In Paradise: A Novel. Vol. I.

by Paul Heyse

"I am going out to take a little walk," he cried through the key-hole. "I must have a breath of fresh air. When I come back again, perhaps my headache will be gone and your fit of temper, too. In the mean while, pass away the time as pleasantly as you can."

And he really did go out into the night; but he returned again before a quarter of an hour had passed--he was drawn back by some power that he himself could not understand.

As he entered his sleeping-room, where the lamp was still burning steadily, it was empty. He passed quickly through the door, which was now unbolted, into the sitting-room. But here, too, no trace could be found of his guest, search as he would behind the curtains and in the dark corners. The light had not been extinguished and a bat had flown into the room, and the exertion of hunting him out again threw him into a perspiration. When at last he succeeded, and, exhausted by such a variety of excitement, had sunk back upon the sofa, he found that all the little knickknacks, which he had spread before her when they first arrived, were still lying on the table in the same order in which he had left them. The little dagger which his Creole friend had given him was the only thing he missed, and he could not find it though he searched for it everywhere.

BOOK III.

CHAPTER I.

There are summer nights that are not made for sleep. The moon shines far brighter than at other times, as if a lamp were burning at its full height in the sleeping-room instead of a mere night-light. People strolling along, absorbed in thought and feeling the flagstones under their feet still warm--for they have been drinking in the fierce glow of the sun the livelong summer day--catch themselves in the act of crossing over out of the moonlight to the shady side, just as one does in the hot noontide. On such nights as this, sounds of life and merriment are heard throughout the city long after the police have sounded the hour for retiring; the couples that wander through the streets seem unable to find their way home; young fellows march along arm-in-arm, in long rows stretching the whole width of the road, as if advancing to battle against some invisible enemy, singing all the while as tenderly and sweetly as they know how, or else shrieking and yelling like a troop of wild Indians. Here and there, where a window stands open and a sonata of Beethoven floats out into the night, they suddenly hush their noise and listen, only to break out in a wild burst of applause the moment the music ceases. On such a night solitary youth lies dreaming, with open eyes, till long past midnight, of the glories of the future; and solitary age thinks sadly how glorious the past was; and at last they fall asleep over their musing, and slumber quietly, until some young cock in a neighboring roost, who cannot sleep himself, gives a glance up to heaven and begins to crow with such vigor at the setting moon, which he mistakes for the rising sun, that the sleepers start up again, throw off the bedclothes from their hot limbs, and creep to the window to see whether the night is really at an end. After this there is no more sleep for the aged; but they who are young lie down once more and soon make up for all that they have lost.

Such was the night that followed that Sunday. Of those in whose fate and adventures we are interested, none went to bed before midnight, though in truth some other sprite than the charm of the sultry night had possession of their hearts and senses. Even the good Angelica, who to the best of our knowledge was not in love, and who rejoiced moreover in that softest of pillows, a good conscience, sat at the open window of her little virgin bower, in which a lamp was dimly burning, half through the night, twining her curls and heavily sighing and dropping into a doze, until her head would strike against the window-sash, when she would start up and begin once more to spin her sorrowful summer-night's thoughts. She had been at Julie's door that afternoon to inquire what had been the upshot of this bad business. But no one was at home. And so she was waiting impatiently for the following day.

It was later still before Julie could bring herself to go to bed. The windows in her chamber stood open so as to let in the night-air through the openings in the closed blinds. But with the air the magical moonbeams streamed in too, and made a pattern on her green silk coverlet; her thoughts were lost in its mazes, so that she could not close her eyes. She felt as if she had never been at once so happy and so wretched. At heart she did not doubt for a moment that everything really was just as it stood in the baleful letter; that she would never possess him whom she loved. His own puzzling behavior, the way in which he had suddenly broken off and rushed out of the room, confirmed the anonymous accusation only too well. But the thought that she loved him, and that he returned her love, crowded out all others, and made her so glad in the depths of her heart, that no hostile fate could crush the rejoicing within her. So he is to "give her back her faith in her own heart!" What a senseless phrase! When had she ever believed in anything as she believed in the strength and truth and invincibility of this feeling, in the feeling that it was worth while to have lived through a long youth without love and happiness for the sake of this man, so that now she might lavish upon him a hoarded wealth of passion?

She could not help smiling when it occurred to her how often she had thought that she had done with the world, and could look back without regret upon the years of youth she had lost. What had become of those ten anxious years? Had she really lived in them or only dreamed of them? Was she not as young and inexperienced, as thirsty for happiness and as coy in its presence, as she had ever been in the first blooming years of her girlhood? Yes, she felt the courage of her earliest youth, when she still believed in miracles, bubbling up within her from an inexhaustible spring. She made no attempt to close her eyes to what could and would happen. But that this love, hopeless as it seemed, would be a source of unspeakable happiness to her, that in the sanctuary of her heart she would never cease to look upon this man as belonging to her--all this she admitted to herself in words so plain that, as she lay there wide awake in the moonlight, they sometimes found utterance in a half-audible soliloquy.

Then she marveled at the suddenness with which it had all come about, but she soon convinced herself again that this was just as it should be. She tried hard to picture to herself the kind of wife he might have. But she could not; it seemed to her impossible that he could ever have loved any one but herself. She closed her eyes and tried to recall his features to her mind. Singularly enough she met with no great success. His eyes were all that she could distinctly call up before her, and his voice seemed always to be close to her ear. She rose and stepped to the window, and opened the blinds a little to see if the night were not almost over. She herself did not know why she should thus look forward to the morning, for there was little hope that it would bring her anything new or good. But it would bring him, she could count on that. With burning lips she drew in the mild night-air, and listened to a love-song, which a solitary youth sang as he passed under her window.