Chapter XVI (2)

Reimers went through the shooting-practice (in which, by-the-by, the "flighty" Lieutenant Weissenhagen seemed to give a very good account of himself), buried in a deep reverie. At every shot he started in his saddle, and when the battery took up a change of position he entirely forgot to ride into his place. But the good brown mare moved correctly of herself. Her rider patted her neck in praise, and drew himself up erect. The joy which had at first stupefied him made him now feel glad and proud. Happiness smiled upon him once more, before the consummation of his evil fortune--he would see Hannah Gropphusen again.

It was noon when he arrived in the garrison town. All the good citizens were at their midday meal. The streets were deserted, and the little colony of villas that formed the officers' quarters showed no sign of living inhabitants.

The Gropphusens' house, with its closed shutters and lowered blinds, looked half asleep; but Hannah's windows were as usual draped in their pale pink curtains. Reimers went through the garden and into the porch. He hesitated a moment and listened; not a sound was to be heard.

Then he rang. The electric bell echoed sharply in the deep stillness; but everything remained quiet. He could only hear the beating of his pulses.

He rang for the second time, but silence still reigned. Had the unhappy wife returned to her parents? Was the household broken up?

Then a door banged within the house, and light steps approached. The chain was taken down and the key turned in the lock.

Hannah Gropphusen stood on the threshold, a weary expression on her pale face; she was clad in a loose flowing gown of thin white silk. Her shoulders scarcely seemed fit to bear the weight of anything heavier than this light airy texture. Her small head was bowed as though unable to support the burden of her hair.

Her eyes expressed the astonished query: "How come you here?" And she stepped back hesitatingly.

"I have come on business," stammered Reimers.

Hannah opened the door and signed to him to enter. Her noiseless steps preceded him as she led him into her own little sitting-room.

She seated herself on the edge of the sofa and pointed to a chair.

"Won't you sit down?" she said gently. But Reimers remained standing, gazing down upon the woman he loved. At last he was near her; he could see her and hear her voice.

She raised her eyes to his, as if asking why he would not be seated. Their glances met, greeting and caressing each other in the first shy emotion of love.

The man threw himself down before the woman, covering her feet, her dress, her hands, her knees with kisses, and sobbing out the irrepressible confession of his love, over and over again, in unceasing repetition: "I love you! how I love you! I love you! how I love you!"

Hannah suffered his protestations silently. An unspeakable bliss weighed upon her and paralysed her. Tears streamed down her cheeks, and as though in the far distance she heard the soothing call of love: "I love you! how I love you!"

She bent over him with a glad, loving look. Her deep blue eyes shone darkly and protectingly, like the night sky.

"Hannah, I love you. I have always, always loved you. Only you, Hannah, only you!"

Her beautiful hand cooled his burning forehead. "I know," she whispered.

And he asseverated: "Even when I was hovering round Marie Falkenhein, it was you, you that I loved. You, only you! Hannah, do you believe me?"

She nodded: "I know."

Suddenly her aspect changed, and instead of the overpowering happiness came a hard, bitter expression.

"I know, too," she continued, in a low voice, "why you have broken off with Marie Falkenhein."

The words struck Reimers like a blow. He started back and tried to disengage himself from her. But the slender fingers held his hand with a spasmodic grasp which almost hurt him.

"You!" he cried. "How can that be?" Hannah had become calm. She stroked his hair tenderly. "How can that be?" she repeated. "Dearest! a woman can always find out anything she really wants to know. I wished to know this, and I know it."

In bitter shame the man broke down completely. He kissed the hem of her robe, and would have turned to the door.

"Forgive! forgive me!" he murmured.

But the fair hands would not let him go, and close in his ear a trembling voice whispered: "Stay, my beloved! For we belong to each other. I am--what you are. We are damned together, both of us. Stay!"

Reimers gazed up at her speechless, his eyes full of a terrible question.

Hannah rose. All signs of weariness had fallen from her; she stood erect, a sombre dignity in the expression of her countenance. She pointed back to that part of the house formerly inhabited by her husband.

"Through him," she said, in accents of denunciation, "I have been ruined. He has destroyed my life, so that I am--what I am."

She looked down upon the kneeling man before her, and suddenly the wild look of hatred and unrelenting sternness died out of her face.

"And now," she went on softly, "as things are, I could almost bless him for what he has done." Bitter irony invaded her tone. "Besides, he has bidden me adieu now like a man of honour. He is in Paris, and is going henceforth to devote himself entirely to art."

But then again lamentations burst from her lips, and long pent-up confessions, which she poured forth with a self-accusing candour.

