Peter Steinmarc, when he went into Madame Staubach's parlour, found
that lady on her knees in prayer. He had entered the room without
notice, having been urged to this unwonted impetuosity by the
severity of the provocation which he had received. Madame Staubach
raised her head; but when she saw him she did not rise. He stood
there for some seconds looking at her, expecting her to get up and
greet him; but when he found that such was not her purpose, he turned
angrily on his heel, and went out of the house, up to his office in
the town-hall. His services were not of much service to the city
on that day,--neither on that day nor on the two following days.
He was using all his mental faculties in endeavouring to decide
what it might be best for him to do in the present emergency. The
red house was a chattel of great value in Nuremberg,--a thing very
desirable,--the possession of which Peter himself did desire with all
his heart. But then, even in regard to the house, it was not to be
arranged that Peter was to become the sole and immediate possessor
of it on his marriage. Madame Staubach was to live there, and during
her life the prize would be but a half-and-half possession. Madame
Staubach was younger than himself; and though he had once thought of
marrying her, he was not sure that he was now desirous of living in
the same house with her for the remainder of his life. He had wished
to marry Linda Tressel, because she was young, and was acknowledged
to be a pretty girl; and he still wished to marry her, if not now for
these reasons, still for others which were quite as potent. He wanted
to be her master, to get the better of her, to punish her for her
disdain of him, and to bring her to his feet. But he was not a man so
carried away by anger or by a spirit of revenge as to be altogether
indifferent to his own future happiness. There had already been some
among his fellow-citizens, or perhaps citizenesses, kind enough to
compliment him on his good-nature. He had been asked whether Linda
Tressel had told him all about her little trip to Augsburg, and
whether he intended to ask his cousin Ludovic Valcarm to come to his
wedding. And now Linda herself had said things to him which made him
doubt whether she was fit to be the wife of a man so respectable and
so respected as himself. And were she to do those things which she
threatened, where would he be then? All the town would laugh at him,
and he would be reduced to live for the remainder of his days in the
sole company of Madame Staubach as the result of his enterprise. He
was sufficiently desirous of being revenged on Linda, but he was a
cautious man, and began to think that he might buy even that pleasure
too dear. He had been egged on to the marriage by Herr Molk and one
or two others of the city pundits,--by the very men whose opposition
he had feared when the idea of marrying Linda was first suggested to
him. They had told him that Linda was all right, that the elopement
had been in point of fact nothing. "Young girls will be young before
they are settled," Herr Molk had said. Then the extreme desirability
of the red house had been mentioned, and so Peter had been persuaded.
But now, as the day drew near, and as Linda's words sounded in his
ears, he hardly knew what to think of it. On the evening of the third
day of his contemplation, he went again to his friend Herr Molk.
"Nonsense, Peter," said the magistrate; "you must go on now, and
there is no reason why you should not. Is a man of your standing to
be turned aside by a few idle words from a young girl?"
"But she told me-- You can't understand what she told me. She's been
away with this young fellow once, and she said as much as that she'd
go again."
"Pshaw! you haven't had to do with women as I have, or you would
understand them better. Of course a young girl likes to have her
little romance. But when a girl has been well brought up,--and there
is no better bringing up than what Linda Tressel has had,--marriage
steadies them directly. Think of the position you'll have in the city
when the house belongs to yourself."
