On the afternoon of the same day, Leo Sellenthin reined in his mare at
the gateway of Uhlenfelde. The heraldic sword amidst the three
wide-jawed fish pointed warningly down on him from the escutcheon of
the Kletzingks above the entrance.
As he wiped the sweat from his brow, a last faint "Turn back," breathed
by the rustling leaves, fell on his ear. But he clenched his teeth, and
rode on. To the left, on the same side as the stream, lay the house, a
white slate-crowned bijou structure, resembling the country seat of a
parvenu more than the ancestral castle of a doughty old feudal race.
It had been built at her desire, for the former gray castellated pile
had not found favour with the fair new mistress. Two female figures in
marble, representing peace and hospitality, stretched out their shining
arms in welcome to the stranger from the parapet of the ramparts, which
were approached by a terraced drive. Groups of widespreading palms,
overarched by the ragged plumes of a banana, filled the space made by
the curve of the drive. The jagged, fan-like foliage stretched up to
the marble figures, which in their snow-whiteness seemed like rare
exotic blooms in this wilderness of green.
Leo turned away from the house, for, according to the programme, he was
not to meet Felicitas until he had seen Ulrich.
The spacious courtyard stretched its huge length before his eyes.
Ulrich, it would appear, had been building without a pause during the
last few years, for more than half the offices and farm-buildings had
been rebuilt. Where once the long white clay wall covered with stubbly
thatch had stood, there was now a row of brand-new brick palaces, with
iron bolts and locks, stone porches, and a system of covered drainage
round about.
In the yard, drawn up in columns, were the long waggons with their big
strong axles, and their fresh-polished wood agleam. There were the
ploughs--a distinguished blue-coated regiment, beginning with a bulky
"Ruchadlo," and ending with the slender furrow hedgehog, a beautiful
"Fowler" steam plough with double shafts--and an engine at the head.
The more delicate machines lay under the shelter of a shed; the
drainers and the manure-scatterer, and the newest inventions, just
arrived from England. There was also a "Zimmermann" threshing-machine,
of the kind Leo himself so earnestly coveted, and a five-tubed
apparatus for setting seed.
A feeling of admiration untainted by envy awoke in him. A good deal
that he had only seen before at agricultural exhibitions, where he had
been apt to regard it all scarcely sympathetically as so much machinery
_de luxe_, was there in everyday use, its working capabilities tested
and proved.
In another place, on wooden blocks, boxes out of the potato carts lay
huddled together like unslain dragons weltering in the sun. Near the
stable stood a company of iron-spouted kettles, in which during the
winter the tougher-fibred fodder was soaked, and made easy for the
mouths of the cattle to masticate. To crown all, there was a perfect
reservoir designed by Wolf, such as only model farms could afford.
Black clouds of smoke issued from the tall chimney which flanked the
distillery buildings, for, although the distillery itself was not this
moment at work, the steam-engine was setting in motion the dairy
machinery, which was in full activity. Long rows of milkpails were
ranged near it facing the sun, snowy white with gold-gleaming
hoops--the tin strainers shining as bright as silver; the butter-churns
and butter-separators, and all sorts of implements which Leo didn't
even know by sight; at every step some new wonder was revealed to him.
"And what is _my_ old lumber in comparison with this?" he thought.
Then a solemn mood overtook him, a feeling of reverend exultation,
which banished all his fears, and for a moment let him forget what had
brought him there. If it was within human possibility to accomplish all
this by dint of energy and strength of purpose, why should not he
succeed in a like achievement? He had only to push on steadily from the
point at which he had begun, to throw himself heart and soul in his
work, and to abandon frivolity and philandering for evermore. The
elevating example of his friend before his eyes, the feeling of
deliverance which it would give him to procure secretly his happiness,
this alone would prevent his making shipwreck again of his career.
As he drew near the stable, a groom whom he did not know met him, and
smiled up in his face with familiar impertinence.
"The mistress is not at home to-day," he remarked. "Two lots have had
to ride away without seeing her."
"Speak when you are spoken to, fellow!" Leo thundered at him, so that
with an anxious exclamation he nearly jumped out of his skin.
