CHAPTER VI.
I do not know how many hours I passed in wandering thus through the streets: I have only a dim remembrance of great blocks of houses rising dark into the gray of the night; of flakes of snow fluttering down from this gray into the yellow light; of vehicles rolling past me almost without sound, over the fresh-fallen snow; and figures that glided by me with heads down, sheltering themselves as they best could from the snow-storm.
There were not many of these latter, for every one sought a shelter from the bad weather. Those who were out in it were those who had no choice, such as the unhappy creatures who with pale lips murmured to the passers-by words intended to sound warm and inviting.
One of these unfortunates I thought I saw before me, as wandering through a wide street in the most distinguished quarter I reached one of the small palaces, before the door of which just then drove up at a sharp trot a carriage drawn by two fiery horses, and throwing around a bright light from both its lamps. In the light of these lamps stood the girl, crouching close to the wall, and I saw that at the moment when the equerry sprang from the box and helped his master out of the carriage she advanced a step and extended her arm from her cloak, as if she wished to stop the latter as he descended. But he had pulled the fur collar of his cloak up around his face, and as he rapidly hurried up the steps did not see the girl. The door, which had given a sight of a brilliantly-lighted hall, closed behind master and servant; the coachman touched his spirited animals lightly with the whip, the carriage rolled away and vanished into the open gate of an adjoining building.
No one remained without but myself, the poor girl, and the snow-flakes still fluttering down from the darkness into the yellow light of the lamps. The girl came towards me and passed me by. It was plain that she did not see me, but I saw her as the light of one of the lamps struck upon a face distorted by mental anguish.
"Constance!" I exclaimed.
She suddenly stopped and stared at me with her glowing black eyes.
"Constance!" I repeated, "do you not know me? It is I--George----"
"My dragon-slayer, who was to kill all the dragons in my path! Why have you not killed that one--that one!" and she laughed a frightful laugh, and pointed to the door which had closed on Prince Prora.
Her cloak was loose and fluttering in the icy wind, and I saw she was still in the costume of Preciosa. She must have rushed off the stage into the street. The snow-flakes were driving into her fevered face.
"Poor Constance!" I murmured, and wrapped the cloak closer around her shoulders, drew her arm in mine, anxious first of all to lead her from this place. She willingly followed me, and we walked thus through the long, wind-swept streets, I looking down from time to time at the poor girl, who clung even closer to me, and asking her in a compassionate tone how she was, and whither I should take her.
I had several times repeated these questions without receiving an answer, when she suddenly stopped, and murmured with pale lips--"I can go no further!" It seemed to me that she was on the point of fainting. I was in the greatest embarrassment. There was not a public conveyance to be seen anywhere in the street, and in our objectless flight we had wandered far from the fashionable quarter where, upon my repeated inquiries, she informed me that she lodged. But it so happened, I know not how, that we had strayed into the neighborhood of my own lodging, and I thought it the best, indeed the only thing I could do, to take her there. "You can at least remain there long enough to warm yourself, while I get a carriage to take you home." Without answering a word she followed me. I had the key of the outer door, so that I did not need to disturb the old watchman; and his dog, that came growling up to us, as soon as he recognized me, leaped about me, wagging his tail.
I congratulated myself that I had hit upon this expedient, for Constance hung heavily upon my arm, and I had almost to carry her across the yard and up the steps to my room. And when we had reached the room, and by the dim light of the fire I had led her to the arm-chair, and lighted my lamp, I saw that her eyes were vacant of expression and half-closed, while a deep pallor overspread her whole face.
My confusion in a situation so new for me was less than I should have supposed. I had no other thought than as promptly as possible to assist one who was in such urgent need of assistance. I stirred the fire until it blazed brightly; I took off her cloak, now saturated with the melted snow, and wrapped her in a plaid; I folded a coverlid around her feet, and warmed her cold hands in my own. Then it occurred to me that probably a cup of tea, which I could prepare in a moment, would be of service; so I got out the tea-things from my cupboard, boiled the water in a tin kettle over my fire, and poured her out a cup of the refreshing beverage, not forgetting first to add a little good cognac. She drank it eagerly; I offered her a second cup, which she also drank.
