Withered Leaves: A Novel. Vol. 3 (of 3)

by Rudolf von Gottschall

CHAPTER X.

[THE WEDDING DAY.]

Brightly dawned the day, but the morning sun disappeared early beneath the glowing clouds, with which the whole sky was soon overcast.

A cold, feeble rain pattered down; a few wedding guests ventured into the park, but the chilly disagreeable weather soon drove them back. Blanden was busied with arrangements in the Castle; this time his master of the kitchen and cellar had not been granted leave of absence; he had to show the wonders of the Castle to Olga, his stately mistress. Dr. Kuhl was only allowed to devote himself to the nymphs of the lake. Cäcilie looked strictly after him, lest he wished to lay his homage at the feet of the Castle fairies. There were the most charming little town girls present, whom such a Don Juan by profession could wind up like a watch, so that their hearts ticked in a race with the throbs of his. Iduna, the late head scholar, was there, a fresh child of Nature with developed appreciation of manly beauty. Her first love had been an unhappy one, but with that elixir within her, she saw a Doctor Sperner in every man. She had cast an eye upon Kuhl, and was little gratified that Salomon became her cicerone, exhibiting all the apartments of the Castle full of historical associations.

"In this dining-hall, my Fräulein, certainly no one ever danced before, but you must not think that everything was conducted in a very holy manner. Yes, at the time of Winrich of Kniprode, these gentlemen had to be called to order. There were Grand Masters at the Marienburg, whose glance extended to the remotest corners of the land. But later ensued a period of decay. They certainly still sometimes fought bravely, it was their trade, and it was immaterial to them whether they held a prayer-book or a sword in their hands--they understood their letters very well, and scratched whole alphabets into their enemies' faces. I assume that this Castle has also often been besieged by the Poles--from the Dantziger there the knights no doubt have triumphantly repelled the attack of the others; courage upon the whole, my Fräulein, is a very ordinary virtue practised partly at the word of command, partly under compulsion. I do not think much of it. All the world is brave, even the oxen in the meadows, which stand before their enemies and rush at one another with their horns."

"But I should think," said Iduna, before whose mind stood Theodor Körner's picture in all its glory, "it is one of the noblest virtues, the fruit of glorious enthusiasm," and she added a few passages, which she had retained in her memory from her most successful theme upon the Lieutenant of Hussars.

"Enthusiasm is all very fine," said Salomon, "but who has time for it before a battle! Men must clean their weapons, count their cartridges, eat a morsel of commissariat bread. I speak of to-day, because the Knights of the Order did not know that nutritious food, and when once the troops start, they must listen exactly to the commander's order, march, halt, load, fire! Enthusiasm--it is only to be found amongst warlike poets. In battle people are as excited as in a boxing match; they hit out on all sides, they know it is a matter of life or death, they may lose their collars, they see nothing, think nothing, only try to save their own skins. There is nothing more stupid than a soldier in a battle."

"You describe it so vividly," said Iduna, "that one might believe you had been present yourself."

"Not at a battle, but often at a fight. Besides, where is there any battle now? We live in everlasting peace. No, no my Fräulein! I have merely cast a few glances into the human mind, and if one will discover the truth, one must always assume the contrary of that which poetry asserts. Poetry is merely a beautiful falsehood. But, as I said, the brethren of the Order might be brave even at the time of their decay, but they led a merry life; I wager that they drank as bravely in this dining-hall, as at any drinking party of Lithuanians or Masurens, and that the gaily painted Madonna, with her radiant colours in the window panes, was not the only representative of womanhood, but that also many a high born knight's young lady--"

"No, never, Herr Salomon," said Iduna, promptly.

The youth was about to spare the maiden's blushes by passing suddenly to the event of the day, when the other ladies and girls declared that it was time to dress, and Iduna was not sorry to leave the highly educated student, who shed the radiance of enlightened human understanding into every corner, in which any illusion still lingered fondly. He knew that few, like himself, stood upon the height of nineteenth century reason.

