IX.
For this morning, after breakfast, a general expedition had been planned--a drive to a certain eminence, from which the Baron was desirous of expounding to them all the arrangements for the forthcoming manœ vres. Bertram had at the last moment made an excuse: much to his regret, he sent Konski to say, that he had forgotten to write some really important letters, and must needs stay at home to do so now. Would the others, please, on no account give up their drive for his sake.
"At first they would not go without you, sir," Konski reported; "but I got them to do it, and they are getting the horses ready now; the ladies are to drive, the gentlemen will go on horseback. So you may stay quietly in bed and try to get another hour's sleep. I am afraid, sir, you have had another awful night!"
And indeed it had been a worse night for Bertram than the preceding one, and this time the morning had not improved him. That he had to admit to himself when, after having first vainly endeavoured to follow the faithful servant's advice, he had at length risen in very low spirits and dressed, trying whether a stroll along the terrace garden-walk would cool his fevered brow and refresh his weary heart.
He had no right to be wearied. He was bound, when they came back, to meet them merrily and serenely; that belonged to his part. How could they give their confidence to one who appeared to have none in himself, in his own strength, his own courage?
And he would need all his courage to look, if it could be done, deeper than hitherto into Erna's eyes, into Erna's heart: and he would need all his strength if that look were to confirm what, yesterday, he had deemed impossible, but what, during the awful night, had come to appear to him as thoroughly possible, nay, as probable. If it were so, then the whole elaborate plan which he had yesterday confided to his friend, had therewith fallen to the ground. Otto's embarrassments were scarcely as great as he had represented them; and even if he had not, according to his wont, exaggerated things, what would be the use of delaying the decision? On the contrary, the more swiftly it came, the better for all. If the Baron was a man of honour; he would not withdraw on learning that the maiden of his choice was not wealthy; if he had influence at Court, if this influence really amounted to something considerable, he would now try all the more to use it for his future father-in-law. They might then make their own arrangements, as best they could; and they would make arrangements; sacrifice some things on both sides, give up some hopes. What would one not sacrifice, what would one not give up, if one loved from one's very heart? But to have to look on at such hearty love, love delighting in sacrifice--never! To run away would be cowardly, no doubt. But then valour, like honesty, is appropriate only when it is needed, and when it will be of some use. He would have to think beforehand of some suitable pretext which should render a sudden departure possible.
Thus lost in mournful thought, Bertram was pacing backward and forward along the terrace-walk, now past sunny espaliers, along which ruddy grapes were already commencing to shine through the dense clusters of vine-leaves, anon between rows of beeches, which were entwined overhead and formed dusky arbour-like groves.
Having reached the end of one of these groves, he paused as one terrified. In front of him, on the platform where the terrace widened, Erna was seated beneath the great plantain tree which overshadowed the whole place with its broad branches. An open volume lay upon the round table before her; she was writing busily, bending over a blotting-book. The graceful form, the finely-chiselled features, stood out in clearest profile against the green terrace above her. In this subdued light the dainty cheek seemed even paler than usual; and as she now paused, pen in hand, lifting a long eyelash and glancing meditatively up at the leafy roof above, the great eyes shone like those of an inspired Muse.
"One draught before I pass onward--on the shadeless remainder of my dreary road," Bertram muttered to himself.
He might have stepped back without being noticed, but he did not do so; his motionless eyes clung to the beautiful picture before him, as one perishing of thirst might gaze upon a brimming cup, when, lo! she turned.
"Uncle Bertram!"
She had said it quite calmly, and now, slowly, she laid down her pen and closed her blotting-book, rising at the same time and holding out her hand to him as he came up.
"I felt that somebody, was looking at me."
"And you wished, to remain unseen, or at least undisturbed. But could I have guessed that I should find you here? Why are you not away with the others?"
A smile flitted over her face.
"I had important letters to write, too."
"Well, you have written, anyhow."
"And have you not? For shame. If you make any excuses you should yourself take them in earnest; then you will come to fancy afterwards that the excuses were really valid."
"I'll remember this in future. But what makes you tell me to my face that my important letters were but an excuse?"
