MOTHER AND DAUGHTER.
The mother, after a violent attack of spasms, had fallen asleep.
Eva watched beside her bed; torn, its flowers crushed and mingling with
her dishevelled locks, the blue-bell wreath hung around her brow; as if
in mockery, the music of the interrupted feast resounded from afar; an
old clock on the wall ticked second after second, and to Eva it seemed
as if with each second her age increased by days, with each half hour
by years, as though her life were running down with the noisy mechanism
of the clock.
She put her hand to her burning temples; yes she must have become old,
very old, during that night!
And was her mother not still young and beautiful--still now even, as
she lay there with distorted features, with scorching breath, with
violent throbbings of her pulses, in fevered dreams?
Eva gazed with infinite emotion upon the sleeping woman. All fond
pictures of her childhood rose before her mind: she saw herself sitting
at the window that looked out over meadow and river, her mother
explained the pictures in her picture books; she still saw that lovely
smile hover around those lips when they read aloud some merry verse
which interpreted a gaily-coloured scene; then she saw herself with her
mother in the evening light, in whose reflection the rafts glided along
the river, and because everything was so beautiful and full of repose
outside, and equally beautiful and calm her mother's countenance, she
kissed and embraced that fondly beloved one with heartfelt fervour in a
feeling of gratitude that knew no bounds, as though she must thank her
mother for the glorious evening, and for every joy in her young life.
Then she stood again before her doll's house; her mother came to her
and joined in her play, hour after hour. Every doll had its name and
its character, and they met with sundry wonderful little occurrences.
The daughter hung devoutly on her mother's lips, which chatted so
merrily, and from which flowed such an inexhaustible spring of legends
and fairy tales.
But when she prayed--and she prayed much--then the daughter might not
disturb her. She always rose from her knees so mild and gentle, and her
fervent eyes rested at those times with double happiness upon the
beloved child.
Then gloomy days drew near, days of weeping and wailing. Eva wept too,
she knew not wherefore, all was unquiet; everything moved around her as
if in the flickering light of a scorching fire--but she could not tell
whence the flames ascended. Cupboards were emptied, boxes packed;
suddenly the hour of departure tolled--a never-to-be-forgotten hour
filled with tears. How she rested upon her mother's heart, as though
she could not tear herself away!
All these pictures passed before her mind, as after a meeting which was
even more terrible than once the parting had been, and equally
inexplicable, she sat beside her mother's sick bed. But the fever
appeared to diminish; she breathed more softly, more quietly; the lamp
went out, the first streaks of early dawn peeped through the window
panes.
And with the first beams of morning, holy thoughts filled the
daughter's breast; thoughts of the pleasures of sacrifice, such as in
the dawn of history often filled the breasts of nations.
Oh, could she make this beautiful unhappy mother happy; she would
sacrifice her heart's blood for that mother, gladly meet death for her
sake!
She folded her hands; every thought, every emotion, was a blessing upon
her mother, who had suffered, must still suffer so much.
And in these thoughts she forgot herself; her own life appeared to her
like an expiring light, and she did not lament it.
And yet, she could not but again and again recollect that unheard of,
that mysterious event which had taken place, for which with convulsive
struggles she sought some elucidation.
One thing she felt assured of--the happiness of her life was destroyed,
and perhaps the darkness in which she was shipwrecked contained more
consolation than an unnatural light which illumined the intricate paths
of her doom.
And he--how miserable must he be! It was the same flash of lightning
that had struck them both.
The mother stirred; did the first ray of the sun disturb her?
Immediately, Eva hung a dark shawl before the window, whose light
curtains did not shield them from the joyous light of morning.
Then, with sonorous strokes, the clock on the wall struck five. Frau
von Salden awoke.
Her first glance rested upon her daughter; her mind was still half
wrapped in dreams, in the twilight of consciousness, the bliss of
purest maternal love was reflected in her features. She saw that
daughter, of whom she had been so long deprived, before her in all her
youthful beauty which was even enhanced by anguish; delusive dreams as
they escaped formed a golden frame to this picture, or as light veils
fluttered over it, and, enthralled by such a lovely present, her soul
knew nothing of the past or future.
Yet it was but for a moment; then a sudden ray of perfect consciousness
enlightened her. She rubbed her eyes; the veils of her dreams fluttered
to the ground, and with a loud cry she threw herself upon her child's
bosom, whom she pressed closely to herself amidst scalding tears.
"My poor, poor Eva!"
