XXIX.
Returned to Traunberg, he wandered slowly through all the rooms of the castle. Then he had tea served in his room, drank a cupful, and ate a trifle. He laid his watch upon the table. At twelve o'clock all should be finished, he decided.
The cold calm of resolution gave way to the exciting feeling of expectation.
He seated himself at his writing-table, thoughtfully he rested his head in his hand, then he dipped the pen into ink, and wrote a long letter. He read it through with a certain pedantry, added here and there a comma, or made a letter plainer, placed the letter in an envelope, and addressed it to Elsa.
His glance fell upon the watch--the hands pointed to quarter past eleven. He rose and walked up and down uneasily. He began to ask himself whether he had forgotten nothing, began to unconsciously seek reasons for postponing his act.
His brow was bathed with cold sweat. He looked for his revolver and Toledo dagger, which both had formerly lain upon his table. They were gone. Evidently his valet had removed them. The razors also were hidden.
Felix smiled bitterly. Then he drew a little English penknife from his pocket, sharpened it upon an ash-receiver, and laid it on the table beside his bed. Then, with folded hands, he crouched for a few minutes beside his bed. He thought of the promise not to kill himself which he had once given to his father. The promise could have no weight except during the life of the old man.
When he looked again, the hands of the watch pointed to quarter before twelve. His heart beat loudly. A moment of irresolution came. Then from without a little soft bird cry floated in to him. He suddenly heard again Gery's voice, "Who is 'the certain Lanzberg,' papa?"
Then he undressed himself, took the penknife, and with firm stroke cut through the veins and arteries in his left wrist and ankle.
He rose once more to extinguish the candles on the table beside his bed, then he sank back among the pillows.
He felt the warm blood flowing from him, and experienced a kind of disgust; then he murmured with a sigh, "Blood washes all things clean."
The triumphal fanfare of the madrilèna vibrated around him; the excitement which had burned within him throughout the whole time was for a moment increased tenfold.
But the madrilèna died away, and the fearful memories faded, the great painful weariness which had almost paralyzed him recently, preventing him from sleeping, vanished--he felt easier and easier.
A comfortable drowsiness overcame him, and a thousand pictures changed before his dreamy dim eyes.
He saw himself in the school-room, beside his tutor, and smiled at the expression with which the tutor drew his cuffs down over his knuckles when Elsa's French bonne entered the room.
The present had vanished, his thoughts wandered further and further back into the past.
He sits beside his mother in the church, small and sleepy. Through an open window the fresh spring air blows in to the atmosphere of mould and incense of the sacred edifice.
From half-closed eyes he sees a crowd of red peasant women, sees the little school-boys who crowd as near as possible to the carved prie-dieus of the gentry. One of them winks at him.
The priest elevates the host. Little Felix's tired eyes close, the peasants fade into a large red spot, the colored shadows of the church windows lie on the bare, gray stone pavement like a carpet. His head sinks upon his mother's arm. All is rosy vapor around him. Then his mother kisses him on the forehead and whispers, "It is over; wake up!"