What a delightful understanding must exist between servants and guests
when a complete stranger was received with this gratuitous
officiousness! And how it was accepted as a matter of course that his
visit was intended for the fair lady of the house!
He sprang out of the saddle, and was told that the master was with the
horses in the paddock, exercising the two-year-olds. He walked in that
direction, and the groom, who was probably in the habit of being tipped
by his mistress's admirers, glared after him dumbfounded.
On the miniature racecourse which sloped towards the stream, Ulrich's
lanky figure was to be seen, surrounded by a crowd of golden-brown
thoroughbred colts, which were pressing against him to be caressed by
his hand. Leo's heart smote him at the thought of the comedy of
deception he had given his word to enact, and the victim of which was
to be the man who was dearest to him in the world. But what was to
happen was to be for his happiness and his peace of mind. Therefore he
must go forward with it.
The colts, at his approach, bounded away half shyly, half roguishly.
Ulrich turned round. Pure joy, succeeded the next moment by horror, lit
up his emaciated features.
"You at Uhlenfelde?" he gasped.
"How do you do, little girl?" cried Leo, forcing himself into an
assumption of his old genial manner. "Don't let your eyes quite start
out of your head. You can set the dogs on me to chase me out of the
yard if I am not welcome."
And then he repeated his lesson. How he felt things could not go on as
they were, and he wanted to try if, by means of an interview with
Felicitas, he could get to the bottom of the aversion she had expressed
for him, and through an explanation put the relations between them on a
more tolerable footing. Therefore he besought his friend to go indoors
and beg Felicitas to see him.
A smile of hopelessness flitted over Ulrich's face. "It is altogether
useless," he replied. "I am sure that she won't receive you. You don't
know in what strong terms she speaks of you."
"That may be," said Leo, without daring to raise his eyes from the
ground, "but at least make the attempt. Say I have come to ask her
pardon, anything you like."
Ulrich reflected, and then said, "Very well, come. It shall not be said
that I did not try, however little good it may be."
They left the enclosure, surrounded by the colts, who had begun to make
friendly overtures to the stranger. But he took no notice of them.
Mutely he walked at his friend's side, now and then giving himself a
shake, as if he would shake off from his soul some insupportable
horror.
Ulrich stood still when they came to the ramparts.
"In case she does consent, do you think it best to see her alone?" he
asked.
"Certainly," Leo replied, feeling that he was not used yet to the
distasteful game he was pledged to play in the eyes of his unsuspecting
friend.
"Then let me go in to her, and you wait out here. Forgive me," he
added, "but unless it is her desire, I cannot permit you to enter the
house consecrated to her honour."
Leo nearly crushed his hand in his own, but he hadn't the courage to
meet the eyes that rested on him with their fiery brilliance melting
into tenderness. He watched him disappear behind the statue of peace.
He fixed his gaze absently on the marble woman, who seemed to hold out
her palm-branch towards him with a friendly gesture. Then he began to
pace up and down the forecourt with long strides. He dared not think of
what was going on indoors at that moment.
Quarter of an hour passed, when Ulrich, glowing from excitement, his
long neck eagerly thrust forward, came out.
"Leo?"
"Well, old fellow."
"It was difficult, Leo, but she gives her consent."
"Thank you, a hundred times, Uli," he stammered, and blushed like a
lying schoolboy.
"So far, she has only one end in view," Ulrich continued. "That is, to
send you home humiliated and wretched. But you must see what you can do
with her, my boy, and think of the fever I am in meanwhile."
Yes, he really was feverish. His hands trembled, and the blood throbbed
in his temples.
He led the way, and Leo pushed quickly past him; secure already of
victory, but as full of dread and shame as if he had been defeated. He
found her stretched on a lounge, her face buried in the cushions. She
appeared to have sunk down there after the mental excitement of the
last quarter of an hour. A tea-gown of primrose-coloured, coarse-fibred
silk hung about her limbs in _negligee_ folds. His diamond flashed on
the hand which she held out to him without changing her position.
"Shut the door," she whispered.
