One afternoon Ulrich rode over to Halewitz with the news that a meeting
of the Reichstag had been called for the third week in November.
Leo was alarmed, for it meant nothing less than being left ten days
alone with Felicitas. In every limb he felt the shock which seemed to
be propelling him several steps nearer the unknown fate that loomed in
front of him.
He could have caught Ulrich's hands and cried in his ears, "If you
value both our lives, stay here!"
And he was still in this frame of mind when his friend approached him
with an extraordinary proposal.
"Felicitas has begged me," he said, with his quiet friendly smile in
which pure goodness of heart put to flight all gravity, "to be
spokesman for her in giving expression to a desire which she has long
had very much at heart, a desire shared by your sister Johanna. Both
wish that our respective families should partake together of the holy
sacrament on the day before my departure."
Leo was filled with joy. It seemed to him as if a sustaining hand had
been stretched out to him from the clouds, to afford him anchor and
refuge in the whirlwind by which he had been threatened.
This ceremony would be a protection in the hours to be passed alone
with her, it would be the highest consecration of his purer will.
"And what do you think about it, Uli?" he asked, looking inquiringly at
his friend.
"I for my part seek and value every opportunity," he replied, smiling
back at Leo, "which lifts me above the barren level of every-day
thoughts. Were my breathing apparatus like other people's, I should
love to climb to high places and get a wider outlook. Such an outlook
over what has been and is to be is found in preparing for the
sacrament. I have heavy work in prospect, this winter, and shall
be obliged in my section to offer opposition to the tactics of my
friends--it will do me good to travel to Golgotha beforehand, to prove
whether I am fit for it."
"What worlds he is above me," thought Leo. "He lives in the heart of
his ideals, and suspects nothing of the pack of impure thoughts some
people have to drag about with them."
It now only remained to be decided which church should be chosen. Leo
was certain that Felicitas would sooner die than stand with him before
the revengeful countenance of Pastor Brenckenberg. And he, too, could
not have endured the ordeal. Anxiety at the threats and antics of this
"man who knew" would have dispelled all devotional feeling. Also the
neighbouring parish, in which Uhlenfelde was included, must be avoided
or Brenckenberg's jealous fury would be aroused.
There remained as neutral ground, Muensterberg, and it seemed advisable
to drive over to the church of Superintendent Fuerbringer, who was much
beloved in the district for his mild Christian spirit and charitable
disposition.
The rest was easily arranged. Grandmamma, who consented joyfully,
undertook to inform Johanna of the plan, and the "chicks" were not even
consulted.
When Leo entered the castle of Uhlenfelde the next day, his hand was
seized in a woman's warm trembling clasp, and he heard a fervid whisper
at his ear.
"Thank you. Oh, thank you."
He drew back astonished. A shadow glided away; a glass door rattled in
the distance. Perplexed, stunned, as if he had encountered a vision,
he groped his way on to Ulrich's study. Those hotly whispered
words of thanks continued to ring in his ears. The week passed in
nervous impatience. On Saturday morning they were to drive over to
confession, and Johanna came to the castle to join the others. In the
searching glance she directed to him, Leo recognised with horror her
never-slumbering suspicions. He felt that it would be beyond his powers
of endurance to take an hour's drive, with the police-sergeant gaze
fixed on him, so he ordered round the small dog-cart for his own use.
Hertha, who sat by the window, in hat and cloak, heard him, and looked
surprised as her eyes wandered out into the pouring rain, and Johanna,
who seemed to understand his reasons, smiled sourly to herself. The
family coach started with its freight of ladies, and Leo followed a
quarter of an hour later. Wrapped in his mackintosh, with his Scotch
cap pressed far back on his neck, chewing his extinguished cigar,
he drove along the spongy roads. He had left his man behind, for he
wished to be alone. He was approaching the religious business as an
adventure--an adventure on the result of which the weal or woe of his
whole future depended. The strength that he no longer found in himself
should descend on him from Heaven in this mystery of incarnation.
