I was about to hurry after them, and compel them to give me some
assistance, when a flash of lightning of unusual vividness showed me
the hillock or "giant's barrow" which lay about a hundred paces from
where I stood, and which I had not perceived before. Whether I expected
to get a wider range of vision from its top, or whether it was an
instinctive impulse, or both, I do not know, but in the next moment I
was at the foot of the hillock among the great stones. Another dazzling
flash, and a shudder seized me, and my hair began to rise on my head.
There, on the top, by the hazel-bushes that were bent and lashed by the
storm, surrounded by a spectral light, stood with loose-flying hair the
unhappy girl looking out for her lover who was drowned in the morass.
In an instant the pitchy darkness closed again, and a crash of thunder
drowned my sudden cry. Had I lost my senses? And instantly, while yet
the thunder crashed and the thick darkness surrounded me, it flashed
upon me like a heavenly revelation, and my heart gave a great throb,
and I gave a shout of joy, and in a moment I was at the top and had
found her and lifted her in my arms and shouted again, and she wound
her arms around me and clung to my breast, so close! so close! and I
kneeled before her and she leaned over me and said:
"Quick, quick, here in the dark where I do not see you; I love you! I
love you!"
"And I love you!"
"None but me?"
"None but you!"
"None but me! none but me! And if the earth should open now and swallow
us both--none but me?"
"None, none!"
Again came a flash illuminating everything for a moment with the
brightness of day, and she laughed and rejoiced aloud and threw herself
into my arms crying:
"Now I see you: now I can look at you! Oh how lovely this is! How
beautiful you are! Now carry me down the hill as far as the stones. Now
let me go, my strong one, my hero, everything to me!"
"Let me carry you further; I can do it easily."
"I know you can: else would I love you so much? But now let me go; you
must not think me a weakling."
I let her glide from my arms upon one of the great stones: she laid her
hands upon my shoulders, and I saw for a moment her sweet defiant face
and her eyes that flashed as if with indignation, as she said in a firm
voice:
"Never forget that I am not weak like other women; and if you had not
come to look for me here--yes, if you had not found me, I would have
drowned myself here in the morass; and I _will_ drown myself the moment
you cease to love me. And now come!"
She threw herself on my breast and glided from my arms to the ground,
and we went hand in hand over the heath, the incessant lightnings
showing us the pathless way, while the thunder rolled, and the rain
which had been delaying so long came down first in heavy warm drops,
and then in torrents. What cared we for the storm and the rain? What
cared we that we were alone upon the heath?
This was, indeed, our crowning joy: for me, to know that I had both the
right and power to protect her, and that I had in truth the strength,
had there been need, to carry my beloved to Trantowitz and to
Zehrendorf; for her, to be thus protected by him she had loved so long,
who now was all her own, and all had happened just as her wayward heart
and romantic fancy desired. And now all came from her lips, in broken
confused phrases, in thoughts and fancies that gleamed and vanished
like the lightnings around us, now awakening one memory and now
another, just as the objects around us momently flashed out the
darkness and vanished into it again; the brown heath, the glimmering
moor-water, and in the forest the bushes to the right and left and the
gigantic trunks of the trees whose great boughs were wildly tossed
hither and thither by the blast, with a crashing and groaning and
roaring as if the world were coming to an end. But the wilder the
uproar about us, the more she exulted, and laughed with delight when in
the noise we could no longer understand each other's words. She even
grew angry when after we had nearly traversed the woods, two lanterns
appeared moving rapidly in our direction.
"Let us run off," she said, seriously, and then clapped her hands, and
we now heard "Hallo! Hallo!" in the good Hans's powerful voice.
"It is he!" she cried; "my good Hans, my dear Hans, my best Hans! He
shall hear it first. No one has a better right."
And now came up Hans, who had hurried on ahead of the two grooms,
holding his lantern high to let the light fall on our faces, and again
shouting "Hallo!" with all the strength of his lungs, but this time for
joy that he had found us so happily--so happily that he set his lantern
on the ground and shook both Hermine's hands and then mine, and then
hers again and then mine again, all the time saying "So, so! that is
right! so, so!" as if we were a pair of young headstrong horses, with
which he had had great trouble, but had brought to reason at last.
The two grooms had now come up. "Poor fellows," said Hermine, "they
must have pleased faces too. Give me quick what you have; and you too
Hans, give me all you have, both of you!"
I emptied my purse--there was not much in it--into her hands, and Hans
rummaged his pockets and found some crumpled notes which she took and
gave the two men who stood open-mouthed, not knowing what to think. A
couple of _thalers_ fell on the ground, and the men said "It would be a
sin to leave the good money lying there," so commenced to look for it,
while we three hastened on, and Hans informed us that the whole company
was at his house, and that he had harnessed up his farm-wagons--the
only vehicles he had--to take them to Zehrendorf, whither he had sent
already a messenger on horseback to have preparation made.
