Ferdinanda had gone to-day, as usual, at her accustomed hour to the
studio, and had even attempted to work; but, in spite of the
determination which she had long exercised in subduing her talent to
her will, and the success which had often attended her efforts, the
struggle was vain to-day, and she threw down her tools again.
"For the last time," said she to herself.
She had meant for to-day; but the words, as she spoke them aloud,
sounded strangely in the great, high room, as if not she but some one
else had said them--a ghostly, prophetic voice speaking from far off,
that left her standing and listening in terror lest the voice should
speak again.
What need was there of a prophetic voice to convince her of what her
own broken heart had said long since?
It was all in vain--her efforts, her struggles, her renunciation,
vain--even the tender remonstrances, the gentle warnings, the bright
example of the saintly Cilli herself!
How often and often, when that angelic being had left her, had she
thrown herself in the dust before the Pietà, which she had modelled two
months ago from her, and prayed that the all-merciful love with which
the heart of the blind girl overflowed might descend upon her heart
too, if it were only a drop! Even that would suffice to extinguish the
flames that raged there! But in vain.
Yesterday evening would have proved that, had proof been needed.
How she had debated whether she would accept that girl's invitation,
and see him again whom she had solemnly sworn never more to see! She
had kept her oath, and had fled at the last moment.
But was such a flight to be called a victory? Had she not been
conquered--did she not lie here helpless, shattered, bleeding? Her
deadly wound had never been healed, only insufficiently and with
difficulty bound up; and now she had torn off the bandages, and might
bleed to death! There was no more hope for her.
All else within was dull, dead, and insensible. She had fancied that
she felt a kind of respect for Philip's activity and daring--that she
was bound to him by at least a feeble bond of fraternal love. And yet
this morning, when Aunt Rikchen had brought the terrible news, and had
wept and lamented so that it might have moved a heart of stone, she had
not even been touched. She had received it like any other piece of
sensational intelligence which her aunt was in the habit of reading out
of the newspaper and making remarks upon. She seemed turned to stone in
the selfishness of her passion, so that it had not even occurred to her
to go to her father and say to him, "You have still one child, father."
But could she have said that without lying--was she still at heart the
child of the man who, in an hour of madness, had obtained from her that
letter of renunciation, every syllable of which had been like a
poisoned arrow in her heart? Had he attempted to compensate her, in
some measure at least, for so enormous, so unsurpassable a sacrifice,
by multiplying his own love to her a hundredfold? Perhaps his pride
forbade him that, or he shrank from hers, which he knew so well. Well,
then, she was well acquainted with his pride too. She could see his
expression if she went to him in his room; she could hear his voice
saying, "You have come to me about that wretched man; I wish to hear
nothing more about the matter than is, unfortunately, necessary for me
to hear. In my house at least I may be spared; so as you have come to
see me at last, talk of something else."
No, no, her father did not need her; and for herself! others might
importune him with their troubles, and humble themselves before
him--her proud father's prouder daughter would sooner die a martyr at
the stake!
Cilli was better off. She was sitting now beside her father's sick-bed,
and listening patiently to his childish complaints of how foolish he
had been to believe in Philip, and how just was the punishment that the
savings of many years, so carefully accumulated in a thousand frugal
ways, and by unceasing self-denial through so many long years, should
have been lost in one night, with the millions of the gambler on whose
cards he had staked his little fortune! Then she would comfort the old
man, and believe every word that came from her pure lips. And in secret
she had another comfort, at which she only hinted sometimes in
mysterious words, as if she were ashamed of such divine help--the
comfort of believing that, as one consecrated to early death, she
needed no earthly consolation.
She might well be secure of that consolation! How transparent her white
skin had grown in the last few weeks; how spiritually beautiful the
expression of her pure features; how unearthly the look of her great,
blind eyes!
Oh, how happy she was! To die so young, before the faintest stain had
marred even the hem of her white robes! To find above, if there was
anything above--and for her there must surely be--a heaven which she
had already created for herself on earth in her pure, humble heart! To
rise from joy to bliss--from light into glory! Oh, how happy she was!
