CHAPTER IX.
Meta carried out her heroic design without allowing herself to be intimidated by anything, even by Aunt Rikchen's spectacles, "And they are no joke," said Meta, when in the evening she reported the result of the first sitting. "I could easier hold out against Baroness Kniehreche's eye-glasses. Behind those there is nothing but a pair of old blind eyes, of which I feel anything but fear; but when Aunt Rikchen allows her spectacles to slip to the end of her nose, she then begins really to see so clearly, that one would feel anxious and uneasy if one had not so good a conscience. And do you know, Elsa, that something particular must have occurred between you and the Schmidts--what, I am quite in the dark about, as the good lady mixes everything together higgledy-piggledy; but she is very angry with you Werbens, as papa is with the Griebens, our neighbours, who are always trespassing on his boundaries, he says; and you must have been trespassing on the Schmidts, and that is the reason, you may depend upon it, why Reinhold has got so distant. We shall hear nothing from him; but Aunt Rikchen never can keep anything to herself, and we are already the best of friends. She says I am a good girl, and that after all I really had nothing to do with it, and the dove who brought the olive branch from the earth did not know either what it had in its beak: and then I saw that Reinhold, who was in the studio with me, looked at her, and Herr Anders also looked quite grave, and glanced again at Reinhold. They three know something, that much is clear, and I will find it out, you may depend upon it." But Meta did not find it out, and could not do so, as Aunt Rikchen did not herself know the exact state of affairs, and the others were most careful to keep her in ignorance. Meta's communication therefore by no means contributed to Elsa's peace of mind, and if Elsa had at first, at least, had the happiness of hearing of Reinhold through Meta, how he had come to the studio and kept her company for a long time, and what he had said, and how he had looked, even this source of consolation was now decreasing, and seemed gradually to be drying up altogether. One day he had scarcely been there for five minutes, another time only just passed through the studio, a third time Meta had not seen him at all, a fourth time she could not even say whether she had seen him or not. Elsa thought she knew the meaning of this apparent negligence. Meta had found out something which she could not tell her, or had in some other way become convinced of the hopelessness of her love; and the ample details which she gave from her other experiences and observations in the studio, only served to conceal her embarrassment. It was therefore with a very divided heart that Elsa heard how Meta daily grew in favour with Aunt Rikchen, who was really a most excellent old lady, and whose heart was in the right place, if her spectacles did always get crooked, or slipped to the end of her nose. And how there was something especially touching to her in the good lady, for she herself would look just like that fifty years hence. But far more touching to her was a lovely young blind girl, who now came every day, because Herr Anders wished to bring the two together in one group. "When she spoke it was just as if a lark were singing high up in the blue sky on a Sunday mornings when all is still in the fields; and Justus said that Nature had never before produced such a contrast as she and Cilli made, and if he succeeded in reproducing it, no one could speak to him again save hat in hand. There was also next to Justus's studio another which aroused all her curiosity, because the owner of it never allowed herself to be seen, and she could form no idea of what a lady could be like who modelled in clay or hammered at the marble, least of all of such a beautiful, elegant lady as Justus said Fräulein Schmidt was, for you know, Elsa, a sculptor looks like a baker, only that he has clay in his fingers instead of dough, and is powdered with marble-dust instead of flour, and you would hardly take such a queer-looking creature for a respectable gentleman, much less for a great artist, and Justus says the one who looks cleanest and most elegant in spite of his working blouse, and is handsomer than any one I ever saw in my life, is no true artist, as he can do nothing more than point and block out; but you, poor child, do not know what pointing is. Pointing, you must know, is when you take a thing like a stork's bill, you know--" And then followed a very long and very complicated explanation, out of all which Elsa only gathered Meta's desire to talk of everything excepting what alone lay near her own heart. "The work will soon be finished," said Elsa to herself, "and the whole result of the fine plan will be that I can no longer consider Reinhold's holding back as a mere chance," But the work did not seem likely to be finished.
"Such a countenance had never before come under his notice," said Justus. "You might as well model the spring clouds, which every moment change their form." And again, when the portrait for the bas-relief was finished, "You can have no idea how dreadfully absurd I look, Elsa, like a Chinese!" Justus had begun to work at the completion of the "Ambulance preparations." "And I cannot leave the poor man in the lurch after all his trouble, for you know, Elsa, it is no longer a question of the head only--that is done--but of the whole figure, the attitude, gesture, in a word, a new subject, you know; but I really believe, poor child, you do not know what a subject is. A subject is when a man has no idea what he shall make, and then suddenly sees something, where in reality there is nothing to see--say a cat or a washing-tub--" This was the longest, but also the last explanation which Meta gave to her friend out of the fulness of her newly-acquired knowledge. For the next few days Elsa had more than usual to do in the household, and another matter imperiously claimed her attention. The final conference over the future management of the Warnow estates took place at her father's house, after two months of discussion backwards and forwards over it, and the three votes of Herr von Wallbach, Councillor Schieler, and Giraldi, as the Baroness's proxy, in opposition to the General's single voice--who recorded his dissentient view in a minute--had determined the sale of the whole property at the earliest possible opportunity, and Count Axel von Golm had been accepted as the purchaser in the event of his agreeing to the conditions of sale settled at the same by the trustees. Her father appeared after the long conference paler and more exhausted than Elsa had ever seen him.
