Felix rode home.
It was a moonlight night, but none of those which remind one of theatre
scenery and silver-flecked green paint, such, as painted in oil,
endanger all German art societies; the objects did not float in that
universal green-black indistinctness; on the contrary, they stood out
in sharp relief.
The tall poplars and the short bushy grass at the edge of the road,
the yellow fields of grain with their dark piles of sheaves, the
pale flowers in the ditches, the red and black roofs of a distant
village sleeping between green lindens, a round church cupola and a
cemetery with its low, white wall, and the dark rows of crosses and
monuments--all could be seen plainly, only with somewhat faded colors,
and over all was a misty veil like thin smoke, and a white light shone
on the poplar leaves, rustling and turning in the night wind. The
reapers were still working. Through the mild air sounded their song,
hollow and monotonous, with the quiet sadness which characterizes
Slavonian folk-songs. Their scythes sparkle in the moonlight;
occasionally the pleasant face of a young woman, nodding to a youth,
rises before Felix's eyes from the crowd of workers, irradiated by the
mystic half light.
Felix watched them as he slowly rode on. He would gladly have been one
of them, and would have taken upon himself all their burdens in
exchange for the one he bore. He could have wished that the night had
been less beautiful, that a dead, winter stillness had prevailed around
him instead of this strange charm of the mild July moonlight.
The night wind, warm and gentle, caressed his face and his hands, and
awakened the strangest longing in his heart. His head grew heated; the
allurements with which his imagination tormented his despondent heart
grew more and more intense.
The monotonous pace of his horse, the melancholy reaper's song lulled
him not to sleep, but to that half slumber which produces dreams. He
did not wholly lose the consciousness of motion; the open road, the
trees, the wheat-fields, with everything, was mingled a light form; two
large eyes sparkled half in sadness, half defiantly, and two full red
lips smiled at him. An indescribable breath of youth and fresh life met
him.
The yellow fields and the reapers have sunken into the earth--folk-song
and the swing of the scythes have long sounded only like a vague murmur
of waters to his distracted ear. His horse stumbles, a twig strikes him
in the face, he starts.
The white dream-form has vanished, all is dark around him, a solemn,
far-distant murmur breaks the stillness, and gigantic trees meet over
the head of the solitary rider.
The horse trembles under him, then rears suddenly, and as he checks it
he sees in the distance something low and black hurrying away in great
leaps, sees there--there, close before him, a light figure which slowly
rises from the ground.
He breathes heavily--for Heaven's sake is he still dreaming? That is
surely she--Linda!
"Ah! Baron Lanzberg, you here? Thank God," cries she.
"You seem to have met with an unpleasant adventure," says Felix
confusedly, coughs and springs from his horse without thinking what he
is doing.
"A very unpleasant one," says she in her high, fresh, girlish voice.
"That is what comes of insisting upon riding a donkey. We set out on
foot, my brother and I, to the burned mill, to have the great enjoyment
of seeing charred beams and skeletons of hens, and devouring black
bread and sour milk, we---- Have you a weakness for sour milk, Baron?"
looking up at him with a childish glance and smile.
"No, not exactly."
"I was not at all satisfied with my expedition," she continued, with
the self-satisfied fluency of all young girls who are accustomed to
have their chatter listened to for the sake of their pretty faces. "Not
at all. Then I discovered two donkeys, one of them had a saddle like an
arm-chair. Raimund must hire them. I left him no peace! His donkey goes
splendidly, but mine! I cannot move him from the spot. I call to my
brother, but he does not hear, he is singing college songs, thunders
like a whole chorus and has ears for his own voice only. I do not love
Raimund's singing, but as it gradually sounded further and further
away, and finally ceased entirely, I had quite a curious sensation.
Then my donkey threw back his ears, opened his mouth, and--here I lay.
I am so glad that I met you."
The moonlight breaks through the green net-work of the woods, shines
between the rushes, flowers and brambles of the ditch along the road,
lights up Linda's face, the beautiful white face with the large dark
eyes. Her hair is tumbled, she has lost her hat, her gown is torn, the
affectation which usually conceals her inborn grace completely
vanished.
"I do not know the way," says she, "and what will mamma think when
Raimund comes home without me?"
After he has overcome his first fright, Felix tells himself that his
dread of her charm must not prevent him from helping her. "If you will
trust yourself to my guidance and will take this path across the
fields, you can reach Marienbad in a half hour," he remarks, and tries
to fasten his horse by the bridle to the low branch of an oak.
"Ah, it will inconvenience you so; if you will only point out the
way----"
"You surely do not imagine that I could let you go alone, in the
pitch-dark night? No." He smiles at her encouragingly. "What a child
you still are, Miss Linda. Come."
He goes ahead, carefully pushing aside all branches for her. The air
becomes more and more sultry, an enervating damp odor rises from the
ground, in the tree-tops rustle wonderful melodies.
An intoxicating shudder runs over him at the thought of being alone
with her in the great, silent, lonely woods. Then he becomes alarmed,
quickens his steps, in order to run away from his thoughts and shorten
the way.
Then a voice behind him calls laughingly and complainingly: "How you
hurry--do not make fun of me, I am tired--one moment, only one moment!"
Linda stands there out of breath, heated, with half-closed eyes and
half-opened mouth, her hair loosened by the rough caresses of the
thicket, hanging over her shoulders.
How beautiful she is. Shall he offer her his arm? No, no, no!
He is one of those warm and weak natures in whom passion in one moment
drowns everything, annihilates, crushes everything, intellect, honor
and duty.
He has more conscience than others, but not that prudent, warning
conscience, which withholds one from a wrong deed, but only that
malicious, accusing one which points the finger, grins and hurls sly
insults in the face after the deed is done.
