XXXVIII
Felicitas returned from her last interview with Leo, glowing and intoxicated with the idea of death. What a harmonious ending it would be to die in the arms of her lover, breathing her last breath on his lips.
She recalled a picture that she had once seen in Königsberg, afterwards famous all over the continent It was called "Tired of Life," and represented a man and a woman who had bound themselves together with ropes, and were about to hurl themselves from some steps in the foreground into the sea. She had felt an envious tremour then, and now all at once the old foolish dream was to be fulfilled at Leo's side.
She had nothing to bind her to life; in every way it would be best to quit it. Ulrich became more and more of an invalid, and less and less disposed to make things bearable for her. The society of the neighbourhood afforded her no consolation; the women hated her, the men persecuted her with their love; and one was as unsatisfying and dull as the other. The future promised her nothing. She saw herself slowly fading away, bored to extinction by discussion about the crops and new scientific theories of drainage, of farm and dairy management. To die now would be a thousand times preferable.
"If only I had my little Paul," she thought, "there would at least be something to live for," and the momentary re-awakening of the maternal instinct within her filled her eyes with hot tears.
But in the midst of her tender compassion for herself and her dead child, the thought seized her like an icy hand, that in a few days, she, like him, would be lying in the dark damp earth. Was it possible? could it be?
In a year--or better still in ten years' time, after this love had burned itself out, it would be all very well. But now, when a new ready-made happiness lay before them, and would have to be left untasted, unenjoyed? Would it not be folly?
Once more she thought of the picture "Tired of life," and derived a little solace from it.
The man had not been in the least like Leo. As far as she could remember, he had worn a velvet coat like an artist, or something of the kind. Oh yes, artists, with their wide views and great minds, were the men who understood the hearts of women, and how to drag them into eternity. She wasn't sure about the velvet coat after all. But the woman's white satin dress she remembered distinctly; it had fitted like gleaming armour over the bust. That wasn't the fashion now, but what did fashions matter when one was going to die? The only thing that mattered was to look beautiful in death. And she began to consider what she should put on. Among her peignoirs and sautes de lit, she possessed one of softest crêpe de chine which fell in straight Greek folds, and was drawn in above the waist by a golden girdle. She had ordered it from Paris before her second marriage, and had been keeping it for some special occasion. This occasion would certainly have arrived now if Leo had not got hold of the stupid idea that they must creep out into the night-mists to put an end to themselves.
In any case, she would not forego the pleasure of trying on the artistic garment. She locked the doors, put shades of pink gauze on the toilette-table candles, and undressed. As she stood before the glass, her figure in the graceful Greek draperies illumined seductively by the subdued purple light, she was ravished by the sight of her own beauty.
He must see her like this. Just for one second, and all thought of dying would be abandoned. How glad she was that she had extracted that promise from him at the last, to come and fetch her. When she met him thus attired, what else could he do but snatch her in his arms, and instead of dying with her in the gruesome manner that he had proposed, he would tread again at her side the primrose path of passion, which Rhaden's jealousy had so hatefully interrupted.
Yes, so she would win him back to her altogether, her big, adoring boy.
But the night that she passed before this contemplated enjoyment was anything but peaceful. She recalled his face when he had said, "This time it will be no joke. We shall not drink toothache drops." And even granted that she could bring him to reason, there was always the vision of Johanna hovering in the background, eager to shatter their new-found bliss.
Was there no way out of it? She pondered and pondered till her head ached, staring into the darkness with wide, anxious eyes. The plan that she hit on at last did not differ eventually by a hair's breadth from the one which Leo had rejected as unworthy. She would write to Ulrich to-morrow and impress on him how Johanna's brain was becoming more unhinged every day. She would give striking examples of it, pity and defend the unfortunate creature, hint at a pending catastrophe, and so prepare his mind for having to deal with the delusions of a mad woman, if she should really make a betrayal of her secret.
That would do beautifully; and content at last, she quietly fell asleep.
The whole of the next day she was in a more or less happy mood. A kind of bridal excitement quickened the blood in her veins. It was true that every now and then a sickening memory of Leo's death-threats overcame her. But she was too confident of the victorious power of her beauty, which of old had held his senses captive, to entertain any serious fears.
She leaned back dreamily in a chair by the window and stared across the stream in the direction of Halewitz, counting the hours. Old Minna, who the day before had been told of Leo's coming midnight visit, and had received her instructions, ventured, as she hobbled through the room, to assist her mistress in this employment. "Now it is only eight hours, gracious little lady," and then, "Only seven and a half now." And so the time grew shorter.
