The reconciliation of the two women removed the last obstacle that
stood in the way of Leo resuming his old relations with his friend.
Nevertheless, things remained as they were.
Leo did his utmost to deceive himself, and yet every fresh meeting
afforded him little else but anxiety and nervous oppression of spirit!
When he searched his heart honestly, he could not wonder that it was
so. Formerly, when he had reviewed his position with an untroubled
glance he had taken for granted that the ghost of the past should stand
between him and his friend, unless the whole naked, shameless truth
should be brought to the light of day and confessed But that such a
confession would be an impossible villainy seemed equally to be taken
for granted. So there thus remained no other choice but to perpetrate a
not less grave, though less ruinous villainy, _i.e_. to act a lie--the
same crooked, cringing, smiling lie, day after day, in the house of the
unsuspecting man, and to betray the master and well-beloved at every
cock-crow afresh. To keep away now was out of the question. He could in
no way have justified such a course. In these short and rainy autumn
days it was no longer possible to avoid Felicitas, and he was obliged
to own to himself that he no longer wished to avoid her. Those
understanding looks which one hour he abhorred consoled him the next,
for they were eloquent of sympathy and gratitude.
He would even have liked to be oftener alone with her. For although
such interviews meant an amalgam of shame, remorse, slackness, and
cynicism, they necessitated no lying. One spoke the truth without
restraint, however abominable the subject one talked on might be.
But what was worst of all was the uncertainty about Ulrich's attitude
towards him. For a long time he had not been sure how to interpret it.
He kept vigilant watch on his friend's ever-varying expression, as if
to ascertain whether he had guessed anything since they last met, and
so the flow of easy and natural converse dried up in his throat.
Whatever he did, he was tormented by the probability of Ulrich having
gathered from his intercourse with Felicitas some hint that roused his
suspicions; he might, by the process of putting two and two together,
and by recalling and comparing incidents, be drawing conclusions and
nearing the discovery of the hideous truth. So absorbed was he by the
idea, that sometimes it seemed to him almost inconceivable that Ulrich
should not have drawn such conclusions, and there were certain hours
when he firmly believed that his friend's geniality was a mere mask,
which he assumed to draw him into a trap.
He measured anxiously the warmth of each hand-shake with which Ulrich
welcomed him, and if he noticed that his eyes were resting on him
thoughtfully, his blood would mount hotly to his brow, and the figure
of his friend swim before him in a mist.
One evening, in the middle of October, Ulrich received him at the
portico with the words--
"Come into my study; I want to have a talk with you."
The tone in which he said this was one of suspicious solemnity, and Leo
felt his heart sink. He was almost convinced now that the hour of
explanation had sounded.
"I'll put a bullet through my brain before I confess," he thought,
while Ulrich closed the door behind them.
His furtive gaze wandered searchingly along the massive black shelves
and cupboards which lined the small room, and from which the gold of
the bookbindings cast a soft shimmer. Here, amidst periodicals and
political pamphlets, microscopes and specimens, his friend spent his
leisure; here he robbed his nights of sleep in ceaseless and
indefatigable study. Leo felt as if he must make sure of a weapon, but
in this peaceful little kingdom there was nothing of the kind in
evidence. Silently he sat down, and confronted his friend with mute
hostility.
Ulrich's long figure dropped into the black leather-covered chair at
the writing-table, and he pushed the lamp with green shade out of the
circuit of his elbow.
"Now listen," he began. "The question that I am going to ask has become
unavoidable, for we can't go on like this. Something is wrong with
you ... No; don't contradict me. We have known each other as long as we
can remember, but I have never seen you like this before."
Leo choked back his answer with a hoarse laugh.
"Shall I enumerate all the changes in you on my fingers?" continued
Ulrich. "I think it is hardly necessary. At all events, you are
concealing something from me, and I have been wondering for a long time
what it can be. I have made a note of every possibility, and weighed
each according to a strictly logical system. I have weeded out the most
nonsensical, and now two eventualities have remained. The first is need
of money."
Leo would have hastily agreed, so as to leave no room for the second
supposition, but he foresaw what the consequences would be, and was
silent.
Ulrich's eyes rested on him in burning solicitude. He tugged at his
thin beard, awaiting an answer, shook his head, and then continued.
"But I say to myself that my light-hearted comrade of old would never
let himself be depressed by such cares, ... and, besides, it would be a
breach of faith of the worst sort if he was uneasy for a minute about
money, so long as my cheque-book contains in it an unwritten page. It's
true, I hope, that you would never do me such a wrong?"
"No, no!" exclaimed Leo, and looked as if he were about to seize his
friend's hand, but his courage failed him.
"You'll swear it?"
"Yes, of course! I swear it," he replied. One falsehood more or less
signified little now. He knew that he would rather cut off his right
hand than take a single farthing from the hand that now lay cold and
gentle in his.
"And then I say to myself," went on Ulrich, "a man who was born to
laugh and be merry doesn't become moody and despondent for nothing. If
it's not debts that prey on him, it is guilt."
Leo passed his hand over his forehead and withdrew it damp. "And what
may the guilt be?" he asked, trying to laugh.
"Yes, I have asked myself that question too. What can it be, when he is
afraid to speak of it to me? And I have argued further, it must be
something that he fears to pain me by confessing, otherwise his silence
would have no motive. It must be, therefore, something in which I am
myself concerned."
Leo, half risen, clung to the arms of his chair. He was extremely
upset.
"I am as transparent as glass to him," he thought. Only Ulrich's
friendly, almost mournful calmness still remained a riddle to him. And
this calmness restrained him, else would he have sought before to save
himself from what was coming.
