CHAPTER XV.
THE RIVALS.
Elise, immediately on reaching her room, hurried to the window and looked into the street, already darkened by the shades of evening. She was not mistaken—a carriage stood at the door; but to her surprise, she did not perceive the signal agreed on, she did not hear the post-horn blow the Russian air, "Lovely Minka, I must leave thee." Nor was it the appointed hour; neither did her chambermaid, who waited in the lower story, come to seek her. She still stood at the window, and involuntarily she felt herself worried by this equipage. A sharp knocking at the door was heard. Before she had time to come to any determination, it was hastily opened, and Bertram entered with a lady, deeply veiled, on his arm.
"Bertram!" cried Elise, drawing back shyly. "What do you wish here?"
"What do I wish here?" answered Bertram, earnestly. "I come to ask a favor of my sister. I have promised this lady that she shall see and speak with you. Will my sister fulfil her brother's promise?"
"What does the lady wish with me?" asked Elise, casting a timid look toward the mysterious veiled figure.
"She will herself tell you. She requested me, with tears, to bring her to Elise Gotzkowsky, for, she assured me, the happiness of her life depended on it."
Elise felt an icy shudder run through her. She laid her hand on her heart, as if to protect it against the terrible danger which she felt threatened her, and with trembling lip she repeated, "What does the lady wish with me?"
Bertram did not answer her, but letting go the arm of the unknown, he bowed low. "Countess," said he, "this is Mademoiselle Elise Gotzkowsky. I have fulfilled my promise: allow me now to leave you, and may God impart convincing power to your words!"
He greeted the ladies respectfully, and left the room quickly. The two ladies were now alone together. A pause ensued. Both trembled, and neither ventured to break the silence.
"You desired to speak to me," said Elise, finally, in a low, languid voice. "May I now beg of you—"
The lady threw back her veil, and allowed Elise to see a handsome countenance, moistened with tears. "It is I who have to beg," said she, with a touching foreign accent, while seizing Elise's hand, she pressed it warmly to her breast. "Forgive me; since I have seen you, I have forgotten what I had to say. At sight of you, all my words, and even my anger have left me. You are very beautiful. Be as noble as you are beautiful. My fate lies in your hands. You can restore me to happiness."
"God alone can do that," said Elise, solemnly.
"At this moment you are the divinity who has the disposal of my fate. You alone can restore me to happiness, for you have deprived me of it—yes, you, so young, so handsome, and apparently so innocent. You are the murderess of my happiness." Her eyes sparkled, and a bright blush suffused her hitherto pale cheeks. "Yes," cried she, with a triumphant laugh, "now I am myself again. My hesitation has vanished, and anger is again supreme. I am once more the lioness, and ready to defend the happiness of my life."
Elise drew herself up, and she, too, felt a change in her heart. With the instinct of love, she felt that this handsome woman who stood opposite to her was her rival, her enemy with whom she had to struggle for her most precious property. Passion filled her whole being, and she vowed to herself not to yield a single step to this proud beauty. With an expression of unspeakable disdain, she fixed her eyes upon the countess. Their flashing looks crossed each other like the bright blades of two combatants in a duel.
"I do not understand you," said Elise, with angry coldness. "You must speak more plainly, if you wish to be understood."
"You do not wish to understand me," cried the countess. "You wish to avoid me, but I will not let you. I have suffered so much that I will not suffer any longer. We stand here opposite each other as two women engaged in a combat for life and death."
Elise suppressed the cry of pain which rose in her breast, and compelled herself to assume a proud and impassible composure. "I still do not understand you, nor do I desire to contend with an unknown person. But if you will not leave my room, you will allow me to do so."
She turned to go, but the countess seized her hand, and held her back.
"No! you cannot go!" cried she, passionately. "You cannot go, for
I know that you are going to him, to him whom I love, and I come to
demand this man of you."
These half-threatening, half-commanding words, at last drove Elise from the assumed tranquillity she had maintained with so much difficulty. "I know not of whom you speak," cried she, in a loud voice.
But the countess was tired of dealing in these half-concealed meanings, these mysterious allusions. "You know of whom I speak," cried she, vehemently. "You know that I have come to demand the restoration of my holiest possession, the heart of my beloved. Oh! give him back to me, give me back my betrothed, for he belongs to me, and cannot be another's. Let my tears persuade you. You are young, rich, handsome; you have every thing that makes life happy. I have nothing but him. Leave him to me."
Elise felt furious. Like a tigress, she could have strangled this woman, who came to destroy her happiness. A wild, angry laugh rang from her lips: "You say that you love him," exclaimed she. "Well, then, go to him and ask him for his heart. Why do you demand it of me? Win it from him, if you can."