At dusk a powdering of snow began to fall, renewing the purity of the far-stretching grey plains, and quickly obliterating the roads. Laughing blissfully, she began to beat with her fingers on the window-panes and to sing a song of the knight who came through floods and tempests, and by dangerous paths to greet his lady love.
Then she thought of her dead boy, and shed a few tears. "Ah, my little son," she murmured, clasping her hands, "you may be glad that you have found eternal peace so early."
And this made her joyous again, and so she passed a highly agreeable afternoon giving herself up to pleasant dreams, and she was no further troubled by suspense.
At five o'clock the lamps were brought in, and towards eight supper was served. Half an hour later a housemaid rushed in greatly excited, and announced that the gnädiger Herr had driven into the courtyard.
"Which gnädiger Herr?" Felicitas asked.
So calm and self-possessed was her mood that she didn't in the least grasp what had happened. The maid repeated her information, and her first emotion was one of resentment at her husband's coming home. She would have liked to beg him to turn round and go away again.
Only gradually did she become alive to the danger which hung over her. Half-stunned, she remained sitting at the supper tablet and rolled up her serviette.
"Johanna has played me this trick," she thought, for she hated her old friend so intensely that she attributed to her any evil that befell her, as a matter of course.
But the next moment she was convinced of the groundlessness of her suspicion. In was quite impossible that Johanna could know anything of what she had planned for to-day. Her meeting with Ulrich seemed to confirm this. Although for a moment the first searching look that he fixed on her was full of uneasiness, he soon became reassured at finding her sitting over the remains of her supper in solitude.
The alarming telegram had so far had effect that it had brought him back to Uhlenfelde unannounced post haste in a hired sleigh, but if he did not, in answer to Lizzie's questions, give the reason of his sudden return, it was simply to spare his wife unnecessary anxiety rather than because he mistrusted her.
He knew Johanna of old. She had always looked on the blackest side of things, and her well-meant warning might concern some question of estate management.
He resolved to drive over to Halewitz early the next morning, and to be content to-day only to subject house, yard, and staff to a more stringent examination than was usual on the day of his coming home.
He felt limp and low-spirited, and his wife's persistent chatter pained him. As soon as he could, he rose from the table to start on his round with the bailiffs.
Scarcely had he vanished through the door, than old Minna ran in, wringing her hands.
"Ah, gracious little mistress, gracious one," she whispered, "we must send word to Halewitz at once, otherwise something dreadful may happen."
Felicitas reflected.
If Leo heard of Ulrich's return, it was not improbable that he might change his tactics, and, to avoid a meeting with him, go back to his original intention of flight. Then she would be left behind to mourn for him to the end of her days. On the other hand, if he were allowed to come and all due precaution taken, there would not be a shadow of risk. At Fichtkampen Minna had often brought him to her in ten times more difficult circumstances.
And, besides, when she considered the matter more closely, she saw an unspeakable advantage in Ulrich's presence. Should dear old Leo refuse to be weaned altogether from his suicidal resolve, she would only have to tell him who had come home that day and was sleeping in the room through the dressing-room, to bring him to a tractable and peaceable frame of mind.
This decided her.
"Stay where you are, Minna," she said. "You know all the secrets of the house, and if you manage to smuggle him in all right I will give you another silk dress."
Towards ten o'clock Ulrich came back from his walk. He reported himself dead tired, and said that he would retire to his room.
"And mind you go to bed at once," Felicitas said.
He nodded assent, and kissed her on forehead and hand, according to his habit when saying good night.
"How hot your cheeks are," he remarked.
"I am so glad that you are here," she answered, and she did not lie.
"This time it will be no joke. We shall not drink toothache drops."
Again those words of Leo's occurred to her unpleasantly. She lighted her husband upstairs, closed the shutters in his room, and looked at the thermometer to see that he was neither too warm nor too cold for the night. Then, saying good night once more, she left him and went down again to give Minna some last hints.
When she entered her bedroom half an hour later she heard Ulrich still pacing up and down. That was fatal. She dared not put on the crêpe de chine peignoir yet, lest he should surprise her in it, for though their present relations were such that he would not come to her for conjugal reasons, he might, hearing her move, at any moment open the door and ask some question. So she contented herself with arranging her hair à la grecque, and giving her face a soft film of powder. The peignoir lay spread out ready in the dressing-room. The clock struck eleven. Still another hour!
