I do not know how many hours I passed in wandering thus through the
streets: I have only a dim remembrance of great blocks of houses rising
dark into the gray of the night; of flakes of snow fluttering down from
this gray into the yellow light; of vehicles rolling past me almost
without sound, over the fresh-fallen snow; and figures that glided by
me with heads down, sheltering themselves as they best could from the
snow-storm.
There were not many of these latter, for every one sought a shelter
from the bad weather. Those who were out in it were those who had no
choice, such as the unhappy creatures who with pale lips murmured to
the passers-by words intended to sound warm and inviting.
One of these unfortunates I thought I saw before me, as wandering
through a wide street in the most distinguished quarter I reached one
of the small palaces, before the door of which just then drove up at a
sharp trot a carriage drawn by two fiery horses, and throwing around a
bright light from both its lamps. In the light of these lamps stood the
girl, crouching close to the wall, and I saw that at the moment when
the equerry sprang from the box and helped his master out of the
carriage she advanced a step and extended her arm from her cloak, as if
she wished to stop the latter as he descended. But he had pulled the
fur collar of his cloak up around his face, and as he rapidly hurried
up the steps did not see the girl. The door, which had given a sight of
a brilliantly-lighted hall, closed behind master and servant; the
coachman touched his spirited animals lightly with the whip, the
carriage rolled away and vanished into the open gate of an adjoining
building.
No one remained without but myself, the poor girl, and the snow-flakes
still fluttering down from the darkness into the yellow light of the
lamps. The girl came towards me and passed me by. It was plain that she
did not see me, but I saw her as the light of one of the lamps struck
upon a face distorted by mental anguish.
"Constance!" I exclaimed.
She suddenly stopped and stared at me with her glowing black eyes.
"Constance!" I repeated, "do you not know me? It is I--George----"
"My dragon-slayer, who was to kill all the dragons in my path! Why have
you not killed that one--that one!" and she laughed a frightful laugh,
and pointed to the door which had closed on Prince Prora.
Her cloak was loose and fluttering in the icy wind, and I saw she was
still in the costume of Preciosa. She must have rushed off the stage
into the street. The snow-flakes were driving into her fevered face.
"Poor Constance!" I murmured, and wrapped the cloak closer around her
shoulders, drew her arm in mine, anxious first of all to lead her from
this place. She willingly followed me, and we walked thus through the
long, wind-swept streets, I looking down from time to time at the poor
girl, who clung even closer to me, and asking her in a compassionate
tone how she was, and whither I should take her.
I had several times repeated these questions without receiving an
answer, when she suddenly stopped, and murmured with pale lips--"I can
go no further!" It seemed to me that she was on the point of fainting.
I was in the greatest embarrassment. There was not a public conveyance
to be seen anywhere in the street, and in our objectless flight we had
wandered far from the fashionable quarter where, upon my repeated
inquiries, she informed me that she lodged. But it so happened, I know
not how, that we had strayed into the neighborhood of my own lodging,
and I thought it the best, indeed the only thing I could do, to take
her there. "You can at least remain there long enough to warm yourself,
while I get a carriage to take you home." Without answering a word she
followed me. I had the key of the outer door, so that I did not need to
disturb the old watchman; and his dog, that came growling up to us, as
soon as he recognized me, leaped about me, wagging his tail.
I congratulated myself that I had hit upon this expedient, for
Constance hung heavily upon my arm, and I had almost to carry her
across the yard and up the steps to my room. And when we had reached
the room, and by the dim light of the fire I had led her to the
arm-chair, and lighted my lamp, I saw that her eyes were vacant of
expression and half-closed, while a deep pallor overspread her whole
face.
My confusion in a situation so new for me was less than I should have
supposed. I had no other thought than as promptly as possible to assist
one who was in such urgent need of assistance. I stirred the fire until
it blazed brightly; I took off her cloak, now saturated with the melted
snow, and wrapped her in a plaid; I folded a coverlid around her feet,
and warmed her cold hands in my own. Then it occurred to me that
probably a cup of tea, which I could prepare in a moment, would be of
service; so I got out the tea-things from my cupboard, boiled the water
in a tin kettle over my fire, and poured her out a cup of the
refreshing beverage, not forgetting first to add a little good cognac.