Peter, when he left the magistrate, was still tossed about by an
infinity of doubts. If he should once take the girl as his wife,
he could never unmarry himself again. He could not do so at least
without trouble, disgrace, and ruinous expense. As for revenge, he
thought that he might still have a certain amount of that pleasure in
repudiating his promised spouse for her bad conduct, and in declaring
to her aunt that he could not bring himself to make a wife of a woman
who had first disgraced herself, and then absolutely taken glory
in her disgrace. As he went along from Herr Molk's house towards
the island, taking a somewhat long path by the Rothe Ross where he
refreshed himself, and down the Carls Strasse, and by the Church of
St. Lawrence, round which he walked twice, looking up to the tower
for inspiration,--he told himself that circumstances had been most
cruel to him. He complained bitterly of his misfortune. If he refused
to marry Linda he must leave the red house altogether, and would,
of course, be ridiculed for his attempt at matrimony; and if he did
marry her-- Then, as far as he could see, there would be the very
mischief. He pitied himself with an exceedingly strong compassion,
because of the unmerited hardness of his position. It was very
dark when he got to the narrow passage leading to the house along
the river, and when there, in the narrowest and darkest part of
the passage, whom should he meet coming from Madame Staubach's
house,--coming from Linda's house, for the passage led from the red
house only,--but Ludovic Valcarm his cousin?
"What, uncle Peter?" said Ludovic, assuming a name which he had
sometimes used in old days when he had wished to be impertinent to
his relative. Peter Steinmarc was too much taken aback to have any
speech ready on the occasion. "You don't say a word to congratulate
me on having escaped from the hands of the Philistines."
"What are you doing here?" said Peter.
"I've been to see my young woman," said Ludovic, who, as Peter
imagined, was somewhat elated by strong drink.
"She is not your young woman," said Peter.
"She is not yours at any rate," said the other.
"She is mine if I like to take her," said Peter.
"We shall see about that. But here I am again, at any rate. The
mischief take them for interfering old fools! When they had got me
they had nothing to say against me."
"Pass on, and let me go by," said Peter.
"One word first, uncle Peter. Among you, you are treating that girl
as cruelly as ever a girl was treated. You had better be warned by
me, and leave off. If she were forced into a marriage with you, you
would only disgrace yourself. I don't suppose you want to see her
dead at your feet. Go on now, and think of what I have said to you."
So Ludovic had been with her again! No; he, Peter Steinmarc, would
not wed with one who was so abandoned. He would reject her;--would
reject her that very night. But he would do so in a manner that
should leave her very little cause for joy or triumph.
We must now go back for a while to Linda and her aunt. No detailed
account of that meeting between Linda and Steinmarc, in Steinmarc's
room, ever reached Madame Staubach's ears. That there had been an
interview, and that Linda had asked Steinmarc to absolve her from her
troth, the aunt did learn from the niece; and most angry she was when
she learned it. She again pointed out to the sinner the terrible sin
of which she was guilty in not submitting herself entirely, in not
eradicating and casting out from her bosom all her human feelings,
in not crushing herself, as it were, upon a wheel, in token of her
repentance for what she had done. Sackcloth and ashes, in their
material shape, were odious to the imagination of Madame Staubach,
because they had a savour of Papacy, and implied that the poor sinner
who bore them could do something towards his own salvation by his own
works; but that moral sackcloth, and those ashes of the heart and
mind, which she was ever prescribing to Linda, seemed to her to have
none of this taint. And yet, in what is the difference? The school of
religion to which Madame Staubach belonged was very like that early
school of the Church of Rome in which material ashes were first used
for the personal annoyance of the sinner. But the Church of Rome in
Madame Staubach's day had, by the force of the human nature of its
adherents, made its way back to the natural sympathies of mankind;
whereas in Madame Staubach's school the austerity of self-punishment
was still believed to be all in all. During the days of Steinmarc's
meditation, Linda was prayed for and was preached to with an
unflagging diligence which, at the end of that time, had almost
brought the girl to madness. For Linda the worst circumstance of all
was this, that she had never as yet brought herself to disbelieve her
aunt's religious menaces. She had been so educated that what fixed
belief she had on the subject at all was in accordance with her
aunt's creed rather than against it. When she was alone, she would
tell herself that it was her lot to undergo that eternal condemnation
with which her aunt threatened her; though in telling herself so she
would declare to herself also that whatever that punishment could be,
her Creator, let Him be ever so relentless, could inflict nothing
on her worse than that state of agony with which His creatures had
tormented her in this world.
