CHAPTER X.
While this violent and yet almost ridiculous scene was enacted in the court, Jansen had been mounting the dark stairs with a heavy foot and a heavier breath. No sound of a human being was heard in the house; only the roaring and crackling of the open fire in the kitchen below. Half way up the stairs he stood still and listened; it seemed to him as if he heard the voice of his child. But it was only the ringing in his ears, as the blood seemed to surge and boil in his veins.
"She will be asleep by this time," he said to himself. "So much the better! She won't hear then what I have to say to her mother."
He trembled all over. And yet he had no fear of this meeting, that was to be the last. He was afraid of himself, of the dark, violent spirit that made him clinch his fists and gnash his teeth. "Be quiet!" he said to himself, "be quiet! She is not worth such fury!"
He hastened up the last few steps and found himself in a long, dark corridor. At one end a thin ray of light made its way through a keyhole, and a broader gleam shone through the crack between the door and the bent and warping threshold.
"It must be there!" he said. He took off his hat, and passed his hand through his wet hair. "Let us make an end of it!" said he, unconsciously repeating over and over again the words "an end!--an end--an end!"
Then he stood before the door and listened. A voice which he did not recognize was speaking; he stooped down and peeped in through the keyhole. His eye lighted directly upon the face of an elderly woman who was talking earnestly, but perfectly quietly. He recognized the old singer, his wife's mother, whom he had always disliked even at the time of his maddest infatuation. She sat in a corner of the sofa, and drank now and then, in the short pauses she made, from a little silver cup that stood by the side of a traveling-flask. At the same time she broke up a biscuit and put the pieces in her mouth with an affected movement of the hand, all the while displaying her false teeth to advantage. Near her, sunk back in an arm-chair, lay her daughter; she was dressed entirely in black, which became her white skin and deep blue eyes charmingly. She was playing with a pair of scissors, making them flash in the candle-light, and looked as wearied and indifferent to all about her, as though she had just come home from the theatre where she been acting in some tiresome piece with only tolerable success.
Suddenly she sprang up with a loud shriek. The door had opened noiselessly; and, instead of the young companion whom she had expected to see enter, the very man stood before her, from whom she had fled to this obscure hiding-place.
The words died on her lips; even the old actress, who was not ordinarily easily disconcerted, sat as if she were petrified; and only her fingers, still convulsively crumbling up the biscuits, seemed to be alive.
"Leave the room; I have something to say to my wife!" Jansen said to her in a low voice and without violence. "Do you hear what I say? Go away this instant! but through this door, by which I entered."
He wanted to prevent her from taking the child with her, for he took it for granted that it had been put to bed in the adjoining room.
The women exchanged a quick look. These few moments sufficed to restore the younger one to self-possession.
"You must not leave me," she said. "In whatever I am to hear--since I am conscious of my innocence--I need shun no witnesses, least of all my own mother."
And as she spoke she sank back again into the chair, and passed her hand across her eyes, as though overcome by painful memories. The old woman on the sofa did not move. They could only hear how she murmured softly to herself: "Good God! Good God! What a scene! What a catastrophe!"
"I repeat my demand!" the sculptor said with emphasis. "Will you wait for me to take your arm and lead you out?"
"Very good; I will go; I will not let matters be brought to the worst," cried the mother, rising with a pathetic gesture. Then she bent down over Lucie and whispered something in her ear. "No, no," hastily answered the latter, "not a word to him. That would only make the matter worse. Go, if it must be so. I am not afraid!"
She spoke the last words aloud and facing toward Jansen, whom she looked straight in the eyes without a trace of terror. Any stranger would have been deceived by this air of conscious innocence.
The old singer slammed the door behind her. They heard her, as she passed down the corridor. But it did not escape Jansen's ears that she crept back and remained standing outside the door to listen.
"Let her stay, for what I care!" he said to himself, "as long as I needn't see her face." Then came again the feverish: "We must make an end--an end--an end!" He took his stand before the stove, in which the remains of a fire still glowed. With folded arms he stood gazing down upon the woman who had been the curse of his life. In the midst of his terrible anguish it flashed across him that not a feature of her face gave evidence of the seven years that had passed since they had been separated. She even appeared younger, more girlish and more unsophisticated than when he had first known her. Nothing could be read on those soft lips or on that clear forehead but a sort of curiosity, an innocent wonder as to what was coming. Her soft, quiet hand had taken up the scissors again, and was playfully opening and shutting them.
An almost unbearable thought, a crushing sense of shame suddenly rose within him, as he realized that this mask had once deceived him; had excited him to mad passion, and had flattered him into reposing in it an undying faith--this smooth lie, this cold smile, that did not desert her even now, when he whom she had so bitterly injured had to put forth all his strength in order to pass through this hour manfully.
"I am here," said he at length, "to--to make an end of this. I hope you will not make it more difficult for me than is necessary. I will not ask you the reasons that have led you to act against our agreement, and to cross my path again. You have a fondness for masquerading, and I must let you indulge it as much as you like; all the more as I, for my part, give you up utterly. I merely wish to warn you that if you ever again feel a desire to approach me in any kind of disguise, take care not to lose the mask. I could not bear to see your face again, and my hot blood might play me false."
