CHAPTER X.
Winter has come during the night to the island, and still the snow-storm rages; and the countless flakes, swept down by its swift wings from northern lands, fall thick upon roofs and trees, upon meadows and fields; and one who looked for a time into the darkling air, from which the white stars are dropping forever, felt as if he were rising upward with moderate rapidity--up and up, into the gray boundless space.
Oldenburg seemed to-day to enjoy the melancholy sight to his heart's content. He is standing by the window in his study at the Solitude, and looks fixedly at the sea, or rather at the snow-filled air, for of the sea little or nothing can be seen to-day. He has been standing there many hours to-day, and scarcely noticed Herrman, who comes and goes with mournful mien, and packs several large trunks which stand open about the room, filling them with clothes and linen and books. The good servant's good wife Thusnelda, the comfortable fat housekeeper, has repeatedly bustled into the room under some pretext or other, and once actually dared to ask her master if he would not come to dinner. But he had only replied,
"Very well, my good woman."
Since then several hours have elapsed. The baron had intended to leave directly after dinner, but he had not ordered the horses yet. He can hardly hope that the weather will clear up, for the store-houses of snow seem to be inexhaustible; and besides, it would be the first time that he allows the bad weather to keep him from carrying out his purpose. Moreover, if he had intended to reach the ferry before night, noon would have been the very latest hour at which to start. He is probably not very much pressed to go. Perhaps he is rather pleased to see the snow-storm, as it gives him an excuse from without; or it may be he expects some important news, for he has repeatedly asked during the day. "Has nobody been here?" And every time when his old Herrmann has been compelled to answer, according to the truth, "No, sir!" he has turned again to the window and continued to drum upon the panes with his fingers.
It does not look very probable now that anybody will come. The muddy-red streak far down on the horizon shows that the sun, which has been invisible all day long, is sinking into the sea. A fierce blow, shaking the windows and racing with a howl and a groan around the house and through the high tops of the pine-trees, tears the snow-filled air asunder, and the infinite waste of gray waters, with their foam-crested waves, spreads out in fearful solemnity before the glance of the solitary man. He opens the door and steps out on the balcony; he leans upon the railing through whose iron bars the wind is whistling in shrill notes. He does not cast a look at the tall chalk-cliffs which stretch far out to the right and the left, and which now, with the stern forests they bear on their rugged brow, shine in the setting sun for a moment in blood-red colors. He looks fixedly down, where, a hundred feet below him, the wild ocean lashes the huge blocks of rock on the shore with grim thunder. The white spray rises at times in eddies, driven up by the fierce wind between sharp edges of the steep walls, till it reaches him and fills his hair and beard with icy-cold drops. But he does not mind it. In his soul there rages a wilder and stormier tempest than without. He feels as if he were utterly alone in this desert of a world--as if upon this desert an eternal night were gradually sinking down, and as if he were condemned to live on in this eternal darkness.
It serves you right! he murmured. Why did you let yourself be led by the nose once more, when you ought to have known perfectly well how it would end? And yet! She was so sweet, so kind all these days; she has never been so before. Could I close my ear to the siren-song that never sounded nearer or dearer to me? Siren-song--that it is! What do women know of the true love which men feel in their hearts? All is caprice with them--idle play and vanity. A pair of blue eyes, a smooth tongue, and courteous ways, and you have the doll that pleases good little children. They do not ask whether the little doll has a heart in her bosom, or brains in her head. On the contrary, that might be inconvenient, tedious; that would not suit the nursery.
Well, let it be, then! Let me lay aside the fool's cap forever and for aye! As the evening twilight darkens yonder on the rocks, I will wipe off this rosy illusion from my soul and grow rough like the wintry sea; and as nobody loves me, I will love nobody in return. I will go through life lonely, as that snowbird is winging his way through the pathless air, and not even ask whether he has prepared for himself a sheltering nest under some overhanging cliff on the coast.
"That you will not do! You are a man; and a man is a great deal more than the birds under the heavens."
