Chapter II (4)

I had made no confession for years, and it was months since a drop of wine had moistened my lips. So only a single glass was needed to lure from me an unreserved acknowledgment of my wretched plight.

There was but one thing I carefully concealed--the strongest chain that bound me to this miserable existence, my mad, hopeless love for this woman. Yet, had the hand of a god suddenly aided me to tear myself free, what could I have done with my liberty? To what occupation in civil life should I have found the door open, I, a runaway Candidate of theology, who had not disdained to play the part of factotum to a company of traveling actors for two years and a half.

So when, toward eleven o'clock, I took leave of my former comrade, we were no wiser concerning my future, and what I had to hope and fear from it, than in the beginning.

He had told me, with a shake of the head, that there must be some love affair in the matter, and correctly understood my shrug of the shoulders. But, as he had been to the theater the night before, he seemed undecided between Victorine and the young _ingenue_.

"Let me sleep over the affair," he said at last, as he went out into the hall with me--we had had our wine in his chamber, as there was much noise and confusion in the public room below--"I sha'n't see you to-morrow, because I must leave very early, but I will write as soon as a good idea occurs to me."

I pressed his hand and thoughtfully descended the stairs. In going up, two hours before, I had seen in the public room below Luise's husband and several actors, among them Daniel, who was inseparable from the manager. Meantime, eleven o'clock had come, but they had not yet separated, and I wished at any cost to avoid meeting them. But, just as I was stealing softly past the door, it was thrown open, and my friend, tall Herr Laban, staggered out, supported by one of the younger actors. Both were in the gayest humor. "Look there, look there, Timotheus!" he shouted, laughing. "Where the deuce hast thou been hiding"--he always used 'thou' to me--"while we have been seeing the most capital farce played here? You have missed a great deal, I can tell you, Doctor; and, in not saying good-night to your traveling friend over our heads, you have stood very much in your own light. Isn't that so, Juvenil?"

The young man laughingly agreed that it had been a splendid joke--no comedy of errors had ever amused him so much.

I tried to pass on with some careless remark, but Laban seized my arm and, while we helped him down the last steps, began to tell me the story in his comical way.

They had drunk several glasses when Daniel began to boast of his talent for imitating living persons, and instantly gave several proofs of this ability by copying the voice and gestures of the landlord and some of the regular guests, to the delight of the whole company. Spielberg alone had sat in his heroic grandeur, looking on with an air of contemptuous dignity, and finally remarked that such monkey tricks, which dazzled the public, were easy, and besides found their limits in certain figures whose majesty rendered them, as it were, unapproachable for mimicry. Did he include himself among them? the insolent fellow asked, and, when the great man nodded silently, he laid a wager that he would personate him so exactly that he would hardly know whether it was himself or his double. They ordered a bottle of champagne, and then Daniel led the manager into the next room. After a short time the door opened again, and Spielberg strode in. Everybody asked whether Daniel was not ready or had given up his wager. "That young man promises much, and does nothing save to make fools of honest Thebans," was the reply, after which he approached the table with his stately walk, shook the bottle in the ice and exclaimed: "A plague on all cowardly poltroons!" Then they first discovered that it was Daniel, and not the great actor himself, and even then it was only the little hand he owes to his Polish blood that betrayed him. But, just as there was a general burst of applause and laughter, the door again opened and a second Daniel appeared, in a gray summer suit and Polish cap, with his cat-like tread and feminine movement of the hips, so that the uproar and clapping of hands grew louder than ever--for nobody had ever imagined the manager possessed such a talent. This, however, was merely the beginning of the farce. Each continued to play the character of the other: Daniel in the belaced velvet coat, with straw hat pulled over his forehead, toasted his image, amid constant quotations uttered in his resonant voice, and Spielberg, with all the Harlequin tricks the other was in the habit of using on the stage, never let the laughers stop to take breath, so that each of the two had won and lost the wager. But, when they had broken the neck of the second bottle, Daniel suddenly became silent, went to Spielberg, and whispered something which made the manager look puzzled. But his double seized his arm and led him out. When after a long time they did not return, we asked for them, and the waiter said that after whispering together for some time the two gentlemen had left the hotel arm in arm.

I do not know why I could not laugh at this amusing trick. But I hastily took leave of the two actors, whose room was on the top floor of the hotel, and, in a most uncomfortable mood, passed out into the street just as the clock in the nearest church-steeple struck eleven. Though I felt no inclination to sleep, a strange anxiety urged me homeward, as if I were expected there.