She was in this state when Tetchen crept up to her room, on that
evening on which Peter had been with Herr Molk. "Fraulein," said
Tetchen, "you are very unkind to me."
"Never mind," said Linda, not looking up into the woman's face.
"I have done everything in my power for you, as though you had been
my own."
"I am not your own. I don't want you to do anything for me."
"I love you dearly, and I love him,--Ludovic. Have I not done
everything in my power to save you from the man you hate?"
"You made me go off with him in the night, like a--like a--! Oh,
Tetchen, was that treating me as though I had been your own? Would
you have done that for your own child?"
"Why not,--if you are to be his wife?"
"Tetchen, you have made me hate you, and you have made me hate
myself. If I had not done that, I should not be such a coward. Go
away. I do not want to speak to you."
Then the old woman came close up to Linda, and stood for a moment
leaning over her. Linda took no notice of her, but continued by a
certain tremulous shaking of her knee to show how strongly she was
moved. "My darling," said Tetchen, "why should you send away from you
those who love you?"
"Nobody loves me," said Linda.
"I love you,--and Ludovic loves you."
"That is of no use,--of none at all. I do not wish to hear his name
again. It was not his fault, but he has disgraced me. It was my own
fault,--and yours."
"Linda, he is in the house now."
"Who--Ludovic?"
"Yes; Ludovic Valcarm."
"In the house? How did he escape?"
"They could do nothing to him. They let him go. They were obliged to
let him go."
Then Linda got up from her seat, and stood for a minute with her eyes
fixed upon the old woman's face, thinking what step she had better
take. In the confusion of her mind, and in the state to which she
had been reduced, there was no idea left with her that it might yet
be possible that she would become the wife of Ludovic Valcarm, and
live as such the life of a respectable woman. She had taught herself
to acknowledge that her elopement with him had made that quite
impossible;--that by what they had done they had both put themselves
beyond the pale of such gentle mercy. Such evil had come to her from
her secret interviews with this man who had become her lover almost
without her own acquiescence, that she dreaded him even though she
loved him. The remembrance of the night she had passed with him,
partly in the warehouse and partly in the railway train, had nothing
in it of the sweetness of love, to make her thoughts of it acceptable
to her. This girl was so pure at heart, was by her own feelings so
prone to virtue, that she looked back upon what she had done with
abhorrence. Whether she had sinned or not, she hated what she had
done as though it had been sinful; and now, when she was told that
Ludovic Valcarm was again in the house, she recoiled from the idea of
meeting him. On the former occasions of his coming to her, a choice
had hardly been allowed to her whether she would see him or not. He
had been with her before she had had time to fly from him. Now she
had a moment for thought,--a moment in which she could ask herself
whether it would be good for her to place herself again in his hands.
She said that it would not be good, and she walked steadily down to
her aunt's parlour. "Aunt Charlotte," she said, "Ludovic Valcarm is
in the house."
"In this house,--again!" exclaimed Madame Staubach. Linda, having
made her statement, said not a word further. Though she had felt
herself compelled to turn informant against her lover, and by
implication against Tetchen, her lover's accomplice, nevertheless she
despised herself for what she was doing. She did not expect to soften
her aunt by her conduct, or in any way to mitigate the rigour of her
own sufferings. Her clandestine meetings with Ludovic had brought
with them so much of pain and shame, that she had resolved almost by
instinct to avoid another. But having taken this step to avoid it,
she had nothing further to say or to do. "Where is the young man?"
demanded Madame Staubach.
"Tetchen says that he is here, in the house," said Linda. Then Madame
Staubach left the parlour, and crossed into the kitchen. There,
standing close to the stove and warming himself, she found this
terrible youth who had worked her so much trouble. It seemed to
Madame Staubach that for months past she had been hearing of his
having been constantly in and about the house, entering where he
would and when he would, and in all those months she had never seen
him. When last she had beheld him he had been to her simply a foolish
idle youth with whom his elder cousin had been forced to quarrel.