Either the grace of God would endue him with peace now and henceforth,
or it would be lost to him for ever. He drove by the Wengern Parsonage
with averted face, as if he were a thief slinking by. And in reality it
was rather like it. Stealthily and by a back way he was going to creep
into the circle of the divine forgiveness, and try and obtain by a
miracle what others struggled for with clean hands and hearts, and by
dint of strong effort. The wheels rattled down into the ferry ruts. Old
Juergens informed him respectfully, that the ladies had just been taken
across.
"Ah! the one who will be the gnaediger Herr's young bride is an angel,"
he added, beaming, while he let the dripping rope glide through his
horny fingers.
"Bride? Which do you mean?"
"Why, gnaediger Herr the young gracious countess, of course!" replied
Juergens, and winked slyly, as people are wont to do when talking of a
well-matched pair.
"Is the fellow mad?" he thought. But fear disarmed his anger. What
would happen to Hertha if this gossip was already afloat?
Since that last encounter, they had been as strangers to each other,
and had scarcely exchanged a morning or evening salutation, and now
there could be no further question between them of two souls seeking a
common ground of agreement. That which their silence concealed meant an
eternal estrangement. But what did it all matter, compared with that
great daily-growing need of his, which swallowed all minor cares,
losses and trials, as if they had never existed?
Peace, peace, at any price!
The Halewitz and Uhlenfelde carriages were drawn up tractably side by
side at the Muensterberg church door, and a few peasant equipages
modestly brought up the rear. He stepped into the grey bare church. The
first thing his eye lighted on were the words in gigantic, gold
letters, "Peace be with you," which shone above the altar in a
half-circle. They seemed the solitary decorations which this bare God's
house, stuffed with pitch-pine benches, contained.
But what more did it want? What they promised to the pious worshipper,
as a matter of course, was the one essential for which he was striving.
The words affected him so powerfully that he felt his tears rising. He
hid himself quickly behind a pillar, and laid his open hand across his
eyes. He cursed his soft-heartedness, and conjured up some of his
wildest memories in order to regain the mastery of himself.
At last he dared to venture forth and look around him. On the middle
benches sat several groups of working people; women who had cried their
noses red, and men who stared with vacant curiosity at the organ and
choir.
His own people had not yet entered the church. Apparently they were
still lingering in the vestry, which was always open to the high
nobility.
Thither he betook himself. His footsteps echoed through the aisles. The
praying women raised their noses a little; the men watched him idly.
Felicitas was the first to meet him in the vestry.
He recoiled with an involuntary shudder; then quickly recovered
himself, and gravely gave her his hand, feeling conscious that Johanna
was keenly observing every _nuance_ of their meeting. And as he looked
up he was aware that, from the dark background, a second pair of eyes
rested on them with questioning anxiety.
Then Ulrich came to shake him by the hand, and to introduce him to the
superintendent, a lean, gentle-eyed man with glasses and greyish
whiskers, who welcomed him in a clear high tenor. His voice sounded in
his ears like a peace-giving orison, compared with Brenckenberg's
thunderous growl.
They now moved into the church, and took their places on the benches.
Ulrich sat on Leo's right; Elly on his left. So everything was arranged
as it should be. The service began. A chorale was sung, and the usual
penitential prayer followed.
Leo strove to attend, but he could not succeed. He still stared, as
if fascinated, at the golden words which shone down on him from the
wall--like a magic formula. He tried to tear his eyes away from them,
but they seemed almost to hypnotise him. Peace, peace, at any price!
And then suddenly words from the altar penetrated to his ear. "In
virtue of my spiritual office I announce to thee, 'that thy sins are
forgiven.'"
He started up in surprise; could it be so rapidly, so simply done? That
for which he had struggled with the tension of despair, with the
offering up of his whole nature, was here, after a few moments of
uncomfortable meditation, tossed into his lap like a casual gift, with
a stereotyped speech by a strange, be-spectacled man.
How could it, how dared it happen thus?
Close by him sat the man against whom he had sinned; not to mention
that other who rotted in the earth. A little father away was the
woman with whom he had sinned, flooding him with the horror of her
presence--and behind her, she who knew all. Everything was just as it
had been five minutes ago; yet in spite of that his guilt was to be
instantly wiped out, because the quiet man up there, in "virtue of his
office," chose to say so, forsooth. How was one to believe it? The
organ passed into the arabesques of a florid voluntary. The confession
was at an end.
