The next morning he took one of the guns out of the case, and wandered
into the snowy forest. He tramped about the whole day without meeting a
single human creature. The deer and hares were left in peace, for he
stared beyond them into vacancy. At dusk he turned his footsteps
homewards, dispirited and worn out.
He saw Regina standing like a statue on the Cats' Bridge looking out
for him. At first she looked as if she intended to run and meet him,
but she changed her mind, and took the path to the house, smiling and
murmuring to herself as she went.
But when she brought in his meal she was as silent as usual. He sat
without looking at her till a sound like a short convulsive sob roused
him from his reverie.
"What's the matter with you?" he asked.
Without answering, she ran out of the room.
He made a movement as if he were about to follow her; then set his
teeth and sat down again. A dull resentment devoured him. He could not
forgive her for depriving him of the illusion on which for weeks he had
been building so many vague hopes.
Now there was nothing for it but to drink the cup of degradation to the
dregs, no matter how bitter the bottom might taste.
In a little while Regina appeared again, in her outdoor things.
"You wish to go out to-night, then?" he asked harshly.
She kept her head half averted, so that he should not see she had red
eyes.
"To-morrow is Christmas, _Herr_--the holy feast day; and the grocer
says that on Christmas night he would rather not be disturbed."
Christmas! holy feast! How strange and like a fairy tale that sounded.
Then there was still rejoicing and festivity going on in the world!
People still joined hands and frolicked round glittering fir-tree!
"You wish to get your Christmas presents, I suppose, Regina?" he
inquired, smiling bitterly.
"Oh no, _Herr_," she replied. "That has never been the custom here.
Besides, now I should take no pleasure in such things."
"Why not?"
She hesitated, and then said in some embarrassment, "Let me go,
_Herr_."
"I have a great deal to ask you yet, Regina."
"Please, not now, else----"
"Very well, go."
"Good-night, _Herr_."
"Good-night." Then he called her back. "Tell me first, what did that
sob mean just now."
A ray of half-ashamed happiness shone in the eyes that were swollen
from weeping.
"Can't you guess, _Herr_?"
He shook his head.
"I had been so anxious about you. I thought perhaps you weren't coming
back, and then when you did----" She turned and fled through the door.
Her footsteps died away in the night....
The following morning Boleslav was awakened by a great rushing and
roaring that had for some time mingled with his dreams. A terrific
storm was raging. The topmost branches of the poplars lashed each other
in fury. Huge white clouds were swept along the ground, but the air was
clear. Another fall of snow seemed improbable. To-day he could not rest
in the desolate, cold little house, and went out to wrestle with the
elements.
"She will have a bad time of it," he thought, as the north wind hurled
in his face a shower of fine icicles that pricked like needles and
almost took his breath away. In the wood it was more sheltered. There
the tempest crashed and crunched in the tops of the trees, seeming to
vent all its fury on them. He walked on, not knowing where he was
going, and then found himself on the road to Bockeldorf.
"It looks as if I were running after her," he murmured, chiding
himself; and he struck into the pathless thicket.
He thought how remarkable it was that this degraded being should creep
so much into his thoughts. Of course it was because he had been thrown
with her day after day, and depended upon her entirely for human
society. Yet he was alarmed, for he realised now, perhaps more than he
had ever done before, how he felt himself every day more drawn towards
her, and how much there was in her that began to appear comprehensible,
excusable, and even noble, that once had only seemed to testify to her
innate coarseness, and repelled him from her in disgust.
But without a doubt contact with her was doing him no good. She was
drawing him down into the slough of her own worthless existence.
Something must be done. Above all, it was necessary to stand in less
familiar relations with her, to repress her, and lower her again to her
old position of humble and despised servant-girl. The festival of
Christmas was a good opportunity of paying her off with a loan, the
handsomeness of which would discharge his obligations to her for all
time. With a stroke of the pen he would provide for her future, and
thereby purchase the right to regard her as what she actually was--his
humble dependant and menial. She should give him her company to-day for
the last time. She had not yet finished her evidence, and as he had
once broken the ice he might as well know everything. Of those two
awful nights of guilt and shame, in which she had been a witness of
bloodshed and arson, he would hear the worst.
