Hammer and Anvil: A Novel

by Friedrich Spielhagen

CHAPTER XXIV.

I have often in later days tried to recall the state of mind in which I was on this miserable night: but have never been able perfectly to do so. So I am conscious than any account I can now give of it must be a most imperfect one. I can only say that I was overpowered by an emotion which was probably the intensest form of pity--a feeling always peculiarly strong with me, and which on far lighter occasions is aroused in my breast to an extent which must appear absurd and childish to shrewder and more coldblooded persons. Perhaps the extraordinary statements which I had just heard might have affected me differently, had the persons concerned been entire strangers to me; but this they were not. Constance had played an important and fateful part already in my life; the young prince had come into contact with me at eventful moments; and I had loved Constance, and the prince had inspired me with interest and sympathy such as an older brother might feel for a younger. What had happened appeared to me awful, and what was to happen, terrible. True I had again a dim consciousness that I could do nothing to hinder the march of fate, that I had started upon an idle, an insane expedition; but what was this to the voice that cried within: It must not be! it must not be!

In this intense excitement which now seems to me to have bordered on insanity, I reached the lodgings of the actor. He was greatly surprised at seeing me, but received me with politeness, and conducted me from the room in which I found him with one of his companions at the theatre, into another apartment to hear what I had to say.

But what had I to say? Good heavens, there was so much to be said, or else so little! The much I could not tell him, for I felt that I had no right to disclose the secret, and that if I had revealed it, he would have considered it a wretched device suggested by the prince's cowardice. And the little--that the duel must not take place--what good could that do? What could the man do but shrug his shoulders and look sharply into my eyes to see if I was quite in my senses? He was a young man with a face wasted by a life of dissipation, and yet handsome, and with very expressive large dark eyes, and I felt how my cheeks flushed under their steady gaze. Under their gaze, and at the words which almost forced their way through my lips, the words that if he desired vengeance on Constance's lover--one who had been her lover at a time when he claimed her as his own--he should select the right man--he should come to me rather than the prince. And though I bit my lips to restrain myself from saying this, the words forced their way through my teeth in a hoarse hissing tone, which the other probably took for the accents of rage that could scarcely be controlled.

"That is your business then," he said, rising from his chair. "A favored or a betrayed lover, I do not know which. Very well: I shall meet you, sir, you may rely upon it; and every one who has or pretends to have any claim upon the lady's favor. But each in his turn, sir, each in his turn; you have come some hours too late; and you will perceive that I can settle with my antagonists only in the order in which they present themselves. Is there any other way in which I can serve you?"

He made me a polite bow, as he finished, and added: "Through this door"--indicating by a gesture--"you can pass at once into the hall."

I had also arisen and stood facing him. I could have stricken this slender delicate man, feeble and nerveless from a life of dissipation, to the earth with a single blow; the puny arm which he extended towards the door with a theatrical gesture as I hesitated, I could have crushed in my hand. It was the only time in my life that I was ever tempted to abuse my physical strength; but I withstood the temptation, and forced myself out of the room and out of the house.

The coach was still standing at the door.

"Where am I to drive now?" asked the man.

I directed him to Constance's lodging, and we drove off. It was bitter cold, and the glass of the coach-window was encrusted with sleet, the crystals of which sparkled and glittered in the light of the street-lamps as we passed them. I noticed it, and mechanically counted the seconds that elapsed until we passed another lamp, when I again observed the sparkling and glittering, and recalled to mind certain optical laws which seemed to bear upon this phenomenon, as if I had nothing else in the world to do on my way to see Constance von Zehren, Prince Prora's sister.

The coach stopped.

Notwithstanding the lateness of the hour--it was now probably eleven o'clock--the door was opened at once; the hall and stairway were lighted up: they seemed in this house to be accustomed to late arrivals and departures. As I rang at the door upon which stood, in great golden letters, "Ada Bellini, Actress at the Theatre Royal," I heard the rustling of a dress inside, and the next moment Constance stood before me. She had doubtless expected a different visitor, and started back with a cry. I closed the door, caught her by the hand as, with a face white with terror, she endeavored to escape, and said:

"I must speak with you, Constance."