My way led through the street in which the other hotel stood. Here Victorine and Daniel lodged. And just as I glanced at the door of the house I saw the fellow--whom I easily recognized by his dress--ring the bell and, directly after, with a greeting from the porter, cross the threshold. But what thought occurred to me? Was that really Daniel--or was it his double in his clothes? And, if it were the latter, what was he doing in that house, where Victorine was now probably waiting for the _other_?

However, I had no time to ponder over this idea, for the question suddenly darted through my brain: What has become of that other, the false Spielberg?

Suspecting some deviltry, some base trick, I rushed through the deserted streets to the house where Frau Luise lived, and I, too, had my modest room in the upper story. She was in the habit of sitting up late with some piece of sewing or a book, usually alone, for faithful Kunigunde closed her eyes at nine o'clock. As I hastily drew out my night-key I noticed that the door, contrary to custom, stood half open. I did not take time to shut it again, but, with trembling hands, lighted the little pocket-lantern, which must illumine my way up the dark stairs, and rushed on. But I had not yet reached the landing on the first story when I heard Frau Luise's deep tones, and then saw her facing her husband--no, his double, who, with his straw hat on his head and his coat flung open, slowly retreated before her, his ardent dark eyes fixed with an indescribable expression on her face.

Frau Luise was holding a little lamp in her left hand, and had raised her right threateningly against the scoundrel, her face, whose waxen pallor usually formed a striking contrast to her mourning dress, was flushed with the crimson hue of wrath, and her eyes shone with a strange, supernatural luster.

"You will leave this house at once and the city tomorrow," I heard her say. "You are the most contemptible of human beings, and what you have presumed to do merits a bloody chastisement. I am a woman, and must leave it to my husband to avenge this insult as he deems best. But, if you should ever have the effrontery to appear before my eyes again--"

"Pardon me, madame," he interrupted--and, though he endeavored to appear entirely nonchalant, I detected in his tremulous voice that he did not feel entirely at ease while confronting this haughty figure--"I beg a thousand pardons; I did not imagine you would take an innocent jest so tragically, especially as your husband saw no offense in it. We had laid a wager that I could personate him exactly. The final and hardest test, of course, was whether his own wife would recognize me. Well, at first you certainly believed me to be Herr Spielberg, and were not undeceived until I took the liberty of embracing you--doubtless a husband's kisses are less ardent than those of a lover, who for two years has yearned to even once press his lips upon a mouth which never had aught for him save contemptuous silence. Though I have lost my wager, the kiss that betrayed me is abundant compensation, and so, fairest of women, I have the honor--"

He was not to have breath to finish the sentence. For, in a fury I had never experienced before, I rushed upon the miscreant, seized him by the chest, and, tearing off his hat with the other hand, shook him by the hair till his sneering face wore an expression of mortal terror, as I dragged him to the stairs and would have flung him down heels over head, had he not by a sudden movement, lithe as a young panther, escaped from my grasp, and, thrusting me aside, glided down the dark stair-case, muttering an imprecation between his set teeth.

* * * * *

We heard him shut the door of the house and, in the fear of pursuit, hurriedly lock it. Then, in the death-like stillness that again prevailed, we looked into each other's eyes to see if it were possible that we had actually experienced this, or whether some dream had conjured up the same vision before both. I saw her tremble as if some unclean beast had clutched her in its claws. A quiver of wrath and loathing contracted her brow and lips. "I thank you, Johannes," she said. "But excuse me, I must go in now and wash myself. O, Heaven! all the perfumes of Arabia--but no, we can only be sullied by our own evil thoughts. Do not you think so, too?"

She turned away and carried the lamp back to her room again. I followed her to the threshold.

"Frau Luise," I asked, "will you let me shoot the rascal down like a mad dog? Or do you consider him worthy to receive his punishment in an honest duel?"

"You must do nothing to him," she answered in a hollow tone. "If, as I still hope, it is false that another person knew of this knavish trick, it is that other's business to avenge the insult that was offered to him even more than to me. To-morrow will decide this. It is late now--you must leave me--I must wash my face and the hands that touched the scoundrel, even to push him away."

I shut the door, and sadly mounted the stairs to my room.

* * * * *

It was useless to think of sleeping. Not only because the detestable scene I had just witnessed still hovered before my eyes, but because I expected every moment that the other would return home, and wished to be ready in case his wife should need my assistance.

True, she was strong and brave enough to defend herself against any insult or injury. But who could tell in what state of recklessness, stung by his evil conscience, that "other" would confront her.

