SHIPWRECK.
When at last she turned to go home, Otto came walking quickly towards
her from the castle. He looked annoyed, and asked, as he offered her his
arm, "Where have you been so long? I have been here an hour."
"Do not be angry with me," she begged. "Since, on grandpapa's account, I
could not ask my people to the castle, I drove with them to Remmingen."
"Your people?" he repeated, sharply. "Do not forget, my dear Johanna,
that your people are to be found only among the Doenninghausens. Whoever
does not belong to us is nothing to you."
"Otto, I have a sister!" she exclaimed, half angry, half wounded.
"The child of an equestrienne can be nothing to you."
"She is and always must be the child of my father. Moreover, my
step-mother is not an equestrienne. She is Carlo Batti's wife."
"As if it were not the same thing! Do you suppose our acquaintances
would have regard for any such distinctions if they were to see you with
that woman? But do not let us quarrel about it; your own good sense must
tell you that my betrothed--our grandfather's grandchild--cannot
possibly maintain any intercourse with those people."
Johanna was silent. This was not a favourable moment for any mention of
her wishes with respect to Lisbeth; but the longer she thought of
to-day's meeting, the more necessary did it appear to her that the
child should be removed from the evil influences of those about her, not
only for a while, but permanently. How this was to be done she could not
tell,--it could be possible only at Tannhagen.
Two days later Magelone returned to Doenninghausen. She was fresh and
gay, had made some 'most delightful' acquaintances, had danced a great
deal, and generally enjoyed herself 'hugely.' Otto teased her about her
repeated use of this adverb, ascribing her love for it to the 'huge
dimensions' of a certain captain, who had, according to Magelone, been
one of her most ardent admirers.
Merry as his teasing sounded, Magelone thought she detected in it a
certain jealous annoyance, which pleased her, and she did her best to
induce Otto to continue it, by continual descriptions of her social
delights,--a topic in which Otto, who was familiar with the society in
which his sisters lived, was as much interested as herself. Moreover, he
had a taste for aristocratic gossip in general, and for Magelone's
graceful treatment of it in particular. How rude Johanna's conversation
and air seemed by comparison! and what good did it do for him to try not
to compare? The contrast forced itself upon him all the more since
Johanna, at present anxious about her sister, and troubled, perhaps, by
the sense of a slight estrangement between Otto and herself, was graver
than her wont, while Magelone fairly sparkled with merriment.
And she seemed to him more beautiful than ever. The gleaming eyes, the
fresh pouting lips, the lithe grace of her figure, attracted him more
than ever. The consciousness that he must not yield to the attraction
increased its force, and Magelone saw this, and it pleased her to
torment him.
One evening, while she was playing a little thing of Chopin's, he,
leaning against the grand piano, became absorbed in contemplation of
her. Suddenly she looked up. Their eyes met.
"Do not look at me so," she whispered, continuing to play, while her
cheek flushed crimson, as her look held fast his own, and an evil smile
of triumph hovered upon her half-open lips.
On another occasion he said, suddenly dropping his jesting for a
passionate tone, "What a grief it is, Magelone, that we cannot belong to
each other!" She looked up at him angrily; then suddenly her eyes were
veiled in sadness, and, with a sigh, she turned and left him.
On both these occasions Johanna was seated only a few steps from the
pair, reading the papers aloud to her grandfather. Otto came nigh to
reproaching her in his heart for her calm confidence in him.
Weeks passed by; the spring in all its pomp and loveliness had taken
full possession of mountain and valley, but the workmen at Tannhagen
were so far behindhand that it was necessary to postpone the marriage.
The Freiherr, to whom delay was always intolerable, for a few days after
this postponement went about, as Magelone expressed it, like a hungry
lion, seeking to devour the poor workmen who had caused the mischief.
Otto, to whom she said this, laughed, but his laughter was forced.
"Oh, the workmen are not to be the victims; he has selected me!" he
replied. "That there may be no further delay, I am to take up my abode
to-morrow in Tannhagen to hasten them. In that wilderness!"
"If I had only known it sooner!" Magelone exclaimed. "Elfrida invited me
to Klausenburg for a few weeks; she wants me to help her to embroider
your wedding-present, and I said 'yes.' I depended upon you! Now it will
be stupid enough."
Otto muttered an imprecation. "Can you not excuse yourself?" he asked.
"Not possibly," she replied. "Grandpapa has given his royal consent.
And do you suppose it is much more amusing here? A betrothed couple just
before marriage--I could not stand it any longer!"
She laughed mockingly, then her lips quivered, and, pressing her
handkerchief to her eyes, she turned to go from him.
Otto detained her. "I will not let you go!" he exclaimed, in a low,
passionate tone. "I will see the tears that make me happy! We will
indemnify ourselves for this last piece of good fortune of which chance
tries to rob us. You will not always be embroidering or walking with
Elfrida. Since I must be on service at Klausenburg for a part of every
day, we can meet daily in the forest, and see each other where all these
eyes are not upon us!"
