Countess Erika's Apprenticeship

by Ossip Schubin

CHAPTER XXV.

"Erika! Erika!" old Countess Lenzdorff calls in a joyful voice across the garden of the Hôtel Britannia. "Erika!"

The old lady is sitting by the breast-work bordering on the Canal Grande. Erika is coming out of a side-door of the hotel. Her grandmother had sent her upstairs for her parasol. How strange the girl looks, with cheeks so white and lips so feverishly red! But that is a secondary matter: what must strike every one who looks at her to-day is the transfigured light in her eyes,--a light shining as through tears.

"Come quickly!" her grandmother calls. "I have a surprise for you." But Erika does not come quickly: she walks slowly through the blooming garden to her grandmother, who has an open letter in her hand.

The little garden is basking in the sunshine; the heavens are cloudless; the lagoon looks as if it were sprinkled with diamonds, as the black gondolas glide past, the sinewy brown throats of the gondoliers shining like bronze. In the fragrant garden can be heard, now loud, now faint, the sound of gay voices on the water mingled with the constant lapping of the waves and the jangle of church-bells.

"From whom does this letter come?" her grandmother asks Erika, with a smile.

"I--I cannot imagine," the girl murmurs. Her pale cheeks grow paler, and a fixed look comes into her shining eyes.

"Indeed? From whom should a letter come which I am so glad to receive?"

Erika starts.

"From Goswyn!" says her grandmother. "But what a face is that!"

"Am I to be as glad as you are because Goswyn at last condescends to take some notice of the kind sympathy you have shown him?" says Erika. But the old hard intonation of her voice is gone: it sounds weary and dull.

"Never mind!" her grandmother rejoins, triumphantly. "First read the letter, and then tell me if you still have the faintest disposition to be vexed with him. Whether you have any regard for him or not, the letter will please you. He asks, among other things, whether we shall be in Venice next week, and if he may come to us here."

Erika holds the letter in her hands, but when she fixes her eyes upon it the bold distinct characters swim before them. She looks away into the dazzling sunlight above the lagoon.

Among the black gondolas with white lanterns she now perceives Prince Helmy in his yellow cutter, which usually lies at anchor in front of the Hôtel Britannia. Espying the two ladies, the Prince clambers up to them over one or two gondolas, and asks, "Can you ladies not be induced to intrust yourselves to me? It would be far pleasanter to go to Chioggia in my cutter than in the steamer."

"It certainly would," the old Countess replies, with more amiability than she is wont to display towards Prince Helmy. "But," she adds, "unfortunately I cannot have that pleasure. I have promised to act as chaperon to Constance Mühlberg's party, and I cannot disappoint her."

"I'm sorry."

At this moment a merry old voice cries, "Your obedient servant, ladies!" It is Count Treurenberg, dressed in a light summer suit, all ready for the excursion to Chioggia. "You are going to Chioggia too?"

"We are."

"'Tis a pity you cannot go with us."

"I have just been telling them," observes Prince Helmy.

"Do you know whether Lozoncyi is to be of the party?" asks Treurenberg.

"I have no idea," Countess Lenzdorff replies, rather coldly.

"What do you think of the wife who has made her appearance so suddenly? Something of a surprise, eh?"

"A surprise which does not interest me much," the Countess replies, haughtily.

"Of course not. But there are some of our Venetian beauties who could hardly say as much. 'Tis odd that the fellow should have been so close-mouthed concerning his 'indissoluble tie.' I saw him once in Paris with the individual in question, but I never dreamed that that yellow-haired dame had any legitimate claim upon him. Probably a youthful folly."

"A millstone that he has hung about his neck," Prince Helmy says, feelingly,--"a burden that will weigh him down to the earth. I am very sorry for him."

"H'm!" Count Treurenberg drawls, "my pity is not so easily excited. Such women make an artist's life very comfortable; and she certainly has interfered but little with him hitherto." He rubs his hands with a significant glance.

