“Paul Von Frauenstein.”
This, to some, might seem a very singular missive from a man of the world like Frauenstein—a man sure of himself, confident of his power, and accustomed to the caresses of women. But there are others who will understand from it, that Paul was deeply in love; and that just in proportion to the strength of this passion in certain high natures, while there is any doubt of its meeting a perfect response, there is always great weakness, and a humility that creates self-distrust. The fear that his love might fail to awaken a perfect response, at times overwhelmed him and made him as weak as a little child. He had wooed other women boldly; but this one, he could not approach. To trouble her serene soul with his passion seemed like an impertinence. He saw himself, like Adam in Paradise, standing naked and trembling before a divinely superior being, who held his fate in her hands. He could do nothing but wait some sign from her—some unmistakable, slight sign, that so gracious a lady must know well how to convey. Could she hesitate because of a dead legal tie? That should not hamper free expression of sentiment in a grand, self-poised woman, the daughter of such a man as Dr. Forest, though it might hinder the fruition of hopes. Busy as Paul was with his pressing responsibilities, it was impossible to banish the thought of Clara from one of his waking moments. Between him and every object, her fair face appeared, and the memory of her tender eyes, her entrancing smile, the play of her mobile features, and her soft voice, were dearer far to him than all the realities of life. “Some time she must love me!” he said. “A grand passion cannot exist when one object is passive. It is not her beauty that draws me; it must be love answering unto love.”
About the time Clara received her first letter from the count, there arrived a formidable legal document from Boston—a copy of Dr. Delano’s divorce. What he had said to her during their last interview, proved no idle prediction. Clara ran her eye down the page of “legal-cap” until she came to the last paragraph, which read: “And it is further ordered and adjudged that it shall be lawful for the said complainant to marry again, in the same manner as though the said defendant were actually dead; but it shall not be lawful for the said defendant to marry again until the said complainant be actually dead.”
“This, then, is law,” thought Clara. “No wonder Charlotte said it is not common sense.” She showed the instrument to her father, but he hardly glanced at it. He was very glad. “That’s one good piece of business finished,” he said. He was full of care and anxiety about the work under his direction, and talked only of that, so Clara forbore to call his attention to her own vexation. In her ignorance of legal forms, she regarded this as a perpetual barrier to her ever marrying. A little while ago, she would have given herself but slight trouble about such a thing, being quite persuaded that she would never love again. It was different now. The letter she had just received from Von Frauenstein opened a new world to her—a world never to be entered. It was like shipwreck in full view of the Happy Isles.
Whenever Clara recalled this divorce, she felt humiliated, wronged, the victim of a hideous farce. How could she be bound to one who was free to marry again, “in the same manner as though” she were actually dead? The question recurred continually, and day by day it seemed more difficult to speak to her father about it; and then he had no power to change the decree, and why trouble him for nothing? Meanwhile Albert made prompt use of his freedom. He married Ella and established her in the family home. Miss Charlotte then quitted it, as she had determined, and went to live with the Kendricks in Oakdale, until she should decide on a permanent residence. Ella pouted terribly at the conduct of Miss Charlotte, in leaving the very day after the wedding, for her presence was necessary to give tone to the union. There had been ugly stories abroad about her and Dr. Delano, connected with his separation from his wife; and the departure of Charlotte, especially her going to Oakdale, where Clara lived, seemed to confirm them. Many of the older acquaintances of the Delanos “put on airs,” to use Ella’s expression, and were at best only coldly polite; and so it happened that her triumph in marrying Albert was robbed of all its sweetness.
CHAPTER XXXIX.
AN HONEST WOMAN.
A year had passed since the count’s return from Guise, and still he and Clara had not spoken of that which filled them, and made the music and the poetry of their lives. To Clara’s heart there never came a doubt that she was loved. To doubt Paul would be to lose faith in the operation of natural laws. True, they had not confessed their love in words, and though it was sure to come, Clara almost dreaded it, as though it might break the spell that surrounded her like an atmosphere. He was in all things her ideal: high in sentiment, devoted to humanity, and, like her father, appreciative of all things, impatient of nothing, because he exemplified a grand faith in the “mills of God”—in the ultimate triumph of the best. When you gained his friendship you forgot his rank and wealth, and thought only of the man. No one ever felt the grasp of his hand without a sense of pride—that honest pride experienced in awakening an interest in one superior to his kind. When he spoke to you, it was impossible to avoid feeling flattered. He gave you his whole attention for the time, and his fine eyes rested on your features as if they would let no slightest movement or expression escape, and at the moment, you were compelled by a power over which you had no control, to express the highest and best that was in you; and then his beauty was something exceptional, for it delighted men almost more than women.
After his return, he had been more with Clara, though not much alone. The something that he had remarked as troubling or oppressing her, he still noticed with great pain; but he could not ask her for her confidence. Some time, he knew, she would give it unsolicited, and meanwhile he refrained instinctively from pressing himself too much upon her notice, leaving her time after time with a mere pressure of the hand, more delightful in its magnetic effect than all the caresses of the many women he had known. In his creed, it was woman’s prerogative to call; the lover’s to answer. By no sign yet had Clara shown him that she desired or needed more than she received; and nothing could have been more impossible to a nature like his, than to sue for any grace for his own sake; so he waited, and he prevented himself from too great anxiety by forcing all his energy into his great work. He had brought with him from Guise several of the most accomplished workmen, who had aided in the building of the Familistère, and the enterprise went on rapidly and surely. The walls of the palace and buildings were all completed, and the palace was to be ready for its occupants in the early fall, and the great inaugural festival was set down for the following June; both the count and the doctor agreeing that the time for a public jubilee was not when the palace was done, but when the schools, the theatre, the library, and all the details of the new social life were in full working order.
With the count’s retinue came, also, or rather returned to this country, the only remaining member of Von Frauenstein’s family, the son of his father’s sister, named Felix Müller. He was an accomplished gentleman, about forty-five years old, who had lived many years in New Orleans, and had lost his fortune during our civil war. He was a scientific chemist and geologist, and Paul wished him to direct education in the Social Palace; so he came with that view, if the prospect should please him. He always considered himself more an American than anything else, being, moreover, a naturalized citizen; and he had made himself very obnoxious to the government minions in Berlin, on account of his doings and sayings as a leading member of the Internationale. He was threatened with arrest and imprisonment, when his cousin Paul came to the rescue, and smuggled him out of Berlin and into Guise, where he studied the organization of the Familistère with great enthusiasm.
The count’s responsibilities in directing the Social Palace enterprise often took him away for several days at a time. Now, whenever he was absent, he wrote to Clara. He knew she read whatever he wrote with interest, and it was much to connect himself with her thoughts in any way. In one of these letters he said: “There can be no real satisfaction except in the divine joy of love’s perfect answer to love’s needs. When one is longing for the touch of magnetic hands, and for words that are like caresses, the gratitude of thousands whom he has made happy, the adoration of the world even, falls upon his heart like the tongue of a bell in an exhausted receiver. What if a man gain the whole world, and lose his own soul—if he gain all things except the one blessing which alone could answer the cry of his heart! I am without soul, without inspiration, almost without hope to-day, or I could not write in such a strain to you. Do not heed it. Do not let your pure heart be troubled by my raving. You know I trust you, and whatever you think, or feel, or do, will be wisest and best.”