They crossed the hall in silence, and, without exchanging a word,
entered one of the rooms reserved for the private use of the members of
the club, and which the servant opened for the two gentlemen at a sign
from Brandow. A large hanging lamp, directly over a round table covered
with green velvet, lighted the apartment tolerably well. Several
arm-chairs, also covered with green velvet, stood around the table.
"I suppose we shall be entirely undisturbed here," said Gotthold.
"And I that the farce will not last long; you saw I was very busy."
Brandow, as if in a fit of impatience, had drawn one of the chairs away
from the table and thrown himself into it, but it was by no accident
that his face was thus in the shadow, while the light streamed full on
Gotthold's.
"Very busy," repeated Brandow, drumming on the arm of the chair, "too
busy not to be compelled to defer the account I have to settle with you
until tomorrow morning. And if you should have the--the face to try to
intimidate me, I say: Beware! beware! you do not yet know me; my
patience is not inexhaustible, and however willing I might be to avoid
a scandal, and for these few days, I freely confess, would fain escape
it--if you urge me, and it must be--I am ready--ready at any moment."
Brandow had spoken in a loud, threatening tone; but he had evidently
failed in his object. Gotthold's eye rested upon him so calmly--with a
glance of contempt, as it seemed to him--that he could not bear the
gaze, and suddenly paused with a secret thrill of terror, as Gotthold
now quietly opened a letter he had just taken out of his pocket.
"Will you read this letter before you say more?"
Brandow had not the courage to refuse.
"From the noble Wollnow, apparently, to me and about you?"
"Yes, it is from Wollnow, but to me and about you."
"About me! that's strange, and passably long too."
He tried to feign a yawn as he let the sheets slip through his fingers;
but had scarcely cast a glance at them, and read the first lines, when
he started up like a madman, and hurling the letter upon the table,
exclaimed:
"This is infamous! This demands blood! I will see nothing more, hear
nothing more! I will not be the patient victim of a vulgar intrigue. We
will speak of this again, sir, we will speak of this again."
He wandered restlessly up and down the room; Gotthold remained quietly
in his seat.
"You have a moment to decide whether you will read the letter, or
whether I shall show it to Count Zarrentin, before taking farther
steps."
Brandow paused in his walk. "So you really mean to have a scandal! I
thought so. Well, perhaps it will be worth the trouble, to see how you
intend to begin."
He threw himself into his chair again, seized the letter, and began to
read it with the air of a man who wished to get rid of a troublesome
petitioner. A scornful smile played around his lips. "I was mistaken,"
he muttered as if talking to himself, "it is simply ridiculous, utterly
ridiculous."
But his lips were pale; the smile changed to a grin, and his hands
trembled more and more. He had read very rapidly at first; but the
farther he proceeded the longer he lingered over every separate
sentence, and even word. Many he seemed to weigh and test two or three
times, and he made a pretence of reading long after he had evidently
reached the end. At last, amid the terrible tumult of his soul, a
resolution was formed.
"You were going to give this--letter to our chairman," he said,
carefully folding the sheets; "I have no objection, but on one
condition."
He withdrew the hand with which he had held out the letter to Gotthold.
"On condition that I may first take a copy of this precious document,
to serve as a basis for the charge of scandal I shall bring against the
noble writer and delicate-minded receiver of this bungling performance.
To a man so extremely just as yourself, a man who does not hesitate, on
the most absurd proofs, to charge his friend with the most horrible
crimes, this will doubtless be perfectly agreeable."
"Entirely so," replied Gotthold; "you can also keep the original. The
letter was merely to make you acquainted with certain things, to which
I did not wish to refer verbally, and has performed its work."
"And this interesting conversation is over," said Brandow, rising; "I
mean for to-day; to-morrow we shall have more to say to each other;
only the tables will be turned. The things of which I shall accuse you
are no shameful inventions like the story about the bills, or silly
fancies like the horrible murder of Hinrich Scheel, which you will
probably cry, with all the terrible details, at the next fair, but
facts, positive facts--a pretty commentary on the song of the worthy
man, who knows how to make no better use of the hospitality offered
him, than--you have done. So farewell until to-morrow!"
