CHAPTER XIII.
For Ferdinanda the night had had no terrors, the morning no darkness. In her soul was brightest day, for the first time for many months; for the first time, indeed, she thought, since she knew what a passionate, proud, ambitious heart beat in her bosom. They had often told her--in former days, her mother; later, her aunt, her friends, all--that it would one day bring her unhappiness, and that pride went before a fall; and she had always answered scornfully, "Then I will be unhappy; I will fall, if happiness is only to be had at the mean price of humility, which always grovels in the dust before fate, and sings hymns of praise if the wheels of envious fate have only grazed and not crushed her. I am not like Justus or Cilli." And she had been unhappy, even in the hours when the enthusiastic artists--Justus's friends--had done homage in unmeasured terms to the blooming beauty of the young girl; when these men praised her talents, told her she was on the right road to become an artist; finally, that she was an artist--a true artist. She did not believe them; and if she really were an artist, there were so many greater ones--even Justus's hand reached so much higher and further than hers; laughing, and apparently without trouble, he gathered fruits for which she strove with the most intense effort, and which, as she secretly acknowledged to herself, must always be beyond her reach. She had told her woes to that great French artist, on whom her beauty had made such an overpowering expression. He had for some time only put her off with courteous and smiling words; at last he had said seriously:
"Mademoiselle, there is only one highest happiness for woman, and that is love; and there is only one talent in which no man can equal her--that is again love." The words had crushed her; her artistic talent was then only a childish dream, and love! Yes, she knew that she could love--unspeakably, boundlessly! But the man was still to be found who could awaken that love to its heavenward soaring flame; and woe to her when she found him! He would not comprehend her love, he would not realise it, and he would certainly be unable to return it; perhaps would shrink back before its fire, and she would be more unhappy than before. And was not this gloomy foreboding already sadly fulfilled? Had she not already felt herself unspeakably unhappy in her love for him who had come to her as if sent from heaven--as if he himself were one of the heavenly ones? Had she not already, countless times, with hot tears, with bitter scorn, with writhing despair, complained, exclaimed, cried out, that he did not understand or realise her love, never would understand or realise it? Had she not clearly seen that he trembled and shrank back, not from the danger which threatened him on the dark path of his love--he was as bold and dexterous as man could be--but before her love, before her all-powerful, but also all-exacting, insatiable love? She had experienced this again yesterday, at the very instant that followed that happy moment when she had received and returned his first kiss! And to-day; to-day she smiled at her doubts amidst tears of joy; to-day she asked pardon of her beloved, amidst a thousand burning kisses that she pressed in thought on his beautiful brow, his tender eyes, and his dear mouth, for every harsh or bitter word or thought she had ever had against him, and which she never, never would say or think again. She had tried to work, to put the finishing touches to the "Reaping Girl," but her hand had been hopeless, powerless, as in her first attempts, and she had recollected, not without a shudder, that she had vowed not to finish the group. The vow had been--contrary to her anticipations--a forerunner of happiness. What was to her this miserable image of jealous revenge? How worthless appeared to her all this extensive apparatus of her work--this lofty room, these pedestals, these mallets, chisels, modelling-tools; these casts of arms, hands, feet; these heads, these busts from the originals of old masters; her own sketches, attempts, completed works--childish strivings with bandaged eyes for a happiness that was not to be found here--that was only to be found in love, the sole, true talent of woman--her talent, of which she felt that it was unique, that it outshone everything that had till then been felt as love and called love! She could not bear her room this morning; even her studio seemed too small. She stepped into the garden, and wandered along the paths, between the shrubs, under the trees, from whose rustling branches drops of the night's rain fell upon her. How often had she hated the bright sunshine, the blue sky, that had seemed to mock at her anguish! She looked in triumph now up into the grey clouds that passed, dark and heavy, above her head. What need had she of sun and light--she in whose heart was nothing but light and brightness? The drizzling rain that now began to fall would only serve to cool the internal fire that threatened to consume her. Driving clouds, drizzling rain, rustling trees, whispering shrubs, even the damp, black earth--all was wonderfully beautiful in the reflection of her love! She went in again and seated herself in the place where he had kissed her, and dreamed again that happy dream, while near at hand was hammering and knocking, and, between whiles, chattering and whispering, and the rain rattled against the tall window--dreamed that her dream had the power to draw him to her, who now opened the door softly and--it was only a dream--came towards her with the tender smile on his dear lips and the beautiful light in his dark eyes, till suddenly the smile died on his lips, and only the eyes still gleamed, but no longer with tender light, but with the gloomy, melancholy depths of her father's eyes. And now they were not only her father's eyes; it was more and more himself--her father. Good God! She had started out of her doze; her limbs trembled; she sank back in the chair, and drew herself up again. She had seen at once in the glance of his eyes, in the letter which he held in his hand--seen with the first half-waking glance why he had come. She said so, in half-awake, wild, passionate words. He had bent his head, but he did not contradict her; he answered nothing but "My poor child!"