"If you wish to spare your mother a fright, we must hurry," says Felix,
with the last remnant of prudence which is left in him.
They go on. Before their feet opens an abyss, barely ten feet broad; in
its depths filters a small thread of water which the moonlight colors a
bluish silver. At the edge of the abyss, curiously looking down into
it, bending deeply down to it, grows a bush of wild roses, covered
thickly with white blossoms, trembling slightly, like a living being;
with outstretched wings it vibrates over the depths, as if it hesitated
between the longing to fly up to the sacred mystery of heaven, and the
desire to plunge down into the alluring enigma of the abyss.
A small plank leads over it, slippery and tottering. Felix strides
across it quickly and then looks around for Linda.
There, in the middle of the board, trembling, her teeth set in her lip,
stands Linda, and cannot advance. "I am giddy!" she gasps.
There are few more attractive things in the world than a pretty,
frightened woman.
Felix rushes up to her, takes her in his arms and carries her over. All
is forgotten, he holds her closely to him, his lips lose themselves in
her loosened hair, burn on her forehead, seek her mouth, but then he
suddenly pauses. The enormity of his deed occurs to him.
"For Heaven's sake pardon me!" cries he. Whereupon she replies with a
naive smile and tender glance:
"Pardon? Ah, I knew that you loved me."
"That indeed a blind man could have seen," murmurs he bitterly. "But,
Linda, could you resolve to be my wife?"
"Could I resolve?" she murmurs with tender roguishness. "And why not?"
"In spite of my past?"
Past! The word has a romantic charm for her. It wakes in her an idea
of baccaret and mabille, of a brilliantly squandered fortune, of
ballet-dancers and duels. A "past" in her mind belongs to every true
nobleman of a certain age.
"If your heart is now wholly mine, what does your past matter to me?"
says she softly.
Then he kisses her hand. "Linda you are an angel," whispers he, and
silent and happy, they finish their walk.
Ten minutes later, before the ambitious singer, Raimund, reaches home,
Linda was in the house.
She stood on the balcony of the "Emperor of China," between
dead-looking oleander trees which exhale a tiresome odor of bitter
almonds: she stands there, her arms resting on the balustrade when
Raimund and his donkey emerge from the shadows of the street. His red
cap pushed back, his face shining as if freshly shaven, with glance
directed upward in terror he comes along, the picture of bankrupt
responsibility on a donkey.
A gay laugh greets him.
"Linda, where are you?"
"Here."
"Here! I have been looking for you for an hour," says he, scarcely
believing his eyes.
"Where? In the sky apparently--I have not been there, and have no wish
to go. Do not stare at me so, please, as if I were my own ghost. Come
up here, I have such a lovely secret."
With that she withdraws from the balcony, but the secret with which she
has enticed him she does not tell him when he comes up.
"To-morrow, to-morrow," says she, clapping her hands, leaning far back
in an old-fashioned arm-chair.
Raimund cannot get a word from his pretty, capricious sister.
"Who brought you home then?" he asks finally.
"Ah! That is just it, ha-ha-ha!" answered she.
"Linda! You have met Lanzberg--he has declared himself!" cries Raimund,
excitedly.
"Will you be silent?" replies she, laughing--triumphant.
Meanwhile her parents, who have been to the farewell performance of a
famous Vienna artiste at the theatre, enter.
"Hush!" cries she with a decided gesture to her brother. "Good evening,
papa and mamma!" without leaving her arm-chair. "I am frightfully fond
of you, for, if you only knew of it, I am to-day, for the first time,
glad to be in the world."
Papa Harfink smiles delightedly, Mamma Harfink asks, "What is it?" and
all her cameos and mosaic bracelets rattle with excitement.
"She----" begins Raimund.
"Hush, I tell you!" cries Linda, then laying her arms on the
old-fashioned arms of the easy-chair, her head thrown teasingly back,
she asks: "Is Baron Lanzberg a good _partie_?"
"His affairs are very well arranged. I saw in the country register. He
has scarcely any debts," says Papa Harfink.
"And he is of the good old nobility, is he not?" asks Linda.
"Did not his father receive a tip in the form of an iron crown from
some tottering ministry?"
"The Lanzbergs descend from the twelfth century," says mamma. "They are
the younger line of the Counts Lanzberg, who are now known as the
Counts Dey."
"Oh! and what was his mother's maiden name?" Linda continues her
examination.
"She was a Countess Boehl."
"Why does he associate so little with people, and is so sad?--because
of his past?"
Linda's eyes sparkle and shine, and capricious little dimples play
about the corners of her mouth.
"What do you know of his past?" bursts out mamma.
"Oh, nothing; but I should so like to know something about it--it is
not proper, eh?"
"He had at one time a _liaison_, hm--hm--was deceived"--murmurs Mrs.
Harfink--"never got over it."
"Ah!--but it seems so--for--in a word, if all does not deceive me, he
will come to-morrow to ask for my hand."
Without leaving her arm-chair, her little feet dance a merry polka of
triumph on the floor.
"And do you love him?"
"I?"--Linda opens her eyes wide--"naturally; he is the first man with a
faultless profile and good manners whom I have met--since Laure de
Lonsigny's father!"
Old Harfink, wholly absorbed in gazing at his tongue in a hand-glass,
has not heard the bold malice of his daughter. Raimund, on the
contrary, says emphatically, "I find your delight at marrying a
nobleman highly repulsive," and leaves the room.
And Felix? He does not undress that night. Motionless his face buried
in the pillows, he lies on his bed and still fights a long-lost battle.
The air is heavy with the fragrance of linden blossoms and the
approaching thunder-storm. A massive wall of clouds towers above the
horizon like a barrier between heaven and earth.