He confronted her in a window-recess, and held both her hands fast in
his own. She tried to extricate herself. "Let me go! let me go! What you
say is odious!" she whispered.
At this moment Johanna appeared. "Are you quarrelling again?" she asked.
"What is the matter now?"
"It is Otto's fault; he is so rude. Poor Johanna, you will have a hard
time with him!" Magelone said; and as she passed Otto she gave him a
glance compounded of forgiveness and provocation.
* * * * *
It had rained. The Freiherr, who dreaded the damp air, retired to try to
get a nap after the second breakfast, and Johanna, taking advantage of
her liberty, had Elinor saddled, and rode towards the Forest Hermitage
to ask after Christine.
The lonely ride did her good. The weight that had of late oppressed her
heart, the vague sensation of estrangement between Otto and herself,
vanished in the bright fulness of life that encompassed her here in the
forest on every hand. She thirstily drank eager draughts of the pungent
air exhaled in the sunshine by the drenched earth; she listened
delightedly when amid the humming, buzzing, twittering, and chirping
around her she distinguished the merry song of the finch, the call of
the wild dove, or the shrill, exultant note of the black thrush as it
echoed through the woods. The voices of the birds awakened a thousand
happy memories within her. "Otto!" she whispered, and soul and body
thrilled with ecstasy. Yes, all doubt and suspicion were treachery, a
sin against the Giver of such 'good and perfect gifts.'
She rode on as in a dream, and yet her soul and sense were never more
alive and open to the rich life about her. Not a note in the delicious
symphony of spring escaped her ear; no play of colour was lost to her
eye in the million glittering drops tossed by the breeze from the
branches.
Suddenly Leo began to bark, and Elinor pricked her ears. There was a
rustling in the bushes on one side of the way; a man appeared from them
and lifted his cap. It was Red Jakob.
Johanna reined in her horse. "Good-morning!" she said, kindly. "How is
Christine? I am on my way to her."
"Thanks, gracious Fruleen; she is better," he replied in an undertone,
as he came nearer. "She does not sleep well at night yet, but she gets
rest during the day. She is asleep now." And with a lowering glance he
added, "Shall I waken her, or will the gracious Fruleen wait awhile? I
could show her a rare sight to pass the time."
Another time Johanna might have been warned by his malicious grin not to
heed him, but now she did not observe it, and asked him where this
wonder was to be found.
"Not far from here," he replied; "but the gracious Fruleen must
dismount. I'll tie the horse, and then there is a little climb up the
rocks. She must not speak, and she must step very softly, or she will
spoil it all."
"'Tis a bird's-nest," Johanna said, gayly. And springing from her horse,
she bade Leo stay by Elinor, and followed Jakob along a path which
seemed to be but seldom used, for it was rank with weeds, and was
obstructed by hanging branches of the trees. Her guide cautiously opened
and bent back these to allow her to pass. Sometimes he looked round and
laid his finger on his lips, then crept on, while his eyes sparkled and
his sharp white teeth were buried deep in his under lip.
He reached a rocky turning, stooped to listen, and beckoned to Johanna
to approach. In an instant she stood beside him; he quickly tore asunder
the bushes with his sound arm and then retreated, leaving Johanna to
confront, in measureless amazement, Otto and Magelone. They were sitting
upon a low rock, clasped in each other's arms, and he was passionately
kissing her smiling lips.
Red Jakob's burst of discordant laughter aroused them from their
ecstasy.
"Johanna!" Otto cried, springing to his feet.
His voice dissolved the spell that had held her bound. With a shudder
she pressed her hands to her temples, and when Otto would have grasped
her arm she turned from him and tried to flee back through the thicket.
Magelone, who had sat like one crushed, started up and hurried after
her. "Hear me! hear me!" she cried, clutching at Johanna's riding-skirt.
"I will not let you go so proudly, so--so----"
"Magelone, hush, I conjure you!" Otto entreated.
She shook her head frantically. "No, no! I will speak at last, and
Johanna shall hear me. I have borne her falsehood long enough; her
pride, her contemptuous airs I will not bear. She shall blush before
me--me!"
And as she finished this sentence, which she uttered in desperate haste,
she relinquished her hold of Johanna's skirt, stepped close to her side,
and whispered in her ear, while her glittering eyes were riveted upon
the pale face, "Do you know why he asked you to marry him? To save me
from grandpapa's anger. The note that fell into grandpapa's hands was
written for me--for me! Ask himself if this is not so."