What should she do to kill time? She sat down at the writing-table, and began to turn over old papers with a tremulous hand. A happy idea came into her head. She would begin a new existence from this hour, an existence full of glorious joy and imperishable youth, a masque of spring, a midsummer's night dream, a revel of sweetest, lightest laughter. For this end, all that had any connection with years of shame and tormenting anguish must be destroyed and burnt. Nothing should be left, nothing but him, whom, after what sacrifices God only knew, she had at last reconquered.
She tore letter after letter into little pieces. They contained declarations of love of every description, ranging from the sentimental balderdash of young Neuhaus to the cynical quips of old Stolt. As she read them she laughed.
"If he had not come home," she thought, "I should have had to give myself to one or the other."
Then her hand fell on her dead boy's little packet of letters. A cold shiver ran through her. But she wouldn't be sad. She would not. He was happily at rest for ever, her dear Paulchen. Still, it was not easy to destroy his letters. But it must be done, for it was more necessary than anything else. She kissed the poor little packet, then slowly tore the first sheet across, and the second. The clock chimed half-past eleven, and she started up and listened, breathing hard, into the darkness of the dressing-room. Ulrich's tired footsteps still echoed from the room beyond--up and down! Up and down!
The minutes flew, and there lay the Greek costume waiting to be donned. Might she, dare she, array herself in it now? With bent ear she listened and listened. It was too late to turn back.
Punctually at midnight Leo von Sellenthin entered the bedroom of Ulrich Kletzingk's wife, to take her with him to meet death, as they had agreed to meet it.
When she heard the door behind her creak on its hinges she sprang back from her post and softly drew the bolt. Only then had she the courage to look round.
Her first emotion as she beheld him standing at the door was one of intense chagrin that at this long-looked-for tryst she should appear before him as black as a crow. And this wound to her vanity put even the threat of death out of her head.
He wore a long riding-cloak, which completely hid his arms, and he was covered from head to foot with snow.
"Is it still snowing?" she asked, and wiped his moustache, from which icicles hung, with her black-bordered pocket-handkerchief. "My poor darling, how wet you are!"
He did not stir, or even take the fur cap from his head.
"You stand there like a post," she said. "Why don't you take off your things?"
And as he continued motionless, she unbuttoned his collar for him, and the heavy cloak slipped off his shoulders on to the floor. She fancied she heard something hard in its folds strike against the panelling of the wall.
"What was that?" she inquired, terrified.
"Nothing," he growled, and blew through his teeth in an attempt to laugh.
A cold shudder ran through her. "What a good thing Ulrich is there," she thought Had she been alone with Leo in the house, she would have been horribly frightened.
Then she threw both arms round his neck and pillowed her head against his breast. Thus she stood for a few minutes, murmuring--
"Now I have got you all to myself. But you must be very quiet," she added quickly, in a warning tone, "for some one is sleeping not far off."
He nodded.
"And do you love me?"
She saw his face change, and felt how he trembled. She pressed her hands against her breast, breathing rapidly.
"I must do it now," she said to herself. It was no matter whether he was asleep over there or not.
She took a box of matches from the bedside table, and said, smiling--
"Wait a minute, dearest. I have something to attend to."
She disappeared, softly bolting the door as she went.
Leo still stood on the same spot. "Here I am, at my goal," he thought. Then he let his eyes wander round the room in dull curiosity. He looked at the lamp hanging from the ceiling, and noticed that the silken, befringed shade was rose-pink. At Fichtkampen it had been blue. The difference impressed itself on his mind, which seemed incapable of taking in anything else. He wished that she would come back so that he needn't stand there feeling so stupid and wretched. Then he remembered the smiling promises with which she had parted from him the other day. A pang of anxiety, mingled with a weak hope to which he could not give a name, overwhelmed him. It seemed to him as if she had the power of paralysing his limbs, and draining the marrow from his bones.
"What am I doing here?" he stammered, looking round with a wild glance. "Why have I come?"
Five, ten minutes passed, and she did not reappear. He stared at the door through which she had vanished. It was certain that she had another scheme on hand. Whatever it might be, she would find him pliable as putty. How tired he was! He dragged himself to the chair on which she had been sitting before he came in. He buried his head in his hands and brooded absently over the papers and letters which were strewn about the writing-table.
"My Dear Mamma,
"Nearly all the boys are going home for Christmas. Eric Froben will stay here, because he has no mamma, and Fritz Lawsky because he has only a guardian, and If., who comes from India, and is as yellow as a Gruyére cheese. All the other boys are going home. Why mayn't I come home? Some have a longer journey to their homes than I have. Oh, I do want to come home so badly. I cry every morning and every night, because I mayn't come home----"
He had read so far mechanically, hardly conscious that he was not reading the advertisement column of a newspaper, when suddenly he awoke to the reality. He took the sheet in both hands, and turned it over and over, while a sound like a faint whine came from his throat. With fixed, fierce eyes, he read on.