She drank it eagerly; I offered her a second cup, which she also drank.
The warm drink seemed to have greatly revived her: she looked at the
pictures on the walls, at the furniture, and last at me, and said,
reaching out to me her small hand, in which the warm life began to
pulsate again, "How good you are! how good! You are the best creature I
have ever known. How much happier might my life have been had you come
to our house a few months earlier: you good, good George!"
It was again the Constance of those old times: the same fascinating
prattle in the same soft melodious voice: and I, who knew so well what
confidence to place in all this kindness and gentleness, stood like the
great oaf that I was, my whole soul thrilled by the sweet, unforgotten
tones, and trembling from head to foot at the touch of her soft hand.
But my reason made an effort to obtain the supremacy once for all. I
drew my hand from hers, stepped back to the fireplace, and said, while
with great apparent calmness I was warming my hands behind my back:
"You are very kind; but your kindness must not make me forget that I
have undertaken to see you safely home. If you are so disposed, and
feel sufficiently recovered, I will now go for a carriage."
"You are still angry with me," she said, leaning back in the chair and
looking up to me under her long lashes. "Why are you angry? What have I
done to you? What have I done that another in my place would not have
done? For my love I gave reputation, home, myself: was I to bear so
tender a solicitude for the feelings of a youth, who scarcely knew
himself what those feelings were? Did you love me? Did you ever love
me?" she repeated, springing up and looking into my eyes. "You never
loved me. You could not else stand so calmly there, and you are not
worth the regret it cost me to play off that little deception on you.
Do you know that I was so childish as never entirely to get over it?
That your friendly face with its honest eyes looked continually in upon
my dreams, and drew from me tears of remorse? You, of all men, have
least right to be angry with me."
And she threw herself back in the chair, and defiantly folded her arms
over her breast.
"Who said that I was angry with you?" I replied.
"You must be angry," she returned with a sort of violence. "I will have
you angry: should I wish you to despise me? There is no third case
possible. The third would be indifference; and I am not indifferent to
you, am I, George? Not indifferent, though you are now making an
amazing effort to appear so. When two persons have once stood as near
to each other as we two, and are connected by such recollections as
ours, they can never entirely lose each other in the desert of
indifference. Do you know that some weeks ago, when I saw a likeness of
you in the exhibition, I was startled as if I had seen a ghost, and
could not bring myself away from it, and afterwards I returned to it
again and again, and wept many tears at the thought of you? Then I saw
by the catalogue that it was painted by my cousin, and I made a pair of
you both, a happy pair, and blessed you in my inmost heart. Now indeed
I see that it is otherwise. What are you? What are you doing! How did
you come to this strange place?" and she looked again around the room.
"I am a simple workman," I answered; "a blacksmith in a neighboring
machine-shop."
"Blacksmith!--machine-shop!--what do you say? Who would have said this
that afternoon when I saw you setting out for the hunt with the others,
in high hunting-boots and a short velvet coat, with your gun and
game-pouch, so tall and stately, the tallest and stateliest of all!
What would my father have said? You always sided with him--perhaps you
do so still; but believe me, he did not deal well with me; and if I am
to blame, and am an outcast and accursed, it all, all falls upon his
head. Do you know that the old Prince Prora, when my father grew
indignant at his refusal, flung in his face the taunt: 'My son cannot
marry your bastard, nor can I fight with a smuggler!' My father sprang
at him and would have strangled him--as if that could restore his honor
or mine! And you see, George, of all this I knew nothing: I first
learned it from Kar--from _him_ when he proposed to abandon me in a
foreign country. Can a man know what it is to a girl, when she has
loved a man, be he worthy or unworthy--given herself to him wholly,
staked her all upon him, like a desperate gamester upon a single
card--to be thrust out by him into wretchedness, with mockery and
shame? Not into common wretchedness, such as seeks a subsistence by the
light of a poor working-lamp, or in the glare of the street-lanterns--I
was always surrounded by splendor and luxury, and the Marchese of Serra
di Falco was as much richer than he as sunny Sicily is fairer than our
foggy native island. And yet it was wretchedness--boundless, glittering
wretchedness--which no woman escapes who is deceived in her love,
whatever the compensation that may be offered her. I tried hate; but
hate is the twin brother of love, and they can not deny their common
parentage. There is but one remedy for love, and that is revenge.