Beate would not be debarred from dressing her friend for the ceremony. She looked beautiful in her veil and white satin robe, but was ghastly pale. Beate advised her to have recourse to artificial aid, but Giulia very decidedly rejected every reminiscence of her past.

There she appeared, really like a marble bride; on beholding her, Kuhl remembered how he had once called her so, when Blanden told him of his adventures on the Lago Maggiore. At first sight her beauty gave an impression of pride and coldness, but any one looking more closely recognised the softening influence of internal suffering which overshadowed her features.

They were a handsome pair; there was no dissentient voice in the unenvious assembly. Blanden had quite recovered from his duel, he looked noble and grand, the dreaminess in his features possessed a charm of its own, such gentleness, such benignity lay in it, and when he opened his eyes widely they told of superior intellectual spirit.

All the ladies appeared in brilliant toilets; both the brides elect, Cäcilie and Olga, with Beate, were the bridesmaids. The unheard of event that Dr. Kuhl had donned a frockcoat, betokened that Cäcilie had already made progress in taming the rebel. As for him, he contemplated himself in the pier-glasses, shrugging his shoulders and saying to Wegen he felt like a bear at a fair, whom the bear-leader had dressed up in a red jacket; however, he must perform his antics and dance to the drum. And so saying, he stretched about and strained his Herculean arms in the unwontedly fine material.

The procession was arranged and moved through the dining-hall into the festively decorated and flower bedecked chapel. There, behind the altar, upon which Giulia had once placed an enchanted souvenir, stood the minister. She thought of the two Italian island churches, of the one in which she had stood before the altar as to-day; in the other where she had confessed to a forbidden love, and before the sacred word and sacred act she was overcome with a full consciousness of her sinful temerity.

As in a vision, her whole life passed before her, she did not listen to the words of the Bible. The "Yes" in the church of San Giulio rang in her ears--the echo of the chapel seemed to strengthen it--at first it sounded like the crash of scorn, and still louder, more grave, more solemn, the thunder of the judgment day--her knees tottered. Everything was bathed in dreamy light--she was herself, and yet was not--she was there and here.

Did not the lake of Orta roar outside?

No, it was the storm which had risen, sweeping through the tops of the pines, and stirring up the waves of the northern water mirror.

Fancy often erects a bridge of dreams from one summit of life to another, and deep below in oblivion lie all its other paths.

Giulia was absorbed in a vision, in a self-delusion; the pictures of the past and present became mixed up, but the confusion was agonising; her hand trembled in Blanden's.

Then the rings were exchanged, Giulia looked into his luminous eyes, he bent over her with an expression of most ardent love. The shadows disappeared, she felt the full consciousness of the bliss of the present, and in a voice not trembling with anguish of conscience, but with all the warmth of intense devotion, she spoke the word of consent.

When Blanden led her to dinner he asked about the diadem; he had hoped that she would adorn herself with it on that day--when again should so good an opportunity be offered of letting the proud family heritage of the Blandens' shine in all its glory? And when it shone above the flowing bridal veil, the sanction of the family, the blessing of the long row of female ancestors, of that house would at the same time rest upon the brow of her who entered that line: she was received into the sanctuary of the noble women who for centuries had held their sway over this home. Giulia blushed deeply, and with deceitful words pleaded modesty and humility as her excuse, but Blanden felt that he was rebuffed, painfully disappointed that she had scorned to adorn herself with his costly gift; it was like a note of discord in the harmony of the entertainment, and he could not suppress a sensation of anxious misgiving.

The grand wedding dinner passed off very cheerfully. Giulia possessed the lightheadedness of an actress; in glad emotions she forgot everything which at other times might depress her, she imbibed forgetfulness and courage with the sparkling froth of the champagne. Then, when her countenance brightened, a slight colour suffused it as she smiled and joked, and gave herself up to a genial actress' mood, which owes its birth to a rich treasury of recollections; then only her beauty, which until now had but inspired cold admiration, warmed all hearts, and Blanden was deemed fortunate to have won so beautiful a wife.