As Leo gave the superintendent his hand at parting, he met a friendly,
well-meaning glance from behind the eye-glasses, which seemed to say,
"Taken altogether, you must be a fine fellow."
"I was once," thought Leo, responding mutely to the mute speech, and he
resolved on the spot to seek counsel and rest for his soul from this
man of peace.
Pleading business in the town, he left his party to drive home without
him. He promised Ulrich to look in at night, and avoiding a last
significant look of Lizzie's, he went to lounge away two unprofitable
hours on the tobacco-saturated horsehair cushions of the Prussian
Crown, pawing, without appetite, the food which the officious landlord
set before him.
Then he found his way to the superintendent's house, while the rain
still poured from the heavens. The deal floor of the entrance-hall, as
he came into it, gleamed silver in its polished cleanliness, as if it
had just come from the carpenter's. The same aggressive polish radiated
from the steps of the wooden staircase which led to the first floor.
Every rib and vein in the boards was visible, though they might have
lain there for many years. Biblical pictures in mahogany frames,
crowned with wreaths of immortelles, hung on the snow-white chalk of
the walls. A distinct odour of freshly roasted coffee permeated the
atmosphere; an odour which has a habit of clinging to dwellings in
which painful neatness is combined with modest cheer, and thus counts
as a guarantee of bourgeois domestic bliss.
The door was opened noiselessly by a girl of twelve, who appeared on
the threshold in a stiffly starched apron, with lappets which spread
over her shoulders like the collar of a mandarin. She giggled
artlessly, and then waited silently to hear what he wanted. Her flaxen
hair differed so little from the colour of her skin, and was strained
back so smoothly and flat over her head, that without the plaits, which
formed a nest on her neck, it would have been difficult to see that she
was not bald.
When Leo had expressed his wishes, she rubbed her nose a moment, and
then vanished through another door. Not a sound was now audible.
"So this is what peace looks like," thought Leo, glancing round him. He
felt as if he were standing at the entrance of the promised land.
"Papa says, will you come in, please?" said the little girl, with
another spasmodic giggle.
He walked in.
The superintendent, in his long alpaca house-coat, with the pattern of
the cushion against which he had been reclining imprinted in red lines
on his right cheek, stood at the door. He was wiping his glasses, and
blinked sleepily with his shortsighted eyes.
"Pardon," he said, in a friendly tone, "I have just been taking my
midday _siesta_, and have been lying on my glasses. Without them I am
not quite sure with whom I have the pleasure----"
When Leo gave his name the expression of the thin mild face became a
shade friendlier without losing its composure.
"This is a real honour for me, Herr von Sellenthin," he said, and
invited him to sit down on the sofa covered with red flowery cretonne,
which, as Leo dropped on to it, uttered a squeaking sound, and the
springs of which made themselves disagreeably felt. "There are many
roads which lead men to men," continued the shepherd of souls; "may I
hope that the one you have come by is blessed?"
He stretched out both his hands to Leo, who seized them with grateful
warmth.
"It may surprise you, Herr Superintendent----" he began.
"Pardon, dear Herr von Sellenthin, on the contrary, I might almost say,
with truth, that I expected you."
"How? Expected me!" echoed Leo, astonished.
"Could there be anything more natural than that the penitent who is
confiding his conscience to an unknown man, who promises him something
so infinitely great, should wish to enter into closer human relations
with him? Although we, as Protestants, do not recognise the institution
of a father confessor, we don't desire to administer our healing in the
lump. Each of us has his peculiarity, his prejudices, and, to come to
the worst, his doubts, and it is to discuss one or other of these
points, if I am not mistaken, that you have honoured me by coming
here."
"You are right, Herr Superintendent," Leo replied, his confidence
growing.
"And there is one more thing that I would say, my worthy friend. I do
not intrude into the secrets of my brother penitents, and have no wish
that they shall specify categorically the causes of their heaviness of
heart, for that is difficult and awkward for both sides."