"I thought that you did not care to go; and I think I know the reason why."
"Indeed! I am curious to hear it from you."
"I will tell you. I wanted to say so last night already, for then I noticed quite well how gladly you would have made an excuse, only you could not at the moment think of a suitable one; but I could not have said what I wished to say in a few words, and so I determined to try and have an undisturbed talk with you. Shall we not sit down?"
They sat dawn, Erna with her blotting-book before her, Bertram on the seat opposite. Her large eyes were lifted up to him. But a minute before he had greatly longed to be able to see deep, deep into these eyes, right to the innermost recess of her soul; and now, when it could be, when it was to be, he shrank from it, he wished the time deferred. He would in any case learn the secret all too soon.
"Uncle Bertram, I wanted to tell you that ..."
The dark eyelids had closed after all; well, she anyhow did not see the breathless excitement with which he hung upon her lips. In his mind he heard already the words--"that--I engaged myself last night to be married to the Baron." The pause she made--of a second or two--seemed to him an eternity.
"My dear child," he said in a voice well-nigh inaudible ...
"That ... you shall not for my sake lay upon yourself a burden which you can no longer bear."
The large eyes were gazing firmly at him again, while he bent his own in deadly confusion.
He murmured--
"I--I do not understand you."
"You are too good to wish to understand me; but the excess of your goodness weighs me down and frightens me. I know that you are fond of me, that you do it only because you love me. But I love you too, Uncle Bertram, love you very much, more than formerly, when I did not really know you, did not at all understand you. I am no longer a child, and therefore you should not treat me like a spoiled child and do what I ask, especially when I see that I ask for something to which I had no right. I had no right to ask--I should not have entreated you to be kind to Aunt Lydia. And now I beg of you not to be so any longer, or to the same extent. I cannot bear it. She has harmed you as terribly, as terribly as only an evil heart can harm a good one. And she to be allowed to take your hand, look into your eyes, jest with you, as if nothing had occurred! If this had happened to me, I would not tolerate it--never, never!"
Her voice quivered, her lips trembled; the pale cheek was flushed now, the great eyes were flashing. She said she had not known him, had not understood him--and he? What had he known of her? of the strength of feeling of that heart of hers which had seemed to him to beat in such steady measure? His gaze was fastened on her now in raptured amazement, like the gaze of a mortal to whom something divine is being revealed.
But next moment the wondrous girl had conquered that passionate impulse, her features regained their usual expression, and she went on, calmly enough--
"And you, Uncle Bertram, should not tolerate it either--you, least of all. You cannot lie, cannot play the hypocrite. Let others do so; it befits you ill, it is unworthy of you. I cannot, will not see anything unworthy in you. I will have one human being whom I can believe and trust unconditionally. This one you are, you must be; is it not so, Uncle Bertram?"
She held out her hand to him across the table. He could not refuse it, and yet, as he touched those slender fingers, something thrilled through him as though he had been guilty of some act of desecration.
"You think me too good, too great," he said. "I can only reply, I will try to deserve your confidence."
"And I will give you an opportunity at once. I am not contented with myself either. I too--for the sake of others, to please papa and mamma who seemed greatly to wish it--have been kinder to somebody than at heart I felt justified in being, and I must henceforth change my conduct towards him."
"He has proposed to you?"
"Proposed? To me?"
A scornful smile played round her exquisite lips.
"I beg your pardon, dear Erna. He was so remarkably assiduous in his attentions to you yesterday. You admit yourself that you have been kinder to him than now you care to have been, and he strikes me as being one of those men who grasp the whole hand the moment you hold out your little finger to them. And moreover, I know that your parents encourage him much, and he is surely aware of that too. Thus my question was not wholly groundless; still, I beg your pardon."
"And indeed you need it in this case, Uncle Bertram. Or, have I perhaps behaved so childishly that even a clever man like you could deem such a thing possible?"
"No, no; pray, try to forget what I said without thinking, or take it for a proof that I was right, that I am neither so good nor so clever as you thought."