"Are you ready, Count?" Prince Helmy asks, after the pause that follows Treurenberg's words.

The Count is ready, and takes leave of the ladies. Shortly afterwards they see him in the cutter with the Prince, who is helping his two sailors to hoist the tiny sail. The gentlemen wave a respectful farewell to the Lenzdorffs; the cutter glides off, at first slowly from among the gondolas, then more and more swiftly, skimming the water like a bird in the direction of the line of foam which marks the boundary of the open sea.

It is a trifle which has made the weight upon Erika's heart heavier in the last minute. She has said to herself that never again after to-morrow will a man accord her the respectful courtesy just shown her by the two gentlemen in the cutter.

Her attack of cowardice is a short one, however. Immediately afterwards she feels the joy of a fanatic who delights in suffering one pang more for his convictions.

"I cannot see why we have not been called to lunch," Countess Lenzdorff remarks, consulting her watch; then, observing Erika, she is startled by the girl's looks. "What is the matter with you?" she asks, and when the girl's only answer is a rapid change of colour, the thought occurs to her for the first time, "Is it possible that she cares for Lozoncyi?--my proud Erika?" She observes her grand-daughter narrowly, and an ugly suspicion invades her heart. "What reply shall I make to Goswyn?" she thinks. "Good heavens! I had no idea! Perhaps it is only fancy. But if---- It would be my fault. And people call me shrewd! Poor child!"

Meanwhile, Fritz announces that lunch is served.

"My child, you are eating nothing," the old Countess says anxiously to her grand-daughter, who is doing her best to swallow a morsel of food.

"I am not very well," Erika replies, in a faint, weary voice. How often those tones will ring through the old Countess's soul! "I have a slight headache," and she puts her hand to her head; "I feel as if a storm were coming; but there is not a cloud in the sky."

"So, there is not a cloud to be seen. The sunshine is so powerful in the dining-hall that the shades have to be drawn down, thus diffusing a gray twilight through the room.

"Let us go to our rooms," says the old Countess, with a sigh of discouragement. They go, and Erika seems to be making ready for the proposed expedition. But when her grandmother, fully arrayed, enters the girl's room half an hour afterwards, she finds her in a long white dressing-gown with loosened hair, leaning back in an easy-chair.

"My child, my child! what is the matter with you?" the old lady exclaims, in terror.

"Nothing," the girl replies, without lifting her downcast eyes. "A headache. You can see I meant to go, but I cannot: you must go without me. Give all kinds of affectionate messages to Constance, and tell her how sorry I am."

"My dear child, I cannot go with those people if you are not well," the old lady says, beginning to take off her gloves. "No human being could expect me to do that."

Erika is trembling violently. "But, grandmother," she replies, "it is only a headache. You can do me no good by staying at home, and you know I cannot bear to make a disturbance."

"Yes, yes," says the grandmother. "But lie down, at least, my darling."

"You could not disappoint Constance Mühlberg: you know she depends upon you, she needs your support," Erika goes on, persuasively.

"Yes, that is true," the Countess admits.

She notices that Erika has hastily brushed away tears from her eyes, and the suspicion which had assailed her below in the garden is strengthened. Perhaps it would be better to leave the girl in peace for a while, she says to herself.

Meanwhile, Marianne appears, to say that the Countess Mühlberg is awaiting the ladies below in her gondola.

"Go, grandmother dear," Erika says, faintly; "go!"

"Yes, I will go; but first let me see you lie down, my child." She conducts Erika to the bed. "How you tremble! You can hardly stand." She arranges her long dressing-gown, strokes the girl's cheek, and kisses her forehead. She has reached the door, when she hears a low voice behind her say, "Grandmother!"

She turns. Erika is half sitting up in bed, looking after her. "What is it, my child?"

"Nothing, only I was thinking just now that I have not treated you as I ought, sometimes lately. Forgive me, grandmother!"