"We will both go, will we not, George?" said Hermine. "Everybody will
open their eyes, of course. It will be a droll sight, and I am just in
the humor for it. O, I am so happy, so happy!"
It was indeed a droll sight that presented itself to us as we entered
the ruinous old mansion of Trantowitz. In the wide bare hall, in Hans's
narrow sitting-room, even in the sanctuary of his bed-room, in the
kitchen, which was entered from the hall, the unlucky excursionists
were rambling and pushing about, calling, scolding, crying, laughing,
according as they were more or less able to accommodate themselves to
the situation. To the more able belonged without question Fritz von
Zarrentin and his little wife, who were altogether the jolliest, most
comfortable, and at the same time most good-natured people in the
world, though in the storm they had not distinguished themselves by
their courage any more than the rest. But now Fritz, who was in the
kitchen brewing a bowl of punch with the assistance of the cook,
boasted of the heroic deeds he had performed in the course of the
evening, and his brisk little merry wife busied herself about the
ladies, who were all in the very worst of humors, and to say the truth,
in pitiable plight.
The Born Kippenreiter sat in Hans's high-backed chair, like a queen who
had been hurled from her throne by a storm of revolution, her false
hair plucked off, and the rouge all washed from her cheeks. Upon the
sofa sat the two Eleonoras, locked in each other's arms and weeping
freely on each other's bosom, without any one, themselves probably
included, having the least idea of what it was about; unless it was for
their soaked straw hats and drenched clothing, which had changed the
virginal whiteness of the morning, for a color to which no name could
be assigned. The stout Frau von Granow was standing before Fräulein
Duff, who was crouching half insensible upon Hans's boot-box, proving
to her that on such occasions it was the first duty of every one to
look out for himself; and that if Fräulein Hermine was really drowned
in the morass, nobody of any sense would lay the slightest blame upon
her, the governess.
"No, Duffy, not the slightest blame!" cried Hermine, who, coming in
with us at this moment through the door which was standing open, had
caught the last word. "Duffy! dear, darling Duffy!"
And the excited girl fell on the neck of her faithful old governess,
and embraced and kissed her with a flood of passionate tears.
If a sensitive nature like Fräulein Duff's had needed any further
explanation of the meaning of these caresses and these tears, she found
it now in the appearance of a tall form that stood in the doorway and
looked at the group with flashing eyes. She reached out both arms to
him, and cried out, oblivious of by-gone troubles:
"Richard, did I not tell you, 'Seek faithfully and you will find?'"
This speech, which the worthy lady had delivered in the tone of a
herald announcing the result of a tournament, fell like a bombshell
among the company. The two Eleonoras unclasped each other and looked
in each other's face, and the second let her head fall upon the
shoulder of the first, murmuring something of which I only caught the
words--"the traitor!"
This was perhaps, all things considered, a moving picture, but a
frightful one was offered us by the Born. The foreboding of imminent
misfortune had been lying upon her low wrinkled brow, her hollow rouged
cheeks, in her glassy snake-like eyes; she had seen it coming on all
day. In vain had she tried with her maternal arms to protect her dear
son against the shafts of ill-temper which the proud angry girl
launched against him; in vain had Arthur tried to quaff from the bowl
of pine-apple punch fresh courage in so sore a strait, and new
fortitude to sustain him under his trials--the bolt had fallen, and the
wreck was here before her eyes, before the eyes of the Born Baroness
Kippenreiter, the mother of the most charming of sons, the aunt of this
ungrateful creature. It was too much! The dethroned queen sprang to her
feet, trembling in every limb, hurled--she was speechless with
indignation--a crushing look at Hermine, who threw herself, laughing,
into my arms, and tottered to the room where the bowed-down father was
watching by the bed of his hopeful heir, whose wretched soul was not in
a condition to comprehend what he and his house had irrevocably lost.
Away sad visions, and disturb not the bright memory of that happy
evening. I will not banish you altogether--nay, I know that I cannot if
I would; but crowd not upon me thus! Strive not to make me believe that
it is for you that we live. You must be it is true, and well for him
that comprehends it, and keeps in his firm breast a fearless laugh to
mock you away when you will not be thrust aside. You must be; but it is
not for the sake of the black earth that clings to its tender roots
that we take up the rose of love, bear it home in our bosom, plant it
in a calm sunny place, and watch and tend and treasure it as best we
can. Who knows how long we can!