THE SHADOWS GATHER.
In a first-class carriage of an express-train from Berlin sat Bernhard
Eichhof. Upon his return quite late from a ball, he had received the
despatch informing him of Lothar's sudden death. He had spent the rest
of the night in writing a letter to Julutta Wronsky and several others
to political associates, and was now hastening to his home by the early
train. He had scarcely found it possible to believe the sad tidings
brought by the despatch. Lothar dead!--Lothar, whom but a few weeks
previously he had left in the pride of youth and strength, a picture of
blooming health. And yet the despatch left no room for doubt. He
thought of every possible accident that could have befallen Lothar. He
saw before him his brother's smiling merry face, and the thought that
he was to look upon it cold and stiff in death seemed to him
inconceivable. In Berlin the hurried preparations for his departure had
scarcely left him time to appreciate his loss.
But now, during his lonely ride, with Lothar's image constantly before
him, now he first comprehended how near this brother had been to him,
and how terribly he should miss him. In the consciousness of his
position as the future head of the family, upon whom the others must
more or less depend, Bernhard had developed, when quite young, a
certain liking for the part of a protector,--a part that became
him excellently well, because he was naturally warm-hearted and
good-natured. And precisely because Lothar had so constantly appealed
to him for aid, and, in his lack of self-dependence, had always turned
to his brother in his troubles, he had grown very, very dear to
Bernhard. Lost in melancholy reflection, he leaned back in a corner of
his coupe, without bestowing the faintest notice upon two ladies who
had entered the coupe just after him. He had closed his eyes in his
revery, and had entirely forgotten his travelling companions.
Suddenly the name of 'Eichhof,' uttered by one of the ladies, aroused
his attention.
"Is the member of the Reichstag your son-in-law's neighbour?" the other
lady asked.
"Yes; Rollin is in the midst of a very aristocratic neighbourhood," was
the reply. "Good heavens, the Barons von Hohenstein have lived upon the
estate for hundreds of years, and all the neighbours are old noble
families,--my daughter's surroundings will be really 'feudal.' It is
well to give one's children an education that fits them for any rank in
life. Only a few days ago Count Dornat said to me, 'Your daughter, the
Baroness von Hohenstein, is a charming woman.' And my son-in-law is
delightful. Indeed, my dear, it is really a model marriage. Between
ourselves, many an aristocratic family might take example by it,--these
Eichhofs, for instance."
Bernhard, who had ceased to pay any heed to the speakers, now listened
again.
"Is it possible, Frau Kohnheim, that the Eichhofs----" Thus the
conversation continued.
Frau Kohnheim said in a low voice a few words that Bernhard could not
understand, and then went on, in a louder tone, "Yes; I was at Rollin a
couple of weeks ago with a Berlin upholsterer to see to the furnishing
there, and the housekeeper from Eichhof was paying a visit to our
housekeeper,--I mean to my son-in-law's housekeeper,--and I learned all
about it from her. The young Countess at the castle was an innocent
young creature at first, but she has grown to be very different,
especially since her husband has been away. Only fancy such a young
woman's giving entertainments to which the young men for miles around
are invited, while a young unmarried brother-in-law of the Countess
plays the part of host! And he is in garrison only half a mile from
Eichhof, and of course is there constantly. So there you have a young
man and a young woman alone together in the country in a big castle,
and you may imagine what it must lead to!"
"Good heavens! how can the Count be so thoughtless as to allow it?"
"How indeed? Of course the young brother-in-law is over head and ears
in love. The housekeeper, who seems to be a very sensible person, has
often watched him. He never takes his eyes off the Countess, and,
naturally enough, she is not blind to the attractions of a handsome
young officer. There they sit in the conservatory talking together, or
they take long walks arm-in-arm, and the housekeeper----" Here the
voice sank to a whisper.
Bernhard could no longer sit quietly in his corner. He stirred and
altered his position, so that the conversation was carried on in still
lower tones.
"Infernal old women's gossip!" he thought, flushing angrily.
"Contemptible lies!--Lothar to----" Anger and pain possessed him. How
dared any one assail his wife's reputation? How could the innocent
relations between Thea and Lothar give rise to such calumnies? Was he
not false to the memory of the dead even to listen to such talk? He
arose and opened the window, only to close it again noisily; then
dragged out his portmanteau, and so bestirred himself that the ladies
involuntarily ceased to speak. But when he leaned back in his corner
again, all the 'old women's gossip,' all the 'contemptible lies,'
recurred to his mind word for word. Thea was young and beautiful, and
Lothar was thoughtless and susceptible, therein lay the justification
of the 'old women's gossip.' But Thea was his wife, and Lothar was his
brother. Nonsense, nonsense! why dwell upon such thoughts for an
instant? And yet they would intrude; they even came between Bernhard
and his sorrow for the loss of his brother; they suggested wild images
that showed some connection between what he had just heard and Lothar's
sudden death; they sent the blood seething through his veins, and kept
him awake, when weariness from sorrow and want of repose would have
bidden him to sleep.
