A shudder ran through the major's nerves.
CHAPTER X.
ATHALIE.
The eve of the fête-day was also the eve of the wedding—a night of excitement. The bride and bridegroom were sitting together in Timéa's room—they had so much to talk about.
What do they say? Flowers only can understand flower-speech, the stars the language of the spheres, one pillar of Memnon answers another, the dead comprehend the Walkyrie, sleep-walkers the speech of the moon—lovers only the language of love. And he who has ever known this sacred emotion will not profane it, but guard it like a secret of the confessional. Neither the wise king in his marvelous song, nor Ovid in his love elegies, nor Hafiz in his ardent lays, nor Heine in his poems, nor Petöfi in his "Pearls of Love," can describe it—it remains one of the secrets of eternity.
At the back of the house was a noisy company—all the household. This had been a busy day with preparations for the morrow's feast—a culinary campaign; the press of work had lasted till late at night: then, when all had been roasted and iced according to orders, Frau Sophie found time to show herself liberal. She called together her staff, and bestowed upon them all the good things which had suffered during the heat of the fray—for this was unavoidable: what ought to have risen had sunk into a pancake; what ought to have jellied had melted into soup; here a cake had stuck to the mold and would not turn out whole; there a scrap, a cutting, a ham-bone, a piece of hare, a drumstick of pheasant remained over. All which could not be sent up to table was left as a rare tidbit for the servants, and they could boast of having tasted everything before the gentry were served.
But where was Athalie?
The whispering lovers thought she was with her mother, amusing herself in the kitchen. There, they thought she was of course with the bridal pair, and enjoying the bliss of being a silent witness of their happiness—or perhaps no one thought of her at all. And yet it might have been well if some one had interrupted themselves to ask, "Where is Athalie?"
She sat alone in the room where she had seen Timéa for the first time. The old furniture had long been replaced by new; only one embroidered stool remained as a remembrance. Athalie was sitting on it when Timar entered, in company with the pale maiden. There sat Katschuka, at work on Athalie's portrait, over which, while he gazed at Timéa, his pencil drew a long line. Athalie sat alone there now. The portrait had long ago gone to the lumber-room; but Athalie seems to see it still, and the young lieutenant who begged her with his flattering tongue to smile a little and not to look so haughty.
The room was dark; only the moon shone in, but it would soon go down behind the gable of the tall church of St. Andrew.
Athalie reviewed the horrid dream called life. There were wealth, pride, and happiness in it: flatterers had called her the prettiest girl in Komorn, the queen, and pretended to adore her; then came a child by chance into the house—a ridiculous creature, a lifeless shadow, a cold doll, made to be an object of ridicule, to pass the time away by pushing it about. And only two years later, this vagrant, this white phantom, this reptile, was mistress of the house, and conquered hearts, turning a shipping-clerk, by the magic of her marble face, into his master's powerful enemy, into a millionaire, and causing the betrothed bridegroom to be false to his troth.