"Mother, I am not unhappy--I will not be unhappy! I have no cares--only
be cheerful yourself!"
"You love him so much, so fondly! That love, I can feel it with you, is
your whole life. Oh, curse me! My presence brings you evil! Curse me!"
"Never," said Eva, "for I know that you love me. How could I curse
love?"
"How poor we are though, with all our love! There where we would bring
salvation, we bring ruin. Our love is like a pious wish, a powerless
breath, which, hardly has it escaped our lips before it is transformed
by invisible powers into a poisonous blast. I came hither with the
richest treasure of blessings in my heart, although not without anxious
fear; and now I shower abundant ills upon your head."
"I do not yet know what happened," whispered Eva. "I only know that I
see you again, that you suffer and are unhappy, that Blanden has
resigned me; but it is not I about whom we must concern ourselves just
now--only about you! What has grieved you so, shocked you? I hardly
dare to think--he is your enemy!"
"Not so," said Frau von Salden, shaking her head; "you poor, good
child."
"You would conceal it from me--he is your enemy! Therefore you were so
afraid, when you saw him--therefore he grew so pale at sight of you!
Has he done anything to injure you; has he offended you deeply? Oh, he
shall come and beg for forgiveness, upon his knees he shall lie before
you; I promise it! So much power my wishes still possess over him--oh,
yes, he loves me still; how could his love have vanished in one night!
I will tell him that whosoever has offended my mother has no right to
my love, that he must first win it by atonement and her pardon. I am
still his little forest-fairy; he is still within my magic spell; when
my little flower bells ring, let him struggle as he may, he must obey
me! But when he comes and renounces his enmity and entreats you for
pardon, little mother, then you will grant it him, will you not,
perfectly, entirely, without any remains of the old ill-feeling?"
"You are dreaming," said Frau Salden, while she stared with a confused
gaze at her daughter's countenance, and stroked her hair with a loving
hand.
"You doubt that I still retain my power over him? Oh, I may look very
ugly today, quite spoiled with tears; I am not always so, little
mother, he knows that I have my good days, too. He thought me
good-looking yonder upon the weeping willow-hill! Oh, heavens! The
weeping willows bent down over our young love whispering misfortune,
but you will talk to one another, of course! Everything will yet turn
out well! Oh, those days were so beautiful, so ethereally beautiful!
Have mercy, my mother! If it costs you one word to bring them back
again, then speak that word; even if it be hard for you. I may
acknowledge that great happiness for me depends upon it; control your
anger!"
Frau Salden looked at her child with intense emotion.
"It is not that--if it only were so! Nothing would be too hard for
me--no word, no deed--if I could found your happiness by them! But that
power is not given to me; therefore we are both unhappy! But now go to
sleep, my Eva! I am well; I will get up; but you have not closed an
eye! How pale you look--where are the roses which yesterday bloomed so
freshly in your cheeks? Go to sleep, only for a few hours--it will
bring peace, rest, and courage! Who could endure life without sleep? It
would be an uninterrupted agony; all pictures would score their burning
impress in our brains. Sleep shrouds them beneath the softening veil,
and we can confound them with our dreams."
"No, mother! that I can never do! If it were all but a dream my soul
would still bleed to death from it."
Frau Salden had risen from her bed; she felt really better; only the
internal conflict still remained imprinted in her features.
With unenvious pleasure, Eva contemplated her mother, as she sat before
the mirror, in order to arrange her hair flowing down abundantly; she
thought herself less beautiful, less bountifully endowed by Nature,
than was the mother over whom years had passed tracelessly away; could
she compete with that splendid figure, with that nobility, those
decided movements, that charm of her fully-developed form?
She could not help it; she must fold her mother to her heart with words
of glowing flattery.
Frau Salden struggled gently against the love of a child, for whom she
had just prepared the greatest anguish of its life.
"Go to sleep, Eva," repeated she, with motherly anxiety.
"Sleep--it would be best! I cannot conceive that I could look with
waking eyes at the people before whom I stood yesterday in such utter
abasement. It would be impossible for me to show myself here to the
gaping crowd. I must away, away from here; but I cannot part from you
with this enigma unsolved. Mother! I implore you, give me certainty--I
have courage to bear all."
"And you do not ask if I have courage to confess all?"
"Mother!" cried Eva, doubting and questioning, with the terror of
presentiment.
"If it were so easy to lift the veil, should I not have raised it long
since? If any happiness, any comfort could arise from it, should I
hesitate with such a disclosure?"