The warm drink seemed to have greatly revived her: she looked at the pictures on the walls, at the furniture, and last at me, and said, reaching out to me her small hand, in which the warm life began to pulsate again, "How good you are! how good! You are the best creature I have ever known. How much happier might my life have been had you come to our house a few months earlier: you good, good George!"
It was again the Constance of those old times: the same fascinating prattle in the same soft melodious voice: and I, who knew so well what confidence to place in all this kindness and gentleness, stood like the great oaf that I was, my whole soul thrilled by the sweet, unforgotten tones, and trembling from head to foot at the touch of her soft hand. But my reason made an effort to obtain the supremacy once for all. I drew my hand from hers, stepped back to the fireplace, and said, while with great apparent calmness I was warming my hands behind my back:
"You are very kind; but your kindness must not make me forget that I have undertaken to see you safely home. If you are so disposed, and feel sufficiently recovered, I will now go for a carriage."
"You are still angry with me," she said, leaning back in the chair and looking up to me under her long lashes. "Why are you angry? What have I done to you? What have I done that another in my place would not have done? For my love I gave reputation, home, myself: was I to bear so tender a solicitude for the feelings of a youth, who scarcely knew himself what those feelings were? Did you love me? Did you ever love me?" she repeated, springing up and looking into my eyes. "You never loved me. You could not else stand so calmly there, and you are not worth the regret it cost me to play off that little deception on you. Do you know that I was so childish as never entirely to get over it? That your friendly face with its honest eyes looked continually in upon my dreams, and drew from me tears of remorse? You, of all men, have least right to be angry with me."
And she threw herself back in the chair, and defiantly folded her arms over her breast.
"Who said that I was angry with you?" I replied.
"You must be angry," she returned with a sort of violence. "I will have you angry: should I wish you to despise me? There is no third case possible. The third would be indifference; and I am not indifferent to you, am I, George? Not indifferent, though you are now making an amazing effort to appear so. When two persons have once stood as near to each other as we two, and are connected by such recollections as ours, they can never entirely lose each other in the desert of indifference. Do you know that some weeks ago, when I saw a likeness of you in the exhibition, I was startled as if I had seen a ghost, and could not bring myself away from it, and afterwards I returned to it again and again, and wept many tears at the thought of you? Then I saw by the catalogue that it was painted by my cousin, and I made a pair of you both, a happy pair, and blessed you in my inmost heart. Now indeed I see that it is otherwise. What are you? What are you doing! How did you come to this strange place?" and she looked again around the room.
"I am a simple workman," I answered; "a blacksmith in a neighboring machine-shop."
"Blacksmith!--machine-shop!--what do you say? Who would have said this that afternoon when I saw you setting out for the hunt with the others, in high hunting-boots and a short velvet coat, with your gun and game-pouch, so tall and stately, the tallest and stateliest of all! What would my father have said? You always sided with him--perhaps you do so still; but believe me, he did not deal well with me; and if I am to blame, and am an outcast and accursed, it all, all falls upon his head. Do you know that the old Prince Prora, when my father grew indignant at his refusal, flung in his face the taunt: 'My son cannot marry your bastard, nor can I fight with a smuggler!' My father sprang at him and would have strangled him--as if that could restore his honor or mine! And you see, George, of all this I knew nothing: I first learned it from Kar--from him when he proposed to abandon me in a foreign country. Can a man know what it is to a girl, when she has loved a man, be he worthy or unworthy--given herself to him wholly, staked her all upon him, like a desperate gamester upon a single card--to be thrust out by him into wretchedness, with mockery and shame? Not into common wretchedness, such as seeks a subsistence by the light of a poor working-lamp, or in the glare of the street-lanterns--I was always surrounded by splendor and luxury, and the Marchese of Serra di Falco was as much richer than he as sunny Sicily is fairer than our foggy native island. And yet it was wretchedness--boundless, glittering wretchedness--which no woman escapes who is deceived in her love, whatever the compensation that may be offered her. I tried hate; but hate is the twin brother of love, and they can not deny their common parentage. There is but one remedy for love, and that is revenge. Avenge me on him! You can do it; you are so strong; you have already once had him in your power--that night when you met him in the woods. He told me about it and asked who the giant was. Why did you let him escape? Why did you not strangle him--brain him?--and then come to me and say, 'I am your lover, for I am stronger than the other,' and take me in your arms and carry me off? But you men never show us that you are men, and you wonder then that we play with you! As if we could do anything else with a creature that we do not see to be stronger than ourselves, and often so much weaker! Show what you can be--what you are! Crush the head of this serpent, and I will fall at your feet and worship you!"