She bent her eyes upon him with a perfectly unembarrassed look, as if asking whether he was really serious when he said these words--whether he really could not bear the sight of this gentle face.
"Have no fear," she answered, softly, in an almost bashful tone. "I am not coming again. I have seen all that I wanted to see. It was certainly a pardonable curiosity that made me want to see what kind of a face one must have to find favor in your eyes; and if I--"
"Silence!" he interrupted, imperiously. "You shall hear me to the end--to the very end. If, as I hope, you are not unmindful of your own interests, and will listen to reason, our last interview will end peacefully, and I will give you my thanks for having brought it about. I will then take my child away with me, and promise you that I will try hard to think of you without anger."
"The child?"
"The child that you have just stolen, that you wished to keep with you in pawn, that you might carry out Heaven knows what miserable scheme."
"You are very much mistaken," she interposed, and a slight blush mounted to her cheeks. "The child is not here."
"Don't attempt to deceive me!" he cried, with sudden fury. "I know you have kidnapped the child--it is asleep in the next room--you fled to this place to conceal your capture from me; to-morrow, early, you intended to continue the flight."
"You are raving again!" she said calmly, and laid the scissors down on the table. "Look yourself, and see whether the child is here with me. There stands the lamp; search the house, if you do not believe me."
He stretched out his hand mechanically, took the light, and opened the door of the adjoining chamber. The beds that stood there were empty.
With a threatening look he turned upon her.
"Shall I search the house room by room?" he asked, his voice trembling with anger.
"It would be useless trouble. I swear to you, I did not bring the child with me."
"Trickster!" he cried, setting the light down on the table with such force that the flame was almost extinguished. "Only this once the truth--only this once! Where is the child? What have you done with her? In whose hands--"
"In the best of hands," she interrupted, "under the very safest protection, so help me God! I--it is true--I had an irresistible longing to see my poor child once more, whom you have made motherless and to whom you wish to give a mother who can have no heart for the orphan. If it is a crime for the real mother not to wish to see her child given to the false one, then I have committed such a crime. I wanted to steal it for myself, to be a thief of that which is my own, purchased with pain and lost with pain; but it happened differently--I was not to have it, in punishment for not having defended my rights more boldly. Oh! and this cruel, pitiless man, who has robbed me of everything, even of this last short, desperate consolation--"
Her voice appeared to fail her. She covered her face with her white hands, and was silent. But the time when she might have deceived him was past.
"Where is the child?" he asked, after a short pause, stepping close up to her.
She did not remove her hands from before her eyes.
"I sent it back to you. I saw that the innocent creature had been brought up in hatred toward her mother, and that I could not hope to win her young heart back to me again. What I felt--but enough! What do you care for my sorrows? I pressed the child to my breast for the last time, and then let her go from me forever. When you get home, you will find her there. This is the truth. And if I had to die this moment I could not say anything else."
She drew herself up at these words; her eyes glistened with moisture, her features assumed an expression of anxious emotion, and her gestures were hasty and ungraceful.
"Well?" she queried. "Are you not yet satisfied? Have I something still that your hate begrudges me, that you would like to tear from me? Take it--take all I have--take even my miserable life, that you have spared me until now, for I see what you are aiming at when you say you want to put an end to this. Yes, an end to my woes, to my disappointed hopes, to my happiness and my honor--an end to this wretched creature, that wanders through the world like a leaf torn from a tree, finding rest nowhere--nowhere until it sinks into the mud and rots there."
She threw herself on the sofa, and burst into a flood of tears.
He knew these tears. He knew that she possessed the art of moving herself in order to move others. But still he felt a deep pity for this unhappy nature, which could not even in its truest grief weep truly.
"Lucie," he said--it was the first time he had addressed her by her name--"you are quite right, you are unhappy and I am partly to blame for it. I ought to have been a wiser man, and never to have thought of making you my wife. We are of different blood; you are in your element when you are pretending to be something you are not. I--but why talk about it? We know it all--we ought to have known it then; it would have spared us much bitterness. And now, Lucie, you see I am not unjust; I share the blame between us, just as I have borne my good half of the misfortune. But shall it go on this way and make both of us wretched all our lives? I have written all this to you. Why didn't you read my letters better? We should now understand one another, and should be able to conclude what still remains to be done in a more friendly spirit."
"Your letters?" she said, suddenly drawing herself up and drying her tears. "I read them only too well. I know that in and between the lines there was but one thought: 'I will be free!--free at any price!' I knew, too, who it was who dictated this thought to you; and now, since I have made the personal acquaintance of this incomparable woman--no, without sarcasm, which would be but childish defiance for one in my situation--I understand perfectly that you would be willing to do anything in order that you might throw yourself into such chains. But to suppose that I, with my share of our common misfortune, as you call it, will voluntarily step back and look on while you find happiness according to your heart's desire--oh! you are excellent egotists, you men!--but you should not be so naïve as to think it a crime if we, too, sometimes think a little about ourselves!"
His old aversion arose again as he listened to this well-calculated, passionate speech. But he forced himself to be quiet.