"I would have the truth, mother--the truth! In positive certainty I
shall recover my strength of mind, which is paralysed in this gnawing
doubt."
Frau Salden rose from her toilet; the morning sun shone straight upon
her face, she covered it with her hands; then she turned round, but a
burning colour rested upon her features, and an internal tremor shook
her form as if with ague.
"I belong to that community which was scattered by the law of the
country; one of the rules of that sect demands full confession of our
sins, by thought, word, or deed! It was often hard for us to make this
confession before the Saints and Pure ones, and not to conceal aught of
that which stirred our inmost souls; often have I stood there
hesitating and seeking to veil that which I dared not confess, until
the implacable word compelled me to acknowledge the whole truth without
any fraudulent disguise; yet, what was that confession compared with
the one of to-day--compared with the one by which the mother must ruin
her daughter's happiness?"
"With clasped hands Eva looked imploringly at her mother.
"Well, then, bury your head in my lap; do not look at me; believe that
it is the Angel of Judgment who speaks, who holds the rattling scales
high above your head."
Eva knelt down before her mother, and leaned her head in her mother's
lap.
"I do not hate Herr von Blanden--never have hated him--but I have loved
him."
Noiselessly Eva slid down at her mother's feet. Only after some little
time she recovered her senses in her parent's arms.
"I have loved him," repeated the mother, "and that is worse, far
worse!"
"And you love him still?" asked Eva, "and you are angry with me that I
would rob you of him? but he--how could he--"
"Listen to me, my child! We were both members of a devout community,
misjudged by the world; this brought us closer together. A decision in
council of the Superiors destined me for his spiritual bride!"
"Spiritual bride!--oh, my God!"
"That in our circle is deemed a bond, which is bound for all eternity!"
"And is not every bride a spiritual one, and every bond united for
everlasting endurance?"
"The secret understanding of such matters is only revealed to the
elect! But the mutual delights of devotion, the strengthening of the
Divine Will in us, with the increasing danger of probation, all these
exercises did not find us so strong as the faith and the prayers of the
community required! Earthly affection took possession of our hearts. I
offered weak resistance to his tempestuous passion. Let the dreadful
word suffice you--I loved him."
Eva suppressed a loud cry, with lips firmly pressed together, and
buried her head deeper in the folds of the dress.
"I was doubly guilty, because the holy work had led us to damnation.
The penance inflicted for such impiety was lighter than I feared,
because the superior leader of our community, blessed with especial
powers of enlightenment, undertook to sanctify me, and I could soon
stand purified from that sin. Now only the heavy punishment comes upon
me, crushingly, annihilatingly. Too mild was the work of that
atonement. Heaven has rejected it. I feel it, and now it dooms me to
the full weight of its wrath. In deepest degradation I must humble
myself before my own daughter, in order to destroy the happiness of
whose life the spectre hand of that unholy, blissful hour is stretched
forth from out the past. Forgive me, my beloved child!"
Eva rose pale, dissolved in tears, and put out her hand, as if in
repudiation.
"I have nothing to forgive you, mother! I do not exalt myself so
impiously as to wish to sit in judgment upon you. I could not but love
you even unto death.--and you are not guilty! Oh, no--that you are
not!"
"Guilty towards you," said Frau Salden, wringing her hands.
"None know what the future may bring," replied Eva; "it cannot be
foretold. Human destiny is like a fleeting cloud: now it gleams in the
full light of the sun at its mid-day height, or in the varying colours
of its declining hour; then it flows down in tears. Many die in the
bloom of youth; death is a doom; there is a death, too, for the heart.
It comes, one knows not whence. It is not our fault. Mother, be calm!
We have the same eyes, the same heart; must we not also have the same
love?"
Eva looked out of the window, unwonted sublimity lay in her demeanour.
"Look; how the waves roll, and break upon the shore! Each one bears the
rays of the same sun within it; now they spring exultingly in whirling
foam, then die away upon the desolate strand! Mother, we are both
wretched!"
And she hastened back and clasped Frau Salden to her heart, who gazed
in fear at her daughter's excited manner.
"But no!" cried Eva suddenly, "what did I say of you? It is quite
different for you, quite different. A question has long been hovering
upon my lips; why, then, did you not become man and wife, if you loved
one another? I must ask, I must; I can no longer endure the obscurity
which o'ershadows everything! Life must be transparent for me,
transparent--even if, like glass, it should break within my hands."
Frau Salden pressed her hand upon her heart; "We parted, he no longer
shared my faith! In that faith only I could live!"
"Oh, mother, you will, you shall still be happy!"
