Throughout February Linda never flinched. She hardly spoke at
all except on matters of household business, but to them she was
sedulously attentive. She herself insisted on understanding what
legal arrangement was made about the house, and would not consent
to sign the necessary document preparatory to her marriage till
there was inserted in it a clause giving to her aunt a certain
life-interest in the property in the event either of her marriage or
of her death. Peter did his best to oppose this, as did also Madame
Staubach herself; but Linda prevailed, and the clause was there. "She
would have to live with you whether or no," said Herr Molk to the
town-clerk. "You couldn't turn the woman out into the street." But
Peter had wished to be master of his own house, and would not give
up the point till much eloquence and authority had been used. He had
come to wish with all his heart that he had never seen Linda Tressel
or the red house; but he had gone so far that he could not retract.
Linda never flinched, never uttered a word of complaint; sat silent
while Peter was smoking, and awaited her doom. Once her aunt spoke
to her about her feelings as a bride. "You do love him, do you not,
Linda?" said Madame Staubach. "I do not love him," Linda had replied.
Then Madame Staubach dared to ask no further question, but prayed
that the necessary affection might be given.
There were various things to be bought, and money for the purpose was
in a moderate degree forthcoming. Madame Staubach possessed a small
hoard, which was now to be spent, and something she raised on her own
little property. A portion of this was intrusted wholly to Linda, and
she exercised care and discretion in its disposition. Linen for the
house she purchased, and things needed for the rooms and the kitchen.
But she would expend nothing in clothes for herself. When pressed on
the subject by her aunt, she declared that her marriage would be one
that required no finery. Her own condition and that of her proposed
husband, she said, made it quite unnecessary. When she was told that
Steinmarc would be offended by such exaggerated simplicity, she
turned upon her aunt with such a look of scorn that Madame Staubach
did not dare to say another word. Indeed at this time Madame Staubach
had become almost afraid of her niece, and would sit watching the
silent stern industry of the younger woman with something of awe.
Could it be that there ever came over her heart a shock of regret for
the thing she was doing? Was it possible that she should already be
feeling remorse? If it was so with her, she turned herself to prayer,
and believed that the Lord told her that she was right.
But there were others who watched, and spoke among themselves, and
felt that the silent solemnity of Linda's mode of life was a cause
for trembling. Max Bogen's wife had come to her father's house, and
had seen Linda, and had talked to Tetchen, and had said at home that
Linda was--mad. Her father had become frightened, and had refused to
take any part in the matter. He acknowledged that he had given his
advice in favour of the marriage, but he had done this merely as a
matter of course,--to oblige his neighbour, Madame Staubach. He would
have nothing more to do with it. When Fanny told him that she feared
that Linda would lose her senses, he went into his workshop and
busied himself with a great chair. But Tetchen was not so reticent.
Tetchen said much to Madame Staubach;--so much that the unfortunate
widow was nearly always on her knees, asking for help, asking in very
truth for new gifts of obstinate persistency; and Tetchen also said
much to Fanny Bogen.
"But what can we do, Tetchen?" asked Fanny.
"If I had my will," said Tetchen, "I would so handle him that he
would be glad enough to be off his bargain. But you'll see they'll
never live together as man and wife,--never for a day."
They who said that Linda was mad at this time were probably
half-right; but if so, her madness had shown itself in none of those
forms which are held to justify interference by authority. There was
no one in Nuremberg who could lock a woman up because she was silent;
or could declare her to be unfit for marriage because she refused to
buy wedding clothes. The marriage must go on. Linda herself felt that
it must be accomplished. Her silence and her sternness were not now
consciously used by her as means of opposing or delaying the coming
ceremony, but simply betrayed the state of mind to which she was
reduced. She counted the days and she counted the hours as a criminal
counts them who sits in his cell and waits for the executioner. She
knew, she thought she knew, that she would stand in the church and
have her hand put into that of Peter Steinmarc; but what might happen
after that she did not know.
She would stand at the altar and have her hand put into that of Peter
Steinmarc, and she would be called his wife in sight of God and
man. She spent hours in solitude attempting to realise the position
with all its horrors. She never devoted a minute to the task of
reconciling herself to it. She did not make one slightest endeavour
towards teaching herself that after all it might be possible for her
to live with the man as his companion in peace and quietness. She
hated him with all the vigour of her heart, and she would hate him to
the end. On that subject no advice, no prayer, no grace from heaven,
could be of service to her. Satan, with all the horrors of hell, as
they had been described to her, was preferable to the companionship
of Peter Steinmarc. And yet she went on without flinching.
She went on without flinching till the night of the tenth of March.
