Vineta, the Phantom City

by E. Werner

CHAPTER XXVI.

[A DREAM OF EXILE.]

Waldemar, reined up his horse before the main entrance to Radowicz. His visits here was brief and infrequent; the breach between himself and his nearest relatives would not close, and recent events had widened it still more.

Waldemar's visit was to Wanda alone, and in a few moments the two sat side by side. The young girl was greatly changed; she had always been pale, but her face had never before been deathly white and colorless as now, when it bore the imprint of deep suffering. Leo's fate, her father's imprisonment, and the downfall of her people's cause, weighed heavily upon her heart. She knew that her father was ill and perhaps near death, but she could not see him for one brief moment, and she knew also that the hope of national freedom, for which he had perilled his life, was extinguished forever. The anguish of separation, the oscillation between hope and fear, the excitement and suspense attending these abortive attempts at liberation, had all left their traces upon her face. Wanda was one of those natures which contend against the most cruel misfortunes with unabated ardor while a gleam of hope remains, but which succumb powerlessly when the gleam is extinguished. It was evident that she had now reached that point; for the moment her manner betrayed a feverish excitement, a summoning of her last waning energies.

Waldemar had risen, and stood before the young girl stern and almost defiant. His manner was half angry, half imploring, and his voice expressed both exasperation and sorrow.

"For the last time I entreat you to abandon this idea," he said; "you will only forfeit your own life without aiding your father in the least; you will rather enhance his misery. You wish to accompany him to that frightful desert, to that climate which proves fatal even to the most robust; you, who from infancy have been indulged and petted, and surrounded by every comfort and luxury, would subject yourself to the bitterest privations. Your father's iron constitution may, perhaps, endure what would kill you in a few months. Ask your physician, question the present state of your health, and both will give answer that you cannot live there a year."

"Neither can my father live there," replied Wanda, in a tremulous voice; "but we are both indifferent to life, and we can die together."

"And I?" asked Waldemar, in a reproachful tone.

She turned away without answering.

"And I?" he reiterated, still more emphatically. "What will become of me?"

"You at least are free, and life is still before you. Endure it manfully; my burden is incomparably heavier than yours."

Waldemar was on the point of giving way to an outburst of passion, but a glance at that pale, sorrow-stricken face restrained him.

"Wanda," he said, calmly, "a year ago, when our hearts at last understood each other, we declared our mutual love. I should have won you from Leo at all hazards, but fate willed otherwise; his death removed that barrier. By Leo's new-made grave, at a time when the sword hung hourly suspended over your father's head, I did not venture to speak to you of love and marriage. I saw you only for a few moments at a time and at long intervals. You and my mother made me feel, whenever I visited Radowicz, that you still regarded me as an enemy; but I hoped for better things in the future, and now you meet me with this insane resolve, against which I will contend to my last breath: 'We will die together.' This is easily said, and also easily done, if, like Leo, one can die instantly, pierced through the heart by a bullet. Have you a clear conception of what death in banishment really is? It is a slow decline, a lingering struggle against privations which break down the mind long before they destroy the body. To languish far from home, to be cut off from the world and its interests, to be deprived of those intellectual and social enjoyments which are vital to you as the air you breathe, to be crushed and stifled under a load of misery,--this is exile. Do you ask my consent to your voluntary acceptance of such a destiny?"

The young girl shuddered. She felt the truth of Waldemar's description, but she remained silent.

"And will your father accept this incredible sacrifice?" continued the young man, still more excitedly. "Will my mother permit it? O, yes! They want to tear you from my arms, and if they can only do that, they will not hesitate to consign you to a living grave. If I had fallen in Leo's stead, your father would have commanded you to remain, and my mother would have kept you back for him. Now they have persuaded you into this idea of martyrdom; they know it will bring you certain death, but it will make your union with me impossible, and that is just what they want."

"Cease these bitter reproaches!" interposed Wanda. "You wrong my family; no one has persuaded me, this is my own resolution. My father stands upon the threshold of age; wounds, imprisonment, and, above all, defeat, have prostrated him mentally and physically. I am the only one left him, the last tie which binds him to life. I belong to him. The frightful picture you have drawn depicts his lot. Do you believe that I could enjoy a moment's peace at your side, knowing that my father had gone forth alone to confront that destiny, knowing that I had caused him the last and bitterest pang of his life by marrying a man he considers an enemy? My only solace in that merciless decree of exile is the permission to accompany my father. I knew that the conflict with you would be a hard one; I have just learned how terrible it is. Spare me, Waldemar; I have not much strength left!"

"O, no, not much for me!" cried Waldemar, bitterly; "whatever strength you have belongs to your father. I was a fool to trust that outburst of emotion which, in a moment of supreme danger, threw you into my arms. My mother is right: your national prejudices are your life's blood; you imbibed them in infancy, you can resign them only with life itself. You will sacrifice yourself and me to these prejudices; to them your father will sacrifice his only child. If your lover belonged to his own nation, he would never allow you to accompany him into exile. Do you Poles know only hatred, even beyond death and the grave?"

