MEMORIES.
Amid conflicts such as those just described, the countess lived,
passing from one stage of development to another and unconsciously
growing older--mentally maturing. Several weeks had now passed since
her parting with Freyer, but the apathy with which, from that hour, she
had regarded all external things still remained. She left the duke to
arrange the affair with the Wildenaus, which, a short time ago, she had
considered of sufficient importance to sacrifice Freyer. She admired
the duke's tact and cleverness, but it seemed as if he were not acting
for her but for some other person.
When he brought the news that the Wildenaus, owing to the obstinacy of
the witness Martin, had given up their plan of a legal prosecution on
the ground of Josepha's deposition, and were ready for an amicable
settlement--she did not rejoice over anything save the old servant's
fidelity; everything else she accepted as a just recompense of fate in
return for an _unwarrantably_ high price she had paid.
She was not annoyed because obliged to pay those whom she had injured a
sum so large as considerably to lessen her income. She did not care for
the result; her father was now a dying man and the vast sums he had
used were again at her disposal. After all--what did it matter? If she
married the duke in a year, she would be obliged to give up the whole
property! But--need she marry him, if the Wildenaus could prove nothing
against her? She sank into a dull reverie. But when the duke mentioned
the cousins' desire for the little hunting-castle, life suddenly woke
in her again. "Never, never!" she cried, while a burning blush
crimsoned her face: "Rather all my possessions than that!" A flood of
tears suddenly dissolved her unnatural torpor.
"But, dearest Madeleine, you will never live there again!" said the
duke consolingly.
"No--neither I nor any living mortal will enter it again; but,
Duke--must I say it? There sleeps my child; there sleeps the dream of
my heart--it is the mausoleum of my love! No, leave me that--no
stranger's foot must desecrate it! I will do anything, will give
the Wildenaus twice, thrice as much; they may choose any of my
estates--only not that one, and even if I marry you, when I must resign
everything, I will ask you to buy it from my cousins, and you will not
refuse my first request?"
The prince gazed at her long and earnestly; for the first time a ray of
the old love shone in his eyes. "Do you know that I have never seen you
so beautiful as at this moment? Now your own soul looks out from your
eyes! Now I absolve you from everything. Forgive me--I was mistaken in
you, but this impulse teaches me that you are still yourself. It does
me good!"
"Oh, Duke! There is little merit, when the living was not allowed his
rightful place--to secure it to the dead!"
"Well, it is at least an act of atonement. Madeleine, there cannot be
more joy in Heaven over the sinner who repents than I felt just now at
your words. Yes, my poor friend, you shall keep the scene of your
happiness and your grief untouched--I will assure you of it, and will
arrange it with the Wildenaus."
"Duke! Oh, you are the best, the noblest of men!" she exclaimed,
smiling through her tears: "Do you know that I love you as I never did
before? I thought it perfectly natural that you could not love me as
you saw me during those days. I felt it, though you did not intend to
let me see it."
She had not meant to assume it, but these words expressed the charming
artlessness which had formerly rendered her so irresistible, and the
longer the duke had missed it, the less he was armed against the spell.
"Madeleine!" he held out his arms--and she--did she know how it
happened? Was it gratitude, the wish to make at least _one_ person
happy? She threw herself on his breast--for the first time he held her
in his embrace. Surely she was his betrothed bride! But she had not
thought of what happened now. The duke's lips sought hers--she could
not resist like a girl of sixteen, he would have considered it foolish
coquetry. So she was forced to submit.