"It was not my intention to do so," said Leo.
"Capital! All the easier will it be to gain our object." And with a
motion of his hand, he invited Leo to explain how his affairs stood.
"You may have heard, Herr Superintendent, that I for a long time
shunned my birthplace," Leo began, involuntarily adopting, somewhat, in
spite of his natural bluntness, the form of speech of the pulpit
orator.
"I have certainly heard something to that effect," replied the latter,
cautiously.
"For years I was knocking about in foreign countries, and gave very
little thought to the salvation of my soul. I lived according to the
morals and customs of my half-civilised surroundings, and saw nothing
wrong in so doing."
"That can be taken for granted," the superintendent put in.
"But, now that I find myself back, and in normal circumstances, I see,
with horror, the nature of the crime I am guilty of."
The superintendent made a slight inclination of the head, and stroked
his shaven chin.
"That, too, is easily understood."
"Put yourself in my place. What once had seemed perfectly legitimate,
and in accordance with my sense of honour, began to disturb my
conscience, to torment me at night, to hunt me about by day, to render
me slack in body and intellect; in fact, it has so transformed my
character, that I am but the shadow of my former self."
The parson nodded contentedly, like a doctor does when the patient
enumerates one after the other, symptoms of the disease which he has
diagnosed beforehand.
"And for this evil you seek a remedy?" he asked.
"Yes."
"My dear friend, even in the very evil itself lies the remedy."
Leo felt the blind anger rise within him, which now so frequently
overwhelmed him. This, after all, came to very much the same as
Brenckenberg's doctrine.
"Don't frown, my dear friend, nor argue with God; but fold your hands,
and praise His Holy Name for the grace which has brought you even to
this condition of mind, and laid this leaven in your heart to prepare
it for the blessings He will rain on you."
"What blessings?"
"The blessings of His infinite mercy. How can you even ask when you
already stand on the threshold of Salvation? Like the blind man led by
God's angel, you have been wandering, you knew not whither, and while
you have been thinking yourself lost you suddenly find yourself even at
the door of Heaven. A hidden voice has been bidding you to the Lord's
Table, and this voice was even the voice of Divine Grace."
Defiance and suspicion fought for the mastery in Leo's soul. The little
word "even," which the man interpolated so repeatedly into his
sentences, irritated him. After using it he had a habit of pausing,
while he smacked his lips, so that however dulcet and consoling his
words might be, it gave his delivery an air of dryness. But never for a
moment did he abandon the quiet, modest, warmhearted tone with which he
had wooed Leo's confidence from the first.
"And, therefore, my dear friend, I may even promise you that to-morrow
you will experience a divine miracle. The moment that the sacred
chalice touches your lips the trouble you suffer from will be charmed
away, and at the same time, the sin which you so earnestly repent will
cease to distress you. If you had not intimated this penitence to me I
could not speak with such assurance, but now I may bid you welcome as a
worthy guest, whose soul is clad in white garments, to God's table."
Leo suppressed a scoffing smile. How unsuspecting and innocent it all
sounded!
This worthy man, with his feet on the spotless, scrubbed boards of his
house, breathing in the soothing fumes of roasted coffee-berries,
tattooing his cheek every afternoon with the impress of the
bead-embroidered cushion, what did he know of the depths and tortures
of the hell in which he wrestled?
And, notwithstanding, how full of promises and evangelical consolation
were his pronouncements! To hear him was like listening to a lullaby
one sings to a crying infant.
A miracle was to happen! In truth, a miracle must come to pass, for in
it his only chance of redemption lay. He had been on the watch for a
miracle, and now one was prophesied. What more could he desire?
Meanwhile the little flaxen-haired daughter had come in from the next
room, and now leaning against her father's knee she whispered something
in his ear.
He looked at the clock, smacked his dry lips, as if he were on the
point of saying "even," and shook his head smiling. Then a bright idea
seemed to strike him. He turned to Leo.
"It would be doing us a great honour if you would drink a cup of coffee
with us quietly?"