Avenge me on him! You can do it; you are so strong; you have already
once had him in your power--that night when you met him in the woods.
He told me about it and asked who the giant was. Why did you let him
escape? Why did you not strangle him--brain him?--and then come to me
and say, 'I am your lover, for I am stronger than the other,' and take
me in your arms and carry me off? But you men never show us that you
are men, and you wonder then that we play with you! As if we could do
anything else with a creature that we do not see to be stronger than
ourselves, and often so much weaker! Show what you can be--what you
are! Crush the head of this serpent, and I will fall at your feet and
worship you!"
While thus speaking she had let fall the plaid in which I had wrapped
her and had risen from the chair, and with her last words she sank upon
her knees, holding out her arms to me. The flickering light of the fire
played upon her fantastic gypsy dress, gleamed upon her dark hair which
hung in dishevelled locks over her cheeks and shoulders, and glowed
upon the face which had so fatal a beauty for me. The nameless charm
with which she had at first fascinated me overcame me with all the old
might: my heart beat as if it would burst from my bosom, and feverish
shudders ran over my whole body, but with a vehement effort I collected
myself, stretched out my ice-cold hand and raised her, and said:
"You apply to the wrong person. Entrust your vengeance upon the prince
to one who has a nearer interest in it: to the young man, for instance,
upon whose arm you were leaning when I saw you in the gallery, and who,
this very evening, if I am not mistaken, was the personage in the play
whom Preciosa made happy with her favor."
Constance had risen slowly, her eyes ever fixed upon mine, and began to
pace the room with hasty steps, pausing at intervals before me, and
speaking as she walked:
"How base you men are; how horribly base and unfeeling! Was it for this
reason--to heap these cruel reproaches upon me--that you enticed me
here? Is this your hospitality? Do you think your fire has warmed me
too much, that you now drench me with ice-water? But your heart is so
cold only because your brain is so dull; because, for instance, you
cannot comprehend how a woman who, from childhood up, has been lapped
in visions of future splendor, and has seen her life's dream almost
realized, when this dream at once scatters like light mist, and she,
with her high-wrought feelings and pampered taste, with her cherished
pretensions to beauty and luxury, is about to be given over to a
coarse, commonplace existence--that such a woman of necessity must
catch at the wretched reflection of the brilliant reality that is
irrecoverably gone; that the beloved of princes can afterwards be
nothing else than a stage princess. And not even this pitiful
reflection does he leave me undisturbed! Again he forces himself upon
me, and embitters my poor triumph. But why do I speak of all this to a
man who understands it not, and can never understand it--who has chosen
the happy lot of a modest existence full of labor, and toil, and quiet
sleep?"
I had thrown myself into the chair from which she had arisen, and she
stood before me, and went on in a strange, soft, trembling voice:
"If I could only sleep! If I could only sleep! Could I but drink from
the fountain that daily flows for you, and will flow for that happy
woman whom some day you will bring to this peaceful hearth! Could I
banish the fever that here burns me, and here allows me no rest"--she
pointed with these words to her breast and her head--"no rest--none! Oh
to sleep thus, amid the perfumes of rosemary and violets--a sweet sleep
upon a strong, true heart!"
And as I sat with bowed head, and heart filled with pain, I felt a pair
of soft arms wind about my neck, a swelling bosom pressed to mine, and
a pair of glowing lips that sought my own. Had the dream which the
enamored, passionate boy had dreamed become reality, or was I really
dreaming? And was it only as one who strives to arouse himself from a
dream that I pressed her to me, then sprang to my feet and let her
glide from my arms, and again caught her to my heart?
The light which had been burning dimly now sank into the socket and
expired, but in the flickering glimmer of the fire I saw the outlines
of the lovely form that clung and pressed down to my breast, and as if
in a dream I heard a voice murmur at my ear: "to sleep sweetly upon a
strong, true heart!"