BRIDAL TORCHES.
"Magdalene--Wife--Angel--what shall I call you?" cried Freyer,
extending his arms. "Oh, if only we were not in the open fields, that I
might press you to my heart and thank you for being so kind--so
_generous_ and so kind."
"Does your heart at last yearn for me? Then let us come into the
forest, where no one is watching us save holy nature. Take me up one of
the mountains. Will you? Can you? Will not your hay spoil?"
"_Let_ it spoil, what does that matter? But first you must allow me to
go home to put on garments more suitable for your society."
"No, that will be too late! Remain as you are--you are handsome in any
clothes," she whispered, blushing faintly, like a girl, while she
lowered her eyes from the kingly figure to the ground. A happy smile
flitted over her face. Stooping, she picked up the jacket which he had
removed while doing his work.
"And you--are you equipped for mountain climbing?"
"Oh, we will not go far. Not farther than we can go and return in time
for dinner."
"Come, then. If matters come to the worst, I will take my dove on my
shoulder and carry her when she can walk no farther."
"Oh, happy freedom!" cried the countess, joyously! "To wander through
the woods, like two children in a fairy tale, enchanted by some wicked
fairy and unable to appear again until after a thousand years! Oh,
poetry of childhood--for the first time you smile upon me in all your
radiance. Come, let us hasten--it is so beautiful that I can hardly
believe it. I shall not, until we are there."
She flew rather than walked by his side. "My dove--suppose that we were
enchanted and forced to remain in the forest together a thousand
years?"
"Let us try it!" she whispered, fixing her eyes on his till he
murmured, panting for breath: "I believe--the spell is beginning to
work." And his eyes glowed with a gloomy fire as he murmured, watching
her: "Who knows whether I am not harboring the Lorelei herself, who is
luring me into her kingdom to destroy me!"
"What do you know of the Lorelei?"
Freyer stopped. "Do you suppose I read nothing? What else should I do
during the long evenings, when wearied by my work, I am resting at
home?"
"Really?" she asked absently, drawing him forward.
"Do you suppose I could understand a woman like you if I had not
educated myself a little? Alas, we cannot accomplish much when the
proper foundation is lacking. The untrained memory retains nothing
firmly except what passes instantly into flesh and blood, the
perception of life as it is reflected to us from the mirror of art. But
even this reflection is sometimes distorted and confuses our natural
thoughts and feelings. Alas, dear one, a person who has learned nothing
correctly, and yet knows the yearning for something higher, without
being able to satisfy it--is like a lost soul that never attains the
goal for which it longs."
"My poor friend, I do know that feeling--to a certain extent it is the
same with us women. We, too, have the yearning for education, and
finally attain only a defective amount of knowledge! But, by way of
compensation, individuality, directness, intuitiveness are developed
all the more fully. You did not need to know anything--your influence
is exerted through your personality; as such you are great. All
knowledge comes from man, and is attainable by him--the divine gift of
individuality can neither be gained, nor bestowed, any more than
intuition! What is all the logic of reflecting reason compared with the
gift of intuition, which enabled you to assume the part of a God? Is
not that a greater marvel than the hard-won result of systematic study
at the desk?"
"You are a kind comforter!" said Freyer.
"Thinking makes people old!" she continued. "It has aged the human
race, too.--Nature, simplicity, love must restore its youth! In them is
_direct_ contact with the deity; in civilization only an indirect one.
Fortunately for me, I have put my lips to their spring. Oh, eternal
fountain of human nature, I drink from you with eager draughts."
They had entered the forest--the tree-tops rustled high above their
heads and at their feet rippled a mountain stream. Madeleine von
Wildenau was silent--her heart rested on her friend's broad breast,
heaving with the rapid throbbing of his heart, her supple figure had
sunk wearily down by his side. "Say no more--not a word is needed
here." The deep gloom of the woods surrounded them--a sacred stillness
and solitude. "On every height there dwells repose!" echoed in soft
melody above her head, the marvellous Rubinstein-Goethe song. There was
no human voice, it seemed like a mere breath from the distance of a
dream--like the wind sweeping over the chords of the cymbal hung by
Lenau's gypsy on a tree, scarcely audible, already dying away again.