"I have never tried to conceal from you," said he, "that I am now more desirous than ever before for an absolute separation, because I wish to enter into a new marriage. If you thought it was for your interest to hinder this, if you wished to prevent me from ever again becoming a happy man, then this would be comprehensible on your part, although it would betray but little pride. But you ought to know me better. You ought to know that I am terribly in earnest when I say my submission to the fate that binds us together is at an end. I can--I shall never consent to let the malicious defiance of a woman cheat myself and her whom I love of our happiness in life. I am determined to do anything which can set me free. Do you hear it? To do anything. And for that reason I say to you: name your price! I know very well that your desire to feel that I am in your power, and the triumph of seeing me drag a piece of the chain after me is dear to you. But even dearer things have their price. Name yours; I will buy off your hate and your malice, though to do it I had to work like a day-laborer from morning until late into the night."
"I don't imagine that will be necessary. Your sweetheart is rich, I hear. But you are mistaken. I am not covetous. Give me the child, and I will never have known the father."
"Woman!" he cried, his whole being lashed into fury by the trick which he immediately detected--"You are--"
But he controlled himself. He sank down a chair near the sofa, and said, in a tone as if he were communicating something of the greatest indifference to her:
"Very good. You remain untouched by words or prayers. But let me tell you: I am as determined to set myself free as you can possibly be to keep me forever in a state of wretched bondage. If you will consent to a legal separation, you shall never have occasion to complain of me. I will double what I have done for you heretofore; yes--I will guarantee that you shall not lose this part enjoyment of my income even by any second marriage you may be disposed to enter into. You smile and pretend to be incredulous. Let us play an honest game. You are young and beautiful; though I doubt whether you will ever find a man to whom your heart will go forth. You may easily find a man who will seduce your senses, and whose position will attract you, and then our account would be at an end. If you resist this just compromise--"
She looked at him again with all her childish innocence, with that smiling curiosity as though they had to do with a scene in a farce.
"Well--and then?" she asked.
"Then I will take every means in my power to ruin your life as you have ruined mine. I will pursue you with my hate, no matter whither you may flee, and dog your steps, do what you will to hinder! I know how you live, and that you have neglected no chance to console yourself for the loss of a husband. I have cast you out of my heart so entirely that I did not feel the least shade of sorrow when you threw yourself away upon whomsoever pleased you. But that shall be otherwise now. I will put a spy on your track, whose only duty shall be to watch you every step and movement, and to furnish me what I have hitherto lacked: proofs that you are trampling my honor as well as my happiness under foot. Then I will openly step before the world and tear the mask from your smooth face. Then I will--"
"You would do better to spare yourself the trouble," she interrupted, coldly. "Since you are so good as to warn me, you will easily understand that, even admitting I should feel any desire to be indiscreet, I should take care to guard myself against spies. So you would only throw away your money without gaining anything by it. For such weak proof of my guilt toward you as a glove, that very likely the doctor left lying in my chamber, and that an intelligent dog--à propos! I am really sorry that I was the innocent cause of the loss of your friend, though that keen judge of human nature did show as unconquerable an aversion toward me as his master. Some other end would undoubtedly have been preferred by you. At the same time, little as my wretched life may be worth to you, and easier as it would be for you to find a second wife than a second dog--"
"Woman!" he shrieked, driven furious by her impudent irony in this terrible hour. "Not another word, or--"
"Or?"
She looked at him defiantly, as she rose and folded her arms.
"Or I will bring the matter to another end than you ever dreamed of, and the carriage that you brought you here, you she-devil, laughing and mocking at me with your pretty paramour, shall to-morrow--"
He raised his fist as if he were about to let it fall like a hammer on her head. She returned his gaze without moving an eyelash.
"Murder me, if you have the heart to!" she said, coldly, with her lips curled in scorn. "The comedy in which a dog has played such a splendid rôle would then end most fittingly as a tragedy, which would be better, at all events, than a wretched reconciliation. As truly as I am innocent of your madness and fury, so truly do I say that a more undeserved disgrace was never heaped upon a helpless creature; that happiness, honor, and future were never more ruthlessly--"
The door was thrown open. Felix, who had pushed back the listening woman, thinking that the time had come to prevent an act of violence, burst into the room and suddenly stood before the speaker. But scarcely had she cast a look upon him than, with a shrill scream that went through the very marrow of the men, she sank back, her arms as if paralyzed by a sudden cramp, her features distorted, and in a state that bore such unmistakable signs of truth that no thought of its being some new deception was possible. Before Jansen had had time to collect himself, the mother rushed in from the corridor and threw herself down before her insensible daughter, who lay on the sofa with staring, wide-open eyes, a vacant smile upon her lips, and hands hanging rigidly at her side with the fingers spread wide apart.
"You have killed her!" cried the old woman, trying to lift the body, which had half fallen to the ground, on to the cushions. "Help--save her--bring water, vinegar--anything you have--Lucie--my poor Lucie--don't you hear me? It is I! My God! My God! Must it come to this!"
"It is a fainting-fit, nothing more!" Jansen's voice now broke in. "She has had such fits before, especially after great exertion on the stage. And to-day's scene--" his speech suddenly failed him. He had turned as he spoke toward Felix, who stood in the middle of the room, his eyes fixed immovably upon the figure of the insensible woman. It was as if the lightning-bolt that had struck her had grazed him too. Not a limb did he move, not a muscle stirred in his face; every drop of blood seemed to have left his veins.
