III.

The evening was closing in around them. Through the thick undergrowth

of wood which bordered the path on both sides but little light could

penetrate; overhead the leafy crowns of the beeches interlaced and

formed an almost continuous roof. At a certain abrupt declivity a few

rough steps had been placed.

"Will you take my arm. Uncle Bertram?" said Erna. It was the first word

spoken between them since, several minutes ago, minutes which had

weighed like lead upon Bertram, they had left the bench under the beech

tree.

"I was just going to put the same question to you," he replied.

"Thanks," said Erna. "I know every step here; but you--and then, you

have been ill."

This might, of course, have been meant in all friendliness; but there

was a coldness about the tone, something like giving alms, Bertram

thought.

"Have been," he made answer; "but quite well again--quite well."

"I understand you are going to Italy for the winter--for the sake of

your health."

"I am going to Italy because I hope I shall be rather less bored in

Rome than in Berlin--that is all."

"And suppose you are bored in Rome too?"

"You mean, bores are bored everywhere?"

"No, I do not mean that; indeed, it would have been most disagreeable

on my part had I meant anything of the kind. I only wanted to know

where people go to from Rome, if they desire still to travel on. To

Naples, I should say?"

"To be sure. To Naples, to Capri! In Capri there stands amidst orange

groves, with sublimest view of the blue infinity of the ocean, a fair

white hostelry, embowered in roses, Quisisana. Years ago I was there,

and I have longed ever since to be back again. _Qui si sana!_ What a

sound of comfort, of promise! _Qui si sana!_ Here one gets well! Even

those who ate fairly well, physically, have something to recover from.

Why, life itself--what is it but a long disease, and death its only

cure?"

Another pause. He had intended that there should be no new break in

their conversation and yet the very words he had just uttered, still

under the impulse of the invalid's peevish humour, were little likely

to induce the beautiful and taciturn girl by his side to talk. He

wanted to make heir talk. It never occurred to him that her silence was

due to a lack of ideas, or even to shyness. Quite the reverse. She

interested him more and more every moment, and he was strongly

impressed that he was dealing with a girl of marked individuality,

reposing securely in her own strength. Of her whom he had known and

loved as a child, and whose image he had cherished in fondest, truest

memory, never a trace!

"You know, Uncle Bertram, that you are going to see Fraeulein von

Aschhof--Aunt Lydia--to-night?" she resumed abruptly.

Bertram started. That name--from her, fair, chaste lips--had a doubly

hateful sound.

"I know," he answered; "not from your parents, but I know."

"They will have shrunk from telling you," Erna continued. "Mamma was

most reluctant to sanction Aunt Lydia's coming; but Aunt Lydia begged

so very hard to be allowed to see you once more, and she thought that

now, when you have been so very, very ill, and when you are going away

for such a long time, you might be in gentler mood. And yet she was

afraid to encounter you. She grew so nervous as we were driving along,

that I believe she was uncommonly near getting out and leaving us to

continue the journey without her. At last I could scarcely bear to

witness her uneasiness any longer, and I felt considerable relief when

I got out myself in order to walk across the hill--from Fischbach,

don't you know--and as I was coming along, I was debating whether, if I

reached home before them, I might not beg you to be a little friendly

towards auntie. You ... but I am not sure whether to go on ..."

"I beg you will do so."

"I only wanted to add: you owe it to her."

"Do I?"

"I should think so; for her only fault has been that she has loved you

and still loves you, and you ..."

"My dear child, I beg you will go on without any shyness. I am anxious,

very anxious, you should do so."

"And you ... left her, after you had been engaged for a whole year!"

"And then I wrote her a letter of renunciation, did I not? And the poor

forsaken one, in her despair, engaged herself within four-and-twenty

hours to Count Finkenburg, who had long been vainly suing for her hand?

And the old gentleman was so enchanted that scarce a week after he died

from rapture and paralysis combined, without even having time to

remember his fair bride in his will! Was it not so?"