Her ear had caught the notes of that AEolian harp once before: she knew
them again; on the cross--with the words: "Into _thy_ hands I commend
my spirit." And sweet as the voice which spoke at that time was now the
tenor that softly, softly hushed the restless spirit of the worldling
to slumber. "Wait; soon, soon--" and then the notes gradually rose till
the whole buzzing, singing woodland choir seemed to join in the words:
"Thou, too, shalt soon rest."
The mysterious sound came from the depths of the great heart on which
she rested, as if the soul had quitted the body a few moments and now,
returning, was revealing with sweet lamentation what it had beheld in
the invisible world.
"Are you weeping?" he asked tenderly, kissing the curls which clustered
round her forehead: "_My child_."
"Oh, when you utter that word, I have a feeling which I never
experienced before. Yes, I am, I wish to be a child in your hands. Only
those who have ever tasted the delight of casting the burden of their
own egoism upon any altar, whether it be religion or love--yielding
themselves up, becoming absorbed in another, higher power--_only those_
can know my emotions when I lean on your breast and you call me your
child! Thus released from ourselves, thus free and untrammelled must we
feel when we have stripped off in death the fetters of the body and
merged all which is personal to us in God."
"Heaven has destined you for itself, and you already feel how it is
loosening your fibres and gradually drawing you up out of the soil in
which you are rooted. That is why you wept when I sang that song to you
here in the quiet woodland solitude. Such tears are like the drops the
tree weeps, when a name is cut upon it. At such moments you feel the
hand of God tearing open the bark which the world has formed around
your heart, and the sap wells from the wounded spot. Is it not so?" He
gently passed his hand over her eyes, glittering with unshed tears.
"Ah, noble soul! How you penetrate the depths of my being! What is all
the wit and wisdom of the educated mind, compared with the direct
inspiration of your poetic nature. Freyer, Spring of the earth--Christ,
Spring of humanity! My heart is putting forth its first blossom for
you, take it." She threw herself with closed eyes upon his breast, as
if blindly. He clasped her in a close embrace, holding her a long time
silently in his arms. Then he said softly: "I will accept the beautiful
blossom of your heart, my child, but not for myself." He raised his
eyes fervently upward: "Oh, God, Thou hast opened Thy hand to the
beggar, and made him rich that he may sacrifice to Thee what no king
could offer. I thank Thee."
Something laughed above their heads--it was a pair of wild-doves,
cooing in the green tent over them.
"Do you know why they are laughing?" asked the countess, in an altered
tone. "They are laughing at us!"
"Magdalena!"
"Yes! They are laughing at the self-tormenting doubt of God's goodness.
Look around you, see the torrent foaming, and the blue gentians
drinking its spray, see the fruit-laden hazel, the sacred tree which
sheltered your childhood; see the bilberries at your feet, all the
intoxicating growth and movement of nature, and then ask yourself
whether the God who created all this warm, sunny life is a God who only
_takes_--not _gives_. Do you believe He would have prepared for us this
Spring of love, that we may let its blossoms wither on the cold altar
of duty or of prejudice? No--take what He bestows--and do not
question."
"Do not lead me into temptation, Magdalena!" he gently entreated. "I
told you this morning that you do not know what you are unloosening."
He stood before her as if transfigured, his eyes glowed with the sombre
fire which had flashed in them a moment early that morning, a rustling
like eagle's pinions ran through the forest--Jupiter was approaching in
human form.
The beautiful woman sat down on a log with her hands clasped in her
lap.
"A man like me loves but once, but with his whole being. I _demand_
nothing--but what is given to me is given _wholly_, or not at all; for
if I once have it, I will never give it up save with my life!
"Not long since a stranger came here, who sang the song of the Assras,
who die when they love. I believe I am of their race. Woman, do not
toy, do not trifle with me! For know--I love you with the fatal love of
those 'Assras.'"
Madeleine von Wildenau trembled with delight.
"If I once touch your lips, the barrier between us will have fallen!
Will you forgive me if the flood-tide of feeling sweeps me away till I
forget who you are and what a gulf divides the Countess Wildenau from
the low-born peasant?"
"Oh, that you can remind me of it--in this hour--!" cried the countess,
with sorrowful reproach.
