Lozoncyi had gone to the station. He had delayed until the latest
minute, intimidated by the difficulties of his undertaking, swayed by
intense agitation. At last, passion for Erika had gained the mastery,
although it had shrunk to very small dimensions. All the poetry had
faded out of it. The lofty conception of life and its duties which had
lately raised him above himself had vanished like a fit of intoxication
of which nothing is left save a torturing thirst. Will she come? he had
asked himself, with quivering nerves, as he sprang from the gondola,
and, after purchasing the tickets, looked around him anxiously.
He had in fact expected that she would be there before him: he was
disappointed at not finding her. He went out upon the steps leading
from the railway-station to the Canal, and looked abroad over the
shining green water. As each gondola approached he said to himself,
"Here she comes." But no; she did not come.
The first bell rang. He went on the platform, his pulses throbbing
feverishly. While he had been sure that she would come he had been
comparatively calm; now his longing for her knew no bounds. He eagerly
scanned every woman whom he saw in the distance.
Fortunately, he saw no one whom he knew: the train was not very full.
The second bell rang; the passengers hurried into their several
compartments, porters ran to and fro with travelling-bags and trunks,
farewells were waved from the windows of the train. The third bell
rang, and the train steamed noisily out of the station. She had not
come.
His disappointment was largely mingled with anger, and was so intense
that it amounted to physical nervous pain. "At the last moment her
courage has failed her," he told himself. But then her pale beautiful
face, lit up with enthusiasm, arose before his mind's eye, and in the
midst of his frenzy of passion he was conscious of the yearning
tenderness which had been a chief element in his feeling for her. "No,"
he said to himself, "even if her courage has failed her, she is not one
to break her word. She must have been prevented at the last moment."
A burning desire for certainty in the matter mastered him. He went to
the Hotel Britannia, under the pretext of calling upon the Lenzdorffs.
He was told that her Excellency had gone out early in the afternoon and
had not yet returned. He hesitated for a moment, and then, in a tone
the indifference of which surprised himself, he asked if he could see
the Countess Erika, as he had a message for her. The porter, a
presuming fellow who meddled in everybody's affairs, informed him that
the young Countess had just gone out, but would probably return
shortly.
"Why do you think so?" asked Lozoncyi.
"Because she was not in evening dress. She went out in a street suit,
and carried a leather bag in her hand: that always means 'charity' with
the young Countess. I know the bag: I have often carried it for her to
the gondola. This time she walked, and carried it herself. She is a
little----" he touched his forehead with his forefinger, "but a good
lady: she is always giving."
Lozoncyi stayed no longer. He got into his gondola again, uncertain
what to do. What could have kept her? After some reflection, he went
again to the railway-station. "She has been detained by some
acquaintance; she will be here for the next train," he thought. He
waited until the next train left,--in vain. Then a fierce anger against
her arose within him and transcended all bounds. He forgot that he
himself had delayed for a moment. He could not find words bitter enough
to express his contempt for her. He never should have taken such a step
of his own accord: he had simply acquiesced in the inevitable. She had
carried him away by her enthusiasm, which had levelled all barriers
between them, and now--now her cowardice had left him in the lurch. It
was hardly worth while to devise so fine a drama, when it was never to
be played out! How stupid he had been ever to believe that it could
possibly be played out! he ought to have known that at the last moment
the censor would prohibit it. In the midst of his anger he experienced
a sensation of dull indifference. What did anything matter? everything
of importance in his life was at an end: what became of the rest he did
not care. He had been lured on by a Fata Morgana; he laughed at the
thought that he had taken it for reality,--a dull, joyless laugh,--and
then--he could not spend the night at the station--he resolved to go
home.
It was about ten o'clock when he passed through the green door of his
house and along the narrow corridor into the garden. The moon was high
in the sky, and the trees and bushes cast pitchy shadows upon the
bluish light lying upon the grass and gravel paths. The air was warm;
rose-leaves lay scattered everywhere; Spring was laying aside her
garments, and there was a dull weariness in the atmosphere.
Lozoncyi, with bowed head, walked towards the atelier, where was the
portrait. On a sudden he heard a light foot-fall behind him. He turned,
and stood as if rooted to the earth.
"Erika!"
She came towards him lovely as an angel. Her head was bare, and her
golden hair gleamed in the moonlight.
"Erika!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, without advancing a step towards her.