While thus speaking she had let fall the plaid in which I had wrapped her and had risen from the chair, and with her last words she sank upon her knees, holding out her arms to me. The flickering light of the fire played upon her fantastic gypsy dress, gleamed upon her dark hair which hung in dishevelled locks over her cheeks and shoulders, and glowed upon the face which had so fatal a beauty for me. The nameless charm with which she had at first fascinated me overcame me with all the old might: my heart beat as if it would burst from my bosom, and feverish shudders ran over my whole body, but with a vehement effort I collected myself, stretched out my ice-cold hand and raised her, and said:
"You apply to the wrong person. Entrust your vengeance upon the prince to one who has a nearer interest in it: to the young man, for instance, upon whose arm you were leaning when I saw you in the gallery, and who, this very evening, if I am not mistaken, was the personage in the play whom Preciosa made happy with her favor."
Constance had risen slowly, her eyes ever fixed upon mine, and began to pace the room with hasty steps, pausing at intervals before me, and speaking as she walked:
"How base you men are; how horribly base and unfeeling! Was it for this reason--to heap these cruel reproaches upon me--that you enticed me here? Is this your hospitality? Do you think your fire has warmed me too much, that you now drench me with ice-water? But your heart is so cold only because your brain is so dull; because, for instance, you cannot comprehend how a woman who, from childhood up, has been lapped in visions of future splendor, and has seen her life's dream almost realized, when this dream at once scatters like light mist, and she, with her high-wrought feelings and pampered taste, with her cherished pretensions to beauty and luxury, is about to be given over to a coarse, commonplace existence--that such a woman of necessity must catch at the wretched reflection of the brilliant reality that is irrecoverably gone; that the beloved of princes can afterwards be nothing else than a stage princess. And not even this pitiful reflection does he leave me undisturbed! Again he forces himself upon me, and embitters my poor triumph. But why do I speak of all this to a man who understands it not, and can never understand it--who has chosen the happy lot of a modest existence full of labor, and toil, and quiet sleep?"
I had thrown myself into the chair from which she had arisen, and she stood before me, and went on in a strange, soft, trembling voice:
"If I could only sleep! If I could only sleep! Could I but drink from the fountain that daily flows for you, and will flow for that happy woman whom some day you will bring to this peaceful hearth! Could I banish the fever that here burns me, and here allows me no rest"--she pointed with these words to her breast and her head--"no rest--none! Oh to sleep thus, amid the perfumes of rosemary and violets--a sweet sleep upon a strong, true heart!"
And as I sat with bowed head, and heart filled with pain, I felt a pair of soft arms wind about my neck, a swelling bosom pressed to mine, and a pair of glowing lips that sought my own. Had the dream which the enamored, passionate boy had dreamed become reality, or was I really dreaming? And was it only as one who strives to arouse himself from a dream that I pressed her to me, then sprang to my feet and let her glide from my arms, and again caught her to my heart?
The light which had been burning dimly now sank into the socket and expired, but in the flickering glimmer of the fire I saw the outlines of the lovely form that clung and pressed down to my breast, and as if in a dream I heard a voice murmur at my ear: "to sleep sweetly upon a strong, true heart!"