"They have done it at last, Elsa," he said. "The Warnow property, which has been two hundred years in the possession of the family, will be sold and cut up. Your aunt Valerie may justify it if she can, since she and she alone is to blame that an old and honourable family falls miserably to the ground. Had she been a good and faithful wife to my friend--but what use is it harping upon bygone things? It is folly in my own eyes, how much more so then in those of others, to whom the present is everything! And I must confess the gentlemen have acted quite in the spirit of the age, cleverly, rationally, and in your interests. If the results are as brilliant as the Councillor flatters himself, you will be at least twice as rich as before. It is very unnatural, Elsa, but I hope he triumphs too soon. The Count--whom he proposes as purchaser--can only pay the outrageous sum named--for the entire property is really scarcely worth half a million, let alone a whole million--if he is certain that so great a burden will be immediately lifted off his shoulders; that is to say, if the scandalous project is carried out, the danger and folly of which I so strongly urged with the help of the staff and Captain Schmidt. If it does, however, come to anything, if the concession is granted, it would be an affront to that small authority which I can lay claim to, but which I do claim, so that I should look upon it in the same light as if I had been passed over in the approaching promotions. I should at once send in my resignation. The decision must be made soon. For Golm it is a question of life and death. He will either be utterly ruined or a Crœsus; and I shall be his Excellency or a poor pensioner--all quite in the spirit of the age, which is always playing a game of hazard. Well, God's will be done! I can only win, not lose, since no one and nothing can rob me of the best and highest--my clear conscience--and the knowledge that I have always stood to the old colours, and have acted as a Werben should act." So said the father to Elsa in a state of agitation, which, hard as he tried to control it, quivered and broke out in his words, and in the very vibrations of his deep voice. It was the first time that he had given her such a proof of his confidence, as to let her be a witness of a struggle which formerly he would have fought out in silence in his proud soul. Was it chance? Was it intentional? Was it but the outpouring of the overflowing vessel? Or did her father suspect or know her secret? Did he mean to say to her, "Such a decision may soon be awaiting you also. I trust and hope that you, too, will stand to the colours which are sacred to me, that you also will prove yourself a Werben." This had taken place in the morning. Meta, after another sitting, had unexpectedly received an invitation to dinner from a friend of her mother's. She should not return till the evening. For the first time Elsa scarcely missed her friend. She was glad to be alone, and to be able to give way to her thoughts in silence. They were not cheerful, these thoughts. But she felt it a duty to think them out, so as to see her way clearly if possible. She thought she had succeeded, and found in it a calm satisfaction, which, as she said to herself, was truly her whole compensation for all she had renounced in secret. And in this resigned frame of mind she received with tolerable composure the news which Meta brought on her return home, which otherwise would have filled her with sorrow, that Meta was going--must go. She had found at the lady's to whom she had gone a letter from mamma, in which mamma made such terrible lamentations over her long absence, that she could not do otherwise than go at once--that was to say, the first thing tomorrow morning. What she felt she would not and could not say. It was an extraordinary frame of mind, in any case, as whilst she seemed to be drowned in tears, she broke into a smile the next moment, which she in vain attempted to suppress, until the smiles again merged into tears; and so she went on for the rest of the evening. The next morning this state of mind had reached such a pitch that Elsa became really uneasy about the extraordinary girl, and begged her to postpone her journey until she was somewhat calmer. But Meta stood firm. She was quite determined, and Elsa would think her quite right if she knew all; and she should know all, but by letter; by word of mouth she could not tell her without dying of laughter, and she did not wish to die just yet, for reasons which she also could not tell her without dying of laughter. And so she carried on the joke till she got into the carriage, in which August was to take her to the station. She had absolutely forbidden any one else to accompany her, "for reasons, Elsa, you know, which--there! you will see it all in the letter, you know, which--good-bye, dear, sweet, incomparable Elsa!" And off drove Meta. In the evening August, not without some solemnity, gave Elsa a letter which the young lady had given him at the last moment before starting, with strict injunctions to deliver it punctually twelve hours later, on the stroke of nine in the evening. It was a thick letter, in Meta's most illegible handwriting, from which Elsa with difficulty deciphered the following:
"6 o'clock p.m.
