By her fantastic walk from Traunberg to Steinbach, Elsa had brought on
inflammation of the lungs. She convalesced so slowly that the physician
whom Erwin consulted advised a long sojourn in the south. At first she
could not resolve to leave her unhappy brother, and only went after he
had promised to follow her as soon as possible to San Remo, where she
would pass the winter with Erwin and the children.
She left in the middle of September. Felix did not keep his promise.
"As soon as possible" was capable of such varied conceptions.
September, with its variegated foliage, and the long, tender farewell
of the sunbeams vanished, and October came. The leaves withered,
blood-red or pale-yellow they fell from the branches sadly and
submissively, like all hopeless ones, and November followed October,
and came in with an important bluster, like a lackey sent on before to
make room for his master. He tore the last leaves from the branches,
and sometimes tore away the branches with them, and he kissed the last
roses dead and annihilated the unblossomed buds, covered the heavens
with mournful clouds, blew so chill and poisonously in the face of the
sun that he also sickened, and looked almost as pale as the moon.
And at length all was desolate, all ready--the earth strewn with dead
leaves and withered flowers for the solemn reception of the new-comer.
Coldly and gravely winter entered his kingdom, the bare trees shivered
a last time, and crackled one more sigh, and all is still--dead! The
angels in heaven shook their wings, thicker and thicker fell the white
down.
January was long past and Felix still in Traunberg. After the last
fearful blow which had fallen upon him he never rallied. Since Linda's
flight he never left the park, seldom the castle, often scarcely left
his room.
There were days on which he would not even allow his little son
admission, and other days on which he would allow no servant to wait
upon him, because it was unbearable for him to even meet the eyes of a
servant. On all faces he thought he could discover mocking, criticising
expressions.
When his overseers came to him to desire his signature or to ask his
wishes concerning important business, with his hot, nervous hands he
fumbled over the papers which were placed before him, read two or three
lines, murmured something, and signed his name. The questions which
were put to him he always answered with the same, "As you will," and
then drummed impatiently upon the top of his writing-desk and glanced
irritably at the door.
He neglected his attire, his beard grew long; he did not even care for
cleanliness. Often for days he ate nothing, always very little; but, on
the other hand, he was always thirsty, and--drank. But the strongest
spirits had ceased to procure relief for him. He no longer forgot;
never more!
He had a piano brought to his room, although he had almost never played
before, and now strummed on it continually. Strange modulations sprang
from beneath his stiff, unpractised fingers. He purposely sought the
shrillest dissonances, which seemed to do him good. Again and again he
struck the same piercing chord and never found a resolution for it.
He always began to play so as to drown the madrilena, which rang in his
ears so often and so unbearably distinctly, and every time he ended by
groping over the keys for the melody of this same madrilena. Each tone
went through his heart like the stab of a dagger, his forehead was
covered with sweat, and with a long sigh he closed the piano.
Intercourse with his child became of a strange nature. He indeed
frequently overwhelmed the little one with passionate tenderness, but
the games, the caressing teasing, which had formerly occupied them when
together, and which had so delighted the boy, had ceased. Gery grew
shy, pale and nervous. More and more often the fear of injuring the
child by his presence crept over Felix.
Erwin, who came from San Remo once during the winter, in order, as he
said, to look after the house, was frightened at the confusion which,
as he soon noticed, existed in Felix's business matters, as well as the
terrible change in his whole appearance.
Compassionately and kindly he urged his brother-in-law to accompany him
to Italy, in order, as he had promised, to spend some time, together
with Gery, with his sister.
But Felix trembled visibly when it was a question of his leaving
Traunberg, and going to a place where he must meet other people, were
it only in the most passing way. Erwin promised him perfect quiet and
seclusion from all intercourse with strangers--in vain.
"Leave me," Felix repeated again and again; "leave me, I must be
alone."
Erwin ceased his pleadings, discouraged. Elsa's health did not permit
her stay in the south to be shortened, so that her presence might
alleviate her brother's painful condition.
For one moment Erwin suspected a positive mental derangement in his
brother-in-law, but soon convinced himself of the falsity of this
opinion.