He obeyed.
Then she lifted her face for the first time. Her eyes were red from
crying.
"How had she been able to manufacture tears for this farce?" he asked
himself.
"Oh, I was so ashamed of myself," she murmured.
Ah! she had been ashamed; that would account for it. And he began to
console her. He told her this horrible hour must be got over.... Later,
of course, there would be no more double dealing; every action of
theirs must pass above-board before Ulrich's eyes.
"That was understood before," she exclaimed, offended that he had
thought it necessary to remind her.
And in the midst of her distress she smiled at him--a coy, happy smile.
"Now he thinks that we----" she began. Her sentence did not end, but
there was something in her broken words that made the blood mount hotly
to his brow.
"That's bad enough," he growled, and turned his back.
There was a silence. He drew out his watch, and studied the hands.
"I thank you, Leo, for coming to-day," she began again shyly, after a
little while.
"Didn't you expect me, then?" he asked.
"Oh, you know you might not have come," she responded with a sigh.
"Such a woman as I am."
"Such a woman as you are! What do you mean?"
"Well, I mean that it wouldn't be surprising if people didn't keep
their word to me."
He felt a bitter resentment against this sort of self-abasement.
"I must beg you, Lizzie," he said, "to drop this false humility. You
are the wife of Ulrich von Kletzingk. As such, you have the right to
claim respect, the highest respect from me and every one else. And who
doesn't ..."
He broke off and raised his fists, so that she withdrew frightened into
a corner of the lounge.
"Pray, for goodness' sake, don't get so angry again," she whispered. "I
am miserable enough."
"That is to be all over now," he said.
"What, my misery?" she asked with a disconsolate smile.
Then he began with vehement zeal to describe to her what he proposed
the future should be. He had a double mission in her house. First,
Ulrich's happiness; secondly, her rehabilitation.
With his assistance she was to free herself from the oppressive
consciousness of the old guilt, she was to learn to hold up her head
again, and to get used to a sense of reconquered dignity, so that it
was not to be conceived for a moment that the most impertinent dared
approach her with anything less than what was due to her position.
"You paint Heaven to me," she murmured, and a tremulous radiance began
to gleam in her eyes.
"I only paint what it is possible to realise," he answered. "When we
open this door, Lizzie, all the old rottenness must be sloughed off. We
shall begin a new life from that moment."
She pressed her handkerchief to her eyes, and exhaled over him a cloud
of the perfume she habitually used. The discreet delicacy of the iris
was overpowered by the sharp sweetness of the opoponax, so that,
half-suffocated by the pungent odour of the atmosphere around her, he
made for the window.
His glance wandered round the one-windowed apartment, which had once
been his own putting-up quarters; it was now transformed, regardless of
cost, into the luxurious nest of a fashionable woman of the world.
The walls were hung with blue brocade; small gilded chairs, with
butterfly-wings for backs, card-tables, tabourets and stools of every
description, were dotted about, crouching on the Indian carpet like
fabulous beasts. A gigantic fan of snow-white marabou feathers served
as a screen for the stove. Bronzes and antique bric-a-brac figures,
dainty and alluring, populated the cabinets; a marqueterie bookcase
contained the mistress's favourite volumes, bound in ivory-coloured
vellum, and an old Venetian altar-cloth was draped in coquettish folds
over it as a curtain. Above the writing-table there shone in Carrara
marble the dreamy head of the Vatican Eros, outlined with a bluish
tinge, for the light penetrated to it through a blue and gold
embroidered gauze background, flooding the room one moment with a
subdued duskiness, the next with vivid flashes of sunshine.
The whole was an interior commonly enough seen in European capitals,
but something quite unheard of here in the remote "Hinterwald."
"He spoils you far too much," he said, with a kind of paternal smile,
shaking his finger at her.
"His kindness weighs me to the earth," she replied, pressing her
milk-white face against the cushions.
Again he looked at his watch. "Time is up," he said; "we mustn't keep
him waiting for nothing."
She lifted her hands in entreaty. "Five minutes more!" she begged.
"Why?"
"I am so afraid."
"Of _him_?"