"And then when she has confessed all," he said to himself, "she shall
keep to her green-house, which is her proper place, even if she has to
burn all the timber in the park to prevent herself from freezing."
It was not seemly that in this solitude he should associate so much
with her, and he made up his mind to put an end to the intimacy once
for all.
A hare crossed his path and turned his thoughts into another channel.
He aimed and hit it. The little animal rotated three times, and then
lay motionless on its nose.
"She will be pleased," he thought, as he slung his booty over his
shoulder. Ah! there he was thinking of her again already.
The sky meanwhile had clouded. A sharp shower of prickly white flakes
cut through the trees; a wild hiss now mingled with the roar of the
wind that made him shiver involuntarily in every limb. By aid of his
compass he found the way home. When he entered the open fields the
snow-storm was in full swing. He could scarcely stand against it. The
air was dark with the falling masses of snow. There was not a trace
visible of the shrubs in the park only three hundred feet away.
"It's to be hoped she's got home," he thought, as he struggled on.
Freshly fallen snow lay thick on the Cats' Bridge; there were no
footprints in it, but they might easily have been obliterated.
With a sinking heart, he ran to the house and called her by name, but
got no answer. The hearth was unswept, the fire out, the beds unmade as
he had left them.
She had been overtaken by the storm, that she feared more than she
feared the Schrandeners. A torturing uneasiness took possession of him.
He rushed from one room to the other, lit the fire and extinguished it
again, tried to eat, and then threw down his knife and fork
impatiently. It struck him as ludicrous that he should be so anxious.
Had she not for six winters gone backwards and forwards in wind and
rain and snow, and never yet met with an accident? Why should anything
happen to her to-day? To kill time he sat down to his desk, and with
numb fingers made out a cheque. The sum amounted to three figures.
Regina ought to be satisfied.
Darkness set in. The hand of the clock pointed to three, and yet it was
already like night. He could contain himself indoors no longer. He
would at least go as far as the Cats' Bridge and see if there was any
sign of her. To prevent the wind pitching him over, he was obliged to
hold on with all his might to the balustrade. The rickety woodwork
shook in all its joints. On the ice beneath him danced a maze of spiral
patterns; lily-stems grew upwards and sank again in heaps of white
dust, which in their turn were whirled away to make room for other
fantastic forms. The Madonna's garden rose for a moment and then
vanished; for a figure drew nearer and nearer out of the twilight,
casting its shadow before it.
"Regina, thank God!"
He was on the point of rushing to meet her, when he was overcome with a
sensation of shame that paralysed his limbs and drove the blood to his
heart.
On this very spot where he now waited for her, she had yesterday waited
for him; looking out into the dusk because she had not been able to
rest for anxiety about him, just as to-day he could not rest for
anxiety about her.
For a moment he felt a strong inclination to dive behind the bushes, so
that she should not see him; but the next he was ashamed of being
ashamed, and stepped forward to meet her on the Cats' Bridge.
"You have had a bad time of it, Regina," he called out; and tried to
relieve her of the sack she carried on her back.
But she quickly dodged him, holding out her elbows in protest. She was
muffled to the eyes in shawls, and could not speak. They walked to the
door in silence. On the threshold she turned and tore the wraps from
her face.
"I have a favour to ask, _Herr_," she said breathlessly.
"Well, what is it?"
"Would you mind staying out another half-hour, or going into the
kitchen, so that I can warm the room and tidy up a little?"
"But you must rest first."
"Not now, _Herr_, if you don't mind."
And she went in, letting her burdens fall to the floor in the darkness.
"She may bustle about in there for a few minutes if she likes," he
thought; and turned to look for a temporary shelter among the ruins.
Warm air ascended from the cellars. He struck a light, and went down
the slippery steps. He felt curiously light-hearted almost, as if
Christmas had brought him joy.
