Anna Maria slowly seated herself in the chair; she neither leaned back gracefully and comfortably nor rested her fair head on the cushions. Always straight as a candle, she carried herself perfectly, and so she remained now. But sudden blushes and deep pallor interchanged on her face, which turned with an expression of perfect, modest maidenliness toward the old lady's face. One could see that she wished to say something, and that her severe, unsympathetic nature was struggling with an overflowing heart.
Her aunt did not seem to notice it at all; she had taken up a book whose once green velvet binding was worn and faded with age. The delicate fingers turned leaf after leaf; then she glanced over a page, and after a pause said:
"Actually, Anna Maria, Felix Leonhard has fallen from the wall on his birthday; how singular! Now people call that chance, but how strange it is! I have always remembered the day hitherto, until to-day, and have been going about all the time with a feeling as if I had forgotten something, I could not exactly think what And then he announced himself. Mon pauvre Felix! You shall have your flowers to-day, as every year." And she caressingly touched the picture before her on the table. Then she looked over to Anna Maria almost shyly, for she knew that her niece sometimes smiled scornfully at signs and forebodings.
But to-day the deep line about Anna Maria's mouth was not to be seen; she looked thoughtfully at the picture, and asked: "Who was Felix Leonhard, aunt?"
"An early friend of my brother's," replied the old lady.
"Is he the one, aunt—I think you told me a strange story once about some one shooting himself for the sake of a girl?"
"Yes, yes, quite right, my child. This gay, handsome man once took a pistol and shot himself for the sake of a girl; quite right, Anna Maria. And he was no youth then, he was well on in the thirties, and yet did this horrible deed, unworthy of a peaceable man. Oh, it was a misery not to be described, Anna Maria!" She shook her head and passed her hands over her eyes, as if to frighten away a horrible picture.
"Why did he do it, aunt?" asked Anna Maria, in an unusually warm tone; "was she faithless to him, or——"
"She did not love him, ma petite; she had been persuaded by her parents and brothers and sisters to become engaged to him. He was in most excellent circumstances, and one of the best men I ever knew. He became acquainted with her at a ball in Berlin, and fell violently in love with her, although before that no one had ever considered his a passionate nature. She was not young at the time, not even particularly pretty, and with the exception of a pair of melancholy great eyes did not possess a charm. Eh bien, after endless doubts and struggles, she accepted his suit. The engagement lasted a whole year, and she was as shy and discreet a fiancée as could be found; he, on the other hand, was full of touching attentions to her; indeed, to use a worn-out figure, he carried her about in his hands. The nearer the wedding-day approached, the more dreadful grew the poor girl's state of mind. She had repeatedly asked various people if they believed she could make her lover happy, and she was always turned off with a jest, yet quite seriously as well, on the part of her brothers and sisters. Then on the wedding-day, half an hour before the ceremony was to take place, pale and trembling, she announced that she must take back her word, she could not speak perjury—she did not love him, and she did not wish his unhappiness! Ah, I shall never forget that day—the anxious faces of the guests as the report of this refusal began to spread, and the terrible anger of her brother. What followed in her room was never made public; I only know that she persisted in her refusal, and that same evening he shot himself in the garden. Voilà tout!"
Anna Maria was silent; she had turned pale. "And she, aunt?" asked the girl after a pause.