"Listen, beloved," she said. "When he took me for his wife, a sort of dizzy enchantment overwhelmed me. We lived as in a mad whirl of intoxication. The hours that were not passed together we counted lost; and there was nothing he could have asked of me in vain. He set my foot on his neck and called me queen, goddess. And I--I gave him my beauty."

She lifted her head with an imperial gesture, and a proud smile curved her lips.

"I was a spendthrift," she went on. "Undraped I have danced before him; and down in the garden he had a tent erected--people never could guess the purpose of those canvas walls, but there I sat to him, naked, on his dun-coloured Irish mare, Lady Godiva. And he fell weeping on his knees and worshipped me. He longed for a thousand eyes, that he might drink in the twofold beauty--mine, and the noble animal's. He boasted that he would not repine if his eyes were stricken with blindness after having looked upon us."

She paused for a moment. The eternal might of beauty illumined her brow as though with an invisible crown. Then she bowed her head, and her voice lost its resonance.

"All that I gave him. I was no miser. The day came in which I repented my generosity. I suffered when he turned from me; but jealousy I felt none. Perhaps I was to blame for not recovering my pride at once. But through my love he had taught me that it is bitter indeed to love in vain."

She was silent. Her features hardened, and a deep furrow was graven in her smooth forehead.

"And then," her voice continued; "then came the moment of that terrible revelation. I do not know how I bore it. I was struck as by a lightning-flash; I was shattered. I wanted to leave him; but my people at home would not consent, and I--I could not tell him. Unresisting I let them do with me what they would. I would lie like a corpse, without movement or sensation; then I would rave, needing the most careful watching. And he--he came to me again, as the culmination of his misdeeds. I had become changed for him, more desirable. But I spat in his face. He came crawling and begging to me on his knees, and I struck him in the face and spurned him."

She raised her clenched hand to her brow, and shook it as against an invisible enemy. Her eyes glowed with resentment, and her breath came pantingly.

Then again the unnaturally excited bearing relaxed; she sank gently down on the couch, and bent over her lover, who hid his face in the silk of her gown.

"Beloved," she whispered, in an infinitely softened tone; "it was then, just when I had recovered from my delirium, that you returned. When I saw you again, here in this room, it was borne in on me that we belonged to each other, and I thought you must feel as I did."

Reimers looked up at her, and made a movement to seize her hand.

"I know now that I already loved you," he said, "but I fought against it, because I feared unhappiness for you."

Hannah gently shook her head.

"Do not speak of unhappiness, beloved," she exhorted him. "Do I not love you, and do you not love me? Are we not happy?"

She stooped to him, and pressed her lips to his in a long kiss.

"I could not see clearly through my dreadful doubts," she went on. "What could I be to you--impure, defiled, ruined? There was only in me the longing that you should love me. What was the mad intoxication of my girlish folly to the happiness that possessed me when I became certain that you did love me? I could have denied you nothing, dearest. How happy I was!"

She smiled softly to herself, sunk in tender recollection, and Reimers felt her light hand touch his hair gently with a caressing motion. He grasped that fair hand and kissed it reverently.

"Ah, how happy I was!" repeated Hannah, with a sigh. "But the serpent lurked in my Paradise. I came to know the pangs of jealousy, and I hated Marie Falkenhein--hated her from the bottom of my soul. Ah, beloved! it hurts, hurts deeply, to see the glance of the man one loves passing one over for another woman. Do you remember the night of Kläre's birthday, when you sat in the Falkenheins' garden? I did not exist for you. I could have knelt before you, begging and imploring, 'Can you not even see me here?' But you had eyes only for Mariechen, and when I went away into the night, you and she were standing together by the railing like a betrothed pair. Happiness shone in your eyes. Yes! in yours too, dearest."

Reimers kissed the hand of his adored lady. "Forgive me!" he sobbed. "Forgive me! darling, my poor darling! My eyes were drawn to follow you; but I turned them by force to Mariechen. I know now that I loved you alone even then. In dreams, and when half awake, when I let myself go, it was you only for whom I longed. Dearest, forgive me!"

Hannah shook her head gently, and looked fondly into his petitioning eyes.

"Be content," she whispered; "it was wrong of me, and I conquered it. In the night, after I had seen you both like that, I fought it out with myself. I recognised that it was hateful egoism that made me grudge you your happiness, and that my love for you should be quite otherwise--more unselfish. From thenceforth Marie Falkenhein became dear to me; it was as though I were you,--I felt an involuntary yearning towards her, warmer, apparently, than your own. I would have liked to endow her with all that you found clever and charming in my speech or actions; I would have given her all that remained to me of beauty; above all, I longed to pour into her veins the fire of my own great love, that you might be entirely happy and blest. I would have decked your bride with my own hands, and have brought her to you; I would have kept watch, that nothing profane should disturb your bliss."