The old lady clasps the trembling girl in her arms. "Little goose!" she says. "As if that were of any consequence, my darling! Only go quietly to sleep, that I may find you well when I return. Where is my pocket-handkerchief? Oh, there is Goswyn's letter: when you are a little better you can read it. You need not be afraid that I shall try to persuade you; that time has gone by; but I think the letter ought to please you. At all events, it is something to have inspired so thoroughly excellent a man with so deep and true an affection; and you will see, too, that you have been unjust to him. Good-bye, my darling, good-bye."

For the last time Erika presses the delicate old hand to her lips. The Countess has gone. Erika is alone. She has locked her door, and is sitting on her bed with Goswyn's letter open on her lap. Her tears are falling thick and fast upon it. It reads as follows:

"My very dear old Friend,--

"Shall you be in Venice next week, and may I come to you there? I do not want you to tell me if I have any chance: I shall come at all events, unless Countess Erika is actually betrothed. This is plain speaking, is it not?

"Have you known, or have you not known, that through all these years since my rejection by the Countess Erika not a day has passed for me that has not been filled with thoughts of her? In any case my conduct must have seemed inexplicable to you: probably you have thought me ridiculously sensitive. It is true, ridiculous sensitiveness, as I now see, has been the true cause of my foolish, unjustifiable behaviour, but it has not been the sensitiveness of a rejected suitor. God forbid!

"I should never have been provoked by the Countess Erika's rejection of me,--no, never,--even if it had not been conveyed in so bewitching a way that one ought to have kneeled down and adored her for it. There was another reason for my sensitiveness. A certain person, whose name there is no need to mention, hinted that I was in pursuit of Countess Erika's money. From that moment my peace of mind was at an end. I could not go near her again, because, to speak plainly, I was conscious that I was not a suitable match for her.

"You think this petty. I think it is petty myself,--so petty that I despise myself, and simply ask, am I any more worthy of so glorious a creature, now that I have a few more marks a year to spend?

"I dread being punished for my obstinate stupidity. Perhaps there was no possibility of my winning her heart, but it was worth a trial, and she has a right to reproach me for never in all these years making that trial. Inconceivable as my long delay must appear to you, I am sure you can understand why I have not thus appealed to you lately, so soon after the terrible misfortune that has befallen me.

"It was too horrible!

"In addition to my sincere sorrow for my brother's death, I am tormented by the sensation that I never sufficiently prized the nobility of character which his last moments revealed. To turn so terrible a catastrophe to my advantage would have been to me impossible. I could not have done it, even although I had not been so crushed by the manner of his death that all desire, all love of life, has for some weeks seemed dead within me.

"Yesterday I met Frau von Norbin, who has lately returned from her Italian tour. She informed me that Prince Nimbsch is paying devoted attention to Countess Erika, although at present with small encouragement.

"Jealousy has roused me from my lethargy. And now I ask you once more, may I come to Venice? Unless something unforeseen should occur, I could obtain a leave without much trouble. Again I repeat, I do not ask you what chance I have,--I know that I have none at present,--but I only ask you, may I come?

"Impatiently awaiting your answer, I am faithfully yours,

"G. v. Sydow."

She read the letter to the last word, her tears flowing faster and faster. Then she threw herself on the bed, and buried her face among the pillows. A yearning desire assailed her heart, and thrilled through her every nerve, calling aloud, "Turn back! turn back!" But it was too late; she would not turn back. She was entirely possessed by the illusion that she was about to do something grand and elevating.

A low knock at the door recalled her to herself. It was Marianne, who, instructed by the old Countess, came to see if she would not have a cup of tea.

"By and by, Marianne," she called, without opening the door. "I want nothing at present. I am better."

Marianne left, and Erika looked at her watch. Four o'clock! It was time to begin her final preparations.

She gathered together all her trinkets,--an unusually large and valuable collection for a girl. She had been fond of jewelry, and her grandmother had denied her nothing. Without one longing thought of them, she selected all that were of special value, running through her fingers five strings of beautiful pearls, and calculating as she did so their probable worth. These she added to the heap, and then wrapped all together in a package, upon which she wrote "For the Poor." Then she sat down at her writing-table and explained her last wishes, arranging everything as one would who contemplated suicide. Not one of her numerous protégées did she forget, commending them all to her grandmother's care.

