CHAPTER XVII.
Jansen had gone home as if in a dream; and even the wild demonstrations of joy with which he was received by his child did not succeed in driving away the stupor that hung over him. He did not ask either Frances or her foster-mother what had happened in his absence, but stared vacantly, sighed often, and returned confused answers. When he had eaten something, and drunk some strong wine, he fell asleep while sitting at table, with difficulty roused himself sufficiently to tumble into bed, and had just sense enough left to impress upon the woman the fact that he must be waked at six o'clock.
Then, when the evening came, little Frances only succeeded, after much shouting and shaking, in dispelling his leaden sleep; from which, however, the weary man awoke with joyous eyes. He lay for a while and enjoyed the physical relief, the peace in his heart, which he had missed so long. Every word his beloved had said to him that morning came back to his mind again; he knew that with all her kind words she could have meant but one thing; and yet he trembled at the thought that it might all have been a delusion. But the certainty of happiness invariably kept the upper hand.
When, at length, he arose, he felt as if he had recovered from an illness--as if he were invigorated by fresh blood--and he marveled at this transformation; for he remembered that on this very morning he would have liked best to burrow his way into the earth and never see the sun again. He kissed his little daughter again and again, pressed the old woman's hand--the foster-mother was absent--and started off for Julie's lodgings.
But, when he arrived at the house, he was surprised to see a bright light streaming through the blinds of all five windows. He knew that she was fond of having her room bright, but for all that it struck him that all was not as usual. He asked the old servant, who helped him to take off his overcoat in the hall, but received no definite answer; and he was painfully surprised when he opened the door and saw the brightly-lighted room full of people.
It is true, they were all familiar faces. Angelica sat on a sofa by the side of old Schoepf, Rossel had established himself in the most comfortable of the two armchairs, and Rosenbusch and Kohle appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of some engravings on the wall, while Julie was conversing with Schnetz and Elfinger near the door. A covered table, decorated with beautiful bouquets, stood along the wall on the side where the windows were, and little Frances's foster-mother was busy adding the last finishing touches to it. They were all in evening dress, and even Rosenbusch had refrained from wearing his historical velvet-jacket, which the summer had dealt with pretty severely, and appeared in a magnificent dress-coat--the only trouble with which was that it was rather too broad, inasmuch as it had been taken from Rossel's wardrobe. But the most beautiful of all, in her simplicity, appeared the mistress of these halls herself. She wore a white dress of the finest woolen, which exposed but a little of her white shoulders and her arms as far as the elbow. A plain gold chain, from which hung a medallion containing a miniature of her mother, was wound several times about her neck; her hair was brushed back smoothly, and intertwined with a garland of myrtle; in her bosom was fastened a dark-red pomegranate blossom.
In his first surprise Jansen started back from the threshold with a look of bitter disappointment, which Julie alone understood. But, before he had time to recover his presence of mind, he felt himself seized by the gentlest hands, and disarmed by a single soft word whispered in his ear.
"Here he comes at last," she said, leading the speechless man into the centre of the room. "And first of all I must beg his pardon for not having told him beforehand whom he would find here. For even though they are only our best and dearest friends whom I have invited to our farewell gathering--still, I know you would have preferred to see no one this evening but myself. And yet, though I would gladly do anything else for your sake--I could not do otherwise than what I have done on this occasion. Our friends all know that I am determined to share my life with you until death parts us. Do you not feel with me that it would be contrary to my honor and my womanly pride, to pass clandestinely into the new life that has been opened to us, as if we had committed a sin, instead of entering upon it with open brow, followed by the congratulations of our dearest friends, as other happy bridal couples do?"
She stopped, for a moment, overcome by her emotion. But, as he made no movement, except to raise to his lips the hand with which she held his, she recovered her courage, and continued in a lower voice:
"Our rôles are so singularly transposed. It is customary for the voice of the bride to be heard only when she says 'yes' at the foot of the altar. But here there is no altar, and the bride must pronounce the wedding address herself. I confess that, since I plighted my heart and my troth to my beloved friend, I have always cherished the hope that things would turn out differently. I thought it would be so beautiful to go up to the altar with him, as other brides do; and have our union so sanctioned. But, since this could not be, what right have we to be so cowardly and narrow-minded as to cling to a mere form when two human lives are at stake? As soon as I saw that it was to decide the weal or woe of his life and of his art, every scruple left me. We are neither of us so young or so inexperienced as to be deceived about our hearts. They are indissolubly bound together. And it is therefore no crime and no presumption, but something that was as certainly decreed by Heaven as was ever union between two human beings, for me to be from this day forth the true wife of this man, and for him to be forever my beloved husband."
She turned away for a moment; her voice failed her. A breathless silence reigned. The gentlemen, with the exception of the bridegroom, who gazed fixedly in his beloved's eyes, lowered their eyes and stood solemn and still as if in a house of worship; the little foster-mother held her handkerchief before her eyes, and the big tear-drops rolled down Angelica's face, while she struggled to look at her friend as cheerfully and encouragingly as possible. Now, when the latter turned to her, she hastily took up a little silver dish she had held in readiness and handed it to Julie, trying, as she did so, to give her friend's hand a stolen pressure. Two little gold rings, looking rubbed and thin, as if they had been worn a long time, lay in the plate.