Tenderly her arms encircled her lover's neck, and her words flowed faster.

"Suddenly all this was changed, and I was not less so. I could not be sad when I saw Mariechen's tear-stained eyes. I guessed that something terrible had occurred; but I was groping in the dark till I got the truth out of that good Andreae. Then I wept for grief that your happiness was blighted; and I wept for joy that you were now wholly mine. For you are mine?"

Reimers clasped her to him passionately; she nestled quivering in his arms. Their lips met, and she whispered: "If chance had not led you to me to-day--then I should have gone to you. I love you so."

Late in the afternoon Frau von Gropphusen rang for the maid; but the girl had been allowed to go out, and had not yet returned. The groom from the stable came hastening to answer the second ring. He stood still in the doorway, astonished. His mistress had let down her hair and was standing in the sunshine as though wrapped in a golden mantle.

"Is Betty not here yet?" she asked.

"No, madam."

"Well, it does not matter. Saddle Lady Godiva for me."

"Very good, madam. But excuse me, madam; you will remember that Lady Godiva has not been ridden for three days; she will be very fresh."

Frau von Gropphusen smiled: "Do not be afraid. I shall be able to manage her."

"Shall I go with you, madam?"

"No, I am going alone."

Languidly she put up her hair before the mirror. Her pale cheeks were faintly coloured, and her lips shone moist and red. She slipped on her riding habit and settled her hat firmly. When the hoofs of the mare clattered on the pavement outside she was quite ready.

The maid met her at the garden gate, and was profuse in her apologies.

Frau von Gropphusen replied lightly: "All right, all right."

Lady Godiva was fidgeting about impatiently. She whinnied joyfully as her mistress's hand stroked her delicate nostrils.

The groom helped Frau von Gropphusen to mount, and inquired if he should tighten the curb a little.

His mistress nodded.

The mare resented not being given her head at once; but finally trotted off with a coquettish gait that showed her fine breeding and her graceful proportions. And the beautiful woman on her back was like a bride going forth to meet her beloved.

Hannah Gropphusen chose the road that led to the big exercise-ground of the regiment. Lady Godiva neighed with pleasure as she cantered along the well-known path; the gentle ascent which she had to traverse in no way exhausted her long-restrained impatience.

The great level quadrangle of the exercise-ground lay at a high elevation; in the valley below the air had felt hot and stifling, but up here a soft breeze was blowing, and with gentle caressing touch it brushed back the golden tendrils of hair from the rider's white forehead.

Upon the scantily growing grass of the plain Hannah Gropphusen gave the mare her head, and the animal bore her at a light even gallop to the far end of the ground. From thence ran a narrow cart-track, by which their sluggish teams drew the loaded harvest-waggons down to the high road. The track led straight on to the edge of the plain, the chalky surface being there broken up by deep quarries. Here a strong rough paling had been erected as a barrier, in case any stubborn horse should prove unmanageable. This was no impediment to an unerring fencer like Lady Godiva. She went over it easily at full stretch.

After her landing Hannah Gropphusen gave the mare a touch of the whip. The animal laid her ears back and increased the pace. At a little distance a second obstacle showed itself, a whitethorn hedge that looked like a hurdle.

Lady Godiva scarcely seemed to touch the ground with her hoofs. Her mane and tail gleamed golden as they streamed on the mild evening breeze. A pair of quails started up from amid the ripe corn.

The mare rose on her hind legs for the jump, then made a sudden violent movement as though to avoid it. Behind the whitethorn yawned an abyss.

But the impetus of her motion carried her on, and a firm grip kept her head forwards.

Early next morning when the stone-breakers came to their work they found at the bottom of the precipice a dead woman and a dead horse.

There were no external injuries either to the animal or her rider. The force of the fall must have killed them both. The terrified eyes of the mare were staring into vacancy, but those of the woman--indeed she was but a girl--were closed, and her small delicate hands still gripped the bridle firmly.

The foreman sent a boy to inform the village-elder; the other workmen stood in a silent circle round the unfortunate pair.

"Mates," said the foreman at last, "it's quite clear there is nothing to be done. We'd better be getting back to work."

A lean, bearded man protested: "We might as well say a prayer first for the poor creature." For the stone-breakers are a pious people; they stand always with one foot in the grave. A loosened mass of chalk, a collapsing wall, a mine exploding prematurely, may threaten their lives; and the chalk-dust chokes their lungs so that they die early.