Oldenburg turned round in amazement, to see who it was that could have spoken these words in such a calm, firm tone. Close behind him stood old Baumann.
"I come," said the old man, answering Oldenburg's anxiously inquiring looks, "by order of Frau von Berkow."
"What is it?" said Oldenburg, his blood rushing madly to his heart; "speak out! Frau von Berkow is ill, is she?"
"Not Frau von Berkow," replied Baumann; "another woman, who came about an hour ago to our house, with a child, and who wishes to see the baron once more before her death, which seems not to be very far off."
"A woman--with a child!" It seemed as if a veil had fallen from the baron's eyes.
"Come!" he said.
Melitta's sleigh, with two powerful bays, was standing before the door of the Solitude. The men got in; Oldenburg took the reins and the whip from the hands of the servant, who sat behind, and off they went at full gallop through the dark pine-woods; out of the woods into the level land, which gradually falls off towards Fashwitz, and into the wide snow plain, with its distant gray horizon, and a few scarcely-perceptible trees and cottages here and there, thickly covered with snow. The road also was nearly hid, and even the track made by the sleigh in coming had long been effaced by the storm. It required all of Oldenburg's familiarity with the country, and all of his skill in driving, to be able to race as he did through this wilderness, up hill and down hill, between bottomless morasses on both sides. Not a word was spoken on the way, and half an hour later the sleigh with the steaming horses was standing before the door of the great house at Berkow. They went into the house.
"Will you please, sir, step into the garden-room?" said old Baumann.
He went in first. A lamp was lighted on the table, and in the grate a fire on the point of going out. The old man screwed up the lamp, kindled the fire afresh, and then disappeared through the door which led into the red-room.
Oldenburg was standing before the fire-place, warming his cold hands. A thousand confused thoughts filled, his mind at once; he walked up and down the room a few times, and then stood again before the fire.
"Melitta was right," he said to himself. "Before this wrong is atoned for, I cannot expect any happiness. And how can I make atonement? Is it not the curse of an evil deed that it brings forth more and more evil deeds? It was the shadow of to-day which fell upon our souls yesterday in anticipation. How stupid I was, how blinded by passion, that I did not understand the warning! Yes, she has an older, a holier right; and woe is me if I were to disregard this right! It would rise ever and again and testify against me! But it is terrible that the Furies should follow us even into the temple where we desire to purify ourselves of our guilt--even into the sacred shrine which holds our whole happiness!"
The rustling of a lady's dress behind him made him start. He turned round, and there stood Melitta, pale and serious, her sweet, fair eyes shining with the traces of recent tears.
"Melitta," said Oldenburg, offering her both hands, "can you forgive me?"
"I have nothing to forgive, Adalbert," she replied, placing her hands in his; "let us bear in patience what must be borne."
They looked silently into each other's eyes for a moment.
"There is still much between us," said Oldenburg, sadly. "I cannot see to the bottom of your heart."
"That is why we must bear in patience," said Melitta.
Oldenburg let go her hands.
"How is she?"
"She is very feeble: in a state between sleeping and waking, but she knows me; and she has asked for you several times."
"Is Czika with her?"
"Yes."
"May I see her?"
"Let me first go in alone. I shall be back directly."
After a few minutes, during which Oldenburg had walked up and down in the room, his arms crossed on his breast and his eyes fixed on the ground, Melitta reappeared in the door.
"Come!"
Oldenburg followed her through the red-room into a half-dark room--Melitta's chamber. It was the first time in his life that he saw it; and, as she led him by the hand to the door, the thought passed through his head, what a strange circumstance it was that admitted him to this room. At the door on the opposite side Melitta stopped, and whispered: "She is in there."