Since that, he had become to her a source of infinite terror. He had
been described to her as one guilty of crimes which, much as she
hated them, produced, even in her breast, a kind of respect for the
criminal. He was a rebel of whom the magistrates were afraid. When in
prison he had had means of escaping. When arrested at Nuremberg he
would be the next day at Augsburg; when arrested at Augsburg he would
be the next day at Nuremberg. He could get in and out of the roofs of
houses, and could carry away with him a young maiden. These are deeds
which always excite a certain degree of admiration in the female
heart, and Madame Staubach, though she was a Baptist, was still
a female. When, therefore, she found herself in the presence of
Ludovic, she could not treat him with the indignant scorn with
which she would have received him had he intruded upon her premises
before her fears of him had been excited. "Why are you here, Ludovic
Valcarm?" she said advancing hardly a step beyond the doorway.
Ludovic looked up at her with his hand resting on the table. He was
not drunk, but he had been drinking; his clothes were soiled; he
was unwashed and dirty, and the appearance of the man was that of a
vagabond. "Speak to me, and tell me why you are here," said Madame
Staubach.
"I have come to look for my wife," said Ludovic.
"You have no wife;--at any rate you have none here."
"Linda Tressel is my true and lawful wife, and I have come to take
her away with me. She went with me once, and now she will go again.
Where is she? You're not going to keep her locked up. It's against
the law to make a young woman a prisoner."
"My niece does not wish to see you;--does not intend to see you. Go
away."
But he refused to go, and threatened her, alleging that Linda Tressel
was of an age which allowed her to dispose as she pleased of her
person and her property. Of course this was of no avail with Madame
Staubach, who was determined that, whatever might happen, the young
man should not force himself into Linda's presence. When Ludovic
attempted to leave the kitchen, Madame Staubach stood in the doorway
and called for Tetchen. The servant, who had perched herself on the
landing, since Linda had entered the parlour, was down in a moment,
and with various winks and little signs endeavoured to induce Valcarm
to leave the house. "You had better go, or I shall call at once for
my neighbour Jacob Heisse," said Madame Staubach. Then she did call,
as lustily as she was able, though in vain. Upon this Ludovic, not
knowing how to proceed, unable or unwilling to force his way further
into the house in opposition to Madame Staubach, took his departure,
and as he went met Peter Steinmarc in the passage at the back of
Heisse's house. Madame Staubach was still in the kitchen asking
questions of Tetchen which Tetchen did not answer with perfect truth,
when Peter appeared among them. "Madame Staubach," he said, "that
vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has just been here, in this house."
"He went away but a minute since," said Madame Staubach.
"Just so. That is exactly what I mean. This is a thing not to be
borne,--not to be endured, and shows that your niece Linda is
altogether beyond the reach of any good impressions."
"Peter Steinmarc!"
"Yes, that is all very well; of course I expect that you will take
her part; although, with your high ideas of religion and all that
sort of thing, it is almost unaccountable that you should do so. As
far as I am concerned there must be an end of it. I am not going to
make myself ridiculous to all Nuremberg by marrying a young woman who
has no sense whatever of self-respect. I have overlooked a great deal
too much already,--a great deal too much."
"But Linda has not seen the young man. It was she herself who told me
that he was here."
"Ah, very well. I don't know anything about that. I saw him coming
away from here, and it may be as well to tell you that I have made up
my mind. Linda Tressel is not the sort of young woman that I took her
to be, and I shall have nothing more to say to her."
"You are an old goose," said Tetchen.
"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach angrily to her servant.
Though she was very indignant with Peter Steinmarc, still it would go
much against the grain with her that the match should be broken off.