She was silent.
"Don't be a coward, Lizzie!" he exhorted her.
"And it is so peaceful here, so harmonious. It's like being in a great
wide forest. One dares at last breathe freely."
"Breathe away, then, and have done with it. One--two--and three," he
counted, with the handle of the door in his hand.
Then he tore open the folding-doors.
The clear, hot light of the garden salon cut into the blue, heavy
gloaming.
"For God's sake ... wait!" she cried; "what are we going to say to
him?"
"What our hearts dictate," he answered, holding himself erect, as one
delivered from bondage.
She peeped shyly through the crack of the door, but at the same moment
the door opposite opened, behind which Ulrich had been waiting the
result of their interview. Unhesitatingly she rushed, with an
exclamation of affection, into her husband's arms.
Two hours later the three sat together in the lamplight at the
tea-table, happy in a feeling of possessing each other again.
Before supper Leo had been shown round the stables, had learned much,
and wondered more; but now agriculture was forgotten, and friendship
enjoyed its own. Ulrich was talkative and fluent; his joy buoyed him
up. He could not value and appreciate the wife enough who that day had
laid at his feet an almost superhuman testimony of her love. Every
caressing look he cast at her, every lapse into thought, was a secret
apology for having ever dared to think himself unhappy at her side.
She, for her part, treated him with such humble gentleness, was so
attentive to his wishes, and looked up to him so full of admiration,
that Leo was charmed with her conduct as he watched her, and could
scarcely refrain from rubbing his hands under the table, repeating to
himself over and over again--
"This is my doing. He owes his happiness to _me_."
Towards himself, too, Lizzie's behaviour was perfect. She was reserved
without being stiff; she conversed in an easy, friendly strain without
letting him forget that worlds lay between them. There lingered in her
voice a tearful tone, as of one who has forgiven a bitter wrong without
having had time to forget it, and who pleads for consideration on
account of this shortcoming. Her manner seemed as perfectly adapted to
the real circumstances as to the feigned, so Leo was able to lose the
painful feeling of playing the hypocrite. In his satisfaction he blew
down clouds from his meerschaum, so that the silver supports of his
tea-glass rattled on either side. Now he had completely won him again
for the first time, _he_ who sat opposite. This domestic problem lay in
the hollow of his hand.
The oil in the two branching lamps gurgled and boiled. From the depths
of the samovar sounded a low, mysterious humming; the chirrup of the
grasshoppers came through the glass doors with the rustle of the
evening breeze in the orange blossoms.
It was a rare symphony of broken, veiled tones, a fitting accompaniment
to shrouding the past and to meeting the future with its longing dreams
of happiness.
But, still, Leo discovered something that did not please him in
Ulrich's eyes, which were riveted on space.
"All of a sudden you have grown mum in your joy, old man," said he.
"I'd rather hear you harangue us."
Ulrich laughed shrilly and rang the bell.
"Wine," he commanded the servant. "Virgin's milk--you know, the
oldest."
Felicitas, who was bending over her white embroidery, glanced roguishly
across at Leo, who knew as well as she did how jealously Ulrich guarded
this priceless treasure of his cellar. Then she stood up, and went
herself to superintend the order.
The friends were left alone. Ulrich confessed that even yet he could
hardly believe in what had happened to-day. The reconciliation which
once he would have thought natural and easy enough seemed, now it had
been accomplished, something fabulous and incredible.
"Yes, yes; you are just like children who have kissed and made
friends," he said, looking at Leo full of affectionate admiration. "How
did you do it? You have only to appear, it seems, and behold the thorny
hedge opens and the heart supposed to be full of hate flies out to
you."
Leo laughed nervously, and said something about its not having been so
bad as hating.
Felicitas brought in the wine, and poured the topaz-coloured fluid into
the tall green rummers. Leo felt the gaiety, which always awoke in him
at the sight of a noble drink, bubble up and master him; like a presage
of ecstasy it rushed over him, sweeping away the last shred of all that
had hitherto constrained him.
"Long live friendship!" he cried, raising his glass.
"And may nothing separate us three again," added Ulrich.