He looked almost threateningly into her eyes. The dark locks around his
head seemed to stir like the bristling mane of a lion: "Woman, you do
not know me! If you deceive me, you will betray the most sacred emotion
ever felt by mortal man--and it will be terribly avenged. Then the
flame you are kindling will consume either you or me, or both. You see
that I am now a different man. Formerly you have beheld me only when
curbed by the victorious power of my holy task. You have conjured up
the spirits, now they can no longer be held in thrall--will you not be
terrified by the might of a passion which is unknown to you people of
the world, with your calm self-control?"
"_I_, terrified by you?" cried the proud woman in a tone of exultant
rapture. "Oh, this is power, this is the very breath of the gods.
Should I fear amid the element for which I longed--which was revealed
to me in my own breast? Does the flame fear the fire? The Titaness
dread the Titan? Ah, Zeus, hurl thy thunderbolt, and let the forest
blaze as the victorious torch of nature at last released from her long
bondage."
He sat down by her side, his fiery breath fanning her cheek. "Then you
will try it, will give me the kiss I dared not take to-day?"
"Yes."
"But it will be a betrothal kiss."
"Yes."
He opened his arms, and as a black moth settles upon a fragrant
tea-rose, hovering on its velvet wings above the dewy calyx, he bent
his head to hers, shadowing her with his dark locks and pressed his
first kiss upon Madeleine von Wildenau's quivering lips.
But such moments tempt the gods themselves, and Jupiter hovered over
the pair, full of wrath, for he envied the Christian mortal the
beautiful woman. He had heard her laughingly challenge him in the midst
of the joy she had stolen from the gods, and the heavens darkened, the
hurricane saddled the steeds of the storm, awaiting his beck, and down
flashed the fire from the sky--a shrill cry rent the air, the highest
tree in the forest was cleft asunder and the bridal torch lighted by
Jupiter blazed aloft.
"The gods are averse to it," said Freyer, gloomily. "Defy them!" cried
the countess, starting up; "they are powerless--we are in the hands of
a Higher Ruler."
"Woman, you do not belong to this world, or you have no nerves which
can tremble."
"Tremble?" She laughed happily. "Tremble, by _your_ side?" Then,
nestling closer still, she murmured: "I am as cowardly as ever woman
was, but where I love I have the courage to defy death. Even were I to
fall now beneath a thunderbolt, could I have a fairer death than at
_this_ moment? You would willingly die for your Christ--and I for
mine."
"Well then, come, you noble woman, that I may shield you as well as I
can! Now we shall see whether God is with us! I defy the elements!" He
proudly clasped the object of his love in his arms and bore her firmly
on through the chaos into which the whole forest had fallen. The
tempest, howling fiercely, burst its way through the woods. The boughs
snapped, the birds were hurled about helplessly. The destroying element
seemed to come from both heights and depths at the same time, for it
shook the earth and tore the roots of trees from the ground till the
lofty trunks fell shattered and, rolling down the mountain, swept
everything with them in the sudden ruin. With fiendish thirst for
battle the fiery sword flamed from the sky amid the uproar, dealing
thrust after thrust and blow after blow--while here and there scarlet
tongues of flame shot hissing upward through the dry branches.
A torrent of rain now dashed from the clouds but without quenching the
flames, whose smoke was pressed down into the tree-tops, closely
interlaced by the tempest. Like a gigantic black serpent, it rolled its
coils from every direction, stifling, suffocating with the glowing
breath of the forest conflagration, and the undulating cloud body bore
with it in glittering, flashing sparks, millions of burning pine
needles.
"Well, soul of fire, is the heat fierce enough for you now?" asked
Freyer, pressing the beautiful woman closer to his side to shield her
with his own body: "Are you content now?"
"Yes," she said, gasping for breath, and the eyes of both met, as if
they felt only the fire in their own hearts and had blended this with
the external element into a single sea of flame.
Nearer, closer drew the fire in ever narrowing circles around the
defiant pair, more and more sultry became the path, brighter grew the
hissing blaze through which they were compelled to force their way.
Now on the left, now on the right, the red-eyed conflagration
confronted them amid the clouds of smoke and flame, half stifled by the
descending floods of rain, yet pouring from its open jaws hot,
scorching steam--fatal to laboring human chests--and obliged the
fugitives to turn back in search of some new opening for escape.