It might have been interpreted as a slight if he had declined the
invitation, and two minutes later the small daughter, biting her lips
in anxiety lest she should spill anything, carried in a china tea-tray,
from which the fragrance of coffee, which had hitherto faintly filled
the air, streamed in full strength. A woman's hand, with a polished
wedding-ring on it, was visible for a moment at the latch of the door,
but, having done its duty, was about to be withdrawn, when the
superintendent said--
"Come in, dear wife, and let me present you to our distinguished
guest."
A female figure, clad in black, appeared on the threshold. Spare, yet
dignified; serious, yet friendly; severe, and yet kindhearted, this
lady seemed admirably adapted to preside unostentatiously at Women's
Unions and Mother's Meetings, and to take the place of honour with
quiet self-possession beside the wives of the landed gentry. On her
head she wore a black cap, scarcely larger than half a crown. Two wide
ribbons floated over her ears to her shoulders, heightening the
impression her personality made, of unassuming solemnity.
The superintendent introduced her to Leo. The hand she offered him was
grey and bony, as a labouring woman's, and the fingers ploughed with
needle-pricks. It was reported that this hand had scattered blessings
for miles round.
"You are welcome, Herr von Sellenthin," she said, with a stiff bow, and
then turning to her husband she added, in a low voice, "Shall I send in
the honey-slabs?"
"Yes, by all means send them in," he replied, after a moment's
reflection, with the same air of friendly composure with which he had
been dealing with the salvation of Leo's soul.
The two men were again alone. The clergyman offered Leo cigars, pale
yellow cigars, which smouldered slightly, and he himself lit a long
pipe.
They discussed the affairs of the neighbourhood and topics of the hour
in a calm, matter-of-fact way; the harvest, the increase of pauperism,
and the strike in Saxony, which threatened even here to become a social
evil. And thus they came to speak of the parish of Wengern.
The superintendent smiled. "Your deceased father," he said, "filled the
cure there with a queer sort of fellow. To-day it wouldn't be possible,
for the law of sanction is exercised much more rigidly than it used to
be. I will confess to you that more than once I have prevented a storm
bursting over his head, for the consistory would be glad to have done
with him. He is only saved by his orthodoxy and the strict morality he
preaches. If half of his goings-on were known, he would long ago have
got his dismissal."
"And you, as his superior, tolerate him?" asked Leo.
"Yes, dear Herr von Sellenthin. How shall I express it? It lies in the
weakness of the human heart that a man sometimes can't do what he
ought. I believe that the pastor has eight children. I have only five.
Peter is the rock on which the Church stands, but it also has its John.
Why should one not take John for a model, so long as one isn't a member
of the consistory?"
Leo pressed the simple man's hand in gratitude.
"And then, you know, Herr von Sellenthin, that in conference, Pastor
Brenckenberg is the only man who has what, at the university, we called
'ideas.' It's a funny thing what becomes of those so-called ideas. When
we were young we all had them in abundance, but they diminished as we
grew older, and now one hardly knows what they are like. When one comes
across them in another, they are apt to irritate at first, but finally
one feels that they do good. Therefore I suffer Brenckenberg gladly in
our midst. And besides that, Herr von Sellenthin, there is a homely
saying which I have often found true, and which may apply even to your
case. It is, that the majority of things are not so bad as they seem.
You will ask, what about the deadly sins? God knows they exist in
plenty. Seven of them, the Scripture says. But the main point is this.
Why did the Saviour die on the Cross if we were to despair in our sins?
Either that death seems to us an act of folly, which God forbid, or we
believe in it even as a miracle, which every day of our lives is worked
anew, and which to-morrow will be worked especially for you, my dear
friend."
Filled with his harmonious views of life, he waved his cup to and fro
complacently, to stir up the sugar in the dregs of his milk-coffee.
Leo rose to take his leave. This man, so inoffensive that one couldn't
help liking him, was not the priest that his soul needed. So he hurried
away, as much without comfort as he had come. He felt as if he could
have shaken the dust of that home of peace from his feet, only there
was no dust there to shake. He drove through the rainy twilight towards
Uhlenfelde. Night had fallen before he drew up at its closed gates. His
horse splashed in a pool of water, and a shower-bath of raindrops
trickled on him from the leafless branches which flanked the road. He
would have got down to pull the bell, but a numbness which had
overtaken him made him set still instead, and stare in front of him.