The words sounded diffident, almost submissive, but his heart was swelling with proud delight, and the songsters perched above in the shady recesses of the big plantain tree seemed to have been silent till now, and to be then commencing all at once to twitter and sing and make sweetest melody; and from the terraces beneath there was wafted up to them in fragrant cloudlets the perfume of carnation and mignonette. What a beautiful, divinely beautiful morning it was!
"Henceforth," said Erna, "we will be open to each other, and then such misunderstandings will not occur again. This one, truly, should make me blush. The Baron is the very last man in whom I could take the very slightest interest. I find nearly everything he says stupid and silly, and if a fairly good idea turns up, as it does every now and then, it is impossible to enjoy it, for the question is sure to obtrude itself: 'What nonsense will he talk next?' I am only now making his acquaintance; he, it is true, has been often here before, but in my absence; and in town, when he came, as he sometimes did, to see Aunt Lydia, I always avoided having to meet him."
"You have met few young men yet?"
"And those few have not made me anxious to meet any more."
"This sounds very hard; but, to say the truth, you are not the first girl whom I have heard talk like this."
"My only wonder is that all do not talk, or, at least, think like this. My own idea is, that men are naturally selfish, frivolous, and vain, and only become with advancing years good, and noble, and amiable, and this applies only to the few exceptions; for I suppose the bulk remain as they were."
"Are you serious?"
"Perfectly. And that is why, the night before last, I could not agree with you at all when you asserted that a young girl could not love a much older man, or was at least committing an act of folly if she did so, which, to her sorrow, she was bound to realise sooner or later, and therefore the sooner the better. Nor is it at all this consideration which makes Hilarie change, and which throws her into the arms of that youth who is behaving so childishly and insanely, that Flavio;--there is quite a different reason for it."
"Then you know the novelette?"
"No; I only read it now; and I had to hunt a long time for it, until I found it in the Wanderjahre. The book is lying there. And now I also understand the 'one element,' which you said the night before last that Göthe had excluded, or had not made use of--which is the right expression in this case?--because otherwise the comedy would have been turned into a tragedy."
"And this 'one element,' what is it?"
"The fact that her uncle is not in love with her at all. Was not that it?"
"To be sure. I only wonder at your having found it out."
"And my only wonder is that Hilarie did not discover it sooner. She must have been very blind not to have seen that her uncle returns--or rather does not return--her love from sheer kindliness of disposition; that at best his penchant is but the faintest reflex of her passionate love. Look at this passage: 'You are making me the happiest man beneath the sun! Exclaiming this, he fell at her feet.' How feeble, how strained! And it contents her, makes her happy. I should have been ashamed of the whole business."
"You must make some allowance for the spirit of the time, for the manner and expression of the period; in that case, these things do not look or sound quite as bad. But now for the other side of the medal: You hold that Hilarie did truly love her uncle, and would have remained faithful to her love, in spite of any number of Flavios, if her passion had been returned?"
"Most certainly!"
"Well, be it so. He loves, loves passionately. Enter Flavio, loving, loving passionately, too. The father perceives it. He sees that his own love would seal the doom of the son whom he loves. Moreover, he is sure--if he is not a conceited fool, but a man of heart and head, he must be sure--that Hilarie would undoubtedly, return his son's passion, if he, the father, the uncle, did not unfortunately stand between them; that the girl's love for the young man, and vice versa, is the only natural--that means, the only right thing; that therefore Hilarie cannot truly love him; that her love rather, if it be not absolutely unnatural, is anyhow an error, an aberration, from which she shall and must turn. Given these things, am I wrong in asserting that then, indeed, the comedy changes to tragedy--a tragedy the secret and silent stage of which, I admit, will be solely ... the elderly man's heart? Do you not agree with me?"
"I must, I think; if I have first granted your suppositions and assumptions, particularly this: that a girl's love for a man much older than herself must needs in every case be an error, an aberration. But then, again, I do not see why the elderly man's love for the girl does not also tend to self-deception, to a fact which he, being more far-sighted, clever, experienced; is bound to realise all the sooner. And then, where is your tragedy?"