The balance of his accounts was correct; as soon as his attention was
excited he decided correctly, never made a mistake in a reckoning, and
made no disconnected remarks. Only, exhausted as he was, everything
concerning present affairs irritated him indescribably. The train of
his thought flowed always backward. His mind rested continually upon
that spot in the past where his happiness lay buried with his honor.
He passed almost the whole of his time in living over again his life
from the first meeting with Juanita to the signing of the fatal note.
His memory, strangely faithful, and sharpened by practice, revived
again and again new particulars of the Juanita period, with the
distinctness of hallucinations.
On a mild, sunny April day Elsa appeared in Traunberg, restored to
health, more beautiful than ever, and with eyes radiant with happiness.
She was shocked when she perceived her brother; what she saw was so
much worse than what Erwin had considerately prepared her for. But
Felix's misery only increased the tenderness of her sympathy. She spoke
of the tender, intimate intercourse which should now exist between the
two families, and said that Baby was now large enough for a playmate
for her cousin; and Baby who, chubby-cheeked and gay, with great
laughing eyes and tiny mouth with a drolly serious expression, sat on
her mamma's knee, stretched out her fat little arms and said, "Where
Gery?"
Then the nurse--Gery's French _bonne_ had not been able to endure the
winter solitude of Traunberg, and had long since left--brought
the child. She had smoothed down his curly hair with a horrible,
strong-smelling pomade, and had hidden his pretty little form in a
heavy cloth costume, suitable for much older children. He looked pale,
was awkward, and clung anxiously to his father. When he gradually lost
his shyness through Elsa's soft voice and caressing manner, and
approached her and answered her questions, she noticed that he had
adopted the common broad accent of the nurse.
It did not escape Felix's morbidly sharpened glance, that behind the
pleasant smile with which Elsa met the child, surprise and compassion
were hidden.
"You probably find that he has changed for the worse?" he asked
suddenly, gazing sharply at her. "What will you? Everything about me
goes to ruin."
When Elsa, after urgently and most tenderly begging Felix and his boy
to come soon to Steinbach, had driven away, Felix took his boy on his
knees, and kissed him passionately, murmuring again and again, "Poor
child, poor branded child!"
An unpleasant habit, common to most human beings living very much
alone, he had adopted of late, that of talking to himself. The words
which most frequently escaped him, which he probably repeated a dozen
times, were, "The certain Lanzberg," and while he said that, his voice
and his face expressed all the shades of bitterness, mockery and
despair.
And one evening, three or four days after Elsa's visit, Gery crept
shyly up to him, and laying his little hand anxiously upon his father's
arm, he asked in his gentle, somewhat sad little voice, "What is that,
'the certain Lanzberg'?"
Felix started; he gave a long-piercing gaze into the innocent eyes of
the child, then he pushed him violently away and hurried out of the
room.
The same night Felix heard sobs outside his door, and as he opened it
and looked out into the corridor, he discovered Gery, who stood there
clad only in his little embroidered night-shirt, and barefoot.
"Papa, you did not say good-night to me. Papa, was I naughty?" sobbed
the child, with the morbid nervous excitement which proved his solitary
life.
Then Felix took him in his arms. It was a fresh spring night, and the
child, who had stood for a long time outside, clad only in the thin
night-shirt, shivered. Felix rubbed his little hands and feet warm.
Then the nurse knocked at the door, seeking the child in anxious
excitement.
But Gery would not hear of returning to the nursery. He clung to his
father and pleaded, "Let me stay with you, papa." Then Felix sent the
nurse away, and took him into his bed. The child fell asleep nestled
tenderly against him, slept soundly and unbrokenly. Felix lay awake.
The opal-colored glow of the spring morning tinged the heavens, and
Felix still was awake. He thought of old times, times which lay far
back of the Juanita period; some jest over which he had laughed some
twenty years ago occurred to him and pained him--he groaned; the child
awoke; throwing his little arms around Felix's neck, he begged,
coaxingly, "Dear papa, I sleep so well with you, let me always sleep
with you." Then suddenly it flashed through Felix's mind, "Ah, if I
could only die while he still loves me!" and suddenly the storm within
him ceased--all became quiet within his heart, quiet as the grave.