"_Honi soit qui mal y pense!_" he murmured, kissing her brow, her
hair--and her lips. But when she felt his lips press hers, it suddenly
seemed as though some one was saying dose beside her: "_You!_" It was
the word Freyer always uttered when he embraced her, as though he knew
of nothing better or higher than that one word, in which he expressed
the whole strength of his emotion! "You--you!" echoed constantly in her
ears with that sweet, wild fervor which seemed to threaten: "the next
instant you will be consumed in my ardor." Again he stood before her
with his dark flaming eyes and the overwhelming earnestness of a mighty
passion, which shadowed his pale brow as the approaching thunder-storm
clouded the snow-clad peaks of his mountains. And she compared it with
the light, easy tenderness, the "_honi soi qui mal y pense_" of the
trained squire of dames who was pressing his first kiss upon her
lips--and she loathed the stranger. She released herself with a sudden
movement, approached the window and looked out. As she gazed, she
fancied she saw the dark figure of the deserted one, illumined by the
crimson glare of the forest conflagration, holding out his hand with a
divinely royal gesture to raise and shelter her on his breast. Once
more she beheld him gaze calmly down at the charred timber and heard
him say smiling: "The wood was mine."
Then--then she beheld in the distant East a sultry room, shaded by gay
awnings, surrounded by rustling palm-trees, palm-trees, which drew
their sustenance from the soil on which the Redeemer's blood once
flowed. He sat beside the bed of the mother of a new-born child,
whispering sweet, earnest words--and the mother was she herself, the
babe was his.
Then she beheld this same man kneeling by the coffin of a child, the
rigid, death-white face buried under his raven locks. It was the child
born on the consecrated soil of the burning East, which she had left to
pine in the cold breath of the Western winter. She withdrew from it the
mother-heart, in which the tender plant of the South might have gained
warmth. She had left that father's child to die.
Yet he did not complain; uttered no reproach--he remained silent.
She saw him become more and more solitary and silent. The manly beauty
wasted, his strength failed--at last she saw him noiselessly cross
the carpeted floor of this very room and close the door behind him
never to return! No, no, it could not be--all that had happened was
false--nothing was true save that he was the father of her child, her
husband, and no one else could ever be that, even though she was
separated from him for ever.
"Duke!" she cried, imploringly. "Leave me to myself. I do not
understand my own feelings--I feel as if arraigned before the judgment
seat of God. Let me take counsel with my own heart--forgive me I am a
variable, capricious woman--one mood to-day and another to-morrow; have
patience with me, I entreat you."
The duke looked gravely at her, and answered, nodding: "I
understand--or rather--I am afraid to understand!"
"Duke, I am not suited to marry. Let the elderly woman go her way
alone--I believe I can never again be happy. I long only for rest and
solitude."
"You need rest and composure. I will give you time and wait your
decision, which can now be absolutely untrammelled, since your business
affairs are settled and the peril is over."
"Do not be angry with me, Duke--and do not misunderstand me--oh
Heaven--you might think that I had only given my promise in the dread
of poverty and disgrace and now that the peril was past, repented."
The duke hesitated a moment. Then he said in a low, firm tone: "Surely
you know that I am the man of sober reason, who is surprised by
nothing. '_Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_.' So act without
regard to me, as your own feeling dictates." He held out his hand:
"There was a time when I seriously believed that we might be happy
together. That is now past--you will destroy no illusion, if you assert
the contrary."
"Perhaps not even a sincere desire of the heart?" replied the countess,
smiling.
The duke became deeply earnest. "That suggestion is out of place
here.--Am I to wound you from gallantry and increase the measure of
your self-reproaches by showing you that I suffer? Or tell a falsehood
to lessen your responsibility? We will let all that rest. If you want
me, send for me. Meanwhile, as your faithful attorney, I will arrange
the matter of the hunting castle."
"Duke--how petty I am in your presence--how noble you are!"
"That is saying far too much, Countess! I am content, if you can bear
me witness that at least I have not made myself ridiculous." He left
the room--cold, courteous, stoical as ever!
Madeleine von Wildenau hurried to the window and flung it open. "Pour
in, light and air, mighty consolers--ah, now I breathe, I live again!"
Once more she could freely show her face, had no occasion to conceal
herself. The danger of a "scandal" was over, thanks to the lack of
proof. She need no longer shun the Wildenaus--old Martin was faithful
and her husband, the most dangerous witness, had gone, disappeared. Now
she had nothing more to dread; she was free, mistress of her fortune,
mistress of her will, she breathed once more as if new-born.