Brandow walked towards the door with a wave of the hand intended to be
contemptuous; Gotthold stepped before him.
"You will probably have patience a short time longer, when I tell you
that your future fate must be decided now and here."
"My fate? Are you mad?"
"Decide for yourself. Hinrich Scheel was found by me yesterday evening
in Wiessow, where he had concealed himself, and is now at my lodgings
guarded by the brothers Prebrow."
Brandow staggered back as if a bullet had struck him, until his hand
clutched the arm of a chair, and in that attitude stood staring at
Gotthold with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets.
"Hinrich Scheel!" he stammered.
"Whom you thought had disappeared from the scene forever, though you
were careless or niggardly enough not even to pay off your accomplice
properly. I am now obliged to have him watched, not to prevent his
escape--he has no wish to fly, he will endure any punishment if only
the man for whom he did what he did, does not escape; I have him
watched simply to prevent his taking this punishment into his own
harsh, cruel hands."
Brandow had sunk into the chair. His shameless courage and elastic
strength seemed to have utterly deserted him; he looked ten years
older; but suddenly he started up again.
"Bah!" he cried, "do you think you can frighten me in that way? If that
rascal Hinrich has allowed himself to be caught, so much the worse for
him! What harm can he do me? I hope my word will weigh no less than
that of a rascally groom, who has evidently been bribed by my enemies.
A man who knows himself innocent cares nothing for bribery: or do you
really expect to make any one believe that, if even a suspicion could
have fallen upon me from any quarter, I would have let the fellow go
without securing his silence in some way? That is certainly sheer
nonsense: or will you say, he gave him nothing, so that if he were
caught no one would ask, From whom and for what did you get this money?
Settle it among yourselves, and do as you please--an honest man like me
laughs at your threats."
Again he went towards the door, but his step grew slower the nearer he
approached it; and ere he reached the threshold, he turned on his heel
and came up to Gotthold with a smile on his lips.
"Let us drop the tragic masks, Gotthold, and talk like sensible people;
what are your conditions?"
"The first is that you shall confess the deeds of which Wollnow's
letter accuses you. You know what I mean."
"Not entirely. Is the confession only for yourself?"
"If you consent to the other conditions, yes."
"Very well; I did what I am said to have done. What more?"
"That which follows as a matter of course. The daughter of an honorable
family cannot and shall not be the wife of a criminal. That is, you
will give your consent to everything we--I mean Herr Bogislas Wenhof,
Wollnow and I--may dictate in regard to the divorce."
"And my daughter?"
"Answer the question yourself."
"I love the child."
"You lie, Brandow; and even were it possible, as it is impossible, you
would still have forever forfeited the right to keep her, or even
maintain any communication with her. I hope she will forget you are her
father."
"Which, however, I shall ever remain, and, _mon cher_, I'll give
you this knowledge, which is doubtless uncommonly pleasing, as a
wedding-present; or don't you intend to carry to a fitting end the
business you have so beautifully begun?"
"The point in question is your destiny, not mine."
"Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did
you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of God?
Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday,
and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been
in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the
playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in
those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well,
you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a
single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a
gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is
not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs
best."
The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down
the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and
he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again
paused and said:--
"Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?"
"I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you
to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly
at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so
to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us."
"And if I don't win?"
"You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you
can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in
less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to
you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the
package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after
to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent."
"How well you have provided for yourself!"
"And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you
are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to
ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I
do not desire."
Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the
tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.
"You said just now, Brandow, that you loved your child: it was a lie;
if you had done so even a little, for her sake you would at least have
kept yourself innocent of crime. You have never loved any one except
yourself, and that with a coarse, vain, egotistical love, which had no
trace of respect for the sacredness of that which even the roughest men
reverence. Yet--although this is my honest opinion--I am a man, and may
be mistaken; perhaps it will touch your heart, when you hear that your
child is ill, very ill--that we shall possibly only be able to prolong
her innocent young life a few days. It is terrible to say it, but I
cannot lighten the burden you have laid upon your conscience: if it
dies, you have killed it."