"Felix! For God's sake what ails you? What is it? do you hear me, Felix?" cried Jansen, grasping his arm and pressing it tight.
Felix made a vain attempt to master himself again. But he could not withdraw his gaze from the woman, who lay there as if dead. He merely nodded a few times, as if to give a sign of life, and heaved a deep sigh. Then he said, bringing out each word separately: "So--that--is--your wife!"
"Felix!" cried Jansen, in a tone which betrayed a terrible suspicion. "Felix--speak--no--say nothing--come out--we--we are in the way here--"
"So that--is--his wife!" repeated the other, as if talking to himself. Suddenly he shook himself with a gesture of horror, broke loose from his friend, and rushed out of the room with such terrible haste as to cut off all chance for Jansen to detain him. They heard him, immediately afterward, plunge down the stairs and fling the door to behind him.
Jansen hurried to the window and threw it open. "Felix," he shouted after him--"one word--just a single word!"
No sound came up from below. Only the wet snow drove in through the open window, upon the head and breast of this sore-burdened man. He did not notice it. He leaned against the window-sill to support himself, and stood for perhaps ten minutes deaf and blind to all that went on around him.
The old singer was trying, with continual moaning and laments, to bring her insensible daughter back to life. She had produced a little flask of some strong essence from her traveling-bag, and was bathing the young woman's colorless cheeks and temples with it. Jansen had turned his eyes upon the group, but he did so as if he took no notice of what was being done for the lifeless figure. Not until she had made a slight movement with her hand, that immediately dropped back again upon the cushion, did he seem to recollect himself. He stepped away from the window without closing it.
"Let the cold air come in," he said, in a low voice. "It is the best way to bring her to herself again. Put some snow on her forehead; she will open her eyes in a few moments. Tell her, then, that I have left the house, and--that I shall leave her in peace. Goodnight!"
Her mother raised herself from her knees and sought to make some reply. But when she saw his face she was silent, and merely nodded timidly and servilely to all he said. She saw him go out of the room, and then hastened again to the aid of her daughter, who was now breathing heavily. She finally succeeded in raising her into a sitting position, but the pale head fell back again on the arm of the sofa. Then she ran to the window and brought a few handfuls of the snow that lay on the sill outside. At length the insensible woman opened her eyes.
Her first, half-vacant gaze wandered over the room. After a while she became thoroughly aroused, and moved her lips.
"Where is he?" she murmured.
Just at that moment they heard the hoof-beats of a horse galloping off.
"Do you hear?" whispered the mother. "He is just riding away. He won't come again--he told me to wish you good-night, and he would leave you alone. Oh! these men--Oh! these men! Poor, poor Lucie!"
The pale woman appeared even now not quite to understand. Her features were still distorted in fear. She drew her mother nearer, and whispered: "And the other--was it really he, or was it--his ghost?"
"What do you mean, child? Are you out of your head? But only keep quiet--it's to be hoped we shall have a quiet night--oh! my God! What a scene, what a catastrophe!"
She seized the cup of wine, and drank it out. Lucie paid no attention to her.
A shudder passed over her. She closed her eyes anew. The convulsion which had seized upon her now lapsed into a violent sobbing, which her mother, who had seen her before in such a fit, allowed to take its course without making any attempt to waste further words in consolation.
CHAPTER XI.
We must return to the morning of this day, in order to take up the threads out of which the dark web of these events was spun.
Julie, after having twice sought in vain for her friend at his studio, had found it impossible, in the anxious state of her heart, to stay quietly at home. She went to Irene's, for she had found Angelica, who had not closed her eyes all night, sunk in a deep sleep. She felt herself greatly drawn toward the Fräulein, though she had seen her yesterday for the first time; all the more as Irene, too, was as little able as all the others to withstand the charm of Julie's character, and had attached herself to her with a warmth that appeared doubly great in contrast to her usual coy reserve. It had not been long, thanks to the freedom of the masquerade, before they stood on so familiar a footing as to call each other "Du;" and the startling incident that drove Jansen away from the ball so early had broken down the last trace of reserve in the friendship between them. They had remained together for a few hours longer. Julie, to whom Jansen had disclosed in a single word the mystery of the strange mask, had made no secret of the matter to her friends, among whom Irene was now counted.
She herself, while taking the occurrence greatly to heart, saw at once how much nearer the final crisis it had brought her. But the thought that she must leave him to fight out alone the battle that could not be avoided, was torture to her.
She wanted at least to be near him, to know every hour what he was doing, and, if it should be necessary, to be ready to restrain him from taking any violent steps. His withdrawing from her--although she knew that he had only done it to spare her--gave her great pain, and she felt now as if she knew for the first time how much she loved him.
In this mood she presented herself before Irene, who received her most tenderly. Felix, who had taken occasion to call as early as possible in the morning, had just taken his leave again, and the eyes and cheeks of the girl still glowed with the happiness of their reunion. The two friends had so much to confide to one another that they did not notice how the hours slipped by, and were very much surprised when the uncle, who, as a rule, never appeared before dinner-time, entered the room. Irene introduced him to Julie, and would not listen to such a thing as her going home to dinner.