He took her for an illusion conjured up by his fancy. But as she drew
near he felt the reality of her young life beside him. "Then it is
really you?" he murmured. "I thought it a phantom to deceive me. Why
are you here?"
"No wonder you ask," she said, and her voice expressed unutterable
compassion. "I come to bid you farewell."
"Farewell!" he gasped. "Then I was right to doubt you. And yet how
bitterly I have reproached myself because----"
"Because----?" she asked, sadly.
"Because I ventured to suppose you had lost courage. What could I
think? I waited for you at the station from one train to the next: you
did not come. Then I told myself that you had simply treated me to a
farce. But I cannot believe that now: as I look into your dear face I
can find there no cowardice, nothing paltry. You have been detained
against your will, and you are here yourself to tell me so. It is noble
of you, Erika! my Erika!"
He drew closer to her, and extended his arms towards her: she evaded
them.
"All is over between us," she said, wearily. "It cannot be."
She saw him turn ashy pale in the moonlight.
"Over? It cannot be? Erika! What does this mean? Have you robbed me of
all self-control only to desert me thus at the last moment? I cannot
believe it of you, Erika!" There was passionate entreaty in his voice.
Again he stretched out his arms towards her: gently, but firmly, she
repulsed him.
"Do not touch me," she begged. "I can scarcely stand. Something
horrible has happened; I must tell you of it as quickly as possible,
but I cannot stand upright." She grasped the bough of the mulberry-tree
around which the climbing roses were wreathed, and as she did so the
bough shook, and a cloud of white rose-leaves fluttered to the ground.
All about her was fading! How sultry the night was!
She sat down on the bench beneath the mulberry, above her the moonlit
sky with its hosts of stars, at her feet the fading garment of the
spring.
Then she began her story: "I was on my way to the station. I should
have been punctual: perhaps I should have been there before you. I was
convinced that I was doing right, and so long as that was so I could
not delay. The way to the station leads past this house. My gondola had
not yet reached the bridge that spans this canal when I heard a loud
splash in the water. A woman had thrown herself from the bridge. You
can imagine my horror. In an instant the suspicion darted into my mind
that it might be your wife. I implored my gondolier to save her, and he
plunged into the water just in time. It was indeed your wife, whom I
could not but feel I had thus hunted to death. She lay in the bottom of
the gondola, covered with sea-weed and slime--oh, horrible! I brought
her home. We carried her up-stairs, with Lucrezia's help, and then
recalled her to life. That was comparatively easy; but scarcely had she
opened her eyes when she was seized with frightful spasms of the chest,
and I feared she would die."
Lozoncyi had listened breathlessly; now he nodded slowly. "I know she
suffers from such attacks frequently," he said, bitterly, "but they are
not dangerous: they are usually the result of a fit of fury."
"That I did not know," Erika murmured, in the same weary, self-accusing
voice,--the voice of a criminal arraigning herself. "Her condition made
a terrible impression upon me. We put her to bed, and I stayed with her
while Lucrezia went for a physician. She returned without him, but the
unfortunate woman seemed better and calmer, and I was about to leave
her, when I heard your step in the corridor. I came hither to take
leave of you. Forgive me, and farewell!" She had risen from the bench,
and held out her hand to him; her eyes were full of tears.
He did not take her hand. "And for this you would desert me?" he
exclaimed, angrily. "You have given me no reason,--not the slightest.
That devil up-stairs has simply played you a trick,--nothing more. Can
you not see it? She knew what we were about to do, and watched for you:
she had not the least idea of taking her own life."
"I do not know," replied Erika, passing her hand across her brow: "it
may be that she meant only to prevent me from arriving in time at the
station. But it was frightful: the canal is very deep there; she would
surely have been drowned; and how could I have lived after witnessing
her death? No! as I sat beside her bed a veil seemed to fall from my
eyes,--a veil which had blinded me to what I was doing. I saw that,
with the best will in the world, I could do only harm. I was ready to
give my life for you,--I am always ready for that,--but I must not
sacrifice the lives of others who stand in close relation to you and to
me; I cannot!--I cannot! I ought not to have robbed you of your peace,
to have taken from you the power of self-renunciation; I acknowledge
it. If you could but know how bitterly I reproach myself, how fearful
it is for me to see you suffer! My poor friend, I entreat your
forgiveness from my very soul!" She took his hand and humbly touched it
with her lips.
