"You know ... the youths."
She smiled, apparently deeply ashamed. "Why do you remind me of that?"
she rebuked him. "I shudder when I think of the way in which only a
short time ago I sought my pleasures. Oh, Leo, how different I feel,
how much better and purer, since you came into my life again!"
"I can't say the same for myself," he thought, remembering what he had
gone through; but he felt flattered, nevertheless, at being recognised
as a good angel.
"I cling to you," Felicitas went on, "with all the best instincts of my
nature, for I know that you are the one person who can help me. And
when I wrestle with my torture ..."
"Now she's going to be tragic," he thought. But her tragedy was no
longer so fatal as it had once seemed. If he could not echo her way of
expressing things, he understood only too well the mood which prompted
her so to express herself.
"And now I say," Felicitas continued, "all the evil spirits and goblins
of hell may attack me; I have got him, he is there; he will stand by me
and not desert me, and so hope and peace have dawned in my soul once
more."
She sighed, and, digging both her fists into the cushions, she sat
there and gazed at him with parted lips, craving for succour, while her
mass of fair curls fell about her ears like a confusion of writhing
serpents.
"Of course," she continued, "I relied much on you. But when I wanted
you most, you did not come. You went away. Oh, Leo, how cruel you have
been to me! No, no! I won't hurt you. You are good, good as an angel.
You have even forgiven me for forcing my way into Halewitz a second
time. It's true, isn't it, you have forgiven me? And I have dared, too,
to beard Johanna, to ameliorate her hate for you and me. Why, then, do
you shun me? Why may I not call on you when it is all darkness and
night within me, and the ghost of the slain----"
He trembled. The ghastly picture that the old pastor's drunken phantasy
had invoked rose before his mental vision.
"Does he haunt you too?" he murmured, between his clenched teeth.
"Don't ask.... I must be silent.... It is better for you and for me not
to speak of it.... Then how could you have borne to stay away from me,
if you had known----"
"Known what?"
"Another time, I'll tell you," she said imploringly. "Another time,
when I feel miserable, not now, when I'm happy and breathe freely,
because I am so safe with you beside me. Let me enjoy this hour to the
full. Look at the sun melting into those red clouds. Doesn't it look as
if it were weeping over us tears of blood?"
He grunted, for the simile seemed to him extravagantly poetic.
"Oh, why did we ever meet?" she murmured, turning her face up to the
setting sun, so that it became suffused with a rosy glow. She sighed,
but the sigh lost itself in a smile.
"As we are on the subject," he said, feeling that the conversation had
taken a dangerous turn, but at a loss how to change it into another
channel, "meeting had nothing to do with it. For a year or more we had
associated without any harm coming of it, despite the old boy-and-girl
flirtation behind us. We should have been more careful to keep our
inclinations in hand, that's all. Rhaden left us too much alone. We had
too many opportunities of strolling in the park after dark, and sitting
in shady nooks. That's what did it ... that's what did it."
Half lying on the cushions, she propped her chin in her hands.
"I wonder how the idea first came into our heads?" she asked dreamily.
He shrugged his shoulders. "Can one say afterwards how such things
happen?" he said. "It's like fever; no one knows how he gets it."
"I remember, though, how it began," she whispered, still gazing at the
sun. "It was a July evening. Rhaden had something to do in the town....
We were in the arbour, under the cut cypresses. You have got one like
it at Halewitz. Do you remember the arbour?"
Why did she ask? Till their dying hour, they were both bound to
remember the place that had been the temple of their happiness and the
origin of their damnation.
"It was dark all round us; we could scarcely see each other. Your cigar
had gone out ... you wanted a light. .. I said, 'Let me help you,' and
as I held the burning match to the end of your cigar, and you drew in
the flame with a deep breath, you raised your hand and stroked my hand
which held the match, three times, and just as it flickered up for the
last time, our eyes met ... and then I knew ... knew that it would
happen."
"You knew it already?"
She nodded; and as if it were the fading radiance of their past and
vanished joy, the reflection of the sun, which had now sunk beneath the
horizon, lay purple and mysterious on her face.
"We women are quick to discern that sort of thing," said she; "before
you men know exactly what it is you want, we feel it drawing near. It
is like a warm draught of air blowing against us. Many of us don't know
what it is to feel well except in such an air."
"If you noticed so much, why weren't you on your guard?" he asked
sternly.
"What is the use of guarding against the decree of fate?" she said,
piously clasping her hands.
"Why didn't you drive me away? Why did you allow me to come back?"
"Because I was so glad that you came back."
"Yes, yes ... forgive me ... you are right. It is I who ought to have
known, and to have fled away, miles away. It was not your fault ... it
was mine."
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Leo," she begged. "Things came as they
were bound to come. We were both defenceless then. Do you still
remember how, after the match was gone out, it was all dark in the
arbour, and we were both quite, quite silent? For a long time I heard
nothing but your breathing, short and hard.... You must tell me, Leo,
what were you thinking about during those minutes?"
He would have cried out, "Leave me in peace with your questions," but
only too vividly did the picture rise before his eyes of that sultry
purple July night which was the beginning of all the mischief.