The gate-posts stood there like a pair of black hounds on their hind
legs, glowering at each other. To right and left a piece of the wall
crept out into the night; the rest was hidden by the darkness. Only
from the castle came one pale path of light. It was the lamp burning in
the bay where Ulrich's writing-table stood. It shimmered towards him
along the damp undergrowth of the park, which stood out of the darkness
here and there in mirrorlike patches, as if it wished to guide him to
the place which he hesitated to approach. But the further it penetrated
the fainter became the light, till at last it was powerless to
withstand the night-shadows which swallowed it.
Leo felt an icy shiver pass through his drenched body. "There is the
priest I want," he thought; "the only one on earth who can save me."
But of what avail were these weak longings? He would only stand before
him to-day, as always, biting his lips, his frightened glance wandering
along the walls, a martyr to nervous fears and yearning, his ears
strained to hear if a gliding step was coming along the corridor, the
step of one who would sweeten his distress, and destroy his hope. What
object would there be in coming here to-day, if he did not confess and
repent? His whip cracked. The horse stamped as he turned round in the
spluttering water, through which the wheels ploughed with a creaking
sound. He gave a last look, full of impotent rage and dull, painful
longing at the peaceable stream of light which, like everything else in
the world, served only to reproach him, and then he drove furiously
back by the way he had come, still faintly hoping for what now was
hopeless.
The next morning the rain had ceased. A pale sunlight, broken up by the
drifting masses of cloud for several minutes, and then gliding down on
to the yellow plain, illumined the larches, and threw a sort of lantern
reflection on the variegated walls of the outlying forest.
Leo drove, as he had done on the previous day, alone to church. This
time he preceded instead of following his party, for he did not wish to
be disturbed at the outset by Johanna's grim scrutiny. His soul was now
busy with a host of happy plans and pious resolves. An old glimmer of
his joyous childhood's faith had awakened in him again. He would humbly
lay down the burden of his sins at the foot of God's throne, and
receive the pardon which the Lord held in readiness for him, with quiet
thankfulness. It pained him to think of the ferocity of his yesterday's
mood. He had stretched out the greedy hand of a thief to snatch
redemption, to obtain heaven's greatest blessing in an embittered and
obstinate spirit. But to-day it was coming to him unbidden. The
November wind was like a divine breath against his heated brow; the
faint sunlight poured a wealth of gold on his head. "The miracle is
beginning to work," he thought.
But at the bottom of his heart crouched still the demon of fear, and
would not budge--the fear of meeting her.
If only he could have gone alone to the altar! But wherever he went she
was there also. From her there was no escape. In the same way as she
stood between him and his friend, she stood between him and his God.
The Uhlenfelde barouche was close in front of his dog-cart as he turned
into the church square. There she was! That black-veiled graceful
creature descending the steps of the carriage with a dainty swing of
her rustling skirts was the woman he would have liked at that moment to
take in his giant arms and crush--crush like a ball of putty. He
pressed his nails deep into his flesh at the thought of how easy it
would be to do it. Ulrich, slightly yellower than usual, and with more
brilliant eyes than usual, came up to him on his stork-like legs.
"You left me in the lurch yesterday," he said, in mild reproach.
"It was too late to come in," apologised Leo. "I was afraid I should
not get the trap over the ferry."
"Pity!" replied Ulrich, "I wanted you dreadfully."
"For anything special?"
"I wanted a father confessor," Ulrich said, smiling.
"And I was to be _that_," thought Leo, grinding his teeth; meanwhile he
cast a sidelong glance at Felicitas, who was arranging her veil and
hair, and ribbons, behind the carriage, and seemed in desperate need of
a mirror. "To-day she is going to 'fetch' God Almighty" he reflected,
and anger possessed him in every limb as he thought how he loathed her.