Once more the great eyes flashed, the dainty lips quivered, an angry cloud lay on her brow. There was a wild voice in his heart crying: "Where?--here, here--for I love, I love thee! and it is impossible that into thy maiden heart, there should ever fall one spark of the wild conflagration raging here." But he succeeded this time, too, in subduing the tumult in his heart, and he said smilingly--
"I hoped, nay, I knew that you would make this objection, which is absolutely correct, and which helps the Master to regain that absolute sovereignty and undeviating correctness in matters of the heart in which I, wantonly, tried to argue Göthe was deficient. Of course, so the matter stands, turn and twist it as you will--Hilarie's love is an illusion; or, more correctly, it is a foreshadowing of that true and genuine passion which she will feel one day. The Major's love is a reminiscence of what his heart once, in the bygone days of his far-away youth, was glowing with, and what it never again will glow with now. Anything of a warmer feeling that haply still survives, may be sufficient for a sensible, reasonable marriage, with the clever widow, in whose sentiments towards him again reminiscence acts the part of a kindly mediator, and ... but surely ... why, they are back already! Shall we go and meet them?"
From the verandah Lotter's loud voice was heard. Lydia, too, was calling out; she was calling Erna. Bertram had risen, glad of the interruption; he felt his strength very nearly exhausted. He was resting his hand on the back of her chair, lest Erna, if they shook hands, should feel how his hand trembled. But Erna was gazing straight before her with a very gloomy expression of countenance.
"I should like to finish my letter first," she said.
"Then I will disturb you no longer."
He had gone; had gone without offering her his hand. Erna sat for a while without looking up; then she re-opened her blotting-book, and read the last page she had written:--
"I see him always, absent or present; I see his noble, pale countenance, the deep, thoughtful eyes, that mouth which can jest so delicately, and which yet (for me) quivers so often in sorrow for a wasted life, a lost happiness. For me! The others never see it; how should they? To them he is the cold-hearted egotist, the bitter jester, who believes in nothing, least of all in love. To be sure--once betrayed as he has been--alas! Agatha, that is the very thing which draws me irresistibly to him. I can now gaze deep, deep into his noble heart, can feel all the pangs that have torn it, and must be tearing it again now in the presence of the viper who--oh, I do hate her! ... And he manages to be quite friendly in his demeanour to her, because I asked him to, before I knew all the circumstances. But he shall do so no longer. I cannot bear it, when he turns his good, truthful eyes to me, as though he would ask: 'Is it right thus?' No, it is wrong, a thousand times wrong! But is it not wrong, too, that I should be allowed to read in his heart, and he not in mine? Shall I tell him ... all? It is ever on my lips, but then ... no. I should not be ashamed in his presence, he is so kind, and he would understand me! Resting on his protecting arm he would let me shed the last of those hot, angry tears, which will yet persist in sometimes rising to my eyes, and which I brush away indignantly; and I would gratefully accept his mercy, but on one condition only, that I may go on resting on that arm, that he would permit me to love, to serve him, to-day and for ever, as his friend, his daughter, his slave! ... Shall I tell him?"
Erna gave a bitter smile, and took the sheet of paper in both her hands in order to tear it in pieces. Then she laid it down again, and seized her pen once more.
"She who has written this is a conceited little fool, and deserves exemplary punishment for her conceit, and the said punishment is to consist in her sending these lines to her granny, in order to receive by return of post the requisite scolding, even if granny, and this is an urgently repeated request, is coming here the day after to-morrow. For between granny and me there shall not be said one word on this subject, and even less about the other thing and the other one; and now, dearest granny ..."
"Ah, there is Miss Erna!" exclaimed the Baron, issuing with Lydia from the terrace walk.
"We have been looking everywhere for you," said Lydia. "Heavens! how the child has flushed and heated herself over her writing! To Agatha, of course!"
"Ah, if one could read the letter!" exclaimed the Baron.
"There is nothing about you in it, I can give you that assurance, if it will set your mind at ease," said Erna, closing her blotting-book with the unfinished letter in it, and rising.