The baron seconded her in her hospitable entreaties in his usual chivalrous manner; though he seemed not to be in as good spirits as was usual when he found himself in the presence of a beautiful lady. During the meal, also, he was noticeably depressed and preoccupied, keeping remarkably silent for him, sighing a great deal, and complaining of old age, which must overtake even the youngest uncles at last. Then again he would try to laugh, or tell one of his old bonmots; but he soon relapsed anew into a droll kind of melancholy, in which he railed at the uncertain lot of humanity and the mysteries of an irresponsible Providence.
When, after dinner, Irene was called out of the room by a chance caller whom she hoped quickly to get rid of, and the baron was left alone with Julie, he suddenly appeared to have gone fairly crazy. He sprang up, thrust his hands through his thin hair, plucked at his beard, took a cigar--which he immediately laid down again--and finally drew up his chair close to the sofa, where Julie was seated.
"Fräulein Julie," he said, with a deep sigh, "you will think it strange, but I can't help myself; will you hear me for ten minutes on a very serious matter, and then give me your advice and, if possible, your support?"
She looked at him in amazement, but nodded kindly.
"A terribly bad story," he continued; "though, for that matter, a story that is not without a parallel in this imperfect world of ours, and one that ought not, by good rights, to break the heart of an old lion-hunter. But the worst of it is, it so happens that I can turn to no one for advice and aid, except to a young lady whose delightful acquaintance I made but an hour ago. Now, my honored Fräulein, if I only knew of some married woman, or some respectable elderly lady, in whom I had confidence--truly, I would spare you and myself the embarrassment of having to talk to you about the old sins of my youth. But in all this circle--all bachelors and single women--you will understand, my dear Fräulein--"
"Speak out boldly, Herr Baron; I am thirty-one years old."
"No, my dear Fräulein, the baptismal certificate has nothing to do with this question; and, although I have the greatest respect for you--you are still far removed from the canonical age of a person inspiring respect. But I have learned, through my brother-in-arms Schnetz, how universally you are honored in Bohemia--pardon the expression, I mean in the so-called society of Paradise--and that it only needs a word from you to straighten out much more complicated affairs than this of mine.
"Perhaps you do not yet know--that is to say, you have undoubtedly known for a long time--for your talented friends do not generally keep secrets from one another--in short, I have a daughter--'Have her while she is mine,' as Polonius says--a daughter, of whose existence I had no suspicion until recently. Upon the discovery of my fathership I knocked at my heart, and waited to hear whether the so-called voice of Nature within would awaken. Pas le mains du monde. You will find this inhuman. But remember that I did not lead a worse life in this good town than was the fashion at that time, and that this adventure came half-way to meet me--I wish to throw no shadow either upon the girl or her parents--enfin, they were very cordial with me, and I, in return, possibly went too far. A few years afterward, I felt something like a gentle gnawing in my left side, where one is supposed to carry his conscience. As it did not subside, I wrote to this place in order to inquire, as a friend of the family, after the health of its different members. The letter was returned by the post, as the address could not be found.
"Now, looked at from a strictly moral point of view, I ought not to have felt, even after this, that I had justified myself. But what would you have? My contact with the king of the desert had somewhat hardened my skin, and the before-mentioned gnawing ceased. The girl had never been exactly what you would call beautiful, but was very attractive because of her freshness, her free nature, her merry laughter from a mouth of magnificent teeth. You know complexions of that kind have something especially dangerous about them for our weaker sex. To be brief, she had, in spite of all this, completely passed out of my memory until I saw her again to-day in her daughter--pardon, in our daughter, I meant to say."
"You sought out the girl? And how did the poor child receive you?"
"As badly as ever a child could receive its long-lost father. You can imagine, dear Fräulein, that it was no easy mission for me to fulfill. A man cuts such a wretched figure in the character of the repentant father, who, at the very first meeting with his grown-up daughter, is obliged to beg her pardon for having totally forgotten her. But there are sour apples into which one would rather bite than let himself be bitten by his conscience. I assumed a fatherly, venerable mien, and, when I entered the room where the girl was, and recognized in her her dead mother--as if the resemblance had been stolen from a mirror--I can assure you that at last the voice of Nature asserted itself. But scarcely had I introduced myself, with the necessary delicacy, to the unsuspecting child as one who had certain sacred, though long-neglected, rights to her childish affection, when the strange creature springs up like a little fury, and flies into the adjoining room. Now I ask you, my dear Fräulein, is a father who wishes to make good his faults a monster from whom one ought to run away? I stood there as if rooted to the spot; and, as soon as I recovered from my surprise, I did my best to conciliate my daughter through the bolted door. I spoke the kindest words to her, and promised her anything in the world if she would only be sensible and let me talk to her; and, truly, I must have succeeded in the end--the voice of Nature must finally have awakened even in her young bosom--when suddenly the old gentleman--my quasi father-in-law--entered the room. Would you believe it? this white-haired old man, instead of coming to my aid with the wisdom of a grandfather, suddenly becomes as wild and unreasonable as a youth, says the most incredible things to my very face, and while I, out of respect for his gray hairs and lost in astonishment, am at a loss what to answer, he takes me sans façon by the arm and leads me to the door, which he slams after me like a clap of thunder."