The night grew more sultry and oppressive. A bewildering fragrance
exhaled from the earth, from the plants, from the faded blossoms on the
ground, and from the fresh buds opening to life. The moonlight fell
full upon the statue of a dancing faun beneath an acacia-tree, and upon
the scattered rose-leaves around it.
Hitherto Lozoncyi had stood still, with bowed head. But at the touch of
her lips upon his hand he looked up. His veins ran fire.
"Farewell!" she murmured, gently.
He repeated "Farewell!" and then suddenly added, "Will you not take one
more look at the studio before you go?"
She found nothing unusual in this request. He led the way; she followed
him, her whole being filled with compassion: she would have been nailed
to the cross to relieve his pain,--the pain for which she was to blame.
The moonlight flooded the studio, lending an unreal appearance to the
room, and in the magic light stood forth the figure of 'Blind Love,'
athirst to reach its goal, staggering in the mire.
From the garden breathed a benumbing odour, and from the far distance
floated towards the pair, like a yearning sigh, the song of the
Venetian night-minstrels.
Erika looked about her sadly. "It was fair!" she murmured. "I thank you
for it all. Adieu!"
She held out both her hands to him; she had wellnigh offered him her
lips, in the desperation of her compassion.
He took her hands in his and bent over them. "It is, perhaps, better
so," he said, and his voice had never been so tremulous and yet so
tenderly beguiling. "The sacrifice you would have made for me was too
great: I ought not to have accepted it at your hands. And you are
right, we must spare those who are near to us; it must be. But for
God's sake do not desert me quite! do not consign me to utter misery!"
She looked at him with eyes of wonder. She could not comprehend. What
was there left for her to do for him?--what?
He kissed her hands alternately: she did not notice how he drew her
towards him until she felt his hot breath upon her cheek. Then he said,
softly, very softly, "You must return to your grandmother tonight, I
know; you cannot devote your life to me; but--oh, Erika! our existence
is made up of moments--grant me a moment's bliss now and then! you will
not be the poorer, and I--I shall be richer than a king! The world
shall never know; no shadow shall fall upon you, be sure----"
At last she understood. She tore her hands from his grasp; a hoarse
sobbing cry escaped her lips, and without a word she turned and fled
past the faun gleaming in the moonlight, past the fading blossoms,
across the garden, through the long cold corridor, without once taking
breath until the green door with the lion's head had closed behind her.
A despairing cry pursued her: "Erika! Erika!" It was the voice of the
man who had been suddenly aroused to the consciousness of what he had
done.
But she never heeded it: she had a horror of him.
For a moment she stood uncertain on the border of the canal. Her
gondolier had departed, having judged it best to be rid as soon as
possible of his wet clothes. It was late, and she was alone.
Around her was the ghostly moonlight, before her the dark lapping
water. She was not afraid: what was there to fear? But, with the world
in ruins as it were about her, what should she do? What, except return
to the Hotel Britannia?
She threaded her way through the zigzag narrow streets, across bridges
and along the shores of the canals, her eyes bent on the ground. It
never occurred to her that any one whom she knew could meet her
wandering thus late at night with uncovered head; for she had left her
hat in the sick woman's room. All through these last terrible hours she
had had no thought for her reputation. She walked on and on. Suddenly
there fell upon her ear,--
"Ninon, Ninon, que fais-tu de la vie,
Toi, qui n'as pas d'amour?
Comment vis-tu----"
As she crossed a narrow canal by a small bridge, the singers' gondola
came directly towards her. She saw it close at hand. The soprano was a
faded, hollow-cheeked woman, the men were quite ragged.
Was that the phantom that had lured her on all through the spring?
The guttering candles in the gondola were burned almost into the
sockets. One of the paper lanterns took fire. The boat glided beneath
the bridge. When it emerged on the other side the lights were
extinguished, the singers silent. The gondola floated drearily on, a
black formless spot in the moonlight.
Shortly afterwards Erika found a gondola in which she reached the
hotel.
In consequence of the arrival of a large number of fresh guests, the
hotel was brilliantly lighted, all the doors were open, and Erika went
up the staircase to her room without attracting special notice.
"Perhaps," she thought, "my grandmother has not yet returned: I may be
able to recover my letter before she has read it." She went instantly
to her bedroom. Light issued from the chink of the door: she was too
late. She opened the door. There, beside her bed, sat her grandmother
in an arm-chair, erect and stiff, her eyes looking unnaturally large in
her ashy-pale face, where the last few hours had graven deeper furrows
than had been made by all the other experiences of her seventy years.