And she herself, most miserable! That world above was only a beautiful
fable to her ever since her restless brain had begun to work behind her
burning brow. Her passionate heart had once desired to possess all
earthly joy as the sea receives into its bosom the streams which roll
gleefully and exultingly into it, and now it was pining away like the
barren desert under a sky of brass; and her vigorous form seemed made
to drag the weary burden of life through the never-ending years to a
far-distant, desolate grave, like some captive hero who, bending under
the heavy load bound upon his strong shoulders, may not hope to break
down or fall beneath the lash of his driver like his weaker companion,
but must throw away his load, and turn upon his tormentors, crying,
"You or I!"
But there was no alternative here. Death was very sure for those who
did not fear it!
Did she fear death?
She!
With this chisel, with the first tool from off her table, she would
accomplish it with her own hand, if----
If within her deepest, inmost heart, where some spring that she had
thought dried up must still be bubbling, a siren voice had not wailed
and whispered: "Do not die! for so you would kill me, the last and
mightiest of all the sisters. Only one moment is mine, and there is
night before me and after me; but this one moment surpasses the bliss
of eternity!"
In the next room to her had been noise and whistling and singing the
whole morning, louder than usual, as the master had been absent to-day;
and there had been much talk as to whether, when there was a Mrs.
Sculptor--some wit had suggested this--things would be quite so lively
in the studio. Now all was still, only the storm howled and raged round
the silent house, and shook and rattled the tall windows.
How had he endured the disappointment of yesterday? Was he raging like
the storm without? Was he the storm? Was it he who tapped at the
window-pane, and knocked at the door? Good heavens! there was really a
knock at the door! Was it possible! had he at last, at last broken the
final fetter, and come here to carry her away?
With trembling limbs she rose, her heart beating as if it would break
in joyful terror.
There again! at the closed window now! and was there not a cry,
"Ferdinanda?"
With a shriek she rushed forward, tore back the bolts, flung open the
door: "Bertalda! Good God! he is dead!"
"Not yet," said Bertalda, "but he is not far off it."
The girl's usually laughing rosy face was pale and changed; she was
breathless from the haste she had made, and could hardly bring out her
words, as with trembling knees she sank into the nearest chair.
"He is ill! where? in your house? for God's sake, Bertalda, speak!"
Ferdinanda stood before the girl, pressing her hands in hers, and
putting back the ruffled hair from her brow.
"Speak! speak!"
"There is not much to say," said Bertalda, raising herself up, "only
you must come with me at once, or he will shoot himself. He wanted to
do it before, and now his own father sends him a pistol to do it with!
There is an officer--Schönau is his name--with him now; but those sort
of people talk such nonsense--America! I dare say! He will never leave
my room if you do not come to him and tell him that you would remain
with him if he had forged his father's name for a hundred thousand
instead of this miserable twenty thousand. Why, my goodness! an
Englishman once offered me forty thousand, but I didn't like him, so
there was an end of it; but these men are all like children with their
foolish ideas of honour. I only tell you that you may not be startled
by anything, because you, too, are so absurd about such things, and if
you only look-- There! you are just like the others; you are heartless,
the whole lot of you."
Bertalda said all this behind Ferdinanda's back, as the latter after
her first words was moving wildly about the studio, looking for her
things, and now stood still with her hand pressed to her forehead.
"If only I were you," said Bertalda, "I would go with him to the devil
if he would take me. He is not wise, he would get more from me than
from you. Why did I sit with him and comfort him all night long, when I
was dead tired and might have been sleeping in my comfortable bed--or
on the sofa even, or the carpet?--it would be all the same to me, if
only the poor boy were at ease. And this morning again! I should like
to see the woman who would go through it for her husband! That would be
a fine fuss! and I, like a good-humoured fool, agree to everything, and
persuade him instead of shooting himself to go to Sundin, and farther
on--I don't know the name of the place--and shoot Count Golm, merely to
change the current of his thoughts, for he does not care one bit about
his so-called betrothed--and then I rush headlong here, and--well, what
do you want?"