The rows of wine-bottles with their red and green labels peeped at him
festively from their places.
"She shall not forget it's Christmas," he said, smiling; and drew from
the farthest niche where the treasure of treasures was stored, two or
three bottles covered with dust and cobwebs. In these reposed a nectar
which had not seen the light since an eighteenth-century sun had shone
on it.
His latest resolution occurred to him. Of course, he had not meant to
put it into force till to-morrow--not on Christmas evening, when people
consort together, who at other times are not congenial to each other.
On Christmas evening no one ought to be lonely and sorrowful.
Obedient to Regina's wishes, he patrolled the ruins for half-an-hour
beneath a roof of sparkling icicles. Then he put the bottles under his
arm, and staggered out into the stormy night.
As he approached his dwelling, he saw with amazement that the shutters
were closed, a thing that had never happened before. His first thought
was that the storm had penetrated the chinks, but on nearer view be
learnt they were still weatherproof. Not till he stood in the vestibule
did he find a happy solution to the problem. Regina met him beaming,
and half-ashamed, and threw the parlour door wide open. Astounded at
what he saw, he remained rooted to the spot. He was greeted by a
festive shimmer of candles and a fragrant odour of firs. In the centre
of the dining-table, covered with its pure white cloth, stood a
Christmas tree, adorned with wax tapers and gilded apples. The whole
apartment was brilliantly illuminated.
Never in his life before had a Christmas tree been lit for _him_. Only
from the thresholds of strangers had he sometimes looked on with dim
eyes at strangers' happiness. And where was Regina? She had retreated
behind him, and stood in the remotest corner of the vestibule, watching
him with shy yet proud delight.
He took hold of her hand and led her into the room.
"Who put it into your head, child?" he asked.
"The grocer's wife was trimming her Christmas tree when I got there at
three o'clock, and I thought it so pretty I said to myself, _he_ shall
have his tree too, and shall know that there is at least one person to
think of him. I asked her to show me how to gild apples, and gilded a
supply while I was there, and bought the lights and got a sack to put
the tree in, so that you shouldn't see it."
"And who gave you the tree?"
"I cut it down myself at the edge of the forest not far from here."
"In the middle of this storm?"
She laughed contemptuously. "A little wind wouldn't hinder me, _Herr_,"
And then with a sudden outburst of joyous ecstasy, she exclaimed, "Oh,
just look, _Herr_, how beautifully it burns! How pious it looks. Hasn't
it really a sort of pious face, as if an angel had brought it?"
He assented, laughing, and expressed his thanks in a few words of
forced condescension, for he was afraid of being too gracious.
But she was more than satisfied. "Why should you thank me, _Herr_?" she
asked reproachfully. "It's all bought with your money. I have none. I'm
only a poor girl. Else, ah, else--" She threw up her hands and clasped
them above her head.
The cheque came into his mind. "This is to show you," he said, handing
it to her, "that I have thought of your Christmas too."
She looked at him in bewilderment. "Am I to read it?" she asked,
respectfully taking the piece of paper between two of her fingers.
After studying it carefully, she still looked perplexed.
"Don't you understand what it is?" he asked.
"Oh yes--I understand ... But to begin with, you can't be in earnest.
And even if you are, ... what good is it to me?"
"It will provide for your future."
"My future is provided for.... I have all I want. Good food, ... and I
am dressed like a lady. What can I possibly want besides?"
"But we may not go on living always together like this."
She gave a cry of dismay. "Are you thinking of packing me off, _Herr_?"
she asked with tightly clasped hands.
"Not now. But suppose I were to die."
She shook her head meditatively. "I should die too," she said.
"Or I might have to go to the war again?"
"Then I should go with you as a vivandiere."
Her persistence annoyed him. "Do as you like," he said, "only take what
I give you."
A bright idea seemed to occur to her.
"All right, _Herr_," she exclaimed, "I'll take it, only next Christmas
I shall buy you something with it, that will be worth having." And
happy at the thought, she scampered away.