"Dearest Elsa,
"Do not believe a word of what, when I return home, I--ah! that is no use. You will not read this letter till--I write it here at Frau von Randon's, so as to lose no time--August will give it to you when I am gone. Well, it is all untrue! My mother has not written at all. For the last week I have deceived and imposed upon you abominably, as since then I have no longer been on your behalf, and it would have been quite useless if I had; for it is now clear to me that your Reinhold has discovered long since how matters stood with us, and kept out of the way, even before we ourselves had a suspicion; for you may believe me, Elsa, that when two men are such good friends, they stand by one another in such matters as well as we girls could. And before dear blind Cilli we did not think it necessary either to have any reserve, because she always smiled so merrily when we teased each other; and then she could not see, and in such cases, you know, the eyes play a great part. It began, indeed, with the eyes, for till then everything had gone on quite properly; but when he came to them he said, 'I shall now have an opportunity of finding out exactly what colour your eyes are; I have been puzzling my brains about it all this time.' I maintained they were yellow, Aunt Rikchen said green, he himself brown; and Cilli, to whom the decision was left, said she was certain they were blue, because I was so cheerful, and cheerful people always had blue eyes. So we went on joking about it; and every day he began again about my eyes, and as you cannot very well talk about eyes without looking into them, I looked into his eyes while he looked in mine, and--I don't know whether you have made the same discovery, Elsa, but when one has done so for a few days, one begins to see more and more clearly--quite down to the bottom of them--quite curious things, I can tell you, which makes one turn hot and cold, and one often does not know whether to laugh and to give the man who looks at you like that a box on the ear, or to burst into tears and fall on his neck.
"I had felt like this already once or twice, and to-day again, only rather worse than before. The assistants had gone to dinner, and Aunt Rikchen to see after her household affairs; there were only he and I, and Cilli, and Justus wished to go on working if we did not mind, that he might finish once for all. But he did not work so industriously as usual, and because I saw that, I also did not sit so still as usual; and we--that is, he and I--played all sorts of tricks with Lesto, who must lie down and pretend to be dead, and who barked furiously at me when I pretended to beat his master, and other nonsense, until we suddenly heard the sound of the door shutting which leads to the garden, and--good gracious, Elsa! how can I tell you?--Cilli had gone away without our having noticed it. We thought we must have gone rather too far then, and so became quite quiet--as still as mice--so that you might have heard a pin fall; and I was so embarrassed, Elsa--so embarrassed, you know--and getting every moment more so, when he suddenly knelt down right before me--my knees were trembling so, that I had sat down--and again looked so into my eyes, and I--I was forced to, Elsa--I asked quite softly what he meant. 'I mean,' said he--but also quite softly--'that you must do what I ask you.' 'I shall box your ears if you do not get up directly,' said I, still more softly. 'I shall not get up,' said he, but so close to me that I could no longer box his ears, but instead fell upon his neck, upon which Lesto, who evidently thought that his master's life was in danger, began to bark furiously; and I, just to quiet Lesto and to make Justus get up off his knees, said 'Yes' to everything he asked--that I loved him, and would be his wife, and everything else that one says in such a terrible moment.
"And now only think, Elsa, Elsa! when, in the course of five minutes, we had quieted Lesto and were going out--as I said I had sworn to be discreet and to do you credit, and that I would not remain a second longer with so dangerous a man in so lonely a place, with all those dreadful marble figures--and as we went out arm-in-arm, Cilli suddenly stepped towards us from between two of the statues, herself as white as marble, but with the most heavenly smile on her sweet face, and said we must not be angry with her, as the door had shut itself and she could not get out, and she had heard all--her hearing was so acute, and there was such an echo in the studio. Oh, Elsa, I almost sank into the floor, for I think there had not been words only. But that divine creature, as if she had seen how red I grew, took me by the hand and said I need not be ashamed; there was no need to be ashamed of a true, honourable love; and I did not yet know how happy I was, how proud I ought to be; but I should learn it gradually, and then I should be grateful for my proud happiness, and love Justus very, very much, as an artist needed far, far more love than other men. And then she took Justus's hand, and said, 'And you, Justus, you will love her like the sunshine, without which you cannot live.' And as she said so, a ray of sunshine fell through the studio window right upon the dear thing, and she looked transfigured--so marvellously beautiful, with the poor blind eyes turned upwards, that at last I could not help crying, and she had great difficulty in quieting me. And then she said: 'You must not remain here in this state of agitation; you must at once return home and tell your mother, and no one before her, for my knowing it is a mere chance for which you are not to blame.' And I promised her all she wished, and I feel now how right the dear angel was, as I am quite mad with delight, and should certainly have done some folly for very joy; and that I must not do, since I have sworn to be sensible and to do you credit. I shall start to-morrow morning, and shall be home to-morrow evening at eight o'clock, by half-past shall have told mamma all, and at nine August will give you this letter, as after mamma you are, of course, the next. I told Cilli so at once, and she quite agreed to it; and her last words were, 'Pray to God that your friend may be as happy as you are now.' And I will do so, Elsa, you may depend upon it; and in all other respects also depend upon your ever loving, wise
"Meta.