"In order to be able to win it, you must first release him from the fetters with which you have bound him."
An angry flush overspread Elise's pale face. "You become insulting," she said.
The countess paid no attention to these words, but continued still more vehemently: "Make him free. Loose the bands which fetter him, and then, I am sure, he will return to me and be mine again."
Elise stared terrified at the face of the countess, excited and streaming with tears. She had heard but one little word, but this word had pierced her heart like a dagger.
"Return to you?" asked she, breathlessly. "Be yours again? He was then once yours?"
"I yielded to him what is most sacred in life, and yet you ask if he was mine!" said the countess, smiling sadly.
Elise uttered a loud, piercing shriek, and covered her face with her hands. Her emotion was so expressive and painful that it touched the heart even of her rival. Almost lovingly she passed her arm around Elise's waist and drew her down gently to her on the sofa. "Come," said she, "let us sit by each other like two sisters. Come, and listen to me. I will disclose a picture which will make your soul shudder!"
Elise yielded to her mechanically. She let herself involuntarily glide down on the sofa, and suffered the countess to take her hand. "Feodor once belonged to her," she murmured. "His heart was once given to another."
"Will you listen to me?" asked the countess; and, seeing Elise still lost in silent reverie, she continued: "I will relate to you the history of Feodor von Brenda, and his unhappy, forsaken bride." Elise shuddered, and cast a wandering, despairing look around.
"Will you listen to me?" repeated the countess.
"Speak—I am listening," whispered Elise, languidly. And then, the Countess Lodoiska von Sandomir, often interrupted by Elise's plaintive sighs, her outbursts of heartfelt sympathy, related to the young girl the sad and painful story of her love and her betrayal.
She was a young girl, scarcely sixteen, the daughter of a prince, impoverished by his own fault and prodigality, when she became the victim of her father's avarice. Without compassion for her tears, her timid youth, he had sold her for a million. With the cruel selfishness of a spendthrift miser, he had sold his young, fresh, beautiful daughter for dead, shining metal, to a man of sixty years, fit to be her grandfather, and who persecuted the innocent girl with the ardent passion of a stripling. She had been dragged to the altar, and the priest had been deaf to the "No!" she had uttered, when falling unconscious at his feet. Thus she had become the wife of the rich Count Sandomir—a miserable woman who stood, amidst the splendor of life, without hope, without joy, as in a desert.
But one day this desert had changed, and spring bloomed in her soul, for love had come to warm her chilled heart with the sunbeam of happiness. She did not reproach herself, nor did she feel any scruples of conscience, that it was not her husband whom she loved. What respect could she have for marriage, when for her it had been only a matter of sale and purchase? She had been traded off like a slave, and with happy exultation she said to herself, "Love has come to make me free, and, as a free and happy woman, I will tear this contract by which I have been sold." And she had torn it. She had had no compassion on the gray hairs and devoted heart of her noble husband. She had been sacrificed, and now pitilessly did she sacrifice her husband to her lover. She saw but one duty before her—to reward the love of the man she adored with boundless devotion. No concealment, no disguise would she allow. Any attempt at equivocation she regarded as an act of treason to the great and holy feeling which possessed her whole soul.
Usually all the world is acquainted with the treachery and infidelity of a woman, while it is yet a secret to her husband. But the countess took care that her husband should be the first to learn of his injured honor, her broken faith. She had hoped that he would turn from her in anger, and break the marriage-bond which united her to him. But her husband did not liberate her. He challenged the betrayer of his honor, whose treachery was the blacker, because the count himself had introduced him into his house, as the son of the friend of his youth. They fought. It was a deadly combat, and the old man of sixty, already bowed down by rage and grief, could not stand against the strength of his young and practised adversary. He was overcome. The dying husband had been brought to Countess Lodoiska, his head supported by his murderer, her lover. Even in this terrible moment she felt no anger against him, and as the eyes of her husband grew dull in death, she could only remember that she was now free to become his wife. She had thrown herself at the feet of the empress to implore her consent to this marriage, on which depended the hope and happiness, the honor and atonement of her life. The empress had not refused her consent, had herself appointed the wedding day which should unite her favorite with the young countess.
But a short time before the arrival of this day, so ardently longed for, looked forward to with so many prayers, such secret anxiety and gnawing self-reproaches, the war broke out, and Lodoiska did not dare to keep back her lover, as with glowing zeal he hastened to his colors. He had sworn to her never to forget her; to return faithful to her, and she had believed him.
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