To have such a husband, the highest blessing Josepha knew on earth--a man to whom the whole world paid homage as if to God, a man so devout, so good, so modest, so faithful--and desert him, conceal him in a ruinous old castle that no one might note the disgrace of the noble lady who had married a poor wood-carver! And then to come and snatch the kisses from his lips as birds steal berries, when no one was looking, he was good enough for that! And he permitted it--the proud, stern man, whom the whole community feared and honored. It was enough to drive one mad.
And she, Josepha, must swallow her wrath year after year--and dared not say anything--for woe betide her if she complained of the countess! He would allow no attack upon her--though this state of affairs was killing him. She was forced to witness how he grieved for this woman, see him gradually lose flesh and strength, for the wicked creature bewitched every one, and charmed her husband and child till they were fairly dying of love for her, while she was carrying on her shameless flirtations with others.
Such were the terrible accusations raging in Josepha's passionate soul against the countess, charges which effaced the memory of all she owed her former benefactress.
"I should like to know what she would do without me" was the constant argument of her ungrateful hatred. "She may well be kind to me--if I chose, her wicked pranks would soon be over. She would deserve it--and what do I care for the pay? I can look after myself, I don't need the ill-gotten gains. But--then I should be obliged to leave the boy--he would have no one. No, no, Josepha, hold out as long as possible--and be silent for the child's sake."
Such were the conflicts seething in the breast of the silent dweller in the hunting-castle, such the gulfs yawning at the unsuspicious woman's feet.
It was the vengeance of insulted popular morality, to which she imagined herself so far superior. This insignificant impulse in the progress of the development of mankind, insignificant because it was the special attribute of the humble plain people, will always conquer in the strife against the emancipation of so-called "more highly organized" natures, for it is the destiny of individual giants always to succumb in the war against ordinary mortals. Here there is a great, eternal law of the universe, which from the beginning gathered its contingent from the humble, insignificant elements, and in so-called "plebian morality" is rooted--Christianity. Therefore, the former will conquer and always assert its right, even where the little Philistine army, which gathers around its standard, defeats a far nobler foe than itself, a foe for whom the gods themselves would mourn! Woe betide the highly gifted individuality which unites with Philistine elements--gives them rights over it, and believes it can still pursue its own way--in any given case it will find pity before God, sooner than before the judgment seat of this literal service, and the spears and shafts of its yeomanry.
Something like one of these lance-thrusts pierced the countess from Josepha's eyes, as she bent over the waking child.
Josepha tried to take the boy, but he struggled violently and would not go to her. With sparkling, longing eyes he nestled in the arms of the "beautiful lady." The countess drew the frail little figure close to her heart. As she did so, she noticed the stern, resentful expression of Josepha's dry cracked lips and the hectic flush on the somewhat prominent cheek bones. There was something in the girl's manner which displeased her mistress. Had it been in her power, she would have dismissed this person, who "was constantly altering for the worse." But she was bound to her by indissoluble fetters, nay, was dependent upon her--and must fear her. She felt this whenever she came. Under such impressions, every visit to the castle had gradually become a penance, instead of a pleasure. Her husband, out of humor and full of reproaches, the child ill, the nurse sullen and gloomy. A spoiled child of the world, who had always had everything disagreeable removed from her path, could not fail at last to avoid a place where she could not breathe freely a single hour.
"Will you not get the child's breakfast, Josepha?" she said wearily, the dark circles around her eyes bearing traces of her night vigil.
"He must be bathed first!" said Josepha, in the tone which often wounded the countess--the tone by which nurses, to whose charge children are left too much, instruct young mothers that, "if they take no care of their little ones elsewhere, they have nothing to say in the nursery."