Thereupon Leo's eyes met Lizzie's for a moment in a rapid, consciously
guilty glance.
If he knew!
The glasses clinked. A pure, echoing arpeggio rang from the superb
crystal.
"I could wish that our lives might harmonise in such musical accord as
that," said Ulrich.
Then suddenly he broke off, and the glass sank from his lips. He cast a
searching look along the wall, then pulled himself together and emptied
the glass with one draught.
Leo had followed his eyes. There on the wall hung the child's portrait.
Felicitas, too, betrayed uneasiness, and after a moment's consideration
she poured a few drops out of her own glass into that of her husband's,
and, leaning against him, tenderly whispered in his ear--
"To the absent one whom we both love."
Leo pretended to have noticed nothing. Then, to clear the threatening
atmosphere, he began hastily--
"It can't be helped, children. We must settle a thorny matter once for
all to-day, however difficult it may seem to discuss it just now."
Husband and wife listened aghast. Lizzie cowered and gave him a warning
look, as much as to say, "For God's sake be quiet!" Then her glance
glided to the picture. It seemed as if she feared that he would be
tactless enough to begin talking of the boy.
"Well, then, the long and the short of it is," he continued, "how are
we to break to our beloved neighbours what has happened to-day, and
what all its consequences will be? For I don't mind betting that they
are only waiting in their Christian patience for a chance of putting a
scandalous interpretation on it."
Felicitas gave a sigh of relief, and threw him a grateful glance. "What
is your opinion, dearest?" she asked, leaning her chin in the hollow of
her hand, and looking up at her husband with a childlike expression.
He ran his clenched fingers through his scanty beard. "Don't ask me,"
he said. "What are we aristocrats for if we are not above that sort of
thing? We ought to exercise our own personal discretion as we please in
such matters, and not trouble ourselves about the good or evil tongues
of a mere coffee party."
"Bravo!" cried Leo, laughing. "A high-principled cattle-stealer, such
as we have hung out there more than once, could not express himself
with more admirable effect on the gallows."
"Stop your buffoonery," said Ulrich. "Why do we pride ourselves on
being made of superior stuff to a grocer trembling for his credit? In
our own domains we are little kings, owing allegiance to our feudal
lord, and to no one else in the world. And don't we deem our country
squirarchies something higher even than the high nobility, who are at
the beck and call of the court, and bound to drag French and Russian
satellites after them?"
Leo nodded, beaming with pride.
"And besides that, are not our lives full of work, and the fulfilment
of arduous duties?" continued Ulrich. "So I should think we might be
allowed to be the best judges of how to enjoy our leisure. What can the
opinion of the world matter to us, if we know that our own method of
procedure, regardless of whether men abuse it or not, is actuated by
pure motives?"
"Ah, now you have got on your 'pure-motive' horse," mocked Leo, who was
in such a happy frame of mind that he felt he was licensed, as of old,
to look at everything from the ludicrous side. "It is incomprehensible
that a man who has written a book on the 'Feeding of Live Stock' can
pretend that he is in a position to grow fat on the motives of his pure
heart, leaving out of the question that every one isn't the lucky
possessor of such an institution," he added, hardly audibly.
"But every one may snap his finger at public opinion," Ulrich
maintained.
"There I am at one with you," shouted Leo, showing his even teeth and
bringing his fist down on the table. And while Felicitas rose and
appeared to have something to do in the dimly lighted ante-room, he
bent over to Ulrich, and said in a low voice, "As far as I am
concerned, old man, this lecture of yours is quite superfluous. My
shoulders are broad enough, and I know how to make my way with my
elbows. But there is a woman in the business----"
"My wife?"
"Right you are, your wife. We must be considerate for her. Women have
their own codes of honour; ... we mustn't tolerate her being placed in
an anomalous position."
Ulrich was silent. He was always open to conviction; and he did not
hesitate for an instant to recognise the full importance of Leo's
suggestion.
Felicitas came back, lovely and deprecating, as if the conversation had
been on some theme of farming or agriculture, which women are not
supposed to understand.