There was no lack of toasts and verses. Schöner made use of a few ideas which he had once mustered in Neukuhren at Eva's betrothal. A true poet always goes economically to work, because when once he has stamped an idea with the immortal impress of his genius, it must not be lost again, and it would be most blameworthy even to make a feeble copy. Salomon retired to the domain of satire, he compared the new Knights of St. John with those of the old Order, and ridiculed the celibacy of the latter in verses imitative of Heine.

Dr. Kuhl, it is true, proposed no toasts, but he was in a wild mood, which inspired his betrothed with some slight alarm, he spoke of his gallows-wit, and said he had courage to mention the rope, even in the house of a man who had been hanged; he was enjoying himself immensely at the wedding, but this fact did not upset his theories that marriage festivities were a public nuisance; however, as he had at last lost all his characteristics and fallen a victim to his own good nature, and another person's amiability, well, he could not help it; he, too, must let himself be married, but he should only permit two witnesses, selected from the midst of the sovereign people, to be present, who afterwards would disappear in the night of that plebeian universality where all cows are black; his marriage dinner he and Cäcilie should eat alone, or at the utmost invite his Caro who, on that day, should receive a specially good dish of meat and bones. Well, he had somehow got into the good-for-nothing frock-coat, and he only wished that all the seams would burst. The whole life of perishing humanity consisted in most abject concessions; he, too, now moved on that degrading course, and had already fallen far from that height upon which he had formerly stood in proud self-glorification, and he looked upon himself as an apostate, and with his better self, which still occasionally rose from out the slough, he looked upon his present self, planted up to its neck in a bog of social prejudices, with an indescribable feeling of pity and contempt.

"Thank God," said Wegen to Olga, "that you have not fallen into the hands of this wicked hector, who seems to look upon his engagement as an act of suicide. How differently I appreciate you."

Smiling meaningly, Olga pressed her lover's hand, but Kuhl had overheard the last words.

"Dear friend and brother-in-law," said he, "I herewith pronounce you to be the greatest hypocrite at this round table. The theory of common love, for which the century is not yet ripe, permits many variations--and one of these variations you have performed, and all the world performs them with us. Enter upon an engagement to-day, give it up soon, and a week or so later fall in love and engage yourself again, and you are one of the most moral citizens in the world, and no one will assail your good name. But, if only you feel that affection a week sooner, before the old one is given up, then you are a Don Juan. Everything then depends upon time, just as in hiring anything, a week constitutes the whole difference between virtue and vice. Well, if we have not sinned, dear brother-in-law in spe, at least we have nothing with which to reproach ourselves! I have loved two sisters, but so have you also--your good health, my friend!"

Wegen coloured at this address, which, to him, appeared intensely heartless. Olga laughed, but Cäcilie had long since compressed her lips and prepared herself for an armed reprimand.

The clergyman opposite, an enlightened man, had listened to Kuhl's defiant speech with a smiling countenance. He quietly took part in the conversation.

"The affections of the human heart are very peculiar, and who, indeed, excepting the Lord, who searches heart and mind, can say that he has fathomed that organ? Such affection may be transient or deep, yet it seems to me that it, too, is subject to mutability and change. But this free-booter's love must cease at that point where human society rises unanimously, striving to attain its grandest ends. We will grant dual love to Herr Dr. Kuhl. Let every one manage it as best he can. I know, indeed, that the heart, like the ocean, can have but one ebb and flow, and that this tide is only produced by the mysterious attraction of one orb, not merely in regular course--as is the case with the ocean tide--but also in wild passionate upheavings, as in that of the glowing liquid emotion of the earth, the earthquake, which clever men also ascribe to the influence of the moon's powers of attraction; but although dual love may be a whim of the heart, bigamy is very different."

Although Blanden was talking to her at the moment, Giulia became attentive, and listened eagerly to the words of her other neighbour.