After a while the two ladies left the train, and Bernhard was alone
with his torturing doubts and suggestions.
At the station he was met by Werner, who had meanwhile been informed of
the result of Lothar's gambling on the previous evening. As gently as
possible, but without withholding a single detail, he told Bernhard the
truth: Lothar had contracted gambling-debts, and had, in consequence,
shot himself. Fearful as the calamity was, it was by no means without
parallel,--the same cause had often led to the same desperate resolve.
Still, to Bernhard, it did not seem to explain Lothar's act. The amount
of this last debt did most certainly exceed the amount of Lothar's
usual deficits, but yet it did not seem to Bernhard large enough to
have been paid by a life, unless there had been other motives in
Lothar's mind to prompt him to self-destruction. Why had he not applied
to his brother, as he had so often done before? Had he despaired of
himself and of his capacity for improvement? That was so unlike Lothar
that Bernhard could not believe it to be so. What, then, had prevented
him this time from appealing to his brother for aid?
"He had been to Eichhof just before?" Bernhard, arousing himself from
gloomy reflections, asked of Werner, who was driving from the station
with him. Werner assented.
"And you never spoke with him afterward?"
"No; none of his comrades saw him. His servant was the only one who did
so, and he says that Eichhof was very unwell. The calamity occurred
almost immediately after his return."
"Immediately after his return----" Bernhard bit his lip; he would ask
no more questions. Arrived in garrison, he made all the necessary
arrangements, promised to return in a few hours, for Lothar's body was
to be taken to Eichhof in the evening, and then drove on alone.
He had had some hope that Thea would come to meet him, but she did not
do so; she did not even receive him as usual at the hall door.
"The Frau Countess is not well," the servant said.
Bernhard hurried up the stairs to Thea's room. At the door he met the
family physician.
"Is my wife ill?" he asked, hastily.
"Nothing serious at present," the old man replied. "Countess Eichhof
cannot for the moment sustain the terrible nervous shock. I have
ordered perfect rest,--her best medicine next to your arrival, my dear
Count. A sad time, indeed. Your brother was never ill in his life, and
now----"
Bernhard pressed the good doctor's hand, and, leaving him, entered
Thea's room. In the first moment of reunion he forgot all his doubts.
He clasped his pale, distressed Thea in his arms. At sight of her he
felt something like remorse for having left her alone so long.
"This is a sad meeting, dear heart," he said with emotion, as he laid
her head upon his breast. Thea shook as with a fever-fit, her lips
quivered, but she could not speak.
Bernhard looked in her face in alarm. "My poor, poor Thea!" he
whispered.
She extricated herself from his clasp, and withdrew her hand from his.
"It will pass," she said, turning from him to draw a shawl over her
shoulders. "Never mind me. Have you seen him,--I mean Lothar?"
"Yes; he looks perfectly unchanged. I shall have him brought here
to-day."
Again Thea shuddered, and for a moment her look was fixed and wild.
Bernhard tried again to draw her to him, but she pushed him away.
"Leave me! leave me!" she cried. "Oh, my God!" And she burst into a
passionate fit of sobbing.
Bernhard turned away and walked to the window. He felt that all his
doubts would have vanished like morning mists if Thea had met him as
usual and wept out her pain and grief upon his breast. Now they arose
again before him, and took firmer, clearer shape. For a few moments he
stood motionless at the window, then suddenly he approached Thea again.
"You know why Lothar shot himself?" he asked, in a voice that sounded
hoarse and unlike his own.
She bent her head lower upon her hands and made no reply.
"He lost a large sum at play last night," Bernhard continued. "But----"
Then Thea looked up. For an instant her face looked transfigured with
hope, like that of a criminal reprieved when under sentence of death.
Involuntarily she seized Bernhard's hand, and asked, with a passionate
excitement such as Bernhard had never before known her to express, "Do
you believe that that was why he shot himself? Do you believe it? Can
it be?"
Her eyes as she looked up at him were full of imploring anguish, and
he, in his turn, thrust away her hand, and said, in a cold, hard voice,
"No! I see you do not believe it, and I--neither do I believe it!"