After everything in this respect that was necessary, or at least that she considered necessary, was arranged, she reflected that she must write a farewell to her grandmother.

It was a terribly hard task, but after she had begun her letter there seemed to be no end to it. She covered three sheets, and there were yet many loving things to say. Now first she comprehended all that her grandmother had been to her of late years. She forgot how often the old Countess's philosophy had grated upon her, how often she had rebelled against it. How hard it was to leave her! But retreat was not to be thought of.

And she wrote on.

At last she concluded with, "Every one else will point the finger of scorn at me; you will bewail my course, but you will not call it evil, only foolish. Poor, dear grandmother! And you will mourn over the misery which I have voluntarily brought upon myself. It is terrible that I cannot fulfil the mission in life which lies so clearly before me without giving you pain. But I cannot help it! One thing consoles me. I know how large-minded you are: you will have to choose between the world and me, and you will be strong enough to resign the world and to turn to me, and then nothing will be wanting to me in my new life, let people slander me as they will!"

Three times did Erika fold up the letter, and three times did she open it again to add something to it.

At last it was finished. She put with it into the envelope the draft of her wishes as to the disposal of the effects she left behind her, and then asked herself where she should put the letter so that her grandmother might find it instantly upon her return. At first she took it to the Countess's room, but then, reflecting that the old lady would come at once to her bedside to see how she was, she laid it, with eyes streaming with tears, upon the table beside her bed. "Poor grandmother!" She kissed the letter tenderly as she left it.

Now everything was finished: she had only to dress herself. But she was not content. Once more she sat down at her writing-table and wrote. This time the words came slowly and with difficulty from her pen, as if each one were torn singly from her bleeding heart.

"My dear, faithful Friend,"--she began,--"Do not come to Venice. When this letter reaches you I shall have vanished from the world in which you live. I could not endure to have you hear from strangers of the step I am about to take, and so I write to you myself. Yes, when you read this letter I shall have broken with all that has constituted my life hitherto, and shall have fled with--with a married man. How grieved you will be when you read this! My whole soul cries out with pain as I think of it.

"You will not understand it. 'Erika Lenzdorff fled with a married man!' It sounds incredible, does it not?

"You know that I am not light-minded, nor corrupt, and so you will believe me when I tell you that the reasons which have induced me to take so terrible a step are unanswerable in my mind.

"I can redeem the life of a noble and gifted man. His moral nature is deteriorating, he suffers frightfully, and I cannot avoid the conviction that without me he must go to destruction.

"He hoped to be able to procure a divorce from his wife. It was impossible. Without hesitation I resolved of my own accord to follow him. In the midst of the agony which it has cost me to break with all my former associations, I am sustained by a sense of right.

"It is grand and beautiful to suffer for a noble and highly-gifted fellow-being,--beautiful to be able to say, 'Providence has chosen me to shed light into his darkened soul.' I do not waste a thought upon what I resign in thus fulfilling my mission, but the consciousness of the pain I shall cause my dear grandmother and you weighs me to the earth. She will forgive me, and you, my poor friend, you will forget me. I would gladly find consolation in this conviction; but no, it does not comfort me. Of all that I must give up with my old life, your friendship is what I shall lack most painfully.

"Goswyn! for God's sake do not judge me falsely and harshly! What I do, I do in the absolute conviction that it is right. If this conviction should ever fail me, then---- But I cannot harbour that idea!--it would be too terrible. I cannot be mistaken!

"I have a fearful attack of cowardice as I write to you, and a sudden dread takes possession of me. Am I equal to the task I have undertaken? Will he always be content to live apart from the world with me alone?