"What was I thinking about?" he murmured. "I don't know that I thought
at all.... At least, I can't recall anything that I thought. But when
we stood up and walked to the house, I remember that I asked myself,
'Why was it her shoulder felt so warm against my arm?' ... I put it
down to the hot summer air.... But when I was in bed, I still felt your
shoulder against my arm that I recollect perfectly to-day."
Felicitas looked at him, smiling. But in the midst of her smile she
broke into convulsive weeping. She threw back her head, stretched
herself out full length on the cushions, her whole body shaken by her
violent sobs. One of her shoes slipped off and fell clattering on the
floor.
Leo, shocked and deeply moved, got up and came to her side.
"Why ... why," she sobbed, "why must it have been so? Now I am wretched
and abandoned, and you are wretched too, and the others. Oh, Jesus,
have pity!"
"Do--do be reasonable," he urged, trying to conceal his fear by
harshness.
"Yes, yes--tell me what to do.... I will obey and do all you command."
"You must calm yourself first. Suppose some one came in." His glance
wandered uneasily to the door.
"Oh, I will be calm directly. Oh, Lord! Lord!"
"Felicitas."
He would have liked to shake her, but was afraid to touch her with his
hands.
At the severity of his tone, she raised herself and wiped her face with
limp hands.
"I am weak," she stammered; "please get me my flask from the next
room."
He hurried away to do her bidding, for he was still consumed with
anxiety that they might be surprised in their present situation. When
he came back, she was lying motionless face downwards on the cushions.
He called her name. Instead of answering, she pointed to the back of
her head.
He sprinkled a few drops of the strongly scented liquid on her hair,
and then wiped his damp hands quickly on his coat-sleeve. She turned
round.
"Now my forehead," she whispered, with closed eyes.
He moistened her temples.
"How kind you are!" she whispered; and then went on, "one has to become
as miserable as this to learn what true compassion is."
"Sit up now," he commanded.
"You are right," she replied, lifting wide eyes to his. "Our time is
up. Ulrich may be back at any minute."
Ulrich! The blood flamed into his face. His friend's name fell
painfully upon him like a whip.
"I must go at once!" he exclaimed.
"Won't you wait and see him?" she asked innocently.
He shook his head and set his teeth.
"But you'll come to-morrow, will you not ... to-morrow?"
He could do nothing but dumbly assent.
She bent over the edge of the sofa to look for the lost slipper, which
was hidden somewhere in the wainscotting. When she sat upright, she was
smiling again. The blue eyes had regained their wonted lustre, only on
the round cheeks flashed in rosy drops the last traces of her tears.
"Are you angry with me?" she asked.
"Why angry?"
"Because I have made this foolish scene. But the burden of unshed tears
was oppressing my soul.... And now that I have cried it away I feel
more light-hearted and happier than I have done for months.... Oh,
Leo ... let me thank you for the comfort you have given me!" And in her
overflowing gratitude she caught his two giant hands in her soft little
palms and tried to press them.
He hurriedly took his leave. It seemed as if something were hunting him
from the spot. But ashamed of his haste, he turned once more at the
door.
"Remember me to him," he said, looking steadily into her eyes. She
nodded, and then bent her eyes on the floor.
When he had left the entrance hall, she climbed with languid steps to
the top story, where from the corner balcony there was a view of the
stream. She watched him hurrying thither, with her hands pressed
against her forehead, and saw him unmoor the boat from the sandy bank
and launch it with a mighty shove, while he jumped in and seized the
oars before the fragile craft had time to drift an inch with the
current. She took out her handkerchief in order to wave him farewell,
but he did not look up, and the white wisp of cambric fluttered unseen
in the twilight.
The boat became a shadow and disappeared. She shivered and thought of
the boy, far away, at the cost of whose banishment she had purchased
this hour. Then, listening cautiously at the door, she drew a letter
from her pocket, and gazed with emotion at the laboriously penned
characters, and read once more the incoherent words which had been
distressing her since yesterday:--
"My Dearest Mamma,
"I am homesick and how long must I stay here and please tell me if I
may come home for Christmas holydays all the other boys are going home
for the holydays, but I am not a coward, no I am not a bit a coward,
and when they beat me I bite my teeth together, and the banging _does_
hurt.... But if you think I Cry, I don't; no I only Cry when I am alone
in the evening after prayers; that does'nt matter does it? And I pray
for dear mamma and dear papa, that he may'nt be ill any longer, and I
want Fido so dreadfully and how is the little mare I used to ride? You
know dear mamma. I do hate being here and want to come home.
"It is 87 days to Christmas and I want a stamp-album, and scholar's
'Young Companion,' and a pistol that you shoot not with caps but
there's a feather in it like an arrow and the cherry cakes that old
Jetta bakes always. And I long to see old Jetta too. With kisses from
"Your loving son,
"Paulchen."
Felicitas crumpled the sheet in her hand in nervous irritation. "My
God, my God, how will it end?" she murmured. Then, as if to escape from
herself, she ran in from the balcony and paced up and down in the great
empty attic.
"I can't, I mayn't, I won't think about it!" she cried. "Thousands of
children have gone through the same, and outlived it. He will get over
it too."
She shut the glass door, and, pressing her forehead against the panes,
stared at the spot where a few minutes ago the boat had disappeared,
and gradually her face cleared and took on an expression of dreamy
tenderness.