Still she decided upon the second alternative as the safer. The bandage was arranged; she was just about to raise her aunt gently from her lap and arrange her as comfortable a couch as possible, when through the bushes, through the hedges, between the trees, there came upon her what seemed like thousands and thousands of serpents, whose hissing sounded even through the howling of the storm, with a strange and horrible noise that made Elsa's blood run chill. For a moment she listened breathlessly, and then with a wild shriek started to her feet, snatching up her aunt, and with the strength of despair dragging her up the steps to save the helpless woman and herself from the flood which had broken over the park. She had hardly reached the last step before the water was pouring through the lower ones, and seeming to be everywhere at once, foaming and roaring through the hedge which ran from the summer-house to the castle, as if over a weir, rushing into the hollow, which was no longer a valley but the bed of a broad stream whose waters, pouring in from either side, met with a crash like thunder, throwing up jets of water to the balcony, over the edge of which Elsa leant with a shudder.
A bench ran round the inner side of the balcony. Elsa laid her aunt here, who was falling from one fainting fit into another, after wrapping her up as warmly as possible, for the greater part with her own clothes.
And there she sat, with the poor thing's head again in her lap, as the storm howled and the flood roared around her, and shook the frail slender wooden edifice in every joint of its worm-eaten planks, praying that God would send some one to them--the only man who could save them in their fearful need.
CHAPTER XII.
As Ottomar's steps died away upon the creaking stairs and across the hall, Ferdinanda sprang up, and wringing her hands, paced two or three times up and down the little room; then she threw herself down again as Ottomar had last seen her--her face in her hands, her head leaning against the back of the sofa. But she had not cried then, neither did she cry now; she had no tears to shed; she had no hope left, no wish save one--to die for him since she could not live for him, since her life could only be a burden and a torment to him. Why had she not believed his brother officer, with the clear brow and keen, pitiful eyes, who had said to her:
"You deceive yourself, my dear young lady! Your flight with Ottomar is no deliverance for him from his difficulties, but another complication, and that the most fatal. The worst point for Ottomar is the terrible wound to his honour as an officer. Appearances at least must be saved here, and this is still possible according to the arrangements I have made. At the best his life can only be half a life, one which I do not know how he will bear. I doubt even if he can bear it; but in such a case as this one may perhaps stifle one's better judgment. There can be no doubt, however, that if you now fly with him, and the circumstance becomes known--as it must be--there will be no longer any possibility for us, his friends, to save even appearances. That an officer should be forced to retire from the service on account of debts, that his betrothal should on this account be broken off, that he should even in his delicate position neglect to call to account the gossips and scandal-bearers--all this may occur, does occur unfortunately only too often. But at the same time, forgive me for saying so, the door is open wide for scandal. A man who at such a moment can think of anything but of saving what still is possible out of the shipwreck of his honour, or, if there is nothing left to save, of giving up with dignity perhaps even life itself--who instead of this drags down with him another person whom he professes to love, a stainless woman, a lady who has always been highly respected--that man has thrown away every claim to sympathy or fellow-feeling. Ottomar himself must see this sooner or later. This journey of his to Warnow is, in my eyes, absolute folly. What does he mean to do there? Call Giraldi to account? The Italian will answer, 'You are no child, you must have known what you were about.' Call out the Count? For what cause, when he travels with you? But let him go if he will, only alone! only not with you! I conjure you, not with you! Believe me, the love in whose power you trust to save Ottomar from all his difficulties will prove itself absolutely impotent, even worse; it will finally break down the remains of the strength which Ottomar might otherwise still possess. For his sake--if you will not think of yourself--do not go with him!"
Strange, when he had drawn her on one side at the last moment, while Ottomar and Bertalda in the next room were arranging a few last things, and spoken to her thus--hastily, yet so clearly--his words had passed by her like an empty sound; she had hardly known what he was speaking of; and now it all came back upon her memory word for word! It was all coming true already, word for word! All-powerful love! Good heavens, what a mockery! What answer had he had for the pictures of the future which she had painted for him in colours whose glow was drawn from her overflowing heart, but a sad, gloomy smile, or monosyllabic absent words, evidently only spoken because he must say something, while his spirit was weighed down with the burden of his thoughts about his angry father, his pitiful or scornful brother officers, and of the possibility of forcing a duel upon Herr von Wallbach or Count Golm. His very caresses when, with a heart full of unutterable fear, she put her arms round him--as a mother round her child whom she is carrying from the flames--his very caresses made her shiver as she thought, "He treats me like a love-sick girl, who must be humoured, like a mistress whom he has taken on his journey, and from whom he wishes to hide that he is weary of her before their first station is passed."
She! she! who had once dreamed that her love was an inexhaustible spring, and had blamed herself that she had been so chary with it, and had turned away her suitor from her door, had left him without in the barren wilderness of life to despair and perish without her! She who had been so proud! so proud, because she knew that she had boundless wealth to give; that her love was like the storm now raging without, throwing down all that was not stronger than itself--like the flood rushing by, destroying, devouring all that did not rise into the clouds!
That had been her fear all this time, that he too, even he, would never quite understand her; there would always remain a gaping breach between the real and the ideal, and she ought not therefore to sacrifice the ideal, however yearningly her heart might throb, however stormily the warm blood might rush through her veins. She had but this one best thing to lose, to be for ever after poorer than the poorest beggar, she for whom inexorable experience had once for all destroyed the fair dream of so many years--that of being an artist by the grace of God!
How she had fought! how she had struggled through so many weary days, so many wakeful nights passed in gloomy brooding, in writhing despair! days and nights whose terrors would long since have brought even her strength low, if his beloved, fascinating image had not flitted through her feverish morning dreams, alluring her on to other weary days, to other tortured nights.