But as the two men continued to stare before them in a brown study, she
put in her word, with a pretty hesitation and helplessness, like one
who is certain that she is going to say something stupid.
"If you don't mind," she said, "I think that we ought to make the world
take the responsibility."
"For what?"
Neither of them understood her.
"For your coming together."
"How can we?" asked Leo.
"I don't know yet; ... but I'll think it over. And when I have hit on
something, I'll let you know, dear Leo, at once."
She spoke with such a comic, important little air that Ulrich broke
into relieved laughter, and said, with jocose pity--
"Poor child! She's going to think it over."
She pouted, and while he caressed her small, curly head awkwardly she
closed her eyes, and threw herself back against his arm.
He gazed down on his wife for a moment shyly and passionately, then
rose quickly and went into the next room, in case his new-found
happiness should unman him.
Soon after, the rich, low notes of an organ sounded on Leo's ear. In
astonishment he listened attentively to the sweet, full volume of
melody. There used to be only an old quavering harmonium in the
music-room, on which Ulrich had been wont to practise his chorales.
"What does this mean?" he asked Felicitas, who was putting away her
crewels.
She laid her finger on her mouth. "It is a new sort of organ that he
has got from America," she whispered across the table. "Stay here,
and don't disturb him. I must go and see if he wants to use the
pedal-notes; when he does, he likes me to blow for him."
She went out noiselessly, leaving the folding-doors wide open behind
her. A few moments later, candles illumined the darkness, whence the
mysterious flood of sound proceeded.
Ulrich, lost in the music, was seated before a curious instrument
resembling a cottage piano, except that it was built upwards in several
stages, like a staircase. His head was thrown back, and he was staring
at the ceiling. Felicitas, in her diaphanous dress floating about the
rosily-glowing room like a cloud, laid softly a score on the desk in
front of him.
He nodded his thanks without taking his hands from the keys. Then,
transposing the key, he began to play the piece she had chosen. Leo
knew it well. It was a Mass by Scarlatti, which, in old days, Ulrich
had loved better than anything.
He himself had never been tired of girding at the antiquated fugues,
which he had called "pictures of the saints set to music," but now,
when he heard again, after years of wild wanderings, the old familiar
homely notes, his heart was stirred to warm emotion. Fighting down his
tears, he threw himself into an armchair which stood in a dark corner
nearest the door, enveloped himself in clouds of tobacco, and
meditated, dissolving thoughts, half formed, passing through his mind.
It was all over now, of course, with the plans he had made at his
home-coming. Johanna might triumph, and the old chaplain with her. But
what did that matter, after all? Ulrich's happiness was the main thing.
"And is he happy?" He asked the question with a momentary, horrid doubt
of himself, of her, and everything good.
Then he bent forward and looked through the door. He devoured with his
eyes the picture. If that was not happiness, no one was happy on this
earth.
She stood by Ulrich in all her loveliness, encircling his long, lean
neck tenderly with her arm, following the music with vigilant
eagerness, so that she might be ready to help at the right moment.
"The vox humana!" Ulrich begged, glancing up at her.
She seized one of the stops, which sprang out with a slight click, and
as Leo listened, there rose the trembling, plaintive sound of a human
voice, struggling with fervent, imploring notes towards heaven.
"Was it not human what I did?" the voice seemed to be asking. "Was not
the sin sweet for which I am now in sackcloth and ashes?"
Then there came into his head the old maxim.
"Repent nothing," roared from the depths of his being.
He pulled himself together defiantly.
No, in truth he repented nothing. He was not penitent. Now there would
be no more secrecy. Ulrich was happy. Lizzie, freed of her old fears,
was turning to her husband. _And the past was as if it had never been._
"Leo, are you satisfied with me?" murmured a melancholy, wistful voice
at this moment in his ear, and a strong perfume enveloped him.
He started. He was almost choked by anger, and was obliged to put the
utmost restraint on himself not to hurl some coarse epithet at the head
of her who bent over him with a resigned smile, as if she were a lamb
going to the slaughter.
"If you want to be praised, go to your husband," he said roughly; and
then he stood up to take his leave.