Up to that time, from the day on which she had last consented to her
martyrdom, no idea of escape had occurred to her. As she left her
aunt on that evening, Madame Staubach spoke to her. "You should at
any rate pray for him," said Madame Staubach. "I hope that you pray
that this marriage may be for his welfare." How could she pray for
him? And how could she utter such a prayer as that? But she tried;
and as she tried, she reflected that the curse to him would be as
great as it was to her. Not only was she to be sacrificed, but the
miserable man was bringing himself also to utter wretchedness. Unless
she could die, there would be no escape for him, as also there would
be none for her. That she should speak to him, touch him, hold
intercourse with him, was, she now told herself, out of the question.
She might be his servant, if he would allow her to be so at a
distance, but nothing more. Or it might be possible that she should
be his murderess! A woman who has been taught by her religion that
she is and must be a child of the Evil One, may become guilty of what
most terrible crime you please without much increase of damage to her
own cause,--without much damage according to her own views of life
and death. Linda, as she thought of it in her own chamber, with her
eyes wide open, looking into the dark night from out of her window,
declared to herself that in certain circumstances she would certainly
attempt to kill him. She shuddered and shook till she almost fell
from her chair. Come what might, she would not endure the pressure of
his caress.
Then she got up and resolved that she would even yet make one other
struggle to escape. It would not be true of her to say that at this
moment she was mad, but the mixed excitement and terror of her
position as she was waiting her doom, joined to her fears, her
doubts, and, worse than all, her certainties as to her condition in
the sight of God, had almost unstrung her mind. She had almost come
to believe that the world was at its end, and that the punishment of
which she had heard so much was already upon her. "If this is to be a
doom for ever," she said to herself, "the God I have striven to love
is very cruel." But then there came an exercise of reason which told
her that it could not be a doom for ever. It was clear to her that
there was much as yet within her own power which could certainly not
be so in that abode of the unblessed to which she was to be summoned.
There was the window before her, with the silent river running below;
and she knew that she could throw herself from it if she chose to put
forth the power which she still possessed. She felt that "she herself
might her quietus make with a bare bodkin." Why should she
"Fardels bear,
To grunt and sweat under a weary life,
But that the dread of something after life,
The undiscovered country from whose bourne
No traveller returns, puzzles the will,
And makes us rather bear those ills we have
Than fly to others that we know not of."
Linda knew nothing of Hamlet, but the thought was there, exact; and
the knowledge that some sort of choice was still open to her, if it
were only the choice of sending herself at once to a world different
from this, a world in which Peter Steinmarc would not be the avenger
of her life's wickedness, made her aware that even yet something
might be done.
On the following morning she was in the kitchen, as was usual with
her now, at an early hour, and made the coffee for her aunt's
breakfast, and for Peter's. Tetchen was there also, and to Tetchen
she spoke a word or two in good humour. Tetchen said afterwards that
she knew that something was to happen, because Linda's manner to her
had been completely changed that morning. She sat down with her aunt
at eight, and ate a morsel of bread, and endeavoured to swallow her
coffee. She was thinking at the time that it might be the case that
she would never see her aunt again. All the suffering that she had
endured at Madame Staubach's hands had never quenched her love.
Miserable as she had been made by the manner in which this woman had
executed the trust which circumstances had placed in her hands, Linda
had hardly blamed her aunt even within her own bosom. When with a
frenzy of agony Madame Staubach would repeat prayer after prayer,
extending her hands towards heaven, and seeking to obtain that which
she desired by the painful intensity of her own faith, it had never
occurred to Linda that in such proceedings she was ill-treated by
her aunt. Her aunt, she thought, had ever shown to her all that love
which a mother has for her child, and Linda in her misery was never
ungrateful. As soon as the meal was finished she put on her hat and
cloak, which she had brought down from her room, and then kissed her
aunt.
"God bless you, my child," said Madame Staubach, "and enable you to
be an affectionate and dutiful wife to your husband." Then Linda went
forth from the room and from the house, and as she went she cast her
eyes around, thinking that it might be possible that she should never
see them again.
Linda told no lie as she left her aunt, but she felt that she was
acting a lie. It had been arranged between them, before she had
entertained this thought of escaping from Nuremberg, that she should
on this morning go out by herself and make certain purchases. In
spite of the things that had been done, of Valcarm's visit to the
upper storeys of the house, of the flight to Augsburg, of Linda's
long protracted obstinacy and persistently expressed hatred for the
man who was to be her husband, Madame Staubach still trusted her
niece. She trusted Linda perhaps the more at this time from a feeling
that she had exacted so much from the girl. When, therefore, Linda
kissed her and went out, she had no suspicion on her mind; nor was
any aroused till the usual dinner-hour was passed, and Linda was
still absent. When Tetchen at one o'clock said something of her
wonder that the fraulein had not returned, Madame Staubach had
suggested that she might be with her friend Herr Molk. Tetchen knew
what was the warmth of that friendship, and thought that such a visit
was not probable. At three o'clock the postman brought a letter
which Linda herself had dropped into the box of the post-office
that morning, soon after leaving the house. She had known when,
in ordinary course, it would be delivered. Should it lead by any
misfortune to her discovery before she could escape, that she could
not help. Even that, accompanied by her capture, would be as good a
mode as any other of telling her aunt the truth. The letter was as
follows:--
Thursday Night.