The Christmas-tree had burnt out. It stood now dark and neglected in
the corner by the stove, only occasionally casting a glimmer from its
golden fruit on the table where master and servant sat opposite each
other.
Regina had been accorded permission to take her supper with him this
evening, and had been too overcome to swallow a mouthful. She was
almost stunned with this great and unexpected pleasure.
Now the dishes were cleared away, and only bottles and glasses stood
between them. She drank, thoughtlessly, of the old fire-kindling wine
in long immoderate draughts. Her face began to glow. The pupils of her
brilliant eyes seemed to melt beneath their drooping lids. She rocked
to and fro on her chair. A wild abandon had relaxed her in every limb.
"Are you tired, Regina?"
She shook her head impatiently. For once her constraint in his presence
had disappeared. There was something even approaching audacity in the
brilliancy of her glance as she turned it on him from time to time. She
was intoxicated with happiness. He too felt the wine flame up in him;
and his eyes were riveted on her figure, which swayed before him with
the graceful motions of a Maenad.
All the time the tempest raged outside. It whistled in the chimney and
hurled a rattling fusilade against the window shutters. There was a
grinding and crunching among the rafters of the roof, which sounded as
if the mouldy wood were collapsing.
"I am afraid something will be blown down," he said as he listened.
"Maybe," she answered with a dreamy smile, huddling herself together.
And then she began to babble in a fragmentary but quite unrestrained
fashion. "Perhaps it isn't good for me, _Herr_," she said, "that you
are so kind to me. All my life I have never got anything but blows and
abuse--first from my father, then from him, not to mention other
people. But if you spoil me, _Herr_, I shall get proud--and pride is a
great vice, I have heard the Pastor say--I shall begin to think I'm a
princess who needn't earn her bread."
She burst into a peal of wild laughter, and let her arms fall to her
sides. Then in a low tone, as if conversing with herself, she went on--
"Sometimes I do wonder if I am only a servant. I often feel really as
if I were some enchanted princess, and you, _Herr_, the knight who is
to deliver me. Will you be the knight?"
She blinked at him over her wine-glass. He nodded in friendly
acquiescence. Let her revel in her strange fancies. It was Christmas.
"There have been cases," she continued, "in which princesses have been
turned into quite common sluts. They have had stones thrown at them,
and been spat at, and men have called after them, 'Strike her down, the
dirty slut!' And all the time they were princesses in disguise."
"Do you believe in fairy tales, then?" he asked, wondering.
She laughed to herself. "Not exactly, _Herr_. But when one passes so
many hours alone, and has to take long solitary walks as I have, one
must think. And when the rain beats down, and the wind blows.... Hark
at it now, what a to-do it's making.... Think of me tramping along in
this--and I have often been out when it's as bad, but I've never lost
my way. And sometimes, when I come into the wood, I have asked myself,
'Which would you rather be? A queen sitting on a golden throne, or the
Catholics' Holy Virgin, who had our dear Lord and Saviour for her
little boy; or would you rather be the devil's grandmother, and bury
all the Schrandeners in a manure-heap; or a noble lady and----" She
paused.
"And?" he queried.
She drew herself up, and laughed in embarrassment.
"I can't tell you that--it is too silly. But I had only to choose which
I'd be. And as I march along through the night shadows, I often imagine
I am one or other, till all of a sudden I find myself in Bockeldorf,
just as if I'd flown there--often I think I am flying. Ah! things do
happen in real life, after all, very much the same as in the fairy
tales. Don't you think so, _Herr_?"
He contemplated her with curiosity and wonder, as if he had never seen
her before. And truly it was the first time he had looked into her
secret soul. Now, when her tongue was loosened by wine, much was
revealed in her that before he had either not observed or not
understood.
"Blissful creature!" he murmured.
