terrible scene," replied Ella, with difficulty keeping back
the tears which were gushing out. "My parents learned elsewhere what I
would have hidden at any cost, and Reinhold was awful in his wild rage.
He left us, but he might have let me receive one word at least, during
the three days, through you. He is surely with you?"
"No," replied Hugo, shortly, almost roughly.
"No," repeated Ella, "he is not with you? I took it as a matter of
course that he would be there."
The Captain looked down. "He came to me, and with the intention of
remaining, but a difference arose between us about it. Reinhold is
unboundedly passionate when a certain point is touched upon; I could
and would not hide my feelings about it, and we quarrelled for the
first time in our lives. He thereupon refused to be friends; I have
only seen him again this morning."
Ella did not reply. She did not even ask what was the cause of the
quarrel; she felt only too well that in her brother-in-law, esteemed so
frivolous, mischievous, and heartless, she possessed the most energetic
protector of her rights.
"I have tried my utmost once more," said he, coming close beside her,
"although I knew it would be in vain. But you, Ella, could you not keep
him?"
"No," replied the young wife, "I could not, and at last I would not."
Instead of any response, Hugo pointed to the sleeping babe; Ella shook
her head violently.
"For his sake I conquered myself, and begged the husband, who wished to
tear himself away from me at any price, to remain. I was repulsed; he
let me feel what a fetter I am to him--he may then go free."
Hugo's glance rested enquiringly on her countenance, that again showed
the energetic expression which was once so foreign to her features.
Slowly he drew forth a note.
"If then you are prepared, I have a few lines to bring you from
Reinhold. He gave me them two or three hours since."
The wife started. The firmness she had just shown could not continue
when she saw her husband's handwriting on the envelope; only his
handwriting, while with mortal agony she had clung to the hope that he
would come himself, if it had merely been to say farewell. With
trembling hand she took the letter and opened it; it contained only a
few lines--
"You witnessed the scene between your father and myself, and will
therefore comprehend that I do not enter his house again. That scene
has changed nothing in my decision. It only hastens my departure, as
the want of tact on your parents' part has given the affair a publicity
which does not make it appear desirable for me to remain an hour longer
in H---- than is absolutely necessary. I cannot bid you and the child
good-bye personally, as I shall not set foot again across a threshold
from which I was driven in such a manner. It is not my fault if a
separation, which I was resolved to obtain for a time, now becomes a
lengthened one that is brought about by a violent quarrel. It was you
who made the condition, that I should either remain or go for ever.
Well, then, I go! Perhaps it will be better for us both. Farewell!"