"You want to murder me!" she said.

"No; but I intend to prevent another being murdered on your account. Come!"

I drew her, half by force, into the brightly lighted, almost gorgeous parlor which she had just left, leaving the door open after her, and led her to a chair in which she took her seat, her eyes uneasily watching all my movements.

"Have no fear," I said. "Do not be in the least alarmed. Once in long-past days you called me your faithful George, who was to kill all the dragons lurking in your path. Hitherto I have had no opportunity; or did not use it if I had. The hour is now come; but I cannot do it alone: you must help me and will help me."

"Are you assured of that?" she asked.

Her face had suddenly assumed another expression; the terror which had been previously imprinted upon it, had vanished and made way for a look of dark hatred, the same look that it wore that night when she adjured me to avenge her on the prince.

I do not know how I found the words, but I said what I had come to say.

"What does the prince pay you for it?"

This question was her reply.

It was the same reply that I had expected from the actor, and it was not to hear this that I had held my tongue before him. Here it was different: it was the sister to whom I was speaking: she must believe me: I must find the place in her heart: nature could not so belie herself.

And whether it was that I succeeded in touching the mysterious bond that unites two beings whose veins flow with the same blood; whether it was that Constance's clear intelligence could not reject the proof that I offered, I saw that the dark look passed away from her face, and gave way to a confusion, an astonishment, that passed into actual horror.

"It was that, then!" she murmured; "that was the reason! And that then was the reason that I hated my father--no, he was not my father--and that he hated me! That--but then she must have known it! no, no, it cannot be!"

She had sprung from her chair.

"Where are you going?" I asked, seizing her hand.

She tore herself loose and rushed from the room.

I remained, hesitating what to do; I feared for a moment she was going to kill herself; and then I heard her coming back, not alone.

She re-entered, dragging after her the decrepit form of an old woman, whom under other circumstances I should have taken for a housekeeper or something of the sort, and in whom I recognized, with a shudder of disgust, old Pahlen.

How this horrible creature, after her escape from prison, found her way to her mistress, I never learned; but the closer the relations that had existed, as mistress and servant, between them, the fiercer was the rupture, and more frightful the reckoning.

"Here! here!" cried Constance, dragging the woman almost to my feet, "here she is! George. I adjure you by heaven and all that is holy, kill this monster who would have plunged me into horrible crime."

Constance's words, her passion, my presence, all combined overwhelmed the wicked woman. I saw in her old wrinkled face, in the sidelong look of her evil eyes, that she knew her guilt; and Constance saw it as well as I; for as the creature with faltering words tried to frame some excuse, she cut her short with a cry of rage, almost a yell, that long after sounded in my ears; "Begone! out of my sight! wretch! monster!"

The wretch was no doubt glad of the chance of escape for which her sidelong eyes had been searching before, and rushed out of the door. I never saw her again, and know not how long afterwards she dragged out her wretched existence, nor when and how it ended.

Constance was pacing up and down the room, with a face which showed her entire conviction of the truth, and wringing her hands in anguish. Suddenly she threw herself upon her knees in a corner of the room, and seemed to pour forth her heart in agonized prayer. I observed that where she knelt a small ivory crucifix was attached to the wall, and that from time to time she separated her hands to make the sign of the Cross, and then clasped them again in fervent prayer. Later I learned, by chance, that Constance, when in Italy, had returned to the Catholic church, the faith of her mother. Whatever spiritual peace she may have afterwards found, after confession and long penance, as the abbess of a Roman convent, at this moment her prayers seemed to be unavailing. She arose from the crucifix only to fall at my feet, to clasp my knees, and to beg me to avert the frightful consequences of what she had done. I raised her, saying that I had already done all that was in my power, and that I had come to her to learn if she could do nothing.