"Bigamy," said the clergyman, "is a mockery of the ordinances which Church and State have laid down for the support of society, and the purity and security of families; hence the severe punishment which has always been decreed to that crime. It may appear too severe to those who are free spirits to such an extent, as also in this case only to perceive the maintenance of immaterial forms, but whosoever tries to shake them tries to shake the bases of society."

Giulia's heart beat more quickly. The cheering influence of the champagne had lost its power, gloomy clouds overspread her brow.

"We have," said the clergyman, "only lately had such a case in our village. A depraved woman, who came from the other side of the Polish frontier, had a legal husband there; here, however, she commenced a fresh love affair, and was married again. The matter came to light, and the woman who had taken the payment of the double marriage expenses very lightly, was sentenced to several years' imprisonment."

Giulia became pale, the champagne glass fell from her hand, and was dashed to pieces on the table.

Blanden was startled. He had not listened to the clergyman's discourse, having been talking very animatedly himself to Giulia, but what he said to her was pleasant, bright and cheerful--what had come to her?

"I was abstracted, and awkward; forgive me!" said she, in an unsteady voice.

"It is possible," Dr. Kuhl's powerful voice sounded across the table, "that by bigamy people may wish to live in clover, but that does not prevent a man wasting his substance in dual love."

Blanden now noticed the subject under discussion. He became depressed and thoughtful, and did not know why. What could have agitated Giulia so much? Was her heart not quite free?

They rose from the table in good spirits. Evening was already closing in.

On that day, too, Blanden showed his usual care for the amusement of his dependents by going into the great barn at the farm, where the floor had been swept and garnished for a dance.

The village band had already commenced its noisy tum-tum, beer flowed from the mighty barrels which Olkewicz had sent there.

Red lamps illumined the place with a festive light. The couples whirled round in merry dance. A joyous hurrah greeted the master, who immediately led his young wife amongst the groups of glad people. She was obliged to open a dance with Olkewicz, and never in his life did the worthy steward experience greater pride than when footing it with the princess out of the fairy lake, the vision of a former occasion, in a place where he usually commanded the united threshing flails of the village.

But Giulia had to dance with the young people also. There were Poles from beyond the frontiers; one a fine lad, in a laced jacket, knelt down before Giulia, after the dance, and begged her to allow him to take off her shoe, according to Polish custom, so as to drink her health. Resistance was in vain, and the princess of Lago Maggiore had as little cause as Cinderella to conceal her shoe and feet from the world. The lad filled the slipper with brandy, and gave one lusty cheer for the lady of the manor, while vowing himself to her service for evermore. The fiddlers struck up a furious tune, with them the two horns in the village band, and the night-watchman's horn, too-tooed joyously. Great was the gladness of the people, and Giulia moved like a strange fairy indeed amongst the women and girls of the village, mostly lacking any beauty. The master himself went about from one to another, talked to the tenants, shook hands pleasantly with those peasants, who, according to old privileges, farmed their own acres, here and there caught a better-looking maiden under her chin, and said a kindly word to her.

Then, suddenly, from behind a pear tree, as if out of a hiding place, two glaring eyes stared at him; they were Kätchen's.

In his pleasantly excited mood he hardly remembered their last weird meeting.

"What in the world brings you here?" asked he.

She did not answer for some time.

"Have you become dumb again?"

Now Kätchen wriggled out from behind the wooden monster, and stood on the bench beside it. She pointed to Giulia with outstretched arms, and said, "Must I take part in your wedding after all? Marriage on land and sea! Hurrah!"

And, like a mad woman, she jumped down, mingled alone in the confusion of the dancers with wild gnome-like bounds, until a little crooked fellow, who could find no partner, took pity on her and twirled her round in the ring.