At any rate he delayed long enough. The _role_ of double, which he played so admirably, seemed to have found an appreciative audience in the depraved girl for whom he was enacting it, or perhaps she had entered into the deception with malicious satisfaction in order to wound the noble woman she hated.

I heard the clock strike the hours--midnight, one, two. Then, without undressing, I threw myself on the bed and shut my burning eyes, but my ears remained open and watchful. Scarcely half an hour had passed when I heard a lagging step approach along the pavement below, and in an instant again stood at my window. Yes, it was he. By the gray light of the summer sky, I could distinguish the Polish cap, the loose coat, and the white hands which hastily rummaged his pockets for the key of the house door. But it was in the other suit of clothes, now worn by the double. The criminal who had shut himself out of the peace of his own home stood for a time gazing up at the windows, behind which he doubtless saw the glimmer of the night-lamp. Ought you to go down, open the door for him, and pour forth to his face all you think of him, all the wrath you have so long pent up concerning his sins against this woman, the tip of whose little finger he is unworthy to kiss? No, I thought. Let him suffer for his sin. It is only a pity that this isn't a winter night, and he is not obliged to stand barefoot in the snow until broad daylight.

He? He would have been likely to undertake such a penance! After twice calling, in a tone of assumed piteousness, "Luise!" he took off his cap, passed his hand over his waving locks, then pressed the little fur cap low over his forehead, and turned defiantly to seek the place from which some pitiful remnant of remorse had driven him.

I uttered a sigh of relief, opened the window, and cooled my heated face. At last I sought my couch, and toward morning really fell asleep.

My slumber was so sound that I was first roused by a very loud knocking at my door. When I opened it, Kunigunde was standing outside, and requested me to come down to Frau Luise. "Has your master returned?" I asked the faithful creature.

"Of course. But not until nearly nine o'clock, when my mistress had gone out to make some purchases. He seemed to know that she was not at home, for he did not even ask for her, but shut himself up in her room for a while, and then went away without leaving any message. But I saw a letter lying on the table, which the mistress read as soon as she came in, and then sent me up to you."

The good old woman was evidently troubled, and, in spite of having gone to rest so early, seemed to have heard enough of the nocturnal scene to pity her honored mistress.

When, following close at her heels, I entered Frau Luise's room, I found her sitting on the sofa beside a table, with the letter lying open before her.

She nodded to me with an absent look, and said in an expressionless tone: "Sit down and read this, Johannes; the end has come."

I took the sheet and hastily glanced over it. The letter was not short, and was written precisely in Spielberg's usual style, lofty, adorned with rhetorical ornaments, interspersed here and there with a quotation from Schiller. He saw that by yesterday's occurrence--of which, though without any evil intent, he had been the cause--he had forfeited even the last remnant of her love. So it would be better for him to go voluntarily into exile, and not return until he could meet her with new renown and in an assured position. True, what are the hopes, the wishes on which man relies? But he trusted to his star. She would lose all trace of him for a time, but he hoped he should afterward be able to repay her for what she had suffered through him. He closed by thanking her for her generous tolerance of his weaknesses. Genius was no easy companion for a life-pilgrimage--and similar high-sounding words.

In a postscript, he begged her to pardon him for having appropriated, in order to execute his plan, the reserve fund she had so carefully saved. He left in exchange, at her free disposal, the whole _fundus instructus_, scenes, costumes, requisites, and theatrical library; she might either sell them or continue the business. In the latter case, Cousin Johannes would assist her.

Then followed a pathetic farewell, another quotation, and the signature, with an elaborate flourish: "Ever your own Konstantin."

I probably looked like a person who, while eating raspberries, suddenly bites a wasp. For, as I silently laid down the letter, she said soothingly: "It has moved me very little. This must have happened sooner or later, and it is fortunate that it came now. Believe me, I feel perfectly calm, and am sincerely grateful to him for not having sought a personal interview. I am like a person recovering from a severe, insidious disease, a little weak, it is true, but I shall no longer be terrified by the hideous visions with which the fever tortured my brain."

"What do you intend to do?" I asked at last.

"My duty, so far as I can. True, I am as poor as a church-mouse. But the others must not suffer."