Then he went to offer her his hand. Her eyes, swimming in tears, looked
up at him in sweet entreaty through the thick veil she wore. She
pressed his hand twice in hers, a signal of freemasonry between them
hatefully reminiscent to him of their mutual sin.
A few minutes later his own people drove up. They were all in black.
Mamma's lips were rounded from sheer pious ecstasy, and Elly, who
seemed to-day strikingly to resemble her, wore the expression.
"We have all fasted," Leo's mother whispered to him, full of pride.
Hertha was very pale and studiously avoided locking at him. Johanna,
who appeared terribly aged and haggard, suddenly came and asked him to
let her take his arm. He acquiesced in amazement, for such a thing had
not happened since he came home.
"This coming to the Holy Sacrament is my doing," she said, in a low
tone.
"So I thought," he replied.
"And do you guess what my object is in doing it?"
"I think that I can."
"It is designed, above all things, to perfect the reconciliation
between us two."
"And what more?"
"Can't yourself tell you?"
Their eyes met in bitter hostility.
"Leo!"
"Well."
"Is it not well that it should be so?"
"Oh yes! It's an excellent idea, ... really beautiful. Ha! ha! ha!"
The others, who had walked on, looked round. This outburst of hilarity
was not in keeping with the sacramental mood.
At due door of the vestry he dropped his aster's arm and avoided
speaking to her again. The superintendent was sitting at his official
table, peaceably conning his sermon.
Leo went to him and spoke a few words of greeting. With a furtive smile
of understanding the good man grasped both his hands, as much as to
say--
"You and I, we know all about it?"
"Ah, if only you _did_ know," thought Leo, in bitter irony; and then
once more he found himself searching for an excuse to get out of the
way of the sweet, pale-faced, accursed woman who man[oe]uvred without
ceasing to take her place at his side. How was it possible to collect
one's thoughts for reverence and devotion as long as that white throat
with its double dimple was craning itself amorously in his direction?
In the church they sat in the same order as they had done on the
previous day. Leo with his mother and Elly in the first row, behind
Ulrich and Felicitas, while Johanna and Hertha withdrew to the third
bench.
Every seat in the church was full. On the plain altar, covered with a
red cloth, two wax candles burned in the sconces, according to the
custom on Communion days. The building, with its grey choir and
galleries, its faded-looking painted pillars, and bare whitewashed
ceiling, enclosed in its bald dreary spaciousness countless black
rows of melancholy human worshippers. Only the reflection from the
stained-glass window made a feeble effort to cast a little colour and
character into the drab monotony, and over the altar niche shone
brighter, it seemed, than before the words which promised such
volumes--
"Peace be with you."
Peace, peace, at any price! Yet, was it not further off than ever?
The sense of the fatal woman's nearness was making all his pulses sting
and throb. And while the sermon proceeded, like a tinkling brass
on a tinkling cymbal, he sat hunched up, leaning forward against the
book-rest, trying to follow an idea, and looking out for allusions
which he could not grasp for all his suspicion.
Suddenly he felt ashamed of himself, and proud memories began to flash
through his brain. He saw himself half-clothed galloping across the
prairie, on his wild Arab; he heard the sounds of mad revelry round the
camp fires at night, his own laugh, that of his drunken comrades, and
he scented the mud vapour rising from the rushing leviathan rivers
which he had forded many a time on his horse's back.
A very different motto had ruled that merry, devil-may-care life. Then,
"Repent nothing" had been written in sunbeams on his heart. "Repent
nothing!" had cried the voice of the tempest and the laughter of his
mistresses, and everything that had language.
But now?
The autumn wind moaned against the leaden casements of the church
windows. It made a sort of plaintive, whimpering melody--almost like
the whimper of a penitent soul; and when a faint ray of sunshine found
its way into the gloomy edifice, it pointed at once a didactic finger
at the words which held out hopes of a churchyard solace--
"Peace be with you."
He stretched his limbs and leaned back, and as he did so he heard
behind him, scarcely a foot from his ear, a low, soft, bitter weeping;
such weeping as comes only from the heart of little children or
love-sick women.