Then Kätchen disappeared into the night outside; meanwhile the other ladies and gentlemen had also descended to watch the people's enjoyment. One after another Kuhl selected a conspicuously good-looking or ugly partner and bore her in breathless fury over the threshing floor, so that the fleetest youths were obliged to acknowledge his superiority in the wild dance. The heated fair did not know what happened to them, and marvelled how a townsman, who had never threshed, could have such powerful arms. After this furious round dance Kuhl ascended a tub, imposed silence, and made an impromptu speech to these worthy Masurens, which was frequently interrupted by loud cheers.

The park was illuminated in a dazzlingly brilliant effulgence. Blanden led Giulia on his arm, and the other guests followed along the paths. The flames displayed letters upon the velvet sward; here was read, in quivering, glowing characters, "Lago Maggiore," there the name "Giulia." The Chinese pavilion on the island in the lake, and the bridge leading to it shone in the gayest reflection of lights. In the hot-houses a splendid group of southern plants, laurels, and myrtles, under the feathery shelter of a pine, gleamed in the radiance of coloured lamps, but most beautiful of all was a red fir outside, decked with ribbons and flags, and when the guests came up to it they were magically illuminated with a flaming red light. Giulia squeezed Blanden's hand.

The sky had become clear, and when gorgeous fireworks were let off upon the lake the rockets ascended to the stars, and the bude lights and Catherine wheels crackled above the moonlit waves.

Then the party assembled again in the dining-hall, but the bridal couple retired from the scene. Dancing and cards were still kept up for long. Wegen arranged everything admirably. Kuhl was in an excellent humour, and only by degrees one member after another left the happy circle and sought repose. Silence reigned in the old Castle, only the flag upon the tower fluttered in the night wind that had risen from the lake, and lashed the waves higher and higher; still could be heard glad sounds of the drinkers and dancers from the threshing barn of the farm.

A quiet ray of light fell from Giulia's windows, intercepted by the large fir as it bent its heavy hanging boughs watchfully over them.

All the lights were extinguished in the park. Only between the gaps in the walled-passage between the Dantziger and the Castle a stray one seemed to quiver.

Not out of the deep-blue atmosphere of Italy did the stars look down upon this night; from a paler sky shone a paler light! Not the glorious Lago, with its enchanted isles and boundary Alps, rocked all into sweet dreams--it was a sober tide which here surged upon the strand; a tide, whose waves have nothing to tell, whose monotonous play only reflect the infinite wearisomeness of a lifeless landscape.

And yet--it was she herself, in all her beauty, the princess of those days, and it matters not out of what sea Venus rises, she brings Heaven with her all the same.

But the happiness that once the red fir looked down upon, over which the pine spread its loving fans, was ephemeral, grasped from the moment, forfeited to the moment. How different Blanden felt; was happiness secured in his own home, under the protection of his old household gods? thither he had transplanted the roguish smiling wanderer, where, although deprived of its fluttering wings, it found an abiding place by the family hearth without losing its enchanting smile.

Thus he thought and felt; he did not inhale momentary intoxication from Giulia's lips, but the inauguration of a whole life. She, on the contrary, rejected every thought of the past, of the future. With intentional obliviousness she gave herself up to the present.

What sacrifice had she made, what sacrilege committed to be once more with him, whom alone she loved. She contemplated his noble gentle features with speechless happiness, in his great, widely-opened eyes she read the same passion which animated her, only with fleeting thoughts that swept through her mind as flashes of lightning illumine a weird gloomy spot, dared she think of anything beyond.

She closed her eyes, she did not venture to look at the mirror. If it were to move again; if Baluzzi were to step forth, her bridal coronet in his hand; if Blanden learned the truth, thrust her from him as a deceiver; if a curse were hurled upon her from the bosom that still often breathed uneasily in consequence of the wound which he had received for her sake--it was impossible to complete the thought. She covered her face with her hands. Outside the needles of the fir crackled in the wind, and swept the window. She sank into a light state of semi-somnolence, and she heard the branches crack still more loudly--what a violent storm! It was as though it drove dust and wind into her eyes, and deprived her of breath. With that volition, which does not quite disappear in sleep, she raised herself slowly, and simultaneously Blanden started up.

