XXVI
The soothing effect of this conversation lasted several days, and then went off completely. His friend's blind trust became torture to him. Much as he had feared his suspicion, now an atom of uncertainty would have seemed a positive consolation, and have placed his crime within the range of human possibilities. Amongst the premises which Ulrich, according to his own words, had rejected as untenable, Leo's love for Felicitas had in all probability found a place. His friend could not easily have overlooked it in his logical inquiry, but the pure nobility of his unsuspicious heart had at once annihilated the evidence which his acutely reasoning mind had built up.
There were moments when he could almost have hated him for this. Had Ulrich been more mistrustful before his marriage, the whole ill-omened business might have turned out differently.
The more he thought over the change in Lizzie, and the new relations with her which at first had promised so happily, the more disquieted he became inwardly. If it was true that she no longer cared for him, how was the powerful influence that he exercised over her to be accounted for?
He dared not follow the line of argument further, but his thoughts hovered about the dangerous ground, as wild beasts prowl round a night-fire.
His only comfort in these troubles was the management of the estate. He felt that if there was any salvation for him, he must find it in work. He would work till all his muscles relaxed, and he came near death's door. And of work to be done, there was enough in all conscience.
October is a heavy month in the districts where beet-root is cultivated. The process of harvest demands the severest vigilance, for the labourers, in order to make more rapid progress, are fond of tearing the roots out of the ground and freeing them of the clinging earth by beating them violently together. Two cardinal errors, because the slightest flaw in the root lowers its sugar-producing value. The next stage of moving the crop as quickly as possible to the nearest export station is attended with even more labour and trouble.
In the small hours of the morning, long before the first gleam of dawn had crept across the level landscape, what had been dug out of the earth the day before was smartened up and piled on to the waggons, which in slow procession journeyed to Münsterberg, where the beet-roots were packed for the railway transit. It was a long and difficult route; especially the crossing of the river was apt to involve a thousand delays and mishaps, whereby much precious time was lost. And Leo did not shirk the arduous task of superintending the transit in person, a task which the most conscientious of bailiffs would willingly have shunted on to the shoulders of others. So there was much jeering astonishment in the district at the unheard-of spectacle of a high-born landed proprietor appearing on the scene before six o'clock in the morning. Those were fine, strenuous days, with a satisfying record of countless duties achieved.
At five minutes to three the watchman's pole tapped on his window-pane, a dreadful moment, but how could it be helped? On the stroke of three the shutters must be opened as a sign to the watchman that he was up, otherwise that official had orders to hunt his master out of bed with a douche of cold water. Twenty minutes later he was in the saddle.
Night and silence still reigned in the castle, only Christian, who despite the burden of years would not relinquish the service of himself mixing the "Gnädiger Herr's" warm cognac, stood with lamp and taper in the doorway, and greeted him with a tremulous "Good morning."
Then followed a smart gallop to the fields, where the work-people already nervously awaited him. Their lanterns flashing out of the darkness showed him the way. A sonorous morning greeting, returned by a chorus of voices; a rapid survey of the waggons; a few donner wetters! in addition--for in German country places no workman feels at home unless he is sworn at--and then, amidst a tremendous din, the procession of waggons heavily, but withal adroitly, got under way.
Half an hour later, they drew up at the Wengern ferry. The black river lay there in the darkness, yawning and gurgling like a huge monster gifted with invisible and destructive life. Over it the wind whistled and sighed, although not a twig stirred on the plains. The ferry-raft oscillated, the horses neighed anxiously, confused cries and words of command rang out through the air. The heavily loaded waggons rumbled, amidst the cracking of whips and rattling harness, down the precipitous decline of the dyke, as if they were bound to roll headlong into the abyss. They got on to the shaking landing-stage, where the bar brought the horses to a halt, and these swerved to one side in their nervousness, and tried to bite each other's flanks. The ferry could take ten at a time, the rest had to wait for the second journey. A curious feeling of panic seized Leo every time the rope slackened and the pulleys began to work. He rode up and down the bank and watched the fleet embark. It seemed to glide into space, and was swallowed up in darkness. Only the reflection of the lanterns made trembling threads of light across the black water. On the other side of the ferry the train divided, for it would have been a waste of time for the first relay to await the second.
When the last waggon had crossed, Leo's enjoyment began. He loosened the curb, in order to gallop the quicker after the receding carts. His limbs, numb from cold or wet, thawed, a tingling sensation of welcome warmth pervaded his body and winged his thoughts. So long as the race lasted, all trouble was forgotten. The early morning cramp of worry--a symptom which once had been unknown to his robust physique--grew less, and finally disappeared. The first suggestion of light that lay on the earth--dreamy and full of promise--found for a few moments a reflection in his soul.