"Let us change the topic, Uncle Bertram," Erna replied. "I hear from

your words and from your tone that you are excited, and I now feel

doubly how awkward I was in turning our talk, for auntie's sake, to a

subject I ought to know nothing of, and which I certainly should never

have mentioned."

"I cannot let you off like that, alas! my child," Bertram said in

reply. "I must still ask you from whom your information is derived.

From Fraeulein von Aschhof, of course?"

"I cannot find it unnatural," Erna said, "if Aunt Lydia, in the

excitement she has laboured under ever since your visit here was

announced, and since she determined to see you again, has unburdened

her overflowing heart to me, and has told me all which--or the greater

part of which--I knew or guessed. And she has urgently entreated me not

to repeat a word of this to you, and I am sure she is convinced that I

would do nothing of the kind. But I gave her no promise, for I have

always been very fond of you, Uncle Bertram, very, very fond; and I was

so sorry that you ... that I now could no longer be fond of you. I have

always in my heart taken your side, when they were saying that you were

cold and selfish, and cared for nobody but yourself. I have always

thought: he has never found any one worthy of him! And now I know all,

I should like to say: perhaps Aunt Lydia was not worthy of him either;

she has many qualities which I do not like at all--but she would surely

have turned out differently if you had not betr ... had not forsaken

her. How can a girl remain good, if she is forsaken by the man she

loves! How can she, if her heart is easily touched, become aught but a

coquette, and assume manners that people will laugh and jeer at; or, if

she be proud, and ashamed of her misfortune, she must needs grow cold

and heartless, and full of contempt for all men, nay, for all mankind!"

The calm, low voice had remained the same to the very last word, but in

striking contrast to that calm and that self-control there was the

passionate gleam of the great dark eyes, which now looked up to Bertram

with wondrous firmness, such as the ancients may have imagined the gaze

of the gods--"whose eyelids quiver not, like those of mortals."

The narrow path had widened to a glade; there they stood for a few

moments gazing in each other's eyes; and Bertram felt the fascination

of that wondrous firmness, felt, too, that no consideration could

condemn him to stand before those eyes as a contemptible wretch, and

that, at any cost, he must tear to pieces the dark curtain which

unscrupulous lies had woven and spread between her and him.

He took her arm, as though to make sure that she would not escape from

him, and, striding swiftly along, and almost dragging her with him, he

said--

"And now hear me, too, and despise me, if you still can do so after you

have heard me! Forsaken, did you say, forsaken and betrayed? Yea,

verily! But she it was who practised the treachery--most infamous, most

horrible treachery, with never the shadow of an excuse for it, if

indeed anything ever can excuse treachery. I loved her--I will not say

more than ever man did love--I know not how other men love--I only,

know, that I loved her with the best and purest strength, of my heart.

I was no longer a youth when, at your parents' wedding, I made the

acquaintance of your mother's friend. I was almost thirty years

of age, and was living, as you know, in Leipzig as a mere private

scholar--_Privat-Gelehrter_ they call it. I had planned my scheme of

study on a very great scale, and, being very much, in earnest about

science and art, as indeed about all things I take up, I was wont to

devote years to tasks which other men, with less time or more genius,

accomplish in as many months. Moreover, I had what I required for the

expenses of living, perhaps even a little more--I, am not given to

paying attention to that kind of thing. Now everything became changed

at once. I loved her, I fancied myself loved in return. We had met here

again, and, more than once, and had become engaged, though at first,

and at my own special request, in all secrecy. I comprehended that a

man engaged to so high-born and gifted, a girl as Lydia von Aschhof,

must needs be something better than a mere obscure private scholar, and

I readily 'pulled myself together,' determined to reach my goal. Some

time, of course, was required before my great work could be completed.