DEAREST AUNT,--I think you hardly know what are my
sufferings. I truly believe that I have deserved them, but
nevertheless they are insupportable. I cannot marry Peter
Steinmarc. I have tried it, and cannot. The day is very
near now; but were it to come nearer, I should go mad, or I
should kill myself. I think that you do not know what the
feeling is that has made me the most wretched of women since
this marriage was first proposed to me. I shall go away
to-morrow, and shall try to get to my uncle's house in
Cologne. It is a long way off, and perhaps I shall never get
there: but if I am to die on the road, oh, how much better
will that be! I do not want to live. I have made you
unhappy, and everybody unhappy, but I do not think that
anybody has been so unhappy as I am. I shall give you
a kiss as I go out, and you will think that it was the
kiss of Judas; but I am not a Judas in my heart. Dear
aunt Charlotte, I would have borne it if I could,--Your
affectionate, but undutiful niece,
LINDA TRESSEL.
Undutiful! So she called herself; but had she not, in truth, paid
duty to her aunt beyond that which one human being can in any case
owe to another? Are we to believe that the very soul of the offspring
is to be at the disposition of the parent? Poor Linda! Madame
Staubach, when the letter was handed to her by Tetchen, sat aghast
for a while, motionless, with her hands before her. "She is off
again, I suppose," said Tetchen.
"Yes; she has gone."
"It serves you right. I say it now, and I will say it. Why was she so
driven?" Madame Staubach said never a word. Could she have had Linda
back at the instant, just now, at this very moment, she would have
yielded. It was beginning to become apparent to her that God did not
intend that her prayers should be successful. Doubtless the fault was
with herself. She had lacked faith. Then as she sat there she began
to reflect that it might be that she herself was not of the elect.
What if, after all, she had been wrong throughout! "Is anything to be
done?" said Tetchen, who was still standing by her side.
"What ought I to do, Tetchen?"
"Wring Peter Steinmarc's neck," said Tetchen. "That would be the best
thing." Even this did not bring forth an angry retort from Madame
Staubach. About an hour after that Peter came in. He had already
heard that the bird had flown. Some messenger from Jacob Heisse's
house had brought him the tidings to the town-hall.
"What is this?" said he. "What is this? She has gone again."
"Yes," said Tetchen, "she has gone again. What did you expect?"
"And Ludovic Valcarm is with her?"
"Ludovic Valcarm is not with her!" said Madame Staubach, with an
expression of wrath which made him start a foot back from where he
stood.
"Ah!" he exclaimed, when he had recovered himself, and reflected that
he had no cause for fear, "she is no better than she should be."
"She is ten times too good for you. That is all that is the matter
with her," said Tetchen.
"I have done with her,--have done with her altogether," said Peter,
rubbing his hands together.
"I should think you have," said Tetchen.
"Tell him to leave me," said Madame Staubach, waving Peter away with
her hand. Then Tetchen took the town-clerk by his arm, and led him
somewhat roughly out of the room. So he shall disappear from our
sight. No reader will now require to be told that he did not become
the husband of Linda Tressel.
Madame Staubach did nothing and said nothing further on the matter
that night. Tetchen indeed went up to the railway station, and found
that Linda had taken a ticket through to Mannheim, and had asked
questions there, openly, in reference to the boats from thence down
the Rhine. She had with her money sufficient to take her to Cologne,
and her aunt endeavoured to comfort herself with thinking that no
further evil would come of this journey than the cost, and the
rumours it would furnish. As to Peter Steinmarc, that was now all
over. If Linda would return, no further attempt should be made.
Tetchen said nothing on the subject, but she herself was by no means
sure that Linda had no partner in her escape. To Tetchen's mind it
was so natural that there should be a partner.
Early on the following morning Madame Staubach was closeted with
Herr Molk in the panelled chamber of the house in the Egidien Platz,
seeking advice. "Gone again, is she?" said Herr Molk, holding up his
hand. "And that fellow is with her of course?"
"No, no, no!" exclaimed Madame Staubach.
"Are you sure of that! At any rate she must marry him now, for nobody
else will take her. Peter won't bite again at that bait." Then Madame
Staubach was compelled to explain that all ideas of matrimony in
respect to her niece must be laid aside, and she was driven also
to confess that she had persevered too long in regard to Peter
Steinmarc. "He certainly is a little rusty for such a young woman
as Linda," said Herr Molk, confessing also his part of the fault.
At last he counselled Madame Staubach that she could do nothing
but follow her niece to Cologne, as she had before followed her to
Augsburg. Such a journey would be very terrible to her. She had not
been in Cologne for years, and did not wish to see again those who
were there. But she felt that she had no alternative, and she went.