What had happened? Were they dreaming? But those were no mists and clouds of dreamland, it was smoke and fire that surrounded them. They sprang up and rushed to the window! At the same moment the giant fir outside caught fire. The flames blazed and hissed as they rose, and upon its wide arms the tree bore the fire across to the other side of the Castle roof, away over the apartments in which were the wedded pair.

Giulia's terrified cry for help pierced the night. Blanden remembered the stairs and the secret passage. He pushed the mirror-door aside, but an ocean of flame met his gaze; hence came the fire. He rushed to the other side, drawing Giulia after him by her arm with all his might. The first room, also the second, in which Beate had slept on the previous night, were still free, the flames had passed over them, but farther on again the branches of the fir had shaken down the sparks. The staircase could not be reached, door and wainscot stood in a blaze. "Lost!" cried Giulia, sinking down with a loud cry.

Blanden shouted once more from the window. In mortal fear he listened for any token of life outside.

Where were the watchmen? Doubtlessly at the dance in the barn.

At last--a sound of voices--they came nearer--it was high time! but how escape?

"Ladders, ladders here!" rang a mighty cry without, it filled Blanden's bosom with renewed confidence; it was Kuhl's voice.

The crowd seemed to rush helplessly in noisy confusion through the park. Olkewicz called for the fire engines.

"Where are the ladders?" roared Kuhl.

Blanden's position became more imminent every moment, the flames already darted through the clattering mirror door, caught the curtains, and the canopy of the bed rattled down over the broken posts.

A moment more--and the flames, which sent a stifling vapour in advance, had overtaken the other chambers, wherein Blanden supported the unconscious Giulia in his arms. With a fearful effort, he dragged her to the window to breathe fresh air, for her strength was beginning to fail.

Outside powerless lamentations and cries for help, futile swearing and cursing by the steward.

But no! The ladder of salvation was brought and placed against the window.

In the midst of the sparks which the burning roof showered upon them, beneath a down-pour of bricks and stones that rattled to the ground with the rapidity of fire itself, Dr. Kuhl sprang up the ladder, received Giulia into his strong arms, and bore her down again as easily, firmly, and unfalteringly as if he were walking down a marble staircase.

Blanden, whose hair was already singed, followed their preserver.

A thundering cry of joy greeted him.

All had become animated in the other wing of the Castle, which the guests occupied, and who had hastened down, the ladies in cloaks which they had thrown hastily over their night robes.

The first fire engine arrived, conducted by Wegen on horseback. The fiery red of the sky must have aroused the neighbouring villages, whither eager messengers had been despatched.

With deep emotion, Blanden gazed upon the increasing blaze, which threatened to reduce the old inheritance of his family to ashes; already the forked tongues of the flames lashed the tower, they boded ill for the dining-hall and chapel. All exertions were now directed to save the centre of the Castle, the actual Ordensburg.

Certainly the fire could effect nothing upon those mighty walls, but as the flames swept in wild haste over the roofs, the falling, burning rafters from above might ignite the doors and panels of the beautiful, well-preserved Castle apartments of the oldest portion.

Meanwhile engine after engine arrived, the whole district was alarmed, the Castle tower of Kulmitten shone like a flaming beacon, but still more did love for the noble master speed the help that was hurrying to his home. Some of the engines were stationed on the other side of the Castle, some in the park meadows, executing their work of preservation with unflagging labour.

Blanden was first here then there; Giulia had recovered, she stared senselessly into the flames. Had the flash of a tempest set the Castle on fire she would have been convinced that heaven's judgment had fallen upon her sin; that it would proclaim with burning tongues that which she concealed so anxiously, yet although she did not know the cause of the evil, she held the fire to be in some dark connection with her own fate, and sometimes, with a shudder, the thought passed through her mind that Baluzzi might be its author.