Some time; too much for her patience. Perhaps she doubted its ultimate

success. Perhaps she cared naught for the success, notwithstanding the

enthusiasm which she pretended to feel for my efforts, notwithstanding

her being so very kind as to assure me a thousand times that my genius,

my talent, had made her my captive, and would hold her my captive, yea,

though a crown were laid at her feet. As it turned out, no princely

crown was needed; only a plain coronet--and one surmounting a grey,

decrepit head into the bargain. Oh! she wrote me a most touching, most

generous letter of renunciation. 'I am but hindering you in your lofty

striving; an artist, a scholar must be free, unshackled; your fame is

more to me than my love,' and so on, and so on. Two or three pages

more, high-sounding phrases in daintiest handwriting, concluding, of

course, with the announcement of her new engagement, by which, as by a

_fait accompli_, she must needs assist her wavering heart.

"The letter was written from here, from Rinstedt. I hurried to the

railway; at the last station I got hold of a vehicle. When we got to

Fischbach, the poor overdriven steeds could not get on any further. By

the shortest, steepest path I climbed to the top of the Hirschstein,

the hill you have just come by; here, on the top, I fell down like one

dead. I gathered myself together again, and staggered on, on, until I

reached your father's house. She must have had some foreboding that I

would not submit to this in all patience; she had left your father's

house an hour before, driving to Fichtenau, taking the road by which it

was impossible for me to come. Afterwards I came to be grateful to her

for her circumspection and her precaution, for I think I must have been

simply raving mad; and it was well for both of us that my power was

broken, that I could not pursue the fair fugitive, but had to remain

here, a burden on your parents, sick unto death, given up by the

doctors, until some six or eight weeks' after, I surprised them all by

recovering, enabled to live on as best one can with a sorely wounded

heart--and a heart injured, not in the physical sense alone. What good,

do you think, did it do me whilst I was struggling with death here, and

afterwards dragged myself on crutches through the terrace-gardens, that

my work had appeared, had taken the world by storm, and made me, once

for all, what they call a famous man? What good that, just at that time

a childless old miser of an uncle took it into his head to die, and

that, in default of other heirs, his whole huge fortune fell to me? I

had had enough of the lying and cheating of humanity. Fame, love--I

cared no longer for these things. I became what I am, what my

acquaintances know me to be, what they have called me to you--a cold

egotist. What if for all that I do not cross my hands idly in my lap

but work on, and now and again utter a word of freedom which others,

less independent, might lack the courage to utter; or if I start and

encourage works of general utility; or if here and there I help some

lame dog over a stile; these things I surely do not for the love of the

Lord, nay, solely, so as not to lose that modicum of self-respect which

belongs to the indispensable stock-in-trade of a discreet egotist. And

talking of self-respect, dear, I begin to perceive with pain that I am

lessening the aforesaid modicum considerably in telling you all this.

For, in affairs of the hearts a gentleman should always spare the lady

the utterance of the first word and leave her the last, and if she

asserts that he is Don Giovanni and she Donna Elvira, why, he has but

to bow and thank her for assigning so brilliant a part to him. And now,

my dear child, now try to be fond of your garrulous old uncle once

more, will you not?"

The girl made no reply. A feeling of shame had gradually stolen over

Bertram as he spoke, and he had tried in vain to weaken it by

concluding with a semi-humorous turn. Now this feeling grew intensified

by Erna's silence. How had, it been possible for him to forget himself

so far as to reveal to a young girl, one almost a child still, one

without comprehension for such sad, ugly, painful experiences, the

deepest secret of his heart--a secret which he had trained himself to

pass by, as it were, with his own face turned away? And he had told of

this, to a girl who stood to the object of his vehement denunciation in

the peculiarly tender and delicate relation of pupil! How mean, how

ignoble of him! He had acted like a raw, immature lad! He wished

himself a thousand miles away; he cursed his want of determination,

inasmuch as he might have left the place abruptly an hour ago, and thus

have escaped all this horrible confusion. Now he must needs depart at

once, this very evening, if possible without seeing, without speaking

to, a soul; most certainly without entering upon any explanation

whatever. He had just tasted the delight of such explanations, and it

would be long before he lost the bitter after-taste of them!...

They were quite cleat of the wood now, and were approaching--walking

across some meadow land--a tiny gate in the thick old wall, which led

to the courtyard.