The bearded man took off his hat and began to pray. All the others bared their heads.

After the "deliver us from evil" he inserted another petition: "And grant to this poor lady, who has met with such a terrible and sudden death, Thy eternal rest, we beseech Thee, O Lord! For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen."

One only had gone back to his work, an aged man who, with trembling knees, was pushing a loaded wheelbarrow before him. He was himself too near death for the sight of a corpse to strike him as anything out of the common.

When he saw the others praying he set down his burden. His toothless mouth stammered out his words with difficulty.

"What are you praying for?" he said. "That the Lord will grant her eternal rest? Look at her, then! Isn't eternal rest written on her face?"

Reimers reached the practice-camp again when his brother-officers were at mess.

It was only on alighting from the carriage that he remembered Frommelt's commission. He was staggered a little at this neglect; but after all what did such trifles matter? He smiled to himself that he should trouble about it now.

In his own room he threw himself upon the hard camp-bed. The bare place felt stifling, although the window was wide open. The white-washed walls seemed narrowing about him, and he felt as if he would be suffocated.

He shut his eyes wearily. Then the troubled vision disappeared, and he had a feeling of freedom and deliverance, a grateful sensation of release from the limitations of matter, as though borne aloft into the unconfined regions of cosmic space.

The mounted sentry patrolling the forest passed by the window. The man had settled himself comfortably on horse-back, and his hanging bugle and accoutrements jingled. As he came near the creaking of the saddle could be heard. By degrees the sounds subsided, though the metallic tinkling was perceptible for a long time.

Perhaps, however, that gentle sound was but the prelude to some illusion of the senses.

Then voices sounded from the mess-room: the high crowing tones of Wegstetten and the mellow bass of Major Lischke, The little captain was grumbling about the food.

"No, no, major," he piped. "The mess-steward sets disgusting stuff before us, and that's the truth. Now, to-day beef and potato-soup? Pah! It was lean old cow, as tough as shoe-leather! And soup? hot water and Liebig!"

"But, my dear Wegstetten," Lischke tried to appease him, "think of the difficulties of transport! A two-hours' drive, and we're not to run up the expenses!"

Wegstetten's reply was lost in the passage.

Reimers rose quickly from the bed. He was afraid that Frommelt might seek him out, and that he would have to invent some kind of excuse.

He took his little revolver out of the drawer and examined the chamber; it was loaded with five cartridges. He had often thought of unloading the weapon, but had then said to himself: "Why? Who knows if it might not be wanted?"

He hastened down the steps of the officers' quarters and ran quickly along the camp-road to the gate. The sentry stared after him in surprise; he had not expected to have to present arms at such an hour. Then he stepped into his place beside the sentry-box, and performed the neglected salute; for so the regulations prescribed.

At a little distance from the camp Reimers moderated his pace; at last he walked quite slowly. His footsteps were hesitating, as if groping in the dark. He could not hear his tread upon the ground, and his eyes gazed into space like those of a sleep-walker. Everything seemed to him far remote: the sandy path beneath his feet, the dark forest, and the blossoming heather beside the way. And he felt strangely light, as if he were floating or flying.

Night was beginning to sink over the ruins of the deserted village. Reimers found his way among the dilapidated dwellings and into the courtyard of the big house where he had lingered the previous day.

The white roses of the creeper on the wall still glimmered faintly through the gloom. He bent aside a straggling piece of a box-tree and sat down on the broken masonry of the smoke-blackened wall. Somewhere in the corner of the ruins a screech-owl shrieked. The cry sounded quite close.

Reimers smiled. There is an old wives' superstition that where a screech-owl cries there will soon be a corpse. This time the old women would be right.

He rested his head in his hands and reflected.

Before him passed with bewildering rapidity many recollections and impressions from his life's history: vague boyish impulses; enthusiasms of youth; exalted strivings and ambitions of manhood; the disenchantments and doubts of these latter days. It was as though he had been already lifted into a clearer light, above all the errors of earthly experience.

The restless ineffectual arguing to and fro with which he had tormented himself the day before was absent from this calmer mood. What was the use of struggling against inexorable necessity? Certainly war was one of the most terrible evils to which the world had ever been subjected, and he who should deliver mankind from this curse would be a new Saviour. But when would the Messiah come? Till then one must have patience.

