'Gloria Victis!' A Romance

by Ossip Schubin

But he loosens the clasp of her hands, without impatience, without anger, with the apathy of a man whose heart has been slain in his breast, and leaves the room.

CHAPTER XII.

It was over,--over and gone,--sentence had been pronounced,--her child's life was destroyed. This she repeated to herself again and again, without any clear comprehension of the fact, as she lay, still half-stunned, on the floor where she had sunk down when he left her. After a while she staggered to her feet, and began to move aimlessly to and fro, steadying herself at times by grasping a chair or table. At last she sank into a seat, her memory had given way;--she asked herself the meaning of the dull weight at her heart, her eyes wandered vaguely around, her thoughts dazed by agony groped backward through the past, and forward through the future, finding no resting-place. She recalled her child's birth, and how every one rejoiced in it, except herself; when the doctor showed her the little thing as a perfect model of a baby, did she not thrust it from her impatiently? Farther back, beyond Oswald's birth, all light faded--everything was dark. That within her which had sinned had been so long, so completely dead; a woman capable of such a lofty ideal, whom maternal affection had so entirely purified and refined, could not but lose all comprehension of her past. All her inner life preceding the hours of Oswald's life, was to her mental consciousness misty and undefined; the birth of her child had revealed a new world to her, and though for years she had denied it, and had crushed down the mother in her, it was none the less true that after his birth she had no interest save her child. Urgent regard for her health prompted the physician to order that she should nourish the boy herself, if only for the first two months of his life; she obeyed him fretfully, eyeing the child suspiciously--nay, well-nigh malignantly,--when it was first placed in her arms, and then .... then she enjoyed it, and longed for the hours when her baby was to be brought to her, and when the two months were over, and the physician informed her that she could now without detriment to her health hand over the child to a hired nurse, she was angry, and felt strangely vexed with the man, who after all had thought only to please her in relieving her of what he supposed was an intolerable burden. What was intolerable to her was the idea of laying her child on the breast of a stranger, and for an instant she was on the point of flatly refusing to do it. But no, that would have been too eccentric, and she gave the boy up. For a couple of days she feared she should lose her reason, so consumed was she with restless jealousy; she could not sleep at night, and when the hours came round at which her baby had usually been brought to her, she trembled from head to foot, and sometimes burst into tears of agitation and longing. She could not forget the warm little bundle that had lain upon her knees, and the boy had thriven so well in her arms, had begun to be so pretty, to smile back at her and to gaze slowly about him in solemn surprise, after the fashion of such human atomies, to whom everything around is strange, and a deep mystery. Still she conquered herself and avoided all sight of the child, trying to divert her mind, but--'the wine of life was drawn.'

The child's existence caused her infinite torment; she was not one whom shams could satisfy. She called everything by its right name, and this foisting of a false heir upon the Lodrins she called, in her soul a crime. Sometimes she wished he would die--that would have untangled everything;--good Heavens! how many children die! but he--was never even ill, he throve and grew strong.

The Count, who had never before ventured upon the slightest remonstrances with his headstrong wife, now reproached her continually for her neglect of the child. She listened to him with brows gloomily contracted and lips compressed, but said not a word in reply. In winter she could contrive never to see the boy, but in summer this was more difficult, especially at times when her husband declared that he could receive no guests at the castle, that he wished to be alone. She could hardly set foot in the park without hearing soft childish laughter, or without seeing some plaything, or the gleam of a little white dress among the bushes. Once, on a lovely day in June, after a thunder-shower, as she was walking in the park she suddenly noticed two tiny footprints on the damp gravel. She stood still, her eyes riveted upon the delicate outlines, when from the shrubbery close at hand a little creature toddled up to her, grasped her dress with his chubby hands and looked up roguishly at her out of his large dark eyes. But she extricated herself, and hurried past the little man so quickly and impatiently, that he lost his balance and fell down. What else could she do but turn and look at him....? Had he cried like other children of his age it would probably have made no impression upon her; but he sat stock-still, his little legs stretched out straight, and gazed at her in indignant surprise like, a little king to whom homage had been denied. He could not understand it. He was a comical little fellow, with tiny red shoes, a white frock that did not reach to his bare knees, and a broad-brimmed, starched, linen hat tied beneath his chin, shading his charming little face. In a flash her heart was conscious of a consuming thirst; she stooped and lifted him in her arms.

Some children there are who dislike to be caressed, and will fretfully turn away their heads from their mother's kisses, but little Ossi was of a different stamp, and responded with a bewitching readiness to his mother's tenderness, nestling his head on her shoulder with a satisfied chuckle, and pressing his little lips to her cheek. For just one moment she resolved to yield, she would forget everything, and take her fill of kisses, and of delight in his beauty, in his bright eager looks, and in the droll way in which words, robbed of every harsh consonant by rosy little lips, came rippling like the twittering of birds.

"Papa!--Papa!" the child shouted. She looked round,--there stood the old Count watching her in mute delight.

"Has he conquered you too at last?" he exclaimed, "there's no finer little fellow in all Austria than our Ossi!" And he held out his hands to the child. She let him be taken from her, and without a word walked away toward the castle. Ah, what a wretched night she passed after this episode! No, she would not think of him, it hurt too much.

Time passed; for weeks she would not look at him; then suddenly she would appear when he was taking his lessons, and for a couple of days she would watch him with a morbid intensity which sometimes degenerated into lurking distrust; then finding nothing to justify the distrust she would again turn from him.

In spite of his excellent disposition the boy might perhaps have grown up a good-natured but inconsiderate egotist, had not Count Lodrin taken an unwearied interest in his training, guiding him aright with the most affectionate gentleness. The influence of the frail old man upon the child was invaluable. In the society of an invalid so tender and so loving, the boy learned what he could have learned nowhere else,--to bow before weakness, and helplessness, the only two potentates whose sway natures as proud as Oswald's acknowledge. He learned to refine his innate haughtiness by the most considerate delicacy towards his inferiors, and to consider his pride as inseparable from devotion to duty and an impregnable sense of honour.