"I?" faltered Brandow; "I?"
"Yes, you! You who made life worthless to her mother," replied
Gotthold, turning to Brandow. "Or did you think the blow you dealt the
mother would not strike the child, too? That the latter would not drink
death from the poisoned cup of life you gave the former? You cannot
have thought so, for you had based your whole plan upon this mutual
love between the mother and child; you thought the bond that united
their souls strong enough to bear your whole shameful web of falsehood
and deceit, treachery and violence. I say once more: if it dies, you
have killed it. Understand this clearly, man, if you can. It is so
horrible that everything else you have done is innocent in comparison;
it is so fearful that you must realize it."
Gotthold walked several paces, and then paused before his enemy, who
sat cowering in his chair with his head resting on his hands.
"Brandow, they say that years ago, when, struck down by your sword, I
lay on the ground before you, you dealt me a second blow. It has always
been impossible for me to believe it, even now it is difficult; but
however that may be, I cannot give a death-blow to any one lying on the
ground, no matter who he is, or what he may have done; but neither can
I hold out my hand to a worthless man, even if he extends his
imploringly to me. Remember this, Brandow. Perhaps the moment will come
sooner than you believe possible."
Gotthold left the room; Brandow still sat in the same attitude into
which he had first sunk, staring steadily at the carpet. A dreary smile
flitted over his pale face.
"That was a fine sermon," he muttered; "highly edifying! He got that
from his father, the parson! And I sit here, and let myself be made out
a villain by the miserable babbler, the cursed hypocrite, and don't
hurl all he says back into his canting face. Bah!"
He started up and wandered about the room.
"Folly, folly, folly! Her love for this dauber is not a thing of to-day
or yesterday; she has always loved him; she has never been able to
forgive herself for stooping to wed me, the haughty Princess! I knew it
from the first! And was I to pocket the insult quietly, act as if I did
not notice it, be satisfied with the crumbs thrown to me? I should have
been a fool! Nobody would have done so in my place, and I've only done
what any one else would, what thousands do who have not even my excuse.
Alma would have run away from her silly husband long ago, if I had
wanted her, if I had not always dissuaded her. But that would have been
just the right grist for their mill; their only regret is that I have
not made it easier for them. And I've made it easy enough now. Fool,
fool! How I might have made them writhe, how I might make them writhe,
if it were not for the accursed money. They put a stone in my path for
me to stumble over, and I did them the favor, and now they stand and
triumph!"
He strode up and down the room like a caged tiger.
"But it is not always night. A little more, and I should have wept over
that sentimental speech, as if it had been the truth, as if she had not
taught the child to hate me, as if it had the slightest trace of
resemblance to me, and might not just as well have been his, which it
probably would, if he had then been the noble family friend for which
he passes now. I have let myself be caught in the snare like a stupid
boy. It came too suddenly; I was not calm enough; and Hinrich's
reappearance was a shameful blow. Who would have thought it, after the
fellow had once been so foolish as to draw all the suspicion upon
himself, and I had made things so hot for him here! He shall pay for
it, if he ever crosses my path again--the scoundrel; he shall pay for
it. He and the daubing parson's son, and the old vagabond, and the
damned Jew, and she--she--"
He paused before one of the large mirrors which covered the walls of
the room between the windows from floor to ceiling.
"So I wasn't good enough for her. Other people think differently in
this respect. The fact is, I sold myself too cheap. A fellow like me
might have made very different pretensions; nay, can still at any
moment, though I look now as Don Juan did last night when the devil was
chasing him. But it's only the green glass and the dim light."
A knock at the door interrupted his gloomy soliloquy. It was a servant,
who came to ask whether Herr Brandow was not coming back to the
dining-room soon.
"At once," said Brandow.
He cast another glance at the mirror. "I'm rather deplorable-looking
still. No matter! Or so much the better. They will think I am anxious
about to-morrow, and fall into the snare all the easier, the
blockheads! And to-morrow noon I shall have my thirty or forty thousand
in my purse, and--all the rest is nonsense."