He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and
his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this
position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been
telling his dreary, melancholy story.
The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes,
went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort,
and made as though he would take his departure.
But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said
in her soft voice:
"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went
on: "And you have never seen her since?"
"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear
the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came
to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined
when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change
of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree
hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I
might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated
and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in
Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled
myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns
money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who
lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that
noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his
convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it
would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in
order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger
except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a
disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my
fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my
money-getting. It was all one, after all.
"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was
not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the
thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I
sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately
sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and
better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together,
so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for
her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I
was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It
seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my
accomplishing this end.
"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she
wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the
child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know.
Certainly not her heart.
"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a
kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good,
honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose
children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof.
When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little
to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I
either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it
to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances,
who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried.
But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an
enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer.
Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman
before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those
violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all
my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you
confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to
you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send
it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would
have been a reproach to me. And now--"
"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted.
"Julie, what could you ask that I would not joyfully--"
"I would love so dearly to see the child. Will you bring it to me? or
will you go there with me?"
He took a step toward her; now, for the first time, he ventured to look
her in the face. She rose and went forward to meet him.
"Dear friend," she said, "I must know this child. No matter how well it
may be taken care of where it is, it is and always will be motherless.
It can only find a mother again in her who loves the father more than
all else, and who would take to her heart all that belongs to him. Do
you not see that you must bring the child to me?"
"Julie!" he cried, in a tone that burst from his innermost heart, just
as when a dreamer with a loud cry shakes off the nightmare that is so
suffocating him. He staggered toward her, and tried to seize her hand;
but she drew back a step, shook her head gently, and said, with a
blush:
"Listen patiently to what I am going to say, or else it will be hard
for me to control myself and find the words. The sad story you have
just told me has given me a great deal to think of; I have not yet
clearly fixed it in my mind. But one thing is already clear to me: that
nothing in your past life can ever separate me from you. On the
contrary, I have been continually testing my feeling during your
confession, and have found that I love you now even more wholly than I
did yesterday, and that I know better _why_ I love you, if this is not
a senseless thing to say. My heart is old enough to be wise, and to
know why it loves any one, though my head is not quite so ready. And
so, my dearest friend, I now seriously declare to you, I have not the
slightest intention of ceasing to love you because so and so many years
ago you made the mistake of believing another human being to be better
than she really was. I will go still further: you shall not cease to
love me either, unless you made a second mistake yesterday, which I
confess would be much more painful to me than that first one."
She did not succeed in uttering these last words, for, overwhelmed with
joy, Jansen had seized her in his arms. He held her long in this
embrace, until at last she recovered breath enough to beg for her
release.
"No, no," she said, as she gently freed herself, "do not do so, dear,
or I will take it all back again; for you and I are not to be spared
our time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and
let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you.
You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced
and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at
such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I
just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling
myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all
the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you
have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact
that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break
the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up
within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice
your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will
consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come
to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote
my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I
tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some
place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another.
But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly.
Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really
do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art
and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has
been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much
better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of
being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not
see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve,
and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was
necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for
that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a
whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay
such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of
youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a
long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I
should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and
will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your
child's heart, so that it will not draw back, as from a stranger, from
her whom it is to call mother?"
She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness,
and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both
sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw
it again.
"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you
understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the
truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that
you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a
heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and
always--"
He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet
which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when
they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one,
in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody
today.
"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so
herself before I will believe it."
"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature
from our happiness."
She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third
person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection.
"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica
into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and
not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take
my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no
difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to
help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen,
do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished
friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose
sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a
way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave
without her reward!"
There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter,
and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in
such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness.
He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to
Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well,
and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was
generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up their
quarters together; that the visits of the _fiance_ should only take
place on certain days and in her own presence; that, for the present at
least, they would not disclose the great event even to their most
intimate friends in "Paradise"--all this and more was discussed, the
burden of the conversation falling almost entirely on Julie. A certain
lightheartedness had taken possession of her, such as her friend had
never seen her show before. She insisted upon Jansen and Angelica
taking breakfast with her, and played the part of hostess most
charmingly. Jansen followed every movement she made, as if he were
attracted by a magnet; and was caught more than once returning the most
irrelevant answers.
At last, when he really had to go--it was already past noon, but no one
had taken any heed of the time--Angelica too rose in great haste.
"I will go on ahead," said she; "lovers don't go through with their
leave-takings quite as quickly as we single people."
But Julie detained her. She merely gave Jansen her hand to kiss, and
closed the door behind him. Then she fell on her friend's neck and
kissed her, her eyes overflowing with tears.
"Forgive me my happiness!" she whispered. "It is so great I am almost
afraid of it, as though I had stolen a crown!"
"What a child you are!" said the artist, bending over her and blushing.
"I told you how it would be--though really I was not so reckless as you
have been. To love this man just as one would any ordinary mortal, to
take him to your heart in this sudden fashion--well, I must say, I
admire your courage. It is true you are a perfectly charming piece of
human nature, from top to toe, and can do things other folks can't.
Now, such miserable institutions as we common people are, mere images
of God in _gouache_ or water-color--well, we have to be sensible, at
all hazards, unless we would bring down ridicule as well as injury upon
our heads. _Addio, cara! Iddio ti benedica!_" and with these words she
rushed out of the door.