He shuddered. A wave of stupid pity, which made him vexed with himself,
passed over him and seemed to soften him towards her. In another moment
he would have turned round to whisper a word of comfort. But then
Ulrich's voice was heard saying, in affectionate remonstrance, "Pull
yourself together, dear child." And at the sound Leo became frozen
again.
But the sobbing continued. Tender and ingratiating, like an
oft-repeated question, it got on his nerves and penetrated to his soul.
"Oh, that I might be left in peace," a voice within him cried. "Alone
with my God."
But the woman was there, and there she would stay, sucking from his
heart with her sobs all his calmness and strength of purpose.
"Leo!" his mother whispered warningly in his ear.
"What is it?"
"Stand up. It's the bidding prayer."
He dragged himself on to his feet. The voice of the superintendent came
from the chancel in a subdued sing-song--
"Jesus, Bread of Life, grant that we come to this Thy table not in
vain, or to the injury of our soul."
"Let us hope so," thought Leo; and a desperate doubt as to his own
worthiness shot sharply through him.
The first service was over, and the stream of worshippers moved towards
the doors--only the communicants stayed in their places.
Felicitas kept her head buried in her prayer-book, but the rebellious
little rings of gold hair on her forehead could be seen glittering
through her crape veil. Ulrich seemed to be lost in deepest meditation.
Then, as he met Leo's glance, his face cleared. He blinked twice with
his short, tired lids, and infinite affection and confidence radiated
from beneath them.
The church had emptied itself. The minister re-appeared in front of the
altar, and read the prayer of invitation from a large, flat book which
he moved to and fro in his hands. Then he lifted the folded serviette
from the sacred vessels, which were set out on the right-hand corner of
the altar.
Every one rose to draw near the Lord's table. The altar was surrounded
by a balustrade covered with red baize, and at the foot there was a
praying stool. Leo, without lifting his eyes, offered his arm to his
mother, and walked with her, leading Elly on the other side, up the
steps of the choir. Ulrich and his wife followed close behind.
Johanna and her step-daughter hung back a few paces. Hertha bit her
veil and clung to her mother's arm. At the bottom step she reeled and
nearly fell. They knelt down on the circular stool. To Leo's left were
two vacant places, and Ulrich was on the point of taking the one next
him, when at the last moment Felicitas, letting go her husband's arm,
pushed herself between the two men.
Leo perspired with horror. He felt as if he must spring up and flee,
but that would never have done. He daren't move an inch, and was forced
to submit quietly to her skirts overlapping him, and the upper part of
her arm resting warmly against his.
The administering of the sacrament began. "Take and eat; this is My
body." Two lean, apparently interminable fingers, on one of which
flashed a wedding-ring, came in contact with Leo's mouth. He took the
sacred morsel and thought, "At least I shall not share that with her."
The minister went on murmuring, as he gave the bread to each, the
portion of a sentence, "which was given for you ... do this in memory
of Me." And as there were fifteen people gathered round the altar at
the same time he began again. "Take and eat; this is My body."
Leo gazed fixedly at the silver embroidered cross in the middle of the
altar-cloth. He could almost have counted the threads, it seemed so
near. On the bottom part of it there was a spot of grease which dimmed
its lustre.
"Perhaps it, too, is blood," Leo thought.
The arm that pressed against him began to tremble as if it wanted the
pressure returned. At that moment the minister took hold of the chalice
and lifted it high above his head. A ray of sun shining through the
painted window was reflected in the golden body of the cup, and it
flashed forth a bluish flame.
"Take this and drink." The cup was being held to Ulrich's lips. "This
is My blood----"
And now it was Felicitas who was drinking from it. "She is drinking my
blood, too," thought Leo. With a slight swing the cup was withdrawn
from her and it approached his own mouth. A dark mist blinded him. The
sharp edge, as it knocked against his teeth, was still warm from lips
which had just rested on it. The pungent wine was flowing into his
mouth, and with a shudder he swallowed it.
Then in a lightning flash he saw what he had done. He had eaten and
drunk damnation, and he deserved to be cast out for ever from the
community of Christians. For in drinking the sacred blood he had drunk
her kisses.