Despite all efforts of the numerous engines, and the helpful interference of the throng, the splendid dining-hall could not be saved. The flames had penetrated beyond the door, and consumed all inflammable-material which the room contained. Still more was Giulia terrified when the image of the Madonna and child fell half shattered from the niche in the main wall; she was the old patron saint of this Castle, did she flee from the sacrilege which had entered? Cautiously and courageously Blanden, Kuhl and Wegen led the party of firemen, but only towards morning did they become masters of the fire. The chapel was saved, and the burning tower, after it had done its duty as beacon, was extinguished.

The new building, the other wing, remained entirely uninjured.

Now, when only timid flames and clouds of smoke arose from the burning place, when the streams of water hissed more faintly over the smoking ruins, and the first rays of dawn gleamed in the east, Blanden and his friends gained time for calm reflection, which the ceaseless zeal of vigorous action had hitherto not permitted.

First the lord of the Castle mustered all its inhabitants, no one was missing; weeping Beate must be comforted, she had lost all her beautiful clothes, which had been left in the bedroom the day before. Blanden promised compensation. But then the eager question arose as to how the fire had originated? It had evidently broken out in that extreme wing, which was connected with the front tower by the subterranean passage, whence the secret stairs led upwards, but that was the very spot whither usually no human being penetrated. Who could have come there on that day? The subterranean passage had fallen in, the secret approach from the lake to the front tower was overgrown. Blanden knew that for many years, yes, all his life time, the medieval romantic nature of that spot had remained undisturbed.

With a throbbing heart, Giulia listened to these discussions. One knew that dark path, and had already traversed it. Verily he had deceived her, concealed his shameful intentions, too soon already completed the work of his promised revenge. It was Baluzzi, but where had he remained? Was he still tarrying in the vicinity? What disclosures menaced her? Not enough that he had laid the Castle, her new home, in dust and ruins, he would now direct the deadly arrow against herself.

She had relied upon his word, upon the word of a malicious bravo.

In order entirely to extinguish the glowing cinders, the water streams were now all directed upon the spot where the fire had broken out; a few bold men, Kuhl at their head, ventured wherever a sudden flame could still dart out.

Giulia felt a vague dread of the researches, and yet nothing could be found there save dust and ashes.

Suddenly Kuhl's cry was heard by the expectant crowd.

"A corpse!"

The cry, repeated more loudly, passed on to the very last person, all rushed nearer, in eager expectation.

"Baluzzi!" cried Giulia to herself, becoming pale, at that moment only a sensation of horror seized her. A half-charred, half-shattered corpse was carried towards them; the fact of its lying beneath the fallen rubbish of stones had preserved it from being completely burned. The half-consumed rags of garments showed that it was the corpse of a woman--of a girl.

Blanden went closer; suddenly an idea flashed through him, all that could still be recognised as the remains of a human being confirmed his supposition. The incendiary was discovered, it could be none other than half-witted Kätchen.

"It is the idiot girl who danced with deformed Pietrowicz yesterday!"

Pietrowicz came nearer and stared at the remains of his partner.

"A death-dance Pietrowicz! You never anticipated that! But from henceforth do not dream of ghosts!"

Pietrowicz stepped back as if struck, and crossed himself.

"To set fire to places," added Blanden by way of explanation, "is a mania of such half-witted beings."

But he told himself that this girl was not more mentally deranged than all who are animated with a blind, senseless passion; that she since that visit to her attic chamber, since he had rejected her insane offers of love, had brooded upon revenge against him, and had executed it on his wedding day. The mixture of love and hatred, he knew was not only peculiar to those whose minds are disordered, but in all moody, narrow ones it works like an accumulated combustible, which at the first shock explodes, scattering all into ruins.

"I might be superstitious," thought he to himself, "she always brings evil and ruin to that which I love."

"Giulia," then he cried suddenly, "where are you, my sweet wife? You live, then is all well!"

And he clasped her in his arms, while the morning sun rose glowingly red on the horizon above the smoking Castle ruins, the closely thronging crowd, and the corpse of halfwitted Kätchen, the water nymph, who had died in the fire.