The energy with which he had related all this seemed suddenly to have taken away his breath. He sprang up, threw open the window, and took a few deep draughts of the cold winter air; then, burying his hands deep in the pockets of his short coat, he walked slowly back to where Julie was sitting.
"You must admit, my dear Fräulein," he said, "that this brutal reception was well calculated to silence the voice of Nature once more. This old--but no! He is right; if I had been in his place, and my son-in-law had taken twenty years to make up his mind to stammer out his peccavi, I should probably have been even less ceremonious, and have simply kicked the fellow down-stairs, even if I had done nothing worse to him. But still, as you can easily imagine, this encounter rather shattered me."
He threw himself into the chair again, sighed like a man in utter desperation, and ran his hands through his hair.
"And how can I help or advise you, Herr Baron?" asked Julie, after a pause. "It seems to me there is nothing left for you to do but to write to Herr Schoepf and to your daughter, and tell them by letter what they would neither of them listen to in their first excitement."
"Pardon, my dear Fräulein, that wouldn't do much good. These two mad beings would not treat my letters any better than they did their author. And yet, you will understand that I cannot rest content when my father-in-law and my daughter have turned me out-of-doors. I must atone for my old crime so far as such a thing is possible at this late day. For me, in my years and circumstances, to suddenly long for paternal joys, to receive this girl into my bachelor's quarters, and to introduce her to society as a young baroness--I, who have already had such a hard time with one grown-up daughter, by whom I am forced to let myself be ordered about--would be the height of the ridiculous: to say nothing of the fact that I doubt very much whether I should ever be able to tame this red-maned lioness. But, on the other hand, Father Schoepf, as he now calls himself, is no longer one of the youngest men in the world; and, aside from that, by no means a Crœsus. If the child stays with him, who knows but what she, too, will fall into bad hands, like her poor mother? And in case she should remain a good girl--you know, my dear Fräulein, that virtue as a sole dowry is not particularly in demand nowadays. I want, therefore, to secure for my daughter--whether she acknowledges me or not--a respectable marriage portion; not merely a dowry--it must be known that Fräulein Schoepf possesses in her own right so and so much property. Now, you see, my dear Fräulein, only such a soft and winning voice as yours can succeed in persuading Father Schoepf to consent to such an arrangement, which is so greatly for the interest of the child. Now, if I should send Schnetz to him, he would, if he had to deal with a man, fire up about his ridiculous manly honor, and the end of the story would be that Schnetz would likewise be shown the door. But you, if you will only consent--and why shouldn't you consent?--may even succeed in the end in inspiring this wild creature, my own flesh and blood, with some human emotion; so that she will feel for her papa, who really is no monster--but stop! the visit in the next room is over. Not a word of this to Irene. Promise me this. May I depend on you?"
He reached her both his hands across the table with such a true-hearted and, at the same time, comically-crushed manner, that she did not hesitate for a moment to close the bargain. In a second his mood seemed to have gone through a complete transformation. He sprang up, bent over her hand, which he eagerly kissed, and began to hum a tune and to light a cigar, talking all the while about the masked ball of the night before. His niece, when she entered again, laughingly asked what magic charm her beautiful friend had been using in her absence, to dispel so completely her dear uncle's melancholy mood.
Julie smiled and answered that people ought not to laugh at the secrets of magic, and the baron acted as though nothing at all had happened. Then the two friends took leave of one another. Julie was anxious to see Jansen again, whom she confidently hoped to find in his studio at this hour. But on the stairs, to which the baron escorted her, she whispered to him:
"Why don't you want to let Irene into the secret? Unless I am very much mistaken, she already knows the first half; you owe it to her to tell her the other half, which truly does you honor."
"Do you think so?" answered the baron. "Irene have a suspicion? Good God, these young girls nowadays! One takes great credit to one's self for the profound innocence and ignorance in which one has brought them up, and they are wiser than we ourselves! Well, then, in Heaven's name! one sour apple more; my teeth are yet on edge from the first one."
He kissed Julie's hand once more and returned, sighing, to his niece.
CHAPTER XII.
Julie went slowly and thoughtfully down the stairs. The moment she was alone, all in which she had just taken part sank into the background before the one thought how it fared with her friend, how he had passed the day, and what might have occurred between him and his wife, who held his fate in her hands. She reproached herself for having let her visit detain her so long. It is true he did not generally come until evening. But what if he had sought her out earlier to-day?--what if he had had some news to give her, or had needed her advice or consent? A cold shudder passed over her at the dreadful thought!
As if to make up for lost time, she hastened down the remaining steps. But, upon reaching the landing of the first floor, she involuntarily stopped. A very strange kind of music issued from one of the neighboring doors. This was Nelida's salon; the waiter who had taken her to Irene had told her so. The piano within, which only skillful hands were generally allowed to touch, seemed to have fallen into the hands of a maniac, who cared more for making noise than music, or who was trying to test the instrument's power of resistance.
But, rising above all this stormy charivari of the keys, what noise was that? Did her ears deceive her, or did she really hear a child's voice that pierced to her very heart? Greatly excited, she advanced a few steps toward the nearest door; now she heard it more plainly--the sobbing of a child, that ceased for a moment only to begin again immediately afterward. Was it possible? Did she know that voice? She approached her ear to the door and discovered that the crying child must be in one of the side rooms, to which there was no separate entrance from the corridor. A few seconds more and the last doubt vanished. Without taking time for reflection, without knocking, she opened the door and stepped into the narrow hall between Nelida's salon and bedroom.