"I cannot, now! Too much has happened since I submitted to the decree
of sanctification, that must have appeared to him like doing wrong. He
measures with a worldly measure--therefore, I am not worthy of him!"
"I will away to him, will entreat him, if still a particle of love for
me--"
"Stay, stay, my child; never, never!"
"He shall make you happy, you! You have a prior right to him. Then I
will forget everything myself, then, when you are, I will be happy."
"Foolish child! And if the past were dead; the daughter's lover to
marry the mother, that is impossible, it would challenge all the scorn
that in society lies ever watching for its prey. And he shall not
become the victim of such scorn."
"The daughter, the daughter," said Eva, buried in quiet meditation,
"she is the obstacle!"
"No, the mother alone it is, and if that weird spectre disappeared that
stands between your felicity, if it vanished away into night from which
it arose so inopportunely, if time with its increasing oblivion buried
it--then, perhaps, once more, even if not to-morrow, nor the day after,
but when a year had elapsed, the roses of love might bloom again upon
this tomb."
"Never, never," said Eva, falling upon her knees before her mother. "I
beseech you, urgently, such thoughts are impious, such deeds can alter
nothing. Between him and me there lies an unfathomable chasm, no
sacrifice can fill it up! I will not, I cannot be his wife; but between
you and him no chasm exists, a bridge is still possible in your case!"
"Only the rainbow of your dreams arches it over. But I feel from your
words how you love me, my only child, and with such undeserved love.
Believe me, this is a moment in my life that outweighs years of
joylessness."
And mother and daughter lay weeping in each other's arms.
A knock at the door! The Regierungsrath, with solemn, pallid mien,
white as chalk, like his cravat, entered with Miranda, who must bend
under the low door-way.
"Good morning, sister," said old Kalzow, "we come to fetch Eva. After
yesterday's occurrence she must linger here no longer; she must return
at once to Warnicken."
"We shall be alone there," added Miranda, "most of the visitors staying
there returned straight home from here. The Kreisgerichtsrath, who
proposed still remaining, was frightened out of our vicinity by that
terrible event. Indeed, you bring too much, too much evil upon us."
And the Regierungsraethin dried a tear of pain and indignation in her
eyes.
"My mother is ill," said Eva, "can I leave her now?"
"Ill?" cried Miranda, "Ill? Am I not so too? Are we not all ill? My
poor husband has coughed during the whole morning, as though the
betrothal had gone down the wrong side of his throat! The girl must
away, and as truly as she is now our child, I shall guard her against
any new encounter with my dear sister-in-law."
"But, my dear wife," said Kalzow.
"I never imagined it so bad!" continued Miranda, indomitably. "Wherever
her past is touched, moths fly out! What happiness she has destroyed!
Kulmitten, Rositten, Nehren; good heavens! the most beautiful estates
in the world, a pleasant, handsome nobleman, and all in proper order!
There she intrudes with her unhappy adventures, and everything ends in
smoke! Had my good sister-in-law loved another saint, we could better
have pardoned her for it."
Frau Salden stood in silence, her hand pressed upon her heart; but Eva
cried amidst her sobs--
"Oh, my God! and all these insults for my sake! Why am I not dead!"
"Go with them, my child!" said Frau Salden. "You belong to them! Let me
return home to the quiet solitude, which I only forsook to bring evil
upon you. The air here breathes harshness and insults, I can hear it no
longer!"
"Dear sister," said the Regierungsrath, who suddenly felt a sensation
of pity, "if in Warnicken--"
"For heaven's sake," said the Raethin, angrily, "of what are you
thinking? My nerves are not strong enough to endure the sight of a
woman who has frustrated our most beautiful plans. And then I do not
deny it, after all that has happened, I am anxious about my character."
"Miranda!" the Rath said, with timid wrath.
"We must call things by their true names. Report will string together
what we conceal, and it will not find much to spare."
"Do not fear," said Frau Salden, with haughty coldness, "I will not
annoy you with my presence, hard as it will be for me just now to part
from my daughter. Farewell, then, Eva, and tell me only once more that
you love me!"
"Inexpressibly, my mother!"
And she lay in the other's arms.
"Then go in peace."
Eva tottered to the door, half dragged away by Miranda, yet she turned
round once more for a last fond farewell. Then, as if she had made some
resolve, with a majestic look upon her features she left the room with
a firm step.
But Frail Salden sank upon the couch, buried her face in the cushions,
and let her irrepressible flowing tears take their unrestrained course.