"I am your child no longer if you do this to me."
"I fear you have never been so in your heart."
"And if I have not been so, whose fault is it but yours? Have you ever shown me the love that a child is entitled to ask from its father? Have you ever done anything to make the life you gave me a happy one? Has my industry ever drawn from you a word of praise, or my success a word of acknowledgment? Have you not rather done everything to humble me in my own eyes, to make me smaller than I was in reality, to insult my art, to make me feel that in your eyes I was no artist and never should be one--that you looked on all this as nothing better than a large doll's house, which you had bought for me in order that I might trifle and idle away my worthless time here! And now, now you come to tear my love from me, only because your pride wills it so--only because you consider it an insult that such a poor, useless creature should will, or wish anything that you do not wish and will! But you are mistaken, father; I am, in spite of all, your daughter. You may repudiate me, you may drive me to misery, as you might dash me in pieces with that hammer, because you are the stronger; but you cannot tear my love from me!"
"I both can and will."
"Try!"
"To try and to succeed are one. Would you be the mistress of Lieutenant von Werben?"
"What has that question to do with my love?"
"Then I will put it in another form. Have you the face to make yourself the equal of those wretched, foolish creatures who give themselves to a man, whether without marriage or in marriage--for marriage does not mend matters--for any other price than that of love, for which they give their own in exchange? Herr von Werben has nothing to give you in exchange; Herr von Werben does not love you." Ferdinanda laughed scornfully. "And he has come to you, of whom he knew that you pursue him and his kind with blind hatred, to tell you that?"
"He has not come; his father was forced to take the hard step for him, for which he himself had not the courage, for which the father had to force the son's consent."
"That is----"
"Not a lie! On my oath. And further, he did not even go to his father of his own free will; he would not have done so to-day, he would perhaps never have done it, if his father had not sent for him to ask him if it were true what the sparrows said on the housetops, and what insolent wretches wrote in anonymous letters to the unsuspecting fathers, that Lieutenant von Werben had a love affair on the other side of the garden-wall, or--what do I know!"
"Show me the letters!"
"Here is one; the General will doubtless willingly let you have the other. I doubt whether his son will lay claim to it." Ferdinanda read the letter. She had taken it for granted that only Antonio could have been the traitor; but this letter was not from Antonio, could not be from Antonio. So that other eyes than the love-inspired, jealous eyes of Antonio had seen through her secret. Her pale cheek glowed in angry shame. "Who wrote the letter?"
"Roller; in the letter to the General, he has not disguised his hand." She gave the letter hastily back to her father and struck her hands together, as if she wished to remove all trace of its touch: "Oh, the shame, the shame!" she murmured; "oh, the disgrace! the horror of it!" The dismissed overseer had been at first received in the family, till Ferdinanda saw that he had dared to raise his eyes to her; she had taken advantage of a dispute he had had with her father first to loosen and then to put an end altogether to his relations with the family. And the insolent, evil eyes of this man--"Oh, the shame! oh, the disgrace!" she murmured again. She paced rapidly up and down, then hastened to the writing-table, which stood at the far end of the long room, wrote a few hurried lines, and then came back with the note to her father, who had remained motionless on the same spot: "Read it!" And he read:
"My father is ready to sacrifice his convictions for my sake and consents to my marriage with Lieutenant von Werben. I, however, for reasons which my pride refuses to write down, reject this marriage now and for ever as a moral impossibility, and release Lieutenant von Werben from any obligation which he has, or thinks he has, towards me. This determination, which I have made of my own free will, is irrevocable; any attempt on the part of Lieutenant von Werben to overthrow it, I shall regard as an insult.
"Ferdinanda Schmidt."
"Is that right?" He nodded. "Am I to send him this!"
"In my name." She turned from him, and, with a modelling-tool in her hand, went up to her work. Her father folded the letter and went towards the door. There he remained standing. She did not look up, but appeared quite absorbed in her work. His eyes rested on her with an expression of deep sorrow. "And yet!" murmured he, "and yet!" He closed the door behind him and walked slowly across the yard, through whose wide, empty space the storm was raging.
"Deserted and empty!" he murmured, "all deserted and empty. That is the burden of the song for her and me."
"Uncle!" He started from his gloomy musings. Reinhold came hurriedly from the house towards him--bareheaded and excited.
"Uncle, for heaven's sake!--the General has just left me. I know all--what have you decided?"
"What must be."
"It will be the death of Ferdinanda."
"Better death than a life of dishonour." He stepped past Reinhold into the house. Reinhold did not venture to follow him; he knew that it would be useless.