"If my father were free," said Wanda, in a broken voice, "I might have the courage to defy him, and what you call our national prejudices, for your sake. Now I can not, and I will not, for it would be treason to my filial duty. I shall go with my father even at the cost of my life; I will not leave him alone in his adversity."

The firmness with which she uttered these words convinced Waldemar that her resolution was not to be shaken, and he ceased opposing it. "When do you leave?" he asked, after a long pause.

"Next month. My aunt will accompany me to O----, and there we shall meet my father. Some weeks are left us; our final parting need not be to-day. But promise me that you will not come again until the last moment. I need all my courage for the farewell hour, and your despair takes it from me. We shall meet once more; until then, good-bye."

"Good-bye," Waldemar replied, curtly, almost roughly, without looking at her or taking her proffered hand.

"Waldemar," said the young girl, appealingly, and with an accent of reproachful tenderness in her voice; but it was lost upon the stern man, who was excited almost to frenzy. Rage and anguish at the thought of losing his beloved outweighed every appeal to his sense of right.

"I cannot be reconciled to this sacrifice," he said, sternly; "my whole nature rebels against it; but, as you insist upon it, I must prove equal to my fate. You know that I cannot indulge in idle lamentations, and as my remonstrances and reproaches wound you deeply, I had best keep silence. Farewell, Wanda."

Wanda lingered for a few moments as if in violent conflict with herself, but she dared not give utterance to the emotions that swelled her heart almost to bursting. "Farewell, Waldemar," she said softly, and left the room.

The lover made no effort to detain her; he stood vacantly gazing out of a window. Many conflicting emotions struggled for mastery in his features, but among them all there was no trace of the renunciation his loved one had demanded of him. He remained for a long time with his face pressed against the panes, not looking up until his name was spoken.

The princess had entered unobserved. How heavily the terrible events of the past year had fallen upon this woman! Her bearing was still erect and firm, and at the first glance no striking change was noticeable in her appearance, but closer scrutiny revealed what Leo's death had cost his mother. Her features wore a quiet, rigid composure, which was the result neither of self-control nor resignation, but rather of enforced submission; it was the expression of one who has nothing more to hope for or to lose,--whose life has been bereft of every interest and charm. The once brilliant eyes were lustreless, the once smooth brow was deeply furrowed, the dark hair was flecked with gray. The blow to the maternal pride of the princess had been a mortal one, and had wrought a change in her whole nature; the defeat of her countrymen, and the fate of the brother whom she loved next to Leo, had prostrated the remaining strength of this resolute woman.

"Have you been torturing Wanda again?" she asked. Her voice, too, had changed; it had a hollow, broken sound. "You know it is useless."

"Yes, it is useless," replied Waldemar, turning around and gazing at his mother. His face was still clouded; he had not overcome his vexation.

"I told you so. Wanda is not one of those women who say no to-day and throw themselves into your arms to-morrow. When she once forms a resolution, it is irrevocable. You ought to recognize this fact, but you will not; you keep forcing her back into the useless conflict. You deal unsparingly with her. I can not and will not attempt to keep Wanda back, and you ought not. She is her father's only child, his all; in accompanying him, she only fulfils a daughter's duty."

"To die in exile," interposed Waldemar.

"Death has of late come near us so often that we no longer fear it," replied the princess. "Those to whom fate has dealt blows so merciless must learn to endure the worst that may happen. Wanda has learned this lesson. We have nothing more to lose, and therefore nothing more to fear. This fatal year has ruined more and brighter hopes than yours; you, too, must submit to the overthrow of your happiness."

"You would never forgive me if I should wrest my happiness from the ruin of your hopes," returned Waldemar, bitterly. "You need have no fear. I have learned to-day that Wanda cannot be influenced; she remains steadfast in her refusal."

"And you?"

"Well--I submit."

The mother scanned her son closely. "What do you intend to do?" she asked.

"Nothing. I have just told you so. I resign all hope, and submit to the inevitable."

The mother's eyes still rested upon his face. "You do not submit," she said. "I know my son better. Is it submission that I see written upon your brow? You harbor some scheme, some rash, dangerous venture. Take care! It is Wanda's own will that opposes you; she will yield to no compulsion, not even from you."

"We shall see!" rejoined the young man, coldly. "However, you need feel no concern. I may have some dangerous scheme in view, but it will affect me alone, and imperil only my own life."

"Do you speak of imperilling your life with an idea that this will console your mother?"

"Forgive me. I thought you would not care for my peril, now that you have lost your Leo."

The mother cast down her eyes. "From the hour of Leo's death you have made me feel myself indeed childless," she said.

"I?" ejaculated Waldemar. "Ought I to have insisted upon your sharing my home at Villica? I knew that you sought only to flee from my presence, that the sight of me was a torture you could not endure. Mother," he added, with deep emotion, "when you stood in such terrible agony by my brother's corpse, I did not venture to speak one word of consolation. I shall speak no such word to-day. Your heart has never found room for me; I have always been an alien and an outcast. I come to Radowicz because I could not live without seeing Wanda. I have sought you in this time of sorrow as little as you have sought me, but I shall not bear the blame of the estrangement between us; do not accuse me of deserting you in the bitterest hour of your life."

