"Yes, yes! she too is emancipated."
"True, but not at all after your fashion, countess," Herbert corrected her, maliciously enjoying the torture to which the haughty woman was put. "You are emancipated for the sake of pleasure--she is emancipated for the sake of principle. She is a rare person, and fills Möllner with admiration of her genius!"
"Well, and it is she?" she cried, stamping her little foot upon the soft carpet.
"He is in love with her!"
For the first time, the countess sprang up from her lounge, and stood before Herbert in all the majesty of her person. Her gold-embroidered Turkish robe hung in heavy folds around her. Her dark hair fell in loosened masses upon her shoulders. The glitter of her long diamond ear-rings betrayed the tremor that agitated her whole frame. Her low, classic brow, with its bold, strongly-marked eyebrows,--her mouth, shaped like a bow, with lips parted,--her firm, massive throat,--the whole figure, so powerfully and yet so perfectly formed,--all suggested the Niobe, only the passion that swayed her was rage, not suffering. "Is this true? Is it really true? I must hear all."
Herbert told her all that he had seen and heard.
The countess was silent for one moment, as if paralyzed by astonishment. Then she muttered, as if to herself, a few broken words that Herbert could not understand, but at last her rage overflowed her lips and reached his ears.
"There is a first time for everything. This is the first time that a man honoured by my notice has loved another." She strode up and down the room so hurriedly that the flame of the lamps flickered as she passed them. She threw her cigar into the fireplace. "Must I endure it? I? Oh, cursed be the day when the count came here for his health! For this I have spent my months of widowhood since his death, in this hole, away from all the enchantments of the world, even timidly waiting and hoping like a bride,--no society about me but my horses, dogs, and--you! For this, for this,--that I might learn that there lives a man who can withstand me. The lesson, it is true, was well worth the trouble!"
She struck her forehead. "Oh that I had never gone to that lecture! then I might never, perhaps, have seen him. Why did I not stay away? What do I care about physiology, anatomy, or whatever the trash is called? I heard this Möllner was distinguished among his fellows, and curiosity impelled me to go. Fool that I was, to imagine that he saw me there and admired me as I did him!" She stood still, and involuntarily lost herself in thought "Ye gods! how glorious the man was that evening! The brow, the hair, the eyes, were all of Jove himself. I felt myself blush like a girl of sixteen, when I met his eye. And such grace, such dignity! His voice, too,--melodious as a deep-toned bell. I did not understand what he said; but there was no need, his voice was such harmony that no words were wanting to the charm. It was a symphony,--no, finer still, for that we only hear, and in him the delight of sight was added. The movements of those lips--how inimitable! And then his smile!" She paused,--her cheeks glowed, her eyes sparkled. It was a delight to her to lay bare her heart for once, careless as to what were the feelings of her auditor.
"And if that voice is so enchanting when it discourses upon dry, unmeaning topics, what must it be when it comes overflowing from his heart!" She leaned against the pedestal of one of the bronzes, and covered her eyes with her hand.