"I am prepared for that also. If his feeling for me should wane, my task will be done, he will need me no longer. Then I will vanish from his life, and from life itself, like a poor taper that is extinguished when the sun rises. I shall have the courage to extinguish it; it will be a trifle in comparison with what I am now doing. Oh, God! how hard it is! Goswyn, adieu! One thing more, and this I tell you because this is my farewell to you. Whether it will console you, or add one more pang to your sorrow, I cannot tell, but I am constrained to lay bare my heart before you: these are as it were the words of a dying woman. If last autumn you had said one kind word to me, I should now have been your wife, and you should not have repented it! All that is over. Fate had another destiny in store for me.

"Once more, farewell!

"Forgive me for causing you pain, and sometimes think of your poor friend,

"Erika Lenzdorff."

Now all was done. She put on her travelling-dress, a plain dark suit in which she was wont to pay visits to the poor.

She looked at the clock--seven! One half-hour more, and she must go; and she could not go without something to lend her physical strength. She rang for a cup of tea, swallowed it hastily, and for the last time walked through the four rooms occupied by her grandmother and herself. Then she took her travelling-bag, which she had packed with a few necessaries, put on her straw hat, and went.

It was half-past seven: the servants were at their evening meal. No one noticed her departure at so unusual an hour. How often she had been seen leaving the hotel in the same dress to visit her poor people!

She walked for some distance, and dropped her letter to Goswyn into the nearest post-box, feeling as she did so that she was casting her whole life thus far into a dark gulf whence it could never be recovered. Then she hired a gondola, an open one,--she could find no other,--and it pushed off with her.

She was very weary; with her eyes fixed on vacancy, she leaned back among the black cushions.

The tragic wretchedness of the situation no longer impressed her. She only felt that she was about to undertake a journey. If it were but over! Sssh--sssh--the strokes of the oars sounded monotonously in her ears: the gondola glided rapidly over the water.

The garish daylight had faded; the spring twilight, with its incomparably poetic charm, was casting its transparent veil over Venice. The gondola glided on.

Erika's battle was fought. She leaned back, pale and still, with gleaming eyes. The sound of the church-bells droned in her ears. Dulled to all that lay behind her, she was conscious of nothing save of the enthusiasm of a young hero ready to brave death for a sacred cause.

Around her was the breath of the waning spring, and beneath her was the sobbing of the waves.

It was later by about an hour and a half. The old Countess, who had felt it her duty to be present at the fête, had not thought herself obliged to remain until its close. She was very uneasy about Erika, and had gratefully accepted Prince Nimbsch's offer to take her home in his cutter, leaving Constance Mühlberg and her guests, with the Hungarian band that had been telegraphed for from Vienna for their amusement, to return to Venice in the steamer.

With the velocity of a skimming swallow the little vessel shot through the water. Prince Nimbsch, leaving the management of the sail entirely to his sailors, leaned back beside the old lady among his very new velvet cushions, and made good-humoured, although futile, efforts to entertain her. She was absent: her thoughts were occupied with Erika's altered appearance.

"Poor child!" she thought, "I was foolish. It was my fault; but how could I suspect it? She seemed so strong, so unsusceptible. It is the same folly, the same disease that attacks us all once in a lifetime. I had it myself: I can hardly remember it now. It hurts,--it hurts very much. But she has a strong character and a clear head. I am very sorry; I might have prevented it, if I had only known. My poor, proud Erika! What shall I write to Goswyn? Of course that he must come. I think she will be glad to see him: this cannot go very deep; but I am very sorry."

Venice lay before them, gray and shadowy, a reflection of the pale summer sky, whence the sun had long disappeared, and where the stars were not yet visible.

They reached the hotel, and the old Countess looked up at Erika's windows. "She is not in her boudoir," she said to herself. "Perhaps she is asleep."

"Tell Countess Erika how stupid the fête was, thanks to her absence," the young Austrian said as he took his leave, "and how we all anathematized that headache for depriving us of her society. I shall call to-morrow, and hope to find her quite well again."