Involuntarily Johanna's glance followed the direction of Magelone's
hand. Otto, very pale, his lips tightly compressed, stood with his eyes
bent on the ground. Magelone, beside herself with shame and anger,
grasped his arm and shook it. "Speak!" she cried. "I require you on your
honour to tell the truth. For whom was the note intended? For whom?" she
repeated, as he took both her hands in his. "You are cowardly and
despicable if you do not speak now. For whom was the note intended?"
"For you," he said, sternly; and then, almost flinging her hands from
him, he went up to Johanna. "Do not condemn me!" he entreated. "Let me
explain to you----"
But she did not or would not hear him. She hurriedly broke through the
bushes, which closed behind her, and when Otto would have followed her,
a scream from Magelone recalled him to where she knelt sobbing
convulsively, gazing wildly about her. He could not leave her alone
thus.
"Pray stand up, and do not cry," he said, impatiently, seizing her
hands. She obeyed like a terrified child: she arose and dried her tears.
"What is to be done now?" he asked. And when, instead of answering, she
only looked up at him with a helpless expression, he added, bitterly,
"You must have had some end in view in bringing about the scene that has
just occurred."
"I? End in view?" she repeated. "Was it my fault that we--that Johanna
appeared?"
"Let us have no subterfuges!" he hastily interrupted her. "You know
perfectly well that I do not allude to her appearance, but to the
acknowledgment which, in your madness, you wrung from me. It is that
which has made all reconciliation impossible. Johanna might forgive a
momentary madness----"
Magelone flushed. Could he say this to her? "I did not know you wished
her to forgive!" she exclaimed.
Without noticing the interruption, Otto continued: "And I believe that I
could have induced her to do so. She is magnanimous and unselfish----"
"Why, then, are you still here?" Magelone interrupted him again, and her
eyes flashed. "Make haste, make haste, and cast yourself into the arms
of this magnanimous, unselfish being! At her feet, if need be." With a
laugh, she turned and would have left him.
He barred her way. "Stay!" he said, with decision. She obeyed
involuntarily. And as she stood before him with downcast eyes, and hands
loosely clasped in front of her, he went on, in a hard, stern tone: "You
know perfectly well that your revelations with regard to the reason for
my betrothal have made my marriage impossible. But have you also
reflected that I lose at the same time my means of subsistence, and that
after this scandal you also will find it impossible to live on at
Doenninghausen as you have done? Therefore I ask, What is to be done?"
Magelone mutely shrugged her shoulders. After a pause, Otto went on:
"For us both you may be sure there remains open only one of two courses:
either we must together escape immediately out into the wide world, and,
unfortunately, we have no means to enable us to do so, or we must go to
our grandfather like repentant sinners, throw ourselves upon his mercy,
and ask his aid. The quicker we do this the better. Come, let us go
instantly!"
With these words he would have taken her hand, but she recoiled from
him. "No, I thank you!" she cried, in her old mocking way. "I am not yet
sunk so low as to accept this sacrifice at your hands. Good heavens,
what have I done? Allowed a cousin to flirt rather too desperately with
me! Why, grandpapa and Johann Leopold will both easily forgive me this
'momentary madness.' Do you not think so?"
Otto changed colour. "Possibly," he replied, with forced composure.
"Attempt your own rescue. Your skilful hands will be doubly skilful in
the recapture of the heir----"
"And your magnanimous Johanna's heart doubly unselfish when her
possession of the name of Doenninghausen is at stake," Magelone
interposed. And, with an easy inclination, she gathered up her skirts
and walked past Otto towards the rocky incline which led from this spot
down to Castle Klausenburg. Her slender figure was poised for a second
on the edge of the cliffs, then glided into the thicket; once more there
was a glimpse of a fluttering blue ribbon, then it, too, vanished in the
depths of green, and Otto was left alone with his shame, his indecision,
his futile anger, his vague emotions.
At first it seemed intolerable to him to allow her to depart thus. He
would have hurried after her; at least she should know how he loathed
and despised her. But he reflected that in her vanity she would look
upon his anger as an outbreak of despair at her loss, while in reality
he regarded it as a deliverance that she had rejected the aid he felt
bound in honour to offer her.
Instead of following her, he turned in the opposite direction, and as he
hurried back along the path which had so often led him of late to meet
her, memory recalled with torturing distinctness the coquettish arts by
which she had sought to enslave him. And for the sake of this vain,
heartless, calculating creature he had trifled away his own and
Johanna's happiness! Everything about his betrothed which had previously
displeased him was forgotten by him. She now seemed the embodiment of
all goodness and loveliness.
Was she really lost to him? If he went to her with a frank confession of
his folly and an appeal for forgiveness, would she not forgive and
forget? Would she not be all the more likely to do so, knowing that his
very means of existence depended upon it? There was some satisfaction in
the fact to which Magelone had so scornfully referred, that he had his
name to bestow in exchange. He greatly preferred giving to receiving.