"Am I?" she replied, boldly planting her elbows on the table, and
regarding him with an expression of joyous inquiry. "You mean, because
I'm sitting here with you drinking wine and being treated as if I were
human? Oh! it's exactly like being in heaven.... Do you think I shall
ever go to heaven?... I don't. I am far too wicked!... And I think,
too, I should be afraid to go there. It must be much livelier in
hell.... I should be more at home there. The Herr Pastor often said I
was like a little devil, and I never fretted about it. Why should I? It
seemed quite natural that I should be the little devil and Helene the
angel. An excellent arrangement.... Didn't Helene, _Herr_, look just
like an angel in the flesh? So pink and white and delicate, with her
blue eyes and folded hands. And she always wore ... a pretty ribbon ...
round her neck ... and smelt always of ... rose-scented soap...."
A cold shiver passed through him. He felt it was degrading both to
himself and the beloved to allow this half-tipsy girl to speak of her
as if she were an equal.
"Stop!" he demanded hoarsely.
She only answered him with a dreamy smile. Wine and fatigue suddenly
overpowered her. She lay stretched out, her head thrown back on the arm
of the chair, and fought against sleep, like a Bacchante exhausted
after a whirl of dissipation.
A great anger, that rose and fell within him like the sound of the
storm outside, mastered him.
"This is what wine does," he thought, and yet drank more.
He wanted to wake her, to send her out, but he could not tear his eyes
away from her face, and by degrees he became gentler again.
"She meant no harm," he thought, as he moved nearer to where she lay.
"This is the last time she will sit here with me; to-morrow a new leaf
will be turned. After to-morrow she shall find in me nothing but the
master."
Then he remembered all he had wanted to ask her.
"Well, never mind," he said to himself, "it can't be helped. Why spoil
her Christmas? Some other time will do."
The hurricane without seemed to have increased in fury. It roared
through the keyholes, and battered the shutters. How brutally cruel it
was to drive her out to sleep in a greenhouse on a night like this! But
what was the use of being compassionate when it had to be done?
"Regina!" he shouted, and tapped her on the shoulder. At that moment
there was a terrific thundering crash, that made the walls tremble as
from a shock of earthquake. Regina screamed loud in her sleep and tried
to grasp his hand, then sank back again into her old position. He went
out to see what was the cause of the noise. Nothing had fallen in the
vestibule, but on opening the door of the greenhouse snow drifted in
his face just as if he had walked into the open air. All round was inky
darkness. He went back to fetch his lantern. It shed its light on a
scene of ruin that exceeded his worst expectations. Regina's little
kingdom, from which she had ruled and regulated the menage so
unostentatiously, had seemingly been dispersed to the four winds of
heaven. The roof was blown off, and had torn up part of the wall with
it. Between the hearth and the door was a barricade of snow as tall as
himself, riddled with bricks, beams, and splinters of glass.
What was to be done now? Where was Regina to sleep? Should he too let
her lie like a dog on his threshold? No! rather would he turn out into
the ruins himself, and seek a couch down in the cellar. It was
imperative to act at once, and there was only one thing to be done. He
drew Regina's bedding out of the snow, shook it thoroughly till not a
flake remained hanging to it, and then dragged it into his room.
Beneath the shadow of the Christmas-tree in the corner by the stove he
made up a bed on the boards.
Regina slept peacefully, her face illumined by the light from the oil
lamp. He came close to her, shook and called her by name; but nothing
could wake her. At last he lifted her up, to carry her to the bed.
She gave a deep sigh, encircled his neck with her arms, and let her
head sink on his shoulder.
His heart beat faster. The fair body in the first bloom of its superb
young womanhood, gave him a sensation of fear and uneasiness as it
unconsciously rested on him. He half carried, half trailed her across
the room. Her warm breath fanned his face, her hair swept his throat.
As he let her sink on her mattress she raised her arms, with a gesture
of longing, in the air, and pulled down the little fir-tree. He drew it
from under her, and then placed it as a screen and sentinel between
himself and her. "To-morrow I'll rig up a partition," he thought. Then
he undressed and went to bed.
The night-light burnt out, but there was no thought of sleep for him.
The tempest still raged, and spent its fury on the locks and bolts.
Boleslav heeded it not. While he listened to the sleeping woman's
breath, his own fell on the night, in heavily-drawn, anxious gasps.