On the threshold of the back building, which was reached by two steps, lay Balder, wrapped in his dark cloak and completely insensible. The unfortunate youth must have overheard the whole conversation, since he had not dared to move lest he should betray his presence. Who would undertake to describe the storm that raged in his soul, as silently leaning against the wall, he saw all his dearest illusions shattered! His still delicate chest heaved and labored till he thought he was suffocating, and the idea that the two happy lovers might come out and find him there pierced his heart like glowing iron. He had already risen to rush out into the street, when her proposal to bring the present from the front of the house again bound him to his dark corner. But he thought he would take advantage of the few minutes before her return. As soon as she had disappeared in the passage, he hastily dragged himself to the door--clinging to the wall as his limbs refused to support him, in order to reach the staircase that led to his room. But just as he had gained the second step, his strength failed, a stream of blood gushed from his lips, and he fell fainting on the threshold.
When Reginchen returned with the little package, she started at the sight of the dark mass that barred her way, but when she recognized the fair hair and saw the dark stains on the stones close by, she lost all composure and screamed for help as piteously as if she herself had been stabbed to the heart. She did not exchange a word or glance with the friend who came hurrying out. In the twinkling of an eye everything became clear to her, and she shrank like a criminal from the eyes of her fellow culprit. They carried the unconscious sufferer, who only uttered low moans, up the stairs and laid him carefully on his bed. In the midst of their efforts to restore him to consciousness, while still fearing that he might open his eyes and see them both at his side, Edwin returned and entered the room in the highest spirits.
With what anguish the sight that met his gaze overwhelmed him, they only can understand, who have lived long enough to experience the cruel mockery with which fate delights in suddenly hurling mortals from the greatest happiness into the deepest misery.
CHAPTER VI.
After Christiane had seen the couple in the carriage and fled from the wide avenue into the more densely wooded portions of the park, she had wandered about for hours without aim or object, at times pausing breathless to rest upon some bench.
The fog had become so impenetrable that the crescent of the moon hung a pale line of light in the grey sky and total darkness brooded over the intricate paths of the Thiergarten. It was no night for a solitary pedestrian, but she met no one, and she felt no fear. What indeed could happen to her? To be sure she might be attacked, robbed, or even killed by some drunken vagabond. But she was quite willing to run the risk of this, and the thought of other dangers to which a woman might be exposed in such a nocturnal ramble did not alarm her. When Adèle had once asked how she dared to go out so boldly at all hours of the evening, she replied: "I always go about with my face unveiled, I need no better protection." To-night in particular, with all the tortures of a hopeless love in her heart, she had become more firmly convinced than ever that she was a discarded step-child of Mother Nature condemned to perpetuate self-sacrifice; she felt a sort of bitter pleasure in the thought that she had nothing in common with the rest of mankind, either in love or hatred, but was as it were a peculiar being, allied to unknown creatures of darkness, who were as ugly as she, and therefore wise enough to avoid the daylight. In this wild mood which gradually obtained more and more the mastery over her, she would scarcely have been alarmed, if at some crossing in the paths she had chanced upon a crowd of spectres and been bidden to make one of their company. Anything would be better than to return to mankind, the best and noblest of whom had always made her the most miserable without even suspecting the fact. She shed no tears; all personal feelings--love for Edwin, jealousy of the beautiful girl--receded farther and farther into the background of her thoughts; only her own destiny, the world in which her fervid heart was languishing, the tortures of a lost youth, the dread of a lonely and loveless old age,--these rose in ghostly, exaggerated outlines before her soul, and from time to time extorted from her a cry, that in the deep silence startled even herself.
When she came to the fish ponds, above which floated still denser fogs, she involuntarily paused. For a long time she stood and gazed at the dense whiteness which never shifted and which seemed to be waiting for some wearied, hunted human life to find rest in its depths. But her seething blood, inflamed by the unusual indulgence in wine, recoiled from the thought of such an end. Mechanically and without thinking of what she was doing, she picked up a stone from the roadside and threw it into the mist-veiled water. The sullen plash of its fall recalled her to herself. She drew a long breath, trembled, wrapped her cloak closer around her, and then walked away more slowly than before, but taking a direct lane toward the city, which she reached in half an hour.
In the wild chaos of thoughts that filled her mind as she went, there was one fixed resolution, to which she constantly returned: to-morrow she would leave the house where she lodged, engage other rooms, and then consider whether it would not be better to turn her back upon the city altogether and seek some corner of the world where life would be quite destitute of charm, nature most barren, and men utterly wretched. Invalids often go to springs merely to find companions in suffering and thus make their condition more endurable. Why should not the miserable avoid the neighborhood of the happy, in order to bear their burdens more easily among those who are wretched likewise?
As she entered the little courtyard of the house in the Dorotheenstrasse, she noticed that there was a light in her room; but thought the maid servant, who waited upon her and had a second key, was probably doing something there and unsuspiciously ascended the stairs. She had been unable to make up her mind to look at Edwin's windows.
On reaching her door, however, she did not find the key in the lock. "Perhaps the girl has only lighted the lamp and gone out again," she thought, as she hastily opened it. The little ante-room was dark and nothing was moving there, so she hastily opened the door of her sitting and sleeping room, but paused on the threshold in astonishment when she saw Lorinser sitting in a corner of the sofa, holding on his knees a book, from which he did not even raise his eyes at her entrance.