In Paradise: A Novel. Vol. I.

by Paul Heyse

CHAPTER II.

He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been telling his dreary, melancholy story.

The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes, went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort, and made as though he would take his departure.

But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said in her soft voice:

"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went on: "And you have never seen her since?"

"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my money-getting. It was all one, after all.

"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together, so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my accomplishing this end.

"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know. Certainly not her heart.

"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good, honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof. When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances, who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried. But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer. Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would have been a reproach to me. And now--"

"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted.

"Julie, what could you ask that I would not joyfully--"

"I would love so dearly to see the child. Will you bring it to me? or will you go there with me?"

He took a step toward her; now, for the first time, he ventured to look her in the face. She rose and went forward to meet him.

"Dear friend," she said, "I must know this child. No matter how well it may be taken care of where it is, it is and always will be motherless. It can only find a mother again in her who loves the father more than all else, and who would take to her heart all that belongs to him. Do you not see that you must bring the child to me?"

"Julie!" he cried, in a tone that burst from his innermost heart, just as when a dreamer with a loud cry shakes off the nightmare that is so suffocating him. He staggered toward her, and tried to seize her hand; but she drew back a step, shook her head gently, and said, with a blush:

"Listen patiently to what I am going to say, or else it will be hard for me to control myself and find the words. The sad story you have just told me has given me a great deal to think of; I have not yet clearly fixed it in my mind. But one thing is already clear to me: that nothing in your past life can ever separate me from you. On the contrary, I have been continually testing my feeling during your confession, and have found that I love you now even more wholly than I did yesterday, and that I know better why I love you, if this is not a senseless thing to say. My heart is old enough to be wise, and to know why it loves any one, though my head is not quite so ready. And so, my dearest friend, I now seriously declare to you, I have not the slightest intention of ceasing to love you because so and so many years ago you made the mistake of believing another human being to be better than she really was. I will go still further: you shall not cease to love me either, unless you made a second mistake yesterday, which I confess would be much more painful to me than that first one."

She did not succeed in uttering these last words, for, overwhelmed with joy, Jansen had seized her in his arms. He held her long in this embrace, until at last she recovered breath enough to beg for her release.

"No, no," she said, as she gently freed herself, "do not do so, dear, or I will take it all back again; for you and I are not to be spared our time of trial. Sit down here opposite me like a sensible man, and let go my hands and try to understand all that I have to say to you. You see, your sweetheart is no longer young, and much too experienced and worldly not to keep her senses about her, and think for two even at such a time, hard as it may be. I will not retract a word of what I just confessed--that I will not relinquish the happiness of feeling myself to belong to you, because you are not yet free. I love you all the more dearly for what I now know, for the delicacy with which you have tried to spare her who has so cruelly wounded you; for the fact that you have not sought, even at the cost of a public trial, to break the bond that holds you together; for the affection that has grown up within you for your child, so that you do not hesitate to sacrifice your liberty for its sake. Whether this sacrifice is necessary we will consider more fully. But let this be as it may, let human justice come to our aid or not: this I know, that from this time forth I will devote my life to you, that I could no longer belong to myself even if I tried. Everything else seems petty beside it, and there must be some place in the world where we shall find our happiness in one another. But one thing must happen first; you must learn to know me thoroughly. Do not smile and say needless things that I know beforehand. You really do not know me as I am, or as I know you, because I have seen your art and know your life, and more especially because I, as a woman who has been looking at the world for thirty-one years, know human nature much better than a man like you, who have the additional disadvantage of being an artist, and therefore blinded by a touch of beauty. Do you not see that in ten years I shall be an old woman, no longer like your Eve, and then what would you think of me, unless my inner being was necessary to your life and worthy of your love and constancy? And for that reason you must resolve to let a barrier remain between us for a whole year yet. You may be sure it has cost me a hard struggle to lay such a condition on myself; we have already lost so many happy years of youth. It seems cruel that, in addition to all this, we must have a long engagement. But the more dearly I love you, and wretched as I should be if you did not stand the test, the more bravely I must and will adhere to my resolution. Then, besides, have I not to win your child's heart, so that it will not draw back, as from a stranger, from her whom it is to call mother?"

She gazed in his face with a look of the deepest faith and tenderness, and reached him her hand across the table at which they were both sitting. He grasped it so tightly that she smilingly tried to withdraw it again.

"Perhaps you are right," said he, seriously. "At all events I think you understand all these things far better than I do, for to tell the truth, I am still so stunned with the thought of this happiness, that you could make me consent to anything you asked. Good God! with what a heart I came in that door--a doomed man, a lost wretch--and now, and always--"

He was just on the point of starting up again--the place at her feet which the dog had occupied seemed to have an attraction for him--when they heard old Erich's voice in the front parlor, saying to some one, in its driest tone, that his mistress was not at home for anybody today.

"Not even for me?" queried this some one. "I must hear her say so herself before I will believe it."

"Angelica!" cried Julie. "We ought not to shut out this dear creature from our happiness."

She sprang up and hastened out before her friend--to whom any third person was hateful at such a moment--could make any objection.

"Don't be afraid of him!" she cried, leading the astonished Angelica into the room triumphantly. "It is true he is a perfect Berserker, and not a good man to quarrel with. But for that very reason you must take my part against him. Two staid women of our age ought to have no difficulty in controlling such a violent man. And isn't it your duty to help me out of the trouble into which you got me yourself? Dear Jansen, do not put on such an angry face! Tell this dear, good, astonished friend that we are resolved, in all seriousness, never again to lose sight of one another after having been brought together in so strange a way, thanks to art and to this excellent artist, whom we will not leave without her reward!"

There was nothing left for Jansen but to make the best of the matter, and say a few friendly words to Angelica. But his whole soul was in such commotion that he soon relapsed into a state of absentmindedness. He listened with half an ear to what his beloved was saying to Angelica, who did not sustain her part of the conversation very well, and who uttered none of those bright sayings with which she was generally so ready. That the two women friends should take up their quarters together; that the visits of the fiancé should only take place on certain days and in her own presence; that, for the present at least, they would not disclose the great event even to their most intimate friends in "Paradise"--all this and more was discussed, the burden of the conversation falling almost entirely on Julie. A certain lightheartedness had taken possession of her, such as her friend had never seen her show before. She insisted upon Jansen and Angelica taking breakfast with her, and played the part of hostess most charmingly. Jansen followed every movement she made, as if he were attracted by a magnet; and was caught more than once returning the most irrelevant answers.

At last, when he really had to go--it was already past noon, but no one had taken any heed of the time--Angelica too rose in great haste.

"I will go on ahead," said she; "lovers don't go through with their leave-takings quite as quickly as we single people."

But Julie detained her. She merely gave Jansen her hand to kiss, and closed the door behind him. Then she fell on her friend's neck and kissed her, her eyes overflowing with tears.

"Forgive me my happiness!" she whispered. "It is so great I am almost afraid of it, as though I had stolen a crown!"

"What a child you are!" said the artist, bending over her and blushing. "I told you how it would be--though really I was not so reckless as you have been. To love this man just as one would any ordinary mortal, to take him to your heart in this sudden fashion--well, I must say, I admire your courage. It is true you are a perfectly charming piece of human nature, from top to toe, and can do things other folks can't. Now, such miserable institutions as we common people are, mere images of God in gouache or water-color--well, we have to be sensible, at all hazards, unless we would bring down ridicule as well as injury upon our heads. Addio, cara! Iddio ti benedica!" and with these words she rushed out of the door.