With the rosy dawn, the first waggon made its entry into Münsterberg, and drew up at the station shed, near which was the great pair of scales. A tedious hour of wrangling and counting followed. Then he turned his face towards home. And in the castle dining-room, when grandmamma called the children to coffee, Leo made his appearance, too.
Sometimes he was covered with dust, sometimes drenched with rain. With clattering of spurs, and amidst barking of dogs, he would come into the room, and with a weary "Good morning," hurl his cap into a corner.
His day's work only began now in earnest, and when he entered his bedroom at night, he dropped into a chair as if felled by a sudden blow. Often he could scarcely find the strength to undress, and two or three times the pitiless pole had tapped and surprised him still sitting at his table, with flushed face and smoking lamp.
There was little time left for visits to Uhlenfelde, and Leo felt happy at having a valid pretext for excusing himself. Yet it seemed to him scarcely right to avoid meeting Felicitas alone. She might ask why he had been untrue to his word? She had a certain claim to his society, and he began, too, to be devoured with a longing to see and converse with her without Ulrich being present. He hoped for a favourable opportunity, such as the last had been, but it did not occur. So he counted, with a beating heart, the hours till he should be certain of Ulrich's absence, and meanwhile he stayed at home.
Then came an evening when the representatives of the Agricultural Association were holding their monthly meeting in Münsterberg, and he, no longer able to restrain himself, started with a kind of sad defiance for Uhlenfelde.
It was dark when he landed on the opposite bank. The wind was boisterous and cold, and he felt half frozen. Old Minna met him in the vestibule, the factotum of the old love intrigue, whose mediating offices he recalled with a shudder.
She explained to him, blinking and nodding, that the gracious little mistress wasn't well; that the gracious little mistress was suffering from cramp of the heart, but, nevertheless, the gracious one would receive him.
The familiarity with which the toothless, clapping mouth smirked up at him was revolting, and still more revolting was it that he found himself smiling back at her. But it was necessary to keep on good terms with her. Was she not an accomplice?
Shuddering, he hardly knew whether from cold or excitement, he paced up and down between the pillars. It was some time before the old hag returned.
The gracious little mistress had been lying down, but begged him to wait a few minutes. She would make her toilette as quickly as possible, that was to say, not completely, because such old friends needn't stand on ceremony with each other.
Leo compressed his lips. Had she chosen to be more explicit still, he must have endured it.
In Lizzie's sanctum, two lamps with rose-coloured shades were burning. Cushions and rugs were scattered about in confusion on the couch, as if some one had a moment before disturbed them by hastily jumping up. An open book lay face downwards on the carpet. He picked it up. The title was "The Golden Road to Virtue: Experiences of a Sinner."
He began to turn over the leaves haphazard. In the highly coloured style of a tract, a newly converted sinner related her marvellous rescue from vice with a sort of coquettish fervour, which made him fancy he saw the play of uplifted eyes with which this drawing-room Magdalene sought to lure the Saviour, like another lover, into her net. But from Leo, the Goth who since his school-days had read the very worst literature, even such trash as this wrung a certain unwilling respect.
"She is doing her best according to her lights," he thought, and laid the book down with care. Yes, she was in earnest.
When she entered the room, he noticed at once the dark rims which pain had left round her eyes, and the paleness of her lips.
And yet she had never seemed to him more beautiful. She wore a careless artistic negligée of blue cashmere, bordered with creamy lace, which accumulated on her breast into a filmy cloud. Her hair, only simply dressed, curled in countless small rings over brow and cheeks, and was massed on the crown of her head into a knot of curls, which was surrounded by a double circlet of gold. Leo remembered to have seen such heads in picture-galleries, bathed in golden tints and standing out in relief against a purple half-light, as if emerging from some background of mystery.
"You have been suffering?" he exclaimed, extending both hands towards her.
"I? Who told you so?" she replied, with a tired smile, as she sank into an easy-chair.
"Minna told me."
Instead of answering, she lifted her eyebrows languidly, and stretched out a limp hand for a cushion to support her neck. She must have just been scenting herself, for her person exhaled the opoponax perfume more overpoweringly than ever.
Leo felt signs already of the enervating stupefaction which always took possession of his brain in this atmosphere. It began like a slight pressure on the temples, spreading to his forehead, and finally encompassing his whole head with iron spans.
Felicitas buried her face in the hollow of her supporting arm and remained motionless.
"Good God! What ails you?" he demanded.
She raised her head slightly, and smiled at him hopelessly.
"What ails me, Leo? I wish that I had never been born. That's all."