They went in. It was a large, very magnificent apartment, filled with rococo furniture, which belonged to the guest-chambers of the great house. Heavy curtains of yellow silk darkened the windows, the sofa and the chairs were covered with the same material, and the light of the fire that was burning in the grate was reflected here and there by the highly-polished floor of inlaid wood. The mantel-piece was supported by two little Amors, and on it stood an ormolu clock, representing the entrance to a grotto, guarded by genii and butterflies, from which a man with a scythe came forth whenever the hour struck. Paintings in the taste of the rococo period, full of sheep, shepherds, and shepherdesses, adorned the room, in heavy gilt frames. A massive lustre with glass crystals hung from the ceiling, and played in the fitful light which filled the room in all the colors of the rainbow. And in the midst of all this splendor, in an immense tent-bed, the silk curtains of which were drawn back, lay upon snowy pillows a poor woman, sick unto death, who had first seen the light of the stars in distant Hungary behind a hedge, and who had spent her nights through all her life in barns and stables, and still more frequently under the open sky, on the heath, or in the woods, beneath the lofty vaults of ancient beech-trees. Her large eyes, shining with feverishness, wandered restlessly over all the costly objects that surrounded her, and ever and anon remained fixed for a while on her child, as if this were the only point where her troubled spirit could rest in peace. Czika was standing by her bed, dressed in the fantastic gay costume which she commonly wore, even outside of the stage, in the interest of art. Her beautiful face looked more serious and careworn than usual. She did not take her eyes from her mother. She showed evidently that she knew perfectly well what all this meant; that she saw death in the yellow hue of her mother's brown cheeks, in the pallor of her red lips, and in the cold drops of perspiration which were bedewing her painfully-corrugated brow.
Near a small table, close by the bed, stood old Baumann. He was very busy preparing a cooling drink, and he hardly looked up from his occupation when Melitta and Oldenburg very quietly entered the room.
But the sharp ear of the sick woman had heard them. A faint smile of satisfaction passed over her wrinkled face. She beckoned them to her.
As they approached the bed, Czika came to stand between them. This seemed to please Xenobia. Her smile became brighter, then it vanished, and she said, in broken German:
"Put your hands on Czika's head."
Oldenburg and Melitta did so. Oldenburg's hand trembled as it touched the soft hair on the fair young head.
"And give me the other hand!"
Xenobia took their hands, and when she saw the chain formed in this manner, she murmured something which the others did not understand, and which might have been a curse or a blessing, or both, for the expression of her face changed at every word.
Then she said:
"Swear that you will not abandon the Czika!"
"We swear!" said Oldenburg; while Melitta, unable to utter a word, only moved her lips.
Xenobia let go their hands, in order to cross her own hands on her bosom.
"Now leave Xenobia alone," she said, in a very low tone of voice; "only Czika is to stay, and the old man."
Oldenburg and Melitta looked at each other, and then at the old man, who came up with the cooling drink. He nodded his venerable gray head, as if he meant to say: "Do what she asks."
Oldenburg did not dare refuse. He took Melitta's hand and led her out of the room. The clock on the mantel-piece began to strike. The man with the scythe was slowly coming out of his cave.
They went back into the garden-room. Neither said a word. Oldenburg threw himself into an arm-chair near the fire, and glared with troubled looks at the coals. Suddenly he felt Melitta's hand on his shoulder.
"Adalbert!"
He looked up at her with a questioning look.
"You will not leave, I am sure?"
"If you wish it--no!"
"And you will wait in patience till--you can see the bottom of my heart?"
"Yes!"
"Give me your hand on it."
Oldenburg pressed her hand to his face; she felt his tears flowing. She bent down and kissed his brow. Then she sat down on the other side of the fire and fell into deep thought.
The bells of a sleigh interrupted the silence. It was Doctor Balthasar. While the old gentleman was warming his hands by the fire, Oldenburg told him what was the matter.
"Hem! hem!" said Doctor Balthasar. "Know all: tubercles in the lungs--travelling in this weather--can't recover. Hem! hem! Where is she?--let us have a look at her."
As the three were turning round to leave the room, the door opened, and old Baumann, with Czika by his side, entered.
"You are too late!" he said to Doctor Balthasar.
Melitta, sobbing aloud, drew Czika to her heart.
"Hem! hem!" said Doctor Balthasar; "the old story--always call me when all is over--hem! hem! Let us have a look at her."