XXX.
The next morning a messenger came breathlessly to Steinbach. With gloomy obstinacy he refused to gratify the domestic's urgent questions. He desired to speak personally with the Baron.
Erwin came. He was fearfully startled at the messenger's communication. Then as with distressed slowness he crossed the corridor to Elsa's room, she met him, pale as death, but calm. "A messenger has come from Traunberg. Felix has taken his life," she said in a hollow voice, with eyes fixed upon Erwin. She had guessed. With hand on her heart, her eyes closed, she remained for a moment speechless. Erwin feared a swoon, and with gentle force tried to lead her back to her room, but she resisted. "Order the carriage," she begged with almost inaudible voice; "I should like to go over there."
Erwin accompanied her.
An uneasy quiet, broken by the mysterious whispers of the domestics, pervaded Castle Traunberg. The servants all stood around in solemn idleness. Mrs. Stifler and the valet were busied with the corpse. They withdrew when Elsa entered the chamber of death.
Slowly she approached the bed. There he lay--Felix!--his corpse.
His head rested gently on the pillow; one saw that a lovely dream had helped the dying man across the threshold of eternity. The original beauty of his features, which life, with its shattering conflicts, had almost destroyed, death had restored again.
Elsa kissed the corpse; she wept quietly and bitterly; she reproached herself a thousand times with not having shown her brother love enough, with not having helped him bravely enough to bear the heavy burden of his life.
Then she noticed a letter, addressed to her, upon the table beside the bed.
A quarter of an hour later she joined Erwin, who waited for her in the adjoining room. There were still tears on her cheeks, but in her eyes shone a kind of solemn pride. She handed Erwin the open letter. He read:
Dear Elsa:
You will be startled at what I have done. Forgive me this, as you have already forgiven me so much. I die not as a cowardly suicide, but as a man who has sentenced himself to death.
The conviction has strengthened in my mind, that my life is of use and pleasure to no one. My own child begins to be saddened by the oppressive atmosphere which surrounds me. My shadow has long darkened your existence.
After my death you will reproach yourself, dear, good heart; will fancy that you could have been better and more considerate to me than you have already been. Do not torment yourself. I remember nothing of you but unwearied love and tender compassion. May God bless you a thousand times, you and yours.
Take my poor child to your home. Erwin will bring the boy up better than I could have done. Do not show my corpse to him, and put no mourning on him. I do not wish to be the cause of a single bitter hour to his poor little heart. Tell him I have gone on a journey. He will forget me.
Never tell him, I beg you, of my disgrace, and if he learns of it through strangers, then--then tell him that I loved him beyond everything, and that I took my life so that I need never blush before him.
Lay the little lock of golden hair which I cut from his head in Rome upon my breast. You will find it in the upper left drawer of my writing-desk, and put the old soldier's coat which I wore at Sadowa upon me. (Stifler knows where it is.) It is the only article of clothing in which I dare stretch myself out beside my ancestors for eternal rest, or appear before them for eternal reconciliation; who knows!
A last kiss for my child. Farewell! and forgive
"The Certain Lanzberg."
Erwin's eyes were moist. "He was indeed a noble nature," said he gently and hoarsely, as he gave the letter back to Elsa.
"Yes," cried she, with a kind of pride. "He was really noble; therefore he tormented himself to death."
Erwin drew the convulsively sobbing woman to his breast.
Three days later the funeral took place.
All the inhabitants of the country round of his rank were present; even Count L---- came to show Felix the last honors. All were deeply shocked. Suicide, against which in general they cherished the Catholic abhorrence, seemed to them in this case justified. They saw in this act almost the repayment of an outlawed debt.
From that day the byword with which they had formerly designated Felix changed. They never again called him "the certain Lanzberg," but now always "the unfortunate Lanzberg."
He was rehabilitated!