A strange cry escaped the old Countess's lips when she perceived the
wan, sad apparition in the door-way. Half rising from her seat, her
hands grasping the arms of the chair, she gazed at the girl as if she
had been a corpse newly risen from the tomb. Trembling in every limb,
"Erika!" she stammered. She tried to walk towards her grandchild, and
could not. Erika's strength barely sufficed to carry her to the
bedside, where she sank at her grandmother's feet and laid her head in
her lap.
Neither could speak for a while. The old lady only stroked the girl's
hair with her delicate hand, which grew warmer every minute. The girl
sobbed. After some minutes the grandmother bent over her and murmured,
"Erika, tell me how you have been rescued at the eleventh hour. Where
have you been?"
Erika lifted her head, and in a faint voice told all that had occurred
until the moment when she had gone down into the garden to take leave
of Lozoncyi. There she hesitated.
Her grandmother listened breathlessly, and in an instant the girl began
afresh: "I had forgotten myself. I would have done more for him than
was ever done for man before; I would have borne him aloft to the
stars. And he--the way was too hard; he had no heart for it; he would
have dragged me down into the mire from which I would fain have rescued
him. And when at last I understood, I fled----" A fit of convulsive
sobbing interrupted her: she could not go on.
Her grandmother understood it all. She said not a word, only gently
stroked the poor head in her lap. After a while she persuaded Erika to
lie down, helped her to undress, and smoothed the pillow in which the
poor child hid her tear-stained face.
She sat at the bedside until the dull weariness sure to follow upon
intense nervous agitation produced its effect and the girl slept. The
grandmother still sat there, motionless, until far into the morning.
About nine o'clock Marianne softly opened the door of the room. Erika
awoke. She had forgotten everything,--when her glance fell upon a small
black travelling-bag in the maid's hand.
"Please, your Excellency, a gondolier has just brought this bag,"
Marianne explained. "He says the Countess Erika left it in the gondola
yesterday after the accident,--after the fright, I mean: he told me all
about it. Poor Countess Erika! what a terrible thing for her! But it
was fortunate, too, because she was able to save the poor woman. The
gondolier has come for the hundred lire which the Countess promised him
for getting the woman out of the water."
The old Countess drew a deep breath. Everything was turning out more
favourably for Erika than she had dared to hope. The adventure, which
would of course be discussed freely by all the hotel servants, would
explain Erika's long absence and strange return.
"Is the Countess Erika ill?" asked the faithful Marianne, with an
anxious glance at the young girl, whose cheeks were flushed with fever.
"Only suffering from the effects of agitation," said Countess
Lenzdorff, who had meanwhile brought the money and given it to the
maid.
"No wonder! Poor Countess Erika!" the servant murmured as she withdrew.
Weary and wretched, Erika again closed her eyes. When she opened them
she saw her grandmother at the writing-table, her head resting on her
hand, and a blank sheet of paper before her.
"To whom are you writing, grandmother?"
"I want to write to Goswyn," the old Countess replied, in a low tone.
"I must answer his letter; and--I am not sure----" She hesitated.
Upon Erika's mind flashed the remembrance of the letter she had written
the previous day to Goswyn. She had forgotten it.
"Of course I must tell him not to come," said her grandmother.
Erika sighed. Must she give her grandmother that pain too? At last she
managed to say, in a voice that was scarce audible, "He will not come:
he----"
Startled by a terrible suspicion, her grandmother looked at her in
dismay. Erika's face was turned away from her.
"Well?" asked the old Countess.
"I wrote to him yesterday," poor Erika stammered, "telling him what I
was about to do. I thought he must hear of it sooner or later, and I
wished that he should hear it in a way that would give him least pain."
"Oh, Erika! Erika!"
But Erika lay still, her head turned away from her grandmother. After a
while she said, almost in a whisper, "Grandmother, please write to him
that"--she buried her face in the pillow--"that---- Oh, grandmother,
tell him--that--he need not despise me!"
Her grandmother made no reply. For a while absolute silence reigned in
the room. Then Erika suddenly heard a low sob. She looked round. The
Countess had covered her face with her hands, and was weeping.
It was the first time since Erika had known her that she had seen her
shed tears.