The nations groaned under the weight of their armaments; but none would set the example of throwing off the oppressive burden. And the German people, who seemed to furnish an object-lesson in the world's history, whose destiny had been fuller than any other of changes and contradictions--the German people, at once so large-minded and so petty, so admirable and so despicable, so strong and so weak; who had done so much for the advancement of culture, and yet were so unconscious of their great work; hated by the rest of the world, yet divided amongst themselves--the German people had least call of all to make a beginning. They must, like every other nation, look to a strong army as their safeguard.

But then came the crushing thought: that army was no longer the same that had in one famous struggle forced the whole world to unwilling admiration.

Reimers took a mournful farewell of the beloved heroes of that mighty epoch. Every name connected with it thrilled his memory: Saarbrücken, a skirmish still scarcely imbued with the gravity of war, and assuming rather the character of playful bantering provocation; Weissenburgh and Wörth, where Bavarians and North Germans met as comrades in arms; Spicheren, where a slight encounter with the rear-guard grew into a serious conflict; Metz, which cost the enemy one of his two armies in the field, and was the cause of weeping to countless German mothers; Beaumont, the prelude to the huge tragedy of Sedan; and lastly, Paris, and the grim tussle of the seasoned fighters with the young enthusiasm of the republican army of relief at Orleans, Beaune la Rolande, Le Mans, St. Quentin, and on the Lisaine. He saw the army returning from the campaign crowned with victory; and then began that steady persevering activity which, not content to rest on its laurels, proceeded with the work of strengthening and protecting what had been won.

Then he thought of the present, and, still more gravely, of the future.

A good part of that modest, quiet devotion to duty was still alive in the army; but was not the new-fangled, shallow, noisy bustle of show and glitter every day displacing the good old feeling that recognised its power without any big words? A proud self-denying asceticism had given way to trivialities and superficialities. And that in a time when such follies were more than ever dangerous!

And in proportion as the army pursued this course did disintegration go forward within its ranks. The ever-increasing spread of socialistic opinions among the men, and the growing disaffection for military service, perfected the work which was already loosening the structure from without. This army, lacking in martial ardour, and educated more for parade than for war, was rushing with blinded eyes towards its doom. The flames of annihilation already shone ahead; the heirs of Sedan's conquerors marched straight onward, firm and erect in grand ceremonial array--and the sign-posts by the way pointed to Jena.

Reimers groaned in bitter distress of mind.

Was there no salvation?

He looked around him and gazed into the blackness of night. All about him was gloom. A light breeze was blowing; it bore on its wings the scent of the blossoming heather and the resinous odour of pine-trees. And from the beds of the wasted garden arose another smell that mingled with the per fume of the breeze: the invigorating smell of the soil, of the mother-earth. It infused courage into the despairing heart of the lonely man, and elevated his drooping spirit.

The soil of their native land was the inexhaustible source from which the strength of the German people constantly renewed itself. Thanks to their love for the soil they could never utterly perish.

To this was owing the continual unconscious longing that drove the workmen out of the great cities on holidays, so that the green of woods and meadows was dotted with colour by the gay summer attire of women and children; a longing that made the lower classes crave to possess a few roods of land, if only to stand on their own soil and cultivate fruit whose flavour would be sweeter to them than any food that money could buy: the mighty living love for the soil of their native land.

And suddenly Reimers had a waking vision. He looked down upon the earth from some point of vantage. Germany lay beneath him as though viewed from the car of a balloon, with the familiar outlines pictured in the maps; yet he seemed to distinguish every roof in the cities and every tree in the woods. All parts of the country bore harvest; moors, marshes, heath-lands, had been converted into orchards, fruitful fields, or stately forests. But the extended boundaries of the large estates had vanished.

From the Baltic to the Vosges, from the marches of Schleswig to the Bavarian highlands, one peasant-farm neighboured another. The towns had grown no larger, for a new and happy race of men cultivated the soil: a lusty race, who flooded the cities with fresh vigour; a free race, loving its fatherland with a jubilant, willing, conscious love. And the sun shone down joyfully on this land of peace and plenty.

The pleasant picture vanished, and once more his eyes stared into the gloom.

From the distant camp came borne on the night wind the sound of the tattoo. He listened vaguely. Distance muffled the clear trumpet-call, and the final majestic roll of the drum was alike lost in the deep melancholy of the darkness. The tattoo. All must now go to rest. He thought of the beautiful pale woman whom he loved, who had given him one last moment of ecstatic joy in life before death claimed him.

Had she too gone to her rest?

The little weapon gave a faint report.

The screech-owl fluttered out of its cranny in the wall. With an apprehensive beat of its wings it sailed off over the deserted village and sent forth its piteous cry.