At this moment Alma entered with Herr von Rosen, who had come over
immediately upon hearing the sad news. This put an end to Bernhard's
and Thea's _tete-a-tete_, and neither of them at this time could have
wished it prolonged.
Nor was there any opportunity for renewing it during the next few days.
The dowager Countess had hastened to Eichhof upon hearing of her son's
sudden death, and her grief and suffering were of so exacting a nature
as to employ the time and energies of at least one member of the
family, and sometimes several of them, all the time. She called herself
the unhappiest, the most sorely tried of women; but when Bernhard
proposed that she should remain at Eichhof with Thea, she thought it
but right to inform him that she had been offered the position of
abbess in the aristocratic institution of B----, and that she intended
to accept it and retire thither as soon as possible, since it seemed to
offer her the advantages to which her birth and rank entitled her.
Thea suffered terribly, but she was cold and repellant towards
Bernhard, who was very much occupied and rather avoided her than
otherwise. The physician shook his head; he was far from satisfied with
his patient's condition, although he still maintained that she was only
suffering from prolonged nervous agitation.
On the day after Lothar's funeral Thea was lying back on her lounge,
not sleeping, but with closed eyes. She could not sleep either by night
or by day, for so soon as she began to dream she saw either Lothar or
Bernhard before her, and the thought of them banished repose. Was she
not guilty of Lothar's death? Ought she not, instead of turning angrily
away, to have tried gently to lead him back to the right path? If
there had been no shadow between Bernhard and herself, this torturing
self-reproach would not have taken shape; her conscience would not have
been so morbidly sensitive, inclining her to the gloomiest reflections.
But the shadow was there, and it was therefore impossible for her to
seek refuge with her husband, and be consoled and soothed in his arms.
Agitated as she was, she saw Bernhard's relations with Frau von Wronsky
in the darkest light. She attributed his altered demeanour entirely to
these, and never for an instant suspected that he too was tormented by
doubts and suspicions with regard to herself. And Bernhard? All through
these days he scarcely thought of Julutta; he never suspected that his
friendship for her could have given rise to remarks and comments which
Thea had overheard, and if he had suspected this he would have been
indignant that Thea should give ear to such scandal. In all that
concerned that 'poor persecuted woman' his conscience felt perfectly
pure, and the struggle between his love for Thea and his dead brother,
and the hate which now threatened to arise within him for both of them,
left no space for thoughts of aught else.
And now the time for his return to Berlin was at hand. He resolved that
certainty should at least be his. Thea, apparently calmly passive, and
yet wretchedly restless, had just adopted a resolve to entreat Bernhard
to tell her frankly of his sentiments for Frau von Wronsky. She would
make no claim upon his affection, since she had never possessed it,
but she would be his true and honest friend, asking nothing from him
save confidence and truth. For their child's sake they must remain
friends,--friends, but nothing more! Yes, she would say all this to him
to-day--this very hour. Suddenly she started: a cold, heavy hand was
laid upon her shoulder. She raised her head. Bernhard had entered
softly, and had only been aware when he stood close beside her that she
was not sleeping. His hand was upon her shoulder, and he said, gazing
at her the while with eyes so changed, so darkly stern, "I must speak
with you, Thea, before I leave for Berlin. I have a question to put to
you."
She looked up at him startled. She had just been thinking of him, but
the face she saw before her in no wise resembled the image of him in
her mind, and there was an unusual imperious tone in his voice that
offended her.
"Go on," she said, looking away from him.
"What occurred between yourself and Lothar?"
Thea started up. All her lately-formed resolutions were forgotten. He,
against whom she believed herself to have such just cause for
complaint, dared to take her to task thus!
She could not and would not lie; it was just as impossible for her at
this moment to answer his question frankly. She stood erect before him.
Her pale cheeks glowed, and her eyes gleamed angrily.
"You certainly have no right to ask that question. You less than all
others."
The words passed her lips quick as thought. The next instant she
repented of them, but they were spoken, and they had their effect. A
terrible alteration took place in Bernhard's face. For an instant he
looked as though about to crush to the earth the woman before him; then
he suddenly turned away, without a word, and left the room.
"Bernhard!" Thea called after him; but the door was shut and he did not
return.
"Past and gone!" echoed in Thea's soul.
"Past and gone!" a voice muttered in Bernhard's heart. Of what avail
was it that she wrung her hands, and that he, in his room, hid his face
and wished himself dead in Lothar's place rather than live through all
this? The doors between the husband and wife were closed, and neither
could overcome self so far as to open them and cry out to the other, "I
love you,--I love you in spite of everything!"