Liberty, yes, _this_ was happiness. She believed that she had found it
at last! And she would enjoy it. She need not reproach herself for
breaking her troth to the prince, he had told her so--if thereby she
could appease the avenging spirits of her deed to Freyer, they must
have the sacrifice! True, to be reigning duchess of a country was a
lofty position; but--could she purchase it at the cost of being the
wife of a man whom she did not love? Why not? Was she a child?--a
foolish girl? A crown was at stake--and should she allow sentimental
scruples to force her to sacrifice it to the memory of an irrevocably
lost happiness?
She shook her head, as if she wanted to shake off a bandage. She was
ill from the long days spent in darkness and confinement like a
criminal. That was the cause of these whims. Up and out into the open
air, where she would again find healthy blood and healthy thoughts.
She rang the bell, a new servant appeared.
"My arrival can now be announced. Tell Martin to bring the carriage
round, I will go to drive."
"Very well, Your Highness."
She seemed to have escaped from a ban. She had never known liberty.
Until she married the Count von Wildenau she had been under the control
of a governess. Then, in her marriage with the self-willed old man she
was a slave, and she had scarcely been a widow ere she forged new
fetters for herself. Now, for the first time, she could taste liberty.
The decision was not pressing. The cool stoic who had waited so long
would not lose patience at the last moment--so she could still do what
she would.
So the heart, struggling against the unloved husband, deceived the
ambitious, calculating reason which aspired to a crown.
The carriage drove up. It was delightful to hear a pair of spirited
horses stamping before a handsome equipage, to be assisted to enter by
a liveried servant and to be able to say: "This is yours once more!"
The only shadow which disturbed her was that on Martin's face, a shadow
resting there since she had last visited her castle of the Sleeping
Beauty. She well knew for whom the old man was grieving. It was a
perpetual reproach and she avoided talking with him, from a certain
sense of diffidence. She could justify herself to the keen intelligence
of the duke--to the simplicity of this plain man she could not; she
felt it.
It was a delightful May evening. A sea of warm air and spring perfumes
surrounded her, and crowds thronged the streets, enjoying the evening,
after their toilsome work, as if they had just waked from their winter
sleep. On the corners groups paused before huge placards which they
eagerly studied, one pushing another away. What could it be?
Then old Martin, as if intentionally, drove close to the sidewalk,
where the people stood in line out to the street before those posters.
There was a little movement in the throng; people turned to look at the
splendid equipage, thus leaving the placard exposed. The countess read
it--the blood congealed in her veins--there, in large letters, stood
the words: "Oberammergau Passion Play." What did it mean? She leaned
back in the carriage, feeling as if she must shriek aloud with
homesickness, with agonized longing for those vanished days of a great
blissful delusion! Again she beheld the marvellous play. Again the
divine sufferer appeared to the world--the mere name on that wretched
placard was already exerting its spell, for the pedestrians, pausing on
their errands, stopped before it by hundreds, as if they had never read
the words "Passion Play" before! And the man who helped create this
miracle, to which a world was again devoutly pilgrimaging, had been
clasped in her arms--had loved her, been loyally devoted to her, to her
alone, and she had disdained him! Now he was again bringing the
salvation of the divine word and miracle--she alone was shut out, she
had forfeited it by her own fault. She was--as in his wonderful gift of
divination he had once said--one of the foolish virgins who had burned
her oil, and now the heavenly bridegroom was coming, but she stood
alone in the darkness while the others were revelling at the banquet.
The rattle of wheels and the trampling of the crowds about her were
deafening, and it was fortunate, for, in the confused uproar, the cry
which escaped the tortured heart of the proud lady in the coroneted
carriage died away unheard. Lilacs and roses--why do you send forth so
intoxicating a fragrance, why do you still bloom? Can you have the
heart to smile at a world in which there is such anguish? But lilacs,
roses, and a beautiful May-sun laughed on, the world was devoutly
preparing for the great pilgrimage to Oberammergau. She only was
exiled, and returned to her stone palace, alone, hopeless--with
infinite desolation in her heart.
A note from the duke awaited her. He took his leave for a few weeks, in
order to give her time to understand her own heart clearly. Now she was
utterly alone.