The doors of both the adjoining rooms stood half open. In the salon sat Stephanopulos before the piano, improvising like a madman with the most utter disregard of harmony, for he had been his own teacher on the piano. He did not notice Julie, but went on abusing the keys. It was not clear whether he was doing this in order to drown the noise of the crying, or to divert the distressed child's thoughts. For through the other door Julie now unmistakably heard the sobbing of little Frances, and the voice of a woman trying to soothe and comfort her. But before she had time to enter, an elderly lady, in hat and shawl, appeared on the threshold.
"Is it you, Nanette?" cried the old singer. "Is the carriage ready? Are the trunks strapped on? It's high time. The child--Good God!--what is this? You here?"
Julie did not give her time to slam the door and bolt it. She hastily pushed past the astonished woman, and entered the sleeping-chamber.
She was received with a cry of fright. Before a table, on which were piled all sorts of presents, flowers, cakes, and toys, as if for a birthday celebration, stood the child, a big doll in one arm and a paper of candy in the other, but weeping as bitterly all the while as if these presents had been given her as a punishment. A woman, still young but past her first youth, knelt on the carpet beside her, her soft face bent down over the curly head of the child, apparently doing all in her power to quiet the little creature. But now she sprang to her feet and stared at Julie as if she had been a ghost.
The countess lay stretched out on a sofa, in the back part of the room, holding in her hand a newspaper, that fell into her lap when she suddenly became aware of this unexpected caller, who was now standing in the middle of the chamber.
The next moment the child let everything it had in its arms fall on the carpet, and, uttering a loud cry of joy, rushed into Julie's arms.
"Have you come at last, my dear, beautiful mamma? What made you come so late? I was so frightened here all alone! Are we really going now to Auntie Angelica? Or will you take me to papa?"
She clung fast to her protectress, who found it hard to quiet her. Her little face was wet with tears, and she trembled in every limb.
The countess raised herself upon her couch.
"To what do I owe this honor, Fräulein?" she said, in a trembling voice.
Julie released herself from the child's arms, and looked the questioner calmly in the face.
"I ought to excuse myself, countess," she said, "for coming here unannounced. However, the manner in which I am received relieves me from this formal courtesy. In passing by outside I heard a child crying, and recognized to my amazement and alarm Frances's voice. Her foster-mother and her father, who evidently do not know where the child is, will be alarmed about her. Pardon me if I take my leave with as little formality as I came. Come, Frances, let us go. What have you done with your hat and little cloak?"
She had had difficulty in uttering the first words, she was so agitated by her indignation. But the sound of her own voice gave her back her self-control. She felt herself, all at once, to be perfectly at ease and a match for all hostility.
The piano-playing had suddenly ceased, and in the room itself the stillness of death ensued, broken only by little Frances, who ran to the lounge where her wraps were lying.
The young woman took a step toward Julie. Her face, but slightly flushed, appeared quite composed, and neither hate nor fear spoke from her eyes.
"I must introduce myself to you, Fräulein," she said, with her soft voice. "I am Frau Lucie Jansen, the mother of this dear child. From this you will understand--"
"Is that true, mamma Julie?" the child interrupted. "Is the woman really papa's wife, as she says? But papa hasn't any wife; he had one once, but she is dead this long time, and I haven't any other mother but my good foster-mother and my beautiful mamma Julie. I don't want to have any other mother, and I don't want any presents from her--I only want to go away! You must take me away. I--I--"
She began to cry again, dropped her little cloak, and running back to Julie threw her arms round her neck and sobbed bitterly.
"Be quiet, Frances dear," Julie whispered to her. "We will go away to your father. You can ask him; he will tell you all that I can't tell you here. Come, be a good child--be my brave, sensible little Frances--"
"I must confess that this is the most extraordinary proceeding I ever heard of," said the countess, in a loud but perfectly indifferent voice. "Such language from such a mouth--une femme entretenue qui ne rougit pas de vouloir enlever un enfant à la mère légitime--"
"Countess," interrupted Julie, likewise raising her voice, "you said that in French; that relieves me from the disagreeable necessity of giving you the plain German answer that such an insult deserves--an insult which you yourself know to be false. Besides, I haven't to do with you, although you have permitted your rooms to be the theatre of this intrigue. I merely have to reply to the mother that I have a right to this child, a right that was voluntarily given me by its father, and that I certainly regret having to make use of this right in opposition to one who might have appealed to a holy right of Nature, had she not of her own accord relinquished it. You wished to steal the child from the father, and I, the betrothed of your former husband, fulfill only my motherly duty when I resist such a robbery. Get ready, Frances; we have nothing more to do here."
The face of the young woman had grown deadly pale, her soft eyes flashed fire, and she ground her little white teeth so that the sound was plainly audible.