"If the rain ceases, we are lost!" said the countess with the utmost
calmness. "Then the fire will be sole ruler."
Freyer made no reply. Steadily, unflinchingly, he struggled on,
grasping with the strength of a Titan the falling boughs which
threatened the countess' life, shielding with both arms her uncovered
head from the flying sparks, and ever and anon, sprinkling her hair and
garments from some bubbling spring. The water in the brooks was already
warm. Throngs of animals fleeing from the flames surrounded them, and
birds with scorched wings fell at their feet. It was no longer possible
to go down, the fire was raging below them. They were compelled to
climb up the mountain and seek the summit.
"Only have courage--forward!" were Freyer's sole words. And upward they
toiled--through the pathless woods, through underbrush and thickets,
over roots of trees, rolling stones, and rocks, never pausing, never
taking breath, for the flames were close at their heels, threatening
them with their fiendish embrace. Where the path was too toilsome,
Freyer lifted the woman he loved in his arms and bore her over the
rough places.
At last the woods grew thinner, the boundary of the flames was passed,
they had reached the top--were saved. The neighing steeds of the wind
received them on the barren height and strove to hurl them back into
the fiery grave, but Freyer's towering form resisted their assault and,
with powerless fury, they tore away the rocks on the right and left and
rolled them thundering down into the depths below. The water pouring
from the clouds drenched the lovers like a billow from the sea, beating
into their eyes, mouths, and ears till, blinded and deafened, they were
obliged to grope their way along the cliff. The garments of the
beautiful Madeleine von Wildenau hung around her in tatters, heavy as
lead, her hair was loosened, dripping and dishevelled, she was
trembling from head to foot with cold in the icy wind and rain here on
the heights, after the heat and terror below in the smouldering
thicket.
"I know where there is a herder's hut, I'll take you to it. Cling
closely to me, we must climb still higher."
They silently continued the ascent.
The countess staggered with fatigue. Freyer lifted her again in his
arms, and, by almost superhuman exertion, bore her up the last steep
ascent to the hut. It was empty. He placed the exhausted woman on the
herder's straw pallet, where she sank fainting. When she regained her
consciousness she was supported in Freyer's arms, and her face was wet
with his tears. She gazed at him as if waking to the reality of some
beautiful dream. "Is it really you?" she asked, with such sweet
childlike happiness, as she threw her arms around him, that the strong
man's brain and heart reeled as if his senses were failing.
"You are alive, you are safe?" He could say no more. He kissed her
dripping garments her feet, and tenderly examined her beautiful limbs
to assure himself that she had received no injury. "Thank Heaven!" he
cried joyously, amid his tears, "you are safe!" Then, half staggering,
he rose: "Now, in the presence of the deadly peril we have just
escaped, tell me whether you really love me, tell me whether you are
mine, _wholly_ mine! Or hurl me down into the blazing forest--it would
be more merciful, by Heaven! than to deceive me."
"Joseph!" cried the countess, clinging passionately to him. "Can you
ask that--now?"
"Alas! I cannot understand how a poor ignorant man like me can win the
love of such a woman. What can you love, save the illusion of the
Christ, and when that has vanished--what remains?"
"The divine, the real _love_!" replied the countess with a lofty
expression.
"Oh, I believe that you are sincere. But if you have deceived yourself,
if you should ever perceive that you have overestimated me--ah, it
would be far better for me to be lying down below amid the flames than
to experience _that_. There is still time--consider well, and say--what
shall it be?"
"Consider?" replied the countess, drawing his head down to hers. "Tell
the torrent to consider ere it plunges over the cliff, to dissolve into
spray in the leap. Tell the flower to consider ere it opens to the
sunbeam which will consume it! Will you be more petty than they? What
is there to consider, when a mighty impulse powerfully constrains us?
Is not this moment worth risking the whole life without asking: 'What
is to come of it?' Ah, then--then, I have been mistaken in you and it
will be better for us to part while there is yet time."
"Oh--enchantress! You are right, I no longer know myself! Part, now?
No, it is too late, I am yours, body and soul. Be it so, then, I will
barter my life for this moment, and no longer doubt, for I _can_ do
nothing else."
