At once Liana took a longer and more intense look at the corpse; an ice-cold edge, as if of death's scythe, cut through her burning brain,—the funeral torches (it seemed to her) burned dimmer and dimmer,—then she saw in the corner of the chamber a dark cloud playing and growing up;—then the cloud began to fly, and, full of gushing night, rushed over her eyes,—then the thick night struck deep roots into her wounded eyes, and the affrighted soul could only say, "Ah, brother, I am blind!"
Only hard man, but no woman, will be able to conceive that an æsthetic pleasure at the murderous tragedy found its way into Roquairol's frightful anguish. Julienne left the dead, and her old sorrow, and, with the new one, flung herself around her neck, and moaned: "O my Liana, my Liana! Seest thou not yet? Do look up at me!" The distracted and distracting brother led on the sister, upon whose pale cheeks only single drops fell like hard, cold water, with the sharp question: "Does no destroying angel, with red wings, whiz through thy night; hurls he no yellow vipers at thy heart, and no sword-fish into thy network of nerves, in order that they may be entangled therein, and whet their saw-teeth in the wounds? I am happy in my pain; such thistles scratch us up,[54] according to good moralists, and smooth us down too. Thou anguish-stricken blind one, what say'st thou,—have I made thee truly miserable again?" "Madman!" said Julienne, "let her alone: thou art destroying her." "O, he is not to blame for that," said Liana; "the headache long since made it misty to my eyes."
The friends took their departure in double darkness, and therein will I leave it with all its agonies. Then Liana begged her maiden to say nothing of it to her mother so little time before sleep, since it might, perhaps, go away in the night. But in vain; the Minister's lady was accustomed to close her day on the bosom and lips of her daughter. The latter now came in, led along, and sought her mother's heart with a groping, sidelong motion, and, in this beloved neighborhood, could no longer refrain from a softer weeping; then, indeed, all was betrayed and confessed. The mother first sent for the Doctor before she, with wet eyes and with her gentle arms around her, heard her afflicted daughter's story. Sphex came, examined the eyes and pulse, and made no more of it than a nervous prostration.
The Minister, who had everywhere in the house leading-hounds with fine—ears, came in, upon being informed; and while Sphex stood by, he made, except long strides, nothing but this little note, "Voyez, Madame, comme votre le Cain[55] joue son rôle à merveille."
As soon as Sphex had gone out, Froulay let loose several billion-pounders and hand-grenades upon his lady. "Such," he observed, "are the consequences of your visionary scheme of education (to be sure his own, in respect to his son, had not turned out specially well). Why did you let the sick ninny go?" He would himself have still more gladly allowed it from courtly views; but men love to blame the faults which they have been saved the trouble of committing; in general, like head-cooks, they had rather apply the knife to the white- than to the dark-feathered fowl. "Vous aimez, ce me semble, à anticiper le sort de cette reveuse un peu avant qu'il soit decidé de nôtre."[56] Her silence only made him the more bitter. "O, ce sied si bien à votre art cosmétique que de rendre aveugle et de l'être, le dieu de l'amour s'y prête de modèle." Wounded by this extreme severity,—especially as the Minister himself had chosen and commanded this very cosmetic education of Liana, against the maternal wishes, to gratify his political ones,—the mother had to go and hide and dry her wet eyes in her daughter's bosom. Married men and the latest literati regard themselves as flints, whose power of giving light is reckoned according to their sharp corners. Our forefathers ascribed to a diamond belt the power to kindle love between spouses. I also still find in jewels this power; only this stone (which appertains to the flint species) leaves one, after the marriage-compact, as cold and hard as it is itself. Probably Froulay's marriage-bond was one of such precious stone.
But the lady only said, "Dear Minister, leave we that! only spare you the sick one." "Voilà précisement ce qui fût votre affaire," said he, laughing scornfully. In vain did Liana eloquently and touchingly pour out to him her mistaken yet moving convictions, (aimed at the wall, however,) and plead for her brother, which everlasting advocacy of all sorts of people (which proved too much) was her only failing;—all in vain, for his sympathy with an afflicted one consisted in nothing but fury against the tormentors, and his love toward Liana showed itself only in hatred of the same. "Peace, fool! But Monsieur le Cain comes not into my house, madam, till further orders!" Out of forbearance, I say nothing further to the old conjugal bully than go—to the devil, or at least to bed.
33. CYCLE.
The German public may still remember the obligato-sheets promised in the Introductory Programme, and ask me what has become of them. The foregoing Cycle was the first, most excellent Public; but see through the matter, how it is with obligato-sheets, and that perhaps as much history lies therein as in any one Cycle, however it may be called.
The Count had not yet learned anything of Liana's misfortune, when he, with the others, went down to the dinner of the Doctor, who to-day was very hospitable. They found him seized with a most violent fit of laughter, his hands thrust into his sides, and his eyes bent over two little ointment vessels on the table. He stood up, and was quite serious. The fact was, he found in Reil's Archives of Physiology, that, according to Fourcroy and Vauquelin, tears dye violet-juice green, and therefore contain alkali. In order to prove the proposition and the tears, he had thrown himself into a chair, and laughed in right hearty earnest, so as afterward to cry and get a drop or two for the brine-gauge of the proposition; he would gladly have wrought himself into another kind of emotion, but he understood his own nature, and knew that nothing could be got out of it so,—not a drop.
He left the guests alone a moment,—the lady was not yet to be seen,—Malt sat on an ottoman,—the children had satirical looks,—in short, Impudence dwelt in this house as in her temple. Ridicule had no effect upon the old man, and he only countermanded what displeased himself, not what displeased others.