"These are the wedding rings of my parents," said the bride. "For many long years they served as the sign of a union that grew ever firmer in good and in bad fortune. I think you will not oppose me, dearest, if I use them to sanctify our marriage. I herewith give you this ring that my father received from my mother, and swear to you, before these friends of ours, to be a true wife to you and a good mother to your child. And if you do not repent of having offered me your life--"
She could not finish. In a sudden overflow of feeling he seized the other ring, thrust it at random on one of her fingers, and folded the blushing girl in a passionate embrace. It seemed as if he would never let her go again; his breast heaved with suppressed sobbing, he hid his face upon her neck, and her soft locks dried the tears he was ashamed to show.
In the mean while it appeared that none of the witnesses took the slightest notice of this passionate outburst. Rossel seemed to be earnestly studying the pattern of the carpet; old Schoepf took out his handkerchief and polished his spectacles; Elfinger stood at the piano, with his back toward the newly-married couple, and slowly turned over the pages of a music-book. Angelica fell upon the foster-mother's neck, while Kohle seized Rosenbusch's hand and shook it warmly.
At length when the bride had somewhat recovered her composure and had gently released herself from her husband's arms, Schnetz, who up to this time had been violently plucking at his imperial, advanced toward the couple and stammered out a few words of cordial felicitation. This gave the signal for a general crowding around, and the most joyful handshaking and congratulation. All spoke at the same time, each held the hand of the bride and bridegroom as tightly as if he hoped never to have to release it again, and every one seemed to want to repudiate, as something very superfluous and out of place, the emotion which had moved all their hearts but a few minutes before. Angelica was the first to restore quiet and order to this confusion, by rapping on a glass and requesting the guests to come to supper. The bridal couple were to start on their wedding journey in a few hours, and, as the bridegroom had not even packed his trunk yet, it was doubly advisable for them not to let the wedding feast grow cold.
So they took their places. Old Schoepf was given the seat of honor on the other side of the bride, Rosenbusch captured a place next to Angelica, and Rossel took charge of the foster-mother, although, as a general thing, he studiously avoided having any women near him when at table. Of the meal itself it will only be necessary to say that Edward Rossel had placed his own cook at Angelica's disposal, and had sent his servants along with her; the selection and the cooling of the wine had also been his care, although, except himself, scarcely any one of the guests took much notice of what they ate and drank. Those in particular who sat opposite the bridal couple seemed to be so fascinated by the sight of their happiness, by the beauty of Julie, and the dreamy look of inspiration in Jansen's face, that they looked very little at their plates. To this number belonged Angelica, whose hand wandered across the table every now and then to meet that of her adored friend under the shadow of the huge bouquet.
Julie's plan was to carry her husband off to Italy, there to look for some spot on which to settle down and found their home. When they had made up their minds whether Florence, or Rome, or Venice was to be their resting-place, they were to return and get little Frances, who would have been rather out of place in this wintry wedding-journey of her parents.
Meanwhile Julie had taken advantage of a favorable opportunity to enter into a low conversation with old Schoepf in regard to the future of his grandchild. In spite of the power she exerted over all with whom she came in contact, she did not find it easy to break down the old man's obstinacy. Finding that all her assertions of how sincere the baron's remorse was were of as little avail as her efforts to convince him of the material benefit which the reconciliation would be to his grandchild's future, she finally summoned cunning to her aid, and represented that in granting this request he would be conferring a personal favor upon her, a sort of wedding-present, which such an old friend of her husband surely could not refuse her. The chivalrous old man could resist no longer, and so, with a solemn shake of the hand, Julie secured all that the baron could demand with any kind of justice, although a complete reconciliation still seemed quite unattainable for the present.
Jansen had been listening to this conversation, which had been carried on in a low tone; and now he, in his turn, thanked the old man by a pressure of the hand. All this time he had scarcely uttered a word. His heart was full of a bliss too deep for words; the cheerful noise of the good people about him sounded in his ears as if it came from a great distance; his eyes rested on the flowers before his plate, and did not even venture to gaze at the noble woman who was really his own at last; and it was only with difficulty that he could force himself even to smile when the others burst into roars of laughter over some joke of the lieutenant's, or some enthusiastic expression of Angelica's.
As they sat thus, there suddenly burst forth from Julie's piano, at which Elfinger was seated, the first bars of the wedding-march in the "Midsummer Night's Dream." On the instant all voices were hushed, and they stood listening to the fairy strains that made them forget, for the moment, that the winter night with its thousand glittering stars looked in upon them, and suffered no other elfin tricks than those which possibly lurked concealed in the foam of the champagne glasses.
When it came to an end the silence still continued for a while. The bride had disappeared with Angelica into the next room, and now returned again in traveling-dress. Schnetz now called upon Rosenbusch to let the departing couple take some of his verses with them as a farewell blessing on their journey. But he, who was generally so obliging, could not be induced to do this at any price. He would only promise to forward them his bad rhymes in black and white, accompanied with marginal illustrations.
"It is late," said Julie, "and we have still to take leave of our child. We leave her in the best of care, and hope soon to see her again. And now we must say good-by."
She first embraced the foster-mother and kissed her warmly. Then she gave her hand and a kind word and look to each of the others in turn, and hastened out of the room, no longer able to control her emotion. Jansen, too, had parted from his friends with great feeling, entreating them all not to follow him beyond the door. Angelica alone insisted upon accompanying the couple as far as the carriage. The others stepped to the window and watched them get in, together with old Erich, who was to accompany them, while Angelica still stood on the carriage step unable to tear herself from Julie's neck. When she at last stepped down, and the door was slammed to, those in the house stepped to the wide-opened window, with full glasses and burning lamps and candles, and shouted a loud "good luck!" to the departing couple. The waving of a handkerchief and of hands from the carriage doors answered them; and the drosky rolled away.