He mechanically obeyed, surprised at the sudden change in her expression, and they walked on a short distance farther. "Yes, indeed," she said as if to herself, "in other things too, I might take my present equals in rank for a pattern. It's very bad style to have any feelings at all, especially to speak of them, and to trouble old friends with them. But you must be lenient. I exhausted these aristocratic expedients long ago; pride is a weapon, but a two edged sword, as it were, a shield that pierces the arm with its sharp edges. Now my heart, which is not thoroughly aristocratic, has run away with me again. And for what do we have friends, except to abuse them? But we'll be sensible and talk of more cheerful things. Your friend Marquard, for instance, what do you really think of him? He has such contradictory traits of character, that he resembles people with one blue and one black eye, we never know which is of the right color. So he too in the same moment is grave and frivolous, honest and not to be trusted. A singular combination."
Edwin made no reply, he did not seem to have heard what she said. After a long pause, during which he had gazed intently into vacancy, he suddenly exclaimed: "And the child--your child? If your womanly nature awoke too late, were you not a mother soon enough to at least find consolation in that?"
"Oh! my friend," she replied, relapsing into her former tone, "these are strange, sad mysteries. This child--I might perhaps have been able to reconcile myself to the way in which I became its mother, but unfortunately it looked so much like its father that it reminded me with a thrill of horror, at what a price I had obtained it. Pray spare me the memory of the time when, each day, I asked myself whether I could endure to remain longer in this world! There are mothers who care little for their children and would rather dance or flirt, than be troubled with the charge of them. I--with my freshly aroused need of loving, of pressing something close to my heart--rose every day with the resolve to live only for the child; but when I approached its cradle and saw its delicate, cold, aristocratic little face, with the eyelids often half closed like its father's--I could not overcome my repugnance, could not hug and kiss it, rejoice in its innocent voice and baby ways. I sat beside it as if petrified, and it seemed as if I could read my doom in its features, as if the silent little mouth said: 'Mother; why have you done this, why have you sold yourself, profaned yourself without love? Now I shall atone for your sin, as you did for that of your mother, who at least did not commit it of her own free will.' And then, when it died, and I saw it lying before me in the coffin, with the haughty pale little lips distorted, the eyes so pitifully sunken--oh! my friend, it was strange that I did not fall lifeless beside it. Do you know how terrible it is, when a dead body seems to say: 'I've died to make room for you, we two cannot exist and breathe the same air?' No more! Oh! it drives me mad--even now, when I think of it for a single moment."
He felt how wearily she tottered on by his side, leaning heavily on his arm; for a moment it seemed as if she were unable to stand erect; her eyes closed, and her lips parted like one fainting. But the emotion soon passed away. She drew a long breath, paused and looked at him with a calm but sorrowful face.
"No doubt you remember," she began, "how on our excursion to Charlottenburg we were engaged in a similar grave conversation, and how I, in my inexperience, said it would not be difficult for a person to give up the business of life, if he could not pay his expenses or became totally bankrupt? You almost agreed, but adopted a different phraseology and replied: 'that when we could neither be useful nor give pleasure to ourselves or others, we might be permitted to leave our post.' Well, I've advanced successfully so far that, without boasting, I may be permitted to include myself among these chosen few. I could leave a legacy to the village children, the only persons to whom I can sometimes give pleasure, and the others who would perhaps miss me for three days after the last honors were paid to my remains, must become accustomed to it. But you see, dear friend, the most annoying part of misfortune is, that it makes even a brave soul weak and womanish. Day follows day, each adds its own contribution to the burden we bear, our shoulders grow hard, and the heart becomes callous. How often I've thought of Hamlet's soliloquy. But though he studied philosophy at Wittenberg, and I've only received a few lessons from you--I know better than he how the 'native hue of resolution is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought.' It's 'just the fear of something after death;' what makes us cowardly, is the fear that the most delightful portion of the feast of life will come after we have left the hall to sleep away all weariness and sorrow. Perhaps it is childish, but I never rise in the morning without hoping for some unexpected event that might deliver me. There are countless pleasures on earth--am I the only person to whom none are allotted? Must I alone never say--now I can die in peace, for I know why I have lived?' Well to-day I'm glad that I didn't lose patience, but lived on, though every evening found the hope of the morning withered and dead. To-day I rose with a heavier heart than ever, and only determined to join the hunting party because I said to myself: 'sometime your horse will have more sense than you have courage, and will throw you off and break your neck.' And then I saw you--or your ghost, as I at first thought--standing among the people who have acted as mutes in the farce of my life; then I at last felt that for which I have always longed, a joy, a great, strong, real joy--only at first it was too strong and overcame me. I'm entirely out of practice in being happy."
"My poor friend," paid Edwin deeply agitated, "you will, you must get into practice again. How happy I should be, if I could only succeed in reconciling you to your life? True, I'm still too much of a stranger here to fully understand the circumstances in which you are placed; but my short acquaintance with your husband has disclosed nothing which should make your estrangement irreconcilable. You know, and even the greatest stranger must see, what a deep grief it is to him that he has lost you, though you are his wife. He seems--whatever else he may lack--to be a gentleman, whom only the false and shallow education of his class has prevented from making something more of himself. I should think, if you only desired it that for a fond glance, a kind word from you he would do the most unprecedented things. Can you blame him for surrounding himself with such society, if you deny him yours? Perhaps the very bitterness that has come between you, has served to sink him into a still lower depth. Now you've only to give him your little finger, and I think you could lead him a long distance up the heights, so high that these 'mutes' could not climb after you."
"Are you in earnest?" she asked looking quietly at him. "But why shouldn't you believe all this. You've not lived with this man. Did I know, myself, four years ago, that nothing is more hopeless than what you call a gentleman? To be sure, in your sense, as you and your friends are--where the inability to do anything unworthy arises from your nature and the honest desire not to mar humanity--! But where the point in question is only not to offend his consciousness of rank--oh! my dear friend, I could tell you something that would arouse your indignation, and yet to do it was not derogatory to the honor of a certain 'gentleman.' No, no, it's very noble in you to persuade me to do what is kind, but I'm very sorry I can make no use of your good advice. When the hand has been cut off, you can't heal the stump with a blister. That cut has severed the joint. Such a mutilated relation--"
At this moment they heard the beat of a horse's hoofs on the forest road behind them, and, looked back to distinguish the rider, who was approaching at a rapid trot. "Who's that!" said Toinette, "the doctor? I'll wager he's following us, because he'll have no rest till he discovers on what terms we stand toward each other. He's no gentleman, and has never made any pretensions to being one. His highest idea, his ambition, and his god, is prudence, which, of course, turns around no other point than his own miserable advantage. He instantly sees the weakest side of every man just as in his capacity of doctor, he searches for the seat of disease, and treats him accordingly. Of course he hates me; for physically I'm in such perfect health, that his skill is lost upon me, and whatever else I lack, is inaccessible to his diagnosis, while he knows I see through him. Beware of him. Even his frankness is only cunning calculation. Well, Doctor," she called to the approaching horseman, "have you decided to join the hunt after all? You'll just be in at the death."
The rider, with a powerful hand, checked his steaming horse directly before the countess and respectfully raising his oddly shaped broad-brimmed hat, answered: "Her Excellency is fond of joking. I'm known to have an aversion to the shedding of blood, except in my trade. My motive for riding my brown horse out of breath is a diplomatic mission, on which no one but myself sent me, but which, as a loyal servant to my employers, I must discharge."
"To the point. Doctor, to the point! You're interrupting a very interesting conversation. So--?"