Eleanore had not seen Eberhard von Auffenberg for a number of weeks. He
wrote her a card, asking for the privilege of meeting her somewhere. The
place in fact was always the same--the bridge at the gate to the
Zooelogical Garden. Immediately after sunset she betook herself to that
point. It was a warm March evening; there was not a breath of wind; the
sky was covered with clouds.
They strolled up the castle hill, and when they had reached the parapet,
Eleanore said, gently laughing: "Now listen, I have talked enough; you
say something."
"It is so pleasant to be silent with you," replied Eberhard in a
downcast mood.
Filled with a disagreeable premonition, Eleanore sought out one of the
many hundreds of lights dimly flickering down in the city, fixed her
eyes on it, and stubbornly refused to look at any other earthly object.
"If I appeal to you at this hour," the young Baron finally began, "it is
to a certain extent exactly as if I were appealing to the Supreme Court.
My expectations in life have, with one single exception, been utterly
and irrevocably crushed. It depends quite upon you, Eleanore, whether I
am to become and remain a useless parasite of human society, or a man
who has firmly decided to pay for his share of happiness by an equal
amount of honest work. I offer you everything I have. It is not much,
but I offer it to you without haggling and forever. You and you alone
can save me. That is what I wanted to say to you."
He looked up at the clouds, leaning on his cane, which he had placed
behind his back.
"I have forbidden you to speak of this," whispered Eleanore in profound
dismay, "and you promised me that you would not say anything about it."
"I gave you my promise because I loved you; I break it for the same
reason," replied Eberhard. "I feel that such a promise is the act of a
foolish child, when the building up or the tearing down of a human life
depends upon it. If you are of a different opinion, I can only beg your
pardon. Probably I have been mistaken."
Eleanore shook her head; she was grieved.
"It was my plan to go to England with you, and there we would be
married," continued Eberhard. "It is quite impossible for me to get
married here: I loathe this city. It is impossible, because if I did my
people would in all probability set up some claims to which they are no
longer entitled and for which I would fight. The mere thought of doing
this repels me. And it is also impossible because ..." at this he
stopped and bit his lips.
Eleanore looked at him; she was filled with curiosity. His pedantic
enumeration of the various hindrances as well as the romanticism of his
plans amused her. When she detected the expression of downright grief in
his face, she felt sorry for him. She came one step nearer to him; he
took her hand, bowed, and pressed his lips to her fingers. She jerked
her hand back.
"Fatal circumstances have placed me in a most humiliating situation; if
I am not to succumb to them, I must shake them off at once," said
Eberhard anxiously. "I was inexperienced; I have been deceived. There is
a person connected with my case who hardly deserves the name of a human
being; he is a monster in the garb of an honest citizen. I have not the
faintest idea what I am to do next, Eleanore. I must leave at once. In a
strange country I may regain my strength and mental clearness. With you
I could defy the universe. Believe in me, have confidence in me!"
Eleanore let her head sink. The despair of this usually reserved man
touched her heart. Her mouth twitched as she sought for words.
"I cannot get married, Eberhard," she said, "really, I cannot. I did not
entice you to me; you dare not reproach me. I have tried to make my
attitude toward you perfectly clear from the very first time I met you.
I cannot get married; I cannot."
For five or six minutes there was a silence that was interrupted only by
human voices in the distance and the sound of carriages from the streets
down in the city. In the compassion that Eleanore after all felt for
Eberhard she sensed the harshness of her unqualified refusal. She looked
at him courageously, firmly, and said: "It is not obstinacy on my part,
Eberhard; nor is it stupid anxiety, nor imagination, nor lack of
respect. Truth to tell I have a very high opinion of you. But there must
be something quite unnatural about me, for you see that I loathe the
very idea of getting married. I detest the thought of living with a man.
I like you, but when you touch me as you did a little while ago when you
kissed my hand, a shudder runs through my whole body."
Eberhard looked at her in astonishment; he was morose, too.
She continued: "It has been in me since my childhood; perhaps I was born
with it, just as other people are born with a physical defect. It may be
that I have been this way ever since a certain day in my life. It was an
autumn evening in Pappenheim, where my aunt then lived. My sister
Gertrude and I were walking in a great fruit garden; we came to a thorn
hedge, and sitting by the hedge was an old woman. My father and mother
were far away, and the old woman said to my sister, then about seven: Be
on your guard against everything that sings and rings. To me she said:
Be careful never to have a child. The next day the woman was found dead
under the hedge. She was over ninety years old, and for more than fifty
years she had peddled herbs in Altmuehltal. I naturally had not the
vaguest idea what she meant at the time by 'having a child,' but her
remark stuck in my heart like an arrow. It grew up with me; it became a
part of me. And when I learned what it meant, it was a picture by the
side of the picture of death. Now you must not think that I have gone
through life thus far filled with a feeling of despicable fear. Not at
all. I simply have no desires. The idea does not attract me. If it ever
does, many questions will I ask about life and death! I will laugh at
the old woman under the hedge and do what I must."
As she spoke these last words, her face took on a strangely chaste and
fanciful expression. Eberhard could not take his eyes from her. "Ah,
there are after all fairy creatures on this flat, stale, and
unprofitable earth," he thought, "enchanted princesses, mysterious
Melusinas." He smiled somewhat distrustfully--as a matter of habit. But
from this moment his frank, open, wooing attachment to the girl was
transformed into a consuming passion.
He was proud, and man enough to subdue his feelings. But he yearned more
than ever, and was tortured by his yearnings to know something more than
the vague knowledge he had at present about that glass case, that
spirit-chest in which, so near and yet so far, this lovely creature
lived, impervious to the touch of mortal hands and immune to the flames
of love.
"You are rejecting me, then?" he asked.
"Well, it is at least advisable that for the time being we avoid each
other's presence."
"Advisable for me, you think. And for the time being? How am I to
interpret that?"
"Well, let us say for five years."
"Why exactly five years? Why not twenty? Why not fifty? It would be all
the same."
"It seems to me that five years is just the right amount of time,
Eberhard."
"Five years! Each year has twelve times thirty, fifty-two times seven
days. Why, the arithmetic of it is enough to make a man lose his mind."
"But it must be five years," said Eleanore gently though firmly. "In
five years I will not have changed. And if I am just the same in five
years from now, why, we'll talk it over again. I must not exclude myself
from the world forever. My father often says: What looks like fate at
Easter is a mere whim by Pentecost. I prefer to wait until Pentecost and
not to forget my friend in the meantime."
She gave him her hand with a smile.
He shook his head: "No, I can't take your hand; another one of those
shudders will run through you if I do. Farewell, Eleanore."
"And you too, Eberhard, farewell!"
Eberhard started down the hill. Suddenly he stopped, turned around, and
said: "Just one thing more. That musician--Nothafft is his name, isn't
it?--is engaged to your sister, isn't he?"
"Yes, Gertrude and Daniel will get married some day. But who told you
about it?"
"The musician himself was in a restaurant. The fellows were drinking,
and he was so incautious as to raise his glass, and, somewhat after the
fashion of an intoxicated drum-major, he himself drank to Gertrude's
health. For some time there was talk of his marrying you. It is much
better as it is. I can't stand artists. I can't even have due respect
for them, these indiscreet hotspurs. Good night, Eleanore."
And with that he vanished in the darkness.