"You allow yourself," she said, "to judge of circumstances you do not understand, that have never been told you except in a one-sided and distorted way. I have never renounced my natural right to call this child mine; I have merely been obliged to yield for a time to force, and I have always secretly hoped that time would come to my aid, that the father of my darling would acknowledge the deep wrong he had done me, and that the separation would tend to soften him. And who knows that this would not have come about had you not stepped in between us? Now, to be sure, that things have gone so far, there is no longer any hope of settling the matter amicably. If I would have back what belongs to me by sacred rights I was obliged to steal it as if it had been the property of another; and how hard it will be for me to make it mine again I have already discovered to my sorrow, for they have estranged the heart of this poor, motherless creature from its most natural home. Nevertheless, I will not cease to proclaim my right to the child and to its father. Why do you stand in the way of a deeply-injured woman, a robbed mother? Don't pretend you really care anything about becoming my successor to the child, as you have become to the father. Skillfully as you now play the rôle of the tender mother, in your heart you will be grateful to me if I relieve you of this burdensome duty; and he too, the most fickle of men--believe me, if he only had a reasonable pretext before the world, he would console himself in your possession, and would rejoice that I had been so good-natured as to have removed from his sight, without his express consent, the remembrance of an old guilt!"
She made a movement as if to draw the child to her arms, but it only clung the tighter to Julie.
"Take me away," it whispered to her, in a low voice. "Let us go away--to dear papa--I don't want to go to that woman again."
Julie stroked the little head, and pressed it to her side. She covered the child's ears so thickly with its soft hair that not a word of all this sad and bitter talk could reach its young soul.
"Thank you," she said, "you have drawn a thorn from my conscience by these disclosures. 'Perhaps, after all, he did her an injustice,' I said to myself. 'Perhaps he was too violent, too hasty; and even if she has been guilty of a great sin toward him, is it not punishment enough that the mother has been deprived of her child for so many years? And can I answer for it to this child for having forever destroyed all hopes of a reconciliation between her parents?' This often gave me some misgivings; but I candidly confess to you, from this day forth my conscience will be easy on that score. No matter what you may say in order to palliate what you have done, you cannot have the only real justification, a true and genuine love for your child; if you did, how could you entertain the thought that I would be glad to get rid of her? Such a thing could only be said and believed by a woman who let five years pass away without once trying to see, at any cost, the child she had borne; and who never even waited in the streets that she might have a chance to press it to her heart and kiss it once again. Such a thought could only be entertained by the woman who believed that the father of this child was capable of sacrificing it to his new-born happiness, and would look on with indifference while it pined and languished for want of a true mother's love. And you reproach me for having plighted my troth to this man who never belonged to you, for you never understood him, and never knew his worth, his nobility, and his greatness. You may do your best to destroy his happiness and to undermine his peace by your petty acts; in this plot you have failed, and, for the future, we shall take better care of ourselves and of the child. You have given us warning!"
She did not wait few an answer to these words, which she poured forth in ever-increasing excitement. Before the women could collect their thoughts and interfere she had seized little Frances's hat and cloak, had put them on the child, and had borne her away in her arms.
The moment she had gone, Stephanopulos entered the room with a nervous laugh.
"Quelle femme!" he said. "Elle nous a joliment mis dedans."
"Angelos," commanded the countess, "go after her! She is perfectly capable of seating herself in the carriage that stands before the door and riding home in it. We need the carriage. There is no time to lose."
"But, my dear countess, I don't understand. What is the use now?--and you, madame--"
He approached Lucie, who had sunk down on the lounge in speechless stupor.
"Don't be a child, Angelos!" said the countess, excitedly. "What is there about it you don't understand? The game is lost! To be sure, if it had only been played somewhat better--"
"What would you have?" retorted the young woman, in an irritated tone. "Didn't we do everything you advised us? If it hadn't been for this horrible incident, everything would have turned out well. I should have carried off the child, and by doing so have proved to the world that I knew myself to be innocent, that I would not quietly submit to everything they chose to put upon me, and that I had the courage to defend myself against the incredible insults--"
"Calm yourself, my good friend!" said Nelida, decisively. "Why should we go on with a comedy that deludes no one? Enough, le coup a manqué! We must take care that the recoil does not strike you. The journey which you intended to take with the child you must take alone. Or, don't you think that your husband will do all in his power to make you suffer for the mere attempt, if he hears--"
"He will rage like a tiger!" cried Stephanopulos. "I once saw a little specimen of his rage when a hostler whipped a cart-horse until the animal fell to the ground. He sprang upon the man and would have torn him in pieces if we had not interfered. The countess is right--you must fly; of course I will accompany you, until you are in safety."
The old singer, who had kept herself in the background during the whole scene, now stepped forward and zealously joined in urging flight. Lucie let her have her way without moving a finger.
In ten minutes all was ready; the carriage rolled away from the house, and Nelida dragged herself to the window and stood gazing after them.
The young Greek leaned out of the carriage, and nodded a last farewell.
"Bon voyage!" said the solitary woman, carelessly returning the salutation. "So this episode is played out, too! Poor creature--totally without élan in good or bad. And yet I pity her. To have been the wife of this man, and now to have sunk so low as to have to be glad when an insignificant young-- And I?--what is the end of it all? To grow old and ugly--always older and uglier--the last spark dies out, and finally the heart is buried beneath the ashes of its own passions. A hell on earth! I would give the rest of my life to be, just for a single year, as beautiful as this Julie--to be so loved, and by this man!"