The longer he reflected upon the state of affairs the more he was
persuaded that Johanna would lose more than himself by breaking off
their engagement. And in this conviction he felt not only that he was
justified in rejecting all proposals to terminate it, but that it was
his duty to do so. When he reached the cross-roads leading respectively
to Tannhagen and Doenninghausen, he turned without hesitation into the
latter, that the 'wretched affair' might be arranged as soon as
possible. He had even gone so far as to resolve upon exercising the
greatest patience and moderation should Johanna, after the fashion of
womankind, attach an exaggerated importance to his desperate flirtation.
But when, penetrated by the convincing force of his contemplated
entreaties and representations, he reached Doenninghausen and asked for
Johanna, he learned that she had not yet returned from her morning ride.
What should he do,--go to meet her? No; a rider always had a pedestrian
at a disadvantage. He determined to wait for her. After giving orders
that he should immediately be informed of the Fraeulein's return, he went
into the park, to avoid any conversation with Aunt Thekla. He had never
before found waiting so difficult. He tried to smoke, but after a couple
of whiffs he threw his cigar away. He paced up and down the avenue in
growing impatience, and, what was worst of all, his confidence
diminished with every minute that passed.
Upon leaving Magelone and Otto, Johanna, unconscious whither she was
going, plunged into the forest. The birds sang as before; the quivering
sunbeams played among the tree-tops; sparkling drops fell from the
branches or shimmered in the white anemones that were everywhere pushing
forth out of last year's dry leaves. All this Johanna perceived with a
strange distinctness, but she felt aloof from it all, confronted with
one terrible consciousness which she could neither appreciate nor name.
At last she reached the borders of the forest, and looked around her
with sad, dull eyes. Before her lay a deep stretch of moorland; below,
in the valley, were the Doenninghausen meadows in their fresh green.
Among them wound the road to Klausenburg. She was familiar with it all,
but it was no longer what it had been, nor was she herself, nor life,
the same. Her heart was so weary and desolate, her tired feet would bear
her no farther. She threw herself down on the heather with a sigh.
Suddenly the bushes behind her crackled and rustled. She looked round.
It was Leo, who rushed out and lay, whining for joy, at her feet. He
leaped up upon her, gazing at her wistfully out of his faithful
eyes,--his faithful eyes! The spell was broken; all her misery lay
clearly revealed to her; the sense of it filled her heart. And, throwing
her arms around the dog, who seemed to understand his mistress's woe,
she leaned her forehead upon his neck and burst into bitter tears.
She was sitting weeping thus when Red Jakob and Christine, who had
followed Leo, emerged from the thicket. Jakob paused, but Christine ran
to Johanna and threw herself upon her knees beside her. Johanna raised
her head. At sight of her pale face and fixed melancholy eyes
Christine's tears also flowed.
"Oh, dear Fraeulein," she cried, "please, please do not be angry! Jakob
has told me all. It was very wrong; but in deed and in truth he did not
mean ill----"
"Never mind, Christine," Johanna interposed, rising and wiping her eyes.
But the young wife held her fast by her skirt and begged all the more
fervently: "Please do not be angry with Jakob; please do not!"
He, too, now approached. "Christine, don't go on as if I had committed a
crime," he said, his tone and air betraying increasing anger. "I could
not look on and see how the pair of them were deceiving our Fruleen. You
know that they did not meet for the first time to-day. And did I not
see, too, how the fine gentleman behaved to you? Did I not see it?" With
these words he raised his clinched fist and shook it.
"Oh, Jakob, you did not mean to speak of that!" Christine said, in her
gentle, soothing way. "A gentleman like that doesn't mean anything when
he jokes and laughs with one of us----"
"But I mean something, curse him!" shouted Jakob--and the savage sparkle
of his eyes gave him more than ever the look of some beast of
prey--"I'll kill him like a dog----" He suddenly fell silent before
Johanna's sad, reproachful gaze. "Just like a wounded deer when it's
dying," he said to himself; and he added aloud, "Indeed, indeed I meant
well, if the Fruleen could only believe it!"
Johanna collected herself. "I believe it," she made answer, after a
short pause; "and it is because I do so that I am convinced that, for my
sake, neither of you will tell any one of what has passed."
"The Fruleen may rely upon us for that," said Jakob, standing erect. And
Christine, weeping, pressed her lips to Johanna's hand. Johanna gently
withdrew it from her clasp. "I must go now," she said. "Which way had I
better take the soonest to find my horse?"
Jakob offered to bring the horse. Christine might conduct the Fruleen to
the large beech-tree on the Doenninghausen road, and he would take Elinor
to her. Johanna agreed, and Jakob hurried off, while she followed her
guide to the appointed spot.
Jakob soon appeared with the horse. Johanna jumped into the saddle,
hurriedly bade the pair farewell, and galloped away.
"As if death were behind her," Christine thought, as she gazed anxiously
after her until the trees hid her from sight.