Regina, or the Sins of the Fathers

by Hermann Sudermann

Every day Regina now ran down to the drawbridge to peep into the letter-box that was fastened to a pillar there, to see if there was an answer from Helene. But the letter-box remained empty; and Boleslav's brighter mood soon clouded again. He became more bitter and defiant than ever, and a prey to tormenting reflections. In his pride he would not allow that he had been spurned by the woman he loved; yet it was hardly any longer a matter for doubt that she wished in no way to be associated with him in his dishonour. He saw his great plans for the future fall in ruins in this abandonment of hope of winning the love of his youth.

Many days went by before he roused himself from this fresh depression--it was not till the feverish unrest of waiting had subsided that he slowly recovered his calmness and fortitude.

Then he threw himself with renewed energy into the search for proofs of his father's innocence. The evidence was contradictory and confused. Letters in which his father was referred to as the staunchest of Prussian patriots were counterbalanced by others in which he was addressed as the pioneer of Polish liberty. That might possibly have been a mere figure of flattering speech, designed to win over the vacillating nobleman, but to make it public would be once more putting the deceased's reputation in the pillory.

During these disheartening investigations of the truth, his only refreshment was the evening hours in which Regina's presence gave him something else to think about. So soon as she came and sat down opposite him he felt a curious satisfaction mingled with uneasiness. Sometimes, before she made her appearance, and he with bowed head listened to the sounds that came from her kitchen, he would be suddenly seized with anxiety, and feel as if he must jump up and call out, "Stay where you are! Don't come!" And yet, when she walked into the room he breathed more freely. "It is loneliness that attracts me to her," he often told himself. "She has a human face and a human voice."

As she sat over her work silently putting in stitch after stitch, he would pretend to be napping, and with closed eyes listen to the rise and fall of her breath. It was a full, slow, muffled sound, which fell on his ear like suppressed music. It resembled the ebbing and flowing of an ocean of restrained life and energy. After she had been sitting for a long time in a stooping attitude she would suddenly straighten herself, and stretch her arms with closed fingers over the sides of the chair, till the curve of her bosom stood out in powerful grandeur, and threatened to burst its bonds. It was as if from time to time she was obliged to become conscious of the fulness of life that pulsated and throbbed within her.

Then she resumed her old attitude and quietly sewed on.

It lasted all too short a time. These hours spent in her society had unconsciously become dear to him, and almost indispensable. The lamp seemed to give a brighter light since its rays fell on that pile of shining white linen; the hand of the clock accelerated its pace now he was not always looking at it to hurry it onwards. The wind that used to howl and whistle so dismally in the branches of the trees now murmured soft lullabies, and even the laths in the rotten roof cracked less ominously. He dreaded the evenings when at dusk she started on her journey to Bockeldorf, and more than once had meditated accompanying her.

But in their relations, that had become so friendly, there was one blot, and the knowledge of it pierced him at times like a poisonous arrow. Often, after he had been watching her in silence, he was tormented with a desire to penetrate into the secrets of her past, and to cross-examine her on the subject of her intercourse with the dead. For long he kept back the questions that burned on the tip of his tongue, feeling that little good could come of asking them; but at last he felt driven to speak.

"She is the only living witness of the catastrophe," he thought; "what's more, the only accomplice. She alone can give authentic information."

And one evening he broke the silence which had been so enjoyable to both, with a brusque demand that she should tell him all she knew.