"A pious wish, at least," he answered, with an unsuccessful attempt to sneer. "Now tell me frankly, Lizzie," he exhorted, "why do you rave against yourself like this? There is no sense in it. Tell me--why?"
"Because I am learning to repent."
A spasm shot through him, as if he were about to make an effort to protest against the word, but he no longer had the power. The life that he had been leading for the last two months had been nothing but a vain struggle against self-reproach and repentance. Hence the wrecking of his whole character. He got up, and in silence paced with unsteady steps the rosy, dimly lighted boudoir. Then he came close to her and leant against the edge of her chair.
She looked up at him with plaintive eyes; then, sighing deeply, pressed her face against his arm.
He would have drawn back, but he did not wish her to see that he thought this contact less harmless than she did.
"Leo, I suffer unspeakable agony," she whispered.
He drew his arm away from her abruptly, and sat down opposite her.
"So all the happiness you are giving Ulrich," he asked, "is nothing but a delusion and a sham?"
"Do you expect me to make it a reality?"
"I expect nothing. I only wish--I ..." He could not go on. His thoughts moved tardily, clumsily. He only knew that her astonished, resentful question had not displeased him so much as it ought to have done.
"The promise I made you," she continued, "I have honestly kept to the best of my ability. I have tried to be a good housewife, worthy of him, a wife of whom he need not be ashamed. But the penance I have imposed on myself is terrible. I suffer tortures that no man can have any idea of."
"And do you imagine that I am lying on a bed of roses?" he responded.
"You! What do you want?"
Then he burst forth. "I? Ah, woman, little do you know what I endure. I am in torment; I appear to myself polluted from head to foot. I scarcely know how to look honest people in the face. I think every one is pointing the finger of scorn at me. If it goes on like this, I must go out of my mind. Isn't that bad enough?"
She let her eyes rest on him full of curiosity.... Something like stealthy joy shone in them, for since the long, long ago he had never poured out to her such confidences, from the depths of his being.
"Can I help you?" she murmured.
He laughed stridently.
"Oh, please, Leo!"
"Don't talk of your helping," he answered; "help from your side would be only a fresh crime. Besides, how could you? Only one person can help me, and that is Ulrich."
"For God's sake!" she cried out, "you are not thinking of----"
"Calm yourself," he made answer. "I know what I owe you. We two are yoked together.... We are both bound to hold our tongues; that is an understood thing."
There was a pause. Then Felicitas asked in a trembling voice--
"Can you pray, Leo?"
He gazed at her in shocked amazement. "Pray, indeed! It's well for those who can. But I have sneaked out of the Almighty's way, like my dog Leo sneaks out of my way when he has torn a fowl to pieces."
"You ought to try," she said, with her most pious expression "It has done wonders for me lately.... I confide all my yearning to the merciful ear of the Saviour, and----"
"Yearning? Yearning for what?" he asked.
She smiled in confusion. "Really, you ought to pray," she repeated.
"Indeed!"
"Perhaps our Lord is only inflicting this trial on us as a test of our faith, and we shall come through it glorified. It may be that it is part of His system of salvation to----"
"Tell me," he broke in, aghast, "have you been calling on Brenckenberg?"
"God forbid!" she cried. "I am horribly afraid of him."
"Or perhaps on Johanna?"
"No," she answered, colouring; "Johanna has been to see me."
"Ah, indeed."
"Don't be so hard. I bless the day that led me to her arms, for she has shown me the way to the Cross."
"How often has she been here?"
"Three times."
"And you have made yourself over to her body and soul?"
She shook her head with a smile. "I have only done that for one person in the world," she said. "There is much that I cannot speak of to her, but her influence has been of infinite benefit to me."
He gazed before him meditatively.
She rose and came close to his chair. "Do you know, Leo," she said, with a dreamy smile, "it would be so nice if we prayed together."
"What do you mean?"
She was embarrassed. "I mean, if we took our common trouble to the Father...."
"Heavens! You think that would improve matters?"
She sighed. "It would be so beautiful," she whispered.
"How do you propose to do it?" he asked. "Shall we kneel down side by side on the carpet?"
She half laughed, and flushed deeper. "You are a heathen," she pouted, sitting down again, "and scoff at the most sacred things."
"Make your mind easy, dear child," he said seriously. "I have long ago lost the humour for scoffing."
"Well, then, you can at least pray for me, as I pray for you."
"Do you really do that?" he asked, while a feeling of gratitude stirred gently within him.
She nodded shamefacedly, and cast her eyes on her lap. "It is the utmost I can do," she murmured.