She had resolved so firmly that this marriage was proper for all
purposes, that she had almost come to look at it as though it were
a thing ordained of God. Then, too, she remembered, even in this
moment, that Peter Steinmarc had received great provocation. Her
immediate object was to persuade him that nothing had been done to
give him further provocation. No fault had been committed by Linda
which had not already been made known to him and been condoned by
him. But how was she to explain all this to him in privacy, while
Tetchen was in the kitchen, and Linda was in the parlour opposite?
"Peter, on my word as an honest truthful woman, Linda has been guilty
of no further fault."
"She has been guilty of more than enough," said Peter.
"That may be said of all us guilty, frail, sinful human beings,"
rejoined Madame Staubach.
"I doubt whether there are any of us so bad as she is," said Peter.
"I wonder, madame, you can condescend to argue with him," said
Tetchen; "as if all the world did not know that the fraulein is ten
times too good for the like of him!"
"Hold your tongue," said Madame Staubach.
"And where is Miss Linda at the present moment?" demanded Peter.
Madame Staubach hesitated for an instant before she answered, and
then replied that Linda was in the parlour. It might seem, she
thought, that there was some cause for secrecy if she made any
concealment at the present moment. Then Peter made his way out of the
kitchen and across the passage, and without any invitation entered
the parlour. Madame Staubach followed him, and Tetchen followed also.
It was unfortunate for Madame Staubach's plans that the meeting
between Peter and Linda should take place in this way, but she could
not help it. But she was already making up her mind to this,--that if
Peter Steinmarc ill-treated her niece, she would bring all Nuremberg
about his ears.
"Linda Tressel," he said;--and as he spoke, the impetuosity of
indignation to which he had worked himself had not as yet subsided,
and therefore he was full of courage;--"Linda Tressel, I find that
that vagabond Ludovic Valcarm has again been here."
"He is no vagabond," said Linda, turning upon him with full as much
indignation as his own.
"All the city knows him, and all the city knows you too. You are no
better than you should be, and I wash my hands of you."
"Let it be so," said Linda; "and for such a blessing I will pardon
you the unmanly cruelty of your words."
"But I will not pardon him," said Madame Staubach. "It is false; and
if he dares to repeat such words, he shall rue them as long as he
lives. Linda, this is to go for nothing,--for nothing. Perhaps it
is not unnatural that he should have some suspicion." Poor Madame
Staubach, agitated by divided feelings, hardly knew on which side to
use her eloquence.
"I should think not indeed," said Peter, in triumph. "Unnatural! Ha!
ha!"
"I will put his eyes out of him if he laughs like that," said
Tetchen, looking as though she were ready to put her threat into
execution upon the instant.
"Peter Steinmarc, you are mistaken in this," said Madame Staubach.
"You had better let me see you in private."
"Mistaken, am I? Oh! am I mistaken in thinking that she was alone
during the whole night with Ludovic? A man does not like such
mistakes as that. I tell you that I have done with her,--done with
her,--done with her! She is a bad piece. She does not ring sound.
Madame Staubach, I respect you, and am sorry for you; but you know
the truth as well as I do."
"Man," she said to him, "you are ungrateful, cruel, and unjust."
"Aunt Charlotte," said Linda, "he has done me the only favour that
I could accept at his hands. It is true that I have done that which,
had he been a man, would have prevented him from seeking to make me
his wife. All that is true. I own it."
"There; you hear her, Madame Staubach."
"And you shall hear me by-and-by," said Madame Staubach.
"But it is no thought of that that has made him give me up,"
continued Linda. "He knows that he never could have got my hand. I
told him that I would die first, and he has believed me. It is very
well that he should give me up; but no one else, no other man alive,
would have been base enough to have spoken to any woman as he has
spoken to me."
"It is all very well for you to say so," said Peter.
"Aunt Charlotte, I hope I may never be asked to hear another word
from his lips, or to speak another word to his ears." Then Linda
escaped from the room, thinking as she went that God in His mercy had
saved her at last.