Ferdinanda had hardly heard or understood a word of Bertalda's rambling
speech. She had been pulling out and ransacking drawers from the desk
which stood in a corner of her studio near the window, and now sitting
down opened her blotting-book.
"What are you about?" repeated Bertalda.
"I have enough to begin with," said Ferdinanda, still writing; "a
thousand thalers! There! take up the packet--thank God! I only received
it yesterday."
"That is always something to begin with," said Bertalda; "I had already
offered him what I had, but of course he would not take it from me. But
do let that scribbling alone. What are you doing now?"
"Here!" cried Ferdinanda.
She folded the paper on which she had been writing, and held it out to
Bertalda.
"What am I to do with it?"
"Take it to my father, whilst I go to Ottomar."
"Oh! I dare say!" said Bertalda. "I am not generally afraid of people,
but I won't have anything to do with your father. Just leave it there.
Some one will find it and give it to him, and if not it can't be
helped."
"I will give it to him," said a gentle voice.
Ferdinanda started up with a cry, as she saw Cilli, who had entered as
usual by the door which led from the studio into the narrow passage
between the house and garden, and unnoticed by the others had been
present for some minutes, and had heard with her quick ears every word
of the latter part of their conversation.
"Oh! my better self, my good angel," cried Ferdinanda; "you are come to
tell me that I am doing right, that I may, that I ought to follow him
as my heart tells me, through shame and grief, through misery and
death!"
"And may God be with you!" said Cilli, laying her hands on Ferdinanda's
head, who had thrown herself on her knees before her;--"with you both!
He only asks for love, and yet again for love, the love that beareth
all things. You can now--you can both now prove that your love is true
love! Give me the letter to your father! and farewell!"
She bent down and kissed Ferdinanda on the forehead, as the other rose
sobbing and gave the letter into her hand.
"You look so pale, Cilli, and your dear hands are cold as ice. Is your
father very ill?"
"He is very ill; but the doctor says he will get over it. He is asleep
now--Aunt Rikchen is with him, so I have plenty of time."
She smiled her own sad sweet smile.
"And now, farewell! for the last time!"
"Come," cried Bertalda impatiently; "come, we have lost only too much
time already! Whatever you want besides I can supply you with."
Ferdinanda was forced to tear herself away from Cilli. In her own
passionate way she had learned within the last few weeks to love, and
honour, and even worship the fair being who had come to her, as the
good Samaritan came to the wounded man in the burning desert sand. An
inward foreboding warned her that this was a farewell for ever, that
she should never again behold these angelic features. And to-day the
face in its transparent clearness seemed hardly that of an earthborn
creature.
Was she who seemed fragile as a breath, who was like a ray of light
from a better world upon this dark sinful earth, to take this earthly
burden upon her slender shoulders, to touch with her pure hands these
dark sorrows.
"I will go to my father myself!" cried Ferdinanda.
"Then you may just as well stay here altogether," said Bertalda.
"Go, go!" said Cilli.
And now again it was Ferdinanda who thought that Bertalda could not
quickly enough put on the cloak which she had thrown off in the hot
studio, or find the bonnet which she had flung down anywhere.
"I called a cab as I came," said Bertalda; "it is waiting at the door;
we shall be at my house in five minutes." At the house door there were
two cabs waiting.
Bertalda helped Ferdinanda to get into the first, and was in the act of
following her, when the driver of the second carriage asked whether the
gentleman was not coming.
"What gentleman?"
"The one who called me. Doesn't he belong to you?"
"I know nothing about him," said Bertalda, getting in and shutting the
door behind her.
The vehicle was hardly in motion before Antonio came out of the house,
with a broad-brimmed hat upon his black hair, and a large cloak over
his shoulders--he had brought them both from Italy, and they were the
first things which he had laid his hands upon--and with a small
travelling-bag under his cloak into which he had thrust a change of
linen. He rushed up to the driver of the second cab:
"I told you to wait at the corner!"
"I thought as there was another one at the door, and I had seen you run
in here--"
"No matter--follow that cab--at the same distance that we are now, not
a step nearer, and when the other stops, pull up!"
"All right," said the driver, "I understand."