CHAPTER III
The next day I turned in my report to the boy--leaving out my asininities, of course.
He glowered at me with his dark eyes, and said:
"Let's say no more about it. I thought so."
But a week later he returned to the subject sort of by the way.
"You ought to go there again after all, uncle."
"Are you crazy, boy?" I said, though I felt as good as if a woman's soft warm hand were tickling the nape of my neck.
"You needn't mention me," he said, examining the tips of his boots, "but if you go there several times, perhaps things will gradually right themselves."
Gentlemen, you couldn't have broken a reed more easily than my resolution.
So I drove over again. And again and again.
I would let old Krakow go on with his vapourings, and I'd drink the coffee his wife made for me, and listen devoutly while Iolanthe sang her loveliest songs, even though music--in general--well, the oftener I visited Krakowitz the uncannier the business became, but something always tugged me back again. I couldn't help myself.
The old Adam in me, before going to sleep forever, wanted a Last Supper, even if it consisted of nothing but the pleasant sensation of a woman's nearness. In the depths of my soul I had no hopes of anything beyond that.
To be sure, Iolanthe continued to cast furtive glances at me, but what they indicated--whether a reproach, a cry for help, or merely the wish to be admired--I never could make out.
Then--on my third or fourth visit--the following happened.
It was early in the afternoon--blazing hot. From boredom or impatience I drove to Krakowitz.
"The Baron and Baroness are asleep," said the lackey, "but the young lady is on the verandah."
I began to suspect all sorts of things, and my heart started to thump. I wanted to go back home again, but when I saw her standing there, tall and snowy white in her mull dress, as if chiselled in marble, my old asininity came upon me again, stronger than ever.
"How nice of you to come, Baron," she said. "I've been frightfully bored. Let's go take a walk in the garden. There's a cool arbour where we can have a pleasant chat without being disturbed."
When she put her arm in mine, I began to tremble. I tell you, climbing a hill under fire was easier than going down those steps.
She said nothing--I said nothing. The atmosphere grew heavier. The gravel crunched under our tread, the bees buzzed about the spiræa bushes. Nothing else to be heard far or near. She clung to my arm quite confidentially, and every now and then made me stop when she pulled out a weed or plucked a piece of mignonette to tickle her nose with for an instant and then throw it away.
"I wish I loved flowers," she said. "There are so many people who love flowers, or say they love them. In love affairs you can never get at the truth."
"Why not?" I asked. "Don't you think it ever happens that two human beings like each other and say so--quite simply--without design or ulterior motives?"
"Like each other--like each other," she said tauntingly. "Are you such an icicle that you translate 'love' by 'like'?"
"Unfortunately, whether I am an icicle or not no longer matters," I answered.
"You're a noble-hearted man," she said, and looked at me sidewise, a bit coquettishly. "Everything you think comes out as straight as if shot from a pistol."
"But I know how to keep quiet, too," I said.
"Oh, I feel that," she answered hastily. "I could confide everything to you, everything." It seemed to me that she pressed my arm very gently.
"What does she want of you?" I asked myself, and I felt my heart beating in my throat.
At last we reached the arbour, an arbour of Virginia creeper, with those broad, pointed leaves which keep the sun out entirely. It's always night in arbours of Virginia creeper, you know.
She let go my arm, kneeled on the ground, and crept through a little hole on all fours. The entrance was completely overgrown, and that was the only way to get inside.
And I, Baron von Hanckel of Ilgenstein, I, a paragon of dignity, I got down on all fours, and crawled through a hole no larger than an oven door.
Yes, gentlemen, that is what the women do with us.
Inside in the cool twilight she stretched herself out on a bench in a half reclining position, and wiped her bared throat with her handkerchief. Beautiful! I tell you, she looked perfectly beautiful.
When I got up and stood in front of her breathless, panting like a bear--at forty-eight years of age, gentlemen, you don't go dancing on all fours with impunity--she burst out laughing--a short, sharp, nervous laugh.
"Just laugh at me," I said.
"If you only knew how little I felt like laughing," she said, with a bitter expression about her mouth.
Then there was silence. She stared into space with her eyebrows lifted high. Her bosom rose and fell.
"What are you thinking of?" I asked.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Thinking--what's the good of thinking? I'm tired. I want to sleep."
"Then go to sleep."
"But you must go to sleep, too," she said.
"Very well, I'll go to sleep, too."
And I also half stretched myself out on the bench opposite her.
"But you must shut your eyes," she commanded again. I obediently shut my eyes. I saw suns and light--green wheels and sheaves of fire the whole time--saw them the whole time. That comes from your blood being stirred up. And every now and then I'd say to myself:
"Hanckel, you're making a fool of yourself."
It was so quiet I could hear the little bugs crawling about on the leaves.