He kissed the old lady's hand, and she hurried upstairs to her rooms. She softly entered Erika's apartments. The boudoir was dark, as she had seen from below. She gently opened the door of the bedroom; that was dark also. Had the poor child gone to bed? She approached the bed very softly, not to disturb her, and stooped above it. There was no one there.

A foreboding of something terrible instantly took possession of her. For a moment she lost her head: she grew dizzy, and would have screamed and alarmed the house, but her voice died in her throat. Suddenly something fluttered down from the table upon which she leaned to support herself. She stooped to pick it up: it was a letter. She turned on the electric light and read it through. After the first few lines, half blind with grief, she would have tossed it aside,--what could it contain that she did not now know?--but at last she read it through, read every word to the very end, feeding her pain with each tender, loving expression of the unhappy, mistaken girl.

Not for one moment did she blame Erika for what had happened: she blamed herself alone. She accused herself of plunging Erika into wretchedness, as years before she had done with her daughter-in-law. She had required of both of them that they should accede to her materialistic views. She had never allowed them to entertain any idealistic conception of life. She had never understood that such idealism was a necessity of their existence, and that if deprived of it in one shape they would take refuge in some exaggeration which might shield them from a life of coldly-calculating egotism. Her daughter-in-law's unhappiness had not affected her much; her grand-daughter's misery would blot the sun from her sky.

She was so clear-sighted: ah, why was she so, when she could see nothing but what agonized her?

For a creature like Erika it was as impossible to disregard the dictates of morality as it would be to breathe in the moon with lungs constructed for the atmosphere of the earth.

There were women capable of braving the opinions of the world and of quietly going on their way, women for whom the pillory was converted into a pedestal as soon as they stood in it. But Erika was not one of these. Before the stars in their courses had twice appeared in the heavens she would writhe in misery. She had none of that self-exalting quality which must veil the moral lack of which she would surely be made conscious. Yes, she would then find no other name for the sacrifice she had made to the wretch who had been willing to receive it at her hands than the one which the world has given to it for centuries when it has been made to men by worthless women, inspired by no lofty desire. In her own eyes she would be a fallen woman.

The moisture stood upon the old Countess's forehead. "My Erika! my proud, glorious Erika!" she murmured. She knew that the peril of a woman's fall must be measured by the moral height from which she falls. And Erika had fallen from a very lofty height. Her life was ruined.

Once more she opened Erika's letter and read the line, "You will have to choose between the world and me." Choose! As if there could be any question of choice. Of course she was ready to open her arms to her and do for her what she alone could; but what could she do?

Suddenly a picture arose in her memory,--a terrible picture.

In the waiting-room of a railway-station she had once seen among some emigrants a poor woman with a child, a boy about six or seven years old. His face was frightfully disfigured by scars. All the passers-by stared at him, and some nudged one another and whispered together. The child first grew scarlet, then very restless, and finally burst into a passion of tears; whereupon the mother sat down upon a bench and hid the poor face in her lap.

A quarter of an hour later, when the Countess passed the same spot the woman was still there with the child's face in her lap. She sat stiffly erect, glaring at the unfeeling crowd whose cruel curiosity had so hurt the boy, and with her rough hand she gently stroked his short light hair. The sight had made a profound impression upon the Countess. "She cannot sit there always, concealing in her lap her child's deformity," she said to herself: "sooner or later she must again expose the poor creature to the gaze of the crowd."

What now recalled this poor, powerless mother to her mind?

She could do no more for Erika than hide her head in her lap from the contemptuous curiosity of the world. So entirely did this thought take possession of her imagination that she seemed to feel the warm weight of the poor humiliated head upon her knee; she raised her hand to stroke it, when with a start she awoke to consciousness. "Ah, even that will be denied me," she thought. "As soon as Erika comes to herself, she will cast away her life. Yes, all is over,--all,--all!"

Marianne came into the room. She waved her away without a word. She never thought of inventing a reason to the maid for Erika's absence. She sat there mute and motionless, looking into the future. A vast misfortune seemed to have engulfed the world, and she alone was left to suffer, she alone was to blame.