The reconciling words remained unspoken.
Thus they parted. Bernhard returned to Berlin to await the close of the
Reichstag, and Thea was alone again,--really alone now, since she knew
that there was no union between Bernhard and herself even in thought.
Werner had departed immediately after Lothar's funeral, and Thea
shortly afterwards sent Alma home. Their mother was quite ill; there
were fears of her becoming blind, and Alma was much more needed there
than at Eichhof. Thea exacted from her a solemn promise that she would
never mention the contents of Adela's letter. What the future had in
store for her she could not tell, only one thing she was resolved upon,
that the unhappy state of affairs existing between Bernhard and herself
should be concealed from the world as long as possible. While he had
been in Eichhof her illness had made such concealment entirely
feasible, and in future--yes, what was to be done in future she could
ponder upon in her solitude at her leisure.
But upon this Bernhard had also pondered, and a few days after his
departure Thea received a letter from him.
Her heart beat so strongly when this letter arrived that she held it
for a moment in her hand without being able to open it. And when at
last she did so, the characters of the familiar handwriting danced so
before her eyes that at first she could scarcely decipher them.
Bernhard wrote:
"From what you said to me on the day before I left Eichhof, I conclude
that you find it impossible to bestow your confidence and affection
upon me any longer. I do not ask why this is so; you know the reason
for it, and it is better that it should not be discussed between us. To
what is inevitable we must resign ourselves as best we may. After what
has passed you probably desire to return to your parents, as life with
me would be only a constant pain to you. I should not oppose your wish
in this regard were it not for the existence of one for whose sake it
seems to me best that we should maintain at least the appearance of
union before the world,--I mean our child. For his sake we must avoid a
public separation. Therefore it is that I pray you to remain in
Eichhof, even although I should return thither. My sphere of action
must enlarge with time. I shall travel much, and thus the brief
duration of our meetings in Eichhof will seem not unnatural. You can
shorten them still further by visits to watering-places, if it so
pleases you. Before the world due regard must be paid to _les
convenances_; of course the cause of our separation must never be
mentioned between ourselves. In this wise our relations to each other
may be duly arranged, and I pray you to inform me as soon as possible
if your views in this respect coincide with mine.
"Bernhard Eichhof."
This was the letter which Thea read over and over again amid floods of
tears, the letter the composition of which had cost Bernhard a
sleepless night. What a night it had been! Anger and pain strove within
him for the mastery, and pain at length conquered. He thought of Thea's
youth, of her solitude and inexperience, and he thought of Lothar's
thoughtless gayety, of his susceptible nature, and of all his winning
qualities. And he, Bernhard, had been fool enough to leave these two
children dependent upon each other for society! Through his own fault
his happiness was destroyed, and he had lost the woman whom he
loved,--lost her forever!
He was overcome with compassion for himself, for Lothar, who had sought
by his death to expiate his fault, for Thea! While writing that letter
to her his heart was filled with sympathy for her. He pitied the poor
young creature whom he had delivered over to her destruction; she could
be nothing more to him, but his roof should shelter her at least from
further harm.
These were Bernhard's reflections; but Thea thought she could read
between the lines, and that it was not his insulting suspicions of her
fidelity, but his own sentiments for Julutta Wronsky that made it easy
indeed for him to give up his wife, if only appearances were kept up
before the world. She accepted what he proposed with a dull
resignation. In the tormenting self-accusations in which she so often
indulged in her solitude, she seemed to have a crime to expiate. She
repeatedly recalled every conversation, every interview, she had ever
had with Lothar. She thought now that she had often been too cordial
and friendly to him, she reproached herself for the ease and
carelessness of her manner towards him, and she regarded Bernhard's
estrangement from her as a punishment from heaven, which she must
patiently endure. She grew paler and more silent, so that the old
family physician often shook his head anxiously when he visited her,
although he could not pronounce her really ill. Once he wrote to
Bernhard about her, and Bernhard thought 'of course she cannot recover
from Lothar's loss,' and, in spite of his pity for her, he crushed the
innocent letter in his hand and flung it from him as if it contained
some poison that he feared to touch. And then he carried his gloom, his
pain, and his sore heart to Julutta Wronsky, not for consolation, as he
said to himself,--who could console him?--but for some distraction of
mind, to listen to her glorious contralto as she sang his favorite
songs, and to discuss the events of the day. Meanwhile he could not but
be conscious of the influence that he exerted upon this woman, and of
how entirely she looked at the world through his eyes.