Judith Trachtenberg: A Novel

by Karl Emil Franzos

Wroblewski heard him with a smile. "Good!" he answered. "Of course, if you must, you must. But hearken to my last word. Here," drawing out his purse, "are two hundred gulden. I place them in this envelope. On the envelope I write--do you see, my dear Tondka--'Herr Anton Brodski, in Mohilev.' My servant will now take the letter to the post and you will accompany him. Here are twenty gulden besides for your journey home. I shall ring the bell for the servant, and he will either go with you to the post, or he will kick you out of the house!"

When Wroblewski saw the monk walking peacefully by the side of the servant, a few seconds after, he laughed aloud. "He hurries towards Mohilev on the wings of desire!" Perhaps, however, he would have been less merry had he known the workings of the rogue's brain.

CHAPTER VIII.

The blush of dawn glowed on the white, glistening dome of Monte Baldo, while the cold north wind came whistling from the valley of the Sarco, clearing the lake of mists and the sky of clouds. Only here and there the dismal gray veils fluttered like signals of mourning on the mountain-tops, or hid themselves in retired clefts above the azure water. But the sun reached them even there, as it mounted above the mighty Altissimo di Nago, which lies clumsily between the smiling plains of the Etsch and the Garda.

The light grew stronger, the mists disappeared, and the golden rays fell, full and beautiful, over the deep blue of the sky and the lake, over the pale green of the meadows and the violet-hued rocks with snowy caps, and over the narrow, crooked streets of Riva, which they call Regina del Garda, the old and ugly queen of a kingdom eternally young and beautiful.

The count stood on the balcony of the ancient but well-preserved palazzino, whose graceful masonry rises close to the Porto San Michele, in the midst of the thick greenery of a well-kept garden, gazing over the crowded houses at the blue lake and the lovely landscape dotted with white châlets.

It was the first sunny day after endless days of rain. How he had longed for the sun, thinking when it came that it would ease his heart and clear his brain! But no sun could dispel these shadows. He was a fool when, two months before, he had said to himself, on entering that house, "It is beautiful here; so still, so peaceful, every trouble must vanish away." For his tortured mind there was no earthly refuge. It had been a delusion, also, when, a few days before, the nurse had placed in his arms his new-born boy, and he had murmured, "Thanks, Merciful One, for the angel who is to save me and lead me upwards!" He was a lovely child, with the mother's auburn hair and the father's dark eyes, who, the nurse assured the Signor Conte, smiled when he saw him. But it seemed to Agenor that the dark eyes threatened him, and the tiny hand pushed him down into deeper damnation.

Things had turned out differently from what he had imagined as he sat by the bedside of the poor girl before he agreed to that frightful comedy. Then he had only thought of his disgrace when his deceit should be discovered. How his life was to take form after he had given her soul this opiate, or what the awaking would be--of that he had not thought. There would be time enough to consider all that. Perhaps the step might lead into a garden surrounded with prison walls; but that would be an Eden compared with the dark torture-cell in which he had felt himself after his conversation with the physician, and before that clever scoundrel had given his advice. There was always the disgrace of a discovery! But it was not likely; and, even so, it was less of a disgrace to the name of Baranowski than a marriage with a Jewess. He was forced into it to save his beloved's life! Had he chosen death, she would have followed him, and would that have been an easier solution of the difficulty?

He had felt like a free man when Wroblewski left the castle, nor had he repented during the last few days. On the contrary, when he saw that his stammering promise, "Your wish shall be accomplished; the priest is coming!" was enough to revive the invalid; as he heard the repressed sobbing with which her overwrought mind was gaining its usual tone, and gazed into her face, which was beginning to smile again, he said to himself--it was good--that he had forced himself into it, and the subterfuge appeared a braver deed than the taking of his life. Neither of them referred to the past. Only once she said, "We will pardon our mutual sins against each other. You, that I would leave you; I, that you delayed so long to do me justice. But now we have to anticipate love, fidelity, and happiness as long as God gives us life. Ah! life is beautiful!" He bent over her hand, and covered it with kisses. He had discovered the least evil among so many that threatened, and he would spend his whole strength in making it of less consequence when once the hideous ceremony was over. The nearer the hour came the more afraid of it he became. He was like a schoolboy in the face of inevitable danger. He shut his eyes, that he might not see it. "Why should I see the man?" he said, when Wroblewski arrived one afternoon with the rogue, and wished to introduce him, that they might "talk over to-morrow's programme." The delay was painful. He supposed the creature had brought his costume, and Jan could light up the chapel immediately. Jan knew who was coming, and that he was to be the witness.

The magistrate smiled. "The usual impetuosity of a lover! But the reverend gentleman must first baptize the child, and before the baptism he ought to instruct the mother for at least one hour in the doctrines of our holy church."