Again there was silence. Their eyes met and rested in each other's depths. A sweet, silent sympathy seemed to hover between them like a mysterious vapour. At this moment Leo did not feel the chafing of his chains. The thoughts of both went back to their past.
"We were too happy," breathed Felicitas, "that is why we must suffer so much now."
He did not answer. After the manner of man, he retained less grateful remembrances than she did of the bliss that had been theirs.
She became doubtful "Or perhaps you were not happy?" she asked.
He nodded, for, against his will, he was falling a victim to old memories.
She gazed at him with fixed eyes, her hands pressed hard against her forehead.
"Why did things turn out so?" she whispered. "Why could we not be strong, and resist the temptation?"
"Why? There is no 'why' in the matter. We were young and hot-headed and foolish, and we thought of nothing.... I, for my part, wonder now how I could have seemed so sagacious to myself, and not cried out to the whole world, 'See, what a dog I am. I have an affair with a woman ... a married woman!'"
"But at first, in the beginning ... how did you feel?" she asked.
"What? In the beginning?"
"When you ... first ... guessed my love."
"When ... ah, you mean that night?"
"Do you still remember it?" she asked, leaning over to him. A pink flame leapt up in her cheeks, her glance swam in dreamy reminiscence.
"How can such things be forgotten?" he replied, frowning and smiling at the same time. "One must carry them to the grave."
"And as you rode home ... that night ... what did you think about?"
"You are always asking what I thought," he answered, while visions of that hour mounted to his brain and made him hot "I rode on and on, as if I were drunk. Every moment I expected to fall out of the saddle. And when I came to my own meadows, I drew in the roan. You remember it was the old roan then, with the white feet. I tethered him to a meadow-hurdle, and flung myself on the grass. It must have been nearly two o'clock, but it was a very close, sultry night; just a streak of red dawn was already in the sky. There I lay, asking myself, 'Is it possible? Can you really have experienced it? Are there such hours to be lived on earth?' And the roan grazed all the time, and round about was the new-mown hay. That got into one's senses, ay, it was enough to drive one mad...."
A soft cry escaped her lips. She had thrown her head back over the side of the chair, the blue veins stood out on her throat, her breast heaved tumultuously, and, with both hands pressed to her heart, she lay gasping for breath.
"What is the matter with you?" he asked, in much concern, for he feared a repetition of that scene.
"Nothing--nothing. It is only my stupid heart, nothing else."
"Can't I get you anything?"
"Thank you. It will soon be better ... it is better now."
She sat up, and, as if to allay his fears, smiled mechanically into vacancy. Then she began to talk to herself, as if in a dream.
"And I ... I see it all before me still.... When you were gone ... I went to the window ... and listened ... to your footsteps in the garden; the horse neighed from the hedge ... it saw you coming ... and then there was a sound of hoofs, echoing softly ... and then all was quiet."
"And you had no qualms of conscience?"
She shook her head with a blissful smile, setting the waves and curls of her hair in motion so that they whipped her over cheek and throat. Then, recollecting how serious this question was, she knitted her brows and grasped her temples with both hands.
"In those days," she said dully, "I had no notion of what conscience meant; in those days I let my sinful happiness carry me along joyously to the edge of an abyss without reflecting. That night, in my ecstasy, I tore my clothes from my body...."
Suddenly she paused, shocked at herself. Her fingers, which had been fumbling at her throat, had caught in the cloud of lace. With a thin, long-drawn, tearing sound some thread of the delicate fabric collapsed. She smiled at him in dismay. Then she quickly turned the situation off with a jest.
"That is a pity," she said. "It is real old Flemish."
Daintily she knotted the ends together again. "Is that all right?" she asked.
He did not answer.
A fresh silence took paralysing possession of the pair. Their glance wandered away, as if they no longer dared meet one another's eyes. She, with flushed cheeks, gazed at the toe of her embroidered Turkish slipper, which with its gold arabesques shone forth from the hem of her blue cashmere gown. He gnawed his moustache, and stared up at the ceiling. The oil in the two lamps hissed and hummed. With a subdued murmur the wind caressed the windowpanes in passing. The clock ticked melodiously; it was a sound like a rain-drop falling at regular intervals on the strings of a harp.
Leo felt a speechless fury boiling within him. He wanted to move, but could not stir. At last he made a violent effort to regain his manliness.
"Why do we grope about in the past?" he asked, jumping to his feet. "It can lead to no good."
"It helps us to forget the misery of the present. Isn't that some good?" she replied.
He did not contradict her, and turned to go. But in parting he caught hold of her in a sudden spasm of rage, shook her hither and thither, and, burying his fingers in the elastic flesh of her upper arm, he bent down and muttered in her ear--
"You are right ... We will pray."