"You must see what she's doing," I said to myself, hoping to be able to admire her in her sleeping glory to my heart's content.
But when I opened my eyes the least little bit to steal a look, I saw--and, gentlemen, a shiver of fright went through me to the very tips of my toes--I saw her eyes fixed on me in a wide, wild stare, in a sort of spying frenzy, I may say.
"But, Iolanthe, dear child," I said, "why are you looking at me that way? What have I done to you?"
She jumped to her feet as if startled out of a dream, wiped her forehead and cheeks, and tried to laugh--two or three times--short, abrupt little laughs, like before--and then she burst out crying, and cried as if her heart would break.
I jumped up and went over to her. I should have liked to put my hand on her head, too, but I lacked the courage. I asked her if something was troubling her and whether she would not confide in me, and so on.
"Oh, I'm the most miserable creature on earth," she sobbed.
"Why?"
"I want to do something--something horrible--and I haven't got the courage to."
"Well, well, what is it?"
"I can't tell you! I can't tell you!"
That was all I could get out of her, though I did my best to persuade her to confide more in me. But gradually her expression changed and grew gloomier and more set. And finally she said in a suppressed voice as if to herself:
"I want to go away--I want to run away."
"Good Lord, with whom?" I asked, completely taken aback.
She shrugged her shoulders.
"With whom? Nobody. There's nobody here who takes up for me--not even the shepherd boy. But I must go away. I'm stifling here--I have nothing to hope for here. I shall perish. And as there's nobody to come and take me away, I'm going to go off by myself."
"But, my dear young lady," I said, "I understand you're a trifle bored at Krakowitz. It's a bit lonely--and your father kicks up a row with all the neighbours. But if you would consent to marry. A woman like you need only crook her little finger."
"Oh, nonsense! Empty words. Who would want me? Do you know anybody who wants me?"
My heart beat frightfully. I didn't mean to say it--it was madness--but there, it was out! I told her I wanted to prove to her that I for my part was not talking empty words--or something of the sort.
Because even after that I could not screw up my courage--God knows--to make love to her regularly.
She shut her eyes and heaved a deep sigh. Then she took hold of my arm and said:
"Before you leave, Baron, I want to confess something, so that you should not be under a wholly wrong impression. My father and mother are not asleep. When they heard your carriage coming up the drive, they locked themselves in their room--that is, mother did not want to, but father forced her to. Our being here together is a preconcerted plan. I was to turn your head, so that you should ask me to marry you. Ever since your first visit here both of them, both father and mother, have been tormenting me, father with threats, mother with entreaties, not to let the chance slip, because an eligible party like you would never turn up again. Baron, forgive me. I didn't want to. Even if I had loved you, oh, ever so much, that would have disgusted me with you. But now that this is off my conscience, now I am willing. If you want me, take me. I am yours."
Gentlemen, put yourself in my place. A beautiful young woman, a perfect Venus, throwing herself at me out of pride and despair, and I, a good, corpulent gentleman in the late forties. Was it not a sort of sacrilege to snatch up and carry off a bit of good fortune like that?
"Iolanthe," I said, "Iolanthe, dear, sweet child, do you know what you are doing?"
"I know," she replied, and smiled a woebegone smile. "I am lowering myself before God, before myself and before you. I'm making myself your slave, your creature, and I am deceiving you at the same time."
"You cannot even bear me, can you?" I asked.
At that she made the same old light-blue eyes of innocence, and said very softly and sentimentally:
"You're the best, the noblest man in the world. I could love you--I could idolise you, but----"
"But?"
"Oh, it's all so hideous--so impure. Just say you don't want me--just throw me over--I don't deserve anything better."
I felt as if the earth were going round in a circle. I had to summon my last remnant of reason not to clasp the lovely, passionate creature in my arms and hold her to my breast. And with that last remnant of reason I said:
"Far be it from me, dear child, to turn the excitement of this moment to my profit. You might regret it to-morrow when it would be too late. I will wait a week. Think it all over in that time. If by the end of the week you have not written to take back your word, I will consider the matter settled, and I will come over to ask your father and mother for your hand. But think everything over carefully, so that you don't plunge yourself into unhappiness."
She caught hold of my hand--this awful, pudgy, horny, brown hand, gentlemen--and before I could prevent her, she kissed it.
It was not till much, much later that the meaning of that kiss was to become clear to me.
Scarcely had we crawled out of the arbour when we heard the old gentleman screaming from a distance:
"Is it possible? Hanckel--my friend Hanckel here? Why didn't you wake me up, you scurvy blackguards, you? My friend Hanckel here, and I snoring--you dogs!"
Iolanthe turned scarlet. And I, to relieve the painful situation, said:
"Never mind, I know him."
Yes, gentlemen, I knew the old fellow, but I did not know his daughter.