"There is but one means," she said; "and that is to prevail if possible upon Herr Lenz to quit the field--to leave here immediately."

"How can we do that? The man is evidently your tool, the tool of your revenge; and it is no longer in your control--or do you think it is?"

"It may be, it may be," she said, in a low hurried tone. "He knows that I do not love him; he knows about Carl, and that has made him furious; but I know that he loves me, and that for the prize of my hand, which I have always refused him, he would consent to anything--to anything! Am I not fair enough, George, for a man to consent to anything for my sake?"

She threw back with trembling hands the dark lustrous masses of hair from either side of her face, and smiled upon me. I have only once in my life seen such a face, and that was when, in the Glyptothek at Munich, I saw the Rondanini Medusa, and then the world-celebrated mask seemed to me but a weak copy.

"Come!" I said. She was about to start just as she was: I wrapped her in a cloak of furs which she had probably worn from the theatre, and which was lying on the floor. We left the house and drove to the lodging of Herr von Sommer. The house was closed. Some minutes passed before our repeated knocking brought the porter to the door.

"Herr von Sommer set out half an hour ago."

"Do you know where he was going?"

"He did not say, further than that he would not be back for several days."

"Is no one in the house that can give further information?"

"Hardly: he took his own servant with him."

"You have no idea where he was going?"

"None. He went in a droschky."

I saw that nothing more was to be got out of the man, who stood shivering in his sheepskin cloak; and in fact he cut short the interview by shutting the door with a muttered oath.

Constance who had followed me, had heard all.

"Perhaps we can learn from him."

We drove to the palace of the prince. Our progress was slow; a furious gale was blowing, and the wretched horse could scarcely drag the coach through the snow-drifts. I fancied that our own slow journey was an emblem of repentance, which toils painfully after the evil deed that it can never overtake.

At last we reached the palace. As we got out, I cast an involuntary look towards the sky. From a clear space, the blackness of which contrasted with the white clouds that were driving with arrowy speed across the sky, looked down upon us the calm eternal stars. The words of Constance's favorite song came into my mind:

"All day long the bright sun loves me,

Woos me with his glowing light;

But I better love the gentle

Stars of night."

Alas, this starry love had guided her far astray--had brought her at last here, in this fearful night, to the house where the sister was knocking at the door of her brother whom she had involved in the web of death.

The palace was dark; only the two lamps on either side the great entrance were burning, and their golden light, in which the snow flakes were once more fluttering down, shone dimly, as it had done a year before at the unhappy meeting between us two at this very spot.

I rang the bell: I heard its hollow clamor dully reverberating in the hall of stone, as in a great sepulchral vault. No one came. At last after minutes of agonizing expectation, the door was opened: a man in his shirt-sleeves, with a light in his hand, stood before me. The fellow's face was flushed with drinking and his eyes glassy; it was evident that in the servants' hall the master's absence had been turned to good account. He was about to close the door in my face, but I set my foot against it and pushed in. The man then recognized me, having seen me at the palace twice already to-day, and probably before at Rossow. He answered my questions with disagreeable servility. His highness had driven out half an hour before with the count; not in his own carriage, but in a hired droschky taken from the stand. He did not know where his highness had gone; his highness often went out in a droschky. He would certainly not be back until very late, if he came back at all to-night. He, for his part, had leave to go to bed.

It was evident that it was high time the fellow was making use of this permission, for he tottered with sleep while he stammered out these words. It was the same report that I had received at the other house: both parties had already left the city, to go heaven only knew where: somewhere where their meeting might be undisturbed. I said to Constance that we could do no more.

"I will go home and pray," she said.

Was it a reminiscence from the tragedy in which she had been playing? Was it really for her the close of the tragedy of her life? She spoke no word further as we went home, except that once she said:

"I have at least helped you to your happiness."

I do not know what she meant.