"I set myself the task of inquiring into the past," Ulrich continued.
"I ransacked your life back to its earliest youth. I found scrapes, and
even intrigues, in plenty; but of actual wrong-doing nothing till ...
up to----"
"What?"
"Your duel with Rhaden."
Leo felt a sensation of something to which he had been clinging giving
way within him. With a tired sigh he sank against the back of the
chair.
Ulrich leaned over and put his hand on his knee. "Don't try to hide it
from me any more," he said. "I see too plainly that I have hit the
mark. You would be made of stone and iron if the sight of her who was
once his wife did not perpetually remind you of the fact that it is no
light or ordinary matter to shoot down like a wild beast, some one who
has injured our _amour propre_, or to let ourselves be so shot down."
"What could I do?" stammered Leo again, without a conception of what
his friend was driving at.
"A reconciliation ought to have been patched up. That is to say, don't
misunderstand me, I am not blaming you. It would not become me to do
so, as I myself was more to blame than you."
"_You_ to blame!"
"Undoubtedly. I was the mediator. I should also have been the
peacemaker. And to this day it's a mystery to me that I couldn't manage
to avert the consequences of that foolish dispute.... I made bad use of
my official opportunity. Rhaden should have been compelled to recall
the expression 'unfair,' for it's clear that he only let it escape him
in the excitement of the moment. I have judged myself severely enough.
I will confess to you that I ask myself sometimes, 'Were you justified
in marrying the wife of a man in whose death you had a hand?' Scruples,
perhaps of a somewhat pedantic conscience, and only you have the right
to reproach me for it."
"Reproach! I?" exclaimed Leo, who at last slowly grasped that this
abstruse dreamer, with his punctilious sense of justice, was trying to
fasten on himself a guilty responsibility out of his altogether
fairy-like version of the facts. Ah, if he only knew!
"Yes, my dear boy," Uhich went on, "don't conceal from me what you
think of my conduct, from false sentiments. I am guilty, and I alone.
This house should be as much your home as Halewitz. And I ought not to
have allowed even the most insane love to prevail upon me to bring a
wife here who would so constantly remind you of that untoward event.
Not that she knows or wishes it. For she has so thoroughly forgiven you
that sometimes I wonder how such a power of forgiving and forgetting
can exist on earth. It appears to me like unfaithfulness to the father
of her child, and above all"--a faint flush passed over his face, and
he turned away to master his emotion--"above all it seems a wrong to
the child himself. You see that all this brooding reflection has made
me both bitter and unjust, for, after all, I am only reproaching her
with her devotion to me and her desire to promote my happiness. Alone
through the completeness of her pardon has it been possible for me to
stand before you in any other light than as a traitor to our
friendship, although God knows I have enough for which to claim your
forbearance."
"Ulrich, I can't stand this!" cried Leo, jumping to his feet.
"What can't you stand?" replied the other, in the tolerant, considerate
tone in which people speak to impetuous, headstrong children. "My
willingness to take half the burden of your trouble on my own
shoulders? I tell you it belongs to me, old boy. It is my privilege,
and I demand it. And if there was such a thing as rendering accounts in
friendship, I would say that I stand so deep in your debt that I don't
see how a tolerable balance can ever be restored. Don't snort, and
stride about the room at that mad pace. You know I hate it. There, now,
drop all superfluous considerations out of regard for me, and be open
with me in future. We two get on best when we tell each other
everything, even when it hurts; anything better than sparing each
other's feelings by setting up a barrier of shy reserve."
Leo made an inarticulate exclamation, and stood in front of his friend,
with his shoulders squared. At that moment he resolved to tell all. A
hunger for truth worked so powerfully in his soul that he would have
thought it cheaply purchased at the price of death itself.
But almost immediately after, a voice cried within him, "It would be
madness, and it may lead to murder."
So he fell back silently into his armchair. The twilight which reigned
in the neighbourhood of the lamp-shade prevented his agitation from
being visible, otherwise it must have betrayed him.
"And one thing more, my boy," Ulrich went on again. "For a long time I
have had something to thank you for, which has been weighing heavily on
my mind."
"Still thanking me!" thought Leo, with an outbreak of unholy humour
which was next door to despair.
"You ought to know it, because I am sure that it will give you
pleasure. You have been the good angel of my house. No, don't deny it.
It's a fact. It looks as if you know devilish well how to manage women.
Then it is almost incredible how Felicitas has changed for the better
since you have been coming here frequently. You would not look at me in
such astonishment, if you knew what she had been before. All that folly
with the boys of the neighbourhood is past and over. Not long ago I
referred to it in joke, and she threw her arms round my neck and
implored me with tears in her eyes never to speak of it. She lives a
domestic life, and tries to interest and busy herself in the house. Her
fantastic vagaries have entirely vanished. She has given up crying for
no cause. She is much more composed and dignified in her views, and
doesn't live now on nothing but marmalade and Madeira; and what is my
chief solace of all--I won't keep it from you, for you will rejoice in
her happiness, knowing how unhappy I was--she no longer locks my door."
A spasm of repulsion shot through Leo's breast, which he attributed to
shame at this undeserved confidence, and tried to combat. Then
something like a genuine feeling of happiness dawned in his soul. He
drew a deep breath, and pressed his friend's hand. After all there had
been no foundation for his anxiety. While he had been suffering and
wrestling with himself, his object unknown to himself, had been
fulfilled. Perhaps things were not so bad as they had seemed; ...
perhaps there was still hope, even for him too.