He read of the distribution of presents beneath the Christmas tree; of the bell which would be rung when the happy hour came; what If., the boy from India, was to get. He did not skip one of the childish wishes, from the lead soldiers to the pocket inkstand and the sweets. He half rejoiced that each item stabbed his breast like a sharp sword. He seemed to hear a child's voice crying out of the distance and the night, "Uncle Leo! Uncle Leo!"
He sprang to his feet. His mind was made up. Lifting his cloak from the floor, he threw it over his shoulder, and tapped and tested the double trigger of the weapon that was ready for coming events in the breast-pocket. And so he waited, armed and prepared. Then, noiselessly, the door opened. A half-naked figure stood on the threshold with the rosy light of the lamp cast full upon it. The softly rounded arms were lifted longingly in an arch above her head, displaying her full breasts. The white drapery fell from her plump shoulders in straight, unbroken folds to her pink, bare feet. She stood there like the very goddess of love, although there was nothing divine truly about the small, round face, with its tip-tilted nose and sensuous lips.
He looked at her, and she seemed the incarnation of the sin to which he had been an easy victim from the first--the smiling, flattering sin that meant no harm yet stalked on its complacent way over all hindrances, even over the body of the dead. Wrath and disgust convulsed him. It was for this, then, that he had come, for this!
She, on her side, expected that he would rush at her with an exclamation of delight, and, as Ulrich was not yet asleep, she gave a warning "Hush!" Then she let the door fall back in the lock with experienced caution.
Still he did not move, and, misinterpreting his stupefaction, she determined to give him courage. She glided across the room, and, nestling against him, she whispered, half roguishly, half humbly--"There! Now you have come into your property." Her bare arms encircled his neck. But he pushed her away from him with swift decision.
"Listen, Felicitas," he said, fighting for breath, "I have just read a letter from your boy. After that I have no inclination to make love to you. Neither can I take you with me now. It would seem like murder. Die where and how you like. But, excuse me--I must be going."
At the mention of the letter she had started back; but now she smiled once more and pressed herself against him with renewed ardour.
"But, dearest," she whispered, "don't think any more about that stupid plan."
"What stupid plan?"
"Why, about death and dying."
"What?"
"Don't you see," she whispered, stroking his cheeks, radiantly confident of conquest, "it would be utterly ridiculous to die now? Why should we? Just when we have got each other again? It seems to me that we shall begin to live now for the first time."
In blank astonishment he gazed at her. He had been so accustomed during the last twenty-four hours to regard himself and her as destined that night for death that he could hardly grasp the ignoble course her lips proposed. When he had grasped it he was threatened by one of his old furious rages. The blood-red mist floated before his eyes, and a voice cried within him, "End it."
"Wretched woman," he said, and caught at his breast-pocket.
She noticed his action, and saw the blue gleam of steel flash towards her. In deadly terror she shrieked for help. Before he had time to cock the pistol she had fled into the dressing-room, crying in a shrill, piercing voice--
"Help! Murder! Help!"
"Beast!" he muttered, and put the weapon down on the writing-table.
For a moment he stood irresolute, not sure whether to attempt escape or let himself be found where he was. Then he raised his eyes and saw standing on the dark threshold a tall, ghost-like form. It was Ulrich, and the woman was grovelling at his feet. Leo felt no shock of surprise.
"Now he knows!" was his first thought--"knows." And he wondered coolly how he would take it.
"Speak," said Ulrich, in a voice that was strange to Leo. "What are you doing here?" It seemed as if he grew taller and taller.
"Speak," said the strange voice, a second time.
"He was going to murder me!" sobbed Felicitas, kneeling before him in her nakedness. "Because--I--wouldn't do--what he wanted, he was going to murder me----"
Leo came a step nearer. His hands itched to strangle her before she could lie further. But Ulrich's eyes petrified him.
"Don't listen to her," he stammered. "But shoot me down; here I am."
The figure in the door began to reel, and a long bony hand was stretched out to the wall for support.
"Can he survive it?" thought Leo, in readiness to catch him if he fell. But Ulrich, with an effort, pulled himself together.
"Not here," he said; "we will meet at daylight!"
"Where?"
"On the Isle of Friendship, Leo."
"Very well, on the Isle of Friendship." And he turned to the door.
Outside old Minna was waiting in the darkness.
"Make haste, sir," he heard her say; "there are people moving about already down below."