"Frau Luise," I said, "I know that you were formerly too proud to summon your guardian to give an account of his management of your property. But now, in such necessity--"

She smiled bitterly. "Too proud? My dear friend, I should not have been too proud even at that time to claim my rights. But, as you know, where there is nothing, even the Emperor cannot assert his rights, far less a poor Canoness who eloped with an actor. My uncle squandered the last shilling of my mother's property. Would you have me turn him out of house and home by appealing to the law? But let us say no more about these detestable things. Fortunately I paid the members of the company their monthly salary only a few days ago. As the business is now broken up, they are in a pitiable plight, for where can they obtain a new engagement in midsummer? So the _fundus instructus_ must be sold as quickly and as profitably as possible, and meantime be pawned. You will do me this one last favor, dear Johannes. I have another little plan, too. Why do you look at me so wonderingly? Surely you did not suppose that all this would find me unprepared. I have long expected something of the sort. Weak as he is--but we will not speak of him."

She now explained her intention of obtaining, by means of a concert in the theater, a considerable sum for the benefit of the orphaned company, which, bereft of the manager and "the others," could give no more performances. By these "others" she meant Daniel and Victorine. While out of doors she had met an actor, who excitedly asked whether she knew that the couple had just gone on board an English merchant vessel lying in the harbor. He did not say that the manager was with them, but the wife did not doubt it for an instant, and therefore knew what she should find when she returned to the house again.

She would herself appear and sing at the concert, she continued. She knew that there would be a full house, for her misfortune, of course, was now in everybody's mouth, and, as she had always kept out of sight, curiosity and perhaps a better feeling would urge many to see and hear the woman who had led so strange a life, and must now reap what she had sown. She did not fear the eyes of strangers. It was a misfortune that her heart had prompted her to entrust her life to the keeping of one who was unworthy, but neither a disgrace nor a crime. So she would appear, with head erect, before a cold, malicious world, and not a note would falter in her throat.

She had not expected too much of her own powers. When she appeared on the stage, in a plain black dress, with a little black veil wound around her golden braids, and every eye in the densely-crowded house was fixed upon her, I saw--I was sitting at the piano to play her accompaniments--her face flush for a moment. But its natural hue instantly returned, and she sang her aria from Orpheus, several melodies from Iphigenia in Tauris, and Mignon's song composed by Beethoven, with such power and simple beauty that it seemed as if the tempests of life which had stirred the inmost depths of her soul had only served to bring the flower of her art to still more superb development.

The effect was so profound and overwhelming that a storm of applause, such as had never greeted even the finest scenes of the great actor, shook the theater.

She bowed modestly, with a sad smile that won every heart. When, in the waiting-room, I congratulated her, her face clouded. "Hush," she whispered hurriedly. "Would you tell the victim, about to be offered as a sacrifice, that the garlands are becoming?"

The other parts of the programme, two comic soliloquies by Laban, and some of Schiller's ballads recited by our _ingenue_, were well received. When I accompanied Frau Luise home, I held in the box under my arm a very large sum received from the evening's entertainment.

When we reached her room, I wished to give her the money. "No," she replied, "henceforth you must be the treasurer. I shall make but one stipulation--that you do not entirely forget yourself, but share equally with the rest. With foolish generosity you have spent all your savings in order to retain a laborious situation here, for which you received neither thanks nor payment. What do you intend to do now?"

"That will depend upon you, Frau Luise."

Her eyes sought the floor, then, raising them to mine with an indescribably tender glance, she said:

"No, my friend, we part this very day, this very hour. You need have no anxiety about me. I shall not pine away and die. You know that I am very strong, or how could I have endured everything?--and, as I am no longer a Canoness, I must not shrink from a little labor. But you must try to return to the life from which your friendship for me has torn you. Promise me that, after you have attended to the last details of business here, you will go back to your old profession, if not as a clergyman, as a teacher, or in some scholarly occupation. I will watch your course from a distance. You will promise, will you not?"

"Frau Luise," I stammered, "do you wish to banish me? Do you not know--"

"I know all, my friend; you need not add another word. And I also know that I love you with all my heart, and therefore it is better for us to part. A woman whose husband has vanished is not free to choose--surely you understand that. And I will suffer no stain upon my name. You will remain my friend, as I am yours. And to seal this, I will now, in bidding you farewell, affectionately embrace you and give you a sister's kiss. Your lips, my faithful friend, shall restore the purity of mine, which yesterday were desecrated by a scoundrel."

With these words, she embraced me, and for one brief, blissful moment her warm lips pressed mine in a pure and tender caress. Then, with a low "Farewell, my friend," she gently pushed me out of the door.

The next morning, when I woke from sorrowful dreams, and was hurriedly dressing, some one knocked at my door. Kunigunde entered and, with many tears, told me that her mistress had driven away at dawn in a hired carriage, telling nobody her destination, and leaving for me a farewell and a little package.

It was a sealed paper. When I opened it, out fell the gold chain on which she used to wear around her neck the locket containing her mother's picture.