Sinking on his knees before her, he buried his face in her lap.
Madeleine von Wildenau embraced him with unspeakable tenderness, yet
she felt the burden of a heavy responsibility resting upon her, for she
now realized--that she was his destiny. She had what she desired, his
soul, his heart, his life--nay, had he possessed immortality, he would
have sacrificed that, too, for her sake. But now the "God" had become
_human_--the choice was made. And, with a secret tear she gazed upon
the husk of the beautiful illusion which had vanished.
"What is the matter?" he asked suddenly, raising his head and gazing
into her eyes with anxious foreboding. "You have grown cold."
"No, only sad."
"And why?"
"Alas! I do not know! Nothing in this world can be quite perfect." She
drew him tenderly toward her. "This is one of those moments in which
the highest happiness becomes pain. The fury of the elements could not
harm us, but it is a silent, stealing sorrow, which will appease the
envy of the gods for unprecedented earthly bliss: Mourning for my
Christus."
Freyer uttered a cry of anguish and starting up, covered his face with
both hands. "Oh, that you are forced to remind me of it!" He rushed out
of the hut.
What did this mean. The beautiful mistress of his heart felt as if she
had deceived herself when she believed him to be exclusively her own,
as if there was something in the man over which she had no power!
Filled with vague terror, she followed him. He stood leaning against
the hut as if in a dream and did not lift his eyes. The sound of
alarm-bells and the rattle of fire-arms echoed from the valley. The
rain had ceased, and columns of flame were now rising high into the
air, forming a crimson canopy above the trees in the forest. It was a
wild scene, this glowing sea of fire into which tree after tree
gradually vanished, the air quivering with the crash of the falling
boughs, from which rose a shower of sparks, and a crowd of shrieking
birds eddying amid the flames. Joseph Freyer did not heed it. The
countess approached almost timidly. "Joseph--have I offended you?"
"No, my child, on the contrary! When I reminded you to-day of the
obligations of your rank, you were angry with me, but I thank you for
having remembered what I forgot for your sake."
"Well. But, spite of the warning, I was not ashamed of you and did not
disown you before the Countess Wildenau! But you, Joseph, are ashamed
of me in the presence of Christ!"
He gazed keenly, sorrowfully at her. "I ashamed of you, I deny you in
the presence of my Redeemer, who is also yours? I deny you, because
I am forced to confess to Him that I love you beyond everything
else--nay, perhaps more than I do _Him_? Oh, my dearest, how little you
know me! May the day never come which will prove which of us will first
deny the other, and may you never be forced to weep the tears which
Peter shed when the cock crowed for the third time."
She sank upon his breast. "No, my beloved, that will never be! In the
hour when _that_ was possible, you might despise me."
He kissed her forehead tenderly. "I should not do that--any more than
Christ despised Peter. You are a child of the world, could treachery to
me be charged against you if the strong man, the disciple of Christ,
was pardoned for treason to the _holiest_."
"Oh, my angel! It would be treason to the 'holiest,'" said the countess
with deep emotion, "if I could deny _you_!"
"Why, for Heaven's sake, Herr Freyer," shouted a voice, and the
herdsman came bounding down the mountain side: "Can you stand there so
quietly--amid this destruction?" The words died away in the distance.
"The man is right," said the countess in a startled tone, "we are
forgetting everything around us. Whoever has hands must help. Go--leave
me alone here and follow the herdsman."
"There is no hope of extinguishing the fire, the wood is lost!" replied
Freyer, indifferently. "It is fortunate that it is an isolated piece of
land, so the flames cannot spread."
"But, Good Heavens, at least try to save what can yet be secured--that
is only neighborly duty."
"I shall not leave you, happen what may."
"But I am safe, and perhaps some poor man's all, is burning below."
"What does it matter, in this hour?"
"What does it matter?" the countess indignantly exclaimed. "Joseph, I
do not understand you! Have you so little feeling for the distress of
your fellow men--and yet play the Christ?"
Freyer gazed at the destruction with a strange expression--his noble
figure towered proudly aloft against the gloomy, cloud-veiled sky.
Smiling calmly, he held out his hand to the woman he loved and drew her
tenderly to his breast: "Do not upbraid me, my dove--the wood was
_mine_."