The mother had listened without interrupting her son, but now she answered, with quivering lips, "If I loved your brother more than I loved you, I have been forced to lose him, and to lose him in the most cruel manner. I sent him forth to battle for his country, and I could have borne his death if it had come at his post, or in the thick of the conflict, but to have him fall ingloriously--" Her voice faltered, she struggled for breath, and several moments passed ere she could go on:--

"I let my Leo go from me without one word of forgiveness, without that last farewell which he implored upon his knees, and that same day he was laid lifeless at my feet. His memory--all that remains to me of him--is linked eternally with that ill-fated deed which brought ruin upon my countrymen. My people's cause is lost, my brother goes forth to meet a destiny worse than death; Wanda is to accompany him, and I shall be left entirely alone. One would suppose, Waldemar, that you had been fully avenged."

The hollow voice and rigid glance of the woman were more touching than the most violent outburst of anguish. Waldemar could not resist their might; he bent over his mother, and said, significantly,--

"Mother, Count Morynski is still in his own country, and Wanda is also here. To-day she unwittingly showed me a way in which I may yet win her. I shall attempt it."

The princess was startled; she gazed anxiously at her son, and read his purpose in his face.

"Will you attempt--"

"What you have attempted. You failed--I may succeed."

A gleam of hope lighted that pale, sad face, but it instantly died out; the princess shook her head doubtingly.

"No, no," she cried; "do not undertake a rescue, it will be in vain. When I tell you this, you may rest assured that everything possible has been attempted, but without success. Paul's fidelity cost him his life."

"Paul was an old man," rejoined Waldemar; "he was too moderate and cautious. He had courage enough, but he lacked coolness and daring at the decisive moment. Youth, nerve, and above all prompt action, are needed for such a mission."

"And with all these it is full of danger. We have learned how the boundaries are watched and the prisoners guarded. Waldemar, must I lose you also?" cried the princess, in a tone of anguish and alarm.

Waldemar gazed at his mother in astonishment; his face flushed, and then grew pale, as he heard her words.

"I make the stake for your brother's freedom," he said.

"Bronislaw cannot be rescued," was the despondent answer. "Do not risk your life for our lost cause. It has already cost us sacrifice enough. Think of Leo's fall, and of Paul's fate. I will not let you go," she cried, seizing his hand and holding it fast. "I was wrong in saying a moment ago that I had nothing more to lose. I now feel that one child is still left me; I will not give up my last, my only one. Do not go, my son; it is your mother who entreats you."

This was a mother's voice and tone, this was a language of the heart such as these lips had never before addressed to Waldemar. The hour had come when this proud, resolute woman saw everything falling in ruins around her, and found herself clinging in despair to the only object fate had left her. The neglected son at last entered into his birthright, but it was not until the grave had closed over his brother.

Any other mother and son would have fallen into each other's arms, and in one outburst of affection sought to forget the long and bitter estrangement. These natures were too stern and reticent. Waldemar did not utter a word, but, for the first time in his life, he pressed his mother's hand to his lips.

"Will you remain?" asked the mother, entreatingly.

"No," he replied, firmly but gently; "I shall go, but I thank you for the words you have spoken. They make the risk far easier for me. You have always regarded me as your enemy because I have not entered into your party plans; I could not do so, I cannot now; but nothing forbids my releasing the count from an inhuman sentence. I will at least make the attempt, and I shall succeed if success is possible. You know the motive that urges me on."

The mother abandoned her opposition. This assurance awakened hope within her own breast.

"And Wanda?" she asked.

"Wanda said to me to-day, 'If my father were at liberty, I should have the courage to defy everything for your sake.' Tell her that I hope to remind her of those words some day. Do not question me further, mother. You know that I must act alone, for I only among you all am free from suspicion. You will not hear from me during my absence, for you are under close surveillance, and a message from you would endanger my undertaking. Leave all to me. I must hasten--there is no time to lose. And now, good-bye."

He kissed his mother's hand, and hastened away. She was deeply wounded at her son's hurried farewell; she went to the window, eager for one more parting recognition, but she received none. Waldemar's eyes sought another window. As he rode out of the court his glance was fixed upon Wanda's corner room, as if in that glance lay some magic power to compel from her a farewell greeting. For her sake he was about to enter upon an undertaking beset with dangers, and where Wanda was concerned, his mother and all the world were forgotten.

He saw her once more. She appeared at the window, and Waldemar's face lighted up as if illumined by a sudden burst of sunshine. For a moment their eyes met in a glance more eloquent than words. The young man bowed low, and giving Norman the rein, he dashed away like the wind.

The mother stood gazing after her son. He had not turned to give her one farewell look; she was forgotten. At this thought her soul was for the first time pierced by the same arrow Waldemar had often felt at sight of her partiality for Leo. At this moment the conviction she was still reluctant to admit forced itself upon her: that her eldest son inherited what the youngest had never possessed,